CHAPTER XXII

A BAD DEBT

THE Pig-driver climbed into his high cart like some obscure insect

legging its way up the face of a wall. He did not take the reins

himself, but let his boy continue driving, so that he might have more

leisure to think over the iniquities of George. He was so angry that

it cost him quite an effort not to turn the wheels of his chariot

towards Abergavenny, and begin at once to make out his bill against

him. As he was jolted along he began reckoning up the pounds,

shillings and pence on his fingers; but his transactions with other

people were so numerous and so odd that he could not make much way

through their complications without his accounts, and was forced to

wait until he got home in the evening, before he could disentangle

Williams' liabilities from the mass of notes among which they reposed.

Bumpett's accounts were like some human beings--only understood by

their creator. They were perfectly safe under every prying eye which

might light on them, and he could have left the keys of the box in

which they were kept at the mercy of any one, and known that their

perusal would leave the intruder no wiser than before. Not being a man

of letters, and being barely able to read, he had invented certain

signs which stood for words he had forgotten or never known how to

write. Of figures he had only a small idea, for though he had learnt

their character as far as the number five, his knowledge stopped

there, and the actual accounts of his shop were kept by a less

illiterate nephew, whose interests were bound up in his own, and whose

open and burly appearance suggested the best aspects of the trade.

The old man rushed to his box that evening as soon as he had entered

his house, and began to search among the chaos it contained for the

record of George's debt. As the papers had not any sort of

classification and were stuffed into the bottom, one on the top of

another, to make room for all sorts of incongruous articles which

shared their home, it took Bumpett some time to find what he wanted.

He turned them over and over, smoothing out the creases with his dirty

hand, and peering into the medley of hieroglyphics which had been

difficult enough to write, and which were now trebly difficult to

read. They were of all sorts, but represented chiefly what he

considered to be bad or doubtful debts.

"Owd 1 pownd bi Jamestench. he is in prisn. cums out Jooli. March

ateen forty 3."

"Owd ileven shilns ninpens bi jane bull for last 5 munth. can't get

it. shes ded. ateen forty 4."

"Owd from Gorgewillems. Rent. 3 pownd thirteen and fore. August forty

2."

This last document also bore George's sprawling signature, and at the

bottom was added, "Made turms with im. James Bumpett."

The treasure was found, and the Pig-driver crammed the other papers

back and shut down the lid. Then he took off his hat and put it on

again, a habit he had when under emotion; he was very happy. He went

below to a room at the back of the shop, and sat down with his nephew

to a comfortable meal, for they lived well. When they had finished he

took out the paper and, having raked a pair of rusty scissors from the

back of a drawer, he cut off the lower part of the page and dropped it

into the fire. It did not blaze but smouldered, the words "Made turms

with im" standing out in an orange glow on their blackened background.

He went to bed feeling ten years younger.

He was in his best spirits as he drove out of Abergavenny next morning

with the precious document in his hand, for the sight of it gave him

such pleasure that he did not like to put it in his pocket, but held

it clasped tightly until he came within sight of the grey roof of

Great Masterhouse.

He had never yet had any dealings with Mrs. Walters, but it was his

intention to ask to see her; he had heard that she was a person of

strict views, and he hoped to say a few words about George which he

had no doubt would make her turn him out of the place. The virulent

old man longed to see him begging from door to door. He meant to

approach her in the interests of abstract virtue, and to warn her

against employing a person whom he knew to be a thief and an

evil-doer, one who would corrupt his fellow-servants, and in all

probability go off some day of his own accord with as much of her

portable property as he could carry. He felt sure that a pious woman

such as she was would see the rightness of putting Williams to the

door. Though he knew very well that, for reasons of his own, he could

not prove his charges, he trusted that her severity would recognize

the need of ridding her house of doubtful characters. It was in this

hope that he drove into the back yard of the farm.

Anne Walters was sitting in the kitchen with some knitting in her

hand, superintending the work of a clumsy girl of fourteen who was

washing a whole regiment of delf mugs. They were a sight to breed envy

in a collector of modern days, with their patterns and devices of red

roses, doggerel verses, and figures of John Barleycorn, Toby Philpott,

and other jocund personalities, but she cared little for them, and

kept them hidden away in a cupboard where no eye but that of the

strolling spider could espy their quaint beauties. The money she had

promised to lend Williams had been given him on the previous evening,

and she had agreed to stop a portion of his weekly wages until the

debt should expire. She was sure that she had done right in helping

him, and it was a pleasant thought in her mind as Nannie's face peered

in at the kitchen door. Nannie always peered. Though she had been

twenty years and more at Great Masterhouse, she still kept the

demeanour of an intruder, and her weather-beaten face came stealthily

round the lintel as though its presence were an unlawful act.

"The Pig-driver's in the yard, ma'am, wanting to see you on business."

"The Pig-driver?"

Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows.

"Mr. Bumpett at Abergavenny. I hear him getting out of the cart."

The girl of fourteen stood open-mouthed; a visitor was a more amusing

thing than cleaning china, and the water ran unheeded off her fingers

on to the clean sand of the floor.

"Go you out o' this, girl," cried Nannie, pouncing upon her and

snatching up the basin, "don't you be gaping there an' the water

slitherin' down! Be off, an' take some o' they pots along wi' you, if

you don't want a tiert slap on your long ears."

The girl fled with as many of the jugs as she could carry.

Bumpett stood in the doorway trying to construct his expression into

one which might find favour with the opposite sex.

"Good-morning," said Mrs. Walters in her cold voice, pointing to a

chair.

There was a slight movement of garments in the passage which showed

that Nannie was listening outside. The Pig-driver sat down with his

hat on his knees; he had not supposed it would be so difficult to

start his subject, and he cleared his throat loudly by way of giving

himself confidence. His experience had led him to believe his address

irresistible, but he knew that people had to be "taken the right way."

"To be sure, this is a fine big place," he began, glancing round the

spacious kitchen, "a proud place. I'll lay ye couldn't have paid less

nor the size o' five pound ten for that dresser."

"I am not selling my furniture," said Mrs. Walters, inclining to think

that the business must be some intended purchase.

"Oh, no, no. Name o' goodness! I didn't mean that," rejoined he,

laughing with reassuring waggery. "A fine figger of a lady like you to

be sellin' up! A pretty pass that would be."

"May I ask what your business is?" said Anne, drawing herself up. "I

have a great deal to do this morning."

He brought his chair a little nearer.

"I've heard a sight o' beautiful words about you," he said, throwing

an admiring leer into his eye, "from this one an' that. 'Tis common

talk what a fine lady you be wi' your silk an' satins, an' your holy

doin's in chapel. Ah, a sad thing it was for the respected Mr. Walters

that's gone before to be leavin' ye alone. I'll be bound he hasn't

found an angel to match ye in the glorious place where he now is."

It flashed across Mrs. Walters that the Pig-driver must be mad, and

she rose from her chair.

"Sit ye down again, do now," he said. "I ax pardon if I be too feelin'

in my speech, but what can I do when I see such handsome looks an'

high ways before me? A man's heart will feel for ye, seein' ye so

unprotected. 'Beauty in distress,' ma'am, as Holy Writ has it." He

chuckled at his own aptness of quotation.

"I am not unprotected," said Anne Walters, who was growing very angry,

"and you will find it out if you will not come to business or leave

the house."

"No offence meant. No doubt eddicated manners seem queer to ye in a

plain man like me," he said lightly, drawing the back of his hand

across his nose.

"Kindly say what your business is, or go."

Bumpett had fallen into the common masculine error of treating all

women alike, and it began to strike him that he was on the wrong tack.

His companion was no less sensible to flattery than the rest of her

fellow-creatures, but flattery is a dish which should be dressed

differently for every person. He took a less gallant attitude.

"I've come to warn ye," he said, dropping his voice.

But she made no movement to regain her seat, for she was thoroughly

angry, and she looked down at the eccentric figure of the Pig-driver

with an expression of disgust. It was years since she had spoken to

any one, except her son and the preacher she followed, who could

pretend to an equal position with herself, and the impertinent

familiarities of the old man were not to be endured. She debated

whether she should send for a couple of her men and have him turned

out of the place.

"It's my duty, plain an' pure," he continued, nothing daunted by her

silence, "an' I've come from Abergavenny to tell ye what may give ye a

turn, an' show ye what ye've got about the place. There's a feller

name o' George Williams here, isn't there? Well, he's a limb an' no

mistake. A fine sort to be hangin' about a respectable house, he is!"

He paused for a reply, but Anne appeared entirely unmoved by his news

and he began to get exasperated. He thumped his stick on the floor.

"Ah, you women!" he cried, "ye're a queer lot! Ye won't believe a word

a decent man says, an' yet ye'll believe any scoundrel that comes

puggin' his forelock to yer face an' lying an' thievin' behind yer

back. Well, ye've got a rare one now. Ye don't know the life he's been

leadin'."

Mrs. Walters looked intently at him.

"I do," she said quietly, thinking of what George had admitted to her.

The Pig-driver's blatant demeanour collapsed like a pricked gas-bag;

the shreds of it hung round him and that was all. If Williams had been

fool enough to place his own safety in the hands of the woman

confronting him, then he, Bumpett, was a lost man. In all his

calculations he had never pictured any one who would, so to speak,

thrust his own head into the prison door, and he made an effort to

collect his wits and to find out how much she really knew.

"What were he tellin' ye about himself?" he asked, in a voice from

which truculence had suddenly vanished.

"That is my business and no one else's," replied Anne haughtily.

He ground his teeth together.

"If you have no more to say," she continued, after a pause in which

the sense of his own impotence nearly drove Bumpett mad, "you had

better go."

A wave of rage surged over him. He got up red in the face.

"I'll have him in jail yet!" he cried, flourishing his arm, "I will! I

tell 'ee he won't bide here much longer. Look at that!"

And he whipped the paper out of his pocket and slammed it down on the

table. Anne watched him with disdain.

"Look 'ee here! Look 'ee here! D'ye see _that?_ There's his own name

to it--three pound thirteen an' four. Ah, but I've showed mercy on

him, I have! An' me waitin' all this time for my money. D'ye see that

date?"

His thumb shook as he planted it on the grotesque writing.

"Why should he go to jail if he pays you?"

Bumpett's wrath turned into a fine irony.

"No, no, indeed," he replied, mouthing his words and twisting himself

round to look up in Mrs. Walters' face; "he! he! true; true words,

ma'am. Ah, I see ye have a wonderful knowledge o' business."

"I will call Williams," she said, "and tell him to pay you."

"Pay me, will he? Not him! He can't," shouted the old man in a kind of

ecstasy, as he almost capered by the table.

George came in from the yard at Mrs. Walters' summons; he stopped,

hesitating in the passage outside.

"Come in, Williams," she said, with so little trace of expression in

her voice that he almost feared the Pig-driver had overruled her good

feelings towards him. The old man looked the picture of excited and

triumphant malice.

"Mr. Bumpett has come to be paid," she said, as he entered.

"I have," exclaimed Bumpett, "an' high time I was, too. Now then, down

wi' your money, George Williams! A rich man like you shouldn't hang

back! Where is it, eh?"

He grinned at George as a cat might grin at the mouse between his

claws.

The young man put his hands in his trousers pocket and, for answer,

turned the whole amount out on the table; three gold pieces, thirteen

silver ones and a fourpenny-bit.

The Pig-driver's countenance presented such a blank wall of

astonishment that it was a pity no sufficiently disinterested

spectator was present to study it. His errand to Great Masterhouse was

proving so unlike anything he had expected that, for once in his life,

he felt himself undone. The weapon with which he had hoped to defeat

George had been wrested out of his grasp and turned against himself,

and he had no other at hand with which to replace it. He glared at the

pile of coin, wrath and cupidity fighting within him; the sight of the

money made him long to touch it, to handle it and appropriate it, and,

at the same time, he hated it because its unlooked-for appearance had

robbed him of his revenge. He looked from George to Mrs. Walters and

from them to the shining heap between them, and his grin fluctuated

and finally died out altogether.

Anne opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a sheet of paper

which was lying in it, and a pen and ink.

"Williams will want a receipt," she remarked, placing them before the

Pig-driver.

"I can't write," he said, looking at the pen with an expression of

malignity. "I'm no hand at it, I tell 'ee. I'll need to take it along

to Abergavenny to my nephew and get it made out."

"That does not matter," said she composedly, taking up the quill. "You

need only write your name. I know you can do that, for you have signed

the paper you showed me."

She sat down and, in the same precise hand in which she annotated her

Bible, wrote: "Received from George Williams in full payment of debt,

three pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence." Adding the date, she

pushed it towards Bumpett.

He would have liked to refuse, but he did not dare to do so; he could

not risk disobliging a person who, for all he knew, was aware of the

systematic law-breaking which was the source of his income.

She watched his unwilling pen forming the signature quite unconscious

of the hold she had over him.

"Will you please to keep that for me?" said George as she held out the

precious receipt.

She turned to Bumpett, putting the paper into her pocket. She belonged

to a sex whose natural impulse it is to hit a man when he is down.

"Are you satisfied now?" she inquired, "or have you anything else to

warn me about?"

George and the Pig-driver left the kitchen together. Once outside the

old man broke into a whirlwind of curses. Williams turned away.

"Come back," gasped Bumpett; "I know what ye've been doin', ye lyin'

dog that ye are! Ye've been tellin' that high-nosed, preachin' devil

yer sins, have 'ee? An' you swearin' on the Bible when I made terms

with 'ee, an' now maybe lettin' loose the whole country on me. Well,

ye'll likely swing yesself, ye fool; that's what ye'll get fer yer

pains--damn ye!"

"I've never spoke a word about you. I said no more to Mrs. Walters

than that I'd led a bad life--and so I have."

Bumpett stared.

"An' was that the meanin' o' what she said?"

"I suppose so," said Williams.

The Pig-driver climbed into his cart as he had done the day before; he

had never made such a bad business of anything.

BOOK II

CHAPTER XXIII

WHITE BLOSSOMS

IT was on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth,

that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the

field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The little puffs of wind which

occasionally lifted stray bits of her hair were scented with the scent

of may hedges; the whole world seemed to have broken out into white

blossom.

The tree above her head was such a mass of shivering, semi-transparent

petals against the blue of the sky, that the endless perspective of

bloom held reminiscences of a Japanese painting. At her feet the hill

sloped down to the brook and the Vicarage orchard. Below, in a

declivity of the field where a spring's course could be traced by the

deeper green of the grass to a circle of wet ground, a crop of

marsh-marigolds held their cups vigorously above the succulent stems,

and green, tea-tray leaves, coarse children of the brown,

earth-stained water. Looking beyond the church she could see the

indigo outline of the Brecon Hills.

Since the day on which she had left Waterchurch Court three months had

gone by, and Harry, on whose expected visit she built so much, had not

yet been to Crishowell. Not that this was due to neglect on his part,

for things had taken an ill turn, and Mr. Lewis, a few days after his

return home, had developed an attack of asthma, to which he was

subject, and been told by his doctor that only a complete and

immediate change would rid him of the enemy. So uncle and niece had

departed almost at a day's notice, returning in a month to find that

Harry had left home, and was expected back in a few weeks.

The disappointment had been keen, but a sustaining belief in her own

attractions had helped her through it, and an inward certainty that

when he returned he would not delay his coming. Sometimes, it is true,

a misgiving would creep into her mind, for she knew that he had gone

to London, and the "fine ladies" who, in her imagination, peopled the

greater part of the metropolis, might be casting their lures to

entangle the feet of so personable a young gentleman. But her fears

did not last long, and she argued sensibly enough that these houris

would be no new thing to him, and that experience of their devilries

had not deterred him from falling down before herself. Was he not

fresh from the wicked city when they had first met? She would not

disquiet herself, and she did not.

Seeing her so willing to return to the dullness of Crishowell, Mr.

Lewis had taken it as a good sign of contentment with her

surroundings, and he noted her growing inclination to outdoor exercise

with a pleased surprise; it seemed that, after all, her stay with him

was to be of some use in directing her mind towards healthy pleasures.

He was also a little relieved at finding her able and willing to

ramble about by herself, and apparently unresentful at being left so

much alone. His parish and his books, his archæology and his

correspondence kept him so busy, that a niece who expected much of him

would have been a serious inconvenience. He treated her with unvarying

kindness and courtesy, but he sighed sometimes as he searched vainly

for some trait which should remind him of her dead aunt, the wife he

had loved. He had always passed for a self-centred man to whom the

fellowship of his kind was trivial, but though his reading and his

duties now formed his world, there was a chasm in his life which had

opened years before he had come to Crishowell, and was gaping still.

As a mere tribute to convention, he would now and then delude himself

into the belief that he liked Isoline, but he knew in his heart of

hearts that it was only a delusion. He had not cared much for his

wife's family, and the girl was essentially her father's daughter.

One of the first things she had done on getting home was to go to the

Pedlar's Stone to meet Rhys Walters, and before her departure she had

managed to get to the solitary spot to bid him good-bye. He had taken

the news she brought hardly, crying out against all the possible

rivals that his jealous heart pictured as assailing her in the

semi-fashionable place to which her uncle was ordered. But there was

nothing for it but patience, and he got through the time as best he

could. The Pig-driver, who kept him supplied with food, was also ready

to supply him with Crishowell news, and through him he at last heard

of the Vicar's return. Though the days were lengthening, and risk of

discovery was greater in consequence, he was at the trysting-place

when she appeared. He looked worn and thin, and it was evident by the

lines in his face that he had suffered in her absence.

If one lover were away there was still the other left to keep her

amused, and it made her the more gracious to the one who remained. The

light evenings were no obstacle to the infatuated man, and he was at

the Pedlar's Stone daily almost before the sun had set, though he knew

that he was risking the little he had left to risk by his action. In

the night he constructed a sort of rampart of dead thorn-bushes,

disposing them so artfully around a little hollow in the vicinity of

the dreaded stone, that if by some strange chance any one should be

bold enough to pass by, he and Isoline would be unseen as they sat in

the declivity on the further side of it. He reached the place by the

most devious ways, taking cover wherever he could find it, sometimes

almost crawling along an ancient ditch which ran up the hill, and when

the beloved woman had left him, lying in the hollow till the descent

of darkness.

As she sat in its shadow, the girl herself looked like the spirit of

the blossoming tree. Her white dress was spread round her on the

grass, and her shady hat dangled by a white ribbon from her hand. Even

she was impressed by the beauty of the thing above her as she twirled

a tuft of flowers in her fingers, wondering whether artificial

cherry-blossoms were to be got, and resolving, if so, to trim her next

ball-dress with them. She stuck some in her hat and put it on her

head, then, remembering that there was no mirror at hand in which the

effect could be seen, laughed and tossed it down beside her. A great

buzzing fly went past with a hum of wings; but for that the whole

world was still; everything was radiating life, and only the yew-tree

in the churchyard beneath her laid a dark spot on the uninterrupted

flow of light. A man on horseback was turning away from her uncle's

door. He must have come up from the road by a footpath, for she had

not seen him arrive. Her heart jumped, for it was Harry--Harry riding

away, having evidently been told that Mr. Lewis was out. He passed by

the stile at the foot of the field, and suddenly looking up, saw her

white figure on the slope.

He sprang off, calling Howlie (who was by the duck-pond observing him)

to take his horse, and in a moment he had vaulted the stile and was

coming towards her.

She awaited him smiling, a lovely colour spread over her face.

"May I stay here?" he asked rather shyly, as he came up.

"Oh, certainly," she replied.

"I so nearly missed you," he exclaimed, as he threw himself upon the

grass beside her. "Your uncle was not in. Fancy, if I had not seen you

and had gone back again! Do you know I only got home two days ago, and

I have come the very first moment I could get away."

"Have you been in London, Mr. Fenton?"

"All the time," said he.

Isoline sighed. "I should so like to go to London. Were you very gay?"

she asked.

"Not so very," said Harry, laughing.

"Did you go to any balls?"

"I went to three."

"Oh, tell me. And what were the ladies like? Did they wear beautiful

dresses and grand diamonds?"

"Yes, I think they did. But I didn't notice much."

"But what were they like? Can you not remember _anything?_ If I went

to London I should not forget what I saw."

"But you are cleverer than I am."

"Oh, I don't think you are stupid at all," she said, looking coyly

down at her fingers. "I suppose gentlemen do not notice the same

things that we ladies do. I hoped that when I saw you again you would

be able to bring me all the new fashions."

"You knew I should come then? You did not think I should forget?"

She was silent, turning her head away.

"Isoline, are you glad to see me?"

"Perhaps," she said lightly, swinging her hat which she had picked up

from the grass. She was so sure of him that she felt she could afford

to dally with the situation.

Harry was young, and his face fell a little. "I don't believe you care

a bit," he said.

Again she did not answer.

He came nearer. "Isoline, will you marry me?" he asked very earnestly.

A perfect flood of triumph and excitement poured into her heart, but

she made no outward sign of it.

"Do you really mean it, Mr. Fenton?" she said softly.

"Of course I mean it, darling!" he exclaimed. "Do you know one thing

that took me to London? I went to get something for you, if you will

wear it. Look!" He drew a tiny case from his pocket and opened it.

Inside was a ring, a diamond heart surrounded by little pearls.

She clasped her hands together.

"How lovely! How lovely!" she exclaimed. "And is that for me?"

"Try it on," said Harry.

She held out her finger, and he slipped the jewel into its place.

"It fits perfectly!" she cried, enchanted, turning her hand round and

round, so that it should flash in the sun.

"Darling!" he exclaimed, throwing his arm round her.

"Oh, please don't! Some one might be looking. Every one can see you

from here."

"But, Isoline, do you love me?"

"Yes, I do indeed!"

"And you will be my wife? You haven't said it, you know, dear."

"I will," she said, still contemplating her left hand.

"Look at me, dear, tell me you mean what you say. Are you happy,

Isoline? I am."

She glanced up at him with her grey eyes full of sunshine.

"I am very happy," she murmured.

Then her look swam away into the far landscape and she sat rapt,

thinking of what was to come. The world she wanted was opening in

front of her; the man who held the key of it had put it into her hand

She wondered whether there might be lions on the threshold, and, if

so, how loudly they would roar. She thought that she would not mind

the roaring very much, if she could only slip by them successfully.

The future was whispering to Harry too.

"I wonder what your uncle will say," he remarked at last. "I meant to

have spoken to him when I arrived, but he had gone out, and so I came

up here to you. He can't refuse me, can he, Isoline?"

"Oh dear, no," she laughed, wondering at her lover's simplicity. "How

could he? Besides, I shall do as I like."

"You will never give me up, whatever may happen? Dear, dear Isoline,

you couldn't do such a thing, could you?"

"What will Mr. Fenton and Lady Harriet say?"

"I shall go and tell them what to say," said Harry valiantly.

"I do not think that your mother will be glad," said she, smiling

faintly.

She hardly knew whether this idea was agreeable to her or not. There

was a lurking antipathy in her to Lady Harriet, though she had

received nothing but civility at her hands; the strangely-different

point of view in small things which Harry's mother represented had put

her out. It had been uncomfortable, and she had not forgotten it. In

her mind the only recognized difference between well-regulated people

lay in their social positions. She rather resented the idea of a

titled mother-in-law whose simple behaviour suggested an

unconsciousness of her advantage.

Her imagination flew on to her wedding. It should not take place at

Crishowell, if she could help it. She thought of Hereford Cathedral,

and the string of carriages and family chariots waiting outside the

close for the company before whom she would be playing the leading

part. She pictured herself in white satin and lace being conducted up

the aisle, and standing with the eldest son of a county magnate before

the Bishop--for no doubt Mr. Fenton would wish the Bishop to marry his

son; and finally, being led out by her husband to a carriage with grey

horses. She would have the wedding-favours an exact facsimile of some

she had once seen, bouquets of orange-blossom which had unexpectedly

put forth silver leaves, and which reposed on white satin bows with

silver fringe. She was quite certain Lady Harriet had never looked so

well as she would on that supreme occasion. There was only one dark

blot in all her eminently satisfactory day-dream, and that was the

fact that Llewellyn would probably be best man. He was neither

creditable nor conciliatory.

She awoke from her reverie to find Harry's eyes fixed upon her with

such passionate love and admiration that she was rather startled. So

far she had considered him more as an adjunct than as any one

possessing a future of his own, and for a single moment the importance

of what she had done struck her.

"I wonder how I shall like you," she remarked suddenly, and without a

touch of the flippancy such words might suggest. It was probably the

one original thing she had said in her life.

Harry looked as if he had been slapped.

"Isoline! What do you mean?" he cried. "You do not want to draw back?"

"Oh no," said the girl quickly, "I only wondered if we should ever

quarrel."

"Never," he replied fervently; "I could never be angry with you, I am

sure."

So they sat and looked down upon the Vicarage till a black figure

crossed the churchyard.

"There is my uncle," said Isoline, taking up her hat. "We ought to go

down and tell him."

"Oh, not yet," pleaded Harry, "stay a little, dear; I shall always

love this place now."

He looked up into the branches.

"Is not the cherry-blossom pretty? Before you came, I was thinking how

nice it would be to have a ball-dress trimmed with it. Do you think it

would suit me?"

"You'll look lovely."

"And you will not forget my dresses as you forget the London

fashions?" She raised her eyes archly to his.

He seized her hand and kissed it, and she made no resistance, for the

grass was high and the action could not be seen.

It was long before he forgot the feel of the cool greenness, the touch

of soft fingers as he pressed them against his lips, and the dancing

of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Poor Harry, he was happy; the

heavens had stooped down to earth, and he had no misgivings. Such

difficulties as he foresaw were those that would melt away before the

fire of his constancy. How was it conceivable that any opposition

could stand against Isoline's beauty and sweetness? He thought of

Llewellyn's counsel and the day on which they had so nearly quarrelled

by the garden door; it was strange that he--so much cleverer than

himself--had taken such an extraordinary view of her character. The

recollection made him quite impatient, though he told himself in his

generous heart that there was no one like his brother, and that, come

what might, his marriage should never in any way shadow their

friendship.

Time, he was certain, and a closer experience of Isoline's society,

would convince him that he had been mistaken, and he knew Llewellyn

well enough to be sure that, when such a change should come to pass,

his acknowledgment of his error would be complete. It would all come

right, and, meanwhile, life was bathed in an untold glory.

Like all young, open natures who love truly, Harry was humble. His own

inferiority to the girl at his side was manifest to him as he looked

up at her through the grasses. His life had been, if anything, rather

more regular than that of the ordinary young man, for the extreme

genuineness of his nature had necessitated that some real feeling,

however transient, should direct his desires. Nevertheless,

temptations that assailed others had not stepped aside in his favour,

and it was a miracle to him that this creature, so delicate, so pure,

so refined, should be willing to walk out of the fairy radiance of her

maiden kingdom to join hands with him. The little demure air that

never left her, even when she had seemed most near to him, was a

charm. There was always a suggestion about her of not giving too much,

and he admired it as he might have admired the delicacy of scent in a

white flower.

He loved refinement, though he could not distinguish between the false

and the true, being younger in his mind than in his years; and it is

the irony of life that a knowledge of valuations comes to many--indeed

to most--when it is too late to be useful. He had reverence in him and

a high ideal of womanhood; though it was a crude one, it was the best

that his youth and unanalytic nature could frame. The dainty calm and

reserve with which Isoline had met his obvious love was as if the

white flower grew on a height to be scaled with patience, and bloomed

to be touched by one hand alone. He was not the first to mistake

coldness for purity.

CHAPTER XXIV

A CARD HOUSE

THE news of the engagement fell like a bombshell into the circle at

Waterchurch; to all but Llewellyn it came as an absolute surprise.

Harry's temporary attachment to any pretty girl who came in his way

was taken as such a matter of course by his parents, that the

attentions he had bestowed on Isoline during the few days she had

stayed with them were nothing out of the ordinary run of events.

Mr. Lewis had made his consent conditional, promising to give it when

he should hear of the Squire's approval, and withholding it entirely

till Harry should assure him of the sanction. Isoline, to whom her

uncle's decision suggested a flying in the face of Providence,

relapsed into soft obstinacy, submitting outwardly to what for the

moment seemed inevitable, and covering a persistence which would

recognize no scruple with a layer of docility. Her attitude was that

of a sand-bag towards a bullet--it offered no visible resistance. At

the same time it was impenetrable.

The Vicar had but little respect for the conventional view of

marriage. While he held it unwise for young people to plunge hand in

hand into the dismal bog of extreme poverty, only to waste their youth

and strength in the sordid flounderings which alone can keep their

heads above water, his ideas of the important things of life were at

variance with those of most people. He regarded the poverty which

necessitates some self-denial as a strengthener of the bonds which tie

those whose love is love indeed, and the outward circumstances which

(whatever they may say) are the things deemed most essential by the

majority, seemed to him to have a secondary place.

He was an intensely spiritual man. Abstract things were more real to

him than the things usually called tangible facts. Though he lived in

a retired spot and kept so much apart from the world, his earlier life

had lain in crowded places, and he had studied men and women very

profoundly. His mental search after truth had been keen, and he was

one who liked half-truths so little that it irked him to have to mix

with those whose current coin they were. He would almost have

preferred lies. That was one reason why solitude was dear to him.

There was only one person among his neighbours with whom he felt

himself in true accord, and that was Lady Harriet Fenton. She was a

woman whom no expediency and no custom could ever induce to deal in

false values.

The tying up for life of two people seemed immeasurably more awful to

the Vicar than it does to the world in general, for he reckoned with

things to whose existence little attention is paid. The power of two

characters to raise or lower each other, was in his eyes a more real

thing than the power of two purses to maintain the establishment that

their owners' friends expect of them. But while he held these

opinions, he had seen enough to show him that to hundreds of natures

the suitable establishment is all-satisfying, and will preserve them

in a lukewarm felicity until death parts them. He knew that strong

meat is not for babes. Isoline was a babe, but he was not so sure

about Harry. Mr. Fenton's difficulties were no secret to him, and he

was aware that, should the young man marry, he would have to content

himself with very little. Isoline, even when her husband should have

become head of the family, would scarcely be able to keep up the show

he suspected her of coveting. It was a point on which he resolved to

enlighten her.

Although he considered him far too young to think of marriage, he had

always liked Harry, for his simplicity and impetuous ways struck him

less as blunt intelligence than as late development, and he believed

that, were he to develop in the society of Isoline, he would develop

away from her; his character at twenty-five was yet in the making,

while hers, at nineteen, was set. All this was more to him than the

fact that his niece would, socially speaking, be marrying well.

As they sat at breakfast on the following morning with the windows

wide open to the orchard, he began upon the subject.

"Isoline, I feel that I ought to tell you a few things you may not

know. If Mr. Fenton gives his consent, and I consequently give mine, I

suppose you and Harry will expect to be married before very long. You

have always had most things that you want, being an only child; do you

think you will be quite happy with less? You may think perhaps that

Mr. Fenton is a rich man."

"I am not accepting Harry for his money," observed Isoline, with

dignity.

"That would be rather difficult, my dear, seeing that he has not got

any," said the Vicar, with some dryness.

She opened her eyes. "I hardly understand. What should I have to do

without?"

"Well, I fancy you spend a good deal upon your dresses for a young

girl. Not that I blame you, for you always look very nice, and you

have seventy pounds a year of your own to be pretty with. Of course,

when you are here you are my guest, and you are no expense, for what

does for me does for us both. I think your aunt in Hereford finds the

same--and rightly."

She nodded.

"It would be hard indeed if you had not a home while we are so well

able to afford you one," continued the Vicar, who had denied himself a

much-needed carpet for his study in order to add a few luxuries to her

bedroom.

"You are both most kind to me."

"But, my dear, it is only right. All the same I cannot help fearing

that you may miss it. You will not have so many new gowns and smart

hats."

Isoline said nothing, but she looked a little incredulous.

"Harry's father allows him two hundred a year. If he married he might

possibly increase it a little--a very little--but I know that is all

he could do. Harry has no profession. Personally, I think that a

mistake, for, in my opinion, every young man who has not learned to

work has missed something, but that is Mr. Fenton's affair, not mine.

Between you both, you would not have three hundred a year, and, even

if a little more were forthcoming, you would barely have three hundred

and fifty. That is very well when a man has something to work at."

"But why will not Mr. Fenton give Harry more?"

"He has not got it to give."

She looked dumbly at him, tears gathering in her eyes; her lips

quivered.

"My dear, my dear," said her uncle, "don't be so upset. I did not mean

to dishearten you, but it was right to tell you the truth. We have not

heard what the Squire has to say, and something might be found, no

doubt, for Harry to do."

He was quite glad to see her display some real feeling, and he came

round to her side and put his arm tenderly about her.

"Don't, my little girl, do not be so distressed," he said, pressing

his lined cheek against her soft one. "If Mr. Fenton says 'Yes,' and

Harry is a man--which I am sure he is--we shall find some way out of

the difficulty. It will be a capital thing for him to work a little,

for he will want money all his life, if he is to stand in his father's

place."

She wept on unrestrainedly, and her emotion touched him; it roused in

him a hope that he had judged her hardly. After all, he had possibly

often misunderstood her, and Harry's affection might yet bring out

things her education had stifled. Though the small interests of

provincial town life were bad training for a woman, they might not

have quite succeeded in spoiling her. But it was not for love that her

tears flowed, it was for a fallen card house.

He spoke very gravely and gently.

"You will have to do your best for him, as Lady Harriet has done for

his father," he continued, still encircling her with his arm. "You

will have a good model in your mother-in-law, Isoline."

A feeling of dislike went through her as she thought of Lady Harriet's

plain clothes and the way she had tramped through the mud of the

farmyard when she had shown her the Alderney cows; she seemed to have

supposed that it would amuse her to see these dull animals. And then,

her strong boots! It was horrible, unfeminine. She had certainly worn

a silk gown at dinner, with a piece of valuable lace on it, but it had

been the same one each night. And this was to be her pattern!

"I did not care very much for Lady Harriet," she faltered.

"You have not seen her very often," replied the Vicar; "she is one of

those women of whom one can say that the more one knows them, the more

one honours them."

"Why?" asked Isoline. "What does she do?"

"Mr. Fenton has lived very much up to his income, and they have to be

extremely careful. There is a great deal of business to be done, more

than he can manage, and she is invaluable in the help she gives him.

She spends nothing on herself; her whole heart is in the place. If it

were not for her, I don't know that it would be in the Squire's

possession now."

Isoline did not return her uncle's caress in any way, but she dried

her eyes, and went cheerlessly on with her breakfast. After it was

over she went out into the orchard, and strolled down to where it met

the brook. She stood for a few minutes looking disconsolately into the

water as it bubbled by; across it she could see up the sloping field

to the cherry-tree under which she had sat on the preceding day. How

happy she had been then!

She pitied herself sincerely. The light which had glimmered before her

during all her stay at Crishowell had proved to be no better than a

malignant Jack-o'-lantern luring her on to the unsolid ground. But the

fatal step had not been taken, though she had put out her foot; her

uncle had shown her to what she was on the verge of trusting herself.

She felt vaguely resentful against Harry. What business had he, she

asked herself, to entangle her in this way, knowing, as know he must,

that he had nothing to support her with decently? It was not fair. She

turned from the brookside and walked back towards the house. Howlie

Seaborne was coming towards her with a letter in his hand. He held it

out between thumb and forefinger.

Though she had never received a letter from Harry, she knew by

instinct where this one had come from, and took it carelessly,

conscious that the boy was staring critically at her with his

prominent eyes. She turned it over as though doubtful of its origin.

"It's from the young general," explained Howlie.

Her disapproving face made him cover his mouth quickly with his hand

as though the words had escaped from it unawares. It was an

indescribably vulgar action.

"Is there any answer?" she inquired.

"Don't knaw," said Howlie shortly.

"But did you ask?"

"Naw; an' oi can't stop 'im now, no more nor if he was a lump o' dirt

rowlin' down the hill."

"But who was he?" she asked, with a wild thought that Harry might have

brought the letter in person.

"A man with a squintin' oye."

She walked away from him, breaking the seal, and he returned to the

kitchen, his tongue in his cheek; he was a Herefordshire boy who had

only come to the place a few months before, but there was little he

did not know, and he was well aware that the messenger lived one mile

from Waterchurch Court.

"Darling," the letter began, "I cannot help writing to you so soon,

though I have not very much to tell. I have spoken to my father. I am

afraid we may have some difficulties, but I have not had the chance of

a serious talk with him yet, and I cannot quite tell you anything

definite. But, whatever happens, I will _never, never_ give you up,

and all will come right in the end, I know, if we are only true to

each other. I will trust you, darling, be sure, and you know that I am

always your devoted lover,

"H. FENTON.

"P.S.--Oh, Isoline, how I love you! How I wish we were sitting under

the cherry-tree again!"

She could not help being pleased with the letter, it rang so true; and

for the moment, as Harry, honest and trusting, was brought more

vividly before her by his written words, she sighed to think of the

undeserved ill-turn her luck had played her. She was regretful as she

thought how much he loved her. What a smart air he had! What a

handsome, bright face! He seemed so proper a person--so like the

husband she had pictured as a suitable one for herself, that it was

almost a risk to sever herself from him. He was a man with whom any

girl might be proud to show herself, and he would, socially, give her

the place for which she felt fitted. The feeling was so strong that it

went near to overwhelming her more prudent considerations. Might it

not, after all, be better to throw in her lot with him? Though he

could not give her the riches she had dreamed of before her uncle had

shattered the dream, she would, as his wife, be somebody. But then,

she would have to economize, to deny herself--do all the horrible

things that Lady Harriet did, and there would be no going to London

and entering the brilliant vista of balls, operas, and dinner-parties

at which it had been her hope to shine.

She had imagined her carriage surrounded by a circle of admirers, as

were the carriages of the "fine ladies" she had read about, while she

lay back on her cushions and listened to the hum of compliment with

which the air would be filled. That would never be a reality if she

married a poor man. A mere chance had brought such possibilities

within her reach, but they had melted away--snares and

delusions--leaving only a vision of drudgery and homeliness behind.

Small wonder if she had wept.

She had barely enjoyed an hour's possession of the ring Harry brought

her, for it had lain in Mr. Lewis' desk since the evening before, when

her lover had broken the news to him and heard his verdict. The Vicar

would not allow his niece to wear it until Mr. Fenton's consent should

formally ratify the engagement, and he had insisted upon its being

returned. The young man had stoutly refused to take it back, and, by

way of settling the difficulty, it had been sealed up in a little box

and locked into the desk in which the parish money and one or two

valuables were kept. It had been a bitter disappointment, and it was

followed by a worse one.

She wondered what her aunt in Hereford would think of her engagement,

and believed that, were she beside her at present, she would exert

herself much to prevent its being broken, her ambitions being more

social than pecuniary. She was really very thankful that Miss Ridgeway

was not at Crishowell, for the course she meant to take would be made

far harder by the lady's presence.

She looked upon the doctor who had postponed her return for several

months as her own unconscious benefactor, and she cherished the hope

of inducing Mr. Lewis to be silent so that her aunt might never know

what had happened. She would consider Harry's proposal as a grand

chance, and would not understand at how far too high a price that

chance would have to be taken. There were troublous times in front of

her she could not but suspect; Mr. Fenton might consent, and Harry

would be by no means easy to deal with; but she had her uncle's word

that money obstacles would be great, and on these she would take her

stand with as much determination as she could show with propriety. It

would have to be gone through, and the notion made her shudder. The

gin of her own making might be closing round her, but, at all events,

she would have one frantic leap for freedom before the teeth shut.

The letter lay in her pocket, and she took it out and re-read it; its

black and white page spread on her knee looked to her like some

dangerous document binding her to the fate from which she so desired

to flee. "Whatever happens I will _never, never_ give you up," it

said. She went quickly down the orchard, and, standing by the brook,

tore it into small pieces, parting her fingers widely and letting the

fragments float outwards on the water. They were carried along,

disappearing one after another in the little rapids between the

stones. A wagtail, curtseying with its feet in the eddy, jumped up and

twittered away into the green of the undergrowth with a parti-coloured

flash of wings.

She saw the last scrap of the letter turning a bend of the bank and

sailing swiftly under the shadow of the footbridge, and then went back

to the house with a sigh of relief, unconscious that Howlie's eyes

were watching her attentively from the kitchen window.

The boy drew a long breath of astonishment, and opened his mouth as he

observed her action. He admired Harry greatly.

CHAPTER XXV

LLANGARTH FAIR

THE generosity of those who admired the toll-keeper's excellent exit

from this life had placed his daughter beyond the possibility of want.

Public admiration, which, in like instances, will often display itself

in ornamenting a memory that is already the most ornamental thing

possible, had been leavened by the common-sense of the Vicar. He

maintained that the plainest stone would be as efficient a background

to the proud record it bore as the most expensive article ever turned

out of a stone-cutter's yard. He also added that the sincerest homage

offered to the dead would, in this case, be the care of the living.

The gentlemen representing the district were impressed by the view he

took, as men often are by the words of those who speak little, and

though their wives, on hearing of the decision, sniffed and opined

that any expenditure on the hussy would be a throwing away of good

money, they decided to take his advice and to leave its carrying out

in his hands. They thus had the agreeable experience of feeling

broad-minded and saving themselves trouble in one and the same act;

the situation had novelty as well as convenience, and they folded

their hands upon their ample persons in easy after-dinner enjoyment of

the good deed. Lady Harriet's was the one dissenting voice in the

general female opinion. In this, as in most things, she was Mr. Lewis'

warmest supporter, adding a private mite out of her slim purse; the

peculiar horror of Mary's situation left no room in her mind for more

creditable feelings.

By the time Harry's love affair had come to a point, an arrangement

had been made on her behalf. Eager to work for her living, she

accepted the small provision made for her gratefully, while she

assured her benefactors of her wish to help herself as far as she

could for the future. She begged them to get her some decent work. The

little board before whom she was summoned was impressed by the

slender, firm creature, her gentle demeanour and sensible answers, as

she stood in front of them and made her request. Afterwards, one

member even tried to describe her to his wife, but the lady frowned

him down, pointing to the freckled miss who crowned their union, and

who now sat at her wool-work within earshot of the pair.

But, in spite of the sneers and charges of infatuation for a pretty

face brought against the gentlemen by their spouses, she obtained the

interest she needed, and a place was found for her in a little

greengrocer's shop at Llangarth. The owner, an old woman becoming

rapidly infirm, wanted a girl to act as servant and saleswoman,

offering a home and a small wage in return for the help. The Vicar,

who was particular on the point, hid no part of Mary's history from

her employer, but it was received without comment as too ordinary an

occurrence to need notice. So one afternoon she started for the town,

a bundle in her hand and her new life waiting a few miles in front.

She walked along, a kind of reluctance clinging round her footsteps.

The independent course she had asked for was near, but, now that she

had launched herself, she felt internally cold.

Her new employer was a stranger, and the friends she had just left

seemed to be receding very far away. She looked mentally back on them,

as a traveller ferrying across to an unfamiliar shore looks back at

the faces on the brink. She could see the roofs of Llangarth appearing

in the green and blue of the landscape, and the smoke curling among

the trees. She paused and laid down her bundle, leaning against a

gate. A path which was a short cut to the town from the uplands of

Crishowell, ran, a wavy line through the clover and daisies, towards

her halting-place; and, though a man's figure was coming along it, she

was so much pre-occupied that she did not notice his approach. It was

only when he stood not a yard from her that she moved aside to let him

pass. The man was George Williams.

Mary had thought many times of their parting, and, as the wound in her

mind began to ache less and her agonizing sensitiveness to abate, her

judgment grew straighter. She began to see that she had done George a

wrong, misjudging his impulses, and she sincerely wished her words

unsaid; but, being one of those souls to whom explanation is torture,

she had made no sign. Even now, though she longed to set it right, she

could find no voice for a moment. He passed her with an indistinct

word.

"George."

He stopped immediately.

"George, I treated you bad when I shut the door on you. I didn't

understand. It's hard to do right," said Mary simply.

"Then you bean't angry, Mary? Not now?"

"No, no."

Facing each other, there seemed nothing more to say. In their state of

life there are no small embroideries round the main subject.

"I'm going to Llangarth," said the girl, with a clumsy attempt at

ending the episode.

"So am I," said he.

Looking down, he noticed her bundle, which he had almost rolled into

the ditch as he opened the gate; the four corners were knotted in the

middle, and under the knot was stuck a bunch of flowers--wallflower,

ribes, and a couple of pheasant-eye narcissus.

"Have you left the toll?" he asked, taking it up from the clump of

nettles upon which it had fallen.

She nodded.

"I'll work for myself now."

A pang of apprehension went through him.

"Where are you going? You won't go further nor Llangarth, surely?"

"I'm to help Mrs. Powell. Her that keeps the shop by the market. The

Vicar of Crishowell knows her, and 'twas him got me the place. I'll do

my best," added Mary, holding out her hand for the bundle; "let me go

on, now."

"I'll go with you a bit," said George.

They took the road together, looking very much like a respectable

young peasant family starting on a holiday, but for the fact that the

man walked beside the woman, not in front of her, and that there was

no baby.

The ribes scented everything. Mary drew the nosegay from the bundle;

she liked to keep it in her hand, for the touch and smell of something

familiar was necessary to her as she stepped along towards her new

world. After the solitary position of the Dipping-Pool, and her

seclusion at the toll-house, Llangarth seemed nothing short of a

metropolis.

"I'll be coming into market, time an' again," began Williams, after a

few minutes. "Would I see you, do you think? I have to go into the

town for Mrs. Walters sometimes."

He spoke without a trace of anxiety, but he had been longing and

fearing to ask the question.

"For Mrs. Walters?"

"Yes," replied he, fixing his eyes on the road about a hundred yards

ahead. "I'm working for her now at Great Masterhouse."

Mary bit her lip. The news surprised her, and the sound of Rhys' name

affected her as the word "gallows" might affect a reprieved man.

"Of a Sunday," urged George, "I could step down to Llangarth and get a

sight of you."

She was silent.

"But, perhaps you wouldn't like it. I wish you wasn't so set against

me."

"I'm not set against you."

"But you don't like to see me."

"I do; but----"

"What's wrong wi' you, Mary? Speak out."

"I'm feared of you, George."

He swore under his breath.

"Promise you won't ever speak like you did at the toll," she faltered,

"not ever again."

Williams set his lips; his short space of prosperity had raised his

spirit, and he was no longer so much inclined to accept reverses as

natural events. For some time he had earned good wages, and he was

already beginning to lessen his debt to Mrs. Walters; in a short time

it would no longer exist. He was a different being from the

Pig-driver's sullen, dispirited servant. That hated bondage had

crushed all the instincts of young manhood, and made him into a kind

of machine for endurance. They now had freedom to rise in him, and he

longed for a little joy beyond the mere joy of his release. He could

not have framed it for himself, but he was craving for emotion, for

femininity, for love, for children, for all that might be centred in

the woman beside him. He picked up a stone and threw it smartly into

the boughs of an elm-tree. It was a rebellious action.

"I can't," he said shortly, "and I won't."

"Then I can't see you any more. You were to stand by me that day

when--after--at the river, but it's different now, it seems."

"'Tis different. It's one thing or the other now. Oh! Mary, an' I

would be good to you."

For reply she quickened her pace.

George struck at the bushes with the stick he carried. In spite of the

good fortune of their meeting, in spite of the words that had set all

right between them, they had slipped back into the old place. The sky

had cleared indeed, but the clouds were rolling up again.

They arrived at the outskirts of Llangarth without exchanging another

word or looking at each other; the girl kept her head turned away,

with that uncomfortable sensation that we all know when we do not wish

to meet the eye of our neighbour, and feel, consequently, as if we had

only one side to our faces. When a steep street branched down to the

market, she put out her hand timidly for the bundle, but he took no

notice of it, and where the pavement narrowed, he fell behind, so that

he might look at her unabashed as she went on before him holding the

cottage bouquet close.

The town was unusually full, it being the day of a half-yearly fair,

and Mary became almost bewildered by the stream of passers. Soon it

grew clear that she had missed her way, and that the line she was

following would eventually bring her out near the river, some way from

her destination. George, who did not know the exact place for which

she was making, kept behind; she tried to retrieve her mistake by a

short cut, and, turning a corner, found herself in the very middle of

the fair.

The place was a moving mass of humanity; country boys with their

awkward gait elbowing about among the trimmer townspeople, girls in

their best head-gear, lingering in groups in the attractive vicinity

of a double row of booths bisecting the crowd. A merry-go-round, whose

shrill pipes and flags assailed both ear and eye, creaked on its

ceaseless round of measured giddiness, and behind it a drum, high on a

platform, was being beaten with a certain violent decorum, which

announced that the action was no outcome of the performer's spirit,

but part of a recognized scheme.

Far away from it a rival was found in a Cheap Jack, who proclaimed the

merits of bootlaces, tin-whistles, coloured ribbons, and a stack of

inferior umbrellas propped against the rush-bottomed chair which

formed alike his rostrum and his stronghold. His assistant stood

before him, keeping back the dense ring which threatened to submerge

him, and using one of the umbrellas for the purpose.

The purely agricultural part of the fair had its stand on a piece of

high ground, where some fat beasts with indifferent faces occupied a

line of pens. In front of them James Bumpett sat in his cart surveying

the exhibition. Farm-horses were being trotted up and down before

possible buyers, the pig-jumps with which some of the young ones

varied their paces driving the unwary back among their neighbours.

Here and there a knot of drunken men rolled through the crowd, their

passage marked by oaths emanating both from themselves and from those

who were inconvenienced by them.

Mary started at finding herself on the verge of such a tumult, and

turned back to George.

"This isn't the road I thought," she said, "I suppose I must have

taken the wrong corner somewhere. I can't mind the name of the street,

but it's nigh the market."

"Then we can get across to it this way," answered Williams, beginning

to make a passage through the crowd. "Keep you close to me."

He shouldered a path through the human waves. It was a big fair, and

the inhabitants of other towns had patronized it largely; one or two

lounging youths with their hats on one side looked impertinently at

Mary, who was made more conspicuous by the flowers she carried. She

shrank closer to her companion; he drew her hand under his arm and

they went forward.

They passed the pens where the live stock were delighting the gaze of

the initiated, and found themselves outside a kind of curtained

platform, at either end of which was a large placard. To judge by

these, all the most celebrated persons the earth contained were to be

found behind the curtain, and would, when the showman had collected

enough from the bystanders, be revealed to the public eye. The crowd

was so thick in this place that George and Mary found it almost

impossible to move, though they had no particular wish to see the Fat

Woman, the Wild Indian, the Emperor of China, and all the other

inspiring personalities who apparently dwelt in godly unity in the

tent at the back of the stage. There was a great collecting of coppers

going on, and the showman's hat having reached the fulness he

expected, he sprang upon the platform and announced that the show was

about to begin.

"An' about toime too," observed the voice of Howlie Seaborne, who was

in the foremost row of spectators; "oi thought them coppers would be

moiking a fresh 'ole in the crown."

For three months Howlie had kept Harry's gift intact; he had laid it

carefully by, resisting any temptation to spend even a fraction, so

that, when Llangarth Fair should come round, his cup of pleasure

should be brimming. He had already laid a shilling out on a knife

which he admired, but, in the main, he had gone down the row of booths

casting withering looks on such wares as displeased him, occasionally

taking up some article, and, after a careful examination, laying it

down again with quiet contempt.

Sweets were simply beneath his notice, and he passed the places in

which they were displayed more insolently than any others. To him, the

merry-go-round was foolishness, and those who trusted their persons

astride of puce-coloured dragons and grass-green horses, fools; but

the mysteries behind the curtain appealed to his curiosity. He now

stood in the most desirable position amongst the audience waiting for

the show to begin; on his right was a stout, high-nosed farmer's wife

in a black silk bonnet.

After a short disappearance the showman came forward carrying a stick

with which he tapped the curtain. It flew up disclosing a stupendous

lady in purple velveteen, with a wreath of scarlet wax camellias on

her head. She was seated at a table.

"Seenyora Louisa, a native of Italy! The stoutest female living!"

bawled the showman. The lady blew a promiscuous kiss. "She will now

sing an Italian song!"

At this the lady rose and took a step forward, the stage shaking under

her tread. She cleared her throat and began in a shrill treble, so

disproportionate to her size that the effect was more startling than

if she had roared aloud, as, indeed, one almost expected her to do.

The song was evidently a translation.

"I am far from my country alone,

And my friends and my parents so true.

From the land of my birth I have flown,

And the faces around me are new!

I weep and I sigh all the day,

And dream of fair Italy's shore;

How can I be lightsome and gay,

When perchance I shall see it no more?"

"Well, I never!" exclaimed the woman in the black silk bonnet, "pore

thing! I always did say as I hated them furrin' countries, but I

suppose them as is born in them is used to them."

"Waft me, ye winds, to my home,

Where my light skiff bounds on the wave;

My heart is too weary to roam,

And its rest is the wanderer's grave!"

Here the exile turned her eyes upwards and sat thunderously down, a

pocket-handkerchief at her face.

"'Tis a bad case, pore lady," said the farmer's wife again.

"_That_ ain't no loidy," remarked Howlie shortly.

"Hold yer tongue, ye varmint," said the farmer's wife.

For once in his life Howlie was nonplussed; chance had thrown him

against one of the few people fitted to deal with him.

He would have liked to make some suitable reply, but the eyes of his

neighbour were fixed upon the stage from which Signora Louisa's chair

was being removed. The curtain dropped.

When it rose again the audience drew a long breath. A pasteboard rock,

much the size of the Signora, filled the place where she had sat, and

to it, by a rope, was attached a middle-aged woman, whose considerable

good looks had departed, leaving a cloud of rouge behind. Her position

seemed to have produced no sort of effect upon her, for her face was

as placid as if she were at her own fireside. She looked not unlike a

dog tied up outside a public-house and waiting for its master. She was

enveloped in blue muslin, which stopped midway between knee and ankle,

and left her arms and shoulders bare.

"'Ere we 'ave the drama of St. George and the Dragon," announced the

showman. "The Princess, forsook by all, waits 'er doom."

"The hussy!" exclaimed the farmer's wife, turning severely on Howlie.

"Go you home, boy, 'tis no place for decent folks. Princess, indeed!

I'd Princess her."

Howlie smiled and looked tolerantly at his enemy, but made no effort

to move; had he wished to, he could hardly have done so, the crowd was

so thick. Awful puffings and roarings proclaimed the approach of the

Dragon, and the farmer's wife began to get nervous.

Anything was to be expected from such a godless exhibition, and, in

spite of a high nose and a strict moral attitude, her heart began to

quake. As in the case of most women, fear made her angry. She took

Howlie fiercely by the arm.

"D'ye hear me, boy?" she cried.

"Oi feel yew, anyhow," said he.

The Dragon had now passed the wings of the stage, and his dire

appearance was producing a great effect. The owner of the black silk

bonnet turned and found herself confronted by George and Mary, who

were wedged up in the row immediately behind her.

"Help me out o' this, young man," she said authoritatively, but with a

suspicious quaver in her voice. "I don't think much of that sort o'

show, an' I don't think much of you, neither, letting your missus

stand looking at loose sights."

Mary turned crimson.

"'Tis hard to get free of this maze o' folk," answered Williams.

"I'm going to try it, howsomenever," continued the farmer's wife, "and

you might lend me a hand if you be going too. My screwmatics is that

bad that I can't shove about me as I'd like to." She looked resolutely

round upon the crowd.

"I'll do what I can," said George, beginning to push his way to a

freer space.

The whole concourse having its senses completely centred upon the

Dragon it made but little resistance, and as long as its eyes might

remain fixed on him, it hardly cared what became of the rest of its

body. George's efforts were supplemented by those of the sturdy woman

behind him, and they soon arrived at the outskirts of the fair.

"Thank ye," she said, as she mopped her shining forehead; "just you

take that young missus o' yours home. She's dead tired, I can see

that, pore lass."

And she left them.

George walked with his companion to the door of her new home and

parted from her. He asked her again to let him go to see her now and

then. She hesitated, and finally said yes.

CHAPTER XXVI

HOWLIE AND LLEWELLYN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

HOWLIE SEABORNE, who liked to get his money's worth out of things, was

anxious to see the performance through. He did not pay his neighbour

of the black silk bonnet so much as the tribute of a glance as she

pushed her way out behind the ex-sheep-stealer.

He had still a respectable amount of coppers in his pocket, and while

this held out, he had no thoughts of going home.

The spectacle was assuming a very spirited character, for the blue

muslin victim was beginning to realize her situation and the Dragon to

writhe horribly. Popular interest was consequently rising to

high-water-mark. Behind the stage St. George had mounted a

spare-looking pony and was drawing a pasteboard sword. Bloodshed, in

the spectators' opinion, was the only thing left to be desired.

Just behind Howlie stood two men who had been busy in the same part of

the fair as Bumpett, and were now stopping for a minute to cast amused

eyes on the realistic splendours of St. George. Squire Fenton and

Llewellyn had finished their business and were on their way to the

Bell Inn, where they had left their gig, but the hisses of the reptile

gaping on the stage made them pause to see the end of the drama. Both

recognized Howlie, for he had become something of a celebrity since

the Rebecca riot, and they had also seen him at Crishowell Vicarage.

The hoofs of the Saint's steed were to be heard clattering on the

slanting board up which he had to ride to the platform, for the

spare-looking pony was new to the work and seemed disinclined to go

on. He had been borrowed to replace another animal which was sick and

could not appear in the scene, and his rider, who, in a rough way, was

something of a horseman, had to use a good deal of persuasion. At

last, after some difficulty, he rode triumphantly forward to where the

Dragon breathed forth fire and slaughter.

The Dragon, like many of us, was made of different stuff inside from

what one might have supposed. His interior was nothing less than two

small boys, one of whom formed his head and fore-parts, while the

other represented his tail; they were enclosed in padded straw covered

with sacking roughly painted to represent scales, and the front boy

had a little store of squibs and crackers which he fired out of the

monster's mouth as he went along.

After being persuaded to get upon the stage, the pony moved forward a

few steps, while his rider waved his sword, challenging the reptile

loudly and advancing past the Princess to meet him. As soon as they

came close together a perfect volcano of squibs flew out in the

astonished beast's face, and he reared up so suddenly that the Saint,

who was lunging at his foe, almost lost his balance. The sword stuck

in a crevice of the Dragon's hide, and, though the blade was

pasteboard, the stuff, being rotten, was ripped open, and a great

patch of straw bulged out. Mr. Fenton and Llewellyn laughed, but the

audience, which had little sense of incongruity, was as serious as

ever. The Dragon, pleased to his inmost parts by his success, blew out

another shower. One red spark settled on the straw, then another, and

another. There was a crackle, an exclamation; the pony turned and

jumped off the low platform into the middle of the people, depositing

its rider at their feet, and the terrible scream of childish agony

rose from the two poor little prisoners in their shroud of living

flame.

Women shrieked, the men made inarticulate noises and stared open-eyed.

One or two moved in the irresolution of stupidity. The Squire caught

at his son's arm, unconsciously revealing that dependence of which he

had never been suspected. But there was none to read the sign.

Before any one could make up his mind what to do, Llewellyn Fenton had

bounded on to the platform and was stooping over the blazing mass that

writhed upon the boards, tearing with his strong hands a great opening

in the fore-part of the Dragon. The smoke was blinding, and the oil

and paint which coated the sacking gave substance to the flames. He

had got fast hold of one of the boys and was dragging him free;

through the reek he could see that his face was uninjured. But the

fire was spreading its venomous tongues down towards the tail which

contained another human life. One cannot do two things at once. He

looked round in desperation and saw Howlie's rabbit face at his side.

"Tear it open!" he cried. "Tear it open!"

A fresh burst of flame was blowing in his eyes.

The boy he had rescued was on his feet, but the fire had caught his

shirt and he was trying to break away in the madness of his terror.

By this time Mr. Fenton had come close to the stage; he pulled off the

thick coat he wore and tossed it up to Llewellyn. The young man

smothered the child in its close folds, throwing him down and rolling

him over as though he were fighting with a wild beast.

The boy who played the other half of the Dragon was almost safe,

thanks to Howlie's efforts. He had broken out of his prison uninjured

and was free, all but one leg which was held fast.

In order that the monster might lash its tail properly there was a

curious arrangement of steel wire at the point at which it began to

narrow, and in this the victim's foot had caught. The fire was

approaching it and his cries increased; his struggles were pitiful to

see. As Llewellyn had prevailed and was supporting one boy, more

frightened than hurt, the crowd's horrified attention was now fixed on

the other. It did not notice Howlie Seaborne, whose arms were plunged

up to the elbows in the Dragon's carcase. In each hand he grasped a

piece of the steel-trap which he was forcing doggedly apart. His face

was growing grey and his eyes stared; for almost the first time in his

life his mouth was shut. This was because he was grinding his teeth

together.

The thing which takes so many words to say had happened all in a

moment, and St. George had barely had time to extricate himself from

his stirrup and to run behind the scenes. He now returned with a

bucket of water, which he held upside down over the burning tail just

as Howlie had bent the wires enough to set the prisoner free. The

water hissed and the steam rose in a column.

A few people from the crowd had come up and pressed in a little circle

round the two children; the blue muslin lady was weeping

tempestuously. The showman, in his costume of St. George, began, with

Mr. Fenton, to examine the burnt foot. The boy was crying with pain,

but the injuries did not seem extensive.

"Well done, boy!" said Llewellyn, as he came up to Howlie, very white

and smelling dreadfully of smoke.

The words raised a ghost of the vertical smile, but it faded so

strangely that he looked down lower than the rabbit face. "My God!" he

cried, as he saw the arms and hands.

The circle of onlookers turned round, and Mr. Fenton made an

exclamation.

"Is it very bad?" he asked with some futility.

"Moight be worse, a' suppose," replied Howlie, as he fainted into

Llewellyn's arms.

The little group was becoming the centre of a dense mass.

People who stood in their places while they might have been of some

use, now thrust their bodies between the fresh air and those who

needed it, after the manner of crowds.

It was very evident that, of the two sufferers, Howlie was the worst;

pain was bringing him again to consciousness, and he lay back against

Mr. Fenton's shoulder, his face looking strangely unfamiliar; nothing

seemed to remain the same but a certain stubbornness. Llewellyn was on

his way to fetch his father's gig, and, as he went, he pulled off the

fragments of the dogskin driving-gloves which he had, by good fortune,

been wearing when the accident occurred. A man was dispatched to the

nearest doctor's house. The Squire adjured the bystanders to summon

the police, a request of which they naturally took no count, being

disinclined to have themselves dispersed. Two or three talked about

the Infirmary.

Howlie's eyes sought the Squire's.

"What is it, my boy?" said he.

"Toike me 'ome to Parson's," said Howlie faintly.

"Ah, the Infirmary; that be the place for he," chimed in a man who had

lately refused to go there himself when a drunken fight had laid his

head open.

The eyes kept their direction and the lips moved.

On his way back Llewellyn overtook the doctor, and the two drove up

together.

Howlie's hands and arms were temporarily dressed; the left one was in

such a state that the doctor feared it would be permanently useless;

he hoped, he said, to save the use of the other. He was young and shy,

and he timidly suggested that the people were pressing too near. The

sufferer had fainted again.

The showman and Llewellyn simply threw one or two off the platform.

The act was sudden and had a good effect.

Soon the world came back to Howlie--a world of agony. Llewellyn bent

down to him in answer to an unspoken prayer. "Parson's, Parson's,"

murmured the boy.

"What is it? What does he want, father?" asked Llewellyn, pity in

every line of his strong face.

"Poor little fellow, he wants to go back to Crishowell instead of to

the Infirmary."

The dumb look grew more intense.

Mr. Fenton seemed irresolute.

"Parson's, sir, Parson's." Tears which the pain had not brought were

starting from Howlie's eyes.

"What will Lewis say? Llewellyn, do you hear?" said the Squire.

There was a pause. The blue muslin princess, who had left the

platform, was being consoled by Signora Louisa inside the tent; their

high-pitched chatter flowed like a thin stream behind the canvas.

"Eh, Llewellyn? Can't you answer?" said Mr. Fenton testily.

"Take him, father."

"But Lewis?"

"I'll go bail for him," replied his son.

"But who's to look after him? Who's to sit up with him? He'll want

that, doctor, won't he?"

"He will," said the doctor gravely.

Howlie's eyes spoke again.

"I shall," said Llewellyn. "Father, you can spare me."

"Yes, yes. It isn't that. But where are you to live, I should like to

know? Lewis' house must be full."

"Anywhere. The stable," replied his son, with decision.

"Nonsense, boy."

"You had better get him away," hazarded the doctor; "the sooner he's

in bed the better."

With infinite gentleness, Llewellyn lifted Howlie and carried him to

the gig.

"You must drive, father," he remarked.

A gig is not a comfortable vehicle in which to carry an injured

person, and Llewellyn, who had no support for his back, had great

difficulty in keeping his charge from being shaken as they drove over

the cobbled streets. Howlie lay still, but he moaned faintly now and

then, and it was evident that he suffered much. Llewellyn's arms

ached, one side of his face was smeared with black, and his throat was

sore from the smoke; a round blister just inside his wrist which he

had not noticed before began to make itself felt, and the boy's weight

seemed to rest exactly upon the spot. He made landmarks as they went,

and mentally checked off each as it passed. "The crooked elm," "the

turning to Brecon," "the bridge," "the laburnum tree," and so on. His

father talked continually about the folly of his staying at Crishowell

to nurse Howlie, but he trusted to silence, that mighty weapon which

so few of us are strong enough to wield. His mind was made up, and he

knew that the Vicar would uphold him.

"It's very tiresome of you, Llewellyn, going against me in this way.

What am I to do, I should like to know? I haven't any one to see to

the little things I chance to forget. Harry's at home, certainly, but

what use is he?"

"Harry's no fool," replied his son, moved to speech by this.

"I'm not so sure, with this senseless business about Miss Ridgeway.

It's all nonsense, I know," said the Squire, who was apt to treat

things he disliked as if they had not occurred, "but he came bothering

me about it a couple of days ago. I told him I hadn't time to talk to

him, and I haven't said a word to your mother yet. I suppose _you_

know all about it?"

"I thought it might happen," admitted Llewellyn.

"Then you should have told me," said Mr. Fenton, with that

forgetfulness of the unwritten code of youth which comes to so many

when they have left it behind. "You and Harry give me more trouble in

a year than Tom and Bob have in all their lives."

For a man of recognized good character the Squire told a wonderful

number of untruths.

His son smiled, but not obviously.

"Surely this niece can look after him," he continued, looking down at

Howlie.

Llewellyn shook his head; his trust in Isoline was small. He had sat

up many nights with sick cows and horses and he knew what it was like.

"And why not, pray?"

"Oh, she's not strong enough. She's very young, father."

"And what are you, eh?"

"Well, I'm a man, at least," said Llewellyn.

"A man!" Mr. Fenton snorted sarcastically. There was room for sarcasm,

certainly, only he saw it in the wrong place.

They had passed the church and were driving up to the Vicarage gate.

Mr. Lewis was standing with Isoline in the garden, while a man put up

some bee-hives on a wooden trestle. That suggestiveness which

surrounds a wounded figure drew his eyes to the limp-looking bundle

Llewellyn held so carefully. He came forward quickly and opened the

gate.

"There has been an accident," said Mr. Fenton. "It's your boy--the boy

that works here."

"He's badly burnt," explained Llewellyn.

Isoline had gone into the house when she had seen who the arrivals

were.

"Howell, my poor lad!" exclaimed the Vicar, coming up close to the

cart. "Is he conscious?"

Howlie's voice muttered something indistinguishable.

"I don't know what you'll say, Lewis. He _would_ come here. Llewellyn

is responsible," said the Squire.

"Of course we will take him. How are we to get him down, Llewellyn?"

"He's rather heavy," said the young man, whose arms were stiff, "but

if you would hold him while I get out, father, I might lift him."

The workman left his bee-hives, and between them they carried the

sufferer in. Isoline, out of sight, watched them from over the

staircase with horror in her face. Physical pain was a thing she could

understand.

After some discussion, it was settled that Llewellyn should stay and

take charge of Howlie; he would take no denial, and Mr. Fenton had to

give in. The boy was to have a bed in a large spare room behind the

kitchen, and Llewellyn a mattress on the floor near him. Mr. Lewis

made no remonstrance when he saw how his eyes followed the young man.

"I'll take care of him entirely," said Llewellyn; "you need have no

trouble, sir. I've looked after sick things often enough. You won't

mind letting me stay a day or two?"

"I should even like it," replied the Vicar, laying his hand on his

shoulder.

The cook was making things ready to get Howlie to bed, and Mr. Fenton

was anxious to start for home; it was long past noon, and he had to

send his son's things over from Waterchurch. The doctor, who was

coming out to Crishowell, was to call late in the afternoon.

Isoline kept herself carefully out of the way; a meeting with Mr.

Fenton would be extremely awkward, and she had no desire to see

Llewellyn at any time. Her uncle felt sorry for her, though he

mentally applauded her good sense in remaining up-stairs, and he

slipped away for a moment to tell her what had happened.

She was sitting by the window of her room as he entered, looking

rather worried; anything was unwelcome which recalled to her the

entanglement of which she longed so heartily to be free. The gig stood

outside at the end of the garden; it was by no means new, and though

the Squire looked carefully after everything connected with the

stable, it was a shabby article. Her glance wandered over it with

distaste.

She was startled by his entrance, half fearing that he had come to

summon her to an interview with Mr. Fenton. She wanted time to think.

She had not made up her mind whether she would see Harry again, or

write to him, or whether she would ask her uncle to tell him of her

decision. The latter course would be the pleasantest of the three, but

there were difficulties even there.

The way Mr. Lewis had taken the matter had complicated it. He had

seemed unable to imagine that an accurate knowledge of Harry's

prospects could make any difference to her feelings, and if her lover

should wring a consent from his father, there would be nothing she

could do short of breaking with him on her own initiative. She would

be able to give no reason but the real one, and that she hardly liked

to do. She dared not say, "I thought you were rich, but I find you are

poor, so I will not marry you."

Her uncle might certainly make the objection for her with some

propriety, but how was she to ask him to do so? Though she had no love

for him, a certain respect had crept into her secret soul which made

her hesitate to lay it bare before his eyes; he took too much for

granted. She knew that her deliverance lay in the Squire's probable

disapproval, and that disapproval would make a suitable meekness

becoming in herself. Meanwhile she would neither see Harry nor any one

belonging to him. But it was all harassing enough. Her heart jumped as

the Vicar came in.

"You may be wondering what has happened, Isoline. Poor Howell has had

a dreadful accident. It seems there was a play going on at Llangarth

Fair, and something caught fire; Llewellyn Fenton and he put it out

together, and saved the lives of two children. Howell's hands and arms

are badly burnt, brave boy that he is."

"Fancy Howell doing that! I should never have believed it of him,"

exclaimed the girl, whose estimate of human nature was entirely

feminine. To dislike a person was to prove him incapable of a high

action.

"Mr. Fenton will be gone in a few minutes. It is wise of you, my dear,

to stay in your room. You are a good girl."

She did not reply, but looked out of the window. The Vicar felt rather

chilled.

"You are all right up here?" he asked awkwardly.

"Yes, thank you."

He went out. At the foot of the stairs stood the Squire, hat in hand.

"I'm off, Lewis; it's getting late," he said.

"You don't want any talk with me?" asked the Vicar, rather surprised.

"I do, I do--but I will write," said Mr. Fenton, as he opened the

front door hurriedly.

CHAPTER XXVII

FOUR OPINIONS

THOUGH Mr. Fenton had told the Vicar of Crishowell that he would write

to him, he was in no hurry to do so. Harry's love affair was a

nuisance, and he put off the consideration of it for a week, merely

looking askance upon his son when he came across him. To his wife he

observed that Harry was making an ass of himself, and it was not till

she insisted on his telling her everything he knew that the matter was

discussed.

Lady Harriet was dismayed; she had hitherto understood her eldest son

so well that his evident admiration of Miss Ridgeway had not disturbed

her, for she classed her with the thousand and one other goddesses who

had shed their glamour upon him at various times during the last ten

years. They made a long procession, beginning with the little girls he

had admired in his early school days. His safeguard, so far, had been

that no one had taken him seriously.

But now he had apparently proposed to and been accepted by a young

woman who knew extremely well what she was about, and one, moreover,

whom his mother, with all her good sense and tolerance, had not been

able to like. Putting aside the fact that she was anything but a good

match for Harry, she knew that the whole atmosphere of Isoline's world

was a lower one than that in which he lived. He was a man who, with

the right woman, might develop much, and, with the wrong one,

deteriorate as much. He was generous, loyal to a fault, and eminently

lovable. He was so affectionate that disenchantment by the woman he

loved would make him suffer acutely, and he had not hardness of

character enough to be able to make himself a life apart from that of

his daily companions. Sorrow warps natures that have no pivot other

than their own feelings; the centre is within themselves and all the

weight comes upon it. And what sorrow is there more grinding than the

knowledge that what we loved was a mean thing, what we admired, an

unworthy one, what we dreamed about, a poor and squalid shadow?

There are small disenchantments in all married lives, but those who

have learned to look at the whole and not at its part know their true

value. The proverb says, "Straws show which way the wind blows," and,

like many proverbs, it is a half-truth. Some are merely rough receipts

for wisdom, made to save fools the trouble of thinking for themselves.

Though small acts undeniably give clues to many things in men and

women's natures, men and women cannot be judged on their evidence

alone. So much goes to determine a deed beside the actual character

behind it. When a man behaves unexpectedly, we call him inconsistent,

because every influence which has converged on his act does not happen

to tally with our private, preconceived idea of himself. But it is not

so much his inconsistency as our own ignorance of things which none

know clearly but the Almighty. It is the essence, the atmosphere which

a character radiates, the effect it produces in those who come in

close enough contact to be influenced by it, whereby a soul can be

judged.

But even had he not been so much in love, Harry was far too elementary

to judge Isoline rightly or wrongly; it had never occurred to him to

look down very deep into the well where Truth sits, and, had he done

so, he would have understood little he saw. He would be elementary to

the end of his days, and the elements were all good. Whether they

would remain so with Isoline as an interpreter of life, his mother

doubted.

The Squire, when he had brought himself to face the matter, raged

immoderately, and his rage had the common effect of driving his son

farther than ever along the way in which he did not want him to go.

They had a difficult interview, from which the young man emerged with

the stormy assurance ringing in his ears that he would get nothing

more than his ordinary allowance, and that, were he to marry without

his father's consent, even that would be reduced. He had spoken of

getting work to do, and been answered by a sneer which certainly came

ill from a man who had refused to give his son a profession. They

parted wrathfully.

From the smoking-room in which they had met (it was after dinner) Mr.

Fenton went up to bed. Their talk had been late and continued long,

and the house was still as he ascended the staircase with his lighted

candle; the storm in him was subsiding into a mist of irritation

through which flying glimpses of other interests began to appear. By

the time he had reached his wife's bedroom door his thoughts were

circling round a speech he had mapped out in the afternoon and meant

to deliver at a coming tenants' dinner.

The Squire could never be driven far from his personal interests, a

peculiarity which was at once his strong point and his weak one.

People who make houses for themselves and live in them perpetually are

among the happiest of mortals; the only drawback to their plan is,

that, when they are obliged to come out, they find they have lost

their eye for the country and all sense of proportion in the landscape

which they are accustomed to see only from the window. Oh, that sense

of proportion! If we had it completely what things might we not do? To

what heights of worth and wisdom might we not attain? The man who

could get a bird's-eye view of his own conduct would have no further

excuse for missing perfection.

Lady Harriet's door was ajar and she pushed it further open as she

heard his step; she knew what had been going on, and was waiting. He

had not meant to plunge himself again in the obnoxious subject, and a

look of impatience crossed his face. She stood on the threshold, brush

in hand, her silver hair falling long and thick about her plain

figure; the glow of the fire behind her in the room threw up its

brilliance. He entered, and they stood together on the hearth. He

began to lash himself up into wrath again.

"Well?" began his wife anxiously.

"Your son is a perfect fool!" burst out Mr. Fenton, who, when

displeased with his boys, was accustomed to refer to them as

exclusively Lady Harriet's property.

She plied her brush, waiting.

"I did not mince matters, you may be sure. I told him my opinion of

him and his nonsense, and with a few facts to back it. He won't get

one extra sixpence from me--where is it to come from, I should like to

know? You know that as well as I do. Young idiot! I said, 'Look here,

boy, mind me. You make a fool of yourself about this girl and marry

her without my consent, and I'll draw a cheque every New Year's Day

for fifty pounds. That's all you'll get from me!'"

He paused.

"And what did Harry say?" inquired Lady Harriet.

"Say? What should he say? Some rubbish about getting work. Work

indeed! I should like to see Harry work. I laughed at that. 'My dear

young man,' I said, 'you aren't fit to work; you've been an idler all

your life. What you boys are coming to, _I_ don't know.'"

"I sometimes think," said his wife reflectively, "that perhaps you

made a mistake when you would not let him go into the army, Edward."

"Pshaw! What nonsense! Really, one might think you were on his side."

"I dislike Miss Ridgeway, and should dislike beyond all to see him

married to her. Have you written to Mr. Lewis?"

"Why should I write to Lewis?"

"You said you meant to," replied she.

"How can I write? I can't say to Lewis, 'Your niece is not good

enough,' can I?"

"There is nothing of that sort necessary. The money question alone is

sufficient. Why not write to-morrow, Edward? We ought to do

something."

"I must go to Presteign to-morrow. I shall have no time for letters. I

think it would be the best plan if you went over to Crishowell in the

phaëton, for then you could see Lewis yourself. Yes, that will do very

well."

And Mr. Fenton took up his candle and went into his dressing-room.

While her husband was on his way to Presteign next day Lady Harriet

ordered the phaëton. In more prosperous days this vehicle had run

behind a pair of well-matched fourteen-hand grey ponies, but these had

been swept away along with many other things on the tide of economy,

and a strong, elderly cob, accustomed to odd jobs, replaced them. The

old servant who sat behind was thinking much of these departed glories

as they trotted along, and wondered, noticing the care on his

mistress' face, whether she was remembering them too. But it was the

future that weighed on her rather than the past.

She did not look forward to her errand, and the feeling that it was

not hers by right made it all the more disagreeable. She stayed

herself up by thinking that with no one could she enter on a difficult

subject so well as with the Vicar.

Her sincere hope was that she would not be called upon to see Isoline.

Though she was so completely out of sympathy with her, she had that

pity for the struggles, the hopes, the blank, black despairs of youth,

the desperate straits of those who stand _in front_ of the defences of

experience, that she dreaded the trouble she was bringing her. Poor

though these defences are, the young have to do without them. We are

apt to forget that. But she might have spared herself.

Llewellyn was still at Crishowell. Howlie was making steps towards

recovery, but he had suffered cruelly and was very weak, and though

the doctor thought better of his injuries than he had done at first,

hoping to save the use of both his hands, it was a slow business. His

dependence on Llewellyn was absolute, and the old woman who came in

daily from the village to keep the sick boy's room in order being

useless for any other purpose, the Vicar wondered what he should have

done without him.

Isoline had been down once or twice to see Howlie, but her visits had

scarcely been profitable. As he began to get some relief from pain his

usual nature also began to re-assert itself, and the expression which

flitted on his face as he stared at her--which he always did--gave her

a sensation of not being appreciated. It was during one of these

visits that the wheels of Lady Harriet's phaëton were heard stopping

at the gate, and Llewellyn, who had gone to look out, put his head in

at the door.

The slim, white figure sitting very upright by the bed turned in

inquiry.

"It is my mother," said Llewellyn. "You would like to see her, Howlie,

wouldn't you? She is sure to come down."

He disappeared in the direction of Lady Harriet's voice.

Isoline made good her escape and slipped out through the kitchen and

up into her room, her face flushing.

She knew very well that her uncle had been expecting a letter from Mr.

Fenton daily, and would not let his visitor go without reference to

it; he had been rather annoyed by the silence. She would not be

dragged into it if she could help it, and, as she was unable to act

until the Squire's decision had been heard, there was no object in

facing a needless trial. She snatched up her hat and ran down-stairs,

across the orchard, down by the brookside and over the bridge. On it

she paused a moment, then, reflecting that she was barely out of

earshot, turned up into the fields through which Harry had chased

Rebecca.

Lady Harriet had quick feelings, and they were always stirred by acts

such as the one which had cost poor Howlie so much. She sat with him

for some time, leaving behind her, when she went, a basket of things

the like of which he had never tasted. He made an attempt to put up

his hand to his forelock, which resulted in a twinge of pain.

The Vicar was waiting for her outside, and they strolled into the

garden.

"Perhaps you have something to say to me, Lady Harriet," he remarked.

"Yes," she replied. "My husband had business to-day, and he and I--he

couldn't come himself. Mr. Lewis, I hope you will not be annoyed at my

news, but this marriage is impossible. You know, I am sure, that we

are anything but well off, and he says he cannot afford to do anything

for Harry."

"I know, I know," said the Vicar.

"I am very sorry," she went on, "sorry if I am hurting you, my friend,

sorry for my boy, for he seems bent upon it, and sorry for your niece

too."

"Do not think of me," said he, "and do not suppose that I cannot

understand Mr. Fenton's feelings. You have every right to expect Harry

to make a much better marriage; and, even were it not so, I cannot

quite feel that they are suited. I sometimes doubt if they would be

happy."

"Will she be very much distressed?" inquired Lady Harriet. "I know her

so little. But one hates to give pain to people, especially young

people who hope so much from life."

"I hardly know her better than you do, that is the truth."

"She seems a very unlikely niece for you to have," said his companion,

after a pause.

Mr. Lewis smiled. "I very often do not understand her," he said, with

a sigh.

"Do you think I ought to see her?" hazarded she, throwing herself upon

the point she dreaded; "it seems so unkind not to say a word to her.

What shall I do?"

She stopped short in their walk.

The Vicar did not know what to say. He had been unable to get any

response to his own sympathy when Isoline had wept at breakfast, but

he thought that perhaps another woman might help her when he could

not. Then he remembered that she had said she did not care for Lady

Harriet. He was puzzled.

"I will find her," he said, "but if she feels she cannot speak about

it, you will understand, will you not?"

"Poor child, of course. If you knew how I hate this, Mr. Lewis!"

He went into the house and she returned to Howlie's room. Isoline was

not to be found anywhere. He went all over the Vicarage, into the

orchard, down to the brook, and, finally, gave up the search.

"I do not know where Isoline is," said he, as he stood by Howlie's

bedside. "I have looked everywhere."

The window fronted towards the water and the fields; the sill was low

and Howlie could see over it into the green beyond.

"Oi seed 'er 'alf-an-hour ago," said he, "slinkin' out an' up into

they meadows. Goin' fast she was too, for 'er."

"Are you sure it was Miss Ridgeway?" inquired the Vicar.

"S'pose oi am. There ain't many round 'ere 'as theire noses in the air

loike miss."

Llewellyn bit his lip.

"She has evidently gone off for a long walk," explained Mr. Lewis,

rather embarrassed. "She has taken to it so much since she has been

here, and I have encouraged it."

"It is such a great thing when girls like it," responded Lady Harriet,

anxious to say something pleasant; "I have always thought they are

kept too much in the house."

She was so much relieved that she could have given thanks to Heaven

aloud.

"It's a funny thing miss didn't want to see the loidy," observed

Howlie to Llewellyn after the phaëton had rolled away. Since his

illness he had become very much at home with the young man.

"Does she like visitors?" inquired Llewellyn, with a view of drawing

him out.

"She don't like yew," said Howlie.

"How do you know?"

Howlie looked infinitely subtle, as subtle as a person with a rabbit

mouth can look--but took no notice of the question.

"She loikes the young general, though."

"Who?" asked his companion, with much interest.

"Yewre brother. 'Im as is with the soljers an' comes 'ere now an'

again. Oi saw them coming down the fields the other day. They'd been

sitting up by the cherry-tree. 'E was lookin' at 'er soime as father

looks at a jug o' beer after e's dug six foot of a groive."

"You talk too much, boy," observed Llewellyn, with an attempt at

dignity.

"Oi don't, mostly. But oi 'aven't no objection to talkin' to yew,"

said Howlie reassuringly.

"Miss is a rare one," he began again, "can't moike nothin' out of 'er.

One day she'll be off walkin' an' not get 'ome till dark an' long

after. 'Nother day, if Parson do call 'er to come out i' the orchard,

she'll go steppin' loike a turkey i' the long grass. 'Froid of 'er

dress, looks loike, an' yet oi've seed 'er come back with 'er

petticoats scram-full o' broiers an' mud."

"Well, she knows her own business best and it's none of ours," said

Llewellyn, inwardly curious and outwardly correct.

"Yewre roight there. She knows 'er own moind, she does. Moy! she was

pleased when she went wi' Parson to Waterchurch, an' yew should a'

seen 'er when she come back, too. Nothin' weren't good enough for 'er.

Ye'd a' thought the 'ouse was a work'ouse, an' me an' cook an' Parson

was the paupers in it, she was that 'oigh wi' us."

Llewellyn turned his back. He did not want to laugh, yet his mouth

widened in spite of him.

"Now, stop talking," he said, "you've had enough excitement to-day and

you'll get tired."

"She's after the young general," added Howlie coarsely.

But his information was not up to date.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A MARTYR

ISOLINE was panting when she arrived at the top of the field behind

Crishowell Vicarage. She sat for a time to rest, looking down at the

cherry-tree whose blossoms were beginning to strew the grass beneath

it. It was a still day and she could hear her uncle's voice calling

her name from the orchard. She rose and flitted along the hedge like a

wild bird. Before her, the Twmpa's shoulder rose out of the green

plateau, restful and solid. Even to her unresponsive mind it suggested

peace and a contrast to the worries on which she had just turned her

back. The whole afternoon was before her; she needed no excuse for

absenting herself. Had the Vicar not applauded her for remaining

unseen when Mr. Fenton had appeared the week before? Lady Harriet

would start for home fairly early if she wished to get to Waterchurch

by a reasonable hour, and she knew that her uncle had visits that

would take him out as soon as the guest had left. The day was her own

and the Pedlar's Stone was over there in its place a couple of miles

away; as the sun declined the little hollow below the sheltering

brushwood would have its waiting, watching occupant. It was Wednesday,

too, which, inasmuch as it was one of Mr. Lewis' visiting days in the

direction of the Wye, she often spent at the trysting-place. She was

harassed, and she felt that Rhys would put her troubles temporarily

out of her head.

She lingered on the plateau, scanning the long expanse of green for

sign of a human figure, and, seeing none, pressed forward, and turned

down into the ill-famed bit of ground. She passed the stone and

approached the little hollow from a different direction, stepping so

softly on the short turf that Rhys did not hear her footstep. She

stood looking down. His back was turned to her as he sat, and he was

gazing intently at something in his hand. While she looked he carried

it to his lips again and again. As he did so she made a slight

movement.

He sprang up, and seeing her, dropped his treasure, and came up the

side of the hollow to meet her. She recognized a little daguerreotype

of herself that she had once given him.

"Is that the way you treat my picture, Mr. Kent?" she exclaimed, the

little playful gaiety which so attracted him returning to her with his

presence.

"Don't say, 'Mr. Kent.' Why will you never call me by my name?" said

Rhys.

"I do not know it, you see."

"I mean my Christian name, Rh----Robert."

She looked at him smiling, without answering; he gazed back at her,

feasting his eyes.

"Well, what have you to say?" said she at last.

"I love you," said he.

"But you have told me that many, many times before," she observed.

"I am never tired of telling you, Isoline."

"Perhaps I am tired of hearing it."

"But you can't really hate it, or you would not come," he replied

without tact.

"Do not be too sure. You cannot even guess what made me come to-day."

"Tell me."

It always pleased Isoline to see how completely she could work upon

Rhys; the very name of another man on her lips was poison to him. Also

she was really perturbed herself and felt that sympathy would be

supporting.

"I have been very much disturbed," she began; "a gentleman has asked

me to marry him."

Rhys felt as if some one had taken up an arrow and shot it straight

into his heart. The stab was almost physical.

"Who is it?" he asked thickly.

"Do not look so wild. It is young Mr. Fenton of Waterchurch Court."

His lips were trying to frame a question, but he had not the courage

to utter it. She smiled.

"I do not mean to marry him."

For answer he caught her hand and covered it with kisses.

"Please stop!" she cried, "or I cannot tell you anything. Do be

reasonable, Mr. Kent!"

"You will not marry him! You cannot! Oh, Isoline, promise me! promise

me! Do not take away your hand. I will not let you go till you say you

do not care for him."

"Have I not told you that I mean to refuse him?"

"What? You have not done it yet?" cried Rhys, "and you said he had

asked you! What have you done? What have you done?"

Isoline was a little ruffled; there was so much she wished to tell him

and so much that she dared not tell him, that she was finding it

difficult to steer between the two.

"He asked my uncle," she said hastily.

"What did he say to him?"

"Oh, my uncle wishes me to do as I like, and, of course, I could not

think of it. He is so poor that he never should have dreamed of such a

thing."

"Poor devil, I suppose he could not help it," said Rhys, feeling

almost kindly towards Harry now that he knew there was no danger.

It is difficult to imagine what Walters proposed to himself in the

future, or how far he looked beyond the actual present. His higher

imagination once awakened, he attributed to Isoline every high

quality, and, like Harry, he mistook her inability to respond to

emotion for an intense purity of mind. So did he worship her, so far

did he deem her above him in every virtue, that she was as safe with

him in this lonely place as if she had been in the sitting-room of her

uncle's house. What could be the end he scarcely allowed himself to

think. Even were he at home, reinstated, he could not suppose that she

would stoop down to him, and as he was a penniless outcast, with no

prospect of anything but exile at best, his position was hopeless.

Every day that he stayed where he was he risked the little that was

left him, but he barely thought of that; he only knew that separation

from her would mean shipwreck.

In spite of the airs of sophistication she gave herself, Isoline was

very innocent of the forces that actually sway mankind. Shrewdness she

had, and a very distinct determination to further her own interests,

but her knowledge was what might be called a drawing-room knowledge;

it had no cognizance of the larger things of life. Her dreams began

and ended with visions of new dresses, good position, power in small

ways, admiration--still of a drawing-room sort--and little likes and

dislikes. Of large hates and loves and hopes, abstract principles, of

the only things to be dignified by the name of real life, she had no

idea. Natures like hers are more safely guarded from the greater

temptations than are the salt of the earth, for these may fall and

rise again higher, but, for such as Isoline, there is neither rising

nor falling.

It was seldom that her life had presented such a difficulty to her as

it did now. She was certain that Harry would make a determined effort

to see her, and she would give a great deal to be spared the ordeal.

She had eluded his father and to-day she had eluded his mother, but

she thought, rightly enough, that it would be a much more difficult

thing to elude him. Had her aunt been in Hereford she would have

begged to be allowed to return to her, but Miss Ridgeway's health had

not improved, and, a few days before, she had received the news that

her stay abroad would be indefinite.

There was one friend in the city from whom she might ask the favour of

a refuge, and she had made up her mind, as she pursued her way to the

meeting-place, to suggest the plan to her uncle, and, with his

permission, leave Crishowell for a time. If this could be settled she

would depart as soon as her friend could take her.

Harry's proximity had once made the place endurable, but now that it

had become an actual disadvantage, she was only too ready to go. She

would be glad to get back for a little to the diversions and society

of a town. There would be no mysterious admirer to amuse her, but in

all probability she would see Rhys again on her return, and even if

she did not--well, it would not make so very much difference. She was

beginning to be a little embarrassed by his demonstrative devotion,

and his clothes had looked so shabby of late, that the possibilities

with which she had endowed him at first were fading into the

commonplace. Hereford would be a relief. She was a good deal

disenchanted with things generally.

They parted that evening only a few paces from the stone. The days

were long and light now, and he could not go with her more than a few

yards from its neighbourhood as he had been wont to do in early

spring. It was only as they said good-bye that she told him of her

possible departure.

Poor Rhys, it was a blow; but the thought that it was struck to escape

Harry's importunities softened it a great deal. Her absence would not

be a long one, she assured him, so he let her go with a sigh and went

back to his hiding-place in the hollow.

Isoline hurried along homewards. She was longing to see her uncle, and

to hear what Lady Harriet had said, for she knew very well that it was

not alone the wish to see Howlie which had brought her. She was

anxious to get his consent to her departure as soon as possible and

write to her Hereford friend, for the moment she should receive that

lady's invitation she would start. It was unfortunate that she could

not get it for a few days to come, for Harry would be sure to make

trouble before she could set off. Everything was most trying.

She walked into the Vicarage to find Mr. Lewis in his study.

"You have had a long walk," he said, looking at her over the top of

his book.

"Yes," she replied, "I have been up near the foot of the mountain."

"I called for you once or twice; Lady Harriet Fenton was here, and she

asked to see you, but you had gone."

"Oh, did you, uncle?"

"Poor child," said the old man, taking off his glasses and laying down

his book, "it has been very hard for you, I know."

"Did she say anything about me, uncle?"

"She did. I am afraid, my little girl, I have not very pleasant news

for you. Mr. Fenton is not going to make any provision for Harry which

would enable him to marry. In fact, he cannot afford to do it. And

such being the case, he will not give his consent."

She looked out of the window at the fading light.

"Then I suppose there is nothing to be done," she said, taking up her

hat, which she had laid upon a chair as she came in.

He had not expected such entire and unprotesting submission, and he

was rather surprised; he watched her as she went to the door, rather

expecting to see her composure give some sign of wavering. She paused,

her fingers on the handle.

"Uncle," she began, "I wish I could go away from here for a little."

"It would not be a bad plan," said he, after a moment's thought, "but

what can we do? Your aunt is away, you see, and there seems no

prospect of her coming back."

"There is Mrs. Johnson. Could I not go to her? There was an idea of my

staying there before it was arranged that I should come here. She has

often invited me. You know her, uncle. Could you not ask her to take

me for a short time? I want to get away, indeed I do."

The Vicar thought that he detected emotion in her voice.

"Isoline, are you very unhappy about this? You say so little, my dear.

I am so sorry for you, and I wish I could help you."

"I can bear anything if I can only get away," said the girl.

"Well, I will write," said he, "I believe you are acting wisely."

"And ask her to let me come as soon as possible. I feel--I think--the

change will be good. And I do not want to see any one, or to talk

about what has happened. I need not, uncle, need I? Mr. Harry Fenton

will not come here, will he?" Her voice trembled a little.

"Come here, child," said he, holding out his hand, "and do not be

afraid to speak out. You are going away to avoid seeing Harry again,

are you not?"

A direct question demands a direct answer, and she hardly felt

prepared to give one; she did not know to what it might commit her.

She hesitated.

"I had rather not see him," she said at last, slipping her hand out of

the Vicar's; "must I do it?"

"Well, I think so, if he wishes it," he said slowly; "you are

certainly doing sensibly in taking Mr. Fenton's refusal of consent as

final, for, in marrying, you would be condemning yourself to a life of

poverty which you are not fitted to endure. But, though you now wish

to free yourself, remember that you accepted Harry. If he wants to

hear your decision from your own lips, I think he has a right to do

so."

"But why should he?" she asked plaintively, "surely he can believe you

when you tell him, uncle?"

"Surely, my dear, if you ever loved him at all, you will understand

how he feels."

"I think it will be very inconsiderate of him if he comes here and

makes a fuss when he knows it is impossible."

"People are sometimes inconsiderate when they are in trouble--young

people especially."

"Then they ought not to be so," replied Isoline, with decision.

She was accustomed to carry about little moral precepts to protect her

from difficulties, as other people carried umbrellas to protect them

from the rain. When the difficulties came down undeserved upon her

head, she would take one out and unfurl it, so to speak.

Mr. Lewis smiled faintly; he had some perception of ironies.

"Do you not think that _you_ are being a little inconsiderate? You may

be in trouble, but somehow I do not fancy your trouble is so great as

Harry's."

His voice had meaning in the last part of his sentence.

A look of dislike shot at him which was hidden by the dusk pervading

the room.

"Then I must see him?" she said.

"You can do as you like," said the Vicar, returning to his book, "but

I think you ought to."

As the door closed behind her he reflected that he had never before

come so near to understanding his niece.

Isoline ran up to her room, controlling herself with difficulty as she

went; when she reached the door she darted in and locked it.

"Every one is against me--every one!" she sobbed as she sat down upon

the bed.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE HALF LOAF

HARRY was in a terrible state. Nevertheless, though he kept carefully

out of his father's way, he poured out the tumult of his heart to his

mother, for she had told him of her visit to Crishowell, encouraging

him to talk, and thinking it better that he should have some sort of

safety-valve. And talk he did.

Late that night he was pacing about in her dressing-room, that

dressing-room which was so often the goal of those who sought to ease

their souls. The Squire fumed there, Harry brought various sporting

interests for discussion, and Llewellyn would steal up from the

smoking-room to thrash out farm perplexities. Bob and Tom, with their

regiments in India, found their minds turning sometimes to that

particular spot. The carpet was worn and threadbare, worn with the

coming and going of many feet.

To give up Isoline simply never entered Harry's head, and, had he been

inclined to do so, the opposition he met with would have sufficed to

keep his constancy alight. Again and again did he assure Lady Harriet

that he would never, never change, breaking between his assurances

into rhapsodies over the beauties and graces of his beloved. He heard

from her that she had not seen Isoline at the Vicarage, and that

though Mr. Lewis had held by the Squire's decision, he had said

nothing about his niece's feelings. He was not disquieted on that

score, for he did not dream that she would not reflect his own

fidelity like a mirror. How could she, having made him such a gift,

take it back at the first breath of adversity? To think of such a

thing was to insult her.

For himself he had no misgivings. It was hard, but what others had

done he could do; he could wait, and he would. As soon as he had been

to Crishowell--and he meant to go there next day--he would be off to

London, where he might cast about for work and take his place among

the bread-winners of the world. These intentions in a youth educated

to no special calling hardly seemed so absurd then as they would now,

for there were more snug places into which an impecunious young

gentleman could be hoisted in those days, and he had many influential

friends.

Lady Harriet did not try to turn him from any of these resolutions,

and she kissed him with special tenderness as they said good-night,

but her heart sank in her, for she saw that he stood between the devil

and the deep sea. There was that in his face which told her that he

was harder held this time than he had been by any of his former

devotions. To lose his love would go ill with him no doubt, but to win

her might even go worse. She went to bed weary in mind and body and

with no zest for the morning; the household seemed out of joint, and

she missed Llewellyn.

Harry reached Crishowell Vicarage next day to find Howlie sitting in

an easy-chair at the foot of the garden. He had been allowed to go out

for the first time, and was installed near the fence, where he could

see the passers-by and talk to strolling acquaintances. His face lit

up with interest as he recognized the approaching rider.

"Oi can't 'old the 'orse for yew this toime," he said, raising his

bandaged arms as his friend dismounted.

He had never wavered in his allegiance to Harry; though Llewellyn had

tended him, fed him, and stayed him up in his hours of suffering,

though he depended upon him, trusted him, and had remarked to the cook

that he was a "rare good one," it was "the young general" who had his

admiration and whose image had never been eclipsed by the younger

brother's more solid qualities.

"S'pose yew be come to see miss?" he observed, when the inquiries

about the burnt hands were over.

Harry did not answer.

"Where is Mr. Llewellyn?" he asked.

"Gone out. 'E says 'e's goin' 'ome to-morrow."

"You will be sorry, I expect," said Harry.

"Oi believe yew. Oi loike 'im an' 'e loikes me an' Parson, though 'e

don't think much o' miss. Be yew come to see 'er?"

"Is she at home?" asked the young man, ignoring the other's

persistence.

"Settin' up in 'er room."

At this moment Harry looked up and saw the face of Isoline for an

instant at the window; it disappeared immediately, but not before the

two pairs of eyes had met.

Vexation stood in the feminine pair as its owner drew back her head;

she had been tempted to look out by the sound of the voices below, and

in that instant her unwelcome lover had seen her. She had spent a

great deal of time up-stairs that day, her ears strained for any sound

of an arrival. She wore her walking-boots and her hat lay within

reach, so that she might run out as she had done before. It was not

perhaps the most ennobling way of meeting a difficulty, but it had the

merit of being extremely safe.