CHAPTER XVIII.

But for the present, curiosity, gratitude, hate, all feelings indeed and

passions, except from the bled vein of love, and the heart-rooted fibres

of sorrow, were to be crushed within me. Evening after evening, my dear

mother's presence seemed more and more dreamy and shadowy; and night

after night she went feebler and feebler to bed. In the morning indeed

she had gathered some fragile strength, such strength as so wasted a

form could exert, and the breeze and the fresh May sun made believe of

health on her cheeks. But no more was I tempted to lay my arm round her

waist, and rally her on its delicate girlish span, nor could I now look

gaily into her eyes, and tell her how much she excelled her child. Those

little liberties, which with less than a matron's dignity, and more than

a mother's fondness she had so long allowed me, became as she still

expected, and I could not bear to take them, so many great distresses.

Even at night, when I twined in its simple mode her soft brown hair, as

I thought how few the times my old task would be needed again, it cost

me many a shift to prevent her descrying my tears in the glass, or

suspecting them in my voice. For herself, she knew well what was

coming; she had learned how soon she must be my sweet angel instead of

my mother, and her last trouble was that she could not bring me to think

the difference small. So calmly she spoke of her end, not looking at me

the while for fear we both should weep, so gently and sweetly she talked

of the time when I should hearken no more, as if she were going to visit

a garden and hand me the flowers outside. Then, if I broke forth in an

anguish of sobs, she would beg my forgiveness, as if she could have done

wrong, and mourn for my loneliness after her, as though she could help

forsaking me.

Looking back, even now, on that time, how I condemn and yet pardon

myself, reflecting how little I tried to dissemble my child-like woe.

When all things rejoiced in their young summer strength, and scarcely

the breeze turned the leaves for the songs of the birds, and the pure

white hawthorn was calm as the death of the good, and the soul of

gladness was sad, we talked for the last time together, mother and

child, looking forth on the farewell of sunset. The room under the

thatch smelled musty in summer, and I had made up a bed on the sofa

downstairs. The wasting low fever was past, and the wearisome cough

exhausted, and the flush had ebbed from her cheeks (as the world from

her heart), and of all human passions, and wishes, and cares, not one

left a trace in her bosom, except a mother's love. This and only this

retarded her flight to heaven, as the sight of his nest delays the

rising of the lark.

"My child," she began, and her voice was low, but very distinct, "my

only and darling child, who has minded me so long, and laid her youth,

and beauty, and high courageous spirit, at the feet of her weak mother;

my child, who fostered in wealth and love, will be to-morrow an orphan,

cast upon the wide world"--here she fairly broke down, in spite of

religion, and heaven, and turned her head to the pillow, a true daughter

and mother of earth. I would fain have given that fortune, whose loss

to me she lamented, for leave to cry freely with her, without adding to

her distress.

In a minute or two, she was able to proceed; with her thin hand she

parted the hair shaken purposely over my eyes.

"I am sure that my pet will listen, with kindness and patience, while I

try to say what has lain so long at my heart. You know how painfully I

have always been moved by any allusion to the death of your dear father.

It has been a weakness no doubt on my part, but one which I vainly

strove against; and for which I trust to be pardoned where all is pardon

and peace."

Her voice began to tremble, and her eyes became fixed, and I feared a

return of the old disorder; but she shook it off, and spoke again

distinctly, though with great labour:

"This is a bitter subject, and I never could bring myself to it, till

now, when it seems too late. But, my poor love, I am so anxious about

it. For the rest--that Providence which has never forsaken us, repine

as I would, I can trust that Providence still to protect my darling

child. There is one thing, and only one, by promising which you will

make my departure quite happy. Then I shall go to rejoin your father,

and carry such tidings of you, as will enable us both to wait, in the

fulness of time, your coming."

"Oh, that the fulness of time were come!" I cried in my selfish

loneliness; "for me it is empty enough."

"My precious, my own darling Clara, you sob so, you make me most

wretched."

"Mother, I will not cry any more;" neither did I, while she could see

me.

"I need not tell you," she said, "what is that promise which I crave for

your own dear sake."

"No, ma'am," I replied, "I know quite well what it is."

I saw that I had grieved her. How could I call her then anything else

than "mother"?

"My mother dear, you wish me to promise this--that I will forego my

revenge upon him who slew my father."

She bowed her head, with a look I cannot describe. In the harsh way I

had put it, it seemed as if she were injuring both my father and me.

"Had you asked me anything else, although it were sin against God and

man (if you could ask such a thing)--I would have pledged myself to it,

as gladly as I would die--die, at least, if my task were done. But

this, this one thing only--to abandon what I live for, what I was born

to do, to be a traitor to my own father and you--I implore you, mother,

by Him whose glory is on you now, do not ask me this."

Her face in its sadness and purity made me bury my eyes and forget

things.

"Then I must die, and leave my only child possessed with a murderer's

spirit!"

The depth of her last agony, and which I believed would cling to her

even in heaven, was more than I could bear. I knelt on the floor and

put my hand to her side. Her worn out heart was throbbing again, with

the pang of her disappointment.

"Mother," I cried, "I will promise you this. When I have discovered, as

I must do, that man who has made you a widow and me an orphan, if I find

any plea whatever to lessen his crime, or penitence to atone for it, as

I hope to see my father and mother in heaven, I will try to spare and

forgive him. Can you wish me to rest in ignorance, and forget that

deed?"

"Clara," she answered weakly, and she spoke more slowly and feebly every

time, "you have promised me all I can hope for. How you loved your

father! Me too you have loved I cannot say how much. For my sake, you

have borne poverty, trouble, and illness, without a complaining word.

By day, and by night, through my countless wants, and long fretfulness."

I put my finger upon her pale lips. How could she tell such a story

then? Her tears came now and then, and would not be stopped, as she

laid her weak hand on my head.

"May the God of the fatherless and the poor, who knows and comforts the

widow's grief, the God who is taking me now to His bosom, bless with all

blessings of earth and heaven, and restore to me this my child."

A sudden happiness fell upon her, as if she had seen her prayer's

acceptance. She let her arms fall round me, and laid my cheek by the

side of her bright flowing smile. It was the last conscious stir of the

mind; all the rest seemed the flush of the soul. In the window the

night-scented heath was blooming; outside it, the jessamine crossed in a

milky way of white stars, and the lush honeysuckle had flung down her

lap in clusters. The fragrance of flowers lay heavy upon us, and we were

sore weary with the burden of sorrow and joy. So tranquil and kind was

the face of death, that sleep, his half-brother, still held his hand.

The voice of the thrush, from the corner laurel, broke the holy

stillness. Like dreams of home that break our slumbers, his melody was

its own excuse. My mother awoke, and said faintly, with no gleam in her

eyes:

"Raise me upon the pillow, my love, that I may hear him once more. He

sings like one your father and I used to listen to every evening, in the

days when we watched your cradle."

I lifted her gently. The voice of nature made way for her passing

spirit.

"Now kiss me, my child; once more, my own loved child, my heart is with

you for ever. Light of my eyes, you are growing dim."

She clasped her hands in prayer, with one of mine between them. My

other was round her neck.

Then she spoke slowly, and with a waning voice; but firmly, as if it had

been her marriage-response.

"Thou art my guide, and my staff. I have no fear, neither shadow of

trembling. Make no long tarrying, oh my God!"

The bird went home to his nest, and she to that refuge where all is

home. Though the hands that held mine grew cold as ice, and her lips

replied to no kiss, and the smile on her face slept off into stillness,

and a grey shade crept on her features;--I could not believe that all

this was death.

CLARA VAUGHAN

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

"Long-shadowed death," some poet says. How well I know and feel it! the

gloom before him deepening as he comes, and the world of darkness

stretching many years behind.

I once dared to believe that no earthly blow could ever subdue, or even

bend my resolute will. I now found my mistake, and cared not even to

think about it.

On the morning after my mother's death I wandered about, and could not

tell where to go. The passionate clinging which would not allow me,

during that blank and sleepless night, to quit what remained of her

presence, and the jealous despair which felt it a wrong that any one

else should approach, had now settled down to a languid heaviness, and

all that I cared for was to be let alone. All the places where we had

been together I visited now, without knowing why, perhaps it was to see

if she were there. Then vaguely disappointed, I thought there must be

some mistake, and wearily went the dreary round again.

I cannot clearly call to mind, but think it must have been that day,

when I was in the corner of the room, looking at the place whence they

had taken dear mother. Ann Maples and Mrs. Huxtable came in, followed by

the farmer, who had left his shoes at the door. They did not see me, so

I suppose it must have been in the evening. They were come to remove

the sofa. I have not the heart to follow their brogue.

"Yes to be sure," said Mrs. Huxtable, looking at it with a short sigh.

It was odd that it should strike me then, but all she did was short.

"Get it out of her sight, poor dear," said Ann Maples.

"To see her sit and look at it!" exclaimed the farmer's wife.

"With her eyes so dry and stupid like!" returned the other. "Poor

child, she must have cried herself out. I have known her sit by the

hour, and stare at the bed where her father was killed, but it was a

different sort of look to this."

"Ah well, she has lost a good mother," said Dame Huxtable. "God grant

my poor little chicks may never be left like her."

"What's your children to talk of along with Miss Clara?" asked my nurse.

Mrs. Huxtable was about to answer sharply, but checked herself, and only

said:

"All children is much of a muchness to their mothers."

"Don't tell me," cried Ann Maples, who had never had any.

The farmer came between them, walking on tip-toe.

"For good, now, don't ye fall out at such a time as this here. What's

our affairs to speak of now?"

"What's any folks," asked Mrs. Huxtable, "that has the breath of life?"

"And goes forth in the morning, and is cast into the oven, ma'am,"

continued her antagonist.

"Ah, bless thee, yes!" the farmer replied, "I'll take my gospel oath of

it. It's not much good I am at parsoning, and maybe I likes a drop of

drink when the weather is fitty; but that young chestnut filly that's

just come home from breaking, I'd sell her to a gipsey, and trust him

for the money, if so be 'twould make the young lady turn her face to the

Lord. Can't ye speak to her now about it, either of you women? Doo'e

now, doo'e."

"How could I possible?" his wife exclaimed; "why, farmer, you must be

mazed. A high young lady like that, and the tears still hot in her

eyes!"

"The very reason, wife, the very time and reason. But likely Mrs. Maples

would be the proper person."

"Thank you, sir," my nurse replied, "Mrs. Maples knows good manners a

little. Thank you, sir; Mrs. Maples wasn't born in Devonshire."

"I ask your pardon, ma'am," said the farmer, much abashed, "I humbly ask

your pardon; I wasn't taught no better. I can only go by what I have

seen, and what seems to come inside of me. And I know, in our way of

business, when a calf is weaned from the mother, the poor beastess hath

a call for some one else to feed it. Maybe it's no harm to let her have

the refusal." Therewith he opened my mother's Bible, and placed it

reverently on the window-seat. "Waife, do'e mind the time as poor Aunt

Betsy died, over there to Rowley Mires?"

"For sure I do, but what have her got to do with it? Us mustn't talk of

her, I reckon, any more than of the chillers, though us be so unlucky as

to be born in Devonshire. Fie, fie, thee ought to know better than to

talk of poor Aunt Betsy along of a lady, and before our betters." Here

she curtsied to Ann Maples, with a flash of light in her eyes, and

rubbing them hard with her apron.

"Well, well," replied the farmer, sadly, "mayhap so I did. And who be I

to gainsay? Mayhap so I did;" he dropped his voice, but added, after

some reflection, "It be hard to tell the rights of it; but sure her were

a woman."

"Who said her were a man, thee zany?" Mrs. Huxtable was disappointed

that the case would not be argued. The farmer discreetly changed the

subject.

"Now, if it was me," he continued, "I wouldn't think of taking this here

settle-bed away from the poor thing."

"Why not, farmer?" asked Mrs. Huxtable, sharply. "Give me a reason for

leaving it, and I'll give you ten for taking it."

"I can't give no reasons. But maybe it comforts her a little."

"Comfort indeed!" said his wife; "breaks her heart with, crying, more

likely. Come, lend a hand, old heavy-strap; what can a great dromedary

like thee know about young wenches?"

At any rate he knew more than she did. The moment they touched it I

burst forth from my corner, and flung myself upon it, rolling as if I

would bury myself in the ecstasy of anguish. What they did I cannot

tell; they might say what they liked, I had not cried till then.

The next day I was sitting stupified and heavy, trying once more to meet

the necessity of thinking about my mother's funeral; but again and

again, the weakness of sorrow fell away from the subject. The people of

the house kept from me. Mrs. Huxtable had done her best, but they knew

I would rather be alone.

The door was opened quietly, and some one entered in a stealthy manner.

Regarding it as an intrusion, I would not look that way.

"Miss Clara dear," began the farmer, standing behind me, and whispering,

"I humbly ask your pardon, Miss, for calling you that same. But we have

had a wonderful fine season, sure enough."

I made him no answer, being angry at his ill-timed common-place.

"If you please, Miss, such a many lambs was never known afore, and

turnips fine last winter, and corn, and hay, and every kind of stock, a

fetching of such prices. The farmers about here has made their fortune

mainly."

"I am glad to hear that you are so prosperous, Mr. Huxtable," I

answered, very coldly.

"Yes fie, good times, Miss, wonderful good times, we don't know what to

do with our money a'rnost."

"Buy education and good taste," I said, "instead of thrusting your

happiness upon such as I."

How little I knew him! Shall I ever forgive myself that speech?

"Ah, I wish I could," he answered, sadly, "I wish with all my heart I

could. But we must be born to the like of that, I am afeared, Miss

Vaughan."

Poor fellow! he knew nothing of irony, as we do, who are born to good

taste, otherwise I might have suspected him of it then.

He suddenly wished me "good evening," although it was middle-day, and

then he made off for the door, but came back again with a desperate

resolve, and spoke, for him, very quickly, looking all the time at his

feet.

"There, I can't make head or tail of it, Miss Clara, but wife said I was

to do it so. Take the danged money, that's a dear, and for good now

don't be offended, for I cas'n help it."

He opened his great hand, which was actually shaking, and hurriedly

placed on the sofa a small packet tied in the leaf of a copy book; then

suddenly put in mind of something, he made a dive, and snatching it up,

flung it upon a Windsor chair. It fell with a chink, the string slipped

off, and out rolled at least forty sovereigns and guineas, and a number

of crown-pieces.

Peremptorily I called him back, for he was running out of the door.

"Mr. Huxtable, what is the meaning of this?"

"Meaning, Miss! Lord bless you, Miss Clara, there bain't no meaning of

it; only it corned into my head last night, as I was laying awake,

humbly asking your pardon, Miss, for that same, that if so be you should

desire, that the dear good lady herself might like, if I may make so

bold, meaning that it isn't fitly like, that she should lay nowhere

else, but alongside of her own husband, till death do them part, Mr.

Henry Valentine Vaughan, Esquire, Vaughan Park, in the county of

Gloucestershire. There I be as bad as Beany Dawe."

He repeated his rhyme, with some relief, hoping to change the subject.

I caught him by both hands, and burst into tears.

"Don't ye now," he said, with a thickness in his voice, "don't ye now,

my dearie, leastways unless it does you good."

"It does me good, indeed," I sobbed, "to find still in the world so kind

a heart as yours."

Though I longed to look him in the face, I knew that I must not do so.

Oh why are men so ashamed of manly tears? Perceiving that I could not

speak, he began to talk for both of us, making a hundred blundering

apologies, trying to hide his knowledge of my poverty, and to prove that

he was only paying a debt which extended over many years of tenancy. He

was not at all an imaginative man, but delicacy supplied him with

invention. So deep a sense pervades all classes in this English

country, that want of money is an indictment, which none but the culprit

may sign. Poor or rich, I should not be worth despising, if I had shown

the paltry pride of declining such a loan.

The tears came anew to my eyes when I found that what had been brought

so freely was the savings of years of honest toil, a truth which the

owners had tried to conceal by polishing the old coin. But not being

skilled, dear souls, in plate-cleaning, they had left some rotten-stone

adhering to the George and Dragons.

CHAPTER II.

Although I find a sad pleasure in lingering over these times, with such

a history still impending, I cannot afford the indulgence.

Dear mother's simple funeral took me once more to my native place. Even

without Mr. Huxtable's generous and noble assistance, I should have laid

her to rest by the side of the husband she loved so well. But

difficulties, sore to encounter at such a time, would have met me on

every side. Moreover the kind act cheered and led me through

despondency, like the hand and face of God.

Caring little what people might say or think, I could not stay at a

distance. Nature told me that it was my duty to go, and duty or not, I

could not stay away.

And now for the last time I look on the face and form of my mother.

That which I have played, and talked, and laughed with, though lately

not much of laughter, that which has fed and cared for me, till it

needed my care in turn; that which I have toddled beside, or proudly run

in front of; whose arms have been round me whenever I wept, and whose

bosom the haven of childhood's storms; first to greet me with smiles in

the morning, and last to bless me with tears at night; ever loving, and

never complaining--in one word for a thousand, my mother. So far away

now, so hopelessly far away! There it lies indeed, I can touch it, kiss

it, and embrace it; but oh how small a part of mother! and even that

part is not mine. So holy and calm it lies, such loving kindness still

upon its features, so near me, but in mystery so hopelessly far away! I

can see it, but it never will know me again; I may die beside it, and it

cannot weep. The last last look of all on earth--they must have carried

me away.

I remember tottering down the hill, supported by a stalwart arm. The

approach to the house prevented--or something. Two children ran before

me, stopping now and then to wonder, and straggling to pick

hedge-flowers. One of them brought me a bunch, then stared, and was

afraid to offer them. "Nancy, I'll be the death of thee," whispered a

woman's voice. The little girl shrunk to me for shelter, with timid

tears in her great blue eyes. So I took her hand, and led her on, and

somehow it did me good.

At intervals, the funeral hymn, which they sing on the road to the

grave, fell solemnly on our ears. Some one from time to time gave out

the words of a verse and then it was sung to a simple impressive tune.

That ancient hymn, which has drowned so many sobs, I did not hear, but

felt it.

We arrived at Vaughan St. Mary late in the afternoon of the second day.

The whole of the journey was to me a long and tearful dream. Mr.

Huxtable came with us. He had never before been further from home than

Exeter; and his single visit to that city had formed the landmark of his

life. He never tried to comfort me as the others did. The ignorant man

knew better.

Alone I sat by my father's grave, with my mother's ready before my feet.

They had cast the mould on the other side, so as not to move my father's

coverlet. The poor old pensioner had been true to her promise, and man's

last garden was blooming like his first flower-bed.

My mind (if any I had) seemed to have undergone some change. Defiance,

and pride, and savage delight in misery, were entirely gone; and

depression had taken the place of dejection. Death now seemed to me the

usual and proper condition of things, and I felt it an impertinence that

I should still be alive. So I waited, with heavy composure, till she

should be brought, who so often had walked there with me. At length she

was coming for good and all, and a space was left for me. But I must

not repose there yet; I had still my task before me.

The bell was tolling faster, and the shadows growing longer, and the

children who had been playing at hide-and-seek, where soon themselves

shall be sought in vain, had flitted away from sight, perhaps scared at

my presence, perhaps gone home to tea, to enjoy the funeral afterwards.

The evening wind had ceased from troubling the yews, and the short-lived

songs of the birds were done. The place was as sad as I could wish.

The smell of new earth inspired, as it always does, some unsearchable

everlasting sympathy between the material and the creature.

The sun was setting behind me: suddenly a shadow eclipsed my own upon

the red loam across the open grave. Without a start, and dreamily (as I

did all things now), I turned to see whence it came. Within a yard of

me stood Mr. Edgar Vaughan. In a moment the old feeling was at my

heart, and my wits were all awake.

I observed that he was paler than when I had seen him last, and the

rigid look was wavering on his face, like steel reflected by water. He

lifted his hat to me. I neither rose nor spoke, but turned and watched

him.

"Clara," he said in a low, earnest voice, "I see you are still the same.

Will no depth of grief, no length of time, no visitation from Him who is

over us all, ever bend your adamant and implacable will?"

I heard, with some surprise, his allusion to the Great Being, whom he

was not wont to recognise; but I made him no reply.

"Very well," he resumed, with the ancient chill hardening over his

features; "so then let it be. I am not come to offer you condolence,

which you would despise; nor do I mean to be present when you would

account the sight of me an insult. And yet I loved your mother, Clara;

I loved her very truly."

This he said with such emotion, that a new thought broke upon me.

Quick as the thought, he asked, "Would you know who killed your father?"

"And my mother, too," I answered, "whose coffin I see coming."

The funeral turned the corner of the lane, and the dust rose from the

bearers' feet. He took his hat off, and the perspiration stood upon his

forehead. Betwixt suspense and terror, and the wildness of grief, I was

obliged to lean on the headstone for support, and a giddiness came over

me. When I raised my eyes again, there was no one near me. In vain I

wiped them hurriedly and looked again. Mr. Vaughan was gone; but on the

grass at my feet lay a folded letter. I seized it quickly, and broke the

seal. That moment a white figure appeared between the yew-trees by the

porch. It was the aged minister leading my mother the last path of all.

The book was in his hand, and his form was tall and stately, and his

step so slow, that the white hair fell unruffled, while the grand words

on his lips called majesty into his gaze. Thrusting aside the letter, I

followed into the Church, and stood behind the old font where I had been

baptized; a dark and gloomy nook, fit for such an entrance. She who had

carried me there was carried past it now, and the pall waved in the damp

cold air, and all the world seemed stone and mould.

But afterwards, on the fair hill-side, while the faint moon gathered

power from the deepening sky, and glancing on that hoary brow sealed the

immortal promises and smoothed the edges of the grave, around which bent

the uncovered heads of many who had mourned before, and after a few

bounds of mirth should bend again in mourning, until in earth's fair

turn and turn, others should bend and they lie down--beholding this, and

feeling something higher than "dust to dust," I grew content to bide my

time with the other children of men, and remembered that no wave can

break until it reach the shore.

CHAPTER III.

When a long and heavy sleep (my first sleep since dear mother's death)

had brought me down to the dull plain of life, I read for the first time

the letter so strangely delivered. Even then it seemed unkind to my

mother that I should think about it. Mr. Vaughan had placed it in a new

envelope, which he had sealed with his own ring, the original cover (if

any there were) having been removed. The few words, of which it

consisted, were written in a clear round hand, upon a sheet of thin

tough paper, such as we use for foreign postage, and folded in a

peculiar manner. There was nothing remarkable in the writing, except

this, that the words as well as the letters were joined. It was as

follows:

"The one who slain your brother is at 19 Grove Street London. You will

come in danger of it why you know."

No date, no signature, no stops, except as shown above. In short, it

was so dark and vague, that I returned to Devonshire, with a resolution

to disregard it wholly. When we reached the foot of the hill, at the

corner of the narrow lane which leads to Tossil's Barton, and where the

white gate stands of which the neighbourhood is so proud, a sudden

scream was heard, and a rush made upon us from behind the furze-bush.

The farmer received the full brunt of a most vigorous onset, and the

number and courage of the enemy making up for their want of size, his

strong bastions were almost carried by storm. To the cry of "Daddy!

Daddy's come home!" half a dozen urchins and more, without distinction

of sex, jumped and tugged and flung and clung around him, with no

respect whatever for his Sunday coat, or brass-buttoned gaiters. Taking

advantage of his laughing, they pulled his legs this way and that, as if

he were skating for the first time, and little Sally (his favourite)

swarming up, made a base foot-rope of the great ancestral silver

watch-chain whose mysterious awe sometimes sufficed to keep her eyes

half open in church. Betwixt delight and shame, the poor father was so

dreadfully taken aback, that he could not tell what to do, till fatherly

love suggested the only escape. He lifted them one by one to his lips,

and after some hearty smacks sent all (except the baby) sliding down his

back.

While all this was going forward, the good dame, with a clean apron on,

kept herself in the background, curtseying and trying to look sad at me,

but too much carried away to succeed. Her plump cheeks left but little

room for tears, yet I thought one tried to find a road from either eye.

When the burst was nearly done, she felt (like a true woman) for me so

lonely in all this love, though I could not help enjoying it; and so she

tried to laugh at it.

For a long time after this, the farmer was admired and consulted by all

the neighbouring parishes, as a man who had seen the world. His

labourers, also, one man and a boy, for a fortnight called him "Sir," a

great discomfort to him; more than this, some letters were brought for

him to interpret, and Beany Dawe became unduly jealous. But in this, as

in most other matters, things came to their level, and when it was

slowly discovered that the farmer was just the same, his neighbours

showed much disappointment, and even some contempt.

It was not long before the thought of that letter, which had been laid

by so scornfully, began to work within me. Again and again, as time

wore on, and the deep barb of sorrow darkly rusted away, it came home to

me as a sin, that I was neglecting a special guidance. Moreover, my

reason for staying in Devonshire was gone, and as my spirit recovered

its tone, it could not put up with inaction.

Three months after our return, one breezy afternoon in August, when the

heath had long succeeded the gorse and broom upon the cleve, and the

children were searching for "wuts" and half-kerneled nuts, I sat on a

fallen tree, where a break in the copse made a frame for one of our

favourite views. Of late I had been trying to take some sketches in

water-colours of what my mother and I had so often admired together, and

this had been kept for the last. Wild as the scheme may appear to all

who know the world and its high contempt for woman's skill, I had some

hope of earning money in London by the pencil, and was doing my utmost

to advance in art. Also, I wished to take away with me some memorials

of a time comparatively happy.

Little Sally Huxtable, a dear little child, now my chief companion, had

strayed into the wood to string more strawberry beads on her spike of

grass, for the wood strawberries here last almost to the equinox; and I

had just roughed in my outline, and was correcting the bold strokes, by

nature's soft gradations; when suddenly through a cobnut bush, and down

the steep bank at my side, came, in a sliding canter, a magnificent red

deer. He passed so close before me, with antlers, like a varnished

crabstick, russet in the sun, that I could have touched his brown flank

with my pencil. Being in no hurry or fright whatever, he regarded me

from his large deep eyes with a look of courteous interest, a dignified

curiosity too well bred for words; and then, as if with an evening of

pleasant business before him, trotted away through the podded wild broom

on the left.

Before I had time to call him back, which, with a childish impulse, I

was about to do, the nutbush where he had entered moved again, and,

laughing at his own predicament on the steep descent, a young man leaped

and landed in the bramble at my feet. Before me stood the one whom we

had so often longed to thank. But at sight of me, his countenance

changed entirely. The face, so playful just before, suddenly grew dark

and sad, and, with a distant salutation, he was hurrying away, when I

sprang forward and caught him by the hand. Every nerve in my body

thrilled, as I felt the grasp that had saved my mother and me.

"Excuse me," he said coldly, "I will lose my prey."

But I would not let him go so curtly. What I said I cannot tell, only

that it was very foolish, and clumsy, and cold by the side of what I

felt. Whom but God and him had I to thank for my mother's peaceful end,

and all her treasured words, each worth a dozen lives of mine? He

answered not at all, nor looked at me; but listened with a cold

constraint, and, as I thought, contemptuous pity, at which my pride

began to take alarm.

"Sir," I exclaimed, when still he answered not, "Sir, I will detain you

no longer from murdering that poor stag."

He answered very haughtily, "I am not of the Devonshire hunters, who

toil to exterminate this noble race."

As he spoke he pointed down the valley, where the red deer, my late

friend, was crossing, for his evening browse, to a gnoll of juicy grass.

Then why was he pursuing him, and why did he call him his prey? The

latter, probably a pretext to escape me, but the former question I could

not answer, and did not choose to ask. He went his way, and I felt

discharged of half my obligation.

CHAPTER IV.

The farmer, his wife, and little Sally were now all I had to love. Poor

Ann Maples, though thoroughly honest and faithful, was of a nature so

dry and precise that I respected rather than loved her. I am born to

love and hate with all my heart and soul, although a certain pride

prevents me from exhibiting the better passion, except when strongly

moved. That other feeling, sown by Satan, he never allows me to

disguise.

To leave the only three I loved was a bitter grief, to tell them of my

intention, a sore puzzle. But, after searching long for a good way to

manage it, the only way I found was to tell them bluntly, and not to cry

if it could be helped. So when Mrs. Huxtable came in full glory to try

upon me a pair of stockings of the brightest blue ever seen, which she

had long been knitting on the sly, for winter wear, I thanked her

warmly, and said:

"Dear me, Mrs. Huxtable, how they will admire these in London."

"In Lonnon, cheel!" she always called me her child, since I had lost my

mother--"they'll never see the likes of they in Lonnon, without they

gits one of them there long glaskies, same as preventive chaps has, and

then I reckon there'll be Hexymoor between, and Dartmoor too, for out I

know, and ever so many church-towers and milestones."

"Oh yes, they will. I shall be there in a week."

"In Lonnon in a wake! Dear heart alaive, cheel, dont'e tell on so!"

She thought my wits were wandering, as she had often fancied of late,

and set off for the larder, which was the usual course of her

prescriptions. But I stopped her so calmly that she could not doubt my

sanity.

"Yes, dear Mrs. Huxtable, I must leave my quiet home, where all of you

have been so good and kind to me; and I have already written to take

lodgings in London."

"Oh, Miss Clerer, dear, I can't belave it nohow! Come and discoorse with

farmer about it. He knows a power more than I do, though I says it as

shouldn't. But if so be he hearkens to the like of that, I'll comb him

with the toasting iron."

Giving me no time to answer, she led me to the kitchen. The farmer, who

had finished his morning's work, was stamping about outside the

threshold, wiping his boots most carefully with a pitchfork and a rope

of twisted straw. This process, to his great discomfort, Mrs. Huxtable

had at length enforced by many scoldings; but now she snatched the

pitchfork from him, and sent it flying into the court.

"Wun't thee never larn, thee girt drummedary, not to ston there an hour,

mucking arl the place?"

"Wull, wull," said the farmer, looking at the pitchfork first, and then

at me, "Reckon the old mare's dead at last."

"Cas'n thee drame of nothing but bosses and asses, thee girt mule?

Here's Miss Clerer, as was like a cheel of my own, and now she'm gooin

awai, and us'll niver zee her no more."

"What dost thee mane, 'ooman?" asked the farmer, sternly, "hast thee

darr'd to goo a jahing of her, zame as thee did Zuke?"

"Oh, no, farmer!" I answered, quickly, "Mrs. Huxtable never gave me an

unkind word in her life. But I must leave you all, and go to live in

London."

The farmer looked as if he had lost something, and began feeling for it

in all his pockets. Then, without a word, he went to the fire, and

unhung the crock which was boiling for the family dinner. This done, he

raked out the embers on the hearthstone, and sat down heavily on the

settle with his back towards us. Presently we heard him say to himself,

"If any cheel of mine ates ever a bit of bakkon to-day, I'll bile him in

that there pot. And to zee the copy our Sally wrote this very morning!"

"Wonnerful! wonnerful!" cried Mrs. Huxtable, "and now her'll not know a

p from a pothook. And little Jack can spell zider, zame as 'em does in

Lonnon town!"

"Dang Lonnon town," said the farmer, savagely, "and arl as lives there,

lave out the Duke of Wellington. It's where the devil lives, and 'em

catches his braath in lanterns. My faather tould me that, and her niver

spak a loi. But it hain't for the larning I be vexed to lose my

dearie."

That last word he dwelt upon so tenderly and sadly, that I could stop no

longer, but ran up to him bravely with the tears upon my face. As I sat

low before him, on little Sally's stool, he laid his great hand on my

head, with his face turned toward the settle, and asked if I had any one

to see me righted in the world but him.

I told him, "None whatever;" and the answer seemed at once to please and

frighten him.

"Then don't e be a-gooin', my dear heart, don't e think no more of

gooin. If it be for the bit and drap thee ates and drinks, doesn't thee

know by this time, our own flash and blood bain't no more welcome to it!

And us has a plenty here, and more nor a plenty. And if us hadn't, Jan

Huxtable hisself, and Honor Huxtable his waife, wud live on pegmale

(better nor they desarves) and gie it arl to thee, and bless thee for

ating of it."

"Ay, that us wud, ees fai," answered Mrs. Huxtable, coming forward.

"And if it be for channge, and plaisure, and zeeing of the warld, I've

zeen a dale in my time, axing your pardon, Miss, for convarsing so to

you. And what hath it been even at Coom market, with the varmers I've

a-knowed from little chillers up? No better nor a harrow dill for a

little coolt to zuck. I'd liefer know thee was a-gooin' to Trentisoe

churchyard, where little Jane and Winny be, than let thee goo to Lonnon

town, zame as this here be. And what wud thy poor moother zay, if so be

her could hear tell of it?"

At this moment, when I could say nothing, being thoroughly convicted of

ingratitude, and ashamed before natures far better than my own, dear

little Sally, who had been rolling on the dairy floor, recovered from

the burst of childish grief enough to ask whether it had any cause. Up

to me she ran, with great pearl tears on the veining of her cheeks, and

peeping through the lashes of her violet-blue eyes, she gave me one long

reproachful look, as if she began to understand the world, and to find

it disappointment; then she buried her flaxen head in the homespun apron

I had lately taken to wear, and sobbed as if she had spoiled a dozen

copies. What happened afterwards I cannot tell. Crying I hate, but

there are times when nothing else is any good. I only know that, as the

farmer left the house to get, as he said, "a little braze," these

ominous words came back from the court:

"'Twud be a bad job for Tom Grundy, if her coom'd acrass me now."

CHAPTER V.

That same evening, as I was sitting in my lonely room, yet not quite

alone,--for little Sally, who always did as I bade her, was scratching

and blotting her best copy-book, under my auspices,--in burst Mrs.

Huxtable, without stopping to knock as usual.

"Oh Miss Clerer, what _have_ e been and doed? Varmer's in crule trouble.

Us'll arl have to goo to gaol to-morrow, chillers and arl."

She was greatly flurried and out of breath, and yet seemed proud of what

she had to tell. She did not require much asking, nor beat about the

bush, as many women do; but told me the story shortly, and then asked me

to come and hear all particulars from Tim Badcock the farm-labourer, who

had seen the whole.

Tim sat by the kitchen fire with a pint of cider by him on the little

round table; strong evidence that his tidings, after all, were not so

very unwelcome.

"Wull, you zee, Miss," said Tim, after getting up, and pulling his rough

forelock, "you zee, Miss, the Maister coom out this arternoon, in a

weist zort of a wai, as if her hadn't had no dinner." Here he gave a

sly look at "the Missus," who had the credit of stopping the supplies,

when the farmer had been too much on the cruise.

"What odds to thee, Tim," she replied, "what odds to thee, what thee

betters has for dinner?"

"Noo fai," said Tim, "zo long as ai gits maine, and my missus arlways

has un raddy. Zo I zed to Bill, zays I, 'Best maind what thee's at boy,

there's a starm a coomin, zure as my name's Timothy Badcock.'

Howsomever her didn't tak on atarl wi we, but kitched up a shivel, and

worked awai without niver a ward. 'Twur the tap of the clave, 'langside

of the beg fuzz, where the braidle road coomth along 'twixt that and the

double hadge; and us was arl a stubbing up the bushes as plaisant as

could be, to plough thiccy plat for clover, coom some rain, plase God."

"Git on, Tim, wull e," cried his impatient mistress, "us knows arl about

that. Cas'n thee tull it no quicker?"

"Wull, Miss," continued Tim, in no hurry whatever, "prasently us zees a

girt beg chap on a zort of a brown cob, a coomin in our diraction"--Tim

was proud of this word, and afraid that we should fail to appreciate

it--"they was a coomin, as you might zay, in our diraction this beg

chap, and anither chap langside on him. Wull, when 'um coom'd within

spaking room of us, beg chap a' horsebarck hollers out, 'Can 'e tell, my

men, where Jan Uxtable live?' Avore I had taime to spake, Maister lifts

hissell up, and zaith, 'What doo 'e want to know for, my faine feller?'

every bit the zame as ai be a tullin of it to you. 'What's the odds to

thee,' zays tother chap, 'thee d'st better kape a zivil tongue in thee

head. I be Tom Gundry from Carnwall.' And with that he stood up in his

starrups, as beg a feller as iver you zee, Miss. Wull, Maister knowed

all about Tom Gundry and what a was a coom for, and zo did I, and the

boy, and arl the country round; for Maister have gotten a turble name

for rarstling; maybe, Miss, you've a heer'd on him in Lunnon town?"

"I have never been in London, Tim, since I was a child; and I know

nothing at all about wrestling."

"Wull, Miss, that be nayther here nor there. But there had been a dale

of brag after Maister had thrown arl they Carnishers to Barnstable vair,

last year, about vetching this here Tom Gundry, who wor the best man in

Cornwall, to throw our Maister. Howsomever, it be time for ai to crack

on a bit. 'Ah,' zays the man avoot, who zimth had coom to back un, 'ah,

'twor arl mighty faine for Uxtable to play skittles with our zecond rate

men. Chappell or Ellicombe cud have doed as much as that. Rackon Jan

Uxtable wud vind a different game with Tom Gundry here.' 'Rackon he

wud,' zaith Gundry, 'a had better jine a burial club, if her've got ere

a waife and vamily.'"

"Noo. Did a zay that though?" inquired Mrs. Huxtable, much excited.

"'Coom now,' my maister zaith, trying to look smarl behaind the fuzz,

'thee must throw me, my lad, avore thee can throw Jan Uxtable. He be a

better man mainly nor ai be this dai. But ai baint in no oomer for

playin' much jist now, and rackon ai should hoort any man ai kitched

on.' 'Her that be a good un, Zam, baint it now?' zaith Gundry to little

chap, the very zame as ai be a tullin it now, 'doth the fule s'pose ai

be ratten? Ai've half a maind to kick un over this hadge; jist thee hold

the nag!' 'Sober now,' zaith varmer, and ai zeed a was gettin' rad in

the chakes, 'God knows ai don't feel no carl to hoort 'e. Ai'll gie

thee wan chance more, Tom Gundry, as thee'st a coom arl this wai fram

Carnwall. Can 'e trod a path in thiccy country, zame as this here be?'

And wi' that, a walked into the beg fuzz, twaice so haigh as this here

room, and the stocks begger round nor my body, and harder nor wrought

hiern. A jist stratched his two hons, raight and left, and twitched un

up, wan by wan, vor ten gude lanyard, as asily as ai wud pull spring

inyons. 'Now, wull e let me lone?' zaith he, zo zoon as a coom barck,

wi his brath a little quicker by rason of the exarcise, 'wull 'e let me

lone?' 'Ee's fai, wull I,' zaith the man avoot. 'Hor,' zaith Tom

Gundry, who had been a[#] shopping zumwhere, 'thee cans't do a gude

dai's work, my man, tak that vor thee's wages.' And wi' that a lets fly

at Maister's vace wi' a light hash stick a carr'd, maning to raide off

avore Maister cud coom to's brath again. In a crack Jan Uxtable zet

both his hons under the stommick of the nag, one avore the starrup and

one behaind, zame as I maight to this here little tabble, and haved un,

harse and man, clane over hadge into Muster Yeo's turmot falde. Then

with wan heft, a kitched up tother chap, and zent un sprarling after un,

zame as if 'twor this here stule after the tabble."

[#] _i.e._ dealing commercially where the staples are liquid.

I thought poor Tim, in the excitement of his story, would have thrown

table and stool over the settle to illustrate it; and if he had, Mrs.

Huxtable would have forgiven him.

"'Thar,' zaith our Maister, as plaisant as cud be, and ai thought us

shud have died of laffing, 'thar now, if zo be the owner of thiccy falde

zummons e for traspash, you zay Jan Uxtable zent e on a little arrand,

to vaind a Carnisher as can do the laike to he.' And wi' that, a waiped

his hons with a slip of vern, and tuk a little drap of zider, and full

to's wark again."

"Wull, but Tim," asked the farmer's wife, to lose no part of the effect,

"what zort of a hadge wor it now? Twor a little hadge maybe, no haigher

nor the zettle barck."

"Wor it though?" said Tim, "thee knows better nor that, Missus. It be

the beggest hadge on arl the varm, wi' a double row of saplin hash atap.

Her maks the boundary betwixt the two parishes, and ain't been trimmed

these vaive year, ai can swear."

"And how be the both on 'em now, Tim? A must have gone haigh enough to

channge the mune.

"Wull, Miss," said Tim, addressing me, for he had told his Mistress all

the story twice, "Tom Gundry brak his collar boun, and zarve 'un raight,

for a brak Phil Dascombe's a puppose whun a got 'un in a trap, that

taime down to Bodmin thar; and harse gat a rick of his taial; but the

little chap, he vell upon his hat, and that zaved him kindly. But I

heer'd down to Pewter Will's, whur I gooed for a drap of zumthin for my

waife's stommick, ai heer'd zay there, as how Constable was a coomin to

Maister this very naight, if Carnishers cud have perswadded un. But

Constable zaith, zaith he, 'Twor all along o you Garnish chaps, fust

battery was mad, and fust blow gien, and wi'out you can zhow me Squaire

Drake's warrant, I wunt have nout to do wi' it, not ai; and that be law

and gospel in Davonsheer and in Cornwall.'"

"Tim," said Mrs. Huxtable, "I'se warrant thee's niver tould so long a

spin up in thee's laife avore. And thee's tould it wonnerful well too;

hathn't un Miss Clerer? Zuke, here be the kay of zellar, gie Tim a half

a paint more zider; and thee mai'st have a drap theesell, gall. Waipe

thee mouth fust."

"Ah," said Tim, favouring me with a wink, in the excess of his glory,

"rackon they Carnishers 'll know the wai off Tossil's Barton varm next

taime, wi'out no saign postesses."[#]

[#] Every word of Tim's story is true, except as regards the names.

CHAPTER VI.

Two or three days after this, I was keeping school in the dairy, the

parlour being too small for that purpose, and the kitchen and "wash-up"

(as they called the back-kitchen) too open to inroads from Suke and Tim.

My class consisted of ten, or rather was eight strong, the two weames

(big baby and little baby), only attending for the sake of example, and

because they would have roared, if parted from the other children. So

those two were allowed to spraddle on the floor, where sometimes they

made little rollers of themselves, with much indecorum, and between

whiles sat gravely sucking their fat red fingers, and then pointed them

in a glistening state at me or my audience, and giggled with a large

contempt. The eight, who made believe to learn something, were the six

elder Huxtables, and two of Tim Badcock's "young uns." I marshalled

them, four on each side, against the low lime-whitened walls, which bore

the pans of cream and milk. Little Sally, my head scholar, was very

proud of measuring her height, by the horizontal line on the milk-pan

where the glazing ended; which Tabitha Badcock, even on tiptoe, could

not reach. They were all well "claned," and had white pinnies on, and

their ruddy cheeks rubbed up to the highest possible polish, with yellow

soap and the jack-towel behind the wash-up door. Hence, I never could

relieve them from the idea that Sunday now came every day in the week.

I maintained strict discipline, and allowed no nonsense; but two sad

drawbacks constantly perplexed me. In the first place, their ways were

so ridiculous, and they laboured so much harder to make me laugh, than

they did to learn, that I could not always keep my countenance, and when

the spelling-book went up before my face, they knew, as well as

possible, what was going on behind it, and peeped round or below, and

burst out all together. The second drawback was, that Mrs. Huxtable, in

spite of all my protests, would be always rushing in, upon errands

purely fictitious; and the farmer himself always found some special

business in the yard, close to the wired and unglazed window, whence

every now and then his loud haw-haws, and too audible soliloquies, "Dang

me! wull done, Zally, that wor a good un; zay un again, cheel! zay un

again, wull 'e?" utterly overthrew my most solemn institutions.

"Coom now, smarl chillers"--I addressed them in my unclassical

Devonshire dialect, for it kept their attention alive to criticise me

when I "spak unvitty"--"coom now, e've a been spulling lang enough: ston

round me now, and tull me what I axes you."

Already, I had made one great mistake, by saying "round" instead of

"raound," and Billy, the genius of the family, was upon the giggle.

"Now thun, wutt be a quadripade?"

"Ai knoo!" says Sally, with her hand held out.

"Zo do ai," says Jack, thrusting forth his stomach.

"Who wur axing of you?" I inquire in a stately manner. "You bain't the

smarl chillers, be 'e? Bill knows," I continue, but wax doubtful from

the expression of Bill's face.

"Ees fai," cries Bill, suddenly clearing up, "her be wutt moother zits

on vor to mulk the coos. Bain't her now?"

"Thee bee'st ony wan leg out, Bill. Now Tabby Badcock?"

While Tabby is splashing in her memory (for I told them all last week),

the farmer much excited, and having no idea what the answer should be,

but hoping that one of his own children may discover it first, boldly

shows his face at the wired window, but is quite resolved to allow fair

play. Not so Mrs. Huxtable, who, in full possession of the case,

suddenly appears behind me, and shakes her fist at poor puzzled Tabby.

"Thee'dst best pretend to know more than thy betters." She tries to

make Tabby hear, without my catching her words. But the farmer hotly

shouts, "Lat un alo-un, waife. Tak thee hon from thee mouth, I tull 'e.

Spak up now, little wanch."

Thus encouraged, Tabby makes reply, looking cross-wise at Mrs. Huxtable.

"Plase, Miss, it be a beastie wi vour taials."

"Raight," cries the farmer, with admiration conquering his

disappointment; "raight this taime, ai'll tak my oath on it. I zeed wan

to Barnstaple vair last year, and her wor karled, 'Phanominy

Quadripade,' her Kirsten name and her zurname, now ai coom to

racollack."

Tabby looks elated, and Mrs. Huxtable chagrined. Before I can redress

the situation, a sound of heavy blows, delivered on some leathery

substance, causes a new stir. All recognise the arrival of Her

Majesty's mail, a boy from Martinhoe, who comes upon a donkey twice a

week, if there happen to be any letters for the village below.

Out rush Mrs. Huxtable and Suke (who once received an epistle), and the

children long to go, but know better. The boy, however, has only a

letter for me, which is from Mrs. Shelfer (a cousin of Ann Maples), to

whom I wrote a few days since, asking whether she had any rooms to let.

Mrs. Shelfer replies that "she has apartments, and they are splendid,

and the rent quite trifling;" so the mail is bribed with a pint of

cider, while I write to secure a new home.

My departure being now fixed and inevitable, the women naturally began

to remonstrate more than over. It had been settled that Ann Maples

should go with me, not to continue as my servant, but to find a place

for herself in London.

My few arrangements, which cost me far more pain than trouble, were not

long in making; and after saying good-bye to all the dear little

children and weanies, and kissing their pretty faces in their little

beds, amid an agony of tears from Sally, I was surprised, on entering

the kitchen, to find there Mr. Beany Dawe. There was little time for

talking, and much less for poetry. We were to start at three in the

morning, the farmer having promised to drive us to meet the coach in

Barnstaple, whence there would be more than thirty miles of hilly road

to Tiverton, the nearest railway station. The journey to London could

thus be made in a day, though no one in the parish could be brought to

believe it.

The poet had been suborned, no doubt, by Mrs. Huxtable, and now detained

me to listen to an elegy upon the metropolis of England. I cannot stop

to repeat it, neither does it deserve the trouble; but it began thus:--

"Fayther was wance to Lonnon town,

And a zed, zed he, whan a coom down,

'Don't e niver goo there, Ebenezer my son,

For they mulks a coo, when her ain't gat none.

They kapes up sich a hollerin, naight and day,

And a Devonsheer man dunno the impudence they zay.

Their heads and their hats wags regular, like the

scratchers of a harrow,

And they biles their taties peeled, and ates them

in a barrow.

They raides on a waggon top with their wives squazed

up inside her,

And they drinks black dose and yesty pops in the

place of wholesome zider.

They want take back anything they've zelled,

And the beds can bite, and the cats can speak:

And a well-dress'd man be a most compelled

To channge his shirt in the middle of the week!'"

"Lor," cried Mrs. Huxtable, "however could they do their washing? Thee

vayther must a been as big a liar as thee, Beany. Them gifts always

runs in the family."

When, with remarkable patience, I had heard out his elegant effusion,

the author, who had conceived much good will towards me, because I

listened to his lays and called him Mr. Dawe, the author dived with a

deep-drawn sigh into a hole in his sack, and produced in a mysterious

manner something wrapped in greasy silver paper, and well tied up. He

begged me to accept, and carry it about me most carefully and secretly,

as long as I should live. To no other person in the world would he have

given this, but I had earned it, as a true lover of poetry, and required

it as a castaway among the perils of London. In vain I declined the

present; refusal only confirmed his resolution. As the matter was of so

little importance, I soon yielded upon condition that I should first

examine the gift. He gave me leave with much reluctance, and I was

surprised at the beauty and novelty of the thing. It was about the size

of a Geneva watch, but rather thicker, jet black and shining, and of the

exact shape of a human heart. Around the edge ran a moulding line or

cord of brilliant red, of the same material as the rest. In the centre

was a white spot like a siphuncle. What it was I could not guess, but

it looked like some mineral substance. Where the two lobes met, a small

hole had been drilled to receive a narrow riband. After putting me

through many guesses, Mr. Dawe informed me that it was a pixie's heart,

a charm of unequalled power against witchcraft and assassination, and to

enthral the affection of a loved one. He only smiled, and rubbed his

nose, on hearing that I should never want it in the last capacity.

Being greatly pleased with it, I asked him many questions, which he was

very loth to answer. Nevertheless I extorted from him nearly all he

knew.

As he was sawing into boards a very large oak-tree, something fell from

the very heart of it almost into his mouth, for poor Ebenezer was only

an undersawyer. As he could not stop the saw without his partners

concurrence, and did not wish to share his prize, he kicked some sawdust

over it until he could stoop to pick it up unobserved. In all his long

experience of the woods, he had seen but two of these rare and beautiful

things, and now assured me that any sawyer was considered lucky who

found only one in the course of his career. The legend on the subject

was rather quaint and graceful, and deserves a better garb than he or I

can furnish.

"All in the olden time, there lived

A little Pixie king,

So lovely and so light of foot

That when he danced the ring,

The moonlight always shifted, to gaze upon his face,

And the cowslip-bells uplifted, rang time with every pace.

There came a dozen maidens,

Almost as tall as bluebells;

The cowslips hushed their cadence,

And bowed before the true belles:

The maidens shyly glancing, betwixt the cummer darts,

Espied the monarch dancing, and lost a dozen hearts.

He was fitted up so neatly,

With dewdrops for his crown,

And he footed it so featly

He never shook them down.

The maids began advancing, along a lily stem,

Not to stop the monarch's dancing, but to make him look at them.

The king could not afford them

The proper time to gaze,

But sweetly bowed toward them,

At the turn of every maze:

Till full of pretty faces, and his sandals getting worn,

He was puzzled in his paces, and fell upon a thorn.

The maidens broke the magic ring,

And leaped the cummer dart;

'Alas, our little Pixie king,

The thorn is in his heart!'

They laid him in a molehill, and piteously they cried:

Yet this was not the whole ill, for all the maidens died.

Each took a spindled acorn, found

Below a squirrel's nest,

And set the butt against the ground,

The barb beneath her breast:

So truly she addressed the stroke unto her loving part,

That when the acorn grew an oak, it held her little heart.'

By no means a "little heart," it seemed to me, for a fairy to have

owned, but as large as it was loving. I assured Mr. Dawe that he was

quite untaught in fairy lore, or he never would have confounded fairies

with pixies, a different class of society. But he treated my learning

with utter contempt, and reasonably enough declared that he who spent

all his time in the woods must know more than any books could tell.

He also informed me, that the proper name for the lignified fairy heart,

was a "gordit:" but he did not choose to tell me what had become of the

other, which was not so large or handsome as this, yet it had saved him

a month's sawing, and earned him "a rare time," which meant, I fear,

that the proceeds had been spent in a very long cruise.

After refusing all compensation, Mr. Dawe made his farewell in several

couplets of uncouth but hearty blessing, begging me only to shake hands

with him once, and venturing as a poet to prophesy that we should meet

again. The "gordit" was probably nothing more than a rare accretion, or

ganglion, in the centre of an aged oak. However, it was very pretty;

and of course I observed the condition upon which I had received it,

valuing it moreover as a token of true friends.

But how can I think of such trifles, while sitting for the last time in

the room where my mother died? To-morrow all the form and colour of my

life shall change; even now I feel once more my step on the dark track

of justice, which is to me revenge. How long have I been sauntering on

the dreary moor of listlessness and hollow weariness, which spreads, for

so many dead leagues, below the precipice of grief? How long have I

been sauntering, not caring to ask where, and conscious of existence

only through the nerves and fibres of the memory. The things I have been

doing, the duties I have discharged, the vague unlinked ideas, startling

me by their buffoonery to grief--might not these have all passed through

me, every whit as well, if I had been set against a wall, and wound up

for three months, and fitted with the mind expressed in the chuckle of a

clock? Nay, worse than all--have I not allowed soft thoughts to steal

throughout my heart, the love of children, the warmth of kindness, the

pleasure of doing good in however small a way? Much more of this, and I

shall learn forgiveness of my wrong!

But now I see a clearer road before me. Returning health renews my

gall. Death recedes, and lifts his train from the swords that fell

before him. Once more my pulse beats high with hatred, with scorn of

meanness, treachery, and lies, with admiration of truth and manhood, not

after the fashion of fools.

But dare I mount the Judge's throne? Shall the stir of one frail heart,

however fresh from its Maker's hand, be taken for His voice pronouncing

right and wrong?

These thoughts give me pause, and I dwell again with my mother. But in

all the strength of youth and stern will, I tread them down; and am once

more that Clara Vaughan whose life shall right her father's death.

CHAPTER VII.

At last we got through our parting with the best of people (far worthier

than myself to interest any reader), and after it the dark ride over the

moors, and the farmer's vain attempt at talking to relieve both himself

and us. The honest eyes were bright with tears, tears of pity for my

weakness, which now he scarcely cared to hide, but would not show by

wiping away; and how many times he begged for frequent tidings of us,

which Sally could now interpret, if written in large round hand. How

many times he consulted, commanded, and threatened the coachman, and

promised him a goose at Michaelmas, if he took good care of us and our

luggage! These great kindnesses, and all the trifling cares which strew

the gap of long farewells, were more to think of than to tell. But I

ought to mention, that much against the farmer's will, I insisted on

paying him half the sum, which he had lent me in a manner never to be

forgotten. Moreover, with the same presentiment which he had always

felt, he made me promise once more to send for him, if I fell into any

dreadful strait.

It was late at night when our cabman, the most polite, and (if his word

may be trusted) the most honourable of mankind, rang the bell of Mrs.

Shelfer's house. The house was in a by-street near a large unfinished

square, in the northern part of London. Mrs. Shelfer came out at once,

sharp and quick and short, and wonderfully queer. At first she took no

notice at all of either of as, but began pulling with all her strength

at the straps of the heaviest boxes, which, by means known to herself

alone, she contrived to drag through the narrow passage, and down three

low steps into the little kitchen. Then she hurried back, talking all

the time to herself, re-opened the door of the fly, jumped in, and felt

under both the seats, and round the lining. Finding nothing there, she

climbed upon the driver's box, and thoroughly examined both that and the

roof. Being satisfied now that none of our chattels were left in the

vehicle, she shook her little fist at two or three boys, who stood at

the corner near the mews, and setting both hands to the farmer's great

hamper or "maun" (as he called it), she dragged it inside the front

door, and turned point blanc upon me.

"Pray, my good friend, how many is there?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Mrs. Shelfer, your cousin knows best."

"Ah, they're terrible fellows them cabbies, terrible!" The cabman stood

by all the time, beating his hands together. "'Twas only last time I

went to Barbican, one of 'em come up to me, 'Mrs. Shelfer,' says he,

'Mrs. Shelfer!' says I, 'pray my good friend, how do you know my name?'

'Ho, I knows Charley well enough,' says he, 'and there ain't a better

fellow living.' 'A deal too good for you,' says I, 'and now pray what's

your business with me?' 'Why, old lady,' he says, as impudent as the

man with the wooden leg, 'you've been and left your second best umbrella

under the seat of the Botany Bay Bus.' 'Catch me!' says I. 'It's Bible

truth,' says he, 'and my old woman's got it now.' 'If you never get

drunk,' says I, 'till that umbrella runs in your shoes, your old woman

needn't steal her lights,' and with that I ran between the legs of a

sheep, hanging up with my Tuscan bonnet on trimmed with white--nothing

like it, my good friend, the same as I've had these two and twenty

years."

"What for, Mrs. Shelfer?" I asked in great surprise.

"Why, for the butcher to see me, to be sure, Miss. You see he wanted to

get me down the mews, and murder me with my little wash-leather bag, as

I was going to pay the interest on Shelfer's double-barrel gun. Ah yes,"

with a short sigh, "and there'll be four and ninepence again, next

Tuesday."

Talking at this rate, and stopping for no reply, she led us into her

kitchen, saying that she would not light a fire upstairs, it was so

bootiful, the trimmings of the grate, because she wasn't certain that we

would come, but she had got supper for us, excuse me, my good friend, in

her own snug little room, and bootiful they was sure enough, the wind

last week had made them so fat.

She pointed in triumph to a large dish on the table piled up with blue

shells.

"Why, Mrs. Shelfer, they are muscles," I exclaimed with some disgust.

"Ah I see you knows 'em, that they are, Miss, and as bootiful as ever

you ate. Charley and me sits down to a peck of them. But the man as

comes round with the catsmeat's brother the man with the truck and his

eyes crossed, he told me there was such a demand for them in Grosvenor

Square, and they was so cunning this weather when they gets fat, he

hadn't more than half a peck left, but they was the best of the lot.

Now I'll have them all bootiful hot, bootiful, boiling my good friend,

if you'll just run upstairs, and a teaspoon and a half of salt, and

Cousin Ann knows the way, and the apartments is splendid, splendid, Miss

Vaughan!"

She drew herself up, at the end of the sentence, with an air of the

greatest dignity; then suddenly dropped it again, and began bustling in

and out. Now for the first time, I had leisure to examine her, for

while she spoke, the short jumps of her ideas unsettled my observation.

She was a little body, rather thin, with a face not strongly peculiar,

but odd enough to second the oddities of her mind. No doubt she had

once been pretty, and her expression was pleasant now, especially when a

glimpse was afforded of her quick grey eyes, which generally avoided the

gaze, and dropped beneath a fringe of close-set lashes. But the loss of

the front teeth, and the sharpening and wrinkling of the face, with the

straggling neglect of the thick black hair fraying out from the black

cap, and the habit she had of shutting her mouth with a snap, all these

interfered with her credit for pristine good looks. Like Mrs. Huxtable,

she was generally in a bustle, but a bustle of words more often than of

deeds. She had no deception about her, yet she never knew the

difference between the truth and a lie, and could not understand that

any one else should do so. Therefore she suspected everything and

everybody, till one of her veins of opinion was touched, and then she

would swallow anything.

Tired out with the long day's travel, the dazing of railway speed, and

the many scenes and faces which had flashed across me, I could not

appreciate the beauty of Mrs. Shelfer's furniture; but leaving Ann

Maples to eat the muscles, if she could, and to gossip with her cousin,

I was not slow to revisit the old farmhouse, and even the home of my

childhood, in the winged cradle of sleep.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ann Maples had done her best to persuade me to call on my godmother,

Lady Cranberry, but I was quite resolved to do nothing of the sort. In

the first place, Lady Cranberry was a person of great wealth, living in

a very large house, and keeping up such state as gay widows love, who

have forgotten old affections and are looking out for new. In me,

therefore, to whose fixed estimate fidelity seemed the very pith of

honour, there could be no love towards such a changeling. And even if I

had liked her, my circumstances would not admit of our visiting upon

equal terms, and it was not likely that I would endure to be patronized

by any one. In the second place, the same most amiable lady had written

letters of beautiful condolence, and taken a tender interest in our

change of fortune, so long as there was any novelty in it; but soon

flagged off, and had not even replied to my announcement of dearest

mother's death. Finally, I hated her without any compromise, from what

I had seen of her, and what she had done to me at Vaughan Park.

So my good Ann set off all alone, for she hoped to obtain some

recommendation there, and I was left to receive Mrs. Shelfer's morning

visit.

Her queer episodical conversation, and strange biographies of every

table, chair, and cushion--her "sticks," as she delighted to call

them--I shall not try to repeat, for my history is not a comic one;

neither will she appear, unless the connexion requires it. One vein of

sympathy between us was opened at once, by her coming into the room with

a lame blackbird on her finger; and I was quite surprised at the number

of her pets. As for the "splendid apartments," they were two little

rooms on the first floor, adjoining one another, and forming, together

with the landing outside and a coal-closet, the entirety of that storey.

The rooms above were occupied by a young dress-maker. Mr. and Mrs.

Shelfer, who had no children kept the ground-floor (consisting of a

parlour and kitchen) and the two attics, one of which was always full of

onions and carrot seed. Upon the whole, though the "sticks" were very

old, and not over clean, until I scoured them, and the drawing-room (as

my landlady loved to call it) was low and small, and looked through the

rails of a narrow balcony upon a cheese-monger's shop across the road

(instead of a wooded dingle), I was very well satisfied with them; and

above all the rent was within my means.

In the afternoon, when things were growing tidy, a carriage drove up

rapidly, and a violent ringing of the bell ensued. It was Lady

Cranberry, who, under the pretext of bringing Ann Maples home, was come

to gratify her own sweet curiosity. She ran upstairs in her most

charming manner, caught me by both hands, and would have kissed me

desperately, if I had shown any tendency that way. Then she stopped to

admire me.

"Oh, you lovely creature! How you are grown to be sure! I should never

have known you. How delicious all this is!"

Of course I was pleased with her admiration; but only for a moment,

because I disliked her.

"I am glad you find it delicious," I replied quite coldly; "perhaps I

shall by-and-by."

"What would I give to be entering life under such sweetly romantic

circumstances? Dear me! I must introduce you. What a sensation you

will cause! With such a face and figure and such a delightful story, we

shall all rave about you. And how well you are dressed from that

outlandish place! What a piece of luck! It's the greatest marvel on

earth that you found me in London now."

"Excuse me," I said, "I neither found, nor meant to find you."

"Oh, of course you are cross with me. I forgot about that. But who

made your dress, in the name of all woodland graces?"

"I always make my own dresses."

"Then you shall make mine. Say no more about it. You shall live with

me, and make my dresses by day; and by night you shall go with me

everywhere, and I won't be jealous. I will introduce you everywhere.

'This is my ward, Miss Vaughan, whose father--ah, I see, you know that

romantic occurrence in Gloucestershire.' Do you think it will be a

your--and the Great Exhibition season--before you are mistress of a

property ten times the size of Vaughan Park? If you doubt it, look in

the glass. Ah me! You know nothing of the world, I forget, I am so

warm-hearted. But you may take my word for it. Will you cry a bargain?"

She held out her hand, as she had seen the fast men do, whose society

she affected. I noticed it not, but led her on; my fury had long been

gathering. I almost choked when she spoke in that way of my father,

utterly as I despised her. But I made it a trial of self-control, which

might be demanded against more worthy objects.

"Are you sure that I shall be useful? Sure that I shall earn my board?"

"Oh, you Vaughans are always so conscientious. I want an eider-down

petticoat quilted at once for the winter, and I dare not trust it to

Biggs, I know she will pucker it so. That shall be the first little job

for my Clara."

Her cup was full. She had used dearest mother's fond appellative, and,

as I thought, in mockery. I did not lower myself by any sarcastic

language. She would not have understood it. I merely opened the door,

and said calmly to my landlady, who was there, of course

"promiscuously;" "Mrs. Shelfer, show out the Countess of Cranberry."

Poor godmother, she was so frightened that I was sorry for her. They

helped her into the carriage, and she had just strength to draw down the

blinds.

Mrs. Shelfer had been in raptures at having so grand a vehicle and two

great footmen at her door. Lest the street should lose the effect, she

had run in and out a dozen times, and banged the door, and got into talk

with the coachman, and sent for beer to the Inn, though she had it in

the house. She now came again to my door, in what she called a

"terrible quandary." I could not attend to her, but locked myself in,

and wrestled with my passionate nature, at one time indulging, then

spurning and freezing it. Yet I could not master it, as I fancied I had

done.

CHAPTER IX.

Soon afterwards, Ann Maples went to the place which she had obtained in

Lady Cranberry's household; and I determined to begin my search.

"Mrs. Shelfer, do you know London well?"

My landlady was feeding her birds, and I had made up for her

disappointment about Lady Cranberry, by fitting the lame blackbird with

a wooden leg, cut from a skewer, and tipped with a button: it was pretty

to see how kindly and cleverly he took to it, and how proudly he

contemplated it, when he thought there was no one watching. His

mistress now stopped her work, and made ready for a long speech, with

the usual snap of her lips.

"Know London, Miss Vaughan! I was born in Red Cross Street, and I've

never been further out of town than Chalk Farm fair, or Hampstead

Waterworks, and, please God, I never will. Bless me, what an awful

place the country is, awful! What with the trees, and the ditches, and

the sting-nettles, and the black wainscot with skewers on the top--"

"Too bad of you, Mrs. Shelfer, to be frightened at palings--and your

husband a gardener, too! But tell me whereabouts is Grove Street?"

"What Grove Street, my good friend?"

"Grove Street, London, to be sure."

"Why, dear me, Miss, I thought you knew everything; you can doctor Jack,

and the Bully, and tell me all about Sandy the squirrel's tail and the

hair coming off and when it's going to rain! Don't you know there's a

dozen Grove Streets in London, for all I know. Leastways I knows four."

"And where are those four, Mrs. Shelfer?"

"Now please, my good friend, give me just a minute to think. It is

dreadful work to be hurried, ever since I fell downstairs, when I were

six year old. Let me see now. Charley knows. Can't you wait, Miss,

till Charley comes home, and he's coming quite early this evening, and

two friends of his to supper."

"No, Mrs. Shelfer, I cannot wait. If you can't tell me, I must go and

get a book."

"Oh them books is no good. Why they ain't got Charley in, and he with

the lease one time of the garden in Hollyhock Square, and a dahlia named

after him at the Royal Heretical Society! And they did say the Queen

would have handed him the spade she liked his looks so much, only his

nails wasn't clean. Very likely you heard, Miss--And how he was cheated

out of it."

"Do you expect me to wait all day?"

"No no, my good friend, to be sure not. You never will wait a minute,

partikler when I spill the coals, and when I wants to baste the meat.

And how can the gravy run, and a pinch of salt in the dripping-pan--"

"Yesterday, Mrs. Shelfer, you basted my pound and a half of mutton with

three pounds of coals. Now don't go off into a treatise. Answer me,

where is Grove Street?"

"Bless my heart, Miss Vaughan. You never gives one a chance. And we

thought a young lady from the country as had been brought up with tags,

and lace, and bobbin, and pigs, and hay--"

"Could be cheated anyhow. No, I don't mean that: I beg your pardon,

dear Patty. I often speak very hastily. What I mean is that you

thought I should know nothing at all. And I don't know much, but one

thing I do know, that you would never cheat me much."

To my surprise she was not at all sensitive on this subject. In fact

she had dealt with so many lodgers, that she expected to be suspected.

But I believe she never cheated me more than she could help. She

answered me quite calmly, after some meditation:

"To be sure, Miss, to be sure, I only does my dooty. A little dripping

may be, or a drop of milk for old Tom, and a piece of soap you left in

the water, Miss, I kept it for Charley to shave with."

"Now, Mrs. Shelfer, no more of that. Come back to Grove Street; surely,

I have given you time enough now."

"Well, Miss, there is one I know close by here. You keep down the Willa

Road, and by the fishmonger's shop, and then you turn on the right over

against the licensed pursuant to Act of George the Fourth. I knows

George the Fourth acted badly, but I never thought it was that way. Sam

the Sweep lives with him, and the young man with a hook for his hand

that lets out the 'Times' for a penny, and keeps all his brothers and

sisters."

"And where are the other three that you know?"

"There's one in Hackney, and one in Bethnal Green, and there's one in

Mile-end Road. Bless me, to be sure! I've been there with dear Miss

Minto after a cat she lost, a tabby with a silver collar on, and a notch

in his left ear. It would make you cry, Miss--"

"Thank you, Mrs. Shelfer; that will do for the present. I'll go up to

the 'drawing-room' now."

In a few minutes I went forth with my dark plaid shawl around me, which

had saved my mother's life, and was thenceforth sacred. It was the

first time I walked all alone in London, and though we lived quite in

the suburbs it seemed very odd to me. For a while I felt rather

nervous, but no one molested me then or at any other time; although I

have heard some plain young ladies declare that they could not walk in

London without attracting unpleasant attention. Perhaps because they

knew not the way either to walk or to dress.

Without any trouble, I found No. 19, Grove Street, then rang the bell

and looked round me. It was a clean unpretentious street, not to be

known by its architecture from a thousand others in London. The bell

was answered by a neat little girl, and I asked for the Master of the

house. Clever tactics truly for commencing a task like mine.

Being told that the Master was from home, I begged to see the Mistress.

The little maid hesitated awhile, with the chain of the door in her

hand, and then invited me into the parlour, a small room, but neat and

pretty.

"Please, Miss, what name shall I say?"

"Miss Vaughan, if you please." Then I said to myself, "What good am I?

Is this my detective adroitness?"

Presently a nice old lady, with snow-white hair, came in.

"Miss Vaughan," she asked with a pleasant smile, "do you wish to see

me?"

"Yes, if you please. Just to ask a few questions as to the inmates of

this house."

Despite her kindness and good breeding, the lady stared a little.

"May I inquire your motives? Do you know me at all? I have not the

pleasure of knowing you."

"My motives I must not tell you. But, as a lady, I assure you, that

curiosity is not one. Neither are they improper."

She looked at me in great surprise, examined me closely, and then

replied:

"Young lady, I believe what you say. It is impossible not to do so.

But my answering you must depend on the nature of your inquiries. You

have done, excuse my saying it, you have done a very odd thing."

"I will not ask many questions. How many people live here?"

"I will answer you curtly as you ask, unless you ask what I do not

choose to answer. Four people live here, namely, my husband, myself,

our only daughter--but for whom I might have been ruder to you--and the

child who let you in. Also a woman comes every day to work."

"Are there no more? Forgive my impertinence. No strangers to the

family?"

"No lodgers whatever. My son is employed in the City, and sleeps there.

My only daughter is in very weak health, and though we do not want all

the house, we are not obliged to take lodgers. A thing I never would

do, because they always expect to be cheated."

"And is your husband an Englishman?"

"Yes, and an English writer, not altogether unknown."

She mentioned a name of good repute in the world of letters, as even I

was aware.

"You have quite satisfied me. I thank you most heartily. Very few

would have been so polite and kind. I fear you must think me a very

singular being. But I have powerful motive, and am quite a stranger in

London."

"My dear, I knew that at once. No Londoner would have learned from me

the family history I have told you. I should have shown them out at the

very first question. Thank you, oh thank you, my child. But I am sure

you have hurt yourself. Oh, the shell has run into your forehead."

As she looked so intently at me, on her way to the door of the room, her

foot had been caught by the claw of the what-not, and I barely saved her

from falling.

"No, Mrs. Elton, I am not hurt at all. How stupid of me, to be sure.

And all my fault that you fell. I hope the shell is not broken. Ah, I

bring very bad luck to all who treat me kindly."

"The shell is not worth sixpence. The fault was all my own. If you had

not been wonderfully quick, I must have fallen heavily. Pray sit down,

and recover yourself, Miss Vaughan. Look, you have dropped a letter.

Dear me, I know that writing! Excuse me; it is I that am now

impertinent."

"If you know that writing, pray tell me how and where."

The letter she had seen was the anonymous one which brought me from

Devonshire to London. I had put it into my pocket, thinking that it

might be wanted. It fell out as I leaped forward, and it lay on the

floor wide open.

"May I look at the writing more closely? Perhaps I am deceived."

For a while I hesitated. But it seemed so great a point to know who the

writer was, that I hushed my hesitation. However, I showed the letter

so that she could not gather its import.

"Yes," said Mrs. Elton, "I am quite certain now. That is the writing of

a Polish lady, whom at one time I knew well. My husband has written a

work upon Poland, which brought him into contact with some of the

refugees. Among them was a gentleman of some scientific attainments,

who had a pretty lively warm-hearted wife, very fond of dancing, and

very fond of dogs. She and I have had many a laugh at one another and

ourselves; for, though my hair is grey, I am fond of lively people."

"And where is that lady now?"