For very shame she could not escape now. She grew quite hot, anger

with herself for her carelessness, with circumstances, with her uncle,

all welled up in her, and gave her some of the feelings that a rat

must have when there is nothing but the bare corner behind him and a

dog in front.

Harry went up to the house and found the Vicar in the orchard.

"I expected you," said the old man as the young one began rapidly to

explain his presence.

"Mr. Lewis, let me see Isoline."

The Vicar took him by the arm. "You had much better not, believe me,"

he said; "it will do no good, Harry, and it will give you both pain."

"If you think I will ever consent to give her up, you mistake me. You

believe you are doing right, I know, but it is no use, sir. I love her

and she loves me, and we will never let anything divide us."

The Vicar looked into the honest, excited face, a face full of trust

without misgiving or concealment.

"I must see her, sir, indeed I must," Harry continued. "If you were I,

you would say the same."

"If I were you," said the Vicar, "I should do exactly as you are

doing. I haven't always been an old man, and I sometimes fear I have

never been a wise one. You can see her, Harry, but if you would only

accept this quietly you would spare yourself. She will tell you what I

am telling you now; she is an obedient girl, and she knows what your

father and I think."

The colour died out of Harry's face.

"You mean that she will give me up?" he exclaimed.

"She has told me that she will not engage herself without my consent."

A cold, intangible fear, like a breath from the inevitable, hovered

round Harry for a moment, but he would not realize the shock it gave

him.

"She thinks herself that you had better not meet," added the Vicar,

averting his look and fixing it on a bough where the last blossoms

lingered in a ragged brown cluster; the bloom was almost over, and

every puff of wind scattered the grass with withering petals.

"But I can't go without a word. Oh, let me see her! Beg her to speak

to me, Mr. Lewis. I saw her at the window as I came in. It is only for

a moment--it is so little to ask."

"Well, if you must, I will tell her. Oh, Harry, Harry, but you have

made a mistake!" exclaimed the Vicar, unable to repress himself

entirely as he turned away.

"I suppose Mr. Fenton wants to see me," said Miss Ridgeway as she came

down, her face set, in obedience to the summons.

"He does, and you must see him," he replied, with decision. "Go into

my study and I will send him there."

She went in, her nostrils quivering; the unfairness of the world had

never been so plain to her.

"Dearest," cried Harry, when he had shut the door behind him, "it

isn't true, is it? You can't mean to break with me altogether?"

He came closer to her, and took her two hands; they were quite cold.

"Your father has refused his consent," she said, with a little drawing

back of her head, "and so has my uncle."

He let the hands fall.

"And so it is all over?" he said almost breathlessly.

"It is not my fault. What can I do?"

She had entered the room feeling that it would be a simple matter to

cut the cord without remorse, for it seemed to her that Harry had

cheated her, and her sense of justice smarted. She had shrunk from

seeing him, but being forced to do so, she would have small

compunction. Now it surprised her to find that her resolution was

hardly what it had been before she saw him, they had not met since the

day she had accepted him, and his actual presence began to affect her

a little. Things are so easy when we rehearse them with only ourselves

for audience, but they have a hideous knack of complicating themselves

when the curtain is up and the play begins. Isoline realized with a

pang that she liked him very much--more than she had remembered, in

fact.

"And so you do not care for me after all," he said, looking at her

with eyes in which tears had gathered in spite of his efforts to keep

them back.

"It is not that," faltered she.

"What is it then? Can't you wait for me? Can't you trust me? It will

all come right in the end if we only have patience," said the man, who

was surely one of the least appropriate apostles of patience in the

kingdom. "I can work. I shall have to go to London and see what I can

get to do. I would do _anything_ for you, Isoline, darling. It would

not matter if we began in a humble way, would it, once we had

something settled to go upon? We should be much, much happier than

many who are rich."

It was hardly the picture to move her.

"But your father will not help you."

"No, he won't. I should have to depend entirely upon my work. If I

marry without his consent, he says he will give me fifty pounds a

year--not even what I have now. But, once I am married and working for

myself, I hardly think he will keep to that. It's a risk, I know. But

I would run any risk, dear. Perhaps it isn't fair to ask you to do it,

though," he added, with a sigh. "Isoline, you can never love me as I

love you."

"It is unkind of you to speak like that," said she, with an attractive

little note of dignity; "if you are in trouble, so am I."

He took her hand again with an exclamation of self-reproach; one of

her most useful weapons was her aptitude for making other people feel

themselves in the wrong.

"Dearest, I forget everything but my own unhappiness," he said

penitently.

"It is really dreadful," exclaimed Isoline. "How happy I was the day

that you came here, and now it is all spoilt!"

"But it can never be spoilt as long as we love each other," cried he.

"Isoline, darling, only be true to me, and some day we shall be

together."

"I can't promise anything. How can I when my uncle forbids it?"

Poor Harry, beating against the door that never resisted, yet never

opened, felt helpless. But he gathered himself together.

"Then let us do without promising," he urged, "only tell me this. If

anything should happen to make it possible--if I get on--will you let

me come back? I shall never lose hope if you do not forget me, and I

can feel there is a chance still."

It is easy enough to promise to remember any one, and this arrangement

struck her as very suitable; it was, in other words, almost what she

would have proposed herself, for she liked Harry. She assented

readily.

When they parted he went out to the Vicar, who was still in the

orchard.

"Good-bye," he said, holding out his hand, "I am glad I saw her after

all. I am much happier now."

And he left the old man wondering at the hopefulness on his face.

Presently Isoline stepped out, cool and dainty, into the greenness of

the orchard.

"I have told him that I cannot bind myself without your consent,

uncle," she said in her clear voice. And the Vicar wondered more.

As for Harry, he turned his head towards Waterchurch with a not

unhappy heart. Certainly his interview had not been all that he had

hoped, but he was brave, and a settled purpose upholds a man much.

And, as we all know, half a loaf is better than no bread.

CHAPTER XXX

NANNIE SEES HER DUTY

ALTHOUGH the Pig-driver, as he sat in his cart at Llangarth Fair, was

mainly concerned with the prospective beef, mutton, and pork collected

before him, he found time to notice other things. One of these was

George Williams, steering his way through the crowd with Mary

Vaughan's arm in his.

He looked after them as they passed, all unconscious of his eyes, and,

when they were lost in the mass of human beings and had disappeared

from the range of his vision, he still remained in so pre-occupied a

state that his bargains were in danger of suffering.

It was evident that his former dependent "had a young woman"; a

result, no doubt, of his prosperity at Great Masterhouse; perhaps he

would soon be setting up a home of his own, perhaps he was even buying

things at the fair for his wedding.

For years James Bumpett had known no shame, but the nearest approach

to it assailed him as he saw Williams, well-dressed, happy, and

evidently with his private affairs on hand, a living witness to the

limits of his own power.

The thought hit him in a spot in which most of us are vulnerable.

People who love power may be sublime, to others as well as to

themselves, so long as they are able to get it; when they are not,

they become ridiculous, principally to others. His business done, he

drove away, plunged in his own thoughts. How he wished that the

high-and-mighty mistress of Great Masterhouse had been in the fair to

see her favourite servant walking about with the girl who had led her

only son astray. Not that the Pig-driver thought much of such

deviations from the straight path as Rhys had made, but he knew that

Mrs. Walters did. The idea of her at a fair was so impossible that he

smiled at his own futility; but she should know of it, and the next

time he met Nannie Davis he would take care that she heard of George's

doings.

Nannie did not like Williams, her admiration being given to more

lively characters. Her own youth had been cheerful, to say the least

of it, and she despised those who lost their opportunities in that

way. His gravity and quietness annoyed her, and the high place he had

taken in Mrs. Walters' estimation made her jealous. Her personal

devotion was not given so much to her mistress as to the family she

had served so long, but she could not away with the notion of any one

else being important to it.

This did not escape Bumpett; he had known Nannie all her life, and

they had always been on friendly terms; besides which, their common

knowledge of Rhys' presence in the country had brought them a good

deal together.

But chance happened to keep them apart at this moment, and the

neighbourhood of the farm had become so abhorrent to him ever since

his errand there, that he hesitated to go near the place. Rhys was the

only person to whom he had related the affair; he hated even to think

of it, and when he at last met the old woman casually in Crishowell

village, the news he longed to impart had been burning within him for

three weeks.

To do him justice, the Pig-driver's methods in the matter were not

coarse. He did not suggest that Nannie should tell Mrs. Walters

straight out, but he worked so adroitly upon her feeling that he left

her well assured of success. It was clear by her face that she was

aching and longing to have a fling at Williams, that upstart, that

interloper, and--worst of all sinners to the uneducated mind--that man

who kept himself to himself.

The two women stood by the duck-pond. The birds were collected round

the brink, waddling and gobbling in the soft bits of mud, and Mrs.

Walters was pointing out those she had selected for killing. A large

white drake straddled cumbrously about among the members of his

family. Inside Nannie's apron, which she had gathered with one hand

into a kind of sack, a fat one, predestined to death, quacked and

complained in a voice so lamentable that the mistress had to shout her

directions in order to make the servant understand.

"Can't 'ear ye!" bawled Nannie, "so long as this 'ere thief do go on

as he do!"

"Take up the brown one there--no, no--that one by the stone!" cried

Anne, pointing to a young mallard who stood motionless, his dully

critical eye staring, unconscious of wrath to come, upon his

companions.

The old woman stooped and made a dive with her hand towards the

mallard, and the duck in her apron lifted up its voice and floundered

with all its strength.

"Drat ye!" exclaimed Nannie, giving it a vicious pinch and missing her

prey, which, with a calm look, sailed into the water, wagging its

tail.

"Tut, tut," said Mrs. Walters, coming nearer, "give the bird to me and

you go and try to drive the mallard back on to the grass. I must have

him."

Nannie's eye fell on an old wooden box lying open near, and thrusting

the duck into it, she turned it over with her foot. The air rang with

its outcries. Then she picked up a branch and advanced along the brink

to the spot nearest to her quarry. He took little apparent interest

until she came level with him, when, with a twirl of his leg, he put

an extra yard or so between them.

"Shoo! shoo!" cried Mrs. Walters from the shore.

"That ain't no good, mum!" exclaimed Nannie, pushing back her

sunbonnet with a large gesture; "if ye'd let fly at 'im wi' that gob

o' mud beside ye 'e might take more notice o' ye."

Anne picked up a clod and threw it into the pond. The duck merely

turned upside down and became a simple cone in the water with three

small feathers in the apex. The attitude had a suggestion of insult.

Nannie beat the branch up and down on the surface of the pond,

muttering words under her breath which, had they reached her mistress,

would have done her no good. The effect it had was that of disquieting

the others, and they began to steal away across the grass in a solemn

string, protest in every line of their feathers and every movement of

their ungainly feet. The mallard looked after them for a moment and

began to swim round and round the pool.

"I have no more time to waste," said Anne Walters impatiently; "you

had better call Williams; I see him in the garden."

George was very cheerful; he was whistling at his work, and he had a

pleasant sense of things being all right. The clouds rode along over

his head, white masses of packed snow, cut sharp against the blue, and

steering their course through the endless ether like great galleons

advancing, unconquered and unconquerable. A lark was losing itself in

a tremor of melody, a little vanishing spot. It struck him that the

world was good.

He had seen Mary once or twice since the fair, and, though his heart

burned within him at keeping silence from the words he might not

speak, he felt he was gaining ground; at least, he had got her respect

again, and he had seen, entering the shop a few days since, a look of

unmistakable pleasure in her face as she greeted him. Yes, things were

looking up, and the garden, into which he had put so many hours of

steady work, was beginning to repay him.

George was in his element in a garden, though he was himself

unconscious of the fact. He had an intense sympathy with growth and

life, vegetable and animal, and a large sense of protectorship. As he

paused a moment, looking critically at a lush corner where the

scarlet-runners had engulfed the fence, he might have stood for the

modern version of the original Adam, the natural culmination of the

Spirit of Life, moving, not on the waters, but on the fields. All he

wanted was Eve; Eve, who, at that moment, was standing in a similar

environment, behind the little stack of green vegetables piled on the

counter before her. Her surroundings were a little more complicated,

that was all, but when were a woman's otherwise?

Williams left the garden at Nannie's call, and she watched him with a

sour face as Mrs. Walters directed him to catch the mallard.

"I'll get 'im easy enough," said he; "there's no use in driving 'im.

Them ducks always follow their own kind. Go we a bit out o' the way,

an' I'll be bound he'll be on dry land afore we've got far."

They retreated from the pond, and the bird ceased his gyrations, only

fixing a wary eye on their departing figures. After consideration, he

made for the spot where the rest had landed, and set out on their

track, the violence of his efforts causing him to roll from side to

side like a ship in a storm. When he was well out on his course, the

old woman pounced upon him and bore him struggling to the box.

"Williams is a sensible man," observed Anne, as she looked after

George's disappearing back. "I did well when I took him. There is a

Providence over all our acts, little as we think it sometimes."

Nannie looked sarcastic.

"Under God, I may have done a good work," continued her mistress, who

was unused to having her words disregarded. The leavening of self in

them took nothing from their sincerity.

"That's as may be," replied Nannie, with her nose in the air.

Mrs. Walters looked at her as one might look at a child who has pitted

its opinion against that of an elder.

"Williams is leading a new life. He has put the old man from him."

"Yes, he! he! And he've taken a young woman in 'is place," leered

Nannie, whose flippancy occasionally got the better of her awe of

Anne.

"What do you mean?" inquired her companion.

"Ye can't see everything that happens in the world from Masterhouse,"

she replied enigmatically.

"I don't know what you mean by talking like that," said Anne, drawing

herself up.

"There's some that's mighty different to what they look. I could tell

a thing or two about that Williams if I liked. Not that it's for _me_

to speak," said the old woman.

Anne was not without curiosity.

"What do you know against him?" she asked, after a pause.

"He's a soft one, is Williams; but I know 'im. It's 'yes, mum' here

and 'yes, mum' there up this way, but down at Llangarth 'tis another

story. Rollin' about at fairs with a hussy that's no better than she

should be. I can't do wi' they mealy-mouthed chaps; they've always got

the devil's tail tucked away somewhere in their breeches."

Mrs. Walter's face darkened. Nannie went on, encouraged.

"As proud as Punch he was, too. An' she goin' about without shame,

holding his arm like the gentry."

"Who told you this?"

It was on the tip of Nannie's tongue to say, "The Pig-driver," but she

suddenly bethought her of the one occasion on which he had come to the

farm. She had hovered about at the kitchen-door that day and had heard

the scene enacted inside it. She knew very well that her mistress had

but scant respect for James Bumpett.

Anne repeated her question.

"Oh, I heard in Crishowell about his goings-on. Fine talk he's made

there, an' no mistake."

"You are much too fond of gossip," said Mrs. Walters judicially.

"'Tis no gossip. 'Tis my plain duty, an' no more. If folks down

Crishowell way be sayin' what a mawk you be to have picked up such a

bad bit o' stuff, I'll let ye know it, an' no more than Christian too.

Not that I wasn't ashamed to hear them speakin' such low words about

ye, knowin' that 'twas a holy act ye thought to do. But we're all

deceived sometimes."

And Nannie stooped, sighing, to take up the imprisoned ducks.

Anne stood contemplating the mixture of fiction and truth served up to

her. She wished to dismiss it all with contempt, but the thought of

her acts being criticized was too much for her. Criticism spelt

outrage to her temperament.

She turned away towards the house, internally fevered. The ducks

squalled in Nannie's grasp as they were carried to the outhouse which

was to be their condemned cell. Their jailer hurried along; she had no

idea of leaving her work half done.

"Where be I to put them?" she cried above the din.

Mrs. Walters pointed to a door without stopping. The old woman flung

it open and deposited her burden. As she shut them up, Anne turned

round.

"Come in," she said stiffly. "I must know who it is that has spoken

about Williams."

"Crishowell folk, mum."

"How many people?"

"A sight o' them."

Nannie's evasions began to rouse her suspicions. "I suppose Bumpett

told you," she said, turning suddenly on her servant.

Nannie's jaw dropped.

"Answer me!" cried Mrs. Walters, with rising voice; "was it Bumpett?"

"Well, now I think on it, 'e _was_ one o' them."

"I thought so," said Anne, smiling grimly.

"And who is this--this loose woman you were speaking of? You haven't

told me that."

"Lawk! mum, I wouldn't so much as name her afore ye," replied Nannie,

drawing down her mouth.

"Let me have no more nonsense," exclaimed Mrs. Walters, with

justifiable warmth; "if you did not mean to speak out, you had no

business to say anything at all. I am waiting to hear."

Nannie shuffled from one foot to the other.

"Well, 'tis Mary Vaughan, the toll-keeper's wench."

Anne stood staring at her. "I do not believe it," she exclaimed,

turning her back. "If it were true, it would be a direct disrespect to

me."

From her point of view this was a charge hardly to be faced.

"It's Gospel, for all that," said the old woman.

Mrs. Walters' eyes rested searchingly on her companion; the look was

returned, and held all the difference between the two women's

characters.

"I shall ask him myself," she said; "I shall soon find out if it is

true."

Having sent off her shaft, Nannie held her peace, and followed her

mistress indoors, a little nervous, but auguring well from the cloud

on Anne's brow; a cloud accumulating, pregnant with storm.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE WAY TO PARADISE

MARY sat behind her counter sewing, for customers were not frequent,

and she had plenty of time on her hands. June was well advanced, and

the fact was proclaimed by a long spray of dog-roses which stood in a

glass beside her. The bloom of the month had not passed her by, and

her whole being was making good its losses with the elasticity of

youth. Not that she did not carry in her face the same traces of

sorrow she also bore in her heart; but as beauty, mental or physical,

cannot be made perfect without suffering, it was a fairer woman sat

under the light of the window among the fruits of gracious earth than

the one who had parted from Rhys Walters at the Dipping-Pool for the

last time, six months before. Time is a great healer, but his rival,

Work, runs him hard, and though the former's chance had yet to come

with Mary, the latter had begun his ministration.

Now and then she would break into a snatch of song, and although it

would end, for the most part, in a sigh and a long silence, it

indicated a state of things impossible a little while ago. She lived

very much alone, and but for the old woman who owned the shop and the

occasional looker-in, who came to make purchases, she spoke to no one.

Only when George Williams contrived to get into the town, and

presented himself with a certain determined shyness at the door, did

she have any touch with the human beings who surrounded her.

And once, when, in the quiet of the evening, she had been induced to

stroll out with him, they had crossed the Wye and wandered a mile or

two between the dimness of the hedges, a faint yellow sky overhead and

the white crescent of a young moon rising above the limitless

translucence of the ether. She had not known at the time how much she

was enjoying herself.

She thought of it again as her needle stitched on and on and the feet

of the passers-by rang on the pavement. The shop was so low that, when

a cart drove along in the middle of the road, there was nothing but a

vision of wheels. One was just stopping outside, and, as a pair of

singularly crooked legs was to be seen climbing down, she laid her

work by, and rose as the door opened to admit a person whom she had

often seen, oftener heard of, and never spoken to.

The Pig-driver entered the shop with the air of a man who brings good

tidings, so cheerful was his demeanour, so satisfactory his smile, so

full of a precise and proven benevolence. A chair stood by the

counter, and he drew it yet closer and sat down with a studied care,

which suggested that he meant to make immense purchases at illimitable

leisure. Before speaking, he eyed her carefully from top to toe.

"What can I serve you with?" inquired Mary civilly.

"He! he!" chuckled Bumpett, "I bean't come to buy; no, no, not to

buy."

He laid his stick along the counter, and spreading his elbows out over

it, leered up into her face.

"I be come to see you, you an' no one else. Ah! I'm an old stump, I

am, but I do like the sight of a pretty face."

She looked annoyed.

"No offence, my dear, no offence."

"What is your business?" she asked, drawing a little back from the

counter.

"It isn't business, my dear, it's pleasure this time. I've come

because it does me a sight of good to get a look at you, he! he! Name

o' goodness! A wonderful thing it is to think what a deal o' mischief

a smart-like wench can do. Ye've done for that fellow up at

Masterhouse, an' no mistake. It's all up wi' him now."

She stared at him and laid hold of the wooden counter with her hand.

"Ye needn't look," said Bumpett, "'tis true. I had it from Mrs. Davis,

straight. There won't be no more o' he up at the farm, I'll warrant."

"But what has it to do with me?" exclaimed Mary, unable to connect the

Pig-driver's meanings, but scenting trouble vaguely. "I don't know

what you're driving at, Mr. Bumpett."

"Ye don't know nothin' about it, eh? My! you're a bold one, you are,

for all ye look as meek as skim-milk. I suppose you'll tell me ye

don't know George Williams next. That'll be no use though, because I

see'd ye wi' him at Llangarth Fair hangin' on to his arm like a

ladyship. But ye've done him no good wi' your sheep's eyes."

"I don't believe you--I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ah, don't ye? Well then, I'll tell ye."

He smacked his lips, for the moment he longed for had arrived.

"You sit down, girl. 'Tis a long tale. Ye won't, won't ye? Ah! I hope

ye've got a good pair o' legs under ye then, for ye'll have to stand

some time. He's an ungrateful dog is Williams, behaving shameful to

me, that was like a father to 'im; me that put the bread into 'is

mouth when 'e was starving. Then 'e got took on at Masterhouse;

nothin' was too good for 'im then, I believe. I warned 'er--went out

o' my way by a mile an' more, I did. Ye needn't look at me like that,

ye mawk-mouthed piece o' spite; ye've done my job for me, and I'm come

to thank ye. Now, mind ye this. When Mrs. Walters got wind that 'e was

keepin' company wi' a slut like you, there weren't no more ado, I can

tell ye. She says, 'Damn ye!' she says, 'ye'll clear yerself out o'

this or ye'll be done wi' that trollop down i' the town.' That's a

sweet bit o' news to ye, I'll be bound."

"And is he gone?" asked Mary, her face white.

"Gone! I suppose he is, indeed. She had 'im out that blessed evenin'.

She's one o' the holy sort, an' trust them to stand no jolly doin's."

Tears started to Mary's eyes. She could not but believe the old man's

words, and it was terrible to think that she, of all people, had been

the cause of fresh misfortune to George. She had known him first--a

poor man, so poor that he had a hard struggle to live, and then she

had seen the difference in him when luck had come his way. He had told

her many of his troubles, and, when she had allowed interest to creep

in, sympathy and friendship had followed.

The day seemed to have grown darker, the light to have faded. She felt

herself a blight, a malignant influence which had come into this man's

hard life and made it harder. She would have given anything to hide

her distress from Bumpett, but she could not, and he sat gloating in

his chair over the effect he had made.

"You're a bad man," she said, when she had managed to control herself

a little, "I've heard it said of you, and God knows it's true."

The Pig-driver's reply was cut short by the opening of the shop door

and the entrance of a customer. She dried her eyes quickly, and he,

finding that he could no longer monopolize his victim, departed, and

went away a satisfied and contented man, feeling well towards this

life. A little boy begged of him in the street and he gave him a

halfpenny.

The old woman for whom Mary worked did not generally descend from her

room overhead till late in the afternoon. The girl had charge of

everything during the greater part of the day, but, at five o'clock,

her mistress would come down and take her place behind the counter,

leaving her free to do as she pleased and go where she would. She was

never asked to give any account of her doings, and was only expected

to be back at nine o'clock to put away things in the shop and to close

up the house. Sometimes she would stay on in her place, taking out her

book, for she still tried to teach herself, and sometimes, since

summer had begun, go out into the scented evening, communing with her

own soul and drawing peace from the peace around.

To-night, though she had little heart to leave the house with, she

found her mind unable to fix itself on the letters of the simple pages

she was spelling out. It flew off continually to George--George

unemployed, George despondent, George disgraced because he had not

consented to forego the infinitesimal part she had been willing to

give him in her life.

It was striking six by the town clock as she went out. The street was

a quiet one and there were few people in it, but as her hand left the

latch she saw Williams coming towards her. She went hurriedly on to

meet him.

"Come," she exclaimed, without other greeting, "I want to see you."

She put her hand on his sleeve and almost turned him round. George

turned with her and they went forward, hardly thinking where they were

going, he because he was with her and would have gone with her to

perdition, and she because she had no other thought than the one which

had been in her all day.

"Oh, George, why have you left your place?" she cried.

"How do you know I've left it?" said he, almost roughly.

"I heard to-day. Mr. Bumpett the Pig-driver was here. 'Twas him I got

it from."

"What was he doing?"

"He was in the shop."

"Buying?"

"No. He came to tell me you was leaving Masterhouse. He told me why,

too."

An exclamation broke from the man.

"Oh, I know. I know all about it," said the girl, her voice trembling.

"Do go back now, George, do. For all the good you've done me, I've

given you nought but harm. Let me be an' go back to the farm, and I'll

never see you nor speak to you, if they'll take you back. It will make

me happy, oh! so happy, George. Do you hear what I say?"

"I hear."

"To-morrow, George. Go to-morrow. She may fill up your place if you

wait. Will you go early?"

"I bean't going. I'm off to Hereford to-morrow; I've come down to say

good-bye to 'e, Mary."

"Oh! George Williams, will nothing turn you?" she entreated.

"Nothin'," said the young man.

Looking at him she saw it was useless to try to move him. His face was

hard, as she had first known it. There was a barred cell in Williams'

heart, and when he had entered into it, no one could draw him out, not

even the woman he loved.

"If you be going to Hereford, you'll be gone from me, the same as if

you was at Great Masterhouse. It will be all one," said Mary

presently.

Not knowing how to explain himself, he did not reply. If he stayed on

in his place it would mean a denial of the faith that was in him, a

disloyalty to her. He did not so much as consider it, and it annoyed

him that she should do so.

They had turned into a deep lane leading up to the higher ground. From

a clump of thorn-trees further on the cuckoo was calling. When the

lane ended, the two stopped and looked at Llangarth beneath their

feet.

Mary's heart was full; the world was too complicated for her, man too

hard, and George was going. She had ruined him, not willingly, but

none the less effectually. She glanced up at him and saw his look

fixed on her. His eyes were soft in his hard face, and in them lay the

weary knowledge of how far outside Paradise he stood. She made a step

towards him, catching her breath.

"George!" she cried, "oh, but I've been bad to you!"

* * * * * *

It was some time after that they came down the lane again together,

her hand, like a little child's, lying in his. The late sunset had

faded, and its remains were just dying along the edge of the world.

They said little, the man of few words and the woman of wounded heart.

It was the silence of knowledge, profound, irrevocable, lying miles

and miles from the door of their lips; of trust, of sorrow, of coming

joy. For her the joy was but faintly showing itself through the veil,

for him it stood in the path.

If his Eve had caused him to be expelled from Paradise by one door,

she had let him in again at another.

CHAPTER XXXII

A DARK LANTERN

ALTHOUGH Isoline had now nothing left to fear from the importunities

of her lover and was beginning to see a good broad streak of daylight

through the entanglements which beset her path, the reply that her

uncle's letter brought from Mrs. Johnson in Hereford was a decided

relief. She was to come as soon as she liked and to be prepared for a

long stay. The widow had an only daughter, just returned for good from

the respectable shelter of a Bath seminary, and she looked upon

Isoline's proposal as a piece of real good fortune. She was averse to

effort of most kinds, and had been a little fluttered at the prospect

of her dove's return and the exertions into which it might lead her. A

companion who would amuse and occupy the young lady was so good an

extinguisher to the flame of her dilemma that she threw a perfect

flood of cordiality into her answer, and begged the coming guest to

consider herself bound for six weeks at the very least. She thought

Isoline a most desirable intimate for her Emily, having been struck by

the decorous elegance of her manners and the tone of delicate

orthodoxy which surrounded her.

Miss Ridgeway turned her back upon Crishowell with many feelings of

pleasure. There was not one thing in all the place which she really

regretted leaving, and even Rhys Walters, who cost her what more

nearly approached a regret than anything else, went comfortably out of

her head; on her return, happily a good way off, he might again serve

to lend a little zest to an otherwise depressing life. That was his

use in her mind.

In Hereford her time and attention were soon taken up by more

important things, musical evenings, shoppings, and various little

social assemblies at which she became the centre of much admiration to

the young gentlemen of Hereford society. Indeed, one admirer, a pale

youth connected with a local bank, sent her a copy of verses,

beginning--

"Stoop, cruel fair, my gaping wounds to heal,

Thou goddess graceful, beauteous and genteel,"

in which he described his feelings in a very lamentable manner. This

effusion found a resting-place in her album and aroused some envy in

the heart of Miss Emily, to whom the author was an object of interest.

But, in spite of such small episodes, the two girls got on very well

together, and Mrs. Johnson was happy in the arrangement she had made

and the enjoyment of a placid and well-nourished leisure.

July went by, August, September, and still Isoline stayed on. The year

rolled up to its zenith and declined in a glory of ripened apples and

glowing leaves. As October followed, the naked fields about Hereford

began to suggest to sporting men the coming hunting season, and the

bare boughs of November stirred Harry's heart with the same idea as he

saw them in the London parks.

He had succeeded in finding a secretaryship, unimportant in itself,

but filling him with the hope of greater things, and he had worked

hard. As the smell of the moist earth pervaded the late autumn

mornings, he could not help, as he crossed St. James' Park on his way

to his business, longing for much which he had lost. Doing without

pleasures which have, so far, been necessities has a certain interest

of novelty for a time, but it is an interest which soon palls. It had

palled on him. His courage remained and his love for Isoline, but that

was all.

With the other man whose destiny had tangled itself round her feet the

time had gone even more heavily. Sick at heart with her long absence

and the desolate feeling that she had gone beyond his reach, Rhys had

dragged himself through the months; having nothing to look forward to

from day to day, he had been ready at times to rush out into the full

sunshine and give himself up. But, just as he had lost all hope, a

letter had come from Isoline, directed to him under the name by which

she knew him, and sent to the Pig-driver, in compliance with an

earnest request he had made before they parted. That had buoyed him up

for some time, and he drew courage from the thought of her return,

which she wrote of as not being far distant.

But when November passed and there came no sign, the blackness closed

down again on him. The cold was terrible too, and the nights were

bitter. He would come in half-frozen at dawn and bury himself among

the sheepskins to endure the weary hours as best he could between

sleep and misery.

He cared nothing now for life, and there were times when he made plans

of escape; risk would be welcome, a thousand times welcome, for his

whole existence was little but a living death. To be out once more in

the light, at no matter what cost, to feel the glory of freedom, of

taking his life in his hand, the idea made his blood tingle. Had there

been proof of his devotion wanted, no greater could have been given

than he gave; for, above all his pinings, all his dreams of release,

the image of Isoline rose and he thrust them down.

Even Bumpett was now anxious to get him out of the country and would

have facilitated his escape in any way; as a servant he was becoming

useless, for he spent the nights in rambling about with no thoughts of

doing anything but cooling his aching heart with the space and the

darkness and getting relief after the imprisonment of daylight. The

two had had high words, for the old man, resenting the notion of

supporting a dependent who did nothing in return, had threatened to

cut off his supplies and to starve him out if he did not leave the

cottage of his own accord. But Walters had promised him that his own

expulsion would mean immediate exposure, and the Pig-driver had

gnashed his teeth over the obvious truth that the man who does not

value his life has an advantage over the man who does.

Rhys would talk to himself as he sat, his head in his hands, in the

cellar among the remnants of George's belongings; the dusk in which he

dwelt had given his eyes a strange, dull look, and his shoulders

stooped from long hours of sitting idle. Bumpett had, at one time,

smuggled a book and a few papers in his cart and left them with him;

but he had no heart to read, and would only sit and brood, unable to

concentrate his thoughts. The whole man had slackened, mind and body;

all that was still strong within him was the resolution not to give

way until he had seen one face again. It was his fixed idea.

It was decided that Isoline was to go back to Crishowell for

Christmas, and she was spending the last few days of her stay in

Hereford regretfully. She had been very happy and she did not look

forward to a return to the country, especially as she would miss all

kinds of seasonable gaiety by so doing.

The two girls were talking as they sat in the lamplight one evening.

Dinner was over and Miss Emily was at work upon her embroidery, a

chaste piece of design in which a parrot with bead eyes perched

stolidly upon a bouquet of yellow roses. Mrs. Johnson, who had a cold,

lay upon the sofa, her head enveloped in a woollen shawl; the local

newspaper was in her hand, and from it she occasionally read extracts,

not so much for the sake of informing her companions as because she

liked to make her comments aloud.

"It is really a pity that you will miss the quadrille party next

week," said Emily, looking up from her parrot; "what poor Mr.

Pottinger will do I cannot think. I am sure he will be vastly annoyed.

He will write no more poetry when you are gone."

"Yes, and I did so want to wear my green-and-white muslin too."

"Green and white, forsaken quite," quoted Emily. "Only it will be Mr.

Pottinger who is forsaken, not you."

"La! Emily, do not be so absurd. There are plenty of other young

ladies coming for Christmas who can console him."

"Ah, but there is no one like you, Isoline," said the admiring Emily.

She was plain herself.

"What nonsense," rejoined her companion, well satisfied.

"Emily, my love," broke in Mrs. Johnson, "it is really impossible to

see so far from the light. Pray come and take the paper and read aloud

a little, as you are near the lamp."

Emily put her embroidery away with a sigh. She preferred infinitely to

gossip with Isoline.

"What shall I read, ma'am?" she inquired, as she sat down again with

the journal in her hand.

"Anything, child," said her mother.

"'There is a strong apprehension,'" she began, "'of great distress

being prevalent during the coming winter; it is to be feared----'"

"No, not that," interrupted Mrs. Johnson, drawing her woollen shawl

more closely round her, "read something else."

"'The Probability of a European War,'" continued her daughter, reading

the headings.

"No, no," said the lady, who was disinclined to grapple with large

subjects, "read the local news. On the second page, my dear."

Miss Emily ran her eye over the columns. "'Banquet given to the Mayor.

A successful entertainment was held in honour of our respected Mayor,

Mr. William Smeebody, at the Crown and Gander, on Saturday the 4th

instant. The table positively groaned under the triumphs of culinary

skill which it displayed, and many brilliant and felicitous speeches

followed the repast. But it should not be supposed that the pleasures

of the table and the pleasures of the intellect were the only

advantages offered to the company. Many of the fair sex were present,

including his Worship's lady, whose elegant accomplishments have made

her so bright a star in our social firmament.'"

Mrs. Johnson breathed as hard as her cold would permit.

"Really!" she exclaimed, "there is no end to the odious publicity

which is being brought into domestic life! I am sure if the newspapers

had ventured to speak of _me_ in such terms, Mr. Johnson would have

disliked it intensely--elegant accomplishments, indeed!"

"'Death of the Reverend Mr. Slaughter,'" continued Emily. "'It is with

profound grief that we have to record the tragic incident which took

place yesterday. The Reverend Mr. Slaughter was seized with a fit

while officiating last evening in Hebron Chapel and expired in the

arms of the verger.'"

"Dear! dear!" said the voice from the sofa, "and I was thinking of

attending divine worship there too! I had my bonnet half on, you

remember, Emily, and I said, 'I shall go to Hebron Chapel,' and then

cook came up to speak to me in the middle, so I was too late and had

to go later to St. James' instead. How one misses one's opportunities

in this world! Dear! dear! dear!"

"Here is something to interest _you_, Isoline," said Miss Emily, "for

I remember you said that your friend, Mr. Fenton, was concerned about

it."

"'Some little stir has been occasioned at Llangarth and in the

neighbourhood by a statement made by a labouring man. It will not be

forgotten that one of the worst of the Rebecca riots took place last

January upon the Brecon road near Crishowell, and that the now

notorious Rhys Walters took the life of the toll-keeper in the

struggle. His subsequent disappearance upon the Black Mountain was, at

the time of the disturbance, a nine-days wonder, and no trace of him

has been found since that date, now almost a year ago. The labourer in

question states that he was returning one night last week to a farm

called the Red Field, where he is employed, about half-past twelve. He

had been at Abergavenny, on the other side of the Pass, and business

had kept him there until a late hour. He carried with him a dark

lantern which he had been lent in the town. Being footsore, he sat

down to rest upon a piece of rock just under the shoulder of the

Twmpa. He had put down the slide of his lantern some time before, for,

the path over the turf being good, he felt more able to guide his

general direction by the mass of the hill against the sky than by its

light, especially as there was a faint starlight. He had sat about ten

minutes when he heard a footstep approaching. He called out, but

received no answer, and the footstep immediately ceased. He then drew

up the slide and saw, not ten yards from him, a figure which he

believes to be that of Rhys Walters. The man was looking straight at

him, and the labourer, upon whom he produced the effect of an

apparition, was so much startled that he dropped the light. It is

needless to say that, when he recovered it, the fugitive (if indeed it

were he) had disappeared. Questioned closely by the magistrate about

his general appearance, he described the person he had seen as a tall

man with a long, pale face and piercing eyes. He noticed that he had

rather high, square shoulders and eyebrows which came down very low

towards the nose. He seemed about thirty years of age. If the labourer

speaks accurately, it seems very much as if he were right in his

surmises, for the above is a remarkably good description of Rhys

Walters. It is even possible that he has been in hiding somewhere in

the neighbourhood of the mountain for the last eleven months, though

it seems an inconceivable feat for a man to have performed. If this be

actually the case, one thing is certain, namely, that he has been

assisted in his concealment by some person or persons unknown.'"

"What dreadful things there are in the paper to-night, Emily,"

observed Mrs. Johnson. "It is quite alarming to think of such a man

being at large--so near, too. Look at Miss Ridgeway. One might think

she had seen a ghost!"

Isoline sat like an image, staring before her. Emily's reading was

weaving a distinct picture, a picture which grew more familiar at

every word. She felt as though the world were giving way beneath her

and she herself being whirled along into a chaos where order was dead

and criminals were allowed to go free about the earth to delude

respectable young ladies, without the very stones crying out against

it. What had Providence been doing? The truth was there in its

baldness. She had been associating--she, Isoline--with a murderer; she

might even have been killed herself. The tears rushed hot into her

eyes. These were the sort of things that might happen to other

people--rough people--but not to her, surely not to her! She sat

stunned, her eyes fixed and brimming. The most shocking part of the

whole thing was the coarseness of its reality.

"Oh, what is the matter, Isoline?" cried Miss Emily in tactless

dismay. "Mama, she is crying!"

Mrs. Johnson rose from her sofa. She was a kind soul.

"My dear Miss Ridgeway, you are too sensitive," she said, "though I do

not wonder you are horrified at such a tale,--so near your home, too.

Really, what the law and the police are coming to, I do not know!"

Like many ladies, Mrs. Johnson spent much time in lamenting the

inefficiency of these bodies. "Go up to bed, my dear, and I will send

you a posset. I am taking one myself for my cold. I fear you are

terribly upset, but Emily can sleep with you if you are nervous."

"No, no, thank you," said Isoline, making a great effort at

self-control. "I am quite well now. I am not afraid, thank you, ma'am,

but I was upset at thinking--at thinking----"

"My dear, I can well sympathize," said Mrs. Johnson, "it is enough to

upset any one. Go up to bed. You will get to sleep and forget it."

For one thing Isoline was devoutly thankful, and that was that Emily

had apparently not guessed her secret. Soon after her arrival, she had

told her the story of her mysterious admirer, and Emily, though

professing herself rather shocked, had been immensely interested; it

was part of her creed that Isoline could do no wrong. She was romantic

too, and she had more imagination than her friend, and the idea of it

appealed to her. Should she happen upon the truth, the other girl felt

as if she could never face her again, and she was now really glad to

be going back to her uncle immediately, away from the strain of living

in perpetual fear of discovery. She had described Rhys so often that

Emily's want of perception appeared wonderful. But light might break

in on her any day, and, if it did, her own prayer was that she might

be absent. The two parted a couple of days later with secret relief on

her side, and on Emily's genuine tears.

She left the coach as she had done before, at the foot of Crishowell

Lane, and, this time, found Mr. Lewis waiting to meet her and drive

her to the Vicarage. As she entered the door, Howlie put a letter into

her hand, which had come, he said, just after her uncle's departure,

and she took it up-stairs to read.

It was from Harry Fenton, and announced the news that a cousin, long

lost sight of, and supposed by the family to be dead, had at last

justified their belief by expiring in a distant colony, and, in so

doing, had left him a sum representing two thousand a year.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A BIRD IN THE HAND

HARRY'S employment was not so congenial as to keep him one day at work

after the news of his legacy had reached him, and, as soon as it was

possible, he started for home.

He was now his own master, and Isoline, that star for which he had

sighed through so many weary months, was within his reach; it was a

glorious thought. He could hardly resist throwing his hat into the air

as he drove along the road between Hereford and Waterchurch again, and

saw all the familiar objects he had passed with her when they had

travelled along it together in the early days of their acquaintance.

There would be no need for shilly-shallying now, no waiting on luck,

on circumstances, on the tardy decisions of other people, for the

trumps were in his hand and he had only to declare them and lead the

game as he liked. Two thousand a year was a fortune to make him

perfectly independent of anything his father might say or do, for were

he to cut him out of the place itself, his future would still be

assured, and he did not suppose that the Squire would take such a

desperate line as that. Where would be the sense of leaving the

poverty-stricken estate away from the only one of his sons who had the

money to change its fortunes?

His departure for London had not upset Mr. Fenton very greatly, but

the news that he had found work and was actually doing it came as a

surprise. He had sat him down complacently in the belief that his

prodigal son would soon return, wiser and sadder, to throw himself

into the arms of a forgiving parent--for he meant to be forgiving. He

was very fond of his children, and, though he stormed about the folly

and ingratitude of this one's behaviour, he looked forward to the day

when he should receive him back, and, having magnanimously dismissed

the subject of his infatuation in a few sentences, should welcome him

again to reason and acquiescence in the saner judgment of older and

more sober heads. It never struck him that there could be any other

ending to the episode.

But as time passed and the letters which came to Lady Harriet gave no

sign of change, he began to fear that the drudgery which he had

promised himself would soon quench the young man's thirst for work was

doing no such thing. He could not understand it, for he had never

supposed that Harry, careless, scatter-brained Harry, with his youth

and light heart, had got it in him to show so much steadiness of

purpose.

To his wife the truth was plain. Harry was growing up. It had taken

him some time to begin the process, but the late development had set

in at last, and been helped forward, as it so often is, by the

influence of a woman. There was nothing to be done, she felt; time

might bring things right, and she tried to persuade her husband that

expressed opposition could do no good and might do a great deal of

harm.

"It is all very well for you to talk," the Squire said; "I am not

contemplating a visit of remonstrance to him, though, to hear you, one

would imagine I was going to rush up to London and take him by the

throat. I shall do nothing about it; I shall simply ignore the whole

thing."

Tact was not Harry's strong point. He had made up his mind that there

should be no delay, and that a day should not elapse ere he delivered

his ultimatum. Acting upon this resolve, he precipitated himself upon

his father before he had been twenty-four hours in the house.

The result was direful. The Squire's policy of mingled indifference

and magnanimity which he had been hugging against his son's return

changed to gall and wormwood when confronted by the calm request that

was made. The young man had not quite robbed his manner of the

reflection of what lay behind it, and the knowledge that he was master

of the situation peeped out under the formality he had spread smoothly

on the top. He did not mean to be discourteous, but the last few

months had made him feel twice the man he used to be, and he could not

entirely suppress the consciousness.

"Consent?" roared Mr. Fenton, furious at being brought up against

actualities which he laid decently away, "consent? I tell you the

whole thing is a cock-and-bull story! Don't come here, sir, wasting my

precious time over such stuff!"

Harry's answer had at least the merit of simplicity. He went straight

out to the stable, took a horse, and set off to Crishowell. Before he

reached the village he met Isoline, who was taking an afternoon walk.

She sedulously avoided the direction of the mountain now.

It was cold, and she was muffled up in a fur tippet. Her eyes were

sparkling. A rose-coloured scarf that she had wound round her neck

fluttered behind her.

"You see, Isoline, now everything has come right," he said as he let

her hand go; "it is well that you trusted me, isn't it, darling?"

Her smile, as she looked at him, was answer enough. She was very

happy.

They turned into a by-road and he drew the bridle over his arm,

walking beside her.

There was a shade of embarrassment in his mind; he knew that his

chance of seeing and speaking to her was not likely to occur again,

and he had so much to say. There were a thousand things he had settled

as he came along, and which he must discuss with her. He had rushed

over to Crishowell, not only as a sort of protest against his father's

attitude, but because he knew that he would not be allowed to see

Isoline were the Vicar to be prepared for his coming. He wanted to

tell her more about his legacy too, though, to his unsuspicious heart,

money seemed a sordid thing to talk about to her. And there was

something of vital importance, something which he meant to propose. He

feared to begin. It was simply providential that he had met her.

"I suppose," he began, "that they would not let you see me if I were

to come to the house. I have so much to say. Isoline, I want to ask

you something. Could you make a sacrifice, do you think? Dearest, I

don't know where to start. I must tell you heaps of things, horrid

things, some of them."

She looked up quickly.

"My father is in a dreadful rage. I asked him again to-day, just now,

to give in. He will not."

"Yes, but you need not mind him now," broke in the girl.

"No, that's it. That is what made him so furious."

"But you are not thinking of giving me up?" she said suddenly. "Oh,

Harry! you never mean that!"

"Give you up? Now, when, at last, I can do as I please? Not likely.

Isoline, I believe you are joking."

"I never joke," said she, with much truth.

"What I am going to ask you to do is this," he said gravely, stopping

in the road and looking older than she had ever seen him look before;

"I want to make these separations impossible. I want you to come away

with me, once and for all."

"What? Now!" she cried, bewildered, stepping a pace or two back.

"Not now, but soon. In a few days--a week, perhaps."

She looked at him blankly.

"Oh, I cannot!" she exclaimed, "it would never do."

"But why, dear? It has been done before now."

"What would they say?"

"That would not matter. You would be my own wife and no one could say

or do anything."

She made no reply and they walked on; her face was downcast. She

clasped her hands more tightly in her muff and shivered.

"It would take a little time," he went on; "I should have to get a

special licence and go to London first. But in a week everything could

be ready. We can be married in Hereford and then go straight away.

Isoline, will you?"

She was silent.

"Won't you speak, dearest?" said he at last. "Think; all our troubles

would be over and we need never part any more."

"They will be terribly angry," said Isoline, lifting her eyes

suddenly.

"No one matters. At least, no one except my mother," he added, with a

half-sigh, "and I know she will forgive me in a little, when she knows

you better. You cannot think how good she is, Isoline."

Her face hardened.

"We need not see them, I suppose," she said.

"We can go straight abroad, if you like."

"I should like London best," said the girl.

"We need not come back a moment before we wish to. I am quite

independent, you see. I have not got much ready money at this moment,

but any one will advance it until I am actually receiving my legacy.

Want of money need not trouble us again."

"You have two thousand a year, have you not, Harry?"

"Two thousand, one hundred and eleven pounds. There are some shillings

and pence, too, I believe. I went into it all with the lawyer."

"How fortunately it has happened," said Isoline fervently, her eyes

looking onward to the wintry horizon.

He was thinking the same thing. All at once, out of the silence that

fell between them, there swam up before him the solemnity of what he

meant to undertake. It was for all his life, probably, and for hers

too. A vague foreshadowing of the buffets of the world, of time, of

chance, of fate, played across his mind. He turned to her, a wave of

tenderness in his heart, and looked down into her perplexed face.

"If you will do this thing," he said, "I will try always to make up to

you for what I have asked."

She looked straight in front of her.

"But I have not decided," she said, almost petulantly; "how can I all

at once?"

"This is likely to be my last and only chance of talking to you," he

pleaded; "if we settle anything we must do it to-day. You could not

see me if I came; that is the difficulty."

She shook her head. "Not if your father makes all this fuss."

"And writing would not be safe. So you see we must think it out now.

Heaven knows when we may meet again."

"Do you think they will _never_ give in, Harry?"

"Never's a long day. But it might take time. It might be a year, it

might be much more. It does not matter for me, but your uncle will

hold to it as long as my father does. Oh, darling! I hate this

miserable waiting. Who knows what may happen in a year?"

"That is all true, Harry. Oh! what _can_ I do?" she cried. "It is so

difficult! If I only had a little time!"

"Take till to-morrow, Isoline."

"To-morrow? And how can I see you to-morrow?"

"You must send to me."

She laughed shortly.

"What messenger have I? Howlie is always busy. Besides, he might do

something dreadful."

"Well, I must think of some other way," said he, "and you must think

too, Isoline. Between us, we shall light on something. What if you

made me some sign?"

"Wait--I have it!" he cried. "Will you go out to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes."

"Any time?"

"Any time within reason."

"Then go for your walk in the morning before twelve o'clock. Do you

know the gate at the foot of the lane? The first one as you turn

towards Brecon. I passed it just before I met you."

"I do not remember it."

"Then go and look at it after I have gone," said Harry. "There is a

bush beside it--only one--and you will see a last year's nest in the

branches. If you will come away with me, put a stone into it. I will

ride by in the afternoon, and, if it is there, I shall know you have

said yes."

"But can I reach the nest?"

"If you stand on one of the rails of the gate you can. It is not out

of reach, for I wondered, as I passed, how it was that the boys had

not pulled it down."

He searched her face earnestly for some clue to what she would do.

"What an odd idea," she said at last

"But will you do that? It is the only way I can think of, and I must

know to-morrow. There is so much to arrange, dear."

"Very well," said Isoline, "if I mean 'yes,' I will put in the stone.

But suppose it should rain."

"You must come all the same."

She pouted. Her mind was making itself up, and the surer her decision

became, the more she was inclined to play with him.

"What will you do if you find there is no stone there?" she asked.

But he had gone further in life than when they had parted, and his

lingering boyhood was slipping from him.

"Do you understand how serious this is?" he said rather sternly.

"Don't trifle, Isoline. It is 'yes' or 'no,' and it is for you to

decide it."

She wondered, for a moment, whether she really liked him as much as

she had supposed.

"I am not angry," he said, holding out his hand and fearing he had

been harsh, "but I am so anxious, darling."

She hesitated a moment before taking hers out of her muff.

"It had better be this day week," he said, "if you can be ready."

"This day week? But I have no new dresses, or anything."

"You can get them after," said Harry.

"So I could; when we go to London. We shall go to London, shall we

not?"

"I think it would be the best thing to do."

"Perhaps you _will_ find the stone in the nest," she said, smiling.

He pressed the fingers he held.

"You must slip away early in the morning. It would not do for us to go

on the coach, and I cannot let you go alone, so I will get a carriage

and have relays of post-horses. We must be in Hereford before midday,

and I shall be waiting for you while it is still dark."

"And where must I meet you?" she inquired; "I hope I shall not have to

go far alone."

"I cannot wait very near to Crishowell because the carriage might be

seen, and when you are missed, as I suppose you will be in an hour or

so, they would suspect where you had gone. The longer start we have of

any one who may follow, the better."

"Do you think they will come after us, Harry?"

"They might. But I hope by the time they see us, that it will be too

late to take you away. You are not afraid, are you, dear?"

"No, I shall not be then. I need not mind any one when I am Mrs.

Fenton."

"We must meet on the other side of the village, for that will be a

little bit further on our journey. Be in time, Isoline, because the

longer I wait, the more chance there is of being seen. The second

milestone out of Llangarth would do; you would not have a mile to walk

then."

"Suppose any one should see me."

"If you are there at six o'clock, it will be quite dark; even if any

one passed you would not be seen. The earlier we can get off the

better."

"But suppose they had a light," said she, thinking of the man who had

seen Rhys.

"Who carries a light so near sunrise?" exclaimed Harry. "No one."

"It is horrible having to go alone. I do not like it at all," said

Isoline.

"I will go as far to meet you as I dare. Don't fail me, dear,--but I

know you won't."

"You really talk of it as though it were settled," said she. Though

she spoke in this way, she knew in her inmost heart that her mind was

made up, but not for the world would she have admitted it to her

lover, even when the admission was to save her a tiresome walk on the

morrow. She liked to exact the last farthing that she considered due

to herself. She did not look happy as she retraced her steps, and,

though it might be said that her troubles were righting themselves,

she was not so, entirely. She was giving up what had been one of her

dearest dreams.

There would be no wedding--at least none in the sense in which it

appealed to her--no toilette, no bridesmaids envious of her

importance, no favours, no grey horses, none of the flourish and

circumstance with which she had pictured herself entering married

life. She could not have foreseen herself dispensing with it, but

then, neither could she have foreseen the malign chance which had

revealed Rhys Walters to the man with the dark lantern. The horror of

that discovery was never long out of her mind.

It was clear from what the newspapers had said that he was in

communication with some one, and, while she and Harry delayed their

marriage, every day brought its fresh possibility that Walters might

hear a rumour of her engagement. Little as she knew of the deep places

of human souls, she had seen, when they parted, that he was desperate,

and a sort of dread had come to her of the power she had let loose;

since the revelation of his name and character he had become a

nightmare. She repented bitterly of her vanity, or, at least, of the

toils into which her vanity had led her.

At night she would wake and imagine him lying in wait behind some tree

to murder her, like the determined and forsaken heroes of romances she

had read. Such things had happened before. Once she was married and

clear of Crishowell she would be safe; but she was to pay for the

hours in which she had sunned herself in his admiration with the glory

that should have been hers as a bride.

Next morning while Harry, at Waterchurch, was loitering about, chained

to the vicinity of the stable-clock, she was walking briskly along the

road with a stone in her muff.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PURSUERS

IT was a quiet week which followed at Waterchurch, and when Harry set

off to London on business which he refused to talk about, and which he

vaguely referred to as connected with his lawyer, Mr. Fenton bade him

good-bye amiably enough. His son had neither contradicted him nor

re-opened the subject of his marriage, and the Squire, with whom put

off was done with, regained his composure and returned to his own

affairs. He told his wife nothing, for he had lost his temper and did

not wish her to find it out.

Harry had said he would be absent "two or three days," so when a week

had gone and he neither wrote nor returned, his father began to wonder

what he was doing. He sought Lady Harriet.

"What's Harry about in London?" he inquired. "He seems in no hurry to

come back."

"I thought he would have been home before now. I hope there are no

complications about his money," she replied.

Mr. Fenton fidgeted about.

"I wish there were no complications about anything else," said he,

stopping in front of her. "I wasn't such a fool as he is at his age."

"What has he been doing?" she asked, a twinge of misgiving flying

through her mind.

"What has he been doing? Really, Harriet, you are not brilliant! Here

have we been at our wits' end because of that girl of Lewis', and you

ask me, what has he been doing? Heavens!"

"But there is nothing new, is there? Nothing we don't know?"

"He came to me about it again."

She raised her eyes quickly to his in a question, and he looked out of

the window.

"I told him I wouldn't hear of it."

"And then?"

"He went off. I didn't see him till dinner that night."

"But where did he go?"

"Go? How should I know where he went? I know where he _will_ go, and

that's to the deuce," said the Squire, beginning to march about the

room. "The question isn't where he went, but where he is now. That is

the point of it, and I am surprised that you, Harriet, don't see it. I

shouldn't wonder if he were sitting there with his arm round the

girl's waist at this moment."

"At Crishowell? I know Mr. Lewis would never allow that."

"Allow it? Who'd ask him to allow it, I should like to know? They

needn't be under Lewis' nose. He's there, you take my word for it." At

every sentence the Squire's voice rose. "I'm not going to stand such a

thing any more. It's time somebody did something. What's the use of

our sitting here with our hands before us like so many fools, eh?"

"What shall you do? You see, now he is his own master," said Lady

Harriet, sighing.

"His own master? I'll show him whether he is his own master or not!

You know as well as I do that there is no entail on Waterchurch. I'll

just bring that to his notice. 'My good boy,' I'll say, 'you bring

this upstart of a girl here and you'll see whether there's an entail

or not!' That'll bring him round."

"I'm afraid that's not a very good plan, Edward. That would be worse

than useless."

"Pshaw! I tell you I'll soon find out whether it's useless!"

Mr. Fenton sat down to a writing-table and began scribbling excitedly.

When he had sealed up his note he rang the bell.

"Is there any one in the stable?" he inquired, rather unnecessarily,

seeing that it was just half-past eight in the morning. The Fentons

were early people and breakfasted at eight, even in winter. Lady

Harriet never sat long at the table after meals were over, and they

had just left the dining-room.

Before the man could answer, a steady, approaching trot was plain in

the avenue, and, a moment later, there was a grinding of wheels upon

the gravel.

"What an extraordinary hour for any one to come," exclaimed Lady

Harriet.

As she spoke, the long face of the Vicar of Crishowell's old mare was

visible through the window. She was blowing, and though only her head

could be seen, it was apparent, from the way it rocked backwards and

forwards, that she was cruelly distressed.

The butler went out and returned.

"Mr. Lewis, sir. He says he must see you particular. He wished to be

shown into the study, sir."

"Is Harry here?" asked the Vicar, as his friend entered.

"No," said Mr. Fenton. "God bless me, Lewis, you look quite white."

"My niece is missing," exclaimed the Vicar, his lips shaking; "I have

come to tell you. They have gone off--Heaven forgive them for what

they have done! We must go after them. I came here with a faint hope

of finding Harry, but I must be off again."

The Squire took him by the arm as he was making for the door, and

pulled him into a chair. He sank into it, covering his eyes.

"What must you think of me, you and Lady Harriet? Fenton, I never

foresaw it, blind fool that I was! She was so quiet, I never dreamed

that the whole thing was not over, so far as she was concerned; she

did not even seem to care."

The Squire was bewildered.

"She complained of headache last night and told the maid not to call

her in the morning. The girl forgot and tried to open the door. It was

locked, so she got frightened and came for me, and we found the room

empty. The bed had not been slept in, though one could see that she

had been lying on it; she must have lain down in her clothes for fear

of not awaking in time. Her handbag was gone, and her brushes and

things--that is what made me suspect. I sent a boy down to a cottage

on the road to Llangarth to ask if anything had been seen, and the man

had heard a carriage pass a little before six and seen the lights of a

postchaise. He heard it pass again on its way back not long after."

"How do you know it was Harry?" asked Mr. Fenton.

"I can only guess; but who else could it be? I must be off at once. I

am going to Llangarth, for I shall get some clue at the toll this end

of the town. They would be obliged to pass through it."

"I will go too," said the Squire, his hand on the bell. "You can't get

on with the same horse, Lewis. We must put in one of mine."

"Quarter to nine," said the Vicar, pulling out his watch. "It was

nearly eight when I left. Two hours ago I knew nothing."

As the two sat side by side they did not exchange a word. The horse

was a good trotter, and the Squire, who drove, put him to his utmost

pace.

The Vicar looked blankly out on the hedges and fields which

approached, passed, and dropped behind, bitterness round his closed

lips. The few illusions he had ever had about his niece were fallen

from him, and he understood her thoroughly. It was sordid money that

had made her do this thing, that had decoyed her out into the darkness

of the winter morning, and not the man who was waiting for her. If

love had undone Isoline as it had undone Mary, he felt he could have

recoiled from her less, though the outside world would have deemed it

a worse calamity. It would have struck him to the earth indeed, but it

could hardly have sickened him as this had done. He would have given

all he possessed to prevent any one belonging to himself from dealing

such a blow to those he loved. There was no pretence, no veil, however

thin, no excuse. It was money, money, money. She had encouraged Harry

when she thought him rich, dropped him angrily, resentfully, as one

drops a kitten that has scratched one, when she knew he was poor, and

sprung at him again the moment his fortunes mended. And he was the son

of the best friends he had. He had left Waterchurch without seeing

Lady Harriet, for he had felt unable to face her.

They pulled up at the toll on the near side of Llangarth, where the

gatekeeper gave them what information he had. The carriage had gone

through Crishowell very early, before it was light, and had repassed

on its return journey about a quarter-past six--maybe twenty past, or

thereabouts--he could not tell exactly. There was a lady in a black

veil. He knew that, because he had turned the lantern on the inside of

the carriage, and the gentleman who paid the toll was young--fair, he

thought--but he couldn't say; he didn't know them, not he, for he was

new to the place, but the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. He could

give no further clue. But it was enough.

They drove on to the Bull Inn, which was the only posting-house in the

town, and Mr. Fenton sprang out and went in to find the landlord.

"Ain't a pair left in the place," said an ostler, who emerged from the

stable. "The 'ole lot's out."

He began mechanically to take the Squire's horse out of the shafts.

The landlord's tale was the same. There was a postchaise, but nothing

to put into it; they might get something at the next posting-house in

Welchurch, seven miles on.

"What is that over there?" inquired the Vicar, pointing to a brown

muzzle which was pushed out of a box at the end of the court.

"That's my old horse, sir, that I drive myself."

"Let me have that in my shafts," said the Squire, "and I'll make it

good to you."

In a few minutes they were on their way again with their faces to

Hereford, and the landlord's horse, who had good blood in his veins,

had put his head into the collar. The reason that they had been

unsuccessful in getting what they wanted was simple enough; every pair

was out on the road for Harry.

The long tedium of the miles seemed interminable till they reached

Welchurch, and the white faces of the milestones as they went past

were the only things either man had the heart to notice. They were

rewarded at last by the sight of the inn and by finding on inquiry

that there was a light chaise and a pair of horses to be got. They

took their seats grimly and set off on the next stage at a gallop.

It was twenty minutes past eleven when they drew up at the Green

Dragon in Hereford, and the Squire and the Vicar got out, stiff after

thirty miles of sitting cramped in their seats. They did not expect

Harry to leave his carriage at so prominent a place as the chief hotel

in Hereford, should he mean to stay in the town, but they looked round

the courtyard for the possible sign of an arrival. The place was quiet

and vacant as they asked hurriedly for news, and, finding none,

started for a humbler inn hard by at which they hoped they might come

upon some trace of the couple. Sure enough, as they entered its

precincts, they saw a carriage, splashed with mud and standing empty;

beside it was a pair of unharnessed horses being groomed by two

stable-helpers.

"Where has that carriage come from?" inquired Mr. Fenton of one.

The lad stopped hissing through his teeth and stood with the brush

midway between himself and his horse.

"Can't say, I'm sure. I don't know nothin' about it."

"But how long has it been in, boy?"

"About half-an-hour or more. That's 'im over there in the stable."

The two men looked round, almost expecting to see Harry, and met the

postillion's red countenance and hilarious glance which beamed at them

from a doorway; evidently he had had refreshment after his exertions,

and, from the satisfaction on his face, it seemed unlikely that he had

paid for it himself. He came forward rather unsteadily.

"Have you come from Llangarth?" cried Mr. Fenton, pointing over his

shoulder at the muddy vehicle.

The man smiled and laid his finger along the side of his nose; whoever

was responsible for his entertainment had not done the thing by

halves. Then he stood a moment, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in

the armholes of his open jacket, eyeing the gentlemen with vacillating

complaisance.

"That 'ud be lettin' the cat out of 'er bagsh," he replied slowly,

turning away with what he supposed to be dignity.

Mr. Fenton sprang after him, raising his cane, but the Vicar

interposed. "That will do no good; there is a much better way than

that," he said, as he took a couple of half-crowns out of his pocket.

"Look here, my man, which church did you drive them to?"

"Don't know the name of it," replied the postillion, with a guileful

look. "Unless you're come to m--marry 'em?" he added, suddenly

realizing Mr. Lewis' clerical dress.

The Vicar hated a lie of any kind, and hesitated, but his companion

had no such scruples.

"We shall be late if you don't tell us," he broke in, "and they will

not be married to-day. It's getting on for twelve."

The man stood scratching his head; his mind was turned upside down in

a chaos of beer, and there was nothing to suggest that the two

gentlemen who had walked into the yard had been travelling post haste.

At this moment the Vicar slipped the two half-crowns into his hand.

The recipient shook his head as he pocketed them.

"That 'ud _never_ do," he observed, in an access of tipsy morality.

And, beckoning mysteriously, he led the way into the street.

"Thatsh shurch," he said, laying a careful hold upon Mr. Fenton's coat

collar, and pointing to a spire which rose, not a hundred yards away,

from a railed graveyard.

The two men hurried on, for they had no wish to be heralded down the

street by the staggering figure. They arrived at the gate just as

Isoline and Harry were emerging from the porch.

The level of the street was below that of the building, and a flight

of steps ran up to the door. Bride and bridegroom stood at the top,

arm in arm. On Harry's face, caught full by the light, was the trace

of strong feeling and an infinite tenderness for the woman at his

side; it was humble too, for he felt he had not deserved so much. He

turned to her, and, in so doing, perceived his father and the Vicar

looking up at them from the pavement below. Isoline saw them too, and

launched a glance of triumph at them; the hour she had waited for had

come, and her only regret lay in the fact that Lady Harriet was not

present also. She carried a little silk bag that hung by ribbons to

her arm, and she twirled it light-heartedly as she looked down at the

two grey-headed men.

The man and wife descended the narrow steps, Harry drawing back to let

her pass on in front. She sailed forward and paused at the bottom

within a few paces of her uncle and her father-in-law, hesitating

whether to speak to them or not; the former's expression was a study

in mortification and pain, of which she took no notice. Catching the

Squire's eye, she made a little curtsey that she hoped might express

some of the dignity in which she henceforth intended, as Mrs. Fenton,

to wrap herself. But there was something in her which made it a

failure.

Harry went straight up to his father, feeling that he could confront

any one or anything with calmness in the glad knowledge of what had

just occurred, but the Squire waved him off. He met Mr. Lewis' face of

reproach.

"I will take care of her, be assured, sir," he said. Then, finding

that the Vicar made no reply, he turned and followed his wife, who was

walking slowly up the street. The two men went into the church to look

at the register.

It was midday when the newly-married pair reached the inn where they

had left their postchaise, for the wedding had taken place a little

later in the morning than they intended. On driving to the church they

had found two other people waiting to be married, and, as the first

arrivals, the clergyman had taken them before Harry and Isoline. She

had looked at the woman who stood before the altar with some interest,

for she was beautiful with a beauty unusual in country girls of her

class, and her face showed that she felt every word of the service;

the man was a young labourer of the massive type, who wore a purple

neckcloth with a bird's-eye spot.

When their own marriage was over and the other one going on, the first

couple had gone into the graveyard for a short time and sat down

together on a bench; it seemed as if they wished to realize quietly

what had happened to them. When they came out they walked past the

inn, and the two brides came face to face. Isoline stood by the door

while Harry spoke to the landlord, and there was admiration in Mary's

eyes as she looked at the pretty lady in the feathered hat and the fur

through which her cheek bloomed like a blush rose. The little cloud on

Mrs. Fenton's brow had lifted, and as she saw it she half smiled. Had

she known the history of the girl she smiled at she would have drawn

aside her skirt so that she might not so much as touch her with the

hem of her garment.

Mr. Fenton and the Vicar retraced their journey the same afternoon and

parted, sadly enough, in Llangarth. The Squire took the chaise and

post-horses on to Waterchurch, and the other, whose vehicle had been

left at the Bull Inn, agreed to drive his friend's horse back to

Crishowell and to give it a night's rest before sending it home next

day.

He drove through the streets, tired in every limb and sore at heart.

He felt worn out and disgusted with everything, and physically very

weary; he had not remembered so vividly that he was seventy odd years

old for a long time.

He went so slowly and was so much lost in his own thoughts that the

horse had been brought to a standstill almost before he noticed a

thin, shabby woman who had run from the door of a house, and was, with

unexpected energy, taking hold of the bridle.

"Stop!" she cried, raising her hand.

The Vicar pulled up, leaning out from under the hood, and she came up

close and laid hold of the dashboard, as though to prevent him

forcibly from continuing his way.

"There's a man dying," said the woman, panting a little, "an' he wants

you. You'll have to be quick, sir; he's mortal bad. Up there."

Mr. Lewis looked at the house she pointed at, a tumble-down building

which faced the road.

"It's Hosea Evans," she went on; "he's come out o' jail a fortnight."

"The landlord of the Dipping-Pool? It's the Methodist parson he wants,

not me."

"Not him. He's been a-calling out for you all the morning. I was just

off to Crishowell when I see'd you go by the door. He's pretty nigh

done, an' he's crying out for you. There's somethin' on his mind, an'

he says he can't tell no one else."

Mr. Lewis turned the horse's head, his own troubles retreating, as

they were apt to do, before those of other people. Following his

guide, he entered a small, dirty room. It was getting dusk outside,

which made the miserable place dark enough to prevent his seeing

anything but the one ghastly face in the corner lit up by a candle

which stood on a chair by the bed. There was the movement of a dim

form in the room, and the doctor who attended the very poor in the

town rose from the place where he had been sitting. The woman

approached the dying man and whispered close to his ear; a wan ray of

relief touched his face, and he moved his hands.

"He is very near his end," said the doctor. "It is typhoid. These

jails are not all that they should be, I am afraid. He has been a bad

character too, poor wretch."

The Vicar went up to Hosea, and the shabby woman moved the candle away

so that he might sit on the chair beside him.

"I can't see," said Evans thickly.

"I am here," said Mr. Lewis, laying his hand on the wrist from which

the pulse was fast ebbing; "what can I do for you, my brother? Shall I

pray?"

Hosea moved his head feebly.

"No, no; I want to speak a bit, but I can't, I'm that done."

The doctor poured some liquid into a cup and held it to his lips.

"Try to swallow," he said, "it will help you."

The innkeeper made an effort and swallowed a little.

"Come near," he whispered, and the Vicar leaned down. "I killed

Vaughan," he said, "not Rhys Walters."

Mr. Lewis was so much astonished that he did not know what to say, and

merely looked into the man's face to see whether or not he was in full

possession of his senses.

"Then that is what has been troubling you?" he said at last.

Hosea made a sign of assent. "Me it was," he continued feebly, "me,

an' not him. We both struck at him together, an' my stick came down on

his head and laid him his length. His no more than shaved his

shoulder."

"Are you certain that what you say is true?" asked the Vicar, who was

suspecting the dying man of an hallucination, but who began to see

sense in the circumstantiality of his words. "If you killed him, why

did Walters fly so suddenly without another blow?"

"He was blinded. A stone took him in the face as he let out, an' he

never knew 'twarn't himself as did for him. So he went off

smart-like----"

The effort to speak plainly was almost too much for Evans. He lay

looking at the Vicar with eyes that seemed to be focussed on something

very far beyond the room.

"And is that everything you want to tell me?" asked Mr. Lewis, bending

down in answer to a faint gesture.

The dying man signed for the cup in the doctor's hand, and, when a few

more drops had been poured down his throat, he spoke again.

"There's the money too."

"What money, my man?"

"My money. I've a mortal lot--the box below the bed. It's for her, an'

you'll tell her it warn't him, not Rhys Walters. It's to keep her.

'Tis all I can do now."

"But who do you mean, Evans? Try to tell me."

"Mary--Mary Vaughan. She was a good lass, an' 'twas me killed him."

His voice paused, but his lips moved, and the Vicar could just

distinguish the word "box."

"Shall I draw it out from under the bed?"

Hosea smiled faintly.

They pulled out a thick, black wooden box about a foot square, and

placed it on the mattress beside him; his eyes lit up as he saw it,

and his fingers worked. He had been called a "near" man in his time,

and the Vicar remembered that, as landlord of the Dipping-Pool, he had

always had credit for being well off, in spite of the poor place he

inhabited. When the lid was opened there proved to be nothing inside

it but a stuff bag. The sight of it seemed to give Evans strength.

"All notes," he said, "a hundred pound an' over. Count them."

Mr. Lewis began to do so, Hosea's sunken eyes following every movement

of his lips. There was in bank notes one hundred and five pounds, and

in coin fifteen shillings and tenpence.

"Now write," said the innkeeper, "quick."

It was not easy to find pen, ink and paper, and the woman was obliged

to go out and borrow what was necessary from a more advanced

neighbour; but when this had been done, the Vicar wrote out the simple

sum of Hosea's wishes. It was plain enough; everything he owned was to

go to Mary Vaughan unreservedly. He was past writing, but he insisted

on the pen being given him, and, with the doctor supporting him in his

arms, he made a mark where Mr. Lewis had written his name. The two men

witnessed it and added their own signatures.

"You are happier now that we have done that, are you not?" said Mr.

Lewis. "You can trust me to see Mary Vaughan at once, and I will take

care that what you want is carried out. It is right that you should do

all you can for her. There is nothing else?"

"No," said Hosea, though his eyes belied his words. "I've been a bad

man," he whispered, after a silence. "I suppose you can't do nothin'

for me?"

"I can pray," said the other, as he went down on his knees by the bed.

He began the commendatory prayer for the dying, and as his voice ran

steadily on, the room grew very still. Only the cries and footsteps in

the street outside broke the quiet. The doctor was kneeling too. The

window-pane showed like a thing far away in a dream, a little blue

square in the close-crowding walls that pressed upon Hosea's dying

eyes. The candle guttered and went out, and the Vicar finished his

prayer in the dark.

When the last word was said, the doctor approached and struck a light.

There was nothing left of the innkeeper but the poor, earthly husk

that had clothed his imperfect soul, lying on the bed.

CHAPTER XXXV

NEW YEAR'S EVE

THE Pig-driver had been absent from his usual haunts for more than ten

days, business having taken him on a stealthy tour of inspection to

the connecting links of his trade; it was a duty which called to him

at the end of each year, and he had returned this time lighter of

heart than ever, for his affairs were flourishing, and the books so

carefully kept by his nephew told a promising tale.

It was New Year's Eve; a year and more since Rhys' and Harry's lives

had crossed under the shadow of the Black Mountain in that unconscious

rivalry which their destinies had forced upon them; a year since Mary

had looked her last upon her lover's face as he rode away from the

Dipping-Pool. In the great shuffle which a year will sometimes bring

to groups of people whose lives concentrate in the same circle,

Bumpett was the unchanged one, as he shambled into Crishowell to hear

what local news had cropped up since his departure.

As he went along between the houses a burst of singing, which came

like a gust of wind from a cottage a little way in front, caught his

attention and made him smile. He smiled because he intended to spend

the night in the village and because he knew very well that no

conviviality was considered complete without his presence, more

especially on an occasion so important as the seeing-out of the Old

Year. He moistened his lips with his tongue and hurried forward, a

pleasant anticipation on his face; it was little more than eight

o'clock, and there was a deal in the way of joviality possible before

midnight.

He paused outside the house, like the discreet man he was, to see if

he could identify any of the voices before committing himself to their

society. A new song was beginning, and he recognized it as one called

"Mary Morris" which had come from the mining districts, and which was

very popular in the neighbourhood. It was sung by a single voice, and

set forth the rather irregular loves of the mining character who was

its hero. At the last line of each verse the company joined in with an

ardour and a breadth of vowel which bid fair to rouse the village.

There was a large stone outside the door, the remains of an old

horse-block, and on this the Pig-driver sat down to listen.

The singer made one or two false starts, and finding himself

invariably landed in a higher key than he had bargained for, seemed

inclined to desist but for the encouragements of his audience, which,

at last, launched him safely upon the surging wave of the tune.

"O! Mary Ma-awris!

Why was you leave me?

You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!

You have gone and left me,

All alone so cruel,

Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!"

"Since yew an' oi was pa-a-art!" roared the chorus.

"O! Mary Ma-awris!

I was love your sister,

I was love your sister most so well nor you!

And my heart was broken

Like a crochan chinay;[1]

Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!

Never can put him to-o-o!"

Here the audience began to stamp to the tune, and the singer raised

his voice yet a little higher.

"O! Mary Ma-awris!

I'm living at Penpulchwyth;

When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;

Though I be married

To another 'ooman,

Come in straight, O Mary, an' never mind for she!

Never moind for she-e-e!

O! Mary Ma-awris!

We will be so happy,

We will be so happy, like a king and queen;

I will mind the farm, and

You shall mind the babies,

And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!

As never before was see-e-en!"

Almost as the last long-drawn syllable died away, the door opened and

a man came out, who, not noticing Bumpett till he all but fell over

him, jumped back with an exclamation. The Pig-driver was taken with a

fit of laughter.

"Who be you?" inquired the man, when he had collected his wits.

"'Tis just me, Bumpett o' Abergavenny, listenin' to the music. Didn't

expect to find me, did ye? What sort of a feller is that singin'? I

can't mind his voice."

"Williams o' Tan-y-bulch. He's a fine talker too; tells ye as many

lies an' bad words in an hour as I could in a week."

"And who else?"

"Stevens an' Griffiths an' Prosser an' William Pritchard an' old Job

Hondy. There's only a few more because of the drinking up at Price's."

Price was the carpenter, and his house was the usual meeting-place of

the Pig-driver's set.

"I'm going up there myself," continued the man. "The jug's getting

pretty nigh empty here, an' I don't see my way to giving 'em no more.

I'll start fair over there, ye see."

"Then it's you that's payin' for their treat?"

"Yes, yes, 'tis my party. There's just enough left i' the jug to keep

them quiet till I've had my turn over at Price's afore they all be

after me. I'll be gone then, afore they do come."

"But you don't own this house," said Bumpett, rather mystified; "I've

never seen you before."

"An' you don't see me now," rejoined the other, with an airy glance

into the darkness, "nor _they_ won't see me neither after I've had my

drink."

"Well, you _have_ a right notion o' things--I can see that, anyhow,"

said the Pig-driver, beginning to like his acquaintance. "I'll step

down wi' you to Price's."

"Best not," said his companion dubiously.

"Oh, but that I will," replied Bumpett, winding his arm confidingly

through that of the stranger. The other proceeded rather unwillingly,

but the old man would take no denial.

"But that's Pritchard's house," he began again, jerking his thumb

towards the place they had come from; "how be you come to pay for the

drink in it?"

"I haven't paid yet," replied the other cheerfully.

"Any news flyin' about the town?" inquired Bumpett, after one or two

vain attempts at forcing his companion's confidence. "It's goin' ten

days since I was hereabouts, and I haven't had a word wi' no one."

"It depends what you call news," said the stranger. "For my part,

there's little can flummox me. Have e' heard of the young Squire down

Waterchurch way runnin' off to Hereford last week? Took the Parson of

Crishowell's niece along wi' him, an' was married safe an' sound like

a man. The old Squire was after him, an' Parson Lewis, an' though they

battered shameful at the church door--so they say--'twarn't no use.

The lock was turned till they was tied tight. Not that that flummoxes

me though; why I tell 'e----"

"Well, well, that's all news to me," exclaimed the Pig-driver, with

whom admiration was beginning to oust every other sentiment. "I must

get down to Price's afore any o' them's gone, an' hear the rights o'

that."

"The rights? Bean't I tellin' 'e the rights? What more do ye want nor

what I've told ye?"

"No offence," said the Pig-driver hurriedly.

"Ye don't seem to know much about nothin'," continued his friend,

unmollified. "Now, for me, there's not a thing done within twenty mile

but I know it all pat afore ye can so much as put your thumb to your

nose. Why, the breath wasn't out of Evans o' the Dipping-Pool's body,

an' I knew where his money was to land. That's me all over."

Bumpett dropped his arm with a jerk.

"Did 'e say Evans? Hosea Evans?"

"I did; an' I'll say it again if ye've any fancy for jumpin' like

that. He's as dead as a nail. Died just after he come out of jail, an'

left every damn penny o' two hundred pound to the toll-keeper's wench

that used to keep company wi' Rhys Walters."

This time the Pig-driver was not to be borne down by any superfluous

knowledge on the part of his companion.

"She's lucky," he observed shortly.

"And so's the chap that's married her. His name's Williams, and he

used to live in a queer enough place up by the mountain, and do a turn

at hedgin' now an' again. Not much hedgin' now, I suppose. Livin' like

a lord, more likely."

Bumpett's tongue grew dry, and he grinned mechanically; his lips

stretched and went back like pieces of elastic, and his friend, who

was waiting for some tribute to his superior information, could hear

odd sounds going on inside his mouth.

"Ah, you didn't know that!" he exclaimed, "and I'll wager ye didn't

know 'twas him killed Vaughan an' not Rhys Walters. He came out with

it all on his death-bed to the Parson o' Crishowell."

"Go on wi' ye!" broke out the Pig-driver.

"That's all very fine," replied the stranger in a tone of offence,

"but just you go off to the police at Llangarth and see! Lewis an' the

doctor an' a woman was witness to it, an' it's written down in the

Law, I tell 'e. Like enough the Queen has it all at her fingers' ends

by now."

It was half-an-hour later when Bumpett slipped unnoticed out of

Price's door into the darkness. He had left his new acquaintance in an

advanced state of intoxication among the revellers, where his varying

moods of confidence and pugnacity were beginning to make him something

of a nuisance. But the stranger had spoken truth and the old man had

heard the same from the lips of his friends.

It was not only rage at the thought of George's good luck, though,

that was boiling in him, which drove him along at such a pace, it was

the far more disturbing knowledge of Rhys Walters' innocence. He

resolved to go to the cottage without an hour's delay, and by threats

or bribes to compel him to leave the country. He would, if all else

failed, tell him that his hiding-place was known to the police and

press on him any assistance to escape that his money or ingenuity

could command.

He had been living in daily dread of his unprofitable servant's

indiscretion, and since the experience of the man with the dark

lantern had appeared in the local newspaper, he would have given much

to know him clear of England. And now, if Walters' own folly should

bring him to discovery, and he should learn that he was innocent of

Vaughan's death, the consequences might be dreadful. He would have to

suffer for his share in the Rebecca riot, but having done so he might

one day return to his own, damaged, perhaps, but with the stain of

blood-guiltiness off his hands, and live on the very scene of

his--Bumpett's--activities, a constant embarrassment and menace. It

was not likely that he would denounce malpractices in which he had

been involved, for the same drag would act on him as on the

Pig-driver's other subordinates, namely, their liability to suffer

side by side with their master. Sheep-stealing, though no longer a

capital offence, was punished heavily, and sane men do not usually

open the prison doors for themselves. But, of late, there had been

that about Rhys which forbade him to judge him as he would have judged

another man. He felt that it was desperately urgent.

When he was clear of the village and beginning to ascend towards the

mountain he found it no easy matter to get forward; there was not a

star in the sky, and a damp mist, which, though he knew it not, was

enwrapping the higher country towards which he pressed, became thicker

at every step. The lane leading to the old cart track was scarcely

less deserted than itself, and his feet struck against heaps of loose

stones which the autumn rains had rolled here and there into shelving

heaps. He put his hand up to his face and cursed to meet the wet on

it. It was one of those nights so frequent in winter, a repetition of

the one through which Rhys had once felt his way to the Dipping-Pool.

By the time he reached the cottage the enveloping fog was so thick

that he would not venture to trust himself upon the plank crossing the

water, but waded through, though the cold touch on his ankles made him

gasp. He groped round the end of the house till he found himself among

the gooseberry bushes of the garden. It was impossible to see

anything, and he could only guess at their position as he stumbled

along, pricking himself against the stems. When he came to one growing

by the wall he pushed it aside, guided by a faint light which came out

of the hole in the masonry behind it. From the little shine he

gathered that Rhys had not gone out and was in the cellar below. He

put his mouth to the aperture and called down it.

After two or three vain attempts to make himself heard, the Pig-driver

could distinguish steps moving in the cellar.

"'Tis me--Bumpett!" he cried. "Go you round to the door and let me

in."

As he stood waiting for Walters to turn the key, he told himself that

he would not depart again without the young man's consent to leave;

but he wondered how he should manage the matter, for there seemed to

be nothing in the world by which he could keep a hold over him. It

must be done somehow, that was all he knew.

It was quite dark in the upper part of the house as he entered and

followed Walters down the ladder. There was a light standing on a

piece of furniture, and Bumpett sat down by it on a broken chair and

looked up at his companion. He had seen him continually at short

intervals during the last six months, and the alteration in him had

not hitherto struck him as it would have struck a stranger. But, all

at once, in the wretched light, as the two confronted each other, the

Pig-driver saw through the veil of custom which had blinded him to the

ghastliness of the change in Rhys. A feeling akin to horror took him

by the throat as he sat and looked into the haggard face with the

black shadows thrown upwards by the candle lying upon it. Not that it

was pity or concern that moved him--he cared little enough for

anything that affected the man before him--but even he, coarse,

sordid, callous as he was, could feel that Rhys Walters had gone

beyond the reach of fear or hope, joy or malice, and that the grey

waters of despair divided him from the power of aught else but some

one influence which was working within him. Nothing could help or harm

him any more. The soul that looked out of his sunken eyes was one

pertaining no longer to the ordinary world of human beings with its

hates and loves, its ambitions and griefs; it was something which had

gone far off into a dominion of one idea.

"What do you want?" asked Walters, laying his hand on the improvised

table and bringing his face into the circle of light.

The shades cast round his jaw and cheek-bones made them stand out with

even greater prominence, and the hair, hanging unkempt on either side

of his brow, framed it in with dull black. He seemed to Bumpett

gigantically tall.

"Look you," began the Pig-driver, folding his hands over his stick,

"there's no more use in dangling on here, an' ye must just pearten up,

Walters. It's time ye was out o' this. I've got a cousin down Cardiff

way, and if I could get ye off to him, he'd give ye a hand wi' some o'

they ship captains. Ye'd be out o' harm's reach then, an' a good job

too."

For answer Rhys looked at him with a smile, not as though he were

smiling at him, but at something which he saw in his mind.

"No," he said, shaking his head; "no, no."

"Nonsense," rejoined Bumpett smartly. "I'm not trifling now, and out

o' this ye'll have to go, my lad."

"Not I," said Rhys, his eyes hardening.

"I tell 'e, go ye shall!" cried the old man. "'Tis my place, not

yours, an' not another bite nor sup can ye get when I stop sendin' the

food that keeps ye. I can turn ye out, an' I will too."

"You daren't do that," said the other, looking sideways at him;

"there's no manner of use trying to frighten me. Put me out of this

house, and it's you that'll have to be on your way to Cardiff, not me.

And you'll be too late."

"I'm speakin' for yer good," began the Pig-driver again, seeing that

threats could produce no effect. "Mind me, ye don't hear nothing hid

away in this black hole, but it's different wi' me. I get all the talk

o' the country-side, an' I know the police has got their noses turned

this way ever since ye let the fellar wi' the dark lantern get sight

o' ye on the mountain. It was all written i' the newspapers, so I did

hear. Old Job Hondy in Crishowell was tellin' me, for he got a loan of

the paper from Parson Lewis."

A ray of interest lit up Rhys' face.

"And I'll tell Hondy to ask for a sight of it again," continued

Bumpett, seeing that he had caught the other's attention, "an' bring

it up to show ye; leastways, if it's not lost wi' all the moyther he's

had i' the house wi' that young miss o' his."

"What do you say?" exclaimed Walters, coming closer to Bumpett.

"I said I'd get the newspaper an' show ye what ye've done wi' yer

tomfooleries."

"What did you say about Mr. Lewis?" cried Rhys, taking hold of the

Pig-driver.

"I said he was likely moythered wi' that young niece of his and her

doin's."

"But she is in Hereford," broke out the young man.

"In Hereford? Not she. She's off to London wi' young Squire Fenton.

Run out one mornin' when the old boy was between the blankets an' up

to Hereford an' got married to him. He's been left a fine fortune. She

didn't forget that, I'll be bound, no, no indeed."

Bumpett had hardly time to end his sentence before Rhys sprang at him

like a wild cat and gripped him by the collar.

"Liar!" he shouted, "liar! liar!"

At every word he shook the old man as though he would jerk the life

out of him.

The Pig-driver, though naturally cautious, was not altogether a

coward, and rage and bewilderment are sharp spurs. He struck out as

fiercely as he could; words were impossible, for he had not the breath

with which to utter them. When Walters threw him back into the chair

from which he had dragged him, he was livid and lay against the back

of it with hardly strength left in him to speak.

"That's not true!" shouted Rhys, standing over him. "It's a lie! Speak

up, or I'll twist your neck like a jackdaw's!"

His face was twitching all over and his hands clasped and unclasped

themselves.

The Pig-driver opened his mouth.

"The truth!" cried Rhys, "do you hear? The truth, or out of this you

don't go a living man!"

"I've told ye the truth," snarled Bumpett. "'Twas no more nor last

week, an' every one knows it now."

"It can't be, it can't be."

"But I tell ye it is," cried Bumpett, turning the knife in the wound.

"She's a tiert lass, she is, not one o' the sort that gives a bean for

a pea."

There was the silence of a moment, and there broke from Rhys a cry so

bitter, so despairing, that it seemed as though the heart from whose

depths it came had broken. Then he sank down by the table, and, laying

his head on his arms, sobbed like a little child, with his face hidden

on the sleeve of his shabby coat.

It was not until the Pig-driver had been long gone that he raised

himself. The light had sputtered out beside him, and he got up and

groped his way to the ladder. He climbed to the room above, crossed

the threshold into the night, and set his face to the hills.

-----

[1] A broken jug.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE NEW YEAR

AT Great Masterhouse the mist clung round the doors and crept like a

breathing thing against the windows, as though it would envelope and

cut it off from the rest of the living world. Inside the house there

was that sense of subdued movement which is caused by the presence of

many people all bent upon the same purpose, and the kitchen was

half-filled with men and women ranged on benches and chairs round the

walls and near the table. The light illumined their faces and threw

their shadows in varying degrees of grotesqueness against the

whitewash which formed the background.

Beside the hearth, a little apart from the rest, sat Mrs. Walters in

the straight chair which she usually occupied, the upright pose of her

figure bearing a silent rebuke to some of those who had fallen into

glaringly human attitudes. Opposite to her was Nannie Davis. Between

them the great fire burned and glowed in the chimney under the high

mantel with its rows of brass candlesticks, which stood "with their

best side towards London," as the old woman said.

The man in black who had preached in the little chapel when George had

been discovered asleep there by Anne was standing by the kitchen

table. His hand rested on an open Bible and he was reading from it in

a loud monotonous voice. In stature he was small and mean, but he

threw out his syllables with the assurance of one accustomed to sway

his audience.

To-night he was lodged at Great Masterhouse, for the farm was his

head-quarters whenever his tour of preaching brought him to the Black

Mountain district. He had seldom visited the house without holding a

service in it at least once during his stay, and now, on the last

night of the old year, he had settled with Anne that a meeting should

take place near midnight, so that he and his hearers should have the

chance of beginning the new one in prayer and supplication. It was a

thing which had never been done before, and he hoped that some who

might otherwise have failed to be present would be drawn to it by

curiosity and the novelty of the experience.

But, in spite of this, the room contained hardly more than thirty

people, as the thickness of the fog had made it very difficult for

those at a distance to push their way through the heavy darkness. As a

result it followed that the whole congregation was made up of really

earnest persons, and the preacher found himself so much in accord with

it that he was stirred to the depths by the moral support he felt in

the very air around. He threw his keen glance over the figures before

him, over the rough coats, heavy boots, and the hands clasped together

or resting open in the lassitude of physical weariness. To him they

were the little remnant saved from the burning, out of the many who

dwelt in bondage round them. He was a narrow man, zealous, untiring,

faithful in the least as in the greatest, sparing neither himself nor

others. He had walked many miles that day and he was to set out before

sunrise on the following morning for a far-off place, holding a

meeting half-way to his destination and preaching again in the barn

which would also be his shelter at night. It was no wonder if his

influence was great, for he possessed that which could drive his own

soul and body forward through physical as through mental struggle,

through hunger and cold, through fatigue and pain. He had the courage

of a lion and it shone out of the eyes in his small, fierce face. It

was the mighty heart in the little body, the little man and the big

odds, the thing which, through all time, will hold and keep and

fascinate humanity while there is an ounce of blood or nerve left in

it.

The hands of the large, eight-day clock which stood with its back to

the wall were on their way from eleven to midnight, holding on their

course with a measured tick that had neither haste nor delay. It was

the only sound which seemed to have courage to defy the preacher's

voice, and it appeared to impress him in some way, for he glanced

towards it now and again during his reading and the prayers he

offered. Anne sat stiff and still in her place, and Nannie, who was

weary with the day's work and the unwonted vigil, began to nod. He

prayed on and on.

It was a quarter to twelve when he rose from his knees to begin his

sermon, and those whose flesh was weaker than their spirit and whose

heads had begun to droop roused themselves as he stood up.

He took his theme from the parable of the rich man who pulled down his

barns and built greater, saying to his soul, "Eat, drink, thou hast

much goods laid up for many years," and whose soul was required of him

that night. As he dwelt on the folly of looking forward, the danger of

spiritual delay, and the remorseless flight of the time which should

be spent in preparing for eternity, every face was turned towards him,

and even Nannie felt her attention compelled by his words and by the

force which poured from his vehement spirit. The eagerness of his

expression was almost grotesque as he leaned forward calling upon his

hearers to forsake their sins and to repent while there was yet time,

while the day of Grace yet lasted.

"You are on the verge of another year," he began when he had read out

the parable, "and your feet are drawing nigh to the shores of

eternity. Are you ready--you, and you, and you--to face that change

that waits you? Can you meet the Messenger who may be in the middle of

your road as you return to your homes this very night? There can be no

looking back, no halting when the summons comes, as come it will, no

changing of a past that is the test by which you will stand or fall.

Every day that you live is an account sealed, a leaf turned over for

ever, a thing no one can take back. What is your account in the past?"

He stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief.

The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the

hour. The preacher looked towards it.

"And, as you sit here," he cried, "the Old Year is dragging out its

last moments and the New Year is coming up--even now we can hear its

footsteps drawing closer and closer----"

He paused, holding up his hand as though to convey to his hearers'

minds the picture that he saw in his own. And, in the pause, it began

to be actually plain to their bodily senses.

There was a dead silence and they sat holding their breath, rooted in

their places, for the sound of an approaching tread was surely coming

up the passage.

The tension in the room was almost a tangible thing; men sat with

eyeballs fixed, and women grasped each other. On it came, nearer,

nearer, till it stopped at the door. The latch turned, and on the

threshold stood Rhys Walters.

He did not come further, he only remained standing where he was,

looking at the familiar place and the people gathered in it. His

clothes were stained and torn, his hair was wet with mist, and the

angles of his thin shoulders were sharp beneath his coat. He looked at

Anne, rigid and spellbound upon the hearth, and a strange fear stirred

within her. Each in the room stared at him, dumb, and all were

conscious of something that had set its seal upon him and divided him

from themselves.

Nannie's cry, as she ran to him, broke the bond of silence which held

them, and they rose, pressing towards the figure at the door. Before

she could reach him through the crowded medley of chairs and human

beings he had gone and his steps were echoing again down the flags of

the passage.

Anne was behind her as she stood at the outer door straining her eyes

into the night and the thickness. The preacher, who had caught up a

lantern from a nail in the passage on which it hung, was holding it

up, and a bar of light stretched out and died in the fog; the men and

women came round, whispering and peering.

Mrs. Walters went out into the courtyard calling Rhys' name, and

Nannie, down whose cheeks tears were running, began to implore the

bystanders to go out and find the man who had been, but a minute

before, in their midst. There was no sign nor sound, and through the

still air came only the monotone of a distant stream in the mountain,

heavy with recent rain.

Anne turned mutely to the preacher; her lips were closed and she put

out her hand towards him; she looked strange and shaken.

"I will go," he said. "Men, will you come with me?"

About a dozen responded. The people belonging to Great Masterhouse

began to hunt in every outhouse and stable for more lanterns, and,

when they had found what they wanted, they filed out of the yard with

the little man in front of them.

Anne and Nannie stood together watching the lights disperse on the

plateau. One was weeping; the other stood with her stony face to the

night.

* * * * * *

The dawn was near when Rhys toiled up a steep spur that jutted out

from the mass of the mountain. Though morning was at hand the fog

reigned below and only the levels above him were emerging from the

pall which had covered them for days. The summit of the Twmpa would

soon be lifting itself in the chill of daybreak.

All night he had wandered, wandered. Once or twice he had seen the

flicker of lights in the hands of the searchers and, with an

unexplained instinct, had avoided them. He could not tell where he was

going, but he groped along. Twice he had sunk down exhausted and lain

in the bitter cold upon the hillside; once sleep had overtaken him and

he had spent a couple of hours on the earth, to awake numb and chilled

to the bone. But the force of his consuming spirit had driven him on,

and he now stood on a height and saw faintly the heavy waves of mist

that lay below him over the hidden world like the Valley of the

Shadow.

His feet were on the utmost edge of a great chasm, but the driving

vapour which curled round them up to his knees hid from him the depths

that were down, sheer down, within a dozen inches of where he was

standing. Had any one been beneath him on the hills, and able to see

up through the density and the dark hour, they would have beheld the

solitary figure, erect, still, looking out over the space. There was

nothing before him but thick, stifling atmosphere. But he was

unconscious of that.

For some time he stood, neither moving nor turning, facing eastwards.

As daybreak began to grow, he lifted his head, and, throwing out his

arms towards the coming light, he took one step forward.

And so, in the dawning, passed the soul of Rhys Walters, beyond the

judgment or the mercy of man, into the unfaltering hand of the Eternal

Justice. In this sorry world it is one who can get justice for the

hundreds who get mercy--the mercy which, we are told, "blesseth him

that gives and him that takes."

But Justice carries no perquisites.

THE END

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY.

Transcriber's Note

This transcription is based on two sets of images posted by the

Internet Archive of the 1902 edition published by Heinemann. The

first, digitized from a copy made available by the University of

California, is available at:

archive.org/details/sheepstealers00jacoiala

The second, digitized by Google from a copy made available by Stanford

University, is available at:

archive.org/details/sheepstealers01jacogoog

In addition, when there were further questions about the text, the

1902 American edition published by G. P. Putnam's Sons was consulted.

Images of this edition are available through the HathiTrust Digital

Library at:

catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008665608

The following changes were made to the printed text:

-- p. 68: When it was held upside-down--Deleted the hyphen in

"upside-down" for consistency.

-- p. 69: "Was it drink?' he asked after a pause.--Changed single

closing quotation mark after "drink?" to a double closing quotation

mark.

-- p. 78: "Will ye listen to me?" said Bumpettt sharply.--Changed

"Bumpettt" to "Bumpett".

-- p. 130: for he had always forseen the day--Changed "forseen" to

"foreseen" for consistency.

-- p. 146: even high mindedness costs its owner something.--Inserted a

hyphen between "high" and "mindedness" in keeping with the American

edition.

-- p. 156: how the sudden revelation of his masculinity had effected

her--Changed "effected" to "affected" in keeping with the American

edition.

-- p. 221: for the extreme geniuneness of his nature--Changed

"geniuneness" to "genuineness".

-- p. 234: A pang of apprehension went through him--Added a period at

the end of the sentence.

-- p. 236: He swore under his breath."--Deleted the closing quotation

mark at the end of the sentence.

-- p. 261: observed Howlie to Llewllyn--Changed "Llewllyn" to

"Llewellyn".

-- p. 288: there wern't no more ado--Changed "wern't" to "weren't".

-- p. 289: when she had managed to control herself a liitle--Changed

"liitle" to "little".

-- p. 313: I shouldn't wonder if he were siting there--Changed

"siting" to "sitting".

-- p. 314: "What an extraordinary hour for any one to come," exclamed

Lady Harriet.--Changed "exclamed" to "exclaimed".