 56. In the thick of it. One of the greatest days in all the history of England having no sense of its future fame and being upon a hostile coast was shining rather dismally. And one of England's greatest men, the greatest of all her sons in battle, though few of them have been small at that, was out of his usual mood and full of calm presentiment and gloomy joy. He knew that he would see the sun no more, yet his fear was not of that, but only of losing the light of duty. As long as the sun endures he shall never see duty done more brilliantly. The wind was dropping to give the storm of human fury leisure, and while a sullen swell was rolling canvas flapped and timbers creaked. Like a team of mallards in double column plunging and lifting buoyant breaths to right and left alternately, the British fleet bore down upon the swan like crescent of the foe. These were doing their best to fly, but failing of that luck put Helmer Lee and shivered in the wind and made fine speeches proving that they must win the day. For this I have lived and for this it would be worth my while to die having no one left, I dare say now in all the world to care for me. That spake the junior lieutenant of that British ship, the victory, a young man after the heart of Nelson and gazing now on Nelson's face. No smarter sailor could be found in all that noble fleet than this lieutenant Blythe, who once had been the captain of all smugglers. He had fought his way up by skill and spirit and patience and good temper and the precious gift of self-reliance, failing of which all merit fails. He had always thought well of himself, but never destroyed the good of it by saying so, and whoever praised him had to do it again to outspeak his modesty. But without good fortune all these merits would never have been successes. One of Robin's truest merits was that he generally earned good luck. However his spirits were not in their usual flow of jacundity just now, and his lively face was dashed with care. Not through fear of lead or steel or wood and splinter or a knock upon the head or any other human mode of encouraging humanity. He hoped to keep out of the way of these, as even the greatest heroes do, for how could the world get on if all its bravest men went foremost? His mind meant clearly and with trust in proper providence to remain in its present bodily surroundings, with which it had no fault to find. Grief, however, so far as a man having faith in his luck amidst that point certainly was making some little hole into a heart of corky fibre. For Robin Liff had heard last night, when a schooner joined the fleet with letters, that Mary Annerley at last was going to marry Harry Tanfield. He told himself over and over again that if it were so, the fault was his own, because he had not taken proper care about the safe dispatch of letters. Changing from ship to ship and from sea to sea for the last two years or more, he had found but few opportunities of writing, and even of those he had not made the utmost. To Mary herself he had never once written, knowing well that her father forbade it, while his letters to Flambra had been few and some of those few had miscarried. For the French had a very clever knack just now of catching the English dispatch boats, in most of which they found accounts of their own thrashings, as a listener catches bad news of himself. But none of these led to improve their conduct. Flambra, having felt certain that Robin could never exist without free trade, and missing many little courtesies that flowed from his liberal administration, was only too ready to lament his death without insisting on particulars. Even as a man who has foretold a very destructive gale of wind, tempers with the pride of truth the sorrow which he ought to feel for his domestic chimney-pots, as soon as he finds them upon his lawn, so little Denmark, while bewailing, accepted the loss as a compliment to his own renowned sagacity. But Robin knew not until last night that he was made dead at Flambra, through the wreck of a ship which he had quitted a month before she was cast away, and now at last he only heard that news by means of his shipmate, Jack Annerley. Jack was a thoroughgoing sailor now, easy and childish and full of the present, leaving the past to cure and the future to care for itself as might be. He had promised Mr. Mordax and Robin Coxcroft to find out Robin Liff and tell him all about the conviction of John Cadman, and knowing his name in the navy and that of his ship, he had done so after in and out chase. But there for the time he had rested from his labours and left Davy Jones to send back word about it, which that Pelagian Davy fails to do, unless the message is enshrined in a bottle for which he seems to cherish true naval regard. In this state of things the two brothers-in-law, as they fully intended to be by and by, were going into this tremendous battle. Jack as a petty officer and Robin as a junior lieutenant of Lord Nelson's ship. Already had Jack Annerley begun to feel for Robin, or Lieutenant Blythe, as he now was called, that liking of admiration which his clear free manner and quickness of resource and agreeable smile in the teeth of peril had won for him before he had the legal right to fight much, and Robin, as he shall still be called while the memory of Flambeau endures, regarded Jack Annerley with fatherly affection and hoped to put strength into his character. However one necessary step toward that is to keep the character surviving, and in the world's pal Mel, now beginning, the uproar alone was enough to kill some, and the smoke sufficient to choke the rest. Many a British sailor who, by the mercy of Providence, survived that day, never could hear a word concerning any other battle, even though a son of his own delivered it down a trumpet, so furious was the concussion of the air, the din of thrawing metal, and the clash of cannonballs which met in the air, and spit up into founts of iron. No less than seven French and Spanish ships agreed with one accord to call upon and destroy Lord Nelson's ship, and if they had only adopted a rational mode of doing it, and shot straight, they could hardly have helped succeeding, even as it was they succeeded far too well, for they managed to make England to rue the tidings of her greatest victory. In the storm and whirl and flame of battle, when shot flew as close as the teeth of a hay-rake, and fire blazed into furious eyes, and then with a blow was quenched forever, and raging men flew into pieces, some of which killed their dearest friends. Who was he that could do more than attend to his own business? Nelson had known that it would be so, and had twice enjoined it in his orders, and when he was carried down to die his dying mind was still on this. Winlith was close to him when he fell, and helped to bear him to his plank of death, and came back with orders not to speak but work. Then ensued that crowning effort of misplaced audacity, the attempt to board and carry by storm the ship that still was Nelson's. The captain of the redoubtable saw through an alley of light between walls of smoke that the quarter-deck of the victory had plenty of corpses, but scarcely a life upon it. Also he felt, from the comfort of his feet and the increasing firmness of his spinal column, that the heavy British guns upon the lower decks had ceased to throb and thunder into his own poor ship. With a bound of high spirits he leaped to a pleasing conclusion and shouted, Forward, my brave sons, we will take the vessel of war of that Nielson. This, however, proved to be beyond his power, partly through the inborn absurdity of the thing, and partly no doubt through the quick perception and former vocation of Robin Lith. What would England have said if her greatest hero had breathed his last, in French arms, and a captive to the Frenchman? Could Nelson himself have departed thus to a world in which he never could have put the matter straight? The wrong would have been redressed very smartly here, but perhaps outside his knowledge. Even to dream of it awakes a shudder, yet outrage is almost as great of triumph, and nothing is quite beyond the irony of fate. But if free trade cannot be shown as yet to have won for our country any other blessing, it has earned the last atom of our patience and fortitude by its indirect benevolence at this great time. Without free trade in its sweeter and more innocent maidenhood of smuggling, there never could have been on board that English ship the victory a man, unless he were a runnigate, with a mind of such laxity as to understand French. But Robin Lith caught the French captain's words, and with two bounds and a hello, called up Britons from below. By this time a swarm of braved Frenchmen was gathered in the mizzen chains and gangways of their ship, waiting for a lift of the sea to launch them into the English outworks. And scarcely a dozen Englishmen were alive within hail to encounter them, not even an officer, till Robin Lith returned, was there to take command of them. The foremost unreadiest there was Jack Annerley, with a border's pike and abrasive ship pistols, and his fine, ruddy face screwed up as firm as his father's, before a big sail of wheat. Come on, you froggies, we are ready for you," he shouted, as if he had a hundred men in ambush. They, for their part, failed to enter into the niceties of his language, which difficulty somehow used never to be felt among classic warriors. Yet from his manner and position they made out that he offered let and hindrance. To remove him from their course they began to load guns, or to look about for loaded ones, postponing their advance, until he should cease to interfere. So clear at that time was the gallic perception of an English sailor's fortitude. Seeing this to be so, Jack, whose mind was not well balanced, threw a powder-case amongst them and exhibited a dance. But this was cut short by a hand-grenade, and before he had time to recover from that, the deck within a yard of his head flew open, and a stunning crash went by. Poor Jack Annerley lay quite senseless, while ten or twelve men, who were rushing up to repel the enemy, fell and died in a hurricane of splinters. A heavy round shot fired up from the enemy's main deck had shattered all before it, and Jack might thank the grenade that he lay on his back while the havoc swept over. Still his peril was hot for a volley of musketry whistled and rang round him, and at last a hundred and fifty men were watching their time to leap down on him. Everything now looked as bad as it could be with the drifting of the smoke and the flare of the fire and the pelting of bullets, and of grapnel from co-horns, and the screams of Frenchmen exulting vastly with scarcely any Englishmen to stop them. It seemed as if they were to do as they pleased, level the bulwarks of English rights, and cover themselves with more glory than ever. But while they yet waited to give one more scream a very different sound arose. Powder and metal and crash of timber and even French and Spanish throats at their very highest pressure were of no avail against the onward vigour and power of an English cheer. This cheer had a very fine effect. Out of their own mouths the foreigners at once were convicted of inferior stuff and their two twelve-pounders crammed with grapnel, which ought to have scattered mortality, banged upward, as harmless as a pod-discharging seed. In no account of this great conflict is any precision observed concerning the pel-mel and fisticuffs part of it. The worst of it is that on such occasions almost everybody who was there enlarges his own share of it, and although a reflection ought to curb this inclination, it seems to do quite the contrary. This may be the reason why nobody as yet, except Mary Annaly and Flamborah Folk, seems even to have tried to assign fair importance to Robin Lith's share in this glorious encounter. It is now too late to strive against the tide of fortuitous clamour whose deposit is called history, enough that this Englishman came up with fifty more behind him and carried all before him as he was bound to do. End of Chapter 56 Chapter 57 of Mary Annaly This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information ought to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Mary Annaly by Richard Dodgeridge Blackmore Chapter 57 Mary Lith Conquest, triumph and slaughterous glory are not very nice till they have ceased to drip. After that extinction of the war upon the waves, the nation which had won the fight went into general mourning. Sorrow, as deep as a maidens' is at the death of her lover, is spread over the land, and people who have married their romance away and fathered off their enthusiasm abandoned themselves to even deeper anguish at the insecurity of property. So deeply had England's faith been anchored into the tenacity of Nelson, the fall of the funds when the victory was announced out spoke a thousand monuments. From size and grand size Englishmen have learned the mood into which their country fell. To have fought under Nelson in his last fight was a password to the right hands of men and into the hearts of women. Even a man who had never known to change his mind began to condemn other people for being obstinate. Farmer Annaly went to church in his fensible accoutrements with a sash of heavy crepe upon the first day of the Christian year. To prove the largeness of his mind he harnessed the white-nosed horse, and drove his family away from his own parish to St. Oldswald's Church at Flambora where Dr. Upround was to preach upon the death of Nelson. His sermon was of the noblest order, eloquent, spirited, theological, and yet so thoroughly practical that seven Flambora boys set off on Monday to destroy French ships of war. Mary did her very utmost not to cry, for she wanted so particularly to watch her father, but nature and the doctor were too many for her, and when he came to speak of the distinguished path played under providence by the gallant son of Flambora who, after enduring with manly silence evil report and unprecious barms, stood forward in the breach like Phineas, and with the sword of Gideon defied Philistia to enter the British Ark, and when he went on to say that but for Flambora's prowess on that day, and the valour of the adjoining parish which had also supplied a hero, England might be mourning her foremost, Greek word, her very greatest fighter in the van, without the consolation of burying him, and embalming him in a nation's tears, for the French might have fired the magazine, and when he proceeded to ask who it was that, under the guiding of a gracious hand, had shattered the devices of the enemy, up stood Robin Coxcroft with a score of equally ancient captains, and remembering where they were, touched their forelocks and answered, Robin lifts her. Then Mary permitted the pride of her heart, which had long been painful with a tight control, to escape in a sob, which her mother had foreseen, and pulling out the stopper from her smelling-bottle, Mistress Annerley looked at her husband as if he were bone-apart himself. He, although aware that it was inconsistent of her, felt, as he said afterward, as if he had been a Frenchman, and looked for his hat, and fumbled about for the button of the pew, to get out of it, but luckily the clerk, with great presence of mind, awoke, and believing the sermon to be over, from the number of men who were standing up, pronounced, Amen, decisively. During the whole of the homeward drive, Father Annerley's countenance was full of thought, but he knew that it was watched, and he did not choose to let people get in front of him with his own brains. Therefore he let his wife and daughter look at him, to their hearts content, while he looked at the ledges and the mud, and the ears of his horse and the weather, and he only made two observations of moment, one of which was G, and the other was Waw, with females stolting up and down upon those springs, except those of jerks and curiosity. Conduct of this character was rude in the extreme, but knowing what he was, they glanced at one another, not meaning in any sort of way to blame him, but only that he would be better by and by, and perhaps try to make amends handsomely. And this beyond any denial he did as soon as he had dined, and smoked his pipe on the butt of the tree by the rickyard. Nobody knew where he kept his money, or at least his good wife away said so, when anyone made bold to ask her, and even now he was right down careful to go to his pot without anybody watching, so that when he came into the Sunday parlor there was not one of them who could say, even at a guess, where he last had been. Master Simon Popplewell, gentleman Tanner, called out of his name and into the name of Johnny, even by his own wife. Because there was no sign of any Simon in him, he was there, and his good wife Debbie, and Mistress Annerley in her best cap, and Mary dressed in royal navy blue with bars of black, for Lord Nelson's sake, according to the kind gift Divan to an uncle, also willy, looking wonderfully handsome, though pale with the failure of perpetual motion, and inclined to be languid, as great genius should be in its intervals of activity. Among them a lively talk was stirring, and the farmer said, ah, you was talking about me. Remote be, and yet again remote not. Master Popplewell returned, with a glance at Mrs. Deborah, who had just been describing to the company how much her husband excelled in jokesomeness. Brother Stephen, a good man, seeks to be spoken of, and a bad one objects to it in vain. Very well, you shall have something for your money. Mary, you know where the old my deary wine is, that come from your godfathers and godmothers when you was called in baptism. Take you the key from your mother, child, and bring you up a bottle. And Brother Popplewell will open it, for such things is beyond me. Well done, our side, exclaimed the tanner, for if he had a weakness it was for Madeira, which he always declared to have a musky smack of tan. And a waggish customer had told him once that the grapes it was made of were always tanned first. The others kept silence for seeing great events. Then Mr. Popplewell poised with calm discretion, and moving with the nice precision of a fine watchmaker shed into the best decanter, softly as an angel's tears, liquid beauty, not too gaudy, not too sparkling with shallow light, not too ruddy with sullen glow, but vivid, like a noble gen, the brown cairngorm, with mellow depths of luster. That's your sort, the tanner cried, after putting his tongue, while his wife looked shocked to the tip of the empty bottle. Such things is beyond my knowledge, answered Farmer Annerley, as soon as he saw the best glasses filled, but nothing in nature is too good to speak a good man's health in. Now fill you up a little glass for Mary, and perpetual motion you stand up, which is more than your machines can do. Now here I stand, and I drink good health to a man, as I never clapt eyes on yet, and would have preferred to keep the door between us, but the Lord hath ordered otherwise. He hath wiped out all his faults against the law, he hath fought for the honour of the Old England well, and he hath saved the life of my son Jack. Despite of all that I might refuse to unspeak my words, which I never did afore, if it had not been that I wronged the man. I have wronged the young fellow, and I am man enough to say so. I called him a merger and a sneak, and time hath proved me to have been a liar. Therefore I ask his pardon humbly, and what will be more to his liking, perhaps I say that he shall have my daughter Mary, if she abides agreeable, and I put down these here twenty guineas for Mary to look as she ought to look. She has been a good lass, and has borne with me a better than one in a thousand would have done. Mary, my love to you, and with leave all round, he is a very good health of Robin Liff. Here is the health of Robin Liff, shouted Mr Popplewell, with his fat cheeks shining merrily. Hurray for the lad who saved Nelson's death from a Frenchman's grins, and saved our Jackboy, Stephen Annerley. Stephen Annerley, I forgive you, this is the right stuff, and no mistake, Deborah Cumminkiss, the farmer. Mrs Popplewell obeyed her husband, as the manner of good wives is, and over and above this fleeting joy, solid satisfaction entered into noble hearts. Which felt that now the fruit of laborious years, and the cash of many a tanning season, would never depart from the family. And to make an end of any weak misgivings, even before the ladies went, to fill the pipes for the gentlemen. The tanner drew, with equal care, and even better nerve, the second bottle's cork, and expressed himself as follows. Brother Steve hath done the right thing, we hardly expected it of him, by rites of his confounded stubbornness. But when a shut-up man repented, he is equal to a hoistor, or this here bottle. What good would this have been without it was sealed over? Now mark my words, I'll not be behind no man when it comes to the right side up. I may be a poor man, a very poor man, and people counting otherwise might find themselves mistaken. I like to be liked for myself only. But the day our Mary goes to church with Robin Liff, she shall have five hundred pounds tied upon her back, or else my name's not Popplewell. Mary had left the room long ago, after giving her father a gentle kiss, and whispering to Willie, that he should have half of her twenty guineas for inventing things, which is a most expensive process, and should be more highly encouraged. Therefore she could not express at the moment her gratitude to squire Popplewell. But as soon as she heard of his generosity it lifted a great weight off her mind, and enabled her to think about furnishing a cottage. But she never told even her mother of that. Perhaps Robin might have seen someone he liked better. Perhaps he might have heard that stupid story about her having taken up with poor Henry Tanfield. And that might have driven him to wed a foreign lady, and therefore to fight so desperately. None, however, of these perhapses went very deeply into her heart, which was equally trusting and trusty. Now some of her confidence in the future was justified that very moment almost, by a sudden and great arrival, not of Jack Annerley and Robin Liff, who were known to be coming home together, but of a gentleman whose skill and activity deserved all thanks for every good thing that had happened. Well I am in a very nick of time, it's my nature, cried Mr Mordax, seated in the very best chair by the fire. Why you inquire with your native penetration? Simply because in very early days I acquired the habit of punctuality. This holding good, where an appointment is, holds good afterwards from the force of habit, in matters that are of luck alone. The need lie of time gets accustomed to be hit and turns itself up, without waiting for the clue. Wonderful Madeira! Well, Captain Annerley, no wonder that you have discouraged free trade with your sellers full of this. It is twenty years since I have tasted such wine. Mistress Annerley, I have the honour of qualifying this glass to your very best health, and that of a very charming young lady, who has hitherto failed to appreciate me. Then, sir, I am here to beg your pardon, said Mary, coming up with a beautiful blush. When I saw you first I did not enter into your—your—my outspoken manner and short business style, but I hope that you have come to like me better, all good persons do, when they come to know me. Yes, sir, I was quite ashamed of myself when I came to learn all that you have done for somebody, and your wonderful kindness at Bridlington. Famously said, you inherit from your mother the power and the charm of expression, and now, my dear lady, good Mistress Annerley, I shall undo all my great merits by showing that I am like the letter-writers, who never write until they have need of something. Captain Annerley, it concerns you also, as a military man and loyal soldier of King George. A gallant officer, highly distinguished in his own way, and very likely to get on in virtue of high connection, became of age some weeks back and being the heir to large estates, determined to entail them—I speak as in a parable—my meaning is one which the ladies will gracefully enter into. Being a large heir, he is not selfish, but would feign share his blessings with the little one. In a word, he is to marry a very beautiful young lady tomorrow, and under my agency, but he has a very delightful mother and an aunt of a lofty and commanding mind whose views, however, are comparatively narrow. For a hasty, brief season, they will be rough, and it would be unjust to be angry with them. But love's indignation is soon cured by absence, and tones down rapidly into desire to know how the sinner is getting on. In the present case, a fortnight will do the business, or, if for a month so much the better. Heroes are in demand just now, and this young gentleman took such a care in his very first fight that he became a hero, and so has behaved himself ever since. Ladies, I am astonished at your goodness in not interrupting me. Your minds must be as practical as my own. Now this lovely young pair, being married to-morrow, will have to go hunting for the honey in the moon, to which such enterprises lead. Sir, you are very right, Squire Popplewell replied, and that is Bible Truth, said the farmer. Our minds are enlarged by experience, resumed the genial factor pleasantly, and bowing to the ladies, who declined to say a word until a better opportunity. And we like to see the process going on with others. But a nest must be found for these young doves, a quiet one, a simple one, a place where they may learn to put up with one another's cookery. The secret of happiness in this world is not to be too particular. I have hit upon the very place to make them thankful by and by, when they come to look back upon it. A sweet little hole, half a league away from anybody. All is arranged, a frying-pan, a brownware teapot, a skin of lard, a cock and a hen, to lay some eggs, a hundred weight of ship biscuits warranted free from weevil, and a knife and fork, also a way to the sea, and a net for them to fish together. Nothing more delightful can be imagined. Under such circumstances they will settle in three days, which is to be the master, which I take to be the most important of all marriage settlements, and unless I am very much mistaken it will be the right one, the lady. My little heroine, Jerry Carroway, is engaged as their factotum, and every auspice is favourable, but without your consent all is knocked on the head, for the cottage is yours and the tenant won't go out even under temptation of five guineas, without your written order. Mistress Annerley, I appeal to you. Captains say nothing. This is a lady's question. Then I like to have a little voice sometimes, though it is not often that I get it, and, Mr. Mordax, I say yes, and out of the five guineas we shall get our rent, or some of it, perhaps, from poacher Tim, who owes us nigh upon two years now. The farmers smile that his wife's good thrift, and being in a pleasant mood, consented, if so be the law, could not be brought against him, and if the young couple would not stop too long, or have any family to fall upon the rates. The factor assured him against all evils, and then created quite a brisk sensation by telling them, in strict confidence, that the young officer was one Lancelot Yordas, own first cousin to the famous Robin Lyth, and nephew to Sir Duncan Yordas, and the lady was the daughter of Sir Duncan's oldest friend, the very one whose name he had given to his son. Wanda never ceased among them, when they thought had things came round. Things came round, not only thus, but also even better afterward. Mordax had a very beautiful revenge of laughter, I told Jellicourse, by outstripping him vastly in the family affairs, but Mr. Jellicourse did not care, so long as he still had eleven boxes left of title deeds to scargate all, no liability about the twelfth, and a very fair prospect of a lawsuit yet for the multiplication of a legal race, and meeting Mr. Mordax in the highest legal circles at Proctor Brigant's in Crypts Court, York, he acknowledged that he never met a more delightful gentleman, until he found out what his name was, and even then he offered him a pinch of snuff, and they shook hands very warmly without anything to pay. When Robin Liff came home he was dissatisfied at first, so difficult his mankind to please, because his good luck had been too good. No scratch of steel, no permanent scorch of power was upon him, and England was not in the mood to value any unwounded valour, but even here his good luck stood him in good stead, and cured his wrong, for when the body of the lamented hero arrived at Spithead, in spirits of wine. Early in December it was found that the Abrofty had failed to send down any orders about it. Reports, however, were current of some intention that the hero should lie in state, and the battered ship went on with him. And when at last proper care was shown and the relics of one of the noblest men that ever lived upon the tide of time were being transferred to a yacht at the North, Robin Liff in a sad and angry mood neglected to give a wide berth to the gun that was helping, to keep up the morning salute, and a piece of wad carried off his starboard whisker. This at once replaced him in the popular esteem, and enabled him to land upon the Yorkshire coast with a certainty of glorious welcome. Mr Mordax himself came down to meet him at the Northern Landing, with Dr Upround and Robin Coxcroft, and nearly all the men, and entirely all the women and children, of little Denmark. Strangers also from outlandish parts, Squire Popplewell and his wife Deborah, Mrs Caraway with her Tom and Jerry and Sissy and lesser Caraways, for her old Aunt Jane was gone to Paradise at last, and had left her enough to keep a pony carriage, and a great many others, and especially a group of four distinguished persons who stood at the top of the slide because of the trouble of getting back if they went down. These had a fair and double horse carriage in the lane, at the spot where the fish faced their last tribunal, and scarcely any brains but those of Flambra could have absorbed such a spectacle as this, together with the deeper expectations from the sea. Of these four persons two were young enough, and two not so young as they had been, but still very lively and well pleased with one another. These were Mrs Carnaby and Mr Bart. The pet of the one had united his lot with the darling of the other, for good or for bad, there was no getting out of it, and the only thing was to make the best of it, and being good people they were doing this successfully. Poor Mrs Carnaby had said to Mr Bart, as soon as Mr Mordax let her know about the wedding, oh, but Mr Bart, you are a gentleman now, are you not? I am sure you are, though you do such things, I am sure of it, by your countenance. Madam, Mr Bart replied with a bow that was decisive, if I am not, it is my own fault, it is the fault of every man. At this present moment they were standing with their children, Lancelot and Inzy, who had nicely recovered from matrimony and began to be too high spirited. They all knew, by virtue of Mr Mordax, who Robin Lys was, and they wanted to see him, and he declared to hear it, and be kind to him, if he made no claim upon them, and Mr Bart desired, as his father's friend, to shake hands with him and help him, if help were needed. But Robin, with a grace and elegance, which he must have imported from foreign parts, declined all connection and acquaintance with them, and declared his set resolve to have nothing to do with the name of Yordas. They were grieved, as they honestly declared, to hear it, but could not help owning that his pride was just, and they felt that their name was so richer for not having any poor people to share it. Yet Captain Lys, as he now was called, even by revenue officers, in no way impoverished his name by taking another to share it with him. The farmer declared that there should be no wedding until he had sold seven stacks of wheat, for his meaning was to do things well, but this obstacle did not last long, for there were times when corn was golden, not in landscape only. So when the spring was fair with promise of green from the earth, and of blue from heaven, and of silver grey upon the sea, the little church close to Annerley Farm filled up all the complement of colours. There was scarlet of Dr Uprown's hood, brought by the precious boy from Flambora, a rich plum colour in the coat of mordats, delicate rose and virgin white, in the blush and the brow of Mary, every tint of the rainbow on her mother's part, and gold, rich gold in the great tanned bag on behalf of Squire Pupplewell, his idea of a settlement was cashed down, and he put it on the parish register. Mary found no cause to repent of the long endurance of her truth, and the steadfast power of quiet love. Robbie was often in the distance still, far beyond the silvery streak of England's new salvation, but Mary prayed for his safe return, and safe he was, by the will of the Lord, which helps the man who helps himself, and has made his hand bigger than his tongue. When the war was over, Captain Lyth came home, and trained his children in the ways in which he should have walked, and the duties they should do and pay.