The fine old house, Eagles' Nest, lay buried in snow. It was Christmas-tide, and Christmas weather. All the Raynor family had assembled within its walls: with the exception of Dr. Raynor and his daughter Edina. Charles had come home from keeping his first term at Oxford; Alfred from school; Frank Raynor and his wife had returned from their sojourn abroad.
All these past months, during which we have lost sight of them, Frank and Daisy had been on the Continent. Almost immediately after their departure from Trennach, Frank, through his medical friend, Crisp, was introduced to a lady who was going to Switzerland with her only son; a sickly lad of fifteen, in whom the doctors at home had hardly been able to keep life. This lady, Mrs. Berkeley, proposed to Frank to travel with them as medical attendant on her son, and she had not the least objection to Frank's wife being of the party. So preliminaries were settled, and they started. Frank considered it a most opportune chance to have fallen to him while waiting for the missing money to turn up.
But the engagement did not last long. Hardly had they settled in Switzerland when the lad died, and Mrs. Berkeley returned to England. Frank stayed on where he was. The place and the sojourn were alike pleasant; and, as he remarked to his wife, who knew but he might pick up a practice there, amongst the many English residents of the town, or those who flocked to it as birds of passage? Daisy was just as delighted to remain as he: they had funds in hand, and could afford to throw care to the winds. Even had care declared itself: which it did not. The young are sanguine, rarely gifted with much forethought. Frank and his wife especially lacked it. A few odds and ends of practice did drop into Frank, just a small case or so, at long intervals: and they remained stationary for some time in perfect complacency. But when Christmas approached, and Frank found that his five hundred pounds would not hold out for ever, and that the idea of a practice in the Swiss town was a mere castle in the air, he took his wife home again. By invitation, they went at once to Eagles' Nest.
Christmas-Day passed merrily, and some of the days immediately succeeding to it. On New-Year's Day they were invited to an entertainment at Sir Philip Stane's; Major and Mrs. Raynor, Charles and Alice; a later invitation having come in for Frank and his wife. William Stane was a frequent visitor at Eagles' Nest whenever he was sojourning at his father's; and, though he had not yet spoken, few could doubt that the chief object to draw him there was Alice Raynor.
Yes. Sunshine and merry-making, profusion and reckless expenditure reigned within the doors of Eagles' Nest; but little except poverty, distress and dissatisfaction existed beyond its gates. Mrs. Atkinson had ever been liberal in her care of the estate; the land had been enriched and thoroughly well kept; the small tenants and labourers were cared for. One thing she had not done so thoroughly as she might: and that was, improving the dwellings of the labourers. Repairs she had made from time to time; but the places were really beyond repair. Each tenement wanted one of two things: to be thoroughly renewed and to have an additional sleeping-room added; or else to be entirely rebuilt. During the last year of Mrs. Atkinson's life, she seemed to awaken suddenly to the necessity of doing something. Perhaps with the approach of death—which will often open our eyes to many things they remained closed to before—she saw the supineness she had been guilty of. Street the lawyer was hastily summoned to Eagles' Nest: he was ordered to procure plans and estimates for new dwellings. A long row of cottages, some thirty in number, was hastily begun. Whilst the builders were commencing their work, Mrs. Atkinson died. With nearly her last breath she charged Mr. Street to see that the new houses were completed, and that the old ones were also repaired and made healthy.
Mr. Street could only hand over the charge to the inheritor of the estate, Major Raynor. The reader may remember that the major spoke of it to Edina. The lawyer could not do more than that, or carry out Mrs. Atkinson's wishes in any other way. And the major did nothing. His will might have been good enough to carry out the changes, but he had not the means. So much money was required for his own wants and those of his family, that he had none to spare for other people. The ready-money he came into had chiefly gone in paying back-debts: until these debts stared him in the face in black and white, he had not thought that he owed a tithe of them. It is a very common experience. So the new dwellings were summarily stopped, and remained as they were—so many skeletons: and the tumbledown cottages, wanting space, drainage, whitewash, and everything else that could render them decent and healthy, grew worse day by day, and became an eyesore to spectators and the talk of the neighbourhood.
Not only didtheysuffer from the major's want of money and foresight; many other necessities were crying out in like manner: these are only given as a specimen. Above all, he was doing no good to the land, spending nothing to enrich it, and sparing necessary and ordinary labour. Perhaps had Major Raynor understood the cultivation and requirements of land, he might have made an effort to improve his own: as it was, it deteriorated day by day.
This state of things had caused a certain antagonism to set in between Eagles' Nest and its dependents. The labourers and their families grumbled; the major, conscious of the state of affairs, and feeling some slight shame in consequence, but knowing at the same time that he was powerless to remedy it, shunned them. When complainers came to the house he would very rarely see them. A warm-hearted man, he could not bear to hear them. Mrs. Raynor and the elder children, understanding matters very imperfectly, naturally espoused the major's cause, and looked upon the small tenants as a barbarous, insubordinate set of wretches, next door to insurgents. When the poor wives or children fell ill, no succour was sent to them from Eagles' Nest. With this estrangement reigning, Mrs. Raynor did not attempt to help: not from coldness of heart, but that she considered they did not deserve help, and, moreover, thought it would be flung back on her if she offered it.
Therewas where the shoe pinched the poor. The insufficient dwellings they were used to; though indeed with every winter and every summer they grew worse than ever; but they were not accustomed to utter, contemptuous neglect, as they looked upon it, in times of need. Mrs. Atkinson had always been a generous mistress: when sickness or sorrow or distress in times of little work set in, her hand and purse were ever open. Coals in severe weather, Christmas cheer, warm garments for the scantily clad, broth for the sick; she had furnished all: and it was the entire withdrawal of this aid that was so much felt now. The winter was unusually severe: it frequently is so after a very hot summer; labour was scarce, food was dear: and a great deal of illness prevailed. So that you perceive all things were not so flourishing in and about Eagle's Nest as they might have been, and Major Raynor's bed was not entirely one of rose-leaves.
But, unpleasant things that are out of sight, are, it is said, for the most part out of mind—Mr. Blase Pellet told us so much a chapter or two ago—and the discomfort out-of-doors did not disturb the geniality within. At Eagles' Nest, the days floated on in a round of enjoyment; they seemed to be one continuous course of pleasure that would never end. Daisy Raynor had never been so happy in all her life: Eagles' Nest, she said, was perfection.
The music and wax-lights, the flowers and evergreens rendered the rooms at Sir Philip Stane's a scene of enchantment. At least it seemed so to Alice Raynor as she entered upon it. William Stane stood near the door, and caught her hand as she and Charles were following their father and mother.
"The first dance is mine, remember, Alice," he whispered. And her pretty cheeks flushed and a half-conscious smile parted her lips, as she passed on to Lady Stane.
Lady Stane, a stout and kindly woman in emerald green, received her kindly. She suspected that this young lady might some day become her daughter-in-law, and she looked at her more critically than she had ever looked before. Alice could bear the inspection to-night. Her new white dress was beautiful; her face was charming, her manner modest and graceful. "The most lady-like girl in the room," mentally decided Lady Stane, "and no doubt will have a fair fortune. William might do worse."
William Stane thought he might do very much worse. Without doubt he was truly attached to Alice. Not perhaps in the wild and ardent manner that some lovers own to: all natures are not capable of that: but he did love her, her only, and he hoped that when he married it was she who would be his wife. He was not ready to marry at present. He was progressing in his profession, but with the proverbial slowness that is said to attend the advancement of barristers: and he did not wish to speak just yet. Meanwhile he was quite content to make love tacitly; and he felt sure that his intentions were understood.
His elder brother was not present this evening, and it fell to William to take his place, and dispense his favours pretty equally amongst the guests. But every moment that he could snatch for Alice, was given to her; in every dance that he could possibly spare her, she was his partner.
"Have you enjoyed the evening, Alice?" he asked in a whisper, as he was taking her to the carriage at three o'clock in the morning.
"I never enjoyed an evening half so much," was the shyly-breathed answer. And Mr. William Stane took possession of her hand as she spoke, and kept it to the last.
If this light-hearted carelessness never came to an end! If freedom from trouble could only last for ever! Pleasure first, says some wise old saw, pain afterwards. With the dawn came the pain to Eagles' Nest.
Amongst the letters delivered to Major Raynor—who, for a wonder, had risen betimes that morning, and was turning places over in his study in search of the lost bonds—was one from Oxford. It enclosed a very heavy bill for wine supplied to his son Charles: heavy, considering Mr. Charles's years and the duration of his one sojourn at the University. The major stared at it, with his spectacles, and without his spectacles; he looked at the heading, he gazed at the foot; and finally when he had mastered it he went into a passion, and ordered Charles before him. So peremptory was the summons, that Charles appeared in haste, half dressed. His outburst, when he found out what the matter was, quite equalled his father's.
"I'm sure I thought you must be on fire down here, sir," said he. "What confounded sneaks they are, to apply to you! I can't understand their doing it."
"Sneaks be shot!" cried the wrathful major. "Do you owe all this, or don't you? That's the question."
"Why, the letter was addressed tome!" exclaimed Charles, who had been examining the envelope. "I must say, sir, you might allow me to open my own letters."
But the major was guiltless of any want of faith. The mistake was the butler's. He had inadvertently placed the letter amongst his master's letters, and the major opened it without glancing at the address.
"What does it signify, do you suppose, whether I opened it or you?" demanded the major. "Not that I did it intentionally. I should have to know of it:youcan't pay this."
"They can wait," said Charles.
"Wait! Do you mean to confess that you have had all this wine?" retorted the major, irascible for once. "Why, you must be growing into—into what I don't care to name!"
"You can't suppose that I drank it, sir. The other undergrads give wine parties, and I have to do the same. They drink the wine; I don't."
"That is, you drink it amongst you," roared the major; "and a nice disreputable lot you must all be. I understood that young men went to college to study; not to drink, and run up bills. What else do you owe? Is this all?"
Charles hesitated in answering. An untruth he would not tell. The major saw what the hesitation meant, and it alarmed him. When we become frightened our wrath cools down. The major dropped into a chair, and lost his fierceness and his voice together.
"Charley," said he in very subdued tones, "I have not the money to pay with. You know I haven't. If it's much, it will ruin me."
"But it is not much, father," returned Charles, his own anger disarmed and contrition taking its place. "There may be one or two more trifling bills; nothing to speak of."
"What on earth made you run them up?"
"I'm sure I don't know; and I am very sorry for it," said Charles. "These things accumulate in the most extraordinary manner. When you fancy that you owe only a few shillings at some place or another, it turns out to be pounds. You have no idea what it is, father!"
"Have I not!" returned the major, significantly. "It is because I have rather too much idea of the insidious way in which debt creeps upon one, that I should like to see you keep out of its toils. Charley, my boy, I have been staving off liabilities all my life, and haven't worried myself in doing it; but it is beginning to tell upon me now. My constitution's changing. I suppose I must be growing fidgety."
"Well, don't let this worry you, father. It's not so very much."
"Much or little, it must be paid. I don't want my son to get into bad odour at college; or have 'debtor' attached to his name. You are young for that, Mr. Charles."
Charles remained silent. The major was evidently in blissful ignorance of the latitude of opinion current amongst Oxonians.
"Go back and dress yourself, Charles; and get your breakfast over; and then, just sit down and make out a list of what it is you owe, and I'll see what can be done."
Now in the course of this same morning it chanced that Frank Raynor took occasion to speak to his uncle about money matters, as connected with his own prospects, which he had not previously entered upon during his present stay. The major was pacing his study in a gloomy mood when Frank entered.
"You look tired, Uncle Francis. Just as though you had been dancing all night."
"I leave that to you younger men," returned the major, drawing his easy-chair to the fire. "As to being tired, Frank, I am so; though I have not danced."
"Tired of what, uncle?"
"Of everything, I think. Sit down, lad."
"I want to speak to you, Uncle Francis, concerning myself and my plans," said Frank, taking a seat near the fire. "It is time I settled down to something."
"Is it?" was the answer. The major's thoughts were elsewhere.
"Why, yes; don't you think it is, sir? The question is, what is it to be? With regard to the bonds for that missing money, uncle? They have not turned up, I conclude?"
"They have not turned up, my boy, or the money either. If they had, you'd have been the first to hear of it. I have been searching for them this very morning."
"What is your true opinion about the money, Uncle Francis?" resumed Frank, after a pause. "Will it ever be found?"
"Yes, Frank, I think it will. I feel assured that the money is lying somewhere—and that it will come to the surface sooner or later. I should be sorry to think otherwise; for, goodness knows, I need it badly enough."
A piece of blazing wood fell off the grate. Frank caught the tongs, and put it up again.
"And I wish it could be found for your sake, also, Frank. You want your share of it, you know."
"Why, you see, Uncle Francis, without money I don't know what to be at. If I were single, I'd engage myself out as assistant to-morrow; but for my wife's sake I wish to take a better position than that."
"Naturally you do, Frank, And so you ought."
"It would be easy enough if I had the money in hand; or if I could with any certainty say when I should have it."
"It's sure to come," said the major. "Quite sure."
"Well, I hope so. The difficulty is—when?"
"You must wait a bit longer, my boy. It may turn up any day. To-night, even: to-morrow morning. Never a day passes but I go ferreting into some corner or other of the old house, thinking I may put my hand upon the papers. They are lying in it somewhere, I know, overlooked."
"But I don't see my way clear to wait. Not to wait long. We must have a roof over our heads, and means to keep it up——"
"Why, you have a roof over your heads," interrupted the major. "Can't you stay here?"
"I should not like to stay too long," avowed Frank in his candour. "It would be abusing your hospitality."
"Abusing a fiddlestick!" cried the major, staring at Frank. "What's come to you? Is the house not large enough?—and plenty to eat in it? I'm sure you may stay here for ever; and the longer you stay the more welcome you'll be. We like to have you."
"Thank you greatly, Uncle Francis."
"Daisy does not want to go away; she's as happy as the day's long," continued the major. "Just make yourselves comfortable here, Frank, my boy, until the money turns up and I can hand you over some of it."
"Thank you again, uncle," said Frank, accepting the hospitality in the free-hearted spirit that it was offered. "For a little while at any rate we will stay with you; but I hope before long to be doing something and to get into a home of my own. I can run up to town once or twice a week and be looking out."
"Of course you can."
"Had you been a rich man, Uncle Francis, I would have asked you to lend me a thousand pounds, or so, to set me up until the nest-egg is found; but I know you have not got it to lend."
"Got it to lend!" echoed the major in dismayed astonishment. "Why, Frank, my boy, I want to borrow such a sum myself. I wish to my heart I knew where to pick it up. Here's Charles must have money now: has come home from Oxford with a pack of debts at his back!"
"Charles has!" exclaimed Frank in surprise.
"And would like to make me believe that all the rest of the young fellows there run up the same bills! every man Jack of 'em! No, no, Master Charley: you don't get me to takethatin. Young men can be steady at college as well as at home if they choose to be. Charley's just one that's led any way. He is young, you see, Frank: and he is thrown there, I expect, amongst a few rich blades to whom money is no object, and must needs do as they do. The result is, he has made I don't know what liabilities, and I must pay them. Oh, it's all worry and bother together!"
Not intentionally, but by chance, Frank, on quitting his uncle, came upon Charles. Looking into a room in search of his wife, there sat Charley at a table, pen, ink and paper before him, setting down his debts, as far as he could judge of and recollect them. Frank went in and closed the door.
Charles let off a little of his superfluous discomfort in abuse of the people who had presumed to trouble him with the wine bill. Frank sat down, and drew the paper towards him.
"I had no idea it could be as much as that, Frank," was the rueful avowal. "And I wish with all my heart their wine parties and their fast living had been at the bottom of the sea!"
"Isit as much, Charley?"
"To tell the truth, I am afraid it's more," said Charles, with candour. "I've only made a guess at the other amounts, and I know I have not put down too much. That tailor is an awful man for sticking it on: as all the rest of the crew are, for the matter of that. I was trying to recollect how many times I've had horses and traps and things; and I can't."
"Does Uncle Francis know it comes to all this?"
"No. And I don't care to let him know. Things seem to worry him so much now. I do wish that lost money could be found!"
"Just what your father and I have been wishing," cried Frank. "Look here, Charley. I have a little left out of my five hundred pounds. You shall have half of it: just between ourselves, you know: and then the sum my uncle must find will not look so formidable to him. Nay, no thanks, lad: would you not all do as much for me—and more? And we are going to stay on here for a time—and that will save expenses."
It was simply impossible for Frank Raynor to see a difficulty of this kind, or indeed of any kind, and not help to relieve it if he had help in his power. That he would himself very speedily require the money he was now giving away, was only too probable: but he was content to forget that in Charley's need.
The one individual person in all the house that Charles would have kept from the knowledge of his folly—and in his repentance he looked upon it as folly most extreme—was his mother. He loved her dearly; and he had the grace to be ashamed, for her sake, of what he had done, and to hope that she would never know it. A most fallacious hope, as he was soon to find, for Major Raynor had taken the news up to her with open mouth.
She was sitting on the low sofa in her dressing-room that evening at dusk, when Charles went in. The firelight played on her face, showing its look of utter weariness, and the traces of tears.
"What's the matter, mother?" he asked, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. "Are you ill?"
"Not ill, Charley," she answered. "Only tired and—and out of sorts."
"What has tired you? Last night, I suppose. But you have been resting all day."
"Not last night particularly. So much fast living does not suit me."
"Fast living!" exclaimed Charles in wondering accents. "Is it the gravies?—or the plum-puddings?"
Mrs. Raynor could not forbear a smile. "I was not thinking of the table, Charles; the gravies and the puddings; but of our fast, artificial existence. We seem to have no rest at all. It is always excitement; nothing but excitement. We went out last night; we go out to dinner to-morrow night; people come here the next night. Every day that we are at home there is something; if it's not luncheon and afternoon-tea, it's dinner; and if it's not dinner, it's supper. I have to think of it all; the entertainments and the dress, and everything; and to go out when you go; and—and I feel it is getting rather too much for me."
"Then lie up, mother, for a few days," advised Charles, affectionately. "Keep by your own fire, and turn things over to Alice and the servants. You will soon be all right again."
Mrs. Raynor did not answer. She held Charles's hand in her own, and was looking steadfastly at the flickering blaze. A silence ensued. Charles lost himself in a train of thought.
"What about this trouble of yours, Charley?"
It was a very unpleasant awakening for him. Of all things, this is what he had wanted to keep from her. His ingenuous face—and it was an ingenuous face in spite of the wine bills—flushed deeply with annoyance.
"It's what you need not have heard about, mother. I came away from Oxford without paying a few pounds I owe there; that's all. There need be no fuss about it."
"I hear of wine bills, and horses, and things of that kind. Oh, my dear,needyou have entered into that fast sort of life?"
"Others enter into it," said Charley.
"It is not so much the cost that troubles me," added Mrs. Raynor, in loving tones; "that can be met somehow. It is——" She stopped as if wanting words.
"It is what, mother?"
"Charley, my dear, what I think of is this—that you may be falling into the world's evil ways. It is so easy to do it; you young lads are so inexperienced and confiding; you think all is fair that looks fair; that no poison lurks in what has a specious surface. And oh, my boy, you know that there is a world after this world; and if you were to fall too deeply into the ways ofthis, to get to love it, to be unable to do without it, you might never gain the other. Some young lads that have fallen away from God have not cared to find Him again; never have found Him.
"There has been no harm," said Charley. "And I assure you I don't often miss chapel."
"Charley, dear, there's a verse in Ecclesiastes that I often think of," she resumed in low sweet tones. "All mothers think of it, I fancy, when their sons begin to go out in the world."
"In Ecclesiastes?" repeated Charley.
"The verse that Edina illuminated for us once, when she was staying at Spring Lawn. It was her doing it, I think, that helped to impress it so much on my memory."
"I remember it, mother mine." And the words ran through Charley's thoughts as he spoke.
"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."
The late spring flowers were blooming; the air was soft and balmy. Easter was rather late; in fact, April was passing; and when Easter comes at that period, it generally brings sunshine with it.
Eagles' Nest, amidst other favoured spots, seemed to be as bright as the day was long. Once more Major Raynor had all his children about him; also Frank and Daisy. For anything that could be seen on the surface, merry hearts reigned; none of them seemed to have a care in the world.
Frank decidedly had not. Sanguine and light-hearted, he was content as ever to let the future take care of itself. Yielding to persuasion, he still stayed on at Eagles' Nest. His wife looked forward to being laid up in the course of a month or two: and where, asked the major, could she be better attended to than at Eagles' Nest? Daisy, of course, wished to remain; she should feel safe, she said, in the care of Mrs. Raynor: and who would wish to run away from so pleasant a home? Twenty times at least had Frank gone up to town to see if he could pick up any news, or hear of anything to suit him. Delusive dreams often presented themselves to his mental vision, of some doctor, rich in years and philanthropy, who might be willing to take him in for nothing, to share his first-rate practice. As yet the benevolent old gentleman had not been discovered, but Frank quite believed he existed somewhere.
Another thing had not been discovered: the missing money. But Major Raynor, sanguine as ever was his nephew, did not lose faith in its existence. It would come to light some time he felt certain; and of this he never ceased to assure Frank. Embarrassments decidedly increased upon the major, chiefly arising from the want of ready cash; for the greater portion ofthatwas sure to be forestalled before it came in. Still, a man who enjoys from two to three thousand a-year cannot be so very badly off: money comes to the fore somehow: and on the whole Major Raynor led an easy, indolent, and self-satisfied life. Had they decreased their home expenses, it would have been all the better: and they might have done that very materially, and yet not touched on home comforts. But neither Major nor Mrs. Raynor knew how to set about retrenchment: and so the senseless profusion went on.
"What is there to see, Charley?"
The questioner was Frank. In crossing the grounds, some little distance from home, he came upon Charles Raynor. Charles was craning his neck over a stile, by which the high hedge was divided that bordered the large, enclosed, three-cornered tract of land known as the common. On one side of the common were those miserable dwellings, the neglected cottages: in a line with them ran the row of skeletons, summarily stopped in process of erection. On the other side stood some pretty detached cottages, inhabited by a somewhat better class of people; whilst this high hedge—now budding into summer bloom, and flanked with a sloping bank, rich in moss and weeds and wild flowers—bordered the third side. In one corner, between the hedge and the better houses, flourished a small grove of trees. It all belonged to Major Raynor.
"Nothing particular," said Charley, in answer to the question. "I was only looking at a fellow."
Frank sent his eyes over the green space before him. Three or four paths traversed it in different directions. A portion of it was railed off by wooden fencing, and on this some cattle grazed; but on most of it grass was growing, intended for the mower in a month or two's time. Frank could not see a soul; and said so. Some children, indeed, were playing before the huts; but Charles had evidently not alluded to them: his gaze had been directed to the opposite side, near the grove.
"He has disappeared amongst those trees," said Charles.
"Who was it?" pursued Frank: for there was something in his young cousin's tone and manner suggestive of uneasiness; and it awoke his own curiosity.
Charles turned and put his back against the stile. He had plucked a small twig from the hedge, and was twirling it about between his lips.
"Frank, I am in a mess. Keep a look-out yonder, and if you see a stranger, tell me."
"Over-run the constable at Oxford this term, as before?" questioned Frank, leaping to the truth by instinct.
Charles nodded. "And I assure you, Frank," he added, attempting to excuse himself, "that I no more intended to get into debt this last term than I intended to hang myself. When I went down after Christmas, I had formed the best resolutions in the world. I told the mother she might trust me. No one could have wished to keep straighter than I wished: and somehow——"
"You didn't," put in Frank at the pause.
"I have managed to fall into a fast set, and that's the truth," confessed Charles. "And I think the very deuce is in the money. It runs away without your knowing it."
"Well, the tradespeople must wait," said Frank, cheerfully; for he was just as genial over this trouble as he would have been over pleasure. "They have to wait pretty stiffly for others.
"The worst of it is, I have accepted a bill or two," cried Charley, ruefully. "And—I had a writ served upon me the last day of term."
"Whew!" whistled Frank. "A writ?"
"One. And I expect another. Those horrid bills—there are two of them—were drawn at only a month's date. Of course the time's out; and the fellow wouldn't renew; and I expect there'll be the dickens to pay. The amount is not much; each fifty pounds; but I have not the ghost of a shilling to meet it with."
"What do you owe besides?"
"As if I knew! There's the tailor, and the bootmaker, and the livery stables, and the wine—— Oh, I can't recollect."
Had Frank possessed the money, in pocket or prospective, he would have handed out help to Charles there and then. But he did not possess it. He was at a nonplus.
"When once a writ's served, they can take you, can't they?" asked Charles, stooping to pluck a pink blossom from the bank, the twig being bitten away to nothing.
"I think so," replied Frank, who had himself contrived to steer clear of these unpleasant shoals, and knew no more of their power than Charles did. "By the way, though, I don't know. Have they got judgment?"
"Judgment? What's that? Sure to have got it if it's anything bad. And I think I am going to be arrested," continued Charles, dropping his voice, and turning to face the common again. "It's rather a blue look-out. I should not somuchmind it for myself, I think: better men than I have had to go through the same: but it's the fuss there'll be at home."
"The idea of calling yourself a man, Charley! You are only a boy yet."
"By the way, talking of that, Jones of Corpus told me a writ could not be legally served upon me as I was not of age. Jones said he was sure of it. What do you think, Frank?"
"I don't know. To tell you the truth, Charley, I am not at home in these things. But I should suppose that the very fact of the writ having been served upon you is a proof that it can be done, and that Jones of Corpus is wrong. William Stane could tell you: he must have all points of law at his fingers' ends."
"But I don't care to ask William Stane. It may be they take it for granted that I am of age. Any way, I was served with the writ at Oxford: and, unless I am mistaken," added Charles, gloomily, "a fellow has followed me here, and is dodging my heels to arrest me."
"What are your grounds for thinking so, Charley? Have you seen any suspicious person about?"
"Yes, I have. Before you came up just now, I——"
The words were broken off suddenly. Charles leaped from the corner of the stile to hide behind the hedge. Some individual was emerging from the grove of trees; and he, it was evident, had caused the movement.
"If he turns his steps this way, tell me, Frank, and I'll make a dash homewards through the oak-coppice," came the hurried whisper.
"All right. No. He is making off across the common."
"That may be only a ruse to throw me off my guard," cried Charley, from the hedge. "Watch. He will come over here full pelt in a minute. He looks just like a tiger, with that great mass of brown beard. He is a tiger."
Frank, leaning his arms on the stile, scanned the movements of the "Tiger." The Tiger was at some distance, and he could not see him clearly. A thin tiger of middle height, and apparently approaching middle age, dressed in a suit of grey, with a slouching hat on his brows and a fine brown beard. But the Tiger, whosoever he might be, appeared to entertain no hostile intentions for the present moment, and was strolling leisurely in the direction of the huts. Presently Frank spoke.
"He is well away now, Charley: too far to distinguish you, even should he turn round. There's no danger."
Charley came out from the hedge, and took up his former position at the extreme corner of the stile, where he was partly hidden. Every vestige of colour had forsaken his face. He was very young still: not much more than a boy, as Frank had said: and unfamiliar with these things.
"I saw him yesterday for the first time," said he to Frank. "I chanced to be standing here, as we are now, and he was walking towards me across the common. Whilst wondering, in a lazy kind of way, who he was and what he wanted here, a rush of fear came over me. It occurred to me that he might be a sheriff's officer. Why the idea should flash on me in that sudden manner—and the fear—I cannot tell; but it did so. I made the best of my way indoors, and did not stir out again. This morning I said to myself what a simpleton I had been—that I had no grounds for fearing the man, except that he was a stranger, and that my own mind was full of bother; and I came out, all bravery. The first person I saw, upon crossing this stile, was he; just in the same spot, near the trees, in which I saw him yesterday; and the rush of fear came over me again. It's of no good your laughing, Frank: I can't help it: I never was a coward before."
"I was not laughing. Did he see you?"
"Not to-day, I think. Yesterday he did, looked at me keenly; and here he is again in the same spot! I am sure he is looking for me. If I were up in funds, I'd be off somewhere and stay away."
"What about home—and Oxford?"
"There's the worst of it."
"And you could not stay away for ever."
"For ever, no. But, you see, that money may turn up any day, and put all things straight."
"Well, you may be mistaken in the man, Charley: and I hope you are."
William Stane was at home for these Easter holidays, and still the shadow of Alice Raynor. It chanced that this same afternoon he and Alice encountered the Tiger—as, from that day, Charles and Frank both called him in private. Strolling side by side under the brilliant afternoon sun, in that silence which is most eloquent of love, with the birds singing above them, and the very murmur of the trees speaking a sweet language to their hearts, they came upon this stranger in grey, sitting on the stump of a tree. The trees, mostly beeches, were thick about there; the path branched off sharply at a right angle, and they did not see him until they were close up: in fact, William Stene had to make a hasty stop or two to pass without touching him. Perhaps it was his unexpected appearance in that spot, or that it was not usual to see strangers there, or else his peculiar look, with the slouching hat and the bushy beard; but certain it was that he especially attracted their attention; somewhat of their curiosity.
"What a strange-looking man!" exclaimed Alice, when they had gone on some distance. "Did you not think so, William?"
"Queerish. Does he live here? I wonder if he is aware that he is trespassing?"
"Papa lets any one come on the grounds who likes to," replied Alice. "He is a stranger. I never saw him before."
"Oh, it must be one of the Easter excursionists. Escaped from smoky London to enjoy a day or two of pure air in the Kentish Wolds."
"As you have done," said she.
"As I have done. I only wish, Alice, I could enjoy it oftener."
Words and the tone alike bore a precious meaning to her ear. His eyes met hers, and lingered there.
"I am getting on excellently," he continued. "By the end of this year, I have no doubt I shall be justified in—in quitting my chambers and taking a house. Perhaps before that."
"Look at that hawthorn!" exclaimed Alice, darting to a hedge they were now passing, for she knew too well what the words implied. "Has it not come out early! It is in full bloom."
"Shall I gather some for you?"
"No. It would be a pity. It looks so well there, and every one who passes can enjoy it. Do you know, I never see the flowering hawthorn but I think of that good old Scotch song, 'Ye banks and braes.' I don't know why."
"Let us sit down here," said he, as they came to a rustic seat under the trees. "And now, Alice, if you would sing that good old song, the charm would be perfect."
She laughed. "What charm?"
"The charm of—everything. The day and hour, the white and pink may budding in the hedges, the wild flowers we crush with our feet, the blue sky and the green trees, the sunshine and the shade, the singing birds and the whispering leaves, and—yourself."
Not another word from either of them just yet. William Stane had allowed his hand to fall on hers. Her head was slightly turned from him, her cheeks were glowing, her heart was beating: it was again another interval of that most sweet and eloquent silence.
"Won't you begin, Alice? The birds 'warbling through the flowering thorn' are waiting to hear you. So am I."
And as if she had no power to resist his will, she began at once, without a dissenting murmur, and sang the song to the end. Excepting the birds above them, there were no listeners: no rover was likely to be near that solitary spot. Her voice was sweet, but not loud; every syllable was spoken distinctly. To sit there for ever, side by side, and not be disturbed, would be a very Eden.
"And my fake lover stole my rose,But ah! he left the thorn wi' me."
"And my fake lover stole my rose,But ah! he left the thorn wi' me."
Scarcely had the echoing melody died away, when the unexpected sound of footsteps was heard approaching, and there advanced into view a woman well known to Alice; one Sarah Croft, the wife of a man employed on the estate. They lived in one of the most miserable dwellings on the common, but were civil and quiet; somewhat independent in manner, but never joining in the semi-rebellion that reigned. She looked miserably poor. Her blue cotton gown, though clean, was in rags, her old shawl would hardly hang together, the black bonnet on her head might have been used for frightening the crows. She dropped a curtsy and was passing onwards, when Alice inquired after her sick children.
"They be no better, Miss Raynor, thank you," she answered, halting in front of the bench. "The little one, she be took sick now, as well as the two boys. I've a fine time o't.
"Why don't you have a doctor to them?" said Alice.
"More nor a week agone I went up to the parish and telled them I must have a doctor to my children: but he never come till yesterday."
"What did he say?"
"I'll tell ye what he said, Miss Raynor, if ye like. He said doctors and doctors' stuff was o' no good, so long as the houses remained what they was—pes-ti-fe-rus. I should not have remembered the word, though, but for Jetty's lodger repeating of the very self-same word to me a minute or two agone. I've just passed him, a-sitting down under yonder beeches."
Alice, as well as William Stane, instantly recalled the man in grey they had seen there. "Jetty's lodger!" repeated Alice. "Who is he?"
"Some stranger staying in the place, Miss Raynor. He come into it one morning, a week agone, and took Jetty's rooms which was to let."
"What is he staying here for?"
"To pry into people's business, I think," replied the woman. "He's always about, here, there, and everywhere; one can't stir out many yards but one meets him. Saturday last, he walks right into our place without as much as knocking; and there he turns hisself round and about, looking at the rotten floor and the dripping walls, and sniffing at the bad smell that's always there, just as if he had as much right inside as a king. 'Who is your landlord?' says he, 'and does he know what a den this is?' So I told him that our landlord was Major Raynor at Eagles' Nest, and that he did know, but that nothing was done for us. He have gone, I hear, into some o' the other houses as well."
The woman's tone was quite civil, but there could be no doubt that, in her independence, she was talking at Alice as the daughter of Major Raynor.
"As I passed him now he asked me whether my sick children was better—just as you have, Miss Raynor. I told him they was worse. 'And worse they will be, and never better, and all the rest of you too,' says he, 'as long as you inhabit them pes-ti-fe-rus dens!'"
Alice drew up her head in cold disdain, vouchsafing no further word, and feeling very angry at the implied reproach. The woman dropped a slight curtsy again, and went on her way.
"How insolent they all are!" exclaimed Alice to Mr. Stane. "That Sarah Croft would have been abusive in another moment."
"Their cottages are bad," returned the young man, after a pause. "Could nothing be done, I wonder, to make them a little better?"
"It is papa's business, not mine," remarked Alice, in slight resentment. "And the idea of that stranger presuming to interfere! wonder what he means by it?"
"I do not suppose he intends it as interference: he is looking about him by way of filling up his time: it must hang rather monotonously on his hands down here, I presume, away from his books and ledgers," remarked Mr. Stane. "It is the way of the world, Alice; people must be busy-bodies and look into what does not concern them, for curiosity's sake. Nay, just a few moments longer," he said, for she had risen to depart. "To-morrow I shall have no such pleasant and peaceful seat to linger in; I shall not have you. How delightful it all is!"
And so, the disturbing element forgotten, they sat on in the balmy air, under the blue of the sky, the green foliage about them springing into life and beauty, type of another Life that must succeed our own winter, and listening to the little birds overhead warbling their joyous songs. Can none of us, grey now with care and work and years, remember just such an hour spent in our own sweet spring-time?—when all things around spoke to our hearts in one unmixed love-strain of harmony, and the future looked like a charmed scroll that could only bring intense happiness in the unrolling thereof?
"Take my arm, Alice," he half whispered, when they at length rose to return.
She did take it, her face and heart glowing. Took it timidly and with much self-consciousness, never having been in the habit of taking it, or he of offering it. Her hand trembled as it lay gently upon his arm; each might have heard the other's heart beating. And so in the bliss of this, their first love-dream, they sauntered home through the grounds, choosing pleasant glades and mossy by-ways; and arrived to find Eagles' Nest in a commotion.
Mrs. Frank Raynor had been taken seriously and unexpectedly ill. Doctors were sent for; servants ran about. And William Stane said farewell, and went home from an afternoon that would ever remain as a green spot on his memory. It was his last day of holiday.