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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales from Many Sources, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Tales from Many Sources
+       Vol. V
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 2, 2005 [EBook #16415]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM MANY SOURCES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Tales
+
+From Many Sources
+
+Vol. V.
+
+
+New York
+
+Dodd Mead & Company
+
+1886
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                                         PAGE.
+
+   LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. BY JULIANA H. EWING.                 1
+
+   WILD JACK. FROM TEMPLE BAR.                              87
+
+   VIRGINIA. BY MRS. FORRESTER.                            145
+
+   MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON VOYAGE. FROM BELGRAVIA.      172
+
+   NUMBER 7639. BY MARY FRANCES PEARD.                     137
+
+   GONERIL. BY A. MARY F. ROBINSON.                        239
+
+   OUT OF SEASON. FROM TEMPLE BAR.                         266
+
+
+
+
+LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+Lob Lie-By-The-Fire--the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him--is a rough
+kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country
+homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no grander
+wages than
+
+   "--to earn his cream bowl duly set."
+
+Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of rest, for
+
+   "--When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
+   His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
+   That ten day-labourers could not end,
+   Then lies him down the Lubber-fiend,
+   And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
+   Basks at the fire his hairy strength."
+
+It was said that a Lob Lie-by-the-fire once haunted the little old Hall
+at Lingborough. It was an old stone house on the Borders, and seemed to
+have got its tints from the grey skies that hung above it. It was
+cold-looking without, but cosy within, "like a north-country heart,"
+said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of sentiment, and kept a commonplace
+book.
+
+It was long before Miss Kitty's time that Lob Lie-by-the-fire first came
+to Lingborough. Why and whence he came is not recorded, nor when and
+wherefore he withdrew his valuable help, which, as wages rose, and
+prices rose also, would have been more welcome than ever.
+
+This tale professes not to record more of him than comes within the
+memory of man.
+
+Whether (as Fletcher says) he were the son of a witch, if curds and
+cream won his heart, and new clothes put an end to his labours, it does
+not pretend to tell. His history is less known than that of any other
+sprite. It may be embodied in some oral tradition that shall one day be
+found; but as yet the mists of forgetfulness hide it from the
+storyteller of to-day as deeply as the sea fogs are wont to lie between
+Lingborough and the adjacent coast.
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE OLD LADIES.--ALMS DONE IN SECRET.
+
+
+The little old ladies of Lingborough were heiresses.
+
+Not, mind you, in the sense of being the children of some mushroom
+millionnaire, with more money than manners, and (as Miss Betty had seen
+with her own eyes, on the daughter of a manufacturer who shall be
+nameless) dresses so fine in quality and be-furbelowed in construction
+as to cost a good quarter's income (of the little old ladies), but
+trailed in the dirt from "beggarly extravagance," or kicked out behind
+at every step by feet which fortune (and a very large fortune, too) had
+never taught to walk properly.
+
+"And how should she know how to walk?" said Miss Betty. "Her mother
+can't have taught her, poor body! that ran through the streets of Leith,
+with a creel on her back, as a lassie; and got out of her coach (lined
+with satin, you mind, sister Kitty?) to her dying day, with a bounce,
+all in a heap, her dress caught, and her stockings exposed (among
+ourselves, ladies!) like some good wife that's afraid to be late for the
+market. Aye, aye! Malcolm Midden--good man!--made a fine pocket of
+silver in a dirty trade, but his women'll jerk, and toss, and bounce,
+and fuss, and fluster for a generation or two yet, for all the silks and
+satins he can buy 'em."
+
+From this it will be seen that the little old ladies inherited some
+prejudices of their class, and were also endowed with a shrewdness of
+observation common among all classes of north-country women.
+
+But to return to what else they inherited. They were heiresses, as the
+last representatives of a family as old in that Border country as the
+bold blue hills which broke its horizon. They were heiresses also in
+default of heirs male to their father who got the land from his uncle's
+dying childless, sons being scarce in the family. They were heiresses,
+finally, to the place and the farm, to the furniture that was made when
+folk seasoned their wood before they worked it, to a diamond brooch
+which they wore by turns, besides two diamond rings, and two black lace
+shawls, that had belonged to their mother and their Auntie Jean, long
+since departed thither where neither moth nor rust corrupt the true
+riches.
+
+As to the incomings of Lingborough, "It was nobody's business but their
+own," as Miss Betty said to the lawyer who was their man of business,
+and whom they consulted on little matters of rent and repairs at as much
+length, and with as much formal solemnity, as would have gone elsewhere
+to the changing hands of half a million of money. Without violating
+their confidence, however, we may say that the estate paid its way, kept
+them in silk stockings, and gave them new tabbinet dresses once in three
+years. It supplied their wants the better that they had inherited house
+plenishing from their parents, "Which they thanked their stars was not
+made of tag-rag, and would last their time," and that they were quite
+content with an old home and old neighbours, and never desired to change
+the grand air that blew about their native hills for worse, in order to
+be poisoned with bad butter, and make the fortunes of extortionate
+lodging-house keepers.
+
+The rental of Lingborough did more. How much more the little old ladies
+did not know themselves, and no one else shall know, till that which was
+done in secret is proclaimed from the housetops.
+
+For they had had a religious scruple, founded upon a literal reading of
+the scriptural command that a man's left hand should not know what has
+right hand gives in alms, and this scruple had been ingeniously set at
+rest by the parson, who, failing in an attempt to explain the force of
+Eastern hyperbole to the little ladies' satisfaction, had said that Miss
+Betty, being the elder, and the head of the house, might be likened to
+the right hand, and Miss Kitty, as the younger, to the left, and that if
+they pursued their good works without ostentation, or desiring the
+applause even of each other, the spirit of the injunction would be
+fulfilled.
+
+The parson was a good man and a clever. He had (as Miss Betty justly
+said) a very spiritual piety. But he was also gifted with much
+shrewdness in dealing with the various members of his flock. And his
+word was law to the sisters.
+
+Thus it came about that the little ladies' charities were not known even
+to each other--that Miss Betty turned her morning camlet twice instead
+of once, and Miss Kitty denied herself in sugar, to carry out benevolent
+little projects which were accomplished in secret, and of which no
+record appears in the Lingborough Ledger.
+
+
+
+AT TEA WITH MRS. DUNMAW.
+
+
+The little ladies of Lingborough were very sociable, and there was, as
+they said, "as much gaiety as was good for anyone" within their reach.
+There were at least six houses at which they drank tea from time to
+time, all within a walk. As hosts or guests, you always met the same
+people, which was a friendly arrangement, and the programmes of the
+entertainments were so uniform, that no one could possibly feel awkward.
+The best of manners and home-made wines distinguished these tea parties,
+where the company was strictly genteel, if a little faded. Supper was
+served at nine, and the parson and the lawyer played whist for love with
+different partners on different evenings with strict impartiality.
+
+Small jealousies are apt to be weak points in small societies, but there
+was a general acquiescence in the belief that the parson had a friendly
+preference for the little ladies of Lingborough.
+
+He lived just beyond them, too, which led to his invariably escorting
+them home. Miss Betty and Miss Kitty would not for worlds have been so
+indelicate as to take this attention for granted, though it was a custom
+of many years' standing. The older sister always went through the form
+of asking the younger to "see if the servant had come," and at this
+signal the parson always bade the lady of the house good night, and
+respectfully proffered his services as an escort to Lingborough.
+
+It was a lovely evening in June, when the little ladies took tea with
+the widow of General Dunmaw at her cottage, not quite two miles from
+their own home.
+
+It was a memorable evening. The tea party was an agreeable one. The
+little ladies had new tabbinets on, and Miss Kitty wore the diamond
+brooch. Miss Betty had played whist with the parson, and the younger
+sister (perhaps because of the brooch) had been favoured with a good
+deal of conversation with the lawyer. It was an honour, because the
+lawyer bore the reputation of an _esprit fort_, and was supposed to
+have, as a rule, a contempt for feminine intellects, which good manners
+led him to veil under an almost officious politeness in society. But
+honours are apt to be uneasy blessings, and this one was at least as
+harassing as gratifying. For a somewhat monotonous vein of sarcasm, a
+painful power of producing puns, and a dexterity in suggesting doubts of
+everything, were the main foundation of his intellectual reputation, and
+Miss Kitty found them hard to cope with. And it was a warm evening.
+
+But women have much courage, especially to defend a friend or a faith,
+and the less Miss Kitty found herself prepared for the conflict the
+harder she esteemed it her duty to fight. She fought for Church and
+State, for parsons and poor people, for the sincerity of her friends,
+the virtues of the Royal Family, the merit of Dr. Drugson's
+prescriptions, and for her favourite theory that there is some good in
+everyone and some happiness to be found every where.
+
+She rubbed nervously at the diamond brooch with her thin little mittened
+hands. She talked very fast; and if the lawyer were guilty of feeling
+any ungallant indifference to her observations, she did not so much as
+hear his, and her cheeks became so flushed that Mrs. Dunmaw crossed the
+room in her China crape shawl and said, "My dear Miss Kitty, I'm sure
+you feel the heat very much. Do take my fan, which is larger than
+yours."
+
+But Miss Kitty was saved a reply, for at this moment Miss Betty turned
+on the sofa, and said, "Dear Kitty, will you kindly see if the
+servant--"
+
+And the parson closed the volume of "Friendship's Offering" which lay
+before him, and advanced towards Mrs. Dunmaw and took leave in his own
+dignified way.
+
+Miss Kitty was so much flustered that she had not even presence of mind
+to look for the servant, who had never been ordered to come, but the
+parson relieved her by saying in his round, deep voice, "I hope you will
+not refuse me the honour of seeing you home, since our roads happen to
+lie together," And she was glad to get into the fresh air, and beyond
+the doubtful compliments of the lawyer's nasal suavity--"You have been
+very severe upon me to-night, Miss Kitty. I'm sure I had no notion I
+should find so powerful an antagonist," etc.
+
+
+
+MIDSUMMER EVE.--A LOST DIAMOND.
+
+
+It was Midsummer Eve. The long light of the North was pale and clear,
+and the western sky shone luminous through the fir-wood that bordered
+the road. Under such dim lights colours deepen, and the great bushes of
+broom, that were each one mass of golden blossom, blazed like fairy
+watch-fires up the lane.
+
+Miss Kitty leaned on the left arm of the parson and Miss Betty on his
+right. She chatted gaily, which left her younger sister at leisure to
+think of all the convincing things she had not remembered to say to the
+lawyer, as the evening breeze cooled her cheeks.
+
+"A grand prospect for the crops, sir," said Miss petty; "I never saw the
+broom so beautiful." But as he leaned forward to look at the yellow
+blaze which foretells good luck to farmers, as it shone in the hedge on
+the left-hand side of the road, she caught sight of the brooch in Miss
+Kitty's lace shawl. Through a gap in the wood the light from the western
+sky danced among the diamonds. But where one of the precious stones
+should have been there was a little black hole.
+
+"Sister, you've lost a stone out of your brooch!" screamed Miss Betty.
+The little ladies were well-trained, and even in that moment of despair
+Miss Betty would not hint that her sister's ornaments were not her sole
+property.
+
+When Miss Kitty burst into tears the parson was a little astonished as
+well as distressed. Men are apt to be so, not perhaps because women cry
+on such very small accounts, as because the full reason does not always
+transpire. Tears are often the climax of nervous exhaustion and this is
+commonly the result of more causes than one. Ostensibly Miss Kitty was
+"upset" by the loss of the diamond, but she also wept away a good deal
+of the vexation of her unequal conflict with the sarcastic lawyer, and
+of all this the parson knew nothing.
+
+Miss Betty knew nothing of that, but she knew enough of things in
+general to feel sure that the diamond was not all the matter.
+
+"What is amiss, sister Kitty?" said she. "Have you hurt yourself? Do you
+feel ill? Did you know the stone was out?"--"I hope you're not going to
+be hysterical, sister Kitty," added Miss Betty anxiously; "there never
+was a hysterical woman in our family yet."
+
+"Oh dear no, sister Betty," sobbed Miss Kitty; "but it's all my fault. I
+know I was fidgeting with it whilst I was talking; and it's a punishment
+on my fidgety ways, and for ever presuming to wear it at all, when
+you're the head of the family, and solely entitled to it. And I shall
+never forgive myself if it's lost, and if it's found I'll never, never
+wear it any more." And as she deluged her best company pocket-handkerchief
+(for the useful one was in a big pocket under her dress, and could not be
+got at, the parson being present), Church, State, the royal family, the
+family Bible, her highest principles, her dearest affections, and the
+diamond brooch, all seemed to swim before her disturbed mind in one sea
+of desolation.
+
+There was not a kinder heart than the parson's toward women and children
+in distress. He tucked the little ladies again under his arms, and
+insisted upon going back to Mrs. Dunmaw's searching the lane as they
+went. In the pulpit or the drawing room a ready anecdote never failed
+him, and on this occasion he had several. Tales of lost rings, and even
+single gems, recovered in the most marvellous manner and the most
+unexpected places--dug up in gardens, served up to dinner in fishes, and
+so forth. "Never," said Miss Kitty, afterward, "never, to her dying day,
+could she forget his kindness."
+
+She clung to the parson as a support under both her sources of trouble,
+but Miss Betty ran on and back, and hither and thither, looking for the
+diamond. Miss Kitty and the parson looked too, and how many aggravating
+little bits of glass and silica, and shining nothings and
+good-for-nothings there are in the world, no one would believe who has
+not looked for a lost diamond on a high road.
+
+But another story of found jewels was to be added to the parson's stock.
+He had bent his long back for about the eighteenth time, when such a
+shimmer as no glass or silica can give flashed into his eyes, and he
+caught up the diamond out of the dust, and it fitted exactly into the
+little black hole.
+
+Miss Kitty uttered a cry, and at the same moment Miss Betty, who was
+farther down the road, did the same, and these were followed by a third,
+which sounded like a mocking echo of both. And then the sisters rushed
+together.
+
+"A most miraculous discovery!" gasped Miss Betty.
+
+"You must have passed the very spot before," cried Miss Kitty.
+
+"Though I'm sure, sister, what to do with it now we have found it I
+don't know," said Miss Betty, rubbing her nose, as she was wont to do
+when puzzled.
+
+"It shall be taken better care of for the future, sister Betty," said
+Miss Kitty penitently. "Though how it got out I can't think now."
+
+"Why, bless my soul! you don't suppose it got there of itself, sister?"
+snapped Miss Betty. "How it did get there is another matter."
+
+"I felt pretty confident about it, for my own part," smiled the parson
+as he joined them.
+
+"Do you mean to say, sir, that you knew it was there?" asked Miss Betty,
+solemnly.
+
+"I didn't know the precise spot, my dear madam, but----"
+
+"You didn't see it, sir, I hope?" said Miss Betty.
+
+"Bless me, my dear madam, I found it!" cried the parson.
+
+Miss Betty bridled and bit her lip.
+
+"I never contradict a clergyman, sir," said she, "but I can only say
+that if you did see it, it was not like your usual humanity to leave it
+lying there."
+
+         I've got it in my hand, ma'am!"
+   "Why
+         He's got it in his hand, sister!"
+
+cried the parson and Miss Kitty in one breath. Miss Betty was too much
+puzzled to be polite.
+
+"What are you talking about?" she asked.
+
+"The diamond, oh dear, oh dear! _The diamond!_" cried Miss Kitty. "But
+what are you talking about, sister?"
+
+"_The baby_" said Miss Betty.
+
+
+
+WHAT MISS BETTY FOUND.
+
+
+It was found under a broom-bush. Miss Betty was poking her nose near the
+bank that bordered the wood, in her hunt for the diamond, when she
+caught sight of a mass of yellow of a deeper tint than the mass of
+broom-blossom above it, and this was the baby.
+
+This vivid color, less opaque than "deep chrome" and a shade more
+orange, seems to have a peculiar attraction for wandering tribes.
+Gipsies use it, and it is a favorite color with Indian squaws. To the
+last dirty rag it is effective, whether it flutters near a tent on
+Bagshot Heath, or in some wigwam doorway makes a point of brightness
+against the grey shadows of the pine forest.
+
+A large kerchief of this, wound about its body, was the baby's only
+robe, but he seemed quite comfortable in it when Miss Betty found him,
+sleeping on a pillow of deep hair moss, his little brown fists closed as
+fast as his eyes, and a crimson toadstool grasped in one of them.
+
+When Miss Betty screamed the baby awoke, and his long black lashes
+tickled his cheeks and made him wink and cry. But by the time she
+returned with her sister and the parson, he was quite happy again,
+gazing up with dark eyes full of delight into the glowing broom-brush,
+and fighting the evening breeze with his feet, which were entangled in
+the folds of the yellow cloth, and with the battered toadstool which was
+still in his hand.
+
+"And, indeed, sir," said Miss Betty, who had rubbed her nose till it
+looked like the twin toadstool to that which the baby was flourishing in
+her face, "you won't suppose I would have left the poor little thing
+another moment, to catch its death of cold on a warm evening like this;
+but having no experience of such cases, and remembering that murder at
+the inn in the Black Valley, and that the body was not allowed to be
+moved till the constables had seen it, I didn't feel to know how it
+might be with foundlings, and--"
+
+But still Miss Betty did not touch the bairn. She was not accustomed to
+children. But the parson had christened too many babies to be afraid of
+them, and he picked up the little fellow in a moment, and tucked the
+yellow rag round him, and then addressing the little ladies precisely as
+if they were sponsors, he asked in his deep round voice, "Now where on
+the face of the earth are the vagabonds who have deserted this child?"
+
+The little ladies did not know, the broom bushes were silent, and the
+question has remained unanswered from that day to this.
+
+There were no railways near Lingborough at this time. The coach ran
+three times a week, and a walking postman brought the letters from the
+town to the small hamlets. Telegraph wires were unknown, and yet news
+travelled quite as fast then as it does now, and in the course of the
+following morning all the neighbourhood knew that Miss Betty had found a
+baby under a broom bush, and the lawyer called in the afternoon to
+inquire how the ladies found themselves after the tea party at Mrs.
+General Dunmaw's.
+
+Miss Kitty was glad on the whole. She felt nervous, but ready for a
+renewal of hostilities. Several clinching arguments had occurred to her
+in bed last night, and after hastily looking up a few lines from her
+common-place book, which always made her cry when she read them, but
+which she hoped to be able to hurl at the lawyer with a steady voice,
+she followed Miss Betty to the drawing-room.
+
+It was half a relief and half a disappointment to find that the lawyer
+was quite indifferent to the subject of their late contest. He
+overflowed with compliments; was quite sure he must have had the worst
+of the argument, and positively dying of curiosity to hear about the
+baby.
+
+The little ladies were very full of the subject themselves. An active
+search for the baby's relations, conducted by the parson, the clerk,
+the farm-bailiff, the constable, the cowherd, and several
+supernumeraries, had so far proved quite vain. The country folk were
+most anxious to assist, especially by word of mouth. Except a small but
+sturdy number who had seen nothing, they had all seen "tramps," but
+unluckily no two could be got together whose accounts of the tramps
+themselves, of the hour at which they were seen, or of the direction in
+which they went, would tally with each other.
+
+The little ladies were quite alive to the possibility that the child's
+parents might never be traced, indeed the matter had been constantly
+before their minds ever since the parson had carried the baby to
+Lingborough, and laid it in the arms of Thomasina, the servant.
+
+Miss Betty had sat long before her toilette-table that evening, gazing
+vacantly at the looking-glass. Not that the reflection of the eight
+curl-papers she had neatly twisted up was conveyed to her brain. She was
+in a brown study, during which the following thoughts passed through her
+mind, and they all pointed one way:
+
+That that fine little fellow was not to blame for his people's
+misconduct.
+
+That they would never be found.
+
+That it would probably be the means of the poor child's ruin, body and
+soul, if they were.
+
+That the master of the neighbouring workhouse bore a bad character.
+
+That a child costs nothing to keep--where cows are kept too--for years.
+
+That just at the age when a boy begins to eat dreadfully and wear out
+his clothes, he is very useful on a farm (though not for these reasons).
+
+That Thomasina had taken to him.
+
+That there need be no nonsense about it, as he could be brought up in
+his proper station in life in the kitchen and the farm yard.
+
+That tramps have souls.
+
+That he would be taught to say his prayers.
+
+Miss Betty said hers, and went to bed; but all through that midsummer
+night the baby kept her awake, or flaunted his yellow robe and crimson
+toadstool through her dreams.
+
+The morning brought no change in Miss Betty's views, but she felt
+doubtful as to how her sister would receive them. Would she regard them
+as foolish and unpractical, and her respect for Miss Betty's opinion be
+lessened thenceforward?
+
+The fear was needless. Miss Kitty was romantic and imaginative. She had
+carried the baby through his boyhood about the Lingborough fields whilst
+she was dressing; and he was attending her own funeral in the capacity
+of an attached and faithful servant, in black livery with worsted frogs,
+as she sprinkled salt on her buttered toast at breakfast, when she was
+startled from this affecting daydream by Miss Betty's voice.
+
+"Dear sister Kitty, I wish to consult you as to our plans in the event
+of those wicked people who deserted the baby not being found."
+
+The little ladies resolved that not an inkling of their benevolent
+scheme must be betrayed to the lawyer. But they dissembled awkwardly,
+and the tone in which they spoke of the tramp-baby roused the lawyer's
+quick suspicions. He had a real respect for the little ladies, and was
+kindly anxious to save them from their own indiscretion.
+
+"My dear ladies," said he, "I do hope your benevolence--may I say your
+romantic benevolence?--of disposition is not tempting you to adopt this
+gipsy waif?"
+
+"I hope we know what is due to ourselves, and to the estate--small, as
+it is--sir," said Miss Betty, "as well as to Providence, too well to
+attempt to raise any child, however handsome, from that station of life
+in which he was born."
+
+"Bless me, madam! I never dreamed you would adopt a beggar child as your
+heir; but I hope you mean to send it to the workhouse, if the gipsy
+tramps it belongs to are not to be found?"
+
+"We have not made up our minds, sir, as to the course we propose to
+pursue," said Miss Betty, with outward dignity proportioned to her
+inward doubts.
+
+"My dear ladies," said the lawyer anxiously, "let me implore you not to
+be rash. To adopt a child in the most favorable circumstances is the
+greatest of risks. But if your benevolence _will_ take that line, pray
+adopt some little boy out of one of your tenants' families. Even your
+teaching will not make him brilliant, as he is likely to inherit the
+minimum of intellectual capacity; but he will learn his catechism,
+probably grow up respectable, and possibly grateful, since his
+forefathers have (so Miss Kitty assures me) had all these virtues for
+generations. But this baby is the child of a heathen, barbarous, and
+wandering race. The propensities of the vagabonds who have deserted him
+are in every drop of his blood. All the parsons in the diocese won't
+make a Christian of him, and when (after anxieties I shudder to foresee)
+you flatter yourself that he is civilized, he will run away and leave
+his shoes and stockings behind him."
+
+"He has a soul to be saved, if he is a gipsy," said Miss Kitty,
+hysterically.
+
+"The soul, my dear Miss Kitty "--began the lawyer, facing round upon
+her.
+
+"Don't say anything dreadful about the soul, sir, I beg," said Miss
+Betty, firmly. And then she added in a conciliatory tone, "Won't you
+look at the little fellow, sir? I have no doubt his relations are
+shocking people; but when you see his innocent little face and his
+beautiful eyes, I think you'll say yourself that if he were a duke's son
+he couldn't be a finer child."
+
+"My experience of babies is so limited, Miss Betty," said the lawyer,
+"that really--if you'll excuse me--but I can quite imagine him. I have
+before now been tempted myself to adopt stray--puppies, when I have seen
+them in the round, soft, innocent, bright-eyed stage. And when they have
+grown up in the hands of more credulous friends into lanky,
+ill-conditioned, misconducted curs, I have congratulated myself that I
+was not misled by the graces of an age at which ill-breeding is less
+apparent than later in life."
+
+The little ladies both rose. "If you see no difference, sir," said Miss
+Betty in her stateliest manner, "between a babe with an immortal soul
+and the beasts that perish, it is quite useless to prolong the
+conversation."
+
+"Reason is apt to be useless when opposed to the generous impulses of a
+sex so full of sentiment as yours, madam," said the lawyer, rising also.
+"Permit me to take a long farewell, since it is improbable that our
+friendship will resume its old position until your _protege_ has--run
+away."
+
+The words "long farewell" and "old friendship" were quite sufficient to
+soften wrath in the tender hearts of the little ladies. But the lawyer
+had really lost his temper, and, before Miss Betty had decided how to
+offer the olive branch without conceding her principles he was gone.
+
+The weather was warm. The little ladies were heated by discussion and
+the parson by vain scouring of the country on foot, when they asked his
+advice upon their project, and related their conversation with the
+lawyer. The two gentlemen had so little in common that the parson felt
+it his duty not to let his advice be prejudiced by this fact. For some
+moments he sat silent, then he began to walk about as if he were
+composing a sermon; then he stopped before the little ladies (who were
+sitting as stiffly on the sofa as if it were a pew) and spoke as if he
+were delivering one.
+
+"If you ask me, dear ladies, whether it is your duty to provide for this
+child because you found him, I say that there is no such obligation. If
+you ask if I think it wise in your own interests, and hopeful as to the
+boy's career, I am obliged to agree with your legal adviser. Vagabond
+ways are seldom cured in one generation, and I think it is quite
+probable that, after much trouble and anxiety spent upon him, he may go
+back to a wandering life. But, Miss Betty," continued the parson in
+deepening tones, as he pounded his left palm with his right fist for
+want of a pulpit, "If you ask me whether I believe any child of any race
+is born incapable of improvement, and beyond benefit from the charities
+we owe to each other, I should deny my faith if I could say yes. I shall
+not, madam, confuse the end of your connection with him with the end of
+your training in him, even if he runs away, or fancy that I see the one
+because I see the other. I do not pretend to know how much evil he
+inherits from his forefathers as accurately as our graphic friend; but I
+do know that he has a Father whose image is also to be found in His
+children--not quite effaced in any of them--and whose care of this one
+will last when yours, madam, may seem to have been in vain."
+
+As the little ladies rushed forward and each shook a hand of the parson,
+he felt some compunction for his speech.
+
+"I fear I am encouraging you in grave indiscretion," said he. "But,
+indeed, my dear ladies, I am quite against your project, for you do not
+realize the anxieties and disappointments that are before you, I am
+sure. The child will give you infinite trouble. I think he will run
+away. And yet I cannot in good conscience say that I believe love's
+labour must be lost. He may return to the woods and wilds; but I hope he
+will carry something with him."
+
+"Did the reverend gentleman mean Miss Betty's teaspoons?" asked the
+lawyer, stroking his long chin, when he was told what the parson had
+said.
+
+
+
+BABYHOOD.--PRETTY FLOWERS.--THE ROSE-COLOURED TULIPS.
+
+
+The matter of the baby's cap disturbed the little ladies. It seemed so
+like the beginning of a fulfilment of the lawyer's croakings.
+
+Miss Kitty had made it. She had never seen a baby without a cap before,
+and the sight was unusual if not indecent. But Miss Kitty was a quick
+needlewoman, and when the new cap was fairly tied over the thick crop of
+silky black hair, the baby looked so much less like Puck, and so much
+more like the rest of the baby world, that it was quite a relief.
+
+Miss Kitty's feelings may therefore be imagined when, going to the baby
+just after the parson's departure, she found him in open rebellion
+against his cap. It had been tied on whilst he was asleep, and his eyes
+were no sooner open than he commenced the attack. He pulled with one
+little brown hand and tugged with the other; he dragged a rosette over
+his nose and got the frills into his eyes; he worried it as a puppy
+worries your handkerchief if you tie it around its face and tell it to
+"look like a grandmother." At last the strings gave way, and he cast it
+triumphantly out of the clothes-basket which served him for cradle.
+
+Successive efforts to induce him to wear it proved vain, so Thomasina
+said the weather was warm and his hair was very thick, and she parted
+this and brushed it, and Miss Kitty gave the cap to the farm-bailiff's
+baby, who took to it as kindly as a dumpling to a pudding-cloth.
+
+How the boy was ever kept inside his christening clothes, Thomasina said
+she did not know. But when he got into the parson's arms he lay quite
+quiet, which was a good omen. That he might lack no advantage, Miss
+Betty stood godmother for him, and the parish clerk and the sexton were
+his godfathers.
+
+He was named John.
+
+"A plain, sensible name," said Miss Betty. "And while we are about it,"
+she added, "we may as well choose his surname. For a surname he must
+have, and the sooner it is decided upon the better."
+
+Miss Kitty had made a list of twenty-seven of her favourite Christian
+names, which Miss Betty had sternly rejected, that everything might be
+plain, practical, and respectable at the outset of the tramp-child's
+career. For the same reason she refused to adopt Miss Kitty's
+suggestions for a surname.
+
+"It's so seldom there's a chance of _choosing_ a surname for anybody,
+sister," said Miss Kitty, "it seems a pity not to choose a pretty one."
+
+"Sister Kitty," said Miss Betty, "don't be romantic. The boy is to be
+brought up in that station of life for which one syllable is ample. I
+should have called him Smith if that had not been Thomasina's name. As
+it is, I propose to call him Broom. He was found under a bush of broom,
+and it goes very well with John, and sounds plain and respectable."
+
+So Miss Betty bought a Bible, and on the flyleaf of it she wrote in her
+fine, round, gentlewoman's writing--_"John Broom. With good wishes for
+his welfare, temporal and eternal. From a sincere friend!"_ And when the
+inscription was dry the Bible was wrapped in brown paper, and put by in
+Thomasina's trunk till John Broom should come to years of discretion.
+
+He was slow to reach them, though in other respects he grew fast.
+
+When he began to walk he would walk barefoot. To be out of doors was his
+delight, but on the threshold of the house he always sat down and
+discarded his shoes and stockings. Thomasina bastinadoed the soles of
+his feet with the soles of his shoes "to teach him the use of them," so
+she said. But Miss Kitty sighed, and thought of the lawyer's prediction.
+
+There was no blinking the fact that the child was as troublesome as he
+was pretty. The very demon of mischief danced in his black eyes, and
+seemed to possess his feet and fingers as if with quicksilver. And if,
+as Thomasina said, you "never knew what he would be at next," you might
+also be pretty sure that it would be something he ought to have left
+undone.
+
+John Broom early developed a taste for glass and crockery, and as the
+china cupboard was in that part of the house to which he by social
+standing also belonged, he had many chances to seize upon cups, jugs,
+and dishes. If detected with any thing that he ought not to have had, it
+was his custom to drop the forbidden toy and toddle off as fast as his
+unpractised feet would carry him. The havoc which this caused amongst
+the glass and china was bewildering in a household where tea-sets and
+dinner-sets had passed from generation to generation, where slapdash,
+giddy-pated kitchenmaids never came, where Miss Betty washed the best
+teacups in the parlor, where Thomasina was more careful than her
+mistress, and the breaking of a single plate was a serious matter, and,
+if beyond rivetting, a misfortune.
+
+Thomasina soon found that her charge was safest, as he was happiest, out
+of doors. A very successful device was to shut him up in the drying
+ground, and tell him to "pick the pretty flowers." John Broom preferred
+flowers even to china cups with gilding on them. He gathered nosegays of
+daisies and buttercups, and the winning way in which he would present
+these to the little ladies atoned, in their benevolent eyes, for many a
+smashed teacup.
+
+But the tramp-baby's restless spirit was soon weary of the
+drying-ground, and he set forth one morning in search of "fresh woods
+and pastures new." He had seated himself on the threshold to take off
+his shoes, when he heard the sound of Thomasina's footsteps, and,
+hastily staggering to his feet, toddled forth without farther delay. The
+sky was blue above him, the sun was shining, and the air was very sweet.
+He ran for a bit and then tumbled, and picked himself up again, and got
+a fresh impetus, and so on till he reached the door of the kitchen
+garden, which was open. It was an old-fashioned kitchen garden with
+flowers in the borders. There were single rose-colored tulips which had
+been in the garden as long as Miss Betty could remember, and they had
+been so increased by dividing the clumps that they now stretched in two
+rich lines of colour down both sides of the long walk. And John Broom
+saw them.
+
+"Pick the pretty flowers, love," said he, in imitation of Thomasina's
+patronising tone, and forthwith beginning at the end, he went steadily
+to the top of the right-hand border, mowing the rose-coloured tulips as
+he went.
+
+Meanwhile, when Thomasina came to look for him he could not be found,
+and when all the back premises and the drying-ground had been searched
+in vain, she gave the alarm to the little ladies.
+
+Miss Kitty's vivid imagination leaped at once to the conclusion that
+the child's vagabond relations had fetched him away, and she became
+rigid with alarm. But Miss Betty rushed out into the shrubbery, and Miss
+Kitty took a whiff of her vinaigrette and followed her.
+
+When they came at last to the kitchen-garden, Miss Betty's grief for the
+loss of John Broom did not prevent her observing that there was
+something odd about the borders, and when she got to the top, and found
+that all the tulips had been picked from one side, she sank down on the
+roller which happened to be lying beside her.
+
+And John Broom staggered up to her, and crying, "For 'oo, Miss Betty,"
+fell headlong with a sheaf of rose-coloured tulips into her lap.
+
+As he did not offer any to Miss Kitty, her better judgment was not
+warped, and she said, "You must slap him, sister Betty."
+
+"Put out your hand, John Broom," said Miss Betty much agitated.
+
+And John Broom, who was quite composed, put out both his little grubby
+paws so trustfully that Miss Betty had not the heart to strike him. But
+she scolded him, "Naughty boy!" and she pointed to the tulips and shook
+her head. John Broom looked thoughtfully at them, and shook his.
+
+"Naughty boy!" repeated Miss Betty, and she added in very impressive
+tones, "John Broom's a very naughty boy!"
+
+After which she took him to Thomasina, and Miss Kitty collected the
+rose-colored tulips and put them into water in the best old china
+punch-bowl.
+
+In the course of the afternoon she peeped into the kitchen, where John
+Broom sat on the floor under the window, gazing thoughtfully up into the
+sky.
+
+"As good as gold, bless his little heart!" murmured Miss Kitty. For as
+his feet were tucked under him, she did not know that he had just put
+his shoes and stockings into the pig-tub, into which he all but fell
+himself from the exertion. He did not hear Miss Kitty, and thought on.
+He wanted to be out again, and he had a tantalizing remembrance of the
+ease with which the tender juicy stalks of the tulips went snap, snap,
+in that new place of amusement he had discovered. Thomasina looked into
+the kitchen and went away again. When she had gone, John Broom went away
+also.
+
+He went both faster and steadier on his bare feet. And when he got into
+the kitchen garden, it recalled Miss Betty to his mind. And he shook his
+head, and said, "Naughty boy!" And then he went up the left-hand border,
+mowing the tulips as he went; after which he trotted home, and met
+Thomasina at the back door. And he hugged the sheaf of rose-coloured
+tulips in his arms, and said, "John Broom a very naughty boy!"
+
+Thomasina was not sentimental, and she slapped him well--his hands for
+picking the tulips, and his feet for going barefoot.
+
+But his feet had to be slapped with Thomasina's slipper, for his own
+shoes could not be found.
+
+In spite of all his pranks, John Broom did not lose the favor of his
+friends. Thomasina spoiled him, and Miss Betty and Miss Kitty tried not
+to do so.
+
+The parson had said, "Treat the child fairly. Bring him up as he will
+have to live hereafter. Don't make him half pet and half servant." And
+following this advice, and her own resolve that there should be "no
+nonsense" in the matter, Miss Betty had made it a rule that he should
+not be admitted to the parlor. It bore more heavily on the tender hearts
+of the little ladies than on the light heart of John Broom, and led to
+their waylaying him in the passages and gardens with little gifts,
+unknown to each other. And when Miss Kitty kissed his newly-washed
+cheeks, and pronounced them "like ripe russets," Miss Betty murmured,
+"Be judicious, sister Kitty;" and Miss Kitty would correct any possible
+ill effects by saying, "_Now_ make your betters, John Broom, and say,
+'Thank you, ma'am!'" which was accomplished by the child's giving a tug
+to the forelock of his thick black hair, with a world of mischief in his
+eyes.
+
+When he was old enough, the little ladies sent him to the village
+school.
+
+The total failure of their hopes for his education was not the smallest
+of the disappointments Miss Betty and Miss Kitty endured on his behalf.
+The quarrel with the lawyer had been made up long ago, and though there
+was always a touch of raillery in his inquiries after "the young gipsy,"
+he had once said, "If he turns out anything of a genius at school, I
+might find a place for him in the office, by-and-by." The lawyer was
+kind-hearted in his own fashion, and on this hint Miss Kitty built up
+hopes, which unhappily were met by no responsive ambition in John Broom.
+
+As to his fitness to be an errand boy, he could not carry a message from
+the kitchen to the cowhouse without stopping by the way to play with the
+yard-dog, and a hedgehog in the path would probably have led him astray,
+if Thomasina had had a fit and he had been despatched for the doctor.
+
+During school hours he spent most of his time under the fool's cap when
+he was not playing truant. With his schoolmates he was good friends. If
+he was seldom out of mischief, he was seldom out of temper. He could
+beat any boy at a foot race (without shoes); he knew the notes and nests
+of every bird that sang, and whatever an old pocket-knife is capable of,
+that John Broom could and would do with it for his fellows.
+
+Miss Betty had herself tried to teach him to read, and she continued to
+be responsible for his religious instruction. She had hoped to stir up
+his industry by showing him the Bible, and promising that when he could
+read it he should have it for his "very own." But he either could not or
+would not apply himself, so the prize lay unearned in Thomasina's trunk.
+But he would listen for any length of time to Scripture stories, if
+they were read or told him, especially to the history of Elisha, and the
+adventures of the judges.
+
+Indeed, since he could no longer be shut up in the drying-ground,
+Thomasina had found that he was never so happy and so safe as when he
+was listening to tales, and many a long winter evening he lay idle on
+the kitchen hearth, with his head on the sheep dog, whilst the more
+industrious Thomasina plied her knitting-needles, as she sat in the
+inglenook, with the flickering firelight playing among the plaits of her
+large cap, and told tales of the country side.
+
+Not that John Broom was her only hearer. Annie "the lass" sat by the
+hearth also, and Thomasina took care that she did not "sit with her
+hands before her." And a little farther away sat the cowherd.
+
+He had a sleeping-room above the barn, and took his meals in the house.
+By Miss Betty's desire he always went in to family prayers after supper,
+when he sat as close as possible to the door, under an uncomfortable
+consciousness that Thomasina did not think his boots clean enough for
+the occasion and would find something to pick off the carpet as she
+followed him out, however hardly he might have used the door-scraper
+beforehand.
+
+It might be a difficult matter to decide which he liked best, beer or
+John Broom. But next to these he liked Thomasina's stories.
+
+Thomasina was kind to him. With all his failings and the dirt on his
+boots, she liked him better than the farm-bailiff. The farm-bailiff was
+thrifty, and sensible and faithful, and Thomasina was faithful and
+sensible and thrifty, and they each had a tendency to claim the monopoly
+of those virtues. Notable people complain, very properly, of thriftless
+and untidy ones, but they sometimes agree better with them than with
+rival notabilities. And so Thomasina's broad face beamed benevolently as
+she bid the cowherd "draw up" to the fire, and he who (like Thomasina)
+was a native of the country, would confirm the marvels she related, with
+a proper pride in the wonderful district to which they both belonged.
+
+He would help her out sometimes with names and dates in a local
+biography. By his own account he knew the man who was murdered at the
+inn in the Black Valley so intimately that it turned Annie the lass as
+white as a dish-cloth to sit beside him. If Thomasina said that folk
+were yet alive who had seen the little green men dance in Dawborough
+Croft the cowherd would smack his knees and cry, "Scores on 'em!" And
+when she whispered of the white figure which stood at the cross roads
+after midnight, he testified to having seen it himself--tall beyond
+mortal height, and pointing four ways at once. He had a legend of his
+own too, which Thomasina sometimes gave him the chance of telling, of
+how he was followed home one moonlight night by a black Something as big
+as a young calf, which "wimmled and wammled," around him till he fell
+senseless into the ditch, and being found there by the farm-bailiff on
+his return from market was unjustly accused of the vice of intoxication.
+
+"Fault-finders should be free of flaws," Thomasina would say with a prim
+chin. She _had_ seen the farm-bailiff himself "the worse" for more than
+his supper beer.
+
+But there was one history which Thomasina was always loth to relate, and
+it was that which both John Broom and the cowherd especially
+preferred--the history of the Lob Lie-by-the-fire.
+
+Thomasina had a feeling (which was shared by Annie the lass) that it was
+better not to talk of "anything" peculiar to the house in which you were
+living. One's neighbours' ghosts and bogles are another matter.
+
+But to John Broom and the cowherd no subject was so interesting as that
+of the Lubber-fiend. The cowherd sighed to think of the good old times
+when a man might sleep on in spite of cocks, and the stables be cleaner,
+and the beasts better tended than if he had been up with the lark. And
+John Broom's curiosity was never quenched about the rough, hairy
+Good-fellow who worked at night that others might be idle by day, and
+who was sometimes caught at his hard earned nap, lying "like a great
+hurgin bear," where the boy loved to lie himself, before the fire, on
+this very hearth.
+
+Why and where he had gone, Thomasina could not tell. She had heard that
+he had originally come from some other household, where he had been
+offended. But whether he had gone elsewhere when he forsook
+Lingborough, or whether "such things had left the country" for good, she
+did not pretend to say.
+
+And when she had told, for the third or fourth time, how his porridge
+was put into a corner of the cowhouse for him over night, and how he had
+been often overheard at his work, but rarely seen, and then only lying
+before the fire, Miss Betty would ring for prayers, and Thomasina would
+fold up her knitting and lead the way, followed by Annie the lass, whose
+nerves John Broom would startle by treading on her heels, the rear being
+brought up by the cowherd, looking hopelessly at his boots.
+
+Miss Betty and Miss Kitty did really deny themselves the indulgence of
+being indulgent, and treated John Broom on principles, and for his good.
+But they did so in their own tremulous and spasmodic way, and got little
+credit for it. Thomasina, on the other hand, spoiled him with such a
+masterful managing air, and so much sensible talk, that no one would
+have thought that the only system she followed was to conceal his
+misdemeanours, and to stand between him and the just wrath of the
+farm-bailiff.
+
+The farm-bailiff, or grieve, as he liked to call himself, was a
+Scotchman, with a hard-featured face (which he washed on the Sabbath), a
+harsh voice, a good heart rather deeper down in his body than is usual,
+and a shrewd, money-getting head, with a speckled straw hat on the top
+of it. No one could venture to imagine when that hat was new, or how
+long ago it was that the farm-bailiff went to the expense of purchasing
+those work-day clothes. But the dirt on his face and neck was an orderly
+accumulation, such as gathers on walls, oil-paintings, and other places
+to which soap is not habitually applied; it was not a matter of spills
+and splashes, like the dirt John Broom disgraced himself with. And his
+clothes, if old, fitted neatly about him; they never suggested
+raggedness, which was the normal condition of the tramp-boy's jacket.
+They only looked as if he had been born (and occasionally buried) in
+them. It is needful to make this distinction, that the good man may not
+be accused of inconsistency in the peculiar vexation which John Broom's
+disorderly appearance caused him.
+
+In truth, Miss Betty's _protege_ had reached the age at which he was to
+"eat dreadfully, wear out his clothes, and be useful on the farm;" and
+the last condition was quite unfulfilled. At eleven years old he could
+not be trusted to scare birds, and at half that age the farm-bailiff's
+eldest child could drive cattle.
+
+"And no' just ruin the leedies in new coats and compliments, either,
+like some ne'er-do-weels," added the farm-bailiff, who had heard with a
+jealous ear of sixpences given by Miss Betty and Miss Kitty to their
+wasteful favourite.
+
+When the eleventh anniversary of John Broom's discovery was passed, and
+his character at school gave no hopes of his ever qualifying himself to
+serve the lawyer, it was resolved that--"idleness being the mother of
+mischief," he should be put under the care of the farm-bailiff, to do
+such odd jobs about the place as might be suited to his capacity and
+love of out-door life. And now John Broom's troubles began. By fair
+means or foul, with here an hour's weeding and there a day's bird
+scaring, and with errands perpetual, the farm-bailiff contrived to "get
+some work out of" the idle little urchin. His speckled hat and grim face
+seemed to be everywhere, and always to pop up when John Broom began to
+play.
+
+They lived "at daggers drawn." I am sorry to say that John Broom's
+fitful industry was still kept for his own fancies. To climb trees, to
+run races with the sheep dog, to cut grotesque sticks, gather hedge
+fruits, explore a bog, or make new friends among beasts and birds--at
+such matters he would labor with feverish zeal. But so far from trying
+to cure himself of his indolence about daily drudgery, he found a new
+and pleasant excitement in thwarting the farm-bailiff at every turn.
+
+It would not sound dignified to say that the farm-bailiff took pleasure
+in thwarting John Broom. But he certainly did not show his satisfaction
+when the boy did do his work properly. Perhaps he thought that praise is
+not good for young people; and the child did not often give him the
+chance of trying. Of blame he was free enough. Not a good scolding to
+clear the air, such as Thomasina would give to Annie the lass, but his
+slow, caustic tongue was always growling, like muttered thunder, over
+John Broom's incorrigible head.
+
+He had never approved of the tramp-child, who had the overwhelming
+drawbacks of having no pedigree and of being a bad bargain as to
+expense. This was not altogether John Broom's fault, but with his
+personal failings the farm bailiff had even less sympathy. It had been
+hinted that he was born in the speckled hat, and whether this were so or
+not, he certainly had worn an old head whilst his shoulders were still
+young, and could not remember the time when he wished to waste his
+energies on any thing that did not earn or at least save something.
+
+Once only did any thing like approval of the lad escape his lips.
+
+Miss Betty's uncle's second cousin had returned from foreign lands with
+a good fortune and several white cockatoos. He kept the fortune himself,
+but he gave the cockatoos to his friends, and he sent one of them to the
+little ladies of Lingborough.
+
+He was a lovely creature (the cockatoo, not the cousin, who was plain),
+and John Broom's admiration of him was boundless. He gazed at the
+sulphur-colored crest, the pure white wings with their deeper-tinted
+lining, and even the beak and the fierce round eyes, as he had gazed at
+the broom bush in his babyhood, with insatiable delight.
+
+The cousin did things handsomely. He had had a ring put round one of the
+cockatoo's ankles, with a bright steel chain attached and a fastener to
+secure it to the perch. The cockatoo was sent in the cage by coach, and
+a perch, made of foreign wood, followed by the carrier.
+
+Miss Betty and Miss Kitty were delighted both with the cockatoo and the
+perch, but they were a good deal troubled as to how to fasten the two
+together. There was a neat little ring on the perch, and the cockatoo's
+chain was quite complete, and he evidently wanted to get out, for he
+shook the walls of his cage in his gambols. But he put up his crest and
+snapped when any one approached, in a manner so alarming that Annie the
+lass shut herself up in the dairy, and the farm-bailiff turned his
+speckled hat in his hands, and gave cautious counsel from a safe
+distance.
+
+"How he flaps!" cried Miss Betty. "I'm afraid he has a very vicious
+temper."
+
+"He only wants to get out, Miss Betty," said John Broom. "He'd be all
+right with his perch, and I think I can get him on it."
+
+"Now Heaven save us from the sin o' presumption!" cried the
+farm-bailiff, and putting on the speckled hat, he added, slowly: "I'm
+thinking, John Broom, that if ye're engaged wi' the leddies this morning
+it'll be time I turned my hand to singling these few turnips ye've been
+thinking about the week past."
+
+On which he departed, and John Broom pressed the little ladies to leave
+him alone with the bird.
+
+"We shouldn't like to leave you alone with a wild creature like that,"
+said Miss Betty.
+
+"He's just frightened on ye, Miss Betty. He'll be like a lamb when
+you're gone," urged John Broom.
+
+"Besides, we should like to see you do it," said Miss Kitty.
+
+"You can look in through the window, miss. I must fasten the door, or
+he'll be out."
+
+"I should never forgive myself if he hurt you, John," said Miss Betty,
+irresolutely, for she was very anxious to have the cockatoo and perch in
+full glory in the parlour.
+
+"He'll none hurt me, miss," said John, with a cheerful smile on his rosy
+face. "I likes him, and he'll like me."
+
+This settled the matter. John was left with the cockatoo. He locked the
+door, and the little ladies went into the garden and peeped through the
+window.
+
+They saw John Broom approach the cage, on which the cockatoo put up his
+crest, opened his beak slowly, and snarled, and Miss Betty tapped on the
+window and shook her black satin workbag.
+
+"Don't go near him!" she cried. But John Broom paid no attention.
+
+"What are you putting up that top-knot of yours at me for?" said he to
+the cockatoo. "Don't ye know your own friends? I'm going to let ye out,
+I am. You're going on to your perch, you are."
+
+"Eh, but you're a bonny creature!" he added, as the cockatoo filled the
+cage with snow and sulphur flutterings.
+
+"Keep away, keep away!" screamed the little ladies, playing a duet on
+the window panes.
+
+"Out with you!" said John Broom, as he unfastened the cage door.
+
+And just when Miss Betty had run round, and as she shouted through the
+keyhole, "Open the door, John Broom. We've changed our minds. We've
+decided to keep it in its cage," the cockatoo strode solemnly forth on
+his eight long toes.
+
+"Pretty Cocky!" said he.
+
+When Miss Betty got back to the window, John Broom had just made an
+injudicious grab at the steel chain, on which Pretty Cocky flew fiercely
+at him, and John, burying his face in his arms, received the attack on
+his thick poll, laughing into his sleeves and holding fast to the chain,
+whilst the cockatoo and the little ladies screamed against each other.
+
+"It'll break your leg--you'll tear its eyes out!" cried Miss Kitty.
+
+"Miss Kitty means that you'll break its leg, and it will tear your eyes
+out," Miss Betty explained through the glass. "John Broom! Come away!
+Lock it in! Let it go!"
+
+But Cocky was now waddling solemnly round the room, and John Broom was
+creeping after him, with the end of the chain in one hand, and the perch
+in the other, and in a moment more he had joined the chain and the ring,
+and just as Miss Betty was about to send for the constable and have the
+door broken open, Cocky--driven into a corner--clutched his perch and
+was raised triumphantly to his place in the bow-window.
+
+He was now a parlour pet, and John Broom saw little of him. This vexed
+him, for he had taken a passionate liking for the bird. The little
+ladies rewarded him well for his skill, but this brought him no favour
+from the farm-bailiff, and matters went on as ill as before.
+
+One day the cockatoo got his chain entangled, and Miss Kitty promptly
+advanced to put it right. She had unfastened that end which secured it
+to the perch, when Cocky, who had been watching the proceeding with much
+interest, dabbed at her with his beak. Miss Kitty fled, but with great
+presence of mind shut the door after her. She forgot, however, that the
+window was open, in front of which stood the cockatoo scanning the
+summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze.
+
+And just as the little ladies ran into the garden, and Miss Kitty was
+saying, "One comfort is, sister Betty, that it's quite safe in the room,
+till we can think what to do next," he bowed his yellow crest, spread
+his noble wings, and sailed out into the aether.
+
+In ten minutes the whole able-bodied population of the place was in the
+grounds of Lingborough, including the farm-bailiff.
+
+The cockatoo was on the top of a fir-tree, and a fragment of the chain
+was with him, for he had broken it, and below on the lawn stood the
+little ladies, who, with the unfailing courage of women in a hopeless
+cause, were trying to dislodge him by waving their pocket-handkerchiefs
+and crying "sh!"
+
+He looked composedly down out of one eye for some time, and then he
+began to move.
+
+"I think it's coming down now," said Miss Kitty.
+
+But in a quarter of a minute, Cocky had sailed a quarter of a mile, and
+was rocking himself on the top of an old willow-tree. And at this moment
+John Broom joined the crowd which followed him.
+
+"I'm thinking he's got his chain fast," said the farm-bailiff; "if
+onybody that understood the beastie daured to get near him----"
+
+"I'll get him," said John Broom, casting down his hat.
+
+"Ye'll get yer neck thrawed," said the farm-bailiff.
+
+"We won't hear of it," said the little ladies.
+
+But to their horror, John Broom kicked off his shoes, after which he
+spat upon his hands (a shock which Miss Kitty thought she never could
+have survived), and away he went up the willow.
+
+It was not an easy tree to climb, and he had one or two narrow escapes,
+which kept the crowd breathless, but he shook the hair from his eyes,
+moistened his hands afresh, and went on. The farm-bailiff's far-away
+heart was stirred. No Scotchman is insensible to gallantry. And courage
+is the only thing a "canny" Scot can bear to see expended without
+return.
+
+"John Broom," screamed Miss Betty, "come down! I order, I command you to
+come down."
+
+The farm-bailiff drew his speckled hat forward to shade his upward gaze,
+and folded his arms.
+
+"Dinna call on him, leddies," he said, speaking more quickly than usual.
+"Dinna mak him turn his head. Steady, lad! Grip wi' your feet. Spit on
+your pawms, man."
+
+Once the boy trod on a rotten branch, and as he drew back his foot, and
+it came crashing down, the farm-bailiff set his teeth, and Miss Kitty
+fainted in Thomasina's arms.
+
+"I'll reward anyone who'll fetch him down," sobbed Miss Betty. But John
+Broom seated himself on the same branch as the cockatoo, and undid the
+chain and prepared his hands for the downward journey.
+
+"You've got a rare perch, this time," said he. And Pretty Cocky crept
+towards him, and rubbed its head against him and chuckled with joy.
+
+What dreams of liberty in the tree tops, with John Broom for a
+playfellow, passed through his crested head, who shall say? But when he
+found that his friend meant to take him prisoner, he became very angry
+and much alarmed. And when John Broom grasped him by both legs and began
+to descend, Cocky pecked him vigorously. But the boy held the back of
+his head towards him, and went steadily down.
+
+"Weel done!" roared the farm-bailiff. "Gently, lad! Gude save us! ha'e
+a care o' yoursen. That's weel. Keep your pow at him. Dinna let the
+beast get to your een."
+
+But when John Broom was so near the ground as to be safe, the
+farm-bailiff turned wrathfully upon his son, who had been gazing
+open-mouthed at the sight which had so interested his father.
+
+"Ye look weel standing gawping here, before the leddies," said he,
+"wasting the precious hours, and bringing your father's grey hairs wi'
+sorrow to the grave; and John Broom yonder shaming ye, and you not so
+much as thinking to fetch the perch for him, ye lazy loon. Away wi' ye
+and get it, before I lay a stick about your shoulders."
+
+And when his son had gone for the perch, and John Broom was safely on
+the ground, laughing, bleeding, and triumphant, the farm-bailiff said,--
+
+"Ye're a bauld chiel, John Broom, I'll say that for ye."
+
+
+
+INTO THE MIST.
+
+
+Unfortunately the favourable impression produced by "the gipsy lad's"
+daring soon passed from the farm-bailiff's mind. It was partly effaced
+by the old jealousy of the little ladies favour. Miss Betty gave the boy
+no less than four silver shillings, and he ungraciously refused to let
+the farm-bailiff place them in a savings bank for him.
+
+Matters got from bad to worse. The farming man was not the only one who
+was jealous, and John Broom himself was as idle and restless as ever.
+Though, if he had listened respectfully to the Scotchman's counsel, or
+shown any disposition to look up to and be guided by him, much might
+have been overlooked. But he made fun of him and made a friend of the
+cowherd. And this latter most manifest token of low breeding vexed the
+respectable taste of the farm-bailiff.
+
+John Broom had his own grievances too, and he brooded over them. He
+thought the little ladies had given him over to the farm-bailiff,
+because they had ceased to care for him, and that the farm-bailiff was
+prejudiced against him beyond any hope of propitiation. The village folk
+taunted him, too, with being an outcast, and called him Gipsy John, and
+this maddened him. Then he would creep into the cowhouse and lie in the
+straw against the white cow's warm back, and for a few of Miss Betty's
+coppers, to spend in beer or tobacco, the cowherd would hide him from
+the farm-bailiff and tell him countryside tales. To Thomasina's stories
+of ghosts and gossip, he would add strange tales of smugglers on the
+near-lying coast, and as John Broom listened, his restless blood
+rebelled more and more against the sour sneers and dry drudgery that he
+got from the farm-bailiff.
+
+Nor were sneers the sharpest punishment his misdemeanours earned. The
+farm-bailiff's stick was thick and his arm was strong, and he had a
+tendency to believe that if a flogging was good for a boy, the more he
+had of it the better it would be for him.
+
+And John Broom, who never let a cry escape him at the time, would steal
+away afterwards and sob out his grief into the long soft coat of the
+sympathising sheep dog.
+
+Unfortunately he never tried the effect of deserving better treatment as
+a remedy for his woes. The parson's good advice and Miss Betty's
+entreaties were alike in vain. He was ungrateful even to Thomasina. The
+little ladies sighed and thought of the lawyer. And the parson preached
+patience.
+
+"Cocky has been tamed," said Miss Kitty thoughtfully, "perhaps John
+Broom will get steadier by-and-by."
+
+"It seems a pity we can't chain him to a perch, Miss Kitty," laughed the
+parson; "he would be safe then, at any rate."
+
+Miss Betty said afterwards that it did seem so remarkable that the
+parson should have made this particular joke on this particular
+night--the night when John Broom did not come home.
+
+He had played truant all day. The farm-bailiff had wanted him, and he
+had kept out of the way.
+
+The wind was from the east, and a white mist rolled in from the sea,
+bringing a strange invigorating smell, and making your lips clammy with
+salt. It made John Broom's heart beat faster, and filled his head with
+dreams of ships and smugglers, and rocking masts higher than the
+willow-tree, and winds wilder than this wind, and dancing waves.
+
+Then something loomed through the fog. It was the farm-bailiff's
+speckled hat. John Broom hesitated--the thick stick became visible.
+
+Then a cloud rolled between them, and the child turned, and ran, and
+ran, and ran coastwards, into the sea mist.
+
+
+
+THE SEA.--THE ONE-EYED SAILOR.--THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+John Broom was footsore when he reached the coast, but that keen,
+life-giving smell had drawn him on and held him up. The fog had cleared
+off, and he strained his black eyes through the darkness to see the sea.
+
+He had never seen it--that other world within this, on which one lived
+out of doors, and climbed about all day, and no one blamed him.
+
+When he did see it, he thought he had got to the end of the world. If
+the edge of the cliff were not the end, he could not make out where the
+sky began; and if that darkness were the sea, the sea was full of stars.
+
+But this was because the sea was quiet and reflected the colour of the
+night sky, and the stars were the lights of the herring-boats twinkling
+in the bay.
+
+When he got down by the water he saw the vessels lying alongside, and
+they were dirtier than he had supposed. But he did not lose heart, and
+remembering, from the cowherd's tales, that people who cannot pay for
+their passage must either work it out or hide themselves on board ship,
+he took the easier alternative, and got on to the first vessel which had
+a plank to the quay, and hid himself under some tarpaulin on the deck.
+
+The vessel was a collier bound for London, and she sailed with the
+morning tide.
+
+When he was found out he was not ill-treated. Indeed, the rough skipper
+offered to take him home again on his return voyage. He would have liked
+to go, but pride withheld him, and homesickness had not yet eaten into
+his very soul. Then an old sailor with one eye (but that a sly one) met
+him, and told him tales more wonderful than the cowherd's. And with him
+he shipped as cabin-boy, on a vessel bound for the other side of the
+world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great many sins bring their own punishment in this life pretty
+clearly, and sometimes pretty closely; but few more directly or more
+bitterly than rebellion against the duties, and ingratitude for the
+blessings, of home.
+
+There was no playing truant on board ship; and as to the master poor
+John Broom served now, his cruelty made the memory of the farm-bailiff a
+memory of tenderness and gentleness and indulgence. Till he was
+half-naked and half-starved, and had only short snatches of sleep in
+hard corners, it had never struck him that when one has got good food
+and clothes, and sound sleep in a kindly home, he has got more than
+many people, and enough to be thankful for.
+
+He did everything he was told now as fast as he could do it, in fear for
+his life. The one-eyed sailor had told him that the captain always took
+orphans and poor friendless lads to be his cabin-boys, and John Broom
+thought what a nice kind man he must be, and how different from the
+farm-bailiff, who thought nobody could be trustworthy unless he could
+show parents and grand-parents, and cousins to the sixth degree. But
+after they had sailed, when John Broom felt very ill, and asked the
+one-eyed sailor where he was to sleep, the one-eyed sailor pleasantly
+replied that if he hadn't brought a four-post bed in his pocket he must
+sleep where he could, for that all the other cabin-boys were sleeping in
+Davy's Locker, and couldn't be disturbed. And it was not till John Broom
+had learned ship's language that he found out that Davy's Locker meant
+the deep, and that the other cabin-boys were dead. "And as they'd nobody
+belonging to 'em, no hearts was broke," added the sailor, winking with
+his one eye.
+
+John Broom slept standing sometimes for weariness, but he did not sleep
+in Davy's Locker. Young as he was he had dauntless courage, a careless
+hopeful heart, and a tough little body; and that strong, life-giving sea
+smell bore him up instead of food, and he got to the other side of the
+world.
+
+Why he did not stay there, why he did not run away into the wilderness
+to find at least some easier death than to have his bones broken by the
+cruel captain, he often wondered afterwards. He was so much quicker and
+braver than the boys they commonly got, that the old sailor kept a sharp
+watch over him with his one eye whilst they were ashore; but one day he
+was too drunk to see out of it, and John Broom ran away.
+
+It was Christmas Day, and so hot that he could not run far, for he was
+at the other side of the world, where things are upside down, and he sat
+down by the roadside on the outskirts of the city; and as he sat, with
+his thin, brown face resting on his hands, a familiar voice beside him
+said, "Pretty Cocky!" and looking up he saw a man with several cages of
+birds. The speaker was a cockatoo of the most exquisite shades of cream
+colour, salmon and rose, and he had a rose-coloured crest. But lovely as
+he was, John Broom's eyes were on another cage, where, silent, solemn,
+and sulky, sat a big white one with sulphur-coloured trimmings and
+fierce black eyes; and he was so like Miss Betty's pet, that the poor
+child's heart bounded as if a hand had been held out to him from home.
+
+"If you let him get at you, you'll not do it a second time, mate," said
+the man. "He's the nastiest tempered beast I ever saw. I'd have wrung
+his neck long ago if he hadn't such a fine coat."
+
+But John Broom said, as he had said before, "I like him and he'll like
+me."
+
+When the cockatoo bit his finger to the bone, the man roared with
+laughter, but John Broom did not draw his hand away. He kept it still
+at the bird's beak, and with the other he gently scratched him under the
+crest and wings. And when the white cockatoo began to stretch out his
+eight long toes, as cats clutch with their claws from pleasure, and
+chuckled, and sighed, and bit softly without hurting, and laid his head
+against the bars till his snow and sulphur feathers touched John Broom's
+black locks, the man was amazed.
+
+"Look here, mate," said he, "you've the trick with birds, and no
+mistake. I'll sell you this one cheap, and you'll be able to sell him
+dear."
+
+"I've not a penny in the world," said John Broom.
+
+"You do look cleaned out too," said the man, scanning him from head to
+foot. "I tell you what, you shall come with me a bit and tame the birds,
+and I'll find you something to eat."
+
+Ten minutes before, John Broom would have jumped at this offer, but now
+he refused it. The sight of the cockatoo had brought back the fever of
+home-sickness in all its fierceness. He couldn't stay out here. He would
+dare anything, do anything, to see the hills about Lingborough once more
+before him died; and even if he did not live to see them, he might live
+to sleep in that part of Davy's Locker which should rock him on the
+shores of home.
+
+The man gave him a shilling for fastening a ring and chain on to the
+Cocky's ankle, and with this he got the best dinner he had eaten since
+he lost sight of the farm-bailiff's speckled hat in the mist.
+
+And then he went back to the one-eyed sailor, and shipped as cabin-boy
+again for the homeward voyage.
+
+
+
+THE HIGHLANDER.--BARRACK LIFE.--THE GREAT CURSE.--JOHN BROOM'S
+MONEY-BOX.
+
+
+When John Broom did get home he did not go to sea again. He lived from
+hand to mouth in the seaport town, and slept, as he was well accustomed
+to sleep, in holes and corners.
+
+Every day and every night, through the long months of the voyage, he had
+dreamed of begging his way barefoot to Miss Betty's door. But now he did
+not go. His life was hard, but it was not cruel. He was very idle, and
+there was plenty to see. He wandered about the country as of old. The
+ships and shipping too had a fascination for him now that the past was
+past, and here he could watch them from the shore; and, partly for shame
+and partly for pride, he could not face the idea of going back. If he
+had been taunted with being a vagrant boy before, what would be said now
+if he presented himself, a true tramp, to the farm-bailiff? Besides,
+Miss Betty and Miss Kitty could not forgive him. It was impossible!
+
+He was wandering about one day when he came to some fine high walls with
+buildings inside. There was an open gateway, at which stood a soldier
+with a musket. But a woman and some children went in, and he did not
+shoot them; so when his back was turned, and he was walking stiffly to
+where he came from, John Broom ran in through the gateway.
+
+The first man he saw was the grandest-looking man he had ever seen.
+Indeed, he looked more like a bird than a man--a big bird with a big
+black crest. He was very tall. His feet were broad and white, like the
+feathered feet of some plumy bird, his legs were bare and brown and
+hairy. He was clothed in many colours. He had fur in front, which swung
+as he walked, and silver and shining stones about him. He held his head
+very high and from it drooped great black plumes. His face looked as if
+it had been cut--roughly but artistically--out of a block of old wood,
+and his eyes were the colour of a summer sky. And John Broom felt as he
+had felt when he first saw Miss Betty's cockatoo.
+
+In repose the Highlander's eye was as clear as a cairngorm and as cold,
+but when it fell upon John Broom it took a twinkle not quite unlike the
+twinkle in the one eye of the sailor; and then, to his amazement, this
+grand creature beckoned to John Broom with a rather dirty hand.
+
+"Yes, sir," said John Broom, staring up at the splendid giant, with eyes
+of wonder.
+
+"I'm saying," said the Highlander, confidentially (and it had a pleasant
+homely sound to hear him speak like the farm-bailiff)--"I'm saying, I'm
+confined to barracks, ye ken; and I'll gi'e ye a hawpenny if ye'll get
+the bottle filled wi' whusky. Roun' yon corner ye'll see the 'Britain's
+Defenders.'"
+
+But at this moment he erected himself, his turquoise eyes looked
+straight before them, and he put his hand to his head and moved it
+slowly away again, as a young man with more swinging grandeur of colors
+and fur and plumes, and with greater glittering of gems and silver,
+passed by, a sword clattering after him.
+
+Meanwhile John Broom had been round the corner and was back again.
+
+"What for are ye stan'in' there, ye fule?" asked his new friend. "What
+for didna ye gang for the whusky?"
+
+"It's here, sir."
+
+"My certy, ye dinna let the grass grow under your feet," said the
+Highlander; and he added, "If ye want to run errands, laddie, ye can
+come back again."
+
+It was the beginning of a fresh life for John Broom. With many other
+idle or homeless boys he now haunted the barracks, and ran errands for
+the soldiers. His fleetness of foot and ready wit made him the
+favourite. Perhaps, too, his youth and his bright face and eyes pleaded
+for him, for British soldiers are a tender-hearted race.
+
+He was knocked about, but never cruelly, and he got plenty of coppers
+and broken victuals, and now and then an old cap or pair of boots, a
+world too large for him. His principal errands were to fetch liquor for
+the soldiers. In arms and pockets he would sometimes carry a dozen
+bottles at once, and fly back from the canteen or public-house without
+breaking one.
+
+Before the summer was over he was familiar with every barrack-room and
+guard-room in the place; he had food to eat and coppers to spare, and he
+shared his bits with the mongrel dogs who lived, as he did, on the
+good-nature of the garrison.
+
+It must be confessed that neatness was not among John Broom's virtues.
+He looped his rags together with bits of string, and wasted his pence or
+lost them. The soldiers standing at the bar would often give him a drink
+out of their pewter-pots. It choked him at first, and then he got used
+to it, and liked it. Some relics of Miss Betty's teachings kept him
+honest. He would not condescend to sip by the way out of the soldiers'
+jugs and bottles, as other errand-boys did, but he came to feel rather
+proud of laying his twopence on the counter, and emptying his own pot of
+beer with a grimace to the bystanders through the glass at the bottom.
+
+One day he was winking through the froth of a pint of porter at the
+canteen sergeant's daughter, who was in fits of laughing, when the
+pewter was knocked out of his grasp, and the big Highlander's hand was
+laid on his shoulder and bore him twenty or thirty yards from the place
+in one swoop.
+
+"I'll trouble ye to give me your attention," said the Highlander, when
+they came to a standstill, "and to speak the truth. Did ye ever see me
+the worse of liquor?"
+
+John Broom had several remembrances of the clearest kind to that effect,
+so he put up his arms to shield his head from the probable blow, and
+said, "Yes, M'Alister."
+
+"How often?" asked the Scotchman.
+
+"I never counted," said John Broom; "pretty often."
+
+"How many good-conduct stripes do you ken me to have lost of your ain
+knowledge?"
+
+"Three, M'Alister."
+
+"Is there a finer man than me in the regiment?" asked the Highlander,
+drawing up his head.
+
+"That there's not," said John Broom, warmly.
+
+"Our sairgent, now," drawled the Scotchman, "wad ye say he was a better
+man than me?"
+
+"Nothing like so good," said John Broom, sincerely.
+
+"And what d'ye suppose, man," said the Highlander, firing with sudden
+passion, till the light of his clear blue eyes seemed to pierce John
+Broom's very soul--"what d'ye suppose has hindered me that I'm not
+sairgent, when yon man is? What has keepit me from being an officer,
+that had served my country in twa battles when oor quartermaster hadna
+enlisted? Wha gets my money? What lost me my stripes? What loses me
+decent folks' respect and, waur than that, my ain? What gars a hand that
+can grip a broadsword tremble like a woman's? What fills the canteen and
+the kirkyard? What robs a man of health and wealth and peace? What
+ruins weans and women, and makes mair homes desolate than war? Drink,
+man, drink! The deevil of drink!"
+
+It was not till the glare in his eyes had paled that John Broom ventured
+to speak. Then he said,--
+
+"Why don't ye give it up, M'Alister?"
+
+The man rose to his full height, and laid his hand heavily on the boy's
+shoulder, and his eyes seemed to fade with that pitiful, weary look,
+which only such blue eyes show so well, "Because I _canna_" said he;
+"because, for as big as I am, I canna. But for as little as you are,
+laddie, ye can, and, Heaven help me, ye shall."
+
+That evening he called John Broom into the barrack-room where he slept.
+He was sitting on the edge of his bed, and had a little wooden money-box
+in his hands.
+
+"What money have ye, laddie?" he asked.
+
+John Broom pulled out three halfpence lately earned, and the Scotchman
+dropped them slowly into the box. Then he turned the key, and put it
+into his pocket, and gave the box to the boy.
+
+"Ye'll put what ye earn in there," said he, "I'll keep the key, and
+ye'll keep the box yoursel; and when it's opened we'll open it together,
+and lay out your savings in decent clothes for ye against the winter."
+
+At this moment some men passing to the canteen shouted, "M'Alister?" The
+Highlander did not answer, but he started to the door. Then he stood
+irresolute, and then turned and reseated himself.
+
+"Gang and bring me a bit o' tobacco," he said, giving John Broom a
+penny. And when the boy had gone he emptied his pocket of the few pence
+left, and dropped them into the box, muttering, "If he manna, I wunna."
+
+And when the tobacco came, he lit his pipe, and sat on the bench
+outside, and snarled at every one who spoke to him.
+
+
+
+OUTPOST DUTY.--THE SERGEANT'S STORY.--GRAND ROUNDS.
+
+
+It was a bitterly cold winter. The soldiers drank a great deal, and John
+Broom was constantly trotting up and down, and the box grew very heavy.
+
+Bottles were filled and refilled, in spite of greatly increased
+strictness in the discipline of the garrison, for there were rumours of
+invasion, and penalties were heavy, and sentry posts were increased, and
+the regiments were kept in readiness for action.
+
+The Highlander had not cured himself of drinking, though he had cured
+John Broom. But, like others, he was more wary just now, and had
+hitherto escaped the heavy punishments inflicted in a time of probable
+war; and John Broom watched over him with the fidelity of a sheep dog,
+and more than once had roused him with a can of cold water when he was
+all but caught by his superiors in a state of stupor, which would not
+have been credited to the frost alone.
+
+The talk of invasion had become grave, when one day a body of men were
+ordered for outpost duty, and M'Alister was among them. The officer had
+got a room for them in a farmhouse, where they sat round the fire, and
+went out by turns to act as sentries at various posts for an hour or two
+at a time.
+
+The novelty was delightful to John Broom. He hung about the farmhouse,
+and warmed himself at the soldiers' fire.
+
+In the course of the day M'Alister got him apart and whispered, "I'm
+going on duty the night at ten, laddie. It's fearsome cold, and I hav'na
+had a drop to warm me the day. If ye could ha' brought me a wee drappie
+to the corner of the three roads--it's twa miles from here I'm
+thinking--"
+
+"It's not the miles, M'Alister," said John Broom, "but you're on outpost
+duty, and--"
+
+"And you're misdoubting what may be done to ye for bringing liquor to a
+sentry on duty? Aye, aye, lad, ye do weel to be cautious," said the
+Highlander, and he turned away.
+
+But it was not the fear of consequences to himself which had made John
+Broom hesitate, and he was stung by the implication.
+
+The night was dark and very cold, and the Highlander had been pacing up
+and down his post for about half-an-hour, when his quick ear caught a
+faint sound of footsteps.
+
+"Wha goes there?" said he.
+
+"It's I, M'Alister," whispered John Broom.
+
+"Whisht, laddie," said the sentry; "are ye there after all? Did no one
+see ye?"
+
+"Not a soul; I crept by the hedges. Here's your whiskey, M'Alister; but
+oh be careful!" said the lad.
+
+The Scotchman's eyes glittered greedily at the bottle.
+
+"Never fear," said he, "I'll just rub a wee drappie on the pawms of my
+hands to keep away the frost-bite, for its awsome cold, man. Now away
+wi' ye, and take tent, laddie, keep off the other sentries."
+
+John Broom went back as carefully as he had come, and slipped in to warm
+himself by the guardroom fire.
+
+It was a good one, and the soldiers sat close round it. The officer was
+writing a letter in another room, and in a low, impressive voice, the
+sergeant was telling a story which was listened to with breathless
+attention. John Broom was fond of stories, and he listened also.
+
+It was of a friend of the sergeant's, who had been a boy with him in the
+same village at home, who had seen active service with him abroad, and
+who had slept at his post on such a night as this, from the joint
+effects of cold and drink. It was war time, and he had been tried by
+court-martial, and shot for the offence. The sergeant had been one of
+the firing party to execute his friend, and they had taken leave of each
+other as brothers, before the final parting face to face in this last
+awful scene.
+
+The man's voice was faltering, when the tale was cut short by the
+jingling of the field officer's accoutrements as he rode by to visit the
+outposts. In an instant the officer and men turned out to receive him;
+and, after the usual formalities, he rode on. The officer went back to
+his letter, and the sergeant and his men to their fireside.
+
+The opening of the doors had let in a fresh volume of cold, and one of
+the men called to John Broom to mend the fire. But he was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John Broom was fleet of foot, and there are certain moments which lift
+men beyond their natural powers, but he had set himself a hard task.
+
+As he listened to the sergeant's tale, an agonising fear smote him for
+his friend M'Alister. Was there any hope that the Highlander could keep
+himself from the whiskey? Officers were making their rounds at very
+short intervals just now, and if drink and cold overcame him at his
+post!
+
+Close upon these thoughts came the jingling of the field officer's
+sword, and the turn out of the guard. "Who goes there?"--"Rounds."--"What
+rounds?"--"Grand rounds."--"Halt, grand rounds, advance one, and give the
+counter-sign!" The familiar words struck coldly on John Broom's heart, as
+if they had been orders to a firing party, and the bandage was already
+across the Highlander's blue eyes. Would the grand rounds be challenged at
+the three roads to-night? He darted out into the snow.
+
+He flew, as the crow flies, across the fields, to where M'Alister was
+on duty. It was a much shorter distance than by the road, which was
+winding; but whether this would balance the difference between a horse's
+pace and his own was the question, and there being no time to question,
+he ran on.
+
+He kept his black head down, and ran from his shoulders. The clatter,
+clatter, jingle, jingle, on the hard road came to him through the still
+frost on a level with his left ear. It was terrible, but he held on,
+dodging under the hedges to be out of sight, and the sound lessened, and
+by-and-by, the road having wound about, he could hear it faintly, _but
+behind him_.
+
+And he reached the three roads, and M'Alister was asleep in the ditch.
+
+But when, with jingle and clatter, the field officer of the day reached
+the spot, the giant Highlander stood like a watch-tower at his post,
+with a little snow on the black plumes that drooped upon his shoulders.
+
+
+
+HOSPITAL.--"HAME."
+
+
+John Broom did not see the Highlander again for two or three days. It
+was Christmas week, and, in spite of the war panic, there was festivity
+enough in the barracks to keep the errand-boy very busy.
+
+Then came New Year's Eve--"Hogmenay," as the Scotch call it--and it was
+the Highland regiment's particular festival. Worn-out with
+whiskey-fetching and with helping to deck barrack-rooms and carrying
+pots and trestles, John Broom was having a nap in the evening, in
+company with a mongrel deer-hound, when a man shook him, and said, "I
+heard some one asking for ye an hour or two back; M'Alister wants ye."
+
+"Where is he?" said John Broom, jumping to his feet.
+
+"In hospital; he's been there a day or two. He got cold on outpost duty,
+and it's flown to his lungs, they say. Ye see he's been a hard drinker,
+has M'Alister, and I expect he's breaking up."
+
+With which very just conclusion the speaker went on into the canteen,
+and John Broom ran to the hospital.
+
+Stripped of his picturesque trappings, and with no plumes to shadow the
+hollows in his temples, M'Alister looked gaunt and feeble enough, as he
+lay in the little hospital bed, which barely held his long limbs. Such a
+wreck of giant powers of body, and noble qualities of mind as the
+drink-shops are preparing for the hospitals every day!
+
+Since the quickly-reached medical decision that he was in a rapid
+decline, and that nothing could be done for him, M'Alister had been left
+a good deal alone. His intellect (and it was no fool's intellect,) was
+quite clear, and if the long hours by himself, in which he reckoned with
+his own soul, had hastened the death-damps on his brow, they had also
+written there an expression which was new to John Broom. It was not the
+old sour look, it was a kind of noble gravity.
+
+His light-blue eyes brightened as the boy came in, and he held out his
+hand, and John Broom took it with both his, saying.
+
+"I never heard till this minute, M'Alister. Eh, I do hope you'll be
+better soon."
+
+"The Lord being merciful to me," said the Highlander. "But this warld's
+nearly past, laddie, and I was fain to see ye again. Dinna greet, man,
+for I've important business wi' ye, and I should wish your attention.
+Firstly, I'm aboot to hand ower to ye the key of your box. Tak it, and
+put it in a pocket that's no got a hole in it, if you're worth one.
+Secondly, there's a bit bag I made mysel', and it's got a trifle o'
+money in it that I'm giving and bequeathing to ye, under certain
+conditions, namely, that ye shall spend the contents of the box
+according to my last wishes and instructions, with the ultimate end of
+your ain benefit, ye'll understand."
+
+A fit of coughing here broke M'Alister's discourse; but, after drinking
+from a cup beside him, he put aside John Broom's remonstrances with a
+dignified movement of his hand, and continued,--
+
+"When a body comes of decent folks, he won't just care, maybe, to have
+their names brought up in a barrack-room. Ye never heard me say ought of
+my father or my mither?"
+
+"Never, M'Alister."
+
+"I'd a good hame," said the Highlander, with a decent pride in his tone.
+"It was a strict hame--I've no cause now, to deceive mysel', and I'm
+thinking it was a wee bit ower strict--but it was a good hame. I left
+it, man--I ran away."
+
+The glittering blue eyes turned sharply on the lad, and he went on:--
+
+"A body doesna care to turn his byeganes oot for every fool to pick at.
+Did I ever speer about your past life, and whar ye came from?"
+
+"Never, M'Alister."
+
+"But that's no to say that, if I knew manners, I didna obsairve. And
+there's been things now and again, John Broom, that's gar'd me think
+that ye've had what I had, and done as I did. Did ye rin awa', laddie?"
+
+John Broom nodded his black head, but tears choked his voice.
+
+"Man!" said the Highlander, "ane word's as gude's a thousand. Gang back!
+Gang hame! There's the bit siller here that's to tak ye, and the love
+yonder that's waiting ye. Listen to a dying man, laddie, and gang hame!"
+
+"I doubt if they'd have me," sobbed John Broom, "I gave 'em a deal of
+trouble, M'Alister."
+
+"And d'ye think, lad, that that thought has na' cursed _me_, and keepit
+me from them that loved me? Aye, lad, and till this week I never
+overcame it."
+
+"Weel may I want to save ye, bairn," added the Highlander tenderly, "for
+it was the thocht of a' ye riskit for the like of me at the three roads
+that made me consider wi' mysel' that I've aiblins been turning my back
+a' my wilfu' life on love that's bigger than a man's deservings. It's
+near done now, and it'll never lie in my poor power so much as rightly
+to thank ye. It's strange that a man should set store by a good name
+that he doesna deserve; but if any blessings of mine could bring ye
+good, they're yours, that saved an old soldier's honour, and let him die
+respectit in his regiment."
+
+"Oh, M'Alister, let me fetch one of the chaplains to write a letter to
+fetch your father," cried John Broom.
+
+"The minister's been here this morning," said the Highlander, "and I've
+tell't him mair than I've tell't you. And he's jest directed me to put
+my sinful trust in the Father of us a'. I've sinned heaviest against
+_Him_, laddie, but His love is stronger than the lave."
+
+John Broom remained by his friend, whose painful fits of coughing, and
+of gasping for breath, were varied by intervals of seeming stupor. When
+a candle had been brought in and placed near the bed, the Highlander
+roused himself and asked,--
+
+"Is there a Bible on yon table? Could ye read a bit to me, laddie?"
+
+There is little need to dwell on the bitterness of heart with which John
+Broom confessed,--
+
+"I can't read big words, M'Alister."
+
+"Did ye never go to school?" said the Scotchman.
+
+"I didn't learn," said the poor boy; "I played."
+
+"Aye, aye. Weel, ye'll learn, when ye gang hame," said the Highlander,
+in gentle tones.
+
+"I'll never get home," said John Broom, passionately. "I'll never
+forgive myself. I'll never get over it, that I couldn't read to ye when
+ye wanted me, M'Alister."
+
+"Gently, gently," said the Scotchman. "Dinna daunt yoursel' owermuch wi'
+the past, laddie. And for me--I'm not that presoomtious to think I can
+square up a misspent life as a man might compound wi's creditors. 'Gin
+HE forgi'es me, He'll forgi'e; but it's not a prayer up or a chapter
+doun that'll stan' between me and the Almighty. So dinna fret yoursel',
+but let me think while I may."
+
+And so, far into the night, the Highlander lay silent, and John Broom
+watched by him.
+
+It was just midnight when he partly raised himself, and cried,--
+
+"Whisht, laddie! do ye hear the pipes?"
+
+The dying ears must have been quick, for John Broom heard nothing; but
+in a few moments he heard the bagpipes from the officers' mess, where
+they were keeping Hogmenay. They were playing the old year out with
+"Auld lang syne," and the Highlander beat the tune out with his hand,
+and his eyes gleamed out of his rugged face in the dim light, as
+cairngorms glitter in dark tartan.
+
+There was a pause after the first verse, and he restless, and turning
+doubtfully to where John Broom sat, as if his sight were failing, he
+said, "Ye'll mind your promise, ye'll gang hame?" And after awhile he
+repeated the last word.
+
+_"Hame!"_
+
+But as he spoke there settled over his face a smile so tender and so
+full of happiness, that John Broom held his breath as he watched him. As
+the light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, it crept
+from chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone tranquil, like water
+that reflects heaven.
+
+And when it had passed it left them still open, but gems that had lost
+their ray.
+
+
+
+LUCK GOES.--AND COMES AGAIN.
+
+
+The spirit does not always falter in its faith because the flesh is
+weary with hope deferred. When week after week, month after month, and
+year after year, went by and John Broom was not found, the
+disappointment seemed to "age" the little ladies, as Thomasina phrased
+it. But yet they said to the parson, "We do not regret it."
+
+"God forbid that you should regret it," said he.
+
+And even the lawyer (whose heart was kinder than his tongue) abstained
+from taunting them with his prophecies, and said, "The force of habits
+of early education is a power as well as that of inherent tendencies. It
+is only for your sake that I regret a too romantic benevolence." And
+Miss Betty and Miss Kitty tried to put the matter quite away. But John
+Broom was very closely bound up with the life of many years past.
+Thomasina mourned him as if he had been her son, and Thomasina being an
+old and valuable servant, it is needless to say that when she was
+miserable no one in the house was permitted to be quite at ease.
+
+As to Pretty Cocky, he lived, but Miss Kitty fancied that he grew less
+pretty and drooped upon his polished perch.
+
+There were times when the parson felt almost conscience-stricken because
+he had encouraged the adoption of John Broom. Disappointments fall
+heavily upon elderly people. They may submit better than the young, but
+they do not so easily revive. The little old ladies looked greyer and
+more nervous, and the little old house looked greyer and gloomier than
+of old.
+
+Indeed there were other causes of anxiety. Times were changing, prices
+were rising, and the farm did not thrive. The lawyer said that the
+farm-bailiff neglected his duties, and that the cowherd did nothing but
+drink; but Miss Betty trembled, and said they could not part with old
+servants.
+
+The farm-bailiff had his own trouble, but he kept it to himself. No one
+knew how severely he had beaten John Broom the day before he ran away,
+but he remembered it himself with painful clearness. Harsh men are apt
+to have consciences, and his was far from easy about the lad who had
+been entrusted to his care. He could not help thinking of it when the
+day's work was over, and he had to keep filling up his evening
+whiskey-glass again and again to drown disagreeable thoughts.
+
+The whiskey answered this purpose, but it made him late in the morning:
+it complicated business on market days, not to the benefit of the farm,
+and it put him at a disadvantage in dealing with the drunken cowherd.
+
+The cowherd was completely upset by John Broom's mysterious
+disappearance, and he comforted himself as the farm-bailiff did, but to
+a larger extent. And Thomasina winked at many irregularities in
+consideration of the groans of sympathy with which he responded to her
+tears as they sat round the hearth where John Broom no longer lay.
+
+At the time that he vanished from Lingborough the gossips of the country
+side said, This comes of making pets of tramps' brats, when honest
+folk's sons may toil and moil without notice. But when it was proved
+that the tramp-boy had stolen nothing, when all search for him was vain,
+and when prosperity faded from the place season by season and year by
+year, there were old folk who whispered that the gaudily-clothed child
+Miss Betty had found under the broom-bush had something more than common
+in him, and that whoever and whatever had offended the eerie creature,
+he had taken the luck of Lingborough with him when he went away.
+
+It was early summer. The broom was shining in the hedges with uncommon
+wealth of golden blossoms. "The lanes looked for all the world as they
+did the year that poor child was found," said Thomasina, wiping her
+eyes. Annie the lass sobbed hysterically, and the cowherd found himself
+so low in spirits that after gazing dismally at the cowstalls, which had
+not been cleaned for days past, he betook himself to the ale-house to
+refresh his energies for this and other arrears of work.
+
+On returning to the farm, however, he found his hands still feeble, and
+he took a drop or two more to steady them, after which it occurred to
+him that certain new potatoes which he had had orders to dig were yet in
+the ground. The wood was not chopped for the next day's use, and he
+wondered what had become of a fork he had had in the morning and had
+laid down somewhere.
+
+So he seated himself on some straw in the corner to think about it all,
+and whilst he was thinking he fell fast asleep.
+
+By his own account many remarkable things had befallen him in the course
+of his life, including that meeting with a Black Something to which
+allusion has been made, but nothing so strange as what happened to him
+that night.
+
+When he awoke in the morning and sat up on the straw, and looked around
+him, the stable was freshly cleaned, the litter in the stalls was shaken
+and turned, and near the door was an old barrel of newly dug potatoes,
+and the fork stood by it. And when he ran to the wood house there lay
+the wood neatly chopped and piled to take away.
+
+He kept his own counsel that day and took credit for the work, but when
+on the morrow the farm-bailiff was at a loss to know who had thinned the
+turnips that were left to do in the upper field, and Annie the lass
+found the kitchen cloths she had left overnight to soak, rubbed through
+and rinsed, and laid to dry, the cowherd told his tale to Thomasina, and
+begged for a bowl of porridge and cream to set in the barn, as one might
+set a mouse-trap baited with cheese.
+
+"For," said he, "the luck of Lingborough's come back, missis. _It's Lob
+Lie-by-the-fire_"
+
+
+
+LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE.
+
+
+"It's Lob Lie-by-the-fire!"
+
+So Thomasina whispered exultingly, and Annie the lass timidly. Thomasina
+cautioned the cowherd to hold his tongue, and she said nothing to the
+little ladies on the subject. She felt certain that they would tell the
+parson, and he might not approve. The farm-bailiff knew of a farm on the
+Scotch side of the Border where a brownie had been driven away by the
+minister preaching his last Sunday's sermon over again at him, and as
+Thomasina said, "There'd been little enough luck at Lingborough lately,
+that they should wish to scare it away when it came."
+
+And yet the news leaked out gently, and was soon known all through the
+neighborhood--as a secret.
+
+"The luck of Lingborough's come back. Lob's lying by the fire!"
+
+He could be heard at his work any night, and several people had seen
+him, though this vexed Thomasina, who knew well that the good people do
+not like to be watched at their labours.
+
+The cowherd had not been able to resist peeping down through chinks in
+the floor of the loft above the barn, where he slept, and one night he
+had seen Lob fetching straw for the cowhouse. "A great rough, black
+fellow," said he, and he certainly grew bigger and rougher and blacker
+every time the cowherd told the tale.
+
+The Lubber-fiend appeared next to a boy who was loitering at a late hour
+somewhere near the little ladies' kitchen-garden, and whom he pursued
+and pelted with mud till the lad nearly lost his wits with terror. (It
+was the same boy who was put in the lock-up in the autumn for stealing
+Farmer Mangel's Siberian crabs.)
+
+For this trick, however, the rough elf atoned by leaving three pecks of
+newly-gathered fruit in the kitchen the following morning. Never had
+there been such a preserving season at Lingborough within the memory of
+Thomasina.
+
+The truth is, hobgoblins, from Puck to Will-o'-the-wisp, are apt to play
+practical jokes and knock people about whom they meet after sunset. A
+dozen tales of such were rife, and folks were more amused than amazed by
+Lob Lie-by-the-fire's next prank.
+
+There was an aged pauper who lived on the charity of the little ladies,
+and whom it was Miss Betty's practice to employ to do light weeding in
+the fields for heavy wages. This venerable person was toddling to his
+home in the gloaming with a barrow load of Miss Betty's new potatoes,
+dexterously hidden by an upper sprinkling of groundsel and hemlock, when
+the Lubber-fiend sprang out from behind an elder-bush, ran at the old
+man with his black head, and knocked him, heels uppermost, into the
+ditch. The wheelbarrow was afterwards found in Miss Betty's farmyard,
+quite empty.
+
+And when the cowherd (who had his own opinion of the aged pauper, and it
+was a very poor one) went that evening to drink Lob Lie-by-the-fire's
+health from a bottle he kept in the harness room window, he was nearly
+choked with the contents, which had turned into salt and water, as fairy
+jewels turn to withered leaves.
+
+But luck had come to Lingborough. There had not been such crops for
+twice seven years past.
+
+The lay-away hens' eggs were brought regularly to the kitchen.
+
+The ducklings were not eaten by rats.
+
+No fowls were stolen.
+
+The tub of pig-meal lasted three times as long as usual.
+
+The cart-wheels and gate-hinges were oiled by unseen fingers.
+
+The mushrooms in the croft gathered themselves and down on a dish in the
+larder.
+
+It is by small savings that a farm thrives, and Miss Betty's farm
+throve.
+
+Everybody worked with more alacrity. Annie the lass said the butter came
+in a way that made it a pleasure to churn.
+
+The neighbours knew even more than those on the spot. They said--That
+since Lob came back to Lingborough the hens laid eggs as large as
+turkeys' eggs, and the turkeys' eggs were--oh, you wouldn't believe the
+size!
+
+That the cows gave nothing but cream, and that Thomasina skimmed butter
+off it as less lucky folk skim cream from milk.
+
+That her cheeses were as rich as butter.
+
+That she sold all she made, for Lob took the fairy butter from the old
+trees in the avenue, and made it up into pats for Miss Betty's table.
+
+That if you bought Lingborough turnips, you might feed your cows on them
+all the winter and the milk would be as sweet as new-mown hay.
+
+That horses foddered on Lingborough hay would have thrice the strength
+of others, and that sheep who cropped Lingborough pastures would grow
+three times as fat.
+
+That for as good a watchdog as it was, the sheep dog never barked at
+Lob, a plain proof that he was more than human.
+
+That for all its good luck it was not safe to loiter near the place
+after dark, if you wished to keep your senses. And if you took so much
+as a fallen apple belonging to Miss Betty, you might look out for palsy
+or St. Vitus' dance, or be carried off bodily to the underground folk.
+
+Finally, that it was well all the cows gave double, for that Lob
+Lie-by-the-fire drank two gallons of the best cream every day, with
+curds, porridge, and other dainties to match. But what did that matter,
+when he had been overheard to swear that luck should not leave
+Lingborough till Miss Betty owned half the country side?
+
+
+
+MISS BETTY IS SURPRISED.
+
+
+Miss Betty and Miss Kitty having accepted a polite invitation from Mrs.
+General Dunmaw, went down to tea with that lady one fine evening in this
+eventful summer.
+
+Death had made a gap or two in the familiar circle during the last
+fourteen years, but otherwise it was quite the same, except that the
+lawyer was married and not quite so sarcastic, and that Mrs. Brown Jasey
+had brought a young niece with her dressed in the latest fashion, which
+looked quite as odd as new fashions are wont to do, and with a
+_coiffure_ "enough to frighten the French away," as her aunt told her.
+
+It was while this young lady was getting more noise out of Mrs. Dunmaw's
+red silk and rosewood piano than had been shaken out of it during the
+last thirty years, that the lawyer brought his cup of coffee to Miss
+Betty's side, and said, suavely, "I here wonderful accounts of
+Lingborough, dear Miss Betty."
+
+"I am thankful to say, sir, that the farm is doing well this year. I am
+very thankful, for the past few years have been unfavourable, and we had
+begun to face the fact that it might be necessary to sell the old place.
+And I will not deny, sir, that it would have gone far to break my heart,
+to say nothing of my sister Kitty's."
+
+"Oh, we shouldn't have let it come to that," said the lawyer, "I could
+have raised a loan--"
+
+"Sir," said Miss Betty with dignity, "if we have our own pride, I hope
+it's an honest one. Lingborough will have passed out of our family when
+it's kept up on borrowed money."
+
+"I _could_ live in lodgings," added Miss Betty, firmly, "little as I've
+been accustomed to it, but _not in debt_."
+
+"Well, well, my dear madam, we needn't talk about it now. But I'm dying
+of curiosity as to the mainstay of all this good luck."
+
+"The turnips--" began Miss Betty.
+
+"Bless my soul, Miss Betty!" cried the lawyer, "I'm not talking of
+turnips. I'm talking of Lob Lie-by-the-fire, as all the country side is
+for that matter."
+
+"The country people have plenty of tales of him," said Miss Betty, with
+some pride in the family goblin. "He used to haunt the old barns, they
+say, in my great-grandfather's time."
+
+"And now you've got him back again," said the lawyer.
+
+"Not that I know of," said Miss Betty.
+
+On which the lawyer poured into her astonished ear all the latest news
+on the subject, and if it had lost nothing before reaching his house in
+the town, it rather gained in marvels as he repeated it to Miss Betty.
+
+No wonder that the little lady was anxious to get home to question
+Thomasina, and that somewhat before the usual hour she said,--
+
+"Sister Kitty, if it's not too soon for the servant--"
+
+And the parson, threading his way to where Mrs. Dunmaw's china crape
+shawl (dyed crimson) shone in the bow window, said, "The clergy should
+keep respectable hours, madam; especially when they are as old as I am.
+Will you allow me to thank you for a very pleasant evening, and to say
+good night?"
+
+
+
+THE PARSON AND THE LUBBER-FIEND.
+
+
+"Do you think there'd be any harm in leaving it alone, sister Betty?"
+said Miss Kitty, tremulously.
+
+They had reached Lingborough, and the parson had come in with them, by
+Miss Betty's request, and Thomasina had been duly examined.
+
+"Eh, Miss Betty, why should ye chase away good luck with the minister?"
+cried she.
+
+"Sister Kitty! Thomasina!" said Miss Betty. "I would not accept good
+luck from a doubtful quarter to save Lingborough. But if It can face
+this excellent clergyman, the Being who haunted my great-grandfather's
+farm is still welcome to the old barns, and you, Thomasina, need not
+grudge It cream or curds."
+
+"You're quite right, sister Betty," said Miss Kitty. "You always are;
+but oh dear, oh dear!"--
+
+"Thomasina tells me," said Miss Betty, turning to the parson, "that on
+chilly evenings It sometimes comes and lies by the kitchen fire after
+they have gone to bed, and I can distinctly remember my grandmother
+mentioning the same thing. Thomasina has of late left the kitchen door
+on the latch for Its convenience, and as they had to sit up late for us,
+she and Annie have taken their work into the still-room to leave the
+kitchen free for Lob Lie-by-the-fire. They have not looked into the
+kitchen this evening, as such beings do not like to be watched. But they
+fancy that they heard It come in. I trust, sir, that neither in myself
+nor my sister Kitty does timidity exceed a proper feminine sensibility,
+where duty is concerned. If you will be good enough to precede us, we
+will go to meet the old friend of my great-grandfather's fortunes, and
+we leave it entirely to your valuable discretion to pursue what course
+you think proper on the occasion."
+
+"Is this the door?" said the parson, cheerfully, after knocking his head
+against black beams and just saving his legs down shallow and unexpected
+steps on his way to the kitchen--beams so unfelt and steps so familiar
+to the women that it had never struck them that the long passage was not
+the most straightforward walk a man could take--"I think you said It
+generally lies on the hearth?"
+
+The happy thought struck Thomasina that the parson might be frightened
+out of his unlucky interference.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," said she from behind. "We've heard him rolling by the
+fire, and growling like thunder to himself. They say he's an awful size,
+too, with the strength of four men, and a long tail, and eyes like coals
+of fire."
+
+But Thomasina spoke in vain, for the parson opened the door, and as they
+pressed in, the moonlight streaming through the latticed window showed
+Lob lying by the fire.
+
+"There's his tail! Ay--k!" screeched Annie the lass, and away she went,
+without drawing breath to the top garret, where she locked and bolted
+herself in, and sat her bandbox flat, and screamed for help.
+
+But it was the plumy tail of the sheep dog, who was lying there with the
+Lubber-fiend. And Lob was asleep, with his arms around the sheep dog's
+neck, and the sheep dog's head lay on his breast, and his own head
+touched the dog's.
+
+And it was a smaller head than the parson had been led to expect, and it
+had thick black hair.
+
+As the parson bent over the hearth, Thomasina took Miss Kitty round the
+waist, and Miss Betty clutched her black velvet bag till the steel beads
+ran into her hands, and they were quite prepared for an explosion, and
+sulphur, and blue lights, and thunder.
+
+And then the parson's deep round voice broke the silence, saying,--
+
+"Is that you, lad? GOD bless you, John Broom. You're welcome home!"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Some things--such as gossip--gain in the telling, but there are others
+before which words fail, though each heart knows its own power of
+sympathy. And such was the joy of the little ladies and of Thomasina at
+John Broom's return.
+
+The sheep dog had had his satisfaction out long ago, and had kept it to
+himself, but how Pretty Cocky crowed, and chuckled, and danced, and
+bowed his crest, and covered his face with his amber wings, and kicked
+his seed-pot over, and spilled his water-pot on to the Derbyshire marble
+chess-table, and screamed till the room rang again, and went on
+screaming, with Miss Kitty's pocket-handkerchief over his head to keep
+him quiet, my poor pen can but imperfectly describe.
+
+The desire to atone for the past which had led John Broom to act the
+part of one of those Good-Fellows who have, we must fear, finally
+deserted us, will be easily understood. And to a nature of his type, the
+earning of some self-respect, and of a character before others, was
+perhaps a necessary prelude to future well-doing.
+
+He did do well. He became a good scholar, as farmers were then. He
+spent as much of his passionate energies on the farm as the farm would
+absorb, and he restrained the rest. It is not cockatoos only who have
+sometimes to live and be happy in this unfinished life with one wing
+clipped.
+
+In fine weather, when the perch was put into the garden, Miss Betty was
+sometimes startled by stumbling on John Broom in the dusk, sitting on
+his heels, the unfastened chain in his hand, with his black head
+lovingly laid against Cock's white and yellow poll, talking in a low
+voice, and apparently with the sympathy of his companion; and as Miss
+Betty justly feared, of that "other side of the world," which they both
+knew, and which both at times had cravings to revisit.
+
+Even after the sobering influences of middle age had touched him, and a
+wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of home, he had (at long
+intervals) his "restless times," when his good "misses" would bring out
+a little store laid by in one of the children's socks, and would bid
+him. "Be off, and get a breath of the sea-air," but on condition that
+the sock went with him as his purse. John Broom always looked ashamed to
+go, but he came back the better, and his wife was quite easy in his
+absence with that confidence in her knowledge of the "master," which is
+so mysterious to the unmarried, and which Miss Betty looked upon as
+"want of feeling" to the end. She always dreaded that he would not
+return, and a little ruse which she adopted of giving him money to make
+bargains for foreign articles of _vertu_ with sailors, is responsible
+for many of the choicest ornaments in the Lingborough parlour.
+
+"The sock'll bring him home," said Mrs. Broom, and home he came, and
+never could say what he had been doing. Nor was the account given by
+Thomasina's cousin, who was a tide-waiter down yonder, particularly
+satisfying to the women's curiosity. He said that John Broom was always
+about; that he went aboard of all the craft in the bay, and asked whence
+they came and whither they were bound. That being once taunted to do it,
+he went up the rigging of a big vessel like a cat, and came down it
+looking like a fool. That as a rule, he gossipped and shared his tobacco
+with sailors and fishermen, and brought out the sock much oftener than
+was prudent for the benefit of the ragged boys who haunt the quay.
+
+He had two other weaknesses, which a faithful biographer must chronicle.
+
+A regiment on the march would draw him from the plough-tail itself, and
+"With daddy to see the pretty soldiers" was held to excuse any of Mrs.
+Broom's children from household duties.
+
+The other shall be described in the graphic language of that acute
+observer the farm-bailiff.
+
+"If there cam' an Irish beggar, wi' a stripy cloot him and a bellows
+under 's arm, and ca'd himsel' a Hielander, the lad wad gi'e him his
+silly head off his shoulders."
+
+As to the farm-bailiff, perhaps no one felt more or said less than he
+did on John Broom's return. But the tones of his voice had tender
+associations for the boy's ears as he took off his speckled hat, and
+after contemplating the inside for some moments, put it on again, and
+said,--
+
+"Aweel, lad, sae ye've cam' hame?"
+
+But he listened with quivering face when John Broom told the story of
+M'Alister, and when it was ended he rose and went out, and "took the
+pledge" against drink, and--kept it.
+
+Moved by similar enthusiasm, the cowherd took the pledge also, and if he
+didn't keep it, he certainly drank less, chiefly owing to the vigilant
+oversight of the farm-bailiff, who now exercised his natural severity
+almost exclusively in the denunciation of all liquors whatsoever, from
+the cowherd's whiskey to Thomasina's elder-flower wine.
+
+The plain cousin left his money to the little old ladies, and
+Lingborough continued to flourish.
+
+Partly perhaps because of this, it is doubtful if John Broom was ever
+looked upon by the rustics as quite "like other folk."
+
+The favourite version of his history is that he was Lob under the guise
+of a child; that he was driven away by new clothes; that he returned
+from unwillingness to see an old family go to ruin "which he had served
+for hundreds of years;" that the parson preached his last Sunday's
+sermon at him; and that, having stood that test, he took his place among
+Christian people.
+
+Whether a name invented off-hand, however plain and sensible, does not
+stick to a man as his father's does, is a question. But John Broom was
+not often called by his.
+
+With Scotch caution, the farm-bailiff seldom exceeded the safe title of
+"Man!" and the parson was apt to address him as "My dear boy" when he
+had certainly outgrown the designation.
+
+Miss Betty called him John Broom, but the people called him by the name
+he had earned.
+
+And long after his black hair lay white and thick on his head, like snow
+on the old barn roof, and when his dark eyes were dim in an honoured old
+age, the village children would point him out to each other, crying,
+"There goes Lob Lie-by-the-fire, the Luck of Lingborough!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+WILD JACK.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A series of accidents had overtaken the Newbury mail from the hour that
+it started in the fine dewy morning, till the sun went down; and as the
+twilight deepened over the landscape it was still many miles from its
+destination.
+
+The troubles began early in the day. One of the leaders cast a shoe, and
+had to be shod at the first village through which they passed. Farther
+on something went wrong with the harness, and later still a much more
+serious impediment to their progress arose--some accident happened to a
+wheel, so that the coach must needs go half-pace, in spite of the oaths
+of old Joe, the driver, whose boast it was that he had never reached
+Wancote later than midnight.
+
+But this evening old Joe's boasts were doomed to fall to the ground, for
+the coach could only crawl along, and the night was closing in fast.
+
+The guard was engaged in a somewhat mysterious occupation, an occupation
+which, though only partially visible from the interior of the coach,
+caused a faint shriek to issue therefrom.
+
+"What is he doing? What is it?" cried a woman's voice.
+
+"Nothing, madam; be easy, I entreat," was the answer from within. "There
+is nothing to alarm, but rather to reassure, in his actions--he prepares
+his pistols and looks to their priming. Zounds! one must be ready for
+all contingencies with ten miles of unfrequented road ahead of us."
+
+The mail continued on its way, becoming slower and slower, as an ominous
+creaking of the injured wheel gave token that the pace must be reduced
+to a walk.
+
+The curtain before the window was held back, and a gentleman from within
+addressed the guard.
+
+"Will the wheel hold out, think you?" he said.
+
+"It is impossible to assure your reverence that it will, and the night
+will be dark."
+
+The gentleman drew in his head with a little "Tut-tut" of consternation.
+
+There were four occupants of the coach--two ladies and two gentlemen. Of
+the ladies one was young, perhaps nineteen, and one close upon forty.
+The younger was the parson's daughter Elizabeth, otherwise Betty Ives.
+Her father, Mr. Ives, was bringing her home from Newbury, where she had
+spent the last six months with her aunt, Mrs. Primrose, seeing something
+of the gay world in the county town.
+
+The father and daughter, who sat opposite to each other, bore a strong
+resemblance to each other. In the girl's face the dark brows were more
+arched, the large blue eyes more tender, the firm mouth more sweet, and
+all tinted with the lilies and roses of a fresh country life, so
+beautifully blended on the peach-like cheeks that, even without her rare
+perfection of feature, the colouring alone would have made Betty
+beautiful.
+
+Parson Ives had been very handsome in his youth, and though worn by
+years (he was forty years older than his child), and by the grief of
+bereavement, he was yet famous for his good looks.
+
+Betty wore a short dark green riding-habit and a broad felt hat. She was
+as much at home on horseback as on foot, and seldom in the mornings wore
+a less business-like costume.
+
+The other two occupants of the coach were to ordinary eyes less
+interesting. Mistress Mary Jones was a faded woman, who had once been
+pretty, a spinster, a great friend of Betty's, and one of her father's
+parishioners. She was an excellent woman in her way, albeit somewhat
+given to terrors both real and fanciful.
+
+Her opposite neighbor was a man past the prime of life, owner and
+breeder of large herds of cattle near Wancote, a man who, after
+attending the Newbury markets, often returned home by this very coach,
+and was believed to carry large sums of money in the flap-pockets of his
+many-caped riding-coat.
+
+Mr. Barnes had a fixed mask-like countenance, his bushy eyebrows almost
+met in a wrinkle that told of thought and deep calculation. He was
+clean-shaven, and his chin was swathed in a huge neckcloth of white
+muslin; he wore his hat low on his brow.
+
+"I like not to be out so late on the high road," said he very suddenly,
+so that both Mr. Ives and Mistress Mary Jones started, and Betty, whom
+nothing ever startled, turned her great blue eyes inquiringly on him.
+
+"Why, sir?" she asked.
+
+"Why, my good young lady, because the Newbury sales are just over, and
+it is well known that the stock reared on Belford home farm has sold
+well"
+
+"Are the roads not safe then, sir?" asked Mr. Ives rather anxiously.
+
+"I do not quite say that, for it is many a long day since the coach was
+attacked between Newbury and Wancote; but rumour has been busy."
+
+"Ha!" cried Betty, sitting upright eagerly.
+
+"It is said that Wild Jack Barnstaple has been heard of in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+"Heaven help us!" shrieked Mary Jones.
+
+"Be calm, I entreat you, my dear madam, and have pity on my unfortunate
+toes! Zounds! it is torture enough to be subject to periodical gout,
+without such an infliction as the stamp of a lady's fashionable heel on
+the tender place."
+
+"But you say Wild Jack is in the neighbourhood! Oh Heaven! what will
+become of us!"
+
+Betty's blooming cheek had turned just a faint shade paler, but the
+rosy colour came rushing back, her eyes flashed.
+
+Suddenly stooping forward she said in a low voice:
+
+"Mr. Barnes, you may confide in me. Do you carry much money?"
+
+He answered in a tone of assumed ease, "Paper to the value of nearly a
+thousand pounds."
+
+"Then look you, Mr. Barnes," said Betty in her natural voice, "I have a
+proposal to make to you. Give the valuables you have to us--to Miss Mary
+Jones and to myself. Wild Jack, all say, is a gentleman--should he, by
+any unfortunate chance, be on the road to-night, he will not rob women.
+Your money will be safe."
+
+"No, no, no, no!" cried Mary. "Betty, how can you propose anything so
+impossible, so unfeminine! Are not men our natural protectors?" and she
+threw a languishing glance at the cattle-breeder. "Shall we usurp their
+rights?"
+
+"It is quite true; it is impossible," said Barnes.
+
+"You are foolish to throw away the chance," said Betty calmly.
+
+"I cannot see why you should not accept her offer," said the parson
+restlessly; he was accustomed to yield to his daughter's judgment in
+everything. "Betty is a bold girl, and she is generally in the right."
+
+"Come, yield the point, Mr. Barnes," said Betty, with a light laugh,
+holding out her hand for the pocket-book.
+
+"Remember I have no part or parcel in it," cried Mary, shrinking farther
+and farther away. "I would not for the whole world! Why, Betty," she
+whimpered, "they might even search you."
+
+"Wild Jack is a gentleman," answered the girl; then with a sudden flash
+of scorn, "but even had I not such faith in his honourable dealing, I
+should know how to take care of myself. Give me the papers, Mr. Barnes."
+
+Very unwillingly, as if he despised himself for so doing, Barnes gave
+them into her hands. The notes were smoothed and laid flat, they
+occupied the smallest space possible.
+
+Betty Ives placed the papers within the bosom of her tight-fitting
+riding-habit, and leant back as if she had done with the subject.
+
+Mr. Ives looked with anxious eyes through the window.
+
+The mail was passing along a wide fair unsheltered road, on each side
+spread away treeless tracts of country, flat and wide, over which the
+fresh cold wind blew listlessly. To the left the horizon was bounded by
+the wide expanse of the grassy Berkshire downs. They rose and fell, a
+vast undulating plain, covered with short fine herbage.
+
+It was growing very dark; the parson drew in his head, and thanked
+Heaven that the country was so fine and open, that he could even in the
+gathering gloom see far behind and before, and could perceive no
+suspicious object.
+
+"We are all right here," said Mr. Barnes, his voice becoming more and
+more dismal. "But a mile farther on, and we come to a small wood--the
+road dips down there suddenly, it is a first-rate place for an ambush."
+
+"Mercy! mercy!" cried Mary Jones in a voice half-strangled by the
+anguish of her terror.
+
+"We have yet a mile of safety," said Betty kindly "--a whole mile, Mary;
+and going at this pace, we need not prepare our terrors for another
+hour."
+
+"Heaven grant that the moon may be up," cried Barnes.
+
+"Sir," said Betty slowly, "I imagine that you carry arms?"
+
+"I am not unarmed," he answered hastily, "I have pistols and a sword."
+
+"I should have them in readiness, as I myself intend to do," said Betty,
+and she drew out a tiny silver-mounted pistol. "See, it is prepared for
+use. My father is a clergyman and must eschew firearms; Mary Jones is a
+woman--"
+
+"Aye, a true woman, a frail woman," whined the poor lady.
+
+"But," continued Betty, "the guard is armed, so are we; we have still a
+mile to go. Ha!" her voice ended abruptly. There was a crashing sound, a
+shot, a shout, a confused sense as if the whole coach were falling to
+the ground. The door was torn open. Before Betty could even raise the
+deadly little weapon she carried, it was seized from her hand--the whole
+party were dragged out of the carriage--they found themselves surrounded
+by armed men. There was a violent struggle, fighting and disorder, loud
+oaths from the coachman, appalling shrieks from Mary Jones. Some one
+opened a lantern and allowed its red glare to fall on the scared
+prisoners and on the black masks of their captors.
+
+The man who was evidently the leader of the party was holding Betty's
+two hands in one of his in a grasp which she imagined to be gentle until
+she attempted to release them, when she discovered that she might as
+easily have broken bands of steel.
+
+"Here, give me a rope, we must bind our prisoners," said this man
+suddenly. "This fair lady had all but fired one shot too many for Wild
+Jack to-night!"
+
+There was a laugh, and with dexterity, evidently gained from experience,
+the prisoners were rapidly bound.
+
+"I am grieved to incommode you thus, madam," said the leader, bowing low
+to Betty. "Our business is with that gentleman," with a slight motion of
+his hand towards the hapless Mr. Barnes. Betty bowed slightly. The light
+fell full on her tall figure, on her noble head slightly raised and
+thrown back, the nostrils dilated, the colour glowing richly in the soft
+cheek. Wild Jack, looking at her, felt a glow of enthusiasm which
+betrayed itself in his voice.
+
+"You have nothing to fear, madam," he said.
+
+"I? I fear nothing," said the girl calmly--"Wild Jack is a gentleman."
+
+The highwayman made a rapid sign to his comrades, who proceeded to throw
+themselves on to Samuel Barnes, and begin to search him from head to
+foot.
+
+A sudden fear flashed into Betty's mind. How if Wild Jack were unable to
+restrain his companions, infuriated as they would be by their failure in
+discovering the expected treasure on the person of their victim?
+
+Her cheeks paled, for one moment she turned her eyes full on the masked
+face of her captor. Masked as he was, her look thrilled him through and
+through.
+
+"You are safe," he repeated hurriedly.
+
+Something in his voice seemed to give her confidence, for she stooped
+forward and said in a low voice, "Mr. Barnstaple, I trust to your
+honour,--the money is here."
+
+And with a grand movement she laid her bound hands on her breast.
+
+Wild Jack bowed low, but he said nothing, and in spite of the bold front
+she bore, Betty's heart beat fast.
+
+The noise increased. Samuel Barnes, maddened with fright, struggled
+against his assailants furiously, but he was overmatched, a violent blow
+with the butt end of a pistol stunned him completely, and all
+resistance was over. Undaunted by their want of success the coach was
+then rifled, the mails ruthlessly thrown out into the road.
+
+One or two of the men, of whom there appeared to be five at least, now
+proposed to search the women.
+
+There was a moment's pause, during which Wild Jack tightened his grasp
+on Betty's arm. Had she shown one symptom of fear, it is possible that
+his fierce profession would have triumphed over the infatuation of her
+beauty, but the look she turned upon him was so full of confidence, such
+absolute trust in his honour, that it prevailed.
+
+He swore that he made no war upon women, and ordered back his
+disappointed followers, allowing them to divide the trumpery booty they
+had secured, of watches, trinkets, and the parson's purse, which was not
+empty.
+
+They stood back. Wild Jack spoke to them in a low tone, looking, as he
+did so, several times up at the sky as if to see how the time went; then
+advancing he opened the door of the coach, and unbinding the hands of
+the two ladies, offered to hand them in.
+
+Betty demurred. "We have duties here first," she said, pointing to the
+inanimate form of poor Samuel Barnes.
+
+"It is well then," said Wild Jack, just touching the prostrate man with
+the toe of his boot. "We will leave you now, with many apologies, madam,
+for our intrusion."
+
+The others were already in the saddle and almost out of sight.
+
+Wild Jack, who was about to mount, withdrew his foot from the stirrup
+and approached Betty once more.
+
+"Go, go!" she said. "This poor man bleeds; ah, why do you not go?"
+
+"I am gone," he answered. "But first, fair lady, in consideration of the
+booty I have resigned I demand a reward."
+
+"What can I give you?"
+
+He pointed to her hand, on one finger of which was a small gold ring in
+the form of a serpent with tiny ruby eyes.
+
+"Give me that," he said somewhat imperiously.
+
+"You are welcome," she said haughtily, and she drew the ring from her
+finger. "I would give a trinket of more value," she cried, stamping her
+little foot, "to be freed from your company now!"
+
+The words stung him.
+
+"You will remember those words, madam," he said, "some day--when this
+ring returns to your keeping."
+
+He shut the lantern, which during all this time had thrown its yellow
+light on the strange scene, mounted his horse and disappeared. The horse
+was snow white, and it passed by like a white gleam in the darkness.
+
+It was pitch dark now, and the horror of their situation was increased
+by the moans which Mr. Barnes began to utter as consciousness slowly
+returned.
+
+It was a relief to all when the familiar sound of flint and steel smote
+the ear, and the coachman awkwardly, with his bound hands, attempted to
+light the lamps of the coach. Betty's first business was to unfasten the
+ropes which bound the men hand and foot, and by degrees they were able
+to take in their exact position.
+
+One of the leaders had been shot dead, the traces had been cut, but the
+frightened horses had not strayed out of reach.
+
+Mary Jones was in a dead faint, and, in the absence of all restoratives,
+seemed likely to remain so.
+
+Mr. Barnes, his head carefully bound up by Betty and her father, was at
+last able to rise to his feet and take his place in the carriage.
+
+The dawn was already breaking, and a white light stealing over the murky
+sky, before the mail could once more get under weigh and move heavily
+forwards.
+
+Far and wide the downs stretched, silent and deserted; a bitter wind
+swept over them and stirred the mane of the dead horse, who lay a
+ghastly spectacle, his head thrown back, in a pool of his own blood.
+From afar, from whence nor eye nor tongue could tell, came a foul raven
+croaking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The village of Hendred, of which Mr. Ives was the parson, lay about two
+miles beyond Wancote, in a low valley nestling under a great wave of the
+downs. Behind the village a chalk cliff rose white and dazzling, and the
+warm red brick of the houses, the gleaming chalk, the bright tender
+green of the herbage, formed one of those sunny pictures of which
+Berkshire is full.
+
+In the centre of the village rose the little church, with its square
+grey tower, over which grew a magnificent creeper with crimson leaves
+glowing with a wondrous richness of colour.
+
+A stone's throw back from the road, in a high-walled garden, stood the
+parsonage. The garden was rich with orchard trees and wall fruit, and
+boasted in particular one golden plum that was the parson's boast and
+pride. He had imported rich soil from the valleys, and in each corner of
+the garden gathered little hills of leaf-mould. Mr. Ives was a notable
+gardener.
+
+Those who would see Betty Ives at her best should see her at home--at
+least, so said young Mr. Robins, the rich yeoman's son, who sighed in
+vain for her good graces. He was a domestic man, much given to
+superintending himself, duties which were looked upon as women's
+gear--"A womanish man," said the women.
+
+On the other hand young Thornton, eldest son of Squire Thornton of
+Thornton Beeches, in the neighbourhood of Wancote, gave out that to see
+Mistress Betty at her best, was to see her in the hunting-field, for she
+rode like a bird, and was bright and ready as a pike-staff! There was a
+confusion of metaphor, but words always failed the young fellow when he
+spoke of the lady who had already three times refused to be his wife.
+
+Then Dr. Glebe, the good doctor of Wancote, in a grey bag-wig and
+hunting-boots, would take a whole handful of snuff, while he swore that
+Mistress Betty was only at her best by a sick-bed.
+
+The parson laughed, and exclaimed with a tear in his eye that such a
+woman as his daughter was always at her best in whatever she put her
+hand to do; and the old groom Isaac assented with a chuckle, vowing that
+his young lady was good all round.
+
+The autumn was beginning, and the crimson creepers on church and wall
+were at the height of their glow. Betty Ives was strolling in the
+parsonage garden gathering plums from the wall.
+
+The garden-door was on the latch, it needed but to raise it, and
+Mistress Mary Jones walked in. Betty went eagerly forward to meet her
+with out-stretched hands. No welcome could be more cordial than that
+which Betty Ives gave to her friends.
+
+"I am so glad to see you, Mary? and are you well? Have you lost your
+headache?"
+
+Miss Mary sank into a garden-seat and sighed, still retaining the hand
+of her friend.
+
+"I am better, sweet Bet," she said; "but my nerves will not recover the
+shock for years! No, no! do not shake your head and smile; if you had
+the crawlings up the back that I experience, and the creepings down the
+spine, and the shaking of knees, the twittering of the lips, and
+quivering of the eyelids--"
+
+"Enough, enough!" cried Betty. "Thank Heaven, I am not tormented thus!
+My dear Mary, how can you survive such a multitude of ailments?"
+
+"I have survived worse!" she answered, shuddering. "I survived the shock
+itself."
+
+"Were you very much frightened?" asked Betty in a tone of interest.
+
+"Frightened! I was terrified. I have not nerve like yours. The dark, the
+shot! the dark faces, the loud voices, the ... ah!"
+
+Seeing Mary's chest beginning to heave, Betty thought it high time to
+change the subject. "We will not recall it," she said hastily. "Let us
+think on more agreeable topics. My father rode into Wancote this
+morning, to stroll about the marketplace and hear the news."
+
+"And why did you not go?"
+
+"Because," answered Betty, "I have been making preserves the livelong
+day. Up at six this morning, for Dame Martha told me that, owing to my
+putting it off so long, the fruit was beginning to rot, so there was no
+time to lose."
+
+"I leave preserving to my woman," said Mary. "The hanging over the fire
+is ruin to the finest skin."
+
+"Yes, my face is scorched and heated," answered Betty, turning a cheek
+like a peach to her friend. "But after all, to so weather-beaten a maid
+as myself, up and out in all seasons, a scorched cheek, more or less,
+signifies not; and Dame Martha works hard."
+
+"And had your father any news from Wancote?"
+
+"Yes, news indeed--Belton has been taken!"
+
+"Taken?"
+
+"Hired or purchased by a gentleman of the name of Johnstone, whose
+arrival is expected hourly."
+
+"This is news indeed! None but a rich man could have paid the price
+asked."
+
+"His horses have arrived," went on Betty. "Only four of them as yet, but
+each one of the four of surpassing beauty. One of them, Mr. Barnes told
+my father, looked worth a king's ransom."
+
+"May the owner be worthy of his cattle," said Mary Jones. "And were
+there no coach-horses, no carriages? No symptoms of a lady to dispense
+the hospitalities of Belton?"
+
+"Mr. Johnstone is said to be unmarried," answered Betty gravely. "I am
+sorry for it, a new neighbour would have been an agreeable addition to
+our society."
+
+There was a click of the garden-gate, then a smart rap, as if by the
+knob of a hunting-whip.
+
+"Someone is at the gate," said Miss Mary with curiosity.
+
+"Yes," answered Betty, "and I must needs answer it myself, for the bell
+is broken, as doubtless our visitor has discovered, and he may knock
+till doomsday ere the sound reach the ears of Dame Martha or Isaac, both
+of whom are engaged in quarrelling in the kitchen. So so! how impatient
+it is!"
+
+For another succession of knocks fell on the panel.
+
+"I entreat you, do not open the door yourself, Betty," cried Mary in a
+tone of alarm. "Who knows who may be there?"
+
+"Certainly not Wild Jack," answered Betty smiling, and disengaging
+herself from her friend's arm she went forward and opened the gate.
+
+"Does Mr. Ives live here?" asked a loud, clear voice, which, however,
+suddenly changed in tone when the opening door disclosed the radiant
+vision of the parson's lovely daughter.
+
+A feathered hat was doffed, a gentleman sprang from his horse and,
+bowing low, asked if he had the honour of addressing one of the family
+of Mr. Ives.
+
+"His only daughter, sir," answered Betty courteously. "If you wish to
+see my father, I will beg you to come in and wait, as he will be in
+shortly," Mary Jones advanced, her eyes took in at a glance the whole
+distinguished appearance of the visitor, from the fine cut of his suit
+of claret-coloured cloth, to the well-shaped boot with shining spurs,
+and she gave a little sign of approval.
+
+Betty summoned old Isaac and bade him take charge of the horse, and
+then led the way into the garden.
+
+"We are primitive folk here," she said. "But I find most people prefer
+our garden-seats to entering the house."
+
+Mary was somewhat scandalised, she thought these easy out-door seats a
+breach of etiquette in themselves, but she could make no remonstrance
+beyond a little tweak at her friend's sleeve.
+
+Betty sat down and, inviting her visitor to do likewise, she said:
+
+"In my character as mistress of the house, I would wish to introduce
+you, sir, to my friend Mistress Mary Jones, of Elm Cottage close by, but
+have not the honour of being acquainted actually with your name, albeit
+I have conjectured."
+
+"My name is John Johnstone, madam," he replied. "I have but now become
+the possessor of Belton, near Wancote."
+
+"Our new neighbour," cried Mary.
+
+"Yes, I claim that honour," continued Mr. Johnstone.
+
+"We are vastly pleased to make your acquaintance," said Mary, thinking
+with some pride that she could boast to her friends of already knowing
+the newcomer.
+
+Mr. Johnstone acknowledged the compliment courteously, but he never took
+his eyes off his young hostess, who appeared in them a miracle of grace
+and beauty.
+
+With the skill of a man of the world, he drew her into animated
+conversation, gathering from her information respecting the country
+round, the different meets of the hounds, the neighbours, the
+tradespeople, the horses. Time slipped away almost unperceived, and
+neither lady knew how it had sped, when Mr. Ives, mounted on his
+handsome bay cob, rode up to the door.
+
+Mr. Ives beheld with some surprise his daughter and her friend in full
+converse with a stranger.
+
+The scene was worthy of a Watteau's brush--the sun just sinking behind
+the orchard trees gilding the edge of each leaf, shone on the dark red
+of John Johnstone's dress, warmed the sombre hue of fair Betty's lincoln
+green, and played on the blue and primrose of Mistress Mary's
+flower-like costume. It was a fair picture, and no eye could rest on a
+goodlier couple than the tall lithe young man, and the noble maiden.
+
+"It was courteous of him to pay us one of the first, nay, _the_ first of
+his neighbourly visits," said the good parson, exchanging his tie-wig
+for a comfortable flannel night-cap, when he was once more alone with
+his daughter.
+
+"Next time he comes I will reward him with some of our golden plums,"
+said Betty gaily as she fixed her white teeth in the tender skin of one
+that was lusciously ripe.
+
+Mistress Mary to her maid described the newcomer thus:
+
+"He is tall, Deborah, very tall; slight, but with shoulders of great
+breadth, and a square neck--one would say that his strength was
+herculean. His eyes are dark blue, his nose a trifle arched, brows thick
+and square, a sweet mouth--a very sweet mouth--but wondrous stern all
+the same. But his manners, Deborah, and his curling dark hair, just
+slightly dashed with powder--his manners are perfect! his hair is
+divine! Heigh-ho, Deborah!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Up from the plains a steep road rose on the downs, a road so steep, so
+dazzling white that it looked like a white thread hanging on a green
+surface.
+
+Betty Ives rode slowly up the hill, leaning slightly forward to ease her
+horse as she did so. Though November had set in, the sun was still
+powerful, and both horse and rider were a little oppressed by its heat.
+
+Some very close observer might have seen a change in the girl's face--a
+very slight change, something that deepened the expression of the lovely
+eyes, something that played softly like the shadow of a great happiness
+on the mobile lips. She was thinking, thinking deeply as she rode.
+
+Folks said that Betty Ives was very hard to win. Ruth Thornton, the
+squire's buxom daughter, would have given years of her life for one of
+the passionate appeals young Robins had made so often to Betty in vain.
+Lady Rachel Tremame had almost broken her heart when Betty, at the
+Newbury ball, had so attracted Sir Harry Clare that he had no eyes for
+other than her. Yet amid her many adorers, fair Betty, with the
+carelessness of inexperience, passed unpitying and fancy free.
+
+But now times were changed: fair Betty's heart was given away.
+
+Yet John Johnstone had not found his courtship easy, it was long before
+he made any way. He wooed proudly, and she took his subjection as due to
+herself, and was not grateful for that which she deemed her right. But
+the young man loved her the better for this, for he was one of those who
+value most that which is hardest to gain.
+
+Betty with her rein on her horse's neck was thinking, wondering how it
+was that John Johnstone was always present to her mind, that her eyes
+sought him in the hunting-field, that those evenings were dull and
+lonely on which he did not come in for a chat with her father before
+supper-time, and all the world fell flat, stale and unprofitable, during
+various short absences of his, when he would disappear for three days
+together and none knew whither he went.
+
+Betty's horse had mounted the white hill at last, and now scoured
+swiftly away over the springy turf on the wide downs.
+
+For miles she passed no human habitation, then Betty reached her
+destination.
+
+Low in a hollow dip of the green grass sea nestled a small cottage. No
+tree or bush within miles, the unbroken winds tore round it, the snow
+often banked up against it; but the owner, one of Mr. Ives' pensioners,
+appeared to care little for wind or weather.
+
+As Betty rode up, she sent her clear ringing voice before her:
+
+"Rachel! Rachel Ray!"
+
+Then paused suddenly, for fastened by the bridle to a low post close to
+the cottage door, she perceived a fine bay horse that she knew well. She
+drew rein, swiftly debating within herself whether she should go on, or
+draw back, then shaking back her proud little head she rode forward.
+
+Betty feared nothing on earth; should she be scared by the odd feeling
+in her heart that made it beat so fast and loud? A thousand times no.
+
+Before she had reached the cottage, the door opened, and a small troop
+of ragged children tumbled out to meet her, children with black elfin
+locks, and eyes gleaming like live coals, showing wild gipsy blood.
+
+Betty leapt from her horse, and called the eldest boy to her side.
+
+"Here, Reuben," she said, "I will give you a silver penny if you hold
+Conrad steadily, and like a good boy, while I visit your grandmother."
+She opened the door with a slight knock and went in. An odd sight met
+her eyes.
+
+By the table stood the vigorous figure of old Rachel Ray, handsome yet,
+with the dark gipsy characteristics of her grandchildren--before her
+the tall fine figure of John Johnstone in full hunting scarlet, just
+stooping in the act of giving her a kiss.
+
+The old woman started, and pushed him aside when she saw Betty come in.
+She advanced to meet her visitor, who stood during the space of a minute
+without advancing, so great was her astonishment.
+
+"You are surprised to see an old woman kiss her nursling," cried old
+Rachel. "But it would be odd if he did not, bless his brave heart!"
+
+"Not surprised at his kissing you, Dame Rachel," said Betty, a little
+less steadily than usual. "But I did not know that you were acquainted,
+I thought Mr. Johnstone was a stranger to this part of the world."
+
+The old woman turned her eyes on the young man, eyes brimming with
+burning tears, and with a look of entreaty in them.
+
+John Johnstone gave a little impatient stamp of the foot.
+
+It seemed to Betty watching them, that thus he gave a mute answer to
+some mute question or entreaty made.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, my pretty lady," said Rachel drawing forward and
+dusting a chair. "You are welcome as flowers in May, or as the first
+swallow that heralds the spring. Are you well, my bonnie dear? and the
+good gentleman your father?"
+
+"We are all well, dame. I am ashamed not to have been to see you for so
+long, but I am glad that you have had other visitors," and she glanced
+at Mr. Johnstone.
+
+"We are old friends," he said with a smile of rare sweetness. "One of my
+most faithful servants and friends was my foster-brother Harry Ray,
+Rachel's eldest son."
+
+"Aye, aye, was!" cried the woman, her voice rising to a kind of wail."
+We speak of Hal Ray in the past now."
+
+Johnstone bit his lip, and a bitter frown contracted his brow.
+
+"Alas, is he dead, dame?" asked Betty tenderly.
+
+"Aye, dear heart, dead, and his bones have no grave, and happen his
+spirit no rest."
+
+"This is terrible," said Betty with a shiver.
+
+Mr. Johnstone moved restlessly to the window, and busied himself with
+his sword-knot.
+
+"I have often told you, good mother," he said, and his voice had in it
+an odd mixture of grief and irritation, "that the less we dwell on these
+things the better. Mistress Betty," he went on hurriedly, "Harry Ray
+when he left my service, joined his fortunes with Wild Jack Barnstaple.
+He had ill-luck, poor lad, he was taken and ... and hanged."
+
+His mother uttered a shuddering cry.
+
+"And by the road he must hang," she cried, "till the earth and the wild
+winds have done their worst, and never a one to scare the wild birds
+from the flesh of my boy!"
+
+"Dear dame," said Betty earnestly, "the soul recks little of its earthly
+tenement."
+
+"God rest his soul, he was a good fellow and brave," said Johnstone
+earnestly.
+
+"I also have seen Wild Jack," said Betty, willing to turn the poor woman
+from her troubles.
+
+"Seen him! seen Wild Jack?" cried she.
+
+"Aye, seen him and been his prisoner; and say who will to the contrary,
+I have reason to maintain that he is a true gentleman."
+
+"Is it so?" said Mr. Johnstone, smiling. "A cut-throat, a robber, a
+highwayman, a true gentleman?"
+
+Betty gave him an indignant glance. "I speak of him as I found him," she
+said. "And we of the country have always known how to distinguish
+between common malefactors and the gentlemen of the road."
+
+"So, so!" answered Johnstone, still smiling. "And yet both end too often
+on Tyburn Hill."
+
+Betty turned pale and shivered. It seemed as if she gasped for breath;
+she turned her large eyes on her lover and said, "Ah, these matters are
+far too serious for so grim a jest."
+
+But her eyes were caught and arrested by the look which met them; so
+long, so burning with passionate admiration and love, with a strange
+expression of exaltation, almost gratitude. Betty's heart beat fast. He
+had forced her to love him, and such maidens as Betty Ives when they
+give love at last, give life itself. Dame Rachel glanced from one to
+another, then she rose quickly, and from a dark corner of the room
+produced a pack of cards. "Come, fair lady and noble gentleman," she
+said, with a touch of the professional whine in her voice. "Will you
+hear your fortunes? Cross the old gipsy's hand with silver, my pretty
+dears, and you shall hear all the good things past, present, and future,
+that may fall to your lot."
+
+"Will you try?" said John Johnstone, bending forward.
+
+The rosy colour rushed into Betty's cheek, the light shone in her eyes.
+
+"I will try," she said, half laughing.
+
+"Then all that is good we will believe, and all that is bad will cast to
+the winds as false and untrue."
+
+"Nothing can be bad in the future of faces like yours, dear hearts,"
+said Rachel, rapidly shuffling the cards.
+
+Some minutes passed, the gipsy busily and with growing discomfiture
+turning the cards, trying them in every way--the two were silent.
+
+Betty leant her head on her hand, shading her eyes from view, full of
+shyness for the first time in her bold young life. John Johnstone gazed
+on her with his soul in his eyes, and yet with a strange impatient
+interest in the business that was going on.
+
+Presently Rachel flung all the cards down with violence.
+
+"I am losing the trick of the trade," she said, in a harsh, frightened
+voice. "I am getting afraid of the cards, and when you are afraid of
+them, they master you."
+
+"Tut, tut!" said John kindly. "Do not blame yourself, good mother, if
+they show not all the gilded coaches and six, and the lovely bride and
+gay bridegroom you would fain have promised us."
+
+"The combinations turn to evil--all evil. Pah! it is the old story. I
+was afraid of the cards, and they have mastered me."
+
+"Was there no warning conveyed in these strange combinations, Dame?"
+asked Johnstone eagerly.
+
+"I deal not in warnings," said Rachel hastily.
+
+"Did I deal in warnings, the reading of the cards might prove useful to
+you both."
+
+"Come, come!" he said, "you speak in riddles. The warning. Is it the
+same for this gentle lady as for my rough self?"
+
+"Aye, aye, for both--both." She bent down, and laid a dark hand on the
+shoulder of each, and peering into one face after another, she muttered:
+
+"Beware of Wild Jack Barnstaple!"
+
+Both started. John Johnstone flushed angrily: he rose to his feet.
+
+"We have had enough of this fooling," he said. "The day is advancing,
+madam," turning to Betty. "Will you vouchsafe me the extreme pleasure of
+being your escort home?"
+
+As Betty was about to answer, she was arrested by the sound of singing
+outside, in a voice so wild, loud, and sweet, it seemed the very
+embodiment of the music of Nature.
+
+"Who is singing like that?" asked Betty. "How beautiful! and how
+marvellously sad."
+
+"It is Nora Ray, only our Nora, dear heart. Her voice is sweet as the
+lark, and she sings old songs she gathers in the villages round."
+
+"Hush, hush, listen!" cried Betty, and she stood with upraised hand
+listening.
+
+The air was in the minor key, the voice of the singer thrilled to the
+very nerves, every word came distinctly to their ears.
+
+   "Aye, Margaret loved the fair gentleman,
+      Aye, well and well-a-day,
+    And the winter clouds gather wild and fast;
+      He loved, and he galloped away.
+
+    Aye, call him! call him over the lea,
+      Thou sad forsaken lass,
+    Never more he'll come back to thee
+      Over the wild green grass.
+
+    The swallows return from over the sea,
+      Aye, well and well-a-day;
+    But lover will never come back to thee
+      Who loves and gallops away.
+
+    Aye, call him! call him over the sea,
+      The winter is coming fast;
+    He waved his hat, he bowed full low
+      And smiled as he galloped past.
+
+    Aye, call him! call him over the lea,
+      Aye, well and well-a-day;
+    Lover will never come back to thee
+      Who loves and gallops away."
+
+A strange shiver came over Betty Ives, a thrill such as she had never
+experienced before. She glanced at Dame Rachel. The old woman was
+nervously fingering the cards, and muttering to herself. Then her
+frightened eyes turned to her lover; he read some appeal in them.
+
+He held out his hand, and caught hers and pressed it for one short
+second to his lips.
+
+The door burst open, and the girl who had been singing came in; her
+black hair was all blown back, the great black eyes staring out of the
+small dark face. She drew her scanty cloak round her and laughed a
+shrill laugh.
+
+"Will you have your fortunes told, my good gentleman? my pretty lady?"
+she cried. "Cross little Nora's palm with a silver sixpence then."
+
+"No, no, we have had enough of that. Come, dear madam, we must be
+going," said Johnstone, and he conducted Betty to the place where
+Reuben, faithful to his trust, held the rein of her horse.
+
+"Do not be so long without coming to see me again, dear heart," cried
+Rachel Ray, standing outside her door.
+
+"No, no, I will come soon," answered Betty. Johnstone placed her in the
+saddle.
+
+"A good gallop over the downs will bring back the colour to your cheek,"
+he said softly. "You are so white and cold."
+
+"There is something ill-omened in all here," said Betty with a slight
+shiver.
+
+"Here, Nora," cried Johnstone, flinging her a piece of gold. "This is to
+make up for the loss of that silver sixpence."
+
+The girl laughed loud and shrilly. "Ah! ah!" she cried after them. "The
+good gentleman! the brave fellow! For this I would follow you! aye!
+follow you, my lad, from Belton to Tyburn Hill!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"It is then true, my Betty? And I am to wish you joy?" cried Mary Jones,
+with both hands outstretched.
+
+"It is true," answered Betty, her lips parted in a smile of sunshiny
+happiness. "Congratulate me, Mary; yes, wish me joy, for there is no
+happier woman to-day between the Northern and Southern seas."
+
+"I am glad to see you so happy, dear child!" cried Mary affectionately,
+but there was something pinched and starved in her voice. Ah, pity for
+those who possess the capacity for love and yet must go hungry to their
+dying day!
+
+This odd want is none the less bitter that it meets with scant sympathy
+in this hard world. In the breast of many an unsought woman lies a
+wealth of wasted treasure, treasure which no one has cared to seek, and
+yet what a treasure it might have been!
+
+Mary Jones's heart had grown somewhat starved, but it was the heart of a
+loving woman still, and when the bright sunshine of her young friend's
+happiness shed its light on her soul, it awakened an echo of old dead
+days, and swelled it with sympathy.
+
+"Sit down, sweet one," she said, drawing Betty down on the sofa beside
+her. "Tell me all about it. When did he ask you to be his wife?"
+
+"This morning, Mary, only this morning; but it seems as if years had
+passed since then."
+
+"And what says Mr. Ives? Does he welcome the stranger who takes from him
+his only child?"
+
+"Not far, Mary--but two miles away--and my father is always to live with
+me, if he so will it, so says Mr. Johnstone."
+
+"But is he pleased?" asked Mary, with a little persistence.
+
+"Yes, he is well pleased; he already loves him as a son. Mary, perhaps
+the thing that most readily won my heart was his reverence and tender
+courtesy to my father."
+
+"I can believe it, Betty. His manners are perfect. I was only making
+that same remark to Deborah this morning. Yes, I knew only one other
+whose manners could compare with your John Johnstone's, Betty--only
+one."
+
+Mary Jones sighed deeply and looked down. Betty gently pressed her hand.
+
+Hitherto she had always laughed at her friend's tender recollections;
+now, it seemed to her that her eyes were opened to her former cruelty.
+
+But Mistress Mary was too much interested to waste too much time even on
+such reflections.
+
+"You must tell me all, dear," she said. "What is his family? Has he
+parents living, brothers and sisters? Is his fortune assured?"
+
+"Ah, there is some little difficulty there," answered Betty, her face
+falling a little. "He has no parents, no friends, no kindred; he is all
+alone in the wide world. And as for his fortune, that is assured, but it
+is somehow mysteriously bound up in trusts--I know not what--he has no
+papers to show my father, he asks for perfect confidence."
+
+Mistress Mary was a prudent woman. She pursed up her lips and uttered a
+little sound expressive of discontent.
+
+"Dear Betty," she said, "it is doubtless a very good thing to be in love
+with a stranger romantically, but still--"
+
+"He is no stranger," said Betty quickly.
+
+"No, no, not to be called a stranger," cried Mary, laughing--"an old and
+valued friend of two months' standing."
+
+"The time is short," said Betty thoughtfully. "But a whole lifetime
+seems to have passed in that space! My father," she cried, as Mr. Ives
+entered the room, "here is Mistress Mary Jones."
+
+"Come to offer my warmest good wishes," said the lady, "and also all the
+assistance in my power when the important day approaches."
+
+"I shall indeed be glad and grateful for your help," said Betty
+affectionately.
+
+Mr. Ives persuaded Mary to remain for supper. The candles were brought
+in, and the room looked bright and cheery.
+
+"Stay with me and cheer my loneliness," said the parson cheerily. "The
+young folk will stroll in the garden till supper be ready. I am too old
+for dewy twilight walks, egad."
+
+Was it a new idea that flashed into Mary's mind that caused her to
+start? She glanced at Mr. Ives' comely person, at his glossy cassock,
+his smartly-buckled shoes, at the neat tie-wig which surmounted a face
+which she hastily pronounced as handsome as it ever had been.
+
+With a sweep of her fan Mistress Mary renounced her waning youth.
+
+"Stay with you!" she cried, "that will I! and you and I from the window
+will superintend our dear young ones. Alas!" she said, with a
+languishing look, "how lonely the house will seem when you are bereft of
+your daughter."
+
+Mr. Ives sighed deeply.
+
+Outside in the gloaming, Betty Ives and her young lover walked slowly
+backwards and forwards under the orchard trees.
+
+"No father, no mother, no sisters!" she said, looking up into his face.
+"No one to love, no one to love you!"
+
+"I do not know whether I am to be pitied," he answered with a light
+laugh. "My life has been one of strange vicissitudes. No, no, sweet Bet;
+I have often thanked God that no one shared my life."
+
+"But you will never do so again," she said earnestly.
+
+"Sweetheart!" he answered. "Until you have once drunk of the cup of
+happiness you know not what it is; but once tasted, you can ill spare it
+thenceforth."
+
+"Ah, some day you will tell me about this life of yours--will you not?"
+
+"Some day, my heart, when you and I are alone together in the fair woods
+of Belton--when you are my precious wife, and when days have passed on,
+and our full trust and confidence each in the other is proved and
+strengthened by time. But not now, beloved, not now."
+
+"Have you known griefs, sorrows?"
+
+"A few."
+
+"Happiness?"
+
+"Yes, and triumphs often."
+
+Betty bent down her head thoughtfully; fain would she have swept away
+the veil of mystery which surrounded her betrothed, but she would take
+no step to do so--no confidence was precious save that which was given
+unasked.
+
+The twilight gathered softly. Presently Betty turned round, and placed
+her two clasped hands on his arm, her noble head proudly raised, her
+large eyes seeking his.
+
+"Look you," she said, "there is something I would wish to say to you.
+You and I are to be man and wife--and I have accepted you--I know
+nothing of you, John--I know not whence you come, or from among what
+kinsfolk; I have taken all on trust. I love you, John, so I fear not.
+They say that perfect love casteth out fear. There can be no dark
+secret in your life, no deed or deeds that you shame to disclose to me.
+I take you with infinite faith. So tell me what you will, dear, or as
+much as you will. My heart will give you gratitude for the confidence
+you give to me, and, John, my love shall cover your silence."
+
+With a sudden impulse John Johnstone was down on his knees, he pressed
+her hands to his lips with a passion akin to worship.
+
+"My life, my love!" he cried--"my whole life shall be devoted to
+rewarding your trust in me. Oh, would to God I were more worthy of you!"
+
+Within the house Mistress Mary and Mr. Ives were very comfortable: they
+played a game of patience together (in which the former was a great
+proficient), they chatted, they waxed confidential, and not till Dame
+Martha summoned them to sup, did they perceive the lapse of time. Mr.
+Ives called from the window, and the betrothed pair came in, their eyes
+shining and dazzled by the bright light.
+
+Matters went on happily thus for many days--it seemed that the course of
+true love was to run very smooth--when one evening a little incident
+occurred that startled all.
+
+The little party of four were dining together, as they generally did.
+
+Mr. Ives was in a merry mood: he poured out a glass of good red wine,
+wine that was not often brought forth from the depth of his cellar; he
+bade John Johnstone fill up his glass, and as each gentleman raised it
+brimming to his lips, pledged "His sacred Majesty, good King George."
+
+With a sharp rattle John Johnstone's glass crashed untasted on the
+table, and the red wine splashed like blood on the white napery.
+
+The parson looked at him, and the colour forsook his cheek.
+
+Mistress Mary glanced tremulously from one to another, and half rose in
+consternation.
+
+The colour flushed high in Betty Ives' cheek. "Was this then the
+mystery?"
+
+The absent king held all her sympathies.
+
+Mr. Ives moved back his chair from the table, and said somewhat
+unsteadily:
+
+"Good sir, I am a man of peace. I love order and a strong government.
+Can I hazard my daughter by--"
+
+Now, strangely enough, Mary Jones came to the rescue.
+
+"Sirs," she said, "allow me to make a proposition; it is this, that not
+one of us breathe a word elsewhere of what has happened tonight. For
+heaven's sake say nothing, keep all dark, and on this understanding,"
+she stooped forward and daintily raised her own glass, "I also pledge
+his Majesty over the sea."
+
+But Mr. Ives did not recover his spirits that night: presentiments of
+evil haunted him, misgivings that he had not done wisely by his darling.
+When the small hours of the morning struck he still lay awake, tossing
+restlessly to and fro.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The days passed on, and now all the world lay under a pall of white
+snow. Under their dazzling mantle gleamed the dark prickly leaves of the
+holly-trees with abundance of scarlet berries. Here and there a little
+robin-redbreast hopped to and fro, chiefly gathering round the latticed
+windows of the parsonage, where morning and evening Betty fed hundreds
+of feathered pensioners.
+
+Sportsmen cursed the hard weather, the idle horses restlessly moved in
+their stalls, and the hounds dreamed dreams to pass away the long hours.
+
+Betty was never idle. She made it her pride that when she left home as a
+bride all should be found in order in her father's home. Mistress Mary
+took much interest in it herself, and joined her in mending and marking
+and sorting fine household linen that had need of much care.
+
+Betty's own clothes were in course of manufacture, not many but rich, as
+should become the Lady of Belton; above all, her wedding-gown of
+dove-coloured and silver brocade, all trimmed with strings and strings
+of orient pearls which John Johnstone had brought her one day.
+
+He gave her many jewels but she loved the pearls best, for they were his
+first gift, and destined, he said, for that day of days that was to make
+her his own forever.
+
+Almost every day as the time passed on, he brought her a new gift. Once
+it was a pretty little dog, another day a ring of large rubies.
+
+"My Betty herself is a ruby," he said, when he placed this on her hand.
+"A brave stone rich in colour, strong, unchanging, and the most precious
+of gems."
+
+Then there was nothing for it, but that she and her father should come
+to Belton to look over Betty's future home, suggest improvements, and
+choose among Mr. Johnstone's many fine horses one to be trained for his
+bride's special use. She was a bold fearless rider, looking beautiful on
+horseback, and she had scorned his proposal to buy her a gentle lady's
+horse, expressing her wish to be allowed to ride his hunters. With one
+or two exceptions John offered her the choice.
+
+It was a brilliant frosty day on which the invitation was accepted. Mr.
+Ives laughingly included Mary Jones in the little party, asserting that
+two and two would be a fairer division of company.
+
+Mary bridled and blushed and threw a tender glance at him from behind
+her fan, and the parson thought to himself that after all he was not old
+yet.
+
+In every life there is perhaps one day that stands out from the others
+as the happiest day--one day in which the cup of joy seems full to the
+brim; it is not generally a day of powerful emotions, but of unbroken
+peace, sunshine, love, sweetness and the glory of life.
+
+Such a day had dawned for fair Betty Ives. It was not so unbroken for
+her betrothed: now and then a look of care overcast his brow, and now
+and then his hands clenched themselves with a slight nervous movement.
+All through the day he paid her a courtship so tender, so deferential,
+so loving, it might have been a votary addressing his saint, a courtier
+waiting on his queen; and as the hour advanced, and the time of
+departure drew near, his attentions became yet more tender, more
+wistful.
+
+They visited the horses and the dogs, gave bread to the shy young
+gazelle that John was endeavouring to tame, to offer to his bride. Then
+he suddenly drew her aside, and while Mr. Ives and Mary Jones strolled
+onwards to the garden, he took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the
+door of a loose box which he had passed by hitherto.
+
+"Here lives my best treasure, sweetheart," he said. "You must travel
+far, and look wide, ere you meet with his match."
+
+Betty looked in, and her eyes fell on a magnificent white horse. It
+would have needed an experienced eye fully to appreciate the strength
+and symmetry of its proportions; to Betty he looked beautiful, and words
+failed to describe her admiration.
+
+"Strange that I have never chanced to see you ride him," she said. "I
+recognised at once the brown mare and the two chestnuts, and the bay
+with a white star, but this one I have never seen."
+
+"No, I never hunt Seagull," he answered thoughtfully. "I owe him my life
+not once, but over and over again."
+
+"Seagull!" exclaimed Betty. "Is not that the name of Wild Jack's famous
+white horse?"
+
+"Yes, he was named after him. I bethought myself that my Seagull was as
+noble an animal as Wild Jack's."
+
+"I am sure that he has not his equal in the wide world!" cried Betty.
+
+John Johnstone turned suddenly to her and said: "Do you still keep up
+your interest in that poor sinner Wild Jack, sweet Bet? or has it died
+away in your gentle breast?"
+
+"I shall never forget our first, and (heaven grant) our last interview,"
+she answered with a smile. "How he justified my trust in him!"
+
+"Poor Jack," said John Johnstone thoughtfully. "I knew Jack well once;
+you were right to have faith in him. He has done good service to the
+Cause. Look you, dear, he never took purse or papers on the king's
+highway, but in the king's name who is over the seas; he never injured
+woman or shot an unnecessary shot--keep your sympathy with Jack. And
+now," he said, throwing back his head with an odd look of defiance and
+pride--"now there is a reward of five hundred pounds offered for Wild
+Jack's body living or dead. They place a high price on the head of one,
+whom, to his honour, they dub traitor as well as highwayman!"
+
+"Five hundred pounds," said Betty. "Alas! the reward is tempting."
+
+"He has escaped so often from their very midst, has more than once been
+prisoner, has often baffled his swiftest pursuers. Next time Wild Jack
+is taken, his shrift will be short, I warrant."
+
+The tears rose to Betty's eyes.
+
+"God grant him a safe escape to France," she said earnestly.
+
+"It is a good and a charitable wish, sweetheart," said John somewhat
+gloomily. "But men who have lived as Wild Jack has lived, dread, exile
+as much as death."
+
+"Surely," said Betty, "that depends upon whether he is utterly
+friendless, or has any who love him."
+
+"Wild Jack is not utterly friendless," he answered with a grave sweet
+smile.
+
+"And this also is one of the mysteries," said Betty gaily. "Do not
+forget your promise, that some day you will tell me all the past history
+of your life, and also, above all, the story of your acquaintance with
+the most famous gentleman of the road."
+
+"Aye, some day," he said, closing the door of Seagull's home, and
+placing the key in his pocket.
+
+As they turned away he said suddenly: "Say nothing about my treasure in
+there, dear Bet, I beg of you, neither to your father nor to Mistress
+Mary."
+
+Betty looked up at him somewhat surprised.
+
+"Oh, it is for a trifling reason," he said--"a mere wager."
+
+So the matter faded from her mind.
+
+The elders of the little party now summoned them--the evening was
+closing, it was time to be going home.
+
+They were all to ride, Mary on a pillion behind Mr. Ives.
+
+While the horses were being saddled, Mr. Johnstone prayed them to come
+in, and they entered once more the large drawing-room, and gathered
+round a cheerfully blazing fire.
+
+It was a stately room, with handsome furniture, all arranged with stiff
+propriety, needing the trifling signs of a woman's presence to give
+grace and life to its appearance.
+
+"How different it will look when my lady reigns here," said John
+Johnstone softly. He led her away to one of the windows, and pointed out
+to her the beauties of the fair English landscape, and there unseen he
+held her hand in both his, and once pressed it to his lips. Tea came in,
+in cups of delicate old china, and home-made cakes and fresh butter.
+
+"We must have a dairy fit for your superintendence, sweet Bet," said
+John Johnstone. "See how pale is this butter, how thin this cream
+compared to what you offer me at the parsonage."
+
+The horses came round at last, Mr. Johnstone's bay mare with them; he
+would certainly accompany them home.
+
+Indeed it seemed as if this evening he could not tear himself away, he
+lingered on and on, and it grew quite dark, and the moon rose over the
+snow, and the stars shone out one by one.
+
+Supper was over, Mistress Mary long since gone home. It was nine
+o'clock--Mr. Johnstone must go. Mr. Ives sat quiet in his deep chair,
+the warmth and the comfort entered into his soul, and he slept.
+
+"Come with me to the door, sweet Bet," said John lingeringly.
+
+"Yes, even farther than that," she said, and she caught up her fur
+cloak, threw it round her, and followed him out to the garden gate. The
+crisp snow crackled pleasantly under foot.
+
+Old Isaac, who held the bay mare, left them when he had given the bridle
+into her master's hand.
+
+"They will be wishing to kiss, mayhap," he muttered to himself, "and
+I'll not stand in their way, God bless them!"
+
+John Johnstone mounted. He looked up to the sky and said, "It is later
+than I thought. I have a long ride before me to-night, sweetheart. I
+have business near Newbury. I had meant to go home and change the bay
+mare for my faithful Seagull, but it is too late."
+
+"When shall you be back?" asked Betty, who was used now to his sudden
+departures.
+
+"To-morrow--to-morrow at latest, and my first halt shall be here."
+
+"Are you armed?"
+
+He gave a laugh, and pointed to his saddle, well garnished with pistols.
+
+"They are loaded," he said. "For it might fall out that I should meet
+with Wild Jack."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said Betty with a shiver.
+
+"You are cold, sweetheart, you must go in. We must part. Oh! it is
+bitter to say farewell."
+
+"Only till to-morrow, John! Only till to-morrow!"
+
+"Only till to-morrow!" he echoed.
+
+Then he bent down, put his hand under her chin and raised her sweet
+face--the moon shone on it, on the large eyes lovingly turned to his, on
+the wondering tender look, in which joy and pain seemed strangely
+mingled.
+
+Their lips met, one long wild kiss--for the first time she heard his
+passionate words, "My own, my beloved!" Then he drew up his reins. John
+gave one glance at the moon, and noted how she mounted heaven's
+arch--then he looked back no more, but set spurs to the bay mare's
+flanks, and galloped away.
+
+Betty went home; she lay down to rest with a smile on her beautiful
+face. The happiest day must end when night falls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+When evening fell the next day, Betty lingered long at the gate.
+
+"He could not get his business done in time," she said to herself. "He
+will not come to-day."
+
+But the next day passed also, and the next, and still John Johnstone had
+not come home.
+
+On the fourth day Mr. Ives rode into Wancote to hear the news, and
+promised his daughter that he would go over to Belton, and find out from
+the servants whether they had had any news of their master, and when
+they expected him to return.
+
+Mary Jones came over to the parsonage--it was an important day, for
+Betty was to try on her wedding-gown, finished the night before.
+
+She looked very beautiful in it, the soft colour flushing on her cheek,
+her sweet eyes shining. When the little ceremony was over, Betty put her
+arm round the waist of her friend, and led her away out of earshot of
+busy Dame Martha, and the smart dressmakers.
+
+"Dear Mary!" she said, "my great wish now is to see you don just such a
+dress as this wedding-gown of mine."
+
+"Oh la! Betty, bethink you of my age," cried Mary, but tears of genuine
+emotion rose to her eyes.
+
+"Yet would I fain see you my father's wife," said Betty. She put her
+hands on her shoulders, and looked down from her greater height into her
+face.
+
+"Say yes, Mary, say yes," she said.
+
+"I must wait till the right person asks me that question," answered
+Mary, half sobbing, half laughing; but Betty persisted:
+
+"Say yes, Mary dear!"
+
+"Well then yes, if so it must be," answered Mary. "You are a good girl,
+Betty," and she kissed her warmly, and hurried away to the glass to
+rearrange her elaborate curls of hair.
+
+Mr. Ives came home full of excitement: he had heard great news in
+Wancote, the whole town was ringing with it.
+
+"What do you think has happened?" he cried as he came into the room.
+
+"Has John come home?" asked Betty eagerly.
+
+"No, child, and the servants say that they never expect him until he
+appears, he is often away like this for a few days. The news is quite
+otherwise--Wild Jack has been taken."
+
+"Ah!" cried the women in a breath, and Betty turned white as a sheet.
+
+"What will they do with him!" asked Mary.
+
+"He was taken on the king's highway, some twenty miles from here on the
+Newbury Road, on the cross roads where the steep way comes down from the
+downs. It seems that an important paper had fallen into the possession
+of some individual here, convicting many well-known gentlemen about
+Wancote of loyalty to him that is over the sea, and Sir Harry Clare was
+to carry the paper to Newbury to-night. I warrant some not very distant
+friends of ours were shaking in their shoes."
+
+"They rode four together and all well-armed; but Wild Jack was too much
+for them--he and two others attacked the party; he seized the paper
+himself, after a short encounter with young Clare, whose horse he shot
+dead. That accomplished, all made off. The paper was lost. Some say Wild
+Jack burnt it as he rode, some that he swallowed it, some that he tore
+and scattered it to the four winds of heaven. Then, when in full flight,
+his horse stumbled and fell, and the four gentlemen came up with him.
+Entangled as he was by the fallen horse, he fought and kept all at bay
+with his marvellous fencing powers till his men were far out of sight.
+Then he broke his sword across his knee, saying that never should his
+trusty weapon fall into the hands of the king's enemies. He was badly
+wounded."
+
+"Well?" cried Mary breathlessly. Betty sat down, she felt cold and
+faint.
+
+"Well, they took him that night to the nearest village, bound hand and
+foot. At first they hardly knew the value of their captive, for he was
+not riding his famous horse Seagull; had he been mounted as usual, small
+chance would they have had of capturing Wild Jack. There was a hasty
+assembly of magistrates, such as could be induced to come. I warrant
+some would have died sooner than join in what followed. They caused a
+gallows to be erected forty feet high on the king's high road, and there
+they hanged Wild Jack."
+
+"God rest his soul," said Betty. "John will be sorry indeed, as sorry as
+I am."
+
+"Yes, John always has a certain sympathy with the gentlemen of the
+road," said Mr. Ives. "But after all, order must be kept, the roads must
+be made safe. I know the government will be sorely displeased that the
+list of suspected gentlemen has been saved, I mean lost."
+
+It was too late, and all were too much excited by what had passed for
+Betty to broach the subject of marriage to her father that night, but
+she promised herself to do so early on the following morning.
+
+It was very cold, and Betty could not sleep; in vain she turned from
+side to side, in vain she drank water and paced her room, and tried all
+the devices known to the sleepless--all was fruitless; her pillow seemed
+to her on fire, and incessantly in her imagination she heard the
+galloping of horses so vividly, that she rose several times and went to
+the window; but the night was clear, and the moon bright, and all over
+the country lay one sheet of untrodden snow.
+
+She lay down once more, and about three o'clock was roused suddenly by a
+light tap, as of something which hit her window.
+
+She went to it hastily, and as she did so, another light pebble hit the
+panes. She opened the casement and looked out. Below in the garden in
+the moonlight, which was almost as light as day, she saw standing a
+slight woman's figure.
+
+The figure held up a warning hand to be silent and come down.
+
+Betty was bold and fearless, she put on her clothes hastily, and went
+down. She went into the garden at once, and looked cautiously round.
+There was no one to be seen at first.
+
+She waited in some amazement, when suddenly she felt a light touch on
+her shoulder, and looking round, saw standing beside her Nora Ray, the
+young gipsy girl, looking more wild and elf-like than usual.
+
+"Hist!" said the strange child. "I have brought you a token from one
+whom you know so well. His day is over," she cried with a wild grin,
+showing all her white teeth. "The ravens are feasting on Wild Jack's
+tender flesh to-night. See here is the token; he gave it to me at the
+foot of the gallows with his own hand."
+
+With a sob Betty took it from the girl's brown hand--her own little
+serpent-ring that he had taken from her that night that seemed so long
+ago.
+
+"It shall never again leave my finger," she said. "God rest his soul."
+
+"You will cross the poor gipsy's hand with silver, pretty lady," cried
+Nora. "He never failed to do so to poor Nora Ray, not he!"
+
+Betty quickly went into the house, gave her money, and let her out of
+the gate--the wild creature had come in over the wall--then she went
+slowly up to her room.
+
+She leant out of the open window, her brow burning in spite of the cold.
+
+Suddenly came on her ear the wild sound of Nora's singing, with its
+strange pathos like the sighing of the wind, or the cry of storm-tossed
+sea-birds.
+
+Betty clasped her hands, and sank on her knees, the sound made her
+shudder from head to foot. She stopped her ears with trembling fingers,
+but yet every word fell on them distinctly and would not be shut out.
+
+   "Aye, call him, call him over the lea,
+     Aye, well and well-a-day;
+    Lover will never come back to thee
+     Who loves and gallops away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"How pale you are this morning, my child," said Mr. Ives to his
+daughter.
+
+"It is nothing. I have had a feverish night; the story of the fate of my
+poor friend haunted me," she answered. She could not eat, the cold had
+chilled her blood, and now and then she shivered painfully.
+
+Betty sought her opportunity in spite of her bodily discomforts, and
+fondly caressing her father's hands she knelt down by his chair.
+
+"Father," she said. "Dear father, you know that very soon I am going to
+leave you, to be married to my own true love. Our wedding-day is fixed,
+but I dare say he will not be back much before then. Do you think he
+will? Oh no, probably not."
+
+"Why, child, to be sure he will! He will be back in a few days at the
+outside. Why, silly child, you will make a poor wife if you fret always
+when your husband is from home."
+
+"But I do not fret. I am perfectly satisfied. Listen, dear father: when
+I am married and gone away with my dear love, you will look round you
+and see only my empty place, no hand to hold yours, no voice to welcome
+you, no music to cheer you, no child to love you."
+
+"Betty," cried Mr. Ives with a sob, "why do you show me so dismal a
+picture? It is bad enough already."
+
+"I have a good reason, dear father," she said. "You see I am going so
+soon. I should leave you with so much lighter a heart were Mary here to
+take my place. She is kind and good, and true, and would love you
+dearly."
+
+Mr. Ives laughed a little.
+
+"Mistress Mary is somewhat old to replace my daughter," he said.
+
+"Then the more suited to be your wife."
+
+Mr. Ives rose to his feet, and paced up and down the room. Suddenly he
+stopped, and catching his daughter's hands, looked her full in the face.
+
+"Would she have me, my Bet?" he said. "I may not be too old to wed, but
+I am vastly too old to woo."
+
+"She will have you, father," answered Betty. "And you will be quite
+happy when I am gone."
+
+So all was settled, and the elderly pair pledged to each other. The
+banns were asked in church that their marriage might take place at once
+when John Johnstone should take his bride away.
+
+Days passed on, days lengthened into weeks, the wedding-day drew near,
+and the bridegroom came not.
+
+All Betty's high courage came back, the frost melted away, and the
+country was open again, and once more she rode to hounds. Her colour was
+high, her lips feverishly scarlet, her eyes large and brilliant. She
+rode with the best, and came home with the brush at her pommel.
+
+"Why do they look at me so strangely, father?" she asked. "Old Squire
+Thornton, when he welcomed my return to the hunt, held my hand a whole
+minute in his, and it was as if he were about to speak, for he swallowed
+once or twice and then turned away. And Doctor Glebe would not speak to
+me at all, and his face was set as a mask, though I saw that he was
+watching me strangely all the time. Have I changed? Am I not the same
+Betty I used to be?"
+
+"The same, only a little thinner, my darling," her father answered, and
+his eyes filled with tears.
+
+He too had grown curiously sad of late, and followed his daughter with
+wistful eyes.
+
+"Father," she said one day, "to-morrow you know is our wedding-day. John
+will come home, he must return to-night. I know that he will. I shall
+wait up till the clock strikes twelve, but if he does not come (and of
+course no one can tell how long business may detain him, can they?), one
+thing, dear father: will you take Mary to church, even though I should
+not be there, and marry her? She might wear my wedding-gown. To please
+me, father, to please me?"
+
+"Anything, anything to please you, my own child," said Mr. Ives in a
+choked voice.
+
+All day Betty wandered in the garden; they watched her wistfully, her
+head was raised, always listening--listening to every sound.
+
+The hours passed, evening came, the night fell. Betty had thrown wide
+the casement. Her father and Mary Jones, crouching over the fire, had no
+heart to speak to her, or warn her that the night was cold.
+
+A wild stormy wind swayed the branches of the apple-trees, surging and
+roaring as it rushed over the downs; the candles flickered and burned
+low, and from them dropped those strange waxen off-shoots that old women
+call winding-sheets.
+
+At last the church-bell struck twelve, slowly, awfully.
+
+Betty was listening still, her head raised, her finger on her lip.
+
+"Hush!" she said, with a strange smile. "Do you hear the white horse's
+hoofs?"
+
+They listened. Distinctly on the ear came the sound of a horse
+galloping, coming nearer and nearer, passing the door, on and on without
+pause, the sound of the hoofs growing faint and fainter till lost in the
+far distance.
+
+Betty held out her arms. "Mary!" she said. "Mary!" Her voice was a
+strange harsh whisper, out of which all tone had passed. "Mary, he
+gallops away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+After the lapse of another three days, it was determined that there
+should be no further delay of the marriage, and one morning without pomp
+or parade of any kind, Mr. Ives took his bride into Wancote, and they
+returned home man and wife.
+
+The only wedding-guest was the parson's old friend Dr. Glebe, and he
+returned with them to the parsonage because he had a few serious words
+that he wished to say there.
+
+He took Mr. Ives aside, and said abruptly, "Are you mad, Ives? Do you
+wish to lose that peerless daughter of yours? I warn you that you will
+do so, if you are not more watchful."
+
+"I would give my life for hers," answered her father sorrowfully. "And
+so would Mary, who loves her dearly, but alas! what can we do? We cannot
+bring back John Johnstone."
+
+"You must send her away at once. She must have change of air and scene.
+At once, mark you, without an hour's unnecessary delay."
+
+"You think it will do her good?"
+
+"I think it the one chance of escaping fatal mischief. See, I have a
+plan to propose. Why not send her to Newbury to her aunt? She is a
+sensible woman, and the house is full of children--they will rouse her."
+
+"I will take her myself," cried Mr. Ives.
+
+"Nay, nay, that would defeat my object. I want absolute change for her,
+change of thought, scene, companions."
+
+"But how manage it, if I may not go myself?"
+
+"Squire Thornton rides to Newbury tomorrow with Sir Harry Clare, and he
+will willingly be her protector."
+
+"They ride?"
+
+"Yes, it will do Betty good to ride, and old Isaac can follow with a
+valise full of clothes."
+
+"Tomorrow did you say?"
+
+"Tomorrow at daybreak."
+
+"It shall be done. God grant that it may do her good."
+
+The following morning, with many a tear and many a blessing Mr. Ives and
+his wife started Betty on her way.
+
+She made no resistance, passively assented to all they wished. When she
+was once more in the saddle, her spirits rose feverishly again.
+
+Sir Harry Clare, riding by her side, felt the old fascination stealing
+over him again, the fascination that had well nigh broken Lady Rachel's
+heart at Newbury last year. Squire Thornton saw her bright color, and
+heard the old lively talk as of old, and thought how that time cures all
+things, and that perhaps in the days to come, his son might have a
+chance at last.
+
+About half way on their journey the little party was joined by two
+gentlemen who reached the highway by a cross-road; they lived far from
+the Wancote neighbourhood. The one Sir James Templemore, the other Mr.
+Mat Harding.
+
+Squire Thornton was glad to meet with friends so rarely encountered;
+they had secrets together mayhap. They saluted each other cordially,
+their greeting of Sir Harry Clare was more cold.
+
+It was a gloomy windy day, and after the midday halt to bait their
+horses, the weather grew worse, a cold violent wind blew in their faces,
+now and then a driving shower of rain.
+
+"Are you tired, Mistress Betty?" asked the squire.
+
+"No, no, I enjoy the free fresh air, it gives me new life."
+
+"That is well," he said, riding on well pleased.
+
+The two cavaliers who attended Betty on each side were the new arrivals,
+both of whom appeared much struck by her exceeding beauty.
+
+Now it seemed almost as if they entered into a cloud, so dark it became,
+so blinded were they by wind and a fresh storm of cold fine rain. The
+horses grew subdued, they whinnied and held down their tails tightly. It
+was very cold.
+
+They moved into a short trot, but pulled up soon, breathless.
+
+The rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and now Betty became aware
+of some tall dark object looming in front of her, only as yet half
+visible. The wind howled past, and distinctly she heard a sort of
+clanking noise, as of chains or the rattling of something hard clanking
+together.
+
+"Let us ride on, let us ride fast." cried Squire Thornton in his loud
+hearty voice. As he spoke there was a whirr of loud wings, and a dark
+cloud of foul birds rose into the air from off that dark thing.
+
+Betty put out her hand and laid it on Sir James Templemore's arm.
+
+"What is it?" she said in a ghastly whisper.
+
+"Ah, a sad sight indeed," said he sadly. "There hangs as noble a
+gentleman as ever drew sword for the king, God bless him."
+
+"Who is it?" she asked again; the whisper came hissing forth.
+
+"Who? God rest his soul, he had many names. He was Wild Jack Barnstaple,
+alias John Johnstone of Belton, alias Daredevil Jack of the North."
+
+"For the sake of all that is sacred, hold your tongue!" shouted the
+squire, who had caught the last words.
+
+He was too late. With a wild hoarse cry that none who heard it ever
+forgot, Betty flung wide her arms, and fell back on her saddle. The
+terrified horse galloped furiously forward, throwing her from side to
+side, then violently to the ground at the foot of the gallows.
+
+In horror the gentlemen surrounded her, and raised her inanimate form
+between them.
+
+But it was long and very late before they could get her home.
+
+After long hours her body awoke to life, but her brain was gone.
+Heartbroken, mind gone, in very sooth mad, what remained for sweet Betty
+now.
+
+Travellers passing by would point to the parsonage wall, and
+sorrowfully tell her story. Some more curious than the rest would
+perhaps stop to look through the gate.
+
+A strange sight met their eyes.
+
+As beautiful as ever, with a strange fearful beauty, stood Betty, her
+hands hanging clasped before her, and she sang to herself softly,
+dreamily:
+
+   "Call him, call him over the lea,
+      Aye, well and well-a-day;
+    Lover will never come back to thee
+      Who loves and gallops away."
+
+Then she put her hands to her mouth as men do who wish that their voices
+should carry far, and called over and over again slowly, "John
+Johnstone! John Johnstone!"--the last syllable rising loud on a long
+high note.
+
+Then she would hold up her finger, and bend her head listening,
+listening, listening, till she heard the sound of the galloping hoofs
+come nearer and nearer, passing and fading away.
+
+Those who watched with her in the dark evenings in the walled garden
+swore that they also heard the sound, and their hair bristled with cold
+fear.
+
+
+
+
+
+VIRGINIA.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+"He is a very strange mixture."
+
+"I really do not think you ought to ask him to the house. An atheist, a
+man of disreputable life, a----."
+
+"Come, come, my dear, don't give him such a character, before Virginia."
+
+This fragment of dialogue takes place over a cheery breakfast table in a
+house not very far from Park Lane.
+
+The first speaker is a pleasant-looking man of between fifty and sixty,
+and his interlocutor is a rather prim lady, who appears older, but is,
+in reality, his junior by two years. They are Mr. Hamilton Hayward and
+his sister, Miss Susan.
+
+The party has a third member--the Virginia alluded to by Mr. Hayward.
+She is tall, handsome, bright-looking; evidently she possesses
+character, but with it the grace and charm of manner which prevent a
+woman of character from falling into that disagreeable being, a
+strong-minded woman.
+
+"What are Mr. Vansittart's good points?" she says, smiling at her
+uncle.
+
+"He has the kindest heart in the world," Mr. Hayward replies, warmly,
+"and he would never do a shabby thing. One of the few men who really
+practice not letting their left hand know the good their right does. He
+certainly is a looseish fish; but he does not parade his irregularities
+before the world--the world need not know anything about them if it does
+not insist on prying into his affairs. The greatest grudge women have
+against him is that he is mortally opposed to marriage, and carries on a
+crusade against it as though he were St. George, and matrimony the
+Dragon. He says if you want to make two people hate each other who would
+otherwise be disposed to love--"
+
+"Hush! my dear Hamilton," cries Miss Susan, horrified. "Pray spare us a
+repetition of Mr. Vansittart's iniquitous opinions."
+
+"I suppose," laughs Virginia, "that women don't insist on marrying him
+by force, do they?"
+
+"A great many would be very glad to have him," rejoins Mr. Hamilton, "he
+is a tremendously taking fellow."
+
+"And have you _really_ asked him to dinner?" interposes Miss Susan.
+
+"I have, indeed, my dear, and I had a good deal of difficulty in
+persuading him to come. He persisted that he went so little into
+society--into _ladies_' society."
+
+Miss Susan gave a little snort.
+
+"He has no right to go into it at all with the views he holds; and,
+pray, whom is he to take in to dinner?"
+
+"Mrs. Ashton, I thought," answers Mr. Hamilton. "I am afraid he would be
+bored with an unmarried lady."
+
+"When I was young," says Miss Susan, bridling, "married women were as
+modest and particular in their conversation as unmarried ones."
+
+"Ah!" observes her brother dryly.
+
+"Uncle," cries Virginia, "let him take me. If he is original, I shall be
+sure to like him; and as I don't intend to marry, he need not be afraid
+of my having designs on him. I shall give him a hint whilst he is eating
+his soup that I have made a vow to _coiffer Ste. Catherine_."
+
+"Virginia!" remonstrates Miss Susan; "and you know Sir Harry Hotspur is
+to take you."
+
+"No, no," cries Virginia, "he bores me to distraction. Besides,"
+laughing, "he 'goes for married women.' Let him have Mrs. Ashton, and
+give me Mr. Vansittart."
+
+Miss Susan has one virtue, which is, that she is never quite so shocked
+as she pretends to be. Moreover, Virginia always gets her way with both
+uncle and aunt. So when the evening of the dinner party arrives, Mr.
+Hayward brings Mr. Vansittart up to his niece and introduces him. Whilst
+he is uttering a few of those _banalites_ which must inevitably be the
+precursors of even the most interesting conversation between two
+strangers, Virginia is taking an inventory of him. He is tall, rather
+dark than fair; his features are well cut, and he has particularly
+expressive eyes, the color of which it takes her some time to decide
+about. At the same moment he is saying to himself: "What sort of woman
+is this, and what on earth shall I talk to her about? I hope to heaven
+she isn't a girl of the period. She doesn't look like it--still less
+like a prude. How I hate a society dinner! I suppose I shall be bored to
+death, as usual."
+
+True to her promise, Virginia apprises him, whilst he yet is
+assimilating his soup, of her vow of celibacy. He turns to look at her,
+being just a shade surprised at receiving such a confidence so early in
+their acquaintance, and then he sees the archest smile curving the
+corners of her mouth, and meets a glance from a pair of brown eyes that
+he now perceives to be beautiful.
+
+Mr. Vansittart has a quick intelligence--he understands in an instant
+the object of her remark. His eyes light up with a sudden gleam, and he
+murmurs quietly, "Thanks so much for putting me at my ease."
+
+From that moment they are perfectly at home with each other, and fall to
+animated talk. He does not air his theories about marriage, nor is
+religion discussed between them, but there are plenty of other topics,
+and they become aware of a dozen feelings and sympathies in common.
+Virginia is as bright and witty as she is modest and pure-minded; there
+is nothing in the world that Mr. Vansittart detests so much as a coarse
+or immodest _lady_. So charmed is he with Virginia, that he remains
+close to her side the whole evening, to the surprise of every one else.
+No one ever saw him devote himself to a girl before. He stays until the
+very last. As he walks away from the door, after lighting his cigar, he
+reflects to himself: "If any earthly power could induce me to marry, it
+would be a girl like that. But," resolutely, "nothing could." As
+Virginia wends her way upstairs to bed, she says to herself with a heavy
+sigh, "Why should he abuse marriage? How happy he might make some
+woman!"
+
+Virginia is the daughter of a clergyman. Father and mother are both
+dead. She has a brother in the army, and a sister married to a country
+rector. Her uncle, Mr. Hayward, has adopted her. She is clever and
+accomplished. She has both passion and imagination. Some of her ideas
+are original; she hates common-placeness, but she is also imbued with
+the attribute possessed by every charming woman, the love of
+approbation. This prevents her doing or saying anything _outre_ or
+unconventional; this makes her careful of her appearance and fond of
+fair apparel; this makes the evidence of admiration from the other sex
+exceedingly agreeable to her; this causes her to adopt a manner towards
+them that induces jealous women to call her a coquette. She has had
+several offers of marriage, but she entertains peculiar ideas about the
+strength of passion and the sympathy of thought a man and woman ought
+to feel for each other before they decide to spend a life-time together.
+She does not think a man who has a good income, and who is simply not
+repulsive or abhorrent to her, a sufficient inducement.
+
+The days wear on. Virginia does not forget Mr. Vansittart any more than
+he forgets her, but he weighs more on her heart than she does on his,
+for, happy man! he is perpetually occupied, being a barrister with a
+considerable practice, whilst she is an idle woman as the well-to-do of
+her sex mostly are. If she goes to balls or dances, she is always
+contrasting every man, with whom she talks or dances, with him; if she
+works at her embroidery, her thoughts are intent on him; if she reads, a
+hero of her own ousts the hero of the novel from her brain; if she
+sings, her voice is moved to strong pathos; her eyes become drowned by
+that strange passion which consumes her. Days and weeks pass by; and she
+does not catch a glimpse of him; does not even hear his name. She sees
+it frequently in the _Times_. One Sunday afternoon, she and her uncle
+strolling in the Park meet him. He lifts his hat, and is about to pass,
+when something that her eyes have communicated to his heart, stops him
+suddenly. He turns and joins them. It is a delicious summer afternoon:
+they take chairs under the big trees which shade this cool green spot.
+Presently a crony joins Mr. Hayward--soon the elder pair are deep in the
+_cause celebre_ of the day. Virginia and Mr. Vansittart have forgotten
+that other people exist in the world--the topics of their conversation
+are ordinary enough, but it is not from them that a subtle delight
+steals through their veins. What they heed is the language of each
+other's eyes. His say--"You fulfil my idea of perfect womanhood. I could
+love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. I
+respect you with my purest feelings; I love you with my strongest
+passions; I would to God I could shake off my doubts about marriage. But
+I _know_ that if I married you, inexorable Destiny would no longer let
+us love one another."
+
+And her eyes reiterate one little sentence, "You are my lord, my master,
+and I am your slave."
+
+It was one of the very strongest cases of love at first sight. Such
+cases are more common, however, than people affect to think.
+
+"Come home and dine with us," says Mr. Hayward, as a distant clock
+strikes seven.
+
+"I'm afraid I have not time to dress," replies Philip Vansittart; "that
+is if you dine at half past seven, as I have heard you say you do."
+
+"Never mind about dress," answers Mr. Hayward. "I won't dress either."
+
+He has no designs on his guest, but he is a good-natured gentleman, and
+he sees that these two are attracted toward each other.
+
+Miss Susan is at church. If her brother will dine at his usual hour on
+Sunday, she cannot help it, but she will not countenance him by her
+presence.
+
+Philip Vansittart thinks he has never spent such a divinely happy
+evening as this. Virginia sings to him; her voice thrills to his very
+soul. Mr. Hamilton is asleep in the next room. As for Virginia, when she
+is alone, she first smiles a happy, triumphant smile, because she knows
+he loves her, and then she bursts into a passion of tears and sobs until
+her whole frame is convulsed. If his mind is really set against
+marriage, what will become of her! She feels as though life without him
+must be one long night of despair.
+
+Philip Vansittart paces his room until the small hours, thinking of this
+charming, lovable creature, who inspires stronger, deeper sensations in
+him than he has ever felt before. He tells himself, without vanity or
+self-deception, that what he feels for her, with that difference which
+governs the loves of men and women, she feels for him--heart has gone
+out to heart, nay, they are twain halves of a perfect heart. It is but
+for him to stretch out his hand to her, and she will come. Aye! but how
+can he stretch out his hand? In the society in which they both move
+there is but one way in which she can be his--the way sanctioned by
+society, blessed by the church. Society and the church will bless and
+smile upon any union: the decrepit old man with the blooming child; the
+drunkard and adulterer with the pure young girl; the avaricious youth
+with the doting old woman. Marriage purifies, sanctifies, hallows
+sensuality, greed, any, every base motive. To love as God made you free
+to love, unfettered, and with a true heart, is a crime; to live
+together full of hatred, loathing, and revolt, is to perform a sacred
+duty once you have tied yourself up in church. This was Vansittart's
+theory. Marriage to him was only another word for satiety, weariness,
+restraint, tyranny. He had never seen what he called a happy marriage,
+though he had observed many which the world crowned with that adjective,
+and he had sworn a thousand oaths that he would never subject himself to
+that miserable awakening which inevitably follows the temporary sleep of
+mind and reason, and the short dream of passion which makes a man bind
+himself with shackles.
+
+Philip paced his room for hours, fighting the hardest battle he had ever
+fought. It was the first time he had ever been tempted to marry--tempted
+beyond endurance. And, at last, ashen pale, in the wan morning light,
+and with set teeth, he took his final oath and resolve. He would save
+himself years of wretchedness by a month's anguish; he would not go near
+her, nor see her again. He was not entirely selfish; he did not forget
+that she might, nay, would suffer, but he said, with a sigh, "It will be
+best for her as for me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month passed by: two months. Virginia grew pale, listless,
+_distraite_; her step was languid, her eye haggard. She did not know how
+to endure her life; she suffered torments day and night from an
+agonising desire to hear the voice, to meet the eyes again which had
+given light to her soul and in whose absence she felt it must needs
+perish of want. It was plain enough to her why he avoided her. He had
+seen that she loved him; he would not encourage false hopes in her
+breast. Had she not been warned, ere ever she met him, that he abjured
+marriage? She remembered, with a breaking heart, her own first playful
+words to him.
+
+Mr. Hayward saw the change in Virginia, but he put it down entirely to
+the effects of a London season--to late hours and the want of fresh air.
+Never mind! the end was near at hand, and then they would go and fill
+their lungs with mountain air and their eyes with fair scenes, and the
+roses would come back to her cheeks and lips, and the light to her eyes.
+He never for an instant connected his niece's pallor with Philip
+Vansittart. He would have ridiculed the idea of people being twice in
+each other's company, and breaking their hearts with longing afterwards.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Hayward, his sister, and Virginia, were dining at a Swiss _table
+d'hote_. Exactly opposite were two empty places. The fish had been
+served, and two gentlemen came in and took them. One was Mr. Philip
+Vansittart. At sight of him the crimson blood rushed to Virginia's
+cheeks, then ebbed away, leaving her deathly pale. For a moment she
+thought she must swoon or die from the intensity of her feelings. Philip
+was scarcely less moved, though, being a man, he was better able to
+control his agitation. When he had time to look more narrowly at
+Virginia, he saw a mighty change in her. His heart smote him; and
+yet--had he not suffered? Great heaven! had his been a bed of roses? Had
+he not agonised after her?
+
+Dinner over, the party went off into the garden. A mutual unspoken
+desire made Vansittart and Virginia steal off together to a secluded
+spot. Twilight was creeping on--the last glow of a rosy sunset was
+fading away; the strains of a delicious waltz were borne towards them.
+Vansittart felt his passion mastering him. He made a herculean effort
+over himself. He would speak. He would tell her the truth. After that
+she would forget him. They were sitting under a tree that screened them
+off from the rest of the garden. He could see well enough that she was
+trembling with nervousness; that delight, fear, expectation were blended
+in the beautiful eyes she turned towards him; and, lest suddenly he
+should yield to that mad longing to catch her to his heart, he began to
+speak hurriedly--abruptly.
+
+But Virginia scarcely hears him. Her lips are burning to ask him that
+one question, and, not heeding what he is saying, she turns and in a
+tremulous voice that vibrates to his very soul, she says:
+
+"Why have you kept away from us all this time?"
+
+Why? And Vansittart catches his breath. Then the gyves of his strong
+will give way as the withes fell from Samson.
+
+"I will tell you," he says. "I love you so horribly, that it is pain
+and anguish to me to be with you, for then I feel that when I leave you
+I am ready to die of longing and misery."
+
+"Well?" she utters in a very low voice, bending her eyes on the ground.
+It is only one little word, but it speaks such volumes! "Why should you
+leave me?" it says. "Is it not my case, too? What need you more than
+speak!"
+
+"You have heard," he goes on, not daring to look at her, "that I have
+forsworn marriage. Marriage," passionately, "kills love, and I would
+rather, ten times over, suffer what I have suffered--and God knows that
+is not a little!--than a day should come when, having known such divine
+happiness as I _should_ know were you mine, we should grow cold and
+weary; when our passions should turn to indifference, to disappointment
+and heart-burnings, and end, perhaps, in our cherishing feelings of
+vindictive spite and bitterness against each other, and in my thinking
+every woman pleasanter and fairer than you, end in your believing me to
+be the greatest brute under heaven!"
+
+"Oh!" utters Virginia, as she raises her eyes to his face with a look of
+pained wonder.
+
+"I have seen it a thousand times," he continues vehemently. "I have
+known men passionately, madly in love with women, ready to count 'the
+world well lost,' to sacrifice all the future only to call that idol of
+the moment theirs. I have seen them marry. I have watched the weariness
+that comes from security even more than from satiety. I have seen the
+links that were forged in roses become gyves of iron--tenderness and
+courtesy give place to rudeness and contempt. I never saw but two people
+perfectly happy, and they," lowering his voice, "were not married. I
+have sworn a thousand times never to court wretchedness for myself and a
+woman I loved by loading her and myself with chains. My idea has been
+this. Some day I may meet with a being who, under natural circumstances,
+she keeping her freedom and leaving me mine, I might love with all my
+heart and be faithful to until the day of my death. I would give her all
+I possessed. I would devote myself to making her happy; if she had to
+sacrifice anything for my sake, I would atone to her for it by my
+unwearying love. But," his voice mastered by emotion, "how dare I say
+such words to you? In the sphere in which you live they would be
+considered a dastardly insult--one must not dare to move one step from
+the beaten track of custom. The world would scoff at the idea that my
+love for you is more sacred and reverent than that of a man who,
+inspired by a momentary passion for a woman and desiring her, obtains
+his end by a simple and speedy means, without reflection as to the
+possible misery of both in the future. And yet," his lips quivering, his
+face growing deathly white, "I believe I could love you more dearly,
+love you longer than husband ever loved wife."
+
+Virginia sits rooted to the spot, a deadly anguish strangling her
+heart. Then, whilst the divine strains of music still flow on, she feels
+herself drawn to his heart; his lips meet hers in one long kiss that
+steals her very soul away from her. He is gone--the music has
+ceased--the night grows chill--she shivers. "The world well lost," she
+mutters to herself, and then, with listless steps, and strange,
+affrighted eyes, she drags herself up stairs to her room.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+In a charming house, surrounded by an acre of ground, turned into a
+small paradise, a house not more than two miles from Hyde Park Corner,
+live Philip Vansittart and Virginia Hayward. The neighbourhood knows
+them as Mr. and Mrs. Vansittart, and has not the very remotest
+conception that in so perfectly ordered an establishment, there is
+anything which they would designate as "odd." If anything could arouse
+suspicion in the breasts of the servants who wait upon them, and the
+tradespeople who serve them it would be the extraordinary tenderness
+subsisting between them; the excessive courtesy and consideration of Mr.
+Vansittart for Mrs. Vansittart, and the entire absence of that
+familiarity commonly seen between affectionate husbands and wives, which
+almost invariably engenders subsequent contempt.
+
+The house is furnished with exquisite taste. Mr. Vansittart is
+continually bringing home artistic treasures to add to its
+embellishment. Mrs. Vansittart has a carriage and a fine pair of horses.
+She seldom, however, drives into town except to the play, or to dine. A
+great many gentlemen of distinction and rank come to the house, who
+treat Mrs. Vansittart like a queen, and a few ladies; clever, literary
+ladies, ladies holding peculiar views--very rarely the consorts of
+distinguished and well-born men.
+
+Is Philip happy? Is Virginia happy? To this I can only reply by another
+question. Is any one Happy? They love each other with unfailing
+tenderness--they are all the world to each other--the thought of
+separation would be death to them. And yet the heart of either is gnawed
+by a secret worm. In the midst of his busy life, Philip can never forget
+that he has sacrificed the woman whom he adores from the very bottom of
+his soul, and the horrible suspicion will stab him, that he has
+sacrificed her needlessly. They are living as husband and wife, and yet
+no feeling of weariness, of satiety, comes near them--each day draws
+them nearer together; makes them find fresh points in each other to love
+and admire. Were she his wife, occupying her proper sphere in society,
+sought after, courted, admired, he with no feeling of self-reproach, she
+with no consciousness (which she must feel though she never betrays) of
+cruelty and selfishness on his part; might they not be even happier? He
+forgets to tell himself that they are happy because no tie binds
+them--nay, he says secretly in his heart that that tie is the only thing
+wanting to make their felicity perfect. Now, it is too late. The world
+knows the truth--marriage can never whitewash Virginia in society's
+eyes--no future can condone the crime of the past. He has settled every
+farthing he has in the world upon her--no mean fortune--he loads her
+with gifts--he is perpetually thinking of her pleasure and amusement,
+and yet, for ever, the load of his debt to her weighs down his soul.
+
+And Virginia? Paul is all in all to her; he is her heart, her soul, her
+conscience, and yet he cannot shield her from the fate which he has
+brought upon her. What must inevitably be the sufferings of a proud and
+pure-minded woman, who knows herself to be an object of scorn to her
+sex? How would a man, naturally honorable and high-minded, feel, if, in
+some fatal moment, he had been tempted to commit a forgery, or take an
+unfair advantage at cards, and was afterwards shunned by every man
+friend; thrust out of every club, banned utterly from the society of his
+fellows, except those with whom it would revolt him to associate? This
+is the only case that can parallel that of a woman who has lost the
+world for a man's sake; and men who have a difficulty in realizing how
+great is the sacrifice they compel or accept from a woman, would do well
+to consider this.
+
+Virginia suffered many a bitter pang when she showed herself in public
+with Philip. She quivered under the open stare, or the look askance of
+members of her sex; if she showed a brave front, it was that of the
+Spartan boy! Philip was particularly fond of the opera and the play; he
+would not have gone without her; so she accompanied him, and made no
+demur. Of course every relation and friend she had in the world shunned
+her as though she were a leper, which indeed, morally, she was in their
+eyes. She loved society; no woman was more calculated to shine in it,
+and from this she was cut off. True, they constantly entertained
+brilliant and clever men, whose conversation and company were very
+agreeable to her; but, however much a woman may like, may even prefer
+the society of men, it is a bitter thought to her that she cannot
+command that of her own sex. And, though men treated her with even a
+greater and more delicate courtesy than they would perhaps have shown
+their own women, Virginia was none the less keenly conscious of the
+moral ban under which she lay.
+
+She was the daughter of a clergyman, she had been religiously brought
+up, and she writhed under the terrible consciousness that her life was a
+sin against her God. At first she went to church, but everything she
+heard there sent the iron deeper into her soul; if there were comforting
+promises to repentant Magdalens, there was nothing but wrath and
+threatening for those who continued in their sin. By-and-by she left off
+going to church. Philip was a sceptic, most of his friends were the
+same. Virginia listened to their talk, and, in time, her faith began to
+waver; she liked to think they were right, and that the Bible was a
+string of fables; it lessened her sense of criminality and remorse, but
+it cut her off forever from the only consolation a woman can know, when
+her hour of trial comes. If man could supply the place of God and
+Saviour now, whither should she fly when he was torn from her or grew
+weary of her?
+
+She was glad that she had no children--could she live to be shamed by
+them, scorned by them? And yet--how sweet it would have been to feel
+clinging arms about her neck; to hear little voices lisp the sweetest
+word on earth to a mother's ear, if only she might have been as other
+mothers--as other wives! Never, never once had she breathed or hinted a
+wish that Philip should marry her; she had a superstitious dread that
+once the chain was forged his love for her would cease--marriage could
+not now reinstate her in the world's sight--she had ceased to remember
+that her life was a crime. She had heard it said so often that marriage
+was simply an institution founded upon expediency; that all systems
+having been tried, the one that worked best was the union of a man to
+one wife, that she herself began to doubt its being a heaven-ordained
+institution, and the only state tolerated by Divine Providence. But if
+she ceased to feel herself actually a guilty and sinning woman, she was
+none the less sensitive to the world's scorn; to the bitterness of
+holding a position that society refused to tolerate or to recognize.
+
+But, after all, she knew happiness which is denied to nine-tenths of
+women, nay, to ninety-nine out of a hundred. She enjoyed the passionate,
+unfailing devotion of the man whom she adored--no harsh word ever
+crossed his lips to her--she was his first care and thought--no party of
+pleasure ever tempted him from her side--nothing but the claim of
+business could induce him to spend an evening away from her. And so the
+years passed on. It is an unalterable law of nature that passion must
+succumb before habit, but it may be succeeded by a calm content, a happy
+trustful confidence, that wears better, and is perhaps in the long run
+more satisfactory.
+
+Twelve years elapsed, and during that time Virginia enjoyed unbroken
+health. Then, one winter, she caught a severe cold, which settled on her
+lungs; her life was despaired of. No woman was ever a more tender, more
+devoted nurse than Philip. But this illness left her extremely delicate;
+she could no longer brave all weathers as formerly, nor be Philip's
+constant companion in his walks and drives. She was forbidden to go out
+at night, and they had been so in the habit of going to the play,
+especially in the winter months. At first he insisted on remaining at
+home with her, but she was too unselfish to allow him to sacrifice
+himself. There was many an evening when she was unable to leave her
+room, and when talking would bring on severe paroxysms of coughing. She
+succeeded in prevailing upon him to visit the theatre without her, and
+sometimes even to dine with a friend. After a time he got into the
+habit of going about alone, and, although he was even more tender and
+considerate than before, she felt an agonising consciousness that he
+could, after all, do without her, which he had sworn ten thousand times
+he never could. She began to have sleepless nights and passionate fits
+of crying. Nemesis was coming upon her with gigantic strides. Philip did
+not suspect that she was unhappy; he thought her illness affected her
+spirits. A great change had come over her, which he deplored. She no
+longer was the bright, amusing companion of yore.
+
+Two more years went by. Virginia was almost a confirmed invalid--she
+could only get out in fine summer weather--then her spirits rallied, and
+she was something of her old self again. Philip often spent his evenings
+away from home now; it become a habit; he did not suspect that Virginia
+suffered from his absence, but thought that it was really her wish,
+dear, unselfish soul that she was, that he should go out and be amused.
+And she, fearful of making him fancy that he felt a chain where none
+existed, was careful never to show him by word or look that she suffered
+from his absence. She tormented herself with the thought that he might
+meet any day with a young and beautiful woman who would inspire again in
+his breast the feeling that he had once known for her. And _she_
+remembered that she was free, even if he forgot it. Poor soul! she
+recognised bitterly enough now, that the only safety for a woman is in
+that bond which a man may so lightly affect to set at naught: in a
+contract like hers and Philip's, the man has all to gain, the woman all
+to lose.
+
+It was growing dusk one November afternoon, when the door of Virginia's
+drawing-room was thrown open, and Lord Harford announced. A slight blush
+suffused her cheek as she rose to receive him, and she appeared slightly
+embarrassed. Virginia was still beautiful, though no longer very young;
+she had an extremely fragile and delicate appearance, which is
+attractive to some men, notably to those who, like Lord Harford, are
+big, strong and robust.
+
+"You are not angry with me for coming, are you?" he asks almost
+diffidently, as soon as the door has closed on the servant.
+
+"No," she answers gently. Times are changed with her since the last
+occasion in which she and he stood face to face in this very room. Then
+she _was_ angry, but then she was in the full flush of health and
+beauty, and he was her would-be lover. There had been nothing to wound
+or humiliate her in his love-making; he had come loyally to offer her
+his hand and all that belonged to him, which of wealth and honor was no
+mean portion. But she had been deeply stung by a man daring to remember
+that she was free, and there was only one husband and lover in the world
+for her. Now that, as it seemed to her, beauty and love were so far
+removed from her, it was almost a pleasure to remember that she had been
+beloved.
+
+"I have passed your door a hundred times," he says, "and never been
+able to summon up courage enough to ask for you."
+
+"But to-day you were braver," she utters, looking at him with something
+of the old smile and manner.
+
+"I thought perhaps you had a good many dull hours now Vansittart is so
+much away."
+
+"How do you know that he is much away?" asks Virginia, feeling vaguely
+hurt at his words and tone.
+
+"Because I so often meet him out."
+
+"Where do you meet him?"
+
+"Oh, at different places. Chiefly at Mrs. Devereux's."
+
+Lord Harford looks full in Virginia's face, and she, who is so quick,
+cannot fail to see that his eyes and tone are intended to convey some
+meaning.
+
+"Mrs. Devereux?" she says, inquiringly. "You mean his cousin."
+
+"Yes."
+
+After this there is a pause. It is as though he wanted her to question
+him; as though she were fighting against the desire to know his meaning.
+She conquers herself by an effort.
+
+"I have been very ill since you saw me last. You find me much altered,
+do you not?"
+
+"You look delicate," he answers, "but in my eyes," lowering his voice,
+"you are as beautiful as ever."
+
+She half-smiles, half-sighs.
+
+"It is very kind of you to say that," she utters, "but I cannot deceive
+myself. I am an old woman now; if ever I had any good looks they are
+gone."
+
+"They are _not_!" cries Lord Harford staunchly. "What I say is gospel
+truth. I think your delicacy becomes you. I hate your great buxom,
+dairymaid women."
+
+Virginia smiles at his earnestness.
+
+"Ah, if you had been mine," he goes on, "I should never have wanted to
+look at another woman, young or old."
+
+Still that strange meaning in his tone. A chill terror creeps to
+Virginia's heart--she can no longer restrain herself.
+
+"What do you mean?" she says, fixing her eyes on him. "You are hinting
+at something--you want to convey something to my mind. If you are a
+man--if you pretend to be my friend, speak out honestly."
+
+He rises, and takes one or two turns in the room, then stops abruptly in
+front of her.
+
+"Will you believe me, I wonder?" he asks, "or will you think me a mean
+hound who only seeks his own interest?"
+
+"Interest?" echoes Virginia bitterly, "what interest can it be to you?"
+
+"This much," he answers, a red flush mounting to his brow, "that I am as
+anxious this moment to make you my wife as I was four years ago."
+
+Virginia makes an impatient movement with her hand.
+
+"Vansittart is in love with Mrs. Devereux's eldest girl, Connie. She is
+a pretty little kitten of a thing, but a mere child--a doll. I go there
+rather often--they are old friends of mine. Whenever I go, he is always
+there."
+
+For a moment Virginia feels as though she were dying; then, by an
+extraordinary effort, she recovers herself.
+
+"I would rather have my tongue cut out than tell you," Lord Harford
+continues, half-ashamed, "only that I want you to know where your refuge
+is if he breaks your heart. Oh!" imploringly, "why will you not care for
+me who am ready to devote my life to you? Marry me, and let us go abroad
+and win health for you and happiness for me!"
+
+His voice is broken with emotion--he takes one of her hands in his. She
+is leaning back in her chair, very white--she is hardly conscious of his
+action--all the hot blood in his veins cannot warm her chill white
+fingers.
+
+"Do you think," she says at last, very slowly, "that if--if he were rid
+of me, he would marry her? Does she care for him?"
+
+"I don't think about it. Yes, it is very strange; but, child as she is,
+he has perfectly infatuated her."
+
+There is another long pause, during which he eagerly scans her face.
+Suddenly her eyes light up, and she returns his glance.
+
+"Are you _really_ willing to marry me?" she says.
+
+"Why do you ask?" he returns, simply. "Are my eyes not honest?"
+
+Virginia smiles. "If you mean it," she says, "go now, and write me the
+same words to-night or to-morrow."
+
+So, as she bids him, he goes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lord Harford had set down nothing in malice. What he told Virginia is
+absolutely true. Philip Vansittart is in love with a gay, pretty child,
+whose winsome tricks have coiled her round his heart. He has never
+spoken one word of love to her, for he feels and knows himself as much
+bound to Virginia as though the marriage-tie he once so utterly abhorred
+linked them. He no longer, strange to say, thinks and speaks so evilly
+of marriage. Were he free, would he not joyfully chain himself with all
+the bonds that church and society can impose to this sweet young life
+which would make him young again? He has no thought or desire to blast
+this girl-life as he had done Virginia's. Perish the thought! When these
+ideas come to him, he hates and loathes himself; he makes superhuman
+efforts to drive them away--but the limpid blue eyes come and look at
+him over his briefs; the childish voice rings in his ears in the night
+watches! He grows pale and haggard. At last he makes a mighty resolve.
+
+"Virginia," he says, two nights after Lord Harford's visit to her, "let
+us be married!"
+
+He takes her hand kindly, but his eyes do not meet hers, and the tender
+inflection of yore is missing from his voice.
+
+Virginia betrays no surprise. Poor soul! She understands too well.
+
+"Why?" she says quietly. "I think we are very well as we are."
+
+"No," he returns hastily, "we are not! My views have changed on the
+subject--changed entirely. Marriage is the best thing. It decides your
+fate. To live as we do is neither one thing nor the other."
+
+"You forget," she says, in a tone so calm as to be almost unnatural.
+"This state has great advantages. There is no tie between us. If either
+of us tired of the other, there is nothing to hinder our parting,
+to-morrow--to-night even." He looks at her, speechless with amazement.
+Her eyes do not flinch from his. "If," she continues, with that terrible
+calmness,--"if you wanted to marry Miss Constance Devereux; if I wished
+to marry--let us say, Lord Harford--there is nothing to prevent it
+except," slowly, "the unwritten law of a faithful heart."
+
+Philip Vansittart leans his face between his hands. He cannot find a
+word to say. He is smitten with remorse, for he knows well enough that
+she is faithful. But why that allusion to Lord Harford?
+
+"What do you mean about Harford?" he asks presently.
+
+"He wants me to marry him," replied Virginia quietly. "He asked me four
+years ago; he asked me again the day before yesterday."
+
+She draws a letter from her pocket, and scans Philip's face as he reads
+it. When he has finished, he looks at her. She understands his glance
+but too well. There is an only half-suppressed eagerness--a
+half-suppressed hope in it.
+
+"What shall I do?" she says, so quietly that it deceives him.
+
+"There is no better fellow living than Harford," he says cordially. "If
+you thought you could be happy with him; if--"
+
+He stops abruptly. There is a look of such terrible agony in Virginia's
+face that he starts up and takes her hand.
+
+"No, no," he cries. "Let it be as I said. Let us marry each other. It is
+the only thing to be done."
+
+Virginia's ears, sharpened by suffering, catch the dreary tone of the
+concluding words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, when Philip, according to custom, went to Virginia's room,
+he found her asleep. From that sleep she never woke. One more of those
+unfortunate cases of an overdose of chloral. The deceased lady had
+suffered much from sleeplessness, and always kept the fatal drug by her
+bedside.
+
+The church gave its blessing, and society smiled when that heretic and
+sceptic Mr. Vansittart led his charming girl-bride to the altar a few
+months later. It was whispered that there had been an--entanglement, but
+that was all hushed up now, and he had become a respectable member of
+society.
+
+
+
+
+
+MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON JOURNEY.
+
+
+It would be an injustice to Josiah to suppose that he limited his quest
+in the field of knowledge to that particular portion indicated by his
+honoured association with a distinguished society. He was proud in his
+modest way, if the paradox be permitted, when he produced his card, on
+which was engraved "Josiah Smith, F.R.S.A." Also it was known amongst
+his friends that casual references to his great work on "Underground
+England" were not displeasing to him. But, as he was wont to say, "The
+surest way of finding either mental or bodily recreation is to seek it
+in fresh fields of labour."
+
+Thus it came to pass one evening in the spring of this year that Josiah,
+having shut himself in all day with the determination to make up for
+lost time, found he had, with the aid of cold tea and wet bandages,
+added as much as half a page to his great work. Feeling the need of a
+little change of thought and association, he had availed himself of an
+invitation kindly sent to him to join the meeting of an aeronautic
+society. Josiah had listened with profound attention to the various
+speeches made, and had thought, really, when he had a little more time
+he would devote it to the fascinating science of aeronautics.
+
+Amongst the guests of the society, and indeed the hero of the evening,
+was Captain Mulberry, the famous guardsman who devoted much natural
+talent and a considerable portion of his life to the endeavour either to
+kill or hopelessly maim himself. Evil fortune had kept his sword
+stainless, as far as regular warfare went, but there was generally a
+little fighting going on somewhere, and, the captain's leave of absence
+coinciding, he from time to time managed to sniff the exhilarating smell
+of powder, and knew the music of bullet and shell. These things were
+surrounded with difficulties. It obviously would not do for a man
+bearing Her Majesty's commission to lend his sword to one or other
+belligerents in a conflict between nations at peace with England. In a
+country like Spain, for example, things naturally run a little
+irregularly and the captain being on the spot may have occasionally
+lapsed into battle.
+
+But these were mere episodes. Having tried most things, he had taken to
+ballooning, as offering the largest amount of risk in the least possible
+space of time. He had been up in all kinds of balloons in all possible
+circumstances, and had come down in various ways. He had just now
+achieved a great feat, making a voyage from the Grampian Hills to the
+Orkney Islands. The society desiring to do him honour had invited him to
+this meeting, and Josiah had heard him describe his perilous voyage.
+
+"A mere nothing," he said; "perhaps a little difficult going, but
+nothing at all coming back. The difficulty in going out was to drop on
+the Orkneys. The place is so small that when you are up in the air it
+looks as if you might as well try to drop on a pin's point. But after
+all, it was a nothing--a mere nothing, gentlemen, I assure you. Any one
+of you could have done the same."
+
+Every one in the room was delighted, not less with the captain's
+gallantry than with his modesty. Many moving stories of his escapes were
+retailed. Josiah listened with enthralled attention to an adventure
+which, it seems, the captain had had in Spain, and which Josiah's
+companion (a bald-headed gentleman with spectacles) narrated with great
+effect. Mulberry in one of the marches of the Carlists, to whom he had
+attached himself, was surprised and taken prisoner by the enemy. They
+locked him in the kitchen of a farmhouse near, mentioning incidentally
+that in the morning they would shoot him. They took away his sword and
+pistols; and would have taken his umbrella, but the captain pleaded hard
+for its society, declaring that from early boyhood he had never been
+able to sleep without an umbrella under his pillow. The Spaniards had
+heard much of the eccentricity of Englishmen, and not being inclined to
+refuse the request of a doomed man, they left him the umbrella.
+
+The next morning, when they came to take him out for shooting purposes,
+lo! the captain and the umbrella were both gone. There was a good deal
+of soot about the place, and regarding this and other signs of hasty
+flight the truth flashed upon the Spaniards. There had been a fire in
+the grate. The captain had opened the umbrella inside the chimney,
+waited till it had been inflated with the warm air, and then, hanging on
+the handle, had been drawn up clear to the top and descending in a
+neighbouring field, had shut up his umbrella and walked off.
+
+"Dear me!" said Josiah; "how very interesting. I suppose the chimneys
+are wide in Spain?"
+
+"Very wide indeed," said the bald-headed gentleman in spectacles.
+
+Josiah regarded the captain with fresh interest after the recital of
+this remarkable ascent, and it was not diminished by further tales he
+heard. One related to his reception by an Illustrious Personage. After
+his journey to Orkney the I.P. had sent for him immediately on his
+return to town. The captain had put on his uniform and gone cheerfully.
+He had heard so much of his feat that he began to think there really was
+something creditable in it, and fancied the Illustrious Personage might
+be going to bestow upon him some recognition of the service he had done
+in blazoning abroad the pluck of the British soldier. On the contrary,
+he found the Illustrious Person almost speechless with wrath, and
+stuffed with oaths like plums in a Christmas pudding.
+
+"What--what was the meaning of this flying by night, sir?" he cried
+turning a flaming visage upon the contrite captain. "You'll be going
+round with a circus next, riding five horses at a time, or walking round
+to show your muscle. I hope I shall hear no more of this sort of thing.
+Such goings-on bring disgrace upon the army and discredit upon its
+officers. Stop at home, sir, and get into what mischief you like. Go and
+idle your time at playing cards or worse; but don't be playing these
+pranks any more. Did you ever see _me_ in a balloon, sir? Did you ever
+hear of _me_ skimming around the world in search of adventure?"
+
+The Illustrious Personage drew himself up to full height, and swelled
+visibly before the eyes of the captain, as he angrily put these
+questions, garnished with many ejaculations. He knew that our army swore
+terribly in Flanders, and was nothing if not a soldier.
+
+"Your Royal Highness cannot blame us if we sometimes go out of our way
+to get into danger," said the captain, saluting. "Your Royal Highness
+has much to answer for by inflaming us with the memory of Inkermann. How
+can we sit still or lounge about in our peaceful homes, when we think of
+you on that day?"
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the Illustrious Personage, spluttering down like a
+fire on which a bucket of water had been flung, "that was a different
+thing. But come and dine with me to-night: only, drive up in a hansom,
+don't arrive in a balloon."
+
+And the Illustrious Personage, what with enjoyment of the joke, and what
+with muscular effort to suppress his laughter, nearly brought about a
+vacancy in the highest rank of the army.
+
+All this was doubtless as true as the story about the exit from the
+Spanish farmhouse. But it pleased the company, and was only one of a
+dozen stories they told about the captain, who was chiefly longing to be
+out where he could smoke a cigar.
+
+When the meeting came to an end, Josiah walked along Pall Mall
+meditating on things, and on the comparative obscurity of the work he
+had assigned to himself. Whilst others were soaring in high places, he
+was burrowing underground. Both were in search of knowledge. Both
+desired to benefit their fellow-men. But of the two Josiah felt that the
+aeronauts had the advantage of the undergrounders. It was too late for
+him to think of striking out a new path; but he thought that if he had
+to begin life again he would soar.
+
+Whilst pondering on these matters, he was startled by a heavy hand laid
+upon his shoulder, and heard a cheery voice exclaim:
+
+"Got a match in your pocket, old man?"
+
+He looked up, and there, somewhere on a level with the lantern in the
+neighbouring lamp-post, was the genial face of Captain Mulberry.
+
+"No," said Josiah, "I'm sorry I have not."
+
+"Don't smoke, eh? You don't look the kind of old boy to have any
+pleasant vices. I saw you in the Balloon Society's rooms just now, and
+rather took a fancy to you."
+
+"You are very kind," Josiah said, blushing up to where in earlier and
+happier days the roots of his hair had been. "I am sure I feel it a
+great honour."
+
+"If you don't mind me saying so, I think you're the innocentest-looking
+old boy I have seen in a day's ride. I like innocence, particularly when
+combined with middle age. It is the rarest thing in the world. I hope
+you'll come and dine with me some night at my club."
+
+"I shall like it very much indeed," said Josiah, "We are close at my
+rooms--just here in King Street I live--and if you would step in, you
+might light your cigar."
+
+"Thanks, I will. You won't mind me making up to you in this way; but
+'pon my honour, I took such a liking to your face, seeing it among that
+mass of humbug where we were just now, that I was going to speak to you
+then, only I could not get near you."
+
+Josiah was in a tremor of delight, which presently subsided into a soft
+glow of contentment, as the captain, stretching himself out over as much
+of the couch as he could find in the little room, not only lit his
+cigar, but praised Josiah's claret and told him a good deal more of his
+balloon adventures than he had communicated to the eminent society in
+whose rooms they had met.
+
+"By the way," he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion
+to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab
+so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered.
+When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better.
+That is what I have always found. Ever up in a balloon?"
+
+"No," said Josiah, "but I should very much like to go."
+
+He had drunk a whole tumbler of claret in honour of his distinguished
+company, and, being accustomed to more moderate measure, had begun to
+think going up in a balloon was after all a mere ordinary performance.
+
+"What do you ride?" asked the captain, looking him up and down, as if
+either about to measure him for a suit of clothes, or considering where
+he could most advantageously plant a blow from his ox-hoof-like fist.
+
+"A pony--at least, I used to ride a pony when I was at home: but that is
+a long time ago, and I have not ridden much since."
+
+"I mean, what do you weigh," said the captain, laughing.
+
+"A little over ten stone."
+
+"Is it possible! why, I pull the scales at seventeen stun. I'd give
+something to be your weight. Think of the ballast you might take up with
+you!"
+
+"Is that an important thing?" Josiah asked, his old instinct of gaining
+knowledge manifesting itself.
+
+"It's simply everything. That's how I managed to get over to the
+Orkneys. These fellows that go up in balloons which they fit up like
+first-floor rooms, and take everything with them except a feather bed,
+don't know anything about it. They go fumbling around with a few pounds
+of ballast, and when they get into a wrong current there they stick.
+Now, between you and me, Mr. Smith, I don't mind telling you my secret
+of successful ballooning. Take as much ballast as you can carry, and
+when you get stuck in a calm or carried off by a wrong current, out goes
+your ballast, up you shoot, get into another current, and there you are.
+Ten stun!" he murmured, gazing wistfully upon the spare figure of his
+host. "There ought to be a good deal done with that. Tell you what, old
+chappie, you shall come with me to-morrow."
+
+Josiah had been a few moments ago possessed with a burning desire to go
+up in a balloon, but at these words the fire went out and he felt a cold
+chill steal over his body. Still, he would like to go; but not
+to-morrow. If it were next month or next week it would be different. But
+to-morrow was so sudden.
+
+"I rather fancy I have an engagement to-morrow," he said, producing his
+pocket diary and anxiously gazing on it in the month of December.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the captain, laying his large hand on Josiah's
+shoulder, conveying to him an impression that if he pleased he could
+take him up, put him in his coat-tail pocket, walk off, and think no
+more about him till he landed him in a balloon. "You've no engagement,
+and if you had you couldn't find it by holding your book upside down.
+You come along with me. There's not the slightest danger, and it's not
+every man who has crossed the Channel in a balloon."
+
+"The Channel!" cried Josiah feebly. He had thought of some little
+excursion. Perhaps in the fields ten or twenty miles off. "I don't think
+I would like to start with the Channel. Suppose we begin somewhere else,
+and try the Channel later on. It will be better--if anything happened,
+you know--to have the water warm."
+
+"Nonsense," said the captain cheerily; "we shall never be nearer the
+water than 2,000 feet. We'll dine in Paris to-morrow night, and I'll
+take you to the Closerie after dinner. It will do them good to see you
+there. Now that's settled, and you'd better go to bed straight off.
+We'll have to be up early in the morning to catch the mail train for
+Dover. I've got my balloon there all ready, and we'll start about noon."
+
+This was perfectly horrible. Josiah felt as if it was a hideous
+nightmare, and he had a dim hope that presently he would wake up. But
+there was the burly form of the captain before him, with his third cigar
+sticking in the side of his mouth, and a pleased smile upon his face in
+anticipation of this new adventure.
+
+Those who have learned something of the character of Josiah by reading
+earlier chapters of his history, will not need to be told how this
+ended. If he had been in company of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
+when they started on their progress through the fiery furnace, and if
+they had insisted upon his accompanying them, he would have smiled
+feebly, and gone--that is, if he could not by some means or other slink
+away out of sight. Now, if he could have gone out of the door on some
+pretence and run off, down King Street, he would have borne the
+subsequent shame and humiliation. But he knew that the captain would
+have been up with him in five strides. So he determined to make the best
+of it, drank another tumbler of claret, and became almost hysterically
+eager for the morning.
+
+"I'll see you don't oversleep yourself," were the last words of the
+captain as he went off. "I'll look you up and take you down to Victoria
+in my hansom. You needn't bring any luggage, you know. A clean shirt and
+a tooth-brush will see you through."
+
+Thus faded Josiah's last and secret hope, one he had cherished even
+whilst he drank his claret and talked boldly of aerial navigation. He
+might, he had thought, peradventure oversleep himself and miss the
+train, and all would be well. But the captain would call for him, and
+there was plainly no escape. However, he had made his will, and
+"Underground England" was in such an advanced stage that it might be
+published as "a fragment," and would be sufficient to carry his name
+down to remotest posterity. Whether it were sweeter thus to vex public
+desire, to give so much and no more, or to satiate the public with the
+full accomplishment, was a nice question. Josiah was inclined to think
+that, other things being equal, he would just as soon live to finish his
+work. But he had no choice, and after all, the voyage might end happily.
+Captain Mulberry was an experienced aeronaut. He had never failed, and
+why should failure be probable now?
+
+Josiah made up his mind upon this point, that if they got safely across
+in the balloon he would come back by the ordinary boat express. Having
+once shown his possession of a daring spirit, he would be at liberty to
+declare his preference for a more prosaic mode of locomotion.
+
+How he got down to Dover he did not know. It all seemed a dream. He had
+a dim recollection of the captain thundering at his door at six o'clock
+in the morning. He remembered lighting his Etna, making his cup of
+coffee, and thinking as he drank it it might be his last. Then they must
+have caught the train. In fact, he remembered the sound of the rushing
+carriage, the darkness of the tunnel, the glories of the dawning day,
+and felt around him the bright fresh sunlit air that made all nature
+glad.
+
+They drove out to the balloon, which was down by the gas-works, and was
+now in process of inflation. Josiah looked upon the monster, swerving
+first to the right, then to the left, and threatening every moment to
+break its bonds and go off on its own account. If it only would, what a
+happy conclusion of this painful adventure! But he could see there was
+no such danger. The captain was as cheerful as a lark, and looked with
+kindling eye upon what Josiah regarded as his coffin.
+
+Still, it was no use complaining. A man must die some time; and though
+there is much to be said against the process being hurried on by
+unnecessary attempts to cross the Channel in a balloon when there are
+well-appointed packet-boats, it was no use arguing the matter.
+
+There settled upon Josiah a certain mood of quiet despair. What must be
+must, and it was better to avoid a scene and imitate as closely as
+possible the cheerful indifference of the captain.
+
+"Now, old man, in you tumble," said the captain. "Sit down in the bottom
+of the car, and keep quiet till we get past this stack of chimneys. If
+we run into them it's all over; but I reckon I'll take you clear."
+
+This was a cheerful thing to start with. Josiah had pictured all kinds
+of horrors, ending with the certainty of dropping into the sea. That
+they should begin with a stack of chimneys was an unexpected
+aggravation. Still, it might be better to get it over at once. At least,
+he would fall on land, and the fragments picked up would receive
+Christian burial.
+
+He got in and sat in the bottom of the car. It was, he noticed,
+something like one of the coracles of which he had made mention in the
+preface to "Underground England." There was something good in that. The
+Romans made long journeys In the coracle. If the worst came to the
+worst, they might float.
+
+Even in the anguish of his mind, he couldn't help wondering when Captain
+Mulberry would finish coming in. He had never before noticed how tall he
+was, till he found the necessity of getting out of the way of his legs
+as he crept between the ropes into the car.
+
+"Let go all!" cried the captain, and Josiah felt his last hour had come.
+He held his breath and stuck to his hat, being under the impression that
+the whole affair would shoot up into the air like a rocket. He expected
+to be deafened by the noise of whizzing through the air, and to be half
+suffocated with the rush of wind. Looking over to get a last look at the
+nature of the soil on which he would presently fall, Josiah beheld a
+strange sight. As far as he knew, the balloon was motionless, while the
+earth was dropping rapidly from under them as if the laws of gravitation
+were irrevocably broken and the world was falling through space.
+
+"Done it!" he heard the captain cry in a voice that sounded curiously
+remote.
+
+"Done what?" said Josiah, anxiously looking up.
+
+"Why, the chimney-stack. Just cleared it by half a foot. I didn't like
+to say much about it, but it was a pretty near touch-and-go affair.
+That's the worst of filling a balloon. You must do it near a gasworks,
+and there's sure to be a stack of chimneys at hand."
+
+It seemed but a moment since Josiah had heard the captain call out "Let
+go all," and there they were in space a thousand feet above the level of
+the land, sailing calmly along in bright warm sunlight, and with no more
+motion perceptible than if they were still sitting in the room in King
+Street--that cherished apartment which Josiah felt his eye would never
+light on more.
+
+"This won't do," said the captain sternly; "we've got in the wrong
+current, and instead of going out to sea we are going inland. In half an
+hour we'll be at Canterbury."
+
+"I have heard Canterbury's a very nice old town," said Josiah. "It
+wouldn't be a bad place to stop at; and if the wind's contrary to-day,
+it might be right to-morrow."
+
+The captain said nothing, and Josiah, looking up to see what effect his
+suggestion might have, noticed for the first time that on a face usually
+smiling there were possibilities of a fixed hard look which it evidently
+didn't beseem him to trifle with.
+
+The balloon slowly rose till the aneroid marked a height of 1,500 feet
+and still the current drove it steadily north-west. Looking southward,
+Josiah beheld a sight which, if it were the last he was ever to look
+upon, was at least a glorious glimpse of earth, and sky, and sea. There
+lay the Channel gleaming in the sun, a broad belt of silver. Beyond it,
+like a cloud, was France. Dover had vanished even to the crest of the
+castle on the hill. But Josiah knew where it was by the mist that lay
+over it and shone white in the rays of the sun. Save for this patch of
+mist, which seemed to drift with the voyagers far below the car, there
+was nothing to obscure the range of vision. Josiah could not at any time
+make out forms of people. The white highways that ran like threads among
+the fields, and the tiny openings in the towns and villages which he
+guessed were streets, seemed to belong to a dead world, for nowhere was
+there trace of living person. The strange stillness that brooded over
+the earth was made more uncanny by cries that occasionally seemed to
+float in the air around them, behind, before, to the right or to the
+left, but never exactly beneath the car. They could hear people calling,
+and the captain said that they were running after the balloon and
+cheering. But Josiah could distinguish no moving thing. Yes; once he saw
+some pheasants running across a field below and pointed them out to the
+captain. The captain laughed, a strange resonant laugh it seemed in this
+upper stillness, and said they were "a lot of chestnut horses capering
+about in the field." A flock of sheep in another field huddled together,
+looked like a heap of limestone chippings. As for the fields, stretched
+out in illimitable extent, far as the eye could reach, they seemed to
+form a gigantic carpet, with patterns chiefly diamond-shaped, and in
+colour shaded from bright emerald to russet brown.
+
+"This won't do," the captain said again, and seizing a bag of ballast
+he emptied it. The balloon swiftly rose, and the aneroid marked 2,500
+feet. The villages seemed mere spots, the pattern of the carpet grew
+blurred. Nothing was distinguishable--nor horse, nor sheep, nor any
+living thing.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the captain, "we're off now."
+
+Nearer and nearer came the belt of silver which seemed to girdle
+continent and island. They were close to Dover, and could make out the
+town. Josiah, knowing well the irregular plan on which the streets are
+laid out, was struck by the manner in which, as looked down upon from
+this height, they formed themselves into beautifully defined curves,
+straight lines, and other highly respectable geometrical shapes. They
+saw the castle and the pier with what seemed to be ants crawling on it.
+A little patch of colour, that to Josiah looked like a ball of scarlet
+worsted, was, the captain said, a sentry on duty.
+
+"There's Shakespeare's Cliff," said the captain. "The Earl of Gloucester
+should be with us now:--
+
+                                How fearful
+   And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!
+   The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
+   Show scarce so gross as beetles; half-way down
+   Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
+   Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
+   The fishermen that walk upon the beach
+   Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
+   Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
+   Almost too small for sight."
+
+"I'll look no more," said Josiah, who also knew his Shakespeare.
+
+   "Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
+   Topple down headlong."
+
+It was passing strange and at first dreadful, this intense silence and
+this strangeness of the familiar earth. But after a while everything
+like terror passed away from Josiah's mind. He began to feel the
+fascination of the thing. His spirits rose as he breathed the delicious
+air, and when the captain said, "We are over the water now," and Josiah
+looking down discerned the sea gleaming below, he could have clapped his
+hands for joy.
+
+"This is splendid," said the captain. "We'll be across in half an hour.
+We'll catch the train for Paris, and you shall dance at the Closerie
+to-night."
+
+Josiah didn't dance, and didn't know what the Closerie might be. But he
+was not without susceptibility to the allurement of a quiet dinner in
+Paris, and began to feel the exhilaration of having accomplished a
+perilous feat, to which he would certainly drag in some reference in his
+great work. It would be difficult, as he was as far as possible remote
+from Underground England. But it might be worked in some antithetical
+sentence.
+
+After they had sailed for the space of ten minutes the captain, who had
+been throwing out bits of paper which they left far behind, suddenly
+said a bad word.
+
+"We are becalmed," he continued, and truly the bits of paper flung out
+floated idly round the balloon. "We must get out of this."
+
+He cast out the ballast, bag after bag, and higher still they soared.
+Nevertheless, whenever they flung out the bits of paper, they floated
+here and there, some dropping back into the car.
+
+"There goes our last bag of ballast," said the captain, "and may luck go
+with it. We are lost men unless it takes us into another current, which
+let us hope won't be coming from the East and carry us out into the
+Atlantic."
+
+Up again they mounted, how many feet Josiah didn't know, but he was
+sensible of a sudden iciness in the atmosphere, a tingling of the blood
+at his finger ends, and a strong disposition to bleed at the nose. The
+captain threw out some more bits of paper. Still they circled round and
+round, dropping into the car or falling to the distant earth now utterly
+out of sight. They had passed through the cloud, and had above them a
+chilly sun and an intensely blue sky. Below them were the clouds, on one
+of which was clearly caught the shadow of the balloon. Josiah, when he
+moved his head, could see an answering motion on the cloud, and
+recognised the reflection of the captain's figure, sitting stern and
+erect, with his teeth set and a look of angry determination on his brow.
+
+This frightened Josiah a great deal more than the captain's words. He
+felt that they were lost in space, and that the end must speedily come.
+This terrible look on the captain's face made him sick at heart.
+
+"Mr. Smith," said the captain, speaking scarcely above a whisper, but
+his voice sounded as if he were shouting from the housetops, "you told
+me you were _not_ a married man."
+
+"Yes," said Josiah, "I have never been married."
+
+"That is so, or I should not have asked you to come with me. And you
+have not many relations?"
+
+"No," said Josiah, "there are not many that would miss me."
+
+"Very well," said the captain; "I have; but your life is as valuable as
+mine, and I would hold you at no disadvantage. The fact is, we are
+becalmed, and there is no prospect of any wind reaching us here till
+night, when we shan't know which way we are drifting, and may as well
+give up all hope. There is wind overhead, I know, and it is going
+straight for France. If we could get up another thousand feet or so, we
+should catch the current and be over land in ten minutes. But all the
+ballast has gone, and there is only one thing to be done."
+
+"What's that?" asked Josiah faintly.
+
+"One of us must go overboard," said the captain.
+
+Josiah felt his heart sink within him.
+
+"I am not sure that it would be much use my going over," the captain
+continued, discussing the matter as quietly as if he were arranging what
+they should have for dinner. "I'm such a thundering weight, you'd shoot
+up till you bumped your head against Jupiter; and besides, you would not
+know what to do with the balloon if I was gone. Still, I think we should
+have equal chances. Now, I'll give you the first chance. You get hold of
+me and try to push me over. If I go, you will find the balloon shoot up;
+but don't be frightened: you'll be all right in a bit, and can let out a
+few feet of gas. If you can't get me over--well, I must try to get _you_
+over. Hold on a bit till I light a cigar."
+
+In the calm still air the captain struck a light, bending low in the car
+to avoid contact of flame and gas, bit the end of a cigar, and lit it.
+Josiah, shaking with terror, could see in the shadow of the balloon on
+the cloud the smoke curling up from the cigar and lazily spreading
+itself out.
+
+"Now, old chappie," said the captain, "I'm ready. Heave hard, and over I
+go."
+
+What was the use of disputing with a man like this? Josiah never had
+been inclined to fight with men of strong will. He was certain he could
+not move the captain, but he was able to try, and try he did. He got one
+foot over the car, the captain encouraging him and cheerfully smoking.
+
+"Very well done, old man. A few more tugs, and over we go. I'll just
+have time to finish my cigar before I get to the bottom."
+
+Josiah tugged and tugged till he felt the warm blood rushing through his
+veins and his breath came short But though he might move one of the
+captain's colossal legs, which seemed to his disordered fancy to be the
+size of the Monument, he could do no more. The captain sat passive,
+encouraging him by every kindly phrase he could think of. But it was of
+no use, and after ten minutes' violent struggling Josiah threw himself
+back in the car.
+
+"Very sorry, old man," said the captain, with a tone of unmistakable
+sincerity. "Thought once you'd have done it; but I've got a little out
+of training lately and run up half a stun. Now I must see what I can do
+with you."
+
+First of all he tore off some slips of paper and threw them out. Josiah
+looked at them with hungry eyes. Round and round they spun, falling back
+into the car or dropping to the world beyond the clouds. There was no
+hope of movement for the balloon.
+
+"Well, Mr. Smith, it's your turn now. I must see what I can do. It's not
+nice for either of us, but it would be no nicer to stay here and be
+starved to death or blown out to sea. You won't feel anything after the
+first rush. Good-bye. I am sorry there will be no opportunity of my
+communicating with you as to the result of this interesting experiment.
+I don't suppose," the captain added, his love of scientific research
+increasing his unfeigned regret for the inconvenience Josiah was about
+to suffer, "that ever before ten stun was dropped out of a car in a
+lump. I reckon I'll get as high as most people have been. Now, if you've
+any message, just hand it over. If I can do anything for you in King
+Street or anywhere else, you may depend upon me."
+
+"No," said Josiah, gulping down a rising sob; "if you will only say I
+went off bravely and didn't flinch, that will be all. Perhaps you might
+write a few lines by way of preface to 'Underground England,' pointing
+out that I died in the interests of science."
+
+"Certainly, my dear fellow, it shall be done," said the captain, with
+quite a glow of honest energy. "If you'd like a little monument or
+anything of that sort, I'll see it's run up. Now, over you go. Time's
+getting on, and I don't want to miss the Paris train. Give us a shake of
+your paw, then shut your eyes, for I fancy I shan't have much difficulty
+with you. Heave your watch over or take it with you!"
+
+"If you wouldn't mind accepting it," said Josiah, pulling out his fine
+old turnip-shaped time-piece, "as a memento of our friendship--which,
+though brief, has I trust been sincere--it would give me great
+pleasure."
+
+"Certainly," said the captain, weighing it in his hand critically, and
+thinking to himself that it might serve as ballast in a last emergency.
+"I'll hang it over my bed, and will think of you whenever it ticks.
+Nothing more to say?"
+
+"No," said Josiah; "only, please to drop me feet first."
+
+The captain took him in his arms as if he were a child, held him for a
+moment over the side of the car, and with a cheery farewell dropped him.
+
+Josiah felt his hat go, and could see the balloon shoot up with
+tremendous rapidity, though, as he reckoned, the rate of velocity would
+need to be divided by about half, as he was simultaneously descending
+rapidly. He felt the rush of air, and shrank from the moment, coming
+nearer and nearer, when he should strike the earth. He seemed an
+unconscionably long time falling. Still, through the clouds he went,
+and, it seemed to him at the end of five minutes, began to get glimpses
+of the earth. Down he went like a shot. The rushing noise in his ears
+grew more intolerable. There was a swift upgrowth of the hedgerows, a
+sudden vision of cows and horses, and of people running across fields.
+Then a heavy bump, and Josiah, opening his eyes, found himself lying on
+the floor in the room in King Street.
+
+On the table were an empty claret bottle and two tumblers. The room was
+full of the smoke, now growing stale, of cigars. Josiah was shivering
+with cold, and the room was dark save from what light flickered in from
+the lamp down the street. He struck a light, and there in its accustomed
+place on the mantelpiece was his watch, the hands pointing to three
+o'clock. Dazed and shivering he crept into bed, where he thought the
+matter over, and amid much that was bewildering groped his way to the
+conclusion that Captain Mulberry really had come into his room, had
+spent an hour with him, smoked cigars, drunk claret, and then gone off.
+He remembered standing at the head of the stairs shaking hands with him,
+and promising to dine with him at his club one day in the following
+week. Then he had gone back and lain on the couch, where, overcome with
+the unaccustomed tumbler of claret and dazed with the tobacco smoke, he
+had fallen asleep, dreamed, and rolled off on to the floor.
+
+HENRY W. LUCY.
+
+
+
+
+
+NUMBER 7639.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+A poor garret on the sixth floor of one of the poorest houses in the
+poorest quarters of Paris, does not give much opportunity for a detailed
+description. There is little to be said about the furniture, which in
+this case consisted of a rickety old table, a wooden stool, and a small
+charcoal stove, all of the commonest kind, but all clean, and the room
+was not quite without adornment. The window, to be sure, was in the
+roof, but pinned to the wall were a few newspaper prints in strong
+blacks and whites, and--most remarkable of all--there was an alcove for
+the bed, which was carefully shut off from the room by a gaily
+variegated chintz. In spite of its poverty and bareness, there was
+nothing squalid or unwholesome about the place.
+
+The house itself was a tall narrow slip. People of different callings,
+and different degrees of respectability, lived in it; on the whole it
+had not a bad character. The landlord was an immensely fat man, called
+Plon--a name which, irresistibly converted into Plon-Plon, seemed to
+give an aristocratic air to the house--and he lived and made shoes in a
+small room at the foot of the lowest flight of stairs, so that he acted
+as his own _concierge_, and boasted that no one came in or out without
+his knowledge. Probably some of his lodgers contrived to elude his
+vigilance, but he was as obstinate in his belief as an old Norman has a
+right to be, and was a kind-hearted old fellow in the main, though with
+the reputation of a _grognard_, and a ridiculous fear of being
+discovered in a good action. Perhaps with this fear, the more credit was
+due to him for occasionally running the risk, as when he saw young
+Monnier, the artist, coming down the stairs one evening with a look in
+his eyes, which Plon told himself gave him an immediate shuddering
+back-sensation, as of cold water and marble slabs. Plon did something
+for him, perhaps knocked off the rent, but he implored Monnier to show
+his gratitude by saying nothing, and he never gave him more of a
+greeting than the sidelong twist he vouchsafed to the other lodgers. For
+the rest, his benevolence depended in a great measure upon his temper,
+and he prided himself upon being very terrible at times.
+
+With five floors we have nothing to do, and need waste no time over
+them. The inmates mostly went out early and came in late, but the house
+kept better hours than its neighbours, for the simple reason that those
+who arrived after a certain time found themselves shut into the street
+for the night. They might hammer and appeal in the strongest language
+of their vocabulary, but Plon snored unmoved, and nothing short of a
+fire in the house would have turned him out of his bed. Gradually this
+became so well understood, that his lodgers accommodated themselves to
+it as to any other of the inexorable laws of fate.
+
+On the sixth and highest floor the crowded house resolved itself into
+comparative quiet. Besides the garret of which we have spoken, there
+were two other rooms, but for some years past these had been used merely
+as store-rooms for furniture. No one knew to whom the furniture
+belonged, some curious speculators avowing that Plon had a child--a
+girl--at school in Normandy, and had collected it as part of her dowry;
+others that some mysterious tie of gratitude bound him to the owner.
+Whoever was right or wrong, the rooms remained closed and unlet.
+
+The garret itself was inhabited by a young widow, whose story was
+sufficiently sad. She was the daughter of a farmer in the north of
+France, and married to a glazier, Jean Didier by name, with whom she had
+come to Paris in search of work. If there had been no war, and, above
+all, no Commune, things might have gone well with the young couple, but,
+unhappily, one followed the other, and there was an end of peace. Jean
+was no fool, but he was too certain that he was extremely wise not to
+make mistakes, and he possessed enough of the French nature to be easily
+influenced by the brag and fine promises which filled the air at that
+time. It is always satisfactory to reflect on changes which assure us
+the highest step of a ladder, which ordinarily takes a life-time for a
+step. Jean talked a great deal about it, not only to Marie, who would
+have been safe, but to others who agreed with him more thoroughly, and
+were dangerous. Nevertheless, when the Commune, in March, 1871, broke
+into actual life, and Jean began to see what it all meant, he was
+terrified by the outburst and held back. Things which look seductive in
+theory, have a way of losing their gloss when they appear as hard
+realities, with accompaniments which do not belong to the ideals; and
+the rabble rout of half-drunk citizens who marched, shouting, through
+the streets of the 19th _arrondissement_, frightened Marie out of her
+senses. She clung to Jean, and implored him not to join them on pain of
+breaking her heart. To do him justice, common sense, perhaps aided by a
+desire to keep out of the way of rifle-balls, was proving stronger than
+bombast; and, to do him justice again, he was desirous to keep others
+than himself from danger.
+
+It was this which brought about the catastrophe. May came, and with it
+the conquering troops from Versailles poured into the city. It was
+sufficiently clear what the end would be; Jean, who never distrusted his
+own reasoning powers, insisted, in spite of his wife's prayers and
+Plon's expostulations, in going out into the streets, and trying to
+dissuade some of his comrades from fighting. He promised to return
+immediately, but he did not come, Marie became almost frenzied with
+terror. She would have rushed out to seek him, but that she knew not
+where to turn, and if he came, wanting help, and she was not there to
+give it, matters might go hardly with him. The din of battle drew
+nearer, shells were falling, bullets were whizzing, it seemed hardly
+possible that any one could escape, and yet, men went by shouting and
+singing, mad with either drink or excitement. Plon, after entreating
+Madame Didier to come farther into shelter, shut himself into his little
+room with a white face, and was seen no more. Everything seemed to grow
+more horrid as the night drew on.
+
+At about ten o'clock, Plon, hearing voices in the passage, peeped out.
+There still stood Madame Didier, wan as a ghost, but with the restless
+excitement gone. A man was speaking to her, an elderly, grimy,
+frightened-looking man, with a bald head. He was telling a story in a
+dull, hopeless kind of way, as if at such a time no one story was
+particularly distinguished from another, and pity had to wait for
+quieter seasons.
+
+"He was shot in the next street; Jean says he never wished to go with
+them, but they forced him along. After that he got into a doorway, where
+he might have hidden himself, but Fort saw him, and denounced him. Fort
+might have left him alone, as it was he your husband was trying to
+persuade, but at such a time men look after their own skins. They
+dragged him out and set him up with some others against a wall, and
+that was the end of him, and of a good many others."
+
+His listener flung up her hands with a gesture of wild despair, and
+turned her face to the wall, speechless. The man, who was by trade a
+_trieur_ or chief _chiffonnier_, seeing Plon's head appear,
+turned round and addressed himself to him.
+
+"Fort is a traitor, he has denounced others. They will be here presently
+searching for arms. It is short work I can tell you."
+
+"And my--my _locataire_ is shot!" murmured Plon, panic-struck. But the
+man whose mission was ended, turned round without another word and went
+out into the lurid darkness.
+
+The landlord made a trembling effort to stagger across the passage, and
+to pluck at Marie's gown. When he spoke, his voice quavered with fright.
+
+"Come, come, Madame Didier, go upstairs, and--and--cry there like a good
+woman. Here it isn't safe. Besides, if they know who you are, I might be
+compromised. Poor Jean! Heavens!--"
+
+For a volley of rifle shot poured down the street, a rush of feet
+followed; and Plon fled precipitously to his den, double-bolted his
+door, and rolled his mattress round him for protection. Marie Didier
+slowly turned her head, and, as if recognising the wisdom of his advice,
+felt her way along the wall and groped up the dark staircase. No one had
+lit the small oil lamp on the _premier_, but light from burning houses
+flashed in at windows; a child had been killed by the fragment of a
+shell, and the mother was loudly wailing; some were peering out of
+their doorways; they stared at Marie, who crept up like a ghost. In this
+rookery the young couple had kept themselves apart, and had no friends.
+But it was instinctively known that something had happened to Jean, and
+only one woman was bold enough to question the wife. She answered
+steadily in a strange strained voice:
+
+"They are searching the houses. We shall have them soon."
+
+It was, however, an hour before a party of soldiers made a rough
+visitation. They dragged Plon out of his mattress, and made him climb
+the stairs, panting and protesting. When they reached the top garret,
+Marie was sitting in the darkness, with her arms on the poor table; she
+did not move as they entered.
+
+"Bring in the lantern!" shouted the sergeant. "Now, good woman, who have
+you got hiding here?"
+
+She turned a white face upon him, speechless. Plon, who was recovering
+his pomposity, pressed forward, and laid a hand on the soldier's arm.
+
+"Don't worry her, sergeant," he said, "her husband has just been shot."
+
+"Serve him right," said the man brutally. "Are there more of the brood
+about?"
+
+"Not a soul. They lived here alone, these two."
+
+"Well, we'll see."
+
+"No cupboards here," said a soldier, whose face was bleeding from a
+bayonet scratch.
+
+"There's a trap door, though," said the sergeant, holding the lantern
+up to the ceiling. He glanced sharply at Marie, but she remained
+immovable. "Humph," he grumbled, "if he is shot he is out of the way.
+Now, friend Porpoise, the other rooms if you please."
+
+They searched these thoroughly with no better success. But when they had
+satisfied themselves and were out again, the sergeant, whose suspicions
+seemed to have been aroused, flung open the door of the Didiers' garret,
+and turned the lantern full upon Marie once more. She had not moved hand
+or foot.
+
+"What is that blood?" said the sergeant, pointing to a trail of red
+drops on the floor.
+
+For answer she silently rolled back her sleeve, and unbandaging her arm,
+showed a deep cut, from which the blood still oozed.
+
+"Good. She has no one," said the man, withdrawing the light.
+
+This, as all the world knows, was in 1871. Four years afterwards, at the
+time my story begins, Marie Didier still occupied that attic. She lived
+by taking in needlework, and it was sometimes a wonder to the few who
+knew her, that working so hard as she did, she should remain so poor.
+The furniture of her attic I have described, the sole addition she had
+made to it was the gay chintz which curtained off the alcove with the
+bed. She was always ready to do a kindness, but made no acquaintances,
+and the only persons who ever climbed to her attic were Plon, who made
+occasional weighty visitations, often discoursed upon his prowess at the
+time of the Commune; and an idiot girl called Perine, whom Marie one day
+found crying in the street; she had no father or mother, and the old
+rag-picker she lived with beat her. Once or twice Marie gave her food,
+and the poor creature attached herself to her like a dog, followed her
+upstairs and lay across her door. After a while Madame Didier admitted
+her into her room at times, and let her share her poor meals, and sleep
+on a heap of sacking outside the door. Perine, in such prosperity, was
+as happy as a queen. It is true that Plon at first objected, but Marie
+could persuade him into anything, and he only grumbled.
+
+On one winter day, Marie was stooping over the stove stirring something
+in an earthen pipkin; Perine, seated on the wooden stool, leaned forward
+and watched her operations with excessive interest. Perhaps for want of
+an intelligent companion, Madame Didier was in the habit of
+soliloquising aloud, and at this moment she was saying cheerfully:
+
+"Not much, to be sure, but something! I should have liked a carrot or
+two, but in these hard times that would have been extravagant. And,
+after all, there is some credit in making good soup out of nothing at
+all. If one could run here and there in the market--'A pound of your
+best veal, monsieur'--'A bunch of those fine turnips, and a stick of
+celery, madame'--well, truth obliges me to admit that it is possible
+the soup would have a finer flavour, but there would not be the
+satisfaction of seeing it grow out of a few onions a crust of bread, and
+a pinch of salt. And that is a satisfaction which I am favoured with
+tolerably often. Well, Perine, my child, it interests you--this
+occupation--does it not? Do you think you will ever learn to make soup?"
+
+The girl nodded many times.
+
+"Perine eat it," she said.
+
+"Listen to her!" Marie exclaimed, patting her cheek approvingly. "And
+that any one should say she has no sense! She knows as well as any of
+us, that the great thing in soup is to eat it with an appetite, and so
+she puts together two and two--"
+
+She was interrupted by the girl.
+
+"Four!" she said abruptly.
+
+Madame Didier, instead of showing astonishment, began to laugh.
+
+"There she is with her numbers again! How strange it is that she should
+never forget a number or make a mistake in a sum! In taking away or
+adding together one can't puzzle her. I don't mean that I can't," she
+continued, apparently addressing no one in particular, "because I am a
+poor ignorant woman; but wiser people than I. Now, Perine, you shall
+have your lesson. See here, I shall stand near my bed, and you over
+there with your face to the wall. Do you understand?"
+
+The girl nodded, and stumbling along towards the place indicated,
+contrived on her way to knock down and break into atoms a white dish.
+
+"Oh, the unfortunate child!" cried Marie, darting forward. "Another! and
+it was my last! How many more things will you destroy!"
+
+At this reproach the guilt-stricken Perine covered her face and howled
+aloud, and Madame Didier's momentary anger passed.
+
+"There, don't cry!" she said, "crying does no good, and it was an
+accident. You'll be more careful another time, won't you? Try to move
+gently, and look where you go, or some day you will hurt yourself. At
+present let me see you stand well against the wall, so! I put on the
+soup--and we are ready."
+
+As she said these words she went back to the alcove. And then a strange
+thing happened. For from behind the gaily-figured chintz, there issued a
+strange hoarse whisper, which caused so little astonishment to Madame
+Didier, that she merely echoed the words aloud. Apparently this was
+Perine's lesson.
+
+"Seven six nine, and eight five four," repeated Madame Didier.
+
+The answer from the girl came instantaneously:
+
+"Sixteen hundred and twenty-three."
+
+Her teacher paused for a moment, perhaps to allow the whisperer time for
+objection, if there were one to make, but as nothing came she said
+cheerfully:
+
+"Good! Now let me think of another."
+
+"Nine ought three, and fifteen nine seven," prompted the hidden voice.
+
+"Ah, here is a fine one! Nine ought--" she hesitated, "fifteen--"
+
+The voice corrected her impatiently: "Nine ought three, and fifteen nine
+seven."
+
+In the same whisper she answered "Hush!" warningly, before repeating the
+figures aloud and correctly. The girl, on her part, returned rapidly and
+indifferently:
+
+"Twenty-five hundred."
+
+"She seems a different creature when she is doing it!" Marie exclaimed
+admiringly. "Now one more, and then I must run down and see in what sort
+of a temper Monsieur Plon finds himself. If it is good, he will lend me
+his journal. At any rate, I shall only be gone a moment. _Allons!_
+Something difficult, something to take away, shall it be?"
+
+As before the whisper responded:
+
+"From thirteen thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine, take eight thousand
+five hundred and four."
+
+Madame Didier began in a puzzled voice, "From eight thousand five
+hundred and four, take thirteen--" but, seeing Perine shake her head,
+caught herself up. "No, no, not that, of course not that!"
+
+"The other way, stupid woman!" said the whisper.
+
+Slowly she started again, "From thirteen thousand," and, interprompted
+by the mysterious voice, arrived at the end of her sum, "nine hundred
+and--fifty--nine--take--eight--thousand--five hundred--and--four."
+
+Quick as thought came the answer:
+
+"Five thousand four hundred and fifty-five."
+
+"All those fives! You are really a wonder, Perine!" said Marie happily.
+"I never could do anything like that, decidedly I am only fit to make
+soup. Well, every one to his trade--we can't dine upon figures. If we
+could you would provide us with plenty, eh, my child? But now I have
+something for you to do while I am away. Here is the stool; I am going
+to put it before the fire, so, and you shall sit upon it and watch the
+pot for me. Don't move, and don't look behind you, and then, by-and-by,
+you shall have a basin of the soup. If only I had something to put into
+it, something good, for bread and onions are not too fattening. However,
+there is plenty to be thankful for. Remember, Perine, you must not take
+your eyes off the soup."
+
+The girl, who seemed to have the faculty of obedience, sat down where
+she was directed, and fastened her stolid gaze upon the pot. For a time
+there was absolute silence in the garret, a ray of cold winter sunshine,
+cold but bright (for this was Paris), streamed in through the little
+window in the roof, and fell on Perine's slouching figure and coarse
+hair. Less than five minutes, however, had passed, when the chintz
+curtains of the alcove shook, parted, and from between them looked out
+a pale and haggard man's face.
+
+It will be guessed that this third inhabitant of the sixth floor attic
+was no other than Jean Didier, whose name had been entered in the
+_bureau_ of police--when they tried to get some imperfect statistics of
+missing men--as "Jean Didier, glazier; fought with the insurgents,
+wounded at the barricade of the Rue Soleil d'Or, May 28th, 1871;
+denounced as Communist by Andre Fort; executed on the spot."
+Nevertheless, for once the police were wrong. Jean was not shot, though
+it was true he was shot at. Fear, or loss of blood, or an instinctive
+effort at self-preservation, caused him to reel and fall just a second
+before a couple of bullets which should have found a home in his body,
+spent themselves in the blood-stained wall over his head. The tide of
+slaughter ebbed away, leaving ghastly heaps of dead men. From one of
+these a shadow by-and-by detached itself, and drifted homewards, to the
+spot where Marie was waiting in terrible anguish.
+
+Her courage came back with the need for it; it took very little to add
+to the disguise which fire and a wound had brought upon him; the people
+in the house were at that moment much occupied with dragging down the
+papers they had pasted over their windows. He crawled upstairs, and when
+she had hastily bound up his wound, and given him some food, he managed
+to get out on the roof through the trap-door. There he spent three days,
+coming down at night, till she was able to put up her new chintz
+curtains, and here in the garret he had remained ever since, sometimes
+fairly patient, sometimes finding his lot insupportable, and railing at
+fate, at Marie, and at Providence. He had had a few narrow escapes, but
+his wife was as cunning as a fox when he was concerned, and fortune had
+favoured him.
+
+Perine's presence had a double aspect. The loneliness of the position
+was so difficult for a man of his temperament to support, that he
+welcomed it at times as a distraction, and these exercises of the
+strange ingenuity of brain which she possessed, at the cost, as it
+seemed, of all other intelligences, would very often interest and amuse
+him. On the other hand she was quite as valuable as a grievance. If he
+had no other fault to find with his wife, he could always blame her for
+suffering the idiot girl to hang about the place, and the relief of this
+was enormous. On the present occasion he contemplated her broad back
+with displeasure.
+
+"Wretched creature! There she sits, and will sit till Marie comes back;
+I wonder what she thinks would happen to her if she were to look round?
+Lucky for me if she pictures some terrible fate. What sort of confused
+nonsense is running through her head now? Soup and Marie take a
+prominent place, I wager. So precious hard up does one become in this
+rat's hole, that I make her my problem as she makes the soup hers, poor
+wretch! Yet, my excellent friend, Jean Didier, I would counsel you to
+keep your compassion for yourself, for, believe me, you want it at least
+as much. As much? Rather, a hundred times more! For she--she knows
+nothing of the blessings she has missed, while I--Heavens, I know too
+well! To be cooped up here, to see no one but Marie and this idiot; to
+be aware that at any moment any thing, the merest trifle, might betray
+me to death, or at least transportation to New California,--was ever man
+so unhappy in this world!"
+
+Jean, who had a turn for the melodramatic, tugged despairingly with both
+hands at his hair, Perine, meanwhile, intent upon the soup, bent forward
+and stirred it.
+
+"Soup for mother and Perine," she muttered.
+
+"What red hands she has!" continued Jean with a grimace, "and I hate to
+hear her call Marie, mother. But it's just Marie all over. She never
+could see a poor wretch, were it only a hunted rat, but she must take it
+up, and give herself all the trouble in the world, when she might have
+left it alone. She was just the same as a little girl, I see her now, in
+her little round cap and woollen frock, scattering food for the
+frozen-out birds in the hard winters. Such a pretty, rosy-faced little
+thing as she was, and they all so fond of her! I recollect taking her to
+school in my wooden sledge, and she--What's the girl about now?
+Why--what dog has bitten her! She has taken my tobacco from the
+shelf--she--not--! Yes, by heaven, she has poured it all into the soup!"
+
+"Perine heard mother say she wanted something to make the soup good,"
+laughed the girl, nodding her head, and quite unconscious that behind
+her the enraged Jean was violently shaking his fist.
+
+"Horror! To see tobacco, dinner, everything ruined by that creature
+without being able to say a word! It is simply atrocious of Marie to go
+away, leave her to do all this mischief, and then expect me to put up
+with it! My pipe, my one comfort! Ah-h-h-h! if only I could box her ears
+and stop her from grinning away as if she had done a clever thing!"
+
+It was at this moment that Marie returned, carrying in her arms a
+cabbage. At the door, seeing the angry and distracted gesture of her
+husband, she paused in consternation.
+
+"But what then? Has anything gone wrong? The soup--Perine, you
+unfortunate child, have you touched the soup?"
+
+The girl pointed with triumph to where the tobacco had been.
+
+"Good stuff, mother," she said, nodding.
+
+"The tobacco! You have it put in!--Oh, my poor friend, no wonder you are
+angry!" said Madame Didier in an undertone.
+
+"Out with her!" cried her husband in a fierce whisper.
+
+"Perine, Perine, and I have warned you so often to touch nothing without
+leave! Now you have spoilt the soup, and we can have no dinner."
+
+There was this inconvenience in the quick remorse which seized the girl
+when Marie reproved her, however gently, that she broke at once into
+sobs, which were as clumsy and unmanageable as her hands and feet. Jean
+disliked them intensely, and he now made frantic signs to his wife that
+she was to be sent away. "But she is as hungry as we are," pleaded
+Marie, "and see, M. Plon has given me a cabbage, I can manage
+something."
+
+He was, however, inexorable; and his wife, always afraid of his
+committing some imprudence, though on the whole Jean might be trusted to
+take care of himself, said sorrowfully:
+
+"Perine, my poor child, you must go; there is no dinner for you today.
+Don't cry, don't cry; you meant no harm--you did not know, and Heaven is
+witness how sorely we sometimes suffer for that!"
+
+Between her sobs the girl jerked out piteously:
+
+"Perine come back?"
+
+Marie looked imploringly at her husband, but he shook his head.
+
+"Not tonight, not to-night, my child. As you go out beg for a bit of
+bread from M. Plon, he is in a splendid temper, and will not refuse it.
+There make haste, go!"
+
+She took her by the shoulders and pushed her towards the door, but when
+she left her outside, kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+Perine had no sooner gone than Jean came out and flung himself angrily
+on a chair.
+
+"I shall stand this no longer. I give you notice of my determination,
+Marie. You have her here, I believe, solely to torment me. Figure to
+yourself having to stand by helpless, and see the creature put an end to
+both one's dinner and one's pipe! She is not to come here any more,
+those are my orders. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, I hear," said Marie quietly, "but I beg of you to change your
+mind. We are badly off, I allow, yet somehow or other we can always rub
+along, and this poor child is in worse plight than we are."
+
+"Worse? Nonsense. No one can be worse off than I am. Denounced,
+executed, for I assure you I felt that bullet go through my brain, saved
+just by the hair of my head--"
+
+"Such a mercy!" breathed the wife.
+
+"A mercy, yes--but you who can go and come and amuse yourself, never
+think what this life must be to me, cooped up like a rat in his hole.
+There are times when I believe I should do better to give myself up."
+
+"For the sake of Heaven, Jean--!"
+
+"At any rate," said Jean, descending from his heights, "I will not have
+that _imbecile_ here. You understand?"
+
+Marie looked at him indulgently. "Yes, my friend, I understand."
+
+"I'll lay a wager you never got that journal from old Plon-Plon?"
+
+"He had not finished with it."
+
+"Of course not. Then I shall go to sleep, for there is nothing else for
+me to do."
+
+He flung a handkerchief over his eyes as he spoke, put his feet on
+Perine's stool, and his elbow on the table. Marie moved quietly about,
+set the saucepan again on the stove, and taking some needlework from a
+box, sat down near her husband, stitching rapidly. Every now and then
+she glanced at him, and her mind was tenderly busy over his concerns all
+the while, so that tears would have stood in her eyes if they had not
+had other work to do.
+
+"How sad the poor fellow looks!" she thought. "I'm glad he's asleep,
+after that unfortunate affair with the pipe. When I remember how hard it
+is to get tobacco for him, for I am dreadfully afraid that some one will
+suspect me when I ask for it, I must own that Perine is an unlucky
+child. But as for her not coming again, he doesn't mean that, no,
+no--he's so kind hearted that he would be the last to keep her away;
+besides, I know very well that while he grumbles he feels an interest in
+hearing her do those wonderful sums. Anything is better for him than
+seeing no one but stupid me from year's end to year's end--my poor Jean!
+Three years! I declare it quite hurts me to go out and about, though to
+be sure I must. But it seems so selfish."
+
+There is no knowing to what depths of accusing wickedness Madame
+Didier's meditations would have led her, but that presently she heard a
+heavy creaking step upon the stairs; and flew to awake her husband and
+to hustle him into his refuge. M. Plon's visits were rare, and she
+discouraged them with all her might, yet when he arrived panting and
+puffing at the door, she was standing by the stove working, with a
+little coquettish air of greeting about her.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you have brought the journal yourself, M.
+Plon! Now that is kind of you, but it is disarranging yourself too much
+to climb up those steep stairs, when I could have fetched it with
+pleasure."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, they are steep, there's no denying it," said Plon, sinking
+into the rickety chair. "But what would you have? Up here on the sixth,
+you can't expect all the luxuries of the first or second."
+
+"Heavens, no!"
+
+"You should cultivate a contented frame of mind. Madame Didier, and
+beware of grumbling."
+
+"Was I grumbling?"
+
+"You were complaining--complaining of the stairs, and it is a pernicious
+habit. Don't encourage it."
+
+"But, indeed--" Marie was beginning with a smile, when he interrupted
+her with a majestic wave of his hand.
+
+"_Halte la_! Now you are contradicting, and that is another bad habit,
+particularly for a woman. But nobody knows when they are well off in
+these days. I often say to my friends: 'There is Madame Didier, she
+lives in that nice airy attic of ours; she has no one to think of but
+herself, no cares, no responsibilities; she ought to be as happy as a
+bird.' Look at me, I entreat you; what a contrast! At everybody's beck
+and call, cooped up in a draughty little den, making shoes with a
+thousand interruptions. I ask you what sort of a life is that for a man
+of my stamp? If you were to try it for a week, you'd find out whether
+you were not a lucky woman! But, there, as I said before, nobody ever
+knows when they are well off--not even widows. I say all this because I
+take a real interest in you."
+
+"I know you do, M. Plon, if only for the sake of my poor husband," said
+Marie demurely. To say the truth she was often in a state of
+uncomfortable doubt as to whether M. Plon's interest might not be going
+to take a warmer form, in which case it might be more difficult than
+ever for Jean to forget that he was no longer in the land of the living.
+
+"But I must say I don't think you are the best of managers," said M.
+Plon with a magisterial sweep of his hand which took in all the poor
+surroundings. "With your earnings you might do better than you do,
+Madame Didier. One mouth to feed, one person to dress--"
+
+"There is Perine," faltered poor Marie.
+
+"Yes, there is Perine, and it is true those imbeciles have appetites
+like wolves. Still--well, well, you must not suppose that I am blaming
+you; on the contrary, it might surprise you to hear--"
+
+M. Plon was edging his chair a little nearer to Madame Didier, and she
+thought it was time to interrupt his explanation, so she said briskly:
+
+"Ah, by the way, what news is there to-day in _Le Petit Journal?_"
+
+"There is the great robbery."
+
+"The great robbery! Where?"
+
+"In the Rue Vivienne. The paper is full of it--jewellery, diamonds,
+plate, treasures of all kinds carried off, chest and all, that's the
+wonderful part of it, for a chest is not a thing to hide in your
+pocket."
+
+"And have they no clue?" asked Marie, much interested.
+
+"Not yet, but there must have been a cart or a cab, or some vehicle in
+the affair. It is clear enough that this belongs to the _haute pegre_,
+none of your common burglars would have attempted such a daring stroke;
+and I would lay a wager, too, that they're not so far off from here, if
+they're in Paris, that is. I shall keep a sharp look-out, for the reward
+is fabulous."
+
+"Really!" said Madame Didier with a sigh.
+
+"One would suppose you wanted it yourself," said Plon angrily. "Now what
+possible good could it do to you? It is extraordinary that people--women
+especially--can't be contented, but must always be wishing for what they
+haven't got."
+
+"I was only thinking," Marie answered apologetically.
+
+"Then don't think. Women should leave that to others," Having delivered
+which sententious maxim, M. Plon rose with some difficulty from his
+chair, and gazed round the room. It was a habit of his, but it always
+frightened Marie, and it frightened her yet more when he turned towards
+the recess and stood contemplating the curtains. "You keep those so
+tightly drawn one would--Eh! what's the matter!"
+
+For Madame Didier, stooping over the stove, had uttered a sharp feminine
+shriek.
+
+"I have burnt my finger?" she exclaimed, wringing her hand.
+
+"That comes of thinking. Does it hurt?"
+
+"Hurt! Of course it does."
+
+"Let me see," he said coming over.
+
+But Marie hastily bound a bit of rag round her hand.
+
+"The great thing is to exclude the air," she said quickly. "Then you
+mean to be on the lookout for these grand robbers, M. Plon?"
+
+"Yes, instead of idling away my time up here," he said, rolling towards
+the door. "But you women dearly love a little gossip, don't you? And
+though you are not the best of managers, Madame Didier, no one can say
+you don't work with industry. So keep a good heart. You shall hear if I
+get the reward."
+
+As the sound of his heavy footsteps creaked down the stairs, Jean came
+out and flung himself on the chair which M. Plon had occupied.
+
+"Now that that old idiot has taken himself off, let's see what he was
+talking about."
+
+"Is it true about the robbery?" asked Marie, leaning over his shoulder.
+
+"So it seems."
+
+"And the reward?"
+
+"Twelve thousand francs."
+
+"Twelve thousand francs!" repeated his wife in amazement. "Oh, you must
+be mistaken!"
+
+"There are the figures at any rate, see for yourself."
+
+"Yes, I see. I suppose it must be so, as it is in the paper;
+but--but--if we could only have a little part of it!"
+
+"Ah, if!" said Jean with a shrug. "But how will you manage? Stand about
+the corners of the Streets and ask every _escarpe_ that passes?"
+
+"I could almost do that," his wife answered stoutly, "when I reflect
+that with money we might have an advocate, and you might be free. My
+store grows so slowly, Jean!"
+
+Jean dashed the paper to the ground, and thrust his hands through his
+hair.
+
+"Don't talk of it, if you wouldn't madden me!" he exclaimed.
+"Might--might--I am sick of mights! Cooped up here I can do nothing, but
+if I had only common luck I might get the end of a clue as well as any
+other poor devil. I tell you, Marie, I have half a mind to give myself
+up, and end everything."
+
+She clung to him, pale as death.
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"You'd get on better without me."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+Jean's tragic air vanished in a rush of real emotion. He put his wife
+from him and looked at her sorrowfully.
+
+"Poor soul!" he said slowly. "And you really mean that I haven't tired
+you out yet with all my moods and cross words? No? Then, decidedly, we
+must rub on a little longer still."
+
+She embraced him with all the gratitude a woman feels when her good
+offices are accepted.
+
+"To-morrow," she said cheerfully, "to-morrow will bring you some
+tobacco."
+
+"To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Perine," he replied, with a
+laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young
+fellow the haggard man had been. "Well, I am not sure that Perine isn't
+preferable to old Plon-Plon. When I hear him prosing away to you on the
+duty of being contented, it's all I can do not to knock him down. You a
+bad manager, indeed!"
+
+"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."
+
+"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.
+
+"Jean!"
+
+"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the
+only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a
+little fresh air, or drop in at the _brasserie_ and hear what is doing!"
+
+"See, here," said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, "to-night we
+shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home
+to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle. Sometimes I am
+afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a
+foolish fancy. The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile,
+tell me what more news you have got there in the paper. M. Plon has a
+great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over
+his journals--aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!"
+
+"Plon is an ass," said Jean gruffly, for he did not like any one to find
+a flaw in the wife whom he often scolded himself.
+
+"Perhaps," said Marie happily. "But now, find me something horribly
+delightful to-night, something to make me shudder."
+
+"Capture of a wolf in Auvergne."
+
+"Of a wolf! Is it possible!" demanded Madame Didier, much interested.
+"And how many people did he eat?"
+
+"Only one."
+
+"Only one! What a stupid wolf! Go on, my friend."
+
+"Suicide of a husband."
+
+"Not that, I do not like anything so sad," she said in a changed voice.
+"And where was his wife all the time, that she could not prevent it, I
+should like to know? No, let me hear a little more about this robbery,
+and then we will have our dinner."
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+The hours passed, the light faded in the little garret where Marie's
+busy fingers toiled day after day to add to the little hoard so slowly
+accumulating, and Marie's cheerful heart brought out greater treasures
+of unselfish devotion, if her husband had only known it. Perhaps he did
+know it--in a fashion. Through the night, when it came, she thought
+often uneasily of Perine out in the heart of the great wicked city. But
+Perine had a haunt or two of her own, and Marie said prayers for her,
+and slept, hoping the girl would be safe.
+
+She got up early the next morning while Jean was yet asleep, and cheered
+herself as she looked at her scanty supply of poor coffee with the
+thought that she would be paid for her work in the course of the day.
+Meanwhile the breakfast would not be a very rich affair, and she was
+pondering whether she could be so extravagant as to run to a _cremerie_
+near at hand for two _sous_-worth of milk, when an unexpected sound
+filled her with dismay. It was Perine's shuffling steps upon the stairs,
+and she was by no means sure how Jean would receive such an early
+visitor. Moreover, she did not care that he should be disturbed, and she
+went hastily to the door to moderate the noise of the girl's awkward
+entry. For a wonder no word or look of hers could do this. Perine, who
+generally was obedient to her smallest sign, was in a state of
+uncontrollable excitement; she fled to Marie's arms, buried her rough
+head there, sobbed her loudest, and presently, in the thick of
+incoherent lamentations, pulled down her dress, and showed a heavy
+bruise on her shoulder. Then she sobbed again, and implored Madame
+Didier not to let them beat her.
+
+"Come, come, come!" said Marie reassuringly, "tell me a little more
+about this, and don't be a baby, Perine. Remember that you are a big
+girl. No one will come here to beat you; if they did, good M. Plon would
+not let them come up the stairs. Tell me who did it?"
+
+She sat down on the stool as she spoke, and let the poor clumsy creature
+rest on her knee.
+
+"The man, the bad man!" howled Perine.
+
+"That I hear; but what were you doing to make any one so cruel?"
+
+"Perine only looking at pretty bright figures, mother; so pretty with
+the light on them. 7639."
+
+"What is she talking about?" said Madame Didier, puzzled, "7639?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the girl eagerly, and then she broke off again into her
+lamentations, which lasted until Marie had bathed her hurt, and soothed
+her by degrees. But when she proposed to take her to the _cremerie_,
+Perine began to wail again, and it was evident that something had so
+terrified her, that it would be cruelty to force her out into the
+streets. Every now and then she let drop another word or two on the
+subject of her fright; her poor disconnected brain seemed unable to
+grasp anything as a whole; something would float across it and be lost.
+Marie had grown apt at gathering together these cobweb strands, and
+disentangling them, but now even her ingenuity was at fault, and the
+number was the only point which stood out clearly from wavering words
+about a man and a box. She gathered at last that somewhere or other this
+number with the light shining on it had attracted Perine's attention,
+that she went to look, and that a man pushed her away with a blow, and
+with threats which had been strong enough to send her terrified from the
+spot. Evidently she scarcely felt secure in her present quarters, and
+piteously implored Marie not to suffer him to come. Marie soothed her,
+and hoped that Jean's compassion might be as strong as her own. Had she
+not been taken up with Perine, she would have more quickly caught the
+impatient scratching like a mouse in the wainscot, with which he
+summoned her.
+
+He made signs that he must speak, and with some difficulty she got
+Perine into the landing, thrusting into her hands the bread which would
+have been her own portion. Then she locked her door and went back to
+Jean, who was eagerly waiting.
+
+"Marie, I have a thought," he began. "What do you make out of all she
+says?"
+
+"Next to nothing," said his wife, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"No?" said Jean, feverishly and a little contemptuously. "Suppose I
+suggested that she saw the figures on the lamp of a cab, what then?"
+
+"What then?" repeated she, puzzled.
+
+"And a box, and a man angry with her for looking. What then?"
+
+"Oh, I don't understand!" said Marie, shaking her head.
+
+"Heavens, that any one should be so dense! Have you forgotten the
+robbery?"
+
+"In the Rue Vivienne--oh, do you mean--do you think it possible! Jean,
+how clever you are! I wonder whether--shall I run to the place and see?"
+
+"To the place, and even if they were still there, get yourself knocked
+on the head!"
+
+"I should not mind," cried Marie eagerly. "I should mind nothing with
+such a hope before me."
+
+"No, my good Marie," Jean returned grandly; "you have excellent
+intentions, but it is well you have some one to guide you. The first
+thing is to find a _commissaire_ of police."
+
+The name seemed terrible; she turned pale, but he hurried on, losing
+himself again in his excitement, and with all his haggard features
+working:
+
+"Yes, yes, I know what you will say, but do you not understand that if
+this is what I believe, anything will be forgiven to the man who can put
+the _sergent de ville_ on the track?"
+
+"_If!_ At any rate I will do what you bid me," the young wife said,
+trembling. "There is a _bureau_ not so far away. Only promise me you
+will be prudent, for I must leave Perine here, though I will lock the
+door. Remember, M. Plon has his own keys."
+
+Nor would she relax one of her precautions in spite of his heated
+impatience. But she had spoken truly, for after the daily fear of years,
+the personal danger of encountering the robbers assuredly seemed nothing
+in comparison with having to do with the police. She told Perine where
+she was to sit, and tried to extract more coherent details, but only as
+to the figures was Perine clear. These she repeated again and again,
+while more than once Jean's sharp whisper reached his wife's ears. "Make
+haste, make haste!" and she signed caution in return.
+
+When she had gone there was for some time absolute silence in the
+garret, Jean having flung himself on his bed, and given himself up to a
+wild delirium of hope. By-and-by this took the form of restlessness. He
+tossed and tumbled on his bed, and, his ear full of sounds which
+expectation and imagination brought there, sometimes started up, keen to
+listen, and the next moment pressed his fingers into his ears, to try to
+shut out these delusive sounds. Then he became almost as reckless as to
+Perine; what did her seeing him matter when so soon he would be a free
+man? Once or twice the bed creaked and groaned under his tossings, so
+that he imagined she would surely look round. But no, the girl was blind
+and deaf to everything but Marie's orders, she sat squarely on the
+wooden stool with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands,
+every now and then uttering a disjointed sob, until fatigue and tears
+brought about their natural consequence, and it became evident that she
+was asleep.
+
+Jean got up and shook himself and looked out at her, his head in a
+whirl. He began to think that Marie was long absent, and to lay the
+blame on the back which was always ready to bear his burdens.
+
+"She will not know where to go, she will stand gossipping with any fool
+who asks her a question, and in this time I would wager a piece of
+twenty _sous_ the police or some other busy-body will have got on the
+track. What more likely? And there's an end to our luck. Why did I let
+her waste all these moments? Why didn't I go myself? Women always muddle
+things. There would have been a scene, beyond doubt. '_Hola!_--thunder
+and lightning, who may this be?'" Jean planted himself in an attitude,
+and struck his chest violently. "Then I should have drawn myself up,
+always with dignity--thus--'This, gentlemen, is none other than Jean
+Didier!'--'Who? What!'--'Jean Didier, at your service, gentlemen,
+falsely denounced as Communist, executed and reported dead, but, as you
+see alive, and able to render an important service to an ungrateful
+country.'--That sounds sublime! I flatter myself it would have produced
+an impression. Why didn't I go? Women, with all their good intentions,
+haven't an idea of the value of a stroke like that! It requires genius.
+And I foresee my excellent Marie will muddle the whole affair, very
+likely allow them to pick her brains and cajole the number out of her,
+then one of these _messieurs_ will slip off and secure the reward."
+Excitement got a strong hold upon Jean as this idea presented itself,
+and his castles toppled over. "That's it, that's how it will go! And I
+deserve it for having left such a delicate affair in the hands of a
+woman. I could have managed it to a turn, and here I have let her go
+off, and the whole thing will slip through her fingers. I could beat
+myself with vexation."
+
+In effect, he stamped his foot with such violence that Perine jumped up
+and, looking round, saw him vanishing behind the curtains. She shrieked
+with terror, "The man! Oh, it's the man!"
+
+White as death, Jean rushed out and tried to calm her.
+
+"Hush, child, hush! it's only me!"
+
+But Perine was past all control, she screamed for "Mother!" for "M.
+Plon!" until it seemed to Jean that not only the house but the whole
+neighbourhood would presently be on him. He tried coaxing, he tried
+menace, but Perine shrieked the more.
+
+"Will you hold your tongue!" he cried, with a wild thought of strangling
+her. "I'm a friend, I'm not the man; I won't touch you. Perine, Perine,
+don't cry out so, look at me!"
+
+At this appeal she hid her eyes with her hands.
+
+"The man! the man! Mother! Help!" Nevertheless, though it seemed to poor
+Jean that the very streets must tingle with her cries, it is possible,
+for the upper-stories of the house had early risers for their dwellers,
+that the deaf old woman left on the fifth floor might have heard
+nothing; but unfortunately M. Plon had taken it into his head to make a
+visitation to those uninhabited rooms of his in which some one had
+housed his furniture, and at this moment was on his way. He knew that
+Madame Didier was out, and Perine's screams seemed to point to fire or
+something equally disastrous. The door was locked, but he had all his
+keys about him, and soon succeeded in opening it, when Perine in a
+transport of terror rushed at him, and flung herself into his arms with
+a force which might have knocked over a less ponderous rescuer, and
+effectually blocked the door at which Jean glanced longingly.
+
+"_Hola!_" cried the astonished landlord. "_Que diable!_ A man in
+Madame Didier's room! What's the meaning of all this? Police!"
+
+Jean advanced with a threatening gesture, and the valiant Plon quickly
+retreated. For one wild moment his lodger contemplated the chances which
+lay in knocking him down, and taking refuge in flight, but he reflected
+that if the house were alarmed he would not get off, and if not, it
+might be possible to enlist M. Plon on his side. He therefore went
+quietly back into the room, saying, "Do not fear, M. Plon.... I give
+you my word, I am not going to fight."
+
+"You had better not," said the other blusteringly. "You had better not!"
+
+"Oh, as to that ..." said Jean with anger.
+
+M. Plon retreated a second time before this demonstration, and again
+lifted his voice for the police.
+
+"They'll be here fast enough, no doubt," said Jean quietly, though there
+was a bitter feeling of downfall in his heart. "Meanwhile, perhaps it
+might be as well for me to tell you who I am."
+
+"Who you are?" repeated M. Plon indignantly. "It's easy enough to see
+that, my fine fellow, though what you could expect to steal here is not
+so clear. You've got the air of a gallows bird, and it's well this poor
+child has me--the brave Plon--to protect her."
+
+"Come, come, M. Plon--listen to reason. I'm the husband of Madame
+Didier."
+
+"The husband of Madame Didier? What, when she hasn't got one!" cried the
+other, now fairly enraged.
+
+"Nevertheless, you might remember Jean Didier--if only you would," said
+Jean imploringly, for he began to think there was yet a chance for him
+if he could conciliate his landlord, and he made a few steps towards him
+holding out his hands. But Perine screamed and Plon waved him
+energetically back. Finding his prisoner cowed he launched some strong
+invectives at him.
+
+"You're a thief and a cut-throat, that's what you are!" he said,
+shivering. "Keep off, keep off! You could no more stand in Jean Didier's
+shoes than you could in mine, for he was a decent, peaceable young
+fellow, and more than that, he was shot. So you've got hold of the wrong
+story here, Monsieur Blacklegs, and one that won't serve you much in the
+_violon_."
+
+"It's true, I give you my word," said Jean.
+
+"They did their best to shoot me, but I was only wounded. Marie got me
+up here, and here I have been ever since."
+
+"Was there ever such a cool hand!" cried Plon wrathfully. "And you
+absolutely think to persuade me of this when not a soul comes in and out
+of this house without my knowing. A pretty tale!"
+
+Jean muttered "Blockhead!" under his breath. Aloud he said, "But--M.
+Plon--am I not here now?"
+
+"No, you are not!" Plon retorted,--"or if you are, you shall soon be out
+of it again. Police! Help, help!"
+
+"If only Marie were here!" groaned Jean. "M. Plon, I implore you to have
+pity! wait until my wife arrives; you will believe her if you can't
+believe your own eyes. Lock me into the room, do whatever you like--only
+wait!"
+
+If M. Plon had indeed had sufficient calmness to contemplate the figure
+before him, it is probable that in spite of alteration he would have
+found something to recognise. But he was in a state of perturbed
+excitement which altogether confused his judgment, and only inclined him
+to refuse all his prisoner's suggestions. He therefore set himself more
+vigorously than ever to bawl for help, and Perine seconded him with all
+her might. The next moment Jean went back to the table, seated himself
+upon it and crossed his arms. He had recognised Marie's step.
+
+She came into the room pale as death, and even as she came, hesitated,
+and held up her hand, as if she would have prevented a man who was with
+her from following. But seeing that she was too late, and that Jean was
+already discovered, she rushed into his arms, crying out:
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+M. Plon took up the parable, quite regardless of her action.
+
+"What has happened, Madame Didier? There is no saying what might not
+have happened if I had not been on the spot. Here is a rascally,
+black-guardly, good-for-nothing!" and as he uttered these bold
+invectives, he advanced and shook his fist in Jean's face. "You see him,
+_M. le Commissaire_, you behold what a villain, what a desperate villain
+he looks? Listen, then, I hear screams, I meet this poor imbecile flying
+out in terror, I rush--I seize--I overpower--I make him my prisoner--"
+
+At this point the police officer interposed a question:
+
+"You used force, M. Plon?"
+
+"I used--but certainly--moral force. He had made his way into this room
+through the window, Monsieur--Monsieur--?"
+
+"Leblanc, at your service," said the commissioner carelessly. "Did you
+say through the window? That seems scarcely probable."
+
+But Plon was positive there was no other way by which he could have
+entered unseen by him. And now he would give _M. le Commissaire_ a dozen
+guesses to find out what this rascal had the villainy to pretend. To
+look at him, would any one suppose now that he could be the husband of
+madame?
+
+"Apparently," said the other, glancing at them, "Madame herself is not
+averse from that opinion."
+
+"Her husband--hee, hee!" said M. Plon, getting red. "Poor Jean, who was
+shot in _emeute_ three years ago! See there, monsieur, it is ridiculous!
+If any one should know anything about those times, it is I. I was myself
+on the very point of becoming a martyr for my country; and as for Jean
+Didier, whether rightly or wrongly, he was shot, and there was an end of
+him. To pretend that he turns up three years later...."
+
+Marie was crying, and M. Plon thought his eloquence had provoked her
+tears, but she put aside his hand, walked to the commissioner, and
+dropped on her knees before him.
+
+"Monsieur, if you have a wife--"
+
+"I have not," said the man roughly.
+
+"But your mother! If her son--"
+
+"I have my duty, that is enough," he said in the same tone, "Get up,
+Madame Didier, and let me know the truth of all this matter. This
+explains your unwillingness that I should return with you. Who's the
+man?"
+
+"My husband, monsieur," sobbed Marie, springing up and putting her hand
+in Jean's.
+
+"How came he here?"
+
+"Monsieur, he escaped and crawled here."
+
+"And how has he been supported?"
+
+"By me," said the wife simply.
+
+Plon had recoiled during this explanation, and gazed helplessly from one
+to the other.
+
+"Go on," said Leblanc, taking out a note-book.
+
+"He has not been out of this room for three years--three years! That is
+a long time for a man to be shut up," pleaded Marie, with her heart in
+her eyes. "And, _M. le Commissaire_, you must understand it was all a
+mistake. He tried to stop them, but they dragged him along, the
+Communists, and then one of them turns round and denounces him. There
+are very wicked people in the world, _M. le Commissaire_."
+
+"His name?"
+
+Jean answered for her:
+
+"The name of that man was Fort."
+
+Leblanc turned the pages of his note-book more quickly."
+Dumont--Court--ah, here it is, 'Jean Didier, glazier, with insurgents;
+pointed out as Communist by one Fort; executed on spot.' Is that
+correct?"
+
+"He was innocent," said Marie, nervously twisting her fingers.
+
+"But am I to understand that you deny his identity?" said the officer,
+turning sharply on Plon. "Speak up, man!"
+
+M. Plon looked round, bewildered. "How could he have got into the
+house?"
+
+"Never mind that. What we want is 'yes' or 'no' Is it Jean Didier? Come
+close and see for yourself."
+
+"It is like him," said the landlord, examining him from head to foot,
+"certainly it is like him; I could almost believe it was he, only--how
+could he have got into the house?"
+
+"As to that--where there's a woman--" said Leblanc, turning away. They
+were all watching him, except Perine, who was sobbing stormily on the
+wooden stool, and he said shortly, "There is something more in my
+note-book."
+
+"More!" repeated Jean with alarm.
+
+"Would you rather not have it?"
+
+Marie, who had not taken her eyes from him, advanced with her hands
+pressed upon her heart.
+
+"Courage, my friend," she said breathlessly. "Yes, _M. le
+Commissaire_, we will hear."
+
+It had struck her that he was smiling.
+
+He began to read in his sing-song voice, "Fort, convicted of forgery,
+died last month in the Grande Roquette. Before his death he confessed
+his denunciation of Jean Didier to have been false."
+
+Jean Didier's wife turned round, opened her arms and fell upon her
+husband's neck, speechless.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So this was the end of that affair. As for No. 7639, which had brought
+Leblanc in pursuit of Perine, it did not turn out so romantically as
+might have been desired, having nothing to do with the great robbery of
+the Rue Vivienne, which remains a mystery--to most people--to this day.
+But oddly enough, it set the police on the track of a smaller crime; a
+certain reward was handed over to the Didiers for the use of the poor
+girl, and no one will deny that it was her unconscious instrumentality
+which brought their change of fortune. Jean is almost always kind to
+her, but Marie treats her with a sort of reverence.
+
+You may see them sometimes, of a summer evening, walking along the
+quays. The great river sweeps slowly down, the busy lights which flit
+about the houses or point the span of the bridges with golden dots,
+fling long reflections on its surface. Overhead, more peaceful lights
+are shining. All about us is the rush of tumult and change, men drifting
+here and there, struggling, weeping, jesting, passing away; but over all
+God watches, and His world goes on.
+
+FRANCES MARY PEARD
+
+
+
+
+
+GONERIL
+
+
+A STORY IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1.
+
+THE TWO OLD LADIES.
+
+
+On one of the pleasant hills round Florence, a little beyond Camerata,
+there stands a house, so small that an Englishman would probably take it
+for a lodge of the great villa behind, whose garden trees at sunset cast
+their shadow over the cottage and its terrace on to the steep white
+road. But any of the country people could tell him that this, too, is
+Casa Signorile, spite of its smallness. It stands somewhat high above
+the road, a square, white house with a projecting roof, and with four
+green-shuttered windows overlooking the gay but narrow terrace. The beds
+under the windows would have fulfilled the fancy of that French poet who
+desired that in his garden one might, in gathering a nosegay, cull a
+salad, for they boasted little else than sweet basil, small and white,
+and some tall grey rosemary bushes. Nearer to the door an unusually
+large oleander faced a strong and sturdy magnolia-tree, and these, with
+their profusion of red and white sweetness, made amends for the dearth
+of garden flowers. At either end of the terrace flourished a thicket of
+gum-cistus, syringa, stephanotis, and geranium bushes, and the wall
+itself, dropping sheer down to the road, was bordered with the customary
+Florentine hedge of China roses and irises, now out of bloom. Great
+terra-cotta flower-pots, covered with devices, were placed at intervals
+along the wall; as it was summer, the oranges and lemons, full of
+wonderfully sweet white blossoms and young green fruit, were set there
+in the sun to ripen.
+
+It was the 17th of June. Although it was after four o'clock, the olives
+on the steep hill that went down to Florence looked blindingly white,
+shadeless, and sharp. The air trembled round the bright green cypresses
+behind the house. The roof steamed. All the windows were shut, all the
+jalousies shut, yet it was so hot that no one could stir within. The
+maid slept in the kitchen; the two elderly mistresses of the house dozed
+upon their beds. Not a movement; not a sound.
+
+Gradually, along the steep road from Camerata there came a roll of
+distant carriage-wheels. The sound came nearer and nearer, till one
+could see the carriage, and see the driver leading the tired, thin,
+cab-horse, his bones starting under the shaggy hide. Inside the carriage
+reclined a handsome middle-aged lady, with a stern profile turned
+towards the road; a young girl in pale pink cotton and a broad hat
+trudged up the hill at the side.
+
+"Goneril," said Miss Hamelyn, "let me beg you again to come inside the
+carriage."
+
+"Oh, no, Aunt Margaret; I'm not a bit tired."
+
+"But I have asked you; that is reason enough."
+
+"It's so hot!" cried Goneril.
+
+"That is why I object to your walking."
+
+"But if it's so hot for me, just think how hot it must be for the
+horse."
+
+Goneril cast a commiserating glance at the poor halting, wheezing nag.
+
+"The horse, probably," rejoined Miss Hamelyn, "does not suffer from
+malaria, neither has he kept his aunt in Florence nursing him till the
+middle heat of the summer."
+
+"True!" said Goneril. Then, after a few minutes, "I'll get in, Aunt
+Margaret, on one condition."
+
+"In my time young people did not make conditions."
+
+"Very well, auntie; I'll get in, and you shall answer all my questions
+when you feel inclined."
+
+The carriage stopped. The poor horse panted at his ease, while the girl
+seated herself beside Miss Hamelyn. Then for a few minutes they drove on
+in silence past the orchards, past the olive-yards, yellow underneath
+with ripening corn; past the sudden wide views of the mountains, faintly
+crimson in the midst of heat, and, on the other side, of Florence, the
+towers and domes steaming beside the hazy river.
+
+"How hot it looks down there!" cried Goneril.
+
+"How hot it _feels_!" echoed Miss Hamelyn rather grimly.
+
+"Yes, I am so glad you can get away at last, dear, poor old auntie."
+Then, a little later. "Won't you tell me something about the old ladies
+with whom you are going to leave me?"
+
+Miss Hamelyn was mollified by Goneril's obedience.
+
+"They are very nice old ladies, I met them at Mrs. Gorthrup's." But this
+was not at all what the young girl wanted.
+
+"Only think, Aunt Margaret," she cried impatiently, "I am to stay there
+for at least six weeks, and I know nothing about them, not what age they
+are, nor if they are tall or short, jolly or prim, pretty or ugly; not
+even if they speak English!"
+
+"They speak English," said Miss Hamelyn, beginning at the end. "One of
+them is English, or at least Irish: Miss Prunty."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"She is an Italian, Signora Petrucci; she used to be very handsome."
+
+"Oh," said Goneril, looking pleased. "I'm glad she's handsome, and that
+they speak English. But they are not relations?"
+
+"No, they are not connected; they are friends."
+
+"And have they always lived together?"
+
+"Ever since Madame Lilli died," and Miss Hamelyn named a very celebrated
+singer.
+
+"Why?" cried Goneril, quite excited; "were they singers too?"
+
+"Madame Petrucci; nevertheless a lady of the highest respectability.
+Miss Prunty was Madame Lilli's secretary."
+
+"How nice!" cried the young girl, "how interesting! Oh, auntie, I'm so
+glad you found them out."
+
+"So am I, child; but please remember it is not an ordinary pension. They
+only take you, Goneril, till you are strong enough to travel, as an
+especial favour to me and to their old friend, Mrs. Gorthrup."
+
+"I'll remember, auntie."
+
+By this time they were driving under the terrace in front of the little
+house.
+
+"Goneril," said the elder lady, "I shall leave you outside; you can play
+in the garden or the orchard."
+
+"Very well."
+
+Miss Hamelyn left the carriage and ascended the steep little flight of
+steps that leads from the road to the cottage garden.
+
+In the porch a singular figure was awaiting her.
+
+"Good afternoon, Madame Petrucci," said Miss Hamelyn.
+
+A slender old lady, over sixty, rather tall, in a brown silk skirt, and
+a white burnouse that showed the shrunken slimness of her arms, came
+eagerly forward. She was still rather pretty, with small refined
+features, large expressionless blue eyes, and long whitish-yellow
+ringlets down her cheeks, in the fashion of forty years ago.
+
+"Oh, _dear_ Miss Hamelyn," she cried, "how _glad_ I am to see you.
+And have you brought your _charming_ young relation?"
+
+She spoke with a languid foreign accent, and with an emphatic and
+bountiful use of adjectives, that gave to our severer generation an
+impression of insincerity. Yet it was said with truth that Giulia
+Petrucci had never forgotten a friend nor an enemy.
+
+"Goneril is outside" said Miss Hamelyn. "How is Miss Prunty?"
+
+"Brigida? Oh, you must come inside and see my invaluable Brigida. She is
+as usual fatiguing herself with our accounts." The old lady led the way
+into the darkened parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As one's eyes
+became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the incongruity of
+the furniture; the horsehair chairs and sofa, and large accountant's
+desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano, a bookcase, in which
+all the books were rare copies or priceless MSS. of old-fashioned
+operas; hanging against the wall an inlaid guitar and some faded laurel
+crowns; moreover, a fine engraving of a composer, twenty years ago the
+most popular man in Italy; lastly, an oil-colour portrait, by Winterman,
+of a fascinating blonde, with very bare white shoulders, holding in her
+hands a scroll, on which were inscribed some notes of music, under the
+title Giulia Petrucci. In short, the private parlour of an elderly and
+respectable Diva of the year '40.
+
+"Brigida!" cried Madame Petrucci, going to the door. "Brigida! our
+charming English friend is arrived!"
+
+"All right!" answered a strong hearty voice from upstairs. "I'm coming."
+
+"You must excuse me, dear Miss Hamelyn," went on Madame Petrucci. "You
+must excuse me for shouting in your presence, but we have only one
+little servant, and during this suffocating weather I find that any
+movement reminds me of approaching age." The old lady smiled, as if that
+time were still far ahead.
+
+"I am sure you ought to take care of yourself," said Miss Hamelyn. "I
+hope you will not allow Goneril to fatigue you."
+
+"Gonerilla! What a pretty name! Charming! I suppose it is in your
+family?" asked the old lady.
+
+Miss Hamelyn blushed a little, for her niece's name was a sore point
+with her.
+
+"It's an awful name for any Christian woman," said a deep voice at the
+door. "And pray who's called Goneril?"
+
+Miss Prunty came forward; a short, thick-set woman of fifty, with fine
+dark eyes, and, even in a Florentine summer, with something stiff and
+masculine in the fashion of her dress.
+
+"And have you brought your niece?" she said, turning to Miss Hamelyn.
+
+"Yes, she is in the garden."
+
+"Well; I hope she understands that she'll have to rough it here."
+
+"Goneril is a very simple girl," said Miss Hamelyn.
+
+"So it's she that's called Goneril?"
+
+"Yes," said the aunt, making an effort. "Of course I am aware of the
+strangeness of the name, but--but in fact my brother was devotedly
+attached to his wife, who died at Goneril's birth."
+
+"Whew!" whistled Miss Prunty. "The parson must have been a fool who
+christened her!"
+
+"He did, in fact, refuse; but my brother would have no baptism saving
+with that name, which, unfortunately, it is impossible to shorten."
+
+"I think it is a charming name!" said Madame Petrucci, coming to the
+rescue. "Goneril: it dies on one's lips like music! And if you do not
+like it, Brigida, what's in a name? as your charming Byron said."
+
+"I hope we shall make her happy," said Miss Prunty.
+
+"Of course we shall!" cried the elder lady.
+
+"Goneril is easily made happy," asserted Miss Hamelyn.
+
+"That's a good thing," snapped Miss Prunty; "for there's not much here
+to make her so!"
+
+"Oh, Brigida! I am sure there are many attractions. The air! the view!
+the historic association! and, more than all, you know there is always a
+chance of the Signorino!"
+
+"Of whom?" said Miss Hamelyn, rather anxiously.
+
+"Of him!" cried Madame Petrucci, pointing to the engraving opposite.
+"He lives, of course, in the capital; but he rents the villa behind our
+house--the Medici Villa; and when he is tired of Rome he runs down here
+for a week or so; and so your Gonerilla may have the benefit of _his_
+society!"
+
+"Very nice, I'm sure!" said Miss Hamelyn, greatly relieved; for she knew
+that Signor Graziano must be fifty.
+
+"We have known him," went on the old lady, "very nearly thirty years. He
+used to largely frequent the _salon_ of our dear, our cherished Madame
+Lilli."
+
+The tears came into the old lady's eyes. No doubt those days seemed near
+and dear to her; she did not see the dust on those faded triumphs.
+
+"That's all stale news!" cried Miss Prunty, jumping up. "And Gon'ril
+(since I'll have to call her so) must be tired of waiting in the
+garden."
+
+They walked out on the terrace. The girl was not there; but by the gate
+into the olive-yard, where there was a lean-to shed for tools, they
+found her sitting on a cask, whittling a piece of wood and talking to a
+curly-headed little contadino.
+
+Hearing steps, Goneril turned round. "He was asleep," she said. "Fancy,
+in such beautiful weather!"
+
+Then, remembering that two of the ladies were strangers, she made an
+old-fashioned little curtsey.
+
+"I hope you won't find me a trouble, ladies," she said.
+
+"She is charming!" said Madame Petrucci, throwing up her hands.
+
+Goneril blushed; her hat had slipped back and showed her short brown
+curls of hair, strong, regular, features, and flexile scarlet mouth,
+laughing upwards like a faun's. She had sweet dark eyes, a little too
+small and narrow.
+
+"I mean to be very happy," she exclaimed.
+
+"Always mean that, my dear," said Miss Prunty.
+
+"And now, since Gonerilla is no longer a stranger," added Madame
+Petrucci, "we will leave her to the rustic society of Angiolino, while
+we show Miss Hamelyn our orangery."
+
+"And conclude our business!" said Bridget Prunty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SIGNORINO.
+
+
+One day when Goneril, much browner and rosier for a week among the
+mountains, came in to lunch at noon, she found no signs of that usually
+regular repast. The little maid was on her knees, polishing the floor;
+Miss Prunty was scolding, dusting, ordering dinner, arranging vases, all
+at once; strangest of all, Madame Petrucci had taken the oil-cloth cover
+from her grand piano, and, seated before it, was practising her sweet
+and faded notes, unheedful of the surrounding din and business.
+
+"What's the matter!" cried Goneril.
+
+"We expect the signorino," said Miss Prunty.
+
+"And is he going to stay here?"
+
+"Don't be a fool!" snapped that lady; and then she added--"Go into the
+kitchen and get some of the pastry and some bread and cheese, there's a
+good girl."
+
+"All right!" said Goneril.
+
+Madame Petrucci stopped her vocalising. "You shall have all the better a
+dinner to compensate you, my Gonerilla!" She smiled sweetly, and then
+again became Zerlina.
+
+Goneril cut her lunch, and took it out of doors to share with her
+companion, Angiolino. He was harvesting the first corn under the olives,
+but at noon it was too hot to work. Sitting still there was, however, a
+cool breeze that gently stirred the sharp-edged olive-leaves.
+
+Angiolino lay down at full length and munched his bread and cheese in
+perfect happiness. Goneril kept shifting about to get herself into the
+narrow shadow cast by the split and writhen trunk.
+
+"How aggravating it is!" she cried. "In England, where there's no sun,
+there's plenty of shade--and here, where the sun is like a
+mustard-plaster on one's back, the leaves are all set edgewise on
+purpose that they shan't cast any shadow!"
+
+Angiolino made no answer to this intelligent remark.
+
+"He is going to sleep again!" cried Goneril, stopping her lunch in
+despair. "He is going to sleep, and there are no end of things I want to
+know. Angiolino!"
+
+"Sissignora," murmured the boy.
+
+"Tell me about Signor Graziano."
+
+"He is our padrone; he is never here."
+
+"But he is coming to-day. Wake up, Angiolino. I tell you he is on the
+way!"
+
+"Between life and death there are so many combinations," drawled the
+boy, with Tuscan incredulity and sententiousness.
+
+"Ah!" cried the girl, with a little shiver of impatience. "Is he young?"
+
+"Che!"
+
+"Is he old, then?"
+
+"Neppure!"
+
+"What is he like? He must be _something_."
+
+"He's our padrone," repeated Angiolino, in whose imagination Signor
+Graziano could occupy no other place.
+
+"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the young English girl.
+
+"May be," said Angiolino stolidly.
+
+"Is he a good padrone? do you like him?"
+
+"Rather!" The boy smiled, and raised himself on one elbow; his eyes
+twinkled with good-humored malice.
+
+"My Babbo has much better wine than _quel signore_," he said.
+
+"But that is wrong!" cried Goneril, quite shocked.
+
+"Who knows?"
+
+After this, conversation flagged. Goneril tried to imagine what a great
+musician could be like: long hair, of course; her imagination did not
+get much beyond the hair. He would, of course, be much older now than
+his portrait. Then she watched Angiolino cutting the corn, and learned
+how to tie the swathes together. She was occupied in this useful
+employment when the noise of wheels made them both stop and look over
+the wall.
+
+"Here's the padrone!" cried the boy.
+
+"Oh, he is old!" said Goneril; "he is old and brown, like a
+coffee-bean."
+
+"To be old and good is better than youth with malice," suggested
+Angiolino, by way of consolation.
+
+"I suppose so," acquiesced Goneril.
+
+Nevertheless she went in to dinner a little disappointed.
+
+The signorino was not in the house; he had gone up to the villa. But he
+had sent a message that later in the evening he intended to pay his
+respects to old friends. Madame Petrucci was beautifully dressed in soft
+black silk, old lace, and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on her
+starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary that
+she, likewise, should deck herself in her best. She was too young and
+impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of excitement and
+interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. Goneril, too, was
+excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had seemed so old and
+like a coffee-bean. She made no progress in the piece of embroidery she
+was working as a present for the two old ladies; jumping up and down to
+look out of the window. When, about eight o'clock, the door-bell rang,
+Goneril blushed, Madame Petrucci gave a pretty little shriek, Miss
+Prunty jumped up and rang for the coffee. A moment afterwards the
+signorino entered. While he was greeting her hostesses, Goneril cast a
+rapid glance at him. He was tall for an Italian; rather bent and rather
+grey; fifty at least, therefore very old. He certainly was brown, but
+his features were fine and good, and he had a distinguished and
+benevolent air that somehow made her think of an abbe, a French abbe of
+the last century. She could quite imagine him saying "Enfant de St.
+Louis; montez au ciel!"
+
+Thus far had she got in her meditations, when she felt herself addressed
+in clear, half-mocking tones--
+
+"And how, this evening, is Madamigella Ruth?"
+
+So he had seen her this evening, binding his corn.
+
+"I am quite well, padrone," she said, smiling shyly.
+
+The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the
+secret.
+
+"Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn," said Miss Prunty, rather
+severely.
+
+Goneril felt that the time was come for silence and good manners. She
+sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag,
+of Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that
+the ladies treated Signor Graziano with the utmost reverence; even the
+positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest
+hint. They talked, too, of Madame Lilli; and always as if she were still
+young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her
+triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before
+Goneril had ever seen the light.
+
+"Mees Goneril is feeling very young!" said the signorino, suddenly
+turning his sharp kind eyes upon her.
+
+"Yes," said Goneril, all confusion.
+
+Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed; the gay serene little lady that
+nothing ever annoyed.
+
+"It is she that is young!" she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought.
+"She is a baby!"
+
+"Oh, I am seventeen!" said Goneril.
+
+They all laughed, and seemed at ease again.
+
+"Yes, yes; she is very young," said the signorino.
+
+But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment. The
+spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown shapeless,
+dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into
+mould at the touch of the pitiless sunshine.
+
+"Signorino," said Madame Petrucci, presently, "if you will accompany me,
+we will perform one of your charming melodies."
+
+Signor Graziano rose, a little stiffly, and led the pretty withered
+little Diva to the piano.
+
+Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The signorino's thin white hands
+made a delicate fluent melody, reminding her of running water under the
+rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin,
+penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably
+true and just, even in this latter weakness. At the end, Signor Graziano
+stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly
+Madame Petrucci gasped, a sharp, discordant sound cracked the delicate
+finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth.
+
+"Bah!" she said, "this evening I am abominably husky."
+
+The tears rose to Goneril's eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt
+made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks
+which covered the song's abrupt finale.
+
+And then there came a terrible ordeal. Miss Prunty, anxious to divert
+the current of her friend's ideas, suggested that the girl should sing.
+Signor Graziano and madame insisted; they would take no refusal.
+
+"Sing, sing, little bird!" cried the old lady.
+
+"But, madame, how can one--after you?"
+
+The homage in the young girl's voice made the little Diva more
+good-humouredly insistant than before, and Goneril was too well-bred to
+make a fuss. She stood by the piano wondering which to choose, the
+Handels that she always drawled, or the Pinsuti that she always
+galloped. Suddenly she came by an inspiration.
+
+"Madame," she pleaded, "may I sing one of Angiolino's songs?"
+
+"Whatever you like, cara mia."
+
+And standing by the piano, her arms hanging loose, she began a chant
+such as the peasants use working under the olives. Her voice was small
+and deep, with a peculiar thick sweetness that suited the song,
+half-humorous, half-pathetic. These were the words she sang:--
+
+   Vorrei morir di morte piccinina,
+   Morta la sera e viva la mattina.
+   Vorrei morire, e non vorrei morire,
+   Vorrei veder, chi mi piange e chi lide;
+   Vorrei morir, e star sulle finestre,
+   Vorrei veder chi mi cuce la veste;
+   Vorrei morir, e stare sulla scala,
+   Vorrei veder chi mi porta la bara;
+   Vorrei morir, e vorre' alzar la voce,
+   Vorrei veder chi mi parta la croce.
+
+"Very well chosen, my dear," said Miss Prunty, when the song was
+finished.
+
+"And very well sung, my Gonerilla!" cried the old lady.
+
+But the signorino went up to the piano and shook hands with her.
+
+"Little Mees Goneril," he said, "you have the makings of an artist."
+
+The two old ladies stared, for after all Goneril's performance had been
+very simple. You see they were better versed in music than in human
+nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT!
+
+
+Signor Graziano's usual week of holiday passed and lengthened into
+almost two months, and still he stayed on at the villa. The two old
+ladies were highly delighted.
+
+"At last he has taken my advice!" cried Miss Prunty. "I always told him
+those premature grey hairs came from late hours and Roman air."
+
+Madame Petrucci shook her head and gave a meaning smile. Her friendship
+with the signorino had begun when he was a lad and she a charming
+married woman; like many another friendship, it had begun with a
+flirtation, and perhaps (who knows?) she thought the flirtation had
+revived.
+
+As for Goneril, she considered him the most charming old man she had
+ever known, and liked nothing so much as to go out a walk with him.
+That, indeed, was one of the signorino's pleasures; he loved to take the
+young girl all over his gardens and vineyards, talking to her in the
+amiable, half-petting, half-mocking manner that he had adopted from the
+first. And twice a week he gave her a music lesson.
+
+"She has a splendid organ!" he would say.
+
+"Vous croyez?" fluted Madame Petrucci with the vilest accent and the
+most aggravating smile imaginable.
+
+It was the one hobby of the signorino's that she regarded with
+disrespect.
+
+Goneril, too, was a little bored by the music lesson; but, on the other
+hand, the walks delighted her.
+
+One day Goneril was out with her friend.
+
+"Are the peasants very much afraid of you, signore?" she asked.
+
+"Am I such a tyrant?" counter-questioned the signorino.
+
+"No; but they are always begging me to ask you things. Angiolino wants
+to know if he may go for three days to see his uncle at Fiesole."
+
+"Of course"
+
+"But why, then, don't they ask you themselves? Is it they think me so
+cheeky?"
+
+"Perhaps they think I can refuse you nothing."
+
+"Che! In that case they would ask Madame Petrucci."
+
+Goneril ran on to pick some china roses. The signorino stopped
+confounded.
+
+"It is impossible!" he cried; "she cannot think I am in love with
+Giulia! She cannot think I am so old as that!"
+
+The idea seemed horrible to him. He walked on very quickly till he came
+to Goneril, who was busy plucking roses in a hedge.
+
+"For whom are those flowers?" he asked.
+
+"Some are for you, and some are for Madame Petrucci."
+
+"She is a charming woman, Madame Petrucci."
+
+"A dear old lady," murmured Goneril, much interested in her posy.
+
+"Old do you call her?" said the signorino rather anxiously. "I should
+scarcely call her that, though of course she is a good deal older than
+either of us."
+
+"Either of us!" Goneril looked up astounded. Could the signorino have
+suddenly gone mad?
+
+He blushed a little under his brown skin, that had reminded her of a
+coffee-bean.
+
+"She is a good ten years older than I am," he explained.
+
+"Ah well, ten years isn't much."
+
+"You don't think so?" he cried delighted. Who knows, she might not think
+even thirty too much.
+
+"Not at that age," said Goneril blandly.
+
+Signor Graziano could think of no reply.
+
+But from that day one might have dated a certain assumption of
+youthfulness in his manners. At cards it was always the signorino and
+Goneril against the two elder ladies; in his conversation, too, it was
+to the young girl that he constantly appealed, as if she were his
+natural companion--she, and not his friends of thirty years. Madame
+Petrucci, always serene and kind, took no notice of these little
+changes, but they were particularly irritating to Miss Prunty, who was,
+after all, only four years older than the signorino. That lady had,
+indeed, become more than usually sharp and foreboding. She received the
+signorino's gay effusions in ominous silence, and would frown darkly
+while Madame Petrucci petted her "little bird," as she called Goneril.
+Once indeed Miss Prunty was heard to remark it was tempting Providence
+to have dealings with a creature whose very name was a synonym for
+ingratitude. But the elder lady only smiled, and declared that her
+Gonerilla was charming, delicious, a real sunshine in the house.
+
+"Now I call on you to support me, signorino," she cried one evening,
+when the three elders sat together in the room while Goneril watered the
+roses on the terrace. "Is not my Goneril a charming little bebe?"
+
+Signor Graziano withdrew his eyes from the window.
+
+"Most charming, certainly; but scarcely such a child. She is seventeen,
+you know, my dear signora."
+
+"Seventeen! Santo Dio! And what is one at seventeen but an innocent,
+playful, charming little kitten?"
+
+"You are always right, madame," agreed the signorino; but he looked as
+if he thought she were very wrong.
+
+"Of course I am right," laughed the little lady. "Come here my
+Gonerilla, and hold my skein for me. Signor Graziano is going to charm
+us with one of his delightful airs."
+
+"I hoped she would sing," faltered the signorino.
+
+"Who? Gonerilla? Nonsense, my friend. She winds silk much better than
+she sings."
+
+Goneril laughed. She was not at all offended. But Signor Graziano made
+several mistakes in his playing. At last he left the piano. "I cannot
+play tonight," he cried. "I am not in the humour. Goneril, will you come
+and walk with me on the terrace?"
+
+Before the girl could reply Miss Prunty had darted an angry glance at
+Signor Graziano.
+
+"Good Lord, what fools men are!" she ejaculated. "And do you think, now,
+I'm going to let that girl, who's but just getting rid of her malaria,
+go star-gazing with any old idiot while all the mists are curling out of
+the valleys?"
+
+"Brigida, my love, you forget yourself," said Madame Petrucci.
+
+"Bah!" cried the signorino. He was evidently out of temper.
+
+The little lady hastened to smooth the troubled waters. "Talking of
+malaria," she began in her serenest manner, "I always remember what my
+dearest Madame Lilli told me. It was at one of Prince Teano's concerts.
+You remember, signorino?"
+
+"Che! How should I remember," he exclaimed. "It is a lifetime ago, dead
+and forgotten."
+
+The old lady shrank, as if a glass of water had been rudely thrown in
+her face. She said nothing, staring blindly.
+
+"Go to bed, Goneril!" cried Miss Prunty in a voice of thunder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+BIRDS OF A FEATHER.
+
+
+A few mornings after these events the postman brought a letter for
+Goneril. This was such a rare occurrence that she blushed rose red at
+the very sight of it, and had to walk up and down the terrace several
+times before she felt calm enough to read it. Then she went upstairs and
+knocked at the door of Madame Petrucci's room.
+
+"Come in, little bird."
+
+The old lady, in pink merino and curl-papers, opened the door. Goneril
+held up her letter.
+
+"My cousin Jack is coming to Florence, and he is going to walk over to
+see me this afternoon. And may he stay to dinner, cara signora?"
+
+"Why, of course, Gonerilla. I am charmed!"
+
+Goneril kissed the old lady, and danced downstairs brimming over with
+delight.
+
+Later in the morning Signor Graziano called.
+
+"Will you come out with me, Mees Goneril," he said; "on my land the
+earliest vintage begins to-day."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" she cried.
+
+"Come, then," said the signorino, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I can't come to-day, because of Jack."
+
+"Jack?"
+
+"My cousin: he may come any time."
+
+"Your cousin?" the signorino frowned a little. "Ah, you English," he
+said, "you consider all your cousins brothers and sisters!"
+
+Goneril laughed.
+
+"Is it not so?" he asked a little anxiously.
+
+"Jack is much nicer than my brothers," said the young girl.
+
+"And who is he, this Jack?"
+
+"He's a dear boy," said Goneril, "and very clever; he is going home for
+the Indian Civil Service Exam; he has been out to Calcutta to see my
+father."
+
+The signorino did not pay any attention to the latter part of this
+description, but he appeared to find the beginning very satisfactory.
+
+"So he is only a boy," he muttered to himself, and went away
+comparatively satisfied.
+
+Goneril spent most of the day watching the road from Florence. She might
+not walk on the highway, but a steep short-cut that joined the main road
+at the bottom of the hill was quite at her disposal She walked up and
+down for more than an hour. At last she saw some one on the Florence
+road. She walked on quickly. It was the telegraph-boy.
+
+She tore open the envelope and read: "Venice.--Exam. on Wednesday.
+Start at once. _A rivederci._"
+
+It was with very red eyes that Goneril went in to dinner.
+
+"So the cousin hasn't come," said Miss Prunty kindly.
+
+"No; he had to go home at once for his examination."
+
+"I dare say he'll come over again soon, my dear," said that
+discriminating lady. She had quite taken Goneril back into her good
+graces.
+
+They all sat together in the little parlour after dinner. At eight
+o'clock the door-bell rang. It was now seven weeks since Goneril had
+blushed with excitement when first she heard that ring; and now she did
+not blush.
+
+The signorino entered. He walked very straight, and his lips were set.
+He came in with the air of one prepared to encounter opposition.
+
+"Mees Goneril," he said, "will you come out on the terrace?--before it
+is too late," he added, with a savage glance at Miss Prunty.
+
+"Yes," said Goneril, and they went out together.
+
+"So the cousin did not come?" said the signorino.
+
+"No."
+
+They went on a little way in silence together. The night was moonlit and
+clear; not a wind stirred the leaves; the sky was like a sapphire,
+containing but not shedding light. The late oleanders smelt very sweet;
+the moon was so full that one could distinguish the peculiar
+greyish-pink of the blossoms.
+
+"It is a lovely night!" said Goneril.
+
+"And a lovely place."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then a bird sang.
+
+"You have been here just eight weeks," said the signorino.
+
+"I have been very happy."
+
+He did not speak for a minute or two, and then he said:--
+
+"Would you like to live here always?"
+
+"Ah, yes! But that is impossible."
+
+He took her hand and turned her gently so that her face was in the
+light.
+
+"Dear Mees Goneril, why is it impossible?"
+
+For a moment the young girl did not answer. She blushed very red and
+looked brave.
+
+"Because of Jack!" she said.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Nothing is settled," added the young girl, "but it is no use pretending
+not to know!"
+
+"It is no use," he repeated very sadly.
+
+And then for a little while they listened to the bird.
+
+"Mees Goneril," said the signorino at last, "do you know why I brought
+you out here?"
+
+"Not at all," she answered.
+
+It was a minute before he spoke again.
+
+"I am going to Rome to-morrow," he said, "and I wanted to bid you
+good-bye. You will sing to me to-night, as it will be the last time?"
+
+"Oh, I hope not the last time!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he said a little testily; "unless--and I pray it may not be
+so--unless you ever need the help of an old friend."
+
+"Dear Signor Graziano!"
+
+"And now you will sing me my 'Nobil Amore'?"
+
+"I will do anything you like!"
+
+The signorino sighed and looked at her for a minute. Then he led her
+into the little parlour where Madame Petrucci was singing shrilly in the
+twilight.
+
+A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
+
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE SEASON.
+
+
+"But why not? There isn't a soul in London--who's to see? What harm is
+there in it?"
+
+"Oh, none of course--a cup of tea is a cup of tea, and whether you drink
+it here or there, what matter!--only--well, the thing I think of is,
+would Rowley mind?"
+
+"Mind his own business, I should say, rather I That's what they have to
+swear to do in the marriage service, haven't they?"
+
+The lady to whom this question was addressed, Mrs. Rowley Dacres, shook
+her head reprovingly. She was young and very pretty; and Teddy
+Vere--known among certain of his friends as the Fledgeling--was not
+averse to seeing her make a pretence of being angry.
+
+"Don't let me hear you speak so flippantly of matrimony," she began
+severely; "and for your future edification, it is not the man but the
+_woman_ who swears to obey."
+
+"Then why in Heaven's name don't you do as I bid you?"
+
+"As _you_ bid me! Come, that's rather strong form, I must say! You're
+not Rowley, are you?"
+
+"No, worse luck for me, I'm not," and the good-looking fair face put on
+such an intensely woebegone expression that the resolution of the
+beholder gave way.
+
+Poor boy! it really was dreadfully unlucky that be should be so
+desperately in love with her, more especially since Rowley had taken to
+be absurdly jealous of him, as if--now that she was married--she could
+ever think seriously of anybody. Only after you'd been brought up--to
+cut your teeth, as one might say--flirting, well, it was just a little
+bit hard to give it up at twenty-three. Besides, it wasn't as if she
+meant anything--except in Rowley's case she never had; and as far as
+Teddy went, scores of mothers had said before her, dozens of times, that
+they were only too delighted to see their sons attach themselves to a
+married lady--it kept them out of harm's way; so that instead of
+mischief, it was a service she was doing Teddy. The two had been of the
+same party during Goodwood week. Teddy had joined them after on board
+Lord Datchett's yacht at Cowes; and, his leave up, and he forced to stop
+in London during the end of August, what more natural than that when she
+came up to town for a few days' shopping, Teddy should offer to act
+escort to her?--it was such a pleasure to him, poor fellow! And as there
+wasn't a single soul left to see them, what harm could there be!
+
+Notwithstanding, the little lady never lost sight of propriety--Garden
+was always near enough for her to be able to say, "I've my maid with
+me;" and added to this, "Bella Chetwode was in town, very much occupied
+it's true, but still that same staunch friend, always good at a pinch,
+who, if told that you had been met going to see her, invariably answered
+that she expected you. Life is full of surprises, and if one is armed at
+all points matters go on so much more smoothly."
+
+Now it happened that on the previous evening Teddy had shown visible
+signs of becoming unruly. He didn't see why he should be sent away. Why
+could he not stop--stop and have dinner with her?
+
+"Why? Because, in the first place, it wouldn't do; and in the second--I
+forgot though," she said; "being a man, I ought to have reversed the
+order--there's nothing to give you."
+
+"That don't matter," said Teddy heroically--"I don't care what I eat."
+
+"Oh, don't you; but I do--you might be wanting to eat me."
+
+Teddy threw a look intended to convey that he could conceive no more
+delicious morsel.
+
+"There there, say good-bye and go away, do!" she cried. "I declare
+you're beginning to get cannibalish already."
+
+And in spite of all further entreaties and a goodly show of ill-humour,
+which experience had taught him to keep handy for display, Teddy was
+forced to obey her command that he should take his departure.
+
+"I must take care not to let that boy go too far," Nina reflected when
+he had gone. "He wants his paces pulled up now and then, or else he'll
+get trying to kick over. However, it's only for a day or two, and then I
+shall be off; and by next season--Oh, he'll have forgotten me, I
+daresay."
+
+She did not "daresay" anything of the sort--there was a deal too much
+vanity in her composition to willingly give up any homage that had once
+been offered to her; but the supposition served as a salve for her
+conscience, which in the matter was not altogether easy, for in her
+letters to Rowley, and she wrote to him every day, she had never said a
+single syllable of having seen Teddy. It was not that she had any wish
+to be sly with him; but, reasoning in her own way--what good was there
+in telling any one things which would make them uneasy, and Rowley was
+such a good fellow, so wrapt up in and devoted to her,--he'd be wretched
+if she told him that Teddy was in town and came to see her every day.
+No; where ignorance was bliss it was folly to let it interfere with
+fishing; much better let Rowley continue in peace and tranquillity; and
+on Saturday he and she were to join each other at the Twyford Junction,
+on their way to Scotland to pay a heap of visits together, some new
+gowns for which had brought her to London; and her face softened with a
+smile that flitted across it as she assured herself that ten minutes
+with Rowley would make her forget the existence of Teddy. Poor
+infatuated boy!
+
+Possibly Mrs. Dacres' velvety brown eyes would have opened a trifle
+wider could she have followed the footsteps of her devoted admirer.
+Teddy, wise in his generation, made the provision of a consolation a
+matter of principle; therefore when the door closed behind him at one
+house, he quickly hailed a hansom which should take him to another,
+where he would not only be welcomed, but instead of having to beg for a
+dinner he would be begged to eat one. Matters turned out as he premised,
+and he only picked up his grievance against Nina the next day when he
+was urging her that they should go to his rooms and have tea.
+
+When this proposition was started Teddy wasn't particularly keen as to
+whether she came or whether she did not; but, ill luck would have it,
+Nina chose that very opportunity for asserting her dignity--and after
+that the question of the tea became a question of who should be
+conqueror.
+
+"If I give in again, I'll be hanged," said Teddy to himself, and he
+brought to bear the various resources he was master of with such effect
+that Nina, driven into a corner, was fairly beaten and confessed to
+herself that it served her right--"he's been allowed to go too far, and
+this is the upshot of it."
+
+She made these reflections however with a face that told no tales,
+stepped into a hansom with a pretty air of being overruled by a will
+stronger than her own, and only insisted on keeping up her ungainly
+sized parasol because "the sun in one's eyes is so disagreeable."
+
+Now, as chance would have it, instead of fishing in the country,
+Captain Rowley Dacres was spending that day in London. Circumstances had
+brought him to town early in the morning; but, to his discredit do I
+tell it, he hated shopping, and hadn't Nina told him in every letter she
+sent that she was with the dressmaker every hour of the day? If he went
+home he should have to go with her there, or to some other confounded
+place, for so long as a shop was near, Nina would be safe to have
+something to buy in it. During those few months they were engaged, what
+a purgatory he had gone trough. He was a lover then--he was a husband
+now, and he whistled the air of a popular tune known by the name of "Not
+for Joe."
+
+The first few bars had but just escaped him, when who should he stumble
+across but an old chum, Nick Walcot, who, hearing that up to seven
+o'clock--when he was going to pop in upon Nina--Rowley had nothing to
+do, gave a mysterious wink of his eye saying, "All right, old fellow;
+I'm going somewhere, and I'll take you."
+
+The somewhere proved to be a small bijou residence in the neighbourhood
+of Thurloe Square; and, arrived at the door, it suddenly struck Rowley
+who lived there.
+
+"Oh come, I say," he began, drawing back a step or two. "I don't half
+think this'll do. I'm married now, you see, and I've given up this sort
+of society.".
+
+Nick looked at him with an air of injured surprise.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked. "There's nothing against Miss Fisher that
+I know of; it's simply that I've been asked to lunch with her, and as I
+know she'll have a friend, I take ditto because I'd rather sit down four
+than three." Rowley hastened to disabuse any prejudice against Miss
+Fisher, whom he felt sure was the very soul of propriety, "Only, don't
+you know, women get an idea, and though my little wife's the best sort
+in the world, if she got scent that I'd been lunching with an actress
+instead of going straight to her, there'd be the very deuce to pay."
+
+"Fiddle de dee! besides, how is she to know? who's to tell her?" and
+before there was time to answer, a vigorous pull was given to the bell.
+
+"Confound this fellow; I wish I'd gone straight off to Nina. What a fool
+I am!" These were the reflections of Captain Dacres as he followed his
+friend into the presence of Miss Fisher, who received him with easy
+cordiality.
+
+"Good gracious on me! Captain Dacres," she said, "what a time it is
+since I've seen you, to be sure; I took it for granted you were dead."
+
+"Dead!" repeated Nick Walcot. "Why he's married; didn't you know?"
+
+"Oh, it's about the same to me," laughed the lady, and then tilting
+herself back in her chair so that her voice might reach the further room
+more easily, she called, "Doady I say, come in here--there's a surprise
+for you."
+
+And in answer to the summons a young lady appeared, who threw herself
+into a dramatic attitude exclaiming, "What! Captain Dacres? Well I
+never! Why--who'd a thought of seeing you?"
+
+Certainly it was not Captain Dacres who had anticipated that pleasure,
+for while responding with the best grace he could command to the chaff
+and banter which began to be darted at him, he was consigning Miss
+Fisher, and more especially the effusive Doady, to every depth between
+this world and the one below.
+
+The announcement of luncheon opened a more cheerful vista. "Here I am,
+and I must make the best of it," thought Rowley following, in company
+with Doady, Nick Walcot and Miss Fisher. "But if ever anything of the
+sort happens again may I be tarred and feathered. To think I ever
+thought this woman pretty, and to fancy that to this day Nina is jealous
+of her."
+
+The luncheon, commenced at an unusually late hour, took a long time
+getting through; the two ladies were excellent company, and
+notwithstanding the invectives he had indulged in, five o'clock struck
+very quickly. Then it was discovered that everybody was going the same
+way, and it ended with two hansoms being called. Miss Fisher and Nick
+Walcot got into one, Captain Rowley and Doady Donne occupied the other.
+
+"How tiresome the sun is, let me put up your parasol?" said our friend
+Rowley, with evident anxiety to screen her; but Doady begged he wouldn't
+trouble.
+
+"I don't mind the sun a bit," she said. "And I'm not in the least
+afraid of any one seeing me, since you've married you've grown so very
+respectable."
+
+"Confound her," ejaculated Rowley mentally, and he congratulated himself
+on the emptiness of London, resolving to keep his head well back and sit
+a little on one side as they went through Piccadilly. Doady asked a
+question about some friend in whom she had formerly felt an interest;
+this led to past reminiscences and the telling of some good story, over
+which Rowley was still laughing when there came a crash, followed by a
+bump and a swaying forward and back. "Hang the fellow, he's run into
+another hansom!"
+
+In an instant Rowley had dexterously jumped out on to the pavement; the
+occupant of the other hansom, whose wheel was locked into theirs,
+obeying the same instinct, had done the same.
+
+"Why, if ain't Teddy Vere. Oh my!" ejaculated one feminine voice
+shrilly, while from under a red parasol, still open, another groaned,
+"Rowley! it can't be! Oh, what will become of me?"
+
+Self-preservation is the first law of nature; the woman who hesitates is
+lost. Before another minute had passed Nina was out of one cab and into
+another close by.
+
+"Drive off as fast as you can--never mind where! I'll tell you when we
+get further on," and five minutes later she gave the cabman the address
+of Mrs. Chetwode's house.
+
+Bursting into the room she cried, "Oh, Bella, such a horrible thing has
+occurred! Do help me." And she told her the whole story, ending by
+saying, "I left word at home, when I went out, that I was going to see
+you."
+
+Mrs. Chetwode said something by way of calming her, and then she rang
+the bell.
+
+"Tell Martin to go to Mrs. Dacres', and say she will not return to
+dinner, I've prevailed on her to stop with me. Now, my dear, try and
+keep calm and put on the best face you can, and we must trust to
+Providence to help us through."
+
+"But suppose he saw me"
+
+"Oh, no, we'll suppose he didn't see you; and I think you may trust to
+Teddy--he's got his head screwed on the right way."
+
+Nina wiped away the tears which had flowed over. "Nothing can excuse me
+for being so imprudent," she said with a half sob; "all the time I knew
+how wrong it was of me; and the worst is, Bella, I didn't care."
+
+"Didn't care! How?"
+
+"I mean I didn't care for Teddy. What could a boy like that possibly be
+to me? Why, of course I love Rowley dearly--more than I could tell you;
+and to think I should risk it all in this stupid way. Oh! it's my
+abominable vanity; that's what it is. Aunt Jane always said it would be
+my ruin, and so it will be--after this, you see, Rowley will believe
+anything of me? Oh, Bella, what shall I do? I shall die."
+
+"Well, my dear, it's the best thing that could happen to you if you are
+going to behave in this absurd manner." Mrs. Chetwode saw that strong
+measures must be resorted to; she quite intended reading Nina a lecture;
+but the time to do so was not now. "There's no doubt but that you _have_
+been imprudent, _very_; but if I am to help you it's not by letting you
+sit there and cry."
+
+"Wh--at do you wish me to do?"
+
+"To dry your eyes and come down with me to dinner and chat away as we
+always do. If your husband was going home Martin will bring back word
+that he is there, or else he will come here and fetch you."
+
+"You took the message?" Mrs. Chetwode asked as the two ladies descended
+to dinner.
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Really, Nina, I ought to have ordered a better dinner for you."
+
+"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry."
+
+"But you ought to be after going about so much as we have to-day.
+By-the-by, how did you decide about that hat I saw; do you think it will
+suit you? Describe it to me."
+
+Forced to answer, Nina was trotted by her friend from one subject of
+toilette to the other, until in the midst of a got-up argument
+concerning trimmings, there came a thundering knock at the door.
+
+"Dear bless me! What a late visitor! Who can it be? Martin, just go out
+and look--never mind the door," and Mrs. Chetwode jumped up and stood
+so that she could hear the inquiry: "Is Mrs. Dacres here?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the ladies are at dinner."
+
+"Oh! Ah!"
+
+"Captain Dacres, is that you?" Bella had run out to meet him. "Why, what
+a surprise--Nina, fancy, here's your husband, dear," and she preceded
+Rowley back into the dining-room.
+
+"Rowley!" For her life Nina couldn't say more--every atom of colour had
+forsaken her.
+
+"My dear child, have I frightened you? I'm so sorry, but I found after
+all I had to come to town. Carne has made such an awful mess about the
+gun he was to get for me, and so I didn't write. I thought I'd surprise
+you."
+
+Nina laughed out like a boisterous child. "What a silly thing I am," she
+said, "I was afraid something had happened."
+
+Rowley put his arm round her, for though she was laughing, her voice
+sounded like crying all the time.
+
+Under other circumstances he might have been more struck with the little
+embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment
+he was not quite himself either. That impudent Doady Donne had played a
+shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she
+had seen his wife--Nina, Mrs. Dacres--in Teddy Vere's hansom! He hadn't
+taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him
+furious, and--though telling himself all the while that he didn't
+believe it--until he had found Nina seated with her friend, it was
+impossible to feel any security.
+
+"'Pon my life, it's too bad!" he was saying mentally. "I don't know what
+things are coming to; there ought to be a stop put to it, a line must be
+drawn somewhere; and such women oughtn't to be permitted to speak of a
+lady in that chaify way."
+
+While these reflections occupied his mind he was giving scraps of news
+to Nina, and answering Mrs. Chetwode, who was frankly saying that she
+hadn't a morsel of dinner to give him.
+
+"But I don't want any, I've only just had a most enormous luncheon."
+
+"Luncheon! Where?"
+
+"Why, my dear, at the station--ham, beef, beer--you know--veal pie--that
+sort o' thing."
+
+"Rowley! how could you! You'll be awfully ill, you know."
+
+"Not a bit of it, not I. I--" but at this moment rat-tat-a-tat-tat went
+the knocker.
+
+Oh! agony--there wasn't a doubt this was Teddy!
+
+"I say, what a game--here's another visitor!" remarked Captain Dacres
+cheerily.
+
+"One who is expected, I shouldn't wonder." Mrs. Chetwode, as usual, rose
+equal to the emergency. "We may as well let the cat out of the bag,
+Nina, and tell him.--We've got a young man coming to take us to the
+play," and turning to Martin she said, "Show him into the boudoir if
+that's Mr. Vere."
+
+"Mr. Vere! What, Teddy! Here, stop, I'll open the door!" exclaimed
+Rowley hastily "Don't you go"
+
+"But why?" interposed Mrs. Chetwode amazedly.
+
+"Because it's interrupting you so awfully in your dinner. No, no, we'll
+go up stairs together--it'll be all right you'll see"
+
+He was already in the hall, had opened the door--their voices, laughing
+it seemed--sounded together.
+
+"What can it mean?" said Nina anxiously
+
+"Never mind, one thing is certain--he didn't see you"
+
+"Perhaps it's the beer--he seems a little excited, don't you think?"
+
+"I'm not going to leave them together Teddy," called out Mrs. Chetwode,
+"come in here. Have you brought tickets for the comedy?"
+
+"Tickets, eh?"
+
+"Oh, it's no use disguising; we've--"
+
+"No, no!" broke in Rowley, "not a bit, I know all about it, old fellow;
+they've told me what you've come to do--I'll go with you. By Jove,
+capital idea! Ha, ha."
+
+"Oh, it must be the beer," thought Nina, and watching Bella's eye she
+tapped her forehead with her finger to indicate that there was no doubt
+that Rowley's head was slightly affected.
+
+"Mrs. Chetwode, I'm awfully sorry," began Teddy, "but do you know, I've
+made such a mess about the comedy; they aint playing that piece at all
+there now. I hope you'll both forgive me."
+
+"How tiresome! What a naughty boy you are!" said Bella. "Now there's
+nothing for us to do."
+
+"Nothing to do," said Rowley. "Not a bit of it; we ain't going to be
+stumped for one failure; we'll go somewhere--where shall it be, Nina,
+eh?"
+
+"Any place you like, dear," so long as I am with you, the big brown eyes
+seemed to say; and Rowley, looking back again, thought, "And I could
+doubt her--bless her heart, the darling!" while Nina kept repeating,
+"This will be a lesson for me as long as I live. Never again, no more
+flirtation--never, never, never!"
+
+Later in the evening when it was decided that they should all go to the
+Fisheries, without hesitation as to the other two, Nina and Rowley went
+off together.
+
+"Are we to follow the turtle doves?" said Teddy with sarcasm.
+
+"As you please," said Bella, "but it doesn't in the least matter--you
+know I've a scolding in store for you, Teddy?"
+
+"No, not now," and he held up his hands pleadingly.
+
+"Yes, but you've been most imprudent, and it's by the very greatest luck
+in the world that Rowley didn't see you. If he had, it would have been
+anything but pleasant for Nina."
+
+"Hm!" and Teddy gave his nose a screw. He was terribly tempted to tell what
+he looked on as the very best joke in the world--only--well--no--perhaps
+better not--if you once let a thing slip out it often gets spoken of,
+nobody knows how; and as Rowley had whispered at the door, "Teddy, I say,
+not a word about having seen me before," and he had answered "Honour
+bright, old chap; you may trust me," he'd keep the matter dark; only there
+was one to score against Miss Doady Donne for telling him last night at
+dinner that she was going to play propriety to a friend that day. He hated
+a lie without a reason; and as it seemed to him he'd gone quite far enough
+in that direction, this would serve as a capital peg to hang a quarrel on.
+
+"Shall we say good-night?" said Bella.
+
+"Do you want to get rid of me?"
+
+"N--no."
+
+"Oh, I see you do," and he held out his hand to her.
+
+"Good-night," she began, trying to hold herself very severely, "and let
+this little adventure be a lesson to you. All's well that ends well, but
+remember _all_ doesn't always end so."
+
+"Quite true," he said, feigning to have listened penitently."
+By-the-way, would you mind repeating that same little sermon to our
+friend Rowley?--it might be of service to him. What do I mean?--oh
+nothing--only that one good turn deserves another."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales from Many Sources, by Various
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