"White waistcoats and black,Blue waistcoats and gray,"
with all proper varieties of bonnet and hat—pork-pie, wide-awake, Jerry, and Jim-Crow. There are nautical gentlemen, and gentlemen in Knickerbockers; fat commercial "gents" in large white waistcoats, and starched buff cravats; touring curates in spectacles and "chokers," with that smile proper to the juvenile cleric, curiously meek and pert; all sorts of persons, in short, making brief holiday, and dropping in and out of Cardyllian, some just for a day and off again in a fuss, and others dawdling away a week, or perhaps a month or two, serenely.
Its heyday of fashion has long been past andover; but though the "fast" people have gone elsewhere, it is still creditably frequented. Tom Sedley was fond of the old town. I don't think he would have reviewed the year at its close, with a comfortable conscience, if he had not visited Cardyllian, "slow" as it certainly was, some time in its course.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, the green looked bright, and the shingle glittered lazily beyond it, with the estuary rippling here and there into gleams of gold, away to the bases of the glorious Welsh mountains, which rise up from the deepest purple to the thinnest gray, and with many a dim rift and crag, and wooded glen, and slope, varying their gigantic contour.
Tom Sedley, among others, showed his reverence for the Sabbath, by mounting a well brushed chimney-pot. No one, it is well established, can pray into a Jerry. The musical bell from the gray church tower hummed sweetly over the quaint old town, and the woods and hollows round about; and on a sudden, quite near him, Tom Sedley saw the friends of whom he had been in search!
The Etherage girls, as the ancient members of the family still called them, were two in number. Old Vane Etherage of Hazelden, a very pretty place, about twenty minutes' walk from thegreen of Cardyllian, has been twice married. The result is, that the two girls belong to very different periods. Miss Charity is forty-five by the parish register, and Miss Agnes of the blue eyes and golden hair, is just nineteen and four months.
Both smiling after their different fashions, advanced upon Tom, who strode up to them, also smiling, with his chimney-pot in his hand.
Miss Charity of the long waist, and long thin brown face, and somewhat goggle eyes, was first up, and asked him very volubly, at least eleven kind questions, before she had done shaking his hand, all which he answered laughing, and at last, said he—
"Little Agnes, are you going to cut me? How well you look! Certainly there's no place on earth like Cardyllian, for pretty complexions, is there?"
He turned for confirmation to the curiously brown thin countenance of Miss Charity, which smiled and nodded acquiescence. "You're going to-morrow, you say; that's a great pity; everything looking so beautiful."
"Everything," acquiesced Tom Sedley, with an arch glance at Agnes, who blushed and said merrily—
"You're just the same old fool you always were; and we don't mind one word you say."
"Aggie, my dear!" said her sister, who carried down the practice of reproof from the nursery; and it was well, I suppose, that Miss Aggie had that arbitress of proprieties always beside her.
"I suppose you have no end of news to tell me. Is anyone going to be married? Is anyone dying, or anyone christened? I'll hear it all by-and-by. And who are your neighbours at Malory?"
"Oh, quite charming!" exclaimed Miss Agnes eagerly. "The most mysterious people that ever came to a haunted house. You know Malory has a ghost."
"Nonsense, child. Don't mind her, Mr. Sedley," said Miss Charity. "Iwonderhow you can talk so foolishly."
"Oh, that's nothing new. Malory's been haunted as long asIcan remember," said Tom.
"Well, I did not think Mr. Sedley could have talked like that!" exclaimed Miss Charity.
"Oh, by Jove, Iknowit.Everyoneknows it that ever lived here. Malory'sfullof ghosts. None but very queer people could think of living there; and, Miss Agnes, you were going to say——"
"Yes, they areawfullymysterious. There's an old man who stalks about at night, like the ghost in "Hamlet," and never speaks, and there's a beautiful young lady, and a gray old woman who calls herself Anne Sheckleton. They shut themselves up so closely—you can't imagine. Some people think the old man is a maniac or a terrible culprit."
"Highly probable," said Tom; "and the old woman a witch, and the young lady a vampire."
"Well, hardly that," laughed Miss Agnes, "for they came to church to-day."
"How youcanboth talk such folly," interposed Miss Charity.
"But you know they would not let Mr. Pritchard up to the house," pleaded Miss Agnes. "Mr. Pritchard, the curate, you know"—this was to Tom Sedley—"he's a funny little man—he preached to-day—very good and zealous, and all that—and he wanted to push his way up to the house, and the cross old man they have put to keep the gate, took him by the collar, and was going to beat him. Old Captain Shrapnell says hedidbeat him with a child's cricket-bat; buthe hatesMr. Pritchard, so I'm not sure; but, at all events, he was turned out in disgrace, and blushes and looks dignified ever since whenever Malory is mentioned. Now, everyone here knowswhat a good little man poor Mr. Pritchard is, so it must have been sheer hatred of religion that led to his being turned out in that way."
"But the ladies were in church, my dear Aggie; wesawthem, Mr. Sedley,to-day; they were in the Malory pew."
"Oh, indeed?" said Tom Sedley, artfully; "and you saw them pretty distinctly, I dare say."
"The young lady is quite beautiful,wethought. I'm so sorry you were not in our seat; though, indeed, people ought not to be staring about them in church; but you would have admired her immensely."
"Oh, I saw them. They were the people nearly opposite to the Verneys' seat, in the small pew? Yes, theywere—that is, the young lady, I mean, was perfectly lovely," said little Tom, who could not with any comfort practise a reserve.
"See, the people are beginning to hurry off to church; it must be time to go," said Charity.
So the little party walked up by the court-house into Castle Street, and turned into quaint old Church Street, walking demurely, and talking very quietly to the solemn note of the old bell.
Theyall looked toward the Malory seat on taking their places in their own; but that retreat was deserted now, and remained so, as Tom Sedley at very brief intervals ascertained, throughout the afternoon service; after which, with a secret sense of disappointment, honest Sedley escorted the Etherage "girls" up the steep road that leads through the wooded glen of Hazelden to the hospitable house of old Vane Etherage.
Everyone in that part of the world knows that generous, pompous, and boisterous old gentleman. You could no more visit Cardyllian without seeing Vane Etherage, than you could visit Naples without seeing Vesuvius. He is a fine portly bust, but little more. In his waking hours he lives alternately in his Bath chair and in the great leathern easy chair in his study. He manages to shuffle very slowly, leaning upon his servant on one side, and propped on his crutchat the other, across the hall of the Cardyllian Club, which boasts about six-and-thirty members, besides visitors, and into the billiard-room, where he takes possession of the chair by the fire, and enjoys the agreeable conversation of Captain Shrapnell, hears all about the new arrivals, who they are, what screws are loose, and where, and generally all the gossip and scandal of the little commonwealth of Cardyllian.
Vane Etherage had served in the navy, and, I believe, reached the rank of captain. In Cardyllian he was humorously styled "the Admiral," when people spokeofhim, nottohim; for old Etherage was fiery and consequential, and a practical joke which commenced in a note from an imaginary secretary, announcing that "The Badger Hunt" would meet at Hazelden House on a certain day, and inducing hospitable preparations, for the entertainment of those nebulous sportsmen, was like to have had a sanguinary ending. It was well remembered that when young Sniggers of Sligh Farm apologised on that occasion, old Etherage had arranged with Captain Shrapnell, who was to have been his second, that the Admiral was to fight in his Bath chair—an evidence of resource and resolution which was not lost upon his numerous friends.
"How do you do, Sedley? Very glad to seeyou, Tom—very glad indeed, sir. You'll come to-morrow and dine; you must, indeed—and next day. You know our Welsh mutton—you do—you know it well; it's better here than in any other place in the world—in the whole world, sir—the Hazelden mutton, and, egad, you'll come here—you shall, sir—and dine here with us to-morrow; mind, you shall."
The Admiral wore a fez, from beneath which his gray hair bushed out rather wildly, and he was smoking through an enormous pipe as Tom Sedley entered his study, accompanied by the ladies.
"He says he's to go away to-morrow," said Miss Charity, with an upbraiding look at Sedley.
"Pooh—nonsense—nothe—notyou, Tom—not a bit, sir. We won't let you. Girls, we won'tallowhim to go. Eh?—No—no—you dine here to-morrow,andnext day."
"You're very kind, sir; but I promised, if I am still in Cardyllian to-morrow, to run over to Ware, and dine with Verney."
"WhatVerney?"
"Cleve Verney."
"D—— him."
"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Miss Charity, grimly.
"Boh!—Ihatehim—I hateallthe Verneys,"bawled old Vane Etherage, as if hating were a duty and a generosity.
"Oh—no, papa—youknowyou don't—that would beextremely wicked," said Miss Charity, with that severe superiority with which she governed the Admiral.
"Begad, you're always telling me I'm wicked—and we know where thewickedgo—that's catechism, I believe—so I'd like to know where's the difference between that and d—ing a fellow?" exclaimed the portly bust, and blew off his wrath with a testy laugh.
"I think we had better put off our bonnets and coats?—The language is becoming rather strong—and the tobacco," said Miss Charity, with dry dignity, to her sister, leaving the study as she did so.
"I thought it might be thatKiffynVerney—the uncle fellow—Honourable Kiffyn Verney—dis-honourable,Icall him—that old dog, sir, he's no better than a cheat—and I'd be glad of an opportunity to tell him so to his face, sir—you have noidea, sir, how he has behaved to me!"
"He has the character of being a very honourable, sir—I'm sorry you think so differently," said honest Tom Sedley, who always stood up for his friends, and their kindred—"and Cleve, I'veknown from my childhood, and I assure you, sir, a franker or more generous fellow I don't suppose there is on earth."
"I know nothing about the jackanape, except that he's nephew of his roguish uncle," said the florid old gentleman with the short high nose and double chin. "He wants to take up Llanderis, and heshan't haveit. He's under covenant to renew the lease, and the devil of it is, that between me and Wynne Williams we have put the lease astray—and I can't find it—norheeither—but it will turn up—I don't care two-pence about it—but no one shall humbug me—I won't be gammoned, sir, by all the Verneys in England.Stuff—sir!"
Then the conversation took a happier turn. The weather was sometimes a little squally with the Admiral—but not often—genial and boisterous—on the whole sunny and tolerably serene—and though he sometimes threatened high and swore at his servants, they knew it did not mean a great deal, and liked him.
People who lived all the year round in Cardyllian, which from November to May, every year, is a solitude, fall into those odd ways and little self-indulgences which gradually metamorphose men of the world into humorists and grotesques. Given a sparse population, anddifficult intercommunication, which in effect constitute solitude, and you have the conditions of barbarism. Thus it was that Vane Etherage had grown uncouth to a degree that excited the amazement of old contemporaries who happened, from time to time, to look in upon his invalided retirement at Cardyllian.
The ladies and Tom Sedley, in the drawing-room, talked very merrily at tea, while old Vane Etherage, in his study, with the door between the rooms wide open, amused himself with a nautical volume and his terrestrial globe.
"So," said Miss Agnes, "you admired the Malory young lady—Margaret, our maid says, she is called—very much to-day?"
"I did, by Jove. Didn't you?" said Tom, well pleased to return to the subject.
"Yes," said Agnes, looking down at her spoon—"Yes, I admired her; that is, her features are very regular; she's what I call extremely handsome; but there are prettier girls."
"Heredo you mean?"
"Yes—here."
"And who are they?"
"Well, I don't say herenow; but I do think those Miss Dartmores, for instance, who were here last year, and who used to wear those blue dresses, were decidedly prettier. The heroine ofMalory, whom you have fallen in love with, seems to me to want animation."
"Why, she couldn't show a great deal of animation over the Litany," said Tom.
"I did not see her then; I happened to be praying myself during the Litany," said Miss Agnes, recollecting herself.
"It's more thanIwas," said Tom.
"You ought not to talk that way, Mr. Sedley. It isn'tnice. I wonder you can," said Miss Charity.
"I would not say it, of course, to strangers," said Tom. "But then, I'm so intimate here—and it's really true, that is, I mean, it was to-day."
"I wonder what you go to church for," said Miss Charity.
"Well, of course, you know, it's to pray; but I look at the bonnets a little, also; every fellow does. By Jove, if they'd only say truth, I'm certain the clergymen peep—I often saw them. There's that little fellow, the Rev. Richard Pritchard, the curate, you know—I'd swear I've seen that fellow watching you, Agnes, through the chink in the reading-desk door, while the sermon was going on; and I venture to say he did not hear a word of it."
"You ought to tell the rector, if you really saw that," said Miss Charity, severely.
"Pray do no such thing," entreated Agnes; "a pleasant situation for me!"
"Certainly, if Mr. Pritchard behaves himself as you describe," said Miss Charity; "but I've been for hours shut up in the same room with him—sometimes here, and sometimes at the school—about the children, and the widows' fund, and the parish charities, and I never observed the slightest levity; but you are joking, I'm sure."
"I'mnot, upon my honour. I don't say it's the least harm. I don't see how he can help it; I know ifIwere up in the air—in a reading-desk, with a good chink in the door, where I thought no one could see me, and old Doctor Splayfoot preaching his pet sermon over my head—wouldn'tI peep?—that's all."
"Well, I really think, if he makes a habit of it, Ioughtto speak to Doctor Splayfoot. I think it's myduty," said Miss Charity, sitting up very stiffly, as she did when she spoke of duty; and when once the notion of a special duty got into her head, her inflexibility, as Tom Sedley and her sister Agnes knew, was terrifying.
"For mercy's sake, my dear Charry, do think ofme! If you tell Doctor Splayfoot he'll be certain to tell it all to Wynne Williams and Doctor Lyster, and Price Apjohn, and every creature in Cardyllian will know everything about it, and a great deal more, before two hours; and once for all, if that ridiculous story is set afloat, into the church door I'll never set my foot again."
Miss Agnes' pretty face had flushed crimson, and her lip quivered with distress.
"Howcanyou be such a fool, Aggie! I'll only say it was atour seat—and no one can possibly tell which it was at—you or me; and I'll certainly tell Dr. Splayfoot that Mr. Sedley saw it."
"And I'll tell the Doctor," said Sedley, who enjoyed the debate immensely, "that I neither saw nor said any such thing."
"I don't think, Thomas Sedley, you'd do anything so excessively wicked!" exclaimed Miss Charity, a little fiercely.
"Try me," said Tom, with an exulting little laugh.
"Everygentlemantells the truth," thrust she.
"Except where it makes mischief," parried Tom, with doubtful morality and another mischievous laugh.
"Well, I suppose I had better say nothing ofChristianity. But whatyoudo is your own affair!myduty I'll perform. I shall think it over; and I shan't be ruffled by any folly intended to annoy me." Miss Charity's thinbrown cheeks had flushed to a sort of madder crimson. Excepting these flashes of irritability, I can't charge her with many human weaknesses. "I'll not saywhohe looked at—I've promised that; but unless I change my present opinion, Dr. Splayfoot shall hear the whole thing to-morrow. I think in a clergyman any such conduct in church isunpardonable. The effect on other people is positively ruinous.You, for instance, would not have talked about such things in the light you do, if you had not been encouraged in it, by seeing a clergyman conducting himself so."
"Mind, you'vepromisedpoor little Agnes, you'll not bring her into the business, no matter whatIdo," said Sedley.
"I have, certainly."
"Well, I'll stay in Cardyllian to-morrow, and I'll see Doctor Splayfoot." Sedley was buttoning his coat and pulling on his gloves, with a wicked smile on his good-humoured face. "And I'll tell him that you think the curate ogles you through a hole in the reading-desk. Thatyoulikehim, andhe'svery much gone aboutyou; and that you wish the affair brought to a point; and that you're going to appeal to him—Doctor Splayfoot—to use his authority either to affectthat, or to stop the ogling. I will, upon my honour!"
"And I shall speak to papa to prevent it," said Miss Charity, who was fierce and literal.
"And that will bring about a duel, and he'll be shot in his Bath chair, and I shall be hanged"—old Vane Etherage, with his spectacles on, was plodding away serenely at the little table by the fire, over hisNaval Chronicle—"and Pritchard will be deprived of his curacy, and you'll go mad, and Agnes will drown herself like Ophelia, and a nice little tragedy you'll have brought about. Good night; I'll not disturb him"—he glanced toward the unconscious Admiral—"I'll see you both to-morrow, after I've spoken to the Rector." He kissed his hand, and was gone.
WhenTom Sedley stepped out from the glass door on the gravel walk, among the autumn flowers and the evergreens in the pleasant moonlight, it was just nine o'clock, for in that primitive town and vicinage people keep still wonderfully early hours.
It is a dark and lonely walk, down the steep Hazelden Road, by the side of the wooded glen, from whose depths faintly rises the noise of the mill-stream. The path leads you down the side of the glen, with dense forest above and below you; the rocky steep ascending at the left hand, the wooded precipice descending into utter darkness at your right, and beyond that, rising black against the sky, the distant side of the wooded ravine. Cheery it was to emerge from the close overhanging trees, and the comparative darkness, upon the high road to Cardyllian, which followsthe sweep of the estuary to the high street of the town, already quiet as at midnight.
The moon shone so broad and bright, the landscape looked so strange, and the air was so frosty and pleasant, that Tom Sedley could not resist the temptation to take a little walk which led him over the Green, and up the steep path overhanging the sea, from which you command so fine a view of the hills and headlands of the opposite side, and among other features of the landscape, of Malory, lying softly in its dark and misty woodlands.
Moonlight, distance, and the hour, aided the romance of my friend Tom Sedley, who stood in the still air and sighed toward that antique house.
With arms folded, his walking-cane grasped in his right hand, and passed, sword-fashion, under his left arm, I know not what martial and chivalric aspirations concerning death and combat rose in his good-natured heart, for in some temperaments the sentiment of love is mysteriously associated with the combative, and our homage to the gentler sex connects itself magnanimously with images of wholesale assault and battery upon the other. Perhaps if he could have sung, a stave or two might have relieved his mind; or even had he been eloquent in the language of sentiment.But his vocabulary, unhappily, was limited, and remarkably prosaic, and not even having an appropriate stanza by rote, he was fain to betake himself to a cigar, smoking which he at his leisure walked down the hill toward Malory.
Halfway down, he seated himself upon the dwarf wall, at the roadside, and by the ivied stem of a huge old tree, smoked at his ease, and sighed now and then.
"I can't understand it—it is like some confounded witchcraft," said he. "Ican'tget her out of my head."
I dare say it was about the same time that his friend Cleve Verney was performing, though not with so sublime an enthusiasm, his romantic devotions in the same direction, across the water from Ware.
As he stood and gazed, he thought he saw a figure standing near the water's edge on the shingle that makes a long curve in front of Malory.
If a living figure, it was very still. It looked gray, nearly white, in the moonlight. Was there an upright shaft of stone there, or a post to moor the boats by? He could not remember.
He walked slowly down the road. "By Jove! I think it's moving," he said aloud, pulling up all at once and lowering his cigar. "No, itisn'tmoving, but itdidmove, Ithink—yes, it has changed its ground a little—hasn't it? Or is it only my stand-point that's changed?"
He was a good deal nearer now, and it did look much more like a human figure—tall and slight, with a thin gray cloak on—but he could not yet bequitecertain. Was there not a resemblance in the proportions—tall and slight? The uncertainty was growing intense; there was a delightful confusion of conjecture. Tom Sedley dropped his cigar, and hastened forward with an instinctive stealthiness in his eagerness to arrive before this figure—if such it were—should be scared away by his approach.
He was now under the shadow of the tall trees that overhang the outer wall of Malory, and cast their shadows some way down upon the sloping shore, near the edge of which a tall female figure was undoubtedly standing, with her feet almost touching the ripple of the water, and looking steadfastly in the direction of the dim headland of Pendillion, which at the far side guards the entrance of the estuary.
In the wall of Malory, at some three hundred yards away from the gate, is a small door, a little sally-port that opens a nearly direct access from the house to the rude jetty where the boats are sometimes moored. This little door stood now wideopen, and through it the figure had of course emerged.
Tom Sedley now for the first time began to feel a little embarrassed. The general privacy of the place, the fact that the jetty, and in point of law the strand itself, here, belonged to Malory, from which the private door which still stood open, showed that the lady had emerged—all these considerations made him feel as if he were guilty of an impertinence, and very nearly of a trespass.
The lady stood quite still, looking across the water. Tom Sedley was upon the road that skirts the wall of Malory, in the shadow of the great trees. It would not have done to walk straight across the shingle to the spot where the lady stood, neither could he place himself so as to intercept her return to the doorway, directly so, as a less obvious stratagem, he made a detour, and sauntering along the water's edge like a man intent solely on the picturesque, with a beating heart he approached the female, who maintained her pose quite movelessly until he approached within a few steps.
Then she turned, suddenly, revealing an old and almost agonized face, that looked, in the intense moonlight, white, and fixed as if cut in stone. There is something ludicrous in the sortof shock which Tom Sedley experienced. He stood staring at the old lady with an expression which, if she had apprehended it, would not have flattered her feminine self-esteem, if any of that good quality remained to her.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the old woman, with a nervous eagerness, drawing near. "But pray, canyousee a sail in that direction, a yawl, sir, they call it, justthere?"—she pointed—"I fancied about two miles beyond that vessel that lies at anchorthere? I can't see it now, sir, canyou?"
She had come so close that Sedley could see not only the deep furrows, but the finely etched wrinkles about the large eyes that gazed on him, and from him to the sea, with an imploring stare.
"There's no sail, ma'am, between us and Pendillion," said Sedley, having first raised his hat deferentially; for did not this strange old lady with her gray mantle drawn over her head, nevertheless, represent Malory, and was not Malory saddened and glorified by the presence of that beautiful being whom he had told himself a thousand times since morning service, he never,nevercould forget?
"Ha, ha! I thought I saw it, exactly, sir, inthatdirection;praylook more carefully, sir, my old eyes tire, and fail me."
"No, ma'am, positively nothing there. How long ago is it since you first saw it?"
"Ten—twenty—minutes, it must be."
"A yawl will run a good way in that time, ma'am," said Tom with a little shake of his head, and a smile. "The yawl they had at Ware last year would make eight knots an hour in this breeze, light as it is. She might have been up to Bryll by this time, or down to Pendrewist, but there's no sail, ma'am, either way."
"Oh! sir, are you very sure?"
"Quite sure, ma'am. No sail in sight, except that brig just making the head of Pendillion, and that can't be the sail you saw, for she wasn't in sight twenty minutes since. There's nothing more, ma'am, except boats at anchor."
"Thank you, sir," said the lady, still looking across the water, and with a deep sigh. "No, I suppose there's none. It sometimes happens to me—fancy, I suppose, and long expectation, from my window, looking out. It's a clear view, between the trees, across the bay to Pendillion; my eyes tire, I think; and so I fancy I see it. Knowing, that is, feeling so very sure, it will come again. Another disappointment for a foolish old woman. I sometimes think it's all a dream." She had turned and was now stumbling over the large loose stones toward the door."Foolish dreams—foolish head—foolish old head, yet, sir, itmaybe that which goes away may come back, all except life. I've been looking out that way," and she turned and moved her hand towards the distant headlands. "You see nothing?"
"Nosail, ma'am," answered Tom.
"No, no sail," she repeated to the shingle under her feet, as she picked her steps again homeward.
"A little longer—another wait; wait patiently. Oh! God, how slowly years and months go over!"
"May I see you to the door, ma'am?" asked Tom Sedley, prosaically. The old lady, thinking, I dare say, of other things, made him no answer—a silence which he accepted as permission, and walked on beside her, not knowing what to say next, and terribly anxious to hit upon something, and try to found an acquaintance. The open door supplied him.
"Charming place this Cardyllian, ma'am. I believe no one ever was robbed in it. They leave their doors open half the night, just like that."
"Do they, indeed?" said she. I think she had forgotten her companion altogether in the interval. "I don't remember. It's fifteen years and upwards since I was there. I live here, at Malory." She nodded, and raised her eyes to his face as she spoke.
Suddenly she stopped, and looked at him more earnestly in silence for some seconds, and then said she—
"Sir, will you forgive me? Are you related to the Verneys?"
"No, I haven't that honour," said he, smiling. "IknowCleve Verney very well, and a very good fellow he is; but we're not connected; my name is Sedley—Thomas Sedley."
"Sedley!" she repeated once or twice, still looking at him, "I recollect the name. No—no connection, I dare say, Cleve; and howisCleve?"
"Very well; he's at Ware, now, for a few days."
"Ah! I dare say, and very well; a pretty boy—very pretty; but not like—no, not the least."
"I've heard people say he's very like what his father was," said Tom.
"Oh!yes, I think so; thereisa likeness," acquiesced she.
"His father's been dead a long time, you know?"
"I know; yes. Cleve is at Oxford or Cambridge by this time?" she continued.
Tom Sedley shook his head and smiled a little.
"Cleve has done with all that ever so long. He's in the House of Commons now, and likelyto be a swell there, making speeches, and all that."
"I know—I know. I had forgot how long it is since; he was a clever boy, wild, and talkative; yes, yes, he'll do for Parliament, I suppose, and be a great man, some day, there. There was no resemblance though; and you, sir, are like him, he was so handsome—no one so handsome."
Tom Sedley smiled. He fancied he was only amused. But I am sure he was also pleased.
"And I don't know. I can make out nothing. No one can. There's a picture. I think they'd burn it, if they knew. It is drawn in chalks by a French artist; they colour so beautifully. It hangs in my room. I pray before it, every morning, for him."
The old lady moaned, with her hands folded together, and still looking steadfastly in his face.
"They'd burn it, I think, if they knew there was a picture. I was always told they were a cruel family. Well, I don't know, I forgive him; I've forgiven him long ago. You are very like the picture, and even more like what I remember him. The picture was taken just when he came of age. He was twenty-seven when I first saw him; he was brilliant, a beautiful creature, and when I looked in his face I saw the sorrow that has never left me. You are wonderfully like, sir;but there's a difference. You're not so handsome." Here was a blow to honest Tom Sedley, who again thought he was only amused, but was really chagrined.
"There is goodness and kindness in your face; his had little of that, nothing soft in it, but everything brilliant and interesting; and yet you are wonderfully like."
She pressed her hand on her thin bosom.
"The wind grows cold. A pain shoots through me while I look at you, sir. I feel as if I were speaking to a spirit, God help me! I have said more to you to-night, than I have spoken for ten years before; forgive me, sir, and thank you, very much."
She turned from him again, took one long look at the distant headland, and then, with a deep sigh, almost a sob, she hastened towards the door. He followed her.
"Will you permit me to see you to the house?" he pleaded, with a benevolence I fear not quite disinterested. She was by this time at the door, from which with a gesture, declining his offer, she gently waved him back, and disappeared within it, without another word. He heard the key turned in the lock, and remained without, as wise with respect to his particular quest as he had arrived.
Theold discoloured wall of Malory, that runs along the shore overshadowed by grand old timber, that looks to me darker than any other grove, is seven feet high, and as he could see neither through nor over it, and could not think of climbing it, after a few seconds spent in staring at the gray door, Tom Sedley turned about and walked down to the little hillock that stands by the roadside, next the strand, and from the top of this he gazed, during an entire cigar, upon the mullioned windows of Malory, and was gratified by one faint gleam of a passing candle from a gallery window.
"That's a nice old woman, odd as she is; she looks quite like a lady; she's certainly not the woman we saw in church to-day; how well she looked; what a nice figure, that time, as she stood looking from the shore; that cloak thing isloose to be sure; but, by Jove, she might have been a girl almost; and what large eyes she has got, and a well-shaped face. She must have been quite charming, about a hundred years ago; she's not the mother: she's too old; a grand-aunt, perhaps; what a long talk we had, and I such a fool, listening to all that rubbish, and never getting in a word about the people, that peerless creature!"
His walk home to Cardyllian was desultory and interrupted. I should not like to risk my credit by relating how often he halted on his way, and how long, to refresh his eyes with the dim outlines of the trees and chimneys of Malory; and how, very late and melancholy, and abstracted, he reached his crib in the Verney Arms.
Early next morning, in pursuance of a clever idea, Tom Sedley made, I admit, his most picturesque and becoming toilet. It consisted of his black velvet knickerbocker suit, with those refined jack-boots of shining leather, and the most charming jerry that had ever appeared in Cardyllian, and away he marched over the hill, while the good people of the town were champing their muffins and sipping their tea, to the back gate of Malory.
It stood half open, and with as careless a boldness as he could assume, in he went and walkedconfidently up the straight farmyard lane, girt with high thorn hedges. Here, bribing a rustic who showed symptoms of churlishness, with half-a-crown, he was admitted into a sort of farmyard, under pretext of examining the old monastic chapel and refectory, now used as a barn, and some other relics of the friary, which tourists were wont to admire.
From the front of the refectory there is a fine view of the distant mountains. Also, as Tom Sedley recollected, a foreground view, under the trees, in front of the hall-door, and there, with a sudden bound at his heart, he beheld the two ladies who had yesterday occupied the Malory pew, the old and the young, busy about the flower-bed, with garden gauntlets on, and trowel in hand.
They were chatting together cheerily enough, but he could not hear what they said. The young lady now stood up from her work, in a dress which looked to him like plain holland.
The young lady had pushed her hat a little back, and stood on the grass, at the edge of the flowers, with her trowel glittering in the early sun, in her slender right hand, which rested upon her left; her pretty right foot was advanced a little on the short grass, and showed just its tip, over the edge of the flower-bed. A homely dressand rustic appliances. But, oh! that oval, beautiful face!
Tom Sedley—the "peeping Tom" of this story—from his deep monastic window, between the parting of the tall trees, looked down upon this scene in a breathless rapture. From the palmy days of the Roman Pantheon down, was ever Flora so adored?
From under his Gothic arch, in his monkish shade, Tom could have stood, he fancied, for ever, gazing as friar has seldom gazed upon his pictured saint, on the supernatural portrait which his enthusiasm worshipped.
The young lady, as I have described her, looking down upon her old companion, said something with a little nod, and smiled; then she looked up at the tree tops from where the birds were chirping; so Tom had a fair view of her wonderful face, and though he felt himself in imminent danger of detection, he could not move. Then her eyes with a sidelong glance, dropped on the window where he stood, and passed on instantly.
With the instinct which never deceives us, he felt her glance touch him, and knew that he was detected. The young lady turned quietly, and looked seaward for a few moments. Tom relieved his suspense with a sigh; he hoped he might pass muster for a tourist, and that the privileges ofsuch visitors had not been abridged by the recluses.
The young lady then quietly turned and resumed her work, as if nothing had happened; but, I think, she said something to her elderly companion, for that slim lady, in a Tweed shawl, closely brooched across her breast, stood up, walked a step or two backward upon the grass, and looked straight up at the window, with the inquisitive frown of a person a little dazzled or near-sighted.
Honest Tom Sedley, who was in a rather morbid state all this morning, felt his heart throb again, and drum against his ribs, as he affected to gaze in a picturesque absorption upon the distant headlands.
The old lady, on the other hand, having distinctly seen in the deep-carved panel of that antique wall, the full-length portrait of our handsome young friend, Tom Sedley, in his killing knickerbocker suit of black velvet, with his ivory-headed cane in his hand, and that "stunning" jerry which so exactly suited his countenance, and of which he believed no hatter but his own possessed the pattern, or could produce a similar masterpiece.
The old lady with her hand raised to fend off the morning sun that came flickering through thebranches on her wrinkled forehead, and her light gray eyes peering on him, had no notion of the awful power of her gaze upon that "impudent young man."
With all his might Tom Sedley gazed at the Welsh headlands, without even winking, while he felt the basilisk eye of the old spinster in gray Tweed upon him. So intense was his stare, that old Pendillion at last seemed to nod his mighty head, and finally to submerge himself in the sea. When he ventured a glance downward, he saw Miss Anne Sheckleton with quick steps entering the house, while the young lady had recommenced working at a more distant flower-bed, with the same quiet diligence.
It was to be feared that the old lady was taking steps for his expulsion. He preferred anticipating her measures, and not caring to be caught in the window, left the refectory, and walked down the stone stairs, whistling and tapping the wall with the tip of his cane.
To him, as the old play-books say, entered from the side next the house, and just as he set the sole of his resplendent boot upon the paving-stones, a servant. Short, strong, and surly was the man. He did not seem disposed for violence, however, for he touched an imaginary hatbrim as he came up, and informed Mr. Sedley, who wasproperly surprised and pained to hear it, that he had in fact committed a trespass; that since it had been let, the place was no longer open to the inspection of tourists; and, in short, that he was requested to withdraw.
Tom Sedley was all alacrity and regret. He had never been so polite to a groom in all his life. The man followed him down the back avenue, to see him out, which at another time would have stirred his resentment; and when he held the gate open for him to emerge, Tom gave him no less than three half-crowns—a prodigality whereat his eyes opened, if not his heart, and he made a gruff apology for the necessities imposed by duty, and Tom interrupted him with—
"Quite right, perfectly right! you could do nothing else. I hope the la——your master is not vexed. You must say I told you to mention how very much pained I was at having made such a mistake. Say that I, Mr. Sedley, regret it very much, and beg to apologise. Pray don't forget. Good morning; and I'm very sorry for having givenyouso much trouble—this long walk."
This tenderness his bow-legged conductor was also in a mood to receive favourably. In fact, if he had not told him his name was Sedley, he might have settled affirmatively the question at that moment before his mind—whether the intruder from whom silver flowed so naturally and refreshingly might not possibly be the Prince of Wales himself, who had passed through the village of Ware, only seven miles away, three weeks before.
PoorTom Sedley! The little excitement of parting with the bull-necked keeper of his "garden of beauty", over, his spirits sank. He could not act the unconscious tourist again, and re-commit the premeditated mistake of the morning. His exclusion was complete.
Tom Sedley paid a visit that day at Hazelden, and was depressed, and dull, and absent to such a degree, that Miss Charity Etherage, after he had gone away, canvassed the matter very earnestly, and wondered whether he was quite well, and hoped he had not had bad news from London.
I don't know how Tom got over all that day; but at about four o'clock, having paid his penny at the toll-gate of the pier of Cardyllian, he was pacing up and down that breezy platform, and discussing with himself the possibility of remaining for another Sunday, on the chance of again seeing the Malory ladies in church.Lifting up his eyes, in his meditation, he saw a cutter less than a mile away, making swiftly for the pierhead, stooping to the breeze as she flew, and beating up the spray in sparkling clouds from her bows. His practised eye recognised at a glance theWave, the victorious yacht of Cleve Verney. With this breeze it was a run without a tack from Ware jetty.
In less than five minutes she furled her sails, and dropped anchor close to the pier stair, and Cleve Verney in another minute stepped upon it from his punt.
"You're to come back in her, to Ware, this evening," said he, as they shook hands. "I'm so glad I've found you. I've to meet a friend at the Verney Arms, but our talk won't take very long; and how have you been amusing yourself all day? Rather slow, isn't it?"
Tom Sedley told his story.
"Well, and what's thename?" inquired Cleve.
"I can't tell; they don't know at the hotel; the Etherages don't know. I asked Castle Edwards, andhedoesn't know either," said Sedley.
"Yes, but the fellow, the servant, who turned you out at Malory——"
"He did not turn me out. I wasgoing," interrupted Tom Sedley.
"Well, whosawyou out? You made him a present; he'd have told you, of course.Didhe?"
"I didn't ask him."
"Come, that's being very delicate indeed! All I can say is, if I were as spoony as you are, on that girl, I'd have learned all about her long ago. It's nothing to me; but if you find out her name, I know two or three fellows in town who know everything about everybody, and I'll make out the whole story—that is, if she's anybody."
"By Jove! that's very odd. There heis, just gone into the Golden Lion, that groom, that servant, that Malory man," exclaimed Tom Sedley very eagerly, and staring hard at the open door of the quaint little pot-house.
"Well, go; give him a pound, it's well worth it," laughed Cleve. "I'm serious, if you want to learn it; no fellow like that can resist a pound; and ifyoutell me the name, I'll make you out all the rest, I really will, when we get to town. There, don't let him get off, and you'll find me at the Verney Arms."
So saying, Cleve nodding his irresolute friend toward the Golden Lion, walked swiftly away to meet the Reverend Isaac Dixie. But Dixie was not at the Chancery; only a letter, to say that"most unhappily" that morning, Clay Rectory was to undergo an inspection by a Commissioner of Dilapidations; but that, D.V., he would place himself next day, at the appointed hour, at his honoured pupil's disposal.
"Those shovel-hatted martinets! they never allow a minute for common sense, or anything useful—always pottering over their clerical drill and pipe-clay," said Cleve, who, when an idea once entered his mind, pursued it with a terrible concentration, and hated an hour's delay.
So out he came disappointed, and joined Sedley near the Golden Lion.
They said little for a time, but walked on, side by side, and found themselves sauntering along the road toward Malory together.
"Well, Sedley, I forgot,—what about the man? Did he tell you anything?"
"I do believe if a fellow once allows a girl to get into his head, ever so little, he's in a sort of way drunk—worse than drunk—systematically foolish," said honest Sedley, philosophizing. "I've been doing nothing but idiotic things ever since church time yesterday."
"Well, but what did he say?"
"He took the pound, and devil a thing he said. He wouldn't tell anything about them. I give you leave to laugh at me. I know I'm thegreatest ass on earth, and I think he's the ugliest brute I ever saw, and the most uncivil; and, by Jove, if I stay here much longer, I think he'll get all my money from me. He doesn't ask for it, but I go on giving it to him; I can't help it; the beast!"
"Isn't there a saying about a sage, or something and his money being soon parted?" asked Cleve. "I think if I were so much gone about a girl as you are, and on such easy terms with that fellow, and tipped him so handsomely, I'd have learned her name, at least, before now."
"I can't; everything goes wrong with me. Why should I risk my reason, and fall in love with the moon? The girl wouldn't look at me; by Jove, she'll never evenseeme; and it's much better so, for nothing can possibly come of it, but pain to me, and fun to every one else. The late train does not stop at our station. I can't go to-night; but, by Jove, I'll be off in the morning. Iwill. Don't you think I'm right, Cleve?"
Tom Sedley stopped short, and faced his friend—who was, in most matters, his oracle—earnestly laying his hand upon his arm. Cleve laughed at his vehemence, for he knew Tom's impulsive nature, his generous follies, and terrible impetuosity, and, said he—"Right, Tom; always a philosopher! Nothing like the radical cure, in such a case, absence. If the cards won't answer, try the dice, if they won't do, try the balls. I'm afraid this is a bad venture; put your heart to sea in a sieve! No, Tom, that precious freightage is for a more substantial craft. I suppose you have seen your last of the young lady, and it would be a barren fib of friendship to say that I believe you have made any impression. Therefore, save yourself, fly, and try what absence will do, and work and play, and eating and drinking, and sleeping abundantly in a distant scene, to dissipate the fumes of your intoxication, steal you away from the enchantress, and restore you to yourself. Therefore I echo—go."
"I'm sure you think it, though you're half joking," said Tom Sedley.
"Well, let us come on. I've half a mind to go up myself and have a peep at the refectory," said Cleve.
"To what purpose?"
"Archæology," said Cleve.
"If you go in there, after what occurred this morning, by Jove,I'll not wait for you," said Sedley.
"Well, come along; there's no harm, I suppose, in passing by. The Queen's highway, I hope, isn't shut up," answered Verney.
Sedley sighed, looked towards Malory, and not being in a mood to resist, walked on toward the enchanted forest and castle, by his companion's side.
When they came by the dark and narrow cross-road that skirts the southern side of Malory to the farmyard gate, nailed on its pier, on a square bit of board, in fresh black and white paint, they read the following words:—
Notice.No admission at this gate to any but servants or others employed at Malory.Any person found trespassing within the walls will be prosecuted according to law.—September, 18—.
Notice.
No admission at this gate to any but servants or others employed at Malory.
Any person found trespassing within the walls will be prosecuted according to law.
—September, 18—.
When the young men, in a momentary silence, read this warning, the ingenuous countenance of Tom Sedley flushed crimson to the very roots of his hair, and Cleve Verney was seized with a fit of laughter that grew more and more violent the more grave and reproachful grew Tom Sedley's aspect.
"Well, Tom, I think, if we have any dignity left, we had better turn our backs upon this inhospitable refectory, and seek comfort elsewhere. By Jove! a pretty row you must have made up there this morning to oblige thegovernor to declare the place in a state of siege, and mount his artillery."
"Come away, Cleve; that is, as soon as you've done laughing at that board. Of course, you knew as well as I do, that my coming in, and looking as, I hope, any gentleman might, at that stupid old barn, this morning, could not possibly be the cause of that offensive notice. If you think it is pointed at me, of course, it's more amusing, but if not, hang me if I can see the joke."
Tom Sedley was out of spirits, and a little testy, and very silent all the way back to Cardyllian. He refused Cleve's invitation to Ware. He made up his mind to return to London in the morning; and this being his last evening in this part of the world, he must spend it at Hazelden.
So these young gentlemen dined together at the Verney Arms, and it grew dark as they sat by the open window at their wine, and the moon got up and silvered the distant peaks of shadowy mountains, and these companions grew silent and dreamy as they might in the spell of distant music.
But the people of Hazelden kept early hours, and Tom Sedley suddenly recollected that he must go. They parted, therefore, excellent friends, forSedley had no suspicion that Cleve was his rival, and Cleve could afford to be amused at Sedley's rivalry.
When Verney got on board there was a light breeze. "We'll run down toward Penruthyn Priory," said he; and round went the cutter, leaning with the breeze, and hissing and snorting through the gentle swell as she flew on towards the headland on which stands that pretty monastic ruin.
She glided into the black shadow cast by the solemn wall of cloud that now hid the moon from sight, away from the hundred star-like lights of Cardyllian, flying swiftly backward on the left, close under the shapeless blackness of the hill, that rises precipitously from the sea, and over which lies the path from the town to Malory, and onward by the wooded grounds of that old mansion, now an indistinguishable mass of darkness, whose outline was hardly visible against the sky.
I dare say, the thought of crossing the lights of these windows, had its share in prompting this nautical freak, and towards these Cleve's gaze was turned, when, on a sudden, the man looking out at the bows shouted "Starboard;" but before the boat had time to feel the helm, the end of the cutter's boom struck the mast of asmall boat; a shout from several voices rose suddenly, and was almost instantaneously far behind. Round went the yacht; they hailed the boat.
"She's lost her mast, I think," said one of Cleve's men.
"D—— you, where are your lights?" shouted a stern, fierce voice.
"No one overboard?" cried Cleve.
"No, no. You'll be theWave, sure? Mr. Cleve Verney, from Ware?" replied a different voice.
"Who are these fellows, do you know?" asked Cleve of his men.
"That will be Christmass Owen, sir."
"Oh!" exclaimed Cleve. "And the other's the old gentleman from Malory?"
"Well, I think 'twill be him, sure."
In another minute the punt of the yacht was alongside the boat, with a message from Cleve, inviting the old gentleman on board, and offering to put him ashore wherever he liked best.
Shortly and grimly the courtesy was refused. The wrath of the old man, however, seemed to have subsided, and he gathered himself within the folds of his silence again. All had passed in a darkness like that of Styx. A dense screen of cloud had entirely hid the moon; and though sonear, Cleve could not see the old man of Malory, about whom he was curious, with a strange and even tender sort of curiosity, which, certainly, no particular graciousness on his part had invited. In a few minutes more the boat, with the aid of another spar, was on her course again, and theWavemore than a mile away on hers.
Atfive o'clock next day, Cleve Verney was again in Cardyllian.
Outside "The Chancery" stood a "fly," only just arrived. The Reverend Isaac Dixie had come only a minute or two before, and was waiting in the chamber which was still called the state room.
The room is long and panelled with oak, and at the further end is the fire-place. The ceiling above the cornice slopes at each side with the roof, so as to give it quite a chapel-like effect; a high carved oak mantel-piece, and a carved wainscotting embedding in its panels a symmetrical system of cupboards, closed the perspective, and, as Cleve entered at the door in the further wall, gave effect to the solitary figure of the Reverend Isaac Dixie, who was standing with his back to the fire-place on the threadbare hearthrug, waiting, with an angelic smile, and beating time to a sacred melody, I am willing to believe, with his broad flat foot.
This clerical gentleman looked some six or seven and forty years old, rather tall than otherwise, broad, bland, and blue-chinned, smiling, gaitered, and single-breasted.
"Capital place to read out the Ten Commandments," exclaimed Cleve. "Glad to see you, old Dixie. It's a long time since we met."
The clergyman stepped forward, his chin a little advanced, his head a little on one side, smiling rosily with nearly closed eyes, and with a broad hand expanded to receive his former pupil's greeting.
"I've obeyed the summons, you see; punctually, I hope. Delighted, my dear, distinguished young pupil, to meet you, and congratulate you on your brilliant successes, delighted, my dear Cleve," murmured the divine, in a mild rapture of affection.
"That's not so neat as the old speech, Dixie; don't you remember?" said Cleve, nevertheless shaking his great soft red hand kindly enough. "What was it? Yes, you were to be mytutamen, and I yourdulce decus. Wasn't that it?"
"Ha, yes, I may have said it; a little classic turn, you know; ha, ha! not altogether bad—not altogether? We have had many agreeable conversations—colloquies—you and I, Mr. Verney, together, in other and very happy days," said the clergyman, with a tender melancholy smile, while his folded hands faintly smoothed one another over as if in a dream of warm water and wash-balls.
"Do you remember the day I shied that awful ink-bottle at your head? by Jove, it was as large as a tea-pot. If I had hit you that time, Dixie, I don't think we'd ever have found a mitre to fit your head."
"Arch, arch—ha, ha! dear me! yes—I had forgot that—yes, quite—you were always an arch boy, Cleve. Always arch, Mr. Verney.".
"Very arch—yes, it was what old Toler called the office bottle; do you remember? it weighed three or four pounds. I think you were glad it was broken; you never got one like it into the room again. I say if it had caught you on the head, what a deal of learning and other things the Church would have lost!"
Whenever it was Cleve's pleasure to banter, the Reverend Isaac Dixie took it in good part. It was his ancient habit, so on this occasion he simpered agreeably.
"It was in the little study at Malory. By-the-by, who are those people you have put into Malory?" continued Cleve.
"Ha—the—the people who occupy thehouse?" asked the clergyman, throwing out a question to gain time.
"Come—who are they?" said Cleve, a little briskly, throwing himself back in his seat at the same time, and looking in Dixie's face.
"Well,I'm the person responsible; in fact the lease is to me."
"Yes, I know that; go on."
"Well, I took it at the request of Miss Sheckleton, an elderly lady, whom——"
"Whom I don't care to hear about," interrupted Cleve. "There's an old gentleman—there's a young lady; who arethey? I want their names."
The Reverend Isaac Dixie was evidently a little puzzled. He coughed, he looked down, he simpered, and shook his head.
"You don't want to tell me, Dixie."
"There isnothingI should not be most happy to tell my distinguished pupil. I've been always frank, quite frank with you, Mr. Verney. I've never had a secret."
Cleve laughed gently.
"You wrong me if you think I have," and theRector of Clay dropped his eyes and coloured a little and coughed. "But this is not mine—and there reallyisa difficulty."
"Insuperable?"
"Well, really, I'mafraidthat term expresses it but too truly," acquiesced the clergyman.
"What a bore!" exclaimed Cleve.
"Shut the window, if it isn't too much trouble, like a dear old Dixie—a thousand thanks."
"I assure you I would not say it," resumed the Rector of Clay, "if it were not so—and I hope I'm in the habit of speaking truth—and this secret, if so trifling a thing may be seriously so termed, is not mine, and therefore not at my disposal."
"Something in that, old Dixie. Have a weed?" he added, tendering his cigars.
"Thanks, no; never smoke now," said he, closing his eyes, and lifting his hand as if in a benediction.
"Oh, to be sure, your bishop—I forgot," said Cleve.
"Yes, a-ha; strong opinions—very able lecture; you have no doubt read it."
"With delight and terror. Death riding on a pipe-clay coloured horse. Sir Walter Raleigh, the man of sin, and the smoke of the Bottomless pit, smelling of cheroots. You used not to besuch a fool, old Dixie.I'm your bishop now; I've said it, mind—and no one sees you," said Cleve, again offering his cigars.
"Well, well; anything, anything; thanks, just foronce, onlyonce;" and he selected one, with a playful bashfulness.
"I'm your bishop—I don't forget. But you must wait till I'm—what d'ye call it?—consecrated—there, you need not laugh. Upon my honour, I'm serious; you shall have your choice; I swear you shall," said Cleve Verney, who stood very near the title and estates of Verney, with all their comfortable advowsons appendant.
The Reverend Isaac Dixie smiled affably and meekly with prospective gratitude, and said he softly—
"I'm only too happy to think my distinguished, and I may say, honoured pupil, should deem me fit for a weighty charge in the Church; and I may say, although Clay has been considered a nice little thing, some years ago, yet, since the vicar's—I must say, most unreasonable—claim has been allowed, it is really, I should be ashamed to say how trifling in emolument; we have all our crosses to bear, my dear pupil, friend, and I may say, patron—but it is good, nay, pleasant to me to have suffered disappointments, since in their midst comes no trifling balm in the confidence you are pleased to evidence in my humble fitness."
The clergyman was moved. A gleam of the red western sun through the window, across his broad, meek, and simpering countenance, helped the effect of his blinking eyes, and he hastily applied his handkerchief.
"Isaac, Isaac, you shan't come that over me. Idon'tthink you fit—not a bit. I'm not an Aristides, only a bishop; and I don't pretend to more conscience than the rest." His eye rested on him with an unconscious disdain. "And for the life of me, I don't know why I intend doing anything for you, except that I promised, and your name's lucky, I suppose; you used to keep telling me, don't you remember, that all the promises were to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? and you are Isaac, in the middle—medio tutissimus—and I think Isaac is the queerest mixture of Jew and muff in the Old Testament, and—and—so on."
The sentence ended so because Cleve was now lighting his cigar. The clergyman smiled affably, and even waggishly, as one who can bear to be quizzed, and has a confidence in the affection of the joker; and Cleve smoked on serenely and silently for a little.
"And those are really my intentions respectingyou," he resumed; "but you are to do as I bid you in the mean time, you know. I say, you mustn't snub your bishop; and, upon my honour, I'm perfectly serious, you shall never see my face again, nor hear of me more, if you don't, this minute, tell me everything you know about those people at Malory."
"Are you reallyserious, Mr. Verney?—reallyso?"
"Yes, quite so; and I can keep my word, as you know. Who are they?"
"You are placing me in the most awkward possible position; pray consider whether you reallydomake a point of it."
"Idomake a point of it."
"I, of course, keepnothingfromyou, when you press it in that way; and beside, although itisawkward, it is, in a measureright, inasmuch as you are connected with the property, I may say, and have a right to exact information, if you thus so insist upon it as a duty."
"Come, Dixie, whoarethey!" said Cleve, peremptorily.
"Well, he's in some difficulties just now, and it is really vital that his name should not be disclosed, so I entreat you won't mention it; and especially you won't mention me as having divulged it."
"Certainly; of course I don't want to set the beaks on your friend. I shan't mention his name, depend upon it, to mortal. I've just one reason for wishing to know, and I have brought you a journey, here and back, of a hundred and forty miles, precisely to answer me this question, and Iwillknow."
"Well, Mr. Verney, my dear sir, I venture to wash my hands of consequences, and unfeignedly relying upon your promise, I tell you that the old gentleman now residing in very strict seclusion at Malory, is Sir Booth——" he paused as if willing that Cleve should supply the surname, and so, perhaps, relieve him of a part of the disclosure.
"Sir Boothwhat?"
"Don't you know?"
"No. You can't mean Sir Booth Fanshawe."
"Sir Booth—Sir Booth Fanshawe; yes," said the clergyman, looking down bashfully, "Idomean Sir Booth Fanshawe."
"By Jove!And don't you think it was rather a liberty, bringing Sir Booth Fanshawe to occupy our house at Malory, after all that has passed?" demanded Cleve Verney, rather sternly.
"Well,no, it really didnot—I'm grieved if I have erred in judgment; but it neverdidstrike me in that light—never in that point of view;and Sir Booth doesn't know who it belongs to. It never struck me to tell him, and I don't think he has an idea."