"I, Griffith Gaunt, late of the Eyrie, and now residing at Bolton Hall, in the County of Cumberland, being sound in body and mind, do deliver this as my last will and testament. I give and bequeath all the property, real or personal, which I now possess or may hereafter become entitled to, to my dear friend and mistress, Catharine Peyton, daughter of Henry Peyton, Esquire, of Peyton Hall: provided always that the said Catharine Peyton shall at no time within the next ten years marry George Neville of Neville's Court in this county. But should the said Catharine marry the said George within ten years of this day, then I leave all my said property, in possession, remainder, or reversion, to my heir-at-law."
"I, Griffith Gaunt, late of the Eyrie, and now residing at Bolton Hall, in the County of Cumberland, being sound in body and mind, do deliver this as my last will and testament. I give and bequeath all the property, real or personal, which I now possess or may hereafter become entitled to, to my dear friend and mistress, Catharine Peyton, daughter of Henry Peyton, Esquire, of Peyton Hall: provided always that the said Catharine Peyton shall at no time within the next ten years marry George Neville of Neville's Court in this county. But should the said Catharine marry the said George within ten years of this day, then I leave all my said property, in possession, remainder, or reversion, to my heir-at-law."
The fair legatee read this extraordinary testament more than once. At last she handed it back to Mr. Houseman without a word. But her cheek was red, and her eyes glistening.
Mr. Houseman was surprised at her silence; and as he was curious to know her heart, he sounded her, asked her what she thought of that part of his story. But she evaded him with all the tact of her sex.
"What! that is not all, then?" said she, quickly.
Houseman replied, that it was barely half.
"Then tell me all, pray tell me all," said Kate, earnestly.
"I am here to that end," said Houseman, and recommenced his narrative.
"The business being done to Mr. Gaunt's satisfaction, though not to mine, we fell into some friendly talk; but in the midst of it my clerk Thomas brought me in the card of a gentleman whom I was very desirous to secure as a client.
"Mr. Gaunt, I think, read my mind; for he took leave of me forthwith. I attended him to the door, and then welcomed the gentleman aforesaid. It was no other than Mr. George Neville.
"Mr. Neville, after such graciouscivilities as his native breeding and foreign travel have taught him, came to business, and requested me—to draw his will."
("La!" said Kate,)
"I was a little startled, but hid it and took his instructions. This done, I requested to see the title-deeds of his estates, with a view to describing them, and he went himself to his banker's for them and placed them in my hands.
"I then promised to have the will ready in a week or ten days. But Mr. Neville, with many polite regrets for hurrying me, told me upon his honor he could give me but twenty-four hours, 'After that,' said he, 'it might be too late.'"
("Ah!" said Miss Peyton.)
"Determined to retain my new client, I set my clerks to work, and this very day was engrossed, signed, and witnessed, the last will and testament of George Neville, Esquire, of Neville's Court, in the County of Cumberland, and Leicester Square, London, where he hath a noble mansion.
"Now as to the general disposition of his lands, manorial rights, messuages, tenements, goods, chattels, etc., and his special legacies to divers ladies and gentlemen and domestic servants, these I will not reveal even to you.
"The paper I now produce is a copy of that particular bequest which I have decided to communicate to you in strict and sacred confidence."
And he handed her an extract from George Neville's will.
Miss Peyton then read what follows:—
"And I give and bequeath to Mistress Catharine Peyton, of Peyton Hall, in the said County of Cumberland, in token of my respect and regard, all that my freehold estate called Moniton Grange, with the messuage or tenement standing and being thereon, and the farm-yard buildings and appurtenances belonging thereto, containing by estimation three hundred and seventy-six acres three roods and five perches, be the same little more or less, to hold to her the said Catharine Peyton, her heirs and assigns, forever."
The legatee laid down the paper, and leaned her head softly on her fair hand, and her eyes explored vacancy.
"What means all this?" said she, aloud, but to herself.
Mr. Houseman undertook the office of interpreter.
"Means? Why, that he has left you one of the snuggest estates in the county. 'Tis not quite so large as Bolton; but lies sunnier, and the land richer. Well, Mistress, was I right? Are you not good for a thousand pounds?"
Kate, still manifestly thinking of something else, let fall, as it were, out of her mouth, that Mr. Gaunt and Mr. Neville were both men in the flower of their youth, and how was she the richer for their folly?
"Why," said Houseman, "you will not have to wait for the death of these testators,—Heaven forbid! But what does all this making of wills show me? That both these gentlemen are deep in love with you, and you can pick and choose; I say, you can wed with Bolton Hall or Neville's Court to-morrow; so, prithee, let the Squire have his hundred pounds, and do you repay me at your leisure."
Miss Peyton made no reply, but leaned her exquisite head upon her hand and pondered.
She did not knit her brows, nor labor visibly at the mental oar; yet a certain reposeful gravity and a fixity of the thoughtful eye showed she was applying all the powers of her mind.
Mr. Houseman was not surprised at that: his own wife had but little intellect; yet had he seen her weigh two rival bonnets in mortal silence, and with all the seeming profundity of a judge on the bench. And now this young lady was doubtless weighing farms with similar gravity, care, and intelligence.
But as this continued, and still she did not communicate her decision, he asked her point-blank which of the two she settled to wed: Neville's Court or Bolton Grange.
Thus appealed to, Miss Peyton turned her great eye on him, without really looking at him, and replied,—
"You have made me very uneasy."
He stared. She relapsed into thought a moment, and then, turning to Houseman, asked him howheaccounted for those two gentlemen making their wills. They were very young to make their wills all of a sudden.
"Why," said Houseman, "Mr. Neville is a man of sense, and every man of sense makes his will; and as for Mr. Gaunt, he has just come into prospect of an estate; that's why."
"Ah, but why could not Griffith wait till after the funeral?"
"Oh, clients are always in a hurry."
"So you see nothing in it? nothing alarming, I mean?"
"Nothing very alarming. Two landed proprietors in love with you; that is all."
"But, dear Mr. Houseman, that is what makes me uneasy: at this rate, they must look on one another as—as—rivals; and you know rivals are sometimes enemies."
"Oh, I see now," said Houseman: "you apprehend a quarrel between the gentlemen. Of course there is no love lost between them: but they met in my office and saluted each other with perfect civility. I saw them with my own eyes."
"Indeed! I am glad to hear that,—very glad. I hope it was only a coincidence then, their both making their wills."
"Nothing more, you may depend: neither of them knows from me what the other has done, nor ever will."
"That is true," said Kate, and seemed considerably relieved.
To ease her mind entirely, Houseman went on to say, that, as to the report that high words had passed between the clients in question at the "Roebuck," he had no doubt it was exaggerated.
"Besides," said he, "that was not about a lady: I'm told it was about a horse,—some bet belike."
Catharine uttered a faint cry.
"About a horse?" said she. "Not about a gray horse?"
"Nay, that is more than I know."
"High words about a horse," said Catharine,—"and they are making their wills. Oh! my mind misgave me from the first." And she turned pale. Presently she clasped her hands together,—"Mr. Houseman!" she cried, "what shall I do? What! do you not see that both their lives are in danger, and that is why they make their wills? And how shouldboththeir lives be in danger, but from each other? Madmen! they have quarrelled; they are going to fight,—fight to the death; and I fear it is about me,—me, who love neither of them, you know."
"In that case,letthem fight," said her legal adviser, dispassionately. "Whichever fool gets killed, you will be none the poorer." And the dog wore a sober complacency.
Catharine turned her large eyes on him with horror and amazement, but said nothing.
As for the lawyer, he was more struck with her sagacity than with anything. He somewhat overrated it,—not being aware of the private reasons she had for thinking that her two testators were enemies to the death.
"I almost think you are right," said he; "for I got a curious missive from Mr. Gaunt scarce an hour agone, and he says—let me see what he says"——
"Nay, letmesee," said Kate.
On that he handed her Griffith's note. It ran thus:—
"It is possible I may not be able to conduct the funeral. Should this be so, I appoint you to act for me. So, then, good Mr. Houseman, let me count on you to be here at nine of the clock. For Heaven's sake fail me not."Your humble servant,"G. G."
"It is possible I may not be able to conduct the funeral. Should this be so, I appoint you to act for me. So, then, good Mr. Houseman, let me count on you to be here at nine of the clock. For Heaven's sake fail me not.
"Your humble servant,"G. G."
This note left no doubt in Kate's mind.
"Now, first of all," said she, "what answer made you to this?"
"What answer should I make? I pledged my word to be at Bolton at nine of the clock."
"Oh, blind!" sighed Kate. "And I must be out of the room! What shall I do? My dear friend, forgive me: I am a wretched girl. I am to blame. I ought to have dismissed them both, or else decided between them. But who would have thought it would go this length? I did not think Griffith was brave enough. Have pity on me, and help me. Stop this fearful fighting." And now the young creature clung to the man-of-business, and prayed and prayed him earnestly to avert bloodshed.
Mr. Houseman was staggered by this passionate appeal from one who so rarely lost her self-command. He soothed her as well as he could, and said he would do his best,—but added, which was very true, that he thought her interference would be more effective than his own.
"What care these young bloods for an old attorney? I should fare ill, came I between their rapiers. To be sure, I might bind them over to keep the peace. But, Mistress Kate, now be frank with me; then I can serve you better. You love one of these two: that is clear. Which is the man?—that I may know what I am about."
For all her agitation, Kate was on her guard in some things.
"Nay," she faltered, "I love neither,—not to say love them: but I pity him so!"
"Which?"
"Both."
"Ay, Mistress; but which do you pity most?" asked the shrewd lawyer.
"Whichever shall come to harm for my sake," replied the simple girl.
"You could not go to them to-night, and bring them to reason?" asked she, piteously.
She went to the window to see what sort of a night it was. She drew the heavy crimson curtains and opened the window. In rushed a bitter blast laden with flying snow. The window-ledges, too, were clogged with snow, and all the ground was white.
Houseman shuddered, and drew nearer to the blazing logs. Kate closed the window with a groan.
"It is not to be thought of," said she, "at your age, and not a road to be seen for snow. What shall I do?"
"Wait till to-morrow," said Mr. Houseman.
(Procrastination was his daily work, being an attorney.)
"To-morrow!" cried Catharine. "Perhaps to-morrow will be too late. Perhaps even now they have met, and he lies a corpse."
"Who?"
"Whichever it is, I shall end my days in a convent praying for his soul."
She wrung her hands while she said this, and still there was no catching her.
Little did the lawyer think to rouse such a storm with his good news. And now he made a feeble and vain attempt to soothe her, and ended by promising to start the first thing in the morning and get both her testators bound over to keep the peace by noon. With this resolution he went to bed early.
She was glad to be alone, at all events.
Now, mind you, there were plenty of vain and vulgar, yet respectable girls, in Cumberland, who would have been delighted to be fought about, even though bloodshed were to be the result. But this young lady was not vain, but proud. She was sensitive, too, and troubled with a conscience. It reproached her bitterly: it told her she had permitted the addresses of two gentlemen, and so mischief had somehow arisen—out of her levity. Now her life had been uneventful and innocent: this was the very first time she had been connected with anything like a crime, and her remorse was great; so was her grief; but her fears were greater still. The terrible look Griffith had cast at his rival flashed on her; so did his sinister words. She felt, that, if he and Neville met, nothing less than Neville's death or his own would separate them. Suppose that even now one of them lay a corpse,cold and ghastly as the snow that now covered Nature's face!
The agitation of her mind was such that her body could not be still. Now she walked the room in violent distress, wringing her hands; now she kneeled and prayed fervently for both those lives she had endangered; often she flew to the window and looked eagerly out, writhing and rebelling against the network of female custom that entangled her and would not let her fly out of her cage even to do a good action,—to avert a catastrophe by her prayers, or her tears, or her good sense.
And all ended in her realizing that she was a woman, a poor, impotent being, born to lie quiet and let things go: at that she wept helplessly.
So wore away the first night of agony this young creature ever knew.
Towards morning, exhausted by her inward struggles, she fell asleep upon a sofa.
But her trouble followed her. She dreamed she was on a horse, hurried along with prodigious rapidity, in a darkened atmosphere, a sort of dry fog: she knew somehow she was being taken to see some awful, mysterious thing. By-and-by the haze cleared and she came out upon pleasant, open, sunny fields, that almost dazzled her. She passed gates, and hedges too, all clear, distinct, and individual. Presently a voice by her side said, "This way!" and her horse seemed to turn of his own accord through a gap, and in one moment she came on a group of gentlemen. It was Griffith Gaunt, and two strangers. Then she spoke, and said,—
"But Mr. Neville?"
No answer was made her; but the group opened in solemn silence, and there lay George Neville on the snow, stark and stiff, with blood issuing from his temple, and trickling along the snow.
She saw distinctly all his well-known features: but they were pinched and sharpened now. And his dark olive skin was turned to bluish white. It was his corpse. And now her horse thrust out his nose and snorted like a demon. She looked down, and, ah! the blood was running at her preternaturally fast along the snow. She screamed, her horse reared high, and she was falling on the blood-stained snow. She awoke, screaming; and the sunlight seemed to rush in at the window.
Her joy that it was only a dream overpowered every other feeling at first. She kneeled and thanked God for that.
The next thing was, she thought it might be a revelation of what had actually occurred.
But this chilling fear did not affect her long. Nothing could shake her conviction that a duel was on foot,—and, indeed, the intelligent of her sex do sometimes put this and that together, and spring to a just, but obvious inference, in away that looks to a slower and safer reasoner like divination,—but then she knew that yesterday evening both parties were alive. Coupling this with Griffith's broad hint that after the funeral might be too late to make his will, she felt sure that it was this very day the combatants were to meet. Yes, and this very morning: for she knew that gentlemen always fought in the morning.
If her dream was false as to the past, it might be true as to what was at hand. Was it not a supernatural warning, sent to her in mercy? The history of her Church abounded in such dreams and visions; and, indeed, the time and place she lived in were rife with stories of the kind,—one, in particular, of recent date.
This thought took hold of her, and grew on her, till it overpowered even the diffidence of her sex; and then up started her individual character; and now nothing could hold her. For, languid and dreamy in the common things of life, this Catharine Peyton was one of those who rise into rare ardor and activity in such great crises as seem to benumb the habitually brisk, and they turn tame and passive.
She had seen at a glance that Houseman was too slow and apathetic for such an emergency. She resolved to act herself. She washed her face and neck and arms and hands in cold water, and was refreshed and invigorated. She put onher riding-habit and her little gold spur, (Griffith Gaunt had given it her,) and hurried into the stable-yard.
Old Joe and his boy had gone away to breakfast: he lived in the village.
This was unlucky: Catharine must wait his return and lose time, or else saddle the horse herself. She chose the latter. The piebald was a good horse, but a fidgetty one; so she saddled and bridled him at his stall. She then led him out to the stone steps in the stable-yard, and tried to mount him. But he sidled away; she had nobody to square him; and she could get nothing to mount but his head. She coaxed him, she tickled him on the other side with her whip. It was all in vain.
It was absurd, but heart-sickening. She stared at him with wonder that he could be so cruel as to play the fool when every minute might be life or death. She spoke to him, she implored him piteously, she patted him. All was in vain.
As a last resource, she walked him back to the stable and gave him a sieveful of oats, and set it down by the corn-bin for him, and took an opportunity to mount the bin softly.
He ate the oats, but with retroverted eye watched her. She kept quiet and affectednonchalancetill he became less cautious,—then suddenly sprang on him, and taught him to set his wit against a woman's. My Lord wheeled round directly, ere she could get her leg over the pommel, and made for the stable-door. She lowered her head to his mane and just scraped out without injury,—not an inch to spare. He set off at once, but luckily for her she had often ridden a bare-backed horse. She sat him for the first few yards by balance, then reined him in quietly, and soon whipped her left foot into the stirrup and her right leg over the pommel; and then the piebald nag had to pay for his pranks: the roads were clogged with snow, but she fanned him along without mercy, and never drew bridle till she pulled him up, drenched and steaming like a washtub, at Netley Cross-Roads.
Here she halted irresolute. The road to the right led to Bolton, distant two miles and a half. The road in front led to Neville's Court, distant three miles. Which should she take? She had asked herself this a dozen times upon the road, yet could never decide until she got to the place andmust. The question was, With which of them had she most influence? She hardly knew. But Griffith Gaunt was her old sweetheart; it seemed somewhat less strange and indelicate to go to him than to the new one. So she turned her horse's head towards Bolton; but she no longer went quite so fast as she had gone before she felt going to either in particular. Such is the female mind.
She reached Bolton at half-past eleven, and, now she was there, put a bold face on it, rode up to the door, and, leaning forward on her horse, rang the hall-bell.
A footman came to the door.
With composed visage, though beating heart, she told him she desired to speak for a moment to Mr. Griffith Gaunt. He asked her, would she be pleased to alight; and it was clear by his manner no calamity had yet fallen.
"No, no," said Kate; "let me speak to him here."
The servant went in to tell his master. Kate sat quiet, with her heart still beating, but glowing now with joy. She was in time, then, thanks to her good horse. She patted him, and made the prettiest excuses aloud to him for riding him so hard through the snow.
The footman came back to say that Mr. Gaunt had gone out.
"Gone out? Whither? On horseback?"
The footman did not know, but would ask within.
While he was gone to inquire, Catharine lost patience, and rode into the stable-yard, and asked a young lout, who was lounging there, whether his master was gone out on horseback.
The lounging youth took the trouble to call out the groom, and asked him.
The groom said, "No," and that Mr. Gaunt was somewhere about the grounds, he thought.
But in the midst of this colloquy, one of the maids, curious to see the lady, came out by the kitchen-door, and curtsied to Kate, and told her Mr. Gaunt was gone out walking with two other gentlemen. In the midst of her discourse, she recognized the visitor, and, having somehow imbibed the notion that Miss Peyton was likely to be Mrs. Gaunt, and govern Bolton Hall, decided to curry favor with her; so she called her "My Lady," and was very communicative. She said one of the gentlemen was strange to her; but the other was Doctor Islip, from Stanhope town. She knew him well: he had taken off her own brother's leg in a jiffy.
"But, dear heart, Mistress," said she, "how pale you be! Do come in, and have a morsel of meat and a horn of ale."
"Nay, my good girl," said Kate; "I could not eat; but bring me a mug of new milk, if you will. I have not broken my fast this day."
The maid bustled in, and Catharine asked the groom if there were no means of knowing where Mr. Gaunt was. The groom and the boy scratched their heads, and looked puzzled. The lounging lout looked at their perplexity, and grinned satirically.
This youth was Tom Leicester, born in wedlock, and therefore, in the law's eye, son of old Simon Leicester; but gossips said his true father was the late Captain Gaunt. Tom ran with the hounds for his own sport,—went out shooting with gentlemen, and belabored the briers for them at twopence per day and his dinner,—and abhorred all that sober men call work.
By trade, a Beater; profession, a Scamp.
Two maids came out together now,—one with the milk and a roll, the other with a letter. Catharine drank the milk, but could not eat. Then says the other maid,—
"If so be you are Mistress Peyton, why, this letter is for you. Master left it on his table in his bed-room."
Kate took the letter and opened it, all in a flutter. It ran thus:—
"Sweet Mistress,—When this reaches you, I shall be no more here to trouble you with my jealousy. This Neville set it abroad that you had changed horses with him, as much as to say you had plighted troth with him. He is a liar, and I told him so to his teeth. We are to meet at noon this day, and one must die. Methinks I shall be the one. But come what may, I have taken care of thee; ask Jack Houseman else. But, O dear Kate, think of all that hath passed between us, and do not wed this Neville, or I could not rest in my grave. Sweetheart, many a letter have I written thee, but none so sad as this. Let the grave hide my faults from thy memory; think only that I loved thee well. I leave thee my substance—would it were ten times more!—and the last thought of my heart.
"So no more in this world"From him that is thy true lover"And humble servant till death,"Griffith Gaunt."
"So no more in this world
"From him that is thy true lover
"And humble servant till death,
"Griffith Gaunt."
There seems to be room in the mind for only one violent emotion at one instant of time. This touching letter did not just then draw a tear from her, who now received it some hours sooner than the writer intended. Its first effect was to paralyze her. She sat white and trembling, and her great eyes filled with horror. Then she began to scream wildly for help. The men and women came round her.
"Murder! murder!" she shrieked. "Tell me where to find him, ye wretches, or may his blood be on your heads!"
The Scamp bounded from his lounging position, and stood before her straight as an arrow.
"Follow me!" he shouted.
Her gray eyes and the Scamp's black ones flashed into one another directly. He dashed out of the yard without another word.
And she spurred her horse, and clattered out after him.
He ran as fast as her horse could canter, and soon took her all round the house; and while he ran, his blackgypsy eyes were glancing in every direction.
When they got to the lawn at the back of the house, he halted a moment, and said quietly,—
"Here they be."
He pointed to some enormous footsteps in the snow, and bade her notice that they commenced at a certain glass door belonging to the house, and that they all pointed outwards. The lawn was covered with such marks, but the Scamp followed those his intelligence had selected, and they took him through a gate, and down a long walk, and into the park. Here no other feet had trodden that morning except those Tom Leicester was following.
"This is our game," said he. "See, there be six footsteps; and, now I look, this here track is Squire Gaunt's. I know his foot in the snow among a hundred. Bless your heart, I've often been out shooting with Squire Gaunt, and lost him in the woods, and found him again by tracking him on dead leaves, let alone snow. I say, wasn't they useless idiots? Couldn't tell ye how to run into a man, and snow on the ground! Why, you can track a hare to her form, and a rat to his hole,—let alone such big game as this, with a hoof like a frying-pan,—in the snow."
"Oh, do not talk; let us make haste," panted Kate.
"Canter away!" replied the Scamp.
She cantered on, and he ran by her side.
"Shall I not tire you?" said she.
Themauvais sujetlaughed at her.
"Tireme?Not over this ground. Why, I run with the hounds, and mostly always in at the death; but that is not altogether speed: ye see I know Pug's mind. What! don't you knowme? I'm Tom Leicester. Why, I know you: I say, you are a good-hearted one, you are."
"Oh, no! no!" sighed Kate.
"Nay, but you are," said Tom. "I saw you take Harrowden Brook that day, when the rest turned tail; and that is what I call having a good heart. Gently, Mistress, here,—this is full of rabbit-holes. I seen Sir Ralph's sorrel mare break her leg in a moment in one of these. Shot her dead that afternoon, a did, and then b'iled her for the hounds. She'd often follow at their tails; next hunting-day she ran inside their bellies. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Oh, don't laugh! I am in agony!"
"Why, what is up, Mistress?" asked the young savage, lowering his voice. "'Murder,' says you; but that meansnought. The lasses they cry murder, if you do but kiss 'em."
"Oh, Tom Leicester, itismurder! It's a duel, a fight to the death, unless we are in time to prevent them."
"A jewel!" cried Master Leicester, his eyes glittering with delight. "I never saw a jewel. Don't you hold him in for me, Mistress: gallop down this slope as hard as you can pelt; it is grass under foot, and ye can't lose the tracks, and I shall be sure to catch ye in the next field."
The young savage was now as anxious to be in at the death as Kate was to save life. As he spoke, he gave her horse a whack on the quarter with his stick, and away she went full gallop, and soon put a hundred yards between her and Tom.
The next field was a deep fallow, and the hard furrows reduced her to a trot; and before she got out of it Tom was by her side.
"Didn't I tell you?" said he. "I'd run you to Peyton Hall for a pot o' beer."
"Oh, you good, brave, clever boy!" said Kate, "how fortunate I am to have you! I think we shall be in time."
Tom was flattered.
"Why, you see, I am none of Daddy Leicester's breed," said he. "I'm a gentleman's by-blow, if you know what that is."
"I can't say I do," said Kate; "but I know you are very bold and handsome, and swift of foot; and I know my patron saint has sent you to me in my misery. And, oh, my lad, if we are in time,—what can I do for you? Are you fond of money, Tom?"
"That I be,—when I can get it."
"Then you shall have all I have got in the world, if you get me there in time to hinder mischief."
"Come on!" shouted Tom, excited in his turn, and took the lead; and not a word more passed till they came to the foot of a long hill. Then said Tom,—
"Once we are at top of this, they can't fight without our seeing 'em. That is Scutchemsee Nob: you can see ten miles all round from there."
At this information Kate uttered an ejaculation, and urged her horse forward.
The first part of this hill, which stood between her and those whose tracks she followed, was grass; then came a strip of turnips; then on the bleak top a broad piece of heather. She soon cantered over the grass, and left Tom so far behind he could not quite catch her in the turnips. She entered the heather, but here she was much retarded by the snow-drifts and the ups and downs of the rough place. But she struggled on bravely, still leading.
She fixed her eyes earnestly on the ridge, whence she could cry to the combatants, however distant, and stop the combat.
Now as she struggled on, and Tom came after, panting a little for the first time, suddenly there rose from the crest of the hill two columns of smoke, and the next moment two sharp reports ran through the frosty air.
Kate stopped, and looked round to Tom with a scared, inquiring air.
"Pistols!" yelled Tom behind her.
At that the woman overpowered the heroine, and Kate hid her face and fell to trembling and wailing. Her wearied horse came down to a walk.
Presently up comes Tom.
"Don't lose your stomach for that," he panted out. "Gentlefolks do pop at one another all day sometimes, and no harm done."
"Oh, bless you!" cried Kate; "I may yet be in time."
She spurred her horse on. He did his best, but ere he had gone twenty yards he plunged into a cavity hidden by the snow.
While he was floundering there, crack went a single pistol, and the smoke rose and drifted over the hill-top.
"Who—op!" muttered Tom, with horriblesang-froid. "There's one done for this time. Couldn't shoot back, ye see."
At this horrible explanation Kate sank forward on her horse's mane as if she herself had been killed; and the smoke from the pistol came floating, thinner and thinner, and eddied high over her head.
Tom spoke rude words of encouragement to her. She did not even seem to hear them. Then he lost all patience at her, and clutched her arm to make her hear him. But at that it seemed as if some of his nature passed into her down his arm; for she turned wild directly, and urged her horse fiercely up the crest. Her progress was slow at first; but the sun had melted the snow on the Nob or extreme summit. She tore her way through the last of the snow on to the clear piece,—then, white as ashes, spurred and lashed her horse over the ridge, and dashed in amongst them on the other side. For there they were.
What was the sight that met her eyes?
That belongs to the male branch of my story, and shall be told forthwith, but in its proper sequence.
Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M.A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-1853. Edited byStopford A. Brooke, M. A. Two Volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M.A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-1853. Edited byStopford A. Brooke, M. A. Two Volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
The Life and Letters of Mr. Robertson will find a most extended and appreciative welcome among a large company of sympathizing and grateful readers on both sides of the ocean. The way has been prepared for them, and their most hearty reception has been assured, by the acquaintance opened for us with his mind and heart through the extensive circulation of the several volumes containing his Sermons and Addresses. When the first of those volumes was reprinted here, it wrought an immediate effect upon hundreds, who were instinctively drawn to its perusal, and who have since seized with avidity upon each subsequent opportunity furnished them for possessing themselves of everything that could be put into print which would renew and intensify that effect. An exhaustive review of that one department of our religious literature which embraces utterances from the pulpit would, we believe, fully establish these two positions: first, that the ability shown alike in the composition and in the delivery of sermons is at least equal in each age and generation to the average of that which is exhibited in the forum and at the bar; and, second, that preachers of extraordinary power appear at just such intervals and under just such conditions as will best assure us of a reserved and as yet unrecognized capability in the pulpit, redeeming it from the charge of a general dulness and exhaustion. It was at the very time when the newspaper press of England and America was reiterating and illustrating this charge, not without many tokens that supported it, that the sermons of Mr. Robertson were offering at least one signal exception to its truth, sufficient even to silence it within the range of his ministry. An eminently able and effective preacher appears often enough to reassert the loftiest ideal of his profession, and, what is more, to vindicate it against the distrust and contempt to which it may seem to be exposed by the "popular preachers." As we write, there is circulating through the papers a very striking paragraph from an article by that distinguished divine, Mr. Caird, in which, with a sharp criticism, he deals, as we should suppose a man of his high tone would deal, with the theme of popular preaching, especially as to its effects upon the dispenser of it and upon the crowds who gather to it. Mr. Robertson shrank from the repute of it, and the inflictions which it visits, as he did from sin. He knew full well, that, as the popular taste and standard were not educated to an appreciation and approval of the very loftiest style of ministration, the more of curious, gaping notoriety, or even admiration, he might draw towards him, the poorer was the incense.
Yet there must be a fallacy somewhere involved in the common judgment on this subject. For Mr. Robertson certainly was a popular preacher; and yet, as he never made the slightest concession to any of the arts or trickeries, the displays or exaggerations, which are supposed to be essential conditions of that repute, his own example and experience may stand as at least an exceptional proof of the possible dignity and solidity of the position. When he had been addressing a thronged congregation, who hung, impressed and awed, upon his utterances, he goes home to write about the scene and its circumstances in strong disdain, almost with angry contempt, as if it were a reproach to himself. Did not the large majority of his hearers receive in their hearts and minds the electric power of his earnest and ever instructive speech? Suppose it were true, as he had painful reasons for knowing, that there were always before him frivolous, empty-headed, and unappreciative hearers, the hangers-on of a fashionable watering-place, who went to listen to him because he was the rage; such as these could be only a scattering among his auditors. Suppose, too, that the captious, the jealous, the bigoted, and the conceited were represented there, intending to catch matter for bringing him under public odium in their own circles, because he trespassed upon the borders of heresy, or shocked the conventional standards of snobbish society, or spread his range broadly over the widest fields of moral and political relations; the very presence and purpose of such listeners were, to one of his grandeur and purity of spirit, a new inspiration of courage and fidelity. On the whole, so far as Mr. Robertsonreally came under the designation which he so dreaded to bear, he has made it an honorable one. Perhaps it would not be saying the right, as it certainly is not saying the best thing about his sermons, now so widely circulated on both sides of the Atlantic, to speak of them as meeting any popular taste. Would that we could estimate so highly the craving and the standard, among what are called religious readers, as to assert for him a favoritism equal to that accorded to a Cumming, a Spurgeon, or even a Chalmers. Chalmers may have spoken from what was, in his time, the highest round of elevation at which he would have been listened to by those who demanded fidelity to an accepted doctrinal system as the basis for whatever eloquence, logic, rhetoric, or unction might avail in presenting it. But Mr. Robertson rose to a higher plane, and took a far wider horoscope. His freest ventures require that he have readers able and willing to share them.
The biographical materials now furnished will afford a high gratification to readers on this continent, who, after perusing the sermons of Mr. Robertson, have felt a keen desire to know something about the man. We believe that very many of those readers, after availing themselves of the information concerning him imparted in these volumes, will turn back again to his discourses to give them a more deliberate study. He was a man to engage the profoundest interest of those who live to scrutinize the elements of character and the developments of a life-history and work in an individual whose mission is that of a reconciler and a reconstructor of opinions, creeds, and theories, in one of the great transitional periods of thought and belief.
The biography before us is a model which cannot be too closely followed by any one who in time to come shall be privileged to have a subject for his pen at all resembling, or approximating to, the character and career of this extraordinary man. The editor was himself rarely privileged for his work in the quality of his materials, and he has shown an admirable skill in their use. His chapters begin with the statement of dates, facts, incidents of a biographical or local character, marking the life-periods, the external relations and positions of Mr. Robertson, and are then substantially made up of his correspondence. We can recall now no collection of letters which can be compared with these for comprehensiveness of matter, felicity of diction, and elevation of tone and sentiment, in discussing alike the commonplace and the loftiest themes of didactic and spiritual religion, under the most vitalized and intense dealing with it in our modern life. If we should utter all we have felt, as we have lingered as if entranced over many of these pages, we should fail of carrying with us those who, not having yet read them, would, after their perusal, pronounce our encomiums inadequate. Mr. Robertson's life was a short one, covering only thirty-seven years. There was nothing conspicuous in the sphere of it. He held only the lower offices of his clerical profession. Yet we believe we can say, without exaggeration, that no one member of that profession, from its bishops down to its curates, with perhaps the single exception of Dean Stanley, has so wisely divined or so ably presented as he did the modifications which must be made in the popular dispensation of religion through the Church, if it is longer to expect a hearing, or even its present show of tolerance, from those who share the average intelligence of the age.
This man, who so nobly, and with a rare consistency of character and life, fulfilled the office of a minister of the Prince of Peace, seems all along to have had a heart divided by its first love for a military life and service. Many readers will find a puzzling problem in reconciling themselves to this fact, as it shows tokens all through his career that the preference of his youth was also that of his experienced manhood. His honored father still survives him as a Captain in the Royal Artillery, retired from service. Three brothers in the military service also survive the preacher. He was brought up, as he often writes, in camps and barracks, and loved no sound as he did the boom of artillery. It was a grievous cross to his cherished inclinations, when he was sent by parental authority to the University. Being there, he had no misgiving as to the choice left him for life. He gave himself heart and soul to the ministry, and that, too, under views of doctrine and duty, to be followed out in its discharge, amazingly unlike those to which the free, expanding, and grandly independent growth of his own rare powers finally led him. Would he have been the same heroic, conscientious, and devout man as a soldier that he was as a minister? the reader will more than once be prompted to ask over these pages. He would have been a splendid example of heroism and chivalry in any cause whichhis conscience could have espoused. But if military orders had constrained his loyalty in behalf of some of the infamous predatory outrages which English arms have of late years visited upon India and China, could a man such as he was have retained his commission? His letters give abundant proof that his ecclesiastical superiors had no prerogative sway over his conscience. How could he have borne the constraints of subordination in following a flag which recognizes no scruples of distinctions between right and wrong when it rallies its champions? However this might have been, certain it is that all the grand imagery of the battle-field and the fight, of spear and breastplate, shield and sword, of soldierly manliness and fidelity, by which St. Paul symbolizes the warfare of life, and the armor of those who would come off conquerors, is literally and gloriously realized in Mr. Robertson's course and in himself. He was a soldier of the sublimest type,—a bold, earnest, self-denying, effective, and high-souled battler of the worst foes of man, and the gentle, kindly, loving defender of the weak, the unfriended, the wronged. He his wishes which left him free to fight the enemies of truth and righteousness.
During his student-life at Oxford his mind seemed to have been held in a balance by his affections between those who had committed themselves respectively to the Tractarian and the Evangelical parties. The solution which he was to work out for himself of any real perplexities involved in the issue between them was to lead him clear of both of them. His own devoutness and sincerity, aided no doubt by the domestic and social influences of his early religious training, set him forward, in the first experimentings as a curate, as an earnest disciple of the "evangelical" fellowship. He made a faithful trial of its principles and methods. His reading and his self-training, his standard of fidelity, and the tone and style of his ministerial work, were all dictated by the teaching of that school. He outgrew it, and cast aside all that belonged to it: he came utterly to detest and loathe its characteristic peculiarities. Ever remaining heartily loyal, as he believed, in essential doctrinal conviction, and in practical conformity, to the Church of England, he allowed himself a range of liberty within the terms of its formulas, which left him, as he felt, not only unfettered, but also quickened by the inspiration of a freedom restrained by no other bounds than those of humility and reverence. His power of apprehension, his skill in analysis, his keen sagacity and penetration in detecting the kernel of truth through all husks and integuments, made him the most facile of critics, as well as one of the most trustworthy interpreters of conflicting theories. His magnanimity and catholicity of spirit gave him an almost preternatural comprehensiveness of sympathy with minds and consciences struggling in opposite directions for satisfaction. He engaged himself upon all the freshest problems which the critical, scientific, and radical restlessness of our age has opened. We believe that professional experts, and even the foremost pioneers in the new fields which have thus been opened, will find valued help, either of cheering encouragement, or of wise, restraining caution, in his passing comments on their materials or methods. He was wholly free of that conceit and superciliousness of temper by which most of the rash and blatant empirics of "advanced thought" manage to disgust the slow and conservative makeweights of moderation. If we should attempt to express in a single phrase the charm and loftiness of Mr. Robertson's personal and representative manifestation, we should say, that he, more than any other man of the age, was the saint of the new liberalism, even of the extreme radicalism. More than any other conspicuous man who had cast aside and spurned the old traditionalisms of credulity, ignorance, and prejudice, he consecrated free-thinking. For each single negation he offers a positive belief, or a tenable ground of belief, which substitutes an efficient and quickening tenet for a faith such as will satisfy and sanctify. Of course he shocked and startled many, but none through flippancy or irreverence. He was capable of a holy indignation, and even occasionally, it would seem, of bitterness of tone, when he knew, by a divining spirit which no sham or hypocrisy could blind, that he was challenged not in the interests of truth, but of falsehood. Like all great and searching souls, he had a dark shadow of melancholy often cast over him. He is another witness to us of a well-certified truth, that deep thoughts, while they are in process, not in repose, are sad thoughts. What sort of friends he had, and by what tenacity of love, reverence, and gratitude he held them, and how the delicate ties which bound them to his heart were felt by him as inspirationsto fidelity in such lofty trusts, a score of letters in these volumes will touchingly illustrate. As we have been enjoying their perusal with a rare delight, we have anticipated the same experience as multitudes around us will share in.