Neither had she a word for Rebow. She answered his questions with

monosyllables, or not at all, and he had often to repeat them before she

condescended to answer. He spoke at meal times, and attempted to draw

her into conversation, but she either did not listen to him, was

occupied with her own thoughts, or she would not appear to hear and be

interested in what he said.

A morose expression clouded and disfigured her countenance, once so

frank and genial. Joe remarked to Jim that she was growing like the

master. Jim replied that folks who lived together mostly did resemble

one another. He knew a collier who had a favourite bull-dog, and they

were as alike in face as if they were twins.

Mehalah avoided Abraham, she rarely spoke to him, and when he attempted

to open a conversation with her she withdrew abruptly. When all her

work was done, she walked along the sea-wall to the spit of land, and,

seating herself there, remained silent, brooding, with dull, heavy eyes

looking out to sea at the passing sails, or the foaming waves.

She did not think, she sat sunk in a dull torpor. She neither hoped

anything nor recalled anything. As she had said to Elijah, she neither

loved nor hated; she did not fear him or desire him. She disliked to be

in his presence, but she would not fix her mind on him, and concern

herself about him. Her self-respect was sick, and till that was

recovered nothing could interest and revive her.

Mehalah was seated under the windmill when Mrs. De Witt drew to land.

That lady was on her war-path, and on seeing the person whom she

designed to attack and rout out of her shelter, she turned the beak of

her boat directly upon her, and thrust ashore at Mehalah's feet.

The sight of Mrs. De Witt in her red coat roused the girl from her

dream, and she rose wearily to her feet and turned to walk away.

'Glory!' shouted the fishwife after her. 'Sackalive! I want to speak to

you. Stop at once.'

Mehalah paid no attention to the call, but walked on. Mrs. De Witt was

incensed, and, after anchoring her boat, rushed after and overtook her.

'By Cock!' exclaimed the lady, 'here's manners! Didn't you hear me

hollering to you to hold hard and heave to?' She laid her hand on

Mehalah's shoulder. The girl shook it off.

'Sackalive!' cried Mrs. De Witt. 'We are out of temper to-day. We have

the meagrims. What is all this about? But I suppose you can't fare to

look an honest woman in the face. The wicious eye will drop before the

stare of wirtue!'

'What have you to say to me?' asked Mehalah moodily.

'Why, I want to speak along of you about what concerns you most of all.

Now his father and his mother are dead, who's to look after Elijah's

morals but me, his aunt? Now I can't stand these goings on, Glory!

Here are you living in this out-of-the way house with my nephew, who is

not a married man, and folks talk. My family was always respectable, we

kept ourselves up in the world. My husband's family I know nothing

about. He was a low chap, and rose out of the mud, like the winkles. I

took him up, and then I dropped him again; I was large and generous of

heart when I was young--younger than I am now. I wouldn't do it again,

it don't pay. The man will raise the woman, but the woman can't lift

the man. He grovels in the mud he came out of. She may pick him out

and wipe him clean a score of times, but when she ain't looking, in he

flops again. I have had my experience. Moses was a good-looking man,

but he looked better raw than cooked, he ate tougher than he cut. He

wasn't the husband that he seemed to promise as a bachelor. George was

another; but he was an advance on Moses, he had a little of me in him.

There was Rebow mixed with De Witt; he was a glass of half and half, rum

and water. But this is neither here nor there. We are not talking of

my family, but of you. I'm here for my nephew's welfare and for yours.

Glory! you ain't in Red Hall for any good. Do you think my nephew can

take in an old woman that is not worth sixpence to bait lines with, and

feed her and find her in liquor for nothing! Everybody knows he's after

you. He's been after you ever so long. Everybody knows that. He had a

hankering after you when George was a galliwanting on the Ray. That's

known to all the world. Well, you can't live in the house with him and

folks not talk.'

'Do you dare to believe----'

'Glory! I always make a point to believe the worst. I'm a religious

person, and them as sets up to be religious always does that. It is

part of their profession. When I buy fish of the men, I say at once, it

stinks, I know it ain't fresh! when I take shrimps I say, they're a week

out of the water, and they won't peel nicely. So I look upon you and

everyone else, and then it's a wery pleasing surprise when I find that

the stale fish turns out fresh. But it ain't often that happens. It

may happen now and then, just as now and then a whale is washed up on

Mersea Island. Now look you here, Glory! don't you believe that Elijah

will marry you and make an honest woman of you. He won't do it. He

don't think to do it. He never did intend it. He belongs to a better

family than yours. You have gipsy blood in your veins, and he knows it;

that's as bad as having king's evil or cancer. I made a mistake and

looked below me. He won't do it. He knows that I made a mistake, he

won't do the same. There's as much difference in human flesh as there

is in that of flat-fish, some is that of soles, other is that of dabs;

some is fresh and firm as that of small eels, other is coarse and greasy

as that of conger. The Rebows belong to another lot from you

altogether. Elijah knows it. He never thought to marry you. He

couldn't do it.'

Mehalah, stung even through the hard panoply of callousness in which she

had encased herself, turned surlily on the woman.

'You lie! It is I who will not marry him.'

'There's an Adam and Eve in every brown shrimp,'[1] said Mrs. De Witt

sententiously; 'and there's wigour and weakness in every human creature.

It is possible that at a time when Eve is up in Elijah he may have

proposed such a foolish thing as to marry you, and it is possible that,

at a time when Adam was the master in you, you may have refused him. I

don't deny it. But I do say that Elijah will never marry you in cold

blood. And I'll tell you what--you won't stand out against him for long.

He has too much of the Adam, and you too little for that. You may set

up your pride and self-will against him, but you will give way in the

end--your weakness will yield to his strongheadedness. What he purposes

he will carry out; you cannot oppose Elijah; the Adam in his heart is

too old and wigorous and heady.'

[1] Children find in the front paddles of the brown shrimp, when pulled

out, two quaint little figures which they call Adam and Eve.

Mehalah made no answer. Sunk in her dark thoughts she strode on, her

arms folded over her heart, to still and crush it; her head bowed.

'Now Glory!' pursued Mrs. De Witt; 'I've a bit of a liking for you,

after all, and I'm sorry for what I was forced to do about that five and

twenty pounds. I tell you, I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. I

couldn't starve, you know--I was a lone widow without a son to help me.

As I said, I've a sort of a liking for you, for you was the girl my

George----' Mehalah's breast heaved, she uttered an ill-suppressed cry,

and then covered her face.

'My poor George,' went on the old woman, aware that she had gained an

advantage. 'He was wery fond of you. Sackalive! how he would love to

talk of you to me his doting old mother, and scheme how you was to live

in love together! That boy's heart was full of you, full as----' she

cast about for a simile, 'as a March sprat is full of oil. Now I know,

my George--he was a good lad! and more like me in features than his

father, but he hadn't the soul of a Rebow!--My George, I feel sure,

couldn't rest in his grave, if he'd got one, knowing as how tongues were

going about you, and hearing what wicked things was said of your

character. A woman's good name is like new milk. If it once gets turned

there's no sweetening it after, and I can tell you what, Glory! your

name is not as fresh as it was; look to it before it is quite curdled

and sour.'

'I can do nothing! I can do nothing!' moaned the despairing girl.

'Look you here, Glory!' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I'm the aunt of the party,

and I must attend to his morals. I'll go in and see him and I'll manage

matters. He's my nephew. I can do anything with him. Trust me with

men, girl. I know 'em. They are like nettles. Grasp 'em and they are

harmless; touch 'em trembling, and they sting you. They are like eels,

try to hold them where you will and they wriggle away, but run a skewer

through their gills and you have them.'

'What are you here for, talking to my girl?' asked Rebow, suddenly

coming from behind the house, which Mrs. De Witt had now reached.

'Sackalive!' exclaimed his aunt, 'how you flustered me. We was just

talking of you when you appeared. It is wonderful how true proverbs are;

they are the Bible of those that don't read, a sort of scripture written

in the air. But I want a talk along of you, Elijah, that is what I'm

come after, I your precious aunt, who loves you as the oyster loves his

shell, and the crab its young that it cuddles.'

'What do you want with me?'

'Come, Elijah, let us go indoors. To tell you Gospel truth, I'm dry

after my row and want a wet. As I wet I will talk. I've that to say to

you that concerns you greatly.'

'Follow me,' he said surlily, and led the way up the steps. Mehalah

turned back, but walked not to the point where she had been sitting

before, lest she should be again disturbed on the return of Mrs. De Witt

to her boat. She went instead to the gate at the bridge over the dyke,

that led towards Salcott. There was no real road, only a track through

the pasture land. She leaned her hands on the bar of the gate and laid

her weary head on her hands. Outside the gate was a tillage field with

green wheat in it glancing in the early summer air. Aloft the larks

were spiring and caroling. In the ploughed soil of Mehalah's heart

nothing had sprung up,--above it no glad thought soared and sang. Her

head was paralysed and her heart was numb. The frost lay there, and the

clods were as iron.

In the meantime Mrs. De Witt was in the hall with her nephew,

endeavouring to melt him into geniality, but he remained morose and

unimpressionable.

By slow approaches she drew towards the object of her visit.

'I have been very troubled, nephew, by the gossip that goes about.'

'Have you?' asked he, 'I thought you were impervious to trouble short of

loss of grog.'

'You know, Elijah, that your character is precious to me. I wally it,

for the honour of the family.'

'What are you driving at?' he asked with an oath. 'Speak out, and then

take your slimy tongue off my premises.'

'This is my old home, Elijah, the dear old place where I spent so many

happy and innocent days.'

'Well, you are not likely to spend any more of either sort here now.

Say what you have to say, and begone.'

'You fluster me, Elijah. When I have a glass of rare good stuff such as

this, I like to sit over it, and talk, and sip, and relax.'

'I don't,' he said; 'I gulp it down and am off. Come, say your say, and

be quick about it. I have my affairs to attend to and can't sit here

palavering with an old woman.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, in rising wrath, 'if I were young it would

be different, if I were not a moral and religious character it would be

different, if I were not a Rebow, but half gipsy, half boor, it would be

different!'

'If you allude to Glory, with that sneer,' said he, 'I tell you, it

would be different.'

'I dare say!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt tossing her head. 'Blood and

kinship are all forgot.'

'You forgot them fast enough when you ran after Moses De Witt.'

'I did demean myself, I admit,' said she; 'but I have repented it since

in dabs and sprats, and I don't intend to do it again. Listen to me,

Elijah. Once for all, I want to know what you mean by keeping this girl

Glory here?'

'You do, do you?--So do I. I wonder; she defies and hates me, yet I

keep her. I keep her here, I can do no other. I would to God I could

shake free of her and forget her, forget that I had ever seen her, but I

can't do it. She and I are ordained for one another.'

'Parcel of stuff!' exclaimed his aunt. 'You send her packing, her and

her old fool of a mother, and I will come and keep house for you.'

'Pack Glory off!' echoed Elijah.

'Yes, break this wretched, degrading tie.'

'I couldn't do it!' he said. 'I tell you again, I would if I could. I

know as well as if it were written in flames on the sky that no good can

come of her being here, but for better for worse, for well or for woe,

here we two are, and here we remain.'

'You love her??

'I love her and I hate her. I love her with every fibre and vein, and

bone and nerve, but I hate her too, with my soul, because she does not

love me, but hates me. I could take her to my heart and keep her

there,' his breast heaved and his dark eyes flared, 'and kiss her on her

mouth and squeeze the breath out of her, and cast her dead at my feet.

Then perhaps I might be happy. I am now in hell; but were she not here,

were I alone, and she elsewhere, it would be hell unendurable in its

agonies, I should go mad like my brother. She must be mine, or my fate

is the same as his.'

'Are you going to marry her?'

'She will not marry me. Believe what I say. That girl, Glory, is the

curse and ruin of me and of this house. I know it, and yet I cannot help

it. She might have made me happy and built up my prosperity and family.

Then I should have been a good and a glad man, a man altogether other

from what I am now. But your son came in the way. He marred

everything. Glory still thinks of him, it does not matter that he be

gone. She will cling to him and keep from me. Yet she is destined for

me. She never was for George. If he were to turn up--I don't say that

it is possible or even probable, but suppose he were--she would fly to

him. I might chain her up, but she'd break away. There is nothing for

it,' he pursued, drooping into a sullen mood. 'We must battle it out

between us. None can or must intervene; whoever attempts it shall be

trampled under our feet. We must work out our own fate together; there

is no help for it. I tell you, if I were born again, and I knew that

this were before me, I'd fly to the Indies, to Africa, anywhere to be

from her, so as never to see her, never to know of her, and then I might

jog on through life in quiet, and some sort of happiness. But that is

not possible. I have seen her. I have her here under my roof, but we

are still apart as the poles. Go away, aunt, it is of no good your

interfering. No one comes here, she and I must work the sum out between

us. There's a fate over all and we cannot fight against it, but it

falls on us and crushes us.'

Mrs. De Witt was awed. She rose. She knew that her mission was

fruitless, that there was no possibility of her gaining her point.

She opened the door, and started back before an apparition in carnation

and white.

'Whom have we here?'

'Mrs. Charles Pettican, madam,' said the apparition with a stately

curtsey.

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*THE LAST STRAW.*

Mehalah was lost to consciousness, leaning on the gate, her aching brow

and leaden eyes in her hand. She did not hear the larks that sang above

her, nor saw the buttercups and daisies that smiled to her from below.

By the gate was a willow covered with furry flower now ripe and shedding

its golden pollen. The soft air scattered the delicate yellow dust over

the girl's hair and neck and shoulders, a minute golden powder, but she

noticed it not. The warm air played caressingly with some of her dark

hair, and the sun brought out its copper glow--she was unaware of all.

A little blue butterfly flickered above her and lighted on her head, it

lay so still that the insect had no fear.

Then a hand shook the gate.

'Gone to sleep, girl?' asked a female voice.

Mehalah looked up dreamily.

A young, handsome, and dashing lady before her, in white and carnation,

a crimson feather in her hat, and carmine in her cheeks. Mehalah slowly

recognised Admonition.

Mrs. Pettican looked curiously at her.

'Who are you?--Oh! I know, the girl Sharland!' and she laughed.

Mehalah put her hand to the latch to open the gate.

'You need not trouble,' said Admonition: 'I want nothing from you. I

have heard of you. You are the young person,' with an affected cough,

'whom Master Rebow has taken to live with him I think. You had the

assurance once to come to my dear husband, and to pester him.'

'He was kind to me,' said Mehalah to herself.

'Oh yes, he was very kind indeed. He did not know much of you then.

Report had not made him familiar with your name.'

Mehalah looked moodily at her. It was of no use pretending to

misunderstand her. It was of no use resenting the insinuation. She

sullenly bore the blow and suffered.

'I have come here on your behalf,' said Admonition, speaking to her

across the gate. She had the gate half open, and kept it between them.

'You have nothing to do with me, or I with you,' said Mehalah.

'Oh! nothing, I am respectable. I keep myself up, I look after my

character!' sneered Mrs. Pettican. 'Nevertheless I am here with an offer

from my husband. He is ready to receive your mother into his house; I do

not approve of this, but he is perverse and will have his way. He will

take her in and provide for her.'

'Mehalah looked up. A load was being lifted from her heart. Were her

mother taken in by Mr. Pettican, then she could leave, and leave for

ever, Red Hall.

'Yes. He admits his relationship,' said Admonition. 'I would not, were

I he, now that the name is--well--not so savoury as it was. But he is

not particular. Men are not. I have been brought up, I am thankful to

say, with very strict ideas, and have been formed in a school quite

other from that of Mr. Pettican. However, as I was observing--you need

not come near me--keep the gate between us, please.'

'You were saying,' anxiously repeated Mehalah, who had stepped forward

in her eagerness.

'I was saying that Mr. Pettican will overlook a great deal, and will

receive your mother into his house, and provide her with all that is

necessary. But you----'

'I,' repeated Mehalah, breathlessly.

'You must never, never set foot within my doors. I could not allow it.

I am a person of respectability, I value proprieties. I could not allow

my house to be spoken of as one which admitted--' with a contemptuous

shrug.

Mehalah took no notice of the insult. She looked hard at Admonition,

and said gravely, 'You will shelter and care for my mother, on condition

that I never go near her.'

'Yes.'

'I may never see her, never speak to her, never kiss her again.'

'No, I could not suffer you to enter my respectable house.'

'Not even if she were dying?'

'My character would not allow of it. The respectability of my house

must be maintained.'

Mehalah thought for awhile.

'I cannot make up my mind at once,' she said.

'It will be a great relief to you to get rid of your mother.'

'Yes, immeasurable.'

'I thought as much!' with a toss of the head, and curl of the lip.

Mehalah did not give attention to these marks of contempt. Presently

she asked, 'And who will attend to my mother?'

'I will.'

'_You!_' exclaimed Glory, with a flash of her old indignation. '_You_,

who neglect and illtreat the husband who lifted you out of the gutter.

You who have not gratitude and generosity to the man to whom you owe

your position and comforts! How would you treat a poor, helpless, aged

woman trusting to your mercy unconditioned, when the man who bound you

to him by most solemn and sacred promises is insulted, and neglected,

and degraded by you? No, never. My mother shall never, never be left

to you of all women in the world. Never, never, never!' she beat her

hand on the gate. 'Let me bear my burden, let it crush me, but she

shall not be taken from me and die of neglect and cruel treatment. I

can bear!' she raised herself with a poor effort of her old energy, 'I

will bear all for her. She once bore with me.'

'Drab!' hissed Admonition, and she flung past her, shaking the gate

furiously as she went by.

It was with carnation in her cheek as well as in her dress and hat that

she appeared before Mrs. De Witt and Elijah Rebow.

Mrs. De Witt drew back to let Mrs. Pettican in.

'I think you was passing out,' said the latter; 'madam, your servant.'

'Your servant, madam,' from Mrs. De Witt, still lingering.

'Now then, one at a time. Aunt, go out and shut the door,' said Rebow

peremptorily, and the old woman was obliged to obey.

'What has brought you here?' asked Elijah surlily.

Mrs. Pettican looked round, then drew nearer. 'I think,' she said, 'you

once advised me something, but I don't know how far your interest is the

same as it was.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know whether you would be satisfied to get Mehalah Sharland off

your hands now, or keep her here.'

'She remains here, she never shall leave it.'

'It is just this,' said Admonition. 'My husband has of late been

plucking up a little courage, or showing obstinacy. My cousin

Timothy--I don't know what to make of him--he is not what he was. He is

always making some excuse or other to get away, and I find he goes to

Mersea. He hasn't been as dutiful and amiable to me of late, as I have

a right to expect, considering how I have found him in food and drink

and tobacco, the best of all, and no stint. There's some game up

between him and my husband, and I believe it is this, I know it is this.

Charles is bent on getting Mrs. Sharland and her daughter, the latter

especially, to come and live with him and take care of him. He dares to

say I neglect him. He reckons on pitting that girl against me, he

thinks that she would be more than a match for me.'

'He thinks right,' burst in Rebow with a laugh.

'I won't have her in the house. I don't mind taking in the old woman,

but the daughter I will not admit.'

'You are right. She'd master you and make you docile or drive you out,'

jeered Rebow.

'She shall not come. I have told her so. I will not be opposed and

brow-beaten in my own house. I will not have the care of my husband

wrested from me.'

'Have you come here to tell me this?'

'I know that Charles and Timothy have put their heads together. They

are both up in rebellion against me, and Timothy has walked over to

Mersea to get a boat and row here to invite that girl to come with her

mother to Wyvenhoe, and take up their abode with my husband. Charles

promises if they will do so to provide for them and leave them

everything in his will, so as to make them independent at my cost. When

I got wind of this--I overheard the scheme by the merest accident--I got

a gig and was driven over to Salcott, and the boy has put up the horse

at the inn, and I walked on. I will stop this little game. The girl

shall not come inside the house. If she puts in her little finger, her

fist will follow, and I will be driven out, though I am the lawful wife

of Charles Pettican. I don't know what Timothy means by aiding and

abetting him in this. I will have it out with him, and that very soon.

I want to know what are your views. I have been pretty plain with mine.

You may help me or hinder me, but I hope I shall be able to keep my door

locked against such as that girl, and if Timothy thinks to flirt along

with her under my roof, and before my face, he is vastly mistaken. That

husband of mine is deeper than I suspected, or he would not have come

over Timothy and got him to aid him in this. But I see it all. Timothy

thinks if the girl gets there, and is to have Charles' money, he will

make up to her, marry her, and share the plunder. If that be his game

he has left me out of his calculations. Timothy is a fool, or he would

not have gone over from me to Charles. I'll have the matter out

here----'

'Not in this room,' said Elijah. 'There's rows enough go on in here

without your making another. Set your mind at rest: Glory does not leave

this house. But I advise you to see your cousin, and, if possible,

prevent him from making the proposal. If she hears it, she will be off

to-morrow, and carry her mother with her; and then there may be trouble

to you and me to get her back.'

'She shall not come across my doorstep.'

'I tell you if once she hears that the chance is given her, she will go,

and not you nor a legion of such as you could keep her out. Go upstairs

and go straight on till you come to a door. Go in there; it is the

bedroom of Glory and her mother. Never mind the old fool--she is sick

and in bed. You will find a small room or closet beyond, with a

three-cornered window in it. Look out of that. It commands the whole

bay, and you will see a boat, if it approaches the Hall. There's Sunken

island and Cobb marsh between you and Mersea City. You will see a boat

creep through one of the creeks of Cobb marsh into Virley flat, and that

will be the boat with your cousin in it. If you come down then you will

meet him as he lands.'

As soon as Admonition had rushed past Mehalah the girl walked away from

the gate and ascended the sea-wall. She could obtain peace nowhere.

She could hide nowhere, be nowhere without interruption. She saw Mrs.

De Witt depart, and thought that now she could sit on the wall and

remain unmolested. But again was she disturbed, this time by old

Abraham. He was at the near landing-stage, just come from the Ray--the

landing-place employed when tides were full. 'Hark ye, mistress,' said

the shepherd. 'I've had much on my tongue this many a day, but you

haven't given me the chance to spit it out. I won't be put off any

longer.'

She did not answer or move away. The reaction after the momentary

kindling of hope and burst of passion had set in, and she had relapsed

into her now wonted mood.

'It is of no use, mistress, your going on as you are,' continued the old

man. 'Wherever he is, the master speaks of you as no man ought to speak

save of his wife; and all the world knows you are not that. What are

you, then? You are in a false position, and that is one of your own

making.'

'You know it is not, Abraham.'

'I know it is one you could step out of to-morrow if you chose,' he

said. 'The master has offered you your right place. As long as you

refuse to take it so long everybody will be turned against you, and you

against everybody. You keep away from everybody because you shame to

see them and be seen by them. I know you don't like the master, but

that's no reason why you shouldn't take him. Beggars mustn't be

choosers. He is not as young and handsome as George De Witt, but he is

not such a fool, and he has his pockets well lined, which the other had

not.'

'It is of no use your saying this to me, Abraham,' said Mehalah sadly.

'No, it is not,' pursued the dogged old man. 'Here you must stick as

long as your mother lives, and she may live yet a score of years.

Creaky gates last longest. Why, she ain't as old as I, and there's a

score of years' work in me yet. How can you spend twenty years here

along of the master, with all the world talking? It will shame you to

your grave, or brazen you past respect. This state of things can't do

good to anybody. You must take him, and set yourself right with the

world, or go from here.'

'I cannot get away. Would to heaven I could!'

'Then you must marry him. There is no escape from it, for your own

sake. Why, girl,' the shepherd went on, 'if you was his wife you would

have a lawful right and place here--this house, these marshes, these

cattle would be yours. You would not be dependent on him for anything;

you would hold them as a right. Now he can have you and your mother in

prison at any time, for you are still his tenants and owe him rent for

the Ray. But if you marry him, you cut away his power: he can't proceed

against you and your mother for one penny. You would cancel the debt,

do away with the obligation. If you was to marry him, and saw your way

clear, I fancy you might go away at any time, and he would have no hold

on you. Now he has you fast by this claim. And now your character is

being ruined by association with him. There,' continued the old man, 'I

doubt I never said so much afore; but I have known you since you was a

girl, and I no more like to see you going to the bad than I like to see

a field that has been well tilled allowed to be overrun with thistles,

or a sheep lie down in the fen and die of rot that might have been saved

with a little ointment stuck on in proper time.'

Mehalah made no response.

'I dare say it stings.' said Dowsing. 'I've seen sheep jump with pain

when the copperas comes against a raw; but that's better than to lie

down and rot away without an effort, and without a word, as you are

doing now.' He gave her a nod, and went on his way.

Mehalah stepped into his boat and seated herself in her usual manner,

with her head in her arms, and sank into her wonted torpor.

'Now, then, young woman!'

Again interrupted, again aroused. There was no rest for her that day.

'Jump on land, will you, young woman, and let this lass step into your

boat and get ashore without having to go into the mud.'

'Timothy! that is Mehalah!' exclaimed Phoebe Musset. She was in the

boat with Admonition's cousin. 'I'd rather you carried me. I do not

want to be obliged to her for anything.'

Mehalah stepped from her boat upon the turf, and held out her hand

mechanically to assist the girl.

'Don't hold out your hand to me!' screamed Phoebe. 'I wouldn't touch it.

Keep to yourself, if you please, and let me pass.'

'Why, Phoebe!' exclaimed Timothy, 'what is the matter? I have come here

to see this girl.'

'What!--to see Mehalah--or Glory, as you sailor and fisher fellows like

to call her?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'm ashamed to have come with you,' said Phoebe, pouting. 'You

offered me a nice little row on the water, and the sun was so bright,

and the air so warm, and you were so agreeable, that I ventured; but I

would not have stepped into the boat had I known you were coming to

visit another young woman, and she one of so smirched a character.'

'Phoebe! For shame!'

'For shame!' repeated the girl turning on Timothy. 'For shame to you, to

bring me here with you when you are visiting this----' She eyed Mehalah

from head to foot with studied insolence, and sniffed. 'I know her. A

bad, spiteful cat! always running after fellows. She tried to wheedle

poor George De Witt into marrying her. When he was lost, she burnt her

house and flung herself on the mercy, into the arms, of Rebow. Now, I

suppose, she is setting her red cap at you. Oh! where is the cap gone,

eh?' turning to Mehalah as she skipped ashore.

Timothy was fastening the boat to that of Dowsing.

Mehalah's wrath was rising. She had endured much that day--more than

she could well bear. The impertinence of this malicious girl was

intolerable altogether. She turned away to leave her.

'Stop! stop!' shouted Timothy. 'I have come here with a message to you.

I have come here expressly to see you. I picked up Miss Musset on the

way----'

'You picked me up just to amuse me till you found Glory!' screamed

Phoebe. 'Now you pitch me overboard, as that savage treated me once. I

will not stand this. Timothy, come back this instant! Row me back to

Mersea. I have not come here to be insulted. I will not speak another

word with you unless you----'

'For heaven's sake,' cried Timothy, tearing down the sea-wall and

jumping into the boat, 'come in, Phoebe, at once, or I shall be off and

leave you!'

'What is the matter now?'

He had his knife out, and was hacking through the cord that attached his

boat to Dowsing's. In another moment he was rowing as hard as he could

down the creek.

Admonition appeared on the wall. Timothy had detected her crossing the

marsh, and fled.

She turned in fury on Phoebe.

Mehalah withdrew to the windmill, away from their angry voices, and

remained sitting by the sea till the shadows of evening fell.

Then she returned, a fixed determination in her face, which was harder

and more moody than before.

She walked deliberately to the hall, opened the door, and stepped in.

Elijah was there, crouched over the empty hearth, as though there was a

fire on it. He looked up.

'Well, Glory?'

Her bosom heaved. She could not speak.

'You have something to say,' he proceeded. 'Won't the words come out?

Do they stick?' His wild dark eye was on her.

'Elijah,' she said, with burning brow and cheek, 'I give up. I will

marry you.'

He gave a great shout and sprang up.

'Listen patiently to me,' she said, with difficulty controlling her

agitation. 'I will marry you, and take your name, but only to save

mine. That is all. I will neither love you, nor live with you, save as

I do now. These are my terms. If you will take them, so be it. If not,

we shall go on as before.'

He laughed loudly, savagely.

'I told you, Glory, my own, own Glory, what must be. You would not come

under my roof, but you came. You would not marry me--now you submit.

You will not love me--you must and shall. Nothing can keep us apart.

The poles are drawing together. Perhaps there may be a heaven for us

both here. But I do not know. Anyhow the sum is nearer the end than it

was. Glory, this day week you shall be my wife.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*BEFORE THE ALTAR.*

Virley Church has been already described, as far as its external

appearance goes. The interior was even less decent.

It possessed but one bell, which was tolled alike for weddings and for

funerals; there was a difference in the pace at which it went for these

distinct solemnities, but that was all. The bell produced neither a

cheerful nor a lugubrious effect on either occasion, as it was cracked.

The dedication of Virley Church is unknown--no doubt because it never

had a patron; or if it had, the patron disowned it. No saint in the

calendar could be associated with such a church and keep his character.

St. Nicholas is the patron of fishers, St. Giles of beggars, but who

among the holy ones would spread his mantle over worshippers who were

smugglers or wreckers? When we speak of worshippers we use an

euphemism; for though the church sometimes contained a congregation, it

never held one of worshippers. Salcott and Virley, the Siamese-twin

parishes, connected by a wooden bridge, embraced together five hundred

souls. There were two churches, but few churchgoers.

On the day of which we write, however, Virley Church was full to

overflowing. This is not saying much, for Virley Church is not bigger

than a stable that consists of two stalls and a loose box, whereof the

loose box represents the chancel. When the curate in charge preached

from the pulpit--the rectors of the two parishes were always

non-resident--they kept a curate between them--he was able to cuff the

boys in the west gallery who whispered, cracked nuts, or snored.

The bellringer stood in the gallery, and had much ado to guard his

knuckles from abrasion against the ceiling at each upcast of the rope.

He managed to save them when tolling for a burial, but when the movement

was double-quick for a wedding his knuckles came continually in contact

with the plaster; and when they did an oath, audible throughout the

sacred building, boomed between the clangours of the bell.

Virley Church possessed one respectable feature, a massive chancel-arch,

but that gaped; and the pillars slouched back against the wall in the

attitude of the Virley men in the village street waiting to insult the

women as they went by.

On either side of the east window hung one table of the Commandments,

but a village humourist had erased all the 'nots' in the Decalogue; and

it cannot be denied that the parishioners conscientiously did their

utmost to fulfil the letter of the law thus altered.

The congregation on Sundays consisted chiefly of young people. The

youths who attended divine worship occupied the hour of worship by

wafting kisses to the girls, making faces at the children, and

scratching ships on the paint of the pews. Indeed, the religious

services performed alternately at the two churches might have been

discontinued, without discomposure to any, had not traditional usage

consecrated them to the meeting of young couples. The 'dearly beloveds'

met in the Lord's house every Lord's day to acknowledge their 'erring

and straying like lost sheep' and make appointments for erring and

straying again.

The altar was a deal table, much wormeaten, with a box beneath it. The

altar possessed no cover save the red cotton pocket-handkerchief of the

curate cast occasionally across it. The box contained the battered

Communion plate, an ironmoulded surplice with high collar, a

register-book, the pages glued together with damp, and a brush and pan.

The Communion rails had rotted at the bottom; and when there was a

Communion the clerk had to caution the kneelers not to lean against the

balustrade, lest they should be precipitated upon the sanctuary floor.

No such controversy as that which has of late years agitated the Church

of England relative to the position of the celebrant could have affected

Virley, for the floor in the midst, before the altar, had been eaten

through by rats, emerging from an old grave, and exposed below gnawed

and mouldy bones a foot beneath the boards.

A marriage without three 'askings' was a novelty in Salcott and Virley

sufficient to excite interest in the place; and when that marriage was

to take place between one so well known and dreaded as Elijah Rebow and

a girl hardly ever seen, but of whom much was spoken, it may well be

supposed that Virley Church was crowded with sightseers. The gallery

was full to bursting. Sailor-boys in the front amused themselves with

dropping broken bits of tobacco-pipe on the heads below, and giggling at

the impotent rage of those they hit.

There was a sweep in Salcott, who tenanted a tottering cottage, devoid

of furniture. The one room was heaped with straw, and into this the

sweep crept at night for his slumbers. This man now appeared at the

sacred door.

'Look out, blackie!' shouted those near; 'we are not going to be smutted

by you.'

'Then make way for your superiors.'

'Superiors!' sneered a matron near.

'Well, I am your superior,' said the sweep, 'for my proper place is

poking out at the top of a chimney, and yours is poking into the fire at

the bottom. Make way. I have a right to see as well as the best of

you.'

The crowd contracted on either side in anxiety for their clothes, and

the sweep worked his way to the fore.

'I'll have the best place of you all,' he said, as the gods in the

gallery received him with ironical cries of 'Sweep! sweep!'

He charged into the chancel, and sent his black legs over the Communion

rails.

At some remote period the chancel of Virley had fallen, and had been

rebuilt, with timber and bricks on the old walls left to the height of

two feet above the floor. As the old walls were four feet thick, and

the new walls only the thickness of one brick, the chancel was provided

with a low seat all round it, like the _cancellae_ of an ancient

basilica. The sweep, with a keen eye peering through his soot, had

detected this seat and seen that it was unappropriated. He was over the

altar with a second jump, and had seated himself behind it, facing west,

in the post of dignity occupied in the Primitive Church by the bishop,

with his legs under the table, and his elbows on it, commanding the best

view attainable of everything that went on, or that would go on, in the

church.

His example was followed at once. A rush of boys and men was made for

the chancel; the railings fell before them, and they seized and

appropriated the whole of the low seat that surrounded the sanctuary.

'I've the best place now, you lubbers,' said the sweep. 'I shall have

them full in face, and see the blushes of the bride.'

'They are a-coming! they are a-coming!' was repeated through the church.

A boy peering out of the window that lighted the gallery had seen the

approach of the procession from Red Hall over the wooden bridge.

In came the Reverend Mr. Rabbit, very hot and sneezy--he laboured under

hay fever all the blooming time of the year. He got to the altar. The

clerk dived into the box and rose to the surface with the register-book

and the surplice.

'Where is the ink?'

'Here is a pen,' said the clerk, producing one with nibs parted like the

legs of the Colossus of Rhodes.

'But we shall want ink.'

'There is a bottle somewhere in the box,' said the clerk.

'Never mind if there ain't,' observed one of the elders seated by the

table; 'there is the sweep here handy, and you have only to mix a bit of

his smut with the tears of the bride.'

'Shut that ugly trap of yours,' said the chimney-cleaner.

'It may be ugly,' retorted the humourist, 'but it is clean.'

'Here they are!' from the gallery.

'Make way!' shouted Mrs. De Witt, battering about her with her umbrella.

'How are people to get married if you stuff up the door, as though

caulking a leak?'

She drove her way in.

'Now, then,' said she, 'come on, Mistress Sharland. Dear soul alive! how

unmannerly these Virley people are! They want some of us from Mersea to

come and teach them manners. Now, then, young Spat!' she shouted to a

great boy in a fishing guernsey, 'do you want your head combing? Do you

see what you have done to my best silk gown? What do you mean coming to

a house of worship in mud-splashers?[1] Are you come here after

winkles?'

[1] Wooden paddles, worn by those who go out 'winkling' in the mud, to

prevent their sinking.

'I ain't got my splashers on,' said the boy.

'Then you have feet as big and as dirty as paddles. You have trodden on

my best silk and took it out at the gathers.' Then, turning and looking

through the door behind her, she waved her umbrella with a proud

flourish. 'Come on, hearties! I've cleared the way.'

She put her shoulder to the crowd and wedged her way further ahead.

'Ah!' she said, 'here are a lot of sniggering girls. If all was known

what ought to be known some of you ought to be getting married to-day.

Leave off your laughing up there!' gesticulating towards the boys in the

loft. 'Don't you know yet how to behave in a place of worship? I have

a great mind to draw my _Pandora_ up at Virley hard and settle here and

teach you.'

Mehalah came in, pale, with sunken eyes, that burned with feverish

brightness. A hectic flush dyed her cheeks. Her lips were set and did

not tremble.

After having given her promise, under conditions, to Rebow she had

neither slept nor eaten. She had abandoned her habit of retiring to the

shore to sit and brood, and maintained instead incessant activity. When

she had done what was necessary for others she made work for herself.

Mrs. Sharland had forgotten her ague and left her bed in the excitement

and pleasure of her daughter's submission. She had attempted several

times to speak to Mehalah of her approaching marriage, but had not been

able to wring a word out of her. From the moment Glory gave her consent

to Rebow she said not another syllable on the subject to him or to

anyone. She became more taciturn and retiring, if possible, than before.

Abraham Dowsing had saluted her and attempted a rough congratulation.

She had turned her back and walked away.

Elijah's conduct was the reverse of Glory's. His gloom was gone, and

had made way for boisterous and demonstrative joy. His pride was

roused, and he insisted on the marriage preparations being made on a

liberal scale. He threw a purse into Mrs. Sharland's lap, and bade her

spend it how she liked on Mehalah's outfit and her own. The old woman

had been supremely happy in arranging everything, her happiness only

dashed by the unsympathetic conduct of one chief performer in the

ceremony, her daughter, whom she could not interest in any point

connected with it.

There had been a little struggle that morning. Mehalah had drawn on her

blue 'Gloriana' jersey as usual, and Mrs. Sharland had insisted on its

coming off. The girl had submitted after a slight resistance, and had

allowed herself passively to be arrayed as her mother chose.

Elijah was dressed in a blue coat, with brass buttons, and

knee-breeches. No one had seen him so spruce before.

'I say, dame,' whispered Farmer Goppin to his wife, 'the master of Red

Hall is turning over a new leaf to-day.'

'Maybe,' she answered, 'but I doubt it will be a blank one. Look at the

girl. It won't be a gay[2] for him.'

[2] Essex for 'Picture.'

'Move on!' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I'll keep the road.'

Mrs. De Witt had come at Rebow's special request. She had put on for the

occasion her silk dress, in which she had gone from home and been

married. Her figure had altered considerably through age and maternity,

and the dress was now not a little too tight for her. Her hooking

together had been a labour of difficulty, performed by Mrs. Sharland at

Red Hall; it had been beyond her own unassisted powers, in the

_Pandora_, when she drew on the ancient dress.

'Dear Sackalive!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt when she extracted the garment

from the lavender in which it had lain, like a corpse in balm, for some

five-and-twenty years, 'I was a fool when I last put you on; and I won't

fit myself out in you again for the same purpose, unless I am driven to

it by desperate circumstances.'

Unable to make the body meet, she had thrown a smart red coat over it;

and having engaged a boy to row her to Red Hall, sat in the stern, with

her skirt pinned over her head, as though the upper part of her person

were enveloped in a camera lucida; in which she was viewing in miniature

the movements of the outer world. On reaching Red Hall she had thrown

off the scarlet, and presented her back pleadingly to Mrs. Sharland.

'I ought not to have done it, but I did,' said she in a tone of

confidence. 'I mean I oughtn't to have put this gown on, last time I

wore it,' she explained when Mrs. Sharland inquired her meaning. 'It

was thus it came about: I was intimate with the sister of Moses De Witt,

and one Mersea fair I went over to the merrymakings, and she inwited me

to take a mouthful with her and her brother on board the _Pandora_. I

went, and I liked the looks of the wessel, and of Moses, so I said to

him, "You seem wery comfortable here, and I think I could make myself

comfortable here too. So, if you are noways unobjectionable, I think I

will stay." And I did. I put on my silk gown, and was married to

Moses, in spite of all my parents said, and I turned the sister of De

Witt out and took her place.'

Mrs. De Witt felt great restraint in the silk gown. Her arms were like

wings growing out of her shoulderblades. She was not altogether

satisfied that the hooks would hold, and therefore carried to church

with her the military coat, over her arm. She wore her hair elaborately

frizzled. She had done it with the stove poker, and had worn it for

some days in curl-papers. Over this was a broad white chip hat, tied

under her chin with skyblue ribands, and she had inserted a sprig of

forget-me-nots inside the frizzle of hair over her forehead. 'Bless my

soul,' she said to herself, 'the boys will go stark staring mad of love

at the sight of me. I look like a pretty miss of fifteen--I do, by

Cock!'

Mrs. De Witt succeeded in bringing her party before the altar, at which

still sat the sweep, deaf to the feeble expostulations of the curate,

which he had listened to with one eye closed and his red tongue hanging

out of the corner of his mouth.

Mr. Rabbit was obliged to content himself with a protest, and vest

himself hastily for the function.

'Look here,' said Mrs. De Witt, who took on herself the office of master

of the ceremonies: 'I am not going to be trodden on and crumpled. Stand

back, good people; stand back, you parcel of unmannerly cubs! Let me

get where I can keep the boys in order and see that everything gives

satisfaction. I have been married; I ought to know all the ways and

workings of it, and I do.'

She thrust her way to the pulpit, ascended the stair, and installed

herself therein.

'Oh, my eye!' whispered the boys in the gallery. 'The old lady is busted

all down her back!'

'What is that?' asked Mrs. De Witt in dismay. She put her hands behind

her. The observation of the boys was just. Her efforts to clear a way

had been attended with ruin to the fastenings of her dress, and had

brought back her arms to their normal position at the expense of

hooks-and-eyes.

'It can't be helped,' said Mrs. De Witt, 'so here goes!' And she drew

on her military coat to hide the wreck.

'Now, then, parson, cast off! Elijah, you stand on the right, and Glory

on the left.'

The curate sneezed violently and rubbed his nose, and then his inflamed

eyes. The dust of the flowering grass got even into that mouldy church,

rank with grave odours and rotting timber. He began with the

Exhortation. Mrs. De Witt followed each sentence with attention and

appropriate gesture.

'"Is not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or

wantonly,"' she repeated, with solemn face and in an awestruck whisper;

then, poking the boys in the gallery with her umbrella, 'Just you listen

to that, you cubs!' Then she nodded and gesticulated at the firstly,

secondly, and thirdly of the address to those whom she thought needed

impressing with the solemn words. Elijah answered loudly to the

questions asked him whether he would have the girl at his side to be his

wedded wife. Her answer was faint and reluctantly given.

'"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"'

There was a pause.

'Speak up, Mistress Sharland, speak up!' said Mrs. De Witt in a tone of

authority. 'Or, if you don't speak, curtsey.'

The curate was affected with a violent sneezing fit. When he recovered

he went on.

Rebow clasped Mehalah's hand firmly, and firmly repeated the sentences

after the priest.

'"I, Elijah, take thee----"' began the curate; then asked, in a whisper,

'What is the bride's name?'

'Mehalah,' answered the mother.

'"I, Elijah, take thee, Mehalah, to my wedded wife,"' began the curate.

'"I, Elijah, take thee, Glory, to my wedded wife,"' repeated Rebow.

'That is not the name,' protested Mr. Rabbit.

'I marry Glory, and no one else; I take her by that name and by none

other,' said Rebow. 'Go on.'

'Say the words after me,' the curate whispered to Mehalah, who began to

tremble. She obeyed, but stopped at the promise 'to love, cherish, and

to obey.' The curate repeated it again.

"To obey,"' said Mehalah.

Mr. Rabbit looked uncertain how to act.

'"To love, cherish, and obey,"' he suggested faintly.

'Go on,' ordered Rebow. 'Let her obey now; the rest will come in due

season.'

The priest nervously submitted.

'Now for the ring,' said the clerk. 'Put it on the book.'

Rebow was taken by surprise. 'By heaven!' he said, 'I forgot all about

that.'

'You must have something to use for the purpose,' said the curate.

'Have you no ring of your own?'

'No. Am I like to have?'

'Then let her mother lend her her own marriage-ring.'

'She shall not,' said Rebow angrily. 'No, no! Glory's marriage with me

is not a second-hand affair, and like that of such fools as she,'

pointing to Mrs. Sharland. 'No, we shall use a ring such as has never

been used before, because our union is unlike all other unions. Will

this do?' He drew the link of an iron chain from his pocket.

'This is a link broke off my brother's fetters. I picked it up on the

sea-wall this morning. Will it do?'

'It must do for want of a better,' said the curate.

Elijah threw it on the book; then placed it on Mehalah's finger, with a

subdued laugh. 'Our bond, Glory,' he said, in a low tone, 'is not of

gold, but of iron.'

*CHAPTER XXIV.*

*THE VIAL OF WRATH.*

Elijah Rebow, in the pride and ostentation of his heart, had invited the

curate, the clerk, Mrs. De Witt, Farmer Goppin, Reuben Grout, innkeeper

of the 'Rising Sun,' and several others to eat and drink with him and

his bride at Red Hall after the ceremony. The marriage had taken place

in the afternoon. The law in Marshland was flexible as osier--it must

bend to man's convenience, not man submit to law.

Mrs. De Witt took the management of everything out of the hands of the

feeble Mrs. Sharland. 'You're not up to the job,' she said. 'It wants

some one with eyes in her elbows and as many legs as a crab.'

Mrs. De Witt was everywhere, in the kitchen, the hall, the oak parlour.

She had pinned up her silk dress about her, so that it might take no

harm.

'There,' said she to the assembled guests, as she brought in a pail full

of shrimps and set it on the table. 'Stay your appetites on them, and

imitate the manners of high society, which always begins with fish and

works up to solids. I brought them myself as my contribution to the

feast. Do you, Elijah, hand a wet round: if the others be like me they

are dry. Marriage, as I always found it, is a dry job.'

'Where is Glory?' asked Elijah.

'Oh, yes!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'That is like you, Elijah, shouting,

"Where is Glory?" Do you think she is to come here toozling about among

the wittles in her best gown? She is upstairs getting her dress

changed.'

He was pacified.

Mrs. Sharland passed here and there, eager to be supposed useful,

actually getting across Mrs. De Witt's path and interfering with her

proceedings.

'I can't stand this,' said the fishwife. 'You go upstairs and see after

Mehalah. I am going to dish up the pudding.'

'I will take the gravy in the sauceboat,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'Don't get your shivers on at the time, then, and send the grease over

everyone,' advised Mrs. De Witt.

'There now, Elijah!' exclaimed she, full of pride, when the table was

spread. 'Do look at them dumplings. They are round, plump, and

beautiful as cherubs' heads on monuments.'

'Where is Glory?' asked Rebow.

'Run up,' said Mrs. De Witt to the mother, 'tell the girl we are waiting

for her. Bid her come at once before the gravy clots.'

An Essex dinner begins with dumplings soused in gravy. When these have

been demolished the flesh follows.

The guests sat, with black-handled knives and forks in hand, mouths and

noses projected, and eyes riveted on the steaming puddings, ready to cut

into them the moment the signal was given.

Mrs. Sharland was slow of foot. Every step was taken leisurely up the

stairs and along the passage.

'I'm afeared,' said Farmer Goppin, 'the outer edge of the pudding, about

an inch deep all round, is getting the chill.'

'And there is a scum of fat forming on the gravy, said Reuben Grout,

'just like cat-ice on my duck-pond, or like mardlins[1] in spring on a

ditch. Had not I better set the gravy against the fire till the good

lady comes down?'

[1] 'Mardlins' are duckweed.

'She is coming,' said Rebow; and then he drummed on the table with his

knife. Mrs. Sharland leisurely returned. She was alone.

'Well?' from Rebow.

'Mehalah is not in her room.'

'Curse it!' said Elijah. 'Where is she, then? Go and fetch her.'

'I do not know where she is.'

'She will be here directly,' said Rebow, controlling himself. 'You may

fall to, neighbours.'

At the word every fork was plunged into the puddings, and every knife

driven into their hearts. Each sought who could appropriate to himself

the largest block of pudding. Then there ensued a struggle for the

gravy, and great impatience was manifested by those who had to wait till

others had well drenched their hunches of dough in the greasy liquor.

Rebow leaned back in his chair, holding knife and fork erect on the

table. 'Why is she not here? She ought to be here.'

'Take some dumpling, Elijah?'

'I won't eat till my Glory comes.'

'Lord preserve you!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, slapping his back. 'Go on

and eat. You don't understand girls, as you do calves, that is a fact.

Why, a girl on her marriage-day is shamefaced, and does not like to be

seen. In high society they hide their heads in their wails all day.

That is what the wails are for. I was like that. You may look at me,

but it is true as that every oyster wears a beard. When I was married

to Moses I was that kittle, coy young bird I would have dived and hid

among the barnacles on the keel of the wessel, had I been able to keep

under water like a duck.'

'Where is she?'

'How do I know? Never fear; she is somewhere--gone out to get a little

fresh air. It was hot and stank in that hold of an old church. What

with the live corpses above in the pews and the dead ones below deck, it

gave me a headache, and you may be sure Mehalah was overcome. I saw she

did not look well. The pleasure, I suppose, has been too much for her.

A wery little tipple of that topples some folks over.'

'You think so?'

'I am sure of it. Have I not been a bride myself? I know about those

sort of things by actual experience. I've gone through the operation

myself. It is wery like being had up before the magistrate and

convicted for life.'

Elijah was partly satisfied, and he began to eat; but his eyes turned

restlessly at intervals to the door.

'Don't you put yourself out,' murmured Mrs. De Witt as she leaned over

his shoulder and emptied his glass of spirits. 'Girls are much like

scallops. If you want to have them tender and melting in your month,

you must treat them with caution and patience. You take the scallops

and put them first in lukewarm water, working up into a gentle simmer,

and at last, but not under two hours, you toast them, and pepper and

butter them, and then they are scalding and delicious. But if you go

too fast to work with them, they turn to leather, and will draw the

teeth out of your gums if you bite into them. Girls must be treated

just similarly, or you spoil them. You wouldn't think it, looking at

me, but my Moses, with all his faults, knew how to deal with me, and he

got me that soft and yielding that he could squeeze me through his

fingers like Mersea mud. True as gospel. Fill your glass, Elijah; it

don't look hospitable to allow it to stand empty.'

When the lady in her red coat entered, holding triumphantly above her

head a leg of boiled mutton, there was a general burst of delight.

'A hunter's dinner!' said Goppin.

'But where is the bride?' asked Grout. 'I want to drink health and a

long family to her.'

'Glory ought to be here. Go up, Mistress Sharland, and bring her down.

She has returned by this time,' said Rebow.

'I don't think she has,' said the old woman.

'I am sure of it; go and look.'

The widow revisited the bedroom.

When she returned she said, 'No, Elijah; Mehalah has not come back. She

has taken off her bridal dress and laid it on the bed, and has put on

her blue jersey, and I see she has taken with her a red cap.'

'She tore that to pieces.'

'She has been knitting a new cap this week,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'I like that! She has done it to please me,' said Elijah, his eye

twinkling. 'I loved her in that; and I hate to see her as she was

tricked out to-day.'

'We are waiting for you to carve,' said Goppin.

'Don't forget we like fat,' said Grout.

'I say,' murmured Jabez Bunting, a storekeeper, 'look at the gravy, how

it oozes out; I'm fit to jump at the sight. Don't think we eat like

ladies of quality, Rebow. Give us good large helpings, and the redder

and rawer the better.'

'Some one,' said Elijah, 'tell Abraham Dowsing to go on the sea-wall and

look out for Glory, and bring her home.'

'There's the boy what rowed me here,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'He is sitting

outside on the step, and I'm throwing him the bits of skin and fat and

gristle. I'll send him.'

'Really,' observed the Rev. Mr. Rabbit, after a fit of sneezing, 'the

circumstance reminds the student of Holy Writ somewhat of Queen Vashti.'

'What do you mean?' asked Elijah abruptly.

'No offence, no offence meant,' gasped the curate, waxing very red; 'I

only thought your good lady was to-day like Queen Vashti.'

'Glory is like nobody,' said Rebow, with some pride. 'There never was,

there never can be, another Glory. I don't care who or what your Vashti

was--Was she beautiful?' shortly interrupting himself.

'Did she bring property into the family!' asked Mrs. De Witt, leaning

over Elijah's shoulder and emptying his tumbler. 'Elijah! you must

replenish. Look hospitable, and keep the liquor flowing.'

'I really don't know,' said Mr. Rabbit.

'Then what do you mean by saying she was like my Glory?' asked Rebow

angrily.

'I--I only suggested that there was a faint similarity in the

circumstances, you know. King Ahasuerus made a great feast--as you have

done.'

'Was there boiled mutton at it?' asked Grout.

'I really cannot say. It is not recorded.'

'Give me boiled mutton, a little underdone, and I ask for nothing more,'

said Goppin.

'And,' went on the curate, 'he naturally wished his wife to be present.

He wanted her to come down to be seen of his lords and princes.'

'Go on! Damn your sneezing. Put it off till you're preaching, and then

no one will care,' said Rebow.

'But,' pursued the parson, when he had wiped his nose and eyes, and

recovered breath after the fit, 'Queen Vashti refused to come down.'

'Well, what did the husband say to that?' asked Elijah.

'If he was a sensible man,' said Goppin, 'he cut into the mutton, and

didn't bother about she.'

'You don't know, neighbour, that it was a leg of mutton,' said Grout.

'It might have been sirloin.'

'Sirloin!' exclaimed Bunting; 'I wouldn't go ten yards to taste sirloin.

There's not enough on the bone, except fat.'

'Go on,' said Elijah to the curate. 'How did the man--king, was

he--take it?'

'He dismissed Vashti, and took Esther to be his queen. But then,' put

in the frightened curate, thinking he had suggested a startling

precedent, 'Ahasuerus was not a Christian, and knew no better.'

'Do you think,' laughed Rebow, 'that I would cast off my Glory for any

other woman that ever was born? No, I would not. Let her do what she

likes. She don't care to associate with such as you. She holds herself

above you. And she's right. She is one the like of whom does not

exist. She has a soul stronger and more man-like than anyone of you.

If she don't choose to come and guzzle here along of you, she's right.

I like her for it.'

He flung himself back in his chair and drained his full glass.

'I ask you, Goppin! Did you ever see the equal of my Glory?'

'I can't say as ever I did, Rebow,' answered the farmer.

'I took the liberty to chuck her under the chin, and she up with the

pitchfork out of my hand, and had like to have sent me to kingdom come,

had not my good woman been nigh to hand, and run to the rescue. I hope

you'll find her more placable when you come to ask a kiss.'

Elijah rubbed his hands, and laughed boisterously.

'Ha!' shouted he, 'that is my Glory! I tell you, Goppin, she'd have

drove the prongs of the fork into your flesh as I dig this into the

meat,' and he stabbed at the joint fiercely with his carving fork.

'I dare say,' grumbled the farmer, wincing and rubbing his leg. 'I'd

for my part rather have a more peacable mate; but there's no choosing

fat beasts for others, as the saying goes.'

'What do you think of her?' asked Rebow, turning round with exultation

on Bunting and Grout.

'She came to my old woman,' said the latter, 'and asked her to take her

in and give her work. She wanted to leave you.'

'She did,' exclaimed Rebow. 'And what did your old woman say to that?'

'She said she durstn't do it. She durstn't do it.'

'She durstn't do it!' echoed Elijah with a great laugh. 'That was fine.

She durstn't do it!'

'No,' pursued Grout, 'without your leave.'

'And you wouldn't have dared to do it neither,' turning to Bunting, who

shook his head.

'No, you would not dare. I'd like to see the man or woman in Salcott or

Virley as would dare. I reckon there is none that knows me would make

the venture. By God!' he burst forth. 'Where is the girl? I will have

her here; and I'm cursed if you shall not all stand on your legs, and

drink to her health and happiness as the most splendid woman as ever was

or shall be.'

'Abraham Dowsing is at the door,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'Come in, and say what you have to say before us all,' called Elijah.

'If it be anything about my Glory, say it out.'

'She is gone off in her boat,' said the old man; 'I saw her.'

'Why did you not stop her then?' asked Mrs. De Witt.

'I stop her!' repeated Abraham. 'She is my mistress, and I a servant.'

'That is right,' said Elijah, 'if she had taken a whip and lashed your

back till it was raw, you couldn't stop her. Where is she gone to?'

Abraham drew up his shoulders. 'That's her concern. It's no odds to me.

But I tell ye what, Master. Here are you feasting here, and we han't had

nothing extra with our wittles. I ask that we may eat and drink

prosperity to you both, to her and you.'

'You shall,' said Elijah.

'Stay,' put in Mrs. De Witt. 'What do you mean, you old barnacle, you?

Let your superiors eat their fill first, and then you and the other men

shall have what's over. That's fair. I shall manage for you. Go,

Abraham.'

The supper drew to a close. Elijah drank a great deal. He was fretted,

though he tried not to show it, by the absence of Glory. As more

spirits were drunk and pipes were lighted in the hall, whilst the men of

the farm fed in the kitchen, several of those present repeated their

regret that she in whose honour they were assembled, the new mistress of

the house in which they had met, had not deigned to show herself, and

receive their good wishes and congratulations.

Rebow gulped down the contents of glass after glass.

Mrs. De Witt had seated herself with the rest, and was doing her best to

make up for lost time, with the bottle.

'Elijah!' said she, 'one or other must establish the mastery, either you

or Glory. I did think she were a bit shy at first to come among us; but

now the night is coming on and still she is away. I don't deny that

this ain't civil. But then, she has lived all her life on the Ray, and

can't know the fashions of high society; and again, poor thing, it's her

first experience of matrimony. She will do better next time. Let us

drink!' said she, holding up her brimming glass, 'to her profiting

speedily by her experience, and next time we have all of us the honour

of attending at her wedding, may she do us the favour to respond.'

'Amen!' said the clerk, who was present.

'Go out some one, and see if she is coming,' said Rebow, his dark face

burning with anger and drink. He could not, however, wait till the

messenger returned, but left his guests, and went forth himself. He

mounted the sea-wall, and turned his eyes down the creek; nothing was

visible. He stood there, bareheaded, cursing, for a quarter of an hour,

and then went back with knitted brows.

He found his guests preparing to depart.

'Go along!' he said; 'I want no congratulations; say nothing. Glory and

I have a marriage different from other folks, as she and I are not like

other folks, We must fight it out between us.'

He waved his guests away, with a rude impatient gesture.

Mrs. De Witt roused her boat-boy by kicking him off the steps--he had

gone to sleep there--and then tumbling on top of him. She staggered up,

tucked the lad under her arm, and marched off.

'If I meet Glory by the way, I'll send her home, I'll be sure and mind

it,' said she to Rebow as she departed.

He went in. He ordered Mrs. Sharland to go to her bed. The charwoman,

had in for the day, cleared the table of all the glasses, save that of

Elijah, and retired. He was left alone. He went to the back door and

fastened it. Glory should not slink home that way without facing him.

He seated himself in his armchair, and refilled his tumbler with spirits

and water. He was very angry. She had deliberately insulted him before

his guests, defied him in the face of the principal people of the

parish. It would be spoken of, and he would be laughed at throughout

the neighbourhood.

The black veins in his brow puffed out. A half-drunken, half-revengeful

fire smouldered in his deep-set eyes. There was no lamp or candle

burning in the room, but the twilight of midsummer filled it with a grey

illumination.

He walked to the door, opened it, and looked out. The gulls were crying

over the marsh, and the cattle were browsing in it. No Mehalah was to

be seen.

'On my wedding day!' he muttered, and he resumed his seat. 'On that for

which I have worked, to which I have looked, for which I have thought

and schemed, she flies in my face, she scorns me, she shows everyone

that she hates me!'

His pipe was out, he threw it impatiently away.

'She does not know me, or she would not dare to do it. There is no one

in all the neighbourhood dare defy me but she. Everyone fears me but

she, for everyone knows me but she. Know me she must, know me she

shall. There will be no wringing love out of her till she bends under

me and fears me. She will never fear me till she knows all. She shall

know that; by God!' he cried aloud, 'I will tell her that which shall

make her shrink and fall, and whine at my feet; and then I shall take

her up, and drag her to my heart, and say, "Ah, ha! Glory! think what a

man you have gotten to-day, a man whom none can withstand. There is

none like me, there is none will dare what I will dare. You and I, I

and you, are alone in the world. One must submit or there is no peace.

You must learn to cower beneath me, or we shall fight for ever."'

He went out again upon the sea-wall, but saw nothing, and came back more

angry. As he stood on his steps he heard from the path to Salcott a

burst of merriment. He swore an ugly oath. Those men, rolling home,

were ridiculing him, keeping his marriage feast without the presence of

his bride!

He flung himself again into his chair, and rocked himself in it. He

could not sit there, tortured with anger and love, in the gloaming,

doing nothing. He emptied the bottle, there was not a drop more in it,

and he cast it in the hearth. Then he fetched down his old musket

mounted in brass, and getting the vitriol bottle from the window, began

to rub and polish the metal.

He wearied of that in the end. His mind could not be drawn off Glory,

and wondering where she was, and why she had thus gone away.

'I love her,' he muttered, as he replaced his gun on the nails above the

chimney-piece, 'but yet I hate her. My very heart is like Grimshoe with

love and hate warring together, and neither gets the mastery. I could

clasp her to my breast, but I could tear out her heart with my nails,

because it will not love me.' He rocked himself in his seat savagely,

and his breath came fast: 'We must work the riddle out between us. We

can get no help, no light from any others; she and I, and I and she, are

each other's best friends and worst foes.'

A firm hand was on the door, it was thrown open, and in the grey light

stood Mehalah.

'Where have you been?' asked Elijah, hardly able to speak, so agitated

with fury and disappointed love was he.

'I have been,' she said composedly, 'on the Ray, sitting there and

dreaming of the past.'

'Of the past!' shouted Rebow. 'You have been dreaming of George?'

'Yes, I have.'

'I thought it, I knew you were,' he yelled. 'Come here, my wife.'

'I am not your wife. I never will be your wife, except in name. I told

you so. I can not, and I will not love you. I can not, and I will not,

be aught to you but a housekeeper, a servant. I have taken your name to

save mine, that is all.'

'That is all because you love George De Witt.'

'George De Witt is dead.'

'I don't care whether he be dead or not, you think that he is your

double. I tell you, as I have told you before, he is not. I am.'

'I will not listen to more of this,' she said in a hard tone. 'Let me

pass, let me go to my room.'

'I will not let you pass,' he swore; the breath came through his

nostrils like the snorting of a frightened horse; 'I will not. Hear me,

Glory, my own Glory! hear me you shall.' He grasped her arms between

the elbow and shoulder with his iron hands, and shook her savagely.

'Listen to me, Glory, you must and shall. You do not love me, Glory,

because you do not fear me. The dog whom I beat till it howls with

torture creeps up to me and licks my hand. A woman will never love her

equal, but she will worship her superior. You have shown me to-day that

you think yourself on a level with me. You have donned again your cap

of liberty,' he raised one hand to her head, plucked off the cap and

cast it on the floor, 'thinking that now you have taken me before the

world, you have broken my power over you. You do not know me, Glory!

you do not know me. Listen to me!' Through the twilight she could see

his fierce eyes flaring at her, her hair was disturbed by the hot blasts

of his labouring lungs. His fingers that held her twitched convulsively

as he spoke.

'Listen to me, Glory! and know me and respect me. I am no more to be

escaped from than fate. I am mighty over you as a Providence. You may

writhe and circumvent, but I meet you at every turn, and tread you down

whenever you think to elude me. Listen to me, Glory!' He paused, and

drew a long breath; 'Listen, I say, to me. Glory! how did you lose your

money that night that Abraham Dowsing sold your sheep? I feel you

stirring and starting in my hands. Yes, I took it. You went out with

George De Witt, and left the purse on the table. When your mother left

the room, I took the money. You may have it back now when you like, now

that I have you. I took it--you see why. To have you in my power.'

'Coward and thief!' gasped Mehalah.

'Ah! call me names if you like; you do not know me yet, and how

impossible it is to resist me. You thought when you had got the money

again, from George, that you had escaped me.'

'Stay!' exclaimed Mehalah. 'It was you,' with compressed scorn, 'that

fired on George and me in the marsh.'

'I fired at him, not at you; and had you not changed the place of the

lanthorn in the boat, I should have shot him.'

The girl shuddered in his hands.

'I feel you,' he said with savage exultation. 'You are beginning to

know me now, and to tremble. When you know all, you will kneel to me as

to your God, as almighty over your destiny, irresistible, able to crush

and kill whom I will, and to conquer where I will. George De Witt stood

in my way to you.'

Mehalah's heart leaped and then stood still. Her pulse ceased to beat.

She seemed to be hanging in space, seeing nothing, feeling nothing,

hearing only, and only the words of the man before her.

'He left Mersea City one night. He left it in my boat with me.'

'He paused, rejoicing in her horror at this revelation of himself to

her.

'Have you not a question to ask me, "Where he now is? What I know of

him?"'

No--she could not speak, she could not even breathe.

'Do you remember when you came on Michaelmas Day to pay me my rent, how

you heard and saw my mad brother in the cell there below?'

He paused again, and then chuckled. 'The poor wretch died and I buried

him there. I brought George here, I made him drunk, and chained him in

my brother's place, and he went mad with his captivity in darkness and

cold and nakedness.'

The blood spouted from her heart through every artery. She tried to cry

but could not, she strove to escape his hands, she was unable. She

panted, and her eyes stood open, fixed as those of a corpse, staring

before her.

'You lost your sheep,' he went on, with exultation. 'I took them. I

took them to rob you of every chance of paying me, and keeping clear of

me.'

She did not hear him. She cared nothing about sheep. She was thinking

of George, of his imprisonment and madness.

'At last, when I feared that after all you might slip from me by means

of that cripple at Wyvenhoe, I did more. I watched you on New Year's

Eve; I waited for you to go to sleep, that I might fire your house. You

did better than I had thought, you went out; and then I set the Ray Farm

in flames. What cared I for the loss? It was nothing. By it I gained

you, I secured you under my roof, by burning you out of the shelter of

your own.' He swelled with pride. 'You know me now, Glory! Now think

you that escape from me is possible? No, you do not, you cannot. I

hedge you in, I undermine the ground you tread. I saw away the posts

that hold up the roof above your head. You know now what I am,

irresistible, almighty, as far as you are concerned, your fate

incarnate. And I know you. I know that you are one who will never

yield till you have found a man who is mightier in will and in power

than you; those who have fought are best friends after the struggle,

when each knows his own strength and the full measure of the resistance

of the other. We have had one wrestle, and I have flung you at every

round; you in your pride have stood up again, and wiped the blood from

your heart, and the tears from your eyes, and tried another fall with

me; but now, Glory, you have tried your last. Hitherto you fought not

knowing the extent of my power, thinking that I put forth my full might

when I spoke, but that I had no strength to act. Now you see what I can

do, and what I have done, and you will abandon the fruitless battle.

Glory! Glory! Come to my heart. You fear me now, and fear is the

first step leading to love. Glory! my own Glory!' his voice faltered,

and his fingers worked, 'I love you madly. I will do and dare all for

you. I will live for you and for nothing in the world but you. Never

till this day in the church have I so much as held your hand. Never

till this moment, Glory! have I held you to my heart, never till this

moment have I felt it bounding against mine, never till this moment have

I kissed those dear, dear lips, as I shall now.'

He drew her to him. He unloosed his hands to throw his arms round her.

She felt them closing on her like a hoop of iron, she felt his heart

beating like the strokes of a blacksmith with his hammer; his burning

breath was on her cheek. He! He kiss her! She lie on that heart which

had schemed and carried out the destruction of her George!

She cried out. She found her tongue. 'Let go! I hate you as I never

hated you before! I hate you as a mad dog, as a poisonous adder! Let

go!' She writhed and slipped partly away.

'Never till I have held you to my breast and kissed you,' he said.

'That never, never!' she gasped. She got her hands on his breast and

forced his arms asunder behind her.

'Ha, ha! strong,' he laughed, 'but not strong as I.' He gripped her

wrists and bent her arms back. She threw herself on the ground, he drew

her up. She flung herself against the chair, crushing his hand against

the chimney-piece, so that he let go with it for an instant. She groped

about with her free hand, in the dark, for some weapon, she grasped

something. He cursed her for the pain she had given him, and attempted

again to seize her hand. In a moment she had struck him--him the coward

assailant, him the thief, him the murderer--between the brows with the

weapon her hand had taken. It was a blow with her whole force. There

followed a crash of glass, then a sense as of her hand being plunged

into fire. Then a shriek loud, tearing through roof and wall, loud,

agonised, as only a man or a horse can utter in supreme moments of

torture; and Rebow fell on the floor, writhing like a worm, with his

hands over his face and eyes.

*CHAPTER XXV.*

*IN THE DARKNESS.*

Day by day Elijah Rebow lay, or sat, in the darkened oak parlour with

his eyes bandaged, a prey to wrath, pain, despair. The vitriol from the

broken vial had got into his eyes, and there was reason to fear had

blinded them.

He was obliged to have the burning balls kept from the light, but he

raged under the obligation. He wanted to see, he could not be patient

under restraint. He could ill understand that in all things he might not

have his way, even in such a matter as this. He chafed also at having

been conquered by Glory. That she should have defied and beaten him,

and beaten him in such a crushing manner, cut his pride to the quick.

None knew how the accident had occurred save himself and Mehalah. To

the doctor he had merely said that in getting the vitriol bottle from

the shelf, it had fallen and broken on his forehead.

Mrs. Sharland remained in as complete ignorance of the truth as the

rest, and her lamentations and commiserations, poured on Elijah and her

daughter, angered him and humiliated her. Mehalah had suffered in mind

agonies equal in acuteness to those endured in body by Elijah.

Horror and hatred of herself predominated. She had destroyed, by one

outburst of passion, the eyesight of a man, and wrecked his life. What

henceforth for thirty or forty years could life be to Rebow?--to one who

could not endure existence without activity? She had rendered him in a

moment helpless as a babe, and dependent on herself for everything. She

must attend to his every want, and manage the farm and his business for

him. By a stroke, their relative positions were reversed. The wedding

night had produced a revolution in their places of which she could not

have dreamed. She felt at once the burden of the responsibilities that

came upon her. She was called upon by those on the farm to order and

provide for everything connected with it. She had to think for the

farm, and think for the master into whose position she had forced her

way.

She hated herself for her rash act. She hated the man whom she had

mutilated, but more herself. If by what she had done she had in one

sense made herself master, in another she had cast herself into bondage.

By the terrible injury she had inflicted on Rebow she had morally bound

herself to him for life to repair that injury by self-devotion. Had it

been possible for her to love him, even to like him, this would have

been light to her, with her feminine instinct, but as it was not

possible, the slavery would be inexpressibly painful.

Love will hallow and lighten the most repulsive labours, the most

extreme self-sacrifice, but when there is no love, only abhorrence,

labour and self-sacrifice crush mentally and morally. She must bear the

most fierce and insulting reproaches without an attempt to escape them,

she had in part deserved them. These she could and would endure, but

his caresses!--no! however deeply she might have sinned against him,

however overflowing her pity for his helpless condition might be, she

could not tolerate affection from the man who by his own confession

merited her profound loathing. He had taken an unoffending man, and had

imprisoned him and blinded his reason by cruelty; it seemed to her as if

Providence had used her hand to exact a just retribution on Rebow by

condemning him to an equally miserable condition. The recompense was

justly meted, but would that it had been dealt by another hand!

In one particular she was blameless, and able to excuse herself. She

had acted without intent to do bodily harm, and in ignorance of the

weapon she had used. She had been carried away by the instinct of

self-preservation, and had taken up what was readiest at hand, without a

wish to do more than emancipate herself from the grasp of the man she

detested. He had brought the consequences on his own eyes by his own

act.

But though she quite recognised that he had done this, and that he

richly deserved the consequences, yet she could not relieve her

conscience from the gnawings of self-reproach, from the scalding blush

of shame at having executed a savage, unwomanly vengeance on the man who

had wronged her. Had her victim been a woman and a rival, she would

perhaps have gloried in her act; but the female mind is perverse in its

twists and complexion, and it will tingle with pain for having hurt a

man, however little that man may be loved, when it would plume itself

for having done the same to a woman who has been a friend. A woman must

think and act rightly towards a man, but can do neither towards one of

her own sex.

Mehalah's bosom was a prey to conflicting emotions. She pitied Elijah,

and she pitied George. Her deep pity for George forced her to hate his

torturer, and grudge him no suffering to expiate his offence. When she

thought of what George de Witt must have endured in the vault, of his

privations there, of the gradual darkening and disturbance of his

faculties, and then of how Elijah had stepped between him and her, and

spoiled their mutual dream of happiness, and ruined both their lives,

the hot blood boiled in her heart, and she felt that she could deal

Rebow the stroke again, deliberately, knowing what the result must be,

as a retributive act. But when she heard him, as now, pacing the oak

parlour, and in his blindness striking against the walls, her pity for

him mounted and overlapped her wrath. Moreover, she was perplexed about

the story of George's imprisonment. There was something in it she could

not reconcile with what she knew. Elijah had confessed that on the night

of George's disappearance he had enticed the young man to Red Hall, made

him drunk or drugged him, and then chained him in the vault, in the

place of his own brother who had died. It was Rebow and not De Witt

who, that same night, had appeared at her window, driven in the glass

and flung the medal at her feet. But was this possible? She knew at

what hour George had left the Mussets' shop, and she knew about the time

when the medal had been cast on the floor before her. It was almost

incredible that so much had taken place in the interval. It was no easy

row between Red Hall and the Ray, to be accomplished in half an hour.

Surely, also, had George De Witt been imprisoned below, he could have

found some means to make himself heard, to communicate with the men

about the farm, in the absence of Rebow. Would a few months in that

dark damp cell derange the faculties of a sane man?

Mehalah lifted the trap and went down. The vault was a cellar not below

the soil, but with floor level with the marsh outside, or only slightly

beneath. It had a door fastened from within by a bolt, but also

provided with a lock; and there was the circular window already

described. The shutter had not been replaced, and the sunlight entered,

and made the den less gloomy and horrible than Mehalah had conceived it

to be. She found the staple to which the chain had been attached, away

from the door and the window. It was obvious how the maniac had got

loose. The chain had been attached to the staple by a padlock. Elijah

sometimes unlocked this, when he was cleaning the straw from the cell

and supplying fresh litter. He had carelessly turned the key in the

lock, and left it unfastened. The madman had found this out after Rebow

was gone, and had taken advantage of the circumstance to break out at

the window. The chain and padlock, with the key in it, were now hung

over the fireplace in the hall, mocking the inscription below, 'When I

take hold, I hold fast.'

Mehalah seated herself in the window of the hall, and took up some

needlework. Elijah was still pacing the parlour and beating against the

opposite walls, muttering curses when he struck the oak panels.

Presently she heard him groping along the walls for the door, and

stumbling over chairs. He turned the handle and entered the hall.

He stood before her in the doorway of the darkened chamber, with

extended quivering hands, his head bowed, his eyes covered with a thick

bandage. He wore his red plush waistcoat and long brown coat. His dark

hair was ruffled and stood up like rushes over a choked drain. He

turned his head aside and listened. Mehalah held her breath.

'You are there,' he said. 'Although you try to hide from me, I know you

are there and watching me. I am in the dark but I can see. I can see

you always and everywhere, with your eyes--great angry brown eyes--on

me, and your hand lifted to strike me into endless night.'

Mehalah did not speak. Why should she? She could say nothing that

could do either any good.

'Have you put the hot fire to your tongue and scorched it out as you

have put it to my eyes?' he asked. 'Can't you speak? Must I sit alone

in darkness, or tramp alone up and down in black hell, feeling the

flames dance in my eye-sockets, but not seeing them, and have no one to

speak to, no one to touch, no one to kick, and beat, and curse? Go out

and fetch me a dog that I may torture it to death and laugh over the

sport. I must do something. I cannot tramp, tramp, and strike my head

and shoulders against the walls till I am bruised and cut, with no one

to speak to, or speak to me. By heaven! it is bad enough in Grimshoe

with two in the shiphold mangling each other, but there is excitement

and sport in that. It is worse in that wooden hold yonder, for there I

am all alone.'

He stopped speaking, and began to feel round the room. He came to the

chimney and put his fingers into the letters of the inscription. 'Ha!'

he muttered, 'When I lay hold, I hold fast. I laid hold of you,

Mehalah, but I have not let go yet, though I have burned my fingers.'

This was the first time he had called her by her Christian name. She

was surprised.

'Mehalah!' he repeated, 'Mehalah!' and then laughed bitterly to himself.

'You are no more my Glory. There is no Glory here for me; unless, in

pity for what a ruin you have made, you take me to your heart and love

me. If you will do that I will pardon all, I will not give a thought to

my eyes. I can still see you standing in the midst of the fire, unhurt

like a daughter of God. I do not care. I shall always see you there,

and when the fire goes out and only black ashes remain, I shall see you

there shining like a lamp in the night, always the same. I do not care

how many years may pass, how old you may wax, whether you may become

bent and broken with infirmities, I shall always see my Glory with her

rich black shining hair, her large brown eyes, and form as elastic and

straight as a pine-tree. I shall see the blue jersey and the red cap

and scarlet skirt.' He raised his hands and wrung them in the air above

his head: 'What do I care for other sights? These long flat marshes have

nothing beautiful in them. The sea is not here what it is on other

coasts, foaming, colour-shifting like a peacock's neck; here it is of

one tone and grey, and never tosses in waves, but creeps in like a thief

over the shallow mud-flat, and babbles like a dotard over the mean

shells and clots of weed on our strand. There is nothing worth seeing

here. I do not heed being blinded, so long as I can see you, and that

not you nor all your vitriol can extinguish. Heat skewers white hot in

the fire, and drive them in at the eye-sockets through all obstruction

into the brain, and then, perhaps, you will blind me to that vision.

Nothing less can do it. Pity me and love me, and I forgive all.'

He crept past the chimney-piece and was close to the window. He touched

Mehalah with one hand, and in a moment had her fast with both.

'I cannot love you,' she said, 'but I pity you from the depth of my

soul, and I shall never forgive myself for what I have done.'

'Look here!' he snatched his bandages away and cast them down. 'This is

what you have done. I have hold of you, but I cannot see you with my

eyes. I am looking into a bed of wadding, of white fleeces with red

ochre smears in them, rank dirty old fleeces unsecured--that is all I

see. I suppose it is the window and the sunshine. I feel the heat of

the rays; I cannot see them save as streaks of wool.'

'Elijah!' exclaimed the girl, 'let me bandage your eyes again. You were

ordered to keep all light excluded.'

'Bah! I know well enough that my eyesight is gone. I know what you have

done for me. Do you think that a few days in darkness can mend them? I

know better. Vitriol will eat away iron, and the eyes are softer than

iron. You knew that when you poured it on them.'

'I never intended to do you the harm,' said Mehalah passionately, and

burst into tears. He listened to her sobbing with pleasure.

'You are sorry for me?'

'I am more than sorry. I am crushed with shame and grief for what I

have done.'

'You will love me now, Mehalah.'

She shook her head and one of her tears fell on his hand; he raised his

hand and put it to his eyes; then sighed. 'I thought one such drop

would have restored them whole as before. It would, had there been

sweetness in it, but it was all bitter. There was only anger with self

and no love for me. I must bide on in blackness.' He put his hands on

each side of her head, twisted his thumbs resting on her cheek-bones,

and her unrestrained tears ran over them.

He stood quite still.

'This is the best medicine I could get,' he said; 'better nor all

doctor's messes. To listen to your heart flowing over, to feel your

warm tears trickle, does me good. In spite of everything, Glory! I

must love you, and yet, Mehalah! I have every cause to hate you. I

have made you, who were nothing, my wife, mistress of my house and

estate, with a property and position above everyone else in Salcott and

Virley, equal to any of the proud yeomen's wives on Mersea Isle. I have

made a home for your mother, and in return you have plunged me in

eternal night, and deny me your love.'

'Let us not recriminate,' said Mehalah through her tears, 'or I should

have enough to charge you with. I never sought to be your wife. You

drove me into the position in spite of my aversion to it; in spite of

all my efforts to escape. You have wounded me in a cruel and cowardly

manner past forgiveness. You have ruined my life and all my prospects

of happiness. George----'

He shook her furiously.

'I will not listen to that name,' he said through his teeth.

'You could bear to hold him in chains there below,' she answered.

'You said, Let us not recriminate, and you pour a torrent of

recriminations over me,' he gasped. 'If I have wronged you, you have

redressed all with one vial of vitriol in the eyes, where man is most

sensitive. With that firejuice you purged away all the past wrongs, I

expiated in that liquid flame all the evil I had done you. You don't

know what I have suffered. You have had no such experience of pain as

to imagine the tortures I have undergone. If the anguish were all, it

would be enough atonement; but it is not all. There is the future

before me, a future of night. I shall have to trust to someone to do

everything for me, to be eyes, and hands, and feet to me. Whom can I

trust? How do I know that I shall not be deserted, and left to die in

my darkness, a prey to ravenous men? If you loved me, then I could lean

on you and be at peace. But you do not love me, and you will leave me

when it suits your pleasure.'

'No, Elijah,' said Mehalah sadly; 'that I never will do. I have robbed

you of your sight. I did it unwittingly, in self-defence, perhaps also

in anger at knowing how cruelly, wickedly, cowardly you had behaved to

me and to another whom I loved.'

'Whom you love still!' with a cry of rage.

'One whom I loved,' repeated Mehalah, sadly; 'and I must atone for my

mad act as far as lies in my power. I will stay by you. I will never

forsake you.'

'Listen to me, Mehalah,' said Elijah, with concentrated vehemence; 'you

know what was said--that the person you loved went out in a boat and was

lost. The body was never found. Should the man turn up again.'

'That is impossible.'

'I don't care for impossibilities. I live now in a dream-world where

there is no line drawn between the possible and the impossible. Should

he reappear, what then?'

'Still I would remain at my post of duty,' said the girl, humouring his

fancy.

'The post of duty, not of love,' he muttered.

'I said duty,' she replied; 'I will never leave that.'

His thumbs twitched on her cheek-bones and worked their way to the

corners of her eyes; she sharply withdrew her head.

He laughed. 'You thought I was going to gouge your eyes out with my

thumbnails,' he said, 'that I was going to repay you in kind. No, I was

not; but should the dead return to life and reclaim you, I may do it.

You cannot, you shall not escape me. You and I, and I and you, must

sink or swim together. Say again, Mehalah, that you will stand by me.'

'I promise it you, Elijah, I promise it you here solemnly, before God.'

She sank on her knees. 'I have brought you unwittingly into darkness,

and in that darkness I will hold to you and will cherish you.'

'Ha!' he shouted. 'At the altar you refused to swear that. To love,

cherish, and obey is what the parson tried to make you say; but all you

swore to was to obey, you denied the other, and now you take oath to

cherish. The wheel of fate is turning, and you will come in time to

love where you began to obey and went on to cherish.'

*CHAPTER XXVI.*

*THE FORGING OF THE RING.*

Mrs. Sharland was failing. The excitement of the marriage had roused

her to activity, but when that was over she relapsed, her energy

evaporated, and she took to her bed with the avowed intention of not

leaving it again, except for a christening in the family, till carried

to her grave. She did not understand Mehalah, she fretted because the

arrangements after the eventful day remained the same as before; her

daughter shared her room and kept as much away from Elijah as was

possible, showed him none of the love of a wife to her husband, and was

distressed when spoken to by her new name.

'You are either Mistress Rebow or you are not,' said the old woman

peevishly to her daughter one night, in their room, 'and if you are not,

then I don't understand what the ceremony in the church was for. You

treat Elijah Rebow as coldly and indifferently as if he were naught to

you but master, and you to him were still hired servant. I don't

understand your goings on.'

'He and I understand each other, that is enough,' answered Mehalah. 'I

have married him for his name and for nothing else. In no other light

will I regard him than as a master: I told him when I agreed to go to

church with him that I would be his no further than the promise to obey

went; I take his name to save mine--that is all. He is not my husband,

and never shall be, in any other way. I will serve him and serve him

devotedly, but not give him my love. That I cannot give. I gave my

heart away once for all, and it has not been restored to me.'

'That is all nonsense,' said Mrs. Sharland. 'Didn't I love Charles

Pettican, and weren't we nigh coming to a declaration, only a fit of the

ague shivers cut it short? I married your father, and loved him truly as

a good wife and not as a hired servant, for all that.'

'Elijah and I understand each other,' answered Mehalah. 'I suppose

there is something of truth in what he says over and over again, that he

and I are different from others, and that there's none can understand us

but our two selves.'

'Then you are made for one another.'

'So he says, but I will not believe it. No. That cannot be. Some have

peace and happiness drop into their lap, others have to fight their way

to it, and that is our fate. But that we shall find it in each other,

that I never will admit. In George----' she covered her eyes, and left

her sentence unfinished.

The charge of Mrs. Sharland was, to some extent, unjust. Mehalah did

attend to Elijah with as much care and as assiduously as she was able,

considering the amount of work which had devolved upon her. Her mother

was ill and in bed, Elijah helpless. She had to see after and direct

everything about the farm and house, beside ministering to the two

invalids. Consequently she was unable to devote much time to Elijah, but

whenever she had a few moments of relief from work she devoted them to

him. She took her needlework either to him in the oak parlour, or

brought him into the hall. She had now somewhat lightened her labours

by engaging a charwoman, and was therefore more able than before to be

with Rebow and her mother. Each complained if left long alone, and she

had much difficulty in portioning her time between them. She tried, but

tried in vain, to induce her mother to make an effort and come

downstairs, so that she might sit with both at once; this would save her

from distraction between two exacting and conflicting claims, and some

restraint would be placed on the intercourse between Rebow and herself

by the presence in the room of a third party.

Elijah was not entirely blinded, he was plunged not in darkness but in

mist. He could see objects hazily, when near; he could distinguish

figures, but not faces, when within a few yards of him, but nothing

distant. The wall and a black cloud on the horizon were equally remote

to his vision.

He wandered about, with a stick, and visited his cattle sheds and

workmen; or sat under the south wall of his house in the sun. The pump

was there, and to it Mehalah sometimes came. He listened for her step.

He could distinguish her tread from that of the charwoman. He took no

notice of this woman, though she came up to him occasionally and said a

few commiserating words.

The men thought that he was gentler in his affliction than he had been

before. He did not curse them, as had been his wont. He asked about

the cattle, and the farm, and went his way. Mehalah also noticed that

he was less fierce; she was able also to attribute this softening to its

right cause, to her own influence. He was, to some extent, happy,

because she was often with him, sought him instead of shunning him,

spoke to him kindly, instead of rebuffing him when he addressed her, and

let him know and feel that she thought of him, and was endeavouring to

make him comfortable in his great deprivation.

As he sat in the sun and looked up at the bright orb, which he saw only

as a nebulous mass of light, she was ever present before his inward eye,

she in her pride and beauty. He did not think; he sat hour by hour,

simply looking at her--at the image ever before him, and listening for

her step or voice. An expression of almost content stole across his

strongly marked features, but was occasionally blurred and broken by an

uneasy, eager, enquiring look, as if he were peering and hearkening for

something which he dreaded. In fact, he was not satisfied that George

De Witt would never reappear. Had he been set at rest on this point, he

could have been happy.

Mehalah was touched by his patience, his forgiveness of the irreparable

wrong she had done him. He had said that if she loved him he would

pardon all. He was ready to do this at a less price; though he craved

for her love, he was contented, at least for the present, with her

solicitude. He had been accustomed to open hostility and undisguised

antipathy. Now that he met with consideration and tenderness from her,

he became docile, and a transformation began to be operated in his

nature. Love him, she could not, but she felt that but for what he had

done to George, she could regard him without repugnance. Pity might

ripen into friendship. Into a deeper and more rich feeling it never

could, for he had barred the way to this possibility by his dealing with

De Witt.

She ventured occasionally to approach the subject, but it always

produced such agitation in the manner of Rebow that she was obliged to

desist from seeking explanation of the particulars which perplexed her.

The slightest allusion to George De Witt troubled the master of Red

Hall, made his face darken, and brought on an access of his old

violence, from which he did not recover for a day or two.

Mrs. De Witt came to see him.

'Lawk a day!' she said; 'what a job to find you in this predicament!'

He turned his whitened eyes on her, with a nervous twitch in the muscles

and a tremour of the lips. 'Well! What news?'

'News!' echoed the lady; 'dear sackalive! who'd expect to find news in

Mersea? you might as well drag for oysters in a horsepond.'

He was satisfied, and let her talk on without attending to her.

A few days later, he called the charwoman to him as she was going to the

pump.

'What is your name?'

'Susan Underwood. I'm a married woman, with three small children, and

another on its way.'

He fumbled in his pocket, and took out a crown.

'Any news?--from Mersea, I mean.'

'I don't come from Mersea. Thank your honour all the same.'

'But if there were news there it would get to Virley or Salcott, or

wherever you live.'

'It would be sure. I did hear,' she said, 'that Farmer Pooley has been

a-wisiting a little more nor he ought at widow Siggars' cottage, her as

has a handsome daughter, and so, they do say, has Farmer Pudney; and the

other day they met there, and was so mad each to find the other, that

the one up with his hunting whip and the other with his bible and

knocked each other down, and each had to be carried home on a shutter.'

'Go and tell those tales to the old woman upstairs. I have no patience

to listen to them. That's the sort of garbage women feed on, as maggots

on rotten meat.'

'But it is true.'

'Who cares whether true or not? It is all the same to me. Has anyone

arrived at Mersea?'

'Not yet, sir, but they do say that the parson's wife has expectations.'

'Go back to the kitchen,' growled Elijah, and relapsed into his dream.

A few minutes after, Mehalah came out, and seated herself on the bench

beside him. She was knitting. He put out his hand and felt her, and

smiled. He raised his hand to her head.

'Glory! when you wear the red cap in the sun I know it, I see a scarlet

light like a poppy, and it pleases me. Let me hold the ball, then I can

feel every stitch you take with your fingers.'

She put the wool gently into his palm; and began to talk to Mm

concerning the farm. He listened, and spoke in a tone and with a manner

different from his habit formerly.

Presently his hand stole up the thread, and he caught her fingers and

drew her hand down on her lap. Her first impulse was to snatch it away,

but she conquered it, and let him feel over her hand without a movement

of dislike.

'You have not yet a ring,' he said; 'you have no gold wedding circle

like other married women.'

'Our union is unlike all others,' she said.

'That is true; but you must wear my ring. I shall not be happy till you

do. I shall think you will cast me off unless I can feel the ring that

has no ending round your finger. Where is the link with which I married

you?'

'I have it here,' she said; 'I have not cast it off, and I shall not

cast you off. I have fastened it by a string and carry it in my bosom.'