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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wilfrid Cumbermede, by George MacDonald
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wilfrid Cumbermede
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9183]
+This file was first posted on September 12, 2003
+Last Updated: October 10, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILFRID CUMBERMEDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and Online Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WILFRID CUMBERMEDE
+
+
+By George Macdonald
+
+
+_With 14 Full Page Black-And-White
+Illustrations By F.A. Fraser._
+
+
+
+[Illustration: One Day, As We Were Walking Over The Fields, I Told Him
+The Whole Story Of The Loss Of The Weapon At Moldwarp Hall.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+    INTRODUCTION.
+
+      I. WHERE I FIND MYSELF.
+     II. MY UNCLE AND AUNT.
+    III. AT THE TOP OF THE CHIMNEY-STAIR.
+     IV. THE PENDULUM.
+      V. I HAVE LESSONS.
+     VI. I COBBLE.
+    VII. THE SWORD ON THE WALL.
+   VIII. I GO TO SCHOOL, AND GRANNIE LEAVES IT.
+     IX. I SIN AND REPENT.
+      X. I BUILD CASTLES.
+     XI. A TALK WITH MY UNCLE.
+    XII. THE HOUSE-STEWARD.
+   XIII. THE LEADS.
+    XIV. THE GHOST.
+     XV. AWAY.
+    XVI. THE ICE-CAVE.
+   XVII. AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
+  XVIII. AGAIN THE ICE-CAVE.
+    XIX. CHARLEY NURSES ME.
+     XX. A DREAM.
+    XXI. THE FROZEN STREAM.
+   XXII. AN EXPLOSION
+  XXIII. ONLY A LINK
+   XXIV. CHARLEY AT OXFORD
+    XXV. MY WHITE MARE
+   XXVI. A RIDING LESSON
+  XXVII. A DISAPPOINTMENT
+ XXVIII. IN LONDON
+   XXIX. CHANGES
+    XXX. PROPOSALS
+   XXXI. ARRANGEMENTS
+  XXXII. PREPARATIONS
+ XXXIII. ASSISTANCE
+  XXXIV. AN EXPOSTULATION
+   XXXV. A TALK WITH CHARLEY
+  XXXVI. TAPESTRY
+ XXXVII. THE OLD CHEST
+XXXVIII. MARY OSBORNE
+  XXXIX. A STORM
+     XL. A DREAM
+    XLI. A WAKING
+   XLII. A TALK ABOUT SUICIDE
+  XLIII. THE SWORD IN THE SCALE
+   XLIV. I PART WITH MY SWORD
+    XLV. UMBERDEN CHURCH
+   XLVI. MY FOLIO
+  XLVII. THE LETTERS AND THEIR STORY
+ XLVIII. ONLY A LINK
+   XLIX. A DISCLOSURE
+      L. THE DATES
+     LI. CHARLEY AND CLARA
+    LII. LILITH MEETS WITH A MISFORTUNE
+   LIII. TOO LATE
+    LIV. ISOLATION
+     LV. ATTEMPTS AND COINCIDENCES
+    LVI. THE LAST VISION
+   LVII. ANOTHER DREAM
+  LVIII. THE DARKEST HOUR
+    LIX. THE DAWN
+     LX. MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER
+    LXI. THE PARISH REGISTER
+   LXII. A FOOLISH TRIUMPH
+  LXIII. A COLLISION
+   LXIV. YET ONCE
+    LXV. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+WILFRID CUMBERMEDE.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I am--I will not say how old, but well past middle age. This much I
+feel compelled to mention, because it has long been my opinion that no
+man should attempt a history of himself until he has set foot upon the
+border land where the past and the future begin to blend in a
+consciousness somewhat independent of both, and hence interpreting
+both. Looking westward, from this vantage-ground, the setting sun is
+not the less lovely to him that he recalls a merrier time when the
+shadows fell the other way. Then they sped westward before him, as if
+to vanish, chased by his advancing footsteps, over the verge of the
+world. Now they come creeping towards him, lengthening as they come.
+And they are welcome. Can it be that he would ever have chosen a world
+without shadows? Was not the trouble of the shadowless noon the
+dreariest of all? Did he not then long for the curtained queen--the
+all-shadowy night? And shall he now regard with dismay the setting sun
+of his earthly life? When he looks back, he sees the farthest cloud of
+the sun-deserted east alive with a rosy hue. It is the prophecy of the
+sunset concerning the dawn. For the sun itself is ever a rising sun,
+and the morning will come though the night should be dark.
+
+In this ‘season of calm weather,’ when the past has receded so far that
+he can behold it as in a picture, and his share in it as the history of
+a man who had lived and would soon die; when he can confess his faults
+without the bitterness of shame, both because he is humble, and because
+the faults themselves have dropped from him; when his good deeds look
+poverty-stricken in his eyes, and he would no more claim consideration
+for them than expect knighthood because he was no thief; when he cares
+little for his reputation, but much for his character--little for what
+has gone beyond his control, but endlessly much for what yet remains in
+his will to determine; then, I think, a man may do well to write his
+own life.
+
+‘So,’ I imagine my reader interposing, ‘you profess to have arrived at
+this high degree of perfection yourself?’
+
+I reply that the man who has attained this kind of indifference to the
+past, this kind of hope in the future, will be far enough from
+considering it a high degree of perfection. The very idea is to such a
+man ludicrous. One may eat bread without claiming the honours of an
+athlete; one may desire to be honest and not count himself a saint. My
+object in thus shadowing out what seems to me my present condition of
+mind, is merely to render it intelligible to my reader how an
+autobiography might come to be written without rendering the writer
+justly liable to the charge of that overweening, or self-conceit, which
+might be involved in the mere conception of the idea.
+
+In listening to similar recitals from the mouths of elderly people, I
+have observed that many things which seemed to the persons principally
+concerned ordinary enough, had to me a wonder and a significance they
+did not perceive. Let me hope that some of the things I am about to
+relate may fare similarly, although, to be honest, I must confess I
+could not have undertaken the task, for a task it is, upon this chance
+alone: I do think some of my history worthy of being told, just for the
+facts’ sake. God knows I have had small share of that worthiness. The
+weakness of my life has been that I would ever do some great thing; the
+saving of my life has been my utter failure. I have never done a great
+deed. If I had, I know that one of my temperament could not have
+escaped serious consequences. I have had more pleasure when a grown man
+in a certain discovery concerning the ownership of an apple of which I
+had taken the ancestral bite when a boy, than I can remember to have
+resulted from any action of my own during my whole existence. But I
+detest the notion of puzzling my reader in order to enjoy her fancied
+surprise, or her possible praise of a worthless ingenuity of
+concealment. If I ever appear to behave thus, it is merely that I
+follow the course of my own knowledge of myself and my affairs, without
+any desire to give either the pain or the pleasure of suspense, if
+indeed I may flatter myself with the hope of interesting her to such a
+degree that suspense should become possible.
+
+When I look over what I have written, I find the tone so sombre--let me
+see: what sort of an evening is it on which I commence this book? Ah! I
+thought so: a sombre evening. The sun is going down behind a low bank
+of grey cloud, the upper edge of which he tinges with a faded yellow.
+There will be rain before morning. It is late Autumn, and most of the
+crops are gathered in. A bluish fog is rising from the lower meadows.
+As I look I grow cold. It is not, somehow, an interesting evening. Yet
+if I found just this evening well described in a novel, I should enjoy
+it heartily. The poorest, weakest drizzle upon the window-panes of a
+dreary roadside inn in a country of slate-quarries, possesses an
+interest to him who enters it by the door of a book, hardly less than
+the pouring rain which threatens to swell every brook to a torrent. How
+is this? I think it is because your troubles do not enter into the book
+and its troubles do not enter into you, and therefore nature operates
+upon you unthwarted by the personal conditions which so often
+counteract her present influences. But I will rather shut out the
+fading west, the gathering mists, and the troubled consciousness of
+nature altogether, light my fire and my pipe, and then try whether in
+my first chapter I cannot be a boy again in such fashion that my
+companion, that is, my reader, will not be too impatient to linger a
+little in the meadows of childhood ere we pass to the corn-fields of
+riper years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+WHERE I FIND MYSELF.
+
+No wisest chicken, I presume, can recall the first moment when the
+chalk-oval surrounding it gave way, and instead of the cavern of
+limestone which its experience might have led it to expect, it found a
+world of air and movement and freedom and blue sky--with kites in it.
+For my own part, I often wished, when a child, that I had watched while
+God was making me, so that I might have remembered how he did it. Now
+my wonder is whether, when I creep forth into ‘that new world which is
+the old,’ I shall be conscious of the birth, and enjoy the whole mighty
+surprise, or whether I shall become gradually aware that things are
+changed and stare about me like the new-born baby. What will be the
+candle-flame that shall first attract my new-born sight? But I forget
+that speculation about the new life is not writing the history of the
+old.
+
+I have often tried how far back my memory could go. I suspect there are
+awfully ancient shadows mingling with our memories; but, as far as I
+can judge, the earliest definite memory I have is the discovery of how
+the wind is made; for I saw the process going on before my very eyes,
+and there could be, and there was, no doubt of the relation of cause
+and effect in the matter. There were the trees swaying themselves about
+after the wildest fashion, and there was the wind in consequence
+visiting my person somewhat too roughly. The trees were blowing in my
+face. They made the wind, and threw it at me. I used my natural senses,
+and this was what they told me. The discovery impressed me so deeply
+that even now I cannot look upon trees without a certain indescribable
+and, but for this remembrance, unaccountable awe. A grove was to me for
+many years a fountain of winds, and, in the stillest day, to look into
+a depth of gathered stems filled me with dismay; for the whole awful
+assembly might, writhing together in earnest and effectual contortion,
+at any moment begin their fearful task of churning the wind.
+
+There were no trees in the neighbourhood of the house where I was born.
+It stood in the midst of grass, and nothing but grass was to be seen
+for a long way on every side of it. There was not a gravel path or a
+road near it. Its walls, old and rusty, rose immediately from the
+grass. Green blades and a few heads of daisies leaned trustingly
+against the brown stone, all the sharpness of whose fractures had long
+since vanished, worn away by the sun and the rain, or filled up by the
+slow lichens, which I used to think were young stones growing out of
+the wall. The ground was part of a very old dairy-farm, and my uncle,
+to whom it belonged, would not have a path about the place. But then
+the grass was well subdued by the cows, and, indeed, I think, would
+never have grown very long, for it was of that delicate sort which we
+see only on downs and in parks and on old grazing farms. All about the
+house--as far, at least, as my lowly eyes could see--the ground was
+perfectly level, and this lake of greenery, out of which it rose like a
+solitary rock, was to me an unfailing mystery and delight. This will
+sound strange in the ears of those who consider a mountainous, or at
+least an undulating, surface essential to beauty; but nature is
+altogether independent of what is called fine scenery. There are other
+organs than the eyes, even if grass and water and sky were not of the
+best and loveliest of nature’s shows.
+
+The house, I have said, was of an ancient-looking stone, grey and green
+and yellow and brown. It looked very hard; yet there were some attempts
+at carving about the heads of the narrow windows. The carving had,
+however, become so dull and shadowy that I could not distinguish a
+single form or separable portion of design: still some ancient thought
+seemed ever flickering across them. The house, which was two stories in
+height, had a certain air of defence about it, ill to explain. It had
+no eaves, for the walls rose above the edge of the roof; but the hints
+at battlements were of the merest. The roof, covered with grey slates,
+rose very steep, and had narrow, tall dormer windows in it. The edges
+of the gables rose, not in a slope, but in a succession of notches,
+like stairs. Altogether, the shell to which, considered as a
+crustaceous animal, I belonged--for man is every animal according as
+you choose to contemplate him--had an old-world look about it--a look
+of the time when men had to fight in order to have peace, to kill in
+order to live. Being, however, a crustaceous animal, I, the heir of all
+the new impulses of the age, was born and reared in closest
+neighbourhood with strange relics of a vanished time. Humanity so far
+retains its chief characteristics that the new generations can always
+flourish in the old shell.
+
+The dairy was at some distance, so deep in a hollow that a careless
+glance would not have discovered it. I well remember my astonishment
+when my aunt first took me there; for I had not even observed the
+depression of surface: all had been a level green to my eyes. Beyond
+this hollow were fields divided by hedges, and lanes, and the various
+goings to and fro of a not unpeopled although quiet neighbourhood.
+Until I left home for school, however, I do not remember to have seen a
+carriage of any kind approach our solitary dwelling. My uncle would
+have regarded it as little short of an insult for any one to drive
+wheels over the smooth lawny surface in which our house dwelt like a
+solitary island in the sea.
+
+Before the threshold lay a brown patch, worn bare of grass, and beaten
+hard by the descending feet of many generations. The stone threshold
+itself was worn almost to a level with it. A visitor’s first step was
+into what would, in some parts, be called the house-place, a room which
+served all the purposes of a kitchen, and yet partook of the character
+of an old hall. It rose to a fair height, with smoke-stained beams
+above; and was floored with a kind of cement, hard enough, and yet so
+worn that it required a good deal of local knowledge to avoid certain
+jars of the spine from sudden changes of level. All the furniture was
+dark and shining, especially the round table, which, with its
+bewildering, spider-like accumulation of legs, waited under the
+mullioned, lozenged window until meal-times, when, like an animal
+roused from its lair, it stretched out those legs, and assumed expanded
+and symmetrical shape in front of the fire in Winter, and nearer the
+door in Summer. It recalls the vision of my aunt, with a hand at each
+end of it, searching empirically for the level--feeling for it, that
+is, with the creature’s own legs--before lifting the hanging-leaves,
+and drawing out the hitherto supernumerary legs to support them; after
+which would come a fresh adjustment of level, another hustling to and
+fro, that the new feet likewise might settle on elevations of equal
+height; and then came the snowy cloth or the tea-tray, deposited
+cautiously upon its shining surface.
+
+The walls of this room were always whitewashed in the Spring,
+occasioning ever a sharpened contrast with the dark-brown ceiling.
+Whether that was even swept I do not know; I do not remember ever
+seeing it done. At all events, its colour remained unimpaired by paint
+or whitewash. On the walls hung various articles, some of them high
+above my head, and attractive for that reason if for no other. I never
+saw one of them moved from its place--not even the fishing-rod, which
+required the whole length betwixt the two windows: three rusty hooks
+hung from it, and waved about when a wind entered ruder than common.
+Over the fishing-rod hung a piece of tapestry, about a yard in width,
+and longer than that. It would have required a very capable
+constructiveness indeed to supply the design from what remained, so
+fragmentary were the forms, and so dim and faded were the once bright
+colours. It was there as an ornament; for that which is a mere
+complement of higher modes of life, becomes, when useless, the ornament
+of lower conditions: what we call great virtues are little regarded by
+the saints. It was long before I began to think how the tapestry could
+have come there, or to what it owed the honour given it in the house.
+
+On the opposite wall hung another object, which may well have been the
+cause of my carelessness about the former--attracting to itself all my
+interest. It was a sword, in a leather sheath. From the point, half way
+to the hilt, the sheath was split all along the edge of the weapon. The
+sides of the wound gaped, and the blade was visible to my prying eyes.
+It was with rust almost as dark a brown as the scabbard that infolded
+it. But the under parts of the hilt, where dust could not settle,
+gleamed with a faint golden shine. That sword was to my childish eyes
+the type of all mystery, a clouded glory, which for many long years I
+never dreamed of attempting to unveil. Not the sword Excalibur, had it
+been ‘stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,’ could have
+radiated more marvel into the hearts of young knights than that sword
+radiated into mine. Night after night I would dream of danger drawing
+nigh--crowds of men of evil purpose--enemies to me or to my country;
+and ever in the beginning of my dream, I stood ready, foreknowing and
+waiting; for I had climbed and had taken the ancient power from the
+wall, and had girded it about my waist--always with a straw rope, the
+sole band within my reach; but as it went on, the power departed from
+the dream: I stood waiting for foes who would not come; or they drew
+near in fury, and when I would have drawn my weapon, old blood and rust
+held it fast in its sheath, and I tugged at it in helpless agony; and
+fear invaded my heart, and I turned and fled, pursued by my foes until
+I left the dream itself behind, whence the terror still pursued me.
+
+There were many things more on those walls. A pair of spurs, of make
+modern enough, hung between two pewter dish-covers. Hanging
+book-shelves came next; for although most of my uncle’s books were in
+his bed-room, some of the commoner were here on the wall, next to an
+old fowling-piece, of which both lock and barrel were devoured with
+rust. Then came a great pair of shears, though how they should have
+been there I cannot yet think, for there was no garden to the house, no
+hedges or trees to clip. I need not linger over these things. Their
+proper place is in the picture with which I would save words and help
+understanding if I could.
+
+Of course there was a great chimney in the place; chiefly to be
+mentioned from the singular fact that just round its corner was a
+little door opening on a rude winding stair of stone. This appeared to
+be constructed within the chimney; but on the outside of the wall, was
+a half-rounded projection, revealing that the stair was not indebted to
+it for the whole of its accommodation. Whither the stair led, I shall
+have to disclose in my next chapter. From the opposite end of the
+kitchen, an ordinary wooden staircase, with clumsy balustrade, led up
+to the two bed-rooms occupied by my uncle and my aunt; to a large
+lumber-room, whose desertion and almost emptiness was a source of
+uneasiness in certain moods; and to a spare bed-room, which was better
+furnished than any of ours, and indeed to my mind a very grand and
+spacious apartment. This last was never occupied during my childhood;
+consequently it smelt musty notwithstanding my aunt’s exemplary
+housekeeping. Its bedsteads must have been hundreds of years old. Above
+these rooms again were those to which the dormer windows belonged, and
+in one of them I slept. It had a deep closet in which I kept my few
+treasures, and into which I used to retire when out of temper or
+troubled, conditions not occurring frequently, for nobody quarrelled
+with me, and I had nobody with whom I might have quarrelled.
+
+When I climbed upon a chair, I could seat myself on the broad sill of
+the dormer window. This was the watch-tower whence I viewed the world.
+Thence I could see trees in the distance--too far off for me to tell
+whether they were churning wind or not. On that side those trees alone
+were between me and the sky.
+
+One day when my aunt took me with her into the lumber-room, I found
+there, in a corner, a piece of strange mechanism. It had a kind of
+pendulum; but I cannot describe it because I had lost sight of it long
+before I was capable of discovering its use, and my recollection of it
+is therefore very vague--far too vague to admit of even a conjecture
+now as to what it could have been intended for. But I remember well
+enough my fancy concerning it, though when or how that fancy awoke I
+cannot tell either. It seems to me as old as the finding of the
+instrument. The fancy was that if I could keep that pendulum wagging
+long enough, it would set all those trees going too; and if I still
+kept it swinging, we should have such a storm of wind as no living man
+had ever felt or heard of. That I more than half believed it, will be
+evident from the fact that, although I frequently carried the pendulum,
+as I shall call it, to the window sill, and set it in motion by way of
+experiment, I had not, up to the time of a certain incident which I
+shall very soon have to relate, had the courage to keep up the
+oscillation beyond ten or a dozen strokes; partly from fear of the
+trees, partly from a dim dread of exercising power whose source and
+extent were not within my knowledge. I kept the pendulum in the closet
+I have mentioned, and never spoke to any one of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+MY UNCLE AND AUNT.
+
+We were a curious household. I remembered neither father nor mother;
+and the woman I had been taught to call _auntie_ was no such near
+relation. My uncle was my father’s brother, and my aunt was his cousin,
+by the mother’s side. She was a tall, gaunt woman, with a sharp nose
+and eager eyes, yet sparing of speech. Indeed, there was very little
+speech to be heard in the house. My aunt, however, looked as if she
+could have spoken. I think it was the spirit of the place that kept her
+silent, for there were those eager eyes. She might have been expected
+also to show a bad temper, but I never saw a sign of such. To me she
+was always kind; chiefly, I allow, in a negative way, leaving me to do
+very much as I pleased. I doubt if she felt any great tenderness for
+me, although I had been dependent upon her care from infancy. In
+after-years I came to the conclusion that she was in love with my
+uncle; and perhaps the sense that he was indifferent to her save after
+a brotherly fashion, combined with the fear of betraying herself and
+the consciousness of her unattractive appearance, to produce the
+contradiction between her looks and her behaviour.
+
+Every morning, after our early breakfast, my uncle walked away to the
+farm, where he remained until dinner-time. Often, when busy at my own
+invented games in the grass, I have caught sight of my aunt, standing
+motionless with her hand over her eyes, watching for the first glimpse
+of my uncle ascending from the hollow where the farm-buildings lay; and
+occasionally, when something had led her thither as well, I would watch
+them returning together over the grass, when she would keep glancing up
+in his face at almost regular intervals, although it was evident they
+were not talking, but he never turned his face or lifted his eyes from
+the ground a few yards in front of him.
+
+He was a tall man of nearly fifty, with grey hair, and quiet meditative
+blue eyes. He always looked as if he were thinking. He had been
+intended for the Church, but the means for the prosecution of his
+studies failing, he had turned his knowledge of rustic affairs to
+account, and taken a subordinate position on a nobleman’s estate, where
+he rose to be bailiff. When my father was seized with his last illness,
+he returned to take the management of the farm. It had been in the
+family for many generations. Indeed that portion of it upon which the
+house stood, was our own property. When my mother followed my father,
+my uncle asked his cousin to keep house for him. Perhaps she had
+expected a further request, but more had not come of it.
+
+When he came in, my uncle always went straight to his room; and having
+washed his hands and face, took a book and sat down in the window. If I
+were sent to tell him that the meal was ready, I was sure to find him
+reading. He would look up, smile, and look down at his book again; nor,
+until I had formally delivered my message, would he take further notice
+of me. Then he would rise, lay his book carefully aside, take my hand,
+and lead me down-stairs.
+
+To my childish eyes there was something very grand about my uncle. His
+face was large-featured and handsome; he was tall, and stooped
+meditatively. I think my respect for him was founded a good deal upon
+the reverential way in which my aunt regarded him. And there was great
+wisdom, I came to know, behind that countenance, a golden speech behind
+that silence.
+
+My reader must not imagine that the prevailing silence of the house
+oppressed me. I had been brought up in it, and never felt it. My own
+thoughts, if thoughts those conditions of mind could be called, which
+were chiefly passive results of external influences--whatever they
+were--thoughts or feelings, sensations, or dim, slow movements of
+mind--they filled the great pauses of speech; and besides, I could read
+the faces of both my uncle and aunt like the pages of a well-known
+book. Every shade of alteration in them I was familiar with, for their
+changes were not many.
+
+Although my uncle’s habit was silence, however, he would now and then
+take a fit of talking to me. I remember many such talks; the better,
+perhaps, that they were divided by long intervals. I had perfect
+confidence in his wisdom, and submission to his will. I did not much
+mind my aunt. Perhaps her deference to my uncle made me feel as if she
+and I were more on a level. She must have been really kind, for she
+never resented any petulance or carelessness. Possibly she sacrificed
+her own feeling to the love my uncle bore me; but I think it was rather
+that, because he cared for me, she cared for me too.
+
+Twice during every meal she would rise from the table with some dish in
+her hand, open the door behind the chimney, and ascend the winding
+stair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AT THE TOP OF THE CHIMNEY-STAIR.
+
+I fear my reader may have thought me too long occupied with the
+explanatory foundations of my structure: I shall at once proceed to
+raise its walls of narrative. Whatever further explanations may be
+necessary, can be applied as buttresses in lieu of a broader base.
+
+One Sunday--it was his custom of a Sunday--I fancy I was then somewhere
+about six years of age--my uncle rose from the table after our homely
+dinner, took me by the hand, and led me to the dark door with the long
+arrow-headed hinges, and up the winding stone stair which I never
+ascended except with him or my aunt. At the top was another rugged
+door, and within that, one covered with green baize. The last opened on
+what had always seemed to me a very paradise of a room. It was
+old-fashioned enough; but childhood is of any and every age, and it was
+not old-fashioned to me--only intensely cosy and comfortable. The first
+thing my eyes generally rested upon was an old bureau, with a book-case
+on the top of it, the glass-doors of which were lined with faded red
+silk. The next thing I would see was a small tent-bed, with the whitest
+of curtains, and enchanting fringes of white ball-tassels. The bed was
+covered with an equally charming counterpane of silk patchwork. The
+next object was the genius of the place, in a high, close, easy-chair,
+covered with some dark stuff, against which her face, surrounded with
+its widow’s cap, of ancient form, but dazzling whiteness, was strongly
+relieved. How shall I describe the shrunken, yet delicate, the
+gracious, if not graceful form, and the face from which extreme old age
+had not wasted half the loveliness? Yet I always beheld it with an
+indescribable sensation, one of whose elements I can isolate and
+identify as a faint fear. Perhaps this arose partly from the fact that,
+in going up the stair, more than once my uncle had said to me, ‘You
+must not mind what grannie says, Willie, for old people will often
+speak strange things that young people cannot understand. But you must
+love grannie, for she is a very good old lady.’
+
+‘Well, grannie, how are you to-day?’ said my uncle, as we entered, this
+particular Sunday.
+
+I may as well mention at once that my uncle called her _grannie_ in his
+own right and not in mine, for she was in truth my great-grandmother.
+
+‘Pretty well, David, I thank you; but much too long out of my grave,’
+answered grannie; in no sepulchral tones, however, for her voice,
+although weak and uneven, had a sound in it like that of one of the
+upper strings of a violin. The plaintiveness of it touched me, and I
+crept near her--nearer than, I believe, I had ever yet gone of my own
+will--and laid my hand upon hers. I withdrew it instantly, for there
+was something in the touch that made me--not shudder, exactly--but
+creep. Her hand was smooth and soft, and warm too, only somehow the
+skin of it seemed dead. With a quicker movement than belonged to her
+years, she caught hold of mine, which she kept in one of her hands,
+while she stroked it with the other. My slight repugnance vanished for
+the time, and I looked up in her face, grateful for a tenderness which
+was altogether new to me.
+
+‘What makes you so long out of your grave, grannie?’ I asked.
+
+‘They won’t let me into it, my dear.’
+
+‘Who won’t let you, grannie?’
+
+‘My own grandson there, and the woman down the stair.’
+
+‘But you don’t really want to go--do you, grannie?’
+
+‘I do want to go, Willie. I ought to have been there long ago. I am
+very old; so old that I’ve forgotten how old I am. How old am I?’ she
+asked, looking up at my uncle.
+
+‘Nearly ninety-five, grannie; and the older you get before you go the
+better we shall be pleased, as you know very well.’
+
+‘There! I told you,’ she said with a smile, not all of pleasure, as she
+turned her head towards me. ‘They won’t let me go. I want to go to my
+grave, and they won’t let me! Is that an age at which to keep a poor
+woman from her grave?’
+
+‘But it’s not a nice place, is it, grannie?’ I asked, with the vaguest
+ideas of what _the grave_ meant. ‘I think somebody told me it was in
+the churchyard.’
+
+But neither did I know with any clearness what the church itself meant,
+for we were a long way from church, and I had never been there yet.
+
+‘Yes, it is in the churchyard, my dear.’
+
+‘Is it a house?’ I asked.
+
+‘Yes, a little house; just big enough for one.’
+
+‘I shouldn’t like that.’
+
+‘Oh yes, you would.’
+
+‘Is it a nice place, then?’
+
+‘Yes, the nicest place in the world, when you get to be so old as I am.
+If they would only let me die!’
+
+‘Die, grannie!’ I exclaimed. My notions of death as yet were derived
+only from the fowls brought from the farm, with their necks hanging
+down long and limp, and their heads wagging hither and thither.
+
+‘Come, grannie, you mustn’t frighten our little man,’ interposed my
+uncle, looking kindly at us both.
+
+‘David!’ said grannie, with a reproachful dignity, ‘_you_ know what I
+mean well enough. You know that until I have done what I have to do,
+the grave that is waiting for me will not open its mouth to receive me.
+If you will only allow me to do what I have to do, I shall not trouble
+you long. Oh dear! oh dear!’ she broke out, moaning and rocking herself
+to and fro, ‘I am too old to weep, and they will not let me to my bed.
+I want to go to bed. I want to go to sleep.’
+
+She moaned and complained like a child. My uncle went near and took her
+hand.
+
+‘Come, come, dear grannie!’ he said, ‘you must not behave like this.
+You know all things are for the best.’
+
+‘To keep a corpse out of its grave!’ retorted the old lady, almost
+fiercely, only she was too old and weak to be fierce. ‘Why should you
+keep a soul that’s longing to depart and go to its own people,
+lingering on in the coffin? What better than a coffin is this withered
+body? The child is old enough to understand me. Leave him with me for
+half an hour, and I shall trouble you no longer. I shall at least wait
+my end in peace. But I think I should die before the morning.’
+
+Ere grannie had finished this sentence, I had shrunk from her again and
+retreated behind my uncle.
+
+‘There!’ she went on, ‘you make my own child fear me. Don’t be
+frightened, Willie dear; your old mother is not a wild beast; she loves
+you dearly. Only my grand-children are so undutiful! They will not let
+my own son come near me.’
+
+How I recall this I do not know, for I could not have understood it at
+the time. The fact is that during the last few years I have found
+pictures of the past returning upon me in the most vivid and
+unaccountable manner, so much so as almost to alarm me. Things I had
+utterly forgotten--or so far at least that when they return, they must
+appear only as vivid imaginations, were it not for a certain conviction
+of fact which accompanies them--are constantly dawning out of the past.
+Can it be that the decay of the observant faculties allows the memory
+to revive and gather force? But I must refrain, for my business is to
+narrate, not to speculate.
+
+My uncle took me by the hand, and turned to leave the room. I cast one
+look at grannie as he led me away. She had thrown her head back on her
+chair, and her eyes were closed; but her face looked offended, almost
+angry. She looked to my fancy as if she were trying but unable to lie
+down. My uncle closed the doors very gently. In the middle of the stair
+he stopped, and said in a low voice,
+
+‘Willie, do you know that when people grow very old they are not quite
+like other people?’
+
+‘Yes. They want to go to the churchyard,’ I answered.
+
+‘They fancy things,’ said my uncle. ‘Grannie thinks you are her own
+son.’
+
+‘And ain’t I?’ I asked innocently.
+
+‘Not exactly,’ he answered. ‘Your father was her son’s son. She forgets
+that, and wants to talk to you as if you were your grandfather. Poor
+old grannie! I don’t wish you to go and see her without your aunt or
+me: mind that.’
+
+Whether I made any promise I do not remember; but I know that a new
+something was mingled with my life from that moment. An air as it were
+of the tomb mingled henceforth with the homely delights of my life.
+Grannie wanted to die, and uncle would not let her. She longed for her
+grave, and they would keep her above-ground. And from the feeling that
+grannie ought to be buried, grew an awful sense that she was not
+alive--not alive, that is, as other people are alive, and a gulf was
+fixed between her and me which for a long time I never attempted to
+pass, avoiding as much as I could all communication with her, even when
+my uncle or aunt wished to take me to her room. They did not seem
+displeased, however, when I objected, and not always insisted on
+obedience. Thus affairs went on in our quiet household for what seemed
+to me a very long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THE PENDULUM.
+
+It may have been a year after this, it may have been two, I cannot
+tell, when the next great event in my life occurred. I think it was
+towards the close of an Autumn, but there was not so much about our
+house as elsewhere to mark the changes of the seasons, for the grass
+was always green. I remember it was a sultry afternoon. I had been out
+almost the whole day, wandering hither and thither over the grass, and
+I felt hot and oppressed. Not an air was stirring. I longed for a
+breath of wind, for I was not afraid of the wind itself, only of the
+trees that made it. Indeed, I delighted in the wind, and would run
+against it with exuberant pleasure, even rejoicing in the fancy that I,
+as well as the trees, could make the wind by shaking my hair about as I
+ran. I must run, however; whereas the trees, whose prime business it
+was, could do it without stirring from the spot. But this was much too
+hot an afternoon for me, whose mood was always more inclined to the
+passive than the active, to run about and toss my hair, even for the
+sake of the breeze that would result therefrom. I bethought myself. I
+was nearly a man now; I would be afraid of things no more; I would get
+out my pendulum, and see whether that would not help me. Not this time
+would I flinch from what consequences might follow. Let them be what
+they might, the pendulum should wag, and have a fair chance of doing
+its best.
+
+[Illustration: “I SAT AND WATCHED IT WITH GROWING AWE.”]
+
+I went up to my room, a sense of high emprise filling my little heart.
+Composedly, yea solemnly, I set to work, even as some enchanter of old
+might have drawn his circle, and chosen his spell out of his
+iron-clasped volume. I strode to the closet in which the awful
+instrument dwelt. It stood in the furthest corner. As I lifted it,
+something like a groan invaded my ear. My notions of locality were not
+then sufficiently developed to let me know that grannie’s room was on
+the other side of that closet. I almost let the creature, for as such I
+regarded it, drop. I was not to be deterred, however. I bore it
+carefully to the light, and set it gently on the window sill, full in
+view of the distant trees towards the west. I left it then for a
+moment, as if that it might gather its strength for its unwonted
+labours, while I closed the door, and, with what fancy I can scarcely
+imagine now, the curtains of my bed as well. Possibly it was with some
+notion of having one place to which, if the worst came to the worst, I
+might retreat for safety. Again I approached the window, and after
+standing for some time in contemplation of the pendulum, I set it in
+motion, and stood watching it.
+
+It swung slower and slower. It wanted to stop. It should not stop. I
+gave it another swing. On it went, at first somewhat distractedly, next
+more regularly, then with slowly retarding movement. But it should not
+stop.
+
+I turned in haste and got from the side of my bed the only chair in the
+room, placed it in the window, sat down before the reluctant
+instrument, and gave it a third swing. Then, my elbows on the sill, I
+sat and watched it with growing awe, but growing determination as well.
+Once more it showed signs of refusal; once more the forefinger of my
+right hand administered impulse.
+
+Something gave a crack inside the creature: away went the pendulum,
+swinging with a will. I sat and gazed, almost horror-stricken. Ere many
+moments had passed, the feeling of terror had risen to such a height
+that, but for the very terror, I would have seized the pendulum in a
+frantic grasp. I did not. On it went, and I sat looking. My dismay was
+gradually subsiding.
+
+I have learned since that a certain ancestor--or was he only a
+great-uncle?--I forget--had a taste for mechanics, even to the craze of
+the perpetual motion, and could work well in brass and iron. The
+creature was probably some invention of his. It was a real marvel how,
+after so many years of idleness, it could now go as it did. I confess,
+as I contemplate the thing, I am in a puzzle, and almost fancy the
+whole a dream. But let it pass. At worst, something of which this is
+the sole representative residuum, wrought an effect on me which
+embodies its cause thus, as I search for it in the past. And why should
+not the individual life have its misty legends as well as that of
+nations? From them, as from the golden and rosy clouds of morning,
+dawns at last the true sun of its unquestionable history. Every boy has
+his own fables, just as the Romes and the Englands of the world have
+their Romuli and their Arthurs, their suckling wolves and their
+granite-sheathed swords. Do they not reflect each other? I tell the
+tale as ‘tis left in me.
+
+How long I sat thus gazing at the now self-impelled instrument, I
+cannot say. The next point in the progress of the legend, is a gust of
+wind rattling the window in whose recess I was seated. I jumped from my
+chair in terror. While I had been absorbed in the pendulum, the evening
+had closed in; clouds had gathered over the sky, and all was gloomy
+about the house. It was much too dark to see the distant trees, but
+there could be no doubt they were at work. The pendulum had roused
+them. Another, a third, and a fourth gust rattled and shook the rickety
+frame. I had done it at last! The trees were busy away there in the
+darkness. I and my pendulum could make the wind.
+
+The gusts came faster and faster, and grew into blasts which settled
+into a steady gale. The pendulum went on swinging to and fro, and the
+gale went on increasing in violence. I sat half in terror, half in
+delight, at the awful success of my experiment. I would have opened the
+window to let in the coveted air, but that was beyond my knowledge and
+strength. I could make the wind blow, but, like other magicians, I
+could not share in its benefits. I would go out and meet it on the open
+plain. I crept down the stair like a thief--not that I feared
+detention, but that I felt such a sense of the important, even the
+dread, about myself and my instrument, that I was not in harmony with
+souls reflecting only the common affairs of life. In a moment I was in
+the middle of a storm--for storm it very nearly was and soon became. I
+rushed to and fro in the midst of it, lay down and rolled in it, and
+laughed and shouted as I looked up to the window where the pendulum was
+swinging, and thought of the trees at work away in the dark. The wind
+grew stronger and stronger. What if the pendulum should not stop at
+all, and the wind went on and on, growing louder and fiercer, till it
+grew mad and blew away the house? Ah, then, poor grannie would have a
+chance of being buried at last! Seriously, the affair might grow
+serious.
+
+Such thoughts were passing in my mind, when all at once the wind gave a
+roar which made me spring to my feet and rush for the house. I must
+stop the pendulum. There was a strange sound in that blast. The trees
+themselves had had enough of it, and were protesting against the
+creature’s tyranny. Their master was working them too hard. I ran up
+the stair on all fours: it was my way when I was in a hurry. Swinging
+went the pendulum in the window, and the wind roared in the chimney. I
+seized hold of the oscillating thing, and stopped it; but to my amaze
+and consternation, the moment I released it, on it went again. I must
+sit and hold it. But the voice of my aunt called me from below, and as
+I dared not explain why I would rather not appear, I was forced to
+obey. I lingered on the stair, half minded to return.
+
+‘What a rough night it is!’ I heard my aunt say, with rare remark.
+
+‘It gets worse and worse,’ responded my uncle. ‘I hope it won’t disturb
+grannie; but the wind must roar fearfully in her chimney.’
+
+I stood like a culprit. What if they should find out that I was at the
+root of the mischief, at the heart of the storm!
+
+‘If I could believe all that I have been reading to-night about the
+Prince of the Power of the Air, I should not like this storm at all,’
+continued my uncle, with a smile. ‘But books are not always to be
+trusted because they are old,’ he added with another smile. ‘From the
+glass, I expected rain and not wind.’
+
+‘Whatever wind there is, we get it all,’ said my aunt. ‘I wonder what
+Willie is about. I thought I heard him coming down. Isn’t it time,
+David, we did something about his schooling? It won’t do to have him
+idling about this way all day long.’
+
+‘He’s a mere child,’ returned my uncle. ‘I’m not forgetting him. But I
+can’t send him away yet.’
+
+‘You know best,’ returned my aunt.
+
+_Send me away!_ What could it mean? Why should I--where should I go?
+Was not the old place a part of me, just like my own clothes on my own
+body? This was the kind of feeling that woke in me at the words. But
+hearing my aunt push back her chair, evidently with the purpose of
+finding me, I descended into the room.
+
+‘Come along, Willie,’ said my uncle. ‘Hear the wind how it roars!’
+
+‘Yes, uncle; it does roar,’ I said, feeling a hypocrite for the first
+time in my life. Knowing far more about the roaring than he did, I yet
+spoke like an innocent!
+
+‘Do you know who makes the wind, Willie?’
+
+‘Yes. The trees,’ I answered.
+
+My uncle opened his blue eyes very wide, and looked at my aunt. He had
+had no idea what a little heathen I was. The more a man has wrought out
+his own mental condition, the readier he is to suppose that children
+must be able to work out theirs, and to forget that he did not work out
+his information, but only his conclusions. My uncle began to think it
+was time to take me in hand.
+
+‘No, Willie,’ he said. ‘I must teach you better than that.’
+
+I expected him to begin by telling me that God made the wind; but,
+whether it was that what the old book said about the Prince of the
+Power of the Air returned upon him, or that he thought it an unfitting
+occasion for such a lesson when the wind was roaring so as might render
+its divine origin questionable, he said no more. Bewildered, I fancy,
+with my ignorance, he turned, after a pause, to my aunt.
+
+‘Don’t you think it’s time for him to go to bed, Jane?’ he suggested.
+
+My aunt replied by getting from the cupboard my usual supper--a basin
+of milk and a slice of bread; which I ate with less circumspection than
+usual, for I was eager to return to my room. As soon as I had finished,
+Nannie was called, and I bade them good-night.
+
+‘Make haste, Nannie,’ I said. ‘Don’t you hear how the wind is roaring?’
+
+It was roaring louder than ever, and there was the pendulum swinging
+away in the window. Nannie took no notice of it, and, I presume, only
+thought I wanted to get my head under the bed-clothes, and so escape
+the sound of it. Anyhow, she did make haste, and in a very few minutes
+I was, as she supposed, snugly settled for the night. But the moment
+she shut the door I was out of bed, and at the window. The instant I
+reached it, a great dash of rain swept against the panes, and the wind
+howled more fiercely than ever. Believing I had the key of the
+position, inasmuch as, if I pleased, I could take the pendulum to bed
+with me, and stifle its motions with the bed-clothes--for this happy
+idea had dawned upon me while Nannie was undressing me--I was composed
+enough now to press my face to a pane, and look out. There was a small
+space amidst the storm dimly illuminated from the windows below, and
+the moment I looked--out of the darkness into this dim space, as if
+blown thither by the wind, rushed a figure on horseback, his large
+cloak flying out before him, and the mane of the animal he rode
+streaming out over his ears in the fierceness of the blast. He pulled
+up right under my window, and I thought he looked up, and made
+threatening gestures at me; but I believe now that horse and man pulled
+up in sudden danger of dashing against the wall of the house. I shrank
+back, and when I peeped out again he was gone. The same moment the
+pendulum gave a click and stopped; one more rattle of rain against the
+windows, and then the wind stopped also. I crept back to my bed in a
+new terror, for might not this be the Prince of the Power of the Air,
+come to see who was meddling with his affairs? Had he not come right
+out of the storm, and straight from the trees? He must have something
+to do with it all! Before I had settled the probabilities of the
+question, however, I was fast asleep.
+
+I awoke--how long after, I cannot tell--with the sound of voices in my
+ears. It was still dark. The voices came from below. I had been
+dreaming of the strange horseman, who had turned out to be the awful
+being concerning whom Nannie had enlightened me as going about at night
+to buy little children from their nurses, and make bagpipes of their
+skins. Awaked from such a dream, it was impossible to lie still without
+knowing what those voices down below were talking about. The strange
+one must belong to the being, whatever he was, whom I had seen come out
+of the storm; and of whom could they be talking but me? I was right in
+both conclusions.
+
+With a fearful resolution I slipped out of bed, opened the door as
+noiselessly as I might, and crept on my bare, silent feet down the
+creaking stair, which led, with open balustrade, right into the
+kitchen, at the end furthest from the chimney. The one candle at the
+other end could not illuminate its darkness, and I sat unseen, a few
+steps from the bottom of the stair, listening with all my ears, and
+staring with all my eyes. The stranger’s huge cloak hung drying before
+the fire, and he was drinking something out of a tumbler. The light
+fell full upon his face. It was a curious, and certainly not to me an
+attractive face. The forehead was very projecting, and the eyes were
+very small, deep set, and sparkling. The mouth--I had almost said
+muzzle--was very projecting likewise, and the lower jaw shot in front
+of the upper. When the man smiled the light was reflected from what
+seemed to my eyes an inordinate multitude of white teeth. His ears were
+narrow and long, and set very high upon his head. The hand which he
+every now and then displayed in the exigencies of his persuasion, was
+white, but very large, and the thumb was exceedingly long. I had
+weighty reasons for both suspecting and fearing the man; and, leaving
+my prejudices out of the question, there was in the conversation itself
+enough besides to make me take note of dangerous points in his
+appearance. I never could lay much claim to physical courage, and I
+attribute my behaviour on this occasion rather to the fascination of
+terror than to any impulse of self-preservation: I sat there in utter
+silence, listening like an ear-trumpet. The first words I could
+distinguish were to this effect:--
+
+‘You do not mean,’ said the enemy, ‘to tell me, Mr Cumbermede, that you
+intend to bring up the young fellow in absolute ignorance of the
+decrees of fate?’
+
+‘I pledge myself to nothing in the matter,’ returned my uncle, calmly,
+but with something in his tone which was new to me.
+
+‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed the other. ‘Excuse me, sir, but what right
+can you have to interfere after such a serious fashion with the young
+gentleman’s future?’
+
+‘It seems to me,’ said my uncle, ‘that you wish to interfere with it
+after a much more serious fashion. There are things in which ignorance
+may be preferable to knowledge.’
+
+‘But what harm could the knowledge of such a fact do him?’
+
+‘Upset all his notions, render him incapable of thinking about anything
+of importance, occasion an utter--’
+
+But _can_ anything be more important?’ interrupted the visitor.
+
+My uncle went on without heeding him.
+
+‘Plunge him over head and ears in--’
+
+‘Hot water, I grant you,’ again interrupted the enemy, to my horror;
+‘but it wouldn’t be for long. Only give me your sanction, and I promise
+you to have the case as tight as a drum before I ask you to move a step
+in it.’
+
+‘But why should you take so much interest in what is purely our
+affair?’ asked my uncle.
+
+‘Why, of course you would have to pay the piper,’ said the man.
+
+This was too much! _Pay_ the man that played upon me after I was made
+into bagpipes! The idea was too frightful.
+
+‘I must look out for business, you know; and, by Jove! I shall never
+have such a chance, if I live to the age of Methuselah.’
+
+‘Well, you shall not have it from me.’
+
+‘Then,’ said the man, rising, ‘you are more of a fool than I took you
+for.’
+
+‘Sir!’ said my uncle.
+
+‘No offence; no offence, I assure you. But it is provoking to find
+people so blind--so wilfully blind--to their own interest. You may say
+I have nothing to lose. Give me the boy, and I’ll bring him up like my
+own son; send him to school and college, too--all on the chance of
+being repaid twice over by--’
+
+I knew this was all a trick to get hold of my skin. The man said it on
+his way to the door, his ape-face shining dim as he turned it a little
+back in the direction of my uncle, who followed with the candle. I lost
+the last part of the sentence in the terror which sent me bounding up
+the stair in my usual four-footed fashion. I leaped into my bed,
+shaking with cold and agony combined. But I had the satisfaction
+presently of hearing the _thud_ of the horse’s hoofs upon the sward,
+dying away in the direction whence they had come. After that I soon
+fell asleep.
+
+I need hardly say that I never set the pendulum swinging again. Many
+years after, I came upon it when searching for a key, and the thrill
+which vibrated through my whole frame announced a strange and unwelcome
+presence long before my memory could recall its origin.
+
+It must not be supposed that I pretend to remember all the conversation
+I have just set down. The words are but the forms in which, enlightened
+by facts which have since come to my knowledge, I clothe certain vague
+memories and impressions of such an interview as certainly took place.
+
+In the morning, at breakfast, my aunt asked my uncle who it was that
+paid such an untimely visit the preceding night.
+
+‘A fellow from Minstercombe’ (the county town), ‘an attorney--what did
+he say his name was? Yes, I remember. It was the same as the steward’s
+over the way. Coningham, it was.’
+
+‘Mr Coningham has a son there--an attorney too, I think,’ said my aunt.
+
+My uncle seemed struck by the reminder, and became meditative.
+
+‘That explains his choosing such a night to come in. His father is
+getting an old man now. Yes, it must be the same.’
+
+‘He’s a sharp one, folk say,’ said my aunt, with a pointedness in the
+remark which showed some anxiety.
+
+‘That he cannot conceal, sharp as he is,’ said my uncle, and there the
+conversation stopped.
+
+The very next evening my uncle began to teach me. I had a vague notion
+that this had something to do with my protection against the
+machinations of the man Coningham, the idea of whom was inextricably
+associated in my mind with that of the Prince of the Power of the Air,
+darting from the midst of the churning trees, on a horse whose
+streaming mane and flashing eyes indicated no true equine origin. I
+gave myself with diligence to the work my uncle set me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+I HAVE LESSONS.
+
+It is a simple fact that up to this time I did not know my letters. It
+was, I believe, part of my uncle’s theory of education that as little
+pain as possible should be associated with merely intellectual effort:
+he would not allow me, therefore, to commence my studies until the task
+of learning should be an easy one. Henceforth, every evening, after
+tea, he took me to his own room, the walls of which were nearly covered
+with books, and there taught me.
+
+One peculiar instance of his mode I will give, and let it stand rather
+as a pledge for the rest of his system than an index to it. It was only
+the other day it came back to me. Like Jean Paul, he would utter the
+name of God to a child only at grand moments; but there was a great
+difference in the moments the two men would have chosen. Jean Paul
+would choose a thunder-storm, for instance; the following will show the
+kind of my uncle’s choice. One Sunday evening he took me for a longer
+walk than usual. We had climbed a little hill: I believe it was the
+first time I ever had a wide view of the earth. The horses were all
+loose in the fields; the cattle were gathering their supper as the sun
+went down; there was an indescribable hush in the air, as if Nature
+herself knew the seventh day; there was no sound even of water, for
+here the water crept slowly to the far-off sea, and the slant sunlight
+shone back from just one bend of a canal-like river; the hay-stacks and
+ricks of the last year gleamed golden in the farmyards; great fields of
+wheat stood up stately around us, the glow in their yellow brought out
+by the red poppies that sheltered in the forest of their stems; the
+odour of the grass and clover came in pulses; and the soft blue sky was
+flecked with white clouds tinged with pink, which deepened until it
+gathered into a flaming rose in the west, where the sun was welling out
+oceans of liquid red.
+
+I looked up in my uncle’s face. It shone in a calm glow, like an
+answering rosy moon. The eyes of my mind were opened: I saw that he
+felt something, and then I felt it too, His soul, with the glory for an
+interpreter, kindled mine.
+
+He, in turn, caught the sight of my face, and his soul broke forth in
+one word:--
+
+God! Willie; God!’ was all he said; and surely it was enough.
+
+It was only then in moments of strong repose that my uncle spoke to me
+of God.
+
+Although he never petted me, that is, never showed me any animal
+affection, my uncle was like a father to me in this, that he was about
+and above me, a pure benevolence. It is no wonder that I should learn
+rapidly under his teaching, for I was quick enough, and possessed the
+more energy that it had not been wasted on unpleasant tasks.
+
+Whether from indifference or intent I cannot tell, but he never forbade
+me to touch any of his books. Upon more occasions than one he found me
+on the floor with a folio between my knees; but he only smiled and
+said--
+
+‘Ah, Willie! mind you don’t crumple the leaves.’
+
+About this time also I had a new experience of another kind, which
+impressed me almost with the force of a revelation.
+
+I had not yet explored the boundaries of the prairie-like level on
+which I found myself. As soon as I got about a certain distance from
+home, I always turned and ran back. Fear is sometimes the first
+recognition of freedom. Delighting in liberty, I yet shrunk from the
+unknown spaces around me, and rushed back to the shelter of the
+home-walls. But as I grew older I became more adventurous; and one
+evening, although the shadows were beginning to lengthen, I went on and
+on until I made a discovery. I found a half-spherical hollow in the
+grassy surface. I rushed into its depth as if it had been a mine of
+marvels, threw myself on the ground, and gazed into the sky as if I had
+now for the first time discovered its true relation to the earth. The
+earth was a cup, and the sky its cover.
+
+There were lovely daisies in this hollow--not too many to spoil the
+grass--and they were red-tipped daisies. There was besides, in the very
+heart of it, one plant of the finest pimpernels I have ever seen, and
+this was my introduction to the flower. Nor were these all the
+treasures of the spot. A late primrose, a tiny child, born out of due
+time, opened its timid petals in the same hollow. Here then we
+regathered red-tipped daisies, large pimpernels, and one tiny primrose.
+I lay and looked at them in delight--not at all inclined to pull them,
+for they were where I loved to see them. I never had much inclination
+to gather flowers. I see them as a part of a whole, and rejoice in them
+in their own place without any desire to appropriate them. I lay and
+looked at these for a long time. Perhaps I fell asleep. I do not know.
+I have often waked in the open air. All at once I looked up and saw a
+vision.
+
+My reader will please to remember that up to this hour I had never seen
+a lady. I cannot by any stretch call my worthy aunt a lady; and my
+grandmother was too old, and too much an object of mysterious anxiety,
+to produce the impression, of a lady upon me. Suddenly I became aware
+that a lady was looking down on me. Over the edge of my horizon, the
+circle of the hollow that touched the sky, her face shone like a rising
+moon. Sweet eyes looked on me, and a sweet mouth was tremulous with a
+smile. I will not attempt to describe her. To my childish eyes she was
+much what a descended angel must have been to eyes of old, in the days
+when angels did descend, and there were Arabs or Jews on the earth who
+could see them. A new knowledge dawned in me. I lay motionless, looking
+up with worship in my heart. As suddenly she vanished. I lay far into
+the twilight, and then rose and went home, half bewildered, with a
+sense of heaven about me which settled into the fancy that my mother
+had come to see me. I wondered afterwards that I had not followed her;
+but I never forgot her, and, morning, midday, or evening, whenever the
+fit seized me, I would wander away and lie down in the hollow, gazing
+at the spot where the lovely face had arisen, in the fancy, hardly in
+the hope, that my moon might once more arise and bless me with her
+vision.
+
+Hence I suppose came another habit of mine, that of watching in the
+same hollow, and in the same posture, now for the sun, now for the
+moon, but generally for the sun. You might have taken me for a
+fire-worshipper, so eagerly would I rise when the desire came upon me,
+so hastily in the clear grey of the morning would I dress myself, lest
+the sun should be up before me, and I fail to catch his first
+lance-like rays dazzling through the forest of grass on the edge of my
+hollow world. Bare-footed I would scud like a hare through the dew,
+heedless of the sweet air of the morning, heedless of the few
+bird-songs about me, heedless even of the east, whose saffron might
+just be burning into gold, as I ran to gain the green hollow whence
+alone I would greet the morning. Arrived there, I shot into its
+shelter, and threw myself panting on the grass, to gaze on the spot at
+which I expected the rising glory to appear. Ever when I recall the
+custom, that one lark is wildly praising over my head, for he sees the
+sun for which I am waiting. He has his nest in the hollow beside me. I
+would sooner have turned my back on the sun than disturbed the home of
+his high-priest, the lark. And now the edge of my horizon begins to
+burn; the green blades glow in their tops; they are melted through with
+light; the flashes invade my eyes; they gather; they grow, until I hide
+my face in my hands. The sun is up. But on my hands and my knees I rush
+after the retreating shadow, and, like a child at play with its nurse,
+hide in its curtain. Up and up comes the peering sun; he will find me;
+I cannot hide from him; there is in the wide field no shelter from his
+gaze. No matter then. Let him shine into the deepest corners of my
+heart, and shake the cowardice and the meanness out of it.
+
+I thus made friends with Nature. I had no great variety even in her,
+but the better did I understand what I had. The next Summer I began to
+hunt for glow-worms, and carry them carefully to my hollow, that in the
+warm, soft, moonless nights they might illumine it with a strange
+light. When I had been very successful, I would call my uncle and aunt
+to see. My aunt tried me by always having something to do first. My
+uncle, on the other hand, would lay down his book at once, and follow
+me submissively. He could not generate amusement for me, but he
+sympathized with what I could find for myself.
+
+‘Come and see my cows,’ I would say to him.
+
+I well remember the first time I took him to see them. When we reached
+the hollow, he stood for a moment silent. Then he said, laying his hand
+on my shoulder,
+
+‘Very pretty, Willie! But why do you call them cows?’
+
+‘You told me last night,’ I answered, ‘that the road the angels go
+across the sky is called the milky way--didn’t you, uncle?’
+
+‘I never told you the angels went that way, my boy.’
+
+‘Oh! didn’t you? I thought you did.’
+
+‘No, I didn’t.’
+
+‘Oh! I remember now: I thought if it was a way, and nobody but the
+angels could go in it, that must be the way the angels did go.’
+
+‘Yes, yes, I see! But what has that to do with the glow-worms?’
+
+‘Don’t you see, uncle? If it be the milky way, the stars must be the
+cows. Look at my cows, uncle. Their milk is very pretty milk, isn’t
+it?’
+
+‘Very pretty, indeed, my dear--rather green.’
+
+‘Then I suppose if you could put it in auntie’s pan, you might make
+another moon of it?’
+
+‘That’s being silly now,’ said my uncle; and I ceased, abashed.
+
+‘Look, look, uncle!’ I exclaimed, a moment after; ‘they don’t like
+being talked about, my cows.’
+
+For as if a cold gust of wind had passed over them, they all dwindled
+and paled. I thought they were going out.
+
+‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ I cried, and began dancing about with dismay. The
+next instant the glow returned, and the hollow was radiant.
+
+‘Oh, the dear light!’ I cried again. ‘Look at it, uncle! Isn’t it
+lovely?’
+
+He took me by the hand. His actions were always so much more tender
+than his words!
+
+‘Do you know who is the light of the world, Willie?’
+
+‘Yes, well enough. I saw him get out of bed this morning.’
+
+My uncle led me home without a word more. But next night he began to
+teach me about the light of the world, and about walking in the light.
+I do not care to repeat much of what he taught me in this kind, for
+like my glow-worms it does not like to be talked about. Somehow it
+loses colour and shine when one talks.
+
+I have now shown sufficiently how my uncle would seize opportunities
+for beginning things. He thought more of the beginning than of any
+other part of a process.
+
+‘All’s well that begins well,’ he would say. I did not know what his
+smile meant as he said so.
+
+I sometimes wonder how I managed to get through the days without being
+weary. No one ever thought of giving me toys. I had a turn for using my
+hands; but I was too young to be trusted with a knife. I had never seen
+a kite, except far away in the sky: I took it for a bird. There were no
+rushes to make water-wheels of, and no brooks to set them turning in. I
+had neither top nor marbles. I had no dog to play with. And yet I do
+not remember once feeling weary. I knew all the creatures that went
+creeping about in the grass, and although I did not know the proper
+name for one of them, I had names of my own for them all, and was so
+familiar with their looks and their habits, that I am confident I could
+in some degree interpret some of the people I met afterwards by their
+resemblances to these insects. I have a man in my mind now who has
+exactly the head and face, if face it can be called, of an ant. It is
+not a head, but a helmet. I knew all the butterflies--they were mostly
+small ones, but of lovely varieties. A stray dragon-fly would now and
+then delight me; and there were hunting-spiders and wood-lice, and
+queerer creatures of which I do not yet know the names. Then there were
+grasshoppers, which for some time I took to be made of green leaves,
+and I thought they grew like fruit on the trees till they were ripe,
+when they jumped down, and jumped for ever after. Another child might
+have caught and caged them; for me, I followed them about, and watched
+their ways.
+
+In the Winter, things had not hitherto gone quite so well with me. Then
+I had been a good deal dependent upon Nannie and her stories, which
+were neither very varied nor very well told. But now that I had begun
+to read, things went better. To be sure, there were not in my uncle’s
+library many books such as children have now-a-days; but there were old
+histories, and some voyages and travels, and in them I revelled. I am
+perplexed sometimes when I look into one of these books--for I have
+them all about me now--to find how dry they are. The shine seems to
+have gone out of them. Or is it that the shine has gone out of the eyes
+that used to read them? If so, it will come again some day. I do not
+find that the shine has gone out of a beetle’s back; and I can read
+_The Pilgrim’s Progress_ still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+I COBBLE.
+
+All this has led me, after a roundabout fashion, to what became for
+some time the chief delight of my Winters--an employment, moreover,
+which I have taken up afresh at odd times during my life. It came about
+thus. My uncle had made me a present of an old book with pictures in
+it. It was called _The Preceptor_--one of Dodsley’s publications. There
+were wonderful folding plates of all sorts in it. Those which
+represented animals were of course my favourites. But these especially
+were in a very dilapidated condition, for there had been children
+before me somewhere; and I proceeded, at my uncle’s suggestion, to try
+to mend them by pasting them on another piece of paper. I made bad work
+of it at first, and was so dissatisfied with the results, that I set
+myself in earnest to find out by what laws of paste and paper success
+might be secured. Before the Winter was over, my uncle found me grown
+so skilful in this manipulation of broken leaves--for as yet I had not
+ventured further in any of the branches of repair--that he gave me
+plenty of little jobs of the sort, for amongst his books there were
+many old ones. This was a source of great pleasure. Before the
+following Winter was over, I came to try my hand at repairing bindings,
+and my uncle was again so much pleased with my success that one day he
+brought me from the county town some sheets of parchment with which to
+attempt the fortification of certain vellum-bound volumes which were
+considerably the worse for age and use. I well remember how troublesome
+the parchment was for a long time; but at last I conquered it, and
+succeeded very fairly in my endeavours to restore to tidiness the
+garments of ancient thought.
+
+But there was another consequence of this pursuit which may be
+considered of weight in my history. This was the discovery of a copy of
+the Countess of Pembroke’s _Arcadia_--much in want of skilful patching,
+from the title-page, with its boar smelling at the rose-bush, to the
+graduated lines and the _Finis_. This book I read through from boar to
+finis--no small undertaking, and partly, no doubt, under its
+influences, I became about this time conscious of a desire after
+honour, as yet a notion of the vaguest. I hardly know how I escaped the
+taking for granted that there were yet knights riding about on
+war-horses, with couched lances and fierce spurs, everywhere as in days
+of old. They might have been roaming the world in all directions,
+without my seeing one of them. But somehow I did not fall into the
+mistake. Only with the thought of my future career, when I should be a
+man and go out into the world, came always the thought of the sword
+which hung on the wall. A longing to handle it began to possess me, and
+my old dream returned. I dared not, however, say a word to my uncle on
+the subject. I felt certain that he would slight the desire, and
+perhaps tell me I should hurt myself with the weapon; and one whose
+heart glowed at the story of the battle between him on the white horse
+with carnation mane and tail, in his armour of blue radiated with gold,
+and him on the black-spotted brown, in his dusky armour of despair,
+could not expose himself to such an indignity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE SWORD ON THE WALL.
+
+Where possession was impossible, knowledge might yet be reached: could
+I not learn the story of the ancient weapon? How came that which had
+more fitly hung in the hall of a great castle, here upon the wall of a
+kitchen? My uncle, however, I felt, was not the source whence I might
+hope for help. No better was my aunt. Indeed I had the conviction that
+she neither knew nor cared anything about the useless thing. It was her
+tea-table that must be kept bright for honour’s sake. But there was
+grannie!
+
+My relations with her had continued much the same. The old fear of her
+lingered, and as yet I had had no inclination to visit her room by
+myself. I saw that my uncle and aunt always behaved to her with the
+greatest kindness and much deference, but could not help observing also
+that she cherished some secret offence, receiving their ministrations
+with a certain condescension which clearly enough manifested its origin
+as hidden cause of complaint and not pride. I wondered that my uncle
+and aunt took no notice of it, always addressing her as if they were on
+the best possible terms; and I knew that my uncle never went to his
+work without visiting her, and never went to bed without reading a
+prayer by her bedside first. I think Nannie told me this.
+
+She could still read a little, for her sight had been short, and had
+held out better even than usual with such. But she cared nothing for
+the news of the hour. My uncle had a weekly newspaper, though not by
+any means regularly, from a friend in London, but I never saw it in my
+grandmother’s hands. Her reading was mostly in the _Spectator_, or in
+one of De Foe’s works. I have seen her reading Pope.
+
+The sword was in my bones, and as I judged that only from grannie could
+I get any information respecting it, I found myself beginning to
+inquire why I was afraid to go to her. I was unable to account for it,
+still less to justify it. As I reflected, the kindness of her words and
+expressions dawned upon me, and I even got so far as to believe that I
+had been guilty of neglect in not visiting her oftener and doing
+something for her. True, I recalled likewise that my uncle had desired
+me not to visit her except with him or my aunt, but that was ages ago,
+when I was a very little boy and might have been troublesome. I could
+even read to her now if she wished it. In short, I felt myself
+perfectly capable of entering into social relations with her generally.
+But if there was any flow of affection towards her, it was the sword
+that had broken the seal of its fountain.
+
+One morning at breakfast I had been sitting gazing at the sword on the
+wall opposite me. My aunt had observed the steadiness of my look.
+
+‘What are you staring at, Willie?’ she said. ‘Your eyes are fixed in
+your head. Are you choking?’
+
+The words offended me. I got up and walked out of the room. As I went
+round the table I saw that my uncle and aunt were staring at each other
+very much as I had been staring at the sword. I soon felt ashamed of
+myself, and returned, hoping that my behaviour might be attributed to
+some passing indisposition. Mechanically I raised my eyes to the wall.
+Could I believe them? The sword was gone--absolutely gone! My heart
+seemed to swell up into my throat; I felt my cheeks burning. The
+passion grew within me, and might have broken out in some form or
+other, had I not felt that would at once betray my secret. I sat still
+with a fierce effort, consoling and strengthening myself with the
+resolution that I would hesitate no longer, but take the first chance
+of a private interview with grannie. I tried hard to look as if nothing
+had happened, and when breakfast was over, went to my own room. It was
+there I carried on my pasting operations. There also at this time I
+drank deep in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress;’ there were swords, and armour,
+and giants, and demons there: but I had no inclination for either
+employment now.
+
+My uncle left for the farm as usual, and to my delight I soon
+discovered that my aunt had gone with him. The ways of the house were
+as regular as those of a bee-hive. Sitting in my own room I knew
+precisely where any one must be at any given moment; for although the
+only clock we had was oftener standing than going, a perfect instinct
+of time was common to the household, Nannie included. At that moment
+she was sweeping up the hearth and putting on the kettle. In half an
+hour she would have tidied up the kitchen, and would have gone to
+prepare the vegetables for cooking: I must wait. But the sudden fear
+struck me that my aunt might have taken the sword with her--might be
+going to make away with it altogether. I started up, and rushed about
+the room in an agony. What could I do? At length I heard Nannie’s
+pattens clatter out of the kitchen to a small outhouse where she pared
+the potatoes. I instantly descended, crossed the kitchen, and went up
+the winding stone stair. I opened grannie’s door, and went in.
+
+She was seated in her usual place. Never till now had I felt how old
+she was. She looked up when I entered, for although she had grown very
+deaf, she could feel the floor shake. I saw by her eyes, which looked
+higher than my head, that she had expected a taller figure to follow
+me. When I turned from shutting the door, I saw her arms extended with
+an eager look, and could see her hands trembling ere she folded them
+about me, and pressed my head to her bosom.
+
+‘O Lord!’ she said, ‘I thank thee. I will try to be good now. O Lord, I
+have waited, and thou hast heard me. I will believe in thee again!’
+
+From that moment I loved my grannie, and felt I owed her something as
+well as my uncle. I had never had this feeling about my aunt.
+
+‘Grannie!’ I said, trembling from a conflict of emotions; but before I
+could utter my complaint, I had burst out crying.
+
+‘What have they been doing to you, child?’ she asked, almost fiercely,
+and sat up straight in her chair. Her voice, although feeble and
+quavering, was determined in tone. She pushed me back from her and
+sought the face I was ashamed to show. ‘What have they done to you, my
+boy?’ she repeated, ere I could conquer my sobs sufficiently to speak.
+
+‘They have taken away the sword that--’
+
+‘What sword?’ she asked quickly. ‘Not the sword that your
+great-grandfather wore when he followed Sir Marmaduke?’
+
+‘I don’t know, grannie.’
+
+‘Don’t know, boy? The only thing your father took when he--. Not the
+sword with the broken sheath? Never! They daren’t do it! I will go down
+myself. I must see about it at once.’
+
+‘Oh, grannie, don’t!’ I cried in terror, as she rose from her chair.
+‘They’ll not let me ever come near you again, if you do.’
+
+She sat down again. After seeming to ponder for a while in silence, she
+said:--
+
+‘Well, Willie, my dear, you’re more to me than the old sword. But I
+wouldn’t have had it handled with disrespect for all that the place is
+worth. However, I don’t suppose they can--. What made them do it,
+child? They’ve not taken it down from the wall?’
+
+‘Yes, grannie. I think it was because I was staring at it too much,
+grannie. Perhaps they were afraid I would take it down and hurt myself
+with it. But I was only going to ask you about it. Tell me a story
+about it, grannie.’
+
+All my notion was some story, I did not think whether true or false,
+like one of Nannie’s stories.
+
+‘That I will, my child--all about it--all about it. Let me see.’
+
+Her eyes went wandering a little, and she looked perplexed.
+
+‘And they took it from you, did they? Poor child! Poor child!’
+
+‘They didn’t take it from me, grannie. I never had it in my hands.’
+
+‘Wouldn’t give it you then? Oh dear! Oh dear!’
+
+I began to feel uncomfortable--grannie looked so strange and lost. The
+old feeling that she ought to be buried because she was dead returned
+upon me; but I overcame it so far as to be able to say:
+
+‘Won’t you tell me about it then, grannie? I want so much to hear about
+the battle.’
+
+‘What battle, child? Oh yes! I’ll tell you all about it some day, but
+I’ve forgot now, I’ve forgot it all now.’
+
+She pressed her hand to her forehead, and sat thus for some time, while
+I grew very frightened. I would gladly have left the room and crept
+down-stairs, but I stood fascinated, gazing at the withered face
+half-hidden by the withered hand. I longed to be anywhere else, but my
+will had deserted me, and there I must remain. At length grannie took
+her hand from her eyes, and seeing me, started.
+
+‘Ah, my dear!’ she said,’ I had forgotten you. You wanted me to do
+something for you: what was it?’
+
+‘I wanted you to tell me about the sword, grannie.’
+
+‘Oh yes, the sword!’ she returned, putting her hand again to her
+forehead. ‘They took it away from you, did they? Well, never mind. I
+will give you something else--though I don’t say it’s as good as the
+sword.’
+
+She rose, and taking an ivory-headed stick which leaned against the
+side of the chimney-piece, walked with tottering steps towards the
+bureau. There she took from her pocket a small bunch of keys, and
+having, with some difficulty from the trembling of her hands, chosen
+one and unlocked the sloping cover, she opened a little drawer inside,
+and took out a gold watch with a bunch of seals hanging from it. Never
+shall I forget the thrill that went through my frame. Did she mean to
+let me hold it in my own hand? Might I have it as often as I came to
+see her? Imagine my ecstasy when she put it carefully in the two hands
+I held up to receive it, and said:
+
+‘There, my dear! You must take good care of it, and never give it away
+for love or money. Don’t you open it--there’s a good boy, till you’re a
+man like your father. He _was_ a man! He gave it to me the day we were
+married, for he had nothing else, he said, to offer me. But I would not
+take it, my dear. I liked better to see him with it than have it
+myself. And when he left me, I kept it for you. But you must take care
+of it, you know.’
+
+‘Oh, thank you, grannie!’ I cried, in an agony of pleasure. ‘I _will_
+take care of it--indeed I will. Is it a real watch, grannie--as real as
+uncle’s?’
+
+‘It’s worth ten of your uncle’s, my dear. Don’t you show it him,
+though. He might take that away too. Your uncle’s a very good man, my
+dear, but you mustn’t mind everything he says to you. He forgets
+things. I never forget anything. I have plenty of time to think about
+things. I never forget.’
+
+‘Will it go, grannie?’ I asked, for my uncle was a much less
+interesting subject than the watch.
+
+‘It won’t go without being wound up; but you might break it. Besides,
+it may want cleaning. It’s several years since it was cleaned last.
+Where will you put it now?’
+
+‘Oh! I know where to hide it safe enough, grannie,’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ll
+take care of it. You needn’t be afraid, grannie.’
+
+The old lady turned, and with difficulty tottered to her seat. I
+remained where I was, fixed in contemplation of my treasure. She called
+me. I went and stood by her knee.
+
+‘My child, there is something I want very much to tell you, but you
+know old people forget things--’
+
+‘But you said just now that you never forgot anything, grannie.’
+
+‘No more I do, my dear; only I can’t always lay my hands upon a thing
+when I want it.’
+
+‘It was about the sword, grannie,’ I said, thinking to refresh her
+memory.
+
+‘No, my dear; I don’t think it was about the sword exactly--though that
+had something to do with it. I shall remember it all by-and-by. It will
+come again. And so must you, my dear. Don’t leave your old mother so
+long alone. It’s weary, weary work, waiting.’
+
+‘Indeed I won’t, grannie,’ I said. ‘I will come the very first time I
+can. Only I mustn’t let auntie see me, you know.--You don’t want to be
+buried now, do you, grannie?’ I added; for I had begun to love her, and
+the love had cast out the fear, and I did not want her to wish to be
+buried.
+
+‘I am very, very old; much too old to live, my dear. But I must do you
+justice before I can go to my grave. _Now_ I know what I wanted to say.
+It’s gone again. Oh dear! Oh dear! If I had you in the middle of the
+night, when everything comes back as if it had been only yesterday, I
+could tell you all about it from beginning to end, with all the ins and
+outs of it. But I can’t now--I can’t now.’
+
+She moaned and rocked herself to and fro.
+
+‘Never mind, grannie,’ I said cheerfully, for I was happy enough for
+all eternity with my gold watch; ‘I will come and see you again as soon
+as ever I can.’ And I kissed her on the white cheek.
+
+‘Thank you, my dear. I think you had better go now. They may miss you,
+and then I should never see you again--to talk to, I mean.’
+
+‘Why won’t they let me come, and see you, grannie?’ I asked.
+
+‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, if I could only see a little
+better,’ she answered, once more putting her hand to her forehead.
+‘Perhaps I shall be able to tell you next time. Go now, my dear.’
+
+I left the room, nothing loth, for I longed to be alone with my
+treasure. I could not get enough of it in grannie’s presence even.
+Noiseless as a bat I crept down the stair. When I reached the door at
+the foot I stood and listened. The kitchen was quite silent. I stepped
+out. There was no one there. I scudded across and up the other stair to
+my own room, carefully shutting the door behind me. Then I sat down on
+the floor on the other side of the bed, so that it was between me and
+the door, and I could run into the closet with my treasure before any
+one entering should see me.
+
+The watch was a very thick round one. The back of it was crowded with
+raised figures in the kind of work called _repoussée_. I pored over
+these for a long time, and then turned to the face. It was set all
+round with shining stones--diamonds, though I knew nothing of diamonds
+then. The enamel was cracked, and I followed every crack as well as
+every figure of the hours. Then I began to wonder what I could do with
+it next. I was not satisfied. Possession I found was not bliss: it had
+not rendered me content. But it was as yet imperfect: I had not seen
+the inside. Grannie had told me not to open it: I began to think it
+hard that I should be denied thorough possession of what had been given
+to me, I believed I should be quite satisfied if I once saw what made
+it go. I turned it over and over, thinking I might at least find how it
+was opened. I have little doubt if I had discovered the secret of it,
+my virtue would have failed me. All I did find, however, was the head
+of a curious animal engraved on the handle. This was something. I
+examined it as carefully as the rest, and then finding I had for the
+time exhausted the pleasures of the watch, I turned to the seals. On
+one of them was engraved what looked like letters, but I could not read
+them. I did not know that they were turned the wrong way. One of them
+was like a W. On the other seal--there were but two and a
+curiously-contrived key--I found the same head as was engraved on the
+handle--turned the other way of course. Wearied at length, I took the
+precious thing into the dark closet, and laid it in a little box which
+formed one of my few possessions. I then wandered out into the field,
+and went straying about until dinner-time, during which I believe I
+never once lifted my eyes to the place where the sword had hung, lest
+even that action should betray the watch.
+
+From that day my head, and as much of my heart as might be, were filled
+with the watch. And, alas! I soon found that my bookmending had grown
+distasteful to me, and for the satisfaction of employment, possession
+was a poor substitute. As often as I made the attempt to resume it, I
+got weary, and wandered almost involuntarily to the closet to feel for
+my treasure in the dark, handle it once more, and bring it out into the
+light. Already I began to dree the doom of riches, in the vain attempt
+to live by that which was not bread. Nor was this all. A certain weight
+began to gather over my spirit--a sense almost of wrong. For although
+the watch had been given me by my grandmother, and I never doubted
+either her right to dispose of it or my right to possess it, I could
+not look my uncle in the face, partly from a vague fear lest he should
+read my secret in my eyes, partly from a sense of something out of
+joint between him and me. I began to fancy, and I believe I was right,
+that he looked at me sometimes with a wistfulness I had never seen in
+his face before. This made me so uncomfortable that I began to avoid
+his presence as much as possible. And although I tried to please him
+with my lessons, I could not learn them as hitherto.
+
+One day he asked me to bring him the book I had been repairing.
+
+‘It’s not finished yet, uncle,’ I said.
+
+‘Will you bring it me just as it is. I want to look for something in
+it.’
+
+I went and brought it with shame. He took it, and having found the
+passage he wanted, turned the volume once over in his hands, and gave
+it me back without a word.
+
+Next day I restored it to him finished and tidy. He thanked me, looked
+it over again, and put it in its place. But I fairly encountered an
+inquiring and somewhat anxious gaze. I believe he had a talk with my
+aunt about me that night.
+
+The next morning, I was seated by the bedside, with my secret in my
+hand, when I thought I heard the sound of the door-handle, and glided
+at once into the closet. When I came out in a flutter of anxiety, there
+was no one there. But I had been too much startled to return to what I
+had grown to feel almost a guilty pleasure.
+
+The next morning after breakfast, I crept into the closet, put my hand
+unerringly into the one corner of the box, found no watch, and after an
+unavailing search, sat down in the dark on a bundle of rags, with the
+sensations of a ruined man. My world was withered up and gone. How the
+day passed, I cannot tell. How I got through my meals, I cannot even
+imagine. When I look back and attempt to recall the time, I see but a
+cloudy waste of misery crossed by the lightning-streaks of a sense of
+injury. All that was left me now was a cat-like watching for the chance
+of going to my grandmother. Into her ear I would pour the tale of my
+wrong. She who had been as a haunting discomfort to me, had grown to be
+my one consolation.
+
+My lessons went on as usual. A certain pride enabled me to learn them
+tolerably for a day or two; but when that faded, my whole being began
+to flag. For some time my existence was a kind of life in death. At
+length one evening my uncle said to me, as we finished my lessons far
+from satisfactorily--
+
+‘Willie, your aunt and I think it better you should go to school. We
+shall be very sorry to part with you, but it will be better. You will
+then have companions of your own age. You have not enough to amuse you
+at home.’
+
+He did not allude by a single word to the affair of the watch. Could my
+aunt have taken it, and never told him? It was not likely.
+
+I was delighted at the idea of any change, for my life had grown
+irksome to me.
+
+‘Oh, thank you, uncle!’ I cried, with genuine expression.
+
+I think he looked a little sad; but he uttered no reproach.
+
+My aunt and he had already arranged everything. The next day but one, I
+saw, for the first time, a carriage drive up to the door of the house.
+I was waiting for it impatiently. My new clothes had all been packed in
+a little box. I had not put in a single toy: I cared for nothing I had
+now. The box was put up beside the driver. My aunt came to the door
+where I was waiting for my uncle.
+
+‘Mayn’t I go and say good-bye to grannie?’ I asked.
+
+‘She’s not very well to-day,’ said my aunt. ‘I think you had better
+not. You will be back at Christmas, you know.’
+
+I was not so much grieved as I ought to have been. The loss of my watch
+had made the thought of grannie painful again.
+
+‘Your uncle will meet you at the road,’ continued my aunt, seeing me
+still hesitate. ‘Good-bye.’
+
+I received her cold embrace without emotion, clambered into the chaise,
+and looking out as the driver shut the door, wondered what my aunt was
+holding her apron to her eyes for, as she turned away into the house.
+My uncle met us and got in, and away the chaise rattled, bearing me
+towards an utterly new experience; for hardly could the strangest
+region in foreign lands be more unknown to the wandering mariner than
+the faces and ways of even my own kind were to me. I had never played
+for one half-hour with boy or girl. I knew nothing of their play-things
+or their games. I hardly knew what boys were like, except, outwardly,
+from the dim reflex of myself in the broken mirror in my bed-room,
+whose lustre was more of the ice than the pool, and, inwardly, from the
+partly exceptional experiences of my own nature, with which even I was
+poorly enough acquainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+I GO TO SCHOOL, AND GRANNIE LEAVES IT.
+
+It is an evil thing to break up a family before the natural period of
+its dissolution. In the course of things, marriage, the necessities of
+maintenance, or the energies of labour guiding ‘to fresh woods and
+pastures new,’ are the ordered causes of separation.
+
+Where the home is happy, much injury is done the children in sending
+them to school, except it be a day-school, whither they go in the
+morning as to the labours of the world, but whence they return at night
+as to the heaven of repose. Conflict through the day, rest at night, is
+the ideal. A day-school will suffice for the cultivation of the
+necessary public or national spirit, without which the love of the
+family may degenerate into a merely extended selfishness, but which is
+itself founded upon those family affections. At the same time, it must
+be confessed that boarding-schools are, in many cases, an antidote to
+some of the evil conditions which exist at home.
+
+To children whose home is a happy one, the exile to a school must be
+bitter. Mine, however, was an unusual experience. Leaving aside the
+specially troubled state in which I was when thus carried to the
+village of Aldwick, I had few of the finer elements of the ideal home
+in mine. The love of my childish heart had never been drawn out. My
+grandmother had begun to do so, but her influence had been speedily
+arrested. I was, as they say of cats, more attached to the place than
+the people, and no regrets whatever interfered to quell the excitement
+of expectation, wonder, and curiosity which filled me on the journey.
+The motion of the vehicle, the sound of the horses’ hoofs, the
+travellers we passed on the road--all seemed to partake of the
+exuberant life which swelled and overflowed in me. Everything was as
+happy, as excited, as I was.
+
+When we entered the village, behold it was a region of glad tumult!
+Were there not three dogs, two carts, a maid carrying pails of water,
+and several groups of frolicking children in the street--not to mention
+live ducks, and a glimpse of grazing geese on the common? There were
+also two mothers at their cottage-doors, each with a baby in her arms.
+I knew they were babies, although I had never seen a baby before. And
+when we drove through the big wooden gate, and stopped at the door of
+what had been the manor-house but was now Mr Elder’s school, the aspect
+of the building, half-covered with ivy, bore to me a most friendly
+look. Still more friendly was the face of the master’s wife, who
+received us in a low dark parlour, with a thick soft carpet and rich
+red curtains. It was a perfect paradise to my imagination. Nor did the
+appearance of Mr Elder at all jar with the vision of coming happiness.
+His round, rosy, spectacled face bore in it no premonitory suggestion
+of birch or rod, and although I continued at his school for six years,
+I never saw him use either. If a boy required that kind of treatment,
+he sent him home. When my uncle left me, it was in more than
+contentment with my lot. Nor did anything occur to alter my feeling
+with regard to it. I soon became much attached to Mrs Elder. She was
+just the woman for a schoolmaster’s wife--as full of maternity as she
+could hold, but childless. By the end of the first day I thought I
+loved her far more than my aunt. My aunt had done her duty towards me;
+but how was a child to weigh that? She had taken no trouble to make me
+love her; she had shown me none of the signs of affection, and I could
+not appreciate the proofs of it yet.
+
+I soon perceived a great difference between my uncle’s way of teaching
+and that of Mr Elder. My uncle always appeared aware of something
+behind which pressed upon, perhaps hurried, the fact he was making me
+understand. He made me feel, perhaps too much, that it was a mere step
+towards something beyond. Mr Elder, on the other hand, placed every
+point in such a strong light that it seemed in itself of primary
+consequence. Both were, if my judgment after so many years be correct,
+admirable teachers--my uncle the greater, my school-master the more
+immediately efficient. As I was a manageable boy to the very verge of
+weakness, the relations between us were entirely pleasant.
+
+There were only six more pupils, all of them sufficiently older than
+myself to be ready to pet and indulge me. No one who saw me mounted on
+the back of the eldest, a lad of fifteen, and driving four of them in
+hand, while the sixth ran alongside as an outrider--could have wondered
+that I should find school better than home. Before the first day was
+over, the sorrows of the lost watch and sword had vanished utterly. For
+what was possession to being possessed? What was a watch, even had it
+been going, to the movements of life? To peep from the wicket in the
+great gate out upon the village street, with the well in the middle of
+it, and a girl in the sunshine winding up the green dripping bucket
+from the unknown depths of coolness, was more than a thousand watches.
+But this was by no means the extent of my new survey of things. One of
+the causes of Mr Elder’s keeping no boy who required chastisement was
+his own love of freedom, and his consequent desire to give the boys as
+much liberty out of school hours as possible. He believed in freedom.
+‘The great end of training,’ he said to me many years after, when he
+was quite an old man, ‘is liberty; and the sooner you can get a boy to
+be a law to himself, the sooner you make a man of him. This end is
+impossible without freedom. Let those who have no choice, or who have
+not the same end in view, do the best they can with such boys as they
+find: I chose only such as could bear liberty. I never set up as a
+reformer--only as an educator. For that kind of work others were more
+fit than I. It was not my calling.’ Hence Mr Elder no more allowed
+labour to intrude upon play, than play to intrude upon labour. As soon
+as lessons were over, we were free to go where we would and do what we
+would, under certain general restrictions, which had more to do with
+social proprieties than with school regulations. We roamed the country
+from tea-time till sun-down; sometimes in the Summer long after that.
+Sometimes also on moonlit nights in Winter, occasionally even when the
+stars and the snow gave the only light, we were allowed the same
+liberty until nearly bedtime. Before Christmas came, variety, exercise,
+and social blessedness had wrought upon me so that when I returned
+home, my uncle and aunt were astonished at the change in me. I had
+grown half a head, and the paleness, which they had considered a
+peculiar accident of my appearance, had given place to a rosy glow. My
+flitting step too had vanished: I soon became aware that I made more
+noise than my aunt liked, for in the old house silence was in its very
+temple. My uncle, however, would only smile and say--
+
+‘Don’t bring the place about our ears, Willie, my boy. I should like it
+to last my time.’
+
+‘I’m afraid,’ my aunt would interpose, ‘Mr Elder doesn’t keep very good
+order in his school.’
+
+Then I would fire up in defence of the master, and my uncle would sit
+and listen, looking both pleased and amused.
+
+I had not been many moments in the house before I said--
+
+‘Mayn’t I run up and see grannie, uncle?’
+
+‘I will go and see how she is,’ my aunt said, rising.
+
+She went, and presently returning, said
+
+‘Grannie seems a little better. You may come. She wants to see you.’
+
+I followed her. When I entered the room and looked expectantly towards
+her usual place, I found her chair empty. I turned to the bed. There
+she was, and I thought she looked much the same; but when I came
+nearer, I perceived a change in her countenance. She welcomed me
+feebly, stroked my hair and my cheeks, smiled sweetly, and closed her
+eyes. My aunt led me away.
+
+When bedtime came, I went to my own room, and was soon fast asleep.
+What roused me I do not know, but I awoke in the midst of the darkness,
+and the next moment I heard a groan. It thrilled me with horror. I sat
+up in bed and listened, but heard no more. As I sat listening, heedless
+of the cold, the explanation dawned upon me, for my powers of
+reflection and combination had been developed by my enlarged experience
+of life. In our many wanderings, I had learned to choose between roads
+and to make conjectures from the _lie_ of the country. I had likewise
+lived in a far larger house than my home. Hence it now dawned upon me,
+for the first time, that grannie’s room must be next to mine, although
+approached from the other side, and that the groan must have been hers.
+She might be in need of help. I remembered at the same time how she had
+wished to have me by her in the middle of the night, that she might be
+able to tell me what she could not recall in the day. I got up at once,
+dressed myself, and stole down the one stair, across the kitchen, and
+up the other. I gently opened grannie’s door and peeped in. A fire was
+burning in the room. I entered and approached the bed. I wondered how I
+had the courage; but children more than grown people are moved by
+unlikely impulses. Grannie lay breathing heavily. I stood for a moment.
+The faint light flickered over her white face. It was the middle of the
+night, and the tide of fear inseparable from the night began to rise.
+My old fear of her began to return with it. But she lifted her lids,
+and the terror ebbed away. She looked at me, but did not seem to know
+me. I went nearer.
+
+‘Grannie,’ I said, close to her ear, and speaking low; ‘you wanted to
+see me at night--that was before I went to school. I’m here, grannie.’
+
+The sheet was folded back so smooth that she could hardly have turned
+over since it had been arranged for the night. Her hand was lying upon
+it. She lifted it feebly and stroked my cheek once more. Her lips
+murmured something which I could not hear, and then came a deep sigh,
+almost a groan. The terror returned when I found she could not speak to
+me.
+
+‘Shall I go and fetch auntie?’ I whispered.
+
+She shook her head feebly, and looked wistfully at me. Her lips moved
+again. I guessed that she wanted me to sit beside her. I got a chair,
+placed it by the bedside, and sat down. She put out her hand, as if
+searching for something. I laid mine in it. She closed her fingers upon
+it and seemed satisfied. When I looked again, she was asleep and
+breathing quietly. I was afraid to take my hand from hers lest I should
+wake her. I laid my head on the side of the bed, and was soon fast
+asleep also.
+
+I was awaked by a noise in the room. It was Nannie laying the fire.
+When she saw me she gave a cry of terror.
+
+‘Hush, Nannie!’ I said; ‘you will wake grannie:’ and as I spoke I rose,
+for I found my hand was free.
+
+‘Oh, Master Willie!’ said Nannie, in a low voice; ‘how did you come
+here? You sent my heart into my mouth.’
+
+‘Swallow it again, Nannie,’ I answered, ‘and don’t tell auntie. I came
+to see grannie, and fell asleep. I’m rather cold. I’ll go to bed now.
+Auntie’s not up, is she?
+
+‘No. It’s not time for anybody to be up yet.’
+
+Nannie ought to have spent the night in grannie’s room, for it was her
+turn to watch; but finding her nicely asleep as she thought, she had
+slipped away for just an hour of comfort in bed. The hour had grown to
+three. When she returned the fire was out.
+
+When I came down to breakfast the solemn look upon my uncle’s face
+caused me a foreboding of change.
+
+‘God has taken grannie away in the night, Willie,’ said he, holding the
+hand I had placed in his.
+
+‘Is she dead?’ I asked.
+
+‘Yes,’ he answered.
+
+‘Oh, then, you will let her go to her grave now, won’t you?’ I
+said--the recollection of her old grievance coming first in association
+with her death, and occasioning a more childish speech than belonged to
+my years.
+
+‘Yes. She’ll get to her grave now,’ said my aunt, with a trembling in
+her voice I had never heard before.
+
+‘No,’ objected my uncle. ‘Her body will go to the grave, but her soul
+will go to heaven.’
+
+‘Her soul!’ I said. ‘What’s that?’
+
+‘Dear me, Willie! don’t you know that?’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t you know
+you’ve got a soul as well as a body?’
+
+‘I’m sure _I_ haven’t,’ I returned. ‘What was grannie’s like?’
+
+‘That I can’t tell you,’ she answered.
+
+‘Have you got one, auntie?’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘What is yours like then?’
+
+‘I don’t know.’
+
+‘But,’ I said, turning to my uncle, ‘if her body goes to the grave, and
+her soul to heaven, what’s to become of poor grannie--without either of
+them, you see?’
+
+My uncle had been thinking while we talked.
+
+‘That can’t be the way to represent the thing, Jane; it puzzles the
+child. No, Willie; grannie’s body goes to the grave, but grannie
+herself is gone to heaven. What people call her soul is just grannie
+herself.’
+
+‘Why don’t they say so, then?’
+
+My uncle fell a-thinking again. He did not, however, answer this last
+question, for I suspect he found that it would not be good for me to
+know the real cause--namely, that people hardly believed it, and
+therefore did not say it. Most people believe far more in their bodies
+than in their souls. What my uncle did say was--
+
+‘I hardly know. But grannie’s gone to heaven anyhow.’
+
+‘I’m so glad!’ I said. ‘She will be more comfortable there. She was too
+old, you know, uncle.’
+
+He made no reply. My aunt’s apron was covering her face, and when she
+took it away, I observed that those eager almost angry eyes were red
+with weeping. I began to feel a movement at my heart, the first
+fluttering physical sign of a waking love towards her. ‘Don’t cry,
+auntie,’ I said. ‘I don’t see anything to cry about. Grannie has got
+what she wanted.’
+
+She made me no answer, and I sat down to my breakfast. I don’t know how
+it was, but I could not eat it. I rose and took my way to the hollow in
+the field. I felt a strange excitement, not sorrow. Grannie was
+actually dead at last. I did not quite know what it meant. I had never
+seen a dead body. Neither did I know that she had died while I slept
+with my hand in hers. Nannie, seeing something peculiar, had gone to
+her the moment I left the room, and had found her quite cold. Had we
+been a talking family, I might have been uneasy until I had told the
+story of my last interview with her; but I never thought of saying a
+word about it. I cannot help thinking now that I was waked up and sent
+to the old woman, my great-grandmother, in the middle of the night, to
+help her to die in comfort. Who knows? What we can neither prove nor
+comprehend forms, I suspect, the infinitely larger part of our being.
+
+When I was taken to see what remained of grannie, I experienced nothing
+of the dismay which some children feel at the sight of death. It was as
+if she had seen something just in time to leave the look of it behind
+her there, and so the final expression was a revelation. For a while
+there seems to remain this one link between some dead bodies and their
+living spirits. But my aunt, with a common superstition, would have me
+touch the face. That, I confess, made me shudder: the cold of death is
+so unlike any other cold! I seemed to feel it in my hand all the rest
+of the day.
+
+I saw what seemed grannie--I am too near death myself to consent to
+call a dead body the man or the woman--laid in the grave for which she
+had longed, and returned home with a sense that somehow there was a
+barrier broken down between me and my uncle and aunt. I felt as near my
+uncle now as I had ever been. That evening he did not go to his own
+room, but sat with my aunt and me in the kitchen-hall. We pulled the
+great high-backed oaken settle before the fire, and my aunt made a
+great blaze, for it was very cold. They sat one in each corner, and I
+sat between them, and told them many things concerning the school. They
+asked me questions and encouraged my prattle, seeming well pleased that
+the old silence should be broken. I fancy I brought them a little
+nearer to each other that night. It was after a funeral, and yet they
+both looked happier than I had ever seen them before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+I SIN AND REPENT.
+
+The Christmas holidays went by more rapidly than I had expected. I
+betook myself with enlarged faculty to my book-mending, and more than
+ever enjoyed making my uncle’s old volumes tidy. When I returned to
+school, it was with real sorrow at parting from my uncle; and even
+towards my aunt I now felt a growing attraction.
+
+I shall not dwell upon my school history. That would be to spin out my
+narrative unnecessarily. I shall only relate such occurrences as are
+guide-posts in the direction of those main events which properly
+constitute my history.
+
+I had been about two years with Mr Elder. The usual holidays had
+intervened, upon which occasions I found the pleasures of home so
+multiplied by increase of liberty and the enlarged confidence of my
+uncle, who took me about with him everywhere, that they were now almost
+capable of rivalling those of school. But before I relate an incident
+which occurred in the second Autumn, I must say a few words about my
+character at this time.
+
+My reader will please to remember that I had never been driven, or
+oppressed in any way. The affair of the watch was quite an isolated
+instance, and so immediately followed by the change and fresh life of
+school that it had not left a mark behind. Nothing had yet occurred to
+generate in me any fear before the face of man. I had been vaguely
+uneasy in relation to my grandmother, but that uneasiness had almost
+vanished before her death. Hence the faith natural to childhood had
+received no check. My aunt was at worst cold; she had never been harsh;
+while over Nannie I was absolute ruler. The only time that evil had
+threatened me, I had been faithfully defended by my guardian uncle. At
+school, while I found myself more under law, I yet found myself
+possessed of greater freedom. Every one was friendly and more than
+kind. From all this the result was that my nature was unusually
+trusting.
+
+We had a whole holiday, and, all seven, set out to enjoy ourselves. It
+was a delicious morning in Autumn, clear and cool, with a great light
+in the east, and the west nowhere. Neither the autumnal tints nor the
+sharpening wind had any sadness in those young years which we call the
+old years afterwards. How strange it seems to have--all of us--to say
+with the Jewish poet: I have been young, and now am old! A wood in the
+distance, rising up the slope of a hill, was our goal, for we were
+after hazel-nuts. Frolicking, scampering, leaping over stiles, we felt
+the road vanish under our feet. When we gained the wood, although we
+failed in our quest we found plenty of amusement; that grew everywhere.
+At length it was time to return, and we resolved on going home by
+another road--one we did not know.
+
+After walking a good distance, we arrived at a gate and lodge, where we
+stopped to inquire the way. A kind-faced woman informed us that we
+should shorten it much by going through the park, which, as we seemed
+respectable boys, she would allow us to do. We thanked her, entered,
+and went walking along a smooth road, through open sward, clumps of
+trees and an occasional piece of artful neglect in the shape of rough
+hillocks covered with wild shrubs, such as brier and broom. It was very
+delightful, and we walked along merrily. I can yet recall the
+individual shapes of certain hawthorn trees we passed, whose extreme
+age had found expression in a wild grotesqueness which would have been
+ridiculous but for a dim, painful resemblance to the distortion of old
+age in the human family.
+
+After walking some distance, we began to doubt whether we might not
+have missed the way to the gate of which the woman had spoken. For a
+wall appeared, which, to judge from the tree-tops visible over it, must
+surround a kitchen garden or orchard; and from this we feared we had
+come too nigh the house. We had not gone much further before a branch,
+projecting over the wall, from whose tip, as if the tempter had gone
+back to his old tricks, hung a rosy-cheeked apple, drew our eyes and
+arrested our steps. There are grown people who cannot, without an
+effort of the imagination, figure to themselves the attraction between
+a boy and an apple; but I suspect there are others the memories of
+whose boyish freaks will render it yet more difficult for them to
+understand a single moment’s contemplation of such an object without
+the endeavour to appropriate it. To them the boy seems made for the
+apple, and the apple for the boy. Rosy, round-faced, spectacled Mr
+Elder, however, had such a fine sense of honour in himself that he had
+been to a rare degree successful in developing a similar sense in his
+boys, and I do believe that not one of us would, under any
+circumstances, except possibly those of terrifying compulsion, have
+pulled that apple. We stood in rapt contemplation for a few moments,
+and then walked away. But although there are no degrees in Virtue, who
+will still demand her uttermost farthing, there are degrees in the
+virtuousness of human beings.
+
+As we walked away, I was the last, and was just passing from under the
+branch when something struck the ground at my heel. I turned. An apple
+must fall some time, and for this apple that some time was then. It lay
+at my feet. I lifted it and stood gazing at it--I need not say with
+admiration. My mind fell a-working. The adversary was there, and the
+angel too. The apple had dropped at my feet; I had not pulled it. There
+it would lie wasting, if some one with less right than I--said the
+prince of special pleaders--was not the second to find it. Besides,
+what fell in the road was public property. Only this was not a public
+road, the angel reminded me. My will fluttered from side to side, now
+turning its ear to my conscience, now turning away and hearkening to my
+impulse. At last, weary of the strife, I determined to settle it by a
+just contempt of trifles--and, half in desperation, bit into the ruddy
+cheek.
+
+The moment I saw the wound my teeth had made, I knew what I had done,
+and my heart died within me. I was self-condemned. It was a new and an
+awful sensation--a sensation that could not be for a moment endured.
+The misery was too intense to leave room for repentance even. With a
+sudden resolve born of despair, I shoved the type of the broken law
+into my pocket and followed my companions. But I kept at some distance
+behind them, for as yet I dared not hold further communication with
+respectable people. I did not, and do not now, believe that there was
+one amongst them who would have done as I had done. Probably also not
+one of them would have thought of my way of deliverance from
+unendurable self-contempt. The curse had passed upon me, but I saw a
+way of escape.
+
+A few yards further, they found the road we thought we had missed. It
+struck off into a hollow, the sides of which were covered with trees.
+As they turned into it they looked back and called me to come on. I ran
+as if I wanted to overtake them, but the moment they were out of sight,
+left the road for the grass, and set off at full speed in the same
+direction as before. I had not gone far before I was in the midst of
+trees, overflowing the hollow in which my companions had disappeared,
+and spreading themselves over the level above. As I entered their
+shadow, my old awe of the trees returned upon me--an awe I had nearly
+forgotten, but revived by my crime. I pressed along, however, for to
+turn back would have been more dreadful than any fear. At length, with
+a sudden turn, the road left the trees behind, and what a scene opened
+before me! I stood on the verge of a large space of greensward, smooth
+and well-kept as a lawn, but somewhat irregular in surface. From all
+sides it rose towards the centre. There a broad, low rock seemed to
+grow out of it, and upon the rock stood the lordliest house my childish
+eyes had ever beheld. Take situation and all, and I have scarcely yet
+beheld one to equal it. Half castle, half old English country seat, it
+covered the rock with a huge square of building, from various parts of
+which rose towers, mostly square also, of different heights. I stood
+for one brief moment entranced with awful delight. A building which has
+grown for ages, the outcome of the life of powerful generations, has
+about it a majesty which, in certain moods, is overpowering. For one
+brief moment I forgot my sin and its sorrow. But memory awoke with a
+fresh pang. To this lordly place I, poor miserable sinner, was a debtor
+by wrong and shame. Let no one laugh at me because my sin was small: it
+was enough for me, being that of one who had stolen for the first time,
+and that without previous declension, and searing of the conscience. I
+hurried towards the building, anxiously looking for some entrance.
+
+I had approached so near that, seated on its rock, it seemed to shoot
+its towers into the zenith, when, rounding a corner, I came to a part
+where the height sank from the foundation of the house to the level by
+a grassy slope, and at the foot of the slope espied an elderly
+gentleman, in a white hat, who stood with his hands in his
+breeches-pockets, looking about him. He was tall and stout, and carried
+himself in what seemed to me a stately manner. As I drew near him I
+felt somewhat encouraged by a glimpse of his face, which was rubicund
+and, I thought, good-natured; but, approaching him rather from behind,
+I could not see it well. When I addressed him he started,
+
+‘Please, sir,’ I said, ‘is this your house?’
+
+‘Yes, my man; it is my house,’ he answered, looking down on me with
+bent neck, his hands still in his pockets.
+
+‘Please, sir,’ I said, but here my voice began to tremble, and he grew
+dim and large through the veil of my gathering tears. I hesitated.
+
+‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked, in a tone half jocular, half kind.
+
+I made a great effort and recovered my self-possession.
+
+‘Please, sir,’ I repeated, ‘I want you to box my ears.’
+
+‘Well, you are a funny fellow! What should I box your ears for, pray?’
+
+‘Because I’ve been very wicked,’ I answered; and, putting my hand into
+my pocket, I extracted the bitten apple, and held it up to him.
+
+‘Ho! ho!’ he said, beginning to guess what I must mean, but hardly the
+less bewildered for that; ‘is that one of my apples?’
+
+‘Yes, sir. It fell down from a branch that hung over the wall. I took
+it up, and--and--I took a bite of it, and--and--I’m so sorry!’
+
+Here I burst into a fit of crying which I choked as much as I could. I
+remember quite well how, as I stood holding out the apple, my arm would
+shake with the violence of my sobs.
+
+‘I’m not fond of bitten apples,’ he said. ‘You had better eat it up
+now.’
+
+This brought me to myself. If he had shown me sympathy, I should have
+gone on crying.
+
+‘I would rather not. Please box my ears.’
+
+‘I don’t want to box your ears. You’re welcome to the apple. Only don’t
+take what’s not your own another time.’ ‘But, please, sir, I’m so
+miserable!’
+
+‘Home with you! and eat your apple as you go,’ was his unconsoling
+response.
+
+‘I can’t eat it; I’m so ashamed of myself.’
+
+‘When people do wrong, I suppose they must be ashamed of themselves.
+That’s all right, isn’t it?’
+
+‘Why won’t you box my ears, then?’ I persisted.
+
+ [Illustration: “HERE IS A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, MRS. WILSON, WHO SEEMS TO
+HAVE LOST HIS WAY.”]
+
+It was my sole but unavailing prayer. He turned away towards the house.
+My trouble rose to agony. I made some wild motion of despair, and threw
+myself on the grass. He turned, looked at me for a moment in silence,
+and then said in a changed tone--
+
+‘My boy, I am sorry for you. I beg you will not trouble yourself any
+more. The affair is not worth it. Such a trifle! What can I do for
+you?’
+
+I got up. A new thought of possible relief had crossed my mind.
+
+‘Please, sir, if you won’t box my ears, will you shake hands with me?’
+
+‘To be sure I will,’ he answered, holding out his hand, and giving mine
+a very kindly shake. ‘Where do you live?’
+
+‘I am at school at Aldwick, at Mr Elder’s.’
+
+‘You’re a long way from home!’
+
+‘Am I, sir? Will you tell me how to go? But it’s of no consequence. I
+don’t mind anything now you’ve forgiven me. I shall soon run home.’
+
+‘Come with me first. You must have something to eat.’
+
+I wanted nothing to eat, but how could I oppose anything he said? I
+followed him at once, drying my eyes as I went. He led me to a great
+gate which I had passed before, and opening a wicket, took me across a
+court, and through another building where I saw many servants going
+about; then across a second court, which was paved with large flags,
+and so to a door which he opened, calling--
+
+‘Mrs Wilson! Mrs Wilson! I want you a moment.’
+
+‘Yes, Sir Giles,’ answered a tall, stiff-looking elderly woman who
+presently appeared descending, with upright spine, a corkscrew
+staircase of stone.
+
+‘Here is a young gentleman, Mrs Wilson, who seems to have lost his way.
+He is one of Mr Elder’s pupils at Aldwick. Will you get him something
+to eat and drink, and then send him home?’
+
+‘I will, Sir Giles.’
+
+‘Good-bye, my man,’ said Sir Giles, again shaking hands with me. Then
+turning anew to the housekeeper, for such I found she was, he added:
+
+‘Couldn’t you find a bag for him, and fill it with some of those brown
+pippins? They’re good eating, ain’t they?’
+
+‘With pleasure, Sir Giles.’
+
+Thereupon Sir Giles withdrew, closing the door behind him, and leaving
+me with the sense of life from the dead.
+
+‘What’s your name, young gentleman?’ asked Mrs Wilson, with, I thought,
+some degree of sternness.
+
+‘Wilfrid Cumbermede,’ I answered.
+
+She stared at me a little, with a stare which would have been a start
+in most women. I was by this time calm enough to take a quiet look at
+her. She was dressed in black silk, with a white neckerchief crossing
+in front, and black mittens on her hands. After gazing at me fixedly
+for a moment or two, she turned away and ascended the stair, which went
+up straight from the door, saying--
+
+‘Come with me, Master Cumbermede. You must have some tea before you
+go.’
+
+I obeyed, and followed her into a long, low-ceiled room, wainscotted
+all over in panels, with a square moulding at the top, which served for
+a cornice. The ceiling was ornamented with plaster reliefs. The windows
+looked out, on one side into the court, on the other upon the park. The
+floor was black and polished like a mirror, with bits of carpet here
+and there, and a rug before the curious, old-fashioned grate, where a
+little fire was burning and a small kettle boiling fiercely on the top
+of it. The tea-tray was already on the table. She got another cup and
+saucer, added a pot of jam to the preparations, and said:
+
+‘Sit down and have some bread and butter, while I make the tea.’
+
+She cut me a great piece of bread, and then a great piece of butter,
+and I lost no time in discovering that the quality was worthy of the
+quantity. Mrs Wilson kept a grave silence for a good while. At last, as
+she was pouring out the second cup, she looked at me over the teapot,
+and said--
+
+‘You don’t remember your mother, I suppose, Master Cumbermede?’
+
+‘No, ma’am. I never saw my mother.’
+
+‘Within your recollection, you mean. But you must have seen her, for
+you were two years old when she died.’
+
+‘Did you know my mother, then, ma’am?’ I asked, but without any great
+surprise, for the events of the day had been so much out of the
+ordinary that I had for the time almost lost the faculty of wonder.
+
+She compressed her thin lips, and a perpendicular wrinkle appeared in
+the middle of her forehead, as she answered--
+
+‘Yes; I knew your mother.’
+
+‘She was very good, wasn’t she, ma’am?’ I said, with my mouth full of
+bread and butter.
+
+‘Yes. Who told you that?’
+
+‘I was sure of it. Nobody ever told me.’
+
+‘Did they never talk to you about her?’
+
+‘No, ma’am.’
+
+‘So you are at Mr Elder’s, are you?’ she said, after another long
+pause, during which I was not idle, for my trouble being gone I could
+now be hungry.
+
+‘Yes, ma’am.’
+
+‘How did you come here, then?’
+
+‘I walked with the rest of the boys; but they are gone home without
+me.’
+
+Thanks to the kindness of Sir Giles, my fault had already withdrawn so
+far into the past, that I wished to turn my back upon it altogether. I
+saw no need for confessing it to Mrs Wilson; and there was none.
+
+‘Did you lose your way?’
+
+‘No, ma’am.’
+
+‘What brought you here, then? I suppose you wanted to see the place.’
+
+‘The woman at the lodge told us the nearest way was through the park.’
+
+I quite expected she would go on cross-questioning me, and then all the
+truth would have had to come out. But to my great relief, she went no
+further, only kept eyeing me in a manner so oppressive as to compel me
+to eat bread and butter and strawberry jam with self-defensive
+eagerness. I presume she trusted to find out the truth by-and-by. She
+contented herself in the mean time with asking questions about my uncle
+and aunt, the farm, the school, and Mr and Mrs Elder, all in a cold,
+stately, refraining manner, with two spots of red in her face--one on
+each cheek-bone, and a thin rather peevish nose dividing them. But her
+forehead was good, and when she smiled, which was not often, her eyes
+shone. Still, even I, with my small knowledge of womankind, was dimly
+aware that she was feeling her way with me, and I did not like her
+much.
+
+‘Have you nearly done?’ she asked at length.
+
+‘Yes, quite, thank you,’ I answered.
+
+‘Are you going back to school to-night?’
+
+‘Yes, ma’am; of course.’
+
+‘How are you going?’
+
+‘If you will tell me the way--’
+
+‘Do you know how far you are from Aldwick?’
+
+‘No, ma’am.’
+
+‘Eight miles,’ she answered; ‘and it’s getting rather late.’
+
+I was seated opposite the windows to the park, and, looking up, saw
+with some dismay that the air was getting dusky. I rose at once,
+saying--
+
+‘I must make haste. They will think I am lost.’
+
+‘But you can never walk so far, Master Cumbermede.’
+
+‘Oh, but I must! I can’t help it. I must get back as fast as possible.’
+
+‘You never can walk such a distance. Take another bit of cake while I
+go and see what can be done.’
+
+Another piece of cake being within the bounds of possibility, I might
+at least wait and see what Mrs Wilson’s design was. She left the room,
+and I turned to the cake. In a little while she came back, sat down,
+and went on talking. I was beginning to get quite uneasy, when a maid
+put her head in at the door, and said--
+
+‘Please, Mrs Wilson, the dog-cart’s ready, ma’am.’
+
+‘Very well,’ replied Mrs Wilson, and turning to me, said--more kindly
+than she had yet spoken--
+
+‘Now, Master Cumbermede, you must come and see me again. I’m too busy
+to spare much time when the family is at home; but they are all going
+away the week after next, and if you will come and see me then, I shall
+be glad to show you over the house.’
+
+As she spoke she rose and led the way from the room, and out of the
+court by another gate from that by which I had entered. At the bottom
+of a steep descent, a groom was waiting with the dog-cart.
+
+‘Here, James,’ said Mrs Wilson, ‘take good care of the young gentleman,
+and put him down safe at Mr Elder’s. Master Wilfrid, you’ll find a
+hamper of apples underneath. You had better not eat them all yourself,
+you know. Here are two or three for you to eat by the way.’
+
+‘Thank you, Mrs Wilson. No; I’m not quite so greedy as that,’ I
+answered gaily, for my spirits were high at the notion of a ride in the
+dog-cart instead of a long and dreary walk.
+
+When I was fairly in, she shook hands with me, reminding me that I was
+to visit her soon, and away went the dog-cart behind a high-stepping
+horse. I had never before been in an open vehicle of any higher
+description than a cart, and the ride was a great delight. We went a
+different road from that which my companions had taken. It lay through
+trees all the way till we were out of the park.
+
+‘That’s the land-steward’s house,’ said James.
+
+‘Oh, is it?’ I returned, not much interested. ‘What great trees those
+are all about it.’
+
+‘Yes; they’re the finest elms in all the county those,’ he answered.
+‘Old Coningham knew what he was about when he got the last baronet to
+let him build his nest there. Here we are at the gate!’
+
+We came out upon a country road, which ran between the wall of the park
+and a wooden fence along a field of grass. I offered James one of my
+apples, which he accepted.
+
+‘There, now!’ he said, ‘there’s a field!--A right good bit o’ grass
+that! Our people has wanted to throw it into the park for hundreds of
+years. But they won’t part with it for love or money. It ought by
+rights to be ours, you see, by the lie of the country. It’s all one
+grass with the park. But I suppose them as owns it ain’t of the same
+mind.--Cur’ous old box!’ he added, pointing with his whip a long way
+off. ‘You can just see the roof of it.’
+
+I looked in the direction he pointed. A rise in the ground hid all but
+an ancient, high-peaked roof. What was my astonishment to discover in
+it the roof of my own home! I was certain it could be no other. It
+caused a strange sensation, to come upon it thus from the outside, as
+it were, when I thought myself miles and miles away from it, I fell
+a-pondering over the matter; and as I reflected, I became convinced
+that the trees from which we had just emerged were the same which used
+to churn the wind for my childish fancies. I did not feel inclined to
+share my feelings with my new acquaintance; but presently he put his
+whip in the socket and fell to eating his apple. There was nothing more
+in the conversation he afterwards resumed deserving of record. He
+pulled up at the gate of the school, where I bade him good-night and
+rang the bell.
+
+There was great rejoicing over me when I entered, for the boys had
+arrived without me a little while before, having searched all about the
+place where we had parted company, and come at length to the conclusion
+that I had played them a trick in order to get home without them, there
+having been some fun on the road concerning my local stupidity. Mr
+Elder, however, took me to his own room, and read me a lecture on the
+necessity of not abusing my privileges. I told him the whole affair
+from beginning to end, and thought he behaved very oddly. He turned
+away every now and then, blew his nose, took off his spectacles, wiped
+them carefully, and replaced them before turning again to me.
+
+‘Go on, go on, my boy. I’m listening,’ he would say.
+
+I cannot tell whether he was laughing or crying. I suspect both. When I
+had finished, he said, very solemnly--
+
+‘Wilfrid, you have had a narrow escape. I need not tell you how wrong
+you were about the apple, for you know that as well as I do. But you
+did the right thing when your eyes were opened. I am greatly pleased
+with you, and greatly obliged to Sir Giles. I will write and thank him
+this very night.’
+
+‘Please, sir, ought I to tell the boys? I would rather not.’
+
+‘No. I do not think it necessary.’
+
+He rose and rang the bell.
+
+‘Ask Master Fox to step this way.’
+
+Fox was the oldest boy, and was on the point of leaving.
+
+‘Fox,’ said Mr Elder, ‘Cumbermede has quite satisfied me. Will you
+oblige me by asking him no questions. I am quite aware such a request
+must seem strange, but I have good reasons for making it,’
+
+‘Very well, sir,’ said Fox, glancing at me.
+
+‘Take him with you, then, and tell the rest. It is as a favour to
+myself that I put it, Fox.’
+
+‘That is quite enough, sir.’
+
+Fox took me to Mrs Elder, and had a talk with the rest before I saw
+them. Some twenty years after, Fox and I had it out. I gave him a full
+explanation, for by that time I could smile over the affair. But what
+does the object matter?--an apple, or a thousand pounds? It is but the
+peg on which the act hangs. The act is everything.
+
+To the honour of my school-fellows I record that not one of them ever
+let fall a hint in the direction of the mystery. Neither did Mr or Mrs
+Elder once allude to it. If possible they were kinder than before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+I BUILD CASTLES.
+
+My companions had soon found out, and I think the discovery had
+something to do with the kindness they always showed me, that I was a
+good hand at spinning a yarn: the nautical phrase had got naturalized
+in the school. We had no chance, if we would have taken it, of spending
+any part of school-hours in such a pastime; but it formed an unfailing
+amusement when weather or humour interfered with bodily exercises. Nor
+were we debarred from the pleasure after we had retired for the
+night,--only, as we were parted in three rooms, I could not have a
+large audience then. I well remember, however, one occasion on which it
+was otherwise. The report of a super-excellent invention having gone
+abroad, one by one they came creeping into my room, after I and my
+companion were in bed, until we lay three in each bed, all being
+present but Fox. At the very heart of the climax, when a spectre was
+appearing and disappearing momently with the drawing in and sending out
+of his breath, so that you could not tell the one moment where he might
+show himself the next, Mr Elder walked into the room with his
+chamber-candle in his hand, straightway illuminating six countenances
+pale with terror--for I took my full share of whatever emotion I roused
+in the rest. But instead of laying a general interdict on the custom,
+he only said,
+
+‘Come, come, boys! it’s time you were asleep. Go to your rooms
+directly.’
+
+‘Please, sir,’ faltered one--Moberly by name--the dullest and most
+honourable boy, to my thinking, amongst us, ‘mayn’t I stay where I am?
+Cumbermede has put me all in a shiver.’
+
+Mr Elder laughed, and turning to me, asked with his usual good-humour,
+
+‘How long will your story take, Cumbermede?’
+
+‘As long as you please, sir,’ I answered.
+
+‘I can’t let you keep them awake all night, you know.’
+
+‘There’s no fear of that, sir,’ I replied. ‘Moberly would have been
+asleep long ago if it hadn’t been a ghost. Nothing keeps him awake but
+ghosts.’
+
+‘Well, is the ghost nearly done with?’
+
+‘Not quite, sir. The worst is to come yet.’
+
+‘Please, sir,’ interposed Moberly, ‘if you’ll let me stay where I am,
+I’ll turn round on my deaf ear, and won’t listen to a word more of it.
+It’s awful, I do assure you, sir.’ Mr Elder laughed again.
+
+‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Make haste and finish your story, Cumbermede, and
+let them go to sleep. You, Moberly, may stay where you are for the
+night, but I can’t have this made a practice of.’
+
+‘No, no, sir,’ said several at once.
+
+‘But why don’t you tell your stories by daylight, Cumbermede? I’m sure
+you have time enough for them then.’
+
+‘Oh, but he’s got one going for the day and another for the night.’
+
+‘Then do you often lie three in a bed?’ asked Mr Elder with some
+concern.
+
+‘Oh no, sir. Only this is an extra good one, you see.’
+
+Mr Elder laughed again, bade us good-night, and left us. The horror,
+however, was broken. I could not call up one ‘shiver more, and in a few
+minutes Moberly, as well as his two companions, had slipped away to
+roomier quarters.
+
+The material of the tales I told my companions was in part supplied
+from some of my uncle’s old books, for in his little library there were
+more than the _Arcadia_ of the same sort. But these had not merely
+afforded me the stuff to remodel and imitate; their spirit had wrought
+upon my spirit, and armour and war-horses and mighty swords were only
+the instruments with which faithful knights wrought honourable deeds.
+
+I had a tolerably clear perception that such deeds could not be done in
+our days; that there were no more dragons lying in the woods: and that
+ladies did not now fall into the hands of giants. But I had the witness
+of an eternal impulse in myself that noble deeds had yet to be done,
+and therefore might be done, although I knew not how. Hence a feeling
+of the dignity of ancient descent, as involving association with great
+men and great actions of old, and therefore rendering such more
+attainable in the future, took deep root in my mind. Aware of the
+humbleness of my birth, and unrestrained by pride in my parents--I had
+lost them so early--I would indulge in many a day-dream of what I would
+gladly have been. I would ponder over the delights of having a history,
+and how grand it would be to find I was descended from some far-away
+knight who had done deeds of high emprise. In such moods the
+recollection of the old sword that had vanished from the wall would
+return: indeed the impression it had made upon me may have been at the
+root of it all. How I longed to know the story of it! But it had gone
+to the grave with grannie. If my uncle or aunt knew it, I had no hope
+of getting it from either of them; for I was certain they had no
+sympathy with any such fancies as mine. My favourite invention, one for
+which my audience was sure to call when I professed incompetence, and
+which I enlarged and varied every time I returned to it, was of a youth
+in humble life who found at length he was of far other origin then he
+had supposed. I did not know then, that the fancy, not uncommon with
+boys, has its roots in the deepest instincts of our human nature. I
+need not add that I had not yet read Jean Paul’s _Titan, or Hesperus,
+or Comet_.
+
+This tendency of thought-received a fresh impulse from my visit to
+Moldwarp Hall, as I choose to name the great house whither my
+repentance had led me. It was the first I had ever seen to wake the
+sense of the mighty antique. My home was, no doubt, older than some
+parts of the hall; but the house we are born in never looks older than
+the last generation until we begin to compare it with others. By this
+time, what I had learned of the history of my country, and the general
+growth of the allied forces of my intellect, had rendered me capable of
+feeling the hoary eld of the great Hall. Henceforth it had a part in
+every invention of my boyish imagination.
+
+I was therefore not undesirous of keeping the half-engagement I had
+made with Mrs Wilson, but it was not she that drew me. With all her
+kindness, she had not attracted me, for cupboard-love is not the sole,
+or always the most powerful, operant on the childish mind: it is in
+general stronger in men than in either children or women. I would
+rather not see Mrs Wilson again--she had fed my body, she had not
+warmed my heart. It was the grand old house that attracted me. True, it
+was associated with shame, but rather with the recovery from it than
+with the fall itself; and what memorials of ancient grandeur and
+knightly ways must lie within those walls, to harmonize with my many
+dreams!
+
+On the next holiday, Mr Elder gave me a ready permission to revisit
+Moldwarp Hall. I had made myself acquainted with the nearest way by
+crossroads and footpaths, and full of expectation, set out with my
+companions. They accompanied me the greater part of the distance, and
+left me at a certain gate, the same by which they had come out of the
+park on the day of my first visit. I was glad when they were gone, for
+I could then indulge my excited fancy at will. I heard their voices
+draw away into the distance. I was alone on a little footpath which led
+through a wood. All about me were strangely tall and slender oaks; but
+as I advanced into the wood, the trees grew more various, and in some
+of the opener spaces great old oaks, short and big-headed, stretched
+out their huge shadow-filled arms in true oak-fashion. The ground was
+uneven, and the path led up and down over hollow and hillock, now
+crossing a swampy bottom, now climbing the ridge of a rocky eminence.
+It was a lovely forenoon, with grey-blue sky and white clouds. The sun
+shone plentifully into the wood, for the leaves were thin. They hung
+like clouds of gold and royal purple above my head, layer over layer,
+with the blue sky and the snowy clouds shining through. On the ground
+it was a world of shadows and sunny streaks, kept ever in interfluent
+motion by such a wind as John Skelton describes:
+
+     ‘There blew in that gardynge a soft piplyng cold
+      Enbrethyng of Zepherus with his pleasant wynde.’
+
+
+I went merrily along. The birds were not singing, but my heart did not
+need them. It was Spring-time there, whatever it might be in the world.
+The heaven of my childhood wanted no lark to make it gay. Had the trees
+been bare, and the frost shining on the ground, it would have been all
+the same. The sunlight was enough.
+
+I was standing on the root of a great beech-tree, gazing up into the
+gulf of its foliage, and watching the broken lights playing about in
+the leaves and leaping from twig to branch, like birds yet more golden
+than the leaves, when a voice startled me.
+
+‘You’re not looking for apples in a beech-tree, hey? it said.
+
+I turned instantly, with my heart in a flutter. To my great relief I
+saw that the speaker was not Sir Giles, and that probably no allusion
+was intended. But my first apprehension made way only for another pang,
+for, although I did not know the man, a strange dismay shot through me
+at sight of him. His countenance was associated with an undefined but
+painful fact that lay crouching in a dusky hollow of my memory. I had
+no time now to entice it into the light of recollection. I took heart
+and spoke.
+
+‘No,’ I answered; ‘I was only watching the sun on the leaves.’
+
+‘Very pretty, ain’t it? Ah, it’s lovely! It’s quite beautiful--ain’t it
+now? You like good timber, don’t you? Trees, I mean?’ he explained,
+aware, I suppose, of some perplexity on my countenance.
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I like big old ones best.’
+
+‘Yes, yes,’ he returned, with an energy that sounded strange and
+jarring to my mood; ‘big old ones, that have stood for ages--the
+monarchs of the forest. Saplings ain’t bad things either, though. But
+old ones are best. Just come here, and I’ll show you one worth looking
+at. _It_ wasn’t planted yesterday, _I_ can tell you.’
+
+I followed him along the path, until we came out of the wood. Beyond us
+the ground rose steep and high, and was covered with trees; but here in
+the hollow it was open. A stream ran along between us and the height.
+On this side of the stream stood a mighty tree, towards which my
+companion led me. It was an oak, with such a bushy head and such great
+roots rising in serpent rolls and heaves above the ground, that the
+stem looked stunted between them.
+
+‘There!’ said my companion; ‘there’s a tree! there’s something like a
+tree! How a man must feel to call a tree like that his own! That’s
+Queen Elizabeth’s oak. It is indeed. England is dotted with would-be
+Queen Elizabeth’s oaks; but there is the very oak which she admired so
+much that she ordered luncheon to be served under it.... Ah! she knew
+the value of timber--did good Queen Bess. _That’s_ now--now--let me
+see--the year after the Armada--nine from fifteen--ah well, somewhere
+about two hundred and thirty years ago.’
+
+‘How lumpy and hard it looks!’ I remarked.
+
+‘That’s the breed and the age of it,’ he returned. ‘The wonder to me is
+they don’t turn to stone and last for ever, those trees. Ah! there’s
+something to live for now!’
+
+He had turned away to resume his walk, but as he finished the sentence,
+he turned again towards the tree, and shook his finger at it, as if
+reproaching it for belonging to somebody else than himself.
+
+‘Where are you going now?’ he asked, wheeling round upon me sharply,
+with a keen look in his magpie-eyes, as the French would call them,
+which hardly corresponded with the bluntness of his address.
+
+‘I’m going to the Hall,’ I answered, turning away.
+
+‘You’ll never get there that way. How are you to cross the river?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I’ve never been this way before.’
+
+‘You’ve been to the Hall before, then? Whom do you know there?’
+
+‘Mrs Wilson,’ I answered.
+
+‘H’m! Ah! You know Mrs Wilson, do you? Nice woman, Mrs Wilson!’
+
+He said this as if he meant the opposite.
+
+‘Here,’ he went on--‘come with me. I’ll show you the way.’
+
+I obeyed, and followed him along the bank of the stream.
+
+‘What a curious bridge!’ I exclaimed, as we came in sight of an ancient
+structure lifted high in the middle on the point of a Gothic arch.
+
+‘Yes, ain’t it? he said. ‘Curious? I should think so! And well it may
+be! It’s as old as the oak there at least. There’s a bridge now for a
+man like Sir Giles to call his own!’
+
+‘He can’t keep it though,’ I said, moralizing; for, in carrying on the
+threads of my stories, I had come to see that no climax could last for
+ever.
+
+‘Can’t keep it! He could carry off every stone of it if he liked.’
+
+‘Then it wouldn’t be the bridge any longer.’
+
+‘You’re a sharp one,’ he said.
+
+‘I don’t know,’ I answered, truly enough. I seemed to myself to be
+talking sense, that was all.
+
+‘Well, I do. What do you mean by saying he couldn’t keep it?’
+
+‘It’s been a good many people’s already, and it’ll be somebody else’s
+some day,’ I replied.
+
+He did not seem to relish the suggestion, for he gave a kind of grunt,
+which gradually broke into a laugh as he answered,
+
+‘Likely enough! likely enough!’
+
+We had now come round to the end of the bridge, and I saw that it was
+far more curious than I had perceived before.
+
+‘Why is it so narrow?’ I asked, wonderingly, for it was not three feet
+wide, and had a parapet of stone about three feet high on each side of
+it.
+
+‘Ah!’ he replied, ‘that’s it, you see. As old as the hills. It was
+built, _this_ bridge was, before ever a carriage was made--yes, before
+ever a carrier’s cart went along a road. They carried everything then
+upon horses’ backs. They call this the pack-horse bridge. You see
+there’s room for the horses’ legs, and their loads could stick out over
+the parapets. That’s the way they carried everything to the Hall then.
+That was a few years before _you_ were born, young gentleman.’
+
+‘But they couldn’t get their legs--the horses, I mean--couldn’t get
+their legs through this narrow opening,’ I objected; for a flat stone
+almost blocked up each end.
+
+‘No; that’s true enough. But those stones have been up only a hundred
+years or so. They didn’t want it for pack-horses any more then, and the
+stones were put up to keep the cattle, with which at some time or other
+I suppose some thrifty owner had stocked the park, from crossing to
+this meadow. That would be before those trees were planted up there.’
+
+When we had crossed the stream, he stopped at the other end of the
+bridge and said,
+
+‘Now, you go that way--up the hill. There’s a kind of path, if you can
+find it, but it doesn’t much matter. Good morning.’
+
+He walked away down the bank of the stream, while I struck into the
+wood.
+
+When I reached the top, and emerged from the trees that skirted the
+ridge, there stood the lordly Hall before me, shining in autumnal
+sunlight, with gilded vanes and diamond-paned windows, as if it were a
+rock against which the gentle waves of the sea of light rippled and
+broke in flashes. When you looked at its foundation, which seemed to
+have torn its way up through the clinging sward, you could not tell
+where the building began and the rock ended. In some parts indeed the
+rock was wrought into the walls of the house; while in others it was
+faced up with stone and mortar. My heart beat high with vague
+rejoicing. Grand as the aged oak had looked, here was a grander
+growth--a growth older too than the oak, and inclosing within it a
+thousand histories.
+
+I approached the gate by which Mrs Wilson had dismissed me. A flight of
+rude steps cut in the rock led to the portcullis, which still hung, now
+fixed in its place in front of the gate; for though the Hall had no
+external defences, it had been well fitted for the half-sieges of
+troublous times. A modern mansion stands, with its broad sweep up to
+the wide door, like its hospitable owner in full dress and
+broad-bosomed shirt on his own hearth-rug: this ancient house stood
+with its back to the world, like one of its ancient owners, ready to
+ride, in morion, breast-plate, and jack-boots--yet not armed
+_cap-à-pie_, not like a walled castle, that is.
+
+I ascended the steps, and stood before the arch--filled with a great
+iron-studded oaken gate--which led through a square tower into the
+court. I stood gazing for some minutes before I rang the bell. Two
+things in particular I noticed. The first was--over the arch of the
+doorway, amongst others--one device very like the animal’s head upon
+the watch and the seal which my great-grandmother had given me. I could
+not be sure it was the same, for the shape--both in the stone and in my
+memory--was considerably worn. The other interested me far more. In
+the great gate was a small wicket, so small that there was hardly room
+for me to pass without stooping. A thick stone threshold lay before it.
+The spot where the right foot must fall in stepping out of the wicket
+was worn into the shape of a shoe, to the depth of between three and
+four inches I should judge, vertically into the stone. The deep
+foot-mould conveyed to me a sense of the coming and going of
+generations, such as I could not gather from the age-worn walls of the
+building.
+
+A great bell-handle at the end of a jointed iron-rod hung down by the
+side of the wicket. I rang. An old woman opened the wicket, and allowed
+me to enter. I thought I remembered the way to Mrs Wilson’s door well
+enough, but when I ascended the few broad steps, curved to the shape of
+the corner in which the entrance stood, and found myself in the flagged
+court, I was bewildered, and had to follow the retreating portress for
+directions. A word set me right, and I was soon in Mrs Wilson’s
+presence. She received me kindly, and expressed her satisfaction that I
+had kept what she was pleased to consider my engagement.
+
+After some refreshment and a little talk, Mrs Wilson said,
+
+‘Now, Master Cumbermede, would you like to go and see the gardens, or
+take a walk in the park and look at the deer?’
+
+‘Please, Mrs Wilson,’ I returned, ‘you promised to show me the house.’
+
+‘You would like that, would you?’
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered,--‘better than anything.’
+
+‘Come, then,’ she said, and took a bunch of keys from the wall. ‘Some
+of the rooms I lock up when the family’s away.’
+
+It was a vast place. Roughly it may be described as a large oblong
+which the great hall, with the kitchen and its offices, divided into
+two square courts--the one flagged, the other gravelled. A passage
+dividing the hall from the kitchen led through from the one court to
+the other. We entered this central portion through a small tower; and,
+after a peep at the hall, ascended to a room above the entrance,
+accessible from an open gallery which ran along two sides of the hall.
+The room was square, occupying the area-space of the little entrance
+tower. To my joyous amazement, its walls were crowded with swords,
+daggers--weapons in endless variety, mingled with guns and pistols, for
+which I cared less. Some which had hilts curiously carved and even
+jewelled, seemed of foreign make. Their character was different from
+that of the rest; but most were evidently of the same family with the
+one sword I knew. Mrs Wilson could tell me nothing about them. All she
+knew was that this was the armoury, and that Sir Giles had a book with
+something written in it about every one of the weapons. They were no
+chance collection: each had a history. I gazed in wonder and delight.
+Above the weapons hung many pieces of armour--no entire suits, however;
+of those there were several in the hall below. Finding that Mrs Wilson
+did not object to my handling the weapons within my reach, I was soon
+so much absorbed in the examination of them that I started when she
+spoke.
+
+‘You shall come again, Master Cumbermede,’ she said. ‘We must go now.’
+I replaced a Highland broadsword, and turned to follow her. She was
+evidently pleased with the alacrity of my obedience, and for the first
+time bestowed on me a smile as she led the way from the armoury by
+another door. To my enhanced delight this door led into the library.
+Gladly would I have lingered, but Mrs Wilson walked on, and I followed
+through rooms and rooms, low-pitched, and hung with tapestry, some
+carpeted, some floored with black polished oak, others with some kind
+of cement or concrete, all filled with ancient furniture whose very
+aspect was a speechless marvel. Out of one into another, along endless
+passages, up and down winding stairs, now looking from the summit of a
+lofty tower upon terraces and gardens below--now lost in gloomy arches,
+again out upon acres of leads, and now bathed in the sweet gloom of the
+ancient chapel with its stained windows of that old glass which seems
+nothing at first, it is so modest and harmonious, but which for that
+very reason grows into a poem in the brain: you see it last and love it
+best--I followed with unabating delight.
+
+When at length Mrs Wilson said I had seen the whole, I begged her to
+let me go again into the library, for she had not given me a moment to
+look at it. She consented.
+
+It was a part of the house not best suited for the purpose, connected
+with the armoury by a descent of a few steps. It lay over some of the
+housekeeping department, was too near the great hall, and looked into
+the flagged court. A library should be on the ground-floor in a quiet
+wing, with an outlook on grass, and the possibility of gaining it at
+once without going through long passages. Nor was the library itself,
+architecturally considered, at all superior to its position. The
+books had greatly outgrown the space allotted to them, and several of
+the neighbouring rooms had been annexed as occasion required; hence it
+consisted of half-a-dozen rooms, some of them merely closets intended
+for dressing-rooms, and all very ill lighted. I entered it however in
+no critical spirit, but with a feeling of reverential delight. My
+uncle’s books had taught me to love books. I had been accustomed to
+consider his five hundred volumes a wonderful library; but here were
+thousands--as old, as musty, as neglected, as dilapidated, therefore
+as certainly full of wonder and discovery, as man or boy could
+wish.--Oh the treasures of a house that has been growing for ages! I
+leave a whole roomful of lethal weapons, to descend three steps
+into six roomfuls of books--each ‘the precious life-blood of a
+master-spirit’--for as yet in my eyes all books were worthy! Which did
+I love best? Old swords or old books? I could not tell! I had only the
+grace to know which I _ought_ to love best.
+
+As we passed from the first room into the second, up rose a white thing
+from the corner of the window-seat, and came towards us. I started. Mrs
+Wilson exclaimed:
+
+‘La! Miss Clara! how ever--?
+
+The rest was lost in the abyss of possibility.
+
+‘They told me you were somewhere about, Mrs Wilson, and I thought I had
+better wait here. How do you do?’
+
+‘La, child, you’ve given me such a turn!’ said Mrs Wilson. ‘You might
+have been a ghost if it had been in the middle of the night.’
+
+[Illustration: SHE WAS A YEAR OR TWO OLDER THAN MYSELF, I THOUGHT, AND
+THE LOVLIEST CREATURE I HAD EVER SEEN.]
+
+‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Wilson,’ said the girl merrily. ‘Only you see if
+it had been a ghost it couldn’t have been me.’
+
+‘How’s your papa, Miss Clara?’
+
+‘Oh! he’s always quite well.’
+
+‘When did you see him?’
+
+‘To-day. He’s at home with grandpapa now.’
+
+‘And you ran away and left him?’
+
+‘Not quite that. He and grandpapa went out about some business--to the
+copse at Deadman’s Hollow, I think. They didn’t want my advice--they
+never do; so I came to see you, Mrs Wilson.’
+
+By this time I had been able to look at the girl. She was a year or two
+older than myself, I thought, and the loveliest creature I had ever
+seen. She had large blue eyes of the rare shade called violet, a little
+round perhaps, but the long lashes did something to rectify that fault;
+and a delicate nose--turned up a little of course, else at her age she
+could not have been so pretty. Her mouth was well curved, expressing a
+full share of Paley’s happiness; her chin was something large and
+projecting, but the lines were fine. Her hair was a light brown, but
+dark for her eyes, and her complexion would have been enchanting to any
+one fond of the ‘sweet mixture, red and white.’ Her figure was that of
+a girl of thirteen, undetermined--but therein I was not critical. ‘An
+exceeding fair forehead,’ to quote Sir Philip Sidney, and plump, white,
+dimple-knuckled hands complete the picture sufficiently for the
+present. Indeed it would have been better to say only that I was taken
+with her, and then the reader might fancy her such as he would have
+been taken with himself. But I was not fascinated. It was only that I
+was a boy and she was a girl, and there being no element of decided
+repulsion, I felt kindly disposed towards her.
+
+Mrs Wilson turned to me.
+
+‘Well, Master Cumbermede, you see I am able to give you more than I
+promised.’
+
+‘Yes,’ I returned; ‘you promised to show me the old house--’
+
+‘And here,’ she interposed, ‘I show you a young lady as well.’
+
+‘Yes, thank you,’ I said simply. But I had a feeling that Mrs Wilson
+was not absolutely well-pleased.
+
+I was rather shy of Miss Clara--not that I was afraid of her, but that
+I did not exactly know what was expected of me, and Mrs Wilson gave us
+no further introduction to each other. I was not so shy, however, as
+not to wish Mrs Wilson would leave us together, for then, I thought, we
+should get on well enough; but such was not her intent. Desirous of
+being agreeable, however--as far as I knew how, and remembering that
+Mrs Wilson had given me the choice before, I said to her--
+
+‘Mightn’t we go and look at the deer, Mrs Wilson?’
+
+‘You had better not,’ she answered. ‘They are rather ill-tempered just
+now. They might run at you. I heard them fighting last night, and
+knocking their horns together dreadfully.’
+
+‘Then we’d better not,’ said Clara. ‘They frightened me very much
+yesterday.’
+
+We were following Mrs Wilson from the room. As we passed the hall-door,
+we peeped in.
+
+‘Do you like such great high places?’ asked Clara.
+
+‘Yes, I do,’ I answered. ‘I like great high places. It makes you gasp
+somehow.’
+
+‘Are you fond of gasping? Does it do you good?’ she asked, with a
+mock-simplicity which might be humour or something not so pleasant.
+
+‘Yes, I think it does,’ I answered. ‘It pleases me.’
+
+‘I don’t like it. I like a quiet snug place like the library--not a
+great wide place like this, that looks as if it had swallowed you and
+didn’t know it.’
+
+‘What a clever creature she is!’ I thought. We turned away and followed
+Mrs Wilson again.
+
+I had expected to spend the rest of the day with her, but the moment we
+reached her apartment, she got out a bottle of her home-made wine and
+some cake, saying it was time for me to go home. I was much
+disappointed--the more that the pretty Clara remained behind; but what
+could I do? I strolled back to Aldwick with my head fuller than ever of
+fancies new and old. But Mrs Wilson had said nothing of going to see
+her again, and without an invitation I could not venture to revisit the
+Hall.
+
+In pondering over the events of the day, I gave the man I had met in
+the wood a full share in my meditations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+A TALK WITH MY UNCLE.
+
+When I returned home for the Christmas holidays, I told my uncle,
+amongst other things, all that I have just recorded; for although the
+affair seemed far away from me now, I felt that he ought to know it. He
+was greatly pleased with my behaviour in regard to the apple. He did
+not identify the place, however, until he heard the name of the
+housekeeper: then I saw a cloud pass over his face. It grew deeper when
+I told him of my second visit, especially while I described the man I
+had met in the wood.
+
+‘I have a strange fancy about him, uncle,’ I said. ‘I think he must be
+the same man that came here one very stormy night--long ago--and wanted
+to take me away.’
+
+‘Who told you of that?’ asked my uncle startled.
+
+I explained that I had been a listener.
+
+‘You ought not to have listened.’
+
+‘I know that now; but I did not know then. I woke frightened, and heard
+the voices.’
+
+‘What makes you think he was the same man?’
+
+‘I can’t be sure, you know. But as often as I think of the man I met in
+the wood, the recollection of that night comes back to me.’
+
+‘I dare say. What was he like?’
+
+I described him as well as I could.
+
+‘Yes,’ said my uncle, ‘I dare say. He is a dangerous man.’
+
+‘What did he want with me?’
+
+‘He wanted to have something to do with your education. He is an old
+friend--acquaintance I ought to say--of your father’s. I should be
+sorry you had any intercourse with him. He is a very worldly kind of
+man. He believes in money and rank and getting on. He believes in
+nothing else that, I know.’
+
+‘Then I am sure I shouldn’t like him,’ I said.
+
+‘I am pretty sure you wouldn’t,’ returned my uncle.
+
+I had never before heard him speak so severely of any one. But from
+this time he began to talk to me more as if I had been a grown man.
+There was a simplicity in his way of looking at things, however, which
+made him quite intelligible to a boy as yet uncorrupted by false aims
+or judgments. He took me about with him constantly, and I began to see
+him as he was, and to honour and love him more than ever.
+
+Christmas-day this year fell on a Sunday. It was a model Christmas-day.
+My uncle and I walked to church in the morning. When we started, the
+grass was shining with frost, and the air was cold; a fog hung about
+the horizon, and the sun shone through it with red rayless countenance.
+But before we reached the church, which was some three miles from home,
+the fog was gone, and the frost had taken shelter with the shadows; the
+sun was dazzling without being clear, and the golden cock on the spire
+was glittering keen in the moveless air.
+
+‘What do they put a cock on the spire for, uncle?’ I asked.
+
+‘To end off with an ornament, perhaps,’ he answered.
+
+‘I thought it had been to show how the wind blew.’
+
+‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time great things--I mean the spire,
+not the cock--had been put to little uses.’
+
+‘But why should it be a cock,’ I asked, ‘more than any other bird?’
+
+‘Some people--those to whom the church is chiefly historical--would
+tell you it is the cock that rebuked St Peter. Whether it be so or not,
+I think a better reason for putting it there would be that the cock is
+the first creature to welcome the light, and tell people that it is
+coming. Hence it is a symbol of the clergyman.’
+
+‘But our clergyman doesn’t wake the people, uncle. I’ve seen him send
+_you_ to sleep sometimes.’
+
+My uncle laughed.
+
+‘I dare say there are some dull cocks too,’ he answered.
+
+‘There’s one at the farm,’ I said, ‘which goes on crowing every now and
+then all night--in his sleep--Janet says. But it never wakes till all
+the rest are out in the yard.’
+
+My uncle laughed again. We had reached the churchyard, and by the time
+we had visited grannie’s grave--that was the only one I thought of in
+the group of family mounds--the bells had ceased, and we entered.
+
+I at least did not sleep this morning; not however because of the
+anti-somnolence of the clergyman--but that, in a pew not far off from
+me, sat Clara. I could see her as often as I pleased to turn my head
+half-way round. Church is a very favourable place for falling in love.
+It is all very well for the older people to shake their heads and say
+you ought to be minding the service--that does not affect the fact
+stated--especially when the clergyman is of the half-awake order who
+take to the church as a gentleman-like profession. Having to sit so
+still, with the pretty face so near, with no obligation to pay it
+attention, but with perfect liberty to look at it, a boy in the habit
+of inventing stories could hardly help fancying himself in love with
+it. Whether she saw me or not, I cannot tell. Although she passed me
+close as we came out, she did not look my way, and I had not the
+hardihood to address her.
+
+As we were walking home, my uncle broke the silence.
+
+‘You would like to be an honourable man, wouldn’t you, Willie?’ he
+said.
+
+‘Yes, that I should, uncle.’
+
+‘Could you keep a secret now?’
+
+‘Yes, uncle.’
+
+‘But there are two ways of keeping a secret.’
+
+‘I don’t know more than one.’
+
+‘What’s that?’
+
+‘Not to tell it.’
+
+‘Never to show that you knew it, would be better still.’
+
+‘Yes, it would--’
+
+‘But, suppose a thing:--suppose you knew that there was a secret;
+suppose you wanted very much to find it out, and yet would not try to
+find it out: wouldn’t that be another way of keeping it?’
+
+‘Yes, it would. If I knew there was a secret, I should like to find it
+out.’
+
+‘Well, I am going to try you. There is a secret. I know it; you do not.
+You have a right to know it some day, but not yet. I mean to tell it
+you, but I want you to learn a great deal first. I want to keep the
+secret from hurting you. Just as you would keep things from a baby
+which would hurt him, I have kept some things from you.’
+
+‘Is the sword one of them, uncle?’ I asked.
+
+‘You could not do anything with the secret if you did know it,’ my
+uncle went on, without heeding my question; ‘but there may be designing
+people who would make a tool of you for their own ends. It is far
+better you should be ignorant. Now will you keep my secret?--or, in
+other words, will you trust me?’ I felt a little frightened. My
+imagination was at work on the formless thing. But I was chiefly afraid
+of the promise--lest I should anyway break it.
+
+‘I will try to keep the secret--keep it from myself, that is--ain’t it,
+uncle?’
+
+‘Yes. That is just what I mean.’
+
+‘But how long will it be for, uncle?’
+
+‘I am not quite sure. It will depend on how wise and sensible you grow.
+Some boys are men at eighteen--some not at forty. The more reasonable
+and well-behaved you are, the sooner shall I feel at liberty to tell it
+you.’
+
+He ceased, and I remained silent. I was not astonished. The vague news
+fell in with all my fancies. The possibility of something pleasant, nay
+even wonderful and romantic, of course suggested itself, and the hope
+which thence gilded the delay tended to reconcile me to my ignorance.
+
+‘I think it better you should not go back to Mr Elder’s, Willie,’ said
+my uncle.
+
+I was stunned at the words. Where could a place be found to compare for
+blessedness with Mr Elder’s school? Not even the great Hall, with its
+acres of rooms and its age-long history, could rival it.
+
+Some moments passed before I could utter a faltering ‘Why?’
+
+‘That is part of my secret, Willie,’ answered my uncle. ‘I know it will
+be a disappointment to you, for you have been very happy with Mr
+Elder.’
+
+‘Yes, indeed,’ I answered. It was all I could say, for the tears were
+rolling down my cheeks, and there was a great lump in my throat.
+
+‘I am very sorry indeed to give you pain, Willie,’ he said kindly.
+
+‘It’s not my blame, is it, uncle?’ I sobbed.
+
+‘Not in the least, my boy.’
+
+‘Oh! then, I don’t mind it so much.’
+
+‘There’s a brave boy! Now the question is, what to do with you.’
+
+‘Can’t I stop at home, then?’
+
+‘No, that won’t do either, Willie. I must have you taught, and I
+haven’t time to teach you myself. Neither am I scholar enough for it
+now; my learning has got rusty. I know your father would have wished to
+send you to college, and although I do not very well see how I can
+manage it, I must do the best I can. I’m not a rich man, you see,
+Willie, though I have a little laid by. I never could do much at making
+money, and I must not leave your aunt unprovided for.’
+
+‘No, uncle. Besides, I shall soon be able to work for myself and you
+too.’
+
+‘Not for a long time if you go to college, Willie. But we need not talk
+about that yet.’
+
+In the evening I went to my uncle’s room. He was sitting by his fire
+reading the New Testament.
+
+‘Please, uncle,’ I said, ‘will you tell me something about my father
+and mother?’
+
+‘With pleasure, my boy,’ he answered, and after a moment’s thought
+began to give me a sketch of my father’s life, with as many touches of
+the man himself as he could at the moment recall. I will not detain my
+reader with the narrative. It is sufficient to say that my father was a
+simple honourable man, without much education, but a great lover of
+plain books. His health had always been delicate; and before he died he
+had been so long an invalid that my mother’s health had given way in
+nursing him, so that she very soon followed him. As his narrative
+closed my uncle said: ‘Now, Willie, you see, with a good man like that
+for your father, you are bound to be good and honourable! Never mind
+whether people praise you or not; you do what you ought to do. And
+don’t be always thinking of your rights. There are people who consider
+themselves very grand because they can’t bear to be interfered with.
+They think themselves lovers of justice, when it is only justice to
+themselves they care about. The true lover of justice is one who would
+rather die a slave than interfere with the rights of others. To wrong
+any one is the most terrible thing in the world. Injustice _to_ you is
+not an awful thing like injustice _in_ you. I should like to see you a
+great man, Willie. Do you know what I mean by a great man?’
+
+‘Something else than I know, I’m afraid, uncle,’ I answered.
+
+‘A great man is one who will try to do right against the devil himself:
+one who will not do wrong to please anybody or to save his life.’
+
+I listened, but I thought with myself a man might do all that, and be
+no great man. I would do something better--some fine deed or other--I
+did not know what now, but I should find out by-and-by. My uncle was
+too easily pleased: I should demand more of a great man. Not so did the
+knights of old gain their renown. I was silent.
+
+‘I don’t want you to take my opinions as yours, you know, Willie,’ my
+uncle resumed. ‘But I want you to remember what my opinion is.’
+
+As he spoke, he went to a drawer in the room, and brought out something
+which he put in my hands. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the
+watch grannie had given me.
+
+‘There,’ he said, ‘is your father’s watch. Let it keep you in mind that
+to be good is to be great.’
+
+‘Oh, thank you, uncle!’ I said, heeding only my recovered treasure.
+‘But didn’t it belong to somebody before my father? Grannie gave it me
+as if it had been hers.’
+
+‘Your grandfather gave it to your father; but when he died, your
+great-grandmother took it. Did she tell you anything about it?’
+
+‘Nothing particular. She said it was her husband’s.’
+
+‘So it was, I believe.’
+
+‘She used to call him my father.’
+
+‘Ah, you remember that!’
+
+‘I’ve had so much time to think about things, uncle!’
+
+‘Yes. Well--I hope you will think more about things yet.’
+
+‘Yes, uncle. But there’s something else I should like to ask you
+about.’
+
+‘What’s that?’
+
+‘The old sword.’
+
+My uncle smiled, and rose again, saying, ‘Ah! I thought as much. Is
+that anything like it?’ he added, bringing it from the bottom of a
+cupboard.
+
+I took it from his hands with awe. It was the same. If I could have
+mistaken the hilt, I could not mistake the split sheath.
+
+‘Oh, uncle!’ I exclaimed, breathless with delight.
+
+‘That’s it--isn’t it?’ he said, enjoying my enjoyment.
+
+‘Yes, that it is! Now tell me all about it, please.’
+
+‘Indeed I can tell you very little. Some ancestor of ours fought with
+it somewhere. There was a story about it, but I have forgot it. You may
+have it if you like.’
+
+‘No, uncle! May I? To take away with me?’
+
+‘Yes. I think you are old enough now not to do any mischief with it.’
+
+I do not believe there was a happier boy in England that night. I did
+not mind where I went now. I thought I could even bear to bid Mrs Elder
+farewell. Whether therefore possession had done me good, I leave my
+reader to judge. But happily for our blessedness, the joy of possession
+soon palls, and not many days had gone by before I found I had a heart
+yet. Strange to say, it was my aunt who touched it.
+
+I do not yet know all the reasons which brought my uncle to the
+resolution of sending me abroad: it was certainly an unusual mode of
+preparing one for the university; but the next day he disclosed the
+plan to me. I was pleased with the notion. But my aunt’s apron went up
+to her eyes. It was a very hard apron, and I pitied those eyes although
+they were fierce.
+
+‘Oh, auntie!’ I said, ‘what are you crying for? Don’t you like me to
+go?’
+
+‘It’s too far off, child. How am I to get to you if you should be taken
+ill?’
+
+Moved both by my own pleasure and her grief, I got up and threw my arms
+round her neck. I had never done so before. She returned my embrace and
+wept freely.
+
+As it was not a fit season for travelling, and as my uncle had not yet
+learned whither it would be well to send me, it was after all resolved
+that I should return to Mr Elder’s for another half-year. This gave me
+unspeakable pleasure; and I set out for school again in such a blissful
+mood as must be rare in the experience of any life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE HOUSE-STEWARD.
+
+My uncle had had the watch cleaned and repaired for me, so that,
+notwithstanding its great age, it was yet capable of a doubtful sort of
+service. Its caprices were almost human, but they never impaired the
+credit of its possession in the eyes of my school-fellows; rather they
+added to the interest of the little machine, inasmuch as no one could
+foretell its behaviour under any circumstances. We were far oftener
+late now, when we went out for a ramble. Heretofore we had used our
+faculties and consulted the sky--now we trusted to the watch, and
+indeed acted as if it could regulate the time to our convenience, and
+carry us home afterwards. We regarded it, in respect Of time, very much
+as some people regard the Bible in respect of eternity. And the
+consequences were similar. We made an idol of it, and the idol played
+us the usual idol-pranks.
+
+But I think the possession of the sword, in my own eyes too a far
+grander thing than the watch, raised me yet higher in the regard of my
+companions. We could not be on such intimate terms with the sword, for
+one thing, as with the watch. It was in more senses than one beyond our
+sphere--a thing to be regarded with awe and reverence. Mr Elder had
+most wisely made no objection to my having it in our bed-room; but he
+drove two nails into the wall and hung it high above my reach, saying
+the time had not come for my handling it. I believe the good man
+respected the ancient weapon, and wished to preserve it from such usage
+as it might have met with from boys. It was the more a constant
+stimulus to my imagination, and I believe insensibly to my moral nature
+as well, connecting me in a kind of dim consciousness with foregone
+ancestors who had, I took it for granted, done well on the
+battle-field. I had the sense of an inherited character to sustain in
+the new order of things. But there was more in its influence which I
+can hardly define--the inheritance of it even gave birth to a certain
+sense of personal dignity.
+
+Although I never thought of visiting Moldwarp Hall again without an
+invitation, I took my companions more than once into the woods which
+lay about it: thus far I used the right of my acquaintance with the
+housekeeper. One day in Spring, I had gone with them to the old narrow
+bridge. I was particularly fond of visiting it. We lingered a long time
+about Queen Elizabeth’s oak; and by climbing up on each other’s
+shoulders, and so gaining some stumps of vanished boughs, had succeeded
+in clambering, one after another, into the wilderness of its branches,
+where the young buds were now pushing away the withered leaves before
+them, as the young generations of men push the older into the grave.
+When my turn came, I climbed and climbed until I had reached a great
+height in its top.
+
+Then I sat down, holding by the branch over my head, and began to look
+about me. Below was an entangled net, as it seemed--a labyrinth of
+boughs, branches, twigs, and shoots. If I had fallen I could hardly
+have reached the earth. Through this environing mass of lines, I caught
+glimpses of the country around--green fields, swelling into hills,
+where the fresh foliage was bursting from the trees; and below, the
+little stream was pursuing its busy way by a devious but certain path
+to its unknown future. Then my eyes turned to the tree-clad ascent on
+the opposite side: through the topmost of its trees, shone a golden
+spark, a glimmer of yellow fire. It was the vane on the highest tower
+of the Hall. A great desire seized me to look on the lordly pile once
+more. I descended in haste, and proposed to my companions that we
+should climb through the woods, and have a peep at the house. The
+eldest, who was in a measure in charge of us--his name was Bardsley,
+for Fox was gone--proposed to consult my watch first. Had we known that
+the faithless thing had stopped for an hour and a half, and then
+resumed its onward course as if nothing had happened, we should not
+have delayed our return. As it was, off we scampered for the pack-horse
+bridge, which we left behind us only after many frog-leaps over the
+obstructing stones at the ends. Then up through the wood we went like
+wild creatures, abstaining however from all shouting and mischief,
+aware that we were on sufferance only. At length we stood on the verge
+of the descent, when to our surprise we saw the sun getting low in the
+horizon. Clouds were gathering overhead, and a wailful wind made one
+moaning sweep through the trees behind us in the hollow. The sun had
+hidden his shape, but not his splendour, in the skirts of the white
+clouds which were closing in around him. Spring as it was, I thought I
+smelled snow in the air. But the vane which had drawn me shone
+brilliant against a darkening cloud, like a golden bird in the sky. We
+looked at each other, not in dismay exactly, but with a common feeling
+that the elements were gathering against us. The wise way would of
+course have been to turn at once and make for home; but the watch had
+to be considered. Was the watch right, or was the watch wrong? Its
+health and conduct were of the greatest interest to the commonweal.
+That question must be answered. We looked from the watch to the sun,
+and back from the sun to the watch. Steady to all appearance as the
+descending sun itself, the hands were trotting and crawling along their
+appointed way, with a look of unconscious innocence, in the midst of
+their diamond coronet. I volunteered to settle the question: I would
+run to the Hall, ring the bell, and ask leave to go as far into the
+court as to see the clock on the central tower. The proposition was
+applauded. I ran, rang, and being recognized by the portress, was at
+once admitted. In a moment I had satisfied myself of the treachery of
+my bosom-friend, and was turning to leave the court, when a lattice
+opened, and I heard a voice calling my name. It was Mrs Wilson’s. She
+beckoned me. I went up under the window.
+
+‘Why don’t you come and see me, Master Cumbermede?’ she said.
+
+‘You didn’t ask me, Mrs Wilson. I should have liked to come very much.’
+
+‘Come in, then, and have tea with me now.’
+
+‘No, thank you,’ I answered. ‘My schoolfellows are waiting for me, and
+we are too late already. I only came to see the clock.’
+
+‘Well, you must come soon, then.’
+
+‘I will, Mrs Wilson. Good-night,’ I answered, and away I ran, opened
+the wicket for myself, set my foot in the deep shoe-mould, then rushed
+down the rough steps and across the grass to my companions.
+
+When they heard what time it was, they turned without a word, and in
+less than a minute we were at the bottom of the hill and over the
+bridge. The wood followed us with a moan which was gathering to a roar.
+Down in the meadow it was growing dark. Before we reached the lodge, it
+had begun to rain, and the wind, when we got out upon the road, was
+blowing a gale. We were seven miles from home. Happily the wind was in
+our back, and, wet to the skin, but not so weary because of the aid of
+the wind, we at length reached Aldwick. The sole punishment we had for
+being so late--and that was more a precaution than a punishment--was
+that we had to go to bed immediately after a hurried tea. To face and
+fight the elements is, however, an invaluable lesson in childhood, and
+I do not think those parents do well who are over-careful to preserve
+all their children from all inclemencies of weather or season.
+
+When the next holiday drew near, I once more requested and obtained
+permission to visit Moldwarp Hall. I am now puzzled to understand why
+my uncle had not interdicted it, but certainly he had laid no
+injunctions upon me in regard thereto. Possibly he had communicated
+with Mrs Wilson: I do not know. If he had requested Mr. Elder to
+prevent me, I could not have gone. So far, however, must this have been
+from being the case that, on the eve of the holiday, Mr Elder said to
+me:
+
+‘If Mrs Wilson should ask you to stay all night, you may.’
+
+I suspect he knew more about some things than I did. The notion of
+staying all night seemed to me, however, out of the question. Mrs
+Wilson could not be expected to entertain me to that extent. I fancy,
+though, that she had written to make the request. My schoolfellows
+accompanied me as far as the bridge, and there left me. Mrs Wilson
+received me with notable warmth, and did propose that I should stay all
+night, to which I gladly agreed, more, it must be confessed, from the
+attraction of the old house than the love I bore to Mrs Wilson.
+
+‘But what is that you are carrying?’ she asked.
+
+It was my sword. This requires a little explanation.
+
+It was natural enough that on the eve of a second visit, as I hoped, to
+the armoury, I should, on going up to bed, lift my eyes with longing
+look to my own sword. The thought followed--what a pleasure it would
+be to compare it with the other swords in the armoury. If I could only
+get it down and smuggle it away with me! It was my own. I believed Mr
+Elder would not approve of this, but at the same time he had never told
+me not to take it down: he had only hung it too high for any of us to
+reach it--almost close to the ceiling, in fact. But a want of
+enterprise was not then a fault of mine, and the temptation was great.
+So, when my chum was asleep, I rose, and by the remnant of a fading
+moon got together the furniture--no easy undertaking when the least
+noise would have betrayed me. Fortunately there was a chest of drawers
+not far from under the object of my ambition, and I managed by half
+inches to move it the few feet necessary. On the top of this I hoisted
+the small dressing-table, which, being only of deal, was very light.
+The chest of drawers was large enough to hold my small box beside the
+table. I got on the drawers by means of a chair, then by means of the
+box I got on the table, and so succeeded in getting down the sword.
+Having replaced the furniture, I laid the weapon under my bolster, and
+was soon fast asleep. The moment I woke I got up, and before the house
+was stirring had deposited the sword in an outbuilding whence I could
+easily get it off the premises. Of course my companions knew, and I
+told them all my design. Moberly hinted that I ought to have asked Mr
+Elder, but his was the sole remark in that direction.
+
+‘It is my sword, Mrs Wilson,’ I answered.
+
+‘How do you come to have a sword?’ she asked. ‘It is hardly a fit
+plaything for you.’
+
+I told her how it had been in the house since long before I was born,
+and that I had brought it to compare with some of the swords in the
+armoury.
+
+‘Very well,’ she answered. ‘I dare say we can manage it; but when Mr
+Close is at home it is not very easy to get into the armoury. He’s so
+jealous of any one touching his swords and guns!’
+
+‘Who is Mr Close, then?’
+
+‘Mr Close is the house-steward.’
+
+‘But they’re not his, then, are they?’
+
+‘It’s quite enough that he thinks so. He has a fancy for that sort of
+thing. I’m sure I don’t see anything so precious in the rusty old
+rubbish.’
+
+I suspected that, as the saying is, there was no love lost between Mrs
+Wilson and Mr Close. I learned afterwards that he had been chaplain to
+a regiment of foot, which, according to rumour, he had had to leave for
+some misconduct. This was in the time of the previous owner of Moldwarp
+Hall, and nobody now knew the circumstances under which he had become
+house-steward--a position in which Sir Giles, when he came to the
+property, had retained his services.
+
+‘We are going to have company, and a dance, this evening,’ continued
+Mrs Wilson. ‘I hardly know what to do with you, my hands are so full.’
+
+This was not very consistent with her inviting me to stay all night,
+and confirms my suspicion that she had made a request to that purport
+of Mr. Elder, for otherwise, surely, she would have sent me home.
+
+‘Oh! never mind me, Mrs Wilson,’ I said. ‘If you will let me wander
+about the place, I shall be perfectly comfortable.’
+
+‘Yes; but you might get in the way of the family, or the visitors,’ she
+said.
+
+‘I’ll take good care of that,’ I returned. ‘Surely there is room in
+this huge place without running against any one.’
+
+‘There ought to be,’ she answered.
+
+After a few minutes’ silence, she resumed.
+
+‘We shall have a good many of them staying all night’, but there will
+be room for you, I dare say. What would you like to do with yourself
+till they begin to come?’
+
+‘I should like to go to the library,’ I answered, thinking, I confess,
+of the adjacent armoury as well. ‘Should I be in the way there?’
+
+‘No; I don’t think you would,’ she replied, thoughtfully. ‘It’s not
+often any one goes there.’
+
+‘Who takes charge of the books?’ I asked.
+
+‘Oh! books don’t want much taking care of,’ she replied. ‘I have
+thought of having them down and dusting the place out, but it would be
+such a job! and the dust don’t signify upon old books. They ain’t of
+much count in this house. Nobody heeds them.’
+
+‘I wish Sir Giles would let me come and put them in order in the
+holidays,’ I said, little knowing how altogether unfit I yet was for
+such an undertaking.
+
+‘Ah well! we’ll see. Who knows?’
+
+‘You don’t think he would!’ I exclaimed.
+
+‘I don’t know. Perhaps he might. But I thought you were going abroad
+soon.’
+
+I had not said anything to her on the subject. I had never had an
+opportunity.
+
+‘Who told you that, Mrs Wilson?’
+
+‘Never you mind. A little bird. Now you had better go to the library. I
+dare say you won’t hurt anything, for Sir Giles, although he never
+looks at the books, would be dreadfully angry if he thought anything
+were happening to them.’
+
+‘I’ll take as good care of them as if they were my uncle’s. He used to
+let me handle his as much as I liked. I used to mend them up for him.
+I’m quite accustomed to books, I assure you, Mrs Wilson.’
+
+‘Come, then; I will show you the way,’ she said.
+
+‘I think I know the way,’ I answered. For I had pondered so much over
+the place, and had, I presume, filled so many gaps of recollection with
+creations of fancy, that I quite believed I knew my way all about the
+house.
+
+‘We shall see,’ she returned with a smile. ‘I will take you the nearest
+way, and you shall tell me on your honour if you remember it.’
+
+She led the way, and I followed. Passing down the stone stair and
+through several rooms, mostly plain bedrooms, we arrived at a wooden
+staircase, of which there were few in the place. We ascended a little
+way, crossed one or two rooms more, came out on a small gallery open to
+the air, a sort of covered bridge across a gulf in the building,
+re-entered, and after crossing other rooms, tapestried, and to my eyes
+richly furnished, arrived at the first of those occupied by the
+library.
+
+‘Now did you know the way, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘Not in the least,’ I answered. ‘I cannot think how I could have
+forgotten it so entirely. I am ashamed of myself.’
+
+‘You have no occasion,’ she returned. ‘You never went that way at all.’
+
+‘Oh, dear me!’ I said; ‘what a place it is! I might lose myself in it
+for a week.’
+
+‘You would come out somewhere, if you went on long enough, I dare say.
+But you must not leave the library till I come and fetch you. You will
+want some dinner before long.’
+
+‘What time do you dine?’ I asked, putting my hand to my watch-pocket.
+
+‘Ah! you’ve got a watch--have you? But indeed, on a day like this, I
+dine when I can. You needn’t fear. I will take care of you.’
+
+‘Mayn’t I go into the armoury?’
+
+‘If you don’t mind the risk of meeting Mr Close. But he’s not likely to
+be there to-day.’
+
+She left me with fresh injunctions not to stir till she came for me.
+But I now felt the place to be so like a rabbit-warren, that I dared
+not leave the library, if not for the fear of being lost, then for the
+fear of intruding upon some of the family. I soon nestled in a corner,
+with books behind, books before, and books all around me. After trying
+several spots, like a miner searching for live lodes, and finding
+nothing auriferous to my limited capacities and tastes, I at length
+struck upon a rich vein, instantly dropped on the floor, and, with my
+back against the shelves, was now immersed in ‘The Seven Champions of
+Christendom.’ As I read, a ray of light, which had been creeping along
+the shelves behind me, leaped upon my page. I looked up. I had not yet
+seen the room so light. Nor had I perceived before in what confusion
+and with what disrespect the books were heaped upon the shelves. A dim
+feeling awoke in me that to restore such a world to order would be like
+a work of creation; but I sank again forthwith in the delights of a
+feast provided for an imagination which had in general to feed itself.
+I had here all the delight of invention without any of its effort.
+
+At length I became aware of some weariness. The sunbeam had vanished,
+not only from the page, but from the room. I began to stretch my arms.
+As the tension of their muscles relaxed, my hand fell upon the sword
+which I had carried with me and laid on the floor by my side. It awoke
+another mental nerve. I would go and see the armoury.
+
+I rose, and wandered slowly through room after room of the library,
+dragging my sword after me. When I reached the last, there, in the
+corner next the outer wall of the house, rose the three stone steps
+leading to the little door that communicated with the treasury of
+ancient strife. I stood at the foot of the steps irresolute for a
+moment, fearful lest my black man, Mr Close, should be within,
+polishing his weapons perhaps, and fearful in his wrath. I ascended the
+steps, listened at the door, heard nothing, lifted the old,
+quaintly-formed latch, peeped in, and entered. There was the whole
+collection, abandoned to my eager gaze and eager hands! How long I
+stood, taking down weapon after weapon, examining each like an old
+book, speculating upon modes of use, and intention of varieties in
+form, poring over adornment and mounting, I cannot tell. Historically
+the whole was a sealed book; individually I made a thorough
+acquaintance with not a few, noting the differences and resemblances
+between them and my own, and instead of losing conceit of the latter,
+finding more and more reasons for holding it dear and honourable. I was
+poising in one hand, with the blade upright in the air--for otherwise I
+could scarcely have held it in both--a huge two-handed, double-hilted
+sword with serrated double edge, when I heard a step approaching, and
+before I had well replaced the sword, a little door in a corner which-I
+had scarcely noticed--the third door to the room--opened, and down the
+last steps of the narrowest of winding stairs a little man in black
+screwed himself into the armoury. I was startled, but not altogether
+frightened. I felt myself grasping my own sword somewhat nervously in
+my left hand, as I abandoned the great one, and let it fall back with a
+clang into its corner.
+
+‘By the powers!’ exclaimed Mr Close, revealing himself an Irishman at
+once in the surprise of my presence, ‘and whom have we here?’
+
+I felt my voice tremble a little as I replied,
+
+‘Mrs Wilson allowed me to come, sir. I assure you I have not been
+hurting anything.’
+
+‘Who’s to tell that? Mrs Wilson has no business to let any one come
+here. This is my quarters. There--you’ve got one in your hand now!
+You’ve left finger-marks on the blade, I’ll be bound. Give it me.’
+
+He stretched out his hand. I drew back.
+
+‘This one is mine,’ I said.
+
+‘Ho, ho, young gentleman! So you’re a collector--are you? Already too!
+Nothing like beginning in time. Let me look at the thing, though.’
+
+He was a little man, as I have said, dressed in black, with a frock
+coat and a deep white neckcloth. His face would have been vulgar,
+especially as his nose was a traitor to his mouth, revealing in its hue
+the proclivities of its owner, but for a certain look of the
+connoisseur which went far to redeem it. The hand which he stretched
+out to take my weapon, was small and delicate--like a woman’s indeed.
+His speech was that of a gentleman. I handed him the sword at once.
+
+He had scarcely glanced at it when a strange look passed over his
+countenance. He tried to draw it, failed, and looking all along the
+sheath, saw its condition. Then his eyes flashed. He turned from me
+abruptly, and went up the stair he had descended. I waited anxiously
+for what seemed to me half an hour: I dare say it was not more than ten
+minutes. At last I heard him revolving on his axis down the corkscrew
+staircase. He entered and handed me my sword, saying--
+
+‘There! I can’t get it out of the sheath. It’s in a horrid state of
+rust. Where did you fall in with it?’
+
+I told him all I knew about it. If he did not seem exactly interested,
+he certainly behaved with some oddity. When I told him what my
+grandmother had said about some battle in which an ancestor had worn
+it, his arm rose with a jerk, and the motions of his face, especially
+of his mouth, which appeared to be eating its own teeth, were for a
+moment grotesque. When I had finished, he said, with indifferent tone,
+but eager face--
+
+‘Well, it’s a rusty old thing, but I like old weapons. I’ll give you a
+bran new officer’s sword, as bright as a mirror, for it--I will. There
+now! Is it a bargain?’
+
+‘I could not part with it, sir--not for the best sword in the country,’
+I answered. ‘You see it has been so long in our family.’
+
+‘Hm! hm! you’re quite right, my boy. I wouldn’t if I were you. But as I
+see you know how to set a right value on such a weapon, you may stay
+and look at mine as long as you like. Only if you take any of them from
+their sheaths, you must be very careful how you put them in again.
+Don’t use any force. If there is any one you can’t manage easily, just
+lay it on the window-sill, and I will attend to it. Mind you don’t
+handle--I mean touch--the blades at all. There would be no end of
+rust-spots before morning.’
+
+I was full of gratitude for the confidence he placed in me.
+
+‘I can’t stop now to tell you about them all, but I will--some day.’
+
+So saying he disappeared once more up the little staircase, leaving me
+like Aladdin in the jewel-forest. I had not been alone more than half
+an hour or so, however, when he returned, and taking down a dagger,
+said abruptly,
+
+‘There, that is the dagger with which Lord Harry Rolleston’--I think
+that was the name, but knowing nothing of the family or its history, I
+could not keep the names separate--‘stabbed his brother Gilbert. And
+there is--’
+
+He took down one after another, and with every one he associated some
+fact--or fancy perhaps, for I suspect now that he invented not a few of
+his incidents.
+
+‘They have always been fond of weapons in this house,’ he said. ‘There
+now is one with the strangest story! It’s in print--I can show it you
+in print in the library there. It had the reputation of being a magic
+sword--’
+
+‘Like King Arthur’s Excalibur?’ I asked, for I had read a good deal of
+the history of Prince Arthur.
+
+‘Just so,’ said Mr Close. ‘Well, that sword had been in the family for
+many years--I may say centuries. One day it disappeared, and there was
+a great outcry. A lackey had been discharged for some cause or other,
+and it was believed he had taken it. But before they found him, the
+sword was in its place upon the wall. Afterwards the man confessed that
+he had taken it, out of revenge, for he knew how it was prized. But in
+the middle of the next night, as he slept in a roadside inn, a figure
+dressed in ancient armour had entered the room, taken up the sword, and
+gone away with it. I dare say it was all nonsense. His heart had failed
+him when he found he was followed, and he had contrived by the help of
+some fellow-servant to restore it. But there are very queer stories
+about old weapons--swords in particular. I must go now,’ he concluded,
+‘for we have company to-night, and I have a good many things to see
+to.’
+
+So saying he left me. I remained a long time in the armoury, and then
+returned to the library, where I seated myself in the same corner as
+before, and went on with my reading--lost in pleasure.
+
+All at once I became aware that the light was thickening, and that I
+was very hungry. At the same moment I heard a slight rustle in the
+room, and looked round, expecting to see Mrs Wilson come to fetch me.
+But there stood Miss Clara--not now in white, however, but in a black
+silk frock. She had grown since I saw her last, and was prettier than
+ever. She started when she saw me.
+
+‘You here!’ she exclaimed, as if we had known each other all our lives.
+‘What are you doing here?’
+
+‘Reading,’ I answered, and rose from the floor, replacing the book as I
+rose. ‘I thought you were Mrs Wilson come to fetch me.’
+
+‘Is she coming here?’
+
+‘Yes. She told me not to leave the library till she came for me.’
+
+‘Then I must get out of the way.’
+
+‘Why so, Miss Clara?’ I asked.
+
+‘I don’t mean her to know I am here. If you tell, I shall think you the
+meanest--’
+
+‘Don’t trouble yourself to find your punishment before you’ve found
+your crime,’ I said, thinking of my own processes of invention. What a
+little prig I must have been!
+
+‘Very well, I will trust you,’ she returned, holding out her hand.--‘I
+didn’t give it you to keep, though,’ she added, finding that, with more
+of country manners than tenderness, I fear, I retained it in my boyish
+grasp.
+
+I felt awkward at once, and let it go.
+
+‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now, when do you expect Mrs. Wilson?’
+
+‘I don’t know at all. She said she would fetch me for dinner. There she
+comes, I do believe.’
+
+Clara turned her head like a startled forest creature that wants to
+listen, but does not know in what direction, and moved her feet as if
+she were about to fly.
+
+‘Come back after dinner,’ she said: ‘you had better!’ and darting to
+the other side of the room, lifted a piece of hanging tapestry, and
+vanished just in time, for Mrs Wilson’s first words crossed her last.
+
+‘My dear boy--Master Cumbermede, I should say, I am sorry I have not
+been able to get to you sooner. One thing after another has kept me on
+my legs till I’m ready to drop. The cook is as tiresome as cooks only
+can be. But come along; I’ve got a mouthful of dinner for you at last,
+and a few minutes to eat my share of it with you, I hope.’
+
+I followed without a word, feeling a little guilty, but only towards
+Mrs Wilson, not towards myself, if my reader will acknowledge the
+difference--for I did not feel that I ought to betray Miss Clara. We
+returned as we came; and certainly whatever temper the cook might be
+in, there was nothing amiss with the dinner. Had there been, however, I
+was far too hungry to find fault with it.
+
+‘Well, how have you enjoyed yourself, Master Wilfrid? Not very much, I
+am afraid. But really I could not help it,’ said Mrs Wilson.
+
+‘I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more,’ I answered. ‘If you will allow
+me, I’ll go back to the library as soon as I’ve done my dinner.’
+
+‘But it’s almost dark there now.’
+
+‘You wouldn’t mind letting me have a candle, Mrs Wilson?’
+
+‘A candle, child! It would be of no use. The place wouldn’t light up
+with twenty candles.’
+
+‘But I don’t want it lighted up. I could read by one candle as well as
+by twenty.’
+
+‘Very well. You shall do as you like. Only be careful, for the old
+house is as dry as tinder, and if you were to set fire to anything, we
+should be all in a blaze in a moment.’
+
+‘I will be careful, Mrs Wilson. You may trust me. Indeed you may.’
+
+She hurried me a little over my dinner. The bell in the court rang
+loudly.
+
+‘There’s some of them already! That must be the Simmonses. They’re
+always early, and they always come to that gate--I suppose because they
+haven’t a carriage of their own, and don’t like to drive into the high
+court in a chaise from the George and Pudding.’
+
+‘I’ve quite done, ma’am: may I go now?’
+
+‘Wait till I get you a candle.’
+
+She took one from a press in the room, lighted it, led me once more to
+the library, and there left me with a fresh injunction not to be
+peeping out and getting in the way of the visitors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE LEADS.
+
+The moment Mrs Wilson was gone, I expected to see Clara peep out from
+behind the tapestry in the corner; but as she did not appear, I lifted
+it, and looked in. There was nothing behind but a closet almost filled
+with books, not upon shelves, but heaped up from floor to ceiling.
+There had been just room, and no more, for Clara to stand between the
+tapestry and the books. It was of no use attempting to look for her--at
+least I said so to myself, for as yet the attraction of an old book was
+equal to that of a young girl. Besides, I always enjoyed waiting--up to
+a certain point. Therefore I resumed my place on the floor, with the
+_Seven Champions_ in one hand, and my chamber-candlestick in the other.
+
+I had for the moment forgotten Clara in the adventures of St. Andrew of
+Scotland, when the _silking_ of her frock aroused me. She was at my
+side.
+
+‘Well, you’ve had your dinner? Did she give you any dessert?’
+
+‘This is my dessert,’ I said, holding up the book. ‘It’s far more
+than--’
+
+‘Far more than your desert,’ she pursued, ‘if you prefer it to me.’
+
+‘I looked for you first,’ I said defensively.
+
+‘Where?’
+
+‘In the closet there.’
+
+‘You didn’t think I was going to wait there, did you? Why the very
+spiders are hanging dead in their own webs in there. But here’s some
+dessert for you--if you’re as fond of apples as most boys,’ she added,
+taking a small rosy-cheeked beauty from her pocket.
+
+I accepted it, but somehow did not quite relish being lumped with boys
+in that fashion. As I ate it, which I should have felt bound to do even
+had it been less acceptable in itself, she resumed--
+
+‘Wouldn’t you like to see the company arrive? That’s what I came for. I
+wasn’t going to ask Goody Wilson.’
+
+‘Yes, I should,’ I answered; ‘but Mrs Wilson told me to keep here, and
+not get in their way.’
+
+‘Oh! I’ll take care of that. We shan’t go near them. I know every
+corner of the place--a good deal better than Mrs Wilson. Come along,
+Wilfrid--that’s your name, isn’t it?’
+
+‘Yes, it is. Am I to call you Clara?’
+
+‘Yes, if you are good--that is, if you like. I don’t care what you call
+me. Come along.’
+
+I followed. She led me into the armoury. A great clang of the bell in
+the paved court fell upon our ears.
+
+‘Make haste,’ she said, and darted to the door at the foot of the
+little stair. ‘Mind how you go,’ she went on. ‘The steps are very much
+worn. Keep your right shoulder foremost.’
+
+I obeyed her directions, and followed her up the stair. We passed the
+door of a room over the armoury, and ascended still, to creep out at
+last through a very low door on to the leads of the little square
+tower. Here we could on the one side look into every corner of the
+paved court, and on the other, across the roof of the hall, could see
+about half of the high court, as they called it, into which the
+carriages drove; and from this post of vantage, we watched the arrival
+of a good many parties. I thought the ladies tripping across the paved
+court, with their gay dresses lighting up the Spring twilight, and
+their sweet voices rippling its almost pensive silence, suited the time
+and the place much better than the carriages dashing into the other
+court, fine as they looked with their well-kept horses and their
+servants in gay liveries. The sun was down, and the moon was
+rising--near the full, but there was too much light in the sky to let
+her make much of herself yet. It was one of those Spring evenings which
+you could not tell from an Autumn one except for a certain something in
+the air appealing to an undefined sense--rather that of smell than any
+other. There were green buds and not withering leaves in it--life and
+not death; and the voices of the gathering guests were of the season,
+and pleasant to the soul. Of course Nature did not then affect me so
+definitely as to make me give forms of thought to her influences. It is
+now first that I turn them into shapes and words.
+
+As we stood, I discovered that I had been a little mistaken about the
+position of the Hall. I saw that, although from some points in front it
+seemed to stand on an isolated rock, the ground rose behind it, terrace
+upon terrace, the uppermost of which terraces were crowned with rows of
+trees. Over them, the moon was now gathering her strength.
+
+‘It is rather cold; I think we had better go in,’ said Clara, after we
+had remained there for some minutes without seeing any fresh arrivals.
+
+‘Very well,’ I answered. ‘What shall we do? Shall you go home?’
+
+‘No, certainly not. We must see a good deal more of the fun first.’
+
+‘How will you manage that? You will go to the ball-room, I suppose. You
+can go where you please, of course.’
+
+‘Oh no! I’m not grand enough to be invited. Oh, dear no! At least I am
+not old enough.’
+
+‘But you will be some day.’
+
+‘I don’t know. Perhaps. We’ll see. Meantime we must make the best of
+it. What are _you_ going to do?’
+
+‘I shall go back to the library.’
+
+‘Then I’ll go with you--till the music begins; and then I’ll take you
+where you can see a little of the dancing. It’s great fun.’
+
+‘But how will you manage that?’
+
+‘You leave that to me.’
+
+We descended at once to the armoury, where I had left my candle; and
+thence we returned to the library.
+
+‘Would you like me to read to you?’ I asked.
+
+‘I don’t mind--if it’s anything worth hearing.’
+
+‘Well, I’ll read you a bit of the book I was reading when you came in.’
+
+‘What! that musty old book! No, thank you. It’s enough to give one the
+horrors--the very sight of it is enough. How can you like such frumpy
+old things?’
+
+‘Oh! you mustn’t mind the look of it,’ I said. ‘It’s _very_ nice
+inside!’
+
+‘I know where there is a nice one,’ she returned. ‘Give me the candle.’
+
+I followed her to another of the rooms, where she searched for some
+time. At length--‘There it is!’ she said, and put into my hand _The
+Castle of Otranto_. The name promised well. She next led the way to a
+lovely little bay window, forming almost a closet, which looked out
+upon the park, whence, without seeing the moon, we could see her light
+on the landscape, and the great deep shadows cast over the park from
+the towers of the Hall. There we sat on the broad window-sill, and I
+began to read. It was delightful. Does it indicate loss of power, that
+the grown man cannot enjoy the book in which the boy delighted? Or is
+it that the realities of the book, as perceived by his keener eyes,
+refuse to blend with what imagination would supply if it might?
+
+No sooner however did the first notes of the distant violins enter the
+ear of my companion than she started to her feet.
+
+‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, looking up from the book.
+
+‘Don’t you hear the music?’ she said, half-indignantly.
+
+‘I hear it now,’ I answered; ‘but why--?’
+
+‘Come along,’ she interrupted, eagerly. ‘We shall just be in time to
+see them go across from the drawing-room to the ball-room. Come, come.
+Leave your candle.’
+
+I put down my book with some reluctance. She led me into the armoury,
+and from the armoury out on the gallery half-encompassing the great
+hall, which was lighted up, and full of servants. Opening another door
+in the gallery, she conducted me down a stair which led almost into the
+hall, but, ascending again behind it, landed us in a little lobby, on
+one side of which was the drawing-room, and on the other the ball-room,
+on another level, reached by a few high, semi-circular steps.
+
+‘Quick! quick!’ said Clara, and turning sharply round, she opened
+another door, disclosing a square-built stone staircase. She pushed the
+door carefully against the wall, ran up a few steps, I following in
+some trepidation, turned abruptly, and sat down. I did as she did,
+questioning nothing: I had committed myself to her superior knowledge.
+
+The quick ear of my companion had caught the first sounds of the tuning
+of the instruments, and here we were, before the invitation to dance, a
+customed observance at Moldwarp Hall, had begun to play. In a few
+minutes thereafter, the door of the drawing-room opened; when, pair
+after pair, the company, to the number of over a hundred and fifty, I
+should guess, walked past the foot of the stair on which we were
+seated, and ascended the steps into the ball-room. The lobby was dimly
+lighted, except from the two open doors, and there was little danger of
+our being seen.
+
+I interrupt my narrative to mention the odd fact that so fully was my
+mind possessed with the antiquity of the place, which it had been the
+pride of generation after generation to keep up, that now, when I
+recall the scene, the guests always appear dressed not as they were
+then, but in a far more antique style with which after knowledge
+supplied my inner vision.
+
+Last of all came Lady Brotherton, Sir Giles’s wife, a pale,
+delicate-looking woman, leaning on the arm of a tall, long-necked,
+would-be-stately, yet insignificant-looking man. She gave a shiver as,
+up the steps from the warm drawing-room, she came at once opposite our
+open door.
+
+‘What a draught there is here!’ she said, adjusting her rose-coloured
+scarf about her shoulders. ‘It feels quite wintry. Will you oblige me,
+Mr Mellon, by shutting that door? Sir Giles will not allow me to have
+it built up. I am sure there are plenty of ways to the leads besides
+that.’
+
+‘This door, my lady?’ asked Mr Mellon.
+
+I trembled lest he should see us.
+
+‘Yes. Just throw it to. There’s a spring lock on it. I can’t think--’
+
+The slam and echoing bang of the closing door cut off the end of the
+sentence. Even Clara was a little frightened, for her hand stole into
+mine for a moment before she burst out laughing.
+
+‘Hush! hush!’ I said. ‘They will hear you.’
+
+‘I almost wish they would,’ she said. ‘What a goose I was to be
+frightened, and not speak! Do you know where we are?’
+
+‘No,’ I answered; ‘how should I? Where are we?’
+
+My fancy of knowing the place had vanished utterly by this time. All my
+mental charts of it had got thoroughly confused, and I do not believe I
+could have even found my way back to the library.
+
+‘Shut out on the leads,’ she answered. ‘Come along. We may as well go
+to meet our fate.’
+
+I confess to a little palpitation of the heart as she spoke, for I was
+not yet old enough to feel that Clara’s companionship made the doom a
+light one. Up the stairs we went--here no twisting corkscrew, but a
+broad flight enough, with square turnings. At the top was a door,
+fastened only with a bolt inside--against no worse housebreakers than
+the winds and rains. When we emerged, we found ourselves in the open
+night.
+
+‘Here we are in the moon’s drawing-room!’ said Clara.
+
+The scene was lovely. The sky was all now--the earth only a background
+or pedestal for the heavens. The river, far below, shone here and there
+in answer to the moon, while the meadows and fields lay as in the
+oblivion of sleep, and the wooded hills were only dark formless masses.
+But the sky was the dwelling-place of the moon, before whose radiance,
+penetratingly still, the stars shrunk as if they would hide in the
+flowing skirts of her garments. There was scarce a cloud to be seen,
+and the whiteness of the moon made the blue thin. I could hardly
+believe in what I saw. It was as if I had come awake without getting
+out of the dream.
+
+We were on the roof of the ball-room. We felt the rhythmic motion of
+the dancing feet shake the building in time to the music. ‘A low
+melodious thunder’ buried beneath--above, the eternal silence of the
+white moon!
+
+We passed to the roof of the drawing-room. From it, upon one side, we
+could peep into the great gothic window of the hall, which rose high
+above it. We could see the servants passing and repassing, with dishes
+for the supper which was being laid in the dining-room under the
+drawing-room, for the hall was never used for entertainment now, except
+on such great occasions as a coming of age, or an election-feast, when
+all classes met.
+
+‘We mustn’t stop here,’ said Clara. ‘We shall get our deaths of cold.’
+
+‘What shall we do, then?’ I asked.
+
+‘There are plenty of doors,’ she answered--‘only Mrs Wilson has a
+foolish fancy for keeping them all bolted. We must try, though.’
+
+Over roof after roof we went; now descending, now ascending a few
+steps; now walking along narrow gutters, between battlement and sloping
+roof; now crossing awkward junctions--trying doors many in tower and
+turret--all in vain! Every one was bolted on the inside. We had grown
+quite silent, for the case looked serious.
+
+‘This is the last door,’ said Clara--‘the last we can reach. There are
+more in the towers, but they are higher up. What _shall_ we do? Unless
+we go down a chimney, I don’t know what’s to be done.’ Still her voice
+did not falter, and my courage did not give way. She stood for a few
+moments, silent. I stood regarding her, as one might listen for a
+doubtful oracle.
+
+‘Yes. I’ve got it!’ she said at length. ‘Have you a good head,
+Wilfrid?’
+
+‘I don’t quite know what you mean,’ I answered.
+
+‘Do you mind being on a narrow place, without much to hold by?’
+
+‘High up?’ I asked with a shiver.
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+For a moment I did not answer. It was a special weakness of my physical
+nature, one which my imagination had increased tenfold--the absolute
+horror I had of such a transit as she was evidently about to propose.
+My worst dreams--from which I would wake with my heart going like a
+fire-engine--were of adventures of the kind. But before a woman, how
+could I draw back? I would rather lie broken at the bottom of the wall.
+And if the fear should come to the worst, I could at least throw myself
+down and end it so.
+
+‘Well?’ I said, as if I had only been waiting for her exposition of the
+case.
+
+‘Well!’ she returned.--‘Come along then.’
+
+I did go along--like a man to the gallows; only I would not have turned
+back to save my life. But I should have hailed the slightest change of
+purpose in her, with such pleasure as Daniel must have felt when he
+found the lions would rather not eat him. She retraced our steps a long
+way--until we reached the middle of the line of building which divided
+the two courts.
+
+‘There!’ she said, pointing to the top of the square tower over the
+entrance to the hall, from which we had watched the arrival of the
+guests: it rose about nine feet only above where we now stood in the
+gutter--‘I _know_ I left the door open when we came down. I did it on
+purpose. I hate Goody Wilson. Lucky, you see!--that is if you have a
+head. And if you haven’t, it’s all the same: I have.’
+
+So saying, she pointed to a sort of flying buttress which sprung
+sideways, with a wide span, across the angle the tower made with the
+hall, from an embrasure of the battlement of the hall to the outer
+corner of the tower, itself more solidly buttressed. I think it must
+have been made to resist the outward pressure of the roof of the hall;
+but it was one of those puzzling points which often occur--and oftenest
+in domestic architecture--where additions and consequent alterations
+have been made from time to time. Such will occasion sometimes as much
+conjecture towards their explanation as a disputed passage in Shakspere
+or Aeschylus.
+
+Could she mean me to cross that hair-like bridge? The mere thought was
+a terror. But I would not blench. Fear I confess--cowardice if you
+will:--poltroonery, not.
+
+‘I see,’ I answered. ‘I will try. If I fall, don’t blame me. I will do
+my best.’
+
+‘You don’t think,’ she returned, ‘I’m going to let you go alone! I
+should have to wait hours before you found a door to let me
+down--unless indeed you went and told Goody Wilson, and I had rather
+die where I am. No, no. Come along. I’ll show you how.’
+
+With a rush and a scramble, she was up over the round back of the
+buttress before I had time to understand that she meant as usual to
+take the lead. If she could but have sent me back a portion of her
+skill, or lightness, or nerve, or whatever it was, just to set me off
+with a rush like that! But I stood preparing at once and hesitating.
+She turned and looked over the battlements of the tower.
+
+‘Never mind, Wilfrid,’ she said; ‘I’ll fetch you presently.’
+
+‘No, no,’ I cried. ‘Wait for me. I’m coming.’
+
+I got astride of the buttress, and painfully forced my way up. It was
+like a dream of leap-frog, prolonged under painfully recurring
+difficulties. I shut my eyes, and persuaded myself that all I had to do
+was to go on leap-frogging. At length, after more trepidation and
+brain-turning than I care to dwell upon, lest even now it should bring
+back a too keen realization of itself, I reached the battlement,
+seizing which with one shaking hand, and finding the other grasped by
+Clara, I tumbled on the leads of the tower.
+
+‘Come along!’ she said. ‘You see, when the girls like, they can beat
+the boys--even at their own games. We’re all right now.’
+
+‘I did my best,’ I returned, mightily relieved. ‘_I’m_ not an angel,
+you know. I can’t fly like you.’
+
+She seemed to appreciate the compliment.
+
+‘Never mind. I’ve done it before. It was game of you to follow.’
+
+Her praise elated me. And it was well.
+
+‘Come along,’ she added.
+
+She seemed to be always saying _Come along_.
+
+I obeyed, full of gratitude and relief. She skipped to the tiny turret
+which rose above our heads, and lifted the door-latch. But, instead of
+disappearing within, she turned and looked at me in white dismay. The
+door was bolted. Her look roused what there was of manhood in me. I
+felt that, as it had now come to the last gasp, it was mine to comfort
+her.
+
+‘We are no worse than we were,’ I said. ‘Never mind.’
+
+‘I don’t know that,’ she answered mysteriously.--‘Can _you_ go back as
+you came? _I_ can’t.’
+
+I looked over the edge of the battlement where I stood. There was the
+buttress crossing the angle of moonlight, with its shadow lying far
+down on the wall. I shuddered at the thought of renewing my unspeakable
+dismay. But what must be must.
+
+[Illustration: SHE BENT OVER THE BATTLEMENT, STOOPED HER FACE TOWARD
+ME, AND KISSED ME.]
+
+Besides, Clara had praised me for creeping where she could fly: now I
+might show her that I could creep where she could not fly.
+
+‘I will try,’ I returned, putting one leg through an embrasure, and
+holding on by the adjoining battlement.
+
+‘Do take care, Wilfrid,’ she cried, stretching out her hands, as if to
+keep me from falling.
+
+A sudden pulse of life rushed through me. All at once I became not only
+bold, but ambitious.
+
+‘Give me a kiss,’ I said, ‘before I go.’
+
+‘Do you make so much of it?’ she returned, stepping back a pace.--How
+much a woman she was even then!
+
+Her words roused something in me which to this day I have not been able
+quite to understand. A sense of wrong had its share in the feeling; but
+what else I can hardly venture to say. At all events, an inroad of
+careless courage was the consequence. I stepped at once upon the
+buttress, and stood for a moment looking at her--no doubt with
+reproach. She sprang towards me.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ she said.
+
+The end of the buttress was a foot or two below the level of the leads,
+where Clara stood. She bent over the battlement, stooped her face
+towards me, and kissed me on the mouth. My only answer was to turn and
+walk down the buttress, erect; a walk which, as the arch of the
+buttress became steeper, ended in a run and a leap on to the gutter of
+the hall. There I turned, and saw her stand like a lady in a ballad
+leaning after me in the moonlight. I lifted my cap and sped away, not
+knowing whither, but fancying that out of her sight I could make up my
+mind better. Nor was I mistaken. The moment I sat down, my brains began
+to go about, and in another moment I saw what might be attempted.
+
+In going from roof to roof, I had seen the little gallery along which I
+had passed with Mrs Wilson on my way to the library. It crossed what
+might be called an open shaft in the building. I thought I could
+manage, roofed as it was, to get in by the open side. It was some time
+before I could find it again; but when I did come upon it at last, I
+saw that it might be done. By the help of a projecting gargoyle,
+curiously carved in the days when the wall to which it clung had formed
+part of the front of the building, I got my feet upon the wooden rail
+of the gallery, caught hold of one of the small pillars which supported
+the roof, and _slewed_ myself in. I was almost as glad as when I had
+crossed the buttress, for below me was a paved bottom, between high
+walls, without any door, like a dry well in the midst of the building.
+
+My recollection of the way to the armoury, I found, however, almost
+obliterated. I knew that I must pass through a bedroom at the end of
+the gallery, and that was all I remembered. I opened the door, and
+found myself face to face with a young girl with wide eyes. She stood
+staring and astonished, but not frightened. She was younger than Clara,
+and not so pretty. Her eyes looked dark, and also the hair she had been
+brushing. Her face would have been quite pale, but for the rosy tinge
+of surprise. She made no exclamation, only stared with her brush in her
+hand, and questions in her eyes. I felt far enough from comfortable;
+but with a great effort I spoke.
+
+‘I beg your pardon. I had to get off the roof, and this was the only
+way. Please do not tell Mrs Wilson.’
+
+‘No,’ she said at once, very quietly; ‘but you must go away.’
+
+‘If I could only find the library!’ I said. ‘I am so afraid of going
+into more rooms where I have no business.’
+
+‘I will show you the way,’ she returned with a smile; and laying down
+her brush, took up a candle, and led me from the room.
+
+In a few moments I was safe. My conductor vanished at once. The glimmer
+of my own candle in a further room guided me, and I was soon at the top
+of the corkscrew staircase. I found the door very slightly fastened:
+Clara must herself have unwittingly moved the bolt when she shut it. I
+found her standing, all eagerness, waiting me. We hurried back to the
+library, and there I told her how I had effected an entrance, and met
+with a guide.
+
+‘It must have been little Polly Osborne,’ she said. ‘Her mother is
+going to stay all night, I suppose. She’s a good-natured little goose,
+and won’t tell.--Now come along. We’ll have a peep from the
+picture-gallery into the ball-room. That door is sure to be open.’
+
+‘If you don’t mind, Clara, I would rather stay where I am. I oughtn’t
+to be wandering over the house when Mrs Wilson thinks I am here.’
+
+‘Oh, you little coward!’ said Clara.
+
+I thought I hardly deserved the word, and it did not make me more
+inclined to accompany her.
+
+‘You can go alone,’ I said. ‘You did not expect to find me when you
+came.’
+
+‘Of course I can. Of course not. It’s quite as well too. You won’t get
+me into any more scrapes.’
+
+‘_Did_ I get you into the scrape, Clara?’
+
+‘Yes, you did,’ she answered laughing, and walked away.
+
+I felt a good deal hurt, but comforted myself by saying she could not
+mean it, and sat down again to the _Seven Champions_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+THE GHOST.
+
+I saw no more of Clara, but sat and read until I grew cold and tired,
+and wished very much that Mrs. Wilson would come. I thought she might
+have forgot me in the hurry, and there I should have to stay all night.
+After my recent escape, however, from a danger so much worse, I could
+regard the prospect with some composure. A full hour more must have
+passed; I was getting sleepy, and my candle had burned low, when at
+length Mrs Wilson did make her appearance, and I accompanied her
+gladly.
+
+‘I am sure you want your tea, poor boy!’ she said.
+
+‘Tea! Mrs. Wilson,’ I rejoined. ‘It’s bed I want. But when I think of
+it, I _am_ rather hungry.’
+
+‘You shall have tea and bed both,’ she answered kindly. ‘I’m sorry
+you’ve had such a dull evening, but I could _not_ help it.’
+
+‘Indeed, I’ve not been dull at all,’ I answered--‘till just the last
+hour or so.’
+
+I longed to tell her all I had been about, for I felt guilty; but I
+would not betray Clara.
+
+‘Well, here we are!’ she said, opening the door of her own room. ‘I
+hope I shall have peace enough to see you make a good meal.’
+
+I did make a good meal. When I had done, Mrs Wilson took a rushlight
+and led the way. I took my sword and followed her. Into what quarter of
+the house she conducted me I could not tell. There was a nice fire
+burning in the room, and my night-apparel was airing before it. She set
+the light on the floor, and left me with a kind good-night. I was soon
+undressed and in bed, with my sword beside me on the coverlet of silk
+patchwork.
+
+But, from whatever cause, sleepy as I had been a little while before, I
+lay wide awake now, staring about the room. Like many others in the
+house, it was hung with tapestry, which was a good deal worn and
+patched--notably in one place, where limbs of warriors and horses came
+to an untimely end, on all sides of a certain oblong piece quite
+different from the rest in colour and design. I know now that it was a
+piece of _Gobelins,_ in the midst of ancient needlework. It looked the
+brighter of the two, but its colours were about three, with a good deal
+of white; whereas that which surrounded it had had many and brilliant
+colours, which, faded and dull and sombre, yet kept their harmony. The
+guard of the rushlight cast deeper and queerer shadows, as the fire
+sank lower. Its holes gave eyes of light to some of the figures in the
+tapestry, and as the light wavered, the eyes wandered about in a
+ghostly manner, and the shadows changed and flickered and heaved
+uncomfortably.
+
+How long I had lain thus I do not know; but at last I found myself
+watching the rectangular patch of newer tapestry. Could it be that it
+moved? It _could_ be only the effect of the wavering shadows. And yet I
+could not convince myself that it did not move. It _did_ move. It came
+forward. One side of it did certainly come forward. A kind of universal
+cramp seized me--a contraction of every fibre of my body. The patch
+opened like a door--wider and wider; and from behind came a great
+helmet peeping. I was all one terror, but my nerves held out so far
+that I lay like a watching dog--watching for what horror would come
+next. The door opened wider, a mailed hand and arm appeared, and at
+length a figure, armed cap-à-pie, stepped slowly down, stood for a
+moment peering about, and then began to walk through the room, as if
+searching for something. It came nearer and nearer to the bed. I wonder
+now, when I think of it, that the cold horror did not reach my heart. I
+cannot have been so much a coward, surely, after all! But I suspect it
+was only that general paralysis prevented the extreme of terror, just
+as a man in the clutch of a wild beast is hardly aware of suffering. At
+last the figure stooped over my bed, and stretched out a long arm. I
+remember nothing more.
+
+I woke in the grey of the morning. Could a faint have passed into a
+sleep? or was it all a dream? I lay for some time before I could recall
+what made me so miserable. At length my memory awoke, and I gazed
+fearful about the room. The white ashes of the burnt-out fire were
+lying in the grate; the stand of the rushlight was on the floor; the
+wall with its tapestry was just as it had been; the cold grey light had
+annihilated the fancied visions: I had been dreaming and was now awake.
+But I could not lie longer in bed. I must go out. The morning air would
+give me life; I felt worn and weak. Vision or dream, the room was
+hateful to me. With a great effort I sat up, for I still feared to
+move, lest I should catch a glimpse of the armed figure. Terrible as it
+had been in the night, it would be more terrible now. I peered into
+every corner. Each was vacant. Then first I remembered that I had been
+reading the _Castile of Otranto_ and the _Seven Champions of
+Christendom_ the night before. I jumped out of bed and dressed myself,
+growing braver and braver as the light of the lovely Spring morning
+swelled in the room. Having dipped my head in cold water, I was myself
+again. I opened the lattice and looked out. The first breath of air was
+a denial to the whole thing. I laughed at myself. Earth and sky were
+alive with Spring. The wind was the breath of the coming Summer: there
+were flakes of sunshine and shadow in it. Before me lay a green bank
+with a few trees on its top. It was crowded with primroses growing
+through the grass. The dew was lying all about, shining and sparkling
+in the first rays of the level sun, which itself I could not see. The
+tide of life rose in my heart and rushed through my limbs. I would take
+my sword and go for a ramble through the park. I went to my bedside,
+and stretched across to find it by the wall. It must have slipped down
+at the back of the bed. No. Where could it be? In a word, I searched
+everywhere, but my loved weapon had vanished. The visions of the night
+returned, and for a moment I believed them all. The night once again
+closed around me, darkened yet more with the despair of an irreparable
+loss. I rushed from the room and through a long passage, with the blind
+desire to get out. The stare of an unwashed maid, already busy with her
+pail and brush, brought me to my senses.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ I said; ‘I want to get out.’
+
+She left her implements, led me down a stair close at hand, opened a
+door at its foot, and let me out into the high court. I gazed about me.
+It was as if I had escaped from a prison-cell into the chamber of
+torture: I stood the centre of a multitude of windows--the eyes of the
+house all fixed upon me. On one side was the great gate, through which,
+from the roof, I had seen the carriages drive the night before; but it
+was closed. I remembered, however, that Sir Giles had brought me in by
+a wicket in that gate. I hastened to it. There was but a bolt to
+withdraw, and I was free.
+
+But all was gloomy within, and genial nature could no longer enter.
+Glittering jewels of sunlight and dew were nothing but drops of water
+upon blades of grass. Fresh-bursting trees were no more than the
+deadest of winter-bitten branches. The great eastern window of the
+universe, gorgeous with gold and roses, was but the weary sun making a
+fuss about nothing. My sole relief lay in motion. I roamed I knew not
+whither, nor how long.
+
+At length I found myself on a height eastward of the Hall, overlooking
+its gardens, which lay in deep terraces beneath. Inside a low wall was
+the first of them, dark with an avenue of ancient trees, and below was
+the large oriel window in the end of the ball-room. I climbed over the
+wall, which was built of cunningly fitted stones, with mortar only in
+the top row; and drawn by the gloom, strolled up and down the avenue
+for a long time. At length I became aware of a voice I had heard
+before. I could see no one; but, hearkening about, I found it must come
+from the next terrace. Descending by a deep flight of old mossy steps,
+I came upon a strip of smooth sward, with yew trees, dark and trim, on
+each side of it. At the end of the walk was an arbour, in which I could
+see the glimmer of something white. Too miserable to be shy, I advanced
+and peeped in. The girl who had shown me the way to the library was
+talking to her mother.
+
+‘Mamma!’ she said, without showing any surprise, ‘here is the boy who
+came into our room last night.’
+
+‘How do you do?’ said the lady kindly, making room for me on the bench
+beside her.
+
+I answered as politely as I could, and felt a strange comfort glide
+from the sweetness of her countenance.
+
+‘What an adventure you had last night!’ she said. ‘It was well you did
+not fall.’
+
+‘That wouldn’t have been much worse than having to stop where we were,’
+I answered.
+
+The conversation thus commenced went on until I had told them all my
+history, including my last adventure.
+
+‘You must have dreamed it,’ said the lady.
+
+‘So I thought, ma’am,’ I answered, ‘until I found that my sword was
+gone.’
+
+‘Are you sure you looked everywhere?’ she asked.
+
+‘Indeed, I did.’
+
+‘It does not follow however that the ghost took it. It is more likely
+Mrs Wilson came in to see you after you were asleep, and carried it
+off.’
+
+‘Oh yes!’ I cried, rejoiced at the suggestion; ‘that must be it. I
+shall ask her.’
+
+‘I am sure you will find it so. Are you going home soon?’
+
+‘Yes--as soon as I’ve had my breakfast. It’s a good walk from here to
+Aldwick.’
+
+‘So it is.--We are going that way too?’ she added thinkingly.
+
+‘Mr. Elder is a great friend of papa’s--isn’t he, mamma?’ said the
+girl.
+
+‘Yes, my dear. They were friends at college.’
+
+‘I have heard Mr Elder speak of Mr Osborne,’ I said. ‘Do you live near
+us?’
+
+‘Not very far off--in the next parish, where my husband is rector,’ she
+answered. ‘If you could wait till the afternoon, we should be happy to
+take you there. The pony-carriage is coming for us.’
+
+‘Thank you, ma’am,’ I answered; ‘but I ought to go immediately after
+breakfast. You won’t mention about the roof, will you? I oughtn’t to
+get Clara into trouble.’
+
+‘She is a wild girl,’ said Mrs Osborne; ‘but I think you are quite
+right.’
+
+‘How lucky it was I knew the library!’ said Mary, who had become quite
+friendly, from under her mother’s wing.
+
+‘That it was! But I dare say you know all about the place,’ I answered.
+
+‘No, indeed!’ she returned. ‘I know nothing about it. As we went to our
+room, mamma opened the door and showed me the library, else I shouldn’t
+have been able to help you at all.’
+
+‘Then you haven’t been here often?’
+
+‘No; and I never shall be again.--I’m going away to school,’ she added;
+and her voice trembled.
+
+‘So am I,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Switzerland in a month or two. But
+then I haven’t a mamma to leave behind me.’ She broke down at that, and
+hid her head on her mother’s bosom. I had unawares added to her grief,
+for her brother Charley was going to Switzerland too.
+
+I found afterwards that Mr Elder, having been consulted by Mr Osborne,
+had arranged with my uncle that Charley Osborne and I should go
+together.
+
+Mary Osborne--I never called her Polly as Clara did--continued so
+overcome by her grief, that her mother turned to me and said,
+
+‘I think you had better go, Master Cumbermede.’
+
+I bade her good morning, and made my way to Mrs Wilson’s apartment. I
+found she had been to my room, and was expecting me with some anxiety,
+fearing I had set off without my breakfast. Alas! she knew nothing
+about the sword, looked annoyed, and, I thought, rather mysterious;
+said she would have a search, make inquiries, do what she could, and
+such like, but begged I would say nothing about it in the house. I left
+her with a suspicion that she believed the ghost had carried it away,
+and that it was of no use to go searching for it.
+
+Two days after, a parcel arrived for me. I concluded it was my sword;
+but, to my grievous disappointment, found it was only a large hamper of
+apples and cakes, very acceptable in themselves, but too plainly
+indicating Mrs Wilson’s desire to console me for what could not be
+helped. Mr Elder never missed the sword. I rose high in the estimation
+of my schoolfellows because of the adventure, especially in that of
+Moberly, who did not believe in the ghost, but ineffectually tasked his
+poor brains to account for the disappearance of the weapon. The best
+light was thrown upon it by a merry boy of the name of Fisher, who
+declared his conviction that the steward had carried it off to add to
+his collection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+AWAY.
+
+Will not linger longer over this part of my history--already, I fear,
+much too extended for the patience of my readers. My excuse is that, in
+looking back, the events I have recorded appear large and prominent,
+and that certainly they have a close relation with my after-history.
+
+The time arrived when I had to leave England for Switzerland. I will
+say nothing of my leave-taking. It was not a bitter one. Hope was
+strong, and rooted in present pleasure. I was capable of much
+happiness--keenly responsive to the smallest agreeable impulse from
+without or from within. I had good health, and life was happiness in
+itself. The blowing of the wind, the shining of the sun, or the glitter
+of water, was sufficient to make me glad; and I had self-consciousness
+enough to increase the delight by the knowledge that I was glad.
+
+The fact is I was coming in for my share in the spiritual influences of
+Nature, so largely poured on the heart and mind of my generation. The
+prophets of the new blessing, Wordsworth and Coleridge, I knew nothing
+of. Keats was only beginning to write. I had read a little of Cowper,
+but did not care for him. Yet I was under the same spell as they all.
+Nature was a power upon me. I was filled with the vague recognition of
+a present soul in Nature--with a sense of the humanity everywhere
+diffused through her and operating upon ours. I was but fourteen, and
+had only feelings, but something lay at the heart of the feelings,
+which would one day blossom into thoughts.
+
+At the coach-office in the county-town, I first met my future
+companion, with his father, who was to see us to our destination.
+My uncle accompanied me no further, and I soon found myself on the
+top of a coach, with only one thing to do--make the acquaintance
+of Charles Osborne. His father was on the box-seat, and we two sat
+behind; but we were both shy, and for some time neither spoke.
+Charles was about my own age, rather like his sister, only that his
+eyes were blue, and his hair a lightish brown. A tremulousness about
+the mouth betrayed a nervous temperament. His skin was very fair and
+thin, showing the blue veins. As he did not speak, I sat for a little
+while watching him, without, however, the least speculation concerning
+him, or any effort to discover his character. I had not even yet
+reached the point of trying to find people out. I take what time and
+acquaintance disclose, but never attempt to forestall, which may come
+partly from trust, partly from want of curiosity, partly from a
+disinclination to unnecessary mental effort. But as I watched his face,
+half-unconsciously, I could not help observing that now and then it
+would light up suddenly and darken again almost instantly. At last his
+father turned round, and with some severity, said:
+
+‘You do not seem to be making any approaches to mutual acquaintance.
+Charles, why don’t you address your companion?’
+
+The words were uttered in the slow tone of one used to matters too
+serious for common speech. The boy cast a hurried glance at me, smiled
+uncertainly, and moved uneasily on his seat. His father turned away and
+made a remark to the coachman.
+
+Mr Osborne was a very tall, thin, yet square-shouldered man, with a
+pale face, and large features of delicate form. He looked severe, pure,
+and irritable. The tone of his voice, although the words were measured
+and rather stilted, led me to this last conclusion quite as much as the
+expression of his face; for it was thin and a little acrid. I soon
+observed that Charley started slightly, as often as his father
+addressed him; but this might be because his father always did so with
+more or less of abruptness. At times there was great kindness in his
+manner, seeming, however, less the outcome of natural tenderness than a
+sense of duty. His being was evidently a weight upon his son’s, and
+kept down the natural movements of his spirit. A number of small
+circumstances only led me to these conclusions; for nothing remarkable
+occurred to set in any strong light their mutual relation. For his side
+Charles was always attentive and ready, although with a promptitude
+that had more in it of the mechanical impulse of habit than of pleased
+obedience. Mr Osborne spoke kindly to me--I think the more kindly that
+I was not his son, and he was therefore not so responsible for me. But
+he looked as if the care of the whole world lay on his shoulders; as if
+an awful destruction were the most likely thing to happen to every one,
+and to him were committed the toilsome chance of saving some. Doubtless
+he would not have trusted his boy so far from home, but that the
+clergyman to whom he was about to hand him over was an old friend, of
+the same religious opinions as himself.
+
+I could well, but must not, linger over the details of our journey,
+full to me of most varied pleasure. The constant change, not so rapid
+as to prevent the mind from reposing a little upon the scenes which
+presented themselves; the passing vision of countries and peoples,
+manners and modes of life, so different from our own, did much to
+arouse and develop my nature. Those flashes of pleasure came upon
+Charles’s pale face more and more frequently; and ere the close of the
+first day we had begun to talk with some degree of friendliness. But it
+became clear to me that with his father ever blocking up our horizon,
+whether he sat with his broad back in front of us on the coach-box, or
+paced the deck of a vessel, or perched with us under the hood on the
+top of a diligence, we should never arrive at any freedom of speech. I
+sometimes wondered, long after, whether Mr Osborne had begun to
+discover that he was overlaying and smothering the young life of his
+boy, and had therefore adopted the plan, so little to have been
+expected from him, of sending his son to foreign parts to continue his
+education.
+
+I have no distinct recollection of dates, or even of the exact season
+of the year. I believe it was the early Summer, but in my memory the
+whole journey is now a mass of confused loveliness and pleasure. Not
+that we had the best of weather all the way. I well recollect pouring
+rains, and from the fact that I distinctly remember my first view of an
+Alpine height, I am certain we must have had days of mist and rain
+immediately before. That sight, however, to me more like an individual
+revelation or vision than the impact of an object upon the brain,
+stands in my mind altogether isolated from preceding and following
+impressions--alone, a thing to praise God for, if there be a God to
+praise. If there be not, then was the whole thing a grand and lovely
+illusion, worthy, for grandeur and loveliness, of a world with a God at
+the heart of it. But the grandeur and the loveliness spring from the
+operation of natural laws; the laws themselves are real and true--how
+could the false result from them? I hope yet, and will hope, that I am
+not a bubble filled with the mocking breath of a Mephistopheles, but a
+child whom his infinite Father will not hardly judge because he could
+not believe in him so much as he would. I will tell how the vision
+came.
+
+Although comparatively few people visited Switzerland in those days, Mr
+Osborne had been there before, and for some reason or other had
+determined on going round by Interlachen. At Thun we found a sail-boat,
+which we hired to take us and our luggage. At starting, an incident
+happened which would not be worth mentioning, but for the impression it
+made upon me. A French lady accompanied by a young girl approached Mr
+Osborne--doubtless perceiving he was a clergyman, for, being an
+_Evangelical_ of the most pure, honest, and narrow type, he was in
+every point and line of his countenance marked a priest and apart from
+his fellow-men--and asked him to allow her and her daughter to go in
+the boat with us to Interlachen. A glow of pleasure awoke in me at
+sight of his courtly behaviour, with lifted hat and bowed head; for I
+had never been in the company of such a gentleman before. But the wish
+instantly followed that his son might have shared in his courtesy. We
+partook freely of his justice and benevolence, but he showed us no such
+grace as he showed the lady. I have since observed that sons are
+endlessly grateful for courtesy from their fathers.
+
+The lady and her daughter sat down in the stern of the boat; and
+therefore Charley and I, not certainly to our discomfiture, had to go
+before the mast. The men rowed out into the lake, and then hoisted the
+sail. Away we went careering before a pleasant breeze. As yet it blew
+fog and mist, but the hope was that it would soon blow it away.
+
+An unspoken friendship by this time bound Charley and me together,
+silent in its beginnings and slow in its growth--not the worst pledges
+of endurance. And now for the first time in our journey, Charley was
+hidden from his father: the sail came between them. He glanced at me
+with a slight sigh, which even then I took for an involuntary sigh of
+relief. We lay leaning over the bows, now looking up at the mist blown
+in never-ending volumed sheets, now at the sail swelling in the wind
+before which it fled, and again down at the water through which our
+boat was ploughing its evanescent furrow. We could see very little.
+Portions of the shore would now and then appear, dim like reflections
+from a tarnished mirror, and then fade back into the depths of cloudy
+dissolution. Still it was growing lighter, and the man who was on the
+outlook became less anxious in his forward gaze, and less frequent in
+his calls to the helmsman. I was lying half over the gunwale, looking
+into the strange-coloured water, blue dimmed with undissolved white,
+when a cry from Charles made me start and look up. It was indeed a
+God-like vision. The mist yet rolled thick below, but away up, far away
+and far up, yet as if close at hand, the clouds were broken into a
+mighty window, through which looked in upon us a huge mountain peak
+swathed in snow. One great level band of darker cloud crossed its
+breast, above which rose the peak, triumphant in calmness, and stood
+unutterably solemn and grand, in clouds as white as its own whiteness.
+It had been there all the time! I sunk on my knees in the boat and
+gazed up. With a sudden sweep the clouds curtained the mighty window,
+and the Jungfrau withdrew into its Holy of Holies. I am painfully
+conscious of the helplessness of my speech. The vision vanishes from
+the words as it vanished from the bewildered eyes. But from the mind it
+glorified it has never vanished. I have _been_ more ever since that
+sight. To have beheld a truth is an apotheosis. What the truth was I
+could not tell; but I had seen something which raised me above my
+former self and made me long to rise higher yet. It awoke worship, and
+a belief in the incomprehensible divine; but admitted of being analysed
+no more than, in that transient vision, my intellect could--ere dawning
+it vanished--analyse it into the deserts of rock, the gulfs of green
+ice and flowing water, the savage solitudes of snow, the mysterious
+miles of draperied mist, that went to make up the vision, each and all
+essential thereto.
+
+I had been too much given to the attempted production in myself of
+effects to justify the vague theories towards which my inborn
+prepossessions carried me. I had felt enough to believe there was more
+to be felt; and such stray scraps of verse of the new order as,
+floating about, had reached me, had set me questioning and testing my
+own life and perceptions and sympathies by what these awoke in me at
+second-hand. I had often doubted, oppressed by the power of these,
+whether I could myself see, or whether my sympathy with Nature was not
+merely inspired by the vision of others. Ever after this, if such a
+doubt returned, with it arose the Jungfrau, looking into my very soul.
+
+‘Oh Charley!’ was all I could say. Our hands met blindly, and clasped
+each other. I burst into silent tears.
+
+When I looked up, Charley was staring into the mist again. His eyes,
+too, were full of tears, but some troubling contradiction prevented
+their flowing: I saw it by the expression of that mobile but now
+firmly-closed mouth.
+
+Often ere we left Switzerland I saw similar glories: this vision
+remains alone, for it was the first.
+
+I will not linger over the tempting delight of the village near which
+we landed, its houses covered with quaintly-notched wooden scales like
+those of a fish, and its river full to the brim of white-blue water,
+rushing from the far-off bosom of the glaciers. I had never had such a
+sense of exuberance and plenty as this river gave me--especially where
+it filled the planks and piles of wood that hemmed it in like a trough.
+I might agonize in words for a day and I should not express the
+delight. And, lest my readers should apprehend a diary of a tour, I
+shall say nothing more of our journey, remarking only that if
+Switzerland were to become as common to the mere tourist mind as
+Cheapside is to a Londoner, the meanest of its glories would be no whit
+impaired thereby. Sometimes, I confess, in these days of overcrowded
+cities, when, in periodical floods, the lonely places of the earth are
+from them inundated, I do look up to the heavens and say to myself that
+there at least, between the stars, even in thickest of nebulous
+constellations, there is yet plenty of pure, unadulterated room--not
+even a vapour to hang a colour upon; but presently I return to my
+better mind and say that any man who loves his fellow will yet find he
+has room enough and to spare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE ICE-CAVE.
+
+During our journey, Mr Osborne had seldom talked to us, and far more
+seldom in speech sympathetic. If by chance I came out with anything I
+thought or felt, even if he did not disapprove altogether, he would yet
+first lay hold of something to which he could object, coming round only
+by degrees, and with differences, to express consent. Evidently with
+him objection was the first step in instruction. It was better in his
+eyes to say you were wrong than to say you were right, even if you
+should be much more right than wrong. He had not the smallest idea of
+siding with the truth in you, of digging about it and watering it until
+it grew a great tree in which all your thought-birds might nestle and
+sing their songs; but he must be ever against the error--forgetting
+that the only antagonist of the false is the true. ‘What,’ I used to
+think in after-years, ‘is the use of battering the walls to get at the
+error, when the kindly truth is holding the postern open for you to
+enter, and pitch it out of window.’
+
+The evening before we parted, he gave us a solemn admonishment on the
+danger of being led astray by what men called the beauties of
+Nature--for the heart was so desperately wicked that, even of the
+things God had made _to show his power_, it would make snares for our
+destruction. I will not go on with his homily, out of respect for the
+man; for there was much earnestness in him, and it would utterly shame
+me if I were supposed to hold that up to the contempt which the forms
+it took must bring upon it. Besides, he made such a free use of the
+most sacred of names, that I shrink from representing his utterance. A
+good man I do not doubt he was; but he did the hard parts of his duty
+to the neglect of the genial parts, and therefore was not a man to help
+others to be good. His own son revived the moment he took his leave of
+us--began to open up as the little red flower called the Shepherd’s
+Hour-Glass opens when the cloud withdraws. It is a terrible thing when
+the father is the cloud, and not the sun, of his child’s life. If
+Charley had been like the greater number of boys I have known, all this
+would only have hardened his mental and moral skin by the natural
+process of accommodation. But his skin would not harden, and the evil
+wrought the deeper. From his father he had inherited a conscience of
+abnormal sensibility; but he could not inherit the religious dogmas by
+means of which his father had partly deadened, partly distorted his;
+and constant pressure and irritation had already generated a great
+soreness of surface.
+
+When he began to open up, it was after a sad fashion at first. To
+resume my simile of the pimpernel--it was to disclose a heart in which
+the glowing purple was blanched to a sickly violet. What happiness he
+had, came in fits and bursts, and passed as quickly, leaving him
+depressed and miserable. He was always either wishing to be happy, or
+trying to be sure of the grounds of the brief happiness he had. He
+allowed the natural blessedness of his years hardly a chance: the
+moment its lobes appeared above ground, he was handling them, examining
+them, and trying to pull them open. No wonder they crept underground
+again! It may seem hardly credible that such should be the case with a
+boy of fifteen, but I am not mistaken in my diagnosis. I will go a
+little further. Gifted with the keenest perceptions, and a nature
+unusually responsive to the feelings of others, he was born to be an
+artist. But he was content neither with his own suggestions, nor with
+understanding those of another; he must, by the force of his own will,
+generate his friend’s feeling in himself, not perceiving the thing
+impossible. This was one point at which we touched, and which went far
+to enable me to understand him. The original in him was thus constantly
+repressed, and he suffered from the natural consequences of repression.
+He suffered also on the physical side from a tendency to disease of the
+lungs inherited from his mother.
+
+Mr Forest’s house stood high on the Grindelwald side of the Wengern
+Alp, under a bare grassy height full of pasture both Summer and Winter.
+In front was a great space, half meadow, half common, rather poorly
+covered with hill-grasses. The rock was near the surface, and in places
+came through, when the grass was changed for lichens and mosses.
+Through this rocky meadow now roamed, now rushed, now tumbled one of
+those Alpine streams the very thought of whose ice-born plenitude makes
+me happy yet. Its banks were not abrupt, but rounded gently in, and
+grassy down to the water’s brink. The larger torrents of Winter wore
+the channel wide, and the sinking of the water in Summer let the grass
+grow within it. But peaceful as the place was, and merry with the
+constant rush of this busy stream, it had, even in the hottest Summer
+day, a memory of the Winter about it, a look of suppressed desolation;
+for the only trees upon it were a score of straggling pines--all dead,
+as if blasted by lightning, or smothered by snow. Perhaps they were the
+last of the forest in that part, and their roots had reached a stratum
+where they could not live. All I know is that there they stood, blasted
+and dead every one of them.
+
+Charley could never bear them, and even disliked the place because of
+them. His father was one whom a mote in his brother’s eye repelled. The
+son suffered for this in twenty ways--one of which was that a single
+spot in the landscape was to him enough to destroy the loveliness of
+exquisite surroundings.
+
+A good way below lay the valley of the Grindelwald. The Eiger and the
+Matterhorn were both within sight. If a man has any sense of the
+infinite, he cannot fail to be rendered capable of higher things by
+such embodiments of the high. Otherwise, they are heaps of dirt, to be
+scrambled up and conquered, for scrambling and conquering’s sake. They
+are but warts, Pelion and Ossa and all of them. They seemed to oppress
+Charley at first.
+
+‘Oh, Willie,’ he said to me one day, ‘if I could but believe in those
+mountains, how happy I should be! But I doubt, I doubt they are but
+rocks and snow.’
+
+I only half understood him. I am afraid I never did understand him more
+than half. Later I came to the conclusion that this was not the fit
+place for him, and that if his father had understood him, he would
+never have sent him there.
+
+It was some time before Mr Forest would take us any mountain ramble. He
+said we must first get accustomed to the air of the place, else the
+precipices would turn our brains. He allowed us, however, to range
+within certain bounds.
+
+One day soon after our arrival, we accompanied one of our schoolfellows
+down to the valley of the Grindelwald, specially to see the head of the
+snake-glacier, which having crept thither can creep no further.
+Somebody had even then hollowed out a cave in it. We crossed a little
+brook which issued from it constantly, and entered. Charley uttered a
+cry of dismay, but I was too much delighted at the moment to heed him.
+For the whole of the white cavern was filled with blue air, so blue
+that I saw the air which filled it. Perfectly transparent, it had no
+substance, only blueness, which deepened and deepened as I went further
+in. All down the smooth white walls evermore was stealing a thin veil
+of dissolution; while here and there little runnels of the purest water
+were tumbling in tiny cataracts from top to bottom. It was one of the
+thousand birthplaces of streams, ever creeping into the day of vision
+from the unlike and the unknown, unrolling themselves like the fronds
+of a fern out of the infinite of God. Ice was all around, hard and cold
+and dead and white; but out of it and away went the water babbling and
+singing in the sunlight.
+
+‘Oh, Charley!’ I exclaimed, looking round in my transport for sympathy.
+It was now my turn to cry out, for Charley’s face was that of a corpse.
+The brilliant blue of the cave made us look to each other most ghastly
+and fearful.
+
+‘Do come out, Wilfrid,’ he said; ‘I cannot bear it.’
+
+I put my arm in his, and we walked into the sunlight. He drew a deep
+breath of relief, and turned to me with an attempt at a smile, but his
+lip quivered.
+
+‘It’s an awful place, Wilfrid. I don’t like it. Don’t go in again. I
+should stand waiting to see you come out in a winding-sheet. I think
+there’s something wrong with my brain. That blue seems to have got into
+it. I see everything horribly dead.’
+
+On the way back he started several times, and looked, round as if with
+involuntary apprehension, but mastered himself with an effort, and
+joined again in the conversation. Before we reached home he was much
+fatigued, and complaining of head-ache, went to bed immediately on our
+arrival.
+
+We slept in the same room. When I went up at the usual hour, he was
+awake.
+
+‘Can’t you sleep, Charley?’ I said.
+
+‘I’ve been asleep several times,’ he answered, ‘but I’ve had such a
+horrible dream every time! We were all corpses that couldn’t get to
+sleep, and went about pawing the slimy walls of our marble
+sepulchre--so cold and wet! It was that horrible ice-cave, I suppose.
+But then you know that’s just what it is, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, instinctively turning from the
+subject, for the glitter of his blue eyes looked bodeful. I did not
+know then how like he and I were, or how like my fate might have been
+to his, if, instead of finding at once a fit food for my fancy, and a
+safety-valve for its excess, in those old romances, I had had my
+regards turned inwards upon myself, before I could understand the
+phenomena there exhibited. Certainly I too should have been thus
+rendered miserable, and body and soul would have mutually preyed on
+each other.
+
+I sought to change the subject. I could never talk to him about his
+father, but he had always been ready to speak of his mother and his
+sister. Now, however, I could not rouse him. ‘Poor mamma!’ was all the
+response he made to some admiring remark; and when I mentioned his
+sister Mary, he only said, ‘She’s a good girl, our Mary,’ and turned
+uneasily towards the wall. I went to bed. He lay quiet, and I fell
+asleep.
+
+When I woke in the morning, I found him very unwell. I suppose the
+illness had been coming on for some time. He was in a low fever. As the
+doctor declared it not infectious, I was allowed to nurse him. He was
+often delirious, and spoke the wildest things. Especially, he would
+converse with the Saviour after the strangest fashion.
+
+He lay ill for some weeks. Mr Forest would not allow me to sit up with
+him at night, but I was always by his bedside early in the morning, and
+did what I could to amuse and comfort him through the day. When at
+length he began to grow better, he was more cheerful than I had known
+him hitherto; but he remained very weak for some time. He had grown a
+good deal during his illness, and indeed never looked a boy again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
+
+One summer morning we all got up very early, except Charley, who was
+unfit for the exertion, to have a ramble in the mountains, and see the
+sun rise. The fresh friendly air, full of promise, greeting us the
+moment we crossed the threshold; the calm light which, without visible
+source, lay dream-like on the hills; the brighter space in the sky
+whence ere long the spring of glory would burst forth triumphant; the
+dull white of the snow-peaks, dwelling so awful and lonely in the mid
+heavens, as if nothing should ever comfort them or make them
+acknowledge the valleys below; the sense of adventure with which we
+climbed the nearer heights as familiar to our feet on ordinary days as
+the stairs to our bedrooms; the gradual disappearance of the known
+regions behind us, and the dawning sense of the illimitable and awful,
+folding in its bosom the homely and familiar--combined to produce an
+impression which has never faded. The sun rose in splendour, as if
+nothing more should hide in the darkness for ever; and yet with the
+light came a fresh sense of mystery, for now that which had appeared
+smooth was all broken and mottled with shadows innumerable. Again and
+again I found myself standing still to gaze in a rapture of delight
+which I can only recall, not express; again and again was I roused by
+the voice of the master in front, shouting to me to come on, and
+warning me of the danger of losing sight of the rest of the company;
+and again and again I obeyed, but without any perception of the peril.
+
+The intention was to cross the hills into the valley of the
+Lauterbrunnen, not, however, by the path now so well known, but by
+another way, hardly a path, with which the master and some of the boys
+were familiar enough. It was my first experience of anything like real
+climbing. As we passed rapidly over a moorland space, broken with huge
+knolls and solitary rocks, something hurt my foot, and taking off my
+shoe, I found that a small chiropodical operation was necessary, which
+involved the use of my knife. It slipped, and cut my foot, and I bound
+the wound with a strip from my pocket-handkerchief. When I got up, I
+found that my companions had disappeared. This gave me little trouble
+at the moment, for I had no doubt of speedily overtaking them; and I
+set out briskly in the direction, as I supposed, in which we had been
+going. But I presume that, instead of following them, I began at once
+to increase the distance between us. At all events, I had not got far
+before a pang of fear shot through me--the first awaking doubt. I
+called--louder--and louder yet; but there was no response, and I knew I
+was alone.
+
+Invaded by sudden despair, I sat down, and for a moment did not even
+think. All at once I became aware of the abysses which surrounded the
+throne of my isolation. Behind me the broken ground rose to an unseen
+height, and before me it sloped gently downwards, without a break to
+the eye, yet I felt as if, should I make one wavering movement, I must
+fall down one of the frightful precipices which Mr Forest had told me
+as a warning lay all about us. I actually clung to the stone upon which
+I sat, although I could not have been in more absolute safety for the
+moment had I been dreaming in bed. The old fear had returned upon me
+with a tenfold feeling of reality behind it. I presume it is so all
+through life: it is not what is, but what may be, that oftenest
+blanches the cheek and paralyzes the limbs; and oftenest gives rise to
+that sense of the need of a God which we are told nowadays is a
+superstition, and which he whom we call the Saviour acknowledged and
+justified in telling us to take no thought for the morrow, inasmuch as
+God took thought for it. I strove to master my dismay, and forced
+myself to get up and run about; and in a few minutes the fear had
+withdrawn into the background, and I felt no longer an unseen force
+dragging me towards a frightful gulf. But it was replaced by a more
+spiritual horror. The sense of loneliness seized upon me, and the first
+sense of absolute loneliness is awful. Independent as a man may fancy
+himself in the heart of a world of men, he is only to be convinced that
+there is neither voice nor hearing, to know that the face from which he
+most recoils is of a kind essential to his very soul. Space is not
+room; and when we complain of the over-crowding of our fellows, we are
+thankless for that which comforts us the most, and desire its absence
+in ignorance of our deepest nature.
+
+Not even a bird broke the silence. It lay upon my soul as the sky and
+the sea lay upon the weary eye of the ancient mariner. It is useless to
+attempt to convey the impression of my misery. It was not yet the fear
+of death, or of hunger or thirst, for I had as yet no adequate idea of
+the vast lonelinesses that lie in a mountain land: it was simply the
+being alone, with no ear to hear and no voice to answer me--a torture
+to which the soul is liable in virtue of the fact that it was not made
+to be alone, yea, I think, I hope, never _can_ be alone; for that which
+could be fact could not be such horror. Essential horror springs from
+an idea repugnant to the _nature_ of the thinker, and which therefore
+in reality could not be.
+
+My agony rose and rose with every moment of silence. But when it
+reached its height, and when, to save myself from bursting into tears,
+I threw myself on the ground, and began gnawing at the plants about
+me--then first came help: I had a certain _experience_, as the Puritans
+might have called it. I fear to build any definite conclusions upon it,
+from the dread of fanaticism and the danger of attributing a merely
+physical effect to a spiritual cause. But are matter and spirit so far
+asunder? It is my will moves my arm, whatever first moves my will.
+Besides, I do not understand how, unless another influence came into
+operation, the extreme of misery and depression should work round into
+such a change as I have to record.
+
+But I do not know how to describe the change. The silence was crushing
+or rather sucking my life out of me--up into its own empty gulfs. The
+horror of the great stillness was growing deathly, when all at once I
+rose to my feet, with a sense of power and confidence I had never had
+before. It was as if something divine within me awoke to outface the
+desolation. I felt that it was time to act, and that I could act. There
+is no cure for terror like action: in a few moments I could have
+approached the verge of any precipice--at least without abject fear.
+The silence--no longer a horrible vacancy--appeared to tremble with
+unuttered thinkings. The manhood within me was alive and awake. I could
+not recognize a single landmark, or discover the least vestige of a
+path. I knew upon which hand the sun was when we started; and took my
+way with the sun on the other side. But a cloud had already come over
+him.
+
+I had not gone far before I saw in front of me, on the other side of a
+little hillock, something like the pale blue grey fog that broods over
+a mountain lake. I ascended the hillock, and started back with a cry of
+dismay: I was on the very verge of an awful gulf. When I think of it, I
+marvel yet that I did not lose my self-possession altogether. I only
+turned and strode in the other direction--the faster for the fear. But
+I dared not run, for I was haunted by precipices. Over every height,
+every mound, one might be lying--a trap for my destruction. I no longer
+looked out in the hope of recognizing some feature of the country; I
+could only regard the ground before me, lest at any step I might come
+upon an abyss.
+
+I had not walked far before the air began to grow dark. I glanced again
+at the sun. The clouds had gathered thick about him. Suddenly a
+mountain wind blew cold in my face. I never yet can read that sonnet of
+Shakspere’s,
+
+      Full many a glorious morning I have seen
+        Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
+      Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
+        Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
+      Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
+        With ugly rack on his celestial face,
+      And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
+        Stealing unseen to west with his disgrace,--
+
+without recalling the gladness when I started from home and the misery
+that so soon followed. But my new spirits did not yet give way. I
+trudged on. The wind increased, and in it came by-and-by the trailing
+skirts of a cloud. In a few moments more I was wrapped in mist. It was
+as if the gulf from which I had just escaped had sent up its indwelling
+demon of fog to follow and overtake me. I dared hardly go on even with
+the greatest circumspection. As I grew colder, my courage declined. The
+mist wetted my face and sank through my clothes, and I began to feel
+very wretched, I sat down, not merely from dread of the precipices, but
+to reserve my walking powers when the mist should withdraw. I began to
+shiver, and was getting utterly hopeless and miserable when the fog
+lifted a little, and I saw what seemed a great rock near me. I crept
+towards it. Almost suddenly it dwindled, and I found but a stone, yet
+one large enough to afford me some shelter. I went to the leeward side
+of it, and nestled at its foot. The mist again sank, and the wind blew
+stronger, but I was in comparative comfort, partly because my
+imagination was wearied. I fell fast asleep.
+
+I awoke stiff with cold. Rain was falling in torrents, and I was wet to
+the skin; but the mist was much thinner, and I could see a good way.
+For awhile I was very heartless, what with the stiffness, and the fear
+of having to spend the night on the mountains. I was hungry too, not
+with the appetite of desire but of need. The worst was that I had no
+idea in what direction I ought to go. Downwards lay precipices--upwards
+lay the surer loneliness. I knelt, and prayed the God who dwelt in the
+silence to help me; then strode away I knew not whither--up the hill in
+the faint hope of discovering some sign to direct me. As I climbed the
+hill rose. When I surmounted what had seemed the highest point, away
+beyond rose another. But the slopes were not over-steep, and I was able
+to get on pretty fast. The wind being behind me, I hoped for some
+shelter over the highest brow, but that, for anything I knew, might be
+miles away in the regions of ice and snow.
+
+[Illustration: I FELL FAST ASLEEP.]
+
+
+I had been walking I should think about an hour, when the mist broke
+away from around me, and the sun, in the midst of clouds of dull orange
+and gold, shone out upon the wet hill. It was like a promise of safety,
+and woke in me courage to climb the steep and crumbling slope which now
+lay before me. But the fear returned. People had died in the mountains
+of hunger, and I began to make up my mind to meet the worst. I had not
+learned that the approach of any fate is just the preparation for that
+fate. I troubled myself with the care of that which was not impending
+over me. I tried to contemplate the death-struggle with equanimity, but
+could not. Had I been wearier and fainter, it would have appeared less
+dreadful. Then, in the horror of the slow death of hunger, strange as
+it may appear, that which had been the special horror of my childish
+dreams returned upon me changed into a thought of comfort: I could, ere
+my strength failed me utterly, seek the verge of a precipice, lie down
+there, and when the suffering grew strong enough to give me courage,
+roll myself over the edge, and cut short the agony.
+
+At length I gained the brow of the height, and at last the ground sank
+beyond. There was no precipice to terrify, only a somewhat steep
+descent into a valley large and wide. But what a vision arose on the
+opposite side of that valley!--an upright wilderness of rocks, slopes,
+precipices, snow, glaciers, avalanches! Weary and faint as I was, I was
+filled with a glorious awe, the terror of which was the opposite of
+fear, for it lifted instead of debasing the soul. Not a pine-tree
+softened the haggard waste; not a single stray sheep of the wind’s
+flock drew one trail of its thin-drawn wool behind it; all was hard and
+bare. The glaciers lay like the skins of cruel beasts, with the green
+veins yet visible, nailed to the rocks to harden in the sun; and the
+little streams which ran down from their claws looked like the
+knife-blades they are, keen and hard and shining, sawing away at the
+bones of the old mountain. But although the mountain looked so silent,
+there came from it every now and then a thunderous sound. At first I
+could not think what it was, but gazing at its surface more steadily,
+upon the face of a slope I caught sight of what seemed a larger stream
+than any of the rest; but it soon ceased to flow, and after came the
+thunder of its fall: it _was_ a stream, but a solid one--an avalanche.
+Away up in the air the huge snow-summit glittered in the light of the
+Afternoon sun. I was gazing on the Maiden in one of her most savage
+moods--or to speak prose--I was regarding one of the wildest aspects of
+the many-sided Jungfrau.
+
+Half way down the hill, almost right under my feet, rose a slender
+column of smoke, I could not see whence. I hastened towards it, feeling
+as strong as when I started in the morning. I zig-zagged down the
+slope, for it was steep and slippery with grass, and arrived at length
+at a good-sized cottage, which faced the Jungfrau. It was built of
+great logs laid horizontally one above the other, all with notches half
+through near the end, by which notches, lying into each other, the
+sides of the house were held together at the corners. I soon saw it
+must be a sort of roadside inn. There was no one about the place, but
+passing through a dark vestibule, in which were stores of fodder and
+various utensils, I came to a room in which sat a mother and her
+daughter, the former spinning, the latter making lace on a pillow. In
+at the windows looked the great Jungfrau. The room was lined with
+planks; the floor was boarded; the ceiling, too, was of
+boards--pine-wood all around.
+
+The women rose when I entered. I knew enough of German to make them
+understand my story, and had learned enough of their _patois_ to
+understand them a little in return. They looked concerned, and the
+older woman passing her hands over my jacket, turned to her daughter
+and commenced a talk much too rapid and no doubt idiomatic for me to
+follow. It was in the end mingled with much laughter, evidently at some
+proposal of the mother. Then the daughter left the room, and the mother
+began to heap wood on the fire. In a few minutes the daughter returned,
+still laughing, with some garments, which the mother took from her. I
+was watching everything from a corner of the hearth, where I had seated
+myself wearily. The mother came up to me, and, without speaking, put
+something over my head, which I found to be a short petticoat such as
+the women wore; then told me I must take off my clothes, and have them
+dried at the fire. She laid other garments on a chair beside me.
+
+‘I don’t know how to put them on,’ I objected.
+
+‘Put on as many as you can,’ she said laughing, ‘and I will help you
+with the rest.’
+
+I looked about. There was a great press in the room. I went behind it
+and pulled off my clothes; and having managed to put on some of the
+girl’s garments, issued from my concealment. The kindly laughter was
+renewed, and mother and daughter busied themselves in arranging my
+apparel, evidently seeking to make the best of me as a girl, an attempt
+favoured by my pale face. When I seemed to myself completely arrayed,
+the girl said to her mother what I took to mean, ‘Let us finish what we
+have begun;’ and leaving the room, returned presently with the velvet
+collar embroidered with silver and the pendent chains which the women
+of most of the cantons wear, and put it on me, hooking the chains and
+leaving them festooned under my arms. The mother was spreading out my
+clothes before the fire to dry.
+
+Neither was pretty, but both looked womanly and good. The daughter had
+the attraction of youth and bright eyes; the mother of goodwill and
+experience; but both were sallow, and the mother very wrinkled for what
+seemed her years.
+
+‘Now,’ I said, summoning my German, ‘you’ve almost finished your work.
+Make my short hair as like your long hair as you can, and then I shall
+be a Swiss girl.’
+
+I was but a boy, and had no scruple concerning a bit of fun of which I
+might have been ashamed a few years later. The girl took a comb from
+her own hair and arranged mine. When she had finished, ‘One girl may
+kiss another,’ I said; and doubtless she understood me, for she
+returned my kiss with a fresh laugh. I sat down by the fire, and as its
+warmth crept into my limbs, I rejoiced over comforts which yesterday
+had been a matter of course.
+
+Meantime they were busy getting me something to eat. Just as they were
+setting it on the table, however, a loud call outside took them both
+away. In a few moments two other guests entered, and then first I found
+myself ashamed of my costume. With them the mother re-entered, calling
+behind her, ‘There’s nobody at home; you must put the horses up
+yourself, Annel.’ Then she moved the little table towards me, and
+proceeded to set out the meal.
+
+‘Ah! I see you have got something to eat,’ said one of the strangers,
+in a voice I fancied I had heard before.
+
+‘Will you please to share it?’ returned the woman, moving the table
+again towards the middle of the room.
+
+I thought with myself that, if I kept silent, no one could tell I was
+not a girl; and, the table being finally adjusted, I moved my seat
+towards it. Meantime the man was helping his companion to take off her
+outer garments, and put them before the fire. I saw the face of neither
+until they approached the table and sat down. Great was my surprise to
+discover that the man was the same I had met in the wood on my way to
+Moldwarp Hall, and that the girl was Clara--a good deal grown--in fact,
+looking almost a woman. From after facts, the meeting became less
+marvellous in my eyes than it then appeared.
+
+I felt myself in an awkward position--indeed, I felt almost guilty,
+although any notion of having the advantage of them never entered my
+head. I was more than half inclined to run out and help Annel with the
+horses, but I was very hungry, and not at all willing to postpone my
+meal, simple as it was--bread and butter, eggs, cheese, milk, and a
+bottle of the stronger wine of the country, tasting like a coarse
+sherry. The two--father and daughter evidently--talked about their
+journey, and hoped they should reach the Grindelwald without more rain.
+
+‘By the way,’ said the gentleman, ‘it’s somewhere not far from here
+young Cumbermede is at school. I know Mr Forest well enough--used to
+know him, at least. We may as well call upon him.’
+
+‘Cumbermede,’ said Clara; ‘who is he?’
+
+‘A nephew of Mrs Wilson’s--no, not nephew--second or third cousin--or
+something of the sort, I believe.--Didn’t somebody tell me you met him
+at the Hall one day?’
+
+‘Oh, that boy--Wilfrid. Yes; I told you myself. Don’t you remember what
+a bit of fun we had the night of the ball? We were shut out on the
+leads, you know.’
+
+‘Yes, to be sure, you did tell me. What sort of a boy is he?’
+
+‘Oh! I don’t know. Much like other boys. I did think he was a coward at
+first, but he showed some pluck at last. I shouldn’t wonder if he turns
+out a good sort of fellow! We _were_ in a fix!’
+
+‘You’re a terrible madcap, Clara! If you don’t settle down as you grow,
+you’ll be getting yourself into worse scrapes.’
+
+‘Not with you to look after me, papa dear,’ answered Clara, smiling.
+‘It was the fun of cheating old Goody Wilson, you know!’
+
+Her father grinned with his whole mouthful of teeth, and looked at her
+with amusement--almost sympathetic roguery, which she evidently
+appreciated, for she laughed heartily.
+
+Meantime I was feeling very uncomfortable. Something within told me I
+had no right to overhear remarks about myself; and, in my slow way, I
+was meditating how to get out of the scrape.
+
+‘What a nice-looking girl that is!’ said Clara, without lifting her
+eyes from her plate--‘I mean for a Swiss, you know. But I do like the
+dress. I wish you would buy me a collar and chains like those, papa.’
+
+‘Always wanting to get something out of your old dad, Clara! Just like
+the rest of you, always wanting something--eh?’
+
+‘No, papa; it’s you gentlemen always want to keep everything for
+yourselves. We only want you to share.’
+
+‘Well, you shall have the collar, and I shall have the chains.--Will
+that do?’
+
+‘Yes, thank you, papa,’ she returned, nodding her head. ‘Meantime,
+hadn’t you better give me your diamond pin? It would fasten this
+troublesome collar so nicely!’
+
+‘There, child!’ he answered, proceeding to take it from his shirt.
+‘Anything else?’
+
+‘No, no, papa dear. I didn’t want it. I expected you, like everybody
+else, to decline carrying out your professed principles.’
+
+‘What a nice girl she is,’ I thought, ‘after all!’
+
+‘My love,’ said her father, ‘you will know some day that I would do
+more for you even than give you my pet diamond. If you are a good girl,
+and do as I tell you, there will be grander things than diamond pins in
+store for you. But you may have this if you like.’
+
+He looked fondly at her as he spoke.
+
+‘Oh no, papa!--not now at least. I should not know what to do with it.
+I should be sure to lose it.’
+
+If my clothes had been dry, I would have slipped away, put them on, and
+appeared in my proper guise. As it was, I was getting more and more
+miserable--ashamed of revealing who I was, and ashamed of hearing what
+the speakers supposed I did not understand. I sat on irresolute. In a
+little while, however, either the wine having got into my head, or the
+food and warmth having restored my courage, I began to contemplate the
+bolder stroke of suddenly revealing myself by some unexpected remark.
+They went on talking about the country, and the road they had come.
+
+‘But we have hardly seen anything worth calling a precipice,’ said
+Clara.
+
+‘You’ll see hundreds of them if you look out of the window,’ said her
+father.
+
+‘Oh! but I don’t mean that,’ she returned. ‘It’s nothing to look at
+them like that. I mean from the top of them--to look down, you know.’
+
+‘Like from the flying buttress at Moldwarp Hall, Clara?’ I said.
+
+The moment I began to speak, they began to stare. Clara’s hand was
+arrested on its way towards the bread, and her father’s wine-glass hung
+suspended between the table and his lips. I laughed.
+
+‘By Jove!’ said Mr Coningham--and added nothing, for amazement, but
+looked uneasily at his daughter, as if asking whether they had not said
+something awkward about me.
+
+‘It’s Wilfrid!’ exclaimed Clara, in the tone of one talking in her
+sleep. Then she laid down her knife, and laughed aloud.
+
+‘What a guy you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who would have thought of finding
+you in a Swiss girl? Really it was too bad of you to sit there and let
+us go on as we did. I do believe we were talking about your precious
+self! At least papa was.’
+
+Again her merry laugh rang out. She could not have taken a better way
+of relieving us.
+
+‘I’m very sorry,’ I said; ‘but I felt so awkward in this costume that I
+couldn’t bring myself to speak before. I tried very hard.’
+
+‘Poor boy!’ she returned, rather more mockingly than I liked, her
+violets swimming in the dews of laughter.
+
+By this time Mr Coningham had apparently recovered his self-possession.
+I say _apparently_, for I doubt if he had ever lost it. He had only, I
+think, been running over their talk in his mind to see if he had said
+anything unpleasant, and now, re-assured, I think, he stretched his
+hand across the table.
+
+‘At all events, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, ‘_we_ owe _you_ an apology. I
+am sure we can’t have said anything we should mind you hearing; but--’
+
+‘Oh!’ I interrupted, ‘you have told me nothing I did not know already,
+except that Mrs Wilson was a relation, of which I was quite ignorant.’
+
+‘It is true enough, though.’
+
+‘What relation is she, then?’
+
+‘I think, when I gather my recollections of the matter--I think she was
+first cousin to your mother--perhaps it was only second cousin.’
+
+‘Why shouldn’t she have told me so, then?’
+
+‘She must explain that herself. _I_ cannot account for that. It is very
+extraordinary.’
+
+‘But how do you know so well about me, sir--if you don’t mind saying?’
+
+‘Oh! I am an old friend of the family. I knew your father better than
+your uncle, though. Your uncle is not over-friendly, you see.’
+
+‘I am sorry for that.’
+
+‘No occasion at all. I suppose he doesn’t like me. I fancy, being a
+Methodist--’
+
+‘My uncle is not a Methodist, I assure you. He goes to the parish
+church regularly.’
+
+‘Oh! it’s all one. I only meant to say that, being a man of somewhat
+peculiar notions, I supposed he did not approve of my profession. Your
+good people are just as ready as others, however, to call in the lawyer
+when they fancy their rights invaded. Ha! ha! But no one has a right to
+complain of another because he doesn’t choose to like him. Besides, it
+brings grist to the mill. If everybody liked everybody, what would
+become of the lawsuits? And that would unsuit us--wouldn’t it, Clara?’
+
+‘You know, papa dear, what mamma would say?’
+
+‘But she ain’t here, you know.’
+
+‘But _I_ am, papa; and I don’t like to hear you talk shop,’ said Clara
+coaxingly.
+
+‘Very well; we won’t then. But I was only explaining to Mr Cumbermede
+how I supposed it was that his uncle did not like me. There was no
+offence in that, I hope, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Certainly not,’ I answered. ‘I am the only offender. But I was
+innocent enough as far as intention goes. I came in drenched and cold,
+and the good people here amused themselves dressing me like a girl. It
+is quite time I were getting home now. Mr Forest will be in a way about
+me. So will Charley Osborne.’
+
+‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Coningham, ‘I remember hearing you were at school
+together somewhere in this quarter. But tell us all about it. Did you
+lose your way?’
+
+I told them my story. Even Clara looked grave when I came to the
+incident of finding myself on the verge of the precipice.
+
+‘Thank God, my boy!’ said Mr Coningham kindly. ‘You have had a narrow
+escape. I lost myself once in the Cumberland hills, and hardly got off
+with my life. Here it is a chance you were ever seen again, alive or
+dead. I wonder you’re not knocked up.’
+
+I was, however, more so than I knew.
+
+‘How are you going to get home?’ he asked.
+
+‘I don’t know any way but walking,’ I answered.
+
+‘Are you far from home?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I dare say the people here will be able to tell me. But
+I think you said you were going down into the Grindelwald. I shall know
+where I am there. Perhaps you will let me walk with you. Horses can’t
+go very fast along these roads.’
+
+‘You shall have my horse, my boy.’
+
+‘No. I couldn’t think of that.’
+
+‘You must. I haven’t been wandering all day like you. You can ride, I
+suppose?’
+
+‘Yes, pretty well.’
+
+‘Then you shall ride with Clara, and I’ll walk with the guide. I shall
+go and see after the horses presently.’
+
+It was indeed a delightful close to a dreadful day. We sat and chatted
+a while, and then Clara and I went out to look at the Jungfrau. She
+told me they had left her mother at Interlaken, and had been wandering
+about the Bernese Alps for nearly a week.
+
+‘I can’t think what should have put it in papa’s head,’ she added; ‘for
+he does not care much for scenery. I fancy he wants to make the most of
+poor me, and so takes me the grand tour. He wanted to come without
+mamma, but she said we were not to be trusted alone. She had to give in
+when we took to horseback, though.’
+
+It was getting late, and Mr Coningham came out to find us.
+
+‘It is quite time we were going,’ he said. ‘In fact we are too late
+now. The horses are ready, and your clothes are dry, Mr Cumbermede. I
+have felt them all over.’
+
+‘How kind of you, sir!’ I said.
+
+‘Nonsense! Why should any one want another to get his death of cold? If
+you are to keep alive, it’s better to keep well as long as ever you
+can. Make haste, though, and change your clothes.’
+
+I hurried away, followed by Clara’s merry laugh at my clumsy gait. In a
+few moments I was ready. Mr Coningham had settled my bill for me.
+Mother and daughter gave me a kind farewell, and I exhausted my German
+in vain attempts to let them know how grateful I was for their
+goodness. There was not much time, however, to spend even on gratitude.
+The sun was nearly down, and I could see Clara mounted and waiting for
+me before the window. I found Mr Coningham rather impatient.
+
+‘Come along, Mr Cumbermede; we must be off,’ he said. ‘Get up there.’
+
+‘You _have_ grown, though, after all,’ said Clara. ‘I thought it might
+be only the petticoats that made you look so tall.’
+
+I got on the horse which the guide, a half-witted fellow from the next
+valley, was holding for me, and we set out. The guide walked beside my
+horse, and Mr Coningham beside Clara’s. The road was level for a little
+way, but it soon turned up on the hill where I had been wandering, and
+went along the steep side of it.
+
+‘Will this do for a precipice, Clara?’ said her father.
+
+‘Oh! dear no,’ she answered; ‘it’s not worth the name. It actually
+slopes outward.’
+
+‘Before we got down to the next level stretch it began again to rain. A
+mist came on, and we could see but a little way before us. Through the
+mist came the sound of the bells of the cattle upon the hill. Our guide
+trudged carefully but boldly on. He seemed to know every step of the
+way. Clara was very cool, her father a little anxious, and very
+attentive to his daughter, who received his help with a never-failing
+merry gratitude, making light of all annoyances. At length we came down
+upon the better road, and travelled on with more comfort.
+
+‘Look, Clara!’ I said, ‘will that do?’
+
+‘What is it?’ she asked, turning her head in the direction in which I
+pointed.
+
+On our right, through the veil, half of rain, half of gauzy mist, which
+filled the air, arose a precipice indeed--the whole bulk it was of the
+Eiger mountain, which the mist brought so near that it seemed literally
+to overhang the road. Clara looked up for a moment, but betrayed no
+sign of awe.
+
+‘Yes, I think that will do,’ she said.
+
+‘Though you are only at the foot of it?’ I suggested.
+
+‘Yes, though I am only at the foot of it,’ she repeated.
+
+‘What does it remind you of?’ I asked.
+
+‘Nothing. I never saw anything it could remind me of,’ she answered.
+
+‘Nor read anything?’
+
+‘Not that I remember.’
+
+‘It reminds me of Mount Sinai in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_. You remember
+Christian was afraid because the side of it which was next the wayside
+did hang so much over that he thought it would fall on his head.’
+
+‘I never read the _Pilgrim’s Progress_,’ she returned, in a careless if
+not contemptuous tone.
+
+‘Didn’t you? Oh, you would like it so much!’
+
+‘I don’t think I should. I don’t like religious books.’ ‘But that is
+such a good story!’
+
+‘Oh! it’s all a trap--sugar on the outside of a pill! The sting’s in
+the tail of it. They’re all like that. _I_ know them.’
+
+This silenced me, and for a while we went on without speaking.
+
+The rain ceased; the mist cleared a little; and I began to think I saw
+some landmarks I knew. A moment more, and I perfectly understood where
+we were.
+
+‘I’m all right now, sir,’ I said to Mr Coningham. ‘I can find my way
+from here.’
+
+As I spoke I pulled up and proceeded to dismount.
+
+‘Sit still,’ he said. ‘We cannot do better than ride on to Mr Forest’s.
+I don’t know him much, but I have met him, and in a strange country all
+are friends, I dare say he will take us in for the night. Do you think
+he could house us?’
+
+‘I have no doubt of it. For that matter, the boys could crowd a
+little.’
+
+‘Is it far from here?’
+
+‘Not above two miles, I think.’
+
+‘Are you sure you know the way?’
+
+‘Quite sure.’
+
+‘Then you take the lead.’
+
+I did so. He spoke to the guide, and Clara and I rode on in front.
+
+‘You and I seem destined to have adventures together, Clara,’ I said.
+
+‘It seems so. But this is not so much of an adventure as that night on
+the leads,’ she answered.
+
+‘You would not have thought so if you had been with me in the morning.’
+
+‘Were you very much frightened?’
+
+‘I was. And then to think of finding you!’
+
+‘It was funny, certainly.’
+
+When we reached the house, there was great jubilation over me, but Mr
+Forest himself was very serious. He had not been back more than half an
+hour, and was just getting ready to set out again, accompanied by men
+from the village below. Most of the boys were quite knocked up, for
+they had been looking for me ever since they missed me. Charley was in
+a dreadful way. When he saw me he burst into tears, and declared he
+would never let me go out of his sight again. But if he had been with
+me, it would have been death to both of us: I could never have got him
+over the ground.
+
+Mr and Mrs Forest received their visitors with the greatest cordiality,
+and invited them to spend a day or two with them, to which, after some
+deliberation, Mr Coningham agreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+AGAIN THE ICE-CAVE.
+
+The next morning he begged a holiday for me and Charley, of whose
+family he knew something, although he was not acquainted with them. I
+was a little disappointed at Charley’s being included in the request,
+not in the least from jealousy, but because I had set my heart on
+taking Clara to the cave in the ice, which I knew Charley would not
+like. But I thought we could easily arrange to leave him somewhere near
+until we returned. I spoke to Mr Coningham about it, who entered into
+my small scheme with the greatest kindness. Charley confided to me
+afterwards that he did not take to him--he was too like an ape, he
+said. But the impression of his ugliness had with me quite worn off;
+and for his part, if I had been a favourite nephew, he could not have
+been more complaisant and hearty.
+
+I felt very stiff when we set out, and altogether not quite myself; but
+the discomfort wore off as we went. Charley had Mr Coningham’s horse,
+and I walked by the side of Clara’s, eager after any occasion, if but a
+pretence, of being useful to her. She was quite familiar with me, but
+seemed shy of Charley. He looked much more of a man than I; for not
+only, as I have said, had he grown much during his illness, but there
+was an air of troubled thoughtfulness about him which made him look
+considerably older than he really was; while his delicate complexion
+and large blue eyes had a kind of mystery about them that must have
+been very attractive.
+
+When we reached the village, I told Charley that we wanted to go on
+foot to the cave, and hoped he would not mind waiting our return. But
+he refused to be left, declaring he should not mind going in the least;
+that he was quite well now, and ashamed of his behaviour on the former
+occasion; that, in fact, it must have been his approaching illness that
+caused it. I could not insist, and we set out. The footpath led us
+through fields of corn, with a bright sun overhead, and a sweet wind
+blowing. It was a glorious day of golden corn, gentle wind, and blue
+sky--with great masses of white snow, whiter than any cloud, held up in
+it.
+
+We descended the steep bank; we crossed the wooden bridge over the
+little river; we crunched under our feet the hail-like crystals lying
+rough on the surface of the glacier; we reached the cave, and entered
+its blue abyss. I went first into the delicious, yet dangerous-looking
+blue. The cave had several sharp angles in it. When I reached the
+furthest corner I turned to look behind me. I was alone. I walked back
+and peeped round the last corner. Between that and the one beyond it
+stood Clara and Charley--staring at each other with faces of ghastly
+horror.
+
+Clara’s look certainly could not have been the result of any excess of
+imagination. But many women respond easily to influences they could not
+have originated. My conjecture is that the same horror had again seized
+upon Charley when he saw Clara; that it made his face, already
+deathlike, tenfold more fearful; that Clara took fright at his fear,
+her imagination opening like a crystal to the polarized light of
+reflected feeling; and thus they stood in the paralysis of a dismay
+which ever multiplied itself in the opposed mirrors of their
+countenances.
+
+I too was in terror--for Charley, and certainly wasted no time in
+speculation. I went forward instantly, and put an arm round each. They
+woke up, as it were, and tried to laugh. But the laugh was worse than
+the stare. I hurried them out of the place.
+
+We came upon Mr Coningham round the next corner, amusing himself with
+the talk of the half-silly guide.
+
+‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
+
+‘Out again,’ I answered. ‘The air is oppressive.’
+
+‘Nonsense!’ he said merrily. ‘The air is as pure as it is cold. Come,
+Clara; I want to explore the penetralia of this temple of Isis.’
+
+I believe he intended a pun.
+
+Clara turned with him; Charley and I went out into the sunshine.
+
+‘You should not have gone, Charley. You have caught a chill again,’ I
+said.
+
+‘No, nothing of the sort,’ he answered. ‘Only it was too dreadful. That
+lovely face! To see it like that--and know that is what it is coming
+to!’
+
+‘You looked as horrid yourself,’ I returned.
+
+‘I don’t doubt it. We all did. But why?’
+
+‘Why, just because of the blueness,’ I answered.
+
+‘Yes--the blueness, no doubt. That was all. But there it was, you
+know.’
+
+Clara came out smiling. All her horror had vanished. I was looking into
+the hole as she turned the last corner. When she first appeared, her
+face was ‘like one that hath been seven days drowned;’ but as she
+advanced, the decay thinned, and the life grew, until at last she
+stepped from the mouth of the sepulchre in all the glow of her merry
+youth. It was a dumb show of the resurrection.
+
+As we went back to the inn, Clara, who was walking in front with her
+father, turned her head and addressed me suddenly.
+
+‘You see it was all a sham, Wilfrid!’ she said.
+
+‘What was a sham? I don’t know what you mean,’ I rejoined.
+
+‘Why that,’ she returned, pointing with her hand. Then addressing her
+father, ‘Isn’t that the Eiger,’ she asked--‘the same we rode under
+yesterday?’
+
+‘To be sure it is,’ he answered.
+
+She turned again to me.
+
+‘You see it is all a sham! Last night it pretended to be on the very
+edge of the road and hanging over our heads at an awful height. Now it
+has gone a long way back, is not so very high, and certainly does not
+hang over. I ought not to have been satisfied with that precipice. It
+took me in.’
+
+I did not reply at once. Clara’s words appeared to me quite irreverent,
+and I recoiled from the very thought that there could be any sham in
+nature; but what to answer her I did not know. I almost began to
+dislike her; for it is often incapacity for defending the faith they
+love which turns men into persecutors.
+
+Seeing me foiled, Charley advanced with the doubtful aid of a sophism
+to help me.
+
+‘Which is the sham, Miss Clara?’ he asked.
+
+‘That Eiger mountain there.’
+
+‘Ah! so I thought.’
+
+‘Then you are of my opinion, Mr Osborne?’
+
+‘You mean the mountain is shamming, don’t you--looking far off when
+really it is near?’
+
+‘Not at all. When it looked last night as if it hung right over our
+heads, it was shamming. See it now--far away there!’
+
+‘But which, then, is the sham, and which is the true? It _looked_ near
+yesterday, and now it _looks_ far away. Which is which?’
+
+‘It must have been a sham yesterday; for although it looked near, it
+was very dull and dim, and you could only see the sharp outline of it.’
+
+‘Just so I argue on the other side. The mountain must be shamming now,
+for although it looks so far off, it yet shows a most contradictory
+clearness--not only of outline but of surface.’
+
+‘Aha!’ thought I, ‘Miss Clara has found her match. They both know he is
+talking nonsense, yet she can’t answer him. What she was saying was
+nonsense too, but I can’t answer it either--not yet.’
+
+I felt proud of both of them, but of Charley especially, for I had had
+no idea he could be so quick.
+
+‘What ever put such an answer into your head, Charley?’ I exclaimed.
+
+‘Oh! it’s not quite original,’ he returned. ‘I believe it was suggested
+by two or three lines I read in a review just before we left home. They
+took hold of me rather.’
+
+He repeated half of the now well-known little poem of Shelley, headed
+_Passage of the Apennines_. He had forgotten the name of the writer,
+and it was many years before I fell in with the lines myself.
+
+      ‘The Apennine in the light of day
+      Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,
+      Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
+      But when night comes, a chaos dread
+      On the dim starlight then is spread,
+      And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.’
+
+In the middle of it I saw Clara begin to titter, but she did not
+interrupt him. When he had finished, she said with a grave face, too
+grave for seriousness:
+
+‘Will you repeat the third line--I think it was, Mr Osborne?’
+
+He did so.
+
+‘What kind of eggs did the Apennine lay, Mr Osborne?’ she asked, still
+perfectly serious.
+
+Charley was abashed to find she could take advantage of probably a
+provincialism to turn into ridicule such fine verses. Before he could
+recover himself, she had planted another blow’ or two.
+
+‘And where is its nest?’ Between the earth and the sky is vague. But
+then to be sure it must want a good deal of room. And after all, a
+mountain is a strange fowl, and who knows where it might lay? Between
+earth and sky is quite definite enough? Besides, the bird-nesting boys
+might be dangerous if they knew where it was. It would be such a find
+for them!’
+
+My champion was defeated. Without attempting a word in reply, he hung
+back and dropped behind. Mr Coningham must have heard the whole, but he
+offered no remark. I saw that Charley’s sensitive nature was hurt, and
+my heart was sore for him.
+
+‘That’s too bad of you, Clara,’ I said.
+
+‘What’s too bad of me, Wilfrid?’ she returned.
+
+I hesitated a moment, then answered--
+
+‘To make game of such verses. Any one with half a soul must see they
+were fine.’
+
+‘Very wrong of you, indeed, my dear,’ said Mr Coningham from behind, in
+a voice that sounded as if he were smothering a laugh; but when I
+looked round, his face was grave.
+
+‘Then I suppose that half soul I haven’t got,’ returned Clara.
+
+‘Oh! I didn’t mean that,’ I said, lamely enough. ‘But there’s no logic
+in that kind of thing, you know.’
+
+‘You see, papa,’ said Clara, ‘what you are accountable for. Why didn’t
+you make them teach me logic?’
+
+Her father smiled a pleased smile. His daughter’s naiveté would in his
+eyes make up for any lack of logic.
+
+‘Mr Osborne,’ continued Clara, turning back, ‘I beg your pardon. I am a
+woman, and you men don’t allow us to learn logic. But at the same time
+you must confess you were making a bad use of yours. You know it was
+all nonsense you were trying to pass off on me for wisdom.’
+
+He was by her side the instant she spoke to him. A smile grew upon his
+face; I could see it growing, just as you see the sun growing behind a
+cloud. In a moment it broke out in radiance.
+
+‘I confess,’ he said. ‘I thought you were too hard on Wilfrid; and he
+hadn’t anything at hand to say for himself.’
+
+‘And you were too hard upon me, weren’t you? Two to one is not fair
+play--is it now?’
+
+‘No; certainly not.’
+
+‘And that justified a little false play on my part?’
+
+‘No, it did _not_,’ said Charley, almost fiercely. ‘Nothing justifies
+false play.’
+
+‘Not even yours, Mr Osborne?’ replied Clara, with a stately coldness
+quite marvellous in one so young; and leaving him, she came again to my
+side. I peeped at Mr Coningham, curious to see how he regarded all this
+wrangling with his daughter. He appeared at once amused and satisfied.
+Clara’s face was in a glow, clearly of anger at the discourteous manner
+in which Charley had spoken.
+
+‘You mustn’t be angry with Charley, Clara,’ I said.
+
+‘He is very rude,’ she replied indignantly.
+
+‘What he said was rude, I allow, but Charley himself is anything but
+rude. I haven’t looked at him, but I am certain he is miserable about
+it already.’
+
+‘So he ought to be. To speak like that to a lady, when her very
+friendliness put her off her guard! I never was treated so in all my
+life.’
+
+She spoke so loud that she must have meant Charley to hear her. But
+when I looked back, I saw that he had fallen a long way behind, and was
+coming on very slowly, with dejected look and his eyes on the ground.
+Mr Coningham did not interfere by word or sign.
+
+When we reached the inn he ordered some refreshment, and behaved to us
+both as if we were grown men. Just a touch of familiarity was the sole
+indication that we were not grown men. Boys are especially grateful for
+respect from their superiors, for it helps them to respect themselves;
+but Charley sat silent and gloomy. As he would not ride back, and Mr
+Coningham preferred walking too, I got into the saddle and rode by
+Clara’s side.
+
+As we approached the house, Charley crept up the other side of Clara’s
+horse, and laid his hand on his mane. When he spoke Clara started, for
+she was looking the other way and had not observed his approach.
+
+‘Miss Clara,’ he said, ‘I am very sorry I was so rude. Will you forgive
+me?’
+
+Instead of being hard to reconcile, as I had feared from her outburst
+of indignation, she leaned forward and laid her hand on his. He looked
+up in her face, his own suffused with a colour I had never seen in it
+before. His great blue eyes lightened with thankfulness, and began to
+fill with tears. How she looked, I could not see. She withdrew her
+hand, and Charley dropped behind again. In a little while he came up to
+my side, and began talking. He soon got quite merry, but Clara in her
+turn was silent.
+
+I doubt if anything would be worth telling but for what comes after.
+History itself would be worthless but for what it cannot tell, namely,
+its own future. Upon this ground my reader must excuse the apparent
+triviality of the things I am now relating.
+
+When we were alone in our room that night--for ever since Charley’s
+illness we two had had a room to ourselves--Charley said,
+
+‘I behaved like a brute this morning, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘No, Charley; you were only a little rude from being over-eager. If she
+had been seriously advocating dishonesty, you would have been quite
+right to take it up so; and you thought she was.’
+
+‘Yes; but it was very silly of me. I dare say it was because I had been
+so dishonest myself just before. How dreadful it is that I am always
+taking my own side, even when I do what I am ashamed of in another! I
+suppose I think I have got my horse by the head, and the other has
+not.’
+
+‘I don’t know. That may be it,’ I answered. ‘I’m afraid I can’t think
+about it to-night, for I don’t feel well. What if it should be your
+turn to nurse me now, Charley?’
+
+He turned quite pale, his eyes opened wide, and he looked at me
+anxiously.
+
+Before morning I was aching all over: I had rheumatic fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+CHARLEY NURSES ME.
+
+I saw no more of Clara. Mr Coningham came to bid me good-bye, and spoke
+very kindly. Mr Forest would have got a nurse for me, but Charley
+begged so earnestly to be allowed to return the service I had done for
+him that he yielded.
+
+I was in great pain for more than a week. Charley’s attentions were
+unremitting. In fact he nursed me more like a woman than a boy; and
+made me think with some contrition how poor my ministrations had been.
+Even after the worst was over, if I but moved, he was at my bedside in
+a moment. Certainly no nurse could have surpassed him. I could bear no
+one to touch me but him: from any one else I dreaded torture; and my
+medicine was administered to the very moment by my own old watch, which
+had been brought to do its duty at least respectably.
+
+One afternoon, finding me tolerably comfortable, he said, ‘Shall I read
+something to you, Wilfrid?’
+
+He never called me Willie, as most of my friends did.
+
+‘I should like it,’ I answered.
+
+‘What shall I read?’ he asked.
+
+‘Hadn’t you something in your head,’ I rejoined, ‘when you proposed
+it?’
+
+‘Well, I had; but I don’t know if you would like it.’
+
+‘What did you think of, then?’
+
+‘I thought of a chapter in the New Testament.’
+
+‘How could you think I should not like that?’
+
+‘Because I never saw you say your prayers.’
+
+‘That is quite true. But you don’t think I never say my prayers,
+although you never see me do it?’
+
+The fact was, my uncle, amongst his other peculiarities, did not
+approve of teaching children to say their prayers. But he did not
+therefore leave me without instruction in the matter of praying--either
+the idlest or the most availing of human actions. He would say, ‘When
+you want anything, ask for it, Willie; and if it is worth your having,
+you will have it. But don’t fancy you are doing God any service by
+praying to him. He likes you to pray to him because he loves you, and
+wants you to love him. And whatever you do, don’t go saying a lot of
+words you don’t mean. If you think you ought to pray, say your Lord’s
+Prayer, and have done with it.’ I had no theory myself on the matter;
+but when I was in misery on the wild mountains, I had indeed prayed to
+God; and had even gone so far as to hope, when I got what I prayed for,
+that he had heard my prayer.
+
+Charley made no reply.
+
+‘It seems to me better that sort of thing shouldn’t be seen, Charley,’
+I persisted.
+
+‘Perhaps, Wilfrid; but I was taught to say my prayers regularly.’ ‘I
+don’t think much of that either,’ I answered. ‘But I’ve said a good
+many prayers since I’ve been here, Charley. I can’t say I’m sure it’s
+of any use, but I can’t help trying after something--I don’t know
+what--something I want, and don’t know how to get.’
+
+‘But it’s only the prayer of faith that’s heard--do you believe,
+Wilfrid?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I daren’t say I don’t. I wish I could say I do. But I
+dare say things will be considered.’
+
+‘Wouldn’t it be grand if it was true, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘What, Charley?’
+
+‘That God actually let his creatures see him--and--all that came of it,
+you know?’
+
+‘It would be grand indeed! But supposing it true, how could we be
+expected to believe it like them that saw him with their own eyes? _I_
+couldn’t be required to believe just as if I could have no doubt about
+it. It wouldn’t be fair. Only--perhaps we haven’t got the clew by the
+right end.’
+
+‘Perhaps not. But sometimes I hate the whole thing. And then again I
+feel as if I _must_ read all about it; not that I care for it exactly,
+but because a body must do something--because--I don’t know how to say
+it--because of the misery, you know.’
+
+‘I don’t know that I do know--quite. But now you have started the
+subject, I thought that was great nonsense Mr Forest was talking about
+the authority of the Church the other day.’
+
+‘Well, _I_ thought so, too. I don’t see what right they have to say so
+and so, if they didn’t hear him speak. As to what he meant, they may be
+right or they may be wrong. If they _have_ the gift of the Spirit, as
+they say--how am I to tell they have? All impostors claim it as well as
+the true men. If I had ever so little of the same gift myself, I
+suppose I could tell; but they say no one has till he believes--so they
+may be all humbugs for anything I can possibly tell; or they may be all
+true men, and yet I may fancy them all humbugs, and can’t help it.’
+
+I was quite as much astonished to hear Charley talk in this style as
+some readers will be doubtful whether a boy could have talked such good
+sense. I said nothing, and a silence followed.
+
+‘Would you like me to read to you, then?’ he asked.
+
+‘Yes, I should; for, do you know, after all, I don’t think there’s
+anything like the New Testament.’
+
+‘Anything like it!’ he repeated. ‘I should think not! Only I wish I did
+know what it all meant. I wish I could talk to my father as I would to
+Jesus Christ if I saw _him_. But if I could talk to my father, he
+wouldn’t understand me. He would speak to me as if I were the very scum
+of the universe for daring to have a doubt of what _he_ told me.’
+
+‘But he doesn’t mean _himself_,’ I said.
+
+‘Well, who told him?’
+
+‘The Bible.’
+
+‘And who told the Bible?’
+
+‘God, of course.’
+
+‘But how am I to know that? I only know that they say so. Do you know,
+Wilfrid--I _don’t_ believe my father is quite sure himself, and that is
+what makes him in such a rage with anybody who doesn’t think as he
+does. He’s afraid it mayn’t be true after all.’
+
+I had never had a father to talk to, but I thought something must be
+wrong when a boy _couldn’t_ talk to his father. My uncle was a better
+father than that came to.
+
+Another pause followed, during which Charley searched for a chapter to
+fit the mood. I will not say what chapter he found, for, after all, I
+doubt if we had any real notion of what it meant. I know, however, that
+there were words in it which found their way to my conscience; and, let
+men of science or philosophy say what they will, the rousing of a man’s
+conscience is the greatest event in his existence. In such a matter,
+the consciousness of the man himself is the sole witness. A Chinese can
+expose many of the absurdities and inconsistencies of the English: it
+is their own Shakspere who must bear witness to their sins and faults,
+as well as their truths and characteristics.
+
+After this we had many conversations about such things, one of which I
+shall attempt to report by-and-by. Of course, in any such attempt all
+that can be done is to put the effect into fresh conversational form.
+What I have just written must at least be more orderly than what passed
+between us; but the spirit is much the same, and mere fact is of
+consequence only as it affects truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+A DREAM.
+
+The best immediate result of my illness was that I learned to love
+Charley Osborne dearly. We renewed an affection resembling from afar
+that of Shakspere for his nameless friend; we anticipated that
+informing _In Memoriam_. Lest I be accused of infinite arrogance, let
+me remind my reader that the sun is reflected in a dewdrop as in the
+ocean.
+
+One night I had a strange dream, which is perhaps worth telling for the
+involution of its consciousness.
+
+ I thought I was awake in my bed, and Charley asleep in his. I lay
+looking into the room. It began to waver and change. The night-light
+enlarged and receded; and the walls trembled and waved. The light had
+got behind them, and shone through them.
+
+‘Charley! Charley!’ I cried; for I was frightened.
+
+‘I heard him move: but before he reached me, I was lying on a lawn,
+surrounded by trees, with the moon shining through them from behind.
+The next moment Charley was by my side.
+
+‘Isn’t it prime?’ he said. ‘It’s all over.’
+
+‘What do you mean, Charley?’ I asked.
+
+‘I mean that we’re both dead now. It’s not so very bad--is it?’
+
+‘Nonsense, Charley!’ I returned; ‘_I_‘m not dead. I’m as wide alive as
+ever I was. Look here.’
+
+So saying, I sprung to my feet, and drew myself up before him.
+
+‘Where’s your worst pain?’ said Charley, with a curious expression in
+his tone.
+
+‘Here,’ I answered. ‘No; it’s not; it’s in my back. No, it isn’t. It’s
+nowhere. I haven’t got any pain.’
+
+Charley laughed a low laugh, which sounded as sweet as strange. It was
+to the laughter of the world ‘as moonlight is to sunlight,’ but not ‘as
+water is to wine,’ for what it had lost in sound it had gained in
+smile.
+
+‘Tell me now you’re not dead!’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
+
+‘But,’ I insisted, ‘don’t you see I’m alive? _You_ may be dead for
+anything I know--but I _am not_--I know that.’
+
+‘You’re just as dead as I am,’ he said. ‘Look here.’
+
+A little way off, in an open plot by itself, stood a little white rose
+tree, half mingled with the moonlight. Charley went up to it, stepped
+on the topmost twig, and stood: the bush did not even bend under him.
+
+‘Very well,’ I answered. ‘You are dead, I confess. But now, look you
+here.’
+
+I went to a red rose-bush which stood at some distance, blanched in the
+moon, set my foot on the top of it, and made as if I would ascend,
+expecting to crush it, roses and all, to the ground. But behold! I was
+standing on my red rose opposite Charley on his white.
+
+‘I told you so,’ he cried, across the moonlight, and his voice sounded
+as if it came from the moon far away.
+
+‘Oh Charley!’ I cried, ‘I’m so frightened!’
+
+‘What are you frightened at?’
+
+‘At you. You’re dead, you know.’
+
+‘It is a good thing, Wilfrid,’ he rejoined, in a tone of some reproach,
+‘that I am not frightened at you for the same reason; for what would
+happen then?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I suppose you would go away and leave me alone in this
+ghostly light.’
+
+‘If I were frightened at you as you are at me, we should not be able to
+see each other at all. If you take courage the light will grow.’
+
+‘Don’t leave me, Charley,’ I cried, and flung myself from my tree
+towards his. I found myself floating, half reclined on the air. We met
+midway each in the other’s arms.
+
+‘I don’t know where I am, Charley.’
+
+‘That is my father’s rectory.’
+
+He pointed to the house, which I had not yet observed. It lay quite
+dark in the moonlight, for not a window shone from within.
+
+‘Don’t leave me, Charley.’
+
+‘Leave you! I should think not, Wilfrid. I have been long enough
+without you already.’
+
+‘Have you been long dead, then, Charley?’
+
+‘Not very long. Yes, a long time. But, indeed, I don’t know. We don’t
+count time as we used to count it.--I want to go and see my father. It
+is long since I saw _him_, anyhow. Will you come?’
+
+‘If you think I might--if you wish it,’ I said, for I had no great
+desire to see Mr Osborne. ‘Perhaps he won’t care to see me.’
+
+‘Perhaps not,’ said Charley, with another low silvery laugh. ‘Come
+along.’
+
+We glided over the grass. A window stood a little open on the second
+floor. We floated up, entered, and stood by the bedside of Charley’s
+father. He lay in a sound sleep.
+
+‘Father! father!’ said Charley, whispering in his ear as he lay--‘it’s
+all right. You need not be troubled about me any more.’
+
+Mr Osborne turned on his pillow.
+
+‘He’s dreaming about us now,’ said Charley. ‘He sees us both standing
+by his bed.’
+
+But the next moment Mr Osborne sat up, stretched out his arms towards
+us with the open palms outwards, as if pushing us away from him, and
+cried,
+
+‘Depart from me, all evil-doers. O Lord! do I not hate them that hate
+thee?’
+
+He followed with other yet more awful words which I never could recall.
+I only remember the feeling of horror and amazement they left behind. I
+turned to Charley. He had disappeared, and I found myself lying in the
+bed beside Mr Osborne. I gave a great cry of dismay--when there was
+Charley again beside me, saying,
+
+‘What’s the matter, Wilfrid? Wake up. My father’s not here.’
+
+I did wake, but until I had felt in the bed I could not satisfy myself
+that Mr Osborne was indeed not there.
+
+‘You’ve been talking in your sleep. I could hardly get you waked,’ said
+Charley, who stood there in his shirt.
+
+‘Oh Charley!’ I cried, ‘I’ve had such a dream!’
+
+‘What was it, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘Oh! I can’t talk about it yet,’ I answered.
+
+I never did tell him that dream; for even then I was often uneasy about
+him--he was so sensitive. The affections of my friend were as hoops of
+steel; his feelings a breath would ripple. Oh, my Charley! if ever we
+meet in that land so vaguely shadowed in my dream, will you not know
+that I loved you heartily well? Shall I not hasten’ to lay bare my
+heart before you--the priest of its confessional? Oh, Charley! when the
+truth is known, the false will fly asunder as the Autumn leaves in the
+wind; but the true, whatever their faults, will only draw together the
+more tenderly that they have sinned against each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+THE FROZEN STREAM.
+
+Before the Winter arrived, I was well, and Charley had recovered from
+the fatigue of watching me. One holiday, he and I set out alone to
+accomplish a scheme we had cherished from the first appearance of the
+frost. How it arose I hardly remember; I think it came of some remark
+Mr Forest had made concerning the difference between the streams of
+Switzerland and England--those in the former country being emptiest,
+those in the latter fullest in the Winter. It was--when the frost
+should have bound up the sources of the beck which ran almost by our
+door, and it was no longer a stream, but a rope of ice--to take that
+rope for our guide, and follow it as far as we could towards the secret
+recesses of its Summer birth.
+
+Along the banks of the stream, we followed it up and up, meeting a
+varied loveliness which it would take the soul of a Wordsworth or a
+Ruskin to comprehend or express. To my poor faculty the splendour of
+the ice-crystals remains the one memorial thing. In those lonely
+water-courses the sun was gloriously busy, with none to praise him
+except Charley and me.
+
+Where the banks were difficult we went down into the frozen bed, and
+there had story above story of piled-up loveliness, with opal and
+diamond cellars below. Spikes and stars crystalline radiated and
+refracted and reflected marvellously. But we did not reach the primary
+source of the stream by miles; we were stopped by a precipitous rock,
+down the face of which one half of the stream fell, while the other
+crept out of its foot, from a little cavernous opening about four feet
+high. Charley was a few yards ahead of me, and ran stooping into the
+cavern. I followed. But when I had gone as far as I dared for the
+darkness and the down-sloping roof, and saw nothing of him, I grew
+dismayed, and called him. There was no answer. With a thrill of horror
+my dream returned upon me. I got on my hands and knees and crept
+forward. A short way further the floor sank--only a little, I believe,
+but from the darkness I took the descent for an abyss into which
+Charley had fallen. I gave a shriek of despair, and scrambled out of
+the cave howling. In a moment he was by my side. He had only crept
+behind a projection for a trick. His remorse was extreme. He begged my
+pardon in the most agonized manner.
+
+‘Never mind, Charley,’ I said; ‘you didn’t mean it.’
+
+‘Yes, I did mean it,’ he returned. ‘The temptation came, and I yielded;
+only I did not know how dreadful it would be to you.’
+
+‘Of course not. You wouldn’t have done it if you had.’
+
+‘How am I to know that, Wilfrid? I might have done it. Isn’t it
+frightful that a body may go on and on till a thing is done, and then
+wish he hadn’t done it? I am a despicable creature. Do you know,
+Wilfrid, I once shot a little bird--for no good, but just to shoot at
+something. It wasn’t that I didn’t think of it--don’t say that. I did
+think of it. I knew it was wrong. When I had levelled my gun, I thought
+of it quite plainly, and yet drew the trigger. It dropped, a heap of
+ruffled feathers. I shall never get that little bird out of my head.
+And the worst of it is that to all eternity I can never make any
+atonement.’
+
+‘But God will forgive you, Charley.’
+
+‘What do I care for that,’ he rejoined, almost fiercely, ‘when the
+little bird cannot forgive me?--I would go on my knees to the little
+bird, if I could, to beg its pardon and tell it-what a brute I was, and
+it might shoot me if it would, and I should say “Thank you.”’
+
+He laughed almost hysterically, and the tears ran down his face.
+
+I have said little about my uncle’s teaching, lest I should bore my
+readers. But there it came in, and therefore here it must come in. My
+uncle had, by no positive instruction, but by occasional observations,
+not one of which I can recall, generated in me a strong hope that the
+life of the lower animals was terminated at their death no more than
+our own. The man who believes that thought is the result of brain, and
+not the growth of an unknown seed whose soil is the brain, may well
+sneer at this, for he is to himself but a peck of dust that has to be
+eaten by the devouring jaws of Time; but I cannot see how the man who
+believes in soul at all, can say that the spirit of a man lives, and
+that the spirit of his horse dies. I do not profess to believe anything
+for _certain sure_ myself, but I do think that he who, if from merely
+philosophical considerations, believes the one, ought to believe the
+other as well. Much more must the theosophist believe it. But I had
+never felt the need of the doctrine until I beheld the misery of
+Charley over the memory of the dead sparrow. Surely that sparrow fell
+not to the ground without the Father’s knowledge.
+
+‘Charley! how do you know,’ I said, ‘that you can never beg the bird’s
+pardon? If God made the bird, do you fancy with your gun you could
+destroy the making of his hand? If he said, “Let there be,” do you
+suppose you could say, “There shall not be”?’ (Mr Forest had read that
+chapter of first things at morning prayers.) ‘I fancy myself that for
+God to put a bird all in the power of a silly thoughtless boy--’
+
+‘Not thoughtless! not thoughtless! There is the misery!’ said Charley.
+
+But I went on--
+
+‘--would be worse than for you to shoot it.’
+
+A great glow of something I dare not attempt to define grew upon
+Charley’s face. It was like what I saw on it when Clara laid her hand
+on his. But presently it died out again, and he sighed--
+
+‘If there _were_ a God--that is, if I were sure there was a God,
+Wilfrid!’
+
+I could not answer. How could I? _I_ had never seen God, as the old
+story says Moses did on the clouded mountain. All I could return was,
+
+‘Suppose there should be a God, Charley!--Mightn’t there be a God!’
+
+‘I don’t know,’ he returned. ‘How should _I_ know whether there _might_
+be a God?’
+
+‘But _may_ there not be a _might be?_’ I rejoined.
+
+‘There may be. How should I say the other thing?’ said Charley.
+
+I do not mean this was exactly what he or I said. Unable to recall the
+words themselves, I put the sense of the thing in as clear a shape as I
+can.
+
+We were seated upon a stone in the bed of the stream, off which the sun
+had melted the ice. The bank rose above us, but not far. I thought I
+heard a footstep. I jumped up, but saw no one. I ran a good way up the
+stream to a place where I could climb the bank; but then saw no one.
+The footstep, real or imagined, broke our conversation at that point,
+and we did not resume it. All that followed was--
+
+‘If I were the sparrow, Charley, I would not only forgive you, but
+haunt you for ever out of gratitude that you were sorry you had killed
+me.’
+
+‘Then you _do_ forgive me for frightening you?’ he said eagerly.
+
+Very likely Charley and I resembled each other too much to be the best
+possible companions for each other. There was, however, this difference
+between us--that he had been bored with religion and I had not. In
+other words, food had been forced upon him, which had only been laid
+before me.
+
+We rose and went home. A few minutes after our entrance, Mr Forest came
+in--looking strange, I thought. The conviction crossed my mind that it
+was his footstep we had heard over our heads as we sat in the channel
+of the frozen stream. I have reason to think that he followed us for a
+chance of listening. Something had set him on the watch--most likely
+the fact that we were so much together, and did not care for the
+society of the rest of our schoolfellows. From that time, certainly, he
+regarded Charley and myself with a suspicious gloom. We felt it, but
+beyond talking to each other about it, and conjecturing its cause, we
+could do nothing. It made Charley very unhappy at times, deepening the
+shadow which brooded over his mind; for his moral skin was as sensitive
+to changes in the moral atmosphere as the most sensitive of plants to
+those in the physical. But unhealthy conditions in the smallest
+communities cannot last long without generating vapours which result in
+some kind of outburst.
+
+The other boys, naturally enough, were displeased with us for holding
+so much together. They attributed it to some fancy of superiority,
+whereas there was nothing in it beyond the simplest preference for each
+other’s society. We were alike enough to understand each other, and
+unlike enough to interest and aid each other. Besides, we did not care
+much for the sports in which boys usually explode their superfluous
+energy. I preferred a walk and a talk with Charley to anything else.
+
+I may here mention that these talks had nearly cured me of
+castle-building. To spin yarns for Charley’s delectation would have
+been absurd. He cared for nothing but the truth. And yet he could never
+assure himself that anything was true. The more likely a thing looked
+to be true, the more anxious was he that it should be unassailable; and
+his fertile mind would in as many moments throw a score of objections
+at it, looking after each with eager eyes as if pleading for a
+refutation. It was the very love of what was good that generated in him
+doubt and anxiety.
+
+When our schoolfellows perceived that Mr Forest also was dissatisfied
+with us, their displeasure grew to indignation; and we did not endure
+its manifestations without a feeling of reflex defiance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+AN EXPLOSION.
+
+One Spring morning we had got up early and sauntered out together. I
+remember perfectly what our talk was about. Charley had started the
+question: ‘How could it be just to harden Pharaoh’s heart and then
+punish him for what came of it?’ I who had been brought up without any
+superstitious reverence for the Bible, suggested that the narrator of
+the story might be accountable for the contradiction, and simply that
+it was not true that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Strange to say,
+Charley was rather shocked at this. He had as yet received the dogma of
+the infallibility of the Bible without thinking enough about it to
+question it. Nor did it now occur to him what a small affair it was to
+find a book fallible, compared with finding the God of whom the book
+spoke fallible upon its testimony--for such was surely the dilemma. Men
+have been able to exist without a Bible: if there be a God it must be
+in and through Him that all men live; only if he be not true, then in
+Him, and not in the first Adam, all men die.
+
+We were talking away about this, no doubt after a sufficiently crude
+manner, as we approached the house, unaware that we had lingered too
+long. The boys were coming out from breakfast for a game before school.
+
+Amongst them was one of the name of Home, who considered himself
+superior, from his connection with the Scotch Homes. He was a big,
+strong, pale-faced, handsome boy, with the least bit of a sneer always
+hovering upon his upper lip. Charley was half a head shorter than he,
+and I was half a head shorter than Charley. As we passed him, he said
+aloud, addressing the boy next him--
+
+‘There they go--a pair of sneaks!’
+
+Charley turned upon him at once, his face in a glow.
+
+‘Home,’ he said, ‘no gentleman would say so.’
+
+‘And why not?’ said Home, turning and striding up to Charley in a
+magnificent manner.
+
+‘Because there is no ground for the assertion,’ said Charley.
+
+‘Then you mean to say I am a liar?’
+
+‘I mean to say,’ returned Charley, with more promptitude than I could
+have expected of him, ‘that if you are a gentleman, you will be sorry
+for it.’
+
+‘There is my apology, then!’ said Home, and struck Charley a blow on
+the head which laid him on the ground. I believe he repented it the
+moment he had done it.
+
+I caught one glimpse of the blood pouring over the transparent
+blue-veined skin, and rushed at Home in a transport of fury.
+
+I never was brave one step beyond being able to do what must be done
+and bear what must be borne; and now it was not courage that inspired
+me, but a righteous wrath.
+
+I did my best, got a good many hard blows, and planted not one in
+return, for I had never fought in my life. I do believe Home spared me,
+conscious of wrong. Meantime some of them had lifted Charley and
+carried him into the house.
+
+Before I was thoroughly mauled, which must have been the final result,
+for I would not give in, the master appeared, and in a voice such as I
+had never heard from him before, ordered us all into the school-room.
+
+‘Fighting like bullies!’ he said. ‘I thought my pupils were gentlemen
+at least!’
+
+Perhaps dimly aware that he had himself given some occasion to this
+outbreak, and imagining in his heart a show of justice, he seized Home
+by the collar, and gave him a terrible cut with the riding-whip which
+he had caught up in his anger. Home cried out, and the same moment
+Charley appeared, pale as death.
+
+‘Oh, sir!’ he said, laying his hand on the master’s arm appealingly, ‘I
+was to blame too.’
+
+‘I don’t doubt it,’ returned Mr Forest. ‘I shall settle with you
+presently. Get away!’
+
+‘Now, sir,’ he continued, turning to me--and held the whip suspended,
+as if waiting a word from me to goad him on. He looked something else
+than a gentleman himself just then. It was a sudden outbreak of the
+beast in him. ‘Will you tell me why you punish me, sir, if you please?
+What have I done?’ I said.
+
+His answer was such a stinging blow that for a moment I was bewildered,
+and everything reeled about me. But I did not cry out--I know that, for
+I asked two of the fellows after.
+
+‘You prate about justice!’ he said. ‘I will let you know what justice
+means--to you at least.’
+
+And down came a second cut as bad as the first. My blood was up.
+
+‘If this is justice, then there _is_ no God,’ I said.
+
+He stood aghast. I went on.
+
+‘If there be a God--’
+
+‘_If_ there be a God!’ he shrieked, and sprang towards me.
+
+I did not move a step.
+
+‘I hope there is,’ I said, as he seized me again; ‘for you are unjust.’
+
+I remember only a fierce succession of blows. With Voltaire and the
+French revolution present to his mind in all their horror, he had been
+nourishing in his house a toad of the same spawn! He had been remiss,
+but would now compel those whom his neglect had injured to pay off his
+arrears! A most orthodox conclusion! but it did me little harm: it did
+not make me think that God was unjust, for my uncle, not Mr Forest, was
+my type of Christian. The harm it did was of another sort--and to
+Charley, not to me.
+
+Of course, while under the hands of the executioner, I could not
+observe what was going on around me. When I began to awake from the
+absorption of my pain and indignation, I found myself in my room. I had
+been ordered thither, and had mechanically obeyed. I was on my bed,
+staring at the door, at which I had become aware of a gentle tapping.
+
+‘Come in,’ I said; and Charley--who, although it was his room as much
+as mine, never entered when he thought I was there without knocking at
+the door--appeared, with the face of a dead man. Sore as I was, I
+jumped up.
+
+‘The brute has not been thrashing _you_, Charley!’ I cried, in a wrath
+that gave me the strength of a giant. With that terrible bruise above
+his temple from Home’s fist, none but a devil could have dared to lay
+hands upon him!
+
+‘No, Wilfrid,’ he answered; ‘no such honour for me! I am disgraced for
+ever!’
+
+He hid his wan face in his thin hands.
+
+‘What do you mean, Charley?’ I said. ‘You cannot have told a lie!’
+
+‘No, Wilfrid. But it doesn’t matter now. I don’t care for myself any
+more.’
+
+‘Then, Charley, what _have_ you done?’
+
+‘You are always so kind, Wilfrid!’ he returned, with a hopelessness
+which seemed almost coldness.
+
+‘Charley,’ I said, ‘if you don’t tell me what has happened--’
+
+‘Happened!’ he cried. ‘Hasn’t that man been lashing at you like a dog,
+and I _didn’t_ rush at him, and if I couldn’t fight, being a milksop,
+then bite and kick and scratch, and take my share of it? O God!’ he
+cried, in agony, ‘if I had but a chance again! But nobody ever has more
+than one chance in this world. He may damn me now when he likes: I
+don’t care!’
+
+‘Charley! Charley!’ I cried; ‘you’re as bad as Mr Forest. Are you to
+say such things about God, when you know nothing of him? He may be as
+good a God, after all, as even we should like him to be.’
+
+‘But Mr Forest is a clergyman.’
+
+‘And God was the God of Abraham before ever there was a clergyman to
+take his name in vain,’ I cried; for I was half mad with the man who
+had thus wounded my Charley. ‘_I_ am content with you, Charley. You are
+my best and only friend. That is all nonsense about attacking Forest.
+What could you have done, you know? Don’t talk such rubbish.’
+
+‘I might have taken my share with you,’ said Charley, and again buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+‘Come, Charley,’ I said, and at the moment a fresh wave of manhood
+swept through my soul; ‘you and I will take our share together a
+hundred times yet. I have done my part now; yours will come next.’
+
+‘But to think of not sharing your disgrace, Wilfrid!’
+
+‘Disgrace!’ I said, drawing myself up, ‘where was that?’
+
+‘You’ve been beaten,’ he said.
+
+‘Every stripe was a badge of honour,’ I said, ‘for I neither deserved
+it nor cried out against it. I feel no disgrace.’
+
+‘Well, I’ve missed the honour,’ said Charley; ‘but that’s nothing, so
+you have it. But not to share your disgrace would have been mean. And
+it’s all one; for I thought it was disgrace, and I did not share it. I
+am a coward for ever, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘Nonsense! He never gave you a chance. _I_ never thought of striking
+back: how should _you?_’
+
+‘I will be your slave, Wilfrid! You are _so_ good, and I am _so_
+unworthy.’
+
+He put his arms round me, laid his head on my shoulder, and sobbed. I
+did what more I could to comfort him, and gradually he grew calm. At
+length he whispered in my ear--
+
+‘After all, Wilfrid, I do believe I was horror-struck, and it _wasn’t_
+cowardice pure and simple.’
+
+‘I haven’t a doubt of it,’ I said. ‘I love you more than ever.’
+
+‘Oh, Wilfrid! I should have gone mad by this time but for you. Will you
+be my friend whatever happens?--Even if I should be a coward after
+all?’
+
+‘Indeed I will, Charley.--What do you think Forest will do next?’
+
+We resolved not to go down until we were sent for; and then to be
+perfectly quiet, not speaking to any one unless we were spoken to; and
+at dinner we carried out our resolution.
+
+When bed-time came, we went as usual to make our bow to Mr Forest.
+
+‘Cumbermede,’ he said sternly, ‘you sleep in No. 5 until further
+orders.’
+
+‘Very well, sir,’ I said, and went, but lingered long enough to hear
+the fate of Charley.
+
+‘Home,’ said Mr Forest, ‘you go to No. 3.’
+
+That was our room.
+
+‘Home,’ I said, having lingered on the stairs until he appeared, ‘you
+don’t bear me a grudge, do you?’
+
+‘It was my fault,’ said Home. ‘I had no right to pitch into you. Only
+you’re such a cool beggar! But, by Jove! I didn’t think Forest would
+have been so unfair. If you forgive me, I’ll forgive you.’
+
+‘If I hadn’t stood up to you, I couldn’t,’ I returned. ‘I knew I hadn’t
+a chance. Besides, I hadn’t any breakfast.’
+
+‘I was a brute,’ said Home.
+
+‘Oh, I don’t mind for myself; but there’s Osborne! I wonder you could
+hit _him_.’
+
+‘He shouldn’t have jawed me,’ said Home.
+
+‘But you did first.’
+
+We had reached the door of the room which had been Home’s and was now
+to be mine, and went in together.
+
+‘Didn’t you now?’ I insisted.
+
+‘Well, I did; I confess I did. And it was very plucky of him.’
+
+‘Tell him that, Home,’ I said. ‘For God’s sake tell him that. It will
+comfort him. You must be kind to him, Home. We’re not so bad as Forest
+takes us for.’
+
+‘I will,’ said Home.
+
+And he kept his word.
+
+We were never allowed to share the same room again, and school was not
+what it had been to either of us.
+
+Within a few weeks Charley’s father, to our common dismay, suddenly
+appeared, and the next morning took him away. What he said to Charley I
+do not know. He did not take the least notice of me, and I believe
+would have prevented Charley from saying good-bye to me. But just as
+they were going Charley left his father’s side, and came up to me with
+a flush on his face and a flash in his eye that made him look more
+manly and handsome than I had ever seen him, and shook hands with me,
+saying--
+
+‘It’s all right--isn’t it, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘It _is_ all right, Charley, come what will,’ I answered.
+
+‘Good-bye then, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘Good-bye, Charley.’
+
+And so we parted.
+
+I do not care to say one word more about the school. I continued there
+for another year and a half. Partly in misery, partly in growing
+eagerness after knowledge, I gave myself to my studies with more
+diligence. Mr Forest began to be pleased with me, and I have no doubt
+plumed himself on the vigorous measures by which he had nipped the bud
+of my infidelity. For my part I drew no nearer to him, for I could not
+respect or trust him after his injustice. I did my work for its own
+sake, uninfluenced by any desire to please him. There was, in fact, no
+true relation between us any more.
+
+I communicated nothing of what had happened to my uncle, because Mr
+Forest’s custom was to read every letter before it left the house. But
+I longed for the day when I could tell the whole story to the great,
+simple-hearted man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+ONLY A LINK.
+
+Before my return to England, I found that familiarity with the sights
+and sounds of a more magnificent nature had removed my past life to a
+great distance. What had interested my childhood had strangely
+dwindled, yet gathered a new interest from its far-off and forsaken
+look. So much did my past wear to me now the look of something read in
+a story, that I am haunted with a doubt whether I may not have
+communicated too much of this appearance to my description of it,
+although I have kept as true as my recollections would enable me. The
+outlines must be correct: if the colouring be unreal, it is because of
+the haze which hangs about the memories of the time.
+
+The revisiting of old scenes is like walking into a mausoleum.
+Everything is a monument of something dead and gone. For we die daily.
+Happy those who daily come to life as well!
+
+I returned with a clear conscience, for not only had I as yet escaped
+corruption, but for the greater part of the time at least I had worked
+well. If Mr Forest’s letter which I carried to my uncle contained any
+hint intended to my disadvantage, it certainly fell dead on his mind;
+for he treated me with a consideration and respect which at once
+charmed and humbled me.
+
+One day as we were walking together over the fields, I told him the
+whole story of the loss of the weapon at Moldwarp Hall. Up to the time
+of my leaving for Switzerland I had shrunk from any reference to the
+subject, so painful was it to me, and so convinced was I that his
+sympathy would be confined to a compassionate smile and a few words of
+condolence.
+
+But glancing at his face now and then as I told the tale, I discovered
+more of interest in the play of his features than I had expected; and
+when he learned that it was absolutely gone from me, his face flushed
+with what seemed anger. For some moments after I had finished he was
+silent. At length he said,
+
+‘It is a strange story, Wilfrid, my boy. There must be some explanation
+of it, however.’
+
+He then questioned me about Mr Close, for suspicion pointed in his
+direction. I was in great hopes he would follow my narrative with what
+he knew of the sword, but he was still silent, and I could not question
+him, for I had long suspected that its history had to do with the
+secret which he wanted me to keep from myself.
+
+The very day of my arrival I went up to my grandmother’s room, which I
+found just as she had left it. There stood her easy-chair, there her
+bed, there the old bureau. The room looked far less mysterious now that
+she was not there; but it looked painfully deserted. One thing alone
+was still as it were enveloped in its ancient atmosphere--the bureau. I
+tried to open it--with some trembling, I confess; but only the drawers
+below were unlocked, and in them I found nothing but garments of
+old-fashioned stuffs, which I dared not touch.
+
+But the day of childish romance was over, and life itself was too
+strong and fresh to allow me to brood on the past for more than an
+occasional half-hour. My thoughts were full of Oxford, whither my uncle
+had resolved I should go; and I worked hard in preparation.
+
+‘I have not much money to spare, my boy,’ he said; ‘but I have insured
+my life for a sum sufficient to provide for your aunt, if she should
+survive me; and after her death it will come to you. Of course the old
+house and the park, which have been in the family for more years than I
+can tell, will be yours at my death. A good part of the farm was once
+ours too, but not for these many years. I could not recommend you to
+keep on the farm; but I confess I should be sorry if you were to part
+with our own little place, although I do not doubt you might get a good
+sum for it from Sir Giles, to whose park it would be a desirable
+addition. I believe at one time, the refusal to part with our poor
+little vineyard of Naboth was cause of great offence, even of open feud
+between the great family at the Hall and the yeomen who were your
+ancestors; but poor men may be as unwilling as rich to break one strand
+of the cord that binds them to the past. But of course when you come
+into the property, you will do as you see fit with your own.’
+
+‘You don’t think, uncle, I would sell this house, or the field it
+stands in, for all the Moldwarp estate? I too have my share of pride in
+the family, although as yet I know nothing of its history.’
+
+‘Surely, Wilfrid, the feeling for one’s own people who have gone before
+is not necessarily pride!’
+
+‘It doesn’t much matter what you call it, uncle.’
+
+‘Yes, it does, my boy. Either you call it by the right name or by the
+wrong name. If your feeling _is_ pride, then I am not objecting to the
+name, but the thing. If your feeling is not pride, why call a good
+thing by a bad name? But to return to our subject: my hope is that, if
+I give you a good education, you will make your own way. You might, you
+know, let the park, as we call it, for a term of years.’
+
+‘I shouldn’t mind letting the park,’ I answered, ‘for a little while;
+but nothing should ever make me let the dear old house. What should I
+do if I wanted it to die in?’
+
+The old man smiled, evidently not ill-pleased.
+
+‘What do you say to the bar?’ he asked.
+
+‘I would rather not,’ I answered.
+
+‘Would you prefer the Church?’ he asked, eyeing me a little doubtfully.
+
+‘No, certainly, uncle,’ I answered. ‘I should want to be surer of a
+good many things before I dared teach them to other people.’
+
+‘I am glad of that, my boy. The fear did cross my mind for a moment
+that you might be inclined to take to the Church as a profession, which
+seems to me the worst kind of infidelity. A thousand times rather would
+I have you doubtful about what is to me the highest truth, than
+regarding it with the indifference of those who see in it only the
+prospect of a social position and livelihood. Have you any plan of your
+own?’
+
+‘I have heard,’ I answered, circuitously, ‘that many barristers have to
+support themselves by literary work, for years before their own
+profession begin to show them favour. I should prefer going in for the
+writing at once.’
+
+‘It must be a hard struggle either way,’ he replied; ‘but I should not
+leave you without something to fall back upon. Tell me what makes you
+think you could be an author?’
+
+‘I am afraid it is presumptuous,’ I answered, ‘but as often as I think
+of what I am to do, that is the first thing that occurs to me. I
+suppose,’ I added, laughing, ‘that the favour with which my
+school-fellows at Mr Elder’s used to receive my stories is to blame for
+it. I used to tell them by the hour together.’
+
+‘Well,’ said my uncle, ‘that proves, at least, that, if you had
+anything to say, you might be able to say it; but I am afraid it proves
+nothing more.’
+
+‘Nothing more, I admit. I only mentioned it to account for the notion.’
+
+‘I quite understand you, my boy. Meantime, the best thing in any case
+will be Oxford. I will do what I can to make it an easier life for you
+than I found it.’
+
+Having heard nothing of Charley Osborne since he left Mr Forest’s, I
+went one day, very soon after my return, to call on Mr Elder, partly in
+the hope of learning something about him. I found Mrs Elder unchanged,
+but could not help fancying a difference in Mr Elder’s behaviour,
+which, after finding I could draw nothing from him concerning Charley,
+I attributed to Mr Osborne’s evil report, and returned foiled and
+vexed. I told my uncle, with some circumstance, the whole story:
+explaining how, although unable to combat the doubts which occasioned
+Charley’s unhappiness, I had yet always hung to the side of believing.
+
+‘You did right to do no more, my boy,’ said my uncle; ‘and it is clear
+you have been misunderstood--and ill-used besides. But every wrong will
+be set right some day.’
+
+My aunt showed me now far more consideration--I do not say--than she
+had _felt_ before. A curious kind of respect mingled with her kindness,
+which seemed a slighter form of the observance with which she
+constantly regarded my uncle.
+
+My study was pretty hard and continuous. I had no tutor to direct me or
+take any of the responsibility off me.
+
+I walked to the Hall one morning to see Mrs Wilson. She was kind, but
+more stiff even than before. From her I learned two things of interest.
+The first, which beyond measure delighted me, was, that Charley was at
+Oxford--had been there for a year. The second was that Clara was at
+school in London. Mrs Wilson shut her mouth very primly after answering
+my question concerning her; and I went no further in that direction. I
+took no trouble to ask her concerning the relationship of which Mr
+Coningham had spoken. I knew already from my uncle that it was a fact,
+but Mrs Wilson did not behave in such a manner as to render me inclined
+to broach the subject. If she wished it to remain a secret from me, she
+should be allowed to imagine it such.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+CHARLEY AT OXFORD.
+
+I have no time in this selection and combination of the parts of my
+story which are more especially my history, to dwell upon that portion
+of it which refers to my own life at Oxford. I was so much of a student
+of books while there, and had so little to do with any of the men
+except Charley, that, save as it bore upon my intellect, Oxford had
+little special share in what life has made of me, and may in the press
+of other matter be left out. Had I time, however, to set forth what I
+know of my own development more particularly, I could not pass over the
+influence of external Oxford, the architecture and general surroundings
+of which I recognized as affecting me more than anything I had yet met,
+with the exception of the Swiss mountains, pine-woods, and rivers. It
+is, however, imperative to set forth the peculiar character of my
+relation to and intercourse with Charley, in order that what follows
+may be properly understood.
+
+For no other reason than that my uncle had been there before me, I went
+to Corpus Christi, while Charley was at Exeter. It was some days before
+we met, for I had twice failed in my attempts to find him. At length,
+one afternoon, as I entered the quadrangle to make a third essay, there
+he was coming towards the gate with a companion.
+
+When he caught sight of me, he advanced with a quick yet hesitating
+step--a step with a question in it: he was not quite sure of me. He was
+now approaching six feet in height, and of a graceful though not
+exactly dignified carriage. His complexion remained as pale and his
+eyes as blue as before. The pallor flushed and the blue sparkled as he
+made a few final and long strides towards me. The grasp of the hand he
+gave me was powerful, but broken into sudden almost quivering
+relaxations and compressions. I could not help fancying also that he
+was using some little effort to keep his eyes steady upon mine.
+Altogether, I was not quite satisfied with our first meeting, and had a
+strong impression that, if our friendship was to be resumed, it was
+about to begin a new course, not building itself exactly on the old
+foundations, but starting afresh. He looked almost on the way to become
+a man of the world. Perhaps, however, the companionship he was in had
+something to do with this, for he was so nervously responsive, that he
+would unconsciously take on, for the moment, any appearance
+characterizing those about him.
+
+His companion was a little taller and stouter-built than he; with a
+bearing and gait of conscious importance, not so marked as to be at
+once offensive. The upper part of his face was fine, the nose
+remarkably so, while the lower part was decidedly coarse, the chin too
+large, and the mouth having little form, except in the first movement
+of utterance, when an unpleasant curl took possession of the upper lip,
+which I afterwards interpreted as a doubt disguising itself in a sneer.
+There was also in his manner a degree of self-assertion which favoured
+the same conclusion. His hands were very large, a pair of merely
+blanched plebeian fists, with thumbs much turned back--and altogether
+ungainly. He wore very tight gloves, and never shook hands when he
+could help it. His feet were scarcely so bad in form: still by no
+pretence could they be held to indicate breeding. His manner, where he
+wished to conciliate, was pleasing; but to me it was overbearing and
+unpleasant. He Was the only son of Sir Giles Brotherton of Moldwarp
+Hall. Charley and he did not belong to the same college, but, unlike as
+they were, they had somehow taken to each other. I presume it was the
+decision of his manner that attracted the wavering nature of Charley,
+who, with generally active impulses, was yet always in doubt when a
+moment requiring action arrived.
+
+Charley, having spoken to me, turned and introduced me to his friend.
+Geoffrey Brotherton merely nodded.
+
+‘We were at school together in Switzerland,’ said Charley.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Geoffrey, in a half-interrogatory, half-assenting tone.
+
+‘Till I found your card in my box, I never heard of your coming,’ said
+Charley.
+
+‘It was not my fault,’ I answered. ‘I did what I could to find out
+something about you, but all in vain.’
+
+‘Paternal precaution, I believe,’ he said, with something that
+approached a grimace.
+
+Now, although I had little special reason to love Mr Osborne, and knew
+him to be a tyrant, I knew also that my old Charley could not have thus
+coolly uttered a disrespectful word of him, and I had therefore a
+painful though at the same time an undefined conviction that some
+degree of moral degeneracy must have taken place before he could
+express himself as now. To many, such a remark will appear absurd, but
+I am confident that disrespect for the preceding generation, and
+especially for those in it nearest to ourselves, is a sure sign of
+relaxing dignity, and, in any extended manifestation, an equally sure
+symptom of national and political decadence. My reader knows, however,
+that there was much to be said in excuse of Charley.
+
+His friend sauntered away, and we went on talking. My heart longed to
+rest with his for a moment on the past.
+
+‘I had a dreary time of it after you left, Charley,’ I said.
+
+‘Not so dreary as I had, Wilfrid, I am certain. You had at least the
+mountains to comfort you. Anywhere is better than at home, with a meal
+of Bible oil and vinegar twice a day for certain, and a wine-glassful
+of it now and then in between. Damnation’s better than a spoony heaven.
+To be away from home is heaven enough for me.’
+
+‘But your mother, Charley!’ I ventured to say.
+
+‘My mother is an angel. I could almost be good for her sake. But I
+never could, I never can get near her. My father reads every letter she
+writes before it comes to me--I know that by the style of it; and I’m
+equally certain he reads every letter of mine before it reaches her.’
+
+‘Is your sister at home?’
+
+‘No. She’s at school at Clapham--being sand-papered into a saint, I
+suppose.’
+
+His mouth twitched and quivered. He was not pleased with himself for
+talking as he did.
+
+‘Your father means it for the best,’ I said.
+
+‘I know that. He means _his_ best. If I thought it _was_ the best, I
+should cut my throat and have done with it.’
+
+‘But, Charley, couldn’t we do something to find out, after all?’
+
+‘Find out what, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘The best thing, you know; what we are here for.’
+
+‘I’m sick of it all, Wilfrid. I’ve tried till I am sick of it. If you
+should find out anything, you can let me know. I am busy trying not to
+think. I find that quite enough. If I were to think, I should go mad.’
+
+‘Oh, Charley! I can’t bear to hear you talk like that,’ I exclaimed;
+but there was a glitter in his eye which I did not like, and which made
+me anxious to change the subject.--‘Don’t you like being here?’ I
+asked, in sore want of something to say.
+
+‘Yes, well enough,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t see what’s to come of it,
+for I can’t work. Even if my father were a millionnaire, I couldn’t go
+on living on him. The sooner that is over, the better!’
+
+He was looking down, and gnawing at that tremulous upper lip. I felt
+miserable.
+
+‘I wish we were at the same college, Charley!’ I said.
+
+‘It’s better as it is,’ he rejoined. ‘I should do you no good. You go
+in for reading, I suppose?’
+
+‘Well, I do. I mean my uncle to have the worth of his money.’
+
+Charley looked no less miserable than I felt. I saw that his conscience
+was speaking, and I knew he was the last in the world to succeed in
+excusing himself. But I understood him better than he understood
+himself, and believed that his idleness arose from the old unrest, the
+weariness of that never satisfied questioning which the least attempt
+at thought was sure to awaken. Once invaded by a question, Charley
+_must_ answer it, or fail and fall into a stupor. Not an ode of Horace
+could he read without finding himself plunged into metaphysics.
+Enamoured of repose above all things, he was from every side stung to
+inquiry which seldom indeed afforded what seemed solution. Hence, in
+part at least, it came that he had begun to study not merely how to
+avoid awakening the Sphinx, but by what opiates to keep her stretched
+supine with her lovely woman face betwixt her fierce lion-paws. This
+also, no doubt, had a share in his becoming the associate of Geoffrey
+Brotherton, from whose company, if he had been at peace with himself,
+he would have recoiled upon the slightest acquaintance. I am at some
+loss to imagine what could have made Geoffrey take such a liking to
+Charley; but I presume it was the confiding air characterizing all
+Charley’s behaviour that chiefly pleased him. He seemed to look upon
+him with something of the tenderness a coarse man may show for a
+delicate Italian greyhound, fitted to be petted by a lady.
+
+That same evening Charley came to my rooms. His manner was constrained,
+and yet suggested a whole tide of pent-up friendship which, but for
+some undeclared barrier, would have broken out and overflowed our
+intercourse. After this one evening, however, it was some time before I
+saw him again. When I called upon him next he was not at home, nor did
+he come to see me. Again I sought him, but with like failure. After a
+third attempt I desisted, not a little hurt, I confess, but not in the
+least inclined to quarrel with him. I gave myself the more diligently
+to my work.
+
+And now Oxford began to do me harm. I saw so much idleness, and so much
+wrong of all kinds about me, that I began to consider myself a fine
+exception. Because I did my poor duty--no better than any honest lad
+must do it--I became conceited; and the manner in which Charley’s new
+friend treated me not only increased the fault, but aided in the
+development of certain other stems from the same root of
+self-partiality. He never saluted me with other than what I regarded as
+a supercilious nod of the head. When I met him in company with Charley,
+and the latter stopped to speak to me, he would walk on without the
+least change of step. The indignation which this conduct aroused drove
+me to think as I had never thought before concerning my social
+position. I found it impossible to define. As I pondered, however, a
+certainty dawned upon me, rather than was arrived at by me, that there
+was some secret connected with my descent, upon which bore the history
+of the watch I carried, and of the sword I had lost. On the mere
+possibility of something, utterly forgetful that, if the secret existed
+at all, it might be of a very different nature from my hopes, I began
+to build castles innumerable. Perceiving, of course, that one of a
+decayed yeoman family could stand no social comparison with the heir to
+a rich baronetcy, I fell back upon absurd imaginings; and what with the
+self-satisfaction of doing my duty, what with the vanity of my baby
+manhood, and what with the mystery I chose to believe in and interpret
+according to my desires, I was fast sliding into a moral condition
+contemptible indeed.
+
+But still my heart was true to Charley. When, after late hours of hard
+reading, I retired at last to my bed, and allowed my thoughts to wander
+where they would, seldom was there a night on which they did not turn
+as of themselves towards the memory of our past happiness. I vowed,
+although Charley had forsaken me, to keep his chamber in my heart ever
+empty, and closed against the entrance of another. If ever he pleased
+to return, he should find he had been waited for. I believe there was
+much of self-pity, and of self-approval as well, mingling with my
+regard for him; but the constancy was there notwithstanding, and I
+regarded the love I thus cherished for Charley as the chief saving
+element in my condition at the time.
+
+One night--I cannot now recall with certainty the time or season--I
+only know it was night, and I was reading alone in my room--a knock
+came to the door, and Charley entered. I sprang from my seat and
+bounded to meet him.
+
+‘At last, Charley!’ I exclaimed.
+
+But he almost pushed me aside, left me to shut the door he had opened,
+sat down in a chair by the fire, and began gnawing the head of his
+cane. I resumed my seat, moved the lamp so that I could see him, and
+waited for him to speak. Then first I saw that his face was unnaturally
+pale and worn, almost even haggard. His eyes were weary, and his whole
+manner as of one haunted by an evil presence of which he is ever aware.
+
+‘You are an enviable fellow, Wilfrid,’ he said at length, with
+something between a groan and a laugh.
+
+‘Why do you say that, Charley?’ I returned. ‘Why am I enviable?’
+
+‘Because you can work. I hate the very sight of a book. I am afraid I
+shall be plucked. I see nothing else for it. And what will the old man
+say? I have grace enough left to be sorry for him. But he will take it
+out in sour looks and silences.’
+
+‘There’s time enough yet. I wish you were not so far ahead of me: we
+might have worked together.’
+
+‘I can’t work, I tell you. I hate it. It will console my father, I
+hope, to find his prophecies concerning me come true. I’ve heard him
+abuse me to my mother.’
+
+‘I wish you wouldn’t talk so of your father, Charley. It’s not like
+you. I can’t bear to hear it.’
+
+‘It’s not like what I used to be, Wilfrid. But there’s none of that
+left. What do you take me for--honestly now?’
+
+He hung his head low, his eyes fixed on the hearth-rug, not on the
+fire, and kept gnawing at the head of his cane.
+
+‘I don’t like some of your companions,’ I said. ‘To be sure I don’t
+know much of them.’
+
+‘The less you know, the better! If there be a devil, that fellow.
+Brotherton will hand me over to him--bodily, before long.’
+
+‘Why don’t you give him up?’ said I.
+
+‘It’s no use trying. He’s got such a hold of me. Never let a man you
+don’t know to the marrow pay even a toll-gate for you, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘I am in no danger, Charley. Such people don’t take to me,’ I said,
+self-righteously. ‘But it can’t be too late to break with him. I know
+my uncle would--I could manage a five-pound note now, I think.’
+
+‘My dear boy, if I had borrowed--. But I have let him pay for me again
+and again, and I don’t know how to rid the obligation. But it don’t
+signify. It’s too late anyhow.’
+
+‘What have you done, Charley? Nothing very wrong, I trust.’
+
+The lost look deepened.
+
+‘It’s all over, Wilfrid,’ he said. ‘But it don’t matter. I can take to
+the river when I please.’
+
+‘But then you know you might happen to go right through the river,
+Charley.’
+
+‘I know what you mean,’ he said, with a defiant sound like nothing I
+had ever heard.
+
+‘Charley!’ I cried, ‘I can’t bear to hear you. You can’t have changed
+so much already as not to trust me. I will do all I can to help you.
+What have you done?’
+
+‘Oh, nothing!’ he rejoined, and tried to laugh: it was a dreadful
+failure. ‘But I can’t bear to think of that mother of mine! I wish I
+could tell you all; but I can’t. How Brotherton would laugh at me now!
+I can’t be made quite like other people, Wilfrid! _You_ would never
+have been such a fool.’
+
+‘You are more delicately made than most people, Charley--“touched to
+finer issues,” as Shakspere says.’
+
+‘Who told you that?’
+
+‘I think a great deal about you. That is all you have left me.’
+
+‘I’ve been a brute, Wilfrid. But you’ll forgive me, I know.’
+
+‘With all my heart, if you’ll only put it in my power to serve you.
+Come, trust me, Charley, and tell me all about it. I shall not betray
+you.’
+
+‘I’m not afraid of that,’ he answered, and sunk into silence once more.
+
+I look to myself presumptuous and priggish in the memory. But I did
+mean truly by him. I began to question him, and by slow degrees, in
+broken hints, and in jets of reply, drew from him the facts. When at
+length he saw that I understood, he burst into tears, hid his face in
+his hands, and rocked himself to and fro.
+
+‘Charley! Charley! don’t give in like that,’ I cried. ‘Be as sorry as
+you like; but don’t go on as if there was no help. Who has not failed
+and been forgiven--in one way if not in another?’
+
+‘Who is there to forgive me? My father would not. And if he would, what
+difference would it make? I have done it all the same.’
+
+‘But God, Charley--’ I suggested, hesitating.
+
+‘What of him? If he should choose to pass a thing by and say nothing
+about it, that doesn’t undo it. It’s all nonsense. God himself can’t
+make it that I didn’t do what I did do.’
+
+But with what truthful yet reticent words can I convey the facts of
+Charley’s case? I am perfectly aware it would be to expose both myself
+and him to the laughter of men of low development who behave as if no
+more _self-possession_ were demanded of a man than of one of the lower
+animals. Such might perhaps feel a certain involuntary movement of
+pitifulness at the fate of a woman first awaking to the consciousness
+that she can no more hold up her head amongst her kind: but that a
+youth should experience a similar sense of degradation and loss, they
+would regard as a degree of silliness and effeminacy below contempt, if
+not beyond belief. But there is a sense of personal purity belonging to
+the man as well as to the woman; and although I dare not say that in
+the most refined of masculine natures it asserts itself with the awful
+majesty with which it makes its presence known in the heart of a woman,
+the man in whom it speaks with most authority is to be found amongst
+the worthiest; and to a youth like Charley the result of actual offence
+against it might be utter ruin. In his case, however, it was not merely
+a consciousness of personal defilement which followed; for, whether his
+companions had so schemed it or not, he supposed himself more than
+ordinarily guilty.
+
+‘I suppose I must marry the girl,’ said poor Charley with a groan.
+
+Happily I saw at once that there might be two sides to the question,
+and that it was desirable to know more ere I ventured a definite reply.
+
+I had grown up, thanks to many things, with a most real although vague
+adoration of women; but I was not so ignorant as to be unable to fancy
+it possible that Charley had been the victim. Therefore, after having
+managed to comfort him a little, and taken him home to his rooms, I set
+about endeavouring to get further information.
+
+I will not linger over the affair--as unpleasant to myself as it can be
+to any of my readers. It had to be mentioned, however, not merely as
+explaining how I got hold of Charley again, but as affording a clue to
+his character, and so to his history. Not even yet can I think without
+a gush of anger and shame of my visit to Brotherton. With what
+stammering confusion I succeeded at last in making him understand the
+nature of the information I wanted, I will not attempt to describe; nor
+the roar of laughter which at length burst bellowing--not from himself
+only, but from three or four companions as well to whom he turned and
+communicated the joke. The fire of jests, and proposals, and
+interpretations of motive which I had then to endure, seems yet to
+scorch my very brain at the mere recollection. From their manner and
+speech, I was almost convinced that they had laid a trap for Charley,
+whom they regarded as a simpleton, to enjoy his consequent confusion.
+With what I managed to find out elsewhere, I was at length satisfied,
+and happily succeeded in convincing Charley, that he had been the butt
+of his companions, and that he was far the more injured person in any
+possible aspect of the affair.
+
+I shall never forget the look or the sigh of relief which proved that
+at last his mind had opened to the facts of the case.
+
+‘Wilfrid,’ he said, ‘you have saved me. We shall never be parted more.
+See if I am ever false to you again!’
+
+And yet it never was as it had been. I am sure of that now. Henceforth,
+however, he entirely avoided his former companions. Our old friendship
+was renewed. Our old talks arose again, And now that he was not alone
+in them, the perplexities under which he had broken down when left to
+encounter them by himself were not so overwhelming as to render him
+helpless. We read a good deal together, and Charley helped me much in
+the finer affairs of the classics, for his perceptions were as delicate
+as his feelings. He would brood over an Horatian phrase as Keats would
+brood over a sweet pea or a violet; the very tone in which he would
+repeat it would waft me from it an aroma unperceived before. When it
+was his turn to come to my rooms, I would watch for his arrival almost
+as a lover for his mistress.
+
+For two years more our friendship grew; in which time Charley had
+recovered habits of diligence. I presume he said nothing at home of the
+renewal of his intimacy with me: I shrunk from questioning him. As if
+he had been an angel who who had hurt his wing and was compelled to
+sojourn with me for a time, I feared to bring the least shadow over his
+face, and indeed fell into a restless observance of his moods. I
+remember we read _Comus_ together. How his face would glow at the
+impassioned praises of virtue! and how the glow would die into a grey
+sadness at the recollection of the near past! I could read his face
+like a book.
+
+At length the time arrived when we had to part, he to study for the
+Bar, I to remain at Oxford another year, still looking forward to a
+literary life.
+
+When I commenced writing my story, I fancied myself so far removed from
+it that I could regard it as the story of another, capable of being
+viewed on all sides, and conjectured and speculated upon. And so I
+found it as long as the regions of childhood and youth detained me. But
+as I approach the middle scenes, I begin to fear the revival of the old
+torture; that, from the dispassionate reviewer, I may become once again
+the suffering actor. Long ago I read a strange story of a man condemned
+at periods unforeseen to act again, and yet again, in absolute
+verisimilitude each of the scenes of his former life: I have a feeling
+as if I too might glide from the present into the past without a sign
+to warn me of the coming transition.
+
+One word more ere I pass to the middle events, those for the sake of
+which the beginning is and the end shall be recorded. It is this--that
+I am under endless obligations to Charley for opening my eyes at this
+time to my overweening estimate of myself. Not that he spoke--Charley
+could never have reproved even a child. But I could tell almost any
+sudden feeling that passed through him. His face betrayed it. What he
+felt about me I saw at once. From the signs of his mind, I often
+recognized the character of what was in my own; and thus seeing myself
+through him, I gathered reason to be ashamed; while the refinement of
+his criticism, the quickness of his perception, and the novelty and
+force of his remarks, convinced me that I could not for a moment
+compare with him in mental gifts. The upper hand of influence I had
+over him I attribute to the greater freedom of my training, and the
+enlarged ideas which had led my uncle to avoid enthralling me to his
+notions. He believed the truth could afford to wait until I was capable
+of seeing it for myself; and that the best embodiments of truth are but
+bonds and fetters to him who cannot accept them as such. When I could
+not agree with him, he would say with one of his fine smiles, ‘We’ll
+drop it, then, Willie. I don’t believe you have caught my meaning. If I
+am right, you will see it some day, and there’s no hurry.’ How could it
+be but Charlie and I should be different, seeing we had fared so
+differently! But, alas! my knowledge of his character is chiefly the
+result of after-thought.
+
+I do not mean this manuscript to be read until after my death; and even
+then--although partly from habit, partly that I dare not trust myself
+to any other form of utterance, I write as if for publication--even
+then, I say, only by one. I am about to write what I should not die in
+peace if I thought she would never know; but which I dare not seek to
+tell her now for the risk of being misunderstood. I thank God for that
+blessed invention, Death, which of itself must set many things right,
+and gives a man a chance of justifying himself where he would not have
+been heard while alive. Lest my manuscript should fall into other
+hands, I have taken care that not a single name in it should contain
+even a side-look or hint at the true one; but she will be able to
+understand the real person in every case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+MY WHITE MARE.
+
+I passed my final examinations with credit, if not with honour. It was
+not yet clearly determined what I should do next. My goal was London,
+but I was unwilling to go thither empty-handed. I had been thinking as
+well as reading a good deal; a late experience had stimulated my
+imagination; and at spare moments I had been writing a tale. It had
+grown to be a considerable mass of manuscript, and I was anxious,
+before going, to finish it. Hence, therefore, I returned home with the
+intention of remaining there quietly for a few months before
+setting-out to seek my fortune.
+
+Whether my uncle in his heart quite favoured the plan, I have my
+doubts, but it would have been quite inconsistent with his usual grand
+treatment of me to oppose anything not wrong on which I had set my
+heart. Finding now that I took less exercise than he thought desirable,
+and kept myself too much to my room, he gave me a fresh proof of his
+unvarying kindness, He bought me a small grey mare of strength and
+speed. Her lineage was unknown; but her small head, broad fine chest,
+and clean limbs indicated Arab blood at no great remove. Upon her I
+used to gallop over the fields, or saunter along the lanes, dreaming
+and inventing.
+
+And now certain feelings, too deeply rooted in my nature for my memory
+to recognize their beginnings, began to assume colour and condensed
+form, as if about to burst into some kind of blossom. Thanks to my
+education and love of study, also to a self-respect undefined yet
+restraining, nothing had occurred to wrong them. In my heart of hearts
+I worshipped the idea of womanhood. I thank Heaven, if ever I do thank
+for anything, that I still worship thus. Alas! how many have put on the
+acolyte’s robe in the same temple, who have ere long cast dirt upon the
+statue of their divinity, _then_ dragged her as defiled from her lofty
+pedestal, and left her lying dishonoured at its foot! Instead of
+feeding with holy oil the lamp of the higher instinct, which would
+glorify and purify the lower, they feed the fire of the lower with vile
+fuel, which sends up its stinging smoke to becloud and blot the higher.
+
+One lovely Spring morning, the buds half out, and the wind blowing
+fresh and strong, the white clouds scudding across a blue gulf of sky,
+and the tall trees far away swinging as of old, when they churned the
+wind for my childish fancy, I looked up from my book and saw it all.
+The gladness of nature entered into me, and my heart swelled so in my
+bosom that I turned with distaste from all further labour. I pushed my
+papers from me, and went to the window. The short grass all about was
+leaning away from the wind, shivering and showing its enamel. Still, as
+in childhood, the wind had a special power over me. In another moment I
+was out of the house and hastening to the farm for my mare. She neighed
+at the sound of my step. I saddled and bridled her, sprung on her back,
+and galloped across the grass in the direction of the trees.
+
+In a few moments I was within the lodge gates, walking my mare along
+the gravelled drive, and with the reins on the white curved neck before
+me, looking up at those lofty pines, whose lonely heads were swinging
+in the air like floating but fettered islands. My head had begun to
+feel dizzy with the ever-iterated, slow, half-circular sweep, when,
+just opposite the lawn stretching from a low wire fence up to the door
+of the steward’s house, my mare shied, darted to the other side of the
+road, and flew across the grass. Caught thus lounging on my saddle, I
+was almost unseated. As soon as I had pulled her up, I turned to see
+what had startled her, for the impression of a white flash remained
+upon my mental sensorium. There, leaning on the little gate, looking
+much diverted, stood the loveliest creature, in a morning dress of
+white, which the wind was blowing about her like a cloud. She had no
+hat on, and her hair, as if eager to join in the merriment of the day,
+was flying like the ribbons of a tattered sail. A humanized Dryad!--one
+that had been caught young, but in whom the forest-sap still asserted
+itself in wild affinities with the wind and the swaying branches, and
+the white clouds careering across! Could it be Clara? How could it be
+any other than Clara? I rode back.
+
+I was a little short-sighted, and had to get pretty near before I could
+be certain; but she knew me, and waited my approach. When I came near
+enough to see them, I could not mistake those violet eyes.
+
+I was now in my twentieth year, and had never been in love. Whether I
+now fell in love or not, I leave to my reader.
+
+Clara was even more beautiful than her girlish loveliness had promised.
+‘An exceeding fair forehead,’ to quote Sir Philip Sidney; eyes of which
+I have said enough; a nose more delicate than symmetrical; a mouth
+rather thin-lipped, but well curved; a chin rather small, I
+confess;--but did any one ever from the most elaborated description
+acquire even an approximate idea of the face intended? Her person was
+lithe and graceful; she had good hands and feet; and the fairness of
+her skin gave her brown hair a duskier look than belonged to itself.
+
+Before I was yet near enough to be certain of her, I lifted my hat, and
+she returned the salutation with an almost familiar nod and smile.
+
+‘I am very sorry,’ she said, speaking first--in her old half-mocking
+way, ‘that I so nearly cost you your seat.’
+
+‘It was my own carelessness,’ I returned. ‘Surely I am right in taking
+you for the lady who allowed me, in old times, to call her Clara? How I
+could ever have had the presumption I cannot imagine.’
+
+‘Of course that is a familiarity not to be thought of between
+full-grown people like us, Mr Cumbermede,’ she rejoined, and her smile
+became a laugh.
+
+‘Ah, you do recognize me, then?’ I said, thinking her cool, but
+forgetting the thought the next moment.
+
+‘I guess at you. If you had been dressed as on one occasion, I should
+not have got so far as that.’
+
+Pleased at this merry reference to our meeting on the Wengern Alp, I
+was yet embarrassed to find that nothing more suggested itself to be
+said. But while I was quieting my mare, which happily afforded me some
+pretext at the moment, another voice fell on my ear--hoarse, but breezy
+and pleasant.
+
+‘So, Clara, you are no sooner back to old quarters than you give a
+rendezvous at the garden-gate--eh, girl?’
+
+‘Rather an ill-chosen spot for the purpose, papa,’ she returned,
+laughing, ‘especially as the gentleman has too much to do with his
+horse to get off and talk to me.’
+
+‘Ah! our old friend Mr Cumbermede, I declare! Only rather more of him!’
+he added, laughing, as he opened the little gate in the wire fence, and
+coming up to me, shook hands heartily. ‘Delighted to see you, Mr
+Cumbermede. Have you left Oxford for good?’
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered--‘some time ago.’
+
+‘And may I ask what you’re turning your attention to now?’
+
+‘Well, I hardly like to confess it, but I mean to have a try
+at--something in the literary way.’
+
+‘Plucky enough! The paths of literature are not certainly the paths of
+pleasantness or of peace even--so far as ever I heard. Somebody said
+you were going in for the law.’
+
+‘I thought there were too many lawyers already. One so often hears of
+barristers with nothing to do, and glad to take to the pen, that I
+thought it might be better to begin with what I should most probably
+come to at last.’
+
+‘Ah! but, Mr Cumbermede, there are other departments of the law which
+bring quicker returns than the bar. If you would put yourself in my
+hands now, you should be earning your bread at least within a couple of
+years or so.’
+
+‘You are very kind,’ I returned, heartily, for he spoke as if he meant
+what he said; ‘but you see I have a leaning to the one and not to the
+other. I should like to have a try first, at all events.’
+
+‘Well, perhaps it’s better to begin by following your bent. You may
+find the road take a turn, though.’
+
+‘Perhaps. I will go on till it does, though.’
+
+While we talked, Clara had followed her father, and was now patting my
+mare’s neck with a nice, plump, fair-fingered hand. The creature stood
+with her arched neck and small head turned lovingly towards her.
+
+‘What a nice white thing you have got to ride!’ she said. ‘I hope it is
+your own.’
+
+‘Why do you hope that?’ I asked.
+
+‘Because it’s best to ride your own horse, isn’t it?’ she answered,
+looking up naïvely.
+
+‘Would _you_ like to ride her? I believe she has carried a lady, though
+not since she came into my possession.’
+
+Instead of answering me, she looked round at her father, who stood by
+smiling benignantly. Her look said--
+
+‘If papa would let me.’
+
+He did not reply, but seemed waiting. I resumed.
+
+‘Are you a good horsewoman, Miss--Clara?’ I said, with a feel after the
+recovery of old privileges.
+
+‘I must not sing my own praises, Mr--Wilfrid,’ she rejoined, ‘but I
+_have_ ridden in Rotten Row, and I believe without any signal
+disgrace.’
+
+‘Have you got a side-saddle?’ I asked, dismounting.
+
+Mr Coningham spoke now.
+
+‘Don’t you think Mr Cumbermede’s horse a little too frisky for you,
+Clara? I know so little about you, I can’t tell what you’re fit
+for.--She used to ride pretty well as a girl,’ he added, turning to me.
+
+‘I’ve not forgotten that,’ I said. ‘I shall walk by her side, you
+know.’
+
+‘Shall you?’ she said, with a sly look.
+
+‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘your grandfather would let me have his horse,
+and then we might have a gallop across the park.’
+
+‘The best way,’ said Mr Coningham, ‘will be to let the gardener take
+your horse, while you come in and have some luncheon. We’ll see about
+the mount after that. My horse has to carry me back in the evening,
+else I should be happy to join you. She’s a fine creature, that of
+yours.’
+
+‘She’s the handiest creature!’ I said--‘a little skittish, but very
+affectionate, and has a fine mouth. Perhaps she ought to have a
+curb-bit for you, though, Miss Clara.’
+
+‘We’ll manage with a snaffle,’ she answered, with, I thought, another
+sly glance at me, out of eyes sparkling with suppressed merriment and
+expectation! Her father had gone to find the gardener, and as we stood
+waiting for him she still stroked the mare’s neck.
+
+‘Are you not afraid of taking cold,’ I said, ‘without your bonnet?’
+
+‘I never had a cold in my life,’ she returned.
+
+‘That is saying much. You would have me believe you are not made of the
+same clay as other people.’
+
+‘Believe anything you like,’ she answered carelessly.
+
+‘Then I do believe it,’ I rejoined.
+
+She looked me in the face, took her hand from the mare’s neck, stepped
+back half-a-foot and looked round, saying--
+
+‘I wonder where that man can have got to. Oh, here he comes, and papa
+with him!’
+
+We went across the trim little lawn, which lay waiting for the warmer
+weather to burst into a profusion of roses, and through a trellised
+porch entered a shadowy little hall, with heads of stags and foxes, an
+old-fashioned glass-doored bookcase, and hunting and riding whips,
+whence we passed into a low-pitched drawing-room, redolent of dried
+rose-leaves and fresh hyacinths. A little pug-dog, which seemed to have
+failed in swallowing some big dog’s tongue, jumped up barking from the
+sheep-skin mat, where he lay before the fire.
+
+‘Stupid pug!’ said Clara. ‘You never know friends from foes! I wonder
+where my aunt is.’
+
+She left the room. Her father had not followed us. I sat down on the
+sofa, and began turning over a pretty book bound in red silk, one of
+the first of the _annual_ tribe, which lay on the table. I was deep in
+one of its eastern stories when, hearing a slight movement, I looked
+up, and there sat Clara in a low chair by the window, working at a
+delicate bit of lace with a needle. She looked somehow as if she had
+been there an hour at least. I laid down the book with some
+exclamation.
+
+‘What is the matter, Mr Cumbermede?’ she asked, with the slightest
+possible glance up from the fine meshes of her work.
+
+‘I had not the slightest idea you were in the room.’
+
+‘Of course not. How could a literary man, with a _Forget-me-not_ in his
+hand, be expected to know that a girl had come into the room?’
+
+‘Have you been at school all this time?’ I asked, for the sake of
+avoiding a silence.
+
+‘All what time?’
+
+‘Say, since we parted in Switzerland.’
+
+‘Not quite. I have been staying with an aunt for nearly a year. Have
+you been at college all this time?’
+
+‘At school and college. When did you come home?’
+
+‘This is not my home, but I came here yesterday.’
+
+‘Don’t you find the country dull after London?’
+
+‘I haven’t had time yet.’
+
+‘Did they give you riding lessons at school?’
+
+‘No. But my aunt took care of my morals in that respect. A girl might
+as well not be able to dance as ride now-a-days.’
+
+‘Who rode with you in the park? Not the riding-master?’
+
+With a slight flush on her face she retorted,
+
+‘How many more questions are you going to ask me? I should like to
+know, that I may make up my mind how many of them to answer.’
+
+‘Suppose we say six.’
+
+‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘Now I shall answer your last question and
+count that the first. About nine o’clock, one--day--’
+
+‘Morning or evening?’ I asked.
+
+‘Morning of course--I walked out of--the house--’
+
+‘Your aunt’s house?’
+
+‘Yes, of course, my aunt’s house. Do let me go on with my story. It was
+getting a little dark--’
+
+‘Getting dark at nine in the morning?’
+
+‘In the evening, I said.’
+
+‘I beg your pardon, I thought you said the morning.’
+
+‘No, no, the evening; and of course I was a little frightened, for I
+was not accustomed--’
+
+‘But you were never out alone at that hour,--in London?’
+
+‘Yes, I was quite alone. I had promised to meet--a friend at the corner
+of----You know that part, do you?’
+
+‘I beg your pardon. What part?’
+
+‘Oh--Mayfair. You know Mayfair, don’t you?’
+
+‘You were going to meet a gentleman at the corner of Mayfair--were
+you?’ I said, getting quite bewildered.
+
+She jumped up, clapping her hands as gracefully as merrily, and
+crying--
+
+‘I wasn’t going to meet any gentleman. There! Your six questions are
+answered. I won’t answer a single other you choose to ask, unless I
+please, which is not in the least likely.’
+
+She made me a low half merry, half mocking courtesy and left the room.
+
+The same moment her father came in, following old Mr Coningham, who
+gave me a kindly welcome, and said his horse was at my service, but he
+hoped I would lunch with him first. I gratefully consented, and soon
+luncheon was announced. Miss Coningham, Clara’s aunt, was in the
+dining-room before us. A dry, antiquated woman, she greeted me with
+unexpected frankness. Lunch was half over before Clara entered--in a
+perfectly fitting habit, her hat on, and her skirt thrown over her arm.
+
+‘Soho, Clara!’ cried her father; ‘you want to take us by
+surprise--coming out all at once a town-bred lady, eh?’
+
+‘Why, where ever did you get that riding-habit, Clara?’ said her aunt.
+
+‘In my box, aunt,’ said Clara.
+
+‘My word, child, but your father has kept you in pocket-money!’
+returned Miss Coningham.
+
+‘I’ve got a town aunt as well as a country one,’ rejoined Clara, with
+an expression I could not quite understand, but out of which her laugh
+took only half the sting.
+
+Miss Coningham reddened a little. I judged afterwards that Clara had
+been diplomatically allowing her just to feel what sharp claws she had
+for use if required.
+
+But the effect of the change from loose white muslin to tight dark
+cloth was marvellous, and I was bewitched by it. So slight, yet so
+round, so trim, yet so pliant--she was grace itself. It seemed as if
+the former object of my admiration had vanished, and I had found
+another with such surpassing charms that the loss could not be
+regretted. I may just mention that the change appeared also to bring
+out a certain look of determination which I now recalled as having
+belonged to her when a child.
+
+‘Clara!’ said her father, in a very marked tone; whereupon it was
+Clara’s turn to blush and be silent.
+
+I started some new subject, in the airiest manner I could command.
+Clara recovered her composure, and I flattered myself she looked a
+little grateful when our eyes met. But I caught her father’s eyes
+twinkling now and then as if from some secret source of merriment, and
+could not help fancying he was more amused than displeased with his
+daughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+A RIDING LESSON.
+
+By the time luncheon was over, the horses had been standing some
+minutes at the lawn-gate, my mare with a side-saddle. We hastened to
+mount, Clara’s eyes full of expectant frolic. I managed, as I thought,
+to get before her father, and had the pleasure of lifting her to the
+saddle. She was up ere I could feel her weight on my arm. When I
+gathered her again with my eyes, she was seated as calmly as if at her
+lace-needlework, only her eyes were sparkling. With the slightest help,
+she had her foot in the stirrup, and with a single movement had her
+skirt comfortable. I left her, to mount the horse they had brought me,
+and when I looked from his back, the white mare was already flashing
+across the boles of the trees, and Clara’s dark skirt flying out behind
+like the drapery of a descending goddess in an allegorical picture.
+With a pang of terror I fancied the mare had run away with her, and sat
+for a moment afraid to follow, lest the sound of my horse’s feet on the
+turf should make her gallop the faster. But the next moment she turned
+in her saddle, and I saw a face alive with pleasure and confidence. As
+she recovered her seat, she waved her hand to me, and I put my horse to
+his speed. I had not gone far, however, before I perceived a fresh
+cause of anxiety. She was making straight for a wire fence. I had heard
+that horses could not see such a fence, and if Clara did not see it, or
+should be careless, the result would be frightful. I shouted after her,
+but she took no heed. Fortunately, however, there was right in front of
+them a gate, which I had not at first observed, into the bars of which
+had been wattled some brushwood. ‘The mare will see that,’ I said to
+myself. But the words were hardly through my mind, before I saw them
+fly over it like a bird.
+
+On the other side, she pulled up, and waited for me.
+
+Now I had never jumped a fence in my life. I did not know that my mare
+could do such a thing, for I had never given her the chance. I was not,
+and never have become, what would be considered an accomplished
+horseman. I scarcely know a word of stable-slang. I have never followed
+the hounds more than twice or three times in the course of my life. Not
+the less am I a true lover of horses--but I have been their companion
+more in work than in play. I have slept for miles on horseback, but
+even now I have not a sure seat over a fence.
+
+I knew nothing of the animal I rode, but I was bound, at least, to make
+the attempt to follow my leader. I was too inexperienced not to put him
+to his speed instead of going gently up to the gate; and I had a bad
+habit of leaning forward in my saddle, besides knowing nothing of how
+to incline myself backwards as the horse alighted. Hence when I found
+myself on the other side, it was not on my horse’s back, but on my own
+face. I rose uninjured, except in my self-esteem. I fear I was for the
+moment as much disconcerted as if I had been guilty of some moral
+fault. Nor did it help me much towards regaining my composure that
+Clara was shaking with suppressed laughter. Utterly stupid from
+mortification, I laid hold of my horse, which stood waiting for me
+beside the mare, and scrambled upon his back. But Clara, who, with all
+her fun, was far from being ill-natured, fancied from my silence that I
+was hurt. Her merriment vanished. With quite an anxious expression on
+her face, she drew to my side, saying--
+
+‘I hope you are not hurt?’
+
+‘Only my pride,’ I answered.
+
+‘Never mind that,’ she returned gaily. ‘That will soon be itself
+again.’
+
+‘I’m not so sure,’ I rejoined. ‘To make such a fool of myself before
+_you_!’
+
+‘Am I such a formidable person?’ she said.
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘But I never jumped a fence in my life before.’
+
+‘If you had been afraid,’ she said, ‘and had pulled up, I might have
+despised you. As it was, I only laughed at you. Where was the harm? You
+shirked nothing. You followed your leader. Come along, I will give you
+a lesson or two before we get back.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ I said, beginning to recover my spirits a little; ‘I shall
+be a most obedient pupil. But how did you get so clever, Clara?’
+
+I ventured the unprotected name, and she took no notice of the liberty.
+
+‘I told you I had had a riding-master. If you are not afraid, and mind
+what you are told, you will always come right somehow.’
+
+‘I suspect that is good advice for more than horsemanship.’
+
+‘I had not the slightest intention of moralizing. I am incapable of
+it,’ she answered, in a tone of serious self-defence.
+
+‘I had as little intention of making the accusation,’ I rejoined. ‘But
+will you really teach me a little?’
+
+‘Most willingly. To begin, you must sit erect. You lean forward.’
+
+‘Thank you. Is this better?’
+
+‘Yes, better. A little more yet. You ought to have your stirrups
+shorter. It is a poor affectation to ride like a trooper. Their own
+officers don’t. You can tell any novice by his long leathers, his heels
+down and his toes in his stirrups. Ride home, if you want to ride
+comfortably.’
+
+The phrase was new to me, but I guessed what she meant; and without
+dismounting, pulled my stirrup-leathers a couple of holes shorter, and
+thrust my feet through to the instep. She watched the whole proceeding.
+
+‘There! you look more like riding now,’ she said. ‘Let us have another
+canter. I will promise not to lead you over any more fences without due
+warning.’
+
+‘And due admonition as well, I trust, Clara.’
+
+She nodded, and away we went. I had never been so proud of my mare. She
+showed to much advantage, with the graceful figure on her back, which
+she carried like a feather.
+
+‘Now there’s a little fence,’ she said, pointing where a rail or two
+protected a clump of plantation. ‘You must mind the young wood though,
+or we shall get into trouble. Mind you throw yourself back a little--as
+you see me do.’
+
+I watched her, and following her directions, did better this time, for
+I got over somehow and recovered my seat.
+
+‘There! You improve,’ said Clara. ‘Now we’re pounded, unless you can
+jump again, and it is not quite so easy from this side.’
+
+When we alighted, I found my saddle in the proper place.
+
+‘Bravo!’ she cried. ‘I entirely forgive your first misadventure. You do
+splendidly.’
+
+‘I would rather you forgot it, Clara,’ I cried, ungallantly.
+
+‘Well, I will be generous,’ she returned. ‘Besides, I owe you something
+for such a charming ride. I _will_ forget it.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ I said, and drawing closer would have laid my left hand on
+her right.
+
+Whether she foresaw my intention, I do not know; but in a moment she
+was yards away, scampering over the grass. My horse could never have
+overtaken hers.
+
+By the time she drew rein and allowed me to get alongside of her once
+more, we were in sight: of Moldwarp Hall. It stood with one corner
+towards us, giving the perspective of two sides at once. She stopped
+her mare, and said,
+
+‘There, Wilfrid! What would you give to call a place like that your
+own? What a thing to have a house like that to live in!’
+
+[Illustration: “NOW THERE’S A LITTLE FENCE,” SHE SAID.]
+
+‘I know something I should like better,’ I said.
+
+I assure my reader I was not so silly as to be on the point of making
+her an offer already. Neither did she so misunderstand me. She was very
+near the mark of my meaning when she rejoined--
+
+‘Do you? I don’t. I suppose you would prefer being called a fine poet,
+or something of the sort.’
+
+I was glad she did not give me time to reply, for I had not intended to
+expose myself to her ridicule. She was off again at a gallop towards
+the Hall, straight for the less accessible of the two gates, and had
+scrambled the mare up to the very bell-pull and rung it before I could
+get near her. When the porter appeared in the wicket--
+
+‘Open the gate, Jansen,’ she said. ‘I want to see Mrs Wilson, and I
+don’t want to get down.’
+
+‘But horses never come in here, Miss,’ said the man.
+
+‘I mean to make an exception in favour of this mare,’ she answered.
+
+The man hesitated a moment, then retreated--but only to obey, as we
+understood at once by the creaking of the dry hinges, which were seldom
+required to move.
+
+‘You won’t mind holding her for me, will you?’ she said, turning to me.
+
+I had been sitting mute with surprise both at the way in which she
+ordered the man, and at his obedience. But now I found my tongue.
+
+‘Don’t you think, Miss Coningham,’ I said--for the man was within
+hearing, ‘we had better leave them both with the porter, and then we
+could go in together? I’m not sure that those flags, not to mention the
+steps, are good footing for that mare.’
+
+‘Oh! you’re afraid of your animal, are you?’ she rejoined. ‘Very well.’
+
+‘Shall I hold your stirrup for you?’
+
+Before I could dismount, she had slipped off, and begun gathering up
+her skirt. The man came and took the horses. We entered by the open
+gate together.
+
+‘How can you be so cruel, Clara?’ I said. ‘You _will_ always
+misinterpret me! I was quite right about the flags. Don’t you see how
+hard they are, and how slippery therefore for iron shoes?’
+
+‘You might have seen by this time that I know quite as much about
+horses as you do,’ she returned, a little cross, I thought.
+
+‘You can ride ever so much better,’ I answered; ‘but it does not follow
+you know more about horses than I do. I once saw a horse have a
+frightful fall on just such a pavement. Besides, does one think _only_
+of the horse when there’s an angel on his back?’
+
+It was a silly speech, and deserved rebuke.
+
+‘I’m not in the least fond of _such_ compliments,’ she answered.
+
+By this time we had reached the door of Mrs Wilson’s apartment. She
+received us rather stiffly, even for her. After some commonplace talk,
+in which, without departing from facts, Clara made it appear that she
+had set out for the express purpose of paying Mrs Wilson a visit, I
+asked if the family was at home, and finding they were not, begged
+leave to walk into the library.
+
+‘We’ll go together,’ she said, apparently not caring about a
+tête-à-tête with Clara. Evidently the old lady liked her as little as
+ever.
+
+We left the house, and entering again by a side door, passed on our way
+through the little gallery, into which I had dropped from the roof.
+
+‘Look, Clara, that is where I came down,’ I said.
+
+She merely nodded. But Mrs Wilson looked very sharply, first at the
+one, then at the other of us. When we reached the library, I found it
+in the same miserable condition as before, and could not help
+exclaiming with some indignation,
+
+‘It _is_ a shame to see such treasures mouldering there! I am confident
+there are many valuable books among them, getting ruined from pure
+neglect. I wish I knew Sir Giles. I would ask him to let me come and
+set them right.’
+
+‘You would be choked with dust and cobwebs in an hour’s time,’ said
+Clara. ‘Besides, I don’t think Mrs Wilson would like the proceeding.’
+
+‘What do you ground that remark upon, Miss Clara?’ said the housekeeper
+in a dry tone.
+
+‘I thought you used them for firewood occasionally,’ answered Clara,
+with an innocent expression both of manner and voice.
+
+The most prudent answer to such an absurd charge would have been a
+laugh; but Mrs Wilson vouchsafed no reply at all, and I pretended to be
+too much occupied with its subject to have heard it.
+
+After lingering a little while, during which I paid attention chiefly
+to Mrs Wilson, drawing her notice to the state of several of the books,
+I proposed we should have a peep at the armoury. We went in, and,
+glancing over the walls I knew so well, I scarcely repressed an
+exclamation: I could not be mistaken in my own sword! There it hung, in
+the centre of the principal space--in the same old sheath, split
+half-way up from the point! To the hilt hung an ivory label with a
+number upon it. I suppose I made some inarticulate sound, for Clara
+fixed her eyes upon me. I busied myself at once with a gorgeously hiked
+scimitar, which hung near, for I did not wish to talk about it then,
+and so escaped further remark. From the armoury we went to the
+picture-gallery, where I found a good many pictures had been added to
+the collection. They were all new and mostly brilliant in colour. I was
+no judge, but I could not help feeling how crude and harsh they looked
+beside the mellowed tints of the paintings, chiefly portraits, among
+which they had been introduced.
+
+‘Horrid!--aren’t they?’ said Clara, as if she divined my thoughts; but
+I made no direct reply, unwilling to offend Mrs Wilson.
+
+When we were once more on horseback, and walking across the grass, my
+companion was the first to speak.
+
+‘Did you ever see such daubs!’ she said, making a wry face as at
+something sour enough to untune her nerves. ‘Those new pictures are
+simply frightful. Any one of them would give me the jaundice in a week,
+if it were hung in our drawing-room.’
+
+‘I can’t say I admire them,’ I returned. ‘And at all events they ought
+not to be on the same walls with those stately old ladies and
+gentlemen.’
+
+‘Parvenus,’ said Clara. ‘Quite in their place. Pure Manchester
+taste--educated on calico-prints.’
+
+‘If that is your opinion of the family, how do you account for their
+keeping everything so much in the old style? They don’t seem to change
+anything.’
+
+‘All for their own honour and glory! The place is a testimony to the
+antiquity of the family of which they are a shoot run to seed--and very
+ugly seed too! It’s enough to break one’s heart to think of such a
+glorious old place in such hands. Did you ever see young Brotherton?’
+
+‘I knew him a little at college. He’s a good-looking fellow!’
+
+‘Would be if it weren’t for the bad blood in him. That comes out
+unmistakeably. He’s vulgar.’
+
+‘Have you seen much of him, then?’
+
+‘Quite enough. I never heard him say anything vulgar, or saw him do
+anything vulgar, but vulgar he is, and vulgar is every one of the
+family. A man who is always aware of how rich he will be, and how
+good-looking he is, and what a fine match he would make, would look
+vulgar lying in his coffin.’
+
+‘You are positively caustic, Miss Coningham.’
+
+‘If you saw their house in Cheshire! But blessings be on the
+place!--it’s the safety-valve for Moldwarp Hall. The natural Manchester
+passion for novelty and luxury finds a vent there, otherwise they could
+not keep their hands off it; and what was best would be sure to go
+first. Corchester House ought to be secured to the family by Act of
+Parliament.’
+
+‘Have you been to Corchester, then?’
+
+‘I was there for a week once.’
+
+‘And how did you like it?’
+
+‘Not at all. I was not comfortable. I was always feeling too well-bred.
+You never saw such colours in your life. Their drawing-rooms are quite
+a happy family of the most quarrelsome tints.’
+
+‘How ever did they come into this property?’
+
+‘They’re of the breed somehow--a long way off though. Shouldn’t I like
+to see a new claimant come up and oust them after all! They haven’t had
+it above five-and-twenty years or so. Wouldn’t you?’
+
+‘The old man was kind to me once.’
+
+‘How was that? I thought it was only through Mrs Wilson you knew
+anything of them.’
+
+I told her the story of the apple.
+
+‘Well, I do rather like old Sir Giles,’ she said, when I had done.
+‘There’s a good deal of the rough country gentleman about him. He’s a
+better man than his son anyhow. Sons will succeed their fathers,
+though, unfortunately.’
+
+‘I don’t care who may succeed him, if only I could get back my sword.
+It’s too bad, with an armoury like that, to take my one little ewe-lamb
+from me.’
+
+Here I had another story to tell. After many interruptions in the way
+of questions from my listener, I ended it with these words--
+
+‘And--will you believe me?--I saw the sword hanging in that armoury
+this afternoon--close by that splendid hilt I pointed out to you.’
+
+‘How could you tell it among so many?’
+
+‘Just as you could tell that white creature from this brown one. I know
+it, hilt and scabbard, as well as a human face.’
+
+‘As well as mine, for instance?’
+
+‘I am surer of it than I was of you this morning. It hasn’t changed
+like you.’
+
+Our talk was interrupted by the appearance of a gentleman on horseback
+approaching us. I thought at first it was Clara’s father, setting out
+for home, and coming to bid us good-bye; but I soon saw I was mistaken.
+Not, however, until he came quite close, did I recognize Geoffrey
+Brotherton. He took off his hat to my companion, and reined in his
+horse.
+
+‘Are you going to give us in charge for trespassing, Mr Brotherton?’
+said Clara.
+
+‘I should be happy to _take_ you in charge on any pretence, Miss
+Coningham. This is indeed an unexpected pleasure.’
+
+Here he looked in my direction.
+
+‘Ah!’ he said, lifting his eyebrows, ‘I thought I knew the old horse!
+What a nice cob _you_‘ve got, Miss Coningham.’
+
+He had not chosen to recognize me, of which I was glad, for I hardly
+knew how to order my behaviour to him. I had forgotten nothing. But,
+ill as I liked him, I was forced to confess that he had greatly
+improved in appearance--and manners too, notwithstanding his behaviour
+was as supercilious as ever to me.
+
+‘Do you call her a cob, then?’ said Clara. ‘I should never have thought
+of calling her a cob.--She belongs to Mr Cumbermede.’
+
+‘Ah!’ he said again, arching his eyebrows as before, and looking
+straight at me as if he had never seen me in his life.
+
+I think I succeeded in looking almost unaware of his presence. At least
+so I tried to look, feeling quite thankful to Clara for defending my
+mare: to hear her called a cob was hateful to me.
+
+After listening to a few more of his remarks upon her, made without the
+slightest reference to her owner, who was not three yards from her
+side, Clara asked him, in the easiest manner--
+
+‘Shall you be at the county ball?’
+
+‘When is that?’
+
+‘Next Thursday.’
+
+‘Are you going?’
+
+‘I hope so.’
+
+‘Then will you dance the first waltz with me?’
+
+‘No, Mr Brotherton.’
+
+‘Then I am sorry to say I shall be in London.’
+
+‘When do you rejoin your regiment?’
+
+‘Oh! I’ve got a month’s leave.’
+
+‘Then why won’t you be at the ball?’
+
+‘Because you won’t promise me the first waltz.’
+
+‘Well--rather than the belles of Minstercombe should--ring their sweet
+changes in vain, I suppose I must indulge you.’
+
+‘A thousand thanks,’ he said, lifted his hat, and rode on.
+
+My blood was in a cold boil--if the phrase can convey an idea. Clara
+rode on homewards without looking round, and I followed, keeping a few
+yards behind her, hardly thinking at all, my very brain seeming cold
+inside my skull.
+
+There was small occasion as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot
+help it--so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred
+yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and
+burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had
+dissolved the spell that bound me. But she spoke first.
+
+‘Well, Mr Cumbermede?’ she said, with a slow interrogation.
+
+‘Well, Miss Coningham?’ I rejoined, but bitterly, I suppose.
+
+‘What’s the matter?’ she retorted sharply, looking up at me, full in
+the face, whether in real or feigned anger I could not tell.
+
+‘How could you talk _of_ that fellow as you did, and then talk so _to_
+him?’
+
+‘What right have you to put such questions to me? I am not aware of any
+intimacy to justify it.’
+
+‘Then I beg your pardon. But my surprise remains the same.’
+
+‘Why, you silly boy!’ she returned, laughing aloud, ‘don’t you know he
+is, or will be, my feudal lord. I am bound to be polite to him. What
+would become of poor grandpapa if I were to give him offence? Besides,
+I have been in the house with him for a week. He’s not a Crichton; but
+he dances well. Are _you_ going to the ball?’
+
+‘I never heard of it. I have not for weeks thought of anything
+but--but--my writing, till this morning. Now I fear I shall find it
+difficult to return to it. It looks ages since I saddled the mare!’
+
+‘But if you’re ever to be an author, it won’t do to shut yourself up.
+You ought to see as much of the world as you can. I should strongly
+advise you to go to the ball.’
+
+‘I would willingly obey you--but--but--I don’t know how to get a
+ticket.’
+
+‘Oh! if you would like to go, papa will have much pleasure in managing
+that. I will ask him.’
+
+‘I’m much obliged to you,’ I returned. ‘I should enjoy seeing Mr
+Brotherton dance.’
+
+She laughed again, but it was an oddly constrained laugh.
+
+‘It’s quite time I were at home,’ she said, and gave the mare the rein,
+increasing her speed as we approached the house. Before I reached the
+little gate she had given her up to the gardener, who had been on the
+look-out for us.
+
+‘Put on her own saddle, and bring the mare round at once, please,’ I
+called to the man, as he led her and the horse away together.
+
+‘Won’t you come in, Wilfrid?’ said Clara, kindly and seriously.
+
+‘No, thank you,’ I returned; for I was full of rage and jealousy. To do
+myself justice, however, mingled with these was pity that such a girl
+should be so easy with such a man. But I could not tell her what I knew
+of him. Even if I _could_ have done so, I dared not; for the man who
+shows himself jealous must be readily believed capable of lying, or at
+least misrepresenting.
+
+‘Then I must bid you good-evening,’ she said, as quietly as if we had
+been together only five minutes. ‘I am _so_ much obliged to you for
+letting me ride your mare!’
+
+She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into
+the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I
+mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled
+her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first
+time in my life I preferred woods to open grass. When I went in at
+length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle
+must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no
+notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired
+early to bed, and passed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over
+everything that had happened---the one moment calling her a coquette,
+and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse
+for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did
+not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+A DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that
+I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only
+the type of general womanhood, around which the amorphous loves of my
+manhood had begun to gather, not the one woman whom the individual man
+in me had chosen and loved. How could I _love_ that which I did not yet
+know: she was but the heroine of my objective life, as projected from
+me by my imagination--not the love of my being. Therefore, when the
+wings of sleep had fanned the motes from my brain, I was cool enough,
+notwithstanding an occasional tongue of indignant flame from the ashes
+of last night’s fire, to sit down to my books, and read with tolerable
+attention my morning portion of Plato. But when I turned to my novel, I
+found I was not master of the situation. My hero too was in love and in
+trouble; and after I had written a sentence and a half, I found myself
+experiencing the fate of Heine when he roused the Sphinx of past love
+by reading his own old verses:--
+
+       Lebendig ward das Marmorbild,
+       Der Stein begann zu ächzen.
+
+In a few moments I was pacing up and down the room, eager to burn my
+moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help
+thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was,
+however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both
+feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I
+hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across
+the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the
+opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, which I flattered myself
+was to act in a strong-minded manner. There were several fences and
+hedges between, but I cleared them all without discomfiture. The last
+jump was into a lane. We, that is my mare and I, had scarcely alighted,
+when my ears were invaded by a shout. The voice was the least welcome I
+could have heard, that of Brotherton. I turned and saw him riding up
+the hill, with a lady by his side.
+
+‘Hillo!’ he cried, almost angrily, ‘you don’t deserve to have such a
+cob.’ (He _would_ call her a cob.) ‘You don’t know-how to use her. To
+jump her on to the hard like that!’
+
+It was Clara with him!--on the steady stiff old brown horse! My first
+impulse was to jump my mare over the opposite fence, and take no heed,
+of them, but clearly it was not to be attempted, for the ground fell
+considerably on the other side. My next thought was to ride away and
+leave them. My third was one which some of my readers will judge
+Quixotic, but I have a profound reverence for the Don--and that not
+merely because I have so often acted as foolishly as he. This last I
+proceeded to carry out, and lifting-my hat, rode to meet them. Taking
+no notice whatever of Brotherton, I addressed Clara--in what I fancied
+a distant and dignified manner, which she might, if she pleased,
+attribute to the presence of her companion.
+
+‘Miss Coningham,’ I said, ‘will you allow me the honour of offering you
+my mare? She will carry you better.’
+
+‘You are very kind, Mr Cumbermede,’ she returned in a similar tone, but
+with a sparkle in her eyes. ‘I am greatly obliged to you. I cannot
+pretend to prefer old crossbones to the beautiful creature which gave
+me so much pleasure yesterday.’
+
+I was off and by her side in a moment, helping her to dismount. I did
+not even look at Brotherton, though I felt he was staring like an
+equestrian statue. While I shifted the saddles Clara broke the silence,
+which I was in too great an inward commotion to heed, by asking--
+
+‘What is the name of your beauty, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Lilith,’ I answered.
+
+‘What a pretty name! I never heard it before. Is it after any one--any
+public character, I mean?’
+
+‘Quite a public character,’ I returned--‘Adam’s first wife.’
+
+‘I never heard he had two,’ she rejoined, laughing.
+
+‘The Jews say he had. She is a demon now, and the pest of married women
+and their babies.’
+
+‘What a horrible name to give your mare!’
+
+‘The name is pretty enough. And what does it matter what the woman was,
+so long as she was beautiful.’
+
+‘I don’t quite agree with you there,’ she returned, with what I chose
+to consider a forced laugh.
+
+By this time her saddle was firm on Lilith, and in an instant she was
+mounted. Brotherton moved to ride on, and the mare followed him. Clara
+looked back.
+
+‘You will catch us up in a moment,’ she said, possibly a little puzzled
+between us.
+
+I was busy tightening my girths, and fumbled over the job more than was
+necessary. Brotherton was several yards ahead, and she was walking the
+mare slowly after him. I made her no answer, but mounted, and rode in
+the opposite direction; It was rude of course, but I did it. I could
+not have gone with them, and was afraid, if I told her so, she would
+dismount and refuse the mare.
+
+In a tumult of feeling I rode on without looking behind me, careless
+whither--how long I cannot tell, before I woke up to find I did not
+know where I was. I must ride on till I came to some place I knew, or
+met some one who could tell me. Lane led into lane, buried betwixt deep
+banks and lofty hedges, or passing through small woods, until I
+ascended a rising ground, whence I got a view of the country. At once
+its features began to dawn upon me: I was close to the village of
+Aldwick, where I had been at school, and in a few minutes I rode into
+its wide straggling street. Not a mark of change had passed upon it.
+There were the same dogs about the doors, and the same cats in the
+windows. The very ferns in the chinks of the old draw-well appeared the
+same; and the children had not grown an inch since first I drove into
+the place marvelling at its wondrous activity.
+
+The sun was hot, and my horse seemed rather tired. I was in no mood to
+see any one, and besides had no pleasant recollections of my last visit
+to Mr Elder, so I drew up at the door of the little inn, and having
+sent my horse to the stable for an hour’s rest and a feed of oats, went
+into the sanded parlour, ordered a glass of ale, and sat staring at the
+china shepherdesses on the chimney-piece. I see them now, the ugly
+things, as plainly as if that had been an hour of the happiest
+reflections. I thought I was miserable, but I know now that, although I
+was much disappointed, and everything looked dreary and uninteresting
+about me, I was a long way off misery. Indeed, the passing vision of a
+neat unbonneted village girl on her way to the well was attractive
+enough still to make me rise and go to the window. While watching, as
+she wound up the long chain, for the appearance of the familiar mossy
+bucket, dripping diamonds, as it gleamed out of the dark well into the
+sudden sunlight, I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs, and turned to see
+what kind of apparition would come. Presently it appeared, and made
+straight for the inn. The rider was Mr Coningham! I drew back to escape
+his notice, but his quick eye had caught sight of me, for he came into
+the room with outstretched hand.
+
+‘We are fated to meet, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said. ‘I only stopped to give
+my horse some meal and water, and had no intention of dismounting. Ale?
+I’ll have a glass of ale too,’ he added, ringing the bell. ‘I think
+I’ll let him have a feed, and have a mouthful of bread and cheese
+myself.’
+
+He went out, and had I suppose gone to see that his horse had his
+proper allowance of oats, for when he returned he said merrily:
+
+‘What have you done with my daughter, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Why should you think me responsible for her, Mr Conningham?’ I asked,
+attempting a smile.
+
+No doubt he detected the attempt in the smile, for he looked at me with
+a sharpened expression of the eyes, as he answered--still in a merry
+tone--
+
+‘When I saw her last, she was mounted on your horse, and you were on
+my father’s. I find you still on my father’s horse, and your own--with
+the lady--nowhere. Have I made out a case of suspicion?’
+
+‘It is I who have cause of complaint,’ I returned--‘who have neither
+lady nor mare--unless indeed you imagine I have in the case of the
+latter made a good exchange.’
+
+‘Hardly that, I imagine, if yours is half so good as she looks. But,
+seriously, have you seen Clara to-day?’
+
+I told him the facts as lightly as I could. When I had finished, he
+stared at me with an expression which for the moment I avoided
+attempting to interpret.
+
+‘On horseback with Mr Brotherton?’ he said, uttering the words as if
+every syllable had been separately italicized.
+
+‘You will find it as I say,’ I replied, feeling offended.
+
+‘My dear boy--excuse my freedom,’ he returned--‘I am nearly three times
+your age--you do not imagine I doubt a hair’s breadth of your
+statement! But--the giddy goose!--how could you be so silly? Pardon me
+again. Your unselfishness is positively amusing! To hand over your
+horse to her, and then ride away all by yourself on that--respectable
+stager!’
+
+‘Don’t abuse the old horse,’ I returned. ‘He _is_ respectable, and has
+been more in his day.’
+
+‘Yes, yes. But for the life of me I cannot understand it. Mr
+Cumbermede, I am sorry for you. I should not advise you to choose the
+law for a profession. The man who does not regard his own rights will
+hardly do for an adviser in the affairs of others.
+
+‘You were not going to consult me, Mr Coningham, were you?’ I said, now
+able at length to laugh without effort.
+
+‘Not quite that,’ he returned, also laughing. ‘But a right, you know,
+is one of the most serious things in the world.’
+
+It seemed irrelevant to the trifling character of the case. I could not
+understand why he should regard the affair as of such importance.
+
+‘I have been in the way of thinking,’ I said, ‘that one of the
+advantages of having rights was that you could part with them when you
+pleased. You’re not bound to insist on your rights, are you?’
+
+‘Certainly you would not subject yourself to a criminal action by
+foregoing them, but you might suggest to your friends a commission of
+lunacy. I see how it is. That is your uncle all over! _He_ was never a
+man of the world.’
+
+‘You are right there, Mr Coningham. It is the last epithet any one
+would give my uncle.’
+
+‘And the first any one would give _me_, you imply, Mr Cumbermede.’
+
+‘I had no such intention,’ I answered. ‘That would have been rude.’
+
+‘Not in the least. _I_ should have taken it as a compliment. The man
+who does not care about his rights, depend upon it, will be made a tool
+of by those that do. If he is not a spoon already, he will become one.
+I shouldn’t have _iffed_ it at all if I hadn’t known you.’
+
+‘And you don’t want to be rude to me.’
+
+‘I don’t. A little experience will set _you_ all right; and that you
+are in a fair chance of getting if you push your fortune as a literary
+man. But I must be off. I hope we may have another chat before long.’
+
+He finished his ale, rose, bade me good-bye, and went to the stable. As
+soon as he was out of sight, I also mounted and rode homewards.
+
+By the time I reached the gate of the park, my depression had nearly
+vanished. The comforting power of sun and shadow, of sky and field, of
+wind and motion, had restored me to myself. With a side glance at the
+windows of the cottage as I passed, and the glimpse of a bright figure
+seated in the drawing-room window, I made for the stable, and found my
+Lilith waiting me. Once more I shifted my saddle, and rode home,
+without even another glance at the window as I passed.
+
+A day or two after, I received from Mr Coningham a ticket for the
+county ball, accompanied by a kind note. I returned it at once with the
+excuse that I feared incapacitating myself for work by dissipation.
+
+Henceforward I avoided the park, and did not again see Clara before
+leaving for London. I had a note from her, thanking me for Lilith, and
+reproaching me for having left her to the company of Mr Brotherton,
+which I thought cool enough, seeing they had set out together without
+the slightest expectation of meeting me. I returned a civil answer, and
+there was an end of it.
+
+I must again say for myself that it was not mere jealousy of Brotherton
+that led me to act as I did. I could not and would not get over the
+contradiction between the way in which she had spoken _of_ him, and the
+way in which she spoke _to_ him, followed by her accompanying him in
+the long ride to which the state of my mare bore witness. I concluded
+that, although she might mean no harm, she was not truthful. To talk of
+a man with such contempt, and then behave to him with such frankness,
+appeared to me altogether unjustifiable. At the same time their mutual
+familiarity pointed to some foregone intimacy, in which, had I been so
+inclined, I might have found some excuse for her, seeing she might have
+altered her opinion of him, and might yet find it very difficult to
+alter the tone of their intercourse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+IN LONDON.
+
+My real object being my personal history in relation to certain facts
+and events, I must, in order to restrain myself from that
+discursiveness the impulse to which is an urging of the historical as
+well as the artistic Satan, even run the risk of appearing to have been
+blind to many things going on around me which must have claimed a large
+place had I been writing an autobiography instead of a distinct portion
+of one.
+
+I set out with my manuscript in my portmanteau, and a few pounds in my
+pocket, determined to cost my uncle as little as I could.
+
+I well remember the dreariness of London, as I entered it on the top of
+a coach, in the closing darkness of a late Autumn afternoon. The shops
+were not yet all lighted, and a drizzly rain was falling. But these
+outer influences hardly got beyond my mental skin, for I had written to
+Charley, and hoped to find him waiting for me at the coach-office. Nor
+was I disappointed, and in a moment all discomfort was forgotten. He
+took me to his chambers in the New Inn.
+
+I found him looking better, and apparently, for him, in good spirits.
+It was soon arranged, at his entreaty, that for the present I should
+share his sitting-room, and have a bed put up for me in a closet he did
+not want. The next day I called upon certain publishers and left with
+them my manuscript. Its fate is of no consequence here, and I did not
+then wait to know it, but at once began to fly my feather at lower
+game, writing short papers and tales for the magazines. I had a little
+success from the first; and although the surroundings of my new abode
+were dreary enough, although, now and then, especially when the Winter
+sun shone bright into the court, I longed for one peep into space
+across the field that now itself lay far in the distance, I soon
+settled to my work, and found the life an enjoyable one. To work beside
+Charley the most of the day, and go with him in the evening to some
+place of amusement, or to visit some of the men in chambers about us,
+was for the time a satisfactory mode of existence.
+
+I soon told him the story of my little passage with Clara. During the
+narrative he looked uncomfortable, and indeed troubled, but as soon as
+he found I had given up the affair, his countenance brightened.
+
+‘I’m very glad you’ve got over it so well,’ he said.
+
+‘I think I’ve had a good deliverance,’ I returned.
+
+He made no reply. Neither did his face reveal his thoughts, for I could
+not read the confused expression it bore.
+
+That he should not fall in with my judgment would never have surprised
+me, for he always hung back from condemnation, partly, I presume, from
+being even morbidly conscious of his own imperfections, and partly that
+his prolific suggestion supplied endless possibilities to explain or
+else perplex everything. I had been often even annoyed by his use of
+the most refined invention to excuse, as I thought, behaviour the most
+palpably wrong. I believe now it was rather to account for it than to
+excuse it.
+
+‘Well, Charley,’ I would say in such a case, ‘I am sure _you_ would
+never have done such a thing.’
+
+‘I cannot guarantee my own conduct for a moment,’ he would answer; or,
+taking the other tack, would reply: ‘Just for that reason I cannot
+believe the man would have done it.’
+
+But the oddity in the present case was that he said nothing. I should,
+however, have forgotten all about it, but that after some time I began
+to observe that as often as I alluded to Clara--which was not often--he
+contrived to turn the remark aside, and always without saying a
+syllable about her. The conclusion I came to was that, while he shrunk
+from condemnation, he was at the same time unwilling to disturb the
+present serenity of my mind by defending her conduct.
+
+Early in the Spring, an unpleasant event occurred, of which I might
+have foreseen the possibility. One morning I was alone, working busily,
+when the door opened.
+
+‘Why, Charley--back already!’ I exclaimed, going on to finish my
+sentence.
+
+Receiving no answer, I looked up from my paper, and started to my feet.
+Mr Osborne stood before me, scrutinizing me with severe grey eyes. I
+think he knew me from the first, but I was sufficiently altered to make
+it doubtful.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ he said coldly--‘I thought these were Charles
+Osborne’s chambers.’ And he turned to leave the room.
+
+‘They _are_ his chambers, Mr Osborne,’ I replied, recovering myself
+with an effort, and looking him in the face.
+
+‘My son had not informed me that he shared them with another.’
+
+‘We are very old friends, Mr Osborne.’
+
+He made no answer, but stood regarding me fixedly.
+
+‘You do not remember me, sir,’ I said. ‘I am Wilfrid Cumbermede.’
+
+‘I have cause to remember you.’
+
+‘Will you not sit down, sir? Charley will be home in less than an
+hour--I quite expect.’
+
+Again he turned his back as if about to leave me.
+
+‘If my presence is disagreeable to you,’ I said, annoyed at his
+rudeness, ‘I will go.’
+
+‘As you please,’ he answered.
+
+I left my papers, caught up my hat, and went out of the room and the
+house. I said _good morning_, but he made no return.
+
+Not until nearly eight o’clock did I re-enter. I had of course made up
+my mind that Charley and I must part. When I opened the door, I thought
+at first there was no one there. There were no lights, and the fire had
+burned low.
+
+‘Is that you, Wilfrid?’ said Charley.
+
+He was lying on the sofa.
+
+‘Yes, Charley,’ I returned.
+
+‘Come in, old fellow. The avenger of blood is not behind me,’ he said,
+in a mocking tone, as he rose and came to meet me. ‘I’ve been having
+such a dose of damnation--all for your sake!’
+
+‘I’m very sorry, Charley. But I think we are both to blame. Your father
+ought to have been told. You see day after day went by, and--somehow--’
+
+‘Tut, tut! never mind. What _does_ it matter--except that it’s a
+disgrace to be dependent on such a man? I wish I had the courage to
+starve.’
+
+‘He’s your father, Charley. Nothing can alter that.’
+
+‘That’s the misery of it. And then to tell people God is their father!
+If he’s like mine, he’s done us a mighty favour in creating us! I can’t
+say I feel grateful for it. I must turn out to-morrow.’
+
+‘No, Charley. The place has no attraction for me without you, and it
+was yours first. Besides, I can’t afford to pay so much. I will find
+another to-morrow. But we shall see each other often, and perhaps get
+through more work apart. I hope he didn’t insist on your never seeing
+me.’
+
+‘He did try it on; but there I stuck fast, threatening to vanish and
+scramble for my living as I best might. I told him you were a far
+better man than I, and did me nothing but good. But that only made the
+matter worse, proving your influence over me. Let’s drop it. It’s no
+use. Let’s go to the Olympic.’
+
+The next day I looked for a lodging in Camden Town, attracted by the
+probable cheapness, and by the grass in the Regent’s Park; and having
+found a decent place, took my things away while Charley was out. I had
+not got them, few as they were, in order in my new quarters before he
+made his appearance; and as long as I was there few days passed on
+which we did not meet.
+
+One evening he walked in, accompanied by a fine-looking young fellow,
+whom I thought I must know, and presently recognized as Home, our old
+school-fellow, with whom I had fought in Switzerland. We had become
+good friends before we parted, and Charley and he had met repeatedly
+since.
+
+‘What are you doing now, Home?’ I asked him.
+
+‘I’ve just taken deacon’s orders,’ he answered. ‘A friend of my
+father’s has promised me a living. I’ve been hanging-about quite long
+enough now. A fellow ought to do something for his existence.’
+
+‘I can’t think how a strong fellow like you can take to mumbling
+prayers and reading sermons,’ said Charley.
+
+‘It ain’t nice,’ said Home, ‘but it’s a very respectable profession.
+There are viscounts in it, and lots of honourables.’
+
+‘I dare say,’ returned Charley, with drought. ‘But a nerveless creature
+like me, who can’t even hit straight from the shoulder, would be good
+enough for that. A giant like you, Home!’
+
+‘Ah! by-the-by, Osborne,’ said Home, not in love with the prospect, and
+willing to turn the conversation, ‘I thought you were a church-calf
+yourself.’
+
+‘Honestly, Home, I don’t know whether it isn’t the biggest of all big
+humbugs.’
+
+‘Oh, but--Osborne!--it ain’t the thing, you know, to talk like that of
+a profession adopted by so many great men fit to honour any
+profession,’ returned Home, who was not one of the brightest of
+mortals, and was jealous for the profession just in as much as it was
+destined for his own.
+
+‘Either the profession honours the men, or the men dishonour
+themselves,’ said Charley. ‘I believe it claims to have been founded by
+a man called Jesus Christ, if such a man ever existed except in the
+fancy of his priesthood.’
+
+‘Well, really,’ expostulated Home, looking, I must say, considerably
+shocked, ‘I shouldn’t have expected that from the son of a clergyman!’
+
+‘I couldn’t help my father. I wasn’t consulted,’ said Charley, with an
+uncomfortable grin. ‘But, at any rate, my father fancies he believes
+all the story. I fancy I don’t.’
+
+‘Then you’re an infidel, Osborne.’
+
+‘Perhaps. Do you think that so very horrible?’
+
+‘Yes, I do. Tom Paine, and all the rest of them, you know!’
+
+‘Well, Home, I’ll tell you one thing I think worse than being an
+infidel.’
+
+‘What is that?’
+
+‘Taking to the Church for a living.’
+
+‘I don’t see that.’
+
+‘Either the so-called truths it advocates are things to live and die
+for, or they are the veriest old wives’ fables going. Do you know who
+was the first to do what you are about now?’
+
+‘No. I can’t say. I’m not up in Church history yet.’
+
+‘It was Judas.’
+
+I am not sure that Charley was right, but that is what he said. I was
+taking no part in the conversation, but listening eagerly, with a
+strong suspicion that Charley had been leading Home to this very point.
+
+‘A man must live,’ said Home.
+
+‘That’s precisely what I take it Judas said: for my part I don’t see
+it.’
+
+‘Don’t see what?’
+
+‘That a man must live. It would be a far more incontrovertible
+assertion that a man must die--and a more comfortable one, too.’
+
+‘Upon my word, I don’t understand you, Osborne! You make a fellow feel
+deuced queer with your remarks.’
+
+‘At all events, you will allow that the first of them--they call them
+apostles, don’t they?--didn’t take to preaching the gospel for the sake
+of a living. What a satire on the whole kit of them that word _living_,
+so constantly in all their mouths, is! It seems to me that Messrs Peter
+and Paul and Matthew, and all the rest of them, forsook their livings
+for a good chance of something rather the contrary.’
+
+‘Then it _was_ true--what they said about you at Forest’s?’
+
+‘I don’t know what they said,’ returned Charley; ‘but before I would
+pretend to believe what I didn’t--’
+
+‘But I _do_ believe it, Osborne.’
+
+‘May I ask on what grounds?’
+
+‘Why--everybody does.’
+
+‘That would be no reason, even if it were a fact, which it is not. You
+believe it, or rather, choose to think you believe it, because you’ve
+been told it. Sooner than pretend to teach what I have never learned,
+and be looked up to as a pattern of godliness, I would ‘list in the
+ranks. There, at least, a man might earn an honest living.’
+
+‘By Jove! You do make a fellow feel uncomfortable!’ repeated Home.
+‘You’ve got such a--such an uncompromising way of saying things--to use
+a mild expression.’
+
+‘I think it’s a sneaking thing to do, and unworthy of a gentleman.’
+
+‘I don’t see what right you’ve got to bully me in that way,’ said Home,
+getting angry.
+
+It was time to interfere.
+
+‘Charley is so afraid of being dishonest, Home,’ I said, ‘that he is
+rude.--You are rude now, Charley.’
+
+‘I beg your pardon, Home,’ exclaimed Charley at once.
+
+‘Oh, never mind!’ returned Home with gloomy good-nature.
+
+‘You ought to make allowance, Charley,’ I pursued. ‘When a man has been
+accustomed all his life to hear things spoken of in a certain way, he
+cannot help having certain notions to start with.’
+
+‘If I thought as Osborne does,’ said Home, ‘I _would_ sooner ‘list than
+go into the Church.’
+
+‘I confess,’ I rejoined, ‘I do not see how any one can take orders,
+unless he not only loves God with all his heart, but receives the story
+of the New Testament as a revelation of him, precious beyond utterance.
+To the man who accepts it so, the calling is the noblest in the world.’
+
+The others were silent, and the conversation turned away. From whatever
+cause, Home did not go into the Church, but died fighting in India.
+
+He soon left us--Charley remaining behind.
+
+‘What a hypocrite I am!’ he exclaimed;--‘following a profession in
+which I must often, if I have any practice at all, defend what I know
+to be wrong, and seek to turn justice from its natural course.’
+
+‘But you can’t always know that your judgment is right, even if it
+should be against your client. I heard an eminent barrister say once
+that he had come out of the court convinced by the arguments of the
+opposite counsel.’
+
+‘And having gained the case?’
+
+‘That I don’t know.’
+
+‘He went in believing his own side anyhow, and that made it all right
+for him.’
+
+‘I don’t know that either. His private judgment was altered, but
+whether it was for or against his client, I do not remember. The fact,
+however, shows that one might do a great wrong by refusing a client
+whom he judged in the wrong.’
+
+‘On the contrary, to refuse a brief on such grounds would be best for
+all concerned. Not believing in it, you could not do your best, and
+might be preventing one who would believe in it from taking it up.’
+
+‘The man might not get anybody to take it up.’
+
+‘Then there would be little reason to expect that a jury charged under
+ordinary circumstances would give a verdict in his favour.’
+
+‘But it would be for the barristers to constitute themselves the
+judges.’
+
+‘Yes--of their own conduct--only that. There I am again! The finest
+ideas about the right thing--and going on all the same, with open eyes
+running my head straight into the noose! Wilfrid, I’m one of the
+weakest animals in creation. What if you found at last that I had been
+deceiving _you_! What would you say?’
+
+‘Nothing, Charley--to any one else.’
+
+‘What would you say to yourself, then?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I know what I should do.’
+
+‘What?’
+
+‘Try to account for it, and find as many reasons as I could to justify
+you. That is, I would do just as you do for every one but yourself.’
+
+He was silent--plainly from emotion, which I attributed to his pleasure
+at the assurance of the strength of my friendship.
+
+‘Suppose you could find none?’ he said, recovering himself a little.
+
+‘I should still believe there _were_ such. _Tout comprendre c’est tout
+pardonner_, you know.’
+
+He brightened at this.
+
+‘You _are_ a friend, Wilfrid! What a strange condition mine is!--for
+ever feeling I could do this and that difficult thing, were it to fall
+in my way, and yet constantly failing in the simplest duties--even to
+that of common politeness. I behaved like a brute to Home. He’s a fine
+fellow, and only wants to see a thing to do it. _I_ see it well enough,
+and don’t do it. Wilfrid, I shall come to a bad end. When it comes,
+mind I told you so, and blame nobody but myself. I mean what I say.
+
+‘Nonsense, Charley! It’s only that you haven’t active work enough, and
+get morbid with brooding over the germs of things.’
+
+‘Oh, Wilfrid, how beautiful a life might be! Just look at that one in
+the New Testament! Why shouldn’t _I_ be like that? _I_ don’t know why.
+I feel as if I could. But I’m not, you see--and never shall be. I’m
+selfish, and ill-tempered, and--’
+
+‘Charley! Charley! There never was a less selfish or better-tempered
+fellow in the world.’
+
+‘Don’t make me believe that, Wilfrid, or I shall hate the world as well
+as myself. It’s all my hypocrisy makes you think so. Because I am
+ashamed of what I am, and manage to hide it pretty well, you think me a
+saint. That is heaping damnation on me.’
+
+‘Take a pipe, Charley, and shut up. That’s rubbish!’ I said. I doubt
+much if it was what I ought to have said, but I was alarmed for the
+consequences of such brooding. ‘I wonder what the world would be like
+if every one considered himself acting up to his own ideal!’
+
+‘If he was acting so, then it would do the world no harm that he knew
+it.’
+
+‘But his ideal must then be a low one, and that would do himself and
+everybody the worst kind of harm. The greatest men have always thought
+the least of themselves.’
+
+‘Yes, but that was because they _were_ the greatest. A man may think
+little of himself just for the reason that he _is_ little, and can’t
+help knowing it.’
+
+‘Then it’s a mercy he does know it! for most small people think much of
+themselves.’
+
+‘But to know it--and to feel all the time you ought to be and could be
+something very different, and yet never get a step nearer it! That is
+to be miserable. Still it is a mercy to know it. There is always a last
+help.’
+
+I mistook what he meant, and thought it well to say no more. After
+smoking a pipe or two, he was quieter, and left me with a merry remark.
+One lovely evening in Spring, I looked from my bed-room window, and saw
+the red sunset burning in the thin branches of the solitary poplar that
+graced the few feet of garden behind the house. It drew me out to the
+park, where the trees were all in young leaf, each with its shadow
+stretching away from its foot, like its longing to reach its kind
+across dividing space. The grass was like my own grass at home, and I
+went wandering over it in all the joy of the new Spring, which comes
+every year to our hearts as well as to their picture outside. The
+workmen were at that time busy about the unfinished botanical gardens,
+and I wandered thitherward, lingering about, and pondering and
+inventing, until the sun was long withdrawn, and the shades of night
+had grown very brown.
+
+I was at length sauntering slowly home to put a few finishing touches
+to a paper I had been at work upon all day, when something about a
+young couple in front of me attracted my attention. They were walking
+arm in arm, talking eagerly, but so low that I heard only a murmur. I
+did not quicken my pace, yet was gradually gaining upon them, when
+suddenly the conviction started up in my mind that the gentleman was
+Charley. I could not mistake his back, or the stoop of his shoulders as
+he bent towards his companion. I was so certain of him that I turned at
+once from the road, and wandered away across the grass: if he did not
+choose to tell me about the lady, I had no right to know. But I confess
+to a strange trouble that he had left me out. I comforted myself,
+however, with the thought that perhaps when we next met he would
+explain, or at least break, the silence.
+
+After about an hour, he entered, in an excited mood, merry but
+uncomfortable. I tried to behave as if I knew nothing, but could not
+help feeling much disappointed when he left me without a word of his
+having had a second reason for being in the neighbourhood.
+
+What effect the occurrence might have had, whether the cobweb veil of
+which I was now aware between us would have thickened to opacity or
+not, I cannot tell. I dare not imagine that it might. I rather hope
+that by degrees my love would have got the victory, and melted it away.
+But now came a cloud which swallowed every other in my firmament. The
+next morning brought a letter from my aunt, telling me that my uncle
+had had a stroke, as she called it, and at that moment was lying
+insensible. I put my affairs in order at once, and Charley saw me away
+by the afternoon coach.
+
+It was a dreary journey. I loved my uncle with perfect confidence and
+profound veneration, a result of the faithful and open simplicity with
+which he had always behaved towards me. If he were taken away, and
+already he might be gone, I should be lonely indeed, for on whom
+besides could I depend with anything like the trust which I reposed in
+him? For, conceitedly or not, I had always felt that Charley rather
+depended on me--that I had rather to take care of him than to look for
+counsel from him.
+
+The weary miles rolled away. Early in the morning we reached
+Minstercombe. There I got a carriage, and at once continued my journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+CHANGES.
+
+I met no one at the house-door, or in the kitchen, and walked straight
+up the stair to my uncle’s room. The blinds were down, and the curtains
+were drawn, and I could but just see the figure of my aunt seated
+beside the bed. She rose, and, without a word of greeting, made way for
+me to approach the form which lay upon it stretched out straight and
+motionless. The conviction that I was in the presence of death seized
+me; but instead of the wretchedness of heart and soul which I had
+expected to follow the loss of my uncle, a something deeper than any
+will of my own asserted itself, and as it were took the matter from me.
+It was as if my soul avoided the sorrow of separation by breaking with
+the world of material things, asserting the shadowy nature of all the
+visible, and choosing its part with the something which had passed
+away. It was as if my deeper self said to my outer consciousness: ‘I
+too am of the dead--one with them, whether they live or are no more.
+For a little while I am shut out from them, and surrounded with things
+that seem: let me gaze on the picture while it lasts; dream or no
+dream, let me live in it according to its laws, and await what will
+come next; if an awaking, it is well: if only a perfect because
+dreamless sleep, I shall not be able to lament the endless
+separation--but while I know myself, I will hope for something better.’
+Like this, at least, was the blossom into which, under my
+after-brooding, the bud of that feeling broke.
+
+I laid my hand upon my uncle’s forehead. It was icy cold, just like my
+grannie’s when my aunt had made me touch it. And I knew that my uncle
+was gone, that the slow tide of the eternal ocean had risen while he
+lay motionless within the wash of its waves, and had floated him away
+from the shore of our world. I took the hand of my aunt, who stood like
+a statue behind me, and led her from the room.
+
+‘He is gone, aunt,’ I said, as calmly as I could.
+
+She made no reply, but gently withdrew her hand from mine, and returned
+into the chamber. I stood a few moments irresolute, but reverence for
+her sorrow prevailed, and I went down the stair and seated myself by
+the fire. There the servant told me that my uncle had never moved since
+they laid him in his bed. Soon after the doctor arrived, and went
+up-stairs; but returned in a few minutes, only to affirm the fact. I
+went again to the room, and found my aunt lying with her face on the
+bosom of the dead man. She allowed me to draw her away, but when I
+would have led her down, she turned aside and sought her own chamber,
+where she remained for the rest of the day.
+
+I will not linger over that miserable time. Greatly as I revered my
+uncle, I was not prepared to find how much he had been respected, and
+was astonished at the number of faces I had never seen which followed
+to the churchyard. Amongst them were the Coninghams, father and son;
+but except by a friendly grasp of the hand, and a few words of
+condolence, neither interrupted the calm depression rather than grief
+in which I found myself. When I returned home, there was with my aunt a
+married sister, whom I had never seen before. Up to this time she had
+shown an arid despair, and been regardless of everything about her; but
+now she was in tears. I left them together, and wandered for hours up
+and down the lonely playground of my childhood, thinking of many
+things--most of all, how strange it was that, if there were a
+_hereafter_ for us, we should know positively nothing concerning it;
+that not a whisper should cross the invisible line; that the something
+which had looked from its windows so lovingly should have in a moment
+withdrawn, by some back-way unknown either to itself or us, into a
+region of which all we can tell is that thence no prayers and no tears
+will entice it to lift for an instant again the fallen curtain, and
+look out once more. Why should not God, I thought, if a God there be,
+permit one single return to each, that so the friends left behind in
+the dark might be sure that death was not the end, and so live in the
+world as not of the world?
+
+[Illustration: I went again to the room, and found my aunt lying with
+her face on the bosom of the dead man]
+
+
+When I re-entered, I found my aunt looking a little cheerful. She was
+even having something to eat with her sister--an elderly
+country-looking woman, the wife of a farmer in a distant shire. Their
+talk had led them back to old times, to their parents and the friends
+of their childhood; and the memory of the long dead had comforted her a
+little over the recent loss; for all true hearts death is a uniting,
+not a dividing power.
+
+‘I suppose you will be going back to London, Wilfrid?’ said my aunt,
+who had already been persuaded to pay her sister a visit.
+
+‘I think I had better,’ I answered. ‘When I have a chance of publishing
+a book, I should like to come and write it, or at least finish it,
+here, if you will let me.’
+
+‘The place is your own, Wilfrid. Of course I shall be very glad to have
+you here.’
+
+‘The place is yours as much as mine, aunt,’ I replied. ‘I can’t bear to
+think that my uncle has no right over it still. I believe he has, and
+therefore it is yours just the same--not to mention my own wishes in
+the matter.’
+
+She made no reply, and I saw that both she and her sister were shocked
+either at my mentioning the dead man, or at my supposing he had any
+earthly rights left. The next day they set out together, leaving in the
+house the wife of the head man at the farm, to attend to me until I
+should return to town. I had purposed to set out the following morning,
+but I found myself enjoying so much the undisturbed possession of the
+place, that I remained there for ten days; and when I went, it was with
+the intention of making it my home as soon as I might: I had grown
+enamoured of the solitude so congenial to labour. Before I left I
+arranged my uncle’s papers, and in doing so found several early
+sketches which satisfied me that he might have distinguished himself in
+literature if his fate had led him thitherward.
+
+Having given the house in charge to my aunt’s deputy, Mrs Herbert, I at
+length returned to my lodging in Camden Town. There I found two letters
+waiting me, the one announcing the serious illness of my aunt, and the
+other her death. The latter was two days old. I wrote to express my
+sorrow, and excuse my apparent neglect, and having made a long journey
+to see her also laid in the earth, I returned to my old home, in order
+to make fresh arrangements.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+PROPOSALS.
+
+Mrs Herbert attended me during the forenoon, but left me after my early
+dinner. I made my tea for myself, and a tankard filled from a barrel of
+ale of my uncle’s brewing, with a piece of bread and cheese, was my
+unvarying supper. The first night I felt very lonely, almost indeed
+what the Scotch call _eerie_. The place, although inseparably
+interwoven with my earliest recollections, drew back and stood apart
+from me--a thing to be thought about; and, in the ancient house, amidst
+the lonely field, I felt like a ghost condemned to return and live the
+vanished time over again. I had had a fire lighted in my own room; for,
+although the air was warm outside, the thick stone walls seemed to
+retain the chilly breath of the last Winter. The silent rooms that
+filled the house forced the sense of their presence upon me. I seemed
+to see the forsaken things in them staring at each other, hopeless and
+useless, across the dividing space, as if saying to themselves, ‘We
+belong to the dead, are mouldering to the dust after them, and in the
+dust alone we meet.’ From the vacant rooms my soul seemed to float out
+beyond, searching still--to find nothing but loneliness and emptiness
+betwixt me and the stars; and beyond the stars more loneliness and more
+emptiness still--no rest for the sole of the foot of the wandering
+Psyche--save--one mighty saving--an exception which, if true, must be
+the one all-absorbing rule. ‘But,’ I was saying to myself, ‘love
+unknown is not even equal to love lost,’ when my reverie was broken by
+the dull noise of a horse’s hoofs upon the sward. I rose and went to
+the window. As I crossed the room, my brain rather than myself suddenly
+recalled the night when my pendulum drew from the churning trees the
+unwelcome genius of the storm. The moment I reached the window--there
+through the dim Summer twilight, once more from the trees, now as still
+as sleep, came the same figure.
+
+Mr Coningham saw me at the fire-lighted window, and halted.
+
+‘May I be admitted?’ he asked ceremoniously.
+
+I made a sign to him to ride round to the door, for I could not speak
+aloud: it would have been rude to the memories that haunted the silent
+house.
+
+‘May I come in for a few minutes, Mr Cumbermede?’ he asked again,
+already at the door by the time I had opened it.
+
+‘By all means, Mr Coningham,’ I replied. ‘Only you must tie your horse
+to this ring, for we--I--have no stable here.’
+
+‘I’ve done this before,’ he answered, as he made the animal fast. ‘I
+know the ways of the place well enough. But surely you’re not here in
+absolute solitude?’
+
+‘Yes, I am. I prefer being alone at present.’
+
+‘Very unhealthy, I must say! You will grow hypochondriacal if you mope
+in this fashion,’ he returned, following me up-stairs to my room.
+
+‘A day or two of solitude now and then would, I suspect, do most people
+more good than harm,’ I answered. ‘But you must not think I intend
+leading a hermit’s life. Have you heard that my aunt--?’
+
+‘Yes, yes.--You are left alone in the world. But relations are not a
+man’s only friends--and certainly not always his best friends.’
+
+I made no reply, thinking of my uncle.
+
+‘I did not know you were down,’ he resumed. ‘I was calling at my
+father’s, and seeing your light across the park, thought it possible
+you might be here, and rode over to see. May I take the liberty of
+asking what your plans are?’ he added, seating himself by the fire.
+
+‘I have hardly had time to form new ones; but I mean to stick to my
+work, anyhow.’
+
+‘You mean your profession?’
+
+‘Yes, if you will allow me to call it such. I have had success enough
+already to justify me in going on.’
+
+‘I am more pleased than surprised to hear it,’ he answered.
+
+‘But what will you do with the old nest?’
+
+‘Let the old nest wait for the old bird, Mr Coningham--keep it to die
+in.’
+
+‘I don’t like to hear a young fellow talking that way,’ he
+remonstrated. ‘You’ve got a long life to live yet--at least I hope so.
+But if you leave the house untenanted till the period to which you
+allude, it will be quite unfit by that time even for the small service
+you propose to require of it. Why not let it--for a term of years? I
+could find you a tenant, I make no doubt.’
+
+‘I won’t let it. I shall meet the world all the better if I have a
+place of my own to take refuge in.’
+
+‘Well, I can’t say but there’s good in that fancy. To have any spot of
+your own, however small--freehold, I mean--must be a comfort. At the
+same time, what’s the world for, if you’re to meet it in that
+half-hearted way? I don’t mean that every young man--there are
+exceptions--must sow just so many bushels of _avena fatua_. There are
+plenty of enjoyments to be got without leading a wild life--which I
+should be the last to recommend to any young man of principle. Take my
+advice, and let the place. But pray don’t do me the injustice to fancy
+I came to look after a job. I shall be most happy to serve you.’
+
+‘I am exceedingly obliged to you,’ I answered. ‘If you could let the
+farm for me for the rest of the lease, of which there are but a few
+years to run, that would be of great consequence to me. Herbert, my
+uncle’s foreman, who has the management now, is a very good fellow, but
+I doubt if he will do more than make both ends meet without my aunt,
+and the accounts would bother me endlessly.’
+
+‘I shall find out whether Lord Inglewold would be inclined to resume
+the fag-end. In such case, as the lease has been a long one, and land
+has risen much, he would doubtless pay a part of the difference. Then
+there’s the stock, worth a good deal, I should think. I’ll see what can
+be done. And then there’s the stray bit of park?’
+
+‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked. ‘We have been in the way of
+calling it the _park_, though why I never could tell. I confess it does
+look like a bit of Sir Giles’s that had wandered beyond the gates.’
+
+‘There _is_ some old story or other about it, I believe. The possessors
+of the Moldwarp estate have, from time immemorial, regarded it as
+properly theirs. I know that.’
+
+‘I am much obliged to them, certainly. _I_ have been in the habit of
+thinking differently.’
+
+‘Of course, of course,’ he rejoined, laughing. ‘But there may have been
+some--mistake somewhere. I know Sir Giles would give five times its
+value for it.’
+
+‘He should not have it if he offered the Moldwarp estate in exchange,’
+I cried indignantly; and the thought flashed across me that this
+temptation was what my uncle had feared from the acquaintance of Mr
+Coningham.
+
+‘Your sincerity will not be put to so great a test as that,’ he
+returned, laughing quite merrily. ‘But I am glad you have such a
+respect for real property. At the same time--how many acres are there
+of it?’
+
+‘I don’t know,’ I answered, curtly and truly.
+
+‘It is of no consequence. Only if you don’t want to be tempted, don’t
+let Sir Giles or my father broach the subject. You needn’t look at me.
+_I_ am not Sir Giles’s agent. Neither do my father and I run in double
+harness. He hinted, however, this very day, that he believed the old
+fool wouldn’t stick at £500 an acre for this bit of grass--if he
+couldn’t get it for less.’
+
+‘If that is what you have come about, Mr Coningham,’ I rejoined,
+haughtily I dare say, for something I could not well define made me
+feel as if the dignity of a thousand ancestors were perilled in my
+own,’ I beg you will not say another word on the subject, for sell this
+land I _will not_.’
+
+He was looking at me strangely. His eye glittered with what, under
+other circumstances, I might have taken for satisfaction; but he turned
+his face away and rose, saying with a curiously altered tone, as he
+took up his hat,
+
+‘I’m very sorry to have offended you, Mr Cumbermede. I sincerely beg
+your pardon. I thought our old--friendship may I not call it?--would
+have justified me in merely reporting what I had heard. I see now that
+I was wrong. I ought to have shown more regard for your feelings at
+this trying time. But again I assure you I was only reporting, and had
+not the slightest intention of making myself a go-between in the
+matter. One word more: I have no doubt I could _let_ the field for
+you--at good grazing rental. That I think you can hardly object to.’
+
+‘I should be much obliged to you,’ I replied--‘for a term of not more
+than seven years--but without the house, and with the stipulation
+expressly made that I have right of way in every direction through it.’
+
+‘Reasonable enough,’ he answered.
+
+‘One thing more,’ I said: ‘all these affairs must be pure matters of
+business between us.’
+
+‘As you please,’ he returned, with, I fancied, a shadow of
+disappointment, if not of displeasure, on his countenance. ‘I should
+have been more gratified if you had accepted a friendly office; but I
+will do my best for you, notwithstanding.’
+
+‘I had no intention of being unfriendly, Mr Coningham,’ I said. ‘But
+when I think of it, I fear I may have been rude, for the bare proposal
+of selling this Naboth’s vineyard of mine would go far to make me rude
+to any man alive. It sounds like an invitation to dishonour myself in
+the eyes of my ancestors.’
+
+‘Ah! you do care about your ancestors?’ he said, half musingly, and
+looking into his hat.
+
+‘Of course I do. Who is there does not?’
+
+‘Only some ninety-nine hundredths of the English nation.’
+
+‘I cannot well forget,’ I returned, ‘what my ancestors have done for
+me.’
+
+‘Whereas most people only remember that their ancestors can do no more
+for them. I declare I am almost glad I offended you. It does one good
+to hear a young man speak like that in these degenerate days, when a
+buck would rather be the son of a rich brewer than a decayed gentleman.
+I will call again about the end of the week--that is if you will be
+here--and report progress.’
+
+His manner, as he took his leave, was at once more friendly and more
+respectful than it had yet been--a change which I attributed to his
+having discovered in me more firmness than he had expected, in regard,
+if not of my rights, at least of my social position.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+ARRANGEMENTS.
+
+My custom at this time, and for long after I had finally settled down
+in the country, was to rise early in the morning--often, as I used when
+a child, before sunrise, in order to see the first burst of the sun
+upon the new-born world. I believed then, as I believe still, that,
+lovely as the sunset is, the sunrise is more full of mystery, poetry,
+and even, I had almost said, pathos. But often ere he was well up I had
+begun to imagine what the evening would be like, and with what softly
+mingled, all but imperceptible, gradations it would steal into night.
+Then, when the night came, I would wander about my little field, vainly
+endeavouring to picture the glory with which the next day’s sun would
+rise upon me. Hence the morning and evening became well known to me;
+and yet I shrink from saying it, for each is endless in the variety of
+its change. And the longer I was alone, I became the more enamoured of
+solitude, with the labour to which, in my case, it was so helpful; and
+began, indeed, to be in some danger of losing sight of my relation to
+‘a world of men,’ for with that world my imagination and my love for
+Charley were now my sole recognizable links.
+
+In the fore-part of the day I read and wrote; and in the after-part
+found both employment and pleasure in arranging my uncle’s books,
+amongst which I came upon a good many treasures, whereof I was now able
+in some measure to appreciate the value--thinking often, amidst their
+ancient dust and odours, with something like indignant pity, of the
+splendid collection, as I was sure it must be, mouldering away in utter
+neglect at the neighbouring Hall.
+
+I was on my knees in the midst of a pile which I had drawn from a
+cupboard under the shelves, when Mrs Herbert showed Mr Coningham in. I
+was annoyed, for my uncle’s room was sacred; but as I was about to take
+him to my own, I saw such a look of interest upon his face that it
+turned me aside, and I asked him to take a seat.
+
+‘If you do not mind the dust,’ I said.
+
+‘Mind the dust!’ he exclaimed, ‘--of old books! I count it almost
+sacred. I am glad you know how to value them.’
+
+What right had he to be glad? How did he know I valued them? How could
+I but value them? I rebuked my offence, however, and after a little
+talk about them, in which he revealed much more knowledge than I should
+have expected, it vanished. He then informed me of an arrangement he
+and Lord Inglewold’s factor had been talking over in respect of the
+farm; also of an offer he had had for my field. I considered both
+sufficiently advantageous in my circumstances, and the result was that
+I closed with both.
+
+A few days after this arrangement I returned to London, intending to
+remain for some time. I had a warm welcome from Charley, but could not
+help fancying an unacknowledged something dividing us. He appeared,
+notwithstanding, less oppressed, and, in a word, more like other
+people. I proceeded at once to finish two or three papers and stories,
+which late events had interrupted. But within a week London had grown
+to me stifling and unendurable, and I longed unspeakably for the free
+air of my field and the loneliness of my small castle. If my reader
+regard me as already a hypochondriac, the sole disproof I have to offer
+is, that I was then diligently writing what some years afterwards
+obtained a hearty reception from the better class of the reading
+public. Whether my habits were healthy or not, whether my love of
+solitude was natural or not, I cannot but hope from this that my modes
+of thinking were. The end was that, after finishing the work I had on
+hand, I collected my few belongings, gave up my lodging, bade Charley
+good-bye, receiving from him a promise to visit me at my own house if
+possible, and took my farewell of London for a season, determined not
+to return until I had produced a work which my now more enlarged
+judgment might consider fit to see the light. I had laid out all my
+spare money upon books, with which, in a few heavy trunks, I now went
+back to my solitary dwelling. I had no care upon my mind, for my small
+fortune, along with the rent of my field, was more than sufficient for
+my maintenance in the almost anchoretic seclusion in which I intended
+to live, and hence I had every advantage for the more definite
+projection and prosecution of a work which had been gradually shaping
+itself in my mind for months past.
+
+Before leaving for London, I had already spoken to a handy lad employed
+upon the farm, and he had kept himself free to enter my service when I
+should require him. He was the more necessary to me that I still had my
+mare Lilith, from which nothing but fate should ever part me. I had no
+difficulty in arranging with the new tenant for her continued
+accommodation at the farm; while, as Herbert still managed its affairs,
+the services of his wife were available as often as I required them.
+But my man soon made himself capable of doing everything for me, and
+proved himself perfectly trustworthy.
+
+I must find a name for my place--for its own I will not write: let me
+call it The Moat: there were signs, plain enough to me after my return
+from Oxford, that there had once been a moat about it, of which the
+hollow I have mentioned as the spot where I used to lie and watch for
+the sun’s first rays, had evidently been a part. But the remains of the
+moat lay at a considerable distance from the house, suggesting a large
+area of building at some former period, proof of which, however, had
+entirely vanished, the house bearing every sign of a narrow
+completeness.
+
+The work I had undertaken required a constantly recurring reference to
+books of the sixteenth century; and although I had provided as many as
+I thought I should need, I soon found them insufficient. My uncle’s
+library was very large for a man in his position, but it was not by any
+means equally developed; and my necessities made me think often of the
+old library at the Hall, which might contain somewhere in its ruins
+every book I wanted. Not only, however, would it have been useless to
+go searching in the formless mass for this or that volume, but, unable
+to grant Sir Giles the desire of his heart in respect of my poor field,
+I did not care to ask of him the comparatively small favour of being
+allowed to burrow in his dust-heap of literature.
+
+I was sitting, one hot noon, almost in despair over a certain little
+point concerning which I could find no definite information, when Mr
+Coningham called. After some business matters had been discussed, I
+mentioned, merely for the sake of talk, the difficulty I was in--the
+sole disadvantage of a residence in the country as compared with
+London, where the British Museum was the unfailing resort of all who
+required such aid as I was in want of.
+
+‘But there is the library at Moldwarp Hall,’ he said.
+
+‘Yes, _there_ it is; but there is not _here_.’
+
+‘I have no doubt Sir Giles would make you welcome to borrow what books
+you wanted. He is a good-natured man, Sir Giles.’
+
+I explained my reason for not troubling him.
+
+‘Besides,’ I added, ‘the library is in such absolute chaos, that I
+might with less loss of time run up to London, and find any volume I
+happened to want among the old-book-shops. You have no idea what a mess
+Sir Giles’s books are in--scarcely two volumes of the same book to be
+found even in proximity. It is one of the most painful sights I ever
+saw.’
+
+He said little more, but from what followed, I suspect either he or his
+father spoke to Sir Giles on the subject; for, one day, as I was
+walking past the park-gates, which I had seldom entered since my
+return, I saw him just within, talking to old Mr Coningham. I saluted
+him in passing, and he not only returned the salutation in a friendly
+manner, but made a step towards me as if he wished to speak to me. I
+turned and approached him. He came out and shook hands with me.
+
+‘I know who you are, Mr Cumbermede, although I have never had the
+pleasure of speaking to you before,’ he said frankly.
+
+‘There you are mistaken, Sir Giles,’ I returned; ‘but you could hardly
+be expected to remember the little boy who, many years ago, having
+stolen one of your apples, came to you to comfort him.’
+
+He laughed heartily.
+
+‘I remember the circumstance well,’ he said. ‘And you were that unhappy
+culprit? Ha! ha! ha! To tell the truth, I have thought of it many
+times. It was a remarkably fine thing to do.’
+
+‘What! steal the apple, Sir Giles?’
+
+‘Make the instant reparation you did.’
+
+‘There was no reparation in asking you to box my ears.’
+
+‘It was all you could do, though.’
+
+‘To ease my own conscience, it was. There is always a satisfaction, I
+suppose, in suffering for your sins. But I have thought a thousand
+times of your kindness in shaking hands with me instead. You treated me
+as the angels treat the repentant sinner, Sir Giles.’
+
+‘Well, I certainly never thought of it in that light,’ he said; then,
+as if wishing to change the subject,--‘Don’t you find it lonely now
+your uncle is gone?’ he said.
+
+‘I miss him more than I can tell.’
+
+‘A very worthy man he was--too good for this world, by all accounts.’
+
+‘He’s not the worse off for that now, Sir Giles, I trust.’ ‘No; of
+course not,’ he returned quickly, with the usual shrinking from the
+slightest allusion to what is called the other world.--‘Is there
+anything I can do for you? You are a literary man, they tell me. There
+are a good many books of one sort and another lying at the Hall. Some
+of them might be of use to you. They are at your service. I am sure you
+are to be trusted even with mouldy books, which, from what I hear, must
+be a greater temptation to you now than red-cheeked apples,’ he added
+with another merry laugh.
+
+‘I will tell you what,’ Sir Giles, I answered. ‘It has often grieved me
+to think of the state of your library. It would be scarcely possible
+for me to find a book in it now. But if you would trust me, I should be
+delighted, in my spare hours, of which I can command a good many, to
+put the whole in order for you.’
+
+‘I should be under the greatest obligation. I have always intended
+having some capable man down from London to arrange it. I am no great
+reader myself, but I have the highest respect for a good library. It
+ought never to have got into the condition in which I found it.’
+
+‘The books are fast going to ruin, I fear.’
+
+‘Are they indeed?’ he exclaimed, with some consternation. ‘I was not in
+the least aware of that. I thought so long as I let no one meddle with
+them, they were safe enough.’
+
+‘The law of the moth and rust holds with books as well as other unused
+things,’ I answered.
+
+‘Then, pray, my dear sir, undertake the thing at once,’ he said, in a
+tone to which the uneasiness of self-reproach gave a touch of
+imperiousness. ‘But really,’ he added, ‘it seems trespassing on your
+goodness much too far. Your time is valuable. Would it be a long job?’
+
+‘It would doubtless take some months; but the pleasure of seeing order
+dawn from confusion would itself repay me. And I _might_ come upon
+certain books of which I am greatly in want. You will have to allow me
+a carpenter though, for the shelves are not half sufficient to hold the
+books; and I have no doubt those there are stand in need of repair.’
+
+‘I have a carpenter amongst my people. Old houses want constant
+attention. I shall put him under your orders with pleasure. Come and
+dine with me to-morrow, and we’ll talk it all over.’
+
+‘You are very kind,’ I said. ‘Is Mr Brotherton at home?’
+
+‘I am sorry to say he is not.’
+
+‘I heard the other day that he had sold his commission.’
+
+‘Yes--six months ago. His regiment was ordered to India, and--and--his
+mother----But he does not give us much of his company,’ added the old
+man. ‘I am sorry he is not at home, for he would have been glad to meet
+you.’
+
+Instead of responding, I merely made haste to accept Sir Giles’s
+invitation. I confess I did not altogether relish having anything to do
+with the future property of Geoffrey Brotherton; but the attraction of
+the books was great, and in any case I should be under no obligation to
+him; neither was the nature of the service I was about to render him
+such as would awaken any sense of obligation in a mind like his.
+
+I could not help recalling the sarcastic criticisms of Clara when I
+entered the drawing-room of Moldwarp Hall--a long, low-ceiled room,
+with its walls and stools and chairs covered with tapestry, some of
+it the work of the needle, other some of the Gobelin loom; but
+although I found Lady Brotherton a common enough old lady, who showed
+little of the dignity of which she evidently thought much, and was
+more condescending to her yeoman neighbour than was agreeable, I did
+not at once discover ground for the severity of those remarks. Miss
+Brotherton, the eldest of the family, a long-necked lady, the flower
+of whose youth was beginning to curl at the edges, I found well-read,
+but whether in books or the reviews of them, I had to leave an open
+question as yet. Nor was I sufficiently taken with her not to feel
+considerably dismayed when she proffered me her assistance in arranging
+the library. I made no objection at the time, only hinting that the
+drawing up of a catalogue afterwards might be a fitter employment for
+her fair fingers; but I resolved to create such a fearful pother at
+the very beginning, that her first visit should be her last. And so I
+doubt not it would have fallen out, but for something else. The only
+other person who dined with us was a Miss Pease--at least so I will
+call her--who, although the law of her existence appeared to be
+fetching and carrying for Lady Brotherton, was yet, in virtue of a
+poor-relationship, allowed an uneasy seat at the table. Her obedience
+was mechanically perfect. One wondered how the mere nerves of volition
+could act so instantaneously upon the slightest hint. I saw her more
+than once or twice withdraw her fork when almost at her lips, and,
+almost before she had laid it down, rise from her seat to obey some
+half-whispered, half-nodded behest. But her look was one of injured
+meekness and self-humbled submission. Sir Giles now and then gave
+her a kind or merry word, but she would reply to it with almost abject
+humility. Her face was grey and pinched, her eyes were very cold, and
+she ate as if she did not know one thing from another.
+
+Over our wine Sir Giles introduced business. I professed myself ready,
+with a housemaid and carpenter at my orders when I should want them, to
+commence operations the following afternoon. He begged me to ask for
+whatever I might want, and after a little friendly chat, I took my
+leave, elated with the prospect of the work before me. About three
+o’clock the next afternoon I took my way to the Hall, to assume the
+temporary office of creative librarian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS.
+
+It was a lovely afternoon, the air hot, and the shadows of the trees
+dark upon the green grass. The clear sun was shining sideways on the
+little oriel window of one of the rooms in which my labour awaited me.
+Never have I seen a picture of more stately repose than the huge pile
+of building presented, while the curious vane on the central square
+tower glittered like the outburning flame of its hidden life. The only
+objection I could find to it was that it stood isolated from its own
+park, although the portion next it was kept as trim as the smoothest
+lawn. There was not a door anywhere to be seen, except the two gateway
+entrances, and not a window upon the ground-floor. All the doors and
+low windows were either within the courts, or opened on the garden,
+which, with its terraced walks and avenues and one tiny lawn,
+surrounded the two further sides of the house, and was itself enclosed
+by walls.
+
+I knew the readiest way to the library well enough: once admitted to
+the outer gate, I had no occasion to trouble the servants. The rooms
+containing the books were amongst the bed-rooms, and after crossing the
+great hall, I had to turn my back on the stair which led to the
+ball-room and drawing-room, and ascend another to the left, so that I
+could come and go with little chance of meeting any of the family.
+
+The rooms, I have said, were six, none of them of any great size, and
+all ill-fitted for the purpose. In fact, there was such a sense of
+confinement about the whole arrangement as gave me the feeling that any
+difficult book read there would be unintelligible. Order, however, is
+only another kind of light, and would do much to destroy the
+impression. Having with practical intent surveyed the situation, I saw
+there was no space for action. I must have at least the temporary use
+of another room.
+
+Observing that the last of the suite of book-rooms furthest from the
+armoury had still a door into the room beyond, I proceeded to try it,
+thinking to know at a glance whether it would suit me, and whether it
+was likely to be yielded for my purpose. It opened, and, to my dismay,
+there stood Clara Coningham, fastening her collar. She looked sharply
+round, and made a half-indignant step towards me. ‘I beg your pardon a
+thousand times, Miss Coningham,’ I exclaimed. ‘Will you allow me to
+explain, or must I retreat unheard?’
+
+I was vexed indeed, for, notwithstanding a certain flutter at the
+heart, I had no wish to renew my acquaintance with her.
+
+‘There must be some fatality about the place, Mr Cumbermede!’ she said,
+almost with her old merry laugh. ‘It frightens me.’
+
+‘Precisely my own feeling, Miss Coningham. I had no idea you were in
+the neighbourhood.’
+
+‘I cannot say so much as that, for I had heard you were at The Moat;
+but I had no expectation of seeing you--least of all in this house. I
+suppose you are on the scent of some musty old book or other,’ she
+added, approaching the door, where I stood with the handle in my hand.
+
+‘My object is an invasion rather than a hunt,’ I said, drawing back
+that she might enter.
+
+‘Just as it was the last time you and I were here!’ she went on, with
+scarcely a pause, and as easily as if there had never been any
+misunderstanding between us. I had thought myself beyond any further
+influence from her fascinations, but when I looked in her beautiful
+face, and heard her allude to the past with so much friendliness, and
+such apparent unconsciousness of any reason for forgetting it, a tremor
+ran through me from head to foot. I mastered myself sufficiently to
+reply, however.
+
+‘It is the last time you will see it so,’ I said; ‘for here stands the
+Hercules of the stable--about to restore it to cleanliness, and what is
+of far more consequence in a library--to order.’
+
+‘You don’t mean it!’ she exclaimed with genuine surprise. ‘I’m so glad
+I’m here!’
+
+‘Are you on a visit, then?’
+
+‘Indeed I am; though how it came about I don’t know. I dare say my
+father does. Lady Brotherton has invited me, stiffly of course, to
+spend a few weeks during their stay. Sir Giles must be in it: I believe
+I am rather a favourite with the good old man. But I have another
+fancy: my grandfather is getting old; I suspect my father has been
+making himself useful, and this invitation is an acknowledgment. Men
+always buttress their ill-built dignities by keeping poor women in the
+dark; by which means you drive us to infinite conjecture. That is how
+we come to be so much cleverer than you at putting two and two
+together, and making five.’
+
+‘But,’ I ventured to remark, ‘under such circumstances, you will hardly
+enjoy your visit.’
+
+‘Oh! sha’n’t I? I shall get fun enough out of it for that. They
+are--all but Sir Giles--they are great fun. Of course they don’t treat
+me as an equal, but I take it out in amusement. You will find you have
+to do the same.’
+
+‘Not I. I have nothing to do with them. I am here as a skilled
+workman--one whose work is his sufficient reward. There is nothing
+degrading in that--is there? If I thought there was, of course I
+shouldn’t come.’
+
+‘You _never_ did anything you felt degrading?’
+
+‘No.’
+
+‘Happy mortal!’ she said, with a sigh--whether humorous or real, I
+could not tell.
+
+‘I have had no occasion,’ I returned.
+
+‘And yet, as I hear, you have made your mark in literature?’
+
+‘Who says that? I should not.’
+
+‘Never mind,’ she rejoined, with, as I fancied, the look of having said
+more than she ought. ‘But,’ she added, ‘I wish you would tell me in
+what periodicals you write.’
+
+‘You must excuse me. I do not wish to be first known in connection with
+fugitive things. When first I publish a book, you may be assured my
+name will be on the title-page. Meantime, I must fulfil the conditions
+of my _entrée_.’
+
+‘And I must go and pay my respects to Lady Brotherton. I have only just
+arrived.’
+
+‘Won’t you find it dull? There’s nobody of man-kind at home but Sir
+Giles.’
+
+‘You are unjust. If Mr Brotherton had been here, I shouldn’t have come.
+I find him troublesome.’
+
+I thought she blushed, notwithstanding the air of freedom with which
+she spoke.
+
+‘If he should come into the property to-morrow,’ she went on, ‘I fear
+you would have little chance of completing your work.’
+
+‘If he came into the property this day six months, I fear he would find
+it unfinished. Certainly what was to do should remain undone.’
+
+‘Don’t be too sure of that. He might win you over. He can talk.’
+
+‘I should not be so readily pleased as another might.’
+
+She bent towards me, and said in an almost hissing whisper--
+
+‘Wilfrid, I hate him!’
+
+I started. She looked what she said. The blood shot to my heart, and
+again rushed to my face. But suddenly she retreated into her own room,
+and noiselessly closed the door. The same moment I heard that of a
+further room open, and presently Miss Brotherton peeped in.
+
+‘How do you do, Mr Cumbermede?’ she said. ‘You are already hard at
+work, I see.’
+
+I was, in fact, doing nothing. I explained that I could not make a
+commencement without the use of another room.
+
+‘I will send the housekeeper, and you can arrange with her,’ she said,
+and left me.
+
+In a few minutes Mrs Wilson entered. Her manner was more stiff and
+formal than ever. We shook hands in a rather limp fashion.
+
+‘You’ve got your will at last, Mr Cumbermede,’ she said, ‘I suppose the
+thing’s to be done!’
+
+‘It is, Mrs Wilson, I am happy to say. Sir Giles kindly offered me the
+use of the library, and I took the liberty of representing to him that
+there was no library until the books were arranged.’
+
+‘Why couldn’t you take a book away with you and read it in comfort at
+home?’
+
+‘How could I take the book home if I couldn’t find it?’
+
+‘You could find something worth reading, if that were all you wanted.’
+
+‘But that is not all. I have plenty of reading.’
+
+‘Then I don’t see what’s the good of it.’
+
+‘Books are very much like people, Mrs Wilson. There are not so many you
+want to know all about; but most could tell you things you don’t know.
+I want certain books in order to question them about certain things.’
+
+‘Well, all I know is, it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth.’
+
+‘I am afraid it will--to you, Mrs Wilson; but though I am taking a
+thousand times your trouble, I expect to be well repaid for it.’
+
+‘I have no doubt of that. Sir Giles is a liberal gentleman.’
+
+‘You don’t suppose _he_ is going to pay me, Mrs Wilson?’ ‘Who else
+should?’
+
+‘Why, the books themselves, of course.’
+
+Evidently she thought I was making game of her, for she was silent.
+
+‘Will you show me which room I can have?’ I said. ‘It must be as near
+this one as possible. Is the next particularly wanted?’ I asked,
+pointing to the door which led into Clara’s room.
+
+She went to it quickly, and opened it far enough to put her hand in and
+take the key from the other side, which she then inserted on my side,
+turned in the lock, drew out, and put in her pocket.
+
+‘That room is otherwise engaged,’ she said. ‘You must be content with
+one across the corridor.’
+
+‘Very well--if it is not far. I should make slow work of it, if I had
+to carry the books a long way.’
+
+‘You can have one of the footmen to help you,’ she said, apparently
+relenting.
+
+‘No, thank you,’ I answered. ‘I will have no one touch the books but
+myself.’
+
+‘I will show you one which I think will suit your purpose,’ she said,
+leading the way.
+
+It was nearly opposite--a bed-room, sparely furnished.
+
+‘Thank you. This will do--if you will order all the things to be piled
+in that corner.’
+
+She stood silent for a few moments, evidently annoyed, then turned and
+left the room, saying,
+
+‘I will see to it, Mr Cumbermede.’
+
+Returning to the books and pulling off my coat, I had soon compelled
+such a cloud of very ancient and smothering dust, that when Miss
+Brotherton again made her appearance, her figure showed dim through the
+thick air, as she stood--dismayed, I hoped--in the doorway. I pretended
+to be unaware of her presence, and went on beating and blowing, causing
+yet thicker volumes of solid vapour to clothe my presence. She withdrew
+without even an attempt at parley.
+
+Having heaped several great piles near the door, each composed of books
+of nearly the same size, the first rudimentary approach to arrangement,
+I crossed to the other room to see what progress had been made. To my
+surprise and annoyance, I found nothing had been done. Determined not
+to have my work impeded by the remissness of the servants, and seeing I
+must place myself at once on a proper footing in the house, I went to
+the drawing-room to ascertain, if possible, where Sir Giles was. I had
+of course put on my coat, but having no means of ablution at hand, I
+must have presented a very unpresentable appearance when I entered.
+Lady Brotherton half rose, in evident surprise at my intrusion, but at
+once resumed her seat, saying, as she turned her chair half towards the
+window where the other two ladies sat,
+
+‘The housekeeper will attend to you, Mr Cumbermede--or the butler.’
+
+I could see that Clara was making some inward merriment over my
+appearance and reception.
+
+‘Could you tell me, Lady Brotherton,’ I said, ‘where I should be likely
+to find Sir Giles?’
+
+‘I can give you no information on that point,’ she answered, with
+consummate stiffness.
+
+‘I know where he is,’ said Clara, rising. ‘I will take you to him. He
+is in the study.’
+
+She took no heed of the glance broadly thrown at her, but approached
+the door.
+
+I opened it, and followed her out of the room. As soon as we were
+beyond hearing, she burst out laughing. ‘How dared you show your
+workman’s face in that drawing-room?’ she said. ‘I am afraid you have
+much offended her ladyship.’
+
+‘I hope it is for the last time. When I am properly attended to, I
+shall have no occasion to trouble her.’
+
+She led me to Sir Giles’s study. Except newspapers and reports of
+companies, there was in it nothing printed. He rose when we entered,
+and came towards us.
+
+‘Looking like your work already, Mr Cumbermede?’ he said, holding out
+his hand.
+
+‘I must not shake hands with you this time, Sir Giles,’ I returned.
+‘But I am compelled to trouble you. I can’t get on for want of
+attendance. I _must_ have a little help.’
+
+I told him how things were. His rosy face grew rosier, and he rang the
+bell angrily. The butler answered it.
+
+‘Send Mrs Wilson here. And I beg, Hurst, you will see that Mr
+Cumbermede has every attention.’
+
+Mrs Wilson presently made her appearance, and stood with a flushed face
+before her master.
+
+‘Let Mr Cumbermede’s orders be attended to _at once_, Mrs Wilson.’
+
+‘Yes, Sir Giles,’ she answered, and waited.
+
+‘I am greatly obliged to you for letting me know,’ he added, turning to
+me. ‘Pray insist upon proper attention.’
+
+‘Thank you, Sir Giles. I shall not scruple.’
+
+‘That will do, Mrs Wilson. You must not let Mr Cumbermede be hampered
+in his kind labours for my benefit by the idleness of my servants.’
+
+The housekeeper left the room, and after a little chat with Sir Giles,
+I went back to the books. Clara had followed Mrs Wilson, partly, I
+suspect, for the sake of enjoying her confusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+ASSISTANCE.
+
+I returned to my solitary house as soon as the evening began to grow
+too dark for my work, which, from the lowness of the windows and the
+age of the glass, was early. All the way as I went, I was thinking of
+Clara. Not only had time somewhat obliterated the last impression she
+had made upon me, but I had, partly from the infection of Charley’s
+manner, long ago stumbled upon various excuses for her conduct. Now I
+said to myself that she had certainly a look of greater sedateness than
+before. But her expression of dislike to Geoffrey Brotherton had more
+effect upon me than anything else, inasmuch as there Vanity found room
+for both the soles of her absurdly small feet; and that evening, when I
+went wandering, after my custom, with a volume of Dante in my hand, the
+book remained unopened, and from the form of Clara flowed influences
+mingling with and gathering fresh power from those of Nature, whose
+feminine front now brooded over me half-withdrawn in the dim, starry
+night. I remember that night so well! I can recall it now with a
+calmness equal to its own. Indeed in my memory it seems to belong to my
+mind as much as to the outer world; or rather the night filled both,
+forming the space in which my thoughts moved, as well as the space in
+which the brilliant thread of the sun-lighted crescent hung clasping
+the earth-lighted bulk of the moon. I wandered in the grass until
+midnight was long by, feeling as quietly and peacefully at home as if
+my head had been on the pillow and my soul out in a lovely dream of
+cool delight. We lose much even by the good habits we form. What tender
+and glorious changes pass over our sleeping heads unseen! What moons
+rise and set in rippled seas of cloud, or behind hills of stormy
+vapour, while we are blind! What storms roll thundering across the airy
+vault, with no eyes for their keen lightnings to dazzle, while we dream
+of the dead who will not speak to us! But ah! I little thought to what
+a dungeon of gloom this lovely night was the jasmine-grown porch!
+
+The next morning I was glad to think that there was no wolf at my door,
+howling _work---work!_ Moldwarp Hall drew me with redoubled attraction;
+and instead of waiting for the afternoon, which alone I had intended to
+occupy with my new undertaking, I set out to cross the park the moment
+I had finished my late breakfast. Nor could I conceal from myself that
+it was quite as much for the chance of seeing Clara now and then as
+from pleasure in the prospect of an ordered library that I repaired
+thus early to the Hall. In the morning light, however, I began to
+suspect, as I walked, that, although Clara’s frankness was flattering,
+it was rather a sign that she was heart-whole towards me than that she
+was careless of Brotherton. I began to doubt also whether, after our
+first meeting, which she had carried off so well--cool even to
+kindness--she would care to remember that I was in the house, or derive
+from it any satisfaction beyond what came of the increased chances of
+studying the Brothertons from a humorous point of view. Then, after
+all, why was she there?--and apparently on such familiar terms with a
+family socially so far superior to her own? The result of my
+cogitations was the resolution to take care of myself. But it had
+vanished utterly before the day was two hours older. A youth’s wise
+talk to himself will not make him a wise man, any more than the
+experience of the father will serve the son’s need.
+
+I was hard at work in my shirt-sleeves, carrying an armful of books
+across the corridor, and thinking whether I had not better bring my
+servant with me in the afternoon, when Clara came out of her room.
+
+‘Here already, Wilfrid!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why don’t you have some of the
+servants to help you? You’re doing what any one might as well do for
+you.’
+
+‘If these were handsomely bound,’ I answered, ‘I should not so much
+mind; but being old and tattered, no one ought to touch them who does
+not love them.’
+
+‘Then, I suppose, you wouldn’t trust me with them either, for I cannot
+pretend to anything beyond a second-hand respect for them.’
+
+‘What do you mean by a second-hand respect?’ I asked.
+
+‘I mean such respect as comes from seeing that a scholar like you
+respects them.’
+
+‘Then I think I could accord you a second-hand sort of trust--under my
+own eye, that is,’ I answered, laughing. ‘But you can scarcely leave
+your hostess to help me.’
+
+‘I will ask Miss Brotherton to come too. She will pretend all the
+respect you desire.’
+
+‘I made three times the necessary dust in order to frighten her away
+yesterday.’
+
+‘Ah! that’s a pity. But I shall manage to overrule her objections--that
+is, if you would really like two tolerably educated housemaids to help
+you.’
+
+‘I will gladly endure one of them for the sake of the other,’ I
+replied.
+
+‘No compliments, please,’ she returned, and left the room.
+
+In about half an hour she re-appeared, accompanied by Miss Brotherton.
+They were in white wrappers, with their dresses shortened a little, and
+their hair tucked under mob caps. Miss Brotherton looked like a
+lady’s-maid, Clara like a lady acting a lady’s-maid. I assumed the
+command at once, pointing out to what heaps in the other room those I
+had grouped in this were to be added, and giving strict injunctions as
+to carrying only a few at once, and laying them down with care in
+regularly ordered piles. Clara obeyed with a mock submission, Miss
+Brotherton with a reserve which heightened the impression of her dress.
+I was instinctively careful how I spoke to Clara, fearing to compromise
+her, but she seemed all at once to change her _rôle_, and began to
+propose, object, and even insist upon her own way, drawing from me the
+threat of immediate dismission from my service, at which her companion
+laughed with an awkwardness showing she regarded the pleasantry as a
+presumption. Before one o’clock, the first room was almost empty. Then
+the great bell rang, and Clara, coming from the auxiliary chamber, put
+her head in at the door.
+
+‘Won’t you come to luncheon?’ she said, with a sly archness, looking
+none the less bewitching for a smudge or two on her lovely face, or the
+blackness of the delicate hands which she held up like two paws for my
+admiration.
+
+‘In the servants’ hall? Workmen don’t sit down with ladies and
+gentlemen. Did Miss Brotherton send you to ask me?’
+
+She shook her head.
+
+‘Then you had better come and lunch with me.’
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+‘I hope you will _some_ day honour my little fragment of a house. It is
+a curious old place,’ I said.
+
+‘I don’t like musty old places,’ she replied.
+
+‘But I have heard you speak with no little admiration of the Hall: some
+parts of it are older than my sentry-box.’
+
+‘I can’t say I admire it at all as a place to live in,’ she answered
+curtly.
+
+‘But I was not asking you to live in mine,’ I said--foolishly arguing.
+
+She looked annoyed, whether with herself or me I could not tell, but
+instantly answered,
+
+‘Some day--when I can without--But I must go and make myself tidy, or
+Miss Brotherton will be fancying I have been talking to you!’
+
+‘And what have you been doing, then?’
+
+‘Only asking you to come to lunch.’
+
+‘Will you tell her that?’
+
+‘Yes--if she says anything.’
+
+‘Then you _had_ better make haste, and be asked no questions.’
+
+She glided away. I threw on my coat, and re-crossed the park.
+
+But I was so eager to see again the fair face in the mob cap, that,
+although not at all certain of its reappearance, I told my man to go at
+once and bring the mare. He made haste, and by the time I had finished
+my dinner she was at the door. I gave her the rein, and two or three
+minutes brought me back to the Hall, where, having stabled her, I was
+at my post again, I believe, before they had finished luncheon. I had a
+great heap of books ready in the second room to carry into the first,
+and had almost concluded they would not come, when I heard their
+voices--and presently they entered, but not in their mob caps.
+
+‘What an unmerciful master you are!’ said Clara, looking at the heap.
+‘I thought you had gone home to lunch.’
+
+‘I went home to dinner,’ I said. ‘I get more out of the day by dining
+early.’
+
+‘How is that, Mr Cumbermede?’ asked Miss Brotherton, with a nearer
+approach to cordiality than she had yet shown.
+
+‘I think the evening the best part of the day--too good to spend in
+eating and drinking.’
+
+‘But,’ said Clara, quite gravely, ‘are not those the chief ends of
+existence?’ ‘Your friend is satirical, Miss Brotherton,’ I remarked.
+
+‘At least, you are not of her opinion, to judge by the time you have
+taken,’ she returned.
+
+‘I have been back nearly an hour,’ I said. ‘Workmen don’t take long
+over their meals.’
+
+‘Well, I suppose you don’t want any more of us now,’ said Clara. ‘You
+will arrange the books you bring from the next room upon these empty
+shelves, I presume?’
+
+‘No, not yet. I must not begin that until I have cleared the very last,
+got it thoroughly cleaned, the shelves seen to, and others put up.’
+
+‘What a tremendous labour you have undertaken, Mr Cumbermede!’ said
+Miss Brotherton. ‘I am quite ashamed you should do so much for us.’
+
+‘I, on the contrary, am delighted to be of any service to Sir Giles.’
+
+‘But you don’t expect us to slave all day as we did in the morning?’
+said Clara.
+
+‘Certainly not, Miss Coningham. I am too grateful to be exacting.’
+
+‘Thank you for that pretty speech. Come, then, Miss Brotherton, we must
+have a walk. We haven’t been out-of-doors to-day.’
+
+‘Really, Miss Coningham, I think the least we can do is to help Mr
+Cumbermede to our small ability.’
+
+‘Nonsense!’--(Miss Brotherton positively started at the word.) ‘Any two
+of the maids or men would serve his purpose better, if he did not
+affect fastidiousness. We sha’n’t be allowed to come to-morrow if we
+overdo it to-day.’
+
+Miss Brotherton was evidently on the point of saying something
+indignant, but yielded notwithstanding, and I was left alone once more.
+Again I laboured until the shadows grew thick around the gloomy walls.
+As I galloped home, I caught sight of my late companions coming across
+the park; and I trust I shall not be hardly judged if I confess that I
+did sit straighter in my saddle, and mind my seat better. Thus ended my
+second day’s work at the library of Moldwarp Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+AN EXPOSTULATION.
+
+Neither of the ladies came to me the next morning. As far as my work
+was concerned, I was in considerably less need of their assistance, for
+it lay only between two rooms opening into each other. Nor did I feel
+any great disappointment, for so long as a man has something to do,
+expectation is pleasure enough, and will continue such for a long time.
+It is those who are unemployed to whom expectation becomes an agony. I
+went home to my solitary dinner almost resolved to return to my
+original plan of going only in the afternoons.
+
+I was not thoroughly in love with Clara; but it was certainly the hope
+of seeing her, and not the pleasure of handling the dusty books, that
+drew me back to the library that afternoon. I had got rather tired of
+the whole affair in the morning. It was very hot, and the dust was
+choking, and of the volumes I opened as they passed through my hands,
+not one was of the slightest interest to me. But for the chance of
+seeing Clara I should have lain in the grass instead.
+
+No one came. I grew weary, and for a change retreated into the armoury.
+Evidently, not the slightest heed was paid to the weapons now, and I
+was thinking with myself that, when I had got the books in order, I
+might give a few days to furbishing and oiling them, when the door from
+the gallery opened, and Clara entered.
+
+‘What! a truant?’ she said.
+
+‘You take accusation at least by the forelock, Clara. Who is the real
+truant now--if I may suggest a mistake?’
+
+‘_I_ never undertook anything. How many guesses have you made as to the
+cause of your desertion to-day?’
+
+‘Well, three or four.’
+
+‘Have you made one as to the cause of Miss Brotherton’s graciousness to
+you yesterday?’
+
+‘At least I remarked the change.’
+
+‘I will tell you. There was a short notice of some of your writings in
+a certain magazine which I contrived should fall in her way.’
+
+‘Impossible!’ I exclaimed. ‘I have never put my name to anything.’
+
+‘But you have put the same name to all your contributions.’
+
+‘How should the reviewer know it meant me?’
+
+‘Your own name was never mentioned.’
+
+I thought she looked a little confused as she said this.
+
+‘Then how should Miss Brotherton know it meant me?’
+
+She hesitated a moment--then answered:
+
+‘Perhaps from internal evidence.--I suppose I must confess I told her.’
+
+‘Then how did _you_ know?
+
+‘I have been one of your readers for a long time.’
+
+‘But how did you come to know my work?’
+
+‘That has oozed out.’
+
+‘Some one must have told you,’ I said.
+
+‘That is my secret,’ she replied, with the air of making it a mystery
+in order to tease me.
+
+‘It must be all a mistake,’ I said. ‘Show me the magazine.’
+
+‘As you won’t take my word for it, I won’t.’
+
+‘Well, I shall soon find out. There is but one could have done it. It
+is very kind of him, no doubt; but I don’t like it. That kind of thing
+should come of itself--not through friends.’
+
+‘Who do you fancy has done it?’
+
+‘If you have a secret, so have I.’
+
+My answer seemed to relieve her, though I could not tell what gave me
+the impression.
+
+‘You are welcome to yours, and I will keep mine,’ she said. ‘I only
+wanted to explain Miss Brotherton’s condescension yesterday.’
+
+‘I thought you were going to explain why you didn’t come to-day.’
+
+‘That is only a re-action. I have no doubt she thinks she went too far
+yesterday.’
+
+‘That is absurd. She was civil; that was all.’
+
+‘In reading your thermometer, you must know its zero first,’ she
+replied sententiously. ‘Is the sword you call yours there still?’
+
+‘Yes, and I call it mine still.’
+
+‘Why don’t you take it, then? I should have carried it off long ago.’
+
+‘To steal my own would be to prejudice my right,’ I returned. ‘But I
+have often thought of telling Sir Giles about it.’
+
+‘Why don’t you, then?’
+
+‘I hardly know. My head has been full of other things, and any time
+will do. But I should like to see it in its own place once more.’
+
+I had taken it from the wall, and now handed it to her.
+
+‘Is this it?’ she said carelessly.
+
+‘It is--just as it was carried off my bed that night.’
+
+‘What room were you in?’ she asked, trying to draw it from the sheath.
+
+‘I can’t tell. I’ve never been in it since.’
+
+‘You don’t seem to me to have the curiosity natural to a--’
+
+‘To a woman--no,’ I said.
+
+‘To a man of spirit,’ she retorted, with an appearance of indignation.
+‘I don’t believe you can tell even how it came into your possession!’
+
+‘Why shouldn’t it have been in the family from time immemorial?’
+
+‘So!--And you don’t care either to recover it, or to find out how you
+lost it!’
+
+‘How can I? Where is Mr Close?’
+
+‘Why, dead, years and years ago.’
+
+‘So I understood. I can’t well apply to him, then, and I am certain no
+one else knows.’
+
+‘Don’t be too sure of that. Perhaps Sir Giles--’
+
+‘I am positive Sir Giles knows nothing about it.’
+
+‘I have reason to think the story is not altogether unknown in the
+family.’
+
+‘Have you told it, then?’
+
+‘No, but I _have_ heard it alluded to.’
+
+‘By Sir Giles?’
+
+‘No.’
+
+‘By whom, then?’
+
+‘I will answer no more questions.’
+
+‘Geoffrey, I suppose?’
+
+‘You are not polite. Do you suppose I am bound to tell you all I know?’
+
+‘Not by any means. Only, you oughtn’t to pique a curiosity you don’t
+mean to satisfy.’
+
+‘But if I’m not at liberty to say more?--All I meant to say was that,
+if I were you, I _would_ get back that sword.’
+
+‘You hint at a secret, and yet suppose I could carry off its object as
+I might a rusty nail, which any passer-by would be made welcome to!’
+
+‘You might take it first, and mention the thing to Sir Giles
+afterwards.’
+
+‘Why not mention it first?’
+
+‘Only on the supposition you had not the courage to claim it.’
+
+‘In that case I certainly shouldn’t have the courage to avow the deed
+afterwards. I don’t understand you, Clara.’
+
+She laughed.
+
+‘That is always your way,’ she said. ‘You take everything so seriously!
+Why couldn’t I make a proposition without being supposed to mean it?’
+
+[Illustration: “Glued,” she echoed, “What do you mean?”]
+
+I was not satisfied. There was something short of uprightness in the
+whole tone of her attempted persuasion--which indeed I could hardly
+believe to have been so lightly intended as she now suggested. The
+effect of my feeling for her was that of a slight frost on the Spring
+blossoms.
+
+She had been examining the hilt with a look of interest, and was now
+for the third time trying to draw the blade from the sheath.
+
+‘It’s no use, Clara,’ I said. ‘It has been too many years glued to the
+scabbard.’
+
+‘Glued!’ she echoed. ‘What do you mean?’
+
+I did not reply. An expression almost of horror shadowed her face, and
+at the same moment, to my astonishment, she drew it half-way.
+
+‘Why! You enchantress!’ I exclaimed. ‘I never saw so much of it before.
+It is wonderfully bright--when one thinks of the years it has been shut
+in darkness.’
+
+She handed it to me as it was, saying,
+
+‘If that weapon was mine, I should never rest until I had found out
+everything concerning it.’
+
+‘That is easily said, Clara; but how can I? My uncle knew nothing about
+it. My grandmother did, no doubt, but almost all I can remember her
+saying was something about my great-grandfather and Sir Marmaduke.’
+
+As I spoke, I tried to draw it entirely, but it would yield no further.
+I then sought to replace it, but it would not move. That it yielded to
+Clara’s touch gave it a fresh interest and value.
+
+‘I was sure it had a history,’ said Clara. ‘Have you no family papers?
+Your house you say is nearly as old as this: are there no papers of
+_any_ kind in it?’
+
+‘Yes, a few,’ I answered--‘the lease of the farm--and--’
+
+‘Oh! rubbish!’ she said. ‘Isn’t the house your own?’
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘And have you ever thoroughly searched it?’
+
+‘I haven’t had time yet.’
+
+‘Not had time!’ she repeated, in a tone of something so like the
+uttermost contempt that I was bewildered.
+
+‘I mean some day or other to have a rummage in the old lumber-room,’ I
+said.
+
+‘Well, I do think that is the least you can do--if only out of respect
+to your ancestors. Depend on it, they don’t like to be forgotten any
+more than other people.’
+
+The intention I had just announced was, however, but just born of her
+words. I had never yet searched even my grandmother’s bureau, and had
+but this very moment fancied there might be papers in some old chest in
+the lumber-room. That room had already begun to occupy my thoughts from
+another point of view, and hence, in part, no doubt the suggestion. I
+was anxious to have a visit from Charley. He might bring with him some
+of our London friends. There was absolutely no common room in the house
+except the hall-kitchen. The room we had always called the lumber-room
+was over it, and nearly as large. It had a tall stone chimney-piece,
+elaborately carved, and clearly had once been a room for entertainment.
+The idea of restoring it to its original dignity arose in my mind; and
+I hoped that, furnished after as antique a fashion as I could compass,
+it would prove a fine room. The windows were small, to be sure, and the
+pitch rather low, but the whitewashed walls were pannelled, and I had
+some hopes of the ceiling.
+
+‘Who knows,’ I said to myself, as I walked home that evening, ‘but I
+may come upon papers? I do remember something in the furthest corner
+that looks like a great chest.’
+
+Little more had passed between us, but Clara left me with the old
+Dissatisfaction beginning to turn itself, as if about to awake once
+more. For the present I hung the half-naked blade upon the wall, for I
+dared not force it lest the scabbard should go to pieces.
+
+When I reached home, I found a letter from Charley, to the effect that,
+if convenient, he would pay me a visit the following week. His mother
+and sister, he said, had been invited to Moldwarp Hall. His father was
+on the continent for his health. Without having consulted them on the
+matter, which might involve them in after-difficulty, he would come to
+me, and so have an opportunity of seeing them in the sunshine of his
+father’s absence. I wrote at once that I should be delighted to receive
+him.
+
+The next morning I spent with my man in the lumber-room; and before
+mid-day the rest of the house looked like an old curiosity shop--it was
+so littered with odds and ends of dust-bloomed antiquity. It was hard
+work, and in the afternoon I found myself disinclined for more exercise
+of a similar sort. I had Lilith out, and took a leisurely ride instead.
+The next day, and the next also, I remained at home. The following
+morning I went again to Moldwarp Hall. I had not been busy more than an
+hour or so when Clara, who, I presume, had in passing heard me at work,
+looked in.
+
+‘Who is a truant now?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Here
+has Miss Brotherton been almost curious concerning your absence, and
+Sir Giles more than once on the point of sending to inquire after you!’
+
+‘Why didn’t he, then?’
+
+‘Oh! I suppose he was afraid it might look like an assertion of--of--of
+baronial rights, or something of the sort. How _could_ you behave in
+such an inconsiderate fashion!’
+
+‘You must allow me to have _some_ business of my own.’
+
+‘Certainly. But with so many anxious friends, you ought to have given a
+hint of your intentions.’
+
+‘I had none, however.’
+
+‘Of which? Friends or intentions?’
+
+‘Either.’
+
+‘What! No friends? I verily surprised Miss Pease in the act of studying
+her “Cookery for Invalids”--in the hope of finding a patient in you, no
+doubt. She wanted to come and nurse you, but daren’t propose it.’
+
+‘It was very kind of her.’
+
+‘No doubt. But then you see she’s ready to commit suicide any day, poor
+old thing, but for lack of courage!’
+
+‘It must be dreary for her!’
+
+‘Dreary! I should poison the old dragon.’
+
+‘Well, perhaps I had better tell you, for Miss Pease’s sake, who is
+evidently the only one that cares a straw about _me_ in the matter,
+that possibly I shall be absent a good many days this week, and perhaps
+the next too.’
+
+‘Why, then--if I may ask--Mr Absolute?’
+
+‘Because a friend of mine is going to pay me a visit. You remember
+Charley Osborne, don’t you? Of course you do. You remember the
+ice-cave, I am sure.’
+
+‘Yes, I do--quite well,’ she answered.
+
+I fancied I saw a shadow cross her face.
+
+‘When do you expect him?’ she asked, turning away, and picking a book
+from the floor.
+
+‘In a week or so, I think. He tells me his mother and sister are coming
+here on a visit.’
+
+‘Yes--so I believe--to-morrow, I think. I wonder if I ought to be
+going. I don’t think I will. I came to please them--at all events not
+to please myself; but as I find it pleasanter than I expected, I won’t
+go without a hint and a half at least.’
+
+‘Why should you? There is plenty of room.’
+
+‘Yes; but don’t you see?--so many inferiors in the house at once might
+be too much for Madame Dignity. She finds one quite enough, I suspect.’
+
+‘You do not mean that she regards the Osbornes as inferiors?’
+
+‘Not a doubt of it. Never mind. I can take care of myself. Have you any
+work for me to-day?’
+
+‘Plenty, if you are in a mood for it.’
+
+‘I will fetch Miss Brotherton.’
+
+‘I can do without _her_.’
+
+She went, however, and did not return. As I walked home to dinner, she
+and Miss Brotherton passed me in the carriage, on their way, as I
+learned afterwards, to fetch the Osborne ladies from the rectory, some
+ten miles off. I did not return to Moldwarp Hall, but helped Styles in
+the lumber-room, which before night we had almost emptied.
+
+The next morning I was favoured with a little desultory assistance from
+the two ladies, but saw nothing of the visitors. In the afternoon, and
+both the following days, I took my servant with me, who got through
+more work than the two together, and we advanced it so far that I was
+able to leave the room next the armoury in the hands of the carpenter
+and the housemaid, with sufficient directions, and did not return that
+week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+A TALK WITH CHARLEY.
+
+The following Monday, in the evening, Charley arrived, in great
+spirits, more excited indeed than I liked to see him. There was a
+restlessness in his eye which made me especially anxious, for it raised
+a doubt whether the appearance of good spirits was not the result
+merely of resistance to some anxiety. But I hoped my companionship,
+with the air and exercise of the country, would help to quiet him
+again. In the late twilight we took a walk together up and down my
+field.
+
+‘I suppose you let your mother know you were coming, Charley?’ I said.
+
+‘I did not,’ he answered. ‘My father must have nothing to lay to their
+charge in case he should hear of our meeting.’
+
+‘But he has not forbidden you to go home, has he?’
+
+‘No, certainly. But he as good as told me I was not to go home while he
+was away. He does not wish me to be there without his presence to
+counteract my evil influences. He seems to regard my mere proximity as
+dangerous. I sometimes wonder whether the severity of his religion may
+not have affected his mind. Almost all madness, you know, turns either
+upon love or religion.’
+
+‘So I have heard. I doubt it--with men. It may be with women.--But you
+won’t surprise them? It might startle your mother too much. She is not
+strong, you say. Hadn’t I better tell Clara Coningham? She can let them
+know you are here.’
+
+‘It would be better.’
+
+‘What do you say to going there with me to-morrow? I will send my man
+with a note in the morning.’
+
+He looked a little puzzled and undetermined, but said at length,
+
+‘I dare say your plan is the best. How long has Miss Coningham been
+here?’
+
+‘About ten days, I think.’
+
+He looked thoughtful and made no answer.
+
+‘I see, you are afraid of my falling in love with her again,’ I said.
+‘I confess I like her much better than I did, but I am not quite sure
+about her yet. She is very bewitching anyhow, and a little more might
+make me lose my heart to her. The evident dislike she has to Brotherton
+would of itself recommend her to any friend of yours or mine.’
+
+He turned his face away.
+
+‘Do not be anxious about me,’ I went on. ‘The first shadowy conviction
+of any untruthfulness in her, if not sufficient to change my feelings
+at once, would at once initiate a backward movement in them.’
+
+He kept his face turned away, and I was perplexed. After a few moments
+of silence, he turned it towards me again, as if relieved by some
+resolution suddenly formed, and said with a smile under a still clouded
+brow,
+
+‘Well, old fellow, we’ll see. It’ll all come right, I dare say. Write
+your note early, and we’ll follow it. How glad I _shall_ be to have a
+glimpse of that blessed mother of mine without her attendant dragon!’
+
+‘For God’s sake don’t talk of your father so! Surely, after all, he is
+a good man!’
+
+‘Then I want a new reading of the word.’
+
+‘He loves God, at least.’
+
+‘I won’t stop to inquire--’ said Charley, plunging at once into
+argument--‘what influence for good it might or might not have to love a
+non-existence: I will only ask--Is it a good God he loves or a bad one?
+If the latter, he can hardly be called good for loving him.’
+
+‘But if there be a God at all, he must be a good God.’
+
+‘Suppose the true God to be the good God, it does not follow that my
+father worships _him_. There is such a thing as worshipping a false
+God. At least the Bible recognizes it. For my part, I find myself
+compelled to say--either that the true God is not a good God, or that
+my father does not worship the true God. If you say he worships the God
+of the Bible, I either admit or dispute the assertion, but set it aside
+as altering nothing; for if I admit it, the argument lies thus: my
+father worships a bad God; my father worships the God of the Bible:
+therefore the God of the Bible is a bad God; and if I admit the
+authority of the Bible, then the true God is a bad God. If, however, I
+dispute the assertion that he worships the God of the Bible, I am left
+to show, if I can, that the God of the Bible is a good God, and, if I
+admit the authority of the Bible, to worship another than my father’s
+God. If I do not admit the authority of the Bible, there may, for all
+that, be a good God, or, which is next best to a perfectly good God,
+there may be no God at all.’
+
+‘Put like a lawyer, Charley: and yet I would venture to join issue with
+your first assertion--on which the whole argument is founded--that your
+father worships a bad God.’
+
+‘Assuredly what he asserts concerning his God is bad.’
+
+‘Admitted; but does he assert _only_ bad things of his God?’
+
+‘I daren’t say that. But God is one. You will hardly dare the
+proposition that an infinite being may be partly good and partly bad.’
+
+‘No. I heartily hold that God must be _one_--a proposition far more
+essential than that there is one God--so far, at least, as my
+understanding can judge. It is only in the limited human nature that
+good and evil can co-exist. But there is just the point: we are not
+speaking of the absolute God, but of the idea of a man concerning that
+God. You could suppose yourself utterly convinced of a good God long
+before your ideas of goodness were so correct as to render you
+incapable of attributing anything wrong to that God. Supposing such to
+be the case, and that you came afterwards to find that you had been
+thinking something wrong about him, do you think you would therefore
+grant that you had been believing either in a wicked or in a false
+God?’
+
+‘Certainly not.’
+
+‘Then you must give your father the same scope. He attributes what we
+are absolutely certain are bad things to his God--and yet he may
+believe in a good God, for the good in his idea of God is that alone in
+virtue of which he is able to believe in him. No mortal can believe in
+the bad.’
+
+‘He puts the evil foremost in his creed and exhortations.’
+
+‘That may be. Few people know their own deeper minds. The more potent a
+power in us, I suspect it is the more hidden from our scrutiny.’
+
+‘If there be a God, then, Wilfrid, he is very indifferent to what his
+creatures think of him.’
+
+‘Perhaps very patient and hopeful, Charley--who knows? Perhaps he will
+not force himself upon them, but help them to grow into the true
+knowledge of him. Your father may worship the true God, and yet have
+only a little of that knowledge.’
+
+A silence followed. At length--‘Thank you for my father,’ said Charley.
+
+‘Thank my uncle,’ I said.
+
+‘For not being like my father?--I do,’ he returned.
+
+It was the loveliest evening that brooded round us as we walked. The
+moon had emerged from a rippled sea of grey cloud, over which she cast
+her dull opaline halo. Great masses and banks of cloud lay about the
+rest of the heavens, and, in the dark rifts between, a star or two were
+visible, gazing from the awful distance.
+
+‘I wish I could let it into me, Wilfrid,’ said Charley, after we had
+been walking in silence for some time along the grass.
+
+‘Let what into you, Charley?’
+
+‘The night and the blue and the stars.’
+
+‘Why don’t you, then?’
+
+‘I hate being taken in. The more pleasant a self-deception, the less I
+choose to submit to it.’
+
+‘That is reasonable. But where lies the deception?’
+
+‘I don’t say it’s a deception. I only don’t know that it isn’t.’
+
+‘Please explain.’
+
+‘I mean what you call the beauty of the night.’
+
+‘Surely there can be little question of that?’
+
+‘Ever so little is enough. Suppose I asked you wherein its beauty
+consisted: would you be satisfied if I said--In the arrangement of the
+blue and the white, with the sparkles of yellow, and the colours about
+the scarce visible moon?’
+
+‘Certainly not. I should reply that it lay in the gracious peace of the
+whole--troubled only with the sense of some lovely secret behind, of
+which itself was but the half-modelled representation, and therefore
+the reluctant outcome.’
+
+‘Suppose I rejected the latter half of what you say, admitting the
+former, but judging it only the fortuitous result of the
+half-necessary, half-fortuitous concurrences of nature. Suppose I
+said:--The air which is necessary to our life, happens to be blue; the
+stars can’t help shining through it and making it look deep; and the
+clouds are just there because they must be somewhere till they fall
+again; all which is more agreeable to us than fog because we feel more
+comfortable in weather of the sort, whence, through complacency and
+habit, we have got to call it beautiful:--suppose I said this, would
+you accept it?’
+
+‘Such a theory would destroy my delight in nature altogether.’
+
+‘Well, isn’t it the truth?’
+
+‘It would be easy to show that the sense of beauty does not spring from
+any amount of comfort; but I do not care to pursue the argument from
+that starting-point.--I confess when you have once waked the
+questioning spirit, and I look up at the clouds and the stars with what
+I may call sharpened eyes--eyes, that is, which assert their seeing,
+and so render themselves incapable for the time of submitting to
+impressions, I am as blind as any Sadducee could desire. I see blue,
+and white, and gold, and, in short, a tent-roof somewhat ornate. I dare
+say if I were in a miserable mood, having been deceived and
+disappointed like Hamlet, I should with him see there nothing but a
+foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. But I know that when I am
+passive to its powers, I am aware of a presence altogether
+different--of a something at once soothing and elevating, powerful to
+move shame--even contrition and the desire of amendment.’
+
+‘Yes, yes,’ said Charley hastily. ‘But let me suppose further--and,
+perhaps you will allow, better--that this blueness--I take a part for
+the whole--belongs essentially and of necessity to the atmosphere,
+itself so essential to our physical life; suppose also that this blue
+has essential relation to our spiritual nature--taking for the moment
+our spiritual nature for granted--suppose, in a word, all nature so
+related, not only to our physical but to our spiritual nature, that it
+and we form an organic whole full of action and reaction between the
+parts--would that satisfy you? Would it enable you to look on the sky
+this night with absolute pleasure? would you want nothing more?’
+
+I thought for a little before I answered.
+
+‘No, Charley,’ I said at last--‘it would not satisfy me. For it would
+indicate that beauty might be, after all, but the projection of my own
+mind--the name I gave to a harmony between that around me and that
+within me. There would then be nothing absolute in beauty. There would
+be no such thing in itself. It would exist only as a phase of me when I
+was in a certain mood; and when I was earthly-minded, passionate, or
+troubled, it would be _no_where. But in my best moods I feel that in
+nature lies the form and fashion of a peace and grandeur so much beyond
+anything in me, that they rouse the sense of poverty and incompleteness
+and blame in the want of them.’
+
+‘Do you perceive whither you are leading yourself?’
+
+‘I would rather hear you say.’
+
+‘To this then--that the peace and grandeur of which you speak must be a
+mere accident, therefore an unreality and pure _appearance_, or the
+outcome and representation of a peace and grandeur which, not to be
+found in us, yet exist, and make use of this frame of things to set
+forth and manifest themselves in order that we may recognize and desire
+them.’
+
+‘Granted--heartily.’
+
+‘In other words--you lead yourself inevitably to a God manifest in
+nature--not as a powerful being--that is a theme absolutely without
+interest to me--but as possessed in himself of the original
+pre-existent beauty, the counterpart of which in us we call art, and
+who has fashioned us so that we must fall down and worship the image of
+himself which he has set up.’
+
+‘That’s good, Charley. I’m so glad you’ve worked that out!’
+
+‘It doesn’t in the least follow that I believe it. I cannot even say I
+wish I did:--for what I know, that might be to wish to be deceived. Of
+all miseries--to believe in a lovely thing and find it not true--that
+must be the worst.’
+
+‘You might never find it out, though,’ I said. ‘You might be able to
+comfort yourself with it all your life.’
+
+‘I was wrong,’ he cried fiercely. ‘Never to find it out would be the
+hell of all hells. Wilfrid, I am ashamed of you!’
+
+‘So should I be, Charley, if I had meant it. I only wanted to make you
+speak. I agree with you entirely. But I _do_ wish we could be _quite_
+sure of it; for I don’t believe any man can ever be sure of a thing
+that is not true.’
+
+‘My father is sure that the love of nature is not only a delusion, but
+a snare. I should have no right to object, were he not equally sure of
+the existence of a God who created and rules it. By the way, if I
+believed in a God, I should say _create_s not _create_d. I told him
+once, not long ago, when he fell out upon nature--he had laid hands on
+a copy of _Endymion_ belonging to me--I don’t know how the devil he got
+it--I asked him whether he thought the devil made the world. You should
+have seen the white wrath he went into at the question! I told him it
+was generally believed one or the other did make the world. He told me
+God made the world, but sin had unmade it. I asked him if it was sin
+that made it so beautiful. He said it was sin that made me think it so
+beautiful. I remarked how very ugly it must have looked when God had
+just finished it! He called me a blasphemer, and walked to the door. I
+stopped him for a moment by saying that I thought, after all, he must
+be right, for according to geologists the world must have been a
+horrible place, and full of the most hideous creatures, before sin came
+and made it lovely. When he saw my drift, he strode up to me
+like--well, very like his own God, I should think--and was going to
+strike me. I looked him in the eyes without moving, as if he had been a
+madman. He turned and left the room. I left the house, and went back to
+London the same night.’
+
+‘Oh! Charley, Charley, that was too bad!’
+
+‘I knew it, Wilfrid, and yet I did it! But if your father had made a
+downright coward of you, afraid to speak the truth, or show what you
+were thinking, you also might find that, when anger gave you a
+fictitious courage, you could not help breaking out. It’s only another
+form of cowardice, I know; and I am as much ashamed of it as you could
+wish me to be.’
+
+‘Have you made it up with him since?’
+
+‘I’ve never seen him since.’
+
+‘Haven’t you written, then?’
+
+‘No. Where’s the use? He never would understand me. He knows no more of
+the condition of my mind than he does of the other side of the moon. If
+I offered such, he would put aside all apology for my behaviour to
+him--repudiating himself, and telling me it was the wrath of an
+offended God, not of an earthly parent, I had to deprecate. If I told
+him I had only spoken against his false God--how far would that go to
+mend the matter, do you think?’
+
+‘Not far, I must allow. But I am very sorry.’
+
+‘I wouldn’t care if I could be sure of anything--or even sure that, if
+I were sure, I shouldn’t be mistaken.’
+
+‘I’m afraid you’re very morbid, Charley.’
+
+‘Perhaps. But you cannot deny that my father is sure of things that you
+believe utterly false.’
+
+‘I suspect, however, that, if we were able to get a bird’s-eye view of
+his mind and all its workings, we should discover that what he called
+assurance was not the condition you would call such. You would find it
+was not the certainty you covet.’
+
+‘I _have_ thought of that, and it is my only comfort. But I am sick of
+the whole subject. See that cloud! Isn’t it like Death on the pale
+horse? What fun it must be for the cherubs, on such a night as this, to
+go blowing the clouds into fantastic shapes with their trumpet cheeks!’
+
+Assurance was ever what Charley wanted, and unhappily the sense of
+intellectual insecurity weakened his moral action.
+
+Once more I reveal a haunting uneasiness in the expression of a hope
+that the ordered character of the conversation I have just set down may
+not render it incredible to my reader. I record the result alone. The
+talk itself was far more desultory, and in consequence of questions,
+objections, and explanations, divaricated much from the comparatively
+direct line I have endeavoured to give it here. In the hope of making
+my reader understand both Charley and myself, I have sought to make the
+winding and rough path straight and smooth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+TAPESTRY.
+
+Having heard what I was about at the Hall, Charley expressed a desire
+to take a share in my labours, especially as thereby he would be able
+to see more of his mother and sister. I took him straight to the
+book-rooms, and we were hard at work when Clara entered.
+
+‘Here is your old friend Charley Osborne,’ I said. ‘You remember Miss
+Coningham, Charley, I know.’
+
+He advanced in what seemed a strangely embarrassed--indeed, rather
+sheepish manner, altogether unlike his usual bearing. I attributed it
+to a doubt whether Clara would acknowledge their old acquaintance. On
+her part, she met him with some frankness, but I thought also a rather
+embarrassed look, which was the more surprising as I had let her know
+he was coming. But they shook hands, and in a little while we were all
+chatting comfortably.
+
+‘Shall I go and tell Mrs Osborne you are here?’ she asked.
+
+‘Yes, if you please,’ said Charley, and she went.
+
+In a few minutes Mrs Osborne and Mary entered. The meeting was full of
+affection, but to my eye looked like a meeting of the living and the
+dead in a dream--there was such an evident sadness in it, as if each
+was dimly aware that they met but in appearance, and were in reality
+far asunder. I could not doubt that however much they loved him, and
+however little they sympathized with his father’s treatment of him, his
+mother and sister yet regarded him as separated from them by a great
+gulf--that of culpable unbelief. But they seemed therefore only the
+more anxious to please and serve him--their anxiety revealing itself in
+an eagerness painfully like the service offered to one whom the doctors
+had given up, and who may now have any indulgence he happens to fancy.
+
+‘I say, mother,’ said Charley, who seemed to strive after an airier
+manner even than usual--‘couldn’t you come and help us? It would be so
+jolly!’
+
+‘No, my dear; I mustn’t leave Lady Brotherton. That would be rude, you
+know. But I dare say Mary might.’
+
+‘Oh, please, mamma! I should like it so much--especially if Clara would
+stop! But perhaps Mr Cumbermede--we ought to have asked him first.’
+
+‘Yes--to be sure--he’s the foreman,’ said Charley. ‘But he’s not a bad
+fellow, and won’t be disobliging. Only you must do as he tells you, or
+it’ll be the worse for us all. _I_ know him.’
+
+‘I shall be delighted,’ I said. ‘I can give both the ladies plenty to
+do. Indeed I regard Miss Coningham as one of my hands already. Won’t
+Miss Brotherton honour us to-day, Miss Coningham?’
+
+‘I will go and ask her,’ said Clara.
+
+They all withdrew. In a little while I had four assistants, and we got
+on famously. The carpenter had been hard at work, and the room next the
+armoury, the oak-panelling of which had shown considerable signs of
+decay, had been repaired, and the shelves, which were in tolerable
+condition, were now ready to receive their burden, and reflect the
+first rays of a dawning order.
+
+Plenty of talk went on during the dusting and arranging of the books by
+their size, which was the first step towards a cosmos. There was a
+certain playful naïveté about Charley’s manner and speech, when he was
+happy, which gave him an instant advantage with women, and even made
+the impression of wit where there was only grace. Although he was
+perfectly capable, however, of engaging to any extent in the _badinage_
+which has ever been in place between young men and women since dawning
+humanity was first aware of a lovely difference, there was always a
+certain indescribable dignity about what he said which I now see could
+have come only from a _believing_ heart. I use the word advisedly, but
+would rather my reader should find what I mean than require me to
+explain it fully. Belief, to my mind, lies chiefly in the practical
+recognition of the high and pure.
+
+Miss Brotherton looked considerably puzzled sometimes, and indeed out
+of her element. But her dignity had no chance with so many young
+people, and was compelled to thaw visibly; and while growing more
+friendly with the others, she could not avoid unbending towards me
+also, notwithstanding I was a neighbour and the son of a dairy-farmer.
+
+Mary Osborne took little part in the fun beyond a smile, or in the more
+solid conversation beyond an assent or an ordinary remark. I did not
+find her very interesting. An onlooker would probably have said she
+lacked expression. But the stillness upon her face bore to me the
+shadow of a reproof. Perhaps it was only a want of sympathy with what
+was going on around her. Perhaps her soul was either far withdrawn from
+its present circumstances, or not yet awake to the general interests of
+life. There was little in the form or hue of her countenance to move
+admiration, beyond a complexion without spot. It was very fair and
+delicate, with little more colour in it than in the white rose, which
+but the faintest warmth redeems from dead whiteness. Her features were
+good in form, but in no way remarkable; her eyes were of the so-called
+hazel, which consists of a mingling of brown and green; her figure was
+good, but seemed unelastic, and she had nothing of her brother’s gaiety
+or grace of movement or expression. I do not mean that either her
+motions or her speech was clumsy--there was simply nothing to remark in
+them beyond the absence of anything special. In a word, I did not find
+her interesting, save as the sister of my delightful Charley, and the
+sharer of his mother’s griefs concerning him.
+
+‘If I had as good help in the afternoon,’ I said, ‘we should have all
+the books on the shelves to-night, and be able to set about assorting
+them to-morrow.’
+
+‘I am sorry I cannot come this afternoon,’ said Miss Brotherton. ‘I
+should have been most happy if I could. It is really very pleasant
+notwithstanding the dust. But Mrs Osborne and mamma want me to go with
+them to Minstercombe. You will lunch with us to-day, won’t you?’ she
+added, turning to Charley.
+
+‘Thank you, Miss Brotherton,’ he replied; ‘I should have been
+delighted, but I am not my own master--I am Cumbermede’s slave at
+present, and can eat and drink only when and where he chooses.’
+
+‘You _must_ stay with your mother, Charley,’ I said. ‘You cannot refuse
+Miss Brotherton.’
+
+She could thereupon scarcely avoid extending the invitation to me, but
+I declined it on some pretext or other, and I was again, thanks to
+Lilith, back from my dinner before they had finished luncheon. The
+carriage was at the door when I rode up, and the moment I heard it
+drive away, I went to the dining-room to find my coadjutors. The only
+person there was Miss Pease. A thought struck me.
+
+‘Won’t you come and help us, Miss Pease?’ I said. ‘I have lost one of
+my assistants, and I am very anxious to get the room we are at now so
+far finished to-night.’
+
+A smile found its way to her cold eyes, and set the blue sparkling for
+one briefest moment.
+
+‘It is very kind of you, Mr Cumbermede, but--’
+
+‘Kind!’ I exclaimed--‘I want your help, Miss Pease.’
+
+‘I’m afraid--’
+
+‘Lady Brotherton can’t want you now. Do oblige me. You will find it
+fun.’
+
+She smiled outright--evidently at the fancy of any relation between her
+and fun.
+
+‘Do go and put a cap on, and a cotton dress, and come,’ I persisted.
+
+Without another word she left the room. I was still alone in the
+library when she came to me, and having shown her what I wanted, we
+were already busy when the rest arrived.
+
+‘Oh, Peasey! Are you there?’ said Clara, as she entered--not unkindly.
+
+‘I have got a substitute for Miss Brotherton, you see, Clara--Miss
+Coningham--I beg your pardon.’
+
+‘There’s no occasion to beg my pardon. Why shouldn’t you call me Clara
+if you like? It _is_ my name.’
+
+‘Charley might be taking the same liberty,’ I returned, extemporizing a
+reason.
+
+‘And why _shouldn’t_ Charley take the same liberty?’ she retorted.
+
+‘For no reason that I know,’ I answered, a trifle hurt, ‘if it be
+agreeable to the lady.’
+
+‘And the gentleman,’ she amended.
+
+‘And the gentleman,’ I added.
+
+‘Very well. Then we are all good boys and girls. Now, Peasey, I’m very
+glad you’re come. Only mind you get back to your place before the
+ogress returns, or you’ll have your head snapped off.’
+
+Was I right, or was it the result of the slight offence I had taken?
+Was the gracious, graceful, naïve, playful, daring woman--or could she
+be--or had she been just the least little bit vulgar? I am afraid I was
+then more sensitive to vulgarity in a woman, real or fancied, than even
+to wickedness--at least I thought I was. At all events, the first
+_conviction_ of anything common or unrefined in a woman would at once
+have placed me beyond the sphere of her attraction. But I had no time
+to think the suggestion over now; and in a few minutes--whether she saw
+the cloud on my face I cannot tell--Clara had given me a look and a
+smile which banished the possibility of my thinking about it for the
+present.
+
+Miss Pease worked more diligently than any of the party. She seldom
+spoke, and when she did, it was in a gentle, subdued, almost mournful
+tone; but the company of the young people, without the restraint of her
+mistress, was evidently grateful to what of youth yet remained in her
+oppressed being.
+
+Before it was dark we had got the books all upon the shelves, and
+leaving Charley with the ladies, I walked home.
+
+I found Styles had got everything out of the lumber-room except a heavy
+oak chest in the corner, which, our united strength being insufficient
+to displace it, I concluded was fixed to the floor. I collected all the
+keys my aunt had left behind her, but sought the key of this chest in
+vain. For my uncle, I never saw a key in his possession. Even what
+little money he might have in the house, was only put away at the back
+of an open drawer. For the present, therefore, we had to leave it
+undisturbed.
+
+When Charley came home we went to look at it together. It was of oak,
+and somewhat elaborately carved.
+
+I was very restless in bed that night. The air was close and hot, and
+as often as I dropped half asleep I woke again with a start. My
+thoughts kept stupidly running on the old chest. It had mechanically
+possessed me. I felt no disturbing curiosity concerning its contents; I
+was not annoyed at the want of the key; it was only that, like a
+nursery rhyme that keeps repeating itself over and over in the
+half-sleeping brain, this chest kept rising before me till I was out of
+patience with its intrusiveness. It brought me wide awake at last; and
+I thought, as I could not sleep, I would have a search for the key. I
+got out of bed, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, lighted my
+chamber-candle, and made an inroad upon the contents of the closet in
+my room, which had apparently remained undisturbed since the morning
+when I missed my watch. I believe I had never entered it since. Almost
+the first thing I came upon was the pendulum, which woke a strange
+sensation for which I could not account, until by slow degrees the
+twilight memory of the incidents connected with it half dawned upon me.
+I searched the whole place, but not a key could I find.
+
+I started violently at the sound of something like a groan, and for the
+briefest imaginable moment forgot that my grannie was dead, and thought
+it must come from her room. It may be remembered that such a sound had
+led me to her in the middle of the night on which she died. Whether I
+really heard the sound, or only fancied I heard it--by some
+half-mechanical action of the brain, roused by the association of
+ideas--I do not even yet know. It may have been changed or expanded
+into a groan, from one of those innumerable sounds heard in every old
+house in the stillness of the night; for such, in the absence of the
+correction given by other sounds, assume place and proportion as it
+were at their pleasure. What lady has not at midnight mistaken the
+trail of her own dress on the carpet, in a silent house, for some
+tumult in a distant room? Curious to say, however, it now led to the
+same action as the groan I had heard so many years before; for I caught
+up my candle at once, and took my way down to the kitchen, and up the
+winding stair behind the chimney to grannie’s room. Strange as it may
+seem, I had not been in it since my return; for my thoughts had been so
+entirely occupied with other things, that, although I now and then
+looked forward with considerable expectation to a thorough search of
+the place, especially of the bureau, I kept it up as a _bonne bouche_,
+the anticipation of which was consolation enough for the postponement.
+
+I confess it was with no little quavering of the spirit that I sought
+this chamber in the middle of the night. For, by its association with
+one who had from my earliest recollection seemed like something
+forgotten and left behind in the onward rush of life, it was, far more
+than anything else in the house, like a piece of the past embedded in
+the present--a fragment that had been, by some eddy in the stream of
+time, prevented from gliding away down its course, and left to lie for
+ever in a cranny of the solid shore of unmoving space. But although
+subject to more than the ordinary tremor at the thought of unknown and
+invisible presences, I must say for myself that I had never yielded so
+far as to allow such tremor to govern my actions. Even in my dreams I
+have resisted ghostly terrors, and can recall one in which I so far
+conquered a lady-ghost who took every means of overcoming me with
+terror, that at length she fell in love with me, whereupon my fear
+vanished utterly--a conceited fancy, and as such let it fare.
+
+I opened the door then with some trembling, half expecting to see first
+the white of my grannie’s cap against the tall back of her dark chair.
+But my senses were sound, and no such illusion seized me. All was
+empty, cheerless, and musty. Grannie’s bed, with its white curtains,
+looked as if it were mouldering away after her. The dust lay thick on
+the counterpane of patchwork silk. The bureau stood silent with all its
+secrets. In the fire-place was the same brushwood and coals which
+Nannie laid the morning of grannie’s death: interrupted by the
+discovery of my presence, she had left it, and that fire had never been
+lighted. Half for the sake of companionship, half because the air felt
+sepulchral and I was thinly clad, I put my candle to it and it blazed
+up. My courage revived, and after a little more gazing about the room,
+I ventured to sit down in my grannie’s chair and watch the growing
+fire. Warned, however, by the shortness of my candle, I soon rose to
+proceed with my search, and turned towards the bureau.
+
+Here, however, the same difficulty occurred. The top of the bureau was
+locked as when I had last tried it, and not one of my keys would fit
+it. At a loss what to do or where to search, I dropped again into the
+chair by the fire, and my eyes went roving about the room. They fell
+upon a black dress which hung against the wall. At the same moment I
+remembered that, when she gave me the watch, she took the keys of the
+bureau from her pocket. I went to the dress and found a pocket, not
+indeed in the dress, but hanging under it from the same peg. There her
+keys were! It would have been a marvel to me how my aunt came to leave
+them undisturbed all those years, but for the instant suggestion that
+my uncle must have expressed a wish to that effect. With eager hand I
+opened the bureau. Besides many trinkets in the drawers, some of them
+of exceedingly antique form, and, I fancied, of considerable value, I
+found in the pigeon-holes what I was far more pleased to discover--a
+good many letters, carefully tied in small bundles, with ribbon which
+had lost all determinable colour. These I reserved to take an early
+opportunity of reading, but replaced for the present, and, having come
+at last upon one hopeful-looking key, I made haste to return before my
+candle, which was already flickering in the socket, should go out
+altogether, and leave me darkling. When I reached the kitchen, however,
+I found the grey dawn already breaking. I retired once more to my
+chamber, and was soon fast asleep.
+
+In the morning, my first care was to try the key. It fitted. I oiled it
+well, and then tried the lock. I had to use considerable force, but at
+last there came a great clang that echoed through the empty room. When
+I raised the lid, I knew by the weight it was of iron. In fact, the
+whole chest was iron with a casing of oak. The lock threw eight bolts,
+which laid hold of a rim that ran all round the lip of the chest. It
+was full of ‘very ancient and fish-like’ papers and parchments. I do
+not know whether my father or grandfather had ever disturbed them, but
+I am certain my uncle never had, for, as far back as I can remember,
+the part of the room where it stood was filled with what had been, at
+one time and another, condemned as lumber.
+
+Charley was intensely interested in the discovery, and would have sat
+down at once to examine the contents of the chest, had I not persuaded
+him to leave them till the afternoon, that we might get on with our
+work at the Hall.
+
+The second room was now ready for the carpenter, but, having had a peep
+of tapestry behind the shelves, a new thought had struck me. If it was
+in good preservation, it would be out of the question to hide it behind
+books.
+
+I fear I am getting tedious. My apology for diffuseness in this part of
+my narrative is that some threads of the fringe of my own fate show
+every now and then in the record of these proceedings. I confess also
+that I hang back from certain things which are pressing nearer with
+their claim for record.
+
+When we reached the Hall, I took the carpenter with me, and had the
+bookshelves taken down. To my disappointment we found that an oblong
+piece of some size was missing from the centre of the tapestry on one
+of the walls. That which covered the rest of the room was entire. It
+was all of good Gobelins work--somewhat tame in colour. The damaged
+portion represented a wooded landscape with water and reedy flowers and
+aquatic fowl, towards which in the distance came a hunter with a
+crossbow in his hand, and a queer, lurcher-looking dog bounding
+uncouthly at his heel; the edge of the vacant space cut off the dog’s
+tail and the top of the man’s crossbow.
+
+I went to find Sir Giles. He was in the dining-room, where they had
+just finished breakfast.
+
+‘Ah, Mr Cumbermede!’ he said, rising as I entered, and holding out his
+hand--‘here already?’
+
+‘We have uncovered some tapestry, Sir Giles, and I want you to come and
+look at it, if you please.’
+
+‘I will,’ he answered. ‘Would any of you ladies like to go and see it?’
+
+His daughter and Clara rose. Lady Brotherton and Mrs Osborne sat still.
+Mary, glancing at her mother, remained seated also.
+
+‘Won’t you come, Miss Pease?’ I said.
+
+She looked almost alarmed at the audacity of the proposal, and
+murmured, ‘No, thank you,’ with a glance at Lady Brotherton, which
+appeared as involuntary as it was timid.
+
+‘Is my son with you?’ asked Mrs Osborne.
+
+I told her he was.
+
+‘I shall look in upon you before the morning is over,’ she said
+quietly.
+
+They were all pleased with the tapestry, and the ladies offered several
+conjectures as to the cause of the mutilation.
+
+‘It would be a shame to cover it up again--would it not, Sir Giles?’ I
+remarked.
+
+‘Indeed it would,’ he assented.
+
+‘If it weren’t for that broken piece,’ said Clara. ‘That spoils it
+altogether. _I_ should have the books up again as soon as possible.’
+
+‘It does look shabby,’ said Charley. ‘I can’t say I should enjoy having
+anything so defective always before my eyes.’
+
+‘We must have it taken down very carefully, Hobbes,’ said Sir Giles,
+turning to the carpenter.
+
+‘_Must_ it come down, Sir Giles?’ I interposed. ‘I think it would be
+risky. No one knows how long it has been there, and though it might
+hang where it is for a century yet, and look nothing the worse, it
+can’t be strong, and at best we could not get it down without some
+injury, while it is a great chance if it would fit any other place half
+as well.’
+
+‘What do you propose, then?’
+
+‘This is the largest room of the six, and the best lighted--with that
+lovely oriel window: I would venture to propose, Sir Giles, that it
+should be left clear of books and fitted up as a reading-room.’
+
+‘But how would you deal with that frightful _lacuna_ in the tapestry?’
+said Charley.
+
+‘Yes,’ said Sir Giles; ‘it won’t look handsome, I fear--do what you
+will.’
+
+‘I think I know how to manage it,’ I said. ‘If I succeed to your
+satisfaction, will you allow me to carry out the project?’
+
+‘But what are we to do with the books, then? We shan’t have room for
+them.’
+
+‘Couldn’t you let me have the next room beyond?’
+
+‘You mean to turn me out, I suppose,’ said Clara.
+
+‘Is there tapestry on your walls?’ I asked.
+
+‘Not a thread--all wainscot--painted.’
+
+‘Then your room would be the very thing.’
+
+‘It is much larger than any of these,’ she said.
+
+‘Then do let us have it for the library, Sir Giles,’ I entreated.
+
+‘I will see what Lady Brotherton says,’ he replied, and left the room.
+
+In a few minutes we heard his step returning.
+
+‘Lady Brotherton has no particular objection to giving up the room you
+want,’ he said. ‘Will you see Mrs Wilson, Clara, and arrange with her
+for your accommodation?’
+
+‘With pleasure. I don’t mind where I’m put--unless it be in Lord
+Edward’s room--where the ghost is.’
+
+‘You mean the one next to ours? There is no ghost there, I assure you,’
+said Sir Giles, laughing, as he again left the room with short, heavy
+steps. ‘Manage it all to your own mind, Mr Cumbermede. I shall be
+satisfied,’ he called back as he went.
+
+‘Until further notice,’ I said, with grandiloquence, ‘I request that no
+one may come into this room. If you are kind enough to assort the books
+we put up yesterday, oblige me by going through the armoury. I must
+find Mrs Wilson.’
+
+‘I will go with you,’ said Clara. ‘I wonder where the old thing will
+want to put me. I’m not going where I don’t like, I can tell her,’ she
+added, following me down the stair and across the hall and the court.
+
+We found the housekeeper in her room. I accosted her in a friendly way.
+She made but a bare response.
+
+‘Would you kindly show me where I slept that night I lost my sword, Mrs
+Wilson?’ I said.
+
+‘I know nothing about your sword, Mr Cumbermede,’ she answered, shaking
+her head and pursing up her mouth.
+
+‘I don’t ask you anything about it, Mrs Wilson; I only ask you where I
+slept the night I lost it.’
+
+‘Really, Mr Cumbermede, you can hardly expect me to remember in what
+room a visitor slept--let me see--it must be twelve or fifteen years
+ago! I do not take it upon me.’
+
+‘Oh! never mind, then. I referred to the circumstances of that night,
+thinking they might help you to remember the room; but it is of no
+consequence; I shall find it for myself. Miss Coningham will, I hope,
+help me in the search. She knows the house better than I do.’
+
+‘I must attend to my own business first, if you please, sir,’ said
+Clara. ‘Mrs Wilson, I am ordered out of my room by Mr Cumbermede. You
+must find me fresh quarters, if you please.’
+
+Mrs Wilson stared.
+
+‘Do you mean, miss, that you want your things moved to another
+bed-room?’
+
+‘That _is_ what I mean, Mrs Wilson.’
+
+‘I must see what Lady Brotherton says to it, miss.’
+
+‘Do, by all means.’
+
+I saw that Clara was bent on annoying her old enemy, and interposed.
+
+‘Sir Giles and Lady Brotherton have agreed to let me have Miss
+Coningham’s room for an addition to the library, Mrs Wilson,’ I said.
+
+She looked very grim, but made no answer. We turned and left her. She
+stood for a moment as if thinking, and then, taking down her bunch of
+keys, followed us.
+
+‘If you will come this way,’ she said, stopping just behind us at
+another door in the court, ‘I think I can show you the room you want.
+But really, Mr Cumbermede, you are turning the place upside down. If I
+had thought it would come to this--’
+
+‘I hope to do so a little more yet, Mrs Wilson,’ I interrupted. ‘But I
+am sure you will be pleased with the result.’
+
+She did not reply, but led the way up a stair, across the little open
+gallery, and by passages I did not remember, to the room I wanted. It
+was in precisely the same condition as when I occupied it.
+
+‘This is the room, I believe,’ she said, as she unlocked and threw open
+the door. ‘Perhaps it would suit you, Miss Coningham?’
+
+‘Not in the least,’ answered Clara. ‘Who knows which of my small
+possessions might vanish before the morning!’
+
+The housekeeper’s face grew turkey-red with indignation.
+
+‘Mr Cumbermede has been filling your head with some of his romances, I
+see, Miss Clara!’
+
+I laughed, for I did not care to show myself offended with her
+rudeness.
+
+‘Never you mind,’ said Clara; ‘I am _not_ going to sleep there.’
+
+‘Very good,’ said Mrs Wilson, in a tone of offence severely restrained.
+
+‘Will you show me the way to the library?’ I requested.
+
+‘I will,’ said Clara; ‘I know it as well as Mrs Wilson--every bit.’
+
+‘Then that is all I want at present, Mrs Wilson,’ I said, as we came
+out of the room. ‘Don’t lock the door, though, please,’ I added. ‘Or,
+if you do, give me the key.’
+
+She left the door open, and us in the passage. Clara led me to the
+library. There we found Charley waiting our return.
+
+‘Will you take that little boy to his mother, Clara?’ I said. ‘I don’t
+want him here to-day. We’ll have a look over those papers in the
+evening, Charley.’
+
+‘That’s right,’ said Clara. ‘I hope Charley will help you to a little
+rational interest in your own affairs. I am quite bewildered to think
+that an author, not to say a young man, the sole remnant of an ancient
+family, however humble, shouldn’t even know whether he had any papers
+in the house or not.’
+
+‘We’ve come upon a glorious nest of such addled eggs, Clara. Charley
+and I are going to blow them to-night,’ I said.
+
+‘You never know when such eggs are addled,’ retorted Clara. ‘You’d
+better put them under some sensible fowl or other first,’ she added,
+looking back from the door as they went.
+
+I turned to the carpenter’s tool-basket, and taking from it an old
+chisel, a screw-driver, and a pair of pincers, went back to the room we
+had just left.
+
+There could be no doubt about it. There was the tip of the dog’s tail,
+and the top of the hunter’s crossbow.
+
+But my reader may not have retained in her memory the facts to which I
+implicitly refer. I would therefore, to spare repetition, beg her to
+look back to chapter xiv., containing the account of the loss of my
+sword.
+
+In the consternation caused me by the discovery that this loss was no
+dream of the night, I had never thought of examining the wall of the
+chamber, to see whether there was in it a door or not; but I saw now at
+once plainly enough that the inserted patch did cover a small door.
+Opening it, I found within, a creaking wooden stair, leading up to
+another low door, which, fashioned like the door of a companion, opened
+upon the roof:--nowhere, except in the towers, had the Hall more than
+two stories. As soon as I had drawn back the bolt and stepped out, I
+found myself standing at the foot of an ornate stack of chimneys, and
+remembered quite well having tried the door that night Clara and I were
+shut out on the leads--the same night on which my sword was stolen.
+
+For the first time the question now rose in my mind whether Mrs Wilson
+could have been in league with Mr Close. Was it likely I should have
+been placed in a room so entirely fitted to his purposes by accident?
+But I could not imagine any respectable woman running such a risk of
+terrifying a child out of his senses, even if she could have connived
+at his being robbed of what she might well judge unsuitable for his
+possession.
+
+Descending again to the bed-room, I set to work with my tools. The
+utmost care was necessary, for the threads were weak with old age. I
+had only one or two slight mishaps, however, succeeding on the whole
+better than I had expected. Leaving the door denuded of its covering, I
+took the patch on my arm, and again sought the library. Hobbes’s
+surprise, and indeed pleasure, when he saw that my plunder not only
+fitted the gap, but completed the design, was great. I directed him to
+get the whole piece down as carefully as he could, and went to extract,
+if possible, a favour from Lady Brotherton.
+
+She was of course very stiff--no doubt she would have called it
+dignified; but I did all I could to please her, and perhaps in some
+small measure succeeded. After representing, amongst other advantages,
+what an addition a suite of rooms filled with a valuable library must
+be to the capacity of the house for the reception and entertainment of
+guests, I ventured at last to beg the services of Miss Pease for the
+repair of the bit of the tapestry.
+
+She rang the bell, sent for Miss Pease, and ordered her, in a style of
+the coldest arrogance, to put herself under my direction. She followed
+me to the door in the meekest manner, but declined the arm I offered.
+As we went I explained what I wanted, saying I could not trust it to
+any hands but those of a lady, expressing a hope that she would not
+think I had taken too great a liberty, and begging her to say nothing
+about the work itself, as I wished to surprise Sir Giles and my
+assistants. She said she would be most happy to help me, but when she
+saw how much was wanted, she did look a little dismayed. She went and
+fetched her work-basket at once, however, and set about it, tacking the
+edges to a strip of canvas, in preparation for some kind of darning,
+which would not, she hoped, be unsightly.
+
+For a whole week she and the carpenter were the only persons I
+admitted, and while she gave to her darning every moment she could
+redeem from her attendance on Lady Brotherton, the carpenter and I were
+busy--he cleaning and polishing, and I ranging the more deserted parts
+of the house to find furniture suitable for our purpose. In Clara’s
+room was an old Turkey-carpet which we appropriated, and when we had
+the tapestry up again, which Miss Pease had at length restored in a
+marvellous manner--surpassing my best hopes, and more like healing than
+repairing--the place was to my eyes a very nest of dusky harmonies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+THE OLD CHEST.
+
+I cannot help dwelling for a moment on the scene, although it is not of
+the slightest consequence to my story, when Sir Giles and Lady
+Brotherton entered the reading-room of the resuscitated library of
+Moldwarp Hall. It was a bright day of Autumn. Outside all was
+brilliant. The latticed oriel looked over the lawn and the park, where
+the trees had begun to gather those rich hues which could hardly be the
+heralds of death if it were the ugly thing it appears. Beyond the
+fading woods rose a line of blue heights meeting the more ethereal blue
+of the sky, now faded to a colder and paler tint. The dappled skins of
+the fallow deer glimmered through the trees, and the whiter ones among
+them cast a light round them in the shadows. Through the trees that on
+one side descended to the meadow below, came the shine of the water
+where the little brook had spread into still pools. All without was
+bright with sunshine and clear air. But when you turned, all was dark,
+sombre, and rich, like an Autumn ten times faded. Through the open door
+of the next room on one side, you saw the shelves full of books, and
+from beyond, through the narrow uplifted door, came the glimmer of the
+weapons on the wall of the little armoury. Two ancient tapestry-covered
+settees, in which the ravages of moth and worm had been met by a
+skilful repair of chisel and needle, a heavy table of oak, with carved
+sides as black as ebony, and a few old, straight-backed chairs, were
+the sole furniture.
+
+Sir Giles expressed much pleasure, and Lady Brotherton, beginning to
+enter a little into my plans, was more gracious than hitherto.
+
+‘We must give a party as soon as you have finished, Mr Cumbermede,’ she
+said; ‘and--’
+
+‘That will be some time yet,’ I interrupted, not desiring the
+invitation she seemed about to force herself to utter; ‘and I fear
+there are not many in this neighbourhood who will appreciate the rarity
+and value of the library--if the other rooms should turn out as rich as
+that one.’
+
+‘I believe old books _are_ expensive now-a-days,’ she returned. ‘They
+are more sought after, I understand.’
+
+We resumed our work with fresh vigour, and got on faster. Both Clara
+and Mary were assiduous in their help.
+
+To go back for a little to my own old chest--we found it, as I said,
+full of musty papers. After turning over a few, seeming, to my
+uneducated eye, deeds and wills and such like, out of which it was
+evident I could gather no barest meaning without a labour I was not
+inclined to expend on them--for I had no pleasure in such details as
+involved nothing of the picturesque--I threw the one in my hand upon
+the heap already taken from the box, and to the indignation of Charley,
+who was absorbed in one of them, and had not spoken a word for at least
+a quarter of an hour, exclaimed--
+
+‘Come, Charley; I’m sick of the rubbish. Let’s go and have a walk
+before supper.’
+
+‘Rubbish!’ he repeated; ‘I am ashamed of you!’
+
+‘I see Clara has been setting you on. I wonder what she’s got in her
+head. I am sure I have quite a sufficient regard for family history and
+all that.’
+
+‘Very like it!’ said Charley--‘calling such a chestful as this
+rubbish!’
+
+‘I am pleased enough to possess it,’ I said; ‘but if they had been such
+books as some of those at the Hall--’
+
+‘Look here, then,’ he said, stooping over the chest, and with some
+difficulty hauling out a great folio which he had discovered below, but
+had not yet examined--‘just see what you can make of that.’
+
+I opened the title-page rather eagerly. I stared. Could I believe my
+eyes? First of all on the top of it, in the neatest old hand, was
+written--‘Guilfrid Combremead His Boke. 1630.’ Then followed what I
+will not write, lest this MS. should by any accident fall into the
+hands of book-hunters before my death. I jumped to my feet, gave a
+shout that brought Charley to his feet also, and danced about the empty
+room hugging the folio. ‘Have you lost your senses?’ said Charley; but
+when he had a peep at the title-page, he became as much excited as
+myself, and it was some time before he could settle down to the papers
+again. Like a bee over a flower-bed, I went dipping and sipping at my
+treasure. Every word of the well-known lines bore a flavour of ancient
+verity such as I had never before perceived in them. At length I looked
+up, and finding him as much absorbed as I had been myself--
+
+‘Well, Charley, what are you finding there?’ I asked.
+
+‘Proof perhaps that you come of an older family than you think,’ he
+answered; ‘proof certainly that some part at least of the Moldwarp
+property was at one time joined to the Moat, and that you are of the
+same stock, a branch of which was afterwards raised to the present
+baronetage. At least I have little doubt such is the case, though I can
+hardly say I am yet prepared to prove it.’
+
+‘You don’t mean I’m of the same blood as--as Geoffrey Brotherton!’ I
+said. ‘I would rather not, if it’s the same to you, Charley.’
+
+‘I can’t help it: that’s the way things point,’ he answered, throwing
+down the parchment. ‘But I can’t read more now. Let’s go and have a
+walk. I’ll stop at home to-morrow and take a look over the whole set.’
+
+‘I’ll stop with you.’
+
+[Illustration: “Well. Charley. What are you finding there?” I asked.]
+
+‘No, you won’t. You’ll go and get on with your library. I shall do
+better alone. If I could only get a peep at the Moldwarp chest as
+well!’
+
+‘But the place may have been bought and sold many times. Just look
+here, though,’ I said, as I showed him the crest on my watch and seal.
+‘Mind you look at the top of your spoon the next time you eat soup at
+the Hall.’
+
+‘That is unnecessary, quite. I recognise the crest at once. How
+strangely these cryptographs come drifting along the tide, like the
+gilded ornaments of a wreck after the hull has gone down!’
+
+‘Or, like the mole or squint that re-appears in successive generations,
+the legacy of some long-forgotten ancestor,’ I said--and several
+things unexplained occurred to me as possibly having a common solution.
+
+‘I find, however,’ said Charley, ‘that the name of Cumbermede is not
+mentioned in your papers more than about a hundred years back--as far
+as I have yet made out.’
+
+‘That is odd,’ I returned, ‘seeing that in the same chest we find that
+book with my name, surname and Christian, and the date 1630.’
+
+‘It is strange,’ he acquiesced, ‘and will perhaps require a somewhat
+complicated theory to meet it.’
+
+We began to talk of other matters, and, naturally enough, soon came to
+Clara.
+
+Charley was never ready to talk of her--indeed, avoided the subject in
+a way that continued to perplex me.
+
+‘I confess to you, Charley,’ I said, ‘there is something about her I do
+not and cannot understand. It seems to me always as if she were--I will
+not say underhand--but as if she had some object in view--some design
+upon you--’
+
+‘Upon me!’ exclaimed Charley, looking at me suddenly and with a face
+from which all the colour had fled.
+
+‘No, no, Charley, not that,’ I answered, laughing. ‘I used the word
+impersonally. I will be more cautious. One would think we had been
+talking about a witch--or a demon-lady--you are so frightened at the
+notion of her having you in her eye.’
+
+He did not seem altogether relieved, and I caught an uneasy glance
+seeking my countenance.
+
+‘But isn’t she charming?’ I went on. ‘It is only to you I could talk
+about her so. And after all it may be only a fancy.’
+
+He kept his face downwards and aside, as if he were pondering and
+coming to no conclusion. The silence grew and grew until expectation
+ceased, and when I spoke again it was of something different.
+
+My reader may be certain from all this that I was not in love with
+Clara. Her beauty and liveliness, with a gaiety which not seldom
+assumed the form of grace, attracted me much, it is true; but nothing
+interferes more with the growth of any passion than a spirit of
+questioning, and, that once roused, love begins to cease and pass into
+pain. Few, perhaps, could have arrived at the point of admiration I had
+reached without falling instantly therefrom into an abyss of absorbing
+passion; but with me, inasmuch as I searched every feeling in the hope
+of finding in it the everlasting, there was in the present case a
+reiterated check, if not indeed recoil; for I was not and could not
+make myself sure that Clara was upright;--perhaps the more commonplace
+word _straightforward_ would express my meaning better.
+
+Anxious to get the books arranged before they all left me, for I knew I
+should have but little heart for it after they were gone, I grudged
+Charley the forenoon he wanted amongst my papers, and prevailed upon
+him to go with me the next day as usual. Another fortnight, which was
+almost the limit of their stay, would, I thought, suffice; and giving
+up everything else, Charley and I worked from morning till night, with
+much though desultory assistance from the ladies. I contrived to keep
+the carpenter and housemaid in work, and by the end of the week began
+to see the inroads of order ‘scattering the rear of darkness thin.’
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+
+MARY OSBORNE.
+
+All this time the acquaintance between Mary Osborne and myself had not
+improved. Save as the sister of my friend I had not, I repeat, found
+her interesting. She did not seem at all to fulfil the promise of her
+childhood. Hardly once did she address me; and, when I spoke to her,
+would reply with a simple, dull directness which indicated nothing
+beyond the fact of the passing occasion. Rightly or wrongly, I
+concluded that the more indulgence she cherished for Charley, the less
+she felt for his friend--that to him she attributed the endlessly sad
+declension of her darling brother. Once on her face I surprised a look
+of unutterable sorrow resting on Charley’s; but the moment she saw that
+I observed her, the look died out, and her face stiffened into its
+usual dulness and negation. On me she turned only the unenlightened
+disc of her soul. Mrs Osborne, whom I seldom saw, behaved with much
+more kindness, though hardly more cordiality. It was only that she
+allowed her bright indulgence for Charley to cast the shadow of his
+image over the faults of his friend; and except by the sadness that
+dwelt in every line of her sweet face, she did not attract me. I was
+ever aware of an inward judgment which I did not believe I deserved,
+and I would turn from her look with a sense of injury which greater
+love would have changed into keen pain.
+
+Once, however, I did meet a look of sympathy from Mary. On the second
+Monday of the fortnight I was more anxious than ever to reach the end
+of my labours, and was in the court, accompanied by Charley, as early
+as eight o’clock. From the hall a dark passage led past the door of the
+dining-room to the garden. Through the dark tube of the passage we saw
+the bright green of a lovely bit of sward, and upon it Mary and Clara,
+radiant in white morning dresses. We joined them.
+
+‘Here come the slave-drivers!’ remarked Clara.
+
+‘Already!’ said Mary, in a low voice, which I thought had a tinge of
+dismay in its tone.
+
+‘Never mind, Polly,’ said her companion--‘we’re not going to bow to
+their will and pleasure. We’ll have our walk in spite of them.’
+
+As she spoke she threw a glance at us which seemed to say--‘You may
+come if you like;’ then turned to Mary with another which said--‘We
+shall see whether they prefer old books or young ladies.’
+
+Charley looked at me--interrogatively.
+
+‘Do as you like, Charley,’ I said.
+
+‘I will do as you do,’ he answered.
+
+‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have no right--’
+
+‘Oh! bother!’ said Clara. ‘You’re so magnificent always with your
+rights and wrongs! Are you coming, or are you not?’
+
+‘Yes, I’m coming,’ I replied, convicted by Clara’s directness, for I
+was quite ready to go.
+
+We crossed the court, and strolled through the park, which was of great
+extent, in the direction of a thick wood, covering a rise towards the
+east. The morning air was perfectly still; there was a little dew on
+the grass, which shone rather than sparkled; the sun was burning
+through a light fog, which grew deeper as we approached the wood; the
+decaying leaves filled the air with their sweet, mournful scent.
+Through the wood went a wide opening or glade, stretching straight and
+far towards the east, and along this we walked, with that exhilaration
+which the fading Autumn so strangely bestows. For some distance the
+ground ascended softly, but the view was finally closed in by a more
+abrupt swell, over the brow of which the mist hung in dazzling
+brightness.
+
+Notwithstanding the gaiety of animal spirits produced by the season, I
+felt unusually depressed that morning. Already, I believe, I was
+beginning to feel the home-born sadness of the soul whose wings are
+weary and whose foot can find no firm soil on which to rest. Sometimes
+I think the wonder is that so many men are never sad. I doubt if
+Charley would have suffered so but for the wrongs his father’s selfish
+religion had done him; which perhaps were therefore so far well,
+inasmuch as otherwise he might not have cared enough about religion
+even to doubt concerning it. But in my case now, it may have been only
+the unsatisfying presence of Clara, haunted by a dim regret that I
+could not love her more than I did. For with regard to her my soul was
+like one who in a dream of delight sees outspread before him a wide
+river, wherein he makes haste to plunge that he may disport himself in
+the fine element; but, wading eagerly, alas! finds not a single pool
+deeper than his knees.
+
+‘What’s the matter with you, Wilfrid?’ said Charley, who, in the midst
+of some gay talk, suddenly perceived my silence. ‘You seem to lose all
+your spirits away from your precious library. I do believe you grudge
+every moment not spent upon those ragged old books.’
+
+‘I wasn’t thinking of that, Charley; I was wondering what lies beyond
+that mist.’
+
+‘I see!--A chapter of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_! Here we are--Mary,
+you’re Christiana, and, Clara, you’re Mercy. Wilfrid, you’re--what?--I
+should have said Hopeful any other day, but this morning you look
+like--let me see--like Mr Ready-to-Halt. The celestial city lies behind
+that fog--doesn’t it, Christiana?’
+
+‘I don’t like to hear you talk so, Charley,’ said his sister, smiling
+in his face.
+
+‘They ain’t in the Bible,’ he returned.
+
+‘No--and I shouldn’t mind if you were only merry, but you know you are
+scoffing at the story, and I love it--so I can’t be pleased to hear
+you.’
+
+‘I beg your pardon, Mary--but your celestial city lies behind such a
+fog that not one crystal turret, one pearly gate of it was ever seen.
+At least _we_ have never caught a glimmer of it, and must go tramp,
+tramp--we don’t know whither, any more than the blind puppy that has
+crawled too far from his mother’s side.’
+
+‘I do see the light of it, Charley dear,’ said Mary, sadly--not as if
+the light were any great comfort to her at the moment.
+
+‘If you do see something--how can you tell what it’s the light of? It
+may come from the city of Dis, for anything you know.’
+
+‘I don’t know what that is.’
+
+‘Oh! the red-hot city--down below. You will find all about it in
+Dante.’
+
+‘It doesn’t look like that--the light I see,’ said Mary, quietly.
+
+‘How very ill-bred you are--to say such wicked things, Charley!’ said
+Clara.
+
+‘Am I? They _are_ better unmentioned. Let us eat and drink, for
+to-morrow we die! Only don’t allude to the unpleasant subject.’
+
+He burst out singing: the verses were poor, but I will give them.
+
+     ‘Let the sun shimmer!
+        Let the wind blow!
+      All is a notion--What
+        do we know?
+      Let the moon glimmer!
+        Let the stream flow!
+      All is but motion
+        To and fro!
+
+     ‘Let the rose wither!
+        Let the stars glow!
+      Let the rain batter--
+        Drift sleet and snow!
+      Bring the tears hither!
+        Let the smiles go!
+      What does it matter?
+        To and fro!
+
+     ‘To and fro ever,
+        Motion and show!
+      Nothing goes onward--
+        Hurry or no!
+      All is one river--
+        Seaward and so
+      Up again sunward--
+        To and fro!
+
+     ‘Pendulum sweeping
+        High, and now low!
+      That star--_tic_, blot it!
+        _Tac_, let it go!
+      Time he is reaping
+        Hay for his mow;
+      That flower--he’s got it!
+        To and fro!
+
+     ‘Such a scythe swinging,
+        Mighty and slow!
+      Ripping and slaying--
+        Hey nonny no!
+      Black Ribs is singing--
+        Chorus--Hey, ho!
+      What is he saying--
+        To and fro?
+
+     ‘Singing and saying
+        “Grass is hay--ho!
+      Love is a longing;
+        Water is snow.”
+       Swinging and swaying,
+        Toll the bells go!
+      Dinging and donging
+        To and fro!’
+
+
+‘Oh, Charley!’ said his sister, with suppressed agony, ‘what a wicked
+song!’
+
+‘It _is_ a wicked song,’ I said. ‘But I meant----it only represents an
+unbelieving, hopeless mood.’
+
+‘_You_ wrote it, then!’ she said, giving me--as it seemed,
+involuntarily--a look of reproach.
+
+‘Yes, I did; but--’
+
+‘Then I think you are very horrid,’ said Clara, interrupting.
+
+‘Charley!’ I said, ‘you must not leave your sister to think so badly of
+me! You know why I wrote it--and what I meant.’
+
+‘I wish I had written it myself,’ he returned. ‘I think it splendid.
+Anybody might envy you that song.’
+
+‘But you know I didn’t mean it for a true one.’
+
+‘Who knows whether it is true or false?’
+
+‘_I_ know,’ said Mary: ‘I know it is false.’
+
+‘And _I_ hope it,’ I adjoined.
+
+‘Whatever put such horrid things into your head, Wilfrid?’ asked Clara.
+
+‘Probably the fear lest they should be true. The verses came as I sat
+in a country church once, not long ago.’
+
+‘In a church!’ exclaimed Mary.
+
+‘Oh! he does go to church sometimes,’ said Charley, with a laugh.
+
+‘How could you think of it in church?’ persisted Mary.
+
+‘It’s more like the churchyard,’ said Clara.
+
+‘It was in an old church in a certain desolate sea-forsaken town,’ I
+said. ‘The pendulum of the clock--a huge, long, heavy, slow
+thing--hangs far down into the church, and goes swing, swang over your
+head, three or four seconds to every swing. When you have heard the
+_tic_, your heart grows faint every time between--waiting for the
+_tac_, which seems as if it would never come.’
+
+We were ascending the acclivity, and no one spoke again before we
+reached the top. There a wide landscape lay stretched before us. The
+mist was rapidly melting away before the gathering strength of the sun:
+as we stood and gazed we could see it vanishing. By slow degrees the
+colours of the Autumn woods dawned out of it. Close under us lay a
+great wave of gorgeous red--beeches, I think--in the midst of which,
+here and there, stood up, tall and straight and dark, the unchanging
+green of a fir-tree. The glow of a hectic death was over the landscape,
+melting away into the misty fringe of the far horizon. Overhead the sky
+was blue, with a clear thin blue that told of withdrawing suns and
+coming frosts.
+
+‘For my part,’ I said, ‘I cannot believe that beyond this loveliness
+there lies no greater. Who knows, Charley, but death may be the first
+recognizable step of the progress of which you despair?’
+
+It was then I caught the look from Mary’s eye, for the sake of which I
+have recorded the little incidents of the morning. But the same moment
+the look faded, and the veil or the mask fell over her face.
+
+‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘if there has been no progress before, there
+will be little indeed after.’
+
+Now of all things, I hated the dogmatic theology of the party in which
+she had been brought up, and I turned from her with silent dislike.
+
+‘Really,’ said Clara, ‘you gentlemen have been very entertaining this
+morning. One would think Polly and I had come out for a stroll with a
+couple of undertaker’s-men. There’s surely time enough to think of such
+things yet! None of us are at death’s door exactly.’
+
+‘“Sweet remembrancer!”--Who knows?’ said Charley.
+
+‘“Now I, to comfort him,”’ I followed, quoting Mrs Quickly concerning
+Sir John Falstaff, ‘“bid him, ‘a should not think of God: I hoped there
+was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.”’
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mary--‘there was no word of Him in the
+matter.’
+
+‘I see,’ said Clara: ‘you meant that at me, Wilfrid. But I assure you I
+am no heathen. I go to church regularly--once a Sunday when I can, and
+twice when I can’t help it. That’s more than you do, Mr Cumbermede, I
+suspect.’
+
+‘What makes you think so?’ I asked.
+
+‘I can’t imagine you enjoying anything but the burial service.’
+
+‘It is to my mind the most consoling of them all,’ I answered.
+
+‘Well, I haven’t reached the point of wanting that consolation yet,
+thank heaven.’
+
+‘Perhaps some of us would rather have the consolation than give thanks
+that we didn’t need it,’ I said.
+
+‘I can’t say I understand you, but I know you mean something
+disagreeable. Polly, I think we had better go home to breakfast.’
+
+Mary turned, and we all followed. Little was said on the way home. We
+divided in the hall--the ladies to breakfast, and we to our work.
+
+We had not spoken for an hour, when Charley broke the silence.
+
+‘What a brute I am, Wilfrid!’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be as good as
+Jesus Christ? It seems always as if a man might. But just look at me!
+Because I was miserable myself, I went and made my poor little sister
+twice as miserable as she was before. She’ll never get over what I said
+this morning.’
+
+‘It _was_ foolish of you, Charley.’
+
+‘It was brutal. I am the most selfish creature in the world--always
+taken up with myself. I do believe there is a devil, after all. _I_ am
+_a_ devil. And the universal self is _the_ devil. If there were such a
+thing as a self always giving itself away--that self would be God.’
+
+‘Something very like the God of Christianity, I think.’
+
+‘If it were so, there would be a chance for us. We might then one day
+give the finishing blow to the devil in us. But no: _he_ does all for
+his own glory.’
+
+‘It depends on what his glory is. If what the self-seeking self would
+call glory, then I agree with you--that is not the God we need. But if
+his glory should be just the opposite--the perfect giving of himself
+away--then--Of course I know nothing about it. My uncle used to say
+things like that.’
+
+He did not reply, and we went on with our work. Neither of the ladies
+came near us again that day.
+
+Before the end of the week the library was in tolerable order to the
+eye, though it could not be perfectly arranged until the commencement
+of a catalogue should be as the dawn of a consciousness in the
+half-restored mass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+
+A STORM.
+
+So many books of rarity and value had revealed themselves, that it was
+not difficult to make Sir Giles comprehend in some degree the
+importance of such a possession. He had grown more and more interested
+as the work went on; and even Lady Brotherton, although she much
+desired to have, at least, the oldest and most valuable of the books
+re-bound in red morocco first, was so far satisfied with what she was
+told concerning the worth of the library, that she determined to invite
+some of the neighbours to dinner, for the sake of showing it. The main
+access to it was to be by the armoury; and she had that side of the
+gallery round the hall which led thither covered with a thick carpet.
+
+Meantime Charley had looked over all the papers in my chest, but,
+beyond what I have already stated, no fact of special interest had been
+brought to light.
+
+In sending an invitation to Charley, Lady Brotherton could hardly avoid
+sending me one as well: I doubt whether I should otherwise have been
+allowed to enjoy the admiration bestowed on the result of my labours.
+
+The dinner was formal and dreary enough: the geniality of one of the
+heads of a household is seldom sufficient to give character to an
+entertainment.
+
+‘They tell me you are a buyer of books, Mr Alderforge,’ said Mr Mellon
+to the clergyman of a neighbouring parish, as we sat over our wine.
+
+‘Quite a mistake,’ returned Mr Alderforge. ‘I am a reader of books.’
+
+‘That of course! But you buy them first--don’t you?’
+
+‘Not always. I sometimes borrow them.’
+
+‘That I never do. If a book is worth borrowing, it is worth buying.’
+
+‘Perhaps--if you can afford it. But many books that book-buyers value I
+count worthless--for all their wide margins and uncut leaves.’
+
+‘Will you come-and have a look at Sir Giles’s library?’ I ventured to
+say.
+
+‘I never heard of a library at Moldwarp Hall, Sir Giles,’ said Mr
+Mellon.
+
+‘I am given to understand there is a very valuable one,’ said Mr
+Alderforge. ‘I shall be glad to accompany you, sir,’ he added, turning
+to me, ‘--if Sir Giles will allow us.’
+
+‘You cannot have a better guide than Mr Cumbermede,’ said Sir Giles. ‘I
+am indebted to him almost for the discovery--altogether for the
+restoration of the library.’
+
+‘Assisted by Miss Brotherton and her friends, Sir Giles,’ I said.
+
+‘A son of Mr Cumbermede of Lowdon Farm, I presume?’ said Alderforge,
+bowing interrogatively.
+
+‘A nephew,’ I answered.
+
+‘He was a most worthy man.--By the way, Sir Giles, your young friend
+here must be a distant connection of your own. I found in some book or
+other lately, I forget where at the moment, that there were Cumbermedes
+at one time in Moldwarp Hall.’
+
+‘Yes--about two hundred years ago, I believe. It passed to our branch
+of the family some time during the troubles of the seventeenth
+century--I hardly know how--I am not much of an historian.’
+
+I thought of my precious volume, and the name on the title-page. That
+book might have been in the library of Moldwarp Hall. If so, how had it
+strayed into my possession--alone, yet more to me than all that was
+left behind?
+
+We betook ourselves to the library. The visitors expressed themselves
+astonished at its extent, and the wealth which even a glance
+revealed--for I took care to guide their notice to its richest veins.
+
+‘When it is once arranged,’ I said, ‘I fancy there will be few private
+libraries to stand a comparison with it--I am thinking of old English
+literature, and old editions: there is not a single volume of the
+present century in it, so far as I know.’
+
+I had had a few old sconces fixed here and there, but as yet there were
+no means of really lighting the rooms. Hence, when a great flash of
+lightning broke from a cloud that hung over the park right in front of
+the windows, it flooded them with a dazzling splendour. I went to find
+Charley, for the library was the best place to see the lightning from.
+As I entered the drawing-room, a tremendous peal of thunder burst over
+the house, causing so much consternation amongst the ladies, that, for
+the sake of company, they all followed to the library. Clara seemed
+more frightened than any. Mary was perfectly calm. Charley was much
+excited. The storm grew in violence. We saw the lightning strike a tree
+which stood alone a few hundred yards from the house. When the next
+flash came, half of one side seemed torn away. The wind rose, first in
+fierce gusts, then into a tempest, and the rain poured in torrents.
+
+‘None of you can go home to-night, ladies,’ said Sir Giles. ‘You must
+make up your minds to stop where you are. Few horses would face such a
+storm as that.’
+
+‘It would be to tax your hospitality too grievously, Sir Giles,’ said
+Mr Alderforge. ‘I dare say it will clear up by-and-by, or at least
+moderate sufficiently to let us get home.’
+
+‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ returned Sir Giles. ‘The
+barometer has been steadily falling for the last three days. My dear,
+you had better give your orders at once.’
+
+‘You had better stop, Charley,’ I said.
+
+‘I won’t if you go,’ he returned.
+
+Clara was beside.
+
+‘You must not think of going,’ she said.
+
+Whether she spoke to him or me I did not know, but as Charley made no
+answer--
+
+‘I cannot stop without being asked,’ I said, ‘and it is not likely that
+any one will take the trouble to ask me.’
+
+The storm increased. At the request of the ladies, the gentlemen left
+the library and accompanied them to the drawing-room for tea. Our
+hostess asked Clara to sing, but she was too frightened to comply.
+
+‘You will sing, Mary, if Lady Brotherton asks you, I know,’ said Mrs
+Osborne.
+
+‘Do, my dear,’ said Lady Brotherton; and Mary at once complied.
+
+I had never heard her sing, and did not expect much. But although she
+had little execution, there was, I found, a wonderful charm both in her
+voice and the simplicity of her mode. I did not feel this at first, nor
+could I tell when the song began to lay hold upon me, but when it
+ceased, I found that I had been listening intently. I have often since
+tried to recall it, but as yet it has eluded all my efforts. I still
+cherish the hope that it may return some night in a dream, or in some
+waking moment of quiescent thought, when what we call the brain works
+as it were of itself, and the spirit allows it play.
+
+The close was lost in a louder peal of thunder than had yet burst.
+Charley and I went again to the library to look out on the night. It
+was dark as pitch, except when the lightning broke and revealed
+everything for one intense moment.
+
+‘I think sometimes,’ said Charley, ‘that death will be like one of
+those flashes, revealing everything in hideous fact--for just
+one-moment and no more.’
+
+‘How for one moment and no more, Charley?’ I asked.
+
+‘Because the sight of the truth concerning itself must kill the soul,
+if there be one, with disgust at its own vileness, and the miserable
+contrast between its aspirations and attainments, its pretences and its
+efforts. At least, that would be the death fit for a life like mine--a
+death of disgust at itself. We claim immortality; we cringe and cower
+with the fear that immortality may _not_ be the destiny of man; and yet
+we--_I_--do things unworthy not merely of immortality, but unworthy of
+the butterfly existence of a single day in such a world as this
+sometimes seems to be. Just think how I stabbed at my sister’s faith
+this morning--careless of making her as miserable as myself! Because my
+father has put into her mind his fancies, and I hate them, I wound
+again the heart which they wound, and which cannot help their
+presence!’
+
+‘But the heart that can be sorry for an action is far above the action,
+just as her heart is better than the notions that haunt it.’
+
+‘Sometimes I hope so. But action determines character. And it is all
+such a muddle! I don’t care much about what they call immortality. I
+doubt if it is worth the having. I would a thousand times rather have
+one day of conscious purity of heart and mind and soul and body, than
+an eternity of such life as I have now.--What am I saying?’ he added,
+with a despairing laugh. ‘It is a fool’s comparison; for an eternity of
+the former would be bliss--one moment of the latter is misery.’
+
+I could but admire and pity my poor friend both at once.
+
+Miss Pease had entered unheard.
+
+‘Mr Cumbermede,’ she said, ‘I have been looking for you to show you
+your room. It is not the one I should like to have got for you, but Mrs
+Wilson says you have occupied it before, and I dare say you will find
+it comfortable enough.’
+
+‘Thank you, Miss Pease. I am sorry you should have taken the trouble. I
+can go home well enough. I am not afraid of a little rain.’
+
+‘A little rain!’ said Charley, trying to speak lightly.
+
+‘Well, any amount of rain,’ I said.
+
+‘But the lightning!’ expostulated Miss Pease in a timid voice.
+
+‘I am something of a fatalist, Miss Pease,’ I said. ‘“Every bullet has
+its billet,” you know. Besides, if I had a choice, I think I would
+rather die by lightning than any other way.’
+
+‘Don’t talk like that, Mr Cumbermede.--Oh! what a flash!’
+
+‘I was not speaking irreverently, I assure you,’ I replied.--‘I think
+I had better set out at once, for there seems no chance of its
+clearing.’
+
+‘I am sure Sir Giles would be distressed if you did.’
+
+‘He will never know, and I dislike giving trouble.’
+
+‘The room is ready. I will show you where it is, that you may go when
+you like.’
+
+‘If Mrs Wilson says it is a room I have occupied before, I know the way
+quite well.’
+
+‘There are two ways to it,’ she said. ‘But of course one of them is
+enough,’ she added with a smile. ‘Mr Osborne, your room is in another
+part quite.’
+
+‘I know where my sister’s room is,’ said Charley. ‘Is it anywhere near
+hers?’
+
+‘That is the room you are to have. Miss Osborne is to be with your
+mamma, I think. There is plenty of accommodation, only the notice was
+short.’
+
+I began to button my coat.
+
+‘Don’t go, Wilfrid,’ said Charley. ‘You might give offence. Besides,
+you will have the advantage of getting to work as early as you please
+in the morning.’
+
+It was late and I was tired--consequently less inclined than usual to
+encounter a storm, for in general I enjoyed being in any commotion of
+the elements. Also I felt I should like to pass another night in that
+room, and have besides the opportunity of once more examining at my
+leisure the gap in the tapestry.
+
+‘Will you meet me early in the library, Charley?’ I said.
+
+‘Yes--to be sure I will--as early as you like.’
+
+‘Let us go to the drawing-room, then.’
+
+‘Why should you, if you are tired, and want to go to bed?’
+
+‘Because Lady Brotherton will not like my being included in the
+invitation. She will think it absurd of me not to go home.’
+
+‘There is no occasion to go near her, then.’
+
+‘I do not choose to sleep in the house without knowing that she knows
+it.’
+
+We went. I made my way to Lady Brotherton. Clara was standing near her.
+
+‘I am much obliged by your hospitality, Lady Brotherton,’ I said. ‘It
+is rather a rough night to encounter in evening dress.’
+
+She bowed.
+
+‘The distance is not great, however,’ I said, ‘and perhaps--’
+
+‘Out of the question!’ said Sir Giles, who came up at the moment.
+
+ Will you see, then, Sir Giles, that a room is prepared for your
+guest?’ she said.
+
+‘I trust that is unnecessary,’ he replied. ‘I gave orders.’--But as he
+spoke he went towards the bell.
+
+‘It is all arranged, I believe, Sir Giles,’ I said. ‘Mrs Wilson has
+already informed me which is my room. Good-night, Sir Giles.’
+
+He shook hands with me kindly. I bowed to Lady Brotherton and retired.
+
+It may seem foolish to record such mere froth of conversation, but I
+want my reader to understand how a part, at least, of the family of
+Moldwarp Hall regarded me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+
+A DREAM.
+
+My room looked dreary enough. There was no fire, and the loss of the
+patch of tapestry from the wall gave the whole an air of dilapidation.
+The wind howled fearfully in the chimney and about the door on the
+roof, and the rain came down on the leads like the distant trampling of
+many horses. But I was not in an imaginative mood. Charley was again my
+trouble. I could not bear him to be so miserable. Why was I not as
+miserable as he? I asked myself. Perhaps I ought to be, for although
+certainly I hoped more, I could not say I believed more than he. I
+wished more than ever that I did believe, for then I should be able to
+help him--I was sure of that; but I saw no possible way of arriving at
+belief. Where was the proof? Where even the hope of a growing
+probability?
+
+With these thoughts drifting about in my brain, like waifs which the
+tide will not let go, I was poring over the mutilated forms of the
+tapestry round the denuded door, with an expectation, almost a
+conviction, that I should find the fragment still hanging on the wall
+of the kitchen at the Moat, the very piece wanted to complete the
+broken figures. When I had them well fixed in my memory, I went to bed,
+and lay pondering over the several broken links which indicated some
+former connection between the Moat and the Hall, until I fell asleep,
+and began to dream strange wild dreams, of which the following was the
+last.
+
+I was in a great palace, wandering hither and thither, and meeting no
+one. A weight of silence brooded in the place. From hall to hall I
+went, along corridor and gallery, and up and down endless stairs. I
+knew that in some room near me was one whose name was Athanasia,--a
+maiden, I thought in my dream, whom I had known and loved for years,
+but had lately lost--I knew not how. Somewhere here she was, if only I
+could find her! From room to room I went seeking her. Every room I
+entered bore some proof that she had just been there--but there she was
+not. In one lay a veil, in another a handkerchief, in a third a glove;
+and all were scented with a strange entrancing odour, which I had never
+known before, but which in certain moods I can to this day imperfectly
+recall. I followed and followed until hope failed me utterly, and I sat
+down and wept. But while I wept, hope dawned afresh, and I rose and
+again followed the quest, until I found myself in a little chapel like
+that of Moldwarp Hall. It was filled with the sound of an organ,
+distance-faint, and the thin music was the same as the odour of the
+handkerchief which I carried in my bosom. I tried to follow the sound,
+but the chapel grew and grew as I wandered, and I came no nearer to its
+source. At last the altar rose before me on my left, and through the
+bowed end of the aisle I passed behind it into the lady-chapel. There
+against the outer wall stood a dusky ill-defined shape. Its head rose
+above the sill of the eastern window, and I saw it against the rising
+moon. But that and the whole figure were covered with a thick drapery;
+I could see nothing of the face, and distinguish little of the form.
+
+‘What art thou?’ I asked trembling.
+
+‘I am Death--dost thou not know me?’ answered the figure, in a sweet
+though worn and weary voice. ‘Thou hast been following me all thy life,
+and hast followed me hither.’
+
+Then I saw through the lower folds of the cloudy garment, which grew
+thin and gauze-like as I gazed, a huge iron door, with folding leaves,
+and a great iron bar across them.
+
+‘Art thou at thine own door?’ I asked. ‘Surely thy house cannot open
+under the eastern window of the church?’
+
+‘Follow and see,’ answered the figure.
+
+Turning, it drew back the bolt, threw wide the portals, and
+low-stooping entered. I followed, not into the moonlit night, but
+through a cavernous opening into darkness. If my Athanasia were down
+with Death, I would go with Death, that I might at least end with her.
+Down and down I followed the veiled figure, down flight after flight of
+stony stairs, through passages like those of the catacombs, and again
+down steep straight stairs. At length it stopped at another gate, and
+with beating heart I heard what I took for bony fingers fumbling with a
+chain and a bolt. But ere the fastenings had yielded, once more I heard
+the sweet odour-like music of the distant organ. The same moment the
+door opened, but I could see nothing for some time for the mighty
+inburst of a lovely light. A fair river, brimming full, its little
+waves flashing in the sun and wind, washed the threshold of the door,
+and over its surface, hither and thither, sped the white sails of
+shining boats, while from somewhere, clear now, but still afar, came
+the sound of a great organ psalm. Beyond the river the sun was
+rising--over blue Summer hills that melted into blue Summer sky. On the
+threshold stood my guide, bending towards me, as if waiting for me to
+pass out also. I lifted my eyes: the veil had fallen--it was my lost
+Athanasia! Not one beam touched her face, for her back was to the sun,
+yet her face was radiant. Trembling, I would have kneeled at her feet,
+but she stepped out upon the flowing river, and with the sweetest of
+sad smiles, drew the door to, and left me alone in the dark hollow of
+the earth. I broke into a convulsive weeping, and awoke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+
+A WAKING.
+
+I suppose I awoke tossing in my misery, for my hand fell upon something
+cold. I started up and tried to see. The light of a clear morning of
+late Autumn had stolen into the room while I slept, and glimmered on
+something that lay upon the bed. It was some time before I could
+believe that my troubled eyes were not the sport of one of those odd
+illusions that come of mingled sleep and waking. But by the golden hilt
+and rusted blade I was at length convinced, although the scabbard was
+gone, that I saw my own sword. It lay by my left side, with the hilt
+towards my hand. But the moment I turned a little to take it in my
+right hand, I forgot all about it in a far more bewildering discovery,
+which fixed me staring half in terror, half in amazement, so that again
+for a moment I disbelieved in my waking condition. On the other pillow
+lay the face of a lovely girl. I felt as if I had seen it
+before--whether only in the just vanished dream, I could not tell. But
+the maiden of my dream never comes back to me with any other features
+or with any other expression than those which I now beheld. There was
+an ineffable mingling of love and sorrow on the sweet countenance. The
+girl was dead asleep, but evidently dreaming, for tears were flowing
+from under her closed lids. For a time I was unable even to think;
+when thought returned, I was afraid to move. All at once the face of
+Mary Osborne dawned out of the vision before me--how different,
+how glorified from its waking condition! It was perfectly
+lovely--transfigured by the unchecked outflow of feeling. The
+recognition brought me to my senses at once. I did not waste a single
+thought in speculating how the mistake had occurred, for there was not
+a moment to be lost. I must be wise to shield her, and chiefly, as much
+as might be, from the miserable confusion which her own discovery of
+the untoward fact would occasion her. At first I thought it would be
+best to lie perfectly still, in order that she, at length awaking and
+discovering where she was, but finding me fast asleep, might escape
+with the conviction that the whole occurrence remained her own secret.
+I made the attempt, but I need hardly say that never before or since
+have I found myself in a situation half so perplexing; and in a few
+moments I was seized with such a trembling that I was compelled to turn
+my thoughts to the only other possible plan. As I reflected, the
+absolute necessity of attempting it became more and more apparent. In
+the first place, when she woke and saw me, she might scream and be
+heard; in the next, she might be seen as she left the room, or, unable
+to find her way, might be involved in great consequent embarrassment.
+But, if I could gather all my belongings, and, without awaking her,
+escape by the stair to the roof, she would be left to suppose that she
+had but mistaken her chamber, and would, I hoped, remain in ignorance
+that she had not passed the night in it alone. I dared one more peep
+into her face. The light and the loveliness of her dream had passed; I
+should not now have had to look twice to know that it was Mary Osborne;
+but never more could I see in hers a common face. She was still fast
+asleep, and, stealthy as a beast of prey, I began to make my escape. At
+the first movement, however, my perplexity was redoubled, for again my
+hand fell on the sword which I had forgotten, and question after
+question as to how they were together, and together there, darted
+through my bewildered brain. Could a third person have come and laid
+the sword between us? I had no time, however, to answer one of my own
+questions. Hardly knowing which was better, or if there was _a better_,
+I concluded to take the weapon with me, moved in part by the fact that
+I had found it where I had lost it, but influenced far more by its
+association with this night of marvel.
+
+Having gathered my garments together, and twice glanced around me--once
+to see that I left nothing behind, and once to take farewell of the
+peaceful face, which had never moved, I opened the little door in the
+wall, and made my strange retreat up the stair. My heart was beating so
+violently from the fear of her waking, that, when the door was drawn to
+behind me, I had to stand for what seemed minutes before I was able to
+ascend the steep stair, and step from its darkness into the clear
+frosty shine of the Autumn sun, brilliant upon the leads wet with the
+torrents of the preceding night.
+
+I found a sheltered spot by the chimney-stack, where no one could see
+me from below, and proceeded to dress myself--assisted in my very
+imperfect toilet by the welcome discovery of a pool of rain in a
+depression of the lead-covered roof. But alas, before I had finished, I
+found that I had brought only one of my shoes away with me! This
+settled the question I was at the moment debating--whether, namely, it
+would be better to go home, or to find some way of reaching the
+library. I put my remaining shoe in my pocket, and set out to discover
+a descent. It would have been easy to get down into the little gallery,
+but it communicated on both sides immediately with bed-rooms, which for
+anything I knew might be occupied; and besides I was unwilling to enter
+the house for fear of encountering some of the domestics. But I knew
+more of the place now, and had often speculated concerning the odd
+position and construction of an outside stair in the first court, close
+to the chapel, with its landing at the door of a room _en suite_ with
+those of Sir Giles and Lady Brotherton. It was for a man an easy drop
+to this landing. Quiet as a cat, I crept over the roof, let myself
+down, crossed the court swiftly, drew back the bolt which alone secured
+the wicket, and, with no greater mishap than the unavoidable wetting of
+shoeless feet, was soon safe in my own room, exchanging my evening for
+a morning dress. When I looked at my watch, I found it nearly seven
+o’clock.
+
+I was so excited and bewildered by the adventures I had gone through,
+that, from very commonness, all the things about me looked alien and
+strange. I had no feeling of relation to the world of ordinary life.
+The first thing I did was to hang my sword in its own old place, and
+the next to take down the bit of tapestry from the opposite wall, which
+I proceeded to examine in the light of my recollection of that round
+the denuded door. Room was left for not even a single doubt as to the
+relation between this and that: they had been wrought in one and the
+same piece by fair fingers of some long vanished time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+
+A TALK ABOUT SUICIDE.
+
+In the same excited mood, but repressing it with all the energy I could
+gather, I returned to the Hall and made my way to the library. There
+Charley soon joined me.
+
+‘Why didn’t you come to breakfast?’ he asked.
+
+‘I’ve been home, and changed my clothes,’ I answered. ‘I couldn’t well
+appear in a tail-coat. It’s bad enough to have to wear such an ugly
+thing by candle-light.’
+
+‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked again, after an interval of
+silence, which I judge from the question must have been rather a long
+one.
+
+‘What is the matter with me, Charley?’
+
+‘I can’t tell. You don’t seem yourself somehow.’
+
+I do not know what answer I gave him, but I knew myself what was the
+matter with me well enough. The form and face of the maiden of my
+dream, the Athanasia lost that she might be found, blending with the
+face and form of Mary Osborne, filled my imagination so that I could
+think of nothing else. Gladly would I have been rid of even Charley’s
+company, that, while my hands were busy with the books, my heart might
+brood at will now upon the lovely dream, now upon the lovely vision to
+which I awoke from it, and which, had it not glided into the forms of
+the foregone dream, and possessed it with itself, would have banished
+it altogether. At length I was aware of light steps and sweet voices in
+the next room, and Mary and Clara presently entered.
+
+How came it that the face of the one had lost the half of its radiance,
+and the face of the other had gathered all that the former had lost.
+Mary’s countenance was as still as ever; there was not in it a single
+ray of light beyond its usual expression; but I had become more capable
+of reading it, for the coalescence of the face of my dream with her
+dreaming face had given me its key; and I was now so far from
+indifferent, that I was afraid to look for fear of betraying the
+attraction I now found it exercise over me. Seldom surely has a man
+been so long familiar with and careless of any countenance to find it
+all at once an object of absorbing interest! The very fact of its want
+of revelation added immensely to its power over me now--for was I not
+in its secret? Did I not know what a lovely soul hid behind that
+unexpressive countenance? Did I not know that it was as the veil of the
+holy of holies, at times reflecting only the light of the seven golden
+lamps in the holy place; at others almost melted away in the rush of
+the radiance unspeakable from the hidden and holier side--the region
+whence come the revelations. To draw through it, if but once, the
+feeblest glimmer of the light I had but once beheld, seemed an ambition
+worthy of a life. Knowing her power of reticence, however, and of
+withdrawing from the outer courts into the penetralia of her sanctuary,
+guessing also at something of the aspect in which she regarded me, I
+dared not now make any such attempt. But I resolved to seize what
+opportunity might offer of convincing her that I was not so far out of
+sympathy with her as to be unworthy of holding closer converse; and I
+now began to feel distressed at what had given me little trouble
+before, namely, that she should suppose me the misleader of her
+brother, while I knew that, however far I might be from an absolute
+belief in things which she seemed never to have doubted, I was yet in
+some measure the means of keeping him from flinging aside the last
+cords which held him to the faith of his fathers. But I would not lead
+in any such direction, partly from the fear of hypocrisy, partly from
+horror at the idea of making capital of what little faith I had. But
+Charley himself afforded me an opportunity which I could not, whatever
+my scrupulosity, well avoid.
+
+‘Have you ever looked into that little book, Charley?’ I said, finding
+in my hands an early edition of the _Christian Morals_ of Sir Thomas
+Browne.--I wanted to say something, that I might not appear distraught.
+
+‘No,’ he answered, with indifference, as he glanced at the title-page.
+‘Is it anything particular?’
+
+‘Everything he writes, however whimsical in parts, is well worth more
+than mere reading,’ I answered. ‘It is a strangely latinized style, but
+has its charm notwithstanding.’
+
+He was turning over the leaves as I spoke. Receiving no response, I
+looked up. He seemed to have come upon something which had attracted
+him.
+
+‘What have you found?’ I asked.
+
+‘Here’s a chapter on the easiest way of putting a stop to it all,’ he
+answered.
+
+‘What do you mean?’
+
+‘He was a medical man--wasn’t he? I’m ashamed to say I know nothing
+about him.’
+
+‘Yes, certainly he was.’
+
+‘Then he knew what he was about.’
+
+‘As well probably as any man of his profession at the time.’
+
+‘He recommends drowning,’ said Charley, without raising his eyes from
+the book.
+
+‘What do you mean?’
+
+‘I mean for suicide.’
+
+‘Nonsense, He was the last man to favour that. You must make a mistake.
+He was a thoroughly Christian man.’
+
+‘I know nothing about that. Hear this.’
+
+He read the following passages from the beginning of the thirteenth
+section of the second part.
+
+‘With what shifts and pains we come into the world, we remember not;
+but ‘tis commonly found no easy matter to get out of it. Many have
+studied to exasperate the ways of death, but fewer hours have been
+spent to soften that necessity.’--‘Ovid, the old heroes, and the
+Stoicks, who were so afraid of drowning, as dreading thereby the
+extinction of their soul, which they conceived to be a fire, stood
+probably in fear of an easier way of death; wherein the water, entering
+the possessions of air, makes a temporary suffocation, and kills as it
+were without a fever. Surely many, who have had the spirit to destroy
+themselves, have not been ingenious in the contrivance thereof.’--‘Cato
+is much to be pitied, who mangled himself with poniards; and Hannibal
+seems more subtle, who carried his delivery, not in the point but the
+pummel of his sword.’
+
+‘Poison. I suppose,’ he said, as he ended the extract.
+
+‘Yes, that’s the story, if you remember,’ I answered; ‘but I don’t see
+that Sir Thomas is favouring suicide. Not at all. What he writes there
+is merely a speculation on the comparative ease of different modes of
+dying. Let me see it.’
+
+I took the book from his hands, and, glancing over the essay, read the
+closing passage.
+
+‘But to learn to die, is better than to study the ways of dying. Death
+will find some ways to untie or cut the most gordian knots of life, and
+make men’s miseries as mortal as themselves: whereas evil spirits, as
+undying substances, are unseparable from their calamities; and,
+therefore, they everlastingly struggle under their angustias, and,
+bound up with immortality, can never get out of themselves.’
+
+‘There! I told you so!’ cried Charley. Don’t you see? He is the most
+cunning arguer--beats Despair in the _Fairy Queen_ hollow!’
+
+By this time, either attracted by the stately flow of Sir Thomas’s
+speech, or by the tone of our disputation, the two girls had drawn
+nearer, and were listening.
+
+‘What _do_ you mean, Charley?’ I said, perceiving, however, the hold I
+had by my further quotation given him.
+
+‘First of all, he tells you the easiest way of dying, and then informs
+you that it ends all your troubles. He is too cunning to say in so many
+words that there is no hereafter, but what else can he wish you to
+understand when he says that in dying we have the advantage over the
+evil spirits, who cannot by death get rid of their sufferings? I will
+read this book,’ he added, closing it and putting it in his pocket.
+
+‘I wish you would,’ I said: ‘for although I confess you are logically
+right in your conclusions, I know Sir Thomas did not mean anything of
+the sort. He was only misled by his love of antithesis into a hasty and
+illogical remark. The whole tone of his book is against such a
+conclusion. Besides, I do not doubt he was thinking only of good
+people, for whom he believed all suffering over at their death.’
+
+‘But I don’t see, supposing he does believe in immortality, why you
+should be so anxious about his orthodoxy on the other point. Didn’t Dr
+Donne, as good a man as any, I presume, argue on the part of the
+suicide?’
+
+‘I have not read Dr Donne’s essay, but I suspect the obliquity of it
+has been much exaggerated.’
+
+‘Why should you? I never saw any argument worth the name on the other
+side. We have plenty of expressions of horror--but those are not
+argument. Indeed, the mass of the vulgar are so afraid of dying that,
+apparently in terror lest suicide should prove infectious, they treat
+in a brutal manner the remains of the man who has only had the courage
+to free himself from a burden too hard for him to bear. It is all
+selfishness--nothing else. They love their paltry selves so much that
+they count it a greater sin to kill oneself than to kill another
+man--which seems to me absolutely devilish. Therefore, the _vox
+populi_, whether it be the _vox Dei_ or not, is not nonsense merely,
+but absolute wickedness. Why shouldn’t a man kill himself?’
+
+Clara was looking on rather than listening, and her interest seemed
+that of amusement only. Mary’s eyes were wide-fixed on the face of
+Charley, evidently tortured to find that to the other enormities of his
+unbelief was to be added the justification of suicide. His habit of
+arguing was doubtless well enough known to her to leave room for the
+mitigating possibility that he might be arguing only for argument’s
+sake, but what he said could not but be shocking to her upon any
+supposition.
+
+I was not ready with an answer. Clara was the first to speak.
+
+‘It’s a cowardly thing, anyhow,’ she said.
+
+‘How do you make that out, Miss Clara?’ asked Charley. ‘I’m aware it’s
+the general opinion, but I don’t see it myself.’
+
+‘It’s surely cowardly to run away in that fashion.’
+
+‘For my part,’ returned Charley, ‘I feel that it requires more courage
+than _I_‘ve got, and hence it comes, I suppose, that I admire any one
+who has the pluck.’
+
+‘What vulgar words you use, Mr Charles!’ said Clara.
+
+‘Besides,’ he went on, heedless of her remark, ‘a man may want to
+escape--not from his duties--he mayn’t know what they are--but from his
+own weakness and shame.’
+
+‘But, Charley dear,’ said Mary, with a great light in her eyes, and the
+rest of her face as still as a sunless pond, ‘you don’t think of the
+sin of it. I know you are only talking, but some things oughtn’t to be
+talked of lightly.’
+
+‘What makes it a sin? It’s not mentioned in the ten commandments,’ said
+Charley.
+
+‘Surely it’s against the will of God, Charley dear.’
+
+‘He hasn’t said anything about it, anyhow. And why should I have a
+thing forced upon me whether I will or not, and then be pulled up for
+throwing it away when I found it troublesome?’
+
+‘Surely I don’t quite understand you, Charley.’
+
+‘Well, if I must be more explicit--I was never asked whether I chose to
+be made or not. I never had the conditions laid before me. Here I am,
+and I can’t help myself--so far, I mean, as that here I am.’
+
+‘But life is a good thing,’ said Mary, evidently struggling with an
+almost overpowering horror.
+
+‘I don’t know that. My impression is that if I had been asked--’
+
+‘But that couldn’t be, you know.’
+
+‘Then it wasn’t fair. But why couldn’t I be made for a moment or two,
+long enough to have the thing laid before me, and be asked whether I
+would accept it or not? My impression is that I would have said--No,
+thank you; that is, if it was fairly put.’
+
+I hastened to offer a remark, in the hope of softening the pain such
+flippancy must cause her.
+
+‘And my impression is, Charley,’ I said, ‘that if such had been
+possible--’
+
+‘Of course,’ he interrupted, ‘the God you believe in could have made me
+for a minute or two. He can, I suppose, unmake me now when he likes.’
+
+‘Yes; but could he have made you all at once capable of understanding
+his plans, and your own future? Perhaps that is what he is doing
+now--making you, by all you are going through, capable of understanding
+them. Certainly the question could not have been put to you before you
+were able to comprehend it, and this may be the only way to make you
+able. Surely a being who _could_ make you had a right to risk the
+chance, if I may be allowed such an expression, of your being satisfied
+in the end with what he saw to be good--so good indeed that, if we
+accept the New Testament story, he would have been willing to go
+through the same troubles himself for the same end.’
+
+‘No, no; not the same troubles,’ he objected. ‘According to the story
+to which you refer, Jesus Christ was free from all that alone makes
+life unendurable--the bad inside you, that will come outside whether
+you will or not.’
+
+‘I admit your objection. As to the evil coming out, I suspect it is
+better it should come out, so long as it is there. But the end is not
+yet; and still I insist the probability is that, if you could know it
+all now, you would say with submission, if not with hearty
+concurrence--“Thy will be done.”’
+
+‘I have known people who could say that without knowing it all now, Mr
+Cumbermede,’ said Mary.
+
+I had often called her by her Christian name, but she had never
+accepted the familiarity.
+
+‘No doubt,’ said Charley, ‘but _I_‘m not one of those.’
+
+‘If you would but give in,’ said his sister, ‘you would--in the end, I
+mean--say, “It is well.” I am sure of that.’
+
+‘Yes--perhaps I might--after all the suffering had been forced upon me,
+and was over at last--when I had been thoroughly exhausted and cowed,
+that is.’
+
+‘Which wouldn’t satisfy any thinking soul, Charley--much less God,’ I
+said. ‘But if there be a God at all--’
+
+Mary gave a slight inarticulate cry.
+
+‘Dear Miss Osborne,’ I said, ‘I beg you will not misunderstand me. I
+cannot be sure about it, as you are--I wish I could--but I am not
+disputing it in the least; I am only trying to make my argument as
+strong as I can.--I was going to say to Charley--not to you--that, if
+there be a God, he would not have compelled us to be, except with the
+absolute fore-knowledge that, when we knew all about it, we would
+certainly declare ourselves ready to go through it all again if need
+should be, in order to attain the known end of his high calling.’
+
+‘But isn’t it very presumptuous to assert anything about God which he
+has not revealed in his Word?’ said Mary, in a gentle, subdued voice,
+and looking at me with a sweet doubtfulness in her eyes.
+
+‘I am only insisting on the perfection of God--as far as I can
+understand perfection,’ I answered.
+
+‘But may not the perfection of God be something very different from
+anything we _can_ understand?’
+
+‘I will go further,’ I returned. ‘It _must_ be something that we cannot
+understand--but different from what we can understand by being greater,
+not by being less.’
+
+‘Mayn’t it be such that we can’t understand it at all?’ she insisted.
+
+‘Then how should we ever worship him? How should we ever rejoice in
+him? Surely it is because you see God to be good--’
+
+‘Or fancy you do,’ interposed Charley.
+
+‘Or fancy you do,’ I assented, ‘that you love him--not merely because
+you are told he is good. The Fejee islander might assert his God to be
+good, but would that make you love him? If you heard that a great
+power, away somewhere, who had nothing to do with you at all, was very
+good, would that make you able to love him?’
+
+‘Yes, it would,’ said Mary, decidedly. ‘It is only a good man who would
+see that God was good.’
+
+‘There you argue entirely on my side. It must be because you supposed
+his goodness what you call goodness--not something else--that you could
+love him on testimony. But even then your love could not be of that
+mighty absorbing kind which alone you would think fit between you and
+your God. It would not be loving him with all your heart and soul and
+strength and mind--would it? It would be loving him second-hand--not
+because of himself, seen and known by yourself.’
+
+‘But Charley does not even love God second-hand,’ she said, with a
+despairing mournfulness.
+
+‘Perhaps because he is very anxious to love him first-hand, and what
+you tell him about God does not seem to him to be good. Surely neither
+man nor woman can love because of what seems not good! I confess one
+may love in spite of what is bad, but it must be because of other
+things that are good.’
+
+She was silent.
+
+‘However goodness may change its forms,’ I went on, ‘it must still be
+goodness; only if we are to adore it, we must see something of what it
+is--of itself. And the goodness we cannot see, the eternal goodness,
+high above us as the heavens are above the earth, must still be a
+goodness that includes, absorbs, elevates, purifies all our goodness,
+not tramples upon it and calls it wickedness. For if not such, then we
+have nothing in common with God, and what we call goodness is not of
+God. He has not even ordered it; or, if he has, he has ordered it only
+to order the contrary afterwards; and there is, in reality, no real
+goodness--at least in him; and, if not in him, of whom we spring--where
+then?--and what becomes of ours, poor as it is?’
+
+My reader will see that I had already thought much about these things;
+although, I suspect, I have now not only expressed them far better than
+I could have expressed them in conversation, but with a degree of
+clearness which must be owing to the further continuance of the habit
+of reflecting on these and cognate subjects. Deep in my mind, however,
+something like this lay; and in some manner like this I tried to
+express it.
+
+Finding that she continued silent, and that Charley did not appear
+inclined to renew the contest, anxious also to leave no embarrassing
+silence to choke the channel now open between us--I mean Mary and
+myself--I returned to the original question.
+
+‘It seems to me, Charley--and it follows from all we have been
+saying--that the sin of suicide lies just in this, that it is an utter
+want of faith in God. I confess I do not see any Other ground on which
+to condemn it--provided, always, that the man has no other dependent
+upon him, none for whom he ought to live and work.’
+
+‘But does a man owe nothing to himself?’ said Clara.
+
+‘Nothing that I know of,’ I replied. ‘I am under no obligation to
+myself. How can I divide myself, and say that the one-half of me is
+indebted to the other? To my mind, it is a mere fiction of speech.’
+
+‘But whence, then, should such a fiction arise?’ objected Charley,
+willing, perhaps, to defend Clara.
+
+‘From the dim sense of a real obligation, I suspect--the object of
+which is mistaken. I suspect it really springs from our relation to the
+unknown God, so vaguely felt that a false form is readily accepted for
+its embodiment by a being who, in ignorance of its nature, is yet aware
+of its presence. I mean that what seems an obligation to self is in
+reality a dimly apprehended duty--an obligation to the unknown God, and
+not to self, in which lies no causing, therefore no obligating power.’
+
+‘But why say _the unknown God_, Mr Cumbermede?’ asked Mary.
+
+‘Because I do not believe that any one who knew him could possibly
+attribute to himself what belonged to Him--could, I mean, talk of an
+obligation to himself, when that obligation was to God.’
+
+How far Mary Osborne followed the argument or agreed with it I cannot
+tell, but she gave me a look of something like gratitude, and my heart
+felt too big for its closed chamber.
+
+At this moment the housemaid who had, along with the carpenter,
+assisted me in the library, entered the room. She was rather a forward
+girl, and I suppose presumed on our acquaintance to communicate
+directly with myself instead of going to the housekeeper. Seeing her
+approach as if she wanted to speak to me, I went to meet her. She
+handed me a small ring, saying, in a low voice,
+
+‘I found this in your room, sir, and thought it better to bring it to
+you.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ I said, putting it at once on my little finger; ‘I am glad
+you found it.’
+
+Charley and Clara had begun talking. I believe Clara was trying to make
+Charley give her the book he had pocketed, imagining it really of the
+character he had, half in sport, professed to believe it. But Mary had
+caught sight of the ring, and, with a bewildered expression on her
+countenance, was making a step towards me. I put a finger to my lips,
+and gave her a look by which I succeeded in arresting her. Utterly
+perplexed, I believe, she turned away towards the bookshelves behind
+her. I went into the next room, and called Charley.
+
+‘I think we had better not go on with this talk,’ I said. ‘You are very
+imprudent indeed, Charley, to be always bringing up subjects that tend
+to widen the gulf between you and your sister. When I have a chance, I
+do what I can to make her doubt whether you are so far wrong as they
+think you, but you must give her time. All your kind of thought is so
+new to her that your words cannot possibly convey to her what is in
+your mind. If only she were not so afraid of me! But I think she begins
+to trust me a little.’
+
+‘It’s no use,’ he returned. Her head is so full of rubbish!’
+
+‘But her heart is so full of goodness!’
+
+‘I wish you could make anything of her! But she looks up to my father
+with such a blind adoration that it isn’t of the slightest use
+attempting to put an atom of sense into her.’
+
+‘I should indeed despair if I might only set about it after your
+fashion. You always seem to shut your eyes to the mental condition of
+those that differ from you. Instead of trying to understand them first,
+which gives the sole possible chance of your ever making them
+understand what you mean, you care only to present your opinions; and
+that you do in such a fashion that they must appear to them false. You
+even make yourself seem to hold these for very love of their untruth;
+and thus make it all but impossible for them to shake off their
+fetters: every truth in advance of what they have already learned, will
+henceforth come to them associated with your presumed backsliding and
+impenitence.’
+
+‘Goodness! where did you learn their slang?’ cried Charley. ‘But
+impenitence, if you like,--not backsliding. I never made any
+_profession_. After all, however, their opinions don’t seem to hurt
+them--I mean my mother and sister.’
+
+‘They must hurt them if only by hindering their growth. In time, of
+course, the angels of the heart will expel the demons of the brain; but
+it is a pity the process should be retarded by your behaviour.’
+
+‘I know I am a brute, Wilfrid. I _will_ try to hold my tongue.’
+
+‘Depend upon it,’ I went on, ‘whatever such hearts can believe, is, as
+believed by them, to be treated with respect. It is because of the
+truth in it, not because of the falsehood, that they hold it; and when
+you speak against the false in it, you appear to them to speak against
+the true; for the dogma seems to them an unanalyzable unit. You assail
+the false with the recklessness of falsehood itself, careless of the
+injury you may inflict on the true.’
+
+I was interrupted by the entrance of Clara.
+
+‘If you gentlemen don’t want us any more, we had better go,’ she said.
+
+I left Charley to answer her, and went back into the next room. Mary
+stood where I had left her, mechanically shifting and arranging the
+volumes on a shelf at the height of her eyes.
+
+‘I think this is your ring, Miss Osborne,’ I said, in a low and hurried
+tone, offering it.
+
+Her expression at first was only of questioning surprise, when suddenly
+something seemed to cross her mind; she turned pale as death, and put
+her hand on the bookshelves as if to support her; as suddenly flushed
+crimson for a moment, and again turned deadly pale--all before I could
+speak.
+
+‘Don’t ask me any questions, dear Miss Osborne,’ I said. ‘And, please,
+trust me this far; don’t mention the loss of your ring to any one,
+unless it be your mother. Allow me to put it on your finger.’
+
+[Illustration: “I THINK THIS IS YOUR RING, MISS OSBORNE.”]
+
+She gave me a glance I cannot and would not describe. It lies
+treasured--for ever, God grant!--in the secret jewel-house of my heart.
+She lifted a trembling left hand, and doubtingly held--half held it
+towards me. To this day I know nothing of the stones of that ring--not
+even their colour; but I know I should know it at once if I saw it. My
+hand trembled more than hers as I put it on the third finger.
+
+What followed, I do not know. I think I left her there and went into
+the other room. When I returned a little after, I know she was gone.
+From that hour, not one word has ever passed between us in reference to
+the matter. The best of my conjectures remains but a conjecture; I know
+how the sword got there--nothing more.
+
+I did not see her again that day, and did not seem to want to see her,
+but worked on amongst the books in a quiet exultation. My being seemed
+tenfold awake and alive. My thoughts dwelt on the rarely revealed
+loveliness of my _Athanasia_; and, although I should have scorned
+unspeakably to take the smallest advantage of having come to share a
+secret with her, I could not help rejoicing in the sense of nearness to
+and _alone-ness_ with her which the possession of that secret gave me;
+while one of the most precious results of the new love which had thus
+all at once laid hold upon me, was the feeling--almost a
+conviction--that the dream was not a web self-wove in the loom of my
+brain, but that from somewhere, beyond my soul even, an influence had
+mingled with its longings to in-form the vision of that night--to be as
+it were a creative soul to what would otherwise have been but loose,
+chaotic, and shapeless vagaries of the unguided imagination. The events
+of that night were as the sudden opening of a door through which I
+caught a glimpse of that region of the supernal in which, whatever
+might be her theories concerning her experiences therein, Mary Osborne
+certainly lived, if ever any one lived. The degree of God’s presence
+with a creature is not to be measured by that creature’s interpretation
+of the manner in which he is revealed. The great question is whether he
+is revealed or not; and a strong truth can carry many parasitical
+errors.
+
+I felt that now I could talk freely to her of what most perplexed
+me--not so much, I confess, with any hope that she might cast light on
+my difficulties, as in the assurance that she would not only influence
+me to think purely and nobly, but would urge me in the search after
+God. In such a relation of love to religion the vulgar mind will ever
+imagine ground for ridicule; but those who have most regarded human
+nature know well enough that the two have constantly manifested
+themselves in the closest relation; while even the poorest love is the
+enemy of selfishness unto the death, for the one or the other must give
+up the ghost. Not only must God be in all that is human, but of it he
+must be the root.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+
+THE SWORD IN THE SCALE.
+
+The next morning Charley and I went as usual to the library, where,
+later in the day, we were joined by the two ladies. It was long before
+our eyes once met, but when at last they did, Mary allowed hers to rest
+on mine for just one moment with an expression of dove-like beseeching,
+which I dared to interpret as meaning--‘Be just to me.’ If she read
+mine, surely she read there that she was safe with my thoughts as with
+those of her mother.
+
+Charley and I worked late in the afternoon, and went away in the last
+of the twilight. As we approached the gate of the park, however, I
+remembered I had left behind me a book I had intended to carry home for
+comparison with a copy in my possession, of which the title-page was
+gone. I asked Charley, therefore, to walk on and give my man some
+directions about Lilith, seeing I had it in my mind to propose a ride
+on the morrow, while I went back to fetch it.
+
+Finding the door at the foot of the stair leading to the open gallery
+ajar, and knowing that none of the rooms at either end of it were
+occupied, I went the nearest way, and thus entered the library at the
+point furthest from the more public parts of the house. The book I
+sought was, however, at the other end of the suite, for I had laid it
+on the window-sill of the room next the armoury.
+
+As I entered that room, and while I crossed it towards the glimmering
+window, I heard voices in the armoury, and soon distinguished Clara’s.
+It never entered my mind that possibly I ought not to hear what might
+be said. Just as I reached the window I was arrested, and stood stock
+still: the other voice was that of Geoffrey Brotherton. Before my
+self-possession returned, I had heard what follows.
+
+‘I am certain _he_ took it,’ said Clara. ‘I didn’t see him, of course;
+but if you call at the Moat to-morrow, ten to one you will find it
+hanging on the wall.’
+
+‘I knew him for a sneak, but never took him for a thief. I would have
+lost anything out of the house rather than that sword!’
+
+‘Don’t you mention my name in it. If you do, I shall think you--well, I
+will never speak to you again.’
+
+‘And if I don’t, what then?’
+
+Before I heard her answer, I had come to myself. I had no time for
+indignation yet. I must meet Geoffrey at once. I would not, however,
+have him know I had overheard any of their talk. It would have been
+more straightforward to allow the fact to be understood, but I shrunk
+from giving him occasion for accusing me of an eavesdropping of which I
+was innocent. Besides, I had no wish to encounter Clara before I
+understood her game, which I need not say was a mystery to me. What end
+could she have in such duplicity? I had had unpleasant suspicions of
+the truth of her nature before, but could never have suspected her of
+baseness.
+
+I stepped quietly into the further room, whence I returned, making a
+noise with the door-handle, and saying,
+
+‘Are you there, Miss Coningham? Could you help me to find a book I left
+here?’
+
+There was silence; but after the briefest pause I heard the sound of
+her dress as she swept hurriedly out into the gallery. I advanced. On
+the top of the steps, filling the doorway of the armoury in the faint
+light from the window, appeared the dim form of Brotherton.
+
+‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I heard a lady’s voice, and thought it
+was Miss Coningham’s.’
+
+‘I cannot compliment your ear,’ he answered. ‘It was one of the maids.
+I had just rung for a light. I presume you are Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I returned to fetch a book I forgot to take with
+me. I suppose you have heard what we’ve been about in the library
+here?’
+
+‘I have been partially informed of it,’ he answered, stiffly. ‘But I
+have heard also that you contemplate a raid upon the armoury. I beg you
+will let the weapons alone.’
+
+I had said something of the sort to Clara that very morning.
+
+‘I have a special regard for them,’ he went on; ‘and I don’t want them
+meddled with. It’s not every one knows how to handle them. Some amongst
+them I would not have injured for their weight in diamonds. One in
+particular I should like to give you the history of--just to show you
+that I am right in being careful over them.--Here comes the light.’
+
+I presume it had been hurriedly arranged between them as Clara left him
+that she should send one of the maids, who in consequence now made her
+appearance with a candle. Brotherton took it from her and approached
+the wall.
+
+‘Why! What the devil! Some one has been meddling already, I find! The
+very sword I speak of is gone! There’s the sheath hanging empty! What
+_can_ it mean? Do you know anything of this, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘I do, Mr Brotherton. The sword to which that sheath belongs is _mine_.
+I have it.’
+
+‘_Yours!_’ he shouted; then restraining himself, added in a tone of
+utter contempt--‘This is rather too much. Pray, sir, on what grounds do
+you lay claim to the smallest atom of property within these walls? My
+father ought to have known what he was about when he let you have the
+run of the house! And the old books, too! By heaven, it’s too much! I
+always thought--’
+
+‘It matters little to me what you think, Mr Brotherton--so little that
+I do not care to take any notice of your insolence--’
+
+‘Insolence!’ he roared, striding towards me, as if he would have
+knocked me down.
+
+I was not his match in strength, for he was at least two inches taller
+than I, and of a coarse-built, powerful frame. I caught a light rapier
+from the wall, and stood on my defence.
+
+‘Coward!’ he cried.
+
+‘There are more where this came from,’ I answered, pointing to the
+wall.
+
+He made no move towards arming himself, but stood glaring at me in a
+white rage.
+
+‘I am prepared to prove,’ I answered as calmly as I could, ‘that the
+sword to which you allude is mine. But I will give _you_ no
+explanation. If you will oblige me by asking your father to join us, I
+will tell him the whole story.’
+
+‘I will have a warrant out against you.’
+
+‘As you please. I am obliged to you for mentioning it. I shall be
+ready. I have the sword, and intend to keep it. And by the way, I had
+better secure the scabbard as well,’ I added, as with a sudden spring I
+caught it also from the wall, and again stood prepared.
+
+He ground his teeth with rage. He was one of those who, trusting to
+their superior strength, are not much afraid of a row, but cannot face
+cold steel: soldier as he had been, it made him nervous.
+
+‘Insulted in my own house!’ he snarled from between his teeth.
+
+‘Your father’s house,’ I corrected. ‘Call him, and I will give
+explanations.’
+
+‘Damn your explanations! Get out of the house, you puppy; or I’ll have
+the servants up, and have you ducked in the horse-pond.’
+
+‘Bah!’ I said. ‘There’s not one of them would lay hands on me at your
+bidding. Call your father, I say, or I will go and find him myself.’
+
+He broke out in a succession of oaths, using language I had heard in
+the streets of London, but nowhere else. I stood perfectly still, and
+watchful. All at once he turned and went into the gallery, over the
+balustrade of which he shouted,
+
+‘Martin! Go and tell my father to come here--to the armoury--at once.
+Tell him there’s a fellow here out of his mind.’
+
+I remained quiet, with my scabbard in one hand, and the rapier in the
+other--a dangerous weapon enough, for it was, though slight, as sharp
+as a needle, and I knew it for a bit of excellent temper. Brotherton
+stood outside waiting for his father. In a few moments I heard the
+voice of the old man.
+
+‘Boys! boys!’ he cried; ‘what is all this to do?’
+
+‘Why, sir,’ answered Geoffrey, trying to be calm, ‘here’s that fellow
+Cumbermede confesses to have stolen the most valuable of the swords out
+of the armoury--one that’s been in the family for two hundred years,
+and says he means to keep it.’
+
+I just caught the word _liar_ ere it escaped my lips: I would spare the
+son in his father’s presence.
+
+‘Tut! tut!’ said Sir Giles. ‘What does it all mean? You’re at your old
+quarrelsome tricks, my boy! Really you ought to be wiser by this time!’
+
+As he spoke, he entered panting, and with the rubicund glow beginning
+to return upon a face from which the message had evidently banished it.
+
+‘Tut! tut!’ he said again, half starting back as he caught sight of me
+with the weapon in my hand--‘What is it all about, Mr Cumbermede? I
+thought _you_ had more sense!’
+
+‘Sir Giles,’ I said, ‘I have not confessed to having stolen the
+sword--only to having taken it.’
+
+‘A very different thing,’ he returned, trying to laugh. ‘But come now;
+tell me all about it. We can’t have quarrelling like this, you know. We
+can’t have pot-house work here.’
+
+‘That is just why I sent for you, Sir Giles,’ I answered, replacing the
+rapier on the wall. ‘I want to tell you the whole story.’
+
+‘Let’s have it, then.’
+
+‘Mind, I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Geoffrey.
+
+‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said his father, sharply.
+
+‘Mr Brotherton,’ I said, ‘I offered to tell the story to Sir Giles--not
+to you.’
+
+‘You offered!’ he sneered. ‘You may be compelled--under different
+circumstances by-and-by, if you don’t mind what you’re about.’
+
+‘Come now--no more of this!’ said Sir Giles.
+
+Thereupon I began at the beginning, and told him the story of the
+sword, as I have already given it to my reader. He fidgeted a little,
+but Geoffrey kept himself stock-still during the whole of the
+narrative. As soon as I had ended Sir Giles said,
+
+‘And you think poor old Close actually carried off your sword!--Well,
+he was an odd creature, and had a passion for everything that could
+kill. The poor little atomy used to carry a poniard in the
+breast-pocket of his black coat--as if anybody would ever have thought
+of attacking his small carcass! Ha! ha! ha! He was simply a monomaniac
+in regard of swords and daggers. There, Geoffrey! The sword is plainly
+his. _He_ is the wronged party in the matter, and we owe him an
+apology.’
+
+‘I believe the whole to be a pure invention,’ said Geoffrey, who now
+appeared perfectly calm.
+
+‘Mr Brotherton!’ I began, but Sir Giles interposed.
+
+‘Hush! hush!’ he said, and turned to his son. ‘My boy, you insult your
+father’s guest.’
+
+‘I will at once prove to you, sir, how unworthy he is of any
+forbearance, not to say protection from you. Excuse me for one moment.’
+
+He took up the candle, and opening the little door at the foot of the
+winding stair, disappeared. Sir Giles and I sat in silence and darkness
+until he returned, carrying in his hand an old vellum-bound book.
+
+‘I dare say you don’t know this manuscript, sir,’ he said, turning to
+his father.
+
+‘I know nothing about it,’ answered Sir Giles. ‘What is it? Or what has
+it to do with the matter in hand?’
+
+‘Mr Close found it in some corner or other, and used to read it to me
+when I was a little fellow. It is a description, and in most cases a
+history as well, of every weapon in the armoury. They had been much
+neglected, and a great many of the labels were gone, but those which
+were left referred to numbers in the book-heading descriptions which
+corresponded exactly to the weapons on which they were found. With a
+little trouble he had succeeded in supplying the numbers where they
+were missing, for the descriptions are very minute.’
+
+He spoke in a tone of perfect self-possession.
+
+‘Well, Geoffrey, I ask again, what has all this to do with it?’ said
+his father.
+
+‘If Mr Cumbermede will allow you to look at the label attached to the
+sheath in his hand--for fortunately it was a rule with Mr Close to put
+a label on both sword and sheath--and if you will read me the number, I
+will read you the description in the book.’
+
+I handed the sheath to Sir Giles, who began to decipher the number on
+the ivory ticket.
+
+‘The label is quite a new one,’ I said.
+
+‘I have already accounted for that,’ said Brotherton. ‘I will leave it
+to yourself to decide whether the description corresponds.’
+
+Sir Giles read out the number figure by figure, adding--
+
+‘But how are we to test the description? I don’t know the thing, and
+it’s not here.’
+
+‘It is at the Moat,’ I replied; ‘but its future place is at Sir Giles’s
+decision.’
+
+‘Part of the description belongs to the scabbard you have in your hand,
+sir,’ said Brotherton. ‘The description of the sword itself I submit to
+Mr Cumbermede.’
+
+‘Till the other day I never saw the blade,’ I said.
+
+‘Likely enough,’ he retorted dryly, and proceeding, read the
+description of the half-basket hilt, inlaid with gold, and the broad
+blade, channeled near the hilt, and inlaid with ornaments and initials
+in gold.
+
+‘There is nothing in all that about the scabbard,’ said his father.
+
+‘Stop till we come to the history,’ he replied, and read on, as nearly
+as I can recall, to the following effect. I have never had an
+opportunity of copying the words themselves.
+
+‘“This sword seems to have been expressly forged for Sir [----]
+[----],”’ (He read it _Sir So and So_.) ‘“whose initials are to be
+found on the blade. According to tradition, it was worn by him, for the
+first and only time, at the battle of Naseby, where he fought in the
+cavalry led by Sir Marmaduke Langdale. From some accident or other, Sir
+[----] [----] found, just as the order to charge was given, that he
+could not draw his sword, and had to charge with only a pistol in his
+hand. In the flight which followed he pulled up, and unbuckled his
+sword, but while attempting to ease it, a rush of the enemy startled
+him, and, looking about, he saw a Roundhead riding straight at Sir
+Marmaduke, who that moment passed in the rear of his retiring
+troops--giving some directions to an officer by his side, and unaware
+of the nearness of danger. Sir [----] [----] put spurs to his charger,
+rode at the trooper, and dealt him a downright blow on the pot-helmet
+with his sheathed weapon. The fellow tumbled from his horse, and Sir
+[----] [----] found his scabbard split halfway up, but the edge of his
+weapon unturned. It is said he vowed it should remain sheathed for
+ever.”--The person who has now unsheathed it has done a great wrong to
+the memory of a loyal cavalier.’
+
+‘The sheath halfway split was as familiar to my eyes as the face of my
+uncle,’ I said, turning to Sir Giles. ‘And in the only reference I ever
+heard my great-grandmother make to it, she mentioned the name of Sir
+Marmaduke. I recollect that much perfectly.’
+
+‘But how could the sword be there and here at one and the same time?’
+said Sir Giles.
+
+‘_That_ I do not pretend to explain,’ I said.
+
+‘Here at least is written testimony to our possession of it,’ said
+Brotherton in a conclusive tone.
+
+‘How, then, are we to explain Mr Cumbermede’s story?’ said Sir Giles,
+evidently in good faith.
+
+‘With that I cannot consent to allow myself concerned.--Mr Cumbermede
+is, I am told, a writer of fiction.’
+
+‘Geoffrey,’ said Sir Giles, ‘behave yourself like a gentleman.’
+
+‘I endeavour to do so,’ he returned with a sneer.
+
+I kept silence.
+
+‘How can you suppose,’ the old man went on, ‘that Mr Cumbermede would
+invent such a story? What object could he have?’
+
+‘He may have a mania for weapons, like old Close--as well as for old
+books,’ he replied.
+
+I thought of my precious folio. But I did not yet know how much
+additional force his insinuation with regard to the motive of my
+labours in the library would gain if it should be discovered that such
+a volume was in my possession.
+
+‘You may have remarked, sir,’ he went on, ‘that I did not read the name
+of the owner of the sword in any place where it occurred in the
+manuscript.’
+
+‘I did. And I beg to know why you kept it back,’ answered Sir Giles.
+
+‘What do you think the name might be, sir?’
+
+‘How should I know? I am not an antiquarian.’
+
+‘Sir _Wilfrid Cumbermede_. You will find the initials on the
+blade.--Does that throw any light on the matter, do you think, sir?’
+
+‘Why, that is your very own name!’ cried Sir Giles, turning to me.
+
+I bowed.
+
+‘It is a pity the sword shouldn’t be yours.’
+
+‘It is mine, Sir Giles--though, as I said, I am prepared to abide by
+your decision.’
+
+‘And now I remember;--the old man resumed, after a moment’s
+thought--‘the other evening Mr Alderforge--a man of great learning, Mr
+Cumbermede--told us that the name of Cumbermede had at one time
+belonged to our family. It is all very strange. I confess I am utterly
+bewildered.’
+
+‘At least you can understand, sir, how a man of imagination, like Mr
+Cumbermede here, might desire to possess himself of a weapon which
+bears his initials, and belonged two hundred years ago to a baronet of
+the same name as himself--a circumstance which, notwithstanding it is
+by no means a common name, is not _quite_ so strange as at first sight
+appears--that is, if all reports are true.’
+
+I did not in the least understand his drift; neither did I care to
+inquire into it now.
+
+‘Were you aware of this, Mr Cumbermede?’ asked his father.
+
+‘No, Sir Giles,’ I answered.
+
+‘Mr Cumbermede has had the run of the place for weeks. I am sorry I was
+not at home. This book was lying all the time on the table in the room
+above, where poor old Close’s work-bench and polishing-wheel are still
+standing.’
+
+‘Mr Brotherton, this gets beyond bearing,’ I cried. ‘Nothing but the
+presence of your father, to whom I am indebted for much kindness,
+protects you.’
+
+‘Tut! tut!’ said Sir Giles.
+
+‘Protects me, indeed!’ exclaimed Brotherton. ‘Do you dream I should be
+by any code bound to accept a challenge from you?--Not, at least, I
+presume to think, before a jury had decided on the merits of the case.’
+
+My blood was boiling, but what could I do or say? Sir Giles rose, and
+was about to leave the room, remarking only--
+
+‘I don’t know what to make of it.’
+
+‘At all events, Sir Giles,’ I said hurriedly, ‘you will allow me to
+prove the truth of what I have asserted. I cannot, unfortunately, call
+my uncle or aunt, for they are gone; and I do not know where the
+servant who was with us when I took the sword away is now. But, if you
+will allow me, I will call Mrs Wilson--to prove that I had the sword
+when I came to visit her on that occasion, and that on the morning
+after sleeping here I complained of its loss to her, and went away
+without it.’
+
+‘It would but serve to show the hallucination was early developed. We
+should probably find that even then you were much attracted by the
+armoury,’ said Brotherton, with a judicial air, as if I were a culprit
+before a magistrate.
+
+I had begun to see that, although the old man was desirous of being
+just, he was a little afraid of his son. He rose as the latter spoke,
+however, and going into the gallery, shouted over the balustrade--
+
+‘Some one send Mrs Wilson to the library!’
+
+We removed to the reading-room, I carrying the scabbard which Sir Giles
+had returned to me as soon as he had read the label. Brotherton
+followed, having first gone up the little turn-pike stair, doubtless to
+replace the manuscript.
+
+Mrs Wilson came, looking more pinched than ever, and stood before Sir
+Giles with her arms straight by her sides, like one of the ladies of
+Noah’s ark. I will not weary my reader with a full report of the
+examination. She had seen me _with_ a sword, but had taken no notice of
+its appearance. I _might_ have taken it from the armoury, for I _was_
+in the library all the afternoon. She had left me there thinking I was
+a ‘gentlemany’ boy. I had _said_ I had lost it, but she was sure _she_
+did not know how that could be. She was _very_ sorry she had caused any
+trouble by asking me to the house, but Sir Giles would be pleased to
+remember that he had himself introduced the boy to her notice. Little
+she thought, &c., &c.
+
+In fact, the spiteful creature, propitiating her natural sense of
+justice by hinting instead of plainly suggesting injurious conclusions,
+was paying me back for my imagined participation in the impertinences
+of Clara. She had besides, as I learned afterwards, greatly resented
+the trouble I had caused of late.
+
+Brotherton struck in as soon as his father had ceased questioning her.
+
+‘At all events, if he believed the sword was his, why did he not go and
+represent the case to you, sir, and request justice from you? Since
+then he has had opportunity enough. His tale has taken too long to
+hatch.’
+
+‘This is all very paltry,’ I said.
+
+‘Not so paltry as your contriving to sleep in the house in order to
+carry off your host’s property in the morning--after studying the place
+to discover which room would suit your purpose best!’
+
+Here I lost my presence of mind. A horror shook me lest something might
+come out to injure Mary, and I shivered at the thought of her name
+being once mentioned along with mine. If I had taken a moment to
+reflect, I must have seen that I should only add to the danger by what
+I was about to say. But her form was so inextricably associated in my
+mind with all that had happened then, that it seemed as if the
+slightest allusion to any event of that night would inevitably betray
+her; and in the tremor which, like an electric shock, passed through me
+from head to foot, I blurted out words importing that I had never slept
+in the house in my life.
+
+‘Your room was got ready for you, anyhow, Master Cumbermede,’ said Mrs
+Wilson.
+
+‘It does not follow that I occupied it,’ I returned.
+
+‘I can prove that false,’ said Brotherton; but, probably lest he should
+be required to produce his witness, only added,--‘At all events, he was
+seen in the morning, carrying the sword across the court before any one
+had been admitted.’
+
+I was silent; for I now saw too clearly that I had made a dreadful
+blunder, and that any attempt to carry assertion further, or even to
+explain away my words, might be to challenge the very discovery I would
+have given my life to ward off.
+
+As I continued silent, steeling myself to endure, and saying to myself
+that disgrace was not dishonour, Sir Giles again rose, and turned to
+leave the room. Evidently he was now satisfied that I was unworthy of
+confidence.
+
+‘One moment, if you please, Sir Giles,’ I said. ‘It is plain to me
+there is some mystery about this affair, and it does not seem as if I
+should be able to clear it up. The time may come, however, when I can.
+I did wrong, I see now, in attempting to right myself, instead of
+representing my case to you. But that does not alter the fact that the
+sword was and is mine, however appearances may be to the contrary. In
+the mean time, I restore you the scabbard, and as soon as I reach home,
+I shall send my man with the disputed weapon.’
+
+‘It will be your better way,’ he said, as he took the sheath from my
+hand.
+
+Without another word, he left the room. Mrs Wilson also retired.
+Brotherton alone remained. I took no further notice of him, but
+followed Sir Giles through the armoury. He came after me, step for
+step, at a little distance, and as I stepped out into the gallery,
+said, in a tone of insulting politeness:
+
+‘You will send the sword as soon as may be quite convenient, Mr
+Cumbermede? Or shall I send and fetch it?’
+
+I turned and faced him in the dim light which came up from the hall.
+
+‘Mr Brotherton, if you knew that book and those weapons as early as you
+have just said, you cannot help knowing that at that time the sword was
+_not_ there.’
+
+‘I decline to re-open the question,’ he said.
+
+A fierce word leaped to my lips, but repressing it I turned away once
+more, and walked slowly down the stair, across the hall, and out of the
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+
+I PART WITH MY SWORD
+
+I made haste out of the park, but wandered up and down my own field for
+half an hour, thinking in what shape to put what had occurred before
+Charley. My perplexity arose not so much from the difficulty involved
+in the matter itself as from my inability to fix my thoughts. My brain
+was for the time like an ever-revolving kaleidoscope, in which,
+however, there was but one fair colour--the thought of Mary. Having at
+length succeeded in arriving at some conclusion, I went home, and would
+have despatched Styles at once with the sword, had not Charley already
+sent him off to the stable, so that I must wait.
+
+‘What _has_ kept you so long, Wilfrid?’ Charley asked, as I entered.
+
+‘I’ve had a tremendous row with Brotherton,’ I answered.
+
+‘The brute! Is he there? I’m glad I was gone. What was it all about?’
+
+‘About that sword. It was very foolish of me to take it without saying
+a word to Sir Giles.’
+
+‘So it was,’ he returned. ‘I can’t think how _you_ could be so
+foolish!’
+
+I could, well enough. What with the dream and the waking, I could think
+little about anything else; and only since the consequences had
+overtaken me, saw how unwisely I had acted. I now told Charley the
+greater part of the affair--omitting the false step I had made in
+saying I had not slept in the house; and also, still with the vague
+dread of leading to some discovery, omitting to report the treachery of
+Clara; for, if Charley should talk to her or Mary about it, which was
+possible enough, I saw several points where the danger would lie very
+close. I simply told him that I had found Brotherton in the armoury,
+and reported what followed between us. I did not at all relish having
+now in my turn secrets from Charley, but my conscience did not trouble
+me about it, seeing it was for his sister’s sake; and when I saw the
+rage of indignation into which he flew, I was, if possible, yet more
+certain I was right. I told him I must go and find Styles, that he
+might take the sword at once; but he started up, saying he would carry
+it back himself, and at the same time take his leave of Sir Giles,
+whose house, of course, he could never enter again after the way I had
+been treated in it. I saw this would lead to a rupture with the whole
+family, but I should not regret that, for there could be no advantage
+to Mary either in continuing her intimacy, such as it was, with Clara,
+or in making further acquaintance with Brotherton. The time of their
+departure was also close at hand, and might be hastened without
+necessarily involving much of the unpleasant. Also, if Charley broke
+with them at once, there would be the less danger of his coming to know
+that I had not given him all the particulars of my discomfiture. If he
+were to find I had told a falsehood, how could I explain to him why I
+had done so? This arguing on probabilities made me feel like a culprit
+who has to protect himself by concealment; but I will not dwell upon my
+discomfort in the half-duplicity thus forced upon me. I could not help
+it. I got down the sword, and together we looked at it for the first
+and last time. I found the description contained in the book perfectly
+correct. The upper part was inlaid with gold in a Greekish pattern,
+crossed by the initials W. C. I gave it up to Charley with a sigh of
+submission to the inevitable, and having accompanied him to the
+park-gate, roamed my field again until his return.
+
+He rejoined me in a far quieter mood, and for a moment or two I was
+silent with the terror of learning that he had become acquainted with
+my unhappy blunder. After a little pause, he said,
+
+‘I’m very sorry I didn’t see Brotherton. I should have liked just a
+word or two with him.’
+
+‘It’s just as well not,’ I said. ‘You would only have made another row.
+Didn’t you see any of them?’
+
+‘I saw the old man. He seemed really cut up about it, and professed
+great concern. He didn’t even refer to you by name--and spoke only in
+general terms. I told him you were incapable of what was laid to your
+charge; that I had not the slightest doubt of your claim to the
+sword,--your word being enough for me,--and that I trusted time would
+right you. I went too far there, however, for I haven’t the slightest
+hope of anything of the sort.’
+
+‘How did he take all that?’
+
+‘He only smiled--incredulously and sadly,--so that I couldn’t find it
+in my heart to tell him all my mind. I only insisted on my own perfect
+confidence in you.--I’m afraid I made a poor advocate, Wilfrid. Why
+should I mind his grey hairs where justice is concerned? I am afraid I
+was false to you, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘Nonsense; you did just the right thing, old boy. Nobody could have
+done better.’
+
+‘_Do_ you think so? I am _so_ glad! I have been feeling ever since as
+if I ought to have gone into a rage, and shaken the dust of the place
+from my feet for a witness against the whole nest of them! But somehow
+I couldn’t--what with the honest face and the sorrowful look of the old
+man.’
+
+‘You are always too much of a partisan, Charley; I don’t mean so much
+in your actions--for this very one disproves that--but in your notions
+of obligation. You forget that you had to be just to Sir Giles as well
+as to me, and that he must be judged--not by the absolute facts of the
+case, but by what appeared to him to be the facts. He could not help
+misjudging me. But you ought to help misjudging him. So you see your
+behaviour was guided by an instinct or a soul, or what you will, deeper
+than your judgment.’
+
+‘That may be--but he ought to have known you better than believe you
+capable of misconduct.’
+
+‘I don’t know that. He had seen very little of me. But I dare say he
+puts it down to cleptomania. I think he will be kind enough to give the
+ugly thing a fine name for my sake. Besides, he must hold either by his
+son or by me.’
+
+‘That’s the worst that can be said on my side of the question. He must
+by this time be aware that that son of his is nothing better than a low
+scoundrel.’
+
+‘It takes much to convince a father of such an unpleasant truth as
+that, Charley.’
+
+‘Not much, if my experience goes for anything.’
+
+‘I trust it is not typical, Charley.’
+
+‘I suppose you’re going to stand up for Geoffrey next?’
+
+‘I have no such intention. But if I did, it would be but to follow your
+example. We seem to change sides every now and then. You remember how
+you used to defend Clara when I expressed my doubts about her.’
+
+‘And wasn’t I right? Didn’t you come over to my side?’
+
+‘Yes, I did,’ I said, and hastened to change the subject; adding, ‘As
+for Geoffrey, there is room enough to doubt whether he believes what he
+says, and that makes a serious difference. In thinking over the affair
+since you left me, I have discovered further grounds for questioning
+his truthfulness.’
+
+‘As if that were necessary!’ he exclaimed, with an accent of scorn.’
+But tell me what you mean?’ he added.
+
+‘In turning the thing over in my mind, this question has occurred to
+me.--He read from the manuscript that oh the blade of the sword, near
+the hilt, were the initials of Wilfrid Cumbermede. Now, if the sword
+had never been drawn from the scabbard, how was that to be known to the
+writer?’
+
+‘Perhaps it was written about that time,’ said Charley.
+
+‘No; the manuscript was evidently written some considerable time after.
+It refers to tradition concerning it.’
+
+‘Then the writer knew it by tradition.’
+
+The moment Charley’s logical faculty was excited his perception was
+impartial.
+
+‘Besides,’ he went on,’ it does not follow that the sword had really
+never been drawn before. Mr Close even may have done so, for his
+admiration was apparently quite as much for weapons themselves as for
+their history. Clara could hardly have drawn it as she did if it had
+not been meddled with before.’
+
+The terror lest he should ask me how I came to carry it home without
+the scabbard hurried my objection.
+
+‘That supposition, however, would only imply that Brotherton might have
+learned the fact from the sword itself, not from the book. I should
+just like to have one peep of the manuscript to see whether what he
+read was all there!’
+
+‘Or any of it, for that matter,’ said Charley. ‘Only it would have been
+a more tremendous risk than I think he would have run.’
+
+‘I wish I had thought of it sooner, though.’
+
+My suspicion was that Clara had examined the blade thoroughly, and
+given him a full description of it. He _might_, however, have been at
+the Hall on some previous occasion, without my knowledge, and might
+have seen the half-drawn blade on the wall, examined it, and pushed it
+back into the sheath; which might have so far loosened the blade that
+Clara was afterwards able to draw it herself. I was all but certain by
+this time that it was no other than she that had laid it on my bed. But
+then why had she drawn it? Perhaps that I might leave proof of its
+identity behind me--for the carrying out of her treachery, whatever the
+object of it might be. But this opened a hundred questions not to be
+discussed, even in silent thought, in the presence of another.
+
+‘Did you see your mother, Charley?’ I asked.
+
+‘No, I thought it better not to trouble her. They are going to-morrow.
+Mary had persuaded her--why, I don’t know--to return a day or two
+sooner than they had intended.’
+
+‘I hope Brotherton will not succeed in prejudicing them against me.’
+
+‘I wish that were possible,’ he answered. ‘But the time for prejudice
+is long gone by.’
+
+I could not believe this to be the case in respect of Mary; for I could
+not but think her favourably inclined to me.
+
+‘Still,’ I said, ‘I should not like their bad opinion of me to be
+enlarged as well as strengthened by the belief that I had attempted to
+steal Sir Giles’s property. You _must_ stand my friend there, Charley.’
+
+‘Then you _do_ doubt me, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘Not a bit, you foolish fellow.’
+
+‘You know, I can’t enter that house again, and I don’t care about
+writing to my mother, for my father is sure to see it; but I will
+follow my mother and Mary the moment they are out of the grounds
+to-morrow, and soon see whether they’ve got the story by the right
+end.’
+
+The evening passed with me in alternate fits of fierce indignation and
+profound depression, for, while I was clear to my own conscience in
+regard of my enemies, I had yet thrown myself bound at their feet by my
+foolish lie; and I all but made up my mind to leave the country, and
+only return after having achieved such a position--of what sort I had
+no more idea than the school-boy before he sets himself to build a new
+castle in the air--as would buttress any assertion of the facts I might
+see fit to make in after-years.
+
+When we had parted for the night, my brains began to go about, and the
+centre of their gyrations was not Mary now, but Clara. What could have
+induced her to play me false? All my vanity, of which I had enough, was
+insufficient to persuade me that it could be out of revenge for the
+gradual diminution of my attentions to her. She had seen me pay none to
+Mary, I thought, unless she had caught a glimpse from the next room of
+the little passage of the ring, and that I did not believe. Neither did
+I believe she had ever cared enough about me to be jealous of whatever
+attentions I might pay to another. But in all my conjectures, I had to
+confess myself utterly foiled. I could imagine no motive. Two
+possibilities alone, both equally improbable, suggested themselves--the
+one, that she did it for pure love of mischief, which, false as she was
+to me, I could not believe; the other, which likewise I rejected, that
+she wanted to ingratiate herself with Brotherton. I had still, however,
+scarcely a doubt that she had laid the sword on my bed. Trying to
+imagine a connection between this possible action and Mary’s mistake, I
+built up a conjectural form of conjectural facts to this effect--that
+Mary had seen her go into my room, had taken it for the room she was to
+share with her, and had followed her either at once--in which case I
+supposed Clara to have gone out by the stair to the roof to avoid being
+seen--or afterwards, from some accident, without a light in her hand.
+But I do not care to set down more of my speculations, for none
+concerning this either were satisfactory to myself, and I remain almost
+as much in the dark to this day. In any case the fear remained that
+Clara must be ever on the borders of the discovery of Mary’s secret, if
+indeed she did not know it already, which was a dreadful thought--more
+especially as I could place no confidence in her. I was glad to think,
+however, that they were to be parted so soon, and I had little fear of
+any correspondence between them.
+
+The next morning Charley set out to waylay them at a certain point on
+their homeward journey. I did not propose to accompany him. I preferred
+having him speak for me first, not knowing how much they might have
+heard to my discredit, for it was far from probable the matter had been
+kept from them. After he had started, however, I could not rest, and
+for pure restlessness sent Styles to fetch my mare. The loss of my
+sword was a trifle to me now, but the proximity of the place where I
+should henceforth be regarded as what I hardly dared to realize, was
+almost unendurable. As if I had actually been guilty of what was laid
+to my charge, I longed to hide myself in some impenetrable depth, and
+kept looking out impatiently for Styles’s return. At length I caught
+sight of my Lilith’s head rising white from the hollow in which the
+farm lay, and ran up to my room to make a little change in my attire.
+Just as I snatched my riding-whip from a hook by the window, I spied a
+horseman approaching from the direction of the park gates. Once more it
+was Mr Coningham, riding hitherward from the windy trees. In no degree
+inclined to meet him, I hurried down the stair, and arriving at the
+very moment Styles drew up, sprung into the saddle, and would have
+galloped off in the opposite direction, confident that no horse of Mr
+Coningham’s could overtake my Lilith. But the moment I was in the
+saddle, I remembered there was a pile of books on the window-sill of my
+uncle’s room, belonging to the library at the Hall, and I stopped a
+moment to give Styles the direction to take them home at once, and,
+having asked a word of Miss Pease, to request her, with my kind
+regards, to see them safely deposited amongst the rest. In consequence
+of this delay, just as I set off at full speed from the door, Mr
+Coningham rode round the corner of the house.
+
+‘What a devil of a hurry you are in, Mr Cumbermede!’ he cried. ‘I was
+just coming to see you. Can’t you spare me a word?’
+
+I was forced to pull up, and reply as civilly as might be.
+
+‘I am only going for a ride,’ I said, ‘and will go part of your way
+with you if you like.’
+
+‘Thank you. That will suit me admirably, I am going Gastford way. Have
+you ever been there?’
+
+‘No,’ I answered. ‘I have only just heard the name of the village.’
+
+‘It is a pretty place. But there’s the oddest old church you ever saw,
+within a couple of miles of it--alone in the middle of a forest--or at
+least it was a forest not long ago. It is mostly young trees now. There
+isn’t a house within a mile of it, and the nearest stands as lonely as
+the church--quite a place to suit the fancy of a poet like you! Come
+along and see it. You may as well go one way as another, if you only
+want a ride.’
+
+‘How far is it?’ I asked.
+
+‘Only seven or eight miles across country. I can take you all the way
+through lanes and fields.’
+
+Perplexed or angry I was always disinclined for speech; and it was only
+after things had arranged themselves in my mind, or I had mastered my
+indignation, that I would begin to feel communicative. But something
+prudential inside warned me that I could not afford to lose any friend
+I had; and although I was not prepared to confide my wrongs to Mr
+Coningham, I felt I might some day be glad of his counsel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+
+UMBERDEN CHURCH.
+
+My companion chatted away, lauded my mare, asked if I had seen Clara
+lately, and how the library was getting on. I answered him carelessly,
+without even a hint at my troubles.
+
+‘You seem out of spirits, Mr Cumbermede?’ he said. ‘You’ve been taking
+too little exercise. Let’s have a canter. It will do you good. Here’s a
+nice bit of sward.’
+
+I was only too ready to embrace the excuse for dropping a conversation
+towards which I was unable to contribute my share.
+
+Having reached a small roadside inn, we gave our horses a little
+refreshment; after which, crossing a field or two by jumping the
+stiles, we entered the loveliest lane I had ever seen. It was so narrow
+that there was just room for horses to pass each other, and covered
+with the greenest sward rarely trodden. It ran through the midst of a
+wilderness of tall hazels. They stood up on both sides of it, straight
+and trim as walls, high above our heads as we sat on our horses; and
+the lane was so serpentine that we could never see further than a few
+yards ahead; while, towards the end, it kept turning so much in one
+direction that we seemed to be following the circumference of a little
+circle. It ceased at length at a small double-leaved gate of iron, to
+which we tied our horses before entering the churchyard. But instead of
+a neat burial-place, which the whole approach would have given us to
+expect, we found a desert. The grass was of extraordinary coarseness,
+and mingled with quantities of vile-looking weeds. Several of the
+graves had not even a spot of green upon them, but were mere heaps of
+yellow earth in huge lumps, mixed with large stones. There was not
+above a score of graves in the whole place, two or three of which only
+had gravestones on them. One lay open, with the rough yellow lumps all
+about it, and completed the desolation. The church was nearly
+square--small, but shapeless, with but four latticed windows, two on
+one side, one in the other, and the fourth in the east end. It was
+built partly of bricks and partly of flint stones, the walls bowed and
+bent, and the roof waved and broken. Its old age had gathered none of
+the graces of age to soften its natural ugliness, or elevate its
+insignificance. Except a few lichens, there was not a mark of
+vegetation about it. Not a single ivy leaf grew on its spotted and
+wasted walls. It gave a hopeless, pagan expression to the whole
+landscape--for it stood on a rising ground, from which we had an
+extensive prospect of height and hollow, cornfield and pasture and
+wood, away to the dim blue horizon.
+
+‘You don’t find it enlivening, do you--eh?’ said my companion.
+
+‘I never saw such a frightfully desolate spot,’ I said, ‘to have yet
+the appearance of a place of Christian worship. It looks as if there
+were a curse upon it. Are all those the graves of suicides and
+murderers? It cannot surely be consecrated ground?’
+
+‘It’s not nice,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect you to like it. I only said
+it was odd.’
+
+‘Is there any service held in it?’ I asked.
+
+‘Yes--once a fortnight or so. The rector has another living a few miles
+off.’
+
+‘Where can the congregation come from?’
+
+‘Hardly from anywhere. There ain’t generally more than five or six, I
+believe. Let’s have a look at the inside of it.’
+
+‘The windows are much too high, and no foothold.’
+
+‘We’ll go in.’
+
+‘Where can you get the key? It must be a mile off at least, by your own
+account. There’s no house nearer than that, you say.’
+
+He made me no reply, but going to the only flat gravestone, which stood
+on short thick pillars, he put his hand beneath it, and drew out a
+great rusty key.
+
+‘Country lawyers know a secret or two,’ he said.
+
+‘Not always much worth knowing,’ I rejoined,--‘if the inside be no
+better than the outside.’
+
+‘We’ll have a look, anyhow,’ he said, as he turned the key in the dry
+lock.
+
+The door snarled on its hinges, and disclosed a space drearier
+certainly, and if possible uglier, than its promise.
+
+‘Really, Mr Coningham,’ I said, ‘I don’t see why you should have
+brought me to look at this place.’
+
+‘It answered for a bait, at all events. You’ve had a good long ride,
+which was the best thing for you. Look what a wretched little vestry
+that is!’
+
+It was but a corner of the east end, divided off by a faded red
+curtain.
+
+‘I suppose they keep a parish register here,’ he said. ‘Let us have a
+look.’
+
+Behind the curtain hung a dirty surplice and a gown. In the corner
+stood a desk like the schoolmaster’s in a village school. There was a
+shelf with a few vellum-bound books on it, and nothing else, not even a
+chair in the place.
+
+‘Yes; there they are!’ he said, as he took down one of the volumes from
+the shelf. ‘This one comes to a close in the middle of the last
+century. I dare say there is something in this, now, that would be
+interesting enough to somebody. Who knows how many properties it might
+make change hands?’
+
+‘Not many, I should think. Those matters are pretty well seen to now.’
+
+ [Illustration: “COUNTRY LAWYERS KNOW A SECRET OR TWO,” HE SAID.]
+
+‘By some one or other--not always the rightful heirs. Life is full of
+the strangest facts, Mr Cumbermede. If I were a novelist, now, like
+you, my experience would make me dare a good deal more in the way of
+invention than any novelist I happen to have read. Look there, for
+instance.’
+
+He pointed to the top of the last page, or rather the last half of the
+cover. I read as follows:
+
+‘MARRIAGES, 1748.
+
+‘Mr Wilfrid Cumbermede Daryll, of the Parish of [----] second son of
+Sir Richard Daryll of Moldwarp Hall in the County of [----] and
+Mistress Elizabeth Woodruffe were married by a license Jan. 15.’
+
+‘I don’t know the name of Daryll,’ I said.
+
+‘It was your own great-grandfather’s name,’ he returned. ‘I happen to
+know that much.’
+
+‘You knew this was here, Mr Coningham,’ I said. ‘That is why you
+brought me here.’
+
+‘You are right. I did know it. Was I wrong in thinking it would
+interest you?’
+
+‘Certainly not. I am obliged to you. But why this mystery? Why not have
+told me what you wanted me to go for?’
+
+‘I will why you in turn. Why should I have wanted to show you now more
+than any other time what I have known for as many years almost as you
+have lived? You spoke of a ride--why shouldn’t I give a direction to it
+that might pay you for your trouble? And why shouldn’t I have a little
+amusement out of it if I pleased? Why shouldn’t I enjoy your surprise
+at finding in a place you had hardly heard of, and would certainly
+count most uninteresting, the record of a fact that concerned your own
+existence so nearly? There!’
+
+‘I confess it interests me more than you will easily think--inasmuch as
+it seems to offer to account for things that have greatly puzzled me
+for some time. I have of late met with several hints of a connection at
+one time or other between the Moat and the Hall, but these hints were
+so isolated that I could weave no theory to connect them. Now I dare
+say they will clear themselves up.’
+
+‘Not a doubt of-that, if you set about it in earnest.’
+
+‘How did he come to drop his surname?’
+
+‘That has to be accounted for.’
+
+‘It follows--does it not?--that I am of the same blood as the present
+possessors of Moldwarp Hall?’
+
+‘You are--but the relation is not a close one,’ said Mr Coningham.
+
+‘Sir Giles was but distantly related to the stock of which you come.’
+
+‘Then--but I must turn it over in my mind. I am rather in a maze.’
+
+‘You have got some papers at the Moat?’ he said--interrogatively.
+
+‘Yes; my friend Osborne has been looking over them. He found out this
+much--that there was once some connection between the Moat and the
+Hall, but at a far earlier date than this points to, or any of the
+hints to which I just now referred. The other day, when I dined at Sir
+Giles’s, Mr Alderforge said that Cumbermede was a name belonging to Sir
+Giles’s ancestry--or something to that effect; but that again could
+have had nothing to do with those papers, or with the Moat at all.’
+
+Here I stopped, for I could not bring myself to refer to the sword. It
+was not merely that the subject was too painful: of all things I did
+not want to be cross-questioned by my lawyer-companion.
+
+‘It is not amongst those you will find anything of importance, I
+suspect. Did your great-grandmother--the same, no doubt, whose marriage
+is here registered--leave no letters or papers behind her?’
+
+‘I’ve come upon a few letters. I don’t know if there is anything more.’
+
+‘You haven’t read them, apparently.’
+
+‘I have not. I’ve been always going to read them, but I haven’t opened
+one of them yet.’
+
+‘Then I recommend you--that is, if you care for an interesting piece of
+family history--to read those letters carefully, that is
+constructively.’
+
+‘What do you mean?’
+
+‘I mean--putting two and two together, and seeing what comes of it;
+trying to make everything fit into one, you know.’
+
+‘Yes. I understand you. But how do you happen to know that those
+letters contain a history, or that it will prove interesting when I
+have found it?’
+
+‘All family history ought to be interesting--at least to the last of
+his race,’ he returned, replying only to the latter half of my
+question.’ It must, for one thing, make him feel his duty to his
+ancestors more strongly.’
+
+‘His duty to marry, I suppose you mean?’ I said with some inward
+bitterness. ‘But to tell the truth, I don’t think the inheritance worth
+it in my case.’
+
+‘It might be better,’ he said, with an expression which seemed odd
+beside the simplicity of the words.
+
+‘Ah! you think then to urge me to make money; and for the sake of my
+dead ancestors increase the inheritance of those that may come after
+me? But I believe I am already as diligent as is good for me--that is,
+in the main, for I have been losing time of late.’
+
+‘I meant no such thing, Mr Cumbermede. I should be very doubtful
+whether any amount of success in literature would enable you to restore
+the fortunes of your family.’
+
+‘Were they so very ponderous, do you think? But in truth I have little
+ambition of that sort. All I will readily confess to is a strong desire
+not to shirk what work falls to my share in the world.’
+
+‘Yes,’ he said, in a thoughtful manner--‘if one only knew what his
+share of the work was.’
+
+The remark was unexpected, and I began to feel a little more interest
+in him.
+
+‘Hadn’t you better take a copy of that entry?’ he said.
+
+‘Yes--perhaps I had. But I have no materials.’
+
+It did not strike me that attorneys do not usually, like excise-men,
+carry about an ink-bottle, when he drew one from the breast-pocket of
+his coat, along with a folded sheet of writing-paper, which he opened
+and spread out on the desk. I took the pen he offered me, and copied
+the entry.
+
+When I had finished, he said--
+
+‘Leave room under it for the attestation of the parson. We can get that
+another time, if necessary. Then write, “Copied by me”--and then your
+name and the date. It may be useful some time. Take it home and lay it
+with your grandmother’s papers.’
+
+‘There can be no harm in that,’ I said, as I folded it up, and put it
+in my pocket. ‘I am greatly obliged to you for bringing me here, Mr
+Coningham. Though I am not ambitious of restoring the family to a
+grandeur of which every record has departed, I am quite sufficiently
+interested in its history, and shall consequently take care of this
+document.’
+
+‘Mind you read your grandmother’s papers, though,’ he said.
+
+‘I will,’ I answered.
+
+He replaced the volume on the shelf, and we left the church; he locked
+the door and replaced the key under the gravestone; we mounted our
+horses, and after riding with me about half the way to the Moat, he
+took his leave at a point where our roads, diverged. I resolved to
+devote that very evening, partly in the hope of distracting my
+thoughts, to the reading of my grandmother’s letters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+
+MY FOLIO.
+
+When I reached home I found Charley there, as I had expected.
+
+But a change had again come over him. He was nervous, restless,
+apparently anxious. I questioned him about his mother and sister. He
+had met them as planned, and had, he assured me, done his utmost to
+impress them with the truth concerning me. But he had found his mother
+incredulous, and had been unable to discover from her how much she had
+heard; while Mary maintained an obstinate silence, and, as he said,
+looked more stupid than usual. He did not tell me that Clara had
+accompanied them so far, and that he had walked with her back to the
+entrance of the park. This I heard afterwards. When we had talked a
+while over the sword-business--for we could not well keep off it
+long--Charley seeming all the time more uncomfortable than ever, he
+said, perhaps merely to turn the talk into a more pleasant channel--
+
+By the way, where have you put your folio? I’ve been looking for it
+ever since I came in, but I can’t find it. A new reading started up in
+my head the other day, and I want to try it both with the print and the
+context.’
+
+‘It’s in my room,’ I answered, ‘I will go and fetch it.’
+
+‘We will go together,’ he said.
+
+I looked where I thought I had laid it, but there it was not. A pang of
+foreboding terror invaded me. Charley told me afterwards that I turned
+as white as a sheet. I looked everywhere, but in vain; ran and searched
+my uncle’s room, and then Charley’s, but still in vain; and at last,
+all at once, remembered with certainty that two nights before I had
+laid it on the window-sill in my uncle’s room. I shouted for Styles,
+but he was gone home with the mare, and I had to wait, in little short
+of agony, until he returned. The moment he entered I began to question
+him.
+
+‘You took those books home, Styles?’ I said, as quietly as I could,
+anxious not to startle him, lest it should interfere with the just
+action of his memory.
+
+‘Yes, sir. I took them at once, and gave them into Miss Pease’s own
+hands;--at least I suppose it was Miss Pease. She wasn’t a young lady,
+sir.’
+
+‘All right, I dare say. How many were there of them?’
+
+‘Six, sir.’
+
+‘I told you five,’ I said, trembling with apprehension and wrath.
+
+‘You said four or five, and I never thought but the six were to go.
+They were all together on the window-sill.’
+
+I stood speechless. Charley took up the questioning.
+
+‘What sized books were they?’ he asked.
+
+‘Pretty biggish--one of them quite a large one--the same I’ve seen you,
+gentlemen, more than once, putting your heads together over. At least
+it looked like it.’
+
+‘Charley started up and began pacing about the room. Styles saw he had
+committed some dreadful mistake, and began a blundering expression of
+regret, but neither of us took any notice of him, and he crept out in
+dismay.
+
+It was some time before either of us could utter a word. The loss of
+the sword was a trifle to this. Beyond a doubt the precious tome was
+now lying in the library of Moldwarp Hall--amongst old friends and
+companions, possibly--where years on years might elapse before one
+loving hand would open it, or any eyes gaze on it with reverence.
+
+‘Lost, Charley!’ I said at last.--‘Irrecoverably lost!’
+
+‘I will go and fetch it,’ he cried, starting up. ‘I will tell Clara to
+bring it out to me. It is beyond endurance this. Why should you not go
+and claim what both of us can take our oath to as yours?’
+
+‘You forget, Charley, how the sword-affair cripples us--and how the
+claiming of this volume would only render their belief with regard to
+the other the more probable. You forget, too, that I _might_ have
+placed it in the chest first, and, above all, that the name on the
+title-page is the same as the initials on the blade of the sword,--the
+same as my own.’
+
+‘Yes--I see it won’t do. And yet if I were to represent the thing to
+Sir Giles?--He doesn’t care for old books----’
+
+‘You forget again, Charley, that the volume is of great money-value.
+Perhaps my late slip has made me fastidious; but though the book be
+mine--and if I had it, the proof of the contrary would lie with them--I
+could not take advantage of Sir Giles’s ignorance to recover it.’
+
+‘I might, however, get Clara--she is a favourite with him, you know--’
+
+‘I will not hear of it,’ I said, interrupting him, and he was forced to
+yield.
+
+‘No, Charley,’ I said again; ‘I must just bear it. Harder things _have_
+been borne, and men have got through the world and out of it
+notwithstanding. If there isn’t another world, why should we care much
+for the loss of what _must_ go with the rest?--and if there is, why
+should we care at all?’
+
+‘Very fine, Wilfrid! but when you come to the practice--why, the less
+said the better.’
+
+‘But that is the very point: we don’t come to the practice. If we did,
+then the ground of it would be proved unobjectionable.’
+
+‘True;--but if the practice be unattainable--’
+
+‘It would take much proving to prove that to my--dissatisfaction I
+should say; and more failure besides, I can tell you, than there will
+be time for in this world. If it were proved, however--don’t you see it
+would disprove both suppositions equally? If such a philosophical
+spirit be unattainable, it discredits both sides of the alternative on
+either of which it would have been reasonable.’
+
+‘There is a sophism there of course, but I am not in the mood for
+pulling your logic to pieces,’ returned Charley, still pacing up and
+down the room.
+
+In sum, nothing would come of all our talk but the assurance that the
+volume was equally irrecoverable with the sword, and indeed with my
+poor character--at least, in the eyes of my immediate neighbours.
+
+[Illustration: I SAT DOWN AGAIN BY THE FIRE TO READ, IN MY
+GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S CHAIR.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+
+THE LETTERS AND THEIR STORY.
+
+As soon as Charley went to bed, I betook myself to my grandmother’s
+room, in which, before discovering my loss, I had told Styles to kindle
+a fire. I had said nothing to Charley about my ride, and the old
+church, and the marriage-register. For the time, indeed, I had almost
+lost what small interest I had taken in the matter--my new bereavement
+was so absorbing and painful; but feeling certain, when he left me,
+that I should not be able to sleep, but would be tormented all night by
+innumerable mental mosquitoes if I made the attempt, and bethinking me
+of my former resolution, I proceeded to carry it out.
+
+The fire was burning brightly, and my reading lamp was on the table,
+ready to be lighted. But I sat down first in my grandmother’s chair and
+mused for I know not how long. At length my wandering thoughts
+rehearsed again the excursion with Mr Coningham. I pulled the copy of
+the marriage-entry from my pocket, and in reading it over again, my
+curiosity was sufficiently roused to send me to the bureau. I lighted
+my lamp at last, unlocked what had seemed to my childhood a treasury of
+unknown marvels, took from it the packet of yellow withered letters,
+and sat down again by the fire to read, in my great-grandmother’s
+chair, the letters of Wilfrid Cumbermede Daryll--for so he signed
+himself in all of them--my great-grandfather. There were amongst them a
+few of her own in reply to his--badly written and badly spelt, but
+perfectly intelligible. I will not transcribe any of them--I have them
+to show if needful--but not at my command at the present moment;--for I
+am writing neither where I commenced my story--on the outskirts of an
+ancient city, nor at the Moat, but in a dreary old square in London;
+and those letters lie locked again in the old bureau, and have lain
+unvisited through thousands of desolate days and slow creeping nights,
+in that room which I cannot help feeling sometimes as if the ghost of
+that high-spirited, restless-hearted grandmother of mine must now and
+then revisit, sitting in the same old chair, and wondering to find how
+far it was all receded from her--wondering, also, to think what a work
+she made, through her long and weary life, about things that look to
+her now such trifles.
+
+I do not then transcribe any of the letters, but give, in a connected
+form, what seem to me the facts I gathered from them; not hesitating to
+present, where they are required, self-evident conclusions as if they
+were facts mentioned in them. I repeat that none of my names are real,
+although they all point at the real names.
+
+Wilfrid Cumbermede was the second son of Richard and Mary Daryll of
+Moldwarp Hall. He was baptized Cumbermede from the desire to keep in
+memory the name of a celebrated ancestor, the owner, in fact, of the
+disputed sword--itself alluded to in the letters,--who had been more
+mindful of the supposed rights of his king than the next king was of
+the privations undergone for his sake, for Moldwarp Hall at least was
+never recovered from the Roundhead branch of the family into whose
+possession it had drifted. In the change, however, which creeps on with
+new generations, there had been in the family a re-action of sentiment
+in favour of the more distinguished of its progenitors; and Richard
+Daryll, a man of fierce temper and overbearing disposition, had named
+his son after the cavalier. A tyrant in his family, at least in the
+judgment of the writers of those letters, he apparently found no
+trouble either with his wife or his eldest or youngest son; while,
+whether his own fault or not, it was very evident that from Wilfrid his
+annoyances had been numerous.
+
+A legal feud had for some time existed between the Ahab of Moldwarp
+Hall and the Naboth of the Moat, the descendant of an ancient yeoman
+family of good blood, and indeed related to the Darylls themselves, of
+the name of Woodruffe. Sir Richard had cast covetous eyes upon the
+field surrounding Stephen’s comparatively humble abode, which had at
+one time formed a part of the Moldwarp property. In searching through
+some old parchments, he had found, or rather, I suppose, persuaded
+himself he had found, sufficient evidence that this part of the
+property of the Moat, then of considerable size, had been willed away
+in contempt of the entail which covered it, and belonged by right to
+himself and his heirs. He had therefore instituted proceedings to
+recover possession, during the progress of which their usual bickerings
+and disputes augmented in fierceness. A decision having at length been
+given in favour of the weaker party, the mortification of Sir Richard
+was unendurable to himself, and his wrath and unreasonableness, in
+consequence, equally unendurable to his family. One may then imagine
+the paroxysm of rage with which he was seized when he discovered that,
+during the whole of the legal process, his son Wilfrid had been making
+love to Elizabeth Woodruffe, the only child of his enemy. In Wilfrid’s
+letters, the part of the story which follows is fully detailed for
+Elizabeth’s information, of which the reason is also plain--that the
+writer had spent such a brief period afterwards in Elizabeth’s society
+that he had not been able for very shame to recount the particulars.
+
+No sooner had Sir Richard come to a knowledge of the hateful fact,
+evidently through one of his servants, than, suppressing the outburst
+of his rage for the moment, he sent for his son Wilfrid, and informed
+him, his lips quivering with suppressed passion, of the discovery he
+had made; accused him of having brought disgrace on the family, and of
+having been guilty of falsehood and treachery; and ordered him to go
+down on his knees and abjure the girl before heaven, or expect a
+father’s vengeance.
+
+But evidently Wilfrid was as little likely as any man to obey such a
+command. He boldly avowed his love for Elizabeth, and declared his
+intention of marrying her. His father, foaming with rage, ordered his
+servants to seize him. Overmastered in spite of his struggles, he bound
+him to a pillar, and taking a horse-whip, lashed him furiously; then,
+after his rage was thus in a measure appeased, ordered them to carry
+him to his bed. There he remained, hardly able to move, the whole of
+that night and the next day. On the following night, he made his escape
+from the Hall, and took refuge with a farmer-friend a few miles off--in
+the neighbourhood, probably, of Umberden Church.
+
+Here I would suggest a conjecture of my own--namely, that my ancestor’s
+room was the same I had occupied, so--fatally, shall I say?--to myself,
+on the only two occasions on which I had slept at the Hall; that he
+escaped by the stair to the roof, having first removed the tapestry
+from the door, as a memorial to himself and a sign to those he left;
+that he carried with him the sword and the volume--both probably lying
+in his room at the time, and the latter little valued by any other. But
+all this, I repeat, is pure conjecture.
+
+As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he communicated with
+Elizabeth, prevailed upon her to marry him at once at Umberden Church,
+and within a few days, as near as I could judge; left her to join, as a
+volunteer, the army of the Duke of Cumberland, then fighting the French
+in the Netherlands. Probably from a morbid fear lest the disgrace his
+father’s brutality had inflicted should become known in his regiment,
+he dropped the surname of Daryll when he joined it; and--for what
+precise reasons I cannot be certain--his wife evidently never called
+herself by any other name than Cumbermede. Very likely she kept her
+marriage a secret, save from her own family, until the birth of my
+grandfather, which certainly took place before her husband’s return.
+Indeed I am almost sure that he never returned from that campaign, but
+died fighting, not unlikely, at the battle of Laffeldt; and that my
+grannie’s letters, which I found in the same packet, had been, by the
+kindness of some comrade, restored to the young widow.
+
+When I had finished reading the letters, and had again thrown myself
+back in the old chair, I began to wonder why nothing of all this should
+ever have been told me. That the whole history should have dropped out
+of the knowledge of the family, would have been natural enough, had my
+great-grandmother, as well as my great-grandfather, died in youth; but
+that she should have outlived her son, dying only after I, the
+representative of the fourth generation, was a boy at school, and yet
+no whisper have reached me of these facts, appeared strange. A moment’s
+reflection showed me that the causes and the reasons of the fact must
+have lain with my uncle. I could not but remember how both he and my
+aunt had sought to prevent me from seeing my grannie alone, and how the
+last had complained of this in terms far more comprehensible to me now
+than they were then. But what could have been the reasons for this
+their obstruction of the natural flow of tradition? They remained
+wrapped in a mystery which the outburst from it of an occasional gleam
+of conjectural light only served to deepen.
+
+The letters lying open on the table before me, my eyes rested upon one
+of the dates--the third day of March, 1747. It struck me that this date
+involved a discrepancy with that of the copy I had made from the
+register. I referred to it, and found my suspicion correct. According
+to the copy, my ancestors were not married until the 15th of January,
+1748. I must have made a blunder--and yet I could hardly believe I had,
+for I had reason to consider myself accurate. If there _was_ no
+mistake, I should have to reconstruct my facts, and draw fresh
+conclusions.
+
+By this time, however, I was getting tired and sleepy and cold; my lamp
+was nearly out; my fire was quite gone; and the first of a frosty dawn
+was beginning to break in the east. I rose and replaced the papers,
+reserving all further thought on the matter for a condition of
+circumstances more favourable to a correct judgment. I blew out the
+lamp, groped my way to bed in the dark, and was soon fast asleep, in
+despite of insult, mortification, perplexity, and loss.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+
+ONLY A LINK.
+
+It may be said of the body in regard of sleep as well as in regard of
+death, ‘It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.’ For me, the
+next morning, I could almost have said, ‘I was sown in dishonour and
+raised in glory.’ No one can deny the power of the wearied body to
+paralyze the soul; but I have a correlate theory which I love, and
+which I expect to find true--that, while the body wearies the mind, it
+is the mind that restores vigour to the body, and then, like the man
+who has built him a stately palace, rejoices to dwell in it. I believe
+that, if there be a living, conscious love at the heart of the
+universe, the mind, in the quiescence of its consciousness in sleep,
+comes into a less disturbed contact with its origin, the heart of the
+creation; whence gifted with calmness and strength for itself, it grows
+able to impart comfort and restoration to the weary frame. The
+cessation of labour affords but the necessary occasion; makes it
+possible, as it were, for the occupant of an outlying station in the
+wilderness to return to his father’s house for fresh supplies of all
+that is needful for life and energy. The child-soul goes home at night,
+and returns in the morning to the labours of the school. Mere physical
+rest could never of its own negative self build up the frame in such
+light and vigour as come through sleep.
+
+It was from no blessed vision that I woke the next morning, but from a
+deep and dreamless sleep. Yet the moment I became aware of myself and
+the world, I felt strong and courageous, and I began at once to look my
+affairs in the face. Concerning that which was first in consequence, I
+soon satisfied myself: I could not see that I had committed any serious
+fault in the whole affair. I was not at all sure that a lie in defence
+of the innocent, and to prevent the knowledge of what no one had any
+right to know, was wrong--seeing such involves no injustice on the one
+side, and does justice on the other. I have seen reason since to change
+my mind, and count my liberty restricted to silence--not extending,
+that is, to the denial or assertion of what the will of God, inasmuch
+as it exists or does not exist, may have declared to be or not to be
+the fact. I now think that to lie is, as it were, to snatch the reins
+out of God’s hand.
+
+At all events, however, I had done the Brothertons no wrong. ‘What
+matter, then,’ I said to myself, ‘of what they believe me guilty, so
+long as before God and my own conscience I am clear and clean?’
+
+Next came the practical part:--What was I to do? To right myself either
+in respect of their opinion, or in respect of my lost property, was
+more hopeless than important, and I hardly wasted two thoughts upon
+that. But I could not remain where I was, and soon came to the
+resolution to go with Charley to London at once, and taking lodgings in
+some obscure recess near the Inns of Court, there to give myself to
+work, and work alone, in the foolish hope that one day fame might
+buttress reputation. In this resolution I was more influenced by the
+desire to be near the brother of Mary Osborne than the desire to be
+near my friend Charley, strong as that was. I expected thus to hear of
+her oftener, and even cherished the hope of coming to hear from her--of
+inducing her to honour me with a word or two of immediate
+communication. For I could see no reason why her opinions should
+prevent her from corresponding with one who, whatever might or might
+not seem to him true, yet cared for the truth, and must treat with
+respect every form in which he could descry its predominating presence.
+
+I would have asked Charley to set out with me that very day, but for
+the desire to clear up the discrepancy between the date of my
+ancestor’s letters, all written within the same year, and that of the
+copy I had made of the registration of their marriage--with which
+object I would compare the copy and the original. I wished also to have
+some talk with Mr Coningham concerning the contents of the letters
+which at his urgency I had now read. I got up and wrote to him
+therefore, asking him to ride with me again to Umberden Church, as soon
+as he could make it convenient, and sent Styles off at once on the mare
+to carry the note to Minstercombe, and bring me back an answer.
+
+As we sat over our breakfast, Charley said suddenly, ‘Clara was
+regretting yesterday that she had not seen the Moat. She said you had
+asked her once, but had never spoken of it again.’
+
+‘And now I suppose she thinks, because I’m in disgrace with her friends
+at the Hall, that she mustn’t come near me,’ I said, with another
+bitterness than belonged to the words.
+
+‘Wilfrid!’ he said reproachfully; ‘she didn’t say anything of the sort.
+I will write and ask her if she couldn’t contrive to come over. She
+might meet us at the park gates.’
+
+‘No,’ I returned; ‘there isn’t time. I mean to go back to
+London--perhaps to-morrow evening. It is like turning you out, Charley,
+but we shall be nearer each other in town than we were last time.’
+
+‘I am delighted to hear it,’ he said. ‘I had been thinking myself that
+I had better go back this evening. My father is expected home in a day
+or two, and it would be just like him to steal a march on my chambers.
+Yes, I think I shall go to-night.’
+
+‘Very well, old boy,’ I answered. ‘That will make it all right. It’s a
+pity we couldn’t take the journey together, but it doesn’t matter much.
+I shall follow you as soon as I can.’
+
+‘Why can’t you go with me?’ he asked.
+
+Thereupon I gave him a full report of my excursion with Mr Coningham,
+and the after reading of the letters, with my reason for wishing to
+examine the register again; telling him that I had asked Mr Coningham
+to ride with me once more to Umberden Church.
+
+When Styles returned, he informed me that Mr Coningham at first
+proposed to ride back with him, but probably bethinking himself that
+another sixteen miles would be too much for my mare, had changed his
+mind and sent me the message that he would be with me early the next
+day.
+
+After Charley was gone, I spent the evening in a thorough search of the
+old bureau. I found in it several quaint ornaments besides those
+already mentioned, but only one thing which any relation to my story
+would justify specific mention of--namely, an ivory label, discoloured
+with age, on which was traceable the very number Sir Giles had read
+from the scabbard of Sir Wilfrid’s sword. Clearly, then, my sword was
+the one mentioned in the book, and as clearly it had not been at
+Moldwarp Hall for a long time before I lost it there. If I were in any
+fear as to my reader’s acceptance of my story, I should rejoice in the
+possession of that label more than in the restoration of sword or book;
+but amidst all my troubles, I have as yet been able to rely upon her
+justice and her knowledge of myself. Yes--I must mention one thing more
+I found--a long, sharp-pointed, straight-backed, snake-edged Indian
+dagger, inlaid with silver--a fierce, dangerous, almost
+venomous-looking weapon, in a curious case of old green morocco. It
+also may have once belonged to the armoury of Moldwarp Hall. I took it
+with me when I left my grannie’s room, and laid it in the portmanteau I
+was going to take to London.
+
+My only difficulty was what to do with Lilith; but I resolved for the
+mean time to leave her, as before, in the care of Styles, who seemed
+almost as fond of her as I was myself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+
+A DISCLOSURE.
+
+Mr Coningham was at my door by ten o’clock, and we set out together for
+Umberden Church. It was a cold clear morning. The dying Autumn was
+turning a bright thin defiant face upon the conquering Winter. I was in
+great spirits, my mind being full of Mary Osborne. At one moment I saw
+but her own ordinary face, only what I had used to regard as dulness I
+now interpreted as the possession of her soul in patience; at another I
+saw the glorified countenance of my Athanasia, knowing that, beneath
+the veil of the other, this, the real, the true face ever lay. Once in
+my sight the frost-clung flower had blossomed; in full ideal of glory
+it had shone for a moment, and then folding itself again away, had
+retired into the regions of faith. And while I knew that such could
+dawn out of such, how could I help hoping that from the face of the
+universe, however to my eyes it might sometimes seem to stare like the
+seven-days dead, one morn might dawn the unspeakable face which even
+Moses might not behold lest he should die of the great sight? The keen
+air, the bright sunshine, the swift motion--all combined to raise my
+spirits to an unwonted pitch; but it was a silent ecstasy, and I almost
+forgot the presence of Mr Coningham. When he spoke at last, I started.
+
+‘I thought from your letter you had something to tell me, Mr
+Cumbermede,’ he said, coming alongside of me.
+
+‘Yes, to be sure. I have been reading my grannie’s papers, as I told
+you.’
+
+I recounted the substance of what I had found in them.
+
+‘Does it not strike you as rather strange that all this should have
+been kept a secret from you?’ he asked.
+
+‘Very few know anything about their grandfathers,’ I said; ‘so I
+suppose very few fathers care to tell their children about them.’
+
+‘That is because there are so few concerning whom there is anything
+worth telling.’
+
+‘For my part,’ I returned, ‘I should think any fact concerning one of
+those who link me with the infinite past out of which I have come,
+invaluable. Even a fact which is not to the credit of an ancestor may
+be a precious discovery to the man who has in himself to fight the evil
+derived from it.’
+
+‘That, however, is a point of view rarely taken. What the ordinary man
+values is also rare; hence few regard their ancestry, or transmit any
+knowledge they may have of those who have gone before them to those
+that come after them.’
+
+‘My uncle, however, I suppose, told _me_ nothing because, unlike the
+many, he prized neither wealth nor rank, nor what are commonly
+considered great deeds.’
+
+‘You are not far from the truth there,’ said Mr Coningham in a
+significant tone.
+
+‘Then _you_ know why he never told me anything!’ I exclaimed.
+
+‘I do--from the best authority.’
+
+‘His own, you mean, I suppose.’
+
+‘I do.’
+
+‘But--but--I didn’t know you were ever--at all--intimate with my
+uncle,’ I said.
+
+He laughed knowingly.
+
+‘You would say, if you didn’t mind speaking the truth, that you thought
+your uncle disliked me--disapproved of me. Come, now--did he not try to
+make you avoid me? You needn’t mind acknowledging the fact, for, when I
+have explained the reason of it, you will see that it involves no
+discredit to either of us.’
+
+‘I have no fear for my uncle.’
+
+‘You are honest, if not over-polite,’ he rejoined. ‘--You do not feel
+so sure about my share. Well, I don’t mind who knows it, for my part. I
+roused the repugnance, to the knowledge of which your silence
+confesses, merely by acting as any professional man ought to have
+acted--and with the best intentions. At the same time, all the blame I
+should ever think of casting upon him is that he allowed his
+high-strung, saintly, I had almost said superhuman ideas to stand in
+the way of his nephew’s prosperity.’
+
+‘Perhaps he was afraid of that prosperity standing in the way of a
+better.’
+
+‘Precisely so. You understand him perfectly. He was one of the best and
+simplest-minded men in the world.’
+
+‘I am glad you do him that justice.’
+
+‘At the same time I do not think he intended you to remain in absolute
+ignorance of what I am going to tell you. But, you see, he died very
+suddenly. Besides, he could hardly expect I should hold my tongue after
+he was gone.’
+
+‘Perhaps, however, he might expect me not to cultivate your
+acquaintance,’ I said, laughing to take the sting out of the words.
+
+‘You cannot accuse yourself of having taken any trouble in that
+direction,’ he returned, laughing also.
+
+‘I believe, however,’ I resumed, ‘from what I can recall of things he
+said, especially on one occasion, on which he acknowledged the
+existence of a secret in which I was interested, he did not intend that
+I should always remain in ignorance of everything he thought proper to
+conceal from me then.’
+
+‘I presume you are right. I think his conduct in this respect arose
+chiefly from anxiety that the formation of your character should not be
+influenced by the knowledge of certain facts which might unsettle you,
+and prevent you from reaping the due advantages of study and
+self-dependence in youth. I cannot, however, believe that by being open
+with you I shall now be in any danger of thwarting his plans, for you
+have already proved yourself a wise, moderate, conscientious man,
+diligent and painstaking. Forgive me for appearing to praise you. I had
+no such intention. I was only uttering as a fact to be considered in
+the question, what upon my honour I thoroughly believe.’
+
+‘I should be happy in your good opinion, if I were able to appropriate
+it,’ I said. ‘But a man knows his own faults better than his neighbour
+knows his virtues.’
+
+‘Spoken like the man I took you for, Mr Cumbermede,’ he rejoined
+gravely.
+
+‘But to return to the matter in hand,’ I resumed; ‘what can there be so
+dangerous in the few facts I have just come to the knowledge of, that
+my uncle should have cared to conceal them from me? That a man born in
+humble circumstances should come to know that he had distinguished
+ancestors, could hardly so fill him with false notions as to endanger
+his relation to the laws of his existence.’
+
+‘Of course--but you are too hasty. Those facts are of more importance
+than you are aware--involve other facts. Moldwarp Hall is _your_
+property, and not Sir Giles Brotherton’s.’
+
+‘Then the apple was my own, after all!’ I said to myself exultingly. It
+was a strange fantastic birth of conscience and memory--forgotten the
+same moment, and followed by an electric flash--not of hope, not of
+delight, not of pride, but of pure revenge. My whole frame quivered
+with the shock; yet for a moment I seemed to have the strength of a
+Hercules. In front of me was a stile through a high hedge: I turned
+Lilith’s head to the hedge, struck my spurs into her, and over or
+through it, I know not which, she bounded. Already, with all the
+strength of will I could summon, I struggled to rid myself of the
+wicked feeling; and although I cannot pretend to have succeeded for
+long after, yet by the time Mr Coningham had popped over the stile, I
+was waiting for him, to all appearance, I believe, perfectly calm. He,
+on the other hand, from whatever cause, was actually trembling. His
+face was pale, and his eye flashing. Was it that he had roused me more
+effectually than he had hoped?
+
+‘Take care, take care, my boy,’ he said, ‘or you won’t live to enjoy
+your own. Permit me the honour of shaking hands with Sir Wilfrid
+Cumbermede Daryll.’
+
+After this ceremonial of prophetic investiture, we jogged away quietly,
+and he told me a long story about the death of the last proprietor, the
+degree in which Sir Giles was related to him, and his undisputed
+accession to the property. At that time, he said, my father was in very
+bad health, and indeed died within six months of it.
+
+‘I knew your father well, Mr Cumbermede,’ he went on, ‘--one of the
+best of men, with more spirit, more ambition than your uncle. It was
+_his_ wish that his child, if a boy, should be called Wilfrid,--for
+though they had been married five or six years, their only child was
+born after his death. Your uncle did not like the name, your mother
+told me, but made no objection to it. So you were named after your
+grandfather, and great-grandfather, and I don’t know how many of the
+race besides.--When the last of the Darylls died--’
+
+‘Then,’ I interrupted, ‘my father was the heir.’
+
+‘No; you mistake: your uncle was the elder--Sir David Cumbermede
+Daryll, of Moldwarp Hall and The Moat,’ said Mr Coningham, evidently
+bent on making the most of my rights.
+
+‘He never even told me he was the eldest,’ I said. ‘I always thought,
+from his coming home to manage the farm when my father was ill, that he
+was the second of the two sons.’
+
+‘On the contrary, he was several years older than your father, but
+taking more kindly to reading than farming, was sent by his father to
+Oxford to study for the Church, leaving the farm, as was tacitly
+understood, to descend to your father at your grandfather’s death.
+After the idea of the Church was abandoned he took a situation,
+refusing altogether to subvert the order of things already established
+at the Moat. So you see you are not to suppose that he kept you back
+from any of your rights. They were his, not yours, while he lived.’
+
+‘I will not ask,’ I said, ‘why he did not enforce them. That is plain
+enough from what I know of his character. The more I think of that, the
+loftier and simpler it seems to grow. He could not bring himself to
+spend the energies of a soul meant for higher things on the assertion
+and recovery of earthly rights.’
+
+‘I rather differ from you there; and I do not know,’ returned my
+companion, whose tone was far more serious than I had ever heard it
+before, ‘whether the explanation I am going to offer will raise your
+uncle as much in your estimation as it does in mine. I confess I do not
+rank such self-denial as you attribute to him so highly as you do. On
+the contrary I count it a fault. How could the world go on if everybody
+was like your uncle?’
+
+‘If everybody was like my uncle, he would have been forced to accept
+the position,’ I said; ‘for there would have been no one to take it
+from him.’
+
+‘Perhaps. But you must not think Sir Giles knew anything of your
+uncle’s claim. He knows nothing of it now.’
+
+I had not thought of Sir Giles in connection with the matter--only of
+Geoffrey; and my heart recoiled from the notion of dispossessing the
+old man who, however misled with regard to me at last, had up till then
+shown me uniform kindness. In that moment I had almost resolved on
+taking no steps till after his death. But Mr Coningham soon made me
+forget Sir Giles in a fresh revelation of my uncle.
+
+‘Although,’ he resumed, ‘all you say of your uncle’s indifference to
+this world and its affairs is indubitably correct, I do not believe,
+had there not been a prospect of your making your appearance, that he
+would have shirked the duty of occupying the property which was his
+both by law and by nature. But he knew it might be an expensive
+suit--for no one can tell by what tricks of the law such may be
+prolonged--in which case all the money he could command would soon be
+spent, and nothing left either to provide for your so-called aunt, for
+whom he had a great regard, or to give you that education, which,
+whether you were to succeed to the property or not, he counted
+indispensable. He cared far more, he said, about your having such a
+property in yourself as was at once personal and real, than for your
+having any amount of property out of yourself. Expostulation was of no
+use. I had previously learned--from the old lady herself--the true
+state of the case, and, upon the death of Sir Geoffrey Daryll, had at
+once communicated with him--which placed me in a position for urging
+him, as I did again and again, considerably to his irritation, to
+assert and prosecute his claim to the title and estates. I offered to
+take the whole risk upon myself; but he said that would be tantamount
+to giving up his personal liberty until the matter was settled, which
+might not be in his lifetime. I may just mention, however, that,
+besides his religious absorption, I strongly suspect there was another
+cause of his indifference to worldly affairs: I have grounds for
+thinking that he was disappointed in a more than ordinary attachment to
+a lady he met at Oxford--in station considerably above any prospects he
+had then. To return: he was resolved that, whatever might be your fate,
+you should not have to meet it without such preparation as he could
+afford you. As you have divined, he was most anxious that your
+character should have acquired some degree of firmness before you knew
+anything of the possibility of your inheriting a large property and
+historical name; and I may appropriate the credit of a negative share
+in the carrying out of his plans, for you will bear me witness how
+often I might have upset them by informing you of the facts of the
+case.’
+
+‘I am heartily obliged to you,’ I said, ‘for not interfering with my
+uncle’s wishes, for I am very glad indeed that I have been kept in
+ignorance of my rights until now. The knowledge would at one time have
+gone far to render me useless for personal effort in any direction
+worthy of it. It would have made me conceited, ambitious, boastful: I
+don’t know how many bad adjectives would have been necessary to
+describe me.’
+
+‘It is all very well to be modest, but I venture to think differently.’
+
+‘I should like to ask you one question, Mr Coningham,’ I said.
+
+‘As many as you please.’
+
+‘How is it that you have so long delayed giving me the information
+which on my uncle’s death you no doubt felt at liberty to communicate?’
+
+‘I did not know how far you might partake of your uncle’s disposition,
+and judged that the wider your knowledge of the world, and the juster
+your estimate of the value of money and position, the more willing you
+would be to listen to the proposals I had to make.’
+
+‘Do you remember,’ I asked, after a canter, led off by my companion,
+‘one very stormy night on which you suddenly appeared at the Moat, and
+had a long talk with my uncle on the subject?’
+
+‘Perfectly,’ he answered. ‘But how did you come to know? _He_ did not
+tell you of my visit!’
+
+‘Certainly not. But, listening in my night-gown on the stair, which is
+open to the kitchen, I heard enough of your talk to learn the object of
+your visit--namely, to carry off my skin to make bagpipes with.’
+
+He laughed so heartily that I told him the whole story of the pendulum.
+
+‘On that occasion,’ he said, ‘I made the offer to your uncle, on
+condition of his sanctioning the commencement of legal proceedings, to
+pledge myself to meet every expense of those, and of your education as
+well, and to claim nothing whatever in return, except in case of
+success.’
+
+This quite corresponded with my own childish recollections of the
+interview between them. Indeed there was such an air of simple
+straightforwardness about his whole communication, while at the same
+time it accounted so thoroughly for the warning my uncle had given me
+against him, that I felt I might trust him entirely, and so would have
+told him all that had taken place at the Hall, but for the share his
+daughter had borne in it, and the danger of discovery to Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+
+THE DATES.
+
+I have given, of course, only an epitome of our conversation, and by
+the time we had arrived at this point we had also reached the gate of
+the churchyard. Again we fastened up our horses; again he took the key
+from under the tombstone; and once more we entered the dreary little
+church, and drew aside the curtain of the vestry. I took down the
+volume of the register. The place was easy to find, seeing, as I have
+said, it was at the very end of the volume.
+
+The copy I had taken was correct: the date of the marriage in the
+register was January 15, and it was the first under the 1748, written
+at the top of the page. I stood for a moment gazing at it; then my eye
+turned to the entry before it, the last on the preceding page. It bore
+the date December 13--under the general date at the top of the page,
+1747. The next entry after it was dated March 29. At the bottom of the
+page, or cover rather, was the attestation of the clergyman to the
+number of marriages in that year; but there was no such attestation at
+the bottom of the preceding page. I turned to Mr Coningham, who had
+stood regarding me, and, pointing to the book, said:
+
+‘Look here, Mr Coningham. I cannot understand it. Here the date of the
+marriage is 1748; and that of all their letters, evidently written
+after the marriage, is 1747.’
+
+He looked, and stood looking, but made me no reply. In my turn I looked
+at him. His face expressed something not far from consternation; but
+the moment he became aware that I was observing him, he pulled out his
+handkerchief, and wiping his forehead with an attempt at a laugh, said:
+
+‘How hot it is! Yes; there’s something awkward there. I hadn’t observed
+it before. I must inquire into that. I confess I cannot explain it all
+at once. It does certainly seem queer. I must look into those dates
+when I go home.’
+
+He was evidently much more discomposed than he was willing I should
+perceive. He always spoke rather hurriedly, but I had never heard him
+stammer before. I was certain that he saw or at least dreaded something
+fatal in the discrepancy I had pointed out. As to looking into it when
+he got home, that sounded very like nonsense. He pulled out a
+note-book, however, and said:
+
+‘I may just as well make a note of the blunder--for blunder it must
+be--a very awkward one indeed, I am afraid. I should think so--I
+cannot--but then--’
+
+He went on uttering disjointed and unfinished expressions, while he
+made several notes. His manner was of one who regards the action he is
+about as useless, yet would have it supposed the right thing to do.
+
+‘There!’ he said, shutting up his note-book with a slam; and turning
+away he strode out of the place--much, it seemed to me, as if his
+business there was over for ever. I gave one more glance at the volume,
+and replaced it on the shelf. When I rejoined him, he was already
+mounted and turning to move off.
+
+‘Wait a moment, Mr Coningham,’ I said. ‘I don’t exactly know where to
+put the key.’
+
+‘Fling it under the gravestone, and come along,’ he said, muttering
+something more, in which, perhaps, I only fancied I heard certain
+well-known maledictions.
+
+By this time my spirits had sunk as much below their natural level as,
+a little before, they had risen above it. But I felt that I must be
+myself, and that no evil any more than good fortune ought for a moment
+to perturb the tenor of my being. Therefore, having locked the door
+deliberately and carefully, I felt about along the underside of the
+gravestone until I found the ledge where the key had lain. I then made
+what haste I could to mount and follow Mr Coningham, but Lilith delayed
+the operation by her eagerness. I gave her the rein, and it was well no
+one happened to be coming in the opposite direction through that narrow
+and tortuous passage, for she flew round the corners--‘turning close to
+the ground, like a cat when scratchingly she wheels about after a
+mouse,’ as my old favourite, Sir Philip Sidney, says. Notwithstanding
+her speed, however, when I reached the mouth of the lane, there was Mr
+Coningham half across the first field, with his coat-tails flying out
+behind him. I would not allow myself to be left in such a discourteous
+fashion, and gave chase. Before he had measured the other half of the
+field, I was up with him.
+
+‘That mare of yours is a clever one,’ he said, as I ranged alongside of
+him. ‘I thought I would give her a breather. She hasn’t enough to do.’
+
+‘She’s not breathing so _very_ fast,’ I returned. ‘Her wind is as good
+as her legs.’
+
+‘Let’s get along then, for I’ve lost a great deal of time this morning.
+I ought to have been at Squire Strode’s an hour ago. How hot the sun
+is, to be sure, for this time of the year!’
+
+As he spoke, he urged his horse, but I took and kept the lead, feeling,
+I confess, a little angry, for I could not help suspecting he had
+really wanted to run away from me. I did what I could, however, to
+behave as if nothing had happened. But he was very silent, and his
+manner towards me was quite altered. Neither could I help thinking it
+scarcely worthy of a man of the world, not to say a lawyer, to show
+himself so much chagrined. For my part, having simply concluded that
+the new-blown bubble hope had burst, I found myself just where I was
+before-with a bend sinister on my scutcheon, it might be, but with a
+good conscience, a tolerably clear brain, and the dream of my
+Athanasia.
+
+The moment we reached the road, Mr Coningham announced that his way was
+in the opposite direction to mine, said his good morning, shook hands
+with me, and jogged slowly away. I knew that was not the nearest way to
+Squire Strode’s.
+
+I could not help laughing--he had so much the look of a dog with his
+tail between his legs, or a beast of prey that had made his spring and
+missed his game. I watched him for some time, for Lilith being pulled
+both ways--towards home, and after her late companion--was tolerably
+quiescent, but he never cast a glance behind him. When at length a
+curve in the road hid him from my sight, I turned and went quietly
+home, thinking what the significance of the unwelcome discovery might
+be. If the entry of the marriage under that date could not be proved a
+mere blunder, of which I could see no hope, then certainly my
+grandfather must be regarded as born out of wedlock, a supposition
+which, if correct, would account for the dropping of the _Daryll_.
+
+On the way home I jumped no hedges.
+
+Having taken my farewell of Lilith, I packed my ‘bag of needments,’
+locked the door of my uncle’s room, which I would have no one enter in
+my absence, and set out to meet the night mail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+
+CHARLEY AND CLARA.
+
+On my arrival in London, I found Charley waiting for me, as I had
+expected, and with his help soon succeeded in finding, in one of the
+streets leading from the Strand to the river, the accommodation I
+wanted. There I settled and resumed the labour so long and thanklessly
+interrupted.
+
+When I recounted the circumstances of my last interview with Mr
+Coningham, Charley did not seem so much surprised at the prospect which
+had opened before me as disappointed at its sudden close, and would not
+admit that the matter could be allowed to rest where it was.
+
+‘Do you think the change of style could possibly have anything to do
+with it?’ he asked, after a meditative silence.
+
+‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Which change of style do you mean?’
+
+‘I mean the change of the beginning of the year from March to January,’
+he answered.
+
+‘When did that take place?’ I asked.
+
+‘Some time about the middle of the last century,’ he replied; ‘but I
+will find out exactly.’
+
+The next night he brought me the information that the January which,
+according to the old style, would have been that of 1752 was promoted
+to be the first month of the year 1753.
+
+My dates then were, by several years, antecedent to the change, and it
+was an indisputable anachronism that the January between the December
+of 1747 and the March of 1748, should be entered as belonging to the
+latter year. This seemed to throw a little dubious light upon the
+perplexity; the January thus entered belonging clearly to 1747, and,
+therefore, was the same January with that of my ancestor’s letters.
+Plainly, however, the entry could not stand in evidence, its
+interpolation at least appeared indubitable, for how otherwise could it
+stand at the beginning of the new year instead of towards the end of
+the old, five, years before the change of style? Also, now I clearly
+remember that it did look a little crushed between the heading of the
+year and the next entry. It must be a forgery--and a stupid one as
+well, seeing the bottom of the preceding page, where there was a small
+blank, would have been the proper place to choose for it--that is,
+under the heading 1747. Could the 1748 have been inserted afterwards?
+That did not appear likely, seeing it belonged to all the rest of the
+entries on the page, there being none between the date in question and
+March 29, on the 25th of which month the new year began. The conclusion
+lying at the door was that some one had inserted the marriage so long
+after the change of style that he knew nothing of the trap there lying
+for his forgery. It seemed probable that, blindly following the
+letters, he had sought to place it in the beginning of the previous
+year, but, getting bewildered in the apparent eccentricities of the
+arrangement of month and year, had at last drawn his bow at a venture.
+Neither this nor any other theory I could fashion did I, however, find
+in the least satisfactory. All I could be sure of was that here was no
+evidence of the marriage--on the contrary, a strong presumption against
+it.
+
+For my part, the dream in which I had indulged had been so short that I
+very soon recovered from the disappointment of the waking therefrom.
+Neither did the blot with which the birth of my grandfather was menaced
+affect me much. My chief annoyance in regard of that aspect of the
+affair was in being _so_ related to Geoffrey Brotherton.
+
+I cannot say how it came about, but I could not help observing that, by
+degrees, a manifest softening appeared in Charley’s mode of speaking of
+his father, although I knew that there was not the least approach to a
+more cordial intercourse between them. I attributed the change to the
+letters of his sister, which he always gave me to read. From them I
+have since classed her with a few others I have since known, chiefly
+women, the best of their kind, so good and so large-minded that they
+seem ever on the point of casting aside the unworthy opinions they have
+been taught, and showing themselves the true followers of Him who cared
+only for the truth, and yet holding by the doctrines of men, and
+believing them to be the mind of God.
+
+In one or two of Charley’s letters to her I ventured to insert a
+question or two, and her reference to these in her replies to Charley
+gave me an opportunity of venturing to write to her more immediately,
+in part defending what I thought the truth, in part expressing all the
+sympathy I honestly could with her opinions. She replied very kindly,
+very earnestly, and with a dignity of expression as well as of thought
+which harmonized entirely with my vision of her deeper and grander
+nature.
+
+The chief bent of my energies was now to vindicate for myself a worthy
+position in the world of letters; but my cherished hope lay in the
+growth of such an intimacy with Mary Osborne as might afford ground for
+the cultivation of far higher and more precious ambitions.
+
+It was not, however, with the design of furthering these that I was now
+guilty of what will seem to most men a Quixotic action enough.
+
+‘Your sister is fond of riding--is she not?’ I asked Charley one day,
+as we sauntered with our cigars on the terrace of the Adelphi.
+
+‘As fond as one can possibly be who has had so little opportunity,’ he
+said.
+
+‘I was hoping to have a ride with her and Clara the very evening when
+that miserable affair occurred. The loss of that ride was at least as
+great a disappointment to me as the loss of the sword.’
+
+‘You seem to like my sister, Wilfrid,’ he said.
+
+‘At least I care more for her good opinion than I do for any
+woman’s--or man’s either, Charley.’
+
+‘I am so glad!’ he responded. ‘You like her better than Clara, then?’
+
+‘Ever so much,’ I said.
+
+He looked more pleased than annoyed, I thought--certainly neither the
+one nor the other entirely. His eyes sparkled, but there was a flicker
+of darkness about his forehead.
+
+‘I am very glad,’ he said again, after a moment’s pause. ‘I thought--I
+was afraid--I had fancied sometimes--you were still a little in love
+with Clara.’
+
+‘Not one atom,’ I returned. ‘She cured me of that quite. There is no
+danger of that any more,’ I added--foolishly, seeing I intended no
+explanation.
+
+‘How do you mean?’ he asked, a little uneasily.
+
+I had no answer ready, and a brief silence followed. The subject was
+not resumed.
+
+It may well seem strange to my reader that I had never yet informed him
+of the part Clara had had in the matter of the sword. But, as I have
+already said, when anything moved me very deeply I was never ready to
+talk about it. Somehow, perhaps from something of the cat-nature in me,
+I never liked to let go my hold of it without good reason. Especially I
+shrank from imparting what I only half comprehended; and besides, in
+the present case, the thought of Clara’s behaviour was so painful to me
+still that I recoiled from any talk about it--the more that Charley had
+a kind and good opinion of her, and would, I knew, only start
+objections and explanations defensive, as he had done before on a
+similar occasion, and this I should have no patience with. I had,
+therefore, hitherto held my tongue. There was, of course, likewise the
+fear of betraying his sister, only the danger of that was small, now
+that the communication between the two girls seemed at an end for the
+time; and if it had not been that a certain amount of mutual reticence
+had arisen between us, first on Charley’s part and afterwards on mine,
+I doubt much whether, after all, I should not by this time have told
+him the whole story. But the moment I had spoken as above, the
+strangeness of his look, which seemed to indicate that he would gladly
+request me to explain myself but for some hidden reason, flashed upon
+me the suspicion that he was himself in love with Clara. The moment the
+suspicion entered, a host of circumstances crystallized around it. Fact
+after fact flashed out of my memory, from the first meeting of the two
+in Switzerland down to this last time I had seen them together, and in
+the same moment I was convinced that the lady I saw him with in the
+Regent’s Park was no other than Clara. But, if it were so, why had he
+shut me out from his confidence? Of the possible reasons which
+suggested themselves, the only one which approached the satisfactory
+was that he had dreaded hurting me by the confession of his love for
+her, and preferred leaving it to Clara to cure me of a passion to which
+my doubtful opinion of her gave a probability of weakness and ultimate
+evanescence.
+
+A great conflict awoke in me. What ought I to do? How could I leave him
+in ignorance of the falsehood of the woman he loved? But I could not
+make the disclosure now. I must think about the how and the how much to
+tell him. I returned to the subject which had led up to the discovery.
+
+‘Does your father keep horses, Charley?’
+
+‘He has a horse for his parish work, and my mother has an old pony for
+her carriage.’
+
+‘Is the rectory a nice place?’
+
+‘I believe it is, but I have such painful associations with it that I
+hardly know.’
+
+The Arab loves the desert sand where he was born; the thief loves the
+court where he used to play in the gutter. How miserable Charley’s
+childhood must have been! How _could_ I tell him of Clara’s falsehood?
+
+‘Why doesn’t he give Mary a pony to ride?’ I asked. ‘But I suppose he
+hasn’t room for another?’
+
+‘Oh! yes, there’s plenty of room. His predecessor was rather a big
+fellow. In fact, the stables are on much too large a scale for a
+clergyman. I dare say he never thought of it. I must do my father the
+justice to say there’s nothing stingy about him, and I believe he loves
+my sister even more than my mother. It certainly would be the best
+thing he could do for her to give her a pony. But she will die of
+religion--young, and be sainted in a twopenny tract, and that is better
+than a pony. Her hair doesn’t curl--that’s the only objection. Some one
+has remarked that all the good children who die have curly hair.’
+
+Poor Charley! Was his mind more healthy, then? Was he less likely to
+come to an early death? Was his want of faith more life-giving than
+what he considered her false faith?
+
+‘I see no reason to fear it,’ I said, with a tremor at my heart as I
+thought of my dream.
+
+That night I was sleepless--but about Charley--not about Mary. What
+could I do?--what ought I to do? Might there be some mistake in my
+judgment of Clara? I searched, and I believe searched honestly, for any
+possible mode of accounting for her conduct that might save her
+uprightness, or mitigate the severity of the condemnation I had passed
+upon her. I could find none. At the same time, what I was really
+seeking was an excuse for saying nothing to Charley. I suspect now
+that, had I searched after justification or excuse for her from love to
+herself, I might have succeeded in constructing a theory capable of
+sheltering her; but, as it was, I failed utterly, and, turning at last
+from the effort, I brooded instead upon the Quixotic idea already
+adverted to, grown the more attractive as offering a good excuse for
+leaving Charley for a little.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+
+LILITH MEETS WITH A MISFORTUNE.
+
+The next day, leaving a note to inform Charley that I had run home for
+a week, I set out for the Moat, carrying with me the best side-saddle I
+could find in London.
+
+As I left the inn at Minstercombe in a gig, I saw Clara coming out of a
+shop. I could not stop and speak to her, for, not to mention the
+opinion I had of her, and the treachery of which I accused her, was I
+not at that very moment meditating how best to let her lover know that
+she was not to be depended upon? I touched the horse with the whip, and
+drove rapidly past. Involuntarily, however, I glanced behind, and saw a
+white face staring after me. Our looks encountering thus, I lifted my
+hat, but held on my course.
+
+I could not help feeling very sorry for her. The more falsely she had
+behaved, she was the more to be pitied. She looked very beautiful with
+that white face. But how different was her beauty from that of my
+Athanasia!
+
+Having tried the side-saddle upon Lilith, and found all it wanted was a
+little change in the stuffing about the withers, I told Styles to take
+it and the mare to Minstercombe the next morning, and have it properly
+fitted.
+
+What trifles I am lingering upon! Lilith is gone to the worms--no, that
+I _do not_ believe: amongst the things most people believe, and I
+cannot, that is one; but at all events she is dead, and the saddle gone
+to worms; and yet, for reasons which will want no explanation to my one
+reader, I care to linger even on the fringes of this part of the web of
+my story.
+
+I wandered about the field and house, building and demolishing many an
+airy abode, until Styles came back. I had told him to get the job done
+at once, and not return without the saddle.
+
+‘Can I trust you, Styles?’ I said abruptly.
+
+‘I hope so, sir. If I may make so bold, I don’t think I was altogether
+to blame about that book--’
+
+‘Of course not. I told you so. Never think of it again. Can you keep a
+secret?’
+
+‘I can try, sir. You’ve been a good master to me, I’m sure, sir.’
+
+‘That I mean to be still, if I can. Do you know the parish of
+Spurdene?’
+
+‘I was born there, sir.’
+
+‘Ah! that’s not so convenient. Do you know the rectory?’
+
+‘Every stone of it, I may say, sir.’
+
+‘And do they know you?’
+
+‘Well, it’s some years since I left--a mere boy, sir.’
+
+‘I want you, then--if it be possible--you can tell best--to set out
+with Lilith to-morrow night--I hope it will be a warm night. You must
+groom her thoroughly, put on the side-saddle and her new bridle, and
+lead her--you’re not to ride her, mind--I don’t want her to get
+hot--lead her to the rectory of Spurdene--and-now here is the point--if
+it be possible, take her up to the stable, and fasten her by this
+silver chain to the ring at the door of it--as near morning as you
+safely can to avoid discovery, for she mustn’t stand longer at this
+season of the year than can be helped. I will tell you all.--I mean her
+for a present to Miss Osborne; but I do not want any one to know where
+she comes from. None of them, I believe, have ever seen her. I will
+write something on a card, which you will fasten to one of the pommels,
+throwing over all this horsecloth.’
+
+I gave him a fine bear-skin I had bought for the purpose. He smiled,
+and, with evident enjoyment of the spirit of the thing, promised to do
+his best.
+
+Lilith looked lovely as he set out with her late the following night.
+When he returned the next morning, he reported that everything had
+succeeded admirably. He had carried out my instructions to the letter;
+and my white Lilith had by that time, I hoped, been caressed, possibly
+fed, by the hands of Mary Osborne herself.
+
+I may just mention that on the card I had written, or rather printed,
+the words: ‘To Mary Osborne, from a friend.’
+
+In a day or two I went back to London, but said nothing to Charley of
+what I had done--waiting to hear from him first what they said about
+it.
+
+‘I say, Wilfrid!’ he cried, as he came into my room with his usual
+hurried step, the next morning but one, carrying an open letter in his
+hand, ‘what’s this you’ve been doing--you sly old fellow? You ought to
+have been a prince, by Jove!’
+
+‘What do you accuse me of? I must know that first, else I might confess
+to more than necessary. One must be on one’s guard with such as you.’
+
+‘Read that,’ he said, putting the letter into my hand.
+
+It was from his sister. One passage was as follows:
+
+‘A strange thing has happened. A few mornings ago the loveliest white
+horse was found tied to the stable door, with a side-saddle, and a card
+on it directed to _me_. I went to look at the creature. It was like the
+witch-lady in Christabel, ‘beautiful exceedingly.’ I ran to my father,
+and told him. He asked me who had sent it, but I knew no more than he
+did. He said I couldn’t keep it unless we found out who had sent it,
+and probably not then, for the proceeding was as suspicious as absurd.
+To-day he has put an advertisement in the paper to the effect that, if
+the animal is not claimed before, it will be sold at the horse-fair
+next week, and the money given to the new school fund. I feel as if I
+couldn’t bear parting with it, but of course I can’t accept a present
+without knowing where it comes from. Have you any idea who sent it? I
+am sure papa is right about it, as indeed, dear Charley, he always is.’
+
+I laid down the letter, and, full of mortification, went walking about
+the room.
+
+‘Why didn’t you tell me, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘I thought it better, if you were questioned, that you should not know.
+But it was a foolish thing to do--very. I see it now. Of course your
+father is right. It doesn’t matter though. I will go down and buy her.’
+
+‘You had better not appear in it. Go to the Moat, and send Styles.’
+
+‘Yes--that will be best. Of course it will. When is the fair, do you
+know?’
+
+‘I will find out for you. I hope some rascal mayn’t in the mean time
+take my father in, and persuade him to give her up. Why shouldn’t I run
+down and tell him, and get back poor Lilith without making you pay for
+your own?’
+
+‘Indeed you shan’t. The mare is your sister’s, and I shall lay no claim
+to her. I have money enough to redeem her.’
+
+Charley got me information about the fair, and the day before it, I set
+out for the Moat.
+
+When I reached Minstercombe, having more time on my hands than I knew
+what to do with, I resolved to walk round by Spurdene. It would not be
+more than ten or twelve miles, and so I should get a peep of the
+rectory. On the way I met a few farmer-looking men on horseback, and
+just before entering the village saw at a little distance a white
+creature--very like my Lilith--with a man on its back, coming towards
+me.
+
+As they drew nearer, I was certain of the mare, and, thinking it
+possible the rider might be Mr Osborne, withdrew into a thicket on the
+road-side. But what was my dismay to discover that it was indeed my
+Lilith, but ridden by Geoffrey Brotherton! As soon as he was past, I
+rushed into the village, and found that the people I had met were going
+from the fair. Charley had been misinformed. I was too late: Brotherton
+had bought my Lilith. Half distracted with rage and vexation, I walked
+on and on, never halting till I reached the Moat. Was this man destined
+to swallow up everything I cared for? Had he suspected me as the
+foolish donor, and bought the mare to spite me? A thousand times rather
+would I have had her dead. Nothing on earth would have tempted me to
+sell my Lilith but inability to feed her, and then I would rather have
+shot her. I felt poorer than even when my precious folio was taken from
+me, for the lowest animal life is a greater thing than a rare edition.
+I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat by my fire or paced
+about the room till dawn, when I set out for Minstercombe, and reached
+it in time for the morning coach to London. The whole affair was a
+folly, and I said to-myself that I deserved to suffer. Before I left, I
+told Styles, and begged him to keep an eye on the mare, and, if ever he
+learned that her owner wanted to part with her, to come off at once and
+let me know. He was greatly concerned at my ill-luck, as he called it,
+and promised to watch her carefully. He knew one of the grooms, he
+said, a little, and would cultivate his acquaintance.
+
+I could not help wishing now that Charley would let his sister know
+what I had tried to do for her, but of course I would not say so. I
+think he did tell her, but I never could be quite certain whether or
+not she knew it. I wonder if she ever suspected me. I think not. I have
+too good reason to fear that she attributed to another the would-be
+gift; I believe that, from Brotherton’s buying her, they thought he had
+sent her--a present certainly far more befitting his means than mine.
+But I came to care very little about it, for my correspondence with her
+through Charley, went on. I wondered sometimes how she could keep from
+letting her father know: that he did not know I was certain, for he
+would have put a stop to it at once. I conjectured that she had told
+her mother, and that she, fearing to widen the breach between her
+husband and Charley, had advised her not to mention it to him; while
+believing it would do both Charley and me good, she did not counsel her
+to give up the correspondence. It must be considered, also, that it was
+long before I said a word implying any personal interest. Before I
+ventured that, I had some ground for thinking that my ideas had begun
+to tell upon hers, for, even in her letters to Charley, she had begun
+to drop the common religious phrases, while all she said seemed to
+indicate a widening and deepening and simplifying of her faith. I do
+not for a moment imply that she had consciously given up one of the
+dogmas of the party to which she belonged, but there was the
+perceptible softening of growth in her utterances, and after that was
+plain to me, I began to let out my heart to her a little more.
+
+About this time also I began to read once more the history of Jesus,
+asking myself as if on a first acquaintance with it, ‘Could it
+be--might it not be that, if there were a God, he would visit his
+children after some fashion? If so, is this a likely fashion? May it
+not even be the only right fashion?’ In the story I found at least a
+perfection surpassing everything to be found elsewhere; and I was at
+least sure that whatever this man said must be true. If one could only
+be as sure of the record! But if ever a dawn was to rise upon me, here
+certainly the sky would break; here I thought I already saw the first
+tinge of the returning life-blood of the swooning world. The gathering
+of the waters of conviction at length one morning broke out in the
+following verses, which seemed more than half given to me, the only
+effort required being to fit them rightly together:--
+
+     Come to me, come to me, O my God;
+       Come to me everywhere!
+      Let the trees mean thee, and the grassy sod,
+       And the water and the air.
+
+
+     For thou art so far that I often doubt,
+       As on every side I stare,
+      Searching within, and looking without,
+       If thou art anywhere.
+
+
+     How did men find thee in days of old?
+       How did they grow so sure?
+      They fought in thy name, they were glad and bold,
+       They suffered, and kept themselves pure.
+
+
+     But now they say--neither above the sphere,
+       Nor down in the heart of man,
+      But only in fancy, ambition, or fear,
+       The thought of thee began.
+
+
+     If only that perfect tale were true
+       Which, with touch of sunny gold,
+      Of the ancient many makes one anew,
+       And simplicity manifold.
+
+
+     But _he_ said that they who did his word
+       The truth of it should know:
+      I will try to do it--if he be Lord,
+       Perhaps the old spring will flow;
+
+
+     Perhaps the old spirit-wind will blow
+       That he promised to their prayer;
+      And doing thy will, I yet shall know
+       Thee, Father, everywhere!
+
+
+These lines found their way without my concurrence into a certain
+religious magazine, and I was considerably astonished, and yet more
+pleased, one evening when Charley handed me, with the kind regards of
+his sister, my own lines, copied by herself. I speedily let her know
+they were mine, explaining that they had found their way into print
+without my cognizance. She testified so much pleasure at the fact, and
+the little scraps I could claim as my peculiar share of the contents of
+Charley’s envelopes grew so much more confiding that I soon ventured to
+write more warmly than hitherto. A period longer than usual passed
+before she wrote again, and when she did she took no express notice of
+my last letter. Foolishly or not, I regarded this as a favourable sign,
+and wrote several letters, in which I allowed the true state of my
+feelings towards her to appear. At length I wrote a long letter in
+which, without a word of direct love-making, I thought yet to reveal
+that I loved her with all my heart. It was chiefly occupied with my
+dream on that memorable night--of course without the slightest allusion
+to the waking, or anything that followed. I ended abruptly, telling her
+that the dream often recurred, but as often as it drew to its lovely
+close, the lifted veil of Athanasia revealed ever and only the
+countenance of Mary Osborne.
+
+The answer to this came soon and in few words.
+
+‘I dare not take to myself what you write. That would be presumption
+indeed, not to say wilful self-deception. It will be honour enough for
+me if in any way I serve to remind you of the lady in your dream.
+Wilfrid, if you love me, take care of my Charley. I must not write
+more.--M.O.’
+
+It was not much, but enough to make me happy. I write it from
+memory--every word as it lies where any moment I could read it--shut in
+a golden coffin whose lid I dare not open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+
+TOO LATE.
+
+I must now go back a little. After my suspicions had been aroused as to
+the state of Charley’s feelings, I hesitated for a long time before I
+finally made up my mind to tell him the part Clara had had in the loss
+of my sword. But while I was thus restrained by dread of the effect the
+disclosure would have upon him if my suspicions were correct, those
+very suspicions formed the strongest reason for acquainting him with
+her duplicity; and, although I was always too ready to put off the evil
+day so long as doubt supplied excuse for procrastination, I could not
+have let so much time slip by and nothing said but for my absorption in
+Mary.
+
+At length, however, I had now resolved, and one evening, as we sat
+together, I took my pipe from my mouth, and, shivering bodily, thus
+began:
+
+‘Charley,’ I said, ‘I have had for a good while something on my mind,
+which I cannot keep from you longer.’
+
+He looked alarmed instantly. I went on.
+
+‘I have not been quite open with you about that affair of the sword.’
+
+He looked yet more dismayed; but I must go on, though it tore my very
+heart. When I came to the point of my overhearing Clara talking to
+Brotherton, he started up, and, without waiting to know the subject of
+their conversation, came close up to me, and, his face distorted with
+the effort to keep himself quiet, said, in a voice hollow and still and
+far-off, like what one fancies of the voice of the dead:
+
+‘Wilfrid, you said Brotherton, I think?’
+
+‘I did, Charley.’
+
+‘She never told me that!’
+
+‘How could she when she was betraying your friend?’
+
+‘No no!’ he cried, with a strange mixture of command and entreaty;
+‘don’t say that. There is some explanation. There _must_ be.’
+
+‘She told _me_ she hated him,’ I said.
+
+‘_I know_ she hates him. What was she saying to him?’
+
+‘I tell you she was betraying me, your friend, who had never done her
+any wrong, to the man she had told me she hated, and whom I had heard
+her ridicule.’
+
+‘What do you mean by betraying you?’
+
+I recounted what I had overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and
+trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. ‘What a fool I
+am! Distrust _her!_ I will _not_. There is some explanation! There
+_must_ be!’
+
+The dew of agony lay thick on his forehead. I was greatly alarmed at
+what I had done, but I could not blame myself.
+
+‘Do be calm, Charley,’ I entreated.
+
+‘I am as calm as death,’ he replied, striding up and down the room with
+long strides.
+
+He stopped and came up to me again.
+
+‘Wilfrid,’ he said, ‘I am a damned fool. I am going now. Don’t be
+frightened--I am perfectly calm. I will come and explain it all to you
+to-morrow--no--the next day--or the next at latest. She had some reason
+for hiding it from me, but I shall have it all the moment I ask her.
+She is not what you think her. I don’t for a moment blame you--but--are
+you sure it was--Clara’s--voice you heard?’ he added with forced
+calmness and slow utterance.
+
+‘A man is not likely to mistake the voice of a woman he ever fancied
+himself in love with.’
+
+‘Don’t talk like that, Wilfrid. You’ll drive me mad. How should she
+know you had taken the sword?’
+
+‘She was always urging me to take it. There lies the main sting of the
+treachery. But I never told you where I found the sword.’
+
+‘What can that have to do with it?’
+
+‘I found it on my bed that same morning when I woke. It could not have
+been there when I lay down.’
+
+‘Well?’
+
+‘Charley, I believe _she_ laid it there.’
+
+He leaped at me like a tiger. Startled, I jumped to my feet. He laid
+hold of me by the throat, and griped me with a quivering grasp.
+Recovering my self-possession, I stood perfectly still, making no
+effort even to remove his hand, although it was all but choking me. In
+a moment or two he relaxed his hold, burst into tears, took up his hat,
+and walked to the door.
+
+‘Charley! Charley! you must _not_ leave me so,’ I cried, starting
+forwards.
+
+‘To-morrow, Wilfrid; to-morrow,’ he said, and was gone.
+
+He was back before I could think what to do next. Opening the door half
+way, he said--as if a griping hand had been on _his_ throat--
+
+‘I--I--I--don’t believe it, Wilfrid. You only said you believed it. _I_
+don’t. Good night. I’m all right now. _Mind, I don’t believe it._’
+
+He, shut the door. Why did I not follow him?
+
+But if I had followed him, what could I have said or done? In every
+man’s life come awful moments when he must meet his fate--dree his
+weird--alone. Alone, I say, if he have no God--for man or woman cannot
+aid him, cannot touch him, cannot come near him. Charley was now in one
+of those crises, and I could not help him. Death is counted an awful
+thing: it seems to me that life is an infinitely more awful thing.
+
+In the morning I received the following letter:--
+
+‘Dear Mr Cumbermede,
+
+‘You will be surprised at receiving a note from me--still more at its
+contents. I am most anxious to see you--so much so that I venture to
+ask you to meet me where we can have a little quiet talk. I am in
+London, and for a day or two sufficiently my own mistress to leave the
+choice of time and place with you--only let it be when and where we
+shall not be interrupted. I presume on old friendship in making this
+extraordinary request, but I do not presume in my confidence that you
+will not misunderstand my motives. One thing only I _beg_--that you
+will not inform C.O. of the petition I make.
+
+‘Your old friend,
+
+
+‘C.C.’
+
+
+What was I to do? To go, of course. She _might_ have something to
+reveal which would cast light on her mysterious conduct. I cannot say I
+expected a disclosure capable of removing Charley’s misery, but I did
+vaguely hope to learn something that might alleviate it. Anyhow, I
+would meet her, for I dared not refuse to hear her. To her request of
+concealing it from Charley, I would grant nothing beyond giving it
+quarter until I should see whither the affair tended. I wrote at
+once--making an appointment for the same evening. But was it from a
+suggestion of Satan, from an evil impulse of human spite, or by the
+decree of fate, that I fixed on that part of the Regent’s Park in which
+I had seen him and the lady I now believed to have been Clara walking
+together in the dusk? I cannot now tell. The events which followed have
+destroyed all certainty, but I fear it was a flutter of the wings of
+revenge, a shove at the spokes of the wheel of time to hasten the
+coming of its circle.
+
+Anxious to keep out of Charley’s way--for the secret would make me
+wretched in his presence--I went into the City, and, after an early
+dinner, sauntered out to the Zoological Gardens, to spend the time till
+the hour of meeting. But there, strange to say, whether from insight or
+fancy, in every animal face I saw such gleams of a troubled humanity
+that at last I could bear it no longer, and betook myself to Primrose
+Hill.
+
+It was a bright afternoon, wonderfully clear, with a crisp frosty feel
+in the air. But the sun went down, and one by one, here and there,
+above and below, the lights came out and the stars appeared, until at
+length sky and earth were full of flaming spots, and it was time to
+seek our rendezvous.
+
+I had hardly reached it when the graceful form of Clara glided towards
+me. She perceived in a moment that I did not mean to shake hands with
+her. It was not so dark but that I saw her bosom heave and a flush
+overspread her countenance.
+
+‘You wished to see me, Miss Coningham,’ I said. ‘I am at your service.’
+
+‘What is wrong, Mr Cumbermede? You never used to speak to me in such a
+tone.’
+
+‘There is nothing wrong if you are not more able than I to tell what it
+is.’
+
+‘Why did you come if you were going to treat me so?’
+
+‘Because you requested it.’
+
+‘Have I offended you, then, by asking you to meet me? I trusted you. I
+thought _you_ would never misjudge me.’
+
+‘I should be but too happy to find I had been unjust to you, Miss
+Coningham. I would gladly go on my knees to you to confess that fault,
+if I could only be satisfied of its existence. Assure me of it, and I
+will bless you.’
+
+‘How strangely you talk! Some one has been maligning me.’
+
+‘No one. But I have come to the knowledge of what only one besides
+yourself could have told me.’
+
+‘You mean--’
+
+‘Geoffrey Brotherton.’
+
+‘_He!_ He has been telling you--’
+
+‘No--thank heaven! I have not yet sunk to the slightest communication
+with _him_.’
+
+She turned her face aside. Veiled as it was by the gathering gloom, she
+yet could not keep it towards me. But after a brief pause she looked at
+me and said,
+
+‘You know more than--I do not know what you mean.’
+
+‘I do know more than you think I know. I will tell you under what
+circumstances I came to such knowledge.’
+
+She stood motionless.
+
+‘One evening,’ I went on, ‘after leaving Moldwarp Hall with Charles
+Osborne, I returned to the library to fetch a book. As I entered the
+room where it lay, I heard voices in the armoury. One was the voice of
+Geoffrey Brotherton--a man you told me you hated. The other was yours.’
+
+She drew herself up, and stood stately before me.
+
+‘Is that your accusation?’ she said. ‘Is a woman never to speak to a
+man because she detests him?’
+
+She laughed--I thought drearily.
+
+‘Apparently not--for then I presume you would not have asked me to meet
+you.’
+
+‘Why should you think I hate _you_?’
+
+‘Because you have been treacherous to me.’
+
+‘In talking to Geoffrey Brotherton? I do hate him. I hate him more than
+ever. I spoke the truth when I told you that.’
+
+‘Then you do not hate me?’
+
+‘No.’
+
+‘And yet you delivered me over to my enemy bound hand and foot, as
+Delilah did Samson.--I heard what you said to Brotherton.’
+
+She seemed to waver, but stood--speechless, as if waiting for more.
+
+‘I heard you tell him that I had taken that sword--the sword you had
+always been urging me to take--the sword you unsheathed and laid on my
+bed that I might be tempted to take it--why I cannot understand, for I
+never did you a wrong to my poor knowledge. I fell into your snare, and
+you made use of the fact you had achieved to ruin my character, and
+drive me from the house in which I was foolish enough to regard myself
+as conferring favours rather than receiving them. You have caused me to
+be branded as a thief for taking--at your suggestion--that which was
+and still is my own!’
+
+‘Does Charley know this?’ she asked, in a strangely altered voice.
+
+‘He does. He learned it yesterday.’
+
+‘O my God!’ she cried, and fell kneeling on the grass at my feet.
+‘Wilfrid! Wilfrid! I will tell you all. It was to tell you all about
+this very thing that I asked you to come. I could not bear it longer.
+Only your tone made me angry. I did not know you knew so much.’
+
+The very fancy of such submission from such a creature would have
+thrilled me with a wild compassion once; but now I thought of Charley
+and felt cold to her sorrow as well as her loveliness. When she lifted
+her eyes to mine, however--it was not so dark but I could see their
+sadness--I began to hope a little for my friend. I took her hand and
+raised her. She was now weeping with down-bent head.
+
+‘Clara, you shall tell me all. God forbid I should be hard upon you!
+But you know I cannot understand it. I have no clue to it. How could
+you serve me so?’
+
+‘It is very hard for me--but there is no help now: I must confess
+disgrace, in order to escape infamy. Listen to me, then--as kindly as
+you can, Wilfrid. I beg your pardon; I have no right to use any old
+familiarity with you. Had my father’s plans succeeded, I should still
+have had to make an apology to you, but under what different
+circumstances! I will be as brief as I can. My father believed you the
+rightful heir to Moldwarp Hall. Your own father believed it, and made
+my father believe it--that was in case your uncle should leave no heir
+behind him. But your uncle was a strange man, and would neither lay
+claim to the property himself, nor allow you to be told of your
+prospects. He did all he could to make you, like himself, indifferent
+to worldly things; and my father feared you would pride yourself on
+refusing to claim your rights, unless some counter-influence were
+used.’
+
+‘But why should your father have taken any trouble in the matter?’ I
+asked.
+
+‘Well, you know--one in his profession likes to see justice done; and,
+besides, to conduct such a case must, of course, be of professional
+advantage to him. You must not think him under obligation to the
+present family: my grandfather held the position he still occupies
+before they came into the property.--I am too unhappy to mind what I
+say now. My father was pleased when you and I--indeed I fancy he had a
+hand in our first meeting. But while your uncle lived he had to be
+cautious. Chance, however, seemed to favour his wishes. We met more
+than once, and you liked me, and my father thought I might wake you up
+to care about your rights, and--and--but--’
+
+‘I see. And it might have been, Clara, but for--’
+
+‘Only, you see, Mr Cumbermede,’ she interrupted with a half-smile, and
+a little return of her playful manner--‘_I_ didn’t wish it.’
+
+‘No. You preferred the man who _had_ the property.’
+
+It was a speech both cruel and rude. She stepped a pace back, and
+looked me proudly in the face.
+
+Prefer that man to _you_, Wilfrid! No. I could never have fallen so low
+as that. But I confess I didn’t mind letting papa understand that Mr
+Brotherton was polite to me--just to keep him from urging me
+to--to--You _will_ do me the justice that I did not try to make you--to
+make you--care for me, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘I admit it heartily. I will be as honest as you, and confess that you
+might have done so--easily enough at one time. Indeed I am only half
+honest after all: I loved you once--after a boyish fashion.’
+
+She half smiled again. ‘I am glad you are believing me now,’ she said.
+
+‘Thoroughly,’ I answered. ‘When you speak the truth, I must believe
+you.’
+
+‘I was afraid to let papa know the real state of things. I was always
+afraid of him, though I love him dearly, and he is very good to me. I
+dared not disappoint him by telling him that I loved Charley Osborne.
+That time--you remember--when we met in Switzerland, his strange ways
+interested me so much! I was only a girl--but--’
+
+‘I understand well enough. I don’t wonder at any woman falling in love
+with my Charley.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ she said, with a sigh which seemed to come from the bottom
+of her heart. ‘You were always generous. You will do what you can to
+right me with Charley--won’t you? He is very strange sometimes.’
+
+‘I will indeed. But, Clara, why didn’t Charley let _me_ know that you
+and he loved each other?’
+
+‘Ah! there my shame comes in again! I wanted--for my father’s sake, not
+for my own--I need not tell you that--I wanted to keep my influence
+over you a little while--that is, until I could gain my father’s end.
+If I should succeed in rousing you to enter an action for the recovery
+of your rights, I thought my father might then be reconciled to my
+marrying Charley instead--’
+
+‘Instead of me, Clara. Yes--I see. I begin to understand the whole
+thing. It’s not so bad as I thought--not by any means.’
+
+‘Oh, Wilfrid! how good of you! I shall love you next to Charley all my
+life.’
+
+She caught hold of my hand, and for a moment seemed on the point of
+raising it to her lips.
+
+‘But I can’t easily get over the disgrace you have done me, Clara.
+Neither, I confess, can I get over your degrading yourself to a private
+interview with such a beast as I know--and can’t help suspecting you
+knew--Brotherton to be.’
+
+She dropped my hand, and hid her face in both her own.
+
+‘I did know what he was; but the thought of Charley made me able to go
+through with it.’
+
+‘With the sacrifice of his friend to his enemy?’
+
+‘It was bad. It was horridly wicked. I hate myself for it. But you know
+I thought it would do you no harm in the end.’
+
+‘How much did Charley know of it all?’ I asked.
+
+‘Nothing whatever. How could I trust his innocence? He’s the simplest
+creature in the world, Wilfrid.’
+
+‘I know that well enough.’
+
+‘I could not confess one atom of it to him. He would have blown up the
+whole scheme at once. It was all I could do to keep him from telling
+you of our engagement; and that made him miserable.’
+
+‘Did you tell him I was in love with you? You knew I was, well enough.’
+
+‘I dared not do that,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘He would have
+vanished--would have killed himself to make way for you.’
+
+‘I see you understand him, Clara.’
+
+‘That will give me some feeble merit in your eyes--won’t it, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘Still I don’t see quite why you betrayed me to Brotherton. I dare say
+I should if I had time to think it over.’
+
+‘I wanted to put you in such a position with regard to the Brothertons
+that you could have no scruples in respect of them such as my father
+feared from what he called the over-refinement of your ideas of honour.
+The treatment you must receive would, I thought, rouse every feeling
+against them. But it was not _all_ for my father’s sake, Wilfrid. It
+was, however mistaken, yet a good deal for the sake of Charley’s friend
+that I thus disgraced myself. Can you believe me?’
+
+‘I do. But nothing can wipe out the disgrace to me.’
+
+‘The sword was your own. Of course I never for a moment doubted that.’
+
+‘But they believed I was lying.’
+
+‘I can’t persuade myself it signifies greatly what such people think
+about you. I except Sir Giles. The rest are--’
+
+‘Yet you consented to visit them.’
+
+‘I was in reality Sir Giles’s guest. Not one of the others would have
+asked me.’
+
+‘Not Geoffrey?’
+
+‘I owe _him_ nothing but undying revenge for Charley.’ Her eyes flashed
+through the darkness; and she looked as if she could have killed him.
+
+‘But you were plotting against Sir Giles all the time you were his
+guest?’
+
+‘Not unjustly, though. The property was not his, but yours--that is, as
+we then believed. As far as I knew, the result would have been a real
+service to him, in delivering him from unjust possession--a thing he
+would himself have scorned. It was all very wrong--very low, if you
+like--but somehow it then seemed simple enough--a lawful stratagem for
+the right.’
+
+‘Your heart was so full of Charley!’
+
+‘Then you do forgive me, Wilfrid?’
+
+‘With all my soul. I hardly feel now as if I had anything to forgive.’
+
+I drew her towards me and kissed her on the forehead. She threw her
+arms round me, and clung to me, sobbing like a child.
+
+‘You will explain it all to Charley--won’t you?’ she said, as soon as
+she could speak, withdrawing herself from the arm which had
+involuntarily crept around her, seeking to comfort her.
+
+‘I will,’ I said.
+
+We were startled by a sound in the clump of trees behind us. Then over
+their tops passed a wailful gust of wind, through which we thought came
+the fall of receding footsteps.
+
+‘I hope we haven’t been overheard,’ I said. ‘I shall go at once and
+tell Charley all about it. I will just see you home first.’
+
+‘There’s no occasion for that, Wilfrid; and I’m sure I don’t deserve
+it.’
+
+‘You deserve a thousand thanks. You have lifted a mountain off me. I
+see it all now. When your father found it was no use--’
+
+‘Then I saw I had wronged you, and I couldn’t bear myself till I had
+confessed all.’
+
+‘Your father is satisfied, then, that the register would not stand in
+evidence?’
+
+‘Yes. He told me all about it.’
+
+‘He has never said a word to me on the matter; but just dropped me in
+the dirt, and let me lie there.’
+
+‘You must forgive him too, Wilfrid. It was a dreadful blow to him, and
+it was weeks before he told me. We couldn’t think what was the matter
+with him. You see he had been cherishing the scheme ever since your
+father’s death, and it was a great humiliation to find he had been
+sitting so many years on an addled egg,’ she said, with a laugh in
+which her natural merriment once more peeped out.
+
+I walked home with her, and we parted like old friends. On my way to
+the Temple I was anxiously occupied as to how Charley would receive the
+explanation I had to give him. That Clara’s confession would be a
+relief I could not doubt; but it must cause him great pain
+notwithstanding. His sense of honour was so keen, and his ideal of
+womankind so lofty, that I could not but dread the consequences of the
+revelation. At the same time I saw how it might benefit him. I had
+begun to see that it is more divine to love the erring than to love the
+good, and to understand how there is more joy over the one than over
+the ninety and nine. If Charley, understanding that he is no divine
+lover, who loves only so long as he is able to flatter himself that the
+object of his love is immaculate, should find that he must love Clara
+in spite of her faults and wrong-doings, he might thus grow to be less
+despairful over his own failures; he might, through his love for Clara,
+learn to hope for himself, notwithstanding the awful distance at which
+perfection lay removed.
+
+But as I went I was conscious of a strange oppression. It was not
+properly mental, for my interview with Clara had raised my spirits. It
+was a kind of physical oppression I felt, as if the air, which was in
+reality clear and cold, had been damp and close and heavy.
+
+I went straight to Charley’s chambers. The moment I opened the door, I
+knew that something was awfully wrong. The room was dark--but he would
+often sit in the dark. I called him, but received no answer. Trembling,
+I struck a light, for I feared to move lest I should touch something
+dreadful. But when I had succeeded in lighting the lamp, I found the
+room just as it always was. His hat was on the table. He must be in his
+bed-room. And yet I did not feel as if anything alive was near me. Why
+was everything so frightfully still? I opened the door as slowly and
+fearfully as if I had dreaded arousing a sufferer whose life depended
+on his repose. There he lay on his bed, in his clothes--fast asleep, as
+I thought, for he often slept so, and at any hour of the day--the
+natural relief of his much-perturbed mind. His eyes were closed, and
+his face was very white. As I looked, I heard a sound--a drop--another!
+There was a slow drip somewhere. God in heaven! Could it be? I rushed
+to him, calling him aloud. There was no response. It was too true! He
+was dead. The long snake-like Indian dagger was in his heart, and the
+blood was oozing slowly from around it.
+
+I dare not linger over that horrible night, or the horrible days that
+followed. Such days! such nights! The letters to write!--The friends to
+tell!--Clara!--His father!--The police!--The inquest!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr Osborne took no notice of my letter, but came up at once. Entering
+where I sat with my head on my arms on the table, the first
+announcement I had of his presence was a hoarse deep broken voice
+ordering me out of the room. I obeyed mechanically, took up Charley’s
+hat instead of my own, and walked away with it. But the neighbours were
+kind, and although I did not attempt to approach again all that was
+left of my friend, I watched from a neighbouring window, and following
+at a little distance, was present when they laid his form, late at
+night, in the unconsecrated ground of a cemetery.
+
+I may just mention here what I had not the heart to dwell upon in the
+course of my narrative--that since the talk about suicide occasioned by
+the remarks of Sir Thomas Browne, he had often brought up the
+subject--chiefly, however, in a half-humorous tone, and from what may
+be called an aesthetic point of view as to the best mode of
+accomplishing it. For some of the usual modes he expressed abhorrence,
+as being so ugly; and on the whole considered--I well remember the
+phrase, for he used it more than once--that a dagger--and on one of
+those occasions he took up the Indian weapon already described and
+said--‘such as this now,’--was ‘the most gentleman-like usher into the
+presence of the Great Nothing.’ As I had, however, often heard that
+those who contemplated suicide never spoke of it, and as his manner on
+the occasions to which I refer was always merry, such talk awoke little
+uneasiness; and I believe that he never had at the moment any conscious
+attraction to the subject stronger than a speculative one. At the same
+time, however, I believe that the speculative attraction itself had its
+roots in the misery with which in other and prevailing moods he was so
+familiar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+
+ISOLATION.
+
+After writing to Mr Osborne to acquaint him with the terrible event,
+the first thing I did was to go to Clara. I will not attempt to
+describe what followed. The moment she saw me, her face revealed, as in
+a mirror, the fact legible on my own, and I had scarcely opened my
+mouth when she cried ‘He is dead!’ and fell fainting on the floor. Her
+aunt came, and we succeeded in recovering her a little. But she lay
+still as death on the couch where we had laid her, and the motion of
+her eyes hither and thither, as if following the movements of some one
+about the room, was the only sign of life in her. We spoke to her, but
+evidently she heard nothing; and at last, leaving her when the doctor
+arrived, I waited for her aunt in another room, and told her what had
+happened.
+
+Some days after, Clara sent for me, and I had to tell her the whole
+story. Then, with agony in every word she uttered, she managed to
+inform me that, when she went in after I had left her at the door that
+night, she found waiting her a note from Charley; and this she now gave
+me to read. It contained a request to meet him that evening at the very
+place which I had appointed. It was their customary rendezvous when she
+was in town. In all probability he was there when we were, and heard
+and saw--heard too little and saw too much, and concluded that both
+Clara and I were false to him. The frightful perturbation which a
+conviction such as that must cause in a mind like his could be nothing
+short of madness. For, ever tortured by a sense of his own impotence,
+of the gulf to all appearance eternally fixed between his actions and
+his aspirations, and unable to lay hold of the Essential, the Causing
+Goodness, he had clung, with the despair of a perishing man, to the dim
+reflex of good he saw in her and me. If his faith in that was indeed
+destroyed, the last barrier must have given way, and the sea of madness
+ever breaking against it must have broken in and overwhelmed him. But
+oh, my friend! surely long ere now thou knowest that we were not false;
+surely the hour will yet dawn when I shall again hold thee to my heart;
+yea, surely, even if still thou countest me guilty, thou hast already
+found for me endless excuse and forgiveness.
+
+I can hardly doubt, however, that he inherited a strain of madness from
+his father, a madness which that father had developed by forcing upon
+him the false forms of a true religion.
+
+It is not then strange that I should have thought and speculated much
+about madness.--What does its frequent impulse to suicide indicate? May
+it not be its main instinct to destroy itself as an evil thing? May not
+the impulse arise from some unconscious conviction that there is for it
+no remedy but the shuffling off of this mortal coil--nature herself
+dimly urging through the fumes of the madness to the one blow which
+lets in the light and air? Doubtless, if in the mind so sadly unhinged,
+the sense of a holy presence could be developed--the sense of a love
+that loves through all vagaries--of a hiding-place from forms of evil
+the most fantastic--of a fatherly care that not merely holds its insane
+child in its arms, but enters into the chaos of his imagination, and
+sees every wildest horror with which it swarms; if, I say, the
+conviction of such a love dawned on the disordered mind, the man would
+live in spite of his imaginary foes, for he would pray against them as
+sure of being heard as St Paul when he prayed concerning the thorn from
+which he was not delivered, but against which he was sustained. And who
+can tell how often this may be the fact--how often the lunatic also
+lives by faith? Are not the forms of madness most frequently those of
+love and religion? Certainly, if there be a God, he does not forget his
+frenzied offspring; certainly he is more tender over them than any
+mother over her idiot darling; certainly he sees in them what the eye
+of brother or sister cannot see. But some of them, at least, have not
+enough of such support to be able to go on living; and, for my part, I
+confess I rejoice as often as I hear that one has succeeded in breaking
+his prison bars. When the crystal shrine has grown dim, and the fair
+forms of nature are in their entrance contorted hideously; when the
+sunlight itself is as blue lightning, and the wind in the summer trees
+is as ‘a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a rebounding echo from
+the hollow mountains;’ when the body is no longer a mediator between
+the soul and the world, but the prison-house of a lying gaoler and
+torturer--how can I but rejoice to hear that the tormented captive has
+at length forced his way out into freedom?
+
+When I look behind me, I can see but little through the surging lurid
+smoke of that awful time. The first sense of relief came when I saw the
+body of Charley laid in the holy earth. For the earth _is_ the
+Lord’s--and none the less holy that the voice of the priest may have
+left it without his consecration. Surely if ever the Lord laughs in
+derision, as the Psalmist says, it must be when the voice of a man
+would in _his_ name exclude his fellows from their birthright. O Lord,
+gather thou the outcasts of thy Israel, whom the priests and the rulers
+of thy people have cast out to perish.
+
+I remember for the most part only a dull agony, interchanging with
+apathy. For days and days I could not rest, but walked hither and
+thither, careless whither. When at length I would lie down weary and
+fall asleep, suddenly I would start up, hearing the voice of Charley
+crying for help, and rush in the middle of the Winter night into the
+wretched streets there to wander till daybreak. But I was not utterly
+miserable. In my most wretched dreams I never dreamed of Mary, and
+through all my waking distress I never forgot her. I was sure in my
+very soul that she did me no injustice. I had laid open the deepest in
+me to her honest gaze, and she had read it, and could not but know me.
+Neither did what had occurred quench my growing faith. I had never been
+able to hope much for Charley in this world; for something was out of
+joint with him, and only in the region of the unknown was I able to
+look for the setting right of it. Nor had many weeks passed before I
+was fully aware of relief when I remembered that he was dead. And
+whenever the thought arose that God might have given him a fairer
+chance in this world, I was able to reflect that apparently God does
+not care for this world save as a part of the whole; and on that whole
+I had yet to discover that he could have given him a fairer chance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+
+ATTEMPTS AND COINCIDENCES.
+
+It was months before I could resume my work. Not until Charley’s
+absence was, as it were, so far established and accepted that hope had
+begun to assert itself against memory; that is, not until the form of
+Charley ceased to wander with despairful visage behind me and began to
+rise amongst the silvery mists before me, was I able to invent once
+more, or even to guide the pen with certainty over the paper. The
+moment, however, that I took the pen in my hand another necessity
+seized me.
+
+Although Mary had hardly been out of my thoughts, I had heard no word
+of her since her brother’s death. I dared not write to her father or
+mother after the way the former had behaved to me, and I shrunk from
+approaching Mary with a word that might suggest a desire to intrude the
+thoughts of myself upon the sacredness of her grief. Why should she
+think of me? Sorrow has ever something of a divine majesty, before
+which one must draw nigh with bowed head and bated breath:
+
+      Here I and sorrows sit;
+      Here is my throne: bid kings come bow to it.
+
+But the moment I took the pen in my hand to write, an almost agonizing
+desire to speak to her laid hold of me. I dared not yet write to her,
+but, after reflection, resolved to send her some verses which should
+make her think of both Charley and myself, through the pages of a
+magazine which I knew she read.
+
+      Oh, look not on the heart I bring--
+        It is too low and poor;
+      I would not have thee love a thing
+        Which I can ill endure.
+
+      Nor love me for the sake of what
+        I would be if I could;
+      O’er peaks as o’er the marshy flat,
+        Still soars the sky of good.
+
+      See, love, afar, the heavenly man
+        The will of God would make;
+      The thing I must be when I can,
+        Love now, for faith’s dear sake.
+
+But when I had finished the lines, I found the expression had fallen so
+far short of what I had in my feeling, that I could not rest satisfied
+with such an attempt at communication. I walked up and down the room,
+thinking of the awful theories regarding the state of mind at death in
+which Mary had been trained. As to the mere suicide, love ever finds
+refuge in presumed madness; but all of her school believed that at the
+moment of dissolution the fate is eternally fixed either for bliss or
+woe, determined by the one or the other of two vaguely defined
+attitudes of the mental being towards certain propositions; concerning
+which attitudes they were at least right in asserting that no man could
+of himself assume the safe one. The thought became unendurable that
+Mary should believe that Charley was damned--and that for ever and
+ever. I must and would write to her, come of it what might. That my
+Charley, whose suicide came of misery that the painful flutterings of
+his half-born wings would not bear him aloft into the empyrean, should
+appear to my Athanasia lost in an abyss of irrecoverable woe; that she
+should think of God as sending forth his spirit to sustain endless
+wickedness for endless torture;--it was too frightful. As I wrote, the
+fire burned and burned, and I ended only from despair of utterance. Not
+a word can I now recall of what I wrote:--the strength of my feelings
+must have paralyzed the grasp of my memory. All I can recollect is that
+I closed with the expression of a passionate hope that the God who had
+made me and my Charley to love each other, would somewhere, some day,
+somehow, when each was grown stronger and purer, give us once more to
+each other. In that hope alone, I said, was it possible for me to live.
+By return of post I received the following:--
+
+SIR,
+
+After having everlastingly ruined one of my children, body and soul,
+for _your_ sophisms will hardly alter the decrees of divine justice,
+once more you lay your snares--now to drag my sole remaining child into
+the same abyss of perdition. Such wickedness--wickedness even to the
+pitch of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost--I have never in the course
+of a large experience of impenitence found paralleled. It almost drives
+me to the belief that the enemy of souls is still occasionally
+permitted to take up his personal abode in the heart of him who
+wilfully turns aside from revealed truth. I forgive you for the ruin
+you have brought upon our fondest hopes, and the agony with which you
+have torn the hearts of those who more than life loved him of whom you
+falsely called yourself the friend. But I fear you have already gone
+too far ever to feel your need of that forgiveness which alone can
+avail you. Yet I say--Repent, for the mercy of the Lord is infinite.
+Though my boy is lost to me for ever, I should yet rejoice to see the
+instrument of his ruin plucked as a brand from the burning.
+
+Your obedient well-wisher,
+
+
+CHARLES OSBORNE.
+
+
+‘P.S.--I retain your letter for the sake of my less experienced
+brethren, that I may be able to afford an instance of how far the
+unregenerate mind can go in its antagonism to the God of Revelation.’
+
+I breathed a deep breath, and laid the letter down, mainly concerned as
+to whether Mary had had the chance of reading mine. I could believe any
+amount of tyranny in her father--even to perusing and withholding her
+letters; but in this I may do him injustice, for there is no common
+ground known to me from which to start in speculating upon his probable
+actions. I wrote in answer something nearly as follows:--
+
+SIR,
+
+That you should do me injustice can by this time be no matter of
+surprise to me. Had I the slightest hope of convincing you of the fact,
+I should strain every mental nerve to that end. But no one can labour
+without hope, and as in respect of _your_ justice I have none, I will
+be silent. May the God in whom I trust convince you of the cruelty of
+which you have been guilty: the God in whom you profess to believe,
+must be too like yourself to give any ground of such hope from him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+
+‘WILFRID CUMBERMEDE.’
+
+
+If Mary had read my letter, I felt assured her reading had been very
+different from her father’s. Anyhow she could not judge me as he did,
+for she knew me better. She knew that for Charley’s sake I had tried
+the harder to believe myself.
+
+But the reproaches of one who had been so unjust to his own son could
+not weigh very heavily on me, and I now resumed my work with a
+tolerable degree of calmness. But I wrote badly. I should have done
+better to go down to the Moat, and be silent. If my reader has ever
+seen what I wrote at that time, I should like her to know that I now
+wish it all unwritten--not for any utterance contained in it, but
+simply for its general inferiority.
+
+Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing
+as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully
+neglected. Abraham, seated in his tent door in the heat of the day,
+would be to the philosophers of the nineteenth century an object for
+uplifted hands and pointed fingers. They would see in him only the
+indolent Arab, whom nothing but the foolish fancy that he saw his Maker
+in the distance, could rouse to run.
+
+It was clearly better to attempt no further communication with Mary at
+present; and I could think but of one person from whom, without giving
+pain, I might hope for some information concerning her.
+
+    *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here I had written a detailed account of how I contrived to meet Miss
+Pease, but it is not of consequence enough to my story to be allowed to
+remain. Suffice it to mention that one morning at length I caught sight
+of her in a street in Mayfair, where the family was then staying for
+the season, and overtaking addressed her.
+
+She started, stared at me for a moment, and held out her hand.
+
+‘I didn’t know you, Mr Cumbermede. How much older you look! I beg your
+pardon. Have you been ill?’
+
+She spoke hurriedly, and kept looking over her shoulder now and then,
+as if afraid of being seen talking to me.
+
+‘I have had a good deal to make me older since we met last, Miss
+Pease,’ I said. ‘I have hardly a friend left in the world but you--that
+is, if you will allow me to call you one.’
+
+‘Certainly, certainly,’ she answered, but hurriedly, and with one of
+those uneasy glances. ‘Only you must allow, Mr Cumbermede,
+that--that--that--’
+
+The poor lady was evidently unprepared to meet me on the old footing,
+and, at the same time, equally unwilling to hurt my feelings.
+
+‘I should be sorry to make you run a risk for my sake,’ I said. ‘Please
+just answer me one question. Do you know what it is to be
+misunderstood--to be despised without deserving it?’
+
+She smiled sadly, and nodded her head gently two or three times.
+
+‘Then have pity on me, and let me have a little talk with you.’
+
+Again she glanced apprehensively over her shoulder.
+
+‘You are afraid of being seen with me, and I don’t wonder,’ I said.
+
+‘Mr Geoffrey came up with us,’ she answered. ‘I left him at breakfast.
+He will be going across the park to his club directly.’
+
+‘Then come with me the other way--into Hyde Park,’ I said.
+
+With evident reluctance, she yielded and accompanied me.
+
+As soon as we got within Stanhope Gate, I spoke.
+
+‘A certain sad event, of which you have no doubt heard, Miss Pease, has
+shut me out from all communication with the family of my friend Charley
+Osborne. I am very anxious for some news of his sister. She is all that
+is left of him to me now. Can you tell me anything about her?’
+
+‘She has been very ill,’ she replied.
+
+‘I hope that means that she is better,’ I said.
+
+‘She is better, and, I hear, going on the Continent, as soon as the
+season will permit. But, Mr Cumbermede, you must be aware that I am
+under considerable restraint in talking to you. The position I hold in
+Sir Giles’s family, although neither a comfortable nor a dignified
+one--’
+
+‘I understand you perfectly, Miss Pease,’ I returned, ‘and fully
+appreciate the sense of propriety which causes your embarrassment. But
+the request I am about to make has nothing to do with them or their
+affairs whatever. I only want your promise to let me know if you hear
+anything of Miss Osborne.’
+
+‘I cannot tell--what--’
+
+‘What use I may be going to make of the information you give me. In a
+word, you do not trust me.’
+
+‘I neither trust nor distrust you, Mr Cumbermede. But I am afraid of
+being drawn into a correspondence with you.’
+
+‘Then I will ask no promise. I will hope in your generosity. Here is my
+address. I pray you, as you would have helped him who fell among
+thieves, to let me know anything you hear about Mary Osborne.’
+
+She took my card, and turned at once, saying,
+
+‘Mind, I make no promise.’
+
+‘I imagine none,’ I answered. ‘I will trust in your kindness.’
+
+And so we parted.
+
+Unsatisfactory as the interview was, it yet gave me a little hope. I
+was glad to hear that Mary was going abroad, for it must do her good.
+For me, I would endure and labour and hope. I gave her to God, as
+Shakspere says somewhere, and set myself to my work. When her mind was
+quieter about Charley, somehow or other I might come near her again.--I
+could not see how.
+
+I took my way across the Green Park.
+
+I do not believe we notice the half of the coincidences that float past
+us on the stream of events. Things which would fill us with
+astonishment, and probably with foreboding, look us in the face and
+pass us by, and we know nothing of them.
+
+As I walked along in the direction of the Mall, I became aware of a
+tall man coming towards me, stooping, as if with age, while the length
+of his stride indicated a more vigorous period. He passed without
+lifting his head, but, in the partial view of the wan and furrowed
+countenance, I could not fail to recognize Charley’s father. Such a
+worn unhappiness was there depicted that the indignation which still
+lingered in my bosom went out in compassion. If his sufferings might
+but teach him that to brand the truth of the kingdom with the private
+mark of opinion must result in persecution and cruelty! He mounted the
+slope with strides at once eager and aimless, and I wondered whether
+any of the sure-coming compunctions had yet begun to overshadow the
+complacency of his faith; whether he had yet begun to doubt if it
+pleased the Son of Man that a youth should be driven from the gates of
+truth because he failed to recognize her image in the faces of the
+janitors.
+
+Aimless also, I turned into the Mall, and again I started at the sight
+of a known figure. Was it possible?--could it be my Lilith betwixt the
+shafts of a public cabriolet? Fortunately it was empty. I hailed it,
+and jumped up, telling the driver to take me to my chambers.
+
+My poor Lilith! She was working like one who had never been loved! So
+far as I knew she had never been in harness before. She was badly
+groomed and thin, but much of her old spirit remained. I soon entered
+into negotiations with the driver, whose property she was, and made her
+my own once more, with a delight I could ill express in plain
+prose--for my friends were indeed few. I wish I could draw a picture of
+the lovely creature, when at length, having concluded my bargain, I
+approached her, and called her by her name! She turned her head
+sideways towards me with a low whinny of pleasure, and when I walked a
+little away, walked wearily after me. I took her myself to livery
+stables near me, and wrote for Styles. His astonishment when he saw her
+was amusing.
+
+‘Good Lord! Miss Lilith!’ was all he could say--for some moments.
+
+In a few days she had begun to look like herself, and I sent her home
+with Styles. I should hardly like to say how much the recovery of her
+did to restore my spirits; I could not help regarding it as a good
+omen.
+
+And now, the first bitterness of my misery having died a natural death,
+I sought again some of the friends I had made through Charley, and
+experienced from them great kindness. I began also to go into society a
+little, for I had found that invention is ever ready to lose the forms
+of life, if it be not kept under the ordinary pressure of its
+atmosphere. As it is, I doubt much if any of my books are more than
+partially true to those forms, for I have ever heeded them too little;
+but I believe I have been true to the heart of man. At the same time, I
+have ever regarded that heart more as the fountain of aspiration than
+the grave of fruition. The discomfiture of enemies and a happy marriage
+never seemed to me ends of sufficient value to close a history
+withal--I mean a fictitious history, wherein one may set forth joys and
+sorrows which in a real history must walk shadowed under the veil of
+modesty; for the soul, still less than the body, will consent to be
+revealed to all eyes. Hence, although most of my books have seemed true
+to some, they have all seemed visionary to most.
+
+A year passed away, during which I never left London. I heard from Miss
+Pease--that Miss Osborne, although much better, was not going to return
+until after another Winter. I wrote and thanked her, and heard no more.
+It may seem I accepted such ignorance with strange indifference; but,
+even to the reader for whom alone I am writing, I cannot, as things
+are, attempt to lay open all my heart. I have not written and cannot
+write how I thought, projected, brooded, and dreamed--all about _her_;
+how I hoped when I wrote that she might read; how I questioned what I
+had written, to find whether it would look to her what I had intended
+it to appear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+
+THE LAST VISION.
+
+I had engaged to accompany one of Charley’s barrister-friends, in whose
+society I had found considerable satisfaction, to his father’s
+house--to spend the evening with some friends of the family. The
+gathering was chiefly for talk, and was a kind of thing I disliked,
+finding its aimlessness and flicker depressing. Indeed, partly from the
+peculiar circumstances of my childhood, partly from what I had
+suffered, I always found my spirits highest when alone. Still, the
+study of humanity apart, I felt that I ought not to shut myself out
+from my kind, but endure some little irksomeness, if only for the sake
+of keeping alive that surface friendliness which has its value in the
+nourishment of the deeper affections. On this particular occasion,
+however, I yielded the more willingly that, in the revival of various
+memories of Charley, it had occurred to me that I once heard him say
+that his sister had a regard for one of the ladies of the family.
+
+There were not many people in the drawing-room when we arrived, and my
+friend’s mother alone was there to entertain them. With her I was
+chatting when one of her daughters entered, accompanied by a lady in
+mourning. For one moment I felt as if on the borders of insanity. My
+brain seemed to surge like the waves of a wind-tormented tide, so that
+I dared not make a single step forward lest my limbs should disobey me.
+It was indeed Mary Osborne; but oh, how changed! The rather full face
+had grown delicate and thin, and the fine pure complexion if possible
+finer and purer, but certainly more ethereal and evanescent. It was as
+if suffering had removed some substance unapt, [Footnote: Spenser’s
+‘Hymne in Honour of Beautie.’] and rendered her body a better-fitting
+garment for her soul. Her face, which had before required the softening
+influences of sleep and dreams to give it the plasticity necessary for
+complete expression, was now full of a repressed expression, if I may
+be allowed the phrase--a latent something ever on the tremble, ever on
+the point of breaking forth. It was as if the nerves had grown finer,
+more tremulous, or, rather, more vibrative. Touched to finer issues
+they could never have been, but suffering had given them a more
+responsive thrill. In a word, she was the Athanasia of my dream, not
+the Mary Osborne of the Moldwarp library.
+
+Conquering myself at last, and seeing a favourable opportunity, I
+approached her. I think the fear lest her father should enter gave me
+the final impulse; otherwise I could have been contented to gaze on her
+for hours in motionless silence.
+
+‘May I speak to you, Mary?’ I said.
+
+She lifted her eyes and her whole face towards mine, without a smile,
+without a word. Her features remained perfectly still, but, like the
+outbreak of a fountain, the tears rushed into her eyes and overflowed
+in silent weeping. Not a sob, not a convulsive movement, accompanied
+their flow.
+
+‘Is your father here?’ I asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+‘I thought you were abroad somewhere--I did not know where.’
+
+Again she shook her head. She dared not speak, knowing that if she made
+the attempt she must break down.
+
+‘I will go away till you can bear the sight of me,’ I said. She
+half-stretched out a thin white hand, but whether to detain me or bid
+me farewell I do not know, for it dropped again on her knee.
+
+[Illustration: “I will come to you by and by,” I said.]
+
+‘I will come to you by-and-by,’ I said, and moved away. The rooms
+rapidly filled, and in a few minutes I could not see the corner where I
+had left her. I endured everything for awhile, and then made my way
+back to it; but she was gone, and I could find her nowhere. A lady
+began to sing. When the applause which followed her performance was
+over, my friend, who happened to be near me, turned abruptly and said,
+
+‘Now, Cumbermede, _you_ sing.’
+
+The truth was that, since I had loved Mary Osborne, I had attempted to
+cultivate a certain small gift of song which I thought I possessed. I
+dared not touch any existent music, for I was certain I should break
+down; but having a faculty--somewhat thin, I fear--for writing songs,
+and finding that a shadowy air always accompanied the birth of the
+words, I had presumed to study music a little, in the hope of becoming
+able to fix the melody--the twin sister of the song. I had made some
+progress, and had grown able to write down a simple thought. There was
+little presumption, then, in venturing my voice, limited as was its
+scope, upon a trifle of my own. Tempted by the opportunity of realizing
+hopes consciously wild, I obeyed my friend, and, sitting down to the
+instrument in some trepidation, sang the following verses--
+
+      I dreamed that I woke from a dream,
+        And the house was full of light;
+      At the window two angel Sorrows
+        Held back the curtains of night.
+
+      The door was wide, and the house
+        Was full of the morning wind;
+      At the door two armed warders
+        Stood silent, with faces blind.
+
+      I ran to the open door,
+        For the wind of the world was sweet;
+      The warders with crossing weapons
+        Turned back my issuing feet.
+
+      I ran to the shining windows--
+        There the winged Sorrows stood;
+      Silent they held the curtains,
+        And the light fell through in a flood.
+
+      I clomb to the highest window--
+        Ah! there, with shadowed brow,
+      Stood one lonely radiant Sorrow,
+        And that, my love, was thou.
+
+I could not have sung this in public, but that no one would suspect it
+was my own, or was in the least likely to understand a word of
+it--except her for whose ears and heart it was intended.
+
+As soon as I had finished, I rose, and once more went searching for
+Mary. But as I looked, sadly fearing she was gone, I heard her voice
+close behind me.
+
+‘Are those verses your own, Mr Cumbermede?’ she asked, almost in a
+whisper.
+
+I turned trembling. Her lovely face was looking up at me.
+
+‘Yes,’ I answered--‘as much my own as that I believe they are not to be
+found anywhere. But they were given to me rather than made by me.’
+
+‘Would you let me have them? I am not sure that I understand them.’
+
+‘I am not sure that I understand them myself. They are for the heart
+rather than the mind. Of course you shall have them. They were written
+for you. All I have, all I am, is yours.’
+
+Her face flushed, and grew pale again instantly.
+
+‘You must not talk so,’ she said. ‘Remember.’
+
+‘I can never forget. I do not know why you say _remember_.’
+
+‘On second thoughts, I must not have the verses. I beg your pardon.’
+
+‘Mary, you bewilder me. I have no right to ask you to explain, except
+that you speak as if I must understand. What have they been telling you
+about me?’
+
+‘Nothing--at least nothing that--’
+
+She paused.
+
+‘I try to live innocently, and were it only for your sake, shall never
+stop searching for the thread of life in its ravelled skein.’
+
+‘Do not say for _my_ sake, Mr Cumbermede. That means nothing. Say for
+your own sake, if not for God’s.’
+
+‘If _you_ are going to turn away from me, I don’t mind how soon I
+follow Charley.’
+
+All this was said in a half-whisper, I bending towards her where she
+sat, a little sheltered by one of a pair of folding doors. My heart was
+like to break--or rather it seemed to have vanished out of me
+altogether, lost in a gulf of emptiness. Was this all? Was this the end
+of my dreaming? To be thus pushed aside by the angel of my
+resurrection?
+
+‘Hush! hush!’ she said kindly. ‘You must have many friends. But--’
+
+‘But you will be my friend no more? Is that it, Mary? Oh, if you knew
+all! And you are never, never to know it!’
+
+Her still face was once more streaming with tears. I choked mine back,
+terrified at the thought of being observed; and without even offering
+my hand, left her and made my way through the crowd to the stair. On
+the landing I met Geoffrey Brotherton. We stared each other in the face
+and passed.
+
+I did not sleep much that night, and when I did sleep, woke from one
+wretched dream after another, now crying aloud, and now weeping. What
+could I have done? or rather, what could any one have told her I had
+done to make her behave thus to me? She did not look angry--or even
+displeased--only sorrowful, very sorrowful; and she seemed to take it
+for granted I knew what it meant. When at length I finally woke after
+an hour of less troubled sleep, I found some difficulty in convincing
+myself that the real occurrences of the night before had not been one
+of the many troubled dreams that had scared my repose. Even after the
+dreams had all vanished, and the facts remained, they still appeared
+more like a dim dream of the dead--the vision of Mary was so wan and
+hopeless, memory alone looking out from her worn countenance. There had
+been no warmth in her greeting, no resentment in her aspect; we met as
+if we had parted but an hour before, only that an open grave was
+between us, across which we talked in the voice of dreamers. She had
+sought to raise no barrier between us, just because we _could_ not
+meet, save as one of the dead and one of the living. What could it
+mean? But with the growing day awoke a little courage. I would at least
+try to find out what it meant. Surely _all_ my dreams were not to
+vanish like the mist of the morning! To lose my dreams would be far
+worse than to lose the so-called realities of life. What were these to
+me? What value lay in such reality? Even God was as yet so dim and far
+off as to seem rather in the region of dreams--of those true dreams, I
+hoped, that shadowed forth the real--than in the actual visible
+present. ‘Still,’ I said to myself, ‘she had not cast me off; she did
+not refuse to know me; she did ask for my song, and I will send it.’
+
+I wrote it out, adding a stanza to the verses:--
+
+      I bowed my head before her,
+        And stood trembling in the light;
+      She dropped the heavy curtain,
+        And the house was full of night.
+
+I then sought my friend’s chambers.
+
+‘I was not aware you knew the Osbornes,’ I said. ‘I wonder you never
+told me, seeing Charley and you were such friends.’
+
+‘I never saw one of them till last night. My sister and she knew each
+other some time ago, and have met again of late. What a lovely creature
+she is! But what became of you last night? You must have left before
+any one else.’
+
+‘I didn’t feel well.’
+
+‘You don’t look the thing.’
+
+‘I confess meeting Miss Osborne rather upset me.’
+
+‘It had the same effect on her. She was quite ill, my sister said, this
+morning. No wonder! Poor Charley! I always had a painful feeling that
+he would come to grief somehow.’
+
+‘Let’s hope he’s come to something else by this time, Marston,’ I said.
+
+‘Amen,’ he returned.
+
+‘Is her father or mother with her?’
+
+‘No. They are to fetch her away--next week, I think it is.’ I had now
+no fear of my communication falling into other hands, and therefore
+sent the song by post, with a note, in which I begged her to let me
+know if I had done anything to offend her. Next morning I received the
+following reply:
+
+‘No, Wilfrid--for Charley’s sake, I must call you by your name--you
+have done nothing to offend me. Thank you for the song. I did not want
+you to send it, but I will keep it. You must not write to me again. Do
+not forget what we used to write about. God’s ways are not ours. Your
+friend, Mary Osborne.’
+
+I rose and went out, not knowing whither. Half-stunned, I roamed the
+streets. I ate nothing that day, and when towards night I found myself
+near my chambers, I walked in as I had come out, having no intent, no
+future. I felt very sick, and threw myself on my bed. There I passed
+the night, half in sleep, half in helpless prostration. When I look
+back, it seems as if some spiritual narcotic must have been given me,
+else how should the terrible time have passed and left me alive? When I
+came to myself, I found I was ill, and I longed to hide my head in the
+nest of my childhood. I had always looked on the Moat as my refuge at
+the last; now it seemed the only desirable thing--a lonely nook, in
+which to lie down and end the dream there begun--either, as it now
+seemed, in an eternal sleep, or the inburst of a dreary light. After
+the last refuge it could afford me it must pass from my hold; but I was
+yet able to determine whither. I rose and went to Marston.
+
+‘Marston,’ I said, ‘I want to make my will.’
+
+‘All right!’ he returned; ‘but you look as if you meant to register it
+as well. You’ve got a feverish cold; I see it in your eyes. Come along.
+I’ll go home with you, and fetch a friend of mine, who will give you
+something to do you good.’
+
+‘I can’t rest till I have made my will,’ I persisted.
+
+‘Well, there’s no harm in that,’ he rejoined. ‘It won’t take long, I
+dare say.’
+
+‘It needn’t anyhow. I only want to leave the small real property I have
+to Miss Osborne, and the still smaller-personal property to yourself.’
+
+He laughed.
+
+‘All right, old boy! I haven’t the slightest objection to your willing
+your traps to me, but every objection in the world to your _leaving_
+them. To be sure, every man, with anything to leave, ought to make his
+will betimes;--so fire away.’
+
+In a little while the draught was finished.
+
+‘I shall have it ready for your signature by to-morrow,’ he said.
+
+I insisted it should be done at once. I was going home, I said. He
+yielded. The will was engrossed, signed, and witnessed that same
+morning; and in the afternoon I set out, the first part of the journey
+by rail, for the Moat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+
+ANOTHER DREAM.
+
+The excitement of having something to do had helped me over the
+morning, and the pleasure of thinking of what I had done helped me
+through half the journey; but before I reached home I was utterly
+exhausted. Then I had to drive round by the farm, and knock up Mrs
+Herbert and Styles.
+
+I could not bear the thought of my own room, and ordered a fire in my
+grandmother’s, where they soon got me into bed. All I remember of that
+night is the following dream.
+
+I found myself at the entrance of the ice-cave. A burning sun beat on
+my head, and at my feet flowed the brook which gathered its life from
+the decay of the ice. I stooped to drink; but, cool to the eye and hand
+and lips, it yet burned me within like fire. I would seek shelter from
+the sun inside the cave. I entered, and knew that the cold was all
+around me; I even felt it; but somehow it did not enter into me. My
+brain, my very bones, burned with fire. I went in and in. The blue
+atmosphere closed around me, and the colour entered into my soul till
+it seemed dyed with the potent blue. My very being swam and floated in
+a blue atmosphere of its own. My intention--I can recall it
+perfectly--was but to walk to the end, a few yards, then turn and again
+brave the sun; for I had a dim feeling of forsaking my work, of playing
+truant, or of being cowardly in thus avoiding the heat. Something else
+too was wrong, but I could not clearly tell what. As I went on, I began
+to wonder that I had not come to the end. The gray walls yet rose about
+me, and ever the film of dissolution flowed along their glassy faces to
+the runnel below; still before me opened the depth of blue atmosphere,
+deepening as I went. After many windings, the path began to branch, and
+soon I was lost in a labyrinth of passages, of which I knew not why I
+should choose one rather than another. It was useless now to think of
+returning. Arbitrarily I chose the narrowest way, and still went on.
+
+A discoloration of the ice attracted my attention, and as I looked it
+seemed to retreat into the solid mass. There was something not ice
+within it, which grew more and more distinct as I gazed, until at last
+I plainly distinguished the form of my grandmother lying as then when
+my aunt made me touch her face. A few yards further on lay the body of
+my uncle, as I saw him in his coffin. His face was dead white in the
+midst of the cold clear ice, his eyes closed, and his arms straight by
+his side. He lay like an alabaster king upon his tomb. It _was_ he, I
+thought, but he would never speak to me more--never look at me---never
+more awake. There lay all that was left of him--the cold frozen memory
+of what he had been, and would never be again. I did not weep. I only
+knew somehow in my dream that life was all a wandering in a frozen
+cave, where the faces of the living were dark with the coming
+corruption, and the memories of the dead, cold and clear and hopeless
+evermore, alone were lovely.
+
+I walked further; for the ice might possess yet more of the past--all
+that was left me of life. And again I stood and gazed, for, deep
+within, I saw the form of Charley--at rest now, his face bloodless, but
+not so death-like as my uncle’s. His hands were laid palm to palm over
+his bosom, and pointed upwards, as if praying for comfort where comfort
+was none: here at least were no flickerings of the rainbow fancies of
+faith and hope and charity! I gazed in comfortless content for a time
+on the repose of my weary friend, and then went on, inly moved to see
+what further the ice of the godless region might hold. Nor had I
+wandered far when I saw the form of Mary, lying like the rest, only
+that her hands were crossed on her bosom. I stood, wondering to find
+myself so little moved. But when the ice drew nigh me, and would have
+closed around me, my heart leaped for joy; and when the heat of my
+lingering life repelled it, my heart sunk within me, and I said to
+myself: ‘Death will not have me. I may not join her even in the land of
+cold forgetfulness: I may not even be nothing _with_ her.’ The tears
+began to flow down my face, like the thin veil of water that kept ever
+flowing down the face of the ice; and as I wept, the water before me
+flowed faster and faster, till it rippled in a sheet down the icy wall.
+Faster and yet faster it flowed, falling, with the sound as of many
+showers, into the runnel below, which rushed splashing and gurgling
+away from the foot of the vanishing wall. Faster and faster it flowed,
+until the solid mass fell in a foaming cataract, and swept in a torrent
+across the cave. I followed the retreating wall through the seething
+water at its foot. Thinner and thinner grew the dividing mass; nearer
+and nearer came the form of my Mary. ‘I shall yet clasp her,’ I cried;
+‘her dead form will kill me, and I too shall be inclosed in the
+friendly ice. I shall not be with her, alas! but neither shall I be
+without her, for I shall depart into the lovely nothingness.’ Thinner
+and thinner grew the dividing wall. The skirt of her shroud hung like a
+wet weed in the falling torrent. I kneeled in the river, and crept
+nearer with outstretched arms: when the vanishing ice set the dead form
+free, it should rest in those arms--the last gift of the
+life-dream--for then, surely, I _must_ die. ‘Let me pass in the agony
+of a lonely embrace!’ I cried. As I spoke she moved. I started to my
+feet, stung into life by the agony of a new hope. Slowly the ice
+released her, and gently she rose to her feet. The torrents of water
+ceased--they had flowed but to set her free. Her eyes were still
+closed, but she made one blind step towards me, and laid her left hand
+on my head, her right hand on my heart. Instantly, body and soul, I was
+cool as a Summer eve after a thunder-shower. For a moment, precious as
+an aeon, she held her hands upon me--then slowly opened her eyes. Out
+of them flashed the living soul of my Athanasia. She closed the lids
+again slowly over the lovely splendour; the water in which we stood
+rose around us; and on its last billow she floated away through the
+winding passage of the cave. I sought to follow her, but could not. I
+cried aloud and awoke.
+
+But the burning heat had left me; I felt that I had passed a crisis,
+and had begun to recover--a conviction which would have been altogether
+unwelcome, but for the poor shadow of a reviving hope which accompanied
+it. Such a dream, come whence it might, could not but bring comfort
+with it. The hope grew, and was my sole medicine.
+
+Before the evening I felt better, and, though still very feeble,
+managed to write to Marston, letting him know I was safe, and
+requesting him to forward any letters that might arrive.
+
+The next day, I rose, but was unable to work. The very thought of
+writing sickened me. Neither could I bear the thought of returning to
+London. I tried to read, but threw aside book after book, without being
+able to tell what one of them was about. If for a moment I seemed to
+enter into the subject, before I reached the bottom of the page, I
+found I had not an idea as to what the words meant or whither they
+tended. After many failures, unwilling to give myself up to idle
+brooding, I fortunately tried some of the mystical poetry of the
+seventeenth century. The difficulties of that I found rather stimulate
+than repel me; while, much as there was in the form to displease the
+taste, there was more in the matter to rouse the intellect. I found
+also some relief in resuming my mathematical studies: the abstraction
+of them acted as an anodyne. But the days dragged wearily.
+
+As soon as I was able to get on horseback, the tone of mind and body
+began to return. I felt as if into me some sort of animal healing
+passed from Lilith; and who can tell in how many ways the lower animals
+may not minister to the higher?
+
+One night I had a strange experience. I give it without argument,
+perfectly aware that the fact may be set down to the disordered state
+of my physical nature, and that without injustice.
+
+I had not for a long time thought about one of the questions which had
+so much occupied Charley and myself--that of immortality. As to any
+communication between the parted, I had never, during his life,
+pondered the possibility of it, although I had always had an
+inclination to believe that such intercourse had in rare instances
+taken place. Former periods of the world’s history, when that blinding
+self-consciousness which is the bane of ours was yet undeveloped, must,
+I thought, have been far more favourable to its occurrence. Anyhow I
+was convinced that it was not to be gained by effort. I confess that,
+in the unthinking agony of grief after Charley’s death, many a time
+when I woke in the middle of the night and could sleep no more, I sat
+up in bed and prayed him, if he heard me, to come to me, and let me
+tell him the truth--for my sake to let me know, at least, that he
+lived, for then I should be sure that one day all would be well. But if
+there was any hearing, there was no answer. Charley did not come; the
+prayer seemed to vanish in the darkness; and my more self-possessed
+meditations never justified the hope of any such being heard.
+
+One night I was sitting in my grannie’s room, which, except my uncle’s,
+was now the only one I could bear to enter. I had been reading for some
+time very quietly, but had leaned back in my chair, and let my thoughts
+go wandering whither they would, when all at once I was possessed by
+the conviction that Charley was near me. I saw nothing, heard nothing;
+of the recognized senses of humanity not one gave me a hint of a
+presence; and yet my whole body was aware--so, at least, it seemed--of
+the proximity of another _I_. It was as if some nervous region
+commensurate with my frame, were now for the first time revealed by
+contact with an object suitable for its apprehension. Like Eliphaz, I
+felt the hair of my head stand up--not from terror, but simply, as it
+seemed, from the presence and its strangeness. Like others also of whom
+I have read, who believed themselves in the presence of the
+disembodied, I could not speak. I tried, but as if the medium for sound
+had been withdrawn, and an empty gulf lay around me, no word followed,
+although my very soul was full of the cry--_Charley! Charley!_ And
+alas! in a few moments, like the faint vanishing of an unrealized
+thought, leaving only the assurance that something half-born from out
+the unknown had been there, the influence faded and died. It passed
+from me like the shadow of a cloud, and once more I knew but my poor
+lonely self, returning to its candles, its open book, its burning fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+
+THE DARKEST HOUR.
+
+Suffering is perhaps the only preparation for suffering: still I was
+but poorly prepared for what followed.
+
+Having gathered strength, and a certain quietness which I could not
+mistake for peace, I returned to London towards the close of the
+Spring. I had in the interval heard nothing of Mary. The few letters
+Marston had sent on had been almost exclusively from my publishers. But
+the very hour I reached my lodging, came a note, which I opened
+trembling, for it was in the handwriting of Miss Pease.
+
+DEAR SIR,--I cannot, I think, be wrong in giving you a piece of
+information which will be in the newspapers to-morrow morning. Your old
+acquaintance, and my young relative, Mr Brotherton, was married this
+morning, at St George’s, Hanover Square, to your late friend’s sister,
+Miss Mary Osborne. They have just left for Dover on their way to
+Switzerland.                             Your sincere well-wisher,
+                                         ‘JANE PEASE.’
+
+Even at this distance of time, I should have to exhort myself to write
+with calmness, were it not that the utter despair of conveying my
+feelings, if indeed my soul had not for the time passed beyond feeling
+into some abyss unknown to human consciousness, renders it unnecessary.
+This despair of communication has two sources--the one simply the
+conviction of the impossibility of expressing _any_ feeling, much more
+such feeling as mine then was--and is; the other the conviction that
+only to the heart of love can the sufferings of love speak. The attempt
+of a lover to move, by the presentation of his own suffering, the heart
+of her who loves him not, is as unavailing as it is unmanly. The poet
+who sings most wailfully of the torments of the lover’s hell, is but a
+sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal in the ears of her who has at best
+only a general compassion to meet the song withal--possibly only an
+individual vanity which crowns her with his woes as with the trophies
+of a conquest. True, he is understood and worshipped by all the other
+wailful souls in the first infernal circle, as one of the great men of
+their order--able to put into words full of sweet torment the dire
+hopelessness of their misery; but for such the singer, singing only for
+ears eternally deaf to his song, cares nothing; or if for a moment he
+receives consolation from their sympathy, it is but a passing weakness
+which the breath of an indignant self-condemnation--even contempt, the
+next moment sweeps away. In God alone there must be sympathy and cure;
+but I had not then--have I indeed yet found what that cure is? I am at
+all events now able to write with calmness. If suffering destroyed
+itself, as some say, mine ought to have disappeared long ago; but to
+that I can neither pretend nor confess.
+
+For the first time, after all I had encountered, I knew what suffering
+could be. It is still at moments an agony as of hell to recall this and
+the other thought that then stung me like a white-hot arrow: the shafts
+have long been drawn out, but the barbed heads are still there. I
+neither stormed nor maddened. I only felt a freezing hand lay hold of
+my heart, and gripe it closer and closer till I should have sickened,
+but that the pain ever stung me into fresh life; and ever since I have
+gone about the world with that hard lump somewhere in my bosom into
+which the griping hand and the griped heart have grown and stiffened.
+
+I fled at once back to my solitary house, looking for no relief in its
+solitude, only the negative comfort of escaping the eyes of men. I
+could not bear the sight of my fellow-creatures. To say that the world
+had grown black to me, is as nothing: I ceased---I will not say _to
+believe_ in God, for I never dared say that mighty thing--but I ceased
+to hope in God. The universe had grown a negation which yet forced its
+presence upon me--death that bred worms. If there were a God anywhere,
+this universe could be nothing more than his forsaken moth-eaten
+garment. He was a God who did not care. Order was all an invention of
+phosphorescent human brains; light itself the mocking smile of a
+Jupiter over his writhing sacrifices. At times I laughed at the
+tortures of my own heart, saying to it, ‘Writhe on, worm; thou
+deservest thy writhing in that thou writhest. Godless creature, why
+dost thou not laugh with me? Am I not merry over thee and the world--in
+that ye are both rottenness to the core?’ The next moment my heart and
+I would come together with a shock, and I knew it was myself that
+scorned myself.
+
+Such being my mood, it will cause no surprise if I say that I too was
+tempted to suicide; the wonder would have been if it had been
+otherwise. The soft keen curves of that fatal dagger, which had not
+only slain Charley but all my hopes--for had he lived this horror could
+not have been--grew almost lovely in my eyes. Until now it had looked
+cruel, fiendish, hateful; but now I would lay it before me and
+contemplate it. In some griefs there is a wonderful power of
+self-contemplation, which indeed forms their only solace; the moment it
+can set the sorrow away from itself sufficiently to regard it, the
+tortured heart begins to repose; but suddenly, like a waking tiger, the
+sorrow leaps again into its lair, and the agony commences anew. The
+dagger was the type of my grief and its torture: might it not, like the
+brazen serpent, be the cure for the sting of its living counterpart?
+But alas! where was the certainty? Could I slay _myself?_ This outer
+breathing form I could dismiss--but the pain was not _there_. I was not
+mad, and I knew that a deeper death than that could give, at least.
+than I had any assurance that could give, alone could bring repose.
+For, impossible as I had always found it actually to believe in
+immortality, I now found it equally impossible to believe in
+annihilation. And even if annihilation should be the final result, who
+could tell but it might require ages of a horrible slow-decaying
+dream-consciousness to kill the living thing which felt itself other
+than its body?
+
+Until now, I had always accepted what seemed the natural and universal
+repugnance to absolute dissolution as the strongest argument on the
+side of immortality;--for why should a man shrink from that which
+belonged to his nature? But now annihilation seemed the one lovely
+thing, the one sole only lonely thought in which lay no blackness of
+burning darkness. Oh, for one eternal unconscious sleep!--the nearest
+likeness we can cherish of that inconceivable nothingness--ever denied
+by the very thinking of it--by the vain attempt to realize that whose
+very existence is the knowing nothing of itself! Could that dagger have
+insured me such repose, or had there been any draught of Lethe, utter
+Lethe, whose blessed poison would have assuredly dissipated like a fume
+this conscious self-tormenting _me_, I should not now be writhing anew,
+as in the clutches of an old grief, clasping me like a corpse, stung to
+simulated life by the galvanic battery of recollection. Vivid as it
+seems--all I suffer as I write is but a faint phantasm of what I then
+endured.
+
+I learned, therefore, that to some minds the argument for immortality
+drawn from the apparently universal shrinking from annihilation must be
+ineffectual, seeing they themselves do not shrink from it. Convince a
+man that there is no God--or, for I doubt if that be altogether
+possible--make it, I will say, impossible for him to hope in God--and
+it cannot be that annihilation should seem an evil. If there is no God,
+annihilation is the one thing to be longed for, with all that might of
+longing which is the mainspring of human action. In a word, it is not
+immortality the human heart cries out after, but that immortal eternal
+thought whose life is its life, whose wisdom is its wisdom, whose ways
+and whose thoughts shall--must one day--become its ways and its
+thoughts. Dissociate immortality from the living Immortality, and it is
+not a thing to be desired--not a thing that can on those terms, or even
+on the fancy of those terms, be desired.
+
+But such thoughts as these were far from me then. I lived because I
+despaired of death. I ate by a sort of blind animal instinct, and so
+lived. The time had been when I would despise myself for being able to
+eat in the midst of emotion; but now I cared so little for the emotion
+even, that eating or not eating had nothing to do with the matter. I
+ate because meat was set before me; I slept because sleep came upon me.
+It was a horrible time. My life seemed only a vermiculate one, a
+crawling about of half-thoughts-half-feelings through the corpse of a
+decaying existence. The heart of being was withdrawn from me, and my
+life was but the vacant pericardium in which it had once throbbed out
+and sucked in the red fountains of life and gladness.
+
+I would not be thought to have fallen to this all but bottomless depth
+only because I had lost Mary. Still less was it because of the fact
+that in her, around whom had gathered all the devotion with which the
+man in me could regard woman, I had lost all womankind. It was _the
+loss_ of Mary, as I then judged it, not, I repeat, the fact that _I_
+had lost her. It was that she had lost herself. Thence it was, I say,
+that I lost my hope in God. For, if there were a God, how could he let
+purity be clasped in the arms of defilement? how could he marry my
+Athanasia--not to a corpse, but to a Plague? Here was the man who had
+done more to ruin her brother than any but her father, and God had
+given her to _him!_ I had had--with the commonest of men--some notion
+of womanly purity--how was it that hers had not instinctively shuddered
+and shrunk? how was it that the life of it had not taken refuge with
+death to shun bare contact with the coarse impurity of such a nature as
+that of Geoffrey Brotherton? My dreams had been dreams indeed! Was my
+Athanasia dead, or had she never been? In my thought, she had ‘said to
+Corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my
+sister.’ Who should henceforth say of any woman that she was impure?
+She _might_ love him--true; but what was she then who was able to love
+such a man? It was this that stormed the citadel of my hope, and drove
+me from even thinking of a God.
+
+Gladly would I now have welcomed any bodily suffering that could hide
+me from myself; but no illness came. I was a living pain, a conscious
+ill-being. In a thousand forms those questions would ever recur, but
+without hope of answer. When I fell asleep from exhaustion, hideous
+visions of her with Geoffrey would start me up with a great cry,
+sometimes with a curse on my lips. Nor were they the most horrible of
+those dreams in which she would help him to mock me. Once, and only
+once, I found myself dreaming the dream of _that_ night, and I knew
+that I had dreamed it before. Through palace and chapel and
+charnel-house, I followed her, ever with a dim sense of awful result;
+and when at the last she lifted the shining veil, instead of the face
+of Athanasia, the bare teeth of a skull grinned at me from under a
+spotted shroud, through which the sunlight shone from behind, revealing
+all its horrors. I was not mad--my reason had not given way: _how_
+remains a marvel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+
+THE DAWN.
+
+All places were alike to me now--for the universe was but one dreary
+chasm whence I could not escape. One evening I sat by the open window
+of my chamber, which looked towards those trees and that fatal Moldwarp
+Hall. My suffering had now grown dull by its own excess, and I had
+moments of restless vacuity, the nearest approach to peace I had yet
+experienced. It was a fair evening of early summer--but I was utterly
+careless of nature as of all beyond it. The sky was nothing to me--and
+the earth was all unlovely. There I sat, heavy, but free from torture;
+a kind of quiet had stolen over me. I was roused by the tiniest breath
+of wind on my cheek, as if the passing wing of some butterfly had
+fanned me; and on that faintest motion came a scent as from
+long-forgotten fields, a scent like as of sweet-peas or wild roses, but
+of neither: flowers were none nearer me than the gardens of the Hall. I
+started with a cry. It was the scent of the garments of my Athanasia,
+as I had dreamed it in my dream! Whence that wind had borne it, who
+could tell? but in the husk that had overgrown my being it had found a
+cranny, and through that cranny, with the scent, Nature entered. I
+looked up to the blue sky, wept, and for the first time fell on my
+knees. ‘O God!’ I cried, and that was all. But what are the prayers of
+the whole universe more than expansions of that one cry? It is not what
+God can give us, but God that we want. Call the whole thing fancy if
+you will; it was at least no fancy that the next feeling of which I was
+conscious was compassion: from that moment I began to search heaven and
+earth and the soul of man and woman for excuses wherewith to clothe the
+idea of Mary Osborne. For weeks and weeks I pondered, and by degrees
+the following conclusions wrought themselves out in my brain:--
+
+That she had never seen life as a whole; that her religious theories
+had ever been eating away and absorbing her life, so preventing her
+religion from interpenetrating and glorifying it; that in regard to
+certain facts and consequences she had been left to an ignorance which
+her innocence rendered profound; that, attracted by the worldly
+splendour of the offer, her father and mother had urged her compliance,
+and broken in spirit by the fate of Charley, and having always been
+taught that self-denial was in itself a virtue, she had taken the
+worldly desires of her parents for the will of God, and blindly
+yielded; that Brotherton was capable, for his ends, of representing
+himself as possessed of religion enough to satisfy the scruples of her
+parents, and, such being satisfied, she had resisted her own as evil
+things.
+
+Whether his hatred of me had had any share in his desire to possess
+her, I hardly thought of inquiring.
+
+Of course I did not for a single moment believe that Mary had had the
+slightest notion of the bitterness, the torture, the temptation of
+Satan it would be to me. Doubtless the feeling of her father concerning
+the death of Charley had seemed to hollow an impassable gulf between
+us. Worn and weak, and not knowing what she did, my dearest friend had
+yielded herself to the embrace of my deadliest foe. If he was such as I
+had too good reason for believing him, she was far more to be pitied
+than I. Lonely she must be--lonely as I--for who was there to
+understand and love her? Bitterly too by this time she must have
+suffered, for the dove can never be at peace in the bosom of the
+vulture, or cease to hate the carrion of which he must ever carry about
+with him at least the disgusting memorials. Alas! I too had been her
+enemy, and had cried out against her; but now I would love her more and
+better than ever! Oh! if I knew but something I could do for her, some
+service which on the bended knees of my spirit I might offer her! I
+clomb the heights of my grief, and looked around, but alas! I was such
+a poor creature! A dabbler in the ways of the world, a writer of tales
+which even those who cared to read them counted fantastic and Utopian,
+who was I to weave a single silken thread into the web of her life? How
+could I bear her one poorest service? Never in this world could I
+approach her near enough to touch yet once again the hem of her
+garment. All I could do was to love her. No--I could and did suffer for
+her. Alas! that suffering was only for myself, and could do nothing,
+for her! It was indeed some consolation to me that my misery came from
+her hand; but if she knew it, it would but add to her pain. In my heart
+I could only pray her pardon for my wicked and selfish thoughts
+concerning her, and vow again and ever to regard her as my
+Athanasia.--But yes! there was one thing I _could_ do for her: I would
+be a true man for her sake; she should have some satisfaction in me; I
+would once more arise and go to my Father.
+
+The instant the thought arose in my mind, I fell down before the
+possible God in an agony of weeping. All complaint of my own doom had
+vanished, now that I began to do her the justice of love. Why should
+_I_ be blessed--here and now at least--according to my notions of
+blessedness? Let the great heart of the universe do with me as it
+pleased! Let the Supreme take his own time to justify himself to the
+heart that sought to love him! I gave up myself, was willing to suffer,
+to be a living pain, so long as he pleased; and the moment I yielded
+half the pain was gone; I gave my Athanasia yet again to God, and all
+_might_ yet, in some nigh, far-off, better-world-way, be well. I could
+wait and endure. If only God was, and was God, then it was, or would
+be, well with Mary--well with me!
+
+But, as I still sat, a flow of sweet sad repentant thought passing
+gently through my bosom, all at once the self to which, unable to
+confide it to the care of its own very life, the God conscious of
+himself and in himself conscious of it, I had been for months offering
+the sacrifices of despair and indignation, arose in spectral
+hideousness before me. I saw that I, a child of the infinite, had been
+worshipping the finite--and therein dragging down the infinite towards
+the fate of the finite. I do not mean that in Mary Osborne I had been
+worshipping the finite. It was the eternal, the lovely, the true that
+in her I had been worshipping: in myself I had been worshipping the
+mean, the selfish, the finite, the god of spiritual greed. Only in
+himself _can_ a man find the finite to worship; only in turning back
+upon himself does he create the finite for and by his worship. All the
+works of God are everlasting; the only perishable are some of the works
+of man. All love is a worship of the infinite: what is called a man’s
+love for himself, is not love; it is but a phantastic resemblance of
+love; it is a creating of the finite, a creation of death. A man
+_cannot_ love himself. If all love be not creation--as I think it
+is--it is at least the only thing in harmony with creation, and the
+love of oneself is its absolute opposite. I sickened at the sight of
+myself: how should I ever get rid of the demon? The same instant I saw
+the one escape: I must offer it back to its source--commit it to him
+who had made it. I must live no more from it, but from the source of
+it; seek to know nothing more of it than he gave me to know by his
+presence therein. Thus might I become one with the Eternal in such an
+absorption as Buddha had never dreamed; thus might I draw life ever
+fresh from its fountain. And in that fountain alone would I contemplate
+its reflex. What flashes of self-consciousness might cross me, should
+be God’s gift, not of my seeking, and offered again to him in ever new
+self-sacrifice. Alas! alas! this I saw then, and this I yet see; but
+oh, how far am I still from that divine annihilation! The only comfort
+is, God is, and I am his, else I should not be at all.
+
+I saw too that thus God also lives--in his higher way. I saw, shadowed
+out in the absolute devotion of Jesus to men, that the very life of God
+by which we live is an everlasting eternal giving of himself away. He
+asserts himself, only, solely, altogether, in an infinite sacrifice of
+devotion. So must we live; the child must be as the father; live he
+cannot on any other plan, struggle as he may. The father requires of
+him nothing that he is not or does not himself, who is the one prime
+unconditioned sacrificer and sacrifice. I threw myself on the ground,
+and offered back my poor wretched self to its owner, to be taken and
+kept, purified and made divine.
+
+The same moment a sense of reviving health began to possess me. With
+many fluctuations, it has possessed me, has grown, and is now, if not
+a persistent cheerfulness, yet an unyielding hope. The world bloomed
+again around me. The sunrise again grew gloriously dear; and the
+sadness of the moon was lighted from a higher sun than that which
+returns with the morning.
+
+My relation to Mary resolved and re-formed itself in my mind into
+something I can explain only by the following--call it dream: it was
+not a dream; call it vision: it was not a vision; and yet I will tell
+it as if it were either, being far truer than either.
+
+I lay like a child on one of God’s arms. I could not see his face, and
+the arm that held me was a great cloudy arm. I knew that on his other
+arm lay Mary. But between us were forests and plains, mountains and
+great seas; and, unspeakably worse than all, a gulf with which words
+had nothing to do, a gulf of pure separation, of impassable
+nothingness, across which no device, I say not of human skill, but of
+human imagination, could cast a single connecting cord. There lay Mary,
+and here lay I--both in God’s arms--utterly parted. As in a swoon I
+lay, through which suddenly came the words: ‘What God hath joined, man
+cannot sunder.’ I lay thinking what they could mean. All at once I
+thought I knew. Straightway I rose on the cloudy arm, looked down on a
+measureless darkness beneath me, and up on a great, dreary,
+world-filled eternity above me, and crept along the arm towards the
+bosom of God.
+
+In telling my--neither vision nor dream nor ecstasy, I cannot help it
+that the forms grow so much plainer and more definite in the words than
+they were in the revelation. Words always give either too much or too
+little shape: when you want to be definite, you find your words clumsy
+and blunt; when you want them for a vague shadowy image, you
+straightway find them give a sharp and impertinent outline, refusing to
+lend themselves to your undefined though vivid thought. Forms
+themselves are hard enough to manage, but words are unmanageable. I
+must therefore trust to the heart of my reader.
+
+I crept into the bosom of God, and along a great cloudy peace, which I
+could not understand, for it did not yet enter into me. At length I
+came to the heart of God, and through that my journey lay. The moment I
+entered it, the great peace appeared to enter mine, and I began to
+understand it. Something melted in my heart, and for a moment I thought
+I was dying, but I found I was being born again. My heart was empty of
+its old selfishness, and I loved Mary tenfold--no longer in the least
+for my own sake, but all for her loveliness. The same moment I knew
+that the heart of God was a bridge, along which I was crossing the
+unspeakable eternal gulf that divided Mary and me. At length, somehow,
+I know not how, somewhere, I know not where, I was where she was. She
+knew nothing of my presence, turned neither face nor eye to meet me,
+stretched out no hand to give me the welcome of even a friend, and yet
+I not only knew, but felt that she was mine. I wanted nothing from her;
+desired the presence of her loveliness only that I might know it; hung
+about her life as a butterfly over the flower he loves; was satisfied
+that she could _be_. I had left my self behind in the heart of God, and
+now I was a pure essence, fit to rejoice in the essential. But alas! my
+whole being was not yet subject to its best. I began to long to be able
+to do something for her besides--I foolishly said _beyond_ loving her.
+Back rushed my old self in the selfish thought: Some day--will she not
+know--and at least--? That moment the vision vanished. I was
+tossed--ah! let me hope, only to the other arm of God--but I lay in
+torture yet again. For a man may see visions manifold, and believe them
+all; and yet his faith shall not save him; something more is needed--he
+must have that presence of God in his soul, of which the Son of Man
+spoke, saying: ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father
+will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’
+God in him, he will be able to love for very love’s sake; God not in
+him, his best love will die into selfishness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+
+MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.
+
+The morning then which had thus dawned upon me, was often over-clouded
+heavily. Yet it was the morning and not the night; and one of the
+strongest proofs that it was the morning lay in this, that again I
+could think in verse.
+
+One day, after an hour or two of bitterness, I wrote the following. A
+man’s trouble must have receded from him a little for the moment, if he
+descries any shape in it, so as to be able to give it form in words. I
+set it down with no hope of better than the vaguest sympathy. There
+came no music with this one.
+
+      If it be that a man and a woman
+        Are made for no mutual grief;
+      That each gives the pain to some other,
+        And neither can give the relief;
+
+      If thus the chain of the world
+        Is tied round the holy feet,
+      I scorn to shrink from facing
+        What my brothers and sisters meet.
+
+      But I cry when the wolf is tearing
+        At the core of my heart as now:
+      When I was the man to be tortured,
+        Why should the woman be _thou?_
+
+I am not so ready to sink from the lofty in to the abject now. If at
+times I yet feel that the whole creation is groaning and travailing, I
+know what it is for--its redemption from the dominion of its own death
+into that sole liberty which comes only of being filled and eternally
+possessed by God himself, its source and its life.
+
+And now I found also that my heart began to be moved with a compassion
+towards my fellows such as I had never before experienced. I shall best
+convey what I mean by transcribing another little poem I wrote about
+the same time.
+
+      Once I sat on a crimson throne,
+        And I held the world in fee;
+      Below me I heard my brothers moan,
+        And I bent me down to see;--
+
+      Lovingly bent and looked on them,
+        But _I_ had no inward pain;
+      I sat in the heart of my ruby gem,
+        Like a rainbow without the rain.
+
+      My throne is vanished; helpless I lie
+        At the foot of its broken stair;
+      And the sorrows of all humanity
+        Through my heart make a thoroughfare.
+
+Let such things rest for a while: I have now to relate another
+incident--strange enough, but by no means solitary in the records of
+human experience. My reader will probably think that of dreams and
+visions there has already been more than enough: but perhaps she will
+kindly remember that at this time I had no outer life at all. Whatever
+bore to me the look of existence was within me. All my days the
+tendency had been to an undue predominance of thought over action, and
+now that the springs of action were for a time dried up, what wonder
+was it if thought, lording it alone, should assume a reality beyond its
+right? Hence the life of the day was prolonged into the night; nor was
+there other than a small difference in their conditions, beyond the
+fact that the contrast of outer things was removed in sleep; whence the
+shapes which the waking thought had assumed had space and opportunity,
+as it were, to thicken before the mental eye until they became dreams
+and visions.
+
+But concerning what I am about to relate I shall offer no theory. Such
+mere operation of my own thoughts may be sufficient to account for it:
+I would only ask--does any one know what the _mere_ operation of his
+own thoughts signifies? I cannot isolate myself, especially in those
+moments when the individual will is less awake, from the ocean of life
+and thought which not only surrounds me, but on which I am in a sense
+one of the floating bubbles.
+
+I was asleep, but I thought I lay awake in bed--in the room where I
+still slept--that which had been my grannie’s.--It was dark midnight,
+and the wind was howling about the gable and in the chimneys. The door
+opened, and some one entered. By the lamp she carried I knew my
+great-grandmother,--just as she looked in life, only that now she
+walked upright and with ease. That I was dreaming is plain from the
+fact that I felt no surprise at seeing her.
+
+‘Wilfrid, come with me,’ she said, approaching the bedside. ‘Rise.’
+
+I obeyed like a child.
+
+‘Put your cloak on,’ she continued. ‘It is a stormy midnight, but we
+have not so far to go as you may think.’
+
+‘I think nothing, grannie,’ I said. ‘I do not know where you want to
+take me.’
+
+‘Come and see then, my son. You must at last learn what has been kept
+from you far too long.’
+
+As she spoke she led the way down the stair, through the kitchen, and
+out into the dark night. I remember the wind blowing my cloak about,
+but I remember nothing more until I found myself in the winding
+hazel-walled lane, leading to Umberden Church. My grannie was leading
+me by one withered hand; in the other she held the lamp, over the flame
+of which the wind had no power. She led me into the churchyard, took
+the key from under the tombstone, unlocked the door of the church, put
+the lamp into my hand, pushed me gently in, and shut the door behind
+me. I walked to the vestry, and set the lamp on the desk, with a vague
+feeling that I had been there before, and that I had now to do
+something at this desk. Above it I caught sight of the row of
+vellum-bound books, and remembered that one of them contained something
+of importance to me. I took it down. The moment I opened it I
+remembered with distinctness the fatal discrepancy in the entry of my
+grannie’s marriage. I found the place: to my astonishment the date of
+the year was now the same as that on the preceding page--1747. That
+instant I awoke in the first gush of the sunrise.
+
+I could not help feeling even a little excited by my dream, and the
+impression of it grew upon me: I wanted to see the book again. I could
+not rest. Something seemed constantly urging me to go and look at it.
+Half to get the thing out of my head, I sent Styles to fetch Lilith,
+and for the first time since the final assurance of my loss, mounted
+her. I rode for Umberden Church.
+
+It was long after noon before I had made up my mind, and when, having
+tied Lilith to the gate, I entered the church, one red ray from the
+setting sun was nestling in the very roof. Knowing what I should find,
+yet wishing to see it again, I walked across to the vestry, feeling
+rather uncomfortable at the thought of prying thus alone into the
+parish register.
+
+I could almost have persuaded myself that I was dreaming still; and in
+looking back, I can hardly in my mind separate the dreaming from the
+waking visit.
+
+Of course I found just what I had expected--1748, not 1747--at the top
+of the page, and was about to replace the register, when the thought
+occurred to me that, if the dream had been potent enough to bring me
+hither, it might yet mean something. I lifted the cover again. There
+the entry stood undeniably plain. This time, however, I noted two other
+little facts concerning it.
+
+I will just remind my reader that the entry was crushed in between the
+date of the year and the next entry--plainly enough to the eye; and
+that there was no attestation to the entries of 1747. The first
+additional fact--and clearly an important one--was that, in the summing
+up of 1748, before the signature, which stood near the bottom of the
+cover, a figure had been altered. Originally it stood: ‘In all six
+couple,’ but the six had been altered to a seven--corresponding with
+the actual number. This appeared proof positive that the first entry on
+the cover was a forged insertion. And how clumsily it had been managed!
+
+‘What could my grannie be about?’ I said to myself. It never occurred
+to me then that it might have been intended to _look like_ a forgery.
+
+Still I kept staring at it, as if by very force of staring I could find
+out something. There was not the slightest sign of erasure or
+alteration beyond the instance I have mentioned. Yet--and here was my
+second note--when I compared the whole of the writing on the cover with
+the writing on the preceding page, though it seemed the same hand, it
+seemed to have got stiffer and shakier, as if the writer had grown old
+between. Finding nothing very suggestive in this, however, I fell into
+a dreamy mood, watching the red light, as it faded, up in the old,
+dark, distorted roof of the desolate church--with my hand lying on the
+book.
+
+I have always had a bad habit of pulling and scratching at any knot or
+roughness in the paper of the book I happen to be reading; and now,
+almost unconsciously, with my forefinger I was pulling at an edge of
+parchment which projected from the joint of the cover. When I came to
+myself and proceeded to close the book, I found it would not shut
+properly because of a piece which I had curled up. Seeking to restore
+it to its former position, I fancied I saw a line or edge running all
+down the joint, and looking closer, saw that these last entries, in
+place of being upon a leaf of the book pasted to the cover in order to
+strengthen the binding, as I had supposed, were indeed upon a leaf
+which was pasted to the cover, but one which was not otherwise
+connected with the volume.
+
+I now began to feel a more lively interest in the behaviour of my
+dream-grannie. Here might lie something to explain the hitherto
+inexplicable. I proceeded to pull the leaf gently away. It was of
+parchment, much thinner than the others, which were of vellum. I had
+withdrawn only a small portion when I saw there was writing under it.
+My heart began to beat faster. But I would not be rash. My old
+experience with parchment in the mending of my uncle’s books came to my
+aid. If I pulled at the dry skin as I had been doing, I might not only
+damage it, but destroy the writing under it. I could do nothing without
+water, and I did not know where to find any. It would be better to ride
+to the village of Gastford, somewhere about two miles off, put up
+there, and arrange for future proceedings.
+
+I did not know the way, and for a long time could see no one to ask.
+The consequence was that I made a wide round, and it was nearly dark
+before I reached the village. I thought it better for the present to
+feed Lilith, and then make the best of my way home.
+
+The next evening--I felt so like a thief that I sought the thievish
+security of the night--having provided myself with what was necessary,
+and borrowed a horse for Styles, I set out again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+
+THE PARISH REGISTER.
+
+The sky clouded as we went; it grew very dark, and the wind began to
+blow. It threatened a storm. I told Styles a little of what I was
+about--just enough to impress on him the necessity for prudence. The
+wind increased, and by the time we gained the copse, it was roaring,
+and the slender hazels bending like a field of corn.
+
+‘You will have enough to do with two horses,’ I said.
+
+‘I don’t mind it, sir,’ Styles answered. ‘A word from me will quiet
+Miss Lilith; and for the other, I’ve known him pretty well for two
+years past.’
+
+I left them tolerably sheltered in the winding lane, and betook myself
+alone to the church. Cautiously I opened the door, and felt my way from
+pew to pew, for it was quite dark. I could just distinguish the windows
+from the walls, and nothing more. As soon as I reached the vestry, I
+struck a light, got down the volume, and proceeded to moisten the
+parchment with a wet sponge. For some time the water made little
+impression on the old parchment, of which but one side could be exposed
+to its influence, and I began to fear I should be much longer in
+gaining my end than I had expected. The wind roared and howled about
+the trembling church, which seemed too weak with age to resist such an
+onslaught; but when at length the skin began to grow soft and yield to
+my gentle efforts at removal, I became far too much absorbed in the
+simple operation, which had to be performed with all the gentleness and
+nicety of a surgical one, to heed the uproar about me. Slowly the
+glutinous adhesion gave way, and slowly the writing revealed itself. In
+mingled hope and doubt I restrained my curiosity; and as one teases
+oneself sometimes by dallying with a letter of the greatest interest,
+not until I had folded down the parchment clear of what was manifestly
+an entry, did I bring my candle close to it, and set myself to read it.
+Then, indeed, I found I had reason to regard with respect the dream
+which had brought me thither.
+
+Right under the 1748 of the parchment, stood on the vellum cover 1747.
+Then followed the usual blank, and then came an entry corresponding
+word for word with the other entry of my great-grandfather and mother’s
+marriage. In all probability Moldwarp Hall was mine! Little as it could
+do for me now, I confess to a keen pang of pleasure at the thought.
+
+Meantime, I followed out my investigation, and gradually stripped the
+parchment off the vellum to within a couple of inches of the bottom of
+the cover. The result of knowledge was as follows:--
+
+Next to the entry of the now hardly hypothetical marriage of my
+ancestors, stood the summing up of the marriages of 1747, with the
+signature of the rector. I paused, and, turning back, counted them.
+Including that in which alone I was interested, I found the number
+given correct. Next came by itself the figures 1748, and then a few
+more entries, followed by the usual summing up and signature of the
+rector. From this I turned to the leaf of parchment; there was a
+difference: upon the latter the sum was six, altered to seven; on the
+former it was five. This of course suggested further search: I soon
+found where the difference indicated lay.
+
+As the entry of _the_ marriage was, on the forged leaf, shifted up
+close to the forged 1748, and as the summing and signature had to be
+omitted, because they belonged to the end of 1747, a blank would have
+been left, and the writing below would have shone through and attracted
+attention, revealing the forgery of the whole, instead of that of the
+part only which was intended to look a forgery. To prevent this, an
+altogether fictitious entry had been made--over the summing and
+signature. This, with the genuine entries faithfully copied, made of
+the five, six, which the forger had written and then blotted into a
+seven, intending to expose the entry of my ancestors’ marriage as a
+forgery, while the rest of the year’s register should look genuine. It
+took me some little trouble to clear it all up to my own mind, but by
+degrees everything settled into its place, assuming an intelligible
+shape in virtue of its position.
+
+With my many speculations as to why the mechanism of the forgery had
+assumed this shape, I need not trouble my reader. Suffice it to say
+that on more than one supposition, I can account for it satisfactorily
+to myself. One other remark only will I make concerning it: I have no
+doubt it was an old forgery. One after another those immediately
+concerned in it had died, and there the falsehood lurked--in latent
+power--inoperative until my second visit to Umberden Church. But what
+differences might there not have been had it not started into activity
+for the brief space betwixt then and my sorrow?
+
+I left the parchment still attached to the cover at the bottom, and,
+laying a sheet of paper between the formerly adhering surfaces, lest
+they should again adhere, closed and replaced the volume. Then, looking
+at my watch, I found that, instead of an hour as I had supposed, I had
+been in the church three hours. It was nearly eleven o’clock, too late
+for anything further that night.
+
+When I came out, the sky was clear and the stars were shining. The
+storm had blown over. Much rain had fallen. But when the wind ceased or
+the rain began, I had no recollection; the storm had vanished
+altogether from my consciousness. I found Styles where I had left him,
+smoking his pipe and leaning against Lilith, who--I cannot call her
+_which_--was feeding on the fine grass of the lane. The horse he had
+picketed near. We mounted and rode home.
+
+The next thing was to see the rector of Umberden. He lived in his other
+parish, and thither I rode the following day to call upon him. I found
+him an old gentleman, of the squire-type of rector. As soon as he heard
+my name, he seemed to know who I was, and at once showed himself
+hospitable.
+
+I told him that I came to him as I might, were I a Catholic, to a
+father-confessor. This Startled him a little.
+
+‘Don’t tell me anything I ought not to keep secret,’ he said; and it
+gave me confidence in him at once.
+
+‘I will not,’ I returned. ‘The secret is purely my own. Whatever crime
+there is in it, was past punishment long before I was born; and it was
+committed against, not by my family. But it is rather a long story, and
+I hope I shall not be tedious.’
+
+He assured me of his perfect leisure.
+
+I told him everything, from my earliest memory, which bore on the
+discovery I had at length made. He soon showed signs of interest; and
+when I had ended the tale with the facts of the preceding night, he
+silently rose and walked about the room. After a few moments, he said:
+
+‘And what do you mean to do, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Nothing,’ I answered, ‘so long as Sir Giles is alive. He was kind to
+me when I was a boy.’
+
+He came up behind me where I was seated, and laid his hand gently on my
+head; then, without a word, resumed his walk.
+
+‘And if you survive him, what then?’
+
+‘Then I must be guided partly by circumstances,’ I said.
+
+‘And what do you want of me?’
+
+‘I want you to go with me to the church, and see the book, that, in
+case of anything happening to it, you may be a witness concerning its
+previous contents.’
+
+‘I am too old to be the only witness,’ he said. ‘You ought to have
+several of your own age.’
+
+‘I want as few to know the secret as may be,’ I answered.
+
+‘You should have your lawyer one of them.’
+
+‘He would never leave me alone about it,’ I replied; ‘and positively I
+shall take no measures at present. Some day I hope to punish him for
+deserting me as he did.’
+
+For I had told him how Mr Coningham had behaved.
+
+‘Revenge, Mr Cumbermede?’
+
+‘Not a serious one. All the punishment I hope to give him is but to
+show him the fact of the case, and leave him to feel as he may about
+it.’
+
+‘There can’t be much harm in that.’
+
+He reflected a few moments, and then said:
+
+‘I will tell you what will be best. We shall go and see the book
+together. I will make an extract of both entries, and give a
+description of the state of the volume, with an account of how the
+second entry--or more properly the first--came to be discovered. This I
+shall sign in the presence of two witnesses, who need know nothing of
+the contents of the paper. Of that you shall yourself take charge.’
+
+We went together to the church. The old man, after making a good many
+objections, was at length satisfied, and made notes for his paper. He
+started the question whether it would not be better to secure that
+volume at least under lock and key. For this I thought there was no
+occasion--that in fact it was safer where it was, and more certain of
+being forthcoming when wanted. I did suggest that the key of the church
+might be deposited in a place of safety; but he answered that it had
+been kept there ever since he came to the living forty years ago, and
+for how long before that he could not tell; and so a change would
+attract attention, and possibly make some talk in the parish, which had
+better be avoided.
+
+Before the end of the week, he had his document ready. He signed it in
+my presence, and in that of two of his parishioners, who as witnesses
+appended their names and abodes. I have it now in my possession. I
+shall enclose it, with my great-grandfather and mother’s letters--and
+something besides--in the packet containing this history.
+
+That same week Sir Giles Brotherton died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+
+A FOOLISH TRIUMPH.
+
+I should have now laid claim to my property, but for Mary. To turn Sir
+Geoffrey with his mother and sister out of it, would have caused me
+little compunction, for they would still be rich enough; I confess
+indeed it would have given me satisfaction. Nor could I say what real
+hurt of any kind it would occasion to Mary; and if I were writing for
+the public, instead of my one reader, I know how foolishly incredible
+it must appear that for her sake I should forego such claims. She
+would, however, I trust, have been able to believe it without the
+proofs which I intend to give her. The fact was simply this: I could
+not, even for my own sake, bear the thought of taking, in any manner or
+degree, a position if but apparently antagonistic to her. My enemy was
+her husband: he should reap the advantage of being her husband; for her
+sake he should for the present retain what was mine. So long as there
+should be no reason to fear his adopting a different policy from his
+father’s in respect of his tenants, I felt myself at liberty to leave
+things as they were; for Sir Giles had been a good landlord, and I knew
+the son was regarded with favour in the county. Were he to turn out
+unjust or oppressive, however, then duty on my part would come in. But
+I must also remind my reader that I had no love for affairs; that I had
+an income perfectly sufficient for my wants; that, both from my habits
+of thought and from my sufferings, my regard was upon life itself--was
+indeed so far from being confined to this chrysalid beginning thereof,
+that I had lost all interest in this world save as the porch to the
+house of life. And, should I ever meet her again, in any possible
+future of being, how much rather would I not stand before her as one
+who had been even Quixotic for her sake--as one who for a
+hair’s-breadth of her interest had felt the sacrifice of a fortune a
+merely natural movement of his life! She would then know not merely
+that I was true to her, but that I had been true in what I professed to
+believe when I sought her favour. And if it had been a pleasure to
+me--call it a weakness, and I will not oppose the impeachment;--call it
+self-pity, and I will confess to that as having a share in it;--but, if
+it had been a shadowy pleasure to me to fancy I suffered for her sake,
+my present resolution, while it did not add the weight of a feather to
+my suffering, did yet give me a similar vague satisfaction.
+
+I must also confess to a certain satisfaction in feeling that I had
+power over my enemy--power of making him feel my power--power of
+vindicating my character against him as well, seeing one who could thus
+abstain from asserting his own rights could hardly have been one to
+invade the rights of another; but the enjoyment of this consciousness
+appeared to depend on my silence. If I broke that, the strength would
+depart from me; but while I held my peace, I held my foe in an
+invisible mesh. I half deluded myself into fancying that, while I kept
+my power over him unexercised, I retained a sort of pledge for his
+conduct to Mary, of which I was more than doubtful; for a man with such
+antecedents as his, a man who had been capable of behaving as he had
+behaved to Charley, was less than likely to be true to his wife: he was
+less than likely to treat the sister as a lady, who to the brother had
+been a traitorous seducer.
+
+I have now to confess a fault as well as an imprudence--punished, I
+believe, in the results.
+
+The behaviour of Mr. Coningham still rankled a little in my bosom. From
+Geoffrey I had never looked for anything but evil; of Mr Coningham I
+had expected differently, and I began to meditate the revenge of
+holding him up to himself: I would punish him in a manner which, with
+his confidence in his business faculty, he must feel: I would simply
+show him how the precipitation of selfish disappointment had led him
+astray, and frustrated his designs. For if he had given even a decent
+attention to the matter, he would have found in the forgery itself
+hints sufficient to suggest the desirableness of further investigation.
+
+I had not, however, concluded upon anything, when one day I
+accidentally met him, and we had a little talk about business, for he
+continued to look after the rent of my field. He informed me that Sir
+Geoffrey Brotherton had been doing all he could to get even temporary
+possession of the park, as we called it; and, although I said nothing
+of it to Mr Coningham, my suspicion is that, had he succeeded, he
+would, at the risk of a law-suit, in which he would certainly have been
+cast, have ploughed it up. He told me, also, that Clara was in poor
+health; she who had looked as if no blight could ever touch her had
+broken down utterly. The shadow of her sorrow was plain enough on the
+face of her father, and his confident manner had a little yielded,
+although he was the old man still. His father had died a little before
+Sir Giles. The new baronet had not offered him the succession.
+
+I asked him to go with me yet once more to Umberden Church--for I
+wanted to show him something he had over-looked in the register--not, I
+said, that it would be of the slightest furtherance to his former
+hopes. He agreed at once, already a little ashamed, perhaps, of the way
+in which he had abandoned me. Before we parted we made an appointment
+to meet at the church.
+
+We went at once to the vestry. I took down the volume, and laid it
+before him. He opened it, with a curious look at me first. But the
+moment he lifted the cover, its condition at once attracted and as
+instantly riveted his attention. He gave me one glance more, in which
+questions and remarks and exclamations numberless lay in embryo; then
+turning to the book, was presently absorbed, first in reading the
+genuine entry, next in comparing it with the forged one.
+
+‘Right, after all!’ he exclaimed at length.
+
+‘In what?’ I asked.’ In dropping me without a word, as if I had been an
+impostor? In forgetting that you yourself had raised in me the hopes
+whose discomfiture you took as a personal injury?’
+
+‘My dear sir!’ he stammered in an expostulatory tone, ‘you must make
+allowance. It was a tremendous disappointment to me.’
+
+‘I cannot say I felt it quite so much myself, but at least you owed me
+an apology for having misled me.’
+
+‘I had _not_ misled you,’ he retorted angrily, pointing to the
+register.--‘There!’
+
+‘You left _me_ to find that out, though. _You_ took no further pains in
+the matter.’
+
+‘How _did_ you find it out?’ he asked, clutching at a change in the
+tone of the conversation.
+
+I said nothing of my dream, but I told him everything else concerning
+the discovery. When I had finished--
+
+‘It’s all plain sailing now,’ he cried. ‘There is not an obstacle in
+the way. I will set the thing in motion the instant I get home.--It
+will be a victory worth achieving,’ he added, rubbing his hands.
+
+‘Mr Coningham, I have not the slightest intention of moving in the
+matter,’ I said.
+
+His face fell.
+
+‘You do not mean--when you hold them in your very hands--to throw away
+every advantage of birth and fortune, and be a nobody in the world?’
+
+‘Infinite advantages of the kind you mean, Mr Coningham, could make me
+not one whit more than I am; they _might_ make me less.’
+
+‘Come, come,’ he expostulated; ‘you must not allow disappointment to
+upset your judgment of things.’
+
+‘My judgment of things lies deeper than any disappointment I have yet
+had,’ I replied. ‘My uncle’s teaching has at last begun to bear fruit
+in me.’
+
+‘Your uncle was a fool!’ he exclaimed.
+
+‘But for my uncle’s sake, I would knock you down for daring to couple
+such a word with _him_.’
+
+He turned on me with a sneer. His eyes had receded in his head, and in
+his rage he grinned. The old ape-face, which had lurked in my memory
+ever since the time I first saw him, came out so plainly that I
+started: the child had read his face aright! the following judgment of
+the man had been wrong! the child’s fear had not imprinted a false
+eidolon upon the growing brain.
+
+‘What right had, you,’ he said, ‘to bring me all this way for such
+tomfoolery?’
+
+‘I told you it would not further your wishes.--But who brought me here
+for nothing first?’ I added, most foolishly.
+
+‘I was myself deceived. I did not intend to deceive you.’
+
+‘I know that. God forbid I should be unjust to you! But you have proved
+to me that your friendship was all a pretence; that your private ends
+were all your object. When you discovered that I could not serve those,
+you dropped me like a bit of glass you had taken for a diamond. Have
+you any right to grumble if I give you the discipline of a passing
+shame?’
+
+‘Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, through his teeth, ‘you will repent this.’
+
+I gave him no answer, and he left the church in haste. Having replaced
+the register, I was following at my leisure, when I heard sounds that
+made me hurry to the door. Lilith was plunging and rearing and pulling
+at the bridle which I had thrown over one of the spiked bars of the
+gate. Another moment and she must have broken loose, or dragged the
+gate upon her--more likely the latter, for the bridle was a new one
+with broad reins--when some frightful injury would in all probability
+have been the consequence to herself. But a word from me quieted her,
+and she stood till I came up. Every inch of her was trembling. I
+suspected at once, and in a moment discovered plainly that Mr Coningham
+had struck her with his whip: there was a big weal on the fine skin of
+her hip and across, her croup. She shrunk like a hurt child when my
+hand approached the injured part, but moved neither hoof nor head.
+
+Having patted and petted and consoled her a little, I mounted and rode
+after Mr Coningham. Nor was it difficult to overtake him, for he was
+going a foot-pace. He was stooping in his saddle, and when I drew near,
+I saw that he was looking very pale. I did not, however, suspect that
+he was in pain.
+
+‘It was a cowardly thing to strike the poor dumb animal,’ I cried.
+
+‘You would have struck her yourself,’ he answered with a curse,’ if she
+had broken your leg.’
+
+I rode nearer. I knew well enough that she would not have kicked him if
+he had not struck her first; and I could see that his leg was not
+broken; but evidently he was in great suffering.
+
+‘I am very sorry,’ I said. Can I help you?’
+
+‘Go to the devil!’ he groaned.
+
+I am ashamed to say the answer made me so angry that I spoke the truth.
+
+‘Don’t suppose you deceive me,’ I said. ‘I know well enough my mare did
+not kick you before you struck her. Then she lashed out, of course.’
+
+I waited for no reply, but turned and rode back to the church, the door
+of which, in my haste, I had left open. I locked it, replaced the key,
+and then rode quietly home.
+
+But as I went, I began to feel that I had done wrong. No doubt, Mr
+Coningham deserved it, but the law was not in my hands. No man has a
+right to _punish_ another. Vengeance belongs to a higher region, and
+the vengeance of God is a very different thing from the vengeance of
+man. However it may be softened with the name of retribution, revenge
+runs into all our notions of justice; and until we love purely, so it
+must ever be.
+
+All I had gained was self-rebuke, and another enemy. Having reached
+home, I read the Manual of Epictetus right through before I laid it
+down, and, if it did not teach me to love my enemies, it taught me at
+least to be ashamed of myself. Then I wrote to Mr Coningham, saying I
+was sorry I had spoken to him as I did, and begging him to let by-gones
+be by-gones; assuring him that, if ever I moved in the matter of our
+difference, he should be the first to whom I applied for assistance.
+
+He returned me no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+
+A COLLISION.
+
+And now came a dreary time of re-action. There seemed nothing left for
+me to do, and I felt listless and weary. Something kept urging me to
+get away and hide myself, and I soon made up my mind to yield to the
+impulse and go abroad. My intention was to avoid cities, and, wandering
+from village to village, lay my soul bare to the healing influences of
+nature. As to any healing in the power of Time, I despised the old
+bald-pate as a quack who performed his seeming cures at the expense of
+the whole body. The better cures attributed to him are not his at all,
+but produced by the operative causes whose servant he is. A thousand
+holy balms require his services for their full action, but they, and
+not he, are the saving powers. Along with Time I ranked, and with
+absolute hatred shrunk from--all those means which offered to cure me
+by making me forget. From a child I had a horror of forgetting; it
+always seemed to me like a loss of being, like a hollow scooped out of
+my very existence--almost like the loss of identity. At times I even
+shrunk from going to sleep, so much did it seem like yielding to an
+absolute death--a death so deep that the visible death is but a picture
+or type of it. If I could have been sure of dreaming, it would have
+been different, but in the uncertainty it seemed like consenting to
+nothingness. That one who thus felt should ever have been tempted to
+suicide, will reveal how painful if not valueless his thoughts and
+feelings--his conscious life--must have grown to him; and that the only
+thing which withheld him from it should be the fear that no death, but
+a more intense life might be the result, will reveal it yet more
+clearly. That in that sleep I might at least dream--there was the rub.
+
+All such relief, in a word, as might come of a lowering of my life,
+either physically, morally, or spiritually, I hated, detested,
+despised. The man who finds solace for a wounded heart in
+self-indulgence may indeed be _capable_ of angelic virtues, but in the
+mean time his conduct is that of the devils who went into the swine
+rather than be bodiless. The man who can thus be consoled for the loss
+of a woman could never have been worthy of her, possibly would not have
+remained true to her beyond the first delights of possession. The
+relief to which I could open my door must be such alone as would
+operate through the enlarging and elevating of what I recognized as
+_myself_. Whatever would make me greater, so that my torture,
+intensified, it might well be, should yet have room to dash itself
+hither and thither without injuring the walls of my being, would be
+welcome. If I might become so great that, my grief yet stinging me to
+agony, the infinite _I_ of me should remain pure and calm, God-loving
+and man-cherishing, then I should be saved. God might be able to do
+more for me--I could not tell: I looked for no more. I would myself be
+such as to inclose my pain in a mighty sphere of out-spacing life, in
+relation to which even such sorrow as mine should be but a little
+thing. Such deliverance alone, I say, could I consent with myself to
+accept, and such alone, I believed, would God offer me--for such alone
+seemed worthy of him, and such alone seemed not unworthy of me.
+
+The help that Nature could give me, I judged to be of this ennobling
+kind. For either nature was nature in virtue of having been born
+(_nata_) of God, or she was but a phantasm of my own brain--against
+which supposition the nature in me protested with the agony of a
+tortured man. To nature, then, I would go. Like the hurt child who
+folds himself in the skirt of his mother’s velvet garment, I would fold
+myself in the robe of Deity.
+
+But to give honour and gratitude where both are due, I must here
+confess obligation with a willing and thankful heart. The _Excursion_
+of Wordsworth was published ere I was born, but only since I left
+college had I made acquaintance with it: so long does it take for the
+light of a new star to reach a distant world! To this book I owe so
+much that to me it would alone justify the conviction that Wordsworth
+will never be forgotten. That he is no longer the fashion, militates
+nothing against his reputation. We, the old ones, hold fast by him for
+no sentimental reminiscence of the fashion of our youth, but simply
+because his humanity has come into contact with ours. The men of the
+new generation have their new loves and worships: it remains to be seen
+to whom the worthy amongst them will turn long ere the frosts of age
+begin to gather and the winds of the human autumn to blow. Wordsworth
+will recede through the gliding ages until, with the greater Chaucer,
+and the greater Shakspere, and the greater Milton, he is yet a star in
+the constellated crown of England.
+
+Before I was able to leave home, however, a new event occurred.
+
+I received an anonymous letter, in a hand-writing I did not recognize.
+Its contents were as follows:--
+
+‘SIR,--Treachery is intended you. If you have anything worth watching,
+_watch_ it.’
+
+For one moment--so few were the places in which through my possessions
+I was vulnerable--I fancied the warning might point to Lilith, but I
+soon dismissed the idea. I could make no inquiries, for it had been
+left an hour before my return from a stroll by an unknown messenger. I
+could think of nothing besides but the register, and if this was what
+my correspondent aimed at, I had less reason to be anxious concerning
+it, because of the attested copy, than my informant probably knew.
+Still its safety was far from being a matter of indifference to me. I
+resolved to ride over to Umberden Church, and see if it was as I had
+left it.
+
+The twilight was fast thickening into darkness when I entered the
+gloomy building. There was light enough, however, to guide my hand to
+the right volume, and by carrying it to the door, I was able to satisfy
+myself that it was as I had left it.
+
+Thinking over the matter once more as I stood, I could not help wishing
+that the book were out of danger just for the present; but there was
+hardly a place in the bare church where it was possible to conceal it.
+At last I thought of one--half groped my way to the pulpit, ascended
+its creaking stair, lifted the cushion of the seat, and laid the book,
+which was thin, open in the middle, and flat on its face, under it. I
+then locked the door, mounted, and rode off.
+
+It was now more than dusk. Lilith was frolicsome, and, rejoicing in the
+grass under her feet, broke into a quick canter along the noiseless,
+winding lane. Suddenly there was a great shock, and I lay senseless.
+
+I came to myself under the stinging blows of a whip, only afterwards
+recognized as such, however. I sprung staggering to my feet, and rushed
+at the dim form of an assailant, with such a sudden and, I suppose,
+unexpected assault, that he fell under me. Had he not fallen I should
+have had little chance with him, for, as I now learned by his voice, it
+was Sir Geoffrey Brotherton.
+
+‘Thief! Swindler! Sneak!’ he cried, making a last harmless blow at me
+as he fell.
+
+All the wild beast in my nature was roused. I had no weapon--not even a
+whip, for Lilith never needed one. It was well, for what I might have
+done in the first rush of blood to my reviving brain, I dare hardly
+imagine. I seized him by the throat with such fury that, though far the
+stronger, he had no chance as he lay. I kneeled on his chest. He
+struggled furiously, but could not force my gripe from his throat. I
+soon perceived that I was strangling him, and tightened my grasp.
+
+His efforts were already growing feebler, when I became aware of a soft
+touch apparently trying to take hold of my hair. Glancing up without
+relaxing my hold, I saw the white head of Lilith close to mine. Was it
+the whiteness--was it the calmness of the creature--I cannot pretend to
+account for the fact, but the same instant before my mind’s eye rose
+the vision of one standing speechless before his accusers, bearing on
+his form the marks of ruthless blows. I did not then remember that just
+before I came out I had been gazing, as I often gazed, upon an Ecce
+Homo of Albert Dürer’s that hung in my room. Immediately my heart awoke
+within me. My whole being still trembling with passionate struggle and
+gratified hate, a rush of human pity swept across it. I took my hand
+from my enemy’s throat, rose, withdrew some paces, and burst into
+tears. I could have embraced him, but I dared not even minister to him
+for the insult at would appear. He did not at once rise, and when he
+did, he stood for a few moments, half-unconscious, I think, staring at
+me. Coming to himself, he felt for and found his whip--I thought with
+the intention of attacking me again, but he moved towards his horse,
+which was quietly eating the grass, now wet with dew. Gathering its
+bridle from around its leg, he mounted, and rode back the way he had
+come.
+
+I lingered for a while utterly exhausted. I was trembling in every
+limb. The moon rose and began to shed her low yellow light over the
+hazel copse, filling the lane with brightness and shadow. Lilith,
+seeming-in her whiteness to gather a tenfold share of the light upon
+herself, was now feeding as gently as if she had known nothing of the
+strife, and I congratulated myself that the fall had not injured her.
+But as she took a step forward in her feeding, I discovered to my
+dismay that she was quite lame. For my own part I was now feeling the
+ache of numerous and severe bruises. When I took Lilith by the bridle
+to lead her away, I found that neither of us could manage more than two
+miles an hour. I was very uneasy about her. There was nothing for it,
+however, but make the best of our way to Gastford. It was no little
+satisfaction to think, as we hobbled along, that the accident had
+happened through no carelessness of mine, beyond that of cantering in
+the dark, for I was on my own side of the road. Had Geoffrey been on
+his, narrow as the lane was, we might have passed without injury.
+
+It was so late when we reached Gastford, that we had to rouse the
+ostler before I could get Lilith attended to. I bathed the injured leg,
+of which the shoulder seemed wrenched; and having fed her, but less
+plentifully than usual, I left her to her repose. In the morning she
+was considerably better, but I resolved to leave her where she was,
+and, sending a messenger for Styles to come and attend to her, I hired
+a gig, and went to call on my new friend the rector of Umberden.
+
+I told him all that had happened, and where I had left the volume. He
+said he would have a chest made in which to secure the whole register,
+and, meanwhile, would himself go to the church and bring that volume
+home with him. It is safe enough now, as any one may find who wishes to
+see it--though the old man has long passed away.
+
+Lilith remained at Gastford a week before I judged it safe for her to
+come home. The injury, however, turned out to be a not very serious
+one.
+
+Why should I write of my poor mare--but that she was once hers all for
+whose hoped perusal I am writing this? No, there is even a better
+reason: I shall never, to all my eternity, forget, even if I should
+never see her again, which I do not for a moment believe, what she did
+for me that evening. Surely she deserves to appear in her own place in
+my story!
+
+Of course I was exercised in my mind as to who had sent me the warning.
+There could be no more doubt that I had hit what it intended, and had
+possibly preserved the register from being once more tampered with. I
+could think only of one. I have never had an opportunity of inquiring,
+and for her sake I should never have asked the question, but I have
+little doubt it was Clara. Who else could have had a chance of making
+the discovery, and at the same time would have cared to let me know it?
+Also she would have cogent reason for keeping such a part in the affair
+a secret. Probably she had heard her father informing Geoffrey; but he
+might have done so with no worse intention than had informed his
+previous policy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+
+YET ONCE.
+
+I am drawing my story to a close. Almost all that followed bears so
+exclusively upon my internal history, that I will write but one
+incident more of it. I have roamed the world, and reaped many harvests.
+In the deepest agony I have never refused the consolations of Nature or
+of Truth. I have never knowingly accepted any founded in falsehood, in
+forgetfulness, or in distraction. Let such as have no hope in God drink
+of what Lethe they can find; to me it is a river of Hell and altogether
+abominable. I could not be content even to forget my sins. There can be
+but one deliverance from them, namely, that God and they should come
+together in my soul. In his presence I shall serenely face them.
+Without him I dare not think of them. With God a man can confront
+anything; without God, he is but the withered straw which the sickle of
+the reaper has left standing on a wintry field. But to forget them
+would be to cease and begin anew, which to one aware of his immortality
+is a horror.
+
+If comfort profound as the ocean has not yet overtaken and infolded me,
+I see how such may come--perhaps will come. It must be by the enlarging
+of my whole being in truth, in God, so as to give room for the storm to
+rage, yet not destroy; for the sorrow to brood, yet not kill; for the
+sunshine of love to return after the east wind and black frost of
+bitterest disappointment; for the heart to feel the uttermost
+tenderness while the arms go not forth to embrace; for a mighty heaven
+of the unknown, crowded with the stars of endless possibilities, to
+dawn when the sun of love has vanished, and the moon of its memory is
+too ghastly to give any light: it is comfort such and thence that I
+think will one day possess me. Already has not its aurora brightened
+the tops of my snow-covered mountains? And if yet my valleys lie gloomy
+and forlorn, is not light on the loneliest peak a sure promise of the
+coming day?
+
+Only once again have I looked in Mary’s face. I will record the
+occasion, and then drop my pen.
+
+About five years after I left home, I happened in my wanderings to be
+in one of my favourite Swiss valleys--high and yet sheltered. I
+rejoiced to be far up in the mountains, yet behold the inaccessible
+peaks above me--mine, though not to be trodden by foot of mine--my
+heart’s own, though never to yield me a moment’s outlook from their
+lofty brows; for I was never strong enough to reach one mighty summit.
+It was enough for me that they sent me down the glad streams from the
+cold bosoms of their glaciers--the offspring of the sun and the snow;
+that I too beheld the stars to which they were nearer than I.
+
+One lovely morning I had wandered a good way from the village--a place
+little frequented by visitors, where I had a lodging in the house of
+the syndic--when I was overtaken by one of the sudden fogs which so
+frequently render those upper regions dangerous. There was no path to
+guide me back to my temporary home, but, a hundred yards or so beneath
+where I had been sitting, lay that which led down to one of the best
+known villages of the canton, where I could easily find shelter. I made
+haste to descend.
+
+After a couple of hours’ walking, during which the fog kept following
+me, as if hunting me from its lair, I at length arrived at the level of
+the valley, and was soon in one of those large hotels which in Summer
+are crowded as bee-hives, and in Winter forsaken as a ruin. The season
+for travellers was drawing to a close, and the house was full of
+homeward-bound guests.
+
+For the mountains will endure but a season of intrusion. If travellers
+linger too long within their hospitable gates, their humour changes,
+and, with fierce winds and snow and bitter sleet, they will drive them
+forth, preserving their Winter privacy for the bosom friends of their
+mistress, Nature. Many is the Winter since those of my boyhood which I
+have spent amongst the Alps; and in such solitude I have ever found the
+negation of all solitude, the one absolute Presence. David communed
+with his own heart on his bed and was still--there finding God:
+communing with my own heart in the Winter-valleys of Switzerland I
+found at least what made me cry out: ‘Surely this is the house of God;
+this is the gate of heaven!’ I would not be supposed to fancy that God
+is in mountains, and not in plains--that God is in the solitude, and
+not in the city: in any region harmonious with its condition and
+necessities, it is easier, for the heart to be still, and in its
+stillness to hear the still small voice.
+
+Dinner was going on at the _table-d’hôte_. It was full, but a place was
+found for me in a bay-window. Turning to the one side, I belonged to
+the great world, represented by the Germans, Americans, and English,
+with a Frenchman and Italian here and there, filling the long table;
+turning to the other, I knew myself in a temple of the Most High, so
+huge that it seemed empty of men. The great altar of a mighty mountain
+rose, massy as a world, and ethereal as a thought, into the upturned
+gulf of the twilight air--its snowy peak, ever as I turned to look,
+mounting up and up to its repose. I had been playing with my own soul,
+spinning it between the sun and the moon, as it were, and watching now
+the golden and now the silvery side, as I glanced from the mountain to
+the table, and again from the table to the mountain, when all at once I
+discovered that I was searching the mountain for something--I did not
+know what. Whether any tones had reached me, I cannot tell;--a man’s
+mind may, even through his senses, be marvellously moved without
+knowing whence the influence comes;--but there I was searching the face
+of the mountain for something, with a want which had not begun to
+explain itself. From base to peak my eyes went flitting and resting and
+wandering again upwards. At last they reached the snowy crown, from
+which they fell into the infinite blue beyond. Then, suddenly, the
+unknown something I wanted was clear. The same moment I turned to the
+table. Almost opposite was a face--pallid, with parted lips and fixed
+eyes--gazing at me. Then I knew those eyes had been gazing at me all
+the time I had been searching the face of the mountain. For one moment
+they met mine and rested; for one moment, I felt as if I must throw
+myself at her feet, and clasp them to my heart; but she turned her eyes
+away, and I rose and left the house.
+
+The mist was gone, and the moon was rising. I walked up the mountain
+path towards my village. But long ere I reached it the sun was rising.
+With his first arrow of slenderest light, the tossing waves of my
+spirit began to lose their white tops, and sink again towards a distant
+calm; and ere I saw the village from the first point of vision, I had
+made the following verses. They are the last I will set down.
+
+      I know that I cannot move thee
+        To an echo of my pain,
+      Or a thrill of the storming trouble
+        That racks my soul and brain;
+
+      That our hearts through all the ages
+        Shall never sound in tune;
+      That they meet no more in their cycles
+        Than the parted sun and moon.
+
+      But if ever a spirit flashes
+        Itself on another soul,
+      One day, in thy stillness, a vapour
+        Shall round about thee roll;
+
+      And the lifting of the vapour
+        Shall reveal a world of pain,
+      Of frosted suns, and moons that wander
+        Through misty mountains of rain.
+
+      Thou shalt know me for one live instant--
+        Thou halt know me--and yet not love:
+      I would not have thee troubled,
+        My cold, white-feathered dove!
+
+      I would only once come near thee--Myself,
+        and not my form;
+      Then away in the distance wander,
+        A slow-dissolving storm.
+
+      The vision should pass in vapour,
+        That melts in aether again;
+      Only a something linger-Not
+        pain, but the shadow of pain.
+
+      And I should know that thy spirit
+        On mine one look had sent;
+      And glide away from thy knowledge,
+        And try to be half-content.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+The ebbing tide that leaves bare the shore swells the heaps of the
+central sea. The tide of life ebbs from this body of mine, soon to lie
+on the shore of life like a stranded wreck; but the murmur of the
+waters that break upon no strand is in my ears; to join the waters of
+the infinite life, mine is ebbing away.
+
+Whatever has been his will is well--grandly well--well even for that in
+me which feared, and in those very respects in which it feared that it
+might not be well. The whole being of me past and present shall say: It
+is infinitely well, and I would not have it otherwise. Rather than it
+should not be as it is, I would go back to the world and this body of
+which I grew weary, and encounter yet again all that met me on my
+journey. Yes--final submission of my will to the All-will--I would meet
+it _knowing what was coming_. Lord of me, Father of Jesus Christ, will
+this suffice? Is my faith enough yet? I say it, not having beheld what
+thou hast in store--not knowing what I shall be--not even absolutely
+certain that thou art--confident only that, if thou be, such thou must
+be.
+
+The last struggle is before me. But I have passed already through so
+many valleys of death itself, where the darkness was not only palpable,
+but choking and stinging, that I cannot greatly fear that which holds
+but the shadow of death. For what men call death, is but its shadow.
+Death never comes near us; it lies behind the back of God; he is
+between it and us. If he were to turn his back upon us, the death which
+no imagination can shadow forth, would lap itself around us, and we
+should be--we should not know what.
+
+At night I lie wondering how it will feel; and, but that God will be
+with me, I would rather be slain suddenly, than lie still and await the
+change. The growing weakness, ushered in, it may be, by long agony; the
+alienation from things about me, while I am yet amidst them; the slow
+rending of the bonds which make this body a home, so that it turns half
+alien, while yet some bonds unsevered hold the live thing fluttering in
+its worm-eaten cage--but God knows me and my house, and I need not
+speculate or forebode. When it comes, death will prove as natural as
+birth. Bethink thee, Lord--nay, thou never forgettest. It is because
+thou thinkest and feelest that I think and feel; it is on thy deeper
+consciousness that mine ever floats; thou knowest my frame, and
+rememberest that I am dust: do with me as thou wilt. Let me take
+centuries to die if so thou willest, for thou wilt be with me. Only if
+an hour should come when thou must seem to forsake me, watch me all the
+time, lest self-pity should awake, and I should cry that thou wast
+dealing hardly with me. For when thou hidest thy face, the world is a
+corpse, and I am a live soul fainting within it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus far had I written, and was about to close with certain words of
+Job, which are to me like the trumpet of the resurrection, when the
+news reached me that Sir Geoffrey Brotherton was dead. He leaves no
+children, and the property is expected to pass to a distant branch of
+the family. Mary will have to leave Moldwarp Hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have been up to London to my friend Marston--for it is years since Mr
+Coningham died. I have laid everything before him, and left the affair
+in his hands. He is so confident in my cause, that he offers, in case
+my means should fail me, to find what is necessary himself; but he is
+almost as confident of a speedy settlement.
+
+And now, for the first time in my life, I am about--shall I say, to
+court society? At least I am going to London, about to give and receive
+invitations, and cultivate the acquaintance of those whose appearance
+and conversation attract me.
+
+I have not a single relative, to my knowledge, in the world, and I am
+free, beyond question, to leave whatever property I have, or may have,
+to whomsoever I please.
+
+My design is this: if I succeed in my suit, I will offer Moldwarp to
+Mary for her lifetime. She is greatly beloved in the county, and has
+done much for the labourers, nor upon her own lands only. If she had
+the full power she would do yet better. But of course it is very
+doubtful whether she will accept it. Should she decline it, I shall try
+to manage it myself--leaving it to her, with reversion to the man,
+whoever he may be, whom I shall choose to succeed her.
+
+What sort of man I shall endeavour to find, I think my reader will
+understand. I will not describe him, beyond saying that he must above
+all things be just, generous, and free from the petty prejudices of the
+country gentleman. He must understand that property involves service to
+every human soul that lives or labours upon it--the service of the
+elder brother to his less burdened yet more enduring and more helpless
+brothers and sisters; that for the lives of all such he has in his
+degree to render account. For surely God never meant to uplift any man
+_at the expense_ of his fellows; but to uplift him that he might be
+strong to minister, as a wise friend and ruler, to their highest and
+best needs--first of all by giving them the justice which will be
+recognized as such by him before whom a man _is_ his brother’s keeper,
+and becomes a Cain in denying it.
+
+Lest Lady Brotherton, however, should like to have something to give
+away, I leave my former will as it was. It is in Marston’s hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Would I marry her now, if I might? I cannot tell. The thought rouses no
+passionate flood within me. Mighty spaces of endless possibility and
+endless result open before me. Death is knocking at my door.--
+
+No--no; I will be honest, and lay it to no half reasons, however
+wise.--I would rather meet her then first, when she is clothed in that
+new garment called by St Paul the spiritual body. That, Geoffrey has
+never touched; over that he has no claim.
+
+But if the loveliness of her character should have purified his, and
+drawn and bound his soul to hers?
+
+Father, fold me in thyself. The storm, so long still, awakes; once more
+it flutters its fierce pinions. Let it not swing itself aloft in the
+air of my spirit. I dare not think, not merely lest thought should
+kindle into agony, but lest I should fail to rejoice over the lost and
+found. But my heart is in thy hand. Need I school myself to bow to an
+imagined decree of thine? Is it not enough that, when I shall know a
+thing for thy will, I shall then be able to say: Thy will be done? It
+is not enough; I need more. School thou my heart so to love thy will
+that in all calmness I leave to think what may or may not be its
+choice, and rest in its holy self.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She has sent for me. I go to her. I will not think beforehand what I
+shall say.
+
+Something within tells me that a word from her would explain all that
+sometimes even now seems so inexplicable as hers. Will she speak that
+word? Shall I pray her for that word? I know nothing. The pure Will be
+done!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wilfrid Cumbermede, by George MacDonald
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