Haddo was startled out of all composure and the better part of his

temper. "What's this of it?" he cried. "I'm no waur than my neebours. I

never set up to be speeritual; I never did. I'm a plain, canty creature;

godliness is cheerfulness, says I; give me my fiddle and a dram, and I

wouldna hairm a flee."

"And I repeat my question," said M'Brair: "Are you fit--fit for this

great charge? fit to carry and save souls?"

"Fit? Blethers! As fit 's yoursel'," cried Haddo.

"Are you so great a self-deceiver?" said M'Brair. "Wretched man,

trampler upon God's covenants, crucifier of your Lord afresh. I will

ding you to the earth with one word: How about the young woman, Janet

M'Clour?"

"Weel, what about her? what do I ken?" cries Haddo. "M'Brair, ye daft

auld wife, I tell ye as true 's truth, I never meddled her. It was just

daffing, I tell ye: daffing, and nae mair: a piece of fun, like! I'm no'

denying but what I'm fond of fun, sma' blame to me! But for onything

sarious--hout, man, it might come to a deposeetion! I'll sweir it to ye.

Where's a Bible, till you hear me sweir?"

"There is nae Bible in your study," said M'Brair severely.

And Haddo, after a few distracted turns, was constrained to accept the

fact.

"Weel, and suppose there isna?" he cried, stamping. "What mair can ye

say of us, but just that I'm fond of my joke, and so 's she? I declare

to God, by what I ken, she might be the Virgin Mary--if she would just

keep clear of the dragoons. But me! na, deil haet o' me!"

"She is penitent at least," said M'Brair.

"Do you mean to actually up and tell me to my face that she accused me?"

cried the curate.

"I canna just say that," replied M'Brair. "But I rebuked her in the name

of God, and she repented before me on her bended knees."

"Weel, I daursay she's been ower far wi' the dragoons," said Haddo. "I

never denied that. I ken naething by it."

"Man, you but show your nakedness the more plainly," said M'Brair.

"Poor, blind, besotted creature--and I see you stoytering on the brink

of dissolution: your light out, and your hours numbered. Awake, man!" he

shouted with a formidable voice, "awake, or it be ower late."

"Be damned if I stand this!" exclaimed Haddo, casting his tobacco-pipe

violently on the table, where it was smashed in pieces. "Out of my house

with ye, or I'll call for the dragoons."

"The speerit of the Lord is upon me," said M'Brair with solemn ecstasy.

"I sist you to compear before the Great White Throne, and I warn you the

summons shall be bloody and sudden."

And at this, with more agility than could have been expected, he got

clear of the room and slammed the door behind him in the face of the

pursuing curate. The next Lord's day the curate was ill, and the kirk

closed, but for all his ill words, Mr. M'Brair abode unmolested in the

house of Montroymont.

CHAPTER III

THE HILL-END OF DRUMLOWE

This was a bit of a steep broken hill that overlooked upon the west a

moorish valley, full of ink-black pools. These presently drained into a

burn that made off, with little noise and no celerity of pace, about the

corner of the hill. On the far side the ground swelled into a bare

heath, black with junipers, and spotted with the presence of the

standing stones for which the place was famous. They were many in that

part, shapeless, white with lichen--you would have said with age: and

had made their abode there for untold centuries, since first the

heathens shouted for their installation. The ancients had hallowed them

to some ill religion, and their neighbourhood had long been avoided by

the prudent before the fall of day; but of late, on the up-springing of

new requirements, these lonely stones on the moor had again become a

place of assembly. A watchful picket on the Hill-end commanded all the

northern and eastern approaches; and such was the disposition of the

ground, that by certain cunningly posted sentries the west also could be

made secure against surprise: there was no place in the country where a

conventicle could meet with more quiet of mind or a more certain retreat

open, in the case of interference from the dragoons. The minister spoke

from a knowe close to the edge of the ring, and poured out the words God

gave him on the very threshold of the devils of yore. When they pitched

a tent (which was often in wet weather, upon a communion occasion) it

was rigged over the huge isolated pillar that had the name of

Anes-Errand, none knew why. And the congregation sat partly clustered

on the slope below, and partly among the idolatrous monoliths and on the

turfy soil of the Ring itself. In truth the situation was well qualified

to give a zest to Christian doctrines, had there been any wanted. But

these congregations assembled under conditions at once so formidable and

romantic as made a zealot of the most cold. They were the last of the

faithful; God, who had averted His face from all other countries of the

world, still leaned from heaven to observe, with swelling sympathy, the

doings of His moorland remnant; Christ was by them with His eternal

wounds, with dropping tears; the Holy Ghost (never perfectly realised

nor firmly adopted by Protestant imaginations) was dimly supposed to be

in the heart of each and on the lips of the minister. And over against

them was the army of the hierarchies, from the men Charles and James

Stuart, on to King Lewie and the Emperor; and the scarlet Pope, and the

muckle black devil himself, peering out the red mouth of hell in an

ecstasy of hate and hope. "One pull more!" he seemed to cry; "one pull

more, and it's done. There's only Clydesdale and the Stewartry, and the

three Bailiaries of Ayr, left for God." And with such an august

assistance of powers and principalities looking on at the last conflict

of good and evil, it was scarce possible to spare a thought to those

old, infirm, debile, _ab agendo_ devils whose holy place they were now

violating.

There might have been three hundred to four hundred present. At least

there were three hundred horses tethered for the most part in the ring;

though some of the hearers on the outskirts of the crowd stood with

their bridles in their hand, ready to mount at the first signal. The

circle of faces was strangely characteristic; long, serious, strongly

marked, the tackle standing out in the lean brown cheeks, the mouth set

and the eyes shining with a fierce enthusiasm; the shepherd, the

labouring man, and the rarer laird, stood there in their broad blue

bonnets or laced hats, and presenting an essential identity of type.

From time to time a long-drawn groan of adhesion rose in this audience,

and was propagated like a wave to the outskirts, and died away among the

keepers of the horses. It had a name; it was called "a holy groan."

A squall came up; a great volley of flying mist went out before it and

whelmed the scene; the wind stormed with a sudden fierceness that

carried away the minister's voice and twitched his tails and made him

stagger, and turned the congregation for a moment into a mere pother of

blowing plaid-ends and prancing horses, and the rain followed and was

dashed straight into their faces. Men and women panted aloud in the

shock of that violent shower-bath; the teeth were bared along all the

line in an involuntary grimace; plaids, mantles, and riding-coats were

proved vain, and the worshippers felt the water stream on their naked

flesh. The minister, reinforcing his great and shrill voice, continued

to contend against and triumph over the rising of the squall and the

dashing of the rain.

"In that day ye may go thirty mile and not hear a crawing cock," he

said; "and fifty mile and not get a light to your pipe; and an hundred

mile and not see a smoking house. For there'll be naething in all

Scotland but deid men's banes and blackness, and the living anger of the

Lord. O, where to find a bield--O sirs, where to find a bield from the

wind of the Lord's anger? Do ye call _this_ a wind? Bethankit! Sirs,

this is but a temporary dispensation; this is but a puff of wind, this

is but a spit of rain and by with it. Already there's a blue bow in the

west, and the sun will take the crown of the causeway again, and your

things'll be dried upon ye, and your flesh will be warm upon your bones.

But O, sirs, sirs! for the day of the Lord's anger!"

His rhetoric was set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and a voice

that sometimes crashed like cannon. Such as it was, it was the gift of

all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of likeness or identity. Their

images scarce ranged beyond the red horizon of the moor and the rainy

hill-top, the shepherd and his sheep, a fowling-piece, a spade, a pipe,

a dunghill, a crowing cock, the shining and the withdrawal of the sun.

An occasional pathos of simple humanity, and frequent patches of big

Biblical words, relieved the homely tissue. It was a poetry apart;

bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the soil.

A little before the coming of the squall there was a different scene

enacting at the outposts. For the most part, the sentinels were faithful

to their important duty; the Hill-end of Drumlowe was known to be a safe

meeting-place; and the out-pickets on this particular day had been

somewhat lax from the beginning, and grew laxer during the inordinate

length of the discourse. Francie lay there in his appointed hiding-hole,

looking abroad between two whin-bushes. His view was across the course

of the burn, then over a piece of plain moorland, to a gap between two

hills; nothing moved but grouse, and some cattle who slowly traversed

his field of view, heading northward: he heard the psalms, and sang

words of his own to the savage and melancholy music; for he had his own

design in hand, and terror and cowardice prevailed in his bosom

alternately, like the hot and the cold fit of an ague. Courage was

uppermost during the singing, which he accompanied through all its

length with this impromptu strain:

"And I will ding Jock Crozer down

No later than the day."

Presently the voice of the preacher came to him in wafts, at the wind's

will, as by the opening and shutting of a door; wild spasms of

screaming, as of some undiscerned gigantic hill-bird stirred with

inordinate passion, succeeded to intervals of silence; and Francie heard

them with a critical ear. "Ay," he thought at last, "he'll do; he has

the bit in his mou' fairly."

He had observed that his friend, or rather his enemy, Jock Crozer, had

been established at a very critical part of the line of outposts;

namely, where the burn issues by an abrupt gorge from the semicircle of

high moors. If anything was calculated to nerve him to battle it was

this. The post was important; next to the Hill-end itself, it might be

called the key to the position; and it was where the cover was bad, and

in which it was most natural to place a child. It should have been

Heathercat's; why had it been given to Crozer? An exquisite fear of what

should be the answer passed through his marrow every time he faced the

question. Was it possible that Crozer could have boasted? that there

were rumours abroad to his--Heathercat's--discredit? that his honour was

publicly sullied? All the world went dark about him at the thought; he

sank without a struggle into the midnight pool of despair; and every

time he so sank, he brought back with him--not drowned heroism indeed,

but half-drowned courage by the locks. His heart beat very slowly as he

deserted his station, and began to crawl towards that of Crozer.

Something pulled him back, and it was not the sense of duty, but a

remembrance of Crozer's build and hateful readiness of fist. Duty, as he

conceived it, pointed him forward on the rueful path that he was

travelling. Duty bade him redeem his name if he were able, at the risk

of broken bones; and his bones and every tooth in his head ached by

anticipation. An awful subsidiary fear whispered him that if he were

hurt, he should disgrace himself by weeping. He consoled himself,

boy-like, with the consideration that he was not yet committed; he could

easily steal over unseen to Crozer's post, and he had a continuous

private idea that he would very probably steal back again. His course

took him so near the minister that he could hear some of his words:

"What news, minister, of Claver'se? He's going round like a roaring

rampaging lion....

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

A FRAGMENT

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

CHAPTER I

NANCE AT THE "GREEN DRAGON"

Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the green wood

that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now and then shot forth

a smothered flame; her knees already ached and her eyes smarted, for she

had been some while at this ungrateful task, but her mind was gone far

away to meet the coming stranger. Now she met him in the wood, now at

the castle gate, now in the kitchen by candle-light; each fresh

presentment eclipsed the one before; a form so elegant, manners so

sedate, a countenance so brave and comely, a voice so winning and

resolute--sure such a man was never seen! The thick-coming fancies

poured and brightened in her head like the smoke and flames upon the

hearth.

Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon the stair,

and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her work. He glanced

at the green fagots with a sneer, and looked askance at the bed and the

white sheets, at the strip of carpet laid, like an island, on the great

expanse of the stone floor, and at the broken glazing of the casement

clumsily repaired with paper.

"Leave that fire a-be," he cried. "What, have I toiled all my life to

turn innkeeper at the hind end? Leave it a-be, I say."

"La, uncle, it doesn't burn a bit; it only smokes," said Nance, looking

up from her position.

"You are come of decent people of both sides," returned the old man.

"Who are you to blow the coals for any Robin-run-agate? Get up, get on

your hood, make yourself useful, and be off to the 'Green Dragon.'"

"I thought you was to go yourself," Nance faltered.

"So did I," quoth Jonathan; "but it appears I was mistook."

The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to hang

back. "I think I would rather not, dear uncle," she said. "Night is at

hand, and I think, dear, I would rather not."

"Now you look here," replied Jonathan, "I have my lord's orders, have I

not? Little he gives me, but it's all my livelihood. And do you fancy,

if I disobey my lord, I'm likely to turn round for a lass like you? No,

I've that hell-fire of pain in my old knee, I wouldn't walk a mile, not

for King George upon his bended knees." And he walked to the window and

looked down the steep scarp to where the river foamed in the bottom of

the dell.

Nance stayed for no more bidding. In her own room, by the glimmer of the

twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on her Sunday mittens;

adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen times its cherry ribbons; and

in less than ten minutes, with a fluttering heart and excellently bright

eyes, she passed forth under the arch and over the bridge, into the

thickening shadows of the groves. A well-marked wheel-track conducted

her. The wood, which upon both sides of the river dell was a mere

scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn, and holly, boasted on the level

of more considerable timber. Beeches came to a good growth, with here

and there an oak; and the track now passed under a high arcade of

branches, and now ran under the open sky in glades. As the girl

proceeded these glades became more frequent, the trees began again to

decline in size, and the wood to degenerate into furzy coverts. Last of

all there was a fringe of elders; and beyond that the track came forth

upon an open, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and scanty

bushes, and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse. Right over

against the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned under

horizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and frosty, and the

track in low and marshy passages began to crackle under foot with ice.

Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the "Green

Dragon" hove in sight, and running close beside them, very faint in the

dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road. It was the back of

the post-house that was presented to Nance Holdaway; and as she

continued to draw near and the night to fall more completely, she became

aware of an unusual brightness and bustle. A post-chaise stood in the

yard, its lamps already lighted: light shone hospitably in the windows

and from the open door; moving lights and shadows testified to the

activity of servants bearing lanterns. The clank of pails, the stamping

of hoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, last of all,

the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her ear. By the

stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, but it was still

too early in the night. The down mail was not due at the "Green Dragon"

for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland not before two in the

black morning.

Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was

polishing a curb-chain with sand; the lantern at his feet letting up

spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof was

peppered.

"Hey, miss," said he jocularly, "you won't look at me any more, now you

have gentry at the castle."

Her cheeks burned with anger.

"That's my lord's chay," the man continued, nodding at the chaise, "Lord

Windermoor's. Came all in a fluster--dinner, bowl of punch, and put the

horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, my dear--bar the

bride. He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him."

"Is that Holdaway?" cried the landlord from the lighted entry, where he

stood shading his eyes.

"Only me, sir," answered Nance.

"O, you, Miss Nance," he said. "Well, come in quick, my pretty. My lord

is waiting for your uncle."

And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted

by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of

punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like

a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short,

purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and

gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance

beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing

his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in

that second she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself--betrayed

by the involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to

behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her

disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He, meanwhile, as if

unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.

"O, a man of wood," thought Nance.

"What--what?" said his lordship. "Who is this?"

"If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway's niece," replied Nance, with a

curtsey.

"Should have been here himself," observed his lordship. "Well, you tell

Holdaway that I'm aground, not a stiver--not a stiver. I'm running from

the beagles--going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he need look for no more

wages: glad of 'em myself, if I could get 'em. He can live in the castle

if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I

recommend him to take him in--a friend of mine--and Mr. Archer will pay,

as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for

Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the wages."

"But O, my lord!" cried Nance, "we live upon the wages, and what are we

to do without?"

"What am I to do?--what am I to do?" replied Lord Windermoor with some

exasperation. "I have no wages. And there is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway

doesn't like it, he can go to the devil, and you with him!--and you with

him!"

"And yet, my lord," said Mr. Archer, "these good people will have as

keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since they have done

nothing to deserve it."

"Deserve it?" cried the peer. "What? What? If a rascally highwayman

comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do you say that I've deserved

it? How often am I to tell you, sir, that I was cheated--that I was

cheated?"

"You are happy in the belief," returned Mr. Archer gravely.

"Archer, you would be the death of me!" exclaimed his lordship. "You

know you're drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can't get up a spark of

animation."

"I have drunk fair, my lord," replied the younger man; "but I own I am

conscious of no exhilaration."

"If you had as black a look-out as me, sir," cried the peer, "you would

be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let me tell you. I am

glad of it--glad of it, and I only wish I was drunker. For let me tell

you it's a cruel hard thing upon a man of my time of life and my

position, to be brought down to beggary because the world is full of

thieves and rascals--thieves and rascals. What? For all I know, you may

be a thief and a rascal yourself; and I would fight you for a pinch of

snuff--a pinch of snuff," exclaimed his lordship.

Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant smile, so full

of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one bound, her dreams

returned to her. "My good Miss Holdaway," said he, "if you are willing

to show me the road, I am even eager to be gone. As for his lordship

and myself, compose yourself; there is no fear; this is his lordship's

way."

"What? what?" cried his lordship. "My way? Ish no such a thing, my way."

"Come, my lord," cried Archer; "you and I very thoroughly understand

each other; and let me suggest, it is time that both of us were gone.

The mail will soon be due. Here, then, my lord, I take my leave of you,

with the most earnest assurance of my gratitude for the past, and a

sincere offer of any services I may be able to render in the future."

"Archer," exclaimed Lord Windermoor, "I love you like a son. Le' 's have

another bowl."

"My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me," replied Mr. Archer.

"We both require caution; we must both, for some while at least, avoid

the chance of a pursuit."

"Archer," quoth his lordship, "this is a rank ingratishood. What? I'm to

go firing away in the dark in the cold po'chaise, and not so much as a

game of ecarte possible, unless I stop and play with the postillion, the

postillion; and the whole country swarming with thieves and rascals and

highwaymen."

"I beg your lordship's pardon," put in the landlord, who now appeared in

the doorway to announce the chaise, "but this part of the North Road is

known for safety. There has not been a robbery, to call a robbery, this

five years' time. Further south, of course, it's nearer London, and

another story," he added.

"Well, then, if that's so," concluded my lord, "le' 's have t' other

bowl and a pack of cards."

"My lord, you forget," said Archer, "I might still gain; but it is

hardly possible for me to lose."

"Think I'm a sharper?" inquired the peer. "Gen'leman's parole's all I

ask."

But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and said farewell

gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and at the same

time bowing very low. "You will never know," says he, "the service you

have done me." And with that, and before my lord had finally taken up

his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched Nance lightly but

imperiously on the arm, and left the room. In face of the outbreak of

his lordship's lamentations she made haste to follow the truant.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED

The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the courtyard lay

all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a window-sill. Through

this Nance rapidly led the way, and began to ascend the swellings of the

moor with a heart that somewhat fluttered in her bosom. She was not

afraid, but in the course of these last passages with Lord Windermoor

Mr. Archer had ascended to that pedestal on which her fancy waited to

instal him. The reality, she felt, excelled her dreams, and this cold

night walk was the first romantic incident in her experience.

It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner,

yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had

spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most

airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that she must

edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and plough among

deep heather. His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained unaltered. He

asked her how far they had to go; whether the way lay all upon the

moorland, and when he learned they had to pass a wood expressed his

pleasure. "For," said he, "I am passionately fond of trees. Trees and

fair lawns, if you consider of it rightly, are the ornaments of nature,

as palaces and fine approaches----" And here he stumbled into a patch of

slough and nearly fell. The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at

heart she was lost in admiration for one who talked so elegantly.

They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the

"Green Dragon," and were near the summit of the rise, when a sudden rush

of wheels arrested them. Turning and looking back, they saw the

post-house, now much declined in brightness; and speeding away northward

the two tremulous bright dots of my Lord Windermoor's chaise-lamps. Mr.

Archer followed these yellow and unsteady stars until they dwindled into

points and disappeared.

"There goes my only friend," he said. "Death has cut off those that

loved me, and change of fortune estranged my flatterers; and but for

you, poor bankrupt, my life is as lonely as this moor."

The tone of his voice affected both of them. They stood there on the

side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious of the void waste of

the night, without a feature for the eye, and except for the fainting

whisper of the carriage-wheels without a murmur for the ear. And

instantly, like a mockery, there broke out, very far away, but clear and

jolly, the note of the mail-guard's horn. "Over the hills" was his air.

It rose to the two watchers on the moor with the most cheerful sentiment

of human company and travel, and at the same time in and around the

"Green Dragon" it woke up a great bustle of lights running to and fro

and clattering hoofs. Presently after, out of the darkness to southward,

the mail grew near with a growing rumble. Its lamps were very large and

bright, and threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four

cantering horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach followed

like a great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort of

ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and was eclipsed by

the buildings of the "Green Dragon."

Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only that he was

now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor, and had

fallen into a silence broken by sighs. Nance waxed very pitiful over his

fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts and great society, and

perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledown ruin in a wood to which

she was now conducting him.

"You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up," said she. "To be sure this

is a great change for one like you; but who knows the future?"

Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could clearly

perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly. "There spoke a sweet

nature," said he, "and I must thank you for these words. But I would not

have you fancy that I regret the past for any happiness found in it, or

that I fear the simplicity and hardship of the country. I am a man that

has been much tossed about in life; now up, now down; and do you think

that I shall not be able to support what you support--you who are kind,

and therefore know how to feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore

hope; who are young, and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?)

discontented?"

"Nay, sir, not that, at least," said Nance; "not discontented. If I were

to be discontented, how should I look those that have real sorrows in

the face? I have faults enough, but not that fault; and I have my merits

too, for I have a good opinion of myself. But for beauty, I am not so

simple but that I can tell a banter from a compliment."

"Nay, nay," said Mr. Archer, "I had half forgotten; grief is selfish,

and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I had never blurted out

so bold a piece of praise. 'Tis the best proof of my sincerity. But

come, now, I would lay a wager you are no coward?"

"Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another," said Nance. "None of

my blood are given to fear."

"And you are honest?" he returned.

"I will answer for that," said she.

"Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to be contented,

since you say you are so--is not that to fill up a great part of

virtue?"

"I fear you are but a flatterer," said Nance, but she did not say it

clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her heart was

quite oppressed.

There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments; but yet

they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, for reasons however

obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious, and most unfortunate

young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was almost an apotheosis, for a

country maid.

But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer, disclaiming any

thought of flattery, turned off to other subjects, and held her all

through the wood in conversation, addressing her with an air of perfect

sincerity, and listening to her answers with every mark of interest. Had

open flattery continued, Nance would have soon found refuge in good

sense; but the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much less avoid.

It was the first time she had ever taken part in a conversation

illuminated by any ideas. All was then true that she had heard and

dreamed of gentlemen; they were a race apart, like deities knowing good

and evil. And then there burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope's

glorious sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed that she

too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not

learn? or was she not learning? Would not her soul awake and put forth

wings? Was she not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch

to become royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in

the most exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her

tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder talking

like a book.

Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above the river

dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowed on the

night, covering with its broken battlements a bold projection of the

bank, and showing at the extreme end, where were the habitable tower and

wing, some crevices of candle-light. Hence she called loudly upon her

uncle, and he was seen to issue, lantern in hand, from the tower door,

and, where the ruins did not intervene, to pick his way over the swarded

courtyard, avoiding treacherous cellars and winding among blocks of

fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked by

two tottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them, standing

at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, and blinking at them

through the glow of his own lantern. Mr. Archer greeted him with

civility; but the old man was in no humour of compliance. He guided the

new-comer across the courtyard, looking sharply and quickly in his face,

and grumbling all the time about the cold, and the discomfort and

dilapidation of the castle. He was sure he hoped that Mr. Archer would

like it; but in truth he could not think what brought him there.

Doubtless he had a good reason--this with a look of cunning

scrutiny--but, indeed, the place was quite unfit for any person of

repute; he himself was eaten up with the rheumatics. It was the most

rheumaticky place in England, and some fine day the whole habitable part

(to call it habitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the slope

into the river. He had seen the cracks widening; there was a plaguy

issue in the bank below; he thought a spring was mining it; it might be

to-morrow, it might be next day; but they were all sure of a come-down

sooner or later. "And that is a poor death," said he, "for any one, let

alone a gentleman, to have a whole old ruin dumped upon his belly. Have

a care to your left there; these cellar vaults have all broke down, and

the grass and hemlock hide 'em. Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such

as it is, and wishing you well away."

And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower door, and

down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or common room of the

castle. It was a huge, low room, as large as a meadow, occupying the

whole width of the habitable wing, with six barred windows looking on

the court, and two into the river valley. A dresser, a table, and a few

chairs stood dotted here and there upon the uneven flags. Under the

great chimney a good fire burned in an iron fire-basket; a high old

settee, rudely carved with figures and Gothic lettering, flanked it on

either side; there was a hinge table and a stone bench in the chimney

corner, and above the arch hung guns, axes, lanterns, and great sheaves

of rusty keys.

Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and shrugged his

shoulders, with a pitying grimace. "Here it is," he said. "See the damp

on the floor, look at the moss; where there's moss you may be sure that

it's rheumaticky. Try and get near that fire for to warm yourself; it'll

blow the coat off your back. And with a young gentleman with a face like

yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I'd be afeard of a churchyard cough

and a galloping decline," says Jonathan, naming the maladies with gloomy

gusto, "or the cold might strike and turn your blood," he added.

Mr. Archer fairly laughed. "My good Mr. Holdaway," said he, "I was born

with that same tallow-candle face, and the only fear that you inspire me

with is the fear that I intrude unwelcomely upon your private hours. But

I think I can promise you that I am very little troublesome, and I am

inclined to hope that the terms which I can offer may still pay you the

derangement."

"Yes, the terms," said Jonathan, "I was thinking of that. As you say,

they are very small," and he shook his head.

"Unhappily, I can afford no more," said Mr. Archer. "But this we have

arranged already," he added with a certain stiffness; "and as I am aware

that Miss Holdaway has matter to communicate, I will, if you permit,

retire at once. To-night I must bivouac; to-morrow my trunk is to follow

from the 'Dragon.' So if you will show me to my room I shall wish you a

good slumber and a better awakening."

Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning and

curtseying in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest up the broad

winding staircase of the tower. He followed with a very brooding face.

"Alas!" cried Nance, as she entered the room, "your fire black out,"

and, setting down the lantern, she clapped upon her knees before the

chimney and began to rearrange the charred and still smouldering

remains. Mr. Archer looked about the gaunt apartment with a sort of

shudder. The great height, the bare stone, the shattered windows, the

aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one of its four fluted columns

broken short, all struck a chill upon his fancy. From this dismal survey

his eyes returned to Nance crouching before the fire, the candle in one

hand and artfully puffing at the embers; the flames as they broke forth

played upon the soft outline of her cheek--she was alive and young,

coloured with the bright hues of life, and a woman. He looked upon her,

softening; and then sat down and continued to admire the picture.

"There, sir," said she, getting upon her feet, "your fire is doing

bravely now. Good-night."

He rose and held out his hand. "Come," said he, "you are my only friend

in these parts, and you must shake hands."

She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it, blushing.

"God bless you, my dear," said he.

And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, and stared

down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the river among stones

ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bank stood very black

against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting. It was dreary and

cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and the fine glow of fire,

"Heavens!" said he to himself, "what an unfortunate destiny is mine!"

He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasy snatches.

Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase; he heard the old stones

of the castle crack in the frosty night with sharp reverberations, and

the bed complained under his tossings. Lastly, far on into the morning,

he awakened from a doze to hear, very far off, in the extreme and

breathless quiet, a wailing flourish on the horn. The down mail was

drawing near to the "Green Dragon." He sat up in bed; the sound was

tragical by distance, and the modulation appealed to his ear like human

speech. It seemed to call upon him with a dreary insistence--to call him

far away, to address him personally, and to have a meaning that he

failed to seize. It was thus, at least, in this nodding castle, in a

cold, miry woodland, and so far from men and society, that the traffic

on the Great North Road spoke to him in the intervals of slumber.

CHAPTER III

JONATHAN HOLDAWAY

Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step. She was in no

hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell a little

longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer's voice, the charm of his kind

words, and the beauty of his manner and person. But, once at the

stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered her sensible and

workaday self.

Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale beside

him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he did not speak,

and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, with a very

excellent appetite, in silence. When she had done, she, too, drew a

tankard of home-brewed, and came and planted herself in front of him

upon the settle.

"Well?" said Jonathan.

"My lord has run away," said Nance.

"What?" cried the old man.

"Abroad," she continued; "run away from creditors. He said he had not a

stiver, but he was drunk enough. He said you might live on in the

castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you was to look for no more

wages, since he would be glad of them himself."

Jonathan's face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious anger mounted

to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt upon his

feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. At first he kept his

hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he began to gesticulate as

he turned.

"This man--this lord," he shouted, "who is he? He was born with a gold

spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw. He rolled in his coach

when he was a baby. I have dug and toiled and laboured since I was that

high--that high." And he shouted again. "I'm bent and broke, and full of

pains. D'ye think I don't know the taste of sweat? Many's the gallon

I've drunk of it--ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All

through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back

till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a

dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks

and ha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poor

bones, a kick and done with it." He walked a little while in silence,

and then, extending his hand, "Now, you Nance Holdaway," says he, "you

come of my blood, and you're a good girl. When that man was a boy, I

used to carry his gun for him. I carried the gun all day on my two feet,

and many a stitch I had, and chewed a bullet for. He rode upon a horse,

with feathers in his hat; but it was him that had the shots and took the

game home. Did I complain? Not I. I knew my station. What did I ask, but

just the chance to live and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don't let them

deny it to me--don't let them do it. I've been as poor as Job, and as

honest as the day, but now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I'm

getting tired of it."

"I wouldn't say such words, at least," said Nance.

"You wouldn't?" said the old man grimly. "Well, and did I when I was

your age? Wait till your back's broke and your hands tremble, and your

eyes fail, and you're weary of the battle and ask no more but to lie

down in your bed and give the ghost up like an honest man; and then let

there up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow--ah! if I had him in

these hands! 'Where's my money that you gambled?' I should say. 'Where's

my money that you drank and diced?' 'Thief!' is what I would say;

'Thief!'" he roared, "'Thief!'"

"Mr. Archer will hear you if you don't take care," said Nance, "and I

would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old, honest,

hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like a boy."

"D'ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?" he cried shrilly, with a clack of

laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down with his two

palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with a strange hard

expression, something like a smile. "Do I mind for God, my girl?" he

said; "that's what it's come to be now, do I mind for God?"

"Uncle Jonathan," she said, getting up and taking him by the arm; "you

sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit still; I'll have no

more of this; you'll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of this

good ale, and I'll warm a tankard for you. La, we'll pull through,

you'll see. I'm young, as you say, and it's my turn to carry the bundle;

and don't you worry your bile, or we'll have sickness, too, as well as

sorrow."

"D'ye think that I'd forgotten you?" said Jonathan, with something like

a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the

tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.

"Why," says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, "men are always children,

they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like this, to set to

and make yourself sick, just when the money's failing. Keep a good heart

up; you haven't kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh hand, to

break down about a pound or two. Here's this Mr. Archer come to lodge,

that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence.

Come, let's think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely;

smell of it; I'll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle

Jonathan, you let me say one word. You've lost more than money before

now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this."

His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into the

air, and trembled. "Let them look out!" he shouted. "Here, I warn all

men; I've done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!"

"Hush, hush! for pity's sake," cried Nance.

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke

out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. "O," he

cried, "my God, if my son hadn't left me, if my Dick was here!" and the

sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with distress. "O,

if he were here to help his father!" he went on again. "If I had a son

like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; O,

he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps.

My curse be on him!" he added, rising again into wrath.

"Hush!" cried Nance, springing to her feet: "your boy, your dead wife's

boy--Aunt Susan's baby that she loved--would you curse him? O, God

forbid!"

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked upon

her, tearless and confused. "Let me go to my bed," he said at last, and

he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his

candle, and left the kitchen.

Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. She

beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had spoken with a

deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal; and now

the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened. She was

like a tree looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. It seemed to

her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a loss in

money; when Mr. Archer, fallen from the sky-level of counts and nobles,

faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage. To weary of

honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name it was

already a disgrace; and she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young

lad, all laced and feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse.

The opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to

generation; one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the

other born to beauty.

She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and

figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth

words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired

inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue,

but a thing as natural as breathing.

CHAPTER IV

MINGLING THREADS

It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his apartment. On the landing

he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless corridor, and

presently he was walking on the top of the ruins. On one hand he could

look down a good depth into the green courtyard; on the other his eye

roved along the downward course of the river, the wet woods all smoking,

the shadows long and blue, the mists golden and rosy in the sun, here

and there the water flashing across an obstacle. His heart expanded and

softened to a grateful melancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the

distance, and no thought of present danger, he continued to stroll along

the elevated and treacherous promenade.

A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He looked down,

and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped in horror

and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf. He recoiled and

leant against a pillar, quaking from head to foot, and covering his face

with his hands; and Nance had time to run round by the stair and rejoin

him where he stood before he had changed a line of his position.

"Ah!" he cried, and clutched her wrist; "don't leave me. The place

rocks; I have no head for altitudes."

"Sit down against that pillar," said Nance. "Don't you be afraid; I

won't leave you, and don't look up or down: look straight at me. How

white you are!"

"The gulf," he said, and closed his eyes again and shuddered.

"Why," said Nance, "what a poor climber you must be! That was where my

cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle Jonathan had shut

the gate. I've been down there myself with him helping me. I wouldn't

try with you," she said, and laughed merrily.

The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps its

beauty barbed the offence to Mr. Archer. The blood came into his face

with a quick jet, and then left it paler than before. "It is a physical

weakness," he said harshly, "and very droll, no doubt, but one that I

can conquer on necessity. See, I am still shaking. Well, I advance to

the battlements and look down. Show me your cousin's path."

"He would go sure-foot along that little ledge," said Nance, pointing as

she spoke; "then out through the breach and down by yonder buttress. It

is easier coming back, of course, because you see where you are going.

From the buttress foot a sheep-walk goes along the scarp--see, you can

follow it from here in the dry grass. And now, sir," she added, with a

touch of womanly pity, "I would come away from here if I were you, for

indeed you are not fit."

Sure enough Mr. Archer's pallor and agitation had continued to increase;

his cheeks were deathly, his clenched fingers trembled pitifully. "The

weakness is physical," he sighed, and had nearly fallen. Nance led him

from the spot, and he was no sooner back in the tower-stair, than he

fell heavily against the wall and put his arm across his eyes. A cup of

brandy had to be brought him before he could descend to breakfast; and

the perfection of Nance's dream was for the first time troubled.

Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-shot eyes and

a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly waited till they found their

seats, before, raising one hand, and stooping with his mouth above his

plate, he put up a prayer for a blessing on the food and a spirit of

gratitude in the eaters, and thereupon, and without more civility, fell

to. But it was notable that he was no less speedily satisfied than he

had been greedy to begin. He pushed his plate away and drummed upon the

table.

"These are silly prayers," said he, "that they teach us. Eat and be

thankful, that's no such wonder. Speak to me of starving--there's the

touch. You're a man, they tell me, Mr. Archer, that has met with some

reverses?"

"I have met with many," replied Mr. Archer.

"Ha!" said Jonathan. "None reckons but the last. Now, see; I tried to

make this girl here understand me."

"Uncle," said Nance, "what should Mr. Archer care for your concerns? He

hath troubles of his own, and came to be at peace, I think."

"I tried to make her understand me," repeated Jonathan doggedly; "and

now I'll try you. Do you think this world is fair?"

"Fair and false!" quoth Mr. Archer.

The old man laughed immoderately. "Good," said he, "very good, but what

I mean is this: do you know what it is to get up early and go to bed

late, and never take so much as a holiday but four: and one of these

your own marriage day, and the other three the funerals of folk you

loved, and all that, to have a quiet old age in shelter, and bread for

your old belly, and a bed to lay your crazy bones upon, with a clear

conscience?"

"Sir," said Mr. Archer with an inclination of his head, "you portray a

very brave existence."

"Well," continued Jonathan, "and in the end thieves deceive you, thieves

rob and rook you, thieves turn you out in your old age and send you

begging. What have you got for all your honesty? A fine return! You that

might have stole scores of pounds, there you are out in the rain with

your rheumatics!"

Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin he was

studying the old man's countenance. "And you conclude?" he asked.

"Conclude!" cried Jonathan. "I conclude I'll be upsides with them."

"Ay," said the other, "we are all tempted to revenge."

"You have lost money?" asked Jonathan.

"A great estate," said Archer quietly.

"See now!" says Jonathan, "and where is it?"

"Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share of it but me,"

was the reply. "All England hath paid his taxes with my patrimony: I was

a sheep that left my wool on every briar."

"And you sit down under that?" cried the old man. "Come now, Mr. Archer,

you and me belong to different stations; and I know mine--no man

better,--but since we have both been rooked, and are both sore with it,

why, here's my hand with a very good heart, and I ask for yours, and no

offence, I hope."

"There is surely no offence, my friend," returned Mr. Archer, as they

shook hands across the table; "for, believe me, my sympathies are quite

acquired to you. This life is an arena where we fight with beasts; and,

indeed," he added, sighing, "I sometimes marvel why we go down to it

unarmed."

In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been heard descending

through the wood; and presently after, the door opened, and the tall

ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end of Mr. Archer's trunk. The

other was carried by an aged beggar man of that district, known and

welcome for some twenty miles about under the name of "Old Cumberland."

Each was soon perched upon a settle, with a cup of ale; and the ostler,

who valued himself upon his affability, began to entertain the company,

still with half an eye on Nance, to whom in gallant terms he expressly

dedicated every sip of ale. First he told of the trouble they had to get

his Lordship started in the chaise; and how he had dropped a rouleau of

gold on the threshold, and the passage and doorstep had been strewn with

guinea-pieces. At this old Jonathan looked at Mr. Archer. Next the

visitor turned to news of a more thrilling character: how the down mail

had been stopped again near Grantham by three men on horseback--a white

and two bays; how they had handkerchiefs on their faces; how Tom the

guard's blunderbuss missed fire, but he swore he had winged one of them

with a pistol; and how they had got clean away with seventy pounds in

money, some valuable papers, and a watch or two.

"Brave! brave!" cried Jonathan in ecstasy. "Seventy pounds! O, it's

brave!"

"Well, I don't see the great bravery," observed the ostler,

misapprehending him. "Three men, and you may call that three to one.

I'll call it brave when some one stops the mail single-handed; that's a

risk."

"And why should they hesitate?" inquired Mr. Archer. "The poor souls who

are fallen to such a way of life, pray what have they to lose? If they

get the money, well; but if a ball should put them from their troubles,

why, so better."

"Well, sir," said the ostler, "I believe you'll find they won't agree

with you. They count on a good fling, you see; or who would risk

it?--And here's my best respects to you, Miss Nance."

"And I forgot the part of cowardice," resumed Mr. Archer. "All men

fear."

"O, surely not!" cried Nance.

"All men," reiterated Mr. Archer.

"Ay, that's a true word," observed Old Cumberland, "and a thief, anyway,

for it's a coward's trade."

"But these fellows, now," said Jonathan, with a curious, appealing

manner--"these fellows with their seventy pounds! Perhaps, Mr. Archer,

they were no true thieves after all, but just people who had been robbed

and tried to get their own again. What was that you said, about all

England and the taxes? One takes, another gives; why, that's almost

fair. If I've been rooked and robbed, and the coat taken off my back, I

call it almost fair to take another's."

"Ask Old Cumberland," observed the ostler; "you ask Old Cumberland, Miss

Nance!" and he bestowed a wink upon his favoured fair one.

"Why that?" asked Jonathan.

"He had his coat taken--ay, and his shirt too," returned the ostler.

"Is that so?" cried Jonathan eagerly. "Was you robbed too?"

"That was I," replied Cumberland, "with a warrant! I was a well-to-do

man when I was young."

"Ay! See that!" says Jonathan. "And you don't long for a revenge?"

"Eh! Not me!" answered the beggar. "It's too long ago. But if you'll

give me another mug of your good ale, my pretty lady, I won't say no to

that."

"And shalt have! And shalt have!" cried Jonathan. "Or brandy even, if

you like it better."

And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed in, the

party pledged each other in a dram of brandy before separating.

As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to avoid the

ostler's gallantries, partly to lament over the defects of Mr. Archer.

Plainly, he was no hero. She pitied him; she began to feel a protecting

interest mingle with and almost supersede her admiration, and was at the

same time disappointed and yet drawn to him. She was, indeed, conscious

of such unshaken fortitude in her own heart, that she was almost tempted

by an occasion to be bold for two. She saw herself, in a brave attitude,

shielding her imperfect hero from the world; and she saw, like a piece

of heaven, his gratitude for her protection.

CHAPTER V

LIFE IN THE CASTLE

From that day forth the life of these three persons in the ruin ran very

smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with a book, and now passed

whole days abroad, returning late, dead weary. His manner was a mask;

but it was half transparent; through the even tenor of his gravity and

courtesy profound revolutions of feeling were betrayed, seasons of numb

despair, of restlessness, of aching temper. For days he would say

nothing beyond his usual courtesies and solemn compliments; and then,

all of a sudden, some fine evening beside the kitchen fire, he would

fall into a vein of elegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting

events, the secrets of families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous

discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle

would sit till the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding

the unexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance,

perhaps, more pleased with the narrator's eloquence and wise

reflections; and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of

listless humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once

only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he went over to

the "Green Dragon," spent the afternoon with the landlord and a bowl of

punch, and returned as on the first night, devious in step but courteous

and unperturbed of speech.

If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he found

Nance alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked before her

rather than to her of his destiny, character, and hopes. To Nance these

interviews were but a doubtful privilege. At times he would seem to

take a pleasure in her presence, to consult her gravely, to hear and to

discuss her counsels; at times even, but these were rare and brief, he

would talk of herself, praise the qualities that she possessed, touch

indulgently on her defects, and lend her books to read and even examine

her upon her reading; but far more often he would fall into a half

unconsciousness, put her a question and then answer it himself, drop

into the veiled tone of voice of one soliloquising, and leave her at

last as though he had forgotten her existence. It was odd, too, that in

all this random converse, not a fact of his past life, and scarce a

name, should ever cross his lips. A profound reserve kept watch upon his

most unguarded moments. He spoke continually of himself, indeed, but

still in enigmas; a veiled prophet of egoism.

The base of Nance's feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as for a

superior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not,

accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame upon herself.

His formal politeness was so exquisite that this essential brutality

stood excused. His compliments, besides, were always grave and rational;

he would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus

disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when he forgot and remembered

her alternately could by the ardent fallacies of youth be read in the

light of an attention. She might be far from his confidence; but still

she was nearer it than any one. He might ignore her presence, but yet he

sought it.

Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point of superiority.

Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from a

worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the

weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller

in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the

most precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor the

harshness of life's web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need were, into

the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling horror. Ruin was

mining the walls of her cottage, as already it had mined and subverted

Mr. Archer's palace. Well, she faced it with a bright countenance and a

busy hand. She had got some washing, some rough seamstress work from the

"Green Dragon," and from another neighbour ten miles away across the

moor. At this she cheerfully laboured, and from that height she could

afford to pity the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer. It

did not change her admiration, but it made it bearable. He was above her

in all ways; but she was above him in one. She kept it to herself, and

hugged it. When, like all young creatures, she made long stories to

justify, to nourish, and to forecast the course of her affection, it was

this private superiority that made all rosy, that cut the knot, and

that, at last, in some great situation, fetched to her knees the

dazzling but imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled the

hours of labour, and consoled herself for Mr. Archer's bearing. Pity was

her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one's faults, although

it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain, and this pity it was

which, lying nearer to her heart, lent the one element of true emotion

to a fanciful and merely brain-sick love.

Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the "Green Dragon" and

brought back thence a letter to Mr. Archer. He, upon seeing it, winced

like a man under the knife: pain, shame, sorrow, and the most trenchant

edge of mortification cut into his heart and wrung the steady composure

of his face.

"Dear heart! have you bad news?" she cried.

But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and when, later

on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on the threshold, as if

with words prepared beforehand. "There are some pains," said he, "too

acute for consolation, or I would bring them to my kind consoler. Let

the memory of that letter, if you please, be buried." And then as she

continued to gaze at him, being, in spite of herself, pained by his

elaborate phrase, doubtfully sincere in word and manner: "Let it be

enough," he added haughtily, "that if this matter wring my heart, it

doth not touch my conscience. I am a man, I would have you to know, who

suffers undeservedly."

He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing an emotion;

and her heart thrilled for him. She could have taken his pains and died

of them with joy.

Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now swore by his

lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine talker. He knew the finest

sight of stories; he was a man and a gentleman, take him for all in all,

and a perfect credit to Old England. Such were the old man's declared

sentiments, and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer's side, hung upon his

utterance when he spoke, and watched him with unwearying interest when

he was silent. And yet his feeling was not clear; in the partial wreck

of his mind, which was leaning to decay, some afterthought was strongly

present. As he gazed in Mr. Archer's face a sudden brightness would

kindle in his rheumy eyes, his eyebrows would lift as with a sudden

thought, his mouth would open as though to speak, and close again on

silence. Once or twice he even called Mr. Archer mysteriously forth into

the dark courtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative

finger on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he

would shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire

without a word of explanation. "The good man was growing old," said Mr.

Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man had his idea, and

even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips

continually in the course of mumbled and gesticulative conversation.

CHAPTER VI

THE BAD HALF-CROWN

However early Nance arose, and she was no sluggard, the old man, who had

begun to outlive the earthly habit of slumber, would usually have been

up long before, the fire would be burning brightly, and she would see

him wandering among the ruins, lantern in hand, and talking assiduously

to himself. One day, however, after he had returned late from the market

town, she found that she had stolen a march upon that indefatigable

early riser. The kitchen was all blackness. She crossed the castle-yard

to the wood-cellar, her steps printing the thick hoarfrost. A scathing

breeze blew out of the north-east and slowly carried a regiment of black

and tattered clouds over the face of heaven, which was already kindled

with the wild light of morning, but where she walked, in shelter of the

ruins, the flame of her candle burned steady. The extreme cold smote

upon her conscience. She could not bear to think this bitter business

fell usually to the lot of one so old as Jonathan, and made desperate

resolutions to be earlier in the future.

The fire was a good blaze before he entered, limping dismally into the

kitchen. "Nance," said he, "I be all knotted up with the rheumatics;

will you rub me a bit?" She came and rubbed him where and how he bade

her. "This is a cruel thing that old age should be rheumaticky," said

he. "When I was young I stood my turn of the teethache like a man! for

why? because it couldn't last for ever; but these rheumatics come to

live and die with you. Your aunt was took before the time came; never

had an ache to mention. Now I lie all night in my single bed and the

blood never warms in me; this knee of mine it seems like lighted up with

rheumatics; it seems as though you could see to sew by it; and all the

strings of my old body ache, as if devils was pulling 'em. Thank you

kindly; that's someways easier now, but an old man, my dear, has little

to look for; it's pain, pain, pain to the end of the business, and I'll

never be rightly warm again till I get under the sod," he said, and

looked down at her with a face so aged and weary that she had nearly

wept.

"I lay awake all night," he continued; "I do so mostly, and a long walk

kills me. Eh, deary me, to think that life should run to such a puddle!

And I remember long syne when I was strong, and the blood all hot and

good about me, and I loved to run, too--deary me, to run! Well, that's

all by. You'd better pray to be took early, Nance, and not live on till

you get to be like me, and are robbed in your grey old age, your cold,

shivering, dark old age, that's like a winter's morning"; and he

bitterly shuddered, spreading his hands before the fire.

"Come now," said Nance, "the more you say the less you'll like it, Uncle

Jonathan; but if I were you I would be proud for to have lived all your

days honest and beloved, and come near the end with your good name:

isn't that a fine thing to be proud of? Mr. Archer was telling me in

some strange land they used to run races each with a lighted candle, and

the art was to keep the candle burning. Well, now, I thought that was

like life; a man's good conscience is the flame he gets to carry, and if

he comes to the winning-post with that still burning, why, take it how

you will, the man's a hero--even if he was low-born like you and me."

"Did Mr. Archer tell you that?" asked Jonathan.

"No, dear," said she, "that's my own thought about it. He told me of the

race. But see, now," she continued, putting on the porridge, "you say

old age is a hard season, but so is youth. You're half out of the

battle, I would say; you loved my aunt and got her, and buried her, and

some of these days soon you'll go to meet her; and take her my love and

tell her I tried to take good care of you; for so I do, Uncle Jonathan."

Jonathan struck with his fist upon the settle. "D'ye think I want to

die, ye vixen?" he shouted. "I want to live ten hundred years."

This was a mystery beyond Nance's penetration, and she stared in wonder

as she made the porridge.

"I want to live," he continued, "I want to live and to grow rich. I want

to drive my carriage and to dice in hells and see the ring, I do. Is

this a life that I lived? I want to be a rake, d'ye understand? I want

to know what things are like. I don't want to die like a blind kitten,

and me seventy-six."

"O fie!" said Nance.

The old man thrust out his jaw at her, with the grimace of an irreverent

schoolboy. Upon that aged face it seemed a blasphemy. Then he took out

of his bosom a long leather purse, and emptying its contents on the

settle, began to count and recount the pieces, ringing and examining

each, and suddenly he leapt like a young man. "What!" he screamed. "Bad?

O Lord! I'm robbed again!" And falling on his knees before the settle he

began to pour forth the most dreadful curses on the head of his

deceiver. His eyes were shut, for to him this vile solemnity was prayer.

He held up the bad half-crown in his right hand, as though he were

displaying it to Heaven, and what increased the horror of the scene, the

curses he invoked were those whose efficacy he had tasted--old age and

poverty, rheumatism and an ungrateful son. Nance listened appalled; then

she sprang forward and dragged down his arm and laid her hand upon his

mouth.

"Whist!" she cried. "Whist ye, for God's sake! O my man, whist ye! If

Heaven were to hear; if poor Aunt Susan were to hear! Think, she may be

listening." And with the histrionism of strong emotion she pointed to a

corner of the kitchen.

His eyes followed her finger. He looked there for a little, thinking,

blinking; then he got stiffly to his feet and resumed his place upon the

settle, the bad piece still in his hand. So he sat for some time,

looking upon the half-crown, and now wondering to himself on the

injustice and partiality of the law, now computing again and again the

nature of his loss. So he was still sitting when Mr. Archer entered the

kitchen. At this a light came into his face, and after some seconds of

rumination he despatched Nance upon an errand.

"Mr. Archer," said he, as soon as they were alone together, "would you

give me a guinea-piece for silver?"

"Why, sir, I believe I can," said Mr. Archer.

And the exchange was just effected when Nance re-entered the apartment.

The blood shot into her face.

"What's to do here?" she asked rudely.

"Nothing, my dearie," said old Jonathan, with a touch of whine.

"What's to do?" she said again.

"Your uncle was but changing me a piece of gold," returned Mr. Archer.

"Let me see what he hath given you, Mr. Archer," replied the girl. "I

had a bad piece, and I fear it is mixed up among the good."

"Well, well," replied Mr. Archer, smiling, "I must take the merchant's

risk of it. The money is now mixed."

"I know my piece," quoth Nance. "Come, let me see your silver, Mr.

Archer. If I have to get it by a theft I'll see that money," she cried.

"Nay, child, if you put as much passion to be honest as the world to

steal, I must give way, though I betray myself," said Mr. Archer. "There

it is as I received it."

Nance quickly found the bad half-crown.

"Give him another," she said, looking Jonathan in the face; and when

that had been done, she walked over to the chimney and flung the guilty

piece into the reddest of the fire. Its base constituents began

immediately to run; even as she watched it the disc crumbled, and the

lineaments of the King became confused. Jonathan, who had followed close

behind, beheld these changes from over her shoulder, and his face

darkened sorely.

"Now," said she, "come back to table, and to-day it is I that shall say

grace, as I used to do in the old times, day about with Dick"; and

covering her eyes with one hand, "O Lord," said she with deep emotion,

"make us thankful; and, O Lord, deliver us from evil! For the love of

the poor souls that watch for us in heaven, O deliver us from evil."

CHAPTER VII

THE BLEACHING-GREEN

The year moved on to March; and March, though it blew bitter keen from

the North Sea, yet blinked kindly between whiles on the river dell. The

mire dried up in the closest covert; life ran in the bare branches, and

the air of the afternoon would be suddenly sweet with the fragrance of

new grass.

Above and below the castle the river crooked like the letter "S." The

lower loop was to the left, and embraced the high and steep projection

which was crowned by the ruins; the upper loop enclosed a lawny

promontory, fringed by thorn and willow. It was easy to reach it from

the castle side, for the river ran in this part very quietly among

innumerable boulders and over dam-like walls of rock. The place was all

enclosed, the wind a stranger, the turf smooth and solid; so it was

chosen by Nance to be her bleaching-green.

One day she brought a bucketful of linen, and had but begun to wring and

lay them out when Mr. Archer stepped from the thicket on the far side,

drew very deliberately near, and sat down in silence on the grass. Nance

looked up to greet him with a smile, but finding her smile was not

returned, she fell into embarrassment and stuck the more busily to her

employment. Man or woman, the whole world looks well at any work to

which they are accustomed; but the girl was ashamed of what she did. She

was ashamed, besides, of the sun-bonnet that so well became her, and

ashamed of her bare arms, which were her greatest beauty.

"Nausicaa," said Mr. Archer at last, "I find you like Nausicaa."

"And who was she?" asked Nance, and laughed in spite of herself, an

empty and embarrassed laugh, that sounded in Mr. Archer's ears, indeed,

like music, but to her own like the last grossness of rusticity.

"She was a princess of the Grecian islands," he replied. "A king, being

shipwrecked, found her washing by the shore. Certainly I, too, was

shipwrecked," he continued, plucking at the grass. "There was never a

more desperate castaway--to fall from polite life, fortune, a shrine of

honour, a grateful conscience, duties willingly taken up and faithfully

discharged; and to fall to this--idleness, poverty, inutility, remorse."

He seemed to have forgotten her presence, but here he remembered her

again. "Nance," said he, "would you have a man sit down and suffer or

rise up and strive?"

"Nay," she said. "I would always rather see him doing."

"Ha!" said Mr. Archer, "but yet you speak from an imperfect knowledge.

Conceive a man damned to a choice of only evil--misconduct upon either

side, not a fault behind him, and yet naught before him but this choice

of sins. How would you say then?"

"I would say that he was much deceived, Mr. Archer," returned Nance. "I

would say there was a third choice, and that the right one."

"I tell you," said Mr. Archer, "the man I have in view hath two ways

open, and no more. One to wait, like a poor mewling baby, till Fate save

or ruin him; the other to take his troubles in his hand, and to perish

or be saved at once. It is no point of morals; both are wrong. Either

way this step-child of Providence must fall; which shall he choose, by

doing or not doing?"

"Fall, then, is what I would say," replied Nance. "Fall where you will,

but do it! For O, Mr. Archer," she continued, stooping to her work, "you

that are good and kind, and so wise, it doth sometimes go against my

heart to see you live on here like a sheep in a turnip-field! If you

were braver----" and here she paused, conscience-smitten.

"Do I, indeed, lack courage?" inquired Mr. Archer of himself. "Courage,

the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand? Courage, that a poor

private carrying a musket has to spare of; that does not fail a weasel or

a rat; that is a brutish faculty? I to fail there, I wonder? But what is

courage, then? The constancy to endure oneself or to see others suffer?

The itch of ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still

and patient? To inquire of the significance of words is to rob ourselves

of what we seem to know, and yet, of all things, certainly to stand still

is the least heroic. Nance," he said, "did you ever hear of _Hamlet_?"

"Never," said Nance.

"'Tis an old play," returned Mr. Archer, "and frequently enacted. This

while I have been talking Hamlet. You must know this Hamlet was a Prince

among the Danes," and he told her the play in a very good style, here

and there quoting a verse or two with solemn emphasis.

"It is strange," said Nance; "he was then a very poor creature?"

"That was what he could not tell," said Mr. Archer. "Look at me, am I as

poor a creature?"

She looked, and what she saw was the familiar thought of all her hours;

the tall figure very plainly habited in black, the spotless ruffles, the

slim hands; the long, well-shapen, serious, shaven face, the wide and

somewhat thin-lipped mouth, the dark eyes that were so full of depth and

change and colour. He was gazing at her with his brows a little knit,

his chin upon one hand and that elbow resting on his knee.

"Ye look a man!" she cried, "ay, and should be a great one! The more

shame to you to lie here idle like a dog before the fire."

"My fair Holdaway," quoth Mr. Archer, "you are much set on action. I

cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed." He continued, looking at her with a

half-absent fixity, "'Tis a strange thing, certainly, that in my years

of fortune I should never taste happiness, and now when I am broke,

enjoy so much of it, for was I ever happier than to-day? Was the grass

softer, the stream pleasanter in sound, the air milder, the heart more

at peace? Why should I not sink? To dig--why, after all, it should be

easy. To take a mate, too? Love is of all grades since Jupiter; love

fails to none; and children"--but here he passed his hand suddenly over

his eyes. "O fool and coward, fool and coward!" he said bitterly; "can

you forget your fetters? You did not know that I was fettered, Nance?"

he asked, again addressing her.

But Nance was somewhat sore. "I know you keep talking," she said, and,

turning half away from him, began to wring out a sheet across her

shoulder. "I wonder you are not wearied of your voice. When the hands

lie abed the tongue takes a walk."

Mr. Archer laughed unpleasantly, rose and moved to the water's edge. In

this part the body of the river poured across a little narrow fell, ran

some ten feet very smoothly over a bed of pebbles, then getting wind, as

it were, of another shelf of rock which barred the channel, began, by

imperceptible degrees, to separate towards either shore in dancing

currents, and to leave the middle clear and stagnant. The set towards

either side was nearly equal; about one half of the whole water plunged

on the side of the castle, through a narrow gullet; about one half ran

lipping past the margin of the green and slipped across a babbling

rapid.

"Here," said Mr. Archer, after he had looked for some time at the fine

and shifting demarcation of these currents, "come here and see me try my

fortune."

"I am not like a man," said Nance; "I have no time to waste."

"Come here," he said again. "I ask you seriously, Nance. We are not

always childish when we seem so."

She drew a little nearer.

"Now," said he, "you see these two channels--choose one."

"I'll choose the nearest, to save time," said Nance.

"Well, that shall be for action," returned Mr. Archer. "And since I wish

to have the odds against me, not only the other channel but yon stagnant

water in the midst shall be for lying still. You see this?" he

continued, pulling up a withered rush. "I break it in three. I shall put

each separately at the top of the upper fall, and according as they go

by your way or by the other I shall guide my life."

"This is very silly," said Nance, with a movement of her shoulders.

"I do not think it so," said Mr. Archer.

"And then," she resumed, "if you are to try your fortune, why not

evenly?"

"Nay," returned Mr. Archer with a smile, "no man can put complete

reliance in blind fate; he must still cog the dice."

By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall, and,

bidding her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the middle of the

intake. The rusty fragment was sucked at once over the fall, came up

again far on the right hand, leaned ever more and more in the same

direction, and disappeared under the hanging grasses on the castle side.

"One," said Mr. Archer, "one for standing still."

But the next launch had a different fate, and after hanging for a while

about the edge of the stagnant water, steadily approached the

bleaching-green and danced down the rapid under Nance's eyes.

"One for me," she cried with some exultation; and then she observed that

Mr. Archer had grown pale, and was kneeling on the rock, with his hand

raised like a person petrified. "Why," said she, "you do not mind it,

do you?"

"Does a man not mind a throw of dice by which a fortune hangs?" said Mr.

Archer, rather hoarsely. "And this is more than fortune. Nance, if you

have any kindness for my fate, put up a prayer before I launch the next

one."

"A prayer," she cried, "about a game like this? I would not be so

heathen."

"Well," said he, "then without," and he closed his eyes and dropped the

piece of rush. This time there was no doubt. It went for the rapid as

straight as any arrow.

"Action then!" said Mr. Archer, getting to his feet; "and then God

forgive us," he added, almost to himself.

"God forgive us, indeed," cried Nance, "for wasting the good daylight!

But come, Mr. Archer, if I see you look so serious I shall begin to

think you was in earnest."

"Nay," he said, turning upon her suddenly, with a full smile; "but is

not this good advice? I have consulted God and demigod; the nymph of the

river, and what I far more admire and trust, my blue-eyed Minerva. Both

have said the same. My own heart was telling it already. Action, then,

be mine; and into the deep sea with all this paralysing casuistry. I am

happy to-day for the first time."

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAIL GUARD

Somewhere about two in the morning a squall had burst upon the castle, a

clap of screaming wind that made the towers rock, and a copious drift of

rain that streamed from the windows. The wind soon blew itself out, but

the day broke cloudy and dripping, and when the little party assembled

at breakfast their humours appeared to have changed with the change of

weather. Nance had been brooding on the scene at the river-side,

applying it in various ways to her particular aspirations, and the

result, which was hardly to her mind, had taken the colour out of her

cheeks. Mr. Archer, too, was somewhat absent, his thoughts were of a

mingled strain; and even upon his usually impassive countenance there

were betrayed successive depths of depression and starts of exultation,

which the girl translated in terms of her own hopes and fears. But

Jonathan was the most altered: he was strangely silent, hardly passing a

word, and watched Mr. Archer with an eager and furtive eye. It seemed as

if the idea that had so long hovered before him had now taken a more

solid shape, and, while it still attracted, somewhat alarmed his

imagination.

At this rate, conversation languished into a silence which was only

broken by the gentle and ghostly noises of the rain on the stone roof

and about all that field of ruins; and they were all relieved when the

note of a man whistling and the sound of approaching footsteps in the

grassy court announced a visitor. It was the ostler from the "Green

Dragon" bringing a letter for Mr. Archer. Nance saw her hero's face

contract and then relax again at sight of it; and she thought that she

knew why, for the sprawling, gross black characters of the address were

easily distinguishable from the fine writing on the former letter that

had so much disturbed him. He opened it and began to read; while the

ostler sat down to table with a pot of ale, and proceeded to make

himself agreeable after his fashion.

"Fine doings down our way, Miss Nance," said he. "I haven't been abed

this blessed night."

Nance expressed a polite interest, but her eye was on Mr. Archer, who

was reading his letter with a face of such extreme indifference that she

was tempted to suspect him of assumption.

"Yes," continued the ostler, "not been the like of it this fifteen

years: the North Mail stopped at the three stones."

Jonathan's cup was at his lip, but at this moment he choked with a great

splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by the noise, made so sudden a

movement that one corner of the sheet tore off and stayed between his

finger and thumb. It was some little time before the old man was

sufficiently recovered to beg the ostler to go on, and he still kept

coughing and crying and rubbing his eyes. Mr. Archer, on his side, laid

the letter down, and, putting his hands in his pocket, listened gravely

to the tale.

"Yes," resumed Sam, "the North Mail was stopped by a single horseman;

dash my wig, but I admire him! There were four insides and two out, and

poor Tom Oglethorpe, the guard. Tom showed himself a man; let fly his

blunderbuss at him; had him covered, too, and could swear to that; but

the Captain never let on, up with a pistol and fetched poor Tom a bullet

through the body. Tom, he squelched upon the seat, all over blood. Up

comes the Captain to the window. 'Oblige me,' says he, 'with what you

have.' Would you believe it? Not a man says cheep!--not them. 'Thy hands

over thy head.' Four watches, rings, snuff-boxes, seven-and-forty

pounds overhead in gold. One Dicksee, a grazier, tries it on: gives him

a guinea. 'Beg your pardon,' says the Captain, 'I think too highly of

you to take it at your hand. I will not take less than ten from such a

gentleman.' This Dicksee had his money in his stocking, but there was

the pistol at his eye. Down he goes, offs with his stocking, and there

was thirty golden guineas. 'Now,' says the Captain, 'you've tried it on

with me, but I scorns the advantage. Ten I said,' he says, 'and ten I

take.' So, dash my buttons, I call that man a man!" cried Sam in cordial

admiration.

"Well, and then?" says Mr. Archer.

"Then," resumed Sam, "that old fat fagot Engleton, him as held the

ribbons and drew up like a lamb when he was told to, picks up his

cattle, and drives off again. Down they came to the 'Dragon,' all

singing like as if they was scalded, and poor Tom saying nothing. You

would 'a' thought they had all lost the King's crown to hear them. Down

gets this Dicksee. 'Postmaster,' he says, taking him by the arm, 'this

is a most abominable thing,' he says. Down gets a Major Clayton, and

gets the old man by the other arm. 'We've been robbed,' he cries,

'robbed!' Down gets the others, and all around the old man telling their

story, and what they had lost, and how they was all as good as ruined;

till at last Old Engleton says, says he, 'How about Oglethorpe?' says

he. 'Ay,' says the others, 'how about the guard?' Well, with that we

bousted him down, as white as a rag and all blooded like a sop. I

thought he was dead. Well, he ain't dead; but he's dying, I fancy."

"Did you say four watches?" said Jonathan.

"Four, I think. I wish it had been forty," cried Sam. "Such a party of

soused herrings I never did see--not a man among them bar poor Tom. But

us that are the servants on the road have all the risk and none of the

profit."

"And this brave fellow," asked Mr. Archer, very quietly, "this

Oglethorpe--how is he now?"

"Well, sir, with my respects, I take it he has a hole bang through him,"

said Sam. "The doctor hasn't been yet. He'd 'a' been bright and early if

it had been a passenger. But, doctor or no, I'll make a good guess that

Tom won't see to-morrow. He'll die on a Sunday, will poor Tom; and they

do say that's fortunate."

"Did Tom see him that did it?" asked Jonathan.

"Well, he saw him," replied Sam, "but not to swear by. Said he was a

very tall man, and very big, and had a 'ankerchief about his face, and a

very quick shot, and sat his horse like a thorough gentleman, as he is."

"A gentleman!" cried Nance. "The dirty knave!"

"Well, I calls a man like that a gentleman," returned the ostler;

"that's what I mean by a gentleman."

"You don't know much of them, then," said Nance. "A gentleman would

scorn to stoop to such a thing. I call my uncle a better gentleman than

any thief."

"And you would be right," said Mr. Archer.

"How many snuff-boxes did he get?" asked Jonathan.

"O, dang me if I know," said Sam; "I didn't take an inventory."

"I will go back with you, if you please," said Mr. Archer. "I should

like to see poor Oglethorpe. He has behaved well."

"At your service, sir," said Sam, jumping to his feet. "I dare to say a

gentleman like you would not forget a poor fellow like Tom--no, nor a

plain man like me, sir, that went without his sleep to nurse him. And

excuse me, sir," added Sam, "you won't forget about the letter neither?"

"Surely not," said Mr. Archer.

Oglethorpe lay in a low bed, one of several in a long garret of the inn.

The rain soaked in places through the roof and fell in minute drops;

there was but one small window; the beds were occupied by servants, the

air of the garret was both close and chilly. Mr. Archer's heart sank at

the threshold to see a man lying perhaps mortally hurt in so poor a

sick-room, and as he drew near the low bed he took his hat off. The

guard was a big, blowsy, innocent-looking soul with a thick lip and a

broad nose, comically turned up; his cheeks were crimson, and when Mr.

Archer laid a finger on his brow he found him burning with fever.

"I fear you suffer much," he said, with a catch in his voice, as he sat

down on the bedside.

"I suppose I do, sir," returned Oglethorpe; "it is main sore."

"I am used to wounds and wounded men," returned the visitor. "I have

been in the wars and nursed brave fellows before now; and, if you will

suffer me, I propose to stay beside you till the doctor comes."

"It is very good of you, sir, I am sure," said Oglethorpe. "The trouble

is they won't none of them let me drink."

"If you will not tell the doctor," said Mr. Archer, "I will give you

some water. They say it is bad for a green wound, but in the Low

Countries we all drank water when we found the chance, and I could never

perceive we were the worse for it."

"Been wounded yourself, sir, perhaps?" called Oglethorpe.

"Twice," said Mr. Archer, "and was as proud of these hurts as any lady

of her bracelets. 'Tis a fine thing to smart for one's duty; even in the

pangs of it there is contentment."

"Ah, well!" replied the guard, "if you've been shot yourself, that

explains. But as for contentment, why, sir, you see, it smarts, as you

say. And then, I have a good wife, you see, and a bit of a brat--a

little thing, so high."

"Don't move," said Mr. Archer.

"No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly," said Oglethorpe. "At York

they are. A very good lass is my wife--far too good for me. And the

little rascal--well, I don't know how to say it, but he sort of comes

round you. If I were to go, sir, it would be hard on my poor girl--main

hard on her!"

"Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid you here," said

Archer.

"Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the passengers," replied the

guard. "He played his hand, if you come to look at it; and I wish he had

shot worse, or me better. And yet I'll go to my grave but what I covered

him," he cried. "It looks like witchcraft. I'll go to my grave but what

he was drove full of slugs like a pepper-box."

"Quietly," said Mr. Archer, "you must not excite yourself. These

deceptions are very usual in war; the eye, in the moment of alert, is

hardly to be trusted, and when the smoke blows away you see the man you

fired at, taking aim, it may be, at yourself. You should observe, too,

that you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzled by the lamps, and

that the sudden stopping of the mail had jolted you. In such

circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with a blunderbuss, and no blame

attach to his marksmanship." ...

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER

A FRAGMENT

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER

PROLOGUE

THE WINE-SELLER'S WIFE

There was a wine-seller's shop, as you went down to the river in the

city of the Anti-popes. There a man was served with good wine of the

country and plain country fare; and the place being clean and quiet,

with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen who dwelt in that city

in attendance on a great personage made it a practice (when they had any

silver in their purses) to come and eat there and be private.

They called the wine-seller Paradou. He was built more like a bullock

than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in colour, and with a hand like

a baby for size. Marie-Madeleine was the name of his wife; she was of

Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, nor was any fairer than herself.

She was tall, being almost of a height with Paradou; full-girdled,

point-device in every form, with an exquisite delicacy in the face; her

nose and nostrils a delight to look at from the fineness of the

sculpture, her eyes inclined a hair's-breadth inward, her colour between

dark and fair, and laid on even like a flower's. A faint rose dwelt in

it, as though she had been found unawares bathing, and had blushed from

head to foot. She was of a grave countenance, rarely smiling; yet it

seemed to be written upon every part of her that she rejoiced in life.

Her husband loved the heels of her feet and the knuckles of her fingers;

he loved her like a glutton and a brute; his love hung about her like

an atmosphere; one that came by chance into the wine-shop was aware of

that passion; and it might be said that by the strength of it the woman

had been drugged or spell-bound. She knew not if she loved or loathed

him; he was always in her eyes like something monstrous,--monstrous in

his love, monstrous in his person, horrific but imposing in his

violence; and her sentiment swung back and forward from desire to

sickness. But the mean, where it dwelt chiefly, was an apathetic

fascination, partly of horror; as of Europa in mid ocean with her bull.

On the 10th November 1749 there sat two of the foreign gentlemen in the

wine-seller's shop. They were both handsome men of a good presence,

richly dressed. The first was swarthy and long and lean, with an alert,

black look, and a mole upon his cheek. The other was more fair. He

seemed very easy and sedate, and a little melancholy for so young a man,

but his smile was charming. In his grey eyes there was much abstraction,

as of one recalling fondly that which was past and lost. Yet there was

strength and swiftness in his limbs; and his mouth set straight across

his face, the under lip a thought upon side, like that of a man

accustomed to resolve. These two talked together in a rude outlandish

speech that no frequenter of that wine-shop understood. The swarthy man

answered to the name of _Ballantrae_; he of the dreamy eyes was

sometimes called _Balmile_, and sometimes _my Lord_, or _my Lord

Gladsmuir_; but when the title was given him, he seemed to put it by as

if in jesting, not without bitterness.

The mistral blew in the city. The first day of that wind, they say in

the countries where its voice is heard, it blows away all the dust, the

second all the stones, and the third it blows back others from the

mountains. It was now come to the third day; outside the pebbles flew

like hail, and the face of the river was puckered, and the very

building-stones in the walls of houses seemed to be curdled, with the

savage cold and fury of that continuous blast. It could be heard to hoot

in all the chimneys of the city; it swept about the wine-shop, filling

the room with eddies; the chill and gritty touch of it passed between

the nearest clothes and the bare flesh; and the two gentlemen at the far

table kept their mantles loose about their shoulders. The roughness of

these outer hulls, for they were plain travellers' cloaks that had seen

service, set the greater mark of richness on what showed below of their

laced clothes; for the one was in scarlet and the other in violet and

white, like men come from a scene of ceremony; as indeed they were.

It chanced that these fine clothes were not without their influence on

the scene which followed, and which makes the prologue of our tale. For

a long time Balmile was in the habit to come to the wine-shop and eat a

meal or drink a measure of wine; sometimes with a comrade; more often

alone, when he would sit and dream and drum upon the table, and the

thoughts would show in the man's face in little glooms and lightenings,

like the sun and the clouds upon a water. For a long time

Marie-Madeleine had observed him apart. His sadness, the beauty of his

smile when by any chance he remembered her existence and addressed her,

the changes of his mind signalled forth by an abstruse play of feature,

the mere fact that he was foreign and a thing detached from the local

and the accustomed, insensibly attracted and affected her. Kindness was

ready in her mind; it but lacked the touch of an occasion to effervesce

and crystallise. Now Balmile had come hitherto in a very poor plain

habit; and this day of the mistral, when his mantle was just open, and

she saw beneath it the glancing of the violet and the velvet and the

silver, and the clustering fineness of the lace, it seemed to set the

man in a new light, with which he shone resplendent to her fancy.

The high inhuman note of the wind, the violence and continuity of its

outpouring, and the fierce touch of it upon man's whole periphery,

accelerated the functions of the mind. It set thoughts whirling, as it

whirled the trees of the forest; it stirred them up in flights, as it

stirred up the dust in chambers. As brief as sparks, the fancies

glittered and succeeded each other in the mind of Marie-Madeleine; and

the grave man with the smile, and the bright clothes under the plain

mantle, haunted her with incongruous explanations. She considered him,

the unknown, the speaker of an unknown tongue, the hero (as she placed

him) of an unknown romance, the dweller upon unknown memories. She

recalled him sitting there alone, so immersed, so stupefied; yet she was

sure he was not stupid. She recalled one day when he had remained a long

time motionless, with parted lips, like one in the act of starting up,

his eyes fixed on vacancy. Any one else must have looked foolish; but

not he. She tried to conceive what manner of memory had thus entranced

him; she forged for him a past; she showed him to herself in every light

of heroism and greatness and misfortune; she brooded with petulant

intensity on all she knew and guessed of him. Yet, though she was

already gone so deep, she was still unashamed, still unalarmed; her

thoughts were still disinterested; she had still to reach the stage at

which--beside the image of that other whom we love to contemplate and to

adorn--we place the image of ourself and behold them together with

delight.

She stood within the counter, her hands clasped behind her back, her

shoulders pressed against the wall, her feet braced out. Her face was

bright with the wind and her own thoughts; as a fire in a similar day of

tempest glows and brightens on a hearth, so she seemed to glow, standing

there, and to breathe out energy. It was the first time Ballantrae had

visited that wine-seller's, the first time he had seen the wife; and his

eyes were true to her.

"I perceive your reason for carrying me to this very draughty tavern,"

he said at last.

"I believe it is propinquity," returned Balmile.

"You play dark," said Ballantrae, "but have a care! Be more frank with

me, or I will cut you out. I go through no form of qualifying my threat,

which would be commonplace and not conscientious. There is only one

point in these campaigns: that is the degree of admiration offered by

the man; and to our hostess I am in a posture to make victorious love."

"If you think you have the time, or the game worth the candle," replied

the other with a shrug.

"One would suppose you were never at the pains to observe her," said

Ballantrae.

"I am not very observant," said Balmile. "She seems comely."

"You very dear and dull dog!" cried Ballantrae; "chastity is the most

besotting of the virtues. Why, she has a look in her face beyond

singing! I believe, if you was to push me hard, I might trace it home to

a trifle of a squint. What matters? The height of beauty is in the touch

that's wrong, that's the modulation in a tune. 'Tis the devil we all

love; I owe many a conquest to my mole"--he touched it as he spoke with

a smile, and his eyes glittered;--"we are all hunchbacks, and beauty is

only that kind of deformity that I happen to admire. But come! Because

you are chaste, for which I am sure I pay you my respects, that is no

reason why you should be blind. Look at her, look at the delicious nose

of her, look at her cheek, look at her ear, look at her hand and

wrist--look at the whole baggage from heels to crown, and tell me if she

wouldn't melt on a man's tongue."

As Ballantrae spoke, half jesting, half enthusiastic, Balmile was

constrained to do as he was bidden. He looked at the woman, admired her

excellences, and was at the same time ashamed for himself and his

companion. So it befell that when Marie-Madeleine raised her eyes, she

met those of the subject of her contemplations fixed directly on herself

with a look that is unmistakable, the look of a person measuring and

valuing another,--and, to clench the false impression, that his glance

was instantly and guiltily withdrawn. The blood beat back upon her heart

and leaped again; her obscure thoughts flashed clear before her; she

flew in fancy straight to his arms like a wanton, and fled again on the

instant like a nymph. And at that moment there chanced an interruption,

which not only spared her embarrassment, but set the last consecration

on her now articulate love.

Into the wine-shop there came a French gentleman, arrayed in the last

refinement of the fashion, though a little tumbled by his passage in the

wind. It was to be judged he had come from the same formal gathering at

which the others had preceded him; and perhaps that he had gone there in

the hope to meet with them, for he came up to Ballantrae with

unceremonious eagerness.

"At last, here you are!" he cried in French. "I thought I was to miss

you altogether."

The Scotsmen rose, and Ballantrae, after the first greetings, laid his

hand on his companion's shoulder.

"My lord," said he, "allow me to present to you one of my best friends

and one of our best soldiers, the Lord Viscount Gladsmuir."

The two bowed with the elaborate elegance of the period.

"_Monseigneur_," said Balmile, "_je n'ai pas la pretention de m'affubler

d'un titre que la mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne me permet pas de porter

comme il sied. Je m'appelle, pour vous servir, Blair de Balmile tout

court._" [My lord, I have not the effrontery to cumber myself with a

title which the ill fortunes of my king will not suffer me to bear the

way it should be. I call myself, at your service, plain Blair of

Balmile.]

"_Monsieur le Vicomte ou monsieur Bler' de Balmail_," replied the

new-comer, "_le nom n'y fait rien et l'on connait vos beaux faits._"

[The name matters nothing, your gallant actions are known.]

A few more ceremonies, and these three, sitting down together to the

table, called for wine. It was the happiness of Marie-Madeleine to wait

unobserved upon the prince of her desires. She poured the wine, he drank

of it; and that link between them seemed to her, for the moment, close

as a caress. Though they lowered their tones, she surprised great names

passing in their conversation, names of kings, the names of de Gesvre

and Belle-Isle; and the man who dealt in these high matters, and she who

was now coupled with him in her own thoughts, seemed to swim in mid air

in a transfiguration. Love is a crude core, but it has singular and

far-reaching fringes; in that passionate attraction for the stranger

that now swayed and mastered her, his harsh incomprehensible language,

and these names of grandees in his talk, were each an element.

The Frenchman stayed not long, but it was plain he left behind him

matter of much interest to his companions; they spoke together

earnestly, their heads down, the woman of the wine-shop totally

forgotten; and they were still so occupied when Paradou returned.

This man's love was unsleeping. The even bluster of the mistral, with

which he had been combating some hours, had not suspended, though it had

embittered, that predominant passion. His first look was for his wife, a

look of hope and suspicion, menace and humility and love, that made the

over-blooming brute appear for the moment almost beautiful. She returned

his glance, at first as though she knew him not, then with a swiftly

waxing coldness of intent; and at last, without changing their

direction, she had closed her eyes.