 28 Out of all reason. Worse troubles than those of the troublesome body were visiting one worth a thousand of me. Captain Farathorn was still in Scotland, while his fair daughter was being worried as a lamb among playful wolves. Without any aid her stepmother was enough to supply her with constant misery, but even her malice was more easy to endure than the insolent attentions of two vile men. To these the poor girl was exposed every day, for if she took refuge in her own room she was bodily compelled to come down again, and her gentle appeals and even strong disdain were treated as a child's coquetry. There are few things more truculent to a woman, even a very young one, than the jocular assumption that she does not know her mind, and perhaps as little of that article to know. Sir Cumberlay Hatchpot proceeded regularly upon that assumption, and though Kitty had the sweetest temper ever bestowed as a blessing to the owner and all around, this foregone conclusion and heavenly pity from a creature by no means celestial, drove her sometimes towards a drumulous line which severs sanity from insanity. For it has been said, and perhaps with truth, that the largest and soundest of human minds could not remain either large or sound, if all the other minds had had to deal with combined to pronounce it both small and unsound. Under the hostile light it could not save itself from shrinking, it would glance about vainly for a gleam to suit its own, and then to straighten to a line with a cross at either end, like the pupil of a cat in the fierce light of the sun. Left in this manner without any friends, with her heart and her soul among lions, my Kitty, although a strong substance, began to doubt whether there is any justice, good as she was and clear and truthful in possessing that sense, which is now turned into folly by higher discoveries of a guiding power beyond our own. She drove to believe that no harm could touch her, while she continued blameless. But it was a fearful battle for a timid maiden to have to fight. Happily for both herself and me, her enemies, before they got her down, fell out about their lawful prey. When Donovan Bolrag joined the hunt at first, he was content to turn the quarry towards the other hounds, and enjoyed the distress unselfishly. But after a while, like an eager dog, he began to kindle towards the prey, and shot forth jealous glances and resolved to have a nip for his own tooth. So far as such a hound could care for anything outside his own hide, he became enamored of the charming Chase. His mother, with her quick malignant eyes, perceived it, and was furious. Her pet scheme was that her sweet Downie, her golden Downie, as she called him, should marry gold and succeed to the title, which was not improbable. Restored some pavers' glory and set her on high triumphant, then her proud sister at Halliford would come and sue to be reconciled, and her daughters with a lovely hair would shine and marry fortunes. She would cast the professor and his grimy works behind her and reign as she deserved to reign. In furtherance of this lofty plan she had already chosen for her son a most desirable helpmate, a lady of good birth and yet sufficiently akin with commerce to redden her blue blood with gold. And a very quiet, harmless girl who would gladly fill the chest with guineas, and hand the key to her mother-in-law to be a stepmother to gentleness had been a pleasant and refreshing task, but to be the mother-in-law of wealth would afford even finer occasions of delight. She had always been proud of her son's strong will and resolute knowledge of his own mind. While they moved in the course she had marked for them, but if they went astray they must be crushed. With her usual promptitude she resolved to bring the matter to a point at once. Downey had arrived at the same determination. He had no idea of doing what he disliked, and his mother had told him that she meant to call upon Lady Clara Voucher, the only child and heiress of the Earl of Clarenhouse, and expected his company that afternoon in a carriage she had bought, but not paid for. Very well, he had said, we will talk about it. For his sisters were present and he preferred a single combat. Knowing that his mother was now alone, he came into the room with his quiet, heavy tread and sat down, and crossed his legs and looked at her. Downey Bullrag, even while he was a boy, had been able to earn a large competence of hatred, as a young man he had increased the stock and throve upon it and fattened on the buttering of his own slimy fame. Good and simple young fellows of his own age disliked him from what they had heard of him, but none had the power to hate him properly until they had seen him. But after that they knew what to do. They spat on the ground when they thought of him. What is it, Downey? asked his mother unwarily, surrounding the weather gauge of silence. You look as if something had put you out. I think it is I who have the right to be put out. Downey began to roll a cigarette, that ragged mummy of the great King Nicot, which was then just beginning to cast its dirty ash about. He wetted his fingers with a little sharp smack of his lips, but made no answer. You will not smoke here? cried his mother, already discarding the superior maternal tone. I never let your father smoke in my presence, and I am sure that I shall never let a boy like you. Who is going to smoke? asked Downey with gruff contempt, at this instance of feminine precipitance. You may smoke by and by when you have a house of your own and a dear little wife to spoil you. But you are coming with me to see her, and you must not smell of tobacco yet, for a short time you must be on your best behaviour, not that sweet Clara would ever object to anything you like, my dear. But that others might take advantage of it to make you seem less devoted to her than you are. She is the catch of the season, you know, and there are so many young men after her. She will make the best wife any man could have, so pleasant and amiable and accomplished, and in spite of that so sweetly pretty. When I saw her the night before last at Lady Indigo's, I thought I had never seen anyone so charming. I don't think much of her good looks. Then you are most ungrateful, for she dotes on you, her dear friend the Countess said, Tell your noble Downey not to be frightened by sweet Clara's money, her heart is entirely his. What a lucky fellow! And then she sighed for a little plan of hers has been quite upset by this romantic episode. Oh, you are fortunate indeed, my dear, and perhaps a little credit may be fairly due to me. Now put on the coat with the sable trimmings, you look so foreign and distinguished in it, and it shows your broad chest in such a striking way. That dear Countess said it made her quite jealous about her dowdy countryman, and she thought it had something to do with your conquest. I don't mean to go at all. The dutiful son, as he pronounced these words, threw his bulky shoulders back and planted one big elbow on the arm of his easy chair, and gazed calmly through his yellow lashes, smiling slightly as he watched the color rising on his mother's dark face. He knew that two stern wills were coming into clash, and the victory would be for the one that did not waste itself in fury. Do you mean to tell me, began the lady trembling at heart and her voice becoming tremulous, that you intend to throw away all I have done, that you will not marry Lady Clara Voucher? That is exactly what I do mean. I will never marry Lady Clara Voucher. And why? Perhaps she will condescend to give some reason. I mean to marry someone else. I mean to marry Kitty Fairthorne. His mother arose, as she generally did, when her furious temper burst all bounds. Often enough and too often she had been in a tempest of wild passion, but never till now in such a hurricane of rage. At first she was stilled by her own commotion, and the lines of her face twitched as with palsy. Tell me again, she said, crossing her arms and speaking with great effort as she stood before him, and he sat tranquil. I cannot believe it till I have heard it twice. Certainly, ma'am, to oblige you, I mean to marry not Lady Clara, but your step-daughter Kitty. You nanny! You rebel! You stubborn doll! She had usually a fine store of these expressions, but they seemed to desert her in this great need, and he nodded his head at every one as if to say, Try something better than that. You—but it is useless. You are too base to care. You sit there, like a lump of yellow jaundice. Do you think that a beautiful girl like Kitty, the vile, designing, artful minx, I will throttle her. I wish I had her here. Go and fess her. Bring her to me. I don't blame you. But she will pay for this with her life, she shall. If they hang me to-morrow— Come, mother, come. You have let off a good bit of steam already. You'll be as right as a trivet after a few more choice expressions. Don't spare them if they do you good, you know? I shall never be right again. My heart is broken. I feel myself dying, and you have killed me. You, my own son, have murdered me. Oh, good God! What is this pain? She fell upon the floor and moaned and gasped, pressing both hands to her leaping heart, and scared of all wrath by the dread of death. Now and then she muttered prayers for mercy, broken with groans of agony. Downey was terrified and ran for Brandy as she began to tear her hair and clutch at the carpet, with shrieks growing weaker and more gurgling. And as he ran back, his sister Eufrasia met him and snatched the bottle from his hand. You have done it! cried Frizzy. I knew you would. One of these days she'll kill herself. You go away. You're not wanted here. She shouldn't take it from your hand to save her life. I knew it must come. Get away! Get away! Don't let her eyes hit upon you when she rolls them. Or she will go off worse than ever. She knows everything when she is insensible. Well, you women are cure, said Downey, recovering his strength of mind. I shall go to my own room and have a cigar. You can come and tell me when she is all right. I am not sure that she will ever be all right, said his sister, desiring to frighten him. I have never seen her quite as bad as this. But he only answered, What a funk you are! She shall not beat me with all this stuff. He had very little conscience, and that little, to use a stock word now in fashion, particularly reticent, and the still small voice, if there were any, could not find much to say at this time, in nothing but the rudeness of his manner had he offended against strict right, and he never even knew when his manner was rude, because it was his nature. He could not help having a passionate mother who flew into a fury when her plans were crossed, so he smoked a cigar and considered his next step. He was playing to him now without need of thought, for he was not good enough to be a fool, that something decisive might be done at once. He knew what his mother was too well, to suppose that any arguments of his, or any regard for his feelings, would ever induce her to consent to his marriage with Kitty Fairthorne, and he knew that Kitty did not like him, although he had never ill-used her, and in her old-fashioned way would regard the relation of their parents towards one another as a bar to any marriage between them, and he knew that her money, through her father's neglect, had been placed out of her disposal, but in spite of all obstacles he meant to have her, and her money afterwards. Up to the present time he had feigned to be the ally of Sir Cumberlay Hotspot, and to forward his suit very warmly. At the same time he had contrived to earn some gratitude from Kitty, and to make her look upon him as her friend in need, by flying to her rescue now and then, and sometimes even carrying off her two insistent suitor. This he had been doing more and more, as his passion increased and jealousy combined with pity on her behalf. Thoroughly despising the older villain for his shallowness more than his villainy, he began to hate him also for his insolence to the fair one. Having now declared his own intentions he must put a stop to all that stuff. While he was thinking much more of these things than of his injured mother, he heard a gentle but hurried knock at his door. An in-came Kitty, she was trembling and flushed with some excitement and her beautiful hair was disarranged. Oh, Donovan! she cried, for she never called him Downie. I have heard that your mother is very ill, and they are quite alarmed about her. Sarah came in such a hurry for some bottle of my father's, but I was afraid to let her have it, for they have no idea how to use it. Don't you think you had better run for Dr. Yalop? They won't let me in to ask them, and I'm afraid to go for him without orders. No, Kitty, no, it is nothing more than usual. She should never see the doctor if he came, and it would only set her off again. Rizzy knows best how to manage her. She has been in a great wax, even for her, and she is just a bit frightened as she ought to be. It will do her a world of good when she comes round and teach her to take things easier. But you look quite startled, my dear child. Give me a kiss, and I will tell you all about it. Kitty obeyed, though with some reluctance, one of her many charms was obedience, and she had often been told in the early days that as they were now one family to exchange the friendly salute was proper. But lately she had been surprised that Downie, after long indifference to its value, had returned to this form of expressing esteem. The young man had meant to defer for a while a declaration which must be unwelcome at first, but he felt sure now that the first thing his mother would do, as soon as she was well enough, would be to fall on the poor maiden about it, and put it in the most outrageous way, much better for his cause that he should speak of it himself, and win perhaps some credit for his defiance of Kitty's natural foe. He was always bold and word indeed, and now he spoke with as little fear as grace. You must have seen, my dear, that lately I have been growing very fond of you. You have seen that I always take you apart when people go to bully you, and why do you suppose I do it? Why, because I am so fond of you. Thank you, Donovan. I have often thanked you in my mind, though not in words. Laced as we are, it is quite right that we should be fond of one another. Oh, I don't mean that sort of thing at all. My mother married your governor, but that would only make it natural that we should hate one another, and there is no love lost between you and Frizzy, or Jerry either, so far as that goes. What I mean is that I am fond of you as a fellow is of his sweetheart, and I mean to marry you, indeed I do as soon as you like, almost. Poor Kitty looked at him as if he must be joking. Or if it were not that, he must have taken too much wine, as he did sometimes, especially when he had been much with Sir Cumberlay. How provoking you are, Kitty! There, sit down. You will get used to the idea in about five minutes. Why, there's nothing surprising in it, I should think. Though you may have thought that I was looking higher, but I have always had my own peculiar views. I can do without money and rank and all that, and I have taken a real fancy to you. This is enough to prove it, don't you think? Give us your flipper, as that old rogue says, for I mean business, upon my word I do, and I fancy it won't stick too much in your gizzard that the old woman rages like a tiger against it. I can scarcely believe that you mean this. It is utterly impossible. I don't know how people take such things, but to me it is simply horrible. Never speak of it again if you wish me to speak to you. Promise me, never to speak of it again. Very well. Settle it so, if you like, at any rate for the present. You have got hold of some queer ideas, I suppose. High church crotchets are some such rubbish. You will come to think better of it, by and by. And by the holy poker she shall be glad to do so, he muttered to himself when she was gone. We will try a bold stroke, my pretty dear, and you shall come on your knees to me to marry you. CHAPTER XXIX A FINE TIP There are many worse men in the world even then, and the number increases with population, than the gallant Sir Cumberlay Hotspot, the principal source of the evil in him was that he knew not wrong from right. If he could have seen the difference he might have been tempted by the charms of virtue, but as that pure lady had never found her way into his visiting list, it would be unfair to blame him for neglecting her. He came of a good family in one sense, and a very bad family in another. For several generations the Hotspots had verified their names by making mixture of all moral doctrine, and the air of a county where the world is flat and oozy may have helped to bring high and low to one dead level. That speculation is beyond the mark, though as everything is material now it may justly be accepted in plea for him. What is more to the purpose and less of a problem is the plain truth that evil blood was in his veins and there had never been anything to purify it. In his early days he influenced of a strong, clear-headed and resolute wife, lifting him into self-respect and sweetening his paltry bitterness, might have saved him from his vile contempt and made a decent man of him, and such a chance had once been his, but he casted by through his own foul conduct, and it never came again. The lady married a better man, who was able to lead her as well as be led, and the man she had escaped made a bitter grievance of his own miscarriage. Now he was one of that wretched lot. The elderly rakes, without faith in women, respect for themselves or trust in God, even the coarser advantages of life, the vigorous health, the goodwill of the world, the desire to rise, the power of wealth, all these had failed him, and he was left with nothing but a feverish thirst for excitement and a dreary desire to say spiteful things, which his meager wit seldom gratified. For this he was hated by Downey Bolrag, who had despised him for aping the vices which are so much easier to youth. However it was Downey's object now to ingratiate himself with this old party, and Downey had long required the art of quenching his sentiments in his object. So he took a cab that very night, when his mother's hysterics were drowned in cognac, and presented himself at Sir Cumberley's house in a small square of South Kensington. He had not been encouraged to call here often. For the baronet, who generally misplaced his shame, was shy of the fact that he had let the better part of his house to a fashionable artist, while he occupied the smaller rooms himself. The visitor found him just returned from his club, and by no means in an amiable frame of mind, for the cards had been adverse, and he could ill afford to lose, and he did not scruple to show his annoyance at this late and unexpected call. But Downey drew an easy chair near the fire, gave a nick to the hotspot terrier, who with sound instinct had made a dash at him, and spread his fat legs along the fender. Without saying a word till his host had done the grumbles, and he had his revenge in his own crafty way, for he gazed round the room, noting everything and lifting his yellow eyebrows now and then, or pursing up his big lips and stroking his moustache, as if he were conning how much, or rather how little, the pictures and furniture would fetch. Brennan, you auctioneers in your family? Sir Cumberley's temper was never very good, and his appraisement of his chattels made it very bad indeed. His intention had been to have a quiet smoke, and his nip or two of cordial by the fire, while he went through his tablets by the latest lights. He had thrown off his wig to cool his brain, and had no time to clap it on again. Frank and cheerful baldness is no disgrace to any man, and sometimes adds a crown of goodness to a pleasant face. But this gentleman had not that reward of gentle life, and his bulbous pate, when naked, was what ladies call horrid. His restless and suspicious eyes and sneering mouth with lines that looked as if nature had constructed channels for the drainage of foul words, and the sour crop of blotches on his welted cheeks were more than enough to countervail expansive brow and noble dome of curls, if there had been any. There were none, and even downy bullrag thought, What a bright room for a lovely girl! You are inclined to cut up rough, old boy! said Bullrag after listening long to much that never should be listened to. Something disagreed with you. It must be so, as we get on in life. Well, tell me, when you are certain that you have done an exploding? No hurry, buzzer first, business afterwards. Sir Cumberlay carried on a little more with his condemnation of all mankind, just to show that he was not at all impressed with this aspect of the younger man. Then his temper prevailed as the other kept quiet, and he said, How will your business if there is any? I don't suppose it matters much to you. You are rolling in money after going down to your audit and all that sort of thing. You might like to invest a cool five hundred in a loan to me at five percent. Do it, and earn my everlasting gratitude. You have something good to tell me or to put me up to? Upon my soul, Bullrag, I shall be glad to know it. I have three bills fallen due to-morrow. I am on my last legs, and that makes me so grumpish. You have been uncommonly grumpish, Potts, and I am not at all sure that I shall tell you anything. I like to do a kindness to a friend, but you hardly seem to be quite that just now. My dear fellow, you never go by words. You have seen too much of the world for that. The real friend is the man who shows you his rough side. I do that to you downy because I like you. And you can't have much left for your enemies, my friend. But my rule is to take things as I find them, and the same is the golden rule, according to the law and profits. I shall render good for evil, Potts. I shall tell you of a nice little windfall for you, if you have the pluck to keep up with luck. Downy, I'm up for anything. All has been against me for the last ten days, and I should like to have my revenge of it. It would take a big fence to pound me. There's a big pot of money on the other side," said Downy, counting slowly on his fingers. Eighteen and sixteen make thirty-four, and twelve makes forty-six, and trillion eight thousand four hundred, with the market down, should be worth another twelve when they go up. I'll put it at present quotations, and you have between fifty-four and fifty-five thousand pounds, payable on the nail, and no trustees. It would come in pretty well to start with, Potts, after paying the fellows at no no better. And you might lend me the odd four thousand upon good security. I will give you eight percent, old fellow, and pay you like a church. What is it, Downy, or are you trying hocus? Nothing of that sort ever comes my way now. I have been on the wrong horse ever since last good word. And now again at Lincoln, those cursed tips have tipped me over. It has nothing to do with her for tips. What do you think of our little kitty coming into sixty thousand pounds? For it's worth every penny of that, they say, and nobody to look after it, but the lucky cove that marries her. Sweet kitty, my sweet kitty pherothorn, I adore her for her own sake without a crooked sixpence. But it sounds too good to be true, my boy. Take a suck and tell us all about it. The beauty of it is that she doesn't know a word of it, while Ragh began to unfold his role of fiction very recklessly, which gave it the crackle and flash of truth. And if we can keep her in the dark for another ten days or fortnight, why, a bit of pluck and gumption, and there the job is done. You know that my excellent mother considers it one of her strictest duties to open all the letters that come to the house for the younger feminine branches. She keeps the key of the letter box, and no one else is allowed to go near it. When I first came back she began to open mine, but I stopped that. Quick sticks, I can tell you. She's a strong party and no mistake. Hope she won't want to come and cock over my crib when I'm spliced at the heavenly kitty. I should get the wrong side of the sixty thousand pounds. Well, this morning there came a little billet for our kitty, sealed and got up and looking no end confidential. The ma wasn't going to stand that, of course, and set up her hackles that anyone should try it. She took it to her own room and found it so important that it was not right to let the owner know a word about it, at least until the subject had been well considered. But she called me in the council, and my advice was to keep it dark and make the most of it. And here is all there is of it. It seems that the old scientific bloke had a sister in the wilds of Northumberland, to whom he gave fearful offense years ago, by blowing her cat up or something of that sort, and she vowed he should never have six pence of hers. But being better off for cash than kindred, which is not the usual state of things, she has left all her belongings to his daughter, straight away in the lump, with nothing to pay but duty. Her father will be her trustee by law, they suppose, until she is of age or marries. But if she marries without having it settled, which her father, of course, would insist upon, why, there you are, the happy man is master of the money, though she may go in for a post-nuptial, or whatever they call it, kind of settlement. Downey, my boy, it sounds too good to be true, says Sir Cumberlay, looking at him doubtfully, but the young man's great bulky face and round forehead were as tranquil as an orange. Who were the lawyers? It came, of course, from the old lady's man of law. Was it a London or a country firm? I don't want to be too inquisitive, you know. But in a matter of this sort, unless you know the better so long as you are convinced, you are eager to marry the girl without a penny, and what motive can I have for deceiving you? In fact, I think I have been a fool to tell you. We could let her get the money, and what chance would you have then? Plenty of young swells with rhino of their own would be after such a pretty girl with sixty thousand pounds. And I will tell you two things since you seem to doubt me. In the first place, I shall insist upon tenth thou, advanced upon my note of hand at five percent. And again for your comfort, my mother, since she heard of it, won't hear another word of you, beloved Potts, unless I can bring her round to it. She would naturally prefer a young, soft fellow with a fine place of his own, where she can go and govern, when she wants a little change as she governs everywhere. So that will be all you get, old chap, by doubting yours truly. Good night, my boy. I'm sorry that I ever told you. Don't be so hot, my friend. I never doubted you. All that I doubted was my own good luck. And upon my soul, downy, if you had had such luck as I have, you would never place any more faith in it. Here, my dear fellow, have a down pendolato. There's not such another weed to be got in London. And here's a rare drop of old brandy, such as perhaps you never tasted. It's as old as the hills, and as soft as oil. You must never put a drop of water with it. It stands me in two hundred and forty shillings a dozen. And I have never let any one see it but myself. What do you think of that now? Roll it on your tongue. The best liquor you ever knows is not a patch upon it. You're a good judge. Give me your opinion. I never tasted anything like it, Potts. Where the double do you get it from? Ah, I'll put you up to that some day. But now let us have a little quiet chat. You need not be afraid of it. Have another glass. You see, I always take it in a very thin dock glass, made on the purpose for it. If it had not been for that, I should have gone to the dogs long ago with all my troubles. However, let us hope for an end of them soon. Fifty thou would set me straight, and I could get back the old place, and give up fast life, and turn quiet country squire. It is time for me to get out of all this racket, and stick to one or two solid friends like you. Ah, tell me, old chap, exactly what am I to do? I'll give you any undertaking you think fit, only, of course, we must keep it dark. Ah, do not be in any over-hurry. Donovan bull-rag breathings of blue serenity from the gray-edged auricula of his fine cigar, and then said slowly, I remember some little box you used to have, about two miles beyond Hounslow. Yes, and I've got it still, because nobody would have it. They wanted to turn it into a poultry breeding place when the craze was on, but they could not pay deposit. At any rate, they didn't, and I have it still on hand. All right, have it aired. It will be very pretty, now that the broom and all that is coming on again, and another week or so the nightingales will be about. Could you have a snugger place on earth to pass your honeymoon in? Twig, said Sir Cumberlay, twigs the word with a little quiet prodding and a special license. But won't she cut up rough, my boy? We must not have abduction. It has been done to my family, but the times were better, then. Kitty is not the one to cut up rough. My mother has drilled her a lot too well for that, and if I come with her, and you are not seen till the last, there can be no talk about abduction. All the little particulars must be left to me. You can let me your crib if it eases you down, and produce the agreement if there is any row. But there won't be any row. You know the rule with women. Smooth over everything when the job is done. I should like to think it over, a little downy. I'm not like a boy who has had the world on his side when he does a rash thing in his passion. The world has been very hard on me, God knows, and I'm rather old to give it another slap in the face. Why shouldn't I marry the charming Kitty with her mother's consent and all done in proper trim? Then we could go down to my old house and have bonfires and bells and roasts and ox and all that. And she could have a settlement. Why not? My lawyers could do it, so as to leave me the tin. Try it on that way, if you like. How can it matter to me, beloved Potts? There are two little stodges for you to get over. Would Kitty ever look at you if she knew she had this money? And my mother will not hear of you, since she saw that letter. That devil of a woman! cried the other rather rudely, forgetting that her son received the statement of the fact. She has always heard her own way, and she always will. Thank God that she never married me. Perhaps she would have done it if she had seen me it soon enough. If she has turned against me it is all up without some such lay as yours, my boy. Not a dog can tuck his ear up without her knowing why. You could never get your sister down there without her knowing it. She is not my sister, said Downy very hotly. Or do you think I would let her marry such a man as you? But the devil of a woman as you politely call her goes down to my grandfather in Wales next week and takes my two sisters with her. Oh! Then the coast will be clear, my dear boy. That makes all the difference. You might have told me that half an hour ago. I see the way of it now, clear enough. The main point will be to keep the country lawyers quiet. Unless they get an answer to their letter pretty sharp they'll be sending up a junior partner or their London agent, for fear of some other lawyer's finger in the pie. That would upset your pot. How are you to help it? Nothing easier, for a few days at any rate. And that is why the job must be tackled pretty smart. We shall send an acknowledgement in Kitty's name to-morrow, saying that she wishes to consult her father's lawyers, name of the firm, of course, omitted, from whom Mishir's so-and-so will hear very shortly. And that will keep them quiet for a bit. Those fellows make a point of never hurrying one another. Capito, I know what they are too well. Either by, did you tell me the name of the gang in Northumberland? I might make a note of it. Though I must not let them guess that I heard of them, of course. You would cut your own throat, if you did, Potts. I can tell you, if you like, and get the letter, perhaps, to show you. But you had better be able to swear, if there should be any rumpus, that you had never so much as heard of them. And then, if you were pressed, you might admit that you had heard some vague rumour, but paid no attention to it. As it came from a source you had very little faith in. Certainly I could swear that without much harm. Don't show me the letter. I don't want to see it. Have another drop of this wonderful stuff. It wouldn't hurt a child. It's as soft as milk. Oh, not a drop. I'm too late as it is. You'd better keep away from our place for the present. It would not be so well for you to receive the sack, you see, before the great stroke comes off next week, and a mother might be apt to administer it in her hasty way, you know. Send a line to say you've got a cold or something, and then run down to the cottage, and begin at once to get it into spick and span. And I shall come to you every night, and report progress. Sixty thousand is a good stake to run for. But when is it to be, downy? When is it to be? My nerves are not what it used to be, and I shall not get a wink till the race is pulled off. Oh, yes you will. If you go in for hard work. How can I tell the day till I have seen the mother off? The sooner the better, when she has made tracks. There's an old buffer coming to see the house, and keep our kitty in order. But I can do what I like with her. She smashed taters after the real thing. Be of good cheer, bots. I should say next Wednesday or Thursday would see you reformed and happy character. Tata, remember me and your prayers. I say, downy, just one little thing, said Sir Cumberlay, recalling him with some hesitation. You must not be offended, old fellow, but I should be so much obliged, if you would drop your habit of calling me pot so frequently. It sounds so personal, although of course it has no application to me as yet. Why, you might even do it before your sister, and then it would be so... so unromantic. You see what I mean? No offense, you know? I tell you I won't have her called my sister. She is no sister of mine nor in any way connected. If you call her my sister any more, I shall look upon it as an insult. Very great compliment, I should say, Sir Cumberlay pondered when his visitor was gone. What the deuce makes him get in such a wax about it? A fellow with such a batter-putting face might be proud to call such a girl his sister. Oh, I see why it is, what a thick I must be. If she were a sister, he would be ashamed to be a party to this little plant. I don't like the look of it, and that's all about it. But such a poor devil must not stick at trifles. Sixty thousand pounds would set me on my legs again. And it is not to be had by lying down and rolling. And the sweetest girl in London too, without any cheek or high faulting, I can soon break her into any pace I choose. I'm not a bad fellow, only so unlucky. This comes off. I'll go to church every Sunday, but I'll take uncommon good care all the same that Master Johnny Dory does not collar too much of the rhino. I hate that young fellow. He's just like a yellow slug crawling on a mop. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Of Kit and Kitty By Richard Dardridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 30 Baskets There are ever so many kinds of baskets used in Covent Garden Market, some of good measure, some of guess, and some of luck all together, like a railway's charges. They come from every quarter of the globe, and the pensive public may be well pleased if it gets a quarter of its bargain. A bushel may hold a pack more or less according to the last jump made upon it. The basket-makers are by no means rogues, because the contents can make no difference to them. They turn out strong wear at a very high price, so many inches in width and so many in depth, according to tradition. Then they pat it and pinch it down and paint the name upon it, and their business ends accept to get their money. And of this they never fail, for the grower as a rule grows honesty as his chief and often only crop. But after that basket's verge and fill, how many meretricious uses does it undergo? The poor grower who has paid half a crown for it never uses it again, perhaps, until it has worn out and comes back to him, with a shilling demanded for his name, when it has spent all its prime in half the shops and trucks of London. Here it has passed through a varied course of fundamental changes, alternately holding three pecs and five according to its use for sale or purchase. At first it was gifted with a slightly incurved bottom, not such a deep kick as a champagne bottle has, which Napoleon III vainly strove to abolish, but a moderate and decent inward tendency. Here the robe spies his vantage ground. Before filling it for sale he lays it flat upon its rim, mounts upon the concave eternal, and with a few heavy jumps of both heels produces a bold and lofty internal dome. Then he stuffs up the cavity round the side with a tidy lot of hay or leaves or paper, and though you have three pecs as brave as any four. But is he going to buy by that measure? He lays it firmly upon its base, gets inside, and jumps with equal vigor. The accommodating bottom becomes concave, and he brings home five pecs running over into his bosom. As honest producers we know nothing of all this, except by the mark of hobnails on our wicker when it comes home with no integrity left. Our business is to fill our baskets whenever the Lord permits us, keeping the top fruit certainly not worse than the bottom, for that would be quitsotic, and not a bit better than human nature and the artistic sense demand of us. And there have been few greater columnies of recent years, though the world grows more and more columnious, than the call my uncle Orchison corny the topper, as if he covered rubbish with a crown of red or gold. A topper he was, but it was only thus he topped all his customers in honesty. This explanation was necessary and should have been offered long ago, but I thought it as well to let people see first from his character given by himself and me that he required no such vindication. If ever there was a man who gave good change for six pence, I, and took good care to get it too, you will own it was my uncle corny. However he used for inferior fruit, such as windfalls or maggoty or undersized stuff, a cheaper and commoner form of basket, such as the dealers call sallies. These are of no special measure, but hold on the average about half a bushel. Some of them much more and some a little less, and there is no name marked upon them. They come for the most part with foreign fruit in them, and are often thrown by when emptied. And there are men about the market who collect these, perhaps for nothing or at any rate, for very little, and sell them to the fruit growers, or the dealers at prices which vary according to their quality and the demand for them, etc. They can often be had as a shilling a dozen, at which price they are cheap for any use, and at times they are not to be got under six pence apiece, but perhaps the average is two pence. They are deeper than baskets of measure and not so wide, also made of much lighter wicker and often full of stubs inside which would never do for best or second fruit, in fact, they are like a waste paper basket, such as one often sees under a table. When I had been gone at least a fortnight, I should say, though I could not be certain about dates just then, to my Aunt Parslow's at Leatherhead, my uncle having done all his grafting by himself, where there always was some to do every year, took a general look at his trees and found that the buds looked as promising as ever he had seen them. He was rather surprised at this, not at all an account of the long hard winter, but because of the very cold wet summer and autumn which had preceded it. The trees would be full of unripe wood and sappy shoots shriveled by the frost and scurvy bark and perished boughs and general discomfort and silkiness. At least everybody said that was how they ought to be, and my uncle had never contradicted them, preferring a little pessimism, because it is always the safer side. And probably upon cold wet soils all the evils predicted had succeeded, which would make it all the better for the places where they failed. So that my uncle, all sympathizing warmly with all his brother-growers in their bad look-out, shook his head about his own, and smoked his pipe, it would not speak of his chickens, much less count them. But when the sun began to get the upper hand of the days again, and the spring was looking through the hedge and into the hearts of the trees almost, and the earth seemed ready to lift its breast, as a maiden does for her flowers to be fixed, and every shrub that showed a leaf had got a bird to sing to it, or a time the best man found it hard to make the worst of everything, and even the often-frozen grower hoped not to be frozen again this year. For the later in English fruit tree is in showing its white or pink challenge to the sky the less is the chance of unheavenly heaven descending upon a white mellow and smiting all to utter blackness. The ground had been frozen to a depth of twenty inches by the rigor of enduring frost, and after that the push of spring takes a long time to get down the line. Tompkins! said my uncle, who was poking about with a spade to kill snails and some iris-roots, for no sort of winter makes much difference to a snail. Draft in their breeding time is all they care for much. Tompkins, it is high time to be looking up our baskets, and another month these fellows will be sticking it on again. Adam will, a long man replied. He was short of tongue, as a very tall man, by some ordinance of nature almost always is, perhaps because his fellow creature's hats have endangered it while it was tender. You had better go over and see old whisk at three-quarter day to-morrow. You can have the tax-cart, and just see what he has. He is bound to have a good stock now after all the long frost and snow on hand, and he is pretty sure to be hard up. In June he begins to grin at us. Get the figure for bushels and halves by the gross, but don't order any until I know. But if he's picked up any salleys he might bring a gross at a shilling a dozen. I will give you twelve shillings, and I'll be bound the old rogue will be glad of a bit of ready money. All right, Governor, Celsius Bill offered up one gaunt knuckle to his hat, which had no brim to accept it, for he had improved in sense of manners since his wages were advanced. He had been put on, when the days pulled out, to twenty shillings a week, with a title not conferred, but generally felt a foreman of the outer work. He had a shilling apiece for his children now every week and another for his wife, and two to think about all Sunday, and my firm belief is that if he could have earned another by wronging us he would have made the tempter swallow it. But mind one thing, said my uncle strongly, for he found it ruinous to relax. Your wife's brother, I believe it is, that keeps the crooked billet beyond the heath, not a hundred yards from old whisk's place. You need not pull spanker up to give Mrs. Tompkins love, you know. Right you are, Governor, what wicked things you do put into a fellow's head. My uncle grinned and so did Bill, but with his long back turned and his hand upon his spade. On the following afternoon Bill acted with the truest sense of honour as he approached the crooked billet, the wind for which he was not to blame, brought him the burden of a drawing song, drawled as only a middle-sex man, who can beat all the north and even west at that, control his slow emotions forth. Oh, I would be a jolly gardener, I would be a jolly gardener with my pot and my pipe for my swig and my swipe, and the devil take the rest, say, I. Bill knew every nose that was singing this and every fist that was drumming on the table, but such were his principles that instead of pulling up, he let the reins hang loose and even said kuck to old spanker. Although he had owned him so long, the horse had never forgotten his ancient days, when he may have belonged to a brewer perhaps, for he never could pass any whole street of a cool and respectable aspect, with a tree and a trough in front of it, but that he would offer a genial glance from the corner of one blinker and make a short step and show readiness to parley. He did more than this now, for he pulled up short and tossed up his nose and accosted with a winnie a horse of more leisure, who was standing by the door. Wants to wash his mouth out? So do I, but I'll be hanged if I'll go inside all the same. Reasoning thus, Celsius Bill got down, for he saw a wisp of hay by the trough just fitted to dip in the water and cool the muzzle. But before he could hoist his long legs into the cart as he positively meant to do, a buxom short woman had his arm enclasped with two red hands and was looking up at him with words of reproach with a smile of goodwill. It ain't no nonsense, I tell you, Bill. She exclaimed and replied to his soft remonstrance. Come in, you shall, and have a word or two inside. I've got something particular in my mind, and you'll never forgive yourself if you goes on like this. What could Tompkins do? His wife's brother's wife was godmother to nearly half his children, and she had a bit of money of her own and no children of her own to leave it to. Well, only half a minute, then, he said, to ease his conscience. And not a drop of beer, you know. Least ways not till I've been the old whisk over, Your Honor. Why, the old chap's inside seems a providence to me, because now you be bound to come in and see him. But I want to talk separate to you, Bill. You have got such a head, you know, such a way up. The landlady took Bill to her own room around the corner of the house, so that no one saw him while Spanker was linked to the post and had some hay. And she told him such a story that his little black eyes which tried to look at one another over his great nose twinkled and flashed and were full of puzzled wrath. Then she brought him a pint of mild ale, for she knew that his mind worked slowly and required to be refreshed. Never here'd tell such a job in my unborn days. Couldn't have believed it if it wasn't you, Eliza. You was always truth itself. But how can you be certain the young girl, as told you, is quite right in her mind? Well, I can't be certain, Bill, for she is a stranger about here, but she looks right enough, and she was genuine flustered. And more than that, there's several things that comes to back her up like. What shall we do, Bill? That's the point. Sure enough so it is. What does Teddy say to it? Well, you know what he is. If he see a murder doing, I believe he'd shut his eyes and ears and whip around the corner. Besides that, he is never no good after two o'clock, and he only heard of this about an hour ago. So, to tell you the plain truth, I haven't said a word about it, and it's no good to tell him nothing till tomorrow morning. Not that he'd take so very much, you know, but his constitution is aqueer. If you had not come by, I was just making up my mind to put on my shawl and step off to the police, though it's three miles to go, and then most likely never find them. And if you did, I don't believe they'd take a bit of notice. These two ways not, if they was disposition, same as ours. Got never a justice of the peace round here. Some counties they call them a magistrate. Nobody nearer than Colonel Bowles, and Ted was saying yesterday that he was gone from home. No, Bill, for all I can see there's not a soul to move a finger, unless there's you and me. But what can us do? I can't see no call for us to meddle, if policemen won't. Enough to do with my own kids, Sister Liza, and nobody but me to help them. I must be jogging. No, you won't be jogging, and you've got to see whisk. What's your common sense, Bill? Can't you see that he'll stick a shilling onto everything if they send down here to fetch him for you? No man can abide to be disturbed with his glass, and he expects a lot of money if he gives it up. That's the way all those ranchers thrive, their beer would cost three half-pence, and they get six pence for not having it, and has it on the sly in their own beds. Go and see old whisk, but not a word of what I told you. Only you must come back to me when you have done what you want with him. No business of mine any more than yarn, and perhaps the best way to let things go by law and not be called up and lose your time, and have to pay for it and think yourself lucky if they don't find you too. That is all one gets for not winking at a thief, Bill. The truth of this was too manifest to require any acknowledgement, and Tompkins went to see Mr. whisk in the taproom, and after much discussion drove him to his promises, there to see and deal about the wicker stuff, but he only got half a gross of sally's, which proved a very lucky thing afterwards, for whisk had no more, or at any rate said so, not liking the price, perhaps, for they were good substantial stuff which also proved a happy thing before very long. Then Celsy Bill touched spanker up, for it was getting on for dark, but he did not like to pass the crooked billet without calling, because he was proud of being a man of his word. CHAPTER XXXI THE GIANT OF THE HEATH There is, or at least there used to be, along the back of Hounslow Heath, a lane, which leaves the great western road on the right-hand side and goes off alone. The soil is very poor and thin, and nothing seems to flourish much except the hardier forms of fur, and the vagrant manner of mankind. The winter winds and the summer draught sweep over the cranny into it, and a very observant man is needed to find much to talk about. But wherever a man or a woman is, and whatever may be the season, one earnest cry arises in the bosom, and it is for beer. Those nobler beings who oust their British nature with foreign luxury, and learn to make belief of joy in the sour grape or the stringent still, are apt to forget, as perverts do, the solidity of the ancient creed. If a good or evil genius had stood by Sir Cumberlay Hodgepot, or even Downey Bullrag, and whispered, Have a furkin of Treblex, or Indian Pale! There might be now no chance for Bill to tell the things he had to tell. When Tompkins, with his cart half full of sallies piled like flowerpots, pulled up again at the wayside inn, he found it dark and lonely. The four jolly gardeners were gone home, or at any rate gone somewhere. Teddy, the landlord, was fast asleep by the kitchen fire, and would so remain till roused by the music of the frying-pan. They kept no bar made, and the man who generally lounged about the stable was gone to have his lounge out somewhere else. Good night, Liza! Bill shouted up the staircase on the chance of a landlady hearing his voice, but instead of any answer her step was heard, and she turned the corner on him with her shawl and bonadon. I couldn't leave it so, she said. I don't know what come over me, but after you was gone my heart fell all the pitter-pattering, and such bad ideas come into my head. I never did. I could no more sleep this blessed night without knowing more about that there business than I could stand on my head and strike the hours like a clock. I may be a fool for it, and have to go before the justices, but ease my mind somehow I must. Liza rolls, replied Selzy Bill, standing nearly two feet above her but looking down with true deference. Who feels that sort of thing? Who am I to go again it? You are bound to have some it on your own mind, as was never put there for nothing, ma'am, and if it comes to that, why so has I. Do you mean to say, Bill? asked Mrs. Rolls, with awe not of his height, for she was used to that, but of his thoughts coming just to her level. Did you had as queer ideas, too, about what the little girl was telling me? You have put it, Liza, in the very words as I should have put in, if the Lord give me the power, but I leave all that to my wife now. She can fit up to meaning and no mistake. Very well, Bill, there's no more to be said. Off I goes with you, and you drives round by Structury Cottage, as we call it, not that we mean to make tan trips, you know, but just to see how it looks and ease our minds. Mrs. Rolls cast a glance at the high step of the cart, for she was not so tall as she was tender, and Celsy Bill cast a glance at her, balancing in the fine poise of his mind whether or no he should venture to offer, as it were, to lift her, but he saw that it would not be just to his wife who might come some day to hear of it, for you never can tell what those women will let out. So he whipped forth his knife, and cut the cord which bound a dozen sallies into one spire and fetching out a basket, set it down upon the rim, so that Mrs. Rolls, though of good weight and measure, taking that for her first rung, went up without a groan. You take next turn to her, Tarlington, and go long quiet as you can, Bill, when she had settled down with a clean sack beneath her on the driving-board, and else shall I tell you what I believe? I may be wrong, of course, we all are liable to horrors. You feel that yourself, Bill, though a man with such a family, give more opportunities, so as to say, and a wife? answered Bill. Here comes first, begin with. In course, here comes first, in the regular way, a good and faithful wife, and the mother of seventeen. But with such luck as that I know what men is, and I say to you, Bill Tompkins, that they differ very much. I make the very best of them, as is the duty of a woman, and leads to their repentance, when they has it in them, but most of them is not, without a word against my teddy. And I say that this Lord Hopscotch here, if such is his name being very doubtful, is up to some badness having no belief of any one down his way to write it. Therefore you take that corner, Bill, and go on slowly till I tell you when to stop. Mind, I don't say I know what it is, but I can guess. We have had many a gay doings down this way, for all that looks so innocent, and perhaps for that same reason. What can I want with more children, so that way inclined? But the quiverful Bill dropped his essay on the subject, for there is much more bashfulness among poor people than among their betters on such topics of discourse. Presently they came to a dark, quiet elbow of the road, or rather of the track across the turf, for they had passed all stones and hedges now, and the wheels went softly upon the grass and peat. A clump of scotch firs, bowed by the west winds, overhung the way, and made it somber as the grave. About a hundred yards before them was a low square building, on the verge of the heath, and surrounded with bushes and something that looked like a wooden palisade. That's where it is. That is Structury Cottage. The lightning come down and scorch the old oak. Mrs. Rolls spoke in a whisper as if herself afraid of it. You see there's a light in the parlor, Bill. That's where the villain says, I do believe. And the poor lady locked way upstairs, maybe. Now you go forward and just peep in. They'll never be capable of suspecting nothing, and everything will be black to them outside. It was quite dark now, without moon or stars. Spanker and the cart, which was painted brown, could scarcely be described even twenty yards away, and the sallies were of unpeeled ozier. Bill handed the reins to his sister-in-law, and got down in his usual lanky style. Although he was a very hard-working fellow, nothing could drive him into quick jerks, for his joints were loose, and were often heard to creak when the wind was in the east and the air too dry. But of them cometh at me! He asked with proper prudence, and a sense of his importance, to three crowded rooms at home. Why, he ain't got so much as a stick to help me. No fear, little Billy. Guilty conscience makes a coward. You need not let them see you. And if they do, why, they'll take you for the giant of the heath. The old high woman was hanged in chains, not a hundred yards from here. My father seed him often. And when he fell down, he took the walking through the fuzz. Oh, Lord, no more of that, Liza. All my teeth be a-gone, Tratteron. Give us a sack at any rate, if I meet thee. Mrs. Rolls, who was not very happy herself, handed him a spare sack from the cart, and billed Tompkins with many glances right and left and heartily wishing himself at home, set forth towards the cottage, walking very slowly and carefully shunning every stick and stone that was visible on the brown, inhospitable earth. As he passed beneath the shattered tree, he looked up with a shutter at the jagged fork and naked stubs and contorted limbs, expecting the dead highwayman to clank his ghostly chains. Then he stole on with more courage, for he was tolerably brave, at least as regarded fellow beings in the flesh. When he came to the fence, a low palisade of fur, he just lifted his long legs over it without casting about for any gate or door. As he groped along the fence towards the house, he discovered a gate which appeared to be locked, and observing that the palisade was much higher here, he very wisely lifted this gate from its hinges and left room for himself to slip through at the back if pursued and obliged to retreat in a hurry. Then he made his way stealthily through some low shrubs to the corner of the cottage and considered things. It was quite a small building, with only four windows in front, and a door with a little porch between them. Two windows were on the ground floor and two above. The windows of the downstairs rooms had outer shutters, a rather framed blinds of latticework, such as carpenters call louvers. These were closed and fastened, but from the one on the right of the porch a strong light came through the interstices of the blind, and streamed in narrow slices on the misty gloom outside. The horizontal laths were turned at such an angle that a man of common stature would only see the floor between them, but Celsius Bill was almost a giant, and hearing loud voices in that lower room he approached the window stealthily, and standing on tiptoe applied one eye to the top of the framework of the blind, where he found a wide slit between the beating and the first lath. Through this he could see nearly all that was inside, for the curtains hung back at the end of a pole. Also he could hear pretty well what was said, for the window glass was thin and the ceiling low. There were only two men in the room, both lounging in shabby armchairs near the fire and smoking, yet not looking peaceful. Tompkins was surprised at this, because he could never have his own black pipe, with the cheapest and strongest tobacco to puff, and his own bit of fire to dry his sodden feet, without feeling as if he could stand anything from any one, even to the theft of his very last half-penny by his youngest boy Bob, who was bound to know better with so many rascals in front of him. And these rich gentlemen, for so they seemed, were smoking a fine blue girly cloud, such as a poor man can only put his nose to, when the putty is gone from the glass between him and his true superior. Bill became deeply curious, now, that gentlemen of such tip-top style, too grand almost for the world to carry, drinking rare stuff like the sun through church windows, and smoking, as if it were so much dirt, cigars such as Bill knew by memory, for he had picked up a pretty fair stump sometimes, that they should be hob-nob in this little room, no better than his own Uncle Tompkins had, yet not at all hob-by-nob soft and pleasant. And looking fit to fly at one another for two peas, all this must mean something as was natural for police, if only they could be persuaded to do more than flap their white gloves in view of tricks that were knobby. Mr. Tompkins applied a dry rasp to his lips with his knuckles, well-fitted for that operation, which had many times saved the mouth from evil issue. Then he listened and gazed intently, as no man can do who has had his powers spoiled by the higher education. Then it comes quite to this, said a gentleman whose face was in full view to Bill, though by no means a fair view. Would you mean to throw me over, after all my risk, and take the fair spoil for yourself? I have known a good many cool things in my time, but this by long chalks as the coolest. Take it at that same temperature. Answered a larger and younger man who was lolling back, with the roof of his system exposed to Bill, who perceived therein a likeness to the back of a yellow sky-dog who has not been combed very lately. You have let yourself in for it, for the sake of fifty looker, and alas, it proves that I was entirely misinformed. Make the best of it, old man. You have rushed into a scrape. There is too much proof, I fear, that it is all your own doing. The law will be down upon you, and where is your defence? There is one way, and only one, to hush it up. A girl must marry one of us after what has happened. She has not got a six-pence, and she is wild with rage. Disappoints me there, after all my mother's lessons. Don't think you could tame her, Pots, but feel sure that I could. Then here I step in, like the deuce from a machine, and magnaminously offer to make amends for my mistake. And instead of being grateful you set to enslave me, consider what a lot of that I shall have from the mother. You can stand anything, said the other with a sigh. But I am not as tough as I used to be, in a row when the papers brings the duns in by the dozen. A girl is as sweet a woman as ever looked through a bridle, and I had set my heart upon her, when I thought she would have money. But I could not marry her like this, and be laughed at ever afterwards for a loping with a pauper. Can't you take her back to night, and nobody the wiser? And perhaps I can have her in the proper course of things. Impossible, you thick old Pots! She has not tasted a bitter supper for four and twenty hours, and her face is in a show, the old woman say. Now it must be reeled straight off this time. You can hear her moaning now. That old woman is a fool, and the little girl a rogue who would betray us, if she could. But we are all right here, and tomorrow the fair kitty will accept me as her deliverer. We shall make short work of it, and you retire blameless. The other man began to growl, but Bill stopped not to hear him. His righteous soul was wild already, and his mercy flowed unstrained. Now and then there had come as from an upper window the sound of low sobbing and the weariness of woe, when some human creature finds the whole world set against it, yet cannot get out to seek a better. Bill stepped quietly round the little porch and stood beneath the window whence the sound appeared to come. The window was over the kitchen, as it seemed, and the sill was about twelve feet from the ground. The kitchen blind was down, and the firelight dulled within. Tompkins laid his sack along the kitchen window sill and, stepping on it softly, could just reach the stone at the bottom of the bedroom window. With a little groping he contrived to get one foot upon the branch of a pear tree which was trained against the house. And lifting his tall frame warily, he got his chin upon the level of the window sill above. The whole aperture was barred with stout wire netting, but the lower sash had just been lifted to throw something out, something white like an eggshell that flew by as Bill drew back. Bill said, Oh, you won't have it, won't you? Said a cross and cranky voice, and Bill saw by the light of a guttering tallow candle an old woman going towards a young one who lay on a low iron bed with brass knobs at the corners. But you know your own business best and pretty air as you give yourself. I tell you there ain't nothing in it, but new laid egg and good sherry wine, and you see me mix it up for yourself. A pretty one you'll be to go to church tomorrow without a bit of color in your cheeks or a bit of vitals in you. Cry, cry, cry all the bless a day long, instead of being proud to stand up with a rich gentleman. My patience with you are pretty well worn out, and a pretty dance you led me all last night. But I've got something in the kitchen as will force you for to swallow, something come of purpose as very day from London, and directions with it for the fractious, folks. I try you fair once more, Miss, if Miss it is, and after that I try you foul. You see if that doesn't. But the lady who lay her face to the wall and a mass of curly hair shining down her black dress would not even look round or make any reply, but just lifted one elbow and then let it fall again. Very well, we'll see. Just you wait ten minutes while I has a bit to eat myself, and then we'll try the little tickler. Nobody to thank but yourself, you know. If ever there was a cantankerous, sulky, self-willed young minxed and ungrateful to boot. The wicked old woman went muttering from the room, leaving the window sill open and the candle flaring and smoking on the chest of drawers, but locking the narrow door behind her with a rusty squeak of key. Now or never, thought Bill, who would have liked, deeply respectful as he was to the fair sex, to have taken that old hag by the throat. With one hand he got a good grasp of the sill while he pressed the other through the wire-grading, and raised the sash a little higher to attract attention. The fair prisoner was far too gone in distress and despair to heed any light sound, or even a creak and rattle. Miss! Miss, if you please, young miss! Bill put his mouth, which would open as wide as almost any cottage window, as far in as it would go, for the wire was much in his way, and blew his voice in, but whether it was from the wealth of her hair, as all our best writers express it, or the action of the throat upon the ears, which may have been sobbed into deafness. There she lay like a log as if no Bill Tompkins had his heart throbbing only for the benefit of hers. Rat thy women! thought Bill to himself. If you want them to hear, can't make them do it. If you want to keep a trifle from them, cut both your feet off and walk upon your fanny-jowls. Here goes, neck or nort. He had pulled out a big wall nail with a heavy shred attached, and choosing a wide space of the wire netting he flung it so cleverly at the head oppressed with sorrow that the owner jumped up and looked about and rubbed the eyes thereof. Hush, Miss Hush! For the Lord say Hush! whispered Bill as if the first effect of feminine revival must be the liberation of the tongue. It's only me, Miss. Bill Tompkins from Sunbury. Pleased to come nire, Miss, till I tell you. I don't understand. I seem lost altogether. They have locked me up here, and they may kill me before I will do a single thing they want of me. What do you come for? And what makes you look at me? There is nobody to help me, not a person in the world. Lord bless me if his don't beat cock-fighting, as she tottered towards a window with both hands upon her head, the light of the candles shone into her dazzled eyes weak and weary as they were with floods of tears, and she waved her fingers over them with a strange turn of the palm, which was deeply cupped, a turn quite indiscernible, a bit of native gesture which was almost attractive and certain to be known again, though it might have seemed to pass unnoticed. Miss, if I ever see two ladies in my life, you be Miss Kitty, art-cut sweetheart. What is the good of a sweetheart to him? Don't tell me anything. I can't bear it. I was going to his funeral, his funeral, yesterday, and they put me in the carriage for the purpose, and they lost their way, so they said, and they brought me here, and instead of going to his funeral, I am to marry someone else. But I won't do it. I'll never marry any one but Kit, and Kit is dead and gone to heaven. Darn liars! Did they tell you that? cried Tomkins as if that would never be my destination. Our Kit, Miss, is alive as you be, though he have had a bad time of it, and gone to London now. We expect him home next week, we does. And proud he would be, Miss, to see you there, a forum. There never were such a chap to carry on about a gal. Least ways beg pardon, Miss. I mean to find young lady. He was talking thus because she could not speak, which he had the human kindness to perceive. Is it true? She was able to ask at last, and he answered, True is gospel, self-mutators, Miss, it is. And she knelt for a moment to thank the Lord, but Bill said, No time now, Miss, out of this she comes this very minute, and home with me to Sunbury. Can't get out the window, took good care of that. Come out of the door and slip downstairs. But she has locked me in, cried Kitty, and there are two dreadful men downstairs. I don't care what they do to me now. Now I know what you have told me. Go away while you can, they will kill you. Just you go to their door, and drive back to catch with this here knife. There's nothing but a gallow's staple, and a wrap with the butt end will send it back. Ten to one it will, Miss. Put your handkercher over the lock while you does it, and back it goes, if I know them locks. Have a candle handy. The seed where to hit. And then down to the front door and away to our cart. But don't lose my knife, for the Lord's sake. A sensible gallow has always got two pockets. Kitty, with her strength revived by spirit, took the big knife with an iron butt, and easily drove back the bolt, for the staple was an open one. Then Bill descended without any noise while she slipped gently down the stairs, and in the porch he met her. The front door had been bolted, but she drew back the bolt, and Bill took her hand, and she stood outside. Ah, what's up? Cried a voice from inside, for the catch had closed again with a loud snap. Run, Miss, run while I stop these chips. Shouted Bill as she ran like a hare from a dog. For a moment or two Bill was able to hold the brass knob of the lock against the two from within. But presently it slipped from his hand, and the door flew open, and two men prepared to rush out. But Tompkins threw his sack at full length over the head of the foremost, and striking wildly down he came on his knees, and the other fell across him. Bill made off like a shot while they cursed one another, and before they were a foot again he had slipped through the opening of the unhinsk gate and pulled it after him. And using his long legs rather slackly, but to great effect through the length of their stride, he took the struck tree for his landmark, and without thought of the ghost, soon had Kitty at his side, and they made off, hot foot for the cart and Mrs. Rolls. Here you be, here you be! shouted that good lady. Mind the ruts, the villains are after you! This was too true, though they might not have owned that description of themselves. Two hasty men, without even a hat on, were rushing about, bewildered by the darkness and their own excitement in taking the wrong way more often than the right. They fell among the furs and got patterns on their faces, and showed no gratitude to nature for one of her best gifts. But presently they spied the white nose of Spanker, which was hanging down with wonder if ever he should get home, and then they saw two figures in a hustle by the cart, and one was being helped in by the long stretch of the other. Stop, thieves! cried Sir Cumberlay, who was dreadfully out of breath, and therefore perhaps he let the other form go first to stop them. And Bill turned round and faced them, and he said, You get away! You ain't got no right with this young lady, so help me, God, I'll smash you if you offer to touch her. He advanced with his great fists, revolving like a windmill, that being our accepted view of the art of self-defense. A Mrs. Roll said, No, Bill! while the other stood amazed at the height of his antagonist and his uncouth look. Don't sew your hand with him, clap this upon his pole! Before Downey could guess what was meant, he was basketed. A big tapper sally full of sharp stubs inside was clapped down on his yellow head and fixed there staunchly. By a heavy wrap from Bill's great hand upon its bottom, roars of pain and stifled oaths issued from it faintly, and a wearer fell down upon the grass and rolled like a squirrel in his wheel, or a dogfish in an eel-crew of little one for the other, cried the clever landlady, and in a half-a-second Hotchpot was in the same condition. Good night, gentlemen, both! shouted Bill as he drove off. You go to trap Miss Kitty, and you get trapped by Miss Sally! Mrs. Roll's laugh so loudly at this piece of wit that her husband vowed he heard her plainly at the crooked billet. END OF CHAPTER XXXI Come and see who we've got here! wrote my uncle, not quite grammatically, but the relatives are enough to puzzle any one who has not had Latin antecedents, if on the strength of good spirits I may venture upon a very ancient joke. I knew who it was. There could be no suspense or doubt. With those very brief words of his came a little note in the hand that always made my hands shake. "'Darling Kit,' it said, "'I'm so sorry to hear of your long and fearful illness, but thank God you are getting better now, and will soon be as well as ever, I do hope. I cannot tell you what has happened till you come, for it would only excite and worry you. It really seems as if there was something always to keep us from one another, but we must try to get over it, my dear. And if we keep our trust in a good providence, we shall. Your uncle is the kindness of the kind to me, and I am ever so much better, though I only came last night. I feel that I could wander all day in these lovely gardens, with the blossoms and the birds, and be as happy and as free from care as they are. But I am not to stay here, as your uncle thinks it better, that I should have two pretty rooms at Widow Cullums, which are to be let very reasonably indeed, and I mean to write to ask my father for the money. You must not come back one day sooner on account of my being here, mind that, or I should be very angry with you. This is not because I do not long to see you, for you know better than that, dear Kit, but because I want you to get quite well, which is a great deal more to me than my own health, and so it always should be if people love one another. Give my best regards to your aunt, Miss Parslow, and tell her that I love dogs quite as much as she does, and I once had a dear little dog of my own, but he was taken from me. Now mind what I say, for I will be obeyed at any rate until I have to swear to the contrary, which is never carried out by the ladies nowadays. My dear, dear, I should be afraid to look at you. They tell me you are so different from what you were, and I get long wrinkles up and down my forehead if I ever allow myself to think of it, and though I try not to do it, it will come back again. But never mind, you will be as strong as ever when you have a good kiss from your own kitty. Well, I call that something like a true love letter. My aunt Parslow said when she had contrived almost to compel me to show it to her, which I did not feel sure that I had any right to do. That's a true woman, though I never saw her. She thinks of you ten times as much as of herself, and no man can pretend to say that he repays it even when he happens to deserve it, which has never happened to any gentleman I knew. You write, and you talk, and you go on with fine words till people who listen to you believe that you mean to give up your own ways altogether, and perhaps you do believe it at the time, for you never know your own minds at all. But about three days of it, that's all there is. I know it from friends of my own, though, thank God I had sense enough never to try it myself. And then it is, Mary, could you fill my pipe? It would be so sweet, dear, if you did it. Or, Louisa, I must have left my handkerchief upstairs. Did you happen to notice where I put it, dear? And she is fool enough to run for it, and kisses him on the bottom step, and her life is a treadmill afterwards. Your kitty is quite of that sort, mind. I can see it in every word she writes. Well, and parcelo, and you would have been the same if any gentleman had had the luck to offer you upon his altar. I believe I should. She answered with a snap at first, and then she smiled slowly and said, No doubt I should, kit, but try to be no worse than you can help with her. If anything can rouse a lover's indignation, and there are too many things that do so. Such a calm assumption of its levity and ferocity is the first to set it boiling. What are you thinking of? I asked, without even adding, Aunt Parcelo. I am pleased to see you in that state of mind, she continued, when gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half glance at her twenty thousand pounds from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. But you are very young, kit. You will come to know better, when you have had enough of this sweet kitty, enough very soon becomes too much. And then what do you do? You neglect them, and think that you are very good indeed, if you do know worse. Miss Parcelo was not at all a spiteful woman, even too much the other way, if that can be. And of such things she could have no experience because she had never risked it. But, being deeply hurt, I said, you know best. She turned back to the house, with all her dogs at her heels, for none of them cared a bit for the air of heaven, in comparison with her own food and footstools. And I rather hope that she would come out and say, you have been very rude to me, get back you to Sunbury. Being in a fine large frame of mind, though the frame was too large for its contents, I trow. What did I do? But pull out my kitty's letter and began to read it all again, just as if every word of it were not in my heart already. But it adds sometimes to the satisfaction of the heart to be assured once more by the eyes and brain, that they knew what they were doing when they brought it the good news. The valley of the mole was very lovely, and this flush of the fair springtide, bend after bend, bud after bud, tint upon tint, all as soft to the eye as the sense of them is to the spirit within. With the twinkle of a sun stealing through them shyly, as a youth in the morning of his love quivers as he glances at the beauty of his maiden. All these delights double their enchantment to the weak, as the lights of heaven multiply when the eyes are full of tears. Jupiter, who was the greatest light at least of the earth to Miss Parslow, ran up and sniffed at me and said, Look out, as clearly as the dog of a most observant and genial writer has learned to say it, up to the last advices. And after him came his mistress, no longer did he attic but deprecative. The beauty of woman is that they change so rapidly, who does not love a kaleidoscope. I have been thinking over your affairs. She said that she might seem consistent. And I find my first opinion quite confirmed, the moment I knew what your condition was, I said, As you must remember it. There is only one thing to do, and the sooner we get it done, the better. I will not place myself under any obligation to Mr. Henderson, though I feel that he has behaved very well in not coming over to bother me. I have sent down and ordered the fly with a pole. I forget what they call it, I daresay you know, and I have ordered the green room to be got ready. She must not think at all of her complexion in the glass. It will be as right as ever when she gets downstairs. I have no idea what you mean, Parslow, but you must not be put out, because I was always slow. And they talk of the masculine mind. Oh dear, any girl of your age would have known in a second. There is such a place as Leatherhead, isn't there now? Beyond a doubt? And you, the first lady in it? Very well, and there is such a place as Sunbury and a road between them, though not at all a good one. Well, then, at Leatherhead there is a young man crotchety, grumpy, whatever you like to call him, but horribly stubborn and possessed with one idea. And at Sunbury there is a young lady to be found, very little better, I daresay, and possessed with the same idea, only upside down as women are supposed to see everything. They have got it into their stupid heads that they cannot live without one another. It would cost more to take the young man to her, and perhaps he would never come back again. It is cheaper to fetch the young lady to him, though it can't be done under a guinea. And the fly with two horses will start in half an hour. I told her she was the best woman in the world, and she answered that I was a hypocrite, yet seemed pleased with my hypocrisy. Then we had to debate whether Kitty would come, in which I maintained the negative for the sake of being convinced, not against my will. You are a perfect stoop, said my aunt with sound judgment. You don't know what a woman is, half so well as Jupiter, not to talk of affection or any of that stuff. A woman thinks ten times as much as a man does of the wickedness of wasting money. If I went myself, she would think I came for a drive, and her conscience would be easy. If I sent one horse, she would hesitate a great deal, if she did not want to come. But when she sees two horses in an empty carriage, do you think she would let the man get all the money for nothing? It would take four horses going the other way to prevent her jumping in and saying, well, I suppose I must. I shall write her a very pretty note, of course. You had better not be well enough to send anything but your love. I was only afraid that Uncle Corny might take it as rather a slur upon him to have his new visitor stolen like this, but Miss Parslow, who was always extremely desirous to have her own way when her mind was made up, declared that she would make that all right with him, and so she did by reasoning which I did not try to penetrate, in which she put vaguely in her note to him. For it was something about clothing and deficiency of wardrobe which men cannot understand and are impressed with readily when the duty of paying for it falls on someone else. Not that I intend to pay, said Miss Parslow in confidence to me, though my uncle was led by her letter to a contrary conclusion. But my credit is good in Leatherhead. I shall get a few things of becoming style and tone for her, and have the bill made out to Professor Fairthorne. Measures Flounce and Furbelow may have only got one window, but they get their goods direct from Paris, and I see from their circular they expect a large consignment of very chaste articles and the latest mode to-morrow. It will be most fatiguing at my time of life, but if I like the girl as I know I shall, I can scarcely refuse her the benefit of my judgment. I think I shall go down the hill a little way and see what they have got in the window now. I answered, for the two horses now had been gone for some four hours, and then I shall know the old stuff if they attempt to mix it with the latest mode. You can scarcely be too sharp in these little places. It is not that they want to cheat anybody, and they would rather not do it for a native, but I should just like to see how much they have got now. There is a fine view from the pavement there. You can see right into Middlesex, and even Berkshire, I'm told, when the day is unusually fine. But I never knew it fine enough to see five miles. You might as well go and play with the dogs, my dear. To play with the dogs was very well in its way, and had lightened many a listless hour, when the body was slack for its two-and-fro of action, and the mind could take no food except as a dog bites grass. Then the tricks of the doggies, their sprightly flashing eyes and perception of one's meaning almost before it knew itself, as well as their good nature and enjoyment of a joke, and readiness to time their wits by the slower pulse of mine, take it as I would or might, here was always something to teach me that one is not every one. But I could not see the beauty of this lesson now. Selfish love had got me by the buttonhole, and there never is much humor in the tale he tells. It is all about himself and the celestial one who sent him, and he is so much an earnest that he cannot bear a laugh. Even the chronolines in the little narrow window of mature's flounce and company, where they had to hang alternate, one high and one low not to poke each other's ribs, although they reminded me of what I had seen in church, suggested it without a single smile to follow, for my mind, in the reverence of love was able to people them with the sacred form inside, and yet at any other time I must have laughed, recalling as it did the ingenuity of ladies, who contrived in our narrow pews to reconcile their worship of a higher power with that of their own frocks, and the ladies who now go limp may be glad when fashion comes round in its cycle, to remember how their mothers made the best of it, each lady alternate stood on a high hassac, each lady intermediate upon the church boards, and so their cages underlapped or overlapped each other, and when it came to kneeling one could hear them all contract, they were quite as clever women than in balloons as those who end in serpents now. Vainly I looked down the hill, and vainly back at the chronolines. The only way to get the thing desired is to leave off hoping for it. When the sun was gone and the silver mist was gliding like a slow worm up the veil, and all the good people of Leatherhead had lit their pipes and come out to talk, I went back slowly to Valley View, with many a futile turn of head, and ears too ready to be deceived. But the only wheels I heard were those of the Fishmonger's card going quite the wrong way, for I knew that he had been with a middle cut of salmon to the hospitable gate of Miss Parslow. You had better go to sleep. Here is Betty, nearly wild, my aunt cried as she pushed me in. That blessed butcher has only just sent the lamb, and the boy let it fall in the middle of the road. I hoped a goodness she won't come for two hours. If she does she will want sandwiches, and there is nothing in the house to make them of. Go and lie down, Kit. Don't you see you are in the way? What a lucky thing I told the man to rest the horses for at least two hours at the flower-pot. When he gets into the tap he's pretty sure to make it four. You look as white as a ghost, poor boy. Bother that love that spoils everybody's dinner. I haven't got a bit of appetite myself, and the first bit of salmon for the season except one. Go in, Kit in. Lie down there and roll. Why, you couldn't even tell where to find the mint. This was all the sympathy I got in my distress, and when she had poked me into the little room or lobby with a horse-hair sofa, where to roll meant to roll off, she locked me up, as if I had been a pot of jam, and all I could hear was the rattle of the dripping pan, or the clink of the plates and the warmer. It was worse than useless to repine, so I turned my back to everything and went to sleep. In sleep as it has been said of old, the fairest and sweetest gifts of heaven descend upon helpless mortals, then alone is a man devoid of harm and gone back to his innocence, and the peopling of his mind is not an array of greed and selfishness, then only is he far away from malice and corrupting care and small impatience of the wrongs, which only sting when they strike himself, and bitter sense of having failed through the jealousy of others, and only then, if his angel still returns, though seared and scouted, does he know the taste of simple joys and smile the smile of childhood? What wonder, then, that his father comes with returning love to him while he sleeps? Then if the greatest gift of God to man that he can see and feel while in this lower world of life is that which was the first vouchsafed, the love of one who thinks and tries to make him nobler than herself, though she generally fails in that, how can it come more gently to him than it has came, the first time of all, when he has been cast into deep sleep? It seemed to be no time for words and even thoughts found little room. Without a whisper or a thought my cheeks were wet with loving tears and gentle sobs came to my heart and faithful hands were locked in mine. A sweeter dream never came from heaven, and if sleep were always so endowed, it would be well to sleep for ever. CHAPTER XXXIII Ms. Parslow, although she pretended to be rough and to love dogs better than a human race, for which she could give fifty reasons, was as truly soft of heart as the gentlest woman that ever shed a tear. She kept her own history to herself, and it never struck me that she had any, that is to say, as concerning us men, who are always supposed to be, but are not always the side to be blamed, when things go amiss in the matter of sweet-hearting. She had passed through some trouble in her early days as I found out long afterwards, but had not been soured thereby any more than a river has been poisoned by its tumbles in the hills. The spell of Kitty's beauty and true goodness fell upon her. At first she strove hard to make light of her, and then pretended still to do so when the effort was in vain. But in three days' time it was all over, and I felt that with all my claims of kindred and the proud Parslow extract of tea in my veins I was chiefly regarded as Kitty's sweetheart. It was, where is Kitty? What would Kitty like for dinner? Did Kitty tell you what she thought of this parasol? Tell Kitty I am waiting for her down the garden, and so on until I began to smile and to fear that I should never have my Kitty to myself, and the beauty of it was that Miss Parslow seemed to think that I was not so attentive as I should be to Miss Fairthorne. What did you mean by carrying on as you did with that girl Sally Chalker? She inquired one day in a very stern voice when I had only asked Miss Chalker if she was fond of roses. Are you such an oaf as to think that Sally Chalker is fit to wipe the shoes of Kitty Fairthorne? And if it is her money that tempts you, remember that her father is a most determined man, and there used to be such a thing as honour among young men? What will Mr. Henderson say when I tell him, as I shall, at the first opportunity, that you take advantage of being on the spot and try to cut him out with his precious Sally? And I believe that he really is attached to her. There is no end of the bubbles that ladies blow when they once begin to dabble in love affairs. They never can let well alone, and they have such a knack of setting one and other's hackles up that when I hear now of any match being off, where I knew that the young people loved each other, I never inquire about stern parents, but I ask who the sisters and female cousins are. Even Kitty, the best and most sensible girl that ever wore up on it, began to think at last that there must be something in all this rubbish. I observed that she coloured and glanced at me whenever Miss Chalker's name came up, as it did pretty often, entirely through my aunt, who would toss it about as a dog throws a bone when he has exhausted all its grease. And I used to look down, as if I were thinking very deeply, perhaps she would love me more if she grew jealous. Then she began to sigh, softly at first, and not enough for me to be sure of it. But by and by more deeply, as she found me too polite to be aware of this exertion of an undoubted private right. And she used to say, Oh, I do admire her so much! I think she is so lovely. Don't you quite agree with me, Kit? And I used to say, Most perfect! Can there be any doubt about it? And then she would not look at me, perhaps for half an hour. I knew that this was very wrong of me, as wrong as well could be. And I used to steal a glance at Kitty when she was not watching and asked myself if any man with two eyes in his head could turn them twice on Sally Chalker after such a view as that. However, I did not say so, for I felt that my darling should know better. And if she chose to be like that, why, she must until she came to reason, and that was her place more than mine, but I could not bear to hear her sigh. Miss Parslow rather enjoyed this business, which was a great deal worse of her than anything that I did, for she herself had set it going with no consideration for my feelings, and no right whatever. And I think that she ought to have healed the mischief, which she could have done at any moment, whereas she pretended not to see it, although she was much too sharp for that. However, it could not go on long, and I had made up my mind to clear it up when I was saved the trouble. For as I sat in my favorite place with a lovely valley before me and the sun sinking into a bed of roses far beyond the Surrey Hills, I heard the little pittipat that was dearer than my pulse to me, and down the winding walk came Kitty carrying an ugly yellow book. She had no hat on, and her hair was tied back as if it had been troubling her, and as soon as she saw me she turned away her head, and hastily passed her hand over her cheeks, as if to be sure that they were dry. Then she looked at me bravely, though her mouth was twitching and said, Oh, will you do it for me, if you please? To what? I asked very reasonably, though I began to guess what she was thinking of, for the ugly book was a railway guide. Miss Parslow told me to ask you, she cannot make it out any more than I can. It is very stupid, of course, but she says that she never met a woman who could make out Bradshaw, and she would strictly avoid her if she ever did. But what is it I am to make out? We can't get to Sunbury by any lie, my darling, when I called her that her dear eyes shone, but she went on as if she were correcting them. What I want to make out is a good quick train, without any extra fare to pay, from London to Glasgow, and it must arrive by daylight, though I suppose it would have to start at night for that, but I am not at all afraid. What on earth has gotten to this lovely little head? I made offer to take it between my two hands, as I had been allowed to do once or twice when apparently falling back in health, but it seemed to prefer its own support just now. You must be aware, if you will take the trouble to think for a minute about that, that I cannot remain here in this sort of way, living upon a perfect stranger, although she is goodness and kindness itself, and running into debt in a country place like this, just because I have got no money. The only thing for me is to find out my father. He may be delighted to receive me now, and I may even be able to help him there. Miss Parslow has promised most kindly to lend me quite money enough to get to Glasgow. I must write to my father by this evening's post, and then I should be able to start tomorrow. Only I must let him know what train I am likely to arrive by, for his time is always occupied. A very nice programme! I exclaimed as she smiled or tried to smile at her own powers of arrangement, but if you please, Miss Fairthorne, what am I to do? You must not ask me, she said, turning away. There are so many things for you to do. Soon you will be able to be at work again. And if you don't like that you can marry someone with plenty of money and keep racehorses. I dare say that it is a nice life for those who like it. I cannot make out a word of this, I answered, people with money and racehorses, and going to Glasgow by the train all night. Do try to tell me, dear, what is it all about? It is only natural that I should go to my father when nobody wants me. I am not blaming anyone. You must not imagine that. I have only myself to blame, for believing that I was a great deal more than I was, when nobody wants you. Oh, kitty! Kitty! I must be gone off my head again, and that is why you want to run away from me. Look at me honestly, and say that it is so. I would rather give you up, dear, and go mad by myself than marry you if that has once got into your mind. She looked at me with terror and deep amazement, and then fell into my arms, and threw her own around me, and put up her lips as a cure for every evil. How can you say such wicked things? she whispered as soon as I allowed her sweep lips room. You can have no idea what I am. If you suppose that I should ask whether you were off your head or on it, when once I had given all my heart to you. But you must not have anybody else in your head, as if I ever could. But yes, you might. I should like to know who it could be, then, as if there were any one in all the world fit to hold a candle to my own kitty. There is a much prettier girl in this very place, if she did not stick her elbows out so sadly as she walks, and put her heels on the ground before her toes, and if she had not got, well, not quite green eyes. Somebody else has green eyes, I should say, if they were not as blue as heaven. Sally Chalker, why I would not touch her with a pair of tongs, and if I did, Sam Henderson would take the poker to me. Can you assure me, upon your word of honour, that there is nothing between you and Miss Chalker? No, I can't, because there is the whole world between us. And what is more than ten times the whole world to me a certain little kitty who has no fault whatever, except that she is desperately jealous? Jealous indeed. You must never think that. I hope I have a little too much faith in you. She said as she came and coaxed me with her hand, making me tremble with her love and loveliness, but I said, Confess, or I will never let you go. And she looked up and laughed, and whispered, Well, then, perhaps. But only ever such a wee bit. Miss Chalker's ears must have tingled after that, for I called her a vulgar and commonplace girl, which was not at all true, and a showy dressy thing, and I know not what, until Kitty came warmly to the rescue, for she seemed like her very greatly, all of a sudden, and found out that she walked quite gracefully. Then I took the hateful Bradshaw, and tied a flat stone in it, and flung it over the tops of the trees into the mole. And when we went in, as the dinner bell rang, for Miss Parslow kept fashionable hours now, that good lady looked very knowing and asked with a smile which was meant to be facetious, whether I had seen Miss Chalker lately. I saw her sticking her elbows out down the street, and putting her heels to the ground before her toes. I answered, and true enough it was, though I had never observed those little truths before. Miss Parslow stared, and Kitty gave me such a glance that I resolved to have honourable amends, or do worse. You won't have much more chance of running down our local bells, said my aunt, as she handed me a letter. Mr. Henderson passed in his dog-cart just now, to see the young lady who does such dreadful things, and he kindly brought this letter from your uncle to me. He seems in a great hurry. How unreasonable men are! I think he might have come and paid his respects to Miss Fairthorne, even if he did not think me worthy of that honour. Read it aloud. He is a diamond, no doubt. But I think he should be treated as the Coignore has been, knowing Uncle Corny's style, I read without surprise. Dear Madam, Kit has had quite time enough to get well. I'm tired of being here all by myself, and I want him in the garden, for at least three weeks before he is married, which I mean him to be, then, if Miss Fairthorne will kindly agree to it. Placed as she is, she will see the sense of that, for it is the only way to make her safe. And I wish her to be married here at Sunbury in our old church, where I have always had a pew. I shall send the tax-cart for Kit to-morrow, and he will arrange with the lady to come before Sunday to widow-cut thems, where I will take uncommonly good care that nobody molests her. On Sunday the bands will be read for the first time with Miss Fairthorne's full permission, and nobody else's so far as I care. We shall hope for the honour of your presence when the young people are joined together. Thanking you, Madam, for your kindness to my nephew and with my best respects, I am faithfully yours, Cornelius Orchardson. Well, my dear Kitty, said my aunt when I had finished, he disposes of you as calmly as if you were a bushel of apples, or a sack of potatoes. I thought it was the lady's place to fix the auspicious day. You cannot expect a bachelor to be at home among such questions. I came to my love's rescue for she knew now what to say, and was blushing and looking down, and wondering what to make of it. But I must go to-morrow, if he sends for me. If old Spanker came for nothing I should never hear the last of it. My uncle has heard something which we do not know of. He is prompt and to the purpose, but I never knew him rash. I see, I see, Miss Parslow's voice was much subdued, for she loved a bit of mystery and saw tokens of it here. Don't let us talk about it now, until we've had our dinner. It's last bachelor dinner here. We'll have a bottle of champagne, to make us laugh a little at this peremptory wedlock. Your uncle is a curious man, but if it comes to that, all men are very curious beings. And ladies are so, in the other sense, and the active one of the word, but we are never known to complain of that. Of course you never have any secrets. Take your everlasting in to dinner, and I will follow you. All the world will have to do that by and by if you only keep up this high mark of constancy and devotion. Kitty smiled at me, and I smiled at Kitty, for we knew that any lower mark might do for other people. Lofty and good as she was, my aunt could scarcely be expected to see things thus. A lady who has never been up a ladder is afraid of her skirts, even more than of her head. Aunt Parslow was not at all straight laced, for she had given up caring about her figure now. But she did think that Kitty and I were almost too much wrapped up in one another, and perhaps that was why, in her feminine style, she had brought Miss Chalker, or vainly tried to bring her, in between us. On the following day the spring-card arrived, with Celsy Bill's biggest boy sitting up to drive, and away I went, with nothing truly settled but everything left elastic. As happens nearly always when the women have their way. I promised to bring Uncle Corny to reason, as the ladies viewed that substance, and to come back the next day but one, if wet bandages enabled the old horse to do it again. He was wiry enough, but his wire was stiff, and some of the connections rickety. Kitt, you are a fool! Mr. Orchison said, as soon as he had done the outside talk. Do you mean to have that girl or not? I assured him that I hoped quite as warmly and wholly to marry my beautiful darling, as I did to be alive for the purpose of doing it, now that the Lord had restored my health. Then look alive, he answered, or you will never do it. She is not safe even where she is. I am not going to tell you what I know, because you would think me fanciful. Only I say that if it was my case I would not lose a day that is not demanded by manners and decency. You have her father's consent and hers. You are surrounded by wily foes. I have explained everything to Mr. Goh lightly. He is a sensible man, and he does not care two pence for Miss Cold Pepper, for she never gives a six pence she can help towards the church. Widow Cutham will take fourteen shillings a week, including coals and candles. Two weeks done properly will make three Sundays, and you will be both in the parish. I have got an old door which I mean to put up to keep people from landing in her garden, and I defy them to get into the house from the street. I believe they don't know where your kitty is at present, but they will find out, and what can that old maid with all her lap-dogs do to protect her? If you mean your kitty to be ever Mrs. Kitt, you must look sharp and no mistake. I was much surprised at his urgency, but could get no more reasons out of him. Being equally urged by love and strong distrust of coming dangers I did not lose a single day, but wrote to Miss Parslow by the very next post, because she required and indeed deserved to have a voice in all we did. When I took the young horse on the following day, her old spanker found himself a little stiff, and brought back my darling to her beloved sunbury, where she had made up her mind to dwell. Widow Cutlam received her with curtsies and smiles in a very strong sense of her own importance. For the whole village now was in tiptoe about us, and everybody seemed to take our side. But if I stop to tell a thousandth part of what was said, I should never get married, which is the main point. It must not be supposed that my kitty all this time had neglected her dear father. She had written to him several times from Leatherhead and closing a note or two from Miss Parslow as well as a few little bills for soft goods, and he had replied in the most affectionate manner and enclosed some cash. This encouraged her now to write for more, and he behaved most handsomely, considering how the other party had been making boot upon the products of his brain. But he was a true philosopher, and money to him was not the motive power of life, nor even the shaft, but only the lubricator. He promised to be with us if he could, and his wife being still away in north Wales there seemed to be no sound reason why he should fear to come to London. Indeed it seemed natural that he should come, before leaving England upon his long cruise, for the architis, as the ship was called, had now been completed in every detail, and was trying her engines at Greenuck, and so we hoped to see him upon the blissful day. End of chapter 33