CHAPTER I.

E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

Editorial note

This book is about the seduction of a young girl by the heir to an

earldom, the resulting illegitimate pregnancy, and the young nobleman's

struggle to decide whether to marry or to abandon the girl--certainly

not the usual content of Victorian novels.

Trollope is believed to have written _An Eye for an Eye_ in 1870, but

he did not publish it until the fall of 1878, when it appeared in

serial form in the _Whitehall Review_, followed by publication of the

entire book in 1879. The reason for delaying publication is unknown,

although Trollope might have been concerned about the book's reception

by the public, given its subject matter and the hostile reception in

1853 of Elizabeth Gaskell's _Ruth_, which dealt with the same subject.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

1879

CONTENTS

VOLUME I.

INTRODUCTION

I. SCROOPE MANOR

II. FRED NEVILLE

III. SOPHIE MELLERBY

IV. JACK NEVILLE

V. ARDKILL COTTAGE

VI. I'LL GO BAIL SHE LIKES IT

VII. FATHER MARTY'S HOSPITALITY

VIII. I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO GO

IX. FRED NEVILLE RETURNS TO SCROOPE

X. FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME

XI. THE WISDOM OF JACK NEVILLE

XII. FRED NEVILLE MAKES A PROMISE

VOLUME II.

I. FROM BAD TO WORSE

II. IS SHE TO BE YOUR WIFE?

III. FRED NEVILLE RECEIVES A VISITOR AT ENNIS

IV. NEVILLE'S SUCCESS

V. FRED NEVILLE IS AGAIN CALLED HOME TO SCROOPE

VI. THE EARL OF SCROOPE IS IN TROUBLE

VII. SANS REPROCHE

VIII. LOOSE ABOUT THE WORLD

IX. AT LISCANNOR

X. AT ARDKILL

XI. ON THE CLIFFS

XII. CONCLUSION

VOLUME I.

INTRODUCTION.

At a private asylum in the west of England there lives, and has lived

for some years past, an unfortunate lady, as to whom there has long

since ceased to be any hope that she should ever live elsewhere. Indeed,

there is no one left belonging to her by whom the indulgence of such a

hope on her behalf could be cherished. Friends she has none; and her

own condition is such, that she recks nothing of confinement and does

not even sigh for release. And yet her mind is ever at work,--as is

doubtless always the case with the insane. She has present to her,

apparently in every waking moment of her existence, an object of intense

interest, and at that she works with a constancy which never wearies

herself, however fatiguing it may be to those who are near her. She is

ever justifying some past action of her life. "An eye for an eye," she

says, "and a tooth for a tooth. Is it not the law?" And these words she

will repeat daily, almost from morn till night.

It has been said that this poor lady has no friends. Friends who would

be anxious for her recovery, who would care to see her even in her

wretched condition, who might try to soothe her harassed heart with

words of love, she has none. Such is her condition now, and her

temperament, that it may be doubted whether any words of love, however

tender, could be efficacious with her. She is always demanding

justification, and as those who are around her never thwart her she has

probably all the solace which kindness could give her.

But, though she has no friends--none who love her,--she has all the

material comfort which friendship or even love could supply. All that

money can do to lessen her misery, is done. The house in which she lives

is surrounded by soft lawns and secluded groves. It has been prepared

altogether for the wealthy, and is furnished with every luxury which

it may be within the power of a maniac to enjoy. This lady has her own

woman to attend her; and the woman, though stout and masterful, is

gentle in language and kind in treatment. "An eye for an eye, ma'am. Oh,

certainly. That is the law. An eye for an eye, no doubt." This formula

she will repeat a dozen times a day--ay, a dozen dozen times, till the

wonder is that she also should not be mad.

The reader need not fear that he is to be asked to loiter within the

precincts of an asylum for the insane. Of this abode of wretchedness no

word more shall be said; but the story shall be told of the lady who

dwelt there,--the story of her life till madness placed her within those

walls. That story was known to none at the establishment but to him who

was its head. Others there, who were cognisant of the condition of the

various patients, only knew that from quarter to quarter the charges for

this poor lady's custody were defrayed by the Earl of Scroope.

CHAPTER I.

SCROOPE MANOR.

Some years ago, it matters not how many, the old Earl of Scroope lived

at Scroope Manor in Dorsetshire. The house was an Elizabethan structure

of some pretensions, but of no fame. It was not known to sight-seers,

as are so many of the residences of our nobility and country gentlemen.

No days in the week were appointed for visiting its glories, nor was

the housekeeper supposed to have a good thing in perquisites from

showing it. It was a large brick building facing on to the village

street,--facing the village, if the hall-door of a house be the main

characteristic of its face; but with a front on to its own grounds from

which opened the windows of the chief apartments. The village of Scroope

consisted of a straggling street a mile in length, with the church and

parsonage at one end, and the Manor-house almost at the other. But

the church stood within the park; and on that side of the street, for

more than half its length, the high, gloomy wall of the Earl's domain

stretched along in face of the publicans, bakers, grocers, two butchers,

and retired private residents whose almost contiguous houses made

Scroope itself seem to be more than a village to strangers. Close to the

Manor and again near to the church, some favoured few had been allowed

to build houses and to cultivate small gardens taken, as it were, in

notches out of the Manor grounds; but these tenements must have been

built at a time in which landowners were very much less jealous than

they are now of such encroachments from their humbler neighbours.

The park itself was large, and the appendages to it such as were fit

for an Earl's establishment;--but there was little about it that was

attractive. The land lay flat, and the timber, which was very plentiful,

had not been made to group itself in picturesque forms. There was the

Manor wood, containing some five hundred acres, lying beyond the church

and far back from the road, intersected with so-called drives, which

were unfit for any wheels but those of timber waggons;--and round the

whole park there was a broad belt of trees. Here and there about the

large enclosed spaces there stood solitary oaks, in which the old Earl

took pride; but at Scroope Manor there was none of that finished

landscape beauty of which the owners of "places" in England are so

justly proud.

The house was large, and the rooms were grand and spacious. There was an

enormous hall into one corner of which the front door opened. There was

a vast library filled with old books which no one ever touched,--huge

volumes of antiquated and now all but useless theology, and folio

editions of the least known classics,--such as men now never read. Not a

book had been added to it since the commencement of the century, and it

may almost be said that no book had been drawn from its shelves for real

use during the same period. There was a suite of rooms,--a salon with

two withdrawing rooms which now were never opened. The big dining-room

was used occasionally, as, in accordance with the traditions of the

family, dinner was served there whenever there were guests at the Manor.

Guests, indeed, at Scroope Manor were not very frequent;--but Lady

Scroope did occasionally have a friend or two to stay with her; and

at long intervals the country clergymen and neighbouring squires were

asked, with their wives, to dinner. When the Earl and his Countess were

alone they used a small breakfast parlour, and between this and the big

dining-room there was the little chamber in which the Countess usually

lived. The Earl's own room was at the back, or if the reader pleases,

front of the house, near the door leading into the street, and was, of

all rooms in the house, the gloomiest.

The atmosphere of the whole place was gloomy. There were none of those

charms of modern creation which now make the mansions of the wealthy

among us bright and joyous. There was not a billiard table in the

house. There was no conservatory nearer than the large old-fashioned

greenhouse, which stood away by the kitchen garden and which seemed to

belong exclusively to the gardener. The papers on the walls were dark

and sombre. The mirrors were small and lustreless. The carpets were old

and dingy. The windows did not open on to the terrace. The furniture was

hardly ancient, but yet antiquated and uncomfortable. Throughout the

house, and indeed throughout the estate, there was sufficient evidence

of wealth; and there certainly was no evidence of parsimony; but at

Scroope Manor money seemed never to have produced luxury. The household

was very large. There was a butler, and a housekeeper, and various

footmen, and a cook with large wages, and maidens in tribes to wait upon

each other, and a colony of gardeners, and a coachman, and a head-groom,

and under-grooms. All these lived well under the old Earl, and knew the

value of their privileges. There was much to get, and almost nothing

to do. A servant might live for ever at Scroope Manor,--if only

sufficiently submissive to Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. There was

certainly no parsimony at the Manor, but the luxurious living of the

household was confined to the servants' department.

To a stranger, and perhaps also to the inmates, the idea of gloom about

the place was greatly increased by the absence of any garden or lawn

near the house. Immediately in front of the mansion, and between it and

the park, there ran two broad gravel terraces, one above another; and

below these the deer would come and browse. To the left of the house,

at nearly a quarter of a mile distant from it, there was a very large

garden indeed,--flower-gardens, and kitchen-gardens, and orchards; all

ugly, and old-fashioned, but producing excellent crops in their kind.

But they were away, and were not seen. Oat flowers were occasionally

brought into the house,--but the place was never filled with flowers

as country houses are filled with them now-a-days. No doubt had Lady

Scroope wished for more she might have had more.

Scroope itself, though a large village, stood a good deal out of the

world. Within the last year or two a railway has been opened, with a

Scroope Road Station, not above three miles from the place; but in

the old lord's time it was eleven miles from its nearest station, at

Dorchester, with which it had communication once a day by an omnibus.

Unless a man had business with Scroope nothing would take him there; and

very few people had business with Scroope. Now and then a commercial

traveller would visit the place with but faint hopes as to trade. A

post-office inspector once in twelve months would call upon plethoric

old Mrs. Applejohn, who kept the small shop for stationery, and was

known as the postmistress. The two sons of the vicar, Mr. Greenmarsh,

would pass backwards and forwards between their father's vicarage and

Marlbro' school. And occasionally the men and women of Scroope would

make a journey to their county town. But the Earl was told that old Mrs.

Brock of the Scroope Arms could not keep the omnibus on the road unless

he would subscribe to aid it. Of course he subscribed. If he had been

told by his steward to subscribe to keep the cap on Mrs. Brock's head,

he would have done so. Twelve pounds a year his Lordship paid towards

the omnibus, and Scroope was not absolutely dissevered from the world.

The Earl himself was never seen out of his own domain, except when

he attended church. This he did twice every Sunday in the year, the

coachman driving him there in the morning and the head-groom in the

afternoon. Throughout the household it was known to be the Earl's

request to his servants that they would attend divine service at least

once every Sunday. None were taken into service but they who were or

who called themselves members of the Church Establishment. It is hardly

probable that many dissenters threw away the chance of such promotion on

any frivolous pretext of religion. Beyond this request, which, coming

from the mouth of Mrs. Bunce, became very imperative, the Earl hardly

ever interfered with his domestics. His own valet had attended him for

the last thirty years; but, beyond his valet and the butler, he hardly

knew the face of one of them. There was a gamekeeper at Scroope Manor,

with two under-gamekeepers; and yet, for, some years, no one, except the

gamekeepers, had ever shot over the lands. Some partridges and a few

pheasants were, however, sent into the house when Mrs. Bunce, moved to

wrath, would speak her mind on that subject.

The Earl of Scroope himself was a tall, thin man, something over seventy

at the time of which I will now begin to speak. His shoulders were much

bent, but otherwise he appeared to be younger than his age. His hair was

nearly white, but his eyes were still bright, and the handsome well-cut

features of his fine face were not reduced to shapelessness by any of

the ravages of time, as is so often the case with men who are infirm as

well as old. Were it not for the long and heavy eyebrows, which gave

something of severity to his face, and for that painful stoop in his

shoulders, he might still have been accounted a handsome man. In youth

he had been a very handsome man, and had shone forth in the world,

popular, beloved, respected, with all the good things the world could

give. The first blow upon him was the death of his wife. That hurt him

sorely, but it did not quite crush him. Then his only daughter died

also, just as she became a bride. High as the Lady Blanche Neville

had stood herself, she had married almost above her rank, and her

father's heart had been full of joy and pride. But she had perished

childless,--in child-birth, and again he was hurt almost to death. There

was still left to him a son,--a youth indeed thoughtless, lavish, and

prone to evil pleasures. But thought would come with years; for almost

any lavishness there were means sufficient; and evil pleasures might

cease to entice. The young Lord Neville was all that was left to the

Earl, and for his heir he paid debts and forgave injuries. The young

man would marry and all might be well. Then he found a bride for his

boy,--with no wealth, but owning the best blood in the kingdom, beautiful,

good, one who might be to him as another daughter. His boy's answer was

that he was already married! He had chosen his wife from out of the

streets, and offered to the Earl of Scroope as a child to replace the

daughter who had gone, a wretched painted prostitute from France. After

that Lord Scroope never again held up his head.

The father would not see his heir,--and never saw him again. As to what

money might be needed, the lawyers in London were told to manage that.

The Earl himself would give nothing and refuse nothing. When there were

debts,--debts for the second time, debts for the third time, the lawyers

were instructed to do what in their own eyes seemed good to them. They

might pay as long as they deemed it right to pay, but they might not

name Lord Neville to his father.

While things were thus the Earl married again,--the penniless daughter

of a noble house,--a woman not young, for she was forty when he married

her, but more than twenty years his junior. It sufficed for him that she

was noble, and as he believed good. Good to him she was,--with a duty

that was almost excessive. Religious she was, and self-denying; giving

much and demanding little; keeping herself in the background, but

possessing wonderful energy in the service of others. Whether she could

in truth be called good the reader may say when he has finished this

story.

Then, when the Earl had been married some three years to his second

wife, the heir died. He died, and as far as Scroope Manor was concerned

there was an end of him and of the creature he had called his wife.

An annuity was purchased for her. That she should be entitled to call

herself Lady Neville while she lived, was the sad necessity of the

condition. It was understood by all who came near the Earl that no one

was to mention her within his hearing. He was thankful that no heir had

come from that most horrid union. The woman was never mentioned to him

again, nor need she trouble us further in the telling of our chronicle.

But when Lord Neville died, it was necessary that the old man should

think of his new heir. Alas; in that family, though there was much that

was good and noble, there had ever been intestine feuds,--causes of

quarrel in which each party would be sure that he was right. They were

a people who thought much of the church, who were good to the poor, who

strove to be noble;--but they could not forgive injuries. They could

not forgive even when there were no injuries. The present Earl had

quarrelled with his brother in early life;--and had therefore quarrelled

with all that had belonged to the brother. The brother was now gone,

leaving two sons behind him,--two young Nevilles, Fred and Jack, of whom

Fred, the eldest, was now the heir. It was at last settled that Fred

should be sent for to Scroope Manor. Fred came, being at that time a

lieutenant in a cavalry regiment,--a fine handsome youth of five and

twenty, with the Neville eyes and Neville finely cut features. Kindly

letters passed between the widowed mother and the present Lady Scroope;

and it was decided at last, at his own request, that he should remain

one year longer in the army, and then be installed as the eldest son at

Scroope Manor. Again the lawyer was told to do what was proper in regard

to money.

A few words more must be said of Lady Scroope, and then the preface to

our story will be over. She too was an Earl's daughter, and had been

much loved by our Earl's first wife. Lady Scroope had been the elder by

ten years; but yet they had been dear friends, and Lady Mary Wycombe had

passed many months of her early life amidst the gloom of the great rooms

at Scroope Manor. She had thus known the Earl well before she consented

to marry him. She had never possessed beauty,--and hardly grace. She was

strong featured, tall, with pride clearly written in her face. A reader

of faces would have declared at once that she was proud of the blood

which ran in her veins. She was very proud of her blood, and did in

truth believe that noble birth was a greater gift than any wealth. She

was thoroughly able to look down upon a parvenu millionaire,--to look

down upon such a one and not to pretend to despise him. When the Earl's

letter came to her asking her to share his gloom, she was as poor as

Charity,--dependent on a poor brother who hated the burden of such

claim. But she would have wedded no commoner, let his wealth and age

have been as they might. She knew Lord Scroope's age, and she knew the

gloom of Scroope Manor;--and she became his wife. To her of course was

told the story of the heir's marriage, and she knew that she could

expect no light, no joy in the old house from the scions of the rising

family. But now all this was changed, and it might be that she could

take the new heir to her heart.

CHAPTER II.

FRED NEVILLE.

When Fred Neville first came to the Manor, the old Earl trembled when

called upon to receive him. Of the lad he had heard almost nothing,--of

his appearance literally nothing. It might be that his heir would be

meanly visaged, a youth of whom he would have cause to be ashamed,

one from whose countenance no sign of high blood would shine out; or,

almost worse, he also might have that look, half of vanity, and half

of vice, of which the father had gradually become aware in his own

son, and which in him had degraded the Neville beauty. But Fred, to

look at, was a gallant fellow,--such a youth as women love to see

about a house,--well-made, active, quick, self-asserting, fair-haired,

blue-eyed, short-lipped, with small whiskers, thinking but little of his

own personal advantages, but thinking much of his own way. As far as the

appearance of the young man went the Earl could not but be satisfied.

And to him, at any rate in this, the beginning of their connexion, Fred

Neville was modest and submissive. "You are welcome to Scroope," said

the old man, receiving him with stately urbanity in the middle of the

hall. "I am so much obliged to you, uncle," he said. "You are come to

me as a son, my boy,--as a son. It will be your own fault if you are

not a son to us in everything." Then in lieu of further words there

shone a tear in each of the young man's eyes, much more eloquent to the

Earl than could have been any words. He put his arm over his nephew's

shoulders, and in this guise walked with him into the room in which Lady

Scroope was awaiting them. "Mary," he said to his wife, "here is our

heir. Let him be a son to us." Then Lady Scroope took the young man

in her arms and kissed him. Thus auspiciously was commenced this new

connexion.

The arrival was in September, and the game-keeper, with the under

gamekeeper, had for the last month been told to be on his mettle. Young

Mr. Neville was no doubt a sportsman. And the old groom had been warned

that hunters might be wanted in the stables next winter. Mrs. Bunce

was made to understand that liberties would probably be taken with the

house, such as had not yet been perpetrated in her time;--for the late

heir had never made the Manor his home from the time of his leaving

school. It was felt by all that great changes were to be effected,--and

it was felt also that the young man on whose behalf all this was to be

permitted, could not but be elated by his position. Of such elation,

however, there were not many signs. To his uncle, Fred Neville was, as

has been said, modest and submissive; to his aunt he was gentle but not

submissive. The rest of the household he treated civilly, but with none

of that awe which was perhaps expected from him. As for shooting, he

had come direct from his friend Carnaby's moor. Carnaby had forest

as well as moor, and Fred thought but little of partridges,--little

of such old-fashioned partridge-shooting as was prepared for him at

Scroope,--after grouse and deer. As for hunting in Dorsetshire, if his

uncle wished it,--why in that case he would think of it. According to

his ideas, Dorsetshire was not the best county in England for hunting.

Last year his regiment had been at Bristol and he had ridden with the

Duke's hounds. This winter he was to be stationed in Ireland, and he had

an idea that Irish hunting was good. If he found that his uncle made

a point of it, he would bring his horses to Scroope for a month at

Christmas. Thus he spoke to the head groom,--and thus he spoke also to

his aunt, who felt some surprise when he talked of Scotland and his

horses. She had thought that only men of large fortunes shot deer and

kept studs,--and perhaps conceived that the officers of the 20th Hussars

were generally engaged in looking after the affairs of their regiment,

and in preparation for meeting the enemy.

Fred now remained a month at Scroope, and during that time there was but

little personal intercourse between him and his uncle in spite of the

affectionate greeting with which their acquaintance had been commenced.

The old man's habits of life were so confirmed that he could not bring

himself to alter them. Throughout the entire morning he would sit in

his own room alone. He would then be visited by his steward, his groom,

and his butler;--and would think that he gave his orders, submitting,

however, in almost every thing to them. His wife would sometimes sit

with him for half an hour, holding his hand, in moments of tenderness

unseen and unsuspected by all the world around them. Sometimes the

clergyman of the parish would come to him, so that he might know the

wants of the people. He would have the newspaper in his hands for

a while, and would daily read the Bible for an hour. Then he would

slowly write some letter, almost measuring every point which his pen

made,--thinking that thus he was performing his duty as a man of

business. Few men perhaps did less,--but what he did do was good; and

of self-indulgence there was surely none. Between such a one and the

young man who had now come to his house there could be but little real

connexion.

Between Fred Neville and Lady Scroope there arose a much closer

intimacy. A woman can get nearer to a young man than can any old

man;--can learn more of his ways, and better understand his wishes. From

the very first there arose between them a matter of difference, as to

which there was no quarrel, but very much of argument. In that argument

Lady Scroope was unable to prevail. She was very anxious that the heir

should at once abandon his profession and sell out of the army. Of what

use could it be to him now to run after his regiment to Ireland, seeing

that undoubtedly the great duties of his life all centred at Scroope?

There were many discussions on the subject, but Fred would not give

way in regard to the next year. He would have this year, he said, to

himself;--and after that he would come and settle himself at Scroope.

Yes; no doubt he would marry as soon as he could find a fitting wife. Of

course it would be right that he should marry. He fully understood the

responsibilities of his position;--so he said, in answer to his aunt's

eager, scrutinising, beseeching questions. But as he had joined his

regiment, he thought it would be good for him to remain with it one year

longer. He particularly desired to see something of Ireland, and if he

did not do so now, he would never have the opportunity. Lady Scroope,

understanding well that he was pleading for a year of grace from the

dulness of the Manor, explained to him that his uncle would by no means

expect that he should remain always at Scroope. If he would marry,

the old London house should be prepared for him and his bride. He

might travel,--not, however, going very far afield. He might get into

Parliament; as to which, if such were his ambition, his uncle would give

him every aid. He might have his friends at Scroope Manor,--Carnaby and

all the rest of them. Every allurement was offered to him. But he had

commenced by claiming a year of grace, and to that claim he adhered.

Could his uncle have brought himself to make the request in person, at

first, he might probably have succeeded;--and had he succeeded, there

would have been no story for us as to the fortunes of Scroope Manor. But

the Earl was too proud and perhaps too diffident to make the attempt.

From his wife he heard all that took place; and though he was grieved,

he expressed no anger. He could not feel himself justified in expressing

anger because his nephew chose to remain for yet a year attached to his

profession. "Who knows what may happen to him?" said the Countess.

"Ah, indeed! But we are all in the hands of the Almighty." And the

Earl bowed his head. Lady Scroope, fully recognizing the truth of her

husband's pious ejaculation, nevertheless thought that human care might

advantageously be added to the divine interposition for which, as she

well knew, her lord prayed fervently as soon as the words were out of

his mouth.

"But it would be so great a thing if he could be settled. Sophia

Mellerby has promised to come here for a couple of months in the winter.

He could not possibly do better than that."

"The Mellerbys are very good people," said the Earl. "Her grandmother,

the duchess, is one of the very best women in England. Her mother, Lady

Sophia, is an excellent creature,--religious, and with the soundest

principles. Mr. Mellerby, as a commoner, stands as high as any man in

England."

"They have held the same property since the wars of the roses. And then

I suppose the money should count for something," added the lady.

Lord Scroope would not admit the importance of the money, but was quite

willing to acknowledge that were his heir to make Sophia Mellerby the

future Lady Scroope he would be content. But he could not interfere.

He did not think it wise to speak to young men on such a subject. He

thought that by doing so a young man might be rather diverted from than

attracted to the object in view. Nor would he press his wishes upon his

nephew as to next year. "Were I to ask it," he said, "and were he to

refuse me, I should be hurt. I am bound therefore to ask nothing that

is unreasonable." Lady Scroope did not quite agree with her husband

in this. She thought that as every thing was to be done for the young

man; as money almost without stint was to be placed at his command; as

hunting, parliament, and a house in London were offered to him;--as

the treatment due to a dear and only son was shown to him, he ought to

give something in return; but she herself, could say no more than she

had said, and she knew already that in those few matters in which her

husband had a decided will, he was not to be turned from it.

It was arranged, therefore, that Fred Neville should join his regiment

at Limerick in October, and that he should come home to Scroope for a

fortnight or three weeks at Christmas. Sophia Mellerby was to be Lady

Scroope's guest at that time, and at last it was decided that Mrs.

Neville, who had never been seen by the Earl, should be asked to

come and bring with her her younger son, John Neville, who had been

successful in obtaining a commission in the Engineers. Other guests

should be invited, and an attempt should be made to remove the mantle

of gloom from Scroope Manor,--with the sole object of ingratiating the

heir.

Early in October Fred went to Limerick, and from thence with a detached

troop of his regiment he was sent to the cavalry barracks at Ennis, the

assize town of the neighbouring County Clare. This was at first held to

be a misfortune by him, as Limerick is in all respects a better town

than Ennis, and in County Limerick the hunting is far from being bad,

whereas Clare is hardly a country for a Nimrod. But a young man, with

money at command, need not regard distances; and the Limerick balls and

the Limerick coverts were found to be equally within reach. From Ennis

also he could attend some of the Galway meets,--and then with no other

superior than a captain hardly older than himself to interfere with

his movements, he could indulge in that wild district the spirit of

adventure which was strong within him. When young men are anxious to

indulge the spirit of adventure, they generally do so by falling in love

with young women of whom their fathers and mothers would not approve. In

these days a spirit of adventure hardly goes further than this, unless

it take a young man to a German gambling table.

When Fred left Scroope it was understood that he was to correspond

with his aunt. The Earl would have been utterly lost had he attempted

to write a letter to his nephew without having something special to

communicate to him. But Lady Scroope was more facile with her pen,

and it was rightly thought that the heir would hardly bring himself

to look upon Scroope as his home, unless some link were maintained

between himself and the place. Lady Scroope therefore wrote once a

week,--telling everything that there was to be told of the horses, the

game, and even of the tenants. She studied her letters, endeavouring to

make them light and agreeable,--such as a young man of large prospects

would like to receive from his own mother. He was "Dearest Fred," and

in one of those earliest written she expressed a hope that should any

trouble ever fall upon him he would come to her as to his dearest

friend. Fred was not a bad correspondent, and answered about every other

letter. His replies were short, but that was a matter of course. He was

"as jolly as a sandboy," "right as a trivet;" had had "one or two very

good things," and thought that upon the whole he liked Ennis better than

Limerick. "Johnstone is such a deuced good fellow!" Johnstone was the

captain of the 20th Hussars who happened to be stationed with him at

Limerick. Lady Scroope did not quite like the epithet, but she knew

that she had to learn to hear things to which she had hitherto not been

accustomed.

This was all very well;--but Lady Scroope, having a friend in Co. Clare,

thought that she might receive tidings of the adopted one which would be

useful, and with this object she opened a correspondence with Lady Mary

Quin. Lady Mary Quin was a daughter of the Earl of Kilfenora, and was

well acquainted with all County Clare. She was almost sure to hear of

the doings of any officers stationed at Ennis, and would do so certainly

in regard to an officer that was specially introduced to her. Fred

Neville was invited to stay at Castle Quin as long as he pleased, and

actually did pass one night under its roof. But, unfortunately for him,

that spirit of adventure which he was determined to indulge led him into

the neighbourhood of Castle Quin when it was far from his intention to

interfere with the Earl or with Lady Mary, and thus led to the following

letter which Lady Scroope received about the middle of December,--just a

week before Fred's return to the Manor.

QUIN CASTLE, ENNISTIMON,

14 December, 18--.

MY DEAR LADY SCROOPE,

Since I wrote to you before, Mr. Neville has been here once, and we

all liked him very much. My father was quite taken with him. He is

always fond of the young officers, and is not the less inclined to

be so of one who is so dear and near to you. I wish he would have

stayed longer, and hope that he shall come again. We have not much

to offer in the way of amusement, but in January and February there

is good snipe shooting.

I find that Mr. Neville is very fond of shooting,--so much so that

before we knew anything of him except his name we had heard that he

had been on our coast after seals and sea birds. We have very high

cliffs near here,--some people say the highest in the world, and

there is one called the Hag's Head from which men get down and

shoot sea-gulls. He has been different times in our village of

Liscannor, and I think he has a boat there or at Lahinch. I believe

he has already killed ever so many seals.

I tell you all this for a reason. I hope that it may come to

nothing, but I think that you ought to know. There is a widow lady

living not very far from Liscannor, but nearer up to the cliffs.

Her cottage is on papa's property, but I think she holds it from

somebody else. I don't like to say anything to papa about it. Her

name is Mrs. O'Hara, and she has a daughter.

When Lady Scroope had read so far, she almost let the paper drop from

her hand. Of course she knew what it all meant. An Irish Miss O'Hara!

And Fred Neville was spending his time in pursuit of this girl! Lady

Scroope had known what it would be when the young man was allowed to

return to his regiment in spite of the manifold duties which should have

bound him to Scroope Manor.

I have seen this young lady,

continued Lady Mary,

and she is certainly very pretty. But nobody knows anything about

them; and I cannot even learn whether they belong to the real

O'Haras. I should think not, as they are Roman Catholics. At

any rate Miss O'Hara can hardly be a fitting companion for Lord

Scroope's heir. I believe they are ladies, but I don't think that

any one knows them here, except the priest of Kilmacrenny. We never

could make out quite why they came here,--only that Father Marty

knows something about them. He is the priest of Kilmacrenny. She is

a very pretty girl, and I never heard a word against her;--but I

don't know whether that does not make it worse, because a young man

is so likely to get entangled.

I daresay nothing shall come of it, and I'm sure I hope that

nothing may. But I thought it best to tell you. Pray do not let him

know that you have heard from me. Young men are so very particular

about things, and I don't know what he might say of me if he knew

that I had written home to you about his private affairs. All the

same if I can be of any service to you, pray let me know. Excuse

haste. And believe me to be,

Yours most sincerely,

MARY QUIN.

A Roman Catholic;--one whom no one knew but the priest;--a girl who

perhaps never had a father! All this was terrible to Lady Scroope. Roman

Catholics,--and especially Irish Roman Catholics,--were people whom,

as she thought, every one should fear in this world, and for whom

everything was to be feared in the next. How would it be with the Earl

if this heir also were to tell him some day that he was married? Would

not his grey hairs be brought to the grave with a double load of sorrow?

However, for the present she thought it better to say not a word to the

Earl.

CHAPTER III.

SOPHIE MELLERBY.

Lady Scroope thought a great deal about her friend's communication, but

at last made up her mind that she could do nothing till Fred should have

returned. Indeed she hardly knew what she could do when he did come

back. The more she considered it the greater seemed to her to be the

difficulty of doing anything. How is a woman, how is even a mother, to

caution a young man against the danger of becoming acquainted with a

pretty girl? She could not mention Miss O'Hara's name without mentioning

that of Lady Mary Quin in connexion with it. And when asked, as of

course she would be asked, as to her own information, what could she

say? She had been told that he had made himself acquainted with a widow

lady who had a pretty daughter, and that was all! When young men will

run into such difficulties, it is, alas, so very difficult to interfere

with them!

And yet the matter was of such importance as to justify almost any

interference. A Roman Catholic Irish girl of whom nothing was known but

that her mother was said to be a widow, was, in Lady Scroope's eyes, as

formidable a danger as could come in the way of her husband's heir. Fred

Neville was, she thought, with all his good qualities, exactly the man

to fall in love with a wild Irish girl. If Fred were to write home some

day and say that he was about to marry such a bride,--or, worse again,

that he had married her, the tidings would nearly kill the Earl. After

all that had been endured, such a termination to the hopes of the family

would be too cruel! And Lady Scroope could not but feel the injustice of

it. Every thing was being done for this heir, for whom nothing need have

been done. He was treated as a son, but he was not a son. He was treated

with exceptional favour as a son. Everything was at his disposal. He

might marry and begin life at once with every want amply supplied, if

he would only marry such a woman as was fit to be a future Countess of

Scroope. Very little was required from him. He was not expected to marry

an heiress. An heiress indeed was prepared for him, and would be there,

ready for him at Christmas,--an heiress, beautiful, well-born, fit in

every respect,--religious too. But he was not to be asked to marry

Sophie Mellerby. He might choose for himself. There were other well-born

young women about the world,--duchesses' granddaughters in abundance!

But it was imperative that he should marry at least a lady, and at least

a Protestant.

Lady Scroope felt very strongly that he should never have been allowed

to rejoin his regiment, when a home at Scroope was offered to him. He

was a free agent of course, and equally of course the title and the

property must ultimately be his. But something of a bargain might have

been made with him when all the privileges of a son were offered to him.

When he was told that he might have all Scroope to himself,--for it

amounted nearly to that; that he might hunt there and shoot there and

entertain his friends; that the family house in London should be given

up to him if he would marry properly; that an income almost without

limit should be provided for him, surely it would not have been too much

to demand that as a matter of course he should leave the army! But this

had not been done; and now there was an Irish Roman Catholic widow with

a daughter, with seal-shooting and a boat and high cliffs right in the

young man's way! Lady Scroope could not analyse it, but felt all the

danger as though it were by instinct. Partridge and pheasant shooting

on a gentleman's own grounds, and an occasional day's hunting with the

hounds in his own county, were, in Lady Scroope's estimation, becoming

amusements for an English gentleman. They did not interfere with the

exercise of his duties. She had by no means brought herself to like the

yearly raids into Scotland made latterly by sportsmen. But if Scotch

moors and forests were dangerous, what were Irish cliffs! Deer-stalking

was bad in her imagination. She was almost sure that when men went up

to Scotch forests they did not go to church on Sundays. But the idea of

seal-shooting was much more horrible. And then there was that priest who

was the only friend of the widow who had the daughter!

On the morning of the day in which Fred was to reach the Manor, Lady

Scroope did speak to her husband. "Don't you think, my dear, that

something might be done to prevent Fred's returning to that horrid

country?"

"What can we do?"

"I suppose he would wish to oblige you. You are being very good to him."

"It is for the old to give, Mary, and for the young to accept. I do all

for him because he is all to me; but what am I to him, that he should

sacrifice any pleasure for me? He can break my heart. Were I even to

quarrel with him, the worst I could do would be to send him to the

money-lenders for a year or two."

"But why should he care about his regiment now?"

"Because his regiment means liberty."

"And you won't ask him to give it up?"

"I think not. If I were to ask him I should expect him to yield, and

then I should be disappointed were he to refuse. I do not wish him to

think me a tyrant." This was the end of the conversation, for Lady

Scroope did not as yet dare to speak to the Earl about the widow and her

daughter. She must now try her skill and eloquence with the young man

himself.

The young man arrived and was received with kindest greetings. Two

horses had preceded him, so that he might find himself mounted as soon

as he chose after his arrival, and two others were coming. This was all

very well, but his aunt was a little hurt when he declared his purpose

of going down to the stables just as she told him that Sophia Mellerby

was in the house. He arrived on the 23rd at 4 P.M., and it had been

declared that he was to hunt on the morrow. It was already dark, and

surely he might have been content on the first evening of his arrival to

abstain from the stables! Not a word had been said to Sophie Mellerby

of Lady Scroope's future hopes. Lady Scroope and Lady Sophia would each

have thought that it was wicked to do so. But the two women had been

fussy, and Miss Mellerby must have been less discerning than are young

ladies generally, had she not understood what was expected of her. Girls

are undoubtedly better prepared to fall in love with men whom they have

never seen, than are men with girls. It is a girl's great business in

life to love and to be loved. Of some young men it may almost be said

that it is their great business to avoid such a catastrophe. Such ought

not to have been the case with Fred Neville now;--but in such light he

regarded it. He had already said to himself that Sophie Mellerby was to

be pitched at his head. He knew no reason,--none as yet,--why he should

not like Miss Mellerby well enough. But he was a little on his guard

against her, and preferred seeing his horses first. Sophie, when

according to custom, and indeed in this instance in accordance with

special arrangement, she went into Lady Scroope's sitting-room for tea,

was rather disappointed at not finding Mr. Neville there. She knew that

he had visited his uncle immediately on his arrival, and having just

come in from the park she had gone to her room to make some little

preparation for the meeting. If it was written in Fate's book that she

was to be the next Lady Scroope, the meeting was important. Perhaps that

writing in Fate's book might depend on the very adjustment which she was

now making of her hair.

"He has gone to look at his horses," said Lady Scroope, unable not to

shew her disappointment by the tone of her voice.

"That is so natural," said Sophie, who was more cunning. "Young men

almost idolize their horses. I should like to go and see Dandy whenever

he arrives anywhere, only I don't dare!" Dandy was Miss Mellerby's own

horse, and was accustomed to make journeys up and down between Mellerby

and London.

"I don't think horses and guns and dogs should be too much thought of,"

said Lady Scroope gravely. "There is a tendency I think at present to

give them an undue importance. When our amusements become more serious

to us than our business, we must be going astray."

"I suppose we always are going astray," said Miss Mellerby. Lady Scroope

sighed and shook her head; but in shaking it she shewed that she

completely agreed with the opinion expressed by her guest.

As there were only two horses to be inspected, and as Fred Neville

absolutely refused the groom's invitation to look at the old carriage

horses belonging to the family, he was back in his aunt's room before

Miss Mellerby had gone upstairs to dress for dinner. The introduction

was made, and Fred did his best to make himself agreeable. He was such

a man that no girl could, at the first sight of him, think herself

injured by being asked to love him. She was a good girl, and would have

consented to marry no man without feeling sure of his affections; but

Fred Neville was bold and frank as well as handsome, and had plenty to

say for himself. It might be that he was vicious, or ill-tempered, or

selfish, and it would be necessary that she should know much of him

before she would give herself into his keeping; but as far as the first

sight went, and the first hearing, Sophie Mellerby's impressions were

all in Fred's favour. It is no doubt a fact that with the very best of

girls a man is placed in a very good light by being heir to a peerage

and a large property.

"Do you hunt, Miss Mellerby?" he asked. She shook her head and looked

grave, and then laughed. Among her people hunting was not thought to be

a desirable accomplishment for young ladies. "Almost all girls do hunt

now," said Fred.

"Do you think it is a nice amusement for young ladies?" asked the aunt

in a severe tone.

"I don't see why not;--that is if they know how to ride."

"I know how to ride," said Sophie Mellerby.

"Riding is all very well," said Lady Scroope. "I quite approve of it

for girls. When I was young, everybody did not ride as they do now.

Nevertheless it is very well, and is thought to be healthy. But as for

hunting, Sophie, I'm sure your mamma would be very much distressed if

you were to think of such a thing."

"But, dear Lady Scroope, I haven't thought of it, and I am not going to

think of it;--and if I thought of it ever so much, I shouldn't do it.

Poor mamma would be frightened into fits,--only that nobody at Mellerby

could possibly be made to believe it, unless they saw me doing it."

"Then there can be no reason why you shouldn't make the attempt," said

Fred. Upon which Lady Scroope pretended to look grave, and told him that

he was very wicked. But let an old lady be ever so strict towards her

own sex, she likes a little wickedness in a young man,--if only he does

not carry it to the extent of marrying the wrong sort of young woman.

Sophia Mellerby was a tall, graceful, well-formed girl, showing her high

blood in every line of her face. On her mother's side she had come from

the Ancrums, whose family, as everybody knows, is one of the oldest in

England; and, as the Earl had said, the Mellerbys had been Mellerbys

from the time of King John, and had been living on the same spot for

at least four centuries. They were and always had been Mellerbys of

Mellerby,--the very name of the parish being the same as that of the

family. If Sophia Mellerby did not shew breeding, what girl could shew

it? She was fair, with a somewhat thin oval face, with dark eyes, and

an almost perfect Grecian nose. Her mouth was small, and her chin

delicately formed. And yet it can hardly be said that she was beautiful.

Or, if beautiful, she was so in women's eyes rather than in those of

men. She lacked colour and perhaps animation in her countenance. She had

more character, indeed, than was told by her face, which is generally

so true an index of the mind. Her education had been as good as England

could afford, and her intellect had been sufficient to enable her to

make use of it. But her chief charm in the eyes of many consisted in the

fact, doubted by none, that she was every inch a lady. She was an only

daughter, too,--with an only brother; and as the Ancrums were all rich,

she would have a very pretty fortune of her own. Fred Neville, who had

literally been nobody before his cousin had died, might certainly do

much worse than marry her.

And after a day or two they did seem to get on very well together. He

had reached Scroope on the 21st, and on the 23rd Mrs. Neville arrived

with her youngest son Jack Neville. This was rather a trial to the Earl,

as he had never yet seen his brother's widow. He had heard when his

brother married that she was fast, fond of riding, and loud. She had

been the daughter of a Colonel Smith, with whom his brother, at that

time a Captain Neville, had formed acquaintance;--and had been a beauty

very well known as such at Dublin and other garrison towns. No real harm

had ever been known of her, but the old Earl had always felt that his

brother had made an unfortunate marriage. As at that time they had not

been on speaking terms, it had not signified much;--but there had been a

prejudice at Scroope against the Captain's wife, which by no means died

out when the late Julia Smith became the Captain's widow with two sons.

Old reminiscences remain very firm with old people,--and Lord Scroope

was still much afraid of the fast, loud beauty. His principles told him

that he should not sever the mother from the son, and that as it suited

him to take the son for his own purposes, he should also, to some

extent, accept the mother also. But he dreaded the affair. He dreaded

Mrs. Neville; and he dreaded Jack, who had been so named after his

gallant grandfather, Colonel Smith. When Mrs. Neville arrived, she was

found to be so subdued and tame that she could hardly open her mouth

before the old Earl. Her loudness, if she ever had been loud, was

certainly all gone,--and her fastness, if ever she had been fast, had

been worn out of her. She was an old woman, with the relics of great

beauty, idolizing her two sons for whom all her life had been a

sacrifice, in weak health, and prepared, if necessary, to sit in silent

awe at the feet of the Earl who had been so good to her boy.

"I don't know how to thank you for what you have done," she said, in a

low voice.

"No thanks are required," said the Earl. "He is the same to us as if he

were our own." Then she raised the old man's hand and kissed it,--and

the old man owned to himself that he had made a mistake.

As to Jack Neville--. But Jack Neville shall have another chapter opened

on his behalf.

CHAPTER IV.

JACK NEVILLE.

John is a very respectable name;--perhaps there is no name more

respectable in the English language. Sir John, as the head of a family,

is certainly as respectable as any name can be. For an old family

coachman it beats all names. Mr. John Smith would be sure to have a

larger balance at his banker's than Charles Smith or Orlando Smith,--or

perhaps than any other Smith whatever. The Rev. Frederic Walker

might be a wet parson, but the Rev. John Walker would assuredly be

a good clergyman at all points, though perhaps a little dull in his

sermons. Yet almost all Johns have been Jacks, and Jack, in point of

respectability, is the very reverse of John. How it is, or when it

is, that the Jacks become re-Johned, and go back to the original and

excellent name given to them by their godfathers and godmothers, nobody

ever knows. Jack Neville, probably through some foolish fondness on his

mother's part, had never been re-Johned,--and consequently the Earl,

when he made up his mind to receive his sister-in-law, was at first

unwilling to invite his younger nephew. "But he is in the Engineers,"

said Lady Scroope. The argument had its weight, and Jack Neville was

invited. But even that argument failed to obliterate the idea which had

taken hold of the Earl's mind. There had never yet been a Jack among the

Scroopes.

When Jack came he was found to be very unlike the Nevilles in

appearance. In the first place he was dark, and in the next place he

was ugly. He was a tall, well-made fellow, taller than his brother,

and probably stronger; and he had very different eyes,--very dark

brown eyes, deeply set in his head, with large dark eyebrows. He wore

his black hair very short, and had no beard whatever. His features

were hard, and on one cheek he had a cicatrice, the remains of some

misfortune that had happened to him in his boyhood. But in spite of his

ugliness,--for he was ugly, there was much about him in his gait and

manner that claimed attention. Lord Scroope, the moment that he saw him,

felt that he ought not to be called Jack. Indeed the Earl was almost

afraid of him, and so after a time was the Countess. "Jack ought to have

been the eldest," Fred had said to his aunt.

"Why should he have been the eldest?"

"Because he is so much the cleverest. I could never have got into the

Engineers."

"That seems to be a reason why he should be the youngest," said Lady

Scroope.

Two or three other people arrived, and the house became much less

dull than was its wont. Jack Neville occasionally rode his brother's

horses, and the Earl was forced to acknowledge another mistake. The

mother was very silent, but she was a lady. The young Engineer was not

only a gentleman,--but for his age a very well educated gentleman, and

Lord Scroope was almost proud of his relatives. For the first week the

affair between Fred Neville and Miss Mellerby really seemed to make

progress. She was not a girl given to flirting,--not prone to outward

demonstrations of partiality for a young man; but she never withdrew

herself from her intended husband, and Fred seemed quite willing to

be attentive. Not a word was said to hurry the young people, and Lady

Scroope's hopes were high. Of course no allusion had been made to those

horrid Irish people, but it did not seem to Lady Scroope that the heir

had left his heart behind him in Co. Clare.

Fred had told his aunt in one of his letters that he would stay three

weeks at Scroope, but she had not supposed that he would limit himself

exactly to that period. No absolute limit had been fixed for the visit

of Mrs. Neville and her younger son, but it was taken for granted that

they would not remain should Fred depart. As to Sophie Mellerby, her

visit was elastic. She was there for a purpose, and might remain all the

winter if the purpose could be so served. For the first fortnight Lady

Scroope thought that the affair was progressing well. Fred hunted three

days a week, and was occasionally away from home,--going to dine with

a regiment at Dorchester, and once making a dash up to London; but his

manner to Miss Mellerby was very nice, and there could be no doubt but

that Sophie liked him. When, on a sudden, the heir said a word to his

aunt which was almost equal to firing a pistol at her head. "I think

Master Jack is making it all square with Sophie Mellerby."

If there was anything that Lady Scroope hated almost as much as improper

marriages it was slang. She professed that she did not understand it;

and in carrying out her profession always stopped the conversation to

have any word explained to her which she thought had been used in an

improper sense. The idea of a young man making it "all square" with a

young woman was repulsive, but the idea of this young man making it "all

square" with this young woman was so much more repulsive, and the misery

to her was so intensely heightened by the unconcern displayed by the

heir in so speaking of the girl with whom he ought to have been making

it "all square" himself, that she could hardly allow herself to be

arrested by that stumbling block. "Impossible!" she exclaimed,--"that is

if you mean,--if you mean,--if you mean anything at all."

"I do mean a good deal."

"Then I don't believe a word of it. It's quite out of the question. It's

impossible. I'm quite sure your brother understands his position as a

gentleman too thoroughly to dream of such a thing."

This was Greek to Fred Neville. Why his brother should not fall in love

with a pretty girl, and why a pretty girl should not return the feeling,

without any disgrace to his brother, Fred could not understand. His

brother was a Neville, and was moreover an uncommonly clever fellow.

"Why shouldn't he dream of it?"

"In the first place--. Well! I did think, Fred, that you yourself seemed

to be,--seemed to be taken with Miss Mellerby."

"Who? I? Oh, dear no. She's a very nice girl and all that, and I like

her amazingly. If she were Jack's wife, I never saw a girl I should so

much like for a sister."

"It is quite out of the question. I wonder that you can speak in such a

way. What right can your brother have to think of such a girl as Miss

Mellerby? He has no position;--no means."

"He is my brother," said Fred, with a little touch of anger,--already

discounting his future earldom on his brother's behalf.

"Yes;--he is your brother; but you don't suppose that Mr. Mellerby would

give his daughter to an officer in the Engineers who has, as far as I

know, no private means whatever."

"He will have,--when my mother dies. Of course I can't speak of doing

anything for anybody at present. I may die before my uncle. Nothing is

more likely. But then, if I do, Jack would be my uncle's heir."

"I don't believe there's anything in it at all," said Lady Scroope in

great dudgeon.

"I dare say not. If there is, they haven't told me. It's not likely they

would. But I thought I saw something coming up, and as it seemed to be

the most natural thing in the world, I mentioned it. As for me,--Miss

Mellerby doesn't care a straw for me. You may be sure of that."

"She would--if you'd ask her."

"But I never shall ask her. What's the use of beating about the bush,

aunt? I never shall ask her; and if I did, she wouldn't have me. If you

want to make Sophie Mellerby your niece, Jack's your game."

Lady Scroope was ineffably disgusted. To be told that "Jack was her

game" was in itself a terrible annoyance to her. But to be so told in

reference to such a subject was painful in the extreme. Of course she

could not make this young man marry as she wished. She had acknowledged

to herself from the first that there could be no cause of anger against

him should he not fall into the silken net which was spread for him.

Lady Scroope was not an unreasonable woman, and understood well the

power which young people have over old people. She knew that she

couldn't quarrel with Fred Neville, even if she would. He was the heir,

and in a very few years would be the owner of everything. In order

to keep him straight, to save him from debts, to protect him from

money-lenders, and to secure the family standing and property till he

should have made things stable by having a wife and heir of his own, all

manner of indulgence must be shown him. She quite understood that such a

horse must be ridden with a very light hand. She must put up with slang

from him, though she would resent it from any other human being. He must

be allowed to smoke in his bed-room, to be late at dinner, to shirk

morning prayers,--making her only too happy if he would not shirk Sunday

church also. Of course he must choose a bride for himself,--only not a

Roman Catholic wild Irish bride of whom nobody knew anything!

As to that other matter concerning Jack and Sophie Mellerby, she could

not bring herself to believe it. She had certainly seen that they were

good friends,--as would have been quite fit had Fred been engaged to

her; but she had not conceived the possibility of any mistake on such a

subject. Surely Sophie herself knew better what she was about! How would

she,--she, Lady Scroope,--answer it to Lady Sophia, if Sophie should go

back to Mellerby from her house, engaged to a younger brother who had

nothing but a commission in the Engineers? Sophie had been sent to

Scroope on purpose to be fallen in love with by the heir; and how

would it be with Lady Scroope if, in lieu of this, she should not only

have been fallen in love with by the heir's younger brother, but have

responded favourably to so base an affection?

That same afternoon Fred told his uncle that he was going back to

Ireland on the day but one following, thus curtailing his promised three

weeks by two days. "I am sorry that you are so much hurried, Fred," said

the old man.

"So am I, my lord,--but Johnstone has to go to London on business, and I

promised when I got leave that I wouldn't throw him over. You see,--when

one has a profession one must attend to it,--more or less."

"But you hardly need the profession."

"Thank you, uncle;--it is very kind of you to say so. And as you wish me

to leave it, I will when the year is over. I have told the fellows that

I shall stay till next October, and I shouldn't like to change now." The

Earl hadn't another word to say.

But on the day before Fred's departure there came a short note from Lady

Mary Quin which made poor Lady Scroope more unhappy than ever. Tidings

had reached her in a mysterious way that the O'Haras were eagerly

expecting the return of Mr. Neville. Lady Mary thought that if Mr.

Neville's quarters could be moved from Ennis, it would be very expedient

for many reasons. She knew that enquiries had been made for him and that

he was engaged to dine on a certain day with Father Marty the priest.

Father Marty would no doubt go any lengths to serve his friends the

O'Haras. Then Lady Mary was very anxious that not a word should be said

to Mr. Neville which might lead him to suppose that reports respecting

him were being sent from Quin Castle to Scroope.

The Countess in her agony thought it best to tell the whole story to the

Earl. "But what can I do?" said the old man. "Young men will form these

acquaintances." His fears were evidently as yet less dark than those of

his wife.

"It would be very bad if we were to hear that he was married to a girl

of whom we only know that she is a Roman Catholic and friendless."

The Earl's brow became very black. "I don't think that he would treat me

in that way."

"Not meaning it, perhaps;--but if he should become entangled and make a

promise!"

Then the Earl did speak to his nephew. "Fred," he said, "I have been

thinking a great deal about you. I have little else to think of now. I

should take it as a mark of affection from you if you would give up the

army--at once."

"And not join my regiment again at all?"

"It is absurd that you should do so in your present position. You should

be here, and learn the circumstances of the property before it becomes

your own. There can hardly be more than a year or two left for the

lesson."

The Earl's manner was very impressive. He looked into his nephew's face

as he spoke, and stood with his hand upon the young man's shoulder.

But Fred Neville was a Neville all over,--and the Nevilles had always

chosen to have their own way. He had not the power of intellect nor

the finished manliness which his brother possessed; but he could be as

obstinate as any Neville,--as obstinate as his father had been, or his

uncle. And in this matter he had arguments which his uncle could hardly

answer on the spur of the moment. No doubt he could sell out in proper

course, but at the present moment he was as much bound by military

law to return as would be any common soldier at the expiration of his

furlough. He must go back. That at any rate was certain. And if his

uncle did not much mind it, he would prefer to remain with his regiment

till October.

Lord Scroope could not condescend to repeat his request, or even again

to allude to it. His whole manner altered as he took his hand away from

his nephew's shoulder. But still he was determined that there should

be no quarrel. As yet there was no ground for quarrelling,--and by any

quarrel the injury to him would be much greater than any that could

befall the heir. He stood for a moment and then he spoke again in a tone

very different from that he had used before. "I hope," he said,--and

then he paused again; "I hope you know how very much depends on your

marrying in a manner suitable to your position."

"Quite so;--I think."

"It is the one hope left to me to see you properly settled in life."

"Marriage is a very serious thing, uncle. Suppose I were not to marry at

all! Sometimes I think my brother is much more like marrying than I am."

"You are bound to marry," said the Earl solemnly. "And you are specially

bound by every duty to God and man to make no marriage that will be

disgraceful to the position which you are called upon to fill."

"At any rate I will not do that," said Fred Neville proudly. From this

the Earl took some comfort, and then the interview was over.

On the day appointed by himself Fred left the Manor, and his mother

and brother went on the following day. But after he was gone, on that

same afternoon, Jack Neville asked Sophie Mellerby to be his wife. She

refused him,--with all the courtesy she knew how to use, but also with

all the certainty. And as soon as he had left the house she told Lady

Scroope what had happened.

CHAPTER V.

ARDKILL COTTAGE.

The cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare, on the western coast of Ireland, are

not as well known to tourists as they should be. It may be doubted

whether Lady Mary Quin was right when she called them the highest cliffs

in the world, but they are undoubtedly very respectable cliffs, and run

up some six hundred feet from the sea as nearly perpendicular as cliffs

should be. They are beautifully coloured, streaked with yellow veins,

and with great masses of dark red rock; and beneath them lies the broad

and blue Atlantic. Lady Mary's exaggeration as to the comparative

height is here acknowledged, but had she said that below them rolls

the brightest bluest clearest water in the world she would not have

been far wrong. To the south of these cliffs there runs inland a broad

bay,--Liscannor bay, on the sides of which are two little villages,

Liscannor and Lahinch. At the latter, Fred Neville, since he had been

quartered at Ennis, had kept a boat for the sake of shooting seals

and exploring the coast,--and generally carrying out his spirit of

adventure. Not far from Liscannor was Castle Quin, the seat of the Earl

of Kilfenora; and some way up from Liscannor towards the cliffs, about

two miles from the village, there is a cottage called Ardkill. Here

lived Mrs. and Miss O'Hara.

It was the nearest house to the rocks, from which it was distant less

than half a mile. The cottage, so called, was a low rambling long house,

but one storey high,--very unlike an English cottage. It stood in two

narrow lengths, the one running at right angles to the other; and

contained a large kitchen, two sitting rooms,--of which one was never

used,--and four or five bed-rooms of which only three were furnished.

The servant girl occupied one, and the two ladies the others. It was a

blank place enough,--and most unlike that sort of cottage which English

ladies are supposed to inhabit, when they take to cottage life. There

was no garden to it, beyond a small patch in which a few potatoes were

planted. It was so near to the ocean, so exposed to winds from the

Atlantic, that no shrubs would live there. Everything round it, even the

herbage, was impregnated with salt, and told tales of the neighbouring

waves. When the wind was from the west the air would be so laden with

spray that one could not walk there without being wet. And yet the place

was very healthy, and noted for the fineness of its air. Rising from the

cottage, which itself stood high, was a steep hill running up to the top

of the cliff, covered with that peculiar moss which the salt spray of

the ocean produces. On this side the land was altogether open, but a

few sheep were always grazing there when the wind was not so high as to

drive them to some shelter. Behind the cottage there was an enclosed

paddock which belonged to it, and in which Mrs. O'Hara kept her cow.

Roaming free around the house, and sometimes in it, were a dozen hens

and a noisy old cock which, with the cow, made up the total of the

widow's live stock. About a half a mile from the cottage on the way

to Liscannor there were half a dozen mud cabins which contained Mrs.

O'Hara's nearest neighbours,--and an old burying ground. Half a mile

further on again was the priest's house, and then on to Liscannor there

were a few other straggling cabins here and there along the road.

Up to the cottage indeed there could hardly be said to be more than a

track, and beyond the cottage no more than a sheep path. The road coming

out from Liscannor was a real road as far as the burying ground, but

from thence onward it had degenerated. A car, or carriage if needed,

might be brought up to the cottage door, for the ground was hard and the

way was open. But no wheels ever travelled there now. The priest, when

he would come, came on horseback, and there was a shed in which he could

tie up his nag. He himself from time to time would send up a truss of

hay for his nag's use, and would think himself cruelly used because the

cow would find her way in and eat it. No other horse ever called at the

widow's door. What slender stores were needed for her use, were all

brought on the girls' backs from Liscannor. To the north of the cottage,

along the cliff, there was no road for miles, nor was there house or

habitation. Castle Quin, in which the noble but somewhat impoverished

Quin family lived nearly throughout the year, was distant, inland, about

three miles from the cottage. Lady Mary had said in her letter to her

friend that Mrs. O'Hara was a lady;--and as Mrs. O'Hara had no other

neighbour, ranking with herself in that respect, so near her, and none

other but the Protestant clergyman's wife within six miles of her,

charity, one would have thought, might have induced some of the Quin

family to notice her. But the Quins were Protestant, and Mrs. O'Hara was

not only a Roman Catholic, but a Roman Catholic who had been brought

into the parish by the priest. No evil certainly was known of her, but

then nothing was known of her; and the Quins were a very cautious people

where religion was called in question. In the days of the famine Father

Marty and the Earl and the Protestant vicar had worked together in the

good cause;--but those days were now gone by, and the strange intimacy

had soon died away. The Earl when he met the priest would bow to him,

and the two clergymen would bow to each other;--but beyond such dumb

salutation there was no intercourse between them. It had been held

therefore to be impossible to take any notice of the priest's friends.

And what notice could have been taken of two ladies who came from nobody

knew where, to live in that wild out-of-the-way place, nobody knew why?

They called themselves mother and daughter, and they called themselves

O'Haras;--but there was no evidence of the truth even of these

assertions. They were left therefore in their solitude, and never saw

the face of a friend across their door step except that of Father Marty.

In truth Mrs. O'Hara's life had been of a nature almost to necessitate

such solitude. With her story we have nothing to do here. For our

purpose there is no need that her tale should be told. Suffice it to say

that she had been deserted by her husband, and did not now know whether

she was or was not a widow. This was in truth the only mystery attached

to her. She herself was an Englishwoman, though a Catholic; but she had

been left early an orphan, and had been brought up in a provincial town

of France by her grandmother. There she had married a certain Captain

O'Hara, she having some small means of her own sufficient to make her

valuable in the eyes of an adventurer. At that time she was no more

than eighteen, and had given her hand to the Captain in opposition to

the wishes of her only guardian. What had been her life from that time

to the period at which, under Father Marty's auspices, she became the

inhabitant of Ardkill Cottage, no one knew but herself. She was then

utterly dissevered from all friends and relatives, and appeared on the

western coast of County Clare with her daughter, a perfect stranger to

every one. Father Marty was an old man, now nearly seventy, and had been

educated in France. There he had known Mrs. O'Hara's grandmother, and

hence had arisen the friendship which had induced him to bring the lady

into his parish. She came there with a daughter, then hardly more than a

child. Between two and three years had passed since her coming, and the

child was now a grown-up girl, nearly nineteen years old. Of her means

little or nothing was known accurately, even to the priest. She had told

him that she had saved enough out of the wreck on which to live with her

girl after some very humble fashion, and she paid her way. There must

have come some sudden crash, or she would hardly have taken her child

from an expensive Parisian school to vegetate in such solitude as that

she had chosen. And it was a solitude from which there seemed to be no

chance of future escape. They had brought with them a piano and a few

books, mostly French;--and with these it seemed to have been intended

that the two ladies should make their future lives endurable. Other

resources except such as the scenery of the cliffs afforded them, they

had none.

The author would wish to impress upon his readers, if it may be

possible, some idea of the outward appearance and personal character of

each of these two ladies, as his story can hardly be told successfully

unless he do so. The elder, who was at this time still under forty

years of age, would have been a very handsome woman had not troubles,

suffering, and the contests of a rugged life, in which she had both

endured and dared much, given to her face a look of hard combative

resolution which was not feminine. She was rather below than above the

average height,--or at any rate looked to be so, as she was strongly

made, with broad shoulders, and a waist that was perhaps not now as

slender as when she first met Captain O'Hara. But her hair was still

black,--as dark at least as hair can be which is not in truth black at

all but only darkly brown. Whatever might be its colour there was no

tinge of grey upon it. It was glossy, silken, and long as when she was a

girl. I do not think that she took pride in it. How could she take pride

in personal beauty, when she was never seen by any man younger than

Father Marty or the old peasant who brought turf to her door in creels

on a donkey's back? But she wore it always without any cap, tied in a

simple knot behind her head. Whether chignons had been invented then the

author does not remember,--but they certainly had not become common on

the coast of County Clare, and the peasants about Liscannor thought Mrs.

O'Hara's head of hair the finest they had ever seen. Had the ladies Quin

of the Castle possessed such hair as that, they would not have been

the ladies Quin to this day. Her eyes were lustrous, dark, and very

large,--beautiful eyes certainly; but they were eyes that you might

fear. They had been softer perhaps in youth, before the spirit of the

tiger had been roused in the woman's bosom by neglect and ill-usage. Her

face was now bronzed by years and weather. Of her complexion she took no

more care than did the neighbouring fishermen of theirs, and the winds

and the salt water, and perhaps the working of her own mind, had told

upon it, to make it rough and dark. But yet there was a colour in her

cheeks, as we often see in those of wandering gipsies, which would make

a man stop to regard her who had eyes appreciative of beauty. Her nose

was well formed,--a heaven-made nose, and not a lump of flesh stuck on

to the middle of her face as women's noses sometimes are;--but it was

somewhat short and broad at the nostrils, a nose that could imply much

anger, and perhaps tenderness also. Her face below her nose was very

short. Her mouth was large, but laden with expression. Her lips were

full and her teeth perfect as pearls. Her chin was short and perhaps now

verging to that size which we call a double chin, and marked by as broad

a dimple as ever Venus made with her finger on the face of a woman.

She had ever been strong and active, and years in that retreat had told

upon her not at all. She would still walk to Liscannor, and thence

round, when the tide was low, beneath the cliffs, and up by a path which

the boys had made from the foot through the rocks to the summit, though

the distance was over ten miles, and the ascent was very steep. She

would remain for hours on the rocks, looking down upon the sea, when

the weather was almost at its roughest. When the winds were still, and

the sun was setting across the ocean, and the tame waves were only just

audible as they rippled on the stones below, she would sit there with

her child, holding the girl's hand or just touching her arm, and would

be content so to stay almost without a word; but when the winds blew,

and the heavy spray came up in blinding volumes, and the white-headed

sea-monsters were roaring in their fury against the rocks, she would be

there alone with her hat in her hand, and her hair drenched. She would

watch the gulls wheeling and floating beneath her, and would listen to

their screams and try to read their voices. She would envy the birds as

they seemed to be worked into madness by the winds which still were not

strong enough to drive them from their purposes. To linger there among

the rocks seemed to be the only delight left to her in life,--except

that intense delight which a mother has in loving her child. She herself

read but little, and never put a hand upon the piano. But she had a

faculty of sitting and thinking, of brooding over her own past years and

dreaming of her daughter's future life, which never deserted her. With

her the days were doubtless very sad, but it cannot truly be said that

they were dull or tedious.

And there was a sparkle of humour about her too, which would sometimes

shine the brightest when there was no one by her to appreciate it. Her

daughter would smile at her mother's sallies,--but she did so simply

in kindness. Kate did not share her mother's sense of humour,--did not

share it as yet. With the young the love of fun is gratified generally

by grotesque movement. It is not till years are running on that the

grotesqueness of words and ideas is appreciated. But Mrs. O'Hara would

expend her art on the household drudge, or on old Barney Corcoran who

came with the turf,--though by neither of them was she very clearly

understood. Now and again she would have a war of words with the

priest, and that, I think, she liked. She was intensely combative, if

ground for a combat arose; and would fight on any subject with any

human being--except her daughter. And yet with the priest she never

quarrelled; and though she was rarely beaten in her contests with him,

she submitted to him in much. In matters touching her religion she

submitted to him altogether.

Kate O'Hara was in face very like her mother;--strangely like, for in

much she was very different. But she had her mother's eyes,--though hers

were much softer in their lustre, as became her youth,--and she had her

mother's nose, but without that look of scorn which would come upon her

mother's face when the nostrils were inflated. And in that peculiar

shortness of the lower face she was the very echo of her mother. But the

mouth was smaller, the lips less full, and the dimple less exaggerated.

It was a fairer face to look upon,--fairer, perhaps, than her mother's

had ever been; but it was less expressive, and in it there was

infinitely less capability for anger, and perhaps less capability for

the agonising extremes of tenderness. But Kate was taller than her

mother, and seemed by her mother's side to be slender. Nevertheless she

was strong and healthy; and though she did not willingly join in those

longer walks, or expose herself to the weather as did her mother, there

was nothing feeble about her, nor was she averse to action. Life at

Ardkill Cottage was dull, and therefore she also was dull. Had she been

surrounded by friends, such as she had known in her halcyon school days

at Paris, she would have been the gayest of the gay.

Her hair was dark as her mother's,--even darker. Seen by the side of

Miss O'Hara's, the mother's hair was certainly not black, but one could

hardly think that hair could be blacker than the daughter's. But hers

fell in curling clusters round her neck,--such clusters as now one never

sees. She would shake them in sport, and the room would seem to be full

of her locks. But she used to say herself to her mother that there was

already to be found a grey hair among them now and again, and she would

at times shew one, declaring that she would be an old woman before her

mother was middle-aged.

Her life at Ardkill Cottage was certainly very dull. Memory did but

little for her, and she hardly knew how to hope. She would read, till

she had nearly learned all their books by heart, and would play such

tunes as she knew by the hour together, till the poor instrument,

subject to the sea air and away from any tuner's skill, was discordant

with its limp strings. But still, with all this, her mind would become

vacant and weary. "Mother," she would say, "is it always to be like

this?"

"Not always, Kate," the mother once answered.

"And when will it be changed?"

"In a few days,--in a few hours, Kate."

"What do you mean, mother?"

"That eternity is coming, with all its glory and happiness. If it were

not so, it would, indeed, be very bad."

It may be doubted whether any human mind has been able to content itself

with hopes of eternity, till distress in some shape has embittered life.

The preachers preach very well,--well enough to leave many convictions

on the minds of men; but not well enough to leave that conviction. And

godly men live well,--but we never see them living as though such were

their conviction. And were it so, who would strive and moil in this

world? When the heart has been broken, and the spirit ground to the

dust by misery, then,--such is God's mercy--eternity suffices to make

life bearable. When Mrs. O'Hara spoke to her daughter of eternity,

there was but cold comfort in the word. The girl wanted something

here,--pleasures, companions, work, perhaps a lover. This had happened

before Lieutenant Neville of the 20th Hussars had been seen in those

parts.

And the mother herself, in speaking as she had spoken, had, perhaps

unintentionally, indulged in a sarcasm on life which the daughter

certainly had not been intended to understand. "Yes;--it will always be

like this for you, for you, unfortunate one that you are. There is no

other further look-out in this life. You are one of the wretched to whom

the world offers nothing; and therefore,--as, being human, you must

hope,--build your hopes on eternity." Had the words been read clearly,

that would have been their true meaning. What could she do for her

child? Bread and meat, with a roof over her head, and raiment which

sufficed for life such as theirs, she could supply. The life would have

been well enough had it been their fate, and within their power, to earn

the bread and meat, the shelter and the raiment. But to have it, and

without work,--to have that, and nothing more, in absolute idleness, was

such misery that there was no resource left but eternity!

And yet the mother when she looked at her daughter almost persuaded

herself that it need not be so. The girl was very lovely,--so lovely

that, were she but seen, men would quarrel for her as to who should have

her in his keeping. Such beauty, such life, such capability for giving

and receiving enjoyment could not have been intended to wither on a lone

cliff over the Atlantic! There must be fault somewhere. But yet to live

had been the first necessity; and life in cities, among the haunts of

men, had been impossible with such means as this woman possessed. When

she had called her daughter to her, and had sought peace under the roof

which her friend the priest had found for her, peace and a roof to

shelter her had been the extent of her desires. To be at rest, and

independent, with her child within her arms, had been all that the woman

asked of the gods. For herself it sufficed. For herself she was able to

acknowledge that the rest which she had at least obtained was infinitely

preferable to the unrest of her past life. But she soon learned,--as she

had not expected to learn before she made the experiment,--that that

which was to her peace, was to her daughter life within a tomb. "Mother,

is it always to be like this?"

Had her child not carried the weight of good blood, had some small

grocer or country farmer been her father, she might have come down to

the neighbouring town of Ennistimon, and found a fitting mate there.

Would it not have been better so? From that weight of good blood,--or

gift, if it please us to call it,--what advantage would ever come to her

girl? It can not really be that all those who swarm in the world below

the bar of gentlehood are less blessed, or intended to be less blessed,

than the few who float in the higher air. As to real blessedness, does

it not come from fitness to the outer life and a sense of duty that

shall produce such fitness? Does any one believe that the Countess has a

greater share of happiness than the grocer's wife, or is less subject to

the miseries which flesh inherits? But such matters cannot be changed

by the will. This woman could not bid her daughter go and meet the

butcher's son on equal terms, or seek her friends among the milliners of

the neighbouring town. The burden had been imposed and must be borne,

even though it isolated them from all the world.

"Mother, is it always to be like this?" Of course the mother knew what

was needed. It was needed that the girl should go out into the world and

pair, that she should find some shoulder on which she might lean, some

arm that would be strong to surround her, the heart of some man and the

work of some man to which she might devote herself. The girl, when she

asked her question, did not know this,--but the mother knew it. The

mother looked at her child and said that of all living creatures her

child was surely the loveliest. Was it not fit that she should go forth

and be loved;--that she should at any rate go forth and take her chance

with others? But how should such going forth be managed? And then,--were

there not dangers, terrible dangers,--dangers specially terrible to one

so friendless as her child? Had not she herself been wrecked among the

rocks, trusting herself to one who had been utterly unworthy,--loving

one who had been utterly unlovely? Men so often are as ravenous wolves,

merciless, rapacious, without hearts, full of greed, full of lust,

looking on female beauty as prey, regarding the love of woman and her

very life as a toy! Were she higher in the world there might be safety.

Were she lower there might be safety. But how could she send her girl

forth into the world without sending her certainly among the wolves? And

yet that piteous question was always sounding in her ears. "Mother, is

it always to be like this?"

Then Lieutenant Neville had appeared upon the scene, dressed in a

sailor's jacket and trowsers, with a sailor's cap upon his head, with

a loose handkerchief round his neck and his hair blowing to the wind.

In the eyes of Kate O'Hara he was an Apollo. In the eyes of any girl he

must have seemed to be as good-looking a fellow as ever tied a sailor's

knot. He had made acquaintance with Father Marty at Liscannor, and the

priest had dined with him at Ennis. There had been a return visit, and

the priest, perhaps innocently, had taken him up on the cliffs. There he

had met the two ladies, and our hero had been introduced to Kate O'Hara.

CHAPTER VI.

I'LL GO BAIL SHE LIKES IT.

It might be that the young man was a ravenous wolf, but his manners were

not wolfish. Had Mrs. O'Hara been a princess, supreme in her own rights,

young Neville could not have treated her or her daughter with more

respect. At first Kate had wondered at him, but had said but little. She

had listened to him, as he talked to her mother and the priest about the

cliffs and the birds and the seals he had shot, and she had felt that

it was this, something like this, that was needed to make life so sweet

that as yet there need be no longing, no thought, for eternity. It was

not that all at once she loved him, but she felt that he was a thing to

love. His very appearance on the cliff, and the power of thinking of him

when he was gone, for a while banished all tedium from her life. "Why

should you shoot the poor gulls?" That was the first question she asked

him; and she asked it hardly in tenderness to the birds, but because

with the unconscious cunning of her sex she understood that tenderness

in a woman is a charm in the eyes of a man.

"Only because it is so difficult to get at them," said Fred. "I believe

there is no other reason,--except that one must shoot something."

"But why must you?" asked Mrs. O'Hara.

"To justify one's guns. A man takes to shooting as a matter of course.

It's a kind of institution. There ain't any tigers, and so we shoot

birds. And in this part of the world there ain't any pheasants, and so

we shoot sea-gulls."

"Excellently argued," said the priest.

"Or rather one don't, for it's impossible to get at them. But I'll tell

you what, Father Marty,"--Neville had already assumed the fashion of

calling the priest by his familiar priestly name, as strangers do much

more readily than they who belong to the country,--"I'll tell you what,

Father Marty,--I've shot one of the finest seals I ever saw, and if

Morony can get him at low water, I'll send the skin up to Mrs. O'Hara."

"And send the oil to me," said the priest. "There's some use in shooting

a seal. But you can do nothing with those birds,--unless you get enough

of their feathers to make a bed."

This was in October, and before the end of November Fred Neville was,

after a fashion, intimate at the cottage. He had never broken bread at

Mrs. O'Hara's table; nor, to tell the truth, had any outspoken, clearly

intelligible word of love been uttered by him to the girl. But he had

been seen with them often enough, and the story had become sufficiently

current at Liscannor to make Lady Mary Quin think that she was justified

in sending her bad news to her friend Lady Scroope. This she did not do

till Fred had been induced, with some difficulty, to pass a night at

Castle Quin. Lady Mary had not scrupled to ask a question about Miss

O'Hara, and had thought the answer very unsatisfactory. "I don't know

what makes them live there, I'm sure. I should have thought you would

have known that," replied Neville, in answer to her question.

"They are perfect mysteries to us," said Lady Mary.

"I think that Miss O'Hara is the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life,"

said Fred boldly, "and I should say the handsomest woman, if it were not

that there may be a question between her and her mother."

"You are enthusiastic," said Lady Mary Quin, and after that the letter

to Scroope was written.

In the meantime the seal-skin was cured,--not perhaps in the very best

fashion, and was sent up to Miss O'Hara, with Mr. Neville's compliments.

The skin of a seal that has been shot by the man and not purchased is a

present that any lady may receive from any gentleman. The most prudent

mamma that ever watched over her dovecote with Argus eyes, permitting no

touch of gallantry to come near it, could hardly insist that a seal-skin

in the rough should be sent back to the donor. Mrs. O'Hara was by no

means that most prudent mamma, and made, not only the seal-skin, but the

donor also welcome. Must it not be that by some chance advent such as

this that the change must be effected in her girl's life, should any

change ever be made? And her girl was good. Why should she fear for her?

The man had been brought there by her only friend, the priest, and why

should she fear him? And yet she did fear; and though her face was

never clouded when her girl spoke of the new comer, though she always

mentioned Captain Neville's name as though she herself liked the man,

though she even was gracious to him when he shewed himself near the

cottage,--still there was a deep dread upon her when her eyes rested

upon him, when her thoughts flew to him. Men are wolves to women, and

utterly merciless when feeding high their lust. 'Twas thus her own

thoughts shaped themselves, though she never uttered a syllable to her

daughter in disparagement of the man. This was the girl's chance. Was

she to rob her of it? And yet, of all her duties, was not the duty of

protecting her girl the highest and the dearest that she owned? If the

man meant well by her girl, she would wash his feet with her hair, kiss

the hem of his garments, and love the spot on which she had first seen

him stand like a young sea-god. But if evil,--if he meant evil to her

girl, if he should do evil to her Kate,--then she knew that there was

so much of the tiger within her bosom as would serve to rend him limb

from limb. With such thoughts as these she had hardly ever left them

together. Nor had such leaving together seemed to be desired by them.

As for Kate she certainly would have shunned it. She thought of Fred

Neville during all her waking moments, and dreamed of him at night. His

coming had certainly been to her as the coming of a god. Though he did

not appear on the cliffs above once or twice a week, and had done so but

for a few weeks, his presence had altered the whole tenour of her life.

She never asked her mother now whether it was to be always like this.

There was a freshness about her life which her mother understood at

once. She was full of play, reading less than was her wont, but still

with no sense of tedium. Of the man in his absence she spoke but seldom,

and when his name was on her lips she would jest with it,--as though the

coming of a young embryo lord to shoot gulls on their coast was quite a

joke. The seal-skin which he had given her was very dear to her, and she

was at no pains to hide her liking; but of the man as a lover she had

never seemed to think.

Nor did she think of him as a lover. It is not by such thinking that

love grows. Nor did she ever tell herself that while he was there,

coming on one day and telling them that his boat would be again there on

another, life was blessed to her, and that, therefore, when he should

have left them, her life would be accursed to her. She knew nothing of

all this. But yet she thought of him, and dreamed of him, and her young

head was full of little plans with every one of which he was connected.

And it may almost be said that Fred Neville was as innocent in the

matter as was the girl. It is true, indeed, that men are merciless as

wolves to women,--that they become so, taught by circumstances and

trained by years; but the young man who begins by meaning to be a wolf

must be bad indeed. Fred Neville had no such meaning. On his behalf it

must be acknowledged that he had no meaning whatever when he came again

and again to Ardkill. Had he examined himself in the matter he would

have declared that he liked the mother quite as well as the daughter.

When Lady Mary Quin had thrown at him her very blunt arrow he had

defended himself on that plea. Accident, and the spirit of adventure,

had thrust these ladies in his path, and no doubt he liked them the

better because they did not live as other people lived. Their solitude,

the close vicinity of the ocean, the feeling that in meeting them none

of the ordinary conventional usages of society were needed, the wildness

and the strangeness of the scene, all had charms which he admitted to

himself. And he knew that the girl was very lovely. Of course he said

so to himself and to others. To take delight in beauty is assumed to be

the nature of a young man, and this young man was not one to wish to

differ from others in that respect. But when he went back to spend his

Christmas at Scroope, he had never told even himself that he intended to

be her lover.

"Good-bye, Mrs. O'Hara," he said, a day or two before he left Ennis.

"So you're going?"

"Oh yes, I'm off. The orders from home are imperative. One has to cut

one's lump of Christmas beef and also one's lump of Christmas pudding.

It is our family religion, you know."

"What a happiness to have a family to visit!"

"It's all very well, I suppose. I don't grumble. Only it's a bore going

away, somehow."

"You are coming back to Ennis?" asked Kate.

"Coming back;--I should think so. Barney Morony wouldn't be quite

so quiet if I was not coming back. I'm to dine with Father Marty at

Liscannor on the 15th of January, to meet another priest from Milltown

Malbay,--the best fellow in the world he says."

"That's Father Creech;--not half such a good fellow, Mr. Neville, as

Father Marty himself."

"He couldn't be better. However, I shall be here then, and if I have any

luck you shall have another skin of the same size by that time." Then he

shook hands with them both, and there was a feeling that the time would

be blank till he should be again there in his sailor's jacket.

When the second week in January had come Mrs. O'Hara heard that the

gallant young officer of the 20th was back in Ennis, and she well

remembered that he had told her of his intention to dine with the

priest. On the Sunday she saw Mr. Marty after mass, and managed to have

a few words with him on the road while Kate returned to the cottage

alone. "So your friend Mr. Neville has come back to Ennis," she said.

"I didn't know that he had come. He promised to dine with me on

Thursday,--only I think nothing of promises from these young fellows."

"He told me he was to be with you."

"More power to him. He'll be welcome. I'm getting to be a very ould man,

Misthress O'Hara; but I'm not so ould but I like to have the young ones

near me."

"It is pleasant to see a bright face like his."

"That's thrue for you, Misthress O'Hara. I like to see 'em bright and

ganial. I don't know that I ever shot so much as a sparrow, meself, but

I love to hear them talk of their shootings, and huntings, and the like

of that. I've taken a fancy to that boy, and he might do pretty much as

he plazes wid me."

"And I too have taken a fancy to him, Father Marty."

"Shure and how could you help it?"

"But he mustn't do as he pleases with me." Father Marty looked up into

her face as though he did not understand her. "If I were alone, as you

are, I could afford, like you, to indulge in the pleasure of a bright

face. Only in that case he would not care to let me see it."

"Bedad thin, Misthress O'Hara, I don't know a fairer face to look on in

all Corcomroe than your own,--that is when you're not in your tantrums,

Misthress O'Hara." The priest was a privileged person, and could say

what he liked to his friend; and she understood that a priest might say

without fault what would be very faulty if it came from any one else.

"I'm in earnest now, Father Marty. What shall we do if our darling Kate

thinks of this young man more than is good for her?" Father Marty raised

his hat and began to scratch his head. "If you like to look at the fair

face of a handsome lad--"

"I do thin, Misthress O'Hara."

"Must not she like it also?"

"I'll go bail she likes it," said the priest.

"And what will come next?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Misthress O'Hara. Would you want to keep her

from even seeing a man at all?"

"God forbid."

"It's not the way to make them happy, nor yet safe. If it's to be

that way wid her, she'd better be a nun all out; and I'd be far from

proposing that to your Kate."

"She is hardly fit for so holy a life."

"And why should she? I niver like seeing too many of 'em going that way,

and them that are prittiest are the last I'd send there. But if not

a nun, it stands to reason she must take chance with the rest of 'em.

She's been too much shut up already. Let her keep her heart till he asks

her for it; but if he does ask her, why shouldn't she be his wife? How

many of them young officers take Irish wives home with 'em every year.

Only for them, our beauties wouldn't have a chance."

CHAPTER VII.

FATHER MARTY'S HOSPITALITY.

Such was the philosophy, or, perhaps, it may be better said such was the

humanity of Father Marty! But in encouraging Mrs. O'Hara to receive this

dangerous visitor he had by no means spoken without consideration. In

one respect we must abandon Father Marty to the judgment and censure

of fathers and mothers. The whole matter looked at from Lady Scroope's

point of view was no doubt very injurious to the priest's character. He

regarded a stranger among them, such as was Fred Neville, as fair spoil,

as a Philistine to seize whom and capture him for life on behalf of any

Irish girl would be a great triumph;--a spoiling of the Egyptian to

the accomplishment of which he would not hesitate to lend his priestly

assistance, the end to be accomplished, of course, being marriage. For

Lord Scroope and his family and his blood and his religious fanaticism

he could entertain no compassion whatever. Father Marty was no great

politician, and desired no rebellion against England. Even in the days

of O'Connell and repeal he had been but luke-warm. But justice for

Ireland in the guise of wealthy English husbands for pretty Irish

girls he desired with all his heart. He was true to his own faith, to

the backbone, but he entertained no prejudice against a good looking

Protestant youth when a fortunate marriage was in question. So little

had been given to the Irish in these days, that they were bound to take

what they could get. Lord Scroope and the Countess, had they known

the priest's views on this matter, would have regarded him as an

unscrupulous intriguing ruffian, prepared to destroy the happiness of a

noble family by a wicked scheme. But his views of life, as judged from

the other side, admitted of some excuse. As for a girl breaking her

heart, he did not, perhaps, much believe in such a catastrophe. Of a

sore heart a girl must run the chance,--as also must a man. That young

men do go about promising marriage and not keeping their promise, he

knew well. None could know that better than he did, for he was the

repository of half the love secrets in his parish. But all that was

part of the evil coming from the fall of Adam, and must be endured

till,--till the Pope should have his own again, and be able to set all

things right. In the meantime young women must do the best they could

to keep their lovers;--and should one lover break away, then must the

deserted one use her experience towards getting a second. But how was a

girl to have a lover at all, if she were never allowed to see a man? He

had been bred a priest from his youth upwards, and knew nothing of love;

but nevertheless it was a pain to him to see a young girl, good-looking,

healthy, fit to be the mother of children, pine away, unsought for,

uncoupled,--as it would be a pain to see a fruit grow ripe upon the

tree, and then fall and perish for the want of plucking. His philosophy

was perhaps at fault, and it may be that his humanity was unrefined. But

he was human to the core,--and, at any rate, unselfish. That there might

be another danger was a fact that he looked full in the face. But what

victory can be won without danger? And he thought that he knew this

girl, who three times a year would open her whole heart to him in

confession. He was sure that she was not only innocent, but good. And

of the man, too, he was prone to believe good;--though who on such a

question ever trusts a man's goodness? There might be danger and there

must be discretion; but surely it would not be wise, because evil

was possible, that such a one as Kate O'Hara should be kept from all

that intercourse without which a woman is only half a woman! He had

considered it all, though the reader may perhaps think that as a

minister of the gospel he had come to a strange conclusion. He himself,

in his own defence, would have said that having served many years in the

ministry he had learned to know the nature of men and women.

Mrs. O'Hara said not a word to Kate of the doctrines which the priest

had preached, but she found herself encouraged to mention their new

friend's name to the girl. During Fred's absence hardly a word had

been spoken concerning him in the cottage. Mrs. O'Hara had feared the

subject, and Kate had thought of him much too often to allow his name to

be on her tongue. But now as they sat after dinner over their peat fire

the mother began the subject. "Mr. Neville is to dine with Father Marty

on Thursday."

"Is he, mother?"

"Barney Morony was telling me that he was back at Ennis. Barney had to

go in and see him about the boat."

"He won't go boating such weather as this, mother?"

"It seems that he means it. The winds are not so high now as they were

in October, and the men understand well when the sea will be high."

"It is frightful to think of anybody being in one of those little boats

now." Kate ever since she had lived in these parts had seen the canoes

from Liscannor and Lahinch about in the bay, summer and winter, and had

never found anything dreadful in it before.

"I suppose he'll come up here again," said the mother; but to this Kate

made no answer. "He is to sleep at Father Marty's I fancy, and he can

hardly do that without paying us a visit."

"The days are short and he'll want all his time for the boating," said

Kate with a little pout.

"He'll find half-an-hour, I don't doubt. Shall you be glad to see him,

Kate?"

"I don't know, mother. One is glad almost to see any one up here. It's

as good as a treat when old Corcoran comes up with the turf."

"But Mr. Neville is not like old Corcoran, Kate."

"Not in the least, mother. I do like Mr. Neville better than Corcoran,

because you see with Corcoran the excitement is very soon over. And

Corcoran hasn't very much to say for himself."

"And Mr. Neville has?"

"He says a great deal more to you than he does to me, mother."

"I like him very much. I should like him very much indeed if there were

no danger in his coming."

"What danger?"

"That he should steal your heart away, my own, my darling, my child."

Then Kate, instead of answering, got up and threw herself at her

mother's knees, and buried her face in her mother's lap, and Mrs. O'Hara

knew that that act of larceny had already been perpetrated.

And how should it have been otherwise? But of such stealing it is always

better that no mention should be made till the theft has been sanctified

by free gift. Till the loss has been spoken of and acknowledged, it may

in most cases be recovered. Had Neville never returned from Scroope, and

his name never been mentioned by the mother to her daughter, it may be

that Kate O'Hara would not have known that she had loved him. For a

while she would have been sad. For a month or two, as she lay wakeful in

her bed she would have thought of her dreams. But she would have thought

of them as only dreams. She would have been sure that she could have

loved him had any fair ending been possible for such love; but she would

have assured herself that she had been on her guard, and that she was

safe in spite of her dreams. But now the flame in her heart had been

confessed and in some degree sanctioned, and she would foster it rather

than quench it. Even should such a love be capable of no good fortune,

would it not be better to have a few weeks of happy dreaming than a

whole life that should be passionless? What could she do with her own

heart there, living in solitude, with none but the sea gulls to look at

her? Was it not infinitely better that she should give it away to such a

young god as this than let it feed upon itself miserably? Yes, she would

give it away;--but might it not be that the young god would not take the

gift?

On the third day after his arrival at Ennis, Neville was at Liscannor

with the priest. He little dreamed that the fact of his dining and

sleeping at Father Marty's house would be known to the ladies at Castle

Quin, and communicated from them to his aunt at Scroope Manor. Not that

he would have been deterred from accepting the priest's hospitality or

frightened into accepting that of the noble owner of the castle, had he

known precisely all that would be written about it. He would not have

altered his conduct in a matter in which he considered himself entitled

to regulate it, in obedience to any remonstrances from Scroope Manor.

Objections to the society of a Roman Catholic priest because of his

religion he would have regarded as old-fashioned fanaticism. As for

Earls and their daughters he would no doubt have enough of them in his

future life, and this special Earl and his daughters had not fascinated

him. He had chosen to come to Ireland with his regiment for this year

instead of at once assuming the magnificence of his position in England,

in order that he might indulge the spirit of adventure before he assumed

the duties of life. And it seemed to him that in dining and sleeping at

an Irish priest's house on the shores of the Atlantic, with the prospect

of seal shooting and seeing a very pretty girl on the following morning,

he was indulging that spirit properly. But Lady Mary Quin thought that

he was misbehaving himself and taking to very bad courses. When she

heard that he was to sleep at the priest's house, she was quite sure

that he would visit Mrs. O'Hara on the next day.

The dinner at the priest's was very jovial. There was a bottle of sherry

and there was a bottle of port, procured, chiefly for the sake of

appearance, from a grocer's shop at Ennistimon;--but the whiskey had

come from Cork and had been in the priest's keeping for the last dozen

years. He good-humouredly acknowledged that the wine was nothing, but

expressed an opinion that Mr. Neville might find it difficult to beat

the "sperrits." "It's thrue for you, Father Marty," said the rival

priest from Milltown Malbay, "and it's you that should know good

sperrits from bad if ony man in Ireland does."

"'Deed thin," replied the priest of Liscannor, "barring the famine

years, I've mixed two tumblers of punch for meself every day these

forty years, and if it was all together it'd be about enough to give

Mr. Neville a day's sale-shooting on in his canoe." Immediately after

dinner Neville was invited to light his cigar, and everything was easy,

comfortable, and to a certain degree adventurous. There were the two

priests, and a young Mr. Finucane from Ennistimon,--who however was

not quite so much to Fred's taste as the elder men. Mr. Finucane wore

various rings, and talked rather largely about his father's demesne. But

the whole thing was new, and by no means dull. As Neville had not left

Ennis till late in the day,--after what he called a hard day's work in

the warrior line,--they did not sit down till past eight o'clock; nor

did any one talk of moving till past midnight. Fred certainly made for

himself more than two glasses of punch, and he would have sworn that the

priest had done so also. Father Marty, however, was said by those who

knew him best to be very rigid in this matter, and to have the faculty

of making his drink go a long way. Young Mr. Finucane took three or

four,--perhaps five or six,--and then volunteered to join Fred Neville

in a day's shooting under the rocks. But Fred had not been four years

in a cavalry regiment without knowing how to protect himself in such a

difficulty as this. "The canoe will only hold myself and the man," said

Fred, with perfect simplicity. Mr. Finucane drew himself up haughtily

and did not utter another word for the next five minutes. Nevertheless

he took a most affectionate leave of the young officer when half an hour

after midnight he was told by Father Marty that it was time for him to

go home. Father Creech also took his leave, and then Fred and the priest

of Liscannor were left sitting together over the embers of the turf

fire. "You'll be going up to see our friends at Ardkill to-morrow," said

the priest.

"Likely enough, Father Marty."

"In course you will. Sorrow a doubt of that." Then the priest paused.

"And why shouldn't I?" asked Neville.

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't, Mr. Neville. It wouldn't be civil

nor yet nathural after knowing them as you have done. If you didn't go

they'd be thinking there was a rason for your staying away, and that'd

be worse than all. But, Mr. Neville--"

"Out with it, Father Marty." Fred knew what was coming fairly well, and

he also had thought a good deal upon the matter.

"Them two ladies, Mr. Neville, live up there all alone, with sorrow a

human being in the world to protect them,--barring myself."

"Why should they want protection?"

"Just because they're lone women, and because one of them is very young

and very beautiful."

"They are both beautiful," said Neville.

"'Deed and they are,--both of 'em. The mother can look afther herself,

and after a fashion, too, she can look afther her daughter. I shouldn't

like to be the man to come in her way when he'd once decaived her child.

You're a young man, Mr. Neville."

"That's my misfortune."

"And one who stands very high in the world. They tell me you're to be a

great lord some day."

"Either that or a little one," said Neville, laughing.

"Anyways you'll be a rich man with a handle to your name. To me, living

here in this out of the way parish, a lord doesn't matter that." And

Father Marty gave a fillip with his fingers. "The only lord that matters

me is me bishop. But with them women yonder, the title and the money and

all the grandeur goes a long way. It has been so since the world began.

In riding a race against you they carry weight from the very awe which

the name of an English Earl brings with it."

"Why should they ride a race against me?"

"Why indeed,--unless you ride a race against them! You wouldn't wish to

injure that young thing as isn't yet out of her teens?"

"God forbid that I should injure her."

"I don't think that you're the man to do it with your eyes open, Mr.

Neville. If you can't spake her fair in the way of making her your wife,

don't spake her fair at all. That's the long and the short of it, Mr.

Neville. You see what they are. They're ladies, if there is a lady

living in the Queen's dominions. That young thing is as beautiful

as Habe, as innocent as a sleeping child, as soft as wax to take

impression. What armour has she got against such a one as you?"

"She shall not need armour."

"If you're a gentleman, Mr. Neville,--as I know you are,--you will not

give her occasion to find out her own wakeness. Well, if it isn't past

one I'm a sinner. It's Friday morning and I mus'n't ate a morsel myself,

poor papist that I am; but I'll get you a bit of cold mate and a drop

of grog in a moment if you'll take it." Neville, however, refused the

hospitable offer.

"Father Marty," he said, speaking with a zeal which perhaps owed

something of its warmth to the punch, "you shall find that I am a

gentleman."

"I'm shure of it, my boy."

"If I can do no good to your friend, at any rate I will do no harm to

her."

"That is spoken like a Christian, Mr. Neville,--which I take to be a

higher name even than gentleman."

"There's my hand upon it," said Fred, enthusiastically. After that he

went to bed.

On the following morning the priest was very jolly at breakfast, and

in speaking of the ladies at Ardkill made no allusion whatever to the

conversation of the previous evening. "Ah no," he said, when Neville

proposed that they should walk up together to the cottage before he

went down to his boat. "What's the good of an ould man like me going

bothering? And, signs on, I'm going into Ennistimon to see Pat O'Leary

about the milk he's sending to our Union. The thief of the world,--it's

wathering it he is before he sends it. Nothing kills me, Mr. Neville,

but when I hear of all them English vices being brought over to this

poor suffering innocent counthry."

Neville had decided on the advice of Barney Morony, that he would on

this morning go down southward along the coast to Drumdeirg rock, in the

direction away from the Hag's Head and from Mrs. O'Hara's cottage; and

he therefore postponed his expedition till after his visit. When Father

Marty started to Ennistimon to look after that sinner O'Leary, Fred

Neville, all alone, turned the other way to Ardkill.

CHAPTER VIII.

I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO GO.

Mrs. O'Hara had known that he would come, and Kate had known it; and,

though it would be unfair to say that they were waiting for him, it is

no more than true to say that they were ready for him. "We are so glad

to see you again," said Mrs. O'Hara.

"Not more glad than I am to find myself here once more."

"So you dined and slept at Father Marty's last night. What will the

grand people say at the Castle?"

"As I sha'n't hear what they say, it won't matter much! Life is not

long enough, Mrs. O'Hara, for putting up with disagreeable people."

"Was it pleasant last night?"

"Very pleasant. I don't think Father Creech is half as good as Father

Marty, you know."

"Oh no," exclaimed Kate.

"But he's a jolly sort of fellow, too. And there was a Mr. Finucane

there,--a very grand fellow."

"We know no one about here but the priests," said Mrs. O'Hara, laughing.

"Anybody might think that the cottage was a little convent."

"Then I oughtn't to come."

"Well, no, I suppose not. Only foreigners are admitted to see convents

sometimes. You're going after the poor seals again?"

"Barney says the tide is too high for the seals now. We're going to

Drumdeirg."

"What,--to those little rocks?" asked Kate.

"Yes,--to the rocks. I wish you'd both come with me."

"I wouldn't go in one of those canoes all out there for the world," said

Kate.

"What can be the use of it?" asked Mrs. O'Hara.

"I've got to get the feathers for Father Marty's bed, you know. I

haven't shot as many yet as would make a pillow for a cradle."

"The poor innocent gulls!"

"The poor innocent chickens and ducks, if you come to that, Miss

O'Hara."

"But they're of use."

"And so will Father Marty's feather bed be of use. Good-bye, Mrs.

O'Hara. Good-bye, Miss O'Hara. I shall be down again next week, and

we'll have that other seal."

There was nothing in this. So far, at any rate, he had not broken his

word to the priest. He had not spoken a word to Kate O'Hara that might

not and would not have been said had the priest been present. But how

lovely she was; and what a thrill ran through his arm as he held her

hand in his for a moment. Where should he find a girl like that in

England with such colour, such eyes, such hair, such innocence,--and

then with so sweet a voice?

As he hurried down the hill to the beach at Coolroone, where Morony was

to meet him with the boat, he could not keep himself from comparisons

between Kate O'Hara and Sophie Mellerby. No doubt his comparisons were

made very incorrectly,--and unfairly; but they were all in favour of the

girl who lived out of the world in solitude on the cliffs of Moher. And

why should he not be free to seek a wife where he pleased? In such an

affair as that,--an affair of love in which the heart and the heart

alone should be consulted, what right could any man have to dictate to

him? Certain ideas occurred to him which his friends in England would

have called wild, democratic, revolutionary and damnable, but which,

owing perhaps to the Irish air and the Irish whiskey and the spirit of

adventure fostered by the vicinity of rocks and ocean, appeared to him

at the moment to be not only charming but reasonable also. No doubt he

was born to high state and great rank, but nothing that his rank and

state could give him was so sweet as his liberty. To be free to choose

for himself in all things, was the highest privilege of man. What

pleasure could he have in a love which should be selected for him by

such a woman as his aunt? Then he gave the reins to some confused notion

of an Irish bride, a wife who should be half a wife and half not,--whom

he would love and cherish tenderly but of whose existence no English

friend should be aware. How could he more charmingly indulge his spirit

of adventure than by some such arrangement as this?

He knew that he had given a pledge to his uncle to contract no marriage

that would be derogatory to his position. He knew also that he had given

a pledge to the priest that he would do no harm to Kate O'Hara. He felt

that he was bound to keep each pledge. As for that sweet, darling girl,

would he not sooner lose his life than harm her? But he was aware that

an adventurous life was always a life of difficulties, and that for such

as live adventurous lives the duty of overcoming difficulties was of all

duties the chief. Then he got into his canoe, and, having succeeded in

killing two gulls on the Drumdeirg rocks, thought that for that day he

had carried out his purpose as a man of adventure very well.

During February and March he was often on the coast, and hardly one

visit did he make which was not followed by a letter from Castle Quin

to Scroope Manor. No direct accusation of any special fault was made

against him in consequence. No charge was brought of an improper

hankering after any special female, because Lady Scroope found herself

bound in conscience not to commit her correspondent; but very heavy

injunctions were laid upon him as to his general conduct, and he was

eagerly entreated to remember his great duty and to come home and settle

himself in England. In the mean time the ties which bound him to the

coast of Clare were becoming stronger and stronger every day. He had

ceased now to care much about seeing Father Marty, and would come, when

the tide was low, direct from Lahinch to the strand beneath the cliffs,

from whence there was a path through the rocks up to Ardkill. And there

he would remain for hours,--having his gun with him, but caring little

for his gun. He told himself that he loved the rocks and the wildness of

the scenery, and the noise of the ocean, and the whirring of the birds

above and below him. It was certainly true that he loved Kate O'Hara.

"Neville, you must answer me a question," said the mother to him one

morning when they were out together, looking down upon the Atlantic when

the wind had lulled after a gale.

"Ask it then," said he.

"What is the meaning of all this? What is Kate to believe?"

"Of course she believes that I love her better than all the world

besides,--that she is more to me than all the world can give or take. I

have told her at least, so often, that if she does not believe it she is

little better than a Jew."

"You must not joke with me now. If you knew what it was to have one

child and only that you would not joke with me."

"I am quite in earnest. I am not joking."

"And what is to be the end of it?"

"The end of it! How can I say? My uncle is an old man,--very old, very

infirm, very good, very prejudiced, and broken-hearted because his own

son, who died, married against his will."

"You would not liken my Kate to such as that woman was?"

"Your Kate! She is my Kate as much as yours. Such a thought as that

would be an injury to me as deep as to you. You know that to me my Kate,

our Kate, is all excellence,--as pure and good as she is bright and

beautiful. As God is above us she shall be my wife,--but I cannot take

her to Scroope Manor as my wife while my uncle lives."

"Why should any one be ashamed of her at Scroope Manor?"

"Because they are fools. But I cannot cure them of their folly. My uncle

thinks that I should marry one of my own class."

"Class;--what class? He is a gentleman, I presume, and she is a lady."

"That is very true;--so true that I myself shall act upon the truth. But

I will not make his last years wretched. He is a Protestant, and you are

Catholics."

"What is that? Are not ever so many of your lords Catholics? Were they

not all Catholics before Protestants were ever thought of?"

"Mrs. O'Hara, I have told you that to me she is as high and good and

noble as though she were a Princess. And I have told you that she shall

be my wife. If that does not content you, I cannot help it. It contents

her. I owe much to her."

"Indeed you do;--everything."

"But I owe much to him also. I do not think that you can gain anything

by quarrelling with me."

She paused for a while before she answered him, looking into his face

the while with something of the ferocity of a tigress. So intent was her

gaze that his eyes quailed beneath it. "By the living God," she said,

"if you injure my child I will have the very blood from your heart."

Nevertheless she allowed him to return alone to the house, where she

knew that he would find her girl. "Kate," he said, going into the

parlour in which she was sitting idle at the window,--"dear Kate."

"Well, sir?"

"I'm off."

"You are always--off, as you call it."

"Well,--yes. But I'm not on and off, as the saying is."

"Why should you go away now?"

"Do you suppose a soldier has got nothing to do? You never calculate, I

think, that Ennis is about three-and-twenty miles from here. Come, Kate,

be nice with me before I go."

"How can I be nice when you are going? I always think when I see you go

that you will never come back to me again. I don't know why you should

come back to such a place as this?"

"Because, as it happens, the place holds what I love best in all the

world." Then he lifted her from her chair, and put his arm round her

waist. "Do you not know that I love you better than all that the world

holds?"

"How can I know it?"

"Because I swear it to you."

"I think that you like me--a little. Oh Fred, if you were to go and

never to come back I should die. Do you remember Mariana? 'My life is

dreary. He cometh not,' she said. She said, 'I am aweary, aweary; I

would that I were dead!' Do you remember that? What has mother been

saying to you?"

"She has been bidding me to do you no harm. It was not necessary. I

would sooner pluck out my eye than hurt you. My uncle is an old man,--a

very old man. She cannot understand that it is better that we should

wait, than that I should have to think hereafter that I had killed him

by my unkindness."

"But he wants you to love some other girl."

"He cannot make me do that. All the world cannot change my heart, Kate.

If you can not trust me for that, then you do not love me as I love

you."

"Oh, Fred, you know I love you. I do trust you. Of course I can wait, if

I only know that you will come back to me. I only want to see you." He

was now leaning over her, and her cheek was pressed close to his. Though

she was talking of Mariana, and pretending to fear future misery, all

this was Elysium to her,--the very joy of Paradise. She could sit and

think of him now from morning to night, and never find the day an hour

too long. She could remember the words in which he made his oaths to

her, and cherish the sweet feeling of his arm round her body. To have

her cheek close to his was godlike. And then when he would kiss her,

though she would rebuke him, it was as though all heaven were in the

embrace.

"And now good-bye. One kiss, darling."

"No."

"Not a kiss when I am going?"

"I don't want you to go. Oh, Fred! Well;--there. Good-bye, my own, own,

own beloved one. You'll be here on Monday?"

"Yes,--on Monday."

"And be in the boat four hours, and here four minutes. Don't I know

you?" But he went without answering this last accusation.

"What shall we do, Kate, if he deceives us?" said the mother that

evening.

"Die. But I am sure he will not deceive us."

Neville, as he made his way down to Liscannor, where his gig was waiting

for him, did ask himself some serious questions about his adventure.

What must be the end of it? And had he not been imprudent? It may be

declared on his behalf that no idea of treachery to the girl ever

crossed his mind. He loved her too thoroughly for that. He did love

her--not perhaps as she loved him. He had many things in the world to

occupy his mind, and she had but one. He was almost a god to her. She to

him was simply the sweetest girl that he had ever as yet seen, and one

who had that peculiar merit that she was all his own. No other man had

ever pressed her hand, or drank her sweet breath. Was not such a love a

thousand times sweeter than that of some girl who had been hurried from

drawing-room to drawing-room, and perhaps from one vow of constancy to

another for half-a-dozen years? The adventure was very sweet. But how

was it to end? His uncle might live these ten years, and he had not the

heart,--nor yet the courage,--to present her to his uncle as his bride.

When he reached Ennis that evening there was a despatch marked

"Immediate," from his aunt Lady Scroope. "Your uncle is very

ill;--dangerously ill, we fear. His great desire is to see you once

again. Pray come without losing an hour."

Early on the following morning he started for Dublin, but before he

went to bed that night he not only wrote to Kate O'Hara, but enclosed

the note from his aunt. He could understand that though the tidings of

his uncle's danger was a shock to him there would be something in the

tidings which would cause joy to the two inmates of Ardkill Cottage.

When he sent that letter with his own, he was of course determined that

he would marry Kate O'Hara as soon as he was a free man.

CHAPTER IX.

FRED NEVILLE RETURNS TO SCROOPE.

The suddenness of the demand made for the heir's presence at Scroope was

perhaps not owing to the Earl's illness alone. The Earl, indeed, was

ill,--so ill that he thought himself that his end was very near; but his

illness had been brought about chiefly by the misery to which he had

been subjected by the last despatch from Castle Quin to the Countess. "I

am most unwilling," she said, "to make mischief or to give unnecessary

pain to you or to Lord Scroope; but I think it my duty to let you know

that the general opinion about here is that Mr. Neville shall make Miss

O'Hara his wife,--_if he has not done so already_. The most dangerous

feature in the whole matter is that it is all managed by the priest of

this parish, a most unscrupulous person, who would do anything,--he

is so daring. We have known him many many years, and we know to what

lengths he would go. The laws have been so altered in favour of the

Roman Catholics, and against the Protestants, that a priest can do

almost just what he likes. I do not think that he would scruple for an

instant to marry them if he thought it likely that his prey would escape

from him. My own opinion is that there has been no marriage as yet,

though I know that others think that there has been." The expression of

this opinion from "others" which had reached Lady Mary's ears consisted

of an assurance from her own Protestant lady's maid that that wicked,

guzzling old Father Marty would marry the young couple as soon as look

at them, and very likely had done so already. "I cannot say," continued

Lady Mary, "that I actually know anything against the character of Miss

O'Hara. Of the mother we have very strange stories here. They live in a

little cottage with one maid-servant, almost upon the cliffs, and nobody

knows anything about them except the priest. If he should be seduced

into a marriage, nothing could be more unfortunate." Lady Mary probably

intended to insinuate that were young Neville prudently to get out of

the adventure, simply leaving the girl behind him blasted, ruined, and

destroyed, the matter no doubt would be bad; but in that case the great

misfortune would have been avoided. She could not quite say this in

plain words; but she felt, no doubt, that Lady Scroope would understand

her. Then Lady Mary went on to assure her friend that though she and her

father and sisters very greatly regretted that Mr. Neville had not again

given them the pleasure of seeing him at Castle Quin, no feeling of

injury on that score had induced her to write so strongly as she had

done. She had been prompted to do so simply by her desire to prevent _a

most ruinous alliance_.

Lady Scroope acknowledged entirely the truth of these last words. Such

an alliance would be most ruinous! But what could she do? Were she to

write to Fred and tell him all that she heard,--throwing to the winds

Lady Mary's stupid injunctions respecting secrecy, as she would not have

scrupled to do could she have thus obtained her object,--might it not be

quite possible that she would precipitate the calamity which she desired

so eagerly to avoid? Neither had she nor had her husband any power over

the young man, except such as arose from his own good feeling. The Earl

could not disinherit him;--could not put a single acre beyond his reach.

Let him marry whom he might he must be Earl Scroope of Scroope, and the

woman so married must be the Countess of Scroope. There was already a

Lady Neville about the world whose existence was a torture to them; and

if this young man chose also to marry a creature utterly beneath him and

to degrade the family, no effort on their part could prevent him. But

if, as seemed probable, he were yet free, and if he could be got to come

again among them, it might be that he still had left some feelings on

which they might work. No doubt there was the Neville obstinacy about

him; but he had seemed to both of them to acknowledge the sanctity of

his family, and to appreciate in some degree the duty which he owed to

it.

The emergency was so great that she feared to act alone. She told

everything to her husband, shewing him Lady Mary's letter, and the

effect upon him was so great that it made him ill. "It will be better

for me," he said, "to turn my face to the wall and die before I know

it." He took to his bed, and they of his household did think that he

would die. He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with

her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon

the house. "If it could only have been the other brother," said Lady

Scroope.

"There can be no change," said the Earl. "He must do as it lists him

with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family."

Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by

the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to

recall the nephew to his uncle's bedside. The letter, as we have seen,

was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from

Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop,

almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to

his rest. In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. "We

think my lord is a little better," said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper.

"My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe

he has slept since." Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small

sitting-room. His uncle had rallied a little, she told him. She was very

affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in

coming. When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till

the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in

travelling so quickly.

That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during

dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference

solely to his uncle's health. But, though they were alone on this

evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at

Scroope. Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was

not to join them till May. As it happened, however, she was dining at

the parsonage this evening. She must have been in the house when Neville

arrived, but he had not seen her. "Is she going to live here?" he

asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the

house. "I wish she were," said Lady Scroope. "I am childless, and she

is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed

himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at

Scroope.

The evening was dreadfully dull. It had seemed to him that the house was

darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever. He had hurried

over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to

kick his heels. But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by

a full explanation of all his aunt's terrors. She crept down to him at

about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a

matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him

in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary.

"She is a mischief-making gossiping old maid," said Neville angrily.

"Will you tell me that there is no truth in what she writes?" asked Lady

Scroope. But this was a question which Fred Neville was not prepared to

answer, and he sat silent. "Fred, tell me the truth. Are you married?"

"No;--I am not married."

"I know that you will not condescend to an untruth."

"If so, my word must be sufficient."

But it was not sufficient. She longed to extract from him some repeated

and prolonged assurance which might bring satisfaction to her own

mind. "I am glad, at any rate, to hear that there is no truth in that

suspicion." To this he would not condescend to reply, but sat glowering

at her as though in wrath that any question should be asked him about

his private concerns. "You must feel, Fred, for your uncle in such a

matter. You must know how important this is to him. You have heard what

he has already suffered; and you must know too that he has endeavoured

to be very good to you."

"I do know that he has,--been very good to me."

"Perhaps you are angry with me for interfering." He would not deny that

he was angry. "I should not do so were it not that your uncle is ill and

suffering."

"You have asked me a question and I have answered it. I do not know what

more you want of me."

"Will you say that there is no truth in all this that Lady Mary says?"

"Lady Mary is an impertinent old maid."

"If you were in your uncle's place, and if you had an heir as to whose

character in the world you were anxious, you would not think anyone

impertinent who endeavoured for the sake of friendship to save your

name and family from a disreputable connexion."

"I have made no disreputable connexion. I will not allow the word

disreputable to be used in regard to any of my friends."

"You do know people of the name of O'Hara?"

"Of course I do."

"And there is a--young lady?"

"I may know a dozen young ladies as to whom I shall not choose to

consult Lady Mary Quin."

"You understand what I mean, Fred. Of course I do not wish to ask you

anything about your general acquaintances. No doubt you meet many girls

whom you admire, and I should be very foolish were I to make inquiries

of you or of anybody else concerning them. I am the last person to be so

injudicious. If you will tell me that there is not and never shall be

any question of marriage between you and Miss O'Hara, I will not say

another word."

"I will not pledge myself to anything for the future."

"You told your uncle you would never make a marriage that should be

disgraceful to the position which you will be called upon to fill."

"Nor will I."

"But would not this marriage be disgraceful, even were the young lady

ever so estimable? How are the old families of the country to be kept

up, and the old blood maintained if young men, such as you are, will not

remember something of all that is due to the name which they bear."

"I do not know that I have forgotten anything."

Then she paused before she could summon courage to ask him another

question. "You have made no promise of marriage to Miss O'Hara?" He sat

dumb, but still looking at her with that angry frown. "Surely your uncle

has a right to expect that you will answer that question."

"I am quite sure that for his sake it will be much better that no such

questions shall be asked me."

In point of fact he had answered the question. When he would not deny

that such promise had been made, there could no longer be any doubt of

the truth of what Lady Mary had written. Of course the whole truth had

now been elicited. He was not married but he was engaged;--engaged to

a girl of whom he knew nothing, a Roman Catholic, Irish, fatherless,

almost nameless,--to one who had never been seen in good society, one of

whom no description could be given, of whom no record could be made in

the peerage that would not be altogether disgraceful, a girl of whom he

was ashamed to speak before those to whom he owed duty and submission!

That there might be a way to escape the evil even yet Lady Scroope

acknowledged to herself fully. Many men promise marriage but do not

keep the promise they have made. This lady, who herself was really

good,--unselfish, affectionate, religious, actuated by a sense of

duty in all that she did, whose life had been almost austerely moral,

entertained an idea that young men, such as Fred Neville, very commonly

made such promises with very little thought of keeping them. She did not

expect young men to be governed by principles such as those to which

young ladies are bound to submit themselves. She almost supposed that

heaven had a different code of laws for men and women in her condition

of life, and that salvation was offered on very different terms to the

two sexes. The breach of any such promise as the heir of Scroope could

have made to such a girl as this Miss O'Hara would be a perjury at which

Jove might certainly be expected to laugh. But in her catalogue there

were sins for which no young men could hope to be forgiven; and the sin

of such a marriage as this would certainly be beyond pardon.

Of the injury which was to be done to Miss O'Hara, it may be said with

certainty that she thought not at all. In her eyes it would be no

injury, but simple justice,--no more than a proper punishment for

intrigue and wicked ambition. Without having seen the enemy to the

family of Scroope, or even having heard a word to her disparagement, she

could feel sure that the girl was bad,--that these O'Haras were vulgar

and false impostors, persons against whom she could put out all her

strength without any prick of conscience. Women in such matters are

always hard against women, and especially hard against those whom they

believe to belong to a class below their own. Certainly no feeling of

mercy would induce her to hold her hand in this task of saving her

husband's nephew from an ill-assorted marriage. Mercy to Miss O'Hara!

Lady Scroope had the name of being a very charitable woman. She gave

away money. She visited the poor. She had laboured hard to make the

cottages on the estate clean and comfortable. She denied herself many

things that she might give to others. But she would have no more mercy

on such a one as Miss O'Hara, than a farmer's labourer would have on a

rat!

There was nothing more now to be said to the heir;--nothing more for the

present that could serve the purpose which she had in hand. "Your uncle

is very ill," she murmured.

"I was so sorry to hear it."

"We hope now that he may recover. For the last two days the doctor has

told us that we may hope."

"I am so glad to find that it is so."

"I am sure you are. You will see him to-morrow after breakfast. He is

most anxious to see you. I think sometimes you hardly reflect how much

you are to him."

"I don't know why you should say so."

"You had better not speak to him to-morrow about this affair,--of the

Irish young lady."

"Certainly not,--unless he speaks to me about it."

"He is hardly strong enough yet. But no doubt he will do so before you

leave us. I hope it may be long before you do that."

"It can't be very long, Aunt Mary." To this she said nothing, but bade

him good-night and he was left alone. It was now past ten, and he

supposed that Miss Mellerby had come in and gone to her room. Why she

should avoid him in this way he could not understand. But as for Miss

Mellerby herself, she was so little to him that he cared not at all

whether he did or did not see her. All his brightest thoughts were away

in County Clare, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. They might say

what they liked to him, but he would never be untrue to the girl whom

he had left there. His aunt had spoken of the "affair of--the Irish

young lady;" and he had quite understood the sneer with which she had

mentioned Kate's nationality. Why should not an Irish girl be as good as

any English girl? Of one thing he was quite sure,--that there was much

more of real life to be found on the cliffs of Moher than in the gloomy

chambers of Scroope Manor.

He got up from his seat feeling absolutely at a loss how to employ

himself. Of course he could go to bed, but how terribly dull must life

be in a place in which he was obliged to go to bed at ten o'clock

because there was nothing to do. And since he had been there his only

occupation had been that of listening to his aunt's sermons. He began

to think that a man might pay too dearly even for being the heir to

Scroope. After sitting awhile in the dark gloom created by a pair of

candles, he got up and wandered into the large unused dining-room of the

mansion. It was a chamber over forty feet long, with dark flock paper

and dark curtains, with dark painted wainscoating below the paper, and

huge dark mahogany furniture. On the walls hung the portraits of the

Scroopes for many generations past, some in armour, some in their robes

of state, ladies with stiff bodices and high head-dresses, not beauties

by Lely or warriors and statesmen by Kneller, but wooden, stiff,

ungainly, hideous figures, by artists whose works had, unfortunately,

been more enduring than their names. He was pacing up and down the room

with a candle in his hand, trying to realize to himself what life at

Scroope might be with a wife of his aunt's choosing, and his aunt to

keep the house for them, when a door was opened at the end of the room,

away from that by which he had entered, and with a soft noiseless step

Miss Mellerby entered. She did not see him at first, as the light of her

own candle was in her eyes, and she was startled when he spoke to her.

His first idea was one of surprise that she should be wandering about

the house alone at night. "Oh, Mr. Neville," she said, "you quite took

me by surprise. How do you do? I did not expect to meet you here."

"Nor I you!"

"Since Lord Scroope has been so ill, Lady Scroope has been sleeping in

the little room next to his, downstairs, and I have just come from her."

"What do you think of my uncle's state?"

"He is better; but he is very weak."

"You see him?"

"Oh yes, daily. He is so anxious to see you, Mr. Neville, and so much

obliged to you for coming. I was sure that you would come."

"Of course I came."

"He wanted to see you this afternoon; but the doctor had expressly

ordered that he should be kept quiet. Good-night. I am so very glad that

you are here. I am sure that you will be good to him."

Why should she be glad, and why should she be sure that he would be

good to his uncle? Could it be that she also had been told the story of

Kate O'Hara? Then, as no other occupation was possible to him, he took

himself to bed.

CHAPTER X.

FRED NEVILLE'S SCHEME.

On the next morning after breakfast Neville was taken into his uncle's

chamber, but there was an understanding that there was to be no

conversation on disagreeable subjects on this occasion. His aunt

remained in the room while he was there, and the conversation was

almost confined to the expression of thanks on the part of the Earl to

his nephew for coming, and of hopes on the part of the nephew that his

uncle might soon be well. One matter was mooted as to which no doubt

much would be said before Neville could get away. "I thought it better

to make arrangements to stay a fortnight," said Fred,--as though a

fortnight were a very long time indeed.

"A fortnight!" said the Earl.

"We won't talk of his going yet," replied Lady Scroope.

"Supposing I had died, he could not have gone back in a fortnight," said

the Earl in a low moaning voice.

"My dear uncle, I hope that I may live to see you in your own place here

at Scroope for many years to come." The Earl shook his head, but nothing

more was then said on that subject. Fred, however, had carried out his

purpose. He had been determined to let them understand that he would not

hold himself bound to remain long at Scroope Manor.

Then he wrote a letter to his own Kate. It was the first time he had

addressed her in this fashion, and though he was somewhat of a gallant

gay Lothario, the writing of the letter was an excitement to him. If so,

what must the receipt of it have been to Kate O'Hara! He had promised

her that he would write to her, and from the moment that he was gone she

was anxious to send in to the post-office at Ennistimon for the treasure

which the mail car might bring to her. When she did get it, it was

indeed a treasure. To a girl who really loves, the first love letter is

a thing as holy as the recollection of the first kiss. "May I see it,

Kate?" said Mrs. O'Hara, as her daughter sat poring over the scrap of

paper by the window.

"Yes, mamma,--if you please." Then she paused a moment. "But I think

that I had rather you did not. Perhaps he did not mean me to shew it."

The mother did not urge her request, but contented herself with coming

up behind her child and kissing her. The reader, however, shall have the

privilege which was denied to Mrs. O'Hara.

DEAREST KATE,

I got here all alive yesterday at four. I came on as fast as ever

I could travel, and hardly got a mouthful to eat after I left

Limerick. I never saw such beastliness as they have at the stations.

My uncle is much better,--so much so that I shan't remain here very

long. I can't tell you any particular news,--except this, that

that old cat down at Castle Quin,--the one with the crisp-curled

wig,--must have the nose of a dog and the ears of a cat and the eyes

of a bird, and she sends word to Scroope of everything that she

smells and hears and sees. It makes not the slightest difference to

me,--nor to you I should think. Only I hate such interference. The

truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't

be an old maid.

I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at

Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope,

Dorsetshire,--that will be enough;--to F. Neville, Esq. Give my

love to your mother.--As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for

my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own

weights and measures. Indeed you have all my heart.

Your own F. N.

There is a young lady here whom it is intended that I shall marry.

She is the pink of propriety and really very pretty;--but you need

not be a bit jealous. The joke is that my brother is furiously in

love with her, and that I fancy she would be just as much in love

with him only that she's told not to.--A thousand kisses.

It was not much of a love letter, but there were a few words in it which

sufficed altogether for Kate's happiness. She was told that she had

all his heart,--and she believed it. She was told that she need not be

jealous of the proper young lady, and she believed that too. He sent

her a thousand kisses; and she, thinking that he might have kissed the

paper, pressed it to her lips. At any rate his hand had rested on it.

She would have been quite willing to shew to her mother all these

expressions of her lover's love; but she felt that it would not be fair

to him to expose his allusions to the "beastliness" at the stations. He

might say what he liked to her; but she understood that she was not at

liberty to shew to others words which had been addressed to her in the

freedom of perfect intimacy.

"Does he say anything of the old man?" asked Mrs. O'Hara.

"He says that his uncle is better."

"Threatened folks live long. Does Neville tell you when he will be

back?"

"Not exactly; but he says that he will not stay long. He does not like

Scroope at all. I knew that. He always says that,--that--"

"Says what, dear?"

"When we are married he will go away somewhere,--to Italy or Greece or

somewhere. Scroope he says is so gloomy."

"And where shall I go?"

"Oh, mother;--you shall be with us, always."

"No, dear, you must not dream of that. When you have him you will not

want me."

"Dear mother. I shall want you always."

"He will not want me. We have no right to expect too much from him,

Kate. That he shall make you his wife we have a right to expect. If he

were false to you--"

"He is not false. Why should you think him false?"

"I do not think it; but if he were--! Never mind. If he be true to you,

I will not burden him. If I can see you happy, Kate, I will bear all the

rest." That which she would have to bear would be utter solitude for

life. She could look forward and see how black and tedious would be her

days; but all that would be nothing to her if her child were lifted up

on high.

It was now the beginning of April, which for sportsmen in England is

of all seasons the most desperate. Hunting is over. There is literally

nothing to shoot. And fishing,--even if there were fishing in England

worth a man's time,--has not begun. A gentleman of enterprise driven

very hard in this respect used to declare that there was no remedy for

April but to go and fly hawks in Holland. Fred Neville could not fly

hawks at Scroope, and found that there was nothing for him to do. Miss

Mellerby suggested--books. "I like books better than anything," said

Fred. "I always have a lot of novels down at our quarters. But a fellow

can't be reading all day, and there isn't a novel in the house except

Walter Scott's and a lot of old rubbish. By-the-bye have you read 'All

Isn't Gold That Glitters?'" Miss Mellerby had not read the tale named.

"That's what I call a good novel."

Day passed after day and it seemed as though he was expected to remain

at Scroope without any definite purpose, and, worse still, without any

fixed limit to his visit. At his aunt's instigation he rode about the

property and asked questions as to the tenants. It was all to be his

own, and in the course of nature must be his own very soon. There could

not but be an interest for him in every cottage and every field. But yet

there was present to him all the time a schoolboy feeling that he was

doing a task; and the occupation was not pleasant to him because it was

a task. The steward was with him as a kind of pedagogue, and continued

to instruct him during the whole ride. This man only paid so much

a year, and the rent ought to be so much more; but there were

circumstances. And "My Lord" had been peculiarly good. This farm was

supposed to be the best on the estate, and that other the worst. Oh

yes, there were plenty of foxes. "My Lord" had always insisted that the

foxes should be preserved. Some of the hunting gentry no doubt had made

complaints, but it was a great shame. Foxes had been seen, two or three

at a time, the very day after the coverts had been drawn blank. As for

game, a head of game could be got up very soon, as there was plenty of

corn and the woods were large; but "My Lord" had never cared for game.

The farmers all shot the rabbits on their own land. Rents were paid to

the day. There was never any mistake about that. Of course the land

would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a

thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly.

The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to

hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate

in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented

five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville

wished it the steward would show him the limit of the estate on the

other side to-morrow. No doubt there was a plan of the estate. It was

in "My Lord's" own room, and would shew every farm with its acreage and

bounds. Fred thought that he would study this plan on the next day

instead of riding about with the steward.

He could not escape from the feeling that he was being taught his lesson

like a school-boy, and he did not like it. He longed for the freedom

of his boat on the Irish coast, and longed for the devotedness of Kate

O'Hara. He was sure that he loved her so thoroughly that life without

her was not to be regarded as possible. But certain vague ideas very

injurious to the Kate he so dearly loved crossed his brain. Under the

constant teaching of his aunt he did recognize it as a fact that he

owed a high duty to his family. For many days after that first night at

Scroope not a word was said to him about Kate O'Hara. He saw his uncle

daily,--probably twice a day; but the Earl never alluded to his Irish

love. Lady Scroope spoke constantly of the greatness of the position

which the heir was called upon to fill and of all that was due to the

honour of the family. Fred, as he heard her, would shake his head

impatiently, but would acknowledge the truth of what she said. He was

induced even to repeat the promise which he had made to his uncle,

and to assure his aunt that he would do nothing to mar or lessen the

dignity of the name of Neville. He did become, within his own mind,

indoctrinated with the idea that he would injure the position of the

earldom which was to be his were he to marry Kate O'Hara. Arguments

which had appeared to him to be absurd when treated with ridicule by

Father Marty, and which in regard to his own conduct he had determined

to treat as old women's tales, seemed to him at Scroope to be true

and binding. The atmosphere of the place, the companionship of Miss

Mellerby, the reverence with which he himself was treated by the

domestics, the signs of high nobility which surrounded him on all sides,

had their effect upon him. Noblesse oblige. He felt that it was so. Then

there crossed his brain visions of a future life which were injurious to

the girl he loved.

Let his brother Jack come and live at Scroope and marry Sophie Mellerby.

As long as he lived Jack could not be the Earl, but in regard to money

he would willingly make such arrangements as would enable his brother

to maintain the dignity and state of the house. They would divide the

income. And then he would so arrange his matters with Kate O'Hara that

his brother's son should be heir to the Earldom. He had some glimmering

of an idea that as Kate was a Roman Catholic a marriage ceremony might

be contrived of which this would become the necessary result. There

should be no deceit. Kate should know it all, and everything should be

done to make her happy. He would live abroad, and would not call himself

by his title. They would be Mr. and Mrs. Neville. As to the property,

that must of course hereafter go with the title, but in giving up so

much to his brother, he could of course arrange as to the provision

necessary for any children of his own. No doubt his Kate would like to

be the Countess Scroope,--would prefer that a future son of her own

should be the future Earl. But as he was ready to abandon so much,

surely she would be ready to abandon something. He must explain to

her,--and to her mother,--that under no other circumstances could he

marry her. He must tell her of pledges made to his uncle before he knew

her, of the duty which he owed to his family, and of his own great

dislike to the kind of life which would await him as acting head of the

family. No doubt there would be scenes,--and his heart quailed as he

remembered certain glances which had flashed upon him from the eyes of

Mrs. O'Hara. But was he not offering to give up everything for his love?

His Kate should be his wife after some Roman Catholic fashion in some

Roman Catholic country. Of course there would be difficulties,--the

least of which would not be those glances from the angry mother; but

it would be his business to overcome difficulties. There were always

difficulties in the way of any man who chose to leave the common grooves

of life and to make a separate way for himself. There were always

difficulties in the way of adventures. Dear Kate! He would never desert

his Kate. But his Kate must do as much as this for him. Did he not

intend that, whatever good things the world might have in store for him,

his Kate should share them all?

His ideas were very hazy, and he knew himself that he was ignorant of

the laws respecting marriage. It occurred to him, therefore, that he had

better consult his brother, and confide everything to him. That Jack was

wiser than he, he was always willing to allow; and although he did in

some sort look down upon Jack as a plodding fellow, who shot no seals

and cared nothing for adventure, still he felt it to be almost a pity

that Jack should not be the future Earl. So he told his aunt that he

proposed to ask his brother to come to Scroope for a day or two before

he returned to Ireland. Had his aunt, or would his uncle have, any

objection? Lady Scroope did not dare to object. She by no means wished

that her younger nephew should again be brought within the influence

of Miss Mellerby's charms; but it would not suit her purpose to give

offence to the heir by refusing so reasonable request. He would have

been off to join his brother at Woolwich immediately. So the invitation

was sent, and Jack Neville promised that he would come.

Fred knew nothing of the offer that had been made to Miss Mellerby,

though he had been sharp enough to discern his brother's feelings. "My

brother is coming here to-morrow," he said one morning to Miss Mellerby

when they were alone together.

"So Lady Scroope has told me. I don't wonder that you should wish to see

him."

"I hope everybody will be glad to see him. Jack is just about the very

best fellow in the world;--and he's one of the cleverest too."

"It is so nice to hear one brother speak in that way of another."

"I swear by Jack. He ought to have been the elder brother;--that's the

truth. Don't you like him?"

"Who;--I. Oh, yes, indeed. What I saw of him I liked very much."

"Isn't it a pity that he shouldn't have been the elder?"

"I can't say that, Mr. Neville."

"No. It wouldn't be just civil to me. But I can say it. When we were

here last winter I thought that my brother was--"

"Was what, Mr Neville?"

"Was getting to be very fond of you. Perhaps I ought not to say so."

"I don't think that much good is ever done by saying that kind of

thing," said Miss Mellerby gravely.

"It cannot at any rate do any harm in this case. I wish with all my

heart that he was fond of you and you of him."

"That is all nonsense. Indeed it is."

"I am not saying it without an object. I don't see why you and I should

not understand one another. If I tell you a secret will you keep it?"

"Do not tell me any secret that I must keep from Lady Scroope."

"But that is just what you must do."

"But then suppose I don't do it," said Miss Mellerby.

But Fred was determined to tell his secret. "The truth is that both my

uncle and my aunt want me to fall in love with you."

"How very kind of them," said she with a little forced laugh.

"I don't for a moment think that, had I tried it on ever so, I could

have succeeded. I am not at all the sort of man to be conceited in that

way. Wishing to do the best they could for me, they picked you out. It

isn't that I don't think as well of you as they do, but--"

"Really, Mr. Neville, this is the oddest conversation."

"Quite true. It is odd. But the fact is you are here, and there is

nobody else I can talk to. And I want you to know the exact truth. I'm

engaged to--somebody else."

"I ought to break my heart;--oughtn't I?"

"I don't in the least mind your laughing at me. I should have minded it

very much if I had asked you to marry me, and you had refused me."

"You haven't given me the chance, you see."

"I didn't mean. What was the good?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Neville, if you are engaged to some one else. I

shouldn't like to be Number Two."

"I'm in a peck of troubles;--that's the truth. I would change places

with my brother to-morrow if I could. I daresay you don't believe that,

but I would. I will not vex my uncle if I can help it, but I certainly

shall not throw over the girl who loves me. If it wasn't for the title,

I'd give up Scroope to my brother to-morrow, and go and live in some

place where I could get lots of shooting, and where I should never have

to put on a white choker."

"You'll think better of all that."

"Well!--I've just told you everything because I like to be on the

square. I wish you knew Kate O'Hara. I'm sure you would not wonder that

a fellow should love her. I had rather you didn't tell my aunt what I

have told you; but if you choose to do so, I can't help it."

CHAPTER XI.

THE WISDOM OF JACK NEVILLE.

Neville had been forced to get his leave of absence renewed on the score

of his uncle's health, and had promised to prolong his absence till the

end of April. When doing so he had declared his intention of returning

to Ennis in the beginning of May; but no agreement to that had as yet

been expressed by his uncle or aunt. Towards the end of the month his

brother came to Scroope, and up to that time not a word further had been

said to him respecting Kate O'Hara.

He had received an answer from Kate to his letter, prepared in a fashion

very different from that of his own. He had seated himself at a table

and in compliance with the pledge given by him, had scrawled off his

epistle as fast as he could write it. She had taken a whole morning to

think of hers, and had re-copied it after composing it, and had then

read it with the utmost care, confessing to herself, almost with tears,

that it was altogether unworthy of him to whom it was to be sent. It was

the first love letter she had ever written,--probably the first letter

she had ever written to a man, except those short notes which she would

occasionally scrawl to Father Marty in compliance with her mother's

directions. The letter to Fred was as follows;--

ARDKILL COTTAGE,

10th April, 18--.

MY DEAREST FRED,

I received your dear letter three or four days ago, and it made me

so happy. We were sorry that you should have such an uncomfortable

journey; but all that would be over and soon forgotten when you

found yourself in your comfortable home and among your own friends.

I am very glad to hear that your uncle is better. The thought of

finding him so ill must have made your journey very sad. As he is

so much better, I suppose you will come back soon to your poor

little Kate.

There is no news at all to send you from Liscannor. Father Marty

was up here yesterday and says that your boat is all safe at

Lahinch. He says that Barney Morony is an idle fellow, but as he

has nothing to do he can't help being idle. You should come back

and not let him be idle any more. I think the sea gulls know that

you are away, because they are wheeling and screaming about louder

and bolder than ever.

Mother sends her best love. She is very well. We have had nothing

to eat since you went because it has been Lent. So, if you had

been here, you would not have been able to get a bit of luncheon.

I dare say you have been a great deal better off at Scroope.

Father Marty says that you Protestants will have to keep your

Lent hereafter,--eighty days at a time instead of forty; and that

we Catholics will be allowed to eat just what we like, while you

Protestants will have to look on at us. If so, I think I'll manage

to give you a little bit.

Do come back to your own Kate as soon as you can. I need not tell

you that I love you better than all the world because you know it

already. I am not a bit jealous of the proper young lady, and I

hope that she will fall in love with your brother. Then some day

we shall be sisters;--shan't we? I should like to have a proper

young lady for my sister so much. Only, perhaps she would despise

me. Do come back soon. Everything is so dull while you are away!

You would come back to your own Kate if you knew how great a joy

it is to her when she sees you coming along the cliff.

Dearest, dearest love, I am always your own, own

KATE O'HARA.

Neville thought of showing Kate's letter to Miss Mellerby, but when

he read it a second time he made up his mind that he would keep it to

himself. The letter was all very well, and, as regarded the expressions

towards himself, just what it should be. But he felt that it was not

such a letter as Miss Mellerby would have written herself, and he was

a little ashamed of all that was said about the priest. Neither was he

proud of the pretty, finished, French hand-writing, over every letter of

which his love had taken so much pains. In truth, Kate O'Hara was better

educated than himself, and perhaps knew as much as Sophie Mellerby. She

could have written her letter quite as well in French as in English, and

she did understand something of the formation of her sentences. Fred

Neville had been at an excellent school, but it may be doubted whether

he could have explained his own written language. Nevertheless he was

a little ashamed of his Kate, and thought that Miss Mellerby might

perceive her ignorance if he shewed her letter.

He had sent for his brother in order that he might explain his scheme

and get his brother's advice;--but he found it very difficult to explain

his scheme to Jack Neville. Jack, indeed, from the very first would

not allow that the scheme was in any way practicable. "I don't quite

understand, Fred, what you mean. You don't intend to deceive her by a

false marriage?"

"Most assuredly not. I do not intend to deceive her at all."

"You must make her your wife, or not make her your wife."

"Undoubtedly she will be my wife. I am quite determined about that. She

has my word,--and over and above that, she is dearer to me than anything

else."

"If you marry her, her eldest son must of course be the heir to the

title."

"I am not at all so sure of that. All manner of queer things may be

arranged by marriages with Roman Catholics."

"Put that out of your head," said Jack Neville. "In the first place

you would certainly find yourself in a mess, and in the next place the

attempt itself would be dishonest. I dare say men have crept out of

marriages because they have been illegal; but a man who arranges a

marriage with the intention of creeping out of it is a scoundrel."

"You needn't bully about it, Jack. You know very well that I don't mean

to creep out of anything."

"I'm sure you don't. But as you ask me I must tell you what I think. You

are in a sort of dilemma between this girl and Uncle Scroope."

"I'm not in any dilemma at all."

"You seem to think you have made some promise to him which will be

broken if you marry her;--and I suppose you certainly have made her a

promise."

"Which I certainly mean to keep," said Fred.

"All right. Then you must break your promise to Uncle Scroope."

"It was a sort of half and half promise. I could not bear to see him

making himself unhappy about it."

"Just so. I suppose Miss O'Hara can wait."

Fred Neville scratched his head. "Oh yes;--she can wait. There's nothing

to bind me to a day or a month. But my uncle may live for the next ten

years now."

"My advice to you is to let Miss O'Hara understand clearly that you will

make no other engagement, but that you cannot marry her as long as your

uncle lives. Of course I say this on the supposition that the affair

cannot be broken off."

"Certainly not," said Fred with a decision that was magnanimous.

"I cannot think the engagement a fortunate one for you in your position.

Like should marry like. I'm quite sure of that. You would wish your

wife to be easily intimate with the sort of people among whom she would

naturally be thrown as Lady Scroope,--among the wives and daughters of

other Earls and such like."

"No; I shouldn't."

"I don't see how she would be comfortable in any other way."

"I should never live among other Earls, as you call them. I hate that

kind of thing. I hate London. I should never live here."

"What would you do?"

"I should have a yacht, and live chiefly in that. I should go about

a good deal, and get into all manner of queer places. I don't say

but what I might spend a winter now and then in Leicestershire or

Northamptonshire, for I am fond of hunting. But I should have no regular

home. According to my scheme you should have this place,--and sufficient

of the income to maintain it of course."

"That wouldn't do, Fred," said Jack, shaking his head,--"though I know

how generous you are."

"Why wouldn't it do?"

"You are the heir, and you must take the duties with the privileges. You

can have your yacht if you like a yacht,--but you'll soon get tired of

that kind of life. I take it that a yacht is a bad place for a nursery,

and inconvenient for one's old boots. When a man has a home fixed for

him by circumstances,--as you will have,--he gravitates towards it,

let his own supposed predilections be what they may. Circumstances are

stronger than predilections."

"You're a philosopher."

"I was always more sober than you, Fred."

"I wish you had been the elder,--on the condition of the younger brother

having a tidy slice out of the property to make himself comfortable."

"But I am not the elder, and you must take the position with all the

encumbrances. I see nothing for it but to ask Miss O'Hara to wait. If my

uncle lives long the probability is that one or the other of you will

change your minds, and that the affair will never come off."

When the younger and wiser brother gave this advice he did not think

it all likely that Miss O'Hara would change her mind. Penniless young

ladies don't often change their minds when they are engaged to the heirs

of Earls. It was not at all probable that she should repent the bargain

that she had made. But Jack Neville did think it very probable that his

brother might do so;--and, indeed, felt sure that he would do so if

years were allowed to intervene. His residence in County Clare would not

be perpetual, and with him in his circumstances it might well be that

the young lady, being out of sight, should be out of mind. Jack could

not exactly declare his opinion on this head. His brother at present was

full of his promise, full of his love, full of his honour. Nor would

Jack have absolutely counselled him to break his word to the young

lady. But he thought it probable that in the event of delay poor Miss

O'Hara might go to the wall;--and he also thought that for the general

interests of the Scroope family it would be better that she should do

so.

"And what are you going to do yourself?" asked Fred.

"In respect of what?"

"In respect of Miss Mellerby?"

"In respect of Miss Mellerby I am not going to do anything," said Jack

as he walked away.

In all that the younger brother said to the elder as to poor Kate O'Hara

he was no doubt wise and prudent; but in what he said about himself he

did not tell the truth. But then the question asked was one which a man

is hardly bound to answer, even to a brother. Jack Neville was much less

likely to talk about his love affairs than Fred, but not on that account

less likely to think about them. Sophie Mellerby had refused him once,

but young ladies have been known to marry gentlemen after refusing them

more than once. He at any rate was determined to persevere, having in

himself and in his affairs that silent faith of which the possessor is

so often unconscious, but which so generally leads to success. He found

Miss Mellerby to be very courteous to him if not gracious; and he had

the advantage of not being afraid of her. It did not strike him that

because she was the granddaughter of a duke, and because he was a

younger son, that therefore he ought not to dare to look at her. He

understood very well that she was brought there that Fred might marry

her;--but Fred was intent on marrying some one else, and Sophie Mellerby

was not a girl to throw her heart away upon a man who did not want

it. He had come to Scroope for only three days, but, in spite of some

watchfulness on the part of the Countess, he found his opportunity for

speaking before he left the house. "Miss Mellerby," he said, "I don't

know whether I ought to thank Fortune or to upbraid her for having again

brought me face to face with you."

"I hope the evil is not so oppressive as to make you very loud in your

upbraidings."

"They shall not at any rate be heard. I don't know whether there was any

spice of malice about my brother when he asked me to come here, and told

me in the same letter that you were at Scroope."

"He must have meant it for malice, I should think," said the young lady,

endeavouring, but not quite successfully, to imitate the manner of the

man who loved her.

"Of course I came."

"Not on my behalf, I hope, Mr. Neville."

"Altogether on your behalf. Fred's need to see me was not very great,

and, as my uncle had not asked me, and as my aunt, I fancy, does not

altogether approve of me, I certainly should not have come,--were it not

that I might find it difficult to get any other opportunity of seeing

you."

"That is hardly fair to Lady Scroope, Mr. Neville."

"Quite fair, I think. I did not come clandestinely. I am not ashamed

of what I am doing,--or of what I am going to do. I may be ashamed of

this,--that I should feel my chance of success to be so small. When I

was here before I asked you to--allow me to love you. I now ask you

again."

"Allow you!" she said.

"Yes;--allow me. I should be too bold were I to ask you to return my

love at once. I only ask you to know that because I was repulsed once, I

have not given up the pursuit."

"Mr. Neville, I am sure that my father and mother would not permit it."

"May I ask your father, Miss Mellerby?"

"Certainly not,--with my permission."

"Nevertheless you will not forget that I am suitor for your love?"

"I will make no promise of anything, Mr. Neville." Then, fearing that

she had encouraged him, she spoke again. "I think you ought to take my

answer as final."

"Miss Mellerby, I shall take no answer as final that is not favourable.

Should I indeed hear that you were to be married to another man, that

would be final; but that I shall not hear from your own lips. You will

say good-bye to me," and he offered her his hand.

She gave him her hand;--and he raised it to his lips and kissed it, as

men were wont to do in the olden days.

CHAPTER XII.

FRED NEVILLE MAKES A PROMISE.

Fred Neville felt that he had not received from his brother the

assistance or sympathy which he had required. He had intended to make

a very generous offer,--not indeed quite understanding how his offer

could be carried out, but still of a nature that should, he thought,

have bound his brother to his service. But Jack had simply answered him

by sermons;--by sermons and an assurance of the impracticability of

his scheme. Nevertheless he was by no means sure that his scheme was

impracticable. He was at least sure of this,--that no human power could

force him to adopt a mode of life that was distasteful to him. No one

could make him marry Sophie Mellerby, or any other Sophie, and maintain

a grand and gloomy house in Dorsetshire, spending his income, not in a

manner congenial to him, but in keeping a large retinue of servants

and taking what he called the "heavy line" of an English nobleman.

The property must be his own,--or at any rate the life use of it. He

swore to himself over and over again that nothing should induce him to

impoverish the family or to leave the general affairs of the house of

Scroope worse than he found them. Much less than half of that which he

understood to be the income coming from the estates would suffice for

him. But let his uncle or aunt,--or his strait-laced methodical brother,

say what they would to him, nothing should induce him to make himself a

slave to an earldom.

But yet his mind was much confused and his contentment by no means

complete. He knew that there must be a disagreeable scene between

himself and his uncle before he returned to Ireland, and he knew also

that his uncle could, if he were so minded, stop his present very

liberal allowance altogether. There had been a bargain, no doubt, that

he should remain with his regiment for a year, and of that year six

months were still unexpired. His uncle could not quarrel with him for

going back to Ireland; but what answer should he make when his uncle

asked him whether he were engaged to marry Miss O'Hara,--as of course he

would ask; and what reply should he make when his uncle would demand of

him whether he thought such a marriage fit for a man in his position. He

knew that it was not fit. He believed in the title, in the sanctity of

the name, in the mysterious grandeur of the family. He did not think

that an Earl of Scroope ought to marry a girl of whom nothing whatever

was known. The pride of the position stuck to him;--but it irked him to

feel that the sacrifices necessary to support that pride should fall on

his own shoulders.

One thing was impossible to him. He would not desert his Kate. But he

wished to have his Kate, as a thing apart. If he could have given six

months of each year to his Kate, living that yacht-life of which he had

spoken, visiting those strange sunny places which his imagination had

pictured to him, unshackled by conventionalities, beyond the sound of

church bells, unimpeded by any considerations of family,--and then have

migrated for the other six months to his earldom and his estates, to

his hunting and perhaps to Parliament, leaving his Kate behind him,

that would have been perfect. And why not? In the days which must come

so soon, he would be his own master. Who could impede his motions or

gainsay his will? Then he remembered his Kate's mother, and the glances

which would come from the mother's eyes. There might be difficulty even

though Scroope were all his own.

He was not a villain;--simply a self-indulgent spoiled young man who had

realized to himself no idea of duty in life. He never once told himself

that Kate should be his mistress. In all the pictures which he drew for

himself of a future life everything was to be done for her happiness and

for her gratification. His yacht should be made a floating bower for

her delight. During those six months of the year which, and which only,

the provoking circumstances of his position would enable him to devote

to joy and love, her will should be his law. He did not think himself

to be fickle. He would never want another Kate. He would leave her

with sorrow. He would return to her with ecstasy. Everybody around him

should treat her with the respect due to an empress. But it would be

very expedient that she should be called Mrs. Neville instead of Lady

Scroope. Could things not be so arranged for him;--so arranged that he

might make a promise to his uncle, and yet be true to his Kate without

breaking his promise? That was his scheme. Jack said that his scheme was

impracticable. But the difficulties in his way were not, he thought, so

much those which Jack had propounded as the angry eyes of Kate O'Hara's

mother.

At last the day was fixed for his departure. The Earl was already so

much better as to be able to leave his bedroom. Twice or thrice a day

Fred saw his uncle, and there was much said about the affairs of the

estate. The heir had taken some trouble, had visited some of the

tenants, and had striven to seem interested in the affairs of the

property. The Earl could talk for ever about the estate, every field,

every fence, almost every tree on which was familiar to him. That

his tenants should be easy in their circumstances, a protestant,

church-going, rent-paying people, son following father, and daughters

marrying as their mothers had married, unchanging, never sinking an inch

in the social scale, or rising,--this was the wish nearest to his heart.

Fred was well disposed to talk about the tenants as long as Kate O'Hara

was not mentioned. When the Earl would mournfully speak of his own

coming death, as an event which could not now be far distant, Fred with

fullest sincerity would promise that his wishes should be observed. No

rents should be raised. The axe should be but sparingly used. It seemed

to him strange that a man going into eternity should care about this

tree or that;--but as far as he was concerned the trees should stand

while Nature supported them. No servant should be dismissed. The

carriage horses should be allowed to die on the place. The old charities

should be maintained. The parson of the parish should always be a

welcome guest at the Manor. No promise was difficult for him to make so

long as that one question were left untouched.

But when he spoke of the day of his departure as fixed,--as being "the

day after to-morrow,"--then he knew that the question must be touched.

"I am sorry,--very sorry, that you must go," said the Earl.

"You see a man can't leave the service at a moment's notice."

"I think that we could have got over that, Fred."

"Perhaps as regards the service we might, but the regiment would think

ill of me. You see, so many things depend on a man's staying or going.

The youngsters mayn't have their money ready. I said I should remain

till October."

"I don't at all wish to act the tyrant to you."

"I know that, uncle."

Then there was a pause. "I haven't spoken to you yet, Fred, on a matter

which has caused me a great deal of uneasiness. When you first came I

was not strong enough to allude to it, and I left it to your aunt."

Neville knew well what was coming now, and was aware that he was moved

in a manner that hardly became his manhood. "Your aunt tells me that you

have got into some trouble with a young lady in the west of Ireland."

"No trouble, uncle, I hope."

"Who is she?"

Then there was another pause, but he gave a direct answer to the

question. "She is a Miss O'Hara."

"A Roman Catholic?"

"Yes."

"A girl of whose family you know nothing?"

"I know that she lives with her mother."

"In absolute obscurity,--and poverty?"

"They are not rich," said Fred.

"Do not suppose that I regard poverty as a fault. It is not necessary

that you should marry a girl with any fortune."

"I suppose not, Uncle Scroope."

"But I understand that this young lady is quite beneath yourself in

life. She lives with her mother in a little cottage, without

servants,--"

"There is a servant."

"You know what I mean, Fred. She does not live as ladies live. She is

uneducated."

"You are wrong there, my lord. She has been at an excellent school in

France."

"In France! Who was her father, and what?"

"I do not know what her father was;--a Captain O'Hara, I believe."

"And you would marry such a girl as that;--a Roman Catholic; picked up

on the Irish coast,--one of whom nobody knows even her parentage or

perhaps her real name? It would kill me, Fred."

"I have not said that I mean to marry her."

"But what do you mean? Would you ruin her;--seduce her by false promises

and then leave her? Do you tell me that in cold blood you look forward

to such a deed as that?"

"Certainly not."

"I hope not, my boy; I hope not that. Do not tell me that a heartless

scoundrel is to take my name when I am gone."

"I am not a heartless scoundrel," said Fred Neville, jumping up from his

seat.

"Then what is it that you mean? You have thought, have you not, of the

duties of the high position to which you are called? You do not suppose

that wealth is to be given to you, and a great name, and all the

appanages and power of nobility, in order that you may eat more, and

drink more, and lie softer than others. It is because some think so, and

act upon such base thoughts, that the only hereditary peerage left in

the world is in danger of encountering the ill will of the people. Are

you willing to be known only as one of those who have disgraced their

order?"

"I do not mean to disgrace it."

"But you will disgrace it if you marry such a girl as that. If she were

fit to be your wife, would not the family of Lord Kilfenora have known

her?"

"I don't think much of their not knowing her, uncle."

"Who does know her? Who can say that she is even what she pretends to

be? Did you not promise me that you would make no such marriage?"

He was not strong to defend his Kate. Such defence would have been in

opposition to his own ideas, in antagonism with the scheme which he had

made for himself. He understood, almost as well as did his uncle, that

Kate O'Hara ought not to be made Countess of Scroope. He too thought

that were she to be presented to the world as the Countess of Scroope,

she would disgrace the title. And yet he would not be a villain! And yet

he would not give her up! He could only fall back upon his scheme. "Miss

O'Hara is as good as gold," he said; "but I acknowledge that she is not

fit to be mistress of this house."

"Fred," said the Earl, almost in a passion of affectionate solicitude,

"do not go back to Ireland. We will arrange about the regiment. No harm

shall be done to any one. My health will be your excuse, and the lawyers

shall arrange it all."

"I must go back," said Neville. Then the Earl fell back in his chair and

covered his face with his hands. "I must go back; but I will give you my

honour as a gentleman to do nothing that shall distress you."

"You will not marry her?"

"No."

"And, oh, Fred, as you value your own soul, do not injure a poor girl

so desolate as that. Tell her and tell her mother the honest truth. If

there be tears, will not that be better than sorrow, and disgrace, and

ruin?" Among evils there must always be a choice; and the Earl thought

that a broken promise was the lightest of those evils to a choice among

which his nephew had subjected himself.

And so the interview was over, and there had been no quarrel. Fred

Neville had given the Earl a positive promise that he would not marry

Kate O'Hara,--to whom he had sworn a thousand times that she should

be his wife. Such a promise, however,--so he told himself--is never

intended to prevail beyond the lifetime of the person to whom it is

made. He had bound himself not to marry Kate O'Hara while his uncle

lived, and that was all.

Or might it not be better to take his uncle's advice altogether and tell

the truth,--not to Kate, for that he could not do,--but to Mrs. O'Hara

or to Father Marty? As he thought of this he acknowledged to himself

that the task of telling such a truth to Mrs. O'Hara would be almost

beyond his strength. Could he not throw himself upon the priest's

charity, and leave it all to him? Then he thought of his own Kate, and

some feeling akin to genuine love told him that he could not part with

the girl in such fashion as that. He would break his heart were he to

lose his Kate. When he looked at it in that light it seemed to him that

Kate was more to him than all the family of the Scroopes with all their

glory. Dear, sweet, soft, innocent, beautiful Kate! His Kate who, as

he knew well, worshipped the very ground on which he trod! It was not

possible that he should separate himself from Kate O'Hara.

On his return to Ireland he turned that scheme of his over and over

again in his head. Surely something might be done if the priest would

stand his friend! What if he were to tell the whole truth to the

priest, and ask for such assistance as a priest might give him? But the

one assurance to which he came during his journey was this;--that when

a man goes in for adventures, he requires a good deal of skill and some

courage too to carry him through them.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER I.

FROM BAD TO WORSE.

As he was returning to Ennis Neville was so far removed from immediate

distress as to be able to look forward without fear to his meeting with

the two ladies at Ardkill. He could as yet take his Kate in his arms

without any hard load upon his heart, such as would be there if he knew

that it was incumbent upon him at once to explain his difficulties. His

uncle was still living, but was old and still ill. He would naturally

make the most of the old man's age and infirmities. There was every

reason why they should wait, and no reason why such waiting should bring

reproaches upon his head. On the night of his arrival at his quarters he

despatched a note to his Kate.

Dearest love.

Here I am again in the land of freedom and potatoes. I need not

trouble you with writing about home news, as I shall see you the

day after to-morrow. All to-morrow and Wednesday morning I must

stick close to my guns here. After one on Wednesday I shall be

free. I will drive over to Lahinch, and come round in the boat.

I must come back here the same night, but I suppose it will be

the next morning before I get to bed. I sha'n't mind that if I

get something for my pains. My love to your mother. Your own,

F. N.

In accordance with this plan he did drive over to Lahinch. He might have

saved time by directing that his boat should come across the bay to meet

him at Liscannor, but he felt that he would prefer not to meet Father

Marty at present. It might be that before long he would be driven to

tell the priest a good deal, and to ask for the priest's assistance; but

at present he was not anxious to see Father Marty. Barney Morony was

waiting for him at the stable where he put up his horse, and went down

with him to the beach. The ladies, according to Barney, were quite well

and more winsome than ever. But,--and this information was not given

without much delay and great beating about the bush,--there was a

rumour about Liscannor that Captain O'Hara had "turned up." Fred was

so startled at this that he could not refrain from showing his anxiety

by the questions which he asked. Barney did not seem to think that the

Captain had been at Ardkill or anywhere in the neighbourhood. At any

rate he, Barney, had not seen him. He had just heard the rumour. "Shure,

Captain, I wouldn't be telling yer honour a lie; and they do be saying

that the Captain one time was as fine a man as a woman ever sot eyes

on;--and why not, seeing what kind the young lady is, God bless her!" If

it were true that Kate's father had "turned up," such an advent might

very naturally alter Neville's plans. It would so change the position of

things as to relieve him in some degree from the force of his past

promises.

Nevertheless when he saw Kate coming along the cliffs to meet him, the

one thing more certain to him than all other things was that he would

never abandon her. She had been watching for him almost from the hour at

which he had said that he would leave Ennis, and, creeping up among the

rocks, had seen his boat as it came round the point from Liscannor. She

had first thought that she would climb down the path to meet him; but

the tide was high and there was now no strip of strand below the cliffs;

and Barney Morony would have been there to see; and she resolved that it

would be nicer to wait for him on the summit. "Oh Fred, you have come

back," she said, throwing herself on his breast.

"Yes; I am back. Did you think I was going to desert you?"

"No; no. I knew you would not desert me. Oh, my darling!"

"Dear Kate;--dearest Kate."

"You have thought of me sometimes?"

"I have thought of you always,--every hour." And so he swore to her that

she was as much to him as he could possibly be to her. She hung on his

arm as she went down to the cottage, and believed herself to be the

happiest and most fortunate girl in Ireland. As yet no touch of the

sorrows of love had fallen upon her.

He could not all at once ask her as to that rumour which Morony had

mentioned to him. But he thought of it as he walked with his arm round

her waist. Some question must be asked, but it might, perhaps, be better

that he should ask it of the mother. Mrs. O'Hara was at the cottage and

seemed almost as glad to see him as Kate had been. "It is very pleasant

to have you back again," she said. "Kate has been counting first the

hours, and then the minutes."

"And so have you, mother."

"Of course we want to hear all the news," said Mrs. O'Hara. Then

Neville, with the girl who was to be his wife sitting close beside him

on the sofa,--almost within his embrace,--told them how things were

going at Scroope. His uncle was very weak,--evidently failing; but still

so much better as to justify the heir in coming away. He might perhaps

live for another twelve months, but the doctors thought it hardly

possible that he should last longer than that. Then the nephew went

on to say that his uncle was the best and most generous man in the

world,--and the finest gentleman and the truest Christian. He told also

of the tenants who were not to be harassed, and the servants who were

not to be dismissed, and the horses that were to be allowed to die in

their beds, and the trees that were not to be cut down.

"I wish I knew him," said Kate. "I wish I could have seen him once."

"That can never be," said Fred, sadly.

"No;--of course not."

Then Mrs. O'Hara asked a question. "Has he ever heard of us?"

"Yes;--he has heard of you."

"From you?"

"No;--not first from me. There are many reasons why I would not have

mentioned your names could I have helped it. He has wished me to marry

another girl,--and especially a Protestant girl. That was impossible."

"That must be impossible now, Fred," said Kate, looking up into his

face.

"Quite so, dearest; but why should I have vexed him, seeing that he is

so good to me, and that he must be gone so soon?"

"Who had told him of us?" asked Mrs. O'Hara.

"That woman down there at Castle Quin."

"Lady Mary?"

"Foul-tongued old maid that she is," exclaimed Fred. "She writes to my

aunt by every post, I believe."

"What evil can she say of us?"

"She does say evil. Never mind what. Such a woman always says evil of

those of her sex who are good-looking."

"There, mother;--that's for you," said Kate, laughing. "I don't care

what she says."

"If she tells your aunt that we live in a small cottage, without

servants, without society, with just the bare necessaries of life, she

tells the truth of us."

"That's just what she does say;--and she goes on harping about

religion. Never mind her. You can understand that my uncle should be

old-fashioned. He is very old, and we must wait."

"Waiting is so weary," said Mrs. O'Hara.

"It is not weary for me at all," said Kate.

Then he left them, without having said a word about the Captain. He

found the Captain to be a subject very uncomfortable to mention, and

thought as he was sitting there that it might perhaps be better to make

his first enquiries of this priest. No one said a word to him about the

Captain beyond what he had heard from his boatman. For, as it happened,

he did not see the priest till May was nearly past, and during all that

time things were going from bad to worse. As regarded any services which

he rendered to the army at this period of his career, the excuses which

he had made to his uncle were certainly not valid. Some pretence at

positively necessary routine duties it must be supposed that he made;

but he spent more of his time either on the sea, or among the cliffs

with Kate, or on the road going backwards and forwards, than he did at

his quarters. It was known that he was to leave the regiment and become

a great man at home in October, and his brother officers were kind to

him. And it was known also, of course, that there was a young lady down

on the sea coast beyond Ennistimon, and doubtless there were jokes on

the subject. But there was no one with him at Ennis having such weight

of fears or authority as might have served to help to rescue him. During

this time Lady Mary Quin still made her reports, and his aunt's letters

were full of cautions and entreaties. "I am told," said the Countess, in

one of her now detested epistles, "that the young woman has a reprobate

father who has escaped from the galleys. Oh, Fred, do not break our

hearts." He had almost forgotten the Captain when he received this

further rumour which had circulated to him round by Castle Quin and

Scroope Manor.

It was all going from bad to worse. He was allowed by the mother to be

at the cottage as much as he pleased, and the girl was allowed to wander

with him when she would among the cliffs. It was so, although Father

Marty himself had more than once cautioned Mrs. O'Hara that she was

imprudent. "What can I do?" she said. "Have not you yourself taught me

to believe that he is true?"

"Just spake a word to Miss Kate herself."

"What can I say to her now? She regards him as her husband before God."

"But he is not her husband in any way that would prevent his taking

another wife an' he plases. And, believe me, Misthress O'Hara, them sort

of young men like a girl a dale better when there's a little 'Stand off'

about her."

"It is too late to bid her to be indifferent to him now, Father Marty."

"I am not saying that Miss Kate is to lose her lover. I hope I'll have

the binding of 'em together myself, and I'll go bail I'll do it fast

enough. In the meanwhile let her keep herself to herself a little more."

The advice was very good, but Mrs. O'Hara knew not how to make use of

it. She could tell the young man that she would have his heart's blood

if he deceived them, and she could look at him as though she meant to be

as good as her word. She had courage enough for any great emergency. But

now that the lover had been made free of the cottage she knew not how to

debar him. She could not break her Kate's heart by expressing doubts to

her. And were he to be told to stay away, would he not be lost to them

for ever? Of course he could desert them if he would, and then they must

die.

It was going from bad to worse certainly; and not the less so because

he was more than ever infatuated about the girl. When he had calculated

whether it might be possible to desert her he had been at Scroope. He

was in County Clare now, and he did not hesitate to tell himself that

it was impossible. Whatever might happen, and to whomever he might be

false,--he would be true to her. He would at any rate be so true to her

that he would not leave her. If he never made her his legal wife, his

wife legal at all points, he would always treat her as wife. When his

uncle the Earl should die, when the time came in which he would be

absolutely free as to his own motions, he would discover the way in

which this might best be done. If it were true that his Kate's father

was a convict escaped from the galleys, that surely would be an

additional reason why she should not be made Countess of Scroope. Even

Mrs. O'Hara herself must understand that. With Kate, with his own Kate,

he thought that there would be no difficulty.

From bad to worse! Alas, alas; there came a day in which the

pricelessness of the girl he loved sank to nothing, vanished away, and

was as a thing utterly lost, even in his eyes. The poor unfortunate

one,--to whom beauty had been given, and grace, and softness,--and

beyond all these and finer than these, innocence as unsullied as the

whiteness of the plumage on the breast of a dove; but to whom, alas,

had not been given a protector strong enough to protect her softness,

or guardian wise enough to guard her innocence! To her he was godlike,

noble, excellent, all but holy. He was the man whom Fortune, more than

kind, had sent to her to be the joy of her existence, the fountain of

her life, the strong staff for her weakness. Not to believe in him would

be the foulest treason! To lose him would be to die! To deny him would

be to deny her God! She gave him all;--and her pricelessness in his eyes

was gone for ever.

He was sitting with her one day towards the end of May on the edge of

the cliff, looking down upon the ocean and listening to the waves, when

it occurred to him that he might as well ask her about her father.

It was absurd he thought to stand upon any ceremony with her. He was

very good to her, and intended to be always good to her, but it was

essentially necessary to him to know the truth. He was not aware,

perhaps, that he was becoming rougher with her than had been his wont.

She certainly was not aware of it, though there was a touch of awe

sometimes about her as she answered him. She was aware that she now

shewed to him an absolute obedience in all things which had not been

customary with her; but then it was so sweet to obey him; so happy a

thing to have such a master! If he rebuked her, he did it with his arm

round her waist, so that she could look into his face and smile as she

promised that she would be good and follow his behests in all things. He

had been telling her now of some fault in her dress, and she had been

explaining that such faults would come when money was so scarce. Then he

had offered her gifts. A gift she would of course take. She had already

taken gifts which were the treasures of her heart. But he must not pay

things for her till,--till--. Then she again looked up into his face and

smiled. "You are not angry with me?" she said.

"Kate,--I want to ask you a particular question."

"What question?"

"You must not suppose, let the answer be what it may, that it can make

any difference between you and me."

"Oh,--I hope not," she replied trembling.

"It shall make none," he answered with all a master's assurance and

authority. "Therefore you need not be afraid to answer me. Tidings have

reached me on a matter as to which I ought to be informed."

"What matter? Oh Fred, you do so frighten me. I'll tell you anything I

know."

"I have been told that--that your father--is alive." He looked down

upon her and could see that her face was red up to her very hair. "Your

mother once told me that she had never been certain of his death."

"I used to think he was dead."

"But now you think he is alive?"

"I think he is;--but I do not know. I never saw my father so as to

remember him; though I do remember that we used to be very unhappy when

we were in Spain."

"And what have you heard lately? Tell me the truth, you know."

"Of course I shall tell you the truth, Fred. I think mother got a

letter, but she did not shew it me. She said just a word, but nothing

more. Father Marty will certainly know if she knows."

"And you know nothing?"

"Nothing."

"I think I must ask Father Marty."

"But will it matter to you?" Kate asked.

"At any rate it shall not matter to you," he said, kissing her. And

then again she was happy; though there had now crept across her heart

the shadow of some sad foreboding, a foretaste of sorrow that was not

altogether bitter as sorrow is, but which taught her to cling closely

to him when he was there and would fill her eyes with tears when she

thought of him in his absence.

On this day he had not found Mrs. O'Hara at the cottage. She had gone

down to Liscannor, Kate told him. He had sent his boat back to the

strand near that village, round the point and into the bay, as it could

not well lie under the rocks at high tide, and he now asked Kate to

accompany him as he walked down. They would probably meet her mother on

the road. Kate, as she tied on her hat, was only too happy to be his

companion. "I think," he said, "that I shall try and see Father Marty as

I go back. If your mother has really heard anything about your father,

she ought to have told me."

"Don't be angry with mother, Fred."

"I won't be angry with you, my darling," said the master with masterful

tenderness.

Although he had intimated his intention of calling on the priest that

very afternoon, it may be doubted whether he was altogether gratified

when he met the very man with Mrs. O'Hara close to the old burying

ground. "Ah, Mr. Neville," said the priest, "and how's it all wid you

this many a day?"

"The top of the morning to you thin, Father Marty," said Fred, trying

to assume an Irish brogue. Nothing could be more friendly than the

greeting. The old priest took off his hat to Kate, and made a low bow,

as though he should say,--to the future Countess of Scroope I owe a very

especial respect. Mrs. O'Hara held her future son-in-law's hand for a

moment, as though she might preserve him for her daughter by some show

of affection on her own part. "And now, Misthress O'Hara," said the

priest, "as I've got a companion to go back wid me, I'm thinking I'll

not go up the hill any further." Then they parted, and Kate looked as

though she were being robbed of her due because her lover could not give

her one farewell kiss in the priest's presence.