messuages, tenements, goods, chattels, etc., and his special legacies to
divers ladies and gentlemen and domestic servants, these I will not
reveal even to you.
* * * * *
"The paper I now produce is a copy of that particular bequest which I
have decided to communicate to you in strict and sacred confidence."
And he handed her an extract from George Neville's will.
Miss Peyton then read what follows:--
"And I give and bequeath to Mistress Catharine Peyton, of Peyton Hall,
in the said County of Cumberland, in token of my respect and regard, all
that my freehold estate called Moniton Grange, with the messuage or
tenement standing and being thereon, and the farm-yard buildings and
appurtenances belonging thereto, containing by estimation three hundred
and seventy-six acres three roods and five perches, be the same little
more or less, to hold to her the said Catharine Peyton, her heirs and
assigns, forever."
* * * * *
The legatee laid down the paper, and leaned her head softly on her fair
hand, and her eyes explored vacancy.
"What means all this?" said she, aloud, but to herself.
Mr. Houseman undertook the office of interpreter.
"Means? Why, that he has left you one of the snuggest estates in the
county. 'Tis not quite so large as Bolton; but lies sunnier, and the
land richer. Well, Mistress, was I right? Are you not good for a
thousand pounds?"
Kate, still manifestly thinking of something else, let fall, as it were,
out of her mouth, that Mr. Gaunt and Mr. Neville were both men in the
flower of their youth, and how was she the richer for their folly?
"Why," said Houseman, "you will not have to wait for the death of these
testators,--Heaven forbid! But what does all this making of wills show
me? That both these gentlemen are deep in love with you, and you can
pick and choose; I say, you can wed with Bolton Hall or Neville's Court
to-morrow; so, prithee, let the Squire have his hundred pounds, and do
you repay me at your leisure."
Miss Peyton made no reply, but leaned her exquisite head upon her hand
and pondered.
She did not knit her brows, nor labor visibly at the mental oar; yet a
certain reposeful gravity and a fixity of the thoughtful eye showed she
was applying all the powers of her mind.
Mr. Houseman was not surprised at that: his own wife had but little
intellect; yet had he seen her weigh two rival bonnets in mortal
silence, and with all the seeming profundity of a judge on the bench.
And now this young lady was doubtless weighing farms with similar
gravity, care, and intelligence.
But as this continued, and still she did not communicate her decision,
he asked her point-blank which of the two she settled to wed: Neville's
Court or Bolton Grange.
Thus appealed to, Miss Peyton turned her great eye on him, without
really looking at him, and replied,--
"You have made me very uneasy."
He stared. She relapsed into thought a moment, and then, turning to
Houseman, asked him how _he_ accounted for those two gentlemen making
their wills. They were very young to make their wills all of a sudden.
"Why," said Houseman, "Mr. Neville is a man of sense, and every man of
sense makes his will; and as for Mr. Gaunt, he has just come into
prospect of an estate; that's why."
"Ah, but why could not Griffith wait till after the funeral?"
"Oh, clients are always in a hurry."
"So you see nothing in it? nothing alarming, I mean?"
"Nothing very alarming. Two landed proprietors in love with you; that is
all."
"But, dear Mr. Houseman, that is what makes me uneasy: at this rate,
they must look on one another as--as--rivals; and you know rivals are
sometimes enemies."
"Oh, I see now," said Houseman: "you apprehend a quarrel between the
gentlemen. Of course there is no love lost between them: but they met in
my office and saluted each other with perfect civility. I saw them with
my own eyes."
"Indeed! I am glad to hear that,--very glad. I hope it was only a
coincidence then, their both making their wills."
"Nothing more, you may depend: neither of them knows from me what the
other has done, nor ever will."
"That is true," said Kate, and seemed considerably relieved.
To ease her mind entirely, Houseman went on to say, that, as to the
report that high words had passed between the clients in question at the
"Roebuck," he had no doubt it was exaggerated.
"Besides," said he, "that was not about a lady: I'm told it was about a
horse,--some bet belike."
Catharine uttered a faint cry.
"About a horse?" said she. "Not about a gray horse?"
"Nay, that is more than I know."
"High words about a horse," said Catharine,--"and they are making their
wills. Oh! my mind misgave me from the first." And she turned pale.
Presently she clasped her hands together,--"Mr. Houseman!" she cried,
"what shall I do? What! do you not see that both their lives are in
danger, and that is why they make their wills? And how should _both_
their lives be in danger, but from each other? Madmen! they have
quarrelled; they are going to fight,--fight to the death; and I fear it
is about me,--me, who love neither of them, you know."
"In that case, _let_ them fight," said her legal adviser,
dispassionately. "Whichever fool gets killed, you will be none the
poorer." And the dog wore a sober complacency.
Catharine turned her large eyes on him with horror and amazement, but
said nothing.
As for the lawyer, he was more struck with her sagacity than with
anything. He somewhat overrated it,--not being aware of the private
reasons she had for thinking that her two testators were enemies to the
death.
"I almost think you are right," said he; "for I got a curious missive
from Mr. Gaunt scarce an hour agone, and he says--let me see what he
says"----
"Nay, let _me_ see," said Kate.
On that he handed her Griffith's note. It ran thus:--
"It is possible I may not be able to conduct the funeral.
Should this be so, I appoint you to act for me. So, then,
good Mr. Houseman, let me count on you to be here at nine of
the clock. For Heaven's sake fail me not.
"Your humble servant,
"G. G."
This note left no doubt in Kate's mind.
"Now, first of all," said she, "what answer made you to this?"
"What answer should I make? I pledged my word to be at Bolton at nine of
the clock."
"Oh, blind!" sighed Kate. "And I must be out of the room! What shall I
do? My dear friend, forgive me: I am a wretched girl. I am to blame. I
ought to have dismissed them both, or else decided between them. But who
would have thought it would go this length? I did not think Griffith was
brave enough. Have pity on me, and help me. Stop this fearful fighting."
And now the young creature clung to the man-of-business, and prayed and
prayed him earnestly to avert bloodshed.
Mr. Houseman was staggered by this passionate appeal from one who so
rarely lost her self-command. He soothed her as well as he could, and
said he would do his best,--but added, which was very true, that he
thought her interference would be more effective than his own.
"What care these young bloods for an old attorney? I should fare ill,
came I between their rapiers. To be sure, I might bind them over to keep
the peace. But, Mistress Kate, now be frank with me; then I can serve
you better. You love one of these two: that is clear. Which is the
man?--that I may know what I am about."
For all her agitation, Kate was on her guard in some things.
"Nay," she faltered, "I love neither,--not to say love them: but I pity
him so!"
"Which?"
"Both."
"Ay, Mistress; but which do you pity most?" asked the shrewd lawyer.
"Whichever shall come to harm for my sake," replied the simple girl.
"You could not go to them to-night, and bring them to reason?" asked
she, piteously.
She went to the window to see what sort of a night it was. She drew the
heavy crimson curtains and opened the window. In rushed a bitter blast
laden with flying snow. The window-ledges, too, were clogged with snow,
and all the ground was white.
Houseman shuddered, and drew nearer to the blazing logs. Kate closed the
window with a groan.
"It is not to be thought of," said she, "at your age, and not a road to
be seen for snow. What shall I do?"
"Wait till to-morrow," said Mr. Houseman.
(Procrastination was his daily work, being an attorney.)
"To-morrow!" cried Catharine. "Perhaps to-morrow will be too late.
Perhaps even now they have met, and he lies a corpse."
"Who?"
"Whichever it is, I shall end my days in a convent praying for his
soul."
She wrung her hands while she said this, and still there was no catching
her.
Little did the lawyer think to rouse such a storm with his good news.
And now he made a feeble and vain attempt to soothe her, and ended by
promising to start the first thing in the morning and get both her
testators bound over to keep the peace by noon. With this resolution he
went to bed early.
She was glad to be alone, at all events.
Now, mind you, there were plenty of vain and vulgar, yet respectable
girls, in Cumberland, who would have been delighted to be fought about,
even though bloodshed were to be the result. But this young lady was not
vain, but proud. She was sensitive, too, and troubled with a conscience.
It reproached her bitterly: it told her she had permitted the addresses
of two gentlemen, and so mischief had somehow arisen--out of her levity.
Now her life had been uneventful and innocent: this was the very first
time she had been connected with anything like a crime, and her remorse
was great; so was her grief; but her fears were greater still. The
terrible look Griffith had cast at his rival flashed on her; so did his
sinister words. She felt, that, if he and Neville met, nothing less than
Neville's death or his own would separate them. Suppose that even now
one of them lay a corpse, cold and ghastly as the snow that now covered
Nature's face!
The agitation of her mind was such that her body could not be still. Now
she walked the room in violent distress, wringing her hands; now she
kneeled and prayed fervently for both those lives she had endangered;
often she flew to the window and looked eagerly out, writhing and
rebelling against the network of female custom that entangled her and
would not let her fly out of her cage even to do a good action,--to
avert a catastrophe by her prayers, or her tears, or her good sense.
And all ended in her realizing that she was a woman, a poor, impotent
being, born to lie quiet and let things go: at that she wept helplessly.
So wore away the first night of agony this young creature ever knew.
Towards morning, exhausted by her inward struggles, she fell asleep upon
a sofa.
But her trouble followed her. She dreamed she was on a horse, hurried
along with prodigious rapidity, in a darkened atmosphere, a sort of dry
fog: she knew somehow she was being taken to see some awful, mysterious
thing. By-and-by the haze cleared and she came out upon pleasant, open,
sunny fields, that almost dazzled her. She passed gates, and hedges too,
all clear, distinct, and individual. Presently a voice by her side said,
"This way!" and her horse seemed to turn of his own accord through a
gap, and in one moment she came on a group of gentlemen. It was Griffith
Gaunt, and two strangers. Then she spoke, and said,--
"But Mr. Neville?"
No answer was made her; but the group opened in solemn silence, and
there lay George Neville on the snow, stark and stiff, with blood
issuing from his temple, and trickling along the snow.
She saw distinctly all his well-known features: but they were pinched
and sharpened now. And his dark olive skin was turned to bluish white.
It was his corpse. And now her horse thrust out his nose and snorted
like a demon. She looked down, and, ah! the blood was running at her
preternaturally fast along the snow. She screamed, her horse reared
high, and she was falling on the blood-stained snow. She awoke,
screaming; and the sunlight seemed to rush in at the window.
Her joy that it was only a dream overpowered every other feeling at
first. She kneeled and thanked God for that.
The next thing was, she thought it might be a revelation of what had
actually occurred.
But this chilling fear did not affect her long. Nothing could shake her
conviction that a duel was on foot,--and, indeed, the intelligent of her
sex do sometimes put this and that together, and spring to a just, but
obvious inference, in away that looks to a slower and safer reasoner
like divination,--but then she knew that yesterday evening both parties
were alive. Coupling this with Griffith's broad hint that after the
funeral might be too late to make his will, she felt sure that it was
this very day the combatants were to meet. Yes, and this very morning:
for she knew that gentlemen always fought in the morning.
If her dream was false as to the past, it might be true as to what was
at hand. Was it not a supernatural warning, sent to her in mercy? The
history of her Church abounded in such dreams and visions; and, indeed,
the time and place she lived in were rife with stories of the
kind,--one, in particular, of recent date.
This thought took hold of her, and grew on her, till it overpowered even
the diffidence of her sex; and then up started her individual character;
and now nothing could hold her. For, languid and dreamy in the common
things of life, this Catharine Peyton was one of those who rise into
rare ardor and activity in such great crises as seem to benumb the
habitually brisk, and they turn tame and passive.
She had seen at a glance that Houseman was too slow and apathetic for
such an emergency. She resolved to act herself. She washed her face and
neck and arms and hands in cold water, and was refreshed and
invigorated. She put on her riding-habit and her little gold spur,
(Griffith Gaunt had given it her,) and hurried into the stable-yard.
Old Joe and his boy had gone away to breakfast: he lived in the village.
This was unlucky: Catharine must wait his return and lose time, or else
saddle the horse herself. She chose the latter. The piebald was a good
horse, but a fidgetty one; so she saddled and bridled him at his stall.
She then led him out to the stone steps in the stable-yard, and tried to
mount him. But he sidled away; she had nobody to square him; and she
could get nothing to mount but his head. She coaxed him, she tickled him
on the other side with her whip. It was all in vain.
It was absurd, but heart-sickening. She stared at him with wonder that
he could be so cruel as to play the fool when every minute might be life
or death. She spoke to him, she implored him piteously, she patted him.
All was in vain.
As a last resource, she walked him back to the stable and gave him a
sieveful of oats, and set it down by the corn-bin for him, and took an
opportunity to mount the bin softly.
He ate the oats, but with retroverted eye watched her. She kept quiet
and affected _nonchalance_ till he became less cautious,--then suddenly
sprang on him, and taught him to set his wit against a woman's. My Lord
wheeled round directly, ere she could get her leg over the pommel, and
made for the stable-door. She lowered her head to his mane and just
scraped out without injury,--not an inch to spare. He set off at once,
but luckily for her she had often ridden a bare-backed horse. She sat
him for the first few yards by balance, then reined him in quietly, and
soon whipped her left foot into the stirrup and her right leg over the
pommel; and then the piebald nag had to pay for his pranks: the roads
were clogged with snow, but she fanned him along without mercy, and
never drew bridle till she pulled him up, drenched and steaming like a
washtub, at Netley Cross-Roads.
Here she halted irresolute. The road to the right led to Bolton, distant
two miles and a half. The road in front led to Neville's Court, distant
three miles. Which should she take? She had asked herself this a dozen
times upon the road, yet could never decide until she got to the place
and _must_. The question was, With which of them had she most influence?
She hardly knew. But Griffith Gaunt was her old sweetheart; it seemed
somewhat less strange and indelicate to go to him than to the new one.
So she turned her horse's head towards Bolton; but she no longer went
quite so fast as she had gone before she felt going to either in
particular. Such is the female mind.
She reached Bolton at half-past eleven, and, now she was there, put a
bold face on it, rode up to the door, and, leaning forward on her horse,
rang the hall-bell.
A footman came to the door.
With composed visage, though beating heart, she told him she desired to
speak for a moment to Mr. Griffith Gaunt. He asked her, would she be
pleased to alight; and it was clear by his manner no calamity had yet
fallen.
"No, no," said Kate; "let me speak to him here."
The servant went in to tell his master. Kate sat quiet, with her heart
still beating, but glowing now with joy. She was in time, then, thanks
to her good horse. She patted him, and made the prettiest excuses aloud
to him for riding him so hard through the snow.
The footman came back to say that Mr. Gaunt had gone out.
"Gone out? Whither? On horseback?"
The footman did not know, but would ask within.
While he was gone to inquire, Catharine lost patience, and rode into the
stable-yard, and asked a young lout, who was lounging there, whether his
master was gone out on horseback.
The lounging youth took the trouble to call out the groom, and asked
him.
The groom said, "No," and that Mr. Gaunt was somewhere about the
grounds, he thought.
But in the midst of this colloquy, one of the maids, curious to see the
lady, came out by the kitchen-door, and curtsied to Kate, and told her
Mr. Gaunt was gone out walking with two other gentlemen. In the midst of
her discourse, she recognized the visitor, and, having somehow imbibed
the notion that Miss Peyton was likely to be Mrs. Gaunt, and govern
Bolton Hall, decided to curry favor with her; so she called her "My
Lady," and was very communicative. She said one of the gentlemen was
strange to her; but the other was Doctor Islip, from Stanhope town. She
knew him well: he had taken off her own brother's leg in a jiffy.
"But, dear heart, Mistress," said she, "how pale you be! Do come in, and
have a morsel of meat and a horn of ale."
"Nay, my good girl," said Kate; "I could not eat; but bring me a mug of
new milk, if you will. I have not broken my fast this day."
The maid bustled in, and Catharine asked the groom if there were no
means of knowing where Mr. Gaunt was. The groom and the boy scratched
their heads, and looked puzzled. The lounging lout looked at their
perplexity, and grinned satirically.
This youth was Tom Leicester, born in wedlock, and therefore, in the
law's eye, son of old Simon Leicester; but gossips said his true father
was the late Captain Gaunt. Tom ran with the hounds for his own
sport,--went out shooting with gentlemen, and belabored the briers for
them at twopence per day and his dinner,--and abhorred all that sober
men call work.
By trade, a Beater; profession, a Scamp.
Two maids came out together now,--one with the milk and a roll, the
other with a letter. Catharine drank the milk, but could not eat. Then
says the other maid,--
"If so be you are Mistress Peyton, why, this letter is for you. Master
left it on his table in his bed-room."
Kate took the letter and opened it, all in a flutter. It ran thus:--
"SWEET MISTRESS,--When this reaches you, I shall be no more here to
trouble you with my jealousy. This Neville set it abroad that you had
changed horses with him, as much as to say you had plighted troth with
him. He is a liar, and I told him so to his teeth. We are to meet at
noon this day, and one must die. Methinks I shall be the one. But come
what may, I have taken care of thee; ask Jack Houseman else. But, O dear
Kate, think of all that hath passed between us, and do not wed this
Neville, or I could not rest in my grave. Sweetheart, many a letter have
I written thee, but none so sad as this. Let the grave hide my faults
from thy memory; think only that I loved thee well. I leave thee my
substance--would it were ten times more!--and the last thought of my
heart.
"So no more in this world
"From him that is thy true lover
"And humble servant till death,
"GRIFFITH GAUNT."
There seems to be room in the mind for only one violent emotion at one
instant of time. This touching letter did not just then draw a tear from
her, who now received it some hours sooner than the writer intended. Its
first effect was to paralyze her. She sat white and trembling, and her
great eyes filled with horror. Then she began to scream wildly for help.
The men and women came round her.
"Murder! murder!" she shrieked. "Tell me where to find him, ye wretches,
or may his blood be on your heads!"
The Scamp bounded from his lounging position, and stood before her
straight as an arrow.
"Follow me!" he shouted.
Her gray eyes and the Scamp's black ones flashed into one another
directly. He dashed out of the yard without another word.
And she spurred her horse, and clattered out after him.
He ran as fast as her horse could canter, and soon took her all round
the house; and while he ran, his black gypsy eyes were glancing in
every direction.
When they got to the lawn at the back of the house, he halted a moment,
and said quietly,--
"Here they be."
He pointed to some enormous footsteps in the snow, and bade her notice
that they commenced at a certain glass door belonging to the house, and
that they all pointed outwards. The lawn was covered with such marks,
but the Scamp followed those his intelligence had selected, and they
took him through a gate, and down a long walk, and into the park. Here
no other feet had trodden that morning except those Tom Leicester was
following.
"This is our game," said he. "See, there be six footsteps; and, now I
look, this here track is Squire Gaunt's. I know his foot in the snow
among a hundred. Bless your heart, I've often been out shooting with
Squire Gaunt, and lost him in the woods, and found him again by tracking
him on dead leaves, let alone snow. I say, wasn't they useless idiots?
Couldn't tell ye how to run into a man, and snow on the ground! Why, you
can track a hare to her form, and a rat to his hole,--let alone such big
game as this, with a hoof like a frying-pan,--in the snow."
"Oh, do not talk; let us make haste," panted Kate.
"Canter away!" replied the Scamp.
She cantered on, and he ran by her side.
"Shall I not tire you?" said she.
The _mauvais sujet_ laughed at her.
"Tire _me?_ Not over this ground. Why, I run with the hounds, and mostly
always in at the death; but that is not altogether speed: ye see I know
Pug's mind. What! don't you know _me_? I'm Tom Leicester. Why, I know
you: I say, you are a good-hearted one, you are."
"Oh, no! no!" sighed Kate.
"Nay, but you are," said Tom. "I saw you take Harrowden Brook that day,
when the rest turned tail; and that is what I call having a good heart.
Gently, Mistress, here,--this is full of rabbit-holes. I seen Sir
Ralph's sorrel mare break her leg in a moment in one of these. Shot her
dead that afternoon, a did, and then b'iled her for the hounds. She'd
often follow at their tails; next hunting-day she ran inside their
bellies. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Oh, don't laugh! I am in agony!"
"Why, what is up, Mistress?" asked the young savage, lowering his voice.
"'Murder,' says you; but that means _nought_. The lasses they cry
murder, if you do but kiss 'em."
"Oh, Tom Leicester, it _is_ murder! It's a duel, a fight to the death,
unless we are in time to prevent them."
"A jewel!" cried Master Leicester, his eyes glittering with delight. "I
never saw a jewel. Don't you hold him in for me, Mistress: gallop down
this slope as hard as you can pelt; it is grass under foot, and ye can't
lose the tracks, and I shall be sure to catch ye in the next field."
The young savage was now as anxious to be in at the death as Kate was to
save life. As he spoke, he gave her horse a whack on the quarter with
his stick, and away she went full gallop, and soon put a hundred yards
between her and Tom.
The next field was a deep fallow, and the hard furrows reduced her to a
trot; and before she got out of it Tom was by her side.
"Didn't I tell you?" said he. "I'd run you to Peyton Hall for a pot o'
beer."
"Oh, you good, brave, clever boy!" said Kate, "how fortunate I am to
have you! I think we shall be in time."
Tom was flattered.
"Why, you see, I am none of Daddy Leicester's breed," said he. "I'm a
gentleman's by-blow, if you know what that is."