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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2860082 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63142 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63142) diff --git a/old/63142-0.txt b/old/63142-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f09334b..0000000 --- a/old/63142-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6476 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Harry Joscelyn; vol. 1 of 3, by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Harry Joscelyn; vol. 1 of 3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: September 7, 2020 [EBook #63142] -[Last updated: October 29, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 1 OF 3 *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - VOL. I. - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - BY - - MRS. OLIPHANT - - AUTHOR OF - - “The Chronicles of Carlingford,” - - &c., &c. - - - IN THREE VOLUMES. - - VOL. I. - - - LONDON: - HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, - 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. - 1881. - _All rights reserved._ - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE WHITE HOUSE. - - -“Mother, I wish you would not make such a fuss. It is only Harry -quarrelling with father; I am sure you ought to be used to that by this -time. It is just as sure to happen when they get together as that night -will come after day.” - -“I never can be used to it if I should live a hundred years,” said the -mother thus addressed. She was walking up and down a long low room, -wringing her hands as she walked, her brow contracted with anxiety and -alarm. Her daughter sat tranquilly knitting, following her with eyes -full of calm disapproval as her figure crossed the glow of the -firelight, and went and came into the gloom on either side. The -occasional sound of their low voices, the faint rustle of the elder -woman’s movements, the crackle of the fire burning brightly, with now -and then a small explosion and sudden blaze, were all the sounds that -broke the quiet here; and this made all the more apparent a growl of -deep-voiced talk in an adjoining room, with now and then a high word, -almost audible, quite comprehensible in its excited tone. Father and son -were in the dining-room, mother and daughter were in the parlour, a -pleasant division one might have thought. Outside the wind was blowing -down the valley with a force which might have suggested storm in other -localities, but was natural and ordinary here. It was April, but -scarcely spring as yet in the north country. “As the day lengthens the -cold strengthens,” is the rule under the Shap Fells. Joan Joscelyn, the -elder daughter of the house, was seated near the fire with her knitting. -She was quite still save for the twinkle of her knitting needles, which -caught the firelight, and her eyes, with which she watched her mother -without turning her head. Her shadow upon the drawn curtains behind her -was as still as though cut out of paper. She was not very young nor had -she any traces of beauty in the somewhat worn and very fixed and steady -lines of her face. Her dark hair was very smooth, her dress very neat, -everything about her orderly and calm. A slight look of restrained -impatience in her eyes, impatience mingled with disapproval, and that -sort of faint contempt which children so often feel for their parents, -was the only sign which the calm daughter of a nervous mother gave of -her feelings. “I wish you would not make such a fuss, you ought to be -used to it by this time,” was written all over her, and perhaps there -was in her aspect something of that conscientious superiority felt by -Mrs. Hardcastle in the play when she said, “See me, how calm I am;” but -all subdued by the natural spectatorship of her position. What could -_she_ do one way or another? Then why should she excite herself for -nothing? This was Joan’s sensible conclusion--and why her mother could -not adopt it too was a thing she could not understand. - -Mrs. Joscelyn was a pale woman of a very different aspect. She was, -people thought at the first glance, not so old as her daughter, -notwithstanding the advantage which a calm temperament is supposed to -have over an excitable one. But it is not always true that the sensitive -and self-tormenting grow old sooner than their more tranquil companions. -Joan had never been young at all, so to speak. Her mother was young -still in the freshness of a mind which would not be controlled by -experience, which trusted every new promise and embraced every new hope, -and was as bitterly disappointed by every failure of her hopes as if she -had never known a disappointment before. How many pangs this temperament -brought to her it would be impossible to reckon; but it kept a sentiment -of youth about her, a sense of living such as her daughter in her best -days never knew. Both of them however agreed in believing that this -temperament was a curse and not a blessing; the daughter with heartfelt -astonishment at the power which her mother possessed of tormenting -herself--if indeed it were not a fictitious torture which she rather -liked than otherwise, as Joan sometimes imagined with instinctive -contempt; while the mother as often sighed, Oh, that she could take -things as quietly, give up making a fuss, bear her troubles with the -same calm as Joan. But neither could the one bring herself to the level -of the other, nor either understand the different conditions which made -similar action impossible. Joan for her part followed Mrs. Joscelyn’s -restless movements with a wonder which she could never get over. What -good could it do? Why couldn’t she sit down and get her work, and occupy -herself? Even, Joan thought, it would be better to get a book and read -(though that was a waste of time) and “take her mind off,” the thing -that so troubled her. “Of course it was a pity that father and Harry -should quarrel; but then, bless me,” Joan said to herself, “boys so -often quarrel with their fathers. Why should there be more fuss made -about it here than anywhere else?” She was knitting a long worsted -stocking which hung down from her hands like a big grey bag; now and -then she gave it a momentary look, to see that the ribs were right and -the “seam” kept straight; but for the most part did not look at it at -all, but watched her mother while the needles twinkled in the firelight -and the big stocking leg turned round in her hands with an occasional -jerk. - -Meanwhile Mrs. Joscelyn walked up and down wringing her hands. The room -was not very light. There were two candles on the table; but it was the -brilliant glow of the fire which lit up the space in front, throwing a -ruddy reflection even into the darkness of the corners. She paced all -the length of the room, crossing periodically the bar of brighter light. -She was rather tall, but stooped, her shoulders coming together with the -ceaseless movement of her hands. Harry had put his hand into hers and -vowed to her that he would avoid all subjects of quarrel, that he would -give to his father the soft answer that turns away wrath. But, alas! he -must have broken his word. It was not the first time nor the thirtieth -time; but she felt astonished and disappointed as if up to that moment -all promises had been kept to her. She was one who could not get used to -suffering. It was as intolerable to her after so many years of it, so -many pangs, as if she had lived the life of a spoilt child up to that -moment and never known what contradiction was. The sound of the voices -in the next room seemed to pierce into her heart. When they rose louder -than usual she would give a low cry. Sometimes she stood still for a -moment to hear the better, sometimes she spoke half to Joan, half to -herself. - -“I think I must go in--I must go in, I can’t let them go on like this. -What if they were to lift their hands to each other, father and son, oh! -father and son,” and then she made a sudden impulsive step towards the -door; but paused again with a convulsive pressure together of her worn -hands. - -“Let them alone mother,” said Joan, “what good could you do? Only turn -both of them upon yourself.” - -“I know, I know,” moaned the poor lady. Then she stopped in the middle -of the light. “Oh!” she said, raising her arms with a gesture which -would have been theatrical had it not been so real, “oh! what have I -done, what have I done that I can never have peace in my house?” - -Joan never took her eyes from this moving figure, but the long grey -stocking jerked and turned round in her hands, and the needles twinkled -without intermission. - -“You expect too much,” she said; “bless me! there’s quarrels in all -houses, and lads go wrong, and all sorts of things happen. Girls too, -which is worse. We should be thankful nothing of that kind has happened -to us. If Will and Tom have been a little wild in their time they’ve -settled down; and I’ve always behaved myself. You have a deal to be -thankful for, mother. As for sons at home when the father is a hale man -like father, they’re always quarrelling. What young fellows want is -their own way. Father’s too young to manage Harry, he’s too strong and -likely, just as good a man as any of them. That’s my opinion; so are you -a deal too young. Bless me, you’re not a bit older than I am. If I -wasn’t so steady I shouldn’t like it, I’d rather have an old wife that -would give in to me and admire me, whatever I did--” - -Joan continued the monologue with a little curve at one corner of her -mouth which did duty for a smile. It was not much more than a soliloquy, -if truth were told. She knew very well her mother was not listening and -did not hear her. Mrs. Joscelyn had re-commenced the walk with which she -was trying to subdue her restlessness. And now the voices grew louder -than ever. There was a long volley of sounds, in the deepest tone, a -sort of discharge of musketry, vituperation rounded off with a large -mouth-filling oath or two; then a louder noise like the pushing back of -chairs, one of which was thrown down with a heavy crash on the floor. -Even Joan started at this noise, and her mother rushed trembling to the -door. But before she could open it the door of the next room was thrown -violently against the wall, and some one plunged out, rushing across the -hall and flinging forth at the outer door. Another volley from the deep -voice accompanied this hasty retreat. The mother turned, and hurrying -across the room to the window, disappeared behind the drawn curtain that -covered it. She opened the shutter as softly and quickly as her -trembling would permit, and looking out watched the owner of the hasty -steps disappearing, with a clang of the garden gate, in the faint wintry -moonlight, which made the landscape beyond look like a white mist. She -stood and watched him, shaking her head with a low moan. - -“Now he is away to the village,” she said piteously, “oh, my poor lad! -the ‘Red Lion,’ that’s all the fireside my Harry will get. Oh, good -Lord, good Lord! and me here breaking my heart; and neither sleep nor -rest will I get this night till I hear my boy come home. But it is not -his fault, it’s not his fault; and what is to be the end of it?” the -poor lady cried. - -Joan, though she was so tranquil, was not unsympathetic. She made a -little remonstrative sound with her tongue in unison with the clicking -of her needles. - -“Bless me! dear me! but he’ll take no harm at the ‘Red Lion;’ don’t -always be thinking the worst, and making things out more dreadful than -they are,” she said. - -Mrs. Joscelyn emerged from the heavy dark-hued curtains with a sigh, but -yet there was a certain softening in her face. Her anxiety was changed, -at least, if not relieved. She came and stood in front of the fire, -holding up a thin shapely foot to the red glow. - -“I am so cold,” she said, with a nervous shiver. - -“That’s because you will fret so, mother, and make such a deal of -everything,” Joan said. - -Mrs. Joscelyn made no answer to this reproach. - -“My feet are like lumps of lead,” she said. “It’s more like December -than April. I think I will never be warm again.” - -A little sympathetic moisture softened Joan’s steady eyes. She felt -towards her mother as she might have felt to a tiresome but amiable -child, impatient of her vagaries, yet sorry for the useless trouble and -pain the poor thing gave herself. - -“It’s all the fretting,” she said, “it’s not the weather. Sit down here -by the fire and I’ll get you a shawl. Bless me! there’s father coming -in.” - -Mrs. Joscelvn retreated hastily from the fireside, and sat down by the -table, where the candles were shining steadily upon a heap of linen to -mend. She took up something hurriedly without appearing to notice what -it was, and began to work, or to put on an appearance of working. It -seemed at first a false alarm, but, after a minute or two of uncertain -movement outside, the door opened and a tall and strong man came in. -There was a great arm-chair standing by the side of the fire, which -evidently, as soon as he appeared, proclaimed itself to be waiting for -him, his harsh and big domestic throne; a hard, broad, uncompromising -piece of furniture, with its two great wooden elbows thrust out. He -stood for a moment at the door, looking round the room--perhaps to see -whether his son had taken refuge there, perhaps only to find out any -lurking offence. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whose habit it was to look -out for offence meant or possible. He inspected the downcast faces of -the women, for even Joan now, after one momentary glance at him, turned -her eyes upon her knitting--and the bright space before the fire, and -all the darker corners round. Then his keen eye caught the ruffled -curtain, and the slight whiteness behind of the moonlight showing -through the shutter, which his wife had left half open. She had meant to -go back when the rest of the house was quiet, and watch noiseless at -that window till her son came back, and probably her husband divined -this. He walked straight to the window, pushing the curtains aside, and -with much demonstration closed the shutters, and with a heavy tug -brought the curtains together again. - -“There’s no order in this house, nor ever was,” he said, in a strong -North country accent. Then he crossed the room again and threw himself -into the big chair. The house was solidly built, and the parlour was on -the ground floor; nevertheless, his step made the floor jar and creak as -if it had found loose boards under the carpet, and shook the room as -though it had been in a slim villa. The big chair creaked too as he -threw himself into it. All other sounds had ceased as by magic, even the -click of Joan’s needles, which only occurred at long intervals, though -she worked on with more devotion than ever. Even the coals made no -further explosions, sent out no little gay jets of gas, but burned -soberly, stolidly under the master’s eye. Mrs. Joscelyn, in her -agitation, was less silent. Her elbow knocked against the table, her -needle stumbled and broke in her work, her reels of thread fell down and -rolled about the carpet. All this the master contemplated with his keen -spectator-eyes. He had altogether changed the character of the scene. -The two very distinctly marked individuals, so unlike in nature, though -so closely bound together, who had put forth unawares each her own phase -of life in the household quiet, were now cowed into a sort of composed -and alarmed opposition, dumbly resistant, making common cause together; -typical women merely, not individuals at all. The typical domestic -tyrant who had worked this change looked round him with a glance in -which contempt for them and a kind of pleasure in their subjugation were -mingled with resentment against them for the distrust and sudden silence -which he knew his appearance had produced. He crossed his long legs -half way across the hearth, thrusting up his heavy boot almost in his -daughter’s face. Many men do this who mean no particular harm, but -Joscelyn did mean harm, and did not care who knew it. In a moment the -room had become full of him, and of his oppressive shadow. He took away -and devoured, drawing into his capacious gullet, the very air they -breathed. - -“You are a nice cheerful lot for a man to come in to,” he said; “a nice -pleasant home you make for me, with that click-clack. I don’t wonder, -not I, that men turn out to the ale-house, though I’ve got to punish ’em -for it now and again. No, I don’t wonder, not a bit. A couple of -white-faced women filling up his rooms, taking the heat out of his fire -and the light out of his lamp for their confounded stockings and -rubbish--when there isn’t an old woman in the dale but could do them a -sight better and save all that pretence.” - -Joan upon this raised her eyes. She was not timid, though she avoided -strife. - -“You don’t mind, then, about the light and the fire of other men,” she -said, “if we were to give your stockings to other women to knit for -you. But you’re none so fond of spending your money even for the yarn, -let alone the knitting. You’re a heavy man upon your feet, and wear out -a deal of heels and toes. Some one’s bound to knit them for you. If you -like better to pay, I don’t mind, you may make sure of that.” - -“You!” cried her father, “a piece of stale goods that can’t find a -market; who cares for you? You should have been the plague of some other -house these ten years, and not sucking the life out of mine, and setting -up your face before your betters. _She_ don’t make any observations; and -whatever else she is, she’s my wife, and has some right to speak.” - -Joan’s brown eyes gave out a flash. She was no longer cowed. - -“I have had a good lesson,” she said. “I can see how nice it is to be -your wife, father, and I don’t want to try it on my own account.” - -“Oh, hush! hush! Joan,” the mother said, her hands coming together once -more. - -“_You_ don’t want to try!” said Joscelyn. “Who’s given you a chance? -that’s what I’d like to know. If I had my own way I’d clear you all out -of this house. I’d have no useless women here. When a man gets sense he -knows what a fool he’s been, burdening himself with a wife and -children--a wife that gets old and ugly, and a set of children that defy -him under his own roof. Good Lord! think of me, a man in my prime, with -a middle-aged woman like that saying father to me! when I might have had -my fling, and been a gay young fellow with the best of them. There’s -your son too, madam, just gone out of here shaking his fist in my face; -and if I knock him down there will be a great hulabooloo got up because -he’s my son. Son! what’s a son? or daughter either? A rebellious scamp -that will neither do anything for himself nor do what you tell him to -do. By the Lord Harry! when I think what a snug comfortable life I might -have been living here with nothing to trouble me. And now I can’t -stretch my legs under my own mahogany but there’s a brat of a boy to -contradict me, or come into my own parlour but there’s a brat of a -girl---- no, by Jove no,” he added, with a coarse laugh, “there I’m -going too far; not a girl, or anything like it--an old maid. That’s what -a man makes by marrying young, like a fool, as I was.” - -While he thus discharged his volleys on both sides, the women relapsed -into absolute silence. Mrs. Joscelyn was too much afraid to interfere, -while Joan shrugged her shoulders, with the philosophy that was natural -to her. What does it matter to me what he says? she said to herself; I -didn’t choose him for a father, and she expressed her indifference as a -Frenchwoman might have done by that shrug of her shoulders. He was -allowed to talk on without any reply; and if there is one thing more -exasperating than another to a violent temper, it is the silence of the -natural antagonists who ought to furnish it with the means of prolonging -its utterances. He thought, like all other bad-tempered men, that this -was done “a’ purpose,” and his passion rose higher. - -“Women,” he said, snarling, with a furious fear that he was not really -touching them to the quick, as he intended, “women! that are supposed to -clean up a house and make it pleasant! a deuced deal of that we ever see -here. Train up lads in rebellion, and in thinking themselves wiser than -them that’s before them, that’s what you can do. And sit about in the -warmest corners and clog up the whole space, so that a man can’t move -for them--that’s women! And eat of the best like fighting-cocks, and -dress themselves up like peacocks, that’s all they think of. By Jove! -I’d make a clean sweep of them out of this house if I had my way.” - -“Then you’d better have your way,” said Joan; “sweep as much as you -please. Mother, will you mind what I tell you, and not make a fuss? I -hope I’m worth my salt wherever I go: and he knows well enough I’m the -best servant he has in the house, and work for no wages, and stand -bullying like ne’er another. What do I care for that rubbish? Come along -upstairs with me, and let him have his room to himself and his fire to -himself. He should have his house to himself if it were not for you; but -for mercy’s sake don’t you make a fuss, and clasp your hands like that. -Come along upstairs with me, and let him talk.” - -“Joan! Joan!” the mother whispered. “Joan! who will there be to let -Harry in if you take me away? It’s too early yet,” she said faltering, -aloud. “I’ve got the things to put away. I’ve got--many little things to -do. I haven’t half finished my mending. Your father’s put out, he does -not mean it. It’s too early yet to go to bed.” - -“Then I’ll stay and let Harry in,” said Joan, aloud, scorning the -whisper. “Go you and rest, you look more dead than alive. You may trust -Harry to me.” - -Then the master of the house, sitting in his chair with his legs -stretched out in front of the fire, poured forth another volley of -oaths. - -“We’ll just see if you let Harry in,” he cried. “Harry, confound him! -let him stay out, as he’s gone out. I’ll have none of his dissipations -here, nor your conniving neither, you fools. Here, get off with you as -you said. I’ll lock up your things, madam. I’ll take care of your keys, -I’ll see the house shut up. It’s my business, and it’s my house, not -yours. You’ll be cleverer than I take you for if either one or the other -of you let that confounded young scapegrace in here this night.” - -“Oh, Joan! Joan! hold your peace! do not make things worse,” cried Mrs. -Joscelyn, wringing her thin hands. - -Joan stood confronting her father, looking him full in the face. She was -of a short and full figure, shapely enough, but without a trace in it -of her mother’s grace. She kept on knitting in the very midst of the -controversy, standing between the fire and the table. - -“It will have to come to a crisis one time or another. As well this -night as another night,” she said. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE FAMILY IT BELONGED TO. - - -The Joscelyns were of what is called an old family. Though they were of -no higher degree at present than any other yeomen of the dales, they -were of much greater pretensions. There were no very authentic records -of this supposed historical superiority--a well-sounding name and a bit -of old ruin in a corner of the land which remained to them were as much -as they had to show in support of the tradition. But there were no other -Joscelyns about, so that the family had evidently at one time or other -been an importation from another district, and though nobody knew from -whence the stock came, it was understood in the family that they had -counted kin some time or other with very much finer folk. There were -even old people still alive who remembered the time when the Joscelyns -lived with much greater grandeur than now and gave themselves all the -airs of gentlefolks. These traditions had dazzled Lydia Brotherton, who, -though she was only the daughter of a clergyman, and not rich or -accustomed to anything very fine, was still better bred than Ralph -Joscelyn of the White House, and much more “genteel” and aspiring. The -Brothertons were really “well-connected people,” as everybody knew. They -had a baronet in the family. When there was any specially promising boy -in the parish for whom an opening was wanted, the vicar knew whom to -write to, and had written with such effect that one lad at least from -the district had got an appointment in the custom-house in consequence. -When a man can do that, he proves there is something in his claims of -family. And Miss Brotherton had been brought up by a governess, which -was to the homely people about, a much finer thing than going to school: -and could sing songs in foreign languages, and play upon the piano, both -uncommon acquirements, when she came to the White House. As for Ralph in -those days he had been a very fine young fellow--the tallest, the -strongest, the most bright-eyed and high-coloured young man between -Shap and Carlisle. He was first in all games, nobody venturing to -contend with him in wrestling, or in any other exercise where sheer -strength was an important particular. He was not “book-learned,” but -what did that matter? Lydia had been accustomed all her life to curates -who were book-learned, and her experiences in that kind had made her -less respectful of instruction than might have been desired. She made a -picture to herself of all the chivalrous qualities which “good blood” -ought to confer; and the big limbs and pre-eminent strength of her -lover, seemed to her the plainest evidence that he was a king among men. -Nobody else could throw so far or jump so high. When he was on his big -mare Meg, which was still bigger in proportion than himself, the two -went through thick and thin, fearing nothing. He was a man that might -have led an army; that might have cut down a troop of rebels--there was -no limit to his powers. All the feats of the North-country ballads and -heroes became possible, nay ordinary, to her when Ralph was by. Her own -slim nervous figure, in which there was no muscular strength at all, -made his fine embodiment of force all the more attractive to her. There -were rumours that he was “wild,” which frightened her father and -mother, but Lydia was not alarmed. The curates were prim and correct as -well as book-learned; but she did not like them. And to big Ralph it -seemed natural that there should be overflowings of his strength and -vigour, that life in him which was so much more than the life of other -men. Temper, too--no doubt he had a temper--could such a man be expected -to be patient and velvet-mouthed like the Rev. John or Thomas? “He will -never be ill-tempered to me,” she had said with a confident smile. The -parents thought the same when they looked at their graceful daughter, -and thought what a thing it would be for Ralph Joscelyn to have such a -creature by his side. Of course it would make a man of him. Very likely -if he had married a farmer’s daughter, a nice rosy-cheeked lass, he too -would have dropped into a mere dalesman without a thought beyond the -“beasts” and an athletic meeting. But with Lydia, with so much vigour, -and a little money and the best of blood, what might not be hoped from -him? Lydia would turn his house, which was a little homely in its -appointments, into a gentleman’s house. Her presence alone, along with -the tidies, and footstools, and cushions which her mother was working -for her, would make an instant revolution in the appearance of the -house. - -For these and many other equally weighty reasons the contract was -concluded, and true love, as Mrs. Brotherton remarked, carried the -day--though her daughter might, no doubt, have looked higher. Ralph got -a lieutenancy in the Yeomanry, which was a great thing. He was put upon -the Commission of the Peace--a _faux air_ as of a country gentleman was -thrown over him. After all whether a property is large or small it makes -no difference in the principle of the thing, Mrs. Brotherton said. You -would not put a man out of his natural rank and cease to consider him a -squire because he had been obliged to part with a portion of his estate. -This lady was something of an invalid, and a great deal of a casuist--it -was her part in the family to explain everything and give the best of -reasons. She was safe to produce a long list of arguments at ten -minutes’ notice, fully justifying, and that on the highest grounds, -whatever the others had decided to do. And she put forth all her -strength in favour of Ralph Joscelyn, so that he ended by becoming a -very fine gentleman, indeed a patrician of the purest water, a little -subdued by circumstances, but blue in blood and princely in disposition -like the best. - -The White House to which Lydia had been brought home, as was the custom -then, on the evening of her wedding day, bore very much the same aspect -at that period as at the time, five-and-thirty years later, at which -this story opens. It was a gray stone house, gray and cold as the fells -against which its square outline showed, roomy and old-fashioned if not -perhaps quite carrying out the family brag. It stood upon one of the -Tower slopes a little elevated above the road. Behind it at some little -distance was a small wood of firs softening down into a fringe of trees -less gloomy, in the little fissure, too small to be called a glen or -even a ravine, nothing more than a cut in the hillside, where a little -brook brawled downwards over its pebbles, on the west side of the house. -Here there were some hawthorn bushes, big and gnarled and old, a few -mountain ash-trees, and birches clinging to the sides of the narrow -opening, some of them stooping across the little thread of water to -which they formed a sort of fringe; and at one spot a very homely little -bridge overshadowed by the birches which clustered together, dangling -their delicate branches over the beck, the only pretty feature in the -scene. Originally the White House had stood upon the bare hill-side, -with its close grayish turf coming up close to the door in front, though -there was a walled kitchen-garden on the east side. But when Mrs. -Joscelyn came home a bride, a little flower-garden had been laid out in -front of the door, which gave something of the air of a suburban villa -to the austere hill-side house. Never was there a more forlorn little -garden. Nothing would grow, and for many years its proprietors had -ceased to solicit anything to grow. The grass-plots had grown gray again -like the natural turf. The flower-beds were overgrown by weeds, and by a -few garden flowers run wild which had lost both size and sweetness, as -flowers so often do when left to nature. An oblong hall, of considerable -dimensions, from which the doors of the sittingrooms opened, and which -was hung with guns and fishing-rods, and with a large stag’s head -adorned by enormous antlers opposite the door, made an imposing entrance -to the house; but the carpets were all worn, the curtains dingy, the -furniture gloomy and old; huge mahogany sideboards, and big tables, -vast square-shouldered chairs; things heavy and costly and ugly fitted -the rooms; nothing for beauty, or even comfort. It seemed hard indeed to -know for what such furniture was made, save for endurance, to wear as -long as possible. - -Young Mrs. Joscelyn when she came home had hung her antimacassars over -the chairs, she had put out her “Keepsake” and “Friendship’s Offering” -upon the table, and placed her guitar in the most favourable position; -and then she sat down to be happy. Poor gentle young woman! She had been -the pet at home, the only daughter. She had been considered the most -accomplished of girls. Whatever she said had secured the smiles and -admiration of father and mother; all that she did had been pretty, had -been sweet, not from any quality of its own, but because it was Liddy -who did it. To describe the extraordinary sensation with which she woke -up a few months after her marriage, perhaps not so much, to discover -that Liddy having done it, made nothing attractive or charming, would be -impossible. It took away from her all her little confidence in herself, -all her faith in those around her. Very soon--so soon that it seemed -immediately, the next day--her husband made it very clearly visible -that Liddy was the synonym not for everything that was pleasant, but for -all the awkwardness, the foolishness, the inappropriate words and -inconvenient actions of the house. “It is just like you,” he began to -say to her, long before the first summer was over. For a time she tried -to think it was “Ralph’s way,” but that did not stand her long in stead. -And with her opinion of herself, her confidence in everything else -gradually deserted her. She recognised that the Joscelyns’ blue blood -did very little for them, that old Uncle Harry was often less polite -than Isaac Oliver who was his hind, and more dreadful still, an -admission she never would make to herself, that the very curates whom -she had despised were beside her patrician Ralph like beings of another -world. - -Perhaps of all that happened to her in her after-life there was no shock -so terrible as this first disenchantment. She had a large family, -plunging into all the roughnesses of life, its nursery prose and -bread-and-butter, without any interval of repose, without money enough -or leisure enough to put any glow of prettiness upon the rude -circumstances, the band of children--noisy boys who made an end of all -her attempts at neatness, and gobbled their food and tore their clothes, -and were dirty and disorderly as any cottage brood. She struggled on -among them as best she could, always watching every new baby wistfully -to see if perhaps a something like herself, a child who would be her -very own and speak her language and understand her meaning might be born -to her. But alas! they were Joscelyns every one, big-limbed creatures -with light blue eyes, and great red cheeks, who stared at her cynically -out of their very cradles, and seemed to demand what she was making a -fuss about when she sang them to sleep. Poor woman, she was always -hopeful; every new child that came was, she thought, at last the one for -whom she had been pining. Even now she had a lingering notion that -Harry, her youngest boy, was that child--and far more than a notion, a -hopeful certainty that little Liddy at school, the youngest of all, was -exactly what she herself had been at the same age. These two, were in -fact the least like Joscelyns of all her children. Harry was a -broad-shouldered young fellow indeed, but he was less tall, and less -powerful than his brothers; he had taken a little more to books; and -there were traces in him of something less matter-of-fact than the -stolid, steady nature of Will and Tom, and Benjamin and Hartley, all now -established in occupations, and some of them in houses of their own. -Will and Tom were married; they had both descended a single step lower -down than the position of their father, marrying, one of them, the -daughter of a farmer, and the other, the only child of a famous “vet,” -who gave her what was understood to be “a tidy bit of money,” and to -whose business the young man hoped to succeed. It was a coming down in -the world to his mother. But how could she help it? With so many boys to -provide for, the Joscelyn pride had to be put in their pocket. Hartley -was in Colorado, Ben in New Zealand, all struggling along in much the -same kind of occupation which their father pursued at home. As for Harry -he had been rather delicate, a circumstance of which his mother was -almost proud, as showing his affinity to her side of the house. And he -was in an office in Liverpool, an occupation more fit for a delicate -youth than the rough sheep-farming and horse-selling of the Fells. It -was time now that something should be decided about his career. Was he -to have a little money to invest, to get him a small share in the -concern? He had been clerk long enough, Harry thought--long enough for -himself and long enough too for his employer, who wanted a partner, but -no further clerks. - -This was the question which at present agitated the house. Each of the -sons as he established himself in life had done so with a quarrel, often -a series of wranglings; but they had all taken it more easily than -Harry. Certainly Harry was the one most like his mother. Her heart -yearned over him. She took a little pride in him too, more than it was -possible to take in Tom and Will and their rough affairs. A merchant in -Liverpool sounded better, and Harry in his black coat looked, his mother -thought, more like a gentleman than any of the others. For the first -time for all these years she had been able to recall to her mind what a -gentleman looked like, and the pride which had been natural to a -well-connected person, a clergyman’s daughter, had begun to dawn -faintly, timidly, once more within her. Supposing that the baronet, who -was the head of her family, should ever inquire into the fortunes of his -humble relation, Harry was the one she had always thought who could be -put forward. “One of her sons is a merchant in Liverpool,” how often had -she taken refuge in this as a thing that might be said to Sir John, if -ever at long and last he should make inquiries after Liddy Brotherton. -The others, alas! were not very presentable; but Harry and Liddy might, -if the inquiry came soon, while they were yet young and amenable, show -themselves with the best. These were the secret thoughts in Mrs. -Joscelyn’s heart. She had not given up yet; she was always ready to -begin again; day by day her hope renewed itself, her disappointments -went out of her mind. And thus she went on daily laying herself open to -fresh disappointments because of these new hopes. - -As for her husband, he was no unusual type of his class. He had a great -deal of the rough arrogance which characterises it. When he was among -his neighbours it got him ill-will, but still he could hold his own -among them; domineering over the gentler sort, tyrannical to his -servants, but only altogether unjust and unkind to those who were weak -and in subjection to him. It was his own family who felt this most. For -women he had an absolute contempt, unveiled by any of those polite -pretences with which ordinary men holding this opinion sometimes -consent to conceal it from motives of general expediency. His wife had -been to him a pretty lass, for whom he had a passion _dans le temps_, -and whom he had been rather proud to win, at the moment, as a lady and -full of dainty ways, superior to those of the other pretty lasses in his -sphere. It was right and natural that he, a Joscelyn, should have a lady -for his wife, one who would not have looked at any other yeoman in the -county, and who, indeed, had refused one or two better matches than -himself for his sake. He knew that it was a fine thing to be a Joscelyn, -though he did not know very well in what this consisted. It entitled him -to be called Ralph Joscelyn, Esq., of the White House, when the other -rough Dalesmen had scarcely so much as a Mr. to their names, and it gave -him a general vague sense of superiority and of personal elation, as a -man made of a different stuff from that out of which his neighbours were -shaped. But though he was proud of this, he knew nothing about it. He -was just as capable of investigating into “the old Joscelyns,” and -tracing them to their real origin, as he was of exploring the sources of -the Nile. He did not know, even, what it was which made it such an -advantage to him to belong to those old Joscelyns, but he accepted it as -a benefit which was no doubt to be partially attributed to his own -excellence and high qualities. After the first flush of youth was over, -he considered his wife no longer as a lady whom it was a pride to have -won, but as a creature belonging to him, like one of his dogs, but not -so docile or invariably lovable as his dogs. They all followed and -worshipped him obsequiously, whether he was kind to them or not, -condoning all his contrary actions, and ready to receive a caress with -overflowing gratitude, and forget the kick by which it had been -preceded. Mrs. Joscelyn had not the sense of the dogs; she struggled for -a time to get the place which her imagination had pictured--that of the -poetical mate, the help-meet, the sharer of her husband’s life; and when -sent “to heel” with a kick, she had not taken it as the dogs did, but -allowed the dismay, the disenchantment, the consternation which -overwhelmed her to be seen in her face. Since then Joscelyn had -emancipated himself altogether from any bondage of affection or respect. -He frankly despised the woman he owned; despised her for her weakness, -for the interruptions of illness to which she was subject, for her -tremblings and nervous terrors, in short, for being a woman and his -wife. Their life together had contained scarcely an element of beauty or -happiness of any kind. She had remained with him by force of -circumstances, because it had never occurred to her as possible that she -could do anything else. In these days people did not think of obtaining -relief from the special burdens of their lives, or of throwing them off. -A woman who had a bad or unkind husband endured him, as she would in all -likelihood have endured a constitutional ailment, as a thing to be -concealed from others as much as possible and made the best of, without -seeking after doctors or medicines. It was a cross which had been put -upon her to bear. She had happened badly in the lottery of life, drawn a -bad number, an unhappy lot; but now there was nothing for it but to lie -upon the bed that had been made for her, and to cut her coat according -to her cloth. - -And thus life had gone on for five-and-thirty years. The number of -miseries that can be borne in that time is incalculable, as wonderful as -the tenacity with which human nature can support them, and rise every -morning to a consciousness of them, yet go on all the same, scarcely -less vigorous, in some cases more vigorous, than those to whom existence -is happiness. No one in the White House was happy after the age of -childhood, but nobody minded much except the mother, who had this -additional burden to bear that the expectation of at least some future -happiness in her children, never died out of her. Perhaps being no wiser -than her neighbours she missed some legitimate if humble happiness, -which she might have had, by not understanding how much real strength -and support might have been found in the stout and homely affection of -her eldest daughter, who was not in the least like her, and did not -understand her, nor flatter her with any sympathy, yet who stood -steadfastly by her and shielded her, and furthered her wishes when they -could be divined, with a friendly, half compassionate, sometimes -impatient support. But Joan had been critical from her very cradle, -always conscious of the “fuss” which her mother only became conscious of -making when she saw it in the half-mocking question in her children’s -eyes. No, Mrs. Joscelyn would have said to herself, Joan was a good -girl--though it seemed a misnomer to call her a girl, so mature as she -was, in some indefinable way older than her mother--a good girl; but not -one that was like her, or understood her, or knew what she meant. -Perhaps Harry might, if she could get any good of him, if she did not -always live in terror of a deadly quarrel between him and his father -which would drive her last boy from the house; and Liddy, little Liddy -would--no doubt Liddy would when she came back from her school. But all -her other children had been Joscelyns, not one of them like her. She was -even tremblingly conscious that Harry was growing less like her side of -the house every day; but she clung to her little girl as her perfect -representative, a last hope and compensation for the uncomprehended life -she had led all these weary years. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE YOUNGEST SON. - - -Harry Joscelyn had been said in the nursery to be a sweet-tempered -child; and he had lived upon the reputation through all the impatient -years of youth, during which he had not been sweet-tempered, but -decidedly “contrary,” as all the Joscelyns were. Notwithstanding the -fact that the Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves, and the -vague grandeur of their ancestry, education had always been a very -doubtful necessity in the house. Ralph Joscelyn himself had been at -school it was supposed in the natural course, and could write and read -and make up his accounts, which was all that was necessary; and it had -not occurred to him that his sons wanted more. Such nervous attempts as -their mother made to secure for them advantages to which she on her -side, as a clergyman’s daughter, attached a value which was more -superstitious than enlightened, only strengthened her husband’s -conviction that the ways of horses were much better worth learning than -anything that could be got out of books. Harry had been the exception; -he was the godson of an old uncle who lived in the nearest town, and who -also had a tidy bit of money to leave behind him, a qualification which -gave him great credit among his kinsfolks, and made his recommendation -potent. He it was who had procured for Harry the education which made -him superior to his brethren. Uncle Henry had gone so far as to permit -the boy to live in his house while he attended school, and as this -seemed a plain indication that the boy was to be his heir there had not -been a word to say against it. As for Mrs. Joscelyn, she had triumphed -sadly in the fate which satisfied her wishes while taking her solace -from her. She thought ever after that if Harry had not been taken from -her at that susceptible period of his life, he would have been a comfort -to her in his later years, and never would have forsaken his mother. But -we are all apt to find out afterwards the disadvantages which attend -every piece of good fortune. At the first proposal it had seemed -something too good to be hoped for. When it was intimated to her that -Harry was to go to the Grammar School at Wyburgh, at Uncle Henry’s cost, -and was to be housed under Uncle Henry’s roof and cared for by his -housekeeper, whose only fault was that she was too kind to the rough -boys--whom she only of all the dependants of the family, insisted upon -calling the young gentlemen--there was a sort of _Nunc Dimittis_ in Mrs. -Joscelyn’s heart. If only she could hope for anything as good for Liddy, -though Liddy was but a baby in those days! But when Harry, the one who -she fondly thought would understand her, was gone, his mother wrung her -hands over that as over so many other troubles. From that time forth she -had never again felt that he understood her. He veered from her side, to -which he had been so constant, and preferred the rough sports of the -other boys, and even to hear his father’s stories of desperate rides, -and cunning mares, and all the adventures of the stable, better than to -walk and talk with her as he had once done. Perhaps it was natural, no -doubt it was quite natural; but what is from one side the thing most -clearly to be expected, is often a most painful revelation on the other. -Harry was for five years in Uncle Henry’s house, during which time his -mother formed many fine visions of what might happen to him. She thought -he would most certainly get the exhibition and go to Cambridge, and -become a scholar like his grandfather, and might then perhaps eventually -become a clergyman, and afford her in the end of her life a refuge of -peaceful sweetness like that once lightly thought of, but now so fondly -looked back upon, sweet peaceful parsonage of her girlhood. But Harry, -as a matter of fact, was never within a hundred miles of the exhibition. -It was won by a lad who was nobody, who had no blood to speak of in his -veins, and nobody to care much whether he succeeded or not. Then Mrs. -Joscelyn thought that Uncle Henry would very likely draw that long -purse, which was supposed much longer at the White House than it was in -reality, and out of family pride, and to give himself the satisfaction -of a nephew at college, would send the boy to Cambridge, even without -the exhibition. But even that was not to be. - -Harry himself for his part was not very grateful to Uncle Henry for his -education. He would rather have been at home riding the colts, in the -middle of all the fun. And he was not very fond of the education, any -more than of the old man who gave it to him. He saw the disadvantages -much more than the advantages of his position, as most people, and -especially most young people, do. He had no fervid desire for learning, -though his mother thought so; and to be as quiet as a mouse in that -carefully arranged bachelor’s house was not half so pleasant as rushing -in and out after his own fancy at home. He obeyed while he was a boy, -but he was not grateful; and when he began to be a young man and the end -of his studies approached, he was neither grateful nor obedient. He went -in for all the sports in the neighbourhood, and persistently, though -without any temper, defied his uncle. The result was that instead of -being sent to Cambridge and made a scholar of and Uncle Henry’s avowed -heir, which was all on the cards at one time, Harry was placed in the -office in Liverpool where Uncle Henry had made his money. It was “a fine -opening,” the old man said; but it did not much please anybody -concerned. Mrs. Joscelyn felt as if she had tumbled from the top of the -stairs to the bottom when she heard that all her hopes were to come to -nothing better than this. And Harry himself who had begun to be proud of -his education, though he did not love it, went about with a very grave -countenance, furtively examining the faces of all concerned, that he -might see what hope there was of an alteration in his fate. But his -father had too many sons to quarrel with any provision for the youngest -of them, and his mother had no power whatever, and there was nobody else -who could help him. So he went to Liverpool at last, notwithstanding his -own and his mother’s reluctance, and once there soon began to appreciate -the advantage of his liberty and an income of his own. He had been -frugally bred, and had never known what it was to have money before. His -income seemed a fortune at first, but after a while Harry did not -consider it in this light; and to tell the truth his application to his -father for funds to push his fortune, to get advancement and a -partnership, meant also a something, a little margin to pay sundry debts -which his inexperience had been beguiled into, and which appalled him as -soon as he had discovered that his income was less inexhaustible than -he thought; and he had come home for his yearly holiday with the -determination, by hook or by crook, to get this change in his position -effected, and to be done with debt for ever and ever. - -The house in Liverpool where Uncle Henry had made his fortune was by no -means a great house. It had gone on very steadily since the old man -retired from it, and now there was a need for new blood. Harry had -explained all this when he went to see his uncle, and had done all that -was possible to do short of asking for the money to show to Uncle Henry -how highly expedient it was to “come forward” on such an occasion. But -the old gentleman had not taken the hint. And then Harry had spoken to -his mother, urging her to make an effort to get her own little fortune, -if possible, from his father’s hands, and invest it in the business. To -get it from his father’s hands! it would have been as easy to get him -the moon out of the skies. Mrs. Joscelyn would have set out on any -journey, would even have consented to be shot out of a big cannon, like -the hero of M. Jules Verne, in order to get her boy what he wanted. But -get it from his father! She sank back upon herself at the mere -suggestion. Nothing in heaven or earth was less possible. - -Then Harry had taken it in hand himself. He was not one who had ever -“got on” with his father. Notwithstanding his long absence from home, as -soon as they met it seemed that they could not avoid jangling. An -impulse to contradict everything his father said seemed somehow the -first thing in Harry’s mind; and Joscelyn himself, always dogmatical, -was never so much so, never so impatient of any expression of opinion as -when it was his youngest son who made it. It may be imagined then if -Mrs. Joscelyn had reason for her alarm when Harry at last took the bull -by the horns, as he said, and ventured to propound to his father the -tremendous idea that he wanted money. The young man was a little alarmed -by it himself. He took the bull by the horns with a weak rush at last, -his mind so deranged by the traditions of the house and the alarming -presence of his father, that his appeal was quite wanting in the -business-like form he had intended to give it. What he meant to say was, -that here was an excellent opportunity for investing a little money, -that it would bring in good interest, and would be perfectly safe, and -would give him a great step in life--all these things together. But -instead of this he blundered and stumbled, and gave his father to -understand that his mother was quite willing and anxious that her money -should be employed in this way, and that the return would be far better -if it were put into his hands than any other possible use of it could -give. - -“So you’ve been plotting with your mother,” Joscelvn had said. “What the -blank has she to do with it? What the dash does she mean by interfering? -I’ve a good mind to kick you out of the house--both her and you.” - -“It is her money,” said Harry, confronting his father; though, indeed, -had it not been for necessity and opposition the idea of anything -belonging to his mother was the last thought that would have occurred to -him. - -“_Her_ money!” Joscelvn had cried out in a tempest of scorn and wrath, -filling the room with whirlwinds of oaths; and what with the fierce -impulse of contradiction in him, and the desire he had to have his way, -Harry had felt his genuine germ of affection for his mother blown up -into red hot heat and passion by all that his father proceeded to say. -“_Her_ money! Let her dare to say it was her money--to a man that had -supported and put up with a dashed useless blank all this time that was -no more good in a house than an old rag! Let her just come and say it -was her money--he would show her the difference; he would tell her whose -money it was that kept up her dashed pretensions. To be sure it was a -lady she was--a parson’s daughter with a fortune of her own. Oh, dash it -all--her money; this was about too much for any man to bear.” Harry had -made a great effort to keep his temper, and he had allowed all this -flood to pour itself out. He was very much in earnest, and anxious, now -that he had opened the question, to get some advantage from it. Then he -tried another expedient. - -“I have never cost you a penny,” he said; “the others have all got -something out of you. You have never spent a penny upon me.” - -And then the veins swelled upon Joscelyn’s forehead. He swore half a -million of oaths, cursing his son by every possible mode of imprecation. - -“Cost me nothing! you dashed puppy!” he cried; “you’ve cost me a deal -more than money, you ----!” (Though it takes away the spirit and energy -of his style, and turns it into tameness, I cannot pretend to report Mr. -Joscelyn’s expletives, having no sufficient knowledge of the variations -to help me in rendering them) “You’ve cost me that woman’s dashed -smirking and smiling, and that old scarecrow’s brags and blows. I’d -sooner you had cost me a fortune. I’ve had that to put up with as I’ll -put up with again from nobody. Made me feel like a beggar, by ----! with -that old blank grinning at me, and poking his advices at me. If it was -for nothing but to spite him you shouldn’t have a penny from me.” - -“And do you mean to say,” cried Harry, indignant, “that you will -sacrifice my prospects to show your independence of my uncle? I could -believe a great deal of you, father (which was a wrong thing to say), -but I couldn’t have believed anything so bad as that.” - -And then it was that Joscelyn pushed back his chair, and clenched his -fist, and gave his son to understand what he thought of him. - -“There’s not one of the others but is worth two of you,” he said, -“they’re a bit like Joscelyns; you’re your mother’s breed, you -white-faced shop-keeping cur. And ask me to put my money in a filthy -concern across a counter, me that have the best blood in all Cumberland -in my veins, and my name to keep up; I’ll see you at--Jericho first; -I’ll see you in the churchyard first. D’ye think I want you to keep up -the family? If you were the heir there might be something to be said. -Heir, yes! and something worth being heir to: Joscelyns. Put your finger -on one blessed peerage in the country that has as good blood as mine to -go with it; but I’ve plenty of lads worth counting on, I don’t want -anything to say to you.” - -“Blood won’t do much for us, without a little money,” Harry said. - -“That shows what blood you’ve come of; your mother’s milk-and-water, not -mine. I can’t take the name from you----” - -“What do you mean?” cried Harry, springing to his feet. He had held -himself in so long that now his passion would have vent, though he knew -very well it was upon a fictitious occasion. “What do you mean?” he -cried; “do you mean to slander my mother?” and faced this domestic -tyrant with blazing eyes. - -Joscelyn laughed scornfully. - -“You can take it as you please,” he said. “You’re of her breed, not -mine. Flare up as you like, it don’t touch me. You’re a poor, weakly -piece of goods to carry a big name, but I can’t take it from you. Only -mind you what I say, don’t ask a penny from me, for you’ll not get it; -not a sixpence, not a farthing from me.” - -“I’ll never trouble you again, that you may be sure. It is now or -never,” cried Harry, worked to a pitch of passion which he could not -restrain. And again, Joscelyn laughed, with a shout that blew into -Harry’s indignant face, and moved his hair. - -This sensation half maddened the young man. He pushed away his chair, -throwing it down with a clang that rang over all the house, and crying, -“That’s settled, then!” darted out and flung himself forth, out of the -flush and heat of the quarrel into the cool and wintry freshness of the -night. - -Other interviews before this had ended in the same way. It is the worst -of domestic quarrels that they are endless and full of repetition. What -would be decisive between two friends is not decisive between two -members of the same family, who are forced to meet again, and go over -the same ground for scores of times. Harry Joscelyn had felt the same -tingle and thrill as of fire in his veins before now, the same -determination to fling out of sight, out of recollection of this tyrant -who was his father, and who became periodically insupportable to him. He -plunged out into the cold without any upper coat, his body all tingling -with heat and shame, as his mind did. Indeed, he was at a pass in which -body and mind so sympathize with each other as to feel like one. He sped -along the familiar road in the white soft mist of the moonlight. The -great slope of the Fells behind was the only object that loomed through -that faint vaporous atmosphere, in which the light seemed diffused and -disintegrated into a woolly confusing veil. The road lay between two -grey dykes; there were no trees or bushes to interrupt or throw shadows -into the general haze. He seemed to breathe it, as well as move in it; -and after the first minute it chilled him to the very marrow of his -bones. The whiteness made it colder, cold without and within, in the -body and in the mind. And gradually it had upon the heated youth the -effect of a cold bath, quenching out the warmth in him. His steps grew -less hurried, he began to be able to think, not only, with a furious -absorption over all his father’s words and ways, but with a recurring -thought of his overcoat, and all the comfort he might have got out of -it, which, though it was not a great matter, still gradually set up -something to balance the other matter in his mind. - -He walked quickly, his rapid youthful steps warning whosoever might be -out and about, of his approach. There was no doubtfulness in these -steps; he was not wandering vaguely, but had a certain end before him, -the parlour of the “Red Lion,” which had made his mother wring her hands -as much as all the other painful circumstances of the night. He had -persuaded himself, as soon as the first novelty of his return home was -over, that he had nowhere else to go. To sit between his mother and Joan -in the parlour, they could not suppose that a young fellow would do -that. Women are unreasonable; they had supposed it, not knowing in their -own accustomedness and unexpectancy how dull it was. There was nothing -very lively going on at the “Red Lion,” and a mother and sister might -have been excused for wondering what charm there was in the dull and -drowsy talk, the slow filling of glasses, the rustic opinions and -confused ideas of the company there. Harry did not find much charm in -it, but it was more congenial than sitting with the women. He was angry -when his father assailed his mother, feeling it a kind of assault upon -his own side, but his father’s ceaseless scorn of her, which he had -known all his life, had influenced him in spite of himself. To sit at -home with two women in a parlour was out of the question. The other -parlour was not entertaining, but it was not home, and that was always -something. The “Red Lion” was in the middle of the village, which lay on -a considerably lower level than that of the White House, clustered upon -the stream which divided the valley. It was quite a small stream -ordinarily, but at present it was swollen with spring rains and with the -melted snow, and made a faint roar in the night as it swept under the -bridge, with here and there a gleam of light reflected in it from the -neighbouring houses. It was not with any very highly raised expectations -that Harry turned his eyes towards these lights. He would get out of the -cold, that was one thing, and into the light, and would see something -different from his father’s furious countenance, or his mother’s pale -one, or Joan’s eyes, that paid attention to everything but her -knitting. How strange it is that home, which is paradise at five, and so -pleasant a place at fifteen, should be intolerable at five-and-twenty! -As he approached the corner at which, coming from his exile at Wyburgh, -he had first caught sight of the lights in the White House, he could not -help remembering the shout of delight he used to send forth. How -pleasant it had been to come home from Uncle Henry’s prim old place! but -what was home to him now? at the best a duty, a weariness. As he began -to think of this a kind of desire, a longing to go far away came over -him. Why shouldn’t he go away? His mother would not like it, but nobody -else would mind. His mother was the only creature, he reflected, whom he -cared for at home; and of course it was his duty to come and see her -from time to time. But an hour at the utmost exhausted what he had to -say to her; indeed, he had never had so much to say to her as it would -take an hour to tell. Half-an-hour, perhaps, now and then--that he would -like to keep up, just to please her; and it would please himself too. -But he did not care for any more. As for all the rest, he did not mind, -not he! if he never saw the White House again. - -Thus he was thinking as he hastened along the road, his hasty feet -ringing upon the path notwithstanding that it was somewhat damp and the -atmosphere dull, giving forth no particular echo. Some one else was -coming along the Wyburgh Road, a small uncertain blackness in the white -atmosphere. Harry knew very well at the first glance who it was, as -familiar a figure as any in the country side. Anybody would have known -him by his step even, that peculiar step as of one springy foot and one -shuffling one which gave a one-sided movement to the man, and an -unmistakable rhythm to the sound of him. Perhaps he knew Harry’s step -too, for he paused at the corner, turning his face in the way the young -man was coming. - -“Who will that be?” he said, in the obscurity, “if I’m no mistaken an -angry man--” - -“It’s I, Isaac,” said Harry, “angry enough if that would do me any -good.” - -“It’s you, Mr. Harry! that was what I thought. No, it does little good; -but so long as you wear it off in the feet of ye, my lad, and keep it -out o’ th’ other end--” - -“It’s very easy talking! Keep it out of the other end! I would like to -know for my part,” cried the young man, glad of utterance, “why old -folks should go against young folks in the way they do. It’s like a -disease, as if they couldn’t help it. The more reasonable a thing is, -the more they don’t see it. It’s enough to make a fellow break with -everything, and take himself off to the end of the earth.” - -“There might be sense in that--if the ends of th’ earth would take ye -from yoursel’, Mr. Harry. But that’s queer talking for the like of you -that have always had your own gate.” He had come close up to the young -man and was gazing keenly up at him. “Have you no had your ain gate? I -dreamt it then. T’ auld maister was o’ that mind.” - -“Uncle Henry?--Isaac, you’re a good old fellow--you’ve always been kind -to me; but don’t talk nonsense, if you please. Uncle Henry of that mind! -did he ever let me do anything I wanted to do? from the day I went to -him till the day I left.” - -“Tut, tut, Mr. Harry, he always wished you weel--always weel; and if you -have patience, you’ll get it all, every penny; just have patience,” the -new-comer said, patting Harry’s arm coaxingly. And then he drew a little -closer, still with his fingers on Harry’s arm. “And where may you be -going, my braw lad, at this hour of the night with your face turned from -home?” - -“Going? what does it matter where I am going. I don’t mind if it was -into the river there, or out of the world. Well, if you will have it, -I’m going to the ‘Red Lion’ to rest a bit and come to myself.” - -At this Isaac shook his head; he went on shaking it as if he had been a -little mechanical figure, which could not stop itself if once started. -“T’auld maister would never have allowed that,” he said. - -“What do I care for the auld master? I’m my own master, and nobody shall -stand in my way,” cried Harry, putting his hand in his turn on Isaac’s -arm, and swinging him out of the path. He was impatient of the -interruption. “I’ll go where I have a mind and bide where I have a mind, -and I would like to know who’ll stop me,” he cried. - -Isaac thus suddenly wheeled about and taken by surprise, went spinning -across the road, recovering himself with an effort. But he did not show -any anger. He stood looking after the young man as soon as he had -recovered his balance with a “Tck--tck--tck” of his tongue against the -roof of his mouth. “It’s my duty to see after him,” old Isaac said, at -length, slowly shuffling along in the young man’s steps. There was a -certain satisfaction in his tone. The “Red Lion” was forbidden -ground--still if there was a motive, a suitable reason for it. “Ay, ay,” -said Isaac to himself, “a plain duty; so far as I can tell, there’s -never a one to look the gate he’s going but only me.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -“THE RED LION.” - - -The parlour of the “Red Lion” was a room with a sanded floor, protected -on the side next the door by wooden barriers with seats fixed into them, -which acted the part at once of settles, and screens to keep out the -draught. There was a bright fire which kept it in a blaze of ruddy -light, outdoing the lamps, which were not remarkable for their -brilliancy. This fire was the great attraction of the place. The very -distant prospect of it, gleaming out into the night, warmed and cheered -the passer-by. It was like a lantern ever so far down the river side, on -which the back window, partially veiled with a bit of old red curtain -which let the light shine through and added a tone of warmth the more, -looked out. You saw this window from the Wyburgh Road, and from all the -cold flats of the water-side. The poor women at the Smiddy-houses, which -was the name of the hamlet to the west, thought it a snare of Satan, and -compared it vindictively to the red glaring eye of some evil spirit -lying in wait to devour the unwary. But unfortunately the men were not -of that opinion. Old Isaac, who was on his way home when he encountered -Harry, and who was perfectly sincere in his opinion that nothing could -be worse for his young master than to go to such a place, felt, -notwithstanding, in his own person a thrill of internal satisfaction -when he saw that it was his duty to follow and watch over the young -fellow. It was wrong--but it was exhilarating: instead of trudging -another slow mile home, to get into the corner of one of those wooden -settles and feel the glow of the generous fire, and imbibe slowly a -glass of “summat,” and suck slowly at the tube of a long clay pipe, and -make a remark once in five minutes to one of the neighbours, who each of -them took an equally long time to produce an original observation--had -all the delight of dissipation in it. Most strange of enjoyments! and -yet an enjoyment it was. To Isaac’s eye Mr. Harry did not, by any means, -get the same good out of it. He asked for “summat,” to be sure, like -the others, but swallowed it as if it had been medicine; and, instead of -reposing on the settle, sat with his head in his hands poring over an -old local paper, or walked restlessly about the room, now looking out at -the window, now penetrating into the bar; a disturbing influence, -interfering fatally with the drowsy ease of the place. Isaac was a man -who had a just confidence in his own power of setting things straight -and giving good advice, and had boldly faced temptation in his own -person in order to do a moral service to the young man, for whom he felt -a certain responsibility. But having done so much, he could not but feel -that the young sinner whom he had risked his soul for, should have -enjoyed it more. All the influences about the fire, the rest, the pipe, -the glass of “summat,” were adapted to produce a certain toleration and -deadening of the moral sense. Still the “Red Lion” was wrong; Isaac knew -that his missis gave forth no uncertain sound on this point, and, for -himself, he was also of opinion that it was wrong; but there could be no -doubt that it was pleasant. Mr. Harry, however, was not taking the good -of it as a man fully aware of the attractions of the place ought to do, -and this gave Isaac energy after a while to address certain -remonstrances to him. He went so far as to get up at last out of that -most desirable place in the corner of the settle near the fire. To -abandon that was a piece of self-denial that proved his sincerity in the -most striking way to himself, and could not fail, he thought, to -overcome even the scepticism of his missis. “I got a fine warm corner -just by t’ fire, wi’ a lean to my back and a table to hand, and aw as a -mon could desire; but I oop, and I’s after Mr. Harry. ‘Mr. Harry,’ says -I”--involuntarily this plea shaped itself in Isaac’s mind, as after much -hesitation he rose. He took a long pipe from the table, not caring to -give up his own, and put it in the corner to keep his place, though with -many doubts of the efficacy of the proceeding; for how could it be -expected that a new-comer, with the chill of the night upon him, would -abstain from taking possession of the coveted place when protected only -by so slight a sign of previous rights? “Keep an eye on t’ glass, will -ye?” he said to his neighbour in the other corner--hoisting himself up -with a suppressed groan. His clothes were hot to the touch with the -intense glow of the fire; but a labouring man who has been at work in -the cold all day can brave a great deal of warmth afterwards. Then he -went up to Harry, who just then had thrown himself into a chair near the -window, and tapped with his long pipe upon his arm. - -“Mr. Harry--summat’s amiss more than ornary. Nobody blongin’ would -approve to see ye here; but bein’ here, it’s expeckted as you’ll take -the good on it--and you’re getting no good on’t, Mr. Harry. Lord bless -ye, what’s gone wrong?” - -“Nothing you can help me in, Isaac,” said the young man. - -“Maybe no; but aw the same, maybe ay. I’ve put mysel’ in the way of harm -to be of service to you, Mr. Harry. I hope it’ll no be counted again’ -me. I’ve done what I donno do, not once in a three months. Not as -there’s much harm to be got here; but it’s exciting, that’s what it -is--carries a man off his feet that isn’t just settled and knows what -he’s doing. And when you made a sacrifice for a friend,” said Isaac, -with a wave of his pipe, “you donno like to think as it’s to be no use.” - -All this time the drone of the slow rural talk was going on, now and -then with an equally slow chuckle of laughter; a pipe waved occasionally -to help out a more than usually difficult delivery; a glass set down -with a little noise in the fervour of an address accomplished; a low -tranquil hum, provocative of slumber than excitement one would have -said; but Isaac thought otherwise. At a table in the room a few -card-players were gathering. And somebody with a new newspaper full of -novel information--the last was more than a week old--had just come in. -The young fellow, gloomy behind backs, and his Mentor, who was so kindly -devoting himself to his service, were losing all that was going on. To -make a little moral slip like this, and yet lose all the advantage of -it, was distracting. - -“Come, come, Mr. Harry,” Isaac said, probing him in the shoulder with -his pipe, partly encouraging, partly threatening, “out with it, man; or -else let it a be and take your pleasure--take your pleasure, bein’ here. -It’s not a place I’d bid you come--far from it. It’s running your head -into temptation, that’s the truth; but Lord bless us, bein’ in for’t -take the good on’t--that’s what I say.” - -The man with the paper was hovering about Isaac’s seat; but he was not -so habituated to extremes of temperature as Isaac. “No, no,” he said -with a chuckle, “I’m not a-going to roast yet a bit. Maybbe that’ll come -after; but I dunno who’d make a cinder of hissel’ as long as he can help -it. No, no, I’ll keep my distance; it’s like the fiery furnace in the -Bible--that’s what it’s like.” - -“It’s none too warm for me,” said the man at the other corner of the -fire--and then they all laughed, though why it would be hard to say. -Isaac watched this little episode at a distance, his eyes following his -inclinations, which were all with the humours of the “company.” He -chuckled, too, in a kind of regretful echo of their laughter; but he was -relieved to see that his place was still kept for him. He turned again -to Harry with that sense of losing all the fun, which made him vehement. -“Mr. Harry,” he said, “bein’ here, take your pleasure a bit! It don’t do -no more harm to be lively like, when you’re here, than to be i’ th’ -dumps. It’s again’ my principles; and it’ll be moor again’ me when the -missis comes to hear on’t--but, gosh! when a man _is_ here----” - -“You think he might as well get tipsy when he’s about it? I am much -obliged to you for your advice, but I don’t think I’ll take it, Isaac,” -said Harry. “Mind yourself, my old man, or there’s no telling what the -missis may say.” - -“That’s all your fun, Mr. Harry,” said Isaac with dignity; “there’s some -you might say that to; but I’m a moral man, and always was. You never -heard nought of the sort o’ Isaac Oliver. Coming here as I’ve told ye -is not a thing I hold wi’--short o’ a strong reason like the -present--short o’ plucking a brand out o’ t’ burning like I’m doing now, -you’ll not catch me night nor day, heat nor cold, in a public. I pass -the door,” Isaac said with pride, “ten times in a week or more, but who -e’er sees me turn in ’cept for a strong occasion like the present? Nay, -nay, if you were outside I’d go on my knees to ye to bide outside; but I -say again, master, bein’ here, why, it’s best to conduct yourself as if -you were here. What is the good o’ looking as if ye were at t’kirk? -You’re not at t’kirk, that’s the fac’. Bein’ here,” he continued, slowly -waving his pipe in the air, and giving himself over to his oratorical -impulse. “Bein’ here----” - -“Isaac--t’auld maister as you call him--is he at home?” - -This sudden interruption was very startling. Isaac had drunk little; but -there was a sort of imaginative intoxication abroad in the genial -atmosphere of the “Red Lion,” and he was infected with the drowsy -conviviality of the place, to which half shut eyes and a sleepy -complacency seemed habitual. This sudden question was like a _douche_ of -cold water in his face. He stopped short in his speech with a sort of -gasp, and stared at his companion. - -“Ay, master--he’s at home,” said Isaac, slowly; but being a prudent -Northcountryman he was sorry for this admission as soon as he had made -it; “if he haven’t started again,” he added, cautiously. “Now and again -he’ll start off----” - -“That’s nonsense,” said Harry, sharply. “I hope I know his ways as well -as you do. I’ll go and see him to-morrow and have it out.” - -“A man may change his ways,” said Isaac, oracularly. “Now and again -he’ll start off--givin’ no notice,” he added, with gradual touches of -invention; “restless like--old folks do get restless, and nobody can -deny that.” Then he paused, shuffling and embarrassed. “I wouldn’t, -Master Harry, if I was you,” he added, in a lower tone and with great -earnestness. “I wouldn’t, Master Harry, if I was you. T’auld master’s a -droll un. He’s fonder of you than e’er another; but he’ll never be -drove--what he’s going to do he’ll do right straight away. He’ll not be -asked. How do I know as you’re going to ask him for aught? I donno, and -that’s the truth; but I wouldn’t if I was you. Hev patience, just hev a -bit of patience, and ye’ll get it all. But he’ll never do what he’s bid -to do. You was always his pet, bein’ named for him, and so on. He’ll -leave you all he’s got if you’ll hev patience; but ask him and he’ll not -give a penny, not for the best reasons in all the world.” - -“Who said I wanted a penny from him?” said the young man, piqued. “You -are too fond of guessing, Isaac, my good fellow--you go too far.” - -Isaac made no immediate reply. He knocked out the ashes of his pipe -carefully against the window-ledge. “I’m maybe good at guessing,” he -said at length, slowly, with a grave countenance, “and maybe no. But I’m -your friend, Master Harry, and I ken t’ auld master. Them that meddles -with him does it at their peril. Don’t you go near him, that’s my -advice. You’ll hev it all, every penny, if you’ll hev a little patience. -He’s nearer eighty nor seventy, and he canno’ last for evermore.” - -“Patience!” cried Harry, tilting back his chair against the wall. It was -all very well for the elder people to have patience, for Uncle Henry, -perhaps, who had nothing but Death to wait for that always comes too -soon. But young Harry with life waiting for him, and advancement, and -all that youth can give--youth that only comes once, and lasts but a -little while; for him it was a very different matter. And his heart was -hot with passion against his father, and against fate, which seemed to -shut him in. He was too much excited to keep his voice under control as -he had been doing. “Patience!” he cried. “Pah! if that’s all, you can -keep your advice to yourself.” - -This sounded something like a quarrel, and the “Red Lion” was too warm -and drowsy and comfortable to like the idea of a quarrel. The people -about looked dimly round from amid the smoke; and a good-humoured person -at the card-table was amiable enough to put himself in the breach. “Nay, -nay, my young gentleman,” he said; “patience, bless you’s for them that -can’t play at nought else. Take a hand at cribbage, that’s your sort. -Whist if ye like, that’s all the fashion; but to my mind cribbage is the -game----” - -“Ay, ay, master, a grand game,” said two or three together, wagging -their beards in civil backing up of the first speaker, who stood smiling -at the table, running the cards through his hands like a stream of -water. They all looked vaguely at Harry with a general look of -invitation and goodwill in their eyes. The atmosphere of the “Red Lion” -was against all strenuous action. The warmth which was so cheerful and -bright made them all drowsy. They sat and blinked at it with pleasure -and peacefulness, purring softly in the pervading warmth. What had young -Harry to do in such a sleepy place? He let his chair come down to the -floor with a noise that made the convives jump, and laughed, chiefly at -himself. “Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll take a hand since there’s -nothing else to do.” - -So rapid were the young man’s movements that Isaac, not so impetuous, -was left, standing in the same spot looking at the chair now standing -composedly on its four legs for a minute after Harry had taken his place -at the card-table. Isaac was astonished, but he was relieved as well. He -came back slowly to the corner of the settle, looking at his pipe with -an air of remonstrance, but gradually feeling his cares relax, and the -pleasure of coming back to the company. “I’m bound to say,” was his -first utterance, as he put himself once more into the corner and -stretched his legs in front of the fire, “as people couldn’t behave -more honourable. I never expected to get my own place again.” - -“Sommat oop?” asked his neighbour on the settle, with a thrust of his -elbow towards Harry. Isaac thrust up his shoulders to his ears, and -shook his head. - -“There’s always summat oop,” said Isaac, oracularly, “as long as there’s -lads at home.” - -“And that’s true,” said another, who took the opportunity to illustrate -the statement by a long and tedious story, which had been simmering in -him all the evening. After this the place relapsed into its usual -aspect. The two or three men about the fire basking in the warmth -listened with a mild interest to the slow current of the tale, and -supplemented it by anecdotes of their own of a like tedious and -inconsequent kind. But nobody was bored; the talkers were pleased with -themselves, and the listeners did their part very steadily, not troubled -by any idea of dulness. Isaac, sitting well up in his corner, so warm -that his corduroy almost burned him when he laid his hand accidentally -upon it, felt for his part that if it had not been well understood to be -the very doorway and vestibule of another place, the parlour of the “Red -Lion” would be a kind of little Paradise. Perhaps it was the terribly -wicked and risky character of the enjoyment which gave its humdrum -drowsiness so great a charm. As the evening got on the drowse increased; -one or two even fell half asleep in their seats, and a reflective air -stole on the “coompany.” The gentleman who had the ear of the house -prosed on, taking a minute’s rest between every two words; but nobody -budged. An alarmed thought of the missis did indeed now and then come -over Isaac’s mind, but he was too tranquil, too comfortable, too warm to -take such a decisive step as would be necessary to raise himself from -the embrace of the settle and get under weigh. All this time, however, -there was a little stir at the card-table, which pleased the audience -round. When there was any special success, they would pause in their -anecdotes and listen, with drowsy smiles. This gave a sort of rollicking -character, which would otherwise have been wanting to it, to the placid -gaiety. One of the quiet drinkers now and then nudged his neighbour, and -asked him what he thought the stakes were. “As much as would be a fortin -for you or me,” Isaac said, and there was a flutter of respectful -admiration. Perhaps Isaac knew that he was exaggerating. He did it for -the honour of the family, of which he was through his master a kind of -relation. It was in character with the wild immorality of an evening in -the Red Lion that the young men should be playing for high stakes; and -this idea made the others enjoy themselves still more. When they came -out, the misty whiteness of the atmosphere had cleared off a little, and -consolidated itself into dark shadows in all the corners, and a flood of -faint moonlight dimly marking the gray fells and the dark treeless -country, with its dim lines of dykes and square grey limestone houses. -Harry Joscelyn was one of the last to leave; he stood upon the bridge -for some time talking with young Selwyn, with whom he had been playing. -Isaac thought it was for his own confusion that the young man lingered. -The sentiments likely to be entertained by the Missis became more and -more clear to Isaac with every step he took after he was forced to get -up from his comfortable corner in the settle. But he was still warm -without and within, his corduroys keeping the heat of the fire even to -the touch after their long baking, and his heart kept up by the -strengthened influence of all that he had swallowed. It confused his -head a little too, making it drowsy but kindly. It was through a faint -little steam as of “summat” warm, dispensing its odours liberally into -the air, that he seemed in imagination to see his own door, and the -wrathful countenance that would look out from it; but the cold outside -made this picture a great deal clearer by degrees, though it did not -clear his faculties. His partial obfuscation however did not make him -less sensible of his duty towards his master’s godson. He had sacrificed -himself, he had incurred all those expressions of the missis’s feelings, -which were already prophetically sounding in his ears, for Harry’s -sake--and he could not go away now without another word. “As well be -hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” he said to himself, when the others -went clattering over the bridge and along the branching ways with their -heavy boots, almost all of them feeling a good deal of alarm about the -sentiments of the missis; but as Isaac lingered in the cold moonlight -kicking his heels, the uneasiness grew with every moment that passed. -She would hear old Jack Smethurst stumble down the way to his cottage, -and she would prepare a still sharper rod in pickle for Isaac later -still. “As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” he repeated to -himself. How those young fellows did talk! and what could they have to -talk about after spending all the blessed night playing their games. Ah! -devil’s books those cards were, beguiling folks on and on. Isaac fell -half asleep, leaning against a corner in the shadow of the “Red Lion.” -The lights were already out in that deserted place. There would be no -gleam from the window to keep him a little cheery as he plodded down the -waterside. And what a clatter these young fellows made! What could they -have to talk about? He leaned against the wall and let his head droop on -his breast, and for a minute or two Isaac was blissfully unconscious of -everything; but at the end of that time he came to himself suddenly, and -felt that his corduroys had got quite cold, and that it was very chilly, -that the young men were still talking, and that he had begun to shiver. -It was cruelty to keep him there, kicking his heels. All the village -seemed so still, no lights anywhere, and the landlord of the “Red Lion” -turning the key in the door before he mounted up the creaking stairs to -bed. The creaking of these stairs went to Isaac’s heart, and the idea of -being up later than the landlord of the tavern, the abode of -dissipation, of which the whole valley entertained a wholesome -distrust--to be out too, at that terrible hour, and still to have a mile -to walk, and a talk at the end of it, all for one unruly young fellow -that would stand and jabber there with young Selwyn, whom he could see -quite easily to-morrow if he pleased. “He’s drunk, that’s it,” Isaac, -half asleep, chilled, frightened, and remorseful, and glad to think the -worst he could of Mr. Harry, said to himself. And then there was an -unexpected aggravation; all at once when he had got his back comfortable -at a new angle of the wall, lo! the two shook hands, and went off in a -moment, one to the right hand, the other to the left, without any -warning to Isaac. He had to pull himself up with a start, and the -trouble he had to get himself into motion was as great as if he had been -a cranky steam-engine, one of those things (he reflected, muddled, but -all the more ingenious) where you have to turn a wheel here and touch a -spring there--while all the while Mr. Harry’s steps were audible, young -and light, skimming along the road ahead of him. He had to call after -him, waking all the echoes, and making the most portentous noise as he -lumbered along in his heavy boots, doing what he could to run. Luckily -Harry heard him and stopped, just as he came to the cross roads. “Who is -that calling me?” he said. - -“It’s me, Mr. Harry. Lord bless ye, stop a moment. I’ve got a--word to -say--Mr. Harry,” cried Isaac, panting. “Is that a way to keep your -friends easy in their minds, to stand aw that time i’ the’ dark at the -dead hour o’ th’ night, jabbering nonsense with another as ill as -yourself? How are ye to give an account for this night, if there were no -more? and leading others into an ill gate. What would t’ auld maister -say,--or your missis if ye’d got a missis?” - -“Poor old Isaac!” said Harry, laughing; “so that’s what you’re thinking -of. I haven’t got a missis. I am thankful. It is you that have got to be -lectured to-night. Tell her it was all my fault.” - -Isaac seemed to take no notice of this contemptuous recommendation. He -stuck himself against the wall that bordered the road, as a -precautionary measure against fatigue and sleep, and the effect of the -not extravagant potations in which he had been indulging. “I want to -say--a serious word to ye. I have got something to say.” - -“Then say it and make haste,” Harry cried, “don’t you feel how cold it -is, and the moon will set directly? I want to get home to bed.” - -“Oh-h,” cried old Isaac: “as if I wasn’t colder and worrider than the -like of you; and more burdened with a nervousness--like--what you might -call a nervousness for--the walk at the dead o’ t’night and sich like. -But I’ve got a word to say. Mr. Harry, you’ll no go near t’auld master? -Try anybody but him. I’ve set my heart on’t that you should get his -money at the end, and so you will if you’ll hev patience, just hev a -little patience; but don’t ye go asking money of him now; don’t you do -it, Mr. Harry, and spoil aw--” - -“You old ----,” here Harry paused; “is this all you stopped me for? Well, -you mean well, Isaac. Go home to bed, and let’s hope the missis will not -tear all the hair out of your head.” - -“I scorn aw that,” said Isaac with a wave of his hand, though his teeth -chattered. “I winna take the trouble to give it a denial; nay, nay, -settle your ain affairs atween you and her when ye hev got a missis o’ -your ain; I can manage mine,” he said with a little rueful sigh and -contraction of his breast. He thought he could see her looking out from -the cottage door, and his very soul trembled. “Me, I can manage mine,” -he repeated, then added, “but, Mr. Harry, come back to the right -question. Hev a little patience; if it was to get me a beatin’ (and she -has not the strength for that) I must say it afore we part. Let him be; -hev a little patience. If it was my last breath I could give you no -different advice.” - -Harry paused a moment between offence and gratitude. Then he suddenly -gripped Isaac’s hand, “You mean me well,” he said, “and I’ll take your -advice, Isaac. Here, lad, you’ve always been a friend, wish me good luck -and good-night.” - -“And that I do from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Harry. But gang no more -to the ‘Red Lion;’ it leads you into many a temptation. Good luck, to -ye, my young gentleman, wherever you may go--so long as you’re no going -to Wyburgh to fright t’auld master out of his wits.” - -“And good night, Isaac, and I wish you well through with the missis,” -cried Harry with a laugh, as he went on waving his hand. Isaac stood for -a moment looking after him as his alert young figure went off into the -distance; then he sighed a sigh, “I wish you well, my lad, if I should -never see you again,” he said, with a perturbation which referred to his -own troubled mind rather than Harry’s prospects; and so turned his face, -alarmed yet sustained by conscious virtue, to his own house. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -OUTSIDE THE DOOR. - - -The moon was getting low, and threw a level and somewhat sinister light -into the lower windows of the White House as Harry came within sight of -home. In that bare country, with so few trees to break the light, all -the changes in the heavens had a direct influence upon the earth, -darkening and lightening it with instantaneous sympathy, such as is not -felt in regions less exposed. This special aspect of the light -reflecting itself feebly in the lower windows, gave the house the -appearance of wearing, as a human countenance sometimes does, a pale and -unpleasant smile upon its lips, in which the rest of the face was not -involved. The young man did not pay any attention to this at the moment, -but when he thought afterwards of the aspect of the place, this was the -look that occurred to him; a pale smile, full of mocking and derision; -the smile of one cognizant of unknown evil which was about to overwhelm -an unsuspecting victim, and taking pleasure in it. - -He went up quite calmly to the door. On ordinary occasions it was not -necessary for Harry even to knock; his mother, who disapproved as much -of the “Red Lion” as Isaac Oliver himself, was always on the watch, -stealing down through the dark house in noiseless slippers to let him -in, lest he should disturb his father and a quarrel should ensue. Very -often, Harry was aware, she was at the window looking out for him, -sitting alone in the darkness waiting till she heard his step. He was -aware that one way or another she was always on the watch. This, -however, did not disturb him, or dispose him to give up his own way of -spending the evening. He was not a bad son--certainly he had not the -least intention of being so: but that he should change his habits, or do -anything he wished not to do, because of his mother’s little feeble -anxieties, was a thing which had not occurred to him. All the family -knew that she was given to “making a fuss.” Harry supposed she liked to -sit up and watch for him. Why should she do it if she didn’t like it? it -would be a great deal easier to let him have the key, or tell a servant -to sit up. But she liked it; she liked to wait for him at the window, -and start up as soon as she heard any sound. Women do; or so, at least, -Harry supposed. Joan, to be sure, had never shown the least inclination -to do this; but then, one of Joan’s chief distinctions was that she was -but little of a woman at all. He came up to the door as usual and stood -there for a moment without excitement, listening for the little stir -within, which had never failed him, the soft, hesitating, noiseless -step, the little sweep of the dress. He stood for a minute looking about -him; the moon was quite low in the sky, throwing his shadow before him -upon the door, so black and close to him that he was startled for a -moment as if it had been a ruffian facing him, and shining chilly, with -that sinister look which he had already remarked, in the parlour window. -That was his mother’s post when she watched, looking out for him; he had -seen the bit of the shutter open, night after night, just enough to see -through without being herself perceived, if (an unlikely hypothesis), -anyone but Harry should pass that way. But the shutter was closed -to-night, and did its share of reflection, sending out a dull glimmer -from its dark paint. All was perfectly silent in the house. - -He could not think what had happened. He walked back a little and -contemplated the place, which now looked as if a hood had been drawn -over the upper part, leaving that uncomfortable light below. Now that he -was standing still, Harry felt the chill of the night air, which had -been agreeable to him before. He began to stamp with his feet to keep -them warm, and to attract, if possible, the notice of his mother. What -did she mean by paying no attention? She had always heard him before he -came near the house, always been ready for him before he reached the -door. If she had not accustomed him to this, Harry thought, he would -have found some other way of getting admission, though he scarcely knew -how; and he grew impatient, and very much annoyed and angry with her. To -keep him waiting out here at midnight in the cold; it was out of the -question! what could she be thinking of? At the same time, he did not -want to rouse his father, and run the risk of another encounter. To meet -a woman’s reproaches, who is silenced if you speak a little loud, and -is pretty sure to cry at the end, is one thing--but to meet a furious -man is quite another. The first risk was not worth taking the trouble to -avoid, but Harry felt that it was certainly wiser to keep clear of the -other. He had no desire, accordingly, to arouse the house; but at the -same time, to be left standing there, chilled to the bone, was out of -the question. After he had walked about for a time, impatiently, but -with some precaution, he went so far as to knock at the door. There was -no bell, nor if there had been one would he have ventured to ring it, -for a bell is alarming, pealing into the silence of a shut up house. His -soft knocking, however, did no more good than his other attempts to make -himself heard. What could it mean? He got colder and colder externally, -while within him his temper kindled. What did she mean by leaving him in -the lurch? If a mother was good for anything, surely it was to keep her -son out of trouble, to shield him from another quarrel. She made fuss -enough about the quarrel when it occurred, but now she was allowing -things to take their chance, letting that happen as ill-luck directed, -nay, bringing the quarrel on, her son felt, indignantly; for if she had -never made a practice of opening to him, probably he would not have made -a practice of going out, and would not have exposed himself to the -storm, which was sure to come now. The moonlight stole away by degrees -even from the lower windows, putting out one reflection after another, -and disappearing at last with a sinister twinkle, as if of triumph. -Though the moonlight had seemed the quintessence of cold and dreariness, -yet the blackness of night seemed still colder and drearier after it was -gone. He seemed to have been hours standing before that door: and it was -out of the question! he would not bear it any longer, happen what might. -He began to knock loudly, filling all the dreary echoes with sound; but -still nobody stirred in the house. - -He had not carried this on for above a minute, however, when a faint -something seemed to stir in the darkness behind. There was the faint -hiss of a “Hist!” and, he thought, his own name. He turned round to see -if perhaps his mother had chosen this time to open the back-door instead -of the front, and with a muttered denunciation of her caprice took his -way to the supposed opening. It was so dark now that he stumbled even -round those corners which were so well known to him. He was relieved, -yet it made him angry to be obliged to have recourse to a back way. -Could anything be more foolish, he thought, than to change thus without -cause or warning? - -“Where are you? What’s the matter that I can’t come in as usual?” he -said, crossly, as he groped his way among tubs and piles of wood. - -“Hush!” said some one, “hush, for heaven’s sake!” - -It was not his mother’s voice. And there, in the corner among the -washhouses and other offices, he saw a glimmer of something white. - -“Good Lord! Joan! what’s the matter with my mother?” he cried. - -“Hush! Nothing’s the matter with mother; father’s got her locked up, -that is all; and it’s all your fault. Come on, and hold your tongue now -you are here.” - -It was a sort of little shed in which she stood, and he could see -nothing but the whiteness of her nightdress, over which she had thrown a -cloak. - -“Things have gone just as wrong as can be,” she said; “warm your hands -at the copper, you’ll not find a fire indoors. He’s cracked, I think; -and so are you too, for ever running to that ‘Red Lion.’ What is there -that’s so entertaining? If there’s any fun to be had I’d like to go -too.” - -“There’s no fun--that you could understand,” said Harry. - -Joan laughed; she stood close to the copper in the dark, warming -herself, and so did he. It was a kind of little excitement to her, she -who had so few excitements, to have had to get up, as she expressed it, -in the middle of the night to let her brother in. And though she was -sagacious enough not to put much confidence in the “fun” of the “Red -Lion,” still it represented jollity and wildness to her as well as to -Isaac Oliver. She laughed. - -“Oh, you’re very grand, I know; women folk can’t understand, you are -cleverer than we are. But I wonder you can be so easy pleased; if young -Selby and Jim Salkeld, and the common men of the village, are very -entertaining at the ‘Red Lion,’ it’s more than they are in any other -place.” - -“What do you know about it?” cried Harry. - -She laughed again, which was exasperating. Young men take nothing more -amiss than an impertinent woman’s doubts as to the brilliancy of the -entertainment in those haunts which are sacred to their own special -enjoyment. He knew very well at bottom that the “Red Lion” was as dull -as ditchwater; but nothing would have made him confess it; where else, -he said to himself, had he to go? - -“You had better mind your own concerns,” he said, “I’ll get my amusement -my own way. Has there been a row that mother’s not here? I don’t mean to -say that I am not obliged to you, Joan, for getting out of bed to let me -in. By Jove, if I had been shut out I know what I’d have done! Was there -a great row?” - -“What would you have done?” said Joan, still half laughing; then she -started and with a little cry, said, “What’s that?” - -“What’s what? I’ll tell you this, I should never have crossed the door -again in daylight, be sure of that, that was shut to me in the night.” - -Before he had finished this speech, Joan clutched him by the arm. - -“Don’t you hear something?” she said, “come in, come in, don’t lose a -minute. What if he should lock the kitchen door? Harry, promise me -you’ll not stop to say a word, but run up to your bed.” - -She was hurrying while she spoke, through the series of outbuildings, -dragging him with her, breathless, and speaking in gasps. But as they -went on from one to another there could be no longer any doubt as to -what had happened. The kitchen door, which opened from these offices, -was shut with a loud jar, and the key turned. - -“I dunno’ who’s out and about at this hour of the night,” Joscelyn was -heard within, “but whoever it is they’ll stay there: some o’ the women -out like the cats, dash them, or may be a good-for-nothing lad. I’ll -teach them what it is to roam the country o’ nights. You’ll stay there -whoever you are.” - -Joan lost all her self-command in the emergency. She dropped Harry’s -hand and threw herself against the door. - -“Oh, father, father, open! do you hear me? It’s me, Joan. Open! will you -let me bide out in the cold, in the dead of night? Father! let me in, -let me in! you wouldn’t have the heart to shut me out all night. It’s -me, _me_, Joan!” - -There was no reply; his steps were heard going away mounting the stairs, -and a faint outcry in the distance as of the mother weeping and -protesting. Joan, who was a very simple person, though so self-commanded -in emergencies which her mother could not face, was altogether taken by -surprise by this. She flung herself against the door with a burst of -weeping. - -“Oh, open, open!” she said, beating upon it with her hands. Then she -called out the names of the servants one after another. “I’ll not be -left here all the night; open, open! do you hear! I’ll not be left here -all the night. I’ll die if I am left out in the dark. I’ll not be left!” -she cried with a shriek. - -Harry was silenced by this loud and sudden passion so close to him. It -alarmed him, for Joan was the impersonation of strength and calm; but -the situation was uncomfortable enough, however it could be taken. The -consciousness that he had some one else to think for, some one who for -the present had lost her head, and all power to think for herself, -changed his own position. He caught his sister by the arm. - -“Don’t make such a row,” he said, “Joan, you! that was always against a -fuss.” - -“Oh,” cried Joan half wild, “did I ever think that I’d be shut out like -a bad woman out of the house at the dead of night--me! that was always -the most respectable, that never stirred a step even in the evening -times, or said a word to a man. Open! it isn’t the cold, it’s the -character: me! me!” - -But all her beating and knocking, and all her prayers were in vain. The -maids slept soundly, all but one trembling girl who heard the voice -without knowing whose it was, and dared not get up to see what was the -matter, especially as she heard mysterious steps going up and down -stairs. And the mistress of the house sobbed in her chamber in the dark, -wringing her hands. She had come almost to the length of personal -conflict with her husband for the first time in her life; but poor Mrs. -Joscelyn even in her despair was no sort of match for the man who lifted -her, swearing and laughing, into her bed, and locked the door upon her -when he went downstairs. He came up and fiercely ordered her to be -silent. - -“Dash you, hold your blanked tongue. I’ve taken it into my own hands, -and if you venture to interfere I’ll pitch you out of window as soon as -look at you,” he said, “a deal sooner for that matter--for you’re not -tempting to look at, you dashed white-faced ----” - -“Yes, do,” she cried, “throw me out of the window, throw me out to my -children. I’d rather be dead with my children than living here.” And she -rushed to the window and threw it open; but he caught her before she -could throw herself out, and perhaps, poor woman, she would not have -thrown herself out; for “I dare not” very often waits upon “I would” in -such circumstances. He carried her back crying and struggling to her -bed. Though he had not hesitated to turn the key upon his son and -daughter, he had no desire to have it whispered in the country side that -his wife had thrown herself out of window, because of his cruelty; but -he could not resist giving her a shake as he threw her upon her bed. - -“I’d never have had any fuss in my family if it hadn’t been for you; -just you budge at your peril,” he said, threatening her with his fist. -And there she lay with the cry of her daughter in her ears, and the -sound of the knocking that seemed to be upon her heart. To tell the -truth she was not very anxious about Joan. Joan would have a bad cold, -that would be all the damage she would take; but Harry, Harry! what -would Harry do? - -When Joan had beat the door and her knuckles almost to a jelly, she came -to a sudden pause. In a moment her mood changed; her passion wrought -itself out almost as suddenly as it began. - -“Well, if I can’t have the door opened I’d best give up trying,” she -said all at once. Her hands were fatigued with knocking, and her feet -with kicking. She was hoarse, and her eyes ached with the hot tears that -had poured from them. She came to herself with a sudden sense of -shame--she who was so strenuous in her opposition to a fuss. She had no -sense of cold now, her shawl hung off her shoulders with the fervour of -her efforts. “My word, but I’ll give it to those lasses,” was the next -thing Joan said: and then she laughed at herself to carry off her sense -of shame. - -“We’re both in the same box, Harry,” she said, “well! two together isn’t -so bad as one alone; come back to the washhouse. I’m glad I told them to -light that copper--if it wasn’t a providence! we’ll sit us down there -and keep warm; and don’t you take on, my lad. It’s not so very long to -day.” - -When she recovered, however, it was Harry’s turn. He followed her back -to the copper without a word. He even pulled the bench on which the tubs -stood close to that centre of warmth for her, and got her something on -which to put her feet. By this time a certain pleasure in the novelty of -the situation had arisen in Joan’s mind. “My word, I made a fine noise. -Mother will be in a terrible way, that’s the worst of it. As for father -I’ll pay him out. Don’t you be afraid; he’ll repent the night he meddled -with Joan; and I’ll give it to the maids. Just as likely as not he’s -taken away the key; but bless us all, what’s the good of being a woman -if you can’t find out a way? I’d have done it if he’d stood over me with -a drawn sword. But, Harry, you never speak a word. Are you cold? come -and sit here by me on the warmest side. ’Twill be as cosy here as if you -were in a pie; and I’ll give you a bit of my shawl. Come, lad! pluck up -a heart: I’ve nigh cried my eyes out; but that does no good. I can’t see -you, Harry; but I know you’re down, though I can’t see.” - -“Down!” he said, “Can a fellow be anything but down with a raging wild -beast for a father, and shut out of every shelter through a cold spring -night.” - -“That’s very true,” said Joan, “and I’m no example, as you’ve seen; but -still I’m in the same box if that’s any consolation.” - -“No, it is no consolation,” said Harry; “it makes it worse; for if you -are here perishing of cold it’s all on my account.” - -“I’m not perishing of cold. I’m as hearty as a cricket. If he thinks -he’ll break my spirit he’s much mistaken; and that’s all about it. It -did touch me the first minute. I feel that I was just a big baby. But -after all, Harry, if you will stay out till all the hours of the night, -and go to that ‘Red Lion,’ which is known to have ruined many a lad----” - -“Oh, hold your tongue about the ‘Red Lion!’--you are as bad as old -Isaac. Where am I to go?” - -“What’s to prevent you biding at home?” said Joan. “Dear me, you’re not -such a deal better than I am, Harry Joscelyn. Where do I ever go? I’ve -been as young as you once upon a time, and what diversion was ever given -to me? and I’m not to say so dreadful old yet. Can you not put up for a -week with what I have put up with all my life?” - -“You don’t understand--it’s quite different,” said Harry, hotly; “you’re -a woman, you’re an old--Good Lord, can’t you see the difference? Where -should you be but at home? but what would you have _me_ do, stuck -between two women and that--that father of mine?--” Harry here menaced -the dark world with his fist, and burst, in his turn, into an outcry of -passion. “I’ll neither sleep under his roof nor call him father, nor -reckon myself to belong to him more! You hear what I say, Joan; you can -bear witness. Not if I were to starve; not if I were to die; not if I -were to cadge about the streets!--White House has seen the last of me. -You can tell my mother I think upon her: but she must not expect ever to -see me again.” - -“Tut, tut,” said Joan, tranquilly; “to be sure you must have your fling. -Ay, ay, say away, my lad; it’s always a relief: and we’ll not keep you -to it when you come to yourself.” - -“That’s well for you, Joan,” said her brother; “but for me, I don’t mean -to come to myself. He’s done it, I can tell you. What did he ever do for -me? but if he had been the best father in the world now he’s made an -end of it. Am I to be treated like this, home on a visit and I cannot -put my affairs before him, and ask for my share to buy me into the -business, but I’m met with abuse: and when I go out for a little peace -the door’s shut upon me. You can do what you please, but I’ll not stand -it. We’ve all lived a wretched life, but I’ll make an end of it. Don’t -you think it’s all a flash-in-the-pan, and that I don’t mean what I -say.” - -“Well, well, lad--if it keeps your spirits up a bit. Are you not sleepy? -Let’s make the best of it. Harry: after all it’s but one night. Though -this is not to call an easy seat. I’m that sleepy I shall go off, I know -I shall. If you see me tumbling be sure you catch me. I cannot keep -awake another minute. Good night, lad, good night.” - -This was half real, on Joan’s part, and half put on to calm her brother -down; but in that part of her intention she was not very successful. -After a while she really did as she had threatened, and fell into a -sound, if uneasy, sleep. But Harry had no inclination that way. He sat -and pondered over all his wrongs, and as he mused the fire burned. What -was home to him?--nothing. A place where there was no peace--a -pandemonium--and when there was either quarrelling or dulness--dulness -beyond description; either a fight with his father or a drowse by his -mother’s side--that was all the comfort he had of his home. And after -all, when he put the question to himself, and nobody else interfered, he -was obliged to allow that the entertainment at the “Red Lion” was not of -a very exciting character. There was not much in that to make up for the -want of everything else. He sat upon the edge of the copper dangling his -legs, and, notwithstanding that warmth, the chill of the night got into -his heart. He had no overcoat, as his mother had remembered, when he -went out; and as the slow moments passed on, the night became -intolerable to Harry, and the sense that his enemy, his father, was -chuckling in the warmth upstairs over his outcast condition, distracted -him with impotent rage. Never again would he subject himself to such a -shame. He clenched his fist and made a vow within himself, while Joan, -leaning her head against him, slumbered uneasily. After a while Joan had -a little shock in her sleep, half woke, and felt her pillow displaced, -and dreaming, not knowing where she was, threw herself back against the -copper and settled down somehow again. She dreamt there had been an -earthquake, and that the copper itself was a volcano and had made an -eruption and tumbled down upon her, catching her fast by the feet. A -little after, poor Mrs. Joscelyn, lying awake crying silently and saying -her prayers over and over again, heard a handful of gravel flung -violently against her window and the sound of footsteps. What did it -mean? The tyrant had gone to sleep a few minutes before, and he slept -heavily. She crept out of bed with a sinking heart, and after a great -deal of alarmed searching found the keys, of her own room first, and -then of the doors below. She did not even turn to find something to -cover her, but fled downstairs, like a ghost, with her naked feet and a -wild flutter in her heart. When she made her way with some difficulty to -the place where her children had found refuge, she came just in time to -deliver Joan, who had almost broken her neck in her struggles to get out -of the way of the earthquake, and was lying, with her head back and her -mouth open, among the tubs. Though she was conscious of being in some -convulsion of nature it was not easy to wake Joan, and there was no one -else to be seen. Mrs. Joscelyn, with her candle in her hand, went -searching into every corner while her daughter picked herself up. -“Harry,” she cried, “Harry! oh where is my boy?” There was not a trace -of him about; not even an impromptu couch, like Joan’s, made up of -benches and washing tubs. The mother flitted about into all the offices, -while Joan roused herself with many yawns, rubbing her stiff neck and -knotting up her straggling locks, and gathering her shawl round her -shoulders. “Oh that copper,” Joan was saying, “it’s been the saving of -my life.” - -“But where is my boy? Oh! Joan, what have you done with him? Where is my -boy?” - -“I have not got him in my pocket,” Joan said, with a sleepy smile. Then -as she roused herself quite up, “To be sure, mother, the lad’s not a -fool though we give him the credit of it. He’s gone back to his blessed -‘Red Lion,’ and is safe in his bed, as I would like to be. And if I had -let him alone and not poked in where I wasn’t wanted, there’s where he -would have been from the first. You see that’s just your way. I have a -little bit of it in me, if not much; and, instead of letting him be, I -must meddle. But he’s safe in his bed at the ‘Red Lion;’ and you’d -better go back to yours, and let me go to mine, and make the best of a -bad night.” - -“I cannot think he has gone to the ‘Red Lion,’” said Mrs. Joscelyn, -standing in her white nightdress, with her glaring candle, against the -great darkness of the night in the doorway, and investigating the gloom -by that poor assistance with her anxious eyes. - -“Then where else would he go to?” Joan said. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -A NIGHT WALK. - - -The moon had set when Harry Joscelyn left the White House; and the night -was very dark, as it is so often after the setting of the moon. The sky -was cloudy, and scarcely a star was visible. The wind blew cold in his -face when he got beyond the shelter of the walls. He looked up at the -house as he passed it with a sensation of rage and contempt which it is -only possible to reach when the object we thus hate and despise is one -that ought to be beloved. He lifted a handful of gravel and threw it -violently at his mother’s window. There was no softening of feeling, no -wish to say a farewell, even if an angry one in this. It was done in -boyish rage, with a simple desire to strike. He was glad to think the -stones struck sharply, and might, perhaps, have broken a pane and -fallen like shot upon the floor. This was what he would have wished. -When he had discharged that parting volley, he pulled down his hat over -his ears, and put up his coat-collar. It was all he could do against the -wind, which blew through and through him. Not even an overcoat! They -were determined that he should have nothing; that he should be expelled -without even the poorest covering; that he should be exposed to -everything dangerous, everything disagreeable. To be sure, that was what -they wanted! Revenge filled the young fellow’s heart as he went along in -the dark, shivering at first, till his rapid progress set his blood in -motion. Not only without a home, without a roof to shelter him, or a bed -to lie upon, but without even a coat. He turned his back upon his -father’s house with a bitterness that was indescribable. He could -remember the time when it was delightful to him to go home; but that was -long ago, when he was a boy and knew no better. Even then, what had his -father been to him? a terror even in his lighter moods, which might turn -into fury at any moment. His mother? oh, his mother had been kind -enough, poor soul! For a woman she had done what she could; but at the -best what could a woman do? Poor thing! yes she had been kind. But it is -very difficult for the young to see anyone, even when dear to them, -systematically undervalued without getting to share the sentiment in one -shape or another. Sometimes it rouses a generous mind to hot -partizanship; but Harry had never got that length. He had been indignant -sometimes and conscious, with a little pride, that he was the one who -stood up for his mother--but he had not gone further. And now he could -not help despising her as everybody else did. Just when it was essential -she should stand by him, she had failed him. Call this the consequence -of force which she could not resist, of natural bodily weakness--all -that was very well to say; but a mother worth anything will never run -the risk of bodily force in such an emergency. She will find some way of -getting out of it. She will stand by her son when he needs her, whatever -happens. And Harry’s mother had not done so--just at the critical moment -when he had been driven wild by opposition, when his future career had -been to all appearance cut short and his path shut in before him, she -had failed him! She was as weak as water; there was no faith to be put -in her. A woman like that, Harry reflected, is almost as bad as if she -were not a good woman. Oh, yes; she was a good woman! but what advantage -was it to anyone? What did it matter being good if you were of no use to -those belonging to you? Being good just for yourself, selfishly, that -was a poor sort of business. For her children she was no good. What had -she ever done for any of them? Made a fuss, as Joan said. She was very -good at doing that, was mother! But what more? These were the angry -thoughts that were surging through his mind as he turned his back upon -his home. His father’s image swept across him now and then, raising his -angry despair into momentary rage; but it was not his father, who had -always been hard upon him, but his mother, who had always been so tender -to him, whom Harry assailed with all these bitter thoughts. In her silly -dislike to the only poor little amusement he had, she had turned against -him at the decisive moment. It was just like a woman! Because he would -not tie himself to her apron-strings; because he would not spend his -evenings sitting with her and Joan--a pretty sort of position for a -young man, Harry said to himself, with a curl of his lip. - -He went on shivering, straight before him as he happened to have turned -his face when he came round the corner of the house. He was not aware -that there was more choice in it than this, though all the while there -was a dormant intention in his mind of going to Wyburgh after all, and -trying, one last effort, what Uncle Henry would do for him. Uncle Henry -had been kind to him, as kind as he knew how. He was only an old -bachelor, not much good, a selfish old fellow, thinking most of his own -comfort; but still he had been kind; and perhaps if he knew fully the -state of the case, and how the people at White House had treated his -pupil and godson--This was lying underneath as it were the current of -Harry’s thoughts, and turned over and came uppermost for a moment now -and then; but it did not become at all a principal idea until he had -walked a long way, and had got warm with walking, and the sense of -absolute misery, physical and mental, had been slightly modified. At -first he kept to the side of the Fells, which was rough walking, and -where now and then there was a dyke to jump over or a beck to cross; but -by and by got down to the high road, almost groping the way with his -feet, if not with his hands, so black lay the night over the irregular -broken ground. He knew the road, every inch, he would have said; but -when that darkness comes down like a pall, confounding everything in one -gloom, there is little advantage in knowledge. Sometimes he found -himself right up against the grey uncemented stones of a dyke before he -was aware of any obstacle, and sometimes had almost plunged into an -invisible hill-side stream, before the little warning trickle it made -among the stones caught his ear. By the side of one of these little -streams he made his way to the road, and there for the first time asked -himself where he was going. What a strange walk it was, all blank about -him, sometimes a lonely tree rustling, betraying itself in the dark by -the wind in its spare branches, sometimes a cottage suggested on the -roadside, or away among the fields, by the cry of a child or the bark of -a dog. He knew he had passed through the first hamlet on his way, -because the dogs all woke at the unusual sound of a footstep, and barked -at him lustily. He was not a youth of much imagination, and yet this -incident had the most curious effect upon him. He was more startled, -more shocked and annoyed by it than by anything else that had happened -to him. The very dogs! was he already to them a tramp, a wandering -vagrant? At the very end of the “town” some one opened a window, and -Harry heard a querulous question, not addressed to himself, but to some -one inside, “Wha’s that wandering on the road in the dead o’ the night?” -Harry slunk by, trying to keep his steps from making so much noise. A -sense of disreputableness suddenly came over him, a recollection of what -people would think. Nobody would believe he had been turned out of his -home for no fault of his. And then in the midst of his fury and desire -for vengeance, there suddenly came over Harry that family pride which so -seldom abandons a Northcountryman. Was he going to let everybody know -what disgrace there was in the White House, and how his father had -turned him out of doors? Were all the tongues in the country-side to be -set wagging on this subject? The Joscelyns--people so well known! Harry -felt as if some one had struck him sharply with his hand in the -darkness. It would be all over the country in twenty-four hours. -Joscelyn of White House had turned his youngest son out of doors. There -was no second family of the name to confuse gossip. Harry felt as if -the barking of the dogs was but a foretaste of what was going to happen -to him. He felt as if some one had grasped him, choked him, tried to -strangle him in the dark. - -Fortunately Wyburgh by this time showed, a long way off with its little -lights twinkling. They were but four little rustic lights, not many of -them--for when the moon shone the corporation felt itself at liberty to -dispense with lamps; and but for the lights at the railway-station, and -two or three which were indispensable, the little town would have been -invisible in the darkness, like those sleeping villages which Harry had -stumbled through almost without knowing. When he caught sight of the -first of these lights, it gave him a keen pleasure; it seemed to deliver -him from that world of blackness in which the only conscious and living -thing was himself and the sea of thoughts which surged up and down -within him, one wave sweeping over another, in a confusion and tumult -indescribable. Harry’s soul caught at the glow of that tall solitary -lamp, the first which marked the line of the railway, as at a guiding -light directing him into a known country, to solid ground and a familiar -shore. The darkness and the little inward world of thought were alike -strange to him, and he had no guide to direct him through them; but now -here was “kent ground,” a place which would be visible, where the dogs -would not bark at him in the dark, where there were all the safeguards -of an inhabited place. He was relieved beyond measure when he saw the -lights, and said to himself what they were. That was the tall light on -the line, that other lower one the lamp at the station, that the faint -little flare seen over the housetops of the market square, and yonder -the well-known lamp at the corner, which he had seen lit so often as he -left the Grammar-school. It made his heart light to count them at a -distance. But when he got to the outskirts of the town he was less -happy. It was still quite dark, between three and four o’clock, and he -could not go to Uncle Harry’s, or to any other house in which he was -known at such an hour. Nobody was stirring in Wyburgh, nor would be for -hours yet. As he went into the silent streets the sense of his desolate -position came over him more strongly than ever. All the houses were shut -up and silent, blinds drawn over the windows, feeble lamps burning here -and there like night-lights in a sick-chamber, the whole place breathing -low and noiselessly in its sleep. He met a policeman, the only one, -making his rounds with steady tramp, and the policeman looked at Harry -with suspicion, throwing the light of his dark lantern upon him as he -passed. He knew John Armstrong very well, and had played him many a -trick as a schoolboy; but he shrank from making himself known now; and -John looked with suspicion at the wayfarer, without even an overcoat, -buttoned up to the neck, and with his hat drawn over his eyes, who thus -invaded the town in the middle of the night. Harry knew that he was but -a tramp, all the more dangerous because better dressed than usual, in -John’s eyes. He felt the light of the lantern come after him, making a -long trail of light upon the pavement. And he did not know where to go. -If he went wandering about, which was the only thing he could think of, -no doubt he would meet John Armstrong again, and almost certainly be -questioned as to what he was doing, and who he was. And then the story -would run over Wyburgh, how young Harry Joscelyn, one of the Joscelyns -of the White House, had come in to Wyburgh before four o’clock in the -morning, walking like a vagrant, and was recognized by the policeman, -roaming about the street without any place to go to. He might almost be -taken up as a rogue and vagabond, Harry thought, with that exaggeration -which misfortune delights in. If he were called upon to give an account -of himself he could not do it, nor had he any place to go to, any home -waiting for him. The Wyburgh folk might form their own conclusions, and -so they would, could anyone doubt. - -He walked straight through the town to the other end of it, as if he -were going on somewhere else, ashamed of himself, though he had nothing -to be ashamed of, avoiding the spots of feeble light round the lamps, -and walking as softly as he could not to make so much noise upon the -pavement. He had not felt this so much in the country, in the darkness, -but here, where everybody knew him, he became suddenly ashamed and -afraid of being seen. When the clock struck it made him jump as if it -had been some one calling his name. “Harry Joscelyn is roaming about the -country without a home to go to;” did he think that was what it was -going to say? Alas! it was but four o’clock that struck; four o’clock! -the night seemed to have been already twelve hours long; and here were -two hours more at the least that he must get through somehow before he -could hope that even Mrs. Eadie, Uncle Henry’s old housekeeper, would be -astir. He would not mind presenting himself to her; and the thought of -the kind unquestioning welcome she would give, the cheerful fire, the -breakfast, the warm room in which he could sit down, gave him sudden -encouragement. For it was very cold; those long, long hours of night, -which pass so quickly in sleep, sliding out of consciousness altogether, -how much goes on in them to those who are homeless! Harry had never -thought of anything of the kind before; a night without rest, even, far -less a night out of doors, had been unknown to him. The wretches who -wander about the roads, and sleep under a hedge, and have no home, were -out of his ken; they were poor wretches, and in all likelihood it was -“their own fault.” People would think the same of him. To be ashamed of -the position in which you find yourself, and yet to be quite innocent, -is a curious misery, but it is very poignant. He had done nothing wrong; -but the light of John Armstrong’s lantern made him shrink, and even -those pale little prying lamps, each making a hole in the darkness. He -went straight through Wyburgh, coming out at the further side. He -walked till he was quite clear of the houses, and then he turned and -looked back upon the spots of light which had cheered him so much when -he first caught sight of them. How cold it was! nobody would believe -that a spring morning could be so cold. It was like December. There was -the clock again, like some one shouting in his ear--but only sounding -the half after four; would the night never come to an end? He walked up -and down on this bit of quiet road, just outside the town, to keep -himself warm, pausing now and then to lean upon the wall and look at the -lights; though he dared not go back to them lest they should betray him -to the gossips, yet it was a kind of consolation to look at them still. -They delivered him a little from that close presence and wretched -company of himself. - -An early cart from one of the neighbouring farms with vegetables for the -market, lumbering along the road just as the day began to break, was the -next thing that disturbed him. He fled from that too, wondering what the -carter would think to see him standing there like a ghost in the dim -dawn--and got over the wall into a field, to be out of the way, yet -could not help feeling, as he listened, holding his breath, to the -sound of the slow, jogging horses and the man’s heavy tread, that the -carter must have spied him, and must be peeping over the wall and -wondering who he could be. By this time Harry had got to feel very like -a criminal. He felt sure that everybody would think he was a criminal -and had done something desperate, to see him there in this guise. And -how he was to get courage to go back to Wyburgh again in full daylight, -in the sight of everybody, and knock at his uncle’s door, he did not -know. - -“Lord bless us! Master Harry!” the housekeeper cried. He came upon her -suddenly as she opened the door to go out and feed her chickens, which -was the first thing she did every morning. She was so scared that she -let fall her apronful of seed, and held up her hands half to protect -herself, for this worn, pale, wearied apparition, with coat-collar up to -its ears, and hat drawn down over its brow, was like the ghost of Harry, -not himself. “Lord bless us! Master Harry! it’s never _you_?” - -“It is me, though: and dreadfully tired, and so cold I don’t know what -to do with myself,” said Harry, with chattering teeth. “Let me come in -and look at a fire.” - -“Let you come in, my bonny boy! you shall come in, and welcome; and the -kettle’s on, and I’ll soon make you some tea. Come into the kitchen, -it’s the warmest place. Bless the lad! What hour did ye start at to get -here so early? or has anything happened? You’ve not come for the doctor? -I’m that surprised you might blow me over with a puff of your breath.” - -“I shall not try,” said Harry, recovering himself a little as he felt -the warmth of the fire. “There’s nothing wrong, Mrs. Eadie, they’re all -well enough; but I want to see Uncle Henry, and I’m going back to -Liverpool to-day.” - -“Bless my heart! I thought you had come for a real holiday, and its no’ -above a week; but whisht! laddie, dinna chatter with your teeth like -that; come nearer to the fire. Dear, dear me, but you must be cold; not -a great-coat upon your back, nor a comforter, nor one thing to keep the -heat in ye. I hope you havena’ just gotten your death,” cried the -housekeeper, pouring the steaming water, which it was good even to see, -into her teapot; and in her anxiety to get him a comfortable meal she -forgot to ask any more questions. - -Mrs. Eadie’s help, who was a young girl, did not live in the house, and -her late arrival in the mornings was one of the grievances of the -housekeeper’s life. There was nobody, therefore, but this good woman, in -whom Harry had perfect confidence, to witness his worn-out condition: -and by-and-by he got thawed and comfortable. Once within this legitimate -shelter too, his spirits came back to him. He forgot the painful -miseries he had conjured up, or, at least, he did not forget them, but -they went to his father’s account to swell his wrath. There were still -several hours to wait before he could see Uncle Henry, and Harry lay -down upon the bed where he had slept when he was a schoolboy, and -returned to common life and respectable usages through the medium of a -long sleep. It was a sort of moral bath to him, restoring him to -creditable ways. To think that he should have feared John Armstrong’s -lantern, and hid himself from the carter with his early vegetables! But -all that, and a great deal more, went to his father’s account. His rage -revived as the misery of the night ended. For those latter hours he had -been too much occupied by his personal feelings to dwell upon the cause -of them; now that he was comfortable once more the insult and the -cruelty that had been inflicted upon him came back with double force. -Turned from his father’s door, the key turned upon him, the house he was -born in shut up against him; himself disowned, like a beggar, left to -wander where he pleased, to die on the moors, if he liked, to get his -death, as Mrs. Eadie had suggested; and all this his father’s doing! -Harry clenched his fist with wild excitement, with a desire for -vengeance which startled himself. He thought he would almost consent to -have “got his death” if Joscelyn could be tried for manslaughter. He -would have almost liked to punish, to convict his father by dying, so -that the whole country might have pointed at him as the man who had -killed his son. But then he reflected that probably his father would not -care. “But I’ll make him care,” Harry said to himself. Few people -venture to express such vindictiveness; but Harry Joscelyn’s heart was -full of it; it was natural to his race. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -UNCLE HENRY. - - -Mr. Henry Joscelyn came down stairs at nine o’clock to breakfast as he -always did. No clock was ever more regular. He was not like the present -family of Joscelyns. He had taken after his mother, who was the -grandmother of Ralph Joscelyn of the White House. The family had been -one of greater pretensions and more gentility in his day. The heir at -that time was educated in Oxford, and the Joscelyns still belonged, -though gradually falling away from it, to the higher level, and counted -themselves county people. Henry had been sent off early to business; but -he had never lost the sentiment which so often remains to an “old -family” when more substantial possessions are gone. In the case of the -present representative of the name this sentiment was mere pride with a -bitter edge to it, and resentful sense of downfall; but with Mr. Henry -Joscelyn it was a real consciousness of superiority to the common -persons round him. _Noblesse oblige_: perhaps he did not understand -these words in their highest sense. The _noblesse_ was small. And the -behaviour it exacted was not of a princely or magnanimous character; but -still there were many things which, being a Joscelyn, he felt it -incumbent upon him both to do and not to do. He would not allow himself -to drop. He looked with indignation and contempt at the rudeness and -roughness of his nephew’s house. Even what was best in it was, he felt, -beneath him. He had never married at all, not feeling able to aspire to -the only kind of wife he ever could have been content with; but to marry -a parson’s daughter was an expedient Henry Joscelyn would have scorned. -It would have better befitted the reigning head of so good and old a -race to have followed the example of King Cophetua--a beautiful -beggar-maid is a possibility always, but an insipid parson’s daughter! -Mr. Henry Joscelyn had not cut his nephew--that would have been -impossible too; but he looked upon him with a fierce contempt; and -though he allowed Mrs. Joscelyn to be “a worthy person,” and -probably quite good enough, nay, even too good, for Ralph Joscelyn -as he was, still Mr. Henry could not meet her on grounds of -equality--notwithstanding the fact that there was a baronet in her -family, which at first had staggered him. It did not seem to him that -these high claims of his were at all injured by the fact that he himself -had been engaged in, and had made all his money by, trade. “I was a -younger son,” he would say, with a gentle shrug of his shoulders, and -his godson Harry was also a younger son. Mr. Henry believed that there -was a certain amount of self-sacrifice necessary in a family. If it was -a right and good thing to keep it up, then it was quite right that the -younger children should have their part in sustaining its honour. Its -importance, its prestige, belonged to them as well as to the heir, and -it was their interest as well as their duty to make an exertion and keep -it up. - -His own exertions had not succeeded badly; he had been able to come back -to his own county, while he was still not an old man, and to settle -himself according to his pleasure. Now Mr. Henry’s opinion was that you -could not live absolutely in the country unless you had “a place” in the -country, and all the consequence that brings. His notions, it will be -seen, were a great deal higher than his real position; he thought of the -Joscelyns as if they had been a ducal house. And without “a place” he -considered a country life impossible. He did not choose to live in a -small house in the shadow of a great one. Had the White House really -been a great ducal establishment he might have done so; but as he could -not so much as look at the White House without a sense of its -discrepancy with the pretensions of the family, and unlikeness to -everything that the mansion of the Joscelyns ought to be; and as the -society there, when there was any society, was distinctly below, not -above, his own level, he did not hesitate a moment as to his place of -abode. He bought a house in Wyburgh, the county town; a modest -house--but he did not want very much--where he was served most -comfortably and carefully by Mrs. Eadie, the most excellent of managers, -with the assistance of one small aid, and compensated himself for the -smallness of his establishment within doors by keeping a groom and a -couple of horses, which were his personal luxuries. No horses in the -country were more carefully groomed, and no groom presented a more neat -and spruce appearance; and Mr. Henry still rode across country, though -not with the daring which once sat so oddly on his prim little person. -For he was little and light-coloured, exactly the reverse of the -Joscelyns, like his mother, the small pale woman, whose -over-masterfulness and tyrannical control of her sons, was said to have -turned her grandson, the present man, and his father before him, to evil -courses. She had wanted to make them good, to perfect their characters, -whether they would or not; and the strong restraint she had exercised -had made the re-action all the more vehement. So people said: except in -the case of Henry, who took after his mother in every way, and had all -her intolerance of useless people and indolent minds. He lived a life -which was very satisfactory to himself in his little house in Wyburgh. -He had besides a little bit of land in his native parish with an old -house upon it, uninhabitable, but yet a creditable sort of possession in -a corner of which Isaac Oliver--who was, in a very lowly manner his -bailiff--lived with his family. Mr. Henry was a much respected member of -the county club which had its seat in Wyburgh, and to which his nephew -of the White House might have sought admittance in vain. The duke -himself treated old Henry, as he was called, with the utmost -condescension. His position was never contended or doubted. He was as -good a gentleman as the king. He knew more about the county than anyone -else did, and called cousins remotely with many of the great people, who -were most courteously ready to allow the kindred so far as Mr. Henry -Joscelyn went; and he was an active magistrate, and took a certain -interest in the town itself, where most people believed in him, and -wondered how the Joscelyns could have gone off so completely since Mr. -Henry’s time--which was like the period before the deluge to the young -people. And Mr. Henry was a man of the most regular habits. It might -have been known what hour it was, had the town clock stopped in Wyburgh, -by his appearance at the window, after he had breakfasted, with the -newspaper in his hand, by the sound of his step as he went to the Club -regular as the sun himself, and by his return to his dinner. These were -the three departures, so to speak, of his day. In the evening he dined -out sometimes, at the Rectory, at Dr. Peregrine’s, or with Mr. Despond, -the solicitor: and now and then with some of the greater people about, -where he drove in his own little brougham, which he kept expressly for -such occasions. At other times one or two old inhabitants of the better -class would drop in in the evening to make up his rubber. He looked very -well after his money, and gave his neighbours excellent advice about -their investments; and a more admirable member of society, a more -respected townsman, could not be. - -It may be supposed that to such a man, with such a life, the existence -of a schoolboy under his roof had not been an unmixed pleasure. Still -Mr. Henry Joscelyn was not a man to fail in his duties when they were -pointed out to him. Though nobody but Mrs. Joscelyn guessed it, it was -to the housekeeper that his family were indebted for Harry’s preferment. -Mrs. Eadie was just then greatly in want of somebody to be kind to. Her -master, though he required the most scrupulous attention, did not come -within this category, and the good woman had long sighed for a bairn in -the house. When Harry was in the house he did not see much of his -uncle--their hours (thank heaven! Mr. Henry said, devoutly), being quite -incompatible. The boy was off to school in the morning, long before Mr. -Henry was up. He had his dinner in the middle of the day, when Mr. Henry -was engaged in magisterial or county business, or in the Club. So they -got on very well, and the old man was actually sorry when the boy set -out in his turn for Liverpool to get an insight into “the business” in -which his uncle had grown moderately rich; but this did not affect his -methodical life, which flowed on just as before. Mr. Henry was growing -old; even he himself acknowledged this, with cheerful readiness to other -people, with a little impatience to himself. He spoke of his age with -great equanimity in society when the subject was mooted, but he did not -think of it when he could help it, nor did he like the thought. High and -dry above all mortal loss and gain, quite safe from the agitations of -life, very comfortable in all its circumstances, having succeeded in -working out just the perfection of detail, the harmony of movement that -satisfied him, it was a vexing and unpleasant reflection that this life -was to be disturbed, broken in upon, brought to a conclusion by illness -and death. Sometimes the thought made him almost angry. Why? He was not, -to be sure, so strong as he once was, but he was strong enough for all -reasonable purposes, as strong as he required to be; and he had all his -wits about him. Never had he been more clear-headed; and every sort of -inclination to do things that were not good for him, whether in the way -of eating or drinking, or other practices of a more strictly moral or -immoral character had died out of his mind. He knew how to take care of -himself exactly, and he did take the greatest care of himself. Why -should he die? It was an idea that annoyed him. It seemed so -unnecessary: he was not weary of life, nor had he the least desire to -give it up. In such circumstances there had been a lurking feeling in -his mind that Providence should know how to discriminate. But there was -no telling how long Providence might choose to discriminate: and this -recollection was about the only disturbing influence in a life so -comfortable and well proportioned, and altogether satisfactory, that -there seemed no reason whatever that it should ever come to an end. - -“Mr. Harry here? How did he get here at such an hour in the morning? -Why, he must have started in the middle of the night.” - -“I make no doubt of that,” said the housekeeper. She had brought up a -second kidney, piping hot, and tender as a baby, upon a piece of toast, -so crisp yet so melting, so brown and savoury, so penetrated by generous -juices that it was in itself a luxury; “and for that and other things I -have made him lie down upon his bed. He’s not been in a bed this night, -that’s clear to see; he’s sleeping like a babe in a cradle; it does the -heart good to see him.” - -“I don’t think it would do my heart good,” said Mr. Henry, “the young -fellow must have been up to some mischief. Did he give you any idea of -what was the matter? or is it mere nonsense, perhaps a bet, or a brag, -or something of that sort?” - -“Mere nonsense--nay, nay, Sir, it’s not that. He’s got a look on his -face--a look I have seen on your own face, Sir, when you are put out.” - -“I’ve told you a hundred times, Mrs. Eadie, there is not the slightest -resemblance between Mr. Harry and me.” - -“And how are you to tell that, Sir, that canna see the two together? You -are far more clever than me in most things; but my eyesight I must -trust to.” Mrs. Eadie made a little curtsey when she opposed her master. -She had a conviction that it gave him a secret pleasure, though he would -never confess it, to hear that Harry was like him; and perhaps she was -right. - -“Have your own way,” he said; “but that makes no difference to the -question. What’s wrong? has he said nothing to you? You used to be great -friends.” - -“I’m his true friend; and stiddy well-wisher, as much good as I could do -him; and Mr. Harry has always been very kind,” said the housekeeper, -putting her master’s sentiment in her own softest words; “but he has -said nothing to me. I did not look for it. He would not, being one of -the proud Joscelyns, saving your presence, Sir, take a servant into his -confidence. Though he’s aye been very kind.” - -“We are proud, are we?” said her master, with a half smile; “well, -perhaps that is a fault of the Joscelyns, Mrs. Eadie. You can send him -to me when he wakes. Of course now that he is here I must listen to what -he has to say.” - -But Mr. Henry sighed. He ate that delicious kidney with an internal -sense of annoyance which took half the savour out of it. He said to -himself that it was always the case: when he came down in the morning -with any unusual sentiment of comfort and well-being, something always -happened to put him out. As sure as that light-heartedness came, -something would follow to pull him down, something would go wrong in the -Club, or his conduct in some petty session case would be aspersed in the -“Wyburgh Gazette,” or some old friend of his boyhood would send him a -begging letter, or--still more annoying, something about the White House -family would interfere with his digestion. “I might have known,” he said -to himself. He had got up at peace with all men; with absolutely no care -which he could think of when he woke and swept the mental horizon for -causes of inconvenience, as it is one of the privileges of humanity to -do--absolutely nothing to bring him any vexation or annoyance. He had -believed that he was going to have a comfortable day. A little -uneasiness which he had felt in his foot (he did not say, even to -himself, in his toe), had gone off; a stiffness which he had been -conscious of had disappeared; the wind had changed, going round to the -southward, and the morning was quite warm for the time of the year. He -had not been buffeted about by the night wind, as Harry had, and at six -in the morning, when poor Harry was so cold, he had been as warm as he -could desire in bed. When he came down stairs the fire was just as he -liked it, the newspaper with the chill taken off it, neatly cut, and -folded, and a letter from the Duke, with a seal as big as a penny, was -lying by his plate. It was an invitation, and Mr. Henry was much -pleased. Never had a day begun more auspiciously. He had sat down, -opened his napkin, poured out for himself an aromatic cup of coffee, -laid the newspaper before him conveniently, so as to be able to glance -his eye over the news, while he addressed himself to the more solid part -of the meal. And it was while he was thus beginning the day, in peace -with himself and all about him, that “the woman,” as he called his -housekeeper when anything went wrong, appeared with that kidney, and the -cloud which was to overshadow the whole day. Of course it must be -something wrong. Why could not the woman have recommended that boy to go -back again, and make it up with his father, and not bother another -person with his troubles? Had not every man troubles enough of his own? -But he had been too comfortable. It was just as it always -happened--whenever he felt particularly at his ease, something, some -annoyance or other, was certain to come. He sighed impatiently as Mrs. -Eadie withdrew. But then he felt it to be his duty to himself to put all -anxiety out of his thoughts, and to address himself seriously, if not -with such a sensation of comfort, to his breakfast; it would do no good -to himself or anyone if he put his digestion out of order for the rest -of the day. - -He had finished his breakfast and read his paper, and done some trifling -businesses such as were of importance in his easy life, before Harry -appeared. When a man or woman lives at perfect ease, with nothing to do, -there are always some solemnities of supposed duty which they go through -for their own comfort, to give a semblance of serious occupation to -their day. With some people it is their correspondence, with others the -rain-gauge and the thermometer, which they register with as grave a -countenance as if the comfort of the country depended upon it. Mr. -Henry’s duty was the Club. He was looking over the accounts of the last -half year with serious devotion. He spread this over a long time, doing -a little every day, comparing all the items with their respective -vouchers, and with the expenditure of the previous half year. All had -been perfectly satisfactory till this morning; but to-day he discovered -that the sale of the waste-paper was not entered in the previous month, -which made a difference of some seven shillings and sixpence, or -thereabouts, in the half year’s accounts, a difference such as ought not -to have occurred. He could scarcely help feeling that this would not -have happened had it not been for the very inopportune arrival of Harry, -and introduction of the troubles of a family, things he had -systematically kept clear of, into his comfortable and self-sufficing -life. - -He had just made this discovery--which obliged him to refer to the -expenditure in the corresponding quarters of last year, and several -years before, and make close investigation into what had then become of -the waste-paper, and who had bought it, and what price it had brought; -and had made a careful note in his pocket-book of various questions to -be put to the butler at the Club, who had the practical management of -affairs--when the door opened and Harry appeared. Mr. Joscelyn looked up -and made an instant mental estimate of his nephew, whom he had not seen -for some time, on not very just grounds. Harry had been immensely -refreshed and restored by his breakfast, and the consciousness of having -a roof over his head, and a legitimate right to be here; but his sleep -perhaps had not done him so much good. At five-and-twenty a man can do -without a night’s rest with no very great inconvenience; but to have a -snatch of insufficient sleep is of little advantage to him. It had made -his eyes red, and given him an inclination to yawn, and confused his -head. He had the look of a man who has been sleeping illegitimately, -sleeping in daytime when other men are awake; and he was unshaven, and -he had on a shirt of his uncle’s, which was too tight at the throat, and -otherwise of a fashion not adapted to a young man. His dusty coat had -been brushed, and he was not really travel-soiled or slovenly, much the -reverse indeed, for his appearance had been the cause of much more -searchings of the heart both to himself and kind Mrs. Eadie than was at -all usual in respect to Harry’s simple toilette; but that air of -suppressed fatigue and premature awakening, and altogether -wrong-sidedness, was strong upon him. And he was deeply conscious of it. -He knew exactly how he looked, with his eyes rather red, and that -blueness on his chin, and Uncle Henry’s collar cutting his throat; and -a great many doubts as to his reception by Uncle Henry--doubts which had -not entered his mind before, arose within him in that first moment when, -opening the door, he met the startled eyes of Mr. Joscelyn over the top -of his spectacles, lifted to him with an alarmed and inquiring look. -Harry saw that in a moment he was weighed in the balance and found -wanting. This did not give him more ease in his manner, or a less -painful sense of being on his trial. - -“Good morning, Harry. I hear that you were a surprisingly early visitor -this morning; but you keep early hours in the country. I hope there is -nothing amiss at the White House.” - -Mr. Joscelyn held out a hand, of which he was rather proud to be shaken -by his grand-nephew. It was, he flattered himself, a hand that was in -itself a guarantee of blue blood. Harry embraced it in the grasp of a -powerful member with none of these qualities, and gave it a squeeze much -more energetic than he had intended. - -“There is a good deal amiss with me,” he said. Harry had been debating -the point with himself for the last half-hour, whether he should fully -confide in his uncle or not. He could not but feel that it would be -wiser to deal lightly with the fact of his exclusion from his father’s -house; but he was so angry that he could not be prudent, and the moment -that he had an opportunity of speech his temper broke out. - -“I was not in bed all last night,” he said; “I was on the road like a -tramp, Uncle Henry. My father turned me out of the house--” - -Three lines came across Mr. Henry Joscelyn’s brow--three horizontal, -well-marked lines. These were two too many. When he was sympathetic a -slight indentation over his eyebrows was all that appeared. The second -meant doubt, the third annoyance. - -“Dear me!” he said, “how did that happen? I fear you must have been -doing something to displease your father.” - -“Who can help displeasing my father?” cried Harry. “I am sure, Uncle -Henry, you know him well enough. I had been doing nothing wrong. I had -been trying to get him to interest himself in my affairs. He has never -done anything for me, it is you that have done everything for me. I laid -before him a chance I’ve got. I meant at any rate to come and talk it -all over with you; but in the first place I thought it was as well to -ask a question about my mother’s money--” - -“Ah--that was not quite an ingratiating way of opening the matter, I -fear,” Uncle Henry said. - -“Why not?” cried Harry, forgetting all the prudential rules he had been -trying to impose upon himself. “My mother was willing, and when it would -have advanced my interests--and of course I should have paid as good a -per-centage as anybody else. Surety if there is anything a man can have -a claim upon,” he added, argumentatively, “it must be his mother’s -money. I mayn’t have any right to touch the family property, as I am -only a younger son, and all that--and especially as there are such a lot -of us; but my mother’s money--when it is doing nothing, only lying at -interest. Surely a man has a claim upon that.” - -“The man that has a claim upon that is your father, I should say. I -never knew a man yet that liked any questions about his wife’s money,” -said Mr. Joscelyn; “whether it’s in her own power or in his, its not a -nice thing to interfere with. You have your own ways of looking at -things, you young fellows; but in your place I would have said nothing -about that. I didn’t know your mother had any money,” he added, in an -indifferent tone. - -“It is only--a thousand pounds, Uncle Henry: not what you would call a -fortune--” - -Mr. Henry Joscelyn smiled, and waved his hand. Impossible to have waved -away a trifle, a nothing, with a more complete representation of its -nothingness. “Ah--that!--” he said, “I thought I never had heard -anything about money. Well, I can’t flatter you that your claim on your -father was made in a very judicious way. And he would not hear of it? -That is easy enough to understand; but why did he turn you out of -doors?” - -“I can’t tell you,” cried Harry, “I can tell you no more than that. I -laid it all before him. It is a good opportunity, an opportunity that -may never occur again. I have been in the office for three years, long -enough to be a mere clerk.” - -“I have known very good men, Harry, who were clerks all their lives.” - -“Yes, yes,” cried Harry, impatiently, “one knows that. There’s an -excellent fellow now in our office: but I don’t suppose, Uncle Henry, -that was what you intended for me.” - -“Well, my boy: I intended that you should earn your living and be off -the hands of your family. I am not aware that I went much further. Of -course, if your own talents and industry pushed you on, one would have -been very glad to hear of it; otherwise, in your circumstances, the -fifth son, I should not be disposed to turn up my nose at the position -of a mere clerk.” - -Harry gazed at his uncle while he spoke with an impatient reluctance and -protest against every word. He could scarcely bear to hear him out; he -had his mouth open to reply before Uncle Henry was half done: but when -the old gentleman ended his speech, Harry, with a gasp as of baffled -utterance, remained silent. He did not know what reply to make, he felt -the ground cut from under his feet; how was he to ask his uncle to place -himself in the breach, to do what his father would not do, when this was -how his representation was received? He gazed at him with a hard breath -and said nothing; for the moment his very utterance was taken away. - -And then there was a pause. Mr. Joscelyn sat quietly with his gold -spectacles between his fingers and thumb, looking at his nephew. The -lines were gone from his forehead, he was quite bland and amiable, but -demonstratively indifferent, with an air of having nothing whatever to -do with the question, which, to Harry, was exasperating beyond -description. He kept his other hand upon the Club papers, which were his -business. The young fellow who had so suddenly come down upon him in -vehement wrath and offence, yet expectation, was manifestly nothing but -an interruption to Uncle Henry. He was thinking of his waste-paper, not -of the future prospects of any foolish young man. After a pause he spoke -again. - -“And when are you going back to business, Harry? I hope, now that you -are here, that you will stay a day or two and renew your acquaintance -with your old friends. Mrs. Eadie will make you very comfortable. I am -sorry to say I am dining out both to-day and to-morrow, but if you like -to have young Pilgrim, or Gus Grey, or any of your former acquaintances, -my housekeeper is really equal to a very nice little dinner, as you -know. I think I heard there was a dance getting up somewhere. Stay till -the end of the week, if your leave lasts so long.” - -“Uncle Henry,” said Harry, with an air of tragedy, which he was quite -unconscious of, “you may suppose that a man who has been turned out of -his father’s house, and has thrown off all connection with his native -soil----” - -“No, no, my boy, no, no,” said Mr. Joscelyn, with a half laugh, “not so -bad as that.” - -“I say,” continued Harry, with increasing solemnity, “who has parted -from his family for ever, and cut off all connection with his native -soil--you may suppose that he hasn’t much heart to pay visits or take up -old acquaintances. What is there likely to be between me and Jack -Pilgrim, who is stepping into his father’s business, and as settled as -the Fells? or Gus Grey, who is kept up and set forward at the Bar, -though he is not earning a penny, by relations that think all the world -of him? what can there be in common, I should like to know, between them -and me? I’m only the fifth son, as you say, to start with, therefore I’m -of no consequence; and, by Jove!” cried Harry, striking the table with -his clenched fist, “if ever I enter that house while Ralph Joscelyn’s -the master of it--if ever I go back to knock at the door that was locked -upon me, locked upon me in the middle of the night----” - -Uncle Henry’s brow contracted when that blow came down upon his neat -writing-table; it shook the inkstand, which perhaps was overfull, and -spilt a drop or two of ink, which of all things in the world was the -thing which annoyed him most. He mopped it up hurriedly with his -blotting-paper, but his brow became dark, and his mouth drew up at the -corners in a way that meant mischief. - -“Pardon me,” he said, with exquisite civility, “but to spoil my table -will not do your affairs any good. It is a pity that you take such a -very tragical view of the matter, but in your present state of mind -nothing that I could say, I fear, would be of much use. Thick! thick! I -don’t think this spot is likely to come out.” - -“I am dreadfully sorry, uncle----” poor Harry began. - -“Sorrow, so far as I am aware, does not take out ink-spots,” said the -old gentleman, testily; “perhaps you will do me the favour to ring for -Eadie. If things are so very serious the less we say about them the -better--heated discussions are never any good. I can only say that if -you like to stay a day or two you are quite welcome, Harry. Mrs. Eadie, -look here; the ink-bottle has been filled too full, perhaps you know -something that will take it out.” - -“Dear, dear me!” Mrs. Eadie cried, with an anxious look from the old -gentleman with his crisped lips to the young fellow standing much -abashed beside him, “it’s that little lass again; but I take the blame -to myself; I should never have trusted it out of my hands. Dear! dear! -milk will may be do it. I wouldn’t like to try benzine or salts of -lemon.” - -“Try what you like, but get it out,” said Mr. Joscelyn. “I’ll see you, -Harry, when I come back from the Club.” - -“Oh, my bonnie young gentleman!” cried Mrs. Eadie, when they were left -alone, “you have said something that’s gone against him! you have turned -him the wrong way!” - -“I think everything is turning the wrong way,” said Harry, throwing -himself into his uncle’s easy-chair. He was still so young and -unaccustomed to trouble that the tears came hot to his eyes. “I’ll tell -you what I’ll do, Eadie, I’ll be off before he comes back; I’ll go -straight off to my work, there’s nobody will turn the cold shoulder upon -me there.” - -“No, no, Mr. Harry, no, no, my canny lad, you must not be so hasty. -Besides, you know as well as I do there’s no train. It’s coming out just -with blotting-paper; look! see! When he comes back he’ll have forgotten -all about it, and I’ll make you up a nice little bit of something for -your lunch, and you’ll ’gree again, and get his advice. He’s grand with -his advice, and he’s awfu’ fond of giving it. Just you ask him for his -advice, Mr. Harry, and you’ll ’gree like two birds in a nest. It’s aye -how I come round the maister when he has cast out with me.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -UNCLE HARRY’S ADVICE. - - -Mr. Joscelyn returned from the Club to lunch, which was not very usual -for him. After all, at the bottom of his heart, there was a vein of -kindness in him for the boy whom he had trained. After his little anger -wore off, Harry’s face, so tragical in its expression, came back to his -mind with a mixture of amusement and compassion. It was tragic-comic to -Mr. Henry; but there was no comic element in it to the young man. He -came home by no means intending to put himself in the breach, and -replace for Harry’s benefit that thousand pounds of his mother’s money, -which the young fellow had calculated upon; but still with an impulse of -kindness. A thousand pounds! That was a pretty sort of fortune for the -woman who married Joscelyn of White House. It made him laugh with angry -scorn. Little insignificant woman, whose pretty face even was nothing -out of the way, a kind of prettiness that faded, a sort of parson’s -daughter’s gentility, not even anything that could be called beauty, or -that would last. Mr. Henry Joscelyn had been absent from the district, -he had not yet retired from “the world,” as he called it, when his -nephew married, and he had never known before exactly how bad a match it -was. Ralph was a clown to be sure, in himself worthy no better fate; but -the head of the Joscelyns, Mr. Henry reflected with a bitter smile, -might certainly have been worth something more than a thousand pounds. -It was ridiculous, it was exasperating; he did not wonder that Ralph had -been angry when his son had asked for this paltry thousand pounds. -Considered as a fee for the privilege of entering the Joscelyn family, -it was ridiculously inadequate--and as a fortune! He laughed aloud as he -crossed the street to the Club, an angry laugh. After all it was not -much wonder that Ralph had deteriorated. A wife with a faded face, no -ancestors, and a thousand pounds--poor Ralph! if he had not been so -insufferable his uncle would have been sorry for him. And now here was -the boy asserting a claim to this enormous fortune; probably Mrs. -Joscelyn herself thought it a great sum of money, enough to set up Harry -in business, and do a great deal for him. Tck-tck! how mean and petty it -all was, not like the old ways of the house, which were not small -whatever they were. The Joscelyns in their day had gone into debt in a -princely manner; and they had married money in their day; but to come to -such a point that the mother’s great fortune of a thousand pounds was -worth fighting about, between father and son! Tck-tck, tck-tck, what a -wonderful thing it was! - -Nevertheless as Harry, poor boy, had been brought up within that limited -horizon, he could not help being sorry for him. It was sad for a young -man. He was rather fond of the boy; so far as he did give in to the -prejudice that because a boy was your grand-nephew you ought to be fond -of him, Harry, it certainly was, that was the object of his affections. -After all he was a Joscelyn, and, as Joscelyns went in the present -generation, as good a specimen as any. This was not saying very much, -but still it was something to say; for though the Joscelyns of a former -generation were in every way superior, yet it was clear that it was -impossible to go back to them. However much we may prefer the past we -must all have, it is evident, to put up with the present. Mr. Joscelyn -transacted his Club business, and went very closely into that question -about the waste-paper. The waste-paper at the Club was of a very -superior kind. It was chiefly made up of letters and circulars printed -on fine paper, and the _brouillons_ of replies, which even the rural -magnates, who frequented the place, liked to write out once before they -actually produced the autograph which was to go to their correspondents; -it brought a far better price than the usual refuse of a house. But this -the present major-domo had failed to grasp; he had treated these choice -scraps as if they had been old newspapers. Mr. Joscelyn fully proved his -mistake to the reluctant functionary, who was disposed to sneer at the -whole business. - -“After all, Sir, it is only five shillings difference--and I don’t mind -if I paid that out of my own pocket, sooner than make a fuss;” said the -flippant official. Mr. Joscelyn looked at him with eyes from which the -finest London butler, much less a trifling person in the country, might -have shrunk. - -“My man,” he said, “the difference is seven and sixpence, and I don’t -know what your pocket has to do with it. The state of your pocket is a -matter of perfect indifference to the Club; but it is my business to see -that our property is not wasted. I hope I shall not have to make a -complaint on this subject again.” When he had said this he went home, -with some little complacency to see Harry, feeling that his time had not -been wasted, and that the property of the Club was not likely to be -neglected in this manner again. As for Harry he had not left the house. -He had resisted all Mrs. Eadie’s exhortations to send a note to his -mother, telling her where he was, or even to send for his luggage, -declaring that he would have nothing to do with them, that he would take -nothing out of the house, nor ever return to it. And since he could not -show himself in Uncle Henry’s high collars, Mrs. Eadie had gone out to -the best shop there was in Wyburgh to get some linen for him, and a few -necessary articles; while he himself sat in the tranquil house, the -peaceful old man’s habitation, where everything was adapted for comfort, -every chair an easy-chair, every passage and stair carpeted and -noiseless, and the atmosphere kept up to one regular warmth by the -thermometer. Harry sat in his uncle’s snuggery, half stifled by the want -of air, half asleep in the drowse of warmth and comfort. He had rarely -entered these rooms when he was a school-boy--in those days he had been -much more at home with Eadie than with her master--and to sit there now -had a strange sort of Sunday feeling, a suggestion of silent ease and -contemplative leisure. He could understand Uncle Henry liking it. If you -were an old man with ever so much to look back upon, it would, no doubt -(he thought) be pleasant to sit in these arm-chairs for hours together, -and review the past, turning everything over, and living it through once -more; but at Harry’s age, with so little to look back upon, and so much -to look forward to, this slumbrous calm would have been intolerable but -for the strange feverish weariedness of that _nuit blanche_ which he had -spent in wandering over the dark country, and which made the present -warmth and quiet at once oppressive and luxurious. He dropped asleep -half-a-dozen times in the course of the morning, waking up more -uncomfortable and feverish than ever, and ashamed of himself to boot. -What would have done him more good would have been to go out and walk -off his drowse; but then the thought of the high collar, which cut his -cheek, and of all the acquaintances to whom this masquerade would have -to be explained, made the idea of going out still more insupportable; -while on the other hand to think that he was here under a kind of -hiding, skulking indoors, not wishing to be seen, was terrible to the -unsophisticated youth, who had never before known what it was to shrink -from the eye of day. - -All these things worked bitterly in Harry’s mind as he sat and turned -them over, falling into vague feverish moments of forgetfulness, rousing -up again to more angry and uncomfortable consciousness than before. Of -course, he could not think of any other subject. He took up the -newspaper and tried to read it, but after he had gone over a sentence or -two, some scene from the last twenty-four hours would glide in over the -page and obliterate everything--his father’s furious face lowering upon -him, or that pale glare in the window of the house which was now shut up -and closed to him for ever; or the confused darkness of the shed in -which Joan (old Joan, a kind soul after all, as he said, in his boyish -jargon) had tried to comfort him--or it might be merely an incident of -his night’s walk, the sound of the water running below him as he stopped -on the bridge, only its sound betraying it in the darkness, or the -sudden graze of his hand against a wall as he made his way through the -gloom, or the dogs barking, baying against him on all sides. These -scenes came flashing before him one by one; and then his young cheeks -would grow red and hot as he remembered how he shrank from the -policeman’s lantern, and avoided the eye of the carter driving his -cabbages to the market in the grey of the morning. He had done nothing -to be ashamed of, and yet he had been made to feel guilty and ashamed; -what greater wrong could be done to a youth in the beginning of his -career? - -All this went through his mind, not in any formal succession--now one -scene, now another touching his sore and angry soul to sudden -exasperation. That he should have to remain all the long day inactive -after this convulsion which had changed his life, was an additional -irritation to him. Since Uncle Henry had failed to show him any -sympathy, what he would have liked would have been to rush out on the -moment and post away somewhere out of reach, he did not mind where. In -old days, or in primitive places, when a man could hire a horse or a -carriage and set out at once, there must have been a wonderful solace in -that possibility of instant action; but to wait for a train is a -terrible aggravation of the impatience of an angry or anxious mind, even -though the train arrives much sooner at its destination than the other -could do. The long hours of daylight which must pass ere that train came -up seemed to be years to him. He longed for the clang and the movement -as for the only comfort that remained to him. After, he did not know -what would happen. He would go back to Liverpool; he could realise the -arrival there, but he did not know what would follow. Was he to accept -his defeat quietly, to sit down upon his stool and continue his work, -and see some one else, unfamiliar to the office, enter and pay his -money, and take the place which Harry was to have had? All this made the -blood mount to his cheeks again in successive waves. Could he bear it? -could he put up with it? Sometimes the blood seemed to boil in his veins -and swell as if they would burst; and there came upon him, as upon so -many others, that wild sudden burst of longing--oh! to have wings like a -dove, to fly away! It is not always an elevating or noble longing; it -is the natural outcry of that sense of the intolerable which is in all -unaccustomed to trouble. To escape from it is the first impulse of the -undisciplined mind. Even when experience has taught us that we cannot -escape from it, nature still suggests that cry, that desire. Oh to have -wings like a dove! oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness! oh to turn -our backs upon our pain and all its circumstances, and flee away! And -the less this impulse is spiritual and visionary, the less it is -restrained by that deeper knowledge so soon acquired that we can rarely -escape from our troubles by any summary road, seeing that we can never -escape from ourselves. Harry began to get bewildered by the rising fever -in his heart of this longing to escape. Why should not he escape? cut -all the bonds of which so many had already been rent asunder for him, -throw family, and home (which had rejected him), and duty, and custom, -and the life he knew, and the circumstances which had hitherto shaped -it, all away with one effort, and emancipate himself? - -He had roused a little under the influence of this suggestion when his -uncle returned. Mr. Joscelyn had a compunction in his mind which made -him very conciliatory to Harry. To give him what he seemed to want, to -subtract so much, even if not very much, from his own possessions in -order to give to Harry, was an idea which he would not contemplate. If -Harry waited long enough he would get it; but in the meantime, a demand -upon him was like a warning that he had lived long enough, and that his -money was wanted for a new generation, which was as intolerable to Uncle -Henry as young Harry’s troubles were to him. He would not take upon -himself the burden of setting his grand-nephew up in life, but at the -same time he felt it was a hardship that the young fellow should not -have some one to set him up in life, and was conciliatory and soothing -by a kind of generous instinct, an instinct not generous enough to go -further. He came in in a mood which was much more agreeable to Harry -than that in which he had gone out, and which raised Mrs. Eadie’s hopes -high, who knew that her master did not often come back in this way, or -show himself so amiable. Mr. Joscelyn told Harry all the story of the -waste-paper, and gave him great insight into the workings of the Club. - -“If you are faithful to your native county, as I have been, I daresay -you will end by being a member of it,” he said. - -“It is not very likely, Sir,” said Harry. “I don’t care if I were never -to see the old place again.” - -“That is nonsense,” said his uncle, promptly. “That’s a question of age -entirely. At your time of life you think that all that is to be desired -is to be in the world, and you don’t understand that the world is not in -one place as much as another, not the grand world in London, or the -business world in Liverpool, but is just your world wherever you may -happen to be.” - -This was above Harry, who gaped slightly, and opened his eyes with -curiosity and wonder. - -“You will scarcely say that this is the world like London,” he said, -with that smile of youthful comment upon the mysterious obtuseness of -their elders which is general to every new generation. - -“But this is just what I do say, my boy; you have your little world -round about you, and neither is it bigger in the noise of a big place, -nor smaller in the quiet of a little one. We are capable just of so -much, and that we get wherever we are.” - -Harry opened his eyes a little more; but he thought it just as well to -say nothing. He thought no doubt this was a kind of dotage; but resorted -quickly to his own concerns, which were so much more important than any -philosophy of his uncle’s. - -“I don’t think,” he said, “if I were once out of it that I should want -to come back.” - -“Ah, well, I should probably have said the same thing at your age. One’s -ideas change from twenty to seventy,” said Mr. Henry, feeling that -perhaps after all it was expedient to steer clear of generalities. “Let -us see what Eadie has sent us for luncheon. I don’t often eat lunch -myself; when one breakfasts rather late, as I do, it is as well to -reserve one’s self till dinner; but you were a great deal earlier, -Harry, and besides at your age you are always hungry--blessed provision -of nature.” - -“I don’t think I’m always hungry; in the office one can’t indulge in -much eating,” said Harry, a little resentful. - -“When I was like you we used to go out to a little tavern. I daresay -it’s gone now. I could show you the place--I could go there blindfold, I -believe--where they made the most excellent chops. Ah! there are no such -chops now. Mrs. Eadie sends us very nice cutlets, but it is not the -same thing. We made our dinner of them, and when we got back to our -lodgings, in my time, we had tea.” - -“So most of us have now,” said Harry, “it saves a great deal of trouble; -it’s a big dining place now, there’s a grill-room as big as the -Market--” - -Mr. Henry held up his hands in anxious deprecation. - -“Don’t tell me anything about it. I know; a place like a -railway-station; the very railway-station itself has been invented since -my time. Your world has become a great deal busier and more hurried; but -it is not so comfortable, Harry. I am fond of good cookery, but I never -got anything better than those chops. As for the tea it always appeared -to me about the worst thing in the shape of a meal that a depraved -imagination could invent--very bad for the digestion, and neither -nourishing nor nice.” - -“But you can’t get your people in your lodgings to cook dinner for you,” -said Harry, entering into this question with feeling, “they don’t know -how--and then they won’t--they are dreadfully independent. So we have to -do the best we can. And I am not like you, Uncle Henry; in your time I -suppose the Joscelyns were swells? but they never were, you know, in my -day. I was brought up like that.” - -“The Joscelyns of my time, Harry, would never have recognized themselves -in your description. They would not have known what swells meant,” said -Mr. Henry, rather severely; but he did not enter into details, for -indeed, though they were “swells,” the living had always been very plain -at the White House. - -Then there was a little pause, and Harry felt better after two or three -of Mrs. Eadie’s cutlets. He said in a moment of repose, - -“I am going off, Uncle Harry, by the train to-night.” - -“Are you so? but what are you to do about your luggage? you can’t go -without your luggage.” - -“But I shall--I’ll ask nothing. I’ll take nothing out of that house.” - -“This is foolish, Harry. You should rather take everything you can get; -but, however, I hope I know better than to argue with an angry man--or -boy. You are quite right to get back to your work.” - -“It is about the only thing I have got left,” said Harry, somewhat -tragically. - -“And you could not have a better thing. But you will not always feel -like that. If you would like it, though I don’t know that it is a very -hopeful office, I would see your father, Harry.” - -“Nobody need see my father on my account,” cried Harry; his lips -quivered a little, but nothing save wrath was in his face; “that’s all -over. For my part I shouldn’t mind if it were all over together. I hate -Liverpool just as I hate Cumberland. I have a great mind to go clean -off--” - -“Abroad? and the very best thing you could do. Show yourself fit to keep -up the credit of your employers abroad, and it’s the best stepping stone -to advancement at home. I am very glad to hear you have such an -enlightened notion.” - -Harry was not pleased to have the ground thus cut from under his feet. -To be told, when you hint at what seems a desperate resolution, that it -is the best thing you can do, is exasperating. He withdrew with dignity -from the field and proffered no more confidence. The cutlets gave him a -safer outlet, for though he was in trouble he was hungry. It was a long -time since six o’clock; he had resisted Eadie’s offers of a “snack” -between, and the cutlets, though very nice, were not more than a -mouthful to Harry. Mr. Joscelyn trifled with one on his plate; but he -supplied his nephew with a liberal hand. - -“I shan’t be here, I am afraid, to see you away. I am dining out, as I -told you--it is unfortunate. But you are used to looking after -yourself.” - -“I would need to be,” said Harry, bitterly, and then he added, “I’ll say -goodbye to you now, Uncle Henry. Very likely I’ll never see you again. I -don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I may be going. You’ve always -been very kind to me; a fellow does not think anything of that at the -time--it seems all just a matter of course, you know. But I see now -you’ve always been very kind. I shall remember it as long as I live. I -said last night, he had never done anything for me, it was all Uncle -Henry. So it is, though I’m not sure that I ever thought of it before.” - -Mr. Joscelyn smiled, but he was touched. - -“Well, well, Harry,” he said; “that was natural; but now you show a very -nice feeling. And I always was glad to do what I could for you. As -schoolboys go you were not at all objectionable, and though you are a -little out of temper now things will come round. Put that in your -pocket. It’s only a trifle; but I daresay you may want some little -things, especially if you’re going abroad. That’s all. Let me hear how -you are going on from time to time. I shall always be glad to hear.” - -And then he began to talk of the news, and what the Duke was going to do -in the prospect of a new election for the county. “If Lord Charles does -not get in, it will be ridiculous--worse than wrong, absurd, considering -the stake they have in the county.” But it may be supposed that, in the -present crisis of his affairs, Harry Joscelyn cared very little for Lord -Charles. He replied civilly to his uncle’s talk; but as a matter of fact -he was very anxious to see what was in the envelope which Mr. Joscelyn -had insisted he should put in his pocket. It was not likely it would be -anything of an exciting character; but yet there was no telling. When, -however, Uncle Henry was gone, and Harry was free to examine this -envelope, it proved to contain two crisp ten pound notes--no more. He -was very much disappointed at first, thinking (foolishly) that it might -even be the capital he wanted--the thousand pounds to set him up. But -after a while, and somewhat grudgingly, Harry allowed to himself that -it was kind. Sometimes there is more pleasure to be got out of twenty -pounds than out of a thousand. Uncle Henry meant it very kindly. The -young man’s heart was a little softened and warmed, almost against his -will, by the gift. - -And when evening came, and with it the train which roars along between -that deep cutting under the fells, between two high walls of living -stone, to “the South” and the world, Harry, with a little portmanteau, -in which Mrs. Eadie had packed the things she had bought for him, walked -down to the station, boldly passing both lamps and policemen, and went -away. The little portmanteau was not half full; but Eadie thought it was -“more respectable.” He felt so himself. To have gone without any luggage -at all would have given him a thrill of shame. It was with a strange -forlorn feeling that he lounged about the station, looking at everything -as if he might never see it again. Strangely enough he seemed to find -out features in the place which he had never noticed before, in that -last look round, things which his indifferent eye had seen, without -noticing, ever so often; but which now at last he perceived, and would -recollect as part of Wyburgh, should he never see it again. He was glad -that it was dark when the train swept through the valley in which the -White House was. Though he could not see anything, yet he went to the -other side of the carriage, and so plunged along, passing all those -familiar places without seeing them, yet more vividly conscious of them -than, he thought, he had ever been before. What were they thinking, he -wondered? Would they have any suspicion that he was passing, going -away--for ever. For ever! something else seemed to say this in the air -about him, not his own voice. Was it possible that he might never pass -this way again? - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -WAITING. - - -Joan did not sleep much on that eventful night. She lay down in her bed -after the uncomfortable sleep which she had snatched among the -wash-tubs, but it was more as a matter of form than for any good there -was in it. She was secretly very anxious about Harry. Though she had -taken upon her so cheerfully to affirm that he had gone to the “Red -Lion,” she had not any confidence in this suggestion. She lay staring at -the window as it slowly grew a glimmering square, in the cold blue of -the dawning, wondering what had become of him. She had no great -imagination, and therefore there did not rush upon her mind a crowd of -visionary dangers such as would have besieged her mother, but she lay -with her face turned up to the ceiling and her eyes wide open, asking -herself what he was likely to have done; what he would be doing now? He -might fall into bad company, she thought, with a distinct identification -of one house in the village which did not bear a very good reputation, -and of which, as it happened, Harry was entirely ignorant; or he might -go straight off to the office, which, on the whole, was the best thing -he could do. That was all very well for the future; but where was he -to-night? where was he _now?_ - -This was a question which Joan could not answer to herself. She thought -over a great many things during the unaccustomed vigil. Never before had -her mother’s anxieties and “fuss” appeared as they now did to Joan with -a certain amount of reason in them. Certainly father was getting beyond -bearing, she said to herself. He was worse the older he grew. She had -told him that she was the best servant he had in the house, though she -got no wages, and it was true. If she liked “to take a situation” she -could earn excellent wages, and get praise instead of abuse for what she -did. She was not a person to be put upon in any way, and yet there were -times when he “put upon” even her. The contemplation of all this did -not move her to any impulses of furious indignation, as Harry was moved, -but she thought, lying there in the grey dawn, that it would have to be -put a stop to somehow. As for taking a situation, that was out of the -question. Joan was a very homely woman, not much better educated than -the dairy-maid, and accustomed to none of the softnesses of life, but -yet she was Miss Joscelyn of the White House, and nothing could have -obliterated from her mind the consciousness of this dignity which gave -her nothing, and yet was everything to her. Possessing this rank, it was -impossible for her to “take a situation.” She did not mind what she did -in her father’s house, but to earn money would have been a degradation. -She regretted it even, for she knew very well that she was a capable -person, able to “put her hand” to many things; but it was as -indisputable as if she had been Princess Royal of an ancient kingdom. -Could she have done this, and taken her mother away, and supported her -by the work of her own hands, she would have been now wound up to do it; -but, as it was impossible, she cast about in her mind what else she -could do to mend matters. Father was too bad, there was no denying -that; he had gone a great deal too far, and it would not be possible to -put up with him much longer. She concocted several speeches to be made -to him, but none of them seemed to her sufficient. To be sure, on the -other hand, mother would make a fuss. She would not take anything -easily. To see her excitement and anxiety over the smallest matters was -enough to provoke even a patient temper. She could not take things as -they came; that was a kind of excuse, perhaps, for father’s violence. -Joan turned over all these things in her mind, as if her parents stood -before the bar and it was her business to judge them. A woman of thirty -cannot go on with those childish fictions of reverence which make -criticism a sin. Indeed, even a child, the youngest, unconsciously -criticises as soon as it is able to think, and we are all standing -before the most awful of tribunals unawares when we live our lives and -show forth our motives before our babies; and Joan had long ceased to be -a baby. She saw her father and mother all round, and estimated them -calmly. _He_ had not many qualities which were good, perhaps not any at -all; _she_ had a great many amiable and tender graces of character of -which her daughter was vaguely aware, but she was of a nature which is -very provoking to a calm and judicious spirit. Thus Joan saw them as -they were, with the clearest impartial vision. What a pity that two such -people had married to make each other unhappy! Joan had a sort of -impatient feeling that, if she had only been in the world then, she -certainly would have done something to prevent the union which had -brought her into the world. This was the amusing side of her judicial -impartiality. It went the length sometimes of a comical impatience that -she had not been there to keep matters straight between them. - -All this glanced through her mind as she lay staring at the ceiling, or -at the blue square of the window gradually growing more visible. There -was no sleep for her that night. The first part of it she had found -uncomfortable enough, but sleep had been strong upon her. Now she was -comfortable, but had thoroughly shaken off sleep. She thought over all -the turmoil of the family, and its agitations. He had never done -anything so bad as this before. There had been storms in the house -without number, but he had always let the mother smooth things down. He -had never shut out any of “the boys,” which was what she called even -her brothers who were married and had boys of their own. And Harry was -the one most like his mother; most likely to make a fuss and take such -an accident in the worst way. Where had Harry gone? What was he doing? -Where could he go in the middle of the night? - -When she had come back to this subject, Joan felt almost too restless to -stay in bed. If she had but thought of it at the time she would have -gone after him; she would have prevented him from going away. To think -she should have been so overcome by sleep as not to know when Harry had -disappeared, or to be aware that he was gone! She turned and twisted -about in the self-annoyance caused by this, and could not rest. If she -had not been so sleepy, she might have stopped Harry and averted the -catastrophe, for she felt vaguely that a catastrophe it was. And what -would become of his mother if anything had happened to him? “Tut,” said -Joan, to herself, “I am getting as bad as mother herself. There is a bit -of mother in me, though I did not think it. What should have happened to -him? He’s sound asleep now while I’m moidering myself about him. To be -sure he must have knocked somebody up and got a bed somewhere; but in -the morning he’ll go over to Will’s, or Tom’s, or even Uncle Henry’s. -Things are bad enough as they are. Father’s getting that bad that even -me, _I_ can’t put up with him; and mother’s life’s a trouble to -her:--and to other folks too,” she added involuntarily, with a quaint, -comic twist of her upper lip. But notwithstanding this strong sense in -her mind that her mother’s example was not one to follow, and that there -was in its pathos a faint touch of the ridiculous, she yet could not -succeed in divesting her own mind of uneasiness. As soon as there was -light enough to see by she got up, and roused the maids, who were -tolerably early risers, but yet were now and then subjected to the -ignominy of being called by Miss Joan. “You would sleep if it was the -day of judgment,” she cried, standing at the door of the room in which -two of them were hastily jumping up, rubbing their eyes. “Why didn’t you -get up and let me in last night?” - -“Get oop and let ye in?” the women cried aghast. - -“I pulled the door upon me when I thought I had left it on the jar,” -said Joan, with prompt and unblushing falsehood, “and then I knocked -till I thought I should have brought down the house; but not a soul of -you stirred--till my poor mother, that is so delicate, got out of her -warm bed and opened to me. I would have died of cold but for the copper -you lighted last night; and here you are at five o’clock in the morning -snoring like all the seven sleepers, and a big washing in hand. Do you -mean me to do it myself?” - -“But Lord, Miss Joan, what were ye doin’ oot o’ t’ house at night?” said -the eldest of the maids. - -“That’s none of your business,” said Joan, “and unless you want to see -me at the washingtub you had better hurry. What you want with all that -sleep, and all that meat, is more than I can tell. I’ll do a better -day’s work than the best of you upon half of it. Get up to your washing, -ye lazy hussies.” Joan clapped the door with a little noise behind her, -so as to obliterate this word, which her grandmother would have used -with the greatest openness, but which the progress of civilisation has -made less possible even in the free-speaking north; but it relieved her -mind to say it, though she took pains that it should not be heard. As -for the two women, they laughed with little sound, but much -demonstration, when the door was closed; one of them throwing herself -upon a chair in convulsions of suppressed mirth. “Auld Joan, t’auld -toad, has gotten a lad at last,” they said. The idea that she had been -shut out in the cold in this very unusual courtship was such a joke to -them as no wit could have equalled. “T’auld Joan!” who was always so -much wiser than everybody else, and repressed “lads” with the strong -hand. But notwithstanding the excellency of the joke, they made haste to -their washing, as Joan was not a person to be trifled with, and soon the -scene of her disturbed slumber was full of noise, and bustle, and steam, -and all the commotion of a big washing, which always carries with it -some features of a Saturnalia. As the big pairs of red arms played in -and out of the steam and froth, a continued tempest of talk accompanied -the operations; but there were lulls now and then, especially when any -new-comer appeared, when the event of the night was communicated in loud -whispers, with peals of accompanying laughter. “T’auld Joan’s gotten a -lad at last.” “What’s the joke?” she said, on one occasion, coming in -abruptly; but this merely threw the company, which was in full enjoyment -of the witticism, into wilder convulsions of laughter. Perhaps Joan -guessed what it was. “You can have your fun for me, as long as you do -your work,” she said. She was not troubled by uneasy suggestions of -_amour-propre_. The maid who did the indoor work did not get off so -easily. She made a kind of confession. “I heard t’ master aboot. I -durstn’t get oop, and him there; and, Miss Joan, I dunno if you -ken--Master Harry’s been oot aw night. His bed’s just as t’was.” - -“Mr. Harry’s gone over to his brother’s. He made up his mind only last -night,” said Joan, without a wince. When there are domestic strifes -going on, the women of the family, always the most anxious to keep -scandal silent, have to lie with a composure invincible. Joan was a -woman who was true as steel, and would not have told a falsehood on any -other occasion for a kingdom; but this kind of lie did not touch her -conscience at all. She did not think of it as a falsehood. She was -willing even to deliver over her own reputation to the discussion of her -servants sooner than let in the light upon the family quarrel. Whether -Betty believed her or not was a different matter; at all events here was -an explanation. All the little bustle of getting the work of the -household set a-going, through which she swept like a whirlwind, amused -her mind for the moment, but did not lessen the anxiety, which came back -like a flood after this was accomplished, and her own individual part of -the morning’s work done. When she got through her dairy occupations the -uneasiness overflowed. She took old Simon the cowman into a corner. He -was a very old servant of the house and had seen all the children born, -and was interested in every one of them and their concerns, and all that -had happened to them--of which events he was a walking chronicle. “The -year Master Will wan t’ race up at be’castle.” “The year Master Tom -broke’s bones in t’ shindy election-time.” These were his dates. He was -an old bachelor, and it was believed that he had not another thought but -the house and what went on within it. Joan took him aside into a corner -of the wealthy but not very tidy yard, which was his domain. “I want you -to do a message for me, Simon, something I wouldn’t ask another man -about the place to do.” - -Simon gave her an acute, but slightly wondering, glance out of the old -blue eyes, which kept their youthful hue, though they had lost their -clearness, and which looked out of an old face, brightly tinted with -fine hues of crimson and orange. The old man was, an æsthetic person -would have said, a glorious bit of colour. The orange and the crimson -were almost pure tints in his old weather-beaten countenance, and his -eyes, though they were old, were of a kind of china-blue. He had a -quantity of somewhat ragged, yet venerable white hair, and stooped a -little, but trudged along with his stick as quickly as any younger man -about, and was perfectly hale and vigorous. He had all his wits about -him, though he was old. He looked at Joan keenly, yet with a dubious -gleam in his eyes. He had heard already--who had not?--that Joan, Joan -herself, the judge of everybody, had been out at the door courtin’, and -had been shut out. His glance meant a question; was it possible that she -meant to employ him as her messenger to the lover who was so mysterious -and incredible a personage, and about whom already “aw t’ house” had -been exercised to know who he could possibly be? - -“I’ll do my best,” he said, taking off his hat with a rustic impulse to -scratch his head, a process which seems to have been considered good for -the brains since the world began. - -“I’m a little anxious about Harry,” said Joan, “and so is -mother--mother far more than me; you know she will never take things -easy.” - -Simon nodded his head a great many times in energetic assent; no doubt -he knew--who better? had not he been sent off for the doctor a hundred -times when there was not much need of the doctor, and seen the Mistress -wringing her hands over what seemed to the household in general very -small occasion a hundred times more? To be sure she took nothing easy. -That was very well known. - -“Harry,” said Joan, “walked over last night, I think, to Will’s; but -it’s a long walk, and you know he’s used to towns now, not to country -ways.” - -To this Simon responded with his usual nod, but shook his head all the -same, by way of protest against bringing up a Joscelyn in a town. - -“It’s a pity? Well, it may be,” said Joan; “but it’s the fact, Simon. -Now I think most likely he stopped at the ‘Red Lion,’ not to wake us up -again or disturb my mother. She never sleeps but with one eye open, I -believe, and hears like a hare. You heard what happened to me last -night. The door blew to behind me when I was just out, looking what kind -of a night it was. Ne’er a one heard in the house but mother. That’s -just like her. Now Harry knows that, and he would think it would disturb -her if he came back.” - -Simon listened to all this with a perfectly stolid countenance; but he -knew as well that his young mistress was romancing, and inventing as she -went on--as well as the most fine critic could have done. He listened -with his eye upon her, with a word now and then to show that his -interest was fully kept up; but he saw through her, and Joan was partly -aware of his scepticism. - -“So we think--or I think,” said Joan, “that he may have stopped at the -‘Red Lion;’ and I want to know; but, Simon, I don’t want you to go like -a lion roaring and ask, has Mr. Harry Joscelyn slept a’ night here? I -want you to go warily and find out--find out, you understand?” - -“Withoot askin’? ay, ay, Miss Joan, I ken what ye mean,” Simon said, -with many nods of his white head. - -“Then bless us, man, go!” said Joan, whose anxiety had little -ebullitions from time to time, paroxysms which astounded her afterwards. -She put her hand on Simon’s arm and almost shook him in her passion; -then stopped and laughed at herself--“I have a deal of mother in me -after all,” she said. “There, go as fast as your old legs will carry -you, and bring me back word.” - -Simon liked to be taken into the confidence of his masters. He was of -the old fashion, not much unlike a slave or serf bound to the soil, not -perhaps a desirable kind of human being, but very useful to the masters -of him, and a much more picturesque figure than a modern servant. He -arraigned the family before his tribunal, and judged them much as Joan -did, knowing the weaknesses of each. He was of the kind of valet to whom -his master is never a hero; he saw them as do children, exactly as they -were, and knew all their fretfulness and pettiness as well as their -larger faults. But this did not interfere with his faithfulness and -devotion. He did not believe in them as perfect, nor in anything as -perfect. He was such a cynic as imperfect gods must always make. The -objects of his devotion were poor creatures enough, as he was well -aware, but this rather made him certain that all men were poor creatures -than that his “owners” were exceptionally petty. He gave them the first -place in his universe all the same, and served them, and considered -their interest before his own. Perhaps, however, this is rash to say. He -had no special interests of his own; he was an old bachelor, without -relations to whom he had attached himself. He had attached himself to -“the family” instead of these ties, and though he did not contemplate -the family in any ideal light, yet it had all the soul he possessed, and -its interests were his first object. He nodded his head a great many -times after Joan left him, as he prepared to go to the village. “I -understand,” he said to himself. But it was very doubtful whether he did -understand; he did not connect Joan’s supposed escapade with this -curious mission; notwithstanding, as he was wily by nature, he set off -with all the intention of accomplishing what he had to do with wile. He -took a basket on his arm in which he packed the butter which was sold in -the village. Joan making the discovery to her dismay, yet not without a -smile, of more and more of her mother in her, could scarcely endure all -his preparations, and had nearly rushed out of her dairy and pushed him -out with her own hands; but she recollected in time that it was useless -to interfere with Simon, who never did anything except in his own way. - -All this was long before the hour at which ordinary mortals have their -breakfast, before even Mrs. Joscelyn, trembling and pale, had ventured -to get up. The morning had been a long one for the poor lady; she had -not slept any more than her daughter; she had lain still, not daring to -move after all the house was astir, feeling as if she were fixed to her -uneasy bed by a stake. She writhed upon it faintly, but could not pull -it up, and lay still with her ears open to every sound till her husband, -usually early enough, but whose disturbed night had made him late this -morning of all mornings, got up and took himself away. Then it was for -the first time that poor Mrs. Joscelyn really felt a little of the -warmth of that sympathy for which she had longed all her life. Joscelyn -had scarcely stamped off with his big tread downstairs, when an equally -firm, if not so loud, step came up, and after a moment Joan appeared at -her mother’s bedside with a cup of tea in her hand. - -“Here is something to comfort you a bit, mother,” she said. Mrs. -Joscelyn like most nervous women believed that there was a kind of -salvation in tea. - -“Oh! have you any news of my Harry, Joan? that will comfort me more -than anything else,” she cried. - -“Now, mother,” said Joan, “why will you make a fuss? Could I send over -to the ‘Red Lion’ first thing in the morning to ask, is Harry lodging in -your house? as if we were frightened of him. We’ve no reason to be -frightened of him that I know. Am I to go and give him a bad character -because father’s behaved bad, and Harry’s taken offence. We mustn’t be -unreasonable. You wouldn’t like to raise an ill name on the poor boy.” - -“Oh, no, no--anything but that,” Mrs. Joscelyn said. She was silenced by -this plea; but her heart was still torn with anxiety. She looked -wistfully in her daughter’s face with her lips trembling. “Do you think -there is nothing that can be done without exposing him, Joan?” - -“Well, mother, I’ll see. We don’t want to expose anybody. I’ve told a -heap of fibs myself,” said Joan, with a broad smile, “and all the women -think they’ve caught me. I know what they’re thinking, they’re wondering -who I had to chatter with at the door. They’ll maybe on the whole,” she -added, laughing, “think all the better of me if they think I am -courtin’--so I will let them think what they like, and we must expose -nobody. Father’s a trial, but as long as we can we must just keep him to -ourselves.” - -“Ah, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, wringing her thin hands, “you can laugh, -but I feel a great deal more like crying. I can think upon nothing but -my poor boy.” - -“Well, mother,” said Joan, “crying is not my line. I’ll not pretend to -more; but it’s just as well there is one of us that can laugh, or what -would become of us both I don’t know. Take your tea; it will be quite -cold; and lie still and get a rest. The very first news I have I will -bring you, and you’re far better out of the way if you’ll take my -advice.” - -“I wish I was out of the way altogether. I wish I were in my grave. When -I was young I could bear it, but now my heart’s failed me. Oh, I just -wish that once for all I was out of the way!” - -“You make too much fuss, mother,” said Joan. “I am always telling you. -If you could take things easy it would be far better. Out of the way! -and what would Liddy do, poor little pet, when she comes home?” - -“Ah, Liddy!” The mother breathed out this name with a softened -expression; here was still a last hope that had not been torn from her. -Joan for her part went out of the room briskly, but stood and gazed out -of the window on the landing, which looked towards the village, holding -her hands very tightly clasped, and looking for the return of the -messenger whom she would not acknowledge to have sent. “Ah, Liddy,” she -said to herself, “she’ll be just such another as mother herself, and -what will I do between them? but I wish old Simon would come back with -some news of that boy.” - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -INQUIRIES. - - -Simon went down to the village, stooping over his stick and laden with -his big basket with a crab-like progression, which, nevertheless, was by -no means slow. There were few people to be met on the road, children -going to school for the most part, with whom he was no favourite, and -who called out little taunts after him when they were far enough off to -be safe from pursuit. He was not an amiable old man, but unless an -urchin came in his way he did not attempt to take any vengeance. “Little -scum o’ t’ earth,” he would say, shaking his fist, but that amused and -stimulated instead of alarming the youngsters. The village was mildly -astir, wrapped in a haze of morning sunshine; the better houses opening -up by degrees; the cottages all open to the sweet yet chill air of the -spring morning. At the “Red Lion” all was already in activity, doors and -windows open to carry off the heavy fumes of beer and tobacco left by -last night’s customers. Simon went in and rested his big basket on the -bar table. The ostler in the yard was making a great noise with his -pails, the women were brushing and scrubbing upstairs, and talking to -each other in harsh unmodulated rustic voices, and the mistress was busy -in her bar arranging and dusting the array of bottles which was its -chief decoration. “Is that you, Simon?” she said, and “It’s just me,” -was the old man’s answer; no ceremonial greeting was necessary. “I’ve -brought you th’ butter,” Simon said. “When it’s a fine colour and extra -good, I like to get the credit of ’t mysel’.” - -“You the credit,” said Mrs. Armstrong; “you’ll tell me next you’ve -kirned it and washed it and printed it yoursel’.” - -“I’ve milk’t it,” said Simon. “There’s a great art in milking. If you do -it in wan way the cream’s spoilt; but if ye do ’t in my way you see -what’s the consequence. Just look at my butter--it’s like lumps of -gowd.” - -“A wee too yallow for my fancy,” said the buyer. “That’s beet, and it -gies a taste. I’m no saying it’s your fault. There’s nae pasture on the -fells to keep the baists without feeding.” - -“_My_ baists,” said Simon, “want for naething; there’s no such sweet -pasture on a’ the fells as ower by the Reedbush yonder; it’s that juicy -and tasty. I think whiles it would be a good thing for me if I could eat -it mysel’.” - -“Well, Simon, you’re humble-minded,” said the mistress. “What will you -have? If ye eat cow’s meat ye will want something to warm your stamack -after ’t. Is it true they tell me that Miss Joan’s gotten a lad at long -and last?” - -“Miss Joan,” said the old retainer; “and wha might it be that evened -Miss Joan to lads or any nonsense o’ t’ sort?” - -“Eh, what’s the matter with her that she’s so different from other folk? -A lad’s natural to a lass; and though she ca’s herself a lady she’s just -a lass like the rest. Lady here and lady there; she’s just a stout lass -like any farmer’s daughter aboot. I’m no speaking a word again the -family.” - -“As well no,” said Simon, darkly. - -“Far better no; there’s Master Harry is a good customer--no that he -takes much when he’s here; but he’s for ever aboot the house.” - -“Ay, so?” said old Simon; “I thought he wasna the fine lad he used to -be. So he’s for ever aboot this house?” - -“Ye’re an auld ill-tongued--why shouldn’t he be aboot this house? Is -there any harm in this house? The curate himself, when he has a friend -with him, he’ll come to me for his dinner. The ‘Red Lion’s’ as good a -house as is atween this and Carlisle. Show you me another that is mair -exact in a’ the regulations, and gies less trouble. There no been so -much as a fine paid in the ‘Red Lion,’ no since my fayther’s time that -had it afore us. We’re kent through aw the countryside.” - -“I’m saying nae harm o’ t’ ‘Red Lion.’ Ye snap a man oop that short; but -a gentleman he’s best at home. I say to your face, mistress, as I -wouldn’t say worst behind your back. And if he’s hanging aboot a tap day -and night--” - -“Never but the night,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” promptly. -“I’ve never seen him in the day but passing the road; and a civil lad he -is, no a bit proud, no like your oopish ways. And about the tap it’s an -untruth, Simon, just an untruth. He’ll take his glass; but it’s not for -drink he comes, it’s for company. Tak’ you your butter to t’other side -o’ t’hoose. I’ll not have you down here.” - -“Na, Mistress, there’s was nae harm meant. You ken what’s thought in a -country place when a lad is seen aboot a public. And lads will be lads. -I reckon they keepit it oop late last nicht--keeping decent folk out of -their beds.” - -“No a moment after the fixed time,” said Mrs. Armstrong, promptly. “No a -moment! I’m till a moment myself, and my master he’s as exact as me. Na, -na, oor character is mair to us than a bottle or twa extra. Out o’ this -house they all go at eleven clock of night----” - -“But, mistress, ye’ve beds for man and baist,” said Simon, stolidly. -“You will not turn oot upon the street them that bides here?” - -“Hoot,” said the woman, with more good humour “what has that to do with -Mr. Harry? He never bides here; and we’ve few enough lodgers. Who would -come to the fells for pleasure at this time of the year? Noo and again -we’ve got a gentleman fishing. I wonder ye don’t mak’ a bit o’ money oot -o’ birds t’autumn, Simon. They say it’s no that plenty at the White -House.” - -“They say a deal o’ things that they ken naething aboot--like that for -wan, that they keepit it oop here yestreen till a’ the hours o’ t’ -night.” - -“And I tell ye it’s an untruth, Simon, whoever says it--it’s just a lee, -that’s what it is. I shut the door upon them with my ain hand. No a -living soul but them belonging to t’house at half after eleven. Ye may -tell that to whoever tellt you; and if I kent who they were I would hav’ -them oop afore the coart for slander. I would tak’ justice o’ them. -Lies! that’s what it is. Mr. Harry stood talking afore the door with -young Selby maybe talking nonsense; but was that any fault o’ mine? -Every lad o’ them a’ was oot o’ this house and home to their beds by the -hoor named in the regulations. Tak’ away your butter; I think we’re -wanting none the day.” - -“Na, na, mistress, there’s nought to be vexed aboot,” said old Simon. -“You’ve got your clash aboot the White House, and I’ve got my clash o’ -the ‘Red Lion.’ There’s non’ o’ them true; but we can give and take like -friends--the best o’ friends must give and take.” - -“Ask you that crooked body, Isaac Oliver; he was wan, and a bonnie time -he would have with the misses, or I’m mistaken. He was wan; for I saw -him waiting to speak to Mr. Harry when I shut the door. He was talking -with young Selby, as I tell ye, in the street, till I wished them i’ th’ -moon, disturbing honest folk’s rest. He might have gone home and kept it -oop with young Selby. I canna tell. If there’s any wan as blames me it’s -an untruth, Simon; and as for clashin’ it’s a thing I never do. Miss -Joan may have twenty lads for what I care, and high time--if she’s no to -be an old maid aw her days, which is what the haill town thought.” - -“I wish her nae worse,” said Simon. “I’m wan mysel’--better that than -fightin’ and scratchin’, or to be frightent for what the misses will -say--the missises in your way o’ business must be terribly bad for -trade.” - -“Well, I don’t blame them,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” with a -momentary preference of her own side in morals to her own side in trade. -But this, it may be readily guessed, was a toleration which could not -last. She was beginning to discuss the missis of Isaac Oliver, when -Simon took up his basket and adopted her former counsel of taking it to -the other side of the house. He had heard all he wanted; but he made his -circuit through the village, and left his butter here and there, with a -snatch of gossip wherever he went, and no particular regard to the -anxiety of his mistress. Anxiety is not much understood in the fells. -Why there should be a hurry for news: why you should make an expedition -expressly to learn one thing or another when there is something else to -do, which you could do at the same time, was not comprehensible to old -Simon. They would know “soon enough,” he thought. What was wrong with -the womenfolk that they should for ever be wanting news? they would hear -soon enough. It was true that he began to have a notion that Mr. Harry’s -escapade, whatever it was, meant more than a visit to his brother; but -what could it matter whether they knew about the “Red Lion” at ten -o’clock or twelve? He went tranquilly about his business and delivered -his butter, and heard everywhere about Miss Joan’s “lad.” Most of the -customers thought with the mistress of the “Red Lion,” that it was “high -time;” but some of them were of opinion that she would be a terrible -loss. “What will ye do without her? The missis isn’t of the stirring -sort, she’ll never keep the house agate,” they said. Simon did not much -believe in his mistress himself, as has been already said; but being a -Joscelyn, although only by marriage, he felt she was at least better -than anyone else. “You have to know the missis,” he said, “before you -can speak. She mayn’t be a stirring one; but t’ house is one of t’ -houses as goes by itself.” When he had heard their comments, and added -his share to them, Simon went leisurely home. He made no particular -haste, even though his basket was lightened of its load. He had -accomplished his mission very carefully; but that anyone should be -especially eager about the result of it was a thing that his brain could -not conceive. - -In the meanwhile the time was passing very heavily at the White House. -Mrs. Joscelyn had got up, after enduring the torture of lying still as -long as she was capable of it, and was seated in the uneasy seat in the -parlour window, gazing out, though with her work by her, with which to -veil her watch should anyone come in. Joscelyn had said nothing about it -last night. He had been almost conciliatory at breakfast to Joan, who -thought, on the whole, that it was better to let well alone, and make no -allusion to what had passed. “I will speak my mind to him sooner or -later,” she said to herself; “but it comes easier when you are angry and -don’t mind what you say.” Thus she did from calculation what so many -people do against all calculation, resolving to take advantage of the -next storm to deliver her soul. She and her father got on tolerably well -when the mother was out of the way. Joscelyn spoke to his daughter about -his farm affairs, about the prospects of his stables, and the horses -upon which he set his hopes. He was a considerable horse-dealer, and she -knew as much about them as any woman was capable of knowing. She was -quite willing to discuss the points of the last new filly, and quite -able to do so, and an intelligent critic, which her mother had never -been. “If she knows a horse from a cow it’s all she does,” he said of -his wife; and perhaps she had been sometimes a little impatient of these -constant discussions; but Joan had an opinion and gave it freely. Joan -ate a good breakfast, notwithstanding that half her mind was with Harry, -and that she kept her eye upon the window, that she might not miss old -Simon coming back--and she talked with perfect good-humour -notwithstanding all that had happened. She did not care, now that it was -over, about her locking-out; indeed she was of opinion that it was -better not to give her father the gratification of supposing that he -had produced any effect upon her. But when Mrs. Joscelyn came -downstairs, appealing to her with her pale face Joan’s difficulties were -much increased. She could not be hard upon her mother at such a moment; -indeed she was never hard upon her mother. She entreated her not to make -a fuss; not to take on; brought her a footstool; put out her work for -her, and so went off to her own occupations again. “But bless my heart, -I would be crazy before dinner-time if I were to sit with mother, and go -over it and over it, and see her wringing her poor hands--poor dear!” - -The last words were added after a pause, with involuntary tenderness. -Joan was anxious, too, about her brother, so that a slight gleam of -understanding had aroused her mind. Poor dear! to take on like that for -every trifle, to take nothing easy, was a state of mind which irritated -Joan; but this time it was not so wonderful. This time she was anxious -herself, and there was a cause for it. Long before Simon came back she -had rejected her own suggestion, that Harry must have gone to the “Red -Lion.” And if not there, where had he gone? where had he spent the -night? She kept her eyes upon the window or the door all the morning, -darting forth whenever she saw any stranger approach, prepared to find a -message from some cottage or outlying hamlet to bring her news of Harry. -He would have the sense to send, she thought; surely he would have the -sense to send word. He would know the state in which his mother would -be. But the long hours of the morning went on till noon, and nobody -came. They had never seemed to Joan so long before. She had never known -what it was before to do her work with a divided interest, and on a -strain of expectation. When she saw old Simon coming along the road with -his empty basket on his arm and his hat in one hand, while with the -other, and a spotted blue handkerchief, he wiped his furrowed forehead, -a wild sense of impatience came over her. She marched out upon him, the -big wooden spoon, with which she had been taking the cream off the milk, -still in her hand. He thought she was going to attack him with this -inappropriate but yet dangerous weapon. “Well?” she said, with a sort of -gasp; “_well?_” Her fervour bewildered him, for she had been quite calm -when she gave him the commission, and he stared at her with a mixture of -surprise and alarm. - -“Oh ay, Miss Joan, a’ well,” said old Simon. He had almost forgotten -the occasion of his early visit to the “Red Lion;” or was it that desire -to exasperate that sometimes seizes upon an old servant? It was all she -could do not to seize him by the shoulders and shake his news out of -him. She cried out in spite of herself, stamping her foot upon the hard -road. - -“What answer have ye brought? You have been out four hours, if you’ve -been a minute. I am waiting my answer,” she cried, in a strange, -half-stifled voice. - -“What answer?” said Simon, innocently; and then a gleam of intelligence -came over his face. “I was a fool to forget. There’s been nobody lodging -at the ‘Red Lion,’ Miss Joan, if that’s what you mean. The woman said -nobody. He left last night at eleven o’clock; that’s all she could tell -me. He’ll have gotten to Mr. Will’s many a long hour ago. It was a fine -night, and he’s a fine walker. There was nothing to be ooneasy aboot, -Miss Joan.” - -Joan gave his arm a shake unconsciously, in spite of herself, then -dropped it. “Who said I was uneasy? but you might have come back hours -ago, Simon, when I told you I wanted to hear.” - -“Did you tell me you wanted to hear? I had the butter on my mind,” said -Simon, calmly. And then, of all people in the world, Joscelyn himself -came suddenly in sight, round the corner of the house. - -“What’s wrong?” he said. “Has Simon been doing errands down in the -village, Joan, or what are you wanting with him out here?” - -Joan’s heart swelled with a momentary impulse of wrath. It was doubtful -for the moment whether she would seize the occasion and let him have her -mind, as she had to do sooner or later; but Simon went on with his slow -sing-song almost without a pause. “It’s the butter, master. I’ve been -down the town with the butter. Maybe you’ll speak to Miss Joan no to be -so particular; as if I was wan that would cheat the family. I’ve aye -been exact in my accounts.” - -This was a shot that went both ways, for Simon did not like Joan’s -talent for accounts. He preferred to go by rule of thumb, and count out -to her, so much from the “Red Lion,” so much from Dr. Selby’s, a -shilling here and a shilling there, paying down each coin as he gave the -list; whereas Joan liked it all in black and white. When he had said -this he hobbled on quietly to the back door, leaving the father and -daughter together. Joscelyn looked at her with a momentary keen -scrutiny. “You’re sending that old fellow upon your errands: and I would -like to know what they are,” he said. - -“If I’m not to send what errands I please, it’ll be better for me to go -away as well,” she replied. - -“What do you mean by _as well_? I’ll have no go-betweens, and no -mysteries here,” he said. - -But Joan was not in a mood to seize the opportunity and speak out, as -she had intended, on the first chance. She was exasperated, not simply -angry. She gave him an indignant look, and turned round without a word. -Now Joscelyn was himself uneasy at what he had done. He was not quite -without human feeling, and he had reflected much since upon what might -have happened. He did not know what had happened; he had not mentioned -the circumstance of the previous night; but his mind had not been free. -He wanted information, though he would not ask for it. When his wife had -let Joan in, in the middle of the night, he had supposed that Harry, -too, must have crept to bed like her, allowing himself to be vanquished. -That he had not appeared at breakfast was nothing extraordinary; but -even Joscelyn himself was eager to know what had happened now. - -“Hey, Joan,” he cried; “hey, come back, I want to speak to you. What -have you done with that young fool?” - -“I’m not acquainted with any young fools,” she said, almost sharply, -and, in her irritation, did not turn round, or even pause, but went -straight forward into the house. Her father stood for a few moments -switching his boots with the whip in his hand. He was uneasy in spite of -himself. He did not intend any special brutality. He meant no harm to -his son, only a severe lesson that should bring Harry “to heel,” like -one of his pointers. Above all he did not mean any scandal, any storm of -rural gossip. He was alarmed by the idea of all that might be said if it -were known that Harry had been shut out of his father’s house, for no -particular harm, only because he was late of returning home. -Accordingly, after a few moments’ indecision, he followed Joan into the -house and into the parlour, where he found her, as he felt certain he -should, with her mother. The women were clinging together, comforting -each other, when he pushed the door open; and they were greatly -startled by his appearance. Joan came away from her mother’s side -hastily. She did not wish it to be seen that there was moisture in her -eyes, or that she had actually--she, the matter-of-fact Joan--been -consoling the poor feeble woman whose tendency to make a fuss had always -stood between them. “Well,” she said hastily, “what is it, father?” -coming in front of Mrs. Joscelyn, and standing with her back to her -mother, shielding her from all critical eyes. - -Joscelyn threw himself into his chair by the fire, and turned it round -towards them. He had caught them, he thought. “What are you two -colleaguing about? There’s some mischief up, or two women would never be -laying their heads together. Commonly you’re never such friends.” - -“If we’re not friends it’s the more shame to us,” said Joan. - -“That’s your look out; it isn’t mine. _I_ don’t want you to be friends. -You’re a deal better the other way. I’ll not have two of you in corners -all about the place taking my character away. _I_ know what that means. -As soon as you’ve got some one to talk about, and compare notes, and -conspire against----” - -“Father, you had better keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Joan. -“You say what you like to mother, and she cries; but I’m not one to cry. -I am as good as you are, and very nearly as old. I’ll take insolence -from no man. It’s just as well you should hear it now; I’ve promised -myself you should hear it the first time I was in a passion. Hold your -tongue, mother. Obedience is all very well; but a woman of thirty is not -like a lass of thirteen, and there are some things that I will not put -up with. How dare you, if you are my father, speak like that to me? I am -no slave to whisper and to conspire, whoever may be. What do you do for -me that you should take all that upon you? I’m a servant without wages. -I work as hard as any man about the place, and I neither get credit nor -pay; and you think I’ll take all your insults to the boot as if I were a -frightened little lass; but you’re mistaken. It isn’t for nothing you -lock the door upon your family; and if you don’t keep a civil tongue in -your head----” - -“Joan, Joan!” came with a feeble cry from behind. Mrs. Joscelyn had -risen up with her usual gesture, wringing her hands. - -“Hold your tongue, mother. I’m something more than your daughter or -father’s daughter. I’m myself, Joan Joscelyn, a woman worth a good -day’s wage and a good character wherever I go. And to stay in this hole, -and be spoken to like a dog, that’s what I’ll not put up with. If he -likes to behave himself I will behave myself; but put up with his -insolence I will not. Sit down and do your mending, poor dear; it’s him -I’m talking to. Now look you here, father; if ever it is to happen to me -again that I’m to be watched what I do, or have a door locked upon me, -or be spoken to in _that_ tone----” - -Joscelyn was greatly astonished and taken aback. He was not prepared for -downright rebellion; but he was glad of this side-way to make an escape -for himself. - -“In _what_ tone?” he said. “What kind of way do you want to be spoken -to, hey? Am I to call you Miss Joscelyn? you’re a pretty Miss Joscelyn! -and beck and bow before you? This is a new kind of thing, Miss. You’re -something very grand, I don’t make any doubt, but we never knew it till -now. Tell us how you like to be spoken to, my lady, and we’ll do it. -There have been titles in the family; perhaps it’s Countess Joan you -would like, hey?” - -Joan tossed her head with indignant contempt. - -“I knew well enough,” she said, “that for any reason or sense it was not -worth the while to speak; but there was no help for it. You just know -now what I think, father; and after all that’s come and gone this last -night, it will be more your part to leave mother and me to ourselves to -get over it, than to come and try to torment us more. This is the -women’s room in the house; you’d far better leave it quiet to her and to -me.” - -Here Joscelyn burst in with a big oath, dashing his fist against the -table. - -“The women’s room!” he cried, “and what right have the women, dash them, -to any room but where I choose to let them be? Lord! if I keep my hands -off ye you may be glad. Women! the plague of a man’s life. When I think -what I might have been at this moment if I had kept free of that -whimpering, grumbling, sickly creature! I should have been a young man -now--I might have been a match for any lady in the county. And now, -madam, you’re setting up your children to face me. My mother’s money -last night--and who gave you a right to a penny! and the women’s room, -confound you all! as if you had a right to one inch in my house. By the -Lord Harry! I’m more inclined to pack you out, neck and crop, than I -ever was to eat my dinner. Clear the place of you, that’s what I’d like -to do.” - -“Do, father,” said Joan, “it will be the best day’s work you ever did. I -have a right to my parlour to sit at peace when my work’s done, or I -have a right to be turned out. Come, do it! You tried last night, but -I’d rather go in the day. Put me to the door; it will make me a deal -easier in my mind if you take it upon yourself.” - -He cursed her with foam on his lips, but not in a melodramatic way, and -Joan cared as little for the curse as for any exclamation. - -“You are enough to make a man take his hands to you,” he said. - -Joan grew suddenly red to the very roots of her hair. She drew a step -nearer to him with her eyes flaming. - -“That would maybe be the best,” she said. She was a strong woman, and -fearless, and for the moment the two stood facing each other, as if they -were measuring their respective strength. Then Joscelyn burst into a -rude laugh. - -“It is a good thing for some poor fellow that you’re the toad you are,” -he said, “not a woman. Now, your mother was well enough; but you’re -just a toad, that’s what you are, and make men fly from ye; and well for -them, as I say.” - -“If mother’s lot, poor body! comes by beauty, I’m glad I’m ugly,” said -Joan. “And if that’s all you’ve got to say we’ve heard it before, and -you had far better go to your beasts. But just you mind, father, this is -my last word; after all that’s come and gone, keep a civil tongue in -your head.” - -“What is it that’s come and gone?” he asked. “Where’s that boy you’re -hiding up and making a mystery of? where’s Harry? What is the meaning of -all this coming and going errands, and old Simon, and all the rest of -it? Where is Harry? By Jove! I’ll have it all cleared up at once!” he -said, once more dashing his fist against the table. - -There was a momentary pause, and the sensation of having their tyrant at -their mercy came over the two women. It affected them in altogether -different ways. Mrs. Joscelyn, who never braved anything, saw in it a -means of mending all quarrels in a common anxiety. She made a timid step -towards her husband, and put out her hand. - -“Oh, Ralph!” she cried, “our boy’s gone away!” She was ready, in her -sympathy for him, in her sense of the shock the information must give -him, to throw herself upon his neck that they might mingle their tears -as if they had been the most devoted pair. - -But Joan held her back. Joan looked at her father with keen eyes, in -which there was some gleam of triumph. - -“Lads have not the patience that women have,” she said. “When they’re -insulted, if they cannot fight they turn their backs; that’s what Harry -has done. He’ll never darken your doors again, be sure of that; nor -would I if I had been like him, except for mother, poor dear!” - -“Oh, Joan, don’t say that! he’s gone I know--but that he’ll never darken -our doors again--if I thought that it would break my heart.” - -“Mother, hold your tongue; my saying it will make little difference. He -will never darken these doors again. You and me may see him many a day, -in his own house, or with the other boys: but these doors,” said Joan, -“he’ll never darken again. It’s borne in upon my mind that it will be -long, long, before Harry Joscelyn is so much as heard of here.” - -“Don’t say that! don’t say that!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, falling back, -trembling and weeping, upon her chair. She was so pale and faint that -Joan’s heart was moved; she went to her mother’s side to comfort her, as -she never would have dreamt of doing in any other trouble that had ever -befallen the too sensitive woman. - -Joscelyn stood and stared at them for a moment in unusual silence. The -sight of Joan, always so calmly observant, more cynical than -sympathetic, giving herself up to the task of consoling this weak -mother, so unlike herself, struck him dumb. Joan! he could not -understand it. And that Harry should have gone away had more effect upon -him than he would have considered possible. He stood for a moment -staring, and then he went out of the room without saying a word. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE WOMEN’S PART. - - -There is no doubt that the interval which ensued after this was a time -of extraordinary peace and quietness at the White House. Whether it was -the heart which had faintly stirred in Ralph Joscelyn’s bosom, or -whether he was alarmed by what he had done, it is certain that he was -wonderfully subdued and silenced. When, after a long career of violence -and family domineering, and threats of all kinds, one of those who have -hitherto only scolded back and kept up a war of words, is suddenly stung -into action, and does something desperate instead of uttering the mere -froth of passion, it is not unusual to see the domestic tyrant come to a -sudden stand-still, more bewildered than anyone by the result. Times -without number he had threatened to turn every son he had out of the -house: but the young man who turned himself out of the house gave him -such a shock as he had never got before in his life. He was very -susceptible to outside criticism, for one thing, and all the county -would soon find out what had happened. He would be asked on the other -side of the Fells if he had any news of his son. The news would soon -travel over all his haunts as far as Carlisle. People would tell each -other how Harry Joscelyn had disappeared; that he had not been able to -stand things any longer; that there had been a dreadful quarrel, and his -father had turned him to the door, and he had gone away. It was a long -time, however, before the real state of affairs was known, even in the -White House. A few terrible days passed, terrible for his mother and -sister, and in a way for Joscelyn also, who was moody and silent, going -about the house more quietly than his wont, and not able to get over the -shock of his surprise. Joan secretly despatched messengers to the houses -of her brothers, neither of whom had seen Harry, and it was not till the -third day that Isaac Oliver came shuffling to the door, desiring to -speak with the mistress or Miss Joan. Joan found a little whispering -knot at the door as she passed through the passages from the dairy. - -“Who is that?” she said. - -“It’s me, Miss Joan, Isaac Oliver, your uncle’s man,” said a well-known -voice; and instantly there flashed upon Joan all he had come to say. -Uncle Henry’s, to be sure! Had she ever thought otherwise? Of course it -was the most natural place for Harry to go. - -“Come in this way,” she said, hastily. Joscelyn was out, and there was -little chance of visitors at the White House to interrupt such a -conference. She led him in with a beating heart, dismissing with a word -the gossiping women about the door. “I hope you’re bringing us no bad -news, Isaac; my uncle’s an old man,” said Joan, breathless. She so -little knew what she was saying, in the light that seemed to flood upon -her, that she did not even feel it to be insincere. - -“It’s not about t’auld maister, he’s fine and weel,” said Isaac, -following her along the passage with his shuffle, talking as he went; -“you would not give him more than sixty to look at him, out here and -there to his dinner, and driving about the country like ony young man.” - -“He’s very lively for his age,” Joan said. - -“Ay, or for any age,” said Isaac, and by this time they had reached the -parlour-door. - -The moment they had entered that sanctuary Joan turned upon this -messenger of fate and pushed him into a chair. She took no notice of -Mrs. Joscelyn, who sat as usual in the distance, pretending to work, but -on the watch for every wayfarer, sweeping the line of road and the grey -fields and dim horizon with her anxious eyes. - -“Now tell us what you have to tell us,” she cried. - -“It’s just--I’ve been at Wyburgh, Miss Joan, to see t’auld maister. He’s -fine and weel, as I said; and Mrs. Eadie, she’s fine and weel, and as -pleased as they could be, baith the wan and the other----” - -“Isaac, if you have nothing to tell us but about Uncle Henry and Mrs. -Eadie say so at once.” - -Mrs. Joscelyn rose from her chair. She left her eternal mending on her -seat, and came forward holding her hands together as was her wont. - -“What is it, Joan?” she said, with an appeal to her daughter’s -understanding; she had begun not to trust to her own. - -“That’s just what I’m waiting to hear. It’s about Harry; he’s been at -Wyburgh, of course, on his way to ----. To be sure, mother, you know -that.” - -“They were terrible glad to see him,” said Isaac. “I said you would be -sure to ken, but Mrs. Eadie she thought no, so she would engage me to -come. Go over as soon as you get back, Isaac, she said to me, the -mistress and Miss Joan will be real glad to hear.” - -“So we are, Isaac. Say away like a man, anything you can tell us we’ll -be glad to hear; he’s not a good letter-writer, my brother Harry; we -like to hear all we can. He got there safe and well?” - -“I gave him a dael of advice the night before,” said Isaac, “young lads -is aye wanting something--again’ asking a penny from t’auld maister. Mr. -Harry makes a fool o’ me, leddies; he’s just one o’ the lads I canno’ -resist. There’s naething I would not do for him. I flew in the face o’ -my missis, and even o’ my ain convictions, which are mair than ony -woman’s, to follow him to the ‘Red Lion’ the night afore. No, it’s not a -place that I frequent, far from that, no man can be more strong again’ -it, let alone the missis; but I risked a dael of disgrace to gang after -him there, to say to him--Ye’ll no’ think the worse of me, nor the -mistress will no’ think the worse of me, that I spoke my mind.” - -“And is he with Uncle Henry now, or has he--gone on?” - -“To say to him, ‘Hev patience,’ that was all I said, ‘Hev patience, and -ye’ll get every penny.’ I hev a conviction he’ll get every penny. It’s a -nice little bit of money, and the land’s no’ such ill land about -Burnswark if he were to build a new house. The auld wan we’re in is gude -for naething, but Burnswark would be no’ bad for a sma’ property if he -were to build a new house; and he’s naething to do but to hev -patience--and never to bother t’auld maister in his lifetime, that was -what I said.” - -“You were always a sensible person, Isaac; my uncle’s much obliged to -you for taking such care of him. But I hope my brother Harry did not -want it. Is he still at Wyburgh, or has he--gone on? Tell us, for you -see my mother’s anxious. We have got no letter.” - -“To my great satisfaction,” said Isaac, “he must have taken my advice, -for he went on to Liverpool the same night.” - -Joan nodded her head a great many times; her face was wreathed in -smiles. She took her mother’s feeble hands--straining themselves -together as usual--into hers, and beamed upon the messenger. - -“That is just what I thought! just what I thought!” she said; “far the -best thing he could do, and shows his sense, mother. I could have told -you from the first! Just see, now, how you torment yourself for nothing -at all. I’ll get his things packed and send them off this very night.” - -Isaac went on droning steadily. - -“I’m saying nothing again’ Mr. Harry, nor yet reflecting upon ony person -at home. Lads are aye wanting, and they’ll ask an auld uncle or aunt, or -that, sooner than they’ll ask faither or mither. I’ve seen the like o’ -that often, but what I said to Mr. Harry was, ‘Hev patience, that’s aw -about it: just hev patience and ye’ll get everything you want.’” - -“I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Joan; “you must have a -glass of wine. Would you like port wine or sherry, Isaac? you shall have -a glass of the best, and you can come up to the dairy next time you’re -going to Wyburgh and take Mrs. Eadie a bit of our sweet butter. Yes, -yes, I know you make it yourself, but you must not say it’s as good as -mine. Eadie shall have a pat all for herself--I am sure she was kind to -Harry--and perhaps some new-laid eggs, they’re a treat in a town.” - -“I take them in aw we hev at Burnswark. Ye need not trouble, Miss Joan,” -said Isaac, “wance a week I take in the best of everything, eggs and -cream.” - -“Or a little honey,” said Joan; “our honey off the Fells is beautiful. -It’s that Uncle Henry is so fond of. You shall take them a honey-comb, -Isaac; and tell your wife to come up to the house and see me. There’s -some things would make up for the children. She’s a good housewife, that -wife of yours, and keeps the children always nice. You should be proud -of her. She would be a credit to any man.” - -“Oh, ay,” said Isaac, sheepishly scratching his head, “there’s a many -worse, there’s a many worse. I’m making no complaint; but the worst of a -wife is that she will never let her man judge for himsel’.” - -“And a great deal better for you, if your judgment was to take you to -the ‘Red Lion,’” said Joan. She was gradually edging him out, -suppressing Isaac’s inclination to say a great deal more. “Good day,” -she cried, “good day,” conducting him to the door. “I am very much -obliged to you; and next time you go to Wyburgh you’ll be sure to take -the White House on your way.” - -When she had closed the door Joan turned round quickly upon her mother. -Mrs. Joscelyn was lying back in her chair, with those expressive hands -of hers lying loosely in her lap. The relief in her mind had relaxed all -the nervous tightening of her muscles. She had sunk back with that -softening sense of relief which makes freedom from pain no negative but -an active blessedness. The pressure upon her brain, and her heart, and -her very breath, seemed withdrawn. Sitting so quietly by the window, an -image of domestic tranquillity, she had been a mere collection of -beating pulses, of hot throbs and concussions; but now all these -agitations were stilled; her heart dropped into quietness, like a bird -into its nest, her blood ran softly in her veins. She smiled faintly at -Joan when she went up to her, and said in a scarcely audible voice, -“Thank God!” - -“That’s true,” said Joan, “but how often have I told you, mother, that -things would come all right if you would not make a fuss? The fellow was -in no danger after all, not in any danger at any time, just as well off -as a lad could be, petted by old Eadie, and with Uncle Henry to look -after him. Of course I knew he must have been there.” - -“You never said it, Joan.” - -“No,” said Joan, with a laugh rendered unsteady by the same sense of -relief, “I knew it the moment I heard it, mother. I am not setting up -for more sense than other folk; the moment I heard Isaac’s voice asking -for me I knew it in a moment, but not till then. Just see what fools we -are, the wisest of us,” said Joan, reflectively. “I think I’ve got a -little sense; but I have no more than other folk, till it’s put into my -head. Well! it’s a comfort to know his address to write to, and that -he’s gone to his work, and no harm done; for he has a queer temper, has -Harry. He’s not just like the rest of us; he might have done a desperate -thing, being the kind of lad he is. That’s always been on my mind. I -would not have said it till now, but that was always in my mind. A lad -like that, there was no telling what he mightn’t have done; but don’t I -aye tell you, mother, if you don’t make a fuss things will always come -right at the end?” - -Then Joan did what was a very strange thing for her, she sat down and -had a little cry all to herself. She had never betrayed the depth of her -anxiety before, but the running over of her satisfaction and relief -betrayed her. - -“The things have come from the wash,” she said; “I’ll put them in and -lock up his boxes, and send them to-night. He must have been ill off for -his clothes, poor lad! and I might have sent them after him without -losing any time, if I had only had the sense! Never mind, Eadie would do -the best she could for him, and it’s not a week yet. Bless me! what a -week it has been! It’s been like a year! I’ve been saying to myself all -these days, ‘I never knew I had so much of mother in me.’ It’s a funny -thing, a very funny thing, how folks are made up, a bit of one and a bit -of another; but I never thought I had so much of you in me, mother; I -have just been as near as possible to making a fuss myself.” - -And it is impossible to say how much this breaking down on Joan’s part, -temporary as it was, comforted her mother. She had never yet, she -thought, been so near to any of her children. She began, poor lady! to -pour forth her own dreary private self-tormentings. - -“I’ve pictured him astray on the moors; I’ve pictured him on the -Fell-side, Joan, with one of those dreadful mists coming on; every night -in the dark I have thought of him wandering and wandering. I’ve heard -his step going away, as I heard it that dreadful night; or in the -water--if some one had come and said there was one found in the -water----” - -“Now, mother, these are nothing but fancies,” cried Joan; “that’s what I -call just giving yourself up to nonsense. Was Harry such a fool as to -lose himself on the Fells? now, I ask you, just take a little common -sense! or the river? he that can swim like a duck. Nay, that goes beyond -me. Reason is reason, however nervous you may be. Nay, nay, I would -never take leave of my wits like that. If you will but mind what I say; -don’t make any more fuss than you can help, and in the end you’ll find -all will come right. Now I’ll go and put up the poor lad’s things; I -can’t think what he can have done for shirts.” - -Joan turned back, however, when she got to the door. - -“Now, mother, listen to me for a moment. Don’t take it into your head -that you are just to have a letter directly and all to go well. He may -take some time to come round. I would not wonder if he was offended both -with you and me. What for? oh, who can tell what for? Just for nonsense, -and queer temper. Don’t you be disappointed if there’s no word.” - -“I will be terribly disappointed, Joan,” said the poor mother. “I am -going to write to him now. Why should he be offended with me? If he does -not answer it will break my heart.” - -“Your heart’s been broken a many times, mother,” Joan said, shaking her -head. “Well, maybe there will be an answer, but it’s always best to be -prepared for the worst.” - -She shook her head again as she went away. - -“I wonder,” she said to herself, with a half smile on her face, “how -many pieces mother’s heart’s in? it’s taken a deal of breaking. We’ve -all had a good pull at it in our day;” and then her face, with its half -comic look of criticism, softened, and she added gently, “Poor dear!” - -Then Joan went up to Harry’s room in all her self-possessed activity, -and laid the clean white shirts carefully into the half-packed -portmanteau, which stood like a kind of coffin half open in the deserted -room. She looked through all the drawers, and put in everything he was -likely to want. She had a very soft heart to her younger brother. There -were only some five or six years between them, but a boy of -four-and-twenty looks very young to a woman over thirty; she felt as if -he might have been her son. Will and Tom were different. She had shared -their games and such training as they had, and lived her hoyden days in -their close company, with a careless comradeship, but no particular -sentiment. Harry, however, had been the one who was away. When he came -home at holiday times he was the stranger, the little brother, less -robust than the others, a boy who had to be considered and cared for; -even his mending and darning, in which she early had a share, had to be -more carefully done than the others, for Mrs. Joscelyn had been jealous -of any imperfection in her boy’s outfit falling under Uncle Henry’s, or -still more Uncle Henry’s housekeeper’s eye. And so it had happened that -a very special softness of regard for Harry had come into his elder -sister’s mind. Nobody knew of it, but there it was. Perhaps the fact -that he had “a deal of mother in him” had added to this partiality, -notwithstanding that the mother’s peculiarities had often exasperated -Joan in their original manifestation. Reflected in Harry they gave him a -certain charm, the charm which a nature full of sudden impulses, swift -to act and lively to feel has to a more substantial and matter-of-fact -nature. She packed his clothes even with a tender touch, smoothing -everything with the greatest neatness, arranging layer above layer in -the most perfect order. “They’ll all be tossed into his drawers -pell-mell,” she said, shaking her head over the linen as she laid it in, -with a smile on her face. She disliked untidiness next to wickedness, -but in Harry it was venial. Even Harry’s wrong-doings would have been no -more hardly judged by Joan than with a shake of the head and a smile. - -When she had finished her packing, she went downstairs on a still more -congenial errand, and packed a hamper of home produce for her brother. - -“Mr. Harry’s not coming back; he’s gone straight on to Liverpool; we’re -to send his things after him,” she explained to the maids, who were -full of curiosity, and vaguely certain that something was wrong. They -were already beginning to have their doubts as to that first fine -hypothesis about Joan’s lover, and to make out that Harry had more to do -with the locking of the door than any “lad” who could be “courting” the -daughter of the house; and they were all agog for information, as was -natural. The packing up of the cheese and eggs, the bottle of cream -(though that was allowed to be of very doubtful expediency), the fine -piece of honey-comb, the home-cured ham, all that was best in the house, -threw, however, an air of stability and reality about Harry, and -suppressed the first whispers against him. There could be nothing wrong -about a young man for whom such a hamper was being prepared; neither a -deadly quarrel with his family, nor any trouble at his office, nor -roguery of any kind was compatible with that hamper. It meant a -well-doing respectable youth eating good breakfasts (always a sure sign -of good morals) and coming in regularly to all his meals. The hamper -eased the mind generally of the house. Joscelyn himself saw it as he -passed, and, though he took no notice, was comforted too. His -uneasiness had been angry rather than anxious; but then the anger had -been partly against himself, and a consciousness that humbled him of -having laid himself open to criticism and made a foolish exhibition of -temper, had given it a double sting. It was one of the finest hams he -ever had seen which he saw packed into the hamper, and he grudged it to -Harry, but all the same it eased his mind. The fellow he said to -himself, had taken no harm; he was all right. He asked no questions, but -his mind was relieved. When they were all put into the cart in the -evening, to be taken down to the nearest station, even Mrs. Joscelyn -herself came out to the door to watch them go off. It was a soft -evening, the warmest that had been that season; the wind had changed -into the west, the sun was setting in a glow of crimson, the whole -valley canopied over with clouds full of rosy reflection. In the -distance one of these rose-clouds caught the mirror of the river, and -glowed in that, repeating its warm and smiling tone of colour in the -midst of the gray fields of the surrounding landscape and the gray -houses of the village. At the back door, where the cart was standing, -the servants were all congregated as if it wanted half-a-dozen people -to put up two portmanteaus and a hamper. Joan gave a hand herself with -that last precious burden. - -“That’s the most worth of a’,” said the cook. “Ye may buy shirts and -waistcoats, but you’ll no buy butter like ours, nor a ham to compare -with that--and my griddle-cakes, I never made better.” - -“It’s to be hoped,” said the dairy-maid, “they’ll not spoil.” - -Mrs. Joscelyn laid her hand upon it with a caressing touch; her poor -thin white hands at which the women looked half-admiring, -half-contemptuous, as good for nothing but to sew a seam and play the -piano. It was a kind of link between Harry and the house that had been -so unkind to him. “He’ll understand what it means,” she said to Joan, -aside, as the cart lumbered off. - -Joan did not make any reply, nor did she very well understand her -mother, nor know what it might be supposed to mean, but it was she who -had packed all that love, forgiveness, and tender thought; which were so -solidly represented in that hamper from home. And it lumbered off to the -railway, and was despatched by the night mail, though that was an -extravagant proceeding; and the White House was solaced visibly and -lightened of its care. It had not been a practice to give Harry such a -hamper when he went away. He got one at Christmas, and that had hitherto -been supposed to be enough; but this had more in it than met the eye. - -And then there was a pause in the history of the house, a pause of -suspense yet of hope and peace. Joan and her mother afterwards often -looked back to these days, which did not last long, yet were sweet. The -two were very good friends, not a jar between them, and Ralph Joscelyn -was unusually quiet and subdued; and it happened that one or two -visitors came to the house, a circumstance which did not often -happen--touching one of whom, in this little lull of preparing events, -we may as well take the opportunity of a word or two: for though nobody -thought very much about him at that moment, he was a personage of some -importance in the family life. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -A NEW PERSONAGE. - - -The visitor to whom reference has been made in the last chapter was a -Mr. Selby, a relative of the doctor in the village, who had recently -come down to these regions in the interests of a secondary line of -railway which was then being made. He was not a very young man, nor, -presumably, a very successful one, since at his mature age, he was no -more than engineer to a little local railway; but he had other qualities -not unattractive. He was what the village people called “a fine-made -man.” He had a handsome head, with grizzled hair and beard, which, -though touched by this mark of age, were otherwise very symbols of -vigour and strength, so crisp were the twists and rings of curl in -them, so strong and thick their growth. It was said that there was not a -navvy on the line who could lift such weights as he could or perform -such feats of strength: “he would put his hand to anything.” Dr. Selby -was proud of his relation. “I’ll back him to run, or jump, or throw with -any fellow of twenty-five in the Fell-country, though he’s forty-five if -he’s a day,” the Doctor said; and he did everything else besides that a -man ought to do. He was a good shot, rode well, walked well, played -football even when one was wanted to make up a team, though the game is -not adapted for persons of mature years. There was never much society -about the White House, but Philip Selby--as he was called even by -strangers, to distinguish him from the Doctor and the Doctor’s son, who -was young Selby--had come up repeatedly to see the horses, of which he -was supposed a judge. Indeed, he went so far as to buy a horse from -Joscelyn, a colt which was not thought much of in the stables when it -was born. It was this selection which established a kind of friendship -between Joan and the new-comer. She was standing by when the horses were -shown to him, and delivered her opinion, as she was wont to do, on the -subject. - -“You may say what you like against that brown colt: he’s not a beauty -just now, but I like the looks of him,” Joan said, and she indicated -various points in which she saw promise, which the present writer, not -sharing Joan’s knowledge, is unwilling to hazard her reputation on. -Philip Selby caught her up with great quickness. - -“I thought the same from the moment I set eyes on him,” he said, and he -took off his hat to Joan with a bow and smile which were unusual in -these parts. She felt herself “colour up,” as she said, though -afterwards she laughed. The men Joan was most acquainted with thought -these little courtesies belonged to tailors and Frenchmen, but to no -other class of reasonable beings, and there was a slight snigger even on -the part of the attendant grooms to see this little incident. Mr. Selby -was invited in afterwards to dinner to clench the bargain, and lingered -and talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses with Mrs. Joscelyn when -the meal was over, going back with her upon the elegant extracts of her -youth in a way which brightened the poor lady’s eyes and recalled to her -the long past superiorities of the Vicarage parlour, where it was -considered right and professional to belong to the book club, and to -keep up some knowledge of the new books which were supposed to be -discussed in intellectual society. - -“That is an educated man,” she said to her daughter, with a little air -of superior knowledge which did her a great deal of good, poor lady. -There was nobody else, she felt, about the White House, whose verdict -would be worth much on such a subject. But _she_ knew an educated man -when she saw one: and the little talk brought some colour to her cheeks. - -“Tut, mother,” said Joan, good-humouredly; but she had listened to the -talk with some secret admiration, and an amused and gratified wonder -that “mother” should show herself so capable. “I am sure you are the -only one that can talk about these sort of things here,” she said. -“Father stared, and so did I. He must have taken us for a set of -ignoramuses.” - -“I read a great deal in my youth,” Mrs. Joscelyn replied, with a gentle -pride which was mingled with melancholy, “though I cannot say that it -has been of much use to me in my married life; but I hope the gentleman -will come back, for he would be a good friend for Harry.” - -This was when Harry was expected, before the visit which ended so -disastrously had begun. - -And then after a few days Mr. Philip Selby _called_. Such a thing was -almost unknown at the White House; the few people about who were on -friendly terms with the Joscelyns, who were neither too high nor too -low--and these were very few, for the county people had ignored the last -generation of the fallen family, and the farmers and yeomen about were -beneath their pretensions--were on very familiar terms, and would stalk -straight in without any preliminaries, with perhaps a knock before they -opened it at the parlour-door, but nothing more. All the other Selbys -did this, marching in even in the middle of a meal without ceremony, -never pausing to ask if anyone was at home. If they found nobody they -walked out again, if they came into the midst of a family party they -drew in a chair and sat down. But when Mary Anne, the maid who fulfilled -the functions of parlour-maid, came in much flustered, with a card -between her finger and thumb, both she and her young mistress felt that -a very odd event had occurred, which they did not know what to think of. -As for Mrs. Joscelyn it was her turn to “colour up” with pleasure. “Show -the gentleman in, Mary Ann,” she said, drawing herself up and feeling -as if the world, her old world, was rolling back to her. - -She gave a glance round to see if the room was nice. It was a room that -was too tidy, and Mrs. Joscelyn felt it. She would have been horrified -with the littered rooms which are fashionable now-a-days, but her -parlour she knew was too tidy; the chairs which were not being used were -put back in a straight line against the wall, and everything was in its -proper place. She put out her hand and drew one of these chairs out of -the line, with that gentle air of knowing better which amused Joan so -much. - -“This is a gentleman that is accustomed to society. I told you so, -Joan.” - -“So you did, mother,” said Joan, rising up and putting back her chair -carefully. “If he is that kind of man we may as well put our best foot -foremost:” and with that she smoothed the table cover carefully and -lifted Mrs. Joscelyn’s basket of work, which was the chief thing that -made it home-like, out of the way. Joan even put away her knitting, and -sat with her hands before her, which was sad punishment to herself, in -order to look as Miss Joscelyn ought before the stranger. As for Mrs. -Joscelyn, she saw this done with a kind of anguish; but she was not -strong enough to resist. Then Mr. Selby was ushered in by the alarmed -Mary Ann, who, instead of announcing him as she ought, said in a -frightened tone, “Here’s the maan,” and vanished precipitately with such -an attack of the nerves that she had to go and lie down upon her bed. -Very soon, however, he put them both at their ease. He found Joan’s -knitting laid away on the top of the work basket, to which Mrs. Joscelyn -directed his attention by frequent wistful glances at it, and said he -was sure it was this she was looking for, though Joan’s anxious desire -had been to look at nothing. And then he sat and talked. Joan could -scarcely contain her wonder, and amusement, and admiration at this talk. -After a few minutes her fingers unconsciously sought the familiar -needles which restored the balance of her mind, and made her free to -listen. She was not young, nor had she any air of being young. Her -figure was trim and round, but well developed, ample and matronly, -though not with any superabundance of flesh. She had a pair of excellent -serviceable brown eyes, with a great deal of light in them; not -sparkling unduly, or employing themselves in any unauthorised way, but -seeing everything, and making a remark now and then of their own, which -an intelligent spectator could not but be interested by. The way in -which she turned those eyes from her mother to the visitor and back -again, with that surprise which made them round, and that amused -gratification which came the length of a smile upon her opened lips, -opened with wonder and pleasure, was quite a pleasant sight. She was -more like an innocent mother listening to the unsuspected cleverness of -her child’s opinions, than to a daughter admiring her mother. Now and -then, when Mrs. Joscelyn said something unusually fine, a little snap of -a cough came from Joan’s parted lips. She was astonished and she was -delighted. “Who would have thought mother had so much in her?” she was -saying all the time. She was not in the least handsome; but there was -nothing in her that was unpleasant or objectionable; not a harsh line, -or a sharp angle, or a twist of feature. Sometimes there is a curve at -the corner of a mouth which will spoil the harmony of a face altogether; -but Joan had no defect of this kind. She had a dimple in her smooth, -round chin, and another in her cheek. When she laughed there were two or -three other lurking pin-points which made themselves visible about her -face. Her eyes were delightful in their surprise. She had a great deal -of smooth, brown hair, brushed to the perfection of neatness, which was -wound in a thick plait round the back of her head. Altogether, though -there was no beauty about her, she was such a woman as gives comfort to -a house from the very sight of her; a woman of ready hand and ready wit, -and plenty of sense, but no more intellect than is necessary for -comfort--which perhaps is not saying very much. Her presence in an empty -house would have half furnished it at once, and she could say her say on -all subjects she knew. About that brown colt she had formed an opinion -of her own, which, as his chimed in with it, appeared extraordinarily -sensible to Philip Selby: and she knew as much about all farming -operations, and especially those which were connected with her own -sphere of the dairy, as any farmer round. She was not, as the reader has -perceived, a woman at all timid about her own opinions, or unwilling to -express them. But when Mrs. Joscelyn and the new visitor talked about -literature, and the pleasures of reading, Joan listened with open eyes -and lips, and a broad smile of ignorant and admiring pleasure. “Think -of mother talking away thirteen to the dozen! and who’d have thought she -had all that in her,” Joan said to herself. - -As for Mrs. Joscelyn, her cheeks were pink all the evening after, and -her eyes quite bright. “I have not had so much conversation for years. -Dear, dear! how it does one good, after never seeing anybody that has -ever opened a book, to get a good talk with a well-informed person! I -hope Harry will take to Mr. Selby,” Mrs. Joscelyn cried; “what a chance -for him, Joan! a man that really knows; and will give him such good -advice--and so good for Liddy, too, when she comes home.” Joan -acquiesced in all this, with a laugh. - -“It was as good as a play to hear you,” she said, “and me gaping all the -time, saying to myself, ‘I never knew mother had so much in her!’” At -this Mrs Joscelyn drew herself up a little; but she was not displeased -with the praise. - -“I read a great deal when I was young,” she said. “Papa always insisted -upon it. You have not had my advantages, Joan; but you have strong -sense, my dear, which, perhaps, I never had.” - -“I daresay I will do, mother,” said Joan, with another laugh. She -admired her mother’s cleverness with a kind of amused delight; but the -idea of being less valued than her mother did not enter Joan’s head. It -made her laugh, with a comfortable sense of practical superiority. “I’ll -do,” she repeated, smiling broadly, all the dimples showing in her -cheeks. She had a good deal of colour. Mrs. Joscelyn’s fragile looks and -elegant extracts were alike out of Joan’s way. - -After this Mr. Philip Selby came several times. Joan always assisted at -the interviews in the same pleased spectatorship. It occurred to her -after a while that the information of the talkers was not very -extensive. She seemed to hear the same names over and over again--almost -the same remarks--which reduced Joan’s admiration, and made her feel -that perhaps after all it was only a way they had, and did not imply the -profound erudition she had admired so much: but still it was finer talk -than anything she had heard before. Then Harry, came interrupting these -elegant conversations. Harry did not think anything of them at all; he -had no literary tastes any more than the rest of the family. He was not -at all given to reading, and the consequence of Mrs. Joscelyn’s -recommendation to him of Mr. Philip Selby, and his society, resulted in -a strong dislike on Harry’s part to Mr. Selby, and desire never to see -him again. Young Selby was Harry’s friend, a young man who was not good -for very much; and he also had the strongest objection to his cousin. -There had not been much heard of Mr. Selby while Harry was at the White -House; but just after the luggage and the hamper had been sent off, and -when peace had for a little while returned, he came to pay one of his -usual visits. And perhaps it was that Mrs. Joscelyn was preoccupied; -perhaps that Mr. Selby had something on his mind. The conversation -flagged. Joan, who now never made any attempt to put by her knitting, -and permitted her mother’s basket to exhibit its store of mending -freely, took notice of a long pause that occurred in the talk, and she -hastened to do what she could, in her straight-forward way, to fill up -the gap. - -“Mother’s had a deal to think of lately,” she said. “I think she should -take a nap in the afternoon. Many are a bit drowsy after dinner. I think -it would do her a deal of good if she were to put up her feet upon the -sofa, and take a bit of a doze.” - -“Joan,” cried poor Mrs. Joscelyn, wounded in her tenderest feelings, -“when did you ever see me doze?” - -“There,” said Joan, promptly, “that’s just what I say. It would do you a -deal of good. You were always one for keeping up; but ‘a stitch in time -saves nine,’ and you’ve had more to think of than ordinary. Just you -close your eyes a little bit, and I’ll talk to Mr. Selby. He’ll not mind -for ten minutes. They tell me you’re getting on wonderfully with the -railway; and is there enough of travellers from Wyburgh to Ormsford to -make it pay?” - -“I have my doubts,” Selby said. - -“I have more than doubts. I hope you have not got money in it. There is -no traffic, nor manufactories, nor anything like that. Just two or three -farmers, and ordinary folk, and potatoes, and such like, and milk-cans; -but nothing to keep up a railway. I’ve often wondered, now, a clever man -like you, what made you take it in hand?” - -“I am very glad you think me a clever man, Miss Joscelyn. I’m afraid I -haven’t much to say for myself. They offered me the job, and I took it. -If I hadn’t taken it, somebody else would; and it is not my affair. I am -making it as good a piece of work as I can. Perhaps something else may -come of it,” he said. - -“Well, I hope something else may come of it,” said Joan, “for your sake. -I don’t think very much will come of it, itself. It’s fine making roads -when there is somebody to walk upon them: and the Fell country’s a fine -country--but perhaps not fit for railways. You see,” said Joan, “there -never can be much of a population; you can’t break down the hills, and -sow corn upon them. One line straight through, that stands to -reason--but I would have nothing to do with more, for my part.” - -“What you say is very sensible, Miss Joscelyn. What do you think of -Brokenriggs as a bit of land? They tell me it has a good aspect, and is -capable of being improved--” - -“Brokenriggs? you are not taking the railway there? Oh, you were meaning -in the way of farming? It’s a good enough aspect, but it’s cold soil. -Speak to old Isaac Oliver about that, and he will tell you; it’s not a -generous soil. You put a great deal into it, and take little out; that’s -what I’ve always heard. Indeed, I’ve seen it for myself, as you may too, -any day, if you turn down by the old tower--what they call Joscelyn -tower, you know; but the house is a very poor place; I hope you were not -thinking of it for yourself?” - -“It was for--a friend,” said Selby, with a smile. - -“Then tell him no; I would not recommend it. There’s another place. It -was once in our family, so I’ve always heard; but we are people, as I -daresay you know, that have come down in the world.” - -“Have had losses--like--so many people,” said Selby. He was going to say -Dogberry, but the words woke no consciousness in Joan’s eyes. - -“So many losses, that we’ve got little left. It is about ten miles from -here, Heatonshaw. It’s a nice little property, and a house that could be -repaired: they say it was once the Dowerhouse in our family when we were -grander folk. A nice bit of pasture,” said Joan, with enthusiasm. “I -have always thought if I could turn out my cows there, there would not -be butter like it in all the North country. There is not much to better -my butter anyhow, I can tell you--though I say it that shouldn’t,” she -said, with a little pride, then laughed at herself. - -“And this--what do you call it, Heatonshaw? is a place you would like -for yourself.” - -“Dearly,” said Joan, “I was telling you--there’s no better pasture; a -bit of meadow, just as sweet as honey, and all the hill-side above. And -there’s a good bit of arable land lying very well for the sun. I have -heard of great crops in some of the fields; I cannot tell you how many -bushels to the acre, but you will easily find out. And if your friend -has a taste for a dairy--that’s what I could give my opinion upon.” - -“There is nobody whose opinion he would sooner take,” Selby said, and as -he did so he looked at Joan in a way that somewhat startled her. It was -not such a look as she had been in the habit of seeing directed to -herself. She had seen other people so regarded, and had laughed. Somehow -this gave her an odd sensation, a sensation chiefly of surprise; then -she felt inclined to laugh also, though at herself. Bless us all, what -had the man got into his head? surely not any nonsense of that sort! It -so tickled Joan that she felt herself shaking with laughter, to which -she dared not give vent--and she turned her eyes upon her stocking, -which was the last thing she ever looked at, lest an incautious contact -with someone else’s should produce an explosion of mirth. - -“Are you rested now, mother?” she said, “I’ll have to go presently and -look after Bess.” Bess was the dairy woman, who had no head for -anything, but was Joan’s dutiful slave. - -“I was not so tired as you thought, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, half -aggrieved, “I have been doing my work, as you might see--” - -“Now, mother, that is a real deception; when I thought you were taking a -doze, and was entertaining Mr. Selby with country matters, to let you -get your rest! however when there’s a question of farms or the lie of -the land, or anything like that, I may take it upon me to say I am -better than mother, though she’s far cleverer than me,” said Joan, -laying aside her knitting. Selby got up to open the door for her, which -was an attention quite unusual, and increased the overpowering desire to -laugh with which she had been seized. - -“I wonder if I might ask to see your dairy?” he said in a low tone, -detaining her at the door. - -“Not to-day,” said Joan, briskly, “I never let anybody see my dairy but -when it is in prime order; and we are busy to-day.” - -“I am sure no dairy of yours is ever in anything but prime order,” he -said, with another look that completely overpowered Joan’s gravity. She -almost pulled the door from his hand, shutting it quickly between them, -and ran off, not to the dairy, as she had said, but to her own room, -giving forth suppressed chokes of sound at spasmodic intervals as she -flew upstairs. Joan’s was no fairy foot, but a firm substantial tread, -which made the old stairs creak. When she got into the shelter of her -own chamber, she threw herself into a chair, and laughed till the tears -ran down her cheeks. “The lasses have been true prophets after all; I -believe I have gotten a lad at last,” she said to herself. But even when -her fit of laughter was over, she did not venture downstairs, or near -the dairy, until she was certain that Philip Selby must have taken -himself away. She bustled about the room, looking over clothes that -wanted mending, and “tidying” drawers which wanted no tidying, still -pausing now and then to give vent to another laugh; nothing so laughable -had occurred before in Joan’s career. She had been asked in marriage by -an enterprising “vet” when she was a girl, a poor fellow who had not -considered the daughter of a man who was an evident horse-dealer to be -so very far above him, but who was all but kicked out of the house by -Ralph Joscelyn, and his long-legged sons. Joan had never heard of it -even, till after the episode was over, and though she was duly indignant -at his presumption, she had felt rather an interest in the man himself, -hoping to hear for some time that his disappointment had not affected -his health, or interfered with his career. But the “vet” had found a -more suitable match, and all had gone well with him, which utterly ended -any little bit of romance she might have had a capacity for. Since that -time Joan had not had any “lad.” Everybody who was good enough for a -Joscelyn to marry, was too good for Ralph Joscelyn’s daughter, and -though she was homely she was proud. She could work like a dairy-maid, -but she would not have married beneath her. Besides, she was not a -marrying woman. There is such a variety of the species, just as there is -a non-marrying man; and the more independent women get to be, no doubt -the more this class will increase, though it is in a very small minority -now. Joan was not at all independent in means, but she was independent -in her character, and her work. There was no one to interfere with her -in her share of the labours of the establishment. Her mother did not -even understand what that work was, and her father, though he was a -bold man, did not venture to interfere. She had everything her own way, -and guided the house in general according to her will, notwithstanding -an occasional outburst, which she soon quieted, on her father’s part. -Having thus a great deal to do, a position of weight, and domestic -authority, an absolute sovereignty so far as it went, why should she -have wanted to marry? She did not; and it was the sentimental -consciousness of Selby’s looks that was too much for her gravity. “Just -like a dog when it’s singing music,” said Joan to herself. When she went -down to the dairy Selby was gone, and Mrs. Joscelyn all uncomprehending -seated alone in the parlour. Her mending (which she was always doing; -never was a man who wore out his under-clothing so!) required her eyes -and her full attention, not like Joan’s knitting; she had never even -seen those looks which Joan called “sheep’s eyes.” But Joan herself was -much on the alert afterwards, and fully foresaw what was going to happen -if she did not take care; and, indeed, notwithstanding all her care, -something did happen, as will be seen, within the short space of two -days. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -A PROPOSAL. - - -The White House had begun to be slightly agitated by the expectation of -letters from Harry, when Mr. Selby came again. There was no immediate -acknowledgment of the arrival of the boxes, or reply to the letter which -Mrs. Joscelyn had written instantly, as soon as they heard that he had -returned to Liverpool; but this both mother and daughter thought was -natural enough. Harry no doubt would be sulky; even his mother and -sister would be included in his anger against the house, though they had -done nothing which he ought to have taken in ill part. He was not a -great letter-writer, however, and they were both indulgent to Harry, and -willing to give him a little time to get over his “pet,” as Joan called -it. Joan took the whole matter cheerily. He was only “in a pet.” He had -been “in a pet” before now, and had kept his mother uneasy, refusing to -write; but it had gone off, and all had come right again. No doubt it -would be the same now: only this time he had some reason for his “pet,” -and might be excused if he was a little sulky. “You know, mother,” said -Joan, “Harry’s terrible young for his age. He’s just a baby for his age, -and he has a deal of you in him. We must let him get over his pet.” - -“Oh, Joan, do you think I would keep anybody anxious that was fond of -me?” said Mrs. Joscelyn, “but,” she added, with a sigh, “nobody would -care very much if it was only me. It is this that gives you all the pull -over me, that I care, and you don’t.” - -Joan could not contradict this; and there gleamed over her a momentary -compassion for her mother, whose lot it seemed to be always to “care,” -while nobody cared for her. “You must try and not care so much, mother. -We’re none of us worth it,” she said, “but, as for Harry, he’s just in a -pet. Leave him alone, and he’ll soon come to himself. My fine ham! I -wouldn’t have wasted it on a person that didn’t deserve it. If he don’t -write within the week, I will say he’s not worth the salt it’s cured -with; but we’ll give him a week; by that time he’ll come round, if he’s -a bit sulky just at first. I don’t blame him, for my part.” - -Mrs. Joscelyn’s hands had crept together, and clasped each other, with -that earnest appeal she was always making to earth and heaven: but they -slid asunder hastily when she met Joan’s eyes. She was thankful to allow -that it was quite reasonable that Harry should be sulky. “Though he -might have thought a little upon me. He might have thought I would -suffer most of all. He might have remembered how little I can do, and -that I must support everything,” she said to herself, with a few quiet -tears. She did not venture to say it even to Joan, though Joan was so -much more sympathetic than she could have hoped. Nobody ever thought of -anything she might have to suffer. Perhaps on the whole she was supposed -to enjoy it. “Making a fuss,” was one of her specialities in everybody’s -opinion. Her children were all disposed to think it did not matter very -much what the object of “the fuss” was. And thus she was left in her -parlour with her mending, a woman surrounded with people belonging to -her by nature and the dearest ties, yet altogether alone, as lonely as -any poor old maiden in her garret. Nor is this any unusual thing; a fact -in which the solitary may find a little uncomfortable alleviation of -their special woes. - -Mr. Selby came back while the house was in this state of expectation, -not anxious as yet, but on the eve of becoming so. He did not send in -his card now, but usually presumed so far as to go straight to the -parlour door by himself, where he always knocked, however, before -entering. This time, he came in the morning, when he knew Joan was not -likely to be in the parlour. He was a little nervous, though perhaps it -would be too much to say that his heart beat. After forty, a man’s heart -requires a very strong inducement to make it beat, that is to say, in -any violent manner. But he was a little nervous, and half ashamed at -what he was about to do. He went doubtfully to the dairy door, which was -standing wide open. Inside Joan could be seen moving briskly about, and -her voice was very audible in not very gentle tones. Selby paused a -little, and listened to it with a comical concern upon his face. His -brow contracted a little with anxious care, though his mouth laughed. -Joan was scolding, nothing more or less. “Talk to me about not having -time!” she said, “You have time to dress yourself up, and go out to -court your lad, night after night. Is that what you call your duty to -your neighbour? My word, if your lads were your neighbours, you would -keep the commandments easy. Did ever any mortal see such bowls, to be in -a Christian person’s dairy? Woman! where do you expect to go? A dairy’s -not a dairy if the Queen of England might not eat her dinner off every -shelf in it, and give a prize for every brick. That’s what makes the -butter sweet, not your lads, or the tricks that you play. Get out of my -sight! I could take my hands to you, if I did not think too much of -myself.” - -Philip Selby stood in the yard with a comical look on his face, and -listened. Was it fright? There could not be the least doubt that Joan -was scolding violently, and even using threats of personal violence, to -the lass, who, half in sorrow, but more than half in anger, was sobbing -in the background. The very sound of her foot and its rapid tap upon the -floor, was angry, and scolded too. He paused, and a look of alarm came -over his face. The Joscelyns were known for hot tempers all over the -county. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whom people avoided any sort of -argument with on this account, and all his sons shared, more or less, -his disposition. What if Joan shared it too? It was alarming to a man -bent on the special errand which had brought Selby here. Perhaps the -doubt was not romantic, but, on the whole, neither was the errand. If -she should say to him, “Get out of my sight!” if she should threaten to -“take her hands” to him in any domestic difficulty, it would not be -agreeable. He stopped short in the yard, where old Simon was cleaning -his milk-pails; through the dairy window the milk-bowls were visible, -ranged in perfect order, and a glimpse of Joan’s trim substantial -figure, passing and re-passing, with no sort of languor about her, such -as is supposed to encourage love. The would-be lover had a visible -movement of doubt. He caught old Simon’s eye and blushed, though he had -long supposed himself to be past blushing, and gave an uneasy laugh, -which sounded shy, though it was twenty years, Mr. Selby thought, since -he knew what the word meant. Old Simon was a man with a very wandering -eye, an eye to be spoken of in strict correctness in the singular -number. One of them he always kept upon his work, the other moved about, -finding out everything that was unwilling to be seen; this time he -perceived Mr. Selby’s sentiment at the first glance. - -“Ye needn’t be feared,” he said, taking one hand from his pail to wave -it in the direction of the dairy, “ye needn’t be feared. She’s not a -lass to be feared for, our Miss Joan. Her bark’s worse than her bite. -Bless you, not the hundredth part of that she don’t mean.” - -Philip Selby felt more alarmed still. That a woman should scold when she -meant it, that was supportable; but when she scolded, not meaning it, -that indeed was something to be frightened for. The smile upon his mouth -became a nervous one. He faltered in spite of himself. - -“Lord!” said old Simon, turning his head aside, “six feet high, and na -mair heart than that. Is that what ye ca’ a man?” - -“Hist!” said Selby, beckoning him close; he had half-a-crown between his -finger and thumb, “is that, now, a thing that happens very often? Tell -me the truth, and I’ll make it worth your while.” - -“Terrible often,” said Simon, with a grin of derision, “most days--and -twa or three times a day.” - -“And how do you manage to live with her?” said the panic-stricken -suitor. - -“We cannot bide her out of our sight,” said Simon, his grin growing more -and more disdainful, “naething goes right when she’s--away. You may make -what you like out o’ that. It’s what they ca’ a paradox at the night -school.” - -And he went off clashing his pails against each other in a manner which -caught Joan’s keen ear, as she paused for a moment before the open -window. “What are you doing with those pails?” she said; “have all the -folk about the town gone out of their wits to day? Do you not know, -Simon, that you started all the hoops last summer, and brought us in a -bill as long as my arm? Bless me, can nothing be done right in this -house, unless I put to my own hand, and do it myself?” - -“Hear to her!” said Simon, tranquilly, taking no other notice of this -energetic address, “you can see for yourself. She’s often like that, -less or more.” - -At this moment there came the sound of a laugh from within. “It’s Mr. -Selby, I declare,” said Joan, “to see the dairy! and all in such -disorder, ye lazy, big, soft----I told you I would let nobody in unless -we were tidied up, and we’re not tidied up, not a bit; but you’ll have -to come in, I suppose, as you’re here. Step in; we must not grudge the -welcome, since it’s all you’re likely to get. I’m in a passion; that’s -the fact,” said Joan, with a laugh, “I’m raging like a bull of Bashan. -You heard me as you were coming through the yard, I make no doubt; and -that’s how I have to go on very near every day.” - -“Oh no, Miss Joan!” said the lass who had been bearing the brunt of the -storm; and Selby, looking round, saw that this aggrieved personage was -grinning from ear to ear. - -“That’s just your deception,” said Joan, “that’s trying to get at my -weak side. When they get a laugh out of me, they think no more about it; -and it’s far too easy,” Joan added, shaking her head with comical -distress, “to get a laugh out of me, far too easy; but don’t you think -it’s fun, for I am as serious as I can be,” she cried, turning round -upon the culprit, who flew to her work with an alacrity which showed -Joan’s admonition to be not without effect, though she was cramming her -apron into her mouth all the time, that she might not laugh. Joan took -Selby all over the dairy, and showed him everything. She was an -enthusiast in all that concerned this portion of rural work. She took -him out to the fields behind the house afterwards to see her pet cows. -It was a breezy spring day, the sun shining, but the wind blowing, and -cold though sunny. Joan went out with the light shining in her trim and -smooth brown hair, and without a thought even of a shawl. “Cold? oh no, -I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t trouble hats much, if it is not in the -height of summer, when you can really say there’s something like a sun. -This doesn’t count; there is no headache in it,” said Joan, looking -affectionately at the temperate ruler of the day, who makes no -unnecessary show in the North. “But you might catch cold,” suggested the -middle-aged lover. “Bless us,” said Joan, “me catch cold! why, such a -thing was never thought of; I’ve seen a fuss made about Harry for taking -cold; but never me. The air on the Fells never gives cold. It is your -fat damp air in the level, it’s not our hill air that ever does any -harm.” - -“I am trying to think that, too. I am tired wandering about the world -with a regiment of navvies,” said Selby; “I’m thinking of settling -down.” - -“That’s not a bad thing to do; but you must have led a cheery life -roaming about the world as you say. I don’t know that I would like it -myself; but change is lightsome. You must have seen a deal in your day,” -said Joan, looking at her companion. And as she did so she could not but -allow that he was a very “wise-like man.” It would be difficult to give -in other words the full force of this phrase. It does not mean -good-looking, or respectable, or tall, or wealthy, or well-dressed, or -well-mannered, but it means all of these together. And Philip Selby was -a little more--he was really handsome, though he was no longer young. - -“I have seen a great deal in my day,” he said, “and my day has been a -good long one, for I’ve been afloat upon the world for more than twenty -years; but I don’t know that I ever saw anything so much to my mind as I -see to-day--a fine, breezy hillside, and fine cattle, and a thriving -country, not to say somebody by my side that----” - -“Oh, you need not reckon me,” said Joan; “there’s women in all -countries. It’s a great pity there’s so many of us; we would be a great -deal more thought of if there were but a few.” - -“Perhaps you would be angry,” said Selby, “if I said there were not many -like Miss Joan Joscelyn, wherever a man may go.” - -“Oh, no, far from angry,” said Joan, with a laugh. “I should think it -was a very nice compliment; compliments are not common things in our -parts. You that have been about the world you know how to flatter -country folk--but among the Fells they’re but little known. Look at that -beast now,” she said, stroking tenderly the face of a great, soft-eyed -cow, “did you ever see a bonnier creature? There’s not a lady in all -England has such a balmy breath. And she’s better than she’s bonnie. -She’s a small fortune to us. And that little thing, that’s one from -France, of the Brittany kind, small feeders and good milkers; that -belongs to our little Liddy. You have never seen Liddy, Mr. Selby? She’s -the pet of the family; and when she’s not here we make a pet of her -little cow. Some are fond of Alderneys, some like this French breed. -Which do you like best?” - -“I have no opinion. I am no judge. I know a horse when I see one, but -not a cow. I like the kind, Miss Joan, that you like best.” - -“Well,” said Joan, laughing, “our tastes agree in some things. You -remember that brown colt? The last time I saw him he was just what I -expected--turning out a fine beast, far better than that Sister to -Scythian that father set such store upon. I think you and me were right -there.” - -“I am sure we were right,” said Selby; “two heads are better than one. -Do you know, Miss Joan, I think our tastes are very likely to agree. I -have been to see Heatonshaw--which was the place you said you would -dearly like yourself.” - -“Did I say I would dearly like it? That was strong. But it’s a bonnie -place, there is little doubt of that.” - -“I think it is a sweet place; and a house that would just do for----I’ve -something more to say to you, Miss Joan, if you will have the -patience to listen. A wandering life is very pleasant for a time, but as -a man gets on in years he wants to settle down. But,” said Selby, -lifting his hand to stop her, for she was just about to interrupt -him--and putting a great emphasis upon the word, “_but_--not by himself. -He must have somebody to settle down with him, or it’s no settling at -all.” - -“That’s true,” said Joan, with great external sobriety, though the -demon of laughter with which she had fought so severe a battle during -their last interview had sprung again into life within her, “That’s very -true. You’ll have to get a wife; but you cannot be at much loss about -that, Mr. Selby, for women are plenty--more’s the pity. There’s no place -you can go but you’ll find them in dozens. Men are real well off -nowadays, they have nothing to do but to pick and choose.” - -“That would be very nice if anyone would do,” said Selby, with a -countenance the gravity of which contrasted strangely with the twinkle -in Joan’s eye and the quiver about the corner of her mouth, “but I -should not be content to pick and choose. The thing is, there is only -one that I want. If I cannot get her, another will not serve my purpose, -which is what you seem to think. Miss Joan, I know yours is a fine old -family, much above mine, though the Selbys have always been respectable. -You may think it presumptuous in me to ask you, but to tell the plain -truth it’s you I want.” - -“Me you want?” she cried, a little confused--for though she had seen -what was coming, and had been quite prepared to make a joke of it, and -even now scarcely dared to meet his eye lest she should laugh, the -seriousness of the actual proposal bewildered her a little when it was -made. She did not think it would have been half such a serious business. -Joan, though she was not shy, and had treated the whole matter as a -great joke up to this moment, cast down her eyes in spite of herself, -and was confused, and for a moment did not know what to say. - -“It’s just you I want,” said Selby; “you are the one I’ve had my eye on -since ever I came into the Fell-country. When first I saw your face, I -said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’ You see, I was on the look -out,” he added, with a smile. “I have put by a little money, and I had -some from those that went before me. There’s enough to be comfortable -upon, especially if the wife had a little of her own. And neither you -nor me would like to be idle. You could set up your dairy, with all the -last improvements, at Heatonshaw, and there would be plenty for me to do -on the farm. I think we could make a very good thing out of it, and yet -keep up a very pleasant position. I would never be against seeing -friends, and you would have no need to exert yourself, but only to be -the head of everything, and keep all going. I could see my way to a -neat little carriage for you, or even a riding horse if you would like -that--and as to allowances and so forth, even if you had nothing of your -own----” - -“I’m thinking you’re going too fast, Mr. Selby,” said Joan. The laughing -spirit was exorcised. She no longer felt any inclination to burst forth -into that _fou rire_ which comes at the most inappropriate moments. He -had sobered her by his own perfect sobriety. Joan felt that this was a -grave business affair, and not a frivolous piece of nonsense -inappropriate to her serious years. Some lingering wish, perhaps, to -hear a real love tale in her own person had been lurking in her mind -along with the certainty that she would laugh at it if it were told. And -many ludicrous pictures had come before her when she first espied Mr. -Selby’s “intentions.” She had wondered, with a comical mixture of -inexperienced faith and cynicism, whether he would go down on his knees -and call her by all sorts of endearing names. She was bursting with -laughter at the sentimental personage who intended to make a divinity of -Joan Joscelyn. Nevertheless, perhaps, she was a little conscious, -secretly and underneath all, though she never acknowledged it to -herself, that this was the way in which a woman had a right to be -addressed once in her life--Joan Joscelyn as well as another. But that -was a very great secret, and deep down; so deep that she had never -confessed it even to herself. And now she was out in all her -calculations, and there was nothing sentimental to laugh at. It was a -very sensible sort of bargain that was proposed to her, and she did not -know where to find a word against it. Her laugh came to an entire end. -“I’m thinking,” she said, “that you’re going too fast.” - -“It lies with you to say that,” said Selby; “but, Joan, remember” (he -had given up the Miss, and she perceived it), “that what I am saying I’m -ready to do, and it’s only for you to say the word. I’ve thought of it -since ever I saw you. ‘That’s the woman for me,’ I said, and you know -how we agreed about the colt. We agree, too, about the place. I went to -look at it because you said you would like it, and I like it, too. And -we’re both partial to the same kind of life. If we couldn’t get on -together I don’t know who should. And in everything else I’ll do -whatever you please.” - -“You miss out one thing, Mr. Selby,” said Joan, “we ought to be partial -to each other as well as to the kind of life.” - -“Well, I am,” said Selby, fervently; “that’s the truth. I can’t speak -for you; but _I_ am. I’m partial to your looks and your ways, and -everything about you. I like the way you sit still and knit, and I like -you in your dairy and out here. You’re just all I want as far as I can -see. I like you when you’re scolding. I was a little bit frightened at -first; but afterwards I liked that as well as the rest.” - -“Well, you’re a bold man to be partial to a woman when she’s scolding,” -said Joan, a little mollified; “but I don’t know much about you, Mr. -Selby, and I can’t say I’m partial to you.” - -“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said promptly; “make as many -inquiries as you like, I am not afraid of them. You’ll find I have a -good character wherever I’ve been. I don’t see why I shouldn’t make you -happy as well as another. I’ve nothing behind me that I’m ashamed of. -You and I at Heatonshaw, with plenty of beasts in the stables, and the -house furnished to please you, and a bit of a phaeton in the -coach-house: I don’t see why we mightn’t be very snug together,” he -said, and as he spoke he took Joan’s hand, which, though a little red in -the fingers and brown on the back, was a shapely hand notwithstanding -all her work. Then she was seized all at once, and without warning, with -that _fou rire_. - -“If you mean courting, Mr. Selby, it’s a bit public here,” she said, -discharging a load from her breast in that peal of laughter. He was a -little offended for the moment; but then he comforted himself that -laughing was near to crying, and that crying would have been a very good -sign indeed. At his age he had a little experience more than falls to -the lot of a youth at the ordinary love-making age. - -“I hope you’re not just laughing at me, Joan.” - -“I’m laughing at myself as well--and at you too. I’m old to have a lad, -and I never looked for such a thing--and you’re old,” Joan added. “I -think you’re too old for me.” - -“I am forty-one; which is not a bad age. Just suitable, I think,” he -said. - -Then she looked at him again with the laughter in her eyes. He was a -very “wiselike” man--nothing to be ashamed at, whoever saw him--very -good-looking indeed; more satisfactory in that way than Joan felt -herself to be. And Heatonshaw was a pretty place; and a house all of her -own was better than a house in which her father might interfere -arbitrarily every day, or even her mother change all the arrangements -some fine morning in a fit of absence or compunction. She turned round -and began to walk towards the house, suddenly becoming serious. Selby -turned too and walked with her. He did not say a word as they went over -the fields and through the garden of the White House, but waited her -pleasure in a deferential way which went to Joan’s heart. But she was -not “partial” to him. “We can talk of this some other time” was all that -she said. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -JOAN AND HER LOVER. - - -Joan said nothing to anyone about Philip Selby’s proposal. She had, -indeed, no one to consult on such a subject. She had grown up in the -habit of indifference to her mother’s opinions, which originated partly -in the difference of their dispositions and the superiority a calm -temperament has over a nervous and anxious one, and partly in her -father’s contempt of his wife, which her children resented, yet were -influenced by. Seeing the number of times when Mrs. Joscelyn was -unhappy, and excited as Joan thought about nothing, it was almost -impossible for the strong-natured and composed young woman not to feel a -certain affectionate and sometimes indignant contempt for the excess of -feeling which gave so much trouble, yet never had any result; while, on -the other hand, it is almost impossible for a man to treat his wife with -systematic scorn without weakening the respect of her children for her, -even when, as we have said, they resent his conduct and are more or less -her partizans. At the best she was “poor mother,” a person to be -defended and accounted for, not looked up to and trusted in. From her -early youth Joan had been her own guide and governor. She had none of -her mother’s sentiment; her mother’s standard was too high for her; her -mother’s feelings overstrained and exaggerated. Among the multitude of -“fusses” she was partly disgusted, partly amused, ready to take mother’s -part, as has been seen, but always with a protest against the weaknesses -which she could apologise for, but not understand. In the matter of -Harry, as she shared in some measure the anxiety, she had in some -measure understood the sentiment; but her attitude towards her mother -was more that of a senior towards a junior, the stronger to the weaker, -than the natural subordination which would have become their -relationship. Joan knew that, had she consulted her mother about Mr. -Selby, Mrs. Joscelyn would have been greatly excited. She would have -questioned her daughter as to her love for her suitor, and his love for -her, and all the sentimental questions, which Joan felt were well enough -in books, but as far as regarded Philip Selby and herself were -altogether out of the question. And as for mentioning such a subject to -her father, nothing could have been more impossible. She was thus alone -in her moderate and sober soul, as Mrs. Joscelyn was in her tender and -somewhat excitable being. She could not tell her story to anyone with -the hope of aid and guidance--who can? We are all alone when the great -problems of life come upon us. Joan, however, thought of this question -very soberly, without once regarding it in the light of a great problem. -It excited her a good deal privately within her own composed bosom; but, -to tell the truth, its first effect was more mirthful than serious. In -the seclusion of her own being she laughed, saying to herself that after -all the maids had been right, that she had “got a lad” when she was -least thinking of it. The laugh was not without a touch of gratification -in it, for it is true that a young woman, even when she reaches the -mature age of thirty and gives herself out as beyond such vanities, -still likes to have “a lad,” and to feel that she is like the -others--“respectit like the lave,” not left out in this important -particular of life. Joan was pleased with Mr. Selby that he had -appreciated her. She thought the more of him for it, as has perhaps been -already perceived. She had an honest consciousness of her own value. She -knew what she could do, and what her services were worth in the not very -satisfactory position she held in her father’s house, where she had the -responsibility of everything without either the approbation or the -reward to which such work as hers was entitled. And she knew, without -any misplaced modesty on the subject, that she would make an excellent -wife. But being thirty, and in her own opinion very homely in -appearance, and evidently not appreciated in this way, Joan had, with a -half-conscious contempt for the fool of a man, whoever he was, who had -not “come forward,” and a secret laugh when she thought of it, even at -this contempt--put that contingency out of her mind and taken it for -granted that she was to be Joan Joscelyn till the end of her days, the -manager and soul of the establishment at the White House. If it occurred -to her sometimes--as of course it must have done--that the White House -could not continue for ever under its present _régime_, and that the -day would come when Will’s wife (and a bonnie hand _she_ would make of -it!) must reign in her stead, the idea in no way troubled her; for she -knew that no circumstances could arise in which she, Joan Joscelyn, -would not be well worth her salt. But now, when she had no thought of -any such want, when she had put it entirely out of her mind, here had -happened the thing that she thought would never happen! She had got “a -lad.” Suddenly the monotonous future in which she had foreseen no change -opened before her, showing the pretty little property she had always -admired, the place which had once belonged to the Joscelyns; the pasture -which was the sweetest in the country-side; the nice house with its -sunny aspect, so different from the White House; the best of beasts in -the stables, and even the phaeton in the coach-house. It is the greatest -wonder in the world that women are not demoralised altogether by the -constant possibility of such sudden changes in their existence. From day -to day it is always happening. A poor girl, who has been trained to all -the pinchings and scrapings of genteel poverty, will suddenly see wealth -before her, and consideration, and importance, all in a moment, offered -to her acceptance without any virtue of hers. We ask a great deal in -asking young women to be wholly insensible to this chance which may -happen at any moment to any one of them, and of which everyone knows -instances. It was not anything so magnificent which had suddenly fallen -in Joan’s way; but it was a great change, an offer as important as if it -had come from King Cophetua; far more important indeed, for sensible -Joan would have made short work with his majesty. This, however, was the -most sensible, the most suitable of arrangements. It was exactly what -she would have liked had she exercised the widest choice. The perfect -appropriateness of it even subdued the inward mirth with which the idea, -when it first presented itself to her mind, had been received. Though -she still had a laugh now and then, it was gradually hushed by this -conviction. “I thought I might had a waur offer,” she would say to -herself now and then. She was like the heroine of that song. Her “braw -wooer” was not without a touch of the ridiculous about him. She was -disposed to jibe at his good looks, and his politeness, and his fine -talk; but notwithstanding:-- - - “I never let on that I kent or I cared, - But I thought I might had a waur offer, waur offer, - I thought I might had a waur offer.” - -Joan was no singer; but it was astonishing how often that refrain came -from her lips about this time. She was no singer; but she was a woman -who sang at her work, as women used to do more than they do now. Perhaps -drawingroom performers sing all the better because our ears have grown -more particular; but of all cheerful things in this uncheerful world -there are few so pleasant as the half-conscious song with which a cheery -worker accompanies his or her occupations. Joan was always giving vent -to some snatch of homely music in this way. But at the present moment -she confined herself to that refrain: “I thought I might had a waur -offer, waur offer. I thought I might had a waur offer. - -“You are always singing that, Joan,” Mrs. Joscelyn said. “I never hear -you sing anything else.” - -“Am I?” said Joan, with a laugh; and then she grew red, and grave and -silent all at once. It was so suitable! Nothing could have been more -appropriate. But then, “I’m not partial to him,” she said to herself. - -This would have been more on her mind, however, and probably would have -come to a more rapid conclusion, if it had not been for the increasing -uneasiness about Harry. He did not reply to his mother’s letter; the -“course of post” in which she had begged to be answered was far -exceeded. _That_ they had not thought much of; but when day succeeded -day and no letter came, Mrs. Joscelyn became daily more unhappy, and -Joan was more disturbed than she would allow. Even Ralph Joscelyn -himself, finding out, no one knew how, for he was not in the habit of -interesting himself in the family correspondence, that there was no news -of Harry, began to be seen looking out for the postman, and keeping a -watch upon the countenances of the women and their communications -together. He was uneasy as he had never been known to be before. When he -was found to share that anxiety about the post which was so habitual to -the others he looked confused, and murmured something about the Sister -to Scythian and a bargain which had fallen through. Then his disquietude -got so great that he spoke--not to his wife, whose constant wringing of -her hands, and drawn countenance and anxious eyes called from him -continual bursts of abuse--but to Joan, who, daily becoming more and -more anxious herself, was exasperated by them also. - -“You have word of that lad, I suppose?” Joscelyn said. - -“No, we have no word.” - -“He’s a young devil,” said his father, “he’s putting out his temper on -you.” - -“You’ve always set him a good example in that way,” said Joan, promptly; -“maybe he is, and maybe not.” - -“Hold your dashed tongue,” said Joscelyn; “what else could it be?” - -“How am I to answer you if I hold my tongue? There’s a many reasons -possible. He may have made up his mind to write no more to a house he -was turned out of.” - -“Stuff and nonsense! he was coming in at a disgraceful hour, and the -door was locked, at a time when every honest door is locked.” - -“I’m glad you can ease your conscience in that way,” said Joan; “it was -at no disgraceful hour; all the boys have been out later, you’ve been -out later, many’s the time, yourself. He may have made up his mind as I -say,” she added, distinctly, “to disown the house as his home, at which -I for one would not wonder: or he may,” and here her voice faltered, “he -may--and that’s what I fear--have gone off as lads do----” - -“Rubbish! blanked nonsense!” cried the father, but his ruddy countenance -paled a little. “What do you mean by going off as lads do?” - -“I cannot tell you,” said Joan, with sober disdain, “if you don’t know.” - -“It’s just a dashed story you’ve got up,” her father said. - -“It’s no story at all, for I hope it isn’t so, and I don’t know what it -is--but to my mind that’s the most like. I wouldn’t put it into mother’s -head for all the world, poor dear!” - -“Dash you!” cried Joscelyn, “you are finely taken up with your mother. I -never saw the like before; you have been easy enough about your mother -and all her whining and complaining. What makes you set up this dashed -nonsense, enough to make a man sick, now?” - -“I never minded before,” said Joan, “maybe more shame to me. I’m very -anxious about Harry myself, and that makes me understand the trouble -mother’s in, poor dear!” - -“Dash you and her too! It’s all the blanked nonsense he’s got from her, -the young idiot!” - -“That’s true: he has a deal of mother in him, poor lad!” Joan said, -drying her eyes. - -Joscelyn lifted his hand, and clenched his fist as if he would have -given her a blow. - -“You’re all a set of ---- ----s!” he cried, launching furiously forth -into the kind of eloquence which was habitual to him; but furious as he -was, and brutal, there was a keen arrow of pain in his heart too; he was -angry with himself. He could have beaten himself with that big fist. -What a fool he had been to expose himself, to put it in the power of any -lad to expose him! There was nothing he could not have done to himself -in the rage of self-reproach and shame which had come upon him. It was a -little for Harry--he was not unnatural, and he had a feeling for his -offspring--but it was much more that he had laid himself open to the -remarks of the county, and every friend and every enemy who might like -to gossip about him and say the worst that there was to say. - -Perhaps there was a little satisfaction in Joan’s bosom at the sight of -the disturbance in her father’s. He deserved to be disturbed. She was -glad that he should suffer, that he should get in some degree the -recompense of his ill-doings. But this was only a transitory diversion -to the painful strain of her thoughts. The waiting was hard to bear. How -their hearts beat when they saw the postman approaching along the dusty -road, and there was a terrible moment of doubt as to whether or not he -would turn up the path to the White House! And when he came there was a -still hotter excitement as Joan, with fingers which never had trembled -before, turned over the letters. She could not trust herself to speak, -but only shook her head, looking at her mother at the window. How many -days? It seemed to have been going on for years, not days, this -intolerable suspense, which, though it was unbearable, had to be borne. -Only about a fortnight had elapsed, however, when there came a packet -with the Liverpool postmark. It was a large one, and seemed to contain -so much that for the first moment Joan scarcely noticed that the address -was not written in her brother’s hand. She took it into the parlour, her -heart beating loudly, and broke open the envelope, while her mother, -trembling, hurried to her side full of eager joy. There tumbled out upon -the table, however, four or five closed letters, all addressed to -Harry--and nothing more. Then it was that Joan turned the envelope and -looked at what was written upon it: and only then discovered that the -packet was addressed to Harry, and bore the stamp of his office. Mrs. -Joscelyn’s letter was among the other contents. Harry had never received -it. The two looked at each other blankly, turning over the letters which -had fallen on the table with trembling hands. It was like touching -something dead. - -“What does it mean? Oh Joan, what is the meaning of it?” Mrs. Joscelyn -said. - -Joan turned them all over again, aghast, almost stupid in her dismay. -“It means he has never got your letter, mother; then how could he answer -it, poor lad?” she said, with a keen impulse of angry despair. - -This seemed reasonable enough in the first stupefaction; but afterwards -the mother gave a lamentable cry. “Why did he not get it?--why did he -not get my letter, Joan?” - -“He has not been there, mother.” Joan spoke in a low tone of terror, as -if she were afraid to trust the air with that too evident -conclusion--for where, if he were not there, could Harry be? Then she -examined the outside envelope over again with anxious futility, as if -that could give her any information. Written inside the flap was the -request, “Please acknowledge receipt.” The envelope bore the office -stamp. All was done in the most business-like way. She had seen Harry’s -letters come to him in exactly the same envelope when he was at home for -one of his holidays. The inference that he was still at home, that all -was peaceful and well, and his letters forwarded to him in the usual -course, overpowered Joan, calm as she was. A few great tears, looking -like large raindrops as they pelted down upon the letters, fell from her -eyes in spite of herself. “There never was such a fool as I am,” she -cried with a hysterical laugh, “I’m worse than mother or anybody. What’s -so wonderful about it? He’s gone to London or somewhere, having still -his time to himself--why should he have gone back to the office and -spoiled his holiday. That would just have been--preposterous.” This big -word gave her a certain relief. It seemed to take some of the weight off -her heart as she brought it out. “Preposterous,” she repeated, looking -almost angrily at her mother. “You might see that, without asking me.” - -Mrs. Joscelyn gazed at her, half carried away by this outburst of what -looked like argument; but then she sank into a chair and wrung her -hands, and began to weep. “Oh Joan, where is he, where is he, if he is -not there? What has happened to my boy?” - -That was a terrible day to everybody concerned. Joscelyn himself came in -under pretence of wanting something, and seeing the letters lying on the -table stooped to look at them with a face which grew very dark in spite -of himself. He looked at the women, one seated crying in her chair, the -other standing stupefied, staring about her, not knowing what she did. - -“Has he come back?” he said, the words escaping him in spite of himself. - -And these two who had been under his rule so long, the timid, feeble -wife, the sober-minded daughter, rose, as it were, and flung themselves -upon him. They who had been so voiceless hitherto, fell upon him like a -hail-storm, taking him by surprise, beating him down with a sudden storm -of wrath and reproach. His wife, who had never ventured to say her soul -was her own; who had lain still, weeping and terrified, allowing him to -be the master on that night when all the harm had been done; and Joan, -who had borne his fury so often with stolid composure, making no reply. -All the pent up grievances of years he heard of now, with an -astonishment, to hear their opinion of him, which was equal to his -stupefaction at their rebellion. Even the harshest domestic tyrant finds -it difficult to face the fact that he is a terror to his surroundings, -still more that they see through his external bigness, and know him to -be at bottom a coward and a bully. Joscelyn was absolutely cowed by this -revelation. He tried a few volleys of oaths, like those which usually -forced them into silence; but without effect. He raised his voice and -thundered; but they did not care. It was Mrs. Joscelyn who led this -attack. - -“Come back?” she cried; “he will never come back--how dare you stand -there and look at his letters that are like his graveclothes, and ask -‘Has he come back?’ You that have driven him from his home--that have -turned his sweetness into bitterness; that have driven my boy from me, -and broken my heart. Oh, you may shake your fist at me! What do I care? -what do you suppose I care? Do you think I mind if you killed me? You -have done far worse; you have driven away my boy, and in all the world -I do not know where he is. Oh man, get out of my sight. I cannot endure -the sight of you. I cannot endure the sight of you!” she cried. - -And Joscelyn stood aghast. He was pale at first, then a purple flood of -rage came over him. “You dashed old witch--you miserable blanked old -cat--you ---- ---- ----” He caught his breath in his consternation and -fury. He did not know what to say. - -“Oh, what do I care for your swearing,” she cried, with an almost -majestic wave of her thin white hand. “Go away, for God’s sake, go -away--what are your oaths and your bad words to me? I’m used to them -now. Many a time I have been terrified by them; but you can’t frighten -me now. What do they mean?--nothing! I am used to them; you might as -well save yourself the trouble. I am not afraid of anything you can do. -You’ve done your worst, Ralph Joscelyn; you have driven away my boy, my -boy. Oh Joan, where is my boy?” the poor woman cried, turning from her -husband with another indignant wave of her hand, to her daughter, with -whom she never had been linked in such tender and close union before. - -“By ----!” cried Joscelyn, “I’ll teach you, madam, to defy me. Your boy, -as you call him, had better never show his face again here. _Your_ boy! -if you come to that, what have you got to do with one of them? They’re -_my_ children, and you’re my wife, and it’s me you’ve got to look to and -take your orders from, you dashed old wild-cat, you blanked old ----!” - -“Oh, hold your tongue, father!” Joan cried, turning her head in angry -impatience. “Mother’s quite right, we’re used to all that.” - -What could a man so assailed do? He could not get over his astonishment. -He remained finally master of the field, in so far that they left him -there volleying forth those thunders which they disdained, and saw to be -nothing but words. Joscelyn recognized with the strangest humiliation -that they were but words, when his women, his slaves, first ventured to -let him know that they saw through him, and found them all to be froth -and emptiness. If somebody had discovered Jove’s thunderbolts to be but -fireworks, the Father of the Gods must have fallen to the ground like an -exhausted rocket. Joscelyn felt something like this. He came down -whirling from his imaginary eminence, down into an abyss of emptiness -and darkness, and struck blankly against a real something which resisted -him, which he could move no longer. He was not without feeling, and he -became suddenly dumb as they closed the door, leaving him a much -discomfited hero in possession of the field. Rebellion in his house, his -slaves emancipated, the boy lost, and the whole story likely to be -published over the length and breadth of the county, and himself exposed -to every petty gossip and critical assembly in it. This was a terrible -downfall for such a man to bear. - -That day messengers were sent off to Tom and Will, who came, in haste, -thinking it was a funeral to which they were summoned, to hear all the -tale, and to give their solemn verdict against their father. _They_ were -not afraid of him now; they could swear themselves almost as fiercely as -he could, and he did not overawe them as he used to do. - -“The governor oughtn’t to have done it,” Will said to Tom. - -“He ought to have had more consideration,” Tom replied. “It doesn’t do -to treat young fellows so; I wouldn’t have put up with it myself, and no -more will Harry.” - -“If we’ve seen the last of him,” said the other, “we know where to lay -the fault.” - -There could not have been a more complete family unanimity on this point -at least. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -NO NEWS. - - -But neither Will nor Tom had any suggestion to make, or knew what to do -in such an emergency. They thought it might be well to write to the -office and ask what was known of him, or to his Liverpool lodgings; and -for themselves, they were anxious to get back to their own homes, their -wives, and their work. Even before the afternoon was out they had so far -exhausted the subject of Harry that they were not unwilling to join -their father in an examination of the Sister to Scythian, and “pass -their opinion” on her, and the high hopes Joscelyn entertained of her. -Joan looked on at this change of sentiment and subject with a half -understanding and half bewilderment. In other family troubles before -this she too had been glad to escape from the monotony of a painful -subject with a half scorn and whole impatience of her mother’s -persistence in it, exactly like the sentiment her brothers showed now. -Only this time her own heart was profoundly engaged; she felt like her -mother, and along with her comprehension of the feeling of “the boys,” -had a perfectly new and bitter sense of their heartlessness, their -stupid indifference, their desire to escape from this one thing which -was more important than anything else in earth or heaven. What was the -Sister to Scythian in comparison with Harry? And they had all allowed -that Harry’s disappearance was a serious matter: they had not deceived -themselves, or made it out to be some “nonsense of mother’s.” This time -they had been obliged to confess there was grave cause for anxiety; and -then they had gone to the stables with the father whom they had been -unanimous in blaming, and had given all their minds to the points of the -horse. Joan had never been given to investigating the feebleness of -human character. She would scarcely have understood the words had they -been suggested to her, or, at least, would have treated them as too -high-flown for ordinary meaning; but for once in a way the wonder was -brought home to her, and she saw and understood it. “The boys” were -sorry about their brother, sorry that such a thing should have occurred; -annoyed that their domestic affairs should thus be thrown open to the -public, and more or less sympathetic with their mother, though not quite -sure that it did not serve her right for making a favourite of her -youngest son; but when they had expressed these feelings, what more were -they to say? They could not go on talking about it for ever; they could -not bring Harry back if they talked till doomsday; and besides, when -once their opinion was expressed and their regrets said, Harry was not a -subject of very great importance to them--whereas the Sister to Scythian -might advance the interests of the family and make the Joscelyn stable -celebrated. And Joan understood it all, she knew it by herself: yet was -angry with a harsh and disappointed pain which all her reason could not -subdue. Mrs. Joscelyn in the parlour, absorbed in that one passion of -anxiety, did not even appreciate this failure of the interest of the -others in what was so great a matter to herself so much as her daughter -did. - -“What do the boys say? What do they think we should do?” she asked Joan -a hundred times. “What shall we do? Oh! Joan, what do they think we -should do?” - -“They are not thinking anything about it, mother,” Joan said. “They are -off to the stables, looking at that beast. They are more taken up with -her than with Harry. An ill-conditioned brute! I wish, for my part, she -was at the bottom of the sea; but set a horse before the men, and they -think of nothing else--if all the brothers in the world were perishing -before their eyes.” - -“Miss Joan,” said a voice behind her, “I am astonished to hear you say -that; you whom I have always taken to be such an excellent judge of a -horse yourself.” - -The two women turned upon the new-comer with mingled feelings, half -angry that he had intruded upon them, half excited by a sudden wild hope -that a stranger might have some new light to throw upon a subject which -they had exhausted, for they could not hide their trouble from him. Mrs. -Joscelyn could not speak without an overflow of tears, and even Joan’s -eyes were red, and there was that look of irritation and vexation and -impatience in her face which comes so naturally to a capable person -suddenly set down before a painful difficulty which she can see no way -in her experience of coping with. Selby looked at her with anxious eyes. -Was she angry with him? but, if so, there was a sudden gleam of -expectation in her face too, suddenly looking up at him, as if she had -said within herself, “If help is possible it is here--” which gave him -courage; and he hastened to explain with that look and tone of sympathy -in which strangers so often excel those who ought to be the natural -consolers. - -“I see I have come in at a wrong time,” he said. “I knocked, but I -suppose you did not hear. I ought to go away, but I want to stay: for -you are in trouble, and if I could be of any use to you----” - -“Mr. Selby is--a true well-wisher,” said Joan, looking with almost -timidity at her mother. She was not given to blushing, but she blushed -now all over her face and her throat, and made such an appeal with her -eyes as those eyes had never made before. “It will be best to tell him,” -she said: “he, maybe, could think of something; and what is the use of -trying to hide it? it will soon be all over the country-side.” - -“Indeed I am a well-wisher,” he cried; “if I can do anything, I will do -it with all my heart. If it’s about your brother Harry, I’ve heard -something--” and he looked from Joan to Mrs. Joscelyn with eyes so full -of sympathy that they felt the look as a sick man feels a cool hand laid -upon his hot forehead. - -They told him their story with anxious questions as to what he had -heard. He had heard, of course, a great deal more than there was to -hear, that Harry had come to blows with his father, that there had been -a struggle and a fight, and that the young man had been kicked out of -the house. Some added that he lay on the Fells all night, so much -injured was he; and there were whispers of vice on Harry’s part as the -cause of such a violent proceeding, which Selby was too wise to betray -to the poor women. When they had told him all they knew, he sprang up to -his feet and looked at his watch with an air of readiness and capability -which at once gave them hope. - -“It is quite clear what must be done,” he said; “you must send somebody -to Liverpool at once, this very night. It’s too late for the mid-day -train, but the night one will do.” - -“Send somebody to Liverpool!” Joan’s countenance flushed again while her -mother’s grew pale. - -“Oh!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, “but who can we get to go?” while Joan, who -had never been beyond Carlisle in her life, stood up unconsciously with -such a gasp as catches the breath after a sudden plunge into the sea. -She knew nothing about the world, and she belonged to a generation which -believed that a woman could do nothing out of her own home; but a rush -of blood came to her face, and of tremendous energy to her heart. In the -suggestion there seemed so much hope, although almost as much fear. - -“Who will you get to go? Me if you like,” said Selby, with the -benevolent glow of a man who feels himself a sort of good angel to women -in trouble. “I have nothing very particular to do, and I have a pass on -the railway, and I’m used to travelling. I will go to-night, and come -back to-morrow night. You will hear sooner that way than any other way, -and it is far easier to make inquiries personally than by letter--and -far more satisfactory.” - -The colour left Joan’s cheek; there was a little falling back of relief, -yet half disappointment, from the sudden alarmed temerity of impulse -that had come upon her. She looked at him with, in the midst of her -trouble, a faint--the very faintest--touch of a smile at one corner of -her mouth. “Aha, my lad! I know what that is for!” Joan said to herself, -swift as lightning; but even the interested motive thus revealed was not -displeasing to her, and the whole suggestion went through her mind like -an arrow on the wind, showing only for a second against the dark -atmosphere of anxiety within. - -“Oh, Mr. Selby, how could I ask you to do that for me? How could I ever -repay you for such kindness?” Mrs. Joscelyn cried, wringing her -tremulous hands. There was no complication of ideas in her mind. She was -bewildered by the suggestion, by the offer, by this unexampled effort of -friendship. No one had ever offered her such a service before. To -imagine that it was for the love of Joan that it was offered to her did -not enter her mind. She knew no motive possible, and it filled her with -astonishment--astonishment almost too great for hope. A journey was a -thing which, in her experience, was only undertaken after great -preparations and much thought. To go to-day and return to-morrow was a -proceeding unknown to her. And then why should he, a stranger, not -belonging to her, undertake such a journey for her? and how could she -repay him? She had not even money to pay his expenses if she could have -offered payment, and how was she to make it up to him? In this strait -she turned her eyes anxiously upon Joan, who was standing by, silenced -by an agitation such as had never been seen in her before. - -“It is far, far too much trouble,” Joan faltered. “If I could go -myself----” - -“You!” cried the mother, upon whom the weakness of her sex and its -incapacity had always been strongly impressed. “Oh, what could you do, -Joan? what can a woman do? They will not even let a woman into these -offices--or so I’ve heard. Oh no, no, not you--and it’s far too much, -far too much, as you say, to ask--” - -“You are not asking,” said Selby, beaming. “It is I who am offering to -do it. I should like to do it; it would give me pleasure. You need not -fear I will say anything to hurt his feelings. I will act as if he were -a young brother of my own. As for the travelling it is nothing, and it -will cost me even next to nothing, for I have my pass, being engaged on -the railway. Not that I make much of that--for if it cost me ever so -much I should be all the more glad to do it, Mrs. Joscelyn. To ease your -mind I would do anything,” he said, and this time he glanced at Joan -with a corner of his eye; but with meaning enough to make it very -distinct to her prepared intelligence. And at the corner of Joan’s -mouth, that infinitesimal curve, became for a second almost a dimple. -How could she help seeing through him?--but she was not displeased. - -“And if I find any difficulty in tracing him,” said Selby, a little -carried away by his enthusiasm, “I will engage a detective--” - -But at this Mrs. Joscelyn threw up her hands with a sudden paleness, and -almost fainted; while Joan looked at him with a sternness that made the -heart of her suitor tremble, as it had done for a moment when he heard -her scolding Bess in the dairy. - -“Do you think my brother is a lad that should have the police set after -him?” she said. - -“It is not the police,” said Selby mildly; but they were ignorant of all -modern habits in this way, and the suggestion was so great an offence to -them, that it nearly took away all their gratitude and hope in the -proposal he had made. He was prudent enough to say no more about it; -but took Harry’s address at his lodgings and at his office, making -careful note of everything in a way that went to Mrs. Joscelyn’s heart. -Her courage rose as she saw him make these notes. They looked like -something doing, an effort which must come to some result. To-morrow -early this good friend would be on the spot; would see with his eyes and -hear with his ears everything that could be heard or seen; and she could -not doubt that he would bring light out of the darkness. Her tears dried -as she looked at him; the feeble wringing of her hands was stayed--they -clasped each other instead with a tremulous patience and almost -steadiness. Never before had there been a reasonable being like this, -kind and sympathetic and understanding, to stand by her in any of her -troubles; it seemed an almost miraculous goodness to the heart-broken -woman. And Harry must hear reason at the hands of such a man. If he did -so much for her, surely he would do more for Harry. She was comforted -beyond measure by the very sight of him as he stood and took down the -address. And that he should be willing to do so much for _her_, seemed -miraculous to her. She could not think of any other reason for his -kindness. - -As for Joan, she was consoled too, partly by gratitude like her -mother’s, but partly also by her insight into Selby’s real motive, which -her mother did not guess. Her brow and her eyes were very grave and -heavy still with anxiety; but the dimple remained at the corner of her -mouth. She saw through him very well; he was not generous or -disinterested, as her mother thought. She knew his motive. And Joan was -not sure yet that it would do him any good notwithstanding her -gratitude. She was by no means free from a little sidelong sense of that -knavery which is common enough in such matters. She meant to accept, as -far as this went, his self-devotion, but she was not sure that the hopes -he was building upon it might not be fallacious hopes, and secretly -entertained in her inmost heart a half-determination to cheat him yet, -and prove him wrong in his reliance upon the services he was going to -render her. But mingled as this process of thought was, it was on the -whole exhilarating. Her heart rose a little. She thought more of herself -as she caught a glimpse of herself in Philip Selby’s eyes, and as her -self-esteem received a sensible stimulus, her hopes increased with it. -The more we think of ourselves the more sure we are that good and not -evil will happen to us. There is nothing more terrible in misfortune -than the depression and sense of demerit which it brings with it. Joan -thought better of herself through the spectacles which Selby provided, -and she could not help feeling an incipient certainty, not altogether -new to her, that with a person possessing such qualities as hers all -must go well. - -Fortified by these hopes, the mother and daughter saw Tom and Will -depart with equanimity. - -“Well, mother,” Will said, as he shook her by the hand (North-country -people are not given to demonstrations of affection), “I hope you’ll -soon have word of that boy. You needn’t fret: we’ve been in a good many -scrapes, but we’ve always got safe out of them.” - -Will was the best fellow of the two. Tom took it altogether more easily. - -“Yes, yes, you’ll hear,” he said; “I’m not the least afraid. Harry’s -like the ill-penny that always turns up. There’s nothing that I can see -to fret about.” - -Joan nodded to them when they got on their horses with a friendly -satisfaction to be quit of them. She had no ideal to be offended in her -brothers. Mrs. Joscelyn, when her momentary buoyancy of new hope was -over, felt bitterly to the depths of her foolish heart that her sons -were of a very common, selfish grain, such as some years ago it would -have broken her heart to think of. She had been drilled into it, and had -yielded to necessity; but still when something made her observation -clearer she remembered and felt the downfall. The slow coming down of -heart and hope by which a woman arrives at the fact that her child is -not ideal, nor even excellent, nor superior in any way to the coarsest -common _pâte_ of man, is very gradual. Perhaps the greater number do not -reach it at all, but are content to deceive themselves and think all -their offspring right and perfect. But Mrs. Joscelyn was not of this -kind. She could not get over her sons’ indifference. “Another man going -out to bring me news--taking all that trouble--a stranger that is -nothing to us--and my own boys, my own boys caring nothing.” Over this -again the poor soul, faithful in all the devices of self-torment, shed a -few bitter tears. - -“Now, mother, you are beginning to fuss again,” said Joan, in a vexed -tone. “Dear, dear, haven’t we trouble enough?” Even she who shared the -real family grief so warmly thought this one of “mother’s fusses,” and -was impatient at her folly. “As if everybody didn’t know that Will and -Tom were just----Will and Tom,” Joan said to herself. That they had -turned out to be so instead of being heroes, did not strike her as a -subject of complaint. - -Mr. Selby was gone three days. The mission he had undertaken soon showed -itself to be more difficult than he thought. Harry had gone away without -leaving a trace behind him. He had appeared at the office for an hour or -two quite unexpectedly before his leave had expired, and paid a few -small debts, and taken away some small articles which were in his desk, -disappearing again without a word as to his destination. At his lodgings -Harry had not been seen at all. His portmanteau was there, forlorn in -the dusky lobby of the lodging-house, and the unfortunate hamper, out of -which odours not altogether delightful were proceeding, and which the -mistress of the house implored Mr. Selby to take away with him. He did -not know what to do: finally, but with great secrecy, that his -principals might not be offended, he put a detective on Harry’s track, -such as it was. But there seemed no track, not so much as a circle in -the water or a footprint upon the soil, to show where he had gone. Selby -had gone to Liverpool with great confidence in himself; pleased, for he -had a good heart, to please and console these two women; but also -pleased, for his own part, to show at once how kind and how clever he -was. He had not a doubt that he would succeed and go back triumphant, -and prove himself so superior to all the clowns about, that Joan could -have no further hesitation; and it was in this confidence, being so sure -that the work he had taken up would be prosperous, that he had set out -upon his mission. But when he returned his mind was very different; he -was greatly depressed, not only with the sense that what he had to tell -was unsatisfactory, but that his own prestige would be seriously -impaired. He had left home with the conviction that he would find -everything out and set everything right; that neither would adverse fate -be able to baffle him in the wisdom of his investigations, nor Harry be -able to resist his brotherly-fatherly representations. And when Philip -Selby found nothing but a blank void, in which there was nobody to -persuade and remonstrate with, he felt himself tumble down from the -vantage ground which he had thought so certain. How was he to go back -and say he had failed? His detectives had indeed done their best to buoy -him up with hope; but he was obliged to come back with no news, -presenting a very blank countenance to the anxious looks of the mother -and sister. The first sight of him sent their hearts down, down to the -very depths. - -“He is not there, Mrs. Joscelyn; but I hope soon to hear news of him,” -he said deprecating, as if it had been his fault--which was not the -satisfactory position he had hoped to hold in coming back. - -And then the fact had to be faced in all its simplicity. Harry had -disappeared. The firm could throw no light on the question. They did not -know where he had gone, nor why he had gone. He had gone honourably, -that was all, had got payment of the salary which was due to him, and -had settled various little debts which he was owing. Nobody knew -anything of larger liabilities, if he had them. He was gone absolutely, -without leaving a trace behind. His employers were surprised by the -inquiries, not giving much importance as yet to the fact that he had -exceeded his time of leave; but they could give no information, and -satisfy no anxiety. He was gone, that was all about it. The whole tale -was written in Selby’s face to the two anxious women who had awaited him -with so much hope. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -WHAT CAN’T BE CURED MUST BE ENDURED. - - -All great evils are more intolerable, more terrible, before than after -they come. It seems to us in advance as if the mind could never accustom -itself to such a change, or life close over the wound. And yet, when but -a very short time has elapsed, we find that obedient Nature has accepted -and acknowledged the inevitable fact, and that use and wont, so rent -asunder by the change, have begun to throw new fibres of their cobweb -tissue over the chasm. There was a moment when poor Mrs. Joscelyn -thought that she could not bear this rending asunder. She turned her -face to the wall and closed her eyes, and declared that she could not -endure the light. She lay thus for weeks, but not in any stupor; on the -contrary, with every sense alert, and all standing sentinel, hearing -Harry’s step in every sound outside, and divining him in every whisper -of the wind. She had no objection to the detective now, but was kept -alive from morning to morning by the news which Selby brought her, -scraps of news entirely delusive, but which kept a fire of agitation and -expectation alive in her heart. Selby spent a great deal of money upon -the detective with little use, an expense which neither Joan nor her -mother divined or thought of. To them he had said at first that he had -left a “friend” on the spot to pursue the inquiry, and they had not -doubted his statement. But by-and-by there came a time when the -expenditure seemed to him no longer necessary. He was not rich, although -he was sufficiently well-off, and it was doing no good, neither in -respect to Harry nor to Joan, who was short and sharp with him in her -angry grief, and seemed almost to blame him for the catastrophe -altogether; and, indeed, Joan was unreasonably sharp. She could not help -asking within herself what was the good of a man if he could not do as -much as this? She felt sure that if she had gone herself she must have -discovered something; and she began to get sick of the sight of Selby -coming up to the White House morning after morning with his no news. It -provoked her entirely without reason; his long face provoked her. If he -would but stay away and hold his tongue when he could do no good! She -was all the more unjust to him, perhaps, that she had secretly built -upon his success almost as much as he himself had done, and had felt -that it would justify anything that might follow out of gratitude for -such a service. But the service had not been accomplished, though it had -cost more trouble and expenditure of one sort and another than if it had -been successfully done, and not only was Joan very miserable about her -brother, but she was thrown out altogether in respect to the suitor, who -had, she grudgingly allowed to herself, established a certain claim upon -her by his efforts, even though he had not been successful. She was very -difficult to get on with, all the household acknowledged, at this -period. A lover might well have been alarmed had he heard her voice -lifted high in the dairy, and in the house, setting everything in order. -Woe to the maid who neglected her work in these days, or the man -either. Joan came upon them like a thunderstorm; there were times when -Selby, stalking up to the house with his bulletin, heard her and -trembled. If this was how she was going to be, would it not be wiser in -a lover to give up such a dangerous pursuit? But though it gave him a -cold shiver he persevered, and took her sharpness gently, and bore with -her unreason, having a soul above his judgment. There were times when -this little conflict going on within him, and the trial of his faithful -purpose over all doubts, was visible in his countenance, betraying Joan -to a momentary amusement in the midst of her irritation and trouble; and -she would be still sharper to him afterwards--then break into a short -laugh within herself. It was her only diversion in her trouble to see -how Selby got frightened and swerved, and then took heart again. - -“I’m enough to give any decent man a fright,” Joan said to herself, with -her half laugh; and it was true that she led the household, as all the -maids said, “a terrible life.” - -But Mrs. Joscelyn lay with her face to the wall, and moaned by times: -but generally listened, listened, night and day, her whole being -concentrated into her ears. She got a kind of monomania on the subject. -He seemed to her to be always coming home, on the road, drawing nearer -and nearer. Joan, dozing in a chair by her bedside, when she was at her -worst, she would wake up suddenly and implore to go down to the door and -look out. - -“Somebody went by and stopped, I am sure he stopped--and looked to see -if there was any one up. Run down, run down, and open to him, Joan!” - -Joan did it a dozen times at least, and standing at the open door in the -middle of the night, looking over the black invisible country, or into -the pale moonlight which revealed it in a vague whiteness, would shed a -few tears, and feel the night wind go chill to her heart before she shut -and locked again the door that had been once closed upon her brother. - -“Oh, there’s a deal of mother in him, the Lord have a care of him!” Joan -would say: and going back again, add: “There was no one, I knew very -well there was no one; I went to humour you. Now just you humour me and -go to sleep, go to sleep, poor dear!” and she would smooth the pillow -and the bed very softly for all her scolding. - -It was a dreadful day, the day on which the portmanteau came back, and -the hamper, which smelt so badly, and which was now a half rotten mass, -not fit even for the pigs. To see them coming in the cart from the -station was like a funeral; the very horse went slowly, though he was -wont to break into a clumsy canter as soon as he came within sight of -his stable. Even the dumb beast felt it, old Simon said; and the man got -the things out very quietly, and carried them up to Harry’s room with -solemnity, as they might have carried his coffin. Joan unpacked all his -clothes again as she had folded them, with her tears falling like rain. -She put them back in his drawers with many a dismal thought. Would he -ever come back to find them all there waiting for him? or was it over -for ever, and would Harry never enter the house again? The arrival of -these relics increased Mrs. Joscelyn’s sufferings so much that the -doctor had to be sent for, who made but one prescription, succinct, in -one word: “Liddy:” for he knew the family well, and all its members. -Joan clasped her hands together as the thought struck her. “And me never -to have thought of that! It shows the head I must have,” she said. - -And this was how it came about that suddenly, without anyone knowing of -it, one afternoon when Joan had been absent for an hour or two, there -arose a sudden commotion in the house, a clanging of doors, a sound of -voices, a rush up the stairs of something that was between the flight of -a bird and the blowing of a brisk wind and the patter of airy steps--a -movement, and a sentiment of fresh life, and arrival, and new hope. It -was not a noise, the creature was too light, too melodious for that: her -step scarcely touched the stair, the door which she pushed open did not -bang as when other hands touched it, but flew round upon its hinges as -airy as herself; and when she flung herself upon the bed with a soft cry -of “Mother!” the whole place seemed full of her, brightening and growing -warm with pleasure. Mrs. Joscelyn turned round with an answering cry, -and took happiness into her feeble arms with a shock of sudden -consolation that sent the blood into motion again in her veins. She was -not happy herself, poor soul! but happiness stood by her bed, and -clasped her neck, and breathed into her its soft natural sweetness. - -“Oh, my Liddy, my Liddy!” the poor woman said. - -Liddy was all in a commotion of gladness to get back; to stop her -lessons in mid-career of the “half;” to be of such importance that she -was sent for to help and cure her mother. Harry’s loss was a very -secondary matter to the girl, who had not seen very much of Harry, nor -had ever been used to look upon him as a necessary part of home; but she -listened to all the story, which her mother found a great relief in -telling her from beginning to end, with a childish pleasure in the tale -as well as sympathy with the teller. - -“Oh, but he’ll come back,” Liddy said, with a happy confidence, which -made far more impression on her mother than all that had been said by -people who knew a great deal better than Liddy. - -“Do you think so, my darling?” she asked with piteous eyes--as if the -child could tell. Joan looking on, and much advantaged herself by the -little stir of mind which her resolution to send for Liddy, and the -prompt carrying out of the same, had roused within her, could not but -laugh once more that sharp laugh of mingled amusement and wonder, to see -how efficacious her remedy was. - -“Mother’s very queer when all’s done,” she said to herself. She had done -everything for everybody throughout all this troubled moment; but Liddy, -who could do nothing save kiss Mrs. Joscelyn’s white face and warm her -chilly hands, and promise with confident ignorance, “Oh, but he’ll come -back,” was of far greater account than she. But it was a great relief to -her mind all the same. And by and by this great event which had -disturbed even the rude soul of Ralph Joscelyn, and filled him with -shame and angry confusion, began to be a thing they were all used to, -and which had entered into the fabric of their lives. - - -END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. - - -London: Printed by A. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Harry Joscelyn; vol. 1 of 3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: September 7, 2020 [EBook #63142] -[Last updated: October 29, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 1 OF 3 *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"><img src="images/cover.jpg" -height="550" -alt="" -/></p> - -<p class="c">HARRY JOSCELYN.<br /><br /> -——<br /><br /> -VOL. I.</p> - -<h1>HARRY JOSCELYN.</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">MRS. OLIPHANT</span><br /> -<br /> -<small>AUTHOR OF<br /></small> -<br /><span class="eng"> -“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”</span><br /> -<br /> -&c., &c.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -IN THREE VOLUMES.<br /> -<br /> -VOL. I.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">LONDON</span>:<br /> -HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,<br /> -13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br /> -1881.<br /><small> -<i>All rights reserved.</i></small><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span><br /><br /><br /><br /> -<big> -<span class="lspc">HARRY JOSCELYN.</span></big></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:2px solid gray;margin:1em auto;max-width:60%;"> -<tr><td class="c"> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II"> II., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III"> III., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"> IV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V"> V., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"> VI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"> VII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"> VIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"> IX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X"> X., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"> XI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"> XII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"> XIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"> XIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"> XV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"> XVI.</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>THE WHITE HOUSE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">“M</span>OTHER, I wish you would not make such a fuss. It is only Harry -quarrelling with father; I am sure you ought to be used to that by this -time. It is just as sure to happen when they get together as that night -will come after day.”</p> - -<p>“I never can be used to it if I should live a hundred years,” said the -mother thus addressed. She was walking up and down a long low room, -wringing her hands as she walked, her brow contracted with anxiety and -alarm. Her daughter sat tranquilly knitting, following her with eyes -full of calm disapproval as her figure crossed the glow of the -firelight, and went and came into<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> the gloom on either side. The -occasional sound of their low voices, the faint rustle of the elder -woman’s movements, the crackle of the fire burning brightly, with now -and then a small explosion and sudden blaze, were all the sounds that -broke the quiet here; and this made all the more apparent a growl of -deep-voiced talk in an adjoining room, with now and then a high word, -almost audible, quite comprehensible in its excited tone. Father and son -were in the dining-room, mother and daughter were in the parlour, a -pleasant division one might have thought. Outside the wind was blowing -down the valley with a force which might have suggested storm in other -localities, but was natural and ordinary here. It was April, but -scarcely spring as yet in the north country. “As the day lengthens the -cold strengthens,” is the rule under the Shap Fells. Joan Joscelyn, the -elder daughter of the house, was seated near the fire with her knitting. -She was quite still save for the twinkle of her knitting needles, which -caught the firelight, and her eyes, with which she watched her mother -without turning her head. Her shadow upon the drawn curtains behind her -was as still as though cut out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> paper. She was not very young nor had -she any traces of beauty in the somewhat worn and very fixed and steady -lines of her face. Her dark hair was very smooth, her dress very neat, -everything about her orderly and calm. A slight look of restrained -impatience in her eyes, impatience mingled with disapproval, and that -sort of faint contempt which children so often feel for their parents, -was the only sign which the calm daughter of a nervous mother gave of -her feelings. “I wish you would not make such a fuss, you ought to be -used to it by this time,” was written all over her, and perhaps there -was in her aspect something of that conscientious superiority felt by -Mrs. Hardcastle in the play when she said, “See me, how calm I am;” but -all subdued by the natural spectatorship of her position. What could -<i>she</i> do one way or another? Then why should she excite herself for -nothing? This was Joan’s sensible conclusion—and why her mother could -not adopt it too was a thing she could not understand.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn was a pale woman of a very different aspect. She was, -people thought at the first glance, not so old as her daughter, -notwithstanding the advantage which a calm tempera<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span>ment is supposed to -have over an excitable one. But it is not always true that the sensitive -and self-tormenting grow old sooner than their more tranquil companions. -Joan had never been young at all, so to speak. Her mother was young -still in the freshness of a mind which would not be controlled by -experience, which trusted every new promise and embraced every new hope, -and was as bitterly disappointed by every failure of her hopes as if she -had never known a disappointment before. How many pangs this temperament -brought to her it would be impossible to reckon; but it kept a sentiment -of youth about her, a sense of living such as her daughter in her best -days never knew. Both of them however agreed in believing that this -temperament was a curse and not a blessing; the daughter with heartfelt -astonishment at the power which her mother possessed of tormenting -herself—if indeed it were not a fictitious torture which she rather -liked than otherwise, as Joan sometimes imagined with instinctive -contempt; while the mother as often sighed, Oh, that she could take -things as quietly, give up making a fuss, bear her troubles with the -same calm as Joan. But neither could the one bring herself to the level -of the other,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span> nor either understand the different conditions which made -similar action impossible. Joan for her part followed Mrs. Joscelyn’s -restless movements with a wonder which she could never get over. What -good could it do? Why couldn’t she sit down and get her work, and occupy -herself? Even, Joan thought, it would be better to get a book and read -(though that was a waste of time) and “take her mind off,” the thing -that so troubled her. “Of course it was a pity that father and Harry -should quarrel; but then, bless me,” Joan said to herself, “boys so -often quarrel with their fathers. Why should there be more fuss made -about it here than anywhere else?” She was knitting a long worsted -stocking which hung down from her hands like a big grey bag; now and -then she gave it a momentary look, to see that the ribs were right and -the “seam” kept straight; but for the most part did not look at it at -all, but watched her mother while the needles twinkled in the firelight -and the big stocking leg turned round in her hands with an occasional -jerk.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Joscelyn walked up and down wringing her hands. The room -was not very light. There were two candles on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span> table; but it was the -brilliant glow of the fire which lit up the space in front, throwing a -ruddy reflection even into the darkness of the corners. She paced all -the length of the room, crossing periodically the bar of brighter light. -She was rather tall, but stooped, her shoulders coming together with the -ceaseless movement of her hands. Harry had put his hand into hers and -vowed to her that he would avoid all subjects of quarrel, that he would -give to his father the soft answer that turns away wrath. But, alas! he -must have broken his word. It was not the first time nor the thirtieth -time; but she felt astonished and disappointed as if up to that moment -all promises had been kept to her. She was one who could not get used to -suffering. It was as intolerable to her after so many years of it, so -many pangs, as if she had lived the life of a spoilt child up to that -moment and never known what contradiction was. The sound of the voices -in the next room seemed to pierce into her heart. When they rose louder -than usual she would give a low cry. Sometimes she stood still for a -moment to hear the better, sometimes she spoke half to Joan, half to -herself.</p> - -<p>“I think I must go in—I must go in, I ca<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span>n’t let them go on like this. -What if they were to lift their hands to each other, father and son, oh! -father and son,” and then she made a sudden impulsive step towards the -door; but paused again with a convulsive pressure together of her worn -hands.</p> - -<p>“Let them alone mother,” said Joan, “what good could you do? Only turn -both of them upon yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” moaned the poor lady. Then she stopped in the middle -of the light. “Oh!” she said, raising her arms with a gesture which -would have been theatrical had it not been so real, “oh! what have I -done, what have I done that I can never have peace in my house?”</p> - -<p>Joan never took her eyes from this moving figure, but the long grey -stocking jerked and turned round in her hands, and the needles twinkled -without intermission.</p> - -<p>“You expect too much,” she said; “bless me! there’s quarrels in all -houses, and lads go wrong, and all sorts of things happen. Girls too, -which is worse. We should be thankful nothing of that kind has happened -to us. If Will and Tom have been a little wild in their time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> they’ve -settled down; and I’ve always behaved myself. You have a deal to be -thankful for, mother. As for sons at home when the father is a hale man -like father, they’re always quarrelling. What young fellows want is -their own way. Father’s too young to manage Harry, he’s too strong and -likely, just as good a man as any of them. That’s my opinion; so are you -a deal too young. Bless me, you’re not a bit older than I am. If I -wasn’t so steady I shouldn’t like it, I’d rather have an old wife that -would give in to me and admire me, whatever I did—”</p> - -<p>Joan continued the monologue with a little curve at one corner of her -mouth which did duty for a smile. It was not much more than a soliloquy, -if truth were told. She knew very well her mother was not listening and -did not hear her. Mrs. Joscelyn had re-commenced the walk with which she -was trying to subdue her restlessness. And now the voices grew louder -than ever. There was a long volley of sounds, in the deepest tone, a -sort of discharge of musketry, vituperation rounded off with a large -mouth-filling oath or two; then a louder noise like the pushing back of -chairs, one of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> was thrown down with a heavy crash on the floor. -Even Joan started at this noise, and her mother rushed trembling to the -door. But before she could open it the door of the next room was thrown -violently against the wall, and some one plunged out, rushing across the -hall and flinging forth at the outer door. Another volley from the deep -voice accompanied this hasty retreat. The mother turned, and hurrying -across the room to the window, disappeared behind the drawn curtain that -covered it. She opened the shutter as softly and quickly as her -trembling would permit, and looking out watched the owner of the hasty -steps disappearing, with a clang of the garden gate, in the faint wintry -moonlight, which made the landscape beyond look like a white mist. She -stood and watched him, shaking her head with a low moan.</p> - -<p>“Now he is away to the village,” she said piteously, “oh, my poor lad! -the ‘Red Lion,’ that’s all the fireside my Harry will get. Oh, good -Lord, good Lord! and me here breaking my heart; and neither sleep nor -rest will I get this night till I hear my boy come home. But it is not -his fault, it’s not his fault; and what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> is to be the end of it?” the -poor lady cried.</p> - -<p>Joan, though she was so tranquil, was not unsympathetic. She made a -little remonstrative sound with her tongue in unison with the clicking -of her needles.</p> - -<p>“Bless me! dear me! but he’ll take no harm at the ‘Red Lion;’ don’t -always be thinking the worst, and making things out more dreadful than -they are,” she said.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn emerged from the heavy dark-hued curtains with a sigh, but -yet there was a certain softening in her face. Her anxiety was changed, -at least, if not relieved. She came and stood in front of the fire, -holding up a thin shapely foot to the red glow.</p> - -<p>“I am so cold,” she said, with a nervous shiver.</p> - -<p>“That’s because you will fret so, mother, and make such a deal of -everything,” Joan said.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn made no answer to this reproach.</p> - -<p>“My feet are like lumps of lead,” she said. “It’s more like December -than April. I think I will never be warm again.”</p> - -<p>A little sympathetic moisture softened Joan’s steady eyes. She felt -towards her mother as she might have felt to a tiresome but amiable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> -child, impatient of her vagaries, yet sorry for the useless trouble and -pain the poor thing gave herself.</p> - -<p>“It’s all the fretting,” she said, “it’s not the weather. Sit down here -by the fire and I’ll get you a shawl. Bless me! there’s father coming -in.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelvn retreated hastily from the fireside, and sat down by the -table, where the candles were shining steadily upon a heap of linen to -mend. She took up something hurriedly without appearing to notice what -it was, and began to work, or to put on an appearance of working. It -seemed at first a false alarm, but, after a minute or two of uncertain -movement outside, the door opened and a tall and strong man came in. -There was a great arm-chair standing by the side of the fire, which -evidently, as soon as he appeared, proclaimed itself to be waiting for -him, his harsh and big domestic throne; a hard, broad, uncompromising -piece of furniture, with its two great wooden elbows thrust out. He -stood for a moment at the door, looking round the room—perhaps to see -whether his son had taken refuge there, perhaps only to find out any -lurking offence. Ralph Joscelyn was a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> whose habit it was to look -out for offence meant or possible. He inspected the downcast faces of -the women, for even Joan now, after one momentary glance at him, turned -her eyes upon her knitting—and the bright space before the fire, and -all the darker corners round. Then his keen eye caught the ruffled -curtain, and the slight whiteness behind of the moonlight showing -through the shutter, which his wife had left half open. She had meant to -go back when the rest of the house was quiet, and watch noiseless at -that window till her son came back, and probably her husband divined -this. He walked straight to the window, pushing the curtains aside, and -with much demonstration closed the shutters, and with a heavy tug -brought the curtains together again.</p> - -<p>“There’s no order in this house, nor ever was,” he said, in a strong -North country accent. Then he crossed the room again and threw himself -into the big chair. The house was solidly built, and the parlour was on -the ground floor; nevertheless, his step made the floor jar and creak as -if it had found loose boards under the carpet, and shook the room as -though it had been in a slim villa. The big chair creaked too as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> he -threw himself into it. All other sounds had ceased as by magic, even the -click of Joan’s needles, which only occurred at long intervals, though -she worked on with more devotion than ever. Even the coals made no -further explosions, sent out no little gay jets of gas, but burned -soberly, stolidly under the master’s eye. Mrs. Joscelyn, in her -agitation, was less silent. Her elbow knocked against the table, her -needle stumbled and broke in her work, her reels of thread fell down and -rolled about the carpet. All this the master contemplated with his keen -spectator-eyes. He had altogether changed the character of the scene. -The two very distinctly marked individuals, so unlike in nature, though -so closely bound together, who had put forth unawares each her own phase -of life in the household quiet, were now cowed into a sort of composed -and alarmed opposition, dumbly resistant, making common cause together; -typical women merely, not individuals at all. The typical domestic -tyrant who had worked this change looked round him with a glance in -which contempt for them and a kind of pleasure in their subjugation were -mingled with resentment against them for the distrust and sudden silence -which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> he knew his appearance had produced. He crossed his long legs -half way across the hearth, thrusting up his heavy boot almost in his -daughter’s face. Many men do this who mean no particular harm, but -Joscelyn did mean harm, and did not care who knew it. In a moment the -room had become full of him, and of his oppressive shadow. He took away -and devoured, drawing into his capacious gullet, the very air they -breathed.</p> - -<p>“You are a nice cheerful lot for a man to come in to,” he said; “a nice -pleasant home you make for me, with that click-clack. I don’t wonder, -not I, that men turn out to the ale-house, though I’ve got to punish ’em -for it now and again. No, I don’t wonder, not a bit. A couple of -white-faced women filling up his rooms, taking the heat out of his fire -and the light out of his lamp for their confounded stockings and -rubbish—when there isn’t an old woman in the dale but could do them a -sight better and save all that pretence.”</p> - -<p>Joan upon this raised her eyes. She was not timid, though she avoided -strife.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind, then, about the light and the fire of other men,” she -said, “if we were to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> give your stockings to other women to knit for -you. But you’re none so fond of spending your money even for the yarn, -let alone the knitting. You’re a heavy man upon your feet, and wear out -a deal of heels and toes. Some one’s bound to knit them for you. If you -like better to pay, I don’t mind, you may make sure of that.”</p> - -<p>“You!” cried her father, “a piece of stale goods that can’t find a -market; who cares for you? You should have been the plague of some other -house these ten years, and not sucking the life out of mine, and setting -up your face before your betters. <i>She</i> don’t make any observations; and -whatever else she is, she’s my wife, and has some right to speak.”</p> - -<p>Joan’s brown eyes gave out a flash. She was no longer cowed.</p> - -<p>“I have had a good lesson,” she said. “I can see how nice it is to be -your wife, father, and I don’t want to try it on my own account.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hush! hush! Joan,” the mother said, her hands coming together once -more.</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i> don’t want to try!” said Joscelyn. “Who’s given you a chance? -that’s what I’d like to know. If I had my own way I’d clear you all out -of this house. I’d have no useless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> women here. When a man gets sense he -knows what a fool he’s been, burdening himself with a wife and -children—a wife that gets old and ugly, and a set of children that defy -him under his own roof. Good Lord! think of me, a man in my prime, with -a middle-aged woman like that saying father to me! when I might have had -my fling, and been a gay young fellow with the best of them. There’s -your son too, madam, just gone out of here shaking his fist in my face; -and if I knock him down there will be a great hulabooloo got up because -he’s my son. Son! what’s a son? or daughter either? A rebellious scamp -that will neither do anything for himself nor do what you tell him to -do. By the Lord Harry! when I think what a snug comfortable life I might -have been living here with nothing to trouble me. And now I can’t -stretch my legs under my own mahogany but there’s a brat of a boy to -contradict me, or come into my own parlour but there’s a brat of a -girl—— no, by Jove no,” he added, with a coarse laugh, “there I’m -going too far; not a girl, or anything like it—an old maid. That’s what -a man makes by marrying young, like a fool, as I was.”</p> - -<p>While he thus discharged his volleys on both<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> sides, the women relapsed -into absolute silence. Mrs. Joscelyn was too much afraid to interfere, -while Joan shrugged her shoulders, with the philosophy that was natural -to her. What does it matter to me what he says? she said to herself; I -didn’t choose him for a father, and she expressed her indifference as a -Frenchwoman might have done by that shrug of her shoulders. He was -allowed to talk on without any reply; and if there is one thing more -exasperating than another to a violent temper, it is the silence of the -natural antagonists who ought to furnish it with the means of prolonging -its utterances. He thought, like all other bad-tempered men, that this -was done “a’ purpose,” and his passion rose higher.</p> - -<p>“Women,” he said, snarling, with a furious fear that he was not really -touching them to the quick, as he intended, “women! that are supposed to -clean up a house and make it pleasant! a deuced deal of that we ever see -here. Train up lads in rebellion, and in thinking themselves wiser than -them that’s before them, that’s what you can do. And sit about in the -warmest corners and clog up the whole space, so that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> man can’t move -for them—that’s women! And eat of the best like fighting-cocks, and -dress themselves up like peacocks, that’s all they think of. By Jove! -I’d make a clean sweep of them out of this house if I had my way.”</p> - -<p>“Then you’d better have your way,” said Joan; “sweep as much as you -please. Mother, will you mind what I tell you, and not make a fuss? I -hope I’m worth my salt wherever I go: and he knows well enough I’m the -best servant he has in the house, and work for no wages, and stand -bullying like ne’er another. What do I care for that rubbish? Come along -upstairs with me, and let him have his room to himself and his fire to -himself. He should have his house to himself if it were not for you; but -for mercy’s sake don’t you make a fuss, and clasp your hands like that. -Come along upstairs with me, and let him talk.”</p> - -<p>“Joan! Joan!” the mother whispered. “Joan! who will there be to let -Harry in if you take me away? It’s too early yet,” she said faltering, -aloud. “I’ve got the things to put away. I’ve got—many little things to -do. I haven’t half finished my mending. Your father’s put out, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> does -not mean it. It’s too early yet to go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll stay and let Harry in,” said Joan, aloud, scorning the -whisper. “Go you and rest, you look more dead than alive. You may trust -Harry to me.”</p> - -<p>Then the master of the house, sitting in his chair with his legs -stretched out in front of the fire, poured forth another volley of -oaths.</p> - -<p>“We’ll just see if you let Harry in,” he cried. “Harry, confound him! -let him stay out, as he’s gone out. I’ll have none of his dissipations -here, nor your conniving neither, you fools. Here, get off with you as -you said. I’ll lock up your things, madam. I’ll take care of your keys, -I’ll see the house shut up. It’s my business, and it’s my house, not -yours. You’ll be cleverer than I take you for if either one or the other -of you let that confounded young scapegrace in here this night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Joan! Joan! hold your peace! do not make things worse,” cried Mrs. -Joscelyn, wringing her thin hands.</p> - -<p>Joan stood confronting her father, looking him full in the face. She was -of a short and full figure, shapely enough, but without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> a trace in it -of her mother’s grace. She kept on knitting in the very midst of the -controversy, standing between the fire and the table.</p> - -<p>“It will have to come to a crisis one time or another. As well this -night as another night,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>THE FAMILY IT BELONGED TO.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Joscelyns were of what is called an old family. Though they were of -no higher degree at present than any other yeomen of the dales, they -were of much greater pretensions. There were no very authentic records -of this supposed historical superiority—a well-sounding name and a bit -of old ruin in a corner of the land which remained to them were as much -as they had to show in support of the tradition. But there were no other -Joscelyns about, so that the family had evidently at one time or other -been an importation from another district, and though nobody knew from -whence the stock came, it was understood in the family that they had -counted kin some time or other with very much finer folk. There were -even old people still alive who remem<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span>bered the time when the Joscelyns -lived with much greater grandeur than now and gave themselves all the -airs of gentlefolks. These traditions had dazzled Lydia Brotherton, who, -though she was only the daughter of a clergyman, and not rich or -accustomed to anything very fine, was still better bred than Ralph -Joscelyn of the White House, and much more “genteel” and aspiring. The -Brothertons were really “well-connected people,” as everybody knew. They -had a baronet in the family. When there was any specially promising boy -in the parish for whom an opening was wanted, the vicar knew whom to -write to, and had written with such effect that one lad at least from -the district had got an appointment in the custom-house in consequence. -When a man can do that, he proves there is something in his claims of -family. And Miss Brotherton had been brought up by a governess, which -was to the homely people about, a much finer thing than going to school: -and could sing songs in foreign languages, and play upon the piano, both -uncommon acquirements, when she came to the White House. As for Ralph in -those days he had been a very fine young fellow—the tallest, the -strongest, the most bright-eyed and high<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span>-coloured young man between -Shap and Carlisle. He was first in all games, nobody venturing to -contend with him in wrestling, or in any other exercise where sheer -strength was an important particular. He was not “book-learned,” but -what did that matter? Lydia had been accustomed all her life to curates -who were book-learned, and her experiences in that kind had made her -less respectful of instruction than might have been desired. She made a -picture to herself of all the chivalrous qualities which “good blood” -ought to confer; and the big limbs and pre-eminent strength of her -lover, seemed to her the plainest evidence that he was a king among men. -Nobody else could throw so far or jump so high. When he was on his big -mare Meg, which was still bigger in proportion than himself, the two -went through thick and thin, fearing nothing. He was a man that might -have led an army; that might have cut down a troop of rebels—there was -no limit to his powers. All the feats of the North-country ballads and -heroes became possible, nay ordinary, to her when Ralph was by. Her own -slim nervous figure, in which there was no muscular strength at all, -made his fine embodiment of force all the more attractive to her. There -were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span> rumours that he was “wild,” which frightened her father and -mother, but Lydia was not alarmed. The curates were prim and correct as -well as book-learned; but she did not like them. And to big Ralph it -seemed natural that there should be overflowings of his strength and -vigour, that life in him which was so much more than the life of other -men. Temper, too—no doubt he had a temper—could such a man be expected -to be patient and velvet-mouthed like the Rev. John or Thomas? “He will -never be ill-tempered to me,” she had said with a confident smile. The -parents thought the same when they looked at their graceful daughter, -and thought what a thing it would be for Ralph Joscelyn to have such a -creature by his side. Of course it would make a man of him. Very likely -if he had married a farmer’s daughter, a nice rosy-cheeked lass, he too -would have dropped into a mere dalesman without a thought beyond the -“beasts” and an athletic meeting. But with Lydia, with so much vigour, -and a little money and the best of blood, what might not be hoped from -him? Lydia would turn his house, which was a little homely in its -appointments, into a gentleman’s house. Her presence alone, along with -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> tidies, and footstools, and cushions which her mother was working -for her, would make an instant revolution in the appearance of the -house.</p> - -<p>For these and many other equally weighty reasons the contract was -concluded, and true love, as Mrs. Brotherton remarked, carried the -day—though her daughter might, no doubt, have looked higher. Ralph got -a lieutenancy in the Yeomanry, which was a great thing. He was put upon -the Commission of the Peace—a <i>faux air</i> as of a country gentleman was -thrown over him. After all whether a property is large or small it makes -no difference in the principle of the thing, Mrs. Brotherton said. You -would not put a man out of his natural rank and cease to consider him a -squire because he had been obliged to part with a portion of his estate. -This lady was something of an invalid, and a great deal of a casuist—it -was her part in the family to explain everything and give the best of -reasons. She was safe to produce a long list of arguments at ten -minutes’ notice, fully justifying, and that on the highest grounds, -whatever the others had decided to do. And she put forth all her -strength in favour of Ralph Joscelyn, so that he ended by becoming a -very fine gentleman, indeed a patrician of the purest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> water, a little -subdued by circumstances, but blue in blood and princely in disposition -like the best.</p> - -<p>The White House to which Lydia had been brought home, as was the custom -then, on the evening of her wedding day, bore very much the same aspect -at that period as at the time, five-and-thirty years later, at which -this story opens. It was a gray stone house, gray and cold as the fells -against which its square outline showed, roomy and old-fashioned if not -perhaps quite carrying out the family brag. It stood upon one of the -Tower slopes a little elevated above the road. Behind it at some little -distance was a small wood of firs softening down into a fringe of trees -less gloomy, in the little fissure, too small to be called a glen or -even a ravine, nothing more than a cut in the hillside, where a little -brook brawled downwards over its pebbles, on the west side of the house. -Here there were some hawthorn bushes, big and gnarled and old, a few -mountain ash-trees, and birches clinging to the sides of the narrow -opening, some of them stooping across the little thread of water to -which they formed a sort of fringe; and at one spot a very homely little -bridge overshadowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span> by the birches which clustered together, dangling -their delicate branches over the beck, the only pretty feature in the -scene. Originally the White House had stood upon the bare hill-side, -with its close grayish turf coming up close to the door in front, though -there was a walled kitchen-garden on the east side. But when Mrs. -Joscelyn came home a bride, a little flower-garden had been laid out in -front of the door, which gave something of the air of a suburban villa -to the austere hill-side house. Never was there a more forlorn little -garden. Nothing would grow, and for many years its proprietors had -ceased to solicit anything to grow. The grass-plots had grown gray again -like the natural turf. The flower-beds were overgrown by weeds, and by a -few garden flowers run wild which had lost both size and sweetness, as -flowers so often do when left to nature. An oblong hall, of considerable -dimensions, from which the doors of the sittingrooms opened, and which -was hung with guns and fishing-rods, and with a large stag’s head -adorned by enormous antlers opposite the door, made an imposing entrance -to the house; but the carpets were all worn, the curtains dingy, the -furniture gloomy and old; huge mahogany side<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span>boards, and big tables, -vast square-shouldered chairs; things heavy and costly and ugly fitted -the rooms; nothing for beauty, or even comfort. It seemed hard indeed to -know for what such furniture was made, save for endurance, to wear as -long as possible.</p> - -<p>Young Mrs. Joscelyn when she came home had hung her antimacassars over -the chairs, she had put out her “Keepsake” and “Friendship’s Offering” -upon the table, and placed her guitar in the most favourable position; -and then she sat down to be happy. Poor gentle young woman! She had been -the pet at home, the only daughter. She had been considered the most -accomplished of girls. Whatever she said had secured the smiles and -admiration of father and mother; all that she did had been pretty, had -been sweet, not from any quality of its own, but because it was Liddy -who did it. To describe the extraordinary sensation with which she woke -up a few months after her marriage, perhaps not so much, to discover -that Liddy having done it, made nothing attractive or charming, would be -impossible. It took away from her all her little confidence in herself, -all her faith in those around her. Very soon—so soon that it seemed -immediately,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> the next day—her husband made it very clearly visible -that Liddy was the synonym not for everything that was pleasant, but for -all the awkwardness, the foolishness, the inappropriate words and -inconvenient actions of the house. “It is just like you,” he began to -say to her, long before the first summer was over. For a time she tried -to think it was “Ralph’s way,” but that did not stand her long in stead. -And with her opinion of herself, her confidence in everything else -gradually deserted her. She recognised that the Joscelyns’ blue blood -did very little for them, that old Uncle Harry was often less polite -than Isaac Oliver who was his hind, and more dreadful still, an -admission she never would make to herself, that the very curates whom -she had despised were beside her patrician Ralph like beings of another -world.</p> - -<p>Perhaps of all that happened to her in her after-life there was no shock -so terrible as this first disenchantment. She had a large family, -plunging into all the roughnesses of life, its nursery prose and -bread-and-butter, without any interval of repose, without money enough -or leisure enough to put any glow of prettiness upon the rude -circumstances, the band of children—noisy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> boys who made an end of all -her attempts at neatness, and gobbled their food and tore their clothes, -and were dirty and disorderly as any cottage brood. She struggled on -among them as best she could, always watching every new baby wistfully -to see if perhaps a something like herself, a child who would be her -very own and speak her language and understand her meaning might be born -to her. But alas! they were Joscelyns every one, big-limbed creatures -with light blue eyes, and great red cheeks, who stared at her cynically -out of their very cradles, and seemed to demand what she was making a -fuss about when she sang them to sleep. Poor woman, she was always -hopeful; every new child that came was, she thought, at last the one for -whom she had been pining. Even now she had a lingering notion that -Harry, her youngest boy, was that child—and far more than a notion, a -hopeful certainty that little Liddy at school, the youngest of all, was -exactly what she herself had been at the same age. These two, were in -fact the least like Joscelyns of all her children. Harry was a -broad-shouldered young fellow indeed, but he was less tall, and less -powerful than his brothers; he had taken a little more to books;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> and -there were traces in him of something less matter-of-fact than the -stolid, steady nature of Will and Tom, and Benjamin and Hartley, all now -established in occupations, and some of them in houses of their own. -Will and Tom were married; they had both descended a single step lower -down than the position of their father, marrying, one of them, the -daughter of a farmer, and the other, the only child of a famous “vet,” -who gave her what was understood to be “a tidy bit of money,” and to -whose business the young man hoped to succeed. It was a coming down in -the world to his mother. But how could she help it? With so many boys to -provide for, the Joscelyn pride had to be put in their pocket. Hartley -was in Colorado, Ben in New Zealand, all struggling along in much the -same kind of occupation which their father pursued at home. As for Harry -he had been rather delicate, a circumstance of which his mother was -almost proud, as showing his affinity to her side of the house. And he -was in an office in Liverpool, an occupation more fit for a delicate -youth than the rough sheep-farming and horse-selling of the Fells. It -was time now that something should be decided about his career. Was he -to have a little money to invest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> to get him a small share in the -concern? He had been clerk long enough, Harry thought—long enough for -himself and long enough too for his employer, who wanted a partner, but -no further clerks.</p> - -<p>This was the question which at present agitated the house. Each of the -sons as he established himself in life had done so with a quarrel, often -a series of wranglings; but they had all taken it more easily than -Harry. Certainly Harry was the one most like his mother. Her heart -yearned over him. She took a little pride in him too, more than it was -possible to take in Tom and Will and their rough affairs. A merchant in -Liverpool sounded better, and Harry in his black coat looked, his mother -thought, more like a gentleman than any of the others. For the first -time for all these years she had been able to recall to her mind what a -gentleman looked like, and the pride which had been natural to a -well-connected person, a clergyman’s daughter, had begun to dawn -faintly, timidly, once more within her. Supposing that the baronet, who -was the head of her family, should ever inquire into the fortunes of his -humble relation, Harry was the one she had always thought who could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> -put forward. “One of her sons is a merchant in Liverpool,” how often had -she taken refuge in this as a thing that might be said to Sir John, if -ever at long and last he should make inquiries after Liddy Brotherton. -The others, alas! were not very presentable; but Harry and Liddy might, -if the inquiry came soon, while they were yet young and amenable, show -themselves with the best. These were the secret thoughts in Mrs. -Joscelyn’s heart. She had not given up yet; she was always ready to -begin again; day by day her hope renewed itself, her disappointments -went out of her mind. And thus she went on daily laying herself open to -fresh disappointments because of these new hopes.</p> - -<p>As for her husband, he was no unusual type of his class. He had a great -deal of the rough arrogance which characterises it. When he was among -his neighbours it got him ill-will, but still he could hold his own -among them; domineering over the gentler sort, tyrannical to his -servants, but only altogether unjust and unkind to those who were weak -and in subjection to him. It was his own family who felt this most. For -women he had an absolute contempt, unveiled by any of those polite -pretences with which ordi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span>nary men holding this opinion sometimes -consent to conceal it from motives of general expediency. His wife had -been to him a pretty lass, for whom he had a passion <i>dans le temps</i>, -and whom he had been rather proud to win, at the moment, as a lady and -full of dainty ways, superior to those of the other pretty lasses in his -sphere. It was right and natural that he, a Joscelyn, should have a lady -for his wife, one who would not have looked at any other yeoman in the -county, and who, indeed, had refused one or two better matches than -himself for his sake. He knew that it was a fine thing to be a Joscelyn, -though he did not know very well in what this consisted. It entitled him -to be called Ralph Joscelyn, Esq., of the White House, when the other -rough Dalesmen had scarcely so much as a Mr. to their names, and it gave -him a general vague sense of superiority and of personal elation, as a -man made of a different stuff from that out of which his neighbours were -shaped. But though he was proud of this, he knew nothing about it. He -was just as capable of investigating into “the old Joscelyns,” and -tracing them to their real origin, as he was of exploring the sources of -the Nile. He did not know, even, what it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span> which made it such an -advantage to him to belong to those old Joscelyns, but he accepted it as -a benefit which was no doubt to be partially attributed to his own -excellence and high qualities. After the first flush of youth was over, -he considered his wife no longer as a lady whom it was a pride to have -won, but as a creature belonging to him, like one of his dogs, but not -so docile or invariably lovable as his dogs. They all followed and -worshipped him obsequiously, whether he was kind to them or not, -condoning all his contrary actions, and ready to receive a caress with -overflowing gratitude, and forget the kick by which it had been -preceded. Mrs. Joscelyn had not the sense of the dogs; she struggled for -a time to get the place which her imagination had pictured—that of the -poetical mate, the help-meet, the sharer of her husband’s life; and when -sent “to heel” with a kick, she had not taken it as the dogs did, but -allowed the dismay, the disenchantment, the consternation which -overwhelmed her to be seen in her face. Since then Joscelyn had -emancipated himself altogether from any bondage of affection or respect. -He frankly despised the woman he owned; despised her for her weakness, -for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> interruptions of illness to which she was subject, for her -tremblings and nervous terrors, in short, for being a woman and his -wife. Their life together had contained scarcely an element of beauty or -happiness of any kind. She had remained with him by force of -circumstances, because it had never occurred to her as possible that she -could do anything else. In these days people did not think of obtaining -relief from the special burdens of their lives, or of throwing them off. -A woman who had a bad or unkind husband endured him, as she would in all -likelihood have endured a constitutional ailment, as a thing to be -concealed from others as much as possible and made the best of, without -seeking after doctors or medicines. It was a cross which had been put -upon her to bear. She had happened badly in the lottery of life, drawn a -bad number, an unhappy lot; but now there was nothing for it but to lie -upon the bed that had been made for her, and to cut her coat according -to her cloth.</p> - -<p>And thus life had gone on for five-and-thirty years. The number of -miseries that can be borne in that time is incalculable, as wonderful as -the tenacity with which human nature can<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> support them, and rise every -morning to a consciousness of them, yet go on all the same, scarcely -less vigorous, in some cases more vigorous, than those to whom existence -is happiness. No one in the White House was happy after the age of -childhood, but nobody minded much except the mother, who had this -additional burden to bear that the expectation of at least some future -happiness in her children, never died out of her. Perhaps being no wiser -than her neighbours she missed some legitimate if humble happiness, -which she might have had, by not understanding how much real strength -and support might have been found in the stout and homely affection of -her eldest daughter, who was not in the least like her, and did not -understand her, nor flatter her with any sympathy, yet who stood -steadfastly by her and shielded her, and furthered her wishes when they -could be divined, with a friendly, half compassionate, sometimes -impatient support. But Joan had been critical from her very cradle, -always conscious of the “fuss” which her mother only became conscious of -making when she saw it in the half-mocking question in her children’s -eyes. No, Mrs. Joscelyn would have said to herself, Joan was a good -girl—though it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> seemed a misnomer to call her a girl, so mature as she -was, in some indefinable way older than her mother—a good girl; but not -one that was like her, or understood her, or knew what she meant. -Perhaps Harry might, if she could get any good of him, if she did not -always live in terror of a deadly quarrel between him and his father -which would drive her last boy from the house; and Liddy, little Liddy -would—no doubt Liddy would when she came back from her school. But all -her other children had been Joscelyns, not one of them like her. She was -even tremblingly conscious that Harry was growing less like her side of -the house every day; but she clung to her little girl as her perfect -representative, a last hope and compensation for the uncomprehended life -she had led all these weary years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>THE YOUNGEST SON.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY JOSCELYN had been said in the nursery to be a sweet-tempered -child; and he had lived upon the reputation through all the impatient -years of youth, during which he had not been sweet-tempered, but -decidedly “contrary,” as all the Joscelyns were. Notwithstanding the -fact that the Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves, and the -vague grandeur of their ancestry, education had always been a very -doubtful necessity in the house. Ralph Joscelyn himself had been at -school it was supposed in the natural course, and could write and read -and make up his accounts, which was all that was necessary; and it had -not occurred to him that his sons wanted more. Such nervous attempts as -their mother made to secure for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> them advantages to which she on her -side, as a clergyman’s daughter, attached a value which was more -superstitious than enlightened, only strengthened her husband’s -conviction that the ways of horses were much better worth learning than -anything that could be got out of books. Harry had been the exception; -he was the godson of an old uncle who lived in the nearest town, and who -also had a tidy bit of money to leave behind him, a qualification which -gave him great credit among his kinsfolks, and made his recommendation -potent. He it was who had procured for Harry the education which made -him superior to his brethren. Uncle Henry had gone so far as to permit -the boy to live in his house while he attended school, and as this -seemed a plain indication that the boy was to be his heir there had not -been a word to say against it. As for Mrs. Joscelyn, she had triumphed -sadly in the fate which satisfied her wishes while taking her solace -from her. She thought ever after that if Harry had not been taken from -her at that susceptible period of his life, he would have been a comfort -to her in his later years, and never would have forsaken his mother. But -we are all apt to find out afterwards the disadvantages which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span> attend -every piece of good fortune. At the first proposal it had seemed -something too good to be hoped for. When it was intimated to her that -Harry was to go to the Grammar School at Wyburgh, at Uncle Henry’s cost, -and was to be housed under Uncle Henry’s roof and cared for by his -housekeeper, whose only fault was that she was too kind to the rough -boys—whom she only of all the dependants of the family, insisted upon -calling the young gentlemen—there was a sort of <i>Nunc Dimittis</i> in Mrs. -Joscelyn’s heart. If only she could hope for anything as good for Liddy, -though Liddy was but a baby in those days! But when Harry, the one who -she fondly thought would understand her, was gone, his mother wrung her -hands over that as over so many other troubles. From that time forth she -had never again felt that he understood her. He veered from her side, to -which he had been so constant, and preferred the rough sports of the -other boys, and even to hear his father’s stories of desperate rides, -and cunning mares, and all the adventures of the stable, better than to -walk and talk with her as he had once done. Perhaps it was natural, no -doubt it was quite natural;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> but what is from one side the thing most -clearly to be expected, is often a most painful revelation on the other. -Harry was for five years in Uncle Henry’s house, during which time his -mother formed many fine visions of what might happen to him. She thought -he would most certainly get the exhibition and go to Cambridge, and -become a scholar like his grandfather, and might then perhaps eventually -become a clergyman, and afford her in the end of her life a refuge of -peaceful sweetness like that once lightly thought of, but now so fondly -looked back upon, sweet peaceful parsonage of her girlhood. But Harry, -as a matter of fact, was never within a hundred miles of the exhibition. -It was won by a lad who was nobody, who had no blood to speak of in his -veins, and nobody to care much whether he succeeded or not. Then Mrs. -Joscelyn thought that Uncle Henry would very likely draw that long -purse, which was supposed much longer at the White House than it was in -reality, and out of family pride, and to give himself the satisfaction -of a nephew at college, would send the boy to Cambridge, even without -the exhibition. But even that was not to be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></p> - -<p>Harry himself for his part was not very grateful to Uncle Henry for his -education. He would rather have been at home riding the colts, in the -middle of all the fun. And he was not very fond of the education, any -more than of the old man who gave it to him. He saw the disadvantages -much more than the advantages of his position, as most people, and -especially most young people, do. He had no fervid desire for learning, -though his mother thought so; and to be as quiet as a mouse in that -carefully arranged bachelor’s house was not half so pleasant as rushing -in and out after his own fancy at home. He obeyed while he was a boy, -but he was not grateful; and when he began to be a young man and the end -of his studies approached, he was neither grateful nor obedient. He went -in for all the sports in the neighbourhood, and persistently, though -without any temper, defied his uncle. The result was that instead of -being sent to Cambridge and made a scholar of and Uncle Henry’s avowed -heir, which was all on the cards at one time, Harry was placed in the -office in Liverpool where Uncle Henry had made his money. It was “a fine -opening,” the old man said; but it did not much please anybody -con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span>cerned. Mrs. Joscelyn felt as if she had tumbled from the top of the -stairs to the bottom when she heard that all her hopes were to come to -nothing better than this. And Harry himself who had begun to be proud of -his education, though he did not love it, went about with a very grave -countenance, furtively examining the faces of all concerned, that he -might see what hope there was of an alteration in his fate. But his -father had too many sons to quarrel with any provision for the youngest -of them, and his mother had no power whatever, and there was nobody else -who could help him. So he went to Liverpool at last, notwithstanding his -own and his mother’s reluctance, and once there soon began to appreciate -the advantage of his liberty and an income of his own. He had been -frugally bred, and had never known what it was to have money before. His -income seemed a fortune at first, but after a while Harry did not -consider it in this light; and to tell the truth his application to his -father for funds to push his fortune, to get advancement and a -partnership, meant also a something, a little margin to pay sundry debts -which his inexperience had been beguiled into, and which appalled him as -soon as he had discovered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span> that his income was less inexhaustible than -he thought; and he had come home for his yearly holiday with the -determination, by hook or by crook, to get this change in his position -effected, and to be done with debt for ever and ever.</p> - -<p>The house in Liverpool where Uncle Henry had made his fortune was by no -means a great house. It had gone on very steadily since the old man -retired from it, and now there was a need for new blood. Harry had -explained all this when he went to see his uncle, and had done all that -was possible to do short of asking for the money to show to Uncle Henry -how highly expedient it was to “come forward” on such an occasion. But -the old gentleman had not taken the hint. And then Harry had spoken to -his mother, urging her to make an effort to get her own little fortune, -if possible, from his father’s hands, and invest it in the business. To -get it from his father’s hands! it would have been as easy to get him -the moon out of the skies. Mrs. Joscelyn would have set out on any -journey, would even have consented to be shot out of a big cannon, like -the hero of M. Jules Verne, in order to get her boy what he wanted. But -get it from his father! She sank back upon herself at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> mere -suggestion. Nothing in heaven or earth was less possible.</p> - -<p>Then Harry had taken it in hand himself. He was not one who had ever -“got on” with his father. Notwithstanding his long absence from home, as -soon as they met it seemed that they could not avoid jangling. An -impulse to contradict everything his father said seemed somehow the -first thing in Harry’s mind; and Joscelyn himself, always dogmatical, -was never so much so, never so impatient of any expression of opinion as -when it was his youngest son who made it. It may be imagined then if -Mrs. Joscelyn had reason for her alarm when Harry at last took the bull -by the horns, as he said, and ventured to propound to his father the -tremendous idea that he wanted money. The young man was a little alarmed -by it himself. He took the bull by the horns with a weak rush at last, -his mind so deranged by the traditions of the house and the alarming -presence of his father, that his appeal was quite wanting in the -business-like form he had intended to give it. What he meant to say was, -that here was an excellent opportunity for investing a little money, -that it would bring in good interest, and would be perfectly safe, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span> -would give him a great step in life—all these things together. But -instead of this he blundered and stumbled, and gave his father to -understand that his mother was quite willing and anxious that her money -should be employed in this way, and that the return would be far better -if it were put into his hands than any other possible use of it could -give.</p> - -<p>“So you’ve been plotting with your mother,” Joscelvn had said. “What the -blank has she to do with it? What the dash does she mean by interfering? -I’ve a good mind to kick you out of the house—both her and you.”</p> - -<p>“It is her money,” said Harry, confronting his father; though, indeed, -had it not been for necessity and opposition the idea of anything -belonging to his mother was the last thought that would have occurred to -him.</p> - -<p>“<i>Her</i> money!” Joscelvn had cried out in a tempest of scorn and wrath, -filling the room with whirlwinds of oaths; and what with the fierce -impulse of contradiction in him, and the desire he had to have his way, -Harry had felt his genuine germ of affection for his mother blown up -into red hot heat and passion by all that his father proceeded to say. -“<i>Her</i> money! Let her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span> dare to say it was her money—to a man that had -supported and put up with a dashed useless blank all this time that was -no more good in a house than an old rag! Let her just come and say it -was her money—he would show her the difference; he would tell her whose -money it was that kept up her dashed pretensions. To be sure it was a -lady she was—a parson’s daughter with a fortune of her own. Oh, dash it -all—her money; this was about too much for any man to bear.” Harry had -made a great effort to keep his temper, and he had allowed all this -flood to pour itself out. He was very much in earnest, and anxious, now -that he had opened the question, to get some advantage from it. Then he -tried another expedient.</p> - -<p>“I have never cost you a penny,” he said; “the others have all got -something out of you. You have never spent a penny upon me.”</p> - -<p>And then the veins swelled upon Joscelyn’s forehead. He swore half a -million of oaths, cursing his son by every possible mode of imprecation.</p> - -<p>“Cost me nothing! you dashed puppy!” he cried; “you’ve cost me a deal -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span>more than money, you ——!” (Though it takes away the spirit and energy -of his style, and turns it into tameness, I cannot pretend to report Mr. -Joscelyn’s expletives, having no sufficient knowledge of the variations -to help me in rendering them) “You’ve cost me that woman’s dashed -smirking and smiling, and that old scarecrow’s brags and blows. I’d -sooner you had cost me a fortune. I’ve had that to put up with as I’ll -put up with again from nobody. Made me feel like a beggar, by ——! with -that old blank grinning at me, and poking his advices at me. If it was -for nothing but to spite him you shouldn’t have a penny from me.”</p> - -<p>“And do you mean to say,” cried Harry, indignant, “that you will -sacrifice my prospects to show your independence of my uncle? I could -believe a great deal of you, father (which was a wrong thing to say), -but I couldn’t have believed anything so bad as that.”</p> - -<p>And then it was that Joscelyn pushed back his chair, and clenched his -fist, and gave his son to understand what he thought of him.</p> - -<p>“There’s not one of the others but is worth two of you,” he said, -“they’re a bit like Joscelyns; you’re your mother’s breed, you -white-faced shop-keeping cur. And ask me to put my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> money in a filthy -concern across a counter, me that have the best blood in all Cumberland -in my veins, and my name to keep up; I’ll see you at—Jericho first; -I’ll see you in the churchyard first. D’ye think I want you to keep up -the family? If you were the heir there might be something to be said. -Heir, yes! and something worth being heir to: Joscelyns. Put your finger -on one blessed peerage in the country that has as good blood as mine to -go with it; but I’ve plenty of lads worth counting on, I don’t want -anything to say to you.”</p> - -<p>“Blood won’t do much for us, without a little money,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>“That shows what blood you’ve come of; your mother’s milk-and-water, not -mine. I can’t take the name from you——”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” cried Harry, springing to his feet. He had held -himself in so long that now his passion would have vent, though he knew -very well it was upon a fictitious occasion. “What do you mean?” he -cried; “do you mean to slander my mother?” and faced this domestic -tyrant with blazing eyes.</p> - -<p>Joscelyn laughed scornfully.</p> - -<p>“You can take it as you please,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> “You’re of her breed, not -mine. Flare up as you like, it don’t touch me. You’re a poor, weakly -piece of goods to carry a big name, but I can’t take it from you. Only -mind you what I say, don’t ask a penny from me, for you’ll not get it; -not a sixpence, not a farthing from me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll never trouble you again, that you may be sure. It is now or -never,” cried Harry, worked to a pitch of passion which he could not -restrain. And again, Joscelyn laughed, with a shout that blew into -Harry’s indignant face, and moved his hair.</p> - -<p>This sensation half maddened the young man. He pushed away his chair, -throwing it down with a clang that rang over all the house, and crying, -“That’s settled, then!” darted out and flung himself forth, out of the -flush and heat of the quarrel into the cool and wintry freshness of the -night.</p> - -<p>Other interviews before this had ended in the same way. It is the worst -of domestic quarrels that they are endless and full of repetition. What -would be decisive between two friends is not decisive between two -members of the same family, who are forced to meet again, and go over -the same ground for scores of times. Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> Joscelyn had felt the same -tingle and thrill as of fire in his veins before now, the same -determination to fling out of sight, out of recollection of this tyrant -who was his father, and who became periodically insupportable to him. He -plunged out into the cold without any upper coat, his body all tingling -with heat and shame, as his mind did. Indeed, he was at a pass in which -body and mind so sympathize with each other as to feel like one. He sped -along the familiar road in the white soft mist of the moonlight. The -great slope of the Fells behind was the only object that loomed through -that faint vaporous atmosphere, in which the light seemed diffused and -disintegrated into a woolly confusing veil. The road lay between two -grey dykes; there were no trees or bushes to interrupt or throw shadows -into the general haze. He seemed to breathe it, as well as move in it; -and after the first minute it chilled him to the very marrow of his -bones. The whiteness made it colder, cold without and within, in the -body and in the mind. And gradually it had upon the heated youth the -effect of a cold bath, quenching out the warmth in him. His steps grew -less hurried, he began to be able to think, not only, with a furious -absorption over all his fathe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span>r’s words and ways, but with a recurring -thought of his overcoat, and all the comfort he might have got out of -it, which, though it was not a great matter, still gradually set up -something to balance the other matter in his mind.</p> - -<p>He walked quickly, his rapid youthful steps warning whosoever might be -out and about, of his approach. There was no doubtfulness in these -steps; he was not wandering vaguely, but had a certain end before him, -the parlour of the “Red Lion,” which had made his mother wring her hands -as much as all the other painful circumstances of the night. He had -persuaded himself, as soon as the first novelty of his return home was -over, that he had nowhere else to go. To sit between his mother and Joan -in the parlour, they could not suppose that a young fellow would do -that. Women are unreasonable; they had supposed it, not knowing in their -own accustomedness and unexpectancy how dull it was. There was nothing -very lively going on at the “Red Lion,” and a mother and sister might -have been excused for wondering what charm there was in the dull and -drowsy talk, the slow filling of glasses, the rustic opinions and -confused ideas of the company there. Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> did not find much charm in -it, but it was more congenial than sitting with the women. He was angry -when his father assailed his mother, feeling it a kind of assault upon -his own side, but his father’s ceaseless scorn of her, which he had -known all his life, had influenced him in spite of himself. To sit at -home with two women in a parlour was out of the question. The other -parlour was not entertaining, but it was not home, and that was always -something. The “Red Lion” was in the middle of the village, which lay on -a considerably lower level than that of the White House, clustered upon -the stream which divided the valley. It was quite a small stream -ordinarily, but at present it was swollen with spring rains and with the -melted snow, and made a faint roar in the night as it swept under the -bridge, with here and there a gleam of light reflected in it from the -neighbouring houses. It was not with any very highly raised expectations -that Harry turned his eyes towards these lights. He would get out of the -cold, that was one thing, and into the light, and would see something -different from his father’s furious countenance, or his mother’s pale -one, or Joan’s eyes, that paid attention to everything but her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> -knitting. How strange it is that home, which is paradise at five, and so -pleasant a place at fifteen, should be intolerable at five-and-twenty! -As he approached the corner at which, coming from his exile at Wyburgh, -he had first caught sight of the lights in the White House, he could not -help remembering the shout of delight he used to send forth. How -pleasant it had been to come home from Uncle Henry’s prim old place! but -what was home to him now? at the best a duty, a weariness. As he began -to think of this a kind of desire, a longing to go far away came over -him. Why shouldn’t he go away? His mother would not like it, but nobody -else would mind. His mother was the only creature, he reflected, whom he -cared for at home; and of course it was his duty to come and see her -from time to time. But an hour at the utmost exhausted what he had to -say to her; indeed, he had never had so much to say to her as it would -take an hour to tell. Half-an-hour, perhaps, now and then—that he would -like to keep up, just to please her; and it would please himself too. -But he did not care for any more. As for all the rest, he did not mind, -not he! if he never saw the White House again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span></p> - -<p>Thus he was thinking as he hastened along the road, his hasty feet -ringing upon the path notwithstanding that it was somewhat damp and the -atmosphere dull, giving forth no particular echo. Some one else was -coming along the Wyburgh Road, a small uncertain blackness in the white -atmosphere. Harry knew very well at the first glance who it was, as -familiar a figure as any in the country side. Anybody would have known -him by his step even, that peculiar step as of one springy foot and one -shuffling one which gave a one-sided movement to the man, and an -unmistakable rhythm to the sound of him. Perhaps he knew Harry’s step -too, for he paused at the corner, turning his face in the way the young -man was coming.</p> - -<p>“Who will that be?” he said, in the obscurity, “if I’m no mistaken an -angry man—”</p> - -<p>“It’s I, Isaac,” said Harry, “angry enough if that would do me any -good.”</p> - -<p>“It’s you, Mr. Harry! that was what I thought. No, it does little good; -but so long as you wear it off in the feet of ye, my lad, and keep it -out o’ th’ other end—”</p> - -<p>“It’s very easy talking! Keep it out of the other end! I would like to -know for my part,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span>” cried the young man, glad of utterance, “why old -folks should go against young folks in the way they do. It’s like a -disease, as if they couldn’t help it. The more reasonable a thing is, -the more they don’t see it. It’s enough to make a fellow break with -everything, and take himself off to the end of the earth.”</p> - -<p>“There might be sense in that—if the ends of th’ earth would take ye -from yoursel’, Mr. Harry. But that’s queer talking for the like of you -that have always had your own gate.” He had come close up to the young -man and was gazing keenly up at him. “Have you no had your ain gate? I -dreamt it then. T’ auld maister was o’ that mind.”</p> - -<p>“Uncle Henry?—Isaac, you’re a good old fellow—you’ve always been kind -to me; but don’t talk nonsense, if you please. Uncle Henry of that mind! -did he ever let me do anything I wanted to do? from the day I went to -him till the day I left.”</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut, Mr. Harry, he always wished you weel—always weel; and if you -have patience, you’ll get it all, every penny; just have patience,” the -new-comer said, patting Harry’s arm coaxingly. And then he drew a little -closer, still<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> with his fingers on Harry’s arm. “And where may you be -going, my braw lad, at this hour of the night with your face turned from -home?”</p> - -<p>“Going? what does it matter where I am going. I don’t mind if it was -into the river there, or out of the world. Well, if you will have it, -I’m going to the ‘Red Lion’ to rest a bit and come to myself.”</p> - -<p>At this Isaac shook his head; he went on shaking it as if he had been a -little mechanical figure, which could not stop itself if once started. -“T’auld maister would never have allowed that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“What do I care for the auld master? I’m my own master, and nobody shall -stand in my way,” cried Harry, putting his hand in his turn on Isaac’s -arm, and swinging him out of the path. He was impatient of the -interruption. “I’ll go where I have a mind and bide where I have a mind, -and I would like to know who’ll stop me,” he cried.</p> - -<p>Isaac thus suddenly wheeled about and taken by surprise, went spinning -across the road, recovering himself with an effort. But he did not show -any anger. He stood looking after the young man as soon as he had -recovered his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span> balance with a “Tck—tck—tck” of his tongue against the -roof of his mouth. “It’s my duty to see after him,” old Isaac said, at -length, slowly shuffling along in the young man’s steps. There was a -certain satisfaction in his tone. The “Red Lion” was forbidden -ground—still if there was a motive, a suitable reason for it. “Ay, ay,” -said Isaac to himself, “a plain duty; so far as I can tell, there’s -never a one to look the gate he’s going but only me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>“THE RED LION.”</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE parlour of the “Red Lion” was a room with a sanded floor, protected -on the side next the door by wooden barriers with seats fixed into them, -which acted the part at once of settles, and screens to keep out the -draught. There was a bright fire which kept it in a blaze of ruddy -light, outdoing the lamps, which were not remarkable for their -brilliancy. This fire was the great attraction of the place. The very -distant prospect of it, gleaming out into the night, warmed and cheered -the passer-by. It was like a lantern ever so far down the river side, on -which the back window, partially veiled with a bit of old red curtain -which let the light shine through and added a tone of warmth the more, -looked out. You saw this window from the Wyburgh Road, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span> from all the -cold flats of the water-side. The poor women at the Smiddy-houses, which -was the name of the hamlet to the west, thought it a snare of Satan, and -compared it vindictively to the red glaring eye of some evil spirit -lying in wait to devour the unwary. But unfortunately the men were not -of that opinion. Old Isaac, who was on his way home when he encountered -Harry, and who was perfectly sincere in his opinion that nothing could -be worse for his young master than to go to such a place, felt, -notwithstanding, in his own person a thrill of internal satisfaction -when he saw that it was his duty to follow and watch over the young -fellow. It was wrong—but it was exhilarating: instead of trudging -another slow mile home, to get into the corner of one of those wooden -settles and feel the glow of the generous fire, and imbibe slowly a -glass of “summat,” and suck slowly at the tube of a long clay pipe, and -make a remark once in five minutes to one of the neighbours, who each of -them took an equally long time to produce an original observation—had -all the delight of dissipation in it. Most strange of enjoyments! and -yet an enjoyment it was. To Isaac’s eye Mr. Harry did not, by any means, -get the same good out of it. He asked for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> “summat,” to be sure, like -the others, but swallowed it as if it had been medicine; and, instead of -reposing on the settle, sat with his head in his hands poring over an -old local paper, or walked restlessly about the room, now looking out at -the window, now penetrating into the bar; a disturbing influence, -interfering fatally with the drowsy ease of the place. Isaac was a man -who had a just confidence in his own power of setting things straight -and giving good advice, and had boldly faced temptation in his own -person in order to do a moral service to the young man, for whom he felt -a certain responsibility. But having done so much, he could not but feel -that the young sinner whom he had risked his soul for, should have -enjoyed it more. All the influences about the fire, the rest, the pipe, -the glass of “summat,” were adapted to produce a certain toleration and -deadening of the moral sense. Still the “Red Lion” was wrong; Isaac knew -that his missis gave forth no uncertain sound on this point, and, for -himself, he was also of opinion that it was wrong; but there could be no -doubt that it was pleasant. Mr. Harry, however, was not taking the good -of it as a man fully aware of the attractions of the place ought to do, -and this gave Isaac energy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span> after a while to address certain -remonstrances to him. He went so far as to get up at last out of that -most desirable place in the corner of the settle near the fire. To -abandon that was a piece of self-denial that proved his sincerity in the -most striking way to himself, and could not fail, he thought, to -overcome even the scepticism of his missis. “I got a fine warm corner -just by t’ fire, wi’ a lean to my back and a table to hand, and aw as a -mon could desire; but I oop, and I’s after Mr. Harry. ‘Mr. Harry,’ says -I”—involuntarily this plea shaped itself in Isaac’s mind, as after much -hesitation he rose. He took a long pipe from the table, not caring to -give up his own, and put it in the corner to keep his place, though with -many doubts of the efficacy of the proceeding; for how could it be -expected that a new-comer, with the chill of the night upon him, would -abstain from taking possession of the coveted place when protected only -by so slight a sign of previous rights? “Keep an eye on t’ glass, will -ye?” he said to his neighbour in the other corner—hoisting himself up -with a suppressed groan. His clothes were hot to the touch with the -intense glow of the fire; but a labouring man who has been at work in -the cold all day can brave a great deal of warmth afterwards. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> he -went up to Harry, who just then had thrown himself into a chair near the -window, and tapped with his long pipe upon his arm.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Harry—summat’s amiss more than ornary. Nobody blongin’ would -approve to see ye here; but bein’ here, it’s expeckted as you’ll take -the good on it—and you’re getting no good on’t, Mr. Harry. Lord bless -ye, what’s gone wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing you can help me in, Isaac,” said the young man.</p> - -<p>“Maybe no; but aw the same, maybe ay. I’ve put mysel’ in the way of harm -to be of service to you, Mr. Harry. I hope it’ll no be counted again’ -me. I’ve done what I donno do, not once in a three months. Not as -there’s much harm to be got here; but it’s exciting, that’s what it -is—carries a man off his feet that isn’t just settled and knows what -he’s doing. And when you made a sacrifice for a friend,” said Isaac, -with a wave of his pipe, “you donno like to think as it’s to be no use.”</p> - -<p>All this time the drone of the slow rural talk was going on, now and -then with an equally slow chuckle of laughter; a pipe waved occasionally -to help out a more than usually difficult delivery; a glass set down -with a little noise in the fervour of an address accomplished; a low -tranquil hum,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> provocative of slumber than excitement one would have -said; but Isaac thought otherwise. At a table in the room a few -card-players were gathering. And somebody with a new newspaper full of -novel information—the last was more than a week old—had just come in. -The young fellow, gloomy behind backs, and his Mentor, who was so kindly -devoting himself to his service, were losing all that was going on. To -make a little moral slip like this, and yet lose all the advantage of -it, was distracting.</p> - -<p>“Come, come, Mr. Harry,” Isaac said, probing him in the shoulder with -his pipe, partly encouraging, partly threatening, “out with it, man; or -else let it a be and take your pleasure—take your pleasure, bein’ here. -It’s not a place I’d bid you come—far from it. It’s running your head -into temptation, that’s the truth; but Lord bless us, bein’ in for’t -take the good on’t—that’s what I say.”</p> - -<p>The man with the paper was hovering about Isaac’s seat; but he was not -so habituated to extremes of temperature as Isaac. “No, no,” he said -with a chuckle, “I’m not a-going to roast yet a bit. Maybbe that’ll come -after; but I dunno who’d make a cinder of hissel’ as long as he can help -it. No, no, I’ll keep my distance; it’s like the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> fiery furnace in the -Bible—that’s what it’s like.”</p> - -<p>“It’s none too warm for me,” said the man at the other corner of the -fire—and then they all laughed, though why it would be hard to say. -Isaac watched this little episode at a distance, his eyes following his -inclinations, which were all with the humours of the “company.” He -chuckled, too, in a kind of regretful echo of their laughter; but he was -relieved to see that his place was still kept for him. He turned again -to Harry with that sense of losing all the fun, which made him vehement. -“Mr. Harry,” he said, “bein’ here, take your pleasure a bit! It don’t do -no more harm to be lively like, when you’re here, than to be i’ th’ -dumps. It’s again’ my principles; and it’ll be moor again’ me when the -missis comes to hear on’t—but, gosh! when a man <i>is</i> here——”</p> - -<p>“You think he might as well get tipsy when he’s about it? I am much -obliged to you for your advice, but I don’t think I’ll take it, Isaac,” -said Harry. “Mind yourself, my old man, or there’s no telling what the -missis may say.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all your fun, Mr. Harry,” said Isaac with dignity; “there’s some -you might say that to; but I’m a moral man, and always was. You never -heard nought of the sort o’ Isaac Oliver.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> Coming here as I’ve told ye -is not a thing I hold wi’—short o’ a strong reason like the -present—short o’ plucking a brand out o’ t’ burning like I’m doing now, -you’ll not catch me night nor day, heat nor cold, in a public. I pass -the door,” Isaac said with pride, “ten times in a week or more, but who -e’er sees me turn in ’cept for a strong occasion like the present? Nay, -nay, if you were outside I’d go on my knees to ye to bide outside; but I -say again, master, bein’ here, why, it’s best to conduct yourself as if -you were here. What is the good o’ looking as if ye were at t’kirk? -You’re not at t’kirk, that’s the fac’. Bein’ here,” he continued, slowly -waving his pipe in the air, and giving himself over to his oratorical -impulse. “Bein’ here——”</p> - -<p>“Isaac—t’auld maister as you call him—is he at home?”</p> - -<p>This sudden interruption was very startling. Isaac had drunk little; but -there was a sort of imaginative intoxication abroad in the genial -atmosphere of the “Red Lion,” and he was infected with the drowsy -conviviality of the place, to which half shut eyes and a sleepy -complacency seemed habitual. This sudden question was like a <i>douche</i> of -cold water in his face. He stopped<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> short in his speech with a sort of -gasp, and stared at his companion.</p> - -<p>“Ay, master—he’s at home,” said Isaac, slowly; but being a prudent -Northcountryman he was sorry for this admission as soon as he had made -it; “if he haven’t started again,” he added, cautiously. “Now and again -he’ll start off——”</p> - -<p>“That’s nonsense,” said Harry, sharply. “I hope I know his ways as well -as you do. I’ll go and see him to-morrow and have it out.”</p> - -<p>“A man may change his ways,” said Isaac, oracularly. “Now and again -he’ll start off—givin’ no notice,” he added, with gradual touches of -invention; “restless like—old folks do get restless, and nobody can -deny that.” Then he paused, shuffling and embarrassed. “I wouldn’t, -Master Harry, if I was you,” he added, in a lower tone and with great -earnestness. “I wouldn’t, Master Harry, if I was you. T’auld master’s a -droll un. He’s fonder of you than e’er another; but he’ll never be -drove—what he’s going to do he’ll do right straight away. He’ll not be -asked. How do I know as you’re going to ask him for aught? I donno, and -that’s the truth; but I wouldn’t if I was you. Hev patience, just hev a -bit of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> patience, and ye’ll get it all. But he’ll never do what he’s bid -to do. You was always his pet, bein’ named for him, and so on. He’ll -leave you all he’s got if you’ll hev patience; but ask him and he’ll not -give a penny, not for the best reasons in all the world.”</p> - -<p>“Who said I wanted a penny from him?” said the young man, piqued. “You -are too fond of guessing, Isaac, my good fellow—you go too far.”</p> - -<p>Isaac made no immediate reply. He knocked out the ashes of his pipe -carefully against the window-ledge. “I’m maybe good at guessing,” he -said at length, slowly, with a grave countenance, “and maybe no. But I’m -your friend, Master Harry, and I ken t’ auld master. Them that meddles -with him does it at their peril. Don’t you go near him, that’s my -advice. You’ll hev it all, every penny, if you’ll hev a little patience. -He’s nearer eighty nor seventy, and he canno’ last for evermore.”</p> - -<p>“Patience!” cried Harry, tilting back his chair against the wall. It was -all very well for the elder people to have patience, for Uncle Henry, -perhaps, who had nothing but Death to wait for that always comes too -soon. But young<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> Harry with life waiting for him, and advancement, and -all that youth can give—youth that only comes once, and lasts but a -little while; for him it was a very different matter. And his heart was -hot with passion against his father, and against fate, which seemed to -shut him in. He was too much excited to keep his voice under control as -he had been doing. “Patience!” he cried. “Pah! if that’s all, you can -keep your advice to yourself.”</p> - -<p>This sounded something like a quarrel, and the “Red Lion” was too warm -and drowsy and comfortable to like the idea of a quarrel. The people -about looked dimly round from amid the smoke; and a good-humoured person -at the card-table was amiable enough to put himself in the breach. “Nay, -nay, my young gentleman,” he said; “patience, bless you’s for them that -can’t play at nought else. Take a hand at cribbage, that’s your sort. -Whist if ye like, that’s all the fashion; but to my mind cribbage is the -game——”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, master, a grand game,” said two or three together, wagging -their beards in civil backing up of the first speaker, who stood smiling -at the table, running the cards through his hands like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> a stream of -water. They all looked vaguely at Harry with a general look of -invitation and goodwill in their eyes. The atmosphere of the “Red Lion” -was against all strenuous action. The warmth which was so cheerful and -bright made them all drowsy. They sat and blinked at it with pleasure -and peacefulness, purring softly in the pervading warmth. What had young -Harry to do in such a sleepy place? He let his chair come down to the -floor with a noise that made the convives jump, and laughed, chiefly at -himself. “Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll take a hand since there’s -nothing else to do.”</p> - -<p>So rapid were the young man’s movements that Isaac, not so impetuous, -was left, standing in the same spot looking at the chair now standing -composedly on its four legs for a minute after Harry had taken his place -at the card-table. Isaac was astonished, but he was relieved as well. He -came back slowly to the corner of the settle, looking at his pipe with -an air of remonstrance, but gradually feeling his cares relax, and the -pleasure of coming back to the company. “I’m bound to say,” was his -first utterance, as he put himself once more into the corner and -stretched his legs in front of the fire, “as people<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> couldn’t behave -more honourable. I never expected to get my own place again.”</p> - -<p>“Sommat oop?” asked his neighbour on the settle, with a thrust of his -elbow towards Harry. Isaac thrust up his shoulders to his ears, and -shook his head.</p> - -<p>“There’s always summat oop,” said Isaac, oracularly, “as long as there’s -lads at home.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s true,” said another, who took the opportunity to illustrate -the statement by a long and tedious story, which had been simmering in -him all the evening. After this the place relapsed into its usual -aspect. The two or three men about the fire basking in the warmth -listened with a mild interest to the slow current of the tale, and -supplemented it by anecdotes of their own of a like tedious and -inconsequent kind. But nobody was bored; the talkers were pleased with -themselves, and the listeners did their part very steadily, not troubled -by any idea of dulness. Isaac, sitting well up in his corner, so warm -that his corduroy almost burned him when he laid his hand accidentally -upon it, felt for his part that if it had not been well understood to be -the very doorway and vestibule of another place, the parlour of the “Red -Lion” would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> be a kind of little Paradise. Perhaps it was the terribly -wicked and risky character of the enjoyment which gave its humdrum -drowsiness so great a charm. As the evening got on the drowse increased; -one or two even fell half asleep in their seats, and a reflective air -stole on the “coompany.” The gentleman who had the ear of the house -prosed on, taking a minute’s rest between every two words; but nobody -budged. An alarmed thought of the missis did indeed now and then come -over Isaac’s mind, but he was too tranquil, too comfortable, too warm to -take such a decisive step as would be necessary to raise himself from -the embrace of the settle and get under weigh. All this time, however, -there was a little stir at the card-table, which pleased the audience -round. When there was any special success, they would pause in their -anecdotes and listen, with drowsy smiles. This gave a sort of rollicking -character, which would otherwise have been wanting to it, to the placid -gaiety. One of the quiet drinkers now and then nudged his neighbour, and -asked him what he thought the stakes were. “As much as would be a fortin -for you or me,” Isaac said, and there was a flutter of respectful -admiration. Perhaps Isaac knew that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span> he was exaggerating. He did it for -the honour of the family, of which he was through his master a kind of -relation. It was in character with the wild immorality of an evening in -the Red Lion that the young men should be playing for high stakes; and -this idea made the others enjoy themselves still more. When they came -out, the misty whiteness of the atmosphere had cleared off a little, and -consolidated itself into dark shadows in all the corners, and a flood of -faint moonlight dimly marking the gray fells and the dark treeless -country, with its dim lines of dykes and square grey limestone houses. -Harry Joscelyn was one of the last to leave; he stood upon the bridge -for some time talking with young Selwyn, with whom he had been playing. -Isaac thought it was for his own confusion that the young man lingered. -The sentiments likely to be entertained by the Missis became more and -more clear to Isaac with every step he took after he was forced to get -up from his comfortable corner in the settle. But he was still warm -without and within, his corduroys keeping the heat of the fire even to -the touch after their long baking, and his heart kept up by the -strengthened influence of all that he had swallowed. It confused his -head a little too,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> making it drowsy but kindly. It was through a faint -little steam as of “summat” warm, dispensing its odours liberally into -the air, that he seemed in imagination to see his own door, and the -wrathful countenance that would look out from it; but the cold outside -made this picture a great deal clearer by degrees, though it did not -clear his faculties. His partial obfuscation however did not make him -less sensible of his duty towards his master’s godson. He had sacrificed -himself, he had incurred all those expressions of the missis’s feelings, -which were already prophetically sounding in his ears, for Harry’s -sake—and he could not go away now without another word. “As well be -hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” he said to himself, when the others -went clattering over the bridge and along the branching ways with their -heavy boots, almost all of them feeling a good deal of alarm about the -sentiments of the missis; but as Isaac lingered in the cold moonlight -kicking his heels, the uneasiness grew with every moment that passed. -She would hear old Jack Smethurst stumble down the way to his cottage, -and she would prepare a still sharper rod in pickle for Isaac later -still. “As well be hanged for a sheep as for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span> lamb,” he repeated to -himself. How those young fellows did talk! and what could they have to -talk about after spending all the blessed night playing their games. Ah! -devil’s books those cards were, beguiling folks on and on. Isaac fell -half asleep, leaning against a corner in the shadow of the “Red Lion.” -The lights were already out in that deserted place. There would be no -gleam from the window to keep him a little cheery as he plodded down the -waterside. And what a clatter these young fellows made! What could they -have to talk about? He leaned against the wall and let his head droop on -his breast, and for a minute or two Isaac was blissfully unconscious of -everything; but at the end of that time he came to himself suddenly, and -felt that his corduroys had got quite cold, and that it was very chilly, -that the young men were still talking, and that he had begun to shiver. -It was cruelty to keep him there, kicking his heels. All the village -seemed so still, no lights anywhere, and the landlord of the “Red Lion” -turning the key in the door before he mounted up the creaking stairs to -bed. The creaking of these stairs went to Isaac’s heart, and the idea of -being up later than the landlord of the tavern, the abode<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> of -dissipation, of which the whole valley entertained a wholesome -distrust—to be out too, at that terrible hour, and still to have a mile -to walk, and a talk at the end of it, all for one unruly young fellow -that would stand and jabber there with young Selwyn, whom he could see -quite easily to-morrow if he pleased. “He’s drunk, that’s it,” Isaac, -half asleep, chilled, frightened, and remorseful, and glad to think the -worst he could of Mr. Harry, said to himself. And then there was an -unexpected aggravation; all at once when he had got his back comfortable -at a new angle of the wall, lo! the two shook hands, and went off in a -moment, one to the right hand, the other to the left, without any -warning to Isaac. He had to pull himself up with a start, and the -trouble he had to get himself into motion was as great as if he had been -a cranky steam-engine, one of those things (he reflected, muddled, but -all the more ingenious) where you have to turn a wheel here and touch a -spring there—while all the while Mr. Harry’s steps were audible, young -and light, skimming along the road ahead of him. He had to call after -him, waking all the echoes, and making the most portentous noise as he -lumbered along in his heavy boots, doing what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> he could to run. Luckily -Harry heard him and stopped, just as he came to the cross roads. “Who is -that calling me?” he said.</p> - -<p>“It’s me, Mr. Harry. Lord bless ye, stop a moment. I’ve got a—word to -say—Mr. Harry,” cried Isaac, panting. “Is that a way to keep your -friends easy in their minds, to stand aw that time i’ the’ dark at the -dead hour o’ th’ night, jabbering nonsense with another as ill as -yourself? How are ye to give an account for this night, if there were no -more? and leading others into an ill gate. What would t’ auld maister -say,—or your missis if ye’d got a missis?”</p> - -<p>“Poor old Isaac!” said Harry, laughing; “so that’s what you’re thinking -of. I haven’t got a missis. I am thankful. It is you that have got to be -lectured to-night. Tell her it was all my fault.”</p> - -<p>Isaac seemed to take no notice of this contemptuous recommendation. He -stuck himself against the wall that bordered the road, as a -precautionary measure against fatigue and sleep, and the effect of the -not extravagant potations in which he had been indulging. “I want to -say—a serious word to ye. I have got something to say.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Then say it and make haste,” Harry cried, “don’t you feel how cold it -is, and the moon will set directly? I want to get home to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Oh-h,” cried old Isaac: “as if I wasn’t colder and worrider than the -like of you; and more burdened with a nervousness—like—what you might -call a nervousness for—the walk at the dead o’ t’night and sich like. -But I’ve got a word to say. Mr. Harry, you’ll no go near t’auld master? -Try anybody but him. I’ve set my heart on’t that you should get his -money at the end, and so you will if you’ll hev patience, just hev a -little patience; but don’t ye go asking money of him now; don’t you do -it, Mr. Harry, and spoil aw—”</p> - -<p>“You old ——,” here Harry paused; “is this all you stopped me for? Well, -you mean well, Isaac. Go home to bed, and let’s hope the missis will not -tear all the hair out of your head.”</p> - -<p>“I scorn aw that,” said Isaac with a wave of his hand, though his teeth -chattered. “I winna take the trouble to give it a denial; nay, nay, -settle your ain affairs atween you and her when ye hev got a missis o’ -your ain; I can manage mine,” he said with a little rueful sigh and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span> -contraction of his breast. He thought he could see her looking out from -the cottage door, and his very soul trembled. “Me, I can manage mine,” -he repeated, then added, “but, Mr. Harry, come back to the right -question. Hev a little patience; if it was to get me a beatin’ (and she -has not the strength for that) I must say it afore we part. Let him be; -hev a little patience. If it was my last breath I could give you no -different advice.”</p> - -<p>Harry paused a moment between offence and gratitude. Then he suddenly -gripped Isaac’s hand, “You mean me well,” he said, “and I’ll take your -advice, Isaac. Here, lad, you’ve always been a friend, wish me good luck -and good-night.”</p> - -<p>“And that I do from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Harry. But gang no more -to the ‘Red Lion;’ it leads you into many a temptation. Good luck, to -ye, my young gentleman, wherever you may go—so long as you’re no going -to Wyburgh to fright t’auld master out of his wits.”</p> - -<p>“And good night, Isaac, and I wish you well through with the missis,” -cried Harry with a laugh, as he went on waving his hand. Isaac stood for -a moment looking after him as his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> alert young figure went off into the -distance; then he sighed a sigh, “I wish you well, my lad, if I should -never see you again,” he said, with a perturbation which referred to his -own troubled mind rather than Harry’s prospects; and so turned his face, -alarmed yet sustained by conscious virtue, to his own house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>OUTSIDE THE DOOR.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE moon was getting low, and threw a level and somewhat sinister light -into the lower windows of the White House as Harry came within sight of -home. In that bare country, with so few trees to break the light, all -the changes in the heavens had a direct influence upon the earth, -darkening and lightening it with instantaneous sympathy, such as is not -felt in regions less exposed. This special aspect of the light -reflecting itself feebly in the lower windows, gave the house the -appearance of wearing, as a human countenance sometimes does, a pale and -unpleasant smile upon its lips, in which the rest of the face was not -involved. The young man did not pay any attention to this at the moment, -but when he thought after<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span>wards of the aspect of the place, this was the -look that occurred to him; a pale smile, full of mocking and derision; -the smile of one cognizant of unknown evil which was about to overwhelm -an unsuspecting victim, and taking pleasure in it.</p> - -<p>He went up quite calmly to the door. On ordinary occasions it was not -necessary for Harry even to knock; his mother, who disapproved as much -of the “Red Lion” as Isaac Oliver himself, was always on the watch, -stealing down through the dark house in noiseless slippers to let him -in, lest he should disturb his father and a quarrel should ensue. Very -often, Harry was aware, she was at the window looking out for him, -sitting alone in the darkness waiting till she heard his step. He was -aware that one way or another she was always on the watch. This, -however, did not disturb him, or dispose him to give up his own way of -spending the evening. He was not a bad son—certainly he had not the -least intention of being so: but that he should change his habits, or do -anything he wished not to do, because of his mother’s little feeble -anxieties, was a thing which had not occurred to him. All the family -knew that she was given to “making a fuss.” Harry supposed she liked<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> to -sit up and watch for him. Why should she do it if she didn’t like it? it -would be a great deal easier to let him have the key, or tell a servant -to sit up. But she liked it; she liked to wait for him at the window, -and start up as soon as she heard any sound. Women do; or so, at least, -Harry supposed. Joan, to be sure, had never shown the least inclination -to do this; but then, one of Joan’s chief distinctions was that she was -but little of a woman at all. He came up to the door as usual and stood -there for a moment without excitement, listening for the little stir -within, which had never failed him, the soft, hesitating, noiseless -step, the little sweep of the dress. He stood for a minute looking about -him; the moon was quite low in the sky, throwing his shadow before him -upon the door, so black and close to him that he was startled for a -moment as if it had been a ruffian facing him, and shining chilly, with -that sinister look which he had already remarked, in the parlour window. -That was his mother’s post when she watched, looking out for him; he had -seen the bit of the shutter open, night after night, just enough to see -through without being herself perceived, if (an unlikely hypothesis), -anyone but Harry should pass that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> way. But the shutter was closed -to-night, and did its share of reflection, sending out a dull glimmer -from its dark paint. All was perfectly silent in the house.</p> - -<p>He could not think what had happened. He walked back a little and -contemplated the place, which now looked as if a hood had been drawn -over the upper part, leaving that uncomfortable light below. Now that he -was standing still, Harry felt the chill of the night air, which had -been agreeable to him before. He began to stamp with his feet to keep -them warm, and to attract, if possible, the notice of his mother. What -did she mean by paying no attention? She had always heard him before he -came near the house, always been ready for him before he reached the -door. If she had not accustomed him to this, Harry thought, he would -have found some other way of getting admission, though he scarcely knew -how; and he grew impatient, and very much annoyed and angry with her. To -keep him waiting out here at midnight in the cold; it was out of the -question! what could she be thinking of? At the same time, he did not -want to rouse his father, and run the risk of another encounter. To meet -a woma<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span>n’s reproaches, who is silenced if you speak a little loud, and -is pretty sure to cry at the end, is one thing—but to meet a furious -man is quite another. The first risk was not worth taking the trouble to -avoid, but Harry felt that it was certainly wiser to keep clear of the -other. He had no desire, accordingly, to arouse the house; but at the -same time, to be left standing there, chilled to the bone, was out of -the question. After he had walked about for a time, impatiently, but -with some precaution, he went so far as to knock at the door. There was -no bell, nor if there had been one would he have ventured to ring it, -for a bell is alarming, pealing into the silence of a shut up house. His -soft knocking, however, did no more good than his other attempts to make -himself heard. What could it mean? He got colder and colder externally, -while within him his temper kindled. What did she mean by leaving him in -the lurch? If a mother was good for anything, surely it was to keep her -son out of trouble, to shield him from another quarrel. She made fuss -enough about the quarrel when it occurred, but now she was allowing -things to take their chance, letting that happen as ill-luck directed, -nay, bringing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span> quarrel on, her son felt, indignantly; for if she had -never made a practice of opening to him, probably he would not have made -a practice of going out, and would not have exposed himself to the -storm, which was sure to come now. The moonlight stole away by degrees -even from the lower windows, putting out one reflection after another, -and disappearing at last with a sinister twinkle, as if of triumph. -Though the moonlight had seemed the quintessence of cold and dreariness, -yet the blackness of night seemed still colder and drearier after it was -gone. He seemed to have been hours standing before that door: and it was -out of the question! he would not bear it any longer, happen what might. -He began to knock loudly, filling all the dreary echoes with sound; but -still nobody stirred in the house.</p> - -<p>He had not carried this on for above a minute, however, when a faint -something seemed to stir in the darkness behind. There was the faint -hiss of a “Hist!” and, he thought, his own name. He turned round to see -if perhaps his mother had chosen this time to open the back-door instead -of the front, and with a muttered denunciation of her caprice took his -way to the supposed opening. It was so dark now that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> he stumbled even -round those corners which were so well known to him. He was relieved, -yet it made him angry to be obliged to have recourse to a back way. -Could anything be more foolish, he thought, than to change thus without -cause or warning?</p> - -<p>“Where are you? What’s the matter that I can’t come in as usual?” he -said, crossly, as he groped his way among tubs and piles of wood.</p> - -<p>“Hush!” said some one, “hush, for heaven’s sake!”</p> - -<p>It was not his mother’s voice. And there, in the corner among the -washhouses and other offices, he saw a glimmer of something white.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! Joan! what’s the matter with my mother?” he cried.</p> - -<p>“Hush! Nothing’s the matter with mother; father’s got her locked up, -that is all; and it’s all your fault. Come on, and hold your tongue now -you are here.”</p> - -<p>It was a sort of little shed in which she stood, and he could see -nothing but the whiteness of her nightdress, over which she had thrown a -cloak.</p> - -<p>“Things have gone just as wrong as can be,” she said; “warm your hands -at the copper, you’ll<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> not find a fire indoors. He’s cracked, I think; -and so are you too, for ever running to that ‘Red Lion.’ What is there -that’s so entertaining? If there’s any fun to be had I’d like to go -too.”</p> - -<p>“There’s no fun—that you could understand,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>Joan laughed; she stood close to the copper in the dark, warming -herself, and so did he. It was a kind of little excitement to her, she -who had so few excitements, to have had to get up, as she expressed it, -in the middle of the night to let her brother in. And though she was -sagacious enough not to put much confidence in the “fun” of the “Red -Lion,” still it represented jollity and wildness to her as well as to -Isaac Oliver. She laughed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re very grand, I know; women folk can’t understand, you are -cleverer than we are. But I wonder you can be so easy pleased; if young -Selby and Jim Salkeld, and the common men of the village, are very -entertaining at the ‘Red Lion,’ it’s more than they are in any other -place.”</p> - -<p>“What do you know about it?” cried Harry.</p> - -<p>She laughed again, which was exasperating.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span> Young men take nothing more -amiss than an impertinent woman’s doubts as to the brilliancy of the -entertainment in those haunts which are sacred to their own special -enjoyment. He knew very well at bottom that the “Red Lion” was as dull -as ditchwater; but nothing would have made him confess it; where else, -he said to himself, had he to go?</p> - -<p>“You had better mind your own concerns,” he said, “I’ll get my amusement -my own way. Has there been a row that mother’s not here? I don’t mean to -say that I am not obliged to you, Joan, for getting out of bed to let me -in. By Jove, if I had been shut out I know what I’d have done! Was there -a great row?”</p> - -<p>“What would you have done?” said Joan, still half laughing; then she -started and with a little cry, said, “What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“What’s what? I’ll tell you this, I should never have crossed the door -again in daylight, be sure of that, that was shut to me in the night.”</p> - -<p>Before he had finished this speech, Joan clutched him by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you hear something?” she said, “come in, come in, don’t lose a -minute. What if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> should lock the kitchen door? Harry, promise me -you’ll not stop to say a word, but run up to your bed.”</p> - -<p>She was hurrying while she spoke, through the series of outbuildings, -dragging him with her, breathless, and speaking in gasps. But as they -went on from one to another there could be no longer any doubt as to -what had happened. The kitchen door, which opened from these offices, -was shut with a loud jar, and the key turned.</p> - -<p>“I dunno’ who’s out and about at this hour of the night,” Joscelyn was -heard within, “but whoever it is they’ll stay there: some o’ the women -out like the cats, dash them, or may be a good-for-nothing lad. I’ll -teach them what it is to roam the country o’ nights. You’ll stay there -whoever you are.”</p> - -<p>Joan lost all her self-command in the emergency. She dropped Harry’s -hand and threw herself against the door.</p> - -<p>“Oh, father, father, open! do you hear me? It’s me, Joan. Open! will you -let me bide out in the cold, in the dead of night? Father! let me in, -let me in! you wouldn’t have the heart to shut me out all night. It’s -me, <i>me</i>, Joan!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>There was no reply; his steps were heard going away mounting the stairs, -and a faint outcry in the distance as of the mother weeping and -protesting. Joan, who was a very simple person, though so self-commanded -in emergencies which her mother could not face, was altogether taken by -surprise by this. She flung herself against the door with a burst of -weeping.</p> - -<p>“Oh, open, open!” she said, beating upon it with her hands. Then she -called out the names of the servants one after another. “I’ll not be -left here all the night; open, open! do you hear! I’ll not be left here -all the night. I’ll die if I am left out in the dark. I’ll not be left!” -she cried with a shriek.</p> - -<p>Harry was silenced by this loud and sudden passion so close to him. It -alarmed him, for Joan was the impersonation of strength and calm; but -the situation was uncomfortable enough, however it could be taken. The -consciousness that he had some one else to think for, some one who for -the present had lost her head, and all power to think for herself, -changed his own position. He caught his sister by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Don’t make such a row,” he said, “Joan, you! that was always against a -fuss.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Joan half wild, “did I ever think that I’d be shut out like -a bad woman out of the house at the dead of night—me! that was always -the most respectable, that never stirred a step even in the evening -times, or said a word to a man. Open! it isn’t the cold, it’s the -character: me! me!”</p> - -<p>But all her beating and knocking, and all her prayers were in vain. The -maids slept soundly, all but one trembling girl who heard the voice -without knowing whose it was, and dared not get up to see what was the -matter, especially as she heard mysterious steps going up and down -stairs. And the mistress of the house sobbed in her chamber in the dark, -wringing her hands. She had come almost to the length of personal -conflict with her husband for the first time in her life; but poor Mrs. -Joscelyn even in her despair was no sort of match for the man who lifted -her, swearing and laughing, into her bed, and locked the door upon her -when he went downstairs. He came up and fiercely ordered her to be -silent.</p> - -<p>“Dash you, hold your blanked tongue. I’ve taken it into my own hands, -and if you venture to interfere I’ll pitch you out of window as soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> -look at you,” he said, “a deal sooner for that matter—for you’re not -tempting to look at, you dashed white-faced ——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, do,” she cried, “throw me out of the window, throw me out to my -children. I’d rather be dead with my children than living here.” And she -rushed to the window and threw it open; but he caught her before she -could throw herself out, and perhaps, poor woman, she would not have -thrown herself out; for “I dare not” very often waits upon “I would” in -such circumstances. He carried her back crying and struggling to her -bed. Though he had not hesitated to turn the key upon his son and -daughter, he had no desire to have it whispered in the country side that -his wife had thrown herself out of window, because of his cruelty; but -he could not resist giving her a shake as he threw her upon her bed.</p> - -<p>“I’d never have had any fuss in my family if it hadn’t been for you; -just you budge at your peril,” he said, threatening her with his fist. -And there she lay with the cry of her daughter in her ears, and the -sound of the knocking that seemed to be upon her heart. To tell the -truth she was not very anxious about Joan. Joan<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> would have a bad cold, -that would be all the damage she would take; but Harry, Harry! what -would Harry do?</p> - -<p>When Joan had beat the door and her knuckles almost to a jelly, she came -to a sudden pause. In a moment her mood changed; her passion wrought -itself out almost as suddenly as it began.</p> - -<p>“Well, if I can’t have the door opened I’d best give up trying,” she -said all at once. Her hands were fatigued with knocking, and her feet -with kicking. She was hoarse, and her eyes ached with the hot tears that -had poured from them. She came to herself with a sudden sense of -shame—she who was so strenuous in her opposition to a fuss. She had no -sense of cold now, her shawl hung off her shoulders with the fervour of -her efforts. “My word, but I’ll give it to those lasses,” was the next -thing Joan said: and then she laughed at herself to carry off her sense -of shame.</p> - -<p>“We’re both in the same box, Harry,” she said, “well! two together isn’t -so bad as one alone; come back to the washhouse. I’m glad I told them to -light that copper—if it wasn’t a providence! we’ll sit us down there -and keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span> warm; and don’t you take on, my lad. It’s not so very long to -day.”</p> - -<p>When she recovered, however, it was Harry’s turn. He followed her back -to the copper without a word. He even pulled the bench on which the tubs -stood close to that centre of warmth for her, and got her something on -which to put her feet. By this time a certain pleasure in the novelty of -the situation had arisen in Joan’s mind. “My word, I made a fine noise. -Mother will be in a terrible way, that’s the worst of it. As for father -I’ll pay him out. Don’t you be afraid; he’ll repent the night he meddled -with Joan; and I’ll give it to the maids. Just as likely as not he’s -taken away the key; but bless us all, what’s the good of being a woman -if you can’t find out a way? I’d have done it if he’d stood over me with -a drawn sword. But, Harry, you never speak a word. Are you cold? come -and sit here by me on the warmest side. ’Twill be as cosy here as if you -were in a pie; and I’ll give you a bit of my shawl. Come, lad! pluck up -a heart: I’ve nigh cried my eyes out; but that does no good. I can’t see -you, Harry; but I know you’re down, though I can’t see.”</p> - -<p>“Down!” he said, “Can a fellow be anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> but down with a raging wild -beast for a father, and shut out of every shelter through a cold spring -night.”</p> - -<p>“That’s very true,” said Joan, “and I’m no example, as you’ve seen; but -still I’m in the same box if that’s any consolation.”</p> - -<p>“No, it is no consolation,” said Harry; “it makes it worse; for if you -are here perishing of cold it’s all on my account.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not perishing of cold. I’m as hearty as a cricket. If he thinks -he’ll break my spirit he’s much mistaken; and that’s all about it. It -did touch me the first minute. I feel that I was just a big baby. But -after all, Harry, if you will stay out till all the hours of the night, -and go to that ‘Red Lion,’ which is known to have ruined many a lad——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hold your tongue about the ‘Red Lion!’—you are as bad as old -Isaac. Where am I to go?”</p> - -<p>“What’s to prevent you biding at home?” said Joan. “Dear me, you’re not -such a deal better than I am, Harry Joscelyn. Where do I ever go? I’ve -been as young as you once upon a time, and what diversion was ever given -to me? and I’m not to say so dreadful old yet. Can you not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span> put up for a -week with what I have put up with all my life?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t understand—it’s quite different,” said Harry, hotly; “you’re -a woman, you’re an old—Good Lord, can’t you see the difference? Where -should you be but at home? but what would you have <i>me</i> do, stuck -between two women and that—that father of mine?—” Harry here menaced -the dark world with his fist, and burst, in his turn, into an outcry of -passion. “I’ll neither sleep under his roof nor call him father, nor -reckon myself to belong to him more! You hear what I say, Joan; you can -bear witness. Not if I were to starve; not if I were to die; not if I -were to cadge about the streets!—White House has seen the last of me. -You can tell my mother I think upon her: but she must not expect ever to -see me again.”</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut,” said Joan, tranquilly; “to be sure you must have your fling. -Ay, ay, say away, my lad; it’s always a relief: and we’ll not keep you -to it when you come to yourself.”</p> - -<p>“That’s well for you, Joan,” said her brother; “but for me, I don’t mean -to come to myself. He’s done it, I can tell you. What did he ever do for -me? but if he had been the best father in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> the world now he’s made an -end of it. Am I to be treated like this, home on a visit and I cannot -put my affairs before him, and ask for my share to buy me into the -business, but I’m met with abuse: and when I go out for a little peace -the door’s shut upon me. You can do what you please, but I’ll not stand -it. We’ve all lived a wretched life, but I’ll make an end of it. Don’t -you think it’s all a flash-in-the-pan, and that I don’t mean what I -say.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well, lad—if it keeps your spirits up a bit. Are you not sleepy? -Let’s make the best of it. Harry: after all it’s but one night. Though -this is not to call an easy seat. I’m that sleepy I shall go off, I know -I shall. If you see me tumbling be sure you catch me. I cannot keep -awake another minute. Good night, lad, good night.”</p> - -<p>This was half real, on Joan’s part, and half put on to calm her brother -down; but in that part of her intention she was not very successful. -After a while she really did as she had threatened, and fell into a -sound, if uneasy, sleep. But Harry had no inclination that way. He sat -and pondered over all his wrongs, and as he mused the fire burned. What -was home to him?—nothing. A place where there was no peace—a -pandemonium<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span>—and when there was either quarrelling or dulness—dulness -beyond description; either a fight with his father or a drowse by his -mother’s side—that was all the comfort he had of his home. And after -all, when he put the question to himself, and nobody else interfered, he -was obliged to allow that the entertainment at the “Red Lion” was not of -a very exciting character. There was not much in that to make up for the -want of everything else. He sat upon the edge of the copper dangling his -legs, and, notwithstanding that warmth, the chill of the night got into -his heart. He had no overcoat, as his mother had remembered, when he -went out; and as the slow moments passed on, the night became -intolerable to Harry, and the sense that his enemy, his father, was -chuckling in the warmth upstairs over his outcast condition, distracted -him with impotent rage. Never again would he subject himself to such a -shame. He clenched his fist and made a vow within himself, while Joan, -leaning her head against him, slumbered uneasily. After a while Joan had -a little shock in her sleep, half woke, and felt her pillow displaced, -and dreaming, not knowing where she was, threw herself back against the -copper and settled down somehow again. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> dreamt there had been an -earthquake, and that the copper itself was a volcano and had made an -eruption and tumbled down upon her, catching her fast by the feet. A -little after, poor Mrs. Joscelyn, lying awake crying silently and saying -her prayers over and over again, heard a handful of gravel flung -violently against her window and the sound of footsteps. What did it -mean? The tyrant had gone to sleep a few minutes before, and he slept -heavily. She crept out of bed with a sinking heart, and after a great -deal of alarmed searching found the keys, of her own room first, and -then of the doors below. She did not even turn to find something to -cover her, but fled downstairs, like a ghost, with her naked feet and a -wild flutter in her heart. When she made her way with some difficulty to -the place where her children had found refuge, she came just in time to -deliver Joan, who had almost broken her neck in her struggles to get out -of the way of the earthquake, and was lying, with her head back and her -mouth open, among the tubs. Though she was conscious of being in some -convulsion of nature it was not easy to wake Joan, and there was no one -else to be seen. Mrs. Joscelyn, with her candle in her hand, went -searching into every<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> corner while her daughter picked herself up. -“Harry,” she cried, “Harry! oh where is my boy?” There was not a trace -of him about; not even an impromptu couch, like Joan’s, made up of -benches and washing tubs. The mother flitted about into all the offices, -while Joan roused herself with many yawns, rubbing her stiff neck and -knotting up her straggling locks, and gathering her shawl round her -shoulders. “Oh that copper,” Joan was saying, “it’s been the saving of -my life.”</p> - -<p>“But where is my boy? Oh! Joan, what have you done with him? Where is my -boy?”</p> - -<p>“I have not got him in my pocket,” Joan said, with a sleepy smile. Then -as she roused herself quite up, “To be sure, mother, the lad’s not a -fool though we give him the credit of it. He’s gone back to his blessed -‘Red Lion,’ and is safe in his bed, as I would like to be. And if I had -let him alone and not poked in where I wasn’t wanted, there’s where he -would have been from the first. You see that’s just your way. I have a -little bit of it in me, if not much; and, instead of letting him be, I -must meddle. But he’s safe in his bed at the ‘Red Lion;’ and you’d -better go<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> back to yours, and let me go to mine, and make the best of a -bad night.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot think he has gone to the ‘Red Lion,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> said Mrs. Joscelyn, -standing in her white nightdress, with her glaring candle, against the -great darkness of the night in the doorway, and investigating the gloom -by that poor assistance with her anxious eyes.</p> - -<p>“Then where else would he go to?” Joan said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>A NIGHT WALK.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE moon had set when Harry Joscelyn left the White House; and the night -was very dark, as it is so often after the setting of the moon. The sky -was cloudy, and scarcely a star was visible. The wind blew cold in his -face when he got beyond the shelter of the walls. He looked up at the -house as he passed it with a sensation of rage and contempt which it is -only possible to reach when the object we thus hate and despise is one -that ought to be beloved. He lifted a handful of gravel and threw it -violently at his mother’s window. There was no softening of feeling, no -wish to say a farewell, even if an angry one in this. It was done in -boyish rage, with a simple desire to strike. He was glad to think the -stones struck sharply, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span> might, perhaps, have broken a pane and -fallen like shot upon the floor. This was what he would have wished. -When he had discharged that parting volley, he pulled down his hat over -his ears, and put up his coat-collar. It was all he could do against the -wind, which blew through and through him. Not even an overcoat! They -were determined that he should have nothing; that he should be expelled -without even the poorest covering; that he should be exposed to -everything dangerous, everything disagreeable. To be sure, that was what -they wanted! Revenge filled the young fellow’s heart as he went along in -the dark, shivering at first, till his rapid progress set his blood in -motion. Not only without a home, without a roof to shelter him, or a bed -to lie upon, but without even a coat. He turned his back upon his -father’s house with a bitterness that was indescribable. He could -remember the time when it was delightful to him to go home; but that was -long ago, when he was a boy and knew no better. Even then, what had his -father been to him? a terror even in his lighter moods, which might turn -into fury at any moment. His mother? oh, his mother had been kind -enough, poor soul! For a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> she had done what she could; but at the -best what could a woman do? Poor thing! yes she had been kind. But it is -very difficult for the young to see anyone, even when dear to them, -systematically undervalued without getting to share the sentiment in one -shape or another. Sometimes it rouses a generous mind to hot -partizanship; but Harry had never got that length. He had been indignant -sometimes and conscious, with a little pride, that he was the one who -stood up for his mother—but he had not gone further. And now he could -not help despising her as everybody else did. Just when it was essential -she should stand by him, she had failed him. Call this the consequence -of force which she could not resist, of natural bodily weakness—all -that was very well to say; but a mother worth anything will never run -the risk of bodily force in such an emergency. She will find some way of -getting out of it. She will stand by her son when he needs her, whatever -happens. And Harry’s mother had not done so—just at the critical moment -when he had been driven wild by opposition, when his future career had -been to all appearance cut short and his path shut in before him, she -had failed him!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> She was as weak as water; there was no faith to be put -in her. A woman like that, Harry reflected, is almost as bad as if she -were not a good woman. Oh, yes; she was a good woman! but what advantage -was it to anyone? What did it matter being good if you were of no use to -those belonging to you? Being good just for yourself, selfishly, that -was a poor sort of business. For her children she was no good. What had -she ever done for any of them? Made a fuss, as Joan said. She was very -good at doing that, was mother! But what more? These were the angry -thoughts that were surging through his mind as he turned his back upon -his home. His father’s image swept across him now and then, raising his -angry despair into momentary rage; but it was not his father, who had -always been hard upon him, but his mother, who had always been so tender -to him, whom Harry assailed with all these bitter thoughts. In her silly -dislike to the only poor little amusement he had, she had turned against -him at the decisive moment. It was just like a woman! Because he would -not tie himself to her apron-strings; because he would not spend his -evenings sitting with her and Joan—a pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> sort of position for a -young man, Harry said to himself, with a curl of his lip.</p> - -<p>He went on shivering, straight before him as he happened to have turned -his face when he came round the corner of the house. He was not aware -that there was more choice in it than this, though all the while there -was a dormant intention in his mind of going to Wyburgh after all, and -trying, one last effort, what Uncle Henry would do for him. Uncle Henry -had been kind to him, as kind as he knew how. He was only an old -bachelor, not much good, a selfish old fellow, thinking most of his own -comfort; but still he had been kind; and perhaps if he knew fully the -state of the case, and how the people at White House had treated his -pupil and godson—This was lying underneath as it were the current of -Harry’s thoughts, and turned over and came uppermost for a moment now -and then; but it did not become at all a principal idea until he had -walked a long way, and had got warm with walking, and the sense of -absolute misery, physical and mental, had been slightly modified. At -first he kept to the side of the Fells, which was rough walking, and -where now and then there was a dyke to jump over or a beck to cross; but -by and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span> by got down to the high road, almost groping the way with his -feet, if not with his hands, so black lay the night over the irregular -broken ground. He knew the road, every inch, he would have said; but -when that darkness comes down like a pall, confounding everything in one -gloom, there is little advantage in knowledge. Sometimes he found -himself right up against the grey uncemented stones of a dyke before he -was aware of any obstacle, and sometimes had almost plunged into an -invisible hill-side stream, before the little warning trickle it made -among the stones caught his ear. By the side of one of these little -streams he made his way to the road, and there for the first time asked -himself where he was going. What a strange walk it was, all blank about -him, sometimes a lonely tree rustling, betraying itself in the dark by -the wind in its spare branches, sometimes a cottage suggested on the -roadside, or away among the fields, by the cry of a child or the bark of -a dog. He knew he had passed through the first hamlet on his way, -because the dogs all woke at the unusual sound of a footstep, and barked -at him lustily. He was not a youth of much imagination, and yet this -incident had the most curious effect upon him. He was more startled, -more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span> shocked and annoyed by it than by anything else that had happened -to him. The very dogs! was he already to them a tramp, a wandering -vagrant? At the very end of the “town” some one opened a window, and -Harry heard a querulous question, not addressed to himself, but to some -one inside, “Wha’s that wandering on the road in the dead o’ the night?” -Harry slunk by, trying to keep his steps from making so much noise. A -sense of disreputableness suddenly came over him, a recollection of what -people would think. Nobody would believe he had been turned out of his -home for no fault of his. And then in the midst of his fury and desire -for vengeance, there suddenly came over Harry that family pride which so -seldom abandons a Northcountryman. Was he going to let everybody know -what disgrace there was in the White House, and how his father had -turned him out of doors? Were all the tongues in the country-side to be -set wagging on this subject? The Joscelyns—people so well known! Harry -felt as if some one had struck him sharply with his hand in the -darkness. It would be all over the country in twenty-four hours. -Joscelyn of White House had turned his youngest son out of doors. There -was no second<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> family of the name to confuse gossip. Harry felt as if -the barking of the dogs was but a foretaste of what was going to happen -to him. He felt as if some one had grasped him, choked him, tried to -strangle him in the dark.</p> - -<p>Fortunately Wyburgh by this time showed, a long way off with its little -lights twinkling. They were but four little rustic lights, not many of -them—for when the moon shone the corporation felt itself at liberty to -dispense with lamps; and but for the lights at the railway-station, and -two or three which were indispensable, the little town would have been -invisible in the darkness, like those sleeping villages which Harry had -stumbled through almost without knowing. When he caught sight of the -first of these lights, it gave him a keen pleasure; it seemed to deliver -him from that world of blackness in which the only conscious and living -thing was himself and the sea of thoughts which surged up and down -within him, one wave sweeping over another, in a confusion and tumult -indescribable. Harry’s soul caught at the glow of that tall solitary -lamp, the first which marked the line of the railway, as at a guiding -light directing him into a known country, to solid ground and a familiar -shore. The darkness and the little inward<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span> world of thought were alike -strange to him, and he had no guide to direct him through them; but now -here was “kent ground,” a place which would be visible, where the dogs -would not bark at him in the dark, where there were all the safeguards -of an inhabited place. He was relieved beyond measure when he saw the -lights, and said to himself what they were. That was the tall light on -the line, that other lower one the lamp at the station, that the faint -little flare seen over the housetops of the market square, and yonder -the well-known lamp at the corner, which he had seen lit so often as he -left the Grammar-school. It made his heart light to count them at a -distance. But when he got to the outskirts of the town he was less -happy. It was still quite dark, between three and four o’clock, and he -could not go to Uncle Harry’s, or to any other house in which he was -known at such an hour. Nobody was stirring in Wyburgh, nor would be for -hours yet. As he went into the silent streets the sense of his desolate -position came over him more strongly than ever. All the houses were shut -up and silent, blinds drawn over the windows, feeble lamps burning here -and there like night-lights in a sick-chamber, the whole place breathing -low<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> and noiselessly in its sleep. He met a policeman, the only one, -making his rounds with steady tramp, and the policeman looked at Harry -with suspicion, throwing the light of his dark lantern upon him as he -passed. He knew John Armstrong very well, and had played him many a -trick as a schoolboy; but he shrank from making himself known now; and -John looked with suspicion at the wayfarer, without even an overcoat, -buttoned up to the neck, and with his hat drawn over his eyes, who thus -invaded the town in the middle of the night. Harry knew that he was but -a tramp, all the more dangerous because better dressed than usual, in -John’s eyes. He felt the light of the lantern come after him, making a -long trail of light upon the pavement. And he did not know where to go. -If he went wandering about, which was the only thing he could think of, -no doubt he would meet John Armstrong again, and almost certainly be -questioned as to what he was doing, and who he was. And then the story -would run over Wyburgh, how young Harry Joscelyn, one of the Joscelyns -of the White House, had come in to Wyburgh before four o’clock in the -morning, walking like a vagrant, and was recognized by the policeman, -roaming about the street without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span> any place to go to. He might almost be -taken up as a rogue and vagabond, Harry thought, with that exaggeration -which misfortune delights in. If he were called upon to give an account -of himself he could not do it, nor had he any place to go to, any home -waiting for him. The Wyburgh folk might form their own conclusions, and -so they would, could anyone doubt.</p> - -<p>He walked straight through the town to the other end of it, as if he -were going on somewhere else, ashamed of himself, though he had nothing -to be ashamed of, avoiding the spots of feeble light round the lamps, -and walking as softly as he could not to make so much noise upon the -pavement. He had not felt this so much in the country, in the darkness, -but here, where everybody knew him, he became suddenly ashamed and -afraid of being seen. When the clock struck it made him jump as if it -had been some one calling his name. “Harry Joscelyn is roaming about the -country without a home to go to;” did he think that was what it was -going to say? Alas! it was but four o’clock that struck; four o’clock! -the night seemed to have been already twelve hours long; and here were -two hours more at the least that he must get through some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span>how before he -could hope that even Mrs. Eadie, Uncle Henry’s old housekeeper, would be -astir. He would not mind presenting himself to her; and the thought of -the kind unquestioning welcome she would give, the cheerful fire, the -breakfast, the warm room in which he could sit down, gave him sudden -encouragement. For it was very cold; those long, long hours of night, -which pass so quickly in sleep, sliding out of consciousness altogether, -how much goes on in them to those who are homeless! Harry had never -thought of anything of the kind before; a night without rest, even, far -less a night out of doors, had been unknown to him. The wretches who -wander about the roads, and sleep under a hedge, and have no home, were -out of his ken; they were poor wretches, and in all likelihood it was -“their own fault.” People would think the same of him. To be ashamed of -the position in which you find yourself, and yet to be quite innocent, -is a curious misery, but it is very poignant. He had done nothing wrong; -but the light of John Armstrong’s lantern made him shrink, and even -those pale little prying lamps, each making a hole in the darkness. He -went straight through Wyburgh, coming out at the further side. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span> -walked till he was quite clear of the houses, and then he turned and -looked back upon the spots of light which had cheered him so much when -he first caught sight of them. How cold it was! nobody would believe -that a spring morning could be so cold. It was like December. There was -the clock again, like some one shouting in his ear—but only sounding -the half after four; would the night never come to an end? He walked up -and down on this bit of quiet road, just outside the town, to keep -himself warm, pausing now and then to lean upon the wall and look at the -lights; though he dared not go back to them lest they should betray him -to the gossips, yet it was a kind of consolation to look at them still. -They delivered him a little from that close presence and wretched -company of himself.</p> - -<p>An early cart from one of the neighbouring farms with vegetables for the -market, lumbering along the road just as the day began to break, was the -next thing that disturbed him. He fled from that too, wondering what the -carter would think to see him standing there like a ghost in the dim -dawn—and got over the wall into a field, to be out of the way, yet -could not help feeling, as he listened, holding his breath, to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span> -sound of the slow, jogging horses and the man’s heavy tread, that the -carter must have spied him, and must be peeping over the wall and -wondering who he could be. By this time Harry had got to feel very like -a criminal. He felt sure that everybody would think he was a criminal -and had done something desperate, to see him there in this guise. And -how he was to get courage to go back to Wyburgh again in full daylight, -in the sight of everybody, and knock at his uncle’s door, he did not -know.</p> - -<p>“Lord bless us! Master Harry!” the housekeeper cried. He came upon her -suddenly as she opened the door to go out and feed her chickens, which -was the first thing she did every morning. She was so scared that she -let fall her apronful of seed, and held up her hands half to protect -herself, for this worn, pale, wearied apparition, with coat-collar up to -its ears, and hat drawn down over its brow, was like the ghost of Harry, -not himself. “Lord bless us! Master Harry! it’s never <i>you</i>?”</p> - -<p>“It is me, though: and dreadfully tired, and so cold I don’t know what -to do with myself,” said Harry, with chattering teeth. “Let me come in -and look at a fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Let you come in, my bonny boy! you shall come in, and welcome; and the -kettle’s on, and I’ll soon make you some tea. Come into the kitchen, -it’s the warmest place. Bless the lad! What hour did ye start at to get -here so early? or has anything happened? You’ve not come for the doctor? -I’m that surprised you might blow me over with a puff of your breath.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not try,” said Harry, recovering himself a little as he felt -the warmth of the fire. “There’s nothing wrong, Mrs. Eadie, they’re all -well enough; but I want to see Uncle Henry, and I’m going back to -Liverpool to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Bless my heart! I thought you had come for a real holiday, and its no’ -above a week; but whisht! laddie, dinna chatter with your teeth like -that; come nearer to the fire. Dear, dear me, but you must be cold; not -a great-coat upon your back, nor a comforter, nor one thing to keep the -heat in ye. I hope you havena’ just gotten your death,” cried the -housekeeper, pouring the steaming water, which it was good even to see, -into her teapot; and in her anxiety to get him a comfortable meal she -forgot to ask any more questions.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Eadie’s help, who was a young girl, did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span> not live in the house, and -her late arrival in the mornings was one of the grievances of the -housekeeper’s life. There was nobody, therefore, but this good woman, in -whom Harry had perfect confidence, to witness his worn-out condition: -and by-and-by he got thawed and comfortable. Once within this legitimate -shelter too, his spirits came back to him. He forgot the painful -miseries he had conjured up, or, at least, he did not forget them, but -they went to his father’s account to swell his wrath. There were still -several hours to wait before he could see Uncle Henry, and Harry lay -down upon the bed where he had slept when he was a schoolboy, and -returned to common life and respectable usages through the medium of a -long sleep. It was a sort of moral bath to him, restoring him to -creditable ways. To think that he should have feared John Armstrong’s -lantern, and hid himself from the carter with his early vegetables! But -all that, and a great deal more, went to his father’s account. His rage -revived as the misery of the night ended. For those latter hours he had -been too much occupied by his personal feelings to dwell upon the cause -of them; now that he was comfortable once more the insult and the -cruelty that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> had been inflicted upon him came back with double force. -Turned from his father’s door, the key turned upon him, the house he was -born in shut up against him; himself disowned, like a beggar, left to -wander where he pleased, to die on the moors, if he liked, to get his -death, as Mrs. Eadie had suggested; and all this his father’s doing! -Harry clenched his fist with wild excitement, with a desire for -vengeance which startled himself. He thought he would almost consent to -have “got his death” if Joscelyn could be tried for manslaughter. He -would have almost liked to punish, to convict his father by dying, so -that the whole country might have pointed at him as the man who had -killed his son. But then he reflected that probably his father would not -care. “But I’ll make him care,” Harry said to himself. Few people -venture to express such vindictiveness; but Harry Joscelyn’s heart was -full of it; it was natural to his race.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>UNCLE HENRY.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. HENRY JOSCELYN came down stairs at nine o’clock to breakfast as he -always did. No clock was ever more regular. He was not like the present -family of Joscelyns. He had taken after his mother, who was the -grandmother of Ralph Joscelyn of the White House. The family had been -one of greater pretensions and more gentility in his day. The heir at -that time was educated in Oxford, and the Joscelyns still belonged, -though gradually falling away from it, to the higher level, and counted -themselves county people. Henry had been sent off early to business; but -he had never lost the sentiment which so often remains to an “old -family” when more substantial possessions are gone. In the case of the -present representative of the name<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> this sentiment was mere pride with a -bitter edge to it, and resentful sense of downfall; but with Mr. Henry -Joscelyn it was a real consciousness of superiority to the common -persons round him. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>: perhaps he did not understand -these words in their highest sense. The <i>noblesse</i> was small. And the -behaviour it exacted was not of a princely or magnanimous character; but -still there were many things which, being a Joscelyn, he felt it -incumbent upon him both to do and not to do. He would not allow himself -to drop. He looked with indignation and contempt at the rudeness and -roughness of his nephew’s house. Even what was best in it was, he felt, -beneath him. He had never married at all, not feeling able to aspire to -the only kind of wife he ever could have been content with; but to marry -a parson’s daughter was an expedient Henry Joscelyn would have scorned. -It would have better befitted the reigning head of so good and old a -race to have followed the example of King Cophetua—a beautiful -beggar-maid is a possibility always, but an insipid parson’s daughter! -Mr. Henry Joscelyn had not cut his nephew—that would have been -impossible too; but he looked upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> him with a fierce contempt; and -though he allowed Mrs. Joscelyn to be “a worthy person,” and probably -quite good enough, nay, even too good, for Ralph Joscelyn as he was, -still Mr. Henry could not meet her on grounds of -equality—notwithstanding the fact that there was a baronet in her -family, which at first had staggered him. It did not seem to him that -these high claims of his were at all injured by the fact that he himself -had been engaged in, and had made all his money by, trade. “I was a -younger son,” he would say, with a gentle shrug of his shoulders, and -his godson Harry was also a younger son. Mr. Henry believed that there -was a certain amount of self-sacrifice necessary in a family. If it was -a right and good thing to keep it up, then it was quite right that the -younger children should have their part in sustaining its honour. Its -importance, its prestige, belonged to them as well as to the heir, and -it was their interest as well as their duty to make an exertion and keep -it up.</p> - -<p>His own exertions had not succeeded badly; he had been able to come back -to his own county, while he was still not an old man, and to settle<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> -himself according to his pleasure. Now Mr. Henry’s opinion was that you -could not live absolutely in the country unless you had “a place” in the -country, and all the consequence that brings. His notions, it will be -seen, were a great deal higher than his real position; he thought of the -Joscelyns as if they had been a ducal house. And without “a place” he -considered a country life impossible. He did not choose to live in a -small house in the shadow of a great one. Had the White House really -been a great ducal establishment he might have done so; but as he could -not so much as look at the White House without a sense of its -discrepancy with the pretensions of the family, and unlikeness to -everything that the mansion of the Joscelyns ought to be; and as the -society there, when there was any society, was distinctly below, not -above, his own level, he did not hesitate a moment as to his place of -abode. He bought a house in Wyburgh, the county town; a modest -house—but he did not want very much—where he was served most -comfortably and carefully by Mrs. Eadie, the most excellent of managers, -with the assistance of one small aid, and compensated himself for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> -smallness of his establishment within doors by keeping a groom and a -couple of horses, which were his personal luxuries. No horses in the -country were more carefully groomed, and no groom presented a more neat -and spruce appearance; and Mr. Henry still rode across country, though -not with the daring which once sat so oddly on his prim little person. -For he was little and light-coloured, exactly the reverse of the -Joscelyns, like his mother, the small pale woman, whose -over-masterfulness and tyrannical control of her sons, was said to have -turned her grandson, the present man, and his father before him, to evil -courses. She had wanted to make them good, to perfect their characters, -whether they would or not; and the strong restraint she had exercised -had made the re-action all the more vehement. So people said: except in -the case of Henry, who took after his mother in every way, and had all -her intolerance of useless people and indolent minds. He lived a life -which was very satisfactory to himself in his little house in Wyburgh. -He had besides a little bit of land in his native parish with an old -house upon it, uninhabitable, but yet a creditable sort of possession in -a corner of which Isaac Oliver—who was, in a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> lowly manner his -bailiff—lived with his family. Mr. Henry was a much respected member of -the county club which had its seat in Wyburgh, and to which his nephew -of the White House might have sought admittance in vain. The duke -himself treated old Henry, as he was called, with the utmost -condescension. His position was never contended or doubted. He was as -good a gentleman as the king. He knew more about the county than anyone -else did, and called cousins remotely with many of the great people, who -were most courteously ready to allow the kindred so far as Mr. Henry -Joscelyn went; and he was an active magistrate, and took a certain -interest in the town itself, where most people believed in him, and -wondered how the Joscelyns could have gone off so completely since Mr. -Henry’s time—which was like the period before the deluge to the young -people. And Mr. Henry was a man of the most regular habits. It might -have been known what hour it was, had the town clock stopped in Wyburgh, -by his appearance at the window, after he had breakfasted, with the -newspaper in his hand, by the sound of his step as he went to the Club -regular as the sun himself, and by his return to his dinner. These were -the three departures, so to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> speak, of his day. In the evening he dined -out sometimes, at the Rectory, at Dr. Peregrine’s, or with Mr. Despond, -the solicitor: and now and then with some of the greater people about, -where he drove in his own little brougham, which he kept expressly for -such occasions. At other times one or two old inhabitants of the better -class would drop in in the evening to make up his rubber. He looked very -well after his money, and gave his neighbours excellent advice about -their investments; and a more admirable member of society, a more -respected townsman, could not be.</p> - -<p>It may be supposed that to such a man, with such a life, the existence -of a schoolboy under his roof had not been an unmixed pleasure. Still -Mr. Henry Joscelyn was not a man to fail in his duties when they were -pointed out to him. Though nobody but Mrs. Joscelyn guessed it, it was -to the housekeeper that his family were indebted for Harry’s preferment. -Mrs. Eadie was just then greatly in want of somebody to be kind to. Her -master, though he required the most scrupulous attention, did not come -within this category, and the good woman had long sighed for a bairn in -the house. When Harry was in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> house he did not see much of his -uncle—their hours (thank heaven! Mr. Henry said, devoutly), being quite -incompatible. The boy was off to school in the morning, long before Mr. -Henry was up. He had his dinner in the middle of the day, when Mr. Henry -was engaged in magisterial or county business, or in the Club. So they -got on very well, and the old man was actually sorry when the boy set -out in his turn for Liverpool to get an insight into “the business” in -which his uncle had grown moderately rich; but this did not affect his -methodical life, which flowed on just as before. Mr. Henry was growing -old; even he himself acknowledged this, with cheerful readiness to other -people, with a little impatience to himself. He spoke of his age with -great equanimity in society when the subject was mooted, but he did not -think of it when he could help it, nor did he like the thought. High and -dry above all mortal loss and gain, quite safe from the agitations of -life, very comfortable in all its circumstances, having succeeded in -working out just the perfection of detail, the harmony of movement that -satisfied him, it was a vexing and unpleasant reflection that this life -was to be disturbed, broken in upon, brought to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> conclusion by illness -and death. Sometimes the thought made him almost angry. Why? He was not, -to be sure, so strong as he once was, but he was strong enough for all -reasonable purposes, as strong as he required to be; and he had all his -wits about him. Never had he been more clear-headed; and every sort of -inclination to do things that were not good for him, whether in the way -of eating or drinking, or other practices of a more strictly moral or -immoral character had died out of his mind. He knew how to take care of -himself exactly, and he did take the greatest care of himself. Why -should he die? It was an idea that annoyed him. It seemed so -unnecessary: he was not weary of life, nor had he the least desire to -give it up. In such circumstances there had been a lurking feeling in -his mind that Providence should know how to discriminate. But there was -no telling how long Providence might choose to discriminate: and this -recollection was about the only disturbing influence in a life so -comfortable and well proportioned, and altogether satisfactory, that -there seemed no reason whatever that it should ever come to an end.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Harry here? How did he get here at such an hour in the morning? -Why, he must<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> have started in the middle of the night.”</p> - -<p>“I make no doubt of that,” said the housekeeper. She had brought up a -second kidney, piping hot, and tender as a baby, upon a piece of toast, -so crisp yet so melting, so brown and savoury, so penetrated by generous -juices that it was in itself a luxury; “and for that and other things I -have made him lie down upon his bed. He’s not been in a bed this night, -that’s clear to see; he’s sleeping like a babe in a cradle; it does the -heart good to see him.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it would do my heart good,” said Mr. Henry, “the young -fellow must have been up to some mischief. Did he give you any idea of -what was the matter? or is it mere nonsense, perhaps a bet, or a brag, -or something of that sort?”</p> - -<p>“Mere nonsense—nay, nay, Sir, it’s not that. He’s got a look on his -face—a look I have seen on your own face, Sir, when you are put out.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve told you a hundred times, Mrs. Eadie, there is not the slightest -resemblance between Mr. Harry and me.”</p> - -<p>“And how are you to tell that, Sir, that canna see the two together? You -are far more clever<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> than me in most things; but my eyesight I must -trust to.” Mrs. Eadie made a little curtsey when she opposed her master. -She had a conviction that it gave him a secret pleasure, though he would -never confess it, to hear that Harry was like him; and perhaps she was -right.</p> - -<p>“Have your own way,” he said; “but that makes no difference to the -question. What’s wrong? has he said nothing to you? You used to be great -friends.”</p> - -<p>“I’m his true friend; and stiddy well-wisher, as much good as I could do -him; and Mr. Harry has always been very kind,” said the housekeeper, -putting her master’s sentiment in her own softest words; “but he has -said nothing to me. I did not look for it. He would not, being one of -the proud Joscelyns, saving your presence, Sir, take a servant into his -confidence. Though he’s aye been very kind.”</p> - -<p>“We are proud, are we?” said her master, with a half smile; “well, -perhaps that is a fault of the Joscelyns, Mrs. Eadie. You can send him -to me when he wakes. Of course now that he is here I must listen to what -he has to say.”</p> - -<p>But Mr. Henry sighed. He ate that delicious kidney with an internal -sense of annoyance which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> took half the savour out of it. He said to -himself that it was always the case: when he came down in the morning -with any unusual sentiment of comfort and well-being, something always -happened to put him out. As sure as that light-heartedness came, -something would follow to pull him down, something would go wrong in the -Club, or his conduct in some petty session case would be aspersed in the -“Wyburgh Gazette,” or some old friend of his boyhood would send him a -begging letter, or—still more annoying, something about the White House -family would interfere with his digestion. “I might have known,” he said -to himself. He had got up at peace with all men; with absolutely no care -which he could think of when he woke and swept the mental horizon for -causes of inconvenience, as it is one of the privileges of humanity to -do—absolutely nothing to bring him any vexation or annoyance. He had -believed that he was going to have a comfortable day. A little -uneasiness which he had felt in his foot (he did not say, even to -himself, in his toe), had gone off; a stiffness which he had been -conscious of had disappeared; the wind had changed, going round to the -southward, and the morning was quite warm for the time of the year. He -had not been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> buffeted about by the night wind, as Harry had, and at six -in the morning, when poor Harry was so cold, he had been as warm as he -could desire in bed. When he came down stairs the fire was just as he -liked it, the newspaper with the chill taken off it, neatly cut, and -folded, and a letter from the Duke, with a seal as big as a penny, was -lying by his plate. It was an invitation, and Mr. Henry was much -pleased. Never had a day begun more auspiciously. He had sat down, -opened his napkin, poured out for himself an aromatic cup of coffee, -laid the newspaper before him conveniently, so as to be able to glance -his eye over the news, while he addressed himself to the more solid part -of the meal. And it was while he was thus beginning the day, in peace -with himself and all about him, that “the woman,” as he called his -housekeeper when anything went wrong, appeared with that kidney, and the -cloud which was to overshadow the whole day. Of course it must be -something wrong. Why could not the woman have recommended that boy to go -back again, and make it up with his father, and not bother another -person with his troubles? Had not every man troubles enough of his own? -But he had been too comfortable. It was just as it always -happened—whenever he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> felt particularly at his ease, something, some -annoyance or other, was certain to come. He sighed impatiently as Mrs. -Eadie withdrew. But then he felt it to be his duty to himself to put all -anxiety out of his thoughts, and to address himself seriously, if not -with such a sensation of comfort, to his breakfast; it would do no good -to himself or anyone if he put his digestion out of order for the rest -of the day.</p> - -<p>He had finished his breakfast and read his paper, and done some trifling -businesses such as were of importance in his easy life, before Harry -appeared. When a man or woman lives at perfect ease, with nothing to do, -there are always some solemnities of supposed duty which they go through -for their own comfort, to give a semblance of serious occupation to -their day. With some people it is their correspondence, with others the -rain-gauge and the thermometer, which they register with as grave a -countenance as if the comfort of the country depended upon it. Mr. -Henry’s duty was the Club. He was looking over the accounts of the last -half year with serious devotion. He spread this over a long time, doing -a little every day, comparing all the items with their respective -vouchers, and with the expendi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span>ture of the previous half year. All had -been perfectly satisfactory till this morning; but to-day he discovered -that the sale of the waste-paper was not entered in the previous month, -which made a difference of some seven shillings and sixpence, or -thereabouts, in the half year’s accounts, a difference such as ought not -to have occurred. He could scarcely help feeling that this would not -have happened had it not been for the very inopportune arrival of Harry, -and introduction of the troubles of a family, things he had -systematically kept clear of, into his comfortable and self-sufficing -life.</p> - -<p>He had just made this discovery—which obliged him to refer to the -expenditure in the corresponding quarters of last year, and several -years before, and make close investigation into what had then become of -the waste-paper, and who had bought it, and what price it had brought; -and had made a careful note in his pocket-book of various questions to -be put to the butler at the Club, who had the practical management of -affairs—when the door opened and Harry appeared. Mr. Joscelyn looked up -and made an instant mental estimate of his nephew, whom he had not seen -for some time, on not very just grounds. Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> had been immensely -refreshed and restored by his breakfast, and the consciousness of having -a roof over his head, and a legitimate right to be here; but his sleep -perhaps had not done him so much good. At five-and-twenty a man can do -without a night’s rest with no very great inconvenience; but to have a -snatch of insufficient sleep is of little advantage to him. It had made -his eyes red, and given him an inclination to yawn, and confused his -head. He had the look of a man who has been sleeping illegitimately, -sleeping in daytime when other men are awake; and he was unshaven, and -he had on a shirt of his uncle’s, which was too tight at the throat, and -otherwise of a fashion not adapted to a young man. His dusty coat had -been brushed, and he was not really travel-soiled or slovenly, much the -reverse indeed, for his appearance had been the cause of much more -searchings of the heart both to himself and kind Mrs. Eadie than was at -all usual in respect to Harry’s simple toilette; but that air of -suppressed fatigue and premature awakening, and altogether -wrong-sidedness, was strong upon him. And he was deeply conscious of it. -He knew exactly how he looked, with his eyes rather red, and that -blueness on his chin, and Uncle Henry’s collar cutting<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span> his throat; and -a great many doubts as to his reception by Uncle Henry—doubts which had -not entered his mind before, arose within him in that first moment when, -opening the door, he met the startled eyes of Mr. Joscelyn over the top -of his spectacles, lifted to him with an alarmed and inquiring look. -Harry saw that in a moment he was weighed in the balance and found -wanting. This did not give him more ease in his manner, or a less -painful sense of being on his trial.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Harry. I hear that you were a surprisingly early visitor -this morning; but you keep early hours in the country. I hope there is -nothing amiss at the White House.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Joscelyn held out a hand, of which he was rather proud to be shaken -by his grand-nephew. It was, he flattered himself, a hand that was in -itself a guarantee of blue blood. Harry embraced it in the grasp of a -powerful member with none of these qualities, and gave it a squeeze much -more energetic than he had intended.</p> - -<p>“There is a good deal amiss with me,” he said. Harry had been debating -the point with himself for the last half-hour, whether he should fully -confide in his uncle or not. He could not but feel that it would be -wiser to deal lightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> with the fact of his exclusion from his father’s -house; but he was so angry that he could not be prudent, and the moment -that he had an opportunity of speech his temper broke out.</p> - -<p>“I was not in bed all last night,” he said; “I was on the road like a -tramp, Uncle Henry. My father turned me out of the house—”</p> - -<p>Three lines came across Mr. Henry Joscelyn’s brow—three horizontal, -well-marked lines. These were two too many. When he was sympathetic a -slight indentation over his eyebrows was all that appeared. The second -meant doubt, the third annoyance.</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” he said, “how did that happen? I fear you must have been -doing something to displease your father.”</p> - -<p>“Who can help displeasing my father?” cried Harry. “I am sure, Uncle -Henry, you know him well enough. I had been doing nothing wrong. I had -been trying to get him to interest himself in my affairs. He has never -done anything for me, it is you that have done everything for me. I laid -before him a chance I’ve got. I meant at any rate to come and talk it -all over with you; but in the first place I thought it was as well to -ask a question about my mother’s money<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span>—”</p> - -<p>“Ah—that was not quite an ingratiating way of opening the matter, I -fear,” Uncle Henry said.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” cried Harry, forgetting all the prudential rules he had been -trying to impose upon himself. “My mother was willing, and when it would -have advanced my interests—and of course I should have paid as good a -per-centage as anybody else. Surety if there is anything a man can have -a claim upon,” he added, argumentatively, “it must be his mother’s -money. I mayn’t have any right to touch the family property, as I am -only a younger son, and all that—and especially as there are such a lot -of us; but my mother’s money—when it is doing nothing, only lying at -interest. Surely a man has a claim upon that.”</p> - -<p>“The man that has a claim upon that is your father, I should say. I -never knew a man yet that liked any questions about his wife’s money,” -said Mr. Joscelyn; “whether it’s in her own power or in his, its not a -nice thing to interfere with. You have your own ways of looking at -things, you young fellows; but in your place I would have said nothing -about that. I didn’t know your mother had any money,” he added, in an -indifferent tone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is only—a thousand pounds, Uncle Henry: not what you would call a -fortune—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Henry Joscelyn smiled, and waved his hand. Impossible to have waved -away a trifle, a nothing, with a more complete representation of its -nothingness. “Ah—that!—” he said, “I thought I never had heard -anything about money. Well, I can’t flatter you that your claim on your -father was made in a very judicious way. And he would not hear of it? -That is easy enough to understand; but why did he turn you out of -doors?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell you,” cried Harry, “I can tell you no more than that. I -laid it all before him. It is a good opportunity, an opportunity that -may never occur again. I have been in the office for three years, long -enough to be a mere clerk.”</p> - -<p>“I have known very good men, Harry, who were clerks all their lives.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” cried Harry, impatiently, “one knows that. There’s an -excellent fellow now in our office: but I don’t suppose, Uncle Henry, -that was what you intended for me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my boy: I intended that you should earn your living and be off -the hands of your family. I am not aware that I went much further.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> Of -course, if your own talents and industry pushed you on, one would have -been very glad to hear of it; otherwise, in your circumstances, the -fifth son, I should not be disposed to turn up my nose at the position -of a mere clerk.”</p> - -<p>Harry gazed at his uncle while he spoke with an impatient reluctance and -protest against every word. He could scarcely bear to hear him out; he -had his mouth open to reply before Uncle Henry was half done: but when -the old gentleman ended his speech, Harry, with a gasp as of baffled -utterance, remained silent. He did not know what reply to make, he felt -the ground cut from under his feet; how was he to ask his uncle to place -himself in the breach, to do what his father would not do, when this was -how his representation was received? He gazed at him with a hard breath -and said nothing; for the moment his very utterance was taken away.</p> - -<p>And then there was a pause. Mr. Joscelyn sat quietly with his gold -spectacles between his fingers and thumb, looking at his nephew. The -lines were gone from his forehead, he was quite bland and amiable, but -demonstratively indifferent, with an air of having nothing whatever to -do with the question, which, to Harry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> was exasperating beyond -description. He kept his other hand upon the Club papers, which were his -business. The young fellow who had so suddenly come down upon him in -vehement wrath and offence, yet expectation, was manifestly nothing but -an interruption to Uncle Henry. He was thinking of his waste-paper, not -of the future prospects of any foolish young man. After a pause he spoke -again.</p> - -<p>“And when are you going back to business, Harry? I hope, now that you -are here, that you will stay a day or two and renew your acquaintance -with your old friends. Mrs. Eadie will make you very comfortable. I am -sorry to say I am dining out both to-day and to-morrow, but if you like -to have young Pilgrim, or Gus Grey, or any of your former acquaintances, -my housekeeper is really equal to a very nice little dinner, as you -know. I think I heard there was a dance getting up somewhere. Stay till -the end of the week, if your leave lasts so long.”</p> - -<p>“Uncle Henry,” said Harry, with an air of tragedy, which he was quite -unconscious of, “you may suppose that a man who has been turned out of -his father’s house, and has thrown off all connection with his native -soil<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“No, no, my boy, no, no,” said Mr. Joscelyn, with a half laugh, “not so -bad as that.”</p> - -<p>“I say,” continued Harry, with increasing solemnity, “who has parted -from his family for ever, and cut off all connection with his native -soil—you may suppose that he hasn’t much heart to pay visits or take up -old acquaintances. What is there likely to be between me and Jack -Pilgrim, who is stepping into his father’s business, and as settled as -the Fells? or Gus Grey, who is kept up and set forward at the Bar, -though he is not earning a penny, by relations that think all the world -of him? what can there be in common, I should like to know, between them -and me? I’m only the fifth son, as you say, to start with, therefore I’m -of no consequence; and, by Jove!” cried Harry, striking the table with -his clenched fist, “if ever I enter that house while Ralph Joscelyn’s -the master of it—if ever I go back to knock at the door that was locked -upon me, locked upon me in the middle of the night——”</p> - -<p>Uncle Henry’s brow contracted when that blow came down upon his neat -writing-table; it shook the inkstand, which perhaps was overfull, and -spilt a drop or two of ink, which of all things in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> the world was the -thing which annoyed him most. He mopped it up hurriedly with his -blotting-paper, but his brow became dark, and his mouth drew up at the -corners in a way that meant mischief.</p> - -<p>“Pardon me,” he said, with exquisite civility, “but to spoil my table -will not do your affairs any good. It is a pity that you take such a -very tragical view of the matter, but in your present state of mind -nothing that I could say, I fear, would be of much use. Thick! thick! I -don’t think this spot is likely to come out.”</p> - -<p>“I am dreadfully sorry, uncle——” poor Harry began.</p> - -<p>“Sorrow, so far as I am aware, does not take out ink-spots,” said the -old gentleman, testily; “perhaps you will do me the favour to ring for -Eadie. If things are so very serious the less we say about them the -better—heated discussions are never any good. I can only say that if -you like to stay a day or two you are quite welcome, Harry. Mrs. Eadie, -look here; the ink-bottle has been filled too full, perhaps you know -something that will take it out.”</p> - -<p>“Dear, dear me!” Mrs. Eadie cried, with an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span>anxious look from the old -gentleman with his crisped lips to the young fellow standing much -abashed beside him, “it’s that little lass again; but I take the blame -to myself; I should never have trusted it out of my hands. Dear! dear! -milk will may be do it. I wouldn’t like to try benzine or salts of -lemon.”</p> - -<p>“Try what you like, but get it out,” said Mr. Joscelyn. “I’ll see you, -Harry, when I come back from the Club.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my bonnie young gentleman!” cried Mrs. Eadie, when they were left -alone, “you have said something that’s gone against him! you have turned -him the wrong way!”</p> - -<p>“I think everything is turning the wrong way,” said Harry, throwing -himself into his uncle’s easy-chair. He was still so young and -unaccustomed to trouble that the tears came hot to his eyes. “I’ll tell -you what I’ll do, Eadie, I’ll be off before he comes back; I’ll go -straight off to my work, there’s nobody will turn the cold shoulder upon -me there.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Mr. Harry, no, no, my canny lad, you must not be so hasty. -Besides, you know as well as I do there’s no train. It’s coming out just -with blotting-paper; look! see! When he comes back he’ll have forgotten -all about it, and I’ll make<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> you up a nice little bit of something for -your lunch, and you’ll ’gree again, and get his advice. He’s grand with -his advice, and he’s awfu’ fond of giving it. Just you ask him for his -advice, Mr. Harry, and you’ll ’gree like two birds in a nest. It’s aye -how I come round the maister when he has cast out with me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>UNCLE HARRY’S ADVICE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. JOSCELYN returned from the Club to lunch, which was not very usual -for him. After all, at the bottom of his heart, there was a vein of -kindness in him for the boy whom he had trained. After his little anger -wore off, Harry’s face, so tragical in its expression, came back to his -mind with a mixture of amusement and compassion. It was tragic-comic to -Mr. Henry; but there was no comic element in it to the young man. He -came home by no means intending to put himself in the breach, and -replace for Harry’s benefit that thousand pounds of his mother’s money, -which the young fellow had calculated upon; but still with an impulse of -kindness. A thousand pounds! That was a pretty sort of fortune for the -woman who married<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> Joscelyn of White House. It made him laugh with angry -scorn. Little insignificant woman, whose pretty face even was nothing -out of the way, a kind of prettiness that faded, a sort of parson’s -daughter’s gentility, not even anything that could be called beauty, or -that would last. Mr. Henry Joscelyn had been absent from the district, -he had not yet retired from “the world,” as he called it, when his -nephew married, and he had never known before exactly how bad a match it -was. Ralph was a clown to be sure, in himself worthy no better fate; but -the head of the Joscelyns, Mr. Henry reflected with a bitter smile, -might certainly have been worth something more than a thousand pounds. -It was ridiculous, it was exasperating; he did not wonder that Ralph had -been angry when his son had asked for this paltry thousand pounds. -Considered as a fee for the privilege of entering the Joscelyn family, -it was ridiculously inadequate—and as a fortune! He laughed aloud as he -crossed the street to the Club, an angry laugh. After all it was not -much wonder that Ralph had deteriorated. A wife with a faded face, no -ancestors, and a thousand pounds—poor Ralph! if he had not been so -insufferable his uncle would have been sorry for him. And now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span> here was -the boy asserting a claim to this enormous fortune; probably Mrs. -Joscelyn herself thought it a great sum of money, enough to set up Harry -in business, and do a great deal for him. Tck-tck! how mean and petty it -all was, not like the old ways of the house, which were not small -whatever they were. The Joscelyns in their day had gone into debt in a -princely manner; and they had married money in their day; but to come to -such a point that the mother’s great fortune of a thousand pounds was -worth fighting about, between father and son! Tck-tck, tck-tck, what a -wonderful thing it was!</p> - -<p>Nevertheless as Harry, poor boy, had been brought up within that limited -horizon, he could not help being sorry for him. It was sad for a young -man. He was rather fond of the boy; so far as he did give in to the -prejudice that because a boy was your grand-nephew you ought to be fond -of him, Harry, it certainly was, that was the object of his affections. -After all he was a Joscelyn, and, as Joscelyns went in the present -generation, as good a specimen as any. This was not saying very much, -but still it was something to say; for though the Joscelyns of a former -generation were in every way superior, yet it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> clear that it was -impossible to go back to them. However much we may prefer the past we -must all have, it is evident, to put up with the present. Mr. Joscelyn -transacted his Club business, and went very closely into that question -about the waste-paper. The waste-paper at the Club was of a very -superior kind. It was chiefly made up of letters and circulars printed -on fine paper, and the <i>brouillons</i> of replies, which even the rural -magnates, who frequented the place, liked to write out once before they -actually produced the autograph which was to go to their correspondents; -it brought a far better price than the usual refuse of a house. But this -the present major-domo had failed to grasp; he had treated these choice -scraps as if they had been old newspapers. Mr. Joscelyn fully proved his -mistake to the reluctant functionary, who was disposed to sneer at the -whole business.</p> - -<p>“After all, Sir, it is only five shillings difference—and I don’t mind -if I paid that out of my own pocket, sooner than make a fuss;” said the -flippant official. Mr. Joscelyn looked at him with eyes from which the -finest London butler, much less a trifling person in the country, might -have shrunk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span></p> - -<p>“My man,” he said, “the difference is seven and sixpence, and I don’t -know what your pocket has to do with it. The state of your pocket is a -matter of perfect indifference to the Club; but it is my business to see -that our property is not wasted. I hope I shall not have to make a -complaint on this subject again.” When he had said this he went home, -with some little complacency to see Harry, feeling that his time had not -been wasted, and that the property of the Club was not likely to be -neglected in this manner again. As for Harry he had not left the house. -He had resisted all Mrs. Eadie’s exhortations to send a note to his -mother, telling her where he was, or even to send for his luggage, -declaring that he would have nothing to do with them, that he would take -nothing out of the house, nor ever return to it. And since he could not -show himself in Uncle Henry’s high collars, Mrs. Eadie had gone out to -the best shop there was in Wyburgh to get some linen for him, and a few -necessary articles; while he himself sat in the tranquil house, the -peaceful old man’s habitation, where everything was adapted for comfort, -every chair an easy-chair, every passage and stair carpeted and -noiseless, and the atmosphere kept up to one regular<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> warmth by the -thermometer. Harry sat in his uncle’s snuggery, half stifled by the want -of air, half asleep in the drowse of warmth and comfort. He had rarely -entered these rooms when he was a school-boy—in those days he had been -much more at home with Eadie than with her master—and to sit there now -had a strange sort of Sunday feeling, a suggestion of silent ease and -contemplative leisure. He could understand Uncle Henry liking it. If you -were an old man with ever so much to look back upon, it would, no doubt -(he thought) be pleasant to sit in these arm-chairs for hours together, -and review the past, turning everything over, and living it through once -more; but at Harry’s age, with so little to look back upon, and so much -to look forward to, this slumbrous calm would have been intolerable but -for the strange feverish weariedness of that <i>nuit blanche</i> which he had -spent in wandering over the dark country, and which made the present -warmth and quiet at once oppressive and luxurious. He dropped asleep -half-a-dozen times in the course of the morning, waking up more -uncomfortable and feverish than ever, and ashamed of himself to boot. -What would have done him more good would have been to go out and walk -off his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span> drowse; but then the thought of the high collar, which cut his -cheek, and of all the acquaintances to whom this masquerade would have -to be explained, made the idea of going out still more insupportable; -while on the other hand to think that he was here under a kind of -hiding, skulking indoors, not wishing to be seen, was terrible to the -unsophisticated youth, who had never before known what it was to shrink -from the eye of day.</p> - -<p>All these things worked bitterly in Harry’s mind as he sat and turned -them over, falling into vague feverish moments of forgetfulness, rousing -up again to more angry and uncomfortable consciousness than before. Of -course, he could not think of any other subject. He took up the -newspaper and tried to read it, but after he had gone over a sentence or -two, some scene from the last twenty-four hours would glide in over the -page and obliterate everything—his father’s furious face lowering upon -him, or that pale glare in the window of the house which was now shut up -and closed to him for ever; or the confused darkness of the shed in -which Joan (old Joan, a kind soul after all, as he said, in his boyish -jargon) had tried to comfort him—or it might be merely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> an incident of -his night’s walk, the sound of the water running below him as he stopped -on the bridge, only its sound betraying it in the darkness, or the -sudden graze of his hand against a wall as he made his way through the -gloom, or the dogs barking, baying against him on all sides. These -scenes came flashing before him one by one; and then his young cheeks -would grow red and hot as he remembered how he shrank from the -policeman’s lantern, and avoided the eye of the carter driving his -cabbages to the market in the grey of the morning. He had done nothing -to be ashamed of, and yet he had been made to feel guilty and ashamed; -what greater wrong could be done to a youth in the beginning of his -career?</p> - -<p>All this went through his mind, not in any formal succession—now one -scene, now another touching his sore and angry soul to sudden -exasperation. That he should have to remain all the long day inactive -after this convulsion which had changed his life, was an additional -irritation to him. Since Uncle Henry had failed to show him any -sympathy, what he would have liked would have been to rush out on the -moment and post away somewhere out of reach, he did not mind where. In -old days, or in primitive places,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span> when a man could hire a horse or a -carriage and set out at once, there must have been a wonderful solace in -that possibility of instant action; but to wait for a train is a -terrible aggravation of the impatience of an angry or anxious mind, even -though the train arrives much sooner at its destination than the other -could do. The long hours of daylight which must pass ere that train came -up seemed to be years to him. He longed for the clang and the movement -as for the only comfort that remained to him. After, he did not know -what would happen. He would go back to Liverpool; he could realise the -arrival there, but he did not know what would follow. Was he to accept -his defeat quietly, to sit down upon his stool and continue his work, -and see some one else, unfamiliar to the office, enter and pay his -money, and take the place which Harry was to have had? All this made the -blood mount to his cheeks again in successive waves. Could he bear it? -could he put up with it? Sometimes the blood seemed to boil in his veins -and swell as if they would burst; and there came upon him, as upon so -many others, that wild sudden burst of longing—oh! to have wings like a -dove, to fly away! It is not always an elevating or noble<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> longing; it -is the natural outcry of that sense of the intolerable which is in all -unaccustomed to trouble. To escape from it is the first impulse of the -undisciplined mind. Even when experience has taught us that we cannot -escape from it, nature still suggests that cry, that desire. Oh to have -wings like a dove! oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness! oh to turn -our backs upon our pain and all its circumstances, and flee away! And -the less this impulse is spiritual and visionary, the less it is -restrained by that deeper knowledge so soon acquired that we can rarely -escape from our troubles by any summary road, seeing that we can never -escape from ourselves. Harry began to get bewildered by the rising fever -in his heart of this longing to escape. Why should not he escape? cut -all the bonds of which so many had already been rent asunder for him, -throw family, and home (which had rejected him), and duty, and custom, -and the life he knew, and the circumstances which had hitherto shaped -it, all away with one effort, and emancipate himself?</p> - -<p>He had roused a little under the influence of this suggestion when his -uncle returned. Mr. Joscelyn had a compunction in his mind which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> made -him very conciliatory to Harry. To give him what he seemed to want, to -subtract so much, even if not very much, from his own possessions in -order to give to Harry, was an idea which he would not contemplate. If -Harry waited long enough he would get it; but in the meantime, a demand -upon him was like a warning that he had lived long enough, and that his -money was wanted for a new generation, which was as intolerable to Uncle -Henry as young Harry’s troubles were to him. He would not take upon -himself the burden of setting his grand-nephew up in life, but at the -same time he felt it was a hardship that the young fellow should not -have some one to set him up in life, and was conciliatory and soothing -by a kind of generous instinct, an instinct not generous enough to go -further. He came in in a mood which was much more agreeable to Harry -than that in which he had gone out, and which raised Mrs. Eadie’s hopes -high, who knew that her master did not often come back in this way, or -show himself so amiable. Mr. Joscelyn told Harry all the story of the -waste-paper, and gave him great insight into the workings of the Club.</p> - -<p>“If you are faithful to your native county,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> as I have been, I daresay -you will end by being a member of it,” he said.</p> - -<p>“It is not very likely, Sir,” said Harry. “I don’t care if I were never -to see the old place again.”</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense,” said his uncle, promptly. “That’s a question of age -entirely. At your time of life you think that all that is to be desired -is to be in the world, and you don’t understand that the world is not in -one place as much as another, not the grand world in London, or the -business world in Liverpool, but is just your world wherever you may -happen to be.”</p> - -<p>This was above Harry, who gaped slightly, and opened his eyes with -curiosity and wonder.</p> - -<p>“You will scarcely say that this is the world like London,” he said, -with that smile of youthful comment upon the mysterious obtuseness of -their elders which is general to every new generation.</p> - -<p>“But this is just what I do say, my boy; you have your little world -round about you, and neither is it bigger in the noise of a big place, -nor smaller in the quiet of a little one. We are capable just of so -much, and that we get wherever we are.”</p> - -<p>Harry opened his eyes a little more; but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span> thought it just as well to -say nothing. He thought no doubt this was a kind of dotage; but resorted -quickly to his own concerns, which were so much more important than any -philosophy of his uncle’s.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” he said, “if I were once out of it that I should want -to come back.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, I should probably have said the same thing at your age. One’s -ideas change from twenty to seventy,” said Mr. Henry, feeling that -perhaps after all it was expedient to steer clear of generalities. “Let -us see what Eadie has sent us for luncheon. I don’t often eat lunch -myself; when one breakfasts rather late, as I do, it is as well to -reserve one’s self till dinner; but you were a great deal earlier, -Harry, and besides at your age you are always hungry—blessed provision -of nature.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I’m always hungry; in the office one can’t indulge in -much eating,” said Harry, a little resentful.</p> - -<p>“When I was like you we used to go out to a little tavern. I daresay -it’s gone now. I could show you the place—I could go there blindfold, I -believe—where they made the most excellent chops. Ah! there are no such -chops now. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> Eadie sends us very nice cutlets, but it is not the -same thing. We made our dinner of them, and when we got back to our -lodgings, in my time, we had tea.”</p> - -<p>“So most of us have now,” said Harry, “it saves a great deal of trouble; -it’s a big dining place now, there’s a grill-room as big as the -Market—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Henry held up his hands in anxious deprecation.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell me anything about it. I know; a place like a -railway-station; the very railway-station itself has been invented since -my time. Your world has become a great deal busier and more hurried; but -it is not so comfortable, Harry. I am fond of good cookery, but I never -got anything better than those chops. As for the tea it always appeared -to me about the worst thing in the shape of a meal that a depraved -imagination could invent—very bad for the digestion, and neither -nourishing nor nice.”</p> - -<p>“But you can’t get your people in your lodgings to cook dinner for you,” -said Harry, entering into this question with feeling, “they don’t know -how—and then they won’t—they are dreadfully independent. So we have to -do the best<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span> we can. And I am not like you, Uncle Henry; in your time I -suppose the Joscelyns were swells? but they never were, you know, in my -day. I was brought up like that.”</p> - -<p>“The Joscelyns of my time, Harry, would never have recognized themselves -in your description. They would not have known what swells meant,” said -Mr. Henry, rather severely; but he did not enter into details, for -indeed, though they were “swells,” the living had always been very plain -at the White House.</p> - -<p>Then there was a little pause, and Harry felt better after two or three -of Mrs. Eadie’s cutlets. He said in a moment of repose,</p> - -<p>“I am going off, Uncle Harry, by the train to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Are you so? but what are you to do about your luggage? you can’t go -without your luggage.”</p> - -<p>“But I shall—I’ll ask nothing. I’ll take nothing out of that house.”</p> - -<p>“This is foolish, Harry. You should rather take everything you can get; -but, however, I hope I know better than to argue with an angry man—or -boy. You are quite right to get back to your work.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“It is about the only thing I have got left,” said Harry, somewhat -tragically.</p> - -<p>“And you could not have a better thing. But you will not always feel -like that. If you would like it, though I don’t know that it is a very -hopeful office, I would see your father, Harry.”</p> - -<p>“Nobody need see my father on my account,” cried Harry; his lips -quivered a little, but nothing save wrath was in his face; “that’s all -over. For my part I shouldn’t mind if it were all over together. I hate -Liverpool just as I hate Cumberland. I have a great mind to go clean -off—”</p> - -<p>“Abroad? and the very best thing you could do. Show yourself fit to keep -up the credit of your employers abroad, and it’s the best stepping stone -to advancement at home. I am very glad to hear you have such an -enlightened notion.”</p> - -<p>Harry was not pleased to have the ground thus cut from under his feet. -To be told, when you hint at what seems a desperate resolution, that it -is the best thing you can do, is exasperating. He withdrew with dignity -from the field and proffered no more confidence. The cutlets gave him a -safer outlet, for though he was in trouble he was hungry. It was a long -time since six o’clock; he had resisted Eadie’s offers of a “snack” -between,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> and the cutlets, though very nice, were not more than a -mouthful to Harry. Mr. Joscelyn trifled with one on his plate; but he -supplied his nephew with a liberal hand.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t be here, I am afraid, to see you away. I am dining out, as I -told you—it is unfortunate. But you are used to looking after -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I would need to be,” said Harry, bitterly, and then he added, “I’ll say -goodbye to you now, Uncle Henry. Very likely I’ll never see you again. I -don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I may be going. You’ve always -been very kind to me; a fellow does not think anything of that at the -time—it seems all just a matter of course, you know. But I see now -you’ve always been very kind. I shall remember it as long as I live. I -said last night, he had never done anything for me, it was all Uncle -Henry. So it is, though I’m not sure that I ever thought of it before.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Joscelyn smiled, but he was touched.</p> - -<p>“Well, well, Harry,” he said; “that was natural; but now you show a very -nice feeling. And I always was glad to do what I could for you. As -schoolboys go you were not at all objectionable, and though you are a -little out of temper now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> things will come round. Put that in your -pocket. It’s only a trifle; but I daresay you may want some little -things, especially if you’re going abroad. That’s all. Let me hear how -you are going on from time to time. I shall always be glad to hear.”</p> - -<p>And then he began to talk of the news, and what the Duke was going to do -in the prospect of a new election for the county. “If Lord Charles does -not get in, it will be ridiculous—worse than wrong, absurd, considering -the stake they have in the county.” But it may be supposed that, in the -present crisis of his affairs, Harry Joscelyn cared very little for Lord -Charles. He replied civilly to his uncle’s talk; but as a matter of fact -he was very anxious to see what was in the envelope which Mr. Joscelyn -had insisted he should put in his pocket. It was not likely it would be -anything of an exciting character; but yet there was no telling. When, -however, Uncle Henry was gone, and Harry was free to examine this -envelope, it proved to contain two crisp ten pound notes—no more. He -was very much disappointed at first, thinking (foolishly) that it might -even be the capital he wanted—the thousand pounds to set him up. But -after a while,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span> and somewhat grudgingly, Harry allowed to himself that -it was kind. Sometimes there is more pleasure to be got out of twenty -pounds than out of a thousand. Uncle Henry meant it very kindly. The -young man’s heart was a little softened and warmed, almost against his -will, by the gift.</p> - -<p>And when evening came, and with it the train which roars along between -that deep cutting under the fells, between two high walls of living -stone, to “the South” and the world, Harry, with a little portmanteau, -in which Mrs. Eadie had packed the things she had bought for him, walked -down to the station, boldly passing both lamps and policemen, and went -away. The little portmanteau was not half full; but Eadie thought it was -“more respectable.” He felt so himself. To have gone without any luggage -at all would have given him a thrill of shame. It was with a strange -forlorn feeling that he lounged about the station, looking at everything -as if he might never see it again. Strangely enough he seemed to find -out features in the place which he had never noticed before, in that -last look round, things which his indifferent eye had seen, without -noticing, ever so often; but which now at last he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span> perceived, and would -recollect as part of Wyburgh, should he never see it again. He was glad -that it was dark when the train swept through the valley in which the -White House was. Though he could not see anything, yet he went to the -other side of the carriage, and so plunged along, passing all those -familiar places without seeing them, yet more vividly conscious of them -than, he thought, he had ever been before. What were they thinking, he -wondered? Would they have any suspicion that he was passing, going -away—for ever. For ever! something else seemed to say this in the air -about him, not his own voice. Was it possible that he might never pass -this way again?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> -<small>WAITING.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">J</span>OAN did not sleep much on that eventful night. She lay down in her bed -after the uncomfortable sleep which she had snatched among the -wash-tubs, but it was more as a matter of form than for any good there -was in it. She was secretly very anxious about Harry. Though she had -taken upon her so cheerfully to affirm that he had gone to the “Red -Lion,” she had not any confidence in this suggestion. She lay staring at -the window as it slowly grew a glimmering square, in the cold blue of -the dawning, wondering what had become of him. She had no great -imagination, and therefore there did not rush upon her mind a crowd of -visionary dangers such as would have besieged her mother,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> but she lay -with her face turned up to the ceiling and her eyes wide open, asking -herself what he was likely to have done; what he would be doing now? He -might fall into bad company, she thought, with a distinct identification -of one house in the village which did not bear a very good reputation, -and of which, as it happened, Harry was entirely ignorant; or he might -go straight off to the office, which, on the whole, was the best thing -he could do. That was all very well for the future; but where was he -to-night? where was he <i>now?</i></p> - -<p>This was a question which Joan could not answer to herself. She thought -over a great many things during the unaccustomed vigil. Never before had -her mother’s anxieties and “fuss” appeared as they now did to Joan with -a certain amount of reason in them. Certainly father was getting beyond -bearing, she said to herself. He was worse the older he grew. She had -told him that she was the best servant he had in the house, though she -got no wages, and it was true. If she liked “to take a situation” she -could earn excellent wages, and get praise instead of abuse for what she -did. She was not a person to be put upon in any way, and yet there were -times when he “put upon” even her. The contempla<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span>tion of all this did -not move her to any impulses of furious indignation, as Harry was moved, -but she thought, lying there in the grey dawn, that it would have to be -put a stop to somehow. As for taking a situation, that was out of the -question. Joan was a very homely woman, not much better educated than -the dairy-maid, and accustomed to none of the softnesses of life, but -yet she was Miss Joscelyn of the White House, and nothing could have -obliterated from her mind the consciousness of this dignity which gave -her nothing, and yet was everything to her. Possessing this rank, it was -impossible for her to “take a situation.” She did not mind what she did -in her father’s house, but to earn money would have been a degradation. -She regretted it even, for she knew very well that she was a capable -person, able to “put her hand” to many things; but it was as -indisputable as if she had been Princess Royal of an ancient kingdom. -Could she have done this, and taken her mother away, and supported her -by the work of her own hands, she would have been now wound up to do it; -but, as it was impossible, she cast about in her mind what else she -could do to mend matters. Father was too bad, there was no deny<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span>ing -that; he had gone a great deal too far, and it would not be possible to -put up with him much longer. She concocted several speeches to be made -to him, but none of them seemed to her sufficient. To be sure, on the -other hand, mother would make a fuss. She would not take anything -easily. To see her excitement and anxiety over the smallest matters was -enough to provoke even a patient temper. She could not take things as -they came; that was a kind of excuse, perhaps, for father’s violence. -Joan turned over all these things in her mind, as if her parents stood -before the bar and it was her business to judge them. A woman of thirty -cannot go on with those childish fictions of reverence which make -criticism a sin. Indeed, even a child, the youngest, unconsciously -criticises as soon as it is able to think, and we are all standing -before the most awful of tribunals unawares when we live our lives and -show forth our motives before our babies; and Joan had long ceased to be -a baby. She saw her father and mother all round, and estimated them -calmly. <i>He</i> had not many qualities which were good, perhaps not any at -all; <i>she</i> had a great many amiable and tender graces of character of -which her daughter was vaguely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span> aware, but she was of a nature which is -very provoking to a calm and judicious spirit. Thus Joan saw them as -they were, with the clearest impartial vision. What a pity that two such -people had married to make each other unhappy! Joan had a sort of -impatient feeling that, if she had only been in the world then, she -certainly would have done something to prevent the union which had -brought her into the world. This was the amusing side of her judicial -impartiality. It went the length sometimes of a comical impatience that -she had not been there to keep matters straight between them.</p> - -<p>All this glanced through her mind as she lay staring at the ceiling, or -at the blue square of the window gradually growing more visible. There -was no sleep for her that night. The first part of it she had found -uncomfortable enough, but sleep had been strong upon her. Now she was -comfortable, but had thoroughly shaken off sleep. She thought over all -the turmoil of the family, and its agitations. He had never done -anything so bad as this before. There had been storms in the house -without number, but he had always let the mother smooth things down. He -had never shut out any of “the boys,” which was what she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> called even -her brothers who were married and had boys of their own. And Harry was -the one most like his mother; most likely to make a fuss and take such -an accident in the worst way. Where had Harry gone? What was he doing? -Where could he go in the middle of the night?</p> - -<p>When she had come back to this subject, Joan felt almost too restless to -stay in bed. If she had but thought of it at the time she would have -gone after him; she would have prevented him from going away. To think -she should have been so overcome by sleep as not to know when Harry had -disappeared, or to be aware that he was gone! She turned and twisted -about in the self-annoyance caused by this, and could not rest. If she -had not been so sleepy, she might have stopped Harry and averted the -catastrophe, for she felt vaguely that a catastrophe it was. And what -would become of his mother if anything had happened to him? “Tut,” said -Joan, to herself, “I am getting as bad as mother herself. There is a bit -of mother in me, though I did not think it. What should have happened to -him? He’s sound asleep now while I’m moidering myself about him. To be -sure he must have knocked somebody up and got a bed somewhere;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> but in -the morning he’ll go over to Will’s, or Tom’s, or even Uncle Henry’s. -Things are bad enough as they are. Father’s getting that bad that even -me, <i>I</i> can’t put up with him; and mother’s life’s a trouble to -her:—and to other folks too,” she added involuntarily, with a quaint, -comic twist of her upper lip. But notwithstanding this strong sense in -her mind that her mother’s example was not one to follow, and that there -was in its pathos a faint touch of the ridiculous, she yet could not -succeed in divesting her own mind of uneasiness. As soon as there was -light enough to see by she got up, and roused the maids, who were -tolerably early risers, but yet were now and then subjected to the -ignominy of being called by Miss Joan. “You would sleep if it was the -day of judgment,” she cried, standing at the door of the room in which -two of them were hastily jumping up, rubbing their eyes. “Why didn’t you -get up and let me in last night?”</p> - -<p>“Get oop and let ye in?” the women cried aghast.</p> - -<p>“I pulled the door upon me when I thought I had left it on the jar,” -said Joan, with prompt and unblushing falsehood, “and then I knocked<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> -till I thought I should have brought down the house; but not a soul of -you stirred—till my poor mother, that is so delicate, got out of her -warm bed and opened to me. I would have died of cold but for the copper -you lighted last night; and here you are at five o’clock in the morning -snoring like all the seven sleepers, and a big washing in hand. Do you -mean me to do it myself?”</p> - -<p>“But Lord, Miss Joan, what were ye doin’ oot o’ t’ house at night?” said -the eldest of the maids.</p> - -<p>“That’s none of your business,” said Joan, “and unless you want to see -me at the washingtub you had better hurry. What you want with all that -sleep, and all that meat, is more than I can tell. I’ll do a better -day’s work than the best of you upon half of it. Get up to your washing, -ye lazy hussies.” Joan clapped the door with a little noise behind her, -so as to obliterate this word, which her grandmother would have used -with the greatest openness, but which the progress of civilisation has -made less possible even in the free-speaking north; but it relieved her -mind to say it, though she took pains that it should not be heard. As -for the two women, they laughed with little sound, but much -demonstration, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span> the door was closed; one of them throwing herself -upon a chair in convulsions of suppressed mirth. “Auld Joan, t’auld -toad, has gotten a lad at last,” they said. The idea that she had been -shut out in the cold in this very unusual courtship was such a joke to -them as no wit could have equalled. “T’auld Joan!” who was always so -much wiser than everybody else, and repressed “lads” with the strong -hand. But notwithstanding the excellency of the joke, they made haste to -their washing, as Joan was not a person to be trifled with, and soon the -scene of her disturbed slumber was full of noise, and bustle, and steam, -and all the commotion of a big washing, which always carries with it -some features of a Saturnalia. As the big pairs of red arms played in -and out of the steam and froth, a continued tempest of talk accompanied -the operations; but there were lulls now and then, especially when any -new-comer appeared, when the event of the night was communicated in loud -whispers, with peals of accompanying laughter. “T’auld Joan’s gotten a -lad at last.” “What’s the joke?” she said, on one occasion, coming in -abruptly; but this merely threw the company, which was in full enjoyment -of the witticism, into wilder convul<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span>sions of laughter. Perhaps Joan -guessed what it was. “You can have your fun for me, as long as you do -your work,” she said. She was not troubled by uneasy suggestions of -<i>amour-propre</i>. The maid who did the indoor work did not get off so -easily. She made a kind of confession. “I heard t’ master aboot. I -durstn’t get oop, and him there; and, Miss Joan, I dunno if you -ken—Master Harry’s been oot aw night. His bed’s just as t’was.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Harry’s gone over to his brother’s. He made up his mind only last -night,” said Joan, without a wince. When there are domestic strifes -going on, the women of the family, always the most anxious to keep -scandal silent, have to lie with a composure invincible. Joan was a -woman who was true as steel, and would not have told a falsehood on any -other occasion for a kingdom; but this kind of lie did not touch her -conscience at all. She did not think of it as a falsehood. She was -willing even to deliver over her own reputation to the discussion of her -servants sooner than let in the light upon the family quarrel. Whether -Betty believed her or not was a different matter; at all events here was -an explanation. All the little bustle of getting the work of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> -household set a-going, through which she swept like a whirlwind, amused -her mind for the moment, but did not lessen the anxiety, which came back -like a flood after this was accomplished, and her own individual part of -the morning’s work done. When she got through her dairy occupations the -uneasiness overflowed. She took old Simon the cowman into a corner. He -was a very old servant of the house and had seen all the children born, -and was interested in every one of them and their concerns, and all that -had happened to them—of which events he was a walking chronicle. “The -year Master Will wan t’ race up at be’castle.” “The year Master Tom -broke’s bones in t’ shindy election-time.” These were his dates. He was -an old bachelor, and it was believed that he had not another thought but -the house and what went on within it. Joan took him aside into a corner -of the wealthy but not very tidy yard, which was his domain. “I want you -to do a message for me, Simon, something I wouldn’t ask another man -about the place to do.”</p> - -<p>Simon gave her an acute, but slightly wondering, glance out of the old -blue eyes, which kept their youthful hue, though they had lost their -clearness, and which looked out of an old face, brightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> tinted with -fine hues of crimson and orange. The old man was, an æsthetic person -would have said, a glorious bit of colour. The orange and the crimson -were almost pure tints in his old weather-beaten countenance, and his -eyes, though they were old, were of a kind of china-blue. He had a -quantity of somewhat ragged, yet venerable white hair, and stooped a -little, but trudged along with his stick as quickly as any younger man -about, and was perfectly hale and vigorous. He had all his wits about -him, though he was old. He looked at Joan keenly, yet with a dubious -gleam in his eyes. He had heard already—who had not?—that Joan, Joan -herself, the judge of everybody, had been out at the door courtin’, and -had been shut out. His glance meant a question; was it possible that she -meant to employ him as her messenger to the lover who was so mysterious -and incredible a personage, and about whom already “aw t’ house” had -been exercised to know who he could possibly be?</p> - -<p>“I’ll do my best,” he said, taking off his hat with a rustic impulse to -scratch his head, a process which seems to have been considered good for -the brains since the world began.</p> - -<p>“I’m a little anxious about Harry,” said Joan,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span> “and so is -mother—mother far more than me; you know she will never take things -easy.”</p> - -<p>Simon nodded his head a great many times in energetic assent; no doubt -he knew—who better? had not he been sent off for the doctor a hundred -times when there was not much need of the doctor, and seen the Mistress -wringing her hands over what seemed to the household in general very -small occasion a hundred times more? To be sure she took nothing easy. -That was very well known.</p> - -<p>“Harry,” said Joan, “walked over last night, I think, to Will’s; but -it’s a long walk, and you know he’s used to towns now, not to country -ways.”</p> - -<p>To this Simon responded with his usual nod, but shook his head all the -same, by way of protest against bringing up a Joscelyn in a town.</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity? Well, it may be,” said Joan; “but it’s the fact, Simon. -Now I think most likely he stopped at the ‘Red Lion,’ not to wake us up -again or disturb my mother. She never sleeps but with one eye open, I -believe, and hears like a hare. You heard what happened to me last -night. The door blew to behind me when I was just out, looking what kind -of a night it was. Ne’er a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> one heard in the house but mother. That’s -just like her. Now Harry knows that, and he would think it would disturb -her if he came back.”</p> - -<p>Simon listened to all this with a perfectly stolid countenance; but he -knew as well that his young mistress was romancing, and inventing as she -went on—as well as the most fine critic could have done. He listened -with his eye upon her, with a word now and then to show that his -interest was fully kept up; but he saw through her, and Joan was partly -aware of his scepticism.</p> - -<p>“So we think—or I think,” said Joan, “that he may have stopped at the -‘Red Lion;’ and I want to know; but, Simon, I don’t want you to go like -a lion roaring and ask, has Mr. Harry Joscelyn slept a’ night here? I -want you to go warily and find out—find out, you understand?”</p> - -<p>“Withoot askin’? ay, ay, Miss Joan, I ken what ye mean,” Simon said, -with many nods of his white head.</p> - -<p>“Then bless us, man, go!” said Joan, whose anxiety had little -ebullitions from time to time, paroxysms which astounded her afterwards. -She put her hand on Simon’s arm and almost shook him in her passion; -then stopped and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> laughed at herself—“I have a deal of mother in me -after all,” she said. “There, go as fast as your old legs will carry -you, and bring me back word.”</p> - -<p>Simon liked to be taken into the confidence of his masters. He was of -the old fashion, not much unlike a slave or serf bound to the soil, not -perhaps a desirable kind of human being, but very useful to the masters -of him, and a much more picturesque figure than a modern servant. He -arraigned the family before his tribunal, and judged them much as Joan -did, knowing the weaknesses of each. He was of the kind of valet to whom -his master is never a hero; he saw them as do children, exactly as they -were, and knew all their fretfulness and pettiness as well as their -larger faults. But this did not interfere with his faithfulness and -devotion. He did not believe in them as perfect, nor in anything as -perfect. He was such a cynic as imperfect gods must always make. The -objects of his devotion were poor creatures enough, as he was well -aware, but this rather made him certain that all men were poor creatures -than that his “owners” were exceptionally petty. He gave them the first -place in his universe all the same, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> served them, and considered -their interest before his own. Perhaps, however, this is rash to say. He -had no special interests of his own; he was an old bachelor, without -relations to whom he had attached himself. He had attached himself to -“the family” instead of these ties, and though he did not contemplate -the family in any ideal light, yet it had all the soul he possessed, and -its interests were his first object. He nodded his head a great many -times after Joan left him, as he prepared to go to the village. “I -understand,” he said to himself. But it was very doubtful whether he did -understand; he did not connect Joan’s supposed escapade with this -curious mission; notwithstanding, as he was wily by nature, he set off -with all the intention of accomplishing what he had to do with wile. He -took a basket on his arm in which he packed the butter which was sold in -the village. Joan making the discovery to her dismay, yet not without a -smile, of more and more of her mother in her, could scarcely endure all -his preparations, and had nearly rushed out of her dairy and pushed him -out with her own hands; but she recollected in time that it was useless -to interfere with Simon, who never did anything except in his own way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span></p> - -<p>All this was long before the hour at which ordinary mortals have their -breakfast, before even Mrs. Joscelyn, trembling and pale, had ventured -to get up. The morning had been a long one for the poor lady; she had -not slept any more than her daughter; she had lain still, not daring to -move after all the house was astir, feeling as if she were fixed to her -uneasy bed by a stake. She writhed upon it faintly, but could not pull -it up, and lay still with her ears open to every sound till her husband, -usually early enough, but whose disturbed night had made him late this -morning of all mornings, got up and took himself away. Then it was for -the first time that poor Mrs. Joscelyn really felt a little of the -warmth of that sympathy for which she had longed all her life. Joscelyn -had scarcely stamped off with his big tread downstairs, when an equally -firm, if not so loud, step came up, and after a moment Joan appeared at -her mother’s bedside with a cup of tea in her hand.</p> - -<p>“Here is something to comfort you a bit, mother,” she said. Mrs. -Joscelyn like most nervous women believed that there was a kind of -salvation in tea.</p> - -<p>“Oh! have you any news of my Harry, Joan?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> that will comfort me more -than anything else,” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Now, mother,” said Joan, “why will you make a fuss? Could I send over -to the ‘Red Lion’ first thing in the morning to ask, is Harry lodging in -your house? as if we were frightened of him. We’ve no reason to be -frightened of him that I know. Am I to go and give him a bad character -because father’s behaved bad, and Harry’s taken offence. We mustn’t be -unreasonable. You wouldn’t like to raise an ill name on the poor boy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no—anything but that,” Mrs. Joscelyn said. She was silenced by -this plea; but her heart was still torn with anxiety. She looked -wistfully in her daughter’s face with her lips trembling. “Do you think -there is nothing that can be done without exposing him, Joan?”</p> - -<p>“Well, mother, I’ll see. We don’t want to expose anybody. I’ve told a -heap of fibs myself,” said Joan, with a broad smile, “and all the women -think they’ve caught me. I know what they’re thinking, they’re wondering -who I had to chatter with at the door. They’ll maybe on the whole,” she -added, laughing, “think all the better of me if they think I am -courtin’—so I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> will let them think what they like, and we must expose -nobody. Father’s a trial, but as long as we can we must just keep him to -ourselves.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, wringing her thin hands, “you can laugh, -but I feel a great deal more like crying. I can think upon nothing but -my poor boy.”</p> - -<p>“Well, mother,” said Joan, “crying is not my line. I’ll not pretend to -more; but it’s just as well there is one of us that can laugh, or what -would become of us both I don’t know. Take your tea; it will be quite -cold; and lie still and get a rest. The very first news I have I will -bring you, and you’re far better out of the way if you’ll take my -advice.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I was out of the way altogether. I wish I were in my grave. When -I was young I could bear it, but now my heart’s failed me. Oh, I just -wish that once for all I was out of the way!”</p> - -<p>“You make too much fuss, mother,” said Joan. “I am always telling you. -If you could take things easy it would be far better. Out of the way! -and what would Liddy do, poor little pet, when she comes home?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Liddy!” The mother breathed out this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> name with a softened -expression; here was still a last hope that had not been torn from her. -Joan for her part went out of the room briskly, but stood and gazed out -of the window on the landing, which looked towards the village, holding -her hands very tightly clasped, and looking for the return of the -messenger whom she would not acknowledge to have sent. “Ah, Liddy,” she -said to herself, “she’ll be just such another as mother herself, and -what will I do between them? but I wish old Simon would come back with -some news of that boy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> -<small>INQUIRIES.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>IMON went down to the village, stooping over his stick and laden with -his big basket with a crab-like progression, which, nevertheless, was by -no means slow. There were few people to be met on the road, children -going to school for the most part, with whom he was no favourite, and -who called out little taunts after him when they were far enough off to -be safe from pursuit. He was not an amiable old man, but unless an -urchin came in his way he did not attempt to take any vengeance. “Little -scum o’ t’ earth,” he would say, shaking his fist, but that amused and -stimulated instead of alarming the youngsters. The village was mildly -astir, wrapped in a haze of morning sunshine; the better houses opening -up by degrees; the cottages all open to the sweet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> yet chill air of the -spring morning. At the “Red Lion” all was already in activity, doors and -windows open to carry off the heavy fumes of beer and tobacco left by -last night’s customers. Simon went in and rested his big basket on the -bar table. The ostler in the yard was making a great noise with his -pails, the women were brushing and scrubbing upstairs, and talking to -each other in harsh unmodulated rustic voices, and the mistress was busy -in her bar arranging and dusting the array of bottles which was its -chief decoration. “Is that you, Simon?” she said, and “It’s just me,” -was the old man’s answer; no ceremonial greeting was necessary. “I’ve -brought you th’ butter,” Simon said. “When it’s a fine colour and extra -good, I like to get the credit of ’t mysel’.”</p> - -<p>“You the credit,” said Mrs. Armstrong; “you’ll tell me next you’ve -kirned it and washed it and printed it yoursel’.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve milk’t it,” said Simon. “There’s a great art in milking. If you do -it in wan way the cream’s spoilt; but if ye do ’t in my way you see -what’s the consequence. Just look at my butter—it’s like lumps of -gowd.”</p> - -<p>“A wee too yallow for my fancy,” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> buyer. “That’s beet, and it -gies a taste. I’m no saying it’s your fault. There’s nae pasture on the -fells to keep the baists without feeding.”</p> - -<p>“<i>My</i> baists,” said Simon, “want for naething; there’s no such sweet -pasture on a’ the fells as ower by the Reedbush yonder; it’s that juicy -and tasty. I think whiles it would be a good thing for me if I could eat -it mysel’.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Simon, you’re humble-minded,” said the mistress. “What will you -have? If ye eat cow’s meat ye will want something to warm your stamack -after ’t. Is it true they tell me that Miss Joan’s gotten a lad at long -and last?”</p> - -<p>“Miss Joan,” said the old retainer; “and wha might it be that evened -Miss Joan to lads or any nonsense o’ t’ sort?”</p> - -<p>“Eh, what’s the matter with her that she’s so different from other folk? -A lad’s natural to a lass; and though she ca’s herself a lady she’s just -a lass like the rest. Lady here and lady there; she’s just a stout lass -like any farmer’s daughter aboot. I’m no speaking a word again the -family.”</p> - -<p>“As well no,” said Simon, darkly.</p> - -<p>“Far better no; there’s Master Harry is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> good customer—no that he -takes much when he’s here; but he’s for ever aboot the house.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, so?” said old Simon; “I thought he wasna the fine lad he used to -be. So he’s for ever aboot this house?”</p> - -<p>“Ye’re an auld ill-tongued—why shouldn’t he be aboot this house? Is -there any harm in this house? The curate himself, when he has a friend -with him, he’ll come to me for his dinner. The ‘Red Lion’s’ as good a -house as is atween this and Carlisle. Show you me another that is mair -exact in a’ the regulations, and gies less trouble. There no been so -much as a fine paid in the ‘Red Lion,’ no since my fayther’s time that -had it afore us. We’re kent through aw the countryside.”</p> - -<p>“I’m saying nae harm o’ t’ ‘Red Lion.’ Ye snap a man oop that short; but -a gentleman he’s best at home. I say to your face, mistress, as I -wouldn’t say worst behind your back. And if he’s hanging aboot a tap day -and night—”</p> - -<p>“Never but the night,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” promptly. -“I’ve never seen him in the day but passing the road; and a civil lad he -is, no a bit proud, no like your oopish ways. And about the tap it’s an -untruth, Simon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span> just an untruth. He’ll take his glass; but it’s not for -drink he comes, it’s for company. Tak’ you your butter to t’other side -o’ t’hoose. I’ll not have you down here.”</p> - -<p>“Na, Mistress, there’s was nae harm meant. You ken what’s thought in a -country place when a lad is seen aboot a public. And lads will be lads. -I reckon they keepit it oop late last nicht—keeping decent folk out of -their beds.”</p> - -<p>“No a moment after the fixed time,” said Mrs. Armstrong, promptly. “No a -moment! I’m till a moment myself, and my master he’s as exact as me. Na, -na, oor character is mair to us than a bottle or twa extra. Out o’ this -house they all go at eleven clock of night——”</p> - -<p>“But, mistress, ye’ve beds for man and baist,” said Simon, stolidly. -“You will not turn oot upon the street them that bides here?”</p> - -<p>“Hoot,” said the woman, with more good humour “what has that to do with -Mr. Harry? He never bides here; and we’ve few enough lodgers. Who would -come to the fells for pleasure at this time of the year? Noo and again -we’ve got a gentleman fishing. I wonder ye don’t mak’ a bit o’ money oot -o’ birds t’autumn, Simon. They say it’s no that plenty at the White -House.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“They say a deal o’ things that they ken naething aboot—like that for -wan, that they keepit it oop here yestreen till a’ the hours o’ t’ -night.”</p> - -<p>“And I tell ye it’s an untruth, Simon, whoever says it—it’s just a lee, -that’s what it is. I shut the door upon them with my ain hand. No a -living soul but them belonging to t’house at half after eleven. Ye may -tell that to whoever tellt you; and if I kent who they were I would hav’ -them oop afore the coart for slander. I would tak’ justice o’ them. -Lies! that’s what it is. Mr. Harry stood talking afore the door with -young Selby maybe talking nonsense; but was that any fault o’ mine? -Every lad o’ them a’ was oot o’ this house and home to their beds by the -hoor named in the regulations. Tak’ away your butter; I think we’re -wanting none the day.”</p> - -<p>“Na, na, mistress, there’s nought to be vexed aboot,” said old Simon. -“You’ve got your clash aboot the White House, and I’ve got my clash o’ -the ‘Red Lion.’ There’s non’ o’ them true; but we can give and take like -friends—the best o’ friends must give and take.”</p> - -<p>“Ask you that crooked body, Isaac Oliver; he was wan, and a bonnie time -he would have with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span> misses, or I’m mistaken. He was wan; for I saw -him waiting to speak to Mr. Harry when I shut the door. He was talking -with young Selby, as I tell ye, in the street, till I wished them i’ th’ -moon, disturbing honest folk’s rest. He might have gone home and kept it -oop with young Selby. I canna tell. If there’s any wan as blames me it’s -an untruth, Simon; and as for clashin’ it’s a thing I never do. Miss -Joan may have twenty lads for what I care, and high time—if she’s no to -be an old maid aw her days, which is what the haill town thought.”</p> - -<p>“I wish her nae worse,” said Simon. “I’m wan mysel’—better that than -fightin’ and scratchin’, or to be frightent for what the misses will -say—the missises in your way o’ business must be terribly bad for -trade.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t blame them,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” with a -momentary preference of her own side in morals to her own side in trade. -But this, it may be readily guessed, was a toleration which could not -last. She was beginning to discuss the missis of Isaac Oliver, when -Simon took up his basket and adopted her former counsel of taking it to -the other side of the house. He had heard all he wanted; but he made his -circuit<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> through the village, and left his butter here and there, with a -snatch of gossip wherever he went, and no particular regard to the -anxiety of his mistress. Anxiety is not much understood in the fells. -Why there should be a hurry for news: why you should make an expedition -expressly to learn one thing or another when there is something else to -do, which you could do at the same time, was not comprehensible to old -Simon. They would know “soon enough,” he thought. What was wrong with -the womenfolk that they should for ever be wanting news? they would hear -soon enough. It was true that he began to have a notion that Mr. Harry’s -escapade, whatever it was, meant more than a visit to his brother; but -what could it matter whether they knew about the “Red Lion” at ten -o’clock or twelve? He went tranquilly about his business and delivered -his butter, and heard everywhere about Miss Joan’s “lad.” Most of the -customers thought with the mistress of the “Red Lion,” that it was “high -time;” but some of them were of opinion that she would be a terrible -loss. “What will ye do without her? The missis isn’t of the stirring -sort, she’ll never keep the house agate,” they said. Simon did not much -believe in his mistress himself, as has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> already said; but being a -Joscelyn, although only by marriage, he felt she was at least better -than anyone else. “You have to know the missis,” he said, “before you -can speak. She mayn’t be a stirring one; but t’ house is one of t’ -houses as goes by itself.” When he had heard their comments, and added -his share to them, Simon went leisurely home. He made no particular -haste, even though his basket was lightened of its load. He had -accomplished his mission very carefully; but that anyone should be -especially eager about the result of it was a thing that his brain could -not conceive.</p> - -<p>In the meanwhile the time was passing very heavily at the White House. -Mrs. Joscelyn had got up, after enduring the torture of lying still as -long as she was capable of it, and was seated in the uneasy seat in the -parlour window, gazing out, though with her work by her, with which to -veil her watch should anyone come in. Joscelyn had said nothing about it -last night. He had been almost conciliatory at breakfast to Joan, who -thought, on the whole, that it was better to let well alone, and make no -allusion to what had passed. “I will speak my mind to him sooner<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> or -later,” she said to herself; “but it comes easier when you are angry and -don’t mind what you say.” Thus she did from calculation what so many -people do against all calculation, resolving to take advantage of the -next storm to deliver her soul. She and her father got on tolerably well -when the mother was out of the way. Joscelyn spoke to his daughter about -his farm affairs, about the prospects of his stables, and the horses -upon which he set his hopes. He was a considerable horse-dealer, and she -knew as much about them as any woman was capable of knowing. She was -quite willing to discuss the points of the last new filly, and quite -able to do so, and an intelligent critic, which her mother had never -been. “If she knows a horse from a cow it’s all she does,” he said of -his wife; and perhaps she had been sometimes a little impatient of these -constant discussions; but Joan had an opinion and gave it freely. Joan -ate a good breakfast, notwithstanding that half her mind was with Harry, -and that she kept her eye upon the window, that she might not miss old -Simon coming back—and she talked with perfect good-humour -notwithstanding all that had happened. She did not care, now that it was -over, about her locking-out; indeed she was of opinion that it was -better not to give her father the grati<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span>fication of supposing that he -had produced any effect upon her. But when Mrs. Joscelyn came -downstairs, appealing to her with her pale face Joan’s difficulties were -much increased. She could not be hard upon her mother at such a moment; -indeed she was never hard upon her mother. She entreated her not to make -a fuss; not to take on; brought her a footstool; put out her work for -her, and so went off to her own occupations again. “But bless my heart, -I would be crazy before dinner-time if I were to sit with mother, and go -over it and over it, and see her wringing her poor hands—poor dear!”</p> - -<p>The last words were added after a pause, with involuntary tenderness. -Joan was anxious, too, about her brother, so that a slight gleam of -understanding had aroused her mind. Poor dear! to take on like that for -every trifle, to take nothing easy, was a state of mind which irritated -Joan; but this time it was not so wonderful. This time she was anxious -herself, and there was a cause for it. Long before Simon came back she -had rejected her own suggestion, that Harry must have gone to the “Red -Lion.” And if not there, where had he gone? where had he spent the -night? She kept her eyes upon the window or the door all the morning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> -darting forth whenever she saw any stranger approach, prepared to find a -message from some cottage or outlying hamlet to bring her news of Harry. -He would have the sense to send, she thought; surely he would have the -sense to send word. He would know the state in which his mother would -be. But the long hours of the morning went on till noon, and nobody -came. They had never seemed to Joan so long before. She had never known -what it was before to do her work with a divided interest, and on a -strain of expectation. When she saw old Simon coming along the road with -his empty basket on his arm and his hat in one hand, while with the -other, and a spotted blue handkerchief, he wiped his furrowed forehead, -a wild sense of impatience came over her. She marched out upon him, the -big wooden spoon, with which she had been taking the cream off the milk, -still in her hand. He thought she was going to attack him with this -inappropriate but yet dangerous weapon. “Well?” she said, with a sort of -gasp; “<i>well?</i>” Her fervour bewildered him, for she had been quite calm -when she gave him the commission, and he stared at her with a mixture of -surprise and alarm.</p> - -<p>“Oh ay, Miss Joan, a’ well,” said old Simon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span>. He had almost forgotten -the occasion of his early visit to the “Red Lion;” or was it that desire -to exasperate that sometimes seizes upon an old servant? It was all she -could do not to seize him by the shoulders and shake his news out of -him. She cried out in spite of herself, stamping her foot upon the hard -road.</p> - -<p>“What answer have ye brought? You have been out four hours, if you’ve -been a minute. I am waiting my answer,” she cried, in a strange, -half-stifled voice.</p> - -<p>“What answer?” said Simon, innocently; and then a gleam of intelligence -came over his face. “I was a fool to forget. There’s been nobody lodging -at the ‘Red Lion,’ Miss Joan, if that’s what you mean. The woman said -nobody. He left last night at eleven o’clock; that’s all she could tell -me. He’ll have gotten to Mr. Will’s many a long hour ago. It was a fine -night, and he’s a fine walker. There was nothing to be ooneasy aboot, -Miss Joan.”</p> - -<p>Joan gave his arm a shake unconsciously, in spite of herself, then -dropped it. “Who said I was uneasy? but you might have come back hours -ago, Simon, when I told you I wanted to hear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Did you tell me you wanted to hear? I had the butter on my mind,” said -Simon, calmly. And then, of all people in the world, Joscelyn himself -came suddenly in sight, round the corner of the house.</p> - -<p>“What’s wrong?” he said. “Has Simon been doing errands down in the -village, Joan, or what are you wanting with him out here?”</p> - -<p>Joan’s heart swelled with a momentary impulse of wrath. It was doubtful -for the moment whether she would seize the occasion and let him have her -mind, as she had to do sooner or later; but Simon went on with his slow -sing-song almost without a pause. “It’s the butter, master. I’ve been -down the town with the butter. Maybe you’ll speak to Miss Joan no to be -so particular; as if I was wan that would cheat the family. I’ve aye -been exact in my accounts.”</p> - -<p>This was a shot that went both ways, for Simon did not like Joan’s -talent for accounts. He preferred to go by rule of thumb, and count out -to her, so much from the “Red Lion,” so much from Dr. Selby’s, a -shilling here and a shilling there, paying down each coin as he gave the -list; whereas Joan liked it all in black and white. When he had said -this he hobbled on quietly to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> the back door, leaving the father and -daughter together. Joscelyn looked at her with a momentary keen -scrutiny. “You’re sending that old fellow upon your errands: and I would -like to know what they are,” he said.</p> - -<p>“If I’m not to send what errands I please, it’ll be better for me to go -away as well,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by <i>as well</i>? I’ll have no go-betweens, and no -mysteries here,” he said.</p> - -<p>But Joan was not in a mood to seize the opportunity and speak out, as -she had intended, on the first chance. She was exasperated, not simply -angry. She gave him an indignant look, and turned round without a word. -Now Joscelyn was himself uneasy at what he had done. He was not quite -without human feeling, and he had reflected much since upon what might -have happened. He did not know what had happened; he had not mentioned -the circumstance of the previous night; but his mind had not been free. -He wanted information, though he would not ask for it. When his wife had -let Joan in, in the middle of the night, he had supposed that Harry, -too, must have crept to bed like her, allowing himself to be vanquished. -That he had not appeared at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> breakfast was nothing extraordinary; but -even Joscelyn himself was eager to know what had happened now.</p> - -<p>“Hey, Joan,” he cried; “hey, come back, I want to speak to you. What -have you done with that young fool?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not acquainted with any young fools,” she said, almost sharply, -and, in her irritation, did not turn round, or even pause, but went -straight forward into the house. Her father stood for a few moments -switching his boots with the whip in his hand. He was uneasy in spite of -himself. He did not intend any special brutality. He meant no harm to -his son, only a severe lesson that should bring Harry “to heel,” like -one of his pointers. Above all he did not mean any scandal, any storm of -rural gossip. He was alarmed by the idea of all that might be said if it -were known that Harry had been shut out of his father’s house, for no -particular harm, only because he was late of returning home. -Accordingly, after a few moments’ indecision, he followed Joan into the -house and into the parlour, where he found her, as he felt certain he -should, with her mother. The women were clinging together, comforting -each other, when he pushed the door open; and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> were greatly -startled by his appearance. Joan came away from her mother’s side -hastily. She did not wish it to be seen that there was moisture in her -eyes, or that she had actually—she, the matter-of-fact Joan—been -consoling the poor feeble woman whose tendency to make a fuss had always -stood between them. “Well,” she said hastily, “what is it, father?” -coming in front of Mrs. Joscelyn, and standing with her back to her -mother, shielding her from all critical eyes.</p> - -<p>Joscelyn threw himself into his chair by the fire, and turned it round -towards them. He had caught them, he thought. “What are you two -colleaguing about? There’s some mischief up, or two women would never be -laying their heads together. Commonly you’re never such friends.”</p> - -<p>“If we’re not friends it’s the more shame to us,” said Joan.</p> - -<p>“That’s your look out; it isn’t mine. <i>I</i> don’t want you to be friends. -You’re a deal better the other way. I’ll not have two of you in corners -all about the place taking my character away. <i>I</i> know what that means. -As soon as you’ve got some one to talk about, and compare notes, and -conspire against——”</p> - -<p>“Father, you had better keep a civil tongue in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> your head,” said Joan. -“You say what you like to mother, and she cries; but I’m not one to cry. -I am as good as you are, and very nearly as old. I’ll take insolence -from no man. It’s just as well you should hear it now; I’ve promised -myself you should hear it the first time I was in a passion. Hold your -tongue, mother. Obedience is all very well; but a woman of thirty is not -like a lass of thirteen, and there are some things that I will not put -up with. How dare you, if you are my father, speak like that to me? I am -no slave to whisper and to conspire, whoever may be. What do you do for -me that you should take all that upon you? I’m a servant without wages. -I work as hard as any man about the place, and I neither get credit nor -pay; and you think I’ll take all your insults to the boot as if I were a -frightened little lass; but you’re mistaken. It isn’t for nothing you -lock the door upon your family; and if you don’t keep a civil tongue in -your head——”</p> - -<p>“Joan, Joan!” came with a feeble cry from behind. Mrs. Joscelyn had -risen up with her usual gesture, wringing her hands.</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue, mother. I’m something more than your daughter or -father’s daughter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> I’m myself, Joan Joscelyn, a woman worth a good -day’s wage and a good character wherever I go. And to stay in this hole, -and be spoken to like a dog, that’s what I’ll not put up with. If he -likes to behave himself I will behave myself; but put up with his -insolence I will not. Sit down and do your mending, poor dear; it’s him -I’m talking to. Now look you here, father; if ever it is to happen to me -again that I’m to be watched what I do, or have a door locked upon me, -or be spoken to in <i>that</i> tone——”</p> - -<p>Joscelyn was greatly astonished and taken aback. He was not prepared for -downright rebellion; but he was glad of this side-way to make an escape -for himself.</p> - -<p>“In <i>what</i> tone?” he said. “What kind of way do you want to be spoken -to, hey? Am I to call you Miss Joscelyn? you’re a pretty Miss Joscelyn! -and beck and bow before you? This is a new kind of thing, Miss. You’re -something very grand, I don’t make any doubt, but we never knew it till -now. Tell us how you like to be spoken to, my lady, and we’ll do it. -There have been titles in the family; perhaps it’s Countess Joan you -would like, hey?”</p> - -<p>Joan tossed her head with indignant contempt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I knew well enough,” she said, “that for any reason or sense it was not -worth the while to speak; but there was no help for it. You just know -now what I think, father; and after all that’s come and gone this last -night, it will be more your part to leave mother and me to ourselves to -get over it, than to come and try to torment us more. This is the -women’s room in the house; you’d far better leave it quiet to her and to -me.”</p> - -<p>Here Joscelyn burst in with a big oath, dashing his fist against the -table.</p> - -<p>“The women’s room!” he cried, “and what right have the women, dash them, -to any room but where I choose to let them be? Lord! if I keep my hands -off ye you may be glad. Women! the plague of a man’s life. When I think -what I might have been at this moment if I had kept free of that -whimpering, grumbling, sickly creature! I should have been a young man -now—I might have been a match for any lady in the county. And now, -madam, you’re setting up your children to face me. My mother’s money -last night—and who gave you a right to a penny! and the women’s room, -confound you all! as if you had a right to one inch in my house. By<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> the -Lord Harry! I’m more inclined to pack you out, neck and crop, than I -ever was to eat my dinner. Clear the place of you, that’s what I’d like -to do.”</p> - -<p>“Do, father,” said Joan, “it will be the best day’s work you ever did. I -have a right to my parlour to sit at peace when my work’s done, or I -have a right to be turned out. Come, do it! You tried last night, but -I’d rather go in the day. Put me to the door; it will make me a deal -easier in my mind if you take it upon yourself.”</p> - -<p>He cursed her with foam on his lips, but not in a melodramatic way, and -Joan cared as little for the curse as for any exclamation.</p> - -<p>“You are enough to make a man take his hands to you,” he said.</p> - -<p>Joan grew suddenly red to the very roots of her hair. She drew a step -nearer to him with her eyes flaming.</p> - -<p>“That would maybe be the best,” she said. She was a strong woman, and -fearless, and for the moment the two stood facing each other, as if they -were measuring their respective strength. Then Joscelyn burst into a -rude laugh.</p> - -<p>“It is a good thing for some poor fellow that you’re the toad you are,” -he said, “not a woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> Now, your mother was well enough; but you’re -just a toad, that’s what you are, and make men fly from ye; and well for -them, as I say.”</p> - -<p>“If mother’s lot, poor body! comes by beauty, I’m glad I’m ugly,” said -Joan. “And if that’s all you’ve got to say we’ve heard it before, and -you had far better go to your beasts. But just you mind, father, this is -my last word; after all that’s come and gone, keep a civil tongue in -your head.”</p> - -<p>“What is it that’s come and gone?” he asked. “Where’s that boy you’re -hiding up and making a mystery of? where’s Harry? What is the meaning of -all this coming and going errands, and old Simon, and all the rest of -it? Where is Harry? By Jove! I’ll have it all cleared up at once!” he -said, once more dashing his fist against the table.</p> - -<p>There was a momentary pause, and the sensation of having their tyrant at -their mercy came over the two women. It affected them in altogether -different ways. Mrs. Joscelyn, who never braved anything, saw in it a -means of mending all quarrels in a common anxiety. She made a timid step -towards her husband, and put out her hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, Ralph!” she cried, “our boy’s gone away!” She was ready, in her -sympathy for him, in her sense of the shock the information must give -him, to throw herself upon his neck that they might mingle their tears -as if they had been the most devoted pair.</p> - -<p>But Joan held her back. Joan looked at her father with keen eyes, in -which there was some gleam of triumph.</p> - -<p>“Lads have not the patience that women have,” she said. “When they’re -insulted, if they cannot fight they turn their backs; that’s what Harry -has done. He’ll never darken your doors again, be sure of that; nor -would I if I had been like him, except for mother, poor dear!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Joan, don’t say that! he’s gone I know—but that he’ll never darken -our doors again—if I thought that it would break my heart.”</p> - -<p>“Mother, hold your tongue; my saying it will make little difference. He -will never darken these doors again. You and me may see him many a day, -in his own house, or with the other boys: but these doors,” said Joan, -“he’ll never darken again. It’s borne in upon my mind that it will be -long, long, before Harry Joscelyn is so much as heard of here.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that! don’t say that!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, falling back, -trembling and weeping, upon her chair. She was so pale and faint that -Joan’s heart was moved; she went to her mother’s side to comfort her, as -she never would have dreamt of doing in any other trouble that had ever -befallen the too sensitive woman.</p> - -<p>Joscelyn stood and stared at them for a moment in unusual silence. The -sight of Joan, always so calmly observant, more cynical than -sympathetic, giving herself up to the task of consoling this weak -mother, so unlike herself, struck him dumb. Joan! he could not -understand it. And that Harry should have gone away had more effect upon -him than he would have considered possible. He stood for a moment -staring, and then he went out of the room without saying a word.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE WOMEN’S PART.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is no doubt that the interval which ensued after this was a time -of extraordinary peace and quietness at the White House. Whether it was -the heart which had faintly stirred in Ralph Joscelyn’s bosom, or -whether he was alarmed by what he had done, it is certain that he was -wonderfully subdued and silenced. When, after a long career of violence -and family domineering, and threats of all kinds, one of those who have -hitherto only scolded back and kept up a war of words, is suddenly stung -into action, and does something desperate instead of uttering the mere -froth of passion, it is not unusual to see the domestic tyrant come to a -sudden stand-still, more bewildered than anyone by the result.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span> Times -without number he had threatened to turn every son he had out of the -house: but the young man who turned himself out of the house gave him -such a shock as he had never got before in his life. He was very -susceptible to outside criticism, for one thing, and all the county -would soon find out what had happened. He would be asked on the other -side of the Fells if he had any news of his son. The news would soon -travel over all his haunts as far as Carlisle. People would tell each -other how Harry Joscelyn had disappeared; that he had not been able to -stand things any longer; that there had been a dreadful quarrel, and his -father had turned him to the door, and he had gone away. It was a long -time, however, before the real state of affairs was known, even in the -White House. A few terrible days passed, terrible for his mother and -sister, and in a way for Joscelyn also, who was moody and silent, going -about the house more quietly than his wont, and not able to get over the -shock of his surprise. Joan secretly despatched messengers to the houses -of her brothers, neither of whom had seen Harry, and it was not till the -third day that Isaac Oliver came shuffling to the door, desiring to -speak with the mistress or Miss Joan. Joan<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span> found a little whispering -knot at the door as she passed through the passages from the dairy.</p> - -<p>“Who is that?” she said.</p> - -<p>“It’s me, Miss Joan, Isaac Oliver, your uncle’s man,” said a well-known -voice; and instantly there flashed upon Joan all he had come to say. -Uncle Henry’s, to be sure! Had she ever thought otherwise? Of course it -was the most natural place for Harry to go.</p> - -<p>“Come in this way,” she said, hastily. Joscelyn was out, and there was -little chance of visitors at the White House to interrupt such a -conference. She led him in with a beating heart, dismissing with a word -the gossiping women about the door. “I hope you’re bringing us no bad -news, Isaac; my uncle’s an old man,” said Joan, breathless. She so -little knew what she was saying, in the light that seemed to flood upon -her, that she did not even feel it to be insincere.</p> - -<p>“It’s not about t’auld maister, he’s fine and weel,” said Isaac, -following her along the passage with his shuffle, talking as he went; -“you would not give him more than sixty to look at him, out here and -there to his dinner, and driving about the country like ony young man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“He’s very lively for his age,” Joan said.</p> - -<p>“Ay, or for any age,” said Isaac, and by this time they had reached the -parlour-door.</p> - -<p>The moment they had entered that sanctuary Joan turned upon this -messenger of fate and pushed him into a chair. She took no notice of -Mrs. Joscelyn, who sat as usual in the distance, pretending to work, but -on the watch for every wayfarer, sweeping the line of road and the grey -fields and dim horizon with her anxious eyes.</p> - -<p>“Now tell us what you have to tell us,” she cried.</p> - -<p>“It’s just—I’ve been at Wyburgh, Miss Joan, to see t’auld maister. He’s -fine and weel, as I said; and Mrs. Eadie, she’s fine and weel, and as -pleased as they could be, baith the wan and the other——”</p> - -<p>“Isaac, if you have nothing to tell us but about Uncle Henry and Mrs. -Eadie say so at once.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn rose from her chair. She left her eternal mending on her -seat, and came forward holding her hands together as was her wont.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Joan?” she said, with an appeal to her daughter’s -understanding; she had begun not to trust to her own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span></p> - -<p>“That’s just what I’m waiting to hear. It’s about Harry; he’s been at -Wyburgh, of course, on his way to ——. To be sure, mother, you know -that.”</p> - -<p>“They were terrible glad to see him,” said Isaac. “I said you would be -sure to ken, but Mrs. Eadie she thought no, so she would engage me to -come. Go over as soon as you get back, Isaac, she said to me, the -mistress and Miss Joan will be real glad to hear.”</p> - -<p>“So we are, Isaac. Say away like a man, anything you can tell us we’ll -be glad to hear; he’s not a good letter-writer, my brother Harry; we -like to hear all we can. He got there safe and well?”</p> - -<p>“I gave him a dael of advice the night before,” said Isaac, “young lads -is aye wanting something—again’ asking a penny from t’auld maister. Mr. -Harry makes a fool o’ me, leddies; he’s just one o’ the lads I canno’ -resist. There’s naething I would not do for him. I flew in the face o’ -my missis, and even o’ my ain convictions, which are mair than ony -woman’s, to follow him to the ‘Red Lion’ the night afore. No, it’s not a -place that I frequent, far from that, no man can be more strong again’ -it, let alone the missis; but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> risked a dael of disgrace to gang after -him there, to say to him—Ye’ll no’ think the worse of me, nor the -mistress will no’ think the worse of me, that I spoke my mind.”</p> - -<p>“And is he with Uncle Henry now, or has he—gone on?”</p> - -<p>“To say to him, ‘Hev patience,’ that was all I said, ‘Hev patience, and -ye’ll get every penny.’ I hev a conviction he’ll get every penny. It’s a -nice little bit of money, and the land’s no’ such ill land about -Burnswark if he were to build a new house. The auld wan we’re in is gude -for naething, but Burnswark would be no’ bad for a sma’ property if he -were to build a new house; and he’s naething to do but to hev -patience—and never to bother t’auld maister in his lifetime, that was -what I said.”</p> - -<p>“You were always a sensible person, Isaac; my uncle’s much obliged to -you for taking such care of him. But I hope my brother Harry did not -want it. Is he still at Wyburgh, or has he—gone on? Tell us, for you -see my mother’s anxious. We have got no letter.”</p> - -<p>“To my great satisfaction,” said Isaac, “he must have taken my advice, -for he went on to Liverpool the same night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Joan nodded her head a great many times; her face was wreathed in -smiles. She took her mother’s feeble hands—straining themselves -together as usual—into hers, and beamed upon the messenger.</p> - -<p>“That is just what I thought! just what I thought!” she said; “far the -best thing he could do, and shows his sense, mother. I could have told -you from the first! Just see, now, how you torment yourself for nothing -at all. I’ll get his things packed and send them off this very night.”</p> - -<p>Isaac went on droning steadily.</p> - -<p>“I’m saying nothing again’ Mr. Harry, nor yet reflecting upon ony person -at home. Lads are aye wanting, and they’ll ask an auld uncle or aunt, or -that, sooner than they’ll ask faither or mither. I’ve seen the like o’ -that often, but what I said to Mr. Harry was, ‘Hev patience, that’s aw -about it: just hev patience and ye’ll get everything you want.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Joan; “you must have a -glass of wine. Would you like port wine or sherry, Isaac? you shall have -a glass of the best, and you can come up to the dairy next time you’re -going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> Wyburgh and take Mrs. Eadie a bit of our sweet butter. Yes, -yes, I know you make it yourself, but you must not say it’s as good as -mine. Eadie shall have a pat all for herself—I am sure she was kind to -Harry—and perhaps some new-laid eggs, they’re a treat in a town.”</p> - -<p>“I take them in aw we hev at Burnswark. Ye need not trouble, Miss Joan,” -said Isaac, “wance a week I take in the best of everything, eggs and -cream.”</p> - -<p>“Or a little honey,” said Joan; “our honey off the Fells is beautiful. -It’s that Uncle Henry is so fond of. You shall take them a honey-comb, -Isaac; and tell your wife to come up to the house and see me. There’s -some things would make up for the children. She’s a good housewife, that -wife of yours, and keeps the children always nice. You should be proud -of her. She would be a credit to any man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ay,” said Isaac, sheepishly scratching his head, “there’s a many -worse, there’s a many worse. I’m making no complaint; but the worst of a -wife is that she will never let her man judge for himsel’.”</p> - -<p>“And a great deal better for you, if your judgment was to take you to -the ‘Red Lion,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span> Joan. She was gradually edging him out, -suppressing Isaac’s inclination to say a great deal more. “Good day,” -she cried, “good day,” conducting him to the door. “I am very much -obliged to you; and next time you go to Wyburgh you’ll be sure to take -the White House on your way.”</p> - -<p>When she had closed the door Joan turned round quickly upon her mother. -Mrs. Joscelyn was lying back in her chair, with those expressive hands -of hers lying loosely in her lap. The relief in her mind had relaxed all -the nervous tightening of her muscles. She had sunk back with that -softening sense of relief which makes freedom from pain no negative but -an active blessedness. The pressure upon her brain, and her heart, and -her very breath, seemed withdrawn. Sitting so quietly by the window, an -image of domestic tranquillity, she had been a mere collection of -beating pulses, of hot throbs and concussions; but now all these -agitations were stilled; her heart dropped into quietness, like a bird -into its nest, her blood ran softly in her veins. She smiled faintly at -Joan when she went up to her, and said in a scarcely audible voice, -“Thank God!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” said Joan, “but how often have I told you, mother, that -things would come all right if you would not make a fuss? The fellow was -in no danger after all, not in any danger at any time, just as well off -as a lad could be, petted by old Eadie, and with Uncle Henry to look -after him. Of course I knew he must have been there.”</p> - -<p>“You never said it, Joan.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Joan, with a laugh rendered unsteady by the same sense of -relief, “I knew it the moment I heard it, mother. I am not setting up -for more sense than other folk; the moment I heard Isaac’s voice asking -for me I knew it in a moment, but not till then. Just see what fools we -are, the wisest of us,” said Joan, reflectively. “I think I’ve got a -little sense; but I have no more than other folk, till it’s put into my -head. Well! it’s a comfort to know his address to write to, and that -he’s gone to his work, and no harm done; for he has a queer temper, has -Harry. He’s not just like the rest of us; he might have done a desperate -thing, being the kind of lad he is. That’s always been on my mind. I -would not have said it till now, but that was always in my mind. A lad -like that, there was no telling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> what he mightn’t have done; but don’t I -aye tell you, mother, if you don’t make a fuss things will always come -right at the end?”</p> - -<p>Then Joan did what was a very strange thing for her, she sat down and -had a little cry all to herself. She had never betrayed the depth of her -anxiety before, but the running over of her satisfaction and relief -betrayed her.</p> - -<p>“The things have come from the wash,” she said; “I’ll put them in and -lock up his boxes, and send them to-night. He must have been ill off for -his clothes, poor lad! and I might have sent them after him without -losing any time, if I had only had the sense! Never mind, Eadie would do -the best she could for him, and it’s not a week yet. Bless me! what a -week it has been! It’s been like a year! I’ve been saying to myself all -these days, ‘I never knew I had so much of mother in me.’ It’s a funny -thing, a very funny thing, how folks are made up, a bit of one and a bit -of another; but I never thought I had so much of you in me, mother; I -have just been as near as possible to making a fuss myself.”</p> - -<p>And it is impossible to say how much this breaking down on Joan’s part, -temporary as it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> was, comforted her mother. She had never yet, she -thought, been so near to any of her children. She began, poor lady! to -pour forth her own dreary private self-tormentings.</p> - -<p>“I’ve pictured him astray on the moors; I’ve pictured him on the -Fell-side, Joan, with one of those dreadful mists coming on; every night -in the dark I have thought of him wandering and wandering. I’ve heard -his step going away, as I heard it that dreadful night; or in the -water—if some one had come and said there was one found in the -water——”</p> - -<p>“Now, mother, these are nothing but fancies,” cried Joan; “that’s what I -call just giving yourself up to nonsense. Was Harry such a fool as to -lose himself on the Fells? now, I ask you, just take a little common -sense! or the river? he that can swim like a duck. Nay, that goes beyond -me. Reason is reason, however nervous you may be. Nay, nay, I would -never take leave of my wits like that. If you will but mind what I say; -don’t make any more fuss than you can help, and in the end you’ll find -all will come right. Now I’ll go and put up the poor lad’s things; I -can’t think what he can have done for shirts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Joan turned back, however, when she got to the door.</p> - -<p>“Now, mother, listen to me for a moment. Don’t take it into your head -that you are just to have a letter directly and all to go well. He may -take some time to come round. I would not wonder if he was offended both -with you and me. What for? oh, who can tell what for? Just for nonsense, -and queer temper. Don’t you be disappointed if there’s no word.”</p> - -<p>“I will be terribly disappointed, Joan,” said the poor mother. “I am -going to write to him now. Why should he be offended with me? If he does -not answer it will break my heart.”</p> - -<p>“Your heart’s been broken a many times, mother,” Joan said, shaking her -head. “Well, maybe there will be an answer, but it’s always best to be -prepared for the worst.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head again as she went away.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” she said to herself, with a half smile on her face, “how -many pieces mother’s heart’s in? it’s taken a deal of breaking. We’ve -all had a good pull at it in our day;” and then her face, with its half -comic look of criticism, softened, and she added gently, “Poor dear!”</p> - -<p>Then Joan went up to Harry’s room in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> her self-possessed activity, -and laid the clean white shirts carefully into the half-packed -portmanteau, which stood like a kind of coffin half open in the deserted -room. She looked through all the drawers, and put in everything he was -likely to want. She had a very soft heart to her younger brother. There -were only some five or six years between them, but a boy of -four-and-twenty looks very young to a woman over thirty; she felt as if -he might have been her son. Will and Tom were different. She had shared -their games and such training as they had, and lived her hoyden days in -their close company, with a careless comradeship, but no particular -sentiment. Harry, however, had been the one who was away. When he came -home at holiday times he was the stranger, the little brother, less -robust than the others, a boy who had to be considered and cared for; -even his mending and darning, in which she early had a share, had to be -more carefully done than the others, for Mrs. Joscelyn had been jealous -of any imperfection in her boy’s outfit falling under Uncle Henry’s, or -still more Uncle Henry’s housekeeper’s eye. And so it had happened that -a very special softness of regard for Harry had come into his elder<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> -sister’s mind. Nobody knew of it, but there it was. Perhaps the fact -that he had “a deal of mother in him” had added to this partiality, -notwithstanding that the mother’s peculiarities had often exasperated -Joan in their original manifestation. Reflected in Harry they gave him a -certain charm, the charm which a nature full of sudden impulses, swift -to act and lively to feel has to a more substantial and matter-of-fact -nature. She packed his clothes even with a tender touch, smoothing -everything with the greatest neatness, arranging layer above layer in -the most perfect order. “They’ll all be tossed into his drawers -pell-mell,” she said, shaking her head over the linen as she laid it in, -with a smile on her face. She disliked untidiness next to wickedness, -but in Harry it was venial. Even Harry’s wrong-doings would have been no -more hardly judged by Joan than with a shake of the head and a smile.</p> - -<p>When she had finished her packing, she went downstairs on a still more -congenial errand, and packed a hamper of home produce for her brother.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Harry’s not coming back; he’s gone straight on to Liverpool; we’re -to send his things<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span> after him,” she explained to the maids, who were -full of curiosity, and vaguely certain that something was wrong. They -were already beginning to have their doubts as to that first fine -hypothesis about Joan’s lover, and to make out that Harry had more to do -with the locking of the door than any “lad” who could be “courting” the -daughter of the house; and they were all agog for information, as was -natural. The packing up of the cheese and eggs, the bottle of cream -(though that was allowed to be of very doubtful expediency), the fine -piece of honey-comb, the home-cured ham, all that was best in the house, -threw, however, an air of stability and reality about Harry, and -suppressed the first whispers against him. There could be nothing wrong -about a young man for whom such a hamper was being prepared; neither a -deadly quarrel with his family, nor any trouble at his office, nor -roguery of any kind was compatible with that hamper. It meant a -well-doing respectable youth eating good breakfasts (always a sure sign -of good morals) and coming in regularly to all his meals. The hamper -eased the mind generally of the house. Joscelyn himself saw it as he -passed, and, though he took no notice, was comforted too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> His -uneasiness had been angry rather than anxious; but then the anger had -been partly against himself, and a consciousness that humbled him of -having laid himself open to criticism and made a foolish exhibition of -temper, had given it a double sting. It was one of the finest hams he -ever had seen which he saw packed into the hamper, and he grudged it to -Harry, but all the same it eased his mind. The fellow he said to -himself, had taken no harm; he was all right. He asked no questions, but -his mind was relieved. When they were all put into the cart in the -evening, to be taken down to the nearest station, even Mrs. Joscelyn -herself came out to the door to watch them go off. It was a soft -evening, the warmest that had been that season; the wind had changed -into the west, the sun was setting in a glow of crimson, the whole -valley canopied over with clouds full of rosy reflection. In the -distance one of these rose-clouds caught the mirror of the river, and -glowed in that, repeating its warm and smiling tone of colour in the -midst of the gray fields of the surrounding landscape and the gray -houses of the village. At the back door, where the cart was standing, -the servants were all congregated as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> if it wanted half-a-dozen people -to put up two portmanteaus and a hamper. Joan gave a hand herself with -that last precious burden.</p> - -<p>“That’s the most worth of a’,” said the cook. “Ye may buy shirts and -waistcoats, but you’ll no buy butter like ours, nor a ham to compare -with that—and my griddle-cakes, I never made better.”</p> - -<p>“It’s to be hoped,” said the dairy-maid, “they’ll not spoil.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn laid her hand upon it with a caressing touch; her poor -thin white hands at which the women looked half-admiring, -half-contemptuous, as good for nothing but to sew a seam and play the -piano. It was a kind of link between Harry and the house that had been -so unkind to him. “He’ll understand what it means,” she said to Joan, -aside, as the cart lumbered off.</p> - -<p>Joan did not make any reply, nor did she very well understand her -mother, nor know what it might be supposed to mean, but it was she who -had packed all that love, forgiveness, and tender thought; which were so -solidly represented in that hamper from home. And it lumbered off to the -railway, and was despatched by the night mail,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span> though that was an -extravagant proceeding; and the White House was solaced visibly and -lightened of its care. It had not been a practice to give Harry such a -hamper when he went away. He got one at Christmas, and that had hitherto -been supposed to be enough; but this had more in it than met the eye.</p> - -<p>And then there was a pause in the history of the house, a pause of -suspense yet of hope and peace. Joan and her mother afterwards often -looked back to these days, which did not last long, yet were sweet. The -two were very good friends, not a jar between them, and Ralph Joscelyn -was unusually quiet and subdued; and it happened that one or two -visitors came to the house, a circumstance which did not often -happen—touching one of whom, in this little lull of preparing events, -we may as well take the opportunity of a word or two: for though nobody -thought very much about him at that moment, he was a personage of some -importance in the family life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> -<small>A NEW PERSONAGE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE visitor to whom reference has been made in the last chapter was a -Mr. Selby, a relative of the doctor in the village, who had recently -come down to these regions in the interests of a secondary line of -railway which was then being made. He was not a very young man, nor, -presumably, a very successful one, since at his mature age, he was no -more than engineer to a little local railway; but he had other qualities -not unattractive. He was what the village people called “a fine-made -man.” He had a handsome head, with grizzled hair and beard, which, -though touched by this mark of age, were otherwise very symbols of -vigour and strength, so crisp were the twists and rings of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> curl in -them, so strong and thick their growth. It was said that there was not a -navvy on the line who could lift such weights as he could or perform -such feats of strength: “he would put his hand to anything.” Dr. Selby -was proud of his relation. “I’ll back him to run, or jump, or throw with -any fellow of twenty-five in the Fell-country, though he’s forty-five if -he’s a day,” the Doctor said; and he did everything else besides that a -man ought to do. He was a good shot, rode well, walked well, played -football even when one was wanted to make up a team, though the game is -not adapted for persons of mature years. There was never much society -about the White House, but Philip Selby—as he was called even by -strangers, to distinguish him from the Doctor and the Doctor’s son, who -was young Selby—had come up repeatedly to see the horses, of which he -was supposed a judge. Indeed, he went so far as to buy a horse from -Joscelyn, a colt which was not thought much of in the stables when it -was born. It was this selection which established a kind of friendship -between Joan and the new-comer. She was standing by when the horses were -shown to him, and delivered her opinion, as she was wont to do, on the -subject.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You may say what you like against that brown colt: he’s not a beauty -just now, but I like the looks of him,” Joan said, and she indicated -various points in which she saw promise, which the present writer, not -sharing Joan’s knowledge, is unwilling to hazard her reputation on. -Philip Selby caught her up with great quickness.</p> - -<p>“I thought the same from the moment I set eyes on him,” he said, and he -took off his hat to Joan with a bow and smile which were unusual in -these parts. She felt herself “colour up,” as she said, though -afterwards she laughed. The men Joan was most acquainted with thought -these little courtesies belonged to tailors and Frenchmen, but to no -other class of reasonable beings, and there was a slight snigger even on -the part of the attendant grooms to see this little incident. Mr. Selby -was invited in afterwards to dinner to clench the bargain, and lingered -and talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses with Mrs. Joscelyn when -the meal was over, going back with her upon the elegant extracts of her -youth in a way which brightened the poor lady’s eyes and recalled to her -the long past superiorities of the Vicarage parlour, where it was -considered right and professional<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> to belong to the book club, and to -keep up some knowledge of the new books which were supposed to be -discussed in intellectual society.</p> - -<p>“That is an educated man,” she said to her daughter, with a little air -of superior knowledge which did her a great deal of good, poor lady. -There was nobody else, she felt, about the White House, whose verdict -would be worth much on such a subject. But <i>she</i> knew an educated man -when she saw one: and the little talk brought some colour to her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Tut, mother,” said Joan, good-humouredly; but she had listened to the -talk with some secret admiration, and an amused and gratified wonder -that “mother” should show herself so capable. “I am sure you are the -only one that can talk about these sort of things here,” she said. -“Father stared, and so did I. He must have taken us for a set of -ignoramuses.”</p> - -<p>“I read a great deal in my youth,” Mrs. Joscelyn replied, with a gentle -pride which was mingled with melancholy, “though I cannot say that it -has been of much use to me in my married life; but I hope the gentleman -will come back, for he would be a good friend for Harry.”</p> - -<p>This was when Harry was expected, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> the visit which ended so -disastrously had begun.</p> - -<p>And then after a few days Mr. Philip Selby <i>called</i>. Such a thing was -almost unknown at the White House; the few people about who were on -friendly terms with the Joscelyns, who were neither too high nor too -low—and these were very few, for the county people had ignored the last -generation of the fallen family, and the farmers and yeomen about were -beneath their pretensions—were on very familiar terms, and would stalk -straight in without any preliminaries, with perhaps a knock before they -opened it at the parlour-door, but nothing more. All the other Selbys -did this, marching in even in the middle of a meal without ceremony, -never pausing to ask if anyone was at home. If they found nobody they -walked out again, if they came into the midst of a family party they -drew in a chair and sat down. But when Mary Anne, the maid who fulfilled -the functions of parlour-maid, came in much flustered, with a card -between her finger and thumb, both she and her young mistress felt that -a very odd event had occurred, which they did not know what to think of. -As for Mrs. Joscelyn it was her turn to “colour up” with pleasure. “Show -the gentleman in, Mary Ann,” she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> said, drawing herself up and feeling -as if the world, her old world, was rolling back to her.</p> - -<p>She gave a glance round to see if the room was nice. It was a room that -was too tidy, and Mrs. Joscelyn felt it. She would have been horrified -with the littered rooms which are fashionable now-a-days, but her -parlour she knew was too tidy; the chairs which were not being used were -put back in a straight line against the wall, and everything was in its -proper place. She put out her hand and drew one of these chairs out of -the line, with that gentle air of knowing better which amused Joan so -much.</p> - -<p>“This is a gentleman that is accustomed to society. I told you so, -Joan.”</p> - -<p>“So you did, mother,” said Joan, rising up and putting back her chair -carefully. “If he is that kind of man we may as well put our best foot -foremost:” and with that she smoothed the table cover carefully and -lifted Mrs. Joscelyn’s basket of work, which was the chief thing that -made it home-like, out of the way. Joan even put away her knitting, and -sat with her hands before her, which was sad punishment to herself, in -order to look as Miss Joscelyn ought before the stranger. As for Mrs. -Joscelyn, she saw this done with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> kind of anguish; but she was not -strong enough to resist. Then Mr. Selby was ushered in by the alarmed -Mary Ann, who, instead of announcing him as she ought, said in a -frightened tone, “Here’s the maan,” and vanished precipitately with such -an attack of the nerves that she had to go and lie down upon her bed. -Very soon, however, he put them both at their ease. He found Joan’s -knitting laid away on the top of the work basket, to which Mrs. Joscelyn -directed his attention by frequent wistful glances at it, and said he -was sure it was this she was looking for, though Joan’s anxious desire -had been to look at nothing. And then he sat and talked. Joan could -scarcely contain her wonder, and amusement, and admiration at this talk. -After a few minutes her fingers unconsciously sought the familiar -needles which restored the balance of her mind, and made her free to -listen. She was not young, nor had she any air of being young. Her -figure was trim and round, but well developed, ample and matronly, -though not with any superabundance of flesh. She had a pair of excellent -serviceable brown eyes, with a great deal of light in them; not -sparkling unduly, or employing themselves in any unauthorised way, but -seeing everything,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> and making a remark now and then of their own, which -an intelligent spectator could not but be interested by. The way in -which she turned those eyes from her mother to the visitor and back -again, with that surprise which made them round, and that amused -gratification which came the length of a smile upon her opened lips, -opened with wonder and pleasure, was quite a pleasant sight. She was -more like an innocent mother listening to the unsuspected cleverness of -her child’s opinions, than to a daughter admiring her mother. Now and -then, when Mrs. Joscelyn said something unusually fine, a little snap of -a cough came from Joan’s parted lips. She was astonished and she was -delighted. “Who would have thought mother had so much in her?” she was -saying all the time. She was not in the least handsome; but there was -nothing in her that was unpleasant or objectionable; not a harsh line, -or a sharp angle, or a twist of feature. Sometimes there is a curve at -the corner of a mouth which will spoil the harmony of a face altogether; -but Joan had no defect of this kind. She had a dimple in her smooth, -round chin, and another in her cheek. When she laughed there were two or -three other lurking pin-points which made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span> themselves visible about her -face. Her eyes were delightful in their surprise. She had a great deal -of smooth, brown hair, brushed to the perfection of neatness, which was -wound in a thick plait round the back of her head. Altogether, though -there was no beauty about her, she was such a woman as gives comfort to -a house from the very sight of her; a woman of ready hand and ready wit, -and plenty of sense, but no more intellect than is necessary for -comfort—which perhaps is not saying very much. Her presence in an empty -house would have half furnished it at once, and she could say her say on -all subjects she knew. About that brown colt she had formed an opinion -of her own, which, as his chimed in with it, appeared extraordinarily -sensible to Philip Selby: and she knew as much about all farming -operations, and especially those which were connected with her own -sphere of the dairy, as any farmer round. She was not, as the reader has -perceived, a woman at all timid about her own opinions, or unwilling to -express them. But when Mrs. Joscelyn and the new visitor talked about -literature, and the pleasures of reading, Joan listened with open eyes -and lips, and a broad smile of ignorant and admiring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> pleasure. “Think -of mother talking away thirteen to the dozen! and who’d have thought she -had all that in her,” Joan said to herself.</p> - -<p>As for Mrs. Joscelyn, her cheeks were pink all the evening after, and -her eyes quite bright. “I have not had so much conversation for years. -Dear, dear! how it does one good, after never seeing anybody that has -ever opened a book, to get a good talk with a well-informed person! I -hope Harry will take to Mr. Selby,” Mrs. Joscelyn cried; “what a chance -for him, Joan! a man that really knows; and will give him such good -advice—and so good for Liddy, too, when she comes home.” Joan -acquiesced in all this, with a laugh.</p> - -<p>“It was as good as a play to hear you,” she said, “and me gaping all the -time, saying to myself, ‘I never knew mother had so much in her!’<span class="lftspc">”</span> At -this Mrs Joscelyn drew herself up a little; but she was not displeased -with the praise.</p> - -<p>“I read a great deal when I was young,” she said. “Papa always insisted -upon it. You have not had my advantages, Joan; but you have strong -sense, my dear, which, perhaps, I never had.”</p> - -<p>“I daresay I will do, mother,” said Joan, with another laugh. She -admired her mothe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span>r’s cleverness with a kind of amused delight; but the -idea of being less valued than her mother did not enter Joan’s head. It -made her laugh, with a comfortable sense of practical superiority. “I’ll -do,” she repeated, smiling broadly, all the dimples showing in her -cheeks. She had a good deal of colour. Mrs. Joscelyn’s fragile looks and -elegant extracts were alike out of Joan’s way.</p> - -<p>After this Mr. Philip Selby came several times. Joan always assisted at -the interviews in the same pleased spectatorship. It occurred to her -after a while that the information of the talkers was not very -extensive. She seemed to hear the same names over and over again—almost -the same remarks—which reduced Joan’s admiration, and made her feel -that perhaps after all it was only a way they had, and did not imply the -profound erudition she had admired so much: but still it was finer talk -than anything she had heard before. Then Harry, came interrupting these -elegant conversations. Harry did not think anything of them at all; he -had no literary tastes any more than the rest of the family. He was not -at all given to reading, and the consequence of Mrs. Joscelyn’s -recommendation to him of Mr. Philip Selby, and his society, resulted in -a strong dislike on Harry’s part to Mr. Selby, and desire<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> never to see -him again. Young Selby was Harry’s friend, a young man who was not good -for very much; and he also had the strongest objection to his cousin. -There had not been much heard of Mr. Selby while Harry was at the White -House; but just after the luggage and the hamper had been sent off, and -when peace had for a little while returned, he came to pay one of his -usual visits. And perhaps it was that Mrs. Joscelyn was preoccupied; -perhaps that Mr. Selby had something on his mind. The conversation -flagged. Joan, who now never made any attempt to put by her knitting, -and permitted her mother’s basket to exhibit its store of mending -freely, took notice of a long pause that occurred in the talk, and she -hastened to do what she could, in her straight-forward way, to fill up -the gap.</p> - -<p>“Mother’s had a deal to think of lately,” she said. “I think she should -take a nap in the afternoon. Many are a bit drowsy after dinner. I think -it would do her a deal of good if she were to put up her feet upon the -sofa, and take a bit of a doze.”</p> - -<p>“Joan,” cried poor Mrs. Joscelyn, wounded in her tenderest feelings, -“when did you ever see me doze?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“There,” said Joan, promptly, “that’s just what I say. It would do you a -deal of good. You were always one for keeping up; but ‘a stitch in time -saves nine,’ and you’ve had more to think of than ordinary. Just you -close your eyes a little bit, and I’ll talk to Mr. Selby. He’ll not mind -for ten minutes. They tell me you’re getting on wonderfully with the -railway; and is there enough of travellers from Wyburgh to Ormsford to -make it pay?”</p> - -<p>“I have my doubts,” Selby said.</p> - -<p>“I have more than doubts. I hope you have not got money in it. There is -no traffic, nor manufactories, nor anything like that. Just two or three -farmers, and ordinary folk, and potatoes, and such like, and milk-cans; -but nothing to keep up a railway. I’ve often wondered, now, a clever man -like you, what made you take it in hand?”</p> - -<p>“I am very glad you think me a clever man, Miss Joscelyn. I’m afraid I -haven’t much to say for myself. They offered me the job, and I took it. -If I hadn’t taken it, somebody else would; and it is not my affair. I am -making it as good a piece of work as I can. Perhaps something else may -come of it,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, I hope something else may come of it,” said Joan, “for your sake. -I don’t think very much will come of it, itself. It’s fine making roads -when there is somebody to walk upon them: and the Fell country’s a fine -country—but perhaps not fit for railways. You see,” said Joan, “there -never can be much of a population; you can’t break down the hills, and -sow corn upon them. One line straight through, that stands to -reason—but I would have nothing to do with more, for my part.”</p> - -<p>“What you say is very sensible, Miss Joscelyn. What do you think of -Brokenriggs as a bit of land? They tell me it has a good aspect, and is -capable of being improved—”</p> - -<p>“Brokenriggs? you are not taking the railway there? Oh, you were meaning -in the way of farming? It’s a good enough aspect, but it’s cold soil. -Speak to old Isaac Oliver about that, and he will tell you; it’s not a -generous soil. You put a great deal into it, and take little out; that’s -what I’ve always heard. Indeed, I’ve seen it for myself, as you may too, -any day, if you turn down by the old tower—what they call Joscelyn -tower, you know; but the house is a very poor place; I hope you were not -thinking of it for yourself?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“It was for—a friend,” said Selby, with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Then tell him no; I would not recommend it. There’s another place. It -was once in our family, so I’ve always heard; but we are people, as I -daresay you know, that have come down in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Have had losses—like—so many people,” said Selby. He was going to say -Dogberry, but the words woke no consciousness in Joan’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“So many losses, that we’ve got little left. It is about ten miles from -here, Heatonshaw. It’s a nice little property, and a house that could be -repaired: they say it was once the Dowerhouse in our family when we were -grander folk. A nice bit of pasture,” said Joan, with enthusiasm. “I -have always thought if I could turn out my cows there, there would not -be butter like it in all the North country. There is not much to better -my butter anyhow, I can tell you—though I say it that shouldn’t,” she -said, with a little pride, then laughed at herself.</p> - -<p>“And this—what do you call it, Heatonshaw? is a place you would like -for yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Dearly,” said Joan, “I was telling you—there’s no better pasture; a -bit of meadow, just<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> as sweet as honey, and all the hill-side above. And -there’s a good bit of arable land lying very well for the sun. I have -heard of great crops in some of the fields; I cannot tell you how many -bushels to the acre, but you will easily find out. And if your friend -has a taste for a dairy—that’s what I could give my opinion upon.”</p> - -<p>“There is nobody whose opinion he would sooner take,” Selby said, and as -he did so he looked at Joan in a way that somewhat startled her. It was -not such a look as she had been in the habit of seeing directed to -herself. She had seen other people so regarded, and had laughed. Somehow -this gave her an odd sensation, a sensation chiefly of surprise; then -she felt inclined to laugh also, though at herself. Bless us all, what -had the man got into his head? surely not any nonsense of that sort! It -so tickled Joan that she felt herself shaking with laughter, to which -she dared not give vent—and she turned her eyes upon her stocking, -which was the last thing she ever looked at, lest an incautious contact -with someone else’s should produce an explosion of mirth.</p> - -<p>“Are you rested now, mother?” she said, “I’ll have to go presently and -look after Bess.” Bess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span> was the dairy woman, who had no head for -anything, but was Joan’s dutiful slave.</p> - -<p>“I was not so tired as you thought, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, half -aggrieved, “I have been doing my work, as you might see—”</p> - -<p>“Now, mother, that is a real deception; when I thought you were taking a -doze, and was entertaining Mr. Selby with country matters, to let you -get your rest! however when there’s a question of farms or the lie of -the land, or anything like that, I may take it upon me to say I am -better than mother, though she’s far cleverer than me,” said Joan, -laying aside her knitting. Selby got up to open the door for her, which -was an attention quite unusual, and increased the overpowering desire to -laugh with which she had been seized.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if I might ask to see your dairy?” he said in a low tone, -detaining her at the door.</p> - -<p>“Not to-day,” said Joan, briskly, “I never let anybody see my dairy but -when it is in prime order; and we are busy to-day.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure no dairy of yours is ever in anything but prime order,” he -said, with another look that completely overpowered Joan’s gravity. She -almost pulled the door from his hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> shutting it quickly between them, -and ran off, not to the dairy, as she had said, but to her own room, -giving forth suppressed chokes of sound at spasmodic intervals as she -flew upstairs. Joan’s was no fairy foot, but a firm substantial tread, -which made the old stairs creak. When she got into the shelter of her -own chamber, she threw herself into a chair, and laughed till the tears -ran down her cheeks. “The lasses have been true prophets after all; I -believe I have gotten a lad at last,” she said to herself. But even when -her fit of laughter was over, she did not venture downstairs, or near -the dairy, until she was certain that Philip Selby must have taken -himself away. She bustled about the room, looking over clothes that -wanted mending, and “tidying” drawers which wanted no tidying, still -pausing now and then to give vent to another laugh; nothing so laughable -had occurred before in Joan’s career. She had been asked in marriage by -an enterprising “vet” when she was a girl, a poor fellow who had not -considered the daughter of a man who was an evident horse-dealer to be -so very far above him, but who was all but kicked out of the house by -Ralph Joscelyn, and his long-legged sons. Joan had never heard of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> it -even, till after the episode was over, and though she was duly indignant -at his presumption, she had felt rather an interest in the man himself, -hoping to hear for some time that his disappointment had not affected -his health, or interfered with his career. But the “vet” had found a -more suitable match, and all had gone well with him, which utterly ended -any little bit of romance she might have had a capacity for. Since that -time Joan had not had any “lad.” Everybody who was good enough for a -Joscelyn to marry, was too good for Ralph Joscelyn’s daughter, and -though she was homely she was proud. She could work like a dairy-maid, -but she would not have married beneath her. Besides, she was not a -marrying woman. There is such a variety of the species, just as there is -a non-marrying man; and the more independent women get to be, no doubt -the more this class will increase, though it is in a very small minority -now. Joan was not at all independent in means, but she was independent -in her character, and her work. There was no one to interfere with her -in her share of the labours of the establishment. Her mother did not -even understand what that work was, and her father, though he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span> was a -bold man, did not venture to interfere. She had everything her own way, -and guided the house in general according to her will, notwithstanding -an occasional outburst, which she soon quieted, on her father’s part. -Having thus a great deal to do, a position of weight, and domestic -authority, an absolute sovereignty so far as it went, why should she -have wanted to marry? She did not; and it was the sentimental -consciousness of Selby’s looks that was too much for her gravity. “Just -like a dog when it’s singing music,” said Joan to herself. When she went -down to the dairy Selby was gone, and Mrs. Joscelyn all uncomprehending -seated alone in the parlour. Her mending (which she was always doing; -never was a man who wore out his under-clothing so!) required her eyes -and her full attention, not like Joan’s knitting; she had never even -seen those looks which Joan called “sheep’s eyes.” But Joan herself was -much on the alert afterwards, and fully foresaw what was going to happen -if she did not take care; and, indeed, notwithstanding all her care, -something did happen, as will be seen, within the short space of two -days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A PROPOSAL.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE White House had begun to be slightly agitated by the expectation of -letters from Harry, when Mr. Selby came again. There was no immediate -acknowledgment of the arrival of the boxes, or reply to the letter which -Mrs. Joscelyn had written instantly, as soon as they heard that he had -returned to Liverpool; but this both mother and daughter thought was -natural enough. Harry no doubt would be sulky; even his mother and -sister would be included in his anger against the house, though they had -done nothing which he ought to have taken in ill part. He was not a -great letter-writer, however, and they were both indulgent to Harry, and -willing to give him a little time to get over his “pet,” as Joan called<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> -it. Joan took the whole matter cheerily. He was only “in a pet.” He had -been “in a pet” before now, and had kept his mother uneasy, refusing to -write; but it had gone off, and all had come right again. No doubt it -would be the same now: only this time he had some reason for his “pet,” -and might be excused if he was a little sulky. “You know, mother,” said -Joan, “Harry’s terrible young for his age. He’s just a baby for his age, -and he has a deal of you in him. We must let him get over his pet.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Joan, do you think I would keep anybody anxious that was fond of -me?” said Mrs. Joscelyn, “but,” she added, with a sigh, “nobody would -care very much if it was only me. It is this that gives you all the pull -over me, that I care, and you don’t.”</p> - -<p>Joan could not contradict this; and there gleamed over her a momentary -compassion for her mother, whose lot it seemed to be always to “care,” -while nobody cared for her. “You must try and not care so much, mother. -We’re none of us worth it,” she said, “but, as for Harry, he’s just in a -pet. Leave him alone, and he’ll soon come to himself. My fine ham! I -wouldn’t have wasted it on a person that didn’t deserve it. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> he don’t -write within the week, I will say he’s not worth the salt it’s cured -with; but we’ll give him a week; by that time he’ll come round, if he’s -a bit sulky just at first. I don’t blame him, for my part.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn’s hands had crept together, and clasped each other, with -that earnest appeal she was always making to earth and heaven: but they -slid asunder hastily when she met Joan’s eyes. She was thankful to allow -that it was quite reasonable that Harry should be sulky. “Though he -might have thought a little upon me. He might have thought I would -suffer most of all. He might have remembered how little I can do, and -that I must support everything,” she said to herself, with a few quiet -tears. She did not venture to say it even to Joan, though Joan was so -much more sympathetic than she could have hoped. Nobody ever thought of -anything she might have to suffer. Perhaps on the whole she was supposed -to enjoy it. “Making a fuss,” was one of her specialities in everybody’s -opinion. Her children were all disposed to think it did not matter very -much what the object of “the fuss” was. And thus she was left in her -parlour with her mending, a woman surrounded with people<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> belonging to -her by nature and the dearest ties, yet altogether alone, as lonely as -any poor old maiden in her garret. Nor is this any unusual thing; a fact -in which the solitary may find a little uncomfortable alleviation of -their special woes.</p> - -<p>Mr. Selby came back while the house was in this state of expectation, -not anxious as yet, but on the eve of becoming so. He did not send in -his card now, but usually presumed so far as to go straight to the -parlour door by himself, where he always knocked, however, before -entering. This time, he came in the morning, when he knew Joan was not -likely to be in the parlour. He was a little nervous, though perhaps it -would be too much to say that his heart beat. After forty, a man’s heart -requires a very strong inducement to make it beat, that is to say, in -any violent manner. But he was a little nervous, and half ashamed at -what he was about to do. He went doubtfully to the dairy door, which was -standing wide open. Inside Joan could be seen moving briskly about, and -her voice was very audible in not very gentle tones. Selby paused a -little, and listened to it with a comical concern upon his face. His -brow contracted a little with anxious care, though his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span> mouth laughed. -Joan was scolding, nothing more or less. “Talk to me about not having -time!” she said, “You have time to dress yourself up, and go out to -court your lad, night after night. Is that what you call your duty to -your neighbour? My word, if your lads were your neighbours, you would -keep the commandments easy. Did ever any mortal see such bowls, to be in -a Christian person’s dairy? Woman! where do you expect to go? A dairy’s -not a dairy if the Queen of England might not eat her dinner off every -shelf in it, and give a prize for every brick. That’s what makes the -butter sweet, not your lads, or the tricks that you play. Get out of my -sight! I could take my hands to you, if I did not think too much of -myself.”</p> - -<p>Philip Selby stood in the yard with a comical look on his face, and -listened. Was it fright? There could not be the least doubt that Joan -was scolding violently, and even using threats of personal violence, to -the lass, who, half in sorrow, but more than half in anger, was sobbing -in the background. The very sound of her foot and its rapid tap upon the -floor, was angry, and scolded too. He paused, and a look of alarm came -over his face. The Joscelyns were known<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span> for hot tempers all over the -county. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whom people avoided any sort of -argument with on this account, and all his sons shared, more or less, -his disposition. What if Joan shared it too? It was alarming to a man -bent on the special errand which had brought Selby here. Perhaps the -doubt was not romantic, but, on the whole, neither was the errand. If -she should say to him, “Get out of my sight!” if she should threaten to -“take her hands” to him in any domestic difficulty, it would not be -agreeable. He stopped short in the yard, where old Simon was cleaning -his milk-pails; through the dairy window the milk-bowls were visible, -ranged in perfect order, and a glimpse of Joan’s trim substantial -figure, passing and re-passing, with no sort of languor about her, such -as is supposed to encourage love. The would-be lover had a visible -movement of doubt. He caught old Simon’s eye and blushed, though he had -long supposed himself to be past blushing, and gave an uneasy laugh, -which sounded shy, though it was twenty years, Mr. Selby thought, since -he knew what the word meant. Old Simon was a man with a very wandering -eye, an eye to be spoken of in strict correctness in the singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span> -number. One of them he always kept upon his work, the other moved about, -finding out everything that was unwilling to be seen; this time he -perceived Mr. Selby’s sentiment at the first glance.</p> - -<p>“Ye needn’t be feared,” he said, taking one hand from his pail to wave -it in the direction of the dairy, “ye needn’t be feared. She’s not a -lass to be feared for, our Miss Joan. Her bark’s worse than her bite. -Bless you, not the hundredth part of that she don’t mean.”</p> - -<p>Philip Selby felt more alarmed still. That a woman should scold when she -meant it, that was supportable; but when she scolded, not meaning it, -that indeed was something to be frightened for. The smile upon his mouth -became a nervous one. He faltered in spite of himself.</p> - -<p>“Lord!” said old Simon, turning his head aside, “six feet high, and na -mair heart than that. Is that what ye ca’ a man?”</p> - -<p>“Hist!” said Selby, beckoning him close; he had half-a-crown between his -finger and thumb, “is that, now, a thing that happens very often? Tell -me the truth, and I’ll make it worth your while.”</p> - -<p>“Terrible often,” said Simon, with a grin of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> derision, “most days—and -twa or three times a day.”</p> - -<p>“And how do you manage to live with her?” said the panic-stricken -suitor.</p> - -<p>“We cannot bide her out of our sight,” said Simon, his grin growing more -and more disdainful, “naething goes right when she’s—away. You may make -what you like out o’ that. It’s what they ca’ a paradox at the night -school.”</p> - -<p>And he went off clashing his pails against each other in a manner which -caught Joan’s keen ear, as she paused for a moment before the open -window. “What are you doing with those pails?” she said; “have all the -folk about the town gone out of their wits to day? Do you not know, -Simon, that you started all the hoops last summer, and brought us in a -bill as long as my arm? Bless me, can nothing be done right in this -house, unless I put to my own hand, and do it myself?”</p> - -<p>“Hear to her!” said Simon, tranquilly, taking no other notice of this -energetic address, “you can see for yourself. She’s often like that, -less or more.”</p> - -<p>At this moment there came the sound of a laugh from within. “It’s Mr. -Selby, I declare,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span>” said Joan, “to see the dairy! and all in such -disorder, ye lazy, big, soft——I told you I would let nobody in unless -we were tidied up, and we’re not tidied up, not a bit; but you’ll have -to come in, I suppose, as you’re here. Step in; we must not grudge the -welcome, since it’s all you’re likely to get. I’m in a passion; that’s -the fact,” said Joan, with a laugh, “I’m raging like a bull of Bashan. -You heard me as you were coming through the yard, I make no doubt; and -that’s how I have to go on very near every day.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, Miss Joan!” said the lass who had been bearing the brunt of the -storm; and Selby, looking round, saw that this aggrieved personage was -grinning from ear to ear.</p> - -<p>“That’s just your deception,” said Joan, “that’s trying to get at my -weak side. When they get a laugh out of me, they think no more about it; -and it’s far too easy,” Joan added, shaking her head with comical -distress, “to get a laugh out of me, far too easy; but don’t you think -it’s fun, for I am as serious as I can be,” she cried, turning round -upon the culprit, who flew to her work with an alacrity which showed -Joan’s admonition to be not without effect, though she was cramming her -apron into her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span> mouth all the time, that she might not laugh. Joan took -Selby all over the dairy, and showed him everything. She was an -enthusiast in all that concerned this portion of rural work. She took -him out to the fields behind the house afterwards to see her pet cows. -It was a breezy spring day, the sun shining, but the wind blowing, and -cold though sunny. Joan went out with the light shining in her trim and -smooth brown hair, and without a thought even of a shawl. “Cold? oh no, -I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t trouble hats much, if it is not in the -height of summer, when you can really say there’s something like a sun. -This doesn’t count; there is no headache in it,” said Joan, looking -affectionately at the temperate ruler of the day, who makes no -unnecessary show in the North. “But you might catch cold,” suggested the -middle-aged lover. “Bless us,” said Joan, “me catch cold! why, such a -thing was never thought of; I’ve seen a fuss made about Harry for taking -cold; but never me. The air on the Fells never gives cold. It is your -fat damp air in the level, it’s not our hill air that ever does any -harm.”</p> - -<p>“I am trying to think that, too. I am tired wandering about the world -with a regiment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span> navvies,” said Selby; “I’m thinking of settling -down.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not a bad thing to do; but you must have led a cheery life -roaming about the world as you say. I don’t know that I would like it -myself; but change is lightsome. You must have seen a deal in your day,” -said Joan, looking at her companion. And as she did so she could not but -allow that he was a very “wise-like man.” It would be difficult to give -in other words the full force of this phrase. It does not mean -good-looking, or respectable, or tall, or wealthy, or well-dressed, or -well-mannered, but it means all of these together. And Philip Selby was -a little more—he was really handsome, though he was no longer young.</p> - -<p>“I have seen a great deal in my day,” he said, “and my day has been a -good long one, for I’ve been afloat upon the world for more than twenty -years; but I don’t know that I ever saw anything so much to my mind as I -see to-day—a fine, breezy hillside, and fine cattle, and a thriving -country, not to say somebody by my side that——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you need not reckon me,” said Joan; “there’s women in all -countries. It’s a great pity there’s so many of us; we would be a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> -deal more thought of if there were but a few.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you would be angry,” said Selby, “if I said there were not many -like Miss Joan Joscelyn, wherever a man may go.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, far from angry,” said Joan, with a laugh. “I should think it -was a very nice compliment; compliments are not common things in our -parts. You that have been about the world you know how to flatter -country folk—but among the Fells they’re but little known. Look at that -beast now,” she said, stroking tenderly the face of a great, soft-eyed -cow, “did you ever see a bonnier creature? There’s not a lady in all -England has such a balmy breath. And she’s better than she’s bonnie. -She’s a small fortune to us. And that little thing, that’s one from -France, of the Brittany kind, small feeders and good milkers; that -belongs to our little Liddy. You have never seen Liddy, Mr. Selby? She’s -the pet of the family; and when she’s not here we make a pet of her -little cow. Some are fond of Alderneys, some like this French breed. -Which do you like best?”</p> - -<p>“I have no opinion. I am no judge. I know a horse when I see one, but -not a cow. I like the kind, Miss Joan, that you like best.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Joan, laughing, “our tastes agree in some things. You -remember that brown colt? The last time I saw him he was just what I -expected—turning out a fine beast, far better than that Sister to -Scythian that father set such store upon. I think you and me were right -there.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure we were right,” said Selby; “two heads are better than one. -Do you know, Miss Joan, I think our tastes are very likely to agree. I -have been to see Heatonshaw—which was the place you said you would -dearly like yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Did I say I would dearly like it? That was strong. But it’s a bonnie -place, there is little doubt of that.”</p> - -<p>“I think it is a sweet place; and a house that would just do for——I’ve -something more to say to you, Miss Joan, if you will have the -patience to listen. A wandering life is very pleasant for a time, but as -a man gets on in years he wants to settle down. But,” said Selby, -lifting his hand to stop her, for she was just about to interrupt -him—and putting a great emphasis upon the word, “<i>but</i>—not by himself. -He must have somebody to settle down with him, or it’s no settling at -all.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” said Joan, with great external<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span> sobriety, though the -demon of laughter with which she had fought so severe a battle during -their last interview had sprung again into life within her, “That’s very -true. You’ll have to get a wife; but you cannot be at much loss about -that, Mr. Selby, for women are plenty—more’s the pity. There’s no place -you can go but you’ll find them in dozens. Men are real well off -nowadays, they have nothing to do but to pick and choose.”</p> - -<p>“That would be very nice if anyone would do,” said Selby, with a -countenance the gravity of which contrasted strangely with the twinkle -in Joan’s eye and the quiver about the corner of her mouth, “but I -should not be content to pick and choose. The thing is, there is only -one that I want. If I cannot get her, another will not serve my purpose, -which is what you seem to think. Miss Joan, I know yours is a fine old -family, much above mine, though the Selbys have always been respectable. -You may think it presumptuous in me to ask you, but to tell the plain -truth it’s you I want.”</p> - -<p>“Me you want?” she cried, a little confused—for though she had seen -what was coming, and had been quite prepared to make a joke of it, and -even now scarcely dared to meet his eye lest she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span> should laugh, the -seriousness of the actual proposal bewildered her a little when it was -made. She did not think it would have been half such a serious business. -Joan, though she was not shy, and had treated the whole matter as a -great joke up to this moment, cast down her eyes in spite of herself, -and was confused, and for a moment did not know what to say.</p> - -<p>“It’s just you I want,” said Selby; “you are the one I’ve had my eye on -since ever I came into the Fell-country. When first I saw your face, I -said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’ You see, I was on the look -out,” he added, with a smile. “I have put by a little money, and I had -some from those that went before me. There’s enough to be comfortable -upon, especially if the wife had a little of her own. And neither you -nor me would like to be idle. You could set up your dairy, with all the -last improvements, at Heatonshaw, and there would be plenty for me to do -on the farm. I think we could make a very good thing out of it, and yet -keep up a very pleasant position. I would never be against seeing -friends, and you would have no need to exert yourself, but only to be -the head of everything, and keep all going. I could see my way to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> -neat little carriage for you, or even a riding horse if you would like -that—and as to allowances and so forth, even if you had nothing of your -own——”</p> - -<p>“I’m thinking you’re going too fast, Mr. Selby,” said Joan. The laughing -spirit was exorcised. She no longer felt any inclination to burst forth -into that <i>fou rire</i> which comes at the most inappropriate moments. He -had sobered her by his own perfect sobriety. Joan felt that this was a -grave business affair, and not a frivolous piece of nonsense -inappropriate to her serious years. Some lingering wish, perhaps, to -hear a real love tale in her own person had been lurking in her mind -along with the certainty that she would laugh at it if it were told. And -many ludicrous pictures had come before her when she first espied Mr. -Selby’s “intentions.” She had wondered, with a comical mixture of -inexperienced faith and cynicism, whether he would go down on his knees -and call her by all sorts of endearing names. She was bursting with -laughter at the sentimental personage who intended to make a divinity of -Joan Joscelyn. Nevertheless, perhaps, she was a little conscious, -secretly and underneath all, though she never acknowledged it to -herself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span> that this was the way in which a woman had a right to be -addressed once in her life—Joan Joscelyn as well as another. But that -was a very great secret, and deep down; so deep that she had never -confessed it even to herself. And now she was out in all her -calculations, and there was nothing sentimental to laugh at. It was a -very sensible sort of bargain that was proposed to her, and she did not -know where to find a word against it. Her laugh came to an entire end. -“I’m thinking,” she said, “that you’re going too fast.”</p> - -<p>“It lies with you to say that,” said Selby; “but, Joan, remember” (he -had given up the Miss, and she perceived it), “that what I am saying I’m -ready to do, and it’s only for you to say the word. I’ve thought of it -since ever I saw you. ‘That’s the woman for me,’ I said, and you know -how we agreed about the colt. We agree, too, about the place. I went to -look at it because you said you would like it, and I like it, too. And -we’re both partial to the same kind of life. If we couldn’t get on -together I don’t know who should. And in everything else I’ll do -whatever you please.”</p> - -<p>“You miss out one thing, Mr. Selby,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span> Joan, “we ought to be partial -to each other as well as to the kind of life.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I am,” said Selby, fervently; “that’s the truth. I can’t speak -for you; but <i>I</i> am. I’m partial to your looks and your ways, and -everything about you. I like the way you sit still and knit, and I like -you in your dairy and out here. You’re just all I want as far as I can -see. I like you when you’re scolding. I was a little bit frightened at -first; but afterwards I liked that as well as the rest.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re a bold man to be partial to a woman when she’s scolding,” -said Joan, a little mollified; “but I don’t know much about you, Mr. -Selby, and I can’t say I’m partial to you.”</p> - -<p>“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said promptly; “make as many -inquiries as you like, I am not afraid of them. You’ll find I have a -good character wherever I’ve been. I don’t see why I shouldn’t make you -happy as well as another. I’ve nothing behind me that I’m ashamed of. -You and I at Heatonshaw, with plenty of beasts in the stables, and the -house furnished to please you, and a bit of a phaeton in the -coach-house: I don’t see why we mightn’t be very snug<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span> together,” he -said, and as he spoke he took Joan’s hand, which, though a little red in -the fingers and brown on the back, was a shapely hand notwithstanding -all her work. Then she was seized all at once, and without warning, with -that <i>fou rire</i>.</p> - -<p>“If you mean courting, Mr. Selby, it’s a bit public here,” she said, -discharging a load from her breast in that peal of laughter. He was a -little offended for the moment; but then he comforted himself that -laughing was near to crying, and that crying would have been a very good -sign indeed. At his age he had a little experience more than falls to -the lot of a youth at the ordinary love-making age.</p> - -<p>“I hope you’re not just laughing at me, Joan.”</p> - -<p>“I’m laughing at myself as well—and at you too. I’m old to have a lad, -and I never looked for such a thing—and you’re old,” Joan added. “I -think you’re too old for me.”</p> - -<p>“I am forty-one; which is not a bad age. Just suitable, I think,” he -said.</p> - -<p>Then she looked at him again with the laughter in her eyes. He was a -very “wiselike” man—nothing to be ashamed at, whoever saw him—very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span> -good-looking indeed; more satisfactory in that way than Joan felt -herself to be. And Heatonshaw was a pretty place; and a house all of her -own was better than a house in which her father might interfere -arbitrarily every day, or even her mother change all the arrangements -some fine morning in a fit of absence or compunction. She turned round -and began to walk towards the house, suddenly becoming serious. Selby -turned too and walked with her. He did not say a word as they went over -the fields and through the garden of the White House, but waited her -pleasure in a deferential way which went to Joan’s heart. But she was -not “partial” to him. “We can talk of this some other time” was all that -she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> -<small>JOAN AND HER LOVER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">J</span>OAN said nothing to anyone about Philip Selby’s proposal. She had, -indeed, no one to consult on such a subject. She had grown up in the -habit of indifference to her mother’s opinions, which originated partly -in the difference of their dispositions and the superiority a calm -temperament has over a nervous and anxious one, and partly in her -father’s contempt of his wife, which her children resented, yet were -influenced by. Seeing the number of times when Mrs. Joscelyn was -unhappy, and excited as Joan thought about nothing, it was almost -impossible for the strong-natured and composed young woman not to feel a -certain affectionate and sometimes indignant contempt for the excess of -feeling which gave so much trouble, yet never had any result;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span> while, on -the other hand, it is almost impossible for a man to treat his wife with -systematic scorn without weakening the respect of her children for her, -even when, as we have said, they resent his conduct and are more or less -her partizans. At the best she was “poor mother,” a person to be -defended and accounted for, not looked up to and trusted in. From her -early youth Joan had been her own guide and governor. She had none of -her mother’s sentiment; her mother’s standard was too high for her; her -mother’s feelings overstrained and exaggerated. Among the multitude of -“fusses” she was partly disgusted, partly amused, ready to take mother’s -part, as has been seen, but always with a protest against the weaknesses -which she could apologise for, but not understand. In the matter of -Harry, as she shared in some measure the anxiety, she had in some -measure understood the sentiment; but her attitude towards her mother -was more that of a senior towards a junior, the stronger to the weaker, -than the natural subordination which would have become their -relationship. Joan knew that, had she consulted her mother about Mr. -Selby, Mrs. Joscelyn would have been greatly excited. She would have -questioned her daughter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span> as to her love for her suitor, and his love for -her, and all the sentimental questions, which Joan felt were well enough -in books, but as far as regarded Philip Selby and herself were -altogether out of the question. And as for mentioning such a subject to -her father, nothing could have been more impossible. She was thus alone -in her moderate and sober soul, as Mrs. Joscelyn was in her tender and -somewhat excitable being. She could not tell her story to anyone with -the hope of aid and guidance—who can? We are all alone when the great -problems of life come upon us. Joan, however, thought of this question -very soberly, without once regarding it in the light of a great problem. -It excited her a good deal privately within her own composed bosom; but, -to tell the truth, its first effect was more mirthful than serious. In -the seclusion of her own being she laughed, saying to herself that after -all the maids had been right, that she had “got a lad” when she was -least thinking of it. The laugh was not without a touch of gratification -in it, for it is true that a young woman, even when she reaches the -mature age of thirty and gives herself out as beyond such vanities, -still likes to have “a lad,” and to feel that she is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> like the -others—“respectit like the lave,” not left out in this important -particular of life. Joan was pleased with Mr. Selby that he had -appreciated her. She thought the more of him for it, as has perhaps been -already perceived. She had an honest consciousness of her own value. She -knew what she could do, and what her services were worth in the not very -satisfactory position she held in her father’s house, where she had the -responsibility of everything without either the approbation or the -reward to which such work as hers was entitled. And she knew, without -any misplaced modesty on the subject, that she would make an excellent -wife. But being thirty, and in her own opinion very homely in -appearance, and evidently not appreciated in this way, Joan had, with a -half-conscious contempt for the fool of a man, whoever he was, who had -not “come forward,” and a secret laugh when she thought of it, even at -this contempt—put that contingency out of her mind and taken it for -granted that she was to be Joan Joscelyn till the end of her days, the -manager and soul of the establishment at the White House. If it occurred -to her sometimes—as of course it must have done—that the White House -could not continue for ever under<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span> its present <i>régime</i>, and that the -day would come when Will’s wife (and a bonnie hand <i>she</i> would make of -it!) must reign in her stead, the idea in no way troubled her; for she -knew that no circumstances could arise in which she, Joan Joscelyn, -would not be well worth her salt. But now, when she had no thought of -any such want, when she had put it entirely out of her mind, here had -happened the thing that she thought would never happen! She had got “a -lad.” Suddenly the monotonous future in which she had foreseen no change -opened before her, showing the pretty little property she had always -admired, the place which had once belonged to the Joscelyns; the pasture -which was the sweetest in the country-side; the nice house with its -sunny aspect, so different from the White House; the best of beasts in -the stables, and even the phaeton in the coach-house. It is the greatest -wonder in the world that women are not demoralised altogether by the -constant possibility of such sudden changes in their existence. From day -to day it is always happening. A poor girl, who has been trained to all -the pinchings and scrapings of genteel poverty, will suddenly see wealth -before her, and consideration, and importance, all in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span> moment, offered -to her acceptance without any virtue of hers. We ask a great deal in -asking young women to be wholly insensible to this chance which may -happen at any moment to any one of them, and of which everyone knows -instances. It was not anything so magnificent which had suddenly fallen -in Joan’s way; but it was a great change, an offer as important as if it -had come from King Cophetua; far more important indeed, for sensible -Joan would have made short work with his majesty. This, however, was the -most sensible, the most suitable of arrangements. It was exactly what -she would have liked had she exercised the widest choice. The perfect -appropriateness of it even subdued the inward mirth with which the idea, -when it first presented itself to her mind, had been received. Though -she still had a laugh now and then, it was gradually hushed by this -conviction. “I thought I might had a waur offer,” she would say to -herself now and then. She was like the heroine of that song. Her “braw -wooer” was not without a touch of the ridiculous about him. She was -disposed to jibe at his good looks, and his politeness, and his fine -talk; but notwithstanding:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span>—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“I never let on that I kent or I cared,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But I thought I might had a waur offer, waur offer,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I thought I might had a waur offer.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Joan was no singer; but it was astonishing how often that refrain came -from her lips about this time. She was no singer; but she was a woman -who sang at her work, as women used to do more than they do now. Perhaps -drawingroom performers sing all the better because our ears have grown -more particular; but of all cheerful things in this uncheerful world -there are few so pleasant as the half-conscious song with which a cheery -worker accompanies his or her occupations. Joan was always giving vent -to some snatch of homely music in this way. But at the present moment -she confined herself to that refrain: “I thought I might had a waur -offer, waur offer. I thought I might had a waur offer.</p> - -<p>“You are always singing that, Joan,” Mrs. Joscelyn said. “I never hear -you sing anything else.”</p> - -<p>“Am I?” said Joan, with a laugh; and then she grew red, and grave and -silent all at once. It was so suitable! Nothing could have been more -appropriate. But then, “I’m not partial to him,” she said to herself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span></p> - -<p>This would have been more on her mind, however, and probably would have -come to a more rapid conclusion, if it had not been for the increasing -uneasiness about Harry. He did not reply to his mother’s letter; the -“course of post” in which she had begged to be answered was far -exceeded. <i>That</i> they had not thought much of; but when day succeeded -day and no letter came, Mrs. Joscelyn became daily more unhappy, and -Joan was more disturbed than she would allow. Even Ralph Joscelyn -himself, finding out, no one knew how, for he was not in the habit of -interesting himself in the family correspondence, that there was no news -of Harry, began to be seen looking out for the postman, and keeping a -watch upon the countenances of the women and their communications -together. He was uneasy as he had never been known to be before. When he -was found to share that anxiety about the post which was so habitual to -the others he looked confused, and murmured something about the Sister -to Scythian and a bargain which had fallen through. Then his disquietude -got so great that he spoke—not to his wife, whose constant wringing of -her hands, and drawn countenance and anxious eyes called from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span> him -continual bursts of abuse—but to Joan, who, daily becoming more and -more anxious herself, was exasperated by them also.</p> - -<p>“You have word of that lad, I suppose?” Joscelyn said.</p> - -<p>“No, we have no word.”</p> - -<p>“He’s a young devil,” said his father, “he’s putting out his temper on -you.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve always set him a good example in that way,” said Joan, promptly; -“maybe he is, and maybe not.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your dashed tongue,” said Joscelyn; “what else could it be?”</p> - -<p>“How am I to answer you if I hold my tongue? There’s a many reasons -possible. He may have made up his mind to write no more to a house he -was turned out of.”</p> - -<p>“Stuff and nonsense! he was coming in at a disgraceful hour, and the -door was locked, at a time when every honest door is locked.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you can ease your conscience in that way,” said Joan; “it was -at no disgraceful hour; all the boys have been out later, you’ve been -out later, many’s the time, yourself. He may have made up his mind as I -say,” she added, distinctly, “to disown the house as his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span> home, at which -I for one would not wonder: or he may,” and here her voice faltered, “he -may—and that’s what I fear—have gone off as lads do——”</p> - -<p>“Rubbish! blanked nonsense!” cried the father, but his ruddy countenance -paled a little. “What do you mean by going off as lads do?”</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell you,” said Joan, with sober disdain, “if you don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“It’s just a dashed story you’ve got up,” her father said.</p> - -<p>“It’s no story at all, for I hope it isn’t so, and I don’t know what it -is—but to my mind that’s the most like. I wouldn’t put it into mother’s -head for all the world, poor dear!”</p> - -<p>“Dash you!” cried Joscelyn, “you are finely taken up with your mother. I -never saw the like before; you have been easy enough about your mother -and all her whining and complaining. What makes you set up this dashed -nonsense, enough to make a man sick, now?”</p> - -<p>“I never minded before,” said Joan, “maybe more shame to me. I’m very -anxious about Harry myself, and that makes me understand the trouble -mother’s in, poor dear!”</p> - -<p>“Dash you and her too! It’s all the blanked<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span> nonsense he’s got from her, -the young idiot!”</p> - -<p>“That’s true: he has a deal of mother in him, poor lad!” Joan said, -drying her eyes.</p> - -<p>Joscelyn lifted his hand, and clenched his fist as if he would have -given her a blow.</p> - -<p>“You’re all a set of —— ——s!” he cried, launching furiously forth -into the kind of eloquence which was habitual to him; but furious as he -was, and brutal, there was a keen arrow of pain in his heart too; he was -angry with himself. He could have beaten himself with that big fist. -What a fool he had been to expose himself, to put it in the power of any -lad to expose him! There was nothing he could not have done to himself -in the rage of self-reproach and shame which had come upon him. It was a -little for Harry—he was not unnatural, and he had a feeling for his -offspring—but it was much more that he had laid himself open to the -remarks of the county, and every friend and every enemy who might like -to gossip about him and say the worst that there was to say.</p> - -<p>Perhaps there was a little satisfaction in Joan’s bosom at the sight of -the disturbance in her father’s. He deserved to be disturbed. She was -glad that he should suffer, that he should get<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span> in some degree the -recompense of his ill-doings. But this was only a transitory diversion -to the painful strain of her thoughts. The waiting was hard to bear. How -their hearts beat when they saw the postman approaching along the dusty -road, and there was a terrible moment of doubt as to whether or not he -would turn up the path to the White House! And when he came there was a -still hotter excitement as Joan, with fingers which never had trembled -before, turned over the letters. She could not trust herself to speak, -but only shook her head, looking at her mother at the window. How many -days? It seemed to have been going on for years, not days, this -intolerable suspense, which, though it was unbearable, had to be borne. -Only about a fortnight had elapsed, however, when there came a packet -with the Liverpool postmark. It was a large one, and seemed to contain -so much that for the first moment Joan scarcely noticed that the address -was not written in her brother’s hand. She took it into the parlour, her -heart beating loudly, and broke open the envelope, while her mother, -trembling, hurried to her side full of eager joy. There tumbled out upon -the table, however, four or five closed letters, all addressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span> to -Harry—and nothing more. Then it was that Joan turned the envelope and -looked at what was written upon it: and only then discovered that the -packet was addressed to Harry, and bore the stamp of his office. Mrs. -Joscelyn’s letter was among the other contents. Harry had never received -it. The two looked at each other blankly, turning over the letters which -had fallen on the table with trembling hands. It was like touching -something dead.</p> - -<p>“What does it mean? Oh Joan, what is the meaning of it?” Mrs. Joscelyn -said.</p> - -<p>Joan turned them all over again, aghast, almost stupid in her dismay. -“It means he has never got your letter, mother; then how could he answer -it, poor lad?” she said, with a keen impulse of angry despair.</p> - -<p>This seemed reasonable enough in the first stupefaction; but afterwards -the mother gave a lamentable cry. “Why did he not get it?—why did he -not get my letter, Joan?”</p> - -<p>“He has not been there, mother.” Joan spoke in a low tone of terror, as -if she were afraid to trust the air with that too evident -conclusion—for where, if he were not there, could Harry be? Then she -examined the outside envelope over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">{283}</a></span> again with anxious futility, as if -that could give her any information. Written inside the flap was the -request, “Please acknowledge receipt.” The envelope bore the office -stamp. All was done in the most business-like way. She had seen Harry’s -letters come to him in exactly the same envelope when he was at home for -one of his holidays. The inference that he was still at home, that all -was peaceful and well, and his letters forwarded to him in the usual -course, overpowered Joan, calm as she was. A few great tears, looking -like large raindrops as they pelted down upon the letters, fell from her -eyes in spite of herself. “There never was such a fool as I am,” she -cried with a hysterical laugh, “I’m worse than mother or anybody. What’s -so wonderful about it? He’s gone to London or somewhere, having still -his time to himself—why should he have gone back to the office and -spoiled his holiday. That would just have been—preposterous.” This big -word gave her a certain relief. It seemed to take some of the weight off -her heart as she brought it out. “Preposterous,” she repeated, looking -almost angrily at her mother. “You might see that, without asking me.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Joscelyn gazed at her, half carried away<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">{284}</a></span> by this outburst of what -looked like argument; but then she sank into a chair and wrung her -hands, and began to weep. “Oh Joan, where is he, where is he, if he is -not there? What has happened to my boy?”</p> - -<p>That was a terrible day to everybody concerned. Joscelyn himself came in -under pretence of wanting something, and seeing the letters lying on the -table stooped to look at them with a face which grew very dark in spite -of himself. He looked at the women, one seated crying in her chair, the -other standing stupefied, staring about her, not knowing what she did.</p> - -<p>“Has he come back?” he said, the words escaping him in spite of himself.</p> - -<p>And these two who had been under his rule so long, the timid, feeble -wife, the sober-minded daughter, rose, as it were, and flung themselves -upon him. They who had been so voiceless hitherto, fell upon him like a -hail-storm, taking him by surprise, beating him down with a sudden storm -of wrath and reproach. His wife, who had never ventured to say her soul -was her own; who had lain still, weeping and terrified, allowing him to -be the master on that night when all the harm had been done; and Joan, -who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">{285}</a></span> borne his fury so often with stolid composure, making no reply. -All the pent up grievances of years he heard of now, with an -astonishment, to hear their opinion of him, which was equal to his -stupefaction at their rebellion. Even the harshest domestic tyrant finds -it difficult to face the fact that he is a terror to his surroundings, -still more that they see through his external bigness, and know him to -be at bottom a coward and a bully. Joscelyn was absolutely cowed by this -revelation. He tried a few volleys of oaths, like those which usually -forced them into silence; but without effect. He raised his voice and -thundered; but they did not care. It was Mrs. Joscelyn who led this -attack.</p> - -<p>“Come back?” she cried; “he will never come back—how dare you stand -there and look at his letters that are like his graveclothes, and ask -‘Has he come back?’ You that have driven him from his home—that have -turned his sweetness into bitterness; that have driven my boy from me, -and broken my heart. Oh, you may shake your fist at me! What do I care? -what do you suppose I care? Do you think I mind if you killed me? You -have done far worse; you have driven away my boy, and in all the world<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">{286}</a></span> -I do not know where he is. Oh man, get out of my sight. I cannot endure -the sight of you. I cannot endure the sight of you!” she cried.</p> - -<p>And Joscelyn stood aghast. He was pale at first, then a purple flood of -rage came over him. “You dashed old witch—you miserable blanked old -cat—you —— —— ——” He caught his breath in his consternation and -fury. He did not know what to say.</p> - -<p>“Oh, what do I care for your swearing,” she cried, with an almost -majestic wave of her thin white hand. “Go away, for God’s sake, go -away—what are your oaths and your bad words to me? I’m used to them -now. Many a time I have been terrified by them; but you can’t frighten -me now. What do they mean?—nothing! I am used to them; you might as -well save yourself the trouble. I am not afraid of anything you can do. -You’ve done your worst, Ralph Joscelyn; you have driven away my boy, my -boy. Oh Joan, where is my boy?” the poor woman cried, turning from her -husband with another indignant wave of her hand, to her daughter, with -whom she never had been linked in such tender and close union before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">{287}</a></span></p> - -<p>“By ——!” cried Joscelyn, “I’ll teach you, madam, to defy me. Your boy, -as you call him, had better never show his face again here. <i>Your</i> boy! -if you come to that, what have you got to do with one of them? They’re -<i>my</i> children, and you’re my wife, and it’s me you’ve got to look to and -take your orders from, you dashed old wild-cat, you blanked old ——!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hold your tongue, father!” Joan cried, turning her head in angry -impatience. “Mother’s quite right, we’re used to all that.”</p> - -<p>What could a man so assailed do? He could not get over his astonishment. -He remained finally master of the field, in so far that they left him -there volleying forth those thunders which they disdained, and saw to be -nothing but words. Joscelyn recognized with the strangest humiliation -that they were but words, when his women, his slaves, first ventured to -let him know that they saw through him, and found them all to be froth -and emptiness. If somebody had discovered Jove’s thunderbolts to be but -fireworks, the Father of the Gods must have fallen to the ground like an -exhausted rocket. Joscelyn felt something like this. He came down -whirling from his imaginary eminence, down into an abyss of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">{288}</a></span> emptiness -and darkness, and struck blankly against a real something which resisted -him, which he could move no longer. He was not without feeling, and he -became suddenly dumb as they closed the door, leaving him a much -discomfited hero in possession of the field. Rebellion in his house, his -slaves emancipated, the boy lost, and the whole story likely to be -published over the length and breadth of the county, and himself exposed -to every petty gossip and critical assembly in it. This was a terrible -downfall for such a man to bear.</p> - -<p>That day messengers were sent off to Tom and Will, who came, in haste, -thinking it was a funeral to which they were summoned, to hear all the -tale, and to give their solemn verdict against their father. <i>They</i> were -not afraid of him now; they could swear themselves almost as fiercely as -he could, and he did not overawe them as he used to do.</p> - -<p>“The governor oughtn’t to have done it,” Will said to Tom.</p> - -<p>“He ought to have had more consideration,” Tom replied. “It doesn’t do -to treat young fellows so; I wouldn’t have put up with it myself, and no -more will Harry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">{289}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“If we’ve seen the last of him,” said the other, “we know where to lay -the fault.”</p> - -<p>There could not have been a more complete family unanimity on this point -at least.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">{290}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> -<small>NO NEWS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>UT neither Will nor Tom had any suggestion to make, or knew what to do -in such an emergency. They thought it might be well to write to the -office and ask what was known of him, or to his Liverpool lodgings; and -for themselves, they were anxious to get back to their own homes, their -wives, and their work. Even before the afternoon was out they had so far -exhausted the subject of Harry that they were not unwilling to join -their father in an examination of the Sister to Scythian, and “pass -their opinion” on her, and the high hopes Joscelyn entertained of her. -Joan looked on at this change of sentiment and subject with a half -understanding and half bewilderment. In other family troubles before -this she too had been glad to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">{291}</a></span> escape from the monotony of a painful -subject with a half scorn and whole impatience of her mother’s -persistence in it, exactly like the sentiment her brothers showed now. -Only this time her own heart was profoundly engaged; she felt like her -mother, and along with her comprehension of the feeling of “the boys,” -had a perfectly new and bitter sense of their heartlessness, their -stupid indifference, their desire to escape from this one thing which -was more important than anything else in earth or heaven. What was the -Sister to Scythian in comparison with Harry? And they had all allowed -that Harry’s disappearance was a serious matter: they had not deceived -themselves, or made it out to be some “nonsense of mother’s.” This time -they had been obliged to confess there was grave cause for anxiety; and -then they had gone to the stables with the father whom they had been -unanimous in blaming, and had given all their minds to the points of the -horse. Joan had never been given to investigating the feebleness of -human character. She would scarcely have understood the words had they -been suggested to her, or, at least, would have treated them as too -high-flown for ordinary meaning; but for once in a way the wonder was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">{292}</a></span> -brought home to her, and she saw and understood it. “The boys” were -sorry about their brother, sorry that such a thing should have occurred; -annoyed that their domestic affairs should thus be thrown open to the -public, and more or less sympathetic with their mother, though not quite -sure that it did not serve her right for making a favourite of her -youngest son; but when they had expressed these feelings, what more were -they to say? They could not go on talking about it for ever; they could -not bring Harry back if they talked till doomsday; and besides, when -once their opinion was expressed and their regrets said, Harry was not a -subject of very great importance to them—whereas the Sister to Scythian -might advance the interests of the family and make the Joscelyn stable -celebrated. And Joan understood it all, she knew it by herself: yet was -angry with a harsh and disappointed pain which all her reason could not -subdue. Mrs. Joscelyn in the parlour, absorbed in that one passion of -anxiety, did not even appreciate this failure of the interest of the -others in what was so great a matter to herself so much as her daughter -did.</p> - -<p>“What do the boys say? What do they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">{293}</a></span> think we should do?” she asked Joan -a hundred times. “What shall we do? Oh! Joan, what do they think we -should do?”</p> - -<p>“They are not thinking anything about it, mother,” Joan said. “They are -off to the stables, looking at that beast. They are more taken up with -her than with Harry. An ill-conditioned brute! I wish, for my part, she -was at the bottom of the sea; but set a horse before the men, and they -think of nothing else—if all the brothers in the world were perishing -before their eyes.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Joan,” said a voice behind her, “I am astonished to hear you say -that; you whom I have always taken to be such an excellent judge of a -horse yourself.”</p> - -<p>The two women turned upon the new-comer with mingled feelings, half -angry that he had intruded upon them, half excited by a sudden wild hope -that a stranger might have some new light to throw upon a subject which -they had exhausted, for they could not hide their trouble from him. Mrs. -Joscelyn could not speak without an overflow of tears, and even Joan’s -eyes were red, and there was that look of irritation and vexation and -impatience in her face which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">{294}</a></span> comes so naturally to a capable person -suddenly set down before a painful difficulty which she can see no way -in her experience of coping with. Selby looked at her with anxious eyes. -Was she angry with him? but, if so, there was a sudden gleam of -expectation in her face too, suddenly looking up at him, as if she had -said within herself, “If help is possible it is here—” which gave him -courage; and he hastened to explain with that look and tone of sympathy -in which strangers so often excel those who ought to be the natural -consolers.</p> - -<p>“I see I have come in at a wrong time,” he said. “I knocked, but I -suppose you did not hear. I ought to go away, but I want to stay: for -you are in trouble, and if I could be of any use to you——”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Selby is—a true well-wisher,” said Joan, looking with almost -timidity at her mother. She was not given to blushing, but she blushed -now all over her face and her throat, and made such an appeal with her -eyes as those eyes had never made before. “It will be best to tell him,” -she said: “he, maybe, could think of something; and what is the use of -trying to hide it? it will soon be all over the country-side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">{295}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Indeed I am a well-wisher,” he cried; “if I can do anything, I will do -it with all my heart. If it’s about your brother Harry, I’ve heard -something—” and he looked from Joan to Mrs. Joscelyn with eyes so full -of sympathy that they felt the look as a sick man feels a cool hand laid -upon his hot forehead.</p> - -<p>They told him their story with anxious questions as to what he had -heard. He had heard, of course, a great deal more than there was to -hear, that Harry had come to blows with his father, that there had been -a struggle and a fight, and that the young man had been kicked out of -the house. Some added that he lay on the Fells all night, so much -injured was he; and there were whispers of vice on Harry’s part as the -cause of such a violent proceeding, which Selby was too wise to betray -to the poor women. When they had told him all they knew, he sprang up to -his feet and looked at his watch with an air of readiness and capability -which at once gave them hope.</p> - -<p>“It is quite clear what must be done,” he said; “you must send somebody -to Liverpool at once, this very night. It’s too late for the mid-day -train, but the night one will do.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">{296}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Send somebody to Liverpool!” Joan’s countenance flushed again while her -mother’s grew pale.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, “but who can we get to go?” while Joan, who -had never been beyond Carlisle in her life, stood up unconsciously with -such a gasp as catches the breath after a sudden plunge into the sea. -She knew nothing about the world, and she belonged to a generation which -believed that a woman could do nothing out of her own home; but a rush -of blood came to her face, and of tremendous energy to her heart. In the -suggestion there seemed so much hope, although almost as much fear.</p> - -<p>“Who will you get to go? Me if you like,” said Selby, with the -benevolent glow of a man who feels himself a sort of good angel to women -in trouble. “I have nothing very particular to do, and I have a pass on -the railway, and I’m used to travelling. I will go to-night, and come -back to-morrow night. You will hear sooner that way than any other way, -and it is far easier to make inquiries personally than by letter—and -far more satisfactory.”</p> - -<p>The colour left Joan’s cheek; there was a little falling back of relief, -yet half disappointment, from the sudden alarmed temerity of impulse -that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">{297}</a></span> had come upon her. She looked at him with, in the midst of her -trouble, a faint—the very faintest—touch of a smile at one corner of -her mouth. “Aha, my lad! I know what that is for!” Joan said to herself, -swift as lightning; but even the interested motive thus revealed was not -displeasing to her, and the whole suggestion went through her mind like -an arrow on the wind, showing only for a second against the dark -atmosphere of anxiety within.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Selby, how could I ask you to do that for me? How could I ever -repay you for such kindness?” Mrs. Joscelyn cried, wringing her -tremulous hands. There was no complication of ideas in her mind. She was -bewildered by the suggestion, by the offer, by this unexampled effort of -friendship. No one had ever offered her such a service before. To -imagine that it was for the love of Joan that it was offered to her did -not enter her mind. She knew no motive possible, and it filled her with -astonishment—astonishment almost too great for hope. A journey was a -thing which, in her experience, was only undertaken after great -preparations and much thought. To go to-day and return to-morrow was a -proceeding unknown to her. And then why should he, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">{298}</a></span> stranger, not -belonging to her, undertake such a journey for her? and how could she -repay him? She had not even money to pay his expenses if she could have -offered payment, and how was she to make it up to him? In this strait -she turned her eyes anxiously upon Joan, who was standing by, silenced -by an agitation such as had never been seen in her before.</p> - -<p>“It is far, far too much trouble,” Joan faltered. “If I could go -myself——”</p> - -<p>“You!” cried the mother, upon whom the weakness of her sex and its -incapacity had always been strongly impressed. “Oh, what could you do, -Joan? what can a woman do? They will not even let a woman into these -offices—or so I’ve heard. Oh no, no, not you—and it’s far too much, -far too much, as you say, to ask—”</p> - -<p>“You are not asking,” said Selby, beaming. “It is I who am offering to -do it. I should like to do it; it would give me pleasure. You need not -fear I will say anything to hurt his feelings. I will act as if he were -a young brother of my own. As for the travelling it is nothing, and it -will cost me even next to nothing, for I have my pass, being engaged on -the railway. Not that I make much of that—for if it cost me ever so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">{299}</a></span> -much I should be all the more glad to do it, Mrs. Joscelyn. To ease your -mind I would do anything,” he said, and this time he glanced at Joan -with a corner of his eye; but with meaning enough to make it very -distinct to her prepared intelligence. And at the corner of Joan’s -mouth, that infinitesimal curve, became for a second almost a dimple. -How could she help seeing through him?—but she was not displeased.</p> - -<p>“And if I find any difficulty in tracing him,” said Selby, a little -carried away by his enthusiasm, “I will engage a detective—”</p> - -<p>But at this Mrs. Joscelyn threw up her hands with a sudden paleness, and -almost fainted; while Joan looked at him with a sternness that made the -heart of her suitor tremble, as it had done for a moment when he heard -her scolding Bess in the dairy.</p> - -<p>“Do you think my brother is a lad that should have the police set after -him?” she said.</p> - -<p>“It is not the police,” said Selby mildly; but they were ignorant of all -modern habits in this way, and the suggestion was so great an offence to -them, that it nearly took away all their gratitude and hope in the -proposal he had made. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">{300}</a></span> prudent enough to say no more about it; -but took Harry’s address at his lodgings and at his office, making -careful note of everything in a way that went to Mrs. Joscelyn’s heart. -Her courage rose as she saw him make these notes. They looked like -something doing, an effort which must come to some result. To-morrow -early this good friend would be on the spot; would see with his eyes and -hear with his ears everything that could be heard or seen; and she could -not doubt that he would bring light out of the darkness. Her tears dried -as she looked at him; the feeble wringing of her hands was stayed—they -clasped each other instead with a tremulous patience and almost -steadiness. Never before had there been a reasonable being like this, -kind and sympathetic and understanding, to stand by her in any of her -troubles; it seemed an almost miraculous goodness to the heart-broken -woman. And Harry must hear reason at the hands of such a man. If he did -so much for her, surely he would do more for Harry. She was comforted -beyond measure by the very sight of him as he stood and took down the -address. And that he should be willing to do so much for <i>her</i>, seemed -miraculous to her. She could not think of any other reason for his -kindness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">{301}</a></span></p> - -<p>As for Joan, she was consoled too, partly by gratitude like her -mother’s, but partly also by her insight into Selby’s real motive, which -her mother did not guess. Her brow and her eyes were very grave and -heavy still with anxiety; but the dimple remained at the corner of her -mouth. She saw through him very well; he was not generous or -disinterested, as her mother thought. She knew his motive. And Joan was -not sure yet that it would do him any good notwithstanding her -gratitude. She was by no means free from a little sidelong sense of that -knavery which is common enough in such matters. She meant to accept, as -far as this went, his self-devotion, but she was not sure that the hopes -he was building upon it might not be fallacious hopes, and secretly -entertained in her inmost heart a half-determination to cheat him yet, -and prove him wrong in his reliance upon the services he was going to -render her. But mingled as this process of thought was, it was on the -whole exhilarating. Her heart rose a little. She thought more of herself -as she caught a glimpse of herself in Philip Selby’s eyes, and as her -self-esteem received a sensible stimulus, her hopes increased with it. -The more we think of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">{302}</a></span> ourselves the more sure we are that good and not -evil will happen to us. There is nothing more terrible in misfortune -than the depression and sense of demerit which it brings with it. Joan -thought better of herself through the spectacles which Selby provided, -and she could not help feeling an incipient certainty, not altogether -new to her, that with a person possessing such qualities as hers all -must go well.</p> - -<p>Fortified by these hopes, the mother and daughter saw Tom and Will -depart with equanimity.</p> - -<p>“Well, mother,” Will said, as he shook her by the hand (North-country -people are not given to demonstrations of affection), “I hope you’ll -soon have word of that boy. You needn’t fret: we’ve been in a good many -scrapes, but we’ve always got safe out of them.”</p> - -<p>Will was the best fellow of the two. Tom took it altogether more easily.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, you’ll hear,” he said; “I’m not the least afraid. Harry’s -like the ill-penny that always turns up. There’s nothing that I can see -to fret about.”</p> - -<p>Joan nodded to them when they got on their horses with a friendly -satisfaction to be quit of them. She had no ideal to be offended in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">{303}</a></span> -brothers. Mrs. Joscelyn, when her momentary buoyancy of new hope was -over, felt bitterly to the depths of her foolish heart that her sons -were of a very common, selfish grain, such as some years ago it would -have broken her heart to think of. She had been drilled into it, and had -yielded to necessity; but still when something made her observation -clearer she remembered and felt the downfall. The slow coming down of -heart and hope by which a woman arrives at the fact that her child is -not ideal, nor even excellent, nor superior in any way to the coarsest -common <i>pâte</i> of man, is very gradual. Perhaps the greater number do not -reach it at all, but are content to deceive themselves and think all -their offspring right and perfect. But Mrs. Joscelyn was not of this -kind. She could not get over her sons’ indifference. “Another man going -out to bring me news—taking all that trouble—a stranger that is -nothing to us—and my own boys, my own boys caring nothing.” Over this -again the poor soul, faithful in all the devices of self-torment, shed a -few bitter tears.</p> - -<p>“Now, mother, you are beginning to fuss again,” said Joan, in a vexed -tone. “Dear, dear, haven’t we trouble enough?” Even she who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">{304}</a></span> shared the -real family grief so warmly thought this one of “mother’s fusses,” and -was impatient at her folly. “As if everybody didn’t know that Will and -Tom were just——Will and Tom,” Joan said to herself. That they had -turned out to be so instead of being heroes, did not strike her as a -subject of complaint.</p> - -<p>Mr. Selby was gone three days. The mission he had undertaken soon showed -itself to be more difficult than he thought. Harry had gone away without -leaving a trace behind him. He had appeared at the office for an hour or -two quite unexpectedly before his leave had expired, and paid a few -small debts, and taken away some small articles which were in his desk, -disappearing again without a word as to his destination. At his lodgings -Harry had not been seen at all. His portmanteau was there, forlorn in -the dusky lobby of the lodging-house, and the unfortunate hamper, out of -which odours not altogether delightful were proceeding, and which the -mistress of the house implored Mr. Selby to take away with him. He did -not know what to do: finally, but with great secrecy, that his -principals might not be offended, he put a detective on Harry’s track, -such as it was. But there seemed no track, not so much as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305">{305}</a></span> circle in -the water or a footprint upon the soil, to show where he had gone. Selby -had gone to Liverpool with great confidence in himself; pleased, for he -had a good heart, to please and console these two women; but also -pleased, for his own part, to show at once how kind and how clever he -was. He had not a doubt that he would succeed and go back triumphant, -and prove himself so superior to all the clowns about, that Joan could -have no further hesitation; and it was in this confidence, being so sure -that the work he had taken up would be prosperous, that he had set out -upon his mission. But when he returned his mind was very different; he -was greatly depressed, not only with the sense that what he had to tell -was unsatisfactory, but that his own prestige would be seriously -impaired. He had left home with the conviction that he would find -everything out and set everything right; that neither would adverse fate -be able to baffle him in the wisdom of his investigations, nor Harry be -able to resist his brotherly-fatherly representations. And when Philip -Selby found nothing but a blank void, in which there was nobody to -persuade and remonstrate with, he felt himself tumble down from the -vantage ground which he had thought so certain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306">{306}</a></span> How was he to go back -and say he had failed? His detectives had indeed done their best to buoy -him up with hope; but he was obliged to come back with no news, -presenting a very blank countenance to the anxious looks of the mother -and sister. The first sight of him sent their hearts down, down to the -very depths.</p> - -<p>“He is not there, Mrs. Joscelyn; but I hope soon to hear news of him,” -he said deprecating, as if it had been his fault—which was not the -satisfactory position he had hoped to hold in coming back.</p> - -<p>And then the fact had to be faced in all its simplicity. Harry had -disappeared. The firm could throw no light on the question. They did not -know where he had gone, nor why he had gone. He had gone honourably, -that was all, had got payment of the salary which was due to him, and -had settled various little debts which he was owing. Nobody knew -anything of larger liabilities, if he had them. He was gone absolutely, -without leaving a trace behind. His employers were surprised by the -inquiries, not giving much importance as yet to the fact that he had -exceeded his time of leave; but they could give no information, and -satisfy no anxiety. He was gone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307">{307}</a></span> that was all about it. The whole tale -was written in Selby’s face to the two anxious women who had awaited him -with so much hope.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308">{308}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /><br /> -<small>WHAT CAN’T BE CURED MUST BE ENDURED.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL great evils are more intolerable, more terrible, before than after -they come. It seems to us in advance as if the mind could never accustom -itself to such a change, or life close over the wound. And yet, when but -a very short time has elapsed, we find that obedient Nature has accepted -and acknowledged the inevitable fact, and that use and wont, so rent -asunder by the change, have begun to throw new fibres of their cobweb -tissue over the chasm. There was a moment when poor Mrs. Joscelyn -thought that she could not bear this rending asunder. She turned her -face to the wall and closed her eyes, and declared that she could not -endure the light. She lay thus for weeks, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309">{309}</a></span> not in any stupor; on the -contrary, with every sense alert, and all standing sentinel, hearing -Harry’s step in every sound outside, and divining him in every whisper -of the wind. She had no objection to the detective now, but was kept -alive from morning to morning by the news which Selby brought her, -scraps of news entirely delusive, but which kept a fire of agitation and -expectation alive in her heart. Selby spent a great deal of money upon -the detective with little use, an expense which neither Joan nor her -mother divined or thought of. To them he had said at first that he had -left a “friend” on the spot to pursue the inquiry, and they had not -doubted his statement. But by-and-by there came a time when the -expenditure seemed to him no longer necessary. He was not rich, although -he was sufficiently well-off, and it was doing no good, neither in -respect to Harry nor to Joan, who was short and sharp with him in her -angry grief, and seemed almost to blame him for the catastrophe -altogether; and, indeed, Joan was unreasonably sharp. She could not help -asking within herself what was the good of a man if he could not do as -much as this? She felt sure that if she had gone herself she must<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310">{310}</a></span> have -discovered something; and she began to get sick of the sight of Selby -coming up to the White House morning after morning with his no news. It -provoked her entirely without reason; his long face provoked her. If he -would but stay away and hold his tongue when he could do no good! She -was all the more unjust to him, perhaps, that she had secretly built -upon his success almost as much as he himself had done, and had felt -that it would justify anything that might follow out of gratitude for -such a service. But the service had not been accomplished, though it had -cost more trouble and expenditure of one sort and another than if it had -been successfully done, and not only was Joan very miserable about her -brother, but she was thrown out altogether in respect to the suitor, who -had, she grudgingly allowed to herself, established a certain claim upon -her by his efforts, even though he had not been successful. She was very -difficult to get on with, all the household acknowledged, at this -period. A lover might well have been alarmed had he heard her voice -lifted high in the dairy, and in the house, setting everything in order. -Woe to the maid who neglected her work in these days, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311">{311}</a></span> the man -either. Joan came upon them like a thunderstorm; there were times when -Selby, stalking up to the house with his bulletin, heard her and -trembled. If this was how she was going to be, would it not be wiser in -a lover to give up such a dangerous pursuit? But though it gave him a -cold shiver he persevered, and took her sharpness gently, and bore with -her unreason, having a soul above his judgment. There were times when -this little conflict going on within him, and the trial of his faithful -purpose over all doubts, was visible in his countenance, betraying Joan -to a momentary amusement in the midst of her irritation and trouble; and -she would be still sharper to him afterwards—then break into a short -laugh within herself. It was her only diversion in her trouble to see -how Selby got frightened and swerved, and then took heart again.</p> - -<p>“I’m enough to give any decent man a fright,” Joan said to herself, with -her half laugh; and it was true that she led the household, as all the -maids said, “a terrible life.”</p> - -<p>But Mrs. Joscelyn lay with her face to the wall, and moaned by times: -but generally listened, listened, night and day, her whole being -con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312">{312}</a></span>centrated into her ears. She got a kind of monomania on the subject. -He seemed to her to be always coming home, on the road, drawing nearer -and nearer. Joan, dozing in a chair by her bedside, when she was at her -worst, she would wake up suddenly and implore to go down to the door and -look out.</p> - -<p>“Somebody went by and stopped, I am sure he stopped—and looked to see -if there was any one up. Run down, run down, and open to him, Joan!”</p> - -<p>Joan did it a dozen times at least, and standing at the open door in the -middle of the night, looking over the black invisible country, or into -the pale moonlight which revealed it in a vague whiteness, would shed a -few tears, and feel the night wind go chill to her heart before she shut -and locked again the door that had been once closed upon her brother.</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s a deal of mother in him, the Lord have a care of him!” Joan -would say: and going back again, add: “There was no one, I knew very -well there was no one; I went to humour you. Now just you humour me and -go to sleep, go to sleep, poor dear!” and she would smooth the pillow -and the bed very softly for all her scolding.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313">{313}</a></span></p> - -<p>It was a dreadful day, the day on which the portmanteau came back, and -the hamper, which smelt so badly, and which was now a half rotten mass, -not fit even for the pigs. To see them coming in the cart from the -station was like a funeral; the very horse went slowly, though he was -wont to break into a clumsy canter as soon as he came within sight of -his stable. Even the dumb beast felt it, old Simon said; and the man got -the things out very quietly, and carried them up to Harry’s room with -solemnity, as they might have carried his coffin. Joan unpacked all his -clothes again as she had folded them, with her tears falling like rain. -She put them back in his drawers with many a dismal thought. Would he -ever come back to find them all there waiting for him? or was it over -for ever, and would Harry never enter the house again? The arrival of -these relics increased Mrs. Joscelyn’s sufferings so much that the -doctor had to be sent for, who made but one prescription, succinct, in -one word: “Liddy:” for he knew the family well, and all its members. -Joan clasped her hands together as the thought struck her. “And me never -to have thought of that! It shows the head I must have,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314">{314}</a></span></p> - -<p>And this was how it came about that suddenly, without anyone knowing of -it, one afternoon when Joan had been absent for an hour or two, there -arose a sudden commotion in the house, a clanging of doors, a sound of -voices, a rush up the stairs of something that was between the flight of -a bird and the blowing of a brisk wind and the patter of airy steps—a -movement, and a sentiment of fresh life, and arrival, and new hope. It -was not a noise, the creature was too light, too melodious for that: her -step scarcely touched the stair, the door which she pushed open did not -bang as when other hands touched it, but flew round upon its hinges as -airy as herself; and when she flung herself upon the bed with a soft cry -of “Mother!” the whole place seemed full of her, brightening and growing -warm with pleasure. Mrs. Joscelyn turned round with an answering cry, -and took happiness into her feeble arms with a shock of sudden -consolation that sent the blood into motion again in her veins. She was -not happy herself, poor soul! but happiness stood by her bed, and -clasped her neck, and breathed into her its soft natural sweetness.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my Liddy, my Liddy!” the poor woman said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315">{315}</a></span></p> - -<p>Liddy was all in a commotion of gladness to get back; to stop her -lessons in mid-career of the “half;” to be of such importance that she -was sent for to help and cure her mother. Harry’s loss was a very -secondary matter to the girl, who had not seen very much of Harry, nor -had ever been used to look upon him as a necessary part of home; but she -listened to all the story, which her mother found a great relief in -telling her from beginning to end, with a childish pleasure in the tale -as well as sympathy with the teller.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but he’ll come back,” Liddy said, with a happy confidence, which -made far more impression on her mother than all that had been said by -people who knew a great deal better than Liddy.</p> - -<p>“Do you think so, my darling?” she asked with piteous eyes—as if the -child could tell. Joan looking on, and much advantaged herself by the -little stir of mind which her resolution to send for Liddy, and the -prompt carrying out of the same, had roused within her, could not but -laugh once more that sharp laugh of mingled amusement and wonder, to see -how efficacious her remedy was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316">{316}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Mother’s very queer when all’s done,” she said to herself. She had done -everything for everybody throughout all this troubled moment; but Liddy, -who could do nothing save kiss Mrs. Joscelyn’s white face and warm her -chilly hands, and promise with confident ignorance, “Oh, but he’ll come -back,” was of far greater account than she. But it was a great relief to -her mind all the same. And by and by this great event which had -disturbed even the rude soul of Ralph Joscelyn, and filled him with -shame and angry confusion, began to be a thing they were all used to, -and which had entered into the fabric of their lives.</p> - -<p class="fint">END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.<br /><br /><br /><small> -London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.</small></p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 1 of 3, by -Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 1 OF 3 *** - -***** This file should be named 63142-h.htm or 63142-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/4/63142/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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