 15. Paramount Crescent. Lady MacLeod lived at number three Paramount Crescent in Cheltenham, where she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom behind it, looking over a stable yard, and a small room which would have been the dressing-room had the late Sir Archibald been alive, but which was at present called the dining-room, and in it Lady MacLeod did dine whenever her larger room was to be used for any purposes of evening company. The vicinity of the stable-yard was not regarded by the tenant as among the attractions of the house, but it had the effect of lowering the rent, and Lady MacLeod was a woman who regarded such matters. Her income, though small, would have sufficed to enable her to live removed from such discomforts, but she was one of those women who regarded as a duty to leave something behind them, even though it be left to those who do not at all want it, and Lady MacLeod was a woman who willfully neglected no duty. So she pinched herself and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and squabbled with the cabamen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian who cared perhaps little for her, and would hardly thank her memory for the money. Had Alice consented to live with her, she would have merged that duty of leaving money behind her in that other duty of finding a home for her adopted niece, but Alice had gone away, and therefore the money was due to Lady Midlothian, rather than to her. The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham, and a bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables. Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that provided for Lady MacLeod's own maid. She was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to cab men and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, and people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own rank because they played cards on weekdays, and did not go to church on Sundays, and a pity, as I think above all that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of Earl's, Earl's sons, and such like. Alice, having fully considered the matter, had thought it most prudent to tell Lady MacLeod by letter what she had done in regard to Mr. Gray. There had been many objections to the writing of such a letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not written. There would in such case have arisen on Lady MacLeod's countenance a sternness of rebuke which Alice did not choose to encounter. The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the countenance on receipt of the written information, but it would come in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter, and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice's arrival. I think that Alice was right. It is better for both parties that any great offence should be confessed by letter. But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at number three Paramount Crescent. She met her aunt as was usual just inside the drawing-room door, and she saw it once that if any bitterness had passed away from that face the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter. She had so timed her letter that Lady MacLeod should have no opportunity of answering it. The answer was written there in the mingled anger and sorrow of those austere features. Alice, she said, as she took her knees and her arms and kissed her. Oh, Alice, what is this? Yes, aunt, it is very bad, I know. And poor Alice tried to make a jest of it. Young ladies are very wicked when they don't know their own minds. But if they haven't known them and have been wicked, what can they do but repent? Repent, said Lady MacLeod. Yes, I hope you will repent. Poor Mr. Gray, what must he think of it? I can only hope, aunt, that he won't think of it at all for very long. That's nonsense, my dear. Of course he'll think of it, and of course you'll marry him. Shall I, aunt? Of course you will. Why, Alice, hasn't it been all settled among families? Lady Benlothian knew all the particulars of it just as well as I did. It is not your word pledged to him. I really don't understand what you mean. I don't see how it is possible you should go back. Gentlemen, when they do that kind of thing are put out of society, but I really think it is worse in a woman. Then they may, if they please, put me out of society, only that I don't know that I'm particularly in it. And though wickedness of the thing, Alice, I'm obliged to say so. When you talk to me about society, aunt, and about Lady Benlothian, I give up to you willingly, the more willingly, perhaps because I don't care much for one or the other. Here Lady MacLeod tried to say a word, but she failed, and Alice went on, boldly looking up into her aunt's face, which became a shade more bitter than ever. But when you tell me, but when you tell me about wickedness in my conscience, then I must be my own judge. It is my conscience, and the fear of committing wickedness that has made me do this. You should submit to be guided by your elders, Alice. No, my elders in such a matter as this cannot teach me. It cannot be right that I should go to a man's house and be his wife if I do not think that I can make him happy. Then why did you accept him? Because I was mistaken. I am not going to defend that. If you choose to scold me for that, you may do so, aunt, and I will not answer you. But as to marrying him or not marrying him now, as to that, I must judge for myself. It was a pity you did not know your own mind earlier. It was a pity, a great pity. I have done myself an injury that is quite irretrievable. I know that, and am prepared to bear it. I have done him to an injustice which I regret with my whole heart. I can only excuse myself by saying that I might have done him a worse injustice. All this was said at the very moment of her arrival, and the greeting did not seem to promise much for the happiness of the next month, but perhaps it was better for them both that the attack and the defense should thus be made suddenly at their first meeting. It is better to pull the string at once when you are in the shower-bath, and not to stand shivering, thinking of the inevitable shock which you can only postpone for a few minutes. Lady MacLeod in this case had pulled the string, and thus reaped the advantage of her alacrity. Well, my dear, said her ladyship, I suppose you will like to go upstairs and take off your bonnet. Mary shall bring you some tea when you come down. So Alice escaped, and when she returned to the comfort of her cup of tea in the drawing-room, the fury of the storm had passed away. She sat talking of other things till dinner, and though Lady MacLeod did during the evening make one allusion to poor Mr. Gray, the subject was allowed to drop. Alice was very tender as to her aunt's ailments, was more than ordinarily attentive to the long list of Cheltenham iniquities which was displayed to her, and refrained from combating any of her aunt's religious views. After a while they got upon the subject of Aunt Greenow, for whose name Lady MacLeod had a special aversion, as indeed she had for all the Vavasor side of Alice's family, and then Alice offered to read, and did read to her aunt many pages out of one of those terrible books of wrath, which from time to time come forth, and tell us that there is no hope for us. Lady MacLeod liked to be so told, and as she now, poor woman, could not read at nights herself, she enjoyed her evening. Lady MacLeod, no doubt, did enjoy her niece's sojourn at Cheltenham, but I do not think it could have been pleasant to Alice. On the second day nothing was said about Mr. Gray, and Alice hoped that by her continual readings in the Book of Wrath her aunt's heart might be softened towards her. But it seemed that Lady MacLeod measured the periods of respite, for on the third day and on the fifth she returned to the attack. Did John Gray still wish that the match should go on? she asked, categorically. It was in vain that Alice tried to put aside the question, and begged that the matter might not be discussed. Lady MacLeod insisted on her right to carry on the examination, and Alice was driven to acknowledge that she believed he did wish it. She could hardly say otherwise, seeing that she had at that moment a letter from him in her pocket, in which he still spoke of his engagement as being absolutely binding on him, and expressed a hope that this change from London to Cheltenham would bring her round and set everything to rights. He certainly did, in a fashion, wave his hand over her, as Kate had said of him. This letter Alice had resolved that she would not answer. He would probably write again, and she would beg him to desist. Instead of Cheltenham bringing her round, Cheltenham had made her firmer than ever in her resolution. I am inclined to think that the best mode of bringing her round at this moment would have been a course of visits from her cousin George, and a series of letters from her cousin Kate. Lady MacLeod's injunctions would certainly not bring her round. After ten days, ten terrible days devoted to discussions on matrimony in the morning and to the Book of Wrath in the evening, relieved by two tea-parties in which the sins of Cheltenham were discussed at length, Lady MacLeod herself got a letter from Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray's kindest compliments to Lady MacLeod. He believed that Lady MacLeod was aware of the circumstances of his engagement with Miss Vavasor. Might he call on Miss Vavasor at Lady MacLeod's house in Cheltenham? And might he also hope to have the pleasure of making Lady MacLeod's acquaintance? Alice had been in the room when her aunt received this letter, but her aunt said nothing, and Alice had not known from whom the letter had come. When her aunt crept away with it after breakfast, she had suspected nothing, and had never imagined that Lady MacLeod, in the privacy of her own room looking out upon the stables, had addressed a letter to Nethercoats. But such a letter had been addressed to Nethercoats, and Mr. Gray had been informed that he would be received in Paramount Crescent with great pleasure. Mr. Gray had even indicated the day on which he would come, and on the morning of that day Lady MacLeod had presided over the two tea-cups in a state of nervous excitement, which was quite visible to Alice. More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she was especially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt's fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost impossible not to allude to it. There's nothing the matter, my dear, at all, at last Lady MacLeod said, but as she said so she was making up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr. Gray's intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the breakfast table, she would say nothing about it then, but waited till the tea-cups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr. Gray's letter in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it out and held it on the little table before her. Alice, she said, I expect a visitor here to-day. Alice knew instantly who was the expected visitor, probably any girl under such circumstances would have known equally well. A visitor, aunt, she said, and managed to hide her knowledge admirably. Yes, Alice, a visitor, I should have told you before only I thought. I thought I had better not. It is Mr.—Mr. Gray. Indeed, aunt, is he coming to see you? Well, he is desirous, no doubt, of seeing you more especially, but he has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance, which I cannot under the circumstances think is unnatural. Of course, Alice, he must want to talk over this affair with your friends. I wish I could have spared them, said Alice. I wish I could. I have brought this letter here, and you can see it, if you please. It is very nicely written, and as far as I am concerned I should not think of refusing to see him. And now comes the question. What are we to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I take it for granted that he will not expect me to offer him a bed, as he knows that I live in lodgings. Oh, no, aunt, he will certainly not expect that. But ought I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means of doing so are, but I really do not know how it might be, between you and him, I mean. We should not fight, aunt. No, I suppose not, but if you cannot be affectionate in your manner to him. I will not answer for my manners, aunt, and you may be sure of this, that I should be affectionate in my heart. I shall always regard him as a dearly loved friend, though for many years no doubt I shall be unable to express my friendship. That may all be very well, Alice, but it will not be what he will want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to dinner. Perhaps not, aunt. It is a period of the day in which any special constraint among people is more disagreeable than at any other time, and then at dinner the servants must see it. I think there might be some awkwardness if he were to dine here. I really think there would, said Alice, anxious to have the subject dropped. I hope he won't think that I am inhospitable. I should be so happy to do the best I could for him, for I regard him, Alice, quite as though he were to be your husband, and when anybody at all connected with me has come to Cheltenham I always have asked them to dine, and then I have gobbins as men to come and wait at table, as you know. Of all the men in the world, Mr. Gray is the last to think about it. That should only make me the more careful, but I think it would perhaps be more comfortable if he were to come in the evening. Much more comfortable, aunt. I suppose he will be here in the afternoon before dinner, and we had better wait at home for him. I dare say he'll want to see you alone, and therefore I'll retire to my own rooms, looking over the stables, dear old lady. But if you wish it, I will receive him first, and then Martha. Martha was Alice's maid, can fetch you down. This discussion, as to the propriety or impropriety of giving her lover a dinner, had not been pleasant to Alice, but nevertheless when it was over she felt grateful to Lady MacLeod. There was an attempt in the arrangement to make Mr. Gray's visit as little painful as possible, and though such a discussion at such a time might as well have been avoided, the decision to which her ladyship had at last come with reference both to the dinner and the management of the visit was, no doubt, the right one. Lady MacLeod had been quite correct in all her anticipations. At three o'clock Mr. Gray was announced, and Lady MacLeod alone received him in her drawing-room. She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice, to bid him to keep up his heart, and as it were, hold up his head, to confess to him how very badly Alice was behaving, and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct. But she found that Mr. Gray was a man to whom she could not give much advice. It was he who did the speaking at this conference, and not she. She was over-awed by him after the first three minutes. Indeed, her first glance at him had awed her. He was so handsome. And then, in his beauty, he had so quiet and almost saddened an air. Strange to say that after she had seen him, Lady MacLeod entertained for him an infinitely higher admiration than before, and yet she was less surprised than she had been at Alice's refusal of him. The conference was very short, and Mr. Gray had not been a quarter of an hour in the house before Martha attended upon her mistress with her summons. Alice was ready, and came down instantly. She found Mr. Gray standing in the middle of the room waiting to receive her, and the look of majesty which had cowed Lady MacLeod had gone from his countenance. He could not have received her with a kinder smile had she come to him with a promise that she would at this meeting name the day of their marriage. At any rate it does not make him unhappy, she said to herself. You are not angry, he said, that I should have followed you all the way here to see you. No, certainly not angry, Mr. Gray. All anger that there may be between us must be on your side. I feel that thoroughly. Then there shall be none on either side. Whatever may be done I will not be angry with you. Your father advised me to come down here to you. You have seen him, then? Yes, I have seen him. I was in London the day you left. It is so terrible to think that I should have brought upon you all this trouble. You will bring upon me much worse trouble than that unless—but I have not now come down here to tell you that. I believe that according to rule in such matters I should not have come to you at all, but I don't know that I care much about such rules. It is I that have broken all rules. When a lady tells a gentleman that she does not wish to see more of him, oh, Mr. Gray, I have not told you that. Have you not? I am glad at any rate to hear you deny it, but you will understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal from a lady, he should accept it—that is, his dismissal under such circumstances as I have received mine. But I cannot lay down my love in that way, nor maintaining my love can I give up the battle. It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of your comings and goings as long as—unless, Alice, you should take another name than mine. My intention is to keep my own. This, she said in the lowest possible tone, almost a whisper, with her eyes fixed upon the ground. And you will not deny me that right? I cannot hinder you. Whatever you may do, I myself have sinned so against you that I can have no right to blame you. There shall be no question between us of injury from one to the other, in any conversation that we may have or in any correspondence. Oh, Mr. Gray, do not ask me to write. Listen to me. Should there be any on either side, there shall be no idea of any wrong done. But I have done you wrong, great wrong. No, Alice, I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my hand, begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot to ask from a fellow mortal, I knew how great was your goodness to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now that you refuse it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are acting for my welfare, thinking more of my welfare than of your own. Oh, yes, yes, it is so, Mr. Gray, indeed it is so. Believing that, how can I talk of wrong, that you are wrong in your thinking on this subject, that your mind has become twisted by false impressions, that I believe, but I cannot therefore love you less, nor so believing, can I consider myself to be injured, nor am I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy, but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife. She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his eyes, in his mouth, in the whole visage of his countenance. He glared in his anger and was impassioned in his love. But Mr. Gray, when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when confessing that it was now at stake with the decision against him that would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose-tree. I hope, and believe, that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr. Gray. Well, we can but differ, Alice, in that we do differ, and now I will say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to you against your will it would seem that I were persecuting you. I cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. I do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January, as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly refuse to see me. No, she said. I cannot refuse to see you. Then it shall be so, he said, and I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest thanks. Then he took her hand and pressed it, not as George Vavasor had pressed it, and was gone. When Lady MacLeod returned she found that the question of the evening's tea arrangements had settled itself. End of Chapter 15. THE ROBERRY CLUB It has been said that George Vavasor had a little establishment at robbery, down in Oxfordshire, and thither he betook himself about the middle of November. He had been long known in this county, and whether or no man spoke well of him as a man of business in London, men spoke well of him down there, as one who knew how to ride to Hounds. Not that Vavasor was popular among fellow sportsmen. It was quite otherwise. He was not a man who made himself really popular in any social meetings of men. He did not himself care for the loose little talkings, half flat and half sharp, of men when they meet together in idleness. He was not open enough in his nature for such popularity. Some men were afraid of him, and some suspected him. There were others who made up to him, seeking his intimacy, but these he usually snubbed, and always kept at a distance. Though he had indulged in all the ordinary pleasures of young men, he had never been a jovial man. In his conversations with men he always seemed to think that he should use his time toward serving some purpose of business. With women he was quite the reverse. With women he could be happy. With women he could really associate. A woman he could really love. But I doubt whether for all that he could treat a woman well. But he was known in the Oxfordshire country as a man who knew what he was about, and such men are always welcome. It is the man who does not know how to ride that is made uncomfortable in the hunting field by cold looks or expressed censure. And yet it is very rarely that such men do any real harm. Such a one may now and then get among the hounds or override the hunt, but it is not often so. Many such complaints are made, but in truth the two forward men who presses the dogs is generally one who can ride, but is too eager or too selfish to keep in his proper place. The bad rider, like the bad whist player, pays highly for what he does not enjoy and should be thanked. But at both games he gets cruelly snubbed. At both games George Ravisor was great, and he was never snubbed. There were men who lived together at robbery in a kind of club, four or five of them who came thither from London, running backwards and forwards as hunting arrangements enabled them to do so. A brewer or two and a banker, with a would-be fast attorney, a sporting literary gentleman, and a young unmarried member of parliament who had no particular home of his own in the country. These men formed the robbery club, and a jolly life they had of it. They had their own wine-closet at the king's head, or robbery in as the house had come to be popularly called, and supplied their own game. The landlord found everything else, and as they were not very particular about their bills, they were allowed to do pretty much as they liked in the house. They were rather imperious, very late in their hours. Sometimes though not often noisy, and once there had been a hasty quarrel which had made the landlord in his anchor say that the club should be turned out of his house. But they paid well, chaffed the servants much oftener than they bullied them, and on the whole were very popular. To this club Vavasor did not belong, alleging that he could not afford to live at their pace, and alleging also that his stays at Robury were not long enough to make him a desirable member. The invitation to him was not repeated, and he lodged elsewhere in the little town. But he occasionally went in of an evening, and would make up with the members a table at Wist. He had come down to Robury by mail-train, ready for hunting the next morning, and walked into the club-room just at midnight. There he found Maxwell the banker, grindly the would-be fast attorney, and called her Jones the member of Parliament, playing dummy. Neither of the brewers were there, nor was the sporting literary gentleman. Here's Vavasor, said Maxwell, and now he won't play this blagged game any longer. Somebody told me Vavasor that you were gone away. Gone away? What, like a fox? I don't know what it was that something had happened to you since last season, that you were married, or dead, or gone abroad. By George I've lost the trick after all. I hate dummy like the devil. I never hold a card in dummy's hand. Yes, I know that seven points on each side. Vavasor come and cut. Upon my word, if anyone had asked me, I should have said you were dead. But you see, nobody ever does think of asking you anything. What you probably mean, said grindly, is that Vavasor was not returned for Chelsea last February, but you've seen him since that. Are you going to try it again, Vavasor? If you'll lend me the money, I will. I don't see what on earth a man gains by going into the house, said Calder Jones. I couldn't help myself as it happened, but upon my word it's a deuce of a bore. A fellow thinks he can do as he likes about going, but he can't. It wouldn't do for me to give it up, because— Oh, of course not. Where should we all be? said Vavasor. It's you and me, Grindams, said Maxwell. Parliament, and now let's have a rubber. They played till three, and Mr. Calder Jones lost a good deal of money. A good deal of money in a little way, for they never played above tin-chilling points, and no bet was made for more than a pound or two. But Vavasor was the winner, and when he left the room he became the subject of some ill-natured remarks. I wonder he likes coming in here, said Grindley, who had himself been the man to invite him to belong to the club, and who had at one time indulged the ambition of an intimacy with George Vavasor. I can't understand it, said Calder Jones, who was a little bitter about his money. Last year he seemed to walk in just when he liked, as though he were one of us. He's a bad sort of fellow, said Grindley. It's so uncommonly dark. I don't know where on earth he gets his money from. He was heir to some small property in the north, but he lost every shilling of that when he was in the wine trade. You're wrong there, Grindams, said Maxwell, making use of a playful nickname which he had invented for his friend. He made a pot of money at the wine business, and had he stuck to it he would have been a rich man. He's lost it all since then, and that place in the north into the bargain. Wrong again, Grindams, my boy, if old Vavasor were to die tomorrow, Vavasor Hall would go just as he might choose to leave it. George may be a ruined man for ought I know. There's no doubt about that, I believe, said Grindley. Perhaps not, Grindams, but he can't have lost Vavasor Hall because he has never as yet had an interest in it. He's the natural heir, and will probably get it some day. All the same, said Calder Jones. Isn't it rather odd he should come in here? We've asked him often enough, said Maxwell, not because we like him, but because we want him so often to make up a rubber. I don't like George Vavasor, and I don't know who does, but I like him better than Dummy, and I'd sooner play a wist with men I don't like, Grindams, than not play at all. A bystander might have thought from the tone of Mr. Maxwell's voice that he was alluding to Mr. Grindley himself, but Mr. Grindley didn't seem to take it in that light. That's true, of course, said he. We can't pick men just as we please, but I certainly didn't think that he'd make it out for another season. The club breakfasted the next morning at nine o'clock, in order that they might start at half past for the meet at Edge Hill. Edge Hill is twelve miles from Roebury, and the hacks would do it in an hour and a half, or perhaps a little less. Does anybody know anything about that brown horse of Vavasor's? said Maxwell. I saw him coming into the yard yesterday with that old groom of his. He had a brown horse last season, said Grindley, a little thing that went very fast, but wasn't quite sound on the road. That was a mare, said Maxwell, and he sold her to Sincobar. Footnote! Ah, my friend, from whom I have borrowed this scion of the nobility, had he been left with us he would have forgiven me, my little theft, and now that he is gone I will not change the name. End footnote. For a hundred and fifty, said Calder Jones, and she wasn't worth the odd fifty. He won seventy with her at Lamington, said Maxwell, and I doubt whether he'd take his money now. Is Sincobar coming down here this year? I don't know, said Maxwell. I hope not. He's the best fellow in the world, but he can't ride, and he don't care for hunting, and he makes more row than any fellow I ever met. I wish some fellow could tell me something about that fellow's brown horse. I'd never buy a horse of Vavasor's if I were you, said Grindley. He never has anything that's all right all round. And who has, said Maxwell, as he took into his plate a second mutton shop, which had just been brought up hot into the room especially for him. That's the mistake men make about horses, and that's why there's so much cheating. I never ask for a warranty with a horse, and I don't very often have a horse examined. Yet I do as well as others. You can't have perfect horses any more than you can have perfect men or perfect women. You put up with red hair, or bad teeth, or big feet, or sometimes with the devil of a voice, but a man when he wants a horse won't put up with anything. Therefore those who've got horses to sell must lie. When I go into the market with three hundred pounds I expect a perfect animal. As I never do that now I never expect a perfect animal. I like them to see. I like them to have four legs, and I like them to have a little wind. I don't much mind anything else. By Jove you're about right, said Calder Jones. The reader will therefore readily see that Mr. Maxwell the banker reigned as king in that club. Vavasor had sent two horses on in charge of bat smithers, and followed on a pony about fourteen hands high which he had ridden as a cover-hack for the last four years. He did not start till near ten, but he was able to catch bat with his two horses about a mile and a half on that side of Edge Hill. Have you managed to come along pretty clean? the master asked as he came up with his servant. They be the most beastly roads in all England, said bat, who always found fault with any county in which he happened to be located. But I'll warrant I'm cleaner on most on them. What for any county should make such roads as them, I never could tell. The roads about there are bat certainly, very bat, but I suppose they would have been better had Providence sent better materials, and what do you think of the brown horse, bat? Well, sir. He said no more, and that he said with the drawl. He's as fine an animal to look at as ever I put my eye on, said George. He's all that, said bat. He's got lots of pace too. I'm sure he has, sir. And they tell me you can't beat him at jumping. They can mostly do that, sir, if they're well handled. You see, he's a deal over my weight. Yes, he is, Mr. Vavasor. He's a fourteen stoner. Or fifteen, said Vavasor. Perhaps he may, sir. There's no knowing what oars can carry till he's tried. George asked his groom no more questions, but felt sure that he had better sell his brown horse if he could. Now I hear protest that there was nothing specially amiss with the brown horse. Towards the end of the preceding season he had overreached himself and had been lame, and had been sold by some owner with more money than brains, who had not cared to wait for a cure. Then there had gone with him a bad character, and a vague suspicion had attached itself to him, as there does to hundreds of horses which are very good animals in their way. He had come thus to tattersalls, and Vavasor had bought him cheap, thinking that he might make money of him from his form and action. He had found nothing amiss with him, nor indeed had batsmithers, but his character went with him, and therefore batsmithers thought it well to be knowing. George Vavasor knew as much of horses as most men can, as perhaps as any man can, who is not a dealer or a veterinary surgeon, but he, like all men, doubted his own knowledge, though on that subject he would never admit that he doubted it. Therefore he took batsword and felt sure that the horse was wrong. We shall have a run from the big wood, said George. If they make and break, you will, sir," said Bat. At any rate I'll ride the brown horse, said George. Then, as soon as that was settled between them, the robbery club overtook them. There was now a rush of horses on the road altogether, and they were within a quarter mile of Edgehill Church, close to which was the meat. Bat, with his two hunters, fell a little behind, and the others trotted on together. The other grooms with their animals were on in advance, and were by this time employed in combing out forelocks and rubbing stirrup leathers and horses' legs free from the dirt of the roads. But Bat Smithers was like his master, and did not congregate much with other men, and Vavasor was sure to give orders to his servant different from the orders given by others. Are you well-mounted this year? Maxwell asked of George Vavasor. No, indeed, I never was what I call well-mounted yet. I generally have one horse and three or four cripples, that brown horse behind there is pretty good, I believe. I see your man has got the old chestnut mare with him. She's one of the cripples. Not but what she's sound as a bell and as good a hunter as I ever wish to ride, but she makes a little noise when she's going. So that you can hear her three fields off, said Grindley. Five, if the fields are small enough and your ears are sharp enough, said Vavasor, all the same I wouldn't change her for the best horse I ever saw under you. Had you there, Grindams? said Maxwell. No, he didn't, said Grindley. He didn't have me at all. Your horses, Grindley, are always up to all the work they have to do, said George, and I don't know what any man wants more than that. Had you again, Grindams? said Maxwell. I can ride against him any day, said Grindley. Yes, or against a brick wall, either, if your horse didn't know any better, said George. Had you again, Grindams? said Maxwell. Whereupon Mr. Grindley trotted on round the corner by the church and into the field in which the hounds were assembled, the fire had become too hot for him, and he thought it best to escape. Had it been Vavasor alone, he would have turned upon him and snarled, but he could not afford to exhibit any ill temper to the king of the club. Mr. Grindley was not popular, and where Maxwell deterned openly against him, his sporting life down at Roeberry would decidedly be a failure. The lives of such men as Mr. Grindley, men who are tolerated in the daily society of others who are accounted their superiors, do not seem to have many attractions. And yet how many such men does one see in almost every set? Why, Mr. Grindley should have been inferior to Mr. Maxwell the banker, or to Stone, or to pretty men who were brewers, or even to Mr. Pollock the heavyweight literary gentleman, I can hardly say. An attorney by his trade is at any rate as good as a brewer, and there are many attorneys who hold their heads high anywhere. Grindley was a rich man, or at any rate rich enough for the life he led. I don't know much about his birth, but I believe it was as good as Maxwell's. He was not ignorant, or a fool, whereas I rather think Maxwell was a fool. Grindley had made his own way in the world, but Maxwell would certainly not have made himself a banker if his father had not been a banker before him, nor could the bank have gone on and prospered had there not been partners there who were better men of business than our friend. Grindley knew that he had a better intellect than Maxwell, and yet he allowed Maxwell to snub him, and he toadied Maxwell in return. It was not on the score of writing that Maxwell claimed and held his superiority, for Grindley did not want Pluck, and everyone knew that Maxwell had lived freely, and that his nerves were not what they had been. I think it had come from the outward look of the men, from the form of each, from the gate and visage which in one was good, and in the other insignificant. The nature of such dominion of man over man is very singular, but this is certain, that when once obtained in manhood it may be easily held. Among boys at school the same thing is even more conspicuous, because boys have less of conscience than men, are more addicted to tyranny, and when weak are less prone to feel the misery and disgrace of succumbing, who has been through a large school and does not remember the Maxwell's and Grindley's, the tyrants and the slaves, those who domineered and those who submitted, nor was it even then personal strength, nor always superior courage, that gave the power of command, nor was it intellect, or thoughtfulness, nor by any means such qualities as make men and boys lovable. It is said by many who have had to deal with boys that certain among them claim and obtain ascendancy by the spirit within them, but I doubt whether the ascendancy is not rather thrust on them than claimed by them. Here again I think the outward gate of the boy goes far, towards obtaining for him the submission of his fellows. But the tyrant boy does not become the tyrant man, or the slave boy the slave man, because the outward visage that has been noble or mean in the one changes and becomes so often mean or noble in the other. By George there's Pollock, said Maxwell, as he rode into the field by the church, I'll bet half a crown that he's come down from London this morning, that he was up all night last night, that he tells us so three times before the hounds go out of the paddock. Mr. Pollock was the heavyweight sporting literary gentleman. There is, I think, none more beautiful than that of a pack of foxhounds seated on a winter morning round the Huntsman, if the place of meeting has been chosen with anything of artistic skill. It should be in a grassy field, and the field should be small. It should not be absolutely away from all buildings, and the hedgerows should not have been clipped and paired, and made straight with reference to modern agricultural economy. There should be trees near, and the ground should be a little uneven, so as to mark some certain small space as the exact spot where the dogs and servants of the hunt should congregate. There are well-known grand-meats in England in the parks of noblemen, before their houses, or even on what are called their lawns, but these magnificent affairs have but little of the beauty of which I speak. Such assemblies are too grand and too ornate, and moreover much too far removed from true sporting proprieties. At them equipages are shining, and ladies' dresses are gorgeous, and crowds of tradesmen from the neighbouring town have come there to look at the grand folk. To my eye, there is nothing beautiful in that. The meat I speak of is arranged with a view to sport, but the accident of the locality may make it the prettiest thing in the world. Such in a special degree was the case at Edge Hill. At Edge Hill the whole village consisted of three or four cottages, but there was a small old church with an old grey tower, and a narrow green almost dark church yard surrounded by elm trees. The road from Raybury to the meat passed by the church-style, and turning just beyond it came upon the gate which led into the little field in which the hounds felt themselves as much at home as in their kennels. There might be six or seven acres in the field which was long and narrow, so that the huntsman had space to walk leisurely up and down with the pack clustering round him, when he considered that longer sitting might chill them. The church-tower was close at hand, visible through the trees, and the field itself was green and soft, though never splashing with mud or heavy with holes. Edge Hill was a favourite meat in that country, partly because foxes were very abundant in the great word adjacent, partly because the whole country around is grassland, and partly no doubt from the sporting propensities of the neighbouring population. As regards my own taste, I do not know that I do like beginning a day with a great wood, and if not beginning it, certainly not ending it. It is hard to come upon the cream of hunting, as it is upon the cream of any other delight. Who can always drink lafite of the finest, can always talk to a woman who is both beautiful and witty, or can always find the right spirit in the poetry he reads. A man has usually to work through much mud before he gets his nugget. It is so certainly in hunting, and a big wood too frequently afflicts the sportsman, as the mud does the miner. The small gorse cover is the happy much envied bit of ground in which the gold is sure to show itself readily, but without the woods the gorse would not hold the foxes, and without the mud the gold would not have found its resting place. But as I have said, Edge Hill was a popular meat, and as regarded the meat itself was eminently picturesque. On the present occasion the little field was full of horsemen, moving about slowly chatting together smoking cigars, getting off from their hacks and mounting their hunters, giving orders to their servants and preparing for the day. There were old country gentlemen there greeting each other from far sides of the county, sporting farmers who loved to find themselves alongside their landlords, and to feel that the pleasures of the country are common to both. Men down from town, like our friends of the robbery club, who made hunting their chosen pleasure, and who formed, in number, perhaps the largest portion of the field. Officers from garrisons round about a cloud of servants, and a few nondescript stragglers who had picked up horses hither and thither round the country. Outside the gate on the road were drawn up a variety of vehicles, open carriages, dog carts, gigs, and wagonettes, in some few of which were seated ladies who had come over to see the meat. But Edge Hill was essentially not a lady's meat. The distances to it were long, and the rides in Cranby Wood, the Big Wood, were not adapted for wheels. There were one or two ladies on horseback, as is always the case, but Edge Hill was not a place popular even with hunting ladies. One carriage that, of the old master of the hounds, had entered the sacred precincts of the field, and from this the old baronet was just descending, as Maxwell, Calder Jones, and Vevasa rode into the field. I hope I see you well, Sir William, said Maxwell greeting the master. Calder Jones also made his little speech, and so did Vevasa. Hmm, well, yes, I'm pretty well, thank you. Just move on, will you? My mare can't stir here. Then someone else spoke to him, and he only grunted in answer. Having slowly been assisted upon to his horse, for he was over seventy years of age, he trotted off to the hounds, while all the farmers round him touched their hats to him. But his mind was laden with affairs of import, and he noticed no one. In a whispered voice he gave his instructions to his huntsman, who said, Yes, Sir William, No, Sir William, No doubt, Sir William. One long-eared, long-legged fellow in a hunting cap and scarlet coat hung, listening by, anxious to catch something of the orders for the morning. Who the devil's that fellow, that's all breaches and boots, said Sir William, allowed to someone near him as the huntsman moved off with the hounds. Sir William knew the man well enough, but was minded to punish him for his discertesy. Where shall we find first, Sir William, said Calder-Janes, in a voice that was really very humble. How the mischief am I to know where the foxes are, said Sir William, with an oath, and Calder- James retired unhappy, and for the moment altogether silenced. And yet Sir William was the most popular man in the county, and no more courteous gentleman ever sat at the bottom of his own table, a mild man he was, too, went out of his saddle, and won by no means disposed to assume special supremacy. But a master of hounds, if he have long held the country, and Sir William had held his for more than thirty years, obtains a power which that of no other potentate can equal. He may say and do what he pleases, and his tyranny is always respected. No conspiracy against him has a chance of success, no sedition will meet with sympathy, that is, if he be successful in showing sport. If a man be sworn at, abused, and put down without cause, let him bear it, and think that he has been a victim for the public good, and let him never be angry with the master. That rough tongue is the necessity of the master's position. They used to say that no captain could manage a ship without swearing at his men, but what are the captain's troubles in comparison with those of the master of hounds? The captain's men are under discipline, and can be locked up, flogged, or have their grog stopped. The master of hounds cannot stop the grog of any offender, and he can only stop the tongue or horse of such a one by very sharp words. Well, Pollock, when did you come? said Maxwell. By George, said the literary gentleman, just down from London by the 830 from Euston Square, and got over here from Winslow in a trap with two fellows I never saw in my life before. We came tandem in a fly, and did the 19 miles in an hour. Come, Athenian, draw it mild, said Maxwell. We did indeed. I wonder whether they'll pay me for their share of the fly. I had to leave Onsley Crescent at a quarter before eight, and I did three hours' work before I started. Then you did it by candlelight, said Grindley. Of course I did, and why shouldn't I? Do you suppose no one can work by candlelight except a lawyer? I suppose you fellows were playing wist and drinking hard. I'm uncommon glad I wasn't with you, for I shall be able to ride. I bet you a pound, said Jones, if there's a run, I see more of it than you. I'll take that bet with Jones, said Grindley, and Vevasa shall be the judge. Gentlemen, the hounds can't get out if you will stop up the gate, said Sir William. Then the pack passed through, and they all trotted on for four miles to Cranby Wood. Vevasa, as he rode on to the Wood, was alone, or speaking, from time to time, a few words to his servant. I'll ride the chestnut mare in the wood, he said, and do you keep near me? I baint to be galloping up and down them rides, I suppose, said Bat, almost contemptuously. I shan't gallop up and down the rides myself, but do you mark me to know where I am, so that I can change if a fox should go away? You'll be here all day, sir, that's my belief. If so, I won't ride the brown horse at all, but do you take care to let me have him if there's a chance? Do you understand? Oh yes, I understand, sir. There ain't no difficulty in my understanding, only I don't think, sir, you'll ever get a fox out of that wood today, while it stands to reason the winds from the northeast. Cranby Wood is very large, they're being in two or three woods together. It was nearly twelve before they found, and then for an hour there was great excitement among the men who rode up and down the rides as the hounds drove the fox from one end to another of the enclosure. Once or twice the poor animal did try to go away, and then there was great hallowing, galloping, and jumping over unnecessary fences, but he was headed back again or changed his mind, not liking the northeast wind, of which bat smithers had predicted such bad things. After one the crowd of men became rather more indifferent and clustered together in broad spots eating their lunch, smoking cigars and chaffing each other. It was singular to observe the amazing quantity of ham sandwiches and of sherry that had been carried into Cranby Wood on that day. Grooms appeared to have been laden with cases, and men were as well armed with flasks at their saddle-bays as they used to be with pistols. Maxwell and Pollock formed the centre of one of these crowds, and chaffed each other with the utmost industry till tired of having inflicted no wounds they turned upon Grindley and drove him out of the circle. You'll make that man cut his throat if you go on at that, said Pollock. Shall I, said Maxwell, then I'll certainly stick to him for the sake of humanity in general. During all this time, Vevasa sat apart quite alone, and bat smithers Grimly kept his place about three hundred yards from him. We shan't do any good today, said Grindley, coming up to Vevasa. I'm sure I don't know, said Vevasa. That old fellow has got to be so stupid he doesn't know what he's about, said Grindley, meaning Sir William. How can he make the fox break, said Vevasa? And as his voice was by names encouraging, Grindley rode away. Lunch and cigars lasted till two, during which hour the hounds, the huntsmen, the whips, and old Sir William were hard at work, as also were some few others who persistently followed every chance of the game. From that till three there were two or three flashes in the pan, and false reports as to foxes which had gone away, which first set men galloping and then made them very angry. After three, men began to say naughty things to abuse Cranby Wood to wish violently that they had remained at home or gone elsewhere, and to speak irreverently of their ancient master. It's the cussidest place in all creation, said Maxwell. I often said I'd not come here any more, and now I say it again. And yet you'll be here the next meet, said Grindley, who had sneaked back to his old companions in weariness of spirit. Grindams, you know a sight too much, said Maxwell, you do indeed, and ordinary fellow has no chance with you. Grindley was again going to catch it, but was on this time saved by the appearance of the huntsmen, who came galloping up one of the rides with a lot of the hounds at his heels. He isn't away, Tom, surely, said Maxwell. He's out of the wood somewhere, said Tom, and off they all went. Vevesa changed his horse, getting on to the brown one, and giving up his chestnut met about smithers, who suggested that he might well go home to robbery now. Vevesa gave him no answer, but trotting on to the point where the rides met, stopped a moment, and listened carefully. Then he took a path diverging away from that, by which the huntsmen and the crowd of horsemen had gone, and made the best of his way through the wood. At the end of this he came upon Sir William, who, with no one near him but his servant, was standing in the pathway of a little hunting-gate. Hulled hard, said Sir William, the hounds are not out of the wood yet. Is the fox away, sir? What's the good of that if we can't get the hands out? Yes, he's away. He passed out where I'm standing. And then he began to blow his horn lastily, and by degrees at the men, and a few hounds came down the ride. Then Tom, with his horse almost blown, made his appearance outside the wood, and soon there came a rush of men, nearly on the top of one another, pushing on, not knowing wither, but keenly alive to the fact that the fox had at last consented to move his quarters. Tom touched his hat and looked at his master inquiringly. He's gone for Claydon, said the master. Try them up that hedgerow. Tom did try them up the hedgerow, and in half a minute the hounds came upon the scent. Then you might see men settling their hats on the heads and feeling their feet in the stirrups. The moment for which they had so long waited had come, and yet there were many who would now have preferred that the fox should be headed back in to cover. Some had but little confidence in their half blown horses, with many the waiting, though so abused and anathematised, was in truth more to their taste than the run itself. With others the excitement had gone by, and a gallop over a field or two is necessary before it would be restored. With most men at such a moment there is a little nervousness. Some fear of making a bad start, a dread lest others should have more of the success of the hunt than falls to them. But there was a great rush and a mighty bustle as the hounds made out their game, and so William felt himself called upon to use the rough side of his tongue to more than one delinquent. And then certain sly old stages might be seen turning off to the left instead of following the course of the game as indicated by the hounds. They were men who had felt the air as they came out, and knew that the fox must soon run downwind, whatever he might do for the first half-mile or so, men who knew also which was the shortest way to cladens by the road. Ah, the satisfaction that there is when these men are thrown out, and their dead knowledge proved to be of no avail. If a fox will only run straight heading from the cover on his real line, these very sagacious gentlemen seldom come to much honour and glory. In the present instance the beasts seemed determined to go straight enough, for the hounds ran the scent along three or four head rows in a line. He had managed to get for himself full ten minutes start, and had been able to leave the cover and all his enemies well behind him, before he bethought himself as to his best way to his purpose destination. And here, from field to field, there were little hunting gates at which men crowded lustily, poking and shoving each other's horses, and hating each other with a bitterness of hatred, which is, I think, no nowhere else. No hunting man ever wants to jump if he can help it, and the hedges near the gate were not alluring. A few there were who made lines for themselves, taking the next field to the right, or scrambling through the corners of the fences, while the rush was going on at the gates, and among these was George for Vesa. He never rode in a crowd, always keeping himself somewhat away from men as well as hounds. He would often be thrown out, and then men would hear no more of him for that day. On such occasions he did not show himself as other men do, twenty minutes after the Fox had been killed or run to ground, but he took himself home by himself, going through the byways and lanes, thus leaving no report of his failure to be spoken of by his peers. As long as the line of gates lasted, the crowd continued as thick as ever, and the best man was he whose horse could shove the hardest. After passing some four or five fields in this way they came out upon a road, and the scent holding strong the dogs crossed it without any demurring. Then came doubt into the minds of men, many of whom, before they would venture away from their position on the lane, narrowly watched the leading hounds to see whether there was indication of a turn to the one side or the other. Sir William, who seventy odd years excused him, turned sharp to the left, knowing that he could make cladens that way, and very many were the submissive horsemen who followed him. A few took the road to the right, having in their minds some little game of their own. The hardest riders there had already crossed from the road into the country, and were going well to the hounds ignorant to some of them of the brook before them and others unheeding. Foremost among these was Burgay Fitzgerald, Burgay Fitzgerald whom no man had ever known to crane a defence or to hug a road or to spare his own neck or his horses. And yet poor Burgay seldom finished well, coming to repeated grief in this matter of his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters of his life. But almost neck in neck with Burgay was Pollock, the sporting literary gentleman. Pollock had but two horses to his stud and was never known to give much money for them, and he weighed without his boots fifteen stones. No one ever knew how Pollock did it, more especially as all the world declared that he was as ignorant of hunting as any tailor. He could ride or when he couldn't ride he could tumble, men said that of him, and he would ride as long as the beast under him could go. But few knew the sad misfortunes which poor Pollock sometimes encountered, the muddy ditches in which he was left, the despair with which he would stand by his unfortunate horse when the poor brook could no longer move across some deep plowed field, the miles that he would walk at night beside a tired animal as he made his way slowly back to Raybury. Then came Tom the Huntsman with colder jones close to him and grindly intent on winning his sovereign. Vevasa had also crossed the road somewhat to the left carrying with him one or two who knew that he was a safe man to follow. Maxwell had been ignominiously turned by the hedge which together with its ditch formed a fence such as all men do not love at the beginning of a run. He had turned from it acknowledging the cause. By George said he that's too big for me yet a while and there's no end of a river at the bottom. So he had followed the master down the road. All of those whom we have named managed to get over the brook. Pollock's horse barely contriving to get up his hind legs from the broken edge of the bank. Some nags refused it and their riders thus lost all their chance of sport for that day, such is the lot of men who hunt. A man pays five or six pounds for his day's amusement and it is tend to one that the occurrences of the day disgust rather than gratify him. One or two got in and scrambled out on the other side but tough day pearlings the Manchester man from Friday Street stuck in the mud at the bottom and could not get his mare out till seven men had come with ropes to help him. Where the devil is my fellow, pearlings asked of the countrymen but the countrymen could not tell him that his fellow with his second horse was riding the hunt with great satisfaction to himself. George Vevesa found that his horse went with him uncommonly well, taking his fences almost in the stride of his gallop and giving unmistakable signs of good condition. I wonder what it is that's amiss with him, said George to himself, resolving, however, that he would sell him that day if he got an opportunity. Straight went the line of the fox up from the brook and Tom began to say that his master had been wrong about cladens. Where are we now, said burgo, as four or five of them dashed through the open gate of a farmyard. This is Bulby's farm, said Tom, and we're going right away for Elmham Wood. Elmham Wood be dead, said a stout farmer who had come as far as that with them. You won't see Elmham Wood to-day. I suppose you know best, said Tom, and then they were through the yard, across another road and down a steep ravine by the side of a little cops. He's been through them furs anyway, said Tom, to him galas. Then up they went the other side of the ravine and saw the body of the hounds almost afield before them at the top. I say that took some of the wind out of a fellow, said Pollock. You mustn't mind about wind now, said burgo, dashing on. Wasn't the pace awful coming up to that farmhouse, said Calder-Janes, looking round to see if Grindley was shaken off? But Grindley, with some six or seven others, was still there, and there also, always in the next field to the left, was George Feveza. He had spoken no word to any one since the hunt commenced, nor had he wished to speak to any one. He desired to sell his horse, and he desired also to succeed in the run for other reasons than that, would have found it difficult to define them. Now they had opened grassland for about a mile, but with very heavy fences, so that the hounds gained upon them a little, and Pollock's weight began to tell. The huntsman and burgo were leading with some fortunate county gentleman, whose good stars had brought him in upon them at the farmyard gate. It is the injustice of such accidents as this, that breaks the heart of a man who has honestly gone through all the heat and work of the struggle, and the hounds had veered a little round to the left, making, after all, for cladens. Downed if the square went right, said Tom. Sir William, through a baronet, was familiarly called the squire throughout a hunt. We ain't going for cladens now, asked burgo. Them's cladens' beaches we seize over there, said Tom, taint often the squires wrong. Here they came to a little double rail, and a little quick-set hedge. A double rail is a nasty fence, always if it has been made any way strong, and one which a man with a wife and a family is justified in avoiding. They mostly can be avoided, having gates, and this could have been avoided, but burgo never avoided anything, and when to rip beautifully. The difficulty is to be discreet when the man before one has been indiscreet. Tom went for the gate, as did Pollock, who knew that he could have no chance at the double rails. But Calder Jones came to infinite grief, striking the top bar of the second rail, and going head foremost out of his saddle, as though thrown by a catapult. There we must leave him. Grindley rejoicing greatly at this discomforture made for the gate, but the country gentleman with the fresh horse accomplished the rails, and was soon alongside of burgo. I didn't see you at the start, said burgo. And I didn't see you, said the country gentleman, so it's even. Burgo did not see the thing in the same light, but he said no more. Grindley and Tom were soon after them, Tom doing his utmost to shake off the attorney. Pollock was coming on also, but the pace had been too much for him, and though the ground rode light, his poor beast laboured and grunted sorely. The hounds were still veering somewhat to the left, and burgo, jumping over a small fence into the same field with them, saw that there was a horseman ahead of him. This was George Vevasa, who was going well without any symptom of distress. And now they were at Claydon's, having run over some seven miles of ground in about thirty-five minutes. To those who do not know what hunting is, this pace does not seem very extraordinary, but it had been quite quick enough, as was testified by the horses, which had gone the distance. Our party entered Claydon's park at back through a gate in the park palings that was open on hunting days, but a much more numerous lot was there almost as soon as them who had come in by the main entrance. This lot was headed by Sir William, and our friend Maxwell was with him. A jolly thing so far said burgo to Maxwell, about the best we've had this year. I didn't see a yard of it, said Maxwell. I hadn't nerved to get off the first road, and I haven't been off it ever since. Maxwell was a man who never lied about his hunting, or had the slightest shame in riding raids. Who's been with you, said he. There have been Tom and I, and Coles Jones was there for a while. I think he killed himself somewhere, and there was Pollock, and your friend Grindley, and a chap whose name I don't know, who dropped out of heaven about half way in the run, and there was another man whose back I saw just now. There he is! By heavens, it's for Vesa, I didn't know he was here. They hung about the Claydon covers for ten minutes, and then their Fox went off again, their Fox or another, as to which there was a great discussion afterwards, but he who would have suggested the idea of a new Fox to Sir William would have been a bold man. A Fox, however, went off, turning still to the left from Claydon's towards Raybury. Those ten minutes had brought up some fifty men, but it did not bring up Coles Jones nor Tuftay Perlings, nor some half-dozen others who had already come to serious misfortune. But Grindley was there, very triumphant in his own success, and already talking of Jones's sovereign, and Pollock was there also, thankful for the ten minutes law, and trusting that wind might be given to his horse to finish the run triumphantly. But the pace on leaving Claydon's was better than ever. This may have come from the fact that the scent was keener as they got out so close upon their game, but I think they must have changed their Fox. Maxwell, who saw him go, saw that he was fresh and clean. Burgay said that he knew it to be the same Fox, but gave no reason. Same Fox in course it was, why shouldn't it be the same, said Tom. The country gentleman who had dropped from Heaven was quite sure that they had changed, and so were most of those who had ridden the road. Pollock can find himself to hoping that he might soon be killed, and that thus his triumph for the day might be assured. On they went, and the pace soon became too good for the poor author. His horse at last refused a little hedge, and there was not another trot to be got out of him. That night Pollock turned up at Roebury about nine o'clock, very hungry, and it was known that his animal was alive, but the poor horse ain't not a grain of oats that night, nor on the next morning. The Vesa had again taken a line to himself, on this occasion a little to the right of the meat, but Maxwell followed him and rode close with him to the end. Burgay for a while still led the body of the field, incurring at first much condemnation from Sir William, nominally for hurrying on among the hounds, but in truth because he got before Sir William himself. During this latter part of the run Sir William stuck to the hounds in spite of his seventy odd years. Going down into Maron Bottom some four or five were left behind for they feared the soft ground near the river, and did not know the pass through it, but Sir William knew it, and those who remained close to him got over that trouble. Burgay, who would still lead, nearly found it in the bog, but he was light and his horse pulled him through, leaving a foreshoe in the mud. After that Burgay was content to give Sir William the lead. Then they came up by Maron pits to Kleshey Smallwood, which they passed without hanging there a minute, and over the grasslands of Kleshey Farm. He of Avesa and Maxwell joined the others, having gained some three hundred yards in distance by their course, but having been forced to jump the Maron stream which Sir William had forwarded. The pace now was as good as the horses could make it, and perhaps something better as regarded some of them. Sir William's servant had been with him, but, and he had got his second horse at Claydon's, Maxwell had been equally fortunate. Tom's second horse had not come up, and his beast was in great distress. Grindley had remained behind at Maron bottom, being contented perhaps with having beaten Calder James, from whom by the by I may hear declare that he never got his sovereign. Burgay, Avesa, and the country gentleman still held on, but it was devoutly desired by all of them that the fox might soon come to the end of his tether. Ah! that intense longing that the fox may fail when the failings of the horse begin to make themselves known, and the consciousness comes on that all that one has done will go for nothing, unless the thing can be brought to a close in a field or two. So far you have triumphed, leaving scores of men behind, but of what good is all that, if you also are to be left behind at the last. It was manifest now to all who knew the country that the fox was making for Thornden Deer Park, but Thornden Deer Park was still two miles ahead of them, and the hounds were so near to their game that the poor beast could hardly hope to live till he got there. He had tried a well-known drain near Clashy Farmhouse, but it had been inhospitable nay cruelly closed against him. Soon after that he threw himself down in a ditch, and the eager hounds overran him, giving him a moment's law, and giving also a moment's law to horses that wanted it as badly. I'm about done for, said Bergo to Maxwell. Luckily for you, said Maxwell, the fox is much in the same way. But the fox had still more power left in him than poor Bergo Fitzgerald's horse. He gained a minute's check, and then he started again, being viewed away by Sir William himself. The country gentleman of whom mention has been made also viewed him, and hollowed as he did so, Yoik's tally gone away! The unfortunate man. What the—are you roaring at, said Sir William? Do you suppose I don't know where the fox is? Whereupon the country gentleman retreated, and became less conspicuous than he had been. Away they went again, off-cleshy and interthawnd and parish, on the land of Sorrell Farm, a spot well to be remembered by one or two ever afterwards. Here Sir William made for a gate, which took him a little out of the line, but Maxwell and Bergo Fitzgerald, followed by Vevasa, went straight ahead. There was a huge ditch, and boundary bank there, which Sir William had known and had avoided. Maxwell, whose pluck had returned to him at last, took it well. His horse was comparatively fresh, and made nothing of it. Then came poor Bergo. Oh, Bergo! Hadst thou not been a very child, thou shouldst have known that now, at this time of day, after all that thy gallant horse had done for thee, it was impossible to thee or him. But when did Bergo Fitzgerald know anything? He rode at the bank as though it had been the first fence of the day, striking his poor beast with his spurs, as though muscle, strength, and new power could be imparted by their owls. The animal rose at the bank, and in some way got upon it, scrambling as he struck it with his chest, and then fell headlong into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and body. His career was at an end, and he had broken his heart. Poor noble beast, noble in vain. To his very last gasp he had done his best, and had deserved that he should have been in better hands. His master's ignorance had killed him. There are men who never know how little a horse can do or how much. There was, to some extent, a gap in the fence when Maxwell had first ridden it, and Bergo had followed him, a gap or break in the hedge at the top, indicating plainly the place at which a horse could best get over. To this spot, Vevesa followed, and was on the bank at Bergo's heels before he knew what had happened. But the man had got away, and only the horse lay there in the ditch. Are you hurt, said Vevesa? Can I do anything? But he did not stop. If you can find a chap, just send him to me, said Bergo in a melancholy tone. Then he sat down with his feet in the ditch, and looked at the carcass of his horse. There was no more need of jumping that day. The way was open into the next field, a turnip field, and there amidst the crisp breaking turnip tops with the breath of his enemies hot upon him, with a sharp teeth at his entrails biting at them impotently in the agonies of his death-struggle, poor Reynard finished his career. Maxwell was certainly the first there, but Sir William and George Vevesa were close upon him. That taking of brushes of which we used to hear is a little out of fashion, but if such honour were due to any one, it was due to Vevesa, for he and he only had ridden the hunt throughout. But he claimed no honour, and none was specially given to him. He and Maxwell rode homewards together, having sent assistance to poor Bergo Fitzgerald, and as they went along the road, saying but little to each other, Maxwell in a very indifferent voice asked him a question. What do you want for that horse, Vevesa? A hundred and fifty, said Vevesa. His mind said Maxwell, so the brown horse was sold for about half his value, because he had brought with him a bad character. Alice Vavasor's Great Relations Bergo Fitzgerald, of whose hunting experiences something has been told in the last chapter, was a young man born in the purple of the English aristocracy. He was related to half the dukes in the Kingdom, and had three countesses for his aunts. When he came of age he was master of a sufficient fortune to make it quite out of the question that he should be asked to earn his bread. And though that, and other windfalls that had come to him, had long since been spent, no one had ever made to him so ridiculous a proposition as that. He was now thirty, and for some years past had been known to be much worse than Penelus. But still he lived on in the same circles, still slept softly and drank of the best, and went about with his valet and his groom and his horses, and fared sumptuously every day. Some people said the countesses did it for him, and some said that it was the dukes, while others, again, declared that the Jews were his most generous friends. At any rate he still seemed to live as he had always lived, setting tradesmen at defiance and laughing to scorn all the rules which regulate the lives of other men. About eighteen months before the time of which I am now speaking, a great chance had come in this young man's way, and he had almost succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in England. There had been then a great heiress in the land on whom the properties of half a dozen ancient families had concentrated, and Bergo, who in spite of his iniquities still kept his position in the drawing-rooms of the great, had almost succeeded in obtaining the hand and the wealth, as people still said that he had obtained the heart of the lady Glencora McCluskey. But sundry mighty magnates driven almost to despair at the prospect of such a sacrifice, had sagaciously put their heads together, and the result had been that the lady Glencora had heard reason. She had listened, with many haughty tossings indeed of her proud little head, with many throbbing of her passionate young heart, but in the end she listened and heard reason. She saw Bergo for the last time, and told him that she was the promised bride of Plantagenet Palisare, nephew and heir of the Duke of Omnium. He had borne it like a man, never having grown openly or quivered once before any comrade at the name of the lady Glencora. She had married Mr. Palisare at St. George's Square, and on the morning of the marriage he had hung about his club door in Paul Mall, listening to the bells, and saying a word or two about the wedding, with admirable courage. It had been for him a great chance, and he had lost it. Who can say, too, that his only regret was for the money? He had spoken once of it to a married sister of his, in whose house he had first met Lady Glencora. I shall never marry now, that is all, he said, and then he went about, living his old, reckless life, with the same recklessness as ever. He was one of those young men with dark hair and blue eyes, who wear no beard, and are certainly among the handsomest of all God's creatures. No more handsome man than Bergo Fitzgerald lived in his days, and this merit at any rate was his, that he thought nothing of his own beauty. But he lived ever without conscience, without purpose, with no idea that it behoved him as a man to do anything but eat and drink, or ride well to hounds till some poor brute, much nobler than himself, perished beneath him. He chiefly concerns our story at this present time, because the Lady Glencora, who had loved him, and would have married him had not those sagacious heads prevented it, was a cousin of Alice Bavisors. She was among those very great relations with whom Alice was connected by her mother's side, being indeed so near to Lady MacLeod that she was first cousin to that lady, only once removed. Lady Midlothian was aunt to the Lady Glencora, and our Alice might have called cousins, and not been forbidden, with the old Lord of the Isles, Lady Glencora's father, who was dead, however, sometime previous to that affair with Bergo, and with the Marquess of Old Reiki, who was Lady Glencora's uncle, and had been her guardian. But Alice had kept herself aloof from her grand relations on her mother's side, choosing rather to hold herself as belonging to those who were of her father's kindred. With Lady Glencora, however, she had, for a short time, for some week or ten days, been on terms of almost affectionate intimacy. It had been then, when the wayward heiress, with the bright waving locks, had been most strongly minded to give herself and her wealth to Bergo Fitzgerald. Bergo had had money dealings with George Bavisaur and knew him, knew him intimately, and had learned the fact of his cousinship between the heiress and his friend's cousin. Whereupon, in the agony of those weeks in which the sagacious heads were resisting her love, Lady Glencora came to her cousin in Queen Anne Street, and told Alice all that tale. Was Alice, she asked, afraid of the marquises and the countesses, or of all the rank and all the money which they boasted? Alice answered that she was not at all afraid of them. Then would she permit Lady Glencora and Bergo to see each other in the drawing-room at Queen Anne Street, just once? Just once, so that they might arrange that little plan of an elopement. But Alice could not do that for her newly found cousin. She endeavored to explain that it was not the dignity of the sagacious heads which stood in her way, but her woman's feeling of what was right and wrong in such a matter. Why should I not marry him? said Lady Glencora, with her eyes flashing. He is my equal. Alice explained that she had no word to say against such a marriage. She counseled her cousin to be true to her love if her love was in itself true. But she, an unmarried woman, who had hitherto not known her cousin, might not give such help as that. If you will not help me, I am helpless, said the Lady Glencora. And then she kneeled at Alice's knees and threw her wavy locks abroad on Alice's lap. How shall I bribe you? said Lady Glencora. Next to him I will love you better than all the world. But Alice, though she kissed the fair forehead and owned that such reward would be worth much to her, could not take any bribe for such a cause. Then Lady Glencora had been angry with her, calling her heartless and threatening her that she too might have sorrow of her own and want assistance. Alice told nothing of her own tale, how she had loved her cousin and had been forced to give him up, but said what kind words she could, and she of the waving hair and light blue eyes had been pacified. Then she had come again, had come daily, while the sagacious heads were at work, and Alice, in her trouble, had been a comfort to her. But the sagacious heads were victorious, as we know, and Lady Glencora McCluskey became Lady Glencora Palacere, with all the propriety in the world, instead of becoming wife to poor Bergo, with all imaginable impropriety. And then she wrote a letter to Alice, very short and rather sad, but still with a certain sweetness in it. She had been counseled that it was not fitting for her to love as she had thought to love, and she had resolved to give up her dream. Her cousin Alice, she knew, would respect her secret. She was going to become the wife of the best man, she thought, in all the world, and it should be the one care of her life to make him happy. She said not a word in all her letter of loving this newly found lord. She was to be married at once, would Alice be one, among the bevy of bridesmaids, who were to grace the ceremony. Alice wished her joy heartily. Heartily, she said, but had declined that office of bridesmaid. She did not wish to undergo the cold looks of the Lady Julius and Lady Jane's, who all would know each other, but none of whom would know her. So she sent her cousin a little ring, and asked her to keep it amidst all the wealthy tribute of marriage gifts, which would be poured forth at her feet. From that time to the present, Alice had heard no more of Lady Glencora. She had been married late in the preceding season, and had gone away with Mr. Palacere, spending her honeymoon amidst the softness of some Italian lake. They had not returned to England till the time had come for them to encounter the magnificent Christmas festivities of Mr. Palacere's uncle, the Duke. On this occasion, Gatherham Castle, the vast palace which the Duke had built at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million, was opened, as it had never been opened before, for the Duke's air had married to the Duke's liking, and the Duke was a man who could do such things handsomely when he was well pleased. Then there had been a throng of bridal guests and a succession of bridal gayities which had continued themselves, even past the time at which Mr. Palacere was due at Westminster, and Mr. Palacere was a legislator who served his country with the utmost aciduity. So the London season commenced, progressed, and was consumed, and still Alice heard nothing more of her friend and cousin, Lady Glencora. But this had troubled her not at all. A chance circumstance, the story of which she had told to no one, had given her a short intimacy with this fair child of the gold mines. But she had felt that they too could not live together in habits of much intimacy. She had, when thinking of the young bride, only thought of that wild love episode in the girl's life. It had been strange to her that she should in one week have listened to the most passionate protestations from her friend of love for one man, and then have been told in the next that another man was to be her friend's husband. But she reflected that her own career was much the same, only with the interval of some longer time. But her own career was not the same. Glencora had married Mr. Palacere, had married him without pausing to doubt. But Alice had gone on doubting till at last she had resolved that she would not marry Mr. Gray. She thought of this much in those days at Cheltenham, and wondered often whether Glencora lived with her husband in the full happiness of conjugal love. One morning, about three days after Mr. Gray's visit, there came to her two letters, as to neither of which did she know the writer by the handwriting. Lady MacLeod had told her, with some hesitation indeed, for Lady MacLeod was afraid of her, but had told her nevertheless, more than once, that those noble relatives had heard of the treatment to which Mr. Gray was being subjected, and had expressed their great sorrow, if not dismay or almost anger. Lady MacLeod indeed had gone as far as she dared, and might have gone further without any sacrifice of truth. Lady Midlothian had said that it would be disgraceful to the family, and Lady Glencora's aunt, the Marchiness of Old Rikki, had demanded to be told what it was the girl wanted. When the letters came Lady MacLeod was not present, and I am disposed to think that one of them had been written by concerted arrangement with her, but if so she had not dared to watch the immediate effect of her own projectile. This one was from Lady Midlothian. Of the other Lady MacLeod certainly knew nothing, though it also had sprung out of the discussions which had taken place as to Alice's sins in the Old Rikki Midlothian set. This other letter was from Lady Glencora. Alice opened the two, one without reading the other, very slowly. Lady Midlothian's was the first opened, and then came a spot of anger on Alice's cheeks as she saw the signature, and caught a word or two as she allowed her eye to glance down the page. Then she opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's signature, Glencora Palacere, she read that letter first, read it twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady Midlothian's lecture. The reader shall have both the letters, but that from the countess shall have precedence. My dear Miss Vavasor, I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though I have heard of you very often, from our dear mutual friend and relative, Lady MacLeod, with whom I understand that you are at present on a visit. Your grandmother, by the mother's side, Lady Flora MacLeod, and my mother, the countess of Leith, were half-sisters. And though circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood, to take a warm interest. Since that—'What does she mean by since that?' said Alice to herself. She has never set eyes on me at all. Why does she talk of not having seen as much of me as is desirable? I had learned, with great gratification, that you were going to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr. John Gray of Nethercoats, in Cambridgeshire. When I first heard this, I made it my business to institute some inquiries, and I was heartily glad to find that your choice had done you so much credit. If the reader has read Alice's character, as I have meant it should be read, it will thoroughly be understood that this was wormwood to her. I was informed that Mr. Gray is in every respect a gentleman, that he is a man of most excellent habits, and one to whom any young woman could commit her future happiness with security, that his means are very good for his position, and that there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All this gave great satisfaction to me, in which I was joined by the Marchiness of Old Reiki, who is connected with you almost as nearly as I am, and who, I can assure you, feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am staying with her now, and in all that I say, she agrees with me. You may feel, then, how dreadfully we were dismayed, when we were told, by dear Lady MacLeod, that you had told Mr. Gray that you intended to change your mind. My dear Miss Bavisaur, can this be true? There are things in which a young lady has no right to change her mind after it has been once made up, and certainly, when a young lady has accepted a gentleman that is one of them, he cannot legally make you become his wife, but he has a right to claim you before God and man. Have you considered that he has probably furnished his house in consequence of his intended marriage, and perhaps in compliance with your own special wishes? I think that Lady MacLeod must have told the Countess something that she had heard about the garden. Have you reflected that he has, of course, told all his friends? Have you any reason to give? I am told none. Nothing should ever be done without a reason, much less such a thing as this in which your own interests and, I may say, respectability are involved. I hope you will think of this before you persist in destroying your own happiness, and perhaps that of a very worthy man. I had heard some years ago, when you were much younger, that you had become imprudently attached in another direction, with a gentleman with none of those qualities to recommend him which speaks so highly for Mr. Gray. It would grieve me very much as it would also the Marchiness, who in this matter thinks exactly as I do, if I were led to suppose that your rejection of Mr. Gray had been caused by any renewal of that project. Nothing, my dear Miss Vavasor, could be more unfortunate, and I might almost add a stronger word. I have been advised that a line from me as representing your poor mother's family, especially as I have at the present moment the opportunity of expressing Lady Old Riki's sentiments as well as my own, might be of service. I implore you, my dear Miss Vavasor, to remember what you owe to God and man, and to carry out an engagement made by yourself that is in all respects come ill-foe, and which will give entire satisfaction to your friends and relatives. Margaret M. Midlothian I think that Lady MacLeod had been wrong in supposing that this could do any good. She should have known Alice better, and should also have known the world better. But her own reverence for her own noble relatives was so great that she could not understand, even yet, that all such feeling was wanting to her knees. It was to her impossible that the expressed opinion of such an one as the Countess of Midlothian, owning her relationship and solicitude, and condescending at the same time to express friendship. She could not, I say, understand that the voice of such an one, so speaking, should have no weight whatever. But I think that she had been quite right in keeping out of Alice's way at the moment of the arrival of the letter. Alice read it slowly, and then replacing it in its envelope, leaned back quietly in her chair, with her eyes fixed upon the teapot on the table. She had, however, the other letter on which to occupy her mind, and thus relieve her from the effects of too deep an animosity against the Countess. The Lady Glencora's letter was as follows. Matching Priory Thursday Dear cousin, I have just come home from Scotland, where they have been telling me something of your little troubles. I had little troubles once, too, and you were so good to me. Will you come to us here for a few weeks? We shall be here till Christmas time, when we go somewhere else. I have told my husband that you are a great friend of mine, as well as a cousin, and that he must be good to you. He is very quiet, and works very hard at politics. But I think you will like him. Do come. There will be a good many people here, so that you will not find it dull. If you will name the day, we will send the carriage for you at Matching Station, and I dare say I can manage to come myself. Yours affectionately, G. Palisair. PS. I know what will be in your mind. You will say, why did not she come to me in London? She knew the way to Queen Anne Street well enough. Dear Alice, don't say that. Believe me, I had much to do and think of in London. And if I was wrong, yet you will forgive me. Mr. Palisair says I am to give you his love, as being a cousin, and say that you must come. This letter was certainly better than the other. But Alice, on reading it, came to a resolve that she would not accept the invitation. In the first place, even that allusion to her little troubles jarred upon her feelings, and then she thought that her rejection of Mr. Gray could be no special reason why she should go to Matching Priory. Was it not very possible that she had been invited, that she might meet Lady Midlothian there, and encounter all the strength of a personal battery from the Countess? Lady Glyncora's letter she would, of course, answer. But to Lady Midlothian she would not condescend to make any reply, whatever. About eleven o'clock Lady MacLeod came down to her. For half an hour or so Alice said nothing. Nor did Lady MacLeod ask any question. She looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter which was lying by the side of her niece's work-basket, but she said no word about Mr. Gray or the Countess. At last Alice spoke. Aunt, she said, I have had a letter this morning from your friend Lady Midlothian. She is my cousin, Alice, and yours as much as mine. Your cousin, then, Aunt, but it is of more moment that she is your friend. She certainly is not mine. Nor can her cousinship afford any justification for her interfering in my affairs. Alice, from her position. Her position can be nothing to me, Aunt. I will not submit to it. There is her letter which you can read if you please. After that you may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it. And what am I to say to her, Alice? Nothing from me, Aunt, from yourself, whatever you please, of course. Then there was silence between them for a few minutes. And I have had another letter from Lady Glencora, who married Mr. Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring. And has that offended you too? No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at matching Priory, her husband's house, but I shall not go. But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well to explain here how she was brought to do so. She wrote to Lady Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline, because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady Midlothian. Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her acquaintance. To this Lady Glencora replied, post-haste, that she had intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice, that neither would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set, by which Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt, the Marcianess, that no one would be at matching who could torment Alice, either with right or without it. Except so far as I myself may do so, Lady Glencora said, and then she named an early day in November at which she would herself undertake to meet Alice at the matching station. On receipt of this letter, Alice, after two days' doubt, accepted the invitation. End of Chapter 18, Recording by Laura Koskinen This reading by Lucy Burgoyne Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollop Chapter 19 Tribute from Oily Mead Kate Beversaw, in writing to her cousin Alice, felt some little difficulty in excusing herself for remaining in Norfolk with Mrs. Grinneau. She had laughed at Mrs. Grinneau before she went to Yarmouth, and had laughed at herself for going there. And in all her letters since, she had spoken of her aunt as a silly, vain, worldly woman, weeping crocodile tears, for an old husband whose death had released her from the tedium of his company, and spreading lures to catch new lovers, that yet she agreed to stay with her aunt and remain with her in lodgings at Norwich for a month. But Mrs. Grinneau had about her something more than Kate had acknowledged when she first attempted to read her aunt's character. She was clever and in her own way persuasive. She was very generous and possessed a certain power of making herself pleasant to those around her. In asking Kate to stay with her, she had so asked as to make it appear that Kate was to confer the favour. She had told her niece that she was all alone in the world. I have money, she had said, with more appearance of true feeling than Kate had observed before. I have money, but I have nothing else in the world. I have no home. Why should I not remain here in Norfolk, where I know a few people? If you'll say that you'll go anywhere else with me, I'll go to any place you'll name. Kate had believed this to be hardly true. She had felt sure that her aunt wished to remain in the neighbourhood of her seaside admirers, but nevertheless she had yielded, and at the end of October the two ladies, with Jeanette, settled themselves in comfortable lodgings within the precincts of the close at Norwich. Mr Greenow at this time had been dead for nearly six months, but his widow made some mistakes in her dates and appeared to think that their interval had been longer. On the day of their arrival at Norwich it was evident that this error had confirmed itself in her mind. Only think, she said, as she unpacked a little miniature of the departed one, and sat with it for a moment in her hands, as she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. Only think, that is barely nine months since he was with me. Six, you mean, aunt, said Kate unadvisedly. Only nine months, repeated Mrs Greenow, as though she had not heard her niece. Only nine months after that Kate attempted to correct no more such errors. It happened in May, Miss. Jeanette said afterwards to Miss Vavasol. And that, as we reckons, it will be just a twelfth month, come Christmas, that Kate paid no attention to this. And Jeanette was very ungrateful, and certainly should have indulged herself in no such sarcasm. When Mrs Greenow made a slight change in her mourning, which she did on her arrival at Norwich, using a little lace among her crepes, Jeanette reaped a rich harvest in gifts of clothes. Mrs Greenow knew well enough that she expected more from a servant than mere service, that she wanted loyalty, discretion, and perhaps sometimes a little secrecy. And as she paid for these things, she should have had them. Kate undertook to stay a month with her aunt at Norwich, and Mrs Greenow undertook that Mr Chersaker should declare himself as Kate's lover before the expiration of the month. It was in vain that Kate protested that she wanted no such lover, and that she would certainly reject him if he came. That's all very well, my dear, aunt Greenow would say. A girl must settle herself some day, you know, and you'd have it all your own way at oily mead. But the opposite certainly showed much generosity on the part of aunt Greenow, in as much as Mr Chersaker's attentions were apparently paid to herself rather than to her niece. Mr Chersaker was very attentive. He had taken the lodgings in the close, and had sent overfowls and cream from oiling mead, and had called on the morning after their arrival, but in all his attentions he distinguished the aunt more particularly than the niece. I am all for Mr Chersaker, Miss, said Jeanette, once. The captain is perhaps the nice-error looking gentleman, and he ain't so podgy like. But what's good looks if a gentleman hasn't got nothing? I can't abide anything that's poor. Neither can't miss us, from which it was evident that Jeanette gave Miss Bavisle no credit in having Mr Chersaker in her train. Captain Belfield was also at Norwich, having obtained some quasi-military employment there in the matter of drilling volunteers. Certain capacities in that line it may be supposed that he possessed, and, as his friend Chersaker said of him, he was going to earn an honest penny once in his life. The captain and Mr Chersaker had made up any little differences that had existed between them at Yarmouth, and were close allies again when they left that place. Some little compact on matters of business must have been arranged between them, for the captain was in funds again. He was in funds again through the liberality of his friend, and no payment of former loans had been made, nor had there been any speech of such. Mr Chersaker had drawn his purse strings liberally, and had declared that if all went well the hospitality of oily mead should not be wanting during the winter. Captain Belfield had nodded his head and declared that all should go well. You won't see much of the captain, I suppose, said Mr Chersaker to Mrs Greenough on the morning of the day after her arrival at Norwich. He had come across the whole way from oily mead to ask her if she found herself comfortable, and perhaps with an eye to the Norwich markets at the same time. He now wore a pair of black riding boots over his trousers, and a round toped hat, and looked much more at home than he had done by the seaside. Not much, I daresay, said the widow. He tells me that he must be on duty ten or twelve hours a day, poor fellow. It's a juice good thing for him, and he ought to be very much obliged to me for putting him in the way of getting it, that he told me to tell you that if he didn't call you were not to be angry with him. Oh no, I shall remember, of course. You see, if he don't work now he must come to grief. He hasn't got a shilling that he can call his own. Has any really? Not a shilling, Mrs Greenough, and then he's awfully in debt. He isn't a bad fellow, you know, only there's no trusting him for anything. Then after a few further inquiries that were almost tender, and a promise of further supplies from the dairy, Mr Cheesaker took his leave, almost forgetting to ask after Miss Favisall. But as he left the house he had a word to say to Jeanette. He hasn't been here, has he, Jenny? We haven't seen a sight of him yet, sir, and I have thought it a little odd. Then Mr Cheesaker gave the girl half a crown and went his way. Jeanette, I think, must have forgotten that the captain had looked in after leaving his military duties on the preceding evening. The captain's ten or twelve hours of daily work was performed, no doubt, at irregular intervals. Some days late, and some days early, that he might be seen about Norwich almost at all times, during the early part of that November, and he might be very often seen going into the close. In Norwich there are two weekly market days, but on those days the captain was no doubt kept more entirely to his military employment, for at such times he never was seen near the close. Now Mr Cheesaker's visits to the town were generally made on market days, and so it happened that they did not meet. On such occasions Mr Cheesaker always was driven to Mrs Greno's door in a cab, for he would come into town by railway, and he would deposit a basket bearing the rich produce of his dairy. It was in vain that Mrs Greno protested against these gifts, for she did protest and declared that if they were continued they would be seen back. They were, however, continued, and Mrs Greno was at her wit's end about them. Cheesaker would not come up with them, but leaving them would go about his business, and would return to see the ladies. On such occasions he would be very particular in getting his basket from Jeanette. As he did so he would generally ask some question about the captain, and Jeanette would give him answers confidentially, so that there was a strong friendship between these two. What am I to do about it? said Mrs Greno, as Kate came into the sitting room one morning, and saw on the table a small hamper lined with a clean cloth. It's as much as Jeanette has been able to carry. So it is, ma'am, quite, and I'm strong in the arm, too, ma'am. What am I to do, Kate? He is such a good creature. And he do admire you both so much, said Jeanette. Of course, I don't want to offend him for many reasons, said the aunt, looking knowingly at her niece. I don't know anything about your reasons, aunt, but if I were you, I should leave the basket just as it is till he comes in the afternoon. Would you mind seeing him yourself, Kate, and explaining to him that it won't do to get on in this way? Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling him that if he'll promise not to bring any more, you won't object to take this one. Indeed, aunt, I can't do that. They're not brought to me. Okay, nonsense, aunt, I won't have you say so before Jeanette, too. I think it's for both, ma'am. I do indeed, and there certainly ain't any cream to be bought, like it in Norwich, nor yet eggs. I wonder what there is in the basket, and the widow lifted up the corner of the cloth. I declare if there isn't a turkey-pult already. My, said Jeanette, a turkey-pult? Why, that's worth ten and sixpence in the market, if it's worth a penny. It's out of the question that I should take upon myself to say anything to him about it, said Kate. Upon my word, I don't see why you shouldn't, as well as I, said Mrs. Grannon. I'll tell you what, ma'am, said Jeanette. Let me just ask him who they're for. He'll tell me anything. Don't do anything of the kind, Jeanette, said Kate. Of course, aunt, they're brought for you. There's no doubt about that. A gentleman doesn't bring cream and turkeys, too. I've never heard of such a thing. I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't bring cream and turkeys to you, just as well as to me. Indeed, he told me once as much himself. Then, if they're for me, I'll leave them down outside the front door, and he may find his provisions there, and Kate proceeded to lift the basket off the table. Leave it alone, Kate, said Mrs. Grannon, with a voice that was rather solemn, and which had, too, something of sadness in its tone. Leave it alone. I'll see Mr. Chesaker myself, and I do hope you won't mention my name. It's the most observed thing in the world. The man never spoke two dozen words to me in his life. He speaks to me, though, said Mrs. Grannon. I daresay he does, said Kate, and about you, too, my dear. He doesn't come here with those big flowers in his buttonhole for nothing, said Jeanette, not if I know what a gentleman means. Of course, he doesn't, said Mrs. Grannon. If you don't object, aunt, said Kate, I will write to Grand Papa and tell him that I will return home at once. What? Because of Mr. Chesaker, said Mrs. Grannon, I don't think you'll be so silly as that, my dear. On the present occasion Mrs. Grannon undertook that she would see the generous gentleman and endeavoured to stop the supplies from his farmyard. It was well understood that he would call about four o'clock when his business in the town would be over, and that he would bring with him a little boy who would carry away the basket. At that hour Kate, of course, was absent, and the widow received Mr. Chesaker alone. The basket and cloth were there, in the sitting room, and on the table were laid out the rich things which it had contained. The turkey pulp first, on a dish provided in the lodging house, then a dozen fresh eggs in a soup plate, then the cream in a little tin can, which, for the last fortnight, had passed regularly between oily mead and the house in the close, and as to which Mr. Chesaker was very pointed in his inquiries with Jeanette. Then behind the cream there were two or three heads, a brocolite, and a stick of celery as thick as a man's wrist. All together the tribute was a very comfortable assistance to the housekeeping of a lady living in a small way in lodgings. Mr. Chesaker, when he saw the array on the long sofa table, knew that he was to prepare himself for some resistance, but that resistance would give him. He thought an opportunity of saying a few words that he was desirous of speaking, and he did not altogether regret it. I just called in, he said, to see how you were. We are not likely to starve, said Mrs. Grano, pointing to the delicacies from oily mead. Just a few trifles that my old woman asked me to bring in, said Chesaker. She insisted on putting them up. But your old woman is by far too magnificent, said Mrs. Grano. She really frightens Kate and me out of our wits. Mr. Chesaker had no wish that Miss Verversal's name should be brought into play upon the occasion. Dear Mrs. Grano, said he, there is no cause for you to be alarmed. I can assure you, mere trifles, life is air, you know. I don't think anything of such things as these. But I and Kate think a great deal of them, a very great deal. I can assure you, do you know we had a long debate this morning, whether or not we would return them to oily mead? Return them, Mrs. Grano? Yes, indeed. What are women, situated as we are, to do under such circumstances, when gentlemen will be too liberal, their liberty must be repressed. And have I been too liberal, Mrs. Grano? What is a young turkey and a stick of celery, when a man is willing to give everything that he has in the world? You've got a great deal more in the world, Mr. Chesaker. Then you'd like to part with, but we won't talk of that now. When shall we talk of it? If you really have anything to say, you had by far better speak to Kate herself. Mrs. Grano, you mistake me. Indeed, you mistake me. Just at this moment, as he was drawing close to the window, she heard, or fancied, that she heard, Jeanette step, and, going to the sitting room door, called to her maid. Jeanette did not hear her, but the bell was rung, and then Jeanette came. You may take these things down, Jeanette, she said. Mr. Chesaker has promised that no more shall come. But I haven't promised, said Mr. Chesaker. You will oblige me, and Kate, I know, and Jeanette. Tell Miss Bavisaur that I am ready to walk with her. Then Mr. Chesaker knew that he could not say those words on that occasion, and as the hour of his train was near, he took his departure, and went out of the close, followed by the little boy, carrying the basket, the cloth, and the tin can. End of Chapter 19