Volume One—Chapter Five.

Volume One—Chapter Five.Counting the Cost.“Miss Kingscott, I presume?” said Tom, bowing politely, as the lady gave a Parthian glance, sharp, quick, and incisive, of mingled recognition and command-to-keep-his-own-counsel-until-further-orders at hersoi-disantlover Markworth, who stood in the rear of his companion, and who, although he was startled at her appearance, was too much the cool man of the world to give expression aloud to his astonishment. “Humph!” he thought unto himself, as he pulled his wits together. “I’m to keep dark, I suppose,” and he adopted an air of well-bred indifference.Miss Kingscott smiled bewitchingly on the young squire.“I am Tom Hartshorne,” continued that gentleman, in a warm, friendly manner. “You have been very kind to my sister, and I hope we shall be friends.”This was a pleasant little fiction, by the way, on Tom’s part, as he had no previous knowledge whatever of Miss Kingscott’s kindness, or the reverse, but the young officer was of a gallant disposition.“Oh, indeed!” said the lady, with an air of agreeable surprise. “And so you are Mr Tom. I am sure dear Susan has spoken often enough to me about you. I am only Miss Hartshorne’s governess, you know, but I’ve no doubt we will be good friends as far as our respective positions will allow.”Humility was one of her cards, you see, but it was thrown away on Tom: he was more shocked than pleased, as others more purse-proud might have been, at the contrast drawn.“This is my friend Allynne Markworth,” he went on, hurriedly; “we ran down together for a week to dissipate the London dust. He and I are great friends, so I hope that we’ll all be jolly together.”Both inclined as if they had never seen each other before. Mr Markworth was remarkably deferential, with a concealed sneer on his lips, and the governess sweeping in her condescension.Some little commonplace expressions and conversation then passed between the party, and you would have thought it the most delightful trio in the world.All the while Susan Hartshorne was aloof from the party, seated in a corner of the half-furnished and half-lighted room, for the outside shutters were partially closed, and it looked as if it had not been inhabited for years—most probably a fire had not been lighted in its old grate since the squire’s death. She was playing on an antique-looking organ, with its zigzag rows of metal pipes which nearly filled up one end of the apartment, a fitful sort of air which rose and fell every now and then with a shriek like the last despairing moan of one of the lost spirits in Dante’s Inferno. Presently she ceased playing, and coming up to the others touched Tom on the arm.“Come, brother,” she said, in a low, soft voice, without any inflexion in it; and, taking no notice of either the governess or Markworth, she led him gently towards the door. “You must see my garden,” she continued, speaking to him as if they were alone, just in the same quiet tones.“I’ll be back presently; pray excuse me,” said Tom, as he went out; and Markworth and Miss Kingscott were left alone.The former was the first to speak.“So we’ve changed names, have we? Clara Joyce is dead, and Miss Kingscott reigns in her stead?”“Mr Allynne Markworth, however, is still flourishing, I see,” she replied, in accents whose sarcasm was bitter enough and apparent enough without glancing at her scornful flashing eyes.“Yes, small blame to you; but I don’t think you’ll play any more tricks with me again. Well, that’s long ago, and I can ‘forgive and forget;’ I shan’t rake up the past if you won’t. You are here under an assumed name, and—but what’s it to be, Clara, peace or war between us?”“Or you’ll unmask me, eh? You will tell all about the silly English teacher-girl who wasépriseof a swindling vagabond, and the mistress of whose school was so very correct as to discharge her without a character, will you? You’d like to get me turned out from here, the house of your rich country friends, would you?” she spoke rapidly and with intense bitterness. “Bah! I do not fear you, Allynne Markworth, any more than I do that baby-faced, idiot girl who has just left the room!”“What’s the use of going on like that, Clara? Who said that I was going to injure you, or that you were afraid of me? By Jove! I know to my cost you’re not. Why can’t you be calm and look at things reasonably? You and I may be able to assist each other, and it’s better for us to be friends than enemies.”“I care as little for your enmity as I do for the valuable friendship you gave me formerly. There can be little in common between us. Besides, even if I had the inclination, I don’t see how either you can help me, or I you.”“But you can help me very much.”“Ha! I thought you wanted something! No, there can be no accord between us. You are a man of the world, and I am, myself!” (here she laughed bitterly) “so let us each go our own way in peace or in war, just as you please—it’s indifferent to me.”“What nonsense!” said Markworth. “It is not indifferent to you. You can assist me here in this very house, and, if you do, it will be to your advantage.”“Of course, you don’t gain anything by it?”“If my scheme succeeds, you shall share the profits.”“You will take the lion’s share, I have no doubt! and if you fail?”“I alone will bear the loss.”“How generous you are!”“Well, do you consent to join forces? is it settled? Am I to tell Mrs Hartshorne—how pleased she’ll be to hear it!—the character of the governess she has got for her daughter, or are we to form an operative alliance!”“Markworth, you are a villain!”“Granted,” he said, calmly. “Do you agree?”“I suppose I must,” she replied. “You are not to interfere with me? and I—”“Will assist me to the best of your ability. That’s a bargain; I thought you would be reasonable, Clara.”“But what do you want me to do?” she asked, after a slight pause, fixing her eyes searchingly on his face.“It is nothing criminal. You will not have to commit yourself in any way. I don’t want you to do anything, in fact; I only want you to keep in the background, and not spoil sport. Will you do it?”“Agreed,” she answered. “And your grand scheme is—”“Marriage,” he said, curtly. “Well, it won’t be your first attempt in that way at all events! Of course, there’s a fortune in view, or you would not try that speculation. But who’s the lady—not me, I presume?” she enquired, with another of those short bitter laughs which sounded so strangely from her lips.“Not exactly!” he sneered; “I don’t think you and I would just suit one another. Listen,” he resumed, quietly, looking towards the door, and drawing closer to her, and sinking his voice as he spoke, “The girl is here—you understand?”“I confess I do not see your drift,” she said, wishing to draw him on to a full disclosure.“Pshaw! Clara, you are not a fool; you understand me well enough.”“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t.”“Your eyes are not so blind that you cannot see when it is to your own interests. But there’s no use in beating about the bush or mincing matters; you know this girl here.”“What! Susan Hartshorne—that poor idiot?” she exclaimed with well-acted amazement and horror.“That same and no other,” replied Markworth, positively blushing at being obliged actually to confess his own villainy. “But she’s not an idiot, she’s only foolish—half-silly; and there’s no harm in it,” he continued, half apologetically.“And you want to marry her?” said the other.“I do notwantto marry her; Imeanto marry her!” answered Markworth, quite himself again, and with his usual coolness andsang froid, “and you must help me. Listen! That girl has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. I am so hard run for money that unless I get some before the present month is up, I shall be ruined—that girl has money which she does not want, and can never feel the need of—do you follow me?—consequently I mean to marry that girl. Nobody cares for her here; her mother, I daresay, will be glad to get rid of her, and the girl will suffer no loss.”“You will take care of her, I suppose!” said the governess, in her pleasant biting way.“Yes, I will take care of her—as good care, I daresay, as she gets now.”“Well, and supposing I lent myself to your purposes, what am I to get—what is to be my share in the transaction? You don’t suppose I am going to assist you and risk my situation for nothing?”“I tell you what, Clara, if you help me in the affair I’ll give you two hundred pounds; I can’t give you more now, and I’ll have hard work to get that, for I daresay I will have to go through a long law suit before I can get her fortune, and spend most of it, perhaps, in doing so, even if I do succeed in marrying the girl and getting her off.”“It’s little enough! but how shall I know that you will pay me?—you have cheated me before, Markworth, and I would not trust your word for sixpence.”“You need not if you don’t like, but I’ll act fairly in the matter. I will give you a hundred before I get the girl away, and another hundred after I am married to her. There, will that do? If I don’t pay you, you can expose the whole affair; and if you go back on me you will implicate yourself afterwards; so it serves both our purposes to act squarely. Do you know what the girl’s age is?”“Yes, twenty-one; I saw her age in the old family Bible, which Mrs Hartshorne keeps up-stairs in her own room.”“Well I wish you would get me a look at it, or find out the exact date of her birthday for me—it’s important.”“I will let you know either this evening or to-morrow, better say to-morrow.”“That will do. Then the bargain is concluded between us. All I want you to do now is to help me gain the girl over, she looks tractable enough—and help me to get her away quietly. I’ll give you the hundred before I get her off; then as soon as I marry her you shall get the other century. I can’t help keeping my word to you, for you see it suits my own interest. It’s little enough I want you to do. If all goes well it will run hard if I don’t succeed and get the fortune, and I’ll remember you afterwards. Do you agree—is it a settled thing between us?”“Yes,” said she, apparently reflecting a moment. “I suppose that will do, for if you don’t pay me I shall then be able to disclose the whole transaction.”“Precisely,” he answered, complacently, “You can have me indicted for conspiracy and what not! but there’ll be no fear of that. We will not quarrel, Clara; what suits my book will suit yours.”Besides consulting Roger Hartshorne’s will he had obtained legal advice on his contemplated marriage before coming down to The Poplars.“Very well, if you are sensible you will play fair in the undertaking, and I shall be satisfied. If you keep your word I shall assist you; at all eventsIam not going to marry the girl, so I shan’t have anything to complain of if I get my money.”“I will pay you, never fear! and you must keep to your bargain, and allow me to work my own way with the girl, and assist me in the end to get her off. Don’t forget to let me know to-morrow her right age, and write down the date of her birth—it might be useful to me. But about the girl herself, she is not really mad, is she?”“I thought you yourself told me just now she was not.”“Bother! don’t be so aggravating, Clara; you ought to know the girl, and be able to tell me about her.”“You need not alarm yourself, Mr Allynne Markworth,” replied Miss Kingscott, with a sneer; “on the contrary, allow me to congratulate you. You have tumbled into luck’s way, and appear to have fallen upon your legs as usual. The girl is only, as you said, half-silly, and without being exactly an idiot can be made to do anything you and I please—that is, by judicious management.”She was going to say something further, but at this moment Tom re-entered the room, and, of course, the conversation was dropped.“I was just asking Miss Kingscott if she liked croquet, and, Tom, do you know—can you believe it, she has never heard of that flirtative and fascinating game?” said Markworth, in his usual free and elegant manner.“Really!” said Tom. “Then we must enlighten her. Markworth is the prince of croquetters, you know, Miss Kingscott”—turning to her, and that lady seemed pleased for the information, and transfixed poor Tom with her beautifully expressive eyes.“Fine girl,” he said presently to Markworth, as they went out of the room to smoke their cigars in the garden.“Ya-a-s,” he replied, spinning out his answer as if he had not quite made up his mind on the subject; “but she’s no chicken.”He was right, and he ought to know, at all events. Miss Kingscott was “no chicken,” either in years or in strength of mind.The evening passed quietly with Tom and his visitor, neither the governess nor Susan being seen again, and the old dowager was especially gracious as bed-time drew nigh. This was fixed at an early hour—ten o’clock.Markworth was presently in his room, and as he undressed he moralised on the events of the day, and the progress of his plot.“Rum, wasn’t it?” he soliloquised, “meeting Clara here; but it is a decided pull in my favour. The thing is regularlyen trainnow, and must come off soon. The girl is passable enough, and at all events I don’t care. I must risk Tom’s anger; but I don’t suppose he will mind it much—he’s soft, and I can manage him as I like. There’s only the old lady, and I hardly know how to wheedle her yet, she’s so downright and plain spoken. By Jove! of all the characters I ever met she’s one!”In the midst of his meditations a loud authoritative rap came to the door.“Your light?” said a thin, sharp voice, which he instantly recognised as Mrs Hartshorne’s.He opened the door, and nearly burst out laughing at the odd figure which presented itself. It was the dowager, clothed in a long white garment, and with an immense frilled night-cap on her head, and two or three candlesticks in one hand, and a huge bunch of keys in the other.“What are you staring like a stuck pig at? Give me your candlestick! All the lights in my house go out at half-past ten o’clock every night. That’s my rule, and I won’t break it for anyone, I don’t care who! Give me your light.”Markworth handed the candlestick to the old lady, who presently retreated down the passage with her arms outstretched, looking like the Witch of Endor.“No chance of a cigar here,” he said to himself, as he closed the door once more, and jumped into bed. “She would smell it at once; I’d back her nose against a pointer’s any day. She’s a rum un; of all the characters, by Jove! I ever met, she is one!”And he turned in his bed and slept the sleep of the just, in which the wicked equally share.

“Miss Kingscott, I presume?” said Tom, bowing politely, as the lady gave a Parthian glance, sharp, quick, and incisive, of mingled recognition and command-to-keep-his-own-counsel-until-further-orders at hersoi-disantlover Markworth, who stood in the rear of his companion, and who, although he was startled at her appearance, was too much the cool man of the world to give expression aloud to his astonishment. “Humph!” he thought unto himself, as he pulled his wits together. “I’m to keep dark, I suppose,” and he adopted an air of well-bred indifference.

Miss Kingscott smiled bewitchingly on the young squire.

“I am Tom Hartshorne,” continued that gentleman, in a warm, friendly manner. “You have been very kind to my sister, and I hope we shall be friends.”

This was a pleasant little fiction, by the way, on Tom’s part, as he had no previous knowledge whatever of Miss Kingscott’s kindness, or the reverse, but the young officer was of a gallant disposition.

“Oh, indeed!” said the lady, with an air of agreeable surprise. “And so you are Mr Tom. I am sure dear Susan has spoken often enough to me about you. I am only Miss Hartshorne’s governess, you know, but I’ve no doubt we will be good friends as far as our respective positions will allow.”

Humility was one of her cards, you see, but it was thrown away on Tom: he was more shocked than pleased, as others more purse-proud might have been, at the contrast drawn.

“This is my friend Allynne Markworth,” he went on, hurriedly; “we ran down together for a week to dissipate the London dust. He and I are great friends, so I hope that we’ll all be jolly together.”

Both inclined as if they had never seen each other before. Mr Markworth was remarkably deferential, with a concealed sneer on his lips, and the governess sweeping in her condescension.

Some little commonplace expressions and conversation then passed between the party, and you would have thought it the most delightful trio in the world.

All the while Susan Hartshorne was aloof from the party, seated in a corner of the half-furnished and half-lighted room, for the outside shutters were partially closed, and it looked as if it had not been inhabited for years—most probably a fire had not been lighted in its old grate since the squire’s death. She was playing on an antique-looking organ, with its zigzag rows of metal pipes which nearly filled up one end of the apartment, a fitful sort of air which rose and fell every now and then with a shriek like the last despairing moan of one of the lost spirits in Dante’s Inferno. Presently she ceased playing, and coming up to the others touched Tom on the arm.

“Come, brother,” she said, in a low, soft voice, without any inflexion in it; and, taking no notice of either the governess or Markworth, she led him gently towards the door. “You must see my garden,” she continued, speaking to him as if they were alone, just in the same quiet tones.

“I’ll be back presently; pray excuse me,” said Tom, as he went out; and Markworth and Miss Kingscott were left alone.

The former was the first to speak.

“So we’ve changed names, have we? Clara Joyce is dead, and Miss Kingscott reigns in her stead?”

“Mr Allynne Markworth, however, is still flourishing, I see,” she replied, in accents whose sarcasm was bitter enough and apparent enough without glancing at her scornful flashing eyes.

“Yes, small blame to you; but I don’t think you’ll play any more tricks with me again. Well, that’s long ago, and I can ‘forgive and forget;’ I shan’t rake up the past if you won’t. You are here under an assumed name, and—but what’s it to be, Clara, peace or war between us?”

“Or you’ll unmask me, eh? You will tell all about the silly English teacher-girl who wasépriseof a swindling vagabond, and the mistress of whose school was so very correct as to discharge her without a character, will you? You’d like to get me turned out from here, the house of your rich country friends, would you?” she spoke rapidly and with intense bitterness. “Bah! I do not fear you, Allynne Markworth, any more than I do that baby-faced, idiot girl who has just left the room!”

“What’s the use of going on like that, Clara? Who said that I was going to injure you, or that you were afraid of me? By Jove! I know to my cost you’re not. Why can’t you be calm and look at things reasonably? You and I may be able to assist each other, and it’s better for us to be friends than enemies.”

“I care as little for your enmity as I do for the valuable friendship you gave me formerly. There can be little in common between us. Besides, even if I had the inclination, I don’t see how either you can help me, or I you.”

“But you can help me very much.”

“Ha! I thought you wanted something! No, there can be no accord between us. You are a man of the world, and I am, myself!” (here she laughed bitterly) “so let us each go our own way in peace or in war, just as you please—it’s indifferent to me.”

“What nonsense!” said Markworth. “It is not indifferent to you. You can assist me here in this very house, and, if you do, it will be to your advantage.”

“Of course, you don’t gain anything by it?”

“If my scheme succeeds, you shall share the profits.”

“You will take the lion’s share, I have no doubt! and if you fail?”

“I alone will bear the loss.”

“How generous you are!”

“Well, do you consent to join forces? is it settled? Am I to tell Mrs Hartshorne—how pleased she’ll be to hear it!—the character of the governess she has got for her daughter, or are we to form an operative alliance!”

“Markworth, you are a villain!”

“Granted,” he said, calmly. “Do you agree?”

“I suppose I must,” she replied. “You are not to interfere with me? and I—”

“Will assist me to the best of your ability. That’s a bargain; I thought you would be reasonable, Clara.”

“But what do you want me to do?” she asked, after a slight pause, fixing her eyes searchingly on his face.

“It is nothing criminal. You will not have to commit yourself in any way. I don’t want you to do anything, in fact; I only want you to keep in the background, and not spoil sport. Will you do it?”

“Agreed,” she answered. “And your grand scheme is—”

“Marriage,” he said, curtly. “Well, it won’t be your first attempt in that way at all events! Of course, there’s a fortune in view, or you would not try that speculation. But who’s the lady—not me, I presume?” she enquired, with another of those short bitter laughs which sounded so strangely from her lips.

“Not exactly!” he sneered; “I don’t think you and I would just suit one another. Listen,” he resumed, quietly, looking towards the door, and drawing closer to her, and sinking his voice as he spoke, “The girl is here—you understand?”

“I confess I do not see your drift,” she said, wishing to draw him on to a full disclosure.

“Pshaw! Clara, you are not a fool; you understand me well enough.”

“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t.”

“Your eyes are not so blind that you cannot see when it is to your own interests. But there’s no use in beating about the bush or mincing matters; you know this girl here.”

“What! Susan Hartshorne—that poor idiot?” she exclaimed with well-acted amazement and horror.

“That same and no other,” replied Markworth, positively blushing at being obliged actually to confess his own villainy. “But she’s not an idiot, she’s only foolish—half-silly; and there’s no harm in it,” he continued, half apologetically.

“And you want to marry her?” said the other.

“I do notwantto marry her; Imeanto marry her!” answered Markworth, quite himself again, and with his usual coolness andsang froid, “and you must help me. Listen! That girl has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. I am so hard run for money that unless I get some before the present month is up, I shall be ruined—that girl has money which she does not want, and can never feel the need of—do you follow me?—consequently I mean to marry that girl. Nobody cares for her here; her mother, I daresay, will be glad to get rid of her, and the girl will suffer no loss.”

“You will take care of her, I suppose!” said the governess, in her pleasant biting way.

“Yes, I will take care of her—as good care, I daresay, as she gets now.”

“Well, and supposing I lent myself to your purposes, what am I to get—what is to be my share in the transaction? You don’t suppose I am going to assist you and risk my situation for nothing?”

“I tell you what, Clara, if you help me in the affair I’ll give you two hundred pounds; I can’t give you more now, and I’ll have hard work to get that, for I daresay I will have to go through a long law suit before I can get her fortune, and spend most of it, perhaps, in doing so, even if I do succeed in marrying the girl and getting her off.”

“It’s little enough! but how shall I know that you will pay me?—you have cheated me before, Markworth, and I would not trust your word for sixpence.”

“You need not if you don’t like, but I’ll act fairly in the matter. I will give you a hundred before I get the girl away, and another hundred after I am married to her. There, will that do? If I don’t pay you, you can expose the whole affair; and if you go back on me you will implicate yourself afterwards; so it serves both our purposes to act squarely. Do you know what the girl’s age is?”

“Yes, twenty-one; I saw her age in the old family Bible, which Mrs Hartshorne keeps up-stairs in her own room.”

“Well I wish you would get me a look at it, or find out the exact date of her birthday for me—it’s important.”

“I will let you know either this evening or to-morrow, better say to-morrow.”

“That will do. Then the bargain is concluded between us. All I want you to do now is to help me gain the girl over, she looks tractable enough—and help me to get her away quietly. I’ll give you the hundred before I get her off; then as soon as I marry her you shall get the other century. I can’t help keeping my word to you, for you see it suits my own interest. It’s little enough I want you to do. If all goes well it will run hard if I don’t succeed and get the fortune, and I’ll remember you afterwards. Do you agree—is it a settled thing between us?”

“Yes,” said she, apparently reflecting a moment. “I suppose that will do, for if you don’t pay me I shall then be able to disclose the whole transaction.”

“Precisely,” he answered, complacently, “You can have me indicted for conspiracy and what not! but there’ll be no fear of that. We will not quarrel, Clara; what suits my book will suit yours.”

Besides consulting Roger Hartshorne’s will he had obtained legal advice on his contemplated marriage before coming down to The Poplars.

“Very well, if you are sensible you will play fair in the undertaking, and I shall be satisfied. If you keep your word I shall assist you; at all eventsIam not going to marry the girl, so I shan’t have anything to complain of if I get my money.”

“I will pay you, never fear! and you must keep to your bargain, and allow me to work my own way with the girl, and assist me in the end to get her off. Don’t forget to let me know to-morrow her right age, and write down the date of her birth—it might be useful to me. But about the girl herself, she is not really mad, is she?”

“I thought you yourself told me just now she was not.”

“Bother! don’t be so aggravating, Clara; you ought to know the girl, and be able to tell me about her.”

“You need not alarm yourself, Mr Allynne Markworth,” replied Miss Kingscott, with a sneer; “on the contrary, allow me to congratulate you. You have tumbled into luck’s way, and appear to have fallen upon your legs as usual. The girl is only, as you said, half-silly, and without being exactly an idiot can be made to do anything you and I please—that is, by judicious management.”

She was going to say something further, but at this moment Tom re-entered the room, and, of course, the conversation was dropped.

“I was just asking Miss Kingscott if she liked croquet, and, Tom, do you know—can you believe it, she has never heard of that flirtative and fascinating game?” said Markworth, in his usual free and elegant manner.

“Really!” said Tom. “Then we must enlighten her. Markworth is the prince of croquetters, you know, Miss Kingscott”—turning to her, and that lady seemed pleased for the information, and transfixed poor Tom with her beautifully expressive eyes.

“Fine girl,” he said presently to Markworth, as they went out of the room to smoke their cigars in the garden.

“Ya-a-s,” he replied, spinning out his answer as if he had not quite made up his mind on the subject; “but she’s no chicken.”

He was right, and he ought to know, at all events. Miss Kingscott was “no chicken,” either in years or in strength of mind.

The evening passed quietly with Tom and his visitor, neither the governess nor Susan being seen again, and the old dowager was especially gracious as bed-time drew nigh. This was fixed at an early hour—ten o’clock.

Markworth was presently in his room, and as he undressed he moralised on the events of the day, and the progress of his plot.

“Rum, wasn’t it?” he soliloquised, “meeting Clara here; but it is a decided pull in my favour. The thing is regularlyen trainnow, and must come off soon. The girl is passable enough, and at all events I don’t care. I must risk Tom’s anger; but I don’t suppose he will mind it much—he’s soft, and I can manage him as I like. There’s only the old lady, and I hardly know how to wheedle her yet, she’s so downright and plain spoken. By Jove! of all the characters I ever met she’s one!”

In the midst of his meditations a loud authoritative rap came to the door.

“Your light?” said a thin, sharp voice, which he instantly recognised as Mrs Hartshorne’s.

He opened the door, and nearly burst out laughing at the odd figure which presented itself. It was the dowager, clothed in a long white garment, and with an immense frilled night-cap on her head, and two or three candlesticks in one hand, and a huge bunch of keys in the other.

“What are you staring like a stuck pig at? Give me your candlestick! All the lights in my house go out at half-past ten o’clock every night. That’s my rule, and I won’t break it for anyone, I don’t care who! Give me your light.”

Markworth handed the candlestick to the old lady, who presently retreated down the passage with her arms outstretched, looking like the Witch of Endor.

“No chance of a cigar here,” he said to himself, as he closed the door once more, and jumped into bed. “She would smell it at once; I’d back her nose against a pointer’s any day. She’s a rum un; of all the characters, by Jove! I ever met, she is one!”

And he turned in his bed and slept the sleep of the just, in which the wicked equally share.

Volume One—Chapter Six.Concerning Certain Young Persons.It came to pass on the following Sunday, two days after their arrival, that Tom and his friend went to church along with the dowager, as befitted respectable people, and a family of state in the county. Not to the parish church, where the Rev. Jabez Heavieman preached his ponderous sermons, and warned his congregation of their approaching perdition, and the damnation of their souls, in his customary evangelical style. Oh, no! but to the altogether-of-a-different-sort-of-a-doctrine little edifice in Hartwood village, which specially belonged to the Sussex Dowager. Indeed she regarded not only the church as her own peculiar property, but also its officiating clergyman, clerk, school children, nay, even the very future hopes of salvation of the worshippers who frequented it.Hartwood Church was as unpretending a building as to its style as The Poplars.It was a small ungainly-looking, low-roofed structure, oblong with a stone cross at one end, and a short square tower at the other. It was built of rough stone, and had apparently been constructed with a deficient supply of mortar; and a small abutment, which it had on one side for the requirements of the porch and vestry-room, had more the semblance of a shed attached to a farmhouse than anything else. It was an old church, too, probably much older than the one belonging to the parish; and its little churchyard, encircled by rude wooden palings, contained some monuments and tombstones, which were grey with age and as rough as when they were first hewn from the quarry, telling how “John Giles, aetat 95,” and “Richard Chawbacon, aetat 104,” both of whom departed this life Anno Domini 16 hundred and something, were there entombed. All the Hartshorne family, too, from Geoffrey Hartshorne, who founded the race and belonged to the Roundhead party in the days of Cromwell, down to the last old squire, there rested their bones in peace. One peculiarity of the churchyard, however, consisted in the great age to which its inhabitants had attained before shaking off this mortal coil. Ninety years was a comparatively early time for any of the former citizens of Hartwood to dream of sleeping with his fathers; and although you occasionally came across an inscription sacred to the memory of a young man of seventy or thereabouts, the majority of the departed were mostly centenarians.The interior of the church was very different to what you might have expected from the outside view. The dowager, to do her justice, was not mean in all things; and, although she would screw her tenants down and pinch her household, she could occasionally—very occasionally it must be confessed—be not only liberal but grand in her views, that is when it suited her book. She had had the church newly fitted up some short time before, when her High Church fever and devotion to Ritualism had first begun; and all its columns and crossbeams and rough rafters, which could be seen within, were newly varnished and resplendent in their graining. The chancel, too, was a wonder of blue and gold, and she had also presented a novel reading-desk orlectern, consisting of a brass eagle with outstretched wings, which stood in the centre of the aisle, and presented quite a grand appearance.The pews were not what one generally calls pews at all: they were a series of high-backed benches, armed at each end, and placed in rows down the middle of the aisle facing the pulpit and chancel, those at the side being arranged at right angles, so that the lateral pews faced each other; this position must be borne in mind, as it accounts for a trifling circumstance which led to the origin of the present chapter.Slowly and majestically Mrs Hartshorne marched into the church, and slowly and majestically Tom marched after her, carrying her large prayer-book and Bible of the size originally distributed by the Religious Tract Society—a service generally performed by the henchman “Jarge,” as he pronounced his own name—while Markworth brought up the rear of the procession.The dowager’s pew was immediately opposite the pulpit, and, of course, facing the side pews on the other side behind the reading-desk, the front one of which was devoted to the use of the incumbent for the time being and his family, in case he had any.Up the aisle in its onward and solemn progress the procession passed, and the dowager was soon ensconced in the extreme upper corner of the pew, with her devotional exercises arranged before her on theprie-Dieu, and her hands folded on her lap, now deprived of their customary woollen envelopes, as prim as you please. “Primness was no name for it, sir,” as Markworth said afterwards to Tom; “her position was—yes, sir, statuesque, by Jove!” The guest sat bodkin between the two, while Tom occupied the corner—by the place where the door should have been if there had been one—from which point he could command a portion of the clerical pew, otherwise obscured from general observation, at least on this side of the house, by the reading-desk.Tom, I am sorry to say, was not particularly devout in church. He would keep his eyes straying from his book, and yet his attention did not wander over the whole edifice, for he looked straight in front of him, and none but a very curious observer could have detected his lack of devotional zeal. His mother did not notice it, for she was apparently plunged heart and soul into the liturgy, although really making up her mind as to the feasibility of raising Farmer Grigg’s rent upon having seen the daughters of that unfortunate worthy, who were esteemed the belles of the village, come into church with new bonnets and actually silk dresses! “when I can not afford them, the brazen hussies.” As for Markworth he was wondering what a rum lot the Chawbacons were, and how funny they all looked clean washed and scraped, and with their elaborately-braided white smock-frocks on over their black trowsers, looking as if they had donned surplices, or, as he hit upon a better illustration, as if they had put on their night-shirts—I beg pardon,rôbes de chambre—and come out by mistake instead of going to bed. So Tom had it all his own way.Tom was observant, but it was nothing so very noticeable that attracted his attention. It was only a bonnet! only a little coquettish arrangement of ribbons and lace, and very little crown to it, if any,—only one of those tiny specimens of Madame Charles or Leroux, handiwork which you can see any day in Leicester Square, and which though apparently so trifling are worth far more than their weight in gold—as poor Paterfamilias knew to his cost. It is a dainty, demure little article enough, but nothing in it is there to warrant this wrapt attention on Tom’s part.Can he be considering how two ribbons can be held together in that artful mode by a mere straw? is he a disciple of the millinery art? No, that would not make the gallant young officer gaze so entrancingly, and cause the ruddy flush of excitement to colour his budding cheek! Master Tom is not so simple as that, although he may be a most ingenuous youth. The bonnet has a wearer who will keep her eyes bent down as earnestly as Tom persists in raising his from his book, and fixing them over the way, except now and then an occasional blushing little look across, and then once more down deep into the service again. It is a pretty little bonnet and has a pretty little owner, as Tom thinks. He “considers it a shame,” but he cannot help letting his enquiring optics travel over the way. Young rogue! how he enjoys seeing the colour which his too-earnest gaze calls up—the pink signal of maidenly reserve, pleasure, coyness, consciousness.There is no blame attached to Tom, those heavenly violet eyes have done it all. He could not help it even if he would. Tom is hopelessly in love—love at first sight—with pretty Lizzie Pringle, Mrs Hartshorne’s young incumbent’s sister. He is thoroughly in for it, as much as if he had known her for months or years.It is all very well for you, Monsieur Cynic, or you, Madame Artless, to say that there is no such thing as “love at first sight.” Of course it is foolish, but it is not impossible; Cupid, my dear sir or madam, is a most erratic as well aseroticyoung gentleman, and plays some strange pranks sometimes. A glance from a pair of bright eyes will some times, one glance, effect a wonderful metamorphosis in even the sternest misogynists, create a revolution, ruin an empire. Look at history, Monsieur Cynic, and answer me if you dare. Nay, my dear sir, it is not impossible, not even improbable. A single word, one look between sympathetic souls, often establishes that cordial affinity which years of intercourse, and dictionaries of words, and oceans of sighs will not create between others who have not met their mental kindred. Philosophy cannot argue against Cupidon; he laughs Plato and his platitudes to scorn.Dixi! I have spoken. Tom has fallen in love, and it was a clear case of love at first sight, with Lizzie Pringle just the girl he was ordained—in a non-clerical sense—to fall in love with.She was as nice a little thing as you could conceive—slim, petite, with dark brown hair nearly black, such heavenly violet eyes with liquid depths, and the most ravishing little rosebud of a mouth and piquante little nose possible for any one but a fairy to possess; she was so winning, innocent, pretty a specimen of God’s gift to man, that the fact is Master Tom would have deserved being called aneingebornen knarren, adopting the German text for fool, if he hadnotfallen a victim immediately to her violet eyes. And then she was dressed so bewitchingly—not in gaudy contrasts, or in the extreme of themode, but so neatly and in such a ladylike manner that she must have attracted even wiser heads than his.Of course she saw him looking at her—of course she did! “What a rude staring fellow he is to be sure!” she said to herself mentally, and resolved not to look that way again but to fix her attention sternly on the Thirty-nine Articles; still she would have just one peep more.—“There he is again, the great rude creature! What nice blue eyes he has, and such a little love of a moustache! and what on earth can he find to look at so persistently over here?” And down would go the long dark lashes again, and a little conscious blush would rise, and even the tender little ears and supple white neck would be encrimsoned. “It must be Mister Tom,” she determined, “that dark ugly man that went in with Mistress Hartshorne could not be him; but he is a very naughty fellow to be staring at a young lady like that.” Yet she would go on to excuse him to herself. “Perhaps he does not know any better, poor fellow; he’s very young” (she was just seventeen mind you), “and when I know him I will tell him what I think of his rudeness.” And then she would wonder to herself whether she ever would know him, and it sent a pang to her little heart when she thought she might not, and then Master Tom would catch her eye, and the tell-tale blush would hang out its pink flag again, and there would be a little flush of happiness, and soda capo. Just picture to yourself, Corydon, your little flirtation orgrande passionwith Phyllis, and you can easily fill up all the blanks and imagine the rest.The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., Oxon, who now filled the living at Hartwood, was a very young man; but a very great man in his own estimation, and in that of some others also, as to family, talents, and ritualistic attainments in the church. He was the cousin, twice removed, of Sir Boanerges Todhunter the great anti-taxpayer and member of the Opposition, belonged to the extensive High Church party at Oxford, had gained some celebrity at the Union Debating Club; and here he was now the regular incumbent (for a term of only five years be it known, for the Sussex Dowager liked always to have a hold on her tenants in the matter of leases, and stretched her authority to the livings she had in her gift) of a respectable church in a good county, where he could do as he pleased—at an age when the majority of his compeers would be struggling along perhaps in their first curacies.He had reason to be proud of himself; and really, putting aside a certain priggishness of manner and affectation of style, he was not such a very bad fellow. Take him out of the church, and he would have been a regular jolly fellow, who would have got along capitally in a mess room or in a hunting county, for he was dearly inclined to horseflesh, and had kept his two hunters at Swain’s before he had “gone in” for the High Church party of “young Oxford.” He was a short, well-built, straw-whiskered man of some eight and twenty, although almost boyish in manner and in face. He had pleased the dowager by the way in which he had officiated as curate during the long illness of the late incumbent, and she had determined to put him in the vacant pulpit, if only out of opposition, as has been observed before, to the Reverend Jabez Heavieman, whom she cordially detested.Herbert Pringle had therefore tumbled upon a snug thing. “His lines had fallen in pleasant places,” so here he was inducted into the living of Hartwood. His first step was to set up housekeeping, in order to do which he had to bring his favourite little sister Lizzie from school to “keep house” for him, and then he set about making further improvements in his district, for which he hadcarte blanchefrom the dowager, who, whenever she heard of some fresh innovation, thought to herself, “I wonder what that old hypocrite”—alluding to the Reverend Jabez—“thinks of that now!”The restoration of the church was effected at the new incumbent’s especial request; and the brass lectern was given by the old lady because the young divine had munificently presented a huge painted window, the subject of which was a large cross, erected just over the chancel. Then a new harmonium was got in place of a wretched old “spinet,” which had previously done duty for an organ, and a choir was regularly established from amongst the school children that sang the responses in church now every Sunday, its members clad in little dirty white surplices.He was all in favour of ceremonials, was the Reverend Herbert Pringle; and although he perhaps “meant well” according to his judgment, he was very affected, and “High Church” all through the service—to the intense astonishment of the farmers and poor labourers, who used to wonder at the new style of worship adopted in their old church, and be perplexed with all the bowings and genuflections, and especially with the white-surpliced choir.To give him his due, however, he did not preach a bad sermon, and had a very effective way of appealing to the pockets of his hearers when any charity required his aid; but he read always in a light, jocular, hurried manner, as if he were under an engagement to get over a certain portion of ground in a fixed time, and he always said, or intoned, “Awe-men” instead of Amen at the end of the prayers.He had now been in possession of his cure for more than six months, and consequently felt at home in it. His improvements, too, had now been got accustomed to; and although he was thought somewhat queer in his notions by the heavy agriculturists around him, he was pretty well liked on the whole. As for his sister Lizzie, she was idolised by poor and rich around: to tell the truth, it is my opinion that a good deal of her brother’s popularity arose from his connection with the young lady with the violet eyes.Tom’s bad behaviour continued all through the service, and his eyes were not still even during the eloquent discourse which the young divine afterwards delivered, on the “Vanity of human wishes”—would that Tom could have applied the text! In going out of the church, he allowed his mother and Markworth to go on in front, and hung back in the rear. He could see that his charmer had not yet stirred from her pew, although nearly all the congregation were out, and he wondered what made her linger.Fortunately, he was not long kept in suspense. He passed our old friend “Jarge” in the porch, and incontinently asked that individual “who was the young lady in the rector’s pew?”“Lor sakes! Measter Tummus, don’t you know un? Whoi, thet’s the porsun’s seestur; that be Missy Pringle, Measter Tummus!”“Thank you, George,” answered our hero; and how overjoyed he felt as he walked along after the others. He knew Pringle well, although he was not aware that he had a sister; and “of course I can easily get introduced,” he thought very naturally.The following Monday, strange to say, Tom begged Markworth to excuse him for some little time, as he had to pay a visit, and he set off alone to the parsonage.Naturally he was “only going to pay a regular call;” it was only proper that he should pay a visit to his friend Pringle, whom he had not seen “since last year, by Jove!” and to congratulate him on his ecclesiastical preferment. That was all! And so Master Tom rode up to the parsonage on one of the old horses, which the dowager had retained in the stables—probably on account of its not being fit for farm-work—the very next morning after seeing Lizzie.Pringle was glad to see him, and his sister was introduced to the “young squire,” who tried to make himself as agreeable as possible, but was painfully embarrassed during his entire visit; and yet, before he had gone away, Lizzie thought him “such a nice fellow,” and she was “oh, what a darling” to him.—The two young things were drinking deep draughts of love which were intoxicating them and drawing them nearer and nearer to each other in a sort of rose-coloured Paradise, which the mere presence of the one conjured up to the other. And then he had to go, and it was pleasant to go, merely to have those taper fingers in his, which pressure sent a thrill of sweet electricity through his frame, while even she trembled and blushed—and then came the pang of parting.On the morrow, he had to come and see “Pringle’s new fishing rod,” and show him his own, for it would be so jolly to fish from the lawn at the back of the parsonage, that ran down to the little river which contained such capital perch! and of course he could not help meeting her again, and she wanted to see the “poor little fish that were caught!”Bless you, my darling, there were other fish caught that morning besides perch! How hackneyed, and yet how novel are the windings and twistings in the fairy land of Love’s Young Dream!It was all over with them.

It came to pass on the following Sunday, two days after their arrival, that Tom and his friend went to church along with the dowager, as befitted respectable people, and a family of state in the county. Not to the parish church, where the Rev. Jabez Heavieman preached his ponderous sermons, and warned his congregation of their approaching perdition, and the damnation of their souls, in his customary evangelical style. Oh, no! but to the altogether-of-a-different-sort-of-a-doctrine little edifice in Hartwood village, which specially belonged to the Sussex Dowager. Indeed she regarded not only the church as her own peculiar property, but also its officiating clergyman, clerk, school children, nay, even the very future hopes of salvation of the worshippers who frequented it.

Hartwood Church was as unpretending a building as to its style as The Poplars.

It was a small ungainly-looking, low-roofed structure, oblong with a stone cross at one end, and a short square tower at the other. It was built of rough stone, and had apparently been constructed with a deficient supply of mortar; and a small abutment, which it had on one side for the requirements of the porch and vestry-room, had more the semblance of a shed attached to a farmhouse than anything else. It was an old church, too, probably much older than the one belonging to the parish; and its little churchyard, encircled by rude wooden palings, contained some monuments and tombstones, which were grey with age and as rough as when they were first hewn from the quarry, telling how “John Giles, aetat 95,” and “Richard Chawbacon, aetat 104,” both of whom departed this life Anno Domini 16 hundred and something, were there entombed. All the Hartshorne family, too, from Geoffrey Hartshorne, who founded the race and belonged to the Roundhead party in the days of Cromwell, down to the last old squire, there rested their bones in peace. One peculiarity of the churchyard, however, consisted in the great age to which its inhabitants had attained before shaking off this mortal coil. Ninety years was a comparatively early time for any of the former citizens of Hartwood to dream of sleeping with his fathers; and although you occasionally came across an inscription sacred to the memory of a young man of seventy or thereabouts, the majority of the departed were mostly centenarians.

The interior of the church was very different to what you might have expected from the outside view. The dowager, to do her justice, was not mean in all things; and, although she would screw her tenants down and pinch her household, she could occasionally—very occasionally it must be confessed—be not only liberal but grand in her views, that is when it suited her book. She had had the church newly fitted up some short time before, when her High Church fever and devotion to Ritualism had first begun; and all its columns and crossbeams and rough rafters, which could be seen within, were newly varnished and resplendent in their graining. The chancel, too, was a wonder of blue and gold, and she had also presented a novel reading-desk orlectern, consisting of a brass eagle with outstretched wings, which stood in the centre of the aisle, and presented quite a grand appearance.

The pews were not what one generally calls pews at all: they were a series of high-backed benches, armed at each end, and placed in rows down the middle of the aisle facing the pulpit and chancel, those at the side being arranged at right angles, so that the lateral pews faced each other; this position must be borne in mind, as it accounts for a trifling circumstance which led to the origin of the present chapter.

Slowly and majestically Mrs Hartshorne marched into the church, and slowly and majestically Tom marched after her, carrying her large prayer-book and Bible of the size originally distributed by the Religious Tract Society—a service generally performed by the henchman “Jarge,” as he pronounced his own name—while Markworth brought up the rear of the procession.

The dowager’s pew was immediately opposite the pulpit, and, of course, facing the side pews on the other side behind the reading-desk, the front one of which was devoted to the use of the incumbent for the time being and his family, in case he had any.

Up the aisle in its onward and solemn progress the procession passed, and the dowager was soon ensconced in the extreme upper corner of the pew, with her devotional exercises arranged before her on theprie-Dieu, and her hands folded on her lap, now deprived of their customary woollen envelopes, as prim as you please. “Primness was no name for it, sir,” as Markworth said afterwards to Tom; “her position was—yes, sir, statuesque, by Jove!” The guest sat bodkin between the two, while Tom occupied the corner—by the place where the door should have been if there had been one—from which point he could command a portion of the clerical pew, otherwise obscured from general observation, at least on this side of the house, by the reading-desk.

Tom, I am sorry to say, was not particularly devout in church. He would keep his eyes straying from his book, and yet his attention did not wander over the whole edifice, for he looked straight in front of him, and none but a very curious observer could have detected his lack of devotional zeal. His mother did not notice it, for she was apparently plunged heart and soul into the liturgy, although really making up her mind as to the feasibility of raising Farmer Grigg’s rent upon having seen the daughters of that unfortunate worthy, who were esteemed the belles of the village, come into church with new bonnets and actually silk dresses! “when I can not afford them, the brazen hussies.” As for Markworth he was wondering what a rum lot the Chawbacons were, and how funny they all looked clean washed and scraped, and with their elaborately-braided white smock-frocks on over their black trowsers, looking as if they had donned surplices, or, as he hit upon a better illustration, as if they had put on their night-shirts—I beg pardon,rôbes de chambre—and come out by mistake instead of going to bed. So Tom had it all his own way.

Tom was observant, but it was nothing so very noticeable that attracted his attention. It was only a bonnet! only a little coquettish arrangement of ribbons and lace, and very little crown to it, if any,—only one of those tiny specimens of Madame Charles or Leroux, handiwork which you can see any day in Leicester Square, and which though apparently so trifling are worth far more than their weight in gold—as poor Paterfamilias knew to his cost. It is a dainty, demure little article enough, but nothing in it is there to warrant this wrapt attention on Tom’s part.

Can he be considering how two ribbons can be held together in that artful mode by a mere straw? is he a disciple of the millinery art? No, that would not make the gallant young officer gaze so entrancingly, and cause the ruddy flush of excitement to colour his budding cheek! Master Tom is not so simple as that, although he may be a most ingenuous youth. The bonnet has a wearer who will keep her eyes bent down as earnestly as Tom persists in raising his from his book, and fixing them over the way, except now and then an occasional blushing little look across, and then once more down deep into the service again. It is a pretty little bonnet and has a pretty little owner, as Tom thinks. He “considers it a shame,” but he cannot help letting his enquiring optics travel over the way. Young rogue! how he enjoys seeing the colour which his too-earnest gaze calls up—the pink signal of maidenly reserve, pleasure, coyness, consciousness.

There is no blame attached to Tom, those heavenly violet eyes have done it all. He could not help it even if he would. Tom is hopelessly in love—love at first sight—with pretty Lizzie Pringle, Mrs Hartshorne’s young incumbent’s sister. He is thoroughly in for it, as much as if he had known her for months or years.

It is all very well for you, Monsieur Cynic, or you, Madame Artless, to say that there is no such thing as “love at first sight.” Of course it is foolish, but it is not impossible; Cupid, my dear sir or madam, is a most erratic as well aseroticyoung gentleman, and plays some strange pranks sometimes. A glance from a pair of bright eyes will some times, one glance, effect a wonderful metamorphosis in even the sternest misogynists, create a revolution, ruin an empire. Look at history, Monsieur Cynic, and answer me if you dare. Nay, my dear sir, it is not impossible, not even improbable. A single word, one look between sympathetic souls, often establishes that cordial affinity which years of intercourse, and dictionaries of words, and oceans of sighs will not create between others who have not met their mental kindred. Philosophy cannot argue against Cupidon; he laughs Plato and his platitudes to scorn.Dixi! I have spoken. Tom has fallen in love, and it was a clear case of love at first sight, with Lizzie Pringle just the girl he was ordained—in a non-clerical sense—to fall in love with.

She was as nice a little thing as you could conceive—slim, petite, with dark brown hair nearly black, such heavenly violet eyes with liquid depths, and the most ravishing little rosebud of a mouth and piquante little nose possible for any one but a fairy to possess; she was so winning, innocent, pretty a specimen of God’s gift to man, that the fact is Master Tom would have deserved being called aneingebornen knarren, adopting the German text for fool, if he hadnotfallen a victim immediately to her violet eyes. And then she was dressed so bewitchingly—not in gaudy contrasts, or in the extreme of themode, but so neatly and in such a ladylike manner that she must have attracted even wiser heads than his.

Of course she saw him looking at her—of course she did! “What a rude staring fellow he is to be sure!” she said to herself mentally, and resolved not to look that way again but to fix her attention sternly on the Thirty-nine Articles; still she would have just one peep more.—“There he is again, the great rude creature! What nice blue eyes he has, and such a little love of a moustache! and what on earth can he find to look at so persistently over here?” And down would go the long dark lashes again, and a little conscious blush would rise, and even the tender little ears and supple white neck would be encrimsoned. “It must be Mister Tom,” she determined, “that dark ugly man that went in with Mistress Hartshorne could not be him; but he is a very naughty fellow to be staring at a young lady like that.” Yet she would go on to excuse him to herself. “Perhaps he does not know any better, poor fellow; he’s very young” (she was just seventeen mind you), “and when I know him I will tell him what I think of his rudeness.” And then she would wonder to herself whether she ever would know him, and it sent a pang to her little heart when she thought she might not, and then Master Tom would catch her eye, and the tell-tale blush would hang out its pink flag again, and there would be a little flush of happiness, and soda capo. Just picture to yourself, Corydon, your little flirtation orgrande passionwith Phyllis, and you can easily fill up all the blanks and imagine the rest.

The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., Oxon, who now filled the living at Hartwood, was a very young man; but a very great man in his own estimation, and in that of some others also, as to family, talents, and ritualistic attainments in the church. He was the cousin, twice removed, of Sir Boanerges Todhunter the great anti-taxpayer and member of the Opposition, belonged to the extensive High Church party at Oxford, had gained some celebrity at the Union Debating Club; and here he was now the regular incumbent (for a term of only five years be it known, for the Sussex Dowager liked always to have a hold on her tenants in the matter of leases, and stretched her authority to the livings she had in her gift) of a respectable church in a good county, where he could do as he pleased—at an age when the majority of his compeers would be struggling along perhaps in their first curacies.

He had reason to be proud of himself; and really, putting aside a certain priggishness of manner and affectation of style, he was not such a very bad fellow. Take him out of the church, and he would have been a regular jolly fellow, who would have got along capitally in a mess room or in a hunting county, for he was dearly inclined to horseflesh, and had kept his two hunters at Swain’s before he had “gone in” for the High Church party of “young Oxford.” He was a short, well-built, straw-whiskered man of some eight and twenty, although almost boyish in manner and in face. He had pleased the dowager by the way in which he had officiated as curate during the long illness of the late incumbent, and she had determined to put him in the vacant pulpit, if only out of opposition, as has been observed before, to the Reverend Jabez Heavieman, whom she cordially detested.

Herbert Pringle had therefore tumbled upon a snug thing. “His lines had fallen in pleasant places,” so here he was inducted into the living of Hartwood. His first step was to set up housekeeping, in order to do which he had to bring his favourite little sister Lizzie from school to “keep house” for him, and then he set about making further improvements in his district, for which he hadcarte blanchefrom the dowager, who, whenever she heard of some fresh innovation, thought to herself, “I wonder what that old hypocrite”—alluding to the Reverend Jabez—“thinks of that now!”

The restoration of the church was effected at the new incumbent’s especial request; and the brass lectern was given by the old lady because the young divine had munificently presented a huge painted window, the subject of which was a large cross, erected just over the chancel. Then a new harmonium was got in place of a wretched old “spinet,” which had previously done duty for an organ, and a choir was regularly established from amongst the school children that sang the responses in church now every Sunday, its members clad in little dirty white surplices.

He was all in favour of ceremonials, was the Reverend Herbert Pringle; and although he perhaps “meant well” according to his judgment, he was very affected, and “High Church” all through the service—to the intense astonishment of the farmers and poor labourers, who used to wonder at the new style of worship adopted in their old church, and be perplexed with all the bowings and genuflections, and especially with the white-surpliced choir.

To give him his due, however, he did not preach a bad sermon, and had a very effective way of appealing to the pockets of his hearers when any charity required his aid; but he read always in a light, jocular, hurried manner, as if he were under an engagement to get over a certain portion of ground in a fixed time, and he always said, or intoned, “Awe-men” instead of Amen at the end of the prayers.

He had now been in possession of his cure for more than six months, and consequently felt at home in it. His improvements, too, had now been got accustomed to; and although he was thought somewhat queer in his notions by the heavy agriculturists around him, he was pretty well liked on the whole. As for his sister Lizzie, she was idolised by poor and rich around: to tell the truth, it is my opinion that a good deal of her brother’s popularity arose from his connection with the young lady with the violet eyes.

Tom’s bad behaviour continued all through the service, and his eyes were not still even during the eloquent discourse which the young divine afterwards delivered, on the “Vanity of human wishes”—would that Tom could have applied the text! In going out of the church, he allowed his mother and Markworth to go on in front, and hung back in the rear. He could see that his charmer had not yet stirred from her pew, although nearly all the congregation were out, and he wondered what made her linger.

Fortunately, he was not long kept in suspense. He passed our old friend “Jarge” in the porch, and incontinently asked that individual “who was the young lady in the rector’s pew?”

“Lor sakes! Measter Tummus, don’t you know un? Whoi, thet’s the porsun’s seestur; that be Missy Pringle, Measter Tummus!”

“Thank you, George,” answered our hero; and how overjoyed he felt as he walked along after the others. He knew Pringle well, although he was not aware that he had a sister; and “of course I can easily get introduced,” he thought very naturally.

The following Monday, strange to say, Tom begged Markworth to excuse him for some little time, as he had to pay a visit, and he set off alone to the parsonage.

Naturally he was “only going to pay a regular call;” it was only proper that he should pay a visit to his friend Pringle, whom he had not seen “since last year, by Jove!” and to congratulate him on his ecclesiastical preferment. That was all! And so Master Tom rode up to the parsonage on one of the old horses, which the dowager had retained in the stables—probably on account of its not being fit for farm-work—the very next morning after seeing Lizzie.

Pringle was glad to see him, and his sister was introduced to the “young squire,” who tried to make himself as agreeable as possible, but was painfully embarrassed during his entire visit; and yet, before he had gone away, Lizzie thought him “such a nice fellow,” and she was “oh, what a darling” to him.—The two young things were drinking deep draughts of love which were intoxicating them and drawing them nearer and nearer to each other in a sort of rose-coloured Paradise, which the mere presence of the one conjured up to the other. And then he had to go, and it was pleasant to go, merely to have those taper fingers in his, which pressure sent a thrill of sweet electricity through his frame, while even she trembled and blushed—and then came the pang of parting.

On the morrow, he had to come and see “Pringle’s new fishing rod,” and show him his own, for it would be so jolly to fish from the lawn at the back of the parsonage, that ran down to the little river which contained such capital perch! and of course he could not help meeting her again, and she wanted to see the “poor little fish that were caught!”

Bless you, my darling, there were other fish caught that morning besides perch! How hackneyed, and yet how novel are the windings and twistings in the fairy land of Love’s Young Dream!

It was all over with them.

Volume One—Chapter Seven.“Sowing the Wind.”The nominal week, which had been mentioned as the duration of Markworth’s stay at The Poplars, passed pleasantly enough for Tom at all events. So pleasantly indeed, that he did not keep count of the days as they glided by, for he was continually dropping in at the parsonage “to see Pringle,” and was, long before the following Friday arrived, over head and ears in the little pit of love which Lizzie’s bright eyes had excavated in his heart. The dowager was still trotting about grinding down her tenants, and laying up riches which she did not know who would gather. Miss Kingscott had made the best use of her opportunities in two short interviews which she had had with the somewhat amorous doctor, and had yet contrived to cast sheep’s eyes on the young squire, whom she had hopes of captivating; while Markworth was steadily trying to gain the confidence of the poor half-demented girl, around whom he had already set his snares. All, all the members in fact of our drama, were recklessly engaged in the vineyard of Aeolus, all were with lavish hand sowing to the wind, never dreaming of the crop they should reap.Susan Hartshorne’s strong passion for music had early been taken advantage of by Markworth as a means towards the end he had in view.Music was, strange to say, for such a character, one of his fortes, indeed it was a hobby with him; and he was not only a first-rate player in the mere sense of mechanical dexterity, but was also a thorough musician at heart.The pathology of the human mind is a wonderful and intricate study, and it is a remarkable fact, with all our spread of knowledge and science, with the vast new fields of thought which are freshly opened every day in the educated world, what trifling advance we have made in the analysis of the mainspring and moving power that sets in motion the train of thought itself! Medical jurisprudence has only of late become a special study, and the psychology of the human mind, one of its most important branches—more than a mere ramification as it is often held—is at best only a dead letter as yet to those who affect any acquaintance with the subject. Mental insanity is one of those topics, like the physiology of dreams, which embraces a large area for research and investigation; and even the best and latest of the physicians who have made this division of medical knowledge their especial field for enquiry, confess to what a very short distance their knowledge carries them. Hence, until very lately, not only was there no remedial treatment pursued, but arbitrary incarceration, strait-waistcoats, and chains, comprised all medical procedure towards our lunatics. Thank goodness, however, the broad light of science, reason, and common sense, has tended to dispel the black ignorance displayed by our forefathers towards our mental as well as bodily ills. Formerly drastics and phlebotomy, adopted alternately, were supposed to cure every disease and ailment of the human body, but that day is past now; and, so as in surgery and physic, a new path has been opened for the treatment of insanity. It is yet in its infancy; but many species of mania now deemed hopeless will before long, probably, succumb before judicious and efficacious ministering.One of the most hopeless forms of insanity, according to eminent authorities on the subject, is melancholia, but even this gives way under proper treatment. In cases of this kind, patients are but too often neglected, and the cure is left, ignorantly, to work out itself, which generally ends unsuccessfully; whereas, if the patient under treatment were led out of themselves as it were, their affliction ignored, and treated to just the company and influences which appear to affect them most, I believe in nine cases out of ten of so called settled melancholia, the unfortunate sufferer would be turned out cured after a time.Susan Hartshorne was suffering from this species of mental infliction. Her case certainly was not a very extreme one; and if she had been removed from her home at the time she first lost her wits, and been under gentle treatment and care (as Doctor Jolly recommended) instead of being kept at the place where all her surroundings, and especially her mother’s presence, kept the great fright she had undergone continually before her, she would have been cured long since. Even as it was, she was every month gaining fresh mental stamina from the outside influences at work upon her: now that Markworth specially devoted himself to her, as he did, and gradually caused her budding intellect and intelligence to expand instead of warping them, she changed more and more for the better every day. Markworth told Tom that he was interested in the case—as indeed he was on more accounts than one—and if left to himself he would cure her completely. The mother, too, seemed interested, as she could not but perceive the change in Susan, and thanked Markworth in her way, by dropping some of her brusquerie, and also by avoiding her daughter so as not to frighten her, and make her shrink back within herself by her presence and appearance—Markworth had drawn her attention to the point. As for Miss Kingscott, of course in fulfilment of her compact, she did not interfere with him at all, and allowed him to mould her charge as he pleased, although she watched him narrowly, and bided her time.Allynne Markworth had now become domesticated to a certain extent at The Poplars. The first week flew away rapidly, even with him, he had so much to plan, and to take such pains to get his ploten train; while with Tom the time had disappeared since he knew Lizzie as one day. Mrs Hartshorne, too, was so glad to have her son at home, although she seemed rather unsympathetic mother, that she tolerated Markworth at first for his sake; and he had played his cards so well, and studied her little weaknesses so fully, and kept himself so much out of the way, that she at length looked upon it as a matter of course that he should remain when Tom hinted at stopping. “It is such nice weather,” explained that young deceiver, “and so jolly down here, Markworth, and the Inskips are coming down this week, that I wish you would stay on—that is, if you are not fearfully bored with us all.” It was very strange, was it not, that Tom had not remembered the fact of the Inskips coming down before?“Not at all, my dear fellow,” answered Markworth; “I like this place very much; and your mother and I get on very well now, although she did not certainly like me at first;” he could not help laughing over the recollection of his first meeting and introduction to the dowager, Tom sharing in his merriment.“Well, I am glad you will stop. It is much better here than being in town, and I begin to like a country life,” observed Tom, thinking of violet eyes and pastoral rusticity.“So do I, Tom; it is far better than all the racket we could have up in London. I am very glad I came down, but we’ll, no doubt, have lots of gaiety when the Inskips come—not that I care about it, for I am really interested in the case of your sister.”“Thank you, old fellow; I am sure you are very kind to take all that trouble about Susan. Well, it’s agreed that we stay on now that we are here, at least for a week or two. My leave won’t be up until September, and even then I daresay I could get an extension, for the colonel’s an old trump.”“Agreed,” responded Markworth; “when you are tired of me you can turn me out, you know, but I daresay the old lady would take that trouble off your hands.” And they both laughed again at such a possibility, which without joking the dowager was fully capable of doing by herself. And so their stay at The Poplars was decided upon, and Markworth had plenty of time in which to perfect his plans.Susan’s love of music had done much, probably, to preserve her mind from altogether closing up within itself: and her fondness for gardening and flowers was also beneficial to her case.The first, Markworth had perceived at once; and he quickly set to work upon that foundation to gain a hold upon her, and draw her out of herself.He used to go up-stairs to the old room where the organ was, and play some of those wonderful fugues of Beethoven, and saddening chords from the “Lieder ohne Worte,” that would nearly make angels weep; and the affected girl used to follow him, and draw near, as if spell-bound, whilst he was playing, and try and imitate him after he had left his seat before the keys.Then he began to speak gently to her, only, perhaps, a sentence now and then, for she was fearfully timid and frightened of strangers, but after a time she learned to know him, and would reply. No sort of conversation, of course, could be carried on with her, for her intellect was just like that of a young child’s, although she had learned things by wrote, like a parrot, and could imitate whatever she saw another do. After a time she would voluntarily seek Markworth, and ask him to play the organ in her pleading way; and she would sit quietly for hours to hear him. If he smiled on her she looked happy: if he frowned, or raised his voice, her face would wear a tearful and frightened aspect.The garden used to be one of her favourite resorts. Here she would wander up and down before Markworth came, speaking to herself, as if she were carrying on a conversation with someone else. Here she had flowers of which she was passionately fond, treating them as if they were living things, and crying over them should a leaf be broken off, or a branch blown down. Old George used to take especial pains over “Missy’s” garden, and she always used to go out and watch him at work, and be continually inciting him to dig up the earth around her plants. When Markworth began his care, however, Susan changed a great deal in her habits. She at first gave up the garden, and only would go to the organ-room; but when he brought a flute out and used to play an air of which she was especially fond, in and about her favourite haunts in the shrubbery, she got to come out again, ceased her imaginary dialogues, and grew more expressive and brighter. Insane people always seem affected by wind instruments.Markworth took care, however, never to play the flute when the dowager was about the premises, as she “hated that odious tooting thing even worse than the jackass that played it”—she said.Miss Kingscott used to accompany Susan, and consequently the three were very much together, for Tom was nearly always out now by himself, as he could not get Markworth to accompany him to the Pringles; and when he was at home he used to flirt with the governess under his mother’s very nose, and leave Susan even more in Markworth’s hands.The devil, they say, is never so black as he is painted, and, perhaps, Markworth was not altogether so selfish or so wicked in his motives as one might suppose. He was really interested, deeply so, in the peculiar case of Susan Hartshorne; and having read a great deal on insanity and its cure, he had certain theories of his own on the subject which made him glad of the opportunity for reducing them to practice. If he had not known that the poor girl was the heiress to twenty thousand pounds, and had not circumstances so strangely placed Clara Joyce—he could not think of her even by her new name—in the house to assist him, he would never have dreamt of his plot, nor have attempted to carry it out after he saw the subject, or rather object, of it; and yet, perhaps, he would still have tried to put her in the way of recovering her reason without a thought of recompense. As it was, he was now working with a double object, and the success which he met with startled him, while it emboldened him to persevere in his design.In a short time there was such a perceptible change in Susan that anyone not in the habit of seeing her frequently would have noticed it at once; and soon she was altogether different from what she had been. Her eyes began to have some expression in them; how different they looked from their former dull appearance; and she would now look anyone in the face instead of hanging down her head as she formerly did. Dr Jolly was one of the first to perceive the alteration, and complimented Miss Kingscott on the change one day.“Bless my soul, ma’am! why, nobody would recognise her again. It’s positively wonderful. By Gad! madam, you deserve a medal for it. I would not have believed such a change could have taken place unless I had seen it myself.”Whereupon Miss Kingscott half declined the credit of the cure, but in such a way as to make the doctor repeat his compliments.“Bless my soul, ma’am! it’s no use telling me that, I know better. It’s wonderful, and you deserve every credit—yes, ma’am, by Gad! ma’am, you do. Good-bye, Miss Kingscott; I shall call soon again to see your patient, for she is yours now, you know, ma’am. Go-o-od-morning.”And the doctor took himself off, with an elaborate farewell adieu. He would have kissed his hand, it is believed, only that the old dowager was standing looking out at the window, and might have called him an old fool as likely as not.

The nominal week, which had been mentioned as the duration of Markworth’s stay at The Poplars, passed pleasantly enough for Tom at all events. So pleasantly indeed, that he did not keep count of the days as they glided by, for he was continually dropping in at the parsonage “to see Pringle,” and was, long before the following Friday arrived, over head and ears in the little pit of love which Lizzie’s bright eyes had excavated in his heart. The dowager was still trotting about grinding down her tenants, and laying up riches which she did not know who would gather. Miss Kingscott had made the best use of her opportunities in two short interviews which she had had with the somewhat amorous doctor, and had yet contrived to cast sheep’s eyes on the young squire, whom she had hopes of captivating; while Markworth was steadily trying to gain the confidence of the poor half-demented girl, around whom he had already set his snares. All, all the members in fact of our drama, were recklessly engaged in the vineyard of Aeolus, all were with lavish hand sowing to the wind, never dreaming of the crop they should reap.

Susan Hartshorne’s strong passion for music had early been taken advantage of by Markworth as a means towards the end he had in view.

Music was, strange to say, for such a character, one of his fortes, indeed it was a hobby with him; and he was not only a first-rate player in the mere sense of mechanical dexterity, but was also a thorough musician at heart.

The pathology of the human mind is a wonderful and intricate study, and it is a remarkable fact, with all our spread of knowledge and science, with the vast new fields of thought which are freshly opened every day in the educated world, what trifling advance we have made in the analysis of the mainspring and moving power that sets in motion the train of thought itself! Medical jurisprudence has only of late become a special study, and the psychology of the human mind, one of its most important branches—more than a mere ramification as it is often held—is at best only a dead letter as yet to those who affect any acquaintance with the subject. Mental insanity is one of those topics, like the physiology of dreams, which embraces a large area for research and investigation; and even the best and latest of the physicians who have made this division of medical knowledge their especial field for enquiry, confess to what a very short distance their knowledge carries them. Hence, until very lately, not only was there no remedial treatment pursued, but arbitrary incarceration, strait-waistcoats, and chains, comprised all medical procedure towards our lunatics. Thank goodness, however, the broad light of science, reason, and common sense, has tended to dispel the black ignorance displayed by our forefathers towards our mental as well as bodily ills. Formerly drastics and phlebotomy, adopted alternately, were supposed to cure every disease and ailment of the human body, but that day is past now; and, so as in surgery and physic, a new path has been opened for the treatment of insanity. It is yet in its infancy; but many species of mania now deemed hopeless will before long, probably, succumb before judicious and efficacious ministering.

One of the most hopeless forms of insanity, according to eminent authorities on the subject, is melancholia, but even this gives way under proper treatment. In cases of this kind, patients are but too often neglected, and the cure is left, ignorantly, to work out itself, which generally ends unsuccessfully; whereas, if the patient under treatment were led out of themselves as it were, their affliction ignored, and treated to just the company and influences which appear to affect them most, I believe in nine cases out of ten of so called settled melancholia, the unfortunate sufferer would be turned out cured after a time.

Susan Hartshorne was suffering from this species of mental infliction. Her case certainly was not a very extreme one; and if she had been removed from her home at the time she first lost her wits, and been under gentle treatment and care (as Doctor Jolly recommended) instead of being kept at the place where all her surroundings, and especially her mother’s presence, kept the great fright she had undergone continually before her, she would have been cured long since. Even as it was, she was every month gaining fresh mental stamina from the outside influences at work upon her: now that Markworth specially devoted himself to her, as he did, and gradually caused her budding intellect and intelligence to expand instead of warping them, she changed more and more for the better every day. Markworth told Tom that he was interested in the case—as indeed he was on more accounts than one—and if left to himself he would cure her completely. The mother, too, seemed interested, as she could not but perceive the change in Susan, and thanked Markworth in her way, by dropping some of her brusquerie, and also by avoiding her daughter so as not to frighten her, and make her shrink back within herself by her presence and appearance—Markworth had drawn her attention to the point. As for Miss Kingscott, of course in fulfilment of her compact, she did not interfere with him at all, and allowed him to mould her charge as he pleased, although she watched him narrowly, and bided her time.

Allynne Markworth had now become domesticated to a certain extent at The Poplars. The first week flew away rapidly, even with him, he had so much to plan, and to take such pains to get his ploten train; while with Tom the time had disappeared since he knew Lizzie as one day. Mrs Hartshorne, too, was so glad to have her son at home, although she seemed rather unsympathetic mother, that she tolerated Markworth at first for his sake; and he had played his cards so well, and studied her little weaknesses so fully, and kept himself so much out of the way, that she at length looked upon it as a matter of course that he should remain when Tom hinted at stopping. “It is such nice weather,” explained that young deceiver, “and so jolly down here, Markworth, and the Inskips are coming down this week, that I wish you would stay on—that is, if you are not fearfully bored with us all.” It was very strange, was it not, that Tom had not remembered the fact of the Inskips coming down before?

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” answered Markworth; “I like this place very much; and your mother and I get on very well now, although she did not certainly like me at first;” he could not help laughing over the recollection of his first meeting and introduction to the dowager, Tom sharing in his merriment.

“Well, I am glad you will stop. It is much better here than being in town, and I begin to like a country life,” observed Tom, thinking of violet eyes and pastoral rusticity.

“So do I, Tom; it is far better than all the racket we could have up in London. I am very glad I came down, but we’ll, no doubt, have lots of gaiety when the Inskips come—not that I care about it, for I am really interested in the case of your sister.”

“Thank you, old fellow; I am sure you are very kind to take all that trouble about Susan. Well, it’s agreed that we stay on now that we are here, at least for a week or two. My leave won’t be up until September, and even then I daresay I could get an extension, for the colonel’s an old trump.”

“Agreed,” responded Markworth; “when you are tired of me you can turn me out, you know, but I daresay the old lady would take that trouble off your hands.” And they both laughed again at such a possibility, which without joking the dowager was fully capable of doing by herself. And so their stay at The Poplars was decided upon, and Markworth had plenty of time in which to perfect his plans.

Susan’s love of music had done much, probably, to preserve her mind from altogether closing up within itself: and her fondness for gardening and flowers was also beneficial to her case.

The first, Markworth had perceived at once; and he quickly set to work upon that foundation to gain a hold upon her, and draw her out of herself.

He used to go up-stairs to the old room where the organ was, and play some of those wonderful fugues of Beethoven, and saddening chords from the “Lieder ohne Worte,” that would nearly make angels weep; and the affected girl used to follow him, and draw near, as if spell-bound, whilst he was playing, and try and imitate him after he had left his seat before the keys.

Then he began to speak gently to her, only, perhaps, a sentence now and then, for she was fearfully timid and frightened of strangers, but after a time she learned to know him, and would reply. No sort of conversation, of course, could be carried on with her, for her intellect was just like that of a young child’s, although she had learned things by wrote, like a parrot, and could imitate whatever she saw another do. After a time she would voluntarily seek Markworth, and ask him to play the organ in her pleading way; and she would sit quietly for hours to hear him. If he smiled on her she looked happy: if he frowned, or raised his voice, her face would wear a tearful and frightened aspect.

The garden used to be one of her favourite resorts. Here she would wander up and down before Markworth came, speaking to herself, as if she were carrying on a conversation with someone else. Here she had flowers of which she was passionately fond, treating them as if they were living things, and crying over them should a leaf be broken off, or a branch blown down. Old George used to take especial pains over “Missy’s” garden, and she always used to go out and watch him at work, and be continually inciting him to dig up the earth around her plants. When Markworth began his care, however, Susan changed a great deal in her habits. She at first gave up the garden, and only would go to the organ-room; but when he brought a flute out and used to play an air of which she was especially fond, in and about her favourite haunts in the shrubbery, she got to come out again, ceased her imaginary dialogues, and grew more expressive and brighter. Insane people always seem affected by wind instruments.

Markworth took care, however, never to play the flute when the dowager was about the premises, as she “hated that odious tooting thing even worse than the jackass that played it”—she said.

Miss Kingscott used to accompany Susan, and consequently the three were very much together, for Tom was nearly always out now by himself, as he could not get Markworth to accompany him to the Pringles; and when he was at home he used to flirt with the governess under his mother’s very nose, and leave Susan even more in Markworth’s hands.

The devil, they say, is never so black as he is painted, and, perhaps, Markworth was not altogether so selfish or so wicked in his motives as one might suppose. He was really interested, deeply so, in the peculiar case of Susan Hartshorne; and having read a great deal on insanity and its cure, he had certain theories of his own on the subject which made him glad of the opportunity for reducing them to practice. If he had not known that the poor girl was the heiress to twenty thousand pounds, and had not circumstances so strangely placed Clara Joyce—he could not think of her even by her new name—in the house to assist him, he would never have dreamt of his plot, nor have attempted to carry it out after he saw the subject, or rather object, of it; and yet, perhaps, he would still have tried to put her in the way of recovering her reason without a thought of recompense. As it was, he was now working with a double object, and the success which he met with startled him, while it emboldened him to persevere in his design.

In a short time there was such a perceptible change in Susan that anyone not in the habit of seeing her frequently would have noticed it at once; and soon she was altogether different from what she had been. Her eyes began to have some expression in them; how different they looked from their former dull appearance; and she would now look anyone in the face instead of hanging down her head as she formerly did. Dr Jolly was one of the first to perceive the alteration, and complimented Miss Kingscott on the change one day.

“Bless my soul, ma’am! why, nobody would recognise her again. It’s positively wonderful. By Gad! madam, you deserve a medal for it. I would not have believed such a change could have taken place unless I had seen it myself.”

Whereupon Miss Kingscott half declined the credit of the cure, but in such a way as to make the doctor repeat his compliments.

“Bless my soul, ma’am! it’s no use telling me that, I know better. It’s wonderful, and you deserve every credit—yes, ma’am, by Gad! ma’am, you do. Good-bye, Miss Kingscott; I shall call soon again to see your patient, for she is yours now, you know, ma’am. Go-o-od-morning.”

And the doctor took himself off, with an elaborate farewell adieu. He would have kissed his hand, it is believed, only that the old dowager was standing looking out at the window, and might have called him an old fool as likely as not.

Volume One—Chapter Eight.Damon and Pythias.He is not a very romantic Damon is Doctor Jolly, nor is he at the present time to be seen under favourable circumstances, or in the most picturesque of situations.The fact is, Dr Jolly has got an attack of the gout, “his old friend,” as he calls that hereditary and choleric disease; and here he is, seated in his snug parlour—he knew how to live well and be comfortable did the doctor—with his feet in a pail of cold water, like Patience on a monument smiling at grief; (one can’t help quoting the “noble bard.”) He was pursuing a rather violent method for reducing the inflammation in his pedal extremities in order that he might be able to go out and pay his usual pharmaceutical round of visits, and he was writhing and swearing inwardly, most probably, and often aloud, from the pain of the gout and remedy combined.“Bless my soul! Deb!” he exclaimed, as irascibly as his natural good temper would allow, to his sister Deborah, our Pythias, who was in the room along with him. “Bless my soul! Whew I what a twinge. Confound the gout, Deborah!”“Confound it with all my heart, Richard, if it will do you any good,” she replied, calmly, drawing the thread through the heel of a stocking which she was darning; “but you know, Richard, it’s your own fault. Youwilldrink that port wine, and you must take the consequences.”“Bosh, Deb; don’t preach. Why, I only drank two glasses yesterday at lunch, and—”“How about the bottle after dinner?”“Well, you know, Pringle was here, and hospitality you know, Deb, hospitality you know—”“Hospitality won’t preserve your health, Richard.”“True Deb, quite true; but I couldn’t help it, and the gout’s getting better now, the pain’s nearly gone. Whew! there’s another twinge. Confound the gout, I say!”Damon was a stout, florid, jolly-looking—there is no other word so expressive—man of forty-five or thereabouts; Pythias—some apology is due for her sex in carrying out the classical metaphor, although when you know her better you will acknowledge the propriety of the allusion—was some five years the elder, as she could look back with complacency or otherwise on her fiftieth birthday. She was tall and ungainly, and her face was so set and deficient of mobility that it looked as if it were carved out of mahogany, to which wood indeed its colour bore some resemblance. She evidently took after her male parent more than her mother, and her brother was right when he called her a “chip of the old block.”Damon was genial and hearty; Pythias cold and formal, as befitted an austere virgin of her years; but both possessed the same kind heart, and you would rarely find such a good-natured pair, who were so fond of each other, and so considerate and charitable in every sense of the word, to those around them.Doctor Jolly was emphatically one of the jolliest country-practitioners in the country, and had one of the best practices, and was better liked than any other disciple of Aesculapius in the county. For miles round the farmers and well-to-do, as well as poorer people, knew his pleasant weather-beaten face and hearty voice. He “was so sociable and pleasant-like,” as the country folk would say; and his well-known portly form—he rode about sixteen stone—and cheery “How de-do!” used to be eagerly welcomed when he came riding round on his thorough-bred heavy-weight hunter, with his two favourite little black and tan terriers, “Huz, and Buz his brother,” scudding at its heels.He and his sister had lived together at Bigton for many years past. The doctor had succeeded his father, and he his father, as far back as lay within the memory of “the oldest inhabitant”—the practice with its connection having been kept in the family for nearly a century.Bigton is a very quiet rising little watering place, situated some five or six miles from The Poplars and Hartwood village, at the mouth of the river, wherein Tom Hartshorne was catching his perch under the eyes of Miss Lizzie. Bigton is by no means an ostentatious sort of place: it lacks self-assertion, and is content to occupy a back seat, as it were, in the assembly of “Fashionable Resorts,” when, if it would but only put itself forward it might be bidden to “come up higher.”It is really a pleasant little place, and has all the requirements to make it an agreeable retreat for the hot summer months, when one longs for the seaside with that intense ardour which only a Londoner knows. Bigton has a pier—a shabby little pier it must be confessed—a sort of esplanade, which is as long as that of its Brobdignagian rival, where George’s Pavilion, that hideous monstrosity, used once to attract admirers—an excellent beach of fine grey sand, and a splendid common, all covered with gorse and furze, whereon juveniles can play “the criquette,” as Monsieur Jeune France calls our national game. Beyond that, it has a splendid country around for jaunts and pic-nics; and, as for antiquities, why, is it not within a decent drive of one of the most historic old castles in the kingdom, a castle which has its ancient old keep still in preservation, and which was one of the few Royalist strongholds that held out successfully against the Puritan general and his myrmidon Roundheads?Yet, with all these advantages, Bigton has not yet become a favourite with the multitude who annually adjourn to the seaside, and this neglect is not by any means complained of by the quiet few who wish to avoid the racket of a fashionable watering place, and come down here in order to have a quiet enjoyable holiday. The fact is, Bigton reckons for its standing more upon the support of its residents than on stray birds of passage; and, of these, it has a larger proportion perhaps than some of its better known and more highly cracked-up rivals. It has nice trim rows of terraces facing the sea, and plenty of comfortable detached houses which are generally let to people who stay for mouths, and even a year or two, instead of hiring for merely a six week’s occupation. Bigton is therefore busy all the year round, instead of having a season of three months, and being a necropolis for the rest of the year: indeed, the annual visitors who come down in summer do not alter the look of the place much: it is too respectable a town to bother itself about casual tourists or London holiday-makers. In the summer the landholders and great people of the surrounding country come from their inland homes, and take lodgings for the bathing: so Bigton is very exclusive and keeps entirely to its own set.Among not only the residents—returning to our story—but also the regular visitors, Doctor Jolly was a general favourite, and the doctor supreme of the locality; and he was as good a surgeon and physician as he was a favourite. He was not the man to nurse a hypochondriacal patient by giving him various bottles of medicine containing coloured water, or pills “as before,” consisting of harmless dough. No, he would tell them to get out and take plenty of exercise and mayhap dip in the sea, and above all to get good food and plenty of it. No gruel and arrowroot from him. “All damned slops and dishwater,” he would say; but a mutton chop three times a day, and a glass or two of really good port wine. “Stop, I’ll send you over some of my own, and you may bet your boots that that’s prime stuff,” he would offer with a knowing wink of his eye, riding off to escape a denial.He was a jolly, good-natured man, and such a really good minister to the ills of human nature, that he had it all his own way at Bigton, and almost throughout the entire county. His practice was so large, that he had to ride miles every day to do justice to his patients; and yet he would hire no assistant, except a mild, gentlemanly pupil, whom he kept to do the home business in his surgery.“Catch me!” he would say, “having a fellow to cut me out with all the pretty girls and old ladies! No, sir, as long as I can cross a horse, no other sawbones shall rule here but myself. I’m hanged if they shall, sir?”One or two other medical men had tried rashly to set up to him in opposition at Bigton; but never getting anyone who was ill to patronise them, they had to give up at length in disgust. One, indeed, still hung on, as he had bought a house and could not sell it; but he had to take to the coal trade to support his family. Not that Doctor Jolly grudged him a living, for no matter what he said, he would cheerfully have lent his brother practitioner a helping hand; but then no one would let anyone else visit them in Bigton but our Damon, so the poor—Othello’s-occupation’s-gone-M.D. had to buy and sell chaldrons of the best Wallsend and Seaborne, and fed his family in that way.Dr Jolly’s house was one of the best and nicest kept mansions in Bigton, for the doctor loved to live well, as he could afford it; and his sister Deborah was one of the most valuable housewives that could be cited. It was a long, low, old-fashioned house, with a splendid garden and paddock adjoining, for the doctor’s horses, of which he kept three—he used to follow the harriers in the time of the old squire, Roger Hartshorne—but he was getting too heavy for that now, besides having too much to do. Now he was devoted to poultry and pet deer, pet hares, pet dogs, pet animals of all kinds, even cats, and had all his out-houses, yards, and paddocks filled with his various adopted nurslings.It was a wonder, considering his disposition, that he had remained a bachelor so long; but then he had his sister Deborah to take care of him, and as he would say, “Bless my soul, man, what more do I want?” His old friends who had known him for years would hint at a disappointment in early life; but I don’t think care sat heavily on the doctor’s brow, as it does on some of us, for he lived well, and enjoyed life as he found it, and did not seem inclined to give up his present life for all the unknown sea of troubles into which matrimony might plunge him. Perhaps he saw too much and too many of the gentler sex to hazard a selection, but the probable reason was that he was too comfortable as he was. He and his sister pulled along capitally as Damon and Pythias, as they had in fact done all their lives; both were freely outspoken to each other; and if Deborah had the pre-eminence within, the doctor was master out of doors.The doctor relished good cheer, and gave capital dinner parties, as he was the most hospitable man in the county. He had had one the evening before, and hence his slight attack of the gout; its invariable consequence this morning. He said he had inherited the aristocratic infliction from his sire, along with a good digestion and his practice; but perhaps Pythias, or Deborah, was not far wrong in ascribing it to his love of good living and partiality for port. The gout made him swear a little, but he did not really mean anything by it: if all our oaths were as harmless as his, the recording angel who watches over that special failing of human nature would have a sinecure.“Confound the gout, Deb!” he exclaimed, as that sharp twinge caught him in his left foot, and made him writhe with ill-concealed agony. “Confound the gout! I’ll drink no more of that infernal port! that is,” he added, shortly afterwards, as the pain subsided, “not beyond a glass or two at lunch; and perhaps a bottle after dinner, eh, Deb? Ho! ho! ho!” And he laughed his jolly cheery laugh, as he took his feet out of the tub of water, in which they had been hitherto reposing; and, drawing on his boots with difficulty, prepared himself for setting out on his morning round of visits.“Better now, Richard?” enquired Pythias, as he stood up fully caparisoned in the matter of his lower extremities.“Yes, Deb, all right now; the plaguey thing has gone away for the present, and won’t trouble me again till next time. My ‘off stepper’ is somewhat sore still, but it’ll be as sound as sixpence by the time I get back.”“Are you going far, Richard?”“Well, I think I’ll pay a call at the dowager’s, and all about Hartwood; and as I shan’t be back in time for lunch, I’ll drop in and feed at Pringle’s—uncommon pretty little girl his sister is. Bless my soul! Deb, she’s enough to make one think of marrying, although I suspect that sly dog Tom Hartshorne’s after her—we old fellows have got no chance.”“Take care, Richard. She would probably jump to have you. I know what girls are! But how is that poor girl Susan Hartshorne getting on?”“Really, Deb, do you know I think she has been looking much brighter lately. I have observed this within the last week or so—there is a decided change for the better. She has lost nearly all that frightened look she used to have; and I would not be surprised if she eventually recovered her mind. It’s a sad pity, Deb, bless my soul! a sad pity! She was a nice child—confound that old woman! and she’s now such an interesting-looking girl—a sad pity that old hag frightened her senses away.”“What do you think is the reason of this change in her?” asked Deborah.“Well, I can hardly tell, Deb; you see, Tom has been down, and there’s that friend of his, too—don’t like him—and she has seen more company than usual—all these things may have something to do with it; but I think that the improvement is all due to that new governess, Miss Kingscott—by Jove! she is a fine girl if you like, a—”“Take care, Richard, take care!” she said, as Doctor Jolly went out of the room, after poking about vainly in every direction for his gloves.He mounted his horse which the groom held at the door, and as he rode away, he murmured to himself, “Dooced fine girl! I wouldn’t be surprised if the artful jade caught me after all!” And off he cantered down the street, bowing affably, and waving his hand with a cordial “How-de-do!” to everyone he met, for he knew everybody, on his way to Hartwood.

He is not a very romantic Damon is Doctor Jolly, nor is he at the present time to be seen under favourable circumstances, or in the most picturesque of situations.

The fact is, Dr Jolly has got an attack of the gout, “his old friend,” as he calls that hereditary and choleric disease; and here he is, seated in his snug parlour—he knew how to live well and be comfortable did the doctor—with his feet in a pail of cold water, like Patience on a monument smiling at grief; (one can’t help quoting the “noble bard.”) He was pursuing a rather violent method for reducing the inflammation in his pedal extremities in order that he might be able to go out and pay his usual pharmaceutical round of visits, and he was writhing and swearing inwardly, most probably, and often aloud, from the pain of the gout and remedy combined.

“Bless my soul! Deb!” he exclaimed, as irascibly as his natural good temper would allow, to his sister Deborah, our Pythias, who was in the room along with him. “Bless my soul! Whew I what a twinge. Confound the gout, Deborah!”

“Confound it with all my heart, Richard, if it will do you any good,” she replied, calmly, drawing the thread through the heel of a stocking which she was darning; “but you know, Richard, it’s your own fault. Youwilldrink that port wine, and you must take the consequences.”

“Bosh, Deb; don’t preach. Why, I only drank two glasses yesterday at lunch, and—”

“How about the bottle after dinner?”

“Well, you know, Pringle was here, and hospitality you know, Deb, hospitality you know—”

“Hospitality won’t preserve your health, Richard.”

“True Deb, quite true; but I couldn’t help it, and the gout’s getting better now, the pain’s nearly gone. Whew! there’s another twinge. Confound the gout, I say!”

Damon was a stout, florid, jolly-looking—there is no other word so expressive—man of forty-five or thereabouts; Pythias—some apology is due for her sex in carrying out the classical metaphor, although when you know her better you will acknowledge the propriety of the allusion—was some five years the elder, as she could look back with complacency or otherwise on her fiftieth birthday. She was tall and ungainly, and her face was so set and deficient of mobility that it looked as if it were carved out of mahogany, to which wood indeed its colour bore some resemblance. She evidently took after her male parent more than her mother, and her brother was right when he called her a “chip of the old block.”

Damon was genial and hearty; Pythias cold and formal, as befitted an austere virgin of her years; but both possessed the same kind heart, and you would rarely find such a good-natured pair, who were so fond of each other, and so considerate and charitable in every sense of the word, to those around them.

Doctor Jolly was emphatically one of the jolliest country-practitioners in the country, and had one of the best practices, and was better liked than any other disciple of Aesculapius in the county. For miles round the farmers and well-to-do, as well as poorer people, knew his pleasant weather-beaten face and hearty voice. He “was so sociable and pleasant-like,” as the country folk would say; and his well-known portly form—he rode about sixteen stone—and cheery “How de-do!” used to be eagerly welcomed when he came riding round on his thorough-bred heavy-weight hunter, with his two favourite little black and tan terriers, “Huz, and Buz his brother,” scudding at its heels.

He and his sister had lived together at Bigton for many years past. The doctor had succeeded his father, and he his father, as far back as lay within the memory of “the oldest inhabitant”—the practice with its connection having been kept in the family for nearly a century.

Bigton is a very quiet rising little watering place, situated some five or six miles from The Poplars and Hartwood village, at the mouth of the river, wherein Tom Hartshorne was catching his perch under the eyes of Miss Lizzie. Bigton is by no means an ostentatious sort of place: it lacks self-assertion, and is content to occupy a back seat, as it were, in the assembly of “Fashionable Resorts,” when, if it would but only put itself forward it might be bidden to “come up higher.”

It is really a pleasant little place, and has all the requirements to make it an agreeable retreat for the hot summer months, when one longs for the seaside with that intense ardour which only a Londoner knows. Bigton has a pier—a shabby little pier it must be confessed—a sort of esplanade, which is as long as that of its Brobdignagian rival, where George’s Pavilion, that hideous monstrosity, used once to attract admirers—an excellent beach of fine grey sand, and a splendid common, all covered with gorse and furze, whereon juveniles can play “the criquette,” as Monsieur Jeune France calls our national game. Beyond that, it has a splendid country around for jaunts and pic-nics; and, as for antiquities, why, is it not within a decent drive of one of the most historic old castles in the kingdom, a castle which has its ancient old keep still in preservation, and which was one of the few Royalist strongholds that held out successfully against the Puritan general and his myrmidon Roundheads?

Yet, with all these advantages, Bigton has not yet become a favourite with the multitude who annually adjourn to the seaside, and this neglect is not by any means complained of by the quiet few who wish to avoid the racket of a fashionable watering place, and come down here in order to have a quiet enjoyable holiday. The fact is, Bigton reckons for its standing more upon the support of its residents than on stray birds of passage; and, of these, it has a larger proportion perhaps than some of its better known and more highly cracked-up rivals. It has nice trim rows of terraces facing the sea, and plenty of comfortable detached houses which are generally let to people who stay for mouths, and even a year or two, instead of hiring for merely a six week’s occupation. Bigton is therefore busy all the year round, instead of having a season of three months, and being a necropolis for the rest of the year: indeed, the annual visitors who come down in summer do not alter the look of the place much: it is too respectable a town to bother itself about casual tourists or London holiday-makers. In the summer the landholders and great people of the surrounding country come from their inland homes, and take lodgings for the bathing: so Bigton is very exclusive and keeps entirely to its own set.

Among not only the residents—returning to our story—but also the regular visitors, Doctor Jolly was a general favourite, and the doctor supreme of the locality; and he was as good a surgeon and physician as he was a favourite. He was not the man to nurse a hypochondriacal patient by giving him various bottles of medicine containing coloured water, or pills “as before,” consisting of harmless dough. No, he would tell them to get out and take plenty of exercise and mayhap dip in the sea, and above all to get good food and plenty of it. No gruel and arrowroot from him. “All damned slops and dishwater,” he would say; but a mutton chop three times a day, and a glass or two of really good port wine. “Stop, I’ll send you over some of my own, and you may bet your boots that that’s prime stuff,” he would offer with a knowing wink of his eye, riding off to escape a denial.

He was a jolly, good-natured man, and such a really good minister to the ills of human nature, that he had it all his own way at Bigton, and almost throughout the entire county. His practice was so large, that he had to ride miles every day to do justice to his patients; and yet he would hire no assistant, except a mild, gentlemanly pupil, whom he kept to do the home business in his surgery.

“Catch me!” he would say, “having a fellow to cut me out with all the pretty girls and old ladies! No, sir, as long as I can cross a horse, no other sawbones shall rule here but myself. I’m hanged if they shall, sir?”

One or two other medical men had tried rashly to set up to him in opposition at Bigton; but never getting anyone who was ill to patronise them, they had to give up at length in disgust. One, indeed, still hung on, as he had bought a house and could not sell it; but he had to take to the coal trade to support his family. Not that Doctor Jolly grudged him a living, for no matter what he said, he would cheerfully have lent his brother practitioner a helping hand; but then no one would let anyone else visit them in Bigton but our Damon, so the poor—Othello’s-occupation’s-gone-M.D. had to buy and sell chaldrons of the best Wallsend and Seaborne, and fed his family in that way.

Dr Jolly’s house was one of the best and nicest kept mansions in Bigton, for the doctor loved to live well, as he could afford it; and his sister Deborah was one of the most valuable housewives that could be cited. It was a long, low, old-fashioned house, with a splendid garden and paddock adjoining, for the doctor’s horses, of which he kept three—he used to follow the harriers in the time of the old squire, Roger Hartshorne—but he was getting too heavy for that now, besides having too much to do. Now he was devoted to poultry and pet deer, pet hares, pet dogs, pet animals of all kinds, even cats, and had all his out-houses, yards, and paddocks filled with his various adopted nurslings.

It was a wonder, considering his disposition, that he had remained a bachelor so long; but then he had his sister Deborah to take care of him, and as he would say, “Bless my soul, man, what more do I want?” His old friends who had known him for years would hint at a disappointment in early life; but I don’t think care sat heavily on the doctor’s brow, as it does on some of us, for he lived well, and enjoyed life as he found it, and did not seem inclined to give up his present life for all the unknown sea of troubles into which matrimony might plunge him. Perhaps he saw too much and too many of the gentler sex to hazard a selection, but the probable reason was that he was too comfortable as he was. He and his sister pulled along capitally as Damon and Pythias, as they had in fact done all their lives; both were freely outspoken to each other; and if Deborah had the pre-eminence within, the doctor was master out of doors.

The doctor relished good cheer, and gave capital dinner parties, as he was the most hospitable man in the county. He had had one the evening before, and hence his slight attack of the gout; its invariable consequence this morning. He said he had inherited the aristocratic infliction from his sire, along with a good digestion and his practice; but perhaps Pythias, or Deborah, was not far wrong in ascribing it to his love of good living and partiality for port. The gout made him swear a little, but he did not really mean anything by it: if all our oaths were as harmless as his, the recording angel who watches over that special failing of human nature would have a sinecure.

“Confound the gout, Deb!” he exclaimed, as that sharp twinge caught him in his left foot, and made him writhe with ill-concealed agony. “Confound the gout! I’ll drink no more of that infernal port! that is,” he added, shortly afterwards, as the pain subsided, “not beyond a glass or two at lunch; and perhaps a bottle after dinner, eh, Deb? Ho! ho! ho!” And he laughed his jolly cheery laugh, as he took his feet out of the tub of water, in which they had been hitherto reposing; and, drawing on his boots with difficulty, prepared himself for setting out on his morning round of visits.

“Better now, Richard?” enquired Pythias, as he stood up fully caparisoned in the matter of his lower extremities.

“Yes, Deb, all right now; the plaguey thing has gone away for the present, and won’t trouble me again till next time. My ‘off stepper’ is somewhat sore still, but it’ll be as sound as sixpence by the time I get back.”

“Are you going far, Richard?”

“Well, I think I’ll pay a call at the dowager’s, and all about Hartwood; and as I shan’t be back in time for lunch, I’ll drop in and feed at Pringle’s—uncommon pretty little girl his sister is. Bless my soul! Deb, she’s enough to make one think of marrying, although I suspect that sly dog Tom Hartshorne’s after her—we old fellows have got no chance.”

“Take care, Richard. She would probably jump to have you. I know what girls are! But how is that poor girl Susan Hartshorne getting on?”

“Really, Deb, do you know I think she has been looking much brighter lately. I have observed this within the last week or so—there is a decided change for the better. She has lost nearly all that frightened look she used to have; and I would not be surprised if she eventually recovered her mind. It’s a sad pity, Deb, bless my soul! a sad pity! She was a nice child—confound that old woman! and she’s now such an interesting-looking girl—a sad pity that old hag frightened her senses away.”

“What do you think is the reason of this change in her?” asked Deborah.

“Well, I can hardly tell, Deb; you see, Tom has been down, and there’s that friend of his, too—don’t like him—and she has seen more company than usual—all these things may have something to do with it; but I think that the improvement is all due to that new governess, Miss Kingscott—by Jove! she is a fine girl if you like, a—”

“Take care, Richard, take care!” she said, as Doctor Jolly went out of the room, after poking about vainly in every direction for his gloves.

He mounted his horse which the groom held at the door, and as he rode away, he murmured to himself, “Dooced fine girl! I wouldn’t be surprised if the artful jade caught me after all!” And off he cantered down the street, bowing affably, and waving his hand with a cordial “How-de-do!” to everyone he met, for he knew everybody, on his way to Hartwood.

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