Even at the time, Martha Thomas’s hint made but little impression on

Owen, for his senses were otherwise occupied; but in a few days the

recollection thereof had wholly died away, and one warm glorious summer’s

day, he bent his steps toward Ellis Pritchard’s with a beating heart;

for, except some very slight flirtations at Oxford, Owen had never been

touched; his thoughts, his fancy, had been otherwise engaged.

Ty Glas was built against one of the lower rocks of Moel Gêst, which,

indeed, formed a side to the low, lengthy house. The materials of the

cottage were the shingly stones which had fallen from above, plastered

rudely together, with deep recesses for the small oblong windows.

Altogether, the exterior was much ruder than Owen had expected; but

inside there seemed no lack of comforts. The house was divided into two

apartments, one large, roomy, and dark, into which Owen entered

immediately; and before the blushing Nest came from the inner chamber

(for she had seen the young Squire coming, and hastily gone to make some

alteration in her dress), he had had time to look around him, and note

the various little particulars of the room. Beneath the window (which

commanded a magnificent view) was an oaken dresser, replete with drawers

and cupboards, and brightly polished to a rich dark colour. In the

farther part of the room Owen could at first distinguish little, entering

as he did from the glaring sunlight, but he soon saw that there were two

oaken beds, closed up after the manner of the Welsh: in fact, the

domitories of Ellis Pritchard and the man who served under him, both on

sea and on land. There was the large wheel used for spinning wool, left

standing on the middle of the floor, as if in use only a few minutes

before; and around the ample chimney hung flitches of bacon, dried

kids’-flesh, and fish, that was in process of smoking for winter’s store.

Before Nest had shyly dared to enter, her father, who had been mending

his nets down below, and seen Owen winding up to the house, came in and

gave him a hearty yet respectful welcome; and then Nest, downcast and

blushing, full of the consciousness which her father’s advice and

conversation had not failed to inspire, ventured to join them. To Owen’s

mind this reserve and shyness gave her new charms.

It was too bright, too hot, too anything to think of going to shoot teal

till later in the day, and Owen was delighted to accept a hesitating

invitation to share the noonday meal. Some ewe-milk cheese, very hard

and dry, oat-cake, slips of the dried kids’-flesh broiled, after having

been previously soaked in water for a few minutes, delicious butter and

fresh butter-milk, with a liquor called “diod griafol” (made from the

berries of the _Sorbus aucuparia_, infused in water and then fermented),

composed the frugal repast; but there was something so clean and neat,

and withal such a true welcome, that Owen had seldom enjoyed a meal so

much. Indeed, at that time of day the Welsh squires differed from the

farmers more in the plenty and rough abundance of their manner of living

than in the refinement of style of their table.

At the present day, down in Llyn, the Welsh gentry are not a wit behind

their Saxon equals in the expensive elegances of life; but then (when

there was but one pewter-service in all Northumberland) there was nothing

in Ellis Pritchard’s mode of living that grated on the young Squire’s

sense of refinement.

Little was said by that young pair of wooers during the meal; the father

had all the conversation to himself, apparently heedless of the ardent

looks and inattentive mien of his guest. As Owen became more serious in

his feelings, he grew more timid in their expression, and at night, when

they returned from their shooting-excursion, the caress he gave Nest was

almost as bashfully offered as received.

This was but the first of a series of days devoted to Nest in reality,

though at first he thought some little disguise of his object was

necessary. The past, the future, was all forgotten in those happy days

of love.

And every worldly plan, every womanly wile was put in practice by Ellis

Pritchard and his daughter, to render his visits agreeable and alluring.

Indeed, the very circumstance of his being welcome was enough to attract

the poor young man, to whom the feeling so produced was new and full of

charms. He left a home where the certainty of being thwarted made him

chary in expressing his wishes; where no tones of love ever fell on his

ear, save those addressed to others; where his presence or absence was a

matter of utter indifference; and when he entered Ty Glas, all, down to

the little cur which, with clamorous barkings, claimed a part of his

attention, seemed to rejoice. His account of his day’s employment found

a willing listener in Ellis; and when he passed on to Nest, busy at her

wheel or at her churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and the

gradual yielding of herself up to his lover-like caress, had worlds of

charms. Ellis Pritchard was a tenant on the Bodowen estate, and

therefore had reasons in plenty for wishing to keep the young Squire’s

visits secret; and Owen, unwilling to disturb the sunny calm of these

halcyon days by any storm at home, was ready to use all the artifice

which Ellis suggested as to the mode of his calls at Ty Glas. Nor was he

unaware of the probable, nay, the hoped-for termination of these repeated

days of happiness. He was quite conscious that the father wished for

nothing better than the marriage of his daughter to the heir of Bodowen;

and when Nest had hidden her face in his neck, which was encircled by her

clasping arms, and murmured into his ear her acknowledgment of love, he

felt only too desirous of finding some one to love him for ever. Though

not highly principled, he would not have tried to obtain Nest on other

terms save those of marriage: he did so pine after enduring love, and

fancied he should have bound her heart for evermore to his, when they had

taken the solemn oaths of matrimony.

There was no great difficulty attending a secret marriage at such a place

and at such a time. One gusty autumn day, Ellis ferried them round

Penthryn to Llandutrwyn, and there saw his little Nest become future Lady

of Bodowen.

How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls become sobered by

marriage? A great object in life is decided; one on which their thoughts

have been running in all their vagaries, and they seem to verify the

beautiful fable of Undine. A new soul beams out in the gentleness and

repose of their future lives. An indescribable softness and tenderness

takes place of the wearying vanity of their former endeavours to attract

admiration. Something of this sort took place in Nest Pritchard. If at

first she had been anxious to attract the young Squire of Bodowen, long

before her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than she

had ever felt before; and now that he was her own, her husband, her whole

soul was bent toward making him amends, as far as in her lay, for the

misery which, with a woman’s tact, she saw that he had to endure at his

home. Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; her

study of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, her

time, her very thoughts.

No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day with a thankfulness

which is seldom the result of unequal marriages. No wonder that his

heart beat aloud as formerly when he wound up the little path to Ty Glas,

and saw—keen though the winter’s wind might be—that Nest was standing out

at the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while the candle flared

in the little window as a beacon to guide him aright.

The angry words and unkind actions of home fell deadened on his heart; he

thought of the love that was surely his, and of the new promise of love

that a short time would bring forth, and he could almost have smiled at

the impotent efforts to disturb his peace.

A few more months, and the young father was greeted by a feeble little

cry, when he hastily entered Ty Glas, one morning early, in consequence

of a summons conveyed mysteriously to Bodowen; and the pale mother,

smiling, and feebly holding up her babe to its father’s kiss, seemed to

him even more lovely than the bright gay Nest who had won his heart at

the little inn of Penmorfa.

But the curse was at work! The fulfilment of the prophecy was nigh at

hand!

CHAPTER II.

It was the autumn after the birth of their boy; it had been a glorious

summer, with bright, hot, sunny weather; and now the year was fading away

as seasonably into mellow days, with mornings of silver mists and clear

frosty nights. The blooming look of the time of flowers, was past and

gone; but instead there were even richer tints abroad in the sun-coloured

leaves, the lichens, the golden blossomed furze; if it was the time of

fading, there was a glory in the decay.

Nest, in her loving anxiety to surround her dwelling with every charm for

her husband’s sake, had turned gardener, and the little corners of the

rude court before the house were filled with many a delicate

mountain-flower, transplanted more for its beauty than its rarity. The

sweetbrier bush may even yet be seen, old and gray, which she and Owen

planted a green slipling beneath the window of her little chamber. In

those moments Owen forgot all besides the present; all the cares and

griefs he had known in the past, and all that might await him of woe and

death in the future. The boy, too, was as lovely a child as the fondest

parent was ever blessed with; and crowed with delight, and clapped his

little hands, as his mother held him in her arms at the cottage-door to

watch his father’s ascent up the rough path that led to Ty Glas, one

bright autumnal morning; and when the three entered the house together,

it was difficult to say which was the happiest. Owen carried his boy,

and tossed and played with him, while Nest sought out some little article

of work, and seated herself on the dresser beneath the window, where now

busily plying the needle, and then again looking at her husband, she

eagerly told him the little pieces of domestic intelligence, the winning

ways of the child, the result of yesterday’s fishing, and such of the

gossip of Penmorfa as came to the ears of the now retired Nest. She

noticed that, when she mentioned any little circumstance which bore the

slightest reference to Bodowen, her husband appeared chafed and uneasy,

and at last avoided anything that might in the least remind him of home.

In truth, he had been suffering much of late from the irritability of his

father, shown in trifles to be sure, but not the less galling on that

account.

While they were thus talking, and caressing each other and the child, a

shadow darkened the room, and before they could catch a glimpse of the

object that had occasioned it, it vanished, and Squire Griffiths lifted

the door-latch and stood before them. He stood and looked—first on his

son, so different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoyment,

with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and happy father, as he

was, from the depressed, moody young man he too often appeared at

Bodowen; then on Nest—poor, trembling, sickened Nest!—who dropped her

work, but yet durst not stir from her seat, on the dresser, while she

looked to her husband as if for protection from his father.

The Squire was silent, as he glared from one to the other, his features

white with restrained passion. When he spoke, his words came most

distinct in their forced composure. It was to his son he addressed

himself:

“That woman! who is she?”

Owen hesitated one moment, and then replied, in a steady, yet quiet

voice:

“Father, that woman is my wife.”

He would have added some apology for the long concealment of his

marriage; have appealed to his father’s forgiveness; but the foam flew

from Squire Owen’s lips as he burst forth with invective against Nest:—

“You have married her! It is as they told me! Married Nest Pritchard yr

buten! And you stand there as if you had not disgraced yourself for ever

and ever with your accursed wiving! And the fair harlot sits there, in

her mocking modesty, practising the mimming airs that will become her

state as future Lady of Bodowen. But I will move heaven and earth before

that false woman darken the doors of my father’s house as mistress!”

All this was said with such rapidity that Owen had no time for the words

that thronged to his lips. “Father!” (he burst forth at length) “Father,

whosoever told you that Nest Pritchard was a harlot told you a lie as

false as hell! Ay! a lie as false as hell!” he added, in a voice of

thunder, while he advanced a step or two nearer to the Squire. And then,

in a lower tone, he said—

“She is as pure as your own wife; nay, God help me! as the dear, precious

mother who brought me forth, and then left me—with no refuge in a

mother’s heart—to struggle on through life alone. I tell you Nest is as

pure as that dear, dead mother!”

“Fool—poor fool!”

At this moment the child—the little Owen—who had kept gazing from one

angry countenance to the other, and with earnest look, trying to

understand what had brought the fierce glare into the face where till now

he had read nothing but love, in some way attracted the Squire’s

attention, and increased his wrath.

“Yes,” he continued, “poor, weak fool that you are, hugging the child of

another as if it were your own offspring!” Owen involuntarily caressed

the affrighted child, and half smiled at the implication of his father’s

words. This the Squire perceived, and raising his voice to a scream of

rage, he went on:

“I bid you, if you call yourself my son, to cast away that miserable,

shameless woman’s offspring; cast it away this instant—this instant!”

In this ungovernable rage, seeing that Owen was far from complying with

his command, he snatched the poor infant from the loving arms that held

it, and throwing it to his mother, left the house inarticulate with fury.

Nest—who had been pale and still as marble during this terrible dialogue,

looking on and listening as if fascinated by the words that smote her

heart—opened her arms to receive and cherish her precious babe; but the

boy was not destined to reach the white refuge of her breast. The

furious action of the Squire had been almost without aim, and the infant

fell against the sharp edge of the dresser down on to the stone floor.

Owen sprang up to take the child, but he lay so still, so motionless,

that the awe of death came over the father, and he stooped down to gaze

more closely. At that moment, the upturned, filmy eyes rolled

convulsively—a spasm passed along the body—and the lips, yet warm with

kissing, quivered into everlasting rest.

A word from her husband told Nest all. She slid down from her seat, and

lay by her little son as corpse-like as he, unheeding all the agonizing

endearments and passionate adjurations of her husband. And that poor,

desolate husband and father! Scarce one little quarter of an hour, and

he had been so blessed in his consciousness of love! the bright promise

of many years on his infant’s face, and the new, fresh soul beaming forth

in its awakened intelligence. And there it was; the little clay image,

that would never more gladden up at the sight of him, nor stretch forth

to meet his embrace; whose inarticulate, yet most eloquent cooings might

haunt him in his dreams, but would never more be heard in waking life

again! And by the dead babe, almost as utterly insensate, the poor

mother had fallen in a merciful faint—the slandered, heart-pierced Nest!

Owen struggled against the sickness that came over him, and busied

himself in vain attempts at her restoration.

It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came home, little dreaming

of the sight that awaited him; but though stunned, he was able to take

more effectual measures for his poor daughter’s recovery than Owen had

done.

By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, and was placed in her

own little bed in a darkened room, where, without ever waking to complete

consciousness, she fell asleep. Then it was that her husband, suffocated

by pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his hand from her tightened

clasp, and printing one long soft kiss on her white waxen forehead,

hastily stole out of the room, and out of the house.

Near the base of Moel Gêst—it might be a quarter of a mile from Ty

Glas—was a little neglected solitary copse, wild and tangled with the

trailing branches of the dog-rose and the tendrils of the white bryony.

Toward the middle of this thicket a deep crystal pool—a clear mirror for

the blue heavens above—and round the margin floated the broad green

leaves of the water-lily, and when the regal sun shone down in his

noonday glory the flowers arose from their cool depths to welcome and

greet him. The copse was musical with many sounds; the warbling of birds

rejoicing in its shades, the ceaseless hum of the insects that hovered

over the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the occasional

bleating of the sheep from the mountaintop, were all blended into the

delicious harmony of nature.

It had been one of Owen’s favourite resorts when he had been a lonely

wanderer—a pilgrim in search of love in the years gone by. And thither

he went, as if by instinct, when he left Ty Glas; quelling the uprising

agony till he should reach that little solitary spot.

It was the time of day when a change in the aspect of the weather so

frequently takes place; and the little pool was no longer the reflection

of a blue and sunny sky: it sent back the dark and slaty clouds above,

and, every now and then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leaves

from their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of the

wild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay up and beyond the

clefts in the mountain-side. Presently the rain came on and beat down in

torrents.

But Owen heeded it not. He sat on the dank ground, his face buried in

his hands, and his whole strength, physical and mental, employed in

quelling the rush of blood, which rose and boiled and gurgled in his

brain as if it would madden him.

The phantom of his dead child rose ever before him, and seemed to cry

aloud for vengeance. And when the poor young man thought upon the victim

whom he required in his wild longing for revenge, he shuddered, for it

was his father!

Again and again he tried not to think; but still the circle of thought

came round, eddying through his brain. At length he mastered his

passions, and they were calm; then he forced himself to arrange some plan

for the future.

He had not, in the passionate hurry of the moment, seen that his father

had left the cottage before he was aware of the fatal accident that

befell the child. Owen thought he had seen all; and once he planned to

go to the Squire and tell him of the anguish of heart he had wrought, and

awe him, as it were, by the dignity of grief. But then again he durst

not—he distrusted his self-control—the old prophecy rose up in its

horror—he dreaded his doom.

At last he determined to leave his father for ever; to take Nest to some

distant country where she might forget her firstborn, and where he

himself might gain a livelihood by his own exertions.

But when he tried to descend to the various little arrangements which

were involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all his

money (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked up

in his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this

matter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must: and his only hope—nay

his determination—was to avoid his father.

He rose and took a by-path to Bodowen. The house looked even more gloomy

and desolate than usual in the heavy down-pouring rain, yet Owen gazed on

it with something of regret—for sorrowful as his days in it had been, he

was about to leave it for many many years, if not for ever. He entered

by a side door opening into a passage that led to his own room, where he

kept his books, his guns, his fishing-tackle, his writing materials, et

cetera.

Here he hurriedly began to select the few articles he intended to take;

for, besides the dread of interruption, he was feverishly anxious to

travel far that very night, if only Nest was capable of performing the

journey. As he was thus employed, he tried to conjecture what his

father’s feelings would be on finding that his once-loved son was gone

away for ever. Would he then awaken to regret for the conduct which had

driven him from home, and bitterly think on the loving and caressing boy

who haunted his footsteps in former days? Or, alas! would he only feel

that an obstacle to his daily happiness—to his contentment with his wife,

and his strange, doting affection for the child—was taken away? Would

they make merry over the heir’s departure? Then he thought of Nest—the

young childless mother, whose heart had not yet realized her fulness of

desolation. Poor Nest! so loving as she was, so devoted to her child—how

should he console her? He pictured her away in a strange land, pining

for her native mountains, and refusing to be comforted because her child

was not.

Even this thought of the home-sickness that might possibly beset Nest

hardly made him hesitate in his determination; so strongly had the idea

taken possession of him that only by putting miles and leagues between

him and his father could he avert the doom which seemed blending itself

with the very purposes of his life as long as he stayed in proximity with

the slayer of his child.

He had now nearly completed his hasty work of preparation, and was full

of tender thoughts of his wife, when the door opened, and the elfish

Robert peered in, in search of some of his brother’s possessions. On

seeing Owen he hesitated, but then came boldly forward, and laid his hand

on Owen’s arm, saying,

“Nesta yr buten! How is Nest yr buten?”

He looked maliciously into Owen’s face to mark the effect of his words,

but was terrified at the expression he read there. He started off and

ran to the door, while Owen tried to check himself, saying continually,

“He is but a child. He does not understand the meaning of what he says.

He is but a child!” Still Robert, now in fancied security, kept calling

out his insulting words, and Owen’s hand was on his gun, grasping it as

if to restrain his rising fury.

But when Robert passed on daringly to mocking words relating to the poor

dead child, Owen could bear it no longer; and before the boy was well

aware, Owen was fiercely holding him in an iron clasp with one hand,

while he struck him hard with the other.

In a minute he checked himself. He paused, relaxed his grasp, and, to

his horror, he saw Robert sink to the ground; in fact, the lad was

half-stunned, half-frightened, and thought it best to assume

insensibility.

Owen—miserable Owen—seeing him lie there prostrate, was bitterly

repentant, and would have dragged him to the carved settle, and done all

he could to restore him to his senses, but at this instant the Squire

came in.

Probably, when the household at Bodowen rose that morning, there was but

one among them ignorant of the heir’s relation to Nest Pritchard and her

child; for secret as he tried to make his visits to Ty Glas, they had

been too frequent not to be noticed, and Nest’s altered conduct—no longer

frequenting dances and merry-makings—was a strongly corroborative

circumstance. But Mrs. Griffiths’ influence reigned paramount, if

unacknowledged, at Bodowen, and till she sanctioned the disclosure, none

would dare to tell the Squire.

Now, however, the time drew near when it suited her to make her husband

aware of the connection his son had formed; so, with many tears, and much

seeming reluctance, she broke the intelligence to him—taking good care,

at the same time, to inform him of the light character Nest had borne.

Nor did she confine this evil reputation to her conduct before her

marriage, but insinuated that even to this day she was a “woman of the

grove and brake”—for centuries the Welsh term of opprobrium for the

loosest female characters.

Squire Griffiths easily tracked Owen to Ty Glas; and without any aim but

the gratification of his furious anger, followed him to upbraid as we

have seen. But he left the cottage even more enraged against his son

than he had entered it, and returned home to hear the evil suggestions of

the stepmother. He had heard a slight scuffle in which he caught the

tones of Robert’s voice, as he passed along the hall, and an instant

afterwards he saw the apparently lifeless body of his little favourite

dragged along by the culprit Owen—the marks of strong passion yet visible

on his face. Not loud, but bitter and deep were the evil words which the

father bestowed on the son; and as Owen stood proudly and sullenly

silent, disdaining all exculpation of himself in the presence of one who

had wrought him so much graver—so fatal an injury—Robert’s mother entered

the room. At sight of her natural emotion the wrath of the Squire was

redoubled, and his wild suspicions that this violence of Owen’s to Robert

was a premeditated act appeared like the proven truth through the mists

of rage. He summoned domestics as if to guard his own and his wife’s

life from the attempts of his son; and the servants stood wondering

around—now gazing at Mrs. Griffiths, alternately scolding and sobbing,

while she tried to restore the lad from his really bruised and

half-unconscious state; now at the fierce and angry Squire; and now at

the sad and silent Owen. And he—he was hardly aware of their looks of

wonder and terror; his father’s words fell on a deadened ear; for before

his eyes there rose a pale dead babe, and in that lady’s violent sounds

of grief he heard the wailing of a more sad, more hopeless mother. For

by this time the lad Robert had opened his eyes, and though evidently

suffering a good deal from the effects of Owen’s blows, was fully

conscious of all that was passing around him.

Had Owen been left to his own nature, his heart would have worked itself

to doubly love the boy whom he had injured; but he was stubborn from

injustice, and hardened by suffering. He refused to vindicate himself;

he made no effort to resist the imprisonment the Squire had decreed,

until a surgeon’s opinion of the real extent of Robert’s injuries was

made known. It was not until the door was locked and barred, as if upon

some wild and furious beast, that the recollection of poor Nest, without

his comforting presence, came into his mind. Oh! thought he, how she

would be wearying, pining for his tender sympathy; if, indeed, she had

recovered the shock of mind sufficiently to be sensible of consolation!

What would she think of his absence? Could she imagine he believed his

father’s words, and had left her, in this her sore trouble and

bereavement? The thought madened him, and he looked around for some mode

of escape.

He had been confined in a small unfurnished room on the first floor,

wainscoted, and carved all round, with a massy door, calculated to resist

the attempts of a dozen strong men, even had he afterward been able to

escape from the house unseen, unheard. The window was placed (as is

common in old Welsh houses) over the fire-place; with branching chimneys

on either hand, forming a sort of projection on the outside. By this

outlet his escape was easy, even had he been less determined and

desperate than he was. And when he had descended, with a little care, a

little winding, he might elude all observation and pursue his original

intention of going to Ty Glas.

The storm had abated, and watery sunbeams were gilding the bay, as Owen

descended from the window, and, stealing along in the broad afternoon

shadows, made his way to the little plateau of green turf in the garden

at the top of a steep precipitous rock, down the abrupt face of which he

had often dropped, by means of a well-secured rope, into the small

sailing-boat (his father’s present, alas! in days gone by) which lay

moored in the deep sea-water below. He had always kept his boat there,

because it was the nearest available spot to the house; but before he

could reach the place—unless, indeed, he crossed a broad sun-lighted

piece of ground in full view of the windows on that side of the house,

and without the shadow of a single sheltering tree or shrub—he had to

skirt round a rude semicircle of underwood, which would have been

considered as a shrubbery had any one taken pains with it. Step by step

he stealthily moved along—hearing voices now, again seeing his father and

stepmother in no distant walk, the Squire evidently caressing and

consoling his wife, who seemed to be urging some point with great

vehemence, again forced to crouch down to avoid being seen by the cook,

returning from the rude kitchen-garden with a handful of herbs. This was

the way the doomed heir of Bodowen left his ancestral house for ever, and

hoped to leave behind him his doom. At length he reached the plateau—he

breathed more freely. He stooped to discover the hidden coil of rope,

kept safe and dry in a hole under a great round flat piece of rock: his

head was bent down; he did not see his father approach, nor did he hear

his footstep for the rush of blood to his head in the stooping effort of

lifting the stone; the Squire had grappled with him before he rose up

again, before he fully knew whose hands detained him, now, when his

liberty of person and action seemed secure. He made a vigorous struggle

to free himself; he wrestled with his father for a moment—he pushed him

hard, and drove him on to the great displaced stone, all unsteady in its

balance.

Down went the Squire, down into the deep waters below—down after him went

Owen, half consciously, half unconsciously, partly compelled by the

sudden cessation of any opposing body, partly from a vehement

irrepressible impulse to rescue his father. But he had instinctively

chosen a safer place in the deep seawater pool than that into which his

push had sent his father. The Squire had hit his head with much violence

against the side of the boat, in his fall; it is, indeed, doubtful

whether he was not killed before ever he sank into the sea. But Owen

knew nothing save that the awful doom seemed even now present. He

plunged down, he dived below the water in search of the body which had

none of the elasticity of life to buoy it up; he saw his father in those

depths, he clutched at him, he brought him up and cast him, a dead

weight, into the boat, and exhausted by the effort, he had begun himself

to sink again before he instinctively strove to rise and climb into the

rocking boat. There lay his father, with a deep dent in the side of his

head where the skull had been fractured by his fall; his face blackened

by the arrested course of the blood. Owen felt his pulse, his heart—all

was still. He called him by his name.

“Father, father!” he cried, “come back! come back! You never knew how I

loved you! how I could love you still—if—Oh God!”

And the thought of his little child rose before him. “Yes, father,” he

cried afresh, “you never knew how he fell—how he died! Oh, if I had but

had patience to tell you! If you would but have borne with me and

listened! And now it is over! Oh father! father!”

Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether it was only

that she missed her husband and wanted him for some little every-day

question, or, as was perhaps more likely, she had discovered Owen’s

escape, and come to inform her husband of it, I do not know, but on the

rock, right above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his stepmother

calling her husband.

He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the rock till the

sides grated against the stones, and the overhanging branches concealed

him and it from all not on a level with the water. Wet as he was, he lay

down by his dead father the better to conceal himself; and, somehow, the

action recalled those early days of childhood—the first in the Squire’s

widowhood—when Owen had shared his father’s bed, and used to waken him in

the morning to hear one of the old Welsh legends. How long he lay

thus—body chilled, and brain hard-working through the heavy pressure of a

reality as terrible as a nightmare—he never knew; but at length he roused

himself up to think of Nest.

Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his father with it

where he lay in the bottom of the boat. Then with his numbed hands he

took the oars, and pulled out into the more open sea toward Criccaeth.

He skirted along the coast till he found a shadowed cleft in the dark

rocks; to that point he rowed, and anchored his boat close in land. Then

he mounted, staggering, half longing to fall into the dark waters and be

at rest—half instinctively finding out the surest foot-rests on that

precipitous face of rock, till he was high up, safe landed on the turfy

summit. He ran off, as if pursued, toward Penmorfa; he ran with maddened

energy. Suddenly he paused, turned, ran again with the same speed, and

threw himself prone on the summit, looking down into his boat with

straining eyes to see if there had been any movement of life—any

displacement of a fold of sail-cloth. It was all quiet deep down below,

but as he gazed the shifting light gave the appearance of a slight

movement. Owen ran to a lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged into

the water, and swam to the boat. When there, all was still—awfully

still! For a minute or two, he dared not lift up the cloth. Then

reflecting that the same terror might beset him again—of leaving his

father unaided while yet a spark of life lingered—he removed the

shrouding cover. The eyes looked into his with a dead stare! He closed

the lids and bound up the jaw. Again he looked. This time he raised

himself out of the water and kissed the brow.

“It was my doom, father! It would have been better if I had died at my

birth!”

Daylight was fading away. Precious daylight! He swam back, dressed, and

set off afresh for Penmorfa. When he opened the door of Ty Glas, Ellis

Pritchard looked at him reproachfully, from his seat in the

darkly-shadowed chimney-corner.

“You’re come at last,” said he. “One of our kind (_i.e._, station) would

not have left his wife to mourn by herself over her dead child; nor would

one of our kind have let his father kill his own true son. I’ve a good

mind to take her from you for ever.”

“I did not tell him,” cried Nest, looking piteously at her husband; “he

made me tell him part, and guessed the rest.”

She was nursing her babe on her knee as if it was alive. Owen stood

before Ellis Pritchard.

“Be silent,” said he, quietly. “Neither words nor deeds but what are

decreed can come to pass. I was set to do my work, this hundred years

and more. The time waited for me, and the man waited for me. I have

done what was foretold of me for generations!”

Ellis Pritchard knew the old tale of the prophecy, and believed in it in

a dull, dead kind of way, but somehow never thought it would come to pass

in his time. Now, however, he understood it all in a moment, though he

mistook Owen’s nature so much as to believe that the deed was

intentionally done, out of revenge for the death of his boy; and viewing

it in this light, Ellis thought it little more than a just punishment for

the cause of all the wild despairing sorrow he had seen his only child

suffer during the hours of this long afternoon. But he knew the law

would not so regard it. Even the lax Welsh law of those days could not

fail to examine into the death of a man of Squire Griffith’s standing.

So the acute Ellis thought how he could conceal the culprit for a time.

“Come,” said he; “don’t look so scared! It was your doom, not your

fault;” and he laid a hand on Owen’s shoulder.

“You’re wet,” said he, suddenly. “Where have you been? Nest, your

husband is dripping, drookit wet. That’s what makes him look so blue and

wan.”

Nest softly laid her baby in its cradle; she was half stupefied with

crying, and had not understood to what Owen alluded, when he spoke of his

doom being fulfilled, if indeed she had heard the words.

Her touch thawed Owen’s miserable heart.

“Oh, Nest!” said he, clasping her in his arms; “do you love me still—can

you love me, my own darling?”

“Why not?” asked she, her eyes filling with tears. “I only love you more

than ever, for you were my poor baby’s father!”

“But, Nest—Oh, tell her, Ellis! _you_ know.”

“No need, no need!” said Ellis. “She’s had enough to think on. Bustle,

my girl, and get out my Sunday clothes.”

“I don’t understand,” said Nest, putting her hand up to her head. “What

is to tell? and why are you so wet? God help me for a poor crazed thing,

for I cannot guess at the meaning of your words and your strange looks!

I only know my baby is dead!” and she burst into tears.

“Come, Nest! go and fetch him a change, quick!” and as she meekly obeyed,

too languid to strive further to understand, Ellis said rapidly to Owen,

in a low, hurried voice—

“Are you meaning that the Squire is dead? Speak low, lest she hear.

Well, well, no need to talk about how he died. It was sudden, I see; and

we must all of us die; and he’ll have to be buried. It’s well the night

is near. And I should not wonder now if you’d like to travel for a bit;

it would do Nest a power of good; and then—there’s many a one goes out of

his own house and never comes back again; and—I trust he’s not lying in

his own house—and there’s a stir for a bit, and a search, and a

wonder—and, by-and-by, the heir just steps in, as quiet as can be. And

that’s what you’ll do, and bring Nest to Bodowen after all. Nay, child,

better stockings nor those; find the blue woollens I bought at Llanrwst

fair. Only don’t lose heart. It’s done now and can’t be helped. It was

the piece of work set you to do from the days of the Tudors, they say.

And he deserved it. Look in yon cradle. So tell us where he is, and

I’ll take heart of grace and see what can be done for him.”

But Owen sat wet and haggard, looking into the peat fire as if for

visions of the past, and never heeding a word Ellis said. Nor did he

move when Nest brought the armful of dry clothes.

“Come, rouse up, man!” said Ellis, growing impatient. But he neither

spoke nor moved.

“What is the matter, father?” asked Nest, bewildered.

Ellis kept on watching Owen for a minute or two, till on his daughter’s

repetition of the question, he said—

“Ask him yourself, Nest.”

“Oh, husband, what is it?” said she, kneeling down and bringing her face

to a level with his.

“Don’t you know?” said he, heavily. “You won’t love me when you do know.

And yet it was not my doing: it was my doom.”

“What does he mean, father?” asked Nest, looking up; but she caught a

gesture from Ellis urging her to go on questioning her husband.

“I will love you, husband, whatever has happened. Only let me know the

worst.”

A pause, during which Nest and Ellis hung breathless.

“My father is dead, Nest.”

Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp.

“God forgive him!” said she, thinking on her babe.

“God forgive _me_!” said Owen.

“You did not—” Nest stopped.

“Yes, I did. Now you know it. It was my doom. How could I help it?

The devil helped me—he placed the stone so that my father fell. I jumped

into the water to save him. I did, indeed, Nest. I was nearly drowned

myself. But he was dead—dead—killed by the fall!”

“Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea?” said Ellis, with hungry

eagerness.

“No, he is not; he lies in my boat,” said Owen, shivering a little, more

at the thought of his last glimpse at his father’s face than from cold.

“Oh, husband, change your wet clothes!” pleaded Nest, to whom the death

of the old man was simply a horror with which she had nothing to do,

while her husband’s discomfort was a present trouble.

While she helped him to take off the wet garments which he would never

have had energy enough to remove of himself, Ellis was busy preparing

food, and mixing a great tumbler of spirits and hot water. He stood over

the unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and drink, and made

Nest, too, taste some mouthfuls—all the while planning in his own mind

how best to conceal what had been done, and who had done it; not

altogether without a certain feeling of vulgar triumph in the reflection

that Nest, as she stood there, carelessly dressed, dishevelled in her

grief, was in reality the mistress of Bodowen, than which Ellis Pritchard

had never seen a grander house, though he believed such might exist.

By dint of a few dexterous questions he found out all he wanted to know

from Owen, as he ate and drank. In fact, it was almost a relief to Owen

to dilute the horror by talking about it. Before the meal was done, if

meal it could be called, Ellis knew all he cared to know.

“Now, Nest, on with your cloak and haps. Pack up what needs to go with

you, for both you and your husband must be half way to Liverpool by

to-morrow’s morn. I’ll take you past Rhyl Sands in my fishing-boat, with

yours in tow; and, once over the dangerous part, I’ll return with my

cargo of fish, and learn how much stir there is at Bodowen. Once safe

hidden in Liverpool, no one will know where you are, and you may stay

quiet till your time comes for returning.”

“I will never come home again,” said Owen, doggedly. “The place is

accursed!”

“Hoot! be guided by me, man. Why, it was but an accident, after all!

And we’ll land at the Holy Island, at the Point of Llyn; there is an old

cousin of mine, the parson, there—for the Pritchards have known better

days, Squire—and we’ll bury him there. It was but an accident, man.

Hold up your head! You and Nest will come home yet and fill Bodowen with

children, and I’ll live to see it.”

“Never!” said Owen. “I am the last male of my race, and the son has

murdered his father!”

Nest came in laden and cloaked. Ellis was for hurrying them off. The

fire was extinguished, the door was locked.

“Here, Nest, my darling, let me take your bundle while I guide you down

the steps.” But her husband bent his head, and spoke never a word. Nest

gave her father the bundle (already loaded with such things as he himself

had seen fit to take), but clasped another softly and tightly.

“No one shall help me with this,” said she, in a low voice.

Her father did not understand her; her husband did, and placed his strong

helping arm round her waist, and blessed her.

“We will all go together, Nest,” said he. “But where?” and he looked up

at the storm-tossed clouds coming up from windward.

“It is a dirty night,” said Ellis, turning his head round to speak to his

companions at last. “But never fear, we’ll weather it?” And he made for

the place where his vessel was moored. Then he stopped and thought a

moment.

“Stay here!” said he, addressing his companions. “I may meet folk, and I

shall, maybe, have to hear and to speak. You wait here till I come back

for you.” So they sat down close together in a corner of the path.

“Let me look at him, Nest!” said Owen.

She took her little dead son out from under her shawl; they looked at his

waxen face long and tenderly; kissed it, and covered it up reverently and

softly.

“Nest,” said Owen, at last, “I feel as though my father’s spirit had been

near us, and as if it had bent over our poor little one. A strange

chilly air met me as I stooped over him. I could fancy the spirit of our

pure, blameless child guiding my father’s safe over the paths of the sky

to the gates of heaven, and escaping those accursed dogs of hell that

were darting up from the north in pursuit of souls not five minutes

since.

“Don’t talk so, Owen,” said Nest, curling up to him in the darkness of

the copse. “Who knows what may be listening?”

The pair were silent, in a kind of nameless terror, till they heard Ellis

Pritchard’s loud whisper. “Where are ye? Come along, soft and steady.

There were folk about even now, and the Squire is missed, and madam in a

fright.”

They went swiftly down to the little harbour, and embarked on board

Ellis’s boat. The sea heaved and rocked even there; the torn clouds went

hurrying overhead in a wild tumultuous manner.

They put out into the bay; still in silence, except when some word of

command was spoken by Ellis, who took the management of the vessel. They

made for the rocky shore, where Owen’s boat had been moored. It was not

there. It had broken loose and disappeared.

Owen sat down and covered his face. This last event, so simple and

natural in itself, struck on his excited and superstitious mind in an

extraordinary manner. He had hoped for a certain reconciliation, so to

say, by laying his father and his child both in one grave. But now it

appeared to him as if there was to be no forgiveness; as if his father

revolted even in death against any such peaceful union. Ellis took a

practical view of the case. If the Squire’s body was found drifting

about in a boat known to belong to his son, it would create terrible

suspicion as to the manner of his death. At one time in the evening,

Ellis had thought of persuading Owen to let him bury the Squire in a

sailor’s grave; or, in other words, to sew him up in a spare sail, and

weighting it well, sink it for ever. He had not broached the subject,

from a certain fear of Owen’s passionate repugnance to the plan;

otherwise, if he had consented, they might have returned to Penmorfa, and

passively awaited the course of events, secure of Owen’s succession to

Bodowen, sooner or later; or if Owen was too much overwhelmed by what had

happened, Ellis would have advised him to go away for a short time, and

return when the buzz and the talk was over.

Now it was different. It was absolutely necessary that they should leave

the country for a time. Through those stormy waters they must plough

their way that very night. Ellis had no fear—would have had no fear, at

any rate, with Owen as he had been a week, a day ago; but with Owen wild,

despairing, helpless, fate-pursued, what could he do?

They sailed into the tossing darkness, and were never more seen of men.

The house of Bodowen has sunk into damp, dark ruins; and a Saxon stranger

holds the lands of the Griffiths.

You cannot think how kindly Mrs. Dawson thanked Miss Duncan for writing

and reading this story. She shook my poor, pale governess so tenderly

by the hand that the tears came into her eyes, and the colour to her

checks.

“I though you had been so kind; I liked hearing about Lady Ludlow; I

fancied, perhaps, I could do something to give a little pleasure,” were

the half-finished sentences Miss Duncan stammered out. I am sure it was

the wish to earn similar kind words from Mrs. Dawson, that made Mrs.

Preston try and rummage through her memory to see if she could not

recollect some fact, or event, or history, which might interested Mrs.

Dawson and the little party that gathered round her sofa. Mrs. Preston

it was who told us the following tale:

“HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO.”

HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO

CHAPTER I.

Half a life-time ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland dales a

single woman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She was owner of the small

farm-house where she resided, and of some thirty or forty acres of land

by which it was surrounded. She had also an hereditary right to a

sheep-walk, extending to the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In the

language of the country she was a Stateswoman. Her house is yet to be

seen on the Oxenfell road, between Skelwith and Coniston. You go along

a moorland track, made by the carts that occasionally came for turf

from the Oxenfell. A brook babbles and brattles by the wayside, giving

you a sense of companionship, which relieves the deep solitude in which

this way is usually traversed. Some miles on this side of Coniston

there is a farmstead—a gray stone house, and a square of farm-buildings

surrounding a green space of rough turf, in the midst of which stands a

mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of death,

in the very heart and centre of the light and heat of the brightest

summer day. On the side away from the house, this yard slopes down to a

dark-brown pool, which is supplied with fresh water from the

overflowings of a stone cistern, into which some rivulet of the brook

before-mentioned continually and melodiously falls bubbling. The cattle

drink out of this cistern. The household bring their pitchers and fill

them with drinking-water by a dilatory, yet pretty, process. The

water-carrier brings with her a leaf of the hound’s-tongue fern, and,

inserting it in the crevice of the gray rock, makes a cool, green spout

for the sparkling stream.

The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it was in the

lifetime of Susan Dixon. Then, every small diamond pane in the windows

glittered with cleanliness. You might have eaten off the floor; you

could see yourself in the pewter plates and the polished oaken awmry,

or dresser, of the state kitchen into which you entered. Few strangers

penetrated further than this room. Once or twice, wandering tourists,

attracted by the lonely picturesqueness of the situation, and the

exquisite cleanliness of the house itself, made their way into this

house-place, and offered money enough (as they thought) to tempt the

hostess to receive them as lodgers. They would give no trouble, they

said; they would be out rambling or sketching all day long; would be

perfectly content with a share of the food which she provided for

herself; or would procure what they required from the Waterhead Inn at

Coniston. But no liberal sum—no fair words—moved her from her stony

manner, or her monotonous tone of indifferent refusal. No persuasion

could induce her to show any more of the house than that first room; no

appearance of fatigue procured for the weary an invitation to sit down

and rest; and if one more bold and less delicate did so without being

asked, Susan stood by, cold and apparently deaf, or only replying by

the briefest monosyllables, till the unwelcome visitor had departed.

Yet those with whom she had dealings, in the way of selling her cattle

or her farm produce, spoke of her as keen after a bargain—a hard one to

have to do with; and she never spared herself exertion or fatigue, at

market or in the field, to make the most of her produce. She led the

hay-makers with her swift, steady rake, and her noiseless evenness of

motion. She was about among the earliest in the market, examining

samples of oats, pricing them, and then turning with grim satisfaction

to her own cleaner corn.

She was served faithfully and long by those who were rather her

fellow-labourers than her servants. She was even and just in her

dealings with them. If she was peculiar and silent, they knew her, and

knew that she might be relied on. Some of them had known her from her

childhood; and deep in their hearts was an unspoken—almost

unconscious—pity for her, for they knew her story, though they never

spoke of it.

Yes; the time had been when that tall, gaunt, hard-featured, angular

woman—who never smiled, and hardly ever spoke an unnecessary word—had

been a fine-looking girl, bright-spirited and rosy; and when the hearth

at the Yew Nook had been as bright as she, with family love and

youthful hope and mirth. Fifty or fifty-one years ago, William Dixon

and his wife Margaret were alive; and Susan, their daughter, was about

eighteen years old—ten years older than the only other child, a boy

named after his father. William and Margaret Dixon were rather superior

people, of a character belonging—as far as I have seen—exclusively to

the class of Westmoreland and Cumberland statesmen—just, independent,

upright; not given to much speaking; kind-hearted, but not

demonstrative; disliking change, and new ways, and new people; sensible

and shrewd; each household self-contained, and its members having

little curiosity as to their neighbours, with whom they rarely met for

any social intercourse, save at the stated times of sheep-shearing and

Christmas; having a certain kind of sober pleasure in amassing money,

which occasionally made them miserable (as they call miserly people up

in the north) in their old age; reading no light or ephemeral

literature, but the grave, solid books brought round by the pedlars

(such as the “Paradise Lost” and “Regained,’” “The Death of Abel,” “The

Spiritual Quixote,” and “The Pilgrim’s Progress”), were to be found in

nearly every house: the men occasionally going off laking, _i.e._

playing, _i.e._ drinking for days together, and having to be hunted up

by anxious wives, who dared not leave their husbands to the chances of

the wild precipitous roads, but walked miles and miles, lantern in

hand, in the dead of night, to discover and guide the solemnly-drunken

husband home; who had a dreadful headache the next day, and the day

after that came forth as grave, and sober, and virtuous looking as if

there were no such thing as malt and spirituous liquors in the world;

and who were seldom reminded of their misdoings by their wives, to whom

such occasional outbreaks were as things of course, when once the

immediate anxiety produced by them was over. Such were—such are—the

characteristics of a class now passing away from the face of the land,

as their compeers, the yeomen, have done before them. Of such was

William Dixon. He was a shrewd clever farmer, in his day and

generation, when shrewdness was rather shown in the breeding and

rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cultivation of land. Owing to

this character of his, statesmen from a distance from beyond Kendal, or

from Borrowdale, of greater wealth than he, would send their sons to be

farm-servants for a year or two with him, in order to learn some of his

methods before setting up on land of their own. When Susan, his

daughter, was about seventeen, one Michael Hurst was farm-servant at

Yew Nook. He worked with the master, and lived with the family, and was

in all respects treated as an equal, except in the field. His father

was a wealthy statesman at Wythburne, up beyond Grasmere; and through

Michael’s servitude the families had become acquainted, and the Dixons

went over to the High Beck sheep-shearing, and the Hursts came down by

Red Bank and Loughrig Tarn and across the Oxenfell when there was the

Christmas-tide feasting at Yew Nook. The fathers strolled round the

fields together, examined cattle and sheep, and looked knowing over

each other’s horses. The mothers inspected the dairies and household

arrangements, each openly admiring the plans of the other, but secretly

preferring their own. Both fathers and mothers cast a glance from time

to time at Michael and Susan, who were thinking of nothing less than

farm or dairy, but whose unspoken attachment was, in all ways, so

suitable and natural a thing that each parent rejoiced over it,

although with characteristic reserve it was never spoken about—not even

between husband and wife.

Susan had been a strong, independent, healthy girl; a clever help to

her mother, and a spirited companion to her father; more of a man in

her (as he often said) than her delicate little brother ever would

have. He was his mother’s darling, although she loved Susan well. There

was no positive engagement between Michael and Susan—I doubt whether

even plain words of love had been spoken; when one winter-time Margaret

Dixon was seized with inflammation consequent upon a neglected cold.

She had always been strong and notable, and had been too busy to attend

to the early symptoms of illness. It would go off, she said to the

woman who helped in the kitchen; or if she did not feel better when

they had got the hams and bacon out of hand, she would take some

herb-tea and nurse up a bit. But Death could not wait till the hams and

bacon were cured: he came on with rapid strides, and shooting arrows of

portentous agony. Susan had never seen illness—never knew how much she

loved her mother till now, when she felt a dreadful, instinctive

certainty that she was losing her. Her mind was thronged with

recollections of the many times she had slighted her mother’s wishes;

her heart was full of the echoes of careless and angry replies that she

had spoken. What would she not now give to have opportunities of

service and obedience, and trials of her patience and love, for that

dear mother who lay gasping in torture! And yet Susan had been a good

girl and an affectionate daughter.

The sharp pain went off, and delicious ease came on; yet still her

mother sunk. In the midst of this languid peace she was dying. She

motioned Susan to her bedside, for she could only whisper; and then,

while the father was out of the room, she spoke as much to the eager,

hungering eyes of her daughter by the motion of her lips, as by the

slow, feeble sounds of her voice.

“Susan, lass, thou must not fret. It is God’s will, and thou wilt have

a deal to do. Keep father straight if thou canst; and if he goes out

Ulverstone ways, see that thou meet him before he gets to the Old

Quarry. It’s a dree bit for a man who has had a drop. As for lile

Will”—Here the poor woman’s face began to work and her fingers to move

nervously as they lay on the bed-quilt—“lile Will will miss me most of

all. Father’s often vexed with him because he’s not a quick strong lad;

he is not, my poor lile chap. And father thinks he’s saucy, because he

cannot always stomach oat-cake and porridge. There’s better than three

pound in th’ old black tea-pot on the top shelf of the cupboard. Just

keep a piece of loaf-bread by you, Susan dear, for Will to come to when

he’s not taken his breakfast. I have, may be, spoilt him; but there’ll

be no one to spoil him now.”

She began to cry a low, feeble cry, and covered up her face that Susan

might not see her. That dear face! those precious moments while yet the

eyes could look out with love and intelligence. Susan laid her head

down close by her mother’s ear.

“Mother I’ll take tent of Will. Mother, do you hear? He shall not want

ought I can give or get for him, least of all the kind words which you

had ever ready for us both. Bless you! bless you! my own mother.”

“Thou’lt promise me that, Susan, wilt thou? I can die easy if thou’lt

take charge of him. But he’s hardly like other folk; he tries father at

times, though I think father’ll be tender of him when I’m gone, for my

sake. And, Susan, there’s one thing more. I never spoke on it for fear

of the bairn being called a tell-tale, but I just comforted him up. He

vexes Michael at times, and Michael has struck him before now. I did

not want to make a stir; but he’s not strong, and a word from thee,

Susan, will go a long way with Michael.”

Susan was as red now as she had been pale before; it was the first time

that her influence over Michael had been openly acknowledged by a third

person, and a flash of joy came athwart the solemn sadness of the

moment. Her mother had spoken too much, and now came on the miserable

faintness. She never spoke again coherently; but when her children and

her husband stood by her bedside, she took lile Will’s hand and put it

into Susan’s, and looked at her with imploring eyes. Susan clasped her

arms round Will, and leaned her head upon his little curly one, and

vowed within herself to be as a mother to him.

Henceforward she was all in all to her brother. She was a more spirited

and amusing companion to him than his mother had been, from her greater

activity, and perhaps, also, from her originality of character, which

often prompted her to perform her habitual actions in some new and racy

manner. She was tender to lile Will when she was prompt and sharp with

everybody else—with Michael most of all; for somehow the girl felt

that, unprotected by her mother, she must keep up her own dignity, and

not allow her lover to see how strong a hold he had upon her heart. He

called her hard and cruel, and left her so; and she smiled softly to

herself, when his back was turned, to think how little he guessed how

deeply he was loved. For Susan was merely comely and fine looking;

Michael was strikingly handsome, admired by all the girls for miles

round, and quite enough of a country coxcomb to know it and plume

himself accordingly. He was the second son of his father; the eldest

would have High Beck farm, of course, but there was a good penny in the

Kendal bank in store for Michael. When harvest was over, he went to

Chapel Langdale to learn to dance; and at night, in his merry moods, he

would do his steps on the flag floor of the Yew Nook kitchen, to the

secret admiration of Susan, who had never learned dancing, but who

flouted him perpetually, even while she admired, in accordance with the

rule she seemed to have made for herself about keeping him at a

distance so long as he lived under the same roof with her. One evening

he sulked at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney

corner with his arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily

gazing into the wood-fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after

a hard day’s labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low

window-seat, trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal

light to enable her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who

lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the hearth to

Michael, poking the burning wood from time to time with a long

hazel-stick to bring out the leap of glittering sparks.

“And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?” asked

Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting his

proficiency. “Does it help you plough, reap, or even climb the rocks to

take a raven’s nest? If I were a man, I’d be ashamed to give in to such

softness.”

“If you were a man, you’d be glad to do anything which made the pretty

girls stand round and admire.”

“As they do to you, eh! Ho, Michael, that would not be my way o’ being

a man!”

“What would then?” asked he, after a pause, during which he had

expected in vain that she would go on with her sentence. No answer.

“I should not like you as a man, Susy; you’d be too hard and

headstrong.”

“Am I hard and headstrong?” asked she, with as indifferent a tone as

she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick

ear detected the inflexion.

“No, Susy! You’re wilful at times, and that’s right enough. I don’t

like a girl without spirit. There’s a mighty pretty girl comes to the

dancing class; but she is all milk and water. Her eyes never flash like

yours when you’re put out; why, I can see them flame across the kitchen

like a cat’s in the dark. Now, if you were a man, I should feel queer

before those looks of yours; as it is, I rather like them, because—”

“Because what?” asked she, looking up and perceiving that he had stolen

close up to her.

“Because I can make all right in this way,” said he, kissing her

suddenly.

“Can you?” said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp and panting,

half with rage. “Take that, by way of proof that making right is none

so easy.” And she boxed his ears pretty sharply. He went back to his

seat discomfited and out of temper. She could no longer see to look,

even if her face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled, but she did not

choose to move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping attitude

and pretended to go on sewing.

“Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-water,” muttered he, “but—Confound

thee, lad! what art thou doing?” exclaimed Michael, as a great piece of

burning wood was cast into his face by an unlucky poke of Will’s. “Thou

great lounging, clumsy chap, I’ll teach thee better!” and with one or

two good round kicks he sent the lad whimpering away into the

back-kitchen. When he had a little recovered himself from his passion,

he saw Susan standing before him, her face looking strange and almost

ghastly by the reversed position of the shadows, arising from the

firelight shining upwards right under it.

“I tell thee what, Michael,” said she, “that lad’s motherless, but not

friendless.”

“His own father leathers him, and why should not I, when he’s given me

such a burn on my face?” said Michael, putting up his hand to his cheek

as if in pain.

“His father’s his father, and there is nought more to be said. But if

he did burn thee, it was by accident, and not o’ purpose; as thou

kicked him, it’s a mercy if his ribs are not broken.”

“He howls loud enough, I’m sure. I might ha’ kicked many a lad twice as

hard, and they’d ne’er ha’ said ought but ‘damn ye;’ but yon lad must

needs cry out like a stuck pig if one touches him;” replied Michael,

sullenly.

Susan went back to the window-seat, and looked absently out of the

window at the drifting clouds for a minute or two, while her eyes

filled with tears. Then she got up and made for the outer door which

led into the back-kitchen. Before she reached it, however, she heard a

low voice, whose music made her thrill, say—

“Susan, Susan!”

Her heart melted within her, but it seemed like treachery to her poor

boy, like faithlessness to her dead mother, to turn to her lover while

the tears which he had caused to flow were yet unwiped on Will’s

cheeks. So she seemed to take no heed, but passed into the darkness,

and, guided by the sobs, she found her way to where Willie sat crouched

among the disused tubs and churns.

“Come out wi’ me, lad;” and they went out into the orchard, where the

fruit-trees were bare of leaves, but ghastly in their tattered covering

of gray moss: and the soughing November wind came with long sweeps over

the fells till it rattled among the crackling boughs, underneath which

the brother and sister sat in the dark; he in her lap, and she hushing

his head against her shoulder.

“Thou should’st na’ play wi’ fire. It’s a naughty trick. Thoul’t suffer

for it in worse ways nor this before thou’st done, I’m afeared. I

should ha’ hit thee twice as lungeous kicks as Mike, if I’d been in his

place. He did na’ hurt thee, I am sure,” she assumed, half as a

question.

“Yes but he did. He turned me quite sick.” And he let his head fall

languidly down on his sister’s breast.

“Come, lad! come, lad!” said she anxiously. “Be a man. It was not much

that I saw. Why, when first the red cow came she kicked me far harder

for offering to milk her before her legs were tied. See thee! here’s a

peppermint-drop, and I’ll make thee a pasty to-night; only don’t give

way so, for it hurts me sore to think that Michael has done thee any

harm, my pretty.”

Willie roused himself up, and put back the wet and ruffled hair from

his heated face; and he and Susan rose up, and hand-in-hand went

towards the house, walking slowly and quietly except for a kind of sob

which Willie could not repress. Susan took him to the pump and washed

his tear-stained face, till she thought she had obliterated all traces

of the recent disturbance, arranging his curls for him, and then she

kissed him tenderly, and led him in, hoping to find Michael in the

kitchen, and make all straight between them. But the blaze had dropped

down into darkness; the wood was a heap of gray ashes in which the

sparks ran hither and thither; but even in the groping darkness Susan

knew by the sinking at her heart that Michael was not there. She threw

another brand on the hearth and lighted the candle, and sat down to her

work in silence. Willie cowered on his stool by the side of the fire,

eyeing his sister from time to time, and sorry and oppressed, he knew

not why, by the sight of her grave, almost stern face. No one came.

They two were in the house alone. The old woman who helped Susan with

the household work had gone out for the night to some friend’s

dwelling. William Dixon, the father, was up on the fells seeing after

his sheep. Susan had no heart to prepare the evening meal.

“Susy, darling, are you angry with me?” said Willie, in his little

piping, gentle voice. He had stolen up to his sister’s side. “I won’t

never play with the fire again; and I’ll not cry if Michael does kick

me. Only don’t look so like dead mother—don’t—don’t—please don’t!” he

exclaimed, hiding his face on her shoulder.

“I’m not angry, Willie,” said she. “Don’t be feared on me. You want

your supper, and you shall have it; and don’t you be feared on Michael.

He shall give reason for every hair of your head that he touches—he

shall.”

When William Dixon came home he found Susan and Willie sitting

together, hand-in-hand, and apparently pretty cheerful. He bade them go

to bed, for that he would sit up for Michael; and the next morning,

when Susan came down, she found that Michael had started an hour before

with the cart for lime. It was a long day’s work; Susan knew it would

be late, perhaps later than on the preceding night, before he

returned—at any rate, past her usual bed-time; and on no account would

she stop up a minute beyond that hour in the kitchen, whatever she

might do in her bed-room. Here she sat and watched till past midnight;

and when she saw him coming up the brow with the carts, she knew full

well, even in that faint moonlight, that his gait was the gait of a man

in liquor. But though she was annoyed and mortified to find in what way

he had chosen to forget her, the fact did not disgust or shock her as

it would have done many a girl, even at that day, who had not been

brought up as Susan had, among a class who considered it no crime, but

rather a mark of spirit, in a man to get drunk occasionally.

Nevertheless, she chose to hold herself very high all the next day when

Michael was, perforce, obliged to give up any attempt to do heavy work,

and hung about the out-buildings and farm in a very disconsolate and

sickly state. Willie had far more pity on him than Susan. Before

evening, Willie and he were fast, and, on his side, ostentatious

friends. Willie rode the horses down to water; Willie helped him to

chop wood. Susan sat gloomily at her work, hearing an indistinct but

cheerful conversation going on in the shippon, while the cows were

being milked. She almost felt irritated with her little brother, as if

he were a traitor, and had gone over to the enemy in the very battle

that she was fighting in his cause. She was alone with no one to speak

to, while they prattled on regardless if she were glad or sorry.

Soon Willie burst in. “Susan! Susan! come with me; I’ve something so

pretty to show you. Round the corner of the barn—run! run!” (He was

dragging her along, half reluctant, half desirous of some change in

that weary day.) Round the corner of the barn; and caught hold of by

Michael, who stood there awaiting her.

“O Willie!” cried she “you naughty boy. There is nothing pretty—what

have you brought me here for? Let me go; I won’t be held.”

“Only one word. Nay, if you wish it so much, you may go,” said Michael,

suddenly loosing his hold as she struggled. But now she was free, she

only drew off a step or two, murmuring something about Willie.

“You are going, then?” said Michael, with seeming sadness. “You won’t

hear me say a word of what is in my heart.”

“How can I tell whether it is what I should like to hear?” replied she,

still drawing back.

“That is just what I want you to tell me; I want you to hear it and

then to tell me whether you like it or not.”

“Well, you may speak,” replied she, turning her back, and beginning to

plait the hem of her apron.

He came close to her ear.

“I’m sorry I hurt Willie the other night. He has forgiven me. Can you?”

“You hurt him very badly,” she replied. “But you are right to be sorry.

I forgive you.”

“Stop, stop!” said he, laying his hand upon her arm. “There is

something more I’ve got to say. I want you to be my—what is it they

call it, Susan?”

“I don’t know,” said she, half-laughing, but trying to get away with

all her might now; and she was a strong girl, but she could not manage

it.

“You do. My—what is it I want you to be?”

“I tell you I don’t know, and you had best be quiet, and just let me go

in, or I shall think you’re as bad now as you were last night.”

“And how did you know what I was last night? It was past twelve when I

came home. Were you watching? Ah, Susan! be my wife, and you shall

never have to watch for a drunken husband. If I were your husband, I

would come straight home, and count every minute an hour till I saw

your bonny face. Now you know what I want you to be. I ask you to be my

wife. Will you, my own dear Susan?”

She did not speak for some time. Then she only said “Ask father.” And

now she was really off like a lapwing round the corner of the barn, and

up in her own little room, crying with all her might, before the

triumphant smile had left Michael’s face where he stood.

The “Ask father” was a mere form to be gone though. Old Daniel Hurst

and William Dixon had talked over what they could respectively give

their children before this; and that was the parental way of arranging

such matters. When the probable amount of worldly gear that he could

give his child had been named by each father, the young folk, as they

said, might take their own time in coming to the point which the old

men, with the prescience of experience, saw they were drifting to; no

need to hurry them, for they were both young, and Michael, though

active enough, was too thoughtless, old Daniel said, to be trusted with

the entire management of a farm. Meanwhile, his father would look about

him, and see after all the farms that were to be let.

Michael had a shrewd notion of this preliminary understanding between

the fathers, and so felt less daunted than he might otherwise have done

at making the application for Susan’s hand. It was all right, there was

not an obstacle; only a deal of good advice, which the lover thought

might have as well been spared, and which it must be confessed he did

not much attend to, although he assented to every part of it. Then

Susan was called down stairs, and slowly came dropping into view down

the steps which led from the two family apartments into the

house-place. She tried to look composed and quiet, but it could not be

done. She stood side by side with her lover, with her head drooping,

her cheeks burning, not daring to look up or move, while her father

made the newly-betrothed a somewhat formal address in which he gave his

consent, and many a piece of worldly wisdom beside. Susan listened as

well as she could for the beating of her heart; but when her father

solemnly and sadly referred to his own lost wife, she could keep from

sobbing no longer; but throwing her apron over her face, she sat down

on the bench by the dresser, and fairly gave way to pent-up tears. Oh,

how strangely sweet to be comforted as she was comforted, by tender

caress, and many a low-whispered promise of love! Her father sat by the

fire, thinking of the days that were gone; Willie was still out of

doors; but Susan and Michael felt no one’s presence or absence—they

only knew they were together as betrothed husband and wife.

In a week, or two, they were formally told of the arrangements to be

made in their favour. A small farm in the neighbourhood happened to

fall vacant; and Michael’s father offered to take it for him, and be

responsible for the rent for the first year, while William Dixon was to

contribute a certain amount of stock, and both fathers were to help

towards the furnishing of the house. Susan received all this

information in a quiet, indifferent way; she did not care much for any

of these preparations, which were to hurry her through the happy hours;

she cared least of all for the money amount of dowry and of substance.

It jarred on her to be made the confidante of occasional slight

repinings of Michael’s, as one by one his future father-in-law set

aside a beast or a pig for Susan’s portion, which were not always the

best animals of their kind upon the farm. But he also complained of his

own father’s stinginess, which somewhat, though not much, alleviated

Susan’s dislike to being awakened out of her pure dream of love to the

consideration of worldly wealth.

But in the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and pined. He had the

same chord of delicacy running through his mind that made his body

feeble and weak. He kept out of the way, and was apparently occupied in

whittling and carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house.

But he positively avoided Michael, and shrunk away even from Susan. She

was too much occupied to notice this at first. Michael pointed it out

to her, saying, with a laugh,—

“Look at Willie! he might be a cast-off lover and jealous of me, he

looks so dark and downcast at me.” Michael spoke this jest out loud,

and Willie burst into tears, and ran out of the house.

“Let me go. Let me go!” said Susan (for her lover’s arm was round her

waist). “I must go to him if he’s fretting. I promised mother I would!”

She pulled herself away, and went in search of the boy. She sought in

byre and barn, through the orchard, where indeed in this leafless

winter-time there was no great concealment; up into the room where the

wool was usually stored in the later summer, and at last she found him,

sitting at bay, like some hunted creature, up behind the wood-stack.

“What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking you everywhere?” asked she,

breathless.

“I did not know you would seek me. I’ve been away many a time, and no

one has cared to seek me,” said he, crying afresh.

“Nonsense,” replied Susan, “don’t be so foolish, ye little

good-for-nought.” But she crept up to him in the hole he had made

underneath the great, brown sheafs of wood, and squeezed herself down

by him. “What for should folk seek after you, when you get away from

them whenever you can?” asked she.

“They don’t want me to stay. Nobody wants me. If I go with father, he

says I hinder more than I help. You used to like to have me with you.

But now, you’ve taken up with Michael, and you’d rather I was away; and

I can just bide away; but I cannot stand Michael jeering at me. He’s

got you to love him and that might serve him.”

“But I love you, too, dearly, lad!” said she, putting her arm round his

neck.

“Which one of us do you like best?” said he, wistfully, after a little

pause, putting her arm away, so that he might look in her face, and see

if she spoke truth.

She went very red.

“You should not ask such questions. They are not fit for you to ask,

nor for me to answer.”

“But mother bade you love me!” said he, plaintively.

“And so I do. And so I ever will do. Lover nor husband shall come

betwixt thee and me, lad—ne’er a one of them. That I promise thee (as I

promised mother before), in the sight of God and with her hearkening

now, if ever she can hearken to earthly word again. Only I cannot abide

to have thee fretting, just because my heart is large enough for two.”

“And thou’lt love me always?”

“Always, and ever. And the more—the more thou’lt love Michael,” said

she, dropping her voice.

“I’ll try,” said the boy, sighing, for he remembered many a harsh word

and blow of which his sister knew nothing. She would have risen up to

go away, but he held her tight, for here and now she was all his own,

and he did not know when such a time might come again. So the two sat

crouched up and silent, till they heard the horn blowing at the

field-gate, which was the summons home to any wanderers belonging to

the farm, and at this hour of the evening, signified that supper was

ready. Then the two went in.

CHAPTER II.

Susan and Michael were to be married in April. He had already gone to

take possession of his new farm, three or four miles away from Yew

Nook—but that is neighbouring, according to the acceptation of the word

in that thinly-populated district,—when William Dixon fell ill. He came

home one evening, complaining of head-ache and pains in his limbs, but

seemed to loathe the posset which Susan prepared for him; the

treacle-posset which was the homely country remedy against an incipient

cold. He took to his bed with a sensation of exceeding weariness, and

an odd, unusual looking-back to the days of his youth, when he was a

lad living with his parents, in this very house.

The next morning he had forgotten all his life since then, and did not

know his own children; crying, like a newly-weaned baby, for his mother

to come and soothe away his terrible pain. The doctor from Coniston

said it was the typhus-fever, and warned Susan of its infectious

character, and shook his head over his patient. There were no near

friends to come and share her anxiety; only good, kind old Peggy, who

was faithfulness itself, and one or two labourers’ wives, who would

fain have helped her, had not their hands been tied by their

responsibility to their own families. But, somehow, Susan neither

feared nor flagged. As for fear, indeed, she had no time to give way to

it, for every energy of both body and mind was required. Besides, the

young have had too little experience of the danger of infection to

dread it much. She did indeed wish, from time to time, that Michael had

been at home to have taken Willie over to his father’s at High Beck;

but then, again, the lad was docile and useful to her, and his

fecklessness in many things might make him harshly treated by

strangers; so, perhaps, it was as well that Michael was away at Appleby

fair, or even beyond that—gone into Yorkshire after horses.

Her father grew worse; and the doctor insisted on sending over a nurse

from Coniston. Not a professed nurse—Coniston could not have supported

such a one; but a widow who was ready to go where the doctor sent her

for the sake of the payment. When she came, Susan suddenly gave way;

she was felled by the fever herself, and lay unconscious for long

weeks. Her consciousness returned to her one spring afternoon; early

spring: April,—her wedding-month. There was a little fire burning in

the small corner-grate, and the flickering of the blaze was enough for

her to notice in her weak state. She felt that there was some one

sitting on the window-side of her bed, behind the curtain, but she did

not care to know who it was; it was even too great a trouble for her

languid mind to consider who it was likely to be. She would rather shut

her eyes, and melt off again into the gentle luxury of sleep. The next

time she wakened, the Coniston nurse perceived her movement, and made

her a cup of tea, which she drank with eager relish; but still they did

not speak, and once more Susan lay motionless—not asleep, but

strangely, pleasantly conscious of all the small chamber and household

sounds; the fall of a cinder on the hearth, the fitful singing of the

half-empty kettle, the cattle tramping out to field again after they

had been milked, the aged step on the creaking stair—old Peggy’s, as

she knew. It came to her door; it stopped; the person outside listened

for a moment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and looked in. The

watcher by the bedside arose, and went to her. Susan would have been

glad to see Peggy’s face once more, but was far too weak to turn, so

she lay and listened.

“How is she?” whispered one trembling, aged voice.

“Better,” replied the other. “She’s been awake, and had a cup of tea.

She’ll do now.”

“Has she asked after him?”

“Hush! No; she has not spoken a word.”

“Poor lass! poor lass!”

The door was shut. A weak feeling of sorrow and self-pity came over

Susan. What was wrong? Whom had she loved? And dawning, dawning, slowly

rose the sun of her former life, and all particulars were made distinct

to her. She felt that some sorrow was coming to her, and cried over it

before she knew what it was, or had strength enough to ask. In the dead

of night,—and she had never slept again,—she softly called to the

watcher, and asked—

“Who?”

“Who what?” replied the woman, with a conscious affright, ill-veiled by

a poor assumption of ease. “Lie still, there’s a darling, and go to

sleep. Sleep’s better for you than all the doctor’s stuff.”

“Who?” repeated Susan. “Something is wrong. Who?”

“Oh, dear!” said the woman. “There’s nothing wrong. Willie has taken

the turn, and is doing nicely.”

“Father?”

“Well! he’s all right now,” she answered, looking another way, as if

seeking for something.

“Then it’s Michael! Oh, me! oh, me!” She set up a succession of weak,

plaintive, hysterical cries before the nurse could pacify her, by

declaring that Michael had been at the house not three hours before to

ask after her, and looked as well and as hearty as ever man did.

“And you heard of no harm to him since?” inquired Susan.

“Bless the lass, no, for sure! I’ve ne’er heard his name named since I

saw him go out of the yard as stout a man as ever trod shoe-leather.”

It was well, as the nurse said afterwards to Peggy, that Susan had been

so easily pacified by the equivocating answer in respect to her father.

If she had pressed the questions home in his case as she did in

Michael’s, she would have learnt that he was dead and buried more than

a month before. It was well, too, that in her weak state of

convalescence (which lasted long after this first day of consciousness)

her perceptions were not sharp enough to observe the sad change that

had taken place in Willie. His bodily strength returned, his appetite

was something enormous, but his eyes wandered continually; his regard

could not be arrested; his speech became slow, impeded, and incoherent.

People began to say that the fever had taken away the little wit Willie

Dixon had ever possessed and that they feared that he would end in

being a “natural,” as they call an idiot in the Dales.

The habitual affection and obedience to Susan lasted longer than any

other feeling that the boy had had previous to his illness; and,

perhaps, this made her be the last to perceive what every one else had

long anticipated. She felt the awakening rude when it did come. It was

in this wise:—

One June evening, she sat out of doors under the yew-tree, knitting.

She was pale still from her recent illness; and her languor, joined to

the fact of her black dress, made her look more than usually

interesting. She was no longer the buoyant self-sufficient Susan, equal

to every occasion. The men were bringing in the cows to be milked, and

Michael was about in the yard giving orders and directions with

somewhat the air of a master, for the farm belonged of right to Willie,

and Susan had succeeded to the guardianship of her brother. Michael and

she were to be married as soon as she was strong enough—so, perhaps,

his authoritative manner was justified; but the labourers did not like

it, although they said little. They remembered a stripling on the farm,

knowing far less than they did, and often glad to shelter his ignorance

of all agricultural matters behind their superior knowledge. They would

have taken orders from Susan with far more willingness; nay, Willie

himself might have commanded them; and from the old hereditary feeling

toward the owners of land, they would have obeyed him with far greater

cordiality than they now showed to Michael. But Susan was tired with

even three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to notice, or to care,

how things went on around her; and Willie—poor Willie!—there he stood

lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and developed, to be

sure, but with restless eyes and ever-open mouth, and every now and

then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling

vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old labourers

passed him, they looked at each other ominously, and shook their heads.

“Willie, darling,” said Susan, “don’t make that noise—it makes my head

ache.”

She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to hear; at any rate, he

continued his howl from time to time.

“Hold thy noise, wilt’a?” said Michael, roughly, as he passed near him,

and threatening him with his fist. Susan’s back was turned to the pair.

The expression of Willie’s face changed from vacancy to fear, and he

came shambling up to Susan, who put her arm round him, and, as if

protected by that shelter, he began making faces at Michael. Susan saw

what was going on, and, as if now first struck by the strangeness of

her brother’s manner, she looked anxiously at Michael for an

explanation. Michael was irritated at Willie’s defiance of him, and did

not mince the matter.

“It’s just that the fever has left him silly—he never was as wise as

other folk, and now I doubt if he will ever get right.”

Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, and her lip quivered. She

looked long and wistfully at Willie’s face, as he watched the motion of

the ducks in the great stable-pool. He laughed softly to himself every

now and then.

“Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead,” said Susan, instinctively

adopting the form of speech she would have used to a young child.

“Willie, boo! Willie, boo!” he replied, clapping his hands, and

avoiding her eye.

“Speak properly, Willie,” said Susan, making a strong effort at

self-control, and trying to arrest his attention.

“You know who I am—tell me my name!” She grasped his arm almost

painfully tight to make him attend. Now he looked at her, and, for an

instant, a gleam of recognition quivered over his face; but the

exertion was evidently painful, and he began to cry at the vainness of

the effort to recall her name. He hid his face upon her shoulder with

the old affectionate trick of manner. She put him gently away, and went

into the house into her own little bedroom. She locked the door, and

did not reply at all to Michael’s calls for her, hardly spoke to old

Peggy, who tried to tempt her out to receive some homely sympathy, and

through the open easement there still came the idiotic sound of

“Willie, boo! Willie, boo!”

CHAPTER III.

After the stun of the blow came the realization of the consequences.

Susan would sit for hours trying patiently to recall and piece together

fragments of recollection and consciousness in her brother’s mind. She

would let him go and pursue some senseless bit of play, and wait until

she could catch his eye or his attention again, when she would resume

her self-imposed task. Michael complained that she never had a word for

him, or a minute of time to spend with him now; but she only said she

must try, while there was yet a chance, to bring back her brother’s

lost wits. As for marriage in this state of uncertainty, she had no

heart to think of it. Then Michael stormed, and absented himself for

two or three days; but it was of no use. When he came back, he saw that

she had been crying till her eyes were all swollen up, and he gathered

from Peggy’s scoldings (which she did not spare him) that Susan had

eaten nothing since he went away. But she was as inflexible as ever.

“Not just yet. Only not just yet. And don’t say again that I do not

love you,” said she, suddenly hiding herself in his arms.

And so matters went on through August. The crop of oats was gathered

in; the wheat-field was not ready as yet, when one fine day Michael

drove up in a borrowed shandry, and offered to take Willie a ride. His

manner, when Susan asked him where he was going to, was rather

confused; but the answer was straight and clear enough.

He had business in Ambleside. He would never lose sight of the lad, and

have him back safe and sound before dark. So Susan let him go.

Before night they were at home again: Willie in high delight at a

little rattling paper windmill that Michael had bought for him in the

street, and striving to imitate this new sound with perpetual buzzings.

Michael, too, looked pleased. Susan knew the look, although afterwards

she remembered that he had tried to veil it from her, and had assumed a

grave appearance of sorrow whenever he caught her eye. He put up his

horse; for, although he had three miles further to go, the moon was

up—the bonny harvest-moon—and he did not care how late he had to drive

on such a road by such a light. After the supper which Susan had

prepared for the travellers was over, Peggy went up-stairs to see

Willie safe in bed; for he had to have the same care taken of him that

a little child of four years old requires.

Michael drew near to Susan.

“Susan,” said he, “I took Will to see Dr. Preston, at Kendal. He’s the

first doctor in the county. I thought it were better for us—for you—to

know at once what chance there were for him.”

“Well!” said Susan, looking eagerly up. She saw the same strange glance

of satisfaction, the same instant change to apparent regret and pain.

“What did he say?” said she. “Speak! can’t you?”

“He said he would never get better of his weakness.”

“Never!”

“No; never. It’s a long word, and hard to bear. And there’s worse to

come, dearest. The doctor thinks he will get badder from year to year.

And he said, if he was us—you—he would send him off in time to

Lancaster Asylum. They’ve ways there both of keeping such people in

order and making them happy. I only tell you what he said,” continued

he, seeing the gathering storm in her face.

“There was no harm in his saying it,” she replied, with great

self-constraint, forcing herself to speak coldly instead of angrily.

“Folk is welcome to their opinions.”

They sat silent for a minute or two, her breast heaving with suppressed

feeling.

“He’s counted a very clever man,” said Michael at length.

“He may be. He’s none of my clever men, nor am I going to be guided by

him, whatever he may think. And I don’t thank them that went and took

my poor lad to have such harsh notions formed about him. If I’d been

there, I could have called out the sense that is in him.”