CHAPTER XL.

A K T STROPHE.

'When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?'

_Shakespeare._

Lance did not appear on the evening before the picnic, and announced by

letter, the next morning, that he could not get away. Felix regretted

not having as usual changed places with him, but could hardly have

absented himself from such a guest as the present without discourtesy;

and Cherry, looking at the blunt brevity of the postal-card, feared

that the high-sounding title of their new friend was adding to

Lance's almost morbid sense of being in a different sphere from their

surroundings. However, she had little time to think; for their only

other guest, Gertrude May, had come by long promise to sleep at the

Priory the night before; and the party were collecting in the hall,

while the waggonet, a farm companion being allotted to the chestnut for

the nonce, the Harewood phaeton, and Master Ratton with his basket,

were marshalled at the door.

'The Vicar says there is going to be a thunder-storm,' said Lady

Caergwent, in rather a solemn voice.

'The Vicar always has a thunder-storm coming whenever it isn't a fall

of snow,' returned Bernard.

'Hush, Bear! Kate won't have the Vicar's name taken in vain,' laughed

Angela.

'Angela! Is not that expression a rebuke to itself?' whispered Cherry.

'There's not a symptom of a cloud,' added Gertrude, 'but the heat is

overpowering.'

'Yes!' said Cherry. 'Lance could hardly have gone in such scorching as

this.'

'We shall find mountain-air at the top,' said Robina, 'when once we can

get there.'

'And the storms there are magnificent,' added the deep voice of

Clement, as he strode out in broad hat and alpaca coat, pausing to put

his despatches into the letter-box, and inspect the barometer.

'Let that poor thing alone, Clem,' called out his eldest brother. 'We

mean to enjoy ourselves.'

'Are you affected by thunder?' the Vicar asked, seeing that Lady

Caergwent did not look very happy.

'Not affected really, but I don't like it at night, or out of doors,'

she answered; 'but I don't think there can be a storm to-day.'

'Never saw weather less like it,' added Bernard decisively, gazing up

at the sky, as if to dare it to thunder. 'Hollo, Charlie! what have you

annexed!'

For Charles Audley appeared walking up from the river, very hot,

and holding upon its back, like a baby, a huge blue lobster, which

impotently flapped its fringed tail, brandished its claws, and waved

its whiskers.

'What do you propose to do with that marine monster?' asked Cherry.

'Eat him, to be sure! He's my contribution. I bought him of old Jenny

as I came up. Take care, Kester! he'll grab you as tight as the Mayor

of Plymouth. Have you a basket, or anything to put him in?'

'He's alive,' said Cherry, recoiling.

'Of course. In civilian costume, you see. Of course the natives up

there have some sort of kettle. I've done dozens of lobsters in the

yacht.'

'What fun!' cried Angela. 'He shall go on the driving-box, to

be made lobster-salad of. Get a basket; Kester, let his whiskers

alone--ridiculous creature!'

'Oh!'

It was a soft little breath, but Charles turned round. 'You're not

afraid of him, Stella! See! his claw is tied. Don't you like it?'

'I'm not afraid; but I don't like it.'

'Like Kate's thunder-storm,' laughed Angela; 'not afraid, but she

doesn't like it.'

Stella stood her ground: 'I don't like keeping the poor thing in

misery.'

'Nay!' said Angela. 'Why don't you send that cruel boy to restore it to

its native element?'

'That would be nonsense,' steadily said Stella; 'but I think it would

be kinder to have it killed at once, than to jolt it all the way up

there.'

'Now, Charlie, it is absurd to yield to that child's

tender-heartedness. She is a perfect Brahmin, and can't believe that

those cold-blooded fishy things don't feel.'

'I believe the sentiment is general,' said Lady Caergwent, eagerly but

nervously: 'though I had not the resolution of Princess Fair-Star,' she

added, aside to Cherry; who rejoined, 'Not being sure whether it might

not be the native custom to consume raw lobsters. Oh! here come Wilmet

and Eddy; so let us pack. Lady Caergwent, do you prefer dignity or

landscape? for that perch by my brother is the best for the latter.'

'Landskip, to be sure. You delightful person!' cried her Ladyship,

springing to the driving-seat.

'May I invite you, not to our skip, but our springs, Cherry?' asked the

Major.

'No, thank you,' said Cherry, who had seen a pair of wistful eyes lose

one spark at the Countess's ascent, and another at this invitation. 'My

springs rival yours; and Gertrude and I mean to be snug behind Master

Ratton.'

Gertrude's face beamed delight as she took the other place; and the

Vicar ingeniously coiled his length into the out-rigger at the back

ready to spring out on any emergency of gate or hill, in spite of his

apparent absorption in the newest and most strongly-flavoured of Church

journals.

In consideration of Ratton's small capacities, he had the start, Cherry

leaving the rest to pack as they chose; and when, on the first long

ascent, she was overtaken, it was first by the Harewoods, the Major

leading his horse, and Wilmet and her youngest son in front, Stella

and Kester behind; and the foremost of the waggonet-load was walking

beside, with his hand upon the back-seat.

The larger vehicle was empty, all but the driving-seat, where Lady

Caergwent and Felix were talking so eagerly, that Cherry laughed, and

said, 'I wonder what nut they are cracking?'

'Is she not dreadfully clever?'

'Most curiously simple. Whatever is in her head, out it all comes.'

'Your brother likes it!'

'There's a great deal of it, to be sure, but it is so original, and

genuine, and funny; and besides, she is easily daunted. Robin says her

uncle kept her in great order, but she was devotedly fond of him; and

whenever she catches herself going too fast, she starts and stops, as

if he were looking at her.'

'In order? Not a spoilt child and heiress--a Lady Clara Vere de Vere?'

'No, indeed! Lady Clara took Tennyson's advice, and began teaching the

orphan boy to read, and the orphan girl to sew--operations she much

prefers to entangling simple yeomen. Eh, Daisy! did you think she had a

simple yeoman there?' said Geraldine, in an amused but rather indignant

voice, as she perceived symptoms of confusion.

'Oh no, never really! but when one's brother has a sister-in-law who

assimilates all the gossip of the place, one can't help hearing. If

mouths could but be stopped!'

'Which they can't; but they can be confuted.'

'How, by her marrying?'

'Certainly not,' said Clement, from behind, much disconcerting Gertrude.

'I thought him lost in his ecclesiastical organ,' said Cherry,

laughing. 'I believe nothing would have roused him but such an enormity

with regard to his live Countess Marilda.'

'I merely think,' he protested, 'that Lady Caergwent perceives how much

more she can do for the Church as a single woman.'

'I agree,' said Cherry, 'to the unlikelihood of her marrying--most

especially, I know whom it won't be, let them have their heads together

as much as they will. See them now--not a bit of the view will they

see! That's right! prod them with your parasols! Make them look round,

or they will miss the great view of the castle and the estuary.'

'Felix will never do that,' said Clement, 'He seems to me to value

people according as they appreciate the scenery of the Ewe.'

'He never got over Marilda's knitting all the way up the river.'

'Or Mr. Bruce's saying, "You've a snug little box here, Mr. Underwood,

if it wasn't so close to the river." Felix's face was a sight--just as

he had got to the turn down the hill, which he says comes as a fresh

delight to him whenever he comes home.'

'No wonder, there's nothing like it!' said Gertrude. 'Ah! they have

stopped to look.'

'Click, click! gee-up, Ratton! we'll pass them again.'

So they did, Lady Caergwent calling out, 'Ah! I pity you. You are too

low to see this glorious sight.'

'All very well talking,' called back Cherry; 'but who had to be poked

to make them look at all?'

'Ay! What do you think they were doing!' shouted Angela. 'Sounds

reached us about Casuistry and Jeremy Taylor.'

'You could hear nothing in the din that came up to us,' retorted Felix,

looking round.

Indeed, Lady Caergwent was in her element. She liked nothing so well as

a kind of discussion on character, a sort of fitful Friends in Council,

plentifully interlarded with historical or fictitious allusions; but

she did not often get the opportunity, for her historical tastes were

so much more vivid than most of her contemporaries, that she always

had to guard against seeming pedantic; but, thanks to Felix's habit of

keeping a solid book in hand, and always thoroughly getting up whatever

he had to write about, he was a man of great range of information, and

could reply to her bright crude fancies with depth or sportiveness as

occasion served, enjoying the tête-à-tête as much as she did.

Meantime, the horses climbed higher still and higher, rougher still

and rougher, till the final gate was opened; the wheels emitted only

an occasional creak on the soft bent-grass, and the breeze refreshed

the travellers, who were soon hailed by all the pupils and all the

dogs, and conducted to the Penbeacon saloon. This was a deserted

slate-quarry, where the mounds of rubbish were old enough to be covered

with hawthorn, mountain-ash, travellers-joy, and exquisite wreaths of

bramble, so as to afford shade at any period of the day; and around was

a delicious carpet of soft grass, thyme, eye-bright, ladies'-fingers,

and rock-rose. Beneath lay the whole panorama of the Ewe valley and

the estuary, the bridge spanning it, and the Castle jutting out into

the sparkling sea, where here and there a sail, white or umber, or

puff of steam, glided along the blue. The intense clearness of the air

rendered the scene a fresh joy to those who knew it best, and entranced

the new-comers, though they were told they would see it still better

when they had climbed to the top of Penbeacon, which, with tracking the

source of the Leston, was a regular part of the programme.

Operations could, however, only begin with preparations for the meal;

and while Felix, Clement, and Major Harewood drove on to deposit horses

and carriages at the farm, there was a general unpacking of hampers,

Cherry securing that which was to be untouched till dinner-time, by

sitting upon it.

'I say,' observed Will to Robina, as he opened one of the letters that

they had brought up to this unpostal region, 'here's a go! He may

be coming to-day!' and he signed towards Lady Caergwent, who, with

Bernard, was compounding a salad.

'Impossible! To-day?'

'That depends.'

'Knowingly?'

'Not unless it be through you.'

'I have not written since she came.'

'So the daily fire has slackened.'

'Mr. Pemberton enjoys that.'

'And once a week is deemed enough for me!'

'Old stagers such as we are! But, seriously, Willie, what can bring

him?'

'The scent of Penbeacon!'

'I thought he was in Scotland.'

'Yes, but his two months' holiday was up on Monday; and when he came

to London, his office was painting, or white-washing, or something, so

he got a week's grace; and London being a desert, he said he should

look in at Lady Mary's, and then run on here; but when he left,

doubtful.'

'Then it depends on how he likes it at Lady Mary's? Have you mentioned

it?'

'No, I knew I should catch it from you if I did.'

'Discreet boy! I have hopes of you. In the uncertainty we had better

keep it to ourselves. It would only put her into a tremor, and spoil

her day.'

'Poor girl! I hoped it had gone off, for I see small prospect for

her. He is getting on well, likes his work, and will hardly run into

thraldom again, since he broke loose in time to make a man of himself.'

'Don't you envy him?'

'Yes, when you fiddle for an hour over every knot in that string! Let

me cut it and have done with it.'

'Remember holy poverty, Sire, as the Lady Abbess said to Louis XV. over

the jam-pot; or rather, remember that this has to be packed up again in

six hours' time.'

'Don't make me remember six hours hence. This is my prime day of all

the year, and I can't recollect any end to it.'

'There then, can you carry that pile of plates without a catastrophe?'

'A K T strophe is what is apprehended.'

'Come, you two,' called Angela, 'affection is misplaced over the

crockery. Here are plates wanted to weigh down the table-cloth; there's

a ruffling gusty wind that gets under it.'

'Illustrating the earthquake theory,' said pupil No. 1, who was keeping

it down with his knee.

'Or thunder-storm practice,' responded Pupil No. 2.

'Not a word more about thunder!' cried Angela. 'Lady Caergwent hates

it; and as she views our Vicar as a mild embodiment of all the General

Councils, the regular Clementine prediction has upset her already. I

say! what are you doing? Apricot-tart at first course!'

'Apricot-tart, you don't say so! Three cheers for Miss Underwood!'

'Don't let blind enthusiasm put its foot into it.'

'Or you'll have to eat it all.'

'What a temptation!'

'Wasn't he already a greedy beggar, who stuck at no trifles! Don't

you remember his tucking in the apples at the fair that the elephant

wouldn't have?'

'And swallowing nineteen fresh eggs to clear his voice for the concert!'

'I say, Miss Underwood, what songs have you brought?'

'And what's to become of the Der Freischütz song without your brother

Lance?'

'Can't the Squire take his part? His voice is a capital one.'

'Oh yes--he is thrush to Lance's nightingale--not so high--fuller in

the lower notes--and he can't play such tricks with it,' said Angela;

'but whether you'll get him is another thing. That Countess of ours has

no more music in her than an owl!'

'Can't she be suppressed? Whoever heard of a Penbeacon picnic without a

song?'

The feast took place with all the merriment produced by the combined

forces of seventeen people, not one of whom had reached the middle

point of life; but when it was over, the sun was still so powerful, and

the air so sultry, as to bring to mind that this festival had taken

place earlier in the year than usual. No one was willing to quit the

luxurious nests in the bracken, and the ceremony of mountain-scaling

was deferred till after the songs for which the pupils clamoured, and

Lady Caergwent heartily said how unlike fine old songs in the open

air would be from the tiresome drawing-room performances, that seemed

to her an invention for interrupting interesting conversation. In the

pause of preparation, she made, however, some inquiries whether the

arrow-head she had been told about grew on the intended path, and if

not, how it could be reached.

'I'll show you the way,' cried Bernard eagerly. 'It is only down

there,' when he heard the place.

'_Only!_--my dear Kate! I don't let him inveigle you--it is nearer two

miles than a mile and a half,' said Robina; 'and all through stony

thickets and bogs--and in this heat! We will try to drive you there, or

send for it.'

'I'll go; I'll be back long before they've done singing,' said Bernard.

'What is it like?'

Lady Caergwent hesitated; but he would take no refusal, and having been

told it was white, had three roundish sort of petals, and arrow leaves,

and grew in the water, the lazy youth, who would seldom move an inch

in a sister's service, went striding down the hill side, with his coat

over his shoulder, and his pugaree streaming behind him. Cherry was

afraid he would incur Lance's fate; but Felix laughed, and said he was

glad to see he could do anything for anybody; and besides, the sun was

becoming less fierce.

So Cherry hastily sketched his retreating figure as a feature in the

drawing she annually made of the group at the quarry during the music.

Gertrude May had a fair ear, and good though not much trained voice,

and she was exceedingly happy, for even without Lance the Underwoods'

singing was a remarkable and beautiful thing. To make William into

Polyphemus, and hear him thunder out 'Ruddier than the cherry,' while

Felix and Angela served as his Acis and Galatea, was always a part

of the programme, and it was all Wilmet enjoyed, for were not her

boys--even though they were hers--boys of the period? Had not her son

Edward come, against her better judgment, because his papa wished it?

and had not his combined fatigue and restlessness come to a pitch where

there was nothing for it but to take him away to the farm-house, and

let him have the sleep he had missed in the forenoon?

Then, even in her first outline, Cherry missed three figures; and

when, after completing her general sketch, she returned to touch up

the individuals, Kester, who had been portrayed running up and down

a mound with the dogs, was asleep against his father; nothing was to

be seen of Will but a pair of black knees peeping out of the bracken,

and the head of Scamp's brother Chaff, who was sitting on his breast;

and Lady Caergwent had vanished altogether. She was further becoming

sensible that the shadows were less sharp, the light less clear, the

heat heavier, and presently that a great black cloud had mounted far

into the sky behind the quarry and the hill; and beginning to think

that Clement's prognostications might be justified she was waiting for

the end of Lance's setting of 'Mont Blanc is the King of Mountains,'

to call attention to the fact that Penbeacon was borrowing his vest of

cloud, when the announcement was made by a vivid flash of lightning,

followed with appalling rapidity by a peal of thunder. No one stirred

till the thunder had rolled itself away. Then everybody said, 'There!'

and started up, just as a few big rain-drops splashed down. Kester woke

with a scream of fright; and his father, throwing a plaid round him,

ran off with him towards the farm. Felix and Clement had both sprung to

Geraldine, and were helping her up. There was a mile of open hill and

stony road to the farm--a long walk for her under any circumstances;

and no one had any protection bigger than a sun-shade. There was

another terrific flash and burst of thunder, and the hail-stones came

rattling down, so large as to give sharp blows.

'She can never walk it,' said both brothers at once. 'Cherry, you must

ride!'

'Oh!' gasping, 'you can't.'

'Can't we? Haven't we often? There!' and in a moment the hands were

clasped, queen's-cushion fashion, beneath her, the necks were bent for

the arms to be thrown round them, even as had been done many a time in

childhood before, only then Edgar had generally been one supporter.

She hardly felt the beating of the pitiless storm; and when the wind,

hail and roar of the tempest came with a terrific deafening whirl,

she felt a strange sense of security; and even when the most fearful

of all the flashes seemed to burst into the ground close before them

simultaneously with the discharge like a thousand cannon overhead, and

she heard Clement's whispered ejaculation, her first feeling was, 'All

together--together!'

The others all darted past them in the general _sauve qui peut._

Wilmet, watching in anxiety at the farm-house porch, received first,

half laughing, half panting 'Oh! isn't it jolly?' Angela and the

longest-legged pupil; secondly, her husband, with their little son in

his arms. 'This is like an Indian storm,' he said, and sat down, a good

deal spent, and breathing hard.

Then came, dashing in together, the main body--Gertrude May, four

pupils, Stella with Charles Audley; and they had no sooner recovered

breath, than in came William and Robina, who had been delayed by

Robina's attempt to secure the table-cloth, which had been blown so

entirely over her, that Will had had some difficulty in releasing her

from the flappings. They satisfied Wilmet that Cherry and her bearers

were quite safe, and at the entrance of the lane; and John thereupon

started up, and declared he should go and relieve them, but at that

moment they were seen at the gate, Cherry on her own legs, and Felix

and Clement, all in a glow, on each side of her. 'It was so nice,' she

said, as her sister anxiously met her. 'Only think of having two such

brothers! Oh no, I'm not frightened--no, nor in the least wet!'

Nobody was wet, for the hail-stones had rebounded, and one or two

that had been captured were wonders worth preserving, had that been

possible, looking like nitre-balls. Felix was drawing a pencil line

round one on a piece of paper, when Robina exclaimed, 'Where's Lady

Caergwent?'

'Didn't she come first?'

'I thought she was up-stairs.'

'No--no one came in before Angela,' testified Wilmet. 'Is every one

else here?--Bernard?'

'He must be sheltering down by Lang's pool. Never mind him! But she! So

afraid of thunder too!'

'Unpardonable!' burst out Felix, in dismayed self-condemnation, as he

again pushed his head as deep as it would go into his hat, and hurried

out again, Clement and William after him; John was going too, but

his wife caught him--'No, no, there are quite enough! Remember the

neuralgia. See, it has turned to pouring rain!'

And John submitted, for three strong men could do all that could avail

one young girl, even under possibilities terrible to think, not only

from the lightning, but among those dangerous places, steep slopes,

and sharp precipices, where a stranger, blinded by hail and lightning,

might so easily stumble. The farmer was at market, and his wife could

only offer her 'odd man' when he should have done milking; but Mr.

Harewood knew the place thoroughly by this time.

It rained in torrents as they set out, the thunder-cloud blotting

out all but the path under their feet, though the lightning was more

distant. They searched the quarry, and shouted, 'Any one here? Lady

Caergwent!' But the mocking echoes only answered, 'Here!' and 'Gwent!'

while they searched in vain--till 'Holloa.' Was it a response? Felix

shouted. Another 'Holloa!' but hardly from feminine lungs--certainly

not from any one suffering any damage. No--there was something tall

struggling up the hill through the rain. 'Bear! you've not seen her?'

'Who? Why in the name of wonder are you getting a shower-bath

gratis out here?' said he, panting up to them, his arms full of

something shiny, and battered, and green; and, as a word or two

explained--'Looking for Lady Caergwent! Every one missed her'--the

boy's eyes flashed so that Felix really thought he was going to knock

him down. 'Left her out here? Why, savages wouldn't have done it! If I

had but been there! Dear, sweet girl!'

Just then, something dark was seen lying under a rock, and slightly

moving; Clement silently pointed in horror, Bernard gave a sort of

howl, waved them all back as unworthy to touch her, and leapt forward.

He soon came to a stand-still. It was one of the rugs on which they had

been sitting, which had drifted there, rolled up by the wind.

'I begin to hope she may be in the cart-shed,' said Will. 'Let us go on

there.'

Bernard strode with a certain tragic authority in advance, as they

proceeded, scrambling over a low stone wall into a steep sloping field,

scattered with stones and sheep, not easily discernible from one

another in the downpour, save for some getting up and running away,

while the others remained motionless. At length appeared a fabric of

rough stones, rougher piles, and roughest slates, a kind of shelter

thrown over the angle of the wall. Through all the rush and roar came a

murmur of voices, and through the drifting streams of rain, two figures

were discernible, one heather-coloured, the other grey. So much the

others had seen, when Bernard, with a sort of tiger-bound forward,

shouted, 'You rascal!--Never mind, Lady Caergwent, I am here!'

'Holloa, Bernard!' said a cool voice.

'De la Poer!' and Bernard stood transfixed, not even joining at first

in the general clamour of, 'So shocked!' 'You here!' 'How could we miss

you?' 'I never was so sorry!' 'It was all my own fault!' 'Oh, never

mind,' &c.; but when his voice was heard again, 'Lady Caergwent, if I

had been there, this should never have been! These brothers of mine!'

'Not a word more till she is safely housed,' interposed Felix. 'Don't

you see how drenched she is?--Will you trust yourself to me after this

inexcusable neglect, Lady Caergwent?'

'I told you it was I who lost myself,' she said, with a most forgiving

radiance in her eyes, glancing through the dark hair that flew about

her hatless head.

They wrapped her in the cloak they had brought, and tied the hood

down over her hair with a handkerchief; but when Bernard would have

proffered his arm on the side unengrossed by Felix, he found himself

forestalled, and could only fume in the rear--such of his denunciations

of the general barbarous carelessness as were not blown down his throat

again by the wind being received by Will Harewood, with comical little

sounds that nettled him exceedingly.

The contention with wind, rain, stones, and torrents, was far too

severe for any one else to attempt speaking, while the blast swept

round the hill side as if trying to whirl them off their feet; and

even when the lee side of the barn was reached, Lady Caergwent was too

breathless to do anything but gasp out that Mr. Underwood must not

blame himself--it was her own fault, and all right.

A whole cluster of anxious faces crowded the deep porch, to receive the

dripping figures that came in, looking, as the delighted Kester said,

like the cats that became pools in Strewelpeter. Some used their first

breath for laughter, others for the long pent-up apologies, which were

cut short by Wilmet and Robina bearing the young lady up-stairs to be

dried.

The room was homely, for their hostess was not of the advanced order,

and had no fine daughters. She appealed to Mrs. Harewood on the

expediency of bed, warm water, and something hot; but the Countess, her

eyes dancing through her plastered elf-locks, laughed all to scorn,

only begging for the loan of some clothes. However--will she, nill

she--while struggling with the soaked adhesive sleeves of her jacket,

a foot-bath and big ewer, and a tray of various beverages, made their

appearance, putting her into fresh fits of mirth, as Robina tugged at

the refractory garment, and Mrs. Hodnet endeavoured to add lumps of

sugar at every polite refusal of the negus.

'Lady Caergwent, the bed or the negus?' said Wilmet, at last, with full

authority.

'The dagger or the bowl? The bowl then, if you please, when my hand

comes out. I'm like Agamemnon now. Oh!--there!--thanks, Copsey. I hope

the rest of the coats of the onion will come off easier. Thank you! oh,

so much, Mrs. Hodnet! That will be beautiful!'

Herself of the squarest proportions, Mrs. Hodnet was bustling about to

find something wearable by the tall slim girl. At last, after her best

violet silk had been found impracticable, a linsey skirt and a soft

silk shawl seemed possible materials; and she withdrew to superintend

the preparations for tea; and Wilmet departed likewise, from the

mixed motives of believing that the two girls wanted to be left to

a _tête-à-tête_, of uneasiness as to the whereabouts of her sons,

and desire to secure the swallowing of the like portion by Felix and

Clement.

The moment the door was shut, Lady Caergwent threw both arms round

Robin, and hugged her tight, with a long sob-like sound of 'O Copsey,

Copsey!'

'Then it was--'

'Yes--yes--yes! Did you know?'

'Willie told me he might possibly come; but it was too uncertain to

mention. We thought Lady Mary would be sure to keep him.'

'Mary was from home.'

Robina longed to ask more, but did not quite know how, and applied

herself to make the best of Mrs. Hodnet's toilette apparatus, in

dealing with the hair, which the tempest had deprived of every fragment

of head-gear. 'Shall I twist it, or do it up in long plaits?'

'Any way for me to get down again! Oh, how little I thought it!'

'Felix was in despair when he found you were missing; but you see the

first thought of all my brothers has always been Cherry.'

'Quite right--and you see I wasn't there at all. You know my ears

are stupid, and though there's more sense in your music than in most

people's, it did not put out of my head some marsh-cinquefoil I thought

I had spied as we went by; and I fancied, while you were singing,

I could creep off after it, without all the fuss of the gentlemen

wanting to get it for me. No one saw me, and I did find some delicious

things, only I'm afraid I lost them. On I went, from one to another,

like the bad folks in an allegory, away from the rocks and the singing,

lured by the flowers in the bog--till, sure enough, I lost my way, and

the sharp wall of rock above me, which I thought part of the quarry,

turned out to be no such a thing. There, to bring in the demoniacal

element, a horrid little black cow came up and stared at me. You know

what a goose I am about horned monsters; and I thought the whole herd

would be coming home to be milked, so I didn't stare the beast out of

countenance, as I am aware is the correct thing; but as there was a

high ledge, a sort of shelf in the precipice, I scrambled up out of

the way. I suppose the animal had never seen a young woman in such a

position, for not only did it stand in contemplation, but two or three

of its congeners came up and stood gazing at me, out of their spiteful,

curly, shaggy faces, with white pointed horns, like the imps of the

piece. Then it struck me that these were not quiet christianable kine

going home to be milked, but horrid Scottish cattle at pasture, keeping

no hours at all, but free to stand staring till I dropped on their

horns. So I put whatever dignity I had in my pocket, and squalled,

fancying you were all round the corner, but the only effect was to make

the brutes toss their heads and stare the harder.'

'Did you see the storm gathering? Behind the hill, as we were, we

neither saw nor thought of it till that first grand peal; I was so

sorry for you.'

'Somehow, I minded it less than I should have thought. The grandeur

and the solitude took some of the nonsense out of me; but the hail

was very bad; it knocked me about so; and the wind tore at me like

a human fury. After my hat was carried off, those hail-stones would

have been quite dangerous, but that there was a good thick bower of

traveller's joy (well-named) up above; and one comfort was, the demons

didn't like it, stuck up their tails, and galloped off. I thought none

of them could have the face to run at me in a thunder-storm, and I

tried to come down, but I found it was a Martinswand on a small scale;

and I could get neither up nor down. So I remained, the butt of the

elements, waiting to make another effort till the wind would let me

alone. At last, I saw a human being in the distance, battling with

the wind. I thought it was Bernard coming back, or if not, I was past

caring; so I called, and it came. I only thought of Bernard, and it

must have thought itself in for an adventure with an escaped lunatic,

or wild woman of the woods. "Trust yourself to me," he said; and then

I knew the voice. But it was like a dream, for I didn't seem surprised

at first. At least, I don't know; I think I must have made a fool of

myself somehow, for he was coaxing and comforting me, till somehow he

got me to the shed, and I came to my senses a little, and thought he

was only pacifying me; so I asked whether I had really been in such

a dreadful state, and said I was all right, and that he need not go

on. "Why should I not go on?" he said. Oh, I dare say it was very

nonsensical--but don't you and Mr. Harewood talk nonsense sometimes?'

'Egregious!' said Robin, laughing, and kissing her. 'Oh, I am so very

very glad, dearest!'

'He said, the longer he went on, the more he found he really did care

for me in spite of it all, horrid and disgusting as I had been.'

'Was that the nonsense?'

'No, you thorny Copse, but his pretending I was all right!'

'Ah, he has thought so this long time! I have been sure it wanted very

little to come right.'

'Oh, tell me! for while they were dragging me through the storm, it

came over me that maybe he was just surprised into it, and that I

ought--I ought not--'

'Who is talking nonsense now, Kate? No--if you had been at Repworth you

would have seen how altered he has been--ill at ease, as if something

had gone out of his life--only able to bear his restlessness by hard

work.'

'Ah! is it not a pity to spoil him for his work?'

'You will find him work enough.'

'Make him a land-agent!'

'A good deal more. You will give him power that he is much fitter to

use now.'

'Well, there's plenty to come before that. Dear Aunt Emily! I say,

Robina, nobody ought to be told before them all, you know. There,

thank you! what a deliciously queer figure,' as she looked in the

glass, 'and what a pair of cheeks! The farm-house port has flown into

them! Am I to put on these stockings? That dear woman's legs must be as

big as her bed-posts! I wish people wore peasant costumes here! A pair

of horse-hair butterfly's-wings now on my head, a striped petticoat,

and orange stockings! At least it is better than when I jumped into a

pond out of the way of the thunder, and Lady de la Poer put me to bed!

Dear people! I could jump, but for these elephant-slippers, to think of

getting back to them.'

'Oh, please--let me get that skirt straight.'

'Very well! Do I fidget horribly? I beg your pardon, Robin; but how can

one stand still when one is all fizzing with gladness! When I think of

the old ache, when he came here--and when I found it was not you, I

thought it must be Angel--I really came, hoping to find out, and--'

'Throw the ring at her feet!'

'You witch! only I never had the ring to throw! Oh, this is much better

than being magnanimous! Is that your ring? His hair? How charming!

Ernest shall give me nothing else!'

'Ah, there will not be time for yours to wear out! Mine has had two

renewals, though I always keep part of the old foundation.'

'Dear Robina! I wish--no, it's not right to wish that; besides, it's a

horrid place. I suppose Mr. Pemberton must have the first living that

is going at Repworth.'

'Yes. We think of a grammar-school, or a mastership, somewhere, when

Willie's five years at Christchurch are up, and we have made up enough

for a nest-egg.'

'That's what I should like! Ah! am I talking of what I know nothing

about?' and she gave an earnest kiss. 'There, I'm presentable now! May

Ernest only be in the farmer's leathern gaiters!'

'No chance of that, with so many gentlemen to equip him. But for your

feet, you would do very well.'

For the fault of Kate Caergwent's face was want of glow, and this was

fully supplied. The two plaits were picturesque, and Mrs. Hodnet's

shawl of crimson silk, and the dark skirt, made a becoming garb; but

walking was not easy, and the descent of the stair was a series of

flaps, as she came into a sort of vestibule, containing staircase and

big clock.

'Hermione descends to the sound of soft music!' exclaimed Lord Ernest,

springing up to meet her; and they both stood still to laugh.

'Hail, hail, all hail! was the music,' she said.

'Yes, Miss Underwood,' grasping her hand mightily. 'I give you infinite

credit for the _mise en scene_.'

'Undeserved!'

'Nay, stage-effect could not have been exceeded, though perhaps things

went rather to the verge of sensation.--Katie, you are flushed still!

Ought she not to be put between blankets, and dosed with water-gruel?'

'Then we ought "all to have a little water-gruel!"'

'There's a sumptuous tea-fight preparing in there. They've fetched the

hamper, and Mrs. Hodnet is producing all the delicacies of the season!'

'Is Lady Caergwent there?' and Bernard came forward to meet her; while

Lord Ernest paused to answer Robina's congratulating eyes. 'Yes, when I

found that it was her own self, there was no helping it. I forgot all

about earning her better opinion. I could only ask her forgiveness. I

shall tell my father I owe it all to you.'

'Nonsense!'

'I do, though. If you hadn't all been what you are, I should have made

an irrevocable ass of myself.'

'As--oh dear!--some one else is doing,' said Robina to herself, as she

caught the words Bernard was addressing to the Countess, standing in

the door-way of the great farm kitchen. 'I am only sorry for what you

were exposed to in my absence.--My brothers are dreadfully cut up about

it, but I know you'll overlook it. They are excellent fellows, but you

see they have never had any advantages.'

An ineffably funny glance passed between Lord Ernest and Robina, who

had a strong desire to take Mr. Bear by the shoulders and shake him,

only unluckily her head was only on a level with those same broad

shoulders.

'I never could have overlooked it, if they had left Geraldine to look

after any one else,' said Lady Caergwent, with some of the hauteur she

could assume, and very decidedly moving forward, but with the flowers

in her hand that Bernard had brought her.

The party far exceeded the capacities of Mrs. Hodnet's parlour, where

the lodgers usually sat, and were much more happily disposed of in

the great kitchen, one of those still flourishing in old farm-houses,

spacious though low, with a stone floor, a long oak table, and benches

and a dresser glittering with metal and fine old earthenware, a great

hearth with a lively fire, and a deep latticed window making quite a

little chamber, where stood the small round table and two chairs, the

leisure resort of Mr. and Mrs. Hodnet, the one with pipe and paper, the

other with work-basket of socks. A door opening into the serviceable

kitchen revealed a vista of garments hung up, a red glow behind them,

a girl of the farm-servant type scuttling about, and the more active

spirits of the party darting to and fro. In the room the long table was

laid for tea; Cherry and Will were chatting on either side of the fire,

Major and Mrs. Harewood were enjoying the delight of their offspring

in an oft-renewed fiction of being shut into the hamper, lost, and

discovered; and Felix was amusing Gertrude May with the mysteries of

Moore's Almanac on the wall, and the account of his own fruitless

endeavours to promote a taste for something less oracular.

He came up as the Countess scurried in, and said, with a frankness not

quite answering to Bernard's description of his despair, 'I am very

sorry for our neglect, Lady Caergwent, I am afraid it caused you to be

in a very unpleasant predicament; but my sister is so far from strong,

that she is apt to be our first care.'

'It would be a horrid shame if she were not,' said Lady Caergwent

brightly. 'I should not have been and gone and lost myself!--You've not

caught cold, Geraldine!'

'Oh no, I was best off of all, riding home in state. It comes, you see,

of taking such poor shiftless beings up to the top of mountains.'

'It was a grand adventure,' said Lady Caergwent, rather hastily; 'I'd

not have missed it for the world!' And then suddenly conscious of what

that might convey, her colour deepened still more, and she made her

way to the Darby and Joan nook by the window, sat down, looking out,

and murmuring something undeveloped about the weather. Lord Ernest

came to help her study it; Felix thought it expedient to continue his

elucidations of Francis Moore; Robina came up to the fire, and slid

her hand into Will's, and a look and smile passed between them that

Cherry comprehended as well as they did. Only Bernard came forward with

a footstool he had routed out from under the dresser. 'Won't you have

this, Lady Caergwent? the floor is cold.'

'Thank you very much.--Yes; and Addie finds her hands full?'

'She's the jolliest little lady of the house!' and Lord Ernest found

himself a perch on the round table, with one foot on the other chair.

Bernard returned to the charge. 'Here's one other flower not beaten to

pieces,' he said, after applying to the green things he had left in the

porch.

'Thank you,' but hardly turning her head from Lord Ernest, who was

describing some one as 'Yards high, of course; three inches beyond what

any one need be in reason,' meaning of course the Scottish chief; but

Bernard was not quite sure whether this was not personal, for conceit

in a state of irritation can make strange appropriations.

While he was standing just so far away as his sense of good breeding

required, grim and discomforted, Angela darted in, crying, 'Mrs. Hodnet

is teaching us to make furmenty. Come and see.'

'Too many cooks may spoil furmenty as well as broth, Angel,' said John,

as no one seemed disposed to move.

'How stupid you all are!' she exclaimed. 'Come, Kate, don't you want to

study furmenty?'

'I can't study anything but sitting still till I get my boots,' said

the Countess, with languid decision.

'Bootless toil,' murmured her cavalier.

'You'd better come, Lord Ernest,' persisted Angela, 'Enlarge your mind!

'Tis a classical dish, always made on wake days.'

'Thank you, I never presume to enter those penetralia,' he answered,

likewise with unconscious distance in his tone--excited, perhaps, by

the familiar abbreviation of the young lady's name.

'If you are so curious about it, Angela,' said Felix gravely, 'I wonder

you do not attend to it!'

'Oh, it is stirring! I left Charlie at it, to console him for the loss

of his lobster. I only came out of pure and unrequited philanthropy.'

And she sprang back to the outer kitchen, philosophizing, 'What a queer

thing it is that when two swells get together they must be on their

dignity, and act as if they came out of some other planet.'

'Better be a swell than a cinder,' said Charlie. 'Mrs. Hodnet, is this

stuff stirred enough? I've been at it like a galley-slave till my arms

are ready to drop.'

'I'll stir the infirmary!' loudly declared Kester, intercepted on his

way by his uncle Will, who hoisted him up, in an ecstasy of amusement,

as a 'true grandson of his grandmother, which he wasn't.' The two rooms

resounded with merriment, and Felix regaled Gertrude with a few of Mrs.

Harewood's proverbial malapropisms; but the pair in the window remained

utterly unconscious of all that was passing.

'The odd thing is,' said Angela confidentially to Charles Audley, 'that

I know those two regularly hate each other.'

'It looks very like it!'

'Oh, that is to keep up appearances before the outer barbarians. I know

what each thinks of the other. You clumsy boy! those plates will all be

down, then what will you say to Cherry?'

'That I am overcome by appearances. What hollowness do you not reveal

to me! I say, Bear must be overcome too! What makes him stand there

like a grisly monument?'

Kester and Edward were, at that moment, permitted to summon the company

by a performance with the bright warming-pan, as if they were hiving

bees; and as Lord Ernest jumped off the table, with a look of fury and

dismay Bernard pounced on Stella, who happened to be near him, and

almost dragged her out into the porch. 'I can't stand it any longer,

Stel. Say I'm gone home.'

'Are you ill, Bear?'

'Ill? no; but that confounded puppy--'

'He isn't lost, Bear, he is fast asleep under Cherry's chair. You need

not go after him!'

'Hang it! Didn't you see? That brute of a fellow has been and squashed

all the flowers! I'm sure he did it out of spite, and be hanged to him!'

'Hush, Bernard, don't!'

'A man can't mince his words when he's driven distracted! When I

went through fire and water to get them for her, and it was all his

jealousy, because he saw her pleased.'

'But I don't think those were your flowers.'

'Weren't they, though!'

'I thought you went to get arrow-head?'

'Well--'

'And that is great water-plantain on the table. There are quantities of

it by the churchyard.'

'She never said it was not right.'

'Perhaps she would not vex you.'

'Bosh! You don't know anything about it, Stella; I'll soon find out.'

So Bernard stalked back, followed by his little sister, just as seats

were being taken, with no further exclusiveness, but with the Countess

on one side of Felix, and Gertrude on the other, and Lord Ernest by

Geraldine's side. They had tried to get Mrs. Hodnet's company, but she

would not consent to do anything but fry rashers for them.

'Lady Caergwent,' said Bernard's voice, 'were those the wrong flowers?'

A silence. 'You were very kind to get them for me.'

'Then they weren't arrowhead?'

A still more awful silence. 'Oh! let me see, where are they? Perhaps--'

'Lord Ernest de la Poer sat down upon them,' returned Bernard, in

such a tragic voice, that convulsions of suppressed laughter began to

prevail; 'but here are the remains, such as they are.'

'I am very sorry,' said the Countess, more than half choked as the

faded, squeezed, limp water-plant was extended to her; 'but I can't

flatter you that it is--no--it is not arrowhead.'

'Arrowing, isn't it?' of course muttered the witty pupil.

'But it was just as kind in you,' proceeded Lady Caergwent, conquering

her paroxysm, and looking up with great sweetness in her hazel eyes.

'You went all the way for it, and were caught in the storm, and I am

just as grateful to you.'

'You shall have some before I sleep!' and he was off like a shot.

'Oh! he isn't really gone!--Stop him, Mr. Underwood!--Stop him,

Ernest!--How can you all sit there laughing!'

'It will do him a great deal of good.'

'Felix!' cried Cherry reproachfully from the other end of the table;

'when the poor boy has had nothing to eat!'

'And he's got my new boots on,' ejaculated Pupil Number 2. 'They'll

punish him.'

'It's a great deal too bad,' said Lady Caergwent, flushing up. 'Cherry,

what can I do? Indeed, it wasn't on purpose.'

'Don't you think he could be stopped, Felix!' entreated Cherry, tender

over her boy. 'Is not there some short way to the garden?--Willie!'

'Impossible, Cherry,' said Will. 'No doubt he will go home instead of

coming back here.' And to his neighbour--'Don't distress yourself.

It is the first time I ever saw Bernard stirred out of the grand

simplicity of his _self_-devotion.'

'Where's the Vicar?' broke in Lord Ernest, while Lady Caergwent looked

far from consoled. 'You've not sent him after any water-weeds, have

you?'

'No, a vicar never gets a clear holiday in his own precincts.' said

Will. 'I've rigged him out to go to some cottagers up here--and if they

know him for their shepherd, it's a pity.'

For besides being a shorter and more loosely-built man, the Oxford

tutor, though not unclerical, had not the peculiar ecclesiastical look

of the Vicar of Vale Leston.

'What have you done to Bernard?' said the voice of Clement himself, as

he came in, certainly a good deal transformed. 'I met him galloping

down the lane, and saying he should walk home, and you were not to wait

for him.'

'You didn't turn him back? O Clement!'

'He hasn't quarrelled with any one?' said Clement, anxiously surveying

the ranks; 'he wouldn't tell me.'

'Only with humanity in general,' said Felix. 'He brought Lady

Caergwent the wrong plant, and has rushed headlong to repair the

mistake, without knowing a bit better what the right one was. It is

his first essay in chivalry, and he is having it strong,' he added,

smiling, as he turned to the lady.

'Never mind, Kate,' added Angela, with her usual questionable taste,

'it's only a bog and not a whirlpool that you've made him plunge into;

besides, it isn't the Ewe, so he isn't due to it!'

'Will you take his place in the waggonette, Lord Ernest?' asked Cherry.

'Where's your bag?'

'My bag--I declare it must be at the bottom of the Lady's Rock! We'll

charter a boy to go and look for it.'

'We will stop as we go by. There are plenty of relics to pick up.'

'For hospitality's sake,' said Will, 'I might mention that the room

next the Apple-chamber is at your service.'

'Thank you, since you are so kind, Miss Underwood, I'll come. I want to

see your picture. What are you doing now?'

'A little portrait work,' said Cherry, smiling and blushing, and

looking towards her subject.

'There,' quoth Lord Ernest, to Robina. 'Did not I tell you it was a

Kit-Cat-astrophe!'

'Oh!' said Gertrude, little aware of the by-play, 'I forgot to ask if

you had been going on with Edith of Lorn?'

'The maiden all for-lorn,' was another aspiration of the witty pupil.

'That's just the usual aspect of the Maid of Lorn,' said John, 'only

Geraldine hasn't done her at all, only the last flutter of her cloak.'

'Quite right,' said Lord Ernest; 'that young person always struck me as

taking the oddest way of reclaiming her young man, by charging down the

hill at the head of all the stable-boys, grooms, and helpers.'

'I confess,' said Felix, 'I should have been harder to seek after that

exploit than when all the bridesmaids were singing.'

'No doubt,' said Will, 'he knew best. How often had she scratched his

face in Artornish Hall?!'

In the midst of the laughter a low silvery voice was heard saying to

her neighbour, 'Please read it. You really ought.'

'Only one does get it so thrust down one's throat in the Hebrides,'

returned Charles; 'but I'll try.'

'I agree with you, Stella, it is almost profane of them,' said Lady

Caergwent; 'only one plays with what one loves best.'

'The maiden all forlorn got the best of it at last,' said Angela.

Which made some of them blush, and others make a move to recover the

remnants of the feast. Wilmet wanted to take her boys home to bed,

since the rain had ceased, and the carriages were brought out.

'Shall I offer Master Ratton to those two?' asked Felix of Robina, 'or

is it too barefaced?'

'As yet, till the elders know.'

'Then you must come with me in the basket, Bob. I shall make Clem drive

the waggonette home; he knows the ground better than I do.'

There was a good deal of summer lightning all the way home: but Lady

Caergwent, tightly packed into the waggonette, never started at the

shimmering sheets of pale light. Nay, she loved them all the rest of

her life.

And the arrowhead, which she found in a jug outside her door in the

morning, received full justice, and was in fact the last botanical

specimen ever added to her collection.

The proverbial 'dull elf' alone could fail to figure the ensuing days,

with the semi-concealment of what everybody knew, but no one was

supposed to know before the authorities. How Lady Caergwent sat up at

untimely hours, pouring her heart out to Robina; how Bernard became

melancholy and misanthropical, when cruelly snubbed by Lord Ernest--'I

could have had some pity on him,' was the reply to a remonstrance,

'but for that speech about his brothers.' Angela, on the other hand,

made such endeavours to rescue poor Lord Ernest from being bored, that

Cherry, in constant fear of her exposing herself, told her how matters

stood, when she became furious and scornful at his supposed weariness

of toil, and the succumbing of his resolution. Clement endured it much

better, being quite willing that any one but the clergy should marry,

and knowing Lord Ernest well enough to believe that he would only make

the lady a stronger pillar of the Church.

After a few fresh touches had given a new and different reading to the

portrait, and after a Sunday of bliss that cost Will and Robina some

gulps of envious philosophy, there was a return to the Hammonds, and a

tremendous croquet party to kill off all the neighbourhood before Mrs.

Umfraville's return.

That lady's thankful comfort was only alloyed by sorrow that her

Colonel could not see the fulfilment of his chief wish, while she felt

that the four years' estrangement had improved both in manliness and

womanliness, in forbearance and humility, and the matrimonial balance

would be far easier of adjustment.

Of course invitations and promises to attend the wedding were made in

the heat of the moment, and these were kept in October by Felix and

Geraldine as well as Robina, who a second time dazzled Lady Vanderkist

by her appearance in the list of bridesmaids. It was the last thing

before she, with the whole De la Poer party, went abroad for the winter

for the sake of her little delicate pupil, Susan, who had been ordered

to spend the winter in the Riviera; and ever considerate, when Lord De

la Poer asked his daughter Grace's Mr. Pemberton to join the travellers

at Christmas, he also asked William Harewood; and Robina was the best

off, for the curate could not come when the tutor could.

Mrs. Umfraville made a great deal of Mr. and Miss Underwood at

Caergwent, and they much enjoyed their visit; but it was always a

subject of regret that these outer interests seemed to make Lance feel

at a greater distance from them. Something was amiss, though it was

not easy to make out what it was, and he never allowed that he was

uncomfortable, nor weary of his bicycle or of Mrs. Froggatt.