Part 1, Chapter XIX.Julia’s Horror.Two young men leaning over the park railings on a bright spring morning, when the soot-blackened, well-worn grass that had been suffering from a winter’s chronic cold was beginning to put forth its tender green shoots and dress itself for the season.The rather muddy drive was on one side, the Serpentine on the other, and indications that London was coming to town could be seen in the increasing string of carriages.One of the young men was undoubtedly dressed by Poole—well dressed; and he looked worthy of his tailor’s care. Frank, manly, handsome, there was a pleasant look in his grey eyes; and if his fair moustache had not been quite so heavy, a well-cut firm mouth would have been better seen. Perhaps that very glossy hat was worn a trifle too much on one side, and with the well set up appearance it suggested military, but the gold horse-shoe pin with diamond nails directly after hinted equine: the result being a compromise, and the looker-on concluded cavalry.The other was of a heavier build, and was decidedly not dressed by a good tailor. He was not shabby, but careless; and while his companion was carefully gloved, he carried his hand-shoes in his hands, and certainly his hat had not been touched by a brush that morning.He was a good-looking, manly fellow, with very short hair and a very long beard, thick enough to hide three parts of his chest.The judge of human nature who had tried to read him at a glance, would, if right, have said, “Good fellow, somewhat of a cynic, don’t care asoufor appearances.”Two of the characters in this comedy, to wit, Henry Lord Artingale, man of fashion with a good income; and James Magnus, artist of a manly school, who had cut deeply his mark upon the time.Another character was seated upon a bench some twenty yards away, cutting his mark, not on the time, but upon the park seat, with an ugly, sharp-pointed clasp-knife, which he closed with a snap, and then threw one great leg over the newly-cut wood, as he seemed to feel more than see the appearance of a policeman, who ran his eye shrewdly over the fellow as if considering him a “party” likely to be “wanted.”Jock Morrison looked decidedly like the proverbial fish out of water as he stared sullenly about, but not as one might stare who finds himself in an incongruous position by accident. About the only ill-dressed person in his neighbourhood, Jock seemed in no wise abashed, nor yet the worse for his course of imprisonment, his dark beard having rapidly grown and got well over the blacking-brush stage so affected by the Parisian “swell.” Far from seeming abashed, Jock Morrison was ready with a cool, defiant look for every one not in the law, and as a rule those who stared at the great swarthy fellow once were satisfied not to repeat the look.Jock was evidently in the park for a purpose, and every now and then his eyes wandered over the lines of carriages, but without seeing that of which he was in quest, and as soon as the policeman was gone he once more opened his knife, and began to carve, handily enough, a new design—this time a couple of hearts locked together after the time-honoured fashion shown in a valentine.“That’s about as picturesque-looking a blackguard as I’ve seen for months,” said Magnus, looking across the road at where the fellow lounged. “I wonder whether he’d come and stand for me.”“H’m, yes,” said his companion; “nice-looking youth.”“He’d make a splendid bull-fighter in a Spanish scene.”“H’m, bull-dog fighter, I should have said, Mag. By the way, I’d have a certificate from the baths and wash-houses before I admitted him to the studio. He looks disgustingly dirty.”“Yah! horrible! Take me away, Harry. I feel as if I were going to be sick.”“Why, what’s the matter now?”“Talk about that great blackguard looking disgusting: here’s my great horror!”“What, Perry-Morton?”“Yes. Look at his hideously fat, smooth face, and his long greasy hair tucked behind his ears. Look at his open throat, and—confound the animal, yes—a crimson satin tie. Harry, I shall be had up one of these days for an atrocious assault upon that creature. I shall lie in wait for him like a bravo, and armed with a pair of new scissors I shall cut his hair. Is it possible to prevail upon him to go about clothed, and in his right mind?”“For shame, Jemmy! and you a brother artist.”“Brother artist be hanged! You don’t call that thing an artist.”“Why, my dear boy, he’s acknowledged in society as the apostle of the poet-painters’ school.”“Good God!”“My dear boy, do restrain yourself,” laughed the other.“I can’t help it. I do like a man to be a man, and for goodness’ sake look at that thing.”“That thing,” as Magnus so contemptuously dubbed him, was certainly striking in appearance, as the open carriage in which he was riding came to a standstill, and he signed to the footman to let him out. For as he descended it was to stand upon a very thin pair of legs that in no sense corresponded with his plump, white, boyish face.It was a handsome, well-appointed carriage from whose front seat he had alighted, the back being occupied by two ladies of between twenty and thirty, who looked as if their costume had been copied from a disinterred bas-relief; so cold and neutral were their lines that they might have been lady visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery, instead of maidens to whom the word “aesthetic” was hardly known. For the Graeco-Roman extended to their hair, which stood out from their foreheads, looking singed and frizzed as if scorched by the burning thoughts that were in their brains; for even in those days there were ladies who delighted to belong to the pre-Raphaeliccumfleshly school of painting and poetry, and took pains to show by their uniform that they were of the blessed.As the footman folded the steps and closed the door, the gentleman—to wit, Mr Perry-Morton, of Saint Agnes’, Park Road—posed himself in an artistic attitude with one arm upon the carriage-door, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed in the faces of his sisters, one delicately-gloved hand in correct harmony of tint playing with a cambric handkerchief, specked with toy flowers of the same tone.As he posed himself, so did the two ladies. The nearer curled herself gracefully, all but the legs, in a pantherine style in the corner of the carriage, and looked at her brother sweetly through the frizz of hair, as if she were asking him to see if there were a parting. The further drooped over florally in a manner that in another ordinary being would have suggested crick in the neck, but here, as with her brother and sister, everything was so deliriously unstudied—or well studied—that she only gave the idea of a bending flower—say, a bud—or a pallid virgin and martyr upon painted glass.“Oh, Lord!” said Magnus, aloud.“Hush! don’t. Come along, though. Gently, man, or they’ll see us, and we shall have to talk to the girls.”“I’m an ostrich,” said the artist; “my head is metaphorically buried in sand. Whatever my pursuers see, I am blind.”As it happened a group of people came along, and under their cover the two young men escaped.“He is an awful fool,” said Artingale, “but the people believe in him.”“Bah! so they will in any lunatic who makes himself fashionably absurd. I’ll be reasonable, Harry, though that fellow has half driven me wild with his airs and patronage. He gave me a thumping price for one of my pictures, for he’s immensely rich. Then he had the impudence to want me to alter it—the composition of months of hard, honest study—and began to lecture me on art.”“From his point of view.”“Yes, from his point of view. But as I said, I will be reasonable. There is a deal in this pre-Raphaelitism, and it has done its part in reviving some of the best of the ancient art, and made its mark on our schools of to-day. But there it was not allowed to stop. A pack of idiots—there, I can call them nothing else—go into frantic worship of all the worst portions of old art, and fall down and idolise things that are ugly, ill-coloured, and grotesque.”“True, O magnate! and they’ll grow worse.”“They imitate it in their paintings, drawing impossible trees, landscapes, and houses for backgrounds, and people their foregrounds with resurrections in pigment of creatures that seem as if they had been dead and buried for a month, and clothe them in charnel-house garb.”“Bravo! charnel-house garb is good.”“Thankye, Polonius junior,” said the artist; “I tell you, Harry, I get out of patience with the follies perpetrated under the name of art, to the exclusion of all that is natural and beautiful and pure. Now I ask you, my dear boy, would you like to see a sister of yours dressing up and posing like those two guys of girls?”“Haven’t got a sister, worse luck, or you should have her, old fellow.”“Thanks. Well, say, then, the woman you loved.”“Hush! stop here, old fellow. Here they come.”“Who? Those two stained-glass virgins?”“No, no, be quiet; the Mallow girls.”There was so much subdued passion in the young man’s utterance that the artist glanced sidewise at him, to see that there was an intensity of expression in his eyes quite in keeping with his words, and following the direction of his gaze, he saw that it was fixed upon a barouche, drawn by a fine pair of bays, which champed their bits and flecked their satin coats with foam as they fretted impatiently at the restraint put upon them, and keeping them dawdling in a line of slow-moving carriages going east.There was another line of carriages going west between the two young men and the equipage in question, and Magnus could see that his companion was in an agony of dread lest his salute should not be noticed, but, just at the right moment, the occupants of the barouche turned in their direction, acknowledged the raised hat of Lord Artingale, and, the pace just then increasing, the carriage passed on.“Feel better?” said Magnus, cynically.“Better? yes,” cried the young man, turning to him flushed and with a gratified smile upon his face. “There, don’t laugh at me, old fellow, I can’t help it.”“I’m not going to laugh at you. But you seem to have got it badly.”“Awfully,” replied the other.“Shouldn’t have thought it of you, Harry. So those are the Mallow girls, eh?”“Yes. Isn’t she charming?”“What, that girl with the soft dreamy eyes? Yes, she is attractive.”“No, man,” cried Artingale, impatiently; “that’s Julia. I mean the other.”“What, the fair-haired, bright-looking little maiden who looks as if she paints?”“Paints be hanged!” cried Artingale, indignantly, “it’s her own sweet natural colour, bless her.”“Oh, I say, my dear boy,” said Magnus, with mock concern, “I had no idea that you were in such a state as this.”“Chaff away, old fellow, I don’t care. Call me in a fool’s paradise, if you like. I’ve flirted about long enough, but I never knew what it was before.”“Then,” said Magnus, seriously, “you are what they call—in love?”“Don’t I tell you, Mag, that I don’t care for your chaff. There, yes: in love, if you like to call it so, for I’ve won the sweetest little girl that ever looked truthfully at a man.”“And the lady—does she reciprocate, and that sort of thing?”“I don’t know: yes, I hope so. I’m afraid to be sure; it seems so conceited, for I’m not much of a fellow, you see.”“Let’s see, it happened abroad, didn’t it?”“Well, yes, I suppose so. I met them at Dinan, and then at Baden, and afterwards at Rome and in Paris.”“Which means, old fellow, that you followed them all over the Continent.”“Well, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said the young man, biting his moustache. “You see, Mag, I used to know Cynthia when she was little and I was a boy—when the governor was alive, you know. I was at Harrow, too, with her brothers—awful cads though, by the by. She can’t help that, Mag,” he said, innocently.“Why, Artingale, it makes you quite sheepish,” laughed the artist. “I wish I could catch that expression for a Corydon.”“For a what?”“Corydon—gentle shepherd, my boy.”“Get out! Well, as I was telling you, old fellow, I met them abroad, and now they’ve come back to England, and they’ve been down at the rectory—Lawford Rectory, you know, six miles from my place. And now they’ve come up again.”“So it seems,” said Magnus, drily.“Chaff away, I don’t mind,” said Artingale.“Not I; I won’t chaff you, Harry,” said the other, quietly. “’Pon my soul I should miss you, for you and I have been very jolly together; but I wouldn’t wish you a better fate than to have won some really sweet, lovable girl. It’s a fate that never can be mine, as the song says, and I won’t be envious of others. Come along.”“No, no, don’t let’s go, old fellow. They’ll only drive as far as the corner, and then come back on this side. Perhaps they’ll stop to speak. If they do, I’ll introduce you to Julia; she’s a very nice girl.”“But not so nice as, as—”“Cynthia,” said the other, innocently. “No: of course not.”Magnus burst out laughing, and his friend looked at him inquiringly.“I could not help it, old fellow,” exclaimed Magnus; “you did seem so innocent over it. But never mind that. Plunge head foremost into the sweetest life idyll you can, and, worldly-minded old sinner as I am, I will only respect you the more.”He spoke so sincerely, and in such a feeling tone, that the younger man half turned and gazed at him, saying directly after—“Thank you, old fellow; I’m not demonstrative, so just consider that I have given you a hearty grip of the hand.”“All right,” was the gruff reply. “Hallo! here comes my brigand. By Jove, he’s a fine-looking specimen of thegenus homo. He’s six feet two, if he’s an inch.”Jock Morrison, who seemed at home beneath the trees, came slouching along with his hands deep in his pockets, with a rolling gait, the whole of one side at a time; there was an end of his loose cotton neckerchief between his teeth, and a peculiar satisfied smile in his eye which changed to a scowl of defiance as he saw that he was observed.“I say, my man,” said Magnus, “would you give me a sitting, if I paid you?”“Would I give you what?” growled the fellow. “I don’t let out cheers.”Before Magnus could explain himself, the man had turned impatiently away, and gone on towards Kensington Gardens.“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Artingale. “Our friend is not a model in any way. Have a cigarette, old fellow?”The artist took one, and they stood smoking for a few minutes, till Artingale, who had been watchfully looking in the direction of the Achilles statue, suddenly threw down his half-smoked cigarette, for the Mallow carriage came into sight, and, as the young man had hoped, a voice cried “stop!” and the coachman drew up by the rails.“Ah, Harry!” cried Cynthia, leaning forward to shake hands, and looking very bright and charming in the new floral bonnet that had caused her such anxiety that morning; “I didn’t know you had come up to town.”“Didn’t you,” he replied, earnestly. “I knew you had. I went over to the rectory yesterday, and saw your brothers.”“Oh, Harry!” cried Cynthia, blushing with pleasure.“It didn’t matter; I drove over to do the horse good,” said the young man, shaking hands warmly with Julia in turn. “Here, let me introduce my friend Magnus. Julia, this is James Magnus. Cynthia, Magnus the artist.”“Lord Artingale has often spoken of you, Mr Magnus,” said Cynthia, looking at him rather coquettishly, in fact as if she was better used to London society than the quietude of a country rectory. “He has promised to bring me some day to see your pictures.”“I shall only be too proud to show you what I am doing,” said the artist, meeting frankly the bright eyes that were shooting at him, but which gave him up directly as a bad mark, as he turned and began talking to Julia Mallow, who seemed to have become singularly quiet and dreamy, but who brightened up directly and listened eagerly, for she found that Magnus could talk sensibly and well.“Are you going to stay up long?” said Lord Artingale, gazing imploringly in Cynthia’s eyes.“I don’t know, indeed,” she replied, pouting. “Papa has brought mamma to see a fresh physician, but is so cross and strange now. He has been reforming the parish, as he calls it.”“Yes; so I heard,” said Lord Artingale, laughing.“And that has meant quarrelling with all the stupid townspeople, and setting them against us.”“Not against you, Cynthia,” said the young man in a low voice. “I don’t believe that.”“Don’t talk nonsense, Harry,” she replied, laughing; “not now. But really it is very unpleasant, you know, for it makes papa so cross.”“Of course it would,” said Lord Artingale, sympathisingly.“And he talks about being so poor, and says that we shall all be ruined, and makes poor mamma miserable.”“But he is not in want of money, is he?” cried the young man, eagerly.“Nonsense! No: that’s how he always talks when Frank and Cyril are at home. Oh, Harry, I’m afraid they are dreadful boys.”“Well, let’s try and make them better, eh, Cynthia?”“I said you were not to talk nonsense now,” said Cynthia, shaking her pretty little head at him.“Oh, murder!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “Hadn’t you better drive on? Here’s Perry-Morton.”“No, no,” exclaimed the younger girl, “it would look so rude. You silly thing, don’t blush so,” she whispered to her sister; “it looks so strange.”“Good-morning—” said the subject of the thoughts of the group; and Mr Perry-Morton descended poetically upon them, for he did not seem to walk up like an ordinary being. “Cynthia,” he continued, with an air of affectionate solicitude, and leaving out the full-stops he had placed after his two first words, “you look too flushed this morning, my child. Julia, is not the morning charming? Did you notice the effect of light and shade across the water?”Julia Mallow, who looked troubled and bored, replied that she had not.“You observed it, of course, Mr Magnus?” continued the new-comer, with a sweet smile.“No,” said the gentleman addressed, shortly. “I was talking to the ladies.”“Ah! yes,” said Mr Perry-Morton, sweetly; and he held his head on one side, as if he were posing for a masculine Penseroso. “But Nature will appeal so to our inmost heart.”“Yes, she’s a jolly nuisance sometimes,” said Lord Artingale, but only to evoke a pitying smile from Mr Perry-Morton, who, in spite of the decidedly annoyed looks of Cynthia and her lover, leaned his arm upon the carriage-door, and began talking to Julia, making James Magnus look likeHarry Hotspurmust have appeared when the “certain lord” came to him, holding the “pouncet box, which ever and anon he gave his nose.”Cynthia Mallow made a pretty little grimace at Artingale, and, then turning with a smile to the worshipper of Nature, she stretched out her hand for the check-string so unmistakably that the gentlemen drew back, and raised their hats as the carriage rejoined the stream.“Won’t you come and speak to the girls, Artingale?” said Mr Perry-Morton in a softly imploring tone; and suppressing a sigh of annoyance, the young man suffered himself to be led off with his unwilling friend, while the carriage went slowly on towards Kensington Gardens, stopping with the stream again and again.“Julia,” cried Cynthia, flushing with annoyance, as soon as they were alone, “has papa gone mad?”“Hush! the servants will hear you,” said her sister, reprovingly.“I can’t help it, dear, it makes me so excited that I can’t bear it. How you can let that hateful creature come and patronise and monopolise, and seem to constrict you as he does, like a horrible short fat snake, I can’t imagine. Papa must be going mad to encourage it. If he were as rich as Cassius or Croesus, or whatever the man’s name was, it ought to be no excuse. I declare if you do not pluck up spirit and make a fight, I will. You can’t like him.”“Oh, no,” cried her sister, with a look of revulsion.“Then you must—you shall put a stop to his pretensions. Why, I declare to-day he behaved before Harry’s friend as if he were engaged to you. I felt as if I’d have given my pearls to have been at liberty to box his ears.”“I think him detestable,” said Julia, sadly.“Then you shall speak up, dear, or I will. I declare I’ll revolt, or no—Harry shall shoot him. I shall command him never to approach our presence again till he has rid society of that dreadful monster with his Nature worship and stuff. Good gracious, Julia, what is the matter?”The carriage had stopped, as the younger sister prattled on, close by the railings near the Gardens, and Julia Mallow crouched shrinking in the carriage, gazing with a horrified, fascinated fixity of eye at the great half-gipsy-looking vagabond, who, with his folded arms resting upon one of the iron posts, and his bearded chin upon them, was staring at her in an insolent mocking fashion.The spell only lasted for a few moments before the carriage went on, and with a low hysterical cry, Julia caught at her sister’s hand to whisper hoarsely—“Oh, Cynthia, that dreadful man again!”End of Volume One.
Two young men leaning over the park railings on a bright spring morning, when the soot-blackened, well-worn grass that had been suffering from a winter’s chronic cold was beginning to put forth its tender green shoots and dress itself for the season.
The rather muddy drive was on one side, the Serpentine on the other, and indications that London was coming to town could be seen in the increasing string of carriages.
One of the young men was undoubtedly dressed by Poole—well dressed; and he looked worthy of his tailor’s care. Frank, manly, handsome, there was a pleasant look in his grey eyes; and if his fair moustache had not been quite so heavy, a well-cut firm mouth would have been better seen. Perhaps that very glossy hat was worn a trifle too much on one side, and with the well set up appearance it suggested military, but the gold horse-shoe pin with diamond nails directly after hinted equine: the result being a compromise, and the looker-on concluded cavalry.
The other was of a heavier build, and was decidedly not dressed by a good tailor. He was not shabby, but careless; and while his companion was carefully gloved, he carried his hand-shoes in his hands, and certainly his hat had not been touched by a brush that morning.
He was a good-looking, manly fellow, with very short hair and a very long beard, thick enough to hide three parts of his chest.
The judge of human nature who had tried to read him at a glance, would, if right, have said, “Good fellow, somewhat of a cynic, don’t care asoufor appearances.”
Two of the characters in this comedy, to wit, Henry Lord Artingale, man of fashion with a good income; and James Magnus, artist of a manly school, who had cut deeply his mark upon the time.
Another character was seated upon a bench some twenty yards away, cutting his mark, not on the time, but upon the park seat, with an ugly, sharp-pointed clasp-knife, which he closed with a snap, and then threw one great leg over the newly-cut wood, as he seemed to feel more than see the appearance of a policeman, who ran his eye shrewdly over the fellow as if considering him a “party” likely to be “wanted.”
Jock Morrison looked decidedly like the proverbial fish out of water as he stared sullenly about, but not as one might stare who finds himself in an incongruous position by accident. About the only ill-dressed person in his neighbourhood, Jock seemed in no wise abashed, nor yet the worse for his course of imprisonment, his dark beard having rapidly grown and got well over the blacking-brush stage so affected by the Parisian “swell.” Far from seeming abashed, Jock Morrison was ready with a cool, defiant look for every one not in the law, and as a rule those who stared at the great swarthy fellow once were satisfied not to repeat the look.
Jock was evidently in the park for a purpose, and every now and then his eyes wandered over the lines of carriages, but without seeing that of which he was in quest, and as soon as the policeman was gone he once more opened his knife, and began to carve, handily enough, a new design—this time a couple of hearts locked together after the time-honoured fashion shown in a valentine.
“That’s about as picturesque-looking a blackguard as I’ve seen for months,” said Magnus, looking across the road at where the fellow lounged. “I wonder whether he’d come and stand for me.”
“H’m, yes,” said his companion; “nice-looking youth.”
“He’d make a splendid bull-fighter in a Spanish scene.”
“H’m, bull-dog fighter, I should have said, Mag. By the way, I’d have a certificate from the baths and wash-houses before I admitted him to the studio. He looks disgustingly dirty.”
“Yah! horrible! Take me away, Harry. I feel as if I were going to be sick.”
“Why, what’s the matter now?”
“Talk about that great blackguard looking disgusting: here’s my great horror!”
“What, Perry-Morton?”
“Yes. Look at his hideously fat, smooth face, and his long greasy hair tucked behind his ears. Look at his open throat, and—confound the animal, yes—a crimson satin tie. Harry, I shall be had up one of these days for an atrocious assault upon that creature. I shall lie in wait for him like a bravo, and armed with a pair of new scissors I shall cut his hair. Is it possible to prevail upon him to go about clothed, and in his right mind?”
“For shame, Jemmy! and you a brother artist.”
“Brother artist be hanged! You don’t call that thing an artist.”
“Why, my dear boy, he’s acknowledged in society as the apostle of the poet-painters’ school.”
“Good God!”
“My dear boy, do restrain yourself,” laughed the other.
“I can’t help it. I do like a man to be a man, and for goodness’ sake look at that thing.”
“That thing,” as Magnus so contemptuously dubbed him, was certainly striking in appearance, as the open carriage in which he was riding came to a standstill, and he signed to the footman to let him out. For as he descended it was to stand upon a very thin pair of legs that in no sense corresponded with his plump, white, boyish face.
It was a handsome, well-appointed carriage from whose front seat he had alighted, the back being occupied by two ladies of between twenty and thirty, who looked as if their costume had been copied from a disinterred bas-relief; so cold and neutral were their lines that they might have been lady visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery, instead of maidens to whom the word “aesthetic” was hardly known. For the Graeco-Roman extended to their hair, which stood out from their foreheads, looking singed and frizzed as if scorched by the burning thoughts that were in their brains; for even in those days there were ladies who delighted to belong to the pre-Raphaeliccumfleshly school of painting and poetry, and took pains to show by their uniform that they were of the blessed.
As the footman folded the steps and closed the door, the gentleman—to wit, Mr Perry-Morton, of Saint Agnes’, Park Road—posed himself in an artistic attitude with one arm upon the carriage-door, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed in the faces of his sisters, one delicately-gloved hand in correct harmony of tint playing with a cambric handkerchief, specked with toy flowers of the same tone.
As he posed himself, so did the two ladies. The nearer curled herself gracefully, all but the legs, in a pantherine style in the corner of the carriage, and looked at her brother sweetly through the frizz of hair, as if she were asking him to see if there were a parting. The further drooped over florally in a manner that in another ordinary being would have suggested crick in the neck, but here, as with her brother and sister, everything was so deliriously unstudied—or well studied—that she only gave the idea of a bending flower—say, a bud—or a pallid virgin and martyr upon painted glass.
“Oh, Lord!” said Magnus, aloud.
“Hush! don’t. Come along, though. Gently, man, or they’ll see us, and we shall have to talk to the girls.”
“I’m an ostrich,” said the artist; “my head is metaphorically buried in sand. Whatever my pursuers see, I am blind.”
As it happened a group of people came along, and under their cover the two young men escaped.
“He is an awful fool,” said Artingale, “but the people believe in him.”
“Bah! so they will in any lunatic who makes himself fashionably absurd. I’ll be reasonable, Harry, though that fellow has half driven me wild with his airs and patronage. He gave me a thumping price for one of my pictures, for he’s immensely rich. Then he had the impudence to want me to alter it—the composition of months of hard, honest study—and began to lecture me on art.”
“From his point of view.”
“Yes, from his point of view. But as I said, I will be reasonable. There is a deal in this pre-Raphaelitism, and it has done its part in reviving some of the best of the ancient art, and made its mark on our schools of to-day. But there it was not allowed to stop. A pack of idiots—there, I can call them nothing else—go into frantic worship of all the worst portions of old art, and fall down and idolise things that are ugly, ill-coloured, and grotesque.”
“True, O magnate! and they’ll grow worse.”
“They imitate it in their paintings, drawing impossible trees, landscapes, and houses for backgrounds, and people their foregrounds with resurrections in pigment of creatures that seem as if they had been dead and buried for a month, and clothe them in charnel-house garb.”
“Bravo! charnel-house garb is good.”
“Thankye, Polonius junior,” said the artist; “I tell you, Harry, I get out of patience with the follies perpetrated under the name of art, to the exclusion of all that is natural and beautiful and pure. Now I ask you, my dear boy, would you like to see a sister of yours dressing up and posing like those two guys of girls?”
“Haven’t got a sister, worse luck, or you should have her, old fellow.”
“Thanks. Well, say, then, the woman you loved.”
“Hush! stop here, old fellow. Here they come.”
“Who? Those two stained-glass virgins?”
“No, no, be quiet; the Mallow girls.”
There was so much subdued passion in the young man’s utterance that the artist glanced sidewise at him, to see that there was an intensity of expression in his eyes quite in keeping with his words, and following the direction of his gaze, he saw that it was fixed upon a barouche, drawn by a fine pair of bays, which champed their bits and flecked their satin coats with foam as they fretted impatiently at the restraint put upon them, and keeping them dawdling in a line of slow-moving carriages going east.
There was another line of carriages going west between the two young men and the equipage in question, and Magnus could see that his companion was in an agony of dread lest his salute should not be noticed, but, just at the right moment, the occupants of the barouche turned in their direction, acknowledged the raised hat of Lord Artingale, and, the pace just then increasing, the carriage passed on.
“Feel better?” said Magnus, cynically.
“Better? yes,” cried the young man, turning to him flushed and with a gratified smile upon his face. “There, don’t laugh at me, old fellow, I can’t help it.”
“I’m not going to laugh at you. But you seem to have got it badly.”
“Awfully,” replied the other.
“Shouldn’t have thought it of you, Harry. So those are the Mallow girls, eh?”
“Yes. Isn’t she charming?”
“What, that girl with the soft dreamy eyes? Yes, she is attractive.”
“No, man,” cried Artingale, impatiently; “that’s Julia. I mean the other.”
“What, the fair-haired, bright-looking little maiden who looks as if she paints?”
“Paints be hanged!” cried Artingale, indignantly, “it’s her own sweet natural colour, bless her.”
“Oh, I say, my dear boy,” said Magnus, with mock concern, “I had no idea that you were in such a state as this.”
“Chaff away, old fellow, I don’t care. Call me in a fool’s paradise, if you like. I’ve flirted about long enough, but I never knew what it was before.”
“Then,” said Magnus, seriously, “you are what they call—in love?”
“Don’t I tell you, Mag, that I don’t care for your chaff. There, yes: in love, if you like to call it so, for I’ve won the sweetest little girl that ever looked truthfully at a man.”
“And the lady—does she reciprocate, and that sort of thing?”
“I don’t know: yes, I hope so. I’m afraid to be sure; it seems so conceited, for I’m not much of a fellow, you see.”
“Let’s see, it happened abroad, didn’t it?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so. I met them at Dinan, and then at Baden, and afterwards at Rome and in Paris.”
“Which means, old fellow, that you followed them all over the Continent.”
“Well, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said the young man, biting his moustache. “You see, Mag, I used to know Cynthia when she was little and I was a boy—when the governor was alive, you know. I was at Harrow, too, with her brothers—awful cads though, by the by. She can’t help that, Mag,” he said, innocently.
“Why, Artingale, it makes you quite sheepish,” laughed the artist. “I wish I could catch that expression for a Corydon.”
“For a what?”
“Corydon—gentle shepherd, my boy.”
“Get out! Well, as I was telling you, old fellow, I met them abroad, and now they’ve come back to England, and they’ve been down at the rectory—Lawford Rectory, you know, six miles from my place. And now they’ve come up again.”
“So it seems,” said Magnus, drily.
“Chaff away, I don’t mind,” said Artingale.
“Not I; I won’t chaff you, Harry,” said the other, quietly. “’Pon my soul I should miss you, for you and I have been very jolly together; but I wouldn’t wish you a better fate than to have won some really sweet, lovable girl. It’s a fate that never can be mine, as the song says, and I won’t be envious of others. Come along.”
“No, no, don’t let’s go, old fellow. They’ll only drive as far as the corner, and then come back on this side. Perhaps they’ll stop to speak. If they do, I’ll introduce you to Julia; she’s a very nice girl.”
“But not so nice as, as—”
“Cynthia,” said the other, innocently. “No: of course not.”
Magnus burst out laughing, and his friend looked at him inquiringly.
“I could not help it, old fellow,” exclaimed Magnus; “you did seem so innocent over it. But never mind that. Plunge head foremost into the sweetest life idyll you can, and, worldly-minded old sinner as I am, I will only respect you the more.”
He spoke so sincerely, and in such a feeling tone, that the younger man half turned and gazed at him, saying directly after—
“Thank you, old fellow; I’m not demonstrative, so just consider that I have given you a hearty grip of the hand.”
“All right,” was the gruff reply. “Hallo! here comes my brigand. By Jove, he’s a fine-looking specimen of thegenus homo. He’s six feet two, if he’s an inch.”
Jock Morrison, who seemed at home beneath the trees, came slouching along with his hands deep in his pockets, with a rolling gait, the whole of one side at a time; there was an end of his loose cotton neckerchief between his teeth, and a peculiar satisfied smile in his eye which changed to a scowl of defiance as he saw that he was observed.
“I say, my man,” said Magnus, “would you give me a sitting, if I paid you?”
“Would I give you what?” growled the fellow. “I don’t let out cheers.”
Before Magnus could explain himself, the man had turned impatiently away, and gone on towards Kensington Gardens.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Artingale. “Our friend is not a model in any way. Have a cigarette, old fellow?”
The artist took one, and they stood smoking for a few minutes, till Artingale, who had been watchfully looking in the direction of the Achilles statue, suddenly threw down his half-smoked cigarette, for the Mallow carriage came into sight, and, as the young man had hoped, a voice cried “stop!” and the coachman drew up by the rails.
“Ah, Harry!” cried Cynthia, leaning forward to shake hands, and looking very bright and charming in the new floral bonnet that had caused her such anxiety that morning; “I didn’t know you had come up to town.”
“Didn’t you,” he replied, earnestly. “I knew you had. I went over to the rectory yesterday, and saw your brothers.”
“Oh, Harry!” cried Cynthia, blushing with pleasure.
“It didn’t matter; I drove over to do the horse good,” said the young man, shaking hands warmly with Julia in turn. “Here, let me introduce my friend Magnus. Julia, this is James Magnus. Cynthia, Magnus the artist.”
“Lord Artingale has often spoken of you, Mr Magnus,” said Cynthia, looking at him rather coquettishly, in fact as if she was better used to London society than the quietude of a country rectory. “He has promised to bring me some day to see your pictures.”
“I shall only be too proud to show you what I am doing,” said the artist, meeting frankly the bright eyes that were shooting at him, but which gave him up directly as a bad mark, as he turned and began talking to Julia Mallow, who seemed to have become singularly quiet and dreamy, but who brightened up directly and listened eagerly, for she found that Magnus could talk sensibly and well.
“Are you going to stay up long?” said Lord Artingale, gazing imploringly in Cynthia’s eyes.
“I don’t know, indeed,” she replied, pouting. “Papa has brought mamma to see a fresh physician, but is so cross and strange now. He has been reforming the parish, as he calls it.”
“Yes; so I heard,” said Lord Artingale, laughing.
“And that has meant quarrelling with all the stupid townspeople, and setting them against us.”
“Not against you, Cynthia,” said the young man in a low voice. “I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Harry,” she replied, laughing; “not now. But really it is very unpleasant, you know, for it makes papa so cross.”
“Of course it would,” said Lord Artingale, sympathisingly.
“And he talks about being so poor, and says that we shall all be ruined, and makes poor mamma miserable.”
“But he is not in want of money, is he?” cried the young man, eagerly.
“Nonsense! No: that’s how he always talks when Frank and Cyril are at home. Oh, Harry, I’m afraid they are dreadful boys.”
“Well, let’s try and make them better, eh, Cynthia?”
“I said you were not to talk nonsense now,” said Cynthia, shaking her pretty little head at him.
“Oh, murder!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “Hadn’t you better drive on? Here’s Perry-Morton.”
“No, no,” exclaimed the younger girl, “it would look so rude. You silly thing, don’t blush so,” she whispered to her sister; “it looks so strange.”
“Good-morning—” said the subject of the thoughts of the group; and Mr Perry-Morton descended poetically upon them, for he did not seem to walk up like an ordinary being. “Cynthia,” he continued, with an air of affectionate solicitude, and leaving out the full-stops he had placed after his two first words, “you look too flushed this morning, my child. Julia, is not the morning charming? Did you notice the effect of light and shade across the water?”
Julia Mallow, who looked troubled and bored, replied that she had not.
“You observed it, of course, Mr Magnus?” continued the new-comer, with a sweet smile.
“No,” said the gentleman addressed, shortly. “I was talking to the ladies.”
“Ah! yes,” said Mr Perry-Morton, sweetly; and he held his head on one side, as if he were posing for a masculine Penseroso. “But Nature will appeal so to our inmost heart.”
“Yes, she’s a jolly nuisance sometimes,” said Lord Artingale, but only to evoke a pitying smile from Mr Perry-Morton, who, in spite of the decidedly annoyed looks of Cynthia and her lover, leaned his arm upon the carriage-door, and began talking to Julia, making James Magnus look likeHarry Hotspurmust have appeared when the “certain lord” came to him, holding the “pouncet box, which ever and anon he gave his nose.”
Cynthia Mallow made a pretty little grimace at Artingale, and, then turning with a smile to the worshipper of Nature, she stretched out her hand for the check-string so unmistakably that the gentlemen drew back, and raised their hats as the carriage rejoined the stream.
“Won’t you come and speak to the girls, Artingale?” said Mr Perry-Morton in a softly imploring tone; and suppressing a sigh of annoyance, the young man suffered himself to be led off with his unwilling friend, while the carriage went slowly on towards Kensington Gardens, stopping with the stream again and again.
“Julia,” cried Cynthia, flushing with annoyance, as soon as they were alone, “has papa gone mad?”
“Hush! the servants will hear you,” said her sister, reprovingly.
“I can’t help it, dear, it makes me so excited that I can’t bear it. How you can let that hateful creature come and patronise and monopolise, and seem to constrict you as he does, like a horrible short fat snake, I can’t imagine. Papa must be going mad to encourage it. If he were as rich as Cassius or Croesus, or whatever the man’s name was, it ought to be no excuse. I declare if you do not pluck up spirit and make a fight, I will. You can’t like him.”
“Oh, no,” cried her sister, with a look of revulsion.
“Then you must—you shall put a stop to his pretensions. Why, I declare to-day he behaved before Harry’s friend as if he were engaged to you. I felt as if I’d have given my pearls to have been at liberty to box his ears.”
“I think him detestable,” said Julia, sadly.
“Then you shall speak up, dear, or I will. I declare I’ll revolt, or no—Harry shall shoot him. I shall command him never to approach our presence again till he has rid society of that dreadful monster with his Nature worship and stuff. Good gracious, Julia, what is the matter?”
The carriage had stopped, as the younger sister prattled on, close by the railings near the Gardens, and Julia Mallow crouched shrinking in the carriage, gazing with a horrified, fascinated fixity of eye at the great half-gipsy-looking vagabond, who, with his folded arms resting upon one of the iron posts, and his bearded chin upon them, was staring at her in an insolent mocking fashion.
The spell only lasted for a few moments before the carriage went on, and with a low hysterical cry, Julia caught at her sister’s hand to whisper hoarsely—
“Oh, Cynthia, that dreadful man again!”
End of Volume One.
Part 1, Chapter XX.Jock Morrison’s Threat.The visit to town was but a flying one upon this occasion. The poverty at the rectory did not seem to be extreme, for the horses and carriage were sent up for the fortnight’s stay, and Mrs Mallow had her interview with the new specialist, who talked to her as some specialists do talk, and then she returned to the house taken for the short stay, and her girls had the use of the carriage.It was a curious thing, and at first it had passed almost unnoticed, but just before the Mallows left the rectory, undergoing a process of smoking out, Frank and Cyril being the smoke producers, Jock Morrison, whose three months had been over now for some time, appeared once more in the neighbourhood of Lawford.Julia and Cynthia met him one day by Tom Morrison’s cottage, leaning against the doorpost and talking to little Polly.He had stared hard at them and then slouched away, Polly apologising for his presence.“You see, Miss Julia, Miss Cynthia, he’s my husband’s own brother, and we don’t want him to feel that we turn our backs upon him.”“No, of course not,” said Cynthia, “but I wish he would keep away;” and then they had a long chat with the little wife. She looked very pretty and pathetic in her deep mourning, and they parted very tenderly, Julia’s heart bleeding for the stricken woman.“I’d have given anything to have asked her to show me where they buried poor baby,” said Cynthia, “but I dare not even allude to it.”“No, of course not,” said Julia, with a shiver. “It was very sad; I can’t bear to think of it at all. Keep close to me, Cynthy,” she whispered.They had suddenly come upon Jock Morrison, smoking his pipe as he sat upon a stile by the side of the lane, and as they passed he stared hard at Julia and laughed in a half-mocking way.“How dare he stare at us like that!” said Cynthia haughtily, and then she began chatting about Polly Morrison’s trouble, and wishing that papa had not been so strict, and the meeting was forgotten till, three days later, when they reached London, and as they got out of the train, Julia started, for there, leaning against a barrier with his hands in his pockets, was Jock Morrison again.The next day she saw him staring up at the house, and day after day afterwards she was sure to encounter his bold fierce gaze somewhere or another, till she grew quite nervous, telling her sister that she was certain that the mail was meditating some form of revenge against their father for sending him to prison.“Nonsense!” cried Cynthia. “Papa is a magistrate, and he would not dare.”Back at Lawford, and they were free of the incubus, in fact Jock Morrison passed out of mind; for in spite of his breathing out threatenings of poverty, the Reverend Eli Mallow, now that he found his eldest son had not come to him for money, had opened the rectory doors to receive visitors.“We must entertain a little while we are down here, my dear, for the girls’ sake. Perhaps it is as well too for the boys.”“Yes, dear,” said Mrs Mallow, looking up from her sofa with her customary patient smile; and the company arrived, and was entertained in a manner that made Fullerton hope that no one would suffer for it, that was all he could say.Among the guests who had been staying at the rectory were the Perry-Mortons—thePerry-Mortons in society meaning Mr Perry-Morton and his two sisters, for though it was believed that they had, or had had, a father and mother, the seniors were never even heard of, much less seen. Ill-natured people said that Perry-Morton the elder had been a pawnbroker who had made money largely. Be that as it may, Perry-Morton the younger was very rich, and never mentioned any relatives but his sisters.Lord Artingale was there from Gatton every day, but his friend and companion, James Magnus, was in the North sketching, so the young man, having no restraining arm on which to lean, fell more in love as fast as he could with little Cynthia.Claudine Perry-Morton—by the way, there was a good deal of familiar nicknaming at the house of the Perry-Mortons, Mr Perry-Morton having been known to call Claudine—Bessy, and the younger sister—Faustine Judy. But that was in the privacy of their home life, and showed the simplicity and deep affection of their natures.Claudine Perry-Morton had made a dead set at the young nobleman, but finding at once that her chance wasnil, she graciously made way for her sister, who sang “Jock of Hazeldine” at him, in a very deep contralto voice, and with a graceful stoop over the piano; but Faustine Perry-Morton was woman of the world enough to see that Lord Artingale’s thoughts ran in quite another direction, so she also resigned herself to circumstances, and thought him a man of exceedingly low tastes.So all the smiles and sweetness of the sisters were lavished upon the rectory girls for their brother’s sake. Nothing particular was said, but it soon became evident that Perry-Morton found favour with the Rector, and it was quite understood that the wealthy visitor would, sooner or later, propose for his elder daughter’s hand.She was nearly as bright at this time as her sister, and Artingale declared that she was the dearest girl he knew, not from any amiable passages between them, but because she laughingly helped him to pleasant littletête-à-têteswith her sister, especially when they were out riding; horse exercise and good long gallops being a great deal in vogue, when the weather was mild and clear.Lord Artingale would canter over from Gatton, sending two or three or more horses by his grooms, an arrangement highly approved of by Frank and Cyril Mallow, who were very civil to him, though in private they compared notes, and said that he would be an awful fool if he had not borne a title and kept such good cigars.Sometimes the Rector joined the equestrian parties upon a quiet cob, but he generally turned homeward after two or three miles, either to make a call or two at the outlying farms, or to meet the carriage. Then, to make things pleasant, poor Julia talked art on horseback with Mr Perry-Morton, while her sister and Lord Artingale had a brisk canter over some heath, and the groom behind sat and grinned.“Talk about the guv’nor,” said the last-named individual, as he returned to the stables with the horses, and compared notes with Lord Artingale’s man, “he is a sight on horseback. That there old cob holds him on almost. But if you want to see riding you should go behind that there Perry-Morton.”This was in the midst of a chorus of hissing from the helpers, who were rubbing down the horses after one of the morning rides.“He do look a rum un,” said one of the men.“Look!” said the groom; “heisa rum un. He gets them little thin legs of his one on each side of the horse, and keeps yer altering his sterrups for ever so long. Now they’re too long, and now they’re too short, and when we starts he holds his reins one in each hand, and bends forward so that if his horse didn’t have on a martingale he’d always be finding his nose between its ears.”“Can’t he ride, then?”“Ride! Yes; like a sack o’ sharps on a miller’s pony. It’s freezing work going out with him, worse than with the guv’nor, for he keeps his ’oss at a walk the whole time. Lor’, I’d give something to see him on his lordship’sMad Sal.”But the groom was not destined to see Mr Perry-Morton upon that greyhound-framed hunter, which was full of fire and fidget with every one but Cynthia, who could have curbed her with a silken thread, for that gentleman was an admirer of repose even on horseback, and would only ride the quietest horse he could hire at the King’s Head, although Lord Artingale offered him the pick of his little stud.Repose, too, gave him so many excellent opportunities for putting forward his suit with Julia, upon whom he beamed in a mezzo-tinto style, the lady hardly realising his meaning, only thinking him very absurd, and laughingly telling her sister that she owed her a long debt of gratitude for giving her so many opportunities for a long canter—one of those delightful long canters from which Cynthia used to come back with a delicious glow upon her cheeks, and with eyes that literally sparkled with health and pleasure combined.“Looking like a wild gal,” Mr Jabez Fullerton said, as he stood at his shop door. “I declare it’s immoral, that’s what it is; a parson’s daughter gadding about like a jockey, Smithson; it’s disgusting.”“Yes,” said Mr Smithson, who was calculating how many yards, at how much a yard, were in Cynthia’s well-fitting riding-habit.“There’s a horse—look at it—for a young gal to ride! Well, all I can say is that I hope his lordship means to marry her. I never saw such goings on.”“That there habit do fit well though, I must say that,” said Smithson.“Fit?” said Fullerton. “Hah! The rectory’s a disgrace!”But it so happened that riding was not always the order of the day. Long brisk walks were taken at times, much to the bemiring of Mr Perry-Morton’s patent leather shoes; and upon one of these occasions it had been arranged that Julia and Cynthia were to make a call or two upon some of the poor cottagers, who had been rather neglected during the past two weeks. Lord Artingale was going to ride over, and he and Mr Perry-Morton were to bring forward the ladies to meet them, if the Misses Perry-Morton could walk so far.“Why, Julie, it’s quite a treat to be alone once more,” said Cynthia, merrily, as they walked briskly along the sandy lanes, calling at first one cottage and then another.“Treat!” said her sister, smiling, “I thought—”“Hush! I won’t be teased. But, Julie dear, I won’t be a hypocrite to you. I do tease him and laugh at him, but heisnice, and I think I’m beginning to like him ever so.”“I like him very, very much,” said Julia, naïvely. “He’s a very pleasant, manly fellow.”“Yes, isn’t he, dear? But, Julie, it’s too bad, I know, of me to leave you so long with that dreadful bore. What does he say to you?”“Say!” said Julia, with a smile; “really I hardly know. Talks about art and nature’s colour, and asks me if I do not find a want of thoroughness in our daily life.”“Thoroughness! why that’s what his sisters are always talking about. I think it thorough nonsense. Oh, I shall be so glad when they’re gone.”“Yes, it will be nicer,” said Julia, thoughtfully; “but papa seems to like them very much.”“Yes, isn’t it extraordinary?” cried Cynthia. “He wants papa to take a house in town, and to furnish it upon plans designed by him. I heard them talking about it, and papa seems to be guided by him in everything. And what do you think?”“I don’t know, dear.”“I’m as good as certain that that wicked Cyril has been borrowing money of Perry-Morton.”“Why do you think that?” said Julia, quickly.“Because Cyril does not make fun of him a bit, but both he and Frank are wonderfully civil.”Julia sighed.“Hadn’t we better turn back now, dear?”“Oh, no! let’s go as far as old Mrs Meadows’s, poor old lady; she’ll think we are never coming again.”They walked a few hundred yards farther on, and sat for a quarter of an hour to learn how the poor old lady’s jyntes was uncommon painful just now, thanky, and that she hadn’t seen them since before Christmas, and that it had been the mildest Christmas she had knowed this sixty year; and then the old lady sent her visitors on their return walk, with the cheerful announcement that a green Christmas “allers made a full churchyard, my dears,” which well she knowed it to be true.“Oh, what a dreadful old woman, Julie,” cried Cynthia, merrily.“Poor old thing! but how well she is for eighty.”“No troubles but her jyntes to harass her,” laughed Cynthia.“How long will it be before we meet anybody?”A much shorter time than they either of them anticipated, for as they turned a bend in the road, two rough-looking men who had been leaning against a gate came towards them, making no movement to let them pass, but staring offensively.“Don’t be frightened, Julie,” whispered Cynthia, with spirit, “I’m not afraid.”She walked on boldly, and darted such an imperious look at the lesser of the two men, that he slunk aside to let her pass, but the other, Jock Morrison, stood his ground. He stared in a peculiar, half-smiling way at Julia, making her shrink aside, and following her up, as, turning pale, her lips parting, and with dilated eyes, she felt as it were fascinated by his gaze, shuddering the next moment as he exclaimed with a coarse laugh—“Bob, old matey, I mean to have this girl.”
The visit to town was but a flying one upon this occasion. The poverty at the rectory did not seem to be extreme, for the horses and carriage were sent up for the fortnight’s stay, and Mrs Mallow had her interview with the new specialist, who talked to her as some specialists do talk, and then she returned to the house taken for the short stay, and her girls had the use of the carriage.
It was a curious thing, and at first it had passed almost unnoticed, but just before the Mallows left the rectory, undergoing a process of smoking out, Frank and Cyril being the smoke producers, Jock Morrison, whose three months had been over now for some time, appeared once more in the neighbourhood of Lawford.
Julia and Cynthia met him one day by Tom Morrison’s cottage, leaning against the doorpost and talking to little Polly.
He had stared hard at them and then slouched away, Polly apologising for his presence.
“You see, Miss Julia, Miss Cynthia, he’s my husband’s own brother, and we don’t want him to feel that we turn our backs upon him.”
“No, of course not,” said Cynthia, “but I wish he would keep away;” and then they had a long chat with the little wife. She looked very pretty and pathetic in her deep mourning, and they parted very tenderly, Julia’s heart bleeding for the stricken woman.
“I’d have given anything to have asked her to show me where they buried poor baby,” said Cynthia, “but I dare not even allude to it.”
“No, of course not,” said Julia, with a shiver. “It was very sad; I can’t bear to think of it at all. Keep close to me, Cynthy,” she whispered.
They had suddenly come upon Jock Morrison, smoking his pipe as he sat upon a stile by the side of the lane, and as they passed he stared hard at Julia and laughed in a half-mocking way.
“How dare he stare at us like that!” said Cynthia haughtily, and then she began chatting about Polly Morrison’s trouble, and wishing that papa had not been so strict, and the meeting was forgotten till, three days later, when they reached London, and as they got out of the train, Julia started, for there, leaning against a barrier with his hands in his pockets, was Jock Morrison again.
The next day she saw him staring up at the house, and day after day afterwards she was sure to encounter his bold fierce gaze somewhere or another, till she grew quite nervous, telling her sister that she was certain that the mail was meditating some form of revenge against their father for sending him to prison.
“Nonsense!” cried Cynthia. “Papa is a magistrate, and he would not dare.”
Back at Lawford, and they were free of the incubus, in fact Jock Morrison passed out of mind; for in spite of his breathing out threatenings of poverty, the Reverend Eli Mallow, now that he found his eldest son had not come to him for money, had opened the rectory doors to receive visitors.
“We must entertain a little while we are down here, my dear, for the girls’ sake. Perhaps it is as well too for the boys.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs Mallow, looking up from her sofa with her customary patient smile; and the company arrived, and was entertained in a manner that made Fullerton hope that no one would suffer for it, that was all he could say.
Among the guests who had been staying at the rectory were the Perry-Mortons—thePerry-Mortons in society meaning Mr Perry-Morton and his two sisters, for though it was believed that they had, or had had, a father and mother, the seniors were never even heard of, much less seen. Ill-natured people said that Perry-Morton the elder had been a pawnbroker who had made money largely. Be that as it may, Perry-Morton the younger was very rich, and never mentioned any relatives but his sisters.
Lord Artingale was there from Gatton every day, but his friend and companion, James Magnus, was in the North sketching, so the young man, having no restraining arm on which to lean, fell more in love as fast as he could with little Cynthia.
Claudine Perry-Morton—by the way, there was a good deal of familiar nicknaming at the house of the Perry-Mortons, Mr Perry-Morton having been known to call Claudine—Bessy, and the younger sister—Faustine Judy. But that was in the privacy of their home life, and showed the simplicity and deep affection of their natures.
Claudine Perry-Morton had made a dead set at the young nobleman, but finding at once that her chance wasnil, she graciously made way for her sister, who sang “Jock of Hazeldine” at him, in a very deep contralto voice, and with a graceful stoop over the piano; but Faustine Perry-Morton was woman of the world enough to see that Lord Artingale’s thoughts ran in quite another direction, so she also resigned herself to circumstances, and thought him a man of exceedingly low tastes.
So all the smiles and sweetness of the sisters were lavished upon the rectory girls for their brother’s sake. Nothing particular was said, but it soon became evident that Perry-Morton found favour with the Rector, and it was quite understood that the wealthy visitor would, sooner or later, propose for his elder daughter’s hand.
She was nearly as bright at this time as her sister, and Artingale declared that she was the dearest girl he knew, not from any amiable passages between them, but because she laughingly helped him to pleasant littletête-à-têteswith her sister, especially when they were out riding; horse exercise and good long gallops being a great deal in vogue, when the weather was mild and clear.
Lord Artingale would canter over from Gatton, sending two or three or more horses by his grooms, an arrangement highly approved of by Frank and Cyril Mallow, who were very civil to him, though in private they compared notes, and said that he would be an awful fool if he had not borne a title and kept such good cigars.
Sometimes the Rector joined the equestrian parties upon a quiet cob, but he generally turned homeward after two or three miles, either to make a call or two at the outlying farms, or to meet the carriage. Then, to make things pleasant, poor Julia talked art on horseback with Mr Perry-Morton, while her sister and Lord Artingale had a brisk canter over some heath, and the groom behind sat and grinned.
“Talk about the guv’nor,” said the last-named individual, as he returned to the stables with the horses, and compared notes with Lord Artingale’s man, “he is a sight on horseback. That there old cob holds him on almost. But if you want to see riding you should go behind that there Perry-Morton.”
This was in the midst of a chorus of hissing from the helpers, who were rubbing down the horses after one of the morning rides.
“He do look a rum un,” said one of the men.
“Look!” said the groom; “heisa rum un. He gets them little thin legs of his one on each side of the horse, and keeps yer altering his sterrups for ever so long. Now they’re too long, and now they’re too short, and when we starts he holds his reins one in each hand, and bends forward so that if his horse didn’t have on a martingale he’d always be finding his nose between its ears.”
“Can’t he ride, then?”
“Ride! Yes; like a sack o’ sharps on a miller’s pony. It’s freezing work going out with him, worse than with the guv’nor, for he keeps his ’oss at a walk the whole time. Lor’, I’d give something to see him on his lordship’sMad Sal.”
But the groom was not destined to see Mr Perry-Morton upon that greyhound-framed hunter, which was full of fire and fidget with every one but Cynthia, who could have curbed her with a silken thread, for that gentleman was an admirer of repose even on horseback, and would only ride the quietest horse he could hire at the King’s Head, although Lord Artingale offered him the pick of his little stud.
Repose, too, gave him so many excellent opportunities for putting forward his suit with Julia, upon whom he beamed in a mezzo-tinto style, the lady hardly realising his meaning, only thinking him very absurd, and laughingly telling her sister that she owed her a long debt of gratitude for giving her so many opportunities for a long canter—one of those delightful long canters from which Cynthia used to come back with a delicious glow upon her cheeks, and with eyes that literally sparkled with health and pleasure combined.
“Looking like a wild gal,” Mr Jabez Fullerton said, as he stood at his shop door. “I declare it’s immoral, that’s what it is; a parson’s daughter gadding about like a jockey, Smithson; it’s disgusting.”
“Yes,” said Mr Smithson, who was calculating how many yards, at how much a yard, were in Cynthia’s well-fitting riding-habit.
“There’s a horse—look at it—for a young gal to ride! Well, all I can say is that I hope his lordship means to marry her. I never saw such goings on.”
“That there habit do fit well though, I must say that,” said Smithson.
“Fit?” said Fullerton. “Hah! The rectory’s a disgrace!”
But it so happened that riding was not always the order of the day. Long brisk walks were taken at times, much to the bemiring of Mr Perry-Morton’s patent leather shoes; and upon one of these occasions it had been arranged that Julia and Cynthia were to make a call or two upon some of the poor cottagers, who had been rather neglected during the past two weeks. Lord Artingale was going to ride over, and he and Mr Perry-Morton were to bring forward the ladies to meet them, if the Misses Perry-Morton could walk so far.
“Why, Julie, it’s quite a treat to be alone once more,” said Cynthia, merrily, as they walked briskly along the sandy lanes, calling at first one cottage and then another.
“Treat!” said her sister, smiling, “I thought—”
“Hush! I won’t be teased. But, Julie dear, I won’t be a hypocrite to you. I do tease him and laugh at him, but heisnice, and I think I’m beginning to like him ever so.”
“I like him very, very much,” said Julia, naïvely. “He’s a very pleasant, manly fellow.”
“Yes, isn’t he, dear? But, Julie, it’s too bad, I know, of me to leave you so long with that dreadful bore. What does he say to you?”
“Say!” said Julia, with a smile; “really I hardly know. Talks about art and nature’s colour, and asks me if I do not find a want of thoroughness in our daily life.”
“Thoroughness! why that’s what his sisters are always talking about. I think it thorough nonsense. Oh, I shall be so glad when they’re gone.”
“Yes, it will be nicer,” said Julia, thoughtfully; “but papa seems to like them very much.”
“Yes, isn’t it extraordinary?” cried Cynthia. “He wants papa to take a house in town, and to furnish it upon plans designed by him. I heard them talking about it, and papa seems to be guided by him in everything. And what do you think?”
“I don’t know, dear.”
“I’m as good as certain that that wicked Cyril has been borrowing money of Perry-Morton.”
“Why do you think that?” said Julia, quickly.
“Because Cyril does not make fun of him a bit, but both he and Frank are wonderfully civil.”
Julia sighed.
“Hadn’t we better turn back now, dear?”
“Oh, no! let’s go as far as old Mrs Meadows’s, poor old lady; she’ll think we are never coming again.”
They walked a few hundred yards farther on, and sat for a quarter of an hour to learn how the poor old lady’s jyntes was uncommon painful just now, thanky, and that she hadn’t seen them since before Christmas, and that it had been the mildest Christmas she had knowed this sixty year; and then the old lady sent her visitors on their return walk, with the cheerful announcement that a green Christmas “allers made a full churchyard, my dears,” which well she knowed it to be true.
“Oh, what a dreadful old woman, Julie,” cried Cynthia, merrily.
“Poor old thing! but how well she is for eighty.”
“No troubles but her jyntes to harass her,” laughed Cynthia.
“How long will it be before we meet anybody?”
A much shorter time than they either of them anticipated, for as they turned a bend in the road, two rough-looking men who had been leaning against a gate came towards them, making no movement to let them pass, but staring offensively.
“Don’t be frightened, Julie,” whispered Cynthia, with spirit, “I’m not afraid.”
She walked on boldly, and darted such an imperious look at the lesser of the two men, that he slunk aside to let her pass, but the other, Jock Morrison, stood his ground. He stared in a peculiar, half-smiling way at Julia, making her shrink aside, and following her up, as, turning pale, her lips parting, and with dilated eyes, she felt as it were fascinated by his gaze, shuddering the next moment as he exclaimed with a coarse laugh—
“Bob, old matey, I mean to have this girl.”
Part 1, Chapter XXI.At Kilby Farm.“Well—well—well—well,” said Mrs Portlock, folding her apron full of pleats, as Luke Ross sat talking to her for a while, and ended by telling her his intentions for the future. “Barrister, eh? Well, of all the trades I ever heard tell of—but can barristers make a living?”“Yes, and a good one, too,” said Luke, laughing.“Then you are not going to take to the school after all?”“No, I have quite altered my plans, and I hope all will turn out for the best.”“Ah, I hope so, I’m sure,” said Mrs Portlock, smoothing down her black silk dress, and then arranging a necklace of oblong amber beads, which she wore on market-days, one which bore a striking resemblance to a string of bilious beetles. “But what does your father say?”“I have not told him my plans yet, for they have only been made since the governor’s meeting.”“Well, Luke Ross,” said Mrs Portlock, in a resigned fashion, “I’m sure I don’t wish you any harm.”“I’m sure you do not,” he said, laughing.“Indeed I do not,” she continued: “but, for my part, I think you had a great deal better have kept to your father’s trade. Such a business as that is not to be picked up every day. But there, I suppose you know best.”“Of course he does,” said the Churchwarden, who heard the latter part of her sentence. “You let Luke Ross alone for that. His head’s screwed on the right way.”“Don’t be so foolish, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock. “Do talk sense. Has Mr Cyril Mallow gone?”“Yes, he’s gone back home,” said the farmer.“Why didn’t you ask him to stay and have a bit of dinner with us?”“Because I didn’t want him, mother. He only walked home with me to ask about a bit o’ rabbit shooting.”“But still, it would have been civil to ask him to stop. It’s market-day, and there’s the hare you shot on Friday, and a bit o’ sirloin.”“Tchah! he wouldn’t have cared to stay. He dines late and fashionable-like at home.”“I’ll be bound to say he’d have been very glad to stop,” said Mrs Portlock, bridling. “Fashionable, indeed! He got no fashionable dinners when he was working his way home at sea, nor yet when he was out in the bush.”“Where he had much better have stayed—eh, Luke?” said the farmer. “He does no good but idle about here.”“Idle, indeed!” cried Mrs Portlock, taking up the cudgels, rather indignantly, on the young man’s behalf. “It might be idling if it was Luke Ross here, but Mr Cyril Mallow’s a gentleman and a gentleman’s son, and he has a right to work when he likes and leave off when he likes.”“Oh! has he?” said the Churchwarden, smiling at their visitor, as much as to say, ‘Now, just you listen.’ “Well, I’m not a learned man, like Luke Ross here, who has got his Bible at his tongue’s end.”“As every man who calls himself a good man ought to,” said Mrs Portlock, tartly. “Sage!”“Yes, aunt,” came from the next room, where the speaker could hear every word.“Tell them to take the dinner in directly. And, for my part, Joseph, I think if you’d read your Bible a little more o’ Sundays you’d be a better man.”“You wouldn’t like me so well if I was a better man, old lady,” he laughed; “but, as I was going to say, when I used to read of such things I got it into my head that the first specimen of a man as was made was a working man, to till the ground, and not idle and loaf about, and eat the fruit and shoot the rabbits in the Garden of Eden.”“For shame, father, to talk in that way!” cried the lady. “And I wonder that you speak so disrespectfully of Mr Cyril Mallow. For my part, I think he’s a very nice, gentlemanly young fellow, and it’s too bad for people to be always sneering about him as they are.”“And, for my part,” said the Churchwarden, good-humouredly, “I’m a bit of a Radical, and don’t believe in taking off your hat to a man because he happens to have a few thousand pounds more than one’s got oneself. If he’s a wonderful clever chap, with more brains than I’ve got, why, I do look up to him; but I’m not going down on my knees to a set of folks who yawn through their lives, doing nothing, except telling you by word and look that they are a better class of people than you are; and as for Master Cyril Mallow, he’s a well-built, strapping young fellow, who can talk well, and shoot well, but if he had happened to be my sod, instead of old Mallow’s, I’d have licked him into a different shape to what he’s in now, ay, and his brother too, or I’d have known the reason why. Dinner in, my lass? That’s well. Come along, Luke. Tchah! nonsense! you shall stay. You can tell the old man your reasons better when you’ve got a bit of roast beef under your waistcoat, and some of my ale. Why, Sage, lass, what ails you? Your face is as white as a bit o’ dough.”“Oh, nothing, uncle, nothing,” she replied, forcing a smile, as she hurried to a tall press to get out a napkin for their visitor, and soon after they were seated at the hospitable meal, which was more bounteous on a market-day, the nearness of the farm to the town making it always probable that the Churchwarden might bring up a friend.But Luke Ross was the only stranger on that occasion, and he sat opposite Sage, whose countenance, though less troubled than when she had overheard her uncle’s words, was lacking in its ordinary composure.Luke saw this, and attributed it to their conversation, and the interest she took in his affairs. Her aunt saw it, too, and, with the idea of comforting her niece, kept turning the conversation to the Rector and his family, but not to do any good, for out of mere contrariety, and with a twinkle in his eye as he glanced at Luke, the Churchwarden set to and roundly abused the Rector and his sons for their ways.“Come, Luke,” he said, “you are not making half a meal. I suppose by and by, sir, you will be as fashionable as Master Cyril Mallow, and won’t eat a bit at dinner-time without calling it lunch. Ha, ha, ha!”“There, do have done, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock. “What have you got to laugh at now?”“I was thinking of the horse-whipping I gave the young dogs—ay, it’s twelve or fourteen years ago now—that night I caught them in the orchard.”“There, do let bygones be bygones, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock, sharply. “Boys will be boys. I’ll be bound to say you stole apples yourself when you were young.”“Ay, that I did, and got thrashed for it, too. But I must say that Cyril Mallow don’t bear any malice for what I did.”A regular duel was fought over that meal between the heads, Sage hardly raising her eyes, but looking more and more troubled as the Mallow attack and defence went on, while Luke Ross was so intent upon his own thoughts that he hardly heard a word.It was with quite a feeling of relief, then, that Sage heard her uncle say—“I like parson, not as a parson, but as a man: for the way in which he has tended that poor sick woman ’s an honour to him; but, as for his way of bringing up children, why, if I had carried on my farm in such a fashion I should have been in the Court o’ Bankruptcy years ago. Best thing Mallow could do would be to put the fellow with me to learn farming, and me have the right to do what I liked with him, and five-and-twenty to two? Is it, my dear? I didn’t know it was so late—and make us truly thankful, Amen.”There was a general scrooping of chairs after this condensed grace, Sage hurrying off to put on her hat and jacket, and her aunt running after her to say, in a mysterious whispered confidence—“Don’t you take any notice of uncle, my dear. He don’t mean half he says.”“You’ll walk back with Sage, of course, Luke?” said the Churchwarden, quietly, as he drew his chair to the fire for his after-dinner pipe. “Well, my boy, I think you’re right about what you settled; but I suppose I had something to do with your altering your mind?”“Yes, sir, I must own to that.”“Well,” said the Churchwarden, thoughtfully, “I hope it’s for the best; I meant it to be. You’ll go back to London, then, soon?”“Almost directly, sir, to begin working hard.”“That’s right, my boy. I believe in work. Come over here whenever you are down at Lawford. I shall be very glad to see you, my lad, very.”Then, pulling out his watch, he consulted it, and went on chatting for a few minutes as if to keep Luke from speaking about the subject near to his heart, but at last he broke in—“I need hardly say, sir, that I go meaning to work up to the point you named, and—”“Yes, yes, yes, my lad; let that rest. Let’s see how things go. You’re both young,” he cried, pulling out his big silver watch once more. “I say, mother,” he shouted, “tell Sage that Luke’s waiting to walk back with her. She’ll be late for school.”Then like a chill to Luke Ross came back Mrs Portlock’s voice—“Sage? Oh, she went out by the back way ten minutes ago.”
“Well—well—well—well,” said Mrs Portlock, folding her apron full of pleats, as Luke Ross sat talking to her for a while, and ended by telling her his intentions for the future. “Barrister, eh? Well, of all the trades I ever heard tell of—but can barristers make a living?”
“Yes, and a good one, too,” said Luke, laughing.
“Then you are not going to take to the school after all?”
“No, I have quite altered my plans, and I hope all will turn out for the best.”
“Ah, I hope so, I’m sure,” said Mrs Portlock, smoothing down her black silk dress, and then arranging a necklace of oblong amber beads, which she wore on market-days, one which bore a striking resemblance to a string of bilious beetles. “But what does your father say?”
“I have not told him my plans yet, for they have only been made since the governor’s meeting.”
“Well, Luke Ross,” said Mrs Portlock, in a resigned fashion, “I’m sure I don’t wish you any harm.”
“I’m sure you do not,” he said, laughing.
“Indeed I do not,” she continued: “but, for my part, I think you had a great deal better have kept to your father’s trade. Such a business as that is not to be picked up every day. But there, I suppose you know best.”
“Of course he does,” said the Churchwarden, who heard the latter part of her sentence. “You let Luke Ross alone for that. His head’s screwed on the right way.”
“Don’t be so foolish, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock. “Do talk sense. Has Mr Cyril Mallow gone?”
“Yes, he’s gone back home,” said the farmer.
“Why didn’t you ask him to stay and have a bit of dinner with us?”
“Because I didn’t want him, mother. He only walked home with me to ask about a bit o’ rabbit shooting.”
“But still, it would have been civil to ask him to stop. It’s market-day, and there’s the hare you shot on Friday, and a bit o’ sirloin.”
“Tchah! he wouldn’t have cared to stay. He dines late and fashionable-like at home.”
“I’ll be bound to say he’d have been very glad to stop,” said Mrs Portlock, bridling. “Fashionable, indeed! He got no fashionable dinners when he was working his way home at sea, nor yet when he was out in the bush.”
“Where he had much better have stayed—eh, Luke?” said the farmer. “He does no good but idle about here.”
“Idle, indeed!” cried Mrs Portlock, taking up the cudgels, rather indignantly, on the young man’s behalf. “It might be idling if it was Luke Ross here, but Mr Cyril Mallow’s a gentleman and a gentleman’s son, and he has a right to work when he likes and leave off when he likes.”
“Oh! has he?” said the Churchwarden, smiling at their visitor, as much as to say, ‘Now, just you listen.’ “Well, I’m not a learned man, like Luke Ross here, who has got his Bible at his tongue’s end.”
“As every man who calls himself a good man ought to,” said Mrs Portlock, tartly. “Sage!”
“Yes, aunt,” came from the next room, where the speaker could hear every word.
“Tell them to take the dinner in directly. And, for my part, Joseph, I think if you’d read your Bible a little more o’ Sundays you’d be a better man.”
“You wouldn’t like me so well if I was a better man, old lady,” he laughed; “but, as I was going to say, when I used to read of such things I got it into my head that the first specimen of a man as was made was a working man, to till the ground, and not idle and loaf about, and eat the fruit and shoot the rabbits in the Garden of Eden.”
“For shame, father, to talk in that way!” cried the lady. “And I wonder that you speak so disrespectfully of Mr Cyril Mallow. For my part, I think he’s a very nice, gentlemanly young fellow, and it’s too bad for people to be always sneering about him as they are.”
“And, for my part,” said the Churchwarden, good-humouredly, “I’m a bit of a Radical, and don’t believe in taking off your hat to a man because he happens to have a few thousand pounds more than one’s got oneself. If he’s a wonderful clever chap, with more brains than I’ve got, why, I do look up to him; but I’m not going down on my knees to a set of folks who yawn through their lives, doing nothing, except telling you by word and look that they are a better class of people than you are; and as for Master Cyril Mallow, he’s a well-built, strapping young fellow, who can talk well, and shoot well, but if he had happened to be my sod, instead of old Mallow’s, I’d have licked him into a different shape to what he’s in now, ay, and his brother too, or I’d have known the reason why. Dinner in, my lass? That’s well. Come along, Luke. Tchah! nonsense! you shall stay. You can tell the old man your reasons better when you’ve got a bit of roast beef under your waistcoat, and some of my ale. Why, Sage, lass, what ails you? Your face is as white as a bit o’ dough.”
“Oh, nothing, uncle, nothing,” she replied, forcing a smile, as she hurried to a tall press to get out a napkin for their visitor, and soon after they were seated at the hospitable meal, which was more bounteous on a market-day, the nearness of the farm to the town making it always probable that the Churchwarden might bring up a friend.
But Luke Ross was the only stranger on that occasion, and he sat opposite Sage, whose countenance, though less troubled than when she had overheard her uncle’s words, was lacking in its ordinary composure.
Luke saw this, and attributed it to their conversation, and the interest she took in his affairs. Her aunt saw it, too, and, with the idea of comforting her niece, kept turning the conversation to the Rector and his family, but not to do any good, for out of mere contrariety, and with a twinkle in his eye as he glanced at Luke, the Churchwarden set to and roundly abused the Rector and his sons for their ways.
“Come, Luke,” he said, “you are not making half a meal. I suppose by and by, sir, you will be as fashionable as Master Cyril Mallow, and won’t eat a bit at dinner-time without calling it lunch. Ha, ha, ha!”
“There, do have done, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock. “What have you got to laugh at now?”
“I was thinking of the horse-whipping I gave the young dogs—ay, it’s twelve or fourteen years ago now—that night I caught them in the orchard.”
“There, do let bygones be bygones, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock, sharply. “Boys will be boys. I’ll be bound to say you stole apples yourself when you were young.”
“Ay, that I did, and got thrashed for it, too. But I must say that Cyril Mallow don’t bear any malice for what I did.”
A regular duel was fought over that meal between the heads, Sage hardly raising her eyes, but looking more and more troubled as the Mallow attack and defence went on, while Luke Ross was so intent upon his own thoughts that he hardly heard a word.
It was with quite a feeling of relief, then, that Sage heard her uncle say—
“I like parson, not as a parson, but as a man: for the way in which he has tended that poor sick woman ’s an honour to him; but, as for his way of bringing up children, why, if I had carried on my farm in such a fashion I should have been in the Court o’ Bankruptcy years ago. Best thing Mallow could do would be to put the fellow with me to learn farming, and me have the right to do what I liked with him, and five-and-twenty to two? Is it, my dear? I didn’t know it was so late—and make us truly thankful, Amen.”
There was a general scrooping of chairs after this condensed grace, Sage hurrying off to put on her hat and jacket, and her aunt running after her to say, in a mysterious whispered confidence—
“Don’t you take any notice of uncle, my dear. He don’t mean half he says.”
“You’ll walk back with Sage, of course, Luke?” said the Churchwarden, quietly, as he drew his chair to the fire for his after-dinner pipe. “Well, my boy, I think you’re right about what you settled; but I suppose I had something to do with your altering your mind?”
“Yes, sir, I must own to that.”
“Well,” said the Churchwarden, thoughtfully, “I hope it’s for the best; I meant it to be. You’ll go back to London, then, soon?”
“Almost directly, sir, to begin working hard.”
“That’s right, my boy. I believe in work. Come over here whenever you are down at Lawford. I shall be very glad to see you, my lad, very.”
Then, pulling out his watch, he consulted it, and went on chatting for a few minutes as if to keep Luke from speaking about the subject near to his heart, but at last he broke in—“I need hardly say, sir, that I go meaning to work up to the point you named, and—”
“Yes, yes, yes, my lad; let that rest. Let’s see how things go. You’re both young,” he cried, pulling out his big silver watch once more. “I say, mother,” he shouted, “tell Sage that Luke’s waiting to walk back with her. She’ll be late for school.”
Then like a chill to Luke Ross came back Mrs Portlock’s voice—
“Sage? Oh, she went out by the back way ten minutes ago.”
Part 1, Chapter XXII.Cynthia’s Knights.That was all—those few insolent, grossly-insulting words—and then the big fellow stood staring after the frightened girls.“Take my hand, Julia,” whispered the younger sister; and if, as we read in the old novelists, a glance would kill, the flash of indignant lightning that darted from her bright eyes would have laid Jock Morrison dead in the road.But, powerful as are the effects of a lady’s eyes, they had none other here than to make the great picturesque fellow smile at her mockingly before turning his hawk-like gaze on the frightened girl who clung to her sister’s hand as they hurried away.“Has he gone, Cynthy?” whispered Julia, at the end of a few moments.“I don’t know. I can’t hear them, and I won’t look back, or they’ll think we are afraid—and we are not.”“I am—horribly afraid,” said Julia, in a choking voice.“I’m not,” said Cynthia. “A nasty, rude, impudent pig that he is. Oh, if I were a man, I’d whip him till he lay down on the ground and begged for mercy. To insult two inoffensive girls like that! Harry shall beat him well, that he shall, or I’ll never speak to him again.”“Make haste,” whispered Julia. “Let’s run.”“I won’t run,” cried Cynthia. “I wouldn’t run away from the biggest man that ever lived. I never heard of such a thing. Oh, how cross papa will be.”“We had better not tell him,” said Julia, faintly; and her face was deadly pale.“Not tell papa? Why, you foolish little coward, Julie! But only to think of the insufferable impudence of the wretch. I wish he had said it to me.”“No, no: don’t wish that,” cried Julia, excitedly. “It is too horrible. Oh, Cynthy dear, I shall dream of that man.”“You shan’t do anything of the kind,” cried her sister, whose eyes sparkled and face flushed with excitement. “Such nonsense! Two unprotected maidens walking through the forest met a wicked ogre, and he opened his ugly great mouth, and gaped as he showed his big white teeth like a lion, and then he said, I am going to gobble up the prettiest of those two little maids; and then they ran away, and a gallant knight coming along, they fled to him for help, and fell upon their poor knees in a wet place, and said, ‘Oh, brave and gallant paladin, go and smite down that wicked ogre, and we will give you smiles, and gloves to wear in your helm, and tie scarves round your waist, and if you will promise not to eat us, you shall some day have one of us for a pet!’ And the name of the gallant knight was Sir Perrino Mortoni, and—”“Oh pray be quiet, Cynthy, I feel so upset you cannot tell.”“Stuff and nonsense! Don’t interrupt my story. The ogre has gone.”“I shall always be afraid of meeting that man.”“What, after the gallant knight has killed him? Oh, I see, you are afraid that Sir Perrino would not slay him, but would bind him in chains, and keep him at his castle for an artist’s model. Then we will appeal to another knight, Lord Harry the Saucy, and he shall do the deed. Where is the gallant I wis not,” she added, laughing.“I know who he is,” said Julia, who was trembling still.“So do I,” said Cynthia, merrily. “Well, never mind, my darling sissy; don’t let a thing like that upset you. Come: be brave. They are gone now, and we shall never see them again.”“Never see them again,” said Julia, with a wild look in her eye. “That man will haunt me wherever I go.”“Will he, dear?” said Cynthia, merrily; “then the gallant knight shall not quite kill him, though I don’t believe in haunting ghosts. Here they are.”“Cynthia!” gasped Julia, with a cry of horror.“I don’t mean the ogres, you little coward; I mean the gallant knights.”“Why, we began to think we had missed you,” cried Lord Artingale, who, with Mr Perry-Morton, met them at a turn of the road, the latter gentleman’s patent leather shoes being a good deal splashed, in spite of the care with which he had picked his way.“Oh, Mr Perry-Morton,” cried Cynthia, ignoring Artingale, and, with a mischievous light in her eye, addressing their artistic friend, “my sister has been so shamefully insulted by a great big man.”“Who? where? my dear Miss Julia? Where is the scoundrel?” cried Perry-Morton, excitedly.“Just down the road a little way,” said Cynthia. “I hope you will go and beat him well.”“A big scoundrel of a fellow?” cried Mr Perry-Morton.“Yes, and he looks like a gipsy,” said Cynthia, innocently. “He said something so insulting to my sister.”“Hush, pray, Cynthia,” cried the latter, faintly.“Oh, poor girl, she is going to faint. Miss Mallow, pray look up. I am here. Take my arm. Let me hasten with you home. This scoundrel shall be pursued, and brought to justice.”“I am better now,” said Julia, speaking more firmly. “No, thank you, Mr Perry-Morton, I can walk well enough.”“Oh, I cannot leave you like this, dear Miss Julia,” whispered Perry-Morton, while Cynthia’s eyes were sparkling with malicious glee, as she turned them upon Artingale, whose face, however, startled her into seriousness, as he caught her arm, gripping it so hard that it gave her pain.“Tell me, Cynthia,” he said, hoarsely, “what sort of a fellow was this?”“A big, gipsy-looking man, and there was a dirty-looking fellow with him,” faltered the girl, for her lover’s look alarmed her. “But stop, Harry; what are you going to do?”“Break his cursed neck—if I can,” cried Artingale, in a low, angry growl.“No, no: don’t go,” she whispered, catching at him. “You may be hurt.”“One of us will be,” he said, hoarsely.“But, Harry, please!”She looked at him so appealingly that he took her hands in his.“Cynthia—my darling!” he whispered; and if they had been alone he would have caught her in his arms.But they were not alone, and bending down he whispered—“You have made me so happy, but you would not have me be a cur. Take your sister home.”Without another word he turned and started off down the lane at a trot, Cynthia watching him till he was out of sight.“Oh, Harry! If you are hurt!” she whispered to herself; and then, recalling her sister’s trouble, she ran to her side, where Perry-Morton was making a pretence of affording support that was not required.“We can soon get home, Mr Perry-Morton,” said Cynthia, with the malicious look coming back into her eyes, and chasing away one that was very soft and sweet. “Wouldn’t you like to go after Lord Artingale?”“What! and leave you two unprotected?” said the apostle, loudly. “No, I could not, to save my life.”He did not, but attended the ladies right up to the rectory, sending their father into a fury, and then leading a party of servants to the pursuit of the tramps, as they were dubbed, but only to meet Lord Artingale at the end of a couple of hours returning unsuccessful from his chase.For he had not seen either of the fellows, from the fact that as soon as the ladies had gone they had quietly entered the wood, to lie down amongst the mossy hazel stubbs, from which post of vantage they had seen the young man go by.“Hadn’t we better hook it, Jock?” said the lesser vagabond.“Hook it? No. What for? We haven’t done nothing agen the lor.”There was hot indignation at the rectory, and Frank and Cyril went straight to Tom Morrison’s cottage, frightening the wheelwright’s wife, and making her look paler as she took refuge with Budge in the back, only coming forward after repeated summonses, and then keeping the girl with her, as she said, truthfully, that Jock Morrison had not been there for days.“What’s the matter?” said Tom, coming from his workshop, and looking sternly at the two visitors.“Matter!” cried Frank, fiercely; “we want that brother of yours; he has been insulting my sister.”“Then you had better find him and punish him,” said Tom, coldly.“Where is he?”“You are a parson’s sons,” said Tom, bitterly, “and ought to know Scripture. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”“Look here, you Tom Morrison,” cried Frank, “no insolence; I’ve only just come back home, but while I stay I’ll not have my sisters insulted by a blackguard family who have got a hold in the parish, and do it out of spite because my father could not act as they wanted.”“Out of my place!” roared Tom, fiercely. “How dare you bring up that, you coward!”“Tom! Tom! oh, for my sake, pray!” cried Polly, throwing herself upon his breast just as he was about to seize Cyril, who had stepped before his brother.“Well, for thy sake, yes,” said Tom, passing his arm round his wife. “Frank and Cyril Mallow, don’t come to my place again, or there may be mischief.”“Do you dare to threaten us, you dog?” cried Frank.“He ought to know what a magistrate’s power—” began Cyril, but he glanced at Polly and checked himself. “Here, come away, Frank. Look here, Tom Morrison, where is your brother Jock?”“I don’t know,” said Tom, sternly, “and if I did I should not tell you. This is my house, gentlemen, and I want neither truck nor trade with you and yours.”“I’ll have you both flogged,” cried Frank. “A pretty thing that two ladies can’t go along the lanes without being insulted! By Gad, if—”“Look here,” said Tom Morrison, stoutly, “who are you and yours that they are not to be spoken to? How long is it since a respectable girl couldn’t hardly walk along one of our lanes for fear of being insulted by the parson’s sons? I tell you—”“Tom! Tom!” moaned Polly, “I—I—”“Hush, bairn!” he whispered, and Frank hustled his brother out of the cottage, angrily threatening punishment to the brothers Morrison before many days were over their heads, and went back to the rectory, where Mr Perry-Morton informed Lord Artingale, in confidence, that he would have liked to delete such creatures as that ruffian. They were only blurs, spots, and blemishes upon the face of this beautiful earth, marring its serenity, and stealing space that was the inheritance of those who could appreciate the gift.“I can handle my fists,” said Artingale, in reply, “for we had a good fellow to teach us, and nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have had ten minutes’ interview with that blackguard.”“It is very brave and bold of you,” said Mr Perry-Morton, holding his too fleshy head up with one white hand, as it drooped sidewise, and supporting his elbow with another white hand, as he gazed at him with a kindly, patronising, smiling pity, “but it would be better to hand him over to the police.”“Oh, the police might have had him when I had done with him,” said the young man, nodding. “I should have liked to have had my bit of satisfaction first.”The sisters, that is to say, Mr Perry-Morton’s sisters, wound their arms round each other, the elder laying her head upon her sister’s shoulder, so that arms, hair, and dresses were intertwined and mingled into a graceful whole. Doubtless their legs would have been woven into the figure, only they were required to stand on; and then with a series of changes passing over their faces with beautiful regularity, and with wonderful gradations by minor tones or tints, they suggested horror, fear, dread, suffering, pity, pain, with a grand finale representing wakeful repose, as they listened to Cynthia’s history of the encounter, while their brother, after gazing at them diagonally through his eyelashes, softly crossed the room, touched the Rector upon the arm, and pointed to the sisterly group with a smile of satisfied affection.“Heaven has its reflections upon earth,” he said softly, “and the poetic mind reads rapture in angelic form,” he added, with a fat smile of serene satisfaction and repose.“Quite so,” said the Rector, and he balanced his double eyeglass upon his nose; “but really, Mr Perry-Morton, I have so many troubles and petty cares upon my mind, that this new one has filled me with indignation, and I hardly know what I say or do. Whether as clergyman or county magistrate, I am sure no one could be so troubled as I have been.”But the indignation even of a county magistrate availed nothing, although it took the form of a hunt about the place with the resident rural policeman, supplemented by the presence of two more resident rural policemen from two neighbouring villages. Lord Artingale’s keepers, too, were admonished to be on the look-out, but Jock Morrison was not seen, though his companion was traced to one or two casual wards, and then seemed to have made for London.
That was all—those few insolent, grossly-insulting words—and then the big fellow stood staring after the frightened girls.
“Take my hand, Julia,” whispered the younger sister; and if, as we read in the old novelists, a glance would kill, the flash of indignant lightning that darted from her bright eyes would have laid Jock Morrison dead in the road.
But, powerful as are the effects of a lady’s eyes, they had none other here than to make the great picturesque fellow smile at her mockingly before turning his hawk-like gaze on the frightened girl who clung to her sister’s hand as they hurried away.
“Has he gone, Cynthy?” whispered Julia, at the end of a few moments.
“I don’t know. I can’t hear them, and I won’t look back, or they’ll think we are afraid—and we are not.”
“I am—horribly afraid,” said Julia, in a choking voice.
“I’m not,” said Cynthia. “A nasty, rude, impudent pig that he is. Oh, if I were a man, I’d whip him till he lay down on the ground and begged for mercy. To insult two inoffensive girls like that! Harry shall beat him well, that he shall, or I’ll never speak to him again.”
“Make haste,” whispered Julia. “Let’s run.”
“I won’t run,” cried Cynthia. “I wouldn’t run away from the biggest man that ever lived. I never heard of such a thing. Oh, how cross papa will be.”
“We had better not tell him,” said Julia, faintly; and her face was deadly pale.
“Not tell papa? Why, you foolish little coward, Julie! But only to think of the insufferable impudence of the wretch. I wish he had said it to me.”
“No, no: don’t wish that,” cried Julia, excitedly. “It is too horrible. Oh, Cynthy dear, I shall dream of that man.”
“You shan’t do anything of the kind,” cried her sister, whose eyes sparkled and face flushed with excitement. “Such nonsense! Two unprotected maidens walking through the forest met a wicked ogre, and he opened his ugly great mouth, and gaped as he showed his big white teeth like a lion, and then he said, I am going to gobble up the prettiest of those two little maids; and then they ran away, and a gallant knight coming along, they fled to him for help, and fell upon their poor knees in a wet place, and said, ‘Oh, brave and gallant paladin, go and smite down that wicked ogre, and we will give you smiles, and gloves to wear in your helm, and tie scarves round your waist, and if you will promise not to eat us, you shall some day have one of us for a pet!’ And the name of the gallant knight was Sir Perrino Mortoni, and—”
“Oh pray be quiet, Cynthy, I feel so upset you cannot tell.”
“Stuff and nonsense! Don’t interrupt my story. The ogre has gone.”
“I shall always be afraid of meeting that man.”
“What, after the gallant knight has killed him? Oh, I see, you are afraid that Sir Perrino would not slay him, but would bind him in chains, and keep him at his castle for an artist’s model. Then we will appeal to another knight, Lord Harry the Saucy, and he shall do the deed. Where is the gallant I wis not,” she added, laughing.
“I know who he is,” said Julia, who was trembling still.
“So do I,” said Cynthia, merrily. “Well, never mind, my darling sissy; don’t let a thing like that upset you. Come: be brave. They are gone now, and we shall never see them again.”
“Never see them again,” said Julia, with a wild look in her eye. “That man will haunt me wherever I go.”
“Will he, dear?” said Cynthia, merrily; “then the gallant knight shall not quite kill him, though I don’t believe in haunting ghosts. Here they are.”
“Cynthia!” gasped Julia, with a cry of horror.
“I don’t mean the ogres, you little coward; I mean the gallant knights.”
“Why, we began to think we had missed you,” cried Lord Artingale, who, with Mr Perry-Morton, met them at a turn of the road, the latter gentleman’s patent leather shoes being a good deal splashed, in spite of the care with which he had picked his way.
“Oh, Mr Perry-Morton,” cried Cynthia, ignoring Artingale, and, with a mischievous light in her eye, addressing their artistic friend, “my sister has been so shamefully insulted by a great big man.”
“Who? where? my dear Miss Julia? Where is the scoundrel?” cried Perry-Morton, excitedly.
“Just down the road a little way,” said Cynthia. “I hope you will go and beat him well.”
“A big scoundrel of a fellow?” cried Mr Perry-Morton.
“Yes, and he looks like a gipsy,” said Cynthia, innocently. “He said something so insulting to my sister.”
“Hush, pray, Cynthia,” cried the latter, faintly.
“Oh, poor girl, she is going to faint. Miss Mallow, pray look up. I am here. Take my arm. Let me hasten with you home. This scoundrel shall be pursued, and brought to justice.”
“I am better now,” said Julia, speaking more firmly. “No, thank you, Mr Perry-Morton, I can walk well enough.”
“Oh, I cannot leave you like this, dear Miss Julia,” whispered Perry-Morton, while Cynthia’s eyes were sparkling with malicious glee, as she turned them upon Artingale, whose face, however, startled her into seriousness, as he caught her arm, gripping it so hard that it gave her pain.
“Tell me, Cynthia,” he said, hoarsely, “what sort of a fellow was this?”
“A big, gipsy-looking man, and there was a dirty-looking fellow with him,” faltered the girl, for her lover’s look alarmed her. “But stop, Harry; what are you going to do?”
“Break his cursed neck—if I can,” cried Artingale, in a low, angry growl.
“No, no: don’t go,” she whispered, catching at him. “You may be hurt.”
“One of us will be,” he said, hoarsely.
“But, Harry, please!”
She looked at him so appealingly that he took her hands in his.
“Cynthia—my darling!” he whispered; and if they had been alone he would have caught her in his arms.
But they were not alone, and bending down he whispered—
“You have made me so happy, but you would not have me be a cur. Take your sister home.”
Without another word he turned and started off down the lane at a trot, Cynthia watching him till he was out of sight.
“Oh, Harry! If you are hurt!” she whispered to herself; and then, recalling her sister’s trouble, she ran to her side, where Perry-Morton was making a pretence of affording support that was not required.
“We can soon get home, Mr Perry-Morton,” said Cynthia, with the malicious look coming back into her eyes, and chasing away one that was very soft and sweet. “Wouldn’t you like to go after Lord Artingale?”
“What! and leave you two unprotected?” said the apostle, loudly. “No, I could not, to save my life.”
He did not, but attended the ladies right up to the rectory, sending their father into a fury, and then leading a party of servants to the pursuit of the tramps, as they were dubbed, but only to meet Lord Artingale at the end of a couple of hours returning unsuccessful from his chase.
For he had not seen either of the fellows, from the fact that as soon as the ladies had gone they had quietly entered the wood, to lie down amongst the mossy hazel stubbs, from which post of vantage they had seen the young man go by.
“Hadn’t we better hook it, Jock?” said the lesser vagabond.
“Hook it? No. What for? We haven’t done nothing agen the lor.”
There was hot indignation at the rectory, and Frank and Cyril went straight to Tom Morrison’s cottage, frightening the wheelwright’s wife, and making her look paler as she took refuge with Budge in the back, only coming forward after repeated summonses, and then keeping the girl with her, as she said, truthfully, that Jock Morrison had not been there for days.
“What’s the matter?” said Tom, coming from his workshop, and looking sternly at the two visitors.
“Matter!” cried Frank, fiercely; “we want that brother of yours; he has been insulting my sister.”
“Then you had better find him and punish him,” said Tom, coldly.
“Where is he?”
“You are a parson’s sons,” said Tom, bitterly, “and ought to know Scripture. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”
“Look here, you Tom Morrison,” cried Frank, “no insolence; I’ve only just come back home, but while I stay I’ll not have my sisters insulted by a blackguard family who have got a hold in the parish, and do it out of spite because my father could not act as they wanted.”
“Out of my place!” roared Tom, fiercely. “How dare you bring up that, you coward!”
“Tom! Tom! oh, for my sake, pray!” cried Polly, throwing herself upon his breast just as he was about to seize Cyril, who had stepped before his brother.
“Well, for thy sake, yes,” said Tom, passing his arm round his wife. “Frank and Cyril Mallow, don’t come to my place again, or there may be mischief.”
“Do you dare to threaten us, you dog?” cried Frank.
“He ought to know what a magistrate’s power—” began Cyril, but he glanced at Polly and checked himself. “Here, come away, Frank. Look here, Tom Morrison, where is your brother Jock?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom, sternly, “and if I did I should not tell you. This is my house, gentlemen, and I want neither truck nor trade with you and yours.”
“I’ll have you both flogged,” cried Frank. “A pretty thing that two ladies can’t go along the lanes without being insulted! By Gad, if—”
“Look here,” said Tom Morrison, stoutly, “who are you and yours that they are not to be spoken to? How long is it since a respectable girl couldn’t hardly walk along one of our lanes for fear of being insulted by the parson’s sons? I tell you—”
“Tom! Tom!” moaned Polly, “I—I—”
“Hush, bairn!” he whispered, and Frank hustled his brother out of the cottage, angrily threatening punishment to the brothers Morrison before many days were over their heads, and went back to the rectory, where Mr Perry-Morton informed Lord Artingale, in confidence, that he would have liked to delete such creatures as that ruffian. They were only blurs, spots, and blemishes upon the face of this beautiful earth, marring its serenity, and stealing space that was the inheritance of those who could appreciate the gift.
“I can handle my fists,” said Artingale, in reply, “for we had a good fellow to teach us, and nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have had ten minutes’ interview with that blackguard.”
“It is very brave and bold of you,” said Mr Perry-Morton, holding his too fleshy head up with one white hand, as it drooped sidewise, and supporting his elbow with another white hand, as he gazed at him with a kindly, patronising, smiling pity, “but it would be better to hand him over to the police.”
“Oh, the police might have had him when I had done with him,” said the young man, nodding. “I should have liked to have had my bit of satisfaction first.”
The sisters, that is to say, Mr Perry-Morton’s sisters, wound their arms round each other, the elder laying her head upon her sister’s shoulder, so that arms, hair, and dresses were intertwined and mingled into a graceful whole. Doubtless their legs would have been woven into the figure, only they were required to stand on; and then with a series of changes passing over their faces with beautiful regularity, and with wonderful gradations by minor tones or tints, they suggested horror, fear, dread, suffering, pity, pain, with a grand finale representing wakeful repose, as they listened to Cynthia’s history of the encounter, while their brother, after gazing at them diagonally through his eyelashes, softly crossed the room, touched the Rector upon the arm, and pointed to the sisterly group with a smile of satisfied affection.
“Heaven has its reflections upon earth,” he said softly, “and the poetic mind reads rapture in angelic form,” he added, with a fat smile of serene satisfaction and repose.
“Quite so,” said the Rector, and he balanced his double eyeglass upon his nose; “but really, Mr Perry-Morton, I have so many troubles and petty cares upon my mind, that this new one has filled me with indignation, and I hardly know what I say or do. Whether as clergyman or county magistrate, I am sure no one could be so troubled as I have been.”
But the indignation even of a county magistrate availed nothing, although it took the form of a hunt about the place with the resident rural policeman, supplemented by the presence of two more resident rural policemen from two neighbouring villages. Lord Artingale’s keepers, too, were admonished to be on the look-out, but Jock Morrison was not seen, though his companion was traced to one or two casual wards, and then seemed to have made for London.