Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.

Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.Brother and Sister.“Now, Lizzie, I want to know what all this means?” said the Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., putting on quite a fatherly dignity of manner to his sister, an evening or two after Lady Inskip had spoken to him. “I want to know what all this means.”Lizzie was at the time engaged lifting pots up and down, and poking about in her little conservatory, which jutted out of the drawing room, with a trowel and watering-pot, in the manner peculiar to young ladies of a horticultural tendency. Her back was turned to her brother, so that he could not see her face, but a brilliant tinge of pink carnation coloured her little white neck, and suffused her dainty-cheeks, and ascended even to the pure white forehead; still she steadfastly kept her head down, bent apparently on investigating the wonderful mysteries of some flower with a horribly long Greek name, which she was inspecting.She must have guessed intuitively what her brother was going to speak about, but with a woman’s noble gift of dissimulation, she asked, with an air of candour and conscious rectitude—little hypocrite!“Why, Bertie, dear, what on earth do you mean?”They are all deceivers, every one; bless you! that’s the way with them. They are tricksters at heart, and conceal their feelings with a sort of savage deceit, which only a Red Indian besides possesses. See how calmly and placidly Miss Dissembler smiles with elegant ease, whilst Madame Verjuice pierces her little writhing heart through and through with a malicious sarcasm that wounds her to the core. She looks as if she never felt it whilst she is bleeding to death inwardly. Look at the poor fainting wife and mother, who with a smile on her lips and death at heart, cheerfully gives her husband and starving children the last morsel of bread in the hovel, and says with a martyr-like dissimulation that she does not want it, she is not hungry. Bless you they are all deceivers, every one, from little miss in her teens, who flirts with her boy lovers, to old Joan of threescore, who still wheedles her venerable Darby!“Why, Bertie, what on earth do you mean?” as innocently as you please.The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., had for the last two days been puzzling his small amount of brains how to broach the subject to his sister. He did not wish to vex her, or hurt her feelings; in fact, he did not know what to do, it was “such a delicate matter, you know, such a very delicate matter,” that he wished it were settled and done for, and off his hands. But still, all the same, he did not know how to begin.“Well, humph!” clearing his throat portentously, “the fact is, Lizzie, you know all about it.”“Really, Bertie,” said Lizzie, laughing—oh! such a faint little laugh, “you are very enigmatical to-day.”“I’m not joking, Lizzie; it’s a serious business, a very serious business. What is all this going on between you and Tom Hartshorne?”Poor Lizzie’s little defences of affected ignorance and nonchalance at once broke down, although she bravely struggled on to preserve her equanimity.“I’m sure I’ve nothing to do with Mr Hartshorne. Whatdoyou mean, Herbert? Pray explain yourself.”And the young lady drew herself up with a tremendous accession of dignity to the full height of her little figure.Herbert Pringle was so disgusted with the dissimulation of the sex as evinced in the instance of his sister that he felt himself nerved up and able to go on with the talk before him, so he plunged at oncein medias res.“Here’s Lady Inskip been telling me—”“Oh! I’ve got to thankherfor interesting herself about me! I am sure I am very much obliged to Lady Inskip!”“You need not interrupt me, Lizzie, and you need not get angry about Lady Inskip. She’s a most motherly woman, and she spoke very kindly to me about you. You see, Lizzie, it’s a very hard thing for a fellow to speak of. Of course I think girls ought to be allowed to mind their own affairs of this kind, and it seems rough on my part to interfere; but, you see, as Lady Inskip very kindly observed, you’ve no mother to advise you, and consequently I must take her place.”As he said this, the Reverend Herbert Pringle looked certainly as unlike a mother as possible.“Go on, Herbert; let me know all that Lady Inskip has been kind enough to say of me,” said Violet Eyes, now facing her brother, with a full sense of her dignity, and tapping her foot on the floor with angry impatience.“Well, she told me that she saw you and Tom Hartshorne in the garden the other day as she drove by; and, though I see no harm in it, and fortunately no one but herself saw it, she said she was very much shocked, and that you acted as if you were engaged. Now, Lizzie, you know I’m very fond of you, and all that sort of thing, but people might talk, you know, and I want you to put a stop to it.”Lizzie’s defences were entirely overthrown. Her look of indignation faded off her face, to be replaced by a quick crimson blush, which as rapidly disappeared and left her features as pale as marble. She made a hurried step towards her brother, and fell sobbing on his neck.“Oh! Bertie, Bertie!” she sobbed out, between a series of little gasps.“There, there, don’t cry! my darling little Lizzie. You know I did not mean to hurt you, my own little sister!” said Herbert, sympathisingly, patting her head as if he were saying “Poor dog! poor dog!” to a Newfoundland pup. And the subject was dropped, Lizzie thus gaining the victory in the end by having recourse to a woman’s strongest safeguard—tears. For, as he told Lady Inskip afterwards, “when the waterworks were turned on he had to give in.” The old campaigner for her part, was very well satisfied that the topic had been mentioned: that was all she wanted.Lizzie went to bed very early that night, pleading a headache, and really her face was so pale and the deep violet eyes were so sunk in her head with broad veins of black underneath them, that her assertion was freely borne out by her appearance.The poor little heart was deeply troubled: the stricken deer was grievously wounded. She was very young, you must remember, and had fallen into that horrible abyss of love without knowing what she was doing. The temptation had been so sweet, the steps she had taken into that rose-coloured paradise so gradual, that she had not perceived the drift of their march, so that Tom’s sudden act and manner had startled and frightened her; it was letting in the sunlight on one who has been blindfolded, and the little secret which she had hugged to her heart alarmed, while it gave her such sweet ecstasy.Ever since that morning in the garden, only two days ago—two days! it seemed more like two years, she had been so much altered—Lizzie had not been the same. She had awakened from a long sleep as it were, and everything round her, every little inconsiderable item in her daily life bore a new charm to her or had a fresh meaning. A deeper and more beautiful light beamed now in her thoughtful eyes; there was a charming hesitancy in her manner in lieu of the former piquante pert way she had. In a word, Lizzie was our Lizzie still, but a hundred times more loveable and prettier from the new love light that encircled her.She had been watching—eagerly watching, for her next meeting with Tom, and yet when she thought of him, blushed at her thoughts and trembled with a sly rapture. He was so noble—so manly—so handsome! Just in fact what most young girls think Corydon when in love.It was no wonder, then, that the brother’s lecture and the idea of the old campaigner’s criticism on her conduct frightened our poor little maid.She went up to her little bed tearfully and heavy-hearted, and thought of chains and dungeons, and all the malicious contrivances of the wicked for parting true lovers, and she sobbed herself to sleep. When she woke up in the morning she was still in the most restless and perturbed state that her little mind could be in. “How dared that odious old thing speak about her, or look at her, or come round at all!” She would never see Tom again—and she was longing to see him all the time!She would not go to the pic-nic—that she wouldn’t!Then shewouldgo, because the aforesaid old odious thing would imagine that she took it to heart if she stopped away.But she wouldnotgo because that impudent Master Tom would be there, she thought, with a rising blush and a conscious swelling of the tender little bosom underneath her muslin dress.Of course she determined to go!

“Now, Lizzie, I want to know what all this means?” said the Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., putting on quite a fatherly dignity of manner to his sister, an evening or two after Lady Inskip had spoken to him. “I want to know what all this means.”

Lizzie was at the time engaged lifting pots up and down, and poking about in her little conservatory, which jutted out of the drawing room, with a trowel and watering-pot, in the manner peculiar to young ladies of a horticultural tendency. Her back was turned to her brother, so that he could not see her face, but a brilliant tinge of pink carnation coloured her little white neck, and suffused her dainty-cheeks, and ascended even to the pure white forehead; still she steadfastly kept her head down, bent apparently on investigating the wonderful mysteries of some flower with a horribly long Greek name, which she was inspecting.

She must have guessed intuitively what her brother was going to speak about, but with a woman’s noble gift of dissimulation, she asked, with an air of candour and conscious rectitude—little hypocrite!

“Why, Bertie, dear, what on earth do you mean?”

They are all deceivers, every one; bless you! that’s the way with them. They are tricksters at heart, and conceal their feelings with a sort of savage deceit, which only a Red Indian besides possesses. See how calmly and placidly Miss Dissembler smiles with elegant ease, whilst Madame Verjuice pierces her little writhing heart through and through with a malicious sarcasm that wounds her to the core. She looks as if she never felt it whilst she is bleeding to death inwardly. Look at the poor fainting wife and mother, who with a smile on her lips and death at heart, cheerfully gives her husband and starving children the last morsel of bread in the hovel, and says with a martyr-like dissimulation that she does not want it, she is not hungry. Bless you they are all deceivers, every one, from little miss in her teens, who flirts with her boy lovers, to old Joan of threescore, who still wheedles her venerable Darby!

“Why, Bertie, what on earth do you mean?” as innocently as you please.

The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., had for the last two days been puzzling his small amount of brains how to broach the subject to his sister. He did not wish to vex her, or hurt her feelings; in fact, he did not know what to do, it was “such a delicate matter, you know, such a very delicate matter,” that he wished it were settled and done for, and off his hands. But still, all the same, he did not know how to begin.

“Well, humph!” clearing his throat portentously, “the fact is, Lizzie, you know all about it.”

“Really, Bertie,” said Lizzie, laughing—oh! such a faint little laugh, “you are very enigmatical to-day.”

“I’m not joking, Lizzie; it’s a serious business, a very serious business. What is all this going on between you and Tom Hartshorne?”

Poor Lizzie’s little defences of affected ignorance and nonchalance at once broke down, although she bravely struggled on to preserve her equanimity.

“I’m sure I’ve nothing to do with Mr Hartshorne. Whatdoyou mean, Herbert? Pray explain yourself.”

And the young lady drew herself up with a tremendous accession of dignity to the full height of her little figure.

Herbert Pringle was so disgusted with the dissimulation of the sex as evinced in the instance of his sister that he felt himself nerved up and able to go on with the talk before him, so he plunged at oncein medias res.

“Here’s Lady Inskip been telling me—”

“Oh! I’ve got to thankherfor interesting herself about me! I am sure I am very much obliged to Lady Inskip!”

“You need not interrupt me, Lizzie, and you need not get angry about Lady Inskip. She’s a most motherly woman, and she spoke very kindly to me about you. You see, Lizzie, it’s a very hard thing for a fellow to speak of. Of course I think girls ought to be allowed to mind their own affairs of this kind, and it seems rough on my part to interfere; but, you see, as Lady Inskip very kindly observed, you’ve no mother to advise you, and consequently I must take her place.”

As he said this, the Reverend Herbert Pringle looked certainly as unlike a mother as possible.

“Go on, Herbert; let me know all that Lady Inskip has been kind enough to say of me,” said Violet Eyes, now facing her brother, with a full sense of her dignity, and tapping her foot on the floor with angry impatience.

“Well, she told me that she saw you and Tom Hartshorne in the garden the other day as she drove by; and, though I see no harm in it, and fortunately no one but herself saw it, she said she was very much shocked, and that you acted as if you were engaged. Now, Lizzie, you know I’m very fond of you, and all that sort of thing, but people might talk, you know, and I want you to put a stop to it.”

Lizzie’s defences were entirely overthrown. Her look of indignation faded off her face, to be replaced by a quick crimson blush, which as rapidly disappeared and left her features as pale as marble. She made a hurried step towards her brother, and fell sobbing on his neck.

“Oh! Bertie, Bertie!” she sobbed out, between a series of little gasps.

“There, there, don’t cry! my darling little Lizzie. You know I did not mean to hurt you, my own little sister!” said Herbert, sympathisingly, patting her head as if he were saying “Poor dog! poor dog!” to a Newfoundland pup. And the subject was dropped, Lizzie thus gaining the victory in the end by having recourse to a woman’s strongest safeguard—tears. For, as he told Lady Inskip afterwards, “when the waterworks were turned on he had to give in.” The old campaigner for her part, was very well satisfied that the topic had been mentioned: that was all she wanted.

Lizzie went to bed very early that night, pleading a headache, and really her face was so pale and the deep violet eyes were so sunk in her head with broad veins of black underneath them, that her assertion was freely borne out by her appearance.

The poor little heart was deeply troubled: the stricken deer was grievously wounded. She was very young, you must remember, and had fallen into that horrible abyss of love without knowing what she was doing. The temptation had been so sweet, the steps she had taken into that rose-coloured paradise so gradual, that she had not perceived the drift of their march, so that Tom’s sudden act and manner had startled and frightened her; it was letting in the sunlight on one who has been blindfolded, and the little secret which she had hugged to her heart alarmed, while it gave her such sweet ecstasy.

Ever since that morning in the garden, only two days ago—two days! it seemed more like two years, she had been so much altered—Lizzie had not been the same. She had awakened from a long sleep as it were, and everything round her, every little inconsiderable item in her daily life bore a new charm to her or had a fresh meaning. A deeper and more beautiful light beamed now in her thoughtful eyes; there was a charming hesitancy in her manner in lieu of the former piquante pert way she had. In a word, Lizzie was our Lizzie still, but a hundred times more loveable and prettier from the new love light that encircled her.

She had been watching—eagerly watching, for her next meeting with Tom, and yet when she thought of him, blushed at her thoughts and trembled with a sly rapture. He was so noble—so manly—so handsome! Just in fact what most young girls think Corydon when in love.

It was no wonder, then, that the brother’s lecture and the idea of the old campaigner’s criticism on her conduct frightened our poor little maid.

She went up to her little bed tearfully and heavy-hearted, and thought of chains and dungeons, and all the malicious contrivances of the wicked for parting true lovers, and she sobbed herself to sleep. When she woke up in the morning she was still in the most restless and perturbed state that her little mind could be in. “How dared that odious old thing speak about her, or look at her, or come round at all!” She would never see Tom again—and she was longing to see him all the time!

She would not go to the pic-nic—that she wouldn’t!

Then shewouldgo, because the aforesaid old odious thing would imagine that she took it to heart if she stopped away.

But she wouldnotgo because that impudent Master Tom would be there, she thought, with a rising blush and a conscious swelling of the tender little bosom underneath her muslin dress.

Of course she determined to go!

Volume One—Chapter Fourteen.That Young Imp.The old campaigner’s pic-nic had been decided upon by her, not only as a merrymaking festival, but as a regular strategicalcoup.She wanted to roll many issues into one, and like a prudent general, she conned her forces, surveyed their position, and considered her warmateriel; all being in train, she determined that as she wanted to create an impression in the neighbourhood, and bring sundry persons together without being compelled to go to any great expense, the best and most efficacious mode she could adopt for carrying out her plans would be to give a pic-nic.In the first place she could ask all those people of the vicinity whom she did not care to specially invite to her own house; in the second, as everyone would to some extent purvey their own refreshments, no great outlay would be required on her part; and in the third place this sort of rustic excursion offers greater advantages and inducements for judicious love-making, and brings many bashful wooers, such as young Clericus, to the scratch.It was under these circumstances and acting with these motives, that Lady Inskip had made preparations and issued invitations for a grand pic-nic to come off at Dingle Dell, which was a nice drive from Bigton, a few weeks after she came down to reside at that festive haunt.She had by this time thoroughly explored all the capabilities of the place, and knew just whom to ask and whom to avoid. The old Indian officer, Captain Curry Cucumber, had of course an invitation, and so had Doctor Jolly and his sister, but Deborah said that she never went out to any such “gallivantings,” and declined; the doctor, however, promised to pick them up in the course of the day after he had made some necessary calls on his patients.The people were all to meet together at Laburnum Cottage, and drive from thenceen cortègeto the Dingle, so an early hour was fixed for the rendezvous in order to have a good long day of it.Soon after eleven, the time appointed, there was quite a goodly muster of vehicles in front of Lady Inskip’s residence. Tom Hartshorne drove down in a bright new dog-cart, and being immediately pounced upon by the campaigner, was made or inveigled into taking Carry with him. Not that Tom objected personally to that young lady, who was very agreeable and naturally glib of tongue, but he sorely wished and had indeed planned that our little friend Lizzie should be his companion.In order to prevent this the campaigner had specially called at the parsonage and taken Miss Lizzie in her own pony chaise with her: the Reverend Herbert and the languid Laura completed the quartette. Tom sadly deplored the absence of Markworth, for he was so well used to the campaigner, and had such nerve andsang froidthat he was capable of even turning her out of her own carriage. Lieutenant Harrowby and Captain Miles, too, of Tom’s regiment, who had come over from Brighton that morning for thefête, and who hoped to have complete possession of the Inskip “girls,” as military men usually dub the young ladies of families, did not seem satisfied with the arrangements for the procession; and as for Captain Curry Cucumber—who had arrived on the scene of action dressed in a new pair of nankeen trowsers and a solar hat, not to mention a blue coat with brass buttons and other portions of a perfectly gorgeous toilet—he was simply enraged at the want of deference paid him by Lady Inskip, and had serious thoughts of turning back at first, although he afterwards suffered himself to be soothed over by Miss Blandish (spinster,aetat45-60), and promised to remain with the company until at least “tiffin” should be over.At last, however, all things were settled, and “barring” a fewcontretempsand heartburnings the whole party started off in great spirit to drive towards Dingle Dell.The road was a very pretty one, all through the romantic scenery to be found in the valley of the swift-running and widening river Biggle, at the mouth of which, as has been described in its proper place, the watering place of Bigton, formerly called Biggleton (videCounty Archaeology), was situated.The day was fine—as fine as a bright August day can be in the country.Ergoall went merry as the proverbial marriage bell. The only trouble Lady Inskip had was with her darling pride—that horrible boy, the young Sir Mortimer. He would insist on carrying a wretched old single-barrel gun with him for the purpose of shooting small birds when they got to the wood, and of course, as he always managed, he had his own way. “Such a darling boy,” as he was, “butsorash!” Mortimer persisted in practising along the road as they drove on, frightening the horses every now and then, and making everybody feel in terror for their lives.It was no use that Lady Inskip called out in a half-entreating, half-commanding voice at intervals, “Oh! Morti-mer! Mortimer!” the young imp would continue his detonating sport, and everyone was heartily glad when after passing the steep incline which led down from the old castle of archaeological renown, they crossed the pretty rustic bridge over the Biggle, and arrived at length at Dingle Dell.Considering that it was a good two hours’ drive or more from Bigton, and that it was “getting on” in the afternoon, no one was averse to preparations being at once made for the substantial and real part of the pic-nic. All helped with good will to lay the cloth on the smooth green turf, and unpack the hampers. Even a smile irradiated the choleric and saffronised face of the Indian warrior, who was much disgusted when they sat down to theal frescobanquet that no one had remembered to bring mango, chutney, or Cayenne pepper, without which he assured Lady Inskip that even “the best victuals” were not worth the salt that accompanied them.The old campaigner very judiciously arranged the various members of her company around the tablecloth—one cannot exactly say table. She placed Tom by the side of Carry, at the extreme opposite end of the “board,” away from Lizzie, whom she quartered with the gallant lieutenant, Harrowby, by herself. Pringle, of course, was placed next Laura; and although Lady Inskip had been obliged to invite the Rev. Jabez Heavieman, of Bigton, for appearance’s sake, she took very good care that he should not run foul of our Ritualistic young incumbent, whom he regarded in much the same light as the devil is supposed to look upon holy water.Everything passed off well, and Lady Inskip was in ecstasies; Carry was apparently having it all her own way with Tom Hartshorne, and Pringle was most devoted to Laura. As for Lizzie, she was hopelessly put on one side, and the campaigner considered “that artful little minx” as done for and out of her way: nothing could be better.The banquet was at length finished.Young Sir Mortimer, having gorged himself sufficiently with cold chicken and greengage tart, so that his face shone again, went off with his gun to shoot in the woods, much against the entreaties of his mother, who fervently implored him “take care, Mortimer, my darling boy, take great care!”The others disposed themselves around; some lolling on the grass, others making a pretence of fishing in the adjacent river: Tom had wandered off somewhere—Lizzie had disappeared; and our cheery Doctor Jolly, who had just arrived in time for the feast—“Bless my soul! madam,” as he said, in explanation, “never miss the grub, my lady—never miss my grub,”—was enjoying a cigar along with the “military swells,” as he called them.When suddenly Lady Inskip’s pride and hope, the boy Mortimer, dashed in amongst them with a scared face, yelling out at the top of his voice—“Oh! ma, ma! I’ve shot and killed somebody!”The consternation his advent created can be imagined.“Oh! dear, Morti-mer,—Morti-mer! I told you so: I told you so!” said Lady Inskip, bursting into tears.Carry went into hysterics, entreating everybody to “hold me down! hold me down!” Laura fell fainting in the arms of the Reverend Pringle, who looked hopelessly bewildered. Miss Blandish, making an ineffectual and similar attempt to repose on the white waistcoat and nankeen trowsers of Captain Curry Cucumber, was precipitated by a dexterous and skilful manoeuvre on the part of that gallant officer, into the salad-bowl, the Captain muttering horrible imprecations in Hindostanee, such as heaping curses on the beard of her departed father, and devoutly hoping that jackasses might sit on her grandmother’s grave.Doctor Jolly alone retained his composure, and darted off, as quickly as his size and gout would permit him, in the direction from which the young imp, Mortimer, had come.What had happened?Lizzie, after enduring the platitudes of Lieutenant Harrowby until she was sick of them—the burden of that officer’s conversation being limited apparently to the observations of “Haw! be-y Je-ove!” and “Doo-ced fine!” to anything and everything around him, including scenery and lobster salad, managed at last to get away from the company.She wandered along listlessly amongst the thickly crowded elms and firs of the forest that crowned the slopes of the dell, musing on her own sad thoughts, for her heart felt very weary. Everything had gone wrong with her that day; Tom had not spoken two words to her, and she did not know whether he wanted to speak to her at all. He was very unkind; he might, at least, have said something after what had passed between them the other day! Then, too, the whole thing had bored her, and she wished she had never come! Lady Inskip also had been very snappish with her—even rude, she thought, and though Lizzie, with all her gentleness, was not “one to be put upon with impunity,” and could have held her own against the campaigner at any other time: still to-day she had quite lost her natural spirit, and did not try to turn aside a single shaft of the many hurled by her implacable foe.Lizzie was sadly out of heart. Rambling along, she at length came to a little open glade at some distance from where the picnickers were making merry.Here, as she turned round the trunk of a gnarled old elm, all covered with ivy, which had previously obscured this open glade from her view, whom should she see, standing there in gloomy solitude, and looking up at the fleecy white clouds sailing over head, but the very person who filled her thoughts—Tom Hartshorne himself, and no other.Now was the time, one would think, for an explanation between the pair; but the Fates willed it otherwise.“That young imp,” when he left the picnickers, sallied off like a gallant young sportsman, as he fancied himself, with his “gun upon his shoulder,” and a brandy flask, which he used for a shot pouch, instead of a “bayonet by his side,” in the words of the affecting ballad of “Jeanette and Jeanot.”He penetrated into the depths of the wood, firing at everything that happened to be a trifle larger than a butterfly or humble bee; but although Mortimer thought he took steady aim at the several little feathered songsters against whom he had murder in his heart, the gun, which was something like the Irishman’s that could “shoot round a corner,” never brought down anything.At length he came to a dense thicket, just on the borders of the little open glade where Tom and Lizzie were about to meet.A particularly fine fat thrush hopped on a twig in the midst of the thicket; and, as it was only about a yard from the muzzle of his gun, the young imp was more successful this time. He fired and brought down his bird; but he also brought down something else which he had not bargained for.Tom was just advancing with outstretched hand towards Lizzie, glad of the opportunity for which he had been longing all day.Whiz! bang! more than half the charge of the young imp’s shot struck him in the side, and Tom fell nearly senseless at Lizzie’s feet.She, forgetting all her reserve, bent over him in an agony of terror.“Oh! Tom, Tom!” she cried, as she knelt down by his side, their faces nearly touching, and her hair sweeping across his cheek. “They have killed you! They have killed you!”And the sun still shone down, and the fleecy clouds still sailed overhead, and the summer breeze rippled through the trees.“Lizzie, my darling! I’m so happy: I wish I could die now,” murmured Tom, in disconnected fragments, and he fainted away outright.“Oh! he’s dead! He’s dead!” cried Lizzie, out aloud, wringing her hands, bursting into an agony of tears—tears, idle tears!“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, bursting through the bushes, as he arrived very opportunely on the scene of action, out of breath with the haste he had made. “Bless my soul! Who’s dead, what’s dead? It’s all confounded nonsense,” he continued, excitedly, bending down over Tom, and tearing open his coat and shirt, and feeling his heart. “Bless my soul! He’s no more dead than you are, my dear! The man’s only fainted.”

The old campaigner’s pic-nic had been decided upon by her, not only as a merrymaking festival, but as a regular strategicalcoup.

She wanted to roll many issues into one, and like a prudent general, she conned her forces, surveyed their position, and considered her warmateriel; all being in train, she determined that as she wanted to create an impression in the neighbourhood, and bring sundry persons together without being compelled to go to any great expense, the best and most efficacious mode she could adopt for carrying out her plans would be to give a pic-nic.

In the first place she could ask all those people of the vicinity whom she did not care to specially invite to her own house; in the second, as everyone would to some extent purvey their own refreshments, no great outlay would be required on her part; and in the third place this sort of rustic excursion offers greater advantages and inducements for judicious love-making, and brings many bashful wooers, such as young Clericus, to the scratch.

It was under these circumstances and acting with these motives, that Lady Inskip had made preparations and issued invitations for a grand pic-nic to come off at Dingle Dell, which was a nice drive from Bigton, a few weeks after she came down to reside at that festive haunt.

She had by this time thoroughly explored all the capabilities of the place, and knew just whom to ask and whom to avoid. The old Indian officer, Captain Curry Cucumber, had of course an invitation, and so had Doctor Jolly and his sister, but Deborah said that she never went out to any such “gallivantings,” and declined; the doctor, however, promised to pick them up in the course of the day after he had made some necessary calls on his patients.

The people were all to meet together at Laburnum Cottage, and drive from thenceen cortègeto the Dingle, so an early hour was fixed for the rendezvous in order to have a good long day of it.

Soon after eleven, the time appointed, there was quite a goodly muster of vehicles in front of Lady Inskip’s residence. Tom Hartshorne drove down in a bright new dog-cart, and being immediately pounced upon by the campaigner, was made or inveigled into taking Carry with him. Not that Tom objected personally to that young lady, who was very agreeable and naturally glib of tongue, but he sorely wished and had indeed planned that our little friend Lizzie should be his companion.

In order to prevent this the campaigner had specially called at the parsonage and taken Miss Lizzie in her own pony chaise with her: the Reverend Herbert and the languid Laura completed the quartette. Tom sadly deplored the absence of Markworth, for he was so well used to the campaigner, and had such nerve andsang froidthat he was capable of even turning her out of her own carriage. Lieutenant Harrowby and Captain Miles, too, of Tom’s regiment, who had come over from Brighton that morning for thefête, and who hoped to have complete possession of the Inskip “girls,” as military men usually dub the young ladies of families, did not seem satisfied with the arrangements for the procession; and as for Captain Curry Cucumber—who had arrived on the scene of action dressed in a new pair of nankeen trowsers and a solar hat, not to mention a blue coat with brass buttons and other portions of a perfectly gorgeous toilet—he was simply enraged at the want of deference paid him by Lady Inskip, and had serious thoughts of turning back at first, although he afterwards suffered himself to be soothed over by Miss Blandish (spinster,aetat45-60), and promised to remain with the company until at least “tiffin” should be over.

At last, however, all things were settled, and “barring” a fewcontretempsand heartburnings the whole party started off in great spirit to drive towards Dingle Dell.

The road was a very pretty one, all through the romantic scenery to be found in the valley of the swift-running and widening river Biggle, at the mouth of which, as has been described in its proper place, the watering place of Bigton, formerly called Biggleton (videCounty Archaeology), was situated.

The day was fine—as fine as a bright August day can be in the country.Ergoall went merry as the proverbial marriage bell. The only trouble Lady Inskip had was with her darling pride—that horrible boy, the young Sir Mortimer. He would insist on carrying a wretched old single-barrel gun with him for the purpose of shooting small birds when they got to the wood, and of course, as he always managed, he had his own way. “Such a darling boy,” as he was, “butsorash!” Mortimer persisted in practising along the road as they drove on, frightening the horses every now and then, and making everybody feel in terror for their lives.

It was no use that Lady Inskip called out in a half-entreating, half-commanding voice at intervals, “Oh! Morti-mer! Mortimer!” the young imp would continue his detonating sport, and everyone was heartily glad when after passing the steep incline which led down from the old castle of archaeological renown, they crossed the pretty rustic bridge over the Biggle, and arrived at length at Dingle Dell.

Considering that it was a good two hours’ drive or more from Bigton, and that it was “getting on” in the afternoon, no one was averse to preparations being at once made for the substantial and real part of the pic-nic. All helped with good will to lay the cloth on the smooth green turf, and unpack the hampers. Even a smile irradiated the choleric and saffronised face of the Indian warrior, who was much disgusted when they sat down to theal frescobanquet that no one had remembered to bring mango, chutney, or Cayenne pepper, without which he assured Lady Inskip that even “the best victuals” were not worth the salt that accompanied them.

The old campaigner very judiciously arranged the various members of her company around the tablecloth—one cannot exactly say table. She placed Tom by the side of Carry, at the extreme opposite end of the “board,” away from Lizzie, whom she quartered with the gallant lieutenant, Harrowby, by herself. Pringle, of course, was placed next Laura; and although Lady Inskip had been obliged to invite the Rev. Jabez Heavieman, of Bigton, for appearance’s sake, she took very good care that he should not run foul of our Ritualistic young incumbent, whom he regarded in much the same light as the devil is supposed to look upon holy water.

Everything passed off well, and Lady Inskip was in ecstasies; Carry was apparently having it all her own way with Tom Hartshorne, and Pringle was most devoted to Laura. As for Lizzie, she was hopelessly put on one side, and the campaigner considered “that artful little minx” as done for and out of her way: nothing could be better.

The banquet was at length finished.

Young Sir Mortimer, having gorged himself sufficiently with cold chicken and greengage tart, so that his face shone again, went off with his gun to shoot in the woods, much against the entreaties of his mother, who fervently implored him “take care, Mortimer, my darling boy, take great care!”

The others disposed themselves around; some lolling on the grass, others making a pretence of fishing in the adjacent river: Tom had wandered off somewhere—Lizzie had disappeared; and our cheery Doctor Jolly, who had just arrived in time for the feast—“Bless my soul! madam,” as he said, in explanation, “never miss the grub, my lady—never miss my grub,”—was enjoying a cigar along with the “military swells,” as he called them.

When suddenly Lady Inskip’s pride and hope, the boy Mortimer, dashed in amongst them with a scared face, yelling out at the top of his voice—

“Oh! ma, ma! I’ve shot and killed somebody!”

The consternation his advent created can be imagined.

“Oh! dear, Morti-mer,—Morti-mer! I told you so: I told you so!” said Lady Inskip, bursting into tears.

Carry went into hysterics, entreating everybody to “hold me down! hold me down!” Laura fell fainting in the arms of the Reverend Pringle, who looked hopelessly bewildered. Miss Blandish, making an ineffectual and similar attempt to repose on the white waistcoat and nankeen trowsers of Captain Curry Cucumber, was precipitated by a dexterous and skilful manoeuvre on the part of that gallant officer, into the salad-bowl, the Captain muttering horrible imprecations in Hindostanee, such as heaping curses on the beard of her departed father, and devoutly hoping that jackasses might sit on her grandmother’s grave.

Doctor Jolly alone retained his composure, and darted off, as quickly as his size and gout would permit him, in the direction from which the young imp, Mortimer, had come.

What had happened?

Lizzie, after enduring the platitudes of Lieutenant Harrowby until she was sick of them—the burden of that officer’s conversation being limited apparently to the observations of “Haw! be-y Je-ove!” and “Doo-ced fine!” to anything and everything around him, including scenery and lobster salad, managed at last to get away from the company.

She wandered along listlessly amongst the thickly crowded elms and firs of the forest that crowned the slopes of the dell, musing on her own sad thoughts, for her heart felt very weary. Everything had gone wrong with her that day; Tom had not spoken two words to her, and she did not know whether he wanted to speak to her at all. He was very unkind; he might, at least, have said something after what had passed between them the other day! Then, too, the whole thing had bored her, and she wished she had never come! Lady Inskip also had been very snappish with her—even rude, she thought, and though Lizzie, with all her gentleness, was not “one to be put upon with impunity,” and could have held her own against the campaigner at any other time: still to-day she had quite lost her natural spirit, and did not try to turn aside a single shaft of the many hurled by her implacable foe.

Lizzie was sadly out of heart. Rambling along, she at length came to a little open glade at some distance from where the picnickers were making merry.

Here, as she turned round the trunk of a gnarled old elm, all covered with ivy, which had previously obscured this open glade from her view, whom should she see, standing there in gloomy solitude, and looking up at the fleecy white clouds sailing over head, but the very person who filled her thoughts—Tom Hartshorne himself, and no other.

Now was the time, one would think, for an explanation between the pair; but the Fates willed it otherwise.

“That young imp,” when he left the picnickers, sallied off like a gallant young sportsman, as he fancied himself, with his “gun upon his shoulder,” and a brandy flask, which he used for a shot pouch, instead of a “bayonet by his side,” in the words of the affecting ballad of “Jeanette and Jeanot.”

He penetrated into the depths of the wood, firing at everything that happened to be a trifle larger than a butterfly or humble bee; but although Mortimer thought he took steady aim at the several little feathered songsters against whom he had murder in his heart, the gun, which was something like the Irishman’s that could “shoot round a corner,” never brought down anything.

At length he came to a dense thicket, just on the borders of the little open glade where Tom and Lizzie were about to meet.

A particularly fine fat thrush hopped on a twig in the midst of the thicket; and, as it was only about a yard from the muzzle of his gun, the young imp was more successful this time. He fired and brought down his bird; but he also brought down something else which he had not bargained for.

Tom was just advancing with outstretched hand towards Lizzie, glad of the opportunity for which he had been longing all day.

Whiz! bang! more than half the charge of the young imp’s shot struck him in the side, and Tom fell nearly senseless at Lizzie’s feet.

She, forgetting all her reserve, bent over him in an agony of terror.

“Oh! Tom, Tom!” she cried, as she knelt down by his side, their faces nearly touching, and her hair sweeping across his cheek. “They have killed you! They have killed you!”

And the sun still shone down, and the fleecy clouds still sailed overhead, and the summer breeze rippled through the trees.

“Lizzie, my darling! I’m so happy: I wish I could die now,” murmured Tom, in disconnected fragments, and he fainted away outright.

“Oh! he’s dead! He’s dead!” cried Lizzie, out aloud, wringing her hands, bursting into an agony of tears—tears, idle tears!

“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, bursting through the bushes, as he arrived very opportunely on the scene of action, out of breath with the haste he had made. “Bless my soul! Who’s dead, what’s dead? It’s all confounded nonsense,” he continued, excitedly, bending down over Tom, and tearing open his coat and shirt, and feeling his heart. “Bless my soul! He’s no more dead than you are, my dear! The man’s only fainted.”

Volume One—Chapter Fifteen.End of “First Act.”The most powerful logic fails to supply one with any rules or data whereby to analyse the workings and application of motives. If we try within ourselves even to trace back a passing thought to its original cause and inception, we see how involved and erratic are its wanderings; and we are obliged to give up the hopeless quest from sheer inability to follow its course. No wonder, therefore, that human motives are difficult to fathom; and although writers of fiction have the presumptive right to lay bare the inward mechanism which directs and guides their various characters, and are permitted to exemplify—hanging their theories and arguments on certain lay-figures more or less natural—how such and such a train of thought, and such and such a motive leads on and up to such and such an end; still, it is a very deceptive argument at the best, and these deductions, however plausible, are often grievously in fault. Motives are inscrutable. The slightest bias or hitch one way or the other will produce an altogether different result. Let us just imagine “what might have been” in the lives of our heroes and heroines if some new little incident had cropped up, or some detail or phase been ever-so-little altered; and we cannot but agree, in the felicitous observation of one of our greatest authors and students of human nature, that the history of “great events that might have been” would far outweigh and be more deeply interesting than any history ever published of whathashappened!These remarks have been made with reference to the character of Clara Kingscott. She had been grossly deceived in the first instance by Markworth, brought about a good deal by herself, no doubt; but still she had been deceived and her reputation ruined. She then naturally hated the author of her misfortunes—for hate is closely akin to love—and yet with all her hate, the love that had first originated had not quite died out. She hated Markworth: she longed for revenge, she determined to be even with him; and yet at the same time, the greatest pang she could have suffered would have been to see him ruined, as she intended him to be by herself.Thus it was partly from love—what a misapplication of the term!—partly from revenge that she had foiled his wealthy marriage in Paris; it was partly from love, partly from hate that she was now bent on assisting his marriage with Susan Hartshorne, if such a conflict of motives with actions can be imagined. She had entered into the compact with him to suit her own purpose of attaining her revenge: still when it came to the last it went to her heart, if she had one, to help him on to his end. She was his bond servant and his Nemesis as well; and the man’s strong nature controlled the woman’s equally strong nature merely by the force of former circumstances than by anything else. She was assisting in a plot she knew; but no feeling of self-consideration would have induced her to hold back now, or from exposing her participation in the conspiracy when she determined to stretch out her hand. She was bent on ruining him body and soul; and at the last moment when she had succeeded in achieving her purpose, she would be the first, the only one, perhaps, to weep over her own success, and allow the demon of Remorse to prey upon her vitals. But she must go on now: she had already received the “blood money!” He, schemer as he was, and skilled as he dreamed himself to be in the secrets of men and women, did not understand one tithe of Clara Kingscott’s nature. She had tried to entrap him once, and had found out too late that she herself was entrapped. Her first proceeding against him resulted most probably, he thought, from a woman’s spite and a woman’s jealousy, but he had no doubt she had grown more sensible now, as she had grown older. She knew him of old, and was no match for him; so, like a sensible woman, she accepted the part laid down for her, and acted Faust to his Mephistopheles. She was quite satisfied of course, for it suited her interests, and he thought besides that she had some lingering liking—like most women—for the man that had deceived her. She was a fine girl still, too, and if circumstances had been otherwise, and Susan Hartshorne and a fortune been in the way, he might have married her. Of course there would have been no such nonsense as “love” between them now. Yet she was a clever woman, and he and she would have got on together very well, and have managed to pick up a very comfortable living out of the world. This was, probably, what Markworth did think occasionally, but events were hurrying him on, and he was fully prepared to take advantage of every circumstance to perfect his plot. It would be time enough to think of the future when he had hold of that nice little sum of money which was just within his grasp.From what he had heard of the pic-nic he had determined that that day would be best suited for carrying out his purpose, and later events decided him upon the justice of his surmise. He found out that the old lady was going a long distance to collect some rents: she had laughed the idea to scorn of her attending the merrymaking. Tom would, of course, be there, and it would be a strange thing if he and Miss Kingscott could not manage to get Susan—who would not be expected of course, to go to the pic-nic, even if she were asked—out of the house, and away without risking discovery.Accordingly, finding everything suitable, Markworth wrote up to town on the Monday (when he was certain that the dowager would be away, and the coast clear for his purpose) to Joseph Begg, telling him he wanted him to meet a lady and himself at the Waterloo Terminus the next afternoon at two o’clock—at all events to be there from two to four; and as the lady was very timid Begg was to be respectably dressed as an honest old-fashioned old gentleman, for he would have to take charge of her. His letter was sent up in good time, made up as a parcel, and given in charge of the guard of the train, so it was delivered early that evening; and Markworth got an answer the next morning, saying that his instructions would be carried out.Just as Tom was ready to start to join the party at Lady Inskip’s, Markworth held out an envelope to him, and said he was so sorry, but he would have to go up to town at once, and consequently could not join him to go for the pic-nic.“Couldn’t you put off the business,” said Tom excitedly. “It’s an awful shame! I wanted you to be there so much.”“Well, you see, Tom,” said Markworth, speaking with a tone of deep regret pervading his words, “I’m sure I want to go with you, and have been thinking of it all the week. But lawyers, you know, won’t be put off, and if I do not go to-day, why it will cost me a pretty penny I can tell you! I am more sorry than you are, old fellow; you will be in the society of a nice pretty girl all day, while I shall be muddled up in law and parchment. By the way there’s a train at eleven, isn’t there?”“Yes, but I’m infernally cut up about this; yet if you must go, of course you must. I’ll drive you over to the station because you have not much time to lose to catch the train. Will you be back soon?”“Well, I can’t say; and as my time will be uncertain—you never know when legal business will be arranged—I think I had better take my traps with me. If I can, I’ll be down again as soon as possible; but I may as well be prepared.”“Just as you please, old fellow!” answered Tom; and the friends presently drove off to the station in the nice looking dog-cart Tom had hired for going to the pic-nic, when he hoped to have the opportunity of driving some one else after he got there.They just caught the train, and Markworth jumped in, not having a moment to spare; while Tom drove on to Bigton and the bright eyes that were expecting him.At the next station, on the “up line,” Markworth got out. He was not more than a couple of miles from Hartwood and The Poplars; so, by twelve o’clock, the time he had previously agreed on with Miss Kingscott before leaving the house, he met her and Susan at a certain part of the road across the fields.We must retrace our steps for a short time to explain matters. How strange it is, by the way, the manner in which events and incidents work out to suit one’s plot? They do very often, too, in real life, as the perusal of any of ourcauses célèbreswill show. That unfortunate victim of the Mannings came punctually to eat of his roast goose, mindful that he was going to his doom, as we read in that famous murder case which startled everybody twenty years ago. I wonder if the circumstances of the crime originated the current idiom known as “cooking one’s goose?”The old lady, you see, went off very quietly, to be out of the way, and Miss Kingscott and Markworth had a splendid opportunity.Susan was quite tractable, and would have done anything that Markworth told her. He said before leaving the house that she was to go for a walk with him; he did not tell her more at the time, and that she was to meet him with Miss Kingscott at the stile, across the fields. He also told her that she must dress nicely in something dark to please him, and wear a veil; and of course she was delighted to obey him.Miss Kingscott lent her a dark dress, shawl and bonnet, and having assisted her toilet, she was soon equipped. Altogether from her leaving off her old and favourite colours, the change in her appearance was so great that she looked totally unlike her former self, and even her own mother would hardly have recognised her with her piercing eyes, if she had met her out of doors.The governess did not omit any little thing that would baulk the success of the enterprise. She studied every little detail, too, for she had her purpose to serve as well as Markworth. She was not going to jeopardise her prospects of gaining over the young squire, or in fascinating the doctor, by being mixed up in the elopement in any way, so that her assistance should be brought home to her; and consequently for her own sake she had to avoid detection and recognition as well as her accomplice.She sent off George to the neighbouring public-house “The Jolly Spades,” with a shilling, to make himself glad, and render his nature even more comatose than usual on “home-brewed.” George went off exultant, declaring that she “was a raal leddy, that she were,” and that he would drink her health—sohewas disposed of. The old lady was miles away, and so was Tom, too, at the pic-nic; the old woman servant was deep in the kitchen or somewhere else downstairs; and thus nobody saw Miss Kingscott leave the house with Susan. There was only herself to prove it.They met Markworth at the stile; and Miss Kingscott, telling him briefly “I have kept my part of the compact,” to which he as briefly replied “I will keep mine; you shall hear from me in a month,” returned to the house. They had arranged matters previously, as we have seen.Her entrance was as unobserved as her exit.Susan was overjoyed at being out, and, above all, being out with Markworth—without even “that governess,” whom she partially disliked—and away from the house and her mother.It was quite a fairy holiday for her; and although she was now as reasoning a being as any of us, and had quite recovered her senses, she asked no questions: she left everything in Markworth’s hands, as she looked up to him as a superior to whom every obedience was due, and who would do everything for the best. He led the way over the fields, Susan walking by his side like a child engrossed by her own happy thoughts, and the novelty of everything around her—it was a new world to her—towards the Bigglethorpe station, on the “up line;” this was where he had got out: it was above Hartwood, so nobody could recognise him.“How would you like to be with me always, Susan? To go away and never come back to the old house again, and all its horrors.”“Oh! that would be so happy if I were with you,” she said, in joy; “but my mother would never let me,” she continued, her tone changing to one of sadness.“Suppose she knew nothing about it, Susan? We won’t tell her, and will go away now, and never come back.”“Can we? can we?” she exclaimed, with startling earnestness; “you are not laughing at me?”“I mean it, Susan. You shall come with me now if you like. I will take you up to London and marry you, and then nobody can take you away. Will you come?”“Will I?” she repeated with emotion; “I will go anywhere with you.” And she clung to his arm with a child’s touching trust.They took the train at Bigglethorpe and in due time arrived at the Waterloo Station, where Mr Begg, looking like a very respectable old gentleman, but small and spare, met them. Markworth introduced him as “his uncle,” and they drove together to the lodgings in Bloomsbury Street. On the way he led out Susan and made her converse with the ex-marker, who was much struck with her appearance, and her timid, hesitating way.“Well, what do you think of her?” asked Markworth, when Susan had gone up-stairs to take her things off, under the charge of the old landlady.“What do I think, Mister Markworth? Well, I think you are put in luck’s way. She’s as pretty a young lady, and as ladylike a one as I ever seed.”“You don’t see anything about her, do you?” he asked anxiously.“Queer? not I; she’s a bit nervous, in course, but I’d bet she’s as sensible a lady as you or I.”“Thank you, Joe, good day; I want you to be here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You must not be late; it will be my marriage day.”“Never fear, sir; I’ll be here sharp ten,” and the confederates separated—the marker to go back to his billiard-room, where he had left a friend watching over the interest of his pool table, and Markworth to think over the day and study his plans.On the next morning, Wednesday, August 28th, 1867, Susan Hartshorne was married to Allynne Markworth, at the church of St. Catherine’s Cross the Less, Johnson’s Lane, E.C., in the presence of Joseph Begg and the parish clerk, witnesses.End of Volume One.

The most powerful logic fails to supply one with any rules or data whereby to analyse the workings and application of motives. If we try within ourselves even to trace back a passing thought to its original cause and inception, we see how involved and erratic are its wanderings; and we are obliged to give up the hopeless quest from sheer inability to follow its course. No wonder, therefore, that human motives are difficult to fathom; and although writers of fiction have the presumptive right to lay bare the inward mechanism which directs and guides their various characters, and are permitted to exemplify—hanging their theories and arguments on certain lay-figures more or less natural—how such and such a train of thought, and such and such a motive leads on and up to such and such an end; still, it is a very deceptive argument at the best, and these deductions, however plausible, are often grievously in fault. Motives are inscrutable. The slightest bias or hitch one way or the other will produce an altogether different result. Let us just imagine “what might have been” in the lives of our heroes and heroines if some new little incident had cropped up, or some detail or phase been ever-so-little altered; and we cannot but agree, in the felicitous observation of one of our greatest authors and students of human nature, that the history of “great events that might have been” would far outweigh and be more deeply interesting than any history ever published of whathashappened!

These remarks have been made with reference to the character of Clara Kingscott. She had been grossly deceived in the first instance by Markworth, brought about a good deal by herself, no doubt; but still she had been deceived and her reputation ruined. She then naturally hated the author of her misfortunes—for hate is closely akin to love—and yet with all her hate, the love that had first originated had not quite died out. She hated Markworth: she longed for revenge, she determined to be even with him; and yet at the same time, the greatest pang she could have suffered would have been to see him ruined, as she intended him to be by herself.

Thus it was partly from love—what a misapplication of the term!—partly from revenge that she had foiled his wealthy marriage in Paris; it was partly from love, partly from hate that she was now bent on assisting his marriage with Susan Hartshorne, if such a conflict of motives with actions can be imagined. She had entered into the compact with him to suit her own purpose of attaining her revenge: still when it came to the last it went to her heart, if she had one, to help him on to his end. She was his bond servant and his Nemesis as well; and the man’s strong nature controlled the woman’s equally strong nature merely by the force of former circumstances than by anything else. She was assisting in a plot she knew; but no feeling of self-consideration would have induced her to hold back now, or from exposing her participation in the conspiracy when she determined to stretch out her hand. She was bent on ruining him body and soul; and at the last moment when she had succeeded in achieving her purpose, she would be the first, the only one, perhaps, to weep over her own success, and allow the demon of Remorse to prey upon her vitals. But she must go on now: she had already received the “blood money!” He, schemer as he was, and skilled as he dreamed himself to be in the secrets of men and women, did not understand one tithe of Clara Kingscott’s nature. She had tried to entrap him once, and had found out too late that she herself was entrapped. Her first proceeding against him resulted most probably, he thought, from a woman’s spite and a woman’s jealousy, but he had no doubt she had grown more sensible now, as she had grown older. She knew him of old, and was no match for him; so, like a sensible woman, she accepted the part laid down for her, and acted Faust to his Mephistopheles. She was quite satisfied of course, for it suited her interests, and he thought besides that she had some lingering liking—like most women—for the man that had deceived her. She was a fine girl still, too, and if circumstances had been otherwise, and Susan Hartshorne and a fortune been in the way, he might have married her. Of course there would have been no such nonsense as “love” between them now. Yet she was a clever woman, and he and she would have got on together very well, and have managed to pick up a very comfortable living out of the world. This was, probably, what Markworth did think occasionally, but events were hurrying him on, and he was fully prepared to take advantage of every circumstance to perfect his plot. It would be time enough to think of the future when he had hold of that nice little sum of money which was just within his grasp.

From what he had heard of the pic-nic he had determined that that day would be best suited for carrying out his purpose, and later events decided him upon the justice of his surmise. He found out that the old lady was going a long distance to collect some rents: she had laughed the idea to scorn of her attending the merrymaking. Tom would, of course, be there, and it would be a strange thing if he and Miss Kingscott could not manage to get Susan—who would not be expected of course, to go to the pic-nic, even if she were asked—out of the house, and away without risking discovery.

Accordingly, finding everything suitable, Markworth wrote up to town on the Monday (when he was certain that the dowager would be away, and the coast clear for his purpose) to Joseph Begg, telling him he wanted him to meet a lady and himself at the Waterloo Terminus the next afternoon at two o’clock—at all events to be there from two to four; and as the lady was very timid Begg was to be respectably dressed as an honest old-fashioned old gentleman, for he would have to take charge of her. His letter was sent up in good time, made up as a parcel, and given in charge of the guard of the train, so it was delivered early that evening; and Markworth got an answer the next morning, saying that his instructions would be carried out.

Just as Tom was ready to start to join the party at Lady Inskip’s, Markworth held out an envelope to him, and said he was so sorry, but he would have to go up to town at once, and consequently could not join him to go for the pic-nic.

“Couldn’t you put off the business,” said Tom excitedly. “It’s an awful shame! I wanted you to be there so much.”

“Well, you see, Tom,” said Markworth, speaking with a tone of deep regret pervading his words, “I’m sure I want to go with you, and have been thinking of it all the week. But lawyers, you know, won’t be put off, and if I do not go to-day, why it will cost me a pretty penny I can tell you! I am more sorry than you are, old fellow; you will be in the society of a nice pretty girl all day, while I shall be muddled up in law and parchment. By the way there’s a train at eleven, isn’t there?”

“Yes, but I’m infernally cut up about this; yet if you must go, of course you must. I’ll drive you over to the station because you have not much time to lose to catch the train. Will you be back soon?”

“Well, I can’t say; and as my time will be uncertain—you never know when legal business will be arranged—I think I had better take my traps with me. If I can, I’ll be down again as soon as possible; but I may as well be prepared.”

“Just as you please, old fellow!” answered Tom; and the friends presently drove off to the station in the nice looking dog-cart Tom had hired for going to the pic-nic, when he hoped to have the opportunity of driving some one else after he got there.

They just caught the train, and Markworth jumped in, not having a moment to spare; while Tom drove on to Bigton and the bright eyes that were expecting him.

At the next station, on the “up line,” Markworth got out. He was not more than a couple of miles from Hartwood and The Poplars; so, by twelve o’clock, the time he had previously agreed on with Miss Kingscott before leaving the house, he met her and Susan at a certain part of the road across the fields.

We must retrace our steps for a short time to explain matters. How strange it is, by the way, the manner in which events and incidents work out to suit one’s plot? They do very often, too, in real life, as the perusal of any of ourcauses célèbreswill show. That unfortunate victim of the Mannings came punctually to eat of his roast goose, mindful that he was going to his doom, as we read in that famous murder case which startled everybody twenty years ago. I wonder if the circumstances of the crime originated the current idiom known as “cooking one’s goose?”

The old lady, you see, went off very quietly, to be out of the way, and Miss Kingscott and Markworth had a splendid opportunity.

Susan was quite tractable, and would have done anything that Markworth told her. He said before leaving the house that she was to go for a walk with him; he did not tell her more at the time, and that she was to meet him with Miss Kingscott at the stile, across the fields. He also told her that she must dress nicely in something dark to please him, and wear a veil; and of course she was delighted to obey him.

Miss Kingscott lent her a dark dress, shawl and bonnet, and having assisted her toilet, she was soon equipped. Altogether from her leaving off her old and favourite colours, the change in her appearance was so great that she looked totally unlike her former self, and even her own mother would hardly have recognised her with her piercing eyes, if she had met her out of doors.

The governess did not omit any little thing that would baulk the success of the enterprise. She studied every little detail, too, for she had her purpose to serve as well as Markworth. She was not going to jeopardise her prospects of gaining over the young squire, or in fascinating the doctor, by being mixed up in the elopement in any way, so that her assistance should be brought home to her; and consequently for her own sake she had to avoid detection and recognition as well as her accomplice.

She sent off George to the neighbouring public-house “The Jolly Spades,” with a shilling, to make himself glad, and render his nature even more comatose than usual on “home-brewed.” George went off exultant, declaring that she “was a raal leddy, that she were,” and that he would drink her health—sohewas disposed of. The old lady was miles away, and so was Tom, too, at the pic-nic; the old woman servant was deep in the kitchen or somewhere else downstairs; and thus nobody saw Miss Kingscott leave the house with Susan. There was only herself to prove it.

They met Markworth at the stile; and Miss Kingscott, telling him briefly “I have kept my part of the compact,” to which he as briefly replied “I will keep mine; you shall hear from me in a month,” returned to the house. They had arranged matters previously, as we have seen.

Her entrance was as unobserved as her exit.

Susan was overjoyed at being out, and, above all, being out with Markworth—without even “that governess,” whom she partially disliked—and away from the house and her mother.

It was quite a fairy holiday for her; and although she was now as reasoning a being as any of us, and had quite recovered her senses, she asked no questions: she left everything in Markworth’s hands, as she looked up to him as a superior to whom every obedience was due, and who would do everything for the best. He led the way over the fields, Susan walking by his side like a child engrossed by her own happy thoughts, and the novelty of everything around her—it was a new world to her—towards the Bigglethorpe station, on the “up line;” this was where he had got out: it was above Hartwood, so nobody could recognise him.

“How would you like to be with me always, Susan? To go away and never come back to the old house again, and all its horrors.”

“Oh! that would be so happy if I were with you,” she said, in joy; “but my mother would never let me,” she continued, her tone changing to one of sadness.

“Suppose she knew nothing about it, Susan? We won’t tell her, and will go away now, and never come back.”

“Can we? can we?” she exclaimed, with startling earnestness; “you are not laughing at me?”

“I mean it, Susan. You shall come with me now if you like. I will take you up to London and marry you, and then nobody can take you away. Will you come?”

“Will I?” she repeated with emotion; “I will go anywhere with you.” And she clung to his arm with a child’s touching trust.

They took the train at Bigglethorpe and in due time arrived at the Waterloo Station, where Mr Begg, looking like a very respectable old gentleman, but small and spare, met them. Markworth introduced him as “his uncle,” and they drove together to the lodgings in Bloomsbury Street. On the way he led out Susan and made her converse with the ex-marker, who was much struck with her appearance, and her timid, hesitating way.

“Well, what do you think of her?” asked Markworth, when Susan had gone up-stairs to take her things off, under the charge of the old landlady.

“What do I think, Mister Markworth? Well, I think you are put in luck’s way. She’s as pretty a young lady, and as ladylike a one as I ever seed.”

“You don’t see anything about her, do you?” he asked anxiously.

“Queer? not I; she’s a bit nervous, in course, but I’d bet she’s as sensible a lady as you or I.”

“Thank you, Joe, good day; I want you to be here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You must not be late; it will be my marriage day.”

“Never fear, sir; I’ll be here sharp ten,” and the confederates separated—the marker to go back to his billiard-room, where he had left a friend watching over the interest of his pool table, and Markworth to think over the day and study his plans.

On the next morning, Wednesday, August 28th, 1867, Susan Hartshorne was married to Allynne Markworth, at the church of St. Catherine’s Cross the Less, Johnson’s Lane, E.C., in the presence of Joseph Begg and the parish clerk, witnesses.

Volume Two—Chapter One.“A Pretty Kettle of Fish!”Imagine the unexpected arrival of the murdered Duncan’s wraith at Macbeth’s correct little dinner party, just after the soup had been removed—a break-down of the Prima Donna at the Opera, while executing some grandscena—or, in these High Church days of fashionable banns-publishing, the sudden uprising of some stern parent or Nemisitical Mawworm, to interrupt the glib utterance of the hair-parted-down-the-middle and lavender-kid-gloved curate of the period with the solemn veto, in basso profundo voice, “I forbid the banns!”—and you will have some idea of the alteration and effect which the young imp’s mischief created in the programme of Lady Inskip’s pic-nic.The whole company soon hurried after the doctor in real alarm; even Captain Curry Cucumber, forgetting his liver, and the not-fit-for-much-exertion officers, their lisp and laziness, were in a few moments on the scene of the accident: whither too, Laura presently appeared, leaning on Pringle’s arm; for she honestly was nervous, and had been really frightened.It was a very dramaticpose.Tom was lying on the ground, half-supported in Lizzie’s arms, a red stream of blood trickling down from his right side, while Doctor Jolly was bending over him, dashing water in his face.It is wonderful how much more composed in scenes of suffering and danger women are than men, that is when their services are required. Tell a girl that a man is shot or someone drowned, and she will immediately, perhaps, burst into tears, and wail and ring her hands; but tell her to hold his head up, or fetch water—only to do something, and she will be as composed as you please, and will set about doing the work far more steadily and usefully—in a workmanlike manner, so to speak—than you could get any man to do it.Women are all nurses and sick-attendants at heart: there are more Florence Nightingale’s among us than we know of, until time and occasion draws them out of seclusion, and displays them in their true colours.Here was Lizzie, who a moment before had been crying, wringing her hands and inclined to faint, now as composed as possible, although very pale and tearful, just because the doctor had employed her services, and showed her how to be useful.“Bless my soul! little girl; don’t stop crying there. Hold his head up, while I get some water.” And Lizzie had raised Tom’s head as tenderly as if it had been a piece of Sèvres china, and moved it on to her lap, while her arm passed round him. She did not mind his weight a bit, and could have thus supported him all day without feeling tired, although Tom was pretty heavy. Love lightens loads wonderfully!The doctor bustled off down to the river’s brink, and quickly fetched back some water in his smart new white hat; he did not mind that, however, for he would at any time sacrifice anything he had to give ease or pleasure to another.By the time the others came up, Tom opened his eyes, and looked dreamily around.“Hullo! what’s the row? where am I?”“Bless my soul! you’re a nice fellow you are, alarming us all like this. Do you feel better now? Where’s the pain? Does that hurt you, eh! or that?” said the doctor, who had removed Tom’s waistcoat, and was poking him about in the side with his fat fore-finger.“Ugh!” ejaculated Tom, as Aesculapius bore rather heavily on a tender spot in his ribs, but he took no further notice of his enquiries, for he was gazing up into Lizzie’s anxious face; unless you take a murmured “Lizzie, my darling,” spoken so softly that only one person heard it, as an answer to the doctor’s questions.“Speak, you young rascal! You can speak well enough; I heard you, you rogue. Bless my soul! I heard you.”Tom laughed faintly, and a little pink colour came into Lizzie’s face. “I’m all right, doctor, thanks. I’ll be well in a minute.” He made an effort to rise, as the others gathered around, and a perfect gabble of questions without answers ensued. “I’m all right;” but his head fell back again in Lizzie’s lap, and a dead-like pallor once more overspread his face.Tom’s actions belied his words. He was not by any means all right. Two of his ribs were broken by the heavy shot, nearly the size of slugs, that the young imp, Sir Mortimer had loaded his gun with; and if Tom had been hit on the left side, it would have been a case ofrequiescat in pacefor him and all his troubles. As it was, he would be laid up for some time, perhaps for months.The doctor saw this, and interrupted the old campaigner, as she was saying for Lizzie’s especial benefit, in her honeyed accents, which had a concealed sting beneath them—“How very sad! What a very charming picture; but if I were a young girl—”“We would try and make ourselves useful? Bless my soul! my lady, we must try and get him home. Here, one of you,” he said, turning to the males, who stood aloof looking at one another, and doing nothing, in the manner customary to them on such occasions—“run up to the cottage where the carriages are left—”Three or four immediately started off, without an idea of what they were about.“Stop!” shouted the doctor, “what are you going for? Ask for a door, mind you; take one off the hinges, by Gad! if you can’t get it any other way; and steal a mattress and some pillows! Lay them inside the largest of the pony carriages, and bring it down here as quick as you can. Bless my soul! and don’t walk as if your legs did not belong to you!” whereupon all, with the exception of the Reverend Jabez Heavieman and the Indian warrior, hied them off on the errand, although one or two could have easily performed the service. The ladies, however, still grouped themselves in picturesque attitudes round the wounded man, and gazed on him as if he were a rare geological specimen, to be inspected scientifically. “Ah! he moves,” said one; “I think he raised his arm,” put in Aliquis; “He breathes! he breathes!” exclaimed Lady Inskip, with tragic joy, such as the “heavy old lady” of the piece admirably puts on when she throws her arms round the villain’s neck, and putting her chin on his left shoulder, gives vent to the agonised words—“My chee-ild! my chee-ild!”The doctor, however, was too full of common sense to make any allowance for heroics.“Move aside, can’t ye?” he shouted out stentorially, “move aside, can’t ye? and let the poor fellow have some air. It’s enough to stifle him, all of you sticking around like this, doing nothing, and preventing a breath of wind from coming past your krinlins! The poor chap wants air; and he must have it!” And the doctor, rising up, and stretching out his hands, like street acrobats when they wish to clear a space for their performance amidst the encircling crowd, the ladies retreated, headed by the campaigner, who held her nose in the air, as if the whole thing was “much beneath her,” leaving the doctor and his patient, and Miss Lizzie, for awhile to themselves. Only the young imp remained behind to gaze with eyes of curiosity on his handiwork, until the doctor sent him to the right-about, by asking him the pertinent question, “What the doose are you stopping for? By Gad! don’t you think you’ve done enough for one day?” when he, too, drew on one side, and left the trio alone.After a few moments’ pause, by dint of having repeated handfuls of water dashed into his face, Tom again revived and opened his eyes.Shortly he looked much better, and was able to answer the doctor’s enquiries. He raised himself half up, turning over on his left side—“Oh, yes, doctor, I’m nearly all right. By Jove! though, don’t that hurt,” he said, as our friend still continued to examine him—“I’ll soon be right, won’t I, doctor? Thank you, but don’t press so hard! And thank you,” he said, turning his eyes round and upon her—“my darling”—he murmured, softly, “what a trouble I am to you.” But, strange to say, Lizzie did not look as if she thought it a trouble at all!The doctor was plunged in deep thought, “Humph! very serious, very serious,” he exclaimed, shaking his head solemnly, at the same time with a sly twinkle in his eyes—“Very serious, very serious, Master Tom. You’ve got two ribs smashed, sir, and I think you want to have another. Ha! Ha! Sly dog, sly dog. Never mind, it’s a beautiful contusion! Luckily it wasn’t the other side, or we would have had your heart gone.”“I’m afraid it’s gone already, doctor,” observed the wounded hero, gazing artfully round at Lizzie, who looked very conscious, “but shall I be able to get round soon?” and he tried to get up, but fell back again into his former position, and looked as if he were going to faint.“Oh, don’t move, pray don’t move,” Lizzie said, laying her hand on his shoulder entreatingly: Tom seized that opportunity to make the little hand a prisoner. Very interesting, was it not, for the old campaigner, who was looking on grimly from a distance?“Don’t budge, you young rascal; don’t you stir, or we’ll have you fainting again, and looking interesting, like my lady, yonder,” and the doctor sniggered, for his eyes were sharp, and, I believe, he had fathomed the campaigner’s little game—“Don’t stir, my boy. You must keep quiet now, but we’ll have you on your legs again in a few days.”The biggest of the pony carriages, accompanied by a band of gentlemen followers, now drew up in the glen, close to the gnarled old oak, by the stump of which the unlucky object of young Sir Mortimer’s gun practice was reclining.Doctor Jolly inspected the vehicle to see whether all his directions had been obeyed; and, finding an old door laid across the seats, on which was a mattress and a bundle of pillows, he said, “That’s right, boys. Now bear a hand, and we’ll get him in.”Supported by the brawny Aesculapius, and the offered arms of a score of others, Tom was lifted carefully into the chaise, and arranged comfortably amidst the pillows.“Now,” said the doctor aloud, for the benefit of the company, apparently, but in reality, I think, for little Lizzie’s sake, “I want some lady to go along with us, to hold his head up, and carry the salts—I want smelling salts, too—or a vinaigrette, or something of that sort.”All the ladies eagerly proffered help, but they were headed by Lady Inskip, who exclaimed—“Here’s my darling child Carry, who is so anxious, and will be so glad to go:” a dozen fair hands also held up gorgeous little silver-topped vinaigrettes.The doctor looked upon them all reflectively.“Humph!” he said, sententiously, “I don’t think any of you will do. I shall take Miss Pringle here; she’s undertaken the case, and she may as well complete the cure.”The campaigner looked fearfully disgusted. She turned to Pringle, B.A., and said, as if speaking confidentially to them, but for the express benefit of the doctor and Lizzie, as she spoke so that all might hear her—“Of course I would not like to interfere with a medical man, Mr Pringle; but do you think it is quite correct for a young girl like your sister to go off in that way with a young man without any chaperone?”“No indeed, Lady Inskip—no, indeed, Lady Inskip. Of course you know best; ah! and ah! Lizzie—”“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, excitedly, “I don’t see why Miss Lizzie cannot go just as properly as your daughter, my lady! It’s all nonsense, and she shall go!” And the doctor, without asking anybody’s leave or license, at once handed Lizzie into the pony carriage by the side of Tom. Getting in himself, and telling the campaigner cordially “Good-day, my lady! good-day,” he drove off triumphantly, although slowly, out from the glade, in and out of the trees, on to the road, and so slowly homeward to The Poplars, with our wounded hero lying back in Lizzie’s arm—a very different plight to the gallant turn-out in which Tom had set out so hopefully in the morning for Lady Inskip’sfête champêtre.The campaigner was certainly defeated to some extent, but she was not discomfited. Oh! dear, no. She had secured one of her birds—Pringle—at all events, for he was as devoted as she could wish to Laura; and as for the other, although he had been brought down, winged is the word—so unfortunately by the young imp, still, all was not lost there yet—she had only to act, and it would run hard, so she thought, if she did not succeed in throwing on one side “that artful little minx.”She now bethought herself of her company. The day was far spent, and she was not going to let the whole thing break up in such an unsatisfactory manner. She was too knowing for that; consequently she threw cold water on the manifest sympathy for Tom.“Pooh!” she said, “it’s not much. The doctor said he would be well in a day or two, it’s only a mere scratch!”Of course several joined in with her, and followed suit. When Lieutenant Harrowby ventured to suggest that it “must be very painful, you know, ba-iey Jo-ve!” he was caught up at once by the choleric Captain Curry Cucumber, “Nice soldier you are, my fine fellow! to think so much of a mere flea-bite—a mere flea-bite. By Jingo! when I was at Rhamdaghur—” And he was going to retail some of his East-Indian reminiscences, when he was adroitly stopped by the campaigner’s suggesting that they should return to the festal board, which all thereupon did, sitting down again with much gusto to the remnants of the feast.The evening waxed on, and then they packed up, and sallied homewards. It is wonderful what a little break the absence or injury of one makes in a large party. The proverb, “out of sight, out of mind,” is true enough, although it contradicts that other veracious proverb, which tells us that “absence makes the heart grow fonder!”Pringle and the young officers finished the evening very agreeably with the Inskip girls at their residence, the former not agitating himself much about his sister, “of whom,” the campaigner observed, “she was sure Doctor Jolly would take every care, notwithstanding his rudeness to her!” So everything went well with Lady Inskip, and the pic-nic was voted a success, although Captain Curry Cucumber dubbed her “an infernal old harridan, by Jingo!” and wished he had had her “out at Rhamdaghur, by Gad!” and he would have taught her how to “insult an army-man, by Jingo!” in taking no notice of him, while she “could pamper a civilian, by Gad!”—alluding, we very much fear, to the Revd. Herbert Pringle, to whom the campaigner had been really very ingratiating. If only that accident had not happened, who knows what other success might not have fallen to her share! But Lady Inskip had the satisfaction that night of boxing Mortimer’s ears.As the pony carriage drove very slowly, it was evening, nearly night, by the time Tom and his companions arrived at The Poplars: the house was wrapped in gloomy silence.The doctor jumped down quickly, and Lizzie after him, when she took the opportunity of saying to him, quickly, “I will wait here, doctor, until you come out, and do tell me then how he is!” She wished Tom good-bye, and walked on, apparently home to the parsonage, but she waited at the corner, and peeped back to see him carried in; after which she shrunk into the shades again to the garden-gate of The Poplars, and waited patiently for the doctor to come out.The dowager, herself, answered the gate, outstripping “Garge” in getting there first. The doctor, having rapidly explained matters, and told her not to be alarmed, she spoke up at once sharply to the point.“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” she said. “I’m a woman, Doctor Jolly; but I’m not a fool, and you won’t find me crying like an idiot!”Whereupon the orders were given to George, who looked on with stolid wonder and grief, and between them they carried Tom into the house and laid him on his bed, where the doctor saw him tranquilly composed, and told him cheerily he would be all right to-morrow.“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” said the dowager, half to herself, in a muttering tone. “Here’s Thomas wounded, and Susan gone away, one doesn’t know where!”“What! Susan gone?” enquired the doctor anxiously.“Drat it all, man! It doesn’t matter. I was only bothering about her being out in the garden so late; that’s all!”“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, quieting down—“you nearly frightened me to death! But I must see about Tom now!”—and there the conversation about the missing girl dropped.The old lady had but just discovered the absence of the girl, and Miss Kingscott had disclaimed any knowledge as to her whereabouts. The fright of the dowager, however, about Tom, made her forget the other trouble for a time, particularly as Susan had often before stopped out late in the garden. She would not be really alarmed about her daughter till the morning.Now, she was in a fearful state of anxiety about Tom, although she tried, with the dogged obstinacy of her nature, to affect indifference; but she was heartily glad when Doctor Jolly said he would do very well, and that he would come the first thing in the morning to see him.It was night now, quite late; and the bright harvest moon was shining down out of a clear blue sky with all its August fulness, marking out every feature of the landscape with all that clearness of outline and vivid contrast of brilliant, blueish light and dark shadow which only moonlight gives.Not a breath stirred the summer night. The tall, melancholy poplars around the Hartshorne’s house looked even more dismal by night than by day, with their ungainly shapes sharply defined against the sky, and their shadows more gloomy and eerie than those of the other trees; yet still Lizzie leant against the gate and waited, Heaven knows how anxiously! for Doctor Jolly’s re-appearance.The poor little thing had now been there, outside the gate, for more than two hours; as the doctor had been long engaged hearing about Susan’s disappearance, which he also made light of, besides seeing to Tom’s comfort and arrangements when they had lifted him into his bed and undressed him—for he was nearly helpless now.He at length came out, however; and he had no sooner got out of the gate than Lizzie, who was eagerly watching for him, clutched his arm, and outspoke her dreadful anxiety, “Oh! doctor, dear doctor, is there any hope? He looked so pale and helpless, and—and—he will die! He will die!”Her little wistful face looked up with such distressing enquiry into his jovial, weather-beaten countenance, that Doctor Jolly felt his eyes grow very hazy, and blew his nose vigorously.“Certainly, my dear, certainly! That is, there is plenty of hope, Miss Lizzie. Bless my soul! plenty of hope. You see, we’ve extracted all the shot (Lizzie shuddered), and he’s a strong and hearty young fellow, and he’ll be round again before we know where we are.”“Thank you, doctor,” Lizzie said, pressing his arm: the doctor felt that her simple words expressed more then than a hundred sentences might have done from others.The doctor saw her home, and cheered her up wonderfully, so that she actually laughed before she quitted him at the parsonage gate. They seemed to have a secret understanding about the wounded hero, although neither had expressed it in words. Indeed, Doctor Jolly had been so much taken up in soothing his companion, that he quite forgot to mention anything about Susan’s being missed. And all the time, the hours were gliding by, and the chances for her recovery were becoming more and more indefinite.Verily! a very pretty kettle of fish.

Imagine the unexpected arrival of the murdered Duncan’s wraith at Macbeth’s correct little dinner party, just after the soup had been removed—a break-down of the Prima Donna at the Opera, while executing some grandscena—or, in these High Church days of fashionable banns-publishing, the sudden uprising of some stern parent or Nemisitical Mawworm, to interrupt the glib utterance of the hair-parted-down-the-middle and lavender-kid-gloved curate of the period with the solemn veto, in basso profundo voice, “I forbid the banns!”—and you will have some idea of the alteration and effect which the young imp’s mischief created in the programme of Lady Inskip’s pic-nic.

The whole company soon hurried after the doctor in real alarm; even Captain Curry Cucumber, forgetting his liver, and the not-fit-for-much-exertion officers, their lisp and laziness, were in a few moments on the scene of the accident: whither too, Laura presently appeared, leaning on Pringle’s arm; for she honestly was nervous, and had been really frightened.

It was a very dramaticpose.

Tom was lying on the ground, half-supported in Lizzie’s arms, a red stream of blood trickling down from his right side, while Doctor Jolly was bending over him, dashing water in his face.

It is wonderful how much more composed in scenes of suffering and danger women are than men, that is when their services are required. Tell a girl that a man is shot or someone drowned, and she will immediately, perhaps, burst into tears, and wail and ring her hands; but tell her to hold his head up, or fetch water—only to do something, and she will be as composed as you please, and will set about doing the work far more steadily and usefully—in a workmanlike manner, so to speak—than you could get any man to do it.

Women are all nurses and sick-attendants at heart: there are more Florence Nightingale’s among us than we know of, until time and occasion draws them out of seclusion, and displays them in their true colours.

Here was Lizzie, who a moment before had been crying, wringing her hands and inclined to faint, now as composed as possible, although very pale and tearful, just because the doctor had employed her services, and showed her how to be useful.

“Bless my soul! little girl; don’t stop crying there. Hold his head up, while I get some water.” And Lizzie had raised Tom’s head as tenderly as if it had been a piece of Sèvres china, and moved it on to her lap, while her arm passed round him. She did not mind his weight a bit, and could have thus supported him all day without feeling tired, although Tom was pretty heavy. Love lightens loads wonderfully!

The doctor bustled off down to the river’s brink, and quickly fetched back some water in his smart new white hat; he did not mind that, however, for he would at any time sacrifice anything he had to give ease or pleasure to another.

By the time the others came up, Tom opened his eyes, and looked dreamily around.

“Hullo! what’s the row? where am I?”

“Bless my soul! you’re a nice fellow you are, alarming us all like this. Do you feel better now? Where’s the pain? Does that hurt you, eh! or that?” said the doctor, who had removed Tom’s waistcoat, and was poking him about in the side with his fat fore-finger.

“Ugh!” ejaculated Tom, as Aesculapius bore rather heavily on a tender spot in his ribs, but he took no further notice of his enquiries, for he was gazing up into Lizzie’s anxious face; unless you take a murmured “Lizzie, my darling,” spoken so softly that only one person heard it, as an answer to the doctor’s questions.

“Speak, you young rascal! You can speak well enough; I heard you, you rogue. Bless my soul! I heard you.”

Tom laughed faintly, and a little pink colour came into Lizzie’s face. “I’m all right, doctor, thanks. I’ll be well in a minute.” He made an effort to rise, as the others gathered around, and a perfect gabble of questions without answers ensued. “I’m all right;” but his head fell back again in Lizzie’s lap, and a dead-like pallor once more overspread his face.

Tom’s actions belied his words. He was not by any means all right. Two of his ribs were broken by the heavy shot, nearly the size of slugs, that the young imp, Sir Mortimer had loaded his gun with; and if Tom had been hit on the left side, it would have been a case ofrequiescat in pacefor him and all his troubles. As it was, he would be laid up for some time, perhaps for months.

The doctor saw this, and interrupted the old campaigner, as she was saying for Lizzie’s especial benefit, in her honeyed accents, which had a concealed sting beneath them—“How very sad! What a very charming picture; but if I were a young girl—”

“We would try and make ourselves useful? Bless my soul! my lady, we must try and get him home. Here, one of you,” he said, turning to the males, who stood aloof looking at one another, and doing nothing, in the manner customary to them on such occasions—“run up to the cottage where the carriages are left—”

Three or four immediately started off, without an idea of what they were about.

“Stop!” shouted the doctor, “what are you going for? Ask for a door, mind you; take one off the hinges, by Gad! if you can’t get it any other way; and steal a mattress and some pillows! Lay them inside the largest of the pony carriages, and bring it down here as quick as you can. Bless my soul! and don’t walk as if your legs did not belong to you!” whereupon all, with the exception of the Reverend Jabez Heavieman and the Indian warrior, hied them off on the errand, although one or two could have easily performed the service. The ladies, however, still grouped themselves in picturesque attitudes round the wounded man, and gazed on him as if he were a rare geological specimen, to be inspected scientifically. “Ah! he moves,” said one; “I think he raised his arm,” put in Aliquis; “He breathes! he breathes!” exclaimed Lady Inskip, with tragic joy, such as the “heavy old lady” of the piece admirably puts on when she throws her arms round the villain’s neck, and putting her chin on his left shoulder, gives vent to the agonised words—“My chee-ild! my chee-ild!”

The doctor, however, was too full of common sense to make any allowance for heroics.

“Move aside, can’t ye?” he shouted out stentorially, “move aside, can’t ye? and let the poor fellow have some air. It’s enough to stifle him, all of you sticking around like this, doing nothing, and preventing a breath of wind from coming past your krinlins! The poor chap wants air; and he must have it!” And the doctor, rising up, and stretching out his hands, like street acrobats when they wish to clear a space for their performance amidst the encircling crowd, the ladies retreated, headed by the campaigner, who held her nose in the air, as if the whole thing was “much beneath her,” leaving the doctor and his patient, and Miss Lizzie, for awhile to themselves. Only the young imp remained behind to gaze with eyes of curiosity on his handiwork, until the doctor sent him to the right-about, by asking him the pertinent question, “What the doose are you stopping for? By Gad! don’t you think you’ve done enough for one day?” when he, too, drew on one side, and left the trio alone.

After a few moments’ pause, by dint of having repeated handfuls of water dashed into his face, Tom again revived and opened his eyes.

Shortly he looked much better, and was able to answer the doctor’s enquiries. He raised himself half up, turning over on his left side—“Oh, yes, doctor, I’m nearly all right. By Jove! though, don’t that hurt,” he said, as our friend still continued to examine him—“I’ll soon be right, won’t I, doctor? Thank you, but don’t press so hard! And thank you,” he said, turning his eyes round and upon her—“my darling”—he murmured, softly, “what a trouble I am to you.” But, strange to say, Lizzie did not look as if she thought it a trouble at all!

The doctor was plunged in deep thought, “Humph! very serious, very serious,” he exclaimed, shaking his head solemnly, at the same time with a sly twinkle in his eyes—“Very serious, very serious, Master Tom. You’ve got two ribs smashed, sir, and I think you want to have another. Ha! Ha! Sly dog, sly dog. Never mind, it’s a beautiful contusion! Luckily it wasn’t the other side, or we would have had your heart gone.”

“I’m afraid it’s gone already, doctor,” observed the wounded hero, gazing artfully round at Lizzie, who looked very conscious, “but shall I be able to get round soon?” and he tried to get up, but fell back again into his former position, and looked as if he were going to faint.

“Oh, don’t move, pray don’t move,” Lizzie said, laying her hand on his shoulder entreatingly: Tom seized that opportunity to make the little hand a prisoner. Very interesting, was it not, for the old campaigner, who was looking on grimly from a distance?

“Don’t budge, you young rascal; don’t you stir, or we’ll have you fainting again, and looking interesting, like my lady, yonder,” and the doctor sniggered, for his eyes were sharp, and, I believe, he had fathomed the campaigner’s little game—“Don’t stir, my boy. You must keep quiet now, but we’ll have you on your legs again in a few days.”

The biggest of the pony carriages, accompanied by a band of gentlemen followers, now drew up in the glen, close to the gnarled old oak, by the stump of which the unlucky object of young Sir Mortimer’s gun practice was reclining.

Doctor Jolly inspected the vehicle to see whether all his directions had been obeyed; and, finding an old door laid across the seats, on which was a mattress and a bundle of pillows, he said, “That’s right, boys. Now bear a hand, and we’ll get him in.”

Supported by the brawny Aesculapius, and the offered arms of a score of others, Tom was lifted carefully into the chaise, and arranged comfortably amidst the pillows.

“Now,” said the doctor aloud, for the benefit of the company, apparently, but in reality, I think, for little Lizzie’s sake, “I want some lady to go along with us, to hold his head up, and carry the salts—I want smelling salts, too—or a vinaigrette, or something of that sort.”

All the ladies eagerly proffered help, but they were headed by Lady Inskip, who exclaimed—

“Here’s my darling child Carry, who is so anxious, and will be so glad to go:” a dozen fair hands also held up gorgeous little silver-topped vinaigrettes.

The doctor looked upon them all reflectively.

“Humph!” he said, sententiously, “I don’t think any of you will do. I shall take Miss Pringle here; she’s undertaken the case, and she may as well complete the cure.”

The campaigner looked fearfully disgusted. She turned to Pringle, B.A., and said, as if speaking confidentially to them, but for the express benefit of the doctor and Lizzie, as she spoke so that all might hear her—

“Of course I would not like to interfere with a medical man, Mr Pringle; but do you think it is quite correct for a young girl like your sister to go off in that way with a young man without any chaperone?”

“No indeed, Lady Inskip—no, indeed, Lady Inskip. Of course you know best; ah! and ah! Lizzie—”

“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, excitedly, “I don’t see why Miss Lizzie cannot go just as properly as your daughter, my lady! It’s all nonsense, and she shall go!” And the doctor, without asking anybody’s leave or license, at once handed Lizzie into the pony carriage by the side of Tom. Getting in himself, and telling the campaigner cordially “Good-day, my lady! good-day,” he drove off triumphantly, although slowly, out from the glade, in and out of the trees, on to the road, and so slowly homeward to The Poplars, with our wounded hero lying back in Lizzie’s arm—a very different plight to the gallant turn-out in which Tom had set out so hopefully in the morning for Lady Inskip’sfête champêtre.

The campaigner was certainly defeated to some extent, but she was not discomfited. Oh! dear, no. She had secured one of her birds—Pringle—at all events, for he was as devoted as she could wish to Laura; and as for the other, although he had been brought down, winged is the word—so unfortunately by the young imp, still, all was not lost there yet—she had only to act, and it would run hard, so she thought, if she did not succeed in throwing on one side “that artful little minx.”

She now bethought herself of her company. The day was far spent, and she was not going to let the whole thing break up in such an unsatisfactory manner. She was too knowing for that; consequently she threw cold water on the manifest sympathy for Tom.

“Pooh!” she said, “it’s not much. The doctor said he would be well in a day or two, it’s only a mere scratch!”

Of course several joined in with her, and followed suit. When Lieutenant Harrowby ventured to suggest that it “must be very painful, you know, ba-iey Jo-ve!” he was caught up at once by the choleric Captain Curry Cucumber, “Nice soldier you are, my fine fellow! to think so much of a mere flea-bite—a mere flea-bite. By Jingo! when I was at Rhamdaghur—” And he was going to retail some of his East-Indian reminiscences, when he was adroitly stopped by the campaigner’s suggesting that they should return to the festal board, which all thereupon did, sitting down again with much gusto to the remnants of the feast.

The evening waxed on, and then they packed up, and sallied homewards. It is wonderful what a little break the absence or injury of one makes in a large party. The proverb, “out of sight, out of mind,” is true enough, although it contradicts that other veracious proverb, which tells us that “absence makes the heart grow fonder!”

Pringle and the young officers finished the evening very agreeably with the Inskip girls at their residence, the former not agitating himself much about his sister, “of whom,” the campaigner observed, “she was sure Doctor Jolly would take every care, notwithstanding his rudeness to her!” So everything went well with Lady Inskip, and the pic-nic was voted a success, although Captain Curry Cucumber dubbed her “an infernal old harridan, by Jingo!” and wished he had had her “out at Rhamdaghur, by Gad!” and he would have taught her how to “insult an army-man, by Jingo!” in taking no notice of him, while she “could pamper a civilian, by Gad!”—alluding, we very much fear, to the Revd. Herbert Pringle, to whom the campaigner had been really very ingratiating. If only that accident had not happened, who knows what other success might not have fallen to her share! But Lady Inskip had the satisfaction that night of boxing Mortimer’s ears.

As the pony carriage drove very slowly, it was evening, nearly night, by the time Tom and his companions arrived at The Poplars: the house was wrapped in gloomy silence.

The doctor jumped down quickly, and Lizzie after him, when she took the opportunity of saying to him, quickly, “I will wait here, doctor, until you come out, and do tell me then how he is!” She wished Tom good-bye, and walked on, apparently home to the parsonage, but she waited at the corner, and peeped back to see him carried in; after which she shrunk into the shades again to the garden-gate of The Poplars, and waited patiently for the doctor to come out.

The dowager, herself, answered the gate, outstripping “Garge” in getting there first. The doctor, having rapidly explained matters, and told her not to be alarmed, she spoke up at once sharply to the point.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” she said. “I’m a woman, Doctor Jolly; but I’m not a fool, and you won’t find me crying like an idiot!”

Whereupon the orders were given to George, who looked on with stolid wonder and grief, and between them they carried Tom into the house and laid him on his bed, where the doctor saw him tranquilly composed, and told him cheerily he would be all right to-morrow.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” said the dowager, half to herself, in a muttering tone. “Here’s Thomas wounded, and Susan gone away, one doesn’t know where!”

“What! Susan gone?” enquired the doctor anxiously.

“Drat it all, man! It doesn’t matter. I was only bothering about her being out in the garden so late; that’s all!”

“Bless my soul!” said the doctor, quieting down—“you nearly frightened me to death! But I must see about Tom now!”—and there the conversation about the missing girl dropped.

The old lady had but just discovered the absence of the girl, and Miss Kingscott had disclaimed any knowledge as to her whereabouts. The fright of the dowager, however, about Tom, made her forget the other trouble for a time, particularly as Susan had often before stopped out late in the garden. She would not be really alarmed about her daughter till the morning.

Now, she was in a fearful state of anxiety about Tom, although she tried, with the dogged obstinacy of her nature, to affect indifference; but she was heartily glad when Doctor Jolly said he would do very well, and that he would come the first thing in the morning to see him.

It was night now, quite late; and the bright harvest moon was shining down out of a clear blue sky with all its August fulness, marking out every feature of the landscape with all that clearness of outline and vivid contrast of brilliant, blueish light and dark shadow which only moonlight gives.

Not a breath stirred the summer night. The tall, melancholy poplars around the Hartshorne’s house looked even more dismal by night than by day, with their ungainly shapes sharply defined against the sky, and their shadows more gloomy and eerie than those of the other trees; yet still Lizzie leant against the gate and waited, Heaven knows how anxiously! for Doctor Jolly’s re-appearance.

The poor little thing had now been there, outside the gate, for more than two hours; as the doctor had been long engaged hearing about Susan’s disappearance, which he also made light of, besides seeing to Tom’s comfort and arrangements when they had lifted him into his bed and undressed him—for he was nearly helpless now.

He at length came out, however; and he had no sooner got out of the gate than Lizzie, who was eagerly watching for him, clutched his arm, and outspoke her dreadful anxiety, “Oh! doctor, dear doctor, is there any hope? He looked so pale and helpless, and—and—he will die! He will die!”

Her little wistful face looked up with such distressing enquiry into his jovial, weather-beaten countenance, that Doctor Jolly felt his eyes grow very hazy, and blew his nose vigorously.

“Certainly, my dear, certainly! That is, there is plenty of hope, Miss Lizzie. Bless my soul! plenty of hope. You see, we’ve extracted all the shot (Lizzie shuddered), and he’s a strong and hearty young fellow, and he’ll be round again before we know where we are.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Lizzie said, pressing his arm: the doctor felt that her simple words expressed more then than a hundred sentences might have done from others.

The doctor saw her home, and cheered her up wonderfully, so that she actually laughed before she quitted him at the parsonage gate. They seemed to have a secret understanding about the wounded hero, although neither had expressed it in words. Indeed, Doctor Jolly had been so much taken up in soothing his companion, that he quite forgot to mention anything about Susan’s being missed. And all the time, the hours were gliding by, and the chances for her recovery were becoming more and more indefinite.

Verily! a very pretty kettle of fish.

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