Part 1, Chapter V.

Part 1, Chapter V.One of the Boys.“Mr Mallow seemed displeased with Mr Cyril,” thought Sage Portlock, as she went on with her duties. “He must have done something to annoy his father.”Her thoughts left the subject the next moment, as she casually glanced at the window, through which the sun was streaming, for it was one of those glorious days when the dying year seems to flicker up, as it were, into a hectic glow, and for the time being it seems as if summer has come again.In the schoolroom there was the busy hum of some sixty girls, reading, repeating, answering questions, and keeping up that eternal whispering which it is so hard to check, and the sun’s rays as they streamed across the room made broad, bold bars full of dancing dust. Outside there was the pleasant country, and, in spite of herself, the thoughts of the young mistress strayed away a couple of miles to her home, where on such a day she knew that they would be busy gathering the late apples, those great, red-streaked fellows, which would be laid in the rack and covered with straw till Christmas. The great baking-pear tree, too, would be yielding its bushels of heavy hard fruit, and the big medlar tree down by the gate—she seemed to see it, as she thought—would be one blaze of orange and red and russet gold.It would be delicious, she thought, to run home at once instead of being busy there; but the next moment a calm, satisfied smile came across her face, as she recalled the long tedious days she had passed the year before at Westminster, and began thinking and wondering about some one else.“I wonder how he is getting on?” she thought; “and whether he will get one of the highest certificates. He tries so hard, I should think it is almost certain.”There was a pause here—a busy pause, during which a change of duty was instituted in two or three classes; but Sage Portlock’s thoughts went back soon after, in spite of herself, to the progress of Luke Ross at the London training college.As she thought her cheeks reddened slightly, and she could not help recalling the spiteful words of the old master; and, as thoughts will, hers bounded on ahead faster and faster, till in effect she did see the day when her old friend and companion would be settled at Lawford, and perhaps a closer connection than that of master and mistress of the schools have come to pass.Meanwhile the look of displeasure upon the Rev. Eli Mallow’s countenance had grown deeper and more marked as he walked away from the school with his son, and angry words had taken place.“Why, what nonsense, father!” exclaimed the young man. “I heard that you had just entered the schoolroom, and I followed to speak to you, that’s all; and here you turn rusty about it. Hang it all, a fellow comes home for a little peace, and the place is made miserable.”“By you, Cyril,” retorted his father, sharply. “Home is a calm and peaceful place till you come back, and then—I grieve to say it—trouble is sure to begin.”“Why, what have I done now?”“Done?” said his father, bitterly, as they walked up the long town street. “Why, given up another chance in life. Here, at the expense of a thousand pounds, you are started upon this Australian expedition, to become a settler, but at the end of two years you are back home, with the money gone, and as unsettled as ever.”“Well, we had all that over last night and the night before. You need not bring it up again. That is not why you have turned rusty,” said the young man, sulkily.“I think I will ask you to speak respectfully to me, Cyril,” said his father, with dignity.“Respectfully!” said Cyril, with a mocking laugh. “Why, I’m behaving wonderfully. If I had stayed out at the sheep farm for another year I should have been a perfect boor.”“And I must request, finally, that you interfere no more in any of the parish matters.”“Well, who has interfered, father?”“To put it plainly, then, my boy, I insist upon your keeping away from that school.”“And for goodness’ sake, father, why?”“I will tell you,” said the old clergyman, with no small show of excitement. “I have been reviled this morning, and accused of being wanting in duty, especially in the management of my sons.”“Who dared to be so insolent?” cried the young man.“I was compared to Eli of old, my boy; and I fear only too justly.”“Let’s see; Eli’s sons were very naughty boys, weren’t they?” said the young man, laughing.“Silence, sir!” cried his father, flushing; “these are not matters for your idle jests. I acknowledge that, for your poor mother’s sake, I have given way, and been weak and indulgent to the boy she, poor invalid, has ever worshipped; but the time has come now for me to make a stand, ere worse befall our house.”“Why, father, what do you mean?”“This, my son,” cried the old clergyman, sternly. “You left home two years ago, wild and fighting against restraint. You have come back now rougher in your ways—”“No wonder. You should have led such a life as I have amongst sheep farmers and roughs, and you wouldn’t wonder at my ways.”“And far less amenable to discipline.”“Why, what do you want, father?” cried the young man, impatiently.“Strict obedience in all things, but more especially in those where any lapse might reflect upon my conduct as the clergyman of this parish.”“Why, of course, father—what do you suppose a fellow is going to do?”“Do you think I’m blind, Cyril?” said his father, sternly.“Not I, father. Why do you ask?”“Answer me this question. Why did you follow me to the school?”“To have a chat with you. It was precious dull at home.”“Very. It must be,” said the old clergyman, ironically. “You have been away from home two years, and after a few days’ return, its calm and peaceful life is found dull.”“Well, so it is; plaguy dull.”“Your mother has been confined to her couch ever since Cynthia was born, Cyril. I have never yet heard her complain of home being dull, or repine at her lot.”“Ah, well, I know all that! Poor mamma!” exclaimed the young man.“And you make that pitiful excuse to me, Cyril,” cried his father: “you stoop to deceit already.”“Who does?” cried the young man fiercely.“You do, sir, and I tell you this shall not be. Sage Portlock is a pure, sweet-minded girl, in whom both your sisters and I take the greatest interest; and I tell you that, if not engaged, there is already a very great intimacy existing between her and Luke Ross.”“Phew!” whistled Cyril. “What, that young prig of a fellow! I say, father, he’s turning schoolmaster, isn’t he?”“It is settled that he shall succeed Mr Bone as soon as he has finished his training,” said Mr Mallow, quietly.“Poor old Bone!—dry Bone, as we used to call him, because he was such a thirsty soul. And so Luke Ross is to be the new man, eh? I congratulate Lawford,” he added, with a sneer.“You have never liked Luke Ross since he gave you so sound a thrashing,” said his father, quietly.“He? Thrash me? Absurd, father! Pooh! the fellow is beneath my notice.”“I think we understand each other now,” said Mr Mallow, with quiet firmness. “While you stay here, Cyril, there is to be no trifling with any one. You can share our home for the present—that is, until you obtain some engagement.”“Oh, hang engagements!” cried the young man, impatiently. “You have plenty of money, father, both in your own right and mamma’s. Why should I be constantly driven from home to some menial work?”“Because it is time that your spoiled life of indulgence should cease. There is nothing degrading in work; it is idleness that degrades.”“Oh, yes; you’ve lectured me enough about that,” said the young man, rudely.“And you may take it for granted that as soon as an opening can be made for you—”“Opening wanted for a pushing young man,” cried Cyril, mockingly.“I shall ask you to leave home and try to do your duty in this busy world.”“Thanks, father,” said the young man, roughly. “What am I to be?”“Three years ago I felt that I was doing wrong in keeping you in idleness at home.”“Idle? Why, I was always busy, father.”“Yes—hunting, shooting, fishing, and the like; but you did not stop there.”“Oh, nonsense?”“To-day I feel certain that I should be doing a great injustice to the parish—to your mother—to your sisters—”“Any one else?” said the young man, mockingly.“To you,” replied his father, sternly.“Any one else?”“And to Miss Portlock and Luke Ross by allowing you to stay here.”They had reached the rectory, and the Rev. Eli Mallow, who had paused with one hand upon the oaken bar to finish his sentence, now pushed open the quaintly-made gate, held it for a moment as if for his son to follow; but as he did not, the Rector allowed it to close, and, placing his hands behind him, walked slowly up the well-kept gravel walk, too intent upon his thoughts to give heed to his favourite flowers, or to enter the conservatory, according to his custom, on his way to his own snug room, whose walls were well stored with works on botany and his favourite pursuit, gardening.Cyril Mallow gave his long moustache a tug as he watched his father’s bent back till it disappeared amongst the choice shrubs and evergreens; then, taking out his cigar-case, he selected one from its contents, bit off the end viciously, and there was the petulance of a spoiled child in his action as he struck one of the old-fashioned flat fusees upon the rough oaken gate-post till he had torn the match to rags without obtaining a light, another and another following before he could ignite his cigar.“Confound the place!” he exclaimed. “It’s as dull as ditch water. Pretty state of affairs, indeed! One can’t look at a soul without being jerked up short. Luke Ross, eh? I’d like to—”He did not say what, but he gave his teeth a grind, and, thrusting his hands deep down into his pockets, he walked on towards the fields beyond the little town.“I declare everybody’s hard on me,” he said aloud. “Just because I’m a bit unlucky and want change. Here’s the governor rolling in riches, and might make me a handsome allowance, and yet I’m always to be driven out into the world. Hanged if it isn’t too bad.”He leaped over a stile and strolled a little way on across a field, beyond which was a patch of woodland, all aglow with the rich tints of autumn, but Cyril Mallow saw them not, his thoughts being elsewhere.“I won’t stand it,” he cried suddenly, as he stopped short. “A man can’t always be in leading-strings, and I’m old enough now, surely, to strike for my liberty, and—”His hand went involuntarily to his vest pocket, from which he drew a delicately-made lady’s gold watch, whose presence was accounted for by the fact that Cyril’s own stout gold watch had passed into the hands of a station shepherd out at a place called Bidgeewoomba, in Queensland, and Cyril’s indulgent mother had insisted upon his using hers until it was replaced.“Beastly dull place!” he muttered, gazing at the watch. “It’s of no use to go across to the ford; ‘our master’ will be coming in to dinner. Little fool! why did she go and marry that great oaf?”He turned the watch over and over, laughing unpleasantly.“Pretty Polly!” he said out aloud, but ended by opening and snapping to the back of the watch.“Five minutes to twelve,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “The children will be coming out of school directly.”He made a sharp movement in the direction of the town—stopped short—went on again—stopped to think of the words he had had with his father, and then, with an impatient “pish!” thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked quickly in the direction that he knew Sage Portlock would take on leaving the school, bent on the mission of causing misery and dissension between two young people just making their first start in life, and sowing the seed of certain weeds that would spring up to the overtopping of much goodly grain.He paused again, hesitating as he neared the rectory gates, and for a moment he seemed as if he would enter.But just then the church clock struck twelve, and the deep-toned bell, as it slowly gave forth, one by one, the tale of strokes announcing that the day had climbed to its greatest height, seemed to bring before Cyril Mallow the scene of the schoolgirls racing out, panting and eager, while Sage Portlock was putting on that natty little hat and long silk scarf she wore when going to and fro.“Oh, what nonsense!” ejaculated Cyril. “What harm? Perhaps I shan’t see her after all.”He strode off hastily back towards the town, for it was now five minutes past twelve, and just at this time Sage was locking the school door, and enjoying the fresh air, as she thought of Luke Ross with a pleasant little smile upon her lip, and a ruddy tint on the cheek; while just a hundred and twenty miles away Luke Ross had shouldered a spade on his way to the great garden for the hour’s manual labour prescribed by the rules of the training school; and, oddly enough, he was not thinking of the piece of earth he was about, in company with many more, to dig, but of Sage Portlock, and the pleasant days when he should be down in the country once again.

“Mr Mallow seemed displeased with Mr Cyril,” thought Sage Portlock, as she went on with her duties. “He must have done something to annoy his father.”

Her thoughts left the subject the next moment, as she casually glanced at the window, through which the sun was streaming, for it was one of those glorious days when the dying year seems to flicker up, as it were, into a hectic glow, and for the time being it seems as if summer has come again.

In the schoolroom there was the busy hum of some sixty girls, reading, repeating, answering questions, and keeping up that eternal whispering which it is so hard to check, and the sun’s rays as they streamed across the room made broad, bold bars full of dancing dust. Outside there was the pleasant country, and, in spite of herself, the thoughts of the young mistress strayed away a couple of miles to her home, where on such a day she knew that they would be busy gathering the late apples, those great, red-streaked fellows, which would be laid in the rack and covered with straw till Christmas. The great baking-pear tree, too, would be yielding its bushels of heavy hard fruit, and the big medlar tree down by the gate—she seemed to see it, as she thought—would be one blaze of orange and red and russet gold.

It would be delicious, she thought, to run home at once instead of being busy there; but the next moment a calm, satisfied smile came across her face, as she recalled the long tedious days she had passed the year before at Westminster, and began thinking and wondering about some one else.

“I wonder how he is getting on?” she thought; “and whether he will get one of the highest certificates. He tries so hard, I should think it is almost certain.”

There was a pause here—a busy pause, during which a change of duty was instituted in two or three classes; but Sage Portlock’s thoughts went back soon after, in spite of herself, to the progress of Luke Ross at the London training college.

As she thought her cheeks reddened slightly, and she could not help recalling the spiteful words of the old master; and, as thoughts will, hers bounded on ahead faster and faster, till in effect she did see the day when her old friend and companion would be settled at Lawford, and perhaps a closer connection than that of master and mistress of the schools have come to pass.

Meanwhile the look of displeasure upon the Rev. Eli Mallow’s countenance had grown deeper and more marked as he walked away from the school with his son, and angry words had taken place.

“Why, what nonsense, father!” exclaimed the young man. “I heard that you had just entered the schoolroom, and I followed to speak to you, that’s all; and here you turn rusty about it. Hang it all, a fellow comes home for a little peace, and the place is made miserable.”

“By you, Cyril,” retorted his father, sharply. “Home is a calm and peaceful place till you come back, and then—I grieve to say it—trouble is sure to begin.”

“Why, what have I done now?”

“Done?” said his father, bitterly, as they walked up the long town street. “Why, given up another chance in life. Here, at the expense of a thousand pounds, you are started upon this Australian expedition, to become a settler, but at the end of two years you are back home, with the money gone, and as unsettled as ever.”

“Well, we had all that over last night and the night before. You need not bring it up again. That is not why you have turned rusty,” said the young man, sulkily.

“I think I will ask you to speak respectfully to me, Cyril,” said his father, with dignity.

“Respectfully!” said Cyril, with a mocking laugh. “Why, I’m behaving wonderfully. If I had stayed out at the sheep farm for another year I should have been a perfect boor.”

“And I must request, finally, that you interfere no more in any of the parish matters.”

“Well, who has interfered, father?”

“To put it plainly, then, my boy, I insist upon your keeping away from that school.”

“And for goodness’ sake, father, why?”

“I will tell you,” said the old clergyman, with no small show of excitement. “I have been reviled this morning, and accused of being wanting in duty, especially in the management of my sons.”

“Who dared to be so insolent?” cried the young man.

“I was compared to Eli of old, my boy; and I fear only too justly.”

“Let’s see; Eli’s sons were very naughty boys, weren’t they?” said the young man, laughing.

“Silence, sir!” cried his father, flushing; “these are not matters for your idle jests. I acknowledge that, for your poor mother’s sake, I have given way, and been weak and indulgent to the boy she, poor invalid, has ever worshipped; but the time has come now for me to make a stand, ere worse befall our house.”

“Why, father, what do you mean?”

“This, my son,” cried the old clergyman, sternly. “You left home two years ago, wild and fighting against restraint. You have come back now rougher in your ways—”

“No wonder. You should have led such a life as I have amongst sheep farmers and roughs, and you wouldn’t wonder at my ways.”

“And far less amenable to discipline.”

“Why, what do you want, father?” cried the young man, impatiently.

“Strict obedience in all things, but more especially in those where any lapse might reflect upon my conduct as the clergyman of this parish.”

“Why, of course, father—what do you suppose a fellow is going to do?”

“Do you think I’m blind, Cyril?” said his father, sternly.

“Not I, father. Why do you ask?”

“Answer me this question. Why did you follow me to the school?”

“To have a chat with you. It was precious dull at home.”

“Very. It must be,” said the old clergyman, ironically. “You have been away from home two years, and after a few days’ return, its calm and peaceful life is found dull.”

“Well, so it is; plaguy dull.”

“Your mother has been confined to her couch ever since Cynthia was born, Cyril. I have never yet heard her complain of home being dull, or repine at her lot.”

“Ah, well, I know all that! Poor mamma!” exclaimed the young man.

“And you make that pitiful excuse to me, Cyril,” cried his father: “you stoop to deceit already.”

“Who does?” cried the young man fiercely.

“You do, sir, and I tell you this shall not be. Sage Portlock is a pure, sweet-minded girl, in whom both your sisters and I take the greatest interest; and I tell you that, if not engaged, there is already a very great intimacy existing between her and Luke Ross.”

“Phew!” whistled Cyril. “What, that young prig of a fellow! I say, father, he’s turning schoolmaster, isn’t he?”

“It is settled that he shall succeed Mr Bone as soon as he has finished his training,” said Mr Mallow, quietly.

“Poor old Bone!—dry Bone, as we used to call him, because he was such a thirsty soul. And so Luke Ross is to be the new man, eh? I congratulate Lawford,” he added, with a sneer.

“You have never liked Luke Ross since he gave you so sound a thrashing,” said his father, quietly.

“He? Thrash me? Absurd, father! Pooh! the fellow is beneath my notice.”

“I think we understand each other now,” said Mr Mallow, with quiet firmness. “While you stay here, Cyril, there is to be no trifling with any one. You can share our home for the present—that is, until you obtain some engagement.”

“Oh, hang engagements!” cried the young man, impatiently. “You have plenty of money, father, both in your own right and mamma’s. Why should I be constantly driven from home to some menial work?”

“Because it is time that your spoiled life of indulgence should cease. There is nothing degrading in work; it is idleness that degrades.”

“Oh, yes; you’ve lectured me enough about that,” said the young man, rudely.

“And you may take it for granted that as soon as an opening can be made for you—”

“Opening wanted for a pushing young man,” cried Cyril, mockingly.

“I shall ask you to leave home and try to do your duty in this busy world.”

“Thanks, father,” said the young man, roughly. “What am I to be?”

“Three years ago I felt that I was doing wrong in keeping you in idleness at home.”

“Idle? Why, I was always busy, father.”

“Yes—hunting, shooting, fishing, and the like; but you did not stop there.”

“Oh, nonsense?”

“To-day I feel certain that I should be doing a great injustice to the parish—to your mother—to your sisters—”

“Any one else?” said the young man, mockingly.

“To you,” replied his father, sternly.

“Any one else?”

“And to Miss Portlock and Luke Ross by allowing you to stay here.”

They had reached the rectory, and the Rev. Eli Mallow, who had paused with one hand upon the oaken bar to finish his sentence, now pushed open the quaintly-made gate, held it for a moment as if for his son to follow; but as he did not, the Rector allowed it to close, and, placing his hands behind him, walked slowly up the well-kept gravel walk, too intent upon his thoughts to give heed to his favourite flowers, or to enter the conservatory, according to his custom, on his way to his own snug room, whose walls were well stored with works on botany and his favourite pursuit, gardening.

Cyril Mallow gave his long moustache a tug as he watched his father’s bent back till it disappeared amongst the choice shrubs and evergreens; then, taking out his cigar-case, he selected one from its contents, bit off the end viciously, and there was the petulance of a spoiled child in his action as he struck one of the old-fashioned flat fusees upon the rough oaken gate-post till he had torn the match to rags without obtaining a light, another and another following before he could ignite his cigar.

“Confound the place!” he exclaimed. “It’s as dull as ditch water. Pretty state of affairs, indeed! One can’t look at a soul without being jerked up short. Luke Ross, eh? I’d like to—”

He did not say what, but he gave his teeth a grind, and, thrusting his hands deep down into his pockets, he walked on towards the fields beyond the little town.

“I declare everybody’s hard on me,” he said aloud. “Just because I’m a bit unlucky and want change. Here’s the governor rolling in riches, and might make me a handsome allowance, and yet I’m always to be driven out into the world. Hanged if it isn’t too bad.”

He leaped over a stile and strolled a little way on across a field, beyond which was a patch of woodland, all aglow with the rich tints of autumn, but Cyril Mallow saw them not, his thoughts being elsewhere.

“I won’t stand it,” he cried suddenly, as he stopped short. “A man can’t always be in leading-strings, and I’m old enough now, surely, to strike for my liberty, and—”

His hand went involuntarily to his vest pocket, from which he drew a delicately-made lady’s gold watch, whose presence was accounted for by the fact that Cyril’s own stout gold watch had passed into the hands of a station shepherd out at a place called Bidgeewoomba, in Queensland, and Cyril’s indulgent mother had insisted upon his using hers until it was replaced.

“Beastly dull place!” he muttered, gazing at the watch. “It’s of no use to go across to the ford; ‘our master’ will be coming in to dinner. Little fool! why did she go and marry that great oaf?”

He turned the watch over and over, laughing unpleasantly.

“Pretty Polly!” he said out aloud, but ended by opening and snapping to the back of the watch.

“Five minutes to twelve,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “The children will be coming out of school directly.”

He made a sharp movement in the direction of the town—stopped short—went on again—stopped to think of the words he had had with his father, and then, with an impatient “pish!” thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked quickly in the direction that he knew Sage Portlock would take on leaving the school, bent on the mission of causing misery and dissension between two young people just making their first start in life, and sowing the seed of certain weeds that would spring up to the overtopping of much goodly grain.

He paused again, hesitating as he neared the rectory gates, and for a moment he seemed as if he would enter.

But just then the church clock struck twelve, and the deep-toned bell, as it slowly gave forth, one by one, the tale of strokes announcing that the day had climbed to its greatest height, seemed to bring before Cyril Mallow the scene of the schoolgirls racing out, panting and eager, while Sage Portlock was putting on that natty little hat and long silk scarf she wore when going to and fro.

“Oh, what nonsense!” ejaculated Cyril. “What harm? Perhaps I shan’t see her after all.”

He strode off hastily back towards the town, for it was now five minutes past twelve, and just at this time Sage was locking the school door, and enjoying the fresh air, as she thought of Luke Ross with a pleasant little smile upon her lip, and a ruddy tint on the cheek; while just a hundred and twenty miles away Luke Ross had shouldered a spade on his way to the great garden for the hour’s manual labour prescribed by the rules of the training school; and, oddly enough, he was not thinking of the piece of earth he was about, in company with many more, to dig, but of Sage Portlock, and the pleasant days when he should be down in the country once again.

Part 1, Chapter VI.Magisterial Functions.People had always said that the Rev. Eli Mallow was a most fortunate man, but somehow fate gave him his share of reverses. He had been born with the customary number of bones in his vertebra, wonderfully joined together after Dame Nature’s regular custom and good style of workmanship, with suitable muscle and nerve to give proper pliability. The nurse who used to wash and wipe and then powder his delicate young skin considered that he was a beautiful baby, and certainly he had grown up into a very handsome man, an ornament, with his portly form and grey head, to the county bench, to his seat on which he was warmly welcomed back by his neighbours, for however unpopular he might be in the dissent-loving town of Lawford, the Rev. Eli Mallow was a favourite in his part of the county.The late Lord Artingale had always been one of the loudest in his praise.“He is a man of breed, sir,” his lordship would say. “There’s blood and bone in the man. I wish we had more clergymen of his kind. There’d be less poaching in the country, I can tell you, and fewer empty bags.”For the Rev. Eli Mallow worked by rule, that is to say, by law. Secular and ecclesiastical law were to be obeyed to the letter, and he was most exacting in carrying out what he considered to be his mission, with the result that, however well he stood in favour with his friends, his popularity did not increase.He was not a bad man, for he was strictly moral and self-denying, fairly charitable, had prayers morning and evening, always walked to church on Sundays, kept a good table, and was proud of having the best horses in the neighbourhood. He did his duty according to his light, but that light was rather a small one, and it illumined a very narrow part of the great book of life. There were certain things which he considered duties, and his stern obedience to cut-and-dried law, rule, and regulation made him seem harsher than he really was.During his absence from Lawford something approaching to economy had been practised, and his wife’s and his own property had been nursed; but now the family had returned there was no sign of saving, for, in addition to being a clergyman, the Rector devoted himself largely to the carrying out of what he called hisrôleas a country gentleman, and at whatever cost to his pocket and general strain upon the property, this he did well as a rule. Now, for reasons of his own relating to his two daughters, he was launching out to an extent that made a second visit to the Continent a very probable matter before many years were past.Breakfast was over at the rectory. There had been words between master and Mr Cyril, the butler said, and master had been very angry, but, as was usually the case, Mr Cyril had come off victorious; and now, as it was market-day at Lawford, the bays were at the door, champing their bits, the butler and footman were in the hall waiting, and punctual to the moment the young ladies came hurrying down the oak staircase just as the Rev. Eli received his gloves from the butler and put them on, the domestic waiting to hand him his hat. This was carefully placed upon his head, and then there was a little ceremony gone through of putting on the glossy black overcoat, as if it were some sacred garment.The Rev. Eli did justice to his clothes, looking a thoroughly noble specimen of his class, and once ready he unbent a little and smiled at his pretty, ladylike daughters, whom he followed down to the handsome barouche, which it had always been a custom to have out on bench days, the appearance of the stylish turn-out lending no littleéclatto the magisterial proceedings.It was certainly not a mile and a half to the market-place, but though that distance might be traversed again and again upon ordinary days, this was out of the question when the magistrates were about to sit.So the steps were rattled down, the young ladies handed in, Cyril Mallow, with a cigar in his mouth, watching the proceedings from his bedroom window. The Rev. Eli followed and took his seat with dignity; the steps were closed, the door shut, the footman mounted to the box beside the coachman, both stretched their legs out rigidly, and set their backs as straight as their master’s, and away the carriage spun, through the avenue, and out at the lodge gates, where the gardener’s wife was ready to drop a curtsey and close them afterwards, and then away through the lanes by the longest way round, so as to pass Portlock’s farm and enter Lawford by the London road.Market-day was a busy day at Lawford, and the ostler at the King’s Head had his hands full attending to the gigs of the farmers and the carts of the clergy and gentry round.The word “cart” seems more suggestive of the vehicle of the tradesman; but it was the custom around Lawford for the clergy to use a capacious kind of spring cart, neatly painted and padded within, but in other respects built exactly on the model of an ordinary butcher’s or grocer’s trap, save that it had a door and step behind for access to the back seats, while, below the door, painted in regular tradesman style for the evasion of tax, would be, in thin white letters, the owners name and address, as in the case of the vicar of Slowby, whose cart was lettered—“Arthur Smith, Clerk, Slowby.”There were several such carts in the inn yard on this particular morning, for the ladies of the clerical families generally shopped on market-days, and fetched the magazines from the bookseller’s if it was near the first of the month.The farmers’ wives and daughters, too, put in a pretty good appearance with their egg and butter baskets, which were carried in good old style upon the woman’s arm, irrespective of the fact that she was probably wearing a velvet jacket, and had ostrich feathers in her bonnet.Tomlinson, the draper, was answerable for the show, and he used to boast that the Rector might preach as he liked against finery; his shop-window could preach a far more powerful sermon in silence, especially with bonnets for a text.Some of the farmers had protested a little against the love of show evinced by their wives and daughters, but in vain. The weaker vessels said that the egg and butter money was their own to spend as they pleased, and they always had something nice to show for their outlay, which was more than the husbands and fathers, who stayed at the King’s Head so long after the market ordinary, could say.The Rev. Eli Mallow was dropped at the town-hall, where a pretty good group of people were assembled. There were the rustic policemen from the various outlying villages and a couple of Lord Artingale’s keepers in waiting ready to touch their hats. Then the ladies went off in the carriage to make a few calls before returning to pick up papa after the magistrates’ sitting was over.The usual country town cases: Matthew Tomlin had been drunk and riotous again; James Jellicoe had been trespassing in search of rabbits; Martha Madden had assaulted Elizabeth Snowshall, and had said, so it was sifted out after a great deal of volubility, that she would “do for her”—what she would do for her not stated; a diminutive being, a stranger, who gave his name as Simpkins, had torn up his clothes at the workhouse, and now appeared, to the great delight of the spectators, in a peculiar costume much resembling a sack; another assault case arising out of the fact that Mrs Stocktle had “called” Mrs Stivvison,—spelt Stockton and Stevenson,—with the result that their lawful protectors had been dragged into the quarrel, and “Jack Stivvison had ‘leathered’ Jem Stocktle.”Upon these urgent cases the bench of magistrates, consisting of the Rev. Eli Mallow, chairman, the Rev. Arthur Smith, Sir Joshua St. Henry, and the Revds. Thomas Hampson, James Lawrence Barton, and Onesimus Leytonsby, solemnly adjudicated.Then came the important case of the day; two men, who gave the names of Robert Thorns and Jock Morrison, were placed at the table.The first was a miserable, dirty-looking object, who seemed to have made a vow somewhere or another never to wash, shave, or sleep in anything but hay and straw, some of which was sticking still in his tangled hair; the other was a different breed of rough.Rough, certainly, a spectator who had judged the two idlers would have said; but he was decidedly a country rough, and did not belong to town. His big, burly look and length of limb indicated a man of giant strength; at least six feet high, his chest was deep and broad, and in his brown, half gipsy-looking face, liberally clothed with the darkest of dark-brown beards, there shone a pair of fierce dark eyes. Scraped and sand-papered down, and clothed in brown velveteen, with cord trousers and brown leather gaiters, he would have made a gamekeeper of whose appearance any country magnate might have been proud. As it was, his appearance before the country bench of magistrates was enough to condemn him for poaching.There was something of the keeper, too, in his appearance, for he had on a well-worn velveteen coat and low soft hat, but his big, soft hands told the tale of what he was—a ne’er-do-well, who looked upon life as a career in which no man was bound to work.Such was Jock Morrison.The case was plain against them, and they knew that they would have to suffer, for Jock was pretty well known for these affairs. Upon former occasions his brother Tom, the wheelwright, had paid guineas to Mr Ridley, the Lawford attorney, to defend him, but there were bounds to brotherly help.“I can’t do it for ever,” Tom Morrison had said to his young wife. “I’ve give Jock every chance I could; now he must take care of himself.”Big Jock Morrison looked perfectly able to do that, as he now stood with his hands in his pockets, staring about him in a cool defiant way. It seemed that he had been warned off Lord Artingale’s ground several times, but had been too cunning for the keepers, and had only been taken red-handed the previous day, very early in the morning, so evidence showed; and he and his companion had upon them a hare, a rabbit, and a couple of pheasants, beside some wire snares and a little rusty single-barrelled gun, whose barrel unscrewed into two pieces, and which, so the head-keeper deposed, was detached from the stock and stowed away in the inner pocket of the big prisoner’s coat.Gun, powder-flask, tin measure, and bag of shot, with game, placed upon the table.“And what did the prisoners say when you came upon them by—where did you say, keeper?” said one magistrate.“Runby Spinney, Sir Joshua, just where the Greenhurst lane crosses the long coppice, Sir Joshua.”“And what did the prisoners say?” said the chairman stiffly.“Said they was blackberrying, Sir.”“Oh!” said the chairman, and he appeared so stern that no one dared laugh, though a young rustic-looking policeman at whom Jock Morrison winked turned red in the face with his efforts to prevent an explosion.“Did they make any—er—er—resistance, keeper?” said the chairman.“The big prisoner, sir, said he’d smash my head if I interfered with him.”“Dear me! A very desperate character,” said Sir Joshua. “And did he?”“No, Sir Joshua, we was too many for him. There was me, Smith, Duggan, and the two pleecemen, so they give in.”And so on, and so on.Had the prisoners anything to say in their defence?The dirty man had not, Jock Morrison had. “Lookye here: he didn’t take the game, shouldn’t ha’ taken it, only they foun’ ’em all lying aside the road. It was a fakement o’ the keeper’s, that’s what it was. They was a pickin’ blackberries, that’s what him and his mate was a doin’ of, and as soon as the ’ops was ready they was a going down south to pick ’ops.”The magistrates’ clerk, the principal solicitor in the town, smiled, and said he was afraid they would miss the hop-picking that season, as it was over.There was a short conference on the bench, and then the Rev. Eli Mallow sentenced the prisoners to three months’ imprisonment, and told them it was very fortunate for them that they had not resisted the law.“You arn’t going to quod us for three months along o’ them birds and that hare, are you?” said Jock Morrison.“Take them away, policeman.”“Hold hard a moment,” said the big fellow, so fiercely that the sergeant present drew back. “Look here, parsons, you’ll spoil our hop-picking.”“Take them away, constable,” said the Rev. Eli. “The next case.”“Hold hard, d’ye hear!” cried the big ruffian, in a voice of thunder. “I s’pose, parson,” he continued, addressing the chairman, “if I say much to you, I shall get it laid on thicker.”“My good fellow,” said the Rev. Eli, “you have been most leniently dealt with. I am sorry for you on account of your brother, a most respectable man, who has always set you an admirable example, and—”“I say,” exclaimed Jock, “this arn’t chutch, is it?”There was a titter here, but the chairman continued:—“I will say no more, as you seem in so hardened a frame of mind, only that if you are violent you may be committed for trial.”“All right,” said the great fellow, between his gritting teeth; “I don’t say no more, only—all right: come along, matey; we can do the three months easy.”There was a bit of a bustle, and the prisoners were taken off. The rest of the cases were despatched. The carriage called for the chairman, and on the way back it passed the police cart, with the sergeant giving the two poaching prisoners a ride, but each man had his ankle chained to a big ring in the bottom of the vehicle, where they sat face to face, and the sergeant and his man were driving the blackberry pickers to the county gaol.“What a dreadful-looking man!” said Julia, as in passing Jock Morrison ironically touched his soft felt hat.“Yes, my dear—poachers,” said the Rev. Eli calmly, as one who felt that he had done his duty to society, and never for a moment dreaming that he had been stirring Fate to play him another bitter turn.

People had always said that the Rev. Eli Mallow was a most fortunate man, but somehow fate gave him his share of reverses. He had been born with the customary number of bones in his vertebra, wonderfully joined together after Dame Nature’s regular custom and good style of workmanship, with suitable muscle and nerve to give proper pliability. The nurse who used to wash and wipe and then powder his delicate young skin considered that he was a beautiful baby, and certainly he had grown up into a very handsome man, an ornament, with his portly form and grey head, to the county bench, to his seat on which he was warmly welcomed back by his neighbours, for however unpopular he might be in the dissent-loving town of Lawford, the Rev. Eli Mallow was a favourite in his part of the county.

The late Lord Artingale had always been one of the loudest in his praise.

“He is a man of breed, sir,” his lordship would say. “There’s blood and bone in the man. I wish we had more clergymen of his kind. There’d be less poaching in the country, I can tell you, and fewer empty bags.”

For the Rev. Eli Mallow worked by rule, that is to say, by law. Secular and ecclesiastical law were to be obeyed to the letter, and he was most exacting in carrying out what he considered to be his mission, with the result that, however well he stood in favour with his friends, his popularity did not increase.

He was not a bad man, for he was strictly moral and self-denying, fairly charitable, had prayers morning and evening, always walked to church on Sundays, kept a good table, and was proud of having the best horses in the neighbourhood. He did his duty according to his light, but that light was rather a small one, and it illumined a very narrow part of the great book of life. There were certain things which he considered duties, and his stern obedience to cut-and-dried law, rule, and regulation made him seem harsher than he really was.

During his absence from Lawford something approaching to economy had been practised, and his wife’s and his own property had been nursed; but now the family had returned there was no sign of saving, for, in addition to being a clergyman, the Rector devoted himself largely to the carrying out of what he called hisrôleas a country gentleman, and at whatever cost to his pocket and general strain upon the property, this he did well as a rule. Now, for reasons of his own relating to his two daughters, he was launching out to an extent that made a second visit to the Continent a very probable matter before many years were past.

Breakfast was over at the rectory. There had been words between master and Mr Cyril, the butler said, and master had been very angry, but, as was usually the case, Mr Cyril had come off victorious; and now, as it was market-day at Lawford, the bays were at the door, champing their bits, the butler and footman were in the hall waiting, and punctual to the moment the young ladies came hurrying down the oak staircase just as the Rev. Eli received his gloves from the butler and put them on, the domestic waiting to hand him his hat. This was carefully placed upon his head, and then there was a little ceremony gone through of putting on the glossy black overcoat, as if it were some sacred garment.

The Rev. Eli did justice to his clothes, looking a thoroughly noble specimen of his class, and once ready he unbent a little and smiled at his pretty, ladylike daughters, whom he followed down to the handsome barouche, which it had always been a custom to have out on bench days, the appearance of the stylish turn-out lending no littleéclatto the magisterial proceedings.

It was certainly not a mile and a half to the market-place, but though that distance might be traversed again and again upon ordinary days, this was out of the question when the magistrates were about to sit.

So the steps were rattled down, the young ladies handed in, Cyril Mallow, with a cigar in his mouth, watching the proceedings from his bedroom window. The Rev. Eli followed and took his seat with dignity; the steps were closed, the door shut, the footman mounted to the box beside the coachman, both stretched their legs out rigidly, and set their backs as straight as their master’s, and away the carriage spun, through the avenue, and out at the lodge gates, where the gardener’s wife was ready to drop a curtsey and close them afterwards, and then away through the lanes by the longest way round, so as to pass Portlock’s farm and enter Lawford by the London road.

Market-day was a busy day at Lawford, and the ostler at the King’s Head had his hands full attending to the gigs of the farmers and the carts of the clergy and gentry round.

The word “cart” seems more suggestive of the vehicle of the tradesman; but it was the custom around Lawford for the clergy to use a capacious kind of spring cart, neatly painted and padded within, but in other respects built exactly on the model of an ordinary butcher’s or grocer’s trap, save that it had a door and step behind for access to the back seats, while, below the door, painted in regular tradesman style for the evasion of tax, would be, in thin white letters, the owners name and address, as in the case of the vicar of Slowby, whose cart was lettered—

“Arthur Smith, Clerk, Slowby.”

There were several such carts in the inn yard on this particular morning, for the ladies of the clerical families generally shopped on market-days, and fetched the magazines from the bookseller’s if it was near the first of the month.

The farmers’ wives and daughters, too, put in a pretty good appearance with their egg and butter baskets, which were carried in good old style upon the woman’s arm, irrespective of the fact that she was probably wearing a velvet jacket, and had ostrich feathers in her bonnet.

Tomlinson, the draper, was answerable for the show, and he used to boast that the Rector might preach as he liked against finery; his shop-window could preach a far more powerful sermon in silence, especially with bonnets for a text.

Some of the farmers had protested a little against the love of show evinced by their wives and daughters, but in vain. The weaker vessels said that the egg and butter money was their own to spend as they pleased, and they always had something nice to show for their outlay, which was more than the husbands and fathers, who stayed at the King’s Head so long after the market ordinary, could say.

The Rev. Eli Mallow was dropped at the town-hall, where a pretty good group of people were assembled. There were the rustic policemen from the various outlying villages and a couple of Lord Artingale’s keepers in waiting ready to touch their hats. Then the ladies went off in the carriage to make a few calls before returning to pick up papa after the magistrates’ sitting was over.

The usual country town cases: Matthew Tomlin had been drunk and riotous again; James Jellicoe had been trespassing in search of rabbits; Martha Madden had assaulted Elizabeth Snowshall, and had said, so it was sifted out after a great deal of volubility, that she would “do for her”—what she would do for her not stated; a diminutive being, a stranger, who gave his name as Simpkins, had torn up his clothes at the workhouse, and now appeared, to the great delight of the spectators, in a peculiar costume much resembling a sack; another assault case arising out of the fact that Mrs Stocktle had “called” Mrs Stivvison,—spelt Stockton and Stevenson,—with the result that their lawful protectors had been dragged into the quarrel, and “Jack Stivvison had ‘leathered’ Jem Stocktle.”

Upon these urgent cases the bench of magistrates, consisting of the Rev. Eli Mallow, chairman, the Rev. Arthur Smith, Sir Joshua St. Henry, and the Revds. Thomas Hampson, James Lawrence Barton, and Onesimus Leytonsby, solemnly adjudicated.

Then came the important case of the day; two men, who gave the names of Robert Thorns and Jock Morrison, were placed at the table.

The first was a miserable, dirty-looking object, who seemed to have made a vow somewhere or another never to wash, shave, or sleep in anything but hay and straw, some of which was sticking still in his tangled hair; the other was a different breed of rough.

Rough, certainly, a spectator who had judged the two idlers would have said; but he was decidedly a country rough, and did not belong to town. His big, burly look and length of limb indicated a man of giant strength; at least six feet high, his chest was deep and broad, and in his brown, half gipsy-looking face, liberally clothed with the darkest of dark-brown beards, there shone a pair of fierce dark eyes. Scraped and sand-papered down, and clothed in brown velveteen, with cord trousers and brown leather gaiters, he would have made a gamekeeper of whose appearance any country magnate might have been proud. As it was, his appearance before the country bench of magistrates was enough to condemn him for poaching.

There was something of the keeper, too, in his appearance, for he had on a well-worn velveteen coat and low soft hat, but his big, soft hands told the tale of what he was—a ne’er-do-well, who looked upon life as a career in which no man was bound to work.

Such was Jock Morrison.

The case was plain against them, and they knew that they would have to suffer, for Jock was pretty well known for these affairs. Upon former occasions his brother Tom, the wheelwright, had paid guineas to Mr Ridley, the Lawford attorney, to defend him, but there were bounds to brotherly help.

“I can’t do it for ever,” Tom Morrison had said to his young wife. “I’ve give Jock every chance I could; now he must take care of himself.”

Big Jock Morrison looked perfectly able to do that, as he now stood with his hands in his pockets, staring about him in a cool defiant way. It seemed that he had been warned off Lord Artingale’s ground several times, but had been too cunning for the keepers, and had only been taken red-handed the previous day, very early in the morning, so evidence showed; and he and his companion had upon them a hare, a rabbit, and a couple of pheasants, beside some wire snares and a little rusty single-barrelled gun, whose barrel unscrewed into two pieces, and which, so the head-keeper deposed, was detached from the stock and stowed away in the inner pocket of the big prisoner’s coat.

Gun, powder-flask, tin measure, and bag of shot, with game, placed upon the table.

“And what did the prisoners say when you came upon them by—where did you say, keeper?” said one magistrate.

“Runby Spinney, Sir Joshua, just where the Greenhurst lane crosses the long coppice, Sir Joshua.”

“And what did the prisoners say?” said the chairman stiffly.

“Said they was blackberrying, Sir.”

“Oh!” said the chairman, and he appeared so stern that no one dared laugh, though a young rustic-looking policeman at whom Jock Morrison winked turned red in the face with his efforts to prevent an explosion.

“Did they make any—er—er—resistance, keeper?” said the chairman.

“The big prisoner, sir, said he’d smash my head if I interfered with him.”

“Dear me! A very desperate character,” said Sir Joshua. “And did he?”

“No, Sir Joshua, we was too many for him. There was me, Smith, Duggan, and the two pleecemen, so they give in.”

And so on, and so on.

Had the prisoners anything to say in their defence?

The dirty man had not, Jock Morrison had. “Lookye here: he didn’t take the game, shouldn’t ha’ taken it, only they foun’ ’em all lying aside the road. It was a fakement o’ the keeper’s, that’s what it was. They was a pickin’ blackberries, that’s what him and his mate was a doin’ of, and as soon as the ’ops was ready they was a going down south to pick ’ops.”

The magistrates’ clerk, the principal solicitor in the town, smiled, and said he was afraid they would miss the hop-picking that season, as it was over.

There was a short conference on the bench, and then the Rev. Eli Mallow sentenced the prisoners to three months’ imprisonment, and told them it was very fortunate for them that they had not resisted the law.

“You arn’t going to quod us for three months along o’ them birds and that hare, are you?” said Jock Morrison.

“Take them away, policeman.”

“Hold hard a moment,” said the big fellow, so fiercely that the sergeant present drew back. “Look here, parsons, you’ll spoil our hop-picking.”

“Take them away, constable,” said the Rev. Eli. “The next case.”

“Hold hard, d’ye hear!” cried the big ruffian, in a voice of thunder. “I s’pose, parson,” he continued, addressing the chairman, “if I say much to you, I shall get it laid on thicker.”

“My good fellow,” said the Rev. Eli, “you have been most leniently dealt with. I am sorry for you on account of your brother, a most respectable man, who has always set you an admirable example, and—”

“I say,” exclaimed Jock, “this arn’t chutch, is it?”

There was a titter here, but the chairman continued:—

“I will say no more, as you seem in so hardened a frame of mind, only that if you are violent you may be committed for trial.”

“All right,” said the great fellow, between his gritting teeth; “I don’t say no more, only—all right: come along, matey; we can do the three months easy.”

There was a bit of a bustle, and the prisoners were taken off. The rest of the cases were despatched. The carriage called for the chairman, and on the way back it passed the police cart, with the sergeant giving the two poaching prisoners a ride, but each man had his ankle chained to a big ring in the bottom of the vehicle, where they sat face to face, and the sergeant and his man were driving the blackberry pickers to the county gaol.

“What a dreadful-looking man!” said Julia, as in passing Jock Morrison ironically touched his soft felt hat.

“Yes, my dear—poachers,” said the Rev. Eli calmly, as one who felt that he had done his duty to society, and never for a moment dreaming that he had been stirring Fate to play him another bitter turn.

Part 1, Chapter VII.Polly’s Surprise.There was a dark shadow over Polly Morrison’s mind, and she started and shivered at every step when her husband was away at work, but only to brighten up when the great sturdy fellow came in, smelling of wood, and ready to crush her in his arms with one of his bear-like hugs.Polly had been furtively gazing from the window several times on the afternoon of that market-day, and turned hot and cold as she had heard steps which might be those of some one coming there; but the cloud passed away in the sunshine of Tom Morrison’s happy smile, now that he had come in, and she felt, as she expressed it, “oh! so safe.”“There, let me go, do, Tom,” she cried, merrily. “Oh, what a great strong, rough fellow you are!”“No, no; stop a minute,” he said here. “I oughtn’t to be smiling, for I’ve just heard something, Polly.”“Heard something, Tom!” she faltered, and she turned white with dread, and shrank away.“Here, I say,” he cried, “you must get up your strength, lass. Why, what a shivering little thing thou art!”“You—you frightened me, Tom,” she gasped.“Frightened you? There, there, it’s nothing to frighten thee. I have just heard about Jock.”“Oh! about Jock,” cried Polly, drawing a breath full of relief. “I hope he has got off.”“Well, no, my lass, he hasn’t, and I’m sorry and I’m not sorry, if thou canst understand that. I’m sorry Jock is to be punished, and I’m not sorry if it will do him good. Arn’t you ashamed of having a husband with such a bad brother?”“Ashamed! Oh, Tom!” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck.“Well, if you are not, I am,” said Tom, sadly; “and I can’t help thinking that if old Humphrey Bone had done his duty better by us, Jock would have turned out a different man.”“But tell me, Tom, are they going to do anything dreadful to him?”“Three months on bread and water, my lass,” said Tom Morrison,—“bread of repentance and water of repentance; and I hope they’ll do him good, but I’m afraid when he comes out he’ll be after the hares and pheasants again, and I’m always in a fret lest he should get into a fight with the keepers. But there, my lass, I can’t help it. I’d give him a share of the business if he’d take to it, but he wean’t. I shan’t fret, and if people like to look down on me about it, they may.”“But they don’t, Tom, dear,” cried Polly, with her face all in dimples, the great trouble of her life forgotten for the time. “I’ve got such a surprise for you.”“Surprise for me, lass? What is it? A custard for tea?”“No, no; what a boy you are to eat!” cried Polly, merrily.“Just you come and smell sawdust all day, and see if you don’t eat,” cried Tom. “Here, what is it?”“Oh, you must wait. There, what a shame! and you haven’t kissed baby.”She ran out to fetch the baby and hold it up to him to be kissed, while she looked at him with all a young mother’s pride in the little one, of which the great sturdy fellow had grown so fond.“It makes me so happy, Tom,” she said, with the tears in her eyes.“Happy, does it, lass?”“Oh, yes. So—so happy,” she cried, nestling to him with her baby in her arms, and sighing with her sense of safety and content, as the strong muscles held her to the broad breast. “I was afraid, Tom, that you might not care for it—that you would think it a trouble, and—and—”“That you were a silly little wife, and full of foolish fancies,” he cried, kissing her tenderly.“Yes, yes, Tom, I was,” she cried, smiling up at him through her tears. “But come—your tea. Here, Budge.”Budge had been a baby herself once—a workhouse baby—and she looked it still, at fourteen. Not a thin starveling, but a sturdy workhouse baby, who had thriven and grown strong on simple oatmeal fare. Budge was stout and rosy, and daily putting on flesh at Tom Morrison’s cottage, where her duty was to “help missus, and nuss the bairn.”But nearly always in Polly’s sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled—terribly, and that “the way”—to use Tom Morrison’s words—“she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see.”Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head—and hair—over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge’s great delight.For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of butter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.Budge’s stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow butter, prior to hacking off a slice.Poor Budge’s eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the mass out to her, with—“Here, lass, you look hungry. Tuck that away.”Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying “Thanky, sir,” and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby’s face.“Well, lass,” said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, “about the christening? When’s it to be?”“On Sunday, Tom, and that’s what I wanted to tell you—it’s my surprise.”“What’s a surprise?”“Why, about the godmothers, dear. Why, I declare,” she pouted, “you don’t seem to mind a bit.”“Oh, but I do,” he said, “only I’m so hungry. Well, what about the godmothers?”“Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn’t it grand?”“Grand? Oh, I don’t know.”“Tom!”“Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don’t know. It’s all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?”“Oh, that won’t make any difference, dear. They’ve promised, and I know they won’t go back. They’ll be the two godmothers, and you the godfather.”“Of course,” cried Tom, eating away; “two godmothers and a godfather, eh, lass? that’s right, isn’t it?”“Yes, Tom,” said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband’s wants, “and two godfathers and a godmother if it’s a boy.”“It’ll be a grand christening, won’t it, Polly?” said Tom.“Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend.”“I say,” cried Tom, eagerly.“What, dear?”“Why not do the thing in style while we’re about it. What do you say to asking young Mr Cyril to be godfather?”If Tom Morrison had looked up then he would have been startled at the livid look in his young wife’s face, but he was too intent upon his tea, and Polly recovered herself and said—“Oh, no, dear, that would not do, and the young ladies would not like it. Look here, Tom.”Polly tripped to a basket, from which she produced a white cloak and hood, trimmed with swan’s-down; and these she held up before her husband, flushed and excited, as, in her girlish way, she wondered whether he would like them.Budge left off eating, and wished for a white dress on the spot, trimmed with silk braid, like that.“Say,” said Tom, thickly, speaking with his mouth fall, “they’re fine, arn’t they?—cost a lot o’ money.”“No,” said Polly, gleefully, “they cost nothing, Tom. Miss Julia made me a present of the stuff, and I made them.”“Did you, though?” he said, looking at her little fingers, admiringly. “You’re a clever girl, Polly; but I often wonder how it was you came to take up with a rough chap like me.”Polly looked up in his steady, honest eyes, and rested one hand upon his, and gazed lovingly at him, as he went on—“My old woman said it was because I’d got a cottage, and an acre of land of my own.”“Did she say so, Tom?”“Yes,” he said, taking her hand, patting it, and gazing up in the pretty rustic face he called his own; “but I told her you were a silly little girl, who would have me if I’d got a cottage and an acre less than nothing to call my own.”“And you told the truth, Tom, dear,” she whispered. “Tom, you make me so happy in believing in me like this.”“Tut, tut, my girl. I’m not clever; but I knew you.”“And married me without anything, only enough to buy my wedding dress and a little furniture.”“D’yer call that nothing?” said the hearty, Saxon-faced young fellow, pointing to the baby; “because I don’t. And I say, Polly, dear,” he whispered, archly, “perhaps that’s only the thin end of the wedge.”“Hush, Tom, for shame!” she said, trying to frown, and pointing to Budge; while he took a tremendous bite of bread and bacon, and chuckled hugely at his joke.“The old lady used to have it that you were too fine for me, Polly, and would have been setting your cap at one of the young gentlemen at the rectory when you was abroad with them.”“Tom!” she panted, as his words seemed to stab her, and she ran out of the room.“Why, Polly, Polly,” he cried, following her and holding her to his breast, “what a touchy little thing thou art since baby came! Why, as if I didn’t know that ever since you were so high you were my little sweetheart, and liked great rough me better than the finest gentleman as ever walked. There, there, there! I was a great lout to talk like that to thee. Come, wipe thy eyes.”“I can’t bear it, Tom, if you talk like that,” she sobbed, smiling at him through her tears. “There, it’s all over now.”There was a little cold shiver at Polly Morrison’s breast, though, all the same, and it kept returning as she sat there over her work that evening, rocking the cradle with one foot, and wondering whether she could gain strength enough to tell her husband all about Cyril Mallow, and the old days at Dinan.But no, she could not, and they discussed, as Tom smoked his pipe, the state of affairs at the rectory; how Mrs Mallow remained as great an invalid as ever, and how they seemed to spare no expense, although people had said they went abroad because they had grown so poor.“Folk seem strange and sore against parson,” said Tom at last.“Then it’s very cruel of them, for master is a real good man,” cried Polly.“They don’t like it about owd Sammy Warmoth. They say he killed him,” said Tom, between the puffs of his pipe.“Such nonsense!” cried Polly; “and him ninety-three.”“Then they are taking sides against him for wanting to get rid of Humphrey Bone.”“And more shame for them,” cried Polly, indignantly.“Well, I don’t know,” said Tom; “I’ve rather a liking for old Humphrey. He taught me.”“He’s a nasty wicked old man,” cried Polly. “He tried to kiss me one day when he was tipsy.”“He did?” cried Tom, breaking his pipe in the angry rush that seemed to come over him.“Yes, Tom, and I boxed his ears,” said the little woman, shivering again, for the fit of jealous anger did not escape her searching eyes.“That’s right, lass. I’m dead on for a new master now.”Then a discussion arose as to the baby’s name, Tom wanting it to be called after his wife, who was set upon Julia, and she carried the day.“There,” said Tom, “if anybody had told me a couple of years ago that any bit of a thing of a girl was going to wheedle me, and twist me round her finger, and do what she liked with me, I should have told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”“And you don’t mind, Tom, dear?”“No,” he said, smiling, “I don’t mind, if it pleases thee, my lass.”“And it does, dear, very, very much,” she said, kissing him.But Polly Morrison did not feel happy, and several times that night there was the little shiver of dread at her heart, and she wished she could tell Tom all.

There was a dark shadow over Polly Morrison’s mind, and she started and shivered at every step when her husband was away at work, but only to brighten up when the great sturdy fellow came in, smelling of wood, and ready to crush her in his arms with one of his bear-like hugs.

Polly had been furtively gazing from the window several times on the afternoon of that market-day, and turned hot and cold as she had heard steps which might be those of some one coming there; but the cloud passed away in the sunshine of Tom Morrison’s happy smile, now that he had come in, and she felt, as she expressed it, “oh! so safe.”

“There, let me go, do, Tom,” she cried, merrily. “Oh, what a great strong, rough fellow you are!”

“No, no; stop a minute,” he said here. “I oughtn’t to be smiling, for I’ve just heard something, Polly.”

“Heard something, Tom!” she faltered, and she turned white with dread, and shrank away.

“Here, I say,” he cried, “you must get up your strength, lass. Why, what a shivering little thing thou art!”

“You—you frightened me, Tom,” she gasped.

“Frightened you? There, there, it’s nothing to frighten thee. I have just heard about Jock.”

“Oh! about Jock,” cried Polly, drawing a breath full of relief. “I hope he has got off.”

“Well, no, my lass, he hasn’t, and I’m sorry and I’m not sorry, if thou canst understand that. I’m sorry Jock is to be punished, and I’m not sorry if it will do him good. Arn’t you ashamed of having a husband with such a bad brother?”

“Ashamed! Oh, Tom!” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck.

“Well, if you are not, I am,” said Tom, sadly; “and I can’t help thinking that if old Humphrey Bone had done his duty better by us, Jock would have turned out a different man.”

“But tell me, Tom, are they going to do anything dreadful to him?”

“Three months on bread and water, my lass,” said Tom Morrison,—“bread of repentance and water of repentance; and I hope they’ll do him good, but I’m afraid when he comes out he’ll be after the hares and pheasants again, and I’m always in a fret lest he should get into a fight with the keepers. But there, my lass, I can’t help it. I’d give him a share of the business if he’d take to it, but he wean’t. I shan’t fret, and if people like to look down on me about it, they may.”

“But they don’t, Tom, dear,” cried Polly, with her face all in dimples, the great trouble of her life forgotten for the time. “I’ve got such a surprise for you.”

“Surprise for me, lass? What is it? A custard for tea?”

“No, no; what a boy you are to eat!” cried Polly, merrily.

“Just you come and smell sawdust all day, and see if you don’t eat,” cried Tom. “Here, what is it?”

“Oh, you must wait. There, what a shame! and you haven’t kissed baby.”

She ran out to fetch the baby and hold it up to him to be kissed, while she looked at him with all a young mother’s pride in the little one, of which the great sturdy fellow had grown so fond.

“It makes me so happy, Tom,” she said, with the tears in her eyes.

“Happy, does it, lass?”

“Oh, yes. So—so happy,” she cried, nestling to him with her baby in her arms, and sighing with her sense of safety and content, as the strong muscles held her to the broad breast. “I was afraid, Tom, that you might not care for it—that you would think it a trouble, and—and—”

“That you were a silly little wife, and full of foolish fancies,” he cried, kissing her tenderly.

“Yes, yes, Tom, I was,” she cried, smiling up at him through her tears. “But come—your tea. Here, Budge.”

Budge had been a baby herself once—a workhouse baby—and she looked it still, at fourteen. Not a thin starveling, but a sturdy workhouse baby, who had thriven and grown strong on simple oatmeal fare. Budge was stout and rosy, and daily putting on flesh at Tom Morrison’s cottage, where her duty was to “help missus, and nuss the bairn.”

But nearly always in Polly’s sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.

She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled—terribly, and that “the way”—to use Tom Morrison’s words—“she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see.”

Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head—and hair—over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge’s great delight.

For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of butter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.

Budge’s stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow butter, prior to hacking off a slice.

Poor Budge’s eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the mass out to her, with—

“Here, lass, you look hungry. Tuck that away.”

Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying “Thanky, sir,” and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby’s face.

“Well, lass,” said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, “about the christening? When’s it to be?”

“On Sunday, Tom, and that’s what I wanted to tell you—it’s my surprise.”

“What’s a surprise?”

“Why, about the godmothers, dear. Why, I declare,” she pouted, “you don’t seem to mind a bit.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said, “only I’m so hungry. Well, what about the godmothers?”

“Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn’t it grand?”

“Grand? Oh, I don’t know.”

“Tom!”

“Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don’t know. It’s all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?”

“Oh, that won’t make any difference, dear. They’ve promised, and I know they won’t go back. They’ll be the two godmothers, and you the godfather.”

“Of course,” cried Tom, eating away; “two godmothers and a godfather, eh, lass? that’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Tom,” said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband’s wants, “and two godfathers and a godmother if it’s a boy.”

“It’ll be a grand christening, won’t it, Polly?” said Tom.

“Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend.”

“I say,” cried Tom, eagerly.

“What, dear?”

“Why not do the thing in style while we’re about it. What do you say to asking young Mr Cyril to be godfather?”

If Tom Morrison had looked up then he would have been startled at the livid look in his young wife’s face, but he was too intent upon his tea, and Polly recovered herself and said—

“Oh, no, dear, that would not do, and the young ladies would not like it. Look here, Tom.”

Polly tripped to a basket, from which she produced a white cloak and hood, trimmed with swan’s-down; and these she held up before her husband, flushed and excited, as, in her girlish way, she wondered whether he would like them.

Budge left off eating, and wished for a white dress on the spot, trimmed with silk braid, like that.

“Say,” said Tom, thickly, speaking with his mouth fall, “they’re fine, arn’t they?—cost a lot o’ money.”

“No,” said Polly, gleefully, “they cost nothing, Tom. Miss Julia made me a present of the stuff, and I made them.”

“Did you, though?” he said, looking at her little fingers, admiringly. “You’re a clever girl, Polly; but I often wonder how it was you came to take up with a rough chap like me.”

Polly looked up in his steady, honest eyes, and rested one hand upon his, and gazed lovingly at him, as he went on—

“My old woman said it was because I’d got a cottage, and an acre of land of my own.”

“Did she say so, Tom?”

“Yes,” he said, taking her hand, patting it, and gazing up in the pretty rustic face he called his own; “but I told her you were a silly little girl, who would have me if I’d got a cottage and an acre less than nothing to call my own.”

“And you told the truth, Tom, dear,” she whispered. “Tom, you make me so happy in believing in me like this.”

“Tut, tut, my girl. I’m not clever; but I knew you.”

“And married me without anything, only enough to buy my wedding dress and a little furniture.”

“D’yer call that nothing?” said the hearty, Saxon-faced young fellow, pointing to the baby; “because I don’t. And I say, Polly, dear,” he whispered, archly, “perhaps that’s only the thin end of the wedge.”

“Hush, Tom, for shame!” she said, trying to frown, and pointing to Budge; while he took a tremendous bite of bread and bacon, and chuckled hugely at his joke.

“The old lady used to have it that you were too fine for me, Polly, and would have been setting your cap at one of the young gentlemen at the rectory when you was abroad with them.”

“Tom!” she panted, as his words seemed to stab her, and she ran out of the room.

“Why, Polly, Polly,” he cried, following her and holding her to his breast, “what a touchy little thing thou art since baby came! Why, as if I didn’t know that ever since you were so high you were my little sweetheart, and liked great rough me better than the finest gentleman as ever walked. There, there, there! I was a great lout to talk like that to thee. Come, wipe thy eyes.”

“I can’t bear it, Tom, if you talk like that,” she sobbed, smiling at him through her tears. “There, it’s all over now.”

There was a little cold shiver at Polly Morrison’s breast, though, all the same, and it kept returning as she sat there over her work that evening, rocking the cradle with one foot, and wondering whether she could gain strength enough to tell her husband all about Cyril Mallow, and the old days at Dinan.

But no, she could not, and they discussed, as Tom smoked his pipe, the state of affairs at the rectory; how Mrs Mallow remained as great an invalid as ever, and how they seemed to spare no expense, although people had said they went abroad because they had grown so poor.

“Folk seem strange and sore against parson,” said Tom at last.

“Then it’s very cruel of them, for master is a real good man,” cried Polly.

“They don’t like it about owd Sammy Warmoth. They say he killed him,” said Tom, between the puffs of his pipe.

“Such nonsense!” cried Polly; “and him ninety-three.”

“Then they are taking sides against him for wanting to get rid of Humphrey Bone.”

“And more shame for them,” cried Polly, indignantly.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Tom; “I’ve rather a liking for old Humphrey. He taught me.”

“He’s a nasty wicked old man,” cried Polly. “He tried to kiss me one day when he was tipsy.”

“He did?” cried Tom, breaking his pipe in the angry rush that seemed to come over him.

“Yes, Tom, and I boxed his ears,” said the little woman, shivering again, for the fit of jealous anger did not escape her searching eyes.

“That’s right, lass. I’m dead on for a new master now.”

Then a discussion arose as to the baby’s name, Tom wanting it to be called after his wife, who was set upon Julia, and she carried the day.

“There,” said Tom, “if anybody had told me a couple of years ago that any bit of a thing of a girl was going to wheedle me, and twist me round her finger, and do what she liked with me, I should have told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“And you don’t mind, Tom, dear?”

“No,” he said, smiling, “I don’t mind, if it pleases thee, my lass.”

“And it does, dear, very, very much,” she said, kissing him.

But Polly Morrison did not feel happy, and several times that night there was the little shiver of dread at her heart, and she wished she could tell Tom all.

Part 1, Chapter VIII.The Black Shadow.It was, as Julia Mallow said, a very pretty baby, that of Polly Morrison and her husband, when she spoke to her invalid mother, lying so patiently passive upon the couch in her own room; but that weak little morsel of humanity had a part to play in the troubles of the Rev. Eli Mallow’s life. For hardly had the tiny babe sent to the care of Tom Morrison and his young wife begun to smile upon them, than it was taken suddenly ill.No childish ailment this, brought on by careless attendance; but the cold grey hand of death was laid upon the fragile form, its little eyes—erst so bright and blue—sunken, and the tiny nose pinched and blue.Julia and Cynthia Mallow had been in to see her, and found the little woman prostrate with grief, and then hurried to the town for medical advice, though that of fifty doctors would have been in vain.“Pray, pray, Tom, go and ask Budge not to cry,” sobbed Polly, as her husband knelt at her side; for ever and again, from below, came a long, dismal cry, that almost resembled the howl of a dog in a state of suffering.Tom Morrison rose in a heavy, dull way, and slowly descended the stairs, returning in a minute to resume his place beside his wife, turning his eyes to hers, as they looked up to him in mute agony.They could not speak, but they read each other’s hearts, and knew full well that nothing could be done; that the tiny life that had been given to them to have in charge was passing fast away—so fast, and yet so gently that neither knew it had gone till, alarmed by the slow dilation of the little eyes, and their fixed and determinate look, Polly bent over the waxen form in eager fear, caught it tightly to her breast, and then sank back in her chair, crying—“Tom, Tom, God has taken it away!” An hour later, husband and wife were sitting hand in hand by the little couch on which their darling lay, so still and cold, its tiny face seeming restful, free from pain, and almost wearing a smile, while on either hand, and covering its breast, were the best of the simple, homely flowers the garden could produce.There was a heavy, blank look upon the parents’ faces; for even then they could not realise their loss. It was so sudden, seemed so strange; and from time to time Polly got softly up, to lean down and hold her cheek close to the little parted lips, to make sure that the infant did not breathe; but there was no sign, and when she pressed her lips to the white forehead, it was to find it cold as ice.Budge had been silent for some time, going about the house on tiptoe, and, like those above, too stunned to work; but her homely mind was busy for a way to show her sympathy, and this she did by making and taking up on the little tray two steaming cups of tea, each flanked by a goodly slice.Poor Budge! she had not calculated her strength aright; for on softly entering the room, and setting down the tray, she turned her head, and saw the simple flower-strewn bier, gave a long, loving look, and then, sinking on her knees, with her hands to her eyes, burst forth into a wild and passionate wail.It was even ludicrous, but it touched the hearts of those who heard; for with it came the passionate yearning of the desolate child for the love and sympathy it had never known, but for which its young heart had hungered so long. It told of nights of misery, and a desire for a something it felt it ought to possess but had never had, as now, raising her hands, she wailed forth her prayer—“Oh, please, God, let me die instead, let me die instead.”As she finished, there was another wild burst of hysterical sobbing, and Polly had flung herself in the child’s arms, clinging to her, kissing her passionately, as she cried—“Oh, Budge, my poor girl! Oh, Budge, you’ll break my heart!”Tom Morrison could bear no more, but stumbled heavily from the room, down-stairs, and out into his garden, where daybreak found him sitting, with his face buried in his hands, on the bit of rustic seat beneath the old weeping willow that grew in the corner, with its roots washed by the river that formed one of the boundaries of the little freehold.The sun was rising gloriously, and the east was one sheet of gold and orange damask, shot with sapphire, as the sturdy workman rose.“I must be a man over it—a man,” he faltered, “for her sake.” And he slowly strode into the house, and up-stairs, to find his wife kneeling where he had left her, wakeful and watching, with poor Budge fast asleep, with her head upon Polly’s lap, and her two roughened hands holding one of those of her mistress beneath her cheek.The wheelwright walked up to the sleeping babe, and kissed it; then, gently taking Budge’s head, he placed it upon a pillow from the bed; while, lastly, he raised poor Polly as though she had been a child, kissed her cold lips, and laid her down, covering her with the clothes, and holding one of her hands, as he bade her sleep; and she obeyed, that is to say, she closed her heavy eyes.In the course of the morning, stern, crotchety old Vinnicombe, the Lawford doctor, sought out the stricken father, finding that he had not been to his workshop, but was down his garden, where, after a few preliminaries, he broke his news.“What?” he said, starting. “There, sir, I’m dazed like now; please, say it again.”“I’m very sorry, Morrison—very,” said the doctor, “for I respect you greatly, and it must be a great grief to your poor little wife; but I have seen him myself, as I did about Warner’s child, and he is very much cut up about it; but as to moving him, he is like iron.”“I can’t quite understand it, sir,” said Tom, flushing. “Do you mean to say, sir, that parson won’t bury the child?”“Well, it is like this, Morrison,” said the doctor, quietly, “he is a rigid disciplinarian—a man of High Church views, and he says it is impossible for him to read the Burial Service over a child that was not a Christian.”“That was not a Christian?” said Tom slowly.“He says he condoles with you, and is very sorry; that the poor little thing can be buried in the unconsecrated part of the churchyard; but he can grant no more.”“Doctor,” cried the wheelwright, fiercely, “I don’t be—There, sir, I beg your pardon,” he continued, holding out his rough hand; “but it seems too hard to believe that any one could speak like this. The poor little thing couldn’t help it, sir; and we should have had it done next Sunday. Why, sir, the poor girl was only showing me the little—don’t take notice o’ me, sir, please; I’m like a great girl now.”As he spoke, he sank down upon an upturned box, and, covering his face with his hands, remained silent; but with his heaving shoulders telling the story of his bitter emotion.“Be a man, Morrison—be a man,” said the doctor, kindly, as he laid his hand upon the stricken fellow’s shoulder.“Yes, doctor,” he said, rising and dashing away the signs of his grief—“this is very childish, sir; but it’s a bit upset me, and now this news you bring me seems to make it worse. I’ll go up and see parson. He won’t refuse when he knows all.”“Yes, go up and see him,” said the doctor, kindly. “Can I do anything for you?”“No, sir, thanky,” said the wheelwright, meekly; “you couldn’t do what I wanted, sir—save that poor little thing’s life. There’s nothing more.”“No,” said the doctor; “our profession is powerless in such a case. The child was so young and tender that—”“Don’t say any more, sir, please,” said Morrison, with his lip quivering. And then he turned away from the house, so as to avoid Biggins the carpenter, who had just come in at the garden gate, and walked on tiptoe along the gravel walk, up to the door, where he was met by a neighbour, who led him up-stairs.Biggins, the Lawford carpenter, was the newly-appointed sexton of the church, and between him and Tom Morrison there was supposed to exist a bitter hatred, because Biggins the carpenter had once undertaken to make a wheelbarrow for the rectory garden, and Morrison had made a coffin for one of the Searby children who died of a fit of measles.The feud seemed to be a bitter one, for when he came out of the cottage five minutes later, he turned down the garden, seeing which, the doctor shook hands with Morrison, and at parting said—“Let me give you something to do you good, Tom.”“What, sir, doctor’s stuff?” said the wheelwright, with a look of wonder. “I want no physic.”“Yes, you do,” said the doctor, smiling, as he laid the silver knob of his stick on the stout fellow’s breast—“yes, you do. I can minister to a mind diseased as well as to a body. Look here, my lad, you must bear your suffering like a man; so, now go and do this—”Tom made an impatient movement to go, but the doctor stayed him.“There is nothing like work at such a time as this,” he said. “Go and see the parson, and then set to and work harder than ever you worked before in your life. It will give you ease.”“You’re right, Mr Vinnicombe, you’re right,” said Tom, bluntly. “Thanky, sir—thanky. Good-bye.”As the doctor walked out of the gate, Biggins the carpenter, a hard-faced man, who emitted a strong odour of glue from his garments, walked up, tucking a piece of sandpaper upon which he had been writing, and his square carpenter’s pencil, that he had pointed with four chops of his chisel before starting, into one of his pockets.“Thy savoy cabbages look well, neighbour,” he said quietly, as being the most sympathetic thing he could think of at the moment. Then he held out his hand, shook the other’s warmly, without a word, and then stood by him, breathing heavily, and looking down at the ground.Five minutes passed like this, without a word on either side, Morrison manifesting no impatience, and Biggins showing no disposition to go; for it was his way of showing sympathy to a friend in distress, and Morrison felt it so to be, and thanked him in his heart.At last the carpenter, who was used to funerals, and who was now next door to being clerk, heaved a heavy sigh, stooped down, picked a strand from the grass plot, and held it at arm’s length, looking at it fixedly for a minute or so, before saying, huskily—“All flesh is grass, Tom Morrison—flowers of the field—cut down—withered. Amen.”He said it in a slow, measured way, and with a nasal twang, the last word closing his disconnected speech after quite an interval; and then the two men stood together for some minutes in silence.At last Biggins spoke again, but without raising his eyes, looking down at the garden path, as if for a place to plant the bent he had broken from its roots.“Poor wife! She’s terribly cut up, Tom.”There was another interval of silence, and then Biggins said, as if to himself, and still gazing at the path—“White cloth, and silver breastplate and nails?”There was another pause, and then Tom said in a weary, dull way—“As if it was one of your own, my lad—as if it was one of your own.”“Good-bye, Tom Morrison—good-bye, lad,” said Biggins, holding out his hand once more, but with his back half turned to his neighbour “Good-bye,” said Tom, squeezing the honest, hard fist held out to him in a manly grip; and, with a sigh, Biggins was turning off, when a word from the wheelwright arrested him. “Come down here, lad, away from the house,” said Tom, huskily.Biggins looked up now, his heavy face lighting up. Tom Morrison wanted him to do something for him. He could do that, if he could not show sympathy.They walked down the neatly-kept garden, till they stood under the willow tree, where, after a few minutes’ silence, Tom Morrison said huskily—“They’ve made you saxon now, haven’t they, Joe?”“Yes, and ought to be clerk as well, but it don’t seem like being saxon in these newfangled days, when the ground’s cut from under a man, and there’s no chance of putting in a simple, honest amen anywhere. Ah, I don’t know what poor, dear old parson would have said to see the change. He’d think we’d all gone over to Popery.”Tom waited till his friend, now suddenly grown voluble, had ceased.“Joe Biggins,” he said, “didst ever know old parson—God bless him!—to refuse to bury any one out of the place because—because they wasn’t baptised?”“Never,” said Biggins—“never,” energetically.“He never had such a case, p’raps,” said Tom.“Oh, but he did,” said Biggins—“even in my time. Why, there was poor Lizzy Baker’s child. You knew Sam Baker?”Tom nodded.“Well, when their little one died it hadn’t been christened, I know. I remember father talking about it while he made the coffin, and I recollect it so well because it was the first coffin I ever put the nails in all by myself. Let’s see, that’s a good fifteen year ago now, Tom, that it be.”“And he buried it?”“To be sure he did. Why, I remember as well as if it had been yesterday. He says to my father, he says, ‘I never like to be too partic’lar about these baptismal matters. It’s not ’cording to church law, but I couldn’t put such a sorrow on the poor father and mother as to refuse the service, and I hope I’m right.’”“He said so?” whispered the wheelwright, half turning away his face.“I can’t as a man, Tom, sweer to the zact words,” said the carpenter, earnestly; “but I’ll sweer as they meant all that, long ago as it is.”“God bless him!” muttered Tom, with his lower lip working.“Old parson wasn’t particular about those sort o’ things. Don’t you remember about poor old Dick Granger? To be sure—yes—we were boys then, and went to Humphrey Bone. Ay, and what a rage he do wax in again parson now, toe be sewer. I recklect father talking about it. You remember, sewerly, old Granger went off his head, and drowned himself in Cook’s mill dam, and the jury said it wasfelo de se; and Johnson up at the Red Cow was foreman, and wanted him to be buried at the cross roads, with a stake druv through his heart. Why, it’s all come back now. I recklect it all; how old parson went to the poor old widow, and talked to her; and there was a big funeral. Everybody went to see poor old Granger buried in the churchyard; and he was buried all regular, and parson preached the next Sunday about brotherly love and Christian charity. Why, Tom, you and I was about seventeen then. How time do go!”“Yes—I remember,” said the wheelwright, bowing his head.“Ah,” said Biggins, “those were the days, Tom; even if one did get to know some of poor old parson’s sarmons. We sang the old psalms and hymns then, and Miss Jane used to practise twice a week with us boys at the little organ that old Davy, Franklin’s gardener, used to turn the handle on. There was no choral sarvice then, and white gowns for the children. Ah, a clerk’s place was worth having then. It wasn’t many on ’em as could roll outAmenlike poor old Sammy Warmoth.”“Joe Biggins,” said the wheelwright, checking the flood of recollections—“doctor says Rev. Mallow won’t—won’t—”“Won’t bury the little one?” Tom’s voice failed him, and he nodded shortly.“Phew!”Biggins gave a low, sibilant whistle. Then, flushing up, he exclaimed—“Damn him! No—I don’t mean that. Lord forgive me for speaking so of a parson. But, I say, Tom—oh, no, he can’t mean it, lad. Tell you what, he’s a queer one, and as proud as a peacock, and his boys arn’t what they should be. You needn’t tell him what I say, for I don’t want to offend nobody, that’s my motter through life; but parson’s a parson, and he’s bound to practise what he preaches. You go and see him.”“I mean to.”“Shall I go with thee, lad?”“No. I’ll go alone.”“P’raps you’d better, lad. If he makes any bones about it, ask him as a favour—don’t be hot with him, Tom, but a bit humble. I know thee don’t like to ask favours of any man; but do’t for her sake, Tom—indoors.”Biggins pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, and the wheelwright nodded.“When is the best time to see him?” said Tom, after a few moments’ silence.“Well, it’s no good to go till ’bout two o’clock, after his lunch. He won’t see me, even on parish matters, in the morning.”The wheelwright nodded, and, without another word, Biggins went away, passing the cottage, with its drawn-down blinds, on tiptoe, and shaking his fist at a boy who was whistling as he went along the road.

It was, as Julia Mallow said, a very pretty baby, that of Polly Morrison and her husband, when she spoke to her invalid mother, lying so patiently passive upon the couch in her own room; but that weak little morsel of humanity had a part to play in the troubles of the Rev. Eli Mallow’s life. For hardly had the tiny babe sent to the care of Tom Morrison and his young wife begun to smile upon them, than it was taken suddenly ill.

No childish ailment this, brought on by careless attendance; but the cold grey hand of death was laid upon the fragile form, its little eyes—erst so bright and blue—sunken, and the tiny nose pinched and blue.

Julia and Cynthia Mallow had been in to see her, and found the little woman prostrate with grief, and then hurried to the town for medical advice, though that of fifty doctors would have been in vain.

“Pray, pray, Tom, go and ask Budge not to cry,” sobbed Polly, as her husband knelt at her side; for ever and again, from below, came a long, dismal cry, that almost resembled the howl of a dog in a state of suffering.

Tom Morrison rose in a heavy, dull way, and slowly descended the stairs, returning in a minute to resume his place beside his wife, turning his eyes to hers, as they looked up to him in mute agony.

They could not speak, but they read each other’s hearts, and knew full well that nothing could be done; that the tiny life that had been given to them to have in charge was passing fast away—so fast, and yet so gently that neither knew it had gone till, alarmed by the slow dilation of the little eyes, and their fixed and determinate look, Polly bent over the waxen form in eager fear, caught it tightly to her breast, and then sank back in her chair, crying—

“Tom, Tom, God has taken it away!” An hour later, husband and wife were sitting hand in hand by the little couch on which their darling lay, so still and cold, its tiny face seeming restful, free from pain, and almost wearing a smile, while on either hand, and covering its breast, were the best of the simple, homely flowers the garden could produce.

There was a heavy, blank look upon the parents’ faces; for even then they could not realise their loss. It was so sudden, seemed so strange; and from time to time Polly got softly up, to lean down and hold her cheek close to the little parted lips, to make sure that the infant did not breathe; but there was no sign, and when she pressed her lips to the white forehead, it was to find it cold as ice.

Budge had been silent for some time, going about the house on tiptoe, and, like those above, too stunned to work; but her homely mind was busy for a way to show her sympathy, and this she did by making and taking up on the little tray two steaming cups of tea, each flanked by a goodly slice.

Poor Budge! she had not calculated her strength aright; for on softly entering the room, and setting down the tray, she turned her head, and saw the simple flower-strewn bier, gave a long, loving look, and then, sinking on her knees, with her hands to her eyes, burst forth into a wild and passionate wail.

It was even ludicrous, but it touched the hearts of those who heard; for with it came the passionate yearning of the desolate child for the love and sympathy it had never known, but for which its young heart had hungered so long. It told of nights of misery, and a desire for a something it felt it ought to possess but had never had, as now, raising her hands, she wailed forth her prayer—

“Oh, please, God, let me die instead, let me die instead.”

As she finished, there was another wild burst of hysterical sobbing, and Polly had flung herself in the child’s arms, clinging to her, kissing her passionately, as she cried—

“Oh, Budge, my poor girl! Oh, Budge, you’ll break my heart!”

Tom Morrison could bear no more, but stumbled heavily from the room, down-stairs, and out into his garden, where daybreak found him sitting, with his face buried in his hands, on the bit of rustic seat beneath the old weeping willow that grew in the corner, with its roots washed by the river that formed one of the boundaries of the little freehold.

The sun was rising gloriously, and the east was one sheet of gold and orange damask, shot with sapphire, as the sturdy workman rose.

“I must be a man over it—a man,” he faltered, “for her sake.” And he slowly strode into the house, and up-stairs, to find his wife kneeling where he had left her, wakeful and watching, with poor Budge fast asleep, with her head upon Polly’s lap, and her two roughened hands holding one of those of her mistress beneath her cheek.

The wheelwright walked up to the sleeping babe, and kissed it; then, gently taking Budge’s head, he placed it upon a pillow from the bed; while, lastly, he raised poor Polly as though she had been a child, kissed her cold lips, and laid her down, covering her with the clothes, and holding one of her hands, as he bade her sleep; and she obeyed, that is to say, she closed her heavy eyes.

In the course of the morning, stern, crotchety old Vinnicombe, the Lawford doctor, sought out the stricken father, finding that he had not been to his workshop, but was down his garden, where, after a few preliminaries, he broke his news.

“What?” he said, starting. “There, sir, I’m dazed like now; please, say it again.”

“I’m very sorry, Morrison—very,” said the doctor, “for I respect you greatly, and it must be a great grief to your poor little wife; but I have seen him myself, as I did about Warner’s child, and he is very much cut up about it; but as to moving him, he is like iron.”

“I can’t quite understand it, sir,” said Tom, flushing. “Do you mean to say, sir, that parson won’t bury the child?”

“Well, it is like this, Morrison,” said the doctor, quietly, “he is a rigid disciplinarian—a man of High Church views, and he says it is impossible for him to read the Burial Service over a child that was not a Christian.”

“That was not a Christian?” said Tom slowly.

“He says he condoles with you, and is very sorry; that the poor little thing can be buried in the unconsecrated part of the churchyard; but he can grant no more.”

“Doctor,” cried the wheelwright, fiercely, “I don’t be—There, sir, I beg your pardon,” he continued, holding out his rough hand; “but it seems too hard to believe that any one could speak like this. The poor little thing couldn’t help it, sir; and we should have had it done next Sunday. Why, sir, the poor girl was only showing me the little—don’t take notice o’ me, sir, please; I’m like a great girl now.”

As he spoke, he sank down upon an upturned box, and, covering his face with his hands, remained silent; but with his heaving shoulders telling the story of his bitter emotion.

“Be a man, Morrison—be a man,” said the doctor, kindly, as he laid his hand upon the stricken fellow’s shoulder.

“Yes, doctor,” he said, rising and dashing away the signs of his grief—“this is very childish, sir; but it’s a bit upset me, and now this news you bring me seems to make it worse. I’ll go up and see parson. He won’t refuse when he knows all.”

“Yes, go up and see him,” said the doctor, kindly. “Can I do anything for you?”

“No, sir, thanky,” said the wheelwright, meekly; “you couldn’t do what I wanted, sir—save that poor little thing’s life. There’s nothing more.”

“No,” said the doctor; “our profession is powerless in such a case. The child was so young and tender that—”

“Don’t say any more, sir, please,” said Morrison, with his lip quivering. And then he turned away from the house, so as to avoid Biggins the carpenter, who had just come in at the garden gate, and walked on tiptoe along the gravel walk, up to the door, where he was met by a neighbour, who led him up-stairs.

Biggins, the Lawford carpenter, was the newly-appointed sexton of the church, and between him and Tom Morrison there was supposed to exist a bitter hatred, because Biggins the carpenter had once undertaken to make a wheelbarrow for the rectory garden, and Morrison had made a coffin for one of the Searby children who died of a fit of measles.

The feud seemed to be a bitter one, for when he came out of the cottage five minutes later, he turned down the garden, seeing which, the doctor shook hands with Morrison, and at parting said—

“Let me give you something to do you good, Tom.”

“What, sir, doctor’s stuff?” said the wheelwright, with a look of wonder. “I want no physic.”

“Yes, you do,” said the doctor, smiling, as he laid the silver knob of his stick on the stout fellow’s breast—“yes, you do. I can minister to a mind diseased as well as to a body. Look here, my lad, you must bear your suffering like a man; so, now go and do this—”

Tom made an impatient movement to go, but the doctor stayed him.

“There is nothing like work at such a time as this,” he said. “Go and see the parson, and then set to and work harder than ever you worked before in your life. It will give you ease.”

“You’re right, Mr Vinnicombe, you’re right,” said Tom, bluntly. “Thanky, sir—thanky. Good-bye.”

As the doctor walked out of the gate, Biggins the carpenter, a hard-faced man, who emitted a strong odour of glue from his garments, walked up, tucking a piece of sandpaper upon which he had been writing, and his square carpenter’s pencil, that he had pointed with four chops of his chisel before starting, into one of his pockets.

“Thy savoy cabbages look well, neighbour,” he said quietly, as being the most sympathetic thing he could think of at the moment. Then he held out his hand, shook the other’s warmly, without a word, and then stood by him, breathing heavily, and looking down at the ground.

Five minutes passed like this, without a word on either side, Morrison manifesting no impatience, and Biggins showing no disposition to go; for it was his way of showing sympathy to a friend in distress, and Morrison felt it so to be, and thanked him in his heart.

At last the carpenter, who was used to funerals, and who was now next door to being clerk, heaved a heavy sigh, stooped down, picked a strand from the grass plot, and held it at arm’s length, looking at it fixedly for a minute or so, before saying, huskily—

“All flesh is grass, Tom Morrison—flowers of the field—cut down—withered. Amen.”

He said it in a slow, measured way, and with a nasal twang, the last word closing his disconnected speech after quite an interval; and then the two men stood together for some minutes in silence.

At last Biggins spoke again, but without raising his eyes, looking down at the garden path, as if for a place to plant the bent he had broken from its roots.

“Poor wife! She’s terribly cut up, Tom.”

There was another interval of silence, and then Biggins said, as if to himself, and still gazing at the path—

“White cloth, and silver breastplate and nails?”

There was another pause, and then Tom said in a weary, dull way—

“As if it was one of your own, my lad—as if it was one of your own.”

“Good-bye, Tom Morrison—good-bye, lad,” said Biggins, holding out his hand once more, but with his back half turned to his neighbour “Good-bye,” said Tom, squeezing the honest, hard fist held out to him in a manly grip; and, with a sigh, Biggins was turning off, when a word from the wheelwright arrested him. “Come down here, lad, away from the house,” said Tom, huskily.

Biggins looked up now, his heavy face lighting up. Tom Morrison wanted him to do something for him. He could do that, if he could not show sympathy.

They walked down the neatly-kept garden, till they stood under the willow tree, where, after a few minutes’ silence, Tom Morrison said huskily—

“They’ve made you saxon now, haven’t they, Joe?”

“Yes, and ought to be clerk as well, but it don’t seem like being saxon in these newfangled days, when the ground’s cut from under a man, and there’s no chance of putting in a simple, honest amen anywhere. Ah, I don’t know what poor, dear old parson would have said to see the change. He’d think we’d all gone over to Popery.”

Tom waited till his friend, now suddenly grown voluble, had ceased.

“Joe Biggins,” he said, “didst ever know old parson—God bless him!—to refuse to bury any one out of the place because—because they wasn’t baptised?”

“Never,” said Biggins—“never,” energetically.

“He never had such a case, p’raps,” said Tom.

“Oh, but he did,” said Biggins—“even in my time. Why, there was poor Lizzy Baker’s child. You knew Sam Baker?”

Tom nodded.

“Well, when their little one died it hadn’t been christened, I know. I remember father talking about it while he made the coffin, and I recollect it so well because it was the first coffin I ever put the nails in all by myself. Let’s see, that’s a good fifteen year ago now, Tom, that it be.”

“And he buried it?”

“To be sure he did. Why, I remember as well as if it had been yesterday. He says to my father, he says, ‘I never like to be too partic’lar about these baptismal matters. It’s not ’cording to church law, but I couldn’t put such a sorrow on the poor father and mother as to refuse the service, and I hope I’m right.’”

“He said so?” whispered the wheelwright, half turning away his face.

“I can’t as a man, Tom, sweer to the zact words,” said the carpenter, earnestly; “but I’ll sweer as they meant all that, long ago as it is.”

“God bless him!” muttered Tom, with his lower lip working.

“Old parson wasn’t particular about those sort o’ things. Don’t you remember about poor old Dick Granger? To be sure—yes—we were boys then, and went to Humphrey Bone. Ay, and what a rage he do wax in again parson now, toe be sewer. I recklect father talking about it. You remember, sewerly, old Granger went off his head, and drowned himself in Cook’s mill dam, and the jury said it wasfelo de se; and Johnson up at the Red Cow was foreman, and wanted him to be buried at the cross roads, with a stake druv through his heart. Why, it’s all come back now. I recklect it all; how old parson went to the poor old widow, and talked to her; and there was a big funeral. Everybody went to see poor old Granger buried in the churchyard; and he was buried all regular, and parson preached the next Sunday about brotherly love and Christian charity. Why, Tom, you and I was about seventeen then. How time do go!”

“Yes—I remember,” said the wheelwright, bowing his head.

“Ah,” said Biggins, “those were the days, Tom; even if one did get to know some of poor old parson’s sarmons. We sang the old psalms and hymns then, and Miss Jane used to practise twice a week with us boys at the little organ that old Davy, Franklin’s gardener, used to turn the handle on. There was no choral sarvice then, and white gowns for the children. Ah, a clerk’s place was worth having then. It wasn’t many on ’em as could roll outAmenlike poor old Sammy Warmoth.”

“Joe Biggins,” said the wheelwright, checking the flood of recollections—“doctor says Rev. Mallow won’t—won’t—”

“Won’t bury the little one?” Tom’s voice failed him, and he nodded shortly.

“Phew!”

Biggins gave a low, sibilant whistle. Then, flushing up, he exclaimed—

“Damn him! No—I don’t mean that. Lord forgive me for speaking so of a parson. But, I say, Tom—oh, no, he can’t mean it, lad. Tell you what, he’s a queer one, and as proud as a peacock, and his boys arn’t what they should be. You needn’t tell him what I say, for I don’t want to offend nobody, that’s my motter through life; but parson’s a parson, and he’s bound to practise what he preaches. You go and see him.”

“I mean to.”

“Shall I go with thee, lad?”

“No. I’ll go alone.”

“P’raps you’d better, lad. If he makes any bones about it, ask him as a favour—don’t be hot with him, Tom, but a bit humble. I know thee don’t like to ask favours of any man; but do’t for her sake, Tom—indoors.”

Biggins pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, and the wheelwright nodded.

“When is the best time to see him?” said Tom, after a few moments’ silence.

“Well, it’s no good to go till ’bout two o’clock, after his lunch. He won’t see me, even on parish matters, in the morning.”

The wheelwright nodded, and, without another word, Biggins went away, passing the cottage, with its drawn-down blinds, on tiptoe, and shaking his fist at a boy who was whistling as he went along the road.

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