“ANDso the Cornel’s at Marchmain; it’s like you’re acquaint with all the history of that family, Patchey, my lad—tak up your glass; ould comrades like you and me are no in the way of meeting every day, and you’ve a long road and a lone across the moor.”
So said Sergeant Kennedy, possessed with a virtuous curiosity to learn all that could be learned from “the Cornel’s own man,” who, with the instinct peculiar to his class, had speedily found out that good ale and company were to be had at the “Tillington Arms,” where Mrs. Gilsland showed great respect and honour to the important Patchey. Patchey had already taken glasses enough to increasehis dignity and solemn demeanour. He had grown slow and big of speech, and eloquent on the great importance of his own services to the Colonel.
“He’s a wise man for other folk,” said Patchey deliberately, “but a child, and nothing but a child, where his own affairs is concerned. If it werena for me that ken the world, and keep a strict eye upon the house, he would be ruined, mum; ye may take my word for it—ten times in the year.”
“Acquaint with all the family?—I’m no a braggart,” said Patchey, in answer to this question; “but it stands to natur that in the coorse of our colloquies upon affairs in general the Cornel says many a thing to me.”
“Not a doubt about it—especially,” said the Sergeant, gravely, “as you’re well known to be a discreet lad, and wan that’s to be trusted—as was known of ye since ever ye entered the regiment, though I say it. Ye see, mistress, he was always a weel-respected man.”
“The Cornel, as I was saying,” continued Patchey, passing loftily over thiscompliment, “says many a thing to me that it would ill become me to say over again; but this ye a’ ken as well as me. The gentleman at Marchmain was married upon the Cornel’s sister, and died of a stroke, and the visitation of God, the day afore yesterday; and a’ the great fortune that’s been lying gathering this mony a year has come to his son.”
“Eyeh, Mr. Patchey! but the fortin’—that’s just the thing I cannot make owght of, head nor tail,” cried Mrs. Gilsland; “there was never no signs, as ever I heard tell on, of fortin’ at Marchmain, and for a screw and ould skinflint, that would give nowght but the lowest for whatever she wanted, I’ll engage there’s no the marrow of Peggy from Kenlisle to Cardale; and if you had asked me, I could have vowed with my last breath that the family had seen better days, and were as poor as ever a family pretending to be gentry could be.”
At this statement, which he took to be derogatory to his dignity, Patchey squared his spare shoulders, and erected his head.
“Being near relations of my ain family,” said Patchey, “where persons have oucht to say agin the family at Marchmain, I would rather, of the twa, that it was not said to me.”
“Agin the family!” cried Mrs. Gilsland—“havers! wasn’t Mr. Horry at my house five nights in the week, and the Cornel himsel’ brought Miss here to dine? Do you mean to tell me its agin a family to say it’s seen better days? Eyeh! wae is me! to think there’s no a soul in the Grange but ould Sally, and the young Squire out upon the world to seek his fortin’ like any other man! but where’s the man would dare to say I thought the less o’ Mr. Roger? That’s no my disposition, Mr. Patchey. It may be the way o’ the world, but it isn’t mine.”
“Leftenant Musgrave, if it’s him you’re meaning, he’ll do weel, mum,” said Patchey, with solemnity; “he’s been visiting at our house, and the Cornel’s tooken him up. I would not say but more folk nor the Cornel had a kindness for that lad; but these affairsare awfu’ delicate. I wadna say a word for my life.”
“Eyeh, man! I’ll lay a shilling it’s Miss!” cried Mrs. Gilsland, in great excitement and triumph.
“But all this has little to do with the family at Marchmain,” said Sergeant Kennedy, as Patchey shook his head with mysterious importance—“what’s the rights o’ that story if wan might ask, Patchey, my friend?—for it’s little likely the Cornel would keep a grand family secret like that from a confidential man like you.”
“Ye’re right there, Sergeant; he’ll say more to me, will our Cornel, than to ony other living man, were it Mr. Ned or Mr. Tom, that are but callants,” said Patchey. “I ken mair nor most folk of a’ our ain concerns; but it’s as good as a play to hear this. I’ve made it out, a sma’ bit at a time, mysel’; and if it werena that the gentleman’s dead, ye might hew me down into little bits, before ye would get anything that wasna wanted to be heard, out of me. But he’s gane, poor gentleman, and a’ the better forhim, as I’ve little doubt; and Mr. Horry, as ye call him, has come into a great fortune. Ye see the rights of it was this:—the auld man of a’, the grandfather, had been a captious auld sinner, though I say it that should not; and being displeased ae way or anither at his son, this ane that’s now dead, he made a will, strick cutting him off, and leaving the haill inheritance at his death tohisson, a baby in his nurse’s arms. That’s just the short and the long of it. I’ve read sichlike in print; but it’s no often ye meet wi’ a devil’s invention like that in living life. And the Cornel’s sister’s husband, ye see, he took it savage, being but a young man then; and the poor lady died, and down came he here, with an ill heart at a’ the world—and the rest ye ken as weel as me.”
“Eyeh, man, is that the tale?” said Mrs. Gilsland. “I wouldn’t say but it was dead hard upon Mr. Horry’s papaw; but, dear life! was the man crazed that he would take it out on his childer?—for more neglected things than them two, begging your pardon, Mr. Patchey, were not in this countryside; andhow they’ve comed up to be as they are is just one of the miracles of Providence. Neyther a play nor a lesson like other folks’s childer, nor a soul, to see them frae year’s end to year’s end. It was common talk; that’s the way I know; but, eyeh, Mr. Patchey! had the very Cornel himsel’ no thought for them poor childer there?”
“The Colonel was at his duty, mum,” said Patchey. “He was resident at Rum Chunder station, and me with him; and he served in the Burmah war, and wherever bullets were flying, as the Sergeant can tell you. There was little time to think of our own bairns, let alone ither people’s, in these days. The Colonel was in Indeea, and in het wark, and me with him, for nigh upon forty year.”
“Hot work, ye may well say, Patchey, my friend,” said the Sergeant, authoritatively. “It’s little they know, them easy foulks at home, what the like of huz souldiers goes through. Eat when you can and sleep when you can, but work and fight awlways: them’s the orders of life as was upon you and me.”
“Eyeh, Sergeant!” cried Mrs. Gilsland,suddenly facing round upon the self-betrayed veteran, “was them the words you said to my Sam, when the lad was ’ticed away and ’listed all out of your flatteries?—or to the young Squire, when he hearkened to you? Eyeh, ye deceitful ould man! Is’t a parcel o’ stories, and nowght else, ye tell to the poor young lads, that knaw no better? and make poor mouths, and take pity on the sodgherin’, when ye’re awl by yoursel’?”
“Whisht, mistress, whisht!” said the Sergeant, who had recovered during this speech from his momentary dismay. “Did I say owght but what’s come true? Sam Gilsland’s been home on furlough, Patchey—as pretty a lad as ever handled a gun—corporal, and well spoken on; and the young Squire’s leftenant, and mentioned in the papers—and what could friend or relation, if it was an onreasonable woman, wish for more?”
“Ye may make your mind easy, mum, about Leftenant Musgrave; and your son, if he’s steady, will come well on in the Rifles—’special when the Cornel’s tooken him up,” said Patchey. “Our Cornel, he’s that kind ofa man when he takes an interest in a lad he’s not one that forgets. I should say he would do uncommon well if he’s steady, being come of responsible folk, and the Cornel for a friend.”
“The Lord be thankit, I have little reason to complain!” said Sam’s mother, wiping her eyes with her apron; “and it’s a rael handsome uniform, though it’s no so gaudy as your redcoats. I took my Sam for an officer and a grand gentleman when he came in at the door, before I saw his honest face,” cried the good woman, with a sob of pride; “and the Cornel’s good word is as good as a fortin’, and he’s uncommon kind is the young Squire. I wish them all comfort and prosperity now and evermore,” she concluded, with a little solemn curtsey, giving emphasis to her good wishes—“and Miss and Mr. Horry, as well; though he’s no more like the Cornel than you or me.”
“He takes after the faither’s family—he’s no like none of our folk,” said Patchey; “but, though I wouldna say the Cornel altogether approves of him, he’s much concerned aboutthe young gentleman the noo. He’s showed great feeling after a’, that young man; he was like a lad out of his mind when the faither was ill; and the day of the death, what does the Cornel find but Maister Horace dead on his face, fainted off in the study, and in a high fever ever since. The like of that, ye ken, shows feeling in a young man.”
“Feeling? They were none such good friends in life, if awl tales be true,” said Mrs. Gilsland. “My man, John, was all but put to the door when he went for Mr. Kerry’s things; and a lad like him, that was never greatly knawn for a loving heart, and was coming into a fortin’ besides—feeling here or feeling there, I don’t see no occasion for Mr. Horry fainting away.”
“Nor me,” said the Sergeant, emphatically; “but I ever said, and I’ll ever say, that though he’s the Cornel’s nevvy, and doubtless well connected, and good blood on wan side of the house, I’ll ever say yon’s an inscrutable lad.”
“That may be,” said the solemn Patchey; “but scrutable or no, he’s in a brain fever, andcraves guid guiding, and here’s me come for the medicine, if I hadna fallen in with ower guid company. Weel, weel—an hour mair or less will do the lad nae harm. I’ve little faith in physic for such like disorders. If ye’ve a good constitution and a clear conscience, and the help of Providence, ye’ll fight through: if ye havena, ye must e’en drop out of the ranks, and anither man’ll take your place. But I have Mr. Horace’s bottle in my pocket a’ this time; so, with your leave, I’ll bid you good day.”
Saying which, Patchey stalked out of the “Tillington Arms,” and took his solemn way across the moor. His step was slow, and his cogitations momentous. If he did not think much about Horace and his medicine, he settled sundry knotty points in philosophy as he wended through the fragrant heather. Patchey’s gravity and intense sense of decorum increased habitually with every glass he emptied; but, perhaps, when his moralities flourished most, he made least haste about his immediate business, and it is to be feared that the confidential communication which theColonel made to him when he reached the house was not of a flattering character. Horace got his physic an hour or two later than the proper time; but Patchey’s flowers of eloquence blossomed no more that day in the kitchen of Marchmain.
ITwas not till weeks after the mortal remains of his father had been laid to their final rest that Horace, out of his fever and frenzy, came to himself. Long before that time the popular opinion had changed concerning Marchmain and its inhabitants. The straggling country neighbourhood, with its little knots of villages, and solitary great houses, had eschewed for years that gaunt house on the moor; but, from the day on which the old soldier and the weeping girl stood alone together beside that grave—Susan, overpowered with a natural grief, which sprang more from her position as a daughter and a woman than from direct personal anguish, which could notexist in her case, weeping her tender natural tears, full of filial compunction and pity, on that quiet bed, where the unquiet man had at last found rest; while Colonel Sutherland stood by gravely mournful, his noble old face clouded with compassion and sorrow, not for the death, but for the life that found its conclusion there—the mind of the countryside had changed. The group was one which those who saw it could not forget; and it began to be remembered, in the great houses near, that Mr. Scarsdale, on his arrival, had been thought worthy of a visit, and that the name of the gallant old Colonel was not unknown to fame. Then, when already the matrons near began to take pity upon Susan’s lonely orphanage, and the dangerous illness of her brother, rumours, of which nobody could trace the origin, began to spread of the family history, and the great, unbelievable fortune which Mr. Scarsdale’s death had put into the hands of his son. The story was tragical enough, and had shades sufficiently dark to bear dilution and variation. Then Roger Musgrave appeared in haste upon the scene, bringing his motherwith him to his desolate old Grange—his mother, and little Edmund, and, of necessity, a train of servants. After a little they were followed—some hasty furnishing having in the meantime been done at Roger’s ancient house—by the beautiful Amelia and her sisters. Amelia proclaimed herself most anxious to see and comfort Susan, her brother Roger’s bride—but perhaps had a little curiosity besides to see with her own eyes what were the substantial attractions of Armitage Park. Edmund was not going to die, and Amelia had but little chance of being an heiress; so the beauty thought it might probably be as well, before Horace Scarsdale got better of his fever, to arrange matters with Sir John.
All these changes came about while Horace lay senseless in the wild turmoil of his fever, or, struggling with delirium and incipient madness, fought for his life. Susan had already received various matronly visits of condolence and sympathy; various young ladies unknown to her before had declared themselves ready to swear eternal friendship with the solitarygirl; and many a flattering report of the wealth and importance of Horace, such as would have been balm to his soul a few months ago, had been spread through the county; while Horace lay all unconscious of the fortune which had after all come to his hands unstained by actual bloodshed. When he did come to himself at last it was a warm midsummer day, the blazing sun of which made vain efforts to penetrate into his darkened room; and that room was full of the luxuries of sickness—those luxuries which only the most close and affectionate care provides. In the wonder and weakness of his sudden awaking, he lay motionless for a time looking round him, unable to connect what he saw with any portion of his former life. Long experience and close observation of his nephew had convinced Colonel Sutherland that some great mental shock was the occasion of his sudden illness, and the tender-hearted old man, forgetting when he watched by Horace’s bedside everything save that he was his sister’s son, had caused every piece of furniture which couldbe changed in the room to be taken away, and replaced the familiar objects with safe unknown articles, which could recall no painful associations to his patient’s mind. He was seated there himself grave and anxious, for this awakening was the crisis of the fever, and Uncle Edward had persuaded even Susan to leave him alone by his nephew’s side. The Colonel’s heart was heavy as he sat gravely pondering over the young man’s face; it was no “feeling” which had driven Horace desperate when his father died; and the grieved watcher, himself so nobly innocent and unsuspicious, could not but fear some miserable connection between the young man’s agony and that vindictive inscription in the medicine chest. He was afraid that Horace might say something to betray himself, or to convey some similar doubt to the mind of his sister, to vex Susan in her quietness; so he would have no one there with him to watch that awaking, but sat by the bedside grieved, anxious, and alone.
When Horace’s wandering, feeble glance fell upon his uncle, a great cloud and shadowcame over him even in the calm of his weakness. Everything came back to him in that first glimpse of Uncle Edward’s face. He shut his eyes tightly again, with a longing to return to his insensibility, and gave a groan out of the depths of his miserable heart. He was cured—his fever was over: he had come back to life, with its agonies worse than fever. The very sound of that groan gave signal of recovery to the watcher by his side.
“You must keep quiet, Horace; you are better: you will soon be well, if you take care. And here is something you are to take,” said the Colonel. “Hush! compose yourself, you live; and God is in heaven, and all will be well!”
But Horace did not answer; he kept his eyes shut for another bitter moment, gathering up the threads of his scattered recollections. Then the last incident of all returned to him—he was innocent!—so he said to himself, with a natural human casuistry; innocent! though it was in spite of himself. Innocent! at least, not guilty by the actual event. Then he opened his eyes and took the medicine,which his uncle had poured out for him. He was the same Horace as of old—subdued, but not changed; and in the sudden recollection that he was not a parricide, a rush of his old self-assertion returned to his awakening mind, and of his old sullen look to his face. But he did not say anything for the moment—he sunk back again upon his pillows, weak to extremity; almost the only sign of life in him being that uneasy guiltiness in his heart, which even the discovery, which had released him from the weight of murder, could only salve, and could not cure.
But he was uneasy, too, with the Colonel’s grave, grieved, conscious face beside him—he could not help saying something. He remembered so distinctly now the study and all its familiar objects, the medicine-chest standing on the table; somebody must have brought him from that place where he lost consciousness, to this where he regained it. “Uncle, who found me?” he said, shutting his eyes once more, unable to bear that grieved look of knowledge which was in the Colonel’s eyes.
“Ifound you, Horace,” said Colonel Sutherland, quietly; “let your mind be quite at rest, no one else came near us. I put away the little medicine-chest,” he continued, with hesitation, “and the paper which dropped out of it. They are locked up in one of your drawers; no one has either seen or touched them but myself.”
Then there was a long, conscious pause; neither the sick man nor the watcher spoke—the one contending with his natural sullen pride, which would confess no sin, and the horror within him of knowing that so far as intention and purpose went he was as guilty as any actual murderer; the other grieved, silent, afraid, anxiousnotto hear that some diabolical purpose had been nursed in that young head, yet sadly fearing that, whether confessed or not, the wickedness had been there.
“Uncle,” said Horace, at last, the words bursting from his lips in an eager paroxysm of defence against himself, and vindication to his own conscience—“Uncle,Idid him no harm.”
“I am very thankful to hear it, Horace,” said the Colonel, very gravely; then he made another pause—“unless it will relieve your mind tell me no more,” he said, quickly—“only, Horace, remember, you have been very near the grave; perhaps you know yourself that you have been near something more terrible than the grave; you should pause and think now while you can; for every evil intention, as well as for every act of sin, there is pardon with God, for Jesus’ sake.”
He said it simply, but with a solemn, almost judicial gravity. He could not help guessing what had been going on in the troubled spirit beside him, of which he knew so little; he could not help shuddering at the thought of the horrible guilt from which, by accident, as it appeared, and interposition of God, the young man had been unwittingly preserved. God help him!—so young, so wretched, to drag the hideous burden of that remembrance through all his days of life! The deepest pity, even amid his horror, struck the old soldier’s noble, innocent heart. He could not comprehendthe guilt—but he felt the remorse, with a compassion that was half divine.
Horace made no reply—he shrank, in spite of himself, as though he would have crept away morally out of his uncle’s presence; for the instant the young man realized, with a desperate force of conviction, the “gulf fixed” between heaven and hell which none can pass over; he felt it in his guilt a thousand times more deeply than the pure heart beside him did, in its tender depths of pity. He lay still in his weakness, with a mortified consciousness of humiliation and inferiority, insufferable to his arrogant spirit. Then it occurred to him that there was still one thing, by which he might drag himself up fictitiously to that higher elevation, which he recognized vaguely in his downfall, and envied, though he knew it not. He turned once more towards the watcher by his bed with a sudden movement, which was so quick as to give him pain.
“You think very badly of me,” he said, hastily; “but I have got something to tell you—something to tell Roger Musgrave, which will remedy one evil at least, andchange, more than you can suppose, his position in the world.”
The Colonel waved his hand, with the action of a man who knows what another is about to say. “My dear boy,” he said, compassionately, “I am grieved that you cannot have the satisfaction of doing, at least, this piece of justice—but you are too late. The Kenlisle attorney, hearing of your connection with Musgrave, and of some promise you had made him when you heard of your father’s illness, sent to beg an interview with Roger and Sir John, and confessed the whole transaction. That matter has been arranged while you have been ill.”
“Do you mean Pouncet?—Pouncet has consented to his own ruin?” cried Horace, with a pang of disappointment. He had still been reckoning on this as a moral compensation which it would always be in his power to make, to balance more or less his personal guilt.
“Not to his ruin—they have made terms,” said the Colonel. “He restores the property, and pays something to Roger besides, andthere will be no prosecution or exposure. He loses Armitage’s confidence, of course, and is no longer his man of business; but he preserves his character, and eases his conscience. All that is arranged. My dear Horace, you are extremely weak: try to compose yourself, and forget these troublesome affairs. If you can, for your health’s sake, endeavour to sleep.”
Horace turned his face sullenly towards the wall, and said no more. Perhaps this sharp pang of unexpected mortification and disappointment eased him of his heavier load. He set his teeth as he turned away and relieved himself from the sight of Uncle Edward’s compassionate and kind face: everything humiliated him in that self-importance which was so strong a power within him. He once had it in his power to be at least Roger Musgrave’s magnanimous deliverer, and to expose the fraud which had left the youth penniless; but he had lost his opportunity, and even that moral make-up for his other grievous guilt had slid away from him. He lay here powerless, known to one man, at least, in all the blacknessof his evil intention, and to more than one man, stood revealed and visible, a willing accomplice in a fraud, left in the lurch by the principal sinner. His disappointment—his failure—the humiliation of his guilt—sickened him to the heart; he closed his eyes upon the light, disgusted and miserable. He had his reward!
“ANDso, hinny, you’re to be married, and set up in a house of your own; and, ’stead o’ solitude, and a wild moor, and ould Peggy, have all the county wishing ye joy. Eh, weel! I’m an ould fool, and nowght else: I think upon the mistress, and I canna forbear. The bride goes forth with joy and blessing, but the Lord alone He knows what will come to pass thereupon.”
And Peggy, who was standing in the old dining-room—that room so strangely thrilled through, warmed, and brightened with the new life—examining one after another the pretty things which already began to be prepared for Susan’s marriage, suddenly sunkdown on a chair by the table, and covered her face, and sobbed aloud.
“But, Peggy, you should have a cheerful word for me,” said Susan—“we have had so much trouble. Things will never happen with me as they did with mamma. For, Peggy,” added the bride, with her honest eyes smiling frank and sure out of the warm blush that rose over her face, “we will trust and help each other through every trouble. Trouble never can be very heavy when there are two of us to bear the load.”
“The Lord knows, and He alone,” said the faithful servant of the house. “I’m ould, and my heart trembles; the like of me cannot see, Miss Susan. I look upon the bride-white, and there’s shadows o’ shrouds and widow’s mourning a’ covered ower and hidden in the bonnie folds. The Lord preserve ye from all ill and trouble that is beyond the strength of man!—and grant to me to depart and be at rest, before ever cloud or shadow comes upon the light o’ my ould eyes!”
Susan was not discouraged in her own undiscourageable hope and happiness even bythese melancholy words; but she was grieved for Peggy, who, broken and nervous with her long solitude, was no longer like herself. She came round to the old woman’s side, and put her young arms, which had clung there so often, round Peggy’s neck.
“Do you know Horace is going to give me a fortune, Peggy?” said Susan. “Horace is different, don’t you think, since he has been ill? I thought it would have turned his head to be so rich—but he does not seem to care; he is so much quieter, older than he used to be. I did not suppose he would have felt so much for poor papa.”
Peggy said nothing—but she gave an emphatic shake of her head, and, diverted into a less pathetic channel of thought, dried her eyes. Peggy’s sentiments were changed. It was the younger generation who were now in the ascendant, and Peggy’s magnanimous instincts, falling to the weaker side, turned all her sympathy towards the dead.
“But he is changed, though you shake your head,” said Susan; “and I am to have a fortune—me! Everything is Uncle Edward’s doing. How I wondered when he brought me these India muslins, Peggy—do you remember? I thought you were all crazy when you spoke of me wearing them—and now look here; and I suppose,” said Susan, with womanful satisfaction and vanity, “we shall see the best people in the county at the Grange.”
“And only your right, too,” said Peggy, by way of interjection; for Susan, having fully launched herself, was quite qualified to keep up the discourse.
“Especially when Amelia Stenhouse marries Sir John. I wonder how she can marry that odd old man; and so pretty as she is too—don’t you think she is very,verypretty, Peggy?”
“‘Handsome is as handsome does,’” said Susan’s oracle, with great solemnity.
“Oh, to be sure; but one likes to be handsome all the same,” said Susan. “I don’t say IlikeAmelia out-and-out. I suppose she’s too grand and too accomplished, and too clever, and that sort of thing, for me; but she’s very nice to look at, Peggy; and when she marries Sir John——”
“When who marries Sir John?” asked Horace, abruptly. He had just come rather feebly into the room—convalescent, but not strong, his mind working out all the vigour which should have gone to the strengthening of his body. That he was changed was certain, but it was doubtful whether the change was so entirely for the better as his sister charitably supposed. He did not look much more amiable at the present moment; he came in with the sullen shade of old upon his face. He had heard part of Susan’s last words; but she did not know what a furious passion awoke in his heart when he asked, “Who marries Sir John?”
“Oh, it is Amelia, Horace—Amelia, Roger’s half sister; did not you know about it?” said Susan, innocently—“you, too, who have known them longer than I; it was settled last week.”
“Oh, was it?” said Horace, bitterly. He went out of the room the next moment, flinging down, half unawares, half consciously, a heap of his sister’s wedding preparations. It was natural that the sight of such thingsat such a time should gall the young man; the next moment they heard him up in his own room, making a great commotion there. Susan was a little startled and frightened in spite of herself. Horace took strange fancies now and then. He was rich now, and could do as he pleased. Sometimes Susan, all unaware of the canker there, imagined that his mind was a little affected. She could not imagine what freak possessed him now.
A little while after Horace came downstairs, dressed more carefully than she had yet seen him. He told her he was going away “to town”—which Susan supposed to mean to Kenlisle—and should walk to the nearest roadside public-house, where they kept a gig. He would send for his things, but might not see her for some time again, and so he held out a hot, trembling hand, and bade her “Good-bye—good-bye!” Susan tried some remonstrances, but he hurried out in the midst of them, and strode away across the moor in the bright August sunshine. His sister stood at the window watching him, as she had stood many a day before, till his figure disappearedamong the distant saplings and dark gorse bushes. It was the last time that Horace Scarsdale trod the familiar heather of Lanwoth Moor.
That evening Roger’s mother came with him when he came on his daily visit to his affianced bride. They knew she was alone, and guessed she must be anxious. Horace had been at the Grange, where he saw only Amelia, and went away again in half-an-hour, leaving even that stout-hearted beauty, who was not too sensitive, fainting and overpowered by the violence of his farewell. That was the last any of the party saw of Horace for many a year. The marriages took place in due time, and all went well with the new households; but the unhappy heir of the Scarsdales went out and was lost in the world, and its great waves concealed him and his pleasures and wretchedness. He had put himself out of the reach of common blessings and sorrows, the dews and sunshine, of God’s every-day world. He had his fortune, his failure, his dead burden of guilt, to begin his life withal; and so carried outamong men, and the bustle and commotion of the world, a second bitter chapter of that hereditary curse, which had made a recluse and wretched misanthrope of his father, and a dismal prison and place of bondage of the solitary house upon the moor.
THE END.