CHAPTER X.

Roger and Lily left the cottage almost immediately on their

extraordinary journey. All that they had was the money which he had got

before he started, a considerable sum which happened to be in the house.

Elizabeth, on her side, gave Lily everything (it was not much) which was

in the cottage, and with a little bundle on her arm the girl went out

into the darkness with her new companion. Not even her husband! Lily was

dazed, and did not know what she was doing. She scarcely felt the hasty

embrace with which her mother put her from the door. In a curious

suppressed delirium of excitement and wonder she floated out into the

night without any independent action of hers--or at least this was how

she felt. Was it her life that she was beginning as she set out over the

turf and tremulous bog under that wistful clearness of the sky over

which heavy clouds were rolling? Everything was darkness before her

eyes, and fear in her heart. They were both young, they had done no

evil, they were strong and well and cared nothing for the long walk, and

the strange excitement of the moment was indescribable. They said

nothing to each other as they walked steadily over the hills, Dick going

with them to show them the way. They had nothing but their money, a

poor provision, and their youth, and some love for each other, which was

altogether in the background now. Had they been married in the natural

way, this passion, now but secondary on Roger's part, on hers vague as

could be, would have been the chief thing present to their thoughts. As

it was they thought nothing of it. Other subjects than this were

foremost in their minds. They said nothing to each other, did not even

take each other's hands, but with excitement so wild and strange that

everything else was dissolved in it, went away together, fugitives,

victims--yet also something more.

Dick put them on their way across the hill by a wild mountain path

difficult to find for any one who did not know as he did every nook and

crevice of the hills. Lily, too, had some knowledge of them, and of the

tricks of the atmosphere and elements in these lofty regions. Her

brother left them only when the early dawn was breaking over the

mountains, and they could see how they were going. There were few words

at the leave-taking. Lily let fall a few tears at the renewed farewell,

and they parted and went upon their several ways without looking back.

She was started now, pushed off dangerously, risking everything, into

the surf of the sea of life.

And it is more than words can do to tell the state of mind in which

Elizabeth Murray lived for days after; her daughter gone--perhaps for

ever--perhaps, for who could trust any man? to sorrow and shame; her son

lying, rolling his head from side to side, sometimes violent, and

requiring restraint which it was so difficult to know how to use;

sometimes lying like a log, in a stupor which nothing could break. She

lived on, nevertheless, saying little even to her companion Dick, and

went down to the market on Saturday as usual with a brave front, and

sold her butter and bore her burden. She stood in the market as she

always stood, and asked everything about the murder, and made her

criticisms and observations. "It would be some tramp," she said, looking

them all in the face. For the young squire, even if it had been in him

to strike a sudden blow and kill his adversary, he could never have

beaten and crushed him savagely as had been done. She said all this

without a change of countenance, for she was a brave woman, and felt

that she must not save herself a single detail. She went to Miss

Prentice even, and there talked it over again, though the chief end of

her visit was to say that she had sent Lily to a cousin's far south, and

did not fear but what the change would put her all right. Everybody

accepted her explanations with straightforward simplicity as they seemed

to be given, for nothing had directed suspicion to her; and nobody

supposed it possible that she could have anything to do with it. The

old vicar, indeed, looking very old and very anxious, hovered about

Elizabeth's place, wistfully looking at her, talking to her, trying to

lead her to the subject of her son. But she had never been much disposed

to talk commonly of Abel, at least for many years, and fortunately she

remembered this, and would not be drawn into conversation about him now.

The old vicar was very unhappy. He had repented his disclosure when he

saw the unhappy young man rush out disgraced and stung to the heart, and

though it never occurred to him nor to any one to connect Murray's

disappearance, for which there was such good reason, with the horrible

event which had occurred next morning, yet the idea that the unfortunate

young fellow had felt the exposure so deeply, gave the old man a

grievous pang. Even in the midst of the excitement caused by the murder,

he had gone daily to Landale to inquire if any news of their visitor had

reached them. What could have happened to him? It might be suicide, for

anything they could tell, and in that case, Mr Weston felt he too would

be a murderer. "But his mother knows nothing about it," he said to

himself, with a sigh of relief. Was it possible that anything of that

dreadful kind could have happened and the mother not know?

Meanwhile the Landales had mourned very sincerely over the disappearance

of their guest. They packed up the things he had left, his money, his

little personal possessions, in a portmanteau, mournfully, as if they

had been relics of the dead. He had not been heard of at Oxford. Was it

from the depths of the lake that they would have the first news of him?

Mrs Landale would not see the vicar when he came. "He has killed him,"

she said, "as sure as ever poor Roger Ridley killed Richard

Featherstonhaugh." And as the months went on and there was nowhere any

news of Abel this came to be the general conclusion. What a tragic

summer it had been! Old Mr Weston failed visibly Sunday by Sunday after

all these events, and died of it also before the winter came.

As to the other tragedy, there were investigations without number. Roger

was traced to the place where it was proved he was to have met

Featherstonhaugh, and where it was supposed some sequel to the quarrel

of the previous night, of which there had been various witnesses, had

taken place. He was traced away from the fatal spot, having been met

wildly wandering about the hills, haggard and agitated, asking the

people he met if they had seen some one running that way. But no one had

been seen running that way, and the hypothesis was that this was the

explanation he had intended to give had not his courage failed him. But

even if this defence had been true, he must have at least seen that a

murder had been done: yet gave no alarm. And last of all, and most

damning proof of guilt, he had fled. This convicted him with every one.

His father, with a groan that rent every heart, after denying the

possibility of Roger's flight as long as he could, retired to his

library when there was no longer any doubt of it, and shut the door, and

was seen by no one, even in his own house, for days. But there was Mary

left, whose situation was more pitiful still. No one dared to intrude

upon her in her first hours of grief. But she did not attempt to shut

herself up. She put on her mourning-dress, as heavy as a widow's, as was

due to poor Featherstonhaugh, but never forsook her brother's cause,

protesting passionately that he had not done it. The vicar, who would

have been a witness on the trial, and who was, indeed, called before the

coroner's jury to tell of the quarrel which he had seen, did what he

could to bring her, as people said, to see the truth. But Mr Weston

could not shake her conviction. "You will all acknowledge it one day,"

she said, in her passion. "I do not know how, or when, but I am sure he

will be cleared." The populace round shook their heads, but were very

respectful to Mary, very tender of her in her great misfortune. And

another line of Featherstonhaughs, distant cousins, came in, and

dispersed Sir Richard's collections, and changed everything he had cared

for. Thus one great house was entirely altered, and another made

desolate, and the whole face of society changed in Waterdale. And after

this great convulsion there was a long silence, and the new things grew

natural and became old, as is the law of human affairs.

When years had passed, however, there arose one morning a strange rumour

in Waterdale. Some time before it had crept into the knowledge of the

country that some madman had escaped from an asylum, no one knew where,

and was at large about the neighbourhood. People in lonely places had

seen a wild figure passing by, and some had heard strange sounds, peals

of horrible laughter, and inarticulate cries. On one occasion Mary

Ridley even heard this sound of laughter, and had alarmed the

neighbourhood, and sent out all the men in the village to beat the

woods, declaring that she knew the sound, and who it was. And next

morning a strange story ran like fire over the whole district. It was

that a man had been found lying dead in that same tragic spot, which had

become memorable far and near, where Sir Richard Featherstonhaugh got

his death. The news of this came on a Saturday morning, when Elizabeth

Murray was in her place in the market with all her merchandise,

carefully arranged as always. She had been looking ill, everybody

remarked. When the story came down from the head of the water by one

envoy after another, Elizabeth left her stand unprotected and uncared

for, and went away. She had lost all her fine colour, and had grown

old--older than her years--but nevertheless, she marched steadily up the

lakeside till she came to the place where they had carried the vagrant

who was dead. Such an event had made a great commotion about, and there

was much discussion among the men who clustered round the empty cottage

in which the body had been placed. It filled them all with wonder to see

Elizabeth come, slowly and silent, but with a death-like countenance,

through the midst of them. She went into the room where the dead man

lay. Those who had seen him had said that he was "a fine figure of a

man," though wasted and savage with exposure, his hands and feet torn

with the rough places he had been wandering through, and a long wild

beard grown over half his face. She went into the room, shutting out the

curious gossips about who came to peep and shrink with curiosity and

horror. When she came out she locked the door. "The man who is lying

there," she said, giving the key into the hands of the village

constable, the same man who had (against his duty--but that was easily

condoned in such a place) warned Roger Ridley to flee, "is my lad Abel,

my eldest son, that has lost his reason for many a year. The Lord has

delivered him at last; but he's not to be made a common show, my lad.

I'll come and see to him, and that all's done for him that should be

done."

"Your lad?" The wondering little crowd came closer and stared at her,

whispering and pointing. "Lord bless us! Lizabeth Murray, your lad?"

"Ay. Is it such a merry sight, the face o' a woman that has lost her

firstborn, and that thanks the Lord? Go away to your bairns, you silly

women, and let me and him be."

"But, 'Lizabeth, there will be an inquest--there must be an inquest."

"That's true," she said. She was quite calm, and made no show of her

feelings, whatever they were. "But, John Johnston, you'll keep them off

that come from curiosity, to glower and girn at my lad," she said, with

a sudden burst of passion. Then subduing herself in a moment, "Good

morning to you all; I've much to do this day," she said.

Old Mr Landale was the nearest magistrate, and to him she went direct,

without pause or delay. She was a long time with him, and came out

exhausted and pale, but rejecting all the anxious offers of help he made

her. "We were all attached to him--all of us," the old gentleman said,

attending the peasant woman to the door with still more agitation than

Elizabeth showed; and after that Mr Landale convulsed his own household

with the strangest news--news that threw the whole valley into such

excitement as had never swept over it in the memory of man before.

Six months after, Roger Ridley came home with his wife and children--two

of them--one a boy, who was heir to all the family honours, such as they

were. But though Mr Ridley forgave and acknowledged his son's family

with something like joy, and relief that the honour of his name was

restored, there was not much cordiality, as long as he lived, between

the old squire and the young squire. The little heir pleased the old

man, and recommended the pretty young mother to him; but he never

forgave his son the wild generosity which plunged all his family into

such grievous trouble. If it was generosity or if it was cowardice, or a

false sense of honour, or mere panic in face of a horrible accusation

and the network of circumstantial evidence in which he was trapped, no

one could decide. But when Roger came home everybody condemned him. It

was said on all sides that he would have been acquitted if he had had

the strength of mind to stand his trial. "_I_ never believed it for a

moment," every one said; and all kinds of imputations of weakness and

cowardice were made against him. From these accusations it is not our

place to defend Roger. Who does not feel, looking back upon a great

emergency, that he ought to have done differently, and that another time

would find him in a very different mind? He had thought so himself a

hundred times, after that wonderful night of excitement when he and his

bride went over the hills, like Abraham, not knowing where they went. No

other lord or squire in all the north country had an experience to fall

back upon such as Roger Ridley had. He had lived the strangest life for

these years, and he had not approved of himself any more than his father

and his neighbours had approved; but to be faithful to the consequences

of a false step, even when you perceive it to be false, is something. He

came back a sadder if not a wiser man; no longer the gay hero of the

countryside, but very serious, taking almost a gloomy view of

everything. His old friends said that his wife did not understand

him--could not enter into his ways of thinking--and perhaps this was

true enough; but the fact was that he had gone beyond himself as much as

beyond Lily. And by-and-by he got into parliament as member for the

county, which was a great honour, and did his duty perhaps all the

better for having been transplanted for a time out of the higher places

and the sunshine into the darker shades of life.

As for Lily, she came home a beautiful woman, of so unusual a style of

beauty that she reigned henceforward undisputed over the water, no

pretty girl of the moment being able to stand before her matured

splendour. She had developed other qualities as well--a talent for dress

which no one had suspected, and for hospitality and society and lavish

expenditure, which took the world by surprise. She behaved quite as she

ought to her mother, everybody said, sending the children to see her,

and visiting her periodically with much attention. But when Elizabeth

died, a year or two after Mr Ridley's return, and Dick, left alone,

emigrated, shutting up the little cottage at Overbeck, it was said that

Lily showed every symptom of relief. They said she was glad to be

relieved from her family in these legitimate and natural ways, and it

was only then that she blossomed out into full splendour. If she was

perhaps always a little rustic in manner, that was thought to be piquant

when she became the leading lady of the county; and by the time her

children grew up nobody recollected any longer that once upon a time she

had been the village Lily, the daughter of a woman who sold butter in

the market. All that is over so long ago.

And Elizabeth Murray sleeps by the side of her son Abel, in the

churchyard, as quietly as if he had lived and died among the fells like

herself. The anguish and the struggles are only for a time. Peace is the

end of all, for all men. And what does it matter now in the silence,

that a little while ago there were madness and raving, and such pangs as

overpowered nature, in these two mouldering forms? Time and Death

tranquillise all.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF JOHN PERCIVAL.

CHAPTER I.

John Percival was a nephew of a banker in Edinburgh, destined from his

childhood to the service of the bank--which was considered by all the

family the greatest good luck that could have happened to a boy. His

uncle, who like the boy was John Percival, and who was his godfather--or

namefather, as we say in Scotland--as well as his uncle and his patron,

and was connected with him by every possible tie, was a childless man:

childless, too, in the most secure way,--not an old bachelor who might

marry at any moment, but a staid married man with a wife younger than

himself, yet not so young as to be dangerous. He was, though the old man

did not say so, nor do anything to raise expectations, universally

considered as his uncle's heir; and did so consider himself calmly,

without impatience or preoccupation with the subject, and very far from

wishing to shorten his uncle's life by a single day. He was thought the

most fortunate boy in the family; but I don't think he considered

himself as such, and especially when he set out on a wintry day at noon

in the stage-coach for Duntrum, a large provincial town in the south of

Scotland. It may be divined that it was not to-day or yesterday,

according to the popular phrase, when this journey took place: for

nowadays one whisks off from Edinburgh to Duntrum in the morning, and

whisks back again at night, having several hours in which to do one's

business between, and no fatigue to speak of. It was very different in

those days, when from noon to nearly midnight the coach joggled over

the frost-bound country; and even in his corner in the interior, where

John was forced to place himself by the anxieties of his elders, who

kept up a pleasing fiction that he was delicate--it was very difficult

even under a pile of plaids and topcoats to keep warm. He was going to

serve for a year in the bank at Duntrum to give him a knowledge of

country business and the ways of rustic depositors and clients,--a

knowledge which John felt to be very unnecessary, seeing that his life

was to be spent, not in Duntrum, but in Edinburgh, and at the least in

the manager's office, not at the counter selling money as if it were tea

or sugar. He did not like this change of scene at all, perhaps because

the season was at its height in Edinburgh, and all the entertainments of

the year hurrying upon each other; but chiefly because it was the sordid

side of business, the lower part of the profession, as this foolish

young man thought, which he was being sent to study. He did not

appreciate the advantage of knowing everything connected with his trade,

which the elders know so much better than the young people. Indeed, to

tell the truth, he was not sure at all that he was fond of banking, or

thought it every way so superior an employment as many people thought.

His own opinion was that if he were left at peace to live upon his own

little bit of money, and pursue his own tastes, he would be a much

happier man. He had a notion, indeed, that he might possibly turn out a

great painter or a great writer if he were thus left to himself to

cultivate the best that was in him. It was a pity that he felt the

possibilities were equal in respect to these two pursuits. It might be

either which would bring him fame and fortune, but certainly one of

them. If he had been sure that it was either this or that, there would

have been more hope for John: but he was not sure,--he thought at one

time he could have been a painter, had he time and encouragement to try,

and then again another time that he could be a novelist or a poet.

Perhaps on the whole it was just as well for him, that, with such

excellent prospects, and the certainty of coming to a good end, if he

behaved himself, he should have been what he was--a banker's clerk.

But whatever it might end in eventually, it was very hard lines, he

thought, that he should have to leave Edinburgh in the middle of the

season when everything was in full swing. There was not much in those

days, at least not the tenth part so much as now, of football and golf.

These games were played, but they were not the essence of life. Strange

to say, young men found other things to talk about, other things to

occupy them which were not all deleterious. For one thing, they took a

great deal more interest in dances and all sorts of assemblies, in which

the boys met with the girls of their own class, than the ordinary run of

"manly young fellows" do now. I suspect they fell in love much more

freely than they do now. They wanted to meet, to talk to, to laugh with

these girls, as they like now to make themselves comfortable in a

smoking-room, or rave about breaking a record on the links. I do not say

which is best, not knowing; but at least one must confess that it is

quite different. It is possible that John had even more than one

incipient flirtation on his hands. He did not at all like to leave, for

a hum-drum provincial town near the Border, with all its local questions

and prejudices which he would not understand, the cheerful bustle of

Edinburgh, the gay assemblies and all the private entertainments that

abounded at this cheerful time of the year.

"Good-bye, my boy: we'll see you back whenever there's anything great

going on," said one of the friends who were seeing him off. There was a

little group of them round the coach door, bright-faced young men who

had made a dart from the offices of several Writers to the Signet, or

even from the Parliament House--to see the last of Percival, as they

said.

"Perhaps," said John, with satirical bitterness, "if well-founded

information reaches the bank that the world is coming to an end."

"In that case you may stay where you are," said the other; "we'll have

enough to do thinking of ourselves. Hallo!" said this young man, feeling

himself vigorously pushed aside from the coach door. This was the

arrival of another passenger, by whom the group of young men were pushed

aside to right and left by that free use of elbows and personal momentum

which an energetic woman of the lower orders uses with so little

scruple. This was a strong and vigorous maid-servant of middle age and

weighty person, leading a veiled and muffled personage who followed her

closely, and who bore the aspect of an old lady afflicted with toothache

or "tic," or one of those affections of the face which were then treated

freely with enveloping wraps to keep out the cold, and external

applications, and a total indifference to personal appearance. Indeed in

this case, as the face was entirely invisible, a thick veil of Spanish

lace, in a large pattern of heavy and close design, covering the small

amount which was not entirely obliterated by plaster and poultice

applied to the right cheek, there was not perhaps any inducement even to

undying vanity to attempt modification or concealment. The identity of

the veiled person it was quite impossible to divine--her wrapped-up

head was like a melon, a "sport" with one great bulge on the right

side: a faint glimmer of an eye between the crevices of the lace

pattern, a little colour, was all that was apparent; feature and form

and expression were all lost in the portentous envelopments. She clung

close to her protector with old and tremulous steps, and occasionally a

faint waggle of the misshapen and enormous head.

"Can ye no' see it's an auld leddy with the rheumatics in her head--and

jist you get out of the way, my fine callants, that kenna what trouble

is. Gang round to the other side of the coach if you have any more

blethers to say. Steady, mem, steady! take your time, this is the town

corner, the furdest frae the winds: and I'll pull up the window-glass,

and ye'll not feel a breath. You'll jist be as safe as gin ye were in

your auld chair with the wings at hame."

During this speech, to which the young men listened awestruck, the old

lady was carefully and with much precaution hoisted into the coach, a

process which seemed more difficult than her short stature and

apparently insignificant figure seemed to justify, the stout

woman-servant growing redder and redder under the strain, although

assisted by a porter who pushed from behind. When the process was

accomplished the boys burst into a genial but suppressed laugh, with

significant looks at John, who for his part could not but regard with a

certain fascination the mass of nodding headgear which was to be his

companion in the long drive. He could not take his gaze from her. The

cold journey to Duntrum, leaving dinners and assemblies behind, was

reason enough for despondency: but to travel with Medusa herself in a

mail-coach! if by any chance the wrappings might come off, and her

unfortunate fellow-passenger be turned to stone.

"I give you joy, Jack," whispered one of the attendant youths; "here's a

bonny bride to bear you company."

"I'll tell May Laurie you were in capital fettle; a fair lady by your

side and plenty of time to make your court."

"Nothing of the sort, Jack, my lad; I'll let her know you were preserved

from every temptation," cried another--all this in not quite inaudible

whispers, at the other door.

John was glad when the coach finally started, leaving all these laughing

faces behind; for he had a tender heart, and was remorseful at the

thought of perhaps wounding an old and suffering person for whom he had

on the contrary the greatest compassion. True, it was dreadful to see

that misshapen head nodding from the opposite corner, and to know that

whatever happened he must be its companion for so many hours. A horrible

doubt seized him whether it would be possible for her to go so far

without occasion to change her poultice or undo her cerements. He

thought of the 'Veiled Prophet,' then just published, and wondered

whether he might not have some ghastly revelation to undergo like that

of the horrified hero. He thought in spite of himself of ill-smelling

ointments and other sickening appliances. Poor creature! it might be a

question with her of ease from distracting pain, or she might go on

suffering, unwilling to expose her inflamed cheek, or run the risk of

disgusting her companion. Poor old body! John tried to turn his back on

her, to keep his eyes diverted on the view from the opposite window: but

there was a fascination in the unknown which drew him back. He stole

glances at her against his will, as if she had been a young beauty. He

would have given much to see what was underneath the thick silken

flowers of the veil, even though he was sure it would be chiefly

poultices bound up with white-and-black handkerchiefs. These modes of

wrappings were visible sometimes on Edinburgh streets as they are on

those of Paris to-day. It would not be a pleasant sight: still it would

be better than the mystery in the corner which sat there, like an image

of stone, never showing any sign of life but by the occasional nodding

of the distorted head. Was it palsy too, poor soul? had she all the ills

that flesh is heir to? John was very sympathetic. The sight of that

wrapped-up mass of suffering in the corner affected him very much. He

would fain have done something to show his pity. He began to calculate

how he should manage to help her out when the coach came to its first

stopping-place to change horses and to afford the passengers an

opportunity for "a snack." Probably she would not be able to take a

snack or exert her suffering jaws. He thought perhaps he might got her

some broth, which would give her no trouble except the trouble of

undoing her veil. Broth was always to be had in a Scotch village about

dinner-time. It would warm and comfort her, and perhaps even she could

take it without undoing anything. He had a horrible desire to see the

coverings undone, and yet he had so kind a heart that he would have been

glad to think she could take a little broth without any trouble in that

way, poor old soul!

However, he did his best to read his book for an hour or two, turning

his mind from the lady in the corner. He would be out of temptation

those fellows said. Well, yes, he was out of temptation in one way: but

if his fellow-traveller had only been a moderately well-looking woman,

even though young and responsive, he did not know that he would have

been so much in temptation as with this mystery in the opposite corner,

though he felt sure it was a repulsive mystery, and probably would have

a sickening, and not an enticing, effect upon him. But he said to

himself he would just like to know what it was. Poor thing! perhaps it

was a dreadful embarrassment to her to find a man opposite to her, to be

hampered in any effort to relieve herself which she might have made if

alone. He could see that she pressed herself more and more into the

corner, and leaned the weight of her poor head on the cushions. By

degrees it occurred to him that he might make her more comfortable if

she would allow him to make a roll of one of his plaids and put it at

the place where no doubt her neck came, so that she could support her

head more comfortably. He pondered over this a long time, and

experimented on himself how he could do it, before, with much timidity

and as fine a blush as if he had been aiding a beautiful princess, he at

last ventured to speak.

"The cushions," he said, "are not very soft in these coaches."

The melon with the bulging side turned round to him with a swiftness he

could not have thought possible, but nothing was said.

"I've been thinking," said John, "I've seen it done in--in my own

family. You see, you roll up a thing like a small bolster, and then you

place it just where your neck comes----"

He exemplified what he meant by rolling up a large comforter knitted in

dazzling white wool, quite new and of his Aunt John's choicest

manufacture, made expressly for this journey. It was large and soft, and

John rolled it close till it became as round and smooth as a bolster,

according to his homely simile.

"If you will let me," he said, rising, "I think I could place this----"

There was an agitated movement inside the draperies, and a voice that

made John jump, between a squeak and a scream, came as it seemed out of

the top of the misshapen head, "No! no! I cannot be touched. No! no!"

It made John jump; but after all, what was a voice any more than the

other appearances, to daunt him when he had so honest an intention of

doing well? He came a step nearer. "I am sure you will find it more----"

"No; keep away! No; keep away!" the voice repeated with shrill decision,

not at all softened but made still more bewildering by a sudden tremor

at the end. He paused for a moment with his white roll in his hand, and

he distinctly saw the veiled figure shake with a strange sort of broken

vibration, as if in one access after another of palsy, was it? or, if

not, what else? He did not know what else it could be. He stood for a

moment wavering, and then he retired and threw down the comforter

impatiently upon the seat. "Well," he said, with a sigh also of

impatience, "if you won't have it I cannot help it: still I am sure I

could have made you more comfortable," he added, recovering his

good-humour. And he resumed his book: but his attention was sadly

distracted, for that spasmodic movement went on at intervals; and there

even broke forth certain stifled sounds--was it moaning, was it the

signal of some approaching calamity? He gazed earnestly over the top of

his book, with a most compassionate face, and held himself on the alert

to give any aid he could. But after a while his apprehensions were

quieted: there seemed no reason to suppose that anything was going to

happen, and these mysterious movements died away.

The lady, however, refused the broth which he procured for her when they

stopped, at the risk of having no time for his own "snack." She rejected

it with the same sharp squeaking voice as before, and with something of

the same strangely convulsive movements,--darting away from her corner,

when he suddenly opened the door at her side, with a swiftness which it

was impossible to suppose such a wrapped-up mummy could be capable of,

and an evident fright which piqued him a little. "No; keep away!" she

squeaked again. What a cankered, sour, shrill, old woman! What did she

suppose he wanted with her? It was not for her _beaux yeux_ certainly.

But he had heard that some women always, however old and ugly they may

be, imagine a man wants to make love to them. He laughed at this to

himself as he went off to get his "snack," and as ten minutes with a

powerful young appetite can do a great deal, succeeded fully in

indemnifying himself. For the moment he was vexed with this second

repulse; but no such feeling had long the mastery in John's honest

bosom. There were some fine golden oranges on the table, and he put two

or three into his pocket before he went back to the coach. Perhaps she

might like one in the dark hours that were coming before they reached

Duntrum, when there would be no light to see by, whatever faces she

might make, if she put aside the veil. He put two of them gently on the

seat beside her when he returned to the coach: but the mummy only gave a

grotesque fling farther back into her corner, and took no notice. Yet

once again John made an attempt to be of service to her. It was when the

guard, as they passed through the small town of Dunscore, as the evening

fell, opened the door hurriedly and flung in a bundle of post-bags, two

or three attached to each other with a strap, their metal padlocks

shining in the glow of his lantern. "Last stage afore Duntrum," said

the guard. It was his habit to place the mails there at this point of

his journey, in order to give them up to the Duntrum authorities without

delay.

"That is scarcely very safe," said John, ingratiatingly to his silent

companion; "suppose you or I were less honest than we seem." He laughed,

but his laugh died out of itself in that shamefaced way in which a laugh

quenches itself when made at our own joke, and falling flat without

response. But presently, after a while, he suggested, which was very

true, that it was getting cold, and asked if she had enough wraps, or

would accept one of his. This seemed to overcome altogether the patience

of the veiled lady in the corner. She told him sharply to mind his own

business. "There's nothing wanted from you," she said. The voice was

odd, the shrill one alternating with a softer note as if two people were

speaking. It had almost become a point of honour with John to overcome

this persistent defiance. He approached with one of his plaids

outspread, and laid it gently about her knees. The answer was a

vivacious movement kicking it away.

"Will you not take a telling?" cried the shrill voice. "Away! and

snoozle yourself in your corner, and let me be quit of you!" The voice

was so fierce that John fell back in spite of himself, and, somewhat

mortified, took the unfriendly advice. He did withdraw into his corner,

wrapping himself round and round in his many wraps, until he was almost

as much muffled up as his companion. And the night was cold, and there

was only a very feeble lamp in the coach. He ended by "snoozling" as the

old lady advised, with his head buried in the high collar of his coat;

and as the windows were closed against the penetrating chill of the

night, and the atmosphere heavy, he fell fast asleep.

He woke with a start some time after, with the sensation of a gust of

wind blowing upon him from the coach door. Half bewildered as he came to

himself, he saw that the door was open, and caught, with astonished

eyes, a momentary glimpse of the face of a young woman, a sudden

apparition against the blackness of the night; and then the door was

closed sharply and with a clang. The coach was at the foot of a steep

ascent beginning to ascend slowly. John sat up suddenly, awake but still

bewildered, and rubbing his eyes. The opposite corner was vacant. His

plaid lay on the floor where the old lady had tossed it, but she herself

had disappeared. He jumped up still confused, and unable to believe his

eyes, and groped in the corner. But there was no one there: then he put

his head out of the window, and shouted loudly into the night.

CHAPTER II.

The coach was crawling softly up the hill. In daylight half of the

passengers would have walked up the ascent which was within a short

distance of Duntrum, but they were all benumbed with the cold and the

darkness, which was so intense that John, when he looked out, could see

nothing but the white speck of the lamp travelling along a black line

which might be a hedge or a wall, and was only visible as the light

passed over it. It was like putting out his head into some awful abyss

of nothing, his eyes hurting him in this black gloom which abolished

them and their use. The big vehicle groaning under its burden crept on,

labouring like some huge animal, jingling, creaking, reluctant, going on

through the cold and the dark.

John shouted "Stop! stop!" with a stentorian voice. "A lady has fallen

out of the coach! A passenger has fallen out of the coach!" he shouted,

repeating it again and again; then opening the door, got out himself,

dropping upon the invisible road. But it was not till some minutes later

that the coach could be brought to a standstill, and he could get

possession of one of the lamps, tearing it out of its place.

"She must be lying in the road," he said; "she was an old woman unable

to walk." He held the lamp to the ground, as if at any moment he might

tread her under foot. By this time other dark figures were detaching

themselves from amidst their heaped-up wraps from the top of the coach

and jumping down, stamping their feet upon the iron and ice of the

frozen ruts.

"What is it? Who is it? An old body? Bless us all, an old body. She will

just get her death!" There was a chorus of voices and of warm breath

going up on the still air. The guard and John, each with a lamp, walked

down to the bottom of the hill, accompanied vaguely by several scarcely

decipherable attendants.

"I fell asleep," he said, explaining himself to the night, scarcely

conscious of any auditor, "and then she was sitting there close up in

the corner, as she had been since we left Edinburgh, and would never

speak: but when I woke up, the door was wide open, swinging, and there

was nobody----" He added, after a moment, as if he had suddenly

discovered that face: "Some woman passing on the road shut to the door

with a bang--and that woke me." It seemed to him as he related this

that he was telling an incident in a dream; and yet he was sure it was

quite true.

"A woman on the road--did you see a woman on the road? there's few

foot-passengers here at this hour of the night," said the guard.

"I saw her as clear as I see you." He held up his lamp instinctively to

the face of the other, which was bent like his own on the ground.

"One of you," cried the guard, "hurry up the hill and stop her if she's

gone that way. She canna have gone far on this steep road. Stop her and

see what she knows."

But no wayfarer was found on the ascending road, nor could all the light

of the lamps find any trace of any one who had fallen. The inhabitants

of the first wayside cottage at the foot of the hill were imperiously

knocked up by the guard and put upon the trace.

"We canna stop the coach whatever happens," he cried, "but we'll send

out a search party from Duntrum immediate. How long were you sleepin'?"

he added peremptorily to John, who looked at his watch in the light of

the lamp and answered--

"Perhaps an hour."

"An hour is a long time," said the guard, knitting his brows. "As far

back as the brig we would be then, and at a smart pace, for the horses,

poor things, scented their stables. Take your lantern, lad, if you have

one, and go as far as that.--Ou ay, ye'll be paid, you needna be feared

for that. Will ye come, sir, or bide? I daurna stop the coach."

John looked into the blankness of darkness before him and shivered, but

it was not this only that moved him. He felt certain that the

catastrophe, whatever it was, must have happened within a much shorter

time than an hour,--that it had just occurred, indeed, when he woke, and

when the sudden blast of the cold wind roused him with its searching

chill. He felt convinced that he and his companions had already come to

the farthest limits in which the accident, if it was an accident, could

have occurred. His head was confused with the effort to find an

explanation. What was it? After searching so far, he became convinced

that the clue was not to be found on the road. Where, then, was it to be

found? He made no answer either to this question in his own mind or to

the guard, but turned back, leaving the others with the sleepy and

startled cottagers, father and son, who had been roused from their beds,

for it was already late, and were reluctantly accepting the directions

of the guard, whose red coat made a spot like a fire in the darkness,

lighted up by the lantern which he had attached to his belt. John

turned back and began to reclimb the hill, throwing the flash of his

lamp on every roughness of the road, and making his way back to where

the coach smoked into the night, the breath of the passengers and the

emanations from the horses forming a mist of life which rose dim yet

consolatory across the light of the lamp in the midst of that chill of

winter and darkness. As he came up to it his foot caught upon something

almost under the hindmost wheel, and he gave a loud cry, which brought

every one on foot around him. He set down his lamp on the frozen ground,

and they all clustered over it in a circle. It was the heavy bundle of

the mail-bags strapped together, one end of the leather strap still

entangled with the step of the coach. The guard pulled them up with an

exclamation.

"Dod! she's trailed the mails with her," and then he too uttered a cry,

which was fierce with instant terror and dismay. "But where's the bag

from Dunscore?"

The two lamps were immediately fixed upon this new problem, and their

light shone upon a circle of faces, the guard's blanched with sudden

alarm, all turned towards that dark mass gleaming with its metal clasps.

"It's come loose," said one voice; "it'll be on the road."

"Bah! a wheen letters," said another; "you'll no' stop us in the cold

for that."

"It's just a simple accident," said the third. But the guard held up to

the light the ends of a strap cut through, clean and clear, evidently by

some very sharp instrument.

"It's been nae woman, it's been some robber in disguise,--it's been a

got-up thing," he cried, throwing a glance of suspicion at John, who

stood aghast, holding the lamp unconsciously quite close to the bundle

of the mail-bags, and gazing at them as if there was something there

that could elucidate the mystery. He began to put one thing to another

confusedly in his mind.

"A got-up thing! Could it be a got-up thing? It was a woman certainly,"

he said to himself, but aloud,--"a woman certainly, and a small woman."

"Maybe a laddie in a woman's dress," said an officious bystander.

"Were there mony letters in't?" said another, with unseasonable

curiosity.

"And what," said another, authoritatively, "had the mail-bags to do in

the inside of the coach?"

This question made a silence in the group, which the guard broke

suddenly and loudly.

"Get back to your seats," he said; "and Jamie, push them to their

stiffest, those beasts of yours: this has to be seen into. It's robbery

on the Queen's highway," he said, with a vague threat which cowed them

all.

John got to the lodging which had been prepared for him, with a much

perplexed and disturbed brain. It annoyed him beyond reason to think he

had perhaps taken a mischievous boy for a lady, and wasted his polite

attentions upon a young thief; yet perhaps, because he did not wish to

believe this, this became an idea quite impossible to him after a little

thought. He could not quite tell how he came to the conclusion, but he

felt perfectly confident that a woman it was, perhaps not an invalid, as

appeared--nay, certainly not an invalid: he remembered now the swift

movement of surprise she had made when he suddenly opened the door on

her side with the soup he had taken such trouble to get for her. She had

flung herself aside from the door, but it was a woman's movement, not

that of a boy. And then the woman's face at the opened door, looking in

one moment from outside, closing it with such a hasty bang. No doubt of

that being a woman's face, a young face, a pretty face, in a glow of

colour as he remembered it. Could that be the wrapped-up old rheumatic

person with the poultice on her cheek? His heart gave a jump partly of

self-derision, the dolt he had been! not to discover a bonnie lass even

underneath the mountain of veils and wraps. He could have sworn that not

the cleverest should have so taken him in. But why, after all, should

that be _her_? Most likely it was somebody passing, a country maid on

the road, good-natured, giving a push to the open door as she passed.

Would a fugitive have shut it with a clang like that? Not likely!

John was very ready for his supper and for his bed afterwards, being

young and healthy: but his sleep was very broken, and that woman's face

kept looking in upon him, from between the curtains and behind the door,

at every turn and toss. He began to see it, better than he had done in

the real moment of seeing it,--a pretty face, rather redder than was

consistent with his idea of beauty, with a curious flash in the eyes,

and anxious lines in the forehead. He saw it perfectly clear in those

visions of the night, the hair dark and ruffled, a hood half drawn over

the head, the lips apart. No doubt at all that it was a pretty face. And

he remembered she glanced at him with a sort of laugh about the corners

of her mouth, which changed to a look of fright as she saw him wake up.

He had not thought of it at first, but certainly that was her

expression, and the clang with which the door closed was probably due

to that surprise. Was this the old woman with the rheumatics in her

head? Could it be she who had squeaked and stormed at him, and ordered

him to "snoozle"? He kept going over and over it in his broken sleep,

seeing her more clearly every time he woke, reading more and more

meaning in the details of her face which came to him one by one. Were

the eyes blue or brown? Was the ruffled hair light or dark? He could not

make out those most essential details, yet he thought he should

recognise her wherever he saw her. The glimpse he had got of her in

reality seemed nothing to the light upon her which came from his dreams.

It was like seeing her again and again, and getting familiar with her

face. He thought that if he ever saw it again, it would haunt him all

his life. But he should see it again--of that he was determined. Then he

suddenly thought to himself with a gleam of surprised pleasure, what a

good thing it was, after all, that he had come to Duntrum! This seemed

all at once to him a good, a delightful, a most entertaining and

charming thing, but, I fear, he would have been quite at a loss, if he

had been asked for an explanation, to say why.

The incident, as was natural, made a great noise in the country, and

there was an examination held before the sheriff at which John was the

principal witness. He described the old body to the great amusement of

all present,--the lump on her cheek, and white edge of the plaster in

which it was tied up, just showing beyond the great black muffler in

which her face was enveloped, the Spanish veil, with large thick silken

flowers, between the interstices of which only the fact that there was a

face could be discovered, the shrill strange voice which he now felt to

be assumed. And, finally, the young face that had appeared at the

window.

"You were awoke by it--by what?" said the questioner; "by the sharp

closing of the door?"

"Yes," said John.

"Then, if the noise only woke you, how could you see the face of the

person who made it?"

"No, it was not the noise," said John; "it was the blast of the cold air

coming in: and then the face appeared in the open, against the night,

looking up a little, catching the light of the lamp. For a moment it

moved with the coach, then the door was shut."

"Moved with the coach?" said the interrogator. "Do you mean she was

walking by the side?"

"I begin to think," said John, slowly, "that she must have been on the

step: then dropped out of sight, and shut the door."

"Are you sure, Mr Percival," said the sheriff, "that the pretty face at

the door was not a dream? We all know that pretty faces are part of

young men's dreams: and you are not sure at which moment you awoke."

"I did not say," said John, "that it was a pretty face."

"Ah!" said the sheriff.

"Still it is true--it was so: and young: but it was not a dream. I saw

the lady quite clearly."

"It was a lady, then? You thought at first it might be a country lass

passing."

"I am not sure that it was a lady," said John, "but I certainly think

so--I----" He paused, then, with a slight start of astonishment, seemed

to stop an exclamation that was on his lips.

"What is the matter?" cried his questioner. "You are not so sure as you

were that you saw any young woman at all?"

"I am perfectly sure--on my oath, and with complete recollection of what

happened, that I saw," cried John, "exactly what I have said,--a young

woman with a great deal of expression in her face, and a hood on her

head, looking in at me for a moment through the open door." He did not

look at the sheriff as he spoke, but strained his eyes, interrogating

the faces before him between the table at which he stood and the door.

His heart had not quieted yet from that start, though his mind had. He

had thought he saw her again, the same face, and had been startled, and

then had said to himself how unlikely it was, and looking again had

found there was no such thing before him, among the score or two of

people who had assembled in the room. There were very few women at all:

it must have been a temporary illusion, for certainly now there was no

one visible who resembled that face at all. But his heart continued to

beat, though he succeeded in quieting his mind and reason as I have

described.

Many curious things happened in connection with this mystery. The

letters which had been posted in Dunscore on that night--as was proved

by the postmarks--almost without exception reached their destination

within a day or two, but with the Edinburgh postmark added to that of

Dunscore. There was an exception, and that was one letter addressed to

the Duntrum Bank, in which John by this time had taken his place, a

favoured supernumerary, with all the prestige of his Edinburgh

antecedents and connection, to learn the country work. It was curious

that the incident with which his name was already associated, and which

formed so remarkable a part of his scanty and young experience, should

thus be brought under his notice again. He heard nothing else spoken of

for the first month, at least, of his dwelling in Duntrum. The one lost

letter was from a small bank in the little town of Dunscore. It had

enclosed several bank bills to be collected and other papers of

commercial value, and was in fact, perhaps, the only important missive

in the stolen bag, judging from a commercial point of view. From the

discussions in the bank where he acquired the last information on the

subject, John learnt that various unfortunate persons had reason to

rejoice over the loss of this letter. Two or three poor men almost

bankrupt had their ruin staved off for a moment, and the dread period of

protested bills and mercantile dishonour deferred at least for a time:

and there were many whisperings and questions whether any of the persons

concerned could have been capable of so bold a stroke. But even the

inventive genius of a country town, always so bold in attributing guilt,

could not come to any agreement in respect to this. It could not even be

said that any one was suspected. The thing had been accomplished so

mysteriously in such a complete way, without leaving a trace, that the

local inquisition was completely baffled. John found with mingled

annoyance and relief that his own vision of the young woman at the coach

door was not relied upon. He had probably dreamt it, most people

thought. Like the sheriff, the community concluded that it was nothing

wonderful if a young man suddenly awakened should think he saw a girl's

face; probably he had been dreaming about some particular girl. And in

those days the hypothesis of a woman having done any deed of note was

rarely accepted and with difficulty. The natural _rôle_ of the woman in

those days was to keep quiet and behind backs. She was not suspected of

taking any leading part. The wrapped-up invalid in the country, whom the

guard and several other persons besides John had seen, must have been a

man in this disguise everybody was certain. It was not a thing that

could have been done by a woman. No, no; no woman could have had the

nerve to do it, the people in Duntrum said.

All these things John Percival turned over in his mind, and examined as

much as he had the opportunity of doing. He listened to all the gossip

about all the persons concerned, and especially of those who might be

supposed to be advantaged by the loss of the mail-bag, with very keen

interest, and formed within himself one hypothesis after another,

several of which perished in the framing, so difficult was it to make

the circumstances fit in. And in the meantime he himself became a

personage of great importance, and much sought after in the gentlest

society of Duntrum, which was understood to be very exclusive and

difficult of access. John was the representative of Percival's Bank, one

of the oldest establishments in Edinburgh, which was very much in his

favour. And he was, besides, gifted with a story to tell, which was

almost a greater recommendation. Over and over again during that winter

he was required to give his famous description of his companion in the

coach, of his own attempted attentions, the soup he procured in vain,

the wraps that were kicked away. There was one circumstance which he

never mentioned, but which touched his heart with the strangest thrill

of kindness, which was that his tribute of the oranges had disappeared

along with the old lady. It was as if she had not liked to hurt his

feelings by rejecting his benevolences altogether. This curious

experience inspired John with a slight inclination towards the dramatic

which he had not been conscious of before, and almost made him believe

before the season was over that perhaps if he had been left to follow

his own devices, he might have been a great actor as well as a great

artist or poet. At last, however, he got over his inclination to start

at every girl's face he met and examine it critically on the score of a

fancied likeness to the young woman of his vision. He said that most

girls were like each other, as his final conclusion. They had all fine

complexions in Duntrum.

Nevertheless, there was one evening at one of the many little dances

that were given in that cheerful place, when John's composure was very

much put to the test. He was taken to this entertainment by his own

chief comrade and crony, young Maxwell, the son of the resident partner

in the Duntrum Bank, who was in something of John's own position, more

highly favoured than the other clerks and naturally one of the _élite_.

"Come, and I'll show you the flower of Wittisdale, the rose of Duntrum,"

said this young man. "She has been away in Edinburgh the whole winter;

but mind you, none of your cantrips here. I warn you off before you see

her. I'll have no interlopers cutting me out. Turn the heads of all the

others, if you like, with your acting and your stories, but this one is

mine."

"They are all just as like each other as apples in a basket," said the

cynic John.

Nevertheless, when he went lightly into the brightly lighted room

following his friend, John in a moment felt his heart leap into his

throat: for there, standing a little behind the mistress of the house,

with a curious little air of consciousness which seemed to him to prove

that she was on her guard and ready for the startled look which he gave

her, full in her face as if it had been a blow--to his extreme confusion

and surprise there stood suddenly before him the woman of the coach

door, the woman of his dreams.

CHAPTER III.

When he reviewed afterwards, in quietness, the bewildering impressions

of that night, John said to himself that it was the attitude of Miss

Wamphrey which struck him before he had seen her face, and before he

knew who she was, and that she was the object of young Maxwell's

devotion. But probably this was only an idea developed afterwards, when

he had begun to think of her in the character of a mysterious creature

with a secret; for, indeed, to nobody else did she appear anything but a

pretty girl in her twenties, very nicely dressed, with a little air of

having descended from superior heights of fashion upon those circles of

Duntrum which felt themselves so exclusive. Marion had spent most of the

season in Edinburgh: she had even been in London: and various other

girls in the assembly had already noted several points in her attire as

things that were doubtless "to be worn," since she had just come from

these fountain-heads of fashion. But what John remarked, or thought he

remarked, was that she stood as one might to whom there might possibly

arise an occasion to fly, which was a quite absurd exaggeration of any

possibility, even if he were right in his surmises: also, which perhaps

was more likely in that hypothesis, that she looked as if she expected

something to happen, and glanced up behind the fan, of which she made

greater use than a rustic Scotch maiden was apt to do (which was one of

the things that struck the other girls as probably a new development of

fashion), or over the shoulder of the chaperon, whom she followed like

her shadow (which also was not a habit common among the young ladies of

Duntrum), with a certain keen look of alarm, of expectance in her eyes.

It happened that John saw her, after his eyes, as he thought, had been

attracted to her by this peculiarity of attitude and look at a moment

when she had dropped her fan to greet a friend, and before she perceived

himself in the little crowd.

"Hullo!" he said to himself in the sudden surprise of recognition, and

unaware he said it aloud.

"What's happened?" said Maxwell, by his side; "do you see anybody you

know? By the way," he added, "it is Marion Wamphrey; of course you must

have met her in Edinburgh. I wonder I never thought of that before."

"Which is Miss Wamphrey?" said John. He looked in the other direction

that he might not betray himself, and then looked again to see that the

girl had put up her fan, and that (as he thought) the something she was

expecting had happened. She had seen him. Her eyes had taken a roundness

which they had not before, the alarm of expectation had gone, and a sort

of panic had come in its place. He saw her (or thought he saw her)

obliterate herself behind the larger form of the lady with whom she was

for a moment--then look out again over her shoulder, as if standing on

tiptoe. Of course, she must have expected, John thought to himself, all

that was happening or was about to happen. She must have known she would

meet him. She must have been prepared to be recognised. She must be now

at the height of a great crisis of mind, wound up to face it out, hoping

that perhaps he might have been less quick of observation, less certain

of recollection than she was.

"That's her," said Maxwell, with a wave of his hand towards the group,

"playing keek-bo with somebody over Mrs Brydon's shoulder. Just like her

saucy ways! You'll find Marion no country cousin, I can tell you,

Percival. There's not one of your Edinburgh fine ladies more----Eh?

think you have seen her before? I'll be bound you have seen her before!

She's been spending the season, I tell you, in Edinburgh, and you that

have your _entrées_ everywhere----"

"Not so much as that," said John, with modesty; "and you must remember I

have had all the fun cut off this year----"

"Never mind, I am sure you must have met her. Come along, and compare

your experiences. I think I'm a man of great magnanimity not to hold you

off; but it's better to run the risk of trusting you," he added with a

laugh, "than to give you the attraction of the forbidden."

Somehow, however, their progress was slow through the little

crowd--quite a little crowd, John felt, to one accustomed to the

Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh. But somehow, everybody seemed to get in the

way between himself and this lady. Had there not been a whisper sent out

through the friendly ranks: "Oh, keep him off me! that man with his

story about the stage-coach. I cannot abide these funny men with their

stories." Young Duntrum, which had admired John quite long enough, was

delighted to hear that so popular a girl as Marion Wamphrey did not want

to hear the story which all the others had held their breath at. It was

a victory, after all, for Duntrum over the invader in their midst. And

accordingly they circled round him, and called attention to a hundred

insignificant things.

"Did you hear the meet was at the Four Elms to-morrow, Percival?" "Man,

do you know there's every prospect of a fine frost?" "Percival, my

sister has a word to say to you about the Philharmonic." "Percival, I'm

saying----" He had to stop again and again to respond to their appeals;

while, on the other hand, his companion Maxwell shuffled impatiently

about, waiting, and grumbled: "Come on, man, never mind,--be done with

your civilities. She will have given away every dance before we get near

her." Finally, John found himself standing face to face with this

strange heroine of his thoughts. He said to himself that, but for her

own looks, he might have been shaken in his conviction that it was she.

The face that he saw before him, with hair smooth as satin, and crowned

with flowers, as was then the fashion, in the midst of the ball was

difficult to associate with the ruffled aspect, the flush of excitement,

the strange light in the eyes of the woman at the coach door. But she

stood straight up to meet him, like one who is strongly set in her own

defence, as if she were standing at the bar: and there was in her eyes a

watchfulness, a preparedness, as of a man who keeps his arm ready to

return a blow. Perhaps all this was merely in John's eyes. Maxwell

seemed to see nothing unusual in the look or air of the girl whom he

admired. The gay group around fluttered and jested. Nobody within sight

or hearing had the slightest suspicion of anything in Marion Wamphrey

that was not always there. She did not hold out her hand to him,

welcoming the stranger as the other frank and kindly maidens would have

done; but that was because Miss Marion was always a little high and

mighty, and now and then put on airs, as one who had been out in the

world and knew the fashion.

"You mustn't think anything of that," Maxwell said afterwards; "it is

just her way. I like her to have a way of her own, not like all the

rest," said the young man in love. But John Percival was not satisfied

that it was her way. She seemed to look at him in the eyes as if trying

to cow him--as if on the faintest movement on his part she were ready to

strike. And this on his part excited him, and made him anxious to

strike.

"I think," he said, "that Miss Wamphrey and I have met before----"

"I told you so," said Maxwell,--"I told you both so. I was certain you

must have met before."

If this ass had not broken in with his assurances about a thing he

could know nothing whatever about, John felt sure she would have shown

more consciousness than she did. As it was, her colour, he was sure,

wavered a little; but she said, with a little burst of laughing

surprise: "Oh, how condescending of you to remember! I recollect well

seeing you, Mr Percival. But it was only seeing you, not meeting; for

you were at the grand end of the Assembly Rooms, among all the lady

patronesses, and I was only at the foot of the room, and knew nobody."

"There's one for you, Percival," said Maxwell, delightedly. Though John,

it was certain, had had a great _succès_ in Duntrum, they were all

coming to think that it might do him good to be a little taken down.

"That is very hard upon me, especially as it was so much to my loss,"

said John; and then he thought he would carry the war into the enemy's

country. "But I confess," he added, "I remember nothing about the

Assembly Rooms. I think we have met in other circumstances."

She gave him a broad look from her fully opened eyes, with a faint

elevation of the eyebrows.

"There I confess you have the advantage of me," she said steadily,

holding him with that look, "as I, it appears, had of you on the former

occasion." Then, with the faintest turn of her head, too dignified to be

called a toss, she withdrew this embarrassing look from him, with a wave

towards Maxwell of the card attached to her fan. "If you want any dances

from me," she said, "it will be better not to lose any time."

"You cruel Marion," cried the young man, "it is all filled up, every

line."

"You should not have been so late," she said, with a laugh; and they

stood for a moment with their heads together, in the easy intimacy of

having known each other all their lives. And then followed a little

ball-room battle, while John stood, somewhat grim, looking on.

"I that was going to ask how many you would give me!" from him, with

tender reproach; and "There will always be the extras, you know," from

her.

"And it's easy to mistake about an extra--if you'll be good," said

Maxwell, in a lively whisper; and they laughed together over the card,

which he was manipulating. John was determined he would hold his ground.

She was a very pretty girl, and she was in a state of suppressed

excitement (or at least he thought so), which made her doubly

interesting. And it was he who was the cause of her excitement. Whatever

is the reason, it pleases a man, at least of John's age, to feel that he

is the cause of a woman's emotion. He was not daunted by the

_persiflage_ but waited calmly till the end of the discussion; then he

said--

"Is there no hope, Miss Wamphrey, for me?"

"Oh, Mr Percival," she said, turning round with an air of having

forgotten him, which would have done no discredit to a great lady at a

court ball: and then she shook her head. "I am afraid no more than there

would have been for me at the Assembly Rooms if I had aspired to dance

with one of the stewards," she said, laughing; "but you can look for

yourself."

"Come, give him the last of the extras, Marion," said Maxwell, delighted

to exercise a little patronage.

"If you are not at home and fast asleep before that," said Marion,

raising her eyes quickly, with a dart, to John's face.

He felt it like a blow, but very carefully inscribed his name at the

very bottom of her list, and retired with a bow of much dignity--at

which, with secret wrath, he heard her laugh with Maxwell as he turned

away. It was to be war then? She meant to turn him into ridicule before

he could unmask her as the heroine of the strange adventure which

everybody knew. John was very moody all the evening, and did not half

fulfil the expectations of the merry country ladies, who thought it was

the business of their partners to be amusing as well as to dance well.

John fulfilled the latter requirement, but then they all danced well at

Duntrum. They did not know the waltz in those days. They danced pretty

figures of country-dances and reels, and other cheerful things. It had

never occurred to them that quadrilles were dull--they were the height

of the fashion, and the different figures respected as almost a

revelation. Nobody "sat out," and if perhaps the assembly was simple,

and some of the dances a little old-fashioned, it was very gay.

It need not be said that, in the state of mind in which he was, John

stayed till the last moment, and presented himself to Miss Wamphrey just

as she was following her chaperon to the door, holding together a dress

which had been slightly damaged in the rapidity of a last reel. There

was a glance of battle in his eyes as he came up to her, with a reminder

that this was his dance, which kindled an immediate response in hers.

"I cannot stay another moment, May," said the chaperon, crossly. Marion

shrugged her pretty shoulders, with a look which spoke volumes of

repugnance, and reluctance, and scorn, and made John furious.

"I cannot break my word to this gentleman, if he insists upon it," she

said.

"Seeing I have held on all these hours, _and not gone to sleep_," said

John, with something savage in his tone, "only for this."

There was a last dreary quadrille being formed, and she gave her hand

and allowed herself to be led to it, to fill up a side place. They stood

side by side in silence for a moment, and then Marion said--

"It is very noble on your part, Mr Percival, to hold out so long. I am

so sorry to have been the means of breaking your night's rest."

"It is not the first time, Miss Wamphrey," he said.

"Not the first time! This is too much of a compliment. We are not

accustomed in the country to have such pretty things said to us."

"There was nothing so far from my intention as saying a pretty thing,"

said John.

"This is more and more tremendous, Mr Percival! It was an ugly thing,

then, you meant to say?"

"What I meant," said John, "was to let you know that I have not

forgotten our meeting, which has cost me many a thought."

"Dear me," said Marion, "is this all because I said I knew nobody at

_that_ ball? Comfort yourself. I knew nobody grand like the lady

patronesses; but I had plenty of partners, and there is no need to be

remorseful, even if you have the most tender conscience, on account of

me."

"You know very well it is not that I am thinking of," said John, in a

low tone.

"Well, I should not have expected it to be. A young man like you, in the

best society, is not likely to trouble himself about a country girl he

doesn't know."

"At all events, the other occasion was a very different matter," he

said.

"What other occasion? One would think there was some great mystery

between us. If you will come down from these stilts, and tell me what

you mean----"

"That is just what I am most anxious to do--if I could for a moment

suppose you had forgotten it! It was rather a different thing from a

meeting at a ball."

"You had better wait a little," she said, sharply; "it is our turn for

this figure."

And then they danced. I forget now what these figures were called. It

was the one in which the lady on one side is led off by the gentleman on

the other side, who advances to the abandoned partner with a lady in

each hand. John was the man who had to stand and look on. She had

recovered all her spirit, all her freshness, it appeared, and made of

this innocent performance a parade of gaiety and grace. She came up to

him and retired from him, holding the hand of the other with the most

coquettish defiance, and swept him such a curtsy as she might have made

to the king--deeper even, with mock deference and scorn, which was

considered very amusing by all the lookers-on. "You should have seen

Marion dancing L'Eté" (or whatever it was) "with the man from

Edinburgh," they all said afterwards. John had been "too much made of"

since his arrival and his adventure: it was delightful that he should

thus be made to feel "put back in his place" without any one being to

blame. And John, I will not deny, felt the sting: but he was stimulated

by it, not depressed. In the quiet of the interval that followed, while

the others were dancing, he made his attack on more decided lines.

"Where," he said--"I have always been very curious--did you hide all

those dreadful things you had on?--the hoods, and the handkerchiefs, and

the veil."

A spark flashed up into her eyes--was it possible there was a laugh in

it that showed through both the affected wonder and the actual fear?

"What in the world do you mean?" she said; "the handkerchiefs and the

hoods and--have you gone mad, Mr Percival?"

"Not a bit," said John, "nor you either. We're two very sane people. How

you flashed it off in a moment might be just a woman's skill--but not to

drop it on the road, not to let it be found anywhere, that's what I have

always admired: it shows you have great force, and it really looked,

you'll forgive me for saying, as if you had done such a thing before."

She turned round, swerving a little from his side. "If you're exposed

it's your own fault," she cried, hurriedly, and in a very low tone. "I

am afraid to dance with you any more."

"Oh, you need not be afraid," said John. "I am not mad: and I will not

publish it, not at least at this moment; but stand still, or I'll not

answer for what I may do."

She stood still, a thrill running through her; but even at that moment

contrived to make her tremor invisible to the others, with glances

towards him and elevations of her eyebrows, and little movements of her

hands. She was no soft girl to be crushed by anything he would do, but a

resolute woman meaning to fight every step, and with all the odds in her

favour, well known and popular, whereas himself nobody knew.

"Perhaps this is not the best moment," said John, "but I thought I must

warn you. I was very much taken in, and you must have had your laugh at

me: but I was awake to all the circumstances in the end."

"It is a good thing," she said, suddenly forgetting herself, "that you

are awake sometimes; for a better sleeper"--then she stopped, and a deep

red flush covered her face--"dreamer of dreams," she added, quietly, "I

never heard of. Did you dream all this, Mr Percival, or is it a story

got up out of a book?"

And then they danced again, extraordinary interruption to such an

interview. John could not help, when he took her hand, giving it a

fierce grip of hostility, almost unawares. He was brought to his senses,

when it was with equal fierceness and almost equal strength returned.

She was not looking at him, but moving in the dance with a smile on her

face. Many a close clasp of love has been given in such circumstances,

but seldom one of actual defiance and ferocity. Her eyes, though they

were not on him, blazed, the colour forsook her face, and its very

paleness shone. She had perhaps never looked so beautiful in her life.

"Come away, Marion, come away," said Mrs Brydon; "I cannot wait a moment

longer."

"This is the last figure," said Marion, over her shoulder, and she

danced it to the end, but quickly disengaged herself before the

concluding galop, and, seizing her friend by the arm, hurried away. John

did not follow to get their cloaks and carriage, as he ought to have

done. There were plenty of attendants ready. He sat down, grim, in a

corner to think it over, and could not be persuaded to join the young

men's rear-supper, or any of the closing festivities of the night.

CHAPTER IV.

Thus John found himself involved in a duel to the death, as it seemed,

with an intelligence probably quicker than his own, and with many

advantages over him, as he speedily realised.

Next day he surprised a group of young men in his own very bank, the

centre of his life in Duntrum, where up to this present moment he had

been so easily the chief personage. He came in in the midst of a burst

of laughter, through which he heard the phrase, "She made fine sport of

him. He'll not craw so crouse again, I'm thinking." While the sound of

the laughter filled the room John came into sight, asking quietly, "Who

is it that will not craw so crouse?" and the group melted before him,

every man looking more conscious than the other.

"Oh, it was only a joke of some of the girls," said young Maxwell, very

crestfallen.

John went grimly to his desk, and made no sign, but he knew very well

that he was the subject of the joke; and they knew very well that he

knew. He had not thought that his antagonist was of such force; but,

indeed, to conceive and carry out so unflinchingly such a bold plan

showed that she could be of no small force, and he reflected upon her

and on what might be in store for him very gravely as he sat at his desk

in the midst of an unusual silence in the office for the rest of the

morning, paying, if truth must be told, very little attention to the

country business which he had been sent to study, and which he had at

that moment unusual facilities for studying, as it was market-day.

There was another party that evening, to which he went quite prepared

for the fate which was about to overtake him, and which did overtake him

accordingly. None of the young ladies of Duntrum would dance with John.

Some of the girls looked mischievous, some regretful, but only one out

of the troop of pretty creatures with whom he had hitherto been so

popular, could find a single dance for him. That one was Marion

Wamphrey, who pointed with a sparkle in her eye to one line in her

programme which had been left free, and danced it majestically, treating

him with a lofty civility which did a little to crush his spirit, but

filled him more and more with the rage of battle. After that experience,

John faced the chances of Society in Duntrum no more. He withdrew before

the moment when, as in most of their little assemblies, dancing began;

for in those days in Scotland most entertainments ended in a dance, the

young people being quite unfastidious, and as willing to amuse

themselves on a carpet as on the most beautifully waxed floors. John

withdrew; and he was comforted to find that he was missed. There was no

longer any fun in refusing to dance with the best partner in the room

when he was not there to be vexed by the affront, and there was soon a

revolt against Marion, as would no doubt have happened in any case, and

those who had lent themselves to her revenge loudly complained that she

had driven their finest performer away. "He told us all the new figures,

and the French step that nobody here has learnt yet," moaned the

culprits of that night, "led away," they could not quite tell why, by

Marion, "and she gave him a dance herself!" they remembered. Did she

want to keep him to herself? Was that her treacherous reason? So that

before the winter was half over, John would have been received with open

arms had he gone back; but he did not go back. He felt himself master of

the situation, and determined to retain it, even at the cost of a little

self-denial, which it certainly involved, for he was a young man of his

period, not of this, and loved to find himself in the midst of pretty

faces, and to show the new French steps, and the new figures, and to

feel himself the king of the company as he had formerly done.

However, it was all the better for business that he should have had this

check in the middle of his career. For it set him on giving his

attention to the country business, and to the transactions of the bank

with the little banking establishments in the little towns around,

branches of the Duntrum Company or of others. Especially--and this the

reader will understand, without perhaps crediting John with very great

devotion to business, considered on its own merits--he was eager to

inquire into the business with Dunscore, which had such a curious

connection with the little drama to which he had been introduced in

spite of himself. And he accepted with great alacrity, about the new

year, a commission to go to that place on the affairs of the bank, and

to consult with the managers there concerning some changes which it was

thought expedient to make. Messrs Percival in Edinburgh were delighted

to think that their nephew had been chosen for this commission. It

showed, as they concluded, that the boy must be showing some real

business capacity, or he would not have been chosen for such an office,

and also a considerable interest on his part, or he would not have

devoted himself to it. So that it made a very good impression, much to

his favour, at home.

John appeared, too, at Dunscore to much advantage, with his look of

gravity and interest in the suggested changes, and secured the full

attention of the manager, who, knowing his connection with the

Percivals, felt great interest in him as a rising young man, devoted to

business, and anxious to extend his knowledge. He gave John a great deal

of information as to the working of the banking system in the country,

and all the difficulties which a manager had to encounter. When the

business was over, the conversation went off to lighter subjects: but,

indeed, it grew naturally out of it that he should inquire about the

lost letter which had been in the stolen mail-bag, and whether there had

been any light thrown upon that curious theft and its motives. The

manager was very ready to talk on this subject, which was the most

romantic incident that had been known in the country for ages past.

"Indeed," he said, "since the time when one of the Cochranes dressed

herself up like a highwayman, and waylaid the mails--which took place

not very far from the same spot----"

"What was that story?" said John.

"Did you never hear of it? It is just such another story. It was after

Argyle's rebellion in 1685, and the warrant for her father's execution

was supposed to be in the bag----"

"Her father?" said John.

"Oh, ay, it was a young lass. And did it never occur to you, Mr

Percival," said the manager, "that this might well be a woman's work?

You see Grizel Cochrane's story is well known, and women are grand

actors when they have a purpose to serve. They say you saw a woman shut

the coach door just after your queer passenger disappeared."

"It is quite true; but do you think a woman would have the nerve and the

courage?"

"Oh, pooh! Nerve? they've nerve for anything when they've motive enough;

and courage? there's no a deevil for daring like a young lass--they're

worse than the lads; they never count the cost. I would just like to

know if that is not your own point of view."

"But the motive?" said John.

"Oh, deed, there was motive enough. That big letter, Mr John, conveyed

enough matter to distress, maybe to ruin, two or three families. There's

times when even delay will save a man's credit: but clean destruction of

bills and bonds--Lord, man, it's just salvation to some poor struggling

men. There was an honest farmer that had kept up a sore struggle, my own

very heart was wae for him when I put his bill in the packet. It would

have been a question of roup and banishment, and an honest fellow, as

honest as ever ploughed field. He came here like an honourable man, and

bound himself over again for the sum, with a little delay, which we were

glad to grant. Ay, and there was another, a gentleman's son, a wild

fellow. I'm misdoubting he put his father's name to a bit of paper the

worthy laird never saw, and a grand escape he has had. No, I don't think

the bank will have very much loss, excepting just that one case."

"And who was the man, may I ask?" said John.

"I ought not to tell after what I have just said, for it would be a

libel if ever it was repeated, and there's no evidence. Well, as you

are, so to speak, in the business, Mr John, and in a manner concerned

with the robbery, I may strain a point for you. It was just Will

Wamphrey, the son of auld Wamphrey, of Craigthorn. He's away abroad now,

and maybe he will never hear of it, unless, as I strongly suspect, that

it was one of his gilpies that robbed the mail."

"His gilpies!" said John. He felt a flush of anger at the name.

"Just that," said the manager, nodding his head. "Plenty of them took an

interest in him, if all tales are true. I have always thought it was

some bold hizzy that was o'er the Border after him, and away to some

seaport, while these police birkies were riding the country. Ye never

can get them to turn their horses' heads the right way till the guilty

person's well out of reach. Wull," he said, getting a little more

familiar in his accent as the story warmed him, "was a wild deevil, and

never out of mischief; but his father is a douce man, and we were all

very sorry for him. I'm mostly glad, though it will be a loss to the

bank, that yon bit of paper is out of the way. And they say that old

Wamphrey had sworn an oath that if he played another pliskie, he should

be cast off without a shilling, instead of being sent creditably to try

his luck again, which is what has been done."

"This, if it came true, would make it a complete romance of the road,"

said John.

"That is just what it is, a woman," said the other, "and the best thing

he could do would be to marry the lass, and take her with him out of the

gait of justice. For my Lords Justiciary would take little heed, I fear,

of the romantic circumstances if she were brought before them, which

would be sure to happen sooner or later if she were to bide in this

country. Somebody must have seen her--you did yourself, by the way, Mr

John, as I have heard."

"I saw a country woman close the door," he said. He was glad that he had

the time to prepare his answer, while the good man went on. "A person

passing, I have little doubt, who saw it swinging open. And it was a

momentary glimpse that I could not trust to. It would be a hard case if

suspicion was thrown upon a decent woman returning from her work in the

fields, and doing what she thought was a kind action as she passed."

"Bless me, that is true," said the bank manager, "but I understand you

were of the opinion that it might be the very miss herself."

"I never meant to convey that impression," said John, with an immovable

countenance. "It was a country lass; most likely a farm-servant going

back a little late from the fields."

"Oh-h," said the manager. He added, after a pause, "I have maybe been

rash in making up such a story. It might be no woman after all. But

there's no telling," he continued, with a laugh; "Will Wamphrey had

friends in all stations, though a country lass would scarcely have had

the cleverness to carry it through."

John could scarcely help applying uncivil words to this genial person as

he talked. A country lass! There were different kinds of country lasses:

and the way in which this mere bank manager permitted himself to talk of

one who was neither a gilpie nor a miss, nor, in short, anything that

came within the range of such a critic, gave him a sensation of anger.

Why should it give John, who was really the only witness against her, a

sensation of anger? He could not tell. Nothing could be more absurd, and

out of all agreement with the circumstances; yet he called Mr Scott

several unpleasant names within himself. What did he know about it? a

mere vulgar, little country-town man, a village magnate. That he should

take upon himself to judge, could think himself qualified! The man was

extremely charitable on the subject, and took what seemed to himself

much too lenient a view; but it did not, as appeared, satisfy John,

whose feelings were quite unexplainable even to himself. So far as he

was aware, he wanted to find out everything about the business, but he

did not choose that any one else should find out, or should prejudge or

venture to form theories about it even to himself. And as he went back

to Duntrum, John began to take himself to task, and to inquire into the

nature of his own thoughts. Did he really, after all, believe that

Marion Wamphrey was the heroine of his great adventure? Had he not

seized upon the idea "for fun," as they all said, to give himself a

reason for making a certain intimacy, a teasing acquaintance with the

prettiest girl in the room, pretending to have this tremendous matter

against her? He said to himself that this had really been all that was

in his mind, when her own consciousness, her readiness to defy him, her

anxious look, as of one who expected to be attacked, had turned his

wavering, half-real recognition into certainty. He would not have

permitted himself even to think of such a thing, to do more than to

perplex her with a jest, but for that foreknowledge on her part, so

clearly marking that she knew all, and more than all, he could say. This

had startled and shocked him into saying many things he had not

intended, and into persecuting her with hints and suggestions, as if he

were quite sure of what was merely a vague suspicion. He took himself to

task now as he went home. Had he really any ground for the attack he

had made upon this young lady? A momentary glimpse of a face in a dark

winter night, was that enough to build such an accusation upon? And he

had as good as accused her, if not of the theft, at least of having been

seen in circumstances of suspicion on the night when the theft was made.

He had begun lightly enough: he had been himself startled by her

response of eye and attitude: and now that he had hunted out this fresh

information, which threw so living a light upon it all, he found himself

forced to the conviction that it must be true. In the teeth of that

conviction, he asked himself indignantly how he had dared to believe

such a thing of an innocent girl, a girl whom he had met at a dance,

blooming, gay, and full of confidence in all about her. Was that the

person to accuse, even in your own mind, of robbing his Majesty's mails?

It was preposterous; it was as false as anything could be. It might have

been, as Scott said, a gilpie, one of the many loves of this Will

Wamphrey, bent on serving him, and not too particular about the method;

but Marion! with her white dress and her pearl necklace, and the flowers

in her hair. It was, of course, impossible; it was impossible! Having

said this to himself, he added, with a quick-drawn breath, that now the

chain of evidence was complete, that the only thing wanting had been a

motive, and now here was the motive abundantly supplied.

John jumped from his post-chaise at the foot of the hill where that

adventure had taken place. It was now the end of February, and this had

been a hazy, grey day, full of cold, yet at the same time of that

indescribable thrill which shows us that the sap is moving in the veins

of the old earth, and spring coming, though perhaps her footstep has but

touched the heights. He was so restless with the movement of the

thoughts that were rising in his own breast, that it gave him a little

relief to walk. It was almost dark, and nobody was about. He stood still

for a little, and looked over the hedge at the spot where the coach had

stopped. It was a high and stiff hedge, hawthorn, full of strong

prickles, and closely grown; there was a shallow ditch on the other

side, and beyond that a large field, a little undulating, with little

knowes and hollows. How did she get through the hedge, or over it? Where

did she disappear to? How was it that with all their lanterns and all

their eyes no one caught so much as a shadow of her? He examined the

place very closely, and found that a little below there was a gap

through which it was just possible an adroit person might squeeze. But

it was almost impossible, if that was the mode of her escape, to imagine

that so soon she could have got under cover. Not far from the hedge

there was a group of half-grown rowan trees, forming a thick clump at

the bottom, though very thin and wind-blown in the upper branches. They

had been quite invisible in the darkness of the night, and he did not

think there had been any proper search made at the moment of the wide

open stretch of the field where there was so little possibility of

concealment.

He was full of the recollection of that night, and of interest in the

culprit whom all his investigations seemed to force him to identify

almost against his will; and his inclination to follow what must have

been her steps in her retreat was strong. The ground, he knew, had been

gone over again and again, but no trace had been found, and it was

highly unlikely now, when two months had passed, that he should find any

trace of her. But he squeezed himself through the gap, with the

unpleasant result of finding himself almost up to his knees in the muddy

ditch at the foot of the hedge. There had been a great deal of rain in

the past week, and not only was the ditch full, but the field was an

expanse of soft mud, a little bound together by the grass, but slippery

and soft, so that it was hard to get a footing as he scrambled out of

the ditch. This was not a pleasant beginning, but he was determined to

make his way to the little cluster of the rowans, and make sure for

himself whether there was any possible shelter for a fugitive there. A

more miserable spot there could not be. How a woman, encumbered by

petticoats and cloaks as his fellow-traveller had been, could have slid

and scrambled along, unheard, toward that little island in the muddy

field, if that indeed had been where she went--and it was the only

covert within sight--he could not divine. And very poor was the covert,

a bundle of saplings, not much more: slim stems of young trees growing

upon a small mound. But the farther side of this hillock, he found, fell

abruptly, a little precipice of five or six feet. He had nearly fallen

over it, which impressed it on his mind; and when he slid down on the

treacherous and muddy slope at one side, he found that the bank above

overhung a little, so as to make a shelter quite available, a sort of

shallow cave. Had she come here, in the deep darkness, that daring girl,

and listened to the ineffectual stir of her pursuers, the gleams of

their lanterns? He tried to realise the situation. It was now only

twilight, but it was difficult to distinguish anything across the damp

level of the field which spread dismal round him. What could it have

been in the mirk of the night, getting towards midnight, and black as

winter and desolation could make it! Had she couched here, cold,

encumbered with her disguise, never knowing when a light might flash

round the corner upon her? John shivered with sympathy, yet felt also

something of the whirl of excitement which must have been in all her

being.

As he stood against the damp wall of mossy earth, held together by the

roots of the rowans, he suddenly saw a speck of white in a crevice among

the twisted roots. He pulled it out, or tried to do so, but it resisted

his efforts. Finally, digging with his stick, and pulling with his

hands, at risk of bringing the whole mound down upon him, he disinterred

from the network of rough and twisted stems a handkerchief, then

something black and large which he could not distinguish, and finally

the skin of an orange. John's heart, already panting with the toil, gave

a jump into his throat. The white handkerchief was folded into a sort of

bandage, and had evidently been tied round the head; the large, black

square was one of the huge neckcloths (so-called) of the period. These

formed, no doubt, the wonderful headgear which his fellow-traveller had

worn. But the orange skin overwhelmed John with an impulse to laugh and

to cry together. It was one of his oranges which he had brought in, in

kindness for the poor old lady. She had remembered them in danger and

horror, and eaten it while they were looking for her. That daring

creature defying heaven and earth, wet, cold, miserable, and--guilty.

She had eaten his orange to comfort her, the poor little demon of a

girl!

And was that Marion Wamphrey all white and dazzling, with the pearls on

her throat, and the roses in her hair?

CHAPTER V.

When John returned to his rooms, carrying his strange spoils with him,

he found on his table an invitation. For the last week or two his

invitations had been few. This one had been delivered, his landlady told

him, by a man and horse from Wamphrey, which was some miles off to the

south of Duntrum. This was so startling in the midst of his present

thoughts, that his spoils fell from his hands in the excitement of the

moment. To Wamphrey! Mr Wamphrey was an invalid, the brother was absent.

There had been no festivities there since his arrival in Duntrum, and

that such an invitation should come now when he was about, he thought,

to disclose the family skeleton, and brand its most beloved member with

guilt, startled him as if there was something preternatural in it. He

threw himself down in his easy-chair and tried to think, but his head

went round and round.

The objects which he had carried in his hands fell on the table and

unrolled themselves as inanimate things sometimes do as if there was

life in them. They had been tightly done up, and fluttered out of the

roll as they fell: the white handkerchief, folded like a bandage, which

had been tied together at the ends, and retained even something of the

roundness of the head on which it had been bound, fell quite open,

revealing its use. The larger black one had also been tied, two of the

ends together. She had got rid of them on the first possible moment,

trusting no doubt to the thick Spanish lace of her veil, with its large

silken flowers, to disguise her sufficiently: but where did she go from

that little shelter in the field? how had she escaped eventually, in the

dark midnight, over the slippery, wet ground--so dark you could not see

your hand held up before you, so wet and soft, your foot sinking into

the clay?

John sat by his fire, and asked himself why he had been so hot in this

discovery, and what he had wanted to do. Did he want to convict her, to

bring her to shame, a girl who had done him no harm, who (he said to

himself) had, after all, done nobody any harm,--except perhaps the bank,

which was impersonal and could not suffer much. It was true that it

would not do to establish a precedent, and rob his Majesty's mails, when

they happened to contain something disagreeable to you. But then, there

were very few people in the world who would have the nerve and the

strength to do that; and indeed, when you came to think, it was as much

the carelessness of the guard, putting such a temptation in the way, as

the boldness of the culprit, which was to blame. If he had not left them

within everybody's reach, she would not have attempted to get them. The

guilt was with the guard. Then, if he himself had kept awake and not

gone to sleep like a great baby, she would not have done it. Did he wish

he had not gone to sleep? Did he wish the guard had not been so

careless? Did he wish that the family should have been disgraced, and

the prodigal ruined? John caught himself up with a start. What did it

matter who was ruined? No one not with the purest motives, not with the

most tender meaning, had a right to take the law in his or her hands.

She had made herself amenable to the law--and not only so, but the

position was untenable from any point of fact: it was a crime, it struck

at the roots of every security. She was a thief! a thief! and of the

most dangerous kind.

Suppose it had come into her head that somebody's diamonds would make a

nice little portion for her brother, the prodigal whom his own family

was sending away to the ends of the earth? Would that native have saved

her from the law which has to deal with a criminal and not with the

crime, certainly not with the circumstances that account for the crime?

He replied to himself, indignantly, that there was no analogy in that

case to this. To steal diamonds is common theft; to steal a

mail-bag--well! That is a worse crime: and yet he could not endure to

have it said even by himself. If Grizel Cochrane, who stopped her

father's death-warrant so as to give him time to escape, was the heroine

of the district, how was Marion Wamphrey to be called a thief? He went

on reasoning with himself, wandering through the wilds of casuistry,

examining, accusing, vanquishing himself over and over, and then

beginning again.

Nevertheless, when he went to Wamphrey, ten days after, there were war

and battle in John's eyes. He was given, as it happened, a very cordial

welcome. Mr Wamphrey, the invalid, was down-stairs, seated in an

easy-chair in his library, where he could take a quiet share in the

amusement of the large party; and it turned out, as it so often turns

out, especially in Scotland, that he had known John's father in their

respective youths, which was a thing John himself had not done, having

been an orphan as long as he could remember. And the elder son had come

home from his travels, the object of which John was secretly aware of;

but chiefly there was Marion, in the delightful position of daughter of

the house, supreme everywhere--disposing of everybody, a princess at the

head of her dominions. She was quite gracious to John, treating him with

a sort of amused _empressement_, a smile of triumph on her face, as if

to show him how little she feared him. Her manner drove John back into a

conviction of the falsehood of all his sophistries, and that this bright

creature was nothing more nor less than the robber of his Majesty's

mails, and had to be brought to justice. He was not even moved as he had

been before by the thought of those little white shoes stumbling over

the muddy field. This had subdued him utterly when she was not there. He

could not even remember that orange skin which had appealed to him as

the subtlest argument. Her smile of triumph seemed to turn his head--but

the wrong way.

She had kept a dance conspicuously for him. She was evidently intent on

proving that she did not fear him. She herself proposed, after it was

over, to lead him to the farthest corner of the conservatory, to show

him a rare flower of which the gardener was proud: but it was there in

this position of favour that John was so hard-hearted as to fire his

first gun.

"I have something of yours, Miss Wamphrey, which I must take the first

opportunity of returning to you," he said.

"Something of mine? How can that be, Mr Percival? I am sure I never gave

you anything of mine."

"Or rather there are two things: a white handkerchief marked with your

name, and a black handkerchief, both of which you wore round your head

on a certain occasion when we first met."

"Mr Percival," she said, with a change of colour, "do you think it is

good taste to assail me whenever you happen to be alone with me, with

this ridiculous delusion of yours?"