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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40915 ***
+
+  JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
+
+
+
+    "We spake of many a vanished scene,
+      Of what we once had thought and said,
+    Of what had been, and might have been,
+      And who was changed, and who was dead."
+                                      LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+  JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
+  BY
+
+  MRS. HENRY WOOD,
+  AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "THE CHANNINGS," ETC.
+
+  _FIRST SERIES._
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  +Fiftieth Thousand.+
+
+  LONDON:
+  RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
+  +Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.+
+  1895.
+
+  (_All rights reserved._)
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                   PAGE
+
+      I. LOSING LENA                  1
+
+     II. FINDING BOTH OF THEM        16
+
+    III. WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING   28
+
+     IV. MAJOR PARRIFER              48
+
+      V. COMING HOME TO HIM          64
+
+     VI. LEASE, THE POINTSMAN        80
+
+    VII. AUNT DEAN                   98
+
+   VIII. GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL   117
+
+     IX. DICK MITCHEL               133
+
+      X. A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT        150
+
+     XI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END   165
+
+    XII. "JERRY'S GAZETTE"          182
+
+   XIII. SOPHIE CHALK               203
+
+    XIV. AT MISS DEVEEN'S           219
+
+     XV. THE GAME FINISHED          238
+
+    XVI. GOING TO THE MOP           256
+
+   XVII. BREAKING DOWN              275
+
+  XVIII. REALITY OR DELUSION?       293
+
+    XIX. DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH  308
+
+     XX. DAVID GARTH'S GHOST        329
+
+    XXI. SEEING LIFE                348
+
+   XXII. OUR STRIKE                 368
+
+  XXIII. BURSTING-UP                389
+
+   XXIV. GETTING AWAY               409
+
+    XXV. OVER THE WATER             427
+
+   XXVI. AT WHITNEY HALL            447
+
+
+
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+LOSING LENA.
+
+
+We lived chiefly at Dyke Manor. A fine old place, so close upon the
+borders of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, that many people did not
+know which of the two counties it was really in. The house was in
+Warwickshire, but some of the land was in Worcestershire. The Squire
+had, however, another estate, Crabb Cot, all in Worcestershire, and very
+many miles nearer to Worcester.
+
+Squire Todhetley was rich. But he lived in the plain, good old-fashioned
+way that his forefathers had lived; almost a homely way, it might be
+called, in contrast with the show and parade that have sprung up of
+late years. He was respected by every one, and though hotheaded and
+impetuous, he was simple-minded, open-handed, and had as good a heart as
+any one ever had in this world. An elderly gentleman now, was he, of
+middle height, with a portly form and a red face; and his hair, what was
+left of it, consisted of a few scanty, lightish locks, standing up
+straight on the top of his head.
+
+The Squire had married, but not very early in life. His wife died in
+a few years, leaving one child only; a son, named after his father,
+Joseph. Young Joe was just the pride of the Manor and of his father's
+heart.
+
+I, writing this, am Johnny Ludlow. And you will naturally want to hear
+what I did at Dyke Manor, and why I lived there.
+
+About three-miles' distance from the Manor was a place called the Court.
+Not a property of so much importance as the Manor, but a nice place,
+for all that. It belonged to my father, William Ludlow. He and Squire
+Todhetley were good friends. I was an only child, just as Tod was; and,
+like him, I had lost my mother. They had christened me John, but always
+called me Johnny. I can remember many incidents of my early life now,
+but I cannot recall my mother to my mind. She must have died--at least I
+fancy so--when I was two years old.
+
+One morning, two years after that, when I was about four, the servants
+told me I had a new mamma. I can see her now as she looked when she came
+home: tall, thin, and upright, with a long face, pinched nose, a meek
+expression, and gentle voice. She was a Miss Marks, who used to play the
+organ at church, and had hardly any income at all. Hannah said she was
+sure she was thirty-five if she was a day--she was talking to Eliza
+while she dressed me--and they both agreed that she would probably turn
+out to be a tartar, and that the master might have chosen better. I
+understood quite well that they meant papa, and asked why he might have
+chosen better; upon which they shook me and said they had not been
+speaking of my papa at all, but of the old blacksmith round the corner.
+Hannah brushed my hair the wrong way, and Eliza went off to see to her
+bedrooms. Children are easily prejudiced: and they prejudiced me against
+my new mother. Looking at her with the eyes of maturer years, I know
+that though she might be poor in pocket, she was good and kindly, and
+every inch a lady.
+
+Papa died that same year. At the end of another year, Mrs. Ludlow, my
+step-mother, married Squire Todhetley, and we went to live at Dyke
+Manor; she, I, and my nurse Hannah. The Court was let for a term of
+years to the Sterlings.
+
+Young Joe did not like the new arrangements. He was older than I, could
+take up prejudices more strongly, and he took a mighty strong one
+against the new Mrs. Todhetley. He had been regularly indulged by his
+father and spoilt by all the servants; so it was only to be expected
+that he would not like the invasion. Mrs. Todhetley introduced order
+into the profuse household, hitherto governed by the servants. They and
+young Joe equally resented it; they refused to see that things were
+really more comfortable than they used to be, and at half the cost.
+
+Two babies came to the Manor; Hugh first, Lena next. Joe and I were sent
+to school. He was as big as a house, compared with me, tall and strong
+and dark, with an imperious way and will of his own. I was fair, gentle,
+timid, yielding to him in all things. His was the master-spirit, swaying
+mine at will. At school the boys at once, the very first day we entered,
+shortened his name from Todhetley to Tod. I caught up the habit, and
+from that time I never called him anything else.
+
+And so the years went on. Tod and I at school being drilled into
+learning; Hugh and Lena growing into nice little children. During the
+holidays, hot war raged between Tod and his step-mother. At least
+_silent_ war. Mrs. Todhetley was always kind to him, and she never
+quarrelled; but Tod opposed her in many things, and would be generally
+sarcastically cool to her in manner.
+
+We did lead the children into mischief, and she complained of that. Tod
+did, that is, and of course I followed where he led. "But we can't let
+Hugh grow up a milksop, you know, Johnny," he would say to me; "and he
+would if left to his mother." So Hugh's clothes in Tod's hands came to
+grief, and sometimes Hugh himself. Hannah, who was the children's nurse
+now, stormed and scolded over it: she and Tod had ever been at daggers
+drawn with each other; and Mrs. Todhetley would implore Tod with tears
+in her eyes to be careful with the child. Tod appeared to turn a deaf
+ear to them, and marched off with Hugh before their very eyes. He really
+loved the children, and would have saved them from injury with his life.
+The Squire drove and rode his fine horses. Mrs. Todhetley had set up a
+low basket-chaise drawn by a mild she-donkey: it was safer for the
+children, she said. Tod went into fits whenever he met the turn-out.
+
+But Tod was not always to escape scot-free, or incite the children to
+rebellion with impunity. There came a day when he brought himself,
+through it, to a state of self-torture and repentance.
+
+It occurred when we were at home for the summer holidays, just after
+the crop of hay was got in, and the bare fields looked as white in
+the blazing sun as if they had been scorched. Tod and I were in the
+three-cornered meadow next the fold-yard. He was making a bat-net with
+gauze and two sticks. Young Jacobson had shown us his the previous day,
+and a bat he had caught with it; and Tod thought he would catch bats
+too. But he did not seem to be making much hand at the net, and somehow
+managed to send the pointed end of the stick through a corner of it.
+
+"I don't think that gauze is strong enough, Tod."
+
+"I am afraid it is not, Johnny. Here, catch hold of it. I'll go indoors,
+and see if they can't find me some better. Hannah must have some."
+
+He flew off past the ricks, and leaped the little gate into the
+fold-yard--a tall, strong fellow, who might leap the Avon. In a few
+minutes I heard his voice again, and went to meet him. Tod was coming
+away from the house with Lena.
+
+"Have you the gauze, Tod!"
+
+"Not a bit of it; the old cat won't look for any; says she hasn't time.
+I'll hinder her time a little. Come along, Lena."
+
+The "old cat" was Hannah. I told you she and he were often at daggers
+drawn. Hannah had a chronic complaint in the shape of ill-temper, and
+Tod called her names to her face. Upon going in to ask her for the
+gauze, he found her dressing Hugh and Lena to go out, and she just
+turned him out of the nursery, and told him not to bother her then with
+his gauze and his wants. Lena ran after Tod; she liked him better than
+all of us put together. She had on a blue silk frock, and a white straw
+hat with daisies round it; open-worked stockings were on her pretty
+little legs. By which we saw she was about to be taken out for show.
+
+"What are you going to do with her, Tod?"
+
+"I'm going to hide her," answered Tod, in his decisive way. "Keep where
+you are, Johnny."
+
+Lena enjoyed the rebellion. In a minute or two Tod came back alone. He
+had left her between the ricks in the three-cornered field, and told her
+not to come out. Then he went off to the front of the house, and I stood
+inside the barn, talking to Mack, who was hammering away at the iron of
+the cart-wheel. Out came Hannah by-and-by. She had been dressing herself
+as well as Hugh.
+
+"Miss Lena!"
+
+No answer. Hannah called again, and then came up the fold-yard, looking
+about.
+
+"Master Johnny, have you seen the child?"
+
+"What child?" I was not going to spoil Tod's sport by telling her.
+
+"Miss Lena. She has got off somewhere, and my mistress is waiting for
+her in the basket-chaise."
+
+"I see her just now along of Master Joseph," spoke up Mack, arresting
+his noisy hammer.
+
+"See her where?" asked Hannah.
+
+"Close here, a-going that way."
+
+He pointed to the palings and gate that divided the yard from the
+three-cornered field. Hannah ran there and stood looking over. The ricks
+were within a short stone's throw, but Lena kept close. Hannah called
+out again, and threw her gaze over the empty field.
+
+"The child's not there. Where can she have got to, tiresome little
+thing?"
+
+In the house, and about the house, and out of the house, as the old
+riddle says, went Hannah. It was jolly to see her. Mrs. Todhetley and
+Hugh were seated patiently in the basket-chaise before the hall-door,
+wondering what made Hannah so long. Tod, playing with the mild
+she-donkey's ears, and laughing to himself, stood talking graciously to
+his step-mother. I went round. The Squire had gone riding into Evesham;
+Dwarf Giles, who made the nattiest little groom in the county, for all
+his five-and-thirty years, behind him.
+
+"I can't find Miss Lena," cried Hannah, coming out.
+
+"Not find Miss Lena!" echoed Mrs. Todhetley. "What do you mean, Hannah?
+Have you not dressed her?"
+
+"I dressed her first, ma'am, before Master Hugh, and she went out of
+the nursery. I can't think where she can have got to. I've searched
+everywhere."
+
+"But, Hannah, we must have her directly; I am late as it is."
+
+They were going over to the Court to a children's early party at the
+Sterlings'. Mrs. Todhetley stepped out of the basket-chaise to help in
+the search.
+
+"I had better fetch her, Tod," I whispered.
+
+He nodded yes. Tod never bore malice, and I suppose he thought Hannah
+had had enough of a hunt for that day. I ran through the fold-yard to
+the ricks, and called to Lena.
+
+"You can come out now, little stupid."
+
+But no Lena answered. There were seven ricks in a group, and I went into
+all the openings between them. Lena was not there. It was rather odd,
+and I looked across the field and towards the lane and the coppice,
+shouting out sturdily.
+
+"Mack, have you seen Miss Lena pass indoors?" I stayed to ask him, in
+going back.
+
+No: Mack had not noticed her; and I went round to the front again, and
+whispered to Tod.
+
+"What a muff you are, Johnny! She's between the ricks fast enough. No
+danger that she'd come out when I told her to stay!"
+
+"But she's not there indeed, Tod. You go and look."
+
+Tod vaulted off, his long legs seeming to take flying leaps, like a
+deer's, on his way to the ricks.
+
+To make short of the story, Lena was gone. Lost. The house, the outdoor
+buildings, the gardens were searched for her, and she was not to be
+found. Mrs. Todhetley's fears flew to the ponds at first; but it was
+impossible she could have come to grief in either of the two, as they
+were both in view of the barn-door where I and Mack had been. Tod avowed
+that he had put her amid the ricks to hide her; and it was not to be
+imagined she had gone away. The most feasible conjecture was, that she
+had run from between the ricks when Hannah called to her, and was hiding
+in the lane.
+
+Tod was in a fever, loudly threatening Lena with unheard-of whippings,
+to cover his real concern. Hannah looked red, Mrs. Todhetley white. I
+was standing by him when the cook came up; a sharp woman, with red-brown
+eyes. We called her Molly.
+
+"Mr. Joseph," said she, "I have heard of gipsies stealing children."
+
+"Well?" returned Tod.
+
+"There was one at the door a while agone--an insolent one, too. Perhaps
+Miss Lena----"
+
+"Which way did she go?--which door was she at?" burst forth Tod.
+
+"'Twas a man, sir. He came up to the kitchen-door, and steps inside as
+bold as brass, asking me to buy some wooden skewers he'd cut, and saying
+something about a sick child. When I told him to march, that we never
+encouraged tramps here, he wanted to answer me, and I just shut the door
+in his face. A regular gipsy, if ever I see one," continued Molly; "his
+skin tawny and his wild hair jet-black. Maybe, in revenge, he have stole
+off the little miss."
+
+Tod took up the notion, and his face turned white. "Don't say anything
+of this to Mrs. Todhetley," he said to Molly. "We must just scour the
+country."
+
+But in departing from the kitchen-door, the gipsy man could not by any
+possibility have made his way to the rick-field without going through
+the fold-yard. And he had not done that. It was true that Lena might
+have run round and got into the gipsy's way. Unfortunately, none of
+the men were about, except Mack and old Thomas. Tod sent these off in
+different directions; Mrs. Todhetley drove away in her pony-chaise to
+the lanes round, saying the child might have strayed there; Molly and
+the maids started elsewhere; and I and Tod went flying along a by-road
+that branched off in a straight line, as it were, from the kitchen-door.
+Nobody could keep up with Tod, he went so fast; and I was not tall and
+strong as he was. But I saw what Tod in his haste did not see--a dark
+man with some bundles of skewers and a stout stick, walking on the other
+side of the hedge. I whistled Tod back again.
+
+"What is it, Johnny?" he said, panting. "Have you seen her?"
+
+"Not her. But look there. That must be the man Molly spoke of."
+
+Tod crashed through the hedge as if it had been so many cobwebs,
+and accosted the gipsy. I followed more carefully, but got my face
+scratched.
+
+"Were you up at the great house, begging, a short time ago?" demanded
+Tod, in an awful passion.
+
+The man turned round on Tod with a brazen face. I say brazen, because he
+did it so independently; but it was not an insolent face in itself;
+rather a sad one, and very sickly.
+
+"What's that you ask me, master?"
+
+"I ask whether it was you who were at the Manor-house just now,
+begging?" fiercely repeated Tod.
+
+"I was at a big house offering wares for sale, if you mean that, sir. I
+wasn't begging."
+
+"Call it what you please," said Tod, growing white again. "What have you
+done with the little girl?"
+
+For, you see, Tod had caught up the impression that the gipsy _had_
+stolen Lena, and he spoke in accordance with it.
+
+"I've seen no little girl, master."
+
+"You have," and Tod gave his foot a stamp. "What have you done with
+her?"
+
+The man's only answer was to turn round and walk off, muttering to
+himself. Tod pursued him, calling him a thief and other names; but
+nothing more satisfactory could he get out of him.
+
+"He can't have taken her, Tod. If he had, she'd be with him now. He
+couldn't eat her, you know."
+
+"He may have given her to a confederate."
+
+"What to do? What do gipsies steal children for?"
+
+Tod stopped in a passion, lifting his hand. "If you torment me with
+these frivolous questions, Johnny, I'll strike you. How do I know what's
+done with stolen children? Sold, perhaps. I'd give a hundred pounds
+out of my pocket at this minute if I knew where those gipsies were
+encamped."
+
+We suddenly lost the fellow. Tod had been keeping him in sight in the
+distance. Whether he disappeared up a gum-tree, or into a rabbit-hole,
+Tod couldn't tell; but gone he was.
+
+Up this lane, down that one; over this moor, across that common; so
+raced Tod and I. And the afternoon wore away, and we had changed our
+direction a dozen times: which possibly was not wise.
+
+The sun was getting low as we passed Ragley gates, for we had finally
+got into the Alcester road. Tod was going to do what we ought to have
+done at first: report the loss at Alcester. Some one came riding along
+on a stumpy pony. It proved to be Gruff Blossom, groom to the Jacobsons.
+They called him "Gruff" because of his temper. He did touch his hat to
+us, which was as much as you could say, and spurred the stumpy animal
+on. But Tod made a sign to him, and he was obliged to stop and listen.
+
+"The gipsies stole off little Miss Lena!" cried old Blossom, coming out
+of his gruffness. "That's a rum go! Ten to one if you find her for a
+year to come."
+
+"But, Blossom, what do they do with the children they steal?" I asked,
+in a sort of agony.
+
+"They cuts their hair off and dyes their skins brown, and then takes 'em
+out to fairs a ballad-singing," answered Blossom.
+
+"But why need they do it, when they have children of their own?"
+
+"Ah, well, that's a question I couldn't answer," said old Blossom.
+"Maybe their'n arn't pretty children--Miss Lena, she is pretty."
+
+"Have you heard of any gipsies being encamped about here?" Tod demanded
+of him.
+
+"Not lately, Mr. Joseph. Five or six months ago, there was a lot 'camped
+on the Markis's ground. They warn't there long."
+
+"Can't you ride about, Blossom, and see after the child?" asked Tod,
+putting something into his hand.
+
+Old Blossom pocketed it, and went off with a nod. He was riding
+about, as we knew afterwards, for hours. Tod made straight for the
+police-station at Alcester, and told his tale. Not a soul was there but
+Jenkins, one of the men.
+
+"I haven't seen no suspicious characters about," said Jenkins, who
+seemed to be eating something. He was a big man, with short black hair
+combed on his forehead, and he had a habit of turning his face upwards,
+as if looking after his nose--a square ornament, that stood up straight.
+
+"She is between four and five years old; a very pretty child, with blue
+eyes and a good deal of curling auburn hair," said Tod, who was growing
+feverish.
+
+Jenkins wrote it down--"Name, Todhetley. What Christian name?"
+
+"Adalena, called 'Lena.'"
+
+"Recollect the dress, sir?"
+
+"Pale blue silk; straw hat with wreath of daisies round it; open-worked
+white stockings, and thin black shoes; white drawers," recounted Tod, as
+if he had prepared the list by heart coming along.
+
+"That's bad, that dress is," said Jenkins, putting down the pen.
+
+"Why is it bad?"
+
+"'Cause the things is tempting. Quite half the children that gets stole
+is stole for what they've got upon their backs. Tramps and that sort
+will run a risk for a blue silk that they'd not run for a brown holland
+pinafore. Auburn curls, too," added Jenkins, shaking his head; "that's a
+temptation also. I've knowed children sent back home with bare heads
+afore now. Any ornaments, sir?"
+
+"She was safe to have on her little gold neck-chain and cross. They are
+very small, Jenkins--not worth much."
+
+Jenkins lifted his nose--not in disdain, it was a habit he had. "Not
+worth much to you, sir, who could buy such any day, but an uncommon bait
+to professional child-stealers. Were the cross a coral, or any stone of
+that sort?"
+
+"It was a small gold cross, and the chain was thin. They could only be
+seen when her cloak was off. Oh, I forgot the cloak; it was white:
+llama, I think they call it. She was going to a child's party."
+
+Some more questions and answers, most of which Jenkins took down.
+Handbills were to be printed and posted, and a reward offered on the
+morrow, if she was not previously found. Then we came away; there was
+nothing more to do at the station.
+
+"Wouldn't it have been better, Tod, had Jenkins gone out seeking her and
+telling of the loss abroad, instead of waiting to write all that down?"
+
+"Johnny, if we don't find her to night, I shall go mad," was all he
+answered.
+
+He went back down Alcester Street at a rushing pace--not a run but a
+quick walk.
+
+"Where are you going now?" I asked.
+
+"I'm going up hill and down dale until I find that gipsies' encampment.
+You can go on home, Johnny, if you are tired."
+
+I had not felt tired until we were in the police-station. Excitement
+keeps off fatigue. But I was not going to give in, and said I should
+stay with him.
+
+"All right, Johnny."
+
+Before we were clear of Alcester, Budd the land-agent came up. He was
+turning out of the public-house at the corner. It was dusk then. Tod
+laid hold of him.
+
+"Budd, you are always about, in all kinds of nooks and by-lanes: can you
+tell me of any encampment of gipsies between here and the Manor-house?"
+
+The agent's business took him abroad a great deal, you know, into the
+rural districts around.
+
+"Gipsies' encampment?" repeated Budd, giving both of us a stare.
+"There's none that I know of. In the spring, a lot of them had the
+impudence to squat down on the Marquis's----"
+
+"Oh, I know all that," interrupted Tod. "Is there nothing of the sort
+about now?"
+
+"I saw a miserable little tent to-day up Cookhill way," said Budd. "It
+might have been a gipsy's or a travelling tinker's. 'Twasn't of much
+account, whichever it was."
+
+Tod gave a spring. "Whereabouts?" was all he asked. And Budd explained
+where. Tod went off like a shot, and I after him.
+
+If you are familiar with Alcester, or have visited at Ragley or anything
+of that sort, you must know the long green lane leading to Cookhill; it
+is dark with overhanging trees, and uphill all the way. We took that
+road--Tod first, and I next; and we came to the top, and turned in the
+direction Budd had described the tent to be in.
+
+It was not to be called dark; the nights never are at midsummer; and
+rays from the bright light in the west glimmered through the trees. On
+the outskirts of the coppice, in a bit of low ground, we saw the tent,
+a little mite of a thing, looking no better than a funnel turned upside
+down. Sounds were heard within it, and Tod put his finger on his lip
+while he listened. But we were too far off, and he took his boots off,
+and crept up close.
+
+Sounds of wailing--of some one in pain. But that Tod had been three
+parts out of his senses all the afternoon, he might have known at
+once that they did not come from Lena, or from any one so young. Words
+mingled with them in a woman's voice; uncouth in its accents, nearly
+unintelligible, an awful sadness in its tones.
+
+"A bit longer! a bit longer, Corry, and he'd ha' been back. You needn't
+ha' grudged it to us. Oh----h! if ye had but waited a bit longer!"
+
+I don't write it exactly as she spoke; I shouldn't know how to spell it:
+we made a guess at half the words. Tod, who had grown white again, put
+on his boots, and lifted up the opening of the tent.
+
+I had never seen any scene like it; I don't suppose I shall ever see
+another. About a foot from the ground was a raised surface of some sort,
+thickly covered with dark green rushes, just the size and shape of a
+gravestone. A little child, about as old as Lena, lay on it, a white
+cloth thrown over her, and just touching the white, still face. A torch,
+blazing and smoking away, was thrust into the ground and lighted up the
+scene. Whiter the face looked now, because it had been tawny in life. I
+would rather see one of our faces in death than a gipsy's. The contrast
+between the white face and dress of the child, and the green bed of
+rushes it lay on was something remarkable. A young woman, dark too, and
+handsome enough to create a commotion at the fair, knelt down, her brown
+hands uplifted; a gaudy ring on one of the fingers, worth sixpence
+perhaps when new, sparkled in the torchlight. Tod strode up to the dead
+face and looked at it for full five minutes. I do believe he thought at
+first that it was Lena.
+
+"What is this?" he asked.
+
+"It is my dead child!" the woman answered. "She did not wait that her
+father might see her die!"
+
+But Tod had his head full of Lena, and looked round. "Is there no other
+child here?"
+
+As if to answer him, a bundle of rags came out of a corner and set up a
+howl. It was a boy of about seven, and our going in had wakened him up.
+The woman sat down on the ground and looked at us.
+
+"We have lost a child--a little girl," explained Tod. "I thought she
+might have been brought here--or have strayed here."
+
+"I've lost _my_ girl," said the woman. "Death has come for her!" And,
+when speaking to us, she spoke more intelligibly than when alone.
+
+"Yes; but this child has been lost--lost out of doors! Have you seen or
+heard anything of one?"
+
+"I've not been in the way o' seeing or hearing, master; I've been in
+the tent alone. If folks had come to my aid, Corry might not have died.
+I've had nothing but water to put to her lips all day?"
+
+"What was the matter with her?" Tod asked, convinced at length that Lena
+was not there.
+
+"She have been ailing long--worse since the moon come in. The sickness
+took her with the summer, and the strength began to go out. Jake have
+been down, too. He couldn't get out to bring us help, and we have had
+none."
+
+Jake was the husband, we supposed. The help meant food, or funds to get
+it with.
+
+"He sat all yesterday cutting skewers, his hands a'most too weak to
+fashion 'em. Maybe he'd sell 'em for a few ha'pence, he said; and he
+went out this morning to try, and bring home a morsel of food."
+
+"Tod," I whispered, "I wish that hard-hearted Molly had----"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Johnny," he interrupted sharply. "Is Jake your
+husband?" he asked of the woman.
+
+"He is my husband, and the children's father."
+
+"Jake would not be likely to steal a child, would he?" asked Tod, in a
+hesitating manner, for him.
+
+She looked up, as if not understanding. "Steal a child, master! What
+for?"
+
+"I don't know," said Tod. "I thought perhaps he had done it, and had
+brought the child here."
+
+Another comical stare from the woman. "We couldn't feed these of ours;
+what should we do with another?"
+
+"Well: Jake called at our house to sell his skewers; and, directly
+afterwards, we missed my little sister. I have been hunting for her ever
+since."
+
+"Was the house far from here!"
+
+"A few miles."
+
+"Then he have sunk down of weakness on his way, and can't get back."
+
+Putting her head on her knees, she began to sob and moan. The child--the
+living one--began to bawl; one couldn't call it anything else; and
+pulled at the green rushes.
+
+"He knew Corry was sick and faint when he went out. He'd have got back
+afore now if his strength hadn't failed him; though, maybe, he didn't
+think of death. Whist, then, whist, then, Dor," she added, to the boy.
+
+"Don't cry," said Tod to the little chap, who had the largest, brightest
+eyes I ever saw. "That will do no good, you know."
+
+"I want Corry," said he. "Where's Corry gone?"
+
+"She's gone up to God," answered Tod, speaking very gently. "She's gone
+to be a bright angel with Him in heaven."
+
+"Will she fly down to me?" asked Dor, his great eyes shining through
+their tears at Tod.
+
+"Yes," affirmed Tod, who had a theory of his own on the point, and used
+to think, when a little boy, that his mother was always near him, one of
+God's angels keeping him from harm. "And after a while, you know, if you
+are good, you'll go to Corry, and be an angel, too."
+
+"God bless you, master!" interposed the woman. "He'll think of that
+always."
+
+"Tod," I said, as we went out of the tent, "I don't think they are
+people to steal children."
+
+"Who's to know what the man would do?" retorted Tod.
+
+"A man with a dying child at home wouldn't be likely to harm another."
+
+Tod did not answer. He stood still a moment, deliberating which way to
+go. Back to Alcester?--where a conveyance might be found to take us
+home, for the fatigue was telling on both of us, now that disappointment
+was prolonged, and I, at least, could hardly put one foot before
+another. Or down to the high-road, and run the chance of some vehicle
+overtaking us? Or keep on amidst these fields and hedgerows, which would
+lead us home by a rather nearer way, but without chance of a lift? Tod
+made up his mind, and struck down the lane the way we had come up. He
+was on first, and I saw him suddenly halt, and turn to me.
+
+"Look here, Johnny!"
+
+I looked as well as I could for the night and the trees, and saw
+something on the ground. A man had sunk down there, apparently from
+exhaustion. His face was a tawny white, just like the dead child's. A
+stout stick and the bundles of skewers lay beside him.
+
+"Do you see the fellow, Johnny? It is the gipsy."
+
+"Has he fainted?"
+
+"Fainted, or shamming it. I wonder if there's any water about?"
+
+But the man opened his eyes; perhaps the sound of voices revived him.
+After looking at us a minute or two, he raised himself slowly on his
+elbow. Tod--the one thought uppermost in his mind--said something about
+Lena.
+
+"The child's found, master!"
+
+Tod seemed to give a leap. I know his heart did. "Found!"
+
+"Been safe at home this long while."
+
+"Who found her?"
+
+"'Twas me, master."
+
+"Where was she?" asked Tod, his tone softening. "Let us hear about it."
+
+"I was making back for the town" (we supposed he meant Alcester), "and
+missed the way; land about here's strange to me. A-going through a bit
+of a groove, which didn't seem as if it was leading to nowhere, I heard
+a child crying. There was the little thing tied to a tree, stripped,
+and----"
+
+"Stripped!" roared Tod.
+
+"Stripped to the skin, sir, save for a dirty old skirt that was tied
+round her. A woman carried her off to that spot, she told me, robbed her
+of her clothes, and left her there. Knowing where she must ha' been
+stole from--through you're accusing _me_ of it, master--I untied her to
+lead her home, but her feet warn't used to the rough ground, and I made
+shift to carry her. A matter of two miles it were, and I be not good for
+much. I left her at home safe, and set off back. That's all, master."
+
+"What were you doing here?" asked Tod, as considerately as if he had
+been speaking to a lord. "Resting?"
+
+"I suppose I fell, master. I don't remember nothing, since I was
+tramping up the lane, till your voices came. I've had naught inside my
+lips to-day but a drink o' water."
+
+"Did they give you nothing to eat at the house when you took the child
+home?"
+
+He shook his head. "I saw the woman again, nobody else. She heard what I
+had to say about the child, and she never said 'Thank ye.'"
+
+The man had been getting on his feet, and took up the skewers, that were
+all tied together with string, and the stick. But he reeled as he stood,
+and would have fallen again but for Tod. Tod gave him his arm.
+
+"We are in for it, Johnny," said he aside to me. "Pity but I could be
+put in a picture--the Samaritan helping the destitute!"
+
+"I'd not accept of ye, sir, but that I have a child sick at home, and
+want to get to her. There's a piece of bread in my pocket that was give
+me at a cottage to-day."
+
+"Is your child sure to get well?" asked Tod, after a pause; wondering
+whether he could say anything of what had occurred, so as to break the
+news.
+
+The man gazed right away into the distance, as if searching for an
+answer in the far-off star shining there.
+
+"There's been a death-look in her face this day and night past, master.
+But the Lord's good to us all."
+
+"And sometimes, when He takes children, it is done in mercy," said Tod.
+"Heaven is a better place than this."
+
+"Ay," rejoined the man, who was leaning heavily on Tod, and could never
+have got home without him, unless he had crawled on hands and knees.
+"I've been sickly on and off for this year past; worse lately; and I've
+thought at times that if my own turn was coming, I'd be glad to see my
+children gone afore me."
+
+"Oh, Tod!" I whispered, in a burst of repentance, "how could we have
+been so hard with this poor fellow, and roughly accused him of stealing
+Lena?" But Tod only gave me a knock with his elbow.
+
+"I fancy it must be pleasant to think of a little child being an angel
+in heaven--a child that we have loved," said Tod.
+
+"Ay, ay," said the man.
+
+Tod had no courage to say more. He was not a parson. Presently he asked
+the man what tribe he belonged to--being a gipsy.
+
+"I'm not a gipsy, master. Never was one yet. I and my wife are
+dark-complexioned by nature; living in the open air has made us darker;
+but I'm English born; Christian, too. My wife's Irish; but they do say
+she comes of a gipsy tribe. We used to have a cart, and went about the
+country with crockery; but a year ago, when I got ill and lay in a
+lodging, the things were seized for rent and debt. Since then it's been
+hard lines with us. Yonder's my bit of a tent, master, and now I can get
+on alone. Thanking ye kindly."
+
+"I am sorry I spoke harshly to you to-day," said Tod. "Take this: it is
+all I have with me."
+
+"I'll take it, sir, for my child's sake; it may help to put the strength
+into her. Otherwise I'd not. We're honest; we've never begged. Thank ye
+both, masters, once again."
+
+It was only a shilling or two. Tod spent, and never had much in his
+pockets. "I wish it had been sovereigns," said he to me; "but we will do
+something better for them to-morrow, Johnny. I am sure the Pater will."
+
+"Tod," said I, as we ran on, "had we seen the man close before, and
+spoken with him, I should never have suspected him. He has a face to be
+trusted."
+
+Tod burst into a laugh. "There you are Johnny, at your faces again!"
+
+I was always reading people's faces, and taking likes and dislikes
+accordingly. They called me a muff for it at home (and for many other
+things), Tod especially; but it seemed to me that I could read people as
+easily as a book. Duffham, our surgeon at Church Dykely, bade me _trust
+to it_ as a good gift from God. One day, pushing my straw hat up to draw
+his fingers across the top of my brow, he quaintly told the Squire that
+when he wanted people's characters read, to come to me to read them. The
+Squire only laughed in answer.
+
+As luck had it, a gentleman we knew was passing in his dog-cart when we
+got to the foot of the hill. It was old Pitchley. He drove us home: and
+I could hardly get down, I was so stiff.
+
+Lena was in bed, safe and sound. No damage, except fright and the loss
+of her clothes. From what we could learn, the woman who took her off
+must have been concealed amidst the ricks, when Tod put her there. Lena
+said the woman laid hold of her very soon, caught her up, and put her
+hand over her mouth, to prevent her crying out; she could only give one
+scream. I ought to have heard it, only Mack was making such an awful
+row, hammering that iron. How far along fields and by-ways the woman
+carried her, Lena could not be supposed to tell: "Miles!" she said. Then
+the thief plunged amidst a few trees, took the child's things off, put
+on an old rag of a petticoat, and tied her loosely to a tree. Lena
+thought she could have got loose herself, but was too frightened to try;
+and just then the man, Jake, came up.
+
+"I liked _him_," said Lena. "He carried me all the way home, that my
+feet should not be hurt; but he had to sit down sometimes. He said he
+had a poor little girl who was nearly as badly off for clothes as that,
+but she did not want them now, she was too sick. He said he hoped my
+papa would find the woman, and put her in prison."
+
+It is what the Squire intended to do, chance helping him. But he did not
+reach home till after us, when all was quiet again: which was fortunate.
+
+"I suppose you blame me for that?" cried Tod, to his step-mother.
+
+"No, I don't, Joseph," said Mrs. Todhetley. She called him Joseph nearly
+always, not liking to shorten his name, as some of us did. "It is so
+very common a thing for the children to be playing in the three-cornered
+field amidst the ricks; and no suspicion that danger could arise from it
+having ever been glanced at, I do not think any blame attaches to you."
+
+"I am very sorry now for having done it," said Tod. "I shall never
+forget the fright to the last hour of my life."
+
+He went straight to Molly, from Mrs. Todhetley, a look on his face that,
+when seen there, which was rare, the servants did not like. Deference
+was rendered to Tod in the household. When anything should take off the
+good old Pater, Tod would be master. What he said to Molly no one heard;
+but the woman was banging at her brass things in a tantrum for three
+days afterwards.
+
+And when we went to see after poor Jake and his people, it was too late.
+The man, the tent, the living people, and the dead child--all were
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+FINDING BOTH OF THEM.
+
+
+Worcester Assizes were being held, and Squire Todhetley was on the grand
+jury. You see, although Dyke Manor was just within the borders of
+Warwickshire, the greater portion of the Squire's property lay in
+Worcestershire. This caused him to be summoned to serve. We were often
+at his house there, Crabb Cot. I forget who was foreman of the jury that
+time: either Sir John Pakington, or the Honourable Mr. Coventry.
+
+The week was jolly. We put up at the Star-and-Garter when we went
+to Worcester, which was two or three times a-year; generally at the
+assizes, or the races, or the quarter-sessions; one or other of the busy
+times.
+
+The Pater would grumble at the bills--and say we boys had no business to
+be there; but he would take us, if we were at home, for all that. The
+assizes came on this time the week before our summer holidays were up;
+the Squire wished they had not come on until the week after. Anyway,
+there we were, in clover; the Squire about to be stewed up in the county
+courts all day; I and Tod flying about the town, and doing what we
+liked.
+
+The judges came in from Oxford on the usual day, Saturday. And, to
+make clear what I am going to tell about, we must go back to that
+morning and to Dyke Manor. It was broiling hot weather, and Mrs.
+Todhetley, Hugh, and Lena, with old Thomas and Hannah, all came on the
+lawn after breakfast to see us start. The open carriage was at the
+door, with the fine dark horses. When the Squire did come out, he
+liked to do things well; and Dwarf Giles, the groom, had gone on to
+Worcester the day before with the two saddle-horses, the Pater's and
+Tod's. They might have ridden them in this morning, but the Squire
+chose to have his horses sleek and fresh when attending the high
+sheriff.
+
+"Shall I drive, sir?" asked Tod.
+
+"No," said the Pater. "These two have queer tempers, and must be handled
+carefully." He meant the horses, Bob and Blister. Tod looked at me; he
+thought he could have managed them quite as well as the Pater.
+
+"Papa," cried Lena, as we were driving off, running up in her white
+pinafore, with her pretty hair flying, "if you can catch that naughty
+kidnapper at Worcester, you put her in prison."
+
+The Squire nodded emphatically, as much as to say, "Trust me for that."
+Lena alluded to the woman who had taken her off and stolen her clothes
+two or three weeks before. Tod said, afterwards, there must have been
+some prevision on the child's mind when she said this.
+
+We reached Worcester at twelve. It is a long drive, you know. Lots of
+country-people had arrived, and the Squire went off with some of them.
+Tod and I thought we'd order luncheon at the Star--a jolly good one;
+stewed lampreys, kidneys, and cherry-tart; and let it go into the
+Squire's bill.
+
+I'm afraid I envied Tod. The old days of travelling post were past, when
+the sheriff's procession would go out to Whittington to meet the judges'
+carriage. They came now by rail from Oxford, and the sheriff and his
+attendants received them at the railway station. It was the first time
+Tod had been allowed to make one of the gentlemen-attendants. The Squire
+said now he was too young; but he looked big, and tall, and strong. To
+see him mount his horse and go cantering off with the rest sent me into
+a state of envy. Tod saw it.
+
+"Don't drop your mouth, Johnny," said he. "You'll make one of us in
+another year or two."
+
+I stood about for half-an-hour, and the procession came back, passing
+the Star on its way to the county courts. The bells were ringing, the
+advanced heralds blew their trumpets, and the javelin-guard rode at a
+foot-pace, their lances in rest, preceding the high sheriff's grand
+carriage, with its four prancing horses and their silvered harness. Both
+the judges had come in, so we knew that business was over at Oxford;
+they sat opposite to the sheriff and his chaplain. I used to wonder
+whether they travelled all the way in their wigs and gowns, or robed
+outside Worcester. Squire Todhetley rode in the line next the carriage,
+with some more old ones of consequence; Tod on his fine bay was nearly
+at the tail, and he gave me a nod in passing. The judges were going to
+open the commission, and Foregate Street was crowded.
+
+The high sheriff that year was a friend of ours, and the Pater had an
+invitation to the banquet he gave that evening. Tod thought he ought to
+have been invited too.
+
+"It's sinfully stingy of him, Johnny. When I am pricked for sheriff--and
+I suppose my turn will come some time, either for Warwickshire or
+Worcestershire--I'll have more young fellows to my dinner than old
+ones."
+
+The Squire, knowing nothing of our midday luncheon, was surprised that
+we chose supper at eight instead of dinner at six; but he told the
+waiter to give us a good one. We went out while it was getting ready,
+and walked arm-in-arm through the crowded streets. Worcester is always
+full on a Saturday evening; it is market-day there, as every one knows;
+but on Assize Saturday the streets are almost impassable. Tod, tall and
+strong, held on his way, and asked leave of none.
+
+"Now, then, you two gents, can't you go on proper, and not elbow
+respectable folks like that?"
+
+"Holloa!" cried Tod, turning at the voice. "Is it you, old Jones?"
+
+Old Jones, the constable of our parish, touched his hat when he saw it
+was us, and begged pardon. We asked what he was doing at Worcester; but
+he had only come on his own account. "On the spree," Tod suggested to
+him.
+
+"Young Mr. Todhetley," cried he--the way he chiefly addressed Tod--"I'd
+not be sure but that woman's took--her that served out little Miss
+Lena."
+
+"That woman!" said Tod. "Why do you think it?"
+
+Old Jones explained. A woman had been apprehended near Worcester the
+previous day, on a charge of stripping two little boys of their clothes
+in Perry Wood. The description given of her answered exactly, old Jones
+thought, to that given by Lena.
+
+"She stripped 'em to the skin," groaned Jones, drawing a long face as he
+recited the mishap, "two poor little chaps of three years, they was,
+living in them cottages under the Wood--not as much as their boots did
+she leave on 'em. When they got home their folks didn't know 'em; quite
+naked they was, and bleating with terror, like a brace of shorn sheep."
+
+Tod put on his determined look. "And she is taken, you say, Jones?"
+
+"She was took yesterday, sir. They had her before the justices this
+morning, and the little fellows knowed her at once. As the 'sizes was
+on, leastways as good as on, their worships committed her for trial
+there and then. Policeman Cripp told me all about it; it was him that
+took her. She's in the county gaol."
+
+We carried the tale to the Pater that night, and he despatched a
+messenger to Mrs. Todhetley, to say that Lena must be at Worcester on
+the Monday morning. But there's something to tell about the Sunday yet.
+
+If you have been in Worcester on Assize Sunday, you know how the
+cathedral is on that morning crowded. Enough strangers are in the town
+to fill it: the inhabitants who go to the churches at other times
+attended it then; and King Mob flocks in to see the show.
+
+Squire Todhetley was put in the stalls; Tod and I scrambled for places
+on a bench. The alterations in the cathedral (going on for years before
+that, and going on for years since, and going on still) caused space
+to be limited, and it was no end of a cram. While people fought for
+standing-places, the procession was played in to the crash of the organ.
+The judges came, glorious in their wigs and gowns; the mayor and
+aldermen were grand as scarlet and gold chains could make them; and
+there was a large attendance of the clergy in their white robes. The
+Bishop had come in from Hartlebury, and was on his throne, and the
+service began. The Rev. Mr. Wheeler chanted; the Dean read the lessons.
+Of course the music was all right; they put up fine services on Assize
+Sundays now; and the sheriff's chaplain went up in his black gown to
+preach the sermon. Three-quarters of an hour, if you'll believe me,
+before that sermon came to an end!
+
+Ere the organ had well played its Amen to the Bishop's blessing, the
+crowd began to push out. We pushed with the rest and took up our places
+in the long cathedral nave to see the procession pass back again. It
+came winding down between the line of javelin-men. Just as the judges
+were passing, Tod motioned me to look opposite. There stood a young boy
+in dreadful clothes, patched all over, but otherwise clean; with great
+dark wondering eyes riveted on the judges, as if they had been stilted
+peacocks; on their wigs, their solemn countenances, their held-up
+scarlet trains.
+
+Where had I seen those eyes, and their brightness? Recollection flashed
+over me before Tod's whisper: "Jake's boy; the youngster we saw in the
+tent."
+
+To get across the line was impossible: manners would not permit it, let
+alone the javelin-guard. And when the procession had passed, leaving
+nothing but a crowd of shuffling feet and the dust on the white
+cathedral floor, the boy was gone.
+
+"I say, Johnny, it is rather odd we should come on those tent-people,
+just as the woman has turned up," exclaimed Tod, as we got clear of the
+cathedral.
+
+"But you don't think they can be connected, Tod?"
+
+"Well, no; I suppose not. It's a queer coincidence, though."
+
+_This_ we also carried to the Squire, as we had the other news. He was
+standing in the Star gateway.
+
+"Look here, you boys," said he, after a pause given to thought; "keep
+your eyes open; you may come upon the lad again, or some of his folk. I
+should like to do something for that poor man; I've wished it ever since
+he brought home Lena, and that confounded Molly drove him out by way of
+recompense."
+
+"And if they should be confederates, sir?" suggested Tod.
+
+"Who confederates? What do you mean, Joe?"
+
+"These people and the female-stripper. It seems strange they should both
+turn up again in the same spot."
+
+The notion took away the Pater's breath. "If I thought that; if I find
+it is so," he broke forth, "I'll--I'll--transport the lot."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley arrived with Lena on Sunday afternoon. Early on Monday,
+the Squire and Tod took her to the governor's house at the county
+prison, where she was to see the woman, as if accidentally, nothing
+being said to Lena.
+
+The woman was brought in: a bold jade with a red face: and Lena nearly
+went into convulsions at the sight of her. There could be no mistake the
+woman was the same: and the Pater became redhot with anger; especially
+to think he could not punish her in Worcester.
+
+As the fly went racing up Salt Lane after the interview, on its way to
+leave the Squire at the county courts, a lad ran past. It was Jake's
+boy; the same we had seen in the cathedral. Tod leaped up and called to
+the driver to stop, but the Pater roared out an order to go on. His
+appearance at the court could not be delayed, and Tod had to stay with
+Lena. So the clue was lost again. Tod brought Lena to the Star, and then
+he and I went to the criminal court, and bribed a fellow for places. Tod
+said it would be a sin not to hear the kidnapper tried.
+
+It was nearly the first case called on. Some of the lighter cases were
+taken first, while the grand jury deliberated on their bills for the
+graver ones. Her name, as given in, was Nancy Cole, and she tried to
+excite the sympathies of the judge and jury by reciting a whining
+account of a deserting husband and other ills. The evidence was quite
+clear. The two children (little shavers in petticoats) set up a roar in
+court at sight of the woman, just as Lena had done in the governor's
+house; and a dealer in marine stores produced their clothes, which
+he had bought of her. Tod whispered to me that he should go about
+Worcester after this in daily dread of seeing Lena's blue-silk frock
+and open-worked stockings hanging in a shop window. Something was said
+during the trial about the raid the prisoner had also recently made on
+the little daughter of Mr. Todhetley, of Dyke Manor, Warwickshire, and
+of Crabb Cot, Worcestershire, "one of the gentlemen of the grand jury at
+present sitting in deliberation in an adjoining chamber of the court."
+But, as the judge said, that could not be received in evidence.
+
+Mrs. Cole brazened it out: testimony was too strong for her to attempt
+denial. "And if she _had_ took a few bits o' things, 'cause she was
+famishing, she didn't hurt the childern. She'd never hurt a child in
+her life; couldn't do it. Just contrairy to that; she gave 'em sugar
+plums--and candy--and a piece of a wig,[1] she did. What was she to do?
+Starve? Since her wicked husband, that she hadn't seen for this five
+year, deserted of her, and her two boys, fine grown lads both of 'em,
+had been accused of theft and got put away from her, one into prison,
+t'other into a 'formitory, she hadn't no soul to care for her nor help
+her to a bit o' bread. Life was hard, and times was bad; and--there it
+was. No good o' saying more."
+
+      [1] A small plain bun sold in Worcester.
+
+"Guilty," said the foreman of the jury, without turning round. "We find
+the prisoner guilty, my lord."
+
+The judge sentenced her to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.
+Mrs. Cole brazened it out still.
+
+"Thank you," said she to his lordship, dropping a curtsey as they were
+taking her from the dock; "and I hope you'll sit there, old gentleman,
+till I come out again."
+
+When the Squire was told of the sentence that evening, he said it was
+too mild by half, and talked of bringing her also to book at Warwick.
+But Mrs. Todhetley said, "No; forgive her." After all, it was only the
+loss of the clothes.
+
+Nothing whatever had come out during the trial to connect Jake with the
+woman. She appeared to be a waif without friends. "And I watched and
+listened closely for it, mind you, Johnny," remarked Tod.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a day or two after this--I think, on the Wednesday evening. The
+Squire's grand-jury duties were over, but he stayed on, intending to
+make a week of it; Mrs. Todhetley and Lena had left for home. We had
+dined late, and Tod and I went for a stroll afterwards; leaving the
+Pater, and an old clergyman, who had dined with us, to their wine.
+In passing the cooked-meat shop in High-street, we saw a little chap
+looking in, his face flattened against the panes. Tod laid hold of
+his shoulder, and the boy turned his brilliant eyes and their hungry
+expression upon us.
+
+"Do you remember me, Dor?" You see, Tod had not forgotten his name.
+
+Dor evidently did remember. And whether it was that he felt frightened
+at being accosted, or whether the sight of us brought back to him the
+image of the dead sister lying on the rushes, was best known to himself;
+but he burst out crying.
+
+"There's nothing to cry for," said Tod; "you need not be afraid. Could
+you eat some of that meat?"
+
+Something like a shiver of surprise broke over the boy's face at the
+question; just as though he had had no food for weeks. Tod gave him a
+shilling, and told him to go in and buy some. But the boy looked at the
+money doubtingly.
+
+"A whole shilling! They'd think I stole it."
+
+Tod took back the money, and went in himself. He was as proud a fellow
+as you'd find in the two counties, and yet he would do all sorts of
+things that many another glanced askance at.
+
+"I want half-a-pound of beef," said he to the man who was carving, "and
+some bread, if you sell it. And I'll take one of those small pork-pies."
+
+"Shall I put the meat in paper, sir?" asked the man: as if doubting
+whether Tod might prefer to eat it there.
+
+"Yes," said Tod. And the customers, working-men and a woman in a drab
+shawl, turned and stared at him.
+
+Tod paid; took it all in his hands, and we left the shop. He did not
+mind being seen carrying the parcels; but he would have minded letting
+them know that he was feeding a poor boy.
+
+"Here, Dor, you can take the things now," said he, when we had gone a
+few yards. "Where do you live?"
+
+Dor explained after a fashion. We knew Worcester well, but failed to
+understand. "Not far from the big church," he said; and at first we
+thought he meant the cathedral.
+
+"Never mind," said Tod; "go on, and show us."
+
+He went skimming along, Tod keeping him within arm's-length, lest he
+should try to escape. Why Tod should have suspected he might, I don't
+know; nothing, as it turned out, could have been farther from Dor's
+thoughts. The church he spoke of proved to be All Saints'; the boy
+turned up an entry near to it, and we found ourselves in a regular
+rookery of dirty, miserable, tumble-down houses. Loose men stood about,
+pipes in their mouths, women, in tatters, their hair hanging down.
+
+Dor dived into a dark den that seemed to be reached through a hole you
+had to stoop under. My patience! what a close place it was, with a smell
+that nearly knocked you backwards. There was not an earthly thing in the
+room that we could see, except some straw in a corner, and on that Jake
+was lying. The boy appeared with a piece of lighted candle, which he had
+been upstairs to borrow.
+
+Jake was thin enough before; he was a skeleton now. His eyes were sunk,
+the bones of his face stood out, the skin glistened on his shapely nose,
+his voice was weak and hollow. He knew us, and smiled.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Tod, speaking gently. "You look very ill."
+
+"I be very ill, master; I've been getting worse ever since."
+
+His history was this. The same night that we had seen the tent at
+Cookhill, some travelling people of Jake's fraternity happened to encamp
+close to it for the night. By their help, the dead child was removed as
+far as Evesham, and there buried. Jake, his wife, and son, went on to
+Worcester, and there the man was taken worse; they had been in this room
+since; the wife had found a place to go to twice a week washing, earning
+her food and a shilling each time. It was all they had to depend upon,
+these two shillings weekly; and the few bits o' things they had, to use
+Jake's words, had been taken by the landlord for rent. But to see Jake's
+resignation was something curious.
+
+"He was very good," he said, alluding to the landlord and the seizure;
+"he left me the straw. When he saw how bad I was, he wouldn't take it.
+We had been obliged to sell the tent, and there was a'most nothing for
+him."
+
+"Have you had no medicine? no advice?" cried Tod, speaking as if he had
+a lump in his throat.
+
+Yes, he had had medicine; the wife went for it to the free place (he
+meant the dispensary) twice a week, and a young doctor had been to see
+him.
+
+Dor opened the paper of meat, and showed it to his father. "The
+gentleman bought it me," he said; "and this, and this. Couldn't you eat
+some?"
+
+I saw the eager look that arose for a moment to Jake's face at sight of
+the meat: three slices of nice cold boiled beef, better than what we got
+at school. Dor held out one of them; the man broke off a morsel, put it
+into his mouth, and had a choking fit.
+
+"It's of no use, Dor."
+
+"Is his name 'Dor'?" asked Tod.
+
+"His name is James, sir; same as mine," answered Jake, panting a little
+from the exertion of swallowing. "The wife, she has called him 'Dor' for
+'dear,' and I've fell into it. She has called me Jake all along."
+
+Tod felt something ought to be done to help him, but he had no more
+idea what than the man in the moon. I had less. As Dor piloted us to
+the open street, we asked him where his mother was. It was one of her
+working-days out, he answered; she was always kept late.
+
+"Could he drink wine, do you think, Dor?"
+
+"The gentleman said he was to have it," answered Dor, alluding to the
+doctor.
+
+"How old are you, Dor?"
+
+"I'm anigh ten." He did not look it.
+
+"Johnny, I wonder if there's any place where they sell beef-tea?" cried
+Tod, as we went up Broad Street. "My goodness! lying there in that
+state, with no help at hand!"
+
+"I never saw anything so bad before, Tod."
+
+"Do you know what I kept thinking of all the time? I could not get it
+out of my head."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Of Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Johnny, lad, there seems an awful
+responsibility lying on some of us."
+
+To hear Tod say such a thing was stranger than all. He set off running,
+and burst into our sitting-room in the Star, startling the Pater, who
+was alone and reading one of the Worcester papers with his spectacles
+on. Tod sat down and told him all.
+
+"Dear me! dear me!" cried the Pater, growing red as he listened. "Why,
+Joe, the poor fellow must be dying!"
+
+"He may not have gone too far for recovery, father," was Tod's answer.
+"If we had to lie in that close hole, and had nothing to eat or drink,
+we should probably soon become skeletons also. He may get well yet with
+proper care and treatment."
+
+"It seems to me that the first thing to be done is to get him into the
+Infirmary," remarked the Pater.
+
+"And it ought to be done early to-morrow morning, sir; if it's too late
+to-night."
+
+The Pater got up in a bustle, put on his hat, and went out. He was going
+to his old friend, the famous surgeon, Henry Carden. Tod ran after him
+up Foregate Street, but was sent back to me. We stood at the door of the
+hotel, and in a few moments saw them coming along, the Pater arm-in-arm
+with Mr. Carden. He had come out as readily to visit the poor helpless
+man as he would to visit a rich one. Perhaps more so. They stopped when
+they saw us, and Mr. Carden asked Tod some of the particulars.
+
+"You can get him admitted to the Infirmary at once, can you not?" said
+the Pater, impatiently, who was all on thorns to have something done.
+
+"By what I can gather, it is not a case for the Infirmary," was the
+answer of its chief surgeon. "We'll see."
+
+Down we went, walking fast: the Pater and Mr. Carden in front, I and Tod
+at their heels; and found the room again with some difficulty. The wife
+was in then, and had made a handful of fire in the grate. What with the
+smoke, and what with the other agreeable accompaniments, we were nearly
+stifled.
+
+If ever I wished to be a doctor, it was when I saw Mr. Carden with
+that poor sick man. He was so gentle with him, so cheery and so kind.
+Had Jake been a duke, I don't see that he could have been treated
+differently. There was something superior about the man, too, as though
+he had seen better days.
+
+"What is your name?" asked Mr. Carden.
+
+"James Winter, sir, a native of Herefordshire. I was on my way there
+when I was taken ill in this place."
+
+"What to do there? To get work?"
+
+"No, sir; to die. It don't much matter, though; God's here as well as
+there."
+
+"You are not a gipsy?"
+
+"Oh dear no, sir. From my dark skin, though, I've been taken for one. My
+wife's descended from a gipsy tribe."
+
+"We are thinking of placing you in the Infirmary, Jake," cried the
+Pater. "You will have every comfort there, and the best of attendance.
+This gentleman----"
+
+"We'll see--we'll see," interposed Mr. Carden, breaking in hastily on
+the promises. "I am not sure that the Infirmary will do for him."
+
+"It is too late, sir, I think," said Jake, quietly, to Mr. Carden.
+
+Mr. Carden made no reply. He asked the woman if she had such a thing as
+a tea-cup or wine-glass. She produced a cracked cup with the handle off
+and a notch in the rim. Mr. Carden poured something into it that he had
+brought in his pocket, and stooped over the man. Jake began to speak in
+his faint voice.
+
+"Sir, I'd not seem ungrateful, but I'd like to stay here with the wife
+and boy to the last. It can't be for long now."
+
+"Drink this; it will do you good," said Mr. Carden, holding the cup to
+his lips.
+
+"This close place is a change from the tent," I said to the woman, who
+was stooping over the bit of fire.
+
+Such a look of regret came upon her countenance as she lifted it: just
+as if the tent had been a palace. "When we got here, master, it was
+after that two days' rain, and the ground was sopping. It didn't do for
+_him_"--glancing round at the straw. "He was getting mighty bad then,
+and we just put our heads into this place--bad luck to us!"
+
+The Squire gave her some silver, and told her to get anything in she
+thought best. It was too late to do more that night. The church clocks
+were striking ten as we went out.
+
+"Won't it do to move him to the Infirmary?" were the Pater's first words
+to Mr. Carden.
+
+"Certainly not. The man's hours are numbered."
+
+"There is no hope, I suppose?"
+
+"Not the least. He may be said to be dying now."
+
+No time was lost in the morning. When Squire Todhetley took a will to
+heart he carried it out, and speedily. A decent room with an airy window
+was found in the same block of buildings. A bed and other things were
+put in it; some clothes were redeemed; and by twelve o'clock in the day
+Jake was comfortably lying there. The Pater seemed to think that this
+was not enough: he wanted to do more.
+
+"His humanity to my child kept him from seeing the last moments of his,"
+said he. "The little help we can give him now is no return for that."
+
+Food and clothes, and a dry, comfortable room, and wine and proper
+things for Jake--of which he could not swallow much. The woman was not
+to go out to work again while he lasted, but to stay at home and attend
+to him.
+
+"I shall be at liberty by the hop-picking time," she said, with a sigh.
+Ah, poor creature! long before that.
+
+When Tod and I went in later in the afternoon, she had just given Jake
+some physic, ordered by Mr. Carden. She and the boy sat by the fire, tea
+and bread-and-butter on the deal table between them. Jake lay in bed,
+his head raised on account of his breathing, I thought he was better;
+but his thin white face, with the dark, earnest, glistening eyes, was
+almost painful to look upon.
+
+"The reading-gentleman have been in," cried the woman suddenly. "He's
+coming again, he says, the night or the morning."
+
+Tod looked puzzled, and Jake explained. A good young clergyman, who had
+found him out a day or two before, had been in each day since with his
+Bible, to read and pray. "God bless him!" said Jake.
+
+"Why did you go away so suddenly?" Tod asked, alluding to the hasty
+departure from Cookhill. "My father was intending to do something for
+you."
+
+"I didn't know that, sir. Many thanks all the same. I'd like to thank
+_you_ too, sir," he went on, after a fit of coughing. "I've wanted to
+thank you ever since. When you gave me your arm up the lane, and said
+them pleasant things to me about having a little child in heaven, you
+knew she was gone."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It broke the trouble to me, sir. My wife heard me coughing afar off,
+and came out o' the tent. She didn't say at first what there was in the
+tent, but began telling how you had been there. It made me know what had
+happened; and when she set on a-grieving, I told her not to: Carry was
+gone up to be an angel in heaven."
+
+Tod touched the hand he put out, not speaking.
+
+"She's waiting for me, sir," he continued, in a fainter voice. "I'm as
+sure of it as if I saw her. The little girl I found and carried to the
+great house has rich friends and a fine home to shelter her; mine had
+none, and so it was for the best that she should go. God has been very
+good to me. Instead of letting me fret after her, or murmur at lying
+helpless like this, He only gives me peace."
+
+"That man must have had a good mother," cried out Tod, as we went away
+down the entry. And I looked up at him, he spoke so queerly.
+
+"Do you think he will get better, Tod? He does not seem as bad as he did
+last night."
+
+"Get better!" retorted Tod. "You'll always be a muff, Johnny. Why, every
+breath he takes threatens to be his last. He is miles worse than he was
+when we found him. This is Thursday: I don't believe he can last out
+longer than the week; and I think Mr. Carden knows it."
+
+He did not last so long. On the Saturday morning, just as we were going
+to start for home, the wife came to the Star with the news. Jake had
+died at ten the previous night.
+
+"He went off quiet," said she to the Squire. "I asked if he'd not like
+a dhrink; but he wouldn't have it: the good gentleman had been there
+giving him the bread and wine, and he said he'd take nothing, he
+thought, after that. 'I'm going, Mary,' he suddenly says to me about ten
+o'clock, and he called Dor up and shook hands with him, and bade him be
+good to me, and then he shook hands with me. 'God bless ye both,' says
+he, 'for Christ's sake; and God bless the friends who have been kind to
+us!' And with that he died."
+
+That's all, for now. And I hope no one will think I invented this
+account of Jake's death, for I should not like to do it. The wife
+related it to us in the exact words written.
+
+"And I able to do so little for him," broke forth the Squire, suddenly,
+when we were about half-way home; and he lashed up Bob and Blister
+regardless of their tempers. Which the animals did not relish.
+
+And so that assize week ended the matter. Bringing imprisonment to the
+kidnapping woman, and to Jake death.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING.
+
+
+This is an incident of our school life; one that I never care to look
+back upon. All of us have sad remembrances of some kind living in
+the mind; and we are apt in our painful regret to say, "If I had but
+done this, or had but done the other, things might have turned out
+differently."
+
+The school was a large square house, built of rough stone, gardens and
+playgrounds and fields extending around it. It was called Worcester
+House: a title of the fancy, I suppose, since it was some miles away
+from Worcester. The master was Dr. Frost, a tall, stout man, in white
+frilled shirt, knee-breeches and buckles; stern on occasion, but a
+gentleman to the back-bone. He had several under-masters. Forty boys
+were received; we wore the college cap and Eton jacket. Mrs. Frost
+was delicate: and Hall, a sour old woman of fifty, was manager of the
+eatables.
+
+Tod and I must have been in the school two years, I think, when Archie
+Hearn entered. He was eleven years old. We had seen him at the house
+sometimes before, and liked him. A regular good little fellow was
+Archie.
+
+Hearn's father was dead. His mother had been a Miss Stockhausen, sister
+to Mrs. Frost. The Stockhausens had a name in Worcestershire: chiefly, I
+think, for dying off. There had been six sisters; and the only two now
+left were Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Hearn: the other four quietly faded away
+one after another, not living to see thirty. Mr. Hearn died, from an
+accident, when Archie was only a year old. He left no will, and there
+ensued a sharp dispute about his property. The Stockhausens said it all
+belonged to the little son; the Hearn family considered that a portion
+of it ought to go back to them. The poor widow was the only quiet spirit
+amongst them, willing to be led either way. What the disputants did was
+to put it into Chancery: and I don't much think it ever came out again.
+
+It was the worst move they could have made for Mrs. Hearn. For it
+reduced her to a very slender income indeed, and the world wondered how
+she got on at all. She lived in a cottage about three miles from the
+Frosts, with one servant and the little child Archibald. In the course
+of years people seemed to forget all about the property in Chancery, and
+to ignore her as quite a poor woman.
+
+Well, we--I and Tod--had been at Dr. Frost's two years or so, when
+Archibald Hearn entered the school. He was a slender little lad with
+bright brown eyes, a delicate face and pink cheeks, very sweet-tempered
+and pleasant in manner. At first he used to go home at night, but when
+the winter weather set in he caught a cough, and then came into the
+house altogether. Some of the big ones felt sure that old Frost took him
+for nothing: but as little Hearn was Mrs. Frost's nephew and we liked
+_her_, no talk was made about it. The lad did not much like coming into
+the house: we could see that. He seemed always to be hankering after his
+mother and old Betty the servant. Not in words: but he'd stand with his
+arms on the play-yard gate, his eyes gazing out towards the quarter
+where the cottage was; as if he would like his sight to penetrate the
+wood and the two or three miles beyond, and take a look at it. When any
+of us said to him as a bit of chaff, "You are staring after old Betty,"
+he would say Yes, he wished he could see her and his mother; and then
+tell no end of tales about what Betty had done for him in his illnesses.
+Any way, Hearn was a straightforward little chap, and a favourite in the
+school.
+
+He had been with us about a year when Wolfe Barrington came. Quite
+another sort of pupil. A big, strong fellow who had never had a mother:
+rich and overbearing, and cruel. He was in mourning for his father, who
+had just died: a rich Irishman, given to company and fast living. Wolfe
+came in for all the money; so that he had a fine career before him and
+might be expected to set the world on fire. Little Hearn's stories had
+been of home; of his mother and old Betty. Wolfe's were different. He
+had had the run of his father's stables and knew more about horses and
+dogs than the animals knew about themselves. Curious things, too, he'd
+tell of men and women, who had stayed at old Barrington's place: and
+what he said of the public school he had been at might have made old
+Frost's hair stand on end. Why he left the public school we did not find
+out: some said he had run away from it, and that his father, who'd
+indulged him awfully, would not send him back to be punished; others
+said the head-master would not receive him back again. In the nick of
+time the father died; and Wolfe's guardians put him to Dr. Frost's.
+
+"I shall make you my fag," said Barrington, the day he entered, catching
+hold of little Hearn in the playground, and twisting him round by the
+arm.
+
+"What's that?" asked Hearn, rubbing his arm--for Wolfe's grasp had not
+been a light one.
+
+"What's that!" repeated Barrington, scornfully. "What a precious young
+fool you must be, not to know. Who's your mother?"
+
+"She lives over there," answered Hearn, taking the question literally,
+and nodding beyond the wood.
+
+"Oh!" said Barrington, screwing up his mouth. "What's her name? And
+what's yours?"
+
+"Mrs. Hearn. Mine's Archibald."
+
+"Good, Mr. Archibald. You shall be my fag. That is, my servant. And
+you'll do every earthly thing that I order you to do. And mind you do it
+smartly, or may be that girl's face of yours will show out rather blue
+sometimes."
+
+"I shall not be anybody's servant," returned Archie, in his mild,
+inoffensive way.
+
+"Won't you! You'll tell me another tale before this time to-morrow. Did
+you ever get licked into next week?"
+
+The child made no answer. He began to think the new fellow might be in
+earnest, and gazed up at him in doubt.
+
+"When you can't see out of your two eyes for the swelling round them,
+and your back's stiff with smarting and aching--_that's_ the kind of
+licking I mean," went on Barrington. "Did you ever taste it?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Good again. It will be all the sweeter when you do. Now look you here,
+Mr. Archibald Hearn. I appoint you my fag in ordinary. You'll fetch and
+carry for me: you'll black my boots and brush my clothes; you'll sit up
+to wait on me when I go to bed, and read me to sleep; you'll be dressed
+before I am in the morning, and be ready with my clothes and hot water.
+Never mind whether the rules of the house are against hot water, _you'll
+have to provide it_, though you boil it in the bedroom grate, or out in
+the nearest field. You'll attend me at my lessons; look out words for
+me; copy my exercises in a fair hand--and if you were old enough to
+_do_ them, you'd _have_ to. That's a few of the items; but there are
+a hundred other things, that I've not time to detail. If I can get
+a horse for my use, you'll have to groom him. And if you don't put out
+your mettle to serve me in all these ways, and don't hold yourself in
+readiness to fly and obey me at any minute or hour of the day, you'll
+get daily one of the lickings I've told you of, until you are licked
+into shape."
+
+Barrington meant what he said. Voice and countenance alike wore a
+determined look, as if his words were law. Lots of the fellows,
+attracted by the talking, had gathered round. Hearn, honest and
+straightforward himself, did not altogether understand what evil might
+be in store for him, and grew seriously frightened.
+
+The captain of the school walked up--John Whitney. "What is that you say
+Hearn has to do?" he asked.
+
+"_He_ knows now," answered Barrington. "That's enough. They don't allow
+servants here: I must have a fag in place of one."
+
+In turning his fascinated eyes from Barrington, Hearn saw Blair standing
+by, our mathematical master--of whom you will hear more later. Blair
+must have caught what passed: and little Hearn appealed to him.
+
+"Am I obliged to be his fag, sir?"
+
+Mr. Blair put us leisurely aside with his hands, and confronted the new
+fellow. "Your name is Barrington, I think," he said.
+
+"Yes, it is," said Barrington, staring at him defiantly.
+
+"Allow me to tell you that 'fags' are not permitted here. The system
+would not be tolerated by Dr. Frost for a moment. Each boy must wait on
+himself, and be responsible for himself: seniors and juniors alike. You
+are not at a public-school now, Barrington. In a day or two, when you
+shall have learnt the customs and rules here, I dare say you will find
+yourself quite sufficiently comfortable, and see that a fag would be an
+unnecessary appendage."
+
+"Who is that man?" cried Barrington, as Blair turned away.
+
+"Mathematical master. Sees to us out of hours," answered Bill Whitney.
+
+"And what the devil did you mean by making a sneaking appeal to _him_?"
+continued Barrington, seizing Hearn roughly.
+
+"I did not mean it for sneaking; but I could not do what you wanted,"
+said Hearn. "He had been listening to us."
+
+"I wish to goodness that confounded fool, Taptal, had been sunk in his
+horse-pond before he put me to such a place as this," cried Barrington,
+passionately. "As to you, you sneaking little devil, it seems I can't
+make you do what I wanted, fags being forbidden fruit here, but it
+shan't serve you much. There's to begin with."
+
+Hearn got a shake and a kick that sent him flying. Blair was back on the
+instant.
+
+"Are you a coward, Mr. Barrington?"
+
+"A coward!" retorted Barrington, his eyes flashing. "You had better try
+whether I am or not."
+
+"It seems to me that you act like one, in attacking a lad so much
+younger and weaker than yourself. Don't let me have to report you to Dr.
+Frost the first day of your arrival. Another thing--I must request you
+to be a little more careful in your language. You have come amidst
+gentlemen here, not blackguards."
+
+The matter ended here; but Barrington looked in a frightful rage. It
+was unfortunate that it should have occurred the day he entered; but it
+did so, word for word, as I have written it. It set some of us rather
+against Barrington, and it set _him_ against Hearn. He didn't "lick him
+into next week," but he gave him many a blow that the boy did nothing to
+deserve.
+
+Barrington won his way, though, as the time went on. He had a liberal
+supply of money, and was open-handed with it; and he would often do a
+generous turn for one and another. The worst of him was his roughness.
+At play he was always rough; and, when put out, savage as well. His
+strength and activity were something remarkable; he would not have
+minded hard blows himself, and he showered them out on others with no
+more care than if we had been made of pumice-stone.
+
+It was Barrington who introduced the new system at football. We had
+played it before in a rather mild way, speaking comparatively, but he
+soon changed that. Dr. Frost got to know of it in time, and he appeared
+amongst us one day when we were in the thick of it, and stopped the
+game with a sweep of his hand. They play it at Rugby now very much as
+Barrington made us play it then. The Doctor--standing with his face
+unusually red, and his shirt and necktie unusually white, and his
+knee-buckles gleaming--asked whether we were a pack of cannibals, that
+we should kick at one another in that dangerous manner. If we ever
+attempted it again, he said, football should be stopped.
+
+So we went back to the old way. But we had tried the new, you see: and
+the consequence was that a great deal of rough play would creep into it
+now and again. Barrington led it on. No cannibal (as old Frost put it)
+could have been more carelessly furious at it than he. To see him with
+his sallow face in a heat, his keen black eyes flashing, his hat off,
+and his straight hair flung back, was not the pleasantest sight to my
+mind. Snepp said one day that he looked just like the devil at these
+times. Wolfe Barrington overheard him, and kicked him right over the
+hillock. I don't think he was ill-intentioned; but his strong frame
+had been untamed; it required a vent for its superfluous strength: his
+animal spirits led him away, and he had never been taught to put a curb
+on himself or his inclinations. One thing was certain--that the name,
+Wolfe, for such a nature as his, was singularly appropriate. Some of
+us told him so. He laughed in answer; never saying that it was only
+shortened from Wolfrey, his real name, as we learnt later. He could be
+as good a fellow and comrade as any of them when he chose, and on the
+whole we liked him a great deal better than we had thought we should at
+first.
+
+As to his animosity against little Hearn, it was wearing off. The lad
+was too young to retaliate, and Barrington grew tired of knocking him
+about: perhaps a little ashamed of it when there was no return. In a
+twelvemonth's time it had quite subsided, and, to the surprise of many
+of us, Barrington, coming back from a visit to old Taptal, his guardian,
+brought Hearn a handsome knife with three blades as a present.
+
+And so it would have gone on but for an unfortunate occurrence. I shall
+always say and think so. But for that, it might have been peace between
+them to the end. Barrington, who was defiantly independent, had betaken
+himself to Evesham, one half-holiday, without leave. He walked straight
+into some mischief there, and broke a street boy's head. Dr. Frost was
+appealed to by the boy's father, and of course there was a row. The
+Doctor forbade Barrington ever to stir beyond bounds again without first
+obtaining permission; and Blair had orders that for a fortnight to come
+Barrington was to be confined to the playground in after-hours.
+
+Very good. A day or two after that--on the next Saturday afternoon--the
+school went to a cricket-match; Doctor, masters, boys, and all;
+Barrington only being left behind.
+
+Was he one to stand this? No. He coolly walked away to the high-road,
+saw a public conveyance passing, hailed it, mounted it, and was carried
+to Evesham. There he disported himself for an hour or so, visited the
+chief fruit and tart shops; and then chartered a gig to bring him back
+to within half-a-mile of the school.
+
+The cricket-match was not over when he got in, for it lasted up to the
+twilight of the summer evening, and no one would have known of the
+escapade but for one miserable misfortune--Archie Hearn happened to have
+gone that afternoon to Evesham with his mother. They were passing along
+the street, and he saw Barrington amidst the sweets.
+
+"There's Wolfe Barrington!" said Archie, in the surprise of the moment,
+and would have halted at the tart-shop; but Mrs. Hearn, who was in a
+hurry, did not stop. On the Monday, she brought Archie back to school:
+he had been at home, sick, for more than a week, and knew nothing of
+Barrington's punishment. Archie came amongst us at once, but Mrs. Hearn
+stayed to take tea with her sister and Dr. Frost. Without the slightest
+intention of making mischief, quite unaware that she was doing
+so, Mrs. Hearn mentioned incidentally that they had seen one of the
+boys--Barrington--at Evesham on the Saturday. Dr. Frost pricked up his
+ears at the news; not believing it, however: but Mrs. Hearn said yes,
+for Archie had seen him eating tarts at the confectioner's. The Doctor
+finished his tea, went to his study, and sent for Barrington. Barrington
+denied it. He was not in the habit of telling lies, was too fearless of
+consequences to do anything of the sort; but he denied it now to the
+Doctor's face; perhaps he began to think he might have gone a little too
+far. Dr. Frost rang the bell and ordered Archie Hearn in.
+
+"Which shop was Barrington in when you saw him on Saturday?" questioned
+the Doctor.
+
+"The pastrycook's," said Archie, innocently.
+
+"What was he doing?" blandly went on the Doctor.
+
+"Oh! no harm, sir; only eating tarts," Archie hastened to say.
+
+Well--it all came out then, and though Archie was quite innocent of
+wilfully telling tales; would have cut out his tongue rather than have
+said a word to injure Barrington, he received the credit of it now.
+Barrington took his punishment without a word; the hardest caning old
+Frost had given for many a long day, and heaps of work besides, and a
+promise of certain expulsion if he ever again went off surreptitiously
+in coaches and gigs. But Barrington thrashed Hearn worse when it was
+over, and branded him with the name of Sneak.
+
+"He will never believe otherwise," said Archie, the tears of pain and
+mortification running down his cheeks, fresh and delicate as a girl's.
+"But I'd give the world not to have gone that afternoon to Evesham."
+
+A week or two later we went in for a turn at "Hare and Hounds."
+Barrington's term of punishment was over then. Snepp was the hare; a
+fleet, wiry fellow who could outrun most of us. But the hare this time
+came to grief. After doubling and turning, as Snepp used to like to do,
+thinking to throw us off the scent, he sprained his foot, trying to leap
+a hedge and dry ditch beyond it. We were on his trail, whooping and
+halloaing like mad; he kept quiet, and we passed on and never saw him.
+But there was no more scent to be seen, and we found we had lost it, and
+went back. Snepp showed up then, and the sport was over for the day.
+Some went home one way, and some another; all of us were as hot as fire,
+and thirsting for water.
+
+"If you'll turn down here by the great oak-tree, we shall come to my
+mother's house, and you can have as much water as you like," said little
+Hearn, in his good-nature.
+
+So we turned down. There were only six or seven of us, for Snepp and his
+damaged foot made one, and most of them had gone on at a quicker pace.
+Tod helped Snepp on one side, Barrington on the other, and he limped
+along between them.
+
+It was a narrow red-brick house, a parlour window on each side the
+door, and three windows above; small altogether, but very pretty, with
+jessamine and clematis climbing up the walls. Archie Hearn opened the
+door, and we trooped in, without regard to ceremony. Mrs. Hearn--she
+had the same delicate face as Archie, the same pink colour and bright
+brown eyes--came out of the kitchen to stare at us. As well she might.
+Her cotton sleeves were turned up to the elbows, her fingers were
+stained red, and she had a coarse kitchen cloth pinned round her. She
+was pressing black currants for jelly.
+
+We had plenty of water, and Mrs. Hearn made Snepp sit down, and looked
+at his foot, and put a wet bandage round it, kneeling before him to do
+it. I thought I had never seen so nice a face as hers; very placid, with
+a sort of sad look in it. Old Betty, that Hearn used to talk about,
+appeared in a short blue petticoat and a kind of brown print jacket. I
+have seen the homely servants in France, since, dressed very similarly.
+Snepp thanked Mrs. Hearn for giving his foot relief, and we took off our
+hats to her as we went away.
+
+The same night, before Blair called us in for prayers, Archie Hearn
+heard Barrington giving a sneering account of the visit to some of the
+fellows in the playground.
+
+"Just like a cook, you know. Might be taken for one. Some coarse bunting
+tied round her waist, and hands steeped in red kitchen stuff."
+
+"My mother could never be taken for anything but a lady," spoke up
+Archie bravely. "A lady may make jelly. A great many ladies prefer to do
+it themselves."
+
+"Now you be off," cried Barrington, turning sharply on him. "Keep at a
+distance from your betters."
+
+"There's nobody in the world better than my mother," returned the boy,
+standing his ground, and flushing painfully: for, in truth, the small
+way they were obliged to live in, through Chancery retaining the
+property, made a sore place in a corner of Archie's heart. "Ask Joseph
+Todhetley what he thinks of her. Ask John Whitney. _They_ recognize her
+for a lady."
+
+"But then they are gentlemen themselves."
+
+It was I who put that in. I couldn't help having a fling at Barrington.
+A bit of applause followed, and stung him.
+
+"If you shove in your oar, Johnny Ludlow, or presume to interfere with
+me, I'll pummel you to powder. There."
+
+Barrington kicked out on all sides, sending us backward. The bell rang
+for prayers then, and we had to go in.
+
+The game the next evening was football. We went out to it as soon as tea
+was over, to the field by the river towards Vale Farm. I can't tell much
+about its progress, except that the play seemed rougher and louder than
+usual. Once there was a regular skirmish: scores of feet kicking out at
+once; great struggling, pushing and shouting: and when the ball got off,
+and the tail after it in full hue and cry, one was left behind lying on
+the ground.
+
+I don't know why I turned my head back; it was the merest chance that I
+did so: and I saw Tod kneeling on the grass, raising the boy's head.
+
+"Holloa!" said I, running back. "Anything wrong? Who is it?"
+
+It was little Hearn. He had his eyes shut. Tod did not speak.
+
+"What's the matter, Tod? Is he hurt?"
+
+"Well, I think he's hurt a little," was Tod's answer. "He has had a kick
+here."
+
+Tod touched the left temple with his finger, drawing it down as far as
+the back of the ear. It must have been a good wide kick, I thought.
+
+"It has stunned him, poor little fellow. Can you get some water from the
+river, Johnny?"
+
+"I could if I had anything to bring it in. It would leak out of my straw
+hat long before I got here."
+
+But little Hearn made a move then, and opened his eyes. Presently he sat
+up, putting his hands to his head. Tod was as tender with him as a
+mother.
+
+"How do you feel, Archie?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, I think. A bit giddy."
+
+Getting on to his feet, he looked from me to Tod in a bewildered manner.
+I thought it odd. He said he wouldn't join the game again, but go in and
+rest. Tod went with him, ordering me to keep with the players. Hearn
+walked all right, and did not seem to be much the worse for it.
+
+"What's the matter now?" asked Mrs. Hall, in her cranky way; for she
+happened to be in the yard when they entered, Tod marshalling little
+Hearn by the arm.
+
+"He has had a blow at football," answered Tod. "Here"--indicating the
+place he had shown me.
+
+"A kick, I suppose you mean," said Mother Hall.
+
+"Yes, if you like to call it so. It was a blow with a foot."
+
+"Did you do it, Master Todhetley?"
+
+"No, I did not," retorted Tod.
+
+"I wonder the Doctor allows that football to be played!" she went on,
+grumbling. "I wouldn't, if I kept a school; I know that. It is a
+barbarous game, only fit for bears."
+
+"I am all right," put in Hearn. "I needn't have come in, but for feeling
+giddy."
+
+But he was not quite right yet. For without the slightest warning,
+before he had time to stir from where he stood, he became frightfully
+sick. Hall ran for a basin and some warm water. Tod held his head.
+
+"This is through having gobbled down your tea in such a mortal hurry,
+to be off to that precious football," decided Hall, resentfully. "The
+wonder is, that the whole crew of you are not sick, swallowing your food
+at the rate you do."
+
+"I think I'll lie on the bed for a bit," said Archie, when the sickness
+had passed. "I shall be up again by supper-time."
+
+They went with him to his room. Neither of them had the slightest notion
+that he was seriously hurt, or that there could be any danger. Archie
+took off his jacket, and lay down in his clothes. Mrs. Hall offered to
+bring him up a cup of tea; but he said it might make him sick again, and
+he'd rather be quiet. She went down, and Tod sat on the edge of the bed.
+Archie shut his eyes, and kept still. Tod thought he was dropping off to
+sleep, and began to creep out of the room. The eyes opened then, and
+Archie called to him.
+
+"Todhetley?"
+
+"I am here, old fellow. What is it?"
+
+"You'll tell him I forgive him," said Archie, speaking in an earnest
+whisper. "Tell him I know he didn't think to hurt me."
+
+"Oh, I'll tell him," answered Tod, lightly.
+
+"And be sure give my dear love to mamma."
+
+"So I will."
+
+"And now I'll go to sleep, or I shan't be down to supper. You will come
+and call me if I am not, won't you?"
+
+"All right," said Tod, tucking the counterpane about him. "Are you
+comfortable, Archie?"
+
+"Quite. Thank you."
+
+Tod came on to the field again, and joined the game. It was a little
+less rough, and there were no more mishaps. We got home later than
+usual, and supper stood on the table.
+
+The suppers at Worcester House were always the same--bread and cheese.
+And not too much of it. Half a round off the loaf, with a piece of
+cheese, for each fellow; and a drop of beer or water. Our other meals
+were good and abundant; but the Doctor waged war with heavy suppers. If
+old Hall had had her way, we should have had none at all. Little Hearn
+did not appear; and Tod went up to look after him. I followed.
+
+Opening the door without noise, we stood listening and looking. Not that
+there was much good in looking, for the room was in darkness.
+
+"Archie," whispered Tod.
+
+No answer. No sound.
+
+"Are you asleep, old fellow?"
+
+Not a word still. The dead might be there; for all the sound there was.
+
+"He's asleep, for certain," said Tod, groping his way towards the bed.
+"So much the better, poor little chap. I won't wake him."
+
+It was a small room, two beds in it; Archie's was the one at the end by
+the wall. Tod groped his way to it: and, in thinking of it afterwards, I
+wondered that Tod did go up to him. The most natural thing would have
+been to come away, and shut the door. Instinct must have guided him--as
+it guides us all. Tod bent over him, touching his face, I think. I stood
+close behind. Now that our eyes were accustomed to the darkness, it
+seemed a bit lighter.
+
+Something like a cry from Tod made me start. In the dark, and holding
+the breath, one is easily startled.
+
+"Get a light, Johnny. A light!-quick! for the love of Heaven."
+
+I believe I leaped the stairs at a bound. I believe I knocked over
+Mother Hall at the foot. I know I snatched the candle that was in her
+hand, and she screamed after me as if I had murdered her.
+
+"Here it is, Tod."
+
+He was at the door waiting for it, every atom of colour gone clean out
+of his face. Carrying it to the bed, he let its light fall full on
+Archie Hearn. The face was white and cold; the mouth covered with froth.
+
+"Oh, Tod! What is it that's the matter with him?"
+
+"Hush', Johnny! I fear he's dying. Good Lord! to think we should have
+been such ignorant fools as to leave him by himself!--as not have sent
+for Featherstone!"
+
+We were down again in a moment. Hall stood scolding still, demanding her
+candle. Tod said a word that silenced her. She backed against the wall.
+
+"Don't play your tricks on me, Mr. Todhetley."
+
+"Go and see," said Tod.
+
+She took the light from his hand quietly, and went up. Just then, the
+Doctor and Mrs. Frost, who had been walking all the way home from Sir
+John Whitney's, where they had spent the evening, came in, and learnt
+what had happened.
+
+Featherstone was there in no time, so to say, and shut himself into the
+bedroom with the Doctor and Mrs. Frost and Hall, and I don't know how
+many more. Nothing could be done for Archibald Hearn: he was not quite
+dead, but close upon it. He was dead before any one thought of sending
+to Mrs. Hearn. It came to the same. Could she have come upon telegraph
+wires, she would still have come too late.
+
+When I look back upon that evening--and a good many years have gone by
+since then--nothing arises in my mind but a picture of confusion, tinged
+with a feeling of terrible sorrow; ay, and of horror. If a death happens
+in a school, it is generally kept from the pupils, as far as possible;
+at any rate they are not allowed to see any of its attendant stir and
+details. But this was different. Upon masters and boys, upon mistress
+and household, it came with the same startling shock. Dr. Frost said
+feebly that the boys ought to go up to bed, and then Blair told us to
+go; but the boys stayed on where they were. Hanging about the passages,
+stealing upstairs and peeping into the room, questioning Featherstone
+(when we could get the chance of coming upon him), as to whether Hearn
+would get well or not. No one checked us.
+
+I went in once. Mrs. Frost was alone, kneeling by the bed; I thought she
+must have been saying a prayer. Just then she lifted her head to look at
+him. As I backed away again, she began to speak aloud--and oh! what a
+sad tone she said it in!
+
+"The only son of his mother, and she was a widow!"
+
+There had to be an inquest. It did not come to much. The most that could
+be said was that he died from a kick at football. "A most unfortunate
+but an accidental kick," quoth the coroner. Tod had said that he saw the
+kick given: that is, had seen some foot come flat down with a bang on
+the side of little Hearn's head; and when Tod was asked if he recognized
+the foot, he replied No: boots looked very much alike, and a great many
+were thrust out in the skirmish, all kicking together.
+
+Not one would own to having given it. For the matter of that, the fellow
+might not have been conscious of what he did. No end of thoughts glanced
+towards Barrington: both because he was so ferocious at the game, and
+that he had a spite against Hearn.
+
+"I never touched him," said Barrington, when this leaked out; and his
+face and voice were boldly defiant. "It wasn't me. I never so much as
+saw that Hearn was down."
+
+And as there were others quite as brutal at football as Barrington, he
+was believed.
+
+We could not get over it any way. It seemed so dreadful that he should
+have been left alone to die. Hall was chiefly to blame for that; and it
+cowed her.
+
+"Look here," said Tod to us, "I have a message for one of you. Whichever
+the cap fits may take it to himself. When Hearn was dying he told me to
+say that he forgave the fellow who kicked him."
+
+This was the evening of the inquest-day. We had all gathered in the
+porch by the stone bench, and Tod took the opportunity to relate what
+he had not related before. He repeated every word that Hearn had said.
+
+"Did Hearn know who it was, then?" asked John Whitney.
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Then why didn't you ask him to name him!"
+
+"Why didn't I ask him to name him," repeated Tod, in a fume. "Do you
+suppose I thought he was going to die, Whitney?--or that the kick was to
+turn out a serious one? Hearn was growing big enough to fight his own
+battles: and I never thought but he would be up again at supper-time."
+
+John Whitney pushed his hair back, in his quiet, thoughtful way, and
+said no more. He was to die, himself, the following year--but that has
+nothing to do with the present matter.
+
+I was standing away at the gate after this, looking at the sunset, when
+Tod came up and put his arms on the top bar.
+
+"What are you gazing at, Johnny?"
+
+"At the sunset. How red it is! I was thinking that if Hearn's up there
+now he is better off. It is very beautiful."
+
+"I should not like to have been the one to send him there, though," was
+Tod's answer. "Johnny, I am certain Hearn knew who it was," he went on
+in a low tone. "I am certain he thought the fellow, himself, knew, and
+that it had been done for the purpose. I think I know also."
+
+"Tell us," I said. And Tod glanced over his shoulders, to make sure no
+one was within hearing before he replied.
+
+"Wolfe Barrington."
+
+"Why don't you accuse him, Tod?"
+
+"It wouldn't do. And I am not absolutely sure. What I saw, was this. In
+the rush, one of them fell: I saw his head lying on the ground. Before I
+could shout out to the fellows to take care, a boot with a grey trouser
+over it came stamping down (not kicking) on the side of the head. If
+ever anything was done deliberately, that stamp seemed to be; it could
+hardly have been chance. I know no more than that: it all passed in a
+moment. I didn't _see_ that it was Barrington. But--what other fellow is
+there among us who would have wilfully harmed little Hearn? It is that
+thought that brings conviction to me."
+
+I looked round to where a lot of them stood at a distance. "Wolfe has
+got on grey trousers, too."
+
+"That does not tell much," returned Tod. "Half of us wear the same.
+Yours are grey; mine are grey. It's just this: While I am convinced in
+my own mind that it was Barrington, there's no sort of proof that it was
+so, and he denies it. So it must rest, and die away. Keep counsel,
+Johnny."
+
+The funeral took place from the school. All of us went to it. In the
+evening, Mrs. Hearn, who had been staying at the house, surprised us by
+coming into the tea-room. She looked very small in her black gown. Her
+thin cheeks were more flushed than usual, and her eyes had a great
+sadness in them.
+
+"I wished to say good-bye to you; and to shake hands with you before I
+go home," she began, in a kind tone, and we all got up from the table to
+face her.
+
+"I thought you would like me to tell you that I feel sure it must have
+been an accident; that no harm was intended. My dear little son said
+this to Joseph Todhetley when he was dying--and I fancy that some
+prevision of death must have lain then upon his spirit and caused him to
+say it, though he himself might not have been quite conscious of it. He
+died in love and peace with all; and, if he had anything to forgive--he
+forgave freely. I wish to let you know that I do the same. Only try to
+be a little less rough at play--and God bless you all. Will you shake
+hands with me?"
+
+John Whitney, a true gentleman always, went up to her first, meeting her
+offered hand.
+
+"If it had been anything but an accident, Mrs. Hearn," he began in
+tones of deep feeling: "if any one of us had done it wilfully, I think,
+standing to hear you now, we should shrink to the earth in our shame and
+contrition. You cannot regret Archibald much more than we do."
+
+"In the midst of my grief, I know one thing: that God has taken him from
+a world of care to peace and happiness; I try to _rest_ in that. Thank
+you all. Good-bye."
+
+Catching her breath, she shook hands with us one by one, giving each a
+smile; but did not say more.
+
+And the only one of us who did not feel her visit as it was intended,
+was Barrington. But he had no feeling: his body was too strong for it,
+his temper too fierce. He would have thrown a sneer of ridicule after
+her, but Whitney hissed it down.
+
+Before another day had gone over, Barrington and Tod had a row. It was
+about a crib. Tod could be as overbearing as Barrington when he pleased,
+and he was cherishing ill-feeling towards him. They went and had it out
+in private--but it did not come to a fight. Tod was not one to keep
+in matters till they rankled, and he openly told Barrington that he
+believed it was he who had caused Hearn's death. Barrington denied it
+out-and-out; first of all swearing passionately that he had not, and
+then calming down to talk about it quietly. Tod felt less sure of it
+after that: as he confided to me in the bedroom.
+
+Dr. Frost forbid football. And the time went on.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I have further to relate may be thought a made-up story, such as we
+find in fiction. It is so very like a case of retribution. But it is all
+true, and happened as I shall put it. And somehow I never care to dwell
+long upon the calamity.
+
+It was as nearly as possible a year after Hearn died. Jessup was captain
+of the school, for John Whitney was too ill to come. Jessup was almost
+as rebellious as Wolfe; and the two would ridicule Blair, and call him
+"Baked pie" to his face. One morning, when they had given no end of
+trouble to old Frost over their Greek, and laid the blame upon the hot
+weather, the Doctor said he had a great mind to keep them in until
+dinner-time. However, they ate humble-pie, and were allowed to escape.
+Blair was taking us for a walk. Instead of keeping with the ranks,
+Barrington and Jessup fell out, and sat down on the gate of a field
+where the wheat was being carried. Blair said they might sit there if
+they pleased, but forbid them to cross the gate. Indeed, there was a
+standing interdiction against our entering any field whilst the crops
+were being gathered. We went on and left them.
+
+Half-an-hour afterwards, before we got back, Barrington had been carried
+home, dying.
+
+Dying, as was supposed. He and Jessup had disobeyed Blair, disregarded
+orders, and rushed into the field, shouting and leaping like a couple of
+mad fellows--as the labourers afterwards said. Making for the waggon,
+laden high with wheat, they mounted it, and started on the horses. In
+some way, Barrington lost his balance, slipped over the side and the
+hind wheel went over him.
+
+I shall never forget the house when we got back. Jessup, in his terror,
+had made off for his home, running most of the way--seven miles. He was
+in the same boat as Wolfe, except that he escaped injury--had gone over
+the stile in defiance of orders, and got on the waggon. Barrington was
+lying in the blue-room; and Mrs. Frost, frightened out of bed, stood on
+the landing in her night-cap, a shawl wrapped round her loose white
+dressing-gown. She was ill at the time. Featherstone came striding up
+the road wiping his hot face.
+
+"Lord bless me!" cried Featherstone when he had looked at Wolfe and
+touched him. "I can't deal with this single-handed, Dr. Frost."
+
+The doctor had guessed that. And Roger was already away on a galloping
+horse, flying for another. He brought little Pink: a shrimp of a
+man, with a fair reputation in his profession. But the two were more
+accustomed to treating rustic ailments than grave cases, and Dr. Frost
+knew that. Evening drew on, and the dusk was gathering, when a carriage
+with post-horses came thundering in at the front gates, bringing Mr.
+Carden.
+
+They did not give to us boys the particulars of the injuries; and
+I don't know them to this day. The spine was hurt; the right ankle
+smashed: we heard that much. Taptal, Barrington's guardian, came over,
+and an uncle from London. Altogether it was a miserable time. The
+masters seized upon it to be doubly stern, and read us lectures upon
+disobedience and rebellion--as though we had been the offenders! As to
+Jessup, his father handed him back again to Dr. Frost, saying that in
+his opinion a taste of birch would much conduce to his benefit.
+
+Barrington did not seem to suffer as keenly as some might have done;
+perhaps his spirits kept him up, for they were untamed. On the very day
+after the accident, he asked for some of the fellows to go in and sit
+with him, because he was dull. "By-and-by," the doctors said. And the
+next day but one, Dr. Frost sent me in. The paid nurse sat at the end of
+the room.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it, Ludlow! Where's Jessup?"
+
+"Jessup's under punishment."
+
+His face looked the same as ever, and that was all that could be seen of
+him. He lay on his back, covered over. As to the low bed, it might have
+been a board, to judge by its flatness. And perhaps was so.
+
+"I am very sorry about it, Barrington. We all are. Are you in much
+pain?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," was his impatient answer. "One has to grin and bear
+it. The cursed idiots had stacked the wheat sloping to the sides, or it
+would never have happened. What do you hear about me?"
+
+"Nothing but regret that it----"
+
+"I don't mean that stuff. Regret, indeed! regret won't undo it. I mean
+as to my getting about again. Will it be ages first?"
+
+"We don't hear a word."
+
+"If they were to keep me here a month, Ludlow, I should go mad. Rampant.
+You shut up, old woman."
+
+For the nurse had interfered, telling him he must not excite himself.
+
+"My ankle's hurt; but I believe it is not half as bad as a regular
+fracture: and my back's bruised. Well, what's a bruise? Nothing. Of
+course there's pain and stiffness, and all that; but so there is after
+a bad fight, or a thrashing. And they talk about my lying here for
+three or four weeks! Catch me."
+
+One thing was evident: they had not allowed Wolfe to suspect the gravity
+of the case. Downstairs we had an inkling, I don't remember whence
+gathered, that it might possibly end in death. There was a suspicion of
+some internal injury that we could not get to know of; and it is said
+that even Mr. Carden, with all his surgical skill, could not get at it,
+either. Any way, the prospect of recovery for Barrington was supposed to
+be of the scantiest; and it threw a gloom over us.
+
+A sad mishap was to occur. Of course no one in their senses would
+have let Barrington learn the danger he was in; especially while there
+was just a chance that the peril would be surmounted. I read a book
+lately--I, Johnny Ludlow--where a little child met with an accident; and
+the first thing the people around him did, father, doctors, nurses, was
+to inform him that he would be a cripple for the rest of his days. That
+was common sense with a vengeance: and about as likely to occur in real
+life as that I could turn myself into a Dutchman. However, something of
+the kind did happen in Barrington's case, but through inadvertence.
+Another uncle came over from Ireland; an old man; and in talking with
+Featherstone he spoke out too freely. They were outside Barrington's
+door, and besides that, supposed that he was asleep. But he had awakened
+then; and heard more than he ought. The blue-room always seemed to have
+an echo in it.
+
+"So it's all up with me, Ludlow?"
+
+I was by his bedside when he suddenly said this, in the twilight of the
+summer evening. He had been lying quite silent since I entered, and his
+face had a white, still look on it, never before noticed there.
+
+"What do you mean, Barrington?"
+
+"None of your shamming here. I know; and so do you, Johnny Ludlow. I
+say, though it makes one feel queer to find the world's slipping away.
+I had looked for so much jolly _life_ in it."
+
+"Barrington, you may get well yet; you may, indeed. Ask Pink and
+Featherstone, else, when they next come; ask Mr. Carden. I can't think
+what idea you have been getting hold of."
+
+"There, that's enough," he answered. "Don't bother. I want to be quiet."
+
+He shut his eyes; and the darkness grew as the minutes passed.
+Presently some one came into the room with a gentle step: a lady in a
+black-and-white gown that didn't rustle. It was Mrs. Hearn. Barrington
+looked up at her.
+
+"I am going to stay with you for a day or two," she said in a low sweet
+voice, bending over him and touching his forehead with her cool fingers.
+"I hear you have taken a dislike to the nurse: and Mrs. Frost is really
+too weakly just now to get about."
+
+"She's a sly cat," said Barrington, alluding to the nurse, "and watches
+me out of the tail of her eye. Hall's as bad. They are in league
+together."
+
+"Well, they shall not come in more than I can help. I will nurse you
+myself."
+
+"No; not you," said Barrington, his face looking red and uneasy. "I'll
+not trouble _you_."
+
+She sat down in my chair, just pressing my hand in token of greeting.
+And I left them.
+
+In the ensuing days his life trembled in the balance; and even when part
+of the more immediate danger was surmounted, part of the worst of the
+pain, it was still a toss-up. Barrington had no hope whatever: I don't
+think Mrs. Hearn had, either.
+
+She hardly left him. At first he seemed to resent her presence; to wish
+her away; to receive unwillingly what she did for him; but, in spite of
+himself he grew to look round for her, and to let his hand lie in hers
+whenever she chose to take it.
+
+Who can tell what she said to him? Who can know how she softly and
+gradually awoke the better feelings within him, and won his heart from
+its hardness? She did do it, and that's enough. The way was paved for
+her. What the accident had not done, the fear of death had. Tamed him.
+
+One evening when the sun had sunk, leaving only a fading light in
+the western sky, and Barrington had been watching it from his bed, he
+suddenly burst into tears. Mrs. Hearn busy amongst the physic bottles,
+was by his side in a moment.
+
+"Wolfe!"
+
+"It's very hard to have to die."
+
+"Hush, my dear, you are not worse: a little better. I think you may be
+spared; I do indeed. And--in any case--you know what I read to you this
+evening: that to die is gain."
+
+"Yes, for some. I've never had my thoughts turned that way."
+
+"They are turned now. That is quite enough."
+
+"It is such a little while to have lived," went on Barrington, after a
+pause. "Such a little while to have enjoyed earth. What are my few years
+compared with the ages that have gone by, with the ages and ages that
+are to come. Nothing. Not as much as a drop of water to the ocean."
+
+"Wolfe, dear, if you live out the allotted years of man, three score
+and ten, what would even that be in comparison? As you say--nothing. It
+seems to me that our well-being or ill-being here need not much concern
+us: the days, whether short or long, will pass as a dream. Eternal life
+lasts for ever; soon we must all be departing for it."
+
+Wolfe made no answer. The clear sky was assuming its pale tints, shading
+off one into another, and his eyes were looking at them. But it was as
+if he saw nothing.
+
+"Listen, my dear. When Archibald died, _I_ thought I should have died;
+died of grief and pain. I grieved to think how short had been his span
+of life on this fair earth; how cruel his fate in being taken from it
+so early. But, oh, Wolfe, God has shown me my mistake. I would not have
+him back again if I could."
+
+Wolfe put up his hand to cover his face. Not a word spoke he.
+
+"I wish you could see things as I see them, now that they have been
+cleared for me," she resumed. "It is so much better to be in heaven than
+on earth. We, who are here, have to battle with cares and crosses; and
+shall have to do so to the end. Archie has thrown-off all care. He is in
+happiness amidst the redeemed."
+
+The room was growing dark. Wolfe's face was one of intense pain.
+
+"Wolfe, dear, do not mistake me; do not think me hard if I say that you
+would be happier there than here. There is nothing to dread, dying in
+Christ. Believe me, I would not for the world have Archie back again:
+how could I then make sure what the eventual ending would be? You and he
+will know each other up there."
+
+"Don't," said Wolfe.
+
+"Don't what?"
+
+Wolfe drew her hand close to his face, and she knelt down to catch his
+whisper.
+
+"I killed him."
+
+A pause: and a sort of sob in her throat. Then, drawing away her hand,
+she laid her cheek to his.
+
+"My dear, I think I have known it."
+
+"You--have--known--it?" stammered Wolfe in disbelief.
+
+"Yes. I thought it was likely. I felt nearly sure of it. Don't let it
+trouble you now. Archie forgave, you know, and I forgave; and God will
+forgive."
+
+"How could you come here to nurse me--knowing that?"
+
+"It made me the more anxious to come. You have no mother."
+
+"No." Wolfe was sobbing bitterly. "She died when I was born. I've never
+had anybody. I've never had a chapter read to me, or a prayer prayed."
+
+"No, no, dear. And Archie--oh, Archie had all that. From the time he
+could speak, I tried to train him for heaven. It has seemed to me,
+since, just as though I had foreseen he would go early, and was
+preparing him for it."
+
+"I never meant to kill him," sobbed Wolfe. "I saw his head down, and I
+put my foot upon it without a moment's thought. If I had taken thought,
+or known it would hurt him seriously, I wouldn't have done it."
+
+"He is better off, dear," was all she said. "You have that comfort."
+
+"Any way, I am paid out for it. At the best, I suppose I shall go upon
+crutches for life. That's bad enough: but dying's worse. Mrs. Hearn, I
+am not ready to die."
+
+"Be you very sure God will not take you until you are ready, if you only
+wish and hope to be made so from your very heart," she whispered. "I
+pray to Him often for you, Wolfe."
+
+"I think you must be one of heaven's angels," said Wolfe, with a burst
+of emotion.
+
+"No, dear; only a weak woman. I have had so much sorrow and care,
+trial upon trial, one disappointment after another, that it has left me
+nothing but Heaven to lean upon. Wolfe, I am trying to show you a little
+bit of the way there; and I think--I do indeed--that this accident,
+which seems, and is, so dreadful, may have been sent by God in mercy.
+Perhaps, else, you might never have found Him: and where would you have
+been in all that long, long eternity? A few years here; never-ending
+ages hereafter!--Oh, Wolfe! bear up bravely for the little span, even
+though the cross may be heavy. Fight on manfully for the real life to
+come."
+
+"If you will help me."
+
+"To be sure I will."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wolfe got about again, and came out upon crutches. After a while they
+were discarded, first one, then the other, and he took permanently to a
+stick. He would never go without that. He would never run or leap again,
+or kick much either. The doctors looked upon it as a wonderful cure--and
+old Featherstone was apt to talk to us boys as if it were he who had
+pulled him through. But not in Henry Carden's hearing.
+
+The uncles and Taptal said he would be better now at a private tutor's.
+But Wolfe would not leave Dr. Frost's. A low pony-carriage was bought
+for him, and all his spare time he would go driving over to Mrs.
+Hearn's. He was as a son to her. His great animal spirits had been
+taken out of him, you see; and he had to find his happiness in quieter
+grooves. One Saturday afternoon he drove me over. Mrs. Hearn had asked
+me to stay with her until the Monday morning. Barrington generally
+stayed.
+
+It was in November. Considerably more than a year after the accident.
+The guns of the sportsmen were heard in the wood; a pack of hounds and
+their huntsmen rode past the cottage at a gallop, in full chase after a
+late find. Barrington looked and listened, a sigh escaping him.
+
+"These pleasures are barred to me now."
+
+"But a better one has been opened to you," said Mrs. Hearn, with a
+meaning smile, as she took his hand in hers.
+
+And on Wolfe's face, when he glanced at her in answer, there sat a look
+of satisfied rest that I am sure had never been seen on it before he
+fell off the waggon.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MAJOR PARRIFER.
+
+
+He was one of the worst magistrates that ever sat upon the bench of
+justices. Strangers were given to wonder how he got his commission. But,
+you see, men are fit or unfit for a post according to their doings in
+it; and, generally speaking, people cannot tell what those doings will
+be beforehand.
+
+They called him Major: Major Parrifer: but he only held rank in a
+militia regiment, and every one knows what that is. He had bought the
+place he lived in some years before, and christened it Parrifer Hall.
+The worst title he could have hit upon; seeing that the good old Hall,
+with a good old family in it, was only a mile or two distant. Parrifer
+Hall was only a stone's throw, so to say, beyond our village, Church
+Dykely.
+
+They lived at a high rate; money was not wanting; the Major, his wife,
+six daughters, and a son who did not come home very much. Mrs. Parrifer
+was stuck-up: it is one of our county sayings, and it applied to her.
+When she called on people her silk gowns rustled as if lined with
+buckram; her voice was loud, her manner patronizing; the Major's voice
+and manner were the same; and the girls took after them.
+
+Close by, at the corner of Piefinch Lane, was a cottage that belonged
+to me. To me, Johnny Ludlow. Not that I had as yet control over that
+or any other cottage I might possess. George Reed rented the cottage.
+It stood in a good large garden which touched Major Parrifer's side
+fence. On the other side the garden, a high hedge divided it from the
+lane: but it had only a low hedge in front, with a low gate in the
+middle. Trim, well-kept hedges: George Reed took care of that.
+
+There was quite a history attaching to him. His father had been indoor
+servant at the Court. When he married and left it, my grandfather gave
+him a lease of this cottage, renewable every seven years. George was
+the only son, had been very decently educated, but turned out wild
+when he grew up and got out of everything. The result was, that he was
+only a day-labourer, and never likely to be anything else. He took to
+the cottage after old Reed's death, and worked for Mr. Sterling; who
+had the Court now. George Reed was generally civil, but uncommonly
+independent. His first wife had died, leaving a daughter, Cathy; later
+on he married again. Reed's wild oats had been sown years ago; he was
+thoroughly well-conducted and industrious now, working in his own garden
+early and late.
+
+When Cathy's mother died, she was taken to by an aunt, who lived near
+Worcester. At fifteen she came home again, for the aunt had died. Her
+ten years' training there had done very little for her, except make her
+into a pretty girl. Cathy had been trained to idleness, but to very
+little else. She could sing; self-taught of course; she could embroider
+handkerchiefs and frills; she could write a tolerable letter without
+many mistakes, and was great at reading, especially when the literature
+was of the halfpenny kind issued weekly. These acquirements (except the
+last) were not bad things in themselves, but quite unsuited to Cathy
+Reed's condition and her future prospects in life. The best that she
+could aspire to, the best her father expected for her, was that of
+entering on a light respectable service, and later to become, perhaps,
+a labourer's wife.
+
+The second Mrs. Reed, a quiet kind of young woman, had one little girl
+only when Cathy came home. She was almost struck dumb when she found
+what had been Cathy's acquirements in the way of usefulness; or rather
+what were her deficiencies. The facts unfolded themselves by degrees.
+
+"Your father thinks he'd like you to get a service with some of the
+gentlefolks, Cathy," her step-mother said to her. "Perhaps at the
+Court, if they could make room for you; or over at Squire Todhetley's.
+Meanwhile you'll help me with the work at home for a few weeks first;
+won't you, dear? When another little one comes, there'll be a good deal
+on my hands."
+
+"Oh, I'll help," answered Cathy, who was a good-natured, ready-speaking
+girl.
+
+"That's right. Can you wash?"
+
+"No," said Cathy, with a very decisive shake of the head.
+
+"Not wash?"
+
+"Oh dear, no."
+
+"Can you iron?"
+
+"Pocket-handkerchiefs."
+
+"Your aunt was a seamstress; can you sew well?"
+
+"I don't like sewing."
+
+Mrs. Reed looked at her, but said no more then, rather leaving practice
+instead of theory to develop Cathy's capabilities. But when she came to
+put her to the test, she found Cathy could not, or would not, do any
+kind of useful work whatever. Cathy could not wash, iron, scour, cook,
+or sweep; or even sew plain coarse things, such as are required in
+labourers' families. Cathy could do several kinds of fancy-work. Cathy
+could idle away her time at the glass, oiling her hair, and dressing
+herself to the best advantage; Cathy had a smattering of history and
+geography and chronology; and of polite literature, as comprised in the
+pages of the aforesaid halfpenny and penny weekly romances. The aunt had
+sent Cathy to a cheap day-school where such learning was supposed to be
+taught: had let her run about when she ought to have been cooking and
+washing; and of course Cathy had acquired a distaste for work. Mrs. Reed
+sat down aghast, her hands falling helpless on her lap, a kind of fear
+of what might be Cathy's future stealing into her heart.
+
+"Child, what is to become of you?"
+
+Cathy had no qualms upon the point herself. She gave a laughing kiss to
+the little child, toddling round the room by the chairs, and took out of
+her pocket one of those halfpenny serials, whose thrilling stories of
+brigands and captive damsels she had learnt to make her chief delight.
+
+"I shall have to teach her everything," sighed disappointed Mrs. Reed.
+"Catherine, I don't think the kind of useless things your aunt has
+taught you are good for poor folk like us."
+
+Good! Mrs. Reed might have gone a little further. She began her
+instruction, but Cathy would not learn. Cathy was always good-humoured;
+but of work she would do none. If she attempted it, Mrs. Reed had to do
+it over again.
+
+"Where on earth will the gentlefolks get their servants from, if the
+girls are to be like you?" cried honest Mrs. Reed.
+
+Well, time went on; a year or two. Cathy Reed tried two or three
+services, but did not keep them. Young Mrs. Sterling at the Court at
+length took her. In three months Cathy was home again, as usual. "I do
+not think Catherine will be kept anywhere," Mrs. Sterling said to her
+step-mother. "When she ought to have been minding the baby, the nurse
+would find her with a strip of embroidery in her hand, or buried in the
+pages of some bad story that can only do her harm."
+
+Cathy was turned seventeen when the warfare set in between her father
+and Major Parrifer. The Major suddenly cast his eyes on the little
+cottage outside his own land and coveted it. Before this, young Parrifer
+(a harmless young man, with no whiskers, and sandy hair parted down the
+middle) had struck up an acquaintance with Cathy. When he left Oxford
+(where he got plucked twice, and at length took his name off the books)
+he would often be seen leaning over the cottage-gate, talking to Cathy
+in the garden, with the two little half-sisters that she pretended to
+mind. There was no harm: but perhaps Major Parrifer feared it might
+grow into it; and he badly wanted the plot of ground, that he might pull
+down the cottage and extend his own boundaries to Piefinch Lane.
+
+One fine day in the holidays, when Tod and I were indoors making flies
+for fishing, our old servant, Thomas, appeared, and said that George
+Reed had come over and wanted to speak to me. Which set us wondering.
+What could he want with me?
+
+"Show him in here," said Tod.
+
+Reed came in: a tall, powerful man of forty; with dark, curling hair,
+and a determined, good-looking face. He began saying that he had heard
+Major Parrifer was after his cottage, wanting to buy it; so he had come
+over to beg me to interfere and stop the sale.
+
+"Why, Reed, what can I do?" I asked. "You know I have no power."
+
+"You wouldn't turn me out of it yourself, I know, sir."
+
+"That I wouldn't."
+
+Neither would I. I liked George Reed. And I remembered that he used to
+have me in his arms sometimes when I was a little fellow at the Court.
+Once he carried me to my mother's grave in the churchyard, and told me
+she had gone to live in heaven.
+
+"When a rich gentleman sets his mind on a poor man's bit of a cottage,
+and says, 'That shall be mine,' the poor man has not much chance against
+him, sir, unless he that owns the cottage will be his friend. I know you
+have no power at present, Master Johnny; but if you'd speak to Mr.
+Brandon, perhaps he would listen to you."
+
+"Sit down, Reed," interrupted Tod, putting his catgut out of hand. "I
+thought you had the cottage on a lease."
+
+"And so I have, sir. But the lease will be out at Michaelmas next, and
+Mr. Brandon can turn me from it if he likes. My father and mother died
+there, sir; my wife died there; my children were born there; and the
+place is as much like my homestead as if it was my own."
+
+"How do you know old Parrifer wants it?" continued Tod.
+
+"I have heard it from a safe source. I've heard, too, that his lawyer
+and Mr. Brandon's lawyer have settled the matter between their two
+selves, and don't intend to let me as much as know I'm to go out till
+the time comes, for fear I should make a row over it. Nobody on earth
+can stop it except Mr. Brandon," added Reed, with energy.
+
+"Have you spoken to Mr. Brandon, Reed?"
+
+"No, sir. I was going up to him; but the thought took me that I'd better
+come off at once to Master Ludlow; his word might be of more avail than
+mine. There's no time to be lost. If once the lawyers get Mr. Brandon's
+consent, he may not be able to recall it."
+
+"What does Parrifer want with the cottage?"
+
+"I fancy he covets the bit of garden, sir; he sees the order I've
+brought it into. If it's not that, I don't know what it can be. The
+cottage can be no eyesore to him; he can't see it from his windows."
+
+"Shall I go with you, Johnny?" said Tod, as Reed went home, after
+drinking the ale old Thomas had given him. "We will circumvent that
+Parrifer, if there's law or justice in the Brandon land."
+
+We went off to Mr. Brandon's in the pony-carriage, Tod driving. He lived
+near Alcester, and had the management of my property whilst I was a
+minor. As we went along who should ride past, meeting us, but Major
+Parrifer.
+
+"Looking like the bull-dog that he is," cried Tod, who could not bear
+the man. "Johnny, what will you lay that he has not been to Mr.
+Brandon's? The negotiations are becoming serious."
+
+Tod did not go in. On second thought, he said it might be better to
+leave it to me. The Squire must try, if I failed. Mr. Brandon was at
+home; and Tod drove on into Alcester by way of passing the time.
+
+"But I don't think you can see him," said the housekeeper, when she came
+to me in the drawing-room. "This is one of his bad days. A gentleman
+called just now, and I went in to the master, but it was of no use."
+
+"I know; it was Major Parrifer. We thought he might have been calling
+here."
+
+Mr. Brandon was thin and little, with a shrivelled face. He lived alone,
+except for three or four servants, and always fancied himself ill with
+one ailment or another. When I went in, for he said he'd see me, he was
+sitting in an easy-chair, with a geranium-coloured Turkish cap on his
+head, and two bottles of medicine at his elbow.
+
+"Well, Johnny, an invalid as usual, you see. And what is it you so
+particularly want?"
+
+"I want to ask you a favour, Mr. Brandon, if you'll be good enough to
+grant it me."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You know that cottage, sir, at the corner of Piefinch Lane. George
+Reed's."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I have come to ask you not to let it be sold."
+
+"Who wants to sell it?" asked he, after a pause.
+
+"Major Parrifer wants to buy it; and to turn Reed out. The lawyers are
+going to arrange it."
+
+Mr. Brandon pushed the cap up on his brow and gave the tassel over his
+ear a twirl as he looked at me. People thought him incapable; but it was
+only because he had no work to do that he seemed so. He would get a bit
+irritable sometimes; very rarely though; and he had a squeaky voice: but
+he was a good and just man.
+
+"How did you hear this, Johnny?"
+
+I told him all about it. What Reed had said, and of our having met the
+Major on horseback as we drove along.
+
+"He came here, but I did not feel well enough to see him," said Mr.
+Brandon. "Johnny, you know that I stand in place of your father, as
+regards your property; to do the best I can with it."
+
+"Yes, sir. And I am sure you do it."
+
+"If Major Parrifer--I don't like the man," broke off Mr. Brandon, "but
+that's neither here nor there. At the last magistrates' meeting I
+attended he was so overbearing as to shut us all up. My nerves were
+unstrung for four-and-twenty hours afterwards."
+
+"And Squire Todhetley came home swearing," I could not help putting in.
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Brandon. "Yes; some people can throw bile off in that
+way. I can't. But, Johnny, all that goes for nothing, in regard to the
+matter in hand: and I was about to point out to you that if Major
+Parrifer has set his mind upon buying Reed's cottage and the bit of land
+attached to it, he is no doubt prepared to offer a good price; more,
+probably, than it is worth. If so, I should not, in your interests, be
+justified in refusing this."
+
+I could feel my face flush with the sense of injustice, and the tears
+come into my eyes. They called me a muff for many things.
+
+"I would not touch the money myself, sir. And if you used it for me, I'm
+sure it would never bring any good."
+
+"What's that, Johnny?"
+
+"Money got by oppression or injustice never does. There was a fellow at
+school----"
+
+"Never mind the fellow at school. Go on with your own argument."
+
+"To turn Reed out of the place where he has always lived, out of the
+garden he has done so well by, just because a rich man wants to get
+possession of it, would be fearfully unjust, sir. It would be as bad as
+the story of Naboth's vineyard, that we heard read in church last
+Sunday, for the First Lesson. Tod said so as we came along."
+
+"Who's Tod?"
+
+"Joseph Todhetley. If you turned Reed out, sir, for the sake of
+benefiting me, I should be ashamed to look people in the face when they
+talked of it. If you please, sir, I do not think my father would allow
+it if he were living. Reed says the place is like his homestead."
+
+Mr. Brandon measured two tablespoonfuls of medicine into a glass, drank
+it off, and ate a French plum afterwards. The plums were on a plate, and
+he handed them to me. I took one, and tried to crack the stone.
+
+"You have taken up a strong opinion on this matter, Master Johnny."
+
+"Yes, sir. I like Reed. And if I did not, he has no more right to be
+turned out of his home than Major Parrifer has out of his. How would
+_he_ like it, if some rich and powerful man came down on his place and
+turned him out?"
+
+"Major Parrifer can't be turned out of his, Johnny. It is his own."
+
+"And Reed's place is mine, sir--if you won't be angry with me for saying
+it. Please don't let it be done, Mr. Brandon."
+
+The pony-carriage came rattling up at this juncture, and we saw Tod look
+at the windows impatiently. I got up, and Mr. Brandon shook hands with
+me.
+
+"What you have said is all very good, Johnny, right in principle;
+but I cannot let it quite outweigh your interests. When this proposal
+shall be put before me--as you say it will be--it must have my full
+consideration."
+
+I stopped when I got to the door and turned to look at him. If he would
+only have given me an assurance! He read in my face what I wanted.
+
+"No, Johnny, I can't do that. You may go home easy for the present,
+however; for I will promise not to accept the offer to purchase without
+first seeing you again and showing you my reasons."
+
+"I may have gone back to school, sir."
+
+"I tell you I will see you again if I decide to accept the offer," he
+repeated emphatically. And I went out to the pony-chaise.
+
+"Old Brandon means to sell," said Tod, when I told him. And he gave the
+pony an angry cut, that made him fly off at a gallop.
+
+Will anybody believe that I never heard another word upon the subject,
+except what people said in the way of gossip? It was soon known that
+Mr. Brandon had declined to sell the cottage; and when his lawyer
+wrote him word that the sum, offered for it, was increased to quite an
+unprecedented amount, considering the value of the cottage and garden
+in question, Mr. Brandon only sent a peremptory note back again,
+saying he was not in the habit of changing his decisions, and the
+place _was not for sale_. Tod threw up his hat.
+
+"Bravo, old Brandon! I thought he'd not go quite over to the enemy."
+
+George Reed wanted to thank me for it. One evening, in passing his
+cottage on my way home from the Court, I leaned over the gate to speak
+to his little ones. He saw me and came running out. The rays of the
+setting sun shone on the children's white corded bonnets.
+
+"I have to thank you for this, sir. They are going to renew my lease."
+
+"Are they? All right. But you need not thank me; I know nothing about
+it."
+
+George Reed gave a decisive nod. "If you hadn't got the ear of Mr.
+Brandon, sir, I know what box I should have been in now. Look at them
+girls!"
+
+It was not a very complimentary mode of speech, as applied to the Misses
+Parrifer. Three of them were passing, dressed outrageously in the
+fashion as usual. I lifted my straw hat, and one of them nodded in
+return, but the other two only looked out of the tail of their eyes.
+
+"The Major has been trying it on with me now," remarked Reed, watching
+them out of sight. "When he found he could not buy the place, he thought
+he'd try and buy out me. He wanted the bit of land for a kitchen-garden,
+he said; and would give me a five-pound bank-note to go out of it. Much
+obliged, Major, I said; but I'd not go for fifty."
+
+"As if he had not heaps of land himself to make kitchen-gardens of!"
+
+"But don't you see, Master Johnny, to a man like Major Parrifer, who
+thinks the world was made for him, there's nothing so mortifying as
+being balked. He set his mind upon this place; he can't get it; and he
+is just boiling over. He'd poison me if he could. Now then, what's
+wanted?"
+
+Cathy had come up, with her pretty dark eyes, whispering some question
+to her father. I ran on; it was growing late, and the Manor ever-so-far
+off.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+From that time the feud grew between Major Parrifer and George Reed.
+Not openly; not actively. It could not well be either when their
+relative positions were so different. Major Parrifer was a wealthy
+landed proprietor, a county magistrate (and an awfully overbearing
+one); and George Reed was a poor cottager who worked for his bread as
+a day-labourer. But that the Major grew to abhor and hate Reed; that
+the man, inhabiting the place at his very gates in spite of him, and
+looking at him independently, as if to say he knew it, every time he
+passed, had become an eyesore to him; was easily seen.
+
+The Major resented it on us all. He was rude to Mr. Brandon when they
+met; he struck out his whip once when he was on horse-back, and I
+passed him, as if he would like to strike me. I don't know whether he
+was aware of my visit to Mr. Brandon; but the cottage was mine, I was
+friendly with Reed, and that was enough. Months, however, went on, and
+nothing came of it.
+
+One Sunday morning in winter, when our church-bells were going for
+service, Major Parrifer's carriage turned out with the ladies all in
+full fig. The Major himself turned out after it, walking, one of his
+daughters with him, a young man who was on a visit there, and a couple
+of servants. As they passed George Reed's, the sound of work being done
+in the garden at the back of the cottage caught the Major's quick ears.
+He turned softly down Piefinch Lane, stole on tiptoe to the high hedge,
+and stooped to peep through it.
+
+Reed was doing something to his turnips; hoeing them, the Major said. He
+called the gentleman to him and the two servants, and bade them look
+through the hedge. Nothing more. Then the party came on to church.
+
+On Tuesday, the Major rode out to take his place on the magisterial
+bench at Alcester. It was bitterly cold January weather, and only one
+magistrate besides himself was on it: _a clergyman_. Two or three petty
+offenders were brought before them, who were severely sentenced--as
+prisoners always were when Major Parrifer was presiding. Another
+magistrate came in afterwards.
+
+Singular to say, Tod and I had gone to the town that day about a new
+saddle for his horse; singular on account of what happened. In saying
+we were there I am telling the truth; it is not invented to give
+colour to the tale. Upon turning out of the saddler's, which is near
+the justice-room, old Jones the constable was coming along with a
+prisoner handcuffed, a tail after him.
+
+"Halloa!" cried Tod. "Here's fun!"
+
+But I had seen what Tod did not, and rubbed my eyes, wondering if they
+saw double.
+
+"_Tod!_ It is George Reed!"
+
+Reed's face was as white as a sheet, and he walked along, not
+unwillingly, but as one in a state of sad shame, of awful rage. Tod
+made only one bound to the prisoner; and old Jones knowing us, did not
+push him back again.
+
+"As I'm a living man, I do not know what this is for, or why I am
+paraded through the town in disgrace," spoke Reed, in answer to Tod's
+question. "If I'm charged with wrong-doing, I am willing to appear and
+answer for it, without being turned into a felon in the face and eyes of
+folks, beforehand."
+
+"Why do you bring Reed up in this manner--handcuffed?" demanded Tod of
+the constable.
+
+"Because the Major telled me to, young Mr. Todhetley."
+
+Be you very sure Tod pushed after them into the justice-room: the
+police saw him, but he was a magistrate's son. The crowd would have
+liked to push in also, but were sent to the right-about. I waited, and
+was presently admitted surreptitiously. Reed was standing before Major
+Parrifer and the other two, handcuffed still; and I gathered what the
+charge was.
+
+It was preferred by Major Parrifer, who had his servants there and a
+gentleman as witnesses. George Reed had been working in his garden on
+the previous Sunday morning--which was against the law. Old Jones had
+gone to Mr. Sterling's and taken him on the Major's warrant, as he was
+thrashing corn.
+
+Reed's answer was to the following effect.
+
+He was _not_ working. His wife was ill--her little boy being only four
+days old--and Dr. Duffham ordered her some mutton broth. He went to the
+garden to get the turnips to put into it. It was only on account of her
+illness that he didn't go to church himself, he and Cathy. They might
+ask Dr. Duffham.
+
+"Do you dare to tell me you were not hoeing turnips?" cried Major
+Parrifer.
+
+"I dare to say I was not doing it as work," independently answered the
+man. "If you looked at me, as you say, Major, through the hedge, you
+must have seen the bunch of turnips I had got up, lying near. I took the
+hoe in my hand, and I did use it for two or three minutes. Some dead
+weeds had got thrown along the bed, by the children, perhaps, and I
+pulled them away. I went indoors directly: before the clock struck
+eleven the turnips were on, boiling with the scrag of mutton. I peeled
+them and put them in myself."
+
+"I see the bunch of turnips," cried one of the servants. "They was
+lying----"
+
+"Hold your tongue, sir," roared his master; "if your further evidence
+is wanted, you'll be asked for it. As to this defence"--and the Major
+turned to his brother-magistrates with a scornful smile--"it is quite
+ingenious; one of the clever excuses we usually get here. But it will
+not serve your turn, George Reed. When the sanctity of the Sabbath is
+violated----"
+
+"Reed is not a man to say he did not do a thing if he did," interrupted
+Tod.
+
+The Major glared at him for an instant, and then put out of hand a big
+gold pencil he was waving majestically.
+
+"Clear the room of spectators," said he to the policeman.
+
+Which was all Tod got for interfering. We had to go out: and in a minute
+or two Reed came out also, handcuffed as before; not in charge of old
+Jones, but of the county police. He had been sentenced to a month's
+imprisonment. Major Parrifer had wanted to make it three months; he
+said something about six; but the other two thought they saw some
+slightly extenuating circumstances in the case. A solicitor who was
+intimate with the Sterlings, and knew Reed very well, had been present
+towards the end.
+
+"Could you not have spoken in my defence, sir?" asked Reed, as he passed
+this gentleman in coming out.
+
+"I would had I been able. But you see, my man, when the law gets
+broken----"
+
+"The devil take the law," said Reed, savagely. "What I want is justice."
+
+"And the administrators of it are determined to uphold it, what can
+be said?" went on the solicitor equably, as if there had been no
+interruption.
+
+"You would make out that I broke the law, just doing what I did; and I
+swear it was no more? That I can be legally punished for it?"
+
+"Don't, Reed; it's of no use. The Major and his witnesses swore you were
+at work. And it appears that you were."
+
+"I asked them to take a fine--if I must be punished. I might have found
+friends to advance it for me."
+
+"Just so. And for that reason of course they did not take it," said the
+candid lawyer.
+
+"What is my wife to do while I am in prison? And the children? I may
+come out to find them starved. A month's long enough to starve them in
+such weather as this."
+
+Reed was allowed time for no more. He would not have been allowed that,
+but for having been jammed by the crowd at the doorway. He caught my eye
+as they were getting clear.
+
+"Master Johnny, will you go to the Court for me--your own place,
+sir--and tell the master that I swear I am innocent? Perhaps he'll let
+a few shillings go to the wife weekly; tell him with my duty that I'll
+work it out as soon as I am released. All this is done out of revenge,
+sir, because Major Parrifer couldn't get me from my cottage. May the
+Lord repay him!"
+
+It caused a commotion, I can tell you, this imprisonment of Reed's; the
+place was ringing with it between the Court and Dyke Manor. Our two
+houses seemed to have more to do with it than other people's; first,
+because Reed worked at the Court; secondly, because I, who owned both
+the Court and the cottage, lived at the Manor. People took it up pretty
+warmly, and Mrs. Reed and the children were cared for. Mr. Sterling paid
+her five shillings a week; and Mr. Brandon and the Squire helped her on
+the quiet, and there were others also. In small country localities
+gentlemen don't like to say openly that their neighbours are in the
+wrong: at any rate, they rarely _do_ anything by way of remedy. Some
+spoke of an appeal to the Home Secretary, but it came to nothing, and no
+steps were taken to liberate Reed. Bill Whitney, who was staying a week
+with us, wrote and told his mother about it; she sent back a sovereign
+for Mrs. Reed; we three took it to her, and went about saying old
+Parrifer ought to be kicked, which was a relief to our feelings.
+
+But there's something to tell about Cathy. On the day that Reed was
+taken up, it was not known at his home immediately. The neighbours,
+aware that the wife was ill, said nothing to her--for old Duffham
+thought she was going to have a fever, and ordered her to be kept quiet.
+For one thing, they did not know what there was to tell; except that
+Reed had been marched off from his work in handcuffs by Jones the
+constable. In the evening, when news came of his committal, it was
+agreed that an excuse should be made to Mrs. Reed that her husband had
+gone out on a business job for his master; and that Cathy--who could not
+fail to hear the truth from one or another--should be warned not to say
+anything.
+
+"Tell Cathy to come out here," said the woman, looking over the gate. It
+was the little girl they spoke to; who could talk well: and she answered
+that Cathy was not there. So Ann Perkins, Mrs. Reed's sister, was called
+out.
+
+"Where's Cathy?" cried they.
+
+Ann Perkins answered in a passion--that she did not know where Cathy
+was, but would uncommonly like to know, and she only wished she was
+behind her--keeping her there with her sister when she ought to be at
+her own home! Then the women told Ann Perkins what they had intended to
+tell Cathy, and looked out for the latter.
+
+She did not come back. The night passed, and the next day passed, and
+Cathy was not seen or heard of. The only person who appeared to have
+met her was Goody Picker. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon,
+Tuesday, and Cathy had her best bonnet on. Mother Picker remarked upon
+her looking so smart, and asked where she was going to. Cathy answered
+that her uncle (who lived at Evesham) had sent to say she must go over
+there at once. "But when she came to the two roads, she turned off
+quite on the contrairy way to Evesham, and I thought the young woman
+must be daft," concluded Mrs. Picker.
+
+The month passed away, and Reed came out; but Cathy had not returned.
+He got home on foot, in the afternoon, his hair cut close, and seemed
+as quiet as a lamb. The man had been daunted. It was an awful insult
+to put upon him; a slur on his good name for life; and some of them
+said George Reed would never hold up his head again. Had he been cruel
+or vindictive, he might have revenged himself on Major Parrifer,
+personally, in a manner the Major would have found it difficult to
+forget.
+
+The wife was about again, but sickly: the little ones did not at first
+know their father. One of the first people he asked after was Cathy.
+The girl was not at hand to welcome him, and he took it in the light of
+a reproach. When men come for the first time out of jail, they are
+sensitive.
+
+"Mr. Sterling called in yesterday, George, to say you were to go to your
+work again as soon as ever you came home," said the wife, evading the
+question about Cathy. "Everybody has been so kind; they know you didn't
+deserve what you got."
+
+"Ah," said Reed, carelessly. "Where's Cathy?"
+
+Mrs. Reed felt obliged to tell him. No diplomatist, she brought out the
+news abruptly: Cathy had not been seen or heard of since the afternoon
+he was sent to prison. That aroused Reed: nothing else seemed to have
+done it: and he got up from his chair.
+
+"Why, where is she? What's become of her?"
+
+The neighbours had been indulging in sundry speculations on the same
+question, which they had obligingly favoured Mrs. Reed with; but she did
+not think it necessary to impart them to her husband.
+
+"Cathy was a good girl on the whole, George; putting aside that she'd do
+no work, and spent her time reading good-for-nothing books. What I think
+is this--that she heard of your misfortune after she left, and wouldn't
+come home to face it. She is eighteen now, you know."
+
+"Come home from where?"
+
+Mrs. Reed had to tell the whole truth. That Cathy, dressed up in her
+best things, had left home without saying a word to any one, stealing
+out of the house unseen; she had been met in the road by Mrs. Picker,
+and told her what has already been said. But the uncle at Evesham had
+seen nothing of her.
+
+Forgetting his cropped hair--as he would have to forget it until it
+should grow again--George Reed went tramping off, there and then, the
+nearly two miles of way to Mother Picker's. She could not tell him much
+more than he already knew. "Cathy was all in her best, her curls 'iled,
+and her pink ribbons as fresh as her cheeks, and said in answer to
+questions that she had been sent for sudden to her uncle's at Evesham:
+but she had turned off quite the contrairy road." From thence, Reed
+walked on to his brother's at Evesham; and learnt that Cathy had not
+been sent for, and had not come.
+
+When Reed got home, he was dead-beat. How many miles the man had walked
+that bleak February day, he did not stay to think--perhaps twenty. When
+excitement buoys up the spirit, the body does not feel fatigue. Mrs.
+Reed put supper before her husband, and he ate mechanically, lost in
+thought.
+
+"It fairly 'mazes me," he said, presently, in local phraseology. "But
+for going out in her best, I should think some accident had come to her.
+There's ponds about, and young girls might slip in unawares. But the
+putting on her best things shows she was going somewhere."
+
+"She put 'em on, and went off unseen," repeated Mrs. Reed, snuffing the
+candle. "_I_ should have thought she'd maybe gone off to some wake--only
+there wasn't one agate within range."
+
+"Cathy had no bad acquaintance to lead her astray," he resumed. "The
+girls about here are decent, and mind their work."
+
+"Which Cathy didn't," thought Mrs. Reed. "Cathy held her head above
+'em," she said, aloud. "It's my belief she used to fancy herself one
+o' them fine ladies in her halfpenny books. She didn't seem to make
+acquaintance with nobody but that young Parrifer. She'd talk to him by
+the hour together, and I couldn't get her indoors."
+
+Reed lifted his head. "Young Parrifer!--what--_his_ son?" turning his
+thumb in the direction of Parrifer Hall. "Cathy talked to him?"
+
+"By the hour together," reiterated Mrs. Reed. "He'd be on that side the
+gate, a-talking, and laughing, and leaning on it; and Cathy, she'd be in
+the path by the tall hollyhocks, talking back to him, and fondling the
+children."
+
+Reed rose up, a strange look on his face. "How long was that going on?"
+
+"Ever so long; I can't just remember. But young Parrifer is only at the
+Hall by fits and starts."
+
+"And you never told me, woman!"
+
+"I thought no harm of it. I don't think harm of it now," emphatically
+added Mrs. Reed. "The worst of young Parrifer, that I've seen, is that
+he's as soft as a tomtit."
+
+Reed put on his hat without another word, and walked out. Late as it
+was, he was going to the Hall. He rang a peal at it, more like a lord
+than a labourer just let out of prison. There was some delay in opening
+the door: the household had gone upstairs; but a man came at last.
+
+"I want to see Major Parrifer."
+
+The words were so authoritative; the man's appearance so strange, with
+his tall figure and his clipped hair, as he pushed forward into the
+hall, that the servant momentarily lost his wits. A light, in a room on
+the left, guided Reed; he entered it, and found himself face to face
+with Major Parrifer, who was seated in an easy-chair before a good fire,
+spirits on the table, and a cigar in his mouth. What with the smoke from
+that, what with the faint light--for all the candles had been put out
+but one--the Major did not at first distinguish his late visitor's face.
+When the bare head and the resolute eyes met his, he certainly paled a
+little, and the cigar fell on to the carpet.
+
+"I want my daughter, Major Parrifer."
+
+To hear a demand made for a daughter when the Major had possibly been
+thinking the demand might be for his life, was undoubtedly a relief. It
+brought back his courage.
+
+"What do you mean, fellow?" he growled, stamping out the fire of the
+cigar. "Are you out of your mind?"
+
+"Not quite. You might have driven some men out of theirs, though, by
+what you've done. _We'll let that part be_, Major. I have come to-night
+about my daughter. Where is she?"
+
+They stood looking at each other. Reed stood just inside the door, hat
+in hand; he did not forget his manners even in the presence of his
+enemy; they were a habit with him. The Major, who had risen in his
+surprise, stared at him: he really knew nothing whatever of the matter,
+not even that the girl was missing; and he did think Reed's imprisonment
+must have turned his brain. Perhaps Reed saw that he was not understood.
+
+"I come home from prison, into which you put me, Major Parrifer, to find
+my daughter Catherine gone. She went away the day I was taken up. Where
+she went, or what she's doing, Heaven knows; but you or yours are
+answerable for it, whichever way it may be."
+
+"You have been drinking," said Major Parrifer.
+
+"_You_ have, maybe," returned Reed, glancing at the spirits on the
+table. "Either Cathy went out on a harmless jaunt, and is staying away
+because she can't face the shame at home which you have put there; or
+else she went out to meet your son, and has been taken away by him. I
+think it must be the last; my fears whisper it to me; and, if so, you
+can't be off knowing something of it. Major Parrifer, I must have my
+daughter."
+
+Whether the hint given about his son alarmed the Major, causing him to
+forget his bluster for once, and answer civilly, he certainly did it.
+His son was in Ireland with his regiment, he said; had not been at the
+Hall for weeks and weeks; he could answer for it that Lieutenant
+Parrifer knew nothing of the girl.
+
+"He was here at Christmas," said George Reed. "I saw him."
+
+"And left two or three days after it. How dare you, fellow, charge him
+with such a thing? He'd wring your neck for you if he were here."
+
+"Perhaps I might find cause to wring his first. Major Parrifer, I want
+my daughter."
+
+"If you do not get out of my house, I'll have you brought before me
+to-morrow for trespassing, and give you a second month's imprisonment,"
+roared the Major, gathering bluster and courage. "You want another month
+of it: this one does not appear to have done you the good it ought.
+Now--go!"
+
+"I'll go," said Reed, who began to see the Major really did not know
+anything of Cathy--and it had not been very probable that he did. "But
+I'd like to leave a word behind me. You have succeeded in doing me a
+great injury, Major Parrifer. You are rich and powerful, I am poor and
+lowly. You set your mind on my bit of a home, and because you could
+not drive me from it, you took advantage of your magistrate's post to
+sentence me to prison, and so be revenged. It has done me a great deal
+of harm. What good has it done you?"
+
+Major Parrifer could not speak for rage.
+
+"It will come home to you, sir, mark me if it does not. God has seen my
+trouble, and my wife's trouble, and I don't believe He ever let such a
+wrong pass unrewarded. _It will come home to you, Major Parrifer._"
+
+George Reed went out, quietly shutting the hall-door behind him, and
+walked home through the thick flakes of snow that had begun to fall.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+COMING HOME TO HIM.
+
+
+The year was getting on. Summer fruits were ripening. It had been a warm
+spring, and hot weather was upon us early.
+
+One fine Sunday morning, George Reed came out of his cottage and turned
+up Piefinch Lane. His little girls were with him, one in either hand, in
+their clean cotton frocks and pinafores and straw hats. People had gone
+into church, and the bells had ceased. Reed had not been constant in
+attendance since the misfortune in the winter, when Major Parrifer put
+him into prison. The month's imprisonment had altered him; his daughter
+Cathy's mysterious absence had altered him more; he seemed unwilling to
+face people, and any trifle was made an excuse to himself for keeping
+away from service. To-day it was afforded by the baby's illness. Reed
+said to his wife that he would take the little girls out a bit to keep
+the place quiet.
+
+Rumours were abroad that he had heard once from Cathy; that she told him
+she should come back some day and surprise him and the neighbours, that
+she was "all right, and he had no call to fret after her." Whether this
+was true or pure fiction, Reed did not say: he was a closer man than he
+used to be.
+
+Lifting the children over a stile in Piefinch Lane, just beyond his
+garden, Reed strolled along the by-path of the field. It brought him to
+the high hedge skirting the premises of Major Parrifer. The man had
+taken it by chance, because it was a quiet walk. He was passing along
+slowly, the children running about the field, on which the second crop
+of grass was beginning to grow, when voices on the other side of the
+hedge struck on his ear. Reed quietly put some of the foliage aside, and
+looked through; just as Major Parrifer had looked through the hedge in
+Piefinch Lane at him, that Sunday morning some few months before.
+
+Major Parrifer had been suffering from a slight temporary indisposition.
+He did not consider himself sufficiently recovered to attend service,
+but neither was he ill enough to lie in bed. With the departure of his
+family for church, the Major had come strolling out in the garden in an
+airy dressing-gown, and there saw his gardener picking peas.
+
+"Halloa, Hotty! This ought to have been done before."
+
+"Yes, sir, I know it; I'm a little late," answered Hotty; "I shall have
+done in two or three minutes. The cook makes a fuss if I pick 'em too
+early; she says they don't eat so well."
+
+The peas were for the gratification of the Major's own palate, so he
+found no more fault. Hotty went on with his work, and the Major gave
+a general look round. On a near wall, at right angles with the hedge
+through which Reed was then peering, some fine apricots were growing,
+green yet.
+
+"These apricots want thinning, Hotty," observed the Major.
+
+"I have thinned 'em some, sir."
+
+"Not enough. Our apricots were not as fine last year as they ought to
+have been. I said then they had not had sufficient room to grow. Green
+apricots are always useful; they make the best tart known."
+
+Major Parrifer walked to the greenhouse, outside which a small basket
+was hanging, brought it back, and began to pick some of the apricots
+where they looked too thick. Reed, outside, watched the process--not
+alone. As luck had it, a man appeared on the field-path, who proved to
+be Gruff Blossom, the Jacobsons' groom, coming home to spend Sunday with
+his friends. Reed made a sign to Blossom to be silent, and caused him to
+look on also.
+
+With the small basket half full, the Major desisted, thinking possibly
+he had plucked enough, and turned away carrying it. Hotty came out from
+the peas, his task finished. They strolled slowly down the path by the
+hedge; the Major first, Hotty a step behind, talking about late and
+early peas, and whether Prussian blues or marrowfats were the best
+eating.
+
+"Do you see those weeds in the onion-bed?" suddenly asked the Major,
+stopping as they were passing it.
+
+Hotty turned his head to look. A few weeds certainly had sprung up. He'd
+attend to it on the morrow, he told his master; and then said something
+about the work accumulating almost beyond him, since the under-gardener
+had been at home ill.
+
+"Pick them out now," said the Major; "there's not a dozen of them."
+
+Hotty stooped to do as he was bid. The Major made no more ado but
+stooped also, uprooting quite half the weeds himself. Not much more, in
+all, than the dozen he had spoken of: and then they went on with their
+baskets to the house.
+
+Never had George Reed experienced so much gratification since the day
+he came out of prison. "Did you see the Major at it?--thinning his
+apricots and pulling up his weeds?" he asked of Gruff Blossom. And
+Blossom's reply, gruff as usual, was to ask what might be supposed to
+ail his eyes that he shouldn't see it.
+
+"Very good," said Reed.
+
+One evening in the following week, when we were sitting out on the
+lawn, the Squire smoking, Mrs. Todhetley nursing her face in her hand,
+with toothache as usual, Tod teasing Hugh and Lena, and I up in the
+beech-tree, a horseman rode in. It proved to be Mr. Jacobson. Giles took
+his horse, and he came and sat down on the bench. The Squire asked him
+what he'd take, and being thirsty, he chose cider. Which Thomas brought.
+
+"Here's a go," began Mr. Jacobson. "Have you heard what's up?"
+
+"I've not heard anything," answered the Squire.
+
+"Major Parrifer has a summons served on him for working in his garden
+on a Sunday, and is to appear before the magistrates at Alcester
+to-morrow," continued old Jacobson, drinking off a glass of cider at a
+draught.
+
+"No!" cried Squire Todhetley.
+
+"It's a fact. Blossom, our groom, has also a summons served on him to
+give evidence."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley lifted her face; Tod left Hugh and Lena to themselves: I
+slid down from the beech-tree; and we listened for more.
+
+But Mr. Jacobson could not give particulars, or say much more than he
+had already said. All he knew was, that on Monday morning George Reed
+had appeared before the magistrates and made a complaint. At first they
+were unwilling to grant a summons; laughed at it; but Reed, in a burst
+of reproach, civilly delivered, asked why there should be a law for
+the poor and not for the rich, and in what lay the difference between
+himself and Major Parrifer; that the one should be called to account and
+punished for doing wrong, and the other was not even to be accused when
+he had done it.
+
+"Brandon happened to be on the bench," continued Jacobson. "He appeared
+struck with the argument, and signed the summons."
+
+The Squire nodded.
+
+"My belief is," continued old Jacobson, with a wink over the rim of
+the cider glass, "that granting that summons was as good as a play to
+Brandon and the rest. I'd as lieve, though, that they'd not brought
+Blossom into it."
+
+"Why?" asked Mrs. Todhetley, who had been grieved at the time at the
+injustice done to Reed.
+
+"Well, Parrifer is a disagreeable man to offend. And he is sure to visit
+Blossom's part in this on me."
+
+"Let him," said Tod, with enthusiasm. "Well done, George Reed!"
+
+Be you very sure we went over to the fight. Squire Todhetley did not
+appear: at which Tod exploded a little: he only wished _he_ was a
+magistrate, wouldn't he take his place and judge the Major! But the
+Pater said that when people had lived to his age, they liked to be at
+peace with their neighbours--not but what he hoped Parrifer would "get
+it," for having been so cruelly hard upon Reed.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Major Parrifer came driving to the Court-house in his high carriage
+with a great bluster, his iron-grey hair standing up, and two grooms
+attending him. Only the magistrates who had granted the summons sat.
+The news had gone about like wild-fire, and several of them were in and
+about the town, but did not take their places. I don't believe there
+was one would have lifted his finger to save the Major from a month's
+imprisonment; but they did not care to sentence him to it.
+
+It was a regular battle. Major Parrifer was in an awful passion the
+whole time; asking, when he came in, how they dared summon him. _Him!_
+Mr. Brandon, cool as a cucumber, answered in his squeaky voice, that
+when a complaint of breaking the law was preferred before them and sworn
+to by witnesses, they could only act upon it.
+
+First of all, the Major denied the facts. _He_ work in his garden on a
+Sunday!--the very supposition was preposterous! Upon which George Reed,
+who was in his best clothes, and looked every bit as good as the Major,
+and far pleasanter, testified to what he had seen.
+
+Major Parrifer, dancing with temper when he found he had been looked at
+through the hedge, and that it was Reed who had looked, gave the lie
+direct. He called his gardener, Richard Hotty, ordering him to testify
+whether he, the Major, ever worked in his garden, either on Sundays or
+week-days.
+
+"Hotty was working himself, gentlemen," interposed George Reed. "He was
+picking peas; and he helped to weed the onion-bed. But it was done by
+his master's orders, so it would be unjust to punish him."
+
+The Major turned on Reed as if he would strike him, and demanded of the
+magistrates why they permitted the fellow to interrupt. They ordered
+Reed to be quiet, and told Hotty to proceed.
+
+But Hotty was one of those slow men to whom anything like evasion is
+difficult. His master had thinned the apricot tree that Sunday morning;
+he had helped to weed the onion-bed; Hotty, conscious of the fact, but
+not liking to admit it, stammered and stuttered, and made a poor figure
+of himself. Mr. Brandon thought he would help him out.
+
+"Did you see your master pick the apricots?"
+
+"I see him pick--just a few; green 'uns," answered Hotty, shuffling from
+one leg to the other in his perplexity. "'Twarn't to be called work,
+sir."
+
+"Oh! And did he help you to weed the onion-bed?"
+
+"There warn't a dozen weeds in it in all, as the Major said to me at the
+time," returned Hotty. "He see 'em, and stooped down on the spur o' the
+moment, and me too. We had 'em up in a twinkling. 'Twarn't work, sir;
+couldn't be called it nohow. The Major, he never do work at no time."
+
+Blossom had not arrived, and it was hard to tell how the thing would
+terminate: the Major had this witness, Hotty, such as he was, protesting
+that nothing to be called work was done. Reed had no witness, as yet.
+
+"Old Jacobson is keeping Blossom back, Johnny," whispered Tod. "It's a
+sin and a shame."
+
+"No, he is not," I said. "Look there!"
+
+Blossom was coming in. He had walked over, and not hurried himself.
+Major Parrifer plunged daggers into him, if looks could do it, but it
+made no difference to Blossom.
+
+He gave his evidence in his usual surly manner. It was clear and
+straightforward. Major Parrifer had thinned the apricot tree for its own
+benefit; and had weeded the onion-bed, Hotty helping at the weeds by
+order.
+
+"What brought _you_ spying at the place, James Blossom?" demanded a
+lawyer on the Major's behalf.
+
+"Accident," was the short answer.
+
+"Indeed! You didn't go there on purpose, I suppose?--and skulk under the
+hedge on purpose?--and peer into the Major's garden on purpose?"
+
+"No, I didn't," said Blossom. "The field is open to every one, and I was
+crossing it on my way to old father's. George Reed made me a sign afore
+I came up to him, to look in, as he was doing; and I did so, not knowing
+what there might be to see. It would be nothing to me if the Major
+worked in his garden of a Sunday from sunrise to sunset; he's welcome to
+do it; but if you summon me here and ask me, did I see him working, I
+say yes, I did. Why d'you send me a summons if you don't want me to tell
+the truth? Let me be, and I'd ha' said nothing to mortal man."
+
+Evidently nothing favourable to the defence could be got out of James
+Blossom. Mr. Brandon began saying to the Major that he feared there was
+no help for it; they should be obliged to convict him: and he was met by
+a storm of reproach.
+
+_Convict_ him! roared the Major. For having picked two or three green
+apricots--and for stooping to pull up a couple or so of worthless weeds?
+He would be glad to ask which of them, his brother-magistrates sitting
+there, would not pick an apricot, or a peach, or what not, on a Sunday,
+if he wanted to eat one. The thing was utterly preposterous.
+
+"And what was it _I_ did?" demanded George Reed, drowning voices that
+would have stopped him. "I went to the garden to get up a bunch of
+turnips for my sick wife, and seeing some withered weeds flung on the
+bed I drew them off with the hoe. What was that, I ask? And it was no
+more. No more, gentlemen, in the sight of Heaven."
+
+No particular answer was given to this; perhaps the justices had none
+ready. Mr. Brandon was beginning to confer with the other two in an
+undertone, when Reed spoke again.
+
+"I was dragged up here in handcuffs, and told I had broken the law;
+Major Parrifer said to me himself that I had violated the sanctity of
+the Sabbath (those were the words), and therefore I must be punished;
+there was no help for it. What has he done? I did not do as much as he
+has."
+
+"Now you know, Reed, this is irregular," said one of the justices. "You
+must not interrupt the Court."
+
+"You put me in prison for a month, gentlemen," resumed Reed, paying no
+attention to the injunction. "They cut my hair close in the prison, and
+they kept me to hard labour for the month, as if I did not have enough
+of hard labour out of it. My wife was sick and disabled at the time, my
+three little children are helpless: it was no thanks to the magistrates
+who sentenced me, gentlemen, or to Major Parrifer, that they did not
+starve."
+
+"Will you be quiet, Reed?"
+
+"If I deserved one month of prison," persisted Reed, fully bent on
+saying what he had to say, "Major Parrifer must deserve two months, for
+his offence is greater than mine. The law is the same for both of us, I
+suppose. He----"
+
+"Reed, if you say another word, I will order you at once from the room,"
+interrupted Mr. Brandon, his thin voice sharp and determined. "How dare
+you persist in addressing the Bench when told to be quiet!"
+
+Reed fell back and said no more. He knew that Mr. Brandon had a habit
+of carrying out his own authority, in spite of his nervous health and
+querulous way of speaking. The justices spoke a few words together, and
+then said they found the offence proved, and inflicted a fine on Major
+Parrifer.
+
+He dashed the money down on the table, in too great a rage to do it
+politely, and went out to his carriage. No other case was on, that day,
+and the justices got up and mixed with the crowd. Mr. Brandon, who felt
+chilly on the hottest summer's day, and was afraid of showers, buttoned
+on a light overcoat.
+
+"Then there are _two_ laws, sir?" said Reed to him, quite civilly, but
+in a voice that every one might hear. "When the law was made against
+Sabbath-breaking, those that made it passed one for the rich and another
+for the poor!"
+
+"Nonsense, Reed."
+
+"_Nonsense_, sir? I don't see it. _I_ was put in prison; Major Parrifer
+has only to pay a bit of money, which is of no more account to him than
+dirt, and that he can't feel the loss of. And my offence--if it was an
+offence--was less than his."
+
+"Two wrongs don't make a right," said Mr. Brandon, dropping his voice to
+a low key. "You ought not to have been put in prison, Reed; had I been
+on the bench it should not have been done."
+
+"But it was done, sir, and my life got a blight on it. It's on me yet;
+will never be lifted off me."
+
+Mr. Brandon smiled one of his quiet smiles, and spoke in a whisper. "He
+has got it too, Reed, unless I am mistaken. He'll carry that fine about
+with him always. Johnny, are you there? Don't go and repeat what you've
+heard me say."
+
+Mr. Brandon was right. To have been summoned before the Bench, where he
+had pompously sat to summon others, and for working on a Sunday above
+all things, to have been found guilty and fined, was as the most bitter
+potion to Major Parrifer. The bench would never again be to him the seat
+it had been; the remembrance of the day when he was before it would, as
+Mr. Brandon expressed it, be carried about with him always.
+
+They projected a visit to the sea-side at once. Mrs. Parrifer, with
+three of the Miss Parrifers, came dashing up to people's houses in the
+carriage, finer and louder than ever; she said that she had not been
+well, and was ordered to Aberystwith for six weeks. The next day
+they and the Major were off; and heaps of cards were sent round with
+"P. P. C." in the corner. I think Mr. Brandon must have laughed when he
+got his.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The winter holidays came round again. We went home for Christmas, as
+usual, and found George Reed down with some sort of illness. There's
+an old saying, "When the mind's at ease the body's delicate," but Mr.
+Duffham always maintained that though that might apply to a short period
+of time, in the long-run mind and body sympathized together. George Reed
+had been a very healthy man, and as free from care as most people; this
+last year care and trouble and mortification had lain on his mind, and
+at the beginning of winter his health broke down. It was quite a triumph
+(in the matter of opinion) for old Duffham.
+
+The illness began with a cough and low fever, neither of which can
+labourers afford time to lie up for. It went on to more fever, and to
+inflammation of the lungs. There was no choice then, and Reed took to
+his bed. For the most part, when our poor people fell ill, they had to
+get well again without notice being taken of them; but events had drawn
+attention to Reed, and made him a conspicuous character. His illness was
+talked of, and so he received help. Ever since the prison affair I had
+felt sorry for Reed, as had Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"I have had some nice strong broth made for Reed, Johnny," she said to
+me one day in January; "it's as good and nourishing as beef-tea. If you
+want a walk, you might take it to him."
+
+Tod had gone out with the Squire; I felt dull, as I generally did
+without him, and put on my hat and coat. Mrs. Todhetley had the broth
+put into a bottle, and brought it to me wrapped in paper.
+
+"I would send him a drop of wine as well, Johnny, if you'd take care not
+to break the bottles, carrying two of them."
+
+No fear. I put the one bottle in my breast-pocket, and took the other
+in my hand. It was a cold afternoon, the sky of a steely-blue, the sun
+bright, the ground hard. Major Parrifer and two of his daughters, coming
+home from a ride, were cantering in at the gates as I passed, the groom
+riding after them. I lifted my hat to the girls, but they only tossed
+their heads.
+
+Reed was getting over the worst then, and I found him sitting by the
+kitchen fire, muffled in a bed-rug. Mrs. Reed took the bottles from me
+in the back'us--as they called the place where the washing was done--for
+Reed was sensitive, and did not like things to be sent to him.
+
+"Please God, I shall be at work next week," said Reed, with a groan: and
+I saw he knew that I had brought something.
+
+He had been saying that all along; four or five weeks now. I sat down
+opposite to him, and took up the boy, Georgy. The little shaver had come
+round to me, holding by the chairs.
+
+"It's going to be a hard frost, Reed."
+
+"Is it, sir? Out-o'-door weather don't seem to be of much odds to me
+now."
+
+"And a fall o' some sort's not far off, as my wrist tells me," put in
+Mrs. Reed. Years ago she had broken her wrist, and felt it always in
+change of weather. "Maybe some snow's coming."
+
+I gave Georgy a biscuit; the two little girls, who had been standing
+against the press, began to come slowly forward. They guessed there was
+a supply in my pocket. I had dipped into the biscuit-basket at home
+before coming away. The two put out a hand each without being told, and
+I dropped a biscuit into them.
+
+It had taken neither time nor noise, and yet there was some one
+standing inside the door when I looked up again, who must have come
+in stealthily; some one in a dark dress, and a black and white plaid
+shawl. Mrs. Reed looked and the children looked; and then Reed turned
+his head to look also.
+
+I think I was the first to know her. She had a thick black veil before
+her face, and the room was not light. Reed's illness had left him thin,
+and his eyes appeared very large: they assumed a sort of frightened
+stare.
+
+"Father! you are sick!"
+
+Before he could answer, she had run across the brick floor and thrown
+her arms round his neck. Cathy! The two girls were frightened and flew
+to their mother; one began to scream and the other followed suit.
+Altogether there was a good deal of noise and commotion. Georgy, like
+a brave little man, sucked his biscuit through it all with great
+composure.
+
+What Reed said or did, I had not noticed; I think he tried to fling
+Cathy from him--to avoid suffocation perhaps. She burst out laughing in
+her old light manner, and took something out of the body of her gown,
+under the shawl.
+
+"No need, father: I am as honest as anybody," said she. "Look at this."
+
+Reed's hand shook so that he could not open the paper, or understand it
+at first when he had opened it. Cathy flung off her bonnet and caught
+the children to her. They began to know her then and ceased their cries.
+Presently Reed held the paper across to me, his hand trembling more than
+before, and his face, that illness had left white enough, yet more
+ghastly with emotion.
+
+"Please read it, sir."
+
+I did not understand it at first either, but the sense came to me soon.
+It was a certificate of the marriage of Spencer Gervoise Daubeney
+Parrifer and Catherine Reed. They had been married at Liverpool the very
+day after Cathy disappeared from home; now just a year ago.
+
+A sound of sobbing broke the stillness. Reed had fallen back in his
+chair in a sort of hysterical fit. Defiant, hard, strong-minded Reed!
+But the man was three parts dead from weakness. It lasted only a minute
+or two; he roused himself as if ashamed, and swallowed down his sobs.
+
+"How came he to marry you, Cathy?"
+
+"Because I would not go away with him without it father. We have been
+staying in Ireland."
+
+"And be you repenting of it yet?" asked Mrs. Reed, in ungracious tones.
+
+"Pretty near," answered Cathy, with candour.
+
+It appeared that Cathy had made her way direct to Liverpool when she
+left home the previous January, travelling all night. There she met
+young Parrifer, who had preceded her and made arrangements for the
+marriage. They were married that day, and afterwards went on to Ireland,
+where he had to join his regiment.
+
+To hear all this, sounding like a page out of a romance, would be
+something wonderful for our quiet place when it came to be told. You
+meet with marvellous stories in towns now and then, but with us they are
+almost unknown.
+
+"Where's your husband?" asked Reed.
+
+Cathy tossed her head. "Ah! Where! That's what I've come home about,"
+she answered: and it struck me at once that something was wrong.
+
+What occurred next we only learnt from hearsay. I said good day to them,
+and came away, thinking it might have been better if Cathy had not
+married and left home. It was a fancy of mine, and I don't know why it
+should have come to me, but it proved to be a right one. Cathy put on
+her bonnet again to go to Parrifer Hall: and the particulars of her
+visit were known abroad later.
+
+It was growing rather dark when she approached it; the sun had set, the
+grey of evening was drawing on. Two of the Misses Parrifer were at the
+window and saw her coming, but Cathy had her veil down and they did not
+recognize her. The actions and manners and air of a lady do not come
+suddenly to one who has been differently bred; and the Misses Parrifer
+supposed the visitor to be for the servants.
+
+"Like her impudence!" said Miss Jemima. "Coming to the front entrance!"
+
+For Cathy, whose year's experience in Ireland had widely changed her,
+had no notion of taking up her old position. She meant to hold her own;
+and was capable of doing it, not being deficient in the quality just
+ascribed to her by Miss Jemima Parrifer.
+
+"What next!" cried Miss Jemima, as a ring and a knock resounded through
+the house, waking up the Major: who had been dozing over the fire
+amongst his daughters.
+
+The next was, that a servant came to the room and told the Major a lady
+wanted him. She had been shown into the library.
+
+"What name?" asked the Major.
+
+"She didn't give none, sir. I asked, but she said never mind the name."
+
+"Go and ask it again."
+
+The man went and came back. "It is Mrs. Parrifer, sir."
+
+"Mrs. who?"
+
+"Mrs. Parrifer, sir."
+
+The Major turned and stared at his servant. They had no relatives
+whatever. Consequently the only Mrs. Parrifer within knowledge was his
+wife.
+
+Staring at the man would not bring him any elucidation. Major Parrifer
+went to the library, and there saw the lady standing on one side of the
+fender, holding her foot to the fire. She had her back to him, did not
+turn, and so the Major went round to the other side of the hearth-rug
+where he could see her.
+
+"My servant told me a Mrs. Parrifer wanted me. Did he make a mistake in
+the name?"
+
+"No mistake at all, sir," said Cathy, throwing up her thick veil, and
+drawing a step or two back. "I am Mrs. Parrifer."
+
+The Major recognized her then. Cathy Reed! He was a man whose bluster
+rarely failed him, but he had none ready at that moment. Three-parts
+astounded, various perplexities held him tongue-tied.
+
+"That is to say, Mrs. Spencer Parrifer," continued Cathy. "And I have
+come over from Ireland on a mission to you, sir, from your son."
+
+The Major thought that of all the audacious women it had ever been his
+lot to meet, this one was the worst: at least as much as he could think
+anything, for his wits were a little confused just then. A moment's
+pause, and then the storm burst forth.
+
+Cathy was called various agreeable names, and ordered out of the room
+and the house. The Major put up his hands to "hurrish" her out--as we
+say in Worcestershire by the cows, though I don't think you would find
+the word in the dictionary. But Cathy stood her ground. He then went
+ranting towards the door, calling for the servants to come and put her
+forth. Cathy, quicker than he, gained it first and turned to face him,
+her back against it.
+
+"You needn't call me those names, Major Parrifer. Not that I care--as I
+might if I deserved them. I am your son's wife, and have been such ever
+since I left father's cottage last year; and my baby, your grandson,
+sir, which it's seven weeks old he is, is now at the Red Lion, a mile
+off. I've left it there with the landlady."
+
+He could not put her out of the room unless by force; he looked ready to
+kick and strike her; but in the midst of it a horrible dread rose up in
+his heart that the calmly spoken words were true. Perhaps from the hour
+when Reed had presented himself at the house to ask for his daughter,
+the evening of the day he was discharged from prison, up to this time,
+Major Parrifer had never thought of the girl. It had been said in his
+ears now and again that Reed was grieving for his daughter; but the
+matter was altogether too contemptible for Major Parrifer to take note
+of. And now to hear that the girl had been with his son all the time,
+his wife! But that utter disbelief came to his aid, the Major might have
+fallen into a fit on the spot. For young Mr. Parrifer had cleverly
+contrived that neither his father away at home nor his friends on the
+spot should know anything about Cathy. He had been with his regiment in
+quarters; she had lived privately in another part of the town. Mrs. Reed
+had once called Lieutenant Parrifer as soft as a tomtit. He was a great
+deal softer.
+
+"Woman! if you do not quit my house, with your shameless lies, you shall
+be flung out of it."
+
+"I'll quit it as soon as I have told you what I came over the sea to
+tell. Please to look at this first, sir?"
+
+Major Parrifer snatched the paper that she held out, carried it to
+the window, and put his glasses across his nose. It was a copy of the
+certificate of marriage. His hands shook as he read it, just as Reed's
+had shaken a short time before; and he tore it passionately in two.
+
+"It is only the copy," said Cathy calmly, as she picked up the pieces.
+"Your son--if he lives--is about to be tried for his life, sir. He is in
+custody for wilful murder!"
+
+"How dare you!" shrieked Major Parrifer.
+
+"It is what they have charged him with. I have come all the way to tell
+it you, sir."
+
+Major Parrifer, brought to his senses by fright, could only listen.
+Cathy, her back against the door still, gave him the heads of the story.
+
+Young Parrifer was so soft that he had been made a butt of by sundry of
+his brother-officers. They might not have tolerated him at all, but for
+winning his money. He drank, and played cards, and bet upon horses; they
+encouraged him to drink, and then made him play and bet, and altogether
+cleared him out: not of brains, he had none to be cleared of: but of
+money. Ruin stared him in the face: his available cash had been parted
+with long ago; his commission (it was said) was mortgaged: how many
+promissory notes, bills, I O U's he had signed could not even be guessed
+at. In a quarrel a few nights before, after a public-house supper, when
+some of them were the worse for drink, young Parrifer, who could on rare
+occasions go into frightful passions, flung a carving-knife at one of
+the others, a lieutenant named Cook; it struck a vital part and killed
+him. Mr. Parrifer was arrested by the police at once; he was in plain
+clothes and there was nothing to show that he was an officer. They had
+to strap him down to carry him to prison: between drink, rage, and
+fever, he was as a maniac. The next morning he was lying in brain fever,
+and when Cathy left he had been put into a strait-waistcoat.
+
+She gave the heads of this account in as few words as it is written.
+Major Parrifer stood like a helpless man. Taking one thing with another,
+the blow was horrible. Parents don't often see the defects in their own
+children, especially if they are only sons. Far from having thought his
+son soft, unfit (as he nearly was) to be trusted about, the Major had
+been proud of him as his heir, and told the world he was perfection.
+Soft as young Parrifer was, he had contrived to keep his ill-doings from
+his father.
+
+Of course it was only natural that the Major's first relief should be
+abuse of Cathy. He told her all that had happened to his son _she_ was
+the cause of, and called her a few more genteel names in doing it.
+
+"Not at all," said Cathy; "you are wrong there, sir. His marriage with
+me was a little bit of a stop-gap and served to keep him straight for a
+month or two; but for that, he would have done for himself before now.
+Do you think I've had a bargain in him, sir? No. Marriage is a thing
+that can't be undone, Major Parrifer: but I wish to my heart that I was
+at home again in father's cottage, light-hearted Cathy Reed."
+
+The Major made no answer. Cathy went on.
+
+"When the news was brought to me by his servant, that he had killed a
+man and was lying raving, I thought it time to go and see about him.
+They would not let me into the lock-up where he was lying--and you might
+have heard his ravings outside. _I_ did. I said I was his wife; and then
+they told me I had better see Captain Williams. I went to head-quarters
+and saw Captain Williams. He seemed to doubt me; so I showed him the
+certificate, and told him my baby was at home, turned six weeks old. He
+was very kind then, sir; took me to see my husband; and advised me to
+come over here at once and give you the particulars. I told him what was
+the truth--that I had no money, and the lodgings were owing for. He
+said the lodgings must wait: and he would lend me enough money for the
+journey."
+
+"Did you see him?" growled Major Parrifer.
+
+Cathy knew that he alluded to his son, though he would not speak the
+name.
+
+"I saw him, sir; I told you so. He did not know me or anybody else; he
+was raving mad, and shaking so that the bed shook under him."
+
+"How is it that they have not written to me?" demanded Major Parrifer.
+
+"I don't think anybody liked to do it. Captain Williams said the best
+plan would be for me to come over. He asked me if I'd like to hear the
+truth of the past as regarded my husband; or if I would just come here
+and tell you the bare facts that were known about his illness and the
+charge against him. I said I'd prefer to hear the truth--it couldn't be
+worse than I suspected. Then he went on to the drinking and the gambling
+and the debts, just as I have repeated it to you, sir. He was very
+gentle; but he said he thought it would be mistaken kindness not to let
+me fully understand the state of things. He said Mr. Parrifer's father,
+or some other friend, had better go over to Ireland."
+
+In spite of himself, a groan escaped Major Parrifer. The blow was the
+worst that could have fallen upon him. He had not cared much for his
+daughters; his ambition was centred in his son. Visions of a sojourn at
+Dublin, and of figuring off at the Vice-Regal Court, himself, his wife,
+and his son, had floated occasionally in rose-coloured clouds before his
+eyes, poor pompous old simpleton. And now--to picture the visit he must
+set out upon ere the night was over, nearly drove him wild with pain.
+Cathy unlatched the door, but waited to speak again before she opened
+it.
+
+"I'll rid the house of me now that I have broke it to you, sir. If you
+want me I shall be found at father's cottage; I suppose they'll let
+me stay there: if not, you can hear of me at the place where I've left
+my baby. And if your son should ever wake out of his delirium, Major
+Parrifer, he will be able to tell you that if he had listened to me and
+heeded me, or even only come to spend his evenings with me--which it's
+months since he did--he would not have been in this plight now. Should
+they try him for murder; and nothing can save him from it if he gets
+well; I----"
+
+A succession of screams cut short what Cathy was about to add. In her
+surprise she drew wide the door, and was confronted by Miss Jemima
+Parrifer. That young lady, curious upon the subject of the visit and
+visitor, had thought it well to put her ear to the library door. With no
+effect, however, until Cathy unlatched it. And then she heard more than
+she had thought for.
+
+"Is it _you_!" roughly cried Miss Jemima, recognizing her for the
+ill-talked-of Cathy Reed, the daughter of the Major's enemy. "What do
+you want here?"
+
+Cathy did not answer. She walked to the hall-door and let herself out.
+Miss Jemima went on into the library.
+
+"Papa, what was it she was saying about Spencer, that vile girl? What
+did she do here? Why did she send in her name as Mrs. Parrifer?"
+
+The Major might have heard the questions, or he might not; he didn't
+respond to them. Miss Jemima, looking closely at him in the darkness of
+the room, saw a grey, worn, terror-stricken face, that looked as her
+father's had never looked yet.
+
+"Oh, papa! what is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+He walked towards her in the quietest manner possible, took her arm and
+pushed her out at the door. Not rudely; softly, as one might do who is
+in a dream.
+
+"Presently, presently," he muttered in quite an altered voice, low and
+timid. And Miss Jemima found the door bolted against her.
+
+It must have been an awful moment with him. Look on what side he would,
+there was no comfort. Spencer Parrifer was ruined past redemption. He
+might die in this illness, and then, what of his soul? Not that the
+Major was given to that kind of reflection. Escaping the illness, he
+must be tried--for his life, as Cathy had phrased it. And escaping that,
+if the miracle were possible, there remained the miserable debts and the
+miserable wife he had clogged himself with.
+
+Curiously enough, as the miserable Major, most miserable in that moment,
+pictured these things, there suddenly rose up before his mind's eye
+another picture. A remembrance of Reed, who had stood in that very room
+less than twelve months ago, in the dim light of late night, with his
+hair cut close, and his warning: "_It will come home to you, Major
+Parrifer._" _Had_ it come home to him? Home to him already? The drops of
+agony broke out on his face as he asked the question. It seemed to him,
+in that moment of excitement, so very like some of Heaven's own
+lightning.
+
+One grievous portion of the many ills had perhaps not fallen, but for
+putting Reed in prison--the marriage; and that one was more humiliating
+to Major Parrifer's spirit than all the rest. Had Reed been at liberty,
+Cathy might not have made her escape untracked, and the bitter marriage
+might, in that case, have been avoided.
+
+A groan, and now another, broke from the Major. How it had come home
+to him! not his selfishness and his barbarity and his pride, but this
+sorrowful blow. Reed's month in prison, compared with this, was as a
+drop of water to the ocean. As to the girl--when Reed had come asking
+for tidings of her, it had seemed to the Major not of the least moment
+whither she had gone or what ill she had entered on: was she not a
+common labourer's daughter, and that labourer George Reed? Even then, at
+that very time, she was his daughter-in-law, and his son the one to be
+humiliated. Major Parrifer ground his teeth, and only stopped when he
+remembered that something must be done about that disgraceful son.
+
+He started that night for Ireland. Cathy, affronted at some remark made
+by Mrs. Reed, took herself off from her father's cottage. She had a
+little money still left from her journey, and could spend it.
+
+Spencer Gervoise Daubeney Parrifer (the Major and his wife had bestowed
+the fine names upon him in pride at his baptism) died in prison. He
+lived only a day after Major Parrifer's arrival, and never recognized
+him. Of course it saved the trial, when he would probably have been
+convicted of manslaughter. It saved the payment of his hundreds of debts
+too; post-obits and all; he died before his father. But it could not
+save exposure; it could not keep the facts from the world. Major and
+Mrs. Parrifer, so to say, would never lift up their heads again; the sun
+of their life had set.
+
+Neither would Cathy lift hers yet awhile. She contrived to quarrel with
+her father; the Parrifers never took the remotest notice of her; she
+was nearly starved and her baby too. What little she earned was by hard
+work: but it would not keep her, and she applied to the parish. The
+parish in turn applied to Major Parrifer, and forced from him as much as
+the law allowed, a few shillings a week. Having to apply to the parish
+was, for Cathy, a humiliation never to be forgotten. The neighbours made
+their comments.
+
+"Cathy Reed had brought her pigs to a fine market!"
+
+So she had; and she felt it more than the loss of her baby, who died
+soon after. Better that she had married an honest day-labourer: and
+Cathy knew it now.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+LEASE, THE POINTSMAN.
+
+
+It happened when we were staying at our other house, Crabb Cot. In
+saying "we" were staying at it, I mean the family, for Tod and I were at
+school.
+
+Crabb Cot lay beyond the village of Crabb. Just across the road, a few
+yards higher up, was the large farm of Mr. Coney; and his house and ours
+were the only two that stood there. Crabb Cot was a smaller and more
+cosy house than Dyke Manor; and, when there, we were not so very far
+from Worcester: less than half-way, comparing it with the Manor.
+
+Crabb was a large and straggling parish. North Crabb, which was nearest
+to us, had the church and schools in it, but very few houses. South
+Crabb, further off, was more populous. Nearly a mile beyond South Crabb,
+there was a regular junction of rails. Lines, crossing each other in a
+most bewildering manner, led off in all directions: and it required no
+little manoeuvring to send the trains away right at busy times. Which
+of course was the pointsman's affair.
+
+The busiest days had place in summer, when excursion trains were in full
+swing: but they would come occasionally at other times, driving the
+South Crabb station people off their heads with bother before night.
+
+The pointsman was Harry Lease. I dare say you have noticed how certain
+names seem to belong to certain places. At North Crabb and South Crabb,
+and in the district round about, the name of Lease was as common as
+blackberries in a hedge; and if the different Leases had been cousins
+in the days gone by, the relationship was lost now. There might be
+seven-and-twenty Leases, in and out, but Harry Lease was not, so far as
+he knew, akin to any of them.
+
+South Crabb was not much of a place at best. A part of it, Crabb Lane,
+branching off towards Massock's brickfields, was crowded as a London
+street. Poor dwellings were huddled together, and children jostled each
+other on the door-steps. Squire Todhetley said he remembered it when it
+really was a lane, hedges on either side and a pond that was never dry.
+Harry Lease lived in the last house, a thatched hut with three rooms in
+it. He was a steady, civil, hard-working man, superior to some of his
+neighbours, who were given to reeling home at night and beating their
+wives on arrival. His wife, a nice sort of woman to talk to, was a bad
+manager; but the five children were better behaved and better kept than
+the other grubbers in the gutter.
+
+Lease was the pointsman at South Crabb Junction, and helped also in the
+general business there. He walked to his work at six in the morning,
+carrying his breakfast with him; went home to dinner at twelve, the
+leisure part of the day at the station, and had his tea taken to him at
+four; leaving in general at nine. Sometimes his wife arrived with the
+tea; sometimes the eldest child, Polly, an intelligent girl of six.
+But, one afternoon in September, a crew of mischievous boys from the
+brickfields espied what Polly was carrying. They set upon her, turned
+over the can of tea in fighting for it, ate the bread-and-butter, tore
+her pinafore in the skirmish, and frightened her nearly to death. After
+that, Lease said that the child should not be sent with the tea: so,
+when his wife could not take it, he went without tea. Polly and her
+father were uncommonly alike, too quiet to battle much with the world:
+sensitive, in fact: though it sounds odd to say that.
+
+During the month of November one of the busy days occurred at South
+Crabb Junction. There was a winter meeting on Worcester race-course, a
+cattle and pig show in a town larger than Worcester, and two or three
+markets and other causes of increased traffic, all falling on the
+same day. What with cattle-trains, ordinary and special trains, and
+goods-trains, and the grunting of obstinate pigs, Lease had plenty to
+do to keep his points in order.
+
+How it fell out he never knew. Between eight and nine o'clock, when a
+train was expected in on its way to Worcester, Lease forgot to shift the
+points. A goods-train had come in ten minutes before, for which he had
+had to turn the points, and he never turned them back again. On came the
+train, almost as quickly as though it had not to pull up at South Crabb
+Junction. Watson, the station-master, came out to be in readiness.
+
+"The engine has her steam on to-night," he remarked to Lease as he
+watched the red lights, like two great eyes, come tearing on. "She'll
+have to back."
+
+She did something worse than back. Instead of slackening on the near
+lines, she went flying off at a tangent to some outer ones on which the
+goods-train stood, waiting until the passenger train should pass. There
+was a short, sharp sound from the whistle, a great collision, a noise of
+steam hissing, a sense of dire confusion: and for one minute afterwards
+a dead lull, as if every one and everything were paralyzed.
+
+"You never turned the points!" shouted the station-master to Lease.
+
+Lease made no rejoinder. He backed against the wall like a man helpless,
+his arms stretched out, his face and eyes wild with horror. Watson
+thought he was going to have a fit, and shook him roughly.
+
+"_You've_ done it nicely, you have!" he added, as he flew off to the
+scene of disaster, from which the steam was beginning to clear away. But
+Lease reached it before him.
+
+"God forgive me! God have mercy upon me!"
+
+A porter, running side by side with Lease, heard him say it. In telling
+it afterwards the man described the tone as one of intense, piteous
+agony.
+
+The Squire and Mrs. Todhetley, who had been a few miles off to spend the
+day, were in the train with Lena. The child did nothing but cry and sob;
+not with damage, but fright. Mr. Coney also happened to be in it; and
+Massock, who owned the brickfields. They were not hurt at all, only a
+little shaken, and (as the Squire put it afterwards,) mortally scared.
+Massock, an under-bred man, who had grown rich by his brickfields, was
+more pompous than a lord. The three seized upon the station-master.
+
+"Now then, Watson," cried Mr. Coney, "what was the cause of all this?"
+
+"If there have been any negligence here--and I know there have--you
+shall be transported for it, Watson, as sure as I'm a living man,"
+roared Massock.
+
+"I'm afraid, gentlemen, that something was wrong with the points,"
+acknowledged Watson, willing to shift the blame from himself, and too
+confused to consider policy. "At least that's all I can think."
+
+"With the points!" cried Massock. "Them's Harry Lease's work. Was he on
+to-night?"
+
+"Lease is here as usual, Mr. Massock. I don't say this lies at his
+door," added Watson, hastily. "The points might have been out of order;
+or something else wrong totally different. I should like to know, for my
+part, what possessed Roberts to bring up his train at such speed."
+
+Darting in and out of the heap of confusion like a mad spirit; now
+trying by his own effort to lift the broken parts of carriages off some
+sufferer, now carrying a poor fellow away to safety, but always in the
+thick of danger went Harry Lease. Braving the heat and steam as though
+he felt them not, he flew everywhere, himself and his lantern alike
+trembling with agitation.
+
+"Come and look here, Harry; I'm afraid he's dead," said a porter,
+throwing his light upon a man's face. The words arrested Mr. Todhetley,
+who was searching for Lease to let off a little of his anger. It was
+Roberts, the driver of the passenger-train, who lay there, his face
+white and still. Somehow the sight made the Squire still, too. Raising
+Roberts's head, the men put a drop of brandy between his lips, and he
+moved. Lease broke into a low glad cry.
+
+"He is not dead! he is not dead!"
+
+The angry reproaches died away on the Squire's tongue: it did not seem
+quite the time to speak them. By-and-by he came upon Lease again. The
+man had halted to lean against some palings, feeling unaccountably
+strange, much as though the world around were closing to him.
+
+"Had you been drinking to-night, Lease?"
+
+The question was put quietly: which was, so to say, a feather in the hot
+Squire's cap. Lease only shook his head by way of answer. He had a pale,
+gentle kind of face, with brown eyes that always wore a sad expression.
+He never drank, and the Squire knew it.
+
+"Then how came you to neglect the points, Lease, and cause this awful
+accident?"
+
+"I don't know, sir," answered Lease, rousing out of his lethargy, but
+speaking as one in a dream. "I can't think but what I turned them as
+usual."
+
+"You knew the train was coming? It was the ordinary train."
+
+"I knew it was coming," assented Lease. "I watched it come along,
+standing by the side of Mr. Watson. If I had not set the points right,
+why, I should have thought surely of them then; it stands to reason I
+should. But never such a thought came into my mind, sir. I waited there,
+just as if all was right; and I believe I _did_ shift the points."
+
+Lease did not put this forth as an excuse: he only spoke aloud the
+problem that was working in his mind. Having shifted the points
+regularly for five years, it seemed simply impossible that he could have
+neglected it now. And yet the man could not _remember_ to have done it
+this evening.
+
+"You can't call it to mind?" said Squire Todhetley, repeating his last
+words.
+
+"No, I can't, sir: and no wonder, with all this confusion around me and
+the distress I'm in. I may be able to do so to-morrow."
+
+"Now look you here, Lease," said the Squire, getting just a little
+cross: "if you had put the points right you couldn't fail to remember
+it. And what causes your distress, I should like to ask, but the
+knowledge that you _didn't_, and that all this wreck is owing to you?"
+
+"There is such a thing as doing things mechanically, sir, without the
+mind being conscious of it."
+
+"Doing things wilfully," roared the Squire. "Do you want to tell me I am
+a fool to my face?"
+
+"It has often happened, sir, that when I have wound up the mantel-shelf
+clock at night in our sleeping-room, I'll not know the next minute
+whether I've wound it or not, and I have to try it again, or else ask
+the wife," went on Lease, looking straight out into the darkness, as if
+he could see the clock then. "I can't think but what it must have been
+just in that way that I put the points right to-night."
+
+Squire Todhetley, in his anger, which was growing hot again, felt that
+he should like to give Lease a sound shaking. He had no notion of such
+talk as this.
+
+"I don't know whether you are a knave or a fool, Lease. Killing men and
+women and children; breaking arms and legs; putting a whole trainful
+into mortal fright; smashing property and engines to atoms; turning the
+world, in fact, upside down, so that people don't know whether they
+stand on their heads or their heels! You may think you can do this with
+impunity perhaps, but the law will soon teach you better. I should not
+like to go to bed with human lives on my soul."
+
+The Squire disappeared in a whirlwind. Lease--who seemed to have taken a
+leaf out of his own theory, and listened mechanically--closed his eyes
+and put his head back against the palings, like one who has had a shock.
+He went home when there was nothing more to be done. Not down the
+highway, but choosing the field-path, where he would not be likely
+to meet a soul. Crabb Lane, accustomed to put itself into a state of
+commotion for nothing at all, had got something at last, and was up in
+arms. All the men employed at the station lived in Crabb Lane. The wife
+and children of Bowen, the stoker of the passenger-train,--dead--also
+inhabited a room in that noisy locality. So that when Lease came in view
+of the place, he saw an excited multitude, though it was then long after
+ordinary bed-time. Groups stood in the highway; heads, thrust forth at
+upper windows, were shouting remarks across the street and back again.
+Keeping on the far side of the hedge, Lease got in by the back-door
+unseen. His wife was sitting by the fire, trembling and frightened. She
+started up.
+
+"Oh, Harry! what is the truth of this?"
+
+He did not answer. Not in neglect; Lease was as civil indoors as out,
+which can't be said of every one; but as if he did not hear. The supper,
+bread and half a cold red-herring, was on the table. Generally he was
+hungry enough for supper, but he never glanced at it this evening.
+
+Sitting down, he looked into the fire and remained still, listening
+perhaps to the outside hubbub. His wife, half dead with fear and
+apprehension, could keep silence no longer, and asked again.
+
+"I don't know," he answered then. "They say that I never turned the
+points; I'm trying to remember doing it, Mary. My senses have been
+scared out of me."
+
+"But _don't_ you remember doing it?"
+
+He put his hands to his temples, and his eyes took that far-off, sad
+look, often seen in eyes when the heart is troubled. With all his might
+and main, the man was trying to recall the occurrence which would not
+come to him. A dread conviction began to dawn within him that it never
+would or could come; and Lease's face grew damp with drops of agony.
+
+"I turned the points for the down goods-train," he said presently; "I
+remember that. When the goods came in, I know I was in the signal-house.
+Then I took a message to Hoar; and next I stepped across with some oil
+for the engine of an up-train that dashed in; they called out that it
+wanted some. I helped to do it, and took the oil back again. It would be
+then that I went to put the points right," he added after a pause. "I
+_hope_ I did."
+
+"But, Harry, don't you remember doing it?"
+
+"No, I don't; there's where it is."
+
+"You always put the points straight at once after the train has passed?"
+
+"Not if I'm called off by other work. It ought to be done. A pointsman
+should stand while the train passes, and then step off to right the
+points at once. But when you are called off half-a-dozen ways to things
+crying out to be done, you can't spend time in waiting for the points.
+We've never had a harder day's work at the station than this has been,
+Mary; trains in, trains out; the place has hardly been free a minute
+together. And the extra telegraphing!--half the passengers that stopped
+seemed to want to send messages. When six o'clock came I was worn out;
+done up; fit to drop."
+
+Mrs. Lease gave a start. An idea flashed into her mind, causing her
+to ask mentally whether _she_ could have had indirectly a hand in the
+calamity. For that had been one of the days when her husband had had no
+tea taken to him. She had been very busy washing, and the baby was sick
+and cross: that had been quite enough to fill incapable Mrs. Lease's
+hands, without bothering about her husband's tea. And, of all days in
+the year, it seemed that he had, on this one, most needed tea. Worn out!
+done up!
+
+The noise in Crabb Lane was increasing, voices sounded louder, and
+Mrs. Lease put her hands to her ears. Just then a sudden interruption
+occurred. Polly, supposed to be safe asleep upstairs, burst into the
+kitchen in her night-gown, and flew into her father's arms, sobbing and
+crying.
+
+"Oh, father, is it true?--is it true?"
+
+"Why--Polly!" cried the man, looking at her, in astonishment. "What's
+this?"
+
+She hid her face on his waistcoat, her hands clinging round him. Polly
+had awakened and heard the comments outside. She was too nervous and
+excitable for Crabb Lane.
+
+"They are saying you have killed Kitty Bowen's father. It isn't true,
+father! Go out and tell them that it isn't true!"
+
+His own nerves were unstrung; his strength had gone out of him; it only
+needed something of this kind to finish up Lease; and he broke into
+sobs. Holding the child to him with a tight grasp, they cried together.
+If Lease had never known agony before in his life, he knew it then.
+
+The days went on. There was no longer any holding-out on Lease's part
+on the matter of points: all the world said he had been guilty of
+neglecting to turn them; and he supposed he had. He accepted the fate
+meekly, without resistance, his manner strangely still, as one who has
+been utterly subdued. When talked to, he freely avowed that it remained
+a puzzle to him how he could have forgotten the points, and what made
+him forget them. He shrank neither from reproach nor abuse; listening
+patiently to all who chose to attack him, as if he had no longer any
+right to claim a place in the world.
+
+He was not spared. Coroner and jury, friends and foes, all went on at
+him, painting his sins in flaring colours, and calling him names to his
+face. "Murderer" was one of the least of them. Four had died in all;
+Roberts was not expected to live; the rest were getting well. There
+would have been no trouble over the inquest (held at the Bull, between
+Crabb Lane and the station), it might have been finished in a day, and
+Lease committed for trial, but that one of those who had died was a
+lawyer; and his brother (also a lawyer) and other of his relatives
+(likewise lawyers) chose to make a commotion. Mr. Massock helped them.
+Passengers must be examined; rails tried; the points tested; every
+conceivable obstacle was put in the way of a conclusion. Fifteen times
+had the jury to go and look at the spot, and see the working of the
+points tested. And so the inquest was adjourned from time to time, and
+might be finished perhaps something under a year.
+
+The public were like so many wolves, all howling at Lease; from the
+aforesaid relatives and Brickfield Massock, down to the men and women of
+Crabb Lane. Lease was at home on bail, surrendering himself at every
+fresh meeting of the inquest. A few wretched malcontents had begun to
+hiss him as he passed in and out of Crabb Lane.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+When we got home for the Christmas holidays, nothing met us but tales of
+Lease's wickedness, in having sent one train upon the other. The Squire
+grew hot in talking of it. Tod, given to be contrary, said he should
+like to have Lease's own version of the affair. A remark that affronted
+the Squire.
+
+"You can go off and get it from him, sir. Lease won't refuse it; he'd
+give it to the dickens, for the asking. He likes nothing better than to
+talk about it."
+
+"After all, it was only a misfortune," said Tod. "It was not wilfully
+done."
+
+"Not wilfully done!" stuttered the Pater in his rage. "When I, and
+Lena, and her mother were in the train, and might have been smashed
+to atoms! When Coney, and Massock (not that I like the fellow), and
+scores more were put in jeopardy, and some were killed; yes, sir,
+killed. A misfortune! Johnny, if you stand there grinning like an
+idiot, I'll send you back to school: you shall both pack off this very
+hour. A misfortune, indeed! Lease deserves hanging."
+
+The next morning we came upon Lease accidentally in the fields. He
+was leaning over the gate amongst the trees, as Tod and I crossed the
+rivulet bridge--which was nothing but a plank or two. A couple of
+bounds, and we were up with him.
+
+"Now for it, Lease!" cried Tod. "Let us hear a bit about the matter."
+
+How Lease was altered! His cheeks were thin and white, his eyes
+had nothing but despair in them. Standing up he touched his hat
+respectfully.
+
+"Ay, sir, it has been a sad time," answered Lease, in a low, patient
+voice, as if he felt worn out. "I little thought when I last shut
+you and Master Johnny into the carriage the morning you left, that
+misfortune was so close at hand." For, just before it happened, we had
+been at home for a day's holiday.
+
+"Well, tell us about it."
+
+Tod stood with his arm round the trunk of a tree, and I sat down on an
+opposite stump. Lease had very little to say; nothing, except that he
+must have forgotten to change the points.
+
+And that made Tod stare. Tod, like the Pater, was hasty by nature.
+Knowing Lease's good character, he had not supposed him guilty; and to
+hear the man quietly admit that he _was_ excited Tod's ire.
+
+"What do you mean, Lease?"
+
+"Mean, sir?" returned Lease, meekly.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you did _not_ attend to the points?--that you
+just let one train run on to the other?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that is how it must have been. I didn't believe it, sir, for
+a long time afterwards: not for several hours."
+
+"A long time, that," said Tod, an unpleasant sound of mockery in his
+tone.
+
+"No, sir; I know it's not much, counting by time," answered Lease
+patiently. "But nobody can ever picture how long those hours seemed to
+me. They were like years. I couldn't get the idea into me at all that I
+had not set the points as usual; it seemed a thing incredible; but, try
+as I would, I was unable to call to mind having done it."
+
+"Well, I must say that is a nice thing to confess to, Lease! And there
+was I, yesterday afternoon, taking your part and quarrelling with my
+father."
+
+"I am sorry for that, sir. I am not worth having my part taken in
+anything, since that happened."
+
+"But how came you to _do_ it?"
+
+"It's a question I shall never be able to answer, sir. We had a busy
+day, were on the run from morning till night, and there was a great deal
+of confusion at the station: but it was no worse than many a day that
+has gone before it."
+
+"Well, I shall be off," said Tod. "This has shut me up. I thought of
+going in for you, Lease, finding every one else was dead against you.
+A misfortune is a misfortune, but wilful carelessness is sin: and my
+father and his wife and my little sister were in the train. Come along,
+Johnny."
+
+"Directly, Tod. I'll catch you up. I say, Lease, how will it end?" I
+asked, as Tod went on.
+
+"It can't end better than two years' imprisonment for me, sir; and I
+suppose it may end worse. It is not _that_ I think of."
+
+"What else, then?"
+
+"Four dead already, sir; four--and one soon to follow them, making
+five," he answered, his voice hushed to a whisper. "Master Johnny, it
+lies on me always, a dreadful weight never to be got rid of. When I was
+young, I had a sort of low fever, and used to see in my dreams some
+dreadful task too big to be attempted, and yet I had to do it; and the
+weight on my mind was awful. I didn't think, till now, such a weight
+could fall in real life. Sleeping or waking, sir, I see those four
+before me dead. Squire Todhetley told me that I had their lives on my
+soul. And it is so."
+
+I did not know what to answer.
+
+"So you see, sir, I don't think much of the imprisonment; if I did,
+I might be wanting to get the suspense over. It's not any term of
+imprisonment, no, not though it were for life, that can wash out the
+past. I'd give my own life, sir, twice over if that could undo it."
+
+Lease had his arm on the gate as he spoke, leaning forward. I could not
+help feeling sorry for him.
+
+"If people knew how I'm punished within myself, Master Johnny, they'd
+perhaps not be so harsh upon me. I have never had a proper night's rest
+since it happened, sir. I have to get up and walk about in the middle of
+the night because I can't lie. The sight of the dawn makes me sick, and
+I say to myself, How shall I get through the day? When bed-time comes, I
+wonder how I shall lie till morning. Often I wish it had pleased God to
+take me before that day had happened."
+
+"Why don't they get the inquest over, Lease?"
+
+"There's something or other always brought up to delay it, sir. I
+don't see the need of it. If it would bring the dead back to life, why,
+they might delay it; but it won't. They might as well let it end, and
+sentence me, and have done with it. Each time when I go back home
+through Crabb Lane, the men and women call out, 'What, put off again!'
+'What, ain't he in gaol yet!' Which is the place they say I ought to
+have been in all along."
+
+"I suppose the coroner knows you'll not run away, Lease."
+
+"Everybody knows that, sir."
+
+"Some would, though, in your place."
+
+"I don't know where they'd run to," returned Lease. "They couldn't run
+away from their own minds--and that's the worst part of it. Sometimes I
+wonder whether I shall ever get it off mine, sir, or if I shall have it
+on me, like this, to the end of my life. The Lord knows what it is to
+me; nobody else does."
+
+You cannot always make things fit into one another. I was thinking so as
+I left Lease and went after Tod. It was awful carelessness not to have
+set the points; causing death, and sorrow, and distress to many people.
+Looking at it from their side, the pointsman was detestable; only
+fit, as the Squire said, to be hanged. But looking at it side by side
+with Lease, seeing his sad face, his self-reproach, and his patient
+suffering, it seemed altogether different; and the two aspects would not
+by any means fit in together.
+
+Christmas week, and the absence of a juror who had gone out visiting,
+made another excuse for putting off the inquest to the next week. When
+that came, the coroner was ill. There seemed to be no end to the delays,
+and the public steam was getting up in consequence. As to Lease, he went
+about like a man who is looking for something that he has lost and
+cannot find.
+
+One day, when the ice lay in Crabb Lane, and I was taking the slides on
+my way through it to join Tod, who had gone rabbit-shooting, a little
+girl ran across my feet, and was knocked down. I fell too; and the child
+began to cry. Picking her up, I saw it was Polly Lease.
+
+"You little stupid! why did you run into my path like that?"
+
+"Please, sir, I didn't see you," she sobbed. "I was running after
+father. Mother saw him in the field yonder, and sent me to tell him we'd
+got a bit o' fire."
+
+Polly had grazed both her knees; they began to bleed just a little, and
+she nearly went into convulsions at sight of the blood. I carried her
+in. There was about a handful of fire in the grate. The mother sat on a
+low stool, close into it, nursing one of the children, and the rest sat
+on the floor.
+
+"I never saw such a child as this in all my life, Mrs. Lease. Because
+she has hurt her knees a bit, and sees a drop of blood, she's going to
+die of fright. Look here."
+
+Mrs. Lease put the boy down and took Polly, who was trembling all over
+with her deep low sobs.
+
+"It was always so, sir," said Mrs. Lease; "always since she was a baby.
+She is the timorest-natured child possible. We have tried everything;
+coaxing and scolding too; but we can't get her out of it. If she pricks
+her finger her face turns white."
+
+"I'd be more of a woman than cry at nothing, if I were you, Polly," said
+I, sitting on the window-ledge, while Mrs. Lease washed the knees; which
+were hardly damaged at all when they came to be examined. But Polly only
+clung to her mother, with her face hidden, and giving a deep sob now and
+then.
+
+"Look up, Polly. What's this!"
+
+I put it into her hand as I spoke; a bath bun that I had been carrying
+with me, in case I did not get home to luncheon. Polly looked round, and
+the sight dried the tears on her swollen face. You never saw such a
+change all in a moment, or such eager, glad little eyes as hers.
+
+"Divide it mother," said she. "Leave a bit for father."
+
+Two of them came flocking round like a couple of young wolves; the
+youngest couldn't get up, and the one Mrs. Lease had been nursing stayed
+on the floor where she put him. He had a sickly face, with great bright
+grey eyes, and hot, red lips.
+
+"What's the matter with him, Mrs. Lease?"
+
+"With little Tom, sir? I think it's a kind of fever. He never was
+strong; none of them are: and of course these bad times can but tell
+upon us."
+
+"Don't forget father, mother," said Polly. "Leave the biggest piece for
+father."
+
+"Now I tell you all what it is," said I to the children, when Mrs.
+Lease began to divide it into half-a-dozen pieces, "that bun's for
+Polly, because she has hurt herself: you shall not take any of it from
+her. Give it to Polly, Mrs. Lease."
+
+Of all the uproars ever heard, those little cormorants set up the worst.
+Mrs. Lease looked at me.
+
+"They must have a bit, sir: they must indeed. Polly wouldn't eat all
+herself, Master Ludlow; you couldn't get her to do it."
+
+But I was determined Polly should have it. It was through me she got
+hurt; and besides, I liked her.
+
+"Now just listen, you little pigs. I'll go to Ford's, the baker's, and
+bring you all a bun a-piece, but Polly must have this one. They have
+lots of currants in them, those buns, for children that don't squeal.
+How many are there of you? One, two, three,---- four."
+
+Catching up my cap, I was going out when Mrs. Lease touched me. "Do you
+really mean it, sir?" she asked in a whisper.
+
+"Mean what? That I am going to bring the buns? Of course I mean it. I'll
+be back with them directly."
+
+"Oh, sir--but do forgive me for making free to ask such a thing--if you
+would only let it be a half-quartern loaf instead?"
+
+"A half-quartern loaf!"
+
+"They've not had a bit between their lips this day, Master Ludlow," she
+said, catching her breath, as her face, which had flushed, turned pale
+again. "Last night I divided between the four of them a piece of bread
+half the size of my hand; Tom, he couldn't eat."
+
+I stared for a minute. "How is it, Mrs. Lease? can you not get enough
+food?"
+
+"I don't know where we should get it from, sir. Lease has not broken his
+fast since yesterday at midday."
+
+Dame Ford put the loaf in paper for me, wondering what on earth I wanted
+with it, as I could see by her inquisitive eyes, but not liking to ask;
+and I carried it back with the four buns. They were little wolves and
+nothing else when they saw the food.
+
+"How has this come about, Mrs. Lease?" I asked, while they were eating
+the bread she cut them, and she had taken Tom on her lap again.
+
+"Why, sir, it is eight weeks now, or hard upon it, since my husband
+earned anything. They didn't even pay him for the last week he was at
+work, as the accident happened in it. We had nothing in hand; people
+with only eighteen shillings a week and five children to feed, can't
+save; and we have been living on our things. But there's nothing left
+now to make money of--as you may see by the bare room, sir."
+
+"Does not any one help you?"
+
+"Help us!" returned Mrs. Lease. "Why, Master Ludlow, people, for the
+most part, are so incensed against my husband, that they'd take the
+bread out of our mouths, instead of putting a bit into them. All their
+help goes to poor Nancy Bowen and her children: and Lease is glad it
+should be so. When I carried Tom to Mr. Cole's yesterday, he said that
+what the child wanted was nourishment."
+
+"This must try Lease."
+
+"Yes," she said, her face flushing again, but speaking very quietly.
+"Taking one thing with another, I am not sure but it is killing him."
+
+After this break, I did not care to go to the shooting, but turned back
+to Crabb Cot. Mrs. Todhetley was alone in the bow-windowed parlour, so I
+told her of the state the Leases were in, and asked if she would not
+help them.
+
+"I don't know what to say about it, Johnny," she said, after a pause.
+"If I were willing, you know Mr. Todhetley would not be so. He can't
+forgive Lease for his carelessness. Every time Lena wakes up from sleep
+in a fright, fancying it is another accident, his anger returns to him.
+We often hear her crying out, you know, down here in an evening."
+
+"The carelessness was no fault of Lease's children, that they should
+suffer for it."
+
+"When you grow older, Johnny, you will find that the consequences of
+people's faults fall more on others than on themselves. It is very sad
+the Leases should be in this state; I am sorry for them."
+
+"Then you'll help them a bit, good mother."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley was always ready to help any one, not needing to be
+urged; on the other hand, she liked to yield implicitly to the opinions
+of the Squire. Between the two, she went into a dilemma.
+
+"Suppose it were Lena, starving for want of food and warmth?" I said.
+"Or Hugh sick with fever, as that young Tom is? Those children have done
+no more harm than ours."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley put her hand up to her face, and her mild eyes looked
+nearly as sad as Lease's.
+
+"Will you take it to them yourself, Johnny, in a covered basket, and not
+let it be seen? That is, make it your own doing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go to the kitchen then, and ask Molly. There are some odds and ends of
+things in the larder that will not be particularly wanted. You see,
+Johnny, I do not like to take an active part in this; it would seem like
+opposing the Squire."
+
+Molly was stooping before the big fire, basting the meat, in one of her
+vile humours. If I wanted to rob the larder, I must do it, she cried;
+it was my business, not hers; and she dashed the basting spoon across
+the table by way of accompaniment.
+
+I gave a good look round the larder, and took a raised pork-pie that had
+a piece cut out of it, and a leg of mutton three parts eaten. On the
+shelf were a dozen mince-pies, just out of their patty-pans; I took six
+and left six. Molly, screwing her face round the kitchen-door, caught
+sight of them as they went into the basket, and rushing after me out of
+the house, shrieked out for her mince-pies.
+
+The race went on. She was a woman not to be daunted. Just as we turned
+round by the yellow barn, I first, she raving behind, the Squire pounced
+upon us, asking what the uproar meant. Molly told her tale. I was a
+thief, and had gone off with the whole larder, more particularly with
+her mince-pies.
+
+"Open the basket, Johnny," said the Squire: which was the one Tod and I
+used when we went fishing.
+
+No sooner was it done than Molly marched off with the pies in triumph.
+The Pater regarded the pork-pie and the meat with a curious gaze.
+
+"This is for you and Joe, I suppose. I should like to know for how many
+more."
+
+I was one of the worst to conceal things, when taken-to like this, and
+he got it all out of me in no time. And then he put his hand on my
+shoulder and ordered me to say _who_ the things were for. Which I had to
+do.
+
+Well, there was a row. He wanted to know what I meant by being wicked
+enough to give food to Lease. I said it was for the children. I'm afraid
+I almost cried, for I did not like him to be angry with me, but I know I
+promised not to eat any dinner at home for three days if he would let me
+take the meat. Molly's comments, echoing through the house, betrayed to
+Mrs. Todhetley what had happened, and she came down the road with a
+shawl over her head. She told the Squire the truth then: that she had
+sanctioned it. She said she feared the Leases were quite in extremity,
+and begged him to let the meat go.
+
+"Be off for this once, you young thief," stamped the Squire, "but don't
+let me catch you at anything of this sort again."
+
+So the meat went to the Leases, and two loaves that Mrs. Todhetley
+whispered me to order for them at Ford's. When I reached home with the
+empty basket, they were going in to dinner. I took a book and stayed in
+the parlour. In a minute or two the Squire sent to ask what I was doing
+that for.
+
+"It's all right, Thomas. I don't want any dinner to-day."
+
+Old Thomas went away and returned again, saying the master ordered me to
+go in. But I wouldn't do anything of the sort. If he forgot the bargain,
+I did not.
+
+Out came the Squire, his face red, napkin in hand, and laid hold of me
+by the shoulders.
+
+"You obstinate young Turk! How dare you defy me? Come along."
+
+"But it is not to defy you, sir. It was a bargain, you know; I
+promised."
+
+"What was a bargain?"
+
+"That I should not have any dinner for three days. Indeed I meant it."
+
+The Squire's answer was to propel me into the dining-room. "Move down,
+Joe," he said, "I'll have him by me to-day. I'll see whether he is to
+starve himself out of bravado."
+
+"Why, what's up?" asked Tod, as he went to a lower seat. "What have you
+been doing, Johnny?"
+
+"Never mind," said the Squire, putting enough mutton on my plate for
+two. "You eat that, Mr. Johnny?"
+
+It went on so throughout dinner. Mrs. Todhetley gave me a big share of
+apple pudding; and, when the macaroni came on, the Squire heaped my
+plate. And I know it was all done to show he was not really angry with
+me for having taken the things to the Leases.
+
+Mr. Cole, the surgeon, came in after dinner, and was told of my
+wickedness. Lena ran up to me and said might she send her new sixpence
+to the poor little children who had no bread to eat.
+
+"What's that Lease about, that he does not go to work?" asked the
+Squire, in loud tones. "Letting folks hear that his young ones are
+starving!"
+
+"The man can't work," said Mr. Cole. "He is out on probation, you know,
+waiting for the verdict, and the sentence on him that is to follow."
+
+"Then why don't they return their verdict and sentence him?" demanded
+the Squire, in his hot way.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Cole, "it's what they ought to have done long ago."
+
+"What will it be! Transportation?"
+
+"I should take care it was _not_, if I were on the jury. The man had too
+much work on him that day, and had had nothing to eat or drink for too
+many hours."
+
+"I won't hear a word in his defence," growled the Squire.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the jury met for the last time, Lease was ill. A day or two before
+that, some one had brought Lease word that Roberts, who had been
+lingering all that time in the infirmary at Worcester, was going at
+last. Upon which Lease started to see him. It was not the day for
+visitors at the infirmary, but he gained admittance. Roberts was lying
+in the accident ward, with his head low and a blue look in his face;
+and the first thing Lease did, when he began to speak, was to burst out
+crying. The man's strength had gone down to nothing and his spirit was
+broken. Roberts made out that he was speaking of his distress at having
+been the cause of the calamity, and asking to be forgiven.
+
+"Mate," said Roberts, putting out his hand that Lease might take it,
+"I've never had an ill thought to ye. Mishaps come to all of us that
+have to do with rail-travelling; us drivers get more nor you pointsmen.
+It might have happened to me to be the cause, just as well as to you.
+Don't think no more of it."
+
+"Say you forgive me," urged Lease, "or I shall not know how to bear it."
+
+"I forgive thee with my whole heart and soul. I've had a spell of it
+here, Lease, waiting for death, knowing it must come to me, and I've got
+to look for it kindly. I don't think I'd go back to the world now if I
+could. I'm going to a better. It seems just peace, and nothing less.
+Shake hands, mate."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"I wish ye'd lift my head a bit," Roberts said, after a while. "The
+nurse she come and took away my pillow, thinking I might die easier, I
+suppose: I've seen her do it to others. Maybe I was a'most gone, and the
+sight of you woke me up again like."
+
+Lease sat down on the bed and put the man's head upon his breast in the
+position that seemed most easy to him; and Roberts died there.
+
+It was one of the worst days we had that winter. Lease had a night's
+walk home of many miles, the sleet and wind beating upon him all the
+way. He was not well clad either, for his best things had been pawned.
+
+So that when the inquest assembled two days afterwards, Lease did not
+appear at it. He was in bed with inflammation of the chest, and Mr. Cole
+told the coroner that it would be dangerous to take him out of it. Some
+of them called it bronchitis; but the Squire never went in for new
+names, and never would.
+
+"I tell you what it is, gentlemen," broke in Mr. Cole, when they were
+quarrelling as to whether there should be another adjournment or not,
+"you'll put off and put off, until Lease slips through your fingers."
+
+"Oh, will he, though!" blustered old Massock. "He had better try at it!
+We'd soon fetch him back again."
+
+"You'd be clever to do it," said the doctor.
+
+Any way, whether it was this or not, they thought better of the
+adjournment, and gave their verdict. "Manslaughter against Henry
+Lease." And the coroner made out his warrant of committal to Worcester
+county prison: where Lease would lie until the March assizes.
+
+"I am not sure but it ought to have been returned Wilful Murder,"
+remarked the Squire, as he and the doctor turned out of the Bull, and
+picked their way over the slush towards Crabb Lane.
+
+"It might make no difference, one way or the other," answered Mr. Cole.
+
+"Make no difference! What d'ye mean? Murder and manslaughter are two
+separate crimes, Cole, and must be punished accordingly. You see,
+Johnny, what your friend Lease has come to!"
+
+"What I meant, Squire, was this: that I don't much think Lease will live
+to be tried at all."
+
+"Not live!"
+
+"I fancy not. Unless I am much mistaken, his life will have been claimed
+by its Giver long before March."
+
+The Squire stopped and looked at Cole. "What's the matter with him? This
+inflammation--that you went and testified to?"
+
+"That will be the cause of death, as returned to the registrar."
+
+"Why, you speak just as if the man were dying now, Cole!"
+
+"And I think he is. Lease has been very low for a long time," added Mr.
+Cole; "half clad, and not a quarter fed. But it is not that, Squire:
+heart and spirit are alike broken: and when this cold caught him, he had
+no stamina to withstand it; and so it has seized upon a vital part."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me to my face that he will die of it?" cried the
+Squire, holding on by the middle button of old Cole's great-coat.
+"Nonsense, man! you must cure him. We--we did not want him to die, you
+know."
+
+"His life or his death, as it may be, are in the hands of One higher
+than I, Squire."
+
+"I think I'll go in and see him," said the Squire, meekly.
+
+Lease was lying on a bed close to the floor when we got to the top of
+the creaky stairs, which had threatened to come down with the Squire's
+weight and awkwardness. He had dozed off, and little Polly, sitting on
+the boards, had her head upon his arm. Her starting up awoke Lease. I
+was not in the habit of seeing dying people; but the thought struck me
+that Lease must be dying. His pale weary face wore the same hue that
+Jake's had worn when he was dying: if you have not forgotten him.
+
+"God bless me!" exclaimed the Squire.
+
+Lease looked up with his sad eyes. He supposed they had come to tell
+him officially about the verdict--which had already reached him
+unofficially.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen, I know it," he said, trying to get up out of respect,
+and falling back. "Manslaughter. I'd have been present if I could. Mr.
+Cole knows I wasn't able. I think God is taking me instead."
+
+"But this won't do, you know, Lease," said the Squire. "We don't want
+you to die."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm afraid I am not good for much now. And there'd be the
+imprisonment, and then the sentence, so that I could not work for my
+wife and children for some long years. When people come to know how I
+repented of that night's mistake, and that I have died of it, why,
+they'll perhaps befriend them and forgive me. I think God has forgiven
+me: He is very merciful."
+
+"I'll send you in some port wine and jelly and beef-tea--and some
+blankets, Lease," cried the Squire quickly, as if he felt flurried.
+"And, Lease, poor fellow, I am sorry for having been so angry with you."
+
+"Thank you for all favours, sir, past and present. But for the help from
+your house my little ones would have starved. God bless you all, and
+forgive me! Master Johnny, God bless _you_."
+
+"You'll rally yet, Lease; take heart," said the Squire.
+
+"No, sir, I don't think so. The great dark load seems to have been
+lifted off me, and light to be breaking. Don't sob, Polly! Perhaps
+father will be able to see you from up there as well as if he stayed
+here."
+
+The first thing the Squire did when we got out, was to attack Mr. Cole,
+telling him he ought not to have let Lease die. As he was in a way about
+it, Cole excused it, quietly saying it was no fault of his.
+
+"I should like to know what it is that has killed him, then?"
+
+"Grief," said Mr. Cole. "The man has died of what we call a broken
+heart. Hearts don't actually sever, you know, Squire, like a china
+basin, and there's always some ostensible malady that serves as a reason
+to talk about. In this case it will be bronchitis. Which, in point of
+fact, is the final end, because Lease could not rally against it. He
+told me yesterday that his heart had ached so keenly since November, it
+seemed to have dried up within him."
+
+"We are all a pack of hard-hearted sinners," groaned the Squire, in his
+repentance. "Johnny, why could you not have found them out sooner? Where
+was the use of your doing it at the eleventh hour, sir, I'd like to
+know?"
+
+Harry Lease died that night. And Crabb Lane, in a fit of repentance as
+sudden as the Squire's, took the cost of the funeral off the parish
+(giving some abuse in exchange) and went in a body to the grave. I and
+Tod followed.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+AUNT DEAN.
+
+
+Timberdale was a small place on the other side of Crabb Ravine. Its
+Rector was the Reverend Jacob Lewis. Timberdale called him Parson Lewis
+when not on ceremony. He had married a widow, Mrs. Tanerton: she had a
+good deal of money and two boys, and the parish thought the new lady
+might be above them. But she proved kind and good; and her boys did not
+ride roughshod over the land or break down the farmers' fences. She died
+in three or four years, after a long illness.
+
+Timberdale talked about her will, deeming it a foolish one. She left all
+she possessed to the Rector, "in affectionate confidence," as the will
+worded it, "knowing he would do what was right and just by her sons." As
+Parson Lewis was an upright man with a conscience of his own, it was
+supposed he would do so; but Timberdale considered that for the boys'
+sake she should have made it sure herself. It was eight-hundred a year,
+good measure.
+
+Parson Lewis had a sister, Mrs. Dean, a widow also, who lived near
+Liverpool. She was not left well-off at all; could but just make a
+living of it. She used to come on long visits to the Parsonage, which
+saved her cupboard at home; but it was said that Mrs. Lewis did not like
+her, thinking her deceitful, and they did not get on very well together.
+Parson Lewis, the meekest man in the world and the most easily led,
+admitted to his wife that Rebecca had always been a little given to
+scheming, but he thought her true at heart.
+
+When poor Mrs. Lewis was out of the way for good in Timberdale
+churchyard, Aunt Dean had the field to herself, and came and stayed as
+long as she pleased, with her child, Alice. She was a little woman with
+a mild face and fair skin, and had a sort of purring manner with her.
+Scarcely speaking above her breath, and saying "dear" and "love" at
+every sentence, and caressing people to their faces, the rule was to
+fall in love with her at once. The boys, Herbert and Jack, had taken to
+her without question from the first, and called her "Aunt." Though she
+was of course no relation whatever to them.
+
+Both the boys made much of Alice--a bright-eyed, pretty little girl with
+brown curls and timid, winsome ways. Herbert, who was very studious
+himself, helped her with her lessons: Jack, who was nearer her age,
+but a few months older, took her out on expeditions, haymaking and
+blackberrying and the like, and would bring her home with her frock torn
+and her knees damaged. He told her that brave little girls never cried
+with him; and the child would ignore the smart of the grazed knees
+and show herself as brave as a martyr. Jack was so brave and fearless
+himself and made so little of hurts, that she felt a sort of shame at
+giving way to her natural timidity when with him. What Alice liked best
+was to sit indoors by Herbert's side while he was at his lessons, and
+read story books and fairy tales. Jack was the opposite of all that, and
+a regular renegade in all kinds of study. He would have liked to pitch
+the books into the fire, and did not even care for fairy tales. They
+came often enough to Crabb Cot when we were there, and to our neighbours
+the Coneys, with whom the Parsonage was intimate. I was only a little
+fellow at the time, years younger than they were, but I remember I
+liked Jack better than Herbert. As Tod did also for the matter of that.
+Herbert was too clever for us, and he was to be a parson besides. He
+chose the calling himself. More than once he was caught muffled in the
+parson's white surplice, preaching to Jack and Alice a sermon of his own
+composition.
+
+Aunt Dean had her plans and her plots. One great plot was always at
+work. She made it into a dream, and peeped into it night and day, as if
+it were a kaleidoscope of rich and many colours. Herbert Tanerton was to
+marry her daughter and succeed to his mother's property as eldest son:
+Jack must go adrift, and earn his own living. She considered it was
+already three parts as good as accomplished. To see Herbert and Alice
+poring over books together side by side and to know that they had the
+same tastes, was welcome to her as the sight of gold. As to Jack, with
+his roving propensities, his climbing and his daring, she thought it
+little matter if he came down a tree head-foremost some day, or pitched
+head over heels into the depths of Crabb Ravine, and so threw his life
+away. Not that she really wished any cruel fate for the boy; but she did
+not care for him; and he might be terribly in the way, when her foolish
+brother, the parson, came to apportion the money. And he _was_ foolish
+in some things; soft, in fact: she often said so.
+
+One summer day, when the fruit was ripe and the sun shining, Mr. Lewis
+had gone into his study to write his next Sunday's sermon. He did not
+get on very quickly, for Aunt Dean was in there also, and it disturbed
+him a little. She was of restless habits, everlastingly dusting books,
+and putting things in their places without rhyme or reason.
+
+"Do you wish to keep out all _three_ of these inkstands, Jacob? It is
+not necessary, I should think. Shall I put one up?"
+
+The parson took his eyes off his sermon to answer. "I don't see that
+they do any harm there, Rebecca. The children use two sometimes. Do as
+you like, however."
+
+Mrs. Dean put one of the inkstands into the book-case, and then looked
+round the room to see what else she could do. A letter caught her eye.
+
+"Jacob, I do believe you have never answered the note old Mullet brought
+this morning! There it is on the mantelpiece."
+
+The parson sighed. To be interrupted in this way he took quite as a
+matter of course, but it teased him a little.
+
+"I must see the churchwardens, Rebecca, before answering it. I want to
+know, you see, what would be approved of by the parish."
+
+"Just like you, Jacob," she caressingly said. "The parish must approve
+of what you approve."
+
+"Yes, yes," he said hastily; "but I like to live at peace with every
+one."
+
+He dipped his pen into the ink, and wrote a line of his sermon. The open
+window looked on to the kitchen-garden. Herbert Tanerton had his back
+against the walnut-tree, doing nothing. Alice sat near on a stool, her
+head buried in a book that by its canvas cover Mrs. Dean knew to be
+"Robinson Crusoe." Just then Jack came out of the raspberry bushes with
+a handful of fruit, which he held out to Alice. "Robinson Crusoe" fell
+to the ground.
+
+"Oh, Jack, how good they are!" said Alice. And the words came distinctly
+to Aunt Dean's ears in the still day.
+
+"They are as good again when you pick them off the trees for yourself,"
+cried Jack. "Come along and get some, Alice."
+
+With the taste of the raspberries in her mouth, the temptation was not
+to be resisted; and she ran after Jack. Aunt Dean put her head out at
+the window.
+
+"Alice, my love, I cannot have you go amongst those raspberry bushes;
+you would stain and tear your frock."
+
+"I'll take care of her frock, aunt," Jack called back.
+
+"My darling Jack, it cannot be. That is her new muslin frock, and she
+must not go where she might injure it."
+
+So Alice sat down again to "Robinson Crusoe," and Jack went his way
+amongst the raspberry bushes, or whither he would.
+
+"Jacob, have you begun to think of what John is to be?" resumed Aunt
+Dean, as she shut down the window.
+
+The parson pushed his sermon from him in a sort of patient
+hopelessness, and turned round on his chair. "To be?--In what way,
+Rebecca?"
+
+"By profession," she answered. "I fancy it is time it was thought of."
+
+"Do you? I'm sure I don't know. The other day when something was being
+mentioned about it, Jack said he did not care what he was to be,
+provided he had no books to trouble him."
+
+"I only hope you will not have trouble with him, Jacob, dear," observed
+Mrs. Dean, in ominous tones, that plainly intimated she thought the
+parson would.
+
+"He has a good heart, though he is not so studious as his brother. Why
+have you shut the window, Rebecca? It is very warm."
+
+Mrs. Dean did not say why. Perhaps she wished to guard against the
+conversation being heard. When any question not quite convenient to
+answer was put to her, she had a way of passing it over in silence; and
+the parson was too yielding or too inert to ask again.
+
+"_Of course_, Brother Jacob, you will make Herbert the heir."
+
+The parson looked surprised. "Why should you suppose that, Rebecca? I
+think the two boys ought to share and share alike."
+
+"My dear Jacob, how _can_ you think so? Your dead wife left you in
+charge, remember."
+
+"That's what I do remember, Rebecca. She never gave me the slightest
+hint that she should wish any difference to be made: she was as fond of
+one boy as of the other."
+
+"Jacob, you must do your duty by the boys," returned Mrs. Dean, with
+affectionate solemnity. "Herbert must be his mother's heir; it is
+right and proper it should be so: Jack must be trained to earn his
+own livelihood. Jack--dear fellow!--is, I fear, of a roving, random
+disposition: were you to leave any portion of the money to him, he would
+squander it in a year."
+
+"Dear me, I hope not! But as to leaving all to his brother--or even a
+larger portion than to Jack--I don't know that it would be right. A
+heavy responsibility lies on me in this charge, don't you see, Rebecca?"
+
+"No doubt it does. It is full eight-hundred a year. And _you_ must be
+putting something by, Jacob."
+
+"Not much. I draw the money yearly, but expenses seem to swallow it up.
+What with the ponies kept for the boys, and the cost of the masters from
+Worcester, and a hundred a year out of it that my wife desired the poor
+old nurse should have till she died, there's not a great deal left. My
+living is a poor one, you know, and I like to help the poor freely. When
+the boys go to the university it will be all wanted."
+
+Help the poor freely!--just like him! thought Aunt Dean.
+
+"It would be waste of time and money to send Jack to college. You should
+try and get him some appointment abroad, Jacob. In India, say."
+
+The clergyman opened his eyes at this, and said he should not like
+to see Jack go out of his own country. Jack's mother had not had any
+opinion of foreign places. Jack himself interrupted the conversation. He
+came flying up the path, put down a cabbage leaf full of raspberries on
+the window-sill, and flung open the window with his stained fingers.
+
+"Aunt Dean, I've picked these for you," he said, introducing the leaf,
+his handsome face and good-natured eyes bright and sparkling. "They've
+never been so good as they are this year. Father, just taste them."
+
+Aunt Dean smiled sweetly, and called him her darling, and Mr. Lewis
+tasted the raspberries.
+
+"We were just talking of you, Jack," cried the unsophisticated man--and
+Mrs. Dean slightly knitted her brows. "Your aunt says it is time you
+began to think of some profession."
+
+"What, yet awhile?" returned Jack.
+
+"That you may be suitably educated for it, my boy."
+
+"I should like to be something that won't want education," cried Jack,
+leaning his arms on the window-sill, and jumping up and down. "I think
+I'd rather be a farmer than anything, father."
+
+The parson drew a long face. This had never entered into his
+calculations.
+
+"I fear that would not do, Jack. I should like you to choose something
+higher than that; some profession by which you may rise in the world.
+Herbert will go into the Church: what should you say to the Bar?"
+
+Jack's jumping ceased all at once. "What, be a barrister, father? Like
+those be-wigged fellows that come on circuit twice a year to Worcester?"
+
+"Like that, Jack."
+
+"But they have to study all their lives for it, father; and read up
+millions of books before they can pass! I couldn't do it; I couldn't
+indeed."
+
+"What do you think of being a first-class lawyer, then? I might place
+you with some good firm, such as----"
+
+"Don't, there's a dear father!" interrupted Jack, all the sunshine
+leaving his face. "I'm afraid if I were at a desk I should kick it over
+without knowing it: I must be running out and about.--Are they all gone,
+Aunt Dean? Give me the leaf, and I'll pick you some more."
+
+The years went on. Jack was fifteen: Herbert eighteen and at Oxford:
+the advanced scholar had gone to college early. Aunt Dean spent quite
+half her time at Timberdale, from Easter till autumn, and the parson
+never rose up against it. She let her house during her absence: it was
+situated on the banks of the river a little way from Liverpool, near
+the place they call New Brighton now. It might have been called New
+Brighton then for all I know. One family always took the house for the
+summer months, glad to get out of hot Liverpool.
+
+As to Jack, nothing had been decided in regard to his future, for
+opinions about it differed. A little Latin and a little history and a
+great deal of geography (for he liked that) had been drilled into him:
+and there his education ended. But he was the best climber and walker
+and leaper, and withal the best-hearted young fellow that Timberdale
+could boast: and he knew about land thoroughly, and possessed a great
+stock of general and useful and practical information. Many a day when
+some of the poorer farmers were in a desperate hurry to get in their
+hay or carry their wheat on account of threatening weather, had Jack
+Tanerton turned out to help, and toiled as hard and as long as any of
+the labourers. He was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, rich and poor.
+
+Mrs. Dean had worked on always to accomplish her ends. Slowly and
+imperceptibly, but surely; Herbert must be the heir; John must shift for
+himself. The parson had had this dinned into him so often now, in her
+apparently frank and reasoning way, that he began to lend an ear to it.
+What with his strict sense of justice, and his habit of yielding to his
+sister's views, he felt for the most part in a kind of dilemma. But Mrs.
+Dean had come over this time determined to get something settled, one
+way or the other.
+
+She arrived before Easter this year. The interminable Jack (as she often
+called him in her heart) was at home; Herbert was not. Jack and Alice
+did not seem to miss him, but went out on their rambles together as they
+did when children. The morning before Herbert was expected, a letter
+came from him to his stepfather, saying he had been invited by a
+fellow-student to spend the Easter holidays at his home near London and
+had accepted it.
+
+Mr. Lewis took it as a matter of course in his easy way; but it
+disagreed with Aunt Dean. She said all manner of things to the parson,
+and incited him to write for Herbert to return at once. Herbert's answer
+to this was a courteous intimation that he could not alter his plans;
+and he hoped his father, on consideration, would fail to see any good
+reason why he should do so. Herbert Tanerton had a will of his own.
+
+"Neither do I see any reason, good or bad, why he should not pay the
+visit, Rebecca," confessed the Rector. "I'm afraid it was foolish of me
+to object at all. Perhaps I have not the right to deny him, either, if I
+wished it. He is getting on for nineteen, and I am not his own father."
+
+So Aunt Dean had to make the best and the worst of it; but she felt as
+cross as two sticks.
+
+One day when the parson was abroad on parish matters, and the Rectory
+empty, she went out for a stroll, and reached the high steep bank where
+the primroses and violets grew. Looking over, she saw Jack and Alice
+seated below; Jack's arm round her waist.
+
+"You are to be my wife, you know, Alice, when we are grown up. Mind
+that."
+
+There was no answer, but Aunt Dean certainly thought she heard the sound
+of a kiss. Peeping over again, she saw Jack taking another.
+
+"And if you don't object to my being a farmer, Alice, I should like it
+best of all. We'll keep two jolly ponies and ride about together. Won't
+it be good?"
+
+"I don't object to farming, Jack. Anything you like. A successful
+farmer's home is a very pleasant one."
+
+Aunt Dean drew away with noiseless steps. She was too calm and callous a
+woman to turn white; but she did turn angry, and registered a vow in her
+heart. That presuming, upstart Jack! They were only two little fools,
+it's true; no better than children; but the nonsense must be stopped in
+time.
+
+Herbert went back to Oxford without coming home. Alice, to her own
+infinite astonishment, was despatched to school until midsummer. The
+parson and his sister and Jack were left alone; and Aunt Dean, with her
+soft smooth manner and her false expressions of endearment, ruled all
+things; her brother's better nature amidst the rest.
+
+Jack was asked what he would be. A farmer, he answered. But Aunt Dean
+had somehow caught up the most bitter notions possible against farming
+in general; and Mr. Lewis, not much liking the thing himself, and
+yielding to the undercurrent ever gently flowing, told Jack he must fix
+on something else.
+
+"There's nothing I shall do so well at as farming, father,"
+remonstrated Jack. "You can put me for three or four years to some
+good agriculturist, and I'll be bound at the end of the time I should
+be fit to manage the largest and best farm in the country. Why, I am
+a better farmer now than some of them are."
+
+"Jack, my boy, you must not be self-willed. I cannot let you be a
+farmer."
+
+"Then send me to sea, father, and make a sailor of me," returned Jack,
+with undisturbed good humour.
+
+But this startled the parson. He liked Jack, and he had a horror of the
+sea. "Not that, Jack, my boy. Anything but that."
+
+"I'm not sure but I should like the sea better than farming," went on
+Jack, the idea full in his head. "Aunt Dean lent me 'Peter Simple' one
+day. I know I should make a first-rate sailor."
+
+"Jack, don't talk so. Your poor mother would not have liked it, and I
+don't like it; and I shall never let you go."
+
+"Some fellows run away to sea," said Jack, laughing.
+
+The parson felt as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown down
+his back. Did Jack mean that as a threat?
+
+"John," said he, in as solemn a way as he had ever spoken, "disobedience
+to parents sometimes brings a curse with it. You must promise me that
+you will never go to sea."
+
+"I'll not promise that, off-hand," said Jack. "But I will promise never
+to go without your consent. Think it well over, father; there's no
+hurry."
+
+It was on the tip of Mr. Lewis's tongue to withdraw his objection to the
+farming scheme then and there: in comparison with the other it looked
+quite fair and bright. But he thought he might compromise his judgment
+to yield thus instantly: and, as easy Jack said, there was no hurry.
+
+So Jack went rushing out of doors again to the uttermost bounds of the
+parish, and the parson was left to Aunt Dean. When he told her he meant
+to let Jack be a farmer, she laughed till the tears came into her eyes,
+and begged him to leave matters to her. _She_ knew how to manage boys,
+without appearing directly to cross them: there was this kind of trouble
+with most boys, she had observed, before they settled satisfactorily in
+life, but it all came right in the end.
+
+So the parson said no more about farming: but Jack talked a great deal
+about the sea. Mr. Lewis went over in his gig to Worcester, and bought a
+book he had heard of, "Two Years before the Mast." He wrote Jack's name
+in it and gave it him, hoping its contents might serve to sicken him of
+the sea.
+
+The next morning the book was missing. Jack looked high and low for
+it, but it was gone. He had left it on the sitting-room table when he
+went up to bed, and it mysteriously disappeared during the night. The
+servants had not seen it, and declared it was not on the table in the
+morning.
+
+"It could not--I suppose--have been the cat," observed Aunt Dean, in a
+doubtful manner, her eyes full of wonder as to where the book could have
+got to. "I have heard of cats doing strange things."
+
+"I don't think the cat would make away with a book of that size,
+Rebecca," said the parson. And if he had not been the least suspicious
+parson in all the Worcester Diocese, he might have asked his sister
+whether _she_ had been the cat, and secured the book lest it should
+dissipate Jack's fancy for the sea.
+
+The next thing she did was to carry Jack off to Liverpool. The parson
+objected at first: Liverpool was a seaport town, and might put Jack more
+in mind of the sea than ever. Aunt Dean replied that she meant him to
+see the worst sides of sea life, the dirty boats in the Mersey, the
+wretchedness of the crews, and the real discomfort and misery of a
+sailor's existence. That would cure him, she said: what he had in his
+head now was the romance picked up from books. The parson thought there
+was reason in this, and yielded. He was dreadfully anxious about Jack.
+
+She went straight to her house near New Brighton, Jack with her, and a
+substantial sum in her pocket from the Rector to pay for Jack's keep.
+The old servant, Peggy, who took care of it, was thunderstruck to see
+her mistress come in. It was not yet occupied by the Liverpool people,
+and Mrs. Dean sent them word they could not have it this year: at least
+not for the present. While she put matters straight, she supplied Jack
+with all Captain Marryat's novels to read. The house looked on the
+river, and Jack would watch the fine vessels starting on their long
+voyages, their white sails trim and fair in the sunshine, or hear the
+joyous shouts from the sailors of a homeward-bound ship as Liverpool
+hove in view; and he grew to think there was no sight so pleasant to the
+eye as these wonderful ships; no fate so desirable as to sail in them.
+
+But Aunt Dean had changed her tactics. Instead of sending Jack on to the
+dirtiest and worst managed boats in the docks, where the living was hard
+and the sailors were discontented, she allowed him to roam at will on
+the finest ships, and make acquaintance with their enthusiastic young
+officers, especially with those who were going to sea for the first time
+with just such notions as Jack's. Before Midsummer came, Jack Tanerton
+had grown to think that he could never be happy on land.
+
+There was a new ship just launched, the _Rose of Delhi_; a magnificent
+vessel. Jack took rare interest in her. He was for ever on board; was
+for ever saying to her owners--friends of Aunt Dean's, to whom she had
+introduced him--how much he should like to sail in her. The owners
+thought it would be an advantageous thing to get so active, open,
+and ready a lad into their service, although he was somewhat old
+for entering, and they offered to article him for four years, as
+"midshipman" on the _Rose of Delhi_. Jack went home with his tale, his
+eyes glowing; and Aunt Dean neither checked him nor helped him.
+
+Not _then_. Later, when the ship was all but ready to sail, she told
+Jack she washed her hands of it, and recommended him to write and ask
+his stepfather whether he might sail in her, or not.
+
+Now Jack was no letter writer; neither, truth to tell, was the parson.
+He had not once written home; but had contented himself with sending
+affectionate messages in Aunt Dean's letters. Consequently, Mr. Lewis
+only knew what Aunt Dean had chosen to tell him, and had no idea that
+Jack was getting the real sea fever upon him. But at her suggestion Jack
+sat down now and wrote a long letter.
+
+Its purport was this. That he was longing and hoping to go to sea; was
+sure he should never like anything else in the world so well; that the
+_Rose of Delhi_, Captain Druce, was the most magnificent ship ever
+launched; that the owners bore the best character in Liverpool for
+liberality, and Captain Druce for kindness to his middies; and that he
+hoped, oh he hoped, his father would let him go; but that if he still
+refused, he (Jack) would do his best to be content to stay on shore, for
+he did not forget his promise of never sailing without his consent.
+
+"Would you like to see the letter, Aunt Dean, before I close it?" he
+asked.
+
+Aunt Dean, who had been sitting by, took the letter, and privately
+thought it was as good a letter and as much to the purpose as the best
+scribe in the land could have written. She disliked it, for all that.
+
+"Jack, dear, I think you had better put a postscript," she said. "Your
+father detests writing, as you know. Tell him that if he consents he
+need not write any answer: you will know what it means--that you may
+go--and it will save him trouble."
+
+"But, Aunt Dean, I should like him to wish me good-bye and God speed."
+
+"He will be sure to do the one in his heart and the other in his
+prayers, my boy. Write your postscript."
+
+Jack did as he was bid: he was as docile as his stepfather. Exactly as
+Mrs. Dean suggested, wrote he: and he added that if no answer arrived
+within two posts, he should take it for granted that he was to go, and
+should see about his outfit. There was no time to lose, for the ship
+would sail in three or four days.
+
+"I will post it for you, Jack," she said, when it was ready. "I am going
+out."
+
+"Thank you, Aunt Dean, but I can post it myself. I'd rather: and then I
+shall know it's off. Oh, shan't I be on thorns till the time for an
+answer comes and goes!"
+
+He snatched his cap and vaulted off with the letter before he could be
+stopped. Aunt Dean had a curious look on her face, and sat biting her
+lips. She had not intended the letter to go.
+
+The first post that could possibly bring an answer brought one. Jack was
+not at home. Aunt Dean had sent him out on an early commission, watched
+for the postman, and hastened to the door herself to receive what he
+might bring. He brought two letters--as it chanced. One from the Rector
+of Timberdale; one from Alice Dean. Mrs. Dean locked up the one in her
+private drawer upstairs: the other she left on the breakfast-table.
+
+"Peggy says the postman has been here, aunt!" cried the boy, all
+excitement, as he ran in.
+
+"Yes, dear. He brought a letter from Alice."
+
+"And nothing from Timberdale?"
+
+"Well, I don't know that you could quite expect it by this post, Jack.
+Your father might like to take a little time for consideration. You may
+read Alice's letter, my boy: she comes home this day week for the summer
+holidays."
+
+"Not till this day week!" cried Jack, frightfully disappointed. "Why, I
+shall have sailed then, if I go, Aunt Dean! I shall not see her."
+
+"Well, dear, you will see her when you come home again."
+
+Aunt Dean had no more commissions for Jack after that, and each time the
+postman was expected, he placed himself outside the door to wait for
+him. The man brought no other letter. The reasonable time for an answer
+went by, and none came.
+
+"Aunt Dean, I suppose I may get my outfit now," said Jack, only half
+satisfied. "But I wish I had told him to write in any case: just a
+line."
+
+"According to what you said, you know, Jack, silence must be taken for
+consent."
+
+"Yes, I know. I'd rather have had a word, though, and made certain. I
+wish there was time for me just to run over to Timberdale and see him!"
+
+"But there's not, Jack, more's the pity: you would lose the ship. Get a
+piece of paper and make out a list of the articles the second mate told
+you you would want."
+
+The _Rose of Delhi_ sailed out of port for Calcutta, and John Tanerton
+with her, having signed articles to serve in her for four years. The
+night before his departure he wrote a short letter of farewell to his
+stepfather, thanking him for his tacit consent, and promising to do his
+best to get on, concluding it with love to himself and to Herbert, and
+to the Rectory servants. Which letter somehow got put into Aunt Dean's
+kitchen fire, and never reached Timberdale.
+
+Aunt Dean watched the _Rose of Delhi_ sail by; Jack, in his bran-new
+uniform, waving his last farewell to her with his gold-banded cap. The
+sigh of relief she heaved when the fine vessel was out of sight seemed
+to do her good. Then she bolted herself into her chamber, and opened Mr.
+Lewis's letter, which had lain untouched till then. As she expected, it
+contained a positive interdiction, written half sternly, half lovingly,
+for John to sail in the _Rose of Delhi_, or to think more of the sea.
+Moreover, it commanded him to come home at once, and it contained a
+promise that he should be placed to learn the farming without delay.
+Aunt Dean tripped down to Peggy's fire and burnt that too.
+
+There was a dreadful fuss when Jack's departure became known at
+Timberdale. It fell upon the parson like a thunderbolt. He came striding
+through the ravine to Crabb Cot, and actually burst out crying while
+telling the news to the Squire. He feared he had failed somehow in
+bringing John up, he said, or he never would have repaid him with this
+base disobedience and ingratitude. For, you see, the poor man thought
+Jack had received his letter, and gone off in defiance of it. The Squire
+agreed with him that Jack deserved the cat-o'-nine tails, as did all
+other boys who traitorously decamped to sea.
+
+Before the hay was all in, Aunt Dean was back at Timberdale, bringing
+Alice with her and the bills for the outfit. She let the parson think
+what he would about Jack, ignoring all knowledge of the letter, and
+affecting to believe that Jack could not have had it. But the parson
+argued that Jack must have had it, and did have it, or it would have
+come back to him. The only one to say a good word for Jack was Alice.
+She persisted in an opinion that Jack could not be either disobedient
+or ungrateful, and that there must have been some strange mistake
+somewhere.
+
+Aunt Dean's work was not all done. She took the poor parson under her
+wing, and proved to him that he had no resource now but to disinherit
+Jack, and made Herbert the heir. To leave money to Jack would be wanton
+waste, she urged, for he would be sure to squander it: better bequeath
+all to Herbert, who would of course look after his brother in later
+life, and help him if he needed help. So Mr. Hill, one of the Worcester
+solicitors, was sent for to Timberdale to receive instructions for
+making the parson's will in Herbert's favour, and to cut Jack off with
+a shilling.
+
+That night, after Mr. Hill had gone back again, was one of the worst the
+parson had ever spent. He was a just man and a kind one, and he felt
+racked with fear lest he had taken too severe a measure, and one that
+his late wife, the true owner of the money and John's mother, would
+never have sanctioned. His bed was fevered, his pillow a torment; up he
+got, and walked the room in his night-shirt.
+
+"My Lord and God knoweth that I would do what is right," he groaned. "I
+am sorely troubled. Youth is vain and desperately thoughtless; perhaps
+the boy, in his love of adventure, never looked at the step in the light
+of ingratitude. I cannot cut him quite off; I should never again find
+peace of mind if I did it. He shall have a little; and perhaps if he
+grows into a steady fellow and comes back what he ought to be, I may
+alter the will later and leave them equal inheritors."
+
+The next day the parson wrote privately to Mr. Hill, saying he had
+reconsidered his determination and would let Jack inherit to the extent
+of a hundred and fifty pounds a year.
+
+Herbert came home for the long vacation; and he and Alice were together
+as they had been before that upstart Jack stepped in. They often came to
+the Squire's and oftener to the Coneys'. Grace Coney, a niece of old
+Coney, had come to live at the farm; she was a nice girl, and she and
+Alice liked each other. You might see them with Herbert strolling about
+the fields any hour in the day. At home Alice and Herbert seemed never
+to care to separate. Mrs. Dean watched them quietly, and thought how
+beautifully her plans had worked.
+
+Aunt Dean did not go home till October. After she left, the parson had
+a stroke of paralysis. Charles Ashton, then just ordained to priest's
+orders, took the duty. Mrs. Dean came back again for Christmas. As if
+she would let Alice stay away from the Parsonage when Herbert was at
+home!
+
+The _Rose of Delhi_ did not come back for nearly two years. She was what
+is called a free ship, and took charters for any place she could make
+money by. One day Alice Dean was leaning out of the windows of her
+mother's house, gazing wistfully on the sparkling sea, when a grand and
+stately vessel came sailing homewards, and some brown-faced young fellow
+on the quarter deck set on to swing his cap violently by way of hailing
+her. She looked to the flag which happened to be flying, and read the
+name there, "_The Rose of Delhi_." It must be Jack who was saluting.
+Alice burst into tears of emotion.
+
+He came up from the docks the same day. A great, brown, handsome fellow
+with the old single-hearted, open manners. And he clasped Alice in his
+arms and kissed her ever so many times before she could get free. Being
+a grown-up young lady now, she did not approve of unceremonious kissing,
+and told Jack so. Aunt Dean was not present, or she might have told him
+so more to the purpose.
+
+Jack had given satisfaction, and was getting on. He told Alice privately
+that he did not like the sea so much as he anticipated, and could not
+believe how any other fellow did like it; but as he had chosen it as
+his calling, he meant to stand by it. He went to Timberdale, in spite
+of Aunt Dean's advice and efforts to keep him away. Herbert was absent,
+she said; the Rector ill and childish. Jack found it all too true. Mr.
+Lewis's mind had failed and his health was breaking. He knew Jack and
+was very affectionate with him, but seemed not to remember anything of
+the past. So never a word did Jack hear of his own disobedience, or of
+any missing letters.
+
+One person alone questioned him; and that was Alice. It was after he
+got back from Timberdale. She asked him to tell her the history of
+his sailing in the _Rose of Delhi_, and he gave it in detail, without
+reserve. When he spoke of the postscript that Aunt Dean had bade him
+add to his letter, arranging that silence should be taken for consent,
+and that as no answer had come, he of course had so taken it, the girl
+turned sick and faint. She saw the treachery that had been at work and
+where it had lain; but for her mother's sake she hushed it up and let
+the matter pass. Alice had not lived with her mother so many years
+without detecting her propensity for deceit.
+
+Some years passed by. Jack got on well. He served as third mate on the
+_Rose of Delhi_ long before he could pass, by law, for second. He was
+made second mate as soon as he had passed for it. The _Rose of Delhi_
+came in and went out, and Jack stayed by her, and passed for first mate
+in course of time. He was not sent back in any of his examinations,
+as most young sailors are, and the board once went the length of
+complimenting him on his answers. The fact was, Jack held to his word
+of doing his best; he got into no mischief and was the smartest sailor
+afloat. He was in consequence a favourite with the owners, and Captain
+Druce took pains with him and brought him on in seamanship and
+navigation, and showed him how to take observations, and all the rest
+of it. There's no end of difference in merchant-captains in this
+respect: some teach their junior officers nothing. Jack finally passed
+triumphantly for master, and hoped his time would come to receive a
+command. Meanwhile he went out again as first mate on the _Rose of
+Delhi_.
+
+One spring morning there came news to Mrs. Dean from Timberdale. The
+Rector had had another stroke and was thought to be near his end. She
+started off at once, with Alice. Charles Ashton had had a living given
+to him; and Herbert Tanerton was now his stepfather's curate. Herbert
+had passed as shiningly in mods and divinity and all the rest of it as
+Jack had passed before the Marine Board. He was a steady, thoughtful,
+serious young man, did his duty well in the parish, and preached better
+sermons than ever the Rector had. Mrs. Dean, who looked upon him as
+Alice's husband as surely as though they were married, was as proud of
+his success as though it had been her own.
+
+The Rector was very ill and unable to leave his bed. His intellect was
+quite gone now. Mrs. Dean sat with him most of the day, leaving Alice to
+be taken care of by Herbert. They went about together just as always,
+and were on the best of confidential terms; and came over to the
+Coneys', and to us when we were at Crabb Cot.
+
+"Herbert," said Mrs. Dean one evening when she had all her soft, sugary
+manner upon her and was making the young parson believe she had no
+one's interest at heart in the world but his: "my darling boy, is it not
+almost time you began to think of marriage? None know the happiness and
+comfort brought by a good wife, dear, until they experience it."
+
+Herbert looked taken aback. He turned as red as a school-girl, and
+glanced half-a-moment at Alice, like a detected thief.
+
+"I must wait until I have a living to think of that, Aunt Dean."
+
+"Is it necessary, Herbert? I should have thought you might bring a wife
+home to the Rectory here."
+
+Herbert turned the subject with a jesting word or two, and got out
+of his redness. Aunt Dean was eminently satisfied; his confusion and
+his hasty glance at Alice had told tales; and she knew it was only a
+question of time.
+
+The Rector died. When the grass was long and the May-flowers were in
+bloom and the cuckoo was singing in the trees, he passed peacefully to
+his Rest. Just before death he recovered speech and consciousness; but
+the chief thing he said was that he left his love to Jack.
+
+After the funeral the will was opened. It had not been touched
+since that long past year when Jack had gone away to sea. Out of the
+eight-hundred a year descended from their mother, Jack had a hundred
+and fifty; Herbert the rest. Aunt Dean made a hideous frown for once in
+her life; a hundred and fifty pounds a year for Jack, was only, as she
+looked upon it, so much robbery on Herbert and Alice. Out of the little
+money saved by the Rector, five hundred pounds were left to his sister,
+Rebecca Dean; the rest was to be divided equally between Herbert and
+Jack; and his furniture and effects went to Herbert. On the whole, Aunt
+Dean was tolerably satisfied.
+
+She was a woman who liked strictly to keep up appearances, and she made
+a move to leave the young parson at the end of a week or two's time, and
+go back to Liverpool. Herbert did not detain her. His own course was
+uncertain until a fresh Rector should be appointed. The living was in
+the gift of a neighbouring baronet, and it was fancied by some that he
+might give it to Herbert. One thing did surprise Mrs. Dean; angered
+her too: that Herbert had not made his offer to Alice before their
+departure. Now that he had his own fortune at command, there was no
+necessity to wait for a living.
+
+News greeted them on their arrival. The _Rose of Delhi_ was on her way
+home once more, with John Tanerton in command. Captain Druce had been
+left behind at Calcutta, dangerously ill. Alice's colour came and went.
+She looked out for the homeward-bound vessels passing upwards, and felt
+quite sick with anxiety lest Jack should fail in any way, and never
+bring home the ship at all.
+
+"The _Rose of Delhi_, Captain Tanerton." Alice Dean cast her eyes on the
+shipping news in the morning paper, and read the announcement amidst the
+arrivals. Just for an instant her sight left her.
+
+"Mamma," she presently said, quietly passing over the newspaper, "the
+_Rose of Delhi_ is in."
+
+"The _Rose of Delhi_, Captain Tanerton," read Mrs. Dean. "The idea of
+their sticking in Jack's name as captain! He will have to go down again
+as soon as Captain Druce returns. A fine captain I dare say he has
+made!"
+
+"At least he has brought the ship home safely and quickly," Alice
+ventured to say. "It must have passed after dark last night."
+
+"Why after dark?"
+
+Alice did not reply--Because I was watching till daylight faded--which
+would have been the truth. "Had it passed before, some of us might have
+seen it, mamma."
+
+The day was waning before Jack came up. Captain Tanerton. Jack was never
+to go back again to his chief-mateship, as Aunt Dean had surmised, for
+the owners had given him permanent command of the _Rose of Delhi_. The
+last mail had brought news from Captain Druce that he should never be
+well enough for the command again, and the owners were only too glad to
+give it to the younger and more active man. Officers and crew alike
+reported that never a better master sailed than Jack had proved himself
+on this homeward voyage.
+
+"Don't you think I have been very lucky on the whole, Aunt Dean? Fancy a
+young fellow like me getting such a beautiful ship as that!"
+
+"Oh, very lucky," returned Aunt Dean.
+
+Jack looked like a captain too. He was broad and manly, with an
+intelligent, honest, handsome face, and the quick keen eye of a sailor.
+Jack was particular in his attire too: and some sailors are not so: he
+dressed as a gentleman when on shore.
+
+"Only a hundred and fifty left to me!" cried Jack, when he was told the
+news. "Well, perhaps Herbert may require more than I, poor fellow," he
+added in his good nature; "he may not get a good living, and then he'll
+be glad of it. I shall be sure to do well now I've got the ship."
+
+"You'll be at sea always, Jack, and will have no use for money," said
+Mrs. Dean.
+
+"Oh, I don't know about having no use for it, Aunt. Anyway, my father
+thought it right to leave it so, and I am content. I wish I could have
+said farewell to him before he died!"
+
+A few more days, and Aunt Dean was thrown on her beam-ends at a
+worse angle than ever the _Rose of Delhi_ hoped to be. Jack and Alice
+discussed matters between themselves, and the result was disclosed to
+her. They were going to be married.
+
+It was Alice who told her. Jack had just left, and she and her mother
+were sitting together in the summer twilight. At first Mrs. Dean thought
+Alice was joking: she was like a mad woman when she found it true. Her
+great dream had never foreshadowed this.
+
+"How dare you attempt to think of so monstrous a thing, you wicked girl?
+Marry your own brother-in-law!--it would be no better. It is Herbert
+that is to be your husband."
+
+Alice shook her head with a smile. "Herbert would not have me, mamma;
+nor would I have him. Herbert will marry Grace Coney."
+
+"Who?" cried Mrs. Dean.
+
+"Grace Coney. They have been in love with each other ever so many years.
+I have known it all along. He will marry her as soon as his future is
+settled. I had promised to be one of the bridesmaids, but I suppose I
+shall not have the chance now."
+
+"Grace Coney--that beggarly girl!" shrieked Mrs. Dean. "But for her
+uncle's giving her shelter she must have turned out in the world when
+her father died and earned her living how she could. She is not a lady.
+She is not Herbert's equal."
+
+"Oh yes, she is, mamma. She is a very nice girl and will make him a
+perfect wife. Herbert would not exchange her for the richest lady in the
+land."
+
+"If Herbert chooses to make a spectacle of himself, you never shall!"
+cried poor Mrs. Dean, all her golden visions fast melting into air. "I
+would see that wicked Jack Tanerton at the bottom of the sea first."
+
+"Mother, dear, listen to me. Jack and I have cared for each other for
+years and years, and we should neither of us marry any one else. There
+is nothing to wait for; Jack is as well off as he will be for years to
+come: and--and we have settled it so, and I hope you will not oppose
+it."
+
+It was a cruel moment for Aunt Dean. Her love for other people had been
+all pretence, but she did love her daughter. Besides that, she was
+ambitious for her.
+
+"I can never let you marry a sailor, Alice. Anything but that."
+
+"It was you who made Jack a sailor, mother, and there's no help for it,"
+said Alice, in low tones. "I would rather he had been anything else in
+the world. I should have liked him to have had land and farmed it. We
+should have done well. Jack had his four hundred a year clear, you know.
+At least, he ought to have had it. Oh, mother, don't you see that while
+you have been plotting against Jack you have plotted against me?"
+
+Aunt Dean felt sick with memories that were crowding upon her. The
+mistake she had made was a frightful one.
+
+"You cannot join your fate to Jack's, Alice," she repeated, wringing her
+hands. "A sailor's wife is too liable to be made a widow."
+
+"I know it, mother. I shall share his danger, for I am going out in the
+_Rose of Delhi_. The owners have consented, and Jack is fitting up a
+lovely little cabin for me that is to be my own saloon."
+
+"My daughter sail over the seas in a merchant ship!" gasped Aunt Dean.
+"Never!"
+
+"I should be no true wife if I could let my husband sail without me.
+Mother, it is you alone who have carved out our destiny. Better have
+left it to God."
+
+In a startled way, her heart full of remorse, she was beginning to see
+it; and she sat down, half fainting, on a chair.
+
+"It is a miserable prospect, Alice."
+
+"Mother, we shall get on. There's the hundred and fifty a year certain,
+you know. That we shall put by; and, as long as I sail with him, a good
+deal more besides. Jack's pay is settled at twenty pounds a month, and
+he will make more by commission: perhaps as much again. Have no fear for
+us on that score. Jack has been unjustly deprived of his birthright; and
+I think sometimes that perhaps as a recompense Heaven will prosper him."
+
+"But the danger, Alice! The danger of a sea-life!"
+
+"Do you know what Jack says about the danger, mother? He says God is
+over us on the sea as well as on land and will take care of those who
+put their trust in Him. In the wildest storm I will try to let that
+great truth help me to feel peace."
+
+Alas for Aunt Dean! Arguments slipped away from her hands just as her
+plans had slipped from them. In her bitter repentance, she lay on the
+floor of her room that night and asked God to have pity upon her, for
+her trouble seemed greater than she could bear.
+
+The morning's post brought news from Herbert. He was made Rector of
+Timberdale. Aunt Dean wrote back, telling him what had taken place, and
+asking, nay, almost commanding, that he should restore an equal share
+of the property to Jack. Herbert replied that he should abide by his
+stepfather's will. The living of Timberdale was not a rich one, and he
+wished Grace, his future wife, to be comfortable. "Herbert was always
+intensely selfish," groaned Aunt Dean. Look on which side she would,
+there was no comfort.
+
+The _Rose of Delhi_, Captain Tanerton, sailed out of port again,
+carrying also with her Mrs. Tanerton, the captain's wife. And Aunt Dean
+was left to bemoan her fate, and wish she had never tried to shape out
+other people's destinies. Better, as Alice said, that she had left that
+to God.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL.
+
+
+We had to make a rush for it. And making a rush did not suit the Squire,
+any more than it does other people who have come to an age when the
+body's heavy and the breath nowhere. He reached the train, pushed
+head-foremost into a carriage, and then remembered the tickets. "Bless
+my heart?" he exclaimed, as he jumped out again, and nearly upset a lady
+who had a little dog in her arms, and a mass of fashionable hair on her
+head, that the Squire, in his hurry, mistook for tow.
+
+"Plenty of time, sir," said a guard who was passing. "Three minutes to
+spare."
+
+Instead of saying he was obliged to the man for his civility, or
+relieved to find the tickets might still be had, the Squire snatched out
+his old watch, and began abusing the railway clocks for being slow. Had
+Tod been there he would have told him to his face that the watch was
+fast, braving all retort, for the Squire believed in his watch as he did
+in himself, and would rather have been told that _he_ could go wrong
+than that the watch could. But there was only me: and I wouldn't have
+said it for anything.
+
+"Keep two back-seats there, Johnny," said the Squire.
+
+I put my coat on the corner furthest from the door, and the rug on the
+one next to it, and followed him into the station. When the Squire
+was late in starting, he was apt to get into the greatest flurry
+conceivable; and the first thing I saw was himself blocking up the
+ticket-place, and undoing his pocket-book with nervous fingers. He had
+some loose gold about him, silver too, but the pocket-book came to his
+hand first, so he pulled it out. These flurried moments of the Squire's
+amused Tod beyond everything; he was so cool himself.
+
+"Can you change this?" said the Squire, drawing out one from a roll of
+five-pound notes.
+
+"No, I can't," was the answer, in the surly tones put on by
+ticket-clerks.
+
+How the Squire crumpled up the note again, and searched in his breeches
+pocket for gold, and came away with the two tickets and the change, I'm
+sure he never knew. A crowd had gathered round, wanting to take their
+tickets in turn, and knowing that he was keeping them flurried him all
+the more. He stood at the back a moment, put the roll of notes into his
+case, fastened it and returned it to the breast of his over-coat, sent
+the change down into another pocket without counting it, and went out
+with the tickets in hand. Not to the carriage; but to stare at the big
+clock in front.
+
+"Don't you see, Johnny? exactly four minutes and a half difference," he
+cried, holding out his watch to me. "It is a strange thing they can't
+keep these railway clocks in order."
+
+"My watch keeps good time, sir, and mine is with the railway. I think it
+is right."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Johnny. How dare you! Right? You send your watch to
+be regulated the first opportunity, sir; don't _you_ get into the habit
+of being too late or too early."
+
+When we finally went to the carriage there were some people in it, but
+our seats were left for us. Squire Todhetley sat down by the further
+door, and settled himself and his coats and his things comfortably,
+which he had been too flurried to do before. Cool as a cucumber was
+he, now the bustle was over; cool as Tod could have been. At the other
+door, with his face to the engine, sat a dark, gentleman-like man of
+forty, who had made room for us to pass as we got in. He had a large
+signet-ring on one hand, and a lavender glove on the other. The other
+three seats opposite to us were vacant. Next to me sat a little man with
+a fresh colour and gold spectacles, who was already reading; and beyond
+him, in the corner, face to face with the dark man, was a lunatic.
+That's to mention him politely. Of all the restless, fidgety, worrying,
+hot-tempered passengers that ever put themselves into a carriage to
+travel with people in their senses, he was the worst. In fifteen moments
+he had made as many darts; now after his hat-box and things above his
+head; now calling the guard and the porters to ask senseless questions
+about his luggage; now treading on our toes, and trying the corner seat
+opposite the Squire, and then darting back to his own. He wore a wig of
+a decided green tinge, the effect of keeping, perhaps, and his skin was
+dry and shrivelled as an Egyptian mummy's.
+
+A servant, in undress livery, came to the door, and touched his hat,
+which had a cockade on it, as he spoke to the dark man.
+
+"Your ticket, my lord."
+
+Lords are not travelled with every day, and some of us looked up. The
+gentleman took the ticket from the man's hand and slipped it into his
+waistcoat pocket.
+
+"You can get me a newspaper, Wilkins. The _Times_, if it is to be had."
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"Yes, there's room here, ma'am," interrupted the guard, sending the door
+back for a lady who stood at it. "Make haste, please."
+
+The lady who stepped in was the same the Squire had bolted against.
+She sat down in the seat opposite me, and looked at every one of us by
+turns. There was a sort of violet bloom on her face and some soft white
+powder, seen plain enough through her veil. She took the longest gaze at
+the dark gentleman, bending a little forward to do it; for, as he was in
+a line with her, and also had his head turned from her, her curiosity
+could only catch a view of his side-face. Mrs. Todhetley might have
+said she had not put on her company manners. In the midst of this, the
+man-servant came back again.
+
+"The _Times_ is not here yet, my lord. They are expecting the papers in
+by the next down-train."
+
+"Never mind, then. You can get me one at the next station, Wilkins."
+
+"Very well, my lord."
+
+Wilkins must certainly have had to scramble for his carriage, for we
+started before he had well left the door. It was not an express-train,
+and we should have to stop at several stations. Where the Squire and I
+had been staying does not matter; it has nothing to do with what I have
+to tell. It was a long way from our own home, and that's saying enough.
+
+"Would you mind changing seats with me, sir?"
+
+I looked up, to find the lady's face close to mine; she had spoken in
+a half-whisper. The Squire, who carried his old-fashioned notions of
+politeness with him when he went travelling, at once got up to offer her
+the corner. But she declined it, saying she was subject to face-ache,
+and did not care to be next the window. So she took my seat, and I sat
+down on the one opposite Mr. Todhetley.
+
+"Which of the peers is that?" I heard her ask him in a loud whisper, as
+the lord put his head out at his window.
+
+"Don't know at all, ma'am," said the Squire. "Don't know many of the
+peers myself, except those of my own county: Lyttleton, and Beauchamp,
+and----"
+
+Of all snarling barks, the worst was given that moment in the Squire's
+face, suddenly ending the list. The little dog, an ugly, hairy,
+vile-tempered Scotch terrier, had been kept concealed under the
+lady's jacket, and now struggled itself free. The Squire's look of
+consternation was good! He had not known any animal was there.
+
+"Be quiet, Wasp. How dare you bark at the gentleman? He will not bite,
+sir: he----"
+
+"Who has a dog in the carriage?" shrieked the lunatic, starting up in a
+passion. "Dogs don't travel with passengers. Here! Guard! Guard!"
+
+To call out for the guard when a train is going at full speed is
+generally useless. The lunatic had to sit down again; and the lady
+defied him, so to say, coolly avowing that she had hidden the dog from
+the guard on purpose, staring him in the face while she said it.
+
+After this there was a lull, and we went speeding along, the lady
+talking now and again to the Squire. She seemed to want to grow
+confidential with him; but the Squire did not seem to care for it,
+though he was quite civil. She held the dog huddled up in her lap, so
+that nothing but his head peeped out.
+
+"Halloa! How dare they be so negligent? There's no lamp in this
+carriage."
+
+It was the lunatic again, and we all looked at the lamp. It had no light
+in it; but that it _had_ when we first reached the carriage was certain;
+for, as the Squire went stumbling in, his head nearly touched the lamp,
+and I had noticed the flame. It seems the Squire had also.
+
+"They must have put it out while we were getting our tickets," he said.
+
+"I'll know the reason why when we stop," cried the lunatic, fiercely.
+"After passing the next station, we dash into the long tunnel. The idea
+of going through it in pitch darkness! It would not be safe."
+
+"Especially with a dog in the carriage," spoke the lord, in a chaffing
+kind of tone, but with a good-natured smile. "We will have the lamp
+lighted, however."
+
+As if to reward him for interfering, the dog barked up loudly, and tried
+to make a spring at him; upon which the lady smothered the animal up,
+head and all.
+
+Another minute or two, and the train began to slacken speed. It was only
+an insignificant station, one not likely to be halted at for above a
+minute. The lunatic twisted his body out of the window, and shouted for
+the guard long before we were at a standstill.
+
+"Allow me to manage this," said the lord, quietly putting him down.
+"They know me on the line. Wilkins!"
+
+The man came rushing up at the call. He must have been out already,
+though we were not quite at a standstill yet.
+
+"Is it for the _Times_, my lord? I am going for it."
+
+"Never mind the _Times_. This lamp is not lighted, Wilkins. See the
+guard, and _get it done_. At once."
+
+"And ask him what the mischief he means by his carelessness," roared out
+the lunatic after Wilkins, who went flying off. "Sending us on our road
+without a light!--and that dangerous tunnel close at hand."
+
+The authority laid upon the words "Get it done," seemed an earnest that
+the speaker was accustomed to be obeyed, and would be this time. For
+once the lunatic sat quiet, watching the lamp, and for the light that
+was to be dropped into it from the top; and so did I, and so did the
+lady. We were all deceived, however, and the train went puffing on. The
+lunatic shrieked, the lord put his head out of the carriage and shouted
+for Wilkins.
+
+No good. Shouting after a train is off never is much good. The lord
+sat down on his seat again, an angry frown crossing his face, and the
+lunatic got up and danced with rage.
+
+"I do not know where the blame lies," observed the lord. "Not with my
+servant, I think: he is attentive, and has been with me some years."
+
+"I'll know where it lies," retorted the lunatic. "I am a director on the
+line, though I don't often travel on it. This _is_ management, this is!
+A few minutes more and we shall be in the dark tunnel."
+
+"Of course it would have been satisfactory to have a light; but it is
+not of so much consequence," said the nobleman, wishing to soothe him.
+"There's no danger in the dark."
+
+"No danger! No danger, sir! I think there is danger. Who's to know
+that dog won't spring out and bite us? Who's to know there won't be
+an accident in the tunnel? A light is a protection against having our
+pockets picked, if it's a protection against nothing else."
+
+"I fancy our pockets are pretty safe to-day," said the lord, glancing
+round at us with a good-natured smile; as much as to say that none of us
+looked like thieves. "And I certainly trust we shall get through the
+tunnel safely."
+
+"And I'll take care the dog does not bite you in the dark," spoke up the
+lady, pushing her head forward to give the lunatic a nod or two that
+you'd hardly have matched for defying impudence. "You'll be good, won't
+you, Wasp? But I should like the lamp lighted myself. You will perhaps
+be so kind, my lord, as to see that there's no mistake made about it at
+the next station!"
+
+He slightly raised his hat to her and bowed in answer, but did not
+speak. The lunatic buttoned up his coat with fingers that were either
+nervous or angry, and then disturbed the little gentleman next him,
+who had read his big book throughout the whole commotion without once
+lifting his eyes, by hunting everywhere for his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Here's the tunnel!" he cried out resentfully, as we dashed with a
+shriek into pitch darkness.
+
+It was all very well for her to say she would take care of the dog, but
+the first thing the young beast did was to make a spring at me and then
+at the Squire, barking and yelping frightfully. The Squire pushed it
+away in a commotion. Though well accustomed to dogs he always fought shy
+of strange ones. The lady chattered and laughed, and did not seem to try
+to get hold of him, but we couldn't see, you know; the Squire hissed at
+him, the dog snarled and growled; altogether there was noise enough to
+deafen anything but a tunnel.
+
+"Pitch him out at the window," cried the lunatic.
+
+"Pitch yourself out," answered the lady. And whether she propelled the
+dog, or whether he went of his own accord, the beast sprang to the other
+end of the carriage, and was seized upon by the nobleman.
+
+"I think, madam, you had better put him under your mantle and keep
+him there," said he, bringing the dog back to her and speaking quite
+civilly, but in the same tone of authority he had used to his servant
+about the lamp. "I have not the slightest objection to dogs myself, but
+many people have, and it is not altogether pleasant to have them loose
+in a railway carriage. I beg your pardon; I cannot see; is this your
+hand?"
+
+It was her hand, I suppose, for the dog was left with her, and he went
+back to his seat again. When we emerged out of the tunnel into daylight,
+the lunatic's face was blue.
+
+"Ma'am, if that miserable brute had laid hold of me by so much as
+the corner of my great-coat tail, I'd have had the law of you. It is
+perfectly monstrous that any one, putting themselves into a first-class
+carriage, should attempt to outrage railway laws, and upset the comfort
+of travellers with impunity. I shall complain to the guard."
+
+"He does not bite, sir; he never bites," she answered softly, as if
+sorry for the escapade, and wishing to conciliate him. "The poor little
+bijou is frightened at darkness, and leaped from my arms unawares.
+There! I'll promise that you shall neither see nor hear him again."
+
+She had tucked the dog so completely out of sight, that no one could
+have suspected one was there, just as it had been on first entering. The
+train was drawn up to the next station; when it stopped, the servant
+came and opened the carriage-door for his master to get out.
+
+"Did you understand me, Wilkins, when I told you to get this lamp
+lighted?"
+
+"My lord, I'm very sorry; I understood your lordship perfectly, but
+I couldn't see the guard," answered Wilkins. "I caught sight of him
+running up to his van-door at the last moment, but the train began to
+move off, and I had to jump in myself, or else be left behind."
+
+The guard passed as he was explaining this, and the nobleman drew his
+attention to the lamp, curtly ordering him to "light it instantly."
+Lifting his hat to us by way of farewell, he disappeared; and the
+lunatic began upon the guard as if he were commencing a lecture to
+a deaf audience. The guard seemed not to hear it, so lost was he in
+astonishment at there being no light.
+
+"Why, what can have douted it?" he cried aloud, staring up at the lamp.
+And the Squire smiled at the familiar word, so common in our ears at
+home, and had a great mind to ask the guard where he came from.
+
+"I lighted all these here lamps myself afore we started, and I see 'em
+all burning," said he. There was no mistaking the home accent now, and
+the Squire looked down the carriage with a beaming face.
+
+"You are from Worcestershire, my man."
+
+"From Worcester itself, sir. Leastways from St. John's, which is the
+same thing."
+
+"Whether you are from Worcester, or whether you are from Jericho, I'll
+let you know that you can't put empty lamps into first-class carriages
+on this line without being made to answer for it!" roared the lunatic.
+"What's your name! I am a director."
+
+"My name is Thomas Brooks, sir," replied the man, respectfully touching
+his cap. "But I declare to you, sir, that I've told the truth in saying
+the lamps were all right when we started: how this one can have got
+douted, I can't think. There's not a guard on the line, sir, more
+particular in seeing to the lamps than I am."
+
+"Well, light it now; don't waste time excusing yourself," growled the
+lunatic. But he said nothing about the dog; which was surprising.
+
+In a twinkling the lamp was lighted, and we were off again. The lady and
+her dog were quiet now: he was out of sight: she leaned back to go to
+sleep. The Squire lodged his head against the curtain, and shut his eyes
+to do the same; the little man, as before, never looked off his book;
+and the lunatic frantically shifted himself every two minutes between
+his own seat and that of the opposite corner. There were no more
+tunnels, and we went smoothly on to the next station. Five minutes
+allowed there.
+
+The little man, putting his book in his pocket, took down a black
+leather bag from above his head, and got out; the lady, her dog hidden
+still, prepared to follow him, wishing the Squire and me, and even the
+lunatic, with a forgiving smile, a polite good morning. I had moved to
+that end, and was watching the lady's wonderful back hair as she stepped
+out, when all in a moment the Squire sprang up with a shout, and
+jumping out nearly upon her, called out that he had been robbed. She
+dropped the dog, and I thought he must have caught the lunatic's
+disorder and become frantic.
+
+It is of no use attempting to describe exactly what followed. The lady,
+snatching up her dog, shrieked out that perhaps she had been robbed
+too; she laid hold of the Squire's arm, and went with him into the
+station-master's room. And there we were: us three, and the guard, and
+the station-master, and the lunatic, who had come pouncing out too at
+the Squire's cry. The man in spectacles had disappeared for good.
+
+The Squire's pocket-book was gone. He gave his name and address at once
+to the station-master: and the guard's face lighted with intelligence
+when he heard it, for he knew Squire Todhetley by reputation. The
+pocket-book had been safe just before we entered the tunnel; the Squire
+was certain of that, having felt it. He had sat in the carriage with his
+coat unbuttoned, rather thrown back; and nothing could have been easier
+than for a clever thief to draw it out, under cover of the darkness.
+
+"I had fifty pounds in it," he said; "fifty pounds in five-pound notes.
+And some memoranda besides."
+
+"Fifty pounds!" cried the lady, quickly. "And you could travel with all
+that about you, and not button up your coat! You ought to be rich!"
+
+"Have you been in the habit of meeting thieves, madam, when travelling?"
+suddenly demanded the lunatic, turning upon her without warning, his
+coat whirling about on all sides with the rapidity of his movements.
+
+"No, sir, I have not," she answered, in indignant tones. "Have you?"
+
+"I have not, madam. But, then, you perceive I see no risk in travelling
+with a coat unbuttoned, although it may have bank-notes in the pockets."
+
+She made no reply: was too much occupied in turning out her own pockets
+and purse, to ascertain that they had not been rifled. Re-assured on the
+point, she sat down on a low box against the wall, nursing her dog;
+which had begun its snarling again.
+
+"It must have been taken from me in the dark as we went through the
+tunnel," affirmed the Squire to the room in general and perhaps the
+station-master in particular. "I am a magistrate, and have some
+experience in these things. I sat completely off my guard, a prey for
+anybody, my hands stretched out before me, grappling with that dog, that
+seemed--why, goodness me! yes he _did_, now that I think of it--that
+seemed to be held about fifteen inches off my nose on purpose to attack
+me. That's when the thing must have been done. But now--which of them
+could it have been?"
+
+He meant which of the passengers. As he looked hard at us in rotation,
+especially at the guard and station-master, who had not been in the
+carriage, the lady gave a shriek, and threw the dog into the middle of
+the room.
+
+"I see it all," she said, faintly. "He has a habit of snatching at
+things with his mouth. He must have snatched the case out of your
+pocket, sir, and dropped it from the window. You will find it in the
+tunnel."
+
+"Who has?" asked the lunatic, while the Squire stared in wonder.
+
+"My poor little Wasp. Ah, villain! beast! it is he that has done all
+this mischief."
+
+"He might have taken the pocket-book," I said, thinking it time to
+speak, "but he could not have dropped it out, for I put the window up as
+we went into the tunnel."
+
+It seemed a nonplus for her, and her face fell again. "There was the
+other window," she said in a minute. "He might have dropped it there. I
+heard his bark quite close to it."
+
+"_I_ pulled up that window, madam," said the lunatic. "If the dog did
+take it out of the pocket it may be in the carriage now."
+
+The guard rushed out to search it; the Squire followed, but the
+station-master remained where he was, and closed the door after them. A
+thought came over me that he was stopping to keep the two passengers in
+view.
+
+No; the pocket-book could not be found in the carriage. As they came
+back, the Squire was asking the guard if he knew who the nobleman was
+who had got out at the last station with his servant. But the guard did
+not know.
+
+"He said they knew him on the line."
+
+"Very likely, sir. I have not been on this line above a month or two."
+
+"Well, this is an unpleasant affair," said the lunatic impatiently; "and
+the question is--What's to be done? It appears pretty evident that your
+pocket-book was taken in the carriage, sir. Of the four passengers, I
+suppose the one who left us at the last station must be held exempt from
+suspicion, being a nobleman. Another got out here, and has disappeared;
+the other two are present. I propose that we should both be searched."
+
+"I'm sure I am quite willing," said the lady, and she got up at once.
+
+I think the Squire was about to disclaim any wish so to act; but the
+lunatic was resolute, and the station-master agreed with him. There was
+no time to be lost, for the train was ready to start again, her time
+being up, and the lunatic was turned out. The lady went into another
+room with two women, called by the station-master, and _she_ was turned
+out. Neither of them had the pocket-book.
+
+"Here's my card, sir," said the lunatic, handing one to Mr. Todhetley.
+"You know my name, I dare say. If I can be of any future assistance to
+you in this matter, you may command me."
+
+"Bless my heart!" cried the Squire, as he read the name on the card.
+"How could you allow yourself to be searched, sir?"
+
+"Because, in such a case as this, I think it only right and fair that
+every one who has the misfortune to be mixed up in it _should_ be
+searched," replied the lunatic, as they went out together. "It is a
+satisfaction to both parties. Unless you offered to search me, you
+could not have offered to search that woman; and I suspected her."
+
+"Suspected _her_!" cried the Squire, opening his eyes.
+
+"If I didn't suspect, I doubted. Why on earth did she cause her dog to
+make all that row the moment we got into the tunnel? It must have been
+done then. I should not be startled out of my senses if I heard that
+that silent man by my side and hers was in league with her."
+
+The Squire stood in a kind of amazement, trying to recall what he could
+of the little man in spectacles, and see if things would fit into one
+another.
+
+"Don't you like her look?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"No, I _don't_," said the lunatic, turning himself about. "I have a
+prejudice against painted women: they put me in mind of Jezebel. Look at
+her hair. It's awful."
+
+He went out in a whirlwind, and took his seat in the carriage, not a
+moment before it puffed off.
+
+"_Is_ he a lunatic?" I whispered to the Squire.
+
+"He a lunatic!" he roared. "You must be a lunatic for asking it, Johnny.
+Why, that's--that's----"
+
+Instead of saying any more, he showed me the card, and the name nearly
+took my breath away. He is a well-known London man, of science, talent,
+and position, and of world-wide fame.
+
+"Well, I thought him nothing better than an escaped maniac."
+
+"_Did_ you?" said the Squire. "Perhaps he returned the compliment on
+you, sir. But now--Johnny, who has got my pocket-book?"
+
+As if it was any use asking me? As we turned back to the
+station-master's room, the lady came into it, evidently resenting the
+search, although she had seemed to acquiesce in it so readily.
+
+"They were rude, those women. It is the first time I ever had the
+misfortune to travel with men who carry pocket-books to lose them, and I
+hope it will be the last," she pursued, in scornful passion, meant for
+the Squire. "One generally meets with _gentlemen_ in a first-class
+carriage."
+
+The emphasis came out with a shriek, and it told on him. Now that she
+was proved innocent, he was as vexed as she for having listened to the
+advice of the scientific man--but I can't help calling him a lunatic
+still. The Squire's apologies might have disarmed a cross-grained hyena;
+and she came round with a smile.
+
+"If any one _has_ got the pocket-book," she said, as she stroked her
+dog's ears, "it must be that silent man with the gold spectacles. There
+was no one else, sir, who could have reached you without getting up to
+do it. And I declare on my honour, that when that commotion first arose
+through my poor little dog, I felt for a moment something like a man's
+arm stretched across me. It could only have been his. I hope you have
+the numbers of the notes."
+
+"But I have not," said the Squire.
+
+The room was being invaded by this time. Two stray passengers, a
+friend of the station-master's, and the porter who took the tickets, had
+crept in. All thought the lady's opinion must be correct, and said the
+spectacled man had got clear off with the pocket-book. There was no one
+else to pitch upon. A nobleman travelling with his servant would not be
+likely to commit a robbery; the lunatic was really the man his card
+represented him to be, for the station-master's friend had seen and
+recognized him; and the lady was proved innocent by search. Wasn't the
+Squire in a passion!
+
+"That close reading of his was all a blind," he said, in sudden
+conviction. "He kept his face down that we should not know him in
+future. He never looked at one of us! he never said a word! I shall go
+and find him."
+
+Away went the Squire, as fast as he could hurry, but came back in a
+moment to know which was the way out, and where it led to. There was
+quite a small crowd of us by this time. Some fields lay beyond the
+station at the back; and a boy affirmed that he had seen a little
+gentleman in spectacles, with a black bag in his hand, making over the
+first stile.
+
+"Now look here, boy," said the Squire. "If you catch that same man, I'll
+give you five shillings."
+
+Tod could not have flown faster than the boy did. He took the stile at a
+leap; and the Squire tumbled over it after him. Some boys and men joined
+in the chase; and a cow, grazing in the field, trotted after us and
+brought up the rear.
+
+Such a shout from the boy. It came from behind the opposite hedge of the
+long field. I was over the gate first; the Squire came next.
+
+On the hedge of the dry ditch sat the passenger, his legs dangling, his
+neck imprisoned in the boy's arms. I knew him at once. His hat and gold
+spectacles had fallen off in the scuffle; the black bag was wide open,
+and had a tall bunch of something green sticking up from it; some tools
+lay on the ground.
+
+"Oh, you wicked hypocrite!" spluttered the Squire, not in the least
+knowing what he said in his passion. "Are you not ashamed to have played
+upon me such a vile trick? How dare you go about to commit robberies!"
+
+"I have not robbed you, at any rate," said the man, his voice trembling
+a little and his face pale, while the boy loosed the neck but pinioned
+one of the arms.
+
+"Not robbed me!" cried the Squire. "Good Heavens! Who do you suppose you
+have robbed, if not me? Here, Johnny, lad, you are a witness. He says he
+has not robbed me."
+
+"I did not know it was yours," said the man meekly. "Loose me, boy; I'll
+not attempt to run away."
+
+"Halloa! here! what's to do?" roared a big fellow, swinging himself over
+the gate. "Any tramp been trespassing?--anybody wanting to be took up?
+I'm the parish constable."
+
+If he had said he was the parish engine, ready to let loose buckets of
+water on the offender, he could not have been more welcome. The Squire's
+face was rosy with satisfaction.
+
+"Have you your handcuffs with you, my man?"
+
+"I've not got them, sir; but I fancy I'm big enough and strong enough to
+take _him_ without 'em. Something to spare, too."
+
+"There's nothing like handcuffs for safety," said the Squire, rather
+damped, for he believed in them as one of the country's institutions.
+"Oh, you villain! Perhaps you can tie him with cords?"
+
+The thief floundered out of the ditch and stood upon his feet. He did
+not look an ungentlemanly thief, now you came to see and hear him; and
+his face, though scared, might have been thought an honest one. He
+picked up his hat and glasses, and held them in his hand while he spoke,
+in tones of earnest remonstrance.
+
+"Surely, sir, you would not have me taken up for this slight offence! I
+did not know I was doing wrong, and I doubt if the law would condemn me;
+I thought it was public property!"
+
+"Public property!" cried the Squire, turning red at the words. "Of all
+the impudent brazen-faced rascals that are cheating the gallows, you
+must be the worst. My bank-notes public property!"
+
+"Your what, sir?"
+
+"My bank-notes, you villain. How dare you repeat your insolent
+questions?"
+
+"But I don't know anything about your bank-notes, sir," said the man
+meekly. "I do not know what you mean."
+
+They stood facing each other, a sight for a picture; the Squire with his
+hands under his coat, dancing a little in rage, his face crimson; the
+other quite still, holding his hat and gold spectacles, and looking at
+him in wonder.
+
+"You don't know what I mean! When you confessed with your last breath
+that you had robbed me of my pocket-book!"
+
+"I confessed--I have not sought to conceal--that I have robbed the
+ground of this rare fern," said the man, handling carefully the green
+stuff in the black bag. "I have not robbed you or any one of anything
+else."
+
+The tone, simple, quiet, self-contained, threw the Squire in amazement.
+He stood staring.
+
+"Are you a fool?" he asked. "What do you suppose I have to do with your
+rubbishing ferns?"
+
+"Nay, I supposed you owned them; that is, owned the land. You led me to
+believe so, in saying I had robbed you."
+
+"What I've lost is a pocket-book, with ten five-pound bank-notes in it;
+I lost it in the train; it must have been taken as we came through the
+tunnel; and you sat next but one to me," reiterated the Squire.
+
+The man put on his hat and glasses. "I am a geologist and botanist, sir.
+I came here after this plant to-day--having seen it yesterday, but then
+I had not my tools with me. I don't know anything about the pocket-book
+and bank-notes."
+
+So that was another mistake, for the botanist turned out of his pockets
+a heap of letters directed to him, and a big book he had been reading in
+the train, a treatise on botany, to prove who he was. And, as if to
+leave no loophole for doubt, one stepped up who knew him, and assured
+the Squire there was not a more learned man in his line, no, nor one
+more respected, in the three kingdoms. The Squire shook him by the hand
+in apologizing, and told him we had some valuable ferns near Dyke Manor,
+if he would come and see them.
+
+Like Patience on a monument, when we got back, sat the lady, waiting to
+see the prisoner brought in. Her face would have made a picture too,
+when she heard the upshot, and saw the hot Squire and the gold
+spectacles walking side by side in friendly talk.
+
+"I think still he must have got it," she said, sharply.
+
+"No, madam," answered the Squire. "Whoever may have taken it, it was not
+he."
+
+"Then there's only one man, and that is he whom you have let go on in
+the train," she returned decisively. "I thought his fidgety movements
+were not put on for nothing. He had secured the pocket-book somewhere,
+and then made a show of offering to be searched. Ah, ha!"
+
+And the Squire veered round again at this suggestion, and began to
+suspect he had been doubly cheated. First, out of his money, next out of
+his suspicions. One only thing in the whole bother seemed clear; and
+that was, that the notes and case had gone for good. As, in point of
+fact, they had.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were on the chain-pier at Brighton, Tod and I. It was about eight
+or nine months after. I had put my arms on the rails at the end,
+looking at a pleasure-party sailing by. Tod, next to me, was bewailing
+his ill-fortune in not possessing a yacht and opportunities of
+cruising in it.
+
+"I tell you No. I don't want to be made sea-sick."
+
+The words came from some one behind us. It seemed almost as though they
+were spoken in reference to Tod's wish for a yacht. But it was not
+_that_ that made me turn round sharply; it was the sound of the voice,
+for I thought I recognized it.
+
+Yes: there she was. The lady who had been with us in the carriage that
+day. The dog was not with her now, but her hair was more amazing than
+ever. She did not see me. As I turned, she turned, and began to walk
+slowly back, arm-in-arm with a gentleman. And to see him--that is, to
+see them together--made me open my eyes. For it was the lord who had
+travelled with us.
+
+"Look, Tod!" I said, and told him in a word who they were.
+
+"What the deuce do they know of each other?" cried Tod with a frown, for
+he felt angry every time the thing was referred to. Not for the loss of
+the money, but for what he called the stupidity of us all; saying always
+had _he_ been there, he should have detected the thief at once.
+
+I sauntered after them: why I wanted to learn which of the lords he was,
+I can't tell, for lords are numerous enough, but I had had a curiosity
+upon the point ever since. They encountered some people and were
+standing to speak to them; three ladies, and a fellow in a black glazed
+hat with a piece of green ribbon round it.
+
+"I was trying to induce my wife to take a sail," the lord was saying,
+"but she won't. She is not a very good sailor, unless the sea has its
+best behaviour on."
+
+"Will you go to-morrow, Mrs. Mowbray?" asked the man in the glazed hat,
+who spoke and looked like a gentleman. "I will promise you perfect
+calmness. I am weather-wise, and can assure you this little wind will
+have gone down before night, leaving us without a breath of air."
+
+"I will go: on condition that your assurance proves correct."
+
+"All right. You of course will come, Mowbray?"
+
+The lord nodded. "Very happy."
+
+"When do you leave Brighton, Mr. Mowbray?" asked one of the ladies.
+
+"I don't know exactly. Not for some days."
+
+"A muff as usual, Johnny," whispered Tod. "That man is no lord: he is a
+Mr. Mowbray."
+
+"But, Tod, he _is_ the lord. It is the one who travelled with us;
+there's no mistake about that. Lords can't put off their titles as
+parsons can: do you suppose his servant would have called him 'my lord,'
+if he had not been one?"
+
+"At least there is no mistake that these people are calling him Mr.
+Mowbray now."
+
+That was true. It was equally true that they were calling her Mrs.
+Mowbray. My ears had been as quick as Tod's, and I don't deny I was
+puzzled. They turned to come up the pier again with the people, and the
+lady saw me standing there with Tod. Saw me looking at her, too, and
+I think she did not relish it, for she took a step backward as one
+startled, and then stared me full in the face, as if asking who I might
+be. I lifted my hat.
+
+There was no response. In another moment she and her husband were
+walking quickly down the pier together, and the other party went on to
+the end quietly. A man in a tweed suit and brown hat drawn low over his
+eyes, was standing with his arms folded, looking after the two with a
+queer smile upon his face. Tod marked it and spoke.
+
+"Do you happen to know that gentleman?"
+
+"Yes, I do," was the answer.
+
+"Is he a peer?"
+
+"On occasion."
+
+"On occasion!" repeated Tod. "I have a reason for asking," he added; "do
+not think me impertinent."
+
+"Been swindled out of anything?" asked the man, coolly.
+
+"My father was, some months ago. He lost a pocket-book with fifty pounds
+in it in a railway carriage. Those people were both in it, but not then
+acquainted with each other."
+
+"Oh, weren't they!" said the man.
+
+"No, they were not," I put in, "for I was there. He was a lord then."
+
+"Ah," said the man, "and had a servant in livery no doubt, who came up
+my-lording him unnecessarily every other minute. He is a member of the
+swell-mob; one of the cleverest of the _gentleman_ fraternity, and the
+one who acts as servant is another of them."
+
+"And the lady?" I asked.
+
+"She is a third. They have been working in concert for two or three
+years now; and will give us trouble yet before their career is stopped.
+But for being singularly clever, we should have had them long ago. And
+so they did not know each other in the train! I dare say not!"
+
+The man spoke with quiet authority. He was a detective come down from
+London to Brighton that morning; whether for a private trip, or on
+business, he did not say. I related to him what had passed in the train.
+
+"Ay," said he, after listening. "They contrived to put the lamp out
+before starting. The lady took the pocket-book during the commotion she
+caused the dog to make, and the lord received it from her hand when he
+gave her back the dog. Cleverly done! He had it about him, young sir,
+when he got out at the next station. _She_ waited to be searched, and to
+throw the scent off. Very ingenious, but they'll be a little too much so
+some fine day."
+
+"Can't you take them up?" demanded Tod.
+
+"No."
+
+"I will accuse them of it," he haughtily said. "If I meet them again on
+this pier----"
+
+"Which you won't do to-day," interrupted the man.
+
+"I heard them say they were not going for some days."
+
+"Ah, but they have seen you now. And I think--I'm not quite sure--that
+he saw me. They'll be off by the next train."
+
+"Who are _they_?" asked Tod, pointing to the end of the pier.
+
+"Unsuspecting people whose acquaintance they have casually made here.
+Yes, an hour or two will see Brighton quit of the pair."
+
+And it was so. A train was starting within an hour, and Tod and I
+galloped to the station. There they were: in a first-class carriage: not
+apparently knowing each other, I verily believe, for he sat at one door
+and she at the other, passengers dividing them.
+
+"Lambs between two wolves," remarked Tod. "I have a great mind to warn
+the people of the sort of company they are in. Would it be actionable,
+Johnny?"
+
+The train moved off as he was speaking. And may I never write another
+word, if I did not catch sight of the man-servant and his cockade in the
+next carriage behind them!
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+DICK MITCHEL.
+
+
+I did not relate this story by my own wish. To my mind there's nothing
+very much in it to relate. At the time it was written the newspapers
+were squabbling about farmers' boys and field labour and political
+economy. "And," said a gentleman to me, "as you were at the top and tail
+of the thing when it happened, and are well up in the subject generally,
+Johnny Ludlow, you may as well make a paper of it." That was no other
+than the surgeon, Duffham.
+
+About two miles from Dyke Manor across the fields, but in the opposite
+direction to that of the Court where the Sterlings lived, Elm Farm was
+situated. Mr. Jacobson lived in it, as his father had lived before him.
+The property was not their own; they rented it: it was fine land, and
+Jacobson had the reputation of being the best farmer for miles round.
+Being a wealthy man, he had no need to spare money on house or land, and
+did not spare it. He and the Squire were about the same age, and had
+been cronies all their lives.
+
+Not to go into extraneous matter, I may as well say at once that one
+of the labourers on Jacobson's farm was a man named John Mitchel. He
+lived in a cottage not far from us--a poor place consisting of two
+rooms and a wash-house; they call it back'us there--and had to walk
+nearly two miles to his work of a morning. Mitchel was a steady man
+of thirty-five, with a round head and not any great amount of brains
+inside it. Not but what he had as much brains as many labourers have,
+and quite enough for the sort of work his life was passed in. There
+were six children; the eldest, Dick, ten years old; and most of them
+had straw-coloured hair, the pattern of their father's.
+
+Just before the turn of harvest one hot summer, John Mitchel presented
+himself at Mr. Jacobson's house in a clean smock frock, and asked a
+favour. It was, that his boy, Dick, should be taken on as ploughboy. Old
+Jacobson objected, saying the boy was too young and little. Little he
+might be, Mitchel answered, but not too young--warn't he ten? The lad
+had been about the farm for some time as scarecrow: that is, employed
+to keep the birds away: and had a shilling a week for it. Old Jacobson
+stood to what he said, however, and little Dick did not get his
+promotion.
+
+But old Jacobson got no peace. Every opportunity Mitchel could get, or
+dare to use, he began again, praying that Dick might be tried. The boy
+was "cute," he said; strong enough also, though little; and if the
+master liked to pay him only fourpence a day, they'd be grateful for
+it; 'twould be a help, and was wanted badly. All of no use: old
+Jacobson still said No.
+
+One afternoon during this time, we started to go to the Jacobsons' after
+a one-o'clock dinner,--I and Mrs. Todhetley. She was fond of going
+over to an early tea there, but not by herself, for part of the way
+across the fields was lonely. Considering that she had been used to
+the country, she was a regular coward as to lonely walks, expecting to
+see tramps or robbers at every corner. In passing the row of cottages
+in Duck Lane, for we took that road, we saw Hannah Mitchel leaning
+over the footboard of her door to look after her children, who were
+playing near the pond in the sunshine with a lot more; quite a heap
+of the little reptiles, all badly clad and as dirty as pigs. Other
+labourers' dwellings stood within hail, and the children seemed to
+spring up in the place thicker than wheat; Mrs. Mitchel's was quite a
+small family, reckoning by comparison, but how the six were clothed
+and fed was a mystery, out of Mitchel's wages of ten shillings a week.
+It was thought good pay. Old Jacobson was liberal, as farmers go. He
+paid the best wages; gave all his labourers a stunning big portion of
+home-fed pork at Christmas, with fuel to cook it: and his wife was
+good to the women when they fell sick.
+
+Mrs. Todhetley stopped to speak. "Is it you, Hannah Mitchel? Are you
+pretty well?"
+
+Hannah Mitchel stood upright and dropped a curtsey. She had a bundle in
+her arms, which proved to be the baby, then not much above a fortnight
+old.
+
+"Dear me! it's very early for it to be about," said Mrs. Todhetley,
+touching its little red cheeks. "And for you too."
+
+"It is, ma'am; but what's to be done?" was the answer. "When there's
+only one pair of hands for everything, one can't afford to lie by long."
+
+"You seem but poorly," said Mrs. Todhetley, looking at her. She was
+a thin, dark-haired woman, with a sensible face. Before she married
+Mitchel, she had lived as under-nurse in a gentleman's family, where she
+picked up some idea of good manners.
+
+"I be feeling a bit stronger, thank you," said the woman. "Strength
+don't come back to one in a day, ma'am."
+
+The Mitchel children were sidling up, attracted by the sight of the
+lady. Four young grubs in tattered garments.
+
+"I can't keep 'em decent," said the mother, with a sigh of apology.
+"I've not got no soap nor no clothes to do it with. They come on so
+fast, and make such a many, one after another, that it's getting a hard
+pull to live anyhow."
+
+Looking at the children; remembering that, with the father and mother,
+there were eight mouths to feed, and that the man's wages were the ten
+shillings a week all the year round (but there were seasons when he did
+over-work and earned more), Mrs. Todhetley might well give her assenting
+answer with an emphatic nod.
+
+"We was hoping to get on a bit better," resumed the wife; "but Mitchel
+he says the master don't seem to like to listen. A'most a three weeks it
+be now since Mitchel first asked it him."
+
+"In what way better?"
+
+"By putting little Dick to the plough, ma'am. He gets a shilling a week
+now, he'd got two then, perhaps three, and 'twould be such a help to us.
+Some o' the farmers gives fourpence halfpenny a day to a ploughboy, some
+as much as sixpence. The master he bain't one of the near ones; but Dick
+be little of his age, he don't grow fast, and Mitchel telled the master
+he'd take fourpence a day and be thankful for't."
+
+Thoughts were crowding into Mrs. Todhetley's mind--as she mentioned
+afterwards. A child of ten ought to be learning and playing; not working
+from twelve to fourteen hours a day.
+
+"It would be a hard life for him."
+
+"True, ma'am, at first; but he'd get used to it. I could have wished the
+summer was coming on instead o the winter--'twould be easier for him to
+begin upon. Winter mornings be so dark and cold."
+
+"Why not let him wait until the next winter's over?"
+
+The very suggestion brought tears into Hannah Mitchel's eyes. "You'd
+never say it, ma'am, if you knew how bad his wages is wanted and the
+help they'd be. The older children grows, the more they wants to eat;
+and we've got six of 'em now. What would you, ma'am?--they don't bring
+food into the world with 'em; they must help to earn it for themselves
+as quick as anybody can be got to hire 'em. Sometimes I wonder why God
+should send such large families to us poor people."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley was turning to go on her way, when the woman in a timid
+voice said: "Might she make bold to ask, if she or Squire Todhetley
+would say a good word to Mr. Jacobson about the boy: that it would be
+just a merciful kindness."
+
+"We should not like to interfere," replied Mrs. Todhetley. "In any case
+I could not do it with a good heart: I think it would be so hard upon
+the poor little boy."
+
+"Starving's harder, ma'am."
+
+The tears came running down her cheeks with the answer; and they won
+over Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+Crossing the high, crooked, awkward stile--over which, in coming the
+other way, if people were not careful they generally pitched head
+first into Duck Lane--we found ourselves in what was called the square
+paddock, a huge piece of land, ploughed last year. The wheat had been
+carried from it only this afternoon, and the gleaners in their cotton
+bonnets were coming in. On, from thence, across other fields and stiles;
+we went a little out of our way to call at Glebe Cottage--a small white
+house that lay back amidst the fields--and inquire after old Mrs. Parry,
+who had just had a stroke.
+
+Who should be at Elm Farm, when we got in, but the surgeon, Duffham:
+come on there from paying his daily visit to Mrs. Parry. He and old
+Jacobson were in the green-house, looking at the grapes: a famous crop
+they had that year; not ripe yet. Mrs. Jacobson sat at the open window
+of the long parlour, making a new jelly-bag. She was a pleasant-faced
+old lady, with small flat silver curls and a net cap.
+
+Of course they got talking about little Dick Mitchel. Duffham knew the
+boy; seeing that when a doctor was wanted at the Mitchels', it was he
+who attended. Mrs. Todhetley told exactly what had passed: and old
+Jacobson--a tall, portly man, with a healthy colour--grew nearly purple
+in the face, disputing.
+
+Dick Mitchel would be of as good as no use for the team, he said, and
+the carters put shamefully upon those young ones. In another year the
+boy would be stronger and bigger. Perhaps he would take him then.
+
+"For my part, I cannot think how the mothers can like their poor boys to
+go out so young," cried the old lady, looking up from her flannel bag.
+"A ploughboy's life is very hard in winter."
+
+"Hannah Mitchel says it has to be one of two things--early work or
+starving," said Mrs. Todhetley. "And that's pretty true."
+
+"Labourers' boys are born to it, ma'am, and so it comes easy to 'em: as
+skinning does to eels," cried Duffham quaintly.
+
+"Poor things, yes. But it is very hard upon the children. The worst is,
+all the labourers seem to have no end of them. Hannah Mitchel has just
+said she sometimes wonders why God should send so many to poor people."
+
+This was an unfortunate remark. To hear the two gentlemen laugh, you'd
+have thought they were at a Christmas pantomime. Old Jacobson brought
+himself up in a kind of passion.
+
+What business, in the name of all that was imprudent, had these poor
+people to have their troops of children, he asked. They knew quite well
+they could not feed them; that the young ones would be three-parts
+starved in their earlier years, and in their later ones come to the
+parish and be a burden on the community. Look at this same man, Mitchel.
+His grandfather, a poor miserable labourer, had a troop of children;
+Mitchel's father had a troop, twelve; _he_, Mitchel, had six, and
+seemed to be going on fair for six more. There was no reason in it. Why
+couldn't they be content with a moderate number, three or four, that
+might have a chance of finding room in the world? It was not much less
+than a crime for these men, next door to paupers themselves, to launch
+their tens and their dozens of boys and girls into life, and then turn
+round and say, Why does God send them? Nice kind of logic, that was!
+
+And so he kept on, for a good half-hour, Duffham helping him. _He_
+brought up the French peasantry: saying our folks ought to take a lesson
+from them. You don't see whole flocks of children over there, cried
+Duffham. One, or two, or at most three, would be found to comprise the
+number of a family. And why? Because the French were a prudent race.
+They knew there was no provision for superfluous children; no house-room
+at home, or food, or clothing; and no parish pay to fall back upon: they
+knew that however many children they had they must provide for them:
+they didn't set up, of themselves, a regiment of little famishing
+mouths, and then charge it on Heaven; they were not so reckless and
+wicked. Yes, he must repeat it, wicked; and the two ladies listening
+would endorse the word if they knew half the deprivation and the
+sufferings these poor small mortals were born to; he saw enough of it,
+having to be often amongst them.
+
+"Why don't you tell the parents this, doctor?"
+
+Tell them! returned Duffham. He _had_ told them; told them till his
+tongue was tired of talking.
+
+Any way, the little things were grievously to be pitied, was what the
+two ladies answered.
+
+"I have often wished it was not a sin to drown the superfluous little
+mites as we do kittens," wound up Duff.
+
+One of the ladies dropped the jelly-bag, the other shrieked out, Oh!
+
+"For their sakes," he added. "It's true, upon my word of honour. Of
+all wrongs the world sees, never was there a worse wrong than the one
+inflicted on these inoffensive children by the parents, in bringing them
+into it. God help the little wretches! man can't do much."
+
+And so they talked on. The upshot was, that old Jacobson stood to his
+word, and declined to make Dick Mitchel a ploughboy yet awhile.
+
+We had tea at four o'clock--at which fashionable people may laugh;
+considering that it was real tea, not the sham one lately come into
+custom. Mrs. Todhetley wanted to get home by daylight, and the summer
+evenings were shortening. Never was brown bread-and-butter so sweet as
+the Jacobsons': we used to say it every time we went; and the home-baked
+rusks were better than Shrewsbury cake. They made Mrs. Todhetley put two
+or three in her bag for Hugh and Lena.
+
+Old Duff went with us across the first field, turning off there to
+take the short-cut to his home. It was a warm, still, lovely evening,
+the moon rising. The gleaners were busy in the square paddock: Mrs.
+Todhetley spoke to some as we passed. At the other end, near the crooked
+stile, two urchins stood fighting, the bigger one trying to take a small
+armful of wheat from the other. I went to the rescue, and the marauder
+made off as fast as his small bare feet would carry him.
+
+"He haven't gleaned, hisself, and wants to take mine," said the little
+one, casting up his big grey eyes to us appealingly through the tears.
+He was a delicate-looking pale-faced boy of nine, or so, with light
+hair.
+
+"Very naughty of him," said Mrs. Todhetley. "What's your name?"
+
+"It's Dick, lady."
+
+"Dick--what?"
+
+"Dick Mitchel."
+
+"Dear me--I thought I had seen the face before," said Mrs. Todhetley to
+me. "But there are so many boys about here, Johnny; and they all look
+pretty much alike. How old are you, Dick?"
+
+"I'm over ten," answered Dick, with an emphasis on the over. Children
+catch up ideas, and no doubt he was as eager as the parents could be to
+impress on the world his fitness to be a ploughboy.
+
+"How is it that you have been gleaning, Dick?"
+
+"Mother couldn't, 'cause o' the babby. They give me leave to come on
+since four o'clock: and I've got all this."
+
+Dick looked at the stile and then at his bundle of wheat, so I took it
+while he got over. As we went on down the lane, Mrs. Todhetley inquired
+whether he wanted to be a ploughboy. Oh yes! he answered, his face
+lighting up, as if the situation offered some glorious prospect. It 'ud
+be two shilling a week; happen more; and mother said as he and Totty and
+Sam and the t'others 'ud get treacle to their bread on Sundays then.
+Apparently Mrs. Mitchel knew how to diplomatize.
+
+"I'll give him one of the rusks, I think, Johnny," whispered Mrs.
+Todhetley.
+
+But while she was taking it from the bag, he ran in with his wheat. She
+called to him to come back, and gave him one. His mother had taken the
+wheat from him, and looked out at the door with it in her hands. Seeing
+her, Mrs. Todhetley went up, and said Mr. Jacobson would not at present
+do anything. The next minute Mitchel appeared pulling at his straw hair.
+
+"It is hard lines," he said, humbly, "when the lad's of a' age to be
+earning, and the master can't be got to take him on. And me to ha'
+worked on the same farm, man and boy; and father afore me."
+
+"Mr. Jacobson thinks the boy would not be strong enough for the work."
+
+"Not strong enough, and him rising eleven!" exclaimed Mitchel, as if
+the words were some dreadful aspersion on Dick. "How can he be strong
+if he gets no work to make him strong, ma'am? Strength comes with the
+working--and nobody don't oughtn't to know that better nor the master.
+Anyhow, if he _don't_ take him, it'll be cruel hard lines for us."
+
+Dick was outside, dividing the rusk with a small girl and boy, all three
+seated in the lane, and looking as happy over the rusk as if they had
+been children in a fairy tale. "It's Totty," said he, pausing in the
+work of division to speak, "and that 'un's Sam." Mrs. Todhetley could
+not resist the temptation of finding two more rusks, which made one
+apiece.
+
+"He is a good-natured little fellow, Johnny," she remarked, as we went
+along. "Intelligent, too: in that he takes after his mother."
+
+"Would it be wrong to let him go on the farm as ploughboy?"
+
+"Johnny, I don't know. I'd rather not give an opinion," she added,
+looking right before her into the moon, as if seeking for one there. "Of
+course he is not old enough or big enough, practically speaking; but on
+the other hand, where there are so many mouths to feed, it seems hard
+not to let him earn money if he can earn it. The root of the evil lies
+in there being so many mouths--as was said at Mr. Jacobson's this
+afternoon."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was winter before I heard anything more of the matter. Tod and I got
+home for Christmas. One day in January, when the skies were lowering,
+and the air was cold and raw, but not frosty, I was crossing a field on
+old Jacobson's land then being ploughed. The three brown horses at the
+work were as fine as you'd wish to see.
+
+"You'll catch it smart on that there skull o' yourn, if ye doan't keep
+their yeads straight, ye young divil."
+
+The salutation was from the man at the tail of the plough to the boy at
+the head of the first horse. Looking round, I saw little Mitchel. The
+horses stopped, and I went up to him. Hall, the ploughman, took the
+opportunity to beat his arms. I dare say they were cold enough.
+
+"So your ambition is attained, is it, Dick? Are you satisfied?"
+
+Dick seemed not to understand. He was taller, but the face looked
+pinched, and there was never a smile on it.
+
+"Do you like being a ploughboy?"
+
+"It's hard and cold. Hard always; frightful cold of a morning."
+
+"How's Totty?"
+
+The face lighted up just a little. Totty weren't any better, but she
+didn't die; Jimmy did. Which was Jimmy?--Oh, Jimmy was after Nanny, next
+to the babby.
+
+"What did Jimmy die of?"
+
+Whooping cough. They'd all been bad but him--Dick. Mother said he'd had
+it when he was no older nor the babby.
+
+Whether the whooping-cough had caused an undue absorption of Mitchel's
+means, certain it was, Dick looked famished. His cheeks were thin, his
+hands blue.
+
+"Have you been ill, Dick?"
+
+No, he had not been ill. 'Twas Jimmy and the t'others.
+
+"He's the incapablest little villain I ever had put me to do with,"
+struck in the ploughman. "More lazy nor a fattened pig."
+
+"Are you lazy, Dick?"
+
+I think an eager disclaimer was coming out, but the boy remembered in
+time who was present--his master, the ploughman.
+
+"Not lazy wilful," he said, bursting into tears. "I does my best: mother
+tells me to."
+
+"Take that, you young sniveller," said Hall, dealing him a good sound
+slap on the left cheek. "And now go on: ye know ye've got this lot to go
+through to-day."
+
+He took hold of the plough, and Dick stretched up his poor trembling
+hands to the first horse to guide him. I am sure the boy _was_ trying to
+do his best; but he looked weak and famished and ill.
+
+"Why did you strike him, Hall? He did nothing to deserve it."
+
+"He don't deserve nothing else," was Hall's answer. "Let him alone, and
+the furrows 'ud be as crooked as a dog's leg. You dun' know what these
+young 'uns be for work, sir.--Keep 'em in the line, you fool!"
+
+Looking back as I went down the field, I watched the plough going
+slowly up it, Dick seeming to have his hands full with the well-fed
+horses.
+
+"Yes, I heard the lad was taken on, Johnny," Mrs. Todhetley said when I
+told her that evening. "Mitchel prevailed with his master at last. Mr.
+Jacobson is good-hearted, and knew the Mitchels were in sore need of the
+extra money the boy would earn. Sickness makes a difference to the poor
+as well as to the rich."
+
+I saw Dick Mitchel three or four times during that January. The
+Jacobsons had two nephews staying with them from Oxfordshire, and it
+caused us to go over often. The boy seemed a weak little mite for the
+place; but of course, having undertaken the work, he had to do it. He
+was no worse off than others. To be at the farm before six o'clock, he
+had to leave home at half-past five, taking his breakfast with him,
+which was chiefly dry bread. As to the boy's work, it varied--as those
+acquainted with the executive of a busy farm can tell you. Besides the
+ploughing, he had to pump, and carry water and straw, and help with the
+horses, and go errands to the blacksmith's and elsewhere, and so on.
+Carters and ploughmen do not spare their boys; and on a large farm like
+this they are the immediate rulers, not the master himself. Had Dick
+been under Mr. Jacobson's personal eye, perhaps it might have been
+lightened a little, for he was a humane man. There were three things
+that made it seem particularly hard for Dick Mitchel, and those three
+were under no one's control; his natural weakliness, his living so far
+from the farm, and its being winter weather. In summer the work is
+nothing like as hard for the boys; and it was a great pity that Dick had
+not first entered on his duties in that season to get inured to them
+before the winter. Mr. Jacobson gave him the best wages--three shillings
+a week. Looking at the addition it must have seemed to Mitchel's ten, it
+was little wonder he had not ceased to petition old Jacobson.
+
+The Jacobsons were kind to the boy--as I can affirm. One cold day when I
+was over there with the nephews, shooting birds, we went into the best
+kitchen at twelve o'clock for some pea-soup. They were going to carry
+the basins into the parlour, but we said we'd rather eat it there by the
+big blazing fire. Mrs. Jacobson came in. I can see her now, with a soft
+white woollen kerchief thrown over her shoulders to keep out the cold,
+and her net cap above her silver curls. We were getting our second
+basinfuls.
+
+"Do have some, aunt," said Fred. "It's the best you ever tasted."
+
+"No, thank you, Fred. I don't care to spoil my dinner."
+
+"It won't spoil ours."
+
+She laughed a little, and stood looking from the window into the
+fold-yard, saying presently that she feared the frost was going to set
+in now in earnest, which would not be pleasant for their journey.--For
+this was the last day of the nephews' stay, and she was going home with
+them for a week. There had been no very severe cold all the winter;
+which was a shame because of the skating; if the ponds had a thin
+coating of ice on them one day, it would all melt the next.
+
+"Bless me! there's that poor child sitting out in the cold! What is he
+eating?--his dinner?"
+
+Her words made us look from the window. Dick Mitchel had put himself
+down by the distant pig-sty, and seemed to be eating something that he
+held in his hands. He was very white--as might be seen even from where
+we stood.
+
+"Mary," said she to one of the servants, "go and call that boy in."
+
+Little Mitchel came in; pinched and blue. His clothes were thin, not
+half warm enough for the weather; an old red woollen comforter was
+twisted round his neck. He took off his battered drab hat, and put his
+bread into it.
+
+"Is that your dinner?" asked Mrs. Jacobson.
+
+"Yes'm," said Dick, pulling the forelock of his light hair.
+
+"But why did you not go home to-day?"
+
+"Mother said there was nothing but bread for dinner to-day, and she give
+it me to bring away with my breakfast."
+
+"Well, why did you sit out in the cold? You might have gone indoors
+somewhere to eat it."
+
+"I were tired, 'm," was all Dick answered.
+
+To look at him, one would say the "tired" state was chronic. He was
+shivering slightly with the cold; his teeth chattered. Mrs. Jacobson
+took his hand, and put him to sit on a low wooden stool close to the
+fire, and gave him a basin of pea-soup.
+
+"Let him have more if he can eat it," she said to Mary when she went
+away. So the boy for once was well warmed and fed.
+
+Now, it may be thought that Mrs. Jacobson, being a kind old lady, might
+have told him to come in for some soup every cold day. And perhaps her
+will was good to do it. But it would never have answered. There were
+boys on the farm besides Dick, and no favour could be shown to one more
+than to another. No, nor to the boys more than to the men. Nor to the
+men on this farm more than to the men on that. Old Jacobson would
+have had his brother farmers pulling his ears. Those of you who are
+acquainted with the subject will know all this.
+
+And there's another thing I had better say. In telling of Dick Mitchel,
+it will naturally sound like an exceptional or isolated case, because
+those who read have their attention directed to this one and not to
+others. But, in actual fact, Dick's was only one of a great many; the
+Jacobsons had employed ploughboys and other boys always; lots of them;
+some strong and some weak, just as the boys might happen to be. For a
+young boy to be out with the plough in the cold winter weather, seems
+nothing to a farmer and a farmer's men: it lies in the common course of
+events. He has to get through as he best can; he must work to eat; and
+as a compensating balance there comes the warmth and the easy work of
+summer. Dick Mitchel was only one of the race; the carter and ploughman,
+his masters, had begun life exactly as he had, had gone through the same
+ordeal, the hardships of a long winter's day and the frost and snow.
+Dick Mitchel was as capable of his duties as many another had been.
+Dick's father had been little and weakly in his boyhood, but he got over
+that and grew as strong as the rest of them. Dick might have got over
+it, too, but for some extraordinary weather that set in.
+
+Mrs. Jacobson had been in Oxfordshire a week when old Jacobson started
+to fetch her home, intending to stay there two or three days. The
+weather since she left had been going on in the same stupid way; a thin
+coating of snow to be seen one day, the green of the fields the next.
+But on the morning after old Jacobson started, the frost set in with a
+vengeance, and we got our skates out. Another day came in, and the
+Squire declared he had never felt anything to equal the cold. We had not
+had it as sharp for years: and then, you see, he was too fat to skate.
+The best skating was on a pond on old Jacobson's land, which they called
+the lake from its size.
+
+It was on this second day that I came across Dick Mitchel. Hastening
+home from the lake after dark--for we had skated till we couldn't see
+and then kept on by moonlight--the skates in my hand and all aglow with
+heat, who should be sitting by the bank on this side the crooked stile
+instead of getting over it, but little Mitchel. But for the moon shining
+right on his face, I might have passed without seeing him.
+
+"You are taking it airily, young Dick. Got the gout?"
+
+Dick just lifted his head and stared a little; but didn't speak.
+
+"Come! Why don't you go home?"
+
+"I'm tired," murmured Dick. "I'm cold."
+
+"Get up. I'll help you over the stile."
+
+He did as he was bid at once. We had got well on down the lane, and I
+had my hand on his shoulder to steady him, for his legs seemed to slip
+about like Punch's in the show, when he turned suddenly back again.
+
+"The harness."
+
+"The what?" I said.
+
+Something seemed the matter with the boy: it was just as if he had
+partly lost the power of speech, or had been struck stupid. I made
+out at last that he had left some harness on the ground, which he was
+ordered to take to the blacksmith's.
+
+"I'll get over for it, Dick. You stop where you are."
+
+It was lying where he had been sitting; a short strap with a broken
+buckle. Dick took it and we went on again.
+
+"Were you asleep, just now, Dick?"
+
+"No, sir. It were the moon."
+
+"What was the moon?"
+
+"I were looking into it. Mother says God's all above there: I thought
+happen I might see Him."
+
+A long explanation for Dick to-night. The recovery of the strap seemed
+to have brightened up his intellect.
+
+"You'll never see Him in this world, Dick. He sees you always."
+
+"And that's what mother says. He sees I can't do more nor my arms'll let
+me. I'd not like Him to think I can."
+
+"All right, Dick. You only do your best always; He won't fail to see
+it."
+
+I had hardly said the last words when down went Dick without warning,
+face foremost. Picking him up, I took a look into his eyes by the
+moonlight.
+
+"What did you do that for, Dick?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Is it your legs?"
+
+"Yes, it's my legs. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it when I fell under
+the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I did."
+
+After that I did not loose him; or I'm sure he would have gone down
+again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for passing it.
+
+"Don't you know your own door, Dick Mitchel?"
+
+"It's the strap," he said. "I ha' got to take it to Cawson's."
+
+"Oh, I'll step round with that. Let's see what there is to do."
+
+He seemed unwilling, saying he must take it back to Hall in the morning.
+Very well, I said, so he could. We went in at his door; and at first I
+thought I must have got into a black fog. The room was a narrow, poking
+place; but I couldn't see across it. Two children were coughing, one
+choking, one crying. Mrs. Mitchel's face, ornamented with blacks,
+gradually loomed out to view through the atmosphere.
+
+"It be the chimbley, sir. I hope you'll please to excuse it. It don't
+smoke as bad as this except when the weather's cold beyond common."
+
+"It's to be hoped it doesn't. I should call it rather miserable if it
+did."
+
+"Yes, sir. Mitchel, he says he thinks the chimbley must have frozed."
+
+"Look here, Mrs. Mitchel, I've brought Dick home: I found him sitting in
+the cold on the other side of the stile, and my belief is, he thought he
+could not get over it. He is about as weak as a young rat."
+
+"It's the frost, sir," she said. "The boys all feel it that has to be
+out and about. It'll soon be gone, Dick. This here biting cold don't
+never last long."
+
+Dick was standing against her, bending his face on her old stuff gown.
+She put her arm about him kindly.
+
+"No, it can't last long, Mrs. Mitchel. Could he not be kept indoors
+until it gives a bit--let him have a holiday? No? Wouldn't it do?"
+
+She opened her eyes wide at this. Such a thing as keeping a ploughboy at
+home for a holiday, had never entered her imagination.
+
+"Why, Master Ludlow, sir, he'd lose his place!"
+
+"But, suppose he were ill, and had to stay at home?"
+
+"Then the Lord help us, if it came to that! Please, sir, his wages might
+be stopped. I've heard of a master paying in illness, though it's not
+many of 'em as would, but I've never knowed 'em pay for holidays. The
+biting cold will go soon, Dick," she added, looking at him; "don't be
+downhearted."
+
+"I should give him a cup of hot tea, Mrs. Mitchel, and let him go to
+bed. Good night; I'm off."
+
+I should have liked to say beer instead of tea; it would have put a bit
+of strength into the boy; but I might just as well have suggested wine,
+for all they had of either. Leaving the strap at the blacksmith's--it
+was but a minute or two out of my road--I told him to send it up to
+Mitchel's as soon as it was done.
+
+"I dare say!" was what I got in answer.
+
+"Look here, Cawson: the lad's ill, and his father was not in the way. If
+you don't choose to let your boy run up with that, or take it yourself,
+you shall never have another job of work from the Squire if I can
+prevent it."
+
+"I'll send it, sir," said Cawson, coming to his senses. Not that he had
+much from us: we chiefly patronized Dovey, down in Piefinch Cut.
+
+Now, all this happened: as Duffham and others could testify if
+necessary; it is not put in to make up a story. But I never thought
+worse of Dick than that he was done over for the moment with the cold.
+
+Of all days in remembrance, the next was the worst. The cold was more
+intense--though that had seemed impossible; and a fierce wind was
+blowing that cut you in two. It kept us from skating--and that's saying
+a good deal. We got half-way to the lake, and couldn't stand it, so
+turned home again. Jacobson's team was out, braving the weather: we saw
+it at a distance.
+
+"What a fool that waggoner must be to bring out the team to-day!" cried
+Tod. "He can't do any good on this hard ground. He must be doing it for
+bravado. It is a sign his master's not at home."
+
+In the afternoon, when a good hot meal had put warmth into us, we
+thought we'd be off again; and this time gained the pond. The wind was
+like a knife; I never skated in anything like it before; but we kept on
+till dusk.
+
+Going homewards, in passing Glebe Cottage, which lay away on the left,
+we caught sight of three or four people standing before it.
+
+"What's to do there?" asked Tod of a man, expecting to hear that old
+Mrs. Parry had had a second stroke.
+
+"Sum'at's wrong wi' Jacobson's ploughboy," was the answer. "He has just
+been took in there."
+
+"Jacobson's ploughboy! Why, Tod, that must be Dick Mitchel."
+
+"And what if it is!" returned Tod, starting off again. "The youngster's
+half frozen, I dare say. Let us get home. Johnny. What are you stopping
+for?"
+
+By saying "half frozen" he meant nothing. Not a thought of real ill was
+in his mind. I went across to the house; and met Hall the ploughman
+coming out of it.
+
+"Is Dick Mitchel ill, Hall?"
+
+"He ought to be, sir; if he bain't shamming," returned Hall, crustily.
+"He have fell down five times since noon, and the last time wouldn't
+get up upon his feet again nohow. Being close a-nigh the old lady's I
+carried of him in."
+
+Hall went back to the house with me. I don't think he much liked the
+boy's looks. Dick had been put to lie on the warm brick floor before the
+kitchen fire, a blanket on his legs, and his head on a cushion. Mrs.
+Parry was ill in bed upstairs. The servant looked a stupid young country
+girl, seemingly born without wits.
+
+"Have you given him anything?" I asked her.
+
+"Please, sir, I've put the kettle on to bile."
+
+"Is there any brandy in the house?"
+
+"_Brandy!_" the girl exclaimed with wonder. No. Her missis never took
+anything stronger nor tea and water gruel.
+
+"Hall," I said, looking at the man, "some one must go for Mr. Duffham.
+And Dick's mother might as well be told."
+
+Bill Leet, a strapping young fellow standing by, made off at this,
+saying he'd bring them both. Hall went away to his team, and I stooped
+over the boy.
+
+"What is the matter, Dick? Tell me how you feel."
+
+Except that Dick smiled a little, he made no answer. His eyes, gazing up
+into mine, looked dim. The girl had taken away the candle, but the fire
+was bright. As I took one of his hands to rub it, his fingers clasped
+themselves round mine. Then he began to say something, with a pause
+between each word. I had to bend close to catch it.
+
+"He--brought--that--there--strap."
+
+"All right, Dick."
+
+"Thank--ee--sir."
+
+"Are you in any pain, Dick?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or cold?"
+
+"No."
+
+The girl came back with a candle and some hot milk in a tea-cup. I put a
+teaspoonful into Dick's mouth. But he could not swallow it. Who should
+come rushing in then but old Jones the constable, wanting to know what
+was up.
+
+"Well I never!--why, that's Mitchel's Dick!" cried Jones, peering down
+in the candle-light. "What's took _him_?"
+
+"Jones, if you and the girl will rub his hands, I'll go and get some
+brandy. We can't let him lie like this and give him nothing."
+
+Old Jones, liking the word brandy on his own score, knelt down on his
+fat gouty legs with a groan, and laid hold of one of the hands, the girl
+taking the other. I went leaping off to Elm Farm.
+
+And went for nothing. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson being out, the cellar was
+locked up, and no brandy could be got at. The cook gave me a bottle of
+gooseberry wine; which she said might do as well if hotted up.
+
+Duffham was stooping over the boy when I got back, his face long, and
+his cane lying on the ironing-board. Bill Leet had met him half-way, so
+no time was lost. He was putting something into Dick's lips with a
+teaspoon--perhaps brandy. But it ran the wrong way; out instead of in.
+Dick never stirred, and his eyes were shut. The doctor got up.
+
+"Too late, Johnny," he whispered.
+
+The words startled me. "Mr. Duffham! No?"
+
+He looked into my eyes, and nodded YES. "The exposure to-day has been
+too much for him. He is going fast."
+
+And just at that moment Hannah Mitchel came in. I have often thought
+that the extreme poor, whose lives are but one vast hardship from the
+cradle to the grave, who have to struggle always, do not feel strong
+emotion. At any rate, they don't show much. Hannah Mitchel knelt down,
+and looked quietly at the white, shrunken face.
+
+"Dicky," she said, putting his hair gently back from his brow; which now
+had a damp moisture on it. "What's amiss, Dicky?"
+
+He opened his eyes at the voice and feebly lifted one hand towards her.
+Mrs. Mitchel glanced round at the doctor's face; and I think she read
+the truth there. She gathered his poor head into her arms, and let it
+rest on her bosom. Her old black shawl was on, her bonnet fell backwards
+and hung from her neck by the strings.
+
+"Oh, Dicky! Dicky!"
+
+He lay still, looking at her. She gave one sob and choked the rest down.
+
+"Be he dying, sir?--ain't there no hope?" she cried to Mr. Duffham, who
+was standing in the blaze of the fire. And the doctor just moved his
+head for answer.
+
+There was a still hush in the kitchen. Her tears began to fall down her
+cheeks slowly and softly.
+
+"Dicky, wouldn't you like to say 'Our Father'?"
+
+"I--'ve--said--it,--mother."
+
+"You've always been a good boy, Dicky."
+
+Old Jones blew his nose; the stupid girl burst into a sob. Mr. Duffham
+told them to hush.
+
+Dick's eyes were slowly closing. The breath was very faint now, and came
+at long intervals. Presently Mr. Duffham took him from his mother, and
+laid him down flat, without the cushion.
+
+Well, he died. Poor little Dick Mitchel died. And I think, taking the
+wind and the work into consideration, that he was better off.
+
+Mr. Jacobson got back the next day. He sharply taxed the ploughman with
+the death, saying he ought to have seen the state the boy was in on that
+last bitter day, and have sent him home. But Hall declared he never
+thought anything ailed the boy, except that the cold was cutting him
+more than ordinary, just as it was cutting everybody else.
+
+The county coroner came over to hold the inquest. The jury, after
+hearing what Mr. Duffham had to say, brought it in that Richard Mitchel
+died from exposure to the cold during the recent remarkable severity of
+the weather, not having sufficient stamina to resist it. Some of the
+local newspapers took it up, being in want of matter that dreary season.
+They attacked the farmers; asking the public whether labourers' children
+were to be held as of no more value than this, in a free and generous
+country like England, and why they were made to work so young by such
+hard and wicked task-masters as the master of Elm Farm. That put the
+master of Elm Farm on his mettle. He retorted by a letter of sharp good
+sense; finishing it with a demand to know whether the farmers were
+expected to club together to provide meat and puddings gratis for the
+flocks of children that labourers chose to gather about them. The Squire
+read it aloud to every one, as the soundest letter he'd ever seen
+written.
+
+"I am afraid their view is the right one--that the children are too
+thick on the ground, poor things," sighed Mrs. Todhetley. "Any way,
+Johnny, it is very hard on the young ones to have to work as poor little
+Dick did: late and early, wet or dry: and I am glad for his sake that
+God has taken him."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT.
+
+
+This is another tale of our school life. It is not much in itself, you
+may say, but it was to lead to lasting events. Curious enough, it is, to
+sit down and trace out the beginning of things: when we _can_ trace it;
+but it is often too remote for us.
+
+Mrs. Frost died, and the summer holidays were prolonged in consequence.
+September was not far off when we met again, and gigs and carriages went
+bowling up with us and our boxes.
+
+Sanker was in the large class-room when we got in. He looked up for a
+minute, and turned his head away. Tod and I went up to him. He did shake
+hands, and it was as much as you could say. I don't think he was the
+sort of fellow to bear malice; but it took time to bring him round if
+once offended.
+
+Sanker had gone home with us to Dyke Manor when the holidays began. He
+belonged to a family in Wales (very poor they were now), and was a
+distant cousin of Mrs. Todhetley's. Before he had been with us long, a
+matter occurred that put him out, and he betook himself away from the
+Manor there and then. But I do not intend to go into that history now.
+
+Things had been queer at school towards the close of the past term.
+Petty pilferings took place: articles and money alike disappeared. A
+thief was amongst us, and no mistake: but we did not know where to look
+for him. It was to be hoped that the same thing would not occur again.
+
+"My father and Mrs. Todhetley are in the drawing-room," said Tod. "They
+are asking to see you."
+
+Sanker hesitated; but he went at last. The interview softened things a
+little, for he was civil to us when he came back again.
+
+"What's that about the plants?" he asked me.
+
+I told him what. They had been destroyed in some unaccountable manner.
+"Whether it was done intentionally, or whether moving them into the hall
+and back again did it, is not positively decided; I don't suppose it
+ever will be. You ought to have come over to that ball, Sanker, after
+all of us writing to press it."
+
+"Well," he said, coldly. "I don't care for balls. Monk was suspected,
+was he not?"
+
+"Yes. Some of us suspect him still. He was savage at being accused
+of--But never mind that"--and I pulled myself up in sudden recollection.
+"Monk has left, and we have engaged another gardener. Jenkins is not
+good for much."
+
+"Hallo! What has _he_ come back?"
+
+Ned Sanker was looking towards the door as he spoke. Two of them were
+coming in, who must have arrived at the same time--Vale and Lacketer.
+They were new ones, so to say, both having entered only last Easter.
+Vale was a tall, quiet fellow, with a fair, good-looking face and mild
+blue eyes; his friends lived at Vale Farm, about two miles off. Lacketer
+had sleek black hair, and a sharp nose; he had only an aunt, and was
+from Oxfordshire. I didn't like him. He had a way of cringing to those
+of us who were born to position in the world; but any poor friendless
+chap, who had nothing but himself and his work to get on by, he put upon
+shamefully. As for him, we couldn't find out that he'd ever had any
+relations at all, except the aunt.
+
+I looked at Sanker, to see which he alluded to; his eyes were fixed on
+Vale with a stare. Vale had not been going to leave, that the school
+knew of.
+
+"Why are you surprised that he has come back, Sanker?"
+
+"Because I--didn't suppose he _would_," said Sanker, with a pause where
+I have put it, and an uncommonly strong emphasis on the "would."
+
+It was just as though he had known something about Vale. Flashing across
+my memory came the mysterious avowal Sanker had made at our house about
+the discovery of the thief at school; and I now connected the one with
+the other. They call me a muff, I know, but I cannot help my thoughts.
+
+"Sanker! was _he_ the thief?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Ludlow," returned Sanker, in a fright. "I told you
+I'd give him a chance again, didn't I? But I never thought he would come
+back to take it."
+
+"I would have believed it of any fellow rather than of Vale."
+
+Sanker turned his face sharp, and looked at me. "Oh, would you?" said
+he, after a pause. "Well, then, you'd _better_ believe it of any other.
+Mind you do. It will be safer, Johnny Ludlow."
+
+He walked away into a group of them, as if afraid of my saying more. I
+turned out at the door leading to the playground, and came upon Tod in
+the porch.
+
+"What was that you and Sanker were saying about Vale, Johnny?"
+
+I was aware that I ought not to tell him; I knew I ought not: but I
+_did_. Tod read me always as one reads a book, and I had never attempted
+to keep from him any earthly thing.
+
+"Sanker says it was Vale. About the things lost last half. He told me,
+you know, that he had discovered who it was that took them."
+
+"What, he the thief! Vale?"
+
+"Hush, Tod. Give him another chance, as Sanker says."
+
+Tod rushed out of the porch with a bound. He had heard a movement on the
+other side the trellis-work, but was only in time to catch a glimpse of
+a tassel disappearing round the corner.
+
+We went in for noise at Worcester House just as much as they do at other
+schools; but not this afternoon. Mrs. Frost had been a favourite, and
+Sanker told us about her funeral. Things seemed to wear a mournful look.
+The servants were in black, the Doctor was in jet black, even to his
+gaiters. He wore the old style of dress always, knee breeches and
+buckles: but I have mentioned this before. We used to call him old
+Frost; this afternoon we said "the Doctor."
+
+"You can't think what it was like while the house was shut up," said
+Sanker. "Coal-pits are jolly to it. I never saw the Doctor until the
+funeral. Being the only fellow at school, was, I suppose, the reason
+they asked me to go to it. He cried ever so much over the grave."
+
+"Fancy old Frost crying!" interrupted Lacketer.
+
+"I cried too," avowed Sanker, in a short sharp tone, as if disapproving
+of the remark; and it silenced Lacketer. "She had been ailing a long
+time, as we all knew, but she only grew very ill at the last, she told
+me."
+
+"When did you see her?"
+
+"Two days before she died. Hall came to me, saying I was to go up. It
+was on Wednesday at sunset. The hot red sun was shining right into the
+room, and she sat back from it on the sofa in a white gown. It was very
+hot these holidays, and she felt at times fit to die of it: she never
+bore heat well."
+
+To hear Sanker tell this was nearly as good as a play. A solemn play I
+mean. None of us made the least noise as we stood round him: it seemed
+as if we could see Mrs. Frost's room, and her nice placid face, drawn
+back from the rays of the red hot sun.
+
+"She told me to reach a little Bible that was on the drawers, and sit
+close to her and read a chapter," continued Sanker. "It was the seventh
+of St. John's Revelation; where that verse is, that says there shall be
+no more hunger and thirst; neither shall the sun light on them nor any
+heat. She held my hand while I read it. I had complained of the light
+for her, saying what a pity it was the room had no shutters. 'You see,'
+she said, when the chapter was read, 'how soon all discomforts here
+will pass away. Give my dear love to the boys when they come back,'
+she went on. 'Tell them I should like to have seen them all and said
+good-bye. Not good-bye for ever; be sure tell them that, Sanker: I leave
+them all a charge to come to me _there_ in God's good time. Not one of
+them must fail.' And now I've told you, and it's off my mind," concluded
+Sanker, in a different voice.
+
+"Did you see her again?"
+
+"When she was in her coffin. She gave me the Bible."
+
+Sanker took it out of his pocket. His name was written in it, "Edward
+Brooke Sanker, with Mary Frost's love." She had made him promise to read
+in it daily, if he began only with one verse. He did not tell us that
+then.
+
+While we were looking at the writing, Bill Whitney came in. Some of them
+thought he had left at Midsummer. Lacketer shook hands; he made much of
+Whitney, after the fashion of his mind and manners. Old Whitney was a
+baronet, and Bill would be Sir William sometime: for his elder brother,
+John, whom we had so much liked, was dead. Bill was good-natured, and
+divided hampers from home liberally.
+
+"_I_ don't know why I am back again," he said, in answer to questions;
+"you must ask Sir John. I shall be the better for another year or two of
+it, he says. Who likes grapes?"
+
+He was beginning to undo a basket he had brought with him: it was filled
+with grapes, peaches, plums, and nectarines. Those of us who had plenty
+of fruit at home did not care to take much; but the others went in for
+it eagerly.
+
+"Our peaches are finer than these, Whitney," cried Vale.
+
+Lacketer gave Vale a push. "You big lout, mind your manners!" cried he.
+"Don't eat the peaches if you don't like 'em."
+
+"So they were," said Vale, who never answered offensively.
+
+"There! that's enough insolence from _you_."
+
+Old Vale was Sir John Whitney's tenant. Of course, according to
+Lacketer's creed, Vale deserved putting down for only speaking to
+Whitney.
+
+"He is right," said Whitney, who thought no more of being his father's
+son than he would of being a shopkeeper's. "Mr. Vale's peaches this year
+were the finest in the county. He sent my mother some, and she said they
+ought to have gone up to a London fruit-show."
+
+"I never saw such peaches as Mr. Vale's," put in Sanker, talking at
+Lacketer, and not kindly. "And the flavour was as good as the look. Mrs.
+Frost enjoyed those peaches to the last: it was almost the only thing
+she took."
+
+Vale's face shone. "We shall always be glad at home that they were so
+good this year, for her sake."
+
+Altogether, Lacketer was shut up. He stood over Whitney, who was undoing
+a small desk he had brought. Amidst the things, that lay on the ledge
+inside, was a thin, yellow, old-fashioned-looking coin.
+
+"It's a guinea," said Bill Whitney. "I mean to have a hole bored in it
+and wear it to my watch-chain."
+
+"I'd lock it up safely until then, Whitney," burst forth Snepp, who
+came from Alcester. "Or it may go after the things that were lost last
+half-year."
+
+Turning to glance at Sanker, I found he had left the room. Whitney was
+balancing the guinea on his finger.
+
+"Fore-warned, fore-armed, Snepp," he said. "Who the thief was, I can't
+think; but I advise him not to begin his game again."
+
+"Talking of warning, I should like to give one on my own score," said
+Tod. "By-gones may be by-gones; I don't wish to recur to them; but if I
+lose anything this half and can find the thief, I'll put him into the
+river."
+
+"What, to drown him?"
+
+"To duck him. I'll do it as sure as my name's Todhetley."
+
+Vale dropped his handkerchief and stooped to pick it up again. It might
+have been an accident; and the redness of his face might have come of
+stooping; but I saw Tod did not think so. Ducking is the favourite
+punishment in Worcestershire for a public offender, as all the county
+knows. When a man misbehaves himself on the race-course at Worcester,
+they duck him in the Severn underneath.
+
+"The guinea would not be of much use to any one," said Lacketer. "You
+couldn't pass it."
+
+"Oh, couldn't you, though!" answered Whitney. "You'd better try. It's
+worth twenty-one shillings, and they might give a shilling or two in for
+the antiquity of the coin."
+
+"Gentlemen."
+
+We turned to see the Doctor, standing there in his deep mourning, with
+his subdued red face. He came in to introduce a new master.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The time went on. We missed Mrs. Frost; and Hall, the crabbed woman with
+the cross face, made a mean substitute. She had it all her own way now.
+The puddings had less jam in them, and the pies hardly any fruit. Little
+Landon fell ill; and one day, after hours, when some of us went up to
+see him, we found him crying for Mrs. Frost. He was only seven; the
+youngest in the school, and made a sort of plaything of; an orphan with
+no friends to see to him much. Illness had been Mrs. Frost's great
+point. Any of us who were laid by she'd sit with half the day, reading
+nice stories, and talking to us of good things, just as our mothers
+might do. I know mine would if she had lived. However, we managed to
+get along in spite of Hall, hoping the Doctor would find her out and
+discharge her.
+
+Matters went on quietly for some weeks. No one lost anything: and we had
+almost forgotten there had been a doubt that we might lose something,
+when it occurred. The loss was Tod's--rather curious, at first sight,
+that it should be, after his threat of what he would do. And Tod, as
+they all knew, was not one to break his word. It was only half-a-crown;
+but there could be no certainty that sovereigns would not go next. Not
+to speak of the disagreeable sense of feeling the thief was amongst us
+still, and taking to his tricks again.
+
+Tod was writing to Evesham for some articles he wanted. Bill Whitney,
+knowing this, got him to add an order for some stationery for himself:
+which came back in the parcel. The account, nine-and-tenpence, was made
+out to Tod ("Joseph Todhetley, Esquire!"), half-a-crown of it being
+Whitney's portion. Bill handed him the half-crown at once; and Tod, who
+was busy with his own things and had his hands full, asked him to put it
+on the mantelpiece.
+
+The tea-bell rang, and they went away and forgot it. Only they two
+had been in the room. But others might have gone in afterwards. We
+were getting up from tea when Tod called to me to go and fetch him the
+half-crown.
+
+"It is on the mantelpiece, Johnny."
+
+I went through the passages and turned into the box-room; a place where
+knots of us gathered sometimes. But the mantelpiece had no half-crown on
+it, and I carried the news back to Tod.
+
+"Did you take it up again, Bill?" he asked of Whitney.
+
+"I didn't touch it after I put it down," said Whitney. "It was there
+when the tea-bell rang."
+
+They said I had overlooked it, and both went to the box-room. I followed
+slowly; thinking they should search for themselves. Which they did; and
+were standing with blank faces when I got in.
+
+"It has gone after my guinea," Whitney was saying.
+
+"What guinea?"
+
+"My guinea. The one you saw. That disappeared a week ago."
+
+Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything; but Tod--and I,
+too--wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked him why he had
+not spoken.
+
+"Because Lacketer--who was with me when I discovered the loss--asked me
+to be silent for a short time," said Whitney. "He has a suspicion; and
+is looking out for himself."
+
+"Lacketer has?"
+
+"He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his finger any
+minute on the fellow; but it would not do to accuse him without proof;
+and he is waiting for it."
+
+Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale.
+
+"Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself," continued Whitney. "A
+shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and said now
+he'd watch in earnest."
+
+"Who is it he suspects?" asked Tod.
+
+"He won't tell me; says it would not be fair."
+
+"Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer choose to
+be silent over your losses," said Tod, decisively. "And I'll be as good
+as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can track him."
+
+He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October evening, the
+daylight nearly gone, and the hunter's moon rising in the sky. Tod told
+about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their noise to listen to him.
+He talked himself into a passion, and said some stinging things. "He
+suspected who it was, and he heard that Lacketer suspected, and he
+fancied that another or two suspected, and one _knew_; and he thought,
+now that affairs had come to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute
+out of hand, was safe, it might be better for them all to declare their
+suspicions, and hunt the animal as they'd hunt a hare."
+
+There was a pause when Tod finished. He was about the biggest and
+strongest in the school; his voice was one of power, his manner ready
+and decisive; so that it was just as though a master spoke. Lacketer
+came out from amongst them, looking white. I could see that in the
+twilight.
+
+"Who says I suspect? Speak for yourself, Todhetley. Don't bring up my
+name."
+
+"Do you scent the fox, or don't you?" roared Tod back again, not at all
+in a humour to be crossed. "If you _do_, you must speak, and not shirk
+it. Is the whole school to lie under doubt because of one black sheep?"
+
+Tod's concluding words were drowned in noise; applause for him, murmurs
+for Lacketer. I looked round for Vale, and saw him behind the rest, as
+if preparing to make a run for it. That said nothing: he was one of
+those quiet-natured fellows who liked to keep aloof from rows. When I
+looked back again, Sanker was standing a little forward, not far from
+Lacketer.
+
+"As good speak as not, Lacketer," put in Whitney. "I don't mind telling
+now that that guinea of mine has been taken; and you know you lost a
+shilling yourself. You say you could put your finger on the fellow."
+
+"Speak!" "Speak!" "Speak!" came the shouts from all quarters. And
+Lacketer turned whiter.
+
+"There's no proof," he said. "I might have been mistaken in what I
+fancied. I _won't_ speak."
+
+"Then I shall say you are an accomplice," roared Tod, in his passion. "I
+intend to hunt the fellow to earth to-night, and I'll do it."
+
+"I don't suspect any one in particular," said Lacketer, looking as if he
+were run to earth himself. "There."
+
+Great commotion. Lacketer was hustled, but got away and disappeared.
+Sanker went after him. Tod had been turning on Sanker, saying why didn't
+_he_ speak.
+
+"Half-a-crown is half-a-crown, and I mean to get mine back again,"
+avowed Tod. "If some of you are rich enough to lose your half-crowns,
+I'm not. But it isn't that. Sovereigns may go next. It isn't _that_. It
+is the knowing that we have a light-fingered, disreputable, sneaking rat
+amongst us, whose proper place would be a reformatory, not a school for
+honest men's sons."
+
+"Name!" "Proofs!" "Proofs!" "Name!" It was as if a torrent had been let
+loose. In the midst of the lull that ensued a voice was heard, and a
+name.
+
+"_Vale._ Harry Vale."
+
+Harding was the one to say it: a clever, first-class boy. You might have
+heard a pin drop in the surprise: and Harding went on after a minute.
+
+"I beg to state that I do not accuse Vale myself. I know nothing
+whatever about the case. But I have reason to think Vale's name is the
+one that has been mentioned in connection with the losses last half."
+
+"I know it is," cried Tod, who had only wanted the lead, not choosing to
+take it himself. "Now then, Vale, make your defence if you can."
+
+I dare say you recollect how hotly you used to take up a cause when you
+were at school yourselves, not waiting to know whether it might be right
+or wrong. Mrs. Frost said to us on one of these occasions she wondered
+whether we should ever be as eager to take up heaven. They pounced upon
+Vale with an awful row. He stood with his arm round one of the trees
+behind, looking scared to death. I glanced back for Sanker, expecting
+his confirming testimony, but could not see him, and at that moment
+Lacketer appeared again, peeping round the trees. Whitney called to him.
+
+"Here, Lacketer. Was it Vale you suspected?"
+
+"As much as I did anybody else," doggedly answered Lacketer.
+
+It was taken as an affirmative. The boys believed the thief was found,
+and were mad against him. Vale spoke something, shaking and trembling
+like the leaves in the wind, but his words were drowned. He was not
+brave, and they looked ready to tear him to pieces.
+
+"My half-crown, Vale," roared Tod. "Did you take it just now?"
+
+Vale made no answer; I thought he could not. His face frightened me; the
+lips were blue and drawn, his teeth chattered.
+
+"Search his pockets."
+
+It was a simultaneous thought, for a dozen said it. Vale was turned out,
+and half-a-crown found upon him; no other money. The boys yelled and
+groaned. Tod, with his great strength, pushed them aside, as the coin
+was flung to him.
+
+"Shall I resume possession of this half-crown?" he asked of Vale,
+holding it before him in defiant mockery.
+
+"If you like. I----"
+
+Vale broke down with a gasp and a sob. His piteous aspect might have
+moved even Tod.
+
+"Look here," said he, "I don't care in general to punish a coward; I
+regard him as an abject animal beneath me: but I cannot go from my word.
+Ducking is too good for you, Vale, but you shall have it. Be off to that
+tree yonder; we'll give you so much grace. Let him start fair, boys, and
+then hound him on. It will be a fine chase."
+
+Vale, seeming to be too confused and terror-stricken to do anything but
+obey, went to the tree, and then darted away _in the direction of the
+river_. It takes time to read all this; but scarcely a minute appeared
+to have passed since Tod first came out with Whitney, and spoke of the
+half-crown. Giving Vale the fair start, the boys sprang after him, like
+a pack of hounds in full cry. Tod, the swiftest runner in the school,
+was following, when he found himself seized by Sanker. I had stayed
+behind.
+
+"Have you been accusing Vale? Are you going to duck him?"
+
+"Well?" cried Tod, angry at being stopped.
+
+"It was not Vale who took the things. Vale! He is as innocent as you
+are. You'll kill him, Todhetley; he cannot bear terror."
+
+"Who says he is innocent?"
+
+"I do. I say it on my honour. It was another fellow, whose name I've
+been suppressing. This is _your_ work, Johnny Ludlow."
+
+I felt a sudden rush of repentance. A conviction that Sanker spoke
+nothing but the truth.
+
+"You said it was Vale, Sanker."
+
+"I never did. _You_ said it. I told you you'd better believe it was any
+other rather than Vale. And I meant it."
+
+But that Sanker was not a fellow to tell a lie, I should have thought
+he told one then. The impression, resting on my memory, was that he
+acknowledged to its being Vale, if he had not exactly stated it.
+
+"You know you told me to be quiet, Sanker: you said, give him a chance."
+
+"But I thought you were speaking of another then, not Vale. I swear it
+was not Vale. He is as honest as the day."
+
+Tod, looking ready to strike me, waiting for no more explanation, was
+already off, shouting to the crew to turn, far more anxious now to save
+Vale than he had been to duck him.
+
+How he managed to arrest them, I never knew. He did do it. But for being
+the fleetest runner and strongest fellow, he could never have overtaken,
+passed, and flung himself back upon them, with his arms stretched out,
+words of explanation on his lips.
+
+The river was more than a mile away, taking the straight course over the
+fields, as a bird flies, and leaping fences and ditches. Vale went
+panting on, _for it_. It was as if his senses were scared out of him.
+Tod flew after him, the rest following on more gently. The school-bell
+boomed out to call us in for evening study, but none heeded it.
+
+"Stop, Vale! Stop!" shouted Tod. "It has been a mistake. Come back and
+hear about it. It was not you; it was another fellow. Come back, Harry;
+come back!"
+
+The more Tod shouted, the faster Vale went on. You should have seen the
+chase in the moonlight. It put us in mind of the fairy tales of Germany,
+where the phantom huntsman and his pack are seen coursing at midnight.
+Vale made for a part where the banks of the river are overshadowed by
+trees. Tod was only about thirty yards behind when he gained it; he saw
+him leap in, and heard the plunge.
+
+But when he got close, there was no sign of Vale in the water. Had he
+suddenly sunk? Tod's heart stood still with fear. The boys were coming
+up by ones and twos, and a great silence ensued. Tod stript ready to
+plunge in when Vale should rise.
+
+"Here's his cap," whispered one, picking it up from the bank.
+
+"He was a good swimmer; he must have been seized with cramp."
+
+"Look here; they say there are holes in the river, just above this bend.
+What if he has sunk into one?"
+
+"Hold your row, all of you," cried Tod, in a hoarse whisper that
+betrayed his fear. "Who's to listen with that noise?"
+
+He was listening for a sound, watching for the faintest ripple, that
+might give indication of Vale's rising. But none came. Tod stood there
+in his shirt till he shivered with cold. And the church clock struck
+seven, and then eight, and it was of no use waiting.
+
+It was a horrible feeling. Somehow we seemed, I and Tod, to be
+responsible for Vale's death, I for having mistaken Sanker; Tod for
+entering upon the threatened ducking, and hounding the boys on.
+
+The worst was to come: going back to Dr. Frost and the masters with the
+tale; breaking it to Mr. and Mrs. Vale at Vale Farm. While Tod was
+dressing himself, the rest went on slowly, no one staying by him but me
+and Sanker.
+
+"It's _your_ doing more than mine," Tod said, turning to Sanker in his
+awful distress. "If you knew who the thief was last half, you should
+have disclosed it; not have given him the opportunity to resume his
+game. Had you done so this could not have happened."
+
+"I promised him then I should proclaim him if he did resume it; I have
+told him to-night I shall do it," quietly answered Sanker. "It was
+Lacketer."
+
+"Lacketer!"
+
+"Lacketer. And since my eyes were opened, it has seemed to me that all
+yours must have been closed, not to find him out. His manner was enough
+to betray him: only, I suppose--you wanted the clue."
+
+"But, Sanker, why did you let me think it was Vale?" I asked.
+
+"_You_ made the first mistake; I let you lie under it for Lacketer's
+sake; to give him the chance," said Sanker. "Who was to foresee you
+would go and tell?"
+
+It had never passed my lips, save those few words at the time when Tod
+questioned me. Harding was the one outside the porch who had overheard
+it; but he had kept it to himself until now, when he thought the time
+had come for speaking.
+
+What was to be done?--what was to be done? It seemed as if a great
+darkness had suddenly fallen upon us, and could never again be lifted.
+We had death upon our hands.
+
+"There's just a chance," said Tod, dragging his legs along like so much
+lead, and beginning with a sort of groan. "Vale may have made for the
+land again as soon as he got in, and come out lower down. In that case
+he would run home probably."
+
+Just a chance, as Tod said. But in the depth of despair chances are
+caught at. If we cut across to the left, Vale Farm was not more than a
+mile off: and we turned to it. Absenting ourselves from school seemed as
+nothing. Tod went on with a bound now there was an object, a ray of
+hope; I and Sanker after him.
+
+"I can't go in," said Tod, when we came in front of the farm, a long,
+low house, with lights gleaming in some of the windows. "It's not
+cowardice; at least, I don't think it is. It's---- Never mind; I'll wait
+for you here."
+
+"I say," said Sanker to me, "what excuse are we to make for going in at
+this time? We can't tell the truth."
+
+_I_ could not. Harry Vale stood alone; he had neither brother nor
+sister. I could not go in and tell his mother that he was dead. She was
+sitting in one of the front parlours, sewing by the lamp. We saw her
+through the window as we stole up to look in. But there was no time for
+plotting. Footsteps approached, and we only got back on the path when
+Mr. Vale came up. He was a tall, fine man, with a fair face and blue
+eyes like his son's. What we said I hardly knew; something about being
+close by, and thought we'd call on our way home. Sanker had been there
+several times in the holidays.
+
+Mr. Vale took us in with a beaming face to his wife. They were the
+kindest-hearted people, liberal and hospitable, as most well-to-do
+farmers are. Mrs. Vale, rolling up her work, said we must take something
+to help us on our way home, and rang the bell. We never said we could
+not stop; we never said Tod was waiting outside. But there were no signs
+that Vale had gone home half-drowned.
+
+Two maids put the supper on the table, and Mrs. Vale helped them; for
+Sanker had summoned courage to say it was late for us to stop. About a
+dozen things. Cold ducks, and ham, collared-head, a big dish of custard,
+and fruit and cake. I couldn't have swallowed a morsel; the lump rising
+in my throat would have hindered it. I don't think Sanker could, for he
+said resolutely we must not sit down because of Dr. Frost.
+
+"How is Harry?" asked Mrs. Vale.
+
+"Oh, he is--very well," said Sanker, after waiting to see if I'd answer.
+"Have you seen him lately?"
+
+"Not since last Sunday week, when he and young Snepp spent the day here.
+He was looking well, and seemed in spirits. It was rather a hazard,
+sending him to school at all; Mr. Vale wanted to have him taught at
+home, as he has been until this year. But I think it is turning out for
+the best."
+
+"He gets frightened, does he not?" said Sanker, who knew what she meant.
+
+"He did," replied Mrs. Vale; "but he is growing out of it. Never was a
+braver little child born than he; but when he was four years old, he
+strolled away from his nurse into a field where a bull was grazing, a
+savage animal. What exactly happened, we never knew; that Harry was
+chased across the field by it was certain, and then tossed. The chief
+injury was to the nerves, strange though that may seem in so young a
+child. For a long time afterwards, the least alarm would put him into a
+state of terrible fear, almost a fit. But he is getting over it now."
+
+She told this for my benefit; just as if she had divined the night's
+work; Sanker knew it before. I felt sick with remorse as I listened--and
+Tod had called him a coward! Let us get away.
+
+"I wish you could stay, my lads," cried Mr. Vale; "it vexes me to turn
+you out supperless. What's this, Charlotte? Ah yes, to be sure! I wish
+you could put up the whole table for them."
+
+For Mrs. Vale had been putting up some tartlets, and gave us each a
+packet of them. "Eat them as you go along," she said. "And give my love
+to Harry."
+
+"And tell him that he must bring you both on Sunday, to spend the day,"
+added Mr. Vale. "Perhaps young Mr. Todhetley will come also. You might
+have breakfast, and go with us to church. I'll write to Dr. Frost."
+
+Outside at last; I and my shame. These good, simple-hearted people--oh,
+had we indeed, between us, made them childless? "Young Mr. Todhetley,"
+waiting amid the stubble in the outer field, came springing up to the
+fence, his face white in the light of the hunter's moon.
+
+"What a long while you have been! Well?"
+
+"Nothing," said Sanker, briefly. "No news! I don't think we've been much
+above five minutes."
+
+What a walk home it was! Mr. Blair, the out-of-school master, came down
+upon us with his thunder, but Tod seemed never to hear him. The boys,
+hushed and quiet as nature is before an impending storm, had not dared
+to tell and provoke it. I could not see Lacketer.
+
+"Where's Vale?" roared Mr. Blair, supposing he had been with us. "But
+that prayers are waiting, I'd cane all four of you. Where are you going,
+Todhetley?"
+
+"Don't stop me, Mr. Blair," said Tod, putting him aside with a quiet
+authority and a pain in his voice that made Blair stare. We called
+Blair, Baked Pie, because of his name, Pyefinch.
+
+"Read the prayers without me, please Mr Blair," went on Tod. "I must see
+Dr. Frost. If you don't know what has happened to-night, sir, ask the
+rest to tell you."
+
+He went out to his interview with the Doctor. Tod was not one to shirk
+his duty. Seeing Vale's father and mother he had shrunk from; but the
+confession to Dr. Frost he made himself. What passed between them we
+never knew: how much contrition Tod spoke, how much reproach the Doctor.
+Roger and Miles, the man-servant and boy, were called into the library,
+and sent abroad: we thought it might be to search the banks of the
+river, or give notice for it to be dragged. The next called in was
+Sanker. The next, Lacketer.
+
+But Lacketer did not answer the call. He had vanished. Mr. Blair went
+searching for him high and low, and could not find him. Lacketer had run
+away. He knew his time at Worcester House was over, and thought he'd
+save himself from dismissal. It was he who had been the thief, and whom
+Sanker suspected. As good mention here that Dr. Frost got a letter from
+his aunt the next Saturday, saying the school did not agree with her
+nephew, and she had withdrawn him from it.
+
+Whether the others slept that night, I can't tell; I did not. Harry
+Vale's drowned form was in my mind all through it; and the sorrow of Mr.
+and Mrs. Vale. In the morning Tod got up, looking more like one dead
+than alive: he had one of his frightful headaches. I felt ready to die
+myself; it seemed that never another happy morning could dawn on the
+world.
+
+"Shall I ask if I may bring you some breakfast up here, Tod? And it's
+just possible, you know, that Vale----"
+
+"Hold your peace, Johnny!" he snapped. "If ever you tell me a false
+thing of a fellow again, I'll thrash your life out of you."
+
+He came downstairs when he was dressed, and went out, waiting neither
+for breakfast nor prayers. I went out to watch him away, knowing he must
+be going to Vale Farm.
+
+Oh, I never shall forget it. As Tod passed round the corner by the
+railings, he ran up against him. _Him_, Harry Vale.
+
+My sight grew dim; I couldn't see; the field and railings were reeling.
+But it only lasted for a moment or two. Tod's breath was coming in great
+gasps then, and he had Vale's two hands grasped in his. I thought he was
+going to hug him; a loud sob broke from him.
+
+"We have been thinking you were drowned!"
+
+Vale smiled. "I am too good a swimmer for that."
+
+"But you disappeared at once."
+
+"I struck back out of the river the instant I got into it; I was afraid
+you'd come in after me; and crept round the alder trees lower down. When
+you were all gone I swam across in my clothes; see how they've shrunk!"
+
+"Swam across! Have you not been home?"
+
+"No, I went to my uncle's: it's nearer than home: and they made me go to
+bed, and dried my things, and sent to tell Dr. Frost. I did not say why
+I went into the water," added Vale, lifting his kind face. "But the
+Doctor came round the ferry late, and he knew all about it. They talked
+to me well, he and my uncle, about being frightened at nothing, and I've
+promised not to be so stupid again."
+
+"God bless you, Vale!" cried Tod. "You know it was a mistake."
+
+"Yes, Dr. Frost said so. The half-crown was my own. My uncle met us boys
+when we were out walking yesterday morning, and gave it me. I thought
+you might have seen him give it."
+
+Tod linked his arm within Vale's and walked off to the breakfast-room.
+The wonder to me was how, with Vale's good honest face and open manners,
+we could have thought him capable of theft. But when you once go in for
+a mistake it carries you on in spite of improbabilities. The boys were
+silent for an instant when Vale went in, and then you'd have thought the
+roof was coming off with cheers. Tod stood looking from the window, and
+I vow I saw him rub his handkerchief across his eyes.
+
+We went to Vale Farm on Sunday morning early: the four of us invited,
+and Harding. Mr. Vale shook hands twice with us all round so heartily,
+that we might see, I thought, they bore no malice; and Mrs. Vale's
+breakfast was a sight to do you good, with its jugs of cream and
+home-made sausages.
+
+After that, came church: it looked like a procession turning out for it.
+Mr. and Mrs. Vale and the grandmother, an upright old lady with a
+China-crape shawl and white hair, us five and a man and maid-servant
+behind. The river lay on the right, the church was in front of us;
+people dotted the fields on their way to it, and the bells were ringing
+as they do at a wedding.
+
+"This is a different sort of Sunday from what we thought last Thursday
+it would be," I said in Tod's ear when we were together for a minute at
+the gate.
+
+"Johnny, if I were older, and went in for that kind of thing, as perhaps
+I shall do sometime, I should like to put up a public thanksgiving in
+church to-day."
+
+"A public thanksgiving?"
+
+"For mercies received."
+
+I stared at Tod. He did not seem to heed it, but took his hat off and
+walked with it in his hand all across the churchyard.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+
+Perhaps this might be called the beginning of the end of the chain of
+events that I alluded to in that other paper. An end that terminated in
+distress, and death, and sorrow.
+
+It was the half-year following that hunt of ours by moonlight. Summer
+weather had come in, and we were looking forward to the holidays, hoping
+the heat would last.
+
+The half-mile field, so called from its length, on Vale Farm was being
+mowed. Sunday intervened, and the grass was left to dry until the
+Monday. The haymakers had begun to rake it into cocks. The river
+stretched past along the field on one side; a wooden fence bounded it
+on the other. It was out of all proportion, that field, so long and so
+narrow.
+
+Tod and I and Sanker and Harry Vale were spending the Sunday at the
+Farm. Since that hunt last autumn Mr. and Mrs. Vale often invited us.
+There was no evening service, and we went into the hay-field, and began
+throwing the hay at one another. It was rare fun; they might almost have
+heard our shouts at Worcester House: and I don't believe but that every
+one of us forgot it was Sunday.
+
+What with the sultry weather and the hay, some of us got into a
+tolerable heat. The river wore a tempting look; and Tod and Sanker,
+without so much as a thought, undressed themselves behind the trees,
+and plunged in. It was twilight then; the air had began to wear its
+weird silence; the shadows were putting on their ghastliness; the
+moon, well up, sailed along under white clouds.
+
+I and Vale were walking slowly back towards the Farm, when a great cry
+broke over the water,--a cry as of something in pain; but whether from
+anything more than a night-bird, was uncertain. Vale stopped and turned
+his head.
+
+A second cry: louder, longer, more distinct, and full of agony. It
+came from one of those two in the water. Vale flew back with his fleet
+foot--fleeter than any fellow's in the school, except Tod's and Snepp's.
+As I followed, a startling recollection came over me, and I wondered
+how it was that all of us had been so senseless as to forget it: that
+one particular spot on the river was known to be dangerous.
+
+"Bear up; I'm coming," shouted Vale. "Don't lose your heads."
+
+A foot-passenger walking on the other side the fence, saw something
+was wrong: if he did not hear Vale's words, he heard the cry, and came
+cutting across the field, scattering the hay with his feet. And then I
+saw it was Baked Pie; which meant our mathematical master, Mr. Blair.
+They had given him at baptism the name of "Pyefinch," after some old
+uncle who had money to leave; no second name, nothing but that: and the
+school had converted him into "Baked Pie." But I don't think fathers and
+mothers have any right to put odd names upon helpless babies and send
+them out to be a laughing-stock to the world.
+
+Blair was not a bad fellow, setting his name aside, and had gone in for
+honours at Cambridge. We reached the place together.
+
+"What is amiss, Ludlow?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. Todhetley and Sanker are in the water; and we've
+heard cries."
+
+"In the water to-night! And _there_!"
+
+Vale, already in the middle of the river, was swimming back, holding up
+Sanker. But Tod was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Blair looked up and down;
+and an awful fear came over me. The current led down to Mr. Charles
+Vale's mill--Vale's uncle. More than one man had found his death there.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Blair! where is he? What has become of him?"
+
+"Hush!" breathed Blair. He was quietly slipping off some of his things,
+his eyes fixed on a particular part of the river. In he went, striking
+out without more splash than he could help, and reached it just as Tod's
+head appeared above water. _The third time of rising._ I did not go in
+for such a girl's trick as to faint; but I never afterwards could trace
+the minutes as they had passed until Tod was lying on the grass under
+the trees. _That_ I remember always. The scene is before my eyes now as
+plainly as it was then, though more time has since gone by than perhaps
+you'd think for: the treacherous river flowing on calmly, the quivering
+leaves overhead, through which the moon was glittering, and Tod lying
+there white and motionless. Mr. Blair had saved his life; there could be
+no question about that, saved it only by a minute of time; and I thought
+to myself I'd never call him Baked Pie again.
+
+"Instead of standing moonstruck, Ludlow, suppose you make a run to the
+Farm and see what help you can get," spoke Mr. Blair. "Todhetley must be
+carried there, and put between hot blankets."
+
+Help was found. Sanker walked to the Farm, Tod was carried; and a
+regular bustle set in when they arrived there. Both were put to bed; Tod
+had come-to then. Mrs. Vale and the servants ran up and down like wild
+Indians; and the good old lady with the white hair insisted upon sitting
+up by Tod's bedside all night.
+
+"No, mother," said Mr. Vale; "some of us will do that."
+
+"My son, I tell you that I shall watch by him myself," returned the old
+lady; and, as they deferred to her always, she did.
+
+When explanation of the accident was given--as much of it as ever could
+be given--it sounded rather strange. _Both_ of them had been taken with
+cramp, and the river was not in fault, after all. Tod said that he had
+been in the water two or three minutes, when he was seized with what he
+supposed to be cramp in the legs, though he never had it before. He was
+turning to strike out for the bank, when he found himself seized by
+Sanker. They loosed each other in a minute, but Tod was helpless, and he
+sank.
+
+Sanker's story was very much the same. He was seized with cramp, and
+in his fear caught hold of Tod for protection. Tod was an excellent
+swimmer, Sanker a poor one; but while Sanker's cramp grew better, Tod's
+disabled him. Most likely, as we decided when we heard this, Sanker, who
+never went down at all, would have got out of the water without help;
+Tod would have been drowned but for Blair. He had sunk twice when the
+rescue came. Mr. Featherston, the man of pills who attended the school,
+said it was all through their having jumped into the water when they
+were in a white heat; the cold had struck to them. While Mrs. Hall, with
+her grave face, thought it was through their having gone bathing on a
+Sunday.
+
+Whatever it was through, old Frost made a commotion. He was not severe
+in general, but he raised noise enough over this. What with one thing
+and another, the school, he declared, was being everlastingly upset.
+
+Tod and Sanker came back from Mr. Vale's the next day; Monday. The
+Doctor ordered them into his study, and sat there with his cane in
+his hand while he talked, rapping the table with it now and again as
+fiercely as if it had been their backs. And the backs would surely have
+had it but for having just escaped coffins.
+
+All this would not have been much, but it was to lead to a great deal
+more. To quite a chain of events, as I have said; and to trouble and
+sorrow in the far-off ending. Hannah, at home, was fond of repeating to
+Lena what she called the sayings of poor Richard: "For want of a nail
+the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a
+horse the rider was lost; and all for the want of a little care about a
+horse-shoe nail." The horse-shoe nail and the man's loss seemed a great
+deal nearer each other than that Sunday night's accident, and what was
+eventually to come of it. A small mustard-seed, dropped into the ground,
+shoots forth and becomes in the end a great tree.
+
+On the Wednesday, who should come over but the Squire, clasping Pyefinch
+Blair's hand in his, and saying with tears in his good old eyes that he
+had saved his son's life. Old Frost, you see, had written the news to
+Dyke Manor. Tod, strong and healthy in constitution, was all right
+again, not a hair of his head the worse for it; but Sanker had not
+escaped so well.
+
+As early as the Monday night, the first night of his return home from
+Vale Farm, it began to come on; and the next morning the boys, sleeping
+in the same room, told a tale of Sanker's having been delirious. He
+had sat up in bed and woke them all up with his cries, thinking he was
+trying to swim out of deep water, and could not. Next he said he wanted
+some water to drink; they gave him one draught after another till the
+big water-jug was emptied, but his thirst kept on saying "More! more!"
+Sanker did not seem to remember any of this. He came down with the rest
+in the morning, his face very white, except for a pinkish spot in the
+middle of his cheeks, and he thought the fellows must be chaffing him.
+The fellows told him they were not; and one, it was Bill Whitney, said
+they would not think of chaffing him just after his having been so
+nearly drowned.
+
+It went on to the afternoon. Sanker ate no dinner, for I looked to see;
+he was but one amidst the many, and it was not noticed by the masters.
+And if it had been, they'd have thought that the ducking had taken away
+his appetite. The drawing-master, Wilson, followed suit with Hall, and
+said he was not surprised at their being nearly drowned, after making
+hay on the Sunday. But, about four o'clock, when the first-class were
+before Dr. Frost with their Greek books, Sanker suddenly let his fall.
+Instead of stooping for it, his eyes took a far-off look, as if they
+were seeking for it round the walls of the room.
+
+"Lay hold of him," said Dr. Frost.
+
+He did not faint, but seemed dull: it looked as much like a lazy fit
+as anything; and he was sensible. They put him to sit on one of the
+benches, and then he began to tremble.
+
+"He must be got to bed," said the Doctor. "Mr. Blair, kindly see Mrs.
+Hall, will you. Tell her to warm it. Stay. Wait a moment."
+
+Dr. Frost followed Mr. Blair from the hall. It was to say that Sanker
+had better go at once to the blue-room. If the bed there was not aired,
+or otherwise ready, Sanker's own bedding could be taken to it. "I'll
+give Mrs. Hall the orders myself," said the Doctor.
+
+The blue-room--called so from its blue-stained walls--was the one used
+on emergencies. When we found Sanker had been taken there, we made up
+our minds that he was going to have an illness. Featherston came and
+thought the same.
+
+The next day, Wednesday, he was in a sort of fever, rambling every other
+minute. The Squire said he should like to see him, and Blair took him
+upstairs. Sanker lay with the same pink hue on his cheeks, only deeper;
+and his eyes were bright and glistening. Hall, who was addicted to
+putting in her word on all occasions when it could tell against us boys,
+said if he had stayed two or three days in bed at Vale Farm, where he
+was first put, he'd have had nothing of this. Perhaps Hall was right. It
+had been Sanker's own doings to get up. When Mrs. Vale saw him coming
+downstairs, she wanted to send him back to bed again, but he told her he
+was quite well, and came off to school.
+
+Sanker knew the Squire, and put out his hand. The Squire took it without
+saying a word. He told us later that to him Sanker's face looked as if
+it had death in it. When he would have spoken, Sanker's eyes had grown
+wild again, and he was talking nonsense about his class-books.
+
+"Johnny, boy, you sit in this room a bit at times; you are patient and
+not rough," said the Squire, when he went out to his carriage, for he
+had driven over. "I have asked them to let you be up there as much as
+they can. The poor boy is very ill, and has no relatives near him."
+
+Dwarf Giles, touching his hat to Tod and me, was at the horses' heads,
+Bob and Blister. The cattle knew us: I'm sure of it. They had had
+several hours' rest in old Frost's stables while the Squire went on foot
+about the neighbourhood to call on people. Dr. Frost, standing out with
+us, admired the fine dark horses very much; at which Giles was prouder
+than if the Doctor had admired _him_. He cared for nothing in the world
+so much as those two animals, and groomed them with a will.
+
+"You'll take care that he wants for nothing, Doctor," I heard the Squire
+say as he shook hands. "Don't spare any care and expense to get him well
+again; I wish to look upon this illness as my charge. It seems something
+like an injustice, you see, that my boy should come off without damage,
+and this poor fellow be lying there."
+
+He took the reins and stepped up to his seat, Giles getting up beside
+him. As we watched the horses step off with the high step that the
+Squire loved, he looked back and nodded to us. And it struck me that, in
+this care for Sanker, the Pater was trying to make some recompense for
+the suspicion cast on him a year before at Dyke Manor.
+
+It was a sharp, short illness, the fever raging, though not infectious;
+I had never been with any one in anything like it before, and I did not
+wish to be again. To hear how Sanker's mind rambled, was marvellous; but
+some of us shivered when it came to raving. Very often he'd be making
+hay; fighting against numbers that were throwing cocks at him, while
+he could not throw back at them. Then he'd be in the water, buffeting
+with high waves, and shrieking out that he was drowning, and throwing
+his thin hot arms aloft in agony. Sometimes the trouble would be his
+lessons, hammering at Latin derivations and Greek roots; and next he was
+toiling through a problem in Euclid. One night when he was at the worst,
+old Featherston lost his head, and the next day Mr. Carden came posting
+from Worcester in his carriage.
+
+There were medical men of renown nearer; but somehow in extremity we all
+turned to him. And his skill did not fail here. Whether it might be any
+special relief he was enabled to give, or that the disease had reached
+its crisis, I cannot tell, but from the moment Mr. Carden stood at his
+bedside, Sanker began to mend. Featherston said the next day that the
+worst of the danger had passed. It seemed to us that it had just set in;
+no rat was ever so weak as Sanker.
+
+The holidays came then, and the boys went home: all but me. Sanker
+couldn't lift a hand, but he could smile at us and understand, and he
+said he should like to have me stay a bit with him; so they sent word
+from home I might. Mr. Blair stayed also; Dr. Frost wished it. The
+Doctor was subpoenaed to give evidence on a trial at Westminster, and
+had to hasten up to London. Blair had no relatives at all, and did not
+care to go anywhere. He told me in confidence that his staying there
+saved his pocket. Blair was strict in school, but over Sanker's bed
+he got as friendly with me as possible. I liked him; he was always
+gentlemanly; and I grew to dislike their calling him Baked Pie as much
+as he disliked it himself.
+
+"You go out and get some air, Ludlow," he said to me the day after the
+school broke up, "or we may have you ill next."
+
+Upon that I demanded what I wanted with air. I had taken precious long
+walks with the fellows up to the day before yesterday.
+
+"You go," said he, curtly.
+
+"Go, Johnny," said Sanker, in his poor weak voice, which couldn't raise
+itself above a whisper. "I'm getting well, you know."
+
+My way of taking the air was to sit down at one of the schoolroom desks
+and write to Tod. In about five minutes some one walked round the house
+as if looking for an entrance, and then stopped at the side-door.
+Putting my head out of the window, I took a look at her. It was a young
+lady in a plain grey dress and straw bonnet, with a cloak over her arm,
+and an umbrella put up against the sun. The back regions were turned
+inside out, for they had begun the summer cleaning that morning, and the
+cook came clanking along in pattens to answer the knock.
+
+"This is Dr. Frost's, I believe. Can I see him?"
+
+It was a sweet, calm, gentle voice. The cook, who had no notion of
+visitors arriving at the cleaning season, when the boys were just got
+rid of, and the Doctor had gone away, stared at her for a moment, and
+then asked in her surly manner whether she had business with Dr. Frost.
+That cook and old Molly at home might have run in a curricle, they were
+such a match in temper.
+
+"Business!--oh, certainly. I must see him, if you please."
+
+The cook shook off her pattens, and went up the back stairs, leaving the
+young lady outside. As it was business, she supposed she must call Mr.
+Blair.
+
+"Somebody wants Dr. Frost," was her announcement to him. "A girl at the
+side door."
+
+Which of course caused Blair to suppose it might be a child from one
+of the cottages come to ask for help of some sort; as they did come
+sometimes. He thought Hall might have been called to her, but he went
+down at once; without his coat, and his invalid-room slippers on.
+Naturally, when he saw the young lady, it took him aback.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; I hope you will not deem me an intruder. I have
+just arrived here."
+
+Blair stared almost as much as the cook had done. The face was so
+pleasant, the voice so refined, that he inwardly called himself a fool
+for showing himself to her in that trim. For once, speech failed him; a
+thing Blair had never done at mathematics, I can tell you; he had not
+the smallest notion who she was or what she wanted. And the silence
+seemed to frighten her.
+
+"Am I too late?" she asked, her face growing white. "Has the--the worse
+happened?"
+
+"Happened to what?" questioned Blair, for he never once thought of the
+sick fellow above, and was all at sea. "Pardon me, young lady, but I do
+not know what you are speaking of."
+
+"Of my brother, Edward Sanker. Oh, sir! is he dead?"
+
+"Miss Sanker! Truly I beg your pardon for my stupidity. He is out of
+danger; is getting well."
+
+She sat down for a minute on the old stone bench beyond the door,
+roughed with the crowd of boys' names cut in it. Her lips were trembling
+just a little, and the soft brown eyes had tears in them; but the face
+was breaking into a happy smile.
+
+"Oh, Dr. Frost, thank you, thank you! Somehow I never thought of him as
+dead until this moment, and it startled me."
+
+Fancy her taking him for Frost! Blair was a good-looking fellow under
+thirty, slender and well made. The Doctor stood out an old guy of fifty,
+with a stern face and black knee-breeches.
+
+"My mother had your letter, sir, but she was not able to come. My father
+is very ill, needing her attention every moment; she strove to see on
+which side her duty lay--to stay with him, or to come to Edward; and she
+thought it must lie in remaining with papa. So she sent me. I left Wales
+last night."
+
+"Is Mr. Sanker's a fever, too?" asked Blair, in wonder.
+
+"No, an accident. He was hurt in the mine."
+
+It was odd that it should be so; the two illnesses occurring at the same
+time! Mr. Sanker, it appeared, fell from the shaft; his leg was broken,
+and there were other injuries. At first they were afraid for him.
+
+Blair fell into a dilemma. He wouldn't have minded Mrs. Sanker; but he
+did not know much about young ladies, not being accustomed to them. She
+got up from the bench.
+
+"Mamma bade me say to you, Dr. Frost----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," interrupted Blair again. "I am not Dr. Frost;
+the Doctor went to London this morning. My name is Blair--one of the
+masters. Will you walk in?"
+
+He shut her into the parlour on his way to call Hall, and to put on his
+boots and coat. Seeing me, he turned into the schoolroom.
+
+"Ludlow, are not the Sankers connections of yours?"
+
+"Not of mine. Of Mrs. Todhetley's."
+
+"It's all the same. You go in and talk to her. I don't know what on
+earth to do. She has come to be with Sanker, but she won't like to
+stay here with only you and me. If the Doctor were at home it would be
+different."
+
+"She seems an uncommon nice girl, Mr. Blair."
+
+"Good gracious!" went on Blair in his dilemma. "The Doctor told me he
+had written to Wales some time ago; but he supposed Mrs. Sanker could
+not make it convenient to come; and yesterday he wrote again, saying
+there was no necessity for it, as Sanker was out of danger. I don't
+know what on earth to do with her," repeated Blair, who had a habit of
+getting hopelessly bewildered on occasions. "Hall! Where's Mrs. Hall?"
+
+As he went calling out down the flagged passage, a boy came whistling to
+the door, carrying a carpet-bag: Miss Sanker's luggage. The coach she
+had had to take on leaving the rail put her down half-a-mile away, and
+she walked up in the sun, leaving her bag to be brought after her.
+
+It seemed that we were going in for mistakes. When I went to her, and
+began to say who I was, she mistook me for Tod. It made me laugh.
+
+"Tod is a great, strong fellow, as tall as Mr. Blair, Miss Sanker. I am
+only Johnny Ludlow."
+
+"Edward has told me all about you both," she said, taking my hand, and
+looking into my face with her sweet eyes. "Tod's proud and overbearing,
+though generous; but you have ever been pleasant with him. I am afraid I
+shall begin to call you 'Johnny' at once."
+
+"No one ever calls me anything else; except the masters here."
+
+"You must have heard of me--Mary?"
+
+"But you are not Mary?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+That she was telling truth any fellow might see, and yet at first I
+hardly believed her. Sanker had told us his sister Mary was beautiful as
+an angel. _Her_ face had no beauty in it, so to say; it was only kind,
+nice, and loving. People called Mrs. Parrifer a beautiful woman; perhaps
+I had taken my notions of beauty from her; she had a Roman nose, and
+great big eyes that rolled about, had a gruff voice, and a lovely
+peach-and-white complexion (but people said it was paint), and looked
+three parts a fool. Mary Sanker was just the opposite to all this, and
+her cheeks were dimpled. But still she had not what people call beauty.
+
+"May I go up and see Edward?"
+
+"I should think so. Mr. Blair, I suppose, will be back directly. He is
+looking very ill: you will not be frightened at him?"
+
+"After picturing him in my mind as dead, he will not frighten me,
+however ill he may look."
+
+"I should say the young lady had better take off her bonnet afore going
+in. Young Mr. Sanker haven't seen bonnets of late, and might be scared."
+
+The interruption came from Hall; we turned, and saw her standing there.
+She spoke resentfully, as if Miss Sanker had offended her; and no doubt
+she had, by coming when the house was not in company order, and had
+nothing better to send in for dinner but cold mutton and half a rhubarb
+pie. Hall would have to get the mutton hashed now, which she would never
+have done for me and Blair.
+
+"Yes, if you please; I should much like to take my bonnet off," said
+Miss Sanker, going up to Hall with a smile. "I think you must be Mrs.
+Hall. My brother has talked of you."
+
+Hall took her to a room, and presently she came forth all fresh and
+nice, the travel dust gone, and her bright brown hair smooth and glossy.
+Her grey dress was soft, one that would not disturb a sick-room; it had
+a bit of white lace at the throat and wrists, and a little pearl brooch
+in front. She was twenty-one last birthday, but did not look as much.
+
+Blair had been in to prepare Sanker, and his great eyes (only great
+since his illness) were staring for her with a wild expectation. You
+never saw brother and sister less alike; the one so nice, the other ugly
+enough to frighten the crows. Sanker had my hand clasped tight in his,
+when she stooped to kiss him. I don't think he knew it; but I could not
+get away. In that moment I saw how fond they were of each other.
+
+"Could not the mother come, Mary?"
+
+"No, papa is--is not well," she said, for of course she would not tell
+him yet of any accident. "Papa wanted her there, and you wanted her
+here; she thought her duty lay at home, and she was not afraid but that
+God would raise up friends to take care of you."
+
+"What is the matter with him?"
+
+"Some complicated illness or other," Mary Sanker answered, in careless
+tones. "He was a little better when I came away. You have been very ill,
+Edward."
+
+He held up his wasted hand as proof, with a half smile; but it fell
+again.
+
+"I don't believe I should have pulled through it all, Mary, but for
+Blair."
+
+"That's the gentleman I saw. The one without a coat. Has he nursed you?"
+
+Sanker motioned with his white lips. "Right well, too. He, and Hall, and
+Johnny here. Old Hall is as good as gold when any of us are ill."
+
+"And pays herself out by being tarter than ever when we are well," I
+could not help saying: for it was the truth.
+
+"Blair saved Todhetley's life," Sanker went on. "We used to call him
+Baked Pie before, and give him all the trouble we could."
+
+"Ought you to talk, Edward?"
+
+"It is your coming that seems to give me strength for it," he answered.
+"I did not know that Frost had written home."
+
+"There was a delay with the letters, or I might have been here three
+days ago," said Miss Sanker, speaking in penitent tones, as if she were
+in the habit of taking other people's faults upon herself. "While papa
+is not well, the clerk down at the mine opens the business letters.
+Seeing one directed to papa privately, he neither spoke of it nor sent
+it up, and for three days it lay unopened."
+
+Sanker had gone off into one of his weak fits before she finished
+speaking: lying with his eyes and mouth wide open, between sleeping and
+waking. Hall came in and said with a tone that snapped Miss Sanker up,
+_it wouldn't do_: if people could not be there without talking, they
+must not be there at all. I don't say but that she was a capable nurse,
+or that when a fellow was downright ill, she spared the wine in the
+arrowroot, and the sugar in the tea. Mary Sanker sat down by the
+bedside, her finger on her lips to show that she meant to keep silence.
+
+We had visitors later. Mrs. Vale came over, as she did most days, to see
+how Sanker was getting on; and Bill Whitney brought his mother. Mrs.
+Vale told Mary Sanker that she had better sleep at the Farm, as the
+Doctor was away; she'd give her a nice room and make her comfortable.
+Upon that, Lady Whitney offered a spacious bed and dressing-room at
+the Hall. Mary thanked them both, saying how kind they were to be so
+friendly with a stranger; but thought she must go to the Farm, as it
+would be within a walk night and morning. Bill spoke up, and said the
+carriage could fetch and bring her; but Vale Farm was decided upon; and
+when night came, I went with her to show her the way.
+
+"That's the water they went into, Miss Sanker; and that's the very spot
+behind the trees." She shivered just a little as she looked, but did not
+say much. Mrs. Vale met us at the door, and the old lady kissed Mary and
+told her she was a good girl to come fearlessly all the way alone from
+Wales to nurse her sick brother. When Mary came back the next morning,
+she said they had given her such a beautiful room, the dimity curtains
+whiter than snow, and the sheets scented with lavender.
+
+Her going out to sleep appeased Hall;--that, or something else. She was
+gracious all day, and sent us in a couple of chickens for dinner. Mr.
+Blair cut them up and helped us. He had written to tell Dr. Frost in
+London of Miss Sanker's arrival, and while we were at table a telegram
+came back, saying Mrs. Hall was to take care of Miss Sanker, and make
+her comfortable.
+
+It went on so for three or four days; Mary sleeping at the Farm, and
+coming back in the morning. Sanker got well enough to be taken to a sofa
+in the pretty room that poor Mrs. Frost sat in nearly to the last; and
+we were all four growing very jolly, as intimate as if we'd known each
+other as infants. I had taken to call her Mary, hearing Sanker do it so
+often; and twice the name slipped accidentally from Mr. Blair. The news
+from Wales was better and better. For visitors we had Mrs. Vale, Lady
+Whitney, and Bill, and old Featherston. Some of them came every day. Dr.
+Frost was detained in London. The trial did not come on so soon as it
+was put down for; and when it did, it lasted a week, and the witnesses
+had to stay there. He had written to Mary, telling her to make herself
+quite happy, for she was in good hands. He also wrote to Mrs. Vale, and
+to Hall.
+
+Well, it was either the fourth or fifth day. I know it was on Monday;
+and at five o'clock we were having tea for the first time in Sanker's
+sitting-room, the table drawn near the sofa, and Mary pouring it out. It
+was the hottest of hot weather, the window was up as high as it would
+go, but not a breath of air came in. Therefore, to see Blair begin to
+shake as if he were taken with an ague, was something inexplicable. His
+face looked grey, his ears and hands had turned a sort of bluish white.
+
+"Halloa!" said Sanker, who was the first to notice him. "What's the
+matter, sir?"
+
+Blair got up, and sat down again, his limbs shaking, his teeth
+chattering. Mary Sanker hastily put some of the hot tea into a saucer,
+and held it to his lips. His teeth rattled against the china; I thought
+they would bite a piece out of it; and in trying to take the saucer from
+Miss Sanker, the tea was spilt on the carpet.
+
+"Just call Mrs. Hall, Johnny," said Sanker, who had propped himself up
+on his elbow to stare.
+
+Hall came, and Mr. Featherston came; but they could not make anything
+out of it except that Blair had had a shaking-fit. He was soon all right
+again (except for a burning heat); but the surgeon, given naturally
+to croak (or he wouldn't have got so frightened about Sanker when Mr.
+Carden was telegraphed for), said he hoped the mathematical master had
+not set in for fever.
+
+He had set in for something. That was clear. The shaking-fits took him
+now and again, giving place to spells of low fever. Featherston was
+not sure whether it had not a "typhoid character," he said; but the
+suspicion was quite enough, and our visitors fell off. Mrs. Vale was the
+only one who came; she laughed at supposing she could be afraid of it.
+So there we still were, we four; prisoners, as may be said; with some
+fever amongst us that perhaps might be of a typhoid character. Mr.
+Featherston said (or Hall, I forget which) that it must have been
+smouldering within him ever since the Sunday night when he jumped into
+the river, and Blair thought so himself.
+
+Do not imagine he was as ill as Sanker had been. Nothing of the sort. He
+got up every morning, and was in Mrs. Frost's sitting-room with us until
+evening: but he grew nearly as weak as Sanker, and wanted pretty nearly
+as much waiting on. Sometimes his hands were like a burning coal;
+sometimes so cold that Mary would take them in hers to try and rub a
+little life into them. She was the gentlest nurse possible, and did not
+seem to think anything more of waiting on him than on her brother. Mrs.
+Hall would stand by and say there was nothing left for her to do.
+
+One day Lady Whitney came over, braving the typhoid suspicion, and asked
+to see Miss Sanker in the great drawing-room; where she stood sniffing
+at a bottle of aromatic vinegar.
+
+"My dear," she said, when Mary went to her, "I do not think this is at
+all a desirable position for you to be placed in. I should not exactly
+like it for one of my own daughters. Mr. Blair is a very gentleman-like
+man, and all that, with quite proper feelings no doubt; but sitting with
+him in illness is altogether different from sitting with your brother.
+Featherston tells me there's little or no danger of infection, and I
+have come to take you back to the Hall with me."
+
+But Mary would not go. It was not the position she should have
+voluntarily chosen, but circumstances had led her into it, and she
+thought her duty lay in staying where she was at present, was the
+substance of her answer. Mr. Blair had nursed her brother through his
+dangerous illness, and it would be cruelly ungrateful to leave him, now
+that he was ill himself. It seemed a duty thrown expressly in her way,
+she added; and her mother approved of what she was doing.
+
+So Lady Whitney went away (leaving the bottle of aromatic vinegar as a
+present for the sick-room) three parts convinced. Any way, when she got
+home, she said that Mary Sanker was a sweet, good girl, trusty to her
+fingers' ends.
+
+I'm sure she was like sunshine in the room, and read to us out of the
+Bible just as Harry Vale's fine old grandmother might have done. The
+first day that Sanker took a drive in a fly, he was tired afterwards,
+and went to bed and to sleep at tea-time. Towards sunset, before I
+walked with her to the Farm, Mary took the Book as usual; and then
+hesitated, as if in doubt whether to presume to read or not, Sanker
+being away.
+
+"Oh yes; yes, if you please," said Mr. Blair.
+
+She began the tenth chapter of St. John. It is a passably long one, as
+every one knows; and when she laid the Book down again, Blair had his
+eyes shut and his head resting on the back of the easy chair where he
+generally sat. His face never looked more still and white. I glanced at
+Mary and she at me; we thought he was worse, and she went up to him.
+
+"I ought not to have read so long a chapter," she gently said. "I fear
+you are feeling worse."
+
+"No; I was only thinking. Thinking what an angel you are," he added in
+low, impassioned, yet reverent tones, as he bent forward to look up in
+her face, and took both her hands for a moment in his.
+
+She drew them away at once, saying, as she passed me, that she was going
+to put on her bonnet, and should be ready in a minute. Of course it
+might have been the reflection of the red sun-clouds, but I never saw
+any face so glowing in all my life.
+
+The next move old Featherston made, was to decide that the fever was
+_not_ of a typhoid character; and visitors came about us again. It was
+something like opening a public-house after a spell of closing; all
+the Whitneys flocked in together, except Sir John, who was in town for
+Parliament. Mrs. Hall was uncommonly short with every one. She had
+said from the first there was nothing infectious in the fever, told
+Featherston so to his face, and resented people's having stayed away. I
+wrote home to tell them there. On the Saturday Dr. Frost arrived, and we
+were glad to see him. Blair was getting rather better then.
+
+"Well, that Sunday night's plunge in the water has had its revenge!"
+remarked Dr. Frost. "It only wants Todhetley and Vale to follow suit."
+
+But neither of them had the least intention of following suit. On the
+Monday Tod arrived to surprise us, strong as ever. The Squire had
+trusted him to drive the horses: you should have seen them spanking in
+at the gate of Worcester House, pawing the gravel, as Tod in the high
+carriage, the ribbons in his hands, and the groom beside him, brought
+them up beautifully to the door. Some people called Tod ugly, saying his
+features were strong; but I know he promised to be the finest man in our
+two counties.
+
+He brought an invitation for the sick and the well. When the two
+invalids were able to get to Dyke Manor, Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley expected
+to see them, for change of air. Mary Sanker and I were to go as soon as
+we liked. Which we did in a few days, and were followed by Sanker and
+Mr. Blair: both able to help themselves then, and getting well all one
+way.
+
+It did not surprise people very much to hear that the mathematical
+master and Mary Sanker had fallen in love with one another. He (as Bill
+Whitney's mother had put in) was gentleman-like; a good-looking fellow
+to boot: and you have heard what _she_ was. The next week but one after
+arriving at Dyke Manor, Blair took Mrs. Todhetley into his confidence,
+though he had said nothing to Mary. They would be sure to marry in the
+end, she privately told the Squire, for their likeness to each other had
+struck her at first sight.
+
+"Mary will not have a shilling, Mr. Blair; she will go to her husband
+(whenever she shall marry) with even a very poor outfit," Mrs. Todhetley
+explained, wishing Blair to fully understand things. "Her father, Philip
+Sanker, was a gentleman bred and born, but his patrimony was small. He
+was persuaded to embark it in a Welsh mine, and lost all. Report said
+some roguery was at work, but I don't know that it was. It ended in his
+becoming overlooker on the very same mine, at a salary so small that
+they could hardly have reared their family anywhere but in Wales. Mary
+does not play, or draw, you see; she has no accomplishments."
+
+"She has what is a great deal better; she does not want them," answered
+Blair, his pale face lighting up.
+
+"In point of fact, the Sankers--as I fancy--have sacrificed the girls'
+interests to the boys; they of course must have a thorough education,"
+remarked Mrs. Todhetley. "They are good people, both; you could not
+fail to like them. I sometimes think, Mr. Blair, that the children of
+these refined men and women (and Philip Sanker and his wife are that),
+compelled to live closely and to look at every sixpence before it is
+spent, turn out all the better for it."
+
+"I am sure they do," answered Blair, earnestly. "It was my own case."
+
+Taking Mrs. Todhetley into confidence meant as to his means as well as
+his love. He had saved a little money during the eight years he had been
+at work for himself--about two hundred pounds. It might be possible, he
+thought, to take a school with this, and set up a tent at once: he and
+Mary. Mrs. Todhetley shook her head; she could make as much of small
+sums as any one, but fancied this would scarcely be enough for what he
+wished.
+
+"There would be the furniture," she ventured to say with some
+hesitation, not liking to damp him.
+
+"I think that is often included in the purchase-money for the
+good-will," said Blair.
+
+He had been acting on this notion before speaking to Mrs. Todhetley, and
+a friend of his in London, the Reverend Mr. Lockett, was already looking
+out for any schools that might be in the market. In a few days news came
+down of one to be disposed of in the neighbourhood of London. Mr.
+Lockett thought it was as good an investment as Blair was likely to
+find, he wrote word: only, the purchase-money, inclusive of furniture,
+was four hundred pounds instead of two.
+
+"It is of no use to think of it," said Mr. Blair, pushing his curly hair
+(they used to say he was vain of it at Frost's) from his perplexed brow.
+"My two hundred pounds will not go far towards that."
+
+"It seems to me that the first step will be to go up and see the place,"
+remarked Mrs. Todhetley. "If what Mr. Lockett says of the school be
+true; that is, if the people who have the disposal of it are not
+deceiving him; it must be a very good thing."
+
+"I suppose you mean that half the purchase-money should remain on it as
+a mortgage, to be paid off later," cried Blair, seizing the idea and
+brightening up.
+
+"No; not exactly," said Mrs. Todhetley, getting as red as a rose, for
+she did not like to tell him what she did mean; it looked rather like a
+conspiracy.
+
+"Look here, Blair," cried the Squire, taking him in the garden by the
+button-hole, "_I_ will see about the other two hundred. You go up and
+make inquiries on the spot; and perhaps I'll go too; I should like a run
+up; and if the affair is worth your while, we'll pay the money down on
+the nail, and so have done with it."
+
+It was Blair's turn to grow red now. "Do you mean, sir, that you--that
+you--would advance the half of the money? But it would be too generous.
+I have no claim on you----"
+
+"No claim on me!" burst forth the Squire, in a passion, pinning him
+against the wall of the pigeon-house. "No claim on me! When you saved my
+son from drowning only a few weeks ago! And had an ague through it! No
+claim on me! What next will you say?"
+
+"But that was nothing, sir. Any man, with the commonest feelings
+of humanity, would jump into the water if he saw a fellow-creature
+sinking."
+
+"Commonest fiddlestick!" roared the Squire. "If this school is one
+likely to answer your purpose, you put down your two hundred pounds, and
+I will see to the rest. There! We'll go up to-day."
+
+"Oh, sir, I never expected this. Perhaps in a year or two I shall be
+able to pay the money back again: but the goodness I can never repay."
+
+"Don't you trouble your head about paying me back till you're asked to
+do it," retorted the Squire, mortally offended at the notion. "If you
+are too proud to take it and say nothing about it, I'll give it to Mary
+Sanker instead of you. I will, too. Mind, sir! that half shall be your
+wife's, not yours."
+
+If you'll believe me, there were tears in old Blair's eyes. He was soft
+at times. The Squire gave him another thrust, which nearly sent Blair
+into the pigeon-house, and then walked off with his head up and his
+nankeen coat-skirts held out behind, to watch Drew give the green meat
+to the pigs. Blair got over his push, and went to find Miss Mary, his
+thin cheeks alight with a spot as red as Sanker's had worn when his
+illness was coming on.
+
+They went up to London that day. The Squire had plenty of sense when he
+chose to exercise it; and instead of trusting to his own investigation
+and Blair's (which would have been the likeliest thing for him to do in
+general) he took a lawyer to the spot.
+
+It proved to be all right. The gentleman giving up the school had made
+some money at it, and was going abroad to his friends, who had settled
+in Queensland. Any efficient man, he said to the Squire, able to _keep_
+pupils when once he had secured them, could not fail to do well at it.
+The clergyman, Mr. Lockett, had called on one or two of the parents, who
+confirmed what was asserted. Altogether it was a straightforward thing,
+but they wouldn't abate a shilling of the four hundred pounds.
+
+The Squire concluded the bargain on the spot, for other applicants were
+after it, and there was danger in delay. He came back to Dyke Manor; and
+the next thing he did was to accompany Mary Sanker home, and tell the
+news there.
+
+Mr. Blair stayed in London to take possession, and get things in order.
+He had only time for a few days' flying visit to Mr. and Mrs. Sanker in
+Wales before opening his new school. There was no opposition there:
+people are apt to judge prospects according to their own circumstances;
+and they seemed to think it a good offer for Mary.
+
+There was no opposition anywhere. Dr. Frost found a new mathematical
+master without trouble, and sent Blair his best wishes and a full set of
+plated spoons and forks and things, engraved with the initials P. M. B.
+He was wise enough to lay out the sum he wished to give in useful
+things, instead of a silver tea-pot or any other grand article of that
+kind, which would not be brought to light once a year.
+
+Blair cribbed a week's holiday at Michaelmas, and went down to be
+married. We saw them at the week's end as they passed through Worcester
+station. Mary looked the same sweet girl as ever, in the same quiet grey
+dress (or another that was related to it); and Blair was jolly. He
+clasped the Squire's hands as if he wanted to take them with him. We
+handed in a big basket of grapes and nectarines from Mrs. Todhetley; and
+Mary's nice face smiled and nodded her thanks to the last, as the train
+puffed on.
+
+"Good luck to them!" said Tod.
+
+Good luck to them. You will hear what luck they had.
+
+For this is _not_ the end of that Sunday night's work, or it would have
+hardly been worth relating, seeing that people get married every day,
+and no one thinks cheese of it but themselves. The end has to come.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+"JERRY'S GAZETTE."
+
+
+The school, taken to by Mr. Blair, was in one of the suburbs of London.
+It may be as well not to mention which of them; but some of the families
+yet living there cannot fail to remember the circumstances when they
+read this. For what I am going to tell you of is true. It did not happen
+last year; nor the year before. When it did happen, is of no consequence
+to any one.
+
+When Pyefinch Blair got into the house, he found that it had some
+dilapidations, which had escaped his notice, and would have to be
+repaired. Not an uncommon case by any means. Mr. Blair paid the four
+hundred pounds for the school, including the furniture and good-will,
+and that drained him of his money. It was not a bad bargain, as bargains
+go. He then had the house put into fair order, and bought a little more
+furniture that seemed necessary to him, intending that his boys should
+be comfortable, as well as the young wife he was soon to bring home.
+
+The school did not profess to be one of those higher-class schools
+that charge a hundred a year and extras. It was moderate in terms and
+moderate in size; the pupils being chiefly sons of well-to-do tradesmen,
+some of them living on the spot. At first, Blair (bringing with him his
+Cambridge notions) entertained thoughts of raising the school to a
+higher price and standard. But it would have been a risk; almost like
+beginning a fresh venture. And when he found that the school paid well,
+and masters and boys got on comfortably, he dropped the wish.
+
+More than two years went by. One evening, early in February, Mrs. Blair
+was sitting by the parlour fire after tea, with a great boy on her lap,
+who was forward with his tongue, and had just begun to walk with a
+totter. I don't think you could have seen much difference in _her_ from
+what she was as Mary Sanker. She had the same neat sort of dress and
+quiet manner, the fresh gentle face and sweet eyes, and the pretty,
+smooth brown hair. Her husband told her sometimes that she would spoil
+the boys with kindness. If any one fell into disgrace, she was sure to
+beg him off; it was wonderful what a good mother she was to them, and
+only twenty-four years old yet.
+
+Mr. Blair was striding the carpet with his head down, as one in
+perplexed thought, a scowl upon his brow. It was something unusual, for
+he was always bright. He was as slender and good-looking a fellow as he
+used to be. Mrs. Blair noticed him and spoke.
+
+"Have you a headache, Pyefinch?" She had long ago got over the odd sound
+of his Christian name. Habit familiarizes most things.
+
+"No."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+He did not make any answer; seemed not to hear her. Mrs. Blair put the
+boy down on the hearthrug. The child was baptized Joseph, after Squire
+Todhetley, whom they persisted in calling their best friend.
+
+"Run to papa, Joe. Ask him what the matter is."
+
+The young gentleman went swaying across the carpet, with some
+unintelligible language of his own. Mr. Blair had no resource but to
+pick him up: and he carried him back to his mother.
+
+"What is the matter, Pyefinch?" she asked again, taking his hand. "I am
+sure you are not well."
+
+"I am quite well," he said; "but I have got into a little bother lately.
+What ails me this evening is, that I find I must tell you of it, and I
+don't like to do so. There, Mary, send the child away."
+
+She knew the nursemaid was busy; would not ring, but carried him out
+herself. Mr. Blair was sitting down when she returned, staring into the
+fire.
+
+"I had hoped you would never know it, Mary; I had not intended that you
+should. The fact is----"
+
+Mr. Blair stopped. His wife glanced at him; a serene calm in her eyes, a
+firm reliance in her loving tone.
+
+"Do not hesitate, Pyefinch. The greater the calamity, the more need that
+I should hear it."
+
+"Nay, it is no such great mischief as to be called a calamity. When I
+took to this house and school, I incurred a debt, and I am suddenly
+called upon to pay it."
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Todhetley's?"
+
+A smile at the question crossed the schoolmaster's face. "Mr.
+Todhetley's was a present; I thought you understood that, Mary. When
+I would have spoken of returning it, you may remember that he went into
+a passion."
+
+"What debt is it, then?"
+
+"I paid four hundred pounds, you know, for the school; half of it I had
+saved; the other half was given by Mr. Todhetley. Well and good, so
+far. But I had not thought of one thing--the money that would be wanted
+for current expenses, and for the hundred and one odd things that stare
+you in the face upon taking to a new concern. Repairs had to be done,
+furniture to be bought in; and not a penny coming in until the end
+of the quarter: not much then, for most of the boys pay half-yearly.
+Lockett, who was down here most days, saw that if I could not get some
+money to go on with, there would be no resource but to re-sell the
+school. He bestirred himself, and got me the loan of a hundred and fifty
+pounds from a friend, at only five per cent. interest. This money I am
+suddenly called upon to repay."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because he from whom I had it is dead, and the executors have called it
+in. It was Mr Wells."
+
+She recognized the name as that of a gentleman with whom they had been
+slightly acquainted; he had died suddenly, in the prime of life.
+
+"Has any of it been paid off?"
+
+"None. I could have repaid a portion every half-year as it came round,
+but Mr. Wells would not let me. 'You had a great deal better use it in
+improving the school and getting things comfortable about you; I am
+in no hurry,' was his invariable rejoinder. Lockett thought he meant
+eventually to make me a present of the money, being a wealthy man
+without near relatives. Of course I never looked for anything of the
+sort; but I was as easy as to the debt as though I had not contracted
+it."
+
+"Will the executors not let you have the use of the money still?"
+
+"You should see their curt note, ordering its immediate repayment!
+Lockett seems more vexed at the turn affairs have taken than even I am.
+He was here to-day."
+
+Mrs. Blair sat in silent reflection, wishing she had known of this. Many
+an odd shilling that she had thought justified in spending, she would
+willingly have recalled now. Not that they could have amounted to much
+in the aggregate. Presently she looked at her husband.
+
+"Pyefinch, it seems to me that there's only one thing to do. You must
+borrow the sum from some one else, which of course will make us only as
+much in debt as we are now; and we must pay it off by instalments as
+quickly as we possibly can."
+
+"It is what Lockett and I have decided on already as the only course.
+Why, Mary, this worry has been on our minds for a fortnight past," he
+added, turning quickly. "But now that it has come to borrowing again,
+and not from a friend, I felt that I ought to tell you. Besides, there's
+another thing."
+
+"Go on," she said.
+
+"We have found a man to advance the money. Lockett and I picked him out
+from the _Times_ advertisements. These fellows are awful rogues, for the
+most part; but this is not one of the worst. Lockett made inquiries of
+a parishioner of his who understands these things, and finds Gavity
+(that's his name) is tolerably fair for a professional money-lender. I
+shall have to pay him higher interest. And he wants me to give him a
+bill of sale on the furniture."
+
+"A bill of sale on the furniture! What is that?"
+
+"That is what I meant when I said there was another thing," replied
+Mr. Blair. "Wells was content with my note of hand; this man requires
+security on my goods. It is a mere matter of form in my case, he says.
+As I am doing well, and there's no fear of my not keeping the interest
+paid up, I suppose it is. In two or three years from this, all being
+well, the debt itself will be wiped off."
+
+"Oh yes; I hope so. The school is prosperous."
+
+Her tone was anxious, and Mr. Blair detected it. But for considering
+that she ought to know it, he would rather have kept this trouble to
+himself. And he was not sure upon another point: whether, in giving
+this bill of sale upon the furniture, Mr. Gavity might deem it essential
+to come in and take a list, article by article, bed by bed, table by
+table. If so, it would not have been possible to conceal it from her.
+He mentioned this. She, with himself, could not understand the necessity
+of their furniture being brought into the transaction at all, seeing
+that there could be no doubt as to their ability to repay. The one knew
+just as much about bills of sale and the rights they gave, as the other:
+and, that, was nothing.
+
+And now that the communication to his wife was off his mind--for in
+that had lain the chief weight--Mr. Blair was more at ease. As they sat
+talking together, discussing the future in all its aspects, the shadow
+lifted itself, and things looked brighter. It did not seem to either of
+them so formidable a matter after all. It was only changing one creditor
+for another, and paying a little higher interest.
+
+The transaction was accomplished. Gavity advanced the money, and took
+the bill of sale upon the furniture. He shot up the expenses--as
+money-lenders of his stamp generally do--and brought up the loan to a
+hundred and eighty, instead of a hundred and fifty. Still, taking things
+for all in all, the position was perhaps as fair and hopeful a one as
+can be experienced under debt. It was but a temporary clog; Mr. and Mrs.
+Blair both knew that. The school was flourishing; their prospects were
+good; they were young, and healthy, and hopeful. And though Mr. Gavity
+would of course exact his rights to the uttermost farthing, he had no
+intention of playing the rogue. In all candour let it be avowed, the
+gentleman money-lender did not see that it was a case affording scope
+for it.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had to tell that much as well as I could, seeing that it only came to
+me by hearsay in the future.
+
+And now to go back a little while, and to ourselves at Dyke Manor.
+
+After their marriage the Squire did not lose sight of Mr. and Mrs.
+Blair. A basket of things went up now and then, and the second Christmas
+they were invited to come down; but Mary wrote to decline, on account
+of Joe, the baby. "Let them leave Joe at home," cried Tod; but Mrs.
+Todhetley, shaking her head, said the dear little infant would come
+to sad grief without its mother. Soon after that, when the Squire was
+in London, he took the omnibus and went to see them, and told us how
+comfortably they were getting on.
+
+Years went round to another Christmas, when the exacting Joe would be
+some months over two years old. In the passing of time you are apt to
+lose sight of interests, unless they are close ones; and for some months
+we had heard nothing of the Blairs. Mrs. Todhetley spoke of it one
+evening.
+
+"Send them a Christmas hamper," said the Squire.
+
+The Christmas hamper went. With a turkey and ham, and a brace of
+pheasants in it; some bacon and apples to fill up, and sweet herbs and
+onions. Lena put in her favourite doll, dressed as a little mother, for
+young Joe. It had a false arm; and no legs, so to say: Hugh cut the feet
+off one day, and Hannah had to sew the stumps up. We hoped they would
+enjoy it all, including the doll, and drank good luck to them on
+Christmas Day.
+
+A week and a half went on, and no news came. Mrs. Todhetley grew uneasy
+about the hamper, feeling sure it had been confiscated by the railway.
+Mary Blair had always written so promptly to acknowledge everything sent
+to them.
+
+One January day the letter came in by the afternoon post. We knew Mary's
+handwriting. The Squire and Madam were at the Sterlings', and it was
+nine o'clock at night when they drove in. Mrs. Todhetley's face ached,
+which was quite usual she had a white handkerchief tied round it. When
+they were seated round the fire, I remembered the letter, and gave it to
+her.
+
+"Now to hear the fate of the hamper!" she exclaimed, carrying it to the
+lamp. But, what with the face-ache, and what with her eyes, which were
+not so good by candle-light as they used to be, Mrs. Todhetley could not
+read the contents readily. She looked at the writing, page after page,
+and then gave a short scream of dismay. Something was wrong.
+
+"Those thieves have grabbed the hamper!" cried the Squire.
+
+"No; I think the Blairs have had the hamper. I fear it is something
+worse," she said faintly. "Perhaps you will read it aloud."
+
+The Squire put his spectacles on as he took the letter. We gathered
+round the table, waiting. Mrs. Todhetley sat with her head aside,
+nursing her cheek; and Tod, who had been reading, put his book down. The
+Squire hammered a good deal over the writing, which was not so legible
+as Mary's was in general. She appeared to have meant it for Mrs.
+Todhetley and the Squire jointly.
+
+
+"'MY VERY DEAR FRIENDS,
+
+"'If I have delayed writing to you it was not for want of
+in-ingredients'"----
+
+"Ingredients!" cried one of us.
+
+"It must be gratitude," corrected the Squire. "Don't interrupt."
+
+"'Gratitude for your most welcome and liberal present, but because
+my heart and hands have alike shrunk from the ex--ex--explanation
+it must entail. Alas! a series of very terrible misfortunes have
+overwormed--overwhelmed us. We have had to give up our school and our
+prospects together, and to turn out of our once happy dome.'"
+
+"Dome!" put in Tod.
+
+"I suppose it's home," said the Squire. "This confounded lamp is as dim
+as it can be to-night!" And he went on fractiously.
+
+"'Through no fault of my husband's he had to borrow a hundred and
+fifty pounds nearly twelve months ago. The man he had it from was a
+money-lender, a Mr. Gavity; he charged a high rate of interest, and
+brought the cost up to about thirty pounds; but we have no reason
+to think he wished to act un--unfar--unfairly by us. He required
+security--which I suppose was only reasonable. The Reverend Mr. Lockett
+offered himself; but Gavity said parsons were slippers.'"
+
+"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"The word's slippery, I expect," cried the Squire with a frown. "One
+would think she had emptied the water-bottle into the inkpot."
+
+"'Gavity said parsons were slippery; meaning that they were often worth
+no more than their word. He took, as security, a bill of sale on the
+furnace. Stay,--furniture. Our school was quite prosperous; there was
+not the slightest doubt that in a short time the whole of the debt could
+be cleared off; so we had no hesitation in letting him have the bill
+of sale. And no harm would have come of it, but for one dreadful
+misfortune, which (as it seems) was a necessary part of the attendant
+proceedings. My husband got put into _Jer--Jer--Jerry's Gazelle_.'"
+
+"_Jerry's Gazelle?_"
+
+"_Jerry's Gazette_," corrected the Squire.
+
+"_Jerry's Gazette?_"
+
+We all spoke at once. He stared at the letters and then at us. We stared
+back again.
+
+"It _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_--as I think. Come and see, Joe."
+
+Tod looked over the Squire's shoulder. It certainly looked like
+"_Jerry's Gazette_," he said; but the ink was pale.
+
+"'_Jerry's Gazette._' Go on, father. Perhaps you'll find an explanation
+further on."
+
+"'This _Jerry's Gazette_, it appears, is circulated chiefly (and I
+think privately) amongst comical men--commercial men; merchants, and
+tradespeople. When they read its list of names, they know at once who
+is in difficulties. Of course they saw my husband's name there, Pyefinch
+Blair; unfortunately a name so peculiar as not to admit of any doubt.
+I did not see the _Gazette_, but I believe the amount of the debt was
+stated, and that Gavity (but I don't know whether he was mentioned by
+name) had a bill of sale on our household furniture.'"
+
+"What the dickens is _Jerry's Gazette_?" burst forth the Squire, giving
+the letter a passionate flick. "I know but of one _Gazette_, into which
+men of all conditions go, whether they are made lords or bankrupts.
+What's this other thing?"
+
+He put up his spectacles, and stared at us all again, as if expecting an
+answer. But he might as well have asked it of the moon. Mrs. Todhetley
+sat with the most hopeless look you ever saw on her face. So he went on
+reading again.
+
+"'We knew nothing about _Jerry's Gazette_ ourselves, or that there was
+such a pub--pub--publication, or that the transaction had appeared in
+it; and could not imagine why the school began to fall off. Some of the
+pupils were taken away, _at once_, some at Lady-day; and by Midsummer
+nearly every one had left. We used to lie awake night after night,
+grieving and wondering what could be the matter, searching in vain for
+any cause of offence, given unwittingly to the boys or their parents.
+Often and often we got up in the morning to go about our day's work,
+never having closed our eyes. At last, a gentleman, whose son had been
+one of the first renewed--removed, told Pyefinch the truth: that he had
+appeared in _Jerry's Gazette_. The fathers who subscribed to _Jerry's
+Gazette_ had seen it for themselves; and they informed the others.'"
+
+"The devil take _Jerry's Gazette_," interrupted Tod, deliberately. "This
+reads like an episode of the Secret Inquisition, sir, in the days of the
+French Revolution."
+
+"It reads like a thing that an honest Englishman's ears ought to redden
+to hear of," answered the Squire, as he put the lamp nearer, for his
+outstretched arms were getting cramped.
+
+"'Pyefinch went round to every one of the boy's fathers. Some
+would not see him, some not hear him; but to those who did, he
+imported--imparted--the whole circumstances; showing how it was that
+he had had to borrow the money (or rather to re-borrow it, but I have
+not time in this letter to go so far into detail), and that it could
+not by any possibility injure the boys or touch their interests. Most
+of them, he said, were very kind and sympathizing, so far as words
+went, saying that in this case _Jerry's Gazette_ appeared to have been
+the means of inflicting a cruel wrong; but they would not agree to
+replace their sons with us. They either declined point-blank, or said
+they'd consider of it; but you see the greater portion of the boys
+were already placed at other schools. All of them told Pyefinch one
+thing--that they were thoroughly satisfied with his treatment in every
+respect, and but for this interruption would probably have left their
+sons with him as long as they wanted intrusion--instruction. The long
+and short of it was this, my dear friends: they did not choose to have
+their sons educated by a man who was looked upon in the commercial
+world as next door to a bankrupt. One of them delicately hinted as
+much, and said Mr. Blair must be aware that he was liable to have his
+house topped--stripped--at any moment under the bill of sale. We said
+to ourselves that evening, as Pyefinch and I talked together, that
+we might have removed boys of our own from a school under the same
+circumstances.'"
+
+"That's true enough," murmured Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"'My letter has grown very long and I must hasten to conclude it.
+Just before the rent was due at Michaelmas (we paid it half-yearly, by
+agreement) Gavity put the bill of sale into force. One morning several
+men came in and swept off the furniture. We were turned out next: though
+indeed to have attempted to remain in that large house were folly. The
+landlord came in a passion, and told Pyefinch that he would put him in
+prison if he were worth it; as he was not, he had better go out of the
+pitch--place--forthwith, as another tenant was ready to take possession.
+Since then we have been staying here, Pyefinch vainly seeking to
+get some employment. What we hoped was, that he would obtain an
+under-mastership to some public fool----"
+
+"Fool, sir!"
+
+"'School. But it seems difficult. He sends his best regards to you, and
+bids me say that the reason you have not heard from us so long is, that
+we could not bear to tell you the ill news after your former kindness to
+us. The arrival of the hamper leaves us no resource.
+
+"'Thank you for that. Thank you very truly. The people at the old house
+have our address, and re-directed it here. We received it early on
+Christmas Eve. How good the things were, you do not need to be told. I
+stuffed the turkey--I shall make a famous cook in time--and sent it to
+the backhouse--bakehouse. You should have seen the pill--picture--it
+was when it came home. Believe me, my dear friends, we are both of us
+grateful for all your kindness to us, past and present. Little Joe is so
+delighted with the doll, he scarcely puts it out of his arms. Our best
+love to all, including Hugh and Lena. Thank Johnny for the beautiful new
+book he put in. I must apologize in conclusion for my writing; the ink
+we get in these penny bottles is pale; and baby has been on my lap all
+the time, never easy a minute. Do not say anything of all this, please,
+should you be writing to Wales.
+
+  "'Ever most truly yours,
+  "'MARY BLAIR.
+  "'_13, Difford's Buildings, Paddington._'"
+
+
+The Squire put the letter down and his spectacles on it, quite solemnly.
+You might have heard a pin drop in that room.
+
+"This is a thing that must be inquired into. I shall go up to-morrow."
+
+"And I'd go too, sir, but for my engagement to the Whitneys," said Tod.
+
+"She must mean, in speaking of a baby, that there's another," spoke Mrs.
+Todhetley, in a frightened sort of whisper. "Besides little Joe. Dear
+me!"
+
+"I don't understand it," stamped the Squire, getting red. "Turned out of
+house and home through _Jerry's Gazette_! Do we live in England, I'd
+like to ask?--under English laws?--enjoying English rights and freedom?
+_Jerry's Gazette?_ What the deuce _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_? Where does it
+come from? What issues it? The Lord Chamberlain's Office?--or Scotland
+Yard?--or some Patent society that we've not heard of, down here? The
+girl must have been imposed upon: her statement won't hold water."
+
+"It looks as though she had been, sir."
+
+"_Looks_ like it, Johnny! It must be so," said the Squire, growing
+warmer. "I have temporary need of a sum of money, and I borrow it
+straightforwardly, honestly purposing and undertaking to pay it back
+with good interest, but not exactly wanting my neighbours to know about
+it; and you'd like me to believe that there's some association, or
+publication, or whatever else it may be, that won't allow this to be
+done privately, but must pounce upon the transaction, and take it down
+in print, and send it round to the public, just as if it were a wedding
+or a burying!"
+
+The Squire had grown redder than a roost-cock. He always did when
+tremendously put out, and the matter would not admit of calling in old
+Jones the constable.
+
+"Folly! Moonshine! Blair, poor fellow, has been slipping into some
+disaster, had his furniture seized, and so invents this fable to appease
+his wife, not liking to tell her the truth. _Jerry's Gazette!_ When I
+was a youngster, my father took me to see an exhibition in Worcester
+called 'Jerry's Dogs.' The worst damage you could get there was a cold,
+from the holes in the canvas roof, or a pitch over the front into the
+sawdust. But in _Jerry's Gazette_, according to this tale, you may be
+damaged for life. Don't tell me! Do we live in Austria, or France, or
+any of those places, where--as it's said--a man can't so much as put
+on a pair of clean stockings in a morning, but its laid before high
+quarters in black and white at mid-day by the secret police! No, you
+need not tell me that."
+
+"I never heard of _Jerry's Gazette_ in all my life; I don't know whether
+it is a stage performance or something to eat; but I feel convinced Mary
+Blair would not write this without having good grounds for it," said
+Tod, bold as usual.
+
+And do you know--though you may be slow to believe it--the Squire had
+taken latterly to listen to him. He turned his red old face on him now,
+and some of its fierceness went out of it.
+
+"Then, Joe, all I can say is this--that English honour and English
+notions have changed uncommonly from what they used to be. 'Live and let
+live' was one of our mottoes; and most of us tried to act up to it. I
+know no more of this," striking his hand on the letter, "than you know,
+boys; and I cannot think but that she must have been under some
+unaccountable mistake in writing it. Any way, I'll go up to London
+to-morrow: and if you like, Johnny, you can go with me."
+
+We went up. I did not feel sure of it until the train was off, for Tod
+seemed three-parts inclined to give up the shooting at the Whitneys',
+and start for London instead; in which case the Squire might not have
+taken me. Tod and some more young fellows were invited to Whitney Hall
+for three days, to a shooting-match.
+
+It was dusk when we reached London, and as cold as charity. The Squire
+turned into the railway hotel and had some chops served, but did not
+wait for a regular dinner. When once he was in for impatience, he _was_
+in for it.
+
+"Difford's Buildings, Paddington," had been the address, so we thought
+it would not be far to go. The Squire held on in his way along the
+crowded streets, as if he were about to set things to rights, elbowing
+the people, and asking the road at every turn. Some did not know
+Difford's Buildings, and some directed us wrongly; but we got there at
+last. It was in a narrow, quiet street; a row of what Londoners call
+eight-roomed houses, with little gates opening to the square patches of
+smoky garden, and "Difford's Buildings" written up as large as life at
+the corner.
+
+"Let's see," said the Squire, looking sideways at the windows. "Number
+thirteen, was it not, Johnny?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Difford's Buildings were not well lighted, and there was no seeing the
+numbers. The Squire stopped before the one he thought must be thirteen;
+when some one came out at the house-door, shutting it behind him, and
+met us at the gate. A youngish clergyman in a white necktie. He and the
+Squire stood looking at each other in the gathering darkness.
+
+"Can you tell me if Mr. Blair lives here?"
+
+"Yes, he does," was the answer. "I think--I think I have the pleasure of
+speaking to Mr. Todhetley."
+
+The Squire knew him then--the Reverend Mr. Lockett. They had met when
+Blair first took to the school.
+
+"What _is_ all this extraordinary history?" burst forth the Squire,
+seizing him by the button of his great-coat, and taking him a few yards
+further on. "Mrs. Blair has been writing us a strange rigmarole, which
+nobody can make head or tail of; about ruin, and sales, and something
+she calls _Jerry's Gazette_."
+
+"Ay," quietly answered the clergyman in a tone of pain, as he put his
+arm inside the Squire's, and they paced slowly up and down. "It is one
+of the saddest histories my experience has ever had to do with."
+
+The Squire was near coming to an explosion in the open street. "Will you
+be pleased to tell me, sir, whether there exists such a thing as
+_Jerry's Gazette_, or whether it is a fable? I have heard of Jerry's
+Performing Dogs; went to see 'em once: but I don't know what this other
+invention can be."
+
+"Certainly there is such a thing," said Mr. Lockett. "It is, I fancy, a
+list of people who unfortunately get into difficulties; at least, people
+who fall into difficulties seem to get shown up in it. I am told it is
+meant chiefly for private circulation: which may imply, as I imagine
+(but here I may be wrong) what may be called secret circulation. Blair
+had occasion to borrow a little money, and _his_ name appeared in it.
+From that moment he was a marked man, and his school fell off."
+
+"Goodness bless my soul!" cried the Squire solemnly, completely taken
+aback at hearing Mary's letter confirmed. "Who gives _Jerry's Gazette_
+the right to do this?"
+
+"I don't know about the right. It seems it has the power."
+
+"It is a power I never heard of before, sir. We have a parson, down our
+way, who tells us every Sunday the world's coming to an end. I think it
+must be. I know it's getting too clever for me to understand. If a man
+has the misfortune (perhaps after years of struggling that nobody knows
+anything about but himself) to break up at last, he goes into the
+country's _Gazette_ in a straightforward manner, and the public read it
+over their breakfast-tables, and there's nothing underhand about it. But
+as to this other thing--if I comprehend the matter rightly--Blair did
+not as much as know of its existence, or that his name was going into
+it."
+
+"I am sure he did not; or I, either," said Mr. Lockett.
+
+"I should like its meaning explained, then," cried the Squire, getting
+hotter and angrier. "Is it a fair, upright, honest thing; or is it a
+sort of Spanish Inquisition?"
+
+"I cannot tell you," answered the parson, as they both stood still.
+"Mr. Blair was informed by the father of one of his pupils that he
+believed the sheet was first of all set up as a speculation, and was
+found to answer so well that it became quite an institution. I do not
+know whether this is true."
+
+"I have heard of an institution for idiots, but I never heard of one for
+selling up men's chairs and tables," stormed the Squire. "No, sir, and I
+don't believe it now. I might take up my standing to-morrow on the top
+of the Monument, and say to the public, 'Here I am, and I'll ferret out
+what I can about you, and whisper it to one another of you;' and so
+bring a serpent's trail on the unsuspecting heads, and altogether play
+Old Gooseberry with the crowds below me. Do you suppose, sir, the Lord
+Chancellor would wink his eye at me, stuck aloft there at my work, and
+would tolerate such a spectacle?"
+
+"I fear the Lord Chancellor has not much to do with it," said Mr.
+Lockett, smiling at the Squire's random logic.
+
+"Then suppose we say good men--public opinion--commercial justice and
+honour? Come!"
+
+He shook the frail railings, on which his hand was resting, until
+they nearly came to grief. Mr. Lockett related the particulars of the
+transaction from the beginning; the original debt, which Blair was
+suddenly called upon to pay off, and the contraction of the one to
+Gavity. He said that he himself had had as much to do with it as Blair,
+in the capacity of friend and adviser, and felt almost as though he
+were responsible for the turn affairs had taken; which had caused him
+scarcely to enjoy an easy moment since. The Squire began to abuse
+Gavity, but Mr. Lockett said the man did not appear to have had any
+ill intention. As to his having sold off the goods--if he had not sold
+them, the landlord would have done so.
+
+"And what's Blair doing now?" asked Mr. Todhetley.
+
+"Battling with illness for his life," said the clergyman. "I have just
+been praying with him."
+
+The Squire retreated towards the lamp-post, as if some one had given him
+a blow. Mr. Lockett explained further.
+
+It was in September that they had left their home. His own lodging and
+the church of which he was curate were in Paddington, and he found rooms
+for Blair and his wife in the same neighbourhood--two parlours in
+Difford's Buildings. Blair (who had lost heart so terribly as to be good
+for little) spared no time or exertion in seeking for something to do.
+He tried to get into King's College; they liked his appearance and
+testimonials, but at present had no vacancy: he tried private schools
+for an ushership, but did did not get one: nothing seemed to be vacant
+just then. Then he tried for a clerk's place. Day after day, ill or
+well, rain or fine, feasting or fasting, he went tramping about London
+streets. At last, one of those who had had sons at his school, gave him
+some out-door employment--that of making known a new invention and
+soliciting customers for it from shop to shop: Blair to be paid on
+commission. Naturally, he did not let weather hinder him, and would come
+home to Difford's Buildings at night, wet through. There had been a
+great deal of rain in November and December. But he got wet once too
+often, and was attacked with rheumatic fever. The fever was better now;
+but the weakness it had left was dangerous.
+
+"She did not say anything about this in her letter," interrupted the
+Squire resentfully, when Mr. Lockett had explained so far.
+
+"Blair told her not to do so. He thought if their position were revealed
+to the friends who had once shown themselves so kind, it might look
+almost like begging for help again."
+
+"Blair's a fool!" roared the Squire.
+
+"Mrs. Blair has not made the worst of it to her family in Wales. It
+would only distress them, she says, for they could not help her. Mr.
+Sanker has been ill again for some time past, has not been allowed, I
+believe, to draw his full salary, and there's no doubt they want every
+penny of their means for themselves; and more too."
+
+"How have they lived here?" asked the Squire, as we went slowly back to
+the gate.
+
+"Blair earned a little while he could get about; and his wife has been
+enabled to procure some kind of wool-work from a warehouse in the city,
+which pays her very well," said the clergyman, dropping his voice to a
+whisper, as if he feared to be overheard. "Unfortunately there's the
+baby to take up much of her time. It was born in October, soon after
+they came there."
+
+"And I should like to know what business there has to be a baby?" cried
+the Squire, who was like a man off his head. "Couldn't the baby have
+waited for a more convenient season?"
+
+"It might have been better; it is certainly a troublesome, crying little
+thing," said the parson. "Yes, you can go straight in: the parlour door
+is on the right. I have a service this evening at seven, and shall be
+late for it. This is your son, I presume, sir?"
+
+"My son! law bless you! My son is a strapping young fellow, six feet two
+in his stockings. This is Johnny Ludlow."
+
+He shook hands pleasantly, and was good enough to say he had heard
+of me. The Squire went on, and I with him. There was no lamp in the
+passage, and we had to feel on the right for the parlour door.
+
+"Come in," called out Mary, in answer to the knock. I knew her voice
+again.
+
+We can't help our thoughts. Things come into the mind without leave or
+licence; and it is no use saying they ought not to, or asking why they
+do. Nearly opposite the door in the small room was the fireplace. Mary
+Blair sat on a low stool before it, doing some work with coloured wools
+with a big hooked needle, a baby in white lying flat on her lap, and the
+little chap, Joe, sitting at her feet. All in a moment it put me in mind
+of Mrs. Lease, sitting on her stool before the fire that day long ago
+(though in point of fact, as I discovered afterwards, hers had been a
+bucket turned upside down) with the sick child on her lap, and the other
+little ones round her. Why this, to-night, should have reminded me of
+that other, I cannot say, but it did; and in the light of an omen. You
+must ridicule me if you choose: it is not my fault; and I am telling
+nothing but the truth. Lease had died. Would Pyefinch Blair die?
+
+The Squire went in gingerly, as if he had been treading on ploughshares.
+The candle stood on the mantel-piece, a table was pushed back under the
+window. Altogether the room was poor, and a small saucepan simmered on
+the hob. Mary turned her head, and rose up with a flushed face, letting
+the work fall on the baby's white nightgown, as she held out her hand.
+Little Joe, a sturdy fellow in a scarlet frock, with big brown eyes,
+backed against the wall by the fireplace and stood staring, Lena's doll
+held safely under his pinafore.
+
+She lost her presence of mind. The Squire was the veriest old stupid,
+when he wanted to make-believe, that you'd see in a winter's day. He
+began saying something about "happening to be in town, and so called."
+But he broke down, and blurted out the truth. "We've come to see after
+you, my dear; and to learn what all this trouble means."
+
+And then _she_ broke down. Perhaps it was the sight of us, recalling
+the old time at Dyke Manor, when the future looked so fair and happy;
+perhaps it was the mention of the trouble. She put her hands before her
+face, and the tears rained through her fingers.
+
+"Shut the door, will you, Johnny," she whispered. "Very softly."
+
+It was the other door she pointed to, one at the end of the room, and I
+closed it without noise. Except for a sob now and again, that she kept
+down as well as she could, the grief passed away. Young Joe, frightened
+at matters, suddenly went at her, full butt, and hid his eyes in her
+petticoats with a roar. I took him on my knee and got him round again.
+Somehow children are never afraid of me. The Squire rubbed his old red
+nose, and said he had a cold.
+
+But, was she not altered! Now that the flush had faded, and emotion
+passed, the once sweet, fresh, blooming face stood out in its reality.
+Sweet, indeed, it was still; but the bloom and freshness had given place
+to a haggard look, and to dark circles round the soft brown eyes, weary
+now.
+
+She had no more to tell of the past calamities than her letter and Mr.
+Lockett had told. _Jerry's Gazette_ was the sore point with the Squire,
+but she did not seem to understand it better than we did.
+
+"I want to know one thing," said he, quite fiercely. "How did _Jerry's
+Gazette_ get at the transaction between your husband and Gavity? Did
+Gavity go to it, open-mouthed, with the news?"
+
+Mary did not know. She had heard something about a register--that the
+bill of sale had to be registered somewhere, and thought _Jerry's
+Gazette_ might have obtained the information from that source.
+
+"Heaven bless us all!" cried the Squire. "Can't a man borrow a bit of
+money but it must become known to his enemies, if he has any, bringing
+them down upon him like a pack of hounds in full cry? This used to be
+the freest land on earth."
+
+The baby began to scream. She put down the wool-work, and hushed it to
+her. I am sure the Squire had half a mind to tell her to give it a
+gentle shaking. He looked upon screaming babies as natural enemies: the
+truth is, with all his abuse, he was afraid of them.
+
+"Has it got a name?" he asked gruffly.
+
+"Yes--Mary: he wished it," she said, glancing at the door. "I thought
+we should have to call it Polly, in contradistinction to mine."
+
+Polly! That was another coincidence. Lease's eldest girl was Polly. And
+what made her speak of things in the past tense? She caught me looking
+at her; caught, I fancy, the fear on my face. I told her hurriedly that
+little Joe must be a Dutchman, for not a word could I understand of the
+tale he was whispering about his doll.
+
+What with Mary's work, and the little earned by Blair while he was
+about, they had not wanted for necessaries in a plain way. I suppose
+Lockett took care they should not do so: but he was only a curate.
+
+The baby needed its supper, to judge by the squealing. Mary poured the
+contents of the saucepan--some thin gruel--into a saucer, and began
+feeding the little mite by teaspoonfuls, putting each one to her own
+lips first to test it.
+
+"That's poor stuff," cried the Squire, in a half-pitying, half-angry
+tone, his mind divided between resentment against babies in general and
+sympathy with this one. As the baby was there, of course it had to be
+fed, but what he wanted to know was, why it need have come just when
+trouble was about. When put out, he had no reason at all. Mrs. Blair
+suddenly turned her face towards the end door, listening; and we heard
+a faint voice calling "Mary."
+
+"Joe, dear, go and tell papa that I will be with him in one minute."
+
+The little chap slid down, giving me his doll to nurse, and went
+pattering across the carpet, standing on tiptoe to open the door. The
+Squire said he should like to go in and see Blair. Mary went on first
+to warn him of our advent.
+
+My goodness! _That_ Pyefinch Blair, who used to flourish his cane, and
+cock it over us boys at Frost's! I should never have known him for the
+same.
+
+He lay in bed, too weak to raise his head from the pillow, the white
+skin drawn tightly over his hollow features; the cheeks slightly
+flushing as he watched us coming. And again I thought of Lease; for the
+same look was on this face that had been on his when he was dying.
+
+"Lord bless us!" cried the Squire, in what would have been a solemn tone
+but for surprise. And Mr. Blair began faintly to offer a kind of apology
+for his illness, hoping he should soon get over it now.
+
+It was nothing but the awful look, putting one unpleasantly in mind of
+death, that kept the Squire from breaking out with a storm of abuse all
+round. Why could they not have sent word to Dyke Manor, he wanted to
+know. As to asking particulars about _Jerry's Gazette_, which the
+Squire's tongue was burning to do, Blair was too far gone for it. While
+we stood there the doctor came in; a little man in spectacles, a friend
+of Mr. Lockett's. He told Blair he was getting on all right, spoke to
+Mrs. Blair, and took his departure. The Squire, wishing good night in a
+hurry, went out after the doctor, and collared him as he was walking up
+the street.
+
+"Won't he get over it?"
+
+"Well, sir, I am afraid not. His state of weakness is alarming."
+
+The Squire turned on him with a storm, just as though he had known him
+for years: asking why on earth Blair's friends (meaning himself) had not
+been written to, and promising a prosecution if he let him die. The
+doctor took it sensibly, and was cool as iced water.
+
+"We medical men are only gifted at best with human skill, sir," he said,
+looking the Squire full in the face.
+
+"Blair is young--not much turned thirty."
+
+"The young die as well as the old, when it pleases Heaven to take them."
+
+"But it doesn't please Heaven to take _him_," retorted the Squire,
+worked up to the point when he was not accountable for his words. "But
+that you seem in earnest, young man, probably meaning no irreverence,
+I'd ask you how you dare bring Heaven's name into such a case as this?
+Did Heaven fling him out of house and home into _Jerry's Gazette_, do
+you suppose? Or did man? Man, sir: selfish, hard, unjust man. Don't talk
+to me, Mr. Doctor, about Heaven."
+
+"All I wished to imply, sir, was, that Mr. Blair's life is not in my
+keeping, or in that of any human hands," said the doctor, when he had
+listened quietly to the end. "I will do my best to bring him round; I
+can do no more."
+
+"You must bring him round."
+
+"There can be no 'must' about it: and I doubt if he is to be brought
+round. Mr. Blair has not naturally a large amount of what we call
+stamina, and this illness has laid a very serious hold upon him. It
+would be something in his favour if the mind were at ease: which of
+course it cannot be in his circumstances."
+
+"Now look here--you just say outright he is going to die," stormed the
+Squire. "Say it and have done with it. I like people to be honest."
+
+"But I cannot say he is. Possibly he may recover. His life and his death
+both seem to hang on the turn of a thread."
+
+"And there's that squealing young image within earshot! Could Blair be
+got down to my place in the country? You might come with him if you
+liked. There's some shooting."
+
+"Not yet. It would kill him. What we have to fight against now is the
+weakness: and a hard fight it is."
+
+The Squire's face was rueful to look at. "This London has a reputation
+for clever physicians: you pick out the best, and bring him here with
+you to-morrow morning. Do you hear, sir?"
+
+"I will bring one, if you wish it. It is not essential."
+
+"Not essential!" wrathfully echoed the Squire. "If Blair's recovery is
+not essential, perhaps you'll tell me, sir, whose is! What is to become
+of his poor young wife if he dies?--and the little fellow with the
+doll?--and that cross-grained puppet in white? Who will provide for
+them? Let me tell you, sir, that I won't have him die--if doctors can
+keep him alive. He belongs to me, sir, in a manner: he saved my son's
+life--as fine a fellow as you could set eyes on, six feet two without
+his boots. Not essential! What next?"
+
+"It is not so much medical skill he requires now as care, and rest, and
+renovation," spoke the doctor in his calm way.
+
+"Never mind. You take a physician to him, and let him attend him with
+you, and don't spare expense. In all my life I never saw anybody want
+patching up so much as he wants it."
+
+The Squire shook hands with him, and went on round the corner. I was
+following, when the doctor touched me on the shoulder.
+
+"He has a good heart, for all his hot speech," whispered he, nodding
+towards the Squire. "In talking with him this evening, when you find him
+indulging hopes of Blair's recovery, _don't encourage them_: rather lead
+him, if possible, to look at the other side of the question."
+
+The surgeon was off before I recovered from my surprise. But it was now
+my turn to run after him.
+
+"Do you know that he will not get well, sir?"
+
+"I do not know it; the weak and the strong are alike in the hands of
+God; but I think it scarcely possible that he can recover," was the
+answer; and the voice had a solemn tone, the face a solemn aspect, in
+the uncertain light. "And I would prepare friends always to meet the
+worst when it is in my power to do so."
+
+"Now then, Johnny! You were going to take the wrong turning, were you,
+sir! Let me tell you, you might get lost in London before knowing it."
+
+The Squire had come back to the corner, looking for me. I walked on by
+his side in silence, feeling half dazed, the hopeless words playing
+pranks in my brain.
+
+"Johnny, I wonder where we can find a telegraph office? I shall
+telegraph to your mother to send up Hannah to-morrow. Hannah knows what
+the sick need: and that poor thing with her children ought not to be
+left alone."
+
+But as to giving any hint to the Squire of the state of affairs, I
+should like the doctor to have tried it himself. Before I had finished
+the first syllable, he attacked me as if I had been a tiger; demanding
+whether those were my ideas of Christianity, and if I supposed there'd
+be any justice in a man's dying because he had got into _Jerry's
+Gazette_.
+
+In the morning the Squire went on an expedition to Gavity's office in
+the city. It was a dull place of two rooms, with a man to answer people.
+We had not been there a minute when the Squire began to explode, going
+on like anything at the man for saying Mr. Gavity was engaged and could
+not be seen. The Squire demanded if he thought we were creditors, that
+he should deny Gavity.
+
+What with his looks and his insistence, and his promise to bring in
+Sir Richard Mayne, he got to see Gavity. We went into a good room with
+a soft red carpet and marble-topped desk in it. Mr. Gavity politely
+motioned to chairs before the blazing fire, and I sat down.
+
+Not the Squire. Out it all came. He walked about the room, just as he
+walked at home when he was in a way, and said all kinds of things;
+wanting to know who had ruined Pyefinch Blair, and what _Jerry's
+Gazette_ meant. Gavity seemed to be used to explosions: he took it so
+coolly.
+
+When the Squire calmed down, he almost grew to see things in Gavity's
+own light--namely, that Gavity had not been to blame. To say the truth,
+I could not understand that he had. Except in selling them up. And
+Gavity said if he had not done it, the landlord would.
+
+So nothing was left for the Squire to vent his wrath on but _Jerry's
+Gazette_. He no more understood what _Jerry's Gazette_ really was, or
+whether it was a good or bad thing in itself, than he understood the
+construction of the planet Jupiter. It's well Dwarf Giles was not
+present. The day before we came to London, he overheard Giles swearing
+in a passion, and the Squire had pounced upon him with an indignant
+inquiry if he thought swearing was the way to get to heaven. What he
+said about _Jerry's Gazette_ caused Gavity's eyes to grow round with
+wonder.
+
+"Lord love ye!" said Gavity, "_Jerry's Gazette_ a thing that wants
+putting down! Why, it is the blessedest of institutions to us City men.
+It is a public Benefactor. The commercial world has had no boon like it.
+Did you know the service it does, you'd sing its praises, sir, instead
+of abusing it."
+
+"How dare you tell me so to my face?" demanded the Squire.
+
+"_Jerry's Gazette's_ like a gold mine, sir. It is making its fortune.
+A fine one, too."
+
+"_I_ shouldn't like to make a fortune out of my neighbours' tears, and
+blood, and homes, and hearths," was the wrathful answer. "If Pyefinch
+Blair dies in his illness, will _Jerry's Gazette_ settle a pension from
+its riches on his widow and children? Answer me that, Mr. Gavity."
+
+Mr. Gavity, to judge by his looks, thought the question nearly as
+unreasonable as he thought the Squire. He wanted to tell of the vast
+benefit _Jerry's Gazette_ had proved in certain cases; but the Squire
+stopped his ears, saying Blair's case was enough for him.
+
+"I do not deny that the _Gazette_ may work mischief once in a way,"
+acknowledged Mr. Gavity. "It is but a solitary instance, sir; and in all
+commercial improvements the few must suffer for the many."
+
+No good. The Squire went at him again, hammer and tongs, and at last
+dashed away without saying good morning, calling out to me to come on,
+and not stop a moment longer in a nest of thieves and casuists.
+
+Difford's Buildings had us in the afternoon. The baby was in its basket,
+little Joe lay asleep before the fire, the doll against his cheek, and
+Mary was kneeling by the bed in the back room. She got up hastily when
+she saw us.
+
+"I think he is weaker," she said in a whisper, as she came through the
+door and pushed it to. "There is a look on his face that I do not like."
+
+There was a look on hers. A wan, haggard, patiently hopeless look, that
+seemed to say she could struggle no longer. It was not natural; neither
+was the calm, lifeless tone.
+
+"Stay here a bit, my dear, and rest yourself," said the Squire to her.
+"I'll go in and sit with him."
+
+There could be no mistake now. Death was in every line of his face. His
+head was a little raised on the pillow; and the hollow eyes tried to
+smile a greeting. The Squire was good for a great deal, but not for
+making believe with that sight before him. He broke down with a great
+sob.
+
+"Don't grieve for me," murmured poor Blair. "Hard though it seems to
+leave her, I have learnt to say, 'God's will be done.' It is all for the
+best--oh, it is all for the best. We must through much tribulation enter
+into the Kingdom."
+
+And then _I_ broke down, and hid my face on the counterpane. Poor old
+Blair! And we boys had called him Baked Pie!
+
+I went to Paddington station to meet the train. Hannah was in it, and
+came bursting out upon me with a shriek that might have been heard at
+Oxford. Upon the receipt of the telegram, she and Mrs. Todhetley came to
+the conclusion that I had been run over, and was lying in some hospital
+with my legs off. That was through the Squire's wording of the message;
+he would not let me write it. "Send Hannah to London to-morrow by
+mid-day train, to nurse somebody that's in danger."
+
+Blair lingered three days yet before he died, sensible to the last,
+and quite happy. Not a care or anxiety on his mind about what had so
+troubled him all along--the wife and children.
+
+"Through God's mercy; He knows how to soothe the death-bed," said Mr.
+Lockett.
+
+Whether Mary would have to go home to Wales with her babies, or stay and
+do what she could for them in London, depending on the wool-work, the
+clergyman said he did not know, when talking to us at the hotel. He
+supposed it must be one of the two.
+
+"We'll have them down at the Manor, and fatten 'em up a bit, Johnny,"
+spoke the Squire, a rueful look on his good old face. "Mercy light upon
+us! and all through _Jerry's Gazette_!"
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+I must say a word for myself. _Jerry's Gazette_ (if there is such a
+thing still in existence) may be, as Mr. Gavity expressed it to us then,
+the "blessedest of institutions to him and commercial men." I don't wish
+to deny it, and I could not if I wished; for except in this one instance
+(which may have been an exceptional case, as Gavity insisted) I know
+nothing of it or its working. But I declare on my honour I have told
+nothing but the truth in regard to what it did for the schoolmaster,
+Pyefinch Blair.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+SOPHIE CHALK.
+
+
+The horses went spanking along the frosty road, the Squire driving, his
+red comforter wrapped round his neck. Mrs. Todhetley sat beside him; Tod
+and I behind. It was one of the jolliest days that early January ever
+gave us; dark blue sky, and icicles on the trees: a day to tempt people
+out. Mrs. Todhetley, getting to her work after breakfast, said it was a
+shame to stay indoors: and it was hastily decided to drive over to the
+Whitneys' place and see them. So the large phaeton was brought round.
+
+I had not expected to go. When there was a probability of their staying
+anywhere sufficiently long for the horses to be put up, Giles was
+generally taken: the Squire did not like to give trouble to other
+people's servants. It would not matter at the Whitneys': they had a host
+of them.
+
+"I don't know that I care about going," said Tod, as we stood outside,
+waiting for the others, Giles at the horses' heads.
+
+"Not care, Tod! Anna's at home."
+
+He flicked his glove at my face for the impudence. We laughed at him
+about Anna Whitney sometimes. They were great friends. The Squire,
+hearing some nonsense one day, took it seriously, and told Tod it would
+be time enough for him to get thinking about sweethearts when he was out
+of leading-strings. Which of course Tod did not like.
+
+It was a long drive; I can tell you that. And as we turned in at the
+wide gravel sweep that led up to the house, we saw their family coach
+being brought round with some luggage on it, the postillion in his
+undress jacket, just laced at the seams with crimson. The Whitneys never
+drove from the box.
+
+Whitney Hall was a long red-brick house with a good many windows and
+wide circular steps leading to the door, its park and grounds lying
+around it. Anna came running to meet us as we went in, dressed for a
+journey. She was seventeen; very fair; with a gentle face, and smooth,
+bright, dark auburn hair; one of the sweetest girls you could see on a
+summer's day. Tod was the first to shake hands with her, and I saw her
+cheeks blush as crimson as Sir John's state liveries.
+
+"You are going out, my dear," said Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"Oh yes," she answered, the tears rising in her eyes, which were as blue
+as the dark blue sky. "We have had bad news. William----"
+
+The dining-room door across the hall opened, and a host of them came
+forth. Lady Whitney in a plaid shawl, the strings of her bonnet untied;
+Miss Whitney (Helen), Harry, and some of the young ones behind. Anna's
+quiet voice was drowned, for they all began to tell of it together.
+
+Sir John and William were staying at some friend's house at Ombersley.
+Lady Whitney thought they would have been home to-day: instead of which
+the morning's post had a brought letter to say that an accident had
+occurred to William in hunting; some muff who couldn't ride had gone
+swerving right against Bill's horse, and he was thrown. Except that Bill
+was insensible, nothing further of the damage could be gathered from the
+letter; for Sir John, if put out, could write no more intelligibly than
+the Squire. The chief of what he said was--that they were to come off at
+once.
+
+"We are going, of course; I with the two girls and Harry; the carriage
+is waiting to take us to the station," said poor Lady Whitney, her
+bonnet pushed off. "But I do wish John had explained further: it is such
+suspense. We don't think it can be extremely serious, or there would
+have been a telegram. I'm sure I have shivered at every ring that has
+come to the door this morning."
+
+"And the post was never in, as usual, until nearly ten o'clock,"
+complained Harry. "I wonder my father puts up with it."
+
+"And the worst is that we had a visitor coming to-day," added Helen.
+"Mamma would have telegraphed to London for her not to start, but there
+was not time. It's Sophie Chalk."
+
+"Who is Sophie Chalk?" asked Tod.
+
+Helen told us, while Lady Whitney was finding places for everyone at the
+table. They had been taking a scrambling luncheon; sitting or standing:
+cold beef, mince-pies, and cheese.
+
+"Sophie Chalk was a schoolfellow of mine," said Helen. "It was an old
+promise--that she should come to visit us. Different things have caused
+it to be put off, but we have kept up a correspondence. At length I got
+mamma to say that she might come as soon as Christmas was turned; and
+to-day was fixed. We don't know what on earth to do."
+
+"Let her come to us until you see how things turn out," cried the
+Squire, in his hearty good-nature, as he cut himself a slice of beef.
+"We can take her home in the carriage: one of these boys can ride back
+if you'll lend him a horse."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley said he took the very words out of her mouth. The
+Whitneys were too flurried to affect ceremony, and very gladly accepted
+the offer. But I don't think it would ever have been made had the Squire
+and madam known what was to come of it.
+
+"There will be her luggage," observed Anna; who usually remembered
+things for every one. And Lady Whitney looked round in consternation.
+
+"It must come to us by rail; we will send for it from the station,"
+decided Tod, always ready at a pinch. "What sort of a damsel is this
+Sophie Chalk, Anna?"
+
+"I never saw her," replied Anna. "You must ask Helen."
+
+Tod whispered something to Anna that made her smile and blush. "I'll
+write you my sentiments about her to Ombersley," he said aloud. "Those
+London girls are something to look at." And I knew by Tod's tone that he
+was prepared _not_ to like Miss Sophie Chalk.
+
+We saw them out to the carriage; the Squire putting in my lady, Tod,
+Helen and Anna. One of the housemaids, Lettice Lane, was wildly running
+in and out, bringing things to the carriage. She had lived with us once;
+but Hannah's temper and Letty's propensity for gossip did not get on
+together. Mrs. Todhetley, when they had driven away, asked her how she
+liked her place--which she had entered at Michaelmas. Oh, pretty well,
+Lettice answered: but for her old mother, she should emigrate to
+Australia. She used to be always saying so at Dyke Manor, and it was
+one of the things that Hannah would not put up with, telling her decent
+girls could find work at home.
+
+Tod went off next, on horseback: and, before three o'clock, we drove to
+the station to meet the London train. The Squire stayed in the carriage,
+sending me and Mrs. Todhetley on the platform.
+
+Two passengers got out at the small station; a little lady in feathers,
+and a butcher in a blue frock, who had charge of a calf in the open van.
+Mrs. Todhetley stepped up to the lady and inquired whether she was Miss
+Chalk.
+
+"I am Miss Chalk. Have I the honour of speaking to Lady Whitney?"
+
+While matters were being explained, I stood observing her. A very small,
+slight person, with pretty features white as ivory; and wide-open light
+blue eyes, that were too close together, and had a touch of boldness in
+them. It would take a great deal to daunt their owner, if I could read
+countenances: and that I was always doing so was no fault of mine, for
+the instinct, strong and irrepressible, lay within me--as old Duffham
+once said. I did not like her voice; it had no true ring in it; I did
+not much like her face. But the world in general no doubt found her
+charming, and the Squire thought her so.
+
+She sat in front with him, a carpet-bag between them: and I, behind, had
+a great black box crowding my legs. She could not do without that much
+of her luggage: the rest might come by rail.
+
+"Johnny," whispered Mrs. Todhetley to me, "I am afraid she is very grand
+and fashionable. I don't know how we shall manage to amuse her. Do you
+like her?"
+
+"Well--she has got a stunning lot of hair."
+
+"Beautiful hair, Johnny!"
+
+With the hair close before us, I could only say so. It was brown; rather
+darker than Anna Whitney's, but with a red tinge in it, and about double
+the quantity. Nature or art was giving it a wonderful gloss in the light
+of the setting sun, as she turned her head about, laughing and talking
+with the Squire. Her dress was some bright purple stuff trimmed with
+white fur; her hands, lying in repose on her lap, had yellow gauntlets
+on.
+
+"I'm glad I ordered a duck for dinner, in addition to the boiled veal
+and bacon, Johnny," whispered Mrs. Todhetley again. "The fish won't be
+much: it is only the cold cod done up in parsley sauce."
+
+Tod, at home long before, was at the door ready for us when we arrived.
+I saw her staring at him in the dusk.
+
+"Who was the gentleman that handed me out?" she asked me as we went in.
+
+"Mr. Todhetley's son."
+
+"I--think--I have heard Helen Whitney talk of him," she said in
+reflection. "He will be very rich, will he not?"
+
+"Pretty well. He will have what his father has before him, Miss Chalk."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley suggested tea, but she said she would prefer a glass
+of wine; and went up to her chamber after taking it. Hannah and the
+housemaid were hastily putting one in order for her. Sleepy with the
+frosty air, I was nodding over the fire in the drawing-room when the
+rustle of silk awoke me.
+
+It was Miss Chalk. She came in gleaming like a fairy, her dress shining
+in the fire-light; for they had not been in to light the candles. It had
+a green-and-gold tinge, and was cut very low. Did she think we had a
+party?--or that dressing for dinner was the fashion in our plain country
+house--as it might have been at a duke's? Her shoulders and arms were
+white as snow; she wore a silver necklace, the like of which I had never
+seen, silver bracelets, and a thick cord of silver twisting in and out
+of her complicated hair.
+
+"I'm sure it is very kind of your people to take me in," she said,
+standing still on the hearthrug in her beauty. "They have lighted a fire
+in my room; it is so comfortable. I do like a country house. At Lady
+Augustus Difford's----"
+
+Her head went round at the opening of the door. It was Tod. She stepped
+timidly towards him, like a schoolgirl: dressed as now, she looked no
+older than one. Tod might have made up his mind not to like her; but he
+had to surrender. Holding out her hand to him, he could only yield to
+the vision, and his heart shone in his eyes as he bent them upon her.
+
+"I beg your pardon for having passed you without notice; I did not even
+thank you for lifting me down; but I was frozen with the drive," she
+said, in low tones. "Will you forgive me, Mr. Todhetley?"
+
+Forgive her! As Tod stood there with her hand in his, he looked inclined
+to eat her. Forgiveness was not enough. He led her to the fire, speaking
+soft words of gallantry.
+
+"Helen Whitney has often talked to me about you, Mr. Todhetley. I little
+thought I should ever make your acquaintance; still less, be staying in
+your father's house."
+
+"And I as little dreamt of the good fortune that was in store for me,"
+answered Tod.
+
+He was a tall, fine young fellow then, rising twenty, looking older than
+his age; she (as she looked to-night) a delicate, beautiful fairy, of
+any teens fancy might please to picture. As Tod stood over her, his
+manner took a gentle air, his eyes a shy light--quite unusual with him.
+She did not look up, except by a modest glance now and again, dropping
+her eyes when they met his own. He had the chance to take his fill of
+gazing, and used it.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tod was caught. From the very first night that his eyes fell on Sophie
+Chalk, his heart went out to her. Anna Whitney! What child's play had
+the joking about her been to this! Anna might have been his sister, for
+all the regard he had for her of a certain sort; and he knew it now.
+
+A looker-on sees more than a player, and I did not like one thing--she
+drew him on to love her. If ever a girl spread a net to entangle a man's
+feet, that girl was Sophie Chalk. She went about it artistically, too;
+in the sweetest, most natural way imaginable; and Tod did not see or
+suspect an atom of it. No fellow in a similar case ever does. If their
+heart's not engaged, their vanity is; and it utterly blinds them. I
+said a word or two to him, and was nearly knocked over for my pains.
+At the end of the fortnight--and she was with us nearly that length of
+time--Tod's heart had made its choice for weal or for woe.
+
+She took care that it should be so; she did, though he cut my head off
+now for saying it. You shall judge. She began on that first night when
+she came down in her glistening silk, with the silver on her neck and
+hair. In the drawing-room, after dinner, she sat by him on the sofa,
+talking in a low voice, her face turned to him, lifting her eyes and
+dropping them again. My belief is, she must have been to a school where
+they taught eye-play. Tod thought it was sweet, natural, shy modesty. I
+thought it was all artistic. Mrs. Todhetley was called from the room on
+domestic matters; the Squire, gone to sleep in his dinner-chair, had not
+come in. After tea, when all were present, she went to the piano, which
+no one ever opened but me, and played and sang, keeping Tod by her side
+to turn the music, and to talk to her at available moments. In point of
+execution, her singing was perfect, but the voice was rather harsh--not
+a note of real melody in it.
+
+After breakfast the next morning, when we were away together, she came
+to us in her jaunty hat, all feathers, and her purple dress with its
+white fur. She lured him off to show her the dyke and goodness knows
+what else, leaving Lena, who had come out with her, to be taken home by
+me. In the afternoon Tod drove her out in the pony-chaise; they had
+settled the drive between them down by the dyke, and I know she had
+plotted for it, just as surely as though I had been behind the hedge
+listening. I don't say Tod was loth; it was quite the other way from the
+first. They took a two-hours' drive, returning home at dusk; and then
+she laughed and talked with him and me round the fire until it was time
+to get ready for dinner. That second evening she came down in a gauzy
+sort of dress, with a thin white body. Mrs. Todhetley thought she would
+be cold, but she said she was used to it.
+
+And so it went on; never were they apart for an hour--no, nor scarcely
+for a minute in the day.
+
+At first Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley saw nothing. Rather were they glad Tod
+should be so attentive to a stranger; for special politeness had not
+previously been one of Tod's virtues; but they could only notice as the
+thing went on. Mrs. Todhetley grew to have an uneasy look in her eyes,
+and one day the Squire spoke out. Sophie Chalk had tied a pink woollen
+scarf over her head to go out with Tod to see the rabbits fed: he ran
+back for something, and the Squire caught his arm.
+
+"Don't carry that on too far, Joe. You don't know who the girl is."
+
+"What nonsense, sir!" returned Tod, with a ready laugh; but he turned
+the colour of a peony.
+
+We did not know much about her, except that she seemed to be on the
+high ropes, talking a good deal of great people, and of Lord and Lady
+Augustus Difford, with whom she had been staying for two months before
+Christmas. Her home in London, she said, was at her sister's, who had
+married a wealthy merchant, and lived fashionably in Torriana Square.
+Mrs. Todhetley did not like to appear inquisitive, and would not ask
+questions. Miss Chalk was with us as the Whitneys' friend, and that was
+sufficient.
+
+Bill Whitney's hurt turned out to be something complicated about the
+ribs. There was no danger after the first week, and they returned home
+during the second, bringing Bill with them. Helen Whitney wrote the same
+day for Sophie Chalk, and she said that her mamma would be happy also to
+see Tod and me for a short time.
+
+We went over in the large phaeton, Tod driving, Miss Chalk beside him; I
+and Dwarf Giles behind. She had thanked Mrs. Todhetley in the prettiest
+manner; she told the Squire, as he handed her into the carriage, that
+she should never forget his kindness, and hoped some time to find an
+opportunity of repaying it.
+
+Such kissing between Helen and Sophie Chalk! I thought they'd never
+leave off. Anna stood by Tod, while he looked on: a hungry light in his
+eyes, as if envying Helen the kisses she took. He had no eyes now for
+Anna. Lady Whitney asked if we would go upstairs to William: he was
+impatient to see us both.
+
+"Halloa, old Johnny!"
+
+He was lying on his back on a broad flat sofa, looking just as well
+as ever in the face. They had given him up the best bedroom and
+dressing-room because he was ill: nice rooms, both--with the door
+opening between.
+
+"How did it happen, Bill?"
+
+"Goodness knows! Some fellow rode his horse pretty near over mine--don't
+believe he had ever been astride anything but a donkey before. Where's
+Tod?"
+
+"Somewhere.--I thought he was close behind me."
+
+"I'm so glad you two have come. It's awfully dull, lying here all day."
+
+"Are you obliged to lie?"
+
+"Carden says so."
+
+"Do you have Carden?"
+
+"As if our folk would be satisfied without him in a surgical case, and
+one of danger! He was telegraphed for on the spot, and came over in less
+than an hour. It happened near the Ombersley station. He comes here
+every other day, and Featherston between whiles as his locum tenens."
+
+Tod burst in with a laugh. He had been talking to the girls in the
+gallery outside. Leaving him and Bill Whitney to have out their own
+chaffer, I went through the door to the other room--the fire there was
+the largest. "How do you do, sir?"
+
+Some one in a neat brown gown and close white cap, sewing at a table
+behind the door, had got up to say this with a curtsey. Where had I seen
+her?--a woman of three or four and thirty, with a meek, delicate face,
+and a subdued expression. She saw the puzzle.
+
+"I am Harry Lease's widow, sir. He was pointsman at South Crabb?"
+
+Why, yes, to be sure! And she was not much altered either. But it was a
+good while now since he died, and she and the children had moved away at
+the time. I shook hands: the sight of her brought poor Harry Lease to my
+mind--and many other things.
+
+"Are you living here?"
+
+"I have been nursing young Mr. Whitney, sir. Mr. Carden sent me over
+from Worcester to the place where he was lying; and my lady thought I
+might as well come on here with them for a bit, though he don't want
+more done for him now than a servant could do. What a deal you have
+grown, sir!"
+
+"Have I? You should see Joseph Todhetley. You knew me, though, Mrs.
+Lease?"
+
+"I remembered your voice, sir. Besides, I heard Miss Anna say that you
+were coming here."
+
+Asking after Polly, she gave me the family history since Lease's death.
+First of all, after moving to her mother's at Worcester, she tried to
+get a living at making gloves. Her two youngest children caught some
+disorder, and died; and then she took to go out nursing. In that she
+succeeded so well--for it seemed to be her vocation, she said--as to be
+brought under the notice of some of the medical gentlemen of the town.
+They gave her plenty to do, and she earned an excellent living, Polly
+and the other two being cared for by the grandmother.
+
+"After the scuffle, and toil, and sorrow of the old days, nursing seems
+like a holiday to me, Master Ludlow," she concluded; "and I am at home
+with the children for a day or two as often as I can be."
+
+"Johnny!"
+
+The call was Bill Whitney's, and I went into the other room. Helen was
+there, but not Tod. She and Bill were disputing.
+
+"I tell you, William, I shall bring her in. She has asked to come. You
+can't think how nice she is."
+
+"And I tell you, Helen, that I won't have her brought in. What do I want
+with your Sophie Chalks?"
+
+"It will be your loss."
+
+"So be it! I can't do with strange girls here."
+
+"You will see that."
+
+"Now look here, Helen--_I won't have it_. To-morrow is Mr. Carden's day
+for coming, and I'll tell him that I can't be left in peace. He will
+soon give you a word of a sort."
+
+"Oh, well, if you are so serious about it as that, let it drop,"
+returned Helen, good-humouredly. "I only thought to give you
+pleasure--and Sophie Chalk did ask to come in."
+
+"Who _is_ this Sophie Chalk? That's about the nineteenth time I have
+asked it."
+
+"The sweetest girl in the world."
+
+"Let that pass. Who is she?"
+
+"I went to school with her at Miss Lakon's. She used to do my French for
+me, and touch up my drawings. She vowed a lasting friendship, and I am
+not going to forget it. Every one loves her. Lord and Lady Augustus
+Difford have just had her staying with them for two months."
+
+"Good souls!" cried Bill, satirically.
+
+"She is the loveliest fairy in the world, and dresses like an angel.
+Will you see her now, William?"
+
+"No."
+
+Helen went off with a flounce. Bill was half laughing, half peevish over
+it. Confinement made him fretful.
+
+"As if I'd let them bring a parcel of girls in to bother me! _You_'ve
+had her for these past three weeks, I hear, Johnny."
+
+"Pretty near it."
+
+"Do you like her?"
+
+"Tod does."
+
+"What sort of a creature is the syren?"
+
+"She'd fascinate the eyes out of your head, Bill, give her the chance."
+
+"Then I'll be shot if she shall have the chance as far as I am
+concerned! Lease!"--raising his voice--"keep all strange ladies out of
+here. If they attempt to enter, tell them we've got rats about."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Other visitors were staying in the house. A Miss Deveen, and her
+companion Miss Cattledon. We saw them first at dinner. Miss Deveen sat
+by Sir John--an ancient lady, active and upright, with a keen, pleasant
+face and white hair. She had on a worked-muslin shirt-front, with three
+emerald studs in it that glittered as bright as diamonds. They were
+beautiful. After dinner, when the four old ones began whist, and we were
+at the other end of the drawing-room in a group, some one spoke of the
+studs.
+
+"They are nothing compared with some of her jewellery," said Helen
+Whitney. "She has a whole set of most beautiful diamonds. I hardly know
+what they are worth."
+
+"But those emeralds she has on to-night must be of great value," cried
+Sophie Chalk. "See how they sparkle!"
+
+It made us all turn. As Miss Deveen moved in throwing down her cards,
+the rays from the wax-lights fell on the emeralds, bringing out the
+purest green ever imagined by a painter.
+
+"I should like to steal them," said Sophie Chalk; "they would look well
+on me."
+
+It made us laugh. Tod had his eyes fixed on her, a strange love in their
+depths. Anna Whitney, kneeling on the ground behind me, could see it.
+
+"I would rather steal a set of pink topaz studs that she has," spoke
+Helen; "and the opals, too. Miss Deveen is great in studs."
+
+"Why in studs?"
+
+"Because she always wears this sort of white body; it is her habitual
+evening dress, with satin skirts. I know she has a different set of
+studs for every day in the month."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Sophie Chalk.
+
+"A cousin of mamma's. She has a great deal of money, and no one in
+particular to leave it to. Harry says he hopes she'll remember, in
+making her will, that he is only a poor younger son."
+
+"Just you shut up, Helen," interrupted Harry, in a whisper. "I believe
+that companion has ears at the back of her head."
+
+Miss Cattledon glanced round from the whist-table, as though the ears
+were there and wide open. She was a wiry lady of middle age, quite
+forty, with a screwed-in waist and creaking stays, a piece of crimson
+velvet round her long thin neck, her scanty hair light as ginger.
+
+"It is she that has charge of the jewel-box," spoke Helen, when we
+thought it safe to begin again. "Miss Deveen is a wonderful old lady for
+sixty; she has come here without a maid this time, and dresses herself.
+I don't see what use Miss Cattledon is to her, unless it is to act as
+general refrigerator, but she gets a hundred a year salary and some of
+the old satins. Sophie, I'm sure she heard what we said--that we should
+like to steal the trinkets."
+
+"Hope she relished it!" quoth Harry. "She'll put them under double lock
+and key, for fear we should break in."
+
+It was all jesting. Amid the subdued laughing, Tod bent his face over
+Sophie Chalk, his hand touching the lace on her sleeve. She had on blue
+to-night with a pearl necklace.
+
+"Will you sing that song for me, Miss Chalk?"
+
+She rose and took his arm. Helen jumped up and arrested them ere they
+reached the piano.
+
+"We must not have any music just now. Papa never likes it when they are
+at whist."
+
+"How very unreasonable of him!" cried Tod, looking fiercely at Sir
+John's old red nose and steel spectacles.
+
+"Of course it is," agreed Helen. "If he played for guinea stakes instead
+of sixpenny, he could not be more particular about having no noise. Let
+us go into the study: we can do as we like there."
+
+We all trooped off. It was a small square room with a shabby carpet and
+worn horse-hair chairs. Helen stirred up the fire; and Sophie sat down
+on a low stool and said she'd tell us a fairy tale.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had been there just a week when it came out. The week was a good one.
+Long walks in the frosty air; a huge swing between the cedar trees;
+riding by turns on the rough Welsh pony for fun; bagatelle indoors,
+work, music, chatter; one dinner-party, and a small dance. Half my time
+was spent in Bill's room. Tod seemed to find little leisure for coming
+up; or for anything else, except Sophie Chalk. It was a gone case with
+Tod: looking on, I could see that; but I don't think any one else saw
+it, except Anna. He liked Sophie too well to make it conspicuous. Harry
+made open love to her; Sir John said she was the prettiest little lady
+he had seen for many a day. I dare say Tod told her the same in private.
+
+And she? Well, I don't know what to say. That she kept Tod at her side,
+quietly fascinating him always, was certain; but her liking for him did
+not appear real. To me it seemed that she was _acting_ it. "I can't
+make that Sophie Chalk out, Tod," I said to him one day by the beeches:
+"she seems childishly genuine, but I believe she's just as sharp as a
+needle." Tod laughed idly, and told me I was the simplest muff that ever
+walked in shoe-leather. She was no rider, and some one had to walk by
+her side when she sat on the Welsh pony, holding her on at all the
+turnings. It was generally Tod: she made believe to be frightfully timid
+with _him_.
+
+It was at the end of the week that the loss was discovered: Miss
+Deveen's emerald studs were gone. You never heard such a commotion. She,
+the owner, took it quietly, but Miss Cattledon made noise enough for
+ten. The girls were talking round the study fire the morning after the
+dance, and I was writing a note at the table, when Lettice Lane came in,
+her face white as death.
+
+"I beg your pardon, young ladies, for asking, but have any of you seen
+Miss Deveen's emerald studs, please?"
+
+They turned round in surprise.
+
+"Miss Deveen's studs!" exclaimed Helen. "We are not likely to have seen
+them, Lettice. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because, Miss Helen, they are gone--that is, Miss Cattledon says they
+are. But, with so much jewellery as there is in that case, it is very
+easy to overlook two or three little things."
+
+Why Lettice Lane should have shaken all over in telling this, was a
+marvel. Her very teeth chattered. Anna inquired; but all the answer
+given by the girl was, that it had "put her into a twitter." Sophie
+Chalk's countenance was full of compassion, and I liked her for it.
+
+"Don't let it trouble you, Lettice," she said kindly. "If the studs are
+missing, I dare say they will be found. Just before I came down here
+my sister lost a brooch from her dressing-table. The whole house was
+searched for it, the servants were uncomfortable----"
+
+"And was it found, miss?" interrupted Lettice, too eager to let her
+finish.
+
+"Of course it was found. Jewels don't get hopelessly lost in gentlemen's
+houses. It had fallen down, and, caught in the lace of the toilette
+drapery, was lying hid within its folds."
+
+"Oh, thank you, miss; yes, perhaps the studs have fallen too," said
+Lettice Lane as she went out. Helen looked after her in some curiosity.
+
+"Why should the loss trouble _her_? Lettice has nothing to do with Miss
+Deveen's jewels."
+
+"Look here, Helen, I wish we had never said we should like to steal the
+things," spoke Sophie Chalk. "It was all in jest, of course, but this
+would not be a nice sequel to it."
+
+"Why--yes--you did say it, some of you," cried Anna, who, until then,
+had seemed buried in thought; and her face flushed.
+
+"What if we did?" retorted Helen, looking at her in some slight
+surprise.
+
+Soon after this, in going up to Bill's room, I met Lettice Lane. She was
+running down with a plate, and looked whiter than ever.
+
+"Are the studs found, Lettice?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The answer was short, the manner scared. Helen had wondered why the loss
+should affect her; and so did I.
+
+"Where's the use of your being put out over it, Lettice? You did not
+take them."
+
+"No, Master Johnny, I did not; but--but----" looking round and dropping
+her voice, "I am afraid I know who did; and it was through me. I'm
+a'most mad."
+
+This was rather mysterious. She gave no opportunity for more, but ran
+down as though the stairs were on fire.
+
+I went on to Bill's chamber, and found Tod and Harry with him: they
+were laughing over a letter from some fellow at Oxford. Standing at the
+window close by the inner door, which was ajar, I heard Lettice Lane go
+into the dressing-room and speak to Mrs. Lease in a half whisper.
+
+"I can't bear this any longer," she said. "If you have taken
+those studs, for Heaven's sake put them back. I'll make some
+excuse--say I found them under the carpet, or slipped under the
+drawers--anything--only put them back!"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," replied Mrs. Lease, who always spoke as
+though she had only half a voice.
+
+"Yes, you do. You have got the studs."
+
+By the pause that ensued, Nurse Lease seemed to have lost the power of
+speech. Lettice took the opportunity to put it more strongly.
+
+"If you've got them about you, give them into my hand now, and I'll
+manage the rest. Not a living soul shall ever know of this if you will.
+Oh, do give them to me!"
+
+Mrs. Lease spoke then. "If you say this again, Lettice Lane, I'll tell
+my lady all. And indeed, I have been wanting to tell her ever since I
+heard that something had gone. It was for your sake I did not."
+
+"For my sake!" shrieked Lettice.
+
+"Well, it was. I'm sure I'd not like to say it if I could help, Lettice
+Lane; but it did strike me that you might have been tempted to--to--you
+know."
+
+So it was accusation and counter-accusation. Which of the two confessed
+first was uncertain; but in a short time the whole was known to the
+house, and to Lady Whitney.
+
+On the previous night the upper housemaid was in bed with some slight
+illness, and it fell to Lettice Lane to put the rooms to rights after
+the ladies had dressed. Instead of calling one of the other servants
+she asked Mrs. Lease to help her--which must have been for nothing
+but to gossip with the nurse, as Lady Whitney said. On Miss Deveen's
+dressing-table stood her case of jewels, the key in the lock. Lettice
+lifted the lid. On the top tray glittered a heap of ornaments, and the
+two women feasted their eyes with them. Nurse Lease declared that she
+never put "a finger's end" on a single article. Lettice could not say as
+much. Neither (if they were to be believed) had observed the green
+studs; and the upper tray was not lifted to see what was underneath.
+Miss Cattledon, who made one at the uproar, put in her word at this, to
+say they were telling a falsehood, and her face had enough vinegar in
+it to pickle a salmon. Other people might like Miss Cattledon, but I did
+not. She was in a silent rage with Miss Deveen for having chosen to keep
+the jewel-case during their stay at Whitney Hall, and for carelessly
+leaving the key in it. Miss Deveen took the loss calmly, and was as cool
+as a cucumber.
+
+"I don't know that the emerald studs were in the upper tray last night;
+I don't remember to have seen them," Miss Deveen said, as if bearing out
+the assertion of the two women.
+
+"Begging your pardon, madam, they _were_ there," stiffly corrected Miss
+Cattledon. "I saw them. I thought you would put them on, as you were
+going to wear your green satin gown, and asked if I should lay them out;
+but you told me you would choose for yourself."
+
+Miss Deveen had worn diamonds; we had noticed their lustre.
+
+"I'm sure it is a dreadful thing to have happened!" said poor Lady
+Whitney, looking flurried. "I dare not tell Sir John; he would storm the
+windows out of their frames. Lease, I am astonished at _you_. How could
+you dare open the box?"
+
+"I never did open it, my lady," was the answer. "When I got round from
+the bed, Lettice was standing with it open before her."
+
+"I don't think there need be much doubt as to the guilty party," struck
+in Miss Cattledon with intense acrimony, her eyes swooping down upon
+Lettice. And if they were not sly and crafty eyes, never you trust me
+again.
+
+"I do not think there need be so much trouble made about it," corrected
+Miss Deveen. "It's not your loss, Cattledon--it is mine: and my own
+fault too."
+
+But Miss Cattledon would not take the hint. She stuck to it like a
+leech, and sifted evidence as subtly as an Old Bailey lawyer. Mrs.
+Lease carried innocence on the surface; no one could doubt it: Lettice
+might have been taken for a seven-years' thief. She sobbed, and choked,
+and rambled in her tale, and grew as confused as a hunted hare,
+contradicting herself at every second word. The Australian scheme
+(though it might have been nothing but foolish talk) told against her
+now.
+
+Things grew more uncomfortable as the day went on, the house being
+ransacked from head to foot. Sophie Chalk cried. She was not rich, she
+said to me, but she would give every shilling of money she had with her
+for the studs to be found; and she thought it was very wrong to accuse
+Lettice, when so many strangers had been in the house. I liked Sophie
+better than I had liked her yet: she looked regularly vexed.
+
+Sir John got to know of it: Miss Cattledon told him. He did not storm
+the windows out, but he said the police must come in and see Lettice
+Lane. Miss Deveen, hearing of this, went straight to Sir John, and
+assured him that if he took any serious steps while the affair was so
+doubtful, she would quit his house on the instant, and never put foot
+in it again. He retorted that it must have been Lettice Lane--common
+sense and Miss Cattledon could not be mistaken--and that it ought to
+be investigated.
+
+They came to a compromise. Lettice was not to be given into custody
+at present; but she must quit the Hall. That, said Miss Deveen, was
+of course as Sir John and Lady Whitney pleased. To tell the truth,
+suspicion did seem strong against her.
+
+She went away at eventide. One of the men was charged to drive her to
+her mother's, about five miles off. I and Anna, hastening home from
+our walk--for we had lost the others, and the stars were coming out in
+the wintry sky--saw them as we passed the beeches. Lettice's face was
+swollen with crying.
+
+"We are so sorry this has happened, Lettice," Anna gently said, going up
+to the gig. "I do hope it will be cleared up soon. Remember one thing--I
+shall think well of you, until it is. _I_ do not suspect you."
+
+"I am turned out like a criminal, Miss Anna," sobbed the girl. "They
+searched me to the skin; that Miss Cattledon standing on to see that the
+housekeeper did it properly; and they have searched my boxes. The only
+one to speak a kind word to me as I came away, was Miss Deveen herself.
+It's a disgrace I shall never get over."
+
+"That's rubbish, Lettice, you know,"--for I thought I'd put in a good
+word, too. "You will soon forget it, once the right fellow is pitched
+upon. Good luck to you, Lettice."
+
+Anna shook hands with her, and the man drove on, Lettice sobbing aloud.
+Not hearing Anna's footsteps, I looked round and saw she had sat down on
+one of the benches, though it was white with frost. I went back.
+
+"Don't you go and catch cold, Anna."
+
+"Johnny, you cannot think how this is troubling _me_."
+
+"Why you--in particular?"
+
+"Well--for one thing I can't believe that she is guilty. I have always
+liked Lettice."
+
+"So did we at Dyke Manor. But if she is not guilty, who is?"
+
+"I don't know, Johnny," she continued, her eyes taking a thoughtful,
+far-off look. "What I cannot help thinking, is this--though I feel
+half ashamed to say it. Several visitors were in the house last night;
+suppose one should have found her way into the room, and taken them?
+If so, how cruel this must be on Lettice Lane."
+
+"Sophie Chalk suggested the same thing to me to-day. But a visitor would
+not do such a thing. Fancy a lady stealing jewels!"
+
+"The open box might prove a strong temptation. People do things in such
+moments, Johnny, that they would fly from at other times."
+
+"Sophie said that too. You have been talking together."
+
+"I have not exchanged a word with Sophie Chalk on the subject. The ideas
+might occur naturally to any of us."
+
+I did not think it at all likely to have been a visitor. How should a
+visitor know there was an open jewel-box in Miss Deveen's room? The
+chamber, too, was an inner one, and therefore not liable to be entered
+accidentally. To get to it you had to go through Miss Cattledon's.
+
+"The room is not easy of access, you know, Anna."
+
+"Not very. But it might be reached."
+
+"I say, are you saying this for any purpose?"
+
+She turned round and looked at me rather sharply.
+
+"Yes. Because I do not believe it was Lettice Lane."
+
+"Was it Miss Cattledon herself, Anna? I have heard of such curious
+things. Her eyes took a greedy look to-day when they rested on the
+jewels."
+
+As if the suggestion frightened her--and I hardly know how I came to
+whisper it--Anna started up, and ran across the lawn, never looking
+back or stopping until she reached the house.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+AT MISS DEVEEN'S.
+
+
+The table was between us as we stood in the dining-room at Dyke Manor--I
+and Mrs. Todhetley--and on it lay a three-cornered article of soft
+geranium-coloured wool, which she called a "fichu." I had my great coat
+on my arm ready for travelling, for I was going up to London on a visit
+to Miss Deveen.
+
+It was Easter now. Soon after the trouble, caused by the loss of the
+emerald studs at Whitney Hall in January, the party had dispersed.
+Sophie Chalk returned to London; Tod and I came home; Miss Deveen was
+going to Bath. The studs had not been traced--had never been heard of
+since; and Lettice Lane, after a short stay in disgrace at her mother's
+cottage, had suddenly disappeared. Of course there were not wanting
+people to affirm that she had gone off to her favourite land of promise,
+Australia, carrying the studs with her.
+
+The Whitneys were now in London. They did not go in for London seasons;
+in fact, Lady Whitney hardly remembered to have had a season in London
+at all, and she quite dreaded this one, saying she should feel like a
+fish out of water. Sir John occupied a bedroom when he went up for
+Parliament, and dined at his club. But Helen was nineteen, and they
+thought she ought to be presented to the Queen. So Miss Deveen was
+consulted about a furnished house, and she and Sir John took one for six
+weeks from just before Easter. They left Whitney Hall at once to take
+possession; and Bill Whitney and Tod, who got an invitation, joined them
+the day before Good Friday.
+
+The next Tuesday I received a letter from Miss Deveen. We were very good
+friends at Whitney, and she had been polite enough to say she should be
+glad to see me in London. I never expected to go, for three-parts of
+those invitations do not come to anything. She wrote now to ask me to go
+up; it might be pleasant for me, she added, as Joseph Todhetley was
+staying with the Whitneys.
+
+It is of no use going on until I have said a word about Tod. If ever a
+fellow was hopelessly in love with a girl, he was with Sophie Chalk. I
+don't mean hopeless as to the love, but as to getting out of it. On the
+day that we were quitting Whitney Hall--it was on the 26th of January,
+and the icicles were clustering on the trees--they had taken a long walk
+together. What Tod said I don't know, but I think he let her know how
+much he loved her, and asked her to wait until he should be of age and
+could ask the question--would she be his wife? We went with her to the
+station, and the way Tod wrapped her up in the railway-carriage was as
+good as a show. (Pretty little Mrs. Hughes, who had been visiting old
+Featherston, went up by the same train and in the same carriage.) They
+corresponded a little, she and Tod. Nothing particular in her letters,
+at any rate--nothing but what the world might see, or that she might
+have written to Mrs. Todhetley, who had one from her on occasion--but I
+know Tod just lived on those letters and her remembrance; he could not
+hide it from me; and I saw without wishing to see or being able to help
+myself. Why, he had gone up to London now in one sole hope--that of
+meeting again with Miss Chalk!
+
+Mrs. Todhetley saw it too--had seen it from the time when Sophie Chalk
+was at Dyke Manor--and it grieved and worried her. But not the Squire:
+he no more supposed Tod was going to take up seriously with Sophie
+Chalk, than with the pink-eyed lady exhibited the past year at Pershore
+Fair.
+
+Well, that's all of explanation. This was Wednesday morning, and the
+Squire was going to drive me to the station for the London train. Mrs.
+Todhetley at the last moment was giving me charge of the fichu, which
+she had made for Sophie Chalk's sister.
+
+"I did not send it by Joseph; I thought it as well not to do so," she
+observed, as she began to pack it up in tissue paper. "Will you take it
+down to Mrs. Smith yourself, Johnny, and deliver it?"
+
+"All right."
+
+"I--you know, Johnny, I have the greatest dislike to anything that is
+mean or underhand," she went on, dropping her voice a little. "But I do
+not think it would be wrong, under the circumstances, if I ask you to
+take a little notice of what these Smiths are. I don't mean in the way
+of being fashionable, Johnny; I suppose they are all that; but whether
+they are nice, good people. Somehow I did not like Miss Chalk, with all
+her fascinations, and it is of no use to pretend that I did."
+
+"She was too fascinating for ordinary folk, good mother."
+
+"Yes, that was it. She seemed to put the fascinations on. And, Johnny,
+though we were to hear that she had a thousand a year to her fortune, I
+should be miserable if I thought Joe would choose her for his wife."
+
+"She used to say she was poor."
+
+"But she seemed to have a whole list of lords and ladies for her
+friends, so I conclude she and her connections must be people of note.
+It is not that, Johnny--rich or poor--it is that I don't like her for
+herself, and I do not think she is the one to make Joe happy. She never
+spoke openly about her friends, you know, or about herself. At any rate,
+you take down this little parcel to Mrs. Smith, with my kind regards,
+and then you'll see them for yourself. And in judgment and observation
+you are worth fifty of Joe, any day."
+
+"Not in either judgment or observation; only in instinct."
+
+"And that's for yourself," she added, slipping a sovereign into my
+pocket. "I don't know how much Mr. Todhetley has given you. Mind you
+spend your money in right things, Johnny. But I am not afraid; I could
+trust you all over the world."
+
+Giles put in my portmanteau, and we drove off. The hedges were beginning
+to bud; the fields looked green. From observations about the young
+lambs, and a broken fence that he went into a passion over, the Squire
+suddenly plunged into something else.
+
+"You take care of yourself, sir, in London! Boys get into all kinds of
+pitfalls there, if they don't mind."
+
+"But I do not call myself a boy, sir, now."
+
+"Not call yourself a boy!" retorted the Squire, staring. "I'd like to
+know what else you are. Tod's a boy, sir, and nothing else, though he
+does count twenty years. I wonder what the world's coming to!" he added,
+lashing up Bob and Blister. "In my days, youngsters did not think
+themselves men before they had done growing."
+
+"What I meant was that I am old enough to take care of myself. Mrs.
+Todhetley has just said she could trust me all over the world."
+
+"Just like her foolishness! Take care you don't get your pockets picked:
+there's sure to be a thief at every corner. And don't you pick them
+yourself, Master Johnny. I knew a young fellow once who went up to
+London with ten pounds in his pocket. He was staying at the Castle and
+Falcon Hotel, near the place where the mails used to start from--and a
+fine sight it was to see them bowl out, one after another, with their
+lamps lighted. Well, Johnny, this young fellow got back again in four
+days by one of these very mails, every shilling spent, and his fare down
+not paid. You'd not think that was steady old Jacobson; but it was."
+
+I laughed. The Squire looked more inclined to cry.
+
+"Cleaned out, he was; not a rap left! Money melts in London--that's a
+fact--and it is very necessary to be cautious. _His_ went in seeing the
+shows; so he told his father. Don't you go in for too many of them,
+Johnny, or you may find yourself without funds to bring you home, and
+railways don't give trust. You might go to the Tower, now; and St.
+Paul's; and the British Museum; they are steady places. I wouldn't
+advise a theatre, unless it's just once--some good, respectable play;
+and mind you go straight home after it. Some young men slink off to
+singing-shops now, they say, but I am sure such places can bring no
+good."
+
+"Being with Miss Deveen, sir, I don't suppose I shall have the
+opportunity of getting into much harm."
+
+"Well, it's right in me to caution you, Johnny. London is a dreadful
+place, full of sharpers and bad people. It used to be in the old days,
+and I don't suppose it has improved in these. You have no father,
+Johnny, and I stand to you in the light of one, to give you these
+warnings. Enjoy your visit rationally, my boy, and come home with a true
+report and a good conscience. That's the charge my old father always
+gave to me."
+
+Miss Deveen lived in a very nice house, north-westward, away from the
+bustle of London. The road was wide, the houses were semi-detached, with
+gardens around and plenty of trees in view. Somehow I had hoped Tod
+would be at the Paddington terminus, and was disappointed, so I took a
+cab and went on. Miss Deveen came into the hall to receive me, and said
+she did not consider me too big to be kissed, considering she was over
+sixty. Miss Cattledon, sitting in the drawing-room, gave me a finger to
+shake, and did not seem to like my coming. Her waist and throat were
+thinner and longer than ever; her stays creaked like parchment.
+
+If I'd never had a surprise in my life, I had one before I was in the
+house an hour. Coming down from the bedroom to which they had shown me,
+a maid-servant passed me on the first-floor landing. It was Lettice
+Lane! I wondered--believe me or not, as you will--I wondered whether I
+saw a ghost, and stood back against the pillar of the banisters.
+
+"Why, Lettice, is it you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But--what are you doing _here_?"
+
+"I am here in service, sir."
+
+She ran on upstairs. Lettice in Miss Deveen's house. It was worse than
+a Chinese puzzle.
+
+"Is that you, Johnny? Step in here?"
+
+The voice--Miss Deveen's--came from a half-opened door, close at hand.
+It was a small, pretty sitting-room, with light blue curtains and
+chairs. Miss Deveen sat by the fire, ready for dinner. In her white body
+shone amethyst studs, quite as beautiful as the lost emeralds.
+
+"We call this the blue-room, Johnny. It is my own exclusively, and no
+one enters it except upon invitation. Sit down. Were you surprised to
+see Lettice Lane?"
+
+"I don't think I was ever so much surprised in all my life. She says she
+is living here."
+
+"Yes; I sent for her to help my housemaid."
+
+I was thoroughly mystified. Miss Deveen put down her book and
+spectacles.
+
+"I have taken to glasses, Johnny."
+
+"But I thought you saw so well."
+
+"So I do, for anything but very small type--and that book seems to have
+been printed for none but the youngest eyes. And I see people as well as
+things," she added significantly.
+
+I felt sure of that.
+
+"Do you remember, Johnny, the day after the uproar at Whitney Hall, that
+I asked you to pilot me to Lettice Lane's mother's, and to say nothing
+about it?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. You walked the whole four miles of the way. It is five
+by road."
+
+"And back again. I am good for more yet than some of the young folk are,
+Johnny; but I always was an excellent walker. Next day the party broke
+up; that pretty girl, Sophie Chalk, departed for London, and you and
+young Todhetley left later. When you reached your home in the evening,
+I don't suppose you thought I had been to Dyke Manor the same day."
+
+"No! Had you really, Miss Deveen?"
+
+"Really and truly. I'll tell you now the reason of those journeys
+of mine. As Lettice Lane was being turned out of the Hall, she made
+a remark in the moment of departure, accidentally I am sure, which
+caused me to be almost certain she was not guilty of stealing the
+studs. Before, whilst they were all condemning her as guilty, _I_ had
+felt doubtful of it; but of course I could not be sure, and Miss
+Cattledon reproaches me with thinking every one innocent under every
+circumstance--which is a mistake of hers. Mind, Johnny, the few words
+Lettice said might have been used designedly, by one crafty and guilty,
+on purpose to throw me off suspicion: but I felt almost persuaded
+that the girl had spoken them in unconscious innocence. I went to her
+mother's to see them both; I am fond of looking into things with my own
+eyes; and I came away with my good opinion strengthened. I went next to
+Mrs. Todhetley's to hear what she said of the girl; I saw her and your
+old nurse, Hannah, making my request to both not to speak of my visit.
+They gave the girl a good character for honesty; Mrs. Todhetley thought
+her quite incapable of taking the studs; Hannah could not say what a
+foolish girl with roving ideas of Australia in her head might do in a
+moment of temptation. In less than a fortnight I was back in London,
+having paid my visit to Bath. I had been reflecting all that time,
+Johnny, on the cruel blight this must be on Lettice Lane, supposing
+that she was innocent. I thought the probabilities were that she _was_
+innocent, not guilty; and I determined to offer her a home in my own
+house during the uncertainty. She seemed only too glad to accept it, and
+here she is. If the girl should eventually turn out to be innocent, I
+shall have done her a real service; if guilty, why I shall not regret
+having held out a helping hand to her, that may perhaps save her for the
+future."
+
+"It was very kind and thoughtful of you, Miss Deveen!"
+
+"My chief difficulty lay in keeping the suspicion lying on Lettice Lane
+a secret from my household. Fortunately I had taken no servants with me
+to Whitney Hall, my maid having been ill at the time; but Cattledon is
+outrageously virtuous, and of course proportionally bitter against
+Lettice. You saw that at Whitney."
+
+"She would have been the first to tell of her."
+
+"Yes. I had to put the thing rather strongly to Miss Cattledon--'Hold
+your tongue or leave me.' It answered, Johnny. Cattledon likes her
+place here, and acts accordingly. She picks up her petticoats from
+contamination when she meets the unfortunate Lettice; but she takes
+care to hold her tongue."
+
+"Do you think it will ever be found out, Miss Deveen?"
+
+"I hope it will."
+
+"But who--could have taken them?" And the thought of what I had said to
+Anna Whitney, that it might be Miss Cattledon herself, flashed over me
+as I put the question.
+
+"I think"--Miss Deveen glanced round as if to make sure we were alone,
+and dropped her voice a little--"that it must have been one of the
+guests who came to Whitney Hall that night. Cattledon let out one thing,
+but not until after we were at home again, for the fact seemed not to
+have made the least impression on her memory at the time; but it came
+back afterwards. When she was quitting her room after dressing that
+evening--I being already out of mine and downstairs--she saw the shawl
+she had worn in the afternoon lying across a chair just as she had
+thrown it off. She is very careful of her clothes; and hesitated, she
+said, whether to go back then and fold it; but, knowing she was late,
+did not do so. She had been downstairs about ten minutes, when I asked
+her to fetch my fan, which I had forgotten. Upon going through her
+room to mine, she saw the shawl lying on the floor, and picked it up,
+wondering how it could have come there. At that time the maids had not
+been in to put either her room or mine to rights. Now, what I infer,
+Johnny, is that my jewel-case was visited and the studs were stolen
+_before_ Lettice Lane and Mrs. Lease went near the rooms, and that the
+thief, in her hurry to escape, brushed against the shawl and threw it
+down."
+
+"And cannot Miss Cattledon see the probability of that?"
+
+"She will not see it. Lettice Lane is guilty with her and no one else.
+Prejudice goes a long way in this world, Johnny. The people who came to
+the dance that night were taking off their things in the next room to
+Miss Cattledon's, and I think it likely that some one of them may have
+found a way into my chamber, perhaps even by accident, and the sight of
+the brilliant emerald studs--they were more beautiful than any they
+were lying with--was too much for human equanimity. It was my fault for
+leaving the dressing-case open--and do you know, Johnny, I believe I
+left it literally _open_--I can never forget that."
+
+"But Lettice Lane said it was shut; shut but not locked."
+
+"Well, it is upon my conscience that I left it open. Whoever took
+the studs may have shut down the lid, in caution or forgetfulness.
+Meanwhile, Johnny, don't you say anything of what I have told you; at
+the Whitneys' or elsewhere. They do not know that Lettice Lane is with
+me; they are prejudiced against her, especially Sir John; and Lettice
+has orders to keep out of the way of visitors. Should they by chance see
+her, why, I shall say that as the case was at best doubtful, I am giving
+the girl a chance to redeem her good name. We are going there after
+dinner. So mind you keep counsel."
+
+"To the Whitneys'?"
+
+"It is only next door, as you may say. I did not mention that you were
+coming up," she added, "so there will be a surprise for them. And now we
+will go down. Here, carry my book for me, Johnny."
+
+In the drawing-room we found a grey-haired curate, with a mild voice;
+Miss Cattledon was simpering and smiling upon him. I gathered that he
+did duty in the church hard by, and had come to dinner by invitation. He
+took in Miss Deveen, and that other blessed lady fell to me. It was a
+very good dinner, uncommonly good to me after my journey. Miss Deveen
+carved. And didn't she make me eat! She said she knew what boys'
+appetites were. The curate took his leave, but Miss Deveen sat on; she
+fancied to have heard that the Whitneys were to have friends to dinner
+that night, and would not go in too early.
+
+About half-a-dozen houses lay between, and Miss Deveen put a shawl over
+her head and walked the distance. "Such a mistake, to have taken a
+place for them so near Hyde Park!" whispered Miss Cattledon as we were
+following--and I'm sure she must have been in a gracious mood to give me
+the confidence. "Neither Sir John nor Miss Deveen has much notion of
+the requirements of fashionable society, Mr. Ludlow: as to poor Lady
+Whitney, she is a very owl in all that relates to it."
+
+Poor Lady Whitney--not looking like an owl, but a plain, good-hearted
+English mother--was the first to see us. There was no dinner-party
+after all. She sat on a chair just inside the drawing-room, which was
+precisely the same in build and size as Miss Deveen's, but had not her
+handsome furniture and appointments. She said she was glad to see me,
+and would have invited me with Joe, but for want of beds.
+
+They were all grouped at the other end of the room, playing at forfeits,
+and a great deal too busy to notice me. I had leisure to look at them.
+Helen was talking very fast: Harry shouting; Anna sat leaning her cheek
+on her hand; Tod stood frowning and angry against the wall; the young
+ones were jumping about like savages; and Bill Whitney was stuck on
+a stool, his eyes bandaged, and the tips of a girl's white fingers
+touching his hands. A fairy, rather than a girl, for that's what she
+looked like, with her small, light figure and her gauze skirts floating:
+Miss Sophie Chalk.
+
+But what on earth had come to her hair? It used to be brown; it was now
+light, and gleaming with gold spangles. Perhaps it belonged to her fairy
+nature.
+
+Suddenly Bill shouted out "Miss Chalk," threw off the bandage, and
+caught her hands to kiss her! It was all in the forfeits: he had a right
+to do it, because he guessed her name. She laughed and struggled, the
+children and Helen were as wild Indians with glee, and Tod looked ready
+to bring the roof down. Just as Bill gave the kiss, Anna saw me.
+
+Of course it created an interlude, and the forfeits were thrown up. Tod
+came out of his passion, feeling a little frightened.
+
+"Johnny! Why, what in the world brings you here? Anything wrong with my
+father?"
+
+"I am only come up on a visit to Miss Deveen, Tod."
+
+"Well, I'm sure!" cried Tod; as if he thought he ought to have all the
+visiting, and I none of it.
+
+Sophie put her hand into mine. "I am so glad to see you again," she said
+in her softest tone. "And dear Mrs. Todhetley, how is she? and the sweet
+children?"
+
+But she never waited to hear how; for she turned away at some question
+put by Bill Whitney.
+
+Sir John came in, and the four old ones sat down to their whist in the
+small drawing-room opening from this. The children were sent to bed.
+Sophie Chalk went to the piano to sing a song in hushed tones, Tod
+putting himself on one side, Bill on the other.
+
+"Are _both_ of them going in for the lady's favour?" I asked of Anna,
+pointing to the piano, as she made room for me on the sofa.
+
+"I think Miss Chalk would like it, Johnny."
+
+"How well Bill is looking!"
+
+"Oh, he has quite recovered; he seems all the stronger for his accident.
+I suppose the rest and the nursing set him up."
+
+"Is Sophie Chalk staying here?"
+
+"No; there's hardly room for her. But she has been here every day and
+all day since we came up. They send her home in a cab at night, and one
+of the maids has to go with her. It is Helen's arrangement."
+
+"Do you like London, Anna?"
+
+"No. I wish I had stayed at home."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Well--but I can't tell you every reason."
+
+"Tell me one?"
+
+Anna did not answer. She sat looking out straight before her, her eyes
+full of trouble.
+
+"Perhaps it is all nothing, Johnny. I may be fanciful and foolish, and
+so take up mistaken notions. Wrong ones, on more points than one."
+
+"Do you mean anything--_there_?"
+
+"Yes. It would be--_I_ think--a terrible misfortune for us, if William
+were to engage himself to Sophie Chalk."
+
+"You mean Tod, Anna?" I said, impulsively.
+
+She blushed like a rose. "Down at Whitney I did think it was he; but
+since we came here she seems to have changed; to be--to be----"
+
+"Going in for Bill. I put it plainly you see, Anna."
+
+"I cannot help fearing that it would be a very sad mistake for either
+of them. Oh, Johnny, I am just tormented out of my peace, doubting
+whether or not I ought to speak. Sometimes I say to myself, yes it
+would be right, it is my duty. And then again I fancy that I am
+altogether mistaken, and that there's nothing for me to say."
+
+"But what could you say, Anna?"
+
+Anna had been nervously winding her thin gold chain round her finger.
+She unwound it again before answering.
+
+"Of course--what could I? And if I were to speak, and--and--find there
+was no cause," she dreamily added, "I should never forgive myself. The
+shame of it would rest upon me throughout life."
+
+"Well, I don't see that, Anna. Just because you fancied things were
+serious when they were not so! Where would be the shame?"
+
+"You don't understand, Johnny. _I_ should feel it. And so I wish I had
+stayed down at Whitney, out of the reach of torment. I wish another
+thing with all my heart--that Helen would not have Sophie Chalk here."
+
+"I think you may take one consolation to yourself, Anna--that whatever
+you might urge against her, it would most likely make not the smallest
+difference one way or the other. With Tod I am sure it would not. If he
+set his mind on marrying Sophie Chalk, other people's grumbling would
+not turn him from it."
+
+"It might depend a little on what the grumblings were," returned Anna,
+as if fighting for the last word. "But there; let it drop. I would
+rather say no more."
+
+She took up a photograph book, and we began looking over it together.
+
+"Good gracious! Here's Miss Cattledon? Small waist and all!"
+
+Anna laughed. "She had it taken in Bath, and sent it to William. He had
+only asked her for it in joke."
+
+"So those studs have never turned up, Anna?"
+
+"No. I wish they would. I should pray night and morning for it, if I
+thought it would do no one an injury."
+
+"Johnny!" called out Sir John.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Come you, and take my hand for five minutes. I have just remembered a
+note I ought to have written this afternoon."
+
+"I shall be sure to play badly," I said to Lady Whitney, who had fallen
+to Sir John in cutting for partners.
+
+"Oh, my dear, what does it matter?" she kindly answered. "I don't mind
+if you do. I do not play well myself."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning Miss Cattledon went out to ten-o'clock daily service.
+Miss Deveen said she had taken to the habit of doing so. I wondered
+whether it was for the sake of religion, or for that grey-haired curate
+who did the prayers. Sitting by ourselves, I told Miss Deveen of the
+commission I had from Mrs. Todhetley; and somehow, without my intending
+it, she gathered a little more.
+
+"Go by all means, and learn what you can, Johnny. Go at once. I don't
+think you need, any of you, be afraid, though," she added, laughing. "I
+have seen very much of boy-and-girl love; seen that it rarely comes to
+anything. Young men mostly go through one or two such episodes before
+settling seriously to the business of life."
+
+The omnibus took me to Oxford Street, and I found my way from thence
+to Torriana Square. It proved to be a corner house, its front entrance
+being in the square. But there was a smaller entrance on the side
+(which was rather a bustling street), and a sort of office window, on
+the wire blind of which was written, in white letters, "Mr. Smith,
+wine-merchant."
+
+A wine-merchant! Well, I was surprised. Could there be any mistake? No,
+it was the right number. But I thought there must be, and stood staring
+at the place with both eyes. That _was_ a come-down. Not but that
+wine-merchants are as good as other people; only Sophie Chalk had
+somehow imparted the notion of their living up to lords and ladies.
+
+I asked at the front-door for Mrs. Smith, and was shown upstairs to a
+handsome drawing-room. A little girl, with a sallow face, thin and
+sickly, was seated there. She did not get up, only stared at me with her
+dark, keen, deep-set eyes.
+
+"Do you know where your mamma is, Miss Trot?" asked the servant, putting
+a chair.
+
+"You can go and search for her?"
+
+She looked at me so intently as the maid left the room, that I told her
+who I was, and what I had come for. The child's tongue--it seemed as
+sharp a one as Miss Cattledon's--was let loose.
+
+"I have heard of you, Johnny Ludlow. Mrs. Smith would be glad to see
+you. You had better wait."
+
+I don't know how it is that I make myself at home with people; or,
+rather, that people seem so soon to be at home with me. I don't _try_ to
+do it, but it is always so. In two or three minutes, when the girl was
+talking to me as freely as though I were her brother, the maid came back
+again.
+
+"Miss Trot, I cannot find your mamma."
+
+"Mrs. Smith's out. But I was not obliged to tell you so. I'll not spare
+you any work when you call me Miss Trot."
+
+The maid's only answer was to leave the room: and the little girl--who
+spoke like a woman--shook her dark hair from her face in temper.
+
+"I've told them over and over again I will not be called Miss Trot. How
+would you like it? Because my mamma took to say it when I was a baby, it
+is no reason why other people should say it."
+
+"Perhaps your mamma says it still, and so they fall into it also."
+
+"My mamma is dead."
+
+Just at the moment I did not take in the meaning of the words. "Mrs.
+Smith dead!"
+
+"Mrs. Smith is not my mother. Don't insult me, please. She came here as
+my governess. If papa chose to make a fool of himself by marrying her
+afterwards, it was not my fault. What are you looking at?"
+
+I was looking at her: she seemed so strange a child; and feeling
+slightly puzzled between the other Mrs. Smith and this one. They say I
+am a muff at many things; I am sure I am at understanding complicated
+relationships.
+
+"Then--Miss Chalk is--_this_ Mrs. Smith's sister?"
+
+"Well, you might know that. They are a pair, and I don't like either of
+them. There are two crying babies upstairs now."
+
+"Mrs. Smith's?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Smith's"--with intense aggravation. "Papa had quite enough
+with me, and I could have managed the house and servants as well as
+_she_ does. And because Nancy Chalk was not enough, in addition we must
+be never safe from Sophonisba! Oh, there are crosses in life!"
+
+"Who is Sophonisba?"
+
+"She is Sophonisba."
+
+"Perhaps you mean Sophie Chalk?"
+
+"Her name's not Sophie, or Sophia either. She was christened Sophonisba,
+but she hates the name, and takes care to drop it always. She is a deep
+one, is Sophonisba Chalk!"
+
+"Is this her home?"
+
+"She makes it her home, when she's not out teaching. And papa never
+seems to think it an encroachment. Sophonisba Chalk does not keep her
+places, you know. She thought she had got into something fine last
+autumn at Lord Augustus Difford's, but Lady Augustus gave her warning at
+the first month's end."
+
+"Then Miss Chalk is a governess?"
+
+"What else do you suppose she is? She comes over people, and gets a
+stock of invitations on hand, and goes to them between times. You should
+hear the trouble there is about her dresses, that she may make a good
+appearance. And how she does it I can't think: they don't tell me their
+contrivances. Mrs. Smith must give her some--I am sure of it--which papa
+has to pay for; and Sophonisba goes in trust for others."
+
+"She was always dressed well down with us."
+
+"Of course she was. Whitney Hall was her great-card place; but the time
+for the visit was so long before it was fixed, she thought it had all
+dropped through. It came just right: just when she was turned out of
+Lady Augustus Difford's. Helen Whitney had promised it a long while
+before."
+
+"I know; when they were schoolfellows at Miss Lakon's."
+
+"They were not schoolfellows. Sophonisba was treated as the rest, but
+she was only improving pupil. She gave her services, learnt of some of
+the masters, and paid nothing. How old do you think she is?" broke off
+Miss Trot.
+
+"About twenty."
+
+"She was six-and-twenty last birthday; and they say she will look like a
+child till she's six-and-thirty. I call it a shame for a young woman of
+that age to be doing nothing for herself, but to be living on strangers:
+and papa and I are nothing else to her."
+
+"How old are you?" I could not help asking.
+
+"Fifteen; nearly sixteen. People take me to be younger, because I am
+short, and it vexes me. They would not think me young if they knew how I
+feel. Oh, I can tell you it is a sharpening thing for your papa to marry
+again, and to find yourself put down in your own home."
+
+"Has Miss Chalk any engagement now?"
+
+"She has not had an engagement all this year, and now it's April! I
+don't believe she looks after one. She pretends to teach me--while she's
+waiting, she says; but it's all a farce; I won't learn of her. I heard
+her tell Mr. Everty I was a horrid child. Fancy that!"
+
+"Who is Mr. Everty?"
+
+"Papa's head-clerk. He is a gentleman, you know, and Sophonisba thinks
+great things of him. Ah, I could tell something, if I liked! but she put
+me on my honour. Oh, she's a sly one! Just now, she is all her time at
+the Whitneys', red-hot for it. You are not going? Stay to luncheon."
+
+"I must go; Miss Deveen will be waiting for me. You can deliver the
+parcel, please, with Mrs. Todhetley's message. I will call in to see
+Mrs. Smith another day."
+
+"And to see me too?" came the quick retort.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"Now, mind, you can't break your word. I shall say it is me you are
+coming to call upon; they think I am nobody in this house. Ask for
+_Miss_ Smith when you come. Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow!"
+
+She never stirred as I shook hands; she seemed never to have stirred
+hand or foot throughout the interview. But, as I opened the door, there
+came an odd sort of noise, and I turned to look what it was.
+
+She. Hastening to cross the room, with a crutch, to ring the bell! And I
+saw that she was both lame and deformed.
+
+In passing down the side street by the office, some one brushed by,
+with the quick step of a London business man. Where had I seen the
+face before? Whose did it put me in mind of? Why--it came to me all in
+a minute--Roger Monk's! He who had lived at Dyke Manor for a short
+time as head-gardener under false auspices. But, as I have not said
+anything about him before, I will not enter into the history now.
+Before I could turn to look, Monk had disappeared; no doubt round the
+corner of the square.
+
+"Tod," I said, as soon as I came across him, "Sophie Chalk's a
+governess."
+
+"Well, what of that?" asked Tod.
+
+"Not much; but she might as well have been candid with us at Dyke
+Manor."
+
+"A governess is a lady."
+
+"Ought to be. But why did she make out to us that she had been a
+visitor at the Diffords', when she was only the teacher? We should
+have respected her just as much; perhaps made more of her."
+
+"What are you cavilling at? As if a lady was never a teacher before!"
+
+"Oh, Tod! it is not that. Don't you see?--if she had kept a chandler's
+shop, and been open about it, what should we have cared? It was the
+sailing under false colours; trying to pass herself off for what she is
+not."
+
+He gave no answer to this, except a whistle.
+
+"She is turned six-and-twenty, Tod. And she was not a school-girl at
+Miss Lakon's, but governess-pupil."
+
+"I suppose she was a schoolgirl once?"
+
+"I suppose she was."
+
+"Good. What else have you to say, wise Johnny?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Nothing; for where was the use? Sophie Chalk would have been only
+an angel in his eyes, though he heard that she had sold apples at a
+street-corner. Sophie, that very morning, had begged Lady Whitney to let
+her instruct the younger children, "as a friend," so long as they were
+in town; for the governess at Whitney was a daily one, and they had not
+brought her. Lady Whitney at first demurred, and then kissed Sophie for
+her goodness. The result was, that a bed was found for Miss Chalk, and
+she stayed with them altogether.
+
+But I can't say much for the teaching. It was not Sophie Chalk's fault,
+perhaps. Helen would be in the schoolroom, and Harry would be there; and
+I and Anna sometimes; and Tod and Bill always. Lady Whitney looked upon
+this London sojourn as a holiday, and did not mind whether the children
+learnt or played, provided they were kept passably quiet. I told Sophie
+of my visit to take the fichu, and she made a wry face over the lame
+girl.
+
+"That Mabel Smith! Poor morbid little object! What she would have grown
+into but for the fortunate chance of my sister's marrying into the
+house, I can't imagine, Johnny. I'll draw you her portrait in her
+night-cap, by-and-by."
+
+The days went on. We did have fun: but war was growing up between
+William Whitney and Tod. There could no longer be a mistake (to those
+who understood things and kept their eyes open) of the part Sophie Chalk
+was playing: and that was trying to throw Tod over for William Whitney,
+and to make no fuss about it, I don't believe she cared a brass button
+for either: but Bill's future position in life would be better than
+Tod's, seeing that his father was a baronet. Bill was going in for her
+favour; perhaps not seriously: it might have been for the fun of the
+moment, or to amuse himself by spiting Tod. Sir John and my lady never
+so much as dreamt of the by-playing going on before their faces, and I
+don't think Helen did.
+
+"I told you she'd fascinate the eyes out of your head, Bill, give her
+the chance," said I to him one day in the schoolroom, when Miss Chalk
+was teaching her pupils to dance.
+
+"You shut up, Johnny," he said, laughing, and shied the atlas at me.
+
+Before the day was out, there was a sharp, short quarrel. They were
+all coming for the evening to Miss Deveen's. I went in at dusk to tell
+them not to make it nine at night. Turning into the drawing-room, I
+interrupted a scene--Bill Whitney and Tod railing at one another. What
+the bone of contention was I never knew, for they seemed to have reached
+the end of it.
+
+"You did," said Tod.
+
+"I did not," said Bill.
+
+"I tell you, you _did_, William Whitney."
+
+"Let it go; it's word against word, and we shall never decide it. You
+are mistaken, Todhetley; but I am not going to ask your leave as to what
+I shall do, or what I shan't."
+
+"You have no right to say to Miss Chalk what I heard you saying to-day."
+
+"I tell you, you did not hear me say anything of the sort. Put it that
+you did--what business is it of yours? If I chose to go in for her, to
+ask her to be the future Lady Whitney--though it may be many a year, I
+hope, before I step into my father's place, good old man!--who has the
+right to say me nay?"
+
+Tod was foaming. Dusk though it was, I could see that. They took no more
+account of my being present, than of Harry's little barking dog.
+
+"Look here, Bill Whitney. If----"
+
+"Are you boys quarrelling?"
+
+The interruption was Anna's. Passing through the hall, she had heard the
+voices and looked in. As if glad of the excuse to get away, Bill Whitney
+followed her from the room. Tod went out and banged the hall-door after
+him.
+
+I waited, thinking Anna might come in, and strolled into the little
+drawing-room. There, quiet as a mouse, stood Sophie Chalk. She had been
+listening, for certain; and I hope it gratified her: her eyes sparkled
+a little.
+
+"Why, Johnny! was it _you_ making all that noise? What was the matter?
+Anything gone wrong?"
+
+It was all very fine to try it on with me. I just looked straight at
+her, and I think she saw as much. Saying something about going to search
+for Helen, she left the room.
+
+"What was the trouble, Johnny?" whispered Anna, stealing up to me.
+
+"Only those two having a jar."
+
+"I heard that. But what was it about? Sophie Chalk?"
+
+"Well, yes; that was it, Anna."
+
+We were at the front window then. A man was lighting the street-lamps,
+and Anna seemed to be occupied in watching him. There was enough care on
+her face to set one up in the dismals for life.
+
+"No harm may come of it, Anna. Any way, you can do nothing."
+
+"Oh, Johnny, I wish I knew!" she said, clasping her hands. "I wish
+I could satisfy myself which way _right_ lies. If I were to speak,
+it might be put down to a wrong motive. I try to see whether that
+thought is not a selfish one, whether I ought to let it deter me. But
+then--that's not the worst."
+
+"That sounds like a riddle, Anna."
+
+"I wish I had some good, judicious person who would hear all and judge
+for me," she said, rather dreamily. "If you were older, Johnny, I think
+I would tell you."
+
+"I am as old as you are, at any rate."
+
+"That's just it. We are neither of us old enough nor experienced enough
+to trust to our own judgment."
+
+"There's your mother, Anna."
+
+"I know."
+
+"What you mean is, that Sir John and Lady Whitney ought to have their
+eyes opened to what's going on, that they may put an end to Miss Chalk's
+intimacy here, if they deem the danger warrants it?"
+
+"That's near enough, Johnny. And I don't see my way sufficiently clearly
+to do it."
+
+"Put the case to Helen."
+
+"She would only laugh in my face. Hush! here comes some one."
+
+It was Sophie Chalk. She looked rather sharply at us both, and said she
+could not find Helen anywhere.
+
+And the days were to go on in outward smoothness and private discomfort,
+Miss Sophie exercising her fascinations on the whole of us.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+But for having promised that lame child to call again in Torriana
+Square, I should not have cared to go. It was afternoon this time. The
+servant showed me upstairs, and said her mistress was for the moment
+engaged. Mabel Smith sat in the same seat in her black frock; some books
+lay on a small table drawn before her.
+
+"I thought you had forgotten to come."
+
+"Did you? I should be sure not to forget it."
+
+"I am so tired of my lessons," she said, irritably, sweeping the books
+away with her long thin fingers. "I always am when _they_ teach me. Mrs.
+Smith has kept me at them for two hours; she has gone down now to engage
+a new servant."
+
+"I get frightfully tired of my lessons sometimes."
+
+"Ah, but not as I do; you can run about: and learning, you know, will
+never be of use to me. I want you to tell me something. Is Sophonisba
+Chalk going to stay at Lady Whitney's?"
+
+"I don't know. They will not be so very long in town."
+
+"But I mean is she to be governess there, and go into the country with
+them?"
+
+"No, I think not."
+
+"She wants to. If she does, papa says he shall have some nice young lady
+to sit with me and teach me. Oh, I do hope she will go with them, and
+then the house would be rid of her. I say she will: it is too good a
+chance for her to let slip. Mrs. Smith says she won't: she told Mr.
+Everty so last night. He wouldn't believe her, and was very cross over
+it."
+
+"Cross over it?"
+
+"He said Sophonisba ought not to have gone there at all without
+consulting him, and that she had not been home once since, and only
+written him one rubbishing note that had nothing in it; and he asked
+Mrs. Smith whether she thought that was right."
+
+A light flashed over me. "Is Miss Chalk going to marry Mr. Everty?"
+
+"I suppose that's what it will come to," answered the curious child.
+"She has promised to; but promises with her don't go for much when it
+suits her to break them. Sophonisba put me on my honour not to tell; but
+now that Mr. Everty has spoken to Mrs. Smith and papa, it is different.
+I saw it a long while ago; before she went to the Diffords'. I have
+nothing to do but to sit and watch and think, you see, Johnny Ludlow;
+and I perceive things quicker than other people."
+
+"But--why do you fancy Miss Chalk may break her promise to Mr. Everty?"
+
+"If she meant to keep it, why should she be scheming to go away as the
+Whitneys' governess? I know what it is: Sophonisba does not think Mr.
+Everty good enough for her, but she would like to keep him waiting on,
+for fear of not getting anybody better."
+
+Anything so shrewd as Mabel Smith's manner in saying this, was never
+seen. I don't think she was naturally ill-natured, poor thing; but she
+evidently thought she was being wronged amongst them, and it made her
+spitefully resentful.
+
+"Mr. Everty had better let her go. It is not I that would marry a wife
+who dyed her hair."
+
+"Is Miss Chalk's dyed? I thought it might be the gold dust."
+
+"Have you any eyes?" retorted Mabel. "When she was down in the country
+with you her hair was brown; it's a kind of yellow now. Oh, she knows
+how to set herself off, I can tell you. Do you happen to remember who
+was reigning in England when the massacre of St. Bartholomew took place
+in France?"
+
+The change of subject was sudden. I told her it was Queen Elizabeth.
+
+"Queen Elizabeth, was it? I'll write it down. Mrs. Smith says I shall
+have no dessert to-day, if I don't tell her. She puts those questions
+only to vex me. As if it mattered to anybody. Oh, here's papa!"
+
+A little man came in with a bald head and pleasant face. He said he was
+glad to see me and shook hands. She put out her arms, and he came and
+kissed her: her eyes followed him everywhere; her cheeks had a sudden
+colour: it was easy to see that he was her one great joy in life. And
+the bright colour made her poor thin face look almost charming.
+
+"I can't stay a minute, Trottie; going out in a hurry. I think I left my
+gloves up here."
+
+"So you did, papa. There was a tiny hole in the thumb and I mended it
+for you."
+
+"That's my little attentive daughter! Good-bye. Mr. Ludlow, if you will
+stay to dinner we shall be happy."
+
+Mrs. Smith came in as he left the room. She was rather a plain likeness
+of Miss Chalk, not much older. But her face had a straightforward, open
+look, and I liked her. She made much of me and said how kind she had
+thought it of Mrs. Todhetley to be at the trouble of making a fichu for
+her, a stranger. She hoped--she did hope, she added rather anxiously,
+that Sophie had not asked her to do it. And it struck me that Mrs. Smith
+had not quite the implicit confidence in Miss Sophie's sayings and
+doings that she might have had.
+
+It was five o'clock when I got away. At the door of the office in the
+side street stood a gentleman--the same I had seen pass me the other
+day. I looked at him, and he at me.
+
+"Is it Roger Monk?"
+
+A startled look came over his face. He evidently did not remember me. I
+said who I was.
+
+"Dear me! How you have grown! Do walk in." And he spoke to me in the
+tones an equal would speak, not as a servant.
+
+As he was leading the way into a sort of parlour, we passed a clerk at a
+desk, and a man talking to him.
+
+"Here's Mr. Everty; he will tell you," said the clerk, indicating Monk.
+"He is asking about those samples of pale brandy, sir: whether they are
+to go."
+
+"Yes, of course; you ought to have taken them before this, Wilson," was
+Roger Monk's answer. And so I saw that _he_ was Mr. Everty.
+
+"I have resumed my true name, Everty," he said to me in low tones. "The
+former trouble, that sent me away a wanderer, is over. Many men, I
+believe, are forced into such episodes in life."
+
+"You are with Mr. Smith?"
+
+"These two years past. I came to him as head-clerk; I now have a
+commission on sales, and make a most excellent thing of it. I don't
+think the business could get on without me now."
+
+"Is it true that you are to marry Miss Chalk?" I asked, speaking on a
+sudden impulse.
+
+"Quite true; if she does not throw me over," he answered, and I wondered
+at his candour. "I suppose you have heard of it indoors?"
+
+"Yes. I wish you all success."--And didn't I wish it in my inmost heart!
+
+"Thank you. I can give her a good home now. Perhaps you will not talk
+about that old time if you can help it, Mr. Ludlow. You used to be
+good-natured, I remember. It was a dark page in my then reckless life; I
+am doing what I can to redeem it."
+
+I dare say he was; and I told him he need not fear. But I did not like
+his eyes yet, for they had the same kind of shifty look that Roger
+Monk's used to have. He might get on none the worse in business; for, as
+the Squire says, it is a shifty world.
+
+Sophie Chalk engaged to Mr. Everty, and he Roger Monk! Well, it was a
+complication. I went back to Miss Deveen's without, so to say, seeing
+daylight.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+THE GAME FINISHED.
+
+
+The clang of the distant church bell was ringing out for the daily
+morning service, and Miss Cattledon was picking her way across the road
+to attend to it, her thin white legs displayed, and a waterproof cloak
+on. It had rained in the night, but the clouds were breaking, promising
+a fine day. I stood at the window, watching the legs and the pools of
+water; Miss Deveen sat at the table behind, answering a letter that had
+come to her by the morning post.
+
+"Have you ever thought mine a peculiar name, Johnny?" she suddenly
+asked.
+
+"No," I said, turning to answer her. "I think it a pretty one."
+
+"It was originally French: De Vigne: but like many other things has been
+corrupted with time, and made into what it is. Is that ten o'clock
+striking?"
+
+Yes: and the bell was ceasing. Miss Cattledon would be late. It was a
+regular penalty to her, I knew, to go out so early, and quite a new
+whim, begun in the middle of Lent. She talked a little in her vinegar
+way of the world's wickedness in not spending some of its working
+hours inside a church, listening to that delightful curate with the
+mild voice, whose hair had turned prematurely grey. Miss Deveen,
+knowing it was meant for her, laughed pleasantly, and said if the many
+years' prayers from her chamber had not been heard as well as though
+she had gone into a church to offer them up, she should be in a poor
+condition now. I went with Miss Cattledon one Monday morning out of
+politeness. There were nine-and-twenty in the pews, for I counted
+them: eight-and-twenty being single ladies (to judge by the look),
+some young, some as old as Cattledon. The grey-haired curate was
+assisted by a young deacon, who had a black beard and a lisp and his
+hair parted down the middle. It was very edifying, especially the
+ten-minutes' gossip with the two clergymen coming out, when we all
+congregated in the aisle by the door.
+
+"My great-grandfather was a grand old proprietor in France, Johnny; a
+baron," continued Miss Deveen. "I don't think I have much of the French
+nature left in me."
+
+"I suppose you speak French well, Miss Deveen?"
+
+"Not a word of it, Johnny. They pretended to teach it me when I was a
+child, but I'm afraid I was unusually stupid. Why, who can this be?"
+
+She alluded to a ring at the visitors' bell. One of the servants came in
+and said that the gentleman who had called once or twice before had come
+again.
+
+Miss Deveen looked up, first at the servant, then at me. She seemed to
+be considering.
+
+"I will see him in two or three minutes, George"--and the man shut the
+door.
+
+"Johnny," she said, "I have taken you partly into my confidence in
+this affair of the lost studs; I think I will tell you a little more.
+After I sent for Lettice Lane here--and my impression, as I told you,
+was very strongly in favour of her innocence--it occurred to me that I
+ought to see if anything could be done to prove it; or at least to set
+the matter at rest, one way or the other, instead of leaving it to
+time and chance. The question was, how could I do it? I did not like
+to apply to the police, lest more should be made of it than I wished.
+One day a friend of mine, to whom I was relating the circumstances,
+solved the difficulty. He said he would send to me some one with whom
+he was well acquainted, a Mr. Bond, who had once been connected with
+the detective police, and who had got his dismissal through an affair
+he was thought to have mismanaged. It sounded rather formidable to my
+ears, 'once connected with the detective police;' but I consented, and
+Mr. Bond came. He has had the thing in hand since last February."
+
+"And what has he found out?"
+
+"Nothing, Johnny. Unless he has come to tell me now that he has--for it
+is he who is waiting. I think it may be so, as he has called so early.
+First of all, he was following up the matter down in Worcestershire,
+because the notion he entertained was, that the studs must have been
+taken by one of the Whitneys' servants. He stayed in the neighbourhood,
+pursuing his inquiries as to their characters and habits, and visiting
+all the pawnbrokers' shops that he thought were at available distances
+from the Hall."
+
+"Did he think it was Lettice Lane?"
+
+"He _said_ he did not: but he took care (as I happen to know) to worm
+out all he could of Lettice's antecedents while he was inquiring about
+the rest. I had the girl in this room at his first visit, not alarming
+her, simply saying that I was relating the history of the studs'
+disappearance to this friend who had called, and desired her to describe
+her share in it to make the story complete. Lettice suspected nothing;
+she told the tale simply and naturally, without fear: and from that
+very moment, Johnny, I have felt certain in my own mind the girl is as
+innocent as I am. Mr. Bond '_thought_ she might be,' but he would not
+go beyond that; for women, he said, were crafty, and knew how to make
+one think black was white."
+
+"Miss Deveen, suppose, after all, it should turn out to have been
+Lettice?" I asked. "Should you proceed against her?"
+
+"I shall not proceed against any one, Johnny; and I shall hush the
+matter up if I can," she answered, ringing for Mr. Bond to be shown in.
+
+I was curious to see him also; ideas floating through my brain of
+cocked-hats and blue uniform and Richard Mayne. Mr. Bond turned out to
+be a very inoffensive-looking individual indeed; a little man, wearing
+steel spectacles, in a black frock-coat and grey trousers.
+
+"When I last saw you, madam," he began, after he was seated, and Miss
+Deveen had told him he might speak before me, "I mentioned that I
+had abandoned my search in the country, and intended to prosecute my
+inquiries in London."
+
+"You did, Mr. Bond."
+
+"That the theft lay amongst Sir John Whitney's female servants, I have
+thought likely all along," continued Mr. Bond. "If the thief felt afraid
+to dispose of the emeralds after taking them--and I could find no trace
+of them in the country--the probability was that she would keep them
+secreted about her, and get rid of them as soon as she came to London,
+if she were one of the maids brought up by Lady Whitney. There were two
+I thought in particular might have done it; one was the lady's maid;
+the other, the upper-housemaid, who had been ill the night of their
+disappearance. All kinds of ruses are played off in the pursuit of
+plunder, as we have cause to learn every day; and it struck me the
+housemaid might have feigned illness, the better to cover her actions
+and throw suspicion off herself. I am bound to say I could not learn
+anything against either of these two young women; but their business
+took them about the rooms at Whitney Hall; and an open jewel-case is a
+great temptation."
+
+"It is," assented Miss Deveen. "That carelessness lay at my door, and
+therefore I determined never to prosecute in this case; never, in fact,
+to bring the offender to open shame of any sort in regard to it."
+
+"And that has helped to increase the difficulty," remarked Mr. Bond.
+"Could the women have been searched and their private places at Whitney
+Hall turned out, we might or might not have found the emeralds;
+but----"
+
+"I wouldn't have had it done for the Lord Chancellor, sir," interrupted
+Miss Deveen, hotly. "_One_ was searched, and that was quite enough for
+me, for I believe her to be innocent. If you can get at the right person
+quietly, for my own satisfaction, well and good. My instructions went so
+far, but no farther."
+
+Mr. Bond took off his spectacles for a minute, and put them on again.
+"I understood this perfectly when I took the business in hand," he said
+quietly. "Well, madam, to go on. Lady Whitney brought her servants to
+London, and I came up also. Last night I gleaned a little light on the
+matter."
+
+He paused, and put his hand into his pocket. I looked, and Miss Deveen
+looked.
+
+"Should you know the studs again?" he asked her.
+
+"You may as well ask me if I should know my own face in the glass, Mr.
+Bond. Of course I should."
+
+Mr. Bond opened a pill-box: three green studs lay in it on white cotton.
+He held it out to Miss Deveen.
+
+"Are these they?"
+
+"No, certainly not," replied Miss Deveen, speaking like one in
+disappointment. "_Those_ are not to be compared with mine, sir."
+
+Mr. Bond put the lid on the box, and returned it to his pocket. Out came
+another box, long and thin.
+
+"These are my studs," quickly exclaimed Miss Deveen, before she had
+given more than a glance. "You can look yourself for the private marks I
+told you about, Mr. Bond."
+
+Three brilliant emeralds, that seemed to light up the room, connected
+together by a fine chain of gold. At either end, the chain was finished
+off by a small square plate of thin gold, on one of which was an
+engraved crest, on the other Miss Deveen's initials. In shape the
+emeralds looked like buttons more than studs.
+
+"I never knew they were linked together, Miss Deveen," I exclaimed in
+surprise.
+
+"Did you not, Johnny?"
+
+Never. I had always pictured them as three loose studs. Mr. Bond, who no
+doubt had the marks by heart before he brought them up, began shutting
+them into the box as he had the others.
+
+"Anticipating from the first that the studs would most probably be found
+at a pawnbroker's, if found at all, I ventured to speak to you then of
+a difficulty that might attend the finding," said he to Miss Deveen.
+"Unless a thing can be legally proved to have been stolen, a pawnbroker
+cannot be forced to give it up. And I am under an engagement to return
+these studs to the pawnbroker, whence I have brought them, in the course
+of the morning."
+
+"You may do so," said Miss Deveen. "I dare say he and I can come to an
+amicable arrangement in regard to giving them up later. My object has
+been to discover who stole them, not to bring trouble or loss upon
+pawnbrokers. How did you discover them, Mr. Bond?"
+
+"In a rather singular manner. Last evening, in making my way to Regent
+Street to a place I had to go to on business, I saw a young woman turn
+out of a pawnbroker's shop. The shutters were put up, but the doors were
+open. Her face struck me as being familiar; and I remembered her as Lady
+Whitney's housemaid--the one who had been ill in bed, or pretended to
+be, the night the studs were lost. Ah, ah, I thought, some discovery may
+be looming up here. I have some acquaintance with the proprietor of the
+shop; a very respectable man, who has become rich by dint of hard,
+honest work, and is a jeweller now as well as a pawnbroker. My own
+business could wait, and I went in and found him busy with accounts in
+his private room. He thought at first I had only called in to see him in
+passing. I gave him no particulars; but said I fancied a person in whom
+I was professionally interested, had just been leaving some emerald
+studs in his shop."
+
+"What is the pawnbroker's name?" interrupted Miss Deveen.
+
+"James. He went to inquire, and came back, saying that his assistant
+denied it. There was only one assistant in the shop: the other had left
+for the night. This assistant said that no one had been in during the
+last half-hour, excepting a young woman, a cousin of his wife's; who did
+not come to pledge anything, but simply to say how-d'ye-do, and to ask
+where they were living now, that she might call and see the wife. Mr.
+James added that the man said she occupied a good situation in the
+family of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and was not likely to require to
+pledge anything. Plausible enough, this, you see, Miss Deveen; but the
+coincidence was singular. I then told James that I had been in search
+for these two months of some emerald studs lost out of Sir John
+Whitney's house. He stared a little at this, paused a moment in thought,
+and then asked whether they were of unusual value and very beautiful.
+Just so, I said, and minutely described them. Mr. James, without another
+word, went away and brought the studs in. Your studs, Miss Deveen."
+
+"And how did he come by them?"
+
+"He won't tell me much about it--except that they took in the goods some
+weeks ago in the ordinary course of business. The fact is he is vexed:
+for he has really been careful and has managed to avoid these unpleasant
+episodes, to which all pawnbrokers are liable. It was with difficulty I
+could get him to let me bring them up here: and that only on condition
+that they should be in his hands again before the clock struck twelve."
+
+"You shall keep faith with him. But now, Mr. Bond, what is your opinion
+of all this?"
+
+"My opinion is that that same young woman stole the studs: and that
+she contrived to get them conveyed to London to this assistant, her
+relative, who no doubt advanced money upon them. I cannot see my way to
+any other conclusion under the circumstances," continued Mr. Bond,
+firmly. "But for James's turning crusty, I might have learned more."
+
+"I will go to him myself," said Miss Deveen, with sudden resolution.
+"When he finds that my intention is to hold his pocket harmless and make
+no disturbance in any way, he will not be crusty with me. But this
+matter must be cleared up if it be possible to clear it."
+
+Miss Deveen was not one to be slow of action, once a resolve was taken.
+Mr. Bond made no attempt to oppose her: on the contrary, he seemed to
+think it might be well that she should go. She sent George out for a
+cab, in preference to taking her carriage, and said I might accompany
+her. We were off long before Miss Cattledon's conference with the
+curates within the church was over.
+
+The shop was in a rather obscure street, not far from Regent Street. I
+inquired for Mr. James at the private door, and he came out to the cab.
+Miss Deveen said she had called to speak to him on particular business,
+and he took us upstairs to a handsomely furnished room. He was a
+well-dressed, portly, good-looking man, with a pleasant face and easy
+manners. Miss Deveen, bidding him sit down near her, explained the
+affair in a few words, and asked him to help her to elucidate it. He
+responded frankly at once, and said he would willingly give all the aid
+in his power.
+
+"Singular to say, I took these studs in myself," he observed. "I never
+do these things now, but my foreman had a holiday that day to attend
+a funeral, and I was in the shop. They were pledged on the 27th of
+January: since Mr. Bond left this morning I have referred to my books."
+
+The 27th of January. It was on the night of the 23rd that the studs
+disappeared. Then the thief had not lost much time! I said so.
+
+"Stay a minute, Johnny," cried Miss Deveen: "you young ones sum up
+things too quickly for me. Let me trace past events. The studs, as you
+say, were lost on the 23rd; the loss was discovered on the 24th, and
+Lettice Lane was discharged; on the 25th those of us staying at Whitney
+Hall began to talk of leaving; and on the 26th you two went home after
+seeing Miss Chalk off by rail to London."
+
+"And Mrs. Hughes also. They went up together."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Hughes?" asked Miss Deveen.
+
+"Don't you remember?--that young married lady who came to the dance with
+the Featherstons. She lives somewhere in London."
+
+Miss Deveen considered a little. "I don't remember any Mrs. Hughes,
+Johnny."
+
+"But, dear Miss Deveen, you must remember her," I persisted. "She was
+very young-looking, as little as Sophie Chalk; Harry Whitney, dancing
+with her, trod off the tail of her thin pink dress. I heard old
+Featherston telling you about Mrs. Hughes, saying it was a sad history.
+Her husband lost his money after they were married, and had been obliged
+to take a small situation."
+
+Recollection flashed upon Miss Deveen. "Yes, I remember now. A pale,
+lady-like little woman with a sad face. But let us go back to business.
+You all left on the 26th; I and Miss Cattledon on the 27th. Now, while
+the visitors were at the Hall, I don't think the upper-housemaid could
+have had time to send off the studs by rail. Still less could she have
+come up herself to pledge them."
+
+Miss Deveen's head was running on Mr. Bond's theory.
+
+"It was no housemaid that pledged the studs," spoke Mr. James.
+
+"I was about to say, Mr. James, that if you took them in yourself over
+the counter, they could not have been sent up to your assistant."
+
+"All the people about me are trustworthy, I can assure you, ma'am," he
+interrupted. "They would not lend themselves to such a thing. It was a
+lady who pledged those studs."
+
+"A lady?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, a lady. And to tell the truth, if I may venture to say it,
+the description you have now given of a lady just tallies with her."
+
+"Mrs. Hughes?"
+
+"It seems so to me," continued Mr. James. "Little, pale, and lady-like:
+that is just what she was."
+
+"Dear me!" cried Miss Deveen, letting her hands drop on her lap as if
+they had lost their power. "You had better tell me as much as you can
+recollect, please."
+
+"It was at dusk," said Mr. James. "Not quite dark, but the lamps were
+lighted in the streets and the gas indoors: just the hour, ma'am, that
+gentlefolk choose for bringing their things to us. I happened to be
+standing near the door, when a lady came into the shop and asked to see
+the principal. I said I was he, and retired behind the counter. She
+brought out these emerald studs"--touching the box--"and said she wanted
+to sell them, or pledge them for their utmost value. She told me a
+tale, in apparent confidence, of a brother who had fallen into debt at
+college, and she was trying to get together some money to help him, or
+frightful trouble might come of it. If it was not genuine," broke off
+Mr. James, "she was the best actor I ever saw in all my life."
+
+"Please go on."
+
+"I saw the emeralds were very rare and beautiful. She said they were an
+heirloom from her mother, who had brought the stones from India and had
+them linked together in England. I told her I could not buy them; she
+rejoined that it might be better only to pledge them, for they would not
+be entirely lost to her, and she might redeem them ere twelve months had
+passed if I would keep them as long as that. I explained that the law
+exacted it. The name she gave was Mary Drake, asking if I had ever heard
+of the famous old forefather of theirs, Admiral Drake. The name answers
+to the initials on the gold."
+
+"'M. D.' They were engraved for Margaret Deveen. Perhaps she claimed the
+crest, also, Mr. James," added that lady, sarcastically.
+
+"She did, ma'am; in so far as that she said it was the crest of the
+Drake family."
+
+"And you call her a lady?"
+
+"She had every appearance of one, in tone and language too. Her
+hand--she took one of her gloves off when showing the studs--was a
+lady's hand; small, delicate, and white as alabaster. Ma'am, rely upon
+it, though she may not be a lady in deeds, she must be living the life
+of one."
+
+"But now, who was it?"
+
+Yes, who was it? Miss Deveen, looking at us, seemed to wait for an
+answer, but she did not get one.
+
+"How much did you lend upon the studs?"
+
+"Ten pounds. Of course that is nothing like their value."
+
+"Should you know her again? How was she dressed?"
+
+"She wore an ordinary Paisley shawl; it was cold weather; and had a
+thick veil over her face, which she never lifted."
+
+"Should not that have excited your suspicion?" interrupted Miss Deveen.
+"I don't like people who keep their veils down while they talk to you."
+
+The pawnbroker smiled. "Most ladies keep them down when they come here.
+As to knowing her again, I am quite certain that I should; and her voice
+too. Whoever she was, she went about it very systematically, and took me
+in completely. Her asking for the principal may have thrown me somewhat
+off my guard."
+
+We came away, leaving the studs with Mr. James: the time had not arrived
+for Miss Deveen to redeem them. She seemed very thoughtful as we went
+along in the cab.
+
+"Johnny," she said, breaking the silence, "we talk lightly enough about
+the Finger of Providence; but I don't know what else it can be that
+has led to this discovery so far. Out of the hundreds of pawnbroking
+establishments scattered about the metropolis, it is wonderfully
+strange that this should have been the one the studs were taken to; and
+furthermore, that Bond should have been passing it last night at the
+moment Lady Whitney's housemaid came forth. Had the studs been pledged
+elsewhere, we might never have heard of them; neither, as it is, but
+for the housemaid's being connected with Mr. James's assistant."
+
+Of course it was strange.
+
+"You were surprised to see the studs connected together, Johnny. That
+was the point I mentioned in reference to Lettice Lane. '_One_ might
+have fallen down,' she sobbed out to me, in leaving Whitney Hall; 'even
+two; but it's beyond the bounds of probability that three should,
+ma'am.' She was thinking of the studs as separated; and it convinced
+me that she had never seen them. True, an artful woman might say so
+purposely to deceive me, but I am sure that Lettice has not the art to
+do it. But now, Johnny, we must consider what steps to take next. I
+shall not rest until the matter is cleared."
+
+"Suppose it should never get on any further!"
+
+"Suppose you are like a young bear, all your experience to come?"
+retorted Miss Deveen. "Why, Johnny Ludlow, do you think that when that
+Finger I ventured to speak of is directing an onward course, It halts
+midway? There cannot, I fear, be much doubt as to the thief; but we must
+have proof."
+
+"You think it was----"
+
+"Mrs. Hughes. What else can I think? She is very nice, and I could not
+have believed it of her. I suppose the sight of the jewels, combined
+with her poverty, must have proved the temptation. I shall get back the
+emeralds, but we must screen her."
+
+"Miss Deveen, I don't believe it was Mrs. Hughes."
+
+"Not believe it?"
+
+"No. Her face is not that of one who would do such a thing. You might
+trust it anywhere."
+
+"Oh, Johnny! there you are at your faces again!"
+
+"Well, I was never deceived in any face yet. Not in one that I
+_thoroughly_ trusted."
+
+"If Mrs. Hughes did not take the studs, and bring them to London, and
+pledge them, who else could have brought them? They were taken to Mr.
+James's on the 27th, remember."
+
+"That's the puzzle of it."
+
+"We must find out Mrs. Hughes, and then contrive to bring her within
+sight of Mr. James."
+
+"The Whitneys know where she lives. Anna and Helen have been to call
+upon her."
+
+"Then our way is pretty plain. Mind you don't breathe a syllable of this
+to mortal ear, Johnny. It might defeat our aims. Miss Cattledon, always
+inquisitive, will question where we have been this morning with her
+curious eyes; but for once she will not be satisfied."
+
+"I should not keep her, Miss Deveen."
+
+"Yes you would, Johnny. She is faithful; she suits me very well; and her
+mother and I were girls together."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a sight to be painted. Helen Whitney standing there in her
+presentation dress. She looked wonderfully well. It was all white,
+with a train behind longer than half-a-dozen peacocks' tails, lace and
+feathers about her hair. The whole lot of us were round her; the young
+ones had come from the nursery, the servants peeped in at the door; Miss
+Cattledon had her eye-glass up; Harry danced about the room.
+
+"Helen, my dear, I admire all very much except your necklace and
+bracelets," said Miss Deveen, critically. "They do not match: and do not
+accord with the dress."
+
+The necklace was a row of turquoises, and did not look much: the
+bracelets were gold, with blue stones in the clasps. The Whitney family
+did not shine in jewels, and the few diamonds they possessed were on
+Lady Whitney to-day.
+
+"But I had nothing else, Miss Deveen," said Helen, simply. "Mamma said
+these must do."
+
+Miss Deveen took off the string of blue beads as if to examine them, and
+left in its place the loveliest pearl necklace ever seen. There was a
+scream of surprise; some of us had only met with such transformations in
+fairy tales.
+
+"And these are the bracelets to match, my dear. Anna, I shall give you
+the same when your turn for making your curtsey to your queen comes."
+
+Anna smiled faintly as she looked her thanks. She always seemed
+regularly down in spirits now, not to be raised by pearl necklaces. For
+the first time her sad countenance seemed to strike Tod. He crossed
+over.
+
+"What is wrong, Anna?" he whispered. "Are you not well?"
+
+"Quite well, thank you," she answered, her cheeks flushing painfully.
+
+At this moment Sophie Chalk created a diversion. Unable to restrain
+her feelings longer, she burst into tears, knelt down outside Helen's
+dress, and began kissing her hand and the pearl bracelet in a transport
+of joy.
+
+"Oh, Helen, my dear friend, how rejoiced I am? I said upstairs that your
+ornaments were not worthy of you."
+
+Tod's eyes were glued on her. Bill Whitney called out Bravo. Sophie,
+kneeling before Helen in her furbelows, made a charming tableau.
+
+"It is good acting, Tod," I said in his ear.
+
+He turned sharply. But instead of cuffing me into next week, he just
+sent his eyes straight out to mine.
+
+"Do you call it acting?"
+
+"I am sure it is. But not for you."
+
+"You are bold, Mr. Johnny."
+
+But I could tell by the subdued tone and the subdued manner, that his
+own doubts had been at last awakened whether or not it _was_ acting.
+
+Lady Whitney came sailing downstairs, a blaze of yellow satin; her face,
+with flurry, like a peony. She could hardly say a word of thanks for the
+pearls, for her wits had gone wool-gathering. When she was last at Court
+herself, Bill was a baby in long-clothes. We went out with them to the
+carriage; the lady's-maid taking at least five minutes to settle the
+trains: and Bill said he hoped the eyes at the windows all round enjoyed
+the show. The postillion--an unusual sight in London--and the two men
+behind wore their state liveries, white and crimson; their bouquets
+bigger than cabbages.
+
+"You will dance with me the first dance to-night?" Tod whispered to
+Sophie Chalk, as they were going in after watching the carriage away.
+
+Sophie made a slight pause before she answered; and I saw her eyes
+wander out in the distance towards Bill Whitney.
+
+"Oh, thank you," she said, with a great display of gratitude. "But I
+think I am engaged."
+
+"Engaged for the first dance?"
+
+"Yes. I am so sorry."
+
+"The second, then?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+Anna heard it all as well as I. Tod gave Sophie's hand a squeeze to seal
+the bargain, and went away whistling.
+
+Not being in the world of fashion, we did not know how other people
+finished up Drawing-room days (and when Helen Whitney went to Court they
+_were_ Drawing-rooms), but the Whitneys' programme was this: A cold
+collation in lieu of dinner, when Fate should bring them home again, and
+a ball in the evening. The ball was our joint invention. Sitting round
+the schoolroom fire one night we settled it for ourselves: and after Sir
+John and my lady had stood out well, they gave in. Not that it would be
+much of a ball, for they had few acquaintances in London, and the house
+was small.
+
+But now, had any aid been wanted by Miss Deveen to carry out her plans,
+she could not have devised better than this. For the Whitneys invited
+(all unconsciously) Mrs. Hughes to the ball. Anna came into Miss
+Deveen's after they had been sending out the invitations (only three
+days before the evening), and began telling her the names as a bit of
+gossip. She came at last to Mrs. Hughes.
+
+"Mrs. Hughes," interrupted Miss Deveen, "I am glad of that, Anna, for I
+want to see her."
+
+Miss Deveen's seeing her would not go for much in the matter of
+elucidation; it was Mr. James who must see her; and the plan by which he
+might do so was Miss Deveen's own. She went down and arranged it with
+him, and before the night came, it was all cut and dried. He and she and
+I knew of it; not another soul in the world.
+
+"You will have to help me in it a little, Johnny," she said. "Be at hand
+to watch for Mr. James's arrival, and bring him up to me."
+
+We saw them come back from the Drawing-room between five and six, Helen
+with a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and at eight o'clock we went in.
+London parties, which begin when you ought to be in your first sleep,
+are not understood by us country people, and eight was the hour named in
+the Whitneys' invitations. Cattledon was screwed into a rich sea-green
+satin (somebody else's once), with a water-lily in her thin hair; and
+Miss Deveen wore all her diamonds. Sir John, out of his element and
+frightfully disconsolate, stood against the wall, his spectacles lodged
+on his old red nose. The thing was not in his line. Miss Deveen went up
+to shake hands.
+
+"Sir John, I am rather expecting a gentleman to call on me on business
+to-night," she said; "and have left word for him to step in and see me
+here. Will you forgive the liberty?"
+
+"I'm sure it's no liberty; I shall be glad to welcome him," replied Sir
+John, dismally. "There'll not be much here but stupid boys and girls. We
+shall get no whist to-night. The plague only knows who invented balls."
+
+It was a little odd that, next to ourselves, Mrs. Hughes should be the
+first to arrive. She was very pale and pretty, and her husband was a
+slender, quiet, delicate man, looking like a finished gentleman. Miss
+Deveen followed them with her eyes as they went up to Lady Whitney.
+
+"She does not look like it, does she, Johnny?" whispered Miss Deveen to
+me. No, I was quite sure she did not.
+
+Sophie Chalk was in white, with ivy leaves in her spangled hair, the
+sweetest fairy to look at ever seen out of a moonlight ring. Helen, in
+her Court dress and pearls, looked plain beside her. They stood talking
+together, not noticing that I and Tod were in the recess behind. Most of
+the people had come then, and the music was tuning up. The rooms looked
+well; the flowers, scattered about, had come up from Whitney Hall. Helen
+called to her brother.
+
+"We may as well begin dancing, William."
+
+"Of course we may," he answered. "I don't know what we have waited for.
+I must find a partner. Miss Chalk, may I have the honour of dancing the
+first dance with you?"
+
+That Miss Chalk's eyes went up to his with a flash of gratitude, and
+then down in modesty to the chalked floor, I knew as well as though they
+had been behind her head instead of before it.
+
+"Oh, thank you," said she, "I shall be so happy." And I no more dared
+glance at Tod than if he had been an uncaged crocodile. She had told
+_him_ she was engaged for it.
+
+But just as William was about to give her his arm, and some one came and
+took away Helen, Lady Whitney called him. He spoke with his mother for a
+minute or two and came back with a cloud on his face.
+
+"I am awfully sorry, Sophie. The mother says I must take out Lady Esther
+Starr this first time, old Starr's wife, you know, as my father's
+dancing days are over. Lady Esther is seven-and-thirty if she's a day,"
+growled Bill, "and as big as a lighthouse. I'll have the second with
+you, Sophie."
+
+"I am _afraid_ I am engaged for the second," hesitated Miss Sophie. "I
+think I have promised Joseph Todhetley."
+
+"Never mind him," said Bill. "You'll dance it with me, mind."
+
+"I can tell him I mistook the dance," she softly suggested.
+
+"Tell him anything. All right."
+
+He wheeled round, and went up to Lady Esther, putting on his glove.
+Sophie Chalk moved away, and I took courage to glance sideways at Tod.
+
+His face was white as death: I think with passion. He stood with his
+arms folded, never moving throughout the whole quadrille, only looking
+out straight before him with a fixed stare. A waltz came next, for which
+they kept their partners. And Sophie Chalk had enjoyed the luck of
+sitting down all the time. Whilst they were making ready for the second
+quadrille, Tod went up to her.
+
+"This is our dance, Miss Chalk."
+
+Well, she had her share of boldness. She looked steadily in his face,
+assuring him that he was mistaken, and vowing through thick and thin
+that it was the _third_ dance she had promised him. Whilst she was
+excusing herself, Bill came up to claim her. Tod put out his strong arm
+to ward him off.
+
+"Stay a moment, Whitney," he said, with studied calmness, "let me
+have an understanding first with Miss Chalk. She can dance with you
+afterwards if she prefers to do so. Miss Chalk, _you know_ that you
+promised yourself to me this morning for the second dance. I asked you
+for the first: you were engaged for that, you said, and would dance the
+second with me. There could be no mistake, on your side or on mine."
+
+"Oh, but _indeed_ I understood it to be the third, dear Mr. Todhetley,"
+said she. "I am dreadfully sorry if it is my fault. I will dance the
+third with you."
+
+"I have not asked you for the third. Do as you please. If you throw me
+over for this second dance, I will never ask you for another again as
+long as I live."
+
+Bill Whitney stood by laughing; seeming to treat the whole as a good
+joke. Sophie Chalk looked at him appealingly.
+
+"And you certainly promised _me_, Miss Chalk," he put in. "Todhetley, it
+is a misunderstanding. You and I had better draw lots."
+
+Tod bit his lip nearly to bleeding. All the notice he took of Bill's
+speech was to turn his back upon him, and address Sophie.
+
+"The decision lies with you alone, Miss Chalk. You have engaged yourself
+to him and to me: choose between us."
+
+She put her hand within Bill's arm, and went away with him, leaving a
+little honeyed flattery for Tod. But Bill Whitney looked back curiously
+into Tod's white face, all his brightness gone; for the first time he
+seemed to realize that it was serious, almost an affair of life or
+death. His handkerchief up, wiping his damp brow, Tod did not notice
+which way he was going, and ran against Anna. "I beg your pardon," he
+said, with a start, as if waking out of a dream. "Will you go through
+this dance with me, Anna?"
+
+Yes. He led her up to it; and they took their places opposite Bill and
+Miss Chalk.
+
+Mr. James was to arrive at half-past nine. I was waiting for him near
+the entrance door. He was punctual to time; and looked very well in
+his evening dress. I took him up to Miss Deveen, and she made room
+for him on the sofa by her side, her diamonds glistening. He must
+have seen their value. Sir John had his rubber then in the little
+breakfast-parlour: Miss Cattledon, old Starr, and another making it up
+for him. Wanting to see the game played out, I kept by the sofa.
+
+This was not the dancing-room: but they came into it in couples between
+the dances, to march round in the cooler air. Mr. James looked and Miss
+Deveen looked; and I confess that whenever Mrs. Hughes passed us, I felt
+queer. Miss Deveen suddenly arrested her and kept her talking for a
+minute or two. Not a word bearing upon the subject said Mr. James. Once,
+when the room was clear and the measured tread to one of Strauss's best
+waltzes could be heard, Lady Whitney approached. Catching sight of the
+stranger by Miss Deveen, she supposed he had been brought by some of the
+guests, and came up to make his acquaintance.
+
+"A friend of mine, dear Lady Whitney," said Miss Deveen.
+
+Lady Whitney, never observing that no name was mentioned, shook hands at
+once with Mr. James in her homely country fashion. He stood up until she
+had moved away.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Deveen, when the dancers had come in again. "Is the
+lady here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I had expected him to say No, and could have struck him for destroying
+my faith in Mrs. Hughes. She was passing at the moment.
+
+"Do you see her now?" whispered Miss Deveen.
+
+"Not now. She was at the door a moment ago."
+
+"Not now!" exclaimed Miss Deveen, staring at Mrs. Hughes. "Is it not
+_that_ lady?"
+
+Mr. James sent his eyes in half-a-dozen directions.
+
+"Which lady, ma'am?"
+
+"The one who has just passed in black silk, with the simple white net
+quilling round the neck."
+
+"Oh dear, no!" said Mr. James. "I never saw that lady in my life before.
+The lady, _the_ lady, is dressed in white."
+
+Miss Deveen looked at him, and I looked. _Here_, in the rooms, and yet
+not Mrs. Hughes!
+
+"This is the one," he whispered, "coming in now."
+
+The one, turning in at that particular instant, was Sophie Chalk. But
+others were before her and behind her. She was on Harry Whitney's arm.
+
+"Why don't you dance, Miss Deveen?" asked bold Harry, halting before the
+sofa.
+
+"Will you dance with me, Master Harry?"
+
+"Of course I will. Glad to get you."
+
+"Don't tell fibs, young man. I might take you at your word, if I had my
+dancing-shoes on."
+
+Harry laughed. Sophie Chalk's blue eyes happened to rest on Mr. James's
+face: they took a puzzled expression, as if wondering where she had
+seen it. Mr. James rose and bowed to her. She must have recognized him
+then, for her features turned livid, in spite of the powder upon them.
+
+"Who is it, Johnny?" she whispered, in her confusion, loosing Harry's
+arm and coming behind.
+
+"Well, you must ask that of Miss Deveen. He has come here to see her:
+something's up, I fancy, about those emerald studs."
+
+Had it been to save my fortune, I could not have helped saying it. I saw
+it all as in a mirror. _She_ it was who had taken them, and pledged them
+afterwards. A similar light flashed on Miss Deveen. She followed her
+with her severe face, her condemning eyes.
+
+"Take care, Johnny!" cried Miss Deveen.
+
+I was just in time to catch Sophie Chalk. She would have fallen on my
+shoulder. The room was in a commotion at once: a young lady had fainted.
+What from? asked every one. Oh, from the heat, of course. And no other
+reason was breathed.
+
+Mr. James's mission was over. It had been successful. He made his bow to
+Lady Whitney, and withdrew.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Deveen sent for Sophie Chalk the next day, and they had it out
+together, shut up alone. Sophie's coolness was good for any amount of
+denial, but it failed here. And then she took the other course, and
+fell on her knees at Miss Deveen's feet, and told a pitiable story of
+being alone in the world, without money to dress herself, and the open
+jewel-casket in Miss Deveen's chamber (into which accident, not design,
+had really taken her) proving too much in the moment's temptation. Miss
+Deveen believed it; she told her the affair should never transpire
+beyond the two or three who already knew it; that she would redeem the
+emeralds herself, and say nothing even to Lady Whitney; but, as a matter
+of course, Miss Chalk must close her acquaintance with Sir John's
+family.
+
+And, singular to say, Sophie received a letter from someone that same
+evening, inviting her to go out of town. At least, she said she did.
+
+So, quitting the Whitneys suddenly was plausibly accounted for; and
+Helen Whitney did not know the truth for many a day.
+
+What did Tod think? For that, I expect, is what you are all wanting to
+ask. That was another curious thing--that he and Bill Whitney should
+have come to an explanation before the ball was over. Bill went up to
+him, saying that had he supposed Tod could mean anything serious in his
+admiration of Sophie Chalk, he should never have gone in for admiring
+her himself, even in pastime; and certainly would not continue to do so
+or spoil sport again.
+
+"Thank you for telling me," answered Tod, with indifference. "You are
+quite welcome to go in for Sophie Chalk in any way you please. _I_ have
+done with her."
+
+"No," said Bill, "good girls must grow scarcer than they are before I
+should go in seriously for Sophie Chalk. She's all very well to talk and
+laugh with, and she is uncommonly fascinating."
+
+It was my turn to put in a word. "As I told you, Bill, months ago,
+Sophie Chalk would fascinate the eyes out of your head, give her the
+chance."
+
+Bill laughed. "Well she has had the chance, Johnny: but she has not done
+it."
+
+Altogether, Sophie, thanks to her own bad play, had fallen to a
+discount.
+
+When Miss Deveen announced to the world that she had found her emerald
+studs (lost through an accident, she discovered, and recovered in the
+same way) people were full of wonder at the chances and mistakes of
+life. Lettice Lane was cleared triumphantly. Miss Deveen sent her home
+for a week to shake hands with her friends and enemies, and then took
+her back as her own maid.
+
+And the only person I said a syllable to was Anna. I knew it would be
+safe: and I dare say you would have done the same in my place. But she
+stopped me at the middle of the first sentence.
+
+"I have known it from the first, Johnny: I was nearly as sure of it as
+I could be; and it is that that has made me so miserable."
+
+"Known it was Sophie Chalk?"
+
+"As good as known it. I had no proof, only suspicion. And I could not
+see whether I ought to speak the suspicion even to mamma, or to keep it
+to myself. As things have turned out, I am very thankful to have been
+silent."
+
+"How was it, then?"
+
+"That night at Whitney Hall, after they had all come down from dressing,
+mamma sent me up to William's room with a message. As I was leaving
+it--it is at the end of the long corridor, you know--I saw some one peep
+cautiously out of Miss Cattledon's chamber, and then steal up the back
+stairs. It was Sophie Chalk. Later, when we were going to bed, and I was
+quite undressed, Helen, who was in bed, espied Sophie's comb and brush
+on the table--for she had dressed in our room because of the large
+glass--and told me to run in with them: she only slept in the next room.
+It was very cold. I knocked and entered so sharply that the door-bolt, a
+thin, creaky old thing, gave way. Of course I begged her pardon; but she
+seemed to start up in terrible fear, as if I had been a ghost. She had
+not touched her hair, but sat in her shawl, sewing at her stays; and she
+let them drop on the carpet and threw a petticoat over them. I thought
+nothing, Johnny; nothing at all. But the next morning when commotion
+arose and the studs were missing, I could not help recalling all this;
+and I quite hated myself for thinking Sophie Chalk might have taken them
+when she stole out of Miss Cattledon's room, and was sewing them later
+into her stays."
+
+"You thought right, you see."
+
+"Johnny, I am very sorry for her. I wish we could help her to some good
+situation. Depend upon it, this will be a lesson to her: she will never
+so far forget herself again."
+
+"She is quite able to take care of herself, Anna. Don't let it trouble
+you. I dare say she will marry Mr. Everty."
+
+"Who is Mr. Everty?"
+
+"Some one who is engaged in the wine business with Sophie Chalk's
+brother-in-law, Mr. Smith."
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+GOING TO THE MOP.
+
+
+"I never went to St. John's mop in my life," said Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"That's no reason why you never should go," returned the Squire.
+
+"And never thought of engaging a servant at one."
+
+"There are as good servants to be picked up at a mop as out of it; and
+you have a great deal better choice," said he. "My mother has hired many
+a man and maid at the mop: first-rate servants too."
+
+"Well, then, perhaps we had better go into Worcester to-morrow and see,"
+concluded she, rather dubiously.
+
+"And start early," said the Squire. "What is it you are afraid of?" he
+added, noting her doubtful tone. "That good servants don't go to the mop
+to be hired?"
+
+"Not that," she answered. "I know it is the only chance farmhouse
+servants have of being hired when they change their places. It was the
+noise and crowd I was thinking of."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," returned the Pater. "It is not half as bad as the
+fair."
+
+Mrs. Todhetley stood at the parlour window of Dyke Manor, the autumn
+sun, setting in a glow, tingeing her face and showing up its thoughtful
+expression. The Squire was in his easy-chair, looking at one of the
+Worcester newspapers.
+
+There had been a bother lately about the dairy-work. The old dairy-maid,
+after four years of the service, had left to be married; two others had
+been tried since, and neither suited. The last had marched herself off
+that day, after a desperate quarrel with Molly; the house was nearly at
+its wits' end in consequence, and perhaps the two cows were also. Mrs.
+Todhetley, really not knowing what in the world to do, and fretting
+herself into the face-ache over it, was interrupted by the Pater and
+his newspaper. He had just read there the reminder that St. John's
+annual Michaelmas Mop would take place on the morrow: and he told Mrs.
+Todhetley that she could go there and hire a dairy-maid at will. Fifty
+if she wanted them. At that time the mop was as much an institution
+as the fair or the wake. Some people called it the Statute Fair.
+
+Molly, whose sweet temper you have had a glimpse or two of before,
+banged about among her spoons and saucepans when she heard what was in
+the wind. "Fine muck it 'ud be," she said, "coming out o' that there
+Worcester mop." Having the dairy-work to do as well as her own just now,
+the house scarcely held her.
+
+We breakfasted early the next morning and started betimes in the large
+open carriage, the Squire driving his pair of fine horses, Bob and
+Blister. Mrs. Todhetley sat with him, and I behind. Tod might have gone
+if he would: but the long drive out and home had no charms for him, and
+he said ironically he should like to see himself attending the mop. It
+was a lovely morning, bright and sunny, with a suspicion of crispness in
+the air: the trees were putting on their autumn colours, and shoals of
+blackberries were in the hedges.
+
+Getting some refreshment again at Worcester, and leaving the Squire at
+the hotel, I and Mrs. Todhetley walked to the mop. It was held in the
+parish of St. John's--a suburb of Worcester on the other side of the
+Severn, as all the country knows. Crossing the bridge and getting well
+up the New Road, we plunged into the thick of the fun.
+
+The men were first, standing back in a line on the foot-path, fronting
+the passers-by. Young rustics mostly in clean smock-frocks, waiting to
+be looked at and questioned and hired, a broad grin on their faces with
+the novelty of the situation. We passed them: and came to the girls and
+women. You could tell they were nearly all rustic servants too, by their
+high colours and awkward looks and manners. As a rule, each held a thick
+cotton umbrella, tied round the middle after the fashion of Mrs. Gamp's,
+and a pair of pattens whose bright rings showed they had not been in
+use that day. To judge by the look of the present weather, we were not
+likely to have rain for a month: but these simple people liked to guard
+against contingencies. Crowds of folk were passing along like ourselves,
+some come to hire, some only to take up the space and stare.
+
+Mrs. Todhetley elbowed her way amongst them. So did I. She spoke to one
+or two, but nothing came of it. Whom should we come upon, to my intense
+surprise, but our dairy-maid--the one who had taken herself off the
+previous day!
+
+"I hope you will get a better place than you had with me, Susan," said
+the Mater, rather sarcastically.
+
+"I hopes as how I shall, missis," was the insolent retort. "'Twon't be
+hard to do, any way, that won't, with that there overbearing Molly in
+yourn."
+
+We went on. A great hulking farmer as big as a giant, and looking as
+though he had taken more than was good for him in the morning, came
+lumbering along, pushing every one right and left. He threw his bold
+eyes on one of the girls.
+
+"What place be for you, my lass?"
+
+"None o' yourn, master," was the prompt reply.
+
+The voice was good-natured and pleasant, and I looked at the girl as the
+man went shouldering on. She wore a clean light cotton gown, a smart
+shawl all the colours of the rainbow, and a straw bonnet covered with
+sky-blue bows. Her face was fairer than most of the faces around; her
+eyes were the colour of her ribbons; and her mouth, rather wide and
+always smiling, had about the nicest set of teeth I ever saw. To take
+likes and dislikes at first sight without rhyme or reason, is what I am
+hopelessly given to, and there's no help for it. People laugh mockingly:
+as you have heard me say. "There goes Johnny with his fancies again!"
+they cry: but I know that it has served me well through life. I took a
+liking to this girl's face: it was an honest face, as full of smiles as
+the bonnet was of bows. Mrs. Todhetley noticed her too, and halted. The
+girl dropped a curtsey.
+
+"What place are you seeking?" she asked.
+
+"Dairy-maid's, please, ma'am."
+
+The good Mater stood, doubtful whether to pursue inquiries or to pass
+onwards. She liked the face of the girl, but did not like the profusion
+of blue ribbons.
+
+"I understand my work well, ma'am, please; and I'm not afraid of any
+much of it, in reason."
+
+This turned the scale. Mrs. Todhetley stood her ground and plunged into
+questioning.
+
+"Where have you been living?"
+
+"At Mr. Thorpe's farm, please, near Severn Stoke."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"Twelve months, please. I went there Old Michaelmas Day, last year."
+
+"Why are you leaving?"
+
+"Please, ma'am"--a pause here--"please, I wanted a change, and the work
+was a great sight of it; frightful heavy; and missis often cross. Quite
+a herd o' milkers, there was, there."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Grizzel Clay. I be strong and healthy, please, ma'am; and I was
+twenty-two in the summer."
+
+"Can you have a character from Mrs. Thorpe?"
+
+"Yes, please, ma'am, and a good one. She can't say nothing against me."
+
+And so the queries went on; one would have thought the Mater was hiring
+a whole regiment of soldiers. Grizzel was ready and willing to enter on
+her place at once, if hired. Mrs. Thorpe was in Worcester that day, and
+might be seen at the Hare and Hounds inn.
+
+"What do you think, Johnny?" whispered the Mater.
+
+"I should hire her. She's just the girl I wouldn't mind taking without
+any character."
+
+"With those blue bows! Don't be simple, Johnny. Still I like the girl,
+and may as well see Mrs. Thorpe."
+
+"By the way, though," she added, turning to Grizzel, "what wages do you
+ask?"
+
+"Eight pounds, please, ma'am," replied Grizzel, after some hesitation,
+and with reddening cheeks.
+
+"Eight pounds!" exclaimed Mrs. Todhetley. "That's very high."
+
+"But you'll find me a good servant, ma'am."
+
+We went back through the town to the Hare and Hounds, an inn near the
+cathedral. Mrs. Thorpe, a substantial dame in a long cloth skirt and
+black hat, by which we saw she had come in on horse-back, was at dinner.
+
+She gave Grizzel Clay a good character. Saying the girl was honest,
+clean, hardworking, and very sweet-tempered; and, in truth, she was
+rather sorry to part with her. Mrs. Todhetley asked about the blue bows.
+Ay, Mrs. Thorpe said, that was Grizzel Clay's great fault--a love of
+finery: and she recommended Mrs. Todhetley to "keep her under" in that
+respect. In going out we found Grizzel waiting under the archway, having
+come down to learn her fate. Mrs. Todhetley said she should engage her,
+and bade her follow us to the hotel.
+
+"It's an excellent character, Johnny," she said, as we went along the
+street. "I like everything about the girl, except the blue ribbons."
+
+"I don't see any harm in blue ribbons. A girl looks nicer in ribbons
+than without them."
+
+"That's just it," said the Mater. "And this girl is good-looking enough
+to do without them. Johnny, if Mr. Todhetley has no objection, I think
+we had better take her back in the carriage. You won't mind her sitting
+by you?"
+
+"Not I. And I'm sure I shall not mind the ribbons."
+
+So it was arranged. The girl was engaged, to go back with us in the
+afternoon. Her box would be sent on by the carrier. She presented
+herself at the Star at the time of starting with a small bundle: and a
+little birdcage, something like a mouse-trap, that had a bird in it.
+
+"Could I be let take it, ma'am?" she asked of Mrs. Todhetley. "It's
+only a poor linnet that I found hurt on the ground the last morning I
+went out to help milk Thorpe's cows. I'm a-trying, please, to nurse it
+back to health."
+
+"Take it, and welcome," cried the Squire. "The bird had better die,
+though, than be kept to live in that cage."
+
+"I was thinking to let it fly, please, sir, when it's strong again."
+
+Grizzel had proper notions. She screwed herself into the corner of the
+seat, so as not to touch me. I heard all about her as we went along.
+
+She had gone to live at her Uncle Clay's in Gloucestershire when her
+mother died, working for them as a servant. The uncle was "well-to-do,"
+rented twenty acres of land, and had two cows and some sheep and pigs
+of his own. The aunt had a nephew, and this young man wanted to court
+her, Grizzel: but she'd have nothing to say to him. It made matters
+uncomfortable, and last year they turned her out: so she went and hired
+herself at Mrs. Thorpe's.
+
+"Well, I should have thought you had better be married and have a home
+of your own than go out as dairy-maid, Grizzel."
+
+"That depends upon who the husband is, sir," she said, laughing
+slightly. "I'd rather be a dairy-maid to the end o' my days--I'd rather
+be a prisoner in a cage like this poor bird--than have anything to say
+to that there nephew of aunt's. He had red hair, and I can't abide it."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grizzel proved to be a good servant, and became a great favourite in the
+house, except with Molly. Molly, never taking to her kindly, was for
+quarrelling ten times a day, but the girl only laughed back again.
+She was superior to the general run of dairy-maids, both in looks and
+manners: and her good-humoured face brought sweethearts up in plenty.
+
+Two of them were serious. The one was George Roper, bailiff's man on a
+neighbouring farm; the other was Sandy Lett, a wheelwright in business
+for himself at Church Dykely. Of course matters ran in this case, as
+they generally do run in such cases, all cross and contrary: or, as the
+French say, _à tort et à travers_. George Roper, a good-looking young
+fellow with curly hair and a handsome pair of black whiskers, had not a
+coin beyond the weekly wages he worked for: he had not so much as a
+chair to sit in, or a turn-up bedstead to lie on; yet Grizzel loved him
+with her whole heart. Sandy Lett, who was not bad-looking either, and
+had a good home and a good business, she did not care for. Of course the
+difficulty lay in deciding which of the two to choose: ambition and her
+friends recommended Sandy Lett; imprudence and her own heart, George
+Roper. Like the donkey between the two bundles of hay, Grizzel was
+unable to decide on either, and kept both the swains on the tenter-hooks
+of suspense.
+
+Sunday afternoons were the great trouble of Grizzel's life. Roper had
+holiday then, and came: and Lett, whose time was his own, though of
+course he could not afford to waste it on a week-day, also came. One
+would stand at the stile in one field, the other at a stile in another
+field: and Grizzel, arrayed in one of the light print gowns she
+favoured, the many-coloured shawl, and the dangerous blue-ribboned
+bonnet, did not dare to go out to either, lest the other should pounce
+upon his rival, and a fight ensue. It was getting quite exciting in the
+household to watch the progress of events. Spring passed, the summer
+came round; and between the two, Grizzel had her hands full. The other
+servants could not imagine what the men saw in her.
+
+"It is those blue ribbons she's so fond of!" said Mrs. Todhetley to us
+two, with a sigh. "I doubted them from the first."
+
+"I should say it is the blue eyes," dissented Tod.
+
+"And I the white teeth and laughing face. _Nobody_ can help liking her."
+
+"You shut up, Johnny. If I were Roper----"
+
+"Shut up yourself, Joseph: both of you shut up: you know nothing about
+it," interrupted the Squire, who had seemed to be asleep in his chair.
+"It comes of woman's coquetry and man's folly. As to these two fellows,
+if Grizzel can't make up her mind, I'll warn them both to keep off my
+grounds at their peril."
+
+One evening during the Midsummer holidays, in turning out of the
+oak-walk to cross the fold-yard, I came upon Grizzel leaning on the
+gate. She had a bunch of sweet peas in her hand, and tears in her eyes.
+George Roper, who must have been talking to her, passed me quickly,
+touching his hat.
+
+"Good evening, sir."
+
+"Good evening, Roper."
+
+He walked away with his firm, quick stride: a well-made, handsome,
+trustworthy fellow. His brown velveteen coat (an old one of his
+master's) was shabby, but he looked well in it; and his gaitered legs
+were straight and strong. That he had been the donor of the sweet peas,
+a rustic lover's favourite offering, was evident. Grizzel attempted to
+hide them in her gown when she saw me, but was not quick enough, so she
+was fain to hold them openly in her hand, and make believe to be busy
+with her milk-pail.
+
+"It's a drop of skim milk I've got over; I was going to take it to the
+pigs," said she.
+
+"What are you crying about?"
+
+"Me crying!" returned Grizzel. "It's the sun a shinin' in my eyes,
+sir."
+
+Was it! "Look here, Grizzel, why don't you put an end to this state of
+bother? You won't be able to milk the cows next."
+
+"'Tain't any in'ard bother o' that sort as 'll keep me from doing my
+proper work," returned she, with a flick to the handle of the pail.
+
+"At any rate, you can't marry two men: you would be taken up by old
+Jones the constable, you know, and tried for bigamy. And I'm sure you
+must keep _them_ in ferment. George Roper's gone off with a queer look
+on his face. Take him, or dismiss him."
+
+"I'd take him to-morrow, but for one thing," avowed the girl in a half
+whisper.
+
+"His short wages, I suppose--sixteen shillings a week."
+
+"Sixteen shillings a week short wages!" echoed Grizzel. "I call 'em good
+wages, sir. I'd never be afraid of getting along on them with a steady
+man--and Roper's that. It ain't the wages, Master Johnny. It is, that I
+promised mother never to begin life upon less than a cottage and some
+things in it."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Poor mother was a-dying, sir. Her illness lasted her many a week, and
+she might be said to be a-dying all the time. I was eighteen then.
+'Grizzy,' says she to me one night, 'you be a likely girl and 'll get
+chose afore you be many summers older. But you must promise me that
+you'll not, on no temptation whatsoever, say yes to a man till he has
+a home of his own to take you to, and beds and tables and things
+comfortable about him. Once begin without 'em, and you and him 'll
+spend all your after life looking out for 'em; but they'll not come
+any the more for that. And you'll be at sixes-and-sevens always: and
+him, why perhaps he'll take to the beer-shop--for many a man does,
+through having, so to say, no home. I've seen the ill of it in my
+days,' she says, 'and if I thought you'd tumble into it I'd hardly
+rest quiet in the grave where you be so soon a-going to place me.' 'Be
+at ease, mother,' says I to her in answer, 'and take my promise, which
+I'll never break, not to set-up for marriage without a home o' my own
+and proper things in it.' That promise I can't break, Master Johnny;
+and there has laid the root of the trouble all along."
+
+I saw then. Roper had nothing but a lodging, not a stick or stone that
+he could call his own. And the foolish man, instead of saving up out of
+his wages, spent the remnant in buying pretty things for Grizzel. It was
+a hopeless case.
+
+"You should never have had anything to say to Roper, knowing this,
+Grizzel."
+
+Grizzel twirled the sweet peas round and round in her fingers, and
+looked foolish, answering nothing.
+
+"Lett has a good home to give you and means to keep it going. He must
+make a couple of pounds a week. Perhaps more."
+
+"But then I don't care for him, Master Johnny."
+
+"Give him up then. Send him about his business."
+
+She might have been counting the blossoms on the sweet-pea stalks.
+Presently she spoke, without looking up.
+
+"You see, Master Johnny, one does not like to--to lose all one's
+chances, and grow into an old maid. And, if I _can't_ have Roper,
+perhaps--in time--I might bring myself to take Lett. It's a better
+opportunity than a poor dairy-maid like me could ever ha' looked for."
+
+The cat was out of the bag. Grizzel was keeping Lett on for a remote
+contingency. When she could make up her mind to say No to Roper, she
+meant to say Yes to him.
+
+"It is awful treachery to Roper; keeping him on only to drop him at
+last," ran my thoughts. "Were I he, I should give her a good shaking,
+and leave----"
+
+A sudden movement on Grizzel's part startled me. Catching up her pail,
+she darted across the yard by the pond as fast as her pattens would
+go, poured the milk into the pig-trough with a dash, and disappeared
+indoors. Looking round for any possible cause for this, I caught sight
+of a man in light fustian clothes hovering about in the field by the
+hay-ricks. It was Sandy Lett; he had walked over on the chance of
+getting to see her. But she did not come out again.
+
+The next move in the drama was made by Lett. The following Monday he
+presented himself before the Squire--dressed in his Sunday-going things,
+and a new hat on--to ask him to be so good as to settle the matter, for
+it was "getting a'most beyond him."
+
+"Why, how can I settle it?" demanded the Squire. "What have I to do with
+it?"
+
+"It's a tormenting of me pretty nigh into fiddle-strings," pleaded Lett.
+"What with her caprices--for sometimes her speaks to me as pleasant as a
+angel, while at others her won't speak nohow; and what with that dratted
+folk over yonder a-teasing of me"--jerking his head in the direction of
+Church Dykely--"I don't get no peace of my life. It be a shame, Squire,
+for any woman to treat a man as she's a-treating me."
+
+"I can't make her have you if she won't have you," exploded the Squire,
+not liking the appeal. "It is said, you know, that she would rather have
+Roper."
+
+Sandy Lett, who had a great idea of his own merits, turned his nose up
+in the air. "Beg pardon, Squire," he said, "but that won't wash, that
+won't. Grizzel couldn't have nothing serious to say to that there Roper;
+nought but a day-labourer on a farm; _she couldn't_: and if he don't
+keep his distance from her, I'll wring his ugly head round for him. Look
+at me beside him!--my good home wi' its m'hogany furniture in't. I can
+keep her a'most like a lady. She may have in a wench once a week for the
+washing and scrubbing, if she likes: I'd not deny her nothing in reason.
+And for that there Roper to think to put hisself atween us! No; 'twon't
+do: the moon's not made o' green cheese. Grizzel's a bit light-hearted,
+sir; fond o' chatter; and Roper he've played upon that. But if you'd
+speak a word for me, Squire, so as I may have the banns put up----"
+
+"What the deuce, Lett, do you suppose I have to do with my
+women-servants and their banns?" testily interrupted the Squire. "I
+can't interfere to make her marry you. But I'll tell you thus much,
+and her too: if there is to be this perpetual uproar about Grizzel,
+she shall quit my house before the twelvemonth she engaged herself for
+is up. And that's a disgrace for any young woman."
+
+So Sandy Lett got nothing by coming, poor unfortunate man. And yet--in
+a sense he did. The Squire ordered the girl before him, and told her in
+a sharp, decisive tone that she must either put an end to the state of
+things--or leave his service. And Grizzel, finding that the limit of
+toleration had come, but unable in her conflicting difficulties to
+decide which of the swains to retain and which discard, dismissed the
+two. After that, she was plunged over head and ears in distress, and for
+a week could hardly see to skim off the cream for her tears.
+
+"This comes of hiring dairy wenches at a statty fair!" cried wrathful
+Molly.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The summer went on. August was waning. One morning when Mr. Duffham had
+called in and was helping Mrs. Todhetley to give Lena a spoonful of jam
+(with a powder in it), at which Lena kicked and screamed, Grizzel ran
+into the room in excitement so great, that they thought she was going
+into a fit.
+
+"Why, what is it?" questioned Mrs. Todhetley, with a temporary truce to
+the jam hostilities. "Has either of the cows kicked you down, Grizzel?"
+
+"I'm--I'm come into a fortin!" shrieked Grizzel hysterically, laughing
+and crying in the same breath.
+
+Mr. Duffham put her into a chair, angrily ordering her to be calm--for
+anger is the best remedy in the world to apply to hysterics--and took a
+letter from her that she held out. It told her that her Uncle Clay was
+dead, and had left her a bequest of forty pounds. The forty pounds to
+be paid to her in gold whenever she should go and apply for it. This
+letter had come by the morning post: but Grizzel, busy in her dairy, had
+only just now opened it.
+
+"For the poor old uncle to have died in June, and them never to ha' let
+me hear on't!" she said, sobbing. "Just like 'em! And me never to have
+put on a bit o' mourning for him!"
+
+She rose from the chair, drying her eyes with her apron, and held out
+her hand for the letter. As Mrs. Todhetley began to say she was very
+glad to hear of her good luck, a shy look and a half-smile came into the
+girl's face.
+
+"I can get the home now, ma'am, with all this fortin," she whispered.
+
+Molly banged her pans about worse than ever, partly in envy at the good
+luck of the girl, partly because she had to do the dairy work during
+Grizzel's absence in Gloucestershire: a day and a half, which was given
+her by Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"There won't be no standing anigh her and her finery now," cried rampant
+Molly to the servants. "She'll tack her blue ribbons on to her tail as
+well as her head. Lucky if the dairy some fine day ain't found turned
+all sour!"
+
+Grizzel came back in time; bringing her forty pounds in gold wrapped-up
+in the foot of a folded stocking. The girl had as much sense as one here
+and there, and a day or two after her arrival she asked leave to speak
+to her mistress. It was to say that she should like to leave at the end
+of her year, Michaelmas, if her mistress would please look out for some
+one to replace her.
+
+"And what are you going to do, Grizzel, when you do leave? What are your
+plans?"
+
+Grizzel turned the colour of a whole cornfield of poppies, and confessed
+that she was going to be married to George Roper.
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Todhetley. But she had nothing to urge against it.
+
+"And please, ma'am," cried Grizzel, the poppies deepening and glowing,
+"we'd like to make bold to ask if the master would let to us that bit of
+a cottage that the Claytons have went out of."
+
+The Mater was quite taken aback. It seemed indeed that Grizzel had been
+laying her plans to some purpose.
+
+"It have a nice piece o' ground to grow pertaters and garden stuff, and
+it have a pigsty," said Grizzel. "Please, ma'am, we shall get along
+famous, if we can have that."
+
+"Do you mean to set up a pig, Grizzel?"
+
+Grizzel's face was all one smile. Of course they did. With such a
+fortune as she had come into, she intended herself and her husband to
+have everything good about them, including a pig.
+
+"I'll give Grizzel away," wrote Tod when he heard the news of the legacy
+and the projected marriage. "It will be fun! And if you people at home
+don't present her with her wedding-gown it will be a stingy shame. Let
+it have a good share of blue bows."
+
+"No, though, will he!" exclaimed Grizzel with sparkling eyes, when told
+of the honour designed her by Tod. "Give me away! Him! I've always said
+there's not such another gentleman in these parts as Mr. Joseph."
+
+The banns were put up, and matters progressed smoothly; with one
+solitary exception. When Sandy Lett heard of the treason going on behind
+his back, he was ready to drop with blighted love and mortification. A
+three-days' weather blight was nothing to his. Quite forgetting modesty,
+he made his fierce way into the house, without saying with your leave
+or by your leave, and thence to the dairy where Grizzel stood making-up
+butter, startling the girl so much with his white face and wild eyes
+that she stepped back into a pan of cream. Then he enlarged upon her
+iniquity, and wound up by assuring her that neither she nor her "coward
+of a Roper" could ever come to good. After that, he left her alone,
+making no further stir.
+
+Grizzel quitted the Manor and went into the cottage, which the Squire
+had agreed to let to them: Roper was to come to it on the wedding-day. A
+daughter of Goody Picker's, one Mary Standish (whose husband had a habit
+of going off on roving trips and staying away until found and brought
+back by the parish), stayed with Grizzel, helping her to put the cottage
+in habitable order, and arrange in it the articles she bought. That sum
+of forty pounds seemed to be doing wonders: I told Grizzel I could not
+have made a thousand go as far.
+
+"Any left, Master Johnny? Why of course I shall have plenty left," she
+said. "After buying the bed and the set o' drawers and the chairs and
+tables; and the pots and pans and crockeryware for the kitchen; and the
+pig and a cock and hen or two; and perviding a joint of roast pork and
+some best tea and white sugar for the wedding-day, we shall still have
+pounds and pounds on't left. 'Tisn't me, sir, nor George nether, that
+'ud like to lavish away all we've got and put none by for a rainy day."
+
+"All right, Grizzel. I am going to give you a tea-caddy."
+
+"Well now, to think of that, Master Johnny!" she said, lifting her
+hands. "And after the mistress giving me such a handsome gownd!--and the
+servants clubbing together, and bringing a roasting oven and beautiful
+set o' flat irons. Roper and me'll be set up like a king and queen."
+
+On Saturday, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and Tod
+were passing the cottage--a kind of miniature barn, to look at, with
+a thatched roof, and a broken grindstone at the door--and went in:
+rather to the discomfiture of Grizzel and Mrs. Standish, who had their
+petticoats shortened and their arms bare, scouring and scrubbing and
+making ready for the morrow. Returning across the fields later, we saw
+Grizzel at the door, gazing out all ways at once.
+
+"Consulting the stars as to whether it will be fine to-morrow, Grizzel?"
+cried Tod, who was never at a loss for a ready word.
+
+"I was a-looking out for Mary Standish, sir," she said. "George Roper
+haven't been here to-night, and we be all at doubtings about several
+matters he was to have come in to settle. First he said he'd go on
+betimes to the church o' Sunday morning; then he said he'd come here and
+we'd all walk together: and it was left at a uncertainty. There's the
+blackberry pie, too, that he've not brought."
+
+"The blackberry pie!" said I.
+
+"One that Mrs. Dodd, where he lodges, have made a present of to us for
+dinner, Master Johnny. Roper was to ha' brought it in to-night ready. It
+won't look well to see him carrying of a baked-pie on a Sunday morning,
+when he've got on his wedding-coat. I can't think where he have got to!"
+
+At this moment, some one was seen moving towards us across the field
+path. It proved to be Mary Standish: her gown turned up over her head,
+and a pie in her hands the size of a pulpit cushion. Red syrup was
+running down the outside of the dish, and the crust looked a little
+black at the edges.
+
+"My, what a big beauty!" exclaimed Grizzel.
+
+"Do take it, Grizzel, for my hands be all cramped with its weight," said
+Mrs. Standish: who, as it turned out, had been over to Roper's lodgings,
+a mile and a half away, with a view to seeing what had become of the
+bridegroom elect. And she nearly threw the pie into Grizzel's arms, and
+took down her gown.
+
+"And what do Roper say?" asked Grizzel. "And why have he not been here?"
+
+"Roper's not at home," said Mary Standish. "He come in from work about
+six; washed and put hisself to rights a bit, and then went out with a
+big bundle. Mrs. Dodd called after him to bring the pie, but he called
+back again that the pie might wait."
+
+"What was in the bundle?" questioned Grizzel, resenting the slight shown
+to the pie.
+
+"Well, by the looks on't, Mother Dodd thought 'twas his working clothes
+packed up," replied Mary Standish.
+
+"His working clothes!" cried Grizzel.
+
+"A going to take 'em to the tailor's, maybe, to get 'em done up. And not
+afore they wanted it."
+
+"Why, it's spending money for nothing," was Grizzel's comment. "I could
+ha' done up them clothes."
+
+"Well, it's what Mother Dodd thought," concluded Mary Standish.
+
+We said good night, and went racing home, leaving the two women at the
+door, Grizzel lodging the heavy blackberry pie on the old grindstone.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a glorious day for Grizzel's wedding. The hour fixed by the clerk
+(old Bumford) was ten o'clock, so that it might be got well over before
+the bell rang out for service. We reached the church early. Amongst the
+few spectators already there was cross-grained Molly, pocketing her
+ill-temper and for once meaning to be gracious to Grizzel.
+
+Ten o'clock struck, and the big old clock went ticking on. Clerk Bumford
+(a pompous man when free from gout) began abusing the wedding-party for
+not keeping its time. The quarter past was striking when Grizzel came
+up, with Mary Standish and a young girl. She looked white and nervous,
+and not at all at ease in her bridal attire--a green gown of some kind
+of stuff, and no end of pink ribbons: the choice of colours being
+Grizzel's own.
+
+"Is Roper here yet?" whispered Mary Standish.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"It's too bad of him!" she continued. "Never to send a body word whether
+he meant to call for us, or not: and us a waiting there till now,
+expecting of him."
+
+But where was George Roper? And (as old Bumford asked) what did he mean
+by it? The clergyman in his surplice and hood looked out at the vestry
+twice, as if questioning what the delay meant. We stood just inside the
+porch, and Grizzel grew whiter and whiter.
+
+"Just a few minutes more o' this delay, and there won't be no wedding
+at all this blessed morning," announced Clerk Bumford for the public
+benefit. "George Roper wants a good blowing up, he do."
+
+Ere the words were well spoken, a young man named Dicker, who was a
+fellow-lodger of Roper's and was to have accompanied him to church, made
+his appearance alone. That something had gone wrong was plainly to be
+seen: but, what with the publicity of his present position, and what
+with the stern clerk pouncing down upon him in wrath, the young man
+could hardly get his news out.
+
+In the first place, Roper had never been home all night; never been
+seen, in short, since he had left Mrs. Dodd's with the bundle,
+as related by Mary Standish. That morning, while Dicker in his
+consternation knew not what to be at--whether to be off to church
+alone, or to wait still, in the hope that Roper would come--two notes
+were delivered at Mrs. Dodd's by a strange boy: the one addressed to
+himself, John Dicker, the other to "Miss Clay," meaning Grizzel. They
+bore ill news; George Roper had given up his marriage, and gone away
+for good.
+
+At this extraordinary crisis, pompous Clerk Bumford was so taken aback,
+that he could only open his mouth and stare. It gave Dicker the
+opportunity to put in a few words.
+
+"What we thought at Mother Dodd's was, that Roper had took a drop too
+much somewhere last evening, and couldn't get home. He's as sober a man
+as can be--but whatever else was we to think? And when this writed note
+come this morning, and we found he had gone off to Ameriky o' purpose
+to avoid being married, we was downright floundered. This is yours,
+Grizzel," added the young man in as gently considerate a tone as any
+gentleman could have used.
+
+Grizzel's hand shook as she took the letter he held out. She was biting
+her pale lips hard to keep down emotion. "Take it and read it," she
+whispered to Mary Standish--for in truth she herself could not, with all
+that sea of curious eyes upon her.
+
+But Mary Standish laboured under the slight disadvantage of not being
+able to read writing: conscious of this difficulty, she would not touch
+the letter. Mr. Bumford, his senses and his tongue returning together,
+snatched it without ceremony out of Grizzel's hand.
+
+"I'll read it," said he. And he did so. And I, Johnny Ludlow, give you
+the copy verbatim.
+
+  "Der Grisl, saterdy evenin, this comes hoppin you be wel as it leves
+  me at presint, Which this is to declar to you der grisl that our
+  marage is at an end, it hav ben to much for me and praid on my
+  sperits, I cant stand it no longer nohow and hav took my leve of you
+  for ivir, Der Grisl I maks my best way this night to Livirpol to tak
+  ship for Ameriky, and my last hops for you hearby xprest is as you
+  may be hapy with annother, I were nivir worthey of you der grisl and
+  thats a fac, but I kep it from you til now when I cant kep it no
+  longer cause of my conshunse, once youv red this hear letter dont
+  you nivir think no mor on me agen, which I shant on you, Adew for
+  ivir,
+
+  "your unfortnit friend George Roper.
+
+  "Ide av carred acros that ther blakbured pi but shoud have ben to
+  late, my good hops is youl injoy the pi with another better nor you
+  ivir could along with me, best furwel wishes to Mary Standish.
+  G R."
+
+What with the penmanship and what with the spelling, it took old
+Bumford's spectacles some time to get through. A thunderbolt could
+hardly have made more stir than this news. No one spoke, however; and
+Mr. Bumford folded the letter in silence.
+
+"I always knowed what that there Roper was worth," broke forth Molly.
+"He pipe-clayed my best black cloak on the sly one day when I ordered
+him off the premises. You be better without him, Grizzel, girl--and
+here's my hand and wishing you better luck in token of it."
+
+"Mrs. Dodd was right--them was a change a' clothes he was a taking with
+him to Ameriky," added Mary Standish.
+
+"Roper's a jail-bird, I should say," put in old Bumford. "A nice un
+too."
+
+"But what can it be that's went wrong--what is it that have took him
+off?" wondered the young man, Dicker.
+
+The parson in his surplice had come down the aisle and was standing to
+listen. Grizzel, in the extremity of mental bitterness and confusion,
+but striving to put a face of indifference on the matter before the
+public, gazed around helplessly.
+
+"I'm better without him, as Molly says--and what do I care?" she cried
+recklessly, her lips quivering. The parson put his hand gravely on her
+arm.
+
+"My good young woman, I think you are in truth better without him. Such
+a man as that is not worthy of a regret."
+
+"No, sir, and I don't and won't regret him," was her rapid answer, the
+voice rising hysterically.
+
+As she turned, intending to leave the church, she came face to face with
+Sandy Lett. I had seen him standing there, drinking in the words of the
+note with all his ears and taking covert looks at Grizzel.
+
+"Don't pass me by, Grizzel," said he. "I feel hearty sorry for all this,
+and I hope that villain'll come to be drowned on his way to Ameriky. Let
+me be your friend. I'll make you a good one."
+
+"Thank you," she answered. "Please let me go by."
+
+"Look here, Grizzel," he rejoined with a start, as if some thought had
+at that moment occurred to him. "Why shouldn't you and me make it up
+together? Now. If the one bridegroom's been a wicked runagate, and left
+you all forsaken, you see another here ready to put on his shoes. Do,
+Grizzel, do!"
+
+"Do what?" she asked, not taking his meaning.
+
+"Let's be married, Grizzel. You and me. There's the parson and Mr.
+Bumford all ready, and we can get it over afore church begins. It's a
+good home I've got to take you to. Don't say nay, my girl."
+
+Now what should Grizzel do? Like the lone lorn widow in "David
+Copperfield," who, when a ship's carpenter offered her marriage,
+"instead of saying, 'Thank you, sir, I'd rather not,' up with a bucket
+of water and dashed it over him," Grizzel "up" with her hand and dealt
+Mr. Sandy a sounding smack on his left cheek. Smarting under the
+infliction, Sandy Lett gave vent to a word or two of passion, out of
+place in a church, and the parson administered a reprimand.
+
+Grizzel had not waited. Before the sound of her hand had died away, she
+was outside the door, quickly traversing the lonely churchyard. A fine
+end to poor Grizzel's wedding!
+
+The following day, Monday, Mrs. Todhetley went over to the cottage.
+Grizzel, sitting with her hands before her, started up, and made believe
+to be desperately busy with some tea-cups. We were all sorry for her.
+
+"Mr. Todhetley has been making inquiry into this business, Grizzel,"
+said the Mater, "and it certainly seems more mysterious than ever, for
+he cannot hear a word against Roper. His late master says Roper was the
+best servant he ever had; he is as sorry to lose him as can be."
+
+"Oh, ma'am, but he's not worth troubling about--my thanks and duty to
+the master all the same."
+
+"Would you mind letting me see Roper's note?"
+
+Grizzel took it out of the tea-caddy I had given her--which caddy was to
+have been kept for show. Mrs. Todhetley, mastering the contents, and
+biting her lips to suppress an occasional smile, sat in thought.
+
+"I suppose this is Roper's own handwriting, Grizzel?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it's his, safe enough. Not that I ever saw him write. He
+talks about the blackberry pie, you see; one might know it is his by
+that."
+
+"Then, judging by what he says here, he must have got into some bad
+conduct, or trouble, I think, which he has been clever enough to keep
+from you and the world."
+
+"Oh yes, that's it," said Grizzel. "Poor mother used to say one might
+be deceived in a saint."
+
+"Well, it's a pity but he had given some clue to its nature: it would
+have been a sort of satisfaction. But now--I chiefly came over to ask
+you, Grizzel, what you purpose to do?"
+
+"There's only one thing for me now, ma'am," returned poor crestfallen
+Grizzel, after a pause: "I must get another place."
+
+"Will you come back to the Manor?"
+
+A hesitation--a struggle--and then she flung her apron up to her face
+and burst into tears. Dairy-maids have their feelings as well as their
+betters, and Grizzel's "lines" were very bitter just then. She had been
+so proud of this poor cottage home; she had grown to love it so in only
+those few days, and to look forward to years of happiness within it in
+their humble way: and now to find that she must give it up and go to
+service again!
+
+"The Squire says he will consider it as though you and Roper had not
+taken the cottage; and he thinks he can find some one to rent it who
+will buy the furniture of you--that is, if you prefer to sell it," she
+resumed very kindly. "And I think you had better come back to us,
+Grizzel. The new maid in your place does not suit at all."
+
+Grizzel took down her apron and rubbed her eyes. "It's very good of you,
+ma'am--and of the master--and I'd like to come back only for one thing.
+I'm afraid Molly would let me have no peace in my life: she'd get
+tanking at me about Roper before the others. Perhaps I'd hardly be able
+to stand it."
+
+"I will talk to her," said Mrs. Todhetley, rising to leave. "Where is
+Mary Standish to-day?"
+
+"Gone over to Alcester, ma'am. She had a errand there she said. But I
+think it was only to tell her folks the tale of my trouble."
+
+Molly had her "talking to" at once. It put her out a little; for she was
+really feeling some pity for Grizzel, and did not at all intend to "get
+tanking" at her. Molly had once experienced a similar disappointment
+herself; and her heart was opening to Grizzel. After her dinner was
+served that evening, she ran over to the cottage, in her coarse cooking
+apron and without a bonnet.
+
+"Look here," she said, bursting in upon Grizzel, sitting alone in the
+dusk. "You come back to your place if you like--the missis says she has
+given you the option--and don't you be afeard of me. 'Tisn't me as'll
+ever give back to you a word about Roper; and, mind, when I says a thing
+I mean it."
+
+"Thank you, Molly," humbly replied poor Grizzel, catching her breath.
+
+"The sooner you come back the better," continued Molly, fiercely. "For
+it's not me and that wench we've got now as is going to stop together. I
+had to call the missis into the dairy this blessed morning, and show her
+the state it was in. So you'll come back, Grizzel--and we'll be glad to
+see you."
+
+Grizzel nodded her head: her heart was too full to speak.
+
+"And as to that false villain of a Roper, as could serve a woman such a
+pitiful trick, I only wish I had the doctoring of him! He should get
+a--a--a----" Molly's voice, pitched in a high tone, died gradually away.
+What on earth was it, stepping in upon them? Some most extraordinary
+object, who opened the door softly, and came in with a pitch. Molly
+peered at it in the darkness with open mouth.
+
+A cry from Grizzel. A cry half of terror, half of pain. For she had
+recognized the object to be a man, and George Roper. George Roper with
+his hair and handsome whiskers cut off, and white sleeves in his brown
+coat--so that he looked like a Merry Andrew.
+
+He seemed three parts stupefied: not at all like a traveller in
+condition to set off to America. Sinking into the nearest wooden chair,
+he stared at Grizzel in a dazed way, and spoke in a slow, questioning,
+wondering voice.
+
+"I can't think what it is that's the matter with me."
+
+"Where be your whiskers--and your hair?" burst forth Molly.
+
+The man gazed at her for a minute or two, taking in the question
+gradually; he then raised his trembling hand to either side his
+face--feeling for the whiskers that were no longer there.
+
+"A nice pot o' mischief _you_'ve been a getting into!" cried sharp
+Molly. "Is that your own coat? What's gone of the sleeves?"
+
+For, now that the coat could be seen closely, it turned out that
+its sleeves had been cut out, leaving the bare white shirt-sleeves
+underneath. Roper looked first at one arm, then at the other.
+
+"What part of Ameriky be you bound for, and when do the ship sail?"
+pursued sarcastic Molly.
+
+The man opened his mouth and closed it again; like a born natural, as
+Molly put it. Grizzel suddenly clung to him with a sobbing cry.
+
+"He is ill, Molly; he's ill. He has had some trick played on him.
+George, what be it?" But still George Roper only gazed about him as if
+too stupid to understand.
+
+In short, the man _was_ stupid. That is, he had been stupefied, and as
+yet was only partially recovering its effects. He remembered going into
+the barber's shop on Saturday night to have his hair cut, after leaving
+his bundle of clothes at the tailor's. Some ale was served round at the
+barber's, and he, Roper, took a glass. After that he remembered nothing:
+all was blank, until he woke up an hour ago in the unused shed at the
+back of the blacksmith's shop.
+
+That the ale had been badly drugged, was evident. The question
+arose--who had played the trick? In a day or two, when Roper had
+recovered, an inquiry was set on foot: but nothing came of it. The
+barber testified that Roper seemed sleepy after the ale, and a joke went
+round that he must have been drinking some previously. He went out of
+the shop without having his hair cut, with several more men--and that
+was all the barber knew. Of course Sandy Lett was suspected. People said
+he had done it in hope to get himself substituted as bridegroom. Lett,
+however, vowed through thick and thin that he was innocent; and nothing
+was traced home to him. Neither was the handwriting of the note.
+
+They were married on the Thursday. Grizzel was too glad to get him back
+unharmed to make bones about the shorn whiskers. No difficulty was made
+about opening the church on a week-day. Clerk Bumford grumbled at it,
+but the parson put him down. And the blackberry pie served still for the
+wedding-dinner.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+BREAKING DOWN.
+
+
+"Have him here a bit."
+
+"Oh! But would you like it?"
+
+"Like it?" retorted the Squire. "I know this: if I were a hard-worked
+London clerk, ill for want of change and rest, and I had friends living
+in a nice part of the country, I should feel it uncommonly hard if they
+did not invite me."
+
+"I'm sure it is very kind of you to think of it," said Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"Write at once and ask him," said the Squire.
+
+They were speaking of a Mr. Marks. He was a relation of Mrs.
+Todhetley's; a second or third cousin. She had not seen him since she
+was a girl, when he used sometimes to come and stay at her father's. He
+seemed not to have got on very well in life; was only a clerk on a small
+salary, was married and had some children. A letter now and then passed
+between them and Mrs. Todhetley, but no other acquaintanceship had been
+kept up. About a month before this, Mrs. Todhetley had written to ask
+how they were going on; and the wife in answering--for it was she who
+wrote--said her husband was killing himself with work, and she quite
+believed he would break down for good unless he had a rest.
+
+We heard more about it later. James Marks was clerk in the great
+financial house of Brown and Co. Not particularly great as to
+reputation, for they made no noise in the world, but great as to
+their transactions. They did a little banking in a small way, and had
+mysterious money dealings with no end of foreign places: but if you
+had gone into their counting-house in London you'd have seen nothing
+to show for it, except Mr. Brown seated at a table-desk in a small
+room, and half-a-dozen clerks, or so, writing hard, or bending over
+columns of figures, in a larger one. Mr. Brown was an elderly little
+gentleman in a chestnut wig, and the "Co." existed only in name.
+
+James Marks had been thrown on the world when he was seventeen, with a
+good education, good principles, and a great anxiety to get on in life.
+He had to do it; for he had only himself to look to--and, mind you, I
+have lived long enough to learn that that's not at all the worst thing a
+young man can have. When some friends of his late father's got him into
+Brown and Co.'s house, James Marks thought his fortune was made. That
+is, he thought he was placed in a position to work up to one. But no.
+Here he was, getting on for forty years of age, and with no more
+prospect of fortune, or competency either, than he had had at the
+beginning.
+
+How many clerks, and especially bankers' clerks, are there in that
+City of London now who could say the same! Who went into their house
+(whatsoever it may be) in the hey-day of youth, exulting in their good
+luck in having obtained the admission for which so many others were
+striving. They saw not the long years of toil before them, the weary
+days of close work, with no rest or intermission, except Sunday;
+they saw not the struggle to live and pay; they saw not themselves
+middle-aged men, with a wife and family, hardly able to keep the wolf
+from the door. It was James Marks's case. He had married. And what with
+having to keep up the appearance of gentlepeople (at least to make a
+pretence at it) and to live in a decent-looking dwelling, and to buy
+clothes, and to pay doctors' bills and children's schooling, I'll leave
+you to guess how much he had left for luxuries out of his two hundred a
+year.
+
+When expenses were coming upon him thick and fast, Marks sought out some
+night employment. A tradesman in the neighbourhood--Pimlico--a butterman
+doing a flourishing business, advertised for a book-keeper to attend two
+or three hours in the evening. James Marks presented himself and was
+engaged. It had to be done in secrecy, lest offence should be taken at
+head-quarters. Had the little man in the chestnut wig heard of it, he
+might have objected to his clerk keeping any books but his own. Shut up
+in the butterman's small back-closet that he called his counting-house,
+Mr. Marks could be as private as need be. So there he was! After coming
+home from his day's toil, instead of taking recreation, the home-sitting
+with his wife, or the stroll in the summer weather, in place of throwing
+work to the winds and giving his brain rest, James Marks, after
+snatching a meal, tea and supper combined, went forth to work again, to
+weary his eyes with more figures and his head with casting them up. He
+generally managed to get home by eleven except on Saturday; but the
+day's work was too much for any man. Better for him (could he have
+pocketed pride, and gained over Brown and Co.) that he had hired himself
+to stand behind the evening counter and serve out the butter and
+cheese to the customers. It would at least have been a relief from the
+accounts. And so the years had gone on.
+
+A portion of the wife's letter to Mrs. Todhetley had run as follows:
+"Thank you very much for your kind inquiries after my husband, and for
+your hope that he is not overworking himself. _He is._ But I suppose I
+must have said something about it in my last letter (I am ashamed to
+remember that it was written two years ago!) that induced you to refer
+to it. That he is overworking himself I have known for a long time:
+and things that he has said lately have tended to alarm me. He speaks
+of sometimes getting confused in the head. In the midst of a close
+calculation he will suddenly seem to lose himself--lose memory and
+figures and all, and then he has to leave off for some minutes, close
+his eyes, and keep perfectly still, or else leave his stool and take a
+few turns up and down the room. Another thing he mentions--that the
+figures dance before his eyes in bed at night, and he is adding them up
+in his brain as if it were daytime and reality. It is very evident to me
+that he wants change and rest."
+
+"And what a foolish fellow he must have been not to take it before
+this!" cried the Squire, commenting on parts of the letter, while Mrs.
+Todhetley wrote.
+
+"Perhaps that is what he has not been able to do, sir," I said.
+
+"Not able! Why, what d'ye mean, Johnny?"
+
+"It is difficult for a banker's clerk to get holiday. Their work has to
+go on all the same."
+
+"Difficult! when a man's powers are breaking down! D'ye think bankers
+are made of flint and steel, not to give their clerks holiday when it is
+needed? Don't you talk nonsense, Johnny Ludlow."
+
+But I was not so far wrong, after all. There came a letter of warm
+thanks from Mr. Marks himself in answer to Mrs. Todhetley's invitation.
+He said how much he should have liked to accept it and what great good
+it would certainly have done him; but that upon applying for leave he
+found he could not be spared. So there seemed to be an end of it; and we
+hoped he would get better without the rest, and rub on as other clerks
+have to rub on. But in less than a month he wrote again, saying he would
+come if the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley were still pleased to have him.
+He had been so much worse as to be obliged to tell Mr. Brown the
+truth--that he believed he _must_ have rest; and Mr. Brown had granted
+it to him.
+
+It was the Wednesday in Passion Week, and a fine spring day, when James
+Marks arrived at Dyke Manor. Easter was late that year. He was rather a
+tall man, with dark eyes and very thin hair; he wore spectacles, and at
+first was rather shy in manner.
+
+You should have seen his delight in the change. The walks he took, the
+enjoyment of what he called the sweet country. "Oh," he said one day
+to us, "yours must be the happiest lot on earth. No forced work; your
+living assured; nothing to do but to revel in this health-giving air!
+Forgive my freedom, Mr. Todhetley," he added a moment after: "I was
+contrasting your lot with my own."
+
+We were passing through the fields towards the Court: the Squire was
+taking him to see the Sterlings, and he had said he would rather walk
+than drive. The hedges were breaking into green: the fields were yellow
+with buttercups and cowslips. This was on the Monday. The sun shone and
+the breeze was soft. Mr. Marks sniffed the air as he went along.
+
+"Six months of this would make a new man of me," we heard him say to
+himself in a low tone.
+
+"Take it," cried the Squire.
+
+Mr. Marks laughed, sadly enough. "You might as well tell me, sir, to--to
+take heaven," he said impulsively. "The one is no more in my power than
+the other.--Hark! I do believe that's the cuckoo!"
+
+We stood to listen. It was the cuckoo, sure enough, for the first time
+that spring. It only gave out two or three notes, though, and then was
+silent.
+
+"How many years it is since I heard the cuckoo!" he exclaimed, brushing
+his hand across his eyes. "More than twenty, I suppose. It seems to
+bring back my youth to me. What a thing it would be for us, sir, if we
+could only go to the mill that grinds people young again!"
+
+The Squire laughed. "It is good of _you_ to talk of age, Marks; why, I
+must be nearly double yours," he added--which of course was random
+speaking.
+
+"I feel old, Mr. Todhetley: perhaps older than you do. Think of the
+difference in our mode of life. I, tied to a desk for more hours of
+the twenty-four than I care to think of, my brain ever at work; you,
+revelling in this beautiful, healthy freedom!"
+
+"Ay, well, it is a difference, when you come to think of it," said the
+Squire soberly.
+
+"I must not repine," returned Marks. "There are more men in my case than
+in yours. No doubt it is well for me," he continued, dropping his voice,
+with a sigh. "Were your favoured lot mine, sir, I might find so much
+good in it as to forget that this world is not our home."
+
+Perhaps it had never struck the Squire before how much he was to be
+envied; but Marks put it strongly. "You'd find crosses and cares enough
+in my place, I can tell you, Marks, of one sort or another. Johnny,
+here, knows how I am bothered sometimes."
+
+"No doubt of it," replied Marks, with a smile. "No lot on earth can be
+free from its duties and responsibilities; and they must of necessity
+entail care. That is one thing, Mr. Todhetley; but to be working away
+your life at high pressure--and to know that you are working it away--is
+another."
+
+"You acknowledge, then, that you are working too hard, Marks," said the
+Squire.
+
+"I know I am, sir. But there's no help for it."
+
+"It is a pity."
+
+"Why it should begin to tell upon me so early I don't know. There are
+numbers of other men, who work as long and as hard as I do, and are
+seemingly none the worse for it."
+
+"The time will come though when they will be, I presume."
+
+"As surely as that sun is shining in the sky."
+
+"Possibly you have been more anxious than they, Marks."
+
+"It may be so. My conscience has always been in my work, to do it
+efficiently. I fear, too, I am rather sensitively organized as to nerves
+and brain. Upon those who are so, I fancy work tells sooner than on
+others."
+
+The Squire put his arm within Marks's. "You must have a bit of a
+struggle to get along, too, on your small salary."
+
+"True: and it all helps. Work and struggle together are not the most
+desirable combination. But for being obliged to increase my means by
+some stratagem or other, I should not have taken on the additional
+evening's work."
+
+"How long are you at it, now, of an evening?"
+
+"Usually about two hours. On Saturdays and at Christmas-time longer."
+
+"And I suppose you must continue this night-work?"
+
+"Yes. I get fifty pounds a year for it. And I assure you I should not
+know how to spare one pound of the fifty. No one knows the expenses of
+children, except those who have to look at every shilling before it can
+be spent."
+
+There was a pause. Mr. Marks stooped, plucked a cowslip and held it to
+his lips.
+
+"Don't you think, Marks," resumed the Squire, in a confidential,
+friendly tone, "that you were just a little imprudent to marry?"
+
+"No, I do not think I was," he replied slowly, as if considering the
+question. "I did not marry very early: I was eight-and-twenty; and I
+had got together the wherewithal to furnish a house, and something in
+hand besides. The question was mooted among us at Brown's the other
+day--whether it was wiser, or not, for young clerks to marry. There is a
+great deal to be urged both ways--against marrying and against remaining
+single."
+
+"What can you urge against remaining single?"
+
+"A very great deal, sir. I feel sure, Mr. Todhetley, that you can form
+no idea of the miserable temptations that beset a young fellow in
+London. Quite half the London clerks, perhaps more, have no home to go
+to when their day is over; I mean no parent's home. A solitary room and
+no one to bear them company in it; that's all they have; perhaps, in
+addition, a crabbed landlady. Can you blame them very much if they go
+out and escape this solitude?--they are at the age, you know, when
+enjoyment is most keen; the thirst for it well-nigh irrepressible----"
+
+"And then they go off to those disreputable singing places!" exploded
+the Squire, not allowing him to finish.
+
+"Singing places, yes; and other places. Theatres, concerts,
+supper-rooms--oh, I cannot tell you a tithe of the temptation that
+meets them at every turn and corner. Many and many a poor young fellow,
+well-intentioned in the main, has been ruined both in pocket and in
+health by these snares; led into them at first by dangerous companions."
+
+"Surely all do not get led away."
+
+"Not all. Some strive on manfully, remembering early precepts and taking
+God for their guide, and so escape. But it is not the greater portion
+who do this. Some marry early, and secure themselves a home. Which is
+best?--I put the question only in a worldly point of view. To commit the
+imprudence of marrying, and so bring on themselves and wives intolerable
+perplexity and care: or to waste their substance in riotous living!"
+
+"I'll be shot if I know!" cried the Squire, taking off his hat to
+rub his puzzled head. "It's a sad thing for poor little children to
+be pinched, and for men like you to be obliged to work yourselves to
+shatters to keep them. But as to those others, I'd give 'em all a night
+at the treadmill. Johnny! Johnny Ludlow!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You may be thankful that _you_ don't live in London."
+
+I had been thinking to myself that I was thankful not to be one of those
+poor young clerks to have no home to go to when work was over. Some
+fellows would rather tramp up and down the streets, than sit alone in
+a solitary room; and the streets, according to Marks, teemed with
+temptations. He resumed.
+
+"In my case I judged it the reverse of imprudence to marry, for my wife
+expected a fairly good fortune. She was an only child, and her father
+had realized enough to live quietly; say three or four hundred a year.
+Mr. Stockleigh had been a member of the Stock Exchange, but his health
+failed and he retired. Neither I nor his daughter ever doubted--no, nor
+did he himself--that this money must come to us in time."
+
+"And won't it?" cried the Squire.
+
+Marks shook his head. "I fear not. A designing servant, that they had,
+got over him after his daughter left--he was weak in health and weak in
+mind--and he married her. Caroline--my wife--resented it naturally;
+there was some recrimination on either side, and since then they have
+closed the door against her and me. So you see, with no prospect before
+us, there's nothing for me but to work the harder," he concluded, with a
+kind of plucked-up cheerfulness.
+
+"But, to do that, you should get up your health and strength, Marks. You
+must, you know. What would you do if you broke down?"
+
+"Hush!" came the involuntary and almost affrighted answer. "Don't remind
+me of it, sir. Sometimes I dream of it, and cannot bear to awaken."
+
+We had got to like Marks very much only in those few days. He was a
+gentleman in mind and manners and a pleasant one into the bargain,
+though he did pass his days adding up figures and was kept down by
+poverty. The Squire meant to keep him for a month: two months if he
+would stay.
+
+On the following morning, Tuesday, during breakfast-time, a letter came
+for him by the post--the first he had had. He had told his wife she need
+not write to him, wanting to have all the time for idle enjoyment: not
+to spend it in answering letters.
+
+"From home, James?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"No," said he, smiling. "It is only a reminder that I am due to-morrow
+at the house."
+
+"What house?" cried the Squire.
+
+"Our house, sir. Brown and Co.'s."
+
+The Squire put down his buttered roll--for Molly had graciously sent in
+hot rolls that morning--and stared at the speaker.
+
+"What on earth are you talking of?" he cried. "You don't mean to say you
+are thinking of going back?"
+
+"Indeed I am--unfortunately. I must get up to London to-night."
+
+"Why, bless my heart," cried the Squire, getting up and standing a bit,
+"you've not been here a week!"
+
+"It is all the leave I could get, Mr. Todhetley: a week. I thought you
+understood that."
+
+"You can't go away till you are cured," roared the Squire. "Why didn't
+you go back the day you came? Don't talk nonsense, Marks."
+
+"Indeed I should like to stay longer," he earnestly said. "I wish I
+could. Don't you see, Mr. Todhetley, that it does not lie with me?"
+
+"Do you dare to look me in the face, Marks, and tell me this one week's
+rest has cured you? What on earth!--are you turning silly?"
+
+"It has done me a great, great deal of good----"
+
+"It has not, Marks. It can't have done it; not real good," came the
+Squire's interruption. "One would think you were a child."
+
+"It was with difficulty I obtained this one week's leave," he explained.
+"I am really required in the office; my absence I know causes trouble.
+This holiday has done so much for me that I shall go back with a good
+heart."
+
+"Look here," said the Squire: "suppose you take French leave, and stay?"
+
+"In that case my discharge would doubtless arrive by the first post."
+
+"Look here again: suppose in a month or two you break down and have to
+leave? What then?"
+
+"Brown and Co. would appoint a fresh clerk in my place."
+
+"Why don't Brown and Co. keep another clerk or two, so as to work you
+all less?"
+
+Marks smiled at the very idea. "That would increase their expenses, Mr.
+Todhetley. They will never do that. It is a part of the business of
+Brown's life to keep expenses down."
+
+Well, Marks had to go. The Squire was very serious in thinking more rest
+absolutely needful--of what service _could_ a week be, he reiterated.
+Down he sat, wrote a letter to Brown and Co., telling them his opinion,
+and requesting the favour of their despatching James Marks back for a
+longer holiday. This he sent by post, and they would get it in the
+morning.
+
+"No, I'll not trust it to you, Marks," he said: "you might never deliver
+it. Catch an old bird with chaff!"
+
+To this letter there came no answer at all; and Mr. Marks did not come
+back. The Squire relieved his mind by calling Brown and Co. thieves and
+wretches--and so it passed. It must be remembered that I am writing of
+past years, when holidays were not so universal for any class, clerk or
+master, as they are at present. Not that I am aware whether financiers'
+clerks get them now.
+
+The next scene in the drama I can only tell by hearsay. It took place in
+London, where I was not.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a dull, rainy day in February, and Mrs. Marks sat in her
+parlour in Pimlico. The house was one of a long row, and the parlour
+just about large enough to turn in. She sat by the fire, nursing a
+little two-year-old girl, and thinking; and three other children, the
+eldest a boy of nine, were playing at the table--building houses on
+the red cloth with little wooden bricks. Mrs. Marks was a sensible
+woman, understanding proper management, and had taken care to bring up
+her children not to be troublesome. She looked about thirty, and must
+have been pretty once, but her face was faded now, her grey eyes had
+a sad look in them. The chatter at the table and the bricks fell
+unheeded on her ear.
+
+"Mamma, will it soon be tea-time?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Didn't you hear, mamma? Carry asked if it would soon be tea-time. What
+were you thinking about?"
+
+She heard this time, and started out of her reverie. "Very soon now,
+Willy dear. Thinking? Oh, I was thinking about your papa."
+
+Her thoughts were by no means bright ones. That her husband's health and
+powers were failing, she felt as sure of as though she could foresee the
+ending that was soon to come. How he went on and did his work was a
+marvel: but he could not give it up, or bread would fail.
+
+The week's rest in the country had set Mr. Marks up for some months.
+Until the next autumn he worked on better than he had been able to do
+for some time past. And then he failed again. There was no particular
+failing outwardly, but he felt all too conscious that his overtaxed
+brain was getting worse than it had ever been. He struggled on;
+making no sign. That he should have to resign part of his work was an
+inevitable fact: he must give up the evening book-keeping to enable him
+to keep his more important place. "Once let me get Christmas work over,"
+thought he, "and as soon as possible in the New Year, I will resign."
+
+He got the Christmas work over. Very heavy it was, at both places, and
+nearly did for him. It is the last straw, you know, that breaks the
+camel's back: and that work broke James Marks. Towards the end of
+January he was laid up in bed with a violent cold that settled on his
+chest. Brown and Co. had to do without him for eleven days: a calamity
+that--so far as Marks was concerned--had never happened in Brown and
+Co.'s experience. Then he went back to the city again, feeling shaken;
+but the evening labour was perforce given up.
+
+No one knew how ill he was: or, to speak more correctly, how unfit for
+work, how more incapable of it he was growing day by day. His wife
+suspected a little. She knew of his sleepless nights, the result of
+overtaxed nerves and brain, when he would toss and turn and get up and
+walk the room; and dress himself in the morning without having slept.
+
+"There are times," he said to her in a sort of horror, "when I cannot
+at all collect my thoughts. I am as long again at my work as I used to
+be, and have to go over it again and again. There have been one or two
+mistakes, and old Brown asks what is coming to me. I can't help it.
+The figures whirl before me, and I lose my power of mind."
+
+"If you could only sleep well!" said Mrs. Marks.
+
+"Ay, if I could. The brain is as much at work by night as by day. There
+are the figures mentally before me, and there am I, adding them up."
+
+"You should see a clever physician, James. Spare the guinea, and go. It
+may be more than the guinea saved."
+
+Mr. Marks took the advice. He went to a clever doctor; explained his
+position, the kind of work he had to do, and described his symptoms.
+"Can I be cured?" he asked.
+
+"Oh yes, I think so," said the doctor, cheerfully, without telling him
+that he had gone on so far as to make it rather doubtful. "The necessary
+treatment is very simple. Take change of scene and perfect rest."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"Twelve months, at least."
+
+"Twelve months!" repeated Marks, in a queer tone.
+
+"At least. It is a case of absolute necessity. I will write you a
+prescription for a tonic. You must live _well_. You have not lived well
+enough for the work you have to do."
+
+As James Marks went out into the street he could have laughed a laugh
+of bitter mockery. Twelve months' rest for _him_? The doctor had told
+him one thing--that had he taken rest in time, a very, very much
+shorter period would have sufficed. "I wonder how many poor men there
+are like myself in London at this moment," he thought, "who want this
+rest and cannot take it, and who ought to live better and cannot
+afford to do it!"
+
+It was altogether so very hopeless that he did nothing, except take the
+tonic, and he continued to go to the City as usual. Some two or three
+weeks had elapsed since then: he of course growing worse, though there
+was nothing to show it outwardly: and this was the end of February, and
+Mrs. Marks sat thinking of it all over the fire; thinking of what she
+knew, and guessing at what she did not know, and her children were
+building houses at the table.
+
+The servant came in with the tea-things, and took the little girl. Only
+one servant could be kept--and hardly that. Mrs. Marks had made her own
+tea and was pouring out the children's milk-and-water, when they heard a
+cab drive up and stop at the door. A minute after Mr. Marks entered,
+leaning on the arm of one of his fellow-clerks.
+
+"Here, Mrs. Marks, I have brought you an invalid," said the latter
+gaily, making light of it for her sake. "He seems better now. I don't
+think there's much the matter with him."
+
+Had it come? Had what she had been dreading come--that he was going to
+have an illness, she wondered. But she was a trump of a wife, and showed
+herself calm and comforting.
+
+"You shall both of you have some tea at once," she said, cheerfully.
+"Willy, run and get more tea-cups."
+
+It appeared that Mr. Marks had been, as the clerk expressed it, very
+queer that day; more so than usual. He could not do his work at all;
+had to get assistance continually from one or the other, and ended by
+falling off his stool to the floor, in what he called, afterwards, a
+"sensation of giddiness." He seemed fit for nothing, and Mr. Brown said
+he had better be taken home.
+
+That day ended James Marks's work. He had broken down. At night he told
+his wife what the physician had said; which he had not done before. She
+could scarcely conceal her dismay.
+
+A twelvemonth's rest for him! What would become of them? Failing his
+salary, they would have no means whatever of living.
+
+"Oh, if my father had only acted by us as he ought!" she mentally cried.
+"James could have taken rest in time then, and all would have been well.
+Will he help us now it has come to this? Will _she_ let him?--for it is
+she who holds him in subjection and steels his heart against us."
+
+Mr. Stockleigh, the father, lived at Sydenham. She, the new wife, had
+taken him off there from his residence in Pimlico as soon as might be
+after the marriage; and the daughter had never been invited inside the
+house. But she resolved to go there now. Saying nothing to her husband,
+Mrs. Marks started for Sydenham the day after he was brought home ill,
+and found the place without trouble.
+
+The wife, formerly the cook, was a big brawny woman with a cheek and a
+tongue of her own. When Mrs. Marks was shown in, she forgot herself in
+the surprise; old habits prevailed, and she half dropped a curtsey.
+
+"I wish to see papa, Mrs. Stockleigh."
+
+"Mr. Stockleigh's out, ma'am."
+
+"Then I must wait until he returns."
+
+Mrs. Stockleigh did not see her way clear to turn this lady from
+the house, though she would have liked to do it. She made a show of
+hospitality, and ordered wine and cake to be put on the table. Of which
+wine, Mrs. Marks noticed with surprise, she drank _four_ glasses. "Now
+and then we used to suspect her of drinking in the kitchen!" ran through
+Mrs. Marks's thoughts. "Has it grown upon her?"
+
+The garden gate opened, and Mr. Stockleigh came through it. He was so
+bowed and broken that his daughter scarcely knew him. She hastened out
+and met him in the path.
+
+"Caroline!" he exclaimed in amazement. "Is it really you? How much you
+have changed?"
+
+"I came down to speak to you, papa. May we stay and talk here in the
+garden?"
+
+He seemed glad to see her, rather than not, and sat down with her on the
+garden bench in the sun. In a quiet voice she told him all: and asked
+him to help her. Mrs. Stockleigh had come out and stood listening to the
+treason, somewhat unsteady in her walk.
+
+"I--I would help you if I could, Caroline," he said, in hesitation,
+glancing at his wife.
+
+"Yes, but you can't, Stockleigh," she put in. "Our own expenses is as
+much as iver we can manage, Mrs. Marks. It's a orful cost, living out
+here, and our two servants is the very deuce for extravigance. I've
+changed 'em both ten times for others, and the last lot is always worse
+than the first."
+
+"Papa, do you see our position?" resumed Mrs. Marks, after hearing the
+lady patiently. "It will be a long time before James is able to do
+anything again--if he ever is--and we have not been able to save money.
+What are we to do? Go to the workhouse? I have four little children."
+
+"You know that you can't help, Stockleigh," insisted Mr. Stockleigh's
+lady, taking up the answer, her face growing more inflamed. "You've not
+got the means to do anything: and there's an end on't."
+
+"It is true, Caroline; I'm afraid I have not," he said--and his daughter
+saw with pain how tremblingly subject he was to his wife. "I seem short
+of money always. How did you come down, my dear?"
+
+"By the train, papa. Third class."
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Mr. Stockleigh. "My health's broken, Caroline. It is,
+indeed, and my spirit too. I am sure I am very sorry for you. Will you
+come in and take some dinner?"
+
+"We've got nothing but a bit of 'ashed beef," cried Mrs. Stockleigh,
+as if to put a damper upon the invitation. "Him and me fails in our
+appetites dreadful: I can't think what's come to 'em."
+
+Mrs. Marks declined dinner: she had to get back to the children. That
+any sort of pleading would be useless while that woman held sway, she
+saw well. "Good-bye, papa," she said. "I suppose we must do the best we
+can alone. Good morning, Mrs. Stockleigh."
+
+To her surprise her father kissed her; kissed her with quivering lips.
+"I will open the gate for you, my dear," he said, hastening on to it.
+As she was going through, he slipped a sovereign into her hand.
+
+"It will pay for your journey, at least, my dear. I am sorry to hear of
+your travelling third class. Ah, times have changed. It is not that I
+won't help you, child, but that I can't. She goes up to receive the
+dividends, and keeps me short. I should not have had that sovereign now,
+but it is the change out of the spirit bill that she sent me to pay.
+Hush! the money goes in drink. She drinks like a fish. Ah, Caroline, I
+was a fool--a fool! Fare you well, my dear."
+
+"Fare _you_ well, dear papa, and thank you," she answered, turning away
+with brimming eyes and an aching heart.
+
+After resting for some days and getting no better, James Marks had to
+give it up as a bad job. He went to the City house, saw Mr. Brown, and
+told him.
+
+"Broken down!" cried old Brown, hitching back his wig, as he always did
+when put out. "I never heard such nonsense. At your age! The thing's
+incomprehensible."
+
+"The work has been very wearing to the brain, sir; and my application to
+it was close. During the three-and-twenty years I have been with you I
+have never had but one week's holiday: the one last spring."
+
+"You told me then you felt like a man breaking down, as if you were good
+for nothing," resentfully spoke old Brown.
+
+"Yes, sir. I told you that I believed I was breaking down for want of a
+rest," replied Marks. "It has proved so."
+
+"Why, you had your rest."
+
+"One week, sir. I said I feared it would not be of much use. But--it was
+not convenient for you to allow me more."
+
+"Of course it was not convenient; you know it could not be convenient,"
+retorted old Brown. "D'you think I keep my clerks for play, Marks? D'you
+suppose my business will get done of itself?"
+
+"I was aware myself, sir, how inconvenient my absence would be, and
+therefore I did not press the matter. That one week's rest did me a
+wonderful amount of service: it enabled me to go on until now."
+
+Old Brown looked at him. "See here, Marks--we are sorry to lose you:
+suppose you take another week's change now, and try what it will do. A
+fortnight, say. Go to the sea-side, or somewhere."
+
+Marks shook his head. "Too late, sir. The doctors tell me it will be
+twelve months before I am able to work again at calculations."
+
+"Oh, my service to you," cried Mr. Brown. "Why, what are you going to do
+if you cannot work?"
+
+"That is a great deal more than I can say, sir. The thought of it is
+troubling my brain quite as much as work ever did. It is never out of
+it, night or day."
+
+For once in his screwy life, old Brown was generous. He told Mr. Marks
+to draw his salary up to the day he had left, and he added ten pounds to
+it over and above.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+During that visit I paid to Miss Deveen's in London, when Tod was with
+the Whitneys, and Helen made her first curtsey to the Queen, and we
+discovered the ill-doings of that syren, Mademoiselle Sophie Chalk, I
+saw Marks. Mrs. Todhetley had given me two or three commissions, as may
+be remembered: one amongst them was to call in Pimlico, and see how
+Marks was getting on.
+
+Accordingly I went. We had heard nothing, you must understand, of what
+I have told above, and did not know but he was still in his situation.
+It was a showery day in April: just a twelvemonth, by the way, since
+his visit to us at Dyke Manor. I found the house out readily; it was
+near Ebury Street; and I knocked. A young lad opened the door, and
+asked me to walk into the parlour.
+
+"You are Mr. Marks's son," I said, rubbing my feet on the mat: "I can
+tell by the likeness. What's your name?"
+
+"William. Papa's is James."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"He is ill," whispered the lad, with his hand on the door handle.
+"Mamma's downstairs, making him some arrowroot."
+
+Well, I think you might have knocked me down with a feather when I knew
+him--for at first I did not. He was sitting in an easy-chair by the
+fire, dressed, but wrapped round with blankets: and instead of being
+the James Marks we had known, he was like a living skeleton, with
+cheek-bones and hollow eyes. But he was glad to see me, smiled, and
+held out his hand from the blanket.
+
+It is uncommonly awkward for a young fellow to be taken unawares like
+this. You don't know what to say. I'm sure I as much thought he was
+dying as I ever thought anything in this world. At last I managed to
+stammer a word or two about being sorry to see him so ill.
+
+"Ay," said he, in a weak, panting voice, "I am different from what I
+was when with your kind people, Johnny. The trouble I foresaw then has
+come."
+
+"You used sometimes to feel then as though you would not long keep up,"
+was my answer, for really I could find nothing else to say.
+
+He nodded. "Yes, I felt that I was breaking down--that I should
+inevitably break down unless I could have rest. I went on until
+February, Johnny, and then it came. I had to give up my situation; and
+since then I have been dangerously ill from another source--chest and
+lungs."
+
+"I did not know your lungs were weak, Mr. Marks."
+
+"I'm sure I did not," he said, after a fit of coughing. "I had one
+attack in January through catching a cold. Then I caught another cold,
+and you see the result: the doctor hardly saved me. I never was subject
+to take cold before. I suppose the fact is that when a man breaks down
+in one way he gets weak in all, and is more liable to other ailments."
+
+"I hope you will get better as the warm weather comes on. We shall soon
+have it here."
+
+"Better of this cough, perhaps: I don't know: but not better yet of my
+true illness that I think most of--the overtaxed nerves and brain. Oh,
+if I could only have taken a sufficient rest in time!"
+
+"Mr. Todhetley said you ought to have stayed with us for three months.
+He says it often still."
+
+"I believe," he said, solemnly lifting his hand, "that if I could have
+had entire rest then for two or three months, it would have set me up
+for life. Heaven hears me say it."
+
+And what a dreadful thing it now seemed that he had not!
+
+"I don't repine. My lot seems a hard one, and I sometimes feel sick and
+weary when I dwell upon it. I have tried to do my duty: I could but keep
+on and work, as God knows. There was no other course open to me."
+
+I supposed there was not.
+
+"I am no worse off than many others, Johnny. There are men breaking down
+every day from incessant application and want of needful rest. Well for
+them if their hearts don't break with it!"
+
+And, to judge by the tone he spoke in, it was as much as to say that his
+heart had broken.
+
+"I am beginning to dwell less on it now," he went on. "Perhaps it is
+that I am too weak to feel so keenly. Or that Christ's words are being
+indeed realized to me: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
+laden, and I will give you rest.' God does not forsake us in our
+trouble, Johnny, once we have learnt to turn to Him."
+
+Mrs. Marks came into the room with the cup of arrowroot. The boy had
+run down to tell her I was there. She was very pleasant and cheerful:
+you could be at home with her at once. While he was waiting for the
+arrowroot to cool, he leant back in his chair and dropped into a doze.
+
+"It must have been a frightful cold that he caught," I whispered to her.
+
+"It was caught the day he went into the City to tell Mr. Brown he must
+give up his situation," she answered. "There's an old saying, of being
+penny wise and pound foolish, and that's what poor James was that day.
+It was a fine morning when he started; but rain set in, and when he left
+Mr. Brown it was pouring, and the streets were wet. He ought to have
+taken a cab, but did not, and waited for an omnibus. The first that
+passed was full; by the time another came he had got wet and his feet
+were soaking. That brought on a return of the illness he had had in
+January."
+
+"I hope he will get well."
+
+"It lies with God," she answered.
+
+They made me promise to go again. "Soon, Johnny, soon," said Mr. Marks
+with an eagerness that was suggestive. "Come in the afternoon and have
+some tea with me."
+
+I had meant to obey literally and go in a day or two; but one thing or
+other kept intervening, and a week or ten days passed. One Wednesday
+Miss Deveen was engaged to a dinner-party, and I took the opportunity to
+go to Pimlico. It was a stormy afternoon, blowing great guns one minute,
+pouring cats and dogs the next. Mrs. Marks was alone in the parlour, the
+tea-things on the table before her.
+
+"We thought you had forgotten us," she said in a half-whisper, shaking
+hands. "But this is the best time you could have come; for a kind
+neighbour has invited all the children in for the evening, and we shall
+be quiet. James is worse."
+
+"Worse!"
+
+"At least, weaker. He cannot sit up long now without great fatigue. He
+lay down on the bed an hour ago and has dropped asleep," she added,
+indicating the next room. "I am waiting for him to awake before I make
+the tea."
+
+He awoke then: the cough betrayed it. She went into the room, and
+presently he came back with her. No doubt he was worse! my heart sank at
+seeing him. If he had looked like a skeleton before, he was like a
+skeleton's ghost now.
+
+"Ah, Johnny! I knew you would come."
+
+I told him how it was I had not been able to come before, going into
+details. It seemed to amuse him to hear of the engagements, and I
+described Helen Whitney's Court dress as well as I could--and Lady
+Whitney's--and the servants' great bouquets--and the ball at night. He
+ate one bit of thin toast and drank three big cups of tea. Mrs. Marks
+said he was always thirsty.
+
+After tea he had a violent fit of coughing and thought he must lie down
+to rest for a bit. Mrs. Marks came back and sat with me.
+
+"I hope he will get well," I could not help saying to her.
+
+She shook her head. "I fear he has not much hope of it himself," she
+answered. "Only yesterday I heard him tell Willy--that--that God would
+take care of them when he was gone."
+
+She could hardly speak the last words, and broke down with a sob. I
+wished I had not said anything.
+
+"He has great trust, but things trouble him very much," she resumed.
+"Nothing else can be expected, for he knows that our means are almost
+spent."
+
+"It must trouble you also, Mrs. Marks."
+
+"I seem to have so much to trouble me that I dare not dwell upon it. I
+pray not to, every hour of the day. If I gave way, what would become of
+them?"
+
+At dark she lighted the candles and drew down the blinds. Just after
+that, there came a tremendous knock at the front-door, loud and long.
+"Naughty children," she exclaimed. "It must be they."
+
+"I'll go; don't you stir, Mrs. Marks."
+
+I opened the door, and a rush of wind and rain seemed to blow in an old
+gentleman. He never said a word to me, but went banging into the parlour
+and sank down on a chair out of breath.
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Mrs. Marks. "Papa!"
+
+"Wait till I get up my speech, my dear," said the old gentleman. "She is
+gone."
+
+"Who is gone!" cried Mrs. Marks.
+
+"_She._ I don't want to say too much against her now she's gone,
+Caroline; but she _is_ gone. She had a bad fall downstairs in a tipsy
+fit some days ago, striking her head on the flags, and the doctors could
+do nothing for her. She died this morning, poor soul; and I am coming
+to live with you and James, if you will have me. We shall all be so
+comfortable together, my dear."
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Marks remembered at once what it implied--that the pressure
+of poverty was suddenly lifted and she and those dear ones would be at
+ease for the future. She bent her head in her hands for a minute or two,
+keeping silence.
+
+"Your husband shall have rest now, my dear, and all that he needs. So
+will you, Caroline."
+
+It had come too late. James Marks died in May.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about three or four years afterwards that we saw the death of Mr.
+Brown in the _Times_. The newspapers made a flourish of trumpets over
+him; saying he had died worth two hundred thousand pounds.
+
+"There must be something wrong somewhere, Johnny," remarked the Squire,
+in a puzzle. "_I_ should not like to die worth all that money, and know
+that I had worked my clerks to the bone to get it together. I wonder how
+he will like meeting poor Marks in the next world?"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+REALITY OR DELUSION?
+
+
+This is a ghost story. Every word of it is true. And I don't mind
+confessing that for ages afterwards some of us did not care to pass
+the spot alone at night. Some people do not care to pass it yet.
+
+It was autumn, and we were at Crabb Cot. Lena had been ailing; and in
+October Mrs. Todhetley proposed to the Squire that they should remove
+with her there, to see if the change would do her good.
+
+We Worcestershire people call North Crabb a village; but one might count
+the houses in it, little and great, and not find four-and-twenty. South
+Crabb, half a mile off, is ever so much larger; but the church and
+school are at North Crabb.
+
+John Ferrar had been employed by Squire Todhetley as a sort of
+overlooker on the estate, or working bailiff. He had died the previous
+winter; leaving nothing behind him except some debts; for he was not
+provident; and his handsome son Daniel. Daniel Ferrar, who was rather
+superior as far as education went, disliked work: he would make a show
+of helping his father, but it came to little. Old Ferrar had not put
+him to any particular trade or occupation, and Daniel, who was as
+proud as Lucifer, would not turn to it himself. He liked to be a
+gentleman. All he did now was to work in his garden, and feed his
+fowls, ducks, rabbits, and pigeons, of which he kept a great quantity,
+selling them to the houses around and sending them to market.
+
+But, as every one said, poultry would not maintain him. Mrs. Lease, in
+the pretty cottage hard by Ferrar's, grew tired of saying it. This Mrs.
+Lease and her daughter, Maria, must not be confounded with Lease the
+pointsman: they were in a better condition of life, and not related to
+him. Daniel Ferrar used to run in and out of their house at will when a
+boy, and he was now engaged to be married to Maria. She would have a
+little money, and the Leases were respected in North Crabb. People began
+to whisper a query as to how Ferrar got his corn for the poultry: he
+was not known to buy much; and he would have to go out of his house at
+Christmas, for its owner, Mr. Coney, had given him notice. Mrs. Lease,
+anxious about Maria's prospects, asked Daniel what he intended to do
+then, and he answered, "Make his fortune: he should begin to do it as
+soon as he could turn himself round." But the time was going on, and the
+turning round seemed to be as far off as ever.
+
+After Midsummer, a niece of the schoolmistress's, Miss Timmens, had come
+to the school to stay: her name was Harriet Roe. The father, Humphrey
+Roe, was half-brother to Miss Timmens. He had married a Frenchwoman, and
+lived more in France than in England until his death. The girl had been
+christened Henriette; but North Crabb, not understanding much French,
+converted it into Harriet. She was a showy, free-mannered, good-looking
+girl, and made speedy acquaintance with Daniel Ferrar; or he with her.
+They improved upon it so rapidly that Maria Lease grew jealous, and
+North Crabb began to say he cared for Harriet more than for Maria. When
+Tod and I got home the latter end of October, to spend the Squire's
+birthday, things were in this state. James Hill, the bailiff who had
+been taken on by the Squire in John Ferrar's place (but a far inferior
+man to Ferrar; not much better, in fact, than a common workman, and of
+whose doings you will hear soon in regard to his little step-son, David
+Garth) gave us an account of matters in general. Daniel Ferrar had been
+drinking lately, Hill added, and his head was not strong enough to stand
+it; and he was also beginning to look as if he had some care upon him.
+
+"A nice lot, he, for them two women to be fighting for," cried Hill, who
+was no friend to Ferrar. "There'll be mischief between 'em if they don't
+draw in a bit. Maria Lease is next door to mad over it, I know; and
+t'other, finding herself the best liked, crows over her. It's something
+like the Bible story of Leah and Rachel, young gents, Dan Ferrar likes
+the one, and he's bound by promise to the t'other. As to the French
+jade," concluded Hill, giving his head a toss, "she'd make a show
+of liking any man that followed her, she would; a dozen of 'em on a
+string."
+
+It was all very well for surly Hill to call Daniel Ferrar a
+"nice lot," but he was the best-looking fellow in church on Sunday
+morning--well-dressed too. But his colour seemed brighter; and his
+hands shook as they were raised, often, to push back his hair, that
+the sun shone upon through the south-window, turning it to gold. He
+scarcely looked up, not even at Harriet Roe, with her dark eyes roving
+everywhere, and her streaming pink ribbons. Maria Lease was pale, quiet,
+and nice, as usual; she had no beauty, but her face was sensible, and
+her deep grey eyes had a strange and curious earnestness. The new parson
+preached, a young man just appointed to the parish of Crabb. He went in
+for great observances of Saints' days, and told his congregation that
+he should expect to see them at church on the morrow, which would be the
+Feast of All Saints.
+
+Daniel Ferrar walked home with Mrs. Lease and Maria after service, and
+was invited to dinner. I ran across to shake hands with the old dame,
+who had once nursed me through an illness, and promised to look in and
+see her later. We were going back to school on the morrow. As I turned
+away, Harriet Roe passed, her pink ribbons and her cheap gay silk dress
+gleaming in the sunlight. She stared at me, and I stared back again. And
+now, the explanation of matters being over, the real story begins. But I
+shall have to tell some of it as it was told by others.
+
+The tea-things waited on Mrs. Lease's table in the afternoon; waited for
+Daniel Ferrar. He had left them shortly before to go and attend to his
+poultry. Nothing had been said about his coming back for tea: that he
+would do so had been looked upon as a matter of course. But he did not
+make his appearance, and the tea was taken without him. At half-past
+five the church-bell rang out for evening service, and Maria put her
+things on. Mrs. Lease did not go out at night.
+
+"You are starting early, Maria. You'll be in church before other
+people."
+
+"That won't matter, mother."
+
+A jealous suspicion lay on Maria--that the secret of Daniel Ferrar's
+absence was his having fallen in with Harriet Roe: perhaps had gone of
+his own accord to seek her. She walked slowly along. The gloom of dusk,
+and a deep dusk, had stolen over the evening, but the moon would be up
+later. As Maria passed the school-house, she halted to glance in at the
+little sitting-room window: the shutters were not closed yet, and the
+room was lighted by the blazing fire. Harriet was not there. She only
+saw Miss Timmens, the mistress, who was putting on her bonnet before a
+hand-glass propped upright on the mantel-piece. Without warning, Miss
+Timmens turned and threw open the window. It was only for the purpose of
+pulling-to the shutters, but Maria thought she must have been observed,
+and spoke.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Timmens."
+
+"Who is it?" cried out Miss Timmens, in answer, peering into the dusk.
+"Oh, it's you, Maria Lease! Have you seen anything of Harriet? She went
+off somewhere this afternoon, and never came in to tea."
+
+"I have not seen her."
+
+"She's gone to the Batleys', I'll be bound. She knows I don't like her
+to be with the Batley girls: they make her ten times flightier than she
+would otherwise be."
+
+Miss Timmens drew in her shutters with a jerk, without which they would
+not close, and Maria Lease turned away.
+
+"Not at the Batleys', not at the Batleys', but with _him_," she cried,
+in bitter rebellion, as she turned away from the church. From the
+church, not to it. Was Maria to blame for wishing to see whether she
+was right or not?--for walking about a little in the thought of meeting
+them? At any rate it is what she did. And had her reward; such as it
+was.
+
+As she was passing the top of the withy walk, their voices reached her
+ear. People often walked there, and it was one of the ways to South
+Crabb. Maria drew back amidst the trees, and they came on: Harriet Roe
+and Daniel Ferrar, walking arm-in-arm.
+
+"I think I had better take it off," Harriet was saying. "No need to
+invoke a storm upon my head. And that would come in a shower of hail
+from stiff old Aunt Timmens."
+
+The answer seemed one of quick accent, but Ferrar spoke low. Maria Lease
+had hard work to control herself: anger, passion, jealousy, all blazed
+up. With her arms stretched out to a friendly tree on either side,--with
+her heart beating,--with her pulses coursing on to fever-heat, she
+watched them across the bit of common to the road. Harriet went one way
+then; he another, in the direction of Mrs. Lease's cottage. No doubt to
+fetch her--Maria--to church, with a plausible excuse of having been
+detained. Until now she had had no proof of his falseness; had never
+perfectly believed in it.
+
+She took her arms from the trees and went forward, a sharp faint cry of
+despair breaking forth on the night air. Maria Lease was one of those
+silent-natured girls who can never speak of a wrong like this. She had
+to bury it within her; down, down, out of sight and show; and she went
+into church with her usual quiet step. Harriet Roe with Miss Timmens
+came next, quite demure, as if she had been singing some of the infant
+scholars to sleep at their own homes. Daniel Ferrar did not go to church
+at all: he stayed, as was found afterwards, with Mrs. Lease.
+
+Maria might as well have been at home as at church: better perhaps that
+she had been. Not a syllable of the service did she hear: her brain was
+a sea of confusion; the tumult within it rising higher and higher. She
+did not hear even the text, "Peace, be still," or the sermon; both so
+singularly appropriate. The passions in men's minds, the preacher said,
+raged and foamed just like the angry waves of the sea in a storm, until
+Jesus came to still them.
+
+I ran after Maria when church was over, and went in to pay the promised
+visit to old Mother Lease. Daniel Ferrar was sitting in the parlour. He
+got up and offered Maria a chair at the fire, but she turned her back
+and stood at the table under the window, taking off her gloves. An open
+Bible was before Mrs. Lease: I wondered whether she had been reading
+aloud to Daniel.
+
+"What was the text, child?" asked the old lady.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Do you hear, Maria! What was the text?"
+
+Maria turned at that, as if suddenly awakened. Her face was white; her
+eyes had in them an uncertain terror.
+
+"The text?" she stammered. "I--I forget it, mother. It was from Genesis,
+I think."
+
+"Was it, Master Johnny?"
+
+"It was from the fourth chapter of St. Mark, 'Peace, be still.'"
+
+Mrs. Lease stared at me. "Why, that is the very chapter I've been
+reading. Well now, that's curious. But there's never a better in the
+Bible, and never a better text was taken from it than those three words.
+I have been telling Daniel here, Master Johnny, that when once that
+peace, Christ's peace, is got into the heart, storms can't hurt us much.
+And you are going away again to-morrow, sir?" she added, after a pause.
+"It's a short stay?"
+
+I was not going away on the morrow. Tod and I, taking the Squire in a
+genial moment after dinner, had pressed to be let stay until Tuesday,
+Tod using the argument, and laughing while he did it, that it must
+be wrong to travel on All Saints' Day, when the parson had specially
+enjoined us to be at church. The Squire told us we were a couple of
+encroaching rascals, and if he did let us stay it should be upon
+condition that we did go to church. This I said to them.
+
+"He may send you all the same, sir, when the morning comes," remarked
+Daniel Ferrar.
+
+"Knowing Mr. Todhetley as you do Ferrar, you may remember that he never
+breaks his promises."
+
+Daniel laughed. "He grumbles over them, though, Master Johnny."
+
+"Well, he may grumble to-morrow about our staying, say it is wasting
+time that ought to be spent in study, but he will not send us back until
+Tuesday."
+
+Until Tuesday! If I could have foreseen then what would have happened
+before Tuesday! If all of us could have foreseen! Seen the few hours
+between now and then depicted, as in a mirror, event by event! Would it
+have saved the calamity, the dreadful sin that could never be redeemed?
+Why, yes; surely it would. Daniel Ferrar turned and looked at Maria.
+
+"Why don't you come to the fire?"
+
+"I am very well here, thank you."
+
+She had sat down where she was, her bonnet touching the curtain. Mrs.
+Lease, not noticing that anything was wrong, had begun talking about
+Lena, whose illness was turning to low fever, when the house door opened
+and Harriet Roe came in.
+
+"What a lovely night it is!" she said, taking of her own accord the
+chair I had not cared to take, for I kept saying I must go. "Maria, what
+went with you after church? I hunted for you everywhere."
+
+Maria gave no answer. She looked black and angry; and her bosom heaved
+as if a storm were brewing. Harriet Roe slightly laughed.
+
+"Do you intend to take holiday to-morrow, Mrs. Lease?"
+
+"Me take holiday! what is there in to-morrow to take holiday for?"
+returned Mrs. Lease.
+
+"I shall," continued Harriet, not answering the question: "I have been
+used to it in France. All Saints' Day is a grand holiday there; we go to
+church in our best clothes, and pay visits afterwards. Following it,
+like a dark shadow, comes the gloomy Jour des Morts."
+
+"The what?" cried Mrs. Lease, bending her ear.
+
+"The day of the dead. All Souls' Day. But you English don't go to the
+cemeteries to pray."
+
+Mrs. Lease put on her spectacles, which lay upon the open pages of the
+Bible, and stared at Harriet. Perhaps she thought they might help her to
+understand. The girl laughed.
+
+"On All Souls' Day, whether it be wet or dry, the French cemeteries are
+full of kneeling women draped in black; all praying for the repose of
+their dead relatives, after the manner of the Roman Catholics."
+
+Daniel Ferrar, who had not spoken a word since she came in, but sat with
+his face to the fire, turned and looked at her. Upon which she tossed
+back her head and her pink ribbons, and smiled till all her teeth were
+seen. Good teeth they were. As to reverence in her tone, there was none.
+
+"I have seen them kneeling when the slosh and wet have been ankle-deep.
+Did you ever see a ghost?" added she, with energy. "The French believe
+that the spirits of the dead come abroad on the night of All Saints'
+Day. You'd scarcely get a French woman to go out of her house after
+dark. It is their chief superstition."
+
+"What _is_ the superstition?" questioned Mrs. Lease.
+
+"Why, _that_," said Harriet. "They believe that the dead are allowed to
+revisit the world after dark on the Eve of All Souls; that they hover in
+the air, waiting to appear to any of their living relatives, who may
+venture out, lest they should forget to pray on the morrow for the rest
+of their souls."[2]
+
+      [2] A superstition obtaining amongst some of the lower orders
+          in France.
+
+"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Lease, staring excessively. "Did you ever
+hear the like of that, sir?" turning to me.
+
+"Yes; I have heard of it."
+
+Harriet Roe looked up at me; I was standing at the corner of the
+mantel-piece. She laughed a free laugh.
+
+"I say, wouldn't it be fun to go out to-morrow night, and meet the
+ghosts? Only, perhaps they don't visit this country, as it is not under
+Rome."
+
+"Now just you behave yourself before your betters, Harriet Roe," put in
+Mrs. Lease, sharply. "That gentleman is young Mr. Ludlow of Crabb Cot."
+
+"And very happy I am to make young Mr. Ludlow's acquaintance," returned
+easy Harriet, flinging back her mantle from her shoulders. "How hot your
+parlour is, Mrs. Lease."
+
+The hook of the cloak had caught in a thin chain of twisted gold that
+she wore round her neck, displaying it to view. She hurriedly folded her
+cloak together, as if wishing to conceal the chain. But Mrs. Lease's
+spectacles had seen it.
+
+"What's that you've got on, Harriet? A gold chain?"
+
+A moment's pause, and then Harriet Roe flung back her mantle again,
+defiance upon her face, and touched the chain with her hand.
+
+"That's what it is, Mrs. Lease: a gold chain. And a very pretty one,
+too."
+
+"Was it your mother's?"
+
+"It was never anybody's but mine. I had it made a present to me this
+afternoon; for a keepsake."
+
+Happening to look at Maria, I was startled at her face, it was so white
+and dark: white with emotion, dark with an angry despair that I for
+one did not comprehend. Harriet Roe, throwing at her a look of saucy
+triumph, went out with as little ceremony as she had come in, just
+calling back a general good night; and we heard her footsteps outside
+getting gradually fainter in the distance. Daniel Ferrar rose.
+
+"I'll take my departure too, I think. You are very unsociable to-night,
+Maria."
+
+"Perhaps I am. Perhaps I have cause to be."
+
+She flung his hand back when he held it out; and in another moment, as
+if a thought struck her, ran after him into the passage to speak. I,
+standing near the door in the small room, caught the words.
+
+"I must have an explanation with you, Daniel Ferrar. Now. To-night. We
+cannot go on thus for a single hour longer."
+
+"Not to-night, Maria; I have no time to spare. And I don't know what you
+mean."
+
+"You do know. Listen. I will not go to my rest, no, though it were for
+twenty nights to come, until we have had it out. I _vow_ I will not.
+There. You are playing with me. Others have long said so, and I know it
+now."
+
+He seemed to speak some quieting words to her, for the tone was low and
+soothing; and then went out, closing the door behind him. Maria came
+back and stood with her face and its ghastliness turned from us. And
+still the old mother noticed nothing.
+
+"Why don't you take your things off, Maria?" she asked.
+
+"Presently," was the answer.
+
+I said good night in my turn, and went away. Half-way home I met Tod
+with the two young Lexoms. The Lexoms made us go in and stay to supper,
+and it was ten o'clock before we left them.
+
+"We shall catch it," said Tod, setting off at a run. They never let us
+stay out late on a Sunday evening, on account of the reading.
+
+But, as it happened, we escaped scot-free this time, for the house was
+in a commotion about Lena. She had been better in the afternoon, but at
+nine o'clock the fever returned worse than ever. Her little cheeks and
+lips were scarlet as she lay on the bed, her wide-open eyes were bright
+and glistening. The Squire had gone up to look at her, and was fuming
+and fretting in his usual fashion.
+
+"The doctor has never sent the medicine," said patient Mrs. Todhetley,
+who must have been worn out with nursing. "She ought to take it; I am
+sure she ought."
+
+"These boys are good to run over to Cole's for that," cried the Squire.
+"It won't hurt them; it's a fine night."
+
+Of course we were good for it. And we got our caps again; being charged
+to enjoin Mr. Cole to come over the first thing in the morning.
+
+"Do you care much about my going with you, Johnny?" Tod asked as we were
+turning out at the door. "I am awfully tired."
+
+"Not a bit. I'd as soon go alone as not. You'll see me back in
+half-an-hour."
+
+I took the nearest way; flying across the fields at a canter, and
+startling the hares. Mr. Cole lived near South Crabb, and I don't
+believe more than ten minutes had gone by when I knocked at his door.
+But to get back as quickly was another thing. The doctor was not at
+home. He had been called out to a patient at eight o'clock, and had not
+yet returned.
+
+I went in to wait: the servant said he might be expected to come in from
+minute to minute. It was of no use to go away without the medicine; and
+I sat down in the surgery in front of the shelves, and fell asleep
+counting the white jars and physic bottles. The doctor's entrance awoke
+me.
+
+"I am sorry you should have had to come over and to wait," he said.
+"When my other patient, with whom I was detained a considerable time,
+was done with, I went on to Crabb Cot with the child's medicine, which I
+had in my pocket."
+
+"They think her very ill to-night, sir."
+
+"I left her better, and going quietly to sleep. She will soon be well
+again, I hope."
+
+"Why! is that the time?" I exclaimed, happening to catch sight of
+the clock as I was crossing the hall. It was nearly twelve. Mr. Cole
+laughed, saying time passed quickly when folk were asleep.
+
+I went back slowly. The sleep, or the canter before it, had made me feel
+as tired as Tod had said he was. It was a night to be abroad in and to
+enjoy; calm, warm, light. The moon, high in the sky, illumined every
+blade of grass; sparkled on the water of the little rivulet; brought out
+the moss on the grey walls of the old church; played on its round-faced
+clock, then striking twelve.
+
+Twelve o'clock at night at North Crabb answers to about three in the
+morning in London, for country people are mostly in bed and asleep at
+ten. Therefore, when loud and angry voices struck up in dispute, just as
+the last stroke of the hour was dying away on the midnight air, I stood
+still and doubted my ears.
+
+I was getting near home then. The sounds came from the back of a
+building standing alone in a solitary place on the left-hand side of
+the road. It belonged to the Squire, and was called the yellow barn,
+its walls being covered with a yellow wash; but it was in fact used as
+a storehouse for corn. I was passing in front of it when the voices
+rose upon the air. Round the building I ran, and saw--Maria Lease: and
+something else that I could not at first comprehend. In the pursuit of
+her vow, not to go to rest until she had "had it out" with Daniel
+Ferrar, Maria had been abroad searching for him. What ill fate brought
+her looking for him up near our barn?--perhaps because she had
+fruitlessly searched in every other spot.
+
+At the back of this barn, up some steps, was an unused door. Unused
+partly because it was not required, the principal entrance being in
+front; partly because the key of it had been for a long time missing.
+Stealing out at this door, a bag of corn upon his shoulders, had come
+Daniel Ferrar in a smock-frock. Maria saw him, and stood back in the
+shade. She watched him lock the door and put the key in his pocket; she
+watched him give the heavy bag a jerk as he turned to come down the
+steps. Then she burst out. Her loud reproaches petrified him, and he
+stood there as one suddenly turned to stone. It was at that moment that
+I appeared.
+
+I understood it all soon; it needed not Maria's words to enlighten me.
+Daniel Ferrar possessed the lost key and could come in and out at will
+in the midnight hours when the world was sleeping, and help himself
+to the corn. No wonder his poultry throve; no wonder there had been
+grumblings at Crabb Cot at the mysterious disappearance of the good
+grain.
+
+Maria Lease was decidedly mad in those few first moments. Stealing is
+looked upon in an honest village as an awful thing; a disgrace, a crime;
+and there was the night's earlier misery besides. Daniel Ferrar was a
+thief! Daniel Ferrar was false to her! A storm of words and reproaches
+poured forth from her in confusion, none of it very distinct. "Living
+upon theft! Convicted felon! Transportation for life! Squire Todhetley's
+corn! Fattening poultry on stolen goods! Buying gold chains with the
+profits for that bold, flaunting French girl, Harriet Roe! Taking his
+stealthy walks with her!"
+
+My going up to them stopped the charge. There was a pause; and then
+Maria, in her mad passion, denounced him to me, as representative (so
+she put it) of the Squire--the breaker-in upon our premises! the robber
+of our stored corn!
+
+Daniel Ferrar came down the steps; he had remained there still as a
+statue, immovable; and turned his white face to me. Never a word in
+defence said he: the blow had crushed him; he was a proud man (if any
+one can understand that), and to be discovered in this ill-doing was
+worse than death to him.
+
+"Don't think of me more hardly than you can help, Master Johnny," he
+said in a quiet tone. "I have been almost tired of my life this long
+while."
+
+Putting down the bag of corn near the steps, he took the key from his
+pocket and handed it to me. The man's aspect had so changed; there was
+something so grievously subdued and sad about him altogether, that I
+felt as sorry for him as if he had not been guilty. Maria Lease went on
+in her fiery passion.
+
+"You'll be more tired of it to-morrow when the police are taking you to
+Worcester gaol. Squire Todhetley will not spare you, though your father
+was his many-years bailiff. He could not, you know, if he wished; Master
+Ludlow has seen you in the act."
+
+"Let me have the key again for a minute, sir," he said, as quietly as
+though he had not heard a word. And I gave it to him. I'm not sure but
+I should have given him my head had he asked for it.
+
+He swung the bag on his shoulders, unlocked the granary door, and
+put the bag beside the other sacks. The bag was his own, as we found
+afterwards, but he left it there. Locking the door again, he gave me
+the key, and went away with a weary step.
+
+"Good-bye, Master Johnny."
+
+I answered back good night civilly, though he had been stealing. When
+he was out of sight, Maria Lease, her passion full upon her still,
+dashed off towards her mother's cottage, a strange cry of despair
+breaking from her lips.
+
+"Where have you been lingering, Johnny?" roared the Squire, who was
+sitting up for me. "You have been throwing at the owls, sir, that's what
+you've been at; you have been scudding after the hares."
+
+I said I had waited for Mr. Cole, and had come back slower than I went;
+but I said no more, and went up to my room at once. And the Squire went
+to his.
+
+I know I am only a muff; people tell me so, often: but I can't help it;
+I did not make myself. I lay awake till nearly daylight, first wishing
+Daniel Ferrar could be screened, and then thinking it might perhaps be
+done. If he would only take the lesson to heart and go on straight for
+the future, what a capital thing it would be. We had liked old Ferrar;
+he had done me and Tod many a good turn: and, for the matter of that,
+we liked Daniel. So I never said a word when morning came of the past
+night's work.
+
+"Is Daniel at home?" I asked, going to Ferrar's the first thing before
+breakfast. I meant to tell him that if he would keep right, I would keep
+counsel.
+
+"He went out at dawn, sir," answered the old woman who did for him, and
+sold his poultry at market. "He'll be in presently: he have had no
+breakfast yet."
+
+"Then tell him when he comes, to wait in, and see me: tell him it's all
+right. Can you remember, Goody? 'It is all right.'"
+
+"I'll remember, safe enough, Master Ludlow."
+
+Tod and I, being on our honour, went to church, and found about ten
+people in the pews. Harriet Roe was one, with her pink ribbons, the
+twisted gold chain showing outside a short-cut velvet jacket.
+
+"No, sir; he has not been home yet; I can't think where he can have got
+to," was the old Goody's reply when I went again to Ferrar's. And so I
+wrote a word in pencil, and told her to give it him when he came in, for
+I could not go dodging there every hour of the day.
+
+After luncheon, strolling by the back of the barn: a certain
+reminiscence I suppose taking me there, for it was not a frequented
+spot: I saw Maria Lease coming along.
+
+Well, it was a change! The passionate woman of the previous night had
+subsided into a poor, wild-looking, sorrow-stricken thing, ready to die
+of remorse. Excessive passion had wrought its usual consequences; a
+re-action: a re-action in favour of Daniel Ferrar. She came up to me,
+clasping her hands in agony--beseeching that I would spare him; that I
+would not tell of him; that I would give him a chance for the future:
+and her lips quivered and trembled, and there were dark circles round
+her hollow eyes.
+
+I said that I had not told and did not intend to tell. Upon which she
+was going to fall down on her knees, but I rushed off.
+
+"Do you know where he is?" I asked, when she came to her sober senses.
+
+"Oh, I wish I did know! Master Johnny, he is just the man to go and
+do something desperate. He would never face shame; and I was a mad,
+hard-hearted, wicked girl to do what I did last night. He might run
+away to sea; he might go and enlist for a soldier."
+
+"I dare say he is at home by this time. I have left a word for him
+there, and promised to go in and see him to-night. If he will undertake
+not to be up to wrong things again, no one shall ever know of this from
+me."
+
+She went away easier, and I sauntered on towards South Crabb. Eager as
+Tod and I had been for the day's holiday, it did not seem to be turning
+out much of a boon. In going home again--there was nothing worth staying
+out for--I had come to the spot by the three-cornered grove where I saw
+Maria, when a galloping policeman overtook me. My heart stood still; for
+I thought he must have come after Daniel Ferrar.
+
+"Can you tell me if I am near to Crabb Cot--Squire Todhetley's?" he
+asked, reining-in his horse.
+
+"You will reach it in a minute or two. I live there. Squire Todhetley is
+not at home. What do you want with him?"
+
+"It's only to give in an official paper, sir. I have to leave one
+personally upon all the county magistrates."
+
+He rode on. When I got in I saw the folded paper upon the hall-table;
+the man and horse had already gone onwards. It was worse indoors than
+out; less to be done. Tod had disappeared after church; the Squire was
+abroad; Mrs. Todhetley sat upstairs with Lena: and I strolled out again.
+It was only three o'clock then.
+
+An hour, or more, was got through somehow; meeting one, talking to
+another, throwing at the ducks and geese; anything. Mrs. Lease had her
+head, smothered in a yellow shawl, stretched out over the palings as I
+passed her cottage.
+
+"Don't catch cold, mother."
+
+"I am looking for Maria, sir. I can't think what has come to her to-day,
+Master Johnny," she added, dropping her voice to a confidential tone.
+"The girl seems demented: she has been going in and out ever since
+daylight like a dog in a fair."
+
+"If I meet her I will send her home."
+
+And in another minute I did meet her. For she was coming out of Daniel
+Ferrar's yard. I supposed he was at home again.
+
+"No," she said, looking more wild, worn, haggard than before; "that's
+what I have been to ask. I am just out of my senses, sir. He has gone
+for certain. Gone!"
+
+I did not think it. He would not be likely to go away without clothes.
+
+"Well, I know he is, Master Johnny; something tells me. I've been all
+about everywhere. There's a great dread upon me, sir; I never felt
+anything like it."
+
+"Wait until night, Maria; I dare say he will go home then. Your mother
+is looking out for you; I said if I met you I'd send you in."
+
+Mechanically she turned towards the cottage, and I went on. Presently,
+as I was sitting on a gate watching the sunset, Harriet Roe passed
+towards the withy walk, and gave me a nod in her free but good-natured
+way.
+
+"Are you going there to look out for the ghosts this evening?" I asked:
+and I wished not long afterwards I had not said it. "It will soon be
+dark."
+
+"So it will," she said, turning to the red sky in the west. "But I have
+no time to give to the ghosts to-night."
+
+"Have you seen Ferrar to-day?" I cried, an idea occurring to me.
+
+"No. And I can't think where he has got to; unless he is off to
+Worcester. He told me he should have to go there some day this week."
+
+She evidently knew nothing about him, and went on her way with another
+free-and-easy nod. I sat on the gate till the sun had gone down, and
+then thought it was time to be getting homewards.
+
+Close against the yellow barn, the scene of last night's trouble, whom
+should I come upon but Maria Lease. She was standing still, and turned
+quickly at the sound of my footsteps. Her face was bright again, but had
+a puzzled look upon it.
+
+"I have just seen him: he has not gone," she said in a happy whisper.
+"You were right, Master Johnny, and I was wrong."
+
+"Where did you see him?"
+
+"Here; not a minute ago. I saw him twice. He is angry, very, and will
+not let me speak to him; both times he got away before I could reach
+him. He is close by somewhere."
+
+I looked round, naturally; but Ferrar was nowhere to be seen. There was
+nothing to conceal him except the barn, and that was locked up. The
+account she gave was this--and her face grew puzzled again as she
+related it.
+
+Unable to rest indoors, she had wandered up here again, and saw Ferrar
+standing at the corner of the barn, looking very hard at her. She
+thought he was waiting for her to come up, but before she got close to
+him he had disappeared, and she did not see which way. She hastened past
+the front of the barn, ran round to the back, and there he was. He stood
+near the steps looking out for her; waiting for her, as it again seemed;
+and was gazing at her with the same fixed stare. But again she missed
+him before she could get quite up; and it was at that moment that I
+arrived on the scene.
+
+I went all round the barn, but could see nothing of Ferrar. It was an
+extraordinary thing where he could have got to. Inside the barn he could
+not be: it was securely locked; and there was no appearance of him in
+the open country. It was, so to say, broad daylight yet, or at least not
+far short of it; the red light was still in the west. Beyond the field
+at the back of the barn, was a grove of trees in the form of a triangle;
+and this grove was flanked by Crabb Ravine, which ran right and left.
+Crabb Ravine had the reputation of being haunted; for a light was
+sometimes seen dodging about its deep descending banks at night that no
+one could account for. A lively spot altogether for those who liked
+gloom.
+
+"Are you sure it was Ferrar, Maria?"
+
+"Sure!" she returned in surprise. "You don't think I could mistake him,
+Master Johnny, do you? He wore that ugly seal-skin winter-cap of his
+tied over his ears, and his thick grey coat. The coat was buttoned
+closely round him. I have not seen him wear either since last winter."
+
+That Ferrar must have gone into hiding somewhere seemed quite evident;
+and yet there was nothing but the ground to receive him. Maria said she
+lost sight of him the last time in a moment; both times in fact; and it
+was absolutely impossible that he could have made off to the triangle or
+elsewhere, as she must have seen him cross the open land. For that
+matter I must have seen him also.
+
+On the whole, not two minutes had elapsed since I came up, though it
+seems to have been longer in telling it: when, before we could look
+further, voices were heard approaching from the direction of Crabb Cot;
+and Maria, not caring to be seen, went away quickly. I was still
+puzzling about Ferrar's hiding-place, when they reached me--the Squire,
+Tod, and two or three men. Tod came slowly up, his face dark and grave.
+
+"I say, Johnny, what a shocking thing this is!"
+
+"What is a shocking thing?"
+
+"You have not heard of it?--But I don't see how you could hear it."
+
+I had heard nothing. I did not know what there was to hear. Tod told me
+in a whisper.
+
+"Daniel Ferrar's dead, lad."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"He has destroyed himself. Not more than half-an-hour ago. Hung himself
+in the grove."
+
+I turned sick, taking one thing with another, comparing this
+recollection with that; which I dare say you will think no one but a
+muff would do.
+
+Ferrar was indeed dead. He had been hiding all day in the three-cornered
+grove: perhaps waiting for night to get away--perhaps only waiting
+for night to go home again. Who can tell? About half-past two, Luke
+Macintosh, a man who sometimes worked for us, sometimes for old Coney,
+happening to go through the grove, saw him there, and talked with him.
+The same man, passing back a little before sunset, found him hanging
+from a tree, dead. Macintosh ran with the news to Crabb Cot, and they
+were now flocking to the scene. When facts came to be examined there
+appeared only too much reason to think that the unfortunate appearance
+of the galloping policeman had terrified Ferrar into the act;
+perhaps--we all hoped it!--had scared his senses quite away. Look at it
+as we would, it was very dreadful.
+
+But what of the appearance Maria Lease saw? At that time, Ferrar had
+been dead at least half-an-hour. Was it reality or delusion? That is (as
+the Squire put it), did her eyes see a real, spectral Daniel Ferrar; or
+were they deceived by some imagination of the brain? Opinions were
+divided. Nothing can shake her own steadfast belief in its reality; to
+her it remains an awful certainty, true and sure as heaven.
+
+If I say that I believe in it too, I shall be called a muff and a double
+muff. But there is no stumbling-block difficult to be got over. Ferrar,
+when found, was wearing the seal-skin cap tied over the ears and the
+thick grey coat buttoned up round him, just as Maria Lease had described
+to me; and he had never worn them since the previous winter, or taken
+them out of the chest where they were kept. The old woman at his home
+did not know he had done it then. When told that he died in these
+things, she protested that they were in the chest, and ran up to look
+for them. But the things were gone.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH.
+
+
+It was the following year, and we were again at Crabb Cot. Fever had
+broken out at Dr. Frost's, and the school was dismissed. The leaves were
+falling late that year, for November was nearly half through, and they
+strewed the ground. But if the leaves were late, the frost was early.
+The weather had come in curiously cold. Three days before the morning I
+am about to speak of, the warm weather suddenly changed, and it was now
+as freezing as January. It is not often that you see ice mingling with
+the dead leaves of autumn. Both the ice and the leaves have to do
+with what happened: and I think you often find that if the weather is
+particularly unseasonable, we get something by which to remember it.
+
+At the corner of a field between our house and North Crabb, stood a
+small solitary dwelling, called Willow Brook Cottage: but the brook from
+which it took its name was dry now. The house had a lonely look, and was
+lonely; and perhaps that kept it empty. It had been unoccupied for more
+than a year, when the Squire, tired of seeing it so, happened to say in
+the hearing of James Hill, that new bailiff of ours, that he would let
+it for an almost nominal rent. Hill caught at the words and said he
+would be glad to rent it: for some cause or other he did not like the
+house he was in, and had been wanting to leave it. At least, he said so:
+but he was of a frightfully stingy turn, and we all thought the low rent
+tempted him. Hill, this working bailiff, was a steady man, but severe
+upon every one.
+
+It was during this early frost that he began to move in. One morning
+after breakfast, I was taking the broad pathway across the fields to
+North Crabb, which led close by Willow Cottage, and saw Hill wheeling a
+small truck up with some of his household goods. He was a tall, strong
+man, and the cold was tolerably sharp, but the load had warmed him.
+
+"Good morning, Master Johnny."
+
+"Making ready for the flitting, Hill?"
+
+Hill wheeled the truck up to the door, and sat down on one of the
+handles whilst he wiped his face. It was an honest, though cross face;
+habitually red. The house had a good large garden at its side, enclosed
+by wooden palings; with a shed and some pigstys at the back. Trees
+overshadowed the palings: and the fallen leaves, just now, inside the
+garden and out were ankle-deep.
+
+"A fine labour I shall have, getting the place in order!" cried Hill,
+pointing to some broken palings and the overgrown branches. "Don't think
+but what the Squire has the best of the bargain, after all!"
+
+"You'd say that, Hill, if he gave you a house rent-free."
+
+Hill took the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and we went in.
+This lower room was boarded; the kitchen was at the back; above were two
+fair-sized chambers. One of them looked towards Crabb Ravine; the other
+was only lighted by a skylight in the roof.
+
+"You have had fires here, Hill!"
+
+"I had 'em in every room all day yesterday, sir, and am going to light
+'em again now. My wife said it must be done; and she warn't far wrong;
+for a damp house plays the mischief with one's bones. The fools that
+women be, to be sure!--and my wife's the worst of 'em."
+
+"What has your wife done?"
+
+"She had a bit of a accident yesterday, Master Johnny. A coming out with
+a few things for this place, she stepped upon some ice, and fell; it
+gave her ankle a twist, and she had to be helped home. I'm blest if
+she's not a-saying now that it's a bad omen! Because she can't get about
+and help shift the things in here, she says we shan't have nothing but
+ill-luck in the place."
+
+I had already heard of the accident. Hill's wife was a little shrinking
+woman, mild and gentle, quite superior to him. She was a widow when he
+married her a short time ago, a Mrs. Garth, with one son, David. Miss
+Timmens, the schoolmistress at North Crab, was her sister. On the
+previous morning a letter had come from Worcester, saying their mother,
+Mrs. Timmens, was taken dangerously ill, and asking them to go over.
+Miss Timmens went; Hill refused for his wife. How could he get along at
+moving-time without her, he demanded. She cried and implored, but Hill
+was hard as flint. So she had to remain at home, and set about her
+preparations for removal; surly Hill was master and mistress too. In
+starting with the first lot of movables--a few things carried in her
+arms--the accident occurred. So that, in the helping to move, she was
+useless; and the neighbours, ever ready to take part in a matrimonial
+grievance, said it served Hill right. Any way, it did not improve his
+temper.
+
+"When do you get in here, Hill?"
+
+"To-morrow, Master Johnny, please the pigs. But for the wife's
+awk'ardness we'd ha' been in to-day. As to any help Davvy could give,
+it's worth no more nor a rat's; he haven't got much more strength in him
+nor one neither. Drat the boy!"
+
+Leaving Hill to his task, I went on; and in passing Mrs. Hill's
+dwelling, I thought I'd give a look in to inquire after the ankle. The
+cottage stood alone, just as this other one did, but was less lonely,
+for the Crabb houses were round about. Davy's voice called out, "Come
+in."
+
+He was the handiest little fellow possible for any kind of housework--or
+for sewing, either; but not half strong enough or rough enough for a
+boy. His soft brown eyes had a shrinking look in them, his face was
+delicate as a girl's, and his hair hung in curls. But he was a
+little bit deformed in the back--some called it only a stoop in the
+shoulders--and, though fourteen, might have been taken for ten. The
+boy's love for his mother was something wonderful. They had lived at
+Worcester; she had a small income, and he had been well brought up. When
+she married Hill--all her friends were against it, and it was in fact a
+frightful mistake--of course they had to come to North Crabb; but Davy
+was not happy. Always a timid lad, he could not overcome his first fear
+of Hill. Not that the man was unkind, only rough and resolute.
+
+Davy was washing up the breakfast-things; his mother sat near, sorting
+the contents of a chest: a neat little woman in a green stuff gown, with
+the same sweet eyes as David and the same shrinking look in them. She
+left off when I went in, and said her ankle was no worse.
+
+"It's a pity it happened just now, Mrs. Hill."
+
+"I'd have given a great deal for it not to, sir. They call me foolish, I
+know; always have done; but it just seems to me like an omen. I had a
+few articles in my arms, the first trifles we'd begun to move, and down
+I fell on going out at this door. To me it seems nothing but a warning
+that we ought not to move into Willow Cottage."
+
+David had halted in his work at the tea-cups, his brown eyes fixed
+on his mother. That it was not the first time he had listened to the
+superstition, and that he was every whit as bad as she, might plainly
+be seen.
+
+"I have never liked the thought of that new place from the first, Master
+Johnny. It is as if something held me back from it. Hill keeps saying
+that it's a convenient dwelling, and dirt-cheap; and so it is; but I
+don't like the notion of it. No more does David."
+
+"Oh, I dare say you will like it when you get in, Mrs. Hill, and David,
+too."
+
+"It is to be hoped so, sir."
+
+The day went on; and its after events I can only speak of from hearsay.
+Hill moved in a good many of his goods, David carrying some of the
+lighter things, Luke Macintosh was asked to go and sleep in the house
+that night as a safeguard against thieves, but he flatly refused, unless
+some one slept there with him. Hill ridiculed his cowardice; and finally
+agreed that David should bear him company.
+
+He made the bargain without his wife. She had other views for David. Her
+intention was to send the lad over to Worcester by the seven-o'clock
+evening train; not so much because his bed and bedding had been carried
+off and there was nothing for him to sleep on, as that his dying
+grandmother had expressed a wish to see him. To hear then that David was
+not to go, did not please Mrs. Hill.
+
+It was David himself who carried in the news. She had tea waiting on the
+table when they came in: David first, for his step-father had stopped to
+speak to some one in the road.
+
+"But, David, dear--you _must_ go to Worcester," she said, when he told
+her.
+
+"He will never let me, mother," was David's answer. "He says the things
+might be stolen if nobody takes care of them: and Macintosh is afraid to
+be there alone."
+
+She paused and looked at him, a thought striking her. The boy was
+leaning upon her in his fond manner, his hand in hers.
+
+"Should you be afraid, David?"
+
+"Not--I think--with Luke. We are to be in the same room, mother."
+
+But Mrs. Hill noticed that his voice was hesitating; his small weak hand
+trembled in hers. There was not a more morally brave heart than David
+Garth's; he had had a religious training; but at being alone in the dark
+he was a very coward, afraid of ghosts and goblins.
+
+"Hill," said she to her husband when he stamped in, the lad having
+gone to wash his hands, "I cannot let David sleep in the other house
+to-night. He will be too timid."
+
+"Timid!" repeated Hill, staring at the words. "Why, Luke Macintosh will
+be with him."
+
+"David won't like it. Macintosh is nothing but a coward himself."
+
+"Don't thee be a fool, and show it," returned Hill, roughly. "Thee'll
+keep that boy a baby for his life. Davvy would as soon sleep in the
+house alone, as not, but for the folly put into his head by you. And why
+not? He's fourteen."
+
+Hill--to give him his due--only spoke as he thought. That any one in the
+world, grown to fourteen and upwards, could be afraid of sleeping in a
+house alone, was to him literally incomprehensible.
+
+"I said he must go over to Worcester to see mother, James," she meekly
+resumed; "you know I did."
+
+"Well, he can't go to-night; he shall go in the morning. There! He may
+stop with her for a week, an' ye like, for all the good he is to me."
+
+"Mother's looking for him to-night, and he ought to go. The dying----"
+
+"Now just you drop it, for he can't be spared," interrupted Hill. "The
+goods might be stole, with all the loose characters there is about, and
+that fool of a Macintosh won't go in of himself. He's a regular coward!
+Davvy must keep him company--it's not so much he does for his keep--and
+he may start for Worcester by daylight."
+
+Whenever Hill came down upon her with this resolute decision, it struck
+her timid forthwith. The allusion to the boy's keep was an additional
+thrust, for it was beginning to be rather a sore subject. An uncle at
+Worcester, who had no family and was well to do, had partly offered to
+adopt the lad; but it was not yet settled. Davy was a great favourite
+with all the relatives; Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress, doted on him.
+Mrs. Hill, not venturing on further remonstrance, made the best of the
+situation.
+
+"Davy, you are to go to Worcester the first thing in the morning," she
+said, when he came back from washing his hands. "So as soon as you've
+been home and had a bit o' breakfast, you shall run off to the train."
+
+Tea over, Hill went out on some business, saying he should be in at
+eight, or thereabouts, to go with Davy to the cottage. As the hour drew
+near, David, sitting over the fire with his mother in pleasant talk, as
+they loved to do, asked if he should read before he went: for her habit
+was to read the Bible to him, or cause him to read to her, the last
+thing.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "Read the ninety-first Psalm."
+
+So David read it. Closing the book when it was over, he sat with it on
+his knee, thoughtfully.
+
+"If we could only _see_ the angels, mother! It is so difficult to
+remember always that they are close around, taking care of us."
+
+"So it is, Davy. Most of us forget it."
+
+"When life's over it will be so pleasant for them to carry us away to
+heaven! I wish you and I could go together, mother."
+
+"We shall each go when God pleases, David."
+
+"Oh yes, I know that."
+
+Mrs. Hill, remembering this little bit of conversation, word for word,
+repeated it afterwards to me and others, with how they had sat, and
+David's looks. I say this for fear people might think I had invented it.
+
+Hill came in, and they prepared to go to the other house. David, his
+arms full--for, of course, with things to be carried, they did not go
+out empty-handed--came suddenly back from the door in going out, flung
+his load down, and clasped his mother. She bent to kiss him.
+
+"Good night, my dear one! Don't you and Luke get chattering all night.
+Go to sleep betimes."
+
+He burst into tears, clinging to her with sobs. It was as if his heart
+were breaking.
+
+"Are you afraid to go?" she whispered.
+
+"I must go," was his sobbing answer.
+
+"Now then, Davvy!" called back Hill's rough tones. "What the plague are
+you lagging for?"
+
+"Say good-bye to me, mother! Say good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye, and God bless you, David! Remember the angels are around
+you!"
+
+"I know; I know!"
+
+Taking up his bundles, he departed, keeping some paces behind Hill all
+the way; partly to hide his face, down which the tears were raining;
+partly in his usual awe of that formidable functionary who stood to him
+as a step-father.
+
+Arrived at the house, Hill was fumbling for the key, when some one came
+darting out from the shadow of its eaves. It proved to be Luke
+Macintosh.
+
+"I was a-looking round for you," said crusty Hill. "I began to think
+you'd forgot the time o' meeting."
+
+"No, I'd not forgot it; but I be come to say that I can't oblige you by
+sleeping there," was Luke's reply. "The master have ordered me off with
+the waggon afore dawn, and so--I'm a-going to sleep at home."
+
+Had I been there, I could have said the master had _not_ ordered Luke
+off before dawn; but after his breakfast. It was just a ruse of his,
+to avoid doing what he had never relished, sleeping in the house. Hill
+suspected as much, and went on at him, mockingly asking if he was
+afraid of hobgoblins. Luke dodged away in the midst of it, and Hill
+relieved his anger by a little hot language.
+
+"Come along, Davvy," said he at last; "we must put these here things
+inside."
+
+Unlocking the door, he went in; and, the first thing, fell against
+something or other in the dark. Hill swore a little at that, and struck
+a light, the fire having gone out. This lower room was full of articles,
+thrown down out of hand; the putting things straight had been left to
+the morrow.
+
+"Carry the match afore me, Davvy. These blankets must go upstairs."
+
+By some oversight no candles had been taken to the house; only the box
+of matches. David lighted one match after the other, while Hill arranged
+the blankets on the mattress for sleeping. This room--the one with the
+skylight--was to be David's.
+
+"There," said Hill, taking the box of matches from him, "you'll be
+comfortable here till morning. If you find it cold, you might keep on
+your trousers."
+
+David Garth stood speechless, a look of horror struggling to his face.
+In that first moment he dared not remonstrate; his awe of Hill was too
+great.
+
+"What's the matter now?" asked Hill, striking another match. "What ails
+you?"
+
+"You'll not leave me here, all by myself?" whispered the unhappy boy, in
+desperate courage.
+
+"Not leave you here by yourself! Why, what d'ye think is to harm you?
+Don't you try on your nonsense and your games with me, Master Davvy. I'm
+not soft, like your mother. Say your prayers and get to sleep, and I'll
+come and let you out in the morning."
+
+By a dexterous movement, Hill got outside, and closed the door softly,
+slipping the bolt. The match in his fingers was nearly burnt out;
+nevertheless, it had shown a last faint vision of a boy kneeling in
+supplication, his hands held up, his face one of piteous agony. As Hill
+struck another match to light the staircase, a wailing cry mingled with
+the sound: entreaties to be let out; prayers not to be left alone; low
+moans, telling of awful terror.
+
+"Drat the boy! This comes of his mother's coddling. Hold your row,
+Davvy," he roared out, wrathfully: "you'd not like me to come back and
+give you a basting."
+
+And Mr. James Hill, picking his way over the bundles, locked the outer
+door, and betook himself home. That was our respectable bailiff. What do
+you think of him?
+
+"Did you leave Davy comfortable?" asked Mrs. Hill, when he got back.
+
+"He'll be comfortable enough when he's asleep," shortly answered Hill.
+"Of all hardened, ungrateful boys, that of yourn's the worst."
+
+"Had Luke come when you got there?" she resumed, passing over the
+aspersion on Davy.
+
+"He was waiting: he came right out upon us like an apparition," was
+Hill's evasive answer. And he did not tell the rest.
+
+But now, a singular thing happened that night. Mrs. Hill was in a sound
+sleep, when a loud, agonized cry of "Mother" aroused her from it. She
+started up, wide awake instantly, and in terror so great that the
+perspiration began to pour off her face. In that moment the call was
+repeated. The voice was David's voice; it had appeared to be in the
+room, close to her, and she peered into every corner in vain. Then she
+supposed it must have come through the window; that David, from some
+cause or other, had come home from Willow Brook, and was waiting to be
+let in. A dread crossed her of Hill's anger, and she felt inclined to
+order the boy to go back again.
+
+Opening the casement window, she called to him by name; softly at first,
+then louder. There was no answer. Mrs. Hill stretched out her head as
+far as the narrow casement allowed, but neither David nor anyone else
+could she see; nothing but the shadows cast by the moonlight. Just then
+the old church clock struck out. She counted the strokes and found it
+twelve. Midnight. It was bitterly cold: she closed the window at last,
+concluding David had gone off from fear of being punished. All she could
+hope was that he would have the sense, that dangerously keen night, to
+run off to the brick kilns, and get warm there.
+
+But the terror lay upon her yet; she was unable to tell why or
+wherefore; unless from the strangely appealing agony of the cry; still
+less could she shake it off. It seemed odd. Hill awoke with the
+commotion, and found her trembling.
+
+"What have ye got to be affrighted on?" he asked roughly, when she had
+told her tale. And Mrs. Hill was puzzled to say what.
+
+"You had been a-dreaming of him, that's what it was. You've got nothing
+else in your mind, day nor night, but that there boy."
+
+"It was not a dream; I am quite positive it was himself; I could not
+mistake his voice," persisted Mrs. Hill. "He has come away from the
+cottage, for sure. Perhaps that Luke Macintosh might have got teasing
+him."
+
+Knowing what Hill knew, that the boy was locked in, he might safely have
+stood out that he could not have come away from it; but he said no more.
+Rolling himself round, he prepared to go to sleep again, resentful at
+having been awakened.
+
+Hill overslept himself in the morning, possibly through the interrupted
+rest. When he went out it was broad daylight. David Garth's being locked
+up half-an-hour more or less went for nothing with Hill, and he stayed
+to load the truck with some of the remainder of his goods.
+
+"Send Davy home at once, James," called out the wife, as he began to
+wheel it away. "I'll give him his breakfast, and let him start off to
+the train."
+
+For, with daylight, and the sight of the door-key, Mrs. Hill could only
+reverse her opinion, and conclude unwillingly that it might have been a
+dream. Hill showed her the key, telling her that he had locked the door
+"for safety." Therefore it appeared to be impossible that David could
+have got out.
+
+The first thing Hill saw when he and his truck approached the cottage,
+was young Jim Batley, mounted on the roof and hammering away at the
+skylight with his freezing hands. Jim, a regular sailor for climbing,
+had climbed a tree, and thence swung himself on to the tiles. Hill
+treated him to some hard words, and ordered him to come down and get a
+licking. Down came Jim, taking care to dodge out of Hill's reach.
+
+"I can't make David hear," said Jim. "I've got to go to Timberdale, and
+I want him to go along with me."
+
+"That's no reason why you should get atop of my roof," roared Hill. "You
+look out for a sweet hiding, young Jim. The first time I get hold on
+you, you shall have it kindly."
+
+"He sleeps uncommon hard," said Jim. "One 'ud think the cold had froze
+him. I've got to take a letter to my uncle's at Timberdale: we shall
+find a jolly good hot breakfast when we get there."
+
+Hill condescended to abate his anger so far as to inform Jim Batley that
+David could not go to Timberdale; adding that he was going off by train
+to see his grandmother at Worcester. Ordering Jim to take himself away,
+he unlocked the door and entered the cottage.
+
+Jim Batley chose to stay. He was a tall, thin, obstinate fellow, of
+eleven, and meant to wait and speak to David. Given to following his own
+way whenever he could, in spite of his father and mother, it occurred to
+him that perhaps David might be persuaded to take Timberdale first and
+the train after.
+
+He amused himself with the dead leaves while he waited. But it seemed
+that David took a long time dressing. The truck stood at the door; Jim
+stamped and whistled, and shied a few stones at the topmost article,
+which was Mrs. Hill's potato saucepan. Presently Hill came out and began
+to unload, beginning with the saucepan.
+
+"Where's Davy?" demanded Jim, from a safe distance. "Ain't he ready
+yet?"
+
+"Now if you don't get off about your business I'll make you go," was
+Hill's answer, keeping his back turned to the boy. "You haven't got
+nothing to stop here for."
+
+"I'm stopping to speak to Davy."
+
+"Davy was away out o' here afore daylight and took the first train to
+Worcester. He's a'most there by now."
+
+Young boys are not clever reasoners; but certain contradictory odds and
+ends passed through Jim's disappointed mind. For one thing, he had seen
+Hill unlock the door.
+
+"I don't think he's gone out yet. I see his boots."
+
+"What boots?" asked Hill, putting a bandbox inside the door.
+
+"Davy's. I see 'em through the skylight; they stood near the mattress."
+
+"Them was a pair of my boots as I carried here last night. I tell ye
+Davvy's _gone_: can't ye believe? He won't be home for some days
+neither, for his grandmother's safe to keep him."
+
+Jim Batley went off slowly on his way to Timberdale: there was nothing
+to stay for, Davy being gone. Happening to turn round, he caught Hill
+looking after him, and saw his face for the first time. It had turned
+white as death. The contrast was very remarkable, for it was usually of
+a deep red.
+
+"Well, I never!" cried Jim, halting in surprise. "Mayhap the cold have
+took him! Serve him right."
+
+When Hill had got all the things inside he locked himself in, probably
+not to be disturbed while he arranged them. Mrs. Hill had been waiting
+breakfast ever so long when she heard the truck coming back.
+
+"Whatever's become of David?" she began. "I expected him home at once."
+
+"David has started for Worcester," said Hill.
+
+"Started for Worcester? Without his breakfast?"
+
+"Now don't you worry yourself about petty things," returned Hill,
+crustily. "You wanted him to go, and he's gone. He won't starve; let him
+alone for that."
+
+The notion assumed by Mrs. Hill was, that her husband had started the
+boy off from the cottage direct to the train. She felt thoroughly vexed.
+
+"He had all his old clothes on, Hill. I would not have had him go to
+Worcester in that plight for any money. You might have let the child
+come home for a bit of breakfast--and to dress himself. There was not
+so much as a brush and comb at the place, to make his hair tidy."
+
+"There's no pleasing you," growled Hill. "Last night you were a'most
+crying, cause Davvy couldn't be let go over to see your mother; and, now
+that he is gone, _that_ don't please ye! Women be the very deuce for
+grumbling."
+
+Mrs. Hill dropped the subject--there could be no remedy--and gave her
+husband his breakfast in silence. Hill seemed to eat nothing, and looked
+very pale; at moments ghastly.
+
+"Don't you feel well?" she asked.
+
+"Well?--I'm well enough. What should ail me--barring the cold? It's as
+sharp a frost as ever I was out in."
+
+"Drink this," she said, pouring him out another cup of hot tea. "It is
+cold; and I'm sorry we've got it so for our moving. What time shall we
+get in to-day, Hill?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Not at all!" repeated the wife in surprise.
+
+"No, not at all," was Hill's surly confirmation. "What with you
+disabled, and Davvy o' no use, things is not as forrard as they ought to
+be. I've got to be off to my work too, pretty quick, or the Squire'll be
+about me. We shan't get in till to-morrow."
+
+"But nearly all our things are in," she remonstrated. "There's as good
+as nothing left here."
+
+"I tell ye we don't go in afore to-morrow," said Hill, giving the table
+a thump. "Can't ye be satisfied with that?"
+
+He went off to his work. Mrs. Hill, accepting the change as inevitable,
+resigned herself, and borrowed a saucepan to cook the potatoes for
+dinner. She might have spared herself the trouble; her husband did not
+come in for any. He bought a penny loaf and some cheese, and made his
+dinner of it inside our home barn, Molly giving him some beer. He had
+done it before when very busy: but the work he was about that day was in
+no such hurry, and he might have left it if he would.
+
+"Who is to sleep in the house to-night?" his wife asked him when he got
+home to tea.
+
+"I shall," said Hill. "I won't be beholden to nobody."
+
+Mrs. Hill, remembering the experience of the past night, quaked a little
+at finding she should have to sleep in the old place alone, devoutly
+praying there might be no recurrence of the dream that had thrown her
+into such mortal terror. She and Davy were just alike--frightened at
+their own shadows in the dark. When Hill was safe off, she hurried into
+bed, and kept her head under the clothes.
+
+Hill came back betimes in the morning; and they moved in at once; old
+Coney's groom, who happened to be out with the dog-cart, offering to
+drive Mrs. Hill. Though her ankle was better and the distance short, she
+could hardly have walked. Instead of finding the house in order, as she
+expected, it was all sixes and sevens; the things lying about all over
+it.
+
+Towards evening, Hannah got me to call at Willow Brook and say she'd
+go there in the morning for an hour or two, to help put things in
+order--the mistress had said she might do so. The fact was, Hannah was
+burning for a gossip, she and Hill's wife being choice friends. It was
+almost dark; the front room looked tolerably straight, and Mrs. Hill
+sat by the fire, resting her foot and looking out at the window, the
+shutters not yet closed.
+
+"I'd be very thankful for her to come, Master Johnny," she said eagerly,
+hardly letting me finish. "There's a great deal to do; and, besides
+that, it is so lonesome here. I never had such a feeling in all my life;
+and I have gone into strange homes before this."
+
+"It does seem lonesome, somehow. The fancy may go off in a day or two."
+
+"I don't know, sir: it's to be hoped it will. Master Johnny, as true as
+that we are sitting here, when I got out of Mr. Coney's dog-cart and
+put my foot over the threshold to enter, a fit of trembling took me all
+over. There was no cause for it: I mean I was not thinking of anything
+to give it me. Not a minute before, I was laughing; for the man had been
+telling me a joking story of something that happened yesterday at his
+master's. A strange fear seemed to come upon me all at once as I stepped
+over the threshold, and I began to shake from head to foot. Hill stared
+at me, and at last asked if it was the cold; I told him truly that I
+did not know what it was; except that it seemed like some unaccountable
+attack, for I was well wrapped up. He had some brandy in a bottle, and
+made me drink a drop. The fit went off; but I have had a queer lonesome
+feeling on me ever since, as if the house was not one to be alone in."
+
+"And you have been alone, I suppose?"
+
+"Every bit of the time, save when Hill came in to his dinner. I don't
+remember ever to have had such a feeling before in broad daylight. It's
+just as if the house was haunted."
+
+Not believing in haunted houses, I laughed. Mrs. Hill got up to stir the
+fire. It blazed, and cast her shadow upon the opposite wall.
+
+"When dusk came on, I could hardly bear it. But for your coming in,
+Master Johnny, I should have stood at the door in the cold, and watched
+for Hill: things don't feel so lonely to one out of doors as in."
+
+So it seemed that I was in for a stay--any way, till Hill arrived. After
+this, it would not have been very kind to leave her alone; she looked so
+weak and little.
+
+"I've never liked the thought of moving here from the first," she went
+on; "and then there came the accident to my foot. Some people think
+nothing at all of omens, Master Johnny, but I do think of them. They
+come oftener than is thought for too; only, so few take notice of them.
+I wish Davy was back! I can't bear to be in this house alone."
+
+"David is at Worcester, I heard Hill say."
+
+"He went yesterday morning, sir. I expected a letter from him to-day;
+and it is very curious that none have come. Davy knew how anxious I
+was about mother; and he never fails to write when he's away from me.
+Somehow, all things are going crooked and cross just now. I had a fright
+the night before last. Master Johnny, and I am hardly quit of it yet."
+
+"What was that?" I asked her.
+
+She stared into the fire for a minute or two before she answered me.
+There was no other light in the room; I sat back against the wall beside
+the window--the shutters were still open.
+
+"You might not care to hear it, sir."
+
+"I should if it's worth telling."
+
+Turning from the fire, she looked straight at me while she told it from
+beginning to end, exactly as I have written it above. The tale would
+have been just the thing for Mrs. Todhetley: who went in for marvels.
+
+"Hill stood to it that it was a dream, Master Johnny; but the more I
+think of it, the less I believe it could have been one. If I had only
+heard the call in my sleep, or in the moment of waking, why of course it
+might have been a dream; but when I heard it the second time it was
+_after_ I awoke. I heard it as plain as I hear my own voice now; and
+plainer, too."
+
+"But what else, except a dream, do you fancy it could have been?"
+
+"Well, sir, that's what is puzzling me. But for Hill's convincing me
+Davy could not have got out of here after he had locked him and
+Macintosh in for safety, I should have said it was the boy himself,
+calling me from outside. It sounded in the room, close to me: but the
+fright I was in might have deceived me. What's that?"
+
+A loud rapping at the window. I am not ashamed to say that coming so
+unexpectedly it startled me. Mrs. Hill, with a shrill scream, darted
+forward to catch hold of my arm.
+
+"Let me go. Some one wants to be let in. I dare say it's Hill."
+
+"Master Johnny, I beg your pardon," she said, going back. "Hill ought to
+know better than to come frightening me at night like this."
+
+I opened the door, and Miss Timmens walked in: not Hill. The knocking
+had not been intended to frighten any one, but as a greeting to Mrs.
+Hill--Miss Timmens having seen her through the glass.
+
+"You know you always were one of the quaking ones, Nanny," she said,
+scoffing at the alarm. "I have just got back from Worcester, and thought
+you'd like to hear that mother's better."
+
+"And it is well you are back, Miss Timmens," I put in. "The school
+has been in rebellion. Strangers, going by, have taken it for a bear
+garden."
+
+"That Maria Lease is just good for nothing," said Miss Timmens,
+wrathfully. "When she offered to take my place I knew she'd not be of
+much use. Yes, sir; it was the thought of the school that brought me
+back so soon."
+
+"And mother is really better!" cried Mrs. Hill. "I am so thankful. If
+she had died and I not able to get over to her, I should never have
+forgiven myself. How is David?"
+
+"Are you getting straight, Nancy?" asked Miss Timmens, looking round the
+room, and not noticing the question about David.
+
+"Straight! and only moved in this morning! and me with this ankle!"
+
+Miss Timmens laughed. She was just as capable as her sister was the
+contrary.
+
+"About David?" added Mrs. Hill, "I was so vexed that he went over in his
+old clothes! It was Hill's fault. Have you brought me a letter from
+him?"
+
+"How could I bring you a letter from him?" returned Miss Timmens. "A
+letter from where?"
+
+It was a minute or two before elucidation was arrived at, for both were
+at cross-purposes. David Garth had not been at Worcester at all, so far
+as Miss Timmens knew; certainly not at his grandmother's.
+
+To see Mrs. Hill sink back into her chair at this information, and let
+her hands fall on her lap, and gaze helplessly from her frightened eyes,
+was only to be expected. Miss Timmens kept asking what it all meant, and
+where David was, but she could get no answer. So I told her what Mother
+Hill had just told me--about Hill's sending him off to Worcester. She
+stared like anything.
+
+"Why, where in the name of wonder can the boy have got to?"
+
+"I see it all," spoke the mother then, in a whisper. "Davy did find his
+way out of this house; and it was his voice I heard, and not a dream. I
+knew it. I knew it at the time."
+
+These words would have sounded mysterious to any one given to mystery.
+Miss Timmens was not. She was a long, thin female, with a chronic
+redness on her nose and one cheek, and she was as practical as could be.
+Demanding what Mrs. Hill meant by "not a dream," she stood warming her
+boots at the fire while she was enlightened.
+
+"The boy is keeping away for fear of Hill tanning him," spoke Miss
+Timmens, summing up the question. "Don't you think so, Master Ludlow?"
+
+"I should, if I could see how he got out of the cottage, after Hill had
+locked him in it."
+
+"Luke Macintosh put him out at this window," said Miss Timmens,
+decisively. "Hill couldn't lock that up. They'd open the shutters, and
+Luke would pop him out: to get rid of the boy, no doubt. Mr. Luke ought
+to be punished for it."
+
+I did not contradict her. Of course it might have been so; but knowing
+Luke, I did not think he would care to be left in the house alone.
+Unless--the thought flashed over me--unless Luke sent away David that
+he might be off himself. Amidst a good deal of uncertainty, this view
+seemed the most probable.
+
+"Where is David?" bemoaned Mrs. Hill; "where is he? And with these
+bitter cold nights----"
+
+"Now don't you worry yourself, Nanny," interrupted strong-minded Miss
+Timmens. "I'll see to David; and bring him home, too."
+
+Hill's cough was heard outside. Miss Timmens--who had been in a dead
+rage at the marriage, and consequently hated Hill like poison--hastened
+to depart. We went away together, passing Hill by the dried-up brook.
+He looked stealthily at us, and threw back a surly good night to me.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know where I am to look for the boy first," began Miss
+Timmens, as we went along. "Poor fellow! he is keeping away out of fear.
+It would not surprise me if Macintosh is taking care of him. The man's
+not ill-natured."
+
+"I don't understand why Hill should have told his mother David was gone
+to Worcester, unless he did go." Neither did I.
+
+"David never went to Worcester; rely upon that, Master Ludlow," was her
+answer. "He is well known at Shrub Hill Station, and I could not have
+failed to hear of it, for one of the porters lodges in mother's house;
+besides, David would have come down to us at once. Good night, sir. I
+dare say he will turn up before to-morrow."
+
+She went on towards the school-house, I the other way to Crabb Cot. Mrs.
+Todhetley and the Squire were talking together by the blazing fire,
+waiting until old Thomas announced dinner.
+
+"Where have you been lingering this cold evening, Johnny?" began the
+Squire. "Don't you get trying the ponds, sir; the ice is not wafer thick
+yet."
+
+Kneeling on the rug between them, holding my hands to the warmth, I told
+where I had been, and what I had heard. Mrs. Todhetley, who seemed to
+have been born with a sympathy for children, went into lamentation
+over--it was what she said--that poor little gentle lamb, David.
+
+"Macintosh is about somewhere," spoke the Squire, ringing the bell. "We
+will soon hear whether he knows what has become of the boy."
+
+Thomas was ordered to find Macintosh and send him in. He came presently,
+shy and sheepish, as usual. Standing just inside the door, he blinked
+his eyes and rubbed his hands one over the other, like an idiot. It was
+only his way.
+
+"Do you know where David Garth is?" began the Squire, who thought
+himself a regular Q.C. at cross-examining. Luke stared and said No. The
+fact was, he had not heard that David was missing.
+
+"What time was it that you put him out of the window the night before
+last?"
+
+Luke's eyes and mouth opened. He had no more idea what the Squire meant
+than the man in the moon.
+
+"Don't stand there as if you were a born simpleton, but answer me,"
+commanded the Squire. "When you and David Garth were put into Hill's new
+cottage to take care of the things for the night, how came you to let
+the boy out of it? Why did you do it? Upon what plea?"
+
+"But I didn't do it, sir," said Luke.
+
+"Now don't you stand there and say that to my face, Macintosh. It won't
+answer; for I know all about it. You put that poor shivering boy out at
+the window that you might be off yourself; that's about the English of
+it. Where did he go to?"
+
+"But I couldn't do it, sir," was Luke's answer to this. "I was not in
+the place myself."
+
+"You were not there yourself?"
+
+"No, sir, I warn't. Knowing I should have to go off with the waggon
+pretty early, I went down and telled Hill that I should sleep at home."
+
+"Do you mean to say you did not go into Hill's place at all?"
+
+"No, sir, I didn't. I conclude Hill slept there hisself. I know nothing
+about it, for I don't happen to have come across Hill since. I've kept
+out of his way."
+
+This was a new turn to the affair. Luke quitted the room, and a silence
+ensued. Mrs. Todhetley touched me on the shoulder.
+
+"Johnny?"
+
+"Yes!" I said, wondering at the startled look in her eyes.
+
+"I hope Hill did not put that poor child into the house alone! If so, no
+wonder that he made his escape from it."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The matter could not rest. One talked, and another talked: and before
+noon next day it was known all over the place that David Garth had been
+put to sleep by himself in the empty cottage. Miss Timmens attacked Hill
+with her strong tongue, and told him it was enough to frighten the child
+to death. Hill was sullen. He would answer nothing; and all she could
+get out of him was, that it was no business of hers. In vain she
+demanded his reasons for saying the boy had gone to Worcester by the
+early train: whether he sent him--whether he saw him off. Hill said
+David did go; and then took refuge in dogged silence.
+
+The schoolmistress was not one to be played with. Of a tenacious turn,
+she followed out things with a will. She called in the police; she
+harangued people outside her door; she set the parish in a ferment. But
+David could not be heard of, high or low. Since the midnight hour, when
+that call of his awoke his mother, and was again repeated, he seemed to
+have vanished.
+
+There arose a rumour that Jim Batley could tell something. Miss Timmens
+pounced upon him as he was going by the school-house, conveyed him
+indoors, and ordered him to make a clean breast of it. It was not much
+that Jim had to tell: but that little seemed of importance to Miss
+Timmens, and he told it readily. One thing Jim persisted in--that the
+boots he saw through the skylight must have been David's boots. Hill had
+called them his, he said, but they were not big enough--not men's boots
+at all. Hill was looking "ghastly white," as if he had had a fright, Jim
+added, when he told him David was gone off to Worcester.
+
+Perhaps it was in that moment that a fear of something worse than had
+been yet suspected dawned upon Miss Timmens. Tying on her bonnet, she
+came up to Crabb Cot, and asked to see the Squire.
+
+"It is getting more serious," she said, after old Thomas had shown her
+in. "I think, sir, Hill should be forced to explain what he knows. I
+have come here to ask you to insist upon it."
+
+"The question is--what does he know?" rejoined the Squire.
+
+"More than he has confessed," said Miss Timmens, in her positive manner.
+"Jim Batley stands to it that those boots must, from the size, have been
+David's boots. Now, Squire Todhetley, if David's boots were there, where
+was David? That is what's lying on my mind, sir."
+
+"What did Jim Batley see besides the boots?" asked the Squire.
+
+"Nothing in particular," she answered. "He said the cupboard door stood
+open, and hid the best part of the room. David would not be likely to
+run away and leave his boots behind him."
+
+"Unless he was in too great a fright to stop to put them on."
+
+"I don't think that, sir."
+
+"What is it you wish to imply?" asked the Squire, not seeing the drift
+of the argument.
+
+"I wish I knew myself," replied Miss Timmens, candidly. "I am certain
+Hill has not told all he could tell: he has been deceitful over it from
+the first, and he must be made to explain. Look here, sir: when he got
+to Willow Cottage that morning, there's no doubt he thought David was in
+it. Very well. He goes in to call him; stays a bit, and then comes out
+and tells young Jim that David has gone to Worcester. How was he to
+know David had gone to Worcester?--who told him? The boy says, too, that
+Hill looked ghastly, as if he had been frightened."
+
+"David must have gone somewhere, or he would have been in the room,"
+argued the Squire. "He would not be likely to go back after quitting it,
+and his mother heard him call to her in the middle of the night."
+
+"Just so, sir. But--if Hill did not find him, why should he come out and
+assert that David had started for Worcester?--Why not have said David
+had escaped?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know."
+
+"It's the boots that come over me," avowed Miss Timmens; "I can't come
+to the bottom of them. I mean to come to the bottom of Hill, though, and
+make him disclose what he knows. You are his master, sir, and perhaps he
+will tell you without trouble, if you will please to be so good as
+question him. If he won't, I'll have him brought up before the Bench."
+
+Away went Miss Timmens, with a parting remark that the school must be
+rampant by that time. The Squire sat thinking a bit, and then put on his
+hat and great-coat, telling me I might come with him and hear what Hill
+had to say. We expected to find Hill in the ploughed field between his
+cottage and North Crabb. But Hill was in his own garden; we saw him as
+we went along. Without ceremony, the Squire opened the wooden gate, and
+stepped in. Hill was raking the leaves together by the shed at the end
+of the garden.
+
+He threw down the rake when he saw us, as if startled, his red face
+turning white. Coming forward, he began a confused excuse for being
+at home at that hour of the day, saying there was so much to do when
+getting into a fresh place; and that he had not been well for two days,
+"had had a sickness upon him." The Squire, never hard with the men, told
+him he was welcome to be there, and began talking about the garden.
+
+"It is as rich a bit of land, Hill, as any in the parish, and you may
+turn it to good account if you are industrious. Does your wife intend to
+keep chickens?"
+
+"Well, sir, I suppose she will. Town-bred women don't understand far
+about 'em, though. It may be a'most as much loss as profit."
+
+"Nonsense," said the Squire, in his quick way. "Loss! when you have
+every convenience about you! This used to be the fowl-house in Hopton's
+time," he added, rapping the side of the shed with his stick. "Why!
+you've been putting a padlock on it, Hill!"
+
+For the door was fastened with a padlock; a new one, to judge by its
+look. Hill made no comment. He had taken up the rake again and was
+raking vigorously at the dead leaves. I wondered what he was shaking
+for.
+
+"Have you any treasures here, that you should lock it up?"
+
+"Only the watering-can, sir, and a few o' my garden tools," answered
+Hill. "There's a heap of loose characters about, and nothing's safe from
+'em."
+
+Putting his back against the shed, the Squire suddenly called on Hill to
+face him, and entered on the business he had come upon. "Where was David
+Garth? Did he, Hill, know anything about him?"
+
+Hill had looked pale before; I said so; but that was nothing to the
+frightful whiteness that took him now. Ears, lips, neck; all turned the
+hue of the dead. The rake shook in his grasp; his teeth chattered.
+
+"Come, Hill," said the Squire; "I see you have something to say."
+
+But Hill protested he had nothing to say: except that the boy's absence
+puzzled him. The Squire put some home questions upon the points spoken
+of by Miss Timmens, showing Hill that we knew all. He then told him he
+might take his choice; answer, or go before the magistrates.
+
+Apparently Hill saw the futility of holding out longer. His very aspect
+would have convicted him, as the Squire said: if he had committed
+murder, he could not have looked more guilty. Glancing shudderingly
+around on all sides, as though the air had phantoms in it, he whispered
+his version of the morning's work.
+
+It was true that he _had_ gone to the house expecting to find David in
+it; and it was true that when he entered he found him flown. Not wishing
+to alarm the boy's mother, he told Jim Batley that David had gone by
+early train to Worcester: he told the mother so. As to the boots, Hill
+declared they were his own, not David's; and that Jim's eyes must have
+been deceived in the size. And he vowed and declared he knew no more
+than this, or where David could have got to.
+
+"What do you think you deserve for locking the child in the house by
+himself?" asked the Squire, sternly.
+
+"Everything that'll come upon me through it," readily acknowledged Hill.
+"I could cut my hands off now for having done it; but I never thought
+he'd be really frightened. It's just as if his ghost had been haunting
+me ever since; I see him a-following of me everywhere."
+
+"His ghost!" exclaimed the Squire. "Do you suppose he is dead?"
+
+"I don't know," said the man, passing his shaking hand across his damp
+forehead. "I wish to Heaven I had let him go off to his grandmother's
+that same blessed night!"
+
+"Then you wish me to understand, Hill, that you absolutely know nothing
+of where the boy may be?"
+
+"Nothing at all, sir."
+
+"Don't you think it might have been as well if you had told the truth
+from the first?" asked the Squire, rather sarcastically.
+
+"Well, sir, one's mind gets confused at times, and I thought of his
+mother. I could not be off seeing that if anything had happened, it lay
+on my shoulders for having left him alone, in there."
+
+Whether the Squire believed Hill could tell more, I don't know. I did.
+As we went on to the school-house, the Pater kept silence. Miss Timmens
+was frightfully disappointed at the result, and said Hill was a shifty
+scoundrel.
+
+"I cannot tell what to think," the Squire remarked to her. "His manner
+is the strangest I ever saw; it is just as though he had something on
+his conscience. He said the boy's ghost seemed to haunt him. Did you
+notice that, Johnny?"
+
+"Yes, sir. A queer idea."
+
+"He--he--never could have found David dead in the morning?" cried Miss
+Timmens, in a low tone, herself turning a little pale. "Dead of fright?"
+
+"That could not be," said the Squire. "You forget that David had made
+his escape before midnight, and was at his mother's, calling to her."
+
+"True, true," assented Miss Timmens. "Any way, I am certain Hill is
+somehow or other deceiving us, and he is a born villain for doing it."
+
+But Hill, deceiving us though he had been, could not hold out. In going
+back, we saw him leaning over the palings waiting for us. But that the
+man is living yet, I should have said he was going to die there and
+then, for he looked exactly like it.
+
+It seemed that just after we left him, a policeman had made his
+appearance. Not as a policeman, but as a friend; for he and Hill were
+cronies. He told Hill confidentially that there was "going to be a row
+over that there lost boy; that folks were saying that he might have been
+murdered; that unless Hill could tell something satisfactory about him,
+he and others might be in custody before the day was over." Whether Hill
+found himself brought to a point from which there was neither advance
+nor retreat, or that he inevitably saw that concealment could no longer
+be maintained, or that he was stricken to despair and felt helpless, I
+know not. There he stood, his head over the palings, saying he would
+tell all.
+
+It was a sad tale to listen to. Miss Timmens's last supposition was
+right--Hill, upon going up to release David Garth, had found him dead.
+And, so far as the man's experience of death went, he must have been
+dead for six or seven hours.
+
+"I'd like you to come and see him, sir," panted Hill.
+
+Gingerly stepped the Squire in Hill's wake across the garden to the
+shed. Unlocking the door, Hill stepped back for us to enter. On a
+mattress on the ground was David, laid straight in his every-day
+clothes, and covered with a blanket; his pretty hair, which his mother
+had so loved, carefully smoothed. Hill,--rough, burly, cross-grained
+Hill,--burst into tears and sobbed like a child.
+
+"I'd give my life to undo it, and bring him back again, Squire; I'd give
+my life twice over, Master Johnny; but I declare before Heaven, I never
+thought to harm the boy. When I see him the next morning, lying dead,
+I'd not have minded if the Lord had struck me dead too. I've been a'most
+mad ever since."
+
+"Johnny," said the Squire, in low tones, "go you to South Crabb, and
+bring over Mr. Cole. Do not talk of this."
+
+The surgeon was at home, and came back with me. I did not quite
+understand why the Squire sent for him, seeing he could do no good.
+
+And the boots were David's, after all; the only things he had taken off.
+Hill had brought him to this shed the next night; with some vague idea
+of burying him in the ground under the leaves. "But I couldn't do it,"
+he avowed amid his sobs; "I couldn't do it."
+
+There was an examination, Cole and another making it; and they gave
+evidence at the inquest. One of them (it was Cole) thought the boy must
+have died from fright, the other from the cold; and a nice muff this
+last must have been.
+
+"I did not from the first like that midnight call, or the apparently
+causeless terror the poor mother awoke in," said Mrs. Todhetley, to me.
+"The child's spirit must have cried out to her in his death-agony. I
+have known a case like this before."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Johnny, You have not lived long enough to gain
+experience of these things."
+
+And I held it.
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+DAVID GARTH'S GHOST.
+
+
+"Is it true that she's going to marry him, Miss Timmens?"
+
+"True! _I_ don't know," retorted Miss Timmens, in wrath. "It won't be
+for lack of warning, if she does. I told her so last night; and she
+tossed her head in answer. She's a vain, heartless girl, Hannah Baber,
+with no more prudence about her than a female ostrich."
+
+"There may be nothing in it, after all," said Hannah. "She is generally
+ready to flirt, you know."
+
+"Flirt!" shrieked Miss Timmens in her shrillest tone. "She'd flirt with
+a two-legged wheelbarrow if it had trousers on."
+
+This colloquy was taking place at the private door of the school-house.
+And you must understand that we have gone back a few months, for at this
+time David Garth was not dead. Hannah, who had gone down from Crabb Cot
+on an errand, came upon Miss Timmens standing there to look out. Of
+course she stayed to gossip.
+
+The object of Miss Timmens's wrath was her niece, Harriet Roe. A vain,
+showy, handsome, free-natured girl, as you have heard, with bright dark
+eyes and white teeth--who had helped to work the mischief between Maria
+Lease and Daniel Ferrar which had led to Ferrar's dreadful death.
+Humphrey Roe, Harriet's father, was half-brother to Miss Timmens and
+Mrs. Hill; he had settled in France, and married a Frenchwoman. Miss
+Harriet chose to call herself French, and politely said the English were
+not fit to tie that nation's shoes. Perhaps that was why she had now
+taken up with a cousin, Louis Roe. Not that Louis Roe was really French:
+he had been born in France of English parents, and so was next door to
+it. A fashionable-looking young man North Crabb considered him, for he
+wore well-cut coats and a moustache. A moustache was a thing to be
+stared at in simple country places then. It may have had something to
+do with Miss Timmens's dislike to the young man. Louis Roe was only a
+distant relative: a tenth cousin, or so; of whom Miss Timmens had heard
+before, but never seen. When he appeared unexpectedly one January day
+at the school-house (it was the January after Daniel Ferrar's death),
+ostensibly to see Harriet, whom he had known in France, Miss Timmens,
+between surprise and the moustache, was less gracious than she might
+have been. From that time to this--March--he had (as Miss Timmens put
+it) haunted the place, though chiefly taking up his abode at Worcester.
+Harriet had struck into a flirtation with him at once, after her native
+fashion: and now it was reported that they were going to be married.
+Miss Timmens could not find out that he was doing anything for a living.
+He talked of his fine "affaires" over in France: but when she questioned
+him of what nature the "affaires" were, he either evaded her like an
+eel, or gave rambling answers that she could make neither head nor tail
+of. The way in which he and Harriet would jabber French in her presence,
+not a word of which language could she comprehend, and the laughing
+that went on at the same time, put Miss Timmens's back up worse than
+anything, for she thought they were making game of her. She could be
+tart when she pleased; and when that happened, the redness in the nose
+and cheek grew redder. Very tart indeed was she, recounting these
+grievances to Hannah.
+
+"My firm belief, Hannah Baber, is, that he wants to get hold of Harriet
+for her two-hundred pounds. She has that much, you know: it came to her
+from her mother. Roe would rather play the gentleman than work. It is
+the money he's after, not Harriet."
+
+"The money may put him into some good way of business, and they may live
+comfortably together," suggested Hannah.
+
+"Pigs may fly," returned Miss Timmens. "There's something in that
+young man, Hannah Baber, that I could not trust. Oh, but girls are
+wilful!--and simple, at the best, where the men are concerned! They
+can't see an inch beyond their noses: no, and they won't let others,
+who have sight, see for them. Look there!"
+
+Emerging into the spring sunshine from the withy walk, came the
+gentleman in question; Harriet Roe in her gay ribbons at his side. Miss
+Timmens gave her door a bang, regardless of good manners, and Hannah
+pursued her way.
+
+The road thus paved for it, North Crabb church was not taken by surprise
+when it heard the marriage banns read out one Sunday morning between
+Louis Roe, of the parish of St. Swithin, Worcester (he was staying there
+at the time), and Henriette Adèle Marie Roe. Miss Timmens, who had not
+been taken into confidence, started violently; Mademoiselle Henriette
+Adèle Marie, sitting by her side, held up her head and her blooming
+cheeks with unruffled equanimity. It was said there was a scene when
+they got home: Miss Timmens's sister (once Mrs. Garth, but then our
+bailiff's wife, James Hill) looking in at the school-house to assist
+at it. Neither of them could make anything of Harriet.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Aunt Susan and Aunt Nancy," said the girl
+passionately, when her temper got roused: "_my mind is made up to marry
+Louis_; and if you don't drop this magging now and for good; if you
+attempt to worry me any further, I'll go off to Worcester, and stay with
+him till the day arrives. There! how would you like that? I will, I
+declare. It would be thought nothing at all of in my country, with the
+wedding so near."
+
+This shut them up. Mrs. Hill, a meek, gentle little woman, who had her
+sorrows, and habitually let Miss Timmens do all the talking when they
+were together, began to cry. Harriet ate her cold dinner standing, and
+went off for an afternoon promenade with Monsieur Louis. From that time,
+even Miss Timmens gave up all thought of opposition, seeing that events
+must take their course. Harriet's parents were dead; she was over age,
+and her own mistress in the eye of the law.
+
+"Would you mind taking a turn with me in the withy walk, Harriet Roe?"
+asked Maria Lease, as they were coming out of church that same night.
+
+Harriet was alone. Louis Roe had gone back to Worcester. The request
+surprised her considerably. Since Daniel Ferrar's death the past
+November, Maria had been very distant with her; averting her head if
+they happened to meet.
+
+"So you have come to your senses, have you, Maria Lease?" was the half
+insolent, half good-natured answer. "I'll walk down it with you if you
+like."
+
+"Come to my senses in what way?" asked Maria, in low, subdued, sad
+tones, as they went towards the withy walk.
+
+"About--_you_ know what. You blamed _me_ for what happened. As good as
+laid his death at my door."
+
+"Did you ever hear me say so?"
+
+"Oh, I could see: your manner was enough. As if I either helped it
+on--or could have prevented it! We used to have just a bit of talking
+and laughing together, he and I, but that was all."
+
+That's all! And the gold chain was still on Harriet's neck. Maria
+suppressed a sigh.
+
+"Whether I blamed you for it, Harriet Roe, or whether I blamed myself,
+is of no moment now. The past can never be recalled or redeemed in this
+world--its remembrance alone remains. I want to do you a little service,
+Harriet. Nothing may come of it, but it is my duty to speak."
+
+Amidst the shadows of the withy beds, under the silent stars, Maria
+spoke, dropping her voice to a whisper. In a sufficiently curious but
+accidental manner, she had heard something said the previous week about
+Louis Roe. A stranger, who had known him in France, spoke very much
+in his disfavour. He said that any girl, if she cared for her future
+happiness and credit would be mad to unite herself to him. Maria had
+asked no particulars; they might not have been given if she had; but the
+impression of Louis Roe left on her mind was not a good one. All this
+she quietly repeated to Harriet. It was received in anything but a
+friendly spirit.
+
+"Thank you for nothing, Maria Lease. Because you lost your own
+husband--that was to have been--you think you'll try what you can do
+to deprive me of mine. A slice of revenge, I suppose: but it won't
+succeed."
+
+"Harriet, you are mistaken," rejoined Maria; and Miss Harriet thought
+she had never in her life heard so mournfully sad a tone as the words
+were spoken in. "So much self-reproach fell upon me that bitter evening
+when he was found dead: reproach that can never be lifted from me while
+time shall last: that I do not think I can ever again do an ill turn in
+this life, or give an unkind word. The whole world does not seem to be
+as sinful in its wickedness as I was in my harsh unkindness; and there's
+no sort of expiation left to me. If I pass my whole existence laying my
+hands under other people's feet in humble hope to serve them, it cannot
+undo the bitterness of my passion when I exposed him before Johnny
+Ludlow. The exposure was more than he could bear; and he--he put an end
+to it. I suffer always, Harriet Roe; my days are one prolonged burning
+agony of repentance. Repentance that brings no relief."
+
+"My goodness!" cried Harriet, her breath almost scared away at hearing
+this, careless-natured though she was. "I'll tell you what, Maria: I
+should turn Roman Catholic in your place; and let a priest absolve me
+from the sin."
+
+A priest absolve her from the sin! The strange anguish on her compressed
+lips was visible as Maria Lease turned her face upwards in the
+starlight. ONE Most High and merciful Priest was ever there, who could,
+and would, wash out her sin. But--what of Daniel Ferrar, who had died in
+his?
+
+"If there is one person whom I would more especially seek in kindness
+to serve, it is you, Harriet," she resumed, putting her hand gently
+on Harriet's arm--and her fingers accidentally touched the chain
+that Daniel Ferrar had hung round the girl's neck in his perfidy.
+"Revenge!--from me!"
+
+"The very idea of my giving up Louis is absurd," was Harriet's
+rejoinder, as they came out of the withy walk. "Thank you all the
+same, Maria Lease; and there's my hand. I see now that you meant
+kindly: but no one shall set me against my promised husband."
+
+Maria shook the hand in silence.
+
+"Look here, Maria--don't go and tell your beautiful scandal to sharp
+Susan Timmens. Not that I care whether you do or not, except on the
+score of contention. She would strike up fresh opposition, and it might
+come to scratching and fighting. My temper has borne enough: one can't
+be a lamb always."
+
+The wedding came off on Easter Tuesday. Harriet wore a bright silk
+dress, the colour of lilac, with a wreath and veil. When the latter
+ornaments came home, Miss Timmens nearly fainted. Decent young women in
+their station of life were married in bonnets, she represented: not in
+wreaths and veils. But Harriet Roe, reared to French customs, said
+bonnets could never be admissible for a bride, and she'd sooner go to
+church in a coal-scuttle. The Batley girls, in trains and straw-hats,
+were bridesmaids. Miss Timmens wore a new shawl and white gloves; and
+poor little David Garth--who was to die of fright before that same year
+came to an end--stood with his hand locked in his mother's.
+
+And so, in the self-same church where she had sat displaying her graces
+before the ill-fated Daniel Ferrar, and by the same young clergyman who
+had preached to her then, Harriet became the wife of Louis Roe, and went
+away with him to London.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next move in the chain of events was the death of David Garth in
+Willow Cottage. It occurred in November, when Tod and I were staying
+at home, and has been already told of. James Hill escaped without
+punishment: it was said there was no law to touch him. He protested
+through thick and thin that he meant no harm to the boy; to do him
+justice, it was not supposed he had: he was finely repentant for it,
+and escaped with a reprimand.
+
+Mrs. Hill refused to remain in the cottage. What with her innate
+tendency to superstition, with the real facts of the case, and with that
+strange belief--that David's spirit had appeared to her in the moment of
+dying; a belief firm and fixed as adamant--she passed into a state of
+horror of the dwelling. Not another night could she remain in it. The
+doctor himself, Cole, said she must not. Miss Timmens took her in as a
+temporary thing; until the furniture could be replaced in their former
+house, which was not let. Hill made no objection to this. For that
+matter, he seemed afraid of the new place himself, and was glad to get
+back to the old one. All his native surliness had left him for the time:
+he was as a subdued man whose tongue has departed on an excursion. You
+see, he had feared the law might come down upon him. The coroner's
+inquest had brought in a safe verdict: all Hill received was a censure
+for having locked the boy in alone: but he could not yet feel sure that
+the affair would not be taken up by the magistrates: and the parish said
+in his hearing that his punishment ought to be transportation at the
+very least. Altogether, it subdued him.
+
+So, as soon as David's funeral was over, and while his wife was still
+with Miss Timmens, Hill began to move back his goods in a sort of humble
+silence. Crowds collected to see the transport, much to Hill's annoyance
+and discomfiture. The calamity had caused intense excitement in the
+place; and Miss Timmens, who had a very long tongue, and hated Hill just
+as much as she had loved David, kept up the ball. Hill's intention was
+to lock up Willow Cottage until he could get Mr. Todhetley to release
+him from it. At present he dared not ask: all of us at Crabb Cot,
+from the Squire downwards, were bitterly against him for his wicked
+inhumanity to poor David.
+
+Curious to say--curious because of what was to happen out of it--as Hill
+was loading the truck with the last remaining things, a stranger came up
+to the cottage door. Just at the first moment, Hill did not recognize
+him; he had shaved off his moustache and whiskers, and grown a beard
+instead. And that alters people.
+
+"How are you, Hill? What are you up to here?"
+
+It was Louis Roe--who had married Mademoiselle Henriette the previous
+Easter. Where they had been since, or what they had done, was a sort of
+mystery, for Harriet had written only one letter. By that letter, it was
+gathered that they were flourishing in London: but no address was given,
+and Miss Timmens had called her a heartless jade, not to want to hear
+from her best relatives.
+
+Hill answered that he was pretty well, and went on loading; but said
+nothing to the other question. Louis Roe--perceiving sundry straggling
+spectators who stood peering, as if the loading of a hand-barrow with
+goods were a raree-show--rather wondered at appearances, and asked
+again. Hill shortly explained then that they had moved into Willow
+Cottage; but his wife found it didn't suit her, and so they were moving
+back again to the old home.
+
+He went off with the truck, before he had well answered, giving no time
+for further colloquy. Louis Roe happened to come across young Jim Batley
+amidst the tag-rag, and heard from him all that had occurred.
+
+"He must be a cruel devil, to leave a timid child all night in a
+house alone!" was Mr. Roe's indignant comment; who, whatever his
+shortcomings might be in the eyes of Miss Timmens, was not thought
+to be hard-hearted.
+
+"His mother, she sees his ghost," went on Jim Batley. "Leastways, heered
+it."
+
+Mr. Roe took no notice of this additional communication. Perhaps ghosts
+held a low place in his creed--and he appeared to have plunged into a
+reverie. Starting out of it in a minute or two, he ran after Hill, and
+began talking in a low, business tone.
+
+Hill could not believe his ears. Surely such luck had never befallen a
+miserable man! For here was Louis Roe offering to take Willow Cottage
+off his hands: to become his, Hill's, tenant for a short time. The
+double rent; this, and that for the old house he was returning to; had
+been weighing upon Hill's mind as heavily as David weighed upon it. The
+man had saved plenty of money, but he was of a close nature. Squire
+Todhetley was a generous man; but Hill felt conscious that he had
+displeased him too much to expect any favour at present.
+
+"What d'ye want of the cottage?" asked Hill, suppressing all signs of
+satisfaction. "Be you and Harriet a-coming to live down here?"
+
+"We should like to stay here for a few weeks--say till the dead of
+winter's over," replied Roe. "London is a beastly dull place in bad
+weather; the fogs don't agree with Harriet. I had thought of taking two
+or three rooms at Birmingham: but I don't know but she'll like this
+cottage best--if you will let me have it cheap."
+
+It would be cheap enough. For Hill named the very moderate rent he
+had agreed to pay the Squire. Only too glad was he, to get that. Roe
+promised to pay him monthly.
+
+North Crabb was electrified at the news. Mr. and Mrs. Roe were coming to
+stay in the cottage where poor David Garth had just died. No time was
+lost over it, either. On the following day some hired furniture was put
+into it, and Harriet herself arrived.
+
+She was looking very ill. And I'm sure if she had appeared with a beard
+as well as her husband, her face could not have seemed more changed. Not
+her face only, but her manners. Instead of figuring off in silks and
+ribbons, finer than the stars, laughing with every one she met, and
+throwing her handsome eyes about, she wore only plain things, and went
+along noticing no one. Some people called it "pride;" Miss Timmens said
+it was disappointment. The first time Tod and I met her, she never
+lifted her eyes at all. Tod would have stayed to speak; but she just
+said, "Good morning, gentlemen," and went on.
+
+"I say, Johnny, there's some change there," was Tod's remark, as he
+turned to look after her.
+
+They had been in the place about a week--and Roe seemed to keep indoors,
+or else was away, for no one ever saw him--when a strange turn arose,
+that was destined to set the neighbourhood in an uproar. I was running
+past the school-house one evening at dusk, and saw Maria Lease sitting
+with Miss Timmens by fire-light. Liking Maria very much--for I always
+did like her, and always shall--I went bolt in to them. James Hill's
+wife was also there, in her mourning gown with crape on it, sitting
+right back in the chimney corner. She had gone back to Hill then, but
+made no scruple of leaving him alone often: and Hill, who had had his
+lesson, put up with it. And you would never guess; no, not though you
+had tried from then till Midsummer; what they were whispering about, as
+though scared out of their seven senses.
+
+David Garth's ghost was haunting Willow Cottage.
+
+Miss Timmens was telling the story; the others listened with open
+mouths. She began at the beginning again for my benefit.
+
+"I was sitting by myself here about this time last evening, Master
+Johnny, having dismissed the children, and almost too tired with their
+worry to get my own tea, when Harriet Roe came gliding in at the door,
+looking whiter than a sheet, and startling me beyond everything. 'Aunt
+Susan,' says she in so indistinct a tone that I should have boxed one of
+the girls had she attempted to use such, 'would you take pity on me and
+let me stay here till to-morrow morning? Louis went away this afternoon,
+and I dare not stop alone in the place all night.' 'What are you afraid
+of?' I asked, not telling her at once that she might stay; but down she
+sat, and threw her mantle and bonnet off--taking French leave. I never
+saw _her_ in such a state before," continued Miss Timmens vehemently;
+"shivering and shaking as if she had an ague, and not a particle of her
+impudence left in her. 'I think that place must be damp with the willow
+brook, aunt,' says she; 'it gives me a sensation of cold.' 'Now don't
+you talk nonsense about your willow brooks, Harriet Roe,' says I. 'You
+are not shaking for willow brooks, or for cold either, but from fright.
+What is it?' 'Well then,' says she, plucking up a bit, 'I'm afraid of
+seeing the boy.' 'What boy?' says I--'not David?' 'Yes; David,' she
+says, and trembles worse than ever. 'He appeared to Aunt Nancy; a sign
+he is not at rest; and he is as sure to be in the house as sure can be.
+Dying in the way he did, and lying hid in the shed as he did, what else
+is to be expected?' Well, Master Johnny, this all seemed to me very
+odd--as I've just observed to Nancy," continued Miss Timmens. "It struck
+me, sir, there was more behind. 'Harriet,' says I, 'have you _seen_
+David Garth?' But at first no satisfactory answer could I get from her,
+neither yes nor no. At last she said she had not seen him, but knew she
+should if she stayed in the house by herself at night, for that he came
+again, and was _in_ it. It struck me she was speaking falsely; and that
+she _had_ seen him; or what she took for him."
+
+"I know she has; I feel convinced of it," spoke up poor Mrs. Hill,
+tilting back her black bonnet--worn for David--to wipe the tears from
+her eyes. "Master Ludlow, don't smile, sir--though it's best perhaps for
+the young to disbelieve these solemn things. As surely as that we are
+talking here, my dear boy's spirit came to me in the moment of his
+death. I feared it might take to haunting the cottage, sir; and that's
+one reason why I could not stay in it."
+
+"Yes; Harriet has seen him," interposed Maria Lease in low, firm tones.
+"Just as I saw Daniel Ferrar. Master Johnny, _you_ know I saw _him_."
+
+Well, truth to say, I thought she must have seen Daniel Ferrar. Having
+assisted at the sight--or if not at the actual sight, at the place and
+time and circumstance attending it--I did not see how else it was to be
+explained away.
+
+"Where's Harriet now?" I asked.
+
+"She stayed here last night, and went off by rail this morning to her
+grandmother's at Worcester," replied Miss Timmens. "Mother will be glad
+of her for a day or so, for she keeps her bed still."
+
+"Then who is in the cottage?"
+
+"Nobody, sir. It's locked up. Roe is expected back to-morrow."
+
+Miss Timmens began to set her tea-things, and I left them. Whom should I
+come upon in the road, but Tod--who had been over to South Crabb. I told
+him all this; and we took the broad path home through the fields, which
+led us past Willow Cottage. The fun Tod made of what the women had been
+saying, was beyond everything. A dreary dwelling, it looked; cold, and
+deserted, and solitary in the dusky night, on which the moon was rising.
+The back looked towards Crabb Ravine and the three-cornered grove in
+which Daniel Ferrar had taken his own life away; and to the barn where
+Maria had seen Ferrar after death. In front was the large field, bleak
+and bare; and beyond, the scattered chimneys of North Crabb. A lively
+dwelling altogether!--let alone what had happened in it to David Garth.
+I said so.
+
+"Yes, it is a lively spot!" acquiesced Tod. "Beautifully lively in
+itself, without having the reputation of being haunted. Eugh! Let's get
+home to dinner, Johnny."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Coney and Tom came in after dinner. Old Coney and the
+Squire smoked till tea-time. When tea was over we all sat down to Pope
+Joan. Mr. Coney kept mistaking hearts for diamonds, clubs for spades;
+he had not his spectacles, and I offered to fetch them. Upon that, he
+set upon Tom for being lazy and letting Johnny Ludlow do what it was
+his place to do. The result was, that Tom Coney and I had a race which
+should reach the farm first. The night was bright, the moon high.
+Coming back with the spectacles, a man encountered us, tearing along
+as fast as we were. And that was like mad.
+
+"Halloa!" cried Tom. "What's up."
+
+Tom had cause to ask it. The man was Luke Macintosh: and never in all
+my life had I seen a specimen of such terror. His face was white, his
+breath came in gasps. Without saying with your leave or by your leave,
+he caught hold of Tom Coney's arm.
+
+"Master, as I be a living sinner, I ha' just seen Davy Garth."
+
+"Seen David Garth?" echoed Tom, wondering whether Luke had been
+drinking.
+
+"I see him as plain as plain. He be at that end window o' the Willow
+Cottage."
+
+"Do you mean his ghost, or himself?" asked Tom, making game of it.
+
+"Why, his ghost, in course, sir. It's well known hisself be dead and
+buried--worse luck! Mercy on us!--I'd ha' lost a month's wages rather
+nor see this."
+
+Considering Luke Macintosh was so great a coward that he would not go
+through the Ravine after nightfall, this was not much from him. Neither
+had his conscience been quite easy since David's death: as it may be
+said that he, through refusing at the last moment to sleep in the house,
+had in a degree been the remote cause of it. His account was this:
+Passing the Willow Cottage on his way from North Crabb, he happened to
+look up at the end window, and saw David standing there all in white in
+the moonlight.
+
+"I never see nothing plainer in all my born days, never," gasped Luke.
+"His poor little face hadn't no more colour in it nor chalk. Drat them
+ghosts and goblins, then! What does they come and show theirselves to
+decent folk for?"
+
+He was trembling just as Miss Timmens, some three hours before, had
+described Harriet Roe to have trembled. An idea flashed into my mind.
+
+"Now, Luke, just you confess--who is it that has put this into your
+head?" I asked. But Luke only stared at me: he seemed unable to
+understand.
+
+"Some one has been telling you this to-night at North Crabb?"
+
+"Telling me what, Master Ludlow?"
+
+"That David Garth is haunting the cottage. It is what people are saying,
+Tom," I added to Coney.
+
+"Then, Master Johnny, I never heered a blessed syllable on't," he
+replied; and so earnestly that it was not possible to doubt him. "Nobody
+have said nothing to me. For the matter o' that, I didn't stop to talk
+to a soul, but just put Molly's letter in the window slit--which was
+what I went for--and turned back again. I wish the woman had ha' been
+skinned afore she'd got me to go off to the post for her to-night.
+Plague on me, to have took the way past the cottage! as if the road
+warn't good enough to ha' served me!--and a sight straighter!"
+
+"Were there lights in the cottage, Luke?" asked Coney. "Did you see the
+Roes about?"
+
+"There warn't no more sign o' light or life a-nigh the place, Mr. Tom,
+no more nor if they'd all been dead and buried inside it."
+
+"It is shut up, Tom," I said. "Roe and his wife are away."
+
+"Lawk a mercy!--not a living creature in it but the ghost!" quaked Luke.
+
+As I have said, this was not much from Luke, taking what he was into
+consideration; but it was to be confirmed by others. One of the Coneys'
+maid-servants came along, as we stood there, on her way from North
+Crabb. A sensible, respectable woman, with no nonsense about her in
+general; but she looked almost as scared as Luke now.
+
+"You don't mean to say _you_ have seen it, Dinah?" cried Tom, staring at
+her.
+
+"Yes, I have, sir."
+
+"What! seen David Garth?"
+
+"Well, I suppose it was him. It was something at the window, in white,
+that looked like him, Mr. Tom."
+
+"Did you go on purpose to look for it, Dinah?" asked Tom ironically.
+
+"The way I happened to go was this, sir. James Hill overtook me coming
+out of North Crabb: he was going up to Willow Cottage to speak to Roe;
+and I thought I'd walk with him, instead of taking the road. Not but
+what he's a beauty to walk with, _he_ is, after his cruelty to his
+wife's boy," broke off Dinah: "but company is company on a solitary road
+at night. When we got to the cottage, Hill knocked; I stayed a minute to
+say how-d'ye-do to Mrs. Roe, for I've not seen her yet. Nobody answered
+the door; the place looked all dark and empty. 'They must be out for the
+evening, I should think,' says Hill: and with that he steps back and
+looks up at the windows. 'Lord be good to us! what's that?' says he,
+when he had got round where he could see the end casement. I went to
+him, and found him standing like a pump, just as stiff and upright, his
+hands clutched hold of one another, and his eyes staring up at the panes
+in mortal terror. 'What is it?' says I. 'It's Davvy,' says he; but the
+voice didn't sound like Hill's voice, and it scared me a bit. 'Yes, it's
+him,' says Hill; 'he have got on the sheet as was wrapped round him to
+carry him to the shed. I--I lodged him again that there window to make
+the turning; the stairs was awk'ard,' went on Hill, as if he was
+speaking again the grain, but couldn't help himself.--And sure enough,
+Mr. Tom--sure enough, Master Ludlow, there was David."
+
+"Nonsense, Dinah!" cried Tom Coney.
+
+"I saw him quite well, sir, in the white sheet," said Dinah. "The moon
+was shining on the window a'most as bright as day."
+
+"It were brighter nor day," eagerly put in Luke Macintosh. "You'll
+believe me now, Mr. Tom."
+
+"I'd not believe it if I saw it," said Tom Coney.
+
+"As we stood looking up, me laying hold of Hill's arm," resumed Dinah,
+as if she had not told all her tale, "there came a loud whistling and
+shouting behind. Which was young Jim Batley, bringing some message from
+them sisters of his to Harriet Roe. I bade him hush his noise, but he
+only danced and mocked at me; so then I told him the cottage was empty,
+except for David Garth. That hushed him. He came stealing up, and stood
+by me, staring. You should have seen his face change, Mr. Tom."
+
+"Was he frightened?"
+
+"Frightened is hardly the word for it, sir. His teeth began to chatter,
+as if he had a fit; and down he went at last like a stone, face first,
+howling fearful. We couldn't hardly get him up again to come away, me
+and Hill. And as to the ghost, Mr. Tom, it _was_ still there."
+
+"Well, it is a queer tale," acknowledged Tom Coney.
+
+"We made for the road, all three of us then, and I turned on here--and
+I didn't half like coming by the barn where Maria Lease saw Daniel
+Ferrar," candidly added Dinah. "T'other two went on their opposite way,
+Jim never letting go of Hill's coat-tails."
+
+There was no more Pope Joan that night. We carried the story indoors;
+and I mentioned also what had been said to Miss Timmens. The Squire and
+old Coney laughed.
+
+With David Garth's ghost to be seen, it could not be supposed that I, or
+Tod, or Tom Coney, should stay away from the sight. When we reached the
+place, some twenty people had collected round the house. Jim Batley had
+told the tale in North Crabb.
+
+But curious watchers had seen nothing. Neither did we. For the bright
+night had changed to darkness. A huge curtain of cloud had come up from
+the south, covering the moon and the best part of the sky, as a pall
+covers a coffin. If gazing could have brought a ghost to the window,
+there would assuredly have been one. The casement was at the end of the
+house; serving to light the narrow upstairs passage. A huge cherry-tree
+hid the casement in summer; very slightly its bare branches obscured it
+now.
+
+A sound, as of some panting animal, came up beside me as I leaned on the
+side palings. I turned; and saw the bailiff. Some terrible power of
+fascination had brought him back again, against his will.
+
+"So it is gone, Hill, you see."
+
+"It's not gone, Mr. Johnny," was his answer. "For some of our sights,
+it'll never go away again. You look well at the right-hand side, sir,
+and see if you don't see some'at white there."
+
+Peering steadily, I thought I did see something white--as of a face
+above a white garment. But it might have been fancy.
+
+"Us as saw _him_ couldn't mistake it for fancy," was Hill's rejoinder.
+"There was three on us: me, and Dinah up at Coney's, and that there imp
+of a Jim Batley."
+
+"Some one saw it before you did, Hill. At least he says so. Luke
+Macintosh. He was scared out of his senses."
+
+The effect of these words on Hill was such, that I quite believed he was
+scared out of _his_. He clasped his hands in wild emotion, and turned up
+his eyes to give thanks.
+
+"It's ret'ibution a working its ends, Mr. Ludlow. See it first, did he!
+And I hope to my heart he'll see it afore his eyes evermore. If that
+there Macintosh had not played a false and coward's game, no harm 'ud
+ha' come to Davvy."
+
+The crowd increased. The Squire and old Coney came up, and told the
+whole assemblage that they were born idiots. Of course, with nothing
+to be seen, it looked as though we all were that. In the midst of it,
+making quietly for the back-door, as though he had come home through
+Crabb Ravine from Timberdale, I espied Louis Roe. Saying nothing to any
+one, I went round and told him.
+
+"David Garth's ghost in the place!" he exclaimed. "Why, it will frighten
+my wife to death. Of course there's nothing of the sort; but women are
+so foolishly timid."
+
+I said his wife was not there. Roe took a key from his pocket, unlocked
+the back-door, and went in. He was talking to me, and I stepped over the
+threshold to the kitchen, into which the door opened. He began feeling
+on the shelf for matches, and could not find any.
+
+"There's a box in the bedroom, I know," he said; and went stumbling
+upstairs.
+
+Down he came, after a minute or so, with the matches, struck one, and
+lighted a candle. Opening the front door, he showed himself, explained
+that he had just come home, and complained of the commotion.
+
+"There's no such thing in this lower world as ghosts," said Roe.
+"Whoever pretends to see them must be either drunk or mad. As to this
+house--well, some of you had better walk in and re-assure yourselves.
+You are welcome."
+
+He was taken at his word. A few came in, and went looking about for
+the ghost, upstairs and down. Writing about it now, it seems to have
+been the most ridiculous thing in the world. Nothing was to be found.
+The narrow passage above, where David had stood, was empty. "As if
+supernatural visitants waited while you looked for them!" cried the
+superstitious crowd outside.
+
+It is easier to raise a disturbance of this kind than to allay it, and
+the ghost-seers stayed on. The heavy cloud in the heavens rolled away
+by-and-by; and the moon came out, and shone on the casement again. But
+neither David Garth nor anything else was then to be seen there.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night's commotion passed away, but not the rumours. That David
+Garth's spirit could not rest, but came back to trouble the earth,
+especially that spot known as Willow Cottage, was accepted as a fact.
+People would go stealing up there at night, three or four of them
+arm-in-arm, and stand staring at the casement, and walk round the
+cottage. Nothing more was to be seen--perhaps because there was no moon
+to light up the window. Harriet Roe was at home again with her husband;
+but she did not go abroad much: and her face seemed to wear a sort of
+uneasy terror. "The fear of seeing _him_ is wearing her heart out; why
+does Roe stop in the place?" said North Crabb: and though Harriet had
+never been much of a favourite, she had plenty of sympathy now.
+
+It soon came to be known in a gradual sort of way that a visitor was
+staying at Willow Cottage. A young woman fashionably dressed, who was
+called Mrs. James; and who was said to be the wife of James Roe, Louis
+Roe's elder brother. Some people declared that a man was also there:
+they had seen one. Harriet denied it. An acquaintance of her husband's,
+a Mr. Duffy, had been over to see them from Birmingham, she said, but he
+went back again. She was not believed.
+
+What with the ghost, and what with the mystery attaching to its
+inhabitants, Willow Cottage was a great card just then. If you ask me
+to explain what mystery there could be, I cannot do so: all I know is,
+an idea that there was something of the kind, apart from David, dawned
+upon many minds in North Crabb. Miss Timmens spoke it openly. She did
+not like Harriet's looks, and said that something or other was killing
+her. And Susan Timmens considered it her duty to try and come to the
+bottom of it.
+
+At all sorts of hours, seasonable and unseasonable, Miss Timmens
+presented herself at Willow Cottage. Rarely alone. Sometimes Mrs. Hill
+would be with her; or it would be Maria Lease; or one of the Batley
+girls; and once it was young Jim. Louis Roe grew to feel annoyed at
+this; he told Harriet he would not have confounded people coming there,
+prying; and he closed the door against them. So, the next time Miss
+Timmens went, she found the door bolted in the most inhospitable manner.
+Harriet threw open the parlour window to speak to her.
+
+"Louis says he won't have any more visitors calling here just now; not
+even you, Aunt Susan."
+
+"What does he say that for?" snapped Miss Timmens.
+
+"We came down here to be quiet: he has some accounts to go over, and
+can't be disturbed at them. So perhaps you'll stay away, Aunt Susan.
+I'll come to the school-house sometimes instead."
+
+It was the dusk of the evenings but Miss Timmens could see the fearful
+look of illness on Harriet's face. She was also trembling.
+
+"Harriet, what's the matter with you?" she asked, in a kinder tone.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"_Nothing!_ Why, you look as ill as you can look. You are trembling all
+over."
+
+"It's true I don't feel very well this evening, aunt, but I think it is
+nothing. I often feel as if I had a touch of ague."
+
+Miss Timmens bent her face nearer; it had a strange concern in it.
+"Harriet, look here. There's some mystery about this place; won't you
+tell me what it is? I--seem--to--be--afraid--for--_you_," she concluded,
+in a slow and scarcely audible whisper.
+
+For answer, Miss Timmens found the window slammed down in her face. An
+impression arose--she hardly knew whence gathered, or whether it had any
+foundation--that it was not Harriet who had slammed it, but some one
+concealed behind the curtain.
+
+"Well I'm sure!" cried she. "It might have taken my nose off."
+
+"It was so cold, aunt!" Harriet called out apologetically through the
+glass. "Good night."
+
+Miss Timmens walked off in dudgeon. Revolving matters along the broad
+field-path, she liked their appearance less and less. Harriet was
+looking as ill as possible: and what meant that trembling? Was it caused
+by sickness of body, or terror of mind? Mrs. Hill, when consulted,
+summed it up comprehensively: "It is David about the place: _that's_
+killing her."
+
+Harriet Roe did not make her appearance at the school-house, and the
+next day but one Miss Timmens went up again. The door was bolted. Miss
+Timmens knocked, but received no answer. Not choosing to be treated in
+that way she made so much noise, first at the door and then at the
+window, that the former was at length unclosed by Mrs. James, in list
+shoes and a dressing-gown, as if her toilette had been delayed that day.
+The chain was kept up--a new chain that Miss Timmens had not seen
+before--and she could not enter.
+
+"I want to see Harriet, Mrs. James."
+
+"Harriet's gone," replied Mrs. James.
+
+"Gone! Gone where?"
+
+"To London. She went off there yesterday morning."
+
+Miss Timmens felt, as she would have said, struck into herself. An idea
+flashed over her that the words had not a syllable of truth in them.
+
+"What did she go to London for?"
+
+Mrs. James glanced over her two shoulders, seemingly in terror herself,
+and sunk her voice to a whisper. "She had grown afraid of the place,
+this dark winter weather. Miss Timmens--it's as true as you're
+there--nothing would persuade her out of the fancy that she was always
+seeing David Garth. He used to stand in a sheet at the end of the
+upstairs passage and look at her. Leastways, _she_ said so."
+
+This nearly did for Miss Timmens. It might be true; and she could not
+confute it. "Do _you_ see him, Mrs. James?"
+
+"Well, no; I never have. Goodness knows, I don't want to."
+
+"But Harriet was not well enough to take a long journey," contended Miss
+Timmens. "She never could have undertaken one in her state of health."
+
+"I don't know what you mean by 'state,' Miss Timmens. She would shake
+a bit at times; but we saw nothing else the matter with her. Perhaps
+_you_ would shake if you had an apparition in the house. Any way, well
+or ill, she went off to London. Louis took her as far as the station
+and saw her away."
+
+"Will you give me her address? I should like to write to her."
+
+Mrs. James said she could not give the address, because she did not know
+it. Nothing more was to be got out of her, and Miss Timmens reluctantly
+departed.
+
+"I should hope they've not murdered her--and are concealing her in the
+house as Hill concealed David," was the comment she gave vent to in her
+perplexity and wrath.
+
+From that time, nothing could be heard of Harriet Roe. A week went on;
+nearly two weeks; but she never was seen, and no tidings came of her. So
+far as could be ascertained, she had not gone away by train: neither
+station-master nor porter remembered to have seen her. Miss Timmens grew
+as thin as a ghost herself: the subject worried her night and day. That
+some ill had happened to Harriet; or been _done_ to her, she did not
+doubt. Once or twice she managed to see Roe; once or twice she saw Mrs.
+James: speaking to them at the door with the chain up. Roe said he heard
+from his wife nearly every other day; but he would not show the letters,
+or give the address: a conclusive proof to the mind of Miss Timmens that
+neither had any existence. _What had they done with Harriet?_ Miss
+Timmens could not have been in much worse mental trouble had she herself
+made away with her.
+
+One morning the postman delivered a letter at the school-house. It bore
+the London post-mark, and purported to be from Harriet. A few lines
+only--saying she was well and enjoying herself, and should come back
+sometime--the writing shaky and blotted, and bearing but a slight
+resemblance to hers. Miss Timmens dashed it on the table.
+
+"The fools, to think they can deceive me this way! That's no more
+Harriet's writing than it is mine."
+
+But Miss Timmens's passion soon subsided into a grave, settled, awful
+dread. For she saw that this had been written to delude her into the
+belief that Harriet was in health and life--when she might be in neither
+one nor the other. She brought the letter to Crabb Cot. She took it
+round the parish. She went with it to the police-station; imparting her
+views of it to all freely. It was a sham; a blind; a forgery: and
+_where_ was she to look for poor lost Harriet Roe?
+
+That same evening the ghost appeared again. Miss Timmens and others went
+up to the cottage, intending to demand an interview with Roe; and they
+found the house shut up, apparently deserted. Reconnoitring the windows
+from all points, their dismayed eyes rested on something at the end
+casement: a thin, shadowy form, robed in white. Every one of them saw
+it; but, even as they looked, it seemed to vanish away. Yes, there was
+no question that the house was haunted. Perhaps Harriet had died from
+fright, as poor David died.
+
+Things could not go on like this for ever. After another day or two
+of discomfort, Mr. Todhetley, as a county magistrate, incited by the
+feeling in the parish, issued a private mandate for Roe to appear before
+him, that he might be questioned as to what had become of his wife. It
+was not a warrant; but a sort of friendly invitation, that could offend
+no one. Jiff the policeman was entrusted with the delivery of the
+message, a verbal one, and I went with him.
+
+As if she had scented our errand for herself, and wanted to make a third
+in it, who should meet us in the broad path, but Miss Timmens. Willow
+Cottage might or might not be haunted, but I am sure her legs were: they
+couldn't be still.
+
+"What are _you_ doing up here, Jiff?" she tartly asked.
+
+Jiff told her. Squire Todhetley wanted Roe at Crabb Cot.
+
+"It will be of no use, Jiff; the door's sure to be fast," groaned Miss
+Timmens. "My opinion is that Roe has left the place for good."
+
+Miss Timmens was mistaken. The shutters were open, and the house showed
+signs of life. Upon knocking at the door--Miss Timmens took off her
+patten to do it with, and you might have heard the echoes at North
+Crabb--it was flung wide by Mrs. James.
+
+Mr. Roe? No, Mr. Roe was not at home. Mrs. Roe was.
+
+Mrs. Roe was! "What, Harriet?" cried excited Miss Timmens.
+
+Yes, Harriet. If we liked to walk in and see her, we could do so.
+
+By the kitchen fire, as being biggest and hottest, in a chair stuffed
+about with blankets, sat Harriet Roe. Worn, white, shadowy, she was
+evidently just getting over some desperate illness. I stared; the
+policeman softly whistled; you might have knocked Miss Timmens down
+with a feather.
+
+"Good patience, child--why, where have you been hiding all this while?"
+cried she. "And what on earth has been the matter with you?"
+
+"I have been upstairs in my room, Aunt Susan, keeping my bed. As to the
+illness, it turned out to be ague and low fever."
+
+"Upstairs where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+Jiff went out again; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, leaving
+Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together.
+
+She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe
+attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors; for James Roe,
+who had fallen into some difficulty in London, connected with forged
+bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. That's why people were
+kept out. It would not have done by any means for Miss Timmens and her
+sharp eyes to go upstairs and catch a glimpse of him; so they concocted
+the tale that Harriet was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis
+with him. Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser
+degree: but quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London
+for a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb.
+
+"Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last evening I saw
+you here?" questioned Miss Timmens.
+
+"Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly write
+that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to you."
+
+"And--did you really see David Garth?"
+
+"No, I never saw him," said Harriet. "But, after all the reports and
+talk, I was timid at being in the house alone--James and his wife
+had not come then--and that's why I asked you to let me stay at the
+school-house the night my husband was away."
+
+"But it was told me that you _did_ see him."
+
+"I was always frightened for fear I should."
+
+"It strikes me you have had other causes for fright as well, Harriet,"
+cried shrewd Miss Timmens.
+
+"Well, you see--this business of James Roe's has put me about. Every
+knock that came to the door seemed to me to be somebody coming for
+_him_. My husband says the ghost is all rubbish and fancy, Aunt Susan."
+
+"Rubbish and fancy, does he?"
+
+"He says that when he came in here with Johnny Ludlow, the night there
+was that commotion, in going up for some matches, he fell over something
+at the top of the stairs by the end casement, and flung it behind the
+rafters. Next day he saw what it was. I had tied a white cloth over a
+small dwarf mop to sweep the walls with, and must have left it near the
+window. I remembered that I did leave it there. It no doubt looked in
+the moonlight just like a white face. And that's what was taken for
+David's ghost."
+
+Miss Timmens paused, considering matters: she might believe just as much
+of this as she liked.
+
+"It appeared again at the same place, Harriet, two or three days ago."
+
+"That was me, aunt. I saw you all looking up, and drew away again for
+fear you should know me. Mrs. James was making my bed, and I had crawled
+there."
+
+There it ended. So far the mystery was over. The explanation was
+confided to the public, who received it differently. Some accepted the
+mop version; others clung to the ghost. And Hill never had a penny of
+his rent. Louis Roe was away; and, as it turned out, did not come back
+again.
+
+Mrs. James wanted to leave also; and Maria Lease took her place as
+nurse. Tenderly she did it, too; and Harriet got well. She was going off
+to join her husband as soon as she could travel: it was said in France.
+No one knew; unless it was Maria Lease. She and Harriet had become
+confidential friends.
+
+"Which is the worse fate--yours or mine?" cried Harriet to Maria, half
+mockingly, half woefully, the day she was packing her trunk. "You have
+your lonely life, and your never-ending repentance for what you call
+your harsh sin: I have my sickness and my trouble--and I have enough of
+that, Maria." But Maria Lease only shook her head in answer.
+
+"Trouble and repentance are our best lot in this world, Harriet. They
+come to fit us for heaven."
+
+But North Crabb, though willingly admitting that Harriet Roe, in
+marrying, had not entered on a bed of lilies, and might have been
+happier had she kept single, would not, on the whole, be shaken from its
+belief that the ghost still haunted the empty cottage. Small parties
+made shivering pilgrimages up there on a moonlight night, to watch for
+it, and sometimes declared that it appeared. Fancy goes a long way in
+this world.
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+SEEING LIFE.
+
+
+The Clement-Pells lived at Parrifer Hall, and were as grand as all the
+rest of us put together. After that affair connected with Cathy Reed,
+and the death of his son, Major Parrifer and his family could not bear
+to stay in the place. They took a house near London, and Parrifer Hall
+was advertised to be let. Mr. Clement-Pell came forward, and took it for
+a term of years.
+
+The Clement-Pells rolled in riches. His was one of those cases of
+self-made men that have been so common of late years: where an
+individual, from a humble position, rises by perceptible degrees, until
+he towers above all, like a Jack sprung out of a box, and is the wonder
+and envy of the world around. Mr. Clement-Pell was said to have begun
+life in London as a lawyer. Later, circumstances brought him down to a
+bustling town in our neighbourhood where he became the manager of a
+small banking company; and from that time he did nothing but rise.
+"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood,
+leads on to fortune," says Shakespeare: and this was the tide in Mr.
+Clement-Pell's. The small banking company became a great one. Its spare
+cash helped to make railways, to work mines, and to do all kinds of
+profitable things. The shareholders flourished; Mr. Clement-Pell was
+more regarded than a heathen deity. He established a branch at two or
+three small places; and, amongst them, one at Church Dykely. After that,
+he took Parrifer Hall. The simple people around could not vie with the
+grandeur of the Pells, and did not try to do so. The Pells made much of
+me and Joseph Todhetley--perhaps because there was a dearth of young
+fellows near--and often asked us to the Hall. Mrs. Pell, a showy,
+handsome woman, turned up her nose at all but the best families, and
+would not associate with farmers, however much they might live like
+gentlefolk. She was decisive in manner, haughty, and ruled the house
+and everything in it, including her husband, with iron will. In a
+slight degree she and her children put us in mind of the Parrifers:
+for they held their heads in the clouds as the Parrifers had done, and
+the ostentation they displayed was just the least bit vulgar. Mr.
+Pell was a good-looking, gentlemanlike man, with a pleasant, hearty,
+straightforward manner that took with every one. He was neither fine
+nor stuck up: but his wife and daughters were; after the custom of a
+good many who have shot up into greatness.
+
+And now that's the introduction to the Clement-Pells. One year they took
+a furnished house in London, and sent to invite me and Tod up in the
+summer. It was not very long after we had paid that visit to the
+Whitneys and Miss Deveen. The invitation was cordially pressed; but
+Squire Todhetley did not much like our going.
+
+"Look here, you boys," said he, as we were starting, for the point was
+yielded, "I'd a great deal rather you were going to stay at home. Don't
+you let the young Pells lead you into mischief."
+
+Tod resented the doubt. "We are not boys, sir."
+
+"Well, I suppose you'd like to call yourselves young men," returned the
+Pater; "you in particular, Joe. But young men have gone up to London
+before now, and come home with their fingers burnt."
+
+Tod laughed.
+
+"They have. It is this, Joe: Johnny, listen to me. A young fellow, just
+launched on the world, turns out very much according to the companions
+he is thrown amongst and the associations he meets with. I have a notion
+that the young Pells are wild; fast, as it is called now; so take
+care of yourselves. And don't forget that though their purses may be
+unlimited, yours are not."
+
+Three footmen came rushing out when the cab stopped at the house in
+Kensington, and the Pells made much of us. Mr. Pell and the eldest son,
+James, were at the chief bank in the country; they rarely spared the
+time to come up; but the rest were in town. Mrs. Pell, the four girls,
+the two sons, and a new German governess. The house was not as large as
+Parrifer Hall, and Tod and I had a top room between us, with two beds in
+it. Fabian Pell held a commission in the army. Augustus was reading for
+the bar--he was never called at home anything but "Gusty."
+
+We got there just before dinner, and dressed for it--finding dress
+was expected. A worn-looking, fashionable man of thirty was in the
+drawing-room when we went down, the Honourable Mr. Crayton: and Fabian
+brought in two officers. Mrs. Pell wore blue, with a string of pearls on
+her neck that were too big to be real: the two girls were in white silk
+and white shoes. Altogether, considering it was not a state occasion,
+but a friendly dinner, the dresses looked too fine, more suited to a
+duke's table; and I wondered what Mrs. Todhetley would have said to
+them.
+
+"Will you take Constance in to dinner, Mr. Todhetley?"
+
+Tod took her. She was the second girl: the eldest, Martha Jane, went in
+with one of the officers. The younger girls, Leonora and Rose, dined in
+the middle of the day with the governess. Gusty was not there, and
+Fabian and I went in together.
+
+"Where is he?" I asked of Fabian.
+
+"Gusty? Oh, knocking about somewhere. His getting home to dinner's
+always a chance. He has chambers in town."
+
+Why the idea should have come over me, I know not, unless it was the
+tone Mrs. Pell spoke in, but it flashed across my mind that she was
+looking at Tod as a possible husband for her daughter Constance. He was
+not of an age to marry yet: but some women like to plot and plan these
+things beforehand. I hated her for it: I did not care that Tod should
+choose one of the Pells. Gusty made his appearance in the course of the
+evening; and we fellows went out with him.
+
+The Squire was right: it was fast life at the Pells', and no mistake.
+I don't believe there was a thing that cost money but Fabian and Gusty
+Pell and Crayton went in for it. Crayton was with them always. He seemed
+to be the leader: the Pells followed him like sheep; Tod went with them.
+I sometimes: but they did not always ask me to go. Billiards and cards
+were the chief amusements; and there'd be theatres and singing-halls.
+The names of some of the places would have made the Squire's hair stand
+on end. One, a sort of private affair, that the Pells and Crayton said
+it was a favour to gain admittance to, was called "Paradise." Whether
+that was only the Pells' or Crayton's name for it, we did not hear.
+And a paradise it was when you were inside, if decorations and mirrors
+can make one. Men and women in evening dress sang songs in a kind of
+orchestra; to which you might listen sitting and smoking or lounging
+about and talking: if you preferred a rubber at whist or a hand at
+écarté in another room, there you had it. Never a thing was there,
+apparently, that the Squire could reasonably have grumbled at, except
+the risk of losing money at cards, and the sense of intoxicating
+pleasure. But I don't think it was a good place to go to. The Pells
+called all this "Seeing Life."
+
+It would not have done Tod much harm--for he had his head on his
+shoulders the right way--but for the gambling. It is a strong word to
+use; but the play grew into nothing less. Had the Squire said to us,
+Take care you don't learn to gamble up in London, Tod would have
+resented it as much as if he had been warned not to go and hang himself,
+feeling certain that there was no more chance of one than the other. But
+gambling, like some other things--drinking for instance--steals upon you
+by degrees, too imperceptibly to alarm you. The Pells and Crayton and
+other fellows that they knew went in for cards and billiards wholesale.
+Tod was asked at first to take a quiet hand with them; or just play for
+the tables--and he thought no more of complying than if the girls had
+pressed him to make one at the round game of Old Maid, or to while away
+a wet afternoon at bagatelle.
+
+There was no regularity in Mrs. Pell's household: there was no more
+outward observance of religion than if we'd lived in Heathendom. It was
+so different from Tod's last London visit, when he was at the Whitneys'.
+_There_ you had to be at the breakfast-table to the moment--half-past
+eight; and to be in at bedtime, unless engaged out with friends. Sir
+John read a chapter of the Bible morning and night, and then, pushing
+the spectacles lower on his old red nose, he'd look over them at us and
+tell us simply to be good boys and girls. _Here_ you might come down at
+any hour, from nine or ten, to eleven or twelve, and ring for fresh
+breakfast to be supplied. As to staying out at night, that was quite ad
+libitum; a man-servant sat up till morning to open the door.
+
+I was initiated less into the card-playing than Tod, and never once was
+asked to make one at pool, probably because it was taken for granted
+that I had less money to stake. Which was true. Tod had not much, for
+the matter of that: and it never struck me to think he was losing
+wholesale.
+
+I got home one night at twelve, having been dining at Miss Deveen's and
+going to a concert with her afterwards. Tod was not in, and I sat up in
+our room, writing to Mr. Brandon, which I had put off doing until I felt
+ashamed. Tod came in as I was folding the letter. It was hot weather,
+and he stretched himself out at the open window.
+
+"Are you going to stop there all night, Tod?" I asked by-and-by. "It's
+one o'clock."
+
+"I may as well stop here, for all the sleep I shall get in bed," was his
+answer, as he brought his head in. "I'm in an awful mess, Johnny."
+
+"What kind of mess?"
+
+"Debt."
+
+"Debt! What for?"
+
+"Card-playing," answered Tod, shortly. "And betting at pool."
+
+"Why do you play?"
+
+"I'll be shot if I would ever have touched one of their cards, or their
+billiard balls either, had I known what was to come of it. Let me once
+get out of this hole, and neither Gusty Pell nor Crayton shall ever draw
+me in again. I'll promise them _that_."
+
+"How much is it?"
+
+"That I owe? Twenty-five pounds."
+
+"Twenty-five--what?" I cried, starting up.
+
+"Don't wake up the next room, Johnny. Twenty-five pounds. And not a
+stiver in my pocket to go on with. I owe it to Crayton."
+
+Sitting on the edge of his bed, he told me how the thing had crept upon
+him. At first they only played for shillings; one night Crayton suddenly
+changed the stakes to sovereigns. The other fellows playing took it as a
+matter of course, and Tod did not like to make a fuss, and get up----
+
+"I should, Tod," I interrupted.
+
+"I dare say you would," he retorted. "I didn't. But I honestly told
+them that if I lost much, my purse would not stand it. Oh that need
+not trouble you, they said. When we rose, that night, I owed Crayton
+nineteen pounds."
+
+"They must be systematic gamblers!"
+
+"No, not that. Gentlemen who play high. Since then I have played, hoping
+to redeem my losses--they tell me I shall be sure to do it. But the
+redemption has not come yet, for it is twenty-five pounds now."
+
+"Tod," I said, after a pause, "it would about kill the Pater."
+
+"It would awfully vex him. And that's what is doing the mischief, you
+see, Johnny. I can't write home for the money without telling him what I
+want it for; he'd never give it me unless I said: and I can't cut our
+visit short to the Pells and leave Crayton in debt."
+
+"But--_what's_ to be done, Tod?"
+
+"Nothing until I get some luck, and win enough back to pay him."
+
+"You may get deeper into the mire."
+
+"Yes--there's that chance."
+
+"It will never do to go on playing."
+
+"Will you tell me what else I am to do? I must continue to play: or
+pay."
+
+I couldn't tell him; I didn't know. Fifty of the hardest problems in
+Euclid were nothing to this. Tod sat down in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+"Get one of the Pells to let you have the money, Tod. A loan of twenty
+or thirty pounds can be nothing to them."
+
+"It's no good, Johnny. Gusty is cleaned out. As to Fabian, he never has
+any spare cash, what with one expensive habit and another. Oh, I shall
+win it back again: perhaps to-morrow. Luck must turn."
+
+Tod said no more. But what particularly struck me was this: that, to win
+money from a guest in that way, and he a young fellow not of age, whose
+pocket-money they knew to be limited, was not at all consistent with the
+idea of their being "gentlemen."
+
+The next evening we were in a well-known billiard-room. Fabian Pell,
+Crayton, and Tod were at pool. It had been a levee day, or something of
+that sort, and Fabian was in full regimentals. Tod was losing, as usual.
+He was no match for those practised players.
+
+"I wish you would get me a glass of water, Johnny," he said.
+
+So I got it. In turning back after taking the glass from his hand, who
+should I see on the high bench against the wall, sitting just where
+I had been sitting a minute before, but my guardian and trustee,
+Mr. Brandon. _Could_ it be he? Old Brandon in London! and in a
+billiard-room.
+
+"It is never you, sir! Here!"
+
+"Yes, it is I, Johnny Ludlow," he said in his squeaky voice. "As to
+being here, I suppose I have as much right to be here as you have:
+perhaps rather more. I should like to ask what brings you here."
+
+"I came in with those three," I said, pointing towards the board.
+
+He screwed up his little eyes, and looked. "Who are they?" he asked.
+"Who's the fellow in scarlet?" For he did not happen to know these two
+younger Pells by sight.
+
+"That's Fabian Pell, sir. The one standing with his hands in his
+pockets, near Joseph Todhetley, is the Honourable Mr. Crayton."
+
+"Who's the Honourable Mr. Crayton?"
+
+"I think his father is the Earl of Lackland."
+
+"Oh, ah; one of Lackland's sons, is he? There's six or eight sons, of
+them, Johnny Ludlow, and not a silver coin amongst the lot. Lackland
+never had much, but what little it was he lost at horse-racing. The sons
+live by their wits, I've heard: lords' sons have not much work in them.
+The Honourable Mr. Crayton, eh! Your two friends had better take care of
+themselves."
+
+The thought of how Tod had "taken care" of himself flashed into my mind.
+I wouldn't have old Brandon know it for the world.
+
+"I posted a letter to you to-day, sir. I did not know you were from
+home."
+
+"What was it about?"
+
+"Nothing particular, sir. Only I had not written since we were in
+London."
+
+"How long are you going to stay here, Johnny Ludlow?"
+
+"About another week, I suppose."
+
+"I mean _here_. In this disreputable room."
+
+"Disreputable, sir!"
+
+"Yes, Johnny Ludlow, disreputable. Disreputable for all young men,
+especially for a very young one like you. I wonder what your father
+would have said to it!"
+
+"I, at least, sir, am doing no harm in it."
+
+"Yes, you are, Johnny. You are suffering your eyes and mind to grow
+familiar with these things. So, their game is over, is it!"
+
+I turned round. They had finished, and were leaving. In looking for me,
+Tod saw Mr. Brandon. He came up to shake hands with him, and told me
+they were going.
+
+"Come in and see me to-morrow morning, Johnny Ludlow," said Mr. Brandon,
+in a tone of command. "Eleven o'clock."
+
+"Yes, sir. Where are you staying?"
+
+"The Tavistock; Covent Garden."
+
+"Johnny, what the mischief brings _him_ here?" whispered Tod, as we went
+downstairs.
+
+"I don't know. I thought it must be his ghost at first."
+
+From the billiard-rooms we went on to Gusty's chambers, and found him at
+home with some friends. He served out wine, with cold brandy-and-water
+for Crayton--who despised anything less. They sat down to cards--loo.
+Tod did not play. Complaining of a racking headache, he sat apart in a
+corner. I stood in another, for all the chairs were occupied. Altogether
+the party seemed to want life, and broke up soon.
+
+"Was it an excuse to avoid playing, Tod?" I asked, as we walked home.
+
+"Was what an excuse?"
+
+"Your headache."
+
+"If your head were beating as mine is, Johnny, you wouldn't call it an
+excuse. You'll be a muff to the end of your days."
+
+"Well, I thought it might be that."
+
+"Did you! If I made up my mind not to play, I should tell it out
+straightforwardly: not put forth any shuffling 'excuse.'"
+
+"Any way, a headache's better than losing your money."
+
+"Don't bother."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got to the Tavistock at five minutes past eleven, and found Mr.
+Brandon reading the _Times_. He looked at me over the top of it, as if
+he were surprised.
+
+"So you _have_ come, Mr. Johnny!"
+
+"Yes, sir. I turned up the wrong street and missed my way: it has made
+me a little late."
+
+"Oh, that's the reason, is it," said Mr. Brandon. "I thought perhaps a
+young man, who has been initiated into the ways of London life, might no
+longer consider it necessary to attend to the requests of his elders."
+
+"But would you think that of me, sir?"
+
+Mr. Brandon put the newspaper on the table with a dash, and burst out
+with as much feeling as his weak voice would allow him.
+
+"Johnny Ludlow, I'd rather have seen you come to sweep a crossing in
+this vile town, than to frequent one of its public billiard-rooms!"
+
+"But I don't frequent them, Mr. Brandon."
+
+"How many times have you been in?"
+
+"Twice in the one where you saw me: once in another. Three times in
+all."
+
+"That's three times too much. Have you played?"
+
+"No, sir; there's never any room for me."
+
+"Do you bet?"
+
+"Oh no."
+
+"What do you go for, then?"
+
+"I've only gone in with the others when I have been out with them."
+
+"Pell's sons and the Honourable Mr. Crayton. Rather ostentatious of you,
+Johnny Ludlow, to hasten to tell me he was the 'Honourable.'"
+
+My face flushed. I had not said it in that light.
+
+"One day at Pershore Fair, in a booth, the clown jumped on to the
+boards and introduced himself," continued Mr. Brandon: "'I'm the clown,
+ladies and gentlemen,' said he. That's the Honourable Mr. Crayton, say
+you.--And so you have gone in with Mr. Crayton and the Pells!"
+
+"And with Joseph Todhetley."
+
+"Ay. And perhaps London will do him more harm than it will you; you're
+not much better than a boy yet, hardly up to bad things. I wonder what
+possessed Joe's father to let you two come up to stay with the Pells! I
+should have been above it in his place."
+
+"Above it? Why, Mr. Brandon, they live in ten times the style we do."
+
+"And spend twenty times as much over it. Who was thinking about style or
+cost, Mr. Johnny? Don't you mistake Richard for Robert."
+
+He gave a flick to the newspaper, and stared me full in the face. I did
+not venture to speak.
+
+"Johnny Ludlow, I don't like your having been initiated into the
+iniquities of fast life--as met with in billiard-rooms, and similar
+places."
+
+"I have got no harm from them, sir."
+
+"Perhaps not. But you might have got it."
+
+I supposed I might: and thought of Tod and his losings.
+
+"You have good principles, Johnny Ludlow, and you've a bit of sense in
+your head; and you have been taught to know that this world is not the
+end of things. Temptation is bad for the best, though. When I saw you
+in that place last night, looking on with eager eyes at the balls,
+listening to the betting, I wished I had never let your father make me
+your guardian."
+
+"I did not know my eyes or ears were so eager, sir. I don't think they
+were."
+
+"Nonsense, boy: that goes as a matter of course. You have heard of
+gambling hells?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, a public billiard-room is not many degrees better. It is crowded
+with adventurers who live by their wits. Your needy 'honourables,'
+who've not a sixpence of their own in their purses, and your low-lived
+blackguards, who have sprung from the scum of the population, are
+equally at home there. These men, the lord's son and the blackguard,
+must each make a living: whether by turf-betting, or dice, or cards,
+or pool--they must do it somehow. Is it a nice thing, pray, for you
+honest young fellows to frequent places where you must be their boon
+companions?"
+
+"No, I don't think it is."
+
+"Good, Johnny. Don't you go into one again--and keep young Todhetley
+out if you can. It is no place, I say, for an honest man and a
+gentleman: you can't touch pitch and not be defiled; neither can a
+youngster frequent these billiard-rooms and the company he meets in
+them, and come away unscathed. His name will get a mark against it.
+That's not the worst: his _soul_ may get a mark upon it; and never be
+able to throw it off again during life. You turn mountebank, and dance
+at wakes, Johnny, rather than turn public billiard player. There's
+many an honest mountebank, dancing for the daily crust he puts into
+his mouth: I don't believe you'd find one honest man amongst billiard
+sharpers."
+
+He dropped the paper in his heat. I picked it up.
+
+"And that's only one phase of their fast life, these billiard-rooms,"
+he continued. "There are other things: singing-halls, and cider
+cellars--and all sorts of places. You steer clear of the lot, Johnny.
+And warn Todhetley. He wants warning perhaps more than you do."
+
+"Tod has caught no harm, I think, except----"
+
+"Except what?" asked he sharply, as I paused.
+
+"Except that I suppose it costs him money, sir."
+
+"Just so. A good thing too. If these seductions (as young fools call
+them) could be had without money, the world would soon be turned
+upside down. But as to harm, Johnny, once a young fellow gets to feel
+at home in these places, I don't care how short his experience may be,
+he loses his self-respect. He does; and it takes time to get it back
+again. You and Joe had not been gone five minutes last night, with
+your 'Honourable' and the other fellow in scarlet, when there was a
+row in the room. Two men quarrelled about a bet; sides were taken by
+the spectators, and it came to blows. I have heard some reprobate
+language in my day, Johnny Ludlow, but I never heard such as I heard
+then. Had you been there, I'd have taken you by the back of the neck
+and pitched you out of the window, before your ears should have been
+tainted with it."
+
+"Did you go to the billiard-room, expecting to see me there, Mr.
+Brandon?" I asked. And the question put his temper up.
+
+"Go to the billiard-room, expecting to see _you_ there, Johnny Ludlow!"
+he retorted, his voice a small shrill pipe. "How dare you ask it? I'd
+as soon have expected to see the Bishop of London there, as you. I can
+tell you what, young man: had I known you were going to these places,
+I should pretty soon have stopped it. Yes, sir: you are not out of my
+hands yet. If I could not stop you personally, I'd stop every penny of
+your pocket-money."
+
+"We couldn't think--I and Tod--what else you had gone for sir," said I,
+in apology for having put the question.
+
+"I don't suppose you could. I have a graceless relative, Johnny Ludlow;
+a sister's son. He is going to the bad, fast, and she got me to come up
+and see what he was after. I could not find him; I have not found him
+yet; but I was told that he frequented those rooms, and I went there on
+speculation. Now you know. He came up to London nine months ago as
+pure-hearted a young fellow as you are: bad companions laid hold of him,
+and are doing their best to ruin him. I should not like to see _you_ on
+the downward road, Johnny; and you shan't enter on it if I can put a
+spoke in the wheel. Your father was my good friend."
+
+"There is no fear for me, Mr. Brandon."
+
+"Well, Johnny, I hope not. You be cautious, and come and dine with me
+this evening. And now will you promise me one thing: if you get into any
+trouble or difficulty at any time, whether it's a money trouble, or what
+not, you come to me with it. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I don't know any one I would rather take it to."
+
+"I do not expect you to get into one willingly, mind. _That's_ not what
+I mean: but sometimes we fall into pits through other people. If ever
+you do, though it were years to come, bring the trouble to me."
+
+And I promised, and went, according to the invitation, to dine with him
+in the evening. He had found his nephew: a plain young medical student,
+with a thin voice like himself. Mr. Brandon dined off boiled scrag of
+mutton; I and the nephew had soup and fish and fowl and plum pudding.
+
+After that evening I did not see anything more of old Brandon. Upon
+calling at the Tavistock they said he had left for the rest of the week,
+but would be back on the following Monday.
+
+And it was on the following Monday that Tod's affairs came to a climax.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had had a regal entertainment. Fit for regal personages--as it seemed
+to us simple country people, inexperienced in London dinner giving. Mrs.
+Pell headed her table in green gauze, gold beetles in her hair, and a
+feathered-fan dangling. Mr. Pell, who had come to town for the party,
+faced her; the two girls, the two sons, and the guests were dispersed on
+either side. Eighteen of us in all. Crayton was there as large as life,
+and of the other people I did not know all the names. The dinner was
+given for some great gun who had to do with railway companies. He kept
+it waiting twenty minutes, and then loomed in with a glistening bald
+head, and a yellow rose in his coat: his wife, a very little woman in
+pink, on his arm.
+
+"I saw your father yesterday," called out Pell down the table to Tod.
+"He said he was glad to hear you were enjoying yourselves."
+
+"Ah--yes--thank you," replied Tod, in a hesitating sort of way. I don't
+know what _he_ was thinking of; but it flashed into my mind that the
+Squire would have been anything but "glad," had he known about the
+cards, and the billiards, and the twenty-five-pound debt.
+
+Dinner came to an end at last, and we found a few evening guests in the
+drawing-room--mostly young ladies. Some of the dinner people went away.
+The railway man sat whispering with Pell in a corner: his wife nodded
+asleep, and woke up to talk by fits and starts. The youngest girl, Rose,
+who was in the drawing-room with Leonora and the governess, ran up to
+me.
+
+"Please let me be your partner, Mr. Ludlow! They are going to dance a
+quadrille in the back drawing-room."
+
+So I took her, and we had the quadrille. Then another, that I danced
+with Constance. Tod was not to be seen anywhere.
+
+"I wonder what has become of Todhetley?"
+
+"He has gone out with Gusty and Mr. Crayton, I think," answered
+Constance. "It is too bad of them."
+
+By one o'clock all the people had left; the girls and Mrs. Pell said
+good night and disappeared. In going up to bed, I met one of the
+servants.
+
+"Do you know what time Mr. Todhetley went out, Richard?"
+
+"Mr. Todhetley, sir? He has not gone out. He is in the smoking-room
+with Mr. Augustus and Mr. Crayton. I've just taken up some soda-water."
+
+I went on to the smoking-room: a small den, built out on the leads of
+the second floor, that no one presumed to enter except Gusty and Fabian.
+The cards lay on the table in a heap, and the three round it were
+talking hotly. I could see there had been a quarrel. Some stranger had
+come in, and was standing with his back to the mantel-piece. They called
+him Temply; a friend of Crayton's. Temply was speaking as I opened the
+door.
+
+"It is clearly a case of obligation to go on; of honour. No good in
+trying to shirk it, Todhetley."
+
+"I will not go on," said Tod, as he tossed back his hair from his hot
+brow with a desperate hand. "If you increase the stakes without my
+consent, I have a right to refuse to continue playing. As to honour; I
+know what that is as well as any one here."
+
+They saw me then: and none of them looked too well pleased. Gusty asked
+me what I wanted; but he spoke quite civilly.
+
+"I came to see after you all. Richard said you were here."
+
+What they had been playing at, I don't know: whether whist, écarté, loo,
+or what. Tod, as usual, had been losing frightfully: I could see that.
+Gusty was smoking; Crayton, cool as a cucumber, drank hard at
+brandy-and-soda. If that man had swallowed a barrel of cognac, he would
+never have shown it. Temply and Crayton stared at me rudely. Perhaps
+they thought I minded it.
+
+"I wouldn't play again to-night, were I you," I said aloud to Tod.
+
+"No, I won't; there," he cried, giving the cards an angry push. "I am
+sick of the things--and tired to death. Good night to you all."
+
+Crayton swiftly put his back against the door, barring Tod's exit. "You
+cannot leave before the game's finished, Todhetley."
+
+"We had not begun the game," rejoined Tod. "_You_ stopped it by trebling
+the stakes. I tell you, Crayton, I'll not play again to-night."
+
+"Then perhaps you'll pay me your losses."
+
+"How much are they?" asked Tod, biting his lips.
+
+"To-night?--or in all, do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, let us have it all," was Tod's answer; and I saw that he had great
+difficulty in suppressing his passion. All of them, except Crayton,
+seemed tolerably heated. "You know that I have not the ready-money to
+pay you; you've known that all along: but it's as well to ascertain how
+we stand."
+
+Crayton had been coolly turning over the leaves of a note-case, adding
+up some figures there, below his breath.
+
+"Eighty-five before, and seven to-night makes just ninety-two.
+Ninety-two pounds, Todhetley."
+
+I sprang up from the chair in terror. It was as if some blast had swept
+over me, "Ninety-two pounds! Tod! do you owe _that_?"
+
+"I suppose I do."
+
+"_Ninety-two pounds!_ It cannot be. Why, it is close upon a hundred!"
+Crayton laughed at my consternation, and Temply stared.
+
+"If you'll go on playing, you may redeem some of it, Todhetley," said
+Crayton. "Come, sit down."
+
+"I will not touch another card to-night," said he, doggedly. "I have
+said it: and I am not one to break my word: as Johnny Ludlow here can
+testify to. I don't know that I shall play again after to-night."
+
+Crayton was offended. Cool though he was, I think he was somewhat the
+worse for what he had taken--perhaps they all were. "Then you'll make
+arrangements for paying your debts," said he, in scornful tones.
+
+"Yes, I'll do that," answered Tod. And he got away. So did I, after a
+minute or two: Gusty kept me, talking.
+
+In passing upstairs, for we slept on the third floor, Mr. Pell came
+suddenly out of a room on the left; a candle in one hand and some papers
+in the other, and a look on his face as of some great trouble.
+
+"What! are you young men not in bed yet?" he exclaimed. "It is late."
+
+"We are going up now. Is anything the matter, sir?" I could not help
+asking.
+
+"The matter?" he repeated.
+
+"I thought you looked worried."
+
+"I am worried with work," he said, laughing slightly. "While others take
+their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings
+great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my
+lad."
+
+Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible
+position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds--to put it in round
+numbers--for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell
+his father. I mounted on the iron rail of my little bed opposite the
+window, and looked at him.
+
+"Tod, what _is_ to be done?"
+
+"For two pins I'd go and enlist in some African regiment," growled he.
+"Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world here, and my shame
+with me."
+
+"Shame!"
+
+"Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can't pay is bad
+enough; but a debt of honour----"
+
+He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob--as if there were
+no word strong enough to express the sense of shame.
+
+"It will never do to tell the Pater."
+
+"Tell _him_!" he exclaimed sharply. "Johnny, I'd cut off my right
+hand--I'd fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring such a blow on
+him."
+
+"Well, and so I think would I."
+
+"It would kill him as sure as we are here, Johnny. He would look upon
+it that I have become a confirmed gambler, and I believe the shock
+and grief would be such that he'd die of it. No: I have not been so
+particularly dutiful a son, that I should bring _that_ upon him."
+
+I balanced myself on the bed-rail. Tod paced the carpet slowly.
+
+"No, never," he repeated, as if there had not been any pause. "I would
+rather die myself."
+
+"But what is to be done?"
+
+"Heaven knows! I wish the Pells had been far enough before they had
+invited us up."
+
+"I wish you had never consented to play with the lot at all, Tod. You
+might have stood out from the first."
+
+"Ay. But one glides into these things unconsciously. Johnny, I begin to
+think Crayton is just a gambler, playing to win, and nothing better."
+
+"Playing for his bread. That is, for the things that constitute it. His
+drink, and his smoke, and his lodgings, and his boots, and his rings.
+Old Brandon said it. As to his dinners, he generally gets them at
+friends' houses."
+
+"Old Brandon said it, did he?"
+
+"Why, I told you so the same day. And you bade me shut up."
+
+"Do you know what they want me to do, Johnny? To sign a post-obit bond
+for two hundred, or so, to be paid after my father's death. It's true.
+Crayton will let me off then."
+
+"And will you do it?" I cried, feeling that my eyes blazed as I leaped
+down.
+
+"No, I _won't_: and I told them so to-night. That's what the quarrel was
+about. 'Every young fellow does it whose father lives too long and keeps
+him out of his property,' said that Temply. 'Maybe so; I won't,' I
+answered. Neither will I. I'd rather break stones on the road than
+speculate upon the good Pater's death, or anticipate his money in that
+manner to hide my sins."
+
+"Gusty Pell ought to help you."
+
+"Gusty says he can't. Fabian, I believe, really can't; he is in
+difficulties of his own: and sometimes, Johnny, I fancy Gus is. Crayton
+fleeces them both, unless I am mistaken. Yes, he's a sharper; I see
+through him now. I want him to take my I O U to pay him as soon as I
+can, and he knows I would do it, but he won't do that. There's two
+o'clock."
+
+It was of no use sitting up, and I began to undress. The question
+reiterated itself again and again--what was to be done? I lay awake all
+night thinking, vainly wishing I was of age. Fanciful thoughts crossed
+my mind: of appealing to rich old Pell, and asking him to lend the
+money, not betraying Gusty and the rest by saying what it was wanted
+for; of carrying the story to Miss Deveen, and asking her; and lastly,
+of going to old Brandon, and getting _him_ to help. I grew to think that
+I _would_ do this, however much I disliked it, and try Brandon; that it
+lay in my duty to do so.
+
+Worn and haggard enough looked Tod the next morning. He had sat up
+nearly all night. When breakfast was over, I started for the Tavistock,
+whispering a word to Tod first.
+
+"Avoid the lot to-day, Tod. I'll try and help you out of the mess."
+
+He burst out laughing in the midst of his perplexity. "_You_, Johnny!
+what next?"
+
+"Remember the fable of the lion and the mouse."
+
+"But you can never be the mouse in this, you mite of a boy! Thank you
+all the same, Johnny: you mean it well."
+
+"Can I see Mr. Brandon?" I asked at the hotel, of a strange waiter.
+
+"Mr. Brandon, sir? He is not staying here."
+
+"Not staying here!"
+
+"No, sir, he left some days ago."
+
+"But I thought he was coming back again."
+
+"So I believe he is, sir. But he has not come yet."
+
+"Do you know where he is?"
+
+"At Brighton, sir."
+
+It was about as complete a floorer as I ever wished to get. All the way
+along, I had been planning which way to break it to him. I turned from
+the door, whistling and thinking. Should I go after him to Brighton? I
+had the money, and the time, why should I not do so? Heaven alone knew
+how much depended upon Tod's being released from trouble; Heaven alone
+knew what desperate course he might take in his shame, if not released
+from it.
+
+Dropping a note to Tod, saying I should be out for the day, and getting
+a porter to take it up, I made the best of my way to the nearest
+Brighton station, and found a train just starting. Brighton was a large
+place, and they could not tell me at the Tavistock what hotel Mr.
+Brandon was staying at; except that one of the waiters "thought" it
+might be the Old Ship. And that's where I first went, on arrival.
+
+No. No one of the name of Brandon was at the Old Ship. So there I was,
+like an owl in a desert, wondering where to go next.
+
+And how many hotels and inns I tried before I found him, it would be
+impossible to remember now. One of the last was up Kemp Town way--the
+Royal Crescent Hotel.
+
+"Is Mr. Brandon staying here?"
+
+"Mr. Brandon of Warwickshire? Yes, sir."
+
+It was so very unexpected an answer after all the failures, that I
+hardly believed my own ears. Mr. Brandon was not well, the waiter added:
+suffering from cold and sore throat--but he supposed I could see him. I
+answered that I must see him; I had come all the way from London on
+purpose.
+
+Old Brandon was sitting in a long room, with a bow-window looking out on
+the sea; some broth at his elbow, and a yellow silk handkerchief resting
+cornerwise on his head.
+
+"Mr. Ludlow, sir," said the waiter. And he dropped the spoon into the
+broth, and stared at me as if I were an escaped lunatic.
+
+"Why!--you! What on earth brings _you_ here, Johnny Ludlow?"
+
+To tell him what, was the hardest task I'd ever had in my life. And I
+did it badly. Sipping spoonfuls of broth and looking hard at me whilst
+he listened, did not help the process. I don't know how I got it out, or
+how confused was the way I told him that I wanted a hundred pounds of my
+own money.
+
+"A hundred pounds, eh?" said he. "You are a nice gentleman, Johnny
+Ludlow!"
+
+"I am very sorry, sir, to have to ask it. The need is very urgent, or I
+should not do so."
+
+"What's it for?" questioned he.
+
+"I--it is to pay a debt, sir," I answered, feeling my face flush hot.
+
+"Whose debt?"
+
+By the way he looked at me, I could see that he knew as plainly as
+though I had told him, that it was not my debt. And yet--but for letting
+him think it was mine, he might turn a deaf ear to me. Old Brandon
+finished up his broth, and put the basin down.
+
+"You are a clever fellow, Johnny Ludlow, but not quite clever enough to
+deceive me. You'd no more get into such debt yourself, than I should. I
+have a better opinion of you than that. Who has sent you here?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, I came of my own free will. No one knows, even, that I
+have come. Mr. Brandon, I hope you will help me: it is almost a matter
+of life or death."
+
+"You are wasting words and time, Johnny Ludlow."
+
+And I felt I was. Felt it hopelessly.
+
+"There's an old saying, and a very good one, Johnny--Tell the whole
+truth to your lawyer and doctor. I am neither a lawyer nor a doctor:
+but I promise you this much, that unless you tell me the truth of the
+matter, every word of it, and explain your request fully and clearly,
+you may go marching back to London."
+
+There was no help for it. I spoke a few words, and they were quite
+enough. He seemed to grasp the situation as by magic, and turned me, as
+may be said, inside out. In five minutes he knew by heart as much of it
+as I did.
+
+"So!" said he, in his squeaky voice--ten times more squeaky when he
+was vexed. "Good! A nice nest you have got amongst. Want him to give
+post-obit bonds, do they! Which _is_ Todhetley--a knave or a fool?"
+
+"He has refused to give the bonds, I said, sir."
+
+"Bonds, who's talking of bonds?" he retorted. "For playing, _I_ mean. He
+must have been either a knave or a fool, to play till he owed a hundred
+pounds when he knew he had not the means to pay."
+
+"But I have explained how it was, sir. He lost, and then played on,
+hoping to redeem his losses. I think Crayton had him fast, and would not
+let him escape."
+
+"Ay. Got him, and kept him. That's your grand friend, the Honourable,
+Johnny Ludlow. There: give me the newspaper."
+
+"But you will let me have the money, sir?"
+
+"Not if I know it."
+
+It was a woeful check. I set on and begged as if I had been begging for
+life: saying I hardly knew what. That it might save Tod from a downhill
+course--and spare grief to the poor old Squire--and pain to me. Pain
+that would lie on my mind always, knowing that I possessed the money,
+yet might not use it to save him.
+
+"It's of no use, Johnny. I have been a faithful guardian to you, and
+done well by your property. Could your dead father look back on this
+world and see the income you'll come into when you are of age, he would
+know I speak the truth. You cannot suppose I should waste any portion of
+it, I don't care how slight a one, in paying young men's wicked gambling
+debts."
+
+I prayed him still. I asked him to put himself in my place and see if
+he would not feel as I felt. I said that I should never--as I truly
+believed--have an opportunity of spending money that would give me half
+the pleasure of this, or do half the good. Besides, it was only a loan:
+Tod was sure to repay it when he could. No: old Brandon was hard as
+flint. He got up and rang the bell.
+
+"We'll drop it, Johnny. What will you take? Have you had anything since
+breakfast?"
+
+"No, sir. But I don't want anything."
+
+"Bring up dinner for this young gentleman," he said, when the waiter
+appeared. "Anything you have that's _good_. And be quick about it,
+please."
+
+They brought up a hastily prepared dinner: and very good it was. But
+I could scarcely eat for sorrow. Old Brandon, nursing himself at the
+opposite end of the table, the yellow handkerchief on his head, looked
+at me all the while.
+
+"Johnny Ludlow, do you know what I think--that you'd give away your head
+if it were loose. It's a good thing you have me to take care of you."
+
+"No, sir, I should not. If you would let me have this hundred pounds--it
+is really only ninety-two, though--I would repay it with two hundred
+when I came of age."
+
+"Like the simpleton you are."
+
+"I think I would give half my money, Mr. Brandon, to serve Todhetley in
+this strait. We are as brothers."
+
+"No doubt you would: but you've not got it to give, Johnny. You can let
+him fight his own battles."
+
+"And I would if he were able to fight them: but he is not able; it's an
+exceptional case. I must go back to London, and try there."
+
+Old Brandon opened his eyes. "How?"
+
+"I think perhaps Miss Deveen would let me have the money. She is rich
+and generous--and I will tell her the whole truth. It is a turning-point
+in Todhetley's life, sir: help would save him."
+
+"How do you know but he'd return to the mire? Let him have this money,
+and he might go on gambling and lose another hundred. Perhaps hundreds
+at the back of it."
+
+"No, sir, that he never would. He may go deeper into the mire if he does
+not get it. Enlist, or something."
+
+"Are you going already, Johnny?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I must catch the next train, and it's a good way to the
+station."
+
+"You can take a fly. Wait a few minutes."
+
+He went into his bedroom, on the same floor. When he came back, he held
+a piece of paper in his hand.
+
+"There, Johnny. But it is my loan; not yours."
+
+It was a cheque for a hundred pounds. He had listened, after all! The
+surprise was so great that I am afraid my eyes were dim.
+
+"The loan is mine, Johnny," he repeated. "I am not going to risk your
+money, and prove myself a false trustee. When Todhetley can repay it, it
+will be to me, not to you. But now--understand: unless he gives you a
+solemn promise never to play with that 'Honourable' again, or with
+either of the Pells, _you will not use the cheque_, but return it to
+me."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Brandon, there will be no difficulty. He only wants to be quit
+of them."
+
+"Get his promise, I say. If he gives it, present this cheque at
+Robarts's in Lombard Street to-morrow, and they'll pay you the money
+over the counter."
+
+"It is made out to my order!" I said, looking at the cheque: "not to
+Crayton!"
+
+"To Crayton!" retorted Mr. Brandon. "I wouldn't let a cheque of mine,
+uncrossed, fall into _his_ hands. He might add an ought or two to the
+figures. I drew it out for an even hundred, you see: the odd money may
+be wanted. You'll have to sign your name at the back: do it at the bank.
+And now, do you know why I have let you have this?"
+
+I looked at him in doubt.
+
+"Because you have obeyed the injunctions I gave you--to bring any
+difficulty you might have to me. I certainly never expected it so
+soon, or that it would take this form. Don't you get tumbling into
+another. Let people take care of themselves. There: put it into your
+breast-pocket, and be off."
+
+I don't know how I got back to town. There was no accident, and we were
+not pitched into next week. If we had been, I'm not sure that I should
+have minded it; for that cheque in my pocket seemed a panacea for all
+human ills. The Pells were at dinner when I entered: and Tod was lying
+outside his bed, with one of his torturing headaches. He did not often
+have them: which was a good thing, for they were rattlers. Taking his
+hand from his head, he glanced at me.
+
+"Where have you been all day, Johnny?" he asked, hardly able to speak.
+"That was a short note of yours."
+
+"I've been to Brighton."
+
+Tod opened his eyes again with surprise. He did not believe it.
+
+"Why don't you say Bagdad, at once? Keep your counsel, if you choose,
+lad. I'm too ill to get it out of you."
+
+"But I don't want to keep it: and I have been to Brighton. Had dinner
+there, too. Tod, old fellow, the mouse has done his work. Here's a
+cheque for you for a hundred pounds."
+
+He looked at it as I held it out to him, saw it was true, and then
+sprang off the bed. I had seen glad emotion in my life, even at that
+early period of it, but hardly such as Tod's then. Never a word spoke
+he.
+
+"It is lent by Mr. Brandon to you, Tod. He bade me say it. I could not
+get any of mine out of him. The only condition is--that, before I cash
+it, you shall promise not to play again with Crayton or the Pells."
+
+"I'll promise it now. Glad to do it. Long live old Brandon! Johnny, my
+good brother, I'm too ill to thank you--my temples seem as if they were
+being split with a sledge-hammer--but you have _saved_ me."
+
+I was at Robarts's when it opened in the morning. And signed my name at
+the back of the cheque, and got the money. Fancy _me_ having a hundred
+pounds paid to me in notes and gold! The Squire would have thought the
+world was coming to an end.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+OUR STRIKE.
+
+
+It was September, and they were moving to Crabb Cot for a week or two's
+shooting. The shooting was not bad about there, and the Squire liked a
+turn with his gun yet. Being close on the Michaelmas holidays, Tod and I
+were with them.
+
+When the stay was going to be short, the carriages did not come over
+from Dyke Manor. On arriving at South Crabb station, there was a fly
+waiting. It would not take us all. Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, the two
+children, and Hannah got into it, and some of the luggage was put on
+the top.
+
+"You two boys can walk," said the Pater. "It will stretch your legs."
+
+And a great deal rather walk, too, than be boxed up in a crawling fly!
+
+We took the way through Crabb Lane: the longest but merriest, for it was
+always lively with noise and dirt. Reports had gone abroad long before
+that Crabb Lane was "out on strike:" Tod and I thought we would take a
+look at it in this new aspect.
+
+There were some great works in the vicinity--I need not state here their
+exact speciality--and the men employed at them chiefly inhabited Crabb
+Lane. It was setting-up these works that caused the crowded dwellings
+in Crabb Lane to be built--for where a number of workmen congregate
+together, habitations must of necessity follow.
+
+You have heard of Crabb Lane before--in connection with what I once told
+you about Harry Lease the pointsman. It was a dingy, over-populated,
+bustling place, prosperous on the whole, its inhabitants as a rule
+well-to-do. A strike was quite a new feature, bringing to most of them a
+fresh experience in life. England had strikes in those past days, but
+they were not common.
+
+Crabb Lane during working hours had hitherto been given over to the
+children, who danced in the gutters and cried and screamed themselves
+hoarse. Women also would be out of doors, idling away their time in
+gossip, or else calling across to each other from the windows. But
+now, as I and Tod went down it, things looked different. Instead of
+women and children, men were there. Every individual man, I believe,
+out of every house the lane contained; for there appeared to be shoals
+of them. They lounged idly against the walls, or stood about in
+groups. Some with pipes, some without; some laughing and jeering,
+apparently in the highest spirits, as if they had climbed the tree of
+fortune; some silent and anxious-looking.
+
+"Well, Hoar, how are you?"
+
+It was Tod who spoke. The man he addressed, Jacob Hoar, was one of the
+best of the workmen: a sober, steady, honest fellow, with a big frame
+and a resolute face. He had the character of being fierce in temper,
+sometimes savage with his fellow-men, if put out. Alfred Hoar--made
+pointsman at the station in poor Harry Lease's place--was his brother.
+
+Hoar did not answer Tod at all. He was standing quite alone near the
+door of his house, a strangely defiant look upon his pale face, and his
+firm lips drawn in. Unless I was mistaken, some of the men over the way
+were taking covert glances at him, as though he were a kangaroo they had
+to keep aloof from. Hoar turned his eyes slowly upon us, took off his
+round felt hat, and smoothed back his dark hair.
+
+"I be as well as matters'll let me be, young Mr. Todhetley," he then
+said.
+
+"There's a strike going on, I hear," said Tod. "Has been for some time."
+
+"Yes, there's a strike a-going on," assented Hoar, speaking in a
+deliberate, sullen manner, as a man resenting some special grievance.
+"Has been for some time, as you say. And I don't know when the strike
+'ll be a-going off."
+
+"How is Eliza?" I asked.
+
+"Much as usual, Mr. Johnny. What should ail her?"
+
+Evidently there was no sociability to be got out of Jacob Hoar that
+afternoon, and we left him. A few yards further, we passed Ford's, the
+baker's. No end of heads were at the shop door, and _they_ seemed to be
+staring at Hoar.
+
+"He must have been dealing out a little abuse to the public generally,
+Tod," said I.
+
+"Very likely," answered Tod. "He seems bursting with some rage or
+other."
+
+"Nay, I don't think it's rage so much as vexation. Something must have
+gone wrong."
+
+"Well, perhaps so."
+
+"Look here, Tod. If we had a home to keep up and a lot of mouths to feed
+and weekly rent to pay, and a strike stopped the supplies, we might be
+in a worse humour than Hoar is."
+
+"Right, Johnny." And Tod went off at a strapping pace.
+
+How it may be with other people, I don't know: but when I get back to
+a place after an absence, I want to see every one, and am apt to go
+dashing in at doors without warning.
+
+"It won't take us a minute to look in on Miss Timmens, Tod," I said,
+as we neared the school-house. "She'll tell us the news of the whole
+parish."
+
+"Take the minute, then, if you like," said Tod. "I am not going to
+bother myself with Miss Timmens."
+
+Neither perhaps should I, after that, for Tod swayed me still; but in
+passing the door it was opened wide by one of the little scholars. Miss
+Timmens sat in her chair, the lithe, thin cane, three yards long, raised
+in her hand, its other end descending, gently enough on the shoulders of
+a chattering girl.
+
+"I don't keep it to beat 'em," Miss Timmens was wont to say of her cane,
+"but just to tap 'em into attention when they are beyond the reach of my
+hand." And, to give her her due, it was nothing more.
+
+"It's you, is it, Master Johnny? I heard you were all expected."
+
+"It's me, safe enough. How goes the world with you, Miss Timmens?"
+
+"Cranky," was the short answer. "South Crabb's going out of its senses,
+I think. The parson is trying to introduce fresh ways and doings, in my
+school: new-fangled rubbish, Master Johnny, that will bring more harm
+than good. I won't have it, and so he and I are at daggers drawn. And
+there's a strike in the place!"
+
+I nodded. While she spoke, it had struck me, looking at the room, that
+it was not so full as usual.
+
+"It's the strike does that," she said, in a sort of triumph. "It's the
+strike that works all the ill and every kind of evil"--and it was quite
+evident the strike found no more favour with her than the parson's fresh
+ways.
+
+"But what has the strike to do with the children's absence from school?"
+
+"The strike has carried all the children's best things to the pawn-shop,
+and they've nothing decent left to come abroad in. That is one cause,
+Johnny Ludlow," she concluded, very tartly.
+
+"Is there any other?"
+
+"Don't you think that sufficient? I am not going to let them appear
+before me in rags--and so Crabb Lane knows. But there is another cause,
+sir. This strike has so altered the course of things that the whole
+order of ordinary events is turned upside down. Even if the young ones'
+frocks were home again, it would be ten to one against their coming to
+school."
+
+"I don't see the two little Hoars." And why I had been looking for
+those particular children I can't say, unless it was that Hoar and his
+peculiar manner had been floating in my mind ever since we passed him.
+
+"'Liza and Jessy--no, but they've been here till to-day," was the reply,
+given after a long pause. "Are you going, Mr. Johnny?--I'll just step
+outside with you."
+
+She drew the door close behind her, keeping the handle in her hand, and
+looked straight into my face.
+
+"Jacob Hoar has gone and beat his boy almost to death this morning--and
+the strike's the cause of _that_," she whispered, emphatically.
+
+"Jacob Hoar has!--Why, how came he to do it?"--I exclaimed, recalling
+more forcibly than ever the man's curious look, and the curious looks of
+the other men holding aloof from him. "Which of his boys is it?"
+
+"The second of them; little Dick. Yes, he is black and blue all over,
+they say; next door to beat to death; and his arm's broken. And they
+have the strike to thank for it."
+
+She repeated the concluding words more stingingly than before. That Miss
+Timmens was wroth with the strike, there could be no mistake. I asked
+her why the strike was to be thanked for the beating and the broken arm.
+
+"Because the strike has brought misery; and _that_ is the source of all
+the ill going on just now in Crabb Lane," was her reply. "When the men
+threw themselves out of work, of course they threw themselves out of
+wages. Some funds have been furnished to them, weekly I believe, from
+the Trades Union League--or whatever they call the thing--but it seems a
+mere nothing compared with what they used to earn. Household goods, as
+well as clothes, have been going to the pawn-shop, but they have now
+pledged all they've got to pledge, and are, it is said, in sore straits:
+mothers and fathers and children alike hungry. It is some time now since
+they have had enough to eat. Fancy that, Mr. Johnny!"
+
+"But why should Dicky be beaten for that?" I persisted, trying to keep
+her to the point--a rather difficult matter with Miss Timmens at all
+times.
+
+"It was in this way," she answered, dropping her voice to a lower key,
+and giving a pull at the door to make sure it had not opened. "Dicky,
+poor fellow, is half starved; he's not used to it, and feels it keenly:
+resents it, I dare say. This morning, when out in the lane, he saw a
+tray of halfpenny buns, hot from the oven, put on old Ford's counter.
+The sight was too much for him, the temptation too great. Dicky Hoar is
+naturally honest; has been, up to now, at all events: but I suppose
+hunger was stronger than honesty to-day. He crept into the shop on all
+fours, abstracted a bun with his fingers, and was creeping out again,
+when Ford pounced upon him, bun in hand. There was a fine outcry. Ford
+was harsh, roared out for the policeman, and threatened him with jail,
+and in the midst of the commotion Hoar came up. In his mortification at
+hearing that a boy of his had been caught pilfering, he seized upon a
+thick stick that a bystander happened to have, and laid it unmercifully
+upon poor Dick."
+
+"And broke his arm?"
+
+"And broke his arm. And covered him with weals beside. He'll be all
+manner of colours to-morrow."
+
+"What a brutal fellow Hoar must be!"
+
+"To beat him like that?--well, yes," assented Miss Timmens, in accents
+that bore rather a dubious sound. "Passion must have blinded him and
+urged him further than he intended. The man has always been upright;
+prided himself on being so, as one may say; and there's no doubt that
+to find his child could be a thief shook him cruelly. This strike is
+ruining the tempers of the men; it makes them feel at war with
+everything and everybody."
+
+When I got home I found them in the thick of the news also, for Cole the
+doctor was there telling it all. Mrs. Todhetley, sitting on the sofa
+with her bonnet untied and her shawl unpinned, was listening in a kind
+of horror.
+
+"But surely the arm cannot be _broken_, Mr. Cole!" she urged.
+
+"Broken just above the wrist, ma'am. I ought to know, for I set it.
+Wicked little rascal, to steal the bun! As to Hoar, he is as fierce as a
+tiger when really enraged."
+
+"Well, it sounds very shocking."
+
+"So it does," said Cole. "I think perhaps it may be productive of one
+good--keep the boy from picking and stealing to the end of his life."
+
+"He was hungry, you say."
+
+"Famished, ma'am. Most of the young ones in Crabb Lane are so just now."
+
+The Squire was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.
+He halted, and faced the Doctor.
+
+"Look here, Cole--what has brought this state of things about? A
+strike!--and prolonged! Why, I should as soon have expected to hear
+the men had thrown up their work to become Merry Andrews! Who is in
+fault?--the masters or the men?"
+
+Cole lifted his eyebrows. "The masters lay the blame on the men, the men
+lay it on the masters."
+
+"What is it the men are holding out for?"
+
+"To get more wages, and to do less work."
+
+"Oh, come, that's a twofold demand," cried the Pater. "Modest folk
+generally ask for one favour at a time. Meanwhile things are all at
+sixes-and-sevens, I suppose, in Crabb Lane?"
+
+"Ay," said the Doctor. "At worse than sixes-and-sevens, indoors and out.
+There are empty cupboards and empty rooms within; and there's a good
+deal of what's bad without. It's the wives and children that suffer,
+poor things."
+
+"The men must be senseless to throw themselves out of work!"
+
+"The men only obey orders," cried Mr. Cole. "There's a spirit of
+disaffection abroad: certain people have constituted themselves rulers,
+and they say to the men, 'You must do this,' and 'You must not do that.'
+The men have yielded themselves up to be led, and _do_ do what they are
+told, right or wrong."
+
+"I don't say they are wrong to try to get more wages if they can; it
+would be odd if we were to be debarred from bettering ourselves," spoke
+the Squire. "But to throw up their work whilst they are trying, there's
+the folly; there's where the shoe must tighten. Let them keep on their
+work whilst they agitate."
+
+"They'd tell you, I expect, that the masters would be less likely to
+listen then than they are now."
+
+"Well, they've no right, in common sense, to throw up their wives' and
+children's living, if they do their own," concluded the Squire.
+
+Cole nodded. "There's some truth in that," he said as he got up to
+leave. "Any way, things are more gloomy with us than you'd believe,
+Squire."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may remember that I told you, when speaking of the Court and my
+early home, how, when I was a little child of four years old, Hannah my
+nurse, and Eliza one of her fellow-servants, commented freely in my
+hearing on my father's second marriage, and shook me well because I was
+wise enough to understand them. Eliza was then housemaid at the Court;
+and soon after this she had left it to marry Jacob Hoar. She was a nice
+sort of young woman (in spite of the shaking), and I kept up a great
+acquaintance with her, and was free, so to say, of her house in Crabb
+Lane, running in and out of it at will, when we were at Crabb Cot. A
+tribe of little Hoars arrived, one after another. Jacky, the eldest,
+over ten now, had a place at the works, and earned two shillings a week.
+"'Twarn't much," said Hoar the father, "but 'twas bringing his hand in."
+Dick, the second, he who had just had the beating, was nine; two girls
+came next, and there was a young boy of three.
+
+Hoar earned capital wages--to judge by the comfortable way in which they
+lived: I should think not less than forty shillings a week. Of course
+they spent it all, every fraction; as a rule, families of that class
+never put by for a rainy day. They might have done it, I suppose; in
+those days provisions were nothing like as dear as they are now; the
+cost of living altogether was less.
+
+Of course the Hoars had to suffer in common with the rest under the
+strike. But I did not like to hear of empty cupboards in connection with
+Eliza; no, nor of her boy's broken arm; and in the evening I went back
+to Crabb Lane to see her. They lived next door but one to the house that
+had been Lease the pointsman's; but theirs was far better than that
+tumble-down hut.
+
+Well, it was a change! The pretty parlour looked half dismantled. Its
+ornaments and best things had gone, as Miss Timmens expressed it, to
+adorn the pawnshop. The carpet also. Against the wall, on a small
+mattress brought down for him, lay Dicky and his bruises. Some of the
+children sat on the floor: Mrs. Hoar was kneeling over Dicky and bathing
+his cheek, which was big enough for two, for it had caught the stick
+kindly.
+
+"Well, Eliza!"
+
+She got up, sank into a chair, flung her apron up to her face, and burst
+into tears. I suppose it was at the sight of me. Not knowing what to say
+to that, I pulled the little girls' ears and then sat down on the floor
+by Dicky. _He_ began to cry.
+
+"Oh come, Dick, don't; you'll soon be better. Face smarts, does it?"
+
+"I never thought to meet you like this, Master Johnny," said Eliza,
+getting up and speaking through her tears. "'Twas hunger made him do it,
+sir; nothing else. The poor little things be so famished at times it
+a'most takes the sense out of 'em."
+
+"Yes, I am sure it was nothing else. Look up, Dick. Don't cry like
+that." One would have thought the boy was going into hysterics.
+
+I had an apple in my pocket and gave it to him. He kept it in his hand
+for some time, and then began to eat it ravenously, sobbing now and
+then. The left arm, the broken one, lay across him, bound up in splints.
+
+"I didn't mean to steal the bun," he whispered, looking up at me through
+his tears. "I'd ha' give Mrs. Ford the first ha'penny for it that I'd
+ever got. I was a-hungered, I was. We be always a-hungered now."
+
+"It is hard times with you, I am afraid, Eliza," I said, standing by
+her.
+
+Opening her mouth to answer, a sob caught her breath, and she put her
+hand to her side, as if in pain. Her poor face, naturally patient and
+meek, was worn, and had a bright hectic spot upon it. Eliza used to be
+very pretty, and was young-looking still, with smooth brown hair, and
+mild grey eyes: she looked very haggard now and less tidy. But, as to
+being tidy, how can folk be that, when all their gowns worth a crown are
+hanging up at the pawnbroker's?
+
+"It's dreadful times, Master Johnny. It's times that frighten me. Worse
+than all, I can't see when it is to end, and what the end is to be."
+
+"Don't lose heart. The end will be that the men will go to work again: I
+dare say soon."
+
+"The Lord send it!" she answered. "That's the best we can hope for, sir;
+and that'll be hard enough. For we shall have to begin life again, as
+'twere; with debts all around us, and our household things and our
+clothes in pledge."
+
+"You will get them out again then."
+
+"Ay, but how long will it take to earn the money to do it? This strike,
+as I look upon it, has took at the rate of five years of prosperity out
+of our lives, Master Johnny."
+
+"The league--or whatever it is--allows you all money to live, does it
+not?"
+
+"We get some, sir. It's not a great deal. They tell us that there's
+strikes a-going on in many parts just now; these strikes have to be
+helped as well as the operatives here; and so it makes the allowance
+small. We have no means of knowing whether that's true or not, us women,
+I mean; but I dare say it is."
+
+"And the allowance is not enough to keep you in food?"
+
+"Master Johnny, there's so many other things one wants, beside bare
+food," she answered, with a sigh. "We must pay our rent, or the landlord
+would turn us out; we must have a bit o' coal for firing: we must have
+soap; clothes must be washed, sir, and we must be washed; we must have a
+candle these dark evenings; shoes must be mended: and there's other
+trifles, too, that I needn't go into, as well as what Hoar takes for
+himself----"
+
+"But does he take much?" I interrupted.
+
+"No, sir, he don't: nothing to what some of 'em takes: he has always
+been a good husband and father. The men, you see, sir, must have a few
+halfpence in their pockets to pay for their smoke and that, at their
+meetings in the evening. There's not much left for food when all this
+comes to be taken out--and we are seven mouths to fill."
+
+No wonder they were hungry!
+
+"Some of the people you've known ought to help you, Eliza. Mrs. Sterling
+at the old home might: or Mrs. Coney. Do they?"
+
+Eliza Hoar shook her head. "The gentlemen be all again us, sir, and so
+the ladies dare not do anything. As to Mrs. Sterling--I don't know that
+she has so much as heard of the strike--all them miles off."
+
+"You mean the gentlemen are against the strike!"
+
+"Yes, sir; dead again it. They say strikes is the worst kind of evil
+that can set in, both for us and for the country; that it will increase
+the poor-rates to a height to be afraid of, and in the end drive the
+work away from the land. Sitting here with my poor children around me at
+dusk to save candle, I get thinking sometimes that the gentlemen may not
+be far wrong, Master Johnny."
+
+Seeing the poor quiet faces lifted to me, from which every bit of spirit
+seemed to have gone, I wished I had my pockets full of buns for them.
+But buns were not likely to be there; and of money I had none: buying
+one of the best editions of Shakespeare had just cleared me out.
+
+"Where's Hoar?" I asked, in leaving.
+
+A hot flush overspread her face. "He has not shown himself here, Master
+Johnny, since what he did to _him_," was her resentful answer, pointing
+to Dick. "Afraid to face me, he is."
+
+"I'd not say too much to him, Eliza. It could not undo what's done, and
+might only make matters worse. I dare say Hoar is just as much vexed
+about it as you are."
+
+"It's to be hoped he is! Why did he go and set upon the child in that
+cruel way? It's the men that goes in for the strike; 'tisn't us: and
+when the worry of it makes 'em so low they hardly know where to turn,
+they must vent it upon us. Master Johnny, there are minutes now when I
+could wish myself dead but for the children."
+
+I went home with my head full of a scheme--getting Mrs. Todhetley and
+perhaps the Coneys to do something for poor Eliza Hoar. But I soon found
+I might as well have pleaded the cause of the public hangman.
+
+Who should come into our house that evening but old Coney himself. As if
+the strike were burning a hole in his tongue, he began upon it before he
+was well seated, and gave the Squire his version of it: that is, his
+opinion. It did not differ in substance from what had been hinted at by
+Eliza Hoar. Mr. Coney did not speak _for_ the men or _against_ them; he
+did not speak for or against the masters; that question of conflicting
+interests he said he was content to leave: but what he did urge, and
+very strongly, was, that strikes in themselves must be productive of
+an incalculable amount of harm; they brought misery on the workmen,
+pecuniary embarrassment on the masters, and they most inevitably would,
+if persisted in, eventually ruin the trade of the kingdom; therefore
+they should, by every possible means, be discouraged. The Squire, in his
+hot fashion, took up these opinions for his own and enlarged upon them.
+
+When old Coney was gone and we had our slippers on, I told them of my
+visit to Eliza, and asked them to help her just a little.
+
+"Not by a crust of bread, Johnny," said the Squire, more firmly and
+quietly than he usually spoke. "Once begin to assist the wives and
+children, and the men would have so much the less need to bring the
+present state of things to an end."
+
+"I am so sorry for Eliza, sir."
+
+"So am I, Johnny. But the proper person to be sorry for her is her
+husband: her weal and woe can lie only with him."
+
+"If we could help her ever so little!"
+
+The Squire looked at me for a full minute. "Attend to me, Johnny Ludlow.
+Once for all, NO! The strike, as Coney says, must be discouraged by
+every means in our power. _Discouraged_, Johnny. Otherwise these strikes
+may come into fashion, and grow to an extent of which no man can foresee
+the end. They will bring the workmen to one of two things--starvation,
+or the workhouse. That result seems to me inevitable."
+
+"I'm sure it makes me feel very uncomfortable," said the Mater. "One can
+hardly see where one's duty lies."
+
+"Our poor-rates are getting higher every day; what do you suppose
+they'll come to if this is to go on?" continued the Squire. "I'd be glad
+for the men to get better pay if they are underpaid now: whether they
+are or not, I cannot tell; but rely upon it, striking is not the way to
+attain to it. It's a way that has ruined many a hopeful workman, who
+otherwise would have gone on contentedly to the end of his days; ay, and
+has finally killed him. It will ruin many another. Various interests are
+at stake in this; you must perceive it for yourself, Johnny lad, if you
+have any brains; but none so great as that of the workmen themselves.
+With all my heart I wish, for their own sakes, they had not taken this
+extreme step."
+
+"And if the poor children starve, sir?" I ventured to say.
+
+"Fiddlestick to starving! They need not starve while there's a workhouse
+to go to. And _won't_; that's more. _Can't_ you see how all this acts,
+Mr. Johnny? The men throw themselves out of work; and when matters
+come to an extremity the parish must feed the children, and we, the
+rate-payers, must pay. A pleasant prospect! How many scores of children
+are there in Crabb Lane alone?"
+
+"A few dozens, I should say, sir."
+
+"And a few to that. No, Johnny; let the men look to their families'
+needs. For their own sakes; I repeat it; for their own best interests,
+I'll have them left alone. They have entered on this state of things of
+their own free will, and they must themselves fight it out.--And now get
+you off to bed, boys."
+
+"The Pater's right, Johnny," cried Tod, stepping into my room as we
+went up, his candle flaring in the draught from the open staircase
+window; "right as right can be on principle; but it _is_ hard for the
+women and children----"
+
+"It is hard for themselves, too, Tod: only they have the unbending
+spirit of Britons, to hold out to the death and make no bones over it."
+
+"I wish you'd not interrupt a fellow," growled Tod. "Look here; I've got
+four-and-sixpence, every farthing I can count just now. You take it and
+give it to Eliza. The Pater need know nothing."
+
+He emptied his trousers pocket of the silver, and went off with his
+candle. I'm not sure but that he and I both enjoyed the state of
+affairs as something new. Had any one told us a year ago that our quiet
+neighbourhood could be disturbed by a public ferment such as this, we
+should never have believed it.
+
+The next morning I went over to South Crabb with the four-and-sixpence.
+Perhaps it was not quite fair to give it, after what the Squire had
+said--but there's many a worse thing than that done daily in the world.
+Eliza caught her breath when I gave it to her, and thanked me with her
+eyes as well as her lips. She had on a frightfully old green gown--green
+once--shabby and darned and patched, and no cap; and she was on her
+knees wiping up some spilt water on the floor.
+
+"Mind, Eliza, you must not say a word to any one. I should get into no
+end of a row."
+
+"You were always generous, Master Johnny. Even when a baby----"
+
+"Never mind that. It is not I who am generous now. The silver was given
+me for you by some one else; I am cleared out, myself. Where's Dicky?"
+
+"He's upstairs in his bed, sir: too stiff to move. Mr. Cole, too, said
+he might as well lie there to-day. Would you like to go up and see him?"
+
+As I ran up the staircase, open from the room, a vision of her wan face
+followed me--of the catching sob again--of the smooth brown hair which
+she was pressing from her temples. We have heard of a peck of troubles:
+she seemed to have a bushel of them.
+
+Dicky was a sight, as far as variety of colours went. There was no
+mistake about his stiffness.
+
+"It won't last long, Dick; and then you'll be as well as ever."
+
+Dick's grey eyes--they were just like his mother's--looked up at mine. I
+thought he was going to cry.
+
+"There. You will never take anything again, will you?"
+
+Dick shook his head as emphatically as his starched condition allowed.
+"Father says as he'd kill me the next time if I did."
+
+"When did he say that?"
+
+"This morning; afore he went out."
+
+Dicky's room had a lean-to roof, and was about the size of our jam
+closet at Crabb Cot. Not an earthly article was in it but the mattress
+he was lying on.
+
+"Who sleeps here besides you, Dicky?"
+
+"Jacky and little Sam. 'Liza and Jessy sleeps by father and mother."
+
+"Well, good day, Dicky."
+
+Whom should I come upon at the end of Crabb Lane, but the Squire and
+Hoar. The Squire had his gun in his hand and was talking his face red:
+Hoar leaned against the wooden palings that skirted old Massock's
+garden, and looked as sullen as he had looked yesterday. I thought the
+Pater had been blowing him up for beating the boy; but it seemed that he
+was blowing him up for the strike. Cole, the surgeon, hurrying along on
+his rounds, stopped just as I did.
+
+"Not your fault, Hoar!" cried the Squire. "Of course I know it's not
+your fault alone, but you are as bad as the rest. Come; tell me what
+good the strike has done for you."
+
+"Not much as yet," readily acknowledged Hoar, in a tone of incipient
+defiance.
+
+"To me it seems nothing less than a crime to throw yourself out of work.
+There's the work ready to your hands, _spoiling_ for want of being
+done--and yet you won't do it!"
+
+"I do but obey orders," said Hoar: who seemed to be miserable enough, in
+spite of the incipient defiance.
+
+"But is there any sense in it?" reasoned the Squire. "If you men could
+drop the work and still keep up your homes and, their bread-and-cheese,
+and their other comforts, I'd say nothing. But look at your poor
+suffering wives and children. I should be _ashamed_ to be idle, when my
+idleness bore such consequences."
+
+The man answered nothing. Cole put in his word.
+
+"There are times when I feel _I_ should like to run away from my work,
+and go in for a few weeks' or months' idleness, Jacob Hoar; and drink my
+two or three glasses of port wine after dinner of a day, like a lord;
+and be altogether independent of my station and my patients, and of
+every other obligation under the sun. But I can't. I know what it would
+do for _me_--bring me to the parish."
+
+"D'ye think we throw up the work for the sake o' being idle?" returned
+Hoar. "D'ye suppose, sirs,"--with a burst of a sigh--"that this state o'
+things is a _pleasure_ to us? We are doing it for future benefit. We are
+told by them who act for us, and who must know, that great benefit will
+come of it if we be only firm; that our rights be in our own hands if we
+only persevere long enough in standing out for 'em. Us men has our
+rights, I suppose, as well as other folks."
+
+"Those who, as you term it, act for you, may be mistaken, Hoar," said
+the Squire. "I'll leave that point: and go on to a different question.
+Do you think that the future benefit (whatever that may be: it's vague
+enough now) _is worth the cost you are paying for it_?"
+
+No reply. A look crossed Hoar's face that made me think he sometimes
+asked the same question of himself.
+
+"It does appear to be a very _senseless_ quarrel, Hoar," went on the
+Squire. Cole had walked on. "One-sided too. There's an old saying,
+'Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face,' and your strike seems just
+an illustration of it. You see, it is only _you men_ that suffer. The
+rulers you speak of don't suffer: while they are laying down rules for
+you, they are flourishing on the meat and corn of the land; the masters,
+in one sense, do not suffer, for they are not reduced to any extremity
+of any kind. But you, my poor fellows, _you_ bear the brunt of it all.
+Look at your homes, how they are bared; look at your hungry children.
+What but hunger drove little Dick to crib that bun yesterday?"
+
+Hoar took off his hat and passed his hand over his brow and his black
+hair. It seemed to be a favourite action of his when in any worry of
+thought.
+
+"It is just ruin, Jacob Hoar. If some great shock--say a mountain of
+snow, or a thunderbolt--descended suddenly from the skies and destroyed
+everything there was in your home, leaving but the bare walls standing,
+what a dreadful calamity you would think it. How bitterly you'd bemoan
+it!--perhaps almost feel inclined, if you only dared, to reproach Heaven
+for its cruelty! But you--you bring on this calamity yourself, of your
+own free and deliberate will. You have dismantled your home with your
+own fingers; you have taken out your goods and sold or pledged them, to
+buy food. I hear you have parted with all."
+
+"A'most," assented Hoar readily; as if it quite pleased him the Squire
+should show up the case at its worst.
+
+"Put it that you resume work to-morrow, you don't resume it as a free
+man. You'll have a load of debt and embarrassment on your shoulders.
+You will have your household goods to redeem--if they are then still
+redeemable: you will have your clothes and shoes to buy, to replace
+present rags: while on your mind will lie the weight of all this past
+time of trouble, cropping up every half-hour like a nightmare. Now--is
+the future benefit you hint at worth all this?"
+
+Hoar twitched a thorny spray off the hedge behind the pales, and twirled
+it about between his teeth.
+
+"Any way," he said, the look of perplexity clearing somewhat on his
+face, "I be but doing as my mates do; and we are a-doing for the best.
+So far as we are told and believe, it'll be all for the best."
+
+"Then _do_ it," returned the Squire in a passion; and went stamping away
+with his gun.
+
+"Johnny, they are all pig-headed together," he presently said, as we
+crossed the stile into the field of stubble whence the corn had been
+reaped. "One can't help being sorry for them: they are blinded by
+specious arguments that will turn out, I fear, to be all moonshine. Hold
+my gun, lad. Where's that dog, now? Here, Dash, Dash, Dash!"
+
+Dash came running up; and Tod with him.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a fortnight's time, Crabb Cot was deserted again. Tod and I returned
+to our studies, the Squire and the rest to Dyke Manor. As the weeks
+went on, scraps of news would reach us about the strike. There were
+meetings of the masters alone: meetings of the men and what they called
+delegates; meetings of masters and men combined. It all came to nothing.
+The masters at length offered to concede a little: the men (inwardly
+wearied out, sick to death of the untoward state of things) would have
+accepted the slight concession and returned to work with willing feet;
+but their rulers--the delegates, or whatever they were--said no. And so
+the idleness and the pinching distress continued: the men got more
+morose, and the children more ragged. After that (things remaining in a
+chronic state of misery, I suppose) we heard nothing.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Another lot of faggots, Thomas; and heap up the coal. This is weather!
+Goodness, man! Don't put the coal on gingerly, as if you were afraid of
+it. Molly's a fool."
+
+We were in the cozy sitting-room again at Crabb Cot. The Squire was
+right: it _was_ weather: the coldest I have ever felt in December. Old
+Thomas's hands were frozen with the drive from the station. Molly, who
+had come on the day before, had put about a handful of fire in the grate
+to greet us with. Naturally it put the Squire's temper up.
+
+"That there strike's a-going on still, sir," began Thomas, as he waited
+to watch his wood blaze up.
+
+"No!" cried the Squire. For we had naturally supposed it to be at an
+end.
+
+"It is, though, sir. Ford the driver telled me, coming along, that Crabb
+Lane was in a fine state for distress."
+
+"Oh dear! I wish I knew whose fault it is!" bewailed Mrs. Todhetley.
+"What more did the driver say, Thomas?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, _he_ said it must be the men's fault--because there the
+work is, still a-waiting for 'em, and they won't do it."
+
+"The condition the poor children must be in!"
+
+"Like hungry wolves," said old Thomas. "'Twas what Ford called 'em, and
+he ought to know: own brother to Ford the baker, as lives in the very
+thick of the trouble!"
+
+Scarcely anything was talked of that evening but the strike. Its long
+continuance half frightened some of us. Old Coney, coming in to smoke
+his pipe with the Squire, pulled a face as long as his arm at the
+poor-rate prospect: the Squire wondered how much work would stay in the
+country.
+
+It was said the weekly allowance made to the men was not so much as
+it had been at first. It was also said that the Society, making it,
+considered Crabb Lane in general had been particularly improvident in
+spending the allowance, or it would not have been reduced to its present
+distressed condition. Which was not to be wondered at, in Mr. Coney's
+opinion: people used to very good wages, he said, could not all at once
+pull up habits and look at every farthing as a miser does. Crabb Lane
+was reproachfully assured by the Society that other strikes had kept
+themselves quite respectable, comparatively speaking, upon just the
+same allowance, and had not parted with _all_ their pots and pans.
+
+That night I dreamt of the strike. It's as true as that I am writing
+this. I dreamt I saw thousands and thousands of red-faced men--not
+pale-faced ones--each tossing a loaf of bread up and down.
+
+"I suppose I may go over and see Eliza," I said to Mrs. Todhetley, after
+breakfast in the morning.
+
+"There is no reason why you should not, Johnny, that I know of," she
+answered, after a pause. "Excepting the cold."
+
+As if I minded the cold! "I hope the whole lot, she and the young ones,
+won't look like skeletons, that's all. Tod, will you come?"
+
+"Not if I know it, old fellow. I have no fancy for seeing skeletons."
+
+"Oh, that was all my nonsense."
+
+"I know that. A pleasant journey to you."
+
+The hoar frost had gathered on the trees, the ice hung fantastically
+from their branches: it was altogether a beautiful sight. Groups of Miss
+Timmens's girls, coming to school with frozen noses, were making slides
+as they ran. As to Crabb Lane, it looked nearly deserted: the cold
+kept the men indoors. Knocking at Hoar's door with a noise like a
+fire-engine, I went in with a leap.
+
+The scene I came upon brought me up short. Just at first I did not
+understand it. In the self-same corner by the fireplace where Dicky's
+bed had been that first day, was a bed now, and Eliza lay on it: and by
+her side, wedged against the wall, was what looked like a bundle of
+green baize with a calico nightcap on. The children--and really and
+truly they were not much better than living skeletons--sat on the floor.
+
+"What's to do here, you little mites? Is mother ill?"
+
+Dicky, tending the fire (I could have put it into a cocoa-nut), turned
+round to answer me. He had got quite well again, arm and all.
+
+"Mother's _very_ ill," said he in a whisper. "That's the new baby."
+
+"The new what?"
+
+"The new baby," repeated Dick, pointing to the green bundle. "It's two
+days old."
+
+An old tin slop-pail, turned upside down, stood in the corner of the
+hearth. I sat down on it to revolve the news and take in the staggering
+aspect of things.
+
+"What do you say, Dick? A baby--two days old?"
+
+"Two days," returned Dick. "I'd show him to you but for fear o' waking
+mother."
+
+"He came here the night afore last, he did, while we was all asleep
+upstairs," interposed the younger of the little girls, Jessy. "Mr. Cole
+brought him in his pocket: father said so."
+
+"'Twasn't the night afore last," corrected 'Liza. "'Twas the night afore
+that."
+
+Poor, pale, pinched faces, with never a smile on any one of them!
+Nothing takes the spirit out of children like long-continued famine.
+
+Stepping across, I looked down at Mrs. Hoar. Her eyes were half open as
+if she were in a state of stupor. I don't think she knew me: I'm not
+sure she even saw me. The face was fearfully thin and hollow, and white
+as death.
+
+"Wouldn't mother be better upstairs, Dick?"
+
+"She's here 'cause o' the fire," returned Dick, gently dropping on a bit
+of coal the size of a marble. "There ain't no bed up there, neither;
+they've brought it down."
+
+The "bed" looked like a sack of shavings. From my heart I don't believe
+it was anything else. At that moment, the door opened and a woman came
+in; a neighbour, I suppose; her clothes very thin.
+
+"It's Mrs. Watts," said Dick.
+
+Mrs. Watts curtsied. She looked as starved as they did. It seemed she
+knew me.
+
+"She be very bad. Mr. Ludlow, sir."
+
+"She seems so. Is it--fever?"
+
+"Law, sir! It's more famine nor fever. If her strength can last
+out--why, well and good; she may rally. If it don't, she'll go, sir."
+
+"Ought she not to have things, Mrs. Watts? Beef-tea and wine, and all
+that."
+
+Mrs. Watts stared a minute, and then her lips parted with a sickly
+smile. "I don't know where she'd get 'em from, sir! Beef-tea and wine!
+A drop o' plain tea is a'most more nor us poor can manage to find now.
+The strike have lasted long, you see, sir. Any way, she's too weak to
+take much of anything."
+
+"If I--if I could bring some beef-tea--or some wine--would it do her
+good?"
+
+"It might just be the saving of her life, Mr. Ludlow, sir."
+
+I went galloping home through the snow. Mrs. Todhetley was stoning
+raisins in the dining-room for the Christmas puddings. Telling her the
+news in a heap, I sat down to get my breath.
+
+"Ah, I was afraid so," she said quietly, and without surprise. "I feared
+there might be another baby at the Hoars' by this time."
+
+"Another baby at the Hoars'!" cried Tod, looking up from my new
+Shakespeare that he was skimming. "How is it going to get fed?"
+
+"I fear that's a problem none of us can solve, Joseph," said she.
+
+"Well, folk must be daft, to go on collecting a heap more mouths
+together, when there's nothing to feed them on," concluded Tod, dropping
+his head into the book again. Mrs. Todhetley was slowly wiping her
+fingers on the damp cloth, and looking doubtful.
+
+"Joseph, your papa's not in the way and I cannot speak to him--_do_
+you think I might venture to send something to poor Eliza under the
+circumstances?"
+
+"Send and risk it," said Tod, in his prompt manner. "_Of course._ As to
+the Pater--at the worst, he'll only storm a bit. But I fancy he would be
+the first to send help himself. He wouldn't let her die for the want of
+it."
+
+"Then I'll despatch Hannah at once."
+
+Hoar was down by the bed when Hannah got there, holding a drop of ale to
+his wife's lips. Mr. Cole was standing by with his hat on.
+
+"_Ale!_" exclaimed Hannah to the surgeon. "May she take _that_?"
+
+"Bless me, yes," said he, "and do her good."
+
+Hannah followed him outside the door when he was leaving. "How will it
+go with her, sir?" she asked. "She looks dreadfully ill."
+
+"Well," returned the Doctor, "I think the night will about see the end
+of it."
+
+The words frightened Hannah. "Oh, my goodness!" she cried. "What's the
+matter with her that she should die?"
+
+"Famine and worry have been the matter with her. What she will die of is
+exhaustion. She has had a sharpish turn just now, you understand; and
+has no stamina to bring her up again."
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Hannah came home again. There was no
+change, she said, for the better or the worse. Eliza still lay as much
+like one dead as living.
+
+"It's quite a picter to see the poor little creatures sitting on the
+bare floor and quiet as mice, never speaking but in a whisper," cried
+Hannah, as she shook the snow from her petticoats on the mat. "It's just
+as if they had an instinct of what is coming."
+
+The Squire, far from being angry, wanted to send over half the house.
+It was not Eliza's fault, he said, it was the strike's--and he hoped
+with all his heart she'd get through it. Helping the men's wives in
+ordinary was not to be thought of; but when it came to dying, that was
+a different matter. In the evening, between dinner and tea, I offered
+to go over and see whether any progress had been made. Being curious
+on the point themselves, they said yes.
+
+The snow was coming down smartly. My great-coat and hat were soon
+white enough for me to be taken for a ghost enjoying the air at night.
+Knocking at the Hoars' door gently, it was opened by Jacky. He asked
+me to go in.
+
+To my surprise they were again alone--Eliza and the children. Mrs. Watts
+had gone home to put her own flock to bed; and Hoar was out. 'Liza sat
+on the hearthstone, the sleeping bundle on her lap.
+
+"Father's a-went to fetch Mr. Cole," said Jacky. "Mother began a talking
+queer--dreams, like--and it frightened him. He told us to mind her till
+he run back with the Doctor."
+
+Looking down, I thought she was delirious. Her eyes were wide open and
+glistening, a scarlet spot shone on her cheeks. She began talking to me.
+Or rather to the air: for I'm sure she knew no one.
+
+"A great bright place it is, up there; all alight and shining. Silvery,
+like the stars. Oh, it's beautiful! The people be in white, and no
+strikes can come in!"
+
+"She've been a-talking about the strikes all along," whispered Jacky,
+who was kneeling on the mattress. "Mother! Mother, would ye like a drop
+o' the wine?"
+
+Whether the word mother aroused her, or the boy's voice--and she had
+always loved Jacky with a great love--she seemed to recognize him. He
+raised her head as handy as could be, and held the tea-cup to her lips.
+It was half full of wine; she drank it all by slow degrees, and revived
+to consciousness.
+
+"Master Johnny!" she said then in a faint tone.
+
+I could not help the tears filling my eyes as I knelt down by her in
+Jacky's place. She knew she was dying. I tried to say a word or two.
+
+"It's the leaving the children, Master Johnny, to strikes and things
+o' that kind, that's making it so hard for me to go. The world's full
+o' trouble: look at what ours has been since the strike set in! I'd
+not so much mind _that_ for them, though--for the world here don't
+last over long, and perhaps it's a'most as good to be miserable as
+easy in it--if I thought they'd all come to me in the bright place
+afterwards. But--when one's clammed with famine and what not, it's a
+sore temptation to do wrong. Lord, bring them to me!" she broke forth,
+suddenly clasping her hands. "Lord Jesus, pray for them, and save
+them!"
+
+She was nothing but skin and bone. Her hands fell, and she began
+plucking at the blanket. You might have heard a pin drop in the room.
+The frightened children hardly breathed.
+
+"I shall see your dear mamma, Master Johnny. I was at her death-bed;
+'twas me mostly waited on her in her sickness. If ever a sainted lady
+went straight to heaven, 'twas her. When I stood over her grave I
+little thought my own ending was to be so soon. Strikes! Nothing but
+strikes--and famine, and bad tempers, and blows. Lord Jesus, wash us
+white from our sins, and take us all to that better world! No strikes
+there; no strikes there."
+
+She was going off her head again. The door opened, and Hoar, the Doctor,
+and Mrs. Watts all came in together.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Todhetley went over through the snow in the morning. Eliza Hoar
+had died in the night, and lay on the mattress, her wasted face calm
+and peaceful. Hoar and the children had migrated to the kitchen at the
+back, a draughty place hardly large enough for the lot to turn round
+in. The eldest girl was trying to feed the baby with a tea-spoon.
+
+"What are you giving it, Eliza?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"Sugar and water, with a sup o' milk in't, please, ma'am."
+
+"I hope you are contented, Jacob Hoar, now you have killed your wife."
+
+Very harsh words, those for Mrs. Todhetley to speak: and she hastened
+to soften them. But, as she said afterwards, the matter altogether was
+a cruel folly and sin, making her heart burn with shame. "That is,
+Hoar, with the strike; for it is the strike that has killed her."
+
+Hoar, who had been sitting with his head in the chimney, noticing no
+one, burst into a sudden flood of tears, and sobbed for a minute or two.
+Mrs. Todhetley was giving the children a biscuit apiece from her bag.
+
+"I did it all for the best," said Hoar, presently. "'Twasn't me that
+originated the strike. I but joined in it with the rest of my mates."
+
+"And their wives and families are in no better plight than yours."
+
+"Nobody can say I've not done my duty as a husband and a father," cried
+Hoar. "I've not been a drunkard, nor a rioter, nor a spendthrift. I've
+never beat her nor swore at her, as some of 'em does."
+
+"Well, she is lying _there_; and the strike has brought her to it. Is it
+so, or not?"
+
+Hoar did not answer: only caught his breath with a sound of pain.
+
+"It seems to me, Hoar, that the strikes cannot be the good things you
+think for," she said, her voice now full of pity for the man. "They
+don't bring luck with them; on the contrary, they bring a great deal
+of ill-luck. It is you workmen that suffer; mostly in your wives and
+children. I do not pretend to judge whether strikes may be good from a
+political point of view, I am not clever; but they do tell very hardly
+upon your poor patient wives and little ones."
+
+"And don't you see as they tell upon us men, too!" he retorted with a
+sob that was half pitiful, half savage. "Ay, and worst of all; for if
+they should be mistaken steps stead of right ones, we've got 'em on our
+conscience."
+
+"But you go in for them, Hoar. You, individually: and this last night's
+blow is the result. It certainly seems that there must be a mistake
+somewhere."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+This has not been much to tell of, but it is _true_; and, as strikes are
+all the go just now, I thought I would write out for you a scrap of one
+of ours. For my own part, I cannot see that strikes do much good in the
+long run; or at best, that they are worth the outlay. I do know, for I
+have heard and seen it, that through many a long day the poor wives and
+children can only cry aloud to Heaven to pity them and their privations.
+
+In course of time the strike (it was the longest on record in our parts,
+though we have had a few since then) came to an end. Upon which, the men
+began life again with bare homes and sickly young ones; and a few vacant
+chairs.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+BURSTING-UP.
+
+
+There have been fiery August days in plenty; but never a more fiery one
+than this that I am going to tell of. It was Wednesday: and we were
+sitting under the big tree on the lawn at Dyke Manor. A tree it would
+have done you good only to look at on a blazing day: a large weeping
+ash, with a cool and shady space within it, large enough for a dozen
+chairs round, and a small table.
+
+The chairs and the table were there now. On the latter stood iced cider
+and some sparkling lemonade: uncommonly good, both, on that thirsty day.
+Mr. Brandon, riding by on his cob, had called in to see us; and sat
+between me and Mrs. Todhetley. She was knitting something in green
+shades of wool. The Squire had on a straw hat; Tod lay on the grass
+outside, in the shade of the laurels; Hugh and Lena stood at the bench
+near him, blowing bubbles and chattering like magpies.
+
+"Well, I don't know," said old Brandon, taking a draught of the
+lemonade. "It often happens with me if I plan to go anywhere much
+beforehand, that when the time comes I am not well enough for it."
+
+Mr. Todhetley had been telling him that he thought he should take the
+lot of us to the seaside for a week or two in September; and suggested
+that he should go with us. It had been a frightfully hot summer, and
+everybody felt worn out.
+
+"Where shall you go?" questioned Mr. Brandon.
+
+"Somewhere in Wales, I think," said the Squire. "It's easiest of access
+from here. Aberystwith, perhaps."
+
+"Not much of a sea at Aberystwith," cried Mr. Brandon, in his squeaky
+voice.
+
+"Well, it's not quite a Gibraltar Rock, Brandon, but it does for us. The
+last time we went to the seaside; it is three years ago now----"
+
+"Four," mildly put in Mrs. Todhetley, looking up from her wools.
+
+"Four, is it! Well, it was Aberystwith we went to then; and we were very
+comfortably lodged. It was at a Mrs. Noon's, I remember; and----who's
+coming now?"
+
+A dash in at the gate was heard--a little startling Mr. Brandon, lest
+whatever it was should dash over his cob, tied to the gate-post--and
+then came the smooth run of light wheels on the gravel.
+
+"Look out and see who it is, Johnny."
+
+Putting the leaves aside, I saw a light, elegant, open carriage, driven
+by a groom in livery; a gentleman seated beside him in dainty gloves.
+
+"Why, that's the Clement-Pells' little carriage!" exclaimed Mrs.
+Todhetley, who had been looking for herself.
+
+"And that's Mr. Clement-Pell in it," said I.
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Brandon. "I'll go then." But the Squire put up his arm to
+detain him.
+
+Tod did the honours. Went to receive him, and brought him to us under
+the tree. The children stopped blowing bubbles to stare at Mr.
+Clement-Pell as he crossed the lawn. It struck me that just a shade of
+annoyance appeared in his face when he saw so many of us there.
+Shaking hands, he sat down by Mr. Todhetley, observing that it was
+some time since he had seen us. It was six weeks, or so: for we had
+not happened to meet him since that visit of mine and Tod's at his
+house in Kensington. All the family were back again now at Parrifer
+Hall: and we were going to a grand entertainment there on the
+following day, Thursday. An open-air fête, the invitations had said.
+
+"You have been very busy lately, Mr. Clement-Pell," observed the Squire.
+"I've not been able to get to see you to thank you for the kindness of
+your folk to my boys in town. Twice I called at your chief Bank, but you
+were not visible."
+
+"I have been unusually busy," was the answer. "Business gets worse;
+that is, more extensive; every day. I have had to be about a good deal
+besides; so that with one thing and another, my time has been more than
+fully occupied. I am very glad your young men enjoyed themselves with us
+in London," he added in hearty tones.
+
+Mr. Brandon gave me such a look that for the life of me I could not say
+a word in answer. The London visit, taking it altogether, had not been
+one of enjoyment: but Clement-Pell had no suspicion of the truth.
+
+"Rather a _rapid_ life, that London life," remarked Mr. Brandon dryly.
+And I went hot all over, for fear he might be going to let out things to
+the company.
+
+"Rapid?" repeated Mr. Clement-Pell. "Well, so it is; especially for us
+business men."
+
+Mr. Brandon coughed, but said no more. The Squire pressed refreshment
+on Mr. Clement-Pell. He'd have nothing to say to the cider--it would
+make him hotter, he thought--but took some of the lemonade. As he was
+putting the glass down Mrs. Todhetley asked whether to-morrow's fête
+was to be as grand and large as was reported. And the annoyance,
+seen before, most certainly again crossed Clement-Pell's face at the
+question.
+
+"I do not really know much about it," he answered. "These affairs are my
+wife's, not mine."
+
+"And perhaps you don't much care for them," put in the Squire, who had
+noticed the expression.
+
+"I should like them very much, if I had more time to spare for them,"
+said Mr. Clement-Pell, playing with his handsome chain and seals. "We
+men of large undertakings must be content to work ourselves, and to let
+our wives and daughters do the playing. However, I hope I shall manage
+an hour or two for this one to-morrow."
+
+"What are to be the amusements?" inquired Mrs. Todhetley.
+
+"The question is, rather, what they are not to be," smiled Mr.
+Clement-Pell. "I heard the girls talking about it with one another last
+night. Dancing, music, archery, fortune-telling----"
+
+"Something, I suppose, of what may be called a fancy-fair," she
+interrupted.
+
+"Just so. A fancy-fair without charge. At any rate, I make no doubt it
+will be pleasant: and I sincerely hope to see you all at it. _You_ will
+come, I trust, Mr. Brandon. These things are not in your usual way, I am
+aware, but----"
+
+"I have neither the health nor the inclination for them," said Mr.
+Brandon, quite shrilly, stopping him before he could finish.
+
+"But I trust you will make an exception in favour of us to-morrow, I was
+about to say. Mrs. Clement-Pell and the Miss Clement-Pells will be so
+pleased to see you."
+
+"Thank you," said old Brandon, in a tone only just short of rudeness. "I
+must be going, Squire."
+
+He got up as he spoke, shook hands with Mrs. Todhetley only, nodded to
+the rest of us, and set off across the lawn. Children liked him in spite
+of his voice and dry manner, and of course Hugh and Lena, pipes and
+soap-suds and all, attended him to the gate.
+
+As the brown cob went trotting off, and the Squire was coming back
+again--for he had gone too--Mr. Clement-Pell met him half-way across the
+lawn, and then they both went indoors together.
+
+"Clement-Pell must want something," said Mrs. Todhetley. "Johnny, do you
+notice how very aged and worn he is? It never struck me until to-day. He
+looks quite grey."
+
+"Well, that's because he is getting so. I shall be grey some time."
+
+"But I don't mean that kind of greyness, Johnny; grey hairs. His _face_
+looks grey."
+
+"It was the reflection of these green leaves, good mother."
+
+"Well--perhaps it might be," she doubtfully agreed, looking up. "What a
+grand fête it is to be, Johnny!"
+
+"You'll have to put on your best bib-and-tucker, good mother. That new
+dress you bought for the Sterlings' christening."
+
+"I should if I went. But the fact is, Johnny, I and Mr. Todhetley have
+made up our minds not to go, I fancy. We were talking together about it
+this morning. However--we shall see when to-morrow comes."
+
+"I wouldn't be you, then. That will be too bad."
+
+"These open-air fêtes are not in our way, Johnny. Dancing, and archery,
+and fortune-telling are not much in the way of us old people. You young
+ones think them delightful--as we did once. Hugh! Lena! what _is_ all
+that noise about? You are not to take her bowl, Hugh: keep to your own.
+Joseph, please part them."
+
+Joe accomplished it by boxing the two. In the midst of the noise, Mr.
+Clement-Pell came out. He did not cross the lawn again to Mrs.
+Todhetley; just called out a good day in getting into his carriage, and
+lifted his hat as he drove away.
+
+"I say, father, what did he want with you?" asked Tod, as the Squire
+came sauntering back, the skirts of his light coat held behind him.
+
+"That's my business, Joe," said the Squire. "Mind your own."
+
+Which was a checkmate for Tod. The truth was, Tod had been uneasily
+wondering whether it might not be his business. That is, whether Mr.
+Clement-Pell had obtained scent of that gambling of his up in London and
+had come to enlighten the Squire. Tod never felt safe upon the point:
+which, you see, was all owing to his lively conscience.
+
+"What a beautiful little carriage that is!" said Mrs. Todhetley to the
+Pater. "It puts me in mind of a shell."
+
+"Ay; must have cost a pretty penny, small as it is. Pell can afford
+these fancy things, with his floating wealth."
+
+In that city of seething crowds and wealth, London, where gigantic
+operations are the rule instead of the exception, and large fortunes
+are made daily, Mr. Clement-Pell would not have been thought much
+of; but in our simple country place, with its quiet experiences,
+Clement-Pell was a wonder. His riches were great. His power of making
+money for himself and others seemed elastic; and he was bowed down to
+as a reigning potentate--a king--an Olympian deity.
+
+You have heard of him before. He had come to a neighbouring town some
+years back as manager of a small banking company, having given up, it
+was understood, a good law practice in London to undertake it. The small
+banking grew and grew under his management. Some of its superfluous
+hoards were profitably employed: to construct railroads; to work mines;
+to found colonies. All sorts of paying concerns were said to have some
+of Clement-Pell's money in them, and to bring him in cent. per cent. It
+was believed that if all the wealth of the East India Company and the
+Bank of England to boot had been poured into the hands of Clement-Pell,
+it could not have been more than he would be able to use to profit, so
+great were the resources at his command. People fought with one another
+to get their money accepted by Mr. Clement-Pell. No wonder. The funds
+gave them a paltry three per cent. for it; Mr. Clement-Pell doubled the
+amount. So the funds lost the money, and Mr. Clement-Pell gained it. He
+was worshipped as the greatest benefactor that had ever honoured the
+country by settling down in it.
+
+I think his manner went for something. It was so pleasant. The world
+itself might have loved Mr. Clement-Pell. Deputations asked for his
+portrait to hang up in public buildings; individuals besought his
+photograph. Mrs. Clement-Pell was less liked: she was extravagant and
+haughty. It was said she was of very high family indeed, and she could
+not have looked down upon common people with more scorn had she been
+born a duchess. I'm sure no duchess ever gave herself the airs that Mrs.
+Clement-Pell did, or wore such fine bonnets.
+
+When Mr. Clement-Pell opened a little branch Bank at Church Dykely (as
+he had already done at two or three other small places), the parish at
+once ascended a few feet into the air. As Church Dykely in its humility
+had never possessed a Bank before, it was naturally something to be
+proud of. The Bank was a little house near to Duffham's, the doctor,
+with a door and one window; no larger premises being obtainable. The
+natives collected round to gaze, and marvel at the great doings destined
+to be enacted behind that wire blind: and Mr. Clement-Pell was followed
+by a tail of admiring rustics whenever he stepped abroad.
+
+Church Dykely only had its branch in what might be called the later
+years, dating from the beginning of the Clement-Pell dynasty, and when
+he had made a far and wide reputation, and was in the full tide of his
+prosperity. It was after its establishment that he took Parrifer Hall.
+This little branch Bank was found to be a convenience to many people. It
+had a manager and a clerk; and Mr. Clement-Pell would condescend to be
+at it occasionally, chiefly on Mondays. He was popular with all classes:
+county gentlemen and rich farmers asked him to dinner; the poor got from
+him many a kind word and handshake. Mrs. Clement-Pell dined with him at
+the gentlemen's tables, but she turned up her nose at the farmers, and
+would not go near them. In short, take them for all in all, there was
+no family so grand in the county, or who made so much noise as the
+Clement-Pells. Their income was something enormous; and of course they
+might launch out if they liked. It had grown to be a saying amongst us,
+"As rich as the Clement-Pells."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Todhetley had said she supposed the entertainment would be
+something like a fancy-fair. We had not had a great experience of
+fancy-fairs in our county; but if they were all like this, I shouldn't
+mind going to one twice a week. The sky was unclouded, the wind still,
+the leaves of the trees scarcely stirred. On the lawn the sun blazed hot
+and brilliant: but the groves were cool and shady. Since the place came
+into Mr. Clement-Pell's occupancy, he had taken-in part of a field, and
+made the grounds more extensive. At least, Mrs. Clement-Pell had done
+so, which came to the same: spending money went for nothing with her.
+And why should it, when they had so much? If you climbed to the top
+of an artificial rockery you could see over the high hedge. I did so:
+and took a look at the chimneys of George Reed's cottage. You've not
+forgotten him; and his trouble with Major Parrifer. But for that
+trouble, the Clement-Pells might never have had the chance of occupying
+Parrifer Hall.
+
+It was as good as fairy-land. Flags hung about; banners waved; statues
+had decked themselves in garlands. The lawns and the walks were alive
+with company, the ladies sported gala dresses all the colours of the
+rainbow. Dancing, shooting, flirting, talking, walking, sitting; we were
+as gay as birds of paradise. There was a tent for the band, and another
+for refreshments, and no end of little marquees, dotted about, for
+anything. One was a post-office; where love-letters might be had for
+the asking. When I look back on that day now through the mist of
+years, it stands out as the gayest and sunniest left to memory. As to
+refreshment--you may think of anything you like and know it was there.
+There was no regular meal at all throughout the afternoon and evening;
+but you could begin eating and drinking when you went in if you chose,
+and never leave off till you left. The refreshment tent communicated
+with one of the doors of the house, through which fresh supplies came
+as they were wanted. All was cold. Besides this, there was a tea and
+coffee marquee, where the kettles were kept always on the boil. No one
+could say the Clement-Pells spared pains or expense to entertain their
+guests right royally.
+
+Tod and I strolled about, to take in the whole scene. The Clement-Pell
+carriages (the big barouche and the small affair that Mrs. Todhetley
+had called a shell) came dashing up at intervals, graciously despatched
+to bring relays of guests who did not keep carriages of their own. Mrs.
+Clement-Pell stood on the lawn to receive them; the Miss Clement-Pells
+with her. If I were able to describe their attire I would do so; it beat
+anything for gorgeousness I had ever seen. Glistening silk skirts under
+robes of beautiful lace; fans in their hands and gossamer veils in their
+hair.
+
+"I say, Tod, here they come!"
+
+A sober carriage was driving slowly in. We knew it well: and its steady
+old horses and servants too. It was Sir John Whitney's. Rushing round a
+side path, we were up with it when it stopped. Bill Whitney and his two
+sisters came tumbling out of it.
+
+"It's going on to your house now, with the trunk," said Helen, to us.
+"William has been most awfully tiresome: he would put his every-day
+boots and coat in our box, instead of bringing a portmanteau for
+himself."
+
+"As if a fellow wanted a portmanteau for just one night!" exclaimed
+Bill. "What you girls can have in that big trunk, amazes me. I should
+say you are bringing your bed and pillows in it."
+
+"It has only our dresses for to-morrow morning in it, and all that,"
+retorted Helen, who liked to keep Bill in order and to domineer over
+him. "The idea of having to put in great clumsy boots with _them_, and
+a rough coat smelling of smoke!"
+
+"This is to be left here, I think, Miss Helen," said the footman,
+displaying a small black leather bag.
+
+"Why, yes; it contains our combs and brushes," returned Helen, taking it
+and giving it to one of the Clement-Pell servants, together with two
+cloaks for the evening.
+
+Tod went up to the postillion. "Look here, Pinner: the Squire says you
+had better stop at the Manor to rest the horses. You will find the groom
+there, I dare say."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Pinner. "They'll be a bit done up if we goes
+straight off back."
+
+The girls and Bill went up to the Clement-Pell group, and were made
+much of. It was the first time they had visited the Pells, and their
+coming was regarded as a special honour. Sir John and Lady Whitney had
+declined: and it was arranged that Bill and his sisters should sleep
+at our house, and the carriage come for them the next day.
+
+Escaping from the Pells, we all sat down on a bench. Helen Whitney began
+whispering about the Miss Pells' dresses.
+
+"I never saw such beauties," she exclaimed. "I wonder what they cost?"
+
+"Millions, I should say," cried Bill.
+
+"These are plain ugly old things beside them," grumbled Helen.
+
+She meant her own dress and Anna's. They wore white spotted muslins, and
+blue ribbons. One of those gorgeous robes was worth fifty times as much:
+but I know which set of girls looked the most lady-like.
+
+"They are very beautiful," sighed Helen, with a spice of envy. "But too
+much for an affair like this."
+
+"Not for them," said Bill stoutly. "The Clement-Pells could afford robes
+of diamonds if they liked. I'm not sure but I shall go in for one of the
+girls."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," reproved Helen.
+
+We went into the fortune-telling tent. It was full of people, screaming
+and laughing. A real gipsy with a swarthy skin and black flowing locks
+was telling fortunes. Helen had hers told when she could make a
+place, and was promised a lord for a husband, and five-and-thirty
+grandchildren. At which the tent roared again, and Helen laughed too.
+
+"And now it is your turn, my pretty little maid," said the sibyl to Anna
+Whitney. And Anna, always modest and gentle, turned as red as a rose,
+and said she already knew as much of her own fortune as she desired to
+know at present.
+
+"What's in _this_ hand?" cried the gipsy, suddenly seizing upon Tod's
+big one, and devouring its lines with her eyes. "Nay, master; don't draw
+it away, for there's matter here, and to spare. You are not afraid, are
+you?"
+
+"Not of you, my gipsy queen," gallantly answered Tod, resigning his palm
+to her. "Pray let my fate be as good as you can."
+
+"It is a smooth hand," she went on, never lifting her gaze. "Very
+smooth. You'll not have many of the cares and crosses of life.
+Nevertheless, I see that you have been in some peril lately. And I
+should say it was connected with money. Debt."
+
+There were not many things could bring the colour to Joseph Todhetley's
+face; but it matched then the scarlet mantle the gipsy wore slung over
+her right shoulder. You might have heard a pin drop in the sudden hush.
+Anna's blue eyes were glancing shyly up through their long lashes.
+
+"Peril of debt, or--perhaps--of--steeple-chasing," continued the sibyl
+with deliberation; and at that the shouts of laughter broke out again
+through the tent, and Anna smiled. "Take you care of yourself, sir; for
+I perceive you will run into other perils before you settle down. You
+have neither caution nor foresight."
+
+"_That's_ true enough, I believe," said Tod. "Any more?"
+
+"No more. For you are just one of those imprudent mortals who will
+never heed a friendly warning. Were I you, I'd keep out of the world
+till I grew older."
+
+"Thank you," said Tod, laughing as much as the rest of them: and he drew
+away his hand.
+
+"Johnny, that was a near shave," he whispered, putting his arm within
+mine when we had pushed our way out. "Was it all guesswork? Who the
+deuce is the woman?"
+
+"I know who _I_ think she is. The Pells' English governess, Miss
+Phebus."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I do. She has got herself up in character and dyed her skin and hair."
+
+"Then, by George, if it _is_, she must have gathered an inkling of that
+matter in London."
+
+"I don't see how."
+
+"Nor I. Johnny, some of these days I shall be bursting out with it to
+the Pater, and so get the weight off my mind."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder. She says you have no caution."
+
+"It's not pleasant, I can tell you, youngster, to live in dread that
+somebody else will bring it out to him. I'll go in for this next dance,
+I think. Where's Anna?"
+
+Anna did not say no. She would never say no to anything _he_ asked her,
+if I possessed the gift of divination. They joined the dancers; Bill and
+Helen went to the archery.
+
+"And how are _you_ enjoying it, pray, Johnny Ludlow?"
+
+The voice nearly shot me off the arm of the bench. For it was Mr.
+Brandon's. I don't think there was any living man I should have been so
+surprised at seeing at the fête as he.
+
+"Why! is it you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, it is, Johnny. You need not stare as if you thought me an
+intruder. I was invited."
+
+"Yes, of course, sir. But I--I fancied you never came to such parties."
+
+"Never was at one like this--unless I went to it in my sleep," he said,
+standing with me before the bench, and casting his eyes around. "I came
+to-day to look after you."
+
+"After me, sir!"
+
+"Yes, after you. And perhaps a little bit after your friend, Todhetley.
+Mr. Pell informed us the entertainments would include fortune-telling:
+I didn't know but there might be a roulette-table as well. Or cards,
+or dice, or billiards."
+
+"Oh no, sir; there's nothing of that sort."
+
+"It's not the fault of the young Pells, I expect, then. That choice
+companion of yours, called Gusty, and the other one in scarlet."
+
+"Neither of them is here, Mr. Brandon. Gusty has gone to the Highlands
+for grouse-shooting; and Fabian sent word he couldn't get leave to come
+down. I have not seen the eldest son yet, but I suppose he is somewhere
+about."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Brandon--and whenever he spoke of the Pells his voice
+was thinner than ever, and most decidedly took a mocking sound--"gone
+grouse-shooting, is Gusty! And the other can't get leave. A lieutenant,
+is he not?"
+
+"Yes, a lieutenant. His sister Constance has just told us she does not
+believe it is true that he could not get leave. She thinks he never
+asked for it, because he wanted to stay in London."
+
+"Ah. It's fine to be the Pells, Johnny. One son off to shoot grouse;
+another living his fast London life; the rest holding grand doings down
+here that could hardly be matched by the first nobleman amongst us. Very
+fine. Wonder what they spend a year--taking it in the aggregate?"
+
+"Have you been here long, sir?"
+
+"Half-an-hour, or so--I've been looking about me, Johnny, and listening
+to the champagne corks popping off. Squire here?"
+
+"No. He and Mrs. Todhetley did not come."
+
+"Sensible people. Where's young Joe?"
+
+"He is with the Whitneys. Dancing with Anna, I think."
+
+"And he had better keep to that," said Mr. Brandon, with a little nod.
+"He'll get no harm there."
+
+We sat down, side by side. Taking a side-glance at him, I saw his eyes
+fixed on Mrs. and the Miss Clement-Pells, who were now mixing with the
+company. He did not know much about ladies' dress, but theirs seemed to
+strike him.
+
+"Showy, Johnny, is it not?"
+
+"It looks very bright in the sun, sir."
+
+"No doubt. So do spangles."
+
+"It's real, sir, that lace. Helen Whitney says so."
+
+"A great deal too real. So is the rest of it. Hark at the music and the
+corks and the laughter! Look at the people, and the folly!"
+
+"Don't you like the fête, sir?"
+
+"Johnny, I hate it with my whole heart."
+
+I was silent. Mr. Brandon was always more queer than other people.
+
+"Is it in _keeping_ with the Pells, this upstart grandeur and profusion?
+Come, Johnny Ludlow, you've some sense in your head: answer me. They
+have both risen from nothing, Johnny. When he began life, Pell's
+ambition was to rise to a competency; an el dorado of three or four
+hundred a year: and that only when he had worked for it. I have seen her
+take in the milk for their tea from the milkman at the door; when they
+kept one servant to do everything. Pell rose by degrees and grew rich;
+so much the more credit due to his perseverance and his business
+talents----"
+
+"And would you not have them spend their riches, Mr. Brandon?"
+
+"Spend their riches!--of course I would, in a proper way. Don't you
+interrupt your elders, Johnny Ludlow. Where would be the use of a man's
+getting money unless he spent some of it. But not in _this_ way; not in
+the lavish and absurd and sinful profusion that they have indulged in of
+late years. Is it seemly, or right, or decent, the way they live in? The
+sons apeing the manners and company of their betters, of young fellows
+who are born to the peerage and their thousands a year? The mother
+holding her head in the air as if she wore an iron collar: the daughters
+with their carriages and their harps and their German governesses, and
+their costly furbelows that are a scandal on common sense? The world has
+run mad after these Pells of late years: but I know this much--I have
+been ashamed only to look on at the Pells' unseemly folly."
+
+At that moment Martha Jane Pell--in the toilette that Bill Whitney said
+must have cost "millions"--went looming by, flirting with Captain
+Connaught. Mr. Brandon looked after them with his little eyes.
+
+"They are too fine for their station, Johnny. They were not born to this
+kind of thing; were not reared to it; have only plunged into it of
+recent years, and it does not sit well upon them. One can only think of
+upstarts all the time. The Pells might have lived as gentlepeople; ay,
+and married their children to gentlemen and gentlewomen had they
+pleased: but, to launch out in this unseemly way, has been a just
+humiliation to themselves, and has rendered them a poor, pitiful
+laughing-stock in the eyes of all right-minded people. It's nothing less
+than a burlesque on all the proprieties of life. And it may be that we
+have not seen the end of it, Johnny."
+
+"Well, sir, they can hardly be grander than----"
+
+"Say more assuming, lad."
+
+"I suppose I meant that, Mr. Brandon. Perhaps you think they'll be for
+taking the Marquis's place, Ragley, next, if it should come into the
+market. Or Eastnor Castle: or----"
+
+"I did not mean exactly in that way, Johnny," he interrupted again, a
+queer look on his thin lips as he got up.
+
+"Are you going into the eating tent, sir?"
+
+"I am going away. Now that I have seen that you and Joe Todhetley are
+tolerably safe from gaming tables and the like, there's nothing further
+to keep me here. I feel a sort of responsibility in regard to you two,
+seeing that that unpleasant secret lies with me, and not with Joe's
+father."
+
+"It is early to go, sir. The fun has hardly begun."
+
+"None too early for me. I am a magistrate; looked up to, in a manner,
+in the neighbourhood, insignificant though I am. It is not I who will
+countenance this upstart foolery by my presence longer than I can help,
+Johnny Ludlow."
+
+Mr. Brandon disappeared. The hours went on to twilight and then to dark.
+Once during the evening I caught sight of Mr. Clement-Pell: and what
+occurred as I did so was like a bit of romance. People crowded the side
+paths under the light of the Chinese lanterns. For lanterns were hanging
+on the trees and shrubs, and the whole scene was one of enchantment out
+of the Arabian Nights. One of the remote walks was not lighted; perhaps
+it had been forgotten. I had missed Bill Whitney and was at the end of
+the grounds hunting for him, when I saw, through the trees, a solitary
+figure pacing this dark walk with his arms folded. It was not very
+likely to be Bill: but there was no harm in going to see.
+
+It turned out to be Mr. Clement-Pell. But before I got out of the trees
+into the walk--for it was the nearest way back to the lights and the
+company--some one pushed through the trees on the opposite side of the
+path, and stood in front of him. The moon shone as much as an August
+moon ever does shine; and I saw Clement-Pell start as if he had been
+told his house was on fire.
+
+"I thought this might be a likely place to find you," said the stranger
+in a savage whisper. "You have kept out of my way for two days at the
+Bank--too busy to see me, eh?--so, hearing what was going on here, I
+took the train and came over."
+
+"I'm sure I am--happy to see you, Mr. Johnson," cried Clement-Pell in
+a voice that seemed to tremble a little; and unless the moonlight was
+in fault, he had turned as pale as a ghost. "Would have sent you an
+invitation had I known you were down."
+
+"I dare say you would! I did not come to attend festivals, Pell, but to
+settle business-matters."
+
+"You must be aware I cannot attend to business to-night," interrupted
+Clement-Pell. "Neither do I ever enter upon it at my own residence. I
+will see you to-morrow morning at eleven at the Bank."
+
+"Honour bright? Or is it a false plea, put forth to shuffle out of me
+now?"
+
+"I will see you to-morrow morning at the Bank at eleven o'clock,"
+repeated Clement-Pell, emphatically. "We are very busy just now, and I
+must be there the first thing. And now, Mr. Johnson, if you will go
+into the refreshment tent, and make yourself at home----"
+
+"No refreshments for me, thank you: I must hasten away to catch the
+train. But first of all, I will ask you a question: and answer it you
+must, whether it is your habit of entering on business at home, or
+whether it is not. Is it true that----"
+
+I did not want to hear more secrets, and went crashing through the
+trees. I should have gone before, but for not liking they should know
+any one was there. They turned round.
+
+"Oh, is it you, Mr. Ludlow?" cried Pell, putting out his hand as I
+passed them.
+
+"Yes, sir. I am looking for young Whitney. Have you seen him?"
+
+"I think I saw him at the door of one of the tents, just now. You'll
+find him amongst the company, I dare say. The Squire and Mrs. Todhetley
+have not come, I hear."
+
+"No sir."
+
+"Ah well--give my very kind regards to them, and say I am sorry. I hope
+you are taking care of yourself--in the way of refreshments."
+
+The stranger and I had stood facing each other. He was a very
+peculiar-looking man with a wide stare; black hair, white whiskers, and
+very short legs. I thought it anything but good manners of him to come
+over, as he had confessed to have done, to disturb Clement-Pell at such
+a time.
+
+At nine o'clock Giles arrived with the pony-carriage for the young
+ladies and two of us: the other and Giles were to walk. But we didn't
+see the fun of leaving so early. Giles said he could not wait long: he
+must be back to get old Jacobson's gig ready, who was spending the
+evening at the Manor. The Jacobsons, being farmers, though they were
+wealthy, and lived in good old style, had been passed over when Mrs.
+Clement-Pell's invitations went out. So Tod sent Giles and the carriage
+back again, with a message that we all preferred walking, and should
+follow shortly.
+
+Follow, we did; but not shortly. It was past eleven when we got away.
+The dancing had been good, and no one was at hand to say we must leave.
+Helen and Anna Whitney came out with their cloaks on. What with the
+dancing and the sultriness of the weather, the night was about as hot as
+an oven. We were almost the last to leave: but did not mean to say so at
+home. It was a splendid night, though; very clear, the moon larger than
+usual. We went on in no particular order; the five of us turning out of
+the Parrifer gates together.
+
+"Oh," screamed Helen, when we were some yards down the road, "where's
+the bag? Anna, have you brought the bag?"
+
+"No," replied Anna. "You told me you would bring it."
+
+"Well--I meant to do so. William, you must run back for it."
+
+"Oh, bother the bag," said Bill. "You girls can't want the bag to-night.
+I'll come over for it in the morning."
+
+"Not want it!--Why, our combs and brushes and thin shoes are in it,"
+retorted Helen. "It is on a chair in that little room off the hall.
+Come, William, go for it."
+
+"I'll go, Helen," I said. "Walk quietly on, and I shall catch you up."
+
+The grounds looked quite deserted: the Chinese lanterns had burned
+themselves out, and the doors appeared closed. One of the side windows
+was open and gay with light; I thought it would be less trouble to enter
+that way, and leaped up the balcony steps to the empty room. Empty, as I
+took it to be.
+
+Well, it was a sort of shock. The table had a desk and a heap of papers
+on it, and on it all lay a man's head. The face was hidden in his hands,
+but he lifted it as I went in.
+
+It was Clement-Pell. But I declare that at the first moment I did not
+know him. If ever you saw a face more haggard than other faces, it was
+his. He sat bolt upright in his chair then, and stared at me as one in
+awful fear.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir. I did not know any one was here."
+
+"Oh, it is you," he said, and broke out into a smile--which somehow made
+the face look even more worn and weary than before. "I thought you had
+all left."
+
+"So we have, sir. But Miss Whitney forgot her bag, and I have run back
+for it. She left it in the small room in the hall."
+
+"Oh ay, all right," he said. "You can go and get it, and run out this
+way again if you like. I dare say the hall-door is closed."
+
+"Good night, sir," I said, coming back with the bag. "We have had a most
+delightful day, Mr. Clement-Pell, and I'm sure we ought to thank you for
+it."
+
+"I am glad it has been pleasant. Good night."
+
+The trees were pretty thick on this side the house. In passing a grove a
+few paces from the window, I saw something that was neither trunks nor
+leaves; but Mr. Johnson's face with its black hair and white whiskers.
+He was hiding in the trees, his face peeping out to look at the room and
+at Clement-Pell.
+
+It made me feel queer. It made me think of treachery. Though what
+treachery, or where, I hardly knew. Not a trace was to be seen of the
+face now: he drew it in; no doubt to let me pass. Ought I to warn Mr.
+Pell that he was being watched? I had distinctly heard the man say he
+was going away directly: why had he stayed? Yes, it would be right and
+kind. Walking a bit further, I quietly turned back.
+
+Clement-Pell had a pen in his hand this time, and was poring over what
+seemed to be a big account-book, or ledger. He looked surprised again,
+but spoke quietly.
+
+"Still left something behind you, Mr. Ludlow?"
+
+"No, sir, not this time," I said, speaking below my breath. "I thought
+I would come back and tell you, Mr. Pell, that some one outside is
+watching this room. If----"
+
+I broke off in sheer astonishment. He started up from his chair and
+came creeping to where I stood, to hide himself as it seemed from the
+watcher, his haggard cheeks white as death. But he put a good face on it
+to me.
+
+"I could not hear you," he whispered. "What did you say? Some one
+watching?"
+
+"It is the same man I saw you talking to in the dark walk to-night, with
+the black hair and white whiskers. Perhaps he means no harm, sir; he is
+hiding in the trees, and just peeping out to look in here."
+
+"You are sure it is that same man?" he asked with a relieved air.
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Then it is all right. Mr. Johnson is an eccentric friend of mine.
+Rather--in fact, rather given to take at times more than is good for
+him. I suppose he has been going in for champagne. I--I thought it might
+be some bad character."
+
+It might be "all right," as Mr. Pell said: I fancied, by the relieved
+tone, that it _was_ so: but I felt quite sure that he had cause to fear,
+if not Mr. Johnson, some one else. At that moment there arose a slight
+rustle of leaves outside, and he stood, holding his breath to listen,
+his finger raised. The smell of the shrubs was borne freely on the night
+air.
+
+"It is only the wind: there must be a little breeze getting up," said
+Mr. Clement-Pell. "Thank you; and good night. Oh, by the way, don't talk
+of this, Mr. Ludlow. If Johnson _has_ been exceeding, he would not like
+to hear of it again."
+
+"No fear, sir. Once more, good night."
+
+Before I had well leaped the steps of the balcony, the window, a very
+heavy one, was closed with a bang, and the shutters being put to.
+Glancing back, I saw the white face of Clement-Pell through the closing
+shutters, and then heard the bolts shot. What could he be afraid of?
+Perhaps Johnson turned mad when he drank. Some men do.
+
+"Have you been making that bag, Johnny?" they called out when I caught
+them up.
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm sure it was on the chair," said Helen.
+
+"Oh, I found it at once. I stayed talking with Mr. Pell. I say, has the
+night grown damp?--or is it my fancy?"
+
+"What does it matter?" returned Bill Whitney. "I wish I was in a bath,
+for my part, if it was only cold water."
+
+The Squire stood at the end of the garden when we reached home, with old
+Jacobson, whose gig was waiting. After reproaching us with our sins,
+first for sending the carriage back empty, then for being so late, the
+Squire came round and asked all about the party. Old Jacobson drew in
+his lips as he listened.
+
+"It's fine to be the Clement-Pells!" cried he. "Why, a Duke-Royal could
+not give a grander party than that. Real lace for gowns, had they! No
+wonder Madame Pell turns her nose up at farmers!"
+
+"Did Clement-Pell send me any particular message?" asked the Pater.
+
+"He sent his kind regards," I said. "And he was sorry you and Mrs.
+Todhetley did not go."
+
+"It was a charming party," cried Helen Whitney. "Papa and mamma put it
+to us, when the invitation came--would we go, or would we not go. They
+don't much care for the Clement-Pells. I am glad we did go: I would not
+have missed it for the world. But there's something about the
+Clement-Pells that tells you they are not gentlepeople."
+
+"Oh, that's the show and the finery," said Bill.
+
+"No, I think it lies more in their tones and their manner of speaking,"
+said Helen.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Johnny, are you _quite_ sure Clement-Pell sent me no message, except
+kind regards, and that?"
+
+"Quite sure, sir."
+
+"Well, it's very odd."
+
+"What is very odd, sir?"
+
+"Never you mind, Johnny."
+
+This was after breakfast on the Saturday morning. The Squire was opening
+a letter that the post had brought, and looked up to ask me. Not that
+the letter had anything to do with Clement-Pell, for it only enclosed a
+bill for some ironmongery bought at Evesham.
+
+On the Friday the Whitneys had gone home, and Tod with them. So I was
+alone: with nothing to do but to wish him back again.
+
+"I am going to Alcester, Johnny," said the Pater, in the course of the
+morning. "You can come with me if you like."
+
+"Then will you please bring me back some money?" cried Mrs. Todhetley.
+"You will pass the Bank, I suppose."
+
+"It's where I am going," returned the Pater: and I thought his voice had
+rather a grumbling tone in it.
+
+We took the pony-carriage, and he let me drive. It was as hot as ever;
+and the Squire wondered when the autumn cool would be coming in. Old
+Brandon happened to be at his gate as we went by, and the Pater told me
+to pull up.
+
+"Going in to Alcester?" cried Mr. Brandon.
+
+"Just as far as the Bank," said the Pater. "So I hear you went to the
+Clement-Pells' after all, Brandon."
+
+"I looked in to see what it was like," said old Brandon, giving me a
+moment's hard stare: as much as to recall to my mind what had really
+taken him there.
+
+"It was a dashing affair, I hear."
+
+"Rather too much so for me," cried Mr. Brandon drily. "Where's your son,
+sir?"
+
+"Oh, he's gone home with the Whitneys' young folk. How hot it is
+to-day!"
+
+"Ay. Too hot to stand in it long. Drive on, Johnny."
+
+The Squire went in to the Bank alone, leaving me with the carriage. He
+banked with the Old Bank at Worcester; but it was a convenience to have
+some little money nearer in case of need, and he had recently opened a
+small account at Alcester. Upon which Clement-Pell had said he might as
+well have opened it with him, at his Church Dykely branch. But the
+Squire explained that he had as good as promised the Alcester people,
+years ago, that if he did open an account nearer than Worcester it
+should be with them. He came out, looking rather glum, stuffing some
+notes into his pocket-book.
+
+"Turn the pony round, Johnny," said he. "We'll go back. It's too hot to
+stay out to-day."
+
+"Yes, sir. Is anything the matter?"
+
+"Anything the matter! No. Why do you ask?"
+
+"I thought you looked put out, sir."
+
+"There's nothing the matter. Only I think men of business should not
+be troubled with short memories. Take care of that waggon. What's the
+fellow galloping his horses at that rate for? Now, Johnny, I say, take
+care. Or else, give me the reins."
+
+I nearly laughed. At home they never seemed to think I could do
+anything. If they did let me drive, it was always Now take care of this,
+Johnny; or, Take care of that. And yet I was a more careful driver than
+Tod: though I might not have had so much strength as he to pull up a
+four-in-hand team had it run away.
+
+"Go round through Church Dykely, Johnny, and stop at Pell's Bank," said
+the Squire, as I was turning off on the direct road home.
+
+I turned the pony's head accordingly. It took us about a mile out of our
+way. The pavement was so narrow and the Bank room so small, that I heard
+all that passed when the Squire went in.
+
+"Is Mr. Clement-Pell here?"
+
+"Oh dear no, sir," replied the manager. "He is always at the chief Bank
+on Saturday. Did you want him?"
+
+"Not particularly. Tell him I think he must have forgotten to send to
+me."
+
+"I'll tell him, sir. He may look in here to-night on his return. If you
+wish to see him yourself, he will be here all day on Monday."
+
+The Squire came out and got in again. Cutting round the sharp corner
+by Perkins the butcher's, I nearly ran into Mrs. and the Miss
+Clement-Pells, who were crossing the dusty road in a line like geese,
+the one behind the other; their muslins sweeping the highway like
+brooms, and their complexions sheltered under point lace parasols.
+
+"There you go again, Johnny! Pull up, sir."
+
+I pulled up: and the heads came from under the parasols, and grouped
+round to speak to us. They had quite recovered Thursday's fatigue, Mrs.
+Clement-Pell graciously said, in answer to the Squire's inquiries; and
+she hoped all her young friends had done the same, Mr. Todhetley's young
+friends in particular.
+
+"_They_ felt no fatigue," cried the Pater, "Why, ma'am, they'd keep
+anything of that sort up for a week and a day, and not feel it. How's
+Mr. Clement-Pell?"
+
+"He is as well as he allows himself to be," she answered. "I tell him he
+is wearing himself out with work. His business is of vast magnitude, Mr.
+Todhetley. Good day."
+
+"So it is," acquiesced the Pater as we drove on, partly to himself,
+partly to me. "Of vast magnitude. For my part, I'd rather do less,
+although it involved less returns. One can forgive a man, like him,
+forgetting trifles. And, Johnny, I shouldn't wonder but his enormous
+riches render him careless of small obligations."
+
+Part of which was unintelligible to me.
+
+Sunday passed. We nodded to the Miss Clement-Pells at church (their
+bonnets making the pew look like a flower-garden); but did not see Mr.
+Clement-Pell or his wife. Monday passed; bringing a note from Tod, to
+say Lady Whitney and Bill would not let him leave yet. Tuesday morning
+came in. I happened to be seated under the hedge in the kitchen-garden,
+mending a fishing-rod, when a horse dashed up to the back gate. Looking
+through, I saw it was the butcher boy, Sam Rimmer. Molly, who was in one
+of her stinging tempers that morning, came out.
+
+"We don't want nothing," said she tartly. "So you might have spared
+yourself the pains of coming."
+
+"Don't want nothing!" returned the boy. "Why's that?"
+
+"Why's that!" she retorted. "It's like your imperence to ask. Do
+families want joints every day; specially such weather as this? I
+a-going to cook fowls for dinner, and we've the cold round o' beef for
+the kitchen. Now you know why, Sam Rimmer."
+
+Sam Rimmer sat looking at her as if in a quandary, gently rubbing his
+hair, which shone again in the sun.
+
+"Well, it's a pity but you wanted some," said he, slowly. "We've gone
+and been and pervided a shop full o' meat to-day, and it'll be a dead
+loss on the master. The Clement-Pells don't want none, you see: and they
+took a'most as much as all the rest o' the gentlefolks put together.
+There's summat up there."
+
+"Summat up where?" snapped Molly.
+
+"At the Clement-Pells'. The talk is, that they've busted-up, and be all
+gone off in consekence."
+
+"Why, what d'ye mean?" cried Molly. "Gone off where? Busted-up from
+what?"
+
+But, before Perkins's boy could answer, the Pater, walking about the
+path in his straw hat and light thin summer coat, came on the scene. He
+had caught the words.
+
+"What's that you are saying about the Clement-Pells, Sam Rimmer?"
+
+Sam Rimmer touched his hair, and explained. Upon going to Parrifer Hall
+for orders, he had found it all sixes-and-sevens; some of the servants
+gone, the rest going. They told him their master had bursted-up, and was
+gone away since Sunday morning; and the family since Monday morning. And
+his master, Perkins, would have all the meat left on his hands that he
+had killed on purpose for the Clement-Pells.
+
+You should have seen the Squire's amazed face. At first he did not know
+how to take the words, and stared at Sam Rimmer without speaking.
+
+"All the Banks has went and busted-up too," said Sam. "They be a-saying,
+sir, as how there won't be nothing for nobody."
+
+The Squire understood now. He turned tail and rushed into the house. And
+rushed against Mr. Brandon, who was coming in.
+
+"Well, have you heard the news?" asked Mr. Brandon in his thinnest
+voice.
+
+"I can't believe it; I don't believe it," raved the Squire.
+"Clement-Pell would never be such a swindler. He owes me two hundred
+pounds."
+
+Mr. Brandon opened his little eyes. "Owes it _you_!"
+
+"That day, last week, when he came driving in, in his smart cockle-shell
+carriage--when you were here, you know, Brandon. He got a cheque for two
+hundred pounds from me. A parcel of money that ought to have come over
+from the chief Bank had not arrived, he said, and the Church Dykely
+branch might be run close; would I let him have a cheque for two or
+three hundred pounds on the Bank at Alcester. I told him I did not
+believe I had anything like two hundred pounds lying at Alcester: but I
+drew a cheque out for that amount, and wrote a note telling the people
+there to cash it, and I would make it right."
+
+"And Pell drove straight off to Alcester then and there, and cashed the
+cheque?" said Mr. Brandon in his cynical way.
+
+"He did. He had told me I should receive the money on the following day.
+It did not come, or on the Friday either; and on Saturday I went to
+Alcester, thinking he might have paid it in there."
+
+"Which of course he had not," returned old Brandon. "Well, you must have
+been foolish, to be so taken-in."
+
+"Taken-in!" roared the Squire, in a passion. "Why, if he had asked me
+for two thousand pounds he might have had it--a man with the riches of
+Clement-Pell."
+
+"Well, he wouldn't have got any from me. One who launched out as he did,
+and let his family launch out, I should never put much trust in. Any
+way, the riches are nowhere; and it is said Pell is nowhere too."
+
+It was all true. As Sam Rimmer put it, Clement-Pell and his Banks had
+bursted-up.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+GETTING AWAY.
+
+
+You have heard of the avalanches that fall without warning and crush
+luckless dwellers in the Swiss mountains; and of mälströms that suddenly
+swallow up vessels sailing jauntily along on a calm sea; and of railway
+trains, filled with happy passengers, that one minute are running
+smoothly and safely along, and the next are nowhere: but nothing of this
+sort ever created the consternation that attended the bursting-up of the
+Clement-Pells.
+
+It was Saturday night.--For we have to trace back a day or two.--Seated
+in the same room where I had seen him when I went back for Helen
+Whitney's bag, was Clement-Pell. That the man had come to his last gasp,
+he knew better than any one else in the world could have told him. How
+he had braved it out, and fought against the stream, and still kept off
+the explosion since the night but one before--Thursday--when Mr. Johnson
+had intruded himself into the grounds and then stealthily watched him
+from the trees, and he knew all was over, it might have puzzled him to
+tell. How he had fought against all for months, ay, and years, turned
+him sick only to recall. It had been a fierce, continuous, secret
+battle; and it had nearly worn him out, and turned his face and his hair
+grey before their time.
+
+On the day following this fête-night, Friday, Clement-Pell took the
+train and was at his chief Bank early. He held his interview with Mr.
+Johnson; he saw other people; and his manner was free and open as usual.
+On this next day, Saturday, he had been denied to nearly all callers at
+the Bank: he was too busy to be interrupted, he told his clerks: and his
+son James boldly made appointments with them in his name for the Monday.
+After dark on Saturday evening, by the last train, he reached home,
+Parrifer Hall. And there he was, in that room of his; the door and
+shutters bolted and barred upon him, alternately pacing it in what
+looked like tribulation, and bending over account-books by the light of
+two wax candles.
+
+Leaning his forehead on his hand, he sat there, and thought it out. He
+strove to look the situation fully in the face; what it was, and what
+it would be. Ruin, and worse than ruin. Clement-Pell had possessed good
+principles once: so to say, he possessed them still. But he had allowed
+circumstances to get the better of him and of them. He had come from
+his distant home (supposed to have been London) as the manager of an
+insignificant and humble little Bank: that was years ago. It was only a
+venture: but a certain slice of luck, that need not be recorded here,
+favoured him, and he got on beyond his best expectations. He might have
+made an excellent living, nay, a good fortune, and kept his family as
+gentlepeople, had he been prudent. But the luck, coming suddenly, turned
+his head, you see. Since then, I, Johnny Ludlow, who am no longer the
+inexperienced boy of that past time, have known it turn the heads of
+others. He launched out into ventures, his family launched into expense.
+The ventures paid; the undue expense did not pay. When matters came to
+be summed up by a raging public, it was said that it was this expense
+which had swamped the Pells. That alone, I suppose, it could not have
+been: but it must have gone some way towards it.
+
+It lay on his mind heavily that Saturday night. Looking back, he got
+wondering how much more, in round figures, his family had cost him than
+they ought to have cost. There had been his wife's different expenses.
+Her houses, and her staff of servants, her carriages and horses, her
+dresses and jewels, and all the rest that it would take too long to tell
+of; and the costly bringing-up of his daughters; and the frightful
+outlay of his two younger sons. Fabian and Gusty Pell ought to have had
+ten thousand a year apiece, to have justified it. James had his expenses
+too, but in a quieter way. Clement-Pell ran his nervous fingers through
+his damp hair, as he thought of this, and in his bitter mind told
+himself that his family had ruined him. Unlimited spending--show--the
+shooting up above their station! He gave a curse to it now. He had not
+checked it when he might have done so; and it (or they) got the upper
+hand, and then he could not. Nothing is so difficult as to put down such
+expenses as these when they have become a habit.
+
+And so the years had soon come that he found need for supplies.
+Unlimited as his millions were supposed to be by a confiding public,
+Clement-Pell in secret wanted money more than most people. His
+operations were gigantic, but then they required gigantic resources to
+keep them going. Money was necessary--or the smash must have come two or
+three years earlier. But sufficient money was not then conveniently
+attainable by Clement-Pell: and so--he created some. He believed when
+all his returns from these gigantic operations should flow in, that he
+could redeem the act; could replace the money, and no one ever be the
+wiser. But (it is the old story; one that has been enacted before and
+since), he found somehow that he could not replace it. Like Tod and that
+gambling affair when we were in London, in trying to redeem himself, he
+only got further into the mire. Tod, in playing on to cover his losses,
+doubled them; Clement-Pell's fresh ventures in the stream of speculation
+only sent him into deeper water. Of late, Clement-Pell had been walking
+as on a red-hot ploughshare. It burnt and scorched him everlastingly,
+and he could not get out of it. But the end had come. The thunder-cloud
+so long hovering in the air was on the very point of bursting, and he
+was not able to meet it. He must get away: he could not face it.
+
+Get away for good, as he hoped, never to be tracked by friends or foes.
+What his future life was to be he did not attempt to consider: he only
+knew that he would give all he ever had been worth to be able to live
+on, no matter how quietly, with his fellow-men around him. The little
+moderate home that he and his wife had once looked to as the haven of
+their desires, would have been a harbour of safety and pride to him now.
+
+Say what you will, men do not like to be shown up as black sheep in the
+eyes of their fellows; especially if they have hitherto stood out as
+conspicuously white leaders of the flock. The contrast is so great, the
+fall so startling. The public gives them all sorts of hard names; as it
+did in the case of Clement-Pell. A desperately hardened man he must be,
+said the world, with a brazen conscience; unprincipled as--well, yes, as
+Satan. But we may be very sure of one thing--that upon none does the
+disgrace tell so keenly, the ruin so heavily, the sense of shame so
+cruelly, as on these men themselves. Put it, if you will, that they make
+a purse and carry it off to set up a new home in some foreign land--they
+carry their sense of humiliation with them also; and their sun of
+happiness in this life has set. Men have tried this before now, and died
+of it.
+
+That was the _best_ that lay prospectively before Clement-Pell: what the
+worst might be, he did not dare dwell upon. Certain ugly possibilities
+danced before his mental vision, like so many whirling ballet girls. "If
+I can only get away!" he muttered; "if I can only get away!"
+
+He tried to confine his whole attention to the ledgers before him, and
+he put on his spectacles again. Mental trouble and mental work will dim
+the sight as well as whiten the hair and line the face, and Clement-Pell
+could not see as he had seen a year before. He altered figures; he
+introduced entries; he tore out whole leaves, and made a bonfire of them
+in the grate--carefully removing from the grate first of all its paper
+ornament. One book he burnt wholesale, even to the covers; and the
+covers made a frightful smell and daunted him.
+
+Money was wanted here, there, everywhere. Snatching a piece of paper he
+idly dotted down the large sums occurring to him at the moment; and
+quite laughed as he glanced at the total. These were only business
+liabilities. At his elbow lay a pile of bills: domestic and family
+debts. House rent, taxes, horses, carriages, servants' wages, bills for
+food, bills for attire: all running back a long while; for no one had
+pressed Clement-Pell. The outlay for the fête might well have been
+profuse, since none of it was ever paid for. Beside the bills lay
+letters from Fabian and Gusty--wanting money as usual. To all these he
+scarcely gave a thought; they were as nothing. Even though he were made
+bankrupt upon them, they were still as nothing: for they would not brand
+his brow with the word felon. And he knew that there were other claims,
+of which no record appeared here, that might not be so easily wiped out.
+
+Just for a moment, he lost himself in a happy reverie of what might
+have been had he himself been wise and prudent. It was Gusty's pressing
+letter that induced the reflection. He saw himself a prosperous man
+of moderate expenses and moderate desires, living at his ease in his
+own proper station, instead of apeing the great world above him. His
+daughters reared to be good and thoughtful women, his sons to be steady
+and diligent whatever their calling, whether business or profession. And
+what were they? "Curse the money and the pride that deluded me and my
+wife to blindness!" broke with a groan from the lips of Clement-Pell.
+
+A sharp knocking at the door made him start. He looked about to see if
+there were anything to throw over his tell-tale table, and had a great
+mind to take off his coat and fling it there. Catching up the ornamental
+paper of the grate to replace it if he could, the knocking came again,
+and with it his wife's voice, asking what that smell of burning was. He
+let her in, and bolted the door again.
+
+How far Mrs. Clement-Pell had been acquainted with his position, never
+came out to the world. That she must have known something of it was
+thought to be certain; and perhaps the additional launching out
+lately--the sojourn at Kensington, the fête, and all the rest of it--had
+only been entered upon to disarm suspicion. Shut up together in that
+room, they no doubt planned together the getting-away. That Mrs.
+Clement-Pell fought against their leaving home and grandeur, to become
+fugitives, flying in secret like so many scapegoats, would be only
+natural: we should all so fight; but he must have shown her that there
+was no help for it. When she quitted the room again, she looked like one
+over whom twenty years had passed--as Miss Phebus told us later. And the
+whole of that night, Mrs. Clement-Pell never went to bed; but was in her
+room gathering things together barefooted, lest she should be heard.
+Jewels--dresses--valuables! It must have been an awful night; deciding
+which of her possessions she should take, and which leave for ever.
+
+At six in the morning, Sunday, Mr. Clement-Pell's bell rang, and the
+groom was summoned. He was bade get the small open carriage ready to
+drive his master to the railway station to catch an early train. Being
+Sunday, early trains were not common. Mr. Clement-Pell had received
+news the previous night, as was intimated, of an uncle's illness. At
+that early hour, and Sunday besides, Clement-Pell must have thought he
+was safe from meeting people: but, as it happened (things do happen
+unexpectedly in this world), in bowling out from his own gates, he
+nearly bowled over Duffham. The Doctor, coming home from a distant
+patient, to whom he had been called in the night, was jogging along on
+his useful old horse.
+
+"Well!" said he to the banker. "You _are_ off early."
+
+"Drive on, don't stop," whispered Clement-Pell to the groom. "I had news
+last night of the dangerous illness of my poor old uncle, and am going
+to see him," he called out to Duffham as they passed. "We shall have it
+piping hot again to-day, Doctor!"
+
+The groom told of this encounter afterwards--as did Duffham too,
+for that matter. And neither of them had any more suspicion that
+Clement-Pell was playing a part than a baby could have had. In the
+course of the morning the groom drove in again, having safely conveyed
+his master to a distant station. The family went to church as usual,
+chaperoned by Miss Phebus. Mrs. Clement-Pell stayed at home, saying she
+had a headache: and no doubt quietly completed her preparations.
+
+About six o'clock at night a telegram was delivered. The uncle was
+dying: Mrs. Clement-Pell must come as soon as possible, to be in time to
+see him: as to bringing the children she must do as she pleased about
+that. In Mrs. Pell's agitation and dismay she read the telegram aloud to
+the governess and the servant who brought it to her. Then was confusion!
+Mrs. Pell seemed to have lost her head. Take the children?--Of course
+she should take them;--and, oh, when was the earliest time they could
+start?
+
+The earliest time by rail was the following morning. And part of
+the night was again passed in preparation--openly, this time. Mrs.
+Clement-Pell said they should probably stay away some days, perhaps
+a week or two, and must take things accordingly. The boxes were all
+brought into her room, that she might superintend; the poor old uncle
+was so very particular as to dress, she said, and she trusted he might
+yet recover. On the Monday morning, she and her daughters departed in
+the large carriage, at the same early hour that her husband had gone,
+and for the same remote station. After all, not so much luggage went;
+only a box a-piece. In stepping into her carriage, she told the
+servants that it would be an excellent opportunity to clean the paint
+of the sitting-rooms and of the first-floor while she was away: the
+previous week she had remarked to them that it wanted doing.
+
+The day went on; the household no doubt enjoying their freedom and
+letting the paint alone. No suspicion was aroused amongst them until
+late in the afternoon, when a curious rumour was brought over of some
+confusion at the chief Bank--that it had stopped and its master had
+flown. At first the governess and servants laughed at this: but
+confirmation soon came thick and three-fold. Clement-Pell had burst-up.
+
+And why the expression "bursting-up" should have been universally
+applied to the calamity by all people, high and low, I know no more
+than you; but it was so. Perhaps in men's minds there existed some
+assimilation between a bubble, that shines brightly for its brief
+existence before bursting, like the worthless froth it is, and the
+brilliant but foundationless career of Mr. Clement-Pell.
+
+The calamity at first was too great to be believed in. It drove people
+mad only to fancy it might be true: and one or two, alas! subsequently
+went mad in reality. For the bursting-up of Mr. Clement-Pell's huge
+undertakings caused the bursting-up of many private ones, and of
+households with them. Means of living went: homes were desolated.
+
+It would be easier to tell you of those who had not trusted money in the
+hands of Clement-Pell, than of those who had. Some had given him their
+all. Led away by the fascinating prospect of large interest, they forgot
+future safety in the dazzling but delusive light of immediate good. I
+should like it to be distinctly understood that I, Johnny Ludlow, am
+writing of a matter which took place years ago; and not of any recent
+event, or events, that may have since occurred to shake public
+equanimity in our own local world.
+
+Disbelief in the misfortune was natural. Clement-Pell had stood
+on a lofty pedestal, unapproachable by common individuals. We put
+greater trust in him--in his unbounded wealth, his good faith, his
+stability--than we could have put in any other man on the face of the
+globe. We should almost as soon have expected the skies to fall as
+Clement-Pell. The interests of so many were involved and the ruin would
+be so universal, that the terrified natives could only take refuge in
+disbelief: and Squire Todhetley was amongst them.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news was brought to Dyke Manor on the Tuesday morning, as you have
+heard, by the butcher boy, Sam Rimmer; and was confirmed by Mr. Brandon.
+When the first momentary shock had been digested by the Squire, he
+arrived at the conclusion that it must be false. But that Sam had
+trotted off, he might have heard the length of the Pater's tongue. Sam
+being gone, he turned his indignation on Mr. Brandon.
+
+"One would have thought you had sense to know better, Brandon," said he,
+raging about the breakfast-room with the skirts of his light morning
+coat held out behind him. "Giving ear to a cock-and-bull story that
+_can't_ be true! Take care Pell does not get to hear it. He'd sue you
+for defamation."
+
+"He'd be welcome," nodded old Brandon, in his thin voice, as he stood,
+whip in hand, against the window.
+
+"The grand fête of last Thursday," gasped Mrs. Todhetley--who had been
+puzzling her brains over Sam Rimmer's master's book, the writing in
+which could never be deciphered. "Surely the Clement-Pells would not
+have given that fête had things been going wrong with them."
+
+"And poured iced champagne, unlimited, down folk's throats; and strutted
+about in point-lace and diamonds," added old Brandon. "Madam, I'd
+believe it all the more for that."
+
+As he spoke, the remembrance of the scene I had witnessed in the
+grounds, and Clement-Pell's curious fear later when I told him of the
+same man watching him, flashed over me, bringing a conviction that the
+report was true.
+
+"I heard it at the chief Bank yesterday," began Mr. Brandon. "Having
+some business to transact in the town, I went over by train in the
+afternoon, and chanced to meet Wilcox in High Street. He is a red-faced
+man in general----"
+
+"Oh, I know Wilcox," impatiently interrupted the Squire. "Face as red as
+the sun in a fog. What has that to do with it?"
+
+"Well, it was as pale yesterday as the moon on a frosty night," went on
+old Brandon. "I asked if he had an attack of bile--being subject to it
+myself--and he said No, it was an attack of fright. And then he told me
+there was a report in town that something was wrong with Pell's affairs,
+and that he had run away. Wilcox will lose every penny of his savings."
+
+"All talk; all talk," said the Pater in his obstinacy.
+
+"And for a man to come to Wilcox's age, which must be five-and-fifty, it
+is no light blow to lose a life's savings," calmly went on old Brandon.
+"I went to the Bank, and found it besieged by an excited and angry crowd
+fighting to get in, the door locked, and the porter vainly trying to put
+up the shutters. That was enough to show me what the matter was, and I
+left Wilcox to it."
+
+The Squire stared in perplexity, rubbing up his scanty hair the wrong
+way while his senses came to him.
+
+"It is all true," said Mr. Brandon, nodding to him. "Church Dykely is in
+an uproar this morning already."
+
+"I'll go and see for myself," said the Squire, stripping off his nankeen
+coat in haste so great that he tore one sleeve nearly out. "I'll go and
+see; this is _not_ credible. Clement-Pell would never have swindled me
+out of two hundred pounds only a day or two before he knew he was going
+all to smash."
+
+"The most likely time for him to do it," persisted Mr. Brandon. "People,
+as a rule, only do these things when they are desperate."
+
+But the Squire did not stay to listen. Settling himself into his other
+coat, he went driving on across the fields as though he were walking for
+a wager. Mr Brandon mounted his cob, and put up his umbrella against the
+sun.
+
+"Never embark any money with these beguiling people that promise you
+undue interest, Johnny Ludlow," said Mr. Brandon, as I kept by his side,
+and opened the gates for him. "Where would you have been now, young
+man--or, worse, where should I have been--had I, the trustee of your
+property, consented to risk it with Pell? He asked me to do it."
+
+"Clement-Pell did, sir? When?"
+
+"A year or two ago. I gave him an answer, Johnny; and I fancy he has not
+altogether liked me since. 'I could not think of placing even a shilling
+of Johnny Ludlow's where I did not know it to be safe,' I said to him.
+'It will be safe with me,' says Pell, sharply. 'Possibly so, Mr Pell,' I
+answered; 'but you see there's only your word as guarantee, and that is
+not enough for an honest trustee.' That shut him up."
+
+"Do you mean to say you have doubted Clement-Pell's stability, Brandon?"
+demanded the Squire, who was near enough to hear this.
+
+"I don't know about doubting," was the answer. "I have thought it as
+likely to come to a smash as not. That the chances for it were rather
+better than half."
+
+This sent the Squire on again. _He_ had no umbrella; and his straw hat
+glistened in the heat.
+
+Church Dykely was in a commotion. Folk were rushing up to the little
+branch Bank black in the face, as if their collars throttled them; for
+the news was spreading like fire in dry turf. The Squire went bolting in
+through every obstruction, and seized upon the manager.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that it's true, Robertson?" he fiercely
+cried.--"That things have gone to smash?"
+
+"I am afraid it is, sir," said Robertson, who looked more dead than
+alive. "I am unable to understand it. It has fallen upon me with as much
+surprise as it has on others."
+
+"Now, don't you go and tell falsehoods, Robertson," roared the Squire,
+as if he meant to shake the man. "Surprise upon you, indeed! Why, have
+you not been here--at the head and tail of everything?"
+
+"But I did not know how affairs were going. Indeed, sir, I tell you
+truth."
+
+"Tell a jackass not to bray!" foamed the Squire. "Have you been short of
+funds here lately, or have you not? Come, answer me that."
+
+"It is true. We have been short. But Mr. Clement-Pell excused it to me
+by saying that a temporary lock-up ran the Banks short, especially the
+small branch Banks. I declare, before Heaven, that I implicitly believed
+him," added Robertson, "and never suspected there could be any graver
+cause."
+
+"Then you are either a fool or a knave."
+
+"Not a knave, Squire Todhetley. A fool I suppose I have been."
+
+"I want my two hundred pounds," returned the Squire. "And, Robertson, I
+mean to have it."
+
+But Robertson had known nothing of the loan; was surprised to hear of it
+now. As to repayment, that was out of his power. He had not two hundred
+pence left in the place, let alone pounds.
+
+"It is a case of swindle," said the Squire. "It's not one of ordinary
+debt."
+
+"I can't help it," returned Robertson. "If it were to save Mr.
+Clement-Pell from hanging, I could not give a stiver of it. There's my
+own salary, sir, since Midsummer; that, I suppose, I shall lose: and I
+can't afford it, and I don't know what will become of me and my poor
+little children."
+
+At this, the Squire's voice and anger dropped, and he shook hands with
+Robertson. But, as a rule, every one began by brow-beating the manager.
+The noise was deafening.
+
+How had Pell got off? By which route: road or rail? By day or night? It
+was a regular hubbub of questions. Mr. Brandon sat on his cob all the
+while, patiently blinking his eyes at the people.
+
+Palmerby of Rock Cottage came up; his old hands trembling, his face as
+white as the new paint on Duffham's windows. "It can't be true!" he was
+crying. "It can't be true!"
+
+"Had you money in his hands, Palmerby?"
+
+"Every shilling I possess in the world."
+
+Mr. Brandon opened his lips to blow him up for foolishness: but
+something in the poor old face stopped him. Palmerby elbowed his way
+into the Bank. Duffham came out of his house, a gallipot of ointment in
+his hand.
+
+"Well, this is a pretty go!"
+
+The Squire took him by the buttonhole. "Where's the villainous swindler
+off to, Duffham?"
+
+"I should like to know," answered the surgeon. "I'd be pretty soon on
+his trail and ask him to refund my money."
+
+"But surely he has none of yours?"
+
+"Pretty nigh half the savings of my years."
+
+"Mercy be good to us!" cried the Pater. "He got two hundred pounds out
+of me last week. What's to become of us all?"
+
+"It's not so much a question of what is to become of us--of you and me,
+Squire," said Duffham, philosophically, "as of those who had invested
+with him their all. We can bear the loss: you can afford it without much
+hurt; I must work a few years longer, Heaven permitting me, than I had
+thought to work. That's the worst of us. But what will those others do?
+What will be the worst for them?"
+
+Mr. Brandon nodded approvingly from his saddle.
+
+"Coming home last night from Duck Lane--by the way, there's another
+infant at John Mitchel's, because he had not enough before--the
+blacksmith accosted me, saying Clement-Pell was reported to be in a mess
+and to have run off. The thing sounded so preposterous that I thought at
+first Dobbs must have been drinking; and told him that I happened to
+know Clement-Pell was only off to a relative's death-bed. For on Sunday
+morning, you see----"
+
+A crush and rush stopped Duffham's narrative, and nearly knocked us all
+down. Ball the milkman had come bumping amongst us in a frantic state,
+his milk-cans swinging from his shoulders against my legs.
+
+"I say, Ball, take care of my trousers. Milk stains, you know."
+
+"Master Ludlow, sir, I be a'most mad, I think. Folks is saying as Mr.
+Clement-Pell and his banks have busted-up."
+
+"Well? You have not lost anything, I suppose?"
+
+"Not lost!" panted poor Ball. "I've lost all I've got. 'Twere a hundred
+pound, Mr. Johnny, scraped together hard enou', as goodness knows. Mr.
+Clement-Pell were a-talking to me one day, and he says, says he, Ah,
+says he, it's difficult to get much interest now; money's plentiful. I
+give eight per cent., says he; most persons gets but three. Would ye
+take mine, sir, says I; my hundred pound? If you like, he says. And I
+took it to him, gentlemen, thinking what luck I was in, and how safe it
+were. My hundred pound!"--letting the cans down with a clatter. "My
+hundred pound that I'd toiled so hard for! Gentlefolk, wherever be all
+the money a-gone?"
+
+Well, it was a painful scene. One we were glad to get out of. The
+Squire, outrageously angry at the way he had been done out of his money,
+insisted on going to Parrifer Hall. Mr. Brandon rode his cob; Duffham
+stepped into his surgery to get his hat.
+
+One might have fancied a sale was going on. The doors were open: boxes
+belonging to some of the servants were lying by the side-entrance, ready
+to be carted away; people (creditors and curiosity-mongers) stood about.
+Sam Rimmer's master, the butcher, came out of the house as we went in,
+swearing. Perkins had not been paid for a twelvemonth, and said it would
+be his ruin. Miss Phebus was in the hall, and seemed to have been having
+it out with him. She was a light-haired, bony lady of thirty-five, or
+so, and had made a rare good gipsy that day in the tent. Her eyes were
+peculiar: green in some lights, yellow in others: a frightfully hard
+look they had in them this morning.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Todhetley, I am so glad to see you!" she said. "It is a cruel
+turn that the Clement-Pells have served me, leaving me here without
+warning, to bear the brunt of all this! Have you come in the interests
+of the family?"
+
+"I've come after my own interests, ma'am," returned the Pater. "To find
+out, if I can, where Clement-Pell has gone to: and to see if I can get
+back any of the money I have been done out of."
+
+"Why, it seems every one must be a creditor!" she exclaimed in surprise,
+on hearing this.
+
+"I know I am one," was his answer.
+
+"To serve _me_ such a trick,--to behave to me with this duplicity: it is
+infamous," went on Miss Phebus, after she had related to us the chief
+events of the Sunday, as connected with the story of the dying uncle and
+the telegram. "If I get the chance, I will have the law against them,
+Mr. Todhetley."
+
+"It is what a few more of us mean to do, ma'am," he answered.
+
+"They owe me forty pounds. Yes, Mr. Duffham, it is forty pounds: and I
+cannot afford to lose it. Mrs. Pell has put me off from time to time:
+and I supposed it to be all right; I suspected nothing. They have not
+treated me well lately, either. Leaving me here to take care of the
+house while they were enjoying themselves up in Kensington! I had a
+great mind to give warning then. The German governess got offended while
+they were in town, and left. Some friend of Fabian Pell's was rude to
+her."
+
+A little man looked into the room just then; noting down the furniture
+with his eye. "None of these here articles must be moved, you
+understand, mum," he said to Miss Phebus.
+
+"Don't talk to me," she answered wrathfully. "I am going out of the
+house as soon as I can put my things together." And the man went away.
+
+"If I had only suspected!" she resumed to us, her angry tone full of
+pain; "and I think I might have done so, had I exercised my wits. My
+room is next to Mrs. Pell's; but it's not much larger than a closet, and
+has no fireplace in it: she only gave it me because it was not good
+enough for any one else. Saturday night was very hot--as you must
+remember--and I could not sleep. The window was open, but the room felt
+like an oven. After tossing about for I don't know how long, I got up
+and opened the door, thinking it might admit a breath of air. At that
+moment I heard sounds below--the quiet shutting of a door, and advancing
+footsteps. Wondering who could be up so late, I peeped out and saw Mrs.
+Pell. She came up softly, a candle in her hand, and her face quite
+curious and altered--aged and pale and haggard. She must be afraid of
+the ghosts, I thought to myself, as she turned off into her chamber--for
+we had been telling ghost-stories that night up to bed-time. After that,
+I did not get to sleep; not, as it seemed, for hours; and all the time I
+heard drawers being opened and shut in her bed and dressing-room. She
+must even then have been preparing for flight."
+
+"And the dying uncle was invented for the occasion, I presume," remarked
+Mr. Duffham.
+
+"All I know is, I never heard of an uncle before," she tartly answered.
+"I asked Mrs. Clement-Pell on Sunday night where the uncle lived, and
+how long a journey they had to go: she answered shortly that he was at
+his country house, and bade me not tease her. Mr. Duffham, can my own
+boxes be stopped?"
+
+"I should think no one would attempt to do it," he answered. "But I'd
+get them out as soon as I could, were I you, Miss Phebus."
+
+"What a wreck it will be!" she exclaimed.
+
+"You have used the right word, ma'am," put in Mr. Brandon, who had left
+his horse outside. "And not only here. Wrecks they will be; and many of
+them."
+
+We stood looking at one another ruefully. The Pater had come to hunt up
+his two hundred pounds; but there did not seem much chance of his doing
+it. "Look here," said he suddenly to the governess, "where was that
+telegram sent from?"
+
+"We have not been able to discover. It was only seen by Mrs. Pell. After
+she had read it aloud, she crushed it up in her hand, as if in frightful
+distress, and called out about the poor dear old uncle. She took care it
+should not be seen: we may be very sure of that."
+
+"But who sent the telegram?"
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Phebus viciously. "Her husband, no doubt.
+Neither was the luggage that they took with them labelled: we have
+remembered the fact since."
+
+"I think we might track them by that luggage," observed the Pater. "Five
+big boxes."
+
+"If you do track them by it I'll eat the luggage wholesale," cried wise
+old Brandon. "Clement-Pell's not a fool, or his wife either. They'll go
+off just in the opposite direction that they appeared to go--and their
+boxes in another. As to Pell, he was probably unknown at the distant
+station the groom drove him to."
+
+There was no end to be served in staying longer at the house, and we
+quitted it, leaving poor Miss Phebus to her temper. I had never much
+liked her; but I could not help feeling for her that unlucky morning.
+
+"What's to be done now?" gloomily cried the Squire, while old Brandon
+was mounting. "It's like being in a wood that you can't get out of. If
+Clement-Pell had played an honest part with me: if he had come and said,
+'Mr. Todhetley, I am in sore need of a little help,' and told me a bit
+about things: I don't say that I would have refused him the money. But
+to dupe me out of it in the specious way he did was nothing short of
+swindling; and I will bring him to book for it if I can."
+
+That day was only the beginning of sorrow. There have been such cases
+since: perhaps worse; where a sort of wholesale ruin has fallen upon a
+neighbourhood: but none, to me, have equalled that. It was the first
+calamity of the kind in my experience; and in all things, whether of joy
+or sorrow, our earliest impressions are the most vivid. It is the first
+step that costs, the French tell us: and that is true of all things.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ruin turned out to be wider even than was feared; the distress
+greater. Some had only lost part of their superfluous cash. It was
+mortifying; but it did not further affect their prosperity, or take from
+them the means of livelihood; no luxuries need be given up, or any
+servants dispensed with. Others had invested so much that it would throw
+them back years, perhaps cripple them for life. Pitiable enough, that,
+but not the worst. It was as nothing to those who had lost their all.
+
+People made it their business to find out more about Mr. and Mrs.
+Clement-Pell than had been known before. Both were of quite obscure
+origin, it turned out, and he had _not_ been a lawyer in London, but
+only a lawyer's clerk. So much the more credit to him for getting on to
+be something better. If he had only had the sense to let well alone! But
+she?--well, all I mean to say here, is this: the farmers she had turned
+up her nose at were far, far better born and bred, even the smallest of
+them, than she was. Let that go: other women have been just as foolishly
+upstart as Mrs. Clement-Pell. One fact came out that I think _riled_ the
+public worse than any other: that his Christian name was Clement and his
+surname Pell. He had united the two when growing into a great man, and
+put a "J." before the Clement, which had no right there. Mr. Brandon had
+known it all along--at least he chanced to know that in early life his
+name was simply Clement Pell. The Squire, when he heard of this, went
+into a storm of reproach at old Brandon, because he had not told it.
+
+"Nay, why should I have sought to do the man an injury?" remonstrated
+Mr. Brandon. "It was no business of mine, that I should interfere. We
+must live and let live, Squire, if we care to go through the world
+peaceably."
+
+The days went on, swelling the list of creditors who came forward to
+declare themselves. The wonder was, that so many had been taken in. But
+you see, people had not made it their business to proclaim that their
+money lay with Clement-Pell. Gentlefolk who lived on their fortunes;
+professional men of all classes, including the clergy; commercial men of
+high and low degree; small tradespeople; widows with slender incomes,
+and spinsters with less. If Clement-Pell had taken the money of these
+people, not intentionally to swindle them, as the Squire put it in
+regard to his own, but only knowing there was a chance that it would not
+be safe, he must have been a hard and cruel man. I think the cries of
+the defrauded of that unhappy time must have gone direct to heaven.
+
+He was not spared. Could hard words injure an absentee, Clement-Pell
+must have come in for all sorts of harm. His ears burned, I should
+fancy--if there's any truth in the saying that ears burn when distant
+friends give pepper. The queerest fact was, that no money seemed to be
+left. Of the millions that Clement-Pell had been worth, or had had to
+play with, nothing remained. It was inconceivable. What had become of
+the stores? The hoards of gold; the chests, popularly supposed to be
+filled with it; the bank-notes; the floating capital--where was it all?
+No one could tell. People gazed at each other with dismayed faces as
+they asked it. Bit by bit, the awful embarrassment in which he had been
+plunged for years came to light. The fictitious capital he had created
+had consumed itself: and the good money of the public had gone with it.
+Of course he had made himself secure and carried off loads, said the
+maddened creditors. But they might have been mistaken there.
+
+For a week or two confusion reigned. Accountants set to work in a fog;
+official assignees strove to come to the bottom of the muddy waters.
+There existed some of what people called securities; but they were so
+hemmed in by claims that the only result would be that there would not
+be anything for any one. Clement-Pell had done well to escape, or the
+unhappy victims had certainly tarred and feathered him. All that time
+he was being searched for, and not a clue could be obtained to him.
+Stranger perhaps to say, there was no clue to his wife and daughters
+either. The five boxes had disappeared. It was ascertained that certain
+boxes, answering to the description, had been sent to London on the
+Monday from a populous station by a quick train, and were claimed at the
+London terminus by a gentleman who did _not_ bear any resemblance to
+Clement-Pell. I'm sure the excitement of the affair was something before
+unknown to the Squire, as he raged up hill and down dale in the August
+weather, and it must have been as good as a course of Turkish baths to
+him.
+
+Ah me! it is all very well to write of it in a light strain at this
+distance of time; but God alone knows how many hearts were broken by it.
+
+One of the worst cases was poor Jacob Palmerby's. He had saved money
+that brought him in about a hundred a year in his old age. Clement-Pell
+got hold of the money, doubled the interest, and Palmerby thought that a
+golden era had set in. For several years now he had enjoyed it. His wife
+was dead; his only son, who had been a sizar at Cambridge, was a curate
+in London. With the bursting up of Clement-Pell, Jacob Palmerby's means
+failed: he had literally not a sixpence left in the world. The blow
+seemed to have struck him stupid. He mostly sat in silence, his head
+down; his clothes neglected.
+
+"Come, Palmerby, you must cheer up, you know," said the Squire to him
+one evening that we looked in at Rock Cottage, and found Mr. Brandon
+there.
+
+"Me cheer up," he returned, lifting his face for a moment--and in the
+last fortnight it had grown ten years older. "What am I to cheer up for?
+There's nothing left. _I_ can go into the workhouse--but there's poor
+Michael."
+
+"Michael?"
+
+"My son, the parson. The capital that ought to have been his after me,
+and brought him in his hundred a year, as it did me before I drew it
+from the funds, is gone. Gone. It is of him I think. He has been a good
+son always. I hope he won't take to cursing me."
+
+"Parsons don't curse, you know, and Michael will be a good son still,"
+said Mr. Brandon, shrilly. "Don't you fret, Palmerby. Fretting does no
+good."
+
+"It 'ud wear out a donkey--as I tell him," put in the old woman-servant,
+Nanny, who had brought in his supper of bread-and-milk.
+
+He did not lift his head; just swayed it once from side to side by way
+of general response.
+
+"It's the way he goes on all day, masters," whispered Nanny when we went
+out. "His heart's a-breaking--and I wish it was that knave of a Pell's
+instead. All these purty flowers to be left," pointing to the clusters
+of roses and geraniums and honeysuckles within the gate, "and the
+chairs and tables to be sold, and the very beds to be took from under
+us!"
+
+"Nay, nay, Nanny, it may turn out better than that," spoke the Squire.
+
+"Why, how can it turn out better, sirs?" she asked. "Pell didn't pay the
+dividends this two times past: and the master, believing as all his
+excuses was gospel, never thought of pressing for it. If we be in debt
+to the landlord and others, is it our fault? But the sticks and stones
+must be sold to pay, and the place be given up. There be the work'us for
+me; I know that, and it don't much matter; but it'll be a crying shame
+if the poor master have to move into it."
+
+So it would be. And there were others in a similar plight to his;
+nothing else but the workhouse before them.
+
+"He won't never live to go--that's one consolation," was Nanny's last
+comment as she held the gate open. "Good evening to ye, sirs; good
+evening, Master Johnny."
+
+What with talking to Dobbs the blacksmith, and staying with Duffham to
+drink what he called a dish of tea, it was almost dark when I set out
+home; the Squire and Mr. Brandon having gone off without me. I was
+vaulting over the stile the near way across the fields, expecting to
+catch it for staying, when a man shot into my path from behind the
+hedge.
+
+"Johnny Ludlow."
+
+Well, I did feel surprised. It was Gusty Pell!
+
+"Halloa!" said I. "I thought you were in Scotland."
+
+"I was there," he answered. And then, while we looked at one another, he
+began to tell me the reason of his coming away. Why it is that all kinds
+of people seem to put confidence in me and trust me with matters they'd
+never speak of to others, I have never found out. Had it been Tod, for
+instance, Gusty Pell would never have shown himself out of the hedge to
+talk to him.
+
+Gusty, shooting the grouse on the moors, had found his purse emptied of
+its last coin. He wrote to his father for more money: wrote and wrote;
+but none arrived: neither money nor letter. Being particularly in want
+of supplies, he borrowed a sovereign or two from his friends, and came
+off direct to see the reason why. Arrived within a few miles of home he
+heard very ugly rumours; stories that startled him. So he waited and
+came on by night, thinking it more prudent not to show himself.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Johnny Ludlow, for the love of goodness!"
+he cried, his voice a little hoarse with agitation, his hand
+grasping my arm like a vice. "I have been taking a look at the place
+outside"--pointing up the road towards Parrifer Hall--"but it seems to
+be empty."
+
+It was empty, except for a man who had charge of the things until the
+sale could take place. Softening the narrative a little, and not calling
+everything by the name the public called it, I gave the facts to Gusty.
+
+He drew a deep breath at the end, like a hundred sighs in one. Then I
+asked him how it was he had not heard these things--had not been written
+to.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I have been moving about Scotland: perhaps a
+letter of theirs may have miscarried; and I suppose my later letters did
+not reach them. The last letter I had was from Constance, giving me an
+account of some grand fête here that had taken place the previous day."
+
+"Yes. I was at it with Todhetley and the Whitneys. The--the crisis came
+three or four days after that."
+
+"Johnny, where's my father?" he asked, after a pause, his voice sunk to
+a whisper.
+
+"It is not known where he is."
+
+"Is it true that he is being--looked for?"
+
+"I am afraid it is."
+
+"And, if they find him--what then? Why don't you speak?" he added
+impatiently.
+
+"I don't know what. Some people say it will only be a bad case of
+bankruptcy."
+
+"Any way, it is a complete smash."
+
+"Yes, it's that."
+
+"Will it, do you think, be ruin, Johnny? Ruin utter and unmitigated?"
+
+"It is that already--to many persons round about."
+
+"But I mean to my own people," said he, impatiently.
+
+"Well, I should fear it would be."
+
+Gusty took off his hat to wipe his brow. He looked white in the
+starlight.
+
+"What will become of me? I must fly too," he muttered, as if to the
+stars. "And what of Fabian?--he cannot remain in his regiment. Johnny
+Ludlow, this blow is like death to me."
+
+And it struck me that of the two calamities, Gusty Pell, non-religious
+though he was, would rather have met death. I felt dreadfully sorry for
+him.
+
+"Where's James?" he suddenly asked. "Is he gone too?"
+
+"James disappeared on the Sunday, it is said. It would hardly have been
+safe for him to remain: the popular feeling is very bitter."
+
+"Well, I must make myself scarce again also," he said, after a pause.
+"Could you lend me a pound or so, Johnny, if you've got it about you?"
+
+I told him I wished I had; he should have been heartily welcome to it.
+Pulling out my pockets, I counted it all up--two shillings and
+fivepence. Gusty turned from it with disdain.
+
+"Well, good evening, Johnny. Thank you for your good wishes--and for
+telling me what you have. I don't know to whom else I could have
+applied: and I am glad to have chanced to meet you."
+
+He gave another deep sigh, shook my hand, got over the stile, and crept
+away, keeping close to the hedge, as if he intended to make for
+Alcester, I stood and watched him until he was lost in the shadows.
+
+And so the Pells, one and all, went into exile in some unknown region,
+and the poor duped people stayed to face their ruin at home. It was an
+awful time, and that's the truth.
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+OVER THE WATER.
+
+
+We had what they called the "dead-lights" put in the ladies' cabin at
+Gravesend: that will show what the weather was expected to be in the
+open sea. In the saloon, things were pitching about before we reached
+Margate. Rounding the point off Broadstairs, the steamer caught it
+strong and sharp.
+
+"Never heed a bit of pitching: we've the wind all for us, and shall
+make a short passage," said the captain in hearty tones, by way of
+consolation to the passengers generally. "A bit o' breeze at sea is
+rather pleasant."
+
+Pleasant it might be to him, Captain Tune, taking in a good dinner, as
+much at ease as if he had been sitting in his dining-room ashore. Not
+so pleasant, though, for some of us, his passengers.
+
+Ramsgate and other landmarks passed, and away in the open sea it was
+just a gale. That, and nothing less. Some one said so to the man at the
+wheel: a tall, middle-aged, bronzed-faced fellow in shirt sleeves and
+open blue waistcoat.
+
+"Bless y're ignorance! This a gale! Why, 'taint half a one. It'll be a
+downright fair passage, this 'un will, shorter nor ord'nary."
+
+"What do you call a gale--if this is not one?"
+
+"I ain't allowed to talk: you may see it writ up."
+
+"Writ up," it was. "Passengers are requested not to talk to the man at
+the wheel." But if he had been allowed to talk, and talked till now, he
+would never have convinced some of the unhappy creatures around, that
+the state of wind then blowing was not a gale.
+
+It whistled in the sails, it roared over the paddle-wheels, it seemed to
+play at pitch-and-toss with the sea. The waves rose with mountain force,
+and then broke like mad: the steamer rolled and lurched, and righted
+herself; and then lurched and rolled again. Captain Tune stood on the
+bridge, apparently enjoying it, the gold band on his cap glistening in
+the sun. We got his name from the boat bills; and a jolly, courteous,
+attentive captain he seemed to be. But for the pitching and tossing and
+general discomfort, it would have been called beautiful weather. The
+air was bright; the sun as hot as it is in July, although September was
+all but out.
+
+"Johnny. Johnny Ludlow."
+
+The voice--Mr. Brandon's--was too faint to be squeaky. He sat amidships
+on a camp stool, his back against the cabin wall--or whatever the
+boarding was--wrapped in a plaid. A yellow handkerchief was tied over
+his head, partly to keep his cap on, partly to protect his ears. The
+handkerchief hid most of his face, except his little nose; which looked
+pinched and about as yellow as the silk.
+
+"Did you call me, sir?"
+
+"I wish you'd see if you can get to my tail pocket, Johnny. I've been
+trying this ten minutes, and do nothing but find my hands hopelessly
+entangled in the plaid. There's a tin box of lozenges there."
+
+"Do you feel ill, sir?" I asked, as I found the box, and gave it to him.
+
+"Never was ill at sea in my life, Johnny, in the way you mean. But the
+motion always gives me the most frightful headache imaginable. How are
+you?"
+
+The less said about how I was, the better. All I hoped was he wouldn't
+keep me talking.
+
+"Where's the Squire?" he asked.
+
+I pointed to a distant heap on the deck, from which groans came forth
+occasionally: and just managed to speak in answer.
+
+"He seems uncommonly ill, sir."
+
+"Well, he _would_ come, you know, Johnny. Tell him he ought to take----"
+
+What he ought to take was lost in the rush of a wave which came dashing
+over us.
+
+After all, I suppose it was a quick and good, though rough passage, for
+Boulogne-sur-Mer was sighted before we thought for. As the stiller I
+kept the better I was, there was nothing to do but to sit motionless and
+stare at it.
+
+You'll never guess what was taking us across the Channel. Old Brandon
+called it from the first a wild-goose chase; but, go, the Squire would.
+He was after that gentleman who had played havoc with many people's
+hearts and money, who had, so to say, scattered ruin wholesale--Mr.
+Clement-Pell.
+
+Not a trace had the public been able to obtain as to the direction of
+the Pells' flight; not a clue to the spot in which they might be hiding
+themselves. The weeks had gone on since their departure: August passed
+into September, September was passing: and for all that could be
+discovered of them, they might as well never have existed. The committee
+for winding up the miserable affairs raged and fumed and pitied, and
+wished they could just put their hands on the man who had wrought the
+evil; Squire Todhetley raged and fumed also on his own score; but none
+of them were any the nearer finding Pell. In my whole life I had never
+seen the Squire so much put out. It was not altogether the loss of the
+two hundred pounds he had been (as he persisted in calling it) swindled
+out of; it was the distress he had to witness daily around him. I do
+think nothing would have given him more satisfaction than to join a mob
+in administering lynch law to Clement-Pell, and to tar and feather him
+first. Before this happened, the Squire had talked of going to the
+seaside: but he would not listen to a word on the subject now: only
+to speak of it put him out of temper. Tod was away. He received an
+invitation to stay with some people in Gloucestershire, who had good
+game preserves; and was off the next day. And things were in this lively
+state at home: the Squire grumbling, Mrs. Todhetley driving about with
+one or other of the children in the mild donkey-cart, and I fit to eat
+my head off with having nothing to do: when some news arrived of the
+probable sojourning place of the Clement-Pells.
+
+The news was not much. And perhaps hardly to be relied on. Mr. and Mrs.
+Sterling at the Court had been over to Paris for a fortnight: taking
+the baby with them. I must say that Mrs. Sterling was always having
+babies--if any one cares for the information. Before one could walk
+another was sure to arrive. And not only the baby had been to Paris, but
+the baby's nursemaid, Charlotte. Old Brandon, remarking upon it, said
+he'd rather travel with half a score of mischievous growing boys than
+one baby: and _they_ were about the greatest calamity he could think of.
+
+Well, in coming home, the Sterling party had, to make the short
+crossing, put themselves on board the Folkestone boat at Boulogne, and
+the nursemaid was sitting on deck with the baby on her lap, when, just
+as the steamer was moving away, she saw, or thought she saw, Constance
+Pell, standing on the shore a little apart from the people gathered
+there to watch the boat off. Mrs. Sterling told the nurse she must be
+mistaken: but Charlotte held to it that she was not. As chance had it,
+Squire Todhetley was at the Court with old Sterling when they got home;
+and he heard this. It put him into a commotion. He questioned Charlotte
+closely, but she never wavered in her statement.
+
+"I am positive it was Miss Constance Pell, sir," she repeated. "She had
+on a thick blue veil, and one of them new-fashioned large round capes.
+Just as I happened to be looking at her--not thinking it was anybody I
+knew--a gust of wind took the veil right up above her bonnet, and I saw
+it was Miss Constance Pell. She pulled at the veil with both her hands,
+in a scuffle like, to get it down again."
+
+"Then I'll go off to Boulogne," said the Squire, with stern resolution.
+And back he came to Dyke Manor full of it.
+
+"It will be a wild-goose chase," observed Mr. Brandon, who had called
+in. "If Pell has taken himself no further away than Boulogne--that is,
+allowing he has got out of England at all--he is a greater fool than I
+took him for."
+
+"Wild-goose chase or not, I shall go," said the Pater, hotly. "And I
+shall take Johnny; he'll be useful as an interpreter."
+
+"I will go with you," came the unexpected rejoinder of Mr. Brandon. "I
+want a bit of a change."
+
+And so we went up to London to take the steamer there. And here we were,
+all three of us, ploughing the waves _en route_ for Boulogne, on the
+wild-goose chase after Clement-Pell.
+
+Just as the passengers had come to the conclusion that they must die of
+it, the steamer shot into Boulogne harbour. She was tolerably long
+swinging round; then was made fast, and we began to land. Mr. Brandon
+took off his yellow turban and shook his cap out.
+
+"Johnny, I'd never have come if I had known it was going to be like
+this," moaned the poor Squire--and every trace of red had gone out of
+his face. "No, not even to catch Clement-Pell. What on earth is that
+crowd for?"
+
+It looked about five hundred people; they were pushing and crushing
+each other, fighting for places to see us land and go through the
+custom-house. No need to tell of this: not a reader of you, but you must
+know it well.
+
+The first thing, patent to my senses amidst the general confusion, was
+hearing my name shouted out by the Squire in the custom-house.
+
+"Johnny Ludlow!"
+
+He was standing before two Frenchmen in queer hats, who sat behind a
+table or counter, asking him questions and preparing to write down the
+answers: what his name was, and what his age, and where he was born,
+just as though he were a footman in want of a place. Not a word could he
+understand, and looked round for me helplessly. As to my French--well, I
+knew it pretty well, and talked often with our French master at Dr.
+Frost's: but you must not think I was as fluent in it as though I'd been
+a born Frenchman. It was rather the other way.
+
+We put up at the Hôtel des Bains. A good hotel--as is well known--but
+nothing to look at from the street. Mr. Brandon had been in Boulogne
+before, and always used it. The _table d'hôte_ restored the Squire's
+colour and spirits together: and by the time dinner was over, he felt
+ready to encounter the sea again. As to Mr. Brandon, he made his meal of
+some watery broth, two slices of melon, and a bowlful of pounded sugar.
+
+The great question was--to discover whether the Clement-Pells were in
+the town; and, if so, to find them out. Mr. Brandon's opinion never
+varied--that Charlotte had been mistaken and they were not in the place
+at all. Allowing, for argument's sake, that they were there, he said,
+they would no doubt be living partly in concealment; and it might not
+answer for us to go inquiring about them openly, lest they got to hear
+of it, and took measures to secure themselves. There was sense in that.
+
+The next day we went strolling up to the post-office in the Rue des
+Vieillards, the wind blowing us round the corners sharply; and there
+inquired for the address of the Clement-Pells. The people were not very
+civil; stared as if they'd never been asked for an address before; and
+shortly affirmed that no such name was known _there_.
+
+"Why, of course not," said old Brandon quietly, as we strolled down
+again. "They wouldn't be in the town under their own name--if they are
+here at all."
+
+And there would lie the difficulty.
+
+That wind, that the man at the wheel had scoffed at when called a gale,
+had been at any rate the beginning of one. It grew higher and higher,
+chopping round to the south-west, and for three days we had it kindly.
+On the second day not a boat could get out or in; and there were no
+bathing-machines to be had. The sea was surging, full of tumult--but it
+was a grand sight to see. The waves dashed over the pier, ducking the
+three or four venturesome spirits who went there. I was one of them--and
+received a good blowing up from Mr. Brandon for my pains.
+
+The gale passed. The weather set in again calm and lovely; but we seemed
+to be no nearer hearing anything of the Clement-Pells. So far as that
+went, the time was being wasted: but I don't think any of us cared much
+about that. We kept our eyes open, looking out for them, and asked
+questions in a quiet way: at the _établissement_, where the dancing went
+on; at the libraries; and of the pew women at the churches. No; no
+success: and time went on to the second week in October. On account of
+the remarkably fine weather, the season and amusements were protracted.
+
+One Friday morning I was sitting on the pier in the sunshine, listening
+to a couple of musicians, who appeared there every day. He had a violin;
+she played a guitar, and sang "Figaro." An old gentleman by me said he
+had heard her sing the same song for nearly a score of years past. The
+town kept very full, for the weather was more like summer than autumn.
+There were moments, and this was one of them, that I wished more than
+ever Tod was over.
+
+Strolling back off the pier and along the port, picking my way amidst
+the ropes of the fishing-boats, stretched across my path, I met face
+to face--Constance Pell. The thick blue veil, just as Charlotte had
+described it, was drawn over her bonnet: but something in her form
+struck me, and I saw her features through the veil. She saw me too, and
+turned her head sharply towards the harbour.
+
+I went on without notice, making believe not to have seen her. Glancing
+round presently, I saw her cross the road and begin to come back on the
+other side by the houses. Knowing that the only chance was to trace her
+home, and not to let her see I was doing it, I stopped before one of the
+boats, and began talking to a fisherman, never turning my head towards
+her at all. She passed quickly, on to the long street, once glancing
+back at me. When she was fairly on her way, I went at the top of my
+speed to the port entrance of the hotel; ran straight through the yard
+and up to my room, which faced the street. There she was, walking
+onwards, and very quickly. Close by the chemist's shop at the opposite
+corner, she turned to look back; no doubt looking after me, and no doubt
+gratified that I was nowhere to be seen. Then she went on again.
+
+Neither the Squire nor Mr. Brandon was in the hotel, that I could find;
+so I had to take the matter in hand myself, and do the best I could.
+Letting her get well ahead, I followed cautiously. She turned up the
+Grande Rue, and I turned also, keeping her in view. The streets were
+tolerably full, and though she looked back several times, I am sure she
+did not see me.
+
+Up the hill of the Grande Rue, past the Vice-Consulate, under the
+gateway of the Upper Town, through the Upper Town itself, and out by
+another gateway. I thought she was never going to stop. Away further
+yet, to the neighbourhood of a little place called Mâquétra--but I am
+not sure that I spell the word properly. There she turned into a small
+house that had a garden before it.
+
+They call me a muff at home, as you have heard often: and there's no
+doubt I have shown myself a muff more than once in my life. I was one
+then. What I ought to have done was, to have gone back the instant I had
+seen her enter; what I really did was, to linger about behind the hedge,
+and try to get a glimpse through it. It skirted the garden: a long,
+narrow garden, running down from the side of the house.
+
+It was only a minute or two in all. And I was really turning back when
+a maid-servant in a kind of short brown bedgown (so Hannah called the
+things at home), black petticoat, grey stockings and wooden sabots, came
+out at the gate, carrying a flat basket made of black and white straw.
+
+"Does Monsieur Pell live there?" I asked, waiting until she had come up.
+
+"Monsieur _Qui_?" said the girl.
+
+"Pell. Or Clement-Pell."
+
+"There is no gentlemans at all lives there," returned she, changing
+her language to very decent English. "Only one Madame and her young
+meesses."
+
+I seemed to take in the truth in a minute: they were there, but he
+was not. "I think they must be the friends I am in search of," was my
+remark. "What is the name?"
+
+"Brune."
+
+"Brune?--Oh, Brown. A lady and four young ladies?"
+
+"Yes, that's it. Bon jour, monsieur."
+
+She hurried onwards, the sabots clattering. I turned leisurely to take
+another look at the hedge and the little gate in it, and saw a blue veil
+fluttering inwards. Constance Pell, deeper than I, had been gazing after
+me.
+
+Where had the Squire and old Brandon got to? Getting back to the hotel,
+I could not find either of them. Mr. Brandon might be taking a warm
+sea-bath, the waiters thought, and the Squire a cold one. I went about
+to every likely place, and went in vain. The dinner-bell was ringing
+when they got in--tired to death; having been for some prolonged ramble
+over beyond Capécure. I told them in their rooms while they were washing
+their hands--but as to stirring in it before dinner, both were too
+exhausted for it.
+
+"I said I thought they must be here, Brandon," cried the Squire, in
+triumph.
+
+"He is not here now, according to Johnny," squeaked old Brandon.
+
+After dinner more time was lost. First of all, in discussing what they
+should do; next, in whether it should be done that night. You see, it
+was not Mrs. Pell they wanted, but her husband. As it was then dark, it
+was thought best to leave it until morning.
+
+We went up in state about half-past ten; taking a coach, and passing
+_en route_ the busy market scene. The coach seemed to have no springs:
+Mr. Brandon complained that it shook him to pieces. This was Saturday,
+you know. The Squire meant to be distantly polite to Mrs. and the Miss
+Pells, but to insist upon having the address given him of Mr. Pell.
+"We'll not take the coach quite up to the door," said he, "or we may
+not get in." Indeed, the getting in seemed to be a matter of doubt:
+old Brandon's opinion was that they'd keep every window and door
+barred, rather than admit us.
+
+So the coach set us down outside the furthermost barrier of the Upper
+Town, and we walked on to the gate, went up the path, and knocked at the
+door.
+
+As soon as the servant opened it--she had the same brown bedgown on, the
+same grey stockings, and wooden sabots--the Squire dexterously slipped
+past her into the passage to make sure of a footing. She offered no
+opposition: drew back, in fact, to make room.
+
+"I must come in; I have business here," said he, almost as if in
+apology.
+
+"The Messieurs are free to enter," was her answer; "but they come to a
+house empty."
+
+"I want to speak to Madame Brown," returned the Squire, in a determined
+tone.
+
+"Madame Brown and the Mees Browns are depart," she said. "They depart at
+daylight this morning, by the first convoi."
+
+We were in the front parlour then: a small room, barely furnished. The
+Squire flew into one of his tempers: he thought the servant was playing
+with him. Old Brandon sat down against the wall, and nodded his head. He
+saw how it was--they had really gone.
+
+But the Squire stormed a little, and would not believe it. The girl,
+catching one word in ten, for he talked very fast, wondered at his
+anger.
+
+The young gentlemans was at the place yesterday, she said, glancing at
+me: it was a malheur but they had come up before the morning, if they
+wanted so much to see Madame.
+
+"She has not gone: I know better," roared the Squire. "Look here, young
+woman--what's your name, though?"
+
+"Mathilde," said she, standing quite at ease, her hands turned on her
+hips and her elbows out.
+
+"Well, then, I warn you that it's of no use your trying to deceive _me_.
+I shall go into every room of this house till I find Madame Brown--and
+if you attempt to stop me, I'll bring the police up here. Tell her that
+in French, Johnny."
+
+"I hear," said Mathilde, who had a very deliberate way of speaking. "I
+comprehend. The Messieurs go into the rooms if they like, but I go with,
+to see they not carry off any of the articles. This is the salon."
+
+Waiting for no further permission, he was out of the salon like a shot.
+Mr. Brandon stayed nodding against the wall; he had not the slightest
+reverence for the Squire's diplomacy at any time. The girl slipped off
+her sabots and put her feet into some green worsted slippers that stood
+in the narrow passage. My belief was she thought we wanted to look over
+the house with a view to taking it.
+
+"It was small, but great enough for a salle à manger," she said, showing
+the room behind--a little place that had literally nothing in it but an
+oval dining-table, some matting, and six common chairs against the
+walls. Upstairs were four bedrooms, bare also. As to the fear of our
+carrying off any of the articles, we might have found a difficulty in
+doing so. Except beds, chairs, drawers, and wash-hand-stands, there was
+nothing to carry. Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns were not there: and the
+rooms were in as much order as if they had not been occupied for a
+month. Mathilde had been at them all the morning. The Squire's face was
+a picture when he went down: he began to realize the fact that he was
+once more left in the lurch.
+
+"It is much health up here, and the house fine," said the girl, leaving
+her shoes in the passage side by side with the sabots, and walking into
+the salon in her stockings, without ceremony; "and if the Messieurs
+thought to let it, and would desire to have a good servant with it, I
+would be happy to serve them, me. I sleep in the house, or at home, as
+my patrons please; and I very good to make the kitchen; and I----"
+
+"So you have not found them," interrupted old Brandon, sarcastically.
+
+The Squire gave a groan. He was put out, and no mistake. Mathilde, in
+answer to questions, readily told all she knew.
+
+About six weeks ago, she thought it was--but no, it must be seven, now
+she remembered--Madame Brown and the four Mees Browns took this house
+of the propriétaire, one Monsieur Bourgeois, marchand d'épicerie, and
+engaged her as servant, recommended to Madame by M. Bourgeois. Madame
+and the young ladies had lived very quietly, giving but little trouble;
+entrusted her to do all the commissions at the butcher's and elsewhere,
+and never questioned her fidelity in the matter of the sous received in
+change at market. The previous day when she got home with some pork and
+sausages, which she was going after when the young gentlemans spoke to
+her--nodding to me--Madame was all bouleversée; first because Mees
+Constance had been down to the town, which Madame did not like her to
+do; next because of a letter----
+
+At this point the Squire interrupted. Did she mean to imply that the
+ladies never went out?
+
+No, never, continued Mathilde. Madame found herself not strong to walk
+out, and it was not proper for the young demoiselles to go walk without
+her--as the Messieurs would doubtless understand. But Mees Constance had
+ennui with that, and three or four times she had walked out without
+Madame's knowing. Yesterday, par exemple, Madame was storming at her
+when she (Mathilde) came home with the meat, and the young ladies her
+sisters stormed at her----
+
+"There; enough of that," snapped the Squire. "What took them away?"
+
+That was the letter, resumed the girl in her deliberate manner. It was
+the other thing, that letter was, that had contributed to Madame's
+bouleversement. The letter had been delivered by hand, she supposed,
+while she was gone to the pork-shop; it told Madame the triste news of
+the illness of a dear relative; and Madame had to leave at once, in
+consequence. There was confusion. Madame and the young ladies packing,
+and she (Mathilde), when her dinner had been cooked and eaten, running
+quick for the propriétaire, who came back with her. Madame paid him up
+to the end of the next week, when the month would be finished and--that
+was all.
+
+Old Brandon took up the word. "Mr. Brown?--He was not here at all, was
+he?"
+
+"Not at all," replied Mathilde. "Madame's fancy figured to her he might
+be coming one of these soon days: if so, I refer him to M. Bourgeois."
+
+"Refer him for what?"
+
+"Nay, I not ask, monsieur. For the information, I conclude, of where
+Madame go and why she go. Madame talk to the propriétaire with the salon
+door shut."
+
+So that was all we got. Mathilde readily gave M. Bourgeois's address,
+and we went away. She had been civil through it all, and the Squire
+slipped a franc into her hand. From the profusion of thanks he received
+in return, it might have been a louis d'or.
+
+Monsieur Bourgeois's shop was in the Upper Town, not far from the
+convent of the Dames Ursulines. He said--speaking from behind his
+counter while weighing out some coffee--that Madame Brown had entrusted
+him with a sealed letter to Monsieur Brown in case he arrived. It
+contained, Madame had remarked to him, only a line or two to explain
+where they had gone, as he would naturally be disappointed at not
+finding them; and she had confided the trust to him that he would only
+deliver it into M. Brown's own hand. _He_ did not know where Madame had
+gone. As M. Bourgeois did not speak a word of English, or the Squire a
+word of French, it's hard to say when they would have arrived at an
+explanation, left to themselves.
+
+"Now look here," said Mr. Brandon, in his dry, but uncommonly
+clear-sighted way, as we went home, "_Clement-Pell's expected here_.
+We must keep a sharp watch on the boats."
+
+The Squire did not see it. "As if he'd remain in England all this time,
+Brandon!"
+
+"We don't know where he has stayed. I have thought all along he was as
+likely to be in England as elsewhere: there's no place a man's safer in,
+well concealed. The very fact of his wife and daughters remaining in
+this frontier town would be nearly enough to prove that he was still in
+England."
+
+"Then why on earth _did_ he stay there?" retorted the Squire. "Why has
+he not got away before?"
+
+"I don't know. Might fear there was danger perhaps in making the
+attempt. He has lain perdu in some quiet corner; and now that he thinks
+the matter has partly blown over and the scent is less keen, he means to
+come over. That's what his wife has waited for."
+
+The Squire seemed to grasp the whole at once. "I wonder when he will be
+here?"
+
+"Within a day or two, you may be sure, or not at all," said Mr. Brandon,
+with a nod. "She'll write to stop his coming, if she knows where to
+write to. The sight of Johnny Ludlow has startled her. You were a great
+muff to let yourself be seen, young Johnny."
+
+"Yes, sir, I know I was."
+
+"Live and learn, live and learn," said he, bringing out his tin box.
+"One cannot put old heads upon young shoulders."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunday morning. After breakfast I and Mr. Brandon were standing under
+the porte-cochère, looking about us. At the banking house opposite;
+at a man going into the chemist's shop with his hand tied up; at the
+marchand-de-coco with his gay attire and jingling bells and noisy
+tra-la-la-la: at anything, in short, there might be to see, and so while
+away the half-hour before church-time. The Squire had gone strolling
+out, saying he should be back in time for service. People were passing
+down towards the port, little groups of them in twos and threes; apart
+from the maid-servants in their white caps, who were coming back from
+mass. One of the hotel waiters stood near us, his white napkin in his
+hand. He suddenly remarked, with the easy affability of the French of
+his class (which, so far as I know, and I have seen more of France since
+then, never degenerates into disrespect), that some of these people
+might be expecting friends by the excursion boat, and were going down to
+see it come in.
+
+"What excursion boat?" asked Mr. Brandon of the waiter, quicker than he
+generally spoke.
+
+"One from Ramsgate," the man replied. "It was to leave the other side
+very early, so as to get to Boulogne by ten o'clock; and to depart again
+at six in the afternoon." Mr. Brandon looked at the speaker; and then
+at me. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he drew me towards the port;
+charging the waiter to be sure and tell Mr. Todhetley when he returned,
+that we had gone to see the Ramsgate boat come in. It was past ten then.
+
+"_If Clement-Pell comes at all it will be by this excursion boat_,
+Johnny," said he impressively, as we hurried on.
+
+"Why do you think so, Mr. Brandon?"
+
+"Well, I do think so. The people who make excursion trips are not those
+likely to know him, or of whom he would be afraid. He will conceal
+himself on it amongst the crowd. It is Sunday also--another reason. What
+flag is that up on the signal-post by the pier house, Johnny? Your eyes
+are younger than mine."
+
+"It is the red one, sir"
+
+"For a steamer in sight. She is not in yet then. It must be for _her_.
+It's hardly likely there would be another one coming in this morning."
+
+"There she is!" I exclaimed. For at that moment I caught sight in the
+distance of a steamer riding on close up to the harbour mouth, pitching
+a little in her course.
+
+"Run you on, Johnny," said Mr. Brandon, in excitement. "I'll come as
+quickly as I can, but my legs are not as fleet as yours. Get a place
+close to the cords, and look out sharply."
+
+It was a bright day, somewhat colder than it had been, and the wind
+high enough to make it tolerably rough for any but good sailors--as
+the sparkles of white foam on the blue sea betrayed. I secured a good
+place behind the cord, close to the landing-stage: a regular crowd had
+collected, early though it was, Sunday being an idle day with some of
+the French. The boat came in, was being moored fast below us, and was
+crowded with pale faces.
+
+Up came the passengers, mounting the almost perpendicular gangway:
+assisted by the boatmen, below; and by two appariteurs, in their cocked
+hats and Sunday clothes, above. It was nearly low water: another
+quarter-of-an-hour and they'd have missed their tide: pleasant, that
+would have been, for the excursionists. As only one could ascend the
+ladder at once, I had the opportunity of seeing them all.
+
+Scores came: my sight was growing half-confused: and there had been
+no one resembling Clement-Pell. Some of them looked fearfully ill
+still, and had not put up the ears of their caps or turned down their
+coat collars; so that to get a good view of these faces was not
+possible--and Clement-Pell might have already landed, for all I could
+be sure of to the contrary. Cloaks were common in those days, and
+travelling caps had long ears to them.
+
+It was quite a stroke of fortune. A lady with a little boy behind her
+came up the ladder, and the man standing next to me--he was vary tall
+and big--went at once into a state of excitement. "C'est toi! c'est toi,
+ma soeur!" he called out. She turned at the voice, and a batch of
+kissing ensued. A stout dame pushed forward frantically to share the
+kissing: but a douanier angrily marched off the passenger towards the
+custom-house. She retorted on him not to be so _difficile_, turned round
+and said she must wait for her other little one. Altogether there was no
+end of chatter and commotion. I was eclipsed and pushed back into the
+shade.
+
+The other child was appearing over the top of the ladder then; a mite
+of a girl, her face held close to the face of the gentleman carrying
+her. I supposed he was the husband. He wore a cloak, his cap was drawn
+well over his eyebrows, and very little could be seen of him but his
+hands and his nose. Was he the husband? The mother, thanking him
+volubly in broken English for his politeness in carrying up her little
+girl, would have taken her from him; but he motioned as if he would
+carry her to the custom-house, and stepped onward, looking neither to
+the left nor right. At that moment my tall neighbour and the stout
+dame raised a loud greeting to the child, clapping their hands and
+blowing kisses: the man put out his long arm and pulled at the sleeve
+of the young one's pelisse. It caused the gentleman to halt and look
+round. Enough to make him.
+
+Why--where had I seen the eyes? They were close to mine, and seemed
+quite familiar. Then remembrance flashed over me. They were
+Clement-Pell's.
+
+It is almost the only thing about a man or woman that cannot be
+disguised--the expression of the eyes. Once you are familiar with any
+one's eye, and have learned its expression by heart; the soul that looks
+out of it; you cannot be mistaken in the eye, though you meet it in a
+desert, and its owner be disguised as a cannibal.
+
+But for the eyes, I should never have known him, got up, as he was,
+with false red hair. He went straight on instantly, not suspecting
+I was there, for the two had hidden me. The little child's face was
+pressed close to Mr. Pell's as he went on; a feeling came over me that
+he was carrying it, the better to conceal himself. As he went into the
+custom-house, I pushed backwards out of the crowd; saw Mr. Brandon,
+and whispered to him. He nodded quietly; as much as to say he thought
+Pell would come.
+
+"Johnny, we must follow him: but we must not let him see us on any
+account. I dare say he is going all the way up to Mâquétra--or whatever
+you call the place."
+
+Making our way round to the door by which the passengers were let out,
+we mixed with the mob and waited. The custom-house was not particular
+with Sunday excursionists, and they came swarming out by dozens. When
+Pell appeared, I jogged Mr. Brandon's elbow.
+
+The touters, proclaiming the merits of their respective hotels, and
+thrusting their cards in Pell's face, seemed to startle him, for he
+shrank back. Comprehending the next moment, he said, No, no, passed on
+to the carriages, and stepped into one that was closed. The driver was
+a couple of minutes at least, taking his orders: perhaps there was
+some bother, the one jabbering French, the other English. But the
+coach drove off at last.
+
+"Now then, Johnny, for that other closed coach. We shall have to do
+without church this morning. Mind you make the coachman understand what
+he is to do."
+
+"Suivez cette voiture qui vient de partir; mais pas trop près." The man
+gave back a hearty "Oui, monsieur," as if he understood the case.
+
+It was a slow journey. The first coach did not hurry itself, and took
+by-ways to its destination. It turned into the Rue de la Coupe, opposite
+our hotel, went through the Rue de l'Hôpital, and thence to regions
+unknown. All I knew was, we went up a hill worse than that of the Grande
+Rue, and arrived circuitously at Mâquétra. Mr. Brandon had stretched his
+head out as we passed the hotel, but could not see the Squire.
+
+"It's his affair, you know, Johnny. Not mine."
+
+Clement Pell got out at his gate, and went in. We followed cautiously,
+and found the house-door on the latch, Mathilde having probably
+forgotten to close it after admitting Mr. Pell. They stood in the salon:
+Mathilde in a handsome light chintz gown and white stockings and shoes,
+for she had been to nine-o'clock mass; he with a strangely perplexed,
+blank expression on his face as he listened to her explanation.
+
+"Yes, monsieur, it is sure they are depart; it is but the morning of
+yesterday. The propriétaire, he have the letter for you that Madame
+confide to him. He--Tiens, voici encore ces Messieurs!"
+
+Surprise at our appearance must have caused her change of language.
+Clement-Pell gave one look at us and turned his face to the window,
+hoping to escape unrecognized. Mr. Brandon ordered me to the English
+church in the Upper Town, saying I should not be very late for that, and
+told Mathilde he did not want her.
+
+"I shall make the little promenade and meet my bon-ami," observed
+Mathilde, independently, as I proceeded to do as I was bid. And what
+took place between the two we left can only be related at second hand.
+
+"Now, Mr. Pell, will you spare me your attention?" began Mr. Brandon.
+
+Clement-Pell turned, and took off his cloak and cap, seeing that it
+would be worse than useless to attempt to keep up the farce. With the
+red wig on his head and the red hair on his face, no unobservant man
+would then have recognized him for the great ex-financier.
+
+Mr. Brandon was cold, uncompromising, but civil; Clement-Pell at first
+subdued and humble. Taking courage after a bit, he became slightly
+restive, somewhat inclined to be insolent.
+
+"It is a piece of assurance for you to come here at all, sir; tracking
+me over my very threshold, as if you were a detective officer. What is
+the meaning of it? I don't owe you money."
+
+"I have told you the meaning," replied Mr. Brandon--feeling that his
+voice had never been more squeaky, but showing no sign of wrath. "The
+affair is not mine at all, but Squire Todhetley's, I was down on the
+port when you landed--went to look for you, in fact; the Squire did not
+happen to be in the way, so I followed you up in his place."
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"Why, dear me, Mr. Pell, you are not deaf. I mentioned the object; the
+Squire wants his two hundred pounds refunded. A very clever trick, your
+getting it from him!"
+
+Clement-Pell drew in his lips; his face had no more colour in it than
+chalk. He sat with his back to the wall, his hands restlessly playing
+with his steel watch-chain. What had come of the thick gold one he used
+to wear? Mr. Brandon had a chair near the table, and faced him.
+
+"Perhaps you would like me to refund to you all my creditors' money
+wholesale, as well as Mr. Todhetley's?" retorted Clement-Pell,
+mockingly.
+
+"I have nothing to do with them, Mr. Pell. Neither, I imagine, does Mr.
+Todhetley intend to make their business his. Let each man mind his own
+course, and stand or fall by it. If you choose to assure me you don't
+owe a fraction to any one else in the world, I shall not tell you that
+you do. I am speaking now for my friend, Squire Todhetley: I would a
+great deal rather he were here to deal with you himself; but action has
+accidentally been forced upon me."
+
+"I know that I owe a good deal of money; or, rather, that a good many
+people have lost money through me," returned Clement-Pell, after a
+pause. "It's my misfortune; not my fault."
+
+Mr. Brandon gave a dry cough. "As to its not being your fault, Mr. Pell,
+the less said about that the better. It was in your power to pull up in
+time, I conclude, when you first saw things were going wrong."
+
+Clement-Pell lifted his hand to his forehead, as if he felt a pain
+there. "You don't know; you don't know," he said irritably,--a great
+deal of impatience in his tone.
+
+"No, I'm thankful that I _don't_," said Mr. Brandon, taking out his tin
+box, and coolly eating a lozenge. "I am very subject to heartburn, Mr.
+Pell. If ever you get it try magnesia lozenges. An upset, such as this
+affair of yours has been, would drive a man of my nerves into a lunatic
+asylum."
+
+"It may do the same by me before I have done with it," returned Clement
+Pell. And Mr. Brandon thought he meant what he said.
+
+"Any way, it is rumoured that some of those who are ruined will be there
+before long, Mr. Pell. You might, perhaps, feel a qualm of conscience if
+you saw the misery it has entailed."
+
+"And do you think I don't feel it?" returned Mr. Pell, catching his
+breath. "You are mistaken, if you suppose I do not."
+
+"About Squire Todhetley's two hundred pounds, sir?" resumed old Brandon,
+swallowing the last of the lozenge. "Is it convenient to you to give it
+me?"
+
+"No, it is not," was the decided answer. And he seemed to be turning
+restive again.
+
+"But I will _thank_ you to do so, Mr. Pell."
+
+"I cannot do so."
+
+"And not to make excuses over it. They will only waste time."
+
+"I have not got the money; I cannot give it."
+
+Upon that they set on again, hammer and tongs. Mr. Brandon insisting
+upon the money; Pell vowing that he had it not, and could not and would
+not give so much as a ten-pound note of it. Old Brandon never lost his
+temper, never raised his voice, but he said a thing or two that must
+have stung Pell's pride. At the end of twenty minutes, he was no nearer
+the money than before. Pell's patience gave signs of wearing out: Mr.
+Brandon could have gone quietly on till bed-time.
+
+"You must be aware that this is not a simple debt, Mr. Pell. It is--in
+fact--something worse. For your own sake, it may be well to refund it."
+
+"Once more I say I cannot."
+
+"Am I to understand that is as much as to say you will not?"
+
+"If you like to take it so. It is most painful to me, Mr. Brandon, to
+have to meet you in this spirit, but you force it on me. The case is
+this: I am not able to refund the debt to Squire Todhetley, and he has
+no power to enforce his claim to it."
+
+"I don't know that."
+
+"I do though. It is best to be plain, as we have come to this, Mr.
+Brandon; and then perhaps you will bring the interview to an end, and
+leave me in peace. You have no power over me in this country; none
+whatever. Before you can obtain that, there are certain forms and
+ceremonies to be gone through in a legal court; you must make over
+the----"
+
+"Squire Todhetley's is not a case of debt," interrupted old Brandon. "If
+it were, he would have no right in honour to come here and seek payment
+over the heads of the other creditors."
+
+"It is a case of debt, and nothing else. As debt only could you touch
+me upon it here--and not then until you have proved it and got judgment
+upon it in England. Say, if you will, that I have committed murder
+or forged bank-notes--you could not touch me here unless the French
+government gave me up at the demand of the English government. Get all
+the police in the town to this room if you will, Mr. Brandon, and they
+would only laugh at you. They have no power over me. I have committed no
+offence against this country."
+
+"Look here," said old Brandon, nodding his head. "I know a bit about
+French law; perhaps as much as you: knew it years ago. What you say is
+true enough; an Englishman, whether debtor or criminal, in his own land,
+cannot be touched here, unless certain forms and ceremonies, as you
+express it, are first gone through. But you have rendered yourself
+amenable to French law on another point, Clement-Pell; I could consign
+you to the police this moment, if I chose, and they would have to take
+you."
+
+Clement-Pell quite laughed at what he thought the useless boast. But he
+might have known old Brandon better. "What is my crime, sir?"
+
+"You have come here and are staying here under a false name--Brown. That
+is a crime in the eyes of the French law; and one that the police, if
+they get to know of it, are obliged to take cognizance of."
+
+"No!" exclaimed Clement-Pell, his face changing a little.
+
+"_Yes_," said Mr. Brandon. "Were I to give you up for it to-day, they
+would put you on board the first boat leaving for your own country. Once
+on the opposite shore, you may judge whether Squire Todhetley would let
+you escape again."
+
+It was all true. Mr. Pell saw that it was so. His fingers nervously
+trembled; his pale face wore a piteous aspect.
+
+"You need not be afraid of me: I am not likely to do it," said Mr.
+Brandon: "I do not think the Squire would. But you see now what lies
+within his power. Therefore I would recommend you to come to terms with
+him."
+
+Clement-Pell rubbed his brow with his handkerchief. He was driven into a
+corner.
+
+"I have told you truth, Mr. Brandon, in saying that I am not able to
+repay the two hundred pounds. I am not. Will he take half of it?"
+
+"I cannot tell. I have no authority for saying that he will."
+
+"Then I suppose he must come up here. As it has come to this, I had
+better see him. If he will accept one hundred pounds, and undertake not
+to molest me further, I will hand it over to him. It will leave me
+almost without means: but you have got me in a hole. Stay a moment--a
+thought strikes me. Are there any more of my creditors in the town at
+your back, Mr. Brandon?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of. I have seen none."
+
+"On your honour?"
+
+Mr. Brandon opened his little eyes, and took a stare at Pell. "My word
+is the same as my honour, sir. Always has been and always will be."
+
+"I beg your pardon. A man, driven to my position, naturally fears an
+enemy at every corner. And--if my enemies were to find me out here, they
+might be too much for me."
+
+"Of course they would be," assented Mr. Brandon, by way of comfort.
+
+"Will you go for Squire Todhetley? What is done, must be done to-day,
+for I shall be away by the first train in the morning."
+
+Shrewd old Brandon considered the matter before speaking. "By the time I
+get back here with the Squire you may have already taken your departure,
+Mr. Pell."
+
+"No, on my honour. How should I be able to do it? No train leaves the
+town before six to-night: the water is low in the harbour and no boat
+could get out. As it has come to this, I will see Squire Todhetley: and
+the sooner the better."
+
+"I will trust you," said Mr. Brandon.
+
+"Time was when I was deemed more worthy of trust: perhaps was more
+worthy of it,"--and tears involuntarily rose to his eyes. "Mr. Brandon,
+believe me--no man has suffered by this as I have suffered. Do you think
+I did it for pleasure?--or to afford myself wicked gratification! No. I
+would have forfeited nearly all my remaining life to prevent the smash.
+My affairs got into their awful state by degrees; and I had not the
+power to retrieve them. God alone knows what the penalty has been to
+me--and what it will be to my life's end."
+
+"Ay. I can picture it pretty tolerably, Mr. Pell."
+
+"No one can picture it," he returned, with emotion. "Look at my ruined
+family--the position of my sons and daughters. Not one of them can hold
+up their heads in the world again without the consciousness that they
+may be pointed at as the children of Clement-Pell the swindler. What is
+to be their future?--how are they to get along? You must have heard many
+a word of abuse applied to me lately, Mr. Brandon: but there are few men
+on this earth more in need of compassion than I--if misery and suffering
+can bring the need. When morning breaks, I wish the day was done; when
+night comes, I toss and turn and wonder how I shall live through it."
+
+"I am sorry for you," said Mr. Brandon, moved to pity, for he saw how
+the man needed it. "Were I you, I would go back home and face my debts.
+Face the trouble, and in time you may be able to live it down."
+
+Clement-Pell shook his head hopelessly. Had it been debt alone, he might
+never have come away.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sequel to all this had yet to come. Perhaps some of you may guess
+it. Mr. Brandon pounced upon the Squire as he was coming out of church
+in the Rue du Temple, and took him back in another coach. Arrived at the
+house, they found the door fast. Mathilde appeared presently, arm-in-arm
+with her sweetheart--a young man in white boots with ear-rings in his
+ears. "Was M. Brown of depart," she repeated, in answer to the Squire's
+impulsive question: but no, certainly he was not. And she gave them the
+following information.
+
+When she returned after midday, she found M. Brown all impatience,
+waiting for her to show him the way to the house of Monsieur Bourgeois,
+that he might claim Madame's letter. When they reached the shop, it had
+only the fille de boutique in it. Monsieur the patron was out making a
+promenade, the fille de boutique said he might be home possibly for the
+shutting up at two o'clock.
+
+Upon that, M. Brown decided to make a little promenade himself until two
+o'clock; and Mathilde, she made a further promenade on her own account:
+and had now come up, before two, to get the door open. Such was her
+explanation. If the gentlemans would be at the pains of sitting down in
+the salon, without doubt M. Brown would not long retard.
+
+They sat down. The clock struck two. They sat on, and the clock struck
+three. Not until then did any thought arise that Clement-Pell might not
+keep faith with them. Mathilde's freely expressed opinion was that M.
+Brown, being strange to the town, had lost himself. She ran to the
+grocer's shop again, and found it shut up: evidently no one was there.
+
+Four o'clock, five o'clock; and no Mr. Brown. They gave him up then; it
+seemed quite certain that he had given them the slip. Starving with
+hunger, exploding with anger, the Squire took his wrathful way back to
+the hotel: Mr. Brandon was calm and sucked his magnesia lozenges.
+Clement-Pell was a rogue to the last.
+
+There came to Mr. Brandon the following morning, through the Boulogne
+post-office, a note; on which he had to pay five sous. It was from
+Clement-Pell, written in pencil. He said that when he made the agreement
+with Mr. Brandon never a thought crossed him of not keeping faith: but
+that while he was waiting about for the return of the grocer who held
+his wife's letter, he saw an Englishman come off the ramparts--a
+creditor who knew him well and would be sure to deliver him up, were it
+in his power, if he caught sight of him. It struck him, Clement-Pell,
+with a panic: he considered that he had only one course left open to
+him--and that was to get away from the place at once and in the quietest
+manner he was able. There was a message to Mr. Todhetley to the effect
+that he would send him the hundred pounds later if he could. Throughout
+the whole letter ran a vein of despairing sadness, according with what
+he had said to Mr. Brandon; and the Squire's heart was touched.
+
+"After all, Brandon, the fellow _is_ to be pitied. It's a frightful
+position: enough to make a man lose heart for good and all. I'm not sure
+that I should have taken the hundred pounds from him."
+
+"That's more than probable," returned old Brandon, drily. "It remains
+a question, though, in my mind, whether he did see the creditor and
+did 'take a panic:' or whether both are not invented to cover his
+precipitate departure with the hundred pounds."
+
+How he got away from the town we never knew. The probability was, that
+he had walked to the first station after Boulogne on the Paris railroad,
+and there taken the evening train. And whether he had presented himself
+again at Monsieur Bourgeois's shop, that excellent tradesman, who did
+not return home until ten on Sunday night, was unable to say. Any way,
+M. Bourgeois held the letter yet in safety. So the chances are, that Mr.
+and Mrs. Pell are still dodging about the earth in search of each other,
+after the fashion of the Wandering Jew.
+
+And that's a true account of our visit to Boulogne after Clement-Pell.
+Mr. Brandon calls it to this hour a wild-goose chase: certainly it
+turned out a fruitless one. But we had a good passage back again, the
+sea as calm as a mill-pond.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+AT WHITNEY HALL.
+
+
+It has often been in my mind to tell of John Whitney's death. You will
+say it is too sad and serious for a paper. But it is well to have
+serious thoughts brought before us at certain seasons. This is one of
+them: seeing that it's the beginning of a new year, and that every year
+takes us nearer to another life whether we are old or whether we are
+young.[3]
+
+      [3] Written for the January number of _The Argosy_, 1872.
+
+Some of them thought his illness might never have come on but for an
+accident that happened. It is quite a mistake. The accident had nothing
+to do with the later illness. Sir John and Lady Whitney could tell you
+so as well as I. John was always one of those sensitive, thoughtful,
+religious boys that somehow don't seem so fit for earth as heaven.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now mind, you boys," cried Sir John to us at breakfast. "There's just a
+thin coating of ice on the lake and ponds, but it won't bear. Don't any
+of you venture on it."
+
+"We will not, sir," replied John, who was the most obedient son living.
+
+There's not much to be done in the way of out-door sports when snow lies
+on the ground. Crowding round the children's play-room window later, all
+the lot of us, we looked out on a white landscape. Snow lodged on the
+trees, hid the grass in the fields, covered the hills in the distance.
+
+"It's an awful sell," cried Bill Whitney and Tod nearly in a breath.
+"No hunting, no shooting, and no nothing. The ponds won't bear;
+snowballing's common. One might as well lie in bed."
+
+"And what sort of a 'sell' do you suppose it is for the poor men who
+are thrown out of work?" asked Sir John, who had come in, reading a
+newspaper, and was airing his back at the fire. "Their work and wages
+are stopped, and they can't earn bread for their children. You boys are
+dreadfully to be pitied, you are!"
+
+He tilted his steel spectacles up on his good old red nose, and nodded
+to us. Harry, the pert one of the family, answered.
+
+"Well, papa, and it is a settler for us boys to have our fun spoiled. As
+to the working-men--oh, they are used to it."
+
+Sir John stared at him for a full minute. "If I thought you said that
+from your heart, Mr. Harry, I'd order you from my presence. No son of
+mine shall get into the habit of making unfeeling speeches, even in
+jest."
+
+Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry's words had really vexed him. John
+broke the silence.
+
+"Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place," he said, in his quiet
+voice, that somehow _always_ had a tone of thoughtfulness in it, even
+when at play with the rest of us at old Frost's, "I shall make a point
+of paying my labourers' wages in full this wintry time, just the same as
+though they worked. It is not their fault that they are idle."
+
+Sir John started at _him_ now. "What d'ye mean by 'if you live,' lad?"
+
+John considered. The words had slipped from him without any special
+thought at all. People use such figures of speech. It was odd though,
+when we came to remember it a long while afterwards, that he should have
+said it just that one day.
+
+"I recollect a frost that lasted fourteen weeks, boys," said Sir John.
+"That was in 1814. They held a fair on the Thames, we heard, and roasted
+an ox whole on it. Get a frost to last all that time, and you'd soon
+tire of paying wages for nothing, John."
+
+"But, father, what else could I do--or ought I to do? I could not let
+them starve--or break up their poor homes by going into the workhouse. I
+should fear that some time, in return, God might break up mine."
+
+Sir John smiled. John was so very earnest always when he took up
+a serious matter. Letting the question drop, Sir John lowered his
+spectacles, and went out with his newspaper. Presently we saw him going
+round to the farm-yard in his great-coat and beaver gaiters. John sat
+down near the fire and took up a book he was fond of--"Sintram."
+
+This was Old Christmas Day. Tod and I had come over to Whitney Hall for
+a week, and two days of it were already gone. We liked being there, and
+the time seemed to fly. Tod and Bill still stood staring and grumbling
+at the snow, wishing the frost would get worse, or go. Harry went out
+whistling; Helen sat down with a yawn.
+
+"Anna, there's a skein of blue silk in that workbag behind you. Get it
+out and hold it for me to wind."
+
+Anna, who was more like John in disposition than any of them, always
+good and gentle, got the silk; and they began to wind it. In the midst
+of it, Harry burst in with a terrific shout, dressed up as a bear, and
+trying to upset every one. In the confusion Anna dropped the silk on the
+carpet, and Helen boxed her ears.
+
+John looked up from his book. "You should not do that, Helen."
+
+"What does she drop the silk for, then--careless thing!" retorted Helen,
+who was quick in temper. "Once soil that light shade of blue, and it
+can't be used. You mind yourself John."
+
+John looked at them both. At Helen, taking up the silk from the floor;
+at Anna, who was struggling to keep down her tears under the infliction,
+because Tod was present. She wouldn't have minded me. John said no more.
+He had a very nice face without much colour in it; dark hair, and large
+grey-blue eyes that seemed to be always looking out for something they
+did not see. He was sixteen then, upright and slender. All the world
+liked John Whitney.
+
+Later on in the day we were running races in the broad walk, that was so
+shady in summer. The whole of us. The high laurel hedges on either side
+had kept the snow from drifting, and it hardly lay there at all. We gave
+the girls a third of the run, and they generally beat us. After an hour
+of this, tired and hot, we gave in, and dispersed different ways. John
+and I went towards the lake to see whether the ice was getting thicker,
+talking of school and school interests as we went along. Old Frost's
+grounds were in view, which naturally put us in mind of the past: and
+especially of the great event of the half year--the sad fate of Archie
+Hearn.
+
+"Poor little Hearn!" he exclaimed. "I did feel his death, and no
+mistake. That is, I felt for his mother. I think, Johnny, if I could
+have had the chance offered me, I would have died myself to let him
+live."
+
+"That's easier said than done--if it came to the offer, Whitney."
+
+"Well, yes it is. She had no one but him, you see. And to think
+of her coming into the school that time and saying she forgave the
+fellow--whoever it was. I've often wondered whether Barrington had cause
+to feel it."
+
+"She is just like her face, Whitney--good. I've hardly ever seen a face
+I like as much as Mrs. Hearn's."
+
+John Whitney laughed a little. They all did at my likes and dislikes of
+faces. "I was reading a book the other day, Johnny---- See that poor
+little robin!" he broke off. "It looks starved, and it must have its
+nest somewhere. I have some biscuit in my pocket."
+
+It came into my head, as he dived into his pocket and scattered the
+crumbs, that he had brought the supply out for these stray birds. But if
+I write for ever I could not make you understand the thoughtfulness of
+John Whitney.
+
+"Hark, Johnny! What's that?"
+
+Cries, screams, sobs. We were near the end of the walk then and rushed
+out. Anna met us in a dreadful state of agitation. Charley was in the
+lake! Whitney caught the truth before I did, and was off like a shot.
+
+The nurse, Willis, was dancing frantically about at the water's edge;
+the children roared. Willis said Master Charles had slipped on to the
+ice "surrepstitiously" when her back was turned, and had gone souse in.
+John Whitney had already plunged in after his little brother; his coat,
+jacket, and waistcoat were lying on the bank. William Whitney and Tod,
+hearing the noise, came rushing up.
+
+"Mamma sent me to tell nurse they had been out long enough, and were to
+come in," sobbed Anna, shaking like a leaf. "While I was giving her the
+message, Charley fell in. Oh, what will be done?"
+
+That was just like Anna. Helen would have been cool as a cucumber. Done?
+Why, John had already saved him. The ice, not much thicker than a
+shilling, and breaking whenever touched, hardly impeded him at all. Bill
+and Tod knelt down and lent hands, and they were landed like a couple
+of drowned rats, Charley howling with all his might. John, always
+thoughtful, wrapped his great-coat round the lad, and the other two went
+off with him to the house.
+
+John caught a cold. Not very much of one. He was hot, you see, when he
+plunged in; and he had only his jacket to put on over his wet clothes to
+walk home in. Not much of a cold, I say; but he never seemed to be quite
+the same after that day: and when all was over they would date his
+illness back from it. Old Featherstone physicked him; and the days
+passed on.
+
+"I can't think why John should be so feverish," Lady Whitney would
+remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks scarlet, and he did not
+eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state of things; so one day Sir
+John took him into Worcester to Mr. Carden.
+
+Mr. Carden did not seem to think much of it--as we heard over at Dyke
+Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any other vital part.
+He changed the medicine that Featherstone had been giving, and said he
+saw no present reason why John should not go back to school. Sir John,
+standing by in his old spectacles, listening and looking, caught up the
+words "at present" and asked Mr. Carden whether he had any particular
+meaning in saying it. But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant
+blue eyes straight into Sir John's, he assured him that he did not
+anticipate mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped,
+that, once John was back with his studies and his companions, he would
+recover tone and be as well as ever.
+
+And Mr. Carden's physic did good; for when Whitney came back after
+the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney gave five hundred
+directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was to eat and drink, Hall
+being had in to assist at the conference. The rest of us rather wished
+for fevers ourselves, if they entailed beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly
+between meals. He did his lessons; and he came out in the playground,
+though he did not often join in play, especially rough play: and he
+went for walks with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he
+was allowed liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and
+weaker: and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Carden came over to
+Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not discover any:
+but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It was left to John to
+decide whether he would go back to school after Easter, or not: and he
+said he should like to go. And so the weeks went on again.
+
+We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, I
+suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as though he
+were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard to solve. Any
+quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: he'd come up with his
+gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to part the disputants, and did
+not rest until he had made peace. Wolfe Barrington, with one of his
+sneers, said Whitney's nerves were out of joint. Once or twice we saw
+him reading a pocket-Bible. It's quite true. And there was something in
+his calm face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have
+ridiculed.
+
+"I say, Whitney, have you heard?" I asked. "The Doctor means to have the
+playground enlarged for next half. Part of the field is to be taken in."
+
+"Does he?" returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of May, and a
+half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. I stayed with
+Whitney, because he'd be dull alone. We were leaning over the playground
+gate.
+
+"Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, Whitney, you
+did not come in to them."
+
+"I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny."
+
+"I am glad it's going to be done, though. Are not you?"
+
+"It won't make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be here."
+
+"Not here!"
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+His chin rested on his hands above the gate. His eyes were gazing out
+straight before him; looking--as I said before--for something they did
+not see.
+
+"Do you think you shall be too ill to come next half, Whitney?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Are you feeling worse?" I asked after a minute or two, taken up with
+staring at the sky.
+
+"That's what they are always asking me indoors?" he remarked. "It's just
+this, Johnny; I don't feel worse from day to day; I could not say any
+one morning that I feel a shade worse than I did the previous one:
+but when I look back a few weeks or months; say, for example, to the
+beginning of the half, or at Easter, and remember how very well I was
+then, compared with what I am now, I know that I must be a great deal
+worse. I could not do now what I did then. Why! I quite believe I might
+have gone in for Hare-and-Hounds then, if I had chosen. Fancy my trying
+it now!"
+
+"But you don't have any pain."
+
+"None. I'm only weak and tired; always feeling to want to lie down and
+rest. Every bit of strength and energy has gone out of me, Johnny."
+
+"You'll get well," I said hastily.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+"Don't you want to?" It was his cool answer made me ask it.
+
+"Why, of course I do."
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I'll tell you, Johnny Ludlow; there is a feeling within me, and I can't
+say why it's there or whence it comes, that's always saying to me I
+shall _not_ get well. At least, whenever I think about it. It seems just
+as though it were telling me that instead of getting well it will be--be
+just the opposite."
+
+"What a dreadful thing to have, Whitney! It must be like a fellow going
+about with a skeleton!"
+
+"Not at all dreadful. It never frightens me, or worries me. Just as the
+rest of you look forward naturally to coming back here, and living out
+your lives to be men, and all that, so I seem _not_ to look to it. The
+feeling has nothing bad at all about it. If it had, I dare say it would
+not be there."
+
+I stood on the small gate and took a swing. It pained me to hear him say
+this.
+
+"I suppose you mean, Whitney, that you may be going to die?"
+
+"That's about it, Johnny. I don't know it; I may get well, after all."
+
+"But you don't think you will?"
+
+"No, I don't. Little Hearn first; I next. Another ought to follow, to
+make the third."
+
+"You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney!"
+
+"Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed."
+
+"Most of us would be daunted, at any rate."
+
+"Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, I am getting
+to _think_ a great deal; to have a sort of insight that I never had
+before; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things are ordered."
+
+If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, I could
+not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. It was more in
+Mrs. Frost's line than in ours. It laid hold on me at once; and from
+that moment, I believed that John Whitney would die.
+
+"Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about failing
+strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don't you tell them at
+home, and go there and be nursed?"
+
+"I don't want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I'm better as I
+am: here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them--time enough for that.
+And what is there to tell? They see for themselves I am not as strong as
+I was: there's nothing else to tell."
+
+"There's this feeling that you say lies upon you."
+
+"What, and alarm them for nothing? I dare say. There _would_ be a
+hullabaloo. I should be rattled home in the old family coach, and Carden
+would be sent for, post haste, Hastings also, and--well, you are a muff,
+Johnny. I've told you this because I like you, and because I thought you
+would understand me; which is more than the other fellows would. Mind
+you keep counsel."
+
+"Well, you ought to be at home."
+
+"I am better here, while I am as I am. The holidays will be upon us
+soon. I expect I shall not come back afterwards."
+
+Now, if you ask me till next week, I could not give a better account of
+the earlier part of John Whitney's illness than this. He was ill; and
+yet no one could find out why he should be ill, or what was the matter
+with him. Just about this time, Featherstone took up the notion that it
+was "liver," and dosed him for it. For one thing, he said Whitney must
+ride out daily, good hard riding. So a horse would be brought over from
+the Hall by the old groom, and they would go out together. During the
+Whitsun week, when Sir John was away from Parliament, he came also and
+rode with him. But no matter whether they went slow or fast, Whitney
+would come back ready to die from the exertion. Upon that, Featherstone
+changed his opinion, and said riding must be given up.
+
+By the time the Midsummer holidays came, any one might see the change
+in Whitney. It struck Mrs. Frost particularly when he went in to say
+good-bye to her.
+
+"For the last time, I think," he said in a low tone, but with a smiling
+countenance, as she stood holding his hand.
+
+Mrs. Frost knew what he meant, and her face, always so pale, and
+delicate, went red.
+
+"I trust not," she answered. "But--God knows what is best."
+
+"Oh yes, and we do not. Farewell, dear Mrs. Frost. Thank you truly for
+all your care and kindness."
+
+The tears stood in her eyes. _She_ was to be the next one to go from us,
+after John Whitney.
+
+Wolfe Barrington stood at the door as he passed. "Good luck to you,
+Whitney," said he, carelessly. "I'd throw all those nerves of yours
+over, if I were you, before I came back again."
+
+Whitney turned back and held out his hand. "Thank you, Barrington," he
+replied in his kind, truthful voice; "you wish me well, I know. Good
+luck to _you_, in all ways; and I mean it with my whole heart. As to
+nerves, I do not think I possess any, though some of you have been
+pleased to joke about it."
+
+They shook hands, these two, little thinking that, in one sense, the
+life of both would soon be blighted. In a short time, only a few weeks,
+Wolfe was to be brought nearer to immediate death than even John
+Whitney.
+
+Not until he was at home and had settled down among them, did his people
+notice the great change in him. Lady Whitney, flurried and anxious, sent
+for Sir John from London. Mr. Carden was summoned, and old Featherstone
+met him often in consultation. Dr. Hastings came once or twice, but he
+was an invalid himself then; and Mr. Carden, as every one knew, was
+equal to anything. Still--it was a positive fact--there was no palpable
+disease to grapple with in John, only weakness and wasting away. No
+cough, no damaged lungs. "If only it were gout or dropsy, one would know
+what to do," grumbled Featherstone; but Mr. Carden kept his own counsel.
+They decided that John should go to the seaside for change.
+
+"As if it could do me any good!" he remonstrated. "_Change_ won't make
+any difference to me. And I'd a great deal rather stay quietly at home."
+
+"Why do you say it will not do you good?" cried Lady Whitney, who
+happened to hear him.
+
+"Because, mother, I feel nearly sure that it will not."
+
+"Oh dear!" cried she, flurried out of her senses, "John's going to turn
+rebellious now."
+
+"No, I am not," said John, smiling at her. "I mean to go without any
+rebellion at all."
+
+"There's my best lad," said she fondly. "Change of scene is all
+pleasure, John. It's not like going through a course of pills and
+powders."
+
+Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks they
+all came back again. John had to be assisted out of the carriage, from
+fatigue. There could be no mistake now.
+
+After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so
+imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and some
+days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not give up hope of
+him: no one does in such cases. John was cheerful, and often merry.
+
+"It can't be consumption," Sir John would say. "We've nothing of the
+kind in our family; neither on his mother's side nor on mine. A younger
+sister of hers died of a sort of decline: but what can that have to do
+with John?"
+
+Why, clearly nothing. As every one agreed.
+
+In one of Mr. Carden's visits, Sir John tackled him as he was going
+away, asking what it was. The two were shut up together talking for a
+quarter-of-an-hour, Mr. Carden's horses--he generally came over in his
+carriage--growing rampant the while. Sir John did not seem much wiser
+when the sitting was over. He only shuffled his spectacles about on his
+old red nose--as he used to do when perplexed. Talking of noses: you
+never saw two so much alike as his and the Squire's, particularly when
+they went into a temper.
+
+Not very long after they were back from the seaside, and directly after
+school met, the accident occurred to Barrington. You have heard of it
+before: and it has nothing to do with the present paper. John Whitney
+took it to heart.
+
+"He is not fit to die," Bill heard him say. "He is not fit to die."
+
+One morning John walked over to see him, resting on stiles and gates
+between whiles. It was not very far; but he was good for very little
+now. Barrington was lying flat on his bed, Mrs. Hearn waiting on him.
+Wolfe was not tamed then.
+
+"It's going to be a race between us, I suppose, Whitney," said he. "You
+look like a shadow."
+
+"A race?" replied Whitney, not taking him.
+
+"In that black-plumed slow coach that carries dead men to their graves,
+and leaves them there. A race which of us two will have the honour of
+starting first. What a nice prospect! I always hated clayey soil. Fancy
+lying in it for ever and a day!"
+
+"Fancy, rather, being borne on angels' wings, and living with God in
+heaven for ever and ever!" cried Whitney earnestly. "Oh Barrington,
+fancy _that_."
+
+"You'd do for a parson," retorted Barrington.
+
+The interview was not satisfactory: Whitney so solemnly earnest, Wolfe
+so mockingly sarcastic: but they parted good friends. It was the last
+time they ever saw each other in life.
+
+And thus a few more weeks went on.
+
+Now old Frost had one most barbarous custom. And that was, letting the
+boys take the few days of Michaelmas holiday, or not, as the parents
+pleased. Naturally, very few did please. I and Tod used to go home: but
+that was no rule for the rest. We did not go home this year. A day or
+two before the time, Sir John Whitney rode over to Dyke Manor.
+
+"You had better let the two boys come to us for Michaelmas," he said to
+the Squire. "John wants to see them, and they'll cheer us up. It's
+anything but a lively house, I can tell you, Todhetley, with the poor
+lad lying as he is."
+
+"I can't see why he should not get well," said the Squire.
+
+"I'm sure I can't. Carden ought to be able to bring him round."
+
+"So he ought," assented the Squire. "It would be quite a feather in
+his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you may be
+troubled with 'em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care to be."
+
+And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. Sometimes
+he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa in the other. Then
+he would walk about on some one's arm; or sit in the easy-chair at the
+west window, the setting sun full on his wasted face. Barrington had
+called him a shadow: you should have seen him now. John had talked to
+Barrington of angels: he was just like an angel in the house himself.
+And--will you believe it?--they had not given up hope of his getting
+well again. I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain
+truth, and have done with it: but to tell more professional truth than
+they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way to
+do.
+
+And still--the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. In
+the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the subdued
+countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the serious spirit
+that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is good to be in such a
+house as this: for the lessons learnt may take fast hold of the heart.
+It was good to hear John Whitney talk: and I never quite made out
+whether he was telling of dreams or realities.
+
+Tod was out of his element: as much so as a fish is out of water. He had
+plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well at any sacrifice
+to himself: but he could not do with the hushed house, in which all
+things seemed to give way to that shadow of the coming presence. Tod, in
+his way, was religious enough; more so than some fellows are; but dying
+beds he did not understand, and would a great deal rather have been
+shooting partridges than be near one. He and Bill Whitney--who was just
+as uncomfortable as Tod--used to get off anywhere whenever they could.
+They did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things;
+flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis's thimble, and the finest
+nuts off the trees; but they did not care to sit long with him.
+
+John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. He sat in
+his easy-chair at the window--as he liked to do at this hour when the
+evening was drawing on. The intensely serene look that for some time now
+had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or
+man.
+
+"How quiet the house is, Johnny!" he said, touching my hand. "Where are
+they all?"
+
+"Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barrington. And the
+boys--but I think you know it--have gone with Sir John to Evesham. You
+wouldn't call the house quiet, John, if you could hear the row going on
+in the nursery."
+
+He smiled a little. "Charley's a dreadful Turk: none of us elder ones
+were ever half as bad. Where's the mother?"
+
+"Half-an-hour ago she was shut up with some visitors in the
+drawing-room. It's those Miss Clutterbucks, John: they always stay
+long enough to hold a county meeting."
+
+"Is Mrs. Frost worse--that the girls have gone to ask after her?" he
+resumed.
+
+"I think so. Harry said Dr. Frost shook his head about her, when they
+saw him this morning."
+
+"She'll never be strong," remarked John. "And perhaps the bother of the
+school is too much for her."
+
+"Hall takes a good deal of that, you know."
+
+"But Hall cannot take the responsibility; the true care of the school.
+That must lie on Mrs. Frost."
+
+What a beautiful sky it was! The sun was nearing the horizon; small
+clouds, gold and red and purple, lay in the west, line above line. John
+Whitney sat gazing in silence. There was nothing he liked so much as
+looking at these beautiful sunsets.
+
+"Go and play for me, will you, Johnny?"
+
+The piano was at the far end of the room in the shade. My playing is
+really nothing. It was nothing to speak of then, it is nothing to speak
+of now: but it is soft and soothing; and some people like it. John could
+play a little himself, but it was too much exertion for him now. They
+had tried to teach Bill. He was kept hammering at it for half a year,
+and then the music master told Sir John that he'd rather teach a post.
+So Bill was released.
+
+"The same thing that you played the evening before last, Johnny. Play
+that."
+
+"But I can't. It was only some rubbish out of my own head, made up as I
+went along."
+
+"Make up some more then, old fellow."
+
+I had hardly sat down, when Lady Whitney came in, stirred the fire--if
+they kept up much, he felt the room too warm--and took one of the
+elbow-chairs in front of it.
+
+"Go on, my dear," she said. "It is very pleasant to hear you."
+
+But it was not so pleasant to play before her--not that, as I believed,
+her ears could distinguish the difference between an Irish Jig and the
+Dead March in Saul--and I soon left off. The playing or the fire had
+sent Lady Whitney into a doze. I crossed the room and sat down by John.
+
+He was still looking at the sunset, which had not much changed. The hues
+were deeper, and streaks of gold shot upwards in the sky. Toward the
+north there was a broad horizon of green, fading into gold, and pale
+blue. Never was anything more beautiful. John's eyes fixed on it.
+
+"If it is so beautiful here, Johnny, what will it be _there_?" he
+breathed, scarcely above a whisper. "It makes one long to go."
+
+Sometimes, when he said these things, I hardly knew how to answer, and
+would let his words die off into silence.
+
+"The picture of heaven is getting realized in my mind, Johnny--though I
+know how poor an idea of it it must needs be. A wide, illimitable space;
+the great white throne, and the saints in their white robes falling down
+before it, and the harpists singing to their harps."
+
+"You must think of it often."
+
+"Very often. The other night in bed, when I was between sleep and
+waking, I seemed to see the end--to go through it. I suppose it was one
+part thought, and three parts dream. I was dead, Johnny: I had already
+my white robe on, and angels were carrying me up to heaven. The crystal
+river was flowing along, beautiful flowers on its banks, and the Tree of
+Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I seemed to see
+it all, Johnny. Such flowers! such hues; brighter than any jewels ever
+seen. These colours are lovely"--pointing to the sky--"but they are tame
+compared with those I saw. Myriads of happy people were flitting about
+in white, redeemed as I was; the atmosphere shone with a soft light, the
+most delicious music floated in it. Oh, Johnny, think of this world with
+its troubles and disappointments and pains; and then think of that other
+one!"
+
+The sunset was fading. The pale colours of the north were blending
+together like the changing hues of the opal.
+
+"There are two things I have more than loved here," he went on. "Colours
+and music. Not the clashing of many instruments, or the mere mechanical
+playing, however classically correct, of one who has acquired his art by
+hard labour: but the soft, sweet, dreamy touch that stirs the heart.
+Such as yours, Johnny. Stop, old fellow. I know what you would say. That
+your playing is no playing at all, compared with that of a skilled hand;
+that the generality of people would wonder what there is in it: but for
+myself, I could listen to you from night till morning."
+
+It was very foolish of him to say this; but I liked to hear it.
+
+"It is the sort of music, as I have always fancied, that we shall hear
+in heaven. It was the sort I seemed to hear the other night in my dream;
+soft, low, full of melody. That _sort_, you know, Johnny; not the same.
+_That_ was this earth's sweetest music etherealized."
+
+Hearing him talk like this, the idea struck me that it might be better
+for us all generally if we turned our thoughts more on heaven and on the
+life we may find there. It would not make us do our duty any the less
+earnestly in this world.
+
+"Then take colours," he went on. "No one knows the intense delight I
+have felt in them. On high days and holidays, my mother wears that big
+diamond ring of hers--you know it well, Johnny. Often and often have I
+stolen it from her finger, to let the light flash upon it, and lost
+myself for half-an-hour--ay, and more--gazing entranced on its changing
+hues. I love to see the rays in the drops of the chandeliers; I love to
+watch the ever-varying shades on a wide expanse of sea. Now these two
+things that I have so enjoyed here, bright colours and music, we have
+the promise of finding in heaven."
+
+"Ay. The Bible tells us so."
+
+"And I saw the harpers harping with their harps," he repeated to
+himself--and then fell into silence. "Johnny, look at the opal in the
+sky now."
+
+It was very soft and beautiful.
+
+"And there's the evening star."
+
+I turned my head. Yes, there it was, and it trembled in the sky like a
+point of liquid silver.
+
+"Sometimes I think I shall see the Holy City before I die," he
+continued. "See its picture as in a mirror--the New Jerusalem. Oh,
+Johnny, I should have to shade my eyes. Not a beautiful colour or shade
+but will be there; and her light like unto a jasper stone, clear as
+crystal. When I was a little boy--four, perhaps--papa brought me home a
+kaleidoscope from London. It was really a good one, and its bits of
+glass were unusually brilliant. Johnny, if I lived to be an old man, I
+could never describe the intense joy those colours gave me--any more
+than I can describe the joy I seemed to feel the other night in that
+dream of heaven."
+
+He was saying all this in a tender tone of reverence that thrilled
+through one.
+
+"I remember another thing about colours. The year that papa was pricked
+for High Sheriff, mamma went over with him to Worcester for the March
+Assize-time, and she took me. I was seven, I think. On the Sunday
+morning we went with the crowd to service in the cathedral. It was all
+very grand and imposing to my young mind. The crashing organ, the long
+procession of white-robed clergy and college boys, the two majestic
+beings in scarlet gowns, their trains held up by gentlemen, and the wigs
+that frightened me! I had been told I was going to college to see the
+judge. In my astonished mind I don't think I knew which was judge and
+which was organ. Papa was in attendance on the judges; the only one who
+seemed to be in plain clothes in the procession. An impression remained
+on me that he had a white wand in his hand; but I suppose I was wrong.
+Attending papa, walked his black-robed chaplain who was to preach;
+looking like a crow amongst gay-plumaged birds. And, lining the way all
+along the body of the cathedral from the north entrance to the gates of
+the choir, were papa's livery men with their glittering javelins. You've
+seen it all, Johnny, and know what the show is to a child such as I was.
+But now, will you believe that it was all as _nothing_ to me, compared
+with the sight of the many-coloured, beautiful east window?[4] I sat in
+full view of it. We had gone in rather late, and so were only part of
+the throng. Mamma with me in her hand--I remember I wore purple velvet,
+Johnny--was stepping into the choir after the judges and clergy had
+taken their places, when one of the black-gowned beadsmen would have
+rudely shut the gates upon her. Upon that, a verger pushed out his
+silver mace to stop him. 'Hist,' says he, 'it's the High Sheriff's
+lady--my Lady Whitney;' and the beadsman bowed and let us pass. We were
+put into the pew under the sub-dean's stall. It was Winnington-Ingram, I
+think, who was sub-dean then, but I am not sure. Whoever it was did not
+sit in the sub-dean's stall, but in the next to it, for he had given
+that up, as was customary, to one of the judges. With the great wig
+flowing down right upon my head, as it seemed, and the sub-dean's
+trencher sticking over the cushion close to it, I was in a state of
+bewilderment; and they were some way through the Litany--the cathedral
+service at Worcester began with the Litany then, you remember, as they
+had early morning prayers--before I ventured to look up at all. As I did
+so, the colours of the distant east window flashed upon my dazzled
+sight. Not dazzled with the light, Johnny, though it was a sunny day,
+but with the charm of the colours. What it was to me in that moment I
+could never describe. That window has been abused enough by people who
+call themselves connoisseurs in art; but I know that to me it seemed as
+the very incarnation of celestial beauty. What with the organ, and the
+chanting, and the show that had gone before, and now this sight to
+illuminate it, I seemed to be in Paradise. I sat entranced; unable to
+take my fascinated eyes from the window: the pew faces it, you know; and
+were I to live for ever, I can never forget that day, or what it was to
+me. This will show you what colours have been to me here, Johnny. What,
+then, will they be to me in heaven?"
+
+      [4] The old East window: not the new one.
+
+"How well you remember things!"
+
+"I always did--things that make an impression on me," he answered. "A
+quiet, thoughtful child does so. You were thoughtful yourself."
+
+True. Or I don't suppose I could have written these papers. The light in
+the sky faded out as we sat in silence. John recurred to his dream.
+
+"I thought I saw the Saviour," he whispered. "I did indeed. Over the
+crystal river, and beyond the white figures and the harps, was a great
+light. There stood in it One different from the rest. He had a grand,
+noble countenance, exquisite in sweetness, and it was turned upon me
+with a loving smile of welcome. Johnny, I _know_ it was Jesus. Oh, it
+will be good to be there!"
+
+No doubt of it. Very good for him.
+
+"The strange thing was, that I felt no fear. None. Just as securely as I
+seemed to lie in the arms of the angels, so did I seem secure in the
+happiness awaiting me. A great many of us fear death, Johnny; I see now
+that all fear will cease with this world, to those who die in Christ."
+
+A sudden burst of subdued sobbing broke the stillness of the room and
+startled us beyond everything. Lady Whitney had wakened up and was
+listening.
+
+"Oh, John, my darling boy, don't talk so!" she said, coming forward
+and laying her cheek upon his shoulder. "We can't spare you; we can't
+indeed."
+
+His eyes were full of tears: so were mine. He took his mother's hand and
+stroked it.
+
+"But it must be, mother dear?" he gently whispered. "God will temper the
+loss to you all."
+
+"Any of them but you, John! You were ever my best and dearest son."
+
+"It's all for the best, mother: it must be. The others are not ready to
+go."
+
+"And don't you _care_ to leave us?" she said, breaking down again.
+
+"I did care; very much; but lately I seem to have looked only to the
+time when we shall meet again. Mother, I do not think now I would live
+if the chance were offered me."
+
+"Well, it's the first time I ever heard of young people wanting to die!"
+cried Lady Whitney.
+
+"Mother, I think we must be very close on death _before_ we want it," he
+gently answered. "Don't you see the mercy?--that when this world is
+passing from us, we are led insensibly to long for the next?"
+
+She sat down in the chair that I had got up from, and drew it closer to
+him. A more simple-minded woman than Lady Whitney never lived. She
+sobbed gently. He kept her hand between his.
+
+"It will be a great blow to me; I know that; and to your father. He
+feels it now more than he shows, John. You have been so good and
+obedient, you see; never naughty and giving us trouble like the rest."
+
+There was another silence. His quiet voice broke it.
+
+"Mother, dear, the thought has crossed me lately, that it must be good
+to have one, whom we love very much, taken on to heaven. It must make it
+seem more like our final home; it must, I think, make us more desirous
+of getting there. 'John's gone on to it,' you and papa will be thinking;
+'we shall see him again when the end comes.' And it will cause you to
+look for the end, instead of turning away from it, as too many do. Don't
+grieve, mother! Had it been God's will, I should have lived. But it was
+not; and He is taking me to a better home. A little sooner, a little
+later; it cannot make much difference which, if we are only ready for it
+when it comes."
+
+The distant church bells, which always rang on a Friday night, broke
+upon the air. John asked to have the window opened. I threw it up, and
+we sat listening. The remembrance of that hour is upon me now, just as
+vividly as he remembered the moment when he first saw the old east
+window in the cathedral. The melody of the bells; the sweet scent of the
+mignonette in the garden; the fading sky: I close my eyes and realize it
+all.
+
+The girls returned, bringing word that Mrs. Frost was very ill, but not
+much more so than usual. Directly afterwards we heard Sir John come
+home.
+
+"They are afraid Barrington's worse," observed Helen; "and of course it
+is worrying Mrs. Frost. Mr. Carden has not been there to-day either,
+though he was expected: they hope he will be over the first thing in the
+morning."
+
+In they trooped, Sir John and the boys; all eagerly talking of the
+pleasant afternoon they had had, and what they had seen and done at
+Evesham. But the room, as they said later, seemed to have a strange hush
+upon it, and John's face an altered look: and the eager voices died away
+again.
+
+John was the one to read the chapter that night. He asked to do so; and
+chose the twenty-first of Revelation. His voice was low, but quite
+distinct and clear. Without pausing at the end, he went on to the next
+chapter, which concludes the Bible.
+
+"Only think what it will be, Johnny!" he said to me later, following up
+our previous conversation. "All manner of precious stones! all sorts of
+glorious colours! Better even" (with a smile) "than the great east
+window."
+
+I don't know whether it surprised me, or not, to find the house in
+commotion when I woke the next morning, and to hear that John Whitney
+was dying. A remarkable change had certainly taken place in him. He lay
+in bed; not insensible, but almost speechless.
+
+Breakfast was scarcely over when Mr. Carden's carriage drove in. He had
+been with Barrington, having started from Worcester at day-dawn. John
+knew him, and took his hand and smiled.
+
+"What's to be done for him?" questioned Sir John, pointing to his son.
+
+Mr. Carden gave one meaning look at Sir John, and that was all. Nothing
+more of any kind could be done for John Whitney.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Carden; good-bye," said John, as the surgeon was leaving.
+"You have been very kind."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+
+"It is so sudden; so soon, you know, Carden," cried poor Sir John, as
+they walked downstairs together. "You ought to have warned me that it
+was coming."
+
+"I did not know it would be quite so soon as this," was Mr. Carden's
+answer--and I heard him say it.
+
+John had visitors that day, and saw them. Some of the fellows from
+Frost's, who came over when they heard how it was; Dr. Frost himself;
+and the clergyman. At dusk, when he had been lying quietly for some
+time, except for the restlessness that often ushers in death, he opened
+his eyes and began speaking in a whisper. Lady Whitney, thinking he
+wanted something, bent down her ear. But he was only repeating a verse
+from the Bible.
+
+"And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither
+light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall
+reign for ever and ever."
+
+Bill, who had his head on the bolster on the other side, broke into a
+hushed sob. It did not disturb the dying. They were John's last words.
+
+Quite a crowd went to his funeral. It took place on the following
+Thursday. Dr. Frost and Mr. Carden (and it's not so often _he_ wasted
+his time going to a funeral!) and Featherstone and the Squire amongst
+them. Poor Sir John sobbed over the grave, and did not mind who saw and
+heard him, while they cast the earth on the coffin.
+
+"_Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope
+of the Resurrection to eternal life._"
+
+That the solemn promise was applicable to John Whitney, and that he had
+most assuredly entered on that glorious life, I knew as well then as
+I know now. The corruptible had put on incorruption, the mortal
+immortality.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not much of a story, you will say. But I might have told a worse. And I
+hope, seeing we must all go out at the same gate, that we shall be as
+ready for it as he was.
+
+  JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+  LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW ISSUE OF
+
+MRS. HENRY WOOD'S NOVELS
+
+is now being published in uniform Volumes, crown 8vo., bound in cloth,
+price 2_s._ each, at monthly intervals.
+
+Each Volume can be obtained separately at any Bookseller's, or the names
+of Subscribers to the entire Series will be registered for the delivery
+of a Volume each Month. The "Johnny Ludlow" Papers are included in this
+Series.
+
+
+1.
+
+EAST LYNNE.
+
+_FOUR HUNDREDTH THOUSAND._
+
+"'East Lynne' is so full of incident, so exciting in every page, and
+so admirably written, that one hardly knows how to go to bed without
+reading to the very last page."--THE OBSERVER.
+
+"A work of remarkable power which displays a force of description and a
+dramatic completeness we have seldom seen surpassed. The interest of the
+narrative intensifies itself to the deepest pathos. The closing scene is
+in the highest degree tragic, and the whole management of the story
+exhibits unquestionable genius and originality."--THE DAILY NEWS.
+
+"'East Lynne' has been translated into the Hindustani and Parsee
+languages, and the success of it has been very great."--DANIEL
+BANDMANN'S JOURNAL.
+
+
+2.
+
+THE CHANNINGS.
+
+_ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"'The Channings' will probably be read over and over again, and it can
+never be read too often."--THE ATHENÆUM.
+
+
+3.
+
+MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES.
+
+_ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"The boldness, originality, and social scrutiny displayed in this work
+remind the reader of Adam Bede. It would be difficult to place beside
+the death of Edgar Halliburton anything in fiction comparable with its
+profound pathos and simplicity. It is long since the novel-reading world
+has had reason so thoroughly to congratulate itself upon the appearance
+of a new work as in the instance of 'Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles.' It is
+a fine work; a great and artistic picture."--THE MORNING POST.
+
+
+4.
+
+THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT.
+
+_SEVENTY-SEVENTH THOUSAND._
+
+"'The Shadow of Ashlydyat' is very clever, and keeps up the constant
+interest of the reader. It has a slight supernatural tinge, which gives
+the romantic touch to the story which Sir Walter Scott so often used
+with even greater effect; but it is not explained away at the end as Sir
+Walter Scott's supernatural touches generally, and inartistically,
+were."--THE SPECTATOR.
+
+"The genius of Mrs. Henry Wood shines as brightly as ever. There is a
+scene or two between Maria Godolphin and her little girl just before she
+dies, which absolutely melt the heart. The death-bed scene likewise is
+exquisitely pathetic."--THE COURT JOURNAL.
+
+
+5.
+
+LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
+
+_SEVENTY-SEVENTH THOUSAND._
+
+"The story is admirably told."--THE SPECTATOR.
+
+
+6.
+
+VERNER'S PRIDE.
+
+_SIXTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"'Verner's Pride' is a first-rate novel in its breadth of outline and
+brilliancy of description. Its exciting events, its spirited scenes, and
+its vivid details, all contribute to its triumph. The interest this work
+awakens, and the admiration it excites in the minds of its readers, must
+infallibly tend to the renown of the writer, while they herald the
+welcome reception of the work wherever skill in construction of no
+ordinary kind, or a ready appreciation of character, which few possess,
+can arouse attention or win regard."--THE SUN.
+
+
+7.
+
+ROLAND YORKE.
+
+_ONE HUNDREDTH THOUSAND._
+
+"In all respects worthy of the hand that wrote 'The Channings' and 'East
+Lynne.' There is no lack of excitement to wile the reader on, and from
+the first to the last a well-planned story is sustained with admirable
+spirit and in a masterly style."--THE DAILY NEWS.
+
+
+8.
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
++The First Series.+
+
+_FIFTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"We regard these stories as almost perfect of their kind."--SPECTATOR.
+
+"Fresh, lively, vigorous, and full of clever dialogue, they will meet
+with a ready welcome. The Author is masterly in the skill with which she
+manages her successive dramas."--STANDARD.
+
+"It is an agreeable change to come upon a book like Johnny
+Ludlow."--SATURDAY REVIEW.
+
+"Vigour of description and a strong grasp of character."--ATHENÆUM.
+
+"The Author has given proof of a rarer dramatic instinct than we had
+suspected among our living writers of fiction."--NONCOMFORMIST.
+
+"Tales full of interest."--VANITY FAIR.
+
+"Fresh, clear, simple, strong in purpose and in execution, these stories
+have won admiration as true works of inventive art. Without a single
+exception they maintain a powerful hold on the mind of the reader, and
+keep his sympathies in a continued state of healthy excitement."--DAILY
+TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+9.
+
+MILDRED ARKELL.
+
+_FIFTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Henry Wood certainly possesses in a wholly exceptional degree the
+power of uniting the most startling incident of supernatural influence
+with a certain probability and naturalness which compels the most
+critical and sceptical reader, having once begun, to go on reading....
+He finds himself conciliated by some bit of quiet picture, some accent
+of poetic tenderness, some sweet domestic touch telling of a heart
+exercised in the rarer experiences; and as he proceeds he wonders more
+and more at the manner in which the mystery, the criminality, the
+plotting, and the murdering reconciles itself with a quiet sense of the
+justice of things; and a great moral lesson is, after all, found to lie
+in the heart of all the turmoil and exciting scene-shifting. It is this
+which has earned for Mrs. Wood so high a place among popular novelists,
+and secured her admittance to homes from which the sensational novelists
+so-called are excluded."--THE NONCOMFORMIST.
+
+
+10.
+
+SAINT MARTIN'S EVE.
+
+_FORTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"A good novel."--THE SPECTATOR.
+
+"Mrs. Wood has spared no pains to accumulate the materials for a
+curiously thrilling story."--THE SATURDAY REVIEW.
+
+
+11.
+
+TREVLYN HOLD.
+
+_FORTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"We cannot read a page of this work without discovering a graphic force
+of delineation which it would not be easy to surpass."--THE DAILY NEWS.
+
+
+12.
+
+GEORGE CANTERBURY'S WILL.
+
+_FIFTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"The name of Mrs. Henry Wood has been familiar to novel-readers for many
+years, and her fame widens and strengthens with the increase in the
+number of her books."--THE MORNING POST.
+
+
+13.
+
+THE RED COURT FARM.
+
+_FORTY-FOURTH THOUSAND._
+
+"When we say that a plot displays Mrs. Wood's well-known skill in
+construction, our readers will quite understand that their attention
+will be enchained by it from the first page to the last."--THE WEEKLY
+DISPATCH.
+
+
+14.
+
+WITHIN THE MAZE.
+
+_SIXTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"The decided novelty and ingenuity of the plot of 'Within the Maze'
+renders it, in our eyes, one of Mrs. Henry Wood's best novels.
+It is excellently developed, and the interest hardly flags for a
+moment."--THE GRAPHIC.
+
+
+15.
+
+ELSTER'S FOLLY.
+
+_THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Wood fulfils all the requisites of a good novelist: she interests
+people in her books, makes them anxious about the characters, and
+furnishes an intricate and carefully woven plot."--THE MORNING POST.
+
+
+16.
+
+LADY ADELAIDE.
+
+_THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"One of Mrs. Henry Wood's best novels."--THE STAR.
+
+"Mme. Henry Wood est fort célèbre en Angleterre, et ses romans--très
+moraux et très bien écrits--sont dans toutes les mains et revivent dans
+toutes les mémoires. _Le serment de lady Adelaïde_ donneront à nos
+lecteurs une idée très suffisante du talent si élevé de mistress Henry
+Wood."--L'INSTRUCTION PUBLIQUE.
+
+
+17.
+
+OSWALD CRAY.
+
+_THIRTY-SEVENTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Wood has certainly an art of novel-writing which no rival
+possesses in the same degree and kind. It is not, we fancy, a common
+experience for any one to leave one of these novels unfinished."--THE
+SPECTATOR.
+
+
+18.
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
++The Second Series.+
+
+_TWENTY-THIRD THOUSAND._
+
+"The author has given proof of a rarer dramatic instinct than we had
+suspected among our living writers of fiction. It is not possible by
+means of extracts to convey any adequate sense of the humour, the
+pathos, the dramatic power and graphic description of this book."--THE
+NONCOMFORMIST.
+
+"Mrs. Henry Wood has made a welcome addition to the list of the works of
+contemporary fiction."--ATHENÆUM (_second notice_).
+
+"These most exquisite studies."--NONCOMFORMIST (_second notice_).
+
+"These tales are delightful from their unaffected and sometimes pathetic
+simplicity."--STANDARD (_second notice_).
+
+"To write a short story really well is the most difficult part of the
+art of fiction; and 'Johnny Ludlow' has succeeded in it in such a manner
+that his--or rather her--art looks like nature, and is hardly less
+surprising for its excellence than for the fertility of invention on
+which it is founded."--GLOBE.
+
+"Freshness of tone, briskness of movement, vigour, reality, humour,
+pathos. It is safe to affirm that there is not a single story which will
+not be read with pleasure by both sexes, of all ages."--ILLUSTRATED
+LONDON NEWS.
+
+
+19.
+
+ANNE HEREFORD.
+
+_THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Wood's story, 'Anne Hereford,' is a favourable specimen of her
+manner; the incidents are well planned, and the narrative is easy and
+vigorous."--THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
+
+
+20.
+
+DENE HOLLOW.
+
+_THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Novel-readers wishing to be entertained, and deeply interested in
+character and incident, will find their curiosity wholesomely gratified
+by the graphic pages of 'Dene Hollow,' an excellent novel, without the
+drawbacks of wearisome digressions and monotonous platitudes so common
+in the chapters of modern fiction."--THE MORNING POST.
+
+
+21.
+
+EDINA.
+
+_TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+"The whole situation of the book is clever, and the plot is well
+managed."--ACADEMY.
+
+"Edina's character is beautifully drawn."--THE LITERARY WORLD.
+
+
+22.
+
+A LIFE'S SECRET.
+
+_THIRTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Now that the rights of capital and labour are being fully inquired
+into, Mrs. Wood's story of a 'A Life's Secret' is particularly opportune
+and interesting. It is based upon a plot that awakens curiosity and
+keeps it alive throughout. The hero and heroine are marked with
+individuality, the love-passages are finely drawn, and the story
+developed with judgment."--THE CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE.
+
+"If Mrs. Wood's book does not tend to eradicate the cowardice, folly,
+and slavish submission to lazy agitators among the working men, all we
+can say is that it ought to do so, for it is at once well written,
+effective, and truthful."--THE ILLUSTRATED TIMES.
+
+
+23.
+
+COURT NETHERLEIGH.
+
+_TWENTY-SIXTH THOUSAND._
+
+"We always open one of Mrs. Wood's novels with pleasure, because we are
+sure of being amused and interested."--THE TIMES.
+
+"Lisez-le; l'émotion que vous sentirez peu à peu monter à votre coeur
+est saine et fortifiante. Lisez-le; c'est un livre honnête sorti d'une
+plume honnête et vous pourrez le laisser traîner sur la table."--LE
+SIGNAL (_Paris_).
+
+
+24.
+
+LADY GRACE.
+
+_SIXTEENTH THOUSAND._
+
+"Lady Grace worthily continues a series of novels thoroughly English in
+feeling and sentiment, and which fairly illustrate many phases of our
+national life."--MORNING POST.
+
+
+25.
+
+BESSY RANE.
+
+_THIRTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"The power to draw minutely and carefully each character with
+characteristic individuality in word and action is Mrs. Wood's especial
+gift. This endows her pages with a vitality which carries the reader to
+the end, and leaves him with the feeling that the veil which in real
+life separates man from man has been raised, and that he has for once
+seen and known certain people as intimately as if he had been their
+guardian angel. This is a great fascination."--THE ATHENÆUM.
+
+
+26.
+
+PARKWATER.
+
+_TWENTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Wood's pleasant style and vivid imagination were never more
+pleasantly manifested."--JOHN BULL.
+
+
+27.
+
+THE UNHOLY WISH, ETC.
+
+"The characters and situations of which the author made her books are,
+indeed, beyond criticism; their interest has been proved by the
+experience of generations."--PALL-MALL GAZETTE.
+
+
+28.
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
++The Third Series.+
+
+"The peculiar and unfailing charm of Mrs. Wood's style has rarely been
+more apparent than in this succession of chronicles, partly of rustic
+life, some relating to the fortunes of persons in a higher class, but
+all remarkable for an easy simplicity of tone, true to nature."--MORNING
+POST.
+
+
+29.
+
+THE MASTER OF GREYLANDS.
+
+_THIRTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"A book by Mrs. Wood is sure to be a good one, and no one who opens 'The
+Master of Greylands' in anticipation of an intellectual treat will
+be disappointed. The keen analysis of character, and the admirable
+management of the plot, alike attest the clever novelist."--JOHN BULL.
+
+
+30.
+
+ORVILLE COLLEGE.
+
+_THIRTY-THIRD THOUSAND._
+
+"Mrs. Wood's stories bear the impress of her versatile talent and
+well-known skill in turning to account the commonplaces of daily life
+as well as the popular superstitions of the multitude."--THE LITERARY
+WORLD.
+
+
+31.
+
+POMEROY ABBEY.
+
+_THIRTIETH THOUSAND._
+
+"All the Pomeroys are very cleverly individualised, and the way in which
+the mystery is worked up, including its one horribly tragic incident, is
+really beyond all praise."--THE MORNING POST.
+
+
+32.
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
++Fourth Series.+
+
+"Fresh, clear, simple, strong in purpose and in execution, these stories
+have won admiration as true works of inventive art. Without a single
+exception they maintain a powerful hold upon the mind of the reader, and
+keep his sympathies in a continued state of healthy excitement."--DAILY
+TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+33.
+
+ADAM GRAINGER, ETC.
+
+"Mrs. Wood fulfils all the requisites of a good novelist; she interests
+people in her books, makes them anxious about the characters, and
+furnishes an intricate and carefully-woven plot."--MORNING POST.
+
+
+34.
+
+JOHNNY LUDLOW.
+
++Fifth Series.+
+
+"Freshness of tone, briskness of movement, vigour, reality, humour,
+pathos. It is safe to affirm that there is not a single story which will
+not be read with pleasure by both sexes, of all ages."--ILLUSTRATED
+LONDON NEWS.
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+  _And to be obtained at all Booksellers' in Town and Country._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+For this txt-version italics were surrounded with _underscores_, words
+in Old English font with +signs+, and small capitals changed to all
+capitals.
+
+Errors in punctuation were corrected silently. Also the following
+corrections were made, on page
+
+   18 "goal" changed to "gaol" (She's in the county gaol.)
+   77 "wan't" changed to "want" (If you want me I shall be found)
+   98 "litttle" changed to "little" (a little given to scheming)
+  132 "litttle" changed to "little" (they'll be a little too much)
+  203 "as" changed to "at" (We laughed at him about)
+  203 "postilion" changed to "postillion" (the postillion in his undress
+      jacket)
+  204 "plaecs" changed to "places" (finding places for)
+  207 "Todhetloy" changed to "Todhetley" (talked to me about you, Mr.
+      Todhetley.)
+  223 "o" changed to "of" (with roving ideas of Australia)
+  230 "Sophonsiba" canged to "Sophonisba" (Sophonisba was treated as)
+  277 "or" changed to "of" (a letter of warm thanks)
+  357 "roon" changed to "room" (the billiard-room)
+  405 "Jonnny" changed to "Johnny" (to Alcester, Johnny," said the
+      Pater)
+  432 "grande" changed to "Grande" (She turned up the Grande Rue).
+
+Otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistent spelling
+and hyphenation.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Johnny Ludlow. First Series, by Mrs. Henry Wood
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40915 ***