 CHAPTER 36 DAY COMES WITH CLIMBING NIGHT BY FALLING Hence the night is much swifter. Happiness takes years to build, but misery swoops like an avalanche. Such and even more depressing are the thoughts young folks give way to when their first great trouble rushes and sweeps them into a desert, trackless to the inexperienced hope. When Mary Annerley heard by the zealous offices of watchful friends, that Robin Leith had murdered Captain Caroway ferociously, and had fled for his life across the seas. First wrath at such a lie was followed by a persistent misery. She had too much faith in his manly valor and tender heart to accept the tale exactly as it was told to her, but still she could not resist the fear that in the world of conflict, with life against life, he had dealt the death. And she knew that even such a deed would brand him as a murderer, stamp out all love, and shatter every hope of quiet happiness. The blow to her pride was grievous also. For many a time had she told herself that a noble task lay before her, to rescue from unlawful ways and redeem to reputable life the man whose bravery and other gallant gifts had endeared him to the public and to her. But now, through force of wretched facts, he must be worse than ever. Her father and mother said never a word upon the subject to her. Mrs. Annerley at first longed to open out, and shed upon the child a mother's sympathy, as well as a mother's scolding. But firmly believing, as she did, the darkest version of the late event, it was better that she should hold her peace according to her husband's orders. Let the lass alone, he said. A word against that fellow now would make a sight of mischief. Suppose I had shot George Tanfield instead of hiding him soundly, when he stuck up to you. Why, you must have been sorry for me, Sophie. And Mary is sorry for that rogue, no doubt, and believes that he did it for her sake, I daresay. The woman kind always do think that. If a big thief gets swung for breaking open a cash-box, his lassie will swear he was looking for her thimble. If you was to go now for discoursing of this matter, you would never put up with poor Poppitt's account of him. And she would run him higher up, every time you ran him down. I can believe it, too, such as the ways of women. Why, Stephen, you make me open up my eyes. I never dreamed you were half so cunning and of such low opinions. Well, I don't know. Only from my own observance. I would scarcely trust myself not to abuse that fellow. And, Sophie, you know you cannot stop your tongue, like me. Thank God for that same. He never meant us to do so. But Stephen, I will follow your advice, because it is my own opinion. Mary was puzzled by this behaviour, for everything used to be so plain among them. She would even have tried for some comfort from Willie, whose mind was very large upon all social questions. But Willie had solved at last the problem of perpetual motion, according to his own conviction, and locked himself up with his model all day. And the world might stand still so long as that went on. Oh, what would I give for dear Jack? cried Mary. Worn out at length with lonely grief, she asked if she might go to beer sacottage for a change. Even that was refused, though her father's kind heart ached at the necessary denial. Sharp words again had passed between the farmer and the tanner concerning her. And the former believed that his brother-in-law would even encourage the outlaw still. And for Mary herself now the worst of it was that she had nothing to lay hold of in the way of complaint or grievance. It was not like that first estrangement, when her father showed how much he felt in a hundred ways and went about everything upside down, and comforted her by his want of comfort. Now it was ten times worse than that, for her father took everything quite easily. Shocking as it may be this was true. Stephen Annoly had been through a great many things since the violence of his love-time, and his views upon such tender subjects were not so tender as they used to be. With the eyes of wisdom he looked back, having had his own way in the matter upon such young sensations as very laudable but curable. In his own case he had cured them well, and upon the whole very happily, by a good long course of married life. But having tried that remedy alone how could he say that there was no better? He remembered how his own miseries had soon subsided or gone into other grooves after matrimony. This showed that they were transient, but did not prove such a course to be the only cure for them. Recovering from illness, has any man been known to say that the doctor recovered him? Mrs. Annoly's views upon the subject were much the same, though modified, of course, by the force of her own experience. She might have had a much richer man than Stephen, and when he was stingy she reminded him of that, which after a little disturbance generally terminated in five guineas. And now she was clear that if Mary were not worried, condoled with, or cried over, she would take her own time and come gradually round, and be satisfied with Harry Tanfield. Harry was a fine young fellow when worshipped the ground that Mary walked upon, and it seemed a sort of equity that he should have her, as his father had been disappointed of her mother. Every Sunday morning he trimmed his whiskers and put on a wonderful waistcoat, and now he did more, for he bought a new hat, and came to church to look at her. Oftentimes now, by all these doings, the spirit of the girl was roused, and her courage made ready to fly out in words. But the calm look of the elders stopped her, and then true pride came to her aid, if they chose to say nothing of the matter which was in her heart continually. Would she go whining to them about it and scrape a grain of pity from a cartload of contempt? One day, as she stood before the swinging glass, that present from Aunt Papowell, which had moved her mother's wrath so, she threw back her shoulders and smoothed the plates of her nice little waist, and considered herself. The humour of the moment grew upon her and crept into indulgence, as she saw what a very fair lass she was, and could not help being proud of it. She saw how the soft, rich damask of her cheeks returned at being thought of, and the sparkle of her sweet blue eyes, and the merry delight of her lips that made respectable people want to steal a kiss from the pure enticement of Goodwill. I will cry no more in the nights, she said. Why should I make such a figure of myself with nobody to care for it? And here is my hair full of kinkles and neglect. I declare, if he ever came back, he would say, What a fright you have become, my Mary! Where is that stuff of Aunt Deborah's, I wonder, that makes her hair like satin? It is high time to leave off being such a dreadful dowdy. I will look as nice as ever, just to let them know that their cruelty has not killed me. Virtuous resolves commend themselves and improve with being carried out. She put herself into her very best trim, as simple as a lily, and as perfect as a rose. Though the flutter of a sigh or two enlarged her gentle breast, she donned a very graceful hat adorned with sweet ribbon right skillfully smuggled, and she made up her mind to have the benefit of the air. The prettiest part of all Annerley farm for those who are not farmers is a soft little valley, where a brook comes down and passes from voluntary ruffles into the quiet resignation of a sheltered lake. A pleasant and friendly little water spread is here, cheerful to the sunshine and inviting to the moon, with a variety of gleamy streaks, according to the sky and breeze. Pastureland, an arable, comes sloping to the margin, which instead of being rough and rocky, lips the pool with gentleness. Inns and outs of little bays afford a nice variety. All round the brink are certain trees of a modest and unpretentious bent, these having risen to a very fair distance toward the sky, come down again, scarcely so much from a doubt of their merits, as through affection to their native land. In summer they hang like a permanent shower of green to refresh the bright water, and in winter, like loose, ozier work, are waddles curved for binding. Under one of the largest of these willows the runaway jack had made a seat, whereon to sit and watch his toy boat cruising on the inland wave. Often when Mary was tired of hoping for the return of her playmate, she came to this place to think about him and wonder whether he thought of her. And now in the soft December evening, lonely and sad but fair to look at like herself, she was sitting here. The keen east wind which had set in as Captain Brown predicted, was over now, and succeeded by the gentler influence of the West. Nothing could be heard in this calm nook but the lingering touch of the dying breeze, and the long soft murmur of the distant sea, and the silvery plash of a pair of coots at play. Neither was much to be seen except for the wavering glisten and long shadows of the mirror, the tracery of trees against the fading light, and the outline of the maiden as she leaned against the trunk. Generations of goat moths in their early days of veracity had made a nice hollow for her hat to rest in. In some of the powdering willow dusted her bright luxuriant locks with gold. Her face was by no means wan or gloomy, and she added to the breezes not a single sigh. This happened without any hardness of heart or shallow contempt for the nobler affections, simply from the hopefulness of helpful youth and the trust a good will has in powers of good. She was looking at those coots who were full of an idea that the winter had spent itself in that east wind, and the gloss of spring plumage must be now upon their necks, and that they felt their toes growing warmer toward the downy type of action of a perfect nest, improving a long and kind acquaintance with these birds, some of whom have confidence in human nature. Mary was beginning to be absent from her woes in joyful and a pleasure of a thoughtless pair, when suddenly with one accord they dived and left a bright splash and a wrinkle. Somebody's coming. They must have seen an enemy, said the damsel to herself. I am sure I never moved. I will never have them shot by any wicked poacher. To watch the bank nicely without being seen she drew in her skirt and shrank behind the tree, not from any fear but just to catch the fellow, for one of the labours on the farm who had run at his master with a pitchfork once was shrewdly suspected of poaching with a gun, but keener eyes than those of any poacher were upon her, and the lightest of light steps approached. Oh, Robin, are you come then at last? cried Mary. Three days I've been lurking in the hope of this. Heart of my heart, are you glad to see me? I should think that I was. It was worth a world of crying. Oh, where have you been this long, long time? Let me have you in my arms, if it is but for a moment. Are you not afraid of me? You are not ashamed to love me. I love you all the better for your many dreadful troubles. Not a word do I believe of all the wicked people say of you. Don't be afraid of me. You may kiss me, Robin. You are such a beautiful spick-and-span. And I am only fit to go into the pond. Oh, Mary, what a shame of me to take advantage of you. Well, I think it is time for you to leave off now, though you must not suppose that I think twice about my things. When I look at you, it makes me long to give you my best cloak and tidy hat. Where is all your finery gone, poor Robin? Endeavour not to be insolent on the strength of your fine clothes. Remember that I have abandoned free trade, and the price of every article will rise at once. Mary Annerley not only smiled but laughed, with the pleasure of a great relief. She had always scorned the idea that her lover had even made a shot at Caroway, often though the brave lieutenant had done the like to him, and now she felt sure that he could clear himself. Or how could he be so light-hearted? You see that I am scarcely fit to lead off a country dance with you, said Robin still, holding both her hands, and watching the beauty of her clear bright eyes, which might gather big tears at any moment, as a deep blue sky is a sign of sudden rain. And it will be a very long time, my darling, before you see me and gay dogs again. I like you a great deal better so. You always look brave, but you look so honest now. That is the most substantial saying, and worthy of the race of Annerley, how I wish that your father would like me, Mary. I suppose it is hopeless to wish for that. No, not at all, if you could keep on looking shabby. My dear father has a most generous mind. If he could only be brought to see how you are ill-treated. Alas, I shall have no chance of letting him see that. Before to-morrow morning I must say good-bye to England. My last chance of seeing you was now this evening. I bless every star that is in the heaven now. I trust it to my luck, and it has not deceived me. Robin, dear, I never wish to try to be too pious, but I think that you should rather trust a Providence than Starlight. So I do, and it is Providence that has kept me out of sight, out of sight of enemies, and in sight of you, my Mary. The Lord looks down on every place where his lovely angels wander. You are one of his angels, Mary, and you have made a man of me. For years I shall not see you, darling, never more again, perhaps, but as long as I live you shall be here. And the place shall be kept pure for you. If we only could have a shop together—oh, how honest I would be! I would give full weight, besides the paper. I would never sell an egg more than three weeks old, and I would not even adulterate. But that is a dream of the past, I fear. Oh, I never shall hoist the royal arms. But I mean to serve under them, and fight my way. My captain shall be Lord Nelson. That is the very thing that you are meant for. I will never forgive Dr. Up and Down for not putting you into the navy. You could have done no smuggling, then. I am not altogether sure of that. However, I will shun scandal, as behooves a man who gets so much. You have not asked me to clear myself of that horrible thing about poor caraway. I love you the more for not asking me. It shows your faith so purely. But you have the right to know all I know. There is no fear of any interruption here, so, Mary, I will tell you. If you are sure that you can bear it. Yes, oh yes, do tell me all you know. It is so frightful that I must hear it. What I have to say will not frighten you, darling, because I did not even see the deed. But my escape was rather strange, and deserves telling better than I can tell it, even with you to encourage me by listening. When we were so suddenly caught in the caves through treachery of some of our people, I saw a moment that we must be taken, but resolved to have some fun for it, with a kind of whim which comes over me sometimes. So I knocked away the lights and began myself to splash with might and main and order the rest to do likewise. We did it so well that the place was like a fountain or a geyser, and I sent a great dollop of water into the face of the poor lieutenant, the only assault I ever made upon him. There was just light enough for me to know him, because he was so tall and strange. But I doubt whether he knew me at all. He became excited as well as might be and dashed away the water from his eyes with one hand, and with the other made a wild sword-cut, brushing forward as if to have at me. Like a bird I dived into the water from our gun-whale, and under the keel of the other boat and rose to the surface at the far side of the cave, and a very act of plunging a quick flash came before me. Or at least I believe so afterward, and a loud roar as I struck the wave. It might have been only from my own eyes and ears receiving so suddenly the cleavage of the water. If I thought anything at all about it, it was that somebody had shot at me, but expecting to be followed I swam rapidly away. I did not even look back as I kept in the darkness of the rocks, for it would have lost a stroke, and a stroke was more than I could spare. To my great surprise I heard no sound of any boat coming after me, nor any shouts of caraway, such as I am accustomed to. But swimming as I was from my own poor life, like an otter with a pack of hounds after him, I assure you that I did not look much after anything except my own run of the gauntlet. Of course not! How could you? It makes me draw my breath to think of you swimming in the dark like that, with deep water and caverns and guns and all. Mary, I thought that my time was come, and only one beautiful image sustained me when I came to think of it afterward. I swam with my hands well under water and not a breath that could be heard, and my cap tucked into my belt, and my seagoing pump slipped away into a pocket. The water was cold, but it only seemed to freshen me, and I found myself able to breathe very pleasantly in the gentle rise and fall of waves, yet I never expected to escape with so many boats to come after me. For now I could see two boats outside, as well as old caraway's penance in the cave, and if once they caught sight of me I could never get away. When I saw those two boats upon the watch outside I scarcely knew what to do for the best, whether to put my breast into it and swim out, or to hide in some niche with my body under water, and cover my face with oar-weed. Luckily I took the boulder course, remembering their portfires, which would make the cave like day. Not everybody could have swam out through that entrance against the spring tide and the lullip of the sea, and one dash against the rocks would have settled me, but I trusted in the Lord and tried a long, slow stroke. My enemies must have been lost in dismay and panic and utter confusion, or else they must have aspired me. For twice, or thrice, as I met the waves, my head and shoulders were thrown above the surface. Do what I would, and I durst not dive, for I wanted my eyes every moment. I kept on the darkest side, of course. But the shadows were not half so deep as I could wish, and worst of all outside there was a piece of moonlight, which I must cross within fifty yards of the bigger of the sentry boats. The mouth of that cave is too fathoms-wide for a longish bit of channel, and, marriedeer, if I had not been supported by continual thoughts of you, I must have gone against the sides or down right to the bottom, from the waves keeping knocking me about so. I may tell you that I felt I should never care again as my clothes began to bag about me, except to go down to the bottom and be quiet for the blessed thought of standing up someday at the hymnial altar, as great people call it, with a certain lovely merry. Oh, Robin, how you make me laugh when I ought to be quite crying. If such a thing should ever be, I shall expect to see you swimming. Such a thing will be, as sure as I stand here, though not at all in hymnial garb just now. Whatever my whole heart is set upon, I do, and overcome all obstacles. Remember that, and hold fast, darling. However, I had now to overcome the sea, which is worse than any tide on the affairs of men. As long and hard tussle as it was, I assure you to fight against the in-draft, and to drag my frame through the long, hillocky gorge. At last, however, I managed it, and to see the open waves again put strength into my limbs, and vigor into my knocked-out brain. I suppose that you cannot understand it, merry. But I never enjoyed a thing more than the danger of crossing that strip of moonlight. I could see the very eyes and the front teeth of the men who were sitting there to look out for me if I should slip their mates inside, and knowing the twist of every wave in the vein of every tide-run, I rested in a smooth, dark spot, and considered their manners quietly. They had not yet heard a word of any doings in the cavern, but their natures were up for some business to do, as generally happens with beholders. Having nothing to do, they were swearing at the rest. In the place where I was halting now, the line of a jagged cliff seemed to cut the air, and fend off the light from its edges. You can only see such a thing from the level of the sea, and it looks very hard when you see it, as if the moon and you were a pair of playing children, feeling round a corner for a glimpse of one another. But plain enough it was, and far too plain, that the doubling of that little cape would trouble my danger. By reason of the bold moonlight I knew that my only refuge was another great hollow in the crags between the cave I had escaped from, and the point. A place which is called the Church Cave, from an old legend that leads up to Flamborough Church. To the best of my knowledge it does nothing of the kind at any rate now. But it has a narrow fissure, known to few except myself, up which a nimble man may climb, and this is what I hope to do. Also it is a very narrow entrance, through which the sea flows into it, so that a large boat cannot enter, and a small one would scarcely attempt it in the dark, unless it were one of my own hard press. Now it seemed almost impossible for me to cross that moonlight without being seen by those fellows in the boat, who could pull, of course, four times as fast as I could swim. Not to mention the chances of a musket-ball. However I was just about to risk it, for my limbs were growing very cold, when I heard a loud shout from the cave which I had left, and knew that the men were summoning their comrades. These at once lay out upon the oars and turned their backs to me, and now was my good time. The boat came hissing through the water towards the dove-coat, while I stretched away for another snug cave. Being all in a flurry they kept no luck out. If the moon was against me my good stars were in my favour. Nobody saw me, and I laughed in my wet sleeves as I thought of the rage of caraway, little knowing that the fine old fellow was beyond all rage or pain. How wonderful your luck was, and your courage, too! cried Mary, who had listened with bright tears upon her cheeks. Now one man in a thousand could have done so bold a thing, and how did you get away at last, poor Robin? Exactly as I meant to do, from the time I formed my plan, the church has ever been a real friend and need to me. I took the name for a lucky omen and swam in with a brisk or stroke. It was the prettiest of all the caves to my mind, with a sweet round basin and a playful little beach, and nothing very terrible about it. I landed and rested with a thankful heart upon the shelly couch of the mermaids. Oh, Robin, I hope none of them came to you. They are so wonderfully beautiful, and no one has ever seen them cares any more for dry people that wear dresses. Mary, you delight me so much by showing signs of jealousy. Fifty may have come, but I saw not one, for I fell into a deep, calm sleep. If they had come I would have spurned them all, not only for my constancy for you, my dear, but from having had too much drip already. Mary, I see a man on the other side of the mirror, not opposite to us, but a good bit further down. You see those two swimming birds? Look far away between them. You will see something moving. I see nothing, either standing still or moving. It is growing too dark for my eyes, not thoroughly trained and smuggling. But that reminds me to tell you, Robin, that a strange man, a gentleman, they seem to say, has been seen upon our land, and he wanted to see me without my father knowing it. But only think, I have never even asked you whether you are hungry, perhaps even starving. How stupid, how selfish, how churlish of me! But the fault is yours because I had so much to hear of. Darling, you may trust me not to starve, I can feed by and by. For the present I must talk, that you may know all about everything, and bear me harmless in your mind, when evil things are said of me. Have you heard that I went to see Widow Caroway, even before she had heard of her loss? But not before I was hunted. I knew that I must do so now or never, before the whole world was up in arms against me, and I thank God that I saw her. A man might think nothing of such an act, or even might take it for a hypocrisy. But a woman's heart is not so black. Though she did not even know what I meant, for she had not felt her awful blow, and I could not tell her of it, she did me justice afterward. In the thick of her terrible desolation she stood beside her husband's grave in Bridelington Priory Churchyard, and she said to a hundred people there, Here lies my husband, foully murdered. The coroner's jury have brought their verdict against Robin Leith, the smuggler. Robin Leith is as innocent as I am. I know who did it, and time will show. My curse is upon him, and my eyes are on him now. Then she fell down in a fit, and the preventive men, who were drawn up in a row, came and carried her away. Did anybody tell you, darling? Perhaps they keep such things from you. Part of it I heard, but not so clearly. I was told that she acquitted you, and I blessed her in my heart for it. Even more than that she did. As soon as she got home again she wrote to Robin Coxcroft, a very few words, but as strong as could be, telling him that I should have no chance of justice if I were caught just now, and that she must have time to carry out her plans, that the Lord would soon raise up good friends to help her, and as sure as there was a God in heaven, she would bring the man who did it to the gallows. Only that I must leave the land at once. And that is what I shall do this very night. Now I have told you almost all, Mary. We must say good-bye. But surely I shall hear from you sometimes. Said Mary, striving to be brave and to keep her voice from trembling. Years and years without a word, and the whole world bitter against you and me. Robin, I think that it will break my heart. And it must not even talk of you. Think of me, darling. While I think of you, thinking is better than talking. I shall never talk of you, but be thinking all the more. Talking ruins thinking. Take this token of the time you saved me, and give me that bed of blue ribbon, my Mary. I shall think of your eyes every time I kiss it. Kiss it yourself before you give it to me. Like a good girl she did what she was told to do. She gave him the love-knot from her breast, and stored his little trinket in that pure shrine. But sometimes, sometimes, I shall hear of you. She whispered, lingering and trembling in the last embrace. To be sure you shall hear of me from time to time, through Robin and Joan Kosscroft. I will not grieve you by saying be true to me, my noble one, and my everlasting love. Mary was comforted and ceased to cry. She was proud of him thus in the deep of his trouble, and she prayed to God to bless him through the long, sad time. End of CHAPTER XXXVI RECORDING BY KEITH SALAS CHAPTER XXXVII OF MARIE ANNERLEY This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. MARIE ANNERLEY by Richard Dodridge Blackmore CHAPTER XXXVII FACT OR FACTOR PAPA! I have brought you a wonderful letter! cried Miss Jeanette up-round towards supper-time of that same night. And the most miraculous thing about it is that there is no post to pay! Oh, how stupid I am! I ought to have got at least a shilling out of you for postage! My dear, be sorry for your sins and not for having failed to add to them. Our little world is brimful of news just now, but nearly all of it is bad news. Why, bless me, this is in regular print, and it never passed through the post at all, which explains the most astounding fact of positively not to pay. Jeanette, every day I congratulate myself upon a wondrous daughter, but I never could have hoped that even you would bring me a letter gratis. But the worst of it is that I deserve no credit! If I had cheated the postman, there would have been something to be proud of, but this letter came in the most ignominous way. Poked under the gate, Papa, it is sealed with a foreign coin. Oh, dear, dear, I am all in a tingle to know all about it. I saw it by the moonlight and it must belong to me. My dear, it says private and to his own hands. Therefore you had better go, and think no more about it. I confide to you many of my business matters, or at any rate you get them out of me, but this being private you must think no more about it. Darling, Papa, what a flagrant shame! The man must have done it with no other object than to rob me of every wink of sleep. If I swallow the outrage and retire, will you promise to tell me every word to-morrow? You preach the most exquisite sermon last Sunday about the meanness and futility of small concealments. Be off, cried the rector. You are worse than Mr. Mordax, who lays down the law about frankness perpetually, but never lets me guess what his own purpose is. Oh, now I see where the infection comes from. Papa, I am off, for fear of catching it myself. Don't tell me whatever you do. I never can sleep upon dark mysteries. Poor dear, you shall not have your rest disturbed. Dr. Uprown said, sweetly as he closed the door behind her, you are much too good a girl for other people's plagues to visit you. Then, as he saddled his pleasant old nose with the tranquil span of spectacles, the smile upon his lips and the sigh of his breast arrived at a quiet little compromise. He was proud of his daughter, her quickness and power to get the upper turn of words with him, but he grieved at her for not having any deep impressions, even after his very best sermons. But her mother always told him not to be in any hurry, for even she herself had felt no very profound impressions until she married a clergyman, and that argument always made him smile, as invisibly as possible, because he had not detected yet their existence in his better half. Such questions are most delicate, and a husband can only set mute example. A father, on the other hand, is bound to use his pastoral crook upon his children foremost. Now, for this letter, said Dr. Uprown, olding counsel with himself, evidently a good clerk, and perhaps a first-rate scholar. One of the very best Greek scholars of the age does all his manuscript and printing hand, when he wishes it to be legible, and a capital plan it is without meaning any pun. I can read this like a gazette itself. Reverend and worshipful sir, your long and highly valued kindness requires at least a word from me before I leave this country. I have not ventured into your presence because it might place you in a very grave predicament. Your duty to king and state might compel you with your own hand to arrest me, and against your hand I could not strive. The evidence brought before you left no choice but to issue a warrant against me, though it grieved your kind heart to do that same. Sir, I am purely innocent of the vile crime late against me. I used no firearm that night, neither did any of my men, and it is for their sake as well as my own that I now take the liberty of writing this. Failing of me, the authorities may bring my comrades to trial and convict them. If that were so, it would become my duty as a man to surrender myself and meet my death in the hope of saving them. But if the case is sifted properly, they must be acquitted, for no firearm of any kind was in my boat, except one pair of pistols, in a locker under the after-thwart, and they happen to be unloaded. I pray you will verify this kind, sir. My firm belief is that the revenue officer was shot by one of his own men, and his widow has the same opinion. I hear that the wound was in the back of the head. If we had carried firearms, not one of us could have shot him so. It may have been an accident, I cannot say. Even so, the man whose mishap it was is not likely to acknowledge it, and I know that in a court of law truth must be paid for dearly. I venture to commit to your good hands a draft upon a well-known Holland firm, which amounts to seventy-eight pounds British, for the defence of the men who are in custody. I know that you as a magistrate cannot come forward as their defender, but I beg you as a friend of justice to place the money for their benefit, also especially to direct attention to the crew of the revenue boat and their guns. And now I fear greatly to encroach upon your kindness and a very long suffering goodwill toward me, but I have brought into sad trouble and distress with her family, who are most obstinate people, and with the opinion of the public, I suppose, a young lady worth more than all the goods I ever ran or ever could run if I went on for fifty years. By name she is Mistress Mary Annerley, and by birth the daughter of Captain Annerley of Annerley Farm, outside our parish. If your reverence could only manage to ride round that way upon coming home from sessions once or twice in the fine weather and say a kind word or two to my Mary, and a good word if any could be said of me to her parents, who are stiff but worthy people, it would be a truly Christian act, and such as you delight in, on this side of the Dane Dyke. Reverend Sir, I must now say farewell. From you I have learned almost everything I know, within the pale of statutes, which repeal one another continually. I have wandered sadly outside that pale and now I pay the penalty. If I had only paid heed to your advice and started in business with the capital acquired by free trade, and got it properly protected, I might have been able to support my parents, and even be Churchwarden of Lamberow. You always told me that my unlawful enterprise must close in sadness and your words have proved too true, but I never expected anything like this, and I do not understand it yet. A penetrating mind like yours, with all the advantages of authority, even that is likely to be baffled in such a difficult case as this. Reverend Sir, my case is hard, for I always have labor to establish peaceful trade, and I must have succeeded again, if honor has guided all my followers. We always relied upon the Coast Guard to be too late for any mischief, and so they would have been this time if their acts had been straightforward. In sorrow and loneliness of fortune I remain with humble respect and gratitude your worship's poor pupil and banished parishioner. Robin Leith of Lamberow. Come now, Robin, Dr. upround said, as soon as he had well considered this epistle. I have put up with many a checkmate at your hands, but not without the fair delight of a counterstroke at the enemy. Here you afford me none of that. You are my master in every way, and quietly you make me your moves, quite as if I were the black in a problem. You leave me to conduct your fellow smuggler's case to look after your sweetheart and to make myself generally useful. By the way, that touch about my pleading, this cause and my riding-boots and with a sensational air about me, is worthy of great verdoni. Either is that a bad bit about my Christianity stopping at the Dane Dyke surtease I shall have to call on that young lady, though from what I have heard of the sturdy farmer I may both ride and reason long, even after my great exploits at the sessions, without converting him to free trade and and trebly so after that deplorable affair. I wonder whether we shall ever get to the bottom of that mystery. How often I have warned the boy that Mischief was quite sure to come, though I never even dreamed that it would be so bad as this. Since Dr. Uprown first came to Flamborough, nothing, not even the inflection of his nickname, had grieved him so deeply as the sad death of Caroway. From the first he felt certain that his own people were getless of any share in it, but his heart misgave him to distant smugglers, man who came from afar freebooting, bringing over ocean woes to man of settlement, good tithe-payers. For such men, plainly of foreign breed and very plain specimens of it, had not at all succeeded in eluding observation in a neighborhood where they could have no honest calling. Flamborough had called to witness Filey, and Filey had attested Bridelington, that a stranger on horseback had appeared among them with a purpose obscurely evil. They were right enough as to the fact, although the purpose was not evil, as little Denmark even now began to own. Here I am again, cried Mr. Mordax, laying vehement hold of the rector's hand upon the following morning. Just arrive from York, dear sir, after riding half the night, and going anywhere you please, except perhaps where you would like to send me, if charity and Christian courtesy allowed. My dear sir, have you heard the news? I perceive by your countenance that you have not. You are generally benighted in these parts. Your caves have got something to do with it. The mine gets accustomed to them. I venture to think, Mr. Mordax, on the whole, said the rector who studied his man gently, that sometimes you are rapid in your conclusions, possibly of the two extremes. It is the more desirable, especially in these parts because of its great rarity. Still the mere fact of some caves existing in or out of my parish, whichever it may be, scarcely seems to prove that all the people of Flamborough live in them, and even if we did, it was the manner of the ancient seers, both in the classics and in the holy writ, sir, I know all about Elijah and Obadiah and the rest of them. Profane literature we leave now for clerks in holy orders. We positively have no name for it. Everything begins to move with accelerated pace. This is a new century and it means to make its mark. It begins very badly, but it will go on all the better. And I hope to have the pleasure, at the very early day, of showing you one of its leading men, a man of large intellect, commanding character in the most magnificent principles, and, in short, lots of money. You must be quite familiar with the name of sir Duncan Yordus. I fancy that I have heard or seen it somewhere. Oh, something to do with the Hindus or the Africans. I never pay much attention to such things. Neither do I, doctor, up around. Still somebody must, and a lot of money comes of it. Their idols have dime and eyes, which purity of worship compels us to confiscate, and there are many other ways of getting on among them, while wafting and expanding them into a higher sphere of thought. The mere fact of sir Duncan having feathered his nest, pardon so vulgar an expression, doctor, proves that while giving, we may also receive, for which we have the highest warranty. The laborer is worthy of his hire, Mr. Mordax. At the same time, we should remember also what St. Paul says, per contra, quite so. That is always my first consideration when I work for my employers. Ah, doctor, up around, few men give such pure service as your humble servant. I have twice had the honor of handing you my card. If ever you fall into any difficulty where zeal, fidelity, and high principle combined with very low charges, Mr. Mordax, my opinion of you is too high even for yourself to add to it. But what has this, sir Duncan Yorick? Yord us, my dear sir, sir Duncan Yord us, the oldest family in Yorkshire. Man of great power, both for good and evil, mainly, perhaps, a latter. It has struck me sometimes that the county takes its name, but anemology is not my forte. What has he to do with us, you ask? Sir, I will answer you most frankly. Coram Popolo, is my business motto? Excuse me, I think I hear that door, Creek. Now, Amir Fancy. We are quite in camera. Very well, Reverend Sir, prepare your mind for a highly astounding disclosure. I have lived too long to be astounded, my good sir, but allow me to put on my spectacles. Now I am prepared for almost anything. Dr. Uppround, my duty compels me to enter largely into minds. Your mind is of a lofty order, calm, philosophic, benevolent. You have proved this by your kind reception of me a stranger almost an intruder. You have judged from my manners an appearance which has shaped considerably by the inner man, that my object was good, large, noble. And yet you have not been quite able to refrain at weak moments, perhaps? But still a dozen times a day, from exclaiming in commune of your heart, what the devil does this man want in my parish? My good sir, I never use bad language, and if I did my duty I should now inflict five shillings for your poor box. There it is. And it serves me quite right for being too explicit and forgetting my reverence to the cloth. However, I have coarsely expressed your thoughts. Also, you have frequently said to yourself, this man prates of openness, and I find him closer than any oyster. Am I right? Yes, I see that I am, by your bow. Very well, you may suppose what pain it gave me to have the privilege of intercourse with a perfect gentleman and an eloquent divine, and yet feel myself an ambiguous position. In few words I will clear myself, being now at liberty to indulge that pleasure. I have been here, as agent for Sir Duncan Yordus, to follow upon the long lost clue to his son. And only child, who, for very many years, was believed to be out of all human pursuit. My sanguine and penetrating mind scored rumors, and went in for certainty. I have found Sir Duncan's son, and am able to identify him, beyond all doubt, as a certain young man well known to you and perhaps too widely known, by the name of Robin Leith. In spite of the length of his experience of the world and a place of so many adventures the rector of Flamborough was astonished and perhaps a little vexed as well. If anything was to be found out in such a headlong way about one of his parishioners and notably such a pet pupil and favorite, the proper thing would have been that he himself should do it. Failing that, he should at least have been consulted, enlisted, or at any rate appraised of what was toward. But instead of that, here he had been hoodwinked by this marvel of incarnate candor employed in the dark about several little things, and then suddenly enlightened when the job was done. Gentle and void of self-importance as he was, it misliked him to be treated so. This is a wonderful piece of news, he said, as he fixed a calm gaze upon the keen, hard eyes of Mordax. You understand your business, sir, and would not make much a statement unless you could verify it. But I hope that you may not find cause to regret that you have treated me with so little confidence. I am not open to that reproach. Dr. Uprount, consider my instructions. I was strictly forbidden to disclose my subject until certainty could be obtained. That being done, I have hastened to appraise you first of a result which is partly due to your own good offices. Shake hands, my dear sir, and acquit me of rudeness, the last thing of which I am capable. The rector was mollified and gave his hand to the gallant general factor. Allow me to add my congratulations upon your wonderful success, he said, but would that I had noted some few hours sooner it might have saved you a vast amount of trouble. I might have kept Robin well within your reach. I fear that he is now beyond it. I am grieved to hear you say so. But according to my last instructions, although he is in strict concealment, I can lay hands upon him when the time is ripe. I fear not. He sailed last night for the Continent, which is a vague destination especially in such times as these. But perhaps that was part of your skillful contrivance? Not so. And for the time it throws me out. I have kept most careful watch on him. But the difficulty was that he might confound my vigilance with that of his enemies. Take me for constable, I mean, and perhaps he is done so after all. Things have gone luckily for me in the main, but that murder came in most unseasonably. It was the very thing that should have been avoided. Sir Duncan will need all his influence there. Suppose for a moment that young Robin did not do it. Mr. Mordax, you frighten me. What else could you suppose? Certainly, yes. A parishioner of yours would not engage unlawfully upon the high seas. We heartily hope that he did not do it, and we give him the benefit of the doubt, in which I shared largely, until it became so manifest that he was a Yordus. A Yordus has made a point of slaying his man, and sometimes from three to a dozen men, until within the last two generations. In the third generation the law revives, as is hinted, I think, in the decalogue. In my professional course a large stock of hereditary trail, so to speak, comes before me. Some families always drink, some always steal. Some never tell lies because they never know a falsehood. Some would sell their souls for a sixpence. And these are the most respectable of any. My dear sir, my dear sir, I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but in my house the rule is to speak well of people or else to say nothing about them. Then you must resign your commission, doctor, for how can you take depositions? But as I was saying, I should have some hope of the innocence of young Robin if it should turn out that his father, Sir Duncan, has destroyed a good many of the native race in India. It may reasonably be hoped that he has done so, which would tend very strongly to exonerate his son. But the evidence laid before your worship and before the corner was black, black, black. My position forbids me to express opinions. The evidence compelled me to issue the warrant, but knowing your position I may show you this in every word of which I have perfect faith. With these words Dr. Opram produced the letter that he had received last night, and the general factor took in all the gist of it in less than half a minute. Very good, very good, he said with a smile of experience benevolence. We believe some of it. Our duty is to do so. There are two points of importance in it. One as to the girl he is in love with, and the other is his kind liberality to the fellows who will have to bear the brunt of it. You speak sarcastically and I hope unfairly. To my mind the most important facts are these. The poor caraway was shot from behind, and that the smugglers had no firearms except two pistols, both unloaded. Who is to prove that, Dr. Opram? Their mouths are closed. And if they were open would anybody believe them? We knew long ago that the vigilant and deservedly lamented officer took the death-blow from behind. But of that how simple is the explanation. The most intelligent of his crew and apparently his best subordinate, whose name is John Cadman, deposes that his lamented chief turned round for one moment to give an order, and during that moment received one shot. His evidence is the more weighty because he does not go too far with it. He does not pretend to say who fired. He knows only that one of the smugglers did. His evidence will hang those six poor fellows from the laudable desire of the law to include the right one. But I trust that the right one will be far away. I trust not. If even one of them is condemned even to transportation, Robin Leith will surrender immediately. You doubt it? You smile at the idea. Your opinion of human nature is low. Mine is not enthusiastic, but I judge others by myself. So do I, Mr. Mordak's answered, with a smile of curious humor, and the rector could not help smiling too at this insistence of genuine candor. However, not to go too deeply into that, his visitor continued, there really is one point in Robin's letter which demands inquiry. I mean about the guns of the preventive man. Cadman may be a rogue. Most probably he is. None of the others confirm, although they do not contradict him. Do you know anything about him? Only Villeney, in another way, he led away a nice girl of his parish, an industrious muscle gatherer, and he then had a wife and large family of his own of which the poor thing knew nothing. Her father nearly killed him, and I was compelled very much against my will to inflict a penalty. Cadman is very shy of flamborough now. By the way, have you called upon poor Widow Caroway? I thank you for the hint. She is the very person. It will be a sad intrusion, and I have put it off as long as possible. After what Robin says it is most important. I hope that Sir Duncan will be here very shortly. He is coming from Yarmouth in his own yacht. Matters are crowding upon me very fast. I will see Mrs. Caroway as soon as it is decent. Good morning, and best thanks to your worship. THE AIR WAS SAD AND HEAVY THUS WITH DISCORD, DOUBT, AND DEATH ITSELF GATHERING AND DESCENDING LIKE THE CLOUDS OF LONG NIGHT APON FLAMBOROUGH. BUT FAR AWAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS IN ADRIARY MORLAND THE INTAKE OF THE COMING WINTER WAS A GREAT DEAL WORSE TO SEE. FOR HERE NO BLINK OF THE SEA CAME UP, NO SUNLIGHT UNDER THE SILL OF CLOUDS, AS HAPPENS WHERE WIDE WATERS ARE. BUT RATHER A DARK RIM OF BROOTING ON THE ROUGH HORIZON SEEMED TO THICKEN ITSELF AGAINST THE LIGHT UNDER THE SULLEN MARCH OF VAPORS. THE MUFFLED FUNERAL OF THE YEAR, DRIVE TREES AND NAKED CRAG STOOD FORTH, AND THE DURGE OF THE WIND WENT TO AND FROE, AND THERE WAS NO COMFORT OUT OF DOORS. SOON THE FIRST SNOW OF THE WINTER CAME, THE FIRST ABIDING EARNEST SNOW FOR SEVERAL SKITS HAD COME BEFORE, AND RIBBED WITH WHITE THE MOUNTAIN BREATHS. BUT NOBODY TOOK MUCH EAT OF THAT, EXCEPT TO LEAN OVER THE PLOW, WHILE IT MIGHT BE SPED OR TO WANT MORE BREAKFAST, WHILE RESIGNED WAS EVERYBODY TO STOPPAGE OF WORK BY WINTER. IT WAS ONLY WHAT MUST BE EVERY YEAR, AND A GRACIOUS PROVISION OF PROVENANCE. IF A MAN EARNED VERY LITTLE MONEY, THAT WAS AGAINST HIM IN ONE WAY, BUT ENCOURAGED HIM IN ANOTHER. IT BROUGHT HOME TO HIS MIND THE SUERITY THAT OTHERS WOULD BE KIND TO HIM, NOT WITH ANY SENSE OF GIFT, BUT WITH A LARGE GOODWILL OF SHARING. But the first snow that visits the day, and does not melt in its own cold tears, is a sterner sign for everyone. The hardened wrinkle, the herring bone of white that runs among the brown-furned fronds, the crisp defiant dazzle on the walks, and the crust that glimmers on the patient branch, and the crust curling under the heel of a gate, and the ridge piled up against the tool-house door, these and the shivering wind that spreads them tell of a bitter time in store. The ladies of Scargate Hall looked out upon such a December afternoon. The massive walls of their house defied all sudden change of temperature, and nothing less than a week of rigor pierced the comfort of their rooms. The polished oak beams overhead glanced back the merry fire-glow. The painted walls shown with rosy tints and warm lights flitting among them, and the thick piled carpet yielded back a velvety sense of luxury. It was nice to see how bleak the crags were, and the sad trees laboring beneath the wind and snow. If it were not for thinking of the poor, cold people for whom one feels so deeply, said the gentle Mrs. Carnaby with a sweet soft sigh, one would rather enjoy this dreary prospect. I hope that there will be a deep snow tonight. There is every sign of it upon the scars, and then, Philippa, only think, no post, no plague of news, no prospect of even that odious jelly-course. Once more we shall have our meals in quiet. Mrs. Carnaby loved a good dinner right well, and a dinner unplagued by hospitable cares, when a woodcock was her own to dwell on, and pretty little teeth might pick a pretty little bone at ease. Eliza, you are always such a creature of the moment! Mistress Yordis answered indulgently, You do love the good things of the world too much. How would you like to be out there, in a naked little cottage with a wind-house through when the year is frozen every morning, and where, if you ever get anything to eat? Philippa, I implore you not to be so dreadful. One never can utter the most commonplace reflection, and you know that I said I was sorry for the people? My object is good, as you ought to know. My object is to habituate your mind. Philippa, I beg you once more to confine your exertions in that way to your own more lofty mind. Again I refuse to have my mind, or whatever it is that does duty for it, habituated to anything. A gracious providence knows that I should die out right after all my blameless life if reduced to those horrible strates you always picture. And I have too much faith in gracious providence to conceive for one moment that it would treat me so. I decline the subject. Why should we make such troubles? There is clear soup for dinner, and some lovely sweet-breads. Cook has got a new receipt for bread-sauce. And Jordus says that he never did shoot such a woodcock. Eliza, I trust that you may enjoy them all. Your appetite is delicate, and you require nourishment. Why, what do I see over yonder in the snow? A slim figure moving at a very great pace, and avoiding the open places. Are my eyes growing old? Or is it lance a lot? Pat out in such weather, Philippa. Such a thing is simply impossible, or at any rate I should hope so. You know that Jordus was obliged to put a set of curtains from end to end even of the bowling alley, which is so beautifully sheltered, and even then poor Pat was sneezing, and you should have heard what he said to me when I was afraid of the sheets taking fire from his warming pan one night. Pat is unaccountable sometimes, I know, but the very last thing imaginable of him is that he should put his pretty feet into the snow. You know best, Eliza, and it is very puzzling to distinguish things in snow, but if it was not Pat why it must have been a squirrel? The squirrels have gone to sleep for the winter, Philippa. I dare say it was only Jordus. Don't you think that it must have been Jordus? I am quite certain that it was not Jordus, but I will not pretend to say that it was not a squirrel. He may forego his habitudes more easily than lance a lot. How horribly dry you are sometimes, Philippa! There seems to be no softness in your nature. You are fit to do battle with fifty lawyers, and I pity Mr. Jelly-Course with his best clothes on. You could commit no greater error. We pay the price for his black silk stockings three times over every time we see him. The true objects of pity are you and I and the estates. Well, let us drop it for a while. If you begin upon that nauseous subject, not a particle of food will pass my lips, and I did look forward to a little nourishment. Dinur, my ladies! cried the well-appointed weldrum, throwing open the door as only such a man can do while cleverly accomplishing the necessary bow which he clinched on such occasions with a fine smack of his lips. Go and tell Mr. Lance a lot, if you please, that we are waiting for him. A great point was made, but not always affected, of having Master Pett in very gorgeous attire to lead his aunt into the dining-room. It was fondly believed that this impressed him with the elegance and nice humanities required by his lofty position and high walk in life. Pett hated this performance and generally spoiled it by making a face over his shoulder at old weldrum, while he strode along in real or mock awe of Aunt Philippa. If you please, my ladies! said the butler now, choosing Mrs. Carnaby for his eyes to rest on. Mr. Lance a lot, beg to be excused of dinner. His head is that bad that he have gone for open air. Snow headache is much in our family, Eliza. You remember how our dear father used to feel it? With these words Mr. Shiodas led her sister into the dining-room, and he took good care to say nothing more about it before the officious weldrum. Pett meanwhile was beginning to repent of his cold and lonely venture, for a mile or two the warmth of his mind and the glow of his exercise sustained him, and he kept on admiring his own courage till his feet began to tingle. Incy will be bound to kiss me now, and she never will be able to laugh at me again. He said to himself some fifty times, I am like the great poet who describes the snow, and I have got some cherry-brandy. He trudged on very bravely, but his poor dear toes at every step grew colder. Out upon the moor, where he was now, no shelter of any kind encouraged him. No manlet of bank or ridge or brushwood set up a furry shiver betwixt him and the tattered Amalian wind. Not even a naked rock stood up to comfort a man by looking colder than himself, but in truth there was no severe cold yet, no depth of snow, no insanity of frost, no splintery needles of sparkling drift, but only the beginning of the wintery time, such as makes a strong man pick his feet up, and a healthy boy start an imaginary slide. The wind, however, was shrewd and searching, and Lancelot was accustomed to a warming pan. Inside his waistcoat he wore a hair-skin, and his heart began to give rapid thumps against it. He knew that he was going into bodily peril worse than any frost or snow, for a long month he had not even seen his inseam, and his hot, young heart had never before been treated so contemptuously. He had been allowed to show himself in the gill at his regular interval a fortnight ago, but no one had ventured forth to meet him or even wave signal of welcome or farewell, but that he could endure because he had been warned not to hope for much that Friday, now, however, was not his meaning to put up with any more such nonsense, that he who had been told by his servants continually that all the land for miles and miles around was his should be shut out like a beggar and compelled to play bow-peep by people who lived in a hole in the ground was a little more than in the whole entire course of his life you could ever have imagined. His mind was now made up to let them know who he was and what he was, and unless they were very quick in coming to their senses, Jordus should have orders to turn them out and take Incy all together away from them. But in spite of all the brave thoughts and words, Master Pat began to spy about it very warily, ere ever he descended from the moor into the gill, he seemed to have it borne in upon his mind that territorial rights, however large and goodly, may lead only to a taste of earth, when earth alone is witness to the treatment of their claimant, therefore behooved him to look sharp in possessing the family gift of keen sight, he began to spy about almost as shrewdly as if he had been educated in free trade. But first he had wit enough to step below the break and get behind a gorse bush, lest happily he should illustrate only the passive voice of seeing. In the deep cut of the glen there was very little snow, only a few veins and patches here and there, threading and seeming the step as if a white-footed hair had been coursing about. Little stubby briar shoots and clumps of russet bracken, and dead heather, ruffling like a brown dog's back, broke the dull surface of the withered, herbage, thistle stumps, teasels, rugged banks, and naked brush. Down in the bottom the noisy brook was scurrying over its pebbles brightly or plunging into gloom of its own production, and away at the end of the valley was seen the cot of poor Lancelot's longing. The situation was worth a sigh and came halfway to share one. Pet sighed heavily, and deeply felt how wrong it was of any one to treat him so. What could be easier for him than to go, as Incy had said to him at least a score of times, and mined his own business and shake off the dust, or the mud, of his feet at such strangers? But alas, he had dried it and could shake nothing except his sad and sapient head. How deplorably he was altered from the pet that used to be! Where were now his lofty joys and pleasure he had found in wholesome mischief and wholesome destruction, the high delight of frightening all the world about his safety? There are people here, I do believe, he said to himself most touchingly, who would be quite happy to chop off my head. As if to give edge to so murderous a thought and wings to the feet of the thinker. A man both tall and broad came striding down the cottage garden. He was swinging a heavy axe as if it were a mere dress-cane, and now and then dealing clean slash of a branch with an air which made pet shiver worse than any wind. The poor lad saw that in the grasp of such a man he could offer less resistance than a nut within the crackers. And even his champion the sturdy Jordus might struggle without much avail. He gathered in his legs and tucked his head well under the gorse to watch him. Surely he is too big to run very fast, thought the boy with his valour evaporated. It must be that horrible maunder. What a blessing that I stopped up here just in time. He's going up the hill to cleave some wood. Shall I cut away at once or lie flat upon my stomach? He would be sure to see me if I tried to run away, and much he would care for his landlord. In such a choice of evils poor Lancelot resolved to lie still, unless the monster should turn his steps that way. And presently he had the heartfelt pleasure of seeing the formidable stranger take the track that followed the windings of the brook. But instead of going well away and rounding the next corner, the big man stopped at the very spot where Incy used to fill her pitcher, pulled off his coat and hung it on a bush, and began with mighty strokes to fell a dead addler tree that stood there, as his great arms swung and his back rose and fell and the sway of his legs seemed to shake the bank, and the ring of his axe filled the glen with echoes. Wrath and terror were fighting a hot battle in the heart of Lancelot. His sense of a landowner's rights and titles had always been most imperious. And though the Scargate estates were his as yet only in remainder, he was even more jealous about them than if he held them already in possession. What right had this man to cut down trees to fell an appropriate timber? Even in the garden which he rented he could not rightfully touch a stick or stock. But to come out here, a good furlong from his renting, and begin hacking and hewing quite as if the land were his, it seemed almost to brazen face for belief. It must be stopped at once. Such outrageous trespass stopped and punished sternly. He would stride down the hill with a summery veto. But alas, if he did, he might get cut down too. Not only this disagreeable reflection, but also his tender regard for Incy prevented him from challenging this process of the axe. But his feelings began to go to him towards something worthy of a Yordus. For a Yordus he always accounted himself and not by any means a Carnaby. And to this end all the powers of his home conspired. That fellow is terribly big and strong, he said to himself, with much warmth of spirit, but his axe is getting dull, and to chop down that tree of mine will take him at least half an hour. Dead wood is harder to cut than life, and when he has done that he must work till dark to lop the branches and so on. I need not be afraid of anybody but this fellow. Now is my time, then, while he is away. Even if the old folk are home they will listen to my reasons. The next time he comes to hack my tree on this side I shall slip out and go down to the cottage. I have no fear of any one that pays any heed to reason. The sudden admirer and lover of reason cleverly carried out his bold discretion. For now the savage woodman intent upon that leveling which is the highest glory of pugnacious minds came round the tree, glaring at it, as if it were the murderer and he the victim. Redoubling his tremendous thwacks at every sign of tremor, flinging his head back with a spiteful joy, poisoning his shoulders on the swing and then with all his weight descending into the trench and below, when his back was fairly turned on Lancelot and his whole mind and body thus absorbed upon his spray, the lad rose quickly from his lair and slipped over the crust of the gill to the moorland. In a moment he was out of sight to that demon of the axe and gliding with his head bent low, along a little hollow of the heathery ground which cut off a bend of the ravine and again struck its brink a good furlong down the gill. Here Pet stopped running and lay down and peered over the brink, for this part was quite new to him and resolved as he was to make a bold stroke of it he naturally wished to see how the land lay and what the fortress of the enemy was like ere ever he ventured into it. That little moorland glen whose only murmur was of wavelets and the principal traffic of birds and rabbits even at this time of year looked pretty, with the winter light winding down its shelter and soft quietude, ferny pitches and grassy bends set off the harsh outline of rock and shale, while a white mist quivering like a clue above the rivulet was melting into the faint blue haze diffused among the foldings and recesses of the land. On the heather side, nearly at the bottom of the slope, a bright green spot among the brown and yellow roughness looking by comparison most smooth and rich showed where the little cottage grew its festivals and even indulged in a small attempt at fruit. Behind this the humble retirement of the cot was shielded from the wind by a breastwork of bold rock, fringed with ground ivy, hanging broom and silver stars of the car-line. So simple and low was the building and so matched with the colors rounded that but for the smoke curling up from a pipe of red pottery ware a stranger might almost have overlooked it. The walls were made from the rocks close by, the roof of fir slabs thatched with ling. There was no upper story and except the door and windows all the materials seemed native and at home. Lancelot had heard by putting a crafty question in safe places that the people of the gale here had built their own dwelling a good many years ago and that looked as if they could have done it easily. Now if he intended to spy out the land and the house as well before the giant of the axe returned there was no time to lose in beginning. He had a good deal of sagacity and tricks and some practice in little arts of robbery. For before he obtained to this exalted state of mind one of his favorite pastimes had been a course of stealthy raids upon the pairs and Scargate Garden. He might have had as many as he liked for the asking but what flavor would they have thus possess? Moreover he bore a noble spite against a gardener whose special pride was in that pair-wall. And Pat more than once had the joy of beholding him thrash his own innocent son for the dark disappearance of Borer and Bergamont. Making good use of this experience he stole his way down the steep glenside behind the low fence of the garden until he reached the bottom and the brushwood by the stream. Here he stopped to observe again and breathe and get his spirit up. The glassy water looked as cold as death and if he got cramp in his feet how could he run and yet he could see no other way but waiting of approaching the cottage unperceived. Now Fortune, whose privilege it is to cast mortals into the holes that most misfit them, sometimes when she has got them there takes pity and contemptuously lifts them, Pat was in a hole of hardship such as his dear mama never could have dreamed of and such as his nurture and constitution made trebly disastrous for him. He had taken a chill from his ambush and fright and the cold wind over the snow of the moor and now the long waiting of that icy water might have ended up on the shores of Echeron. However he was just about to start upon that passage for the spirit of the race was up when a dull grating sound as a footsteps crunching grit came to his prettily concave ears. At this sound Lancelot Carnaby stopped from his rash venture into the water and drew himself back to an ivied bush which served as the final of the little garden hedge. Peeping through this he could see that the walk from the cottage to the hedge was newly sprinkled with gray wood ash, perhaps to prevent the rain from lodging and the snow from lying there. Heavy steps of two old men as Pat and the insolence of young days called them fell upon the dull soft crust and grounded heel and toe. Heal first as stiff joints have it, with the bruising snip a hungry cow makes, grazing wiry grasses. One of them must be Incy's dad, said Pat to himself as he crouched more closely behind the hedge. Which of them I wonder? Well, the tall one I suppose to go by the height of that maunder and the other has only one arm and a man with one arm could never have built their house. They are coming to sit on that bench. I shall hear every word they say and learn some of their secrets that I never could get out of Incy one bit of. But I wonder who that other fellow is. That other fellow in spite of his lease would promptly have laid his surviving hand to the ear of Master Lancelot or any other eavesdropper, for a sturdy and resolute man was he, being no less than our ancient friend the old soldier Jack of the Smithies, and now was verified that only proverb that listeners never hear good of themselves. Sit down, my friend, said the elder of the twain, a man of rough dress and hard hands, but good straightforward aspect, and that careless humor which generally comes from a life of adventures and a long acquaintance with the world's caprice. I have brought you here that we may be undisturbed. Little pitchers have long ears. My daughter is as true as steel. But this matter is not for her at present. Are you sure, then, that Sir Duncan has come home at last, and he wished that I should know it? Yes, sir, he wished that you should know it. As soon as I told him that you was here, and leading what one may call his queer life, he slapped his thigh like this here, for he hath a downright way of everything. And he said, Now, Smithies, so soon as you get home, go and tell him that I'm coming. I can trust him as I trust myself, and glad I am for one old friend in the parts I am such a stranger to. Years and years I have longed to know what was become of my old framburt. Tears was in his eyes, Your Honor. Sir Duncan hath seen such a mighty lot of men that his heart cometh up the few he hath found deserving of the name, sir. You said that you saw him in York, I think? Yes, sir, at the business house of his agent. One master, Jeffrey Mordax, he come there quite unexpected, I believe, to see about something else he hath in hand. And I got a message to go there at once. I save his life once in India, sir, from one of the cursed Sours, which made him take heed of me and me of him. And then it come out where I come from, and the both of us spoke the broad Yorkshire together, like as I had dinner cared to do to home. After that he got on wonderful, as you know, when I stuck to him through the whole of it, from luck as well as liking, till if I had gone out to see to his breeches I could not very well have known more of him. And I tell you, sir, not to regard him for a Yordus, he hath a mind far above them lot, though I was born unto them, to say so. And you think that he will come and recover his rights in spite of his father's will against him? I know nothing of the ladies of the hall, and it seems a hard thing to turn them out after being there so long. Who was turned out first, they or him? Five and twenty years of tent, open sky, jungle, and who knows what for him? But either down, and fireside, and fat of land for them? No, no, sir. Whatever shall happen there will be God's own justice. Of his justice, who shall judge? said NC's father quietly. There is not a young man grown, who passes for the air with every one. Aye, that there is! And the best game of all will be neck and crop for that young scamp. A bully, a coward, a pulling milk-sob, is all the character he beareth? He giveth himself born heirs, as if every inch of the riding belonged to him. He hath all the viciousness of Yordus, without the pluck to face it out, a little beast that hath the venom, without the courage of a toad. Oh, how I should like to see, Jack of the Smithies not only saw, but felt. The Yordus blood was up in pat, he leapt through the hedge, and struck at this man with a sharp, quick fist, in either eye. Smithies fell backward behind the bench, his heels danced in the air, and the stump of his arm got wedged in the stubs of a bush, while Lancelot glared at him with mad eyes. What next? said his companion, rising calmly, and steadfastly gazing at Lancelot. The next thing is to kill him, and it shall be done. A furious youth replied, while he swung the gentleman's big stick which he had seized, and danced round his foe with the speed of a wildcat. Don't meddle, or it will be worse for you. You heard what he said of me. Get out of the way. Indeed, my young friend, I shall do nothing of a sort. But the old man was not at all sure that he could do much. Such was the fury and agility of the youth, who jumped three yards for every step of his. While the poor old soldier could not move, the boy skipped round the conducting figure whose grasp he eluded easily in swinging the staff with both arms aimed a great blow at the head of his enemy. Suddenly the other interposed the bench upon which the stick fell, and broke short, and before the assailant could recover from the jerk he was prisoner in two powerful old arms. You are so wild that we must make you fast! his captor said, with a benign smile. In struggle as he might, the boy was very soon secured. His antagonists drew forth a red bandana handkerchief and fastened his bleeding hands behind his back. There now, lad! He said, You can do no mischief. Recover your temper, sir, and tell us who you are as soon as you are sane enough to know! Pet, having spent his just indignation, began to perceive that he had made a bad investment. His desire had been to maintain in this particular spot strict privacy from all except incy, to whom the largeness of love he had declared himself. Yet here he stood, promulgled and published, strikingly and flagrantly pronounced. At first he was like to sulk in the style of a hawk who has failed of his swoop, but seeing his enemy arising slowly with grunts and action no-dos and angular, rather than flexibly graceful, contempt became the uppermost feature of his mind. My name, he said, if you are not afraid of it that you time me in this cowardly, low manner is Lancelot Yordus Carnaby, my boy that is a long name for anyone to carry. No wonder that you look weak beneath it. And where do you live, young gentleman? Amazement sat upon the face of Pet, a genuine astonishment entirely pure from wrath. It was wholly beyond his imagination that anyone after hearing his name should have to ask him where he lived. He thought that the question must be put in low mockery, and the answer was far beneath his dignity. By this time the veteran Jack of the Smithies had got out of his trap and was standing stiffly, passing his hand across his sadly smitten eyes and talking to himself about them. Two black eyes at my time of life assures I'm a Christian. How some other young chap I likes you better. Never dreamed there was such good stuff in you. Master Burt, cast him loose, if so please you. Let me shake hands with him, bear no malice. Bad words deserve hard blows, and I ask his pardon for driving him into it. I called on a look-stop, and he have proved me a liar. He may be a baddened, but with good stuff in him. Lord bless me, I never would have believed the land could hit so smartly. Pet was well pleased with his tribute to his prowess, but as for shaking hands with a tenant, and a common man, as every one nod of gentle berth was then called, such an act was quite below him, or above him, according as we take his own opinion or the truth, and possibly he rose in Smithy's mind by drawing back from bodily overture. Mr. Burt looked on with all the bliss of an ancient interpreter. He could follow out the level of the vein of each, as no one may do except a gentleman, perhaps, who has turned himself deliberately into a common man. Burt had done his utmost toward this end, but the process is difficult when voluntary. I think it is time, he now said firmly, to the unshackled and triumphant pet, for Lancelot Yordus Cardaby to explain what has brought him into such humble quarters, and induced him to turn eavesdropper, which was not considered, at least in my young days, altogether the part of a gentleman. The youth had not seen quite enough of the world to be pat with a fertile lie as yet, especially under such searching eyes, however he did as much as could be well expected. I was just looking over my property, he said, and I thought I heard somebody cutting down my timber. I came to see who it was and I heard people talking, and before I could ask them about it I heard myself abused disgracefully, and that was more than I could stand. We must take it for granted that a brave young gentleman of your position would tell no falsehood, who assure us on your honor that you heard no more? Well, I heard voices, sir, but nothing to understand or to make head or tail of. There was some truth in this, for young Lancelot had not the least idea who Sir Duncan was. His mother and aunt had kept him wholly in the dark as to any lost uncle in India. I should like to know what it was, he added. If it has anything to do with me, this was a very clever hit of his, and it made the old gentleman believe him all together. All in good time, my young friend, he answered even with a smile of some pity for the youth. But you are scarcely old enough for business questions, although so keen about your timber. Now, after abusing you so disgracefully as I admit that my friend here has done, and after roping your pugnacious hands as I myself was obliged to do, we never can launch you upon the moor in such weather as this without some food. You are not very strong and you have overdone yourself. Let us go to the house and have something. Jack of the Smithies showed a lackardy at this, as nearly all old soldiers must, but Pet was much depressed with care, and the intellect in his breast averged into sore distraction of anxious thought, whether he should draw the keen sword of assurance put aside the others, and see and see, or whether, should he start with best foot foremost, scurry up the hill and void the axe of maunder. Palace counseled this course, and Aphrodite that, and the latter prevailed, as she always used to do, until she produced the present dry-cut generation. Lancelot bowed to the gentleman of the gill and followed him along the track of grit, which set his little pearly teeth on edge, while Jack of the Smithies led and formed the rear-guard. This is now coming to something very queer, thought Pet. After all, it might have been better for me to take my chance with a hatchet, man. Brown dusk was ripely settling down upon the mossy apple-trees and the leafless addlers of the brook, and the russet and yellow memories of late autumn lingering in the glen, while the peaky little freaks of snow, in the cold size of the wind, suggested fireside and comfort. Mr. Byrd threw open his cottage door, and bowing, as to a welcome guest, invited Pet to enter. No passage, no cold entrance hall, demanded scrapes of ceremony. But here was the parlor, in the feeding-place, in the warm dance of the fire-glow, logs that meant to have a merry time, and spread a cheerful noise abroad ere ever they turned to embers, where snorting forth appointed flames and spitting soft protests of sap, and before them stood, with eyes more bright than any flash of fire-light, intent upon rich simmering scents, a lovely form, a grace of dainties. Oh, a goddess certainly! Master Carnaby, said the host, allow me, sir, the honor to present my daughter to you, in sea, darling. This is Mr. Lancelot Yordus Carnaby. Make him a pretty curtsy. Encee turned round, with a rosy blush, brighter than the brightest firewood, and tried to look at Pet as if she had never even dreamed of such a being. Pet drew hard upon his heart, and stood bewildered, tranced, and dazzled. He had never seen Encee indoors before, which makes a great difference in a girl, and the vision was too bright for him. For here, at her own hearth, she looked so gentle, sweet, and lovely. No longer wild, and shy, or gaily mischievous, and watchful, but calm-eyed, firm-lipped, gravely courteous, intent upon her father's face, and banishing not into shadow so much as absolute nullity any one who dreamed that he ever filled a picture for her, or fed her with grouse and partridge, and committed the incredible atrocity of kissing her. Lancelot ceased to believe that it was possible that he ever could have done such a thing as that, while he saw how she never would see him at all, or talk in the voice that he had been accustomed to, or even toss her head in the style he had admired when she tried to pretend to make light of him. If she would only make light of him now, he would be well contented, and say to himself that she did it on purpose, for fear of the opposite extreme. But the worst of it was that she had quite forgotten beyond blink of inquiry or gleam of hope that ever in her life she had set eyes on a youth of such perfect insignificance before. My friend, you ought to be hungry, said Bert of the Gale, as he was proud to call himself. After your exploit you should be fed. Your vanquished foe will sit next to you. And see, you are harassed and mined by the countenance of our old friend-master John Smithys. He is met with a little mishap. Never mind. The rising generation is quick of temper. A soldier respects his victor. It is a beautiful arrangement of providence. Otherwise wars would never cease. Now, give our two guests a good dish of the best piping hot and of good, meaty fiber. We will have our own supper by and by when Maunder comes home, and your mother is ready. Gentlemen, fall too. You have far to go, and the Moors are bad after nightfall. Lancelot, proudly as he could upon his rank, saw fit to make no objection. Not only did his inner man cry, feed, even though a common man feed with thee, but his mind was under the influence of a stronger one, which scorned such stuff. Moreover, Incy for the first time gave him a glance, demure but imperative, which meant, Obey my father, sir. He obeyed and was rewarded, for the beautiful girl came round him so, to hand whatever he wanted and seemed to feel so sweetly for him in his strange position that he scarcely knew what he was eating, only that it savored of rich, rare love, and came from the loveliest creature in the world. The stir in fact it came from the head of a sheep, but neither jaws nor teeth were seen. Upon one occasion he was almost sure that a curl of Incy's lovely hair fell upon the back of his stooping neck. He could scarcely keep himself from jumping up, and he whispered very softly when the old man was away. Oh, if you would only do that again! But his darling made manifest that this was a mistake and applied herself seduously to the one-armed Jack. Jack of the Smithies was a trencher man, of the very first order, and being well wedded, with a promise already of young soldiers to come. It behooved him to fill all his holes away from home, and spare his own cupboard for the sake of Mr. Smithies. He perceived the duty and performed it according to the discipline of the British Army. But Incy was fretting the conscience of her heart to get young Lancelot fed and dismissed before the return of her great wild brother. Not that he would hurt their guest, though unwelcome, or even show any sort of rudeness to him, but more than ever now, since she heard of Pat's furious onslaught upon the old soldier, which made her begin to respect him a little. She longed to prevent any meeting between this gallant and the rough maunder, and that anxiety led her to look at Pat with a melancholy kindness. Then Jack of the Smithies cut things short. Off's the word! he said. If ever I expect to see home a four daylight, all these moors is known to me, and many's the time I have tracked them all in sleep, when the round world was betwixt us. But without any moon it is hard to do them waking, and the loss of my arms sends me crooked in the dark, and as for young folk they'd be all abroad to once. With your leave, Master Burt, I'll be off immediate, after getting all I want's as the manner of the world is. My good misses will be wondering what has come of me. You have spoken well, his host replied, and I think we shall have a heavy fall tonight. But this young gentleman must not go home alone. He is not robust, and the way is long and rough. I have seen him shivering several times. I will fetch my staff and march with him. No, sir, I will not have such a thing done," the veteran answered sturdily. If the young gentleman is a gentleman, he will not be afraid for me to take him home, in spite of what he hath done to me. Speak up, young man, are you frightened of me? Not if you are not afraid of me," said Pat, who had now forgotten all about that maunder and only longed to stay where he was, and set up a delicious little series of glances. For the room and the light and the tenor of the place began more and more to suit such uses, and most and best of all his incy was very thankful to him for his good behavior, and he scarcely could believe that she wanted him to go. To go, however, was his destiny, and when he had made a highly laudable and faraway salute it happened, in the shift of people and of light and clothing, which goes on so much in the wintertime, that a little hand came into his and rose to his lips with ground of action, not for assault and battery, but simply for assam-sit. CHAPTER XXXIX RECORDING BY KEITH SALAS