"You are one to declaim!" said Anthony, scornfully. "You who run away, and bite your knuckles till they are raw."
Urith's brow darkened. "You might have spared me that taunt," she said; "you would have done so had you been generous."
"Come over here," commanded Anthony. "How can I measure my words when I have to throw them at you froma furlong off? It is like a game of quoits when one has not strid the distance, and knows not what force to employ."
Urith without further demur came to him. This was a new experience to her to be addressed in tones of command; her mother scolded and found fault, and gave, indeed, orders which she countermanded next moment, so that Urith had grown up with the habit of following her own desires, and disregarding the contradictory or impossible injunctions laid on her.
"Come here, Urith," said Anthony; "I do not see why we have been such strangers heretofore. Why do you never come to Hall?"
"Because Hall has never come to Willsworthy."
"But my sister; you would like Bessie—I am sure of that."
"I like her now."
"Then you will come and see her at Hall?"
"When she has first been to see me, and has asked me to return the visit."
"She shall do that at once."
"She has promised to come here. She was very kind to me last night."
"She is a good creature," said Anthony, condescendingly.
"And no fool," threw in Urith.
"I don't say she is clever, but what brains she has are full ripe. She is considerably older than I am."
To this Urith made no response.
Then Anthony took up the gloves, drew them out, and passed them under the ribbon of his hat.
"I was your true knight yesterday, achieving your deliverance, and every true knight must wear either his lady's colours or some pledge to show that she has accepted him as her knight. That, I have heard say, is how some crests were given or taken. Now I have assumed mine—your gloves. I take them as my right, and shall wear them in your name."
"They are not mine," said Urith; "you will do me a favour if you will take them for me to her to whom they of right belong, and say that I return them to her. She lost them last night, and I found them. I never go near Kilworthy—never have an opportunity of seeing her—andher brother I am not likely to see. Therefore I beseech you to convey them to her from me."
"To whom? Not Julian?"
"Yes, to Julian."
Anthony muttered an oath.
"I will take them from my hat and throw them under foot," he said, angrily. "I did not ask for a favour of Julian Crymes, but for something of yours, Urith."
"You did not ask any one for a favour," she replied, gravely. "You took the gloves unasked."
He pulled them from his hat, and was about to cast them back on the window-sill, when Urith arrested his hand.
"No," she said; "I asked you a favour, and you will not be so discourteous a knight as to refuse it me."
"You take me as your knight!" exclaimed Anthony, with a flash of pleasure from his eyes that met hers, and before which hers fell.
"My errand boy," she said, with a smile, "my foot-page to carry messages from me. You will take the gloves to Julian Crymes."
"Not in my hat, but in my belt—thus," said Anthony, passing them under his girdle. Then, after a pause, he said, "You have given me nothing."
"Yes, I have."
"What? Only another maid's gloves?"
"Something else. My forgiveness."
"Full?"
"Yes—full. Go now, and take the gloves."
"I shall return another day for something of your own."
Still he loitered; then suddenly looked up, with a laugh. "Mistress! What is your livery? What is your colour?"
"My colour! Yellow—yellow as the marigold, for I am jealous."
"Then, here is my hat. You shall put your badge in it."
"Not till I admit your service."
"You have—you have given me a commission."
Urith laughed. "Very well. There are marsh marigolds in the brook. You shall have them."
Anthony went home to Hall. He was on foot—if he must go to Kilworthy and return the gloves to Julian Crymes, he would ride. They hung in his girdle. His hat was gay with marsh marigolds. A sudden, overwhelming intoxication of happiness had come over Urith. She was loved, and loved in return. Her heart had hitherto known no love, or only that which was rendered as a duty to an exacting and trying mother. The world to her had become wider, brighter, the sky higher. The condition in which her mother was forgotten for a moment, for a moment only, as with fluttering heart and trembling fingers, and pulses that leaped and then were still, she picked the marigolds and put them in his cap. Then he was gone, and she returned at once to her mother's room.
Anthony wore his hat ajaunt as he strode into the yard of Hall, and when he saw his sister Bessie in the door, he called to her to come to him, to save himself the trouble of taking a dozen steps to her out of his way to the stable.
She obeyed the summons at once.
"Bess!" said he, "I have made a promise for thee. I have been to Willsworthy, and have said that thou wilt go there to-day."
"Oh, Anthony!" said Elizabeth, in return. "How could you do as you have done concerning the headpiece?"
"There, there! that is finished and done for. I sent it back the same night. I called up the sexton to help me. But the matter is at an end, and I will not have it stirred again. Do you hear, you must go to Willsworthy to-day. I have passed my word."
"I cannot, Tony. I was on my way there when I met Luke, and he told me what you had done. Then for shame I could not go on, but returned home."
"I went there and made my peace," said Anthony. "Do not blow a drop of soap into a vast globe. It is all over and mended. I said I was sorry, and that was the end of the matter."
"But Luke told me that Mistress Malvine has had a fit because of it."
"She has had the like before, and has recovered; she will be herself again to-morrow—and, it matters not! sickly and aged folk must expect these accidents. You shall go to Willsworthy to-day."
"I cannot indeed, brother, for my father has forbidden it."
"Forbidden you going there?"
"Yes, brother, when I came back, he asked where I had been, and when I told him he was wrath, and bade me never go there again. He would not, he said, have it appear that he was begging off from the consequences of what you had done."
"I have begged off. That is to say—I explained it was all a mistake. I meant no wrong, and so it is covered up and passed over."
"That may be, Tony, but against my father's command I cannot go."
"It is such folly," said Anthony, "I will go see him myself. You shall go there. I told Urith that I would send you. My father shall not make my word empty."
He went by her.
She caught his arm, and said, in a low tone, "Brother, why do you make so much now of Urith Malvine? And you treating her as your true love?"
"True love!" repeated he, scornfully. "That is the way with all you woman-kind. If one but sees a handsome girl, and speaks two words to her, at once you arrive at the notion that we have chosen each other as true lovers, passed rings and promises, and wished for a marriage licence. Let me go by."
He walked into the house, and to his father's room, which he entered without announcing himself.
The old man sat by the fire. His account-books were on the table, at his side. The fire was of turf and wood.
"What is this, father?" began Anthony, in his imperious fashion, "That you have forbidden Bess to go to see the Malvine family, and the Madame is ill, had a falling fit this morning."
"It is not for us to make a scrape and a cringe to the like of them," answered the old man, raising himself in hischair by a hand on each arm, as he had sunk together in the seat. "I take it the Cleverdons need not stoop to that beggar brood."
"I did wrong," said Anthony, shortly. "And I have been to Willsworthy, and said I was sorry. I offered to put up a monument of stone to Master Richard Malvine at our own cost."
"You did!"
"Yes, father, I did, I would do it at my own expense."
"You have not a penny but what I allow you, and not one penny would I hand out for such a purpose."
"Then it is as well that my offer was refused."
"I bade you forbear going to that house when you spake of it this morning."
"You advised me not to go; but my conscience spoke louder than your voice, father, and I went."
"How were you received?" asked old Cleverdon, with a malignant leer.
Anthony shrugged his shoulders: "The old Madam fell into a fit at the sight of me. There was also Luke there."
"Oh, Luke!" said Anthony senior, with a sneer. "He may go there; but no son or daughter of mine. We do not consort with beggars. That is enough. You have been. Do not go again. If they bring the matter into a court of law I am well content—more than content, for it will bring them to utter beggary, and they will have, maybe, to sell, and I will buy them out." He turned to the fire and laughed at the thought. Then, turning his face round again over his pointed shoulder, he said, in an altered tone, "I am glad you are in here; you do not often give me a chance of a talk, and now I wish to speak with you of serious matters. You are getting to be a man, Tony—quite a man—and must think of settling in life. It is high time for us to have the arrangement with Julian Crymes——"
"What arrangement?"
"Oh, you know. It has been an understood thing. You have not been ignorant, though you may affect to know nothing about it. Fine property hers! All the Kilworthy estate after her father's death. He has it for his life. But there is money. A good deal, I doubt not, willgo with her hand at once. If we had that we could clear the mortgage off Hall."
Anthony frowned, and folded his arms.
"I am against delaying marriage till late," continued old Cleverdon; "so I propose that you have a talk with Julian at once, and get her to say when it is to be. Some time this year; but not in May—May marriages are unlucky." The old man chuckled, and said, "I reckon your honeymoon you will find a harvest moon."
"I have no fancy for Julian Crymes," said Anthony; "I never had."
"Pshaw! Of course you have a fancy for Kilworthy. It will fit on with Hall bravely; and so the old Glanville property will come together all in time to the Cleverdons."
"I am not going to take Julian for the sake of Kilworthy. That you may be assured of," said Anthony.
"Oh, yes, you will; but I dare say you want to keep out of chains a little longer. If so, I do not press you. Nevertheless, in the end it comes to this—you must take Julian and her estate."
"I will have neither one nor the other," said Anthony. "I do not want to marry—when I do I will please myself."
"You will consult my wishes and my plans," said the father. "But there, I have said enough. Turn the thing over in your head; the girl likes you, small blame to her—you are the bravest cockrell in the district, and can crow loud enough to make all others keep silence."
"I will never take Julian," again said Anthony. "It is of no use, father, urging this; she has been thrown at me, and has thrown herself at me. I may have prattled and laughed with her, but I never cared much for her. I shall never take but the maid that pleases me; I give you assurance of this, father."
"Well, well, that will suffice. I was too early in speaking. Take your time; in the end you will see through my spectacles. Now I am busy; you may go."
Anthony left. He was irritated at his father for endeavoring to force him to marry Julian Crymes, irritated with him for his depreciatory tone when speaking of the Malvines, irritated with him for not allowing his sister to go to Willsworthy.
At the present moment he felt very reluctant to go toKilworthy and see Julian, to return to her the pair of gloves. After she had been thrust on him and he had declined to think of her, he felt out of humour for a visit to her; he had lost command of himself, in his annoyance, and might speak with scant courtesy.
"If I could light on Fox I would give him the gloves," said Anthony, as he mounted the horse.
He rode out on a down near Hall, and there drew rein, uncertain whether he would go direct to Kilworthy or not.
"No," said he, "I will ride first to Peter Tavy and see that the head-post of Master Malvine be secure. I will give the sexton something to have the foot scarfed, that it may not fall over or give way. After that I can go to Kilworthy." So he turned his horse's head in the direction of the inn, the Hare and Hounds at Cudliptown, where he would fall into the road to Peter Tavy.
In his irritation at what his father had proposed, he forgot about the bunch of flowers in his hat. He left them there disregarded, fretting in his mind at his father's attempt to force him to a union that was distasteful to him. He liked Julian well enough; she was a handsome girl. He had admired her, he had played the lover—played without serious intent, for his heart had not been touched—but now he entertained an aversion from her, an aversion that was not old; it dated but from the previous day, but it had ripened whilst his father spoke to him of her.
Anthony was this day like a charged electric battery, and any one that came near him received a shock. His father had seen that the mood of the young man was not one in which he would bear to be contradicted; the old man was aware that his son would discharge his feelings against him quite as readily as against another, and he, therefore, had the discretion not to press a point that irritated Anthony, and was like to provoke an outburst.
And now, as Anthony rode over the down, past many old tumuli covering the dead of prehistoric times, he had no eyes for the beauty of the scene that opened before him, eyes for no antiquities that he passed, ears for none of the fresh and pleasant voices of early spring that filled the air; he was occupied with his own thoughts, grumbling and muttering over the matters of dissatisfaction that had risen up and crossed him. He had apologised for the outragecommitted on Richard Malvine's grave, but he could not excuse himself of having occasioned a shock to Mistress Malvine. He was angry with his father for the slighting manner in which he spoke of the Malvines, for having forbidden Bessie going to them, for having endeavoured to force him into an engagement with Julian. He would please himself, murmured Anthony to himself; in such a matter as this he would brook no dictation. His liking for Urith was too young to have assumed any shape and force, and he had no thoughts of its leading any further. Such as it was, it had been fed and stimulated by opposition—the interference on the moor, the opposition of his father, the difficulties put in his way by his own act—but then Anthony was just the man to be settled in a course by encountering opposition therein.
He crossed the river, reached Cudliptown, and saw the surgeon's horse hitched up outside the tavern. The doctor had been to Willsworthy, and had halted at the Hare and Hounds for refreshment on his way home.
Anthony at once dismounted. He would go in there and ask tidings of the health of the widow.
He fastened up his horse and entered the tavern, in his usual swaggering, defiant manner, with his hat on, and a frown on his brow. He found in the inn, not the surgeon only, but James Cudlip, and to his surprise Anthony Crymes.
The relationship in which Anthony Cleverdon stood to Fox was intimate but not cordial. They had known each other and had associated together since they were children; they had been at school together; they hunted, and rabbited, and hawked together. Anthony was not one who could endure to be alone, and as he had no other companion of his age and quality with whom to associate, he took up with Fox rather than be solitary. But when together they were ever bickering. Fox's bitter tongue made Anthony start, and with his slow wit he was incapable of other retort than threat. Moreover, from every one else young Anthony received flattery; only from Fox did he get gibes. He bore in his heart a simmering grudge against him that never boiled up into open quarrel. Fox took a malicious delight in tormenting his comrade, whom he both envied and disliked.
That Anthony Crymes had paid his addresses to Urith, and had been refused, was unknown to Anthony Cleverdon, to whom Crymes confided no secrets of his heart or ambition.
When Anthony caught sight of Fox at the table, he checked the question relative to the condition of Madame Malvine that rose to his lips, and came over to the settle.
"Why! what a May Duke have we here!" exclaimed Fox Crymes, pointing with a laugh at Anthony's cap. "What is the meaning of this decoration?"
Instead of replying, Anthony called for ale.
"And wearing his mistress' gloves as well!" shouted Crymes.
"They are not my mistress' gloves," answered Anthony, hastily, and in a tone of great irritation. "If you would know, Fox, whose they are, then I tell you, they belong to your sister."
"How came you by them? And wherefore wear them?"
"I was on the lookout for you, Fox, to return them to you for her. I do not want them. She lost them overnight."
"And where did you find them? On the moor?"
"They were given to me by the finder. Will that satisfy you? I will answer no more questions."
Crymes saw that Anthony Cleverdon was in an irascible mood—such a mood as gave him special opportunities of vexing Anthony and amusing himself.
"And now about your posie of golden cups?" he asked tauntingly.
"I said I would answer no more questions."
"It is not necessary. I know very well where you have been."
"I have been home—at Hall," said Anthony, going over to the table from the settle, where he felt himself uneasy with all eyes fixed on him. He pulled the gloves out of his belt and laid them before him, and drew them their full length on the table, then smoothed them with his finger. He wished he had not entered the inn; his face was clouded, and his muscles twitched, Crymes enjoying his evident annoyance. He sat on the further side of the table, with his mug of beer by him.
"I know very well where you have been," said he again, with his twinkling, malicious eyes fixed on Anthony. "So was I the day before yesterday; and also came off with a posie—but a better one than yours."
"It is a lie!" burst from the irritated young man, starting. "Urith never——" Then he checked himself, as Fox broke into ironical laughter at the success of his essay to extract from Anthony the secret of his bunch of marigolds. Anthony saw that he had been trapped, and became more chafed and hot than before.
"Do you know what she meant by giving you those flowers?" asked Crymes, and paused with his eyes on the man he was baiting.
Anthony answered with a growl.
"You know what they are called by the people?" said Crymes. "Drunkards. And, when you were presented with that posie, it was as much as to say that none save one to whom such a term applied would have acted as you had done last night by your offence against a dead man's grave, and by adding insult to injury by your visiting the widow and child to-day."
The blood poured into Anthony's face and dazzled his eyes. A malevolent twitch of the muscles of the mouth showed how Fox enjoyed tormenting him.
"Go again a little later in the season, and Urith will find another, and even more appropriate, adornment for your hat—a coxcomb!"
Yeoman Cudlip and Surgeon Doble laughed aloud, so did the serving wench who had just brought in Anthony's ale.
The young fellow, stung beyond endurance, sprang to his feet with a snort—he could not speak—and struck Fox across the face with the gloves.
Crymes uttered a cry of pain and rage, and with his hand to his eye drew the hunting-knife from his belt, and struggled out of his place to get at Anthony. The surgeon and yeoman threw themselves in his way and disarmed him, the girl screamed and fled to the kitchen.
"He has blinded me!" gasped Fox, as he sank back into a seat. "I cannot see."
Anthony was alarmed. Water was brought, and the face of Crymes washed. One of the silver tags of the glove had struck and injured the right eyeball.
There are epochs in the lives of most men when a sad fatality seems to dog their steps and turn athwart all that they do. Anthony had come to such an epoch suddenly since that ride and walk along the Lyke-Way. He had allowed himself to be taunted into a foolish visit to the churchyard on St. Mark's Eve, when there he had desecrated a grave, then he had thrown Madame Malvine into a fit, had disagreed with his father, and now had injured the eye of his comrade.
Anthony's anger cooled down the moment he was aware of what he had done, but this was not a piece of mischief that could be put to rights at once, like the replacing of the headpiece of the grave. His presence in the room was a distraction and cause of irritation to the man he had hurt, now in the hands of the surgeon, and he deemed it advisable to leave the inn, mount his horse, and ride away to Peter Tavy Church, where he desired to have a word with the sexton and carpenter relative to the old head-post of Malvine's grave.
Peter Tavy Church, or the Church of St. Peter on the Tavy, is a grey granite edifice, mottled with lichen, with moorstone pinnacles, and a cluster of fine old trees in the yard. Externally the church is eminently picturesque, it was beautiful within at the time of our tale, in spite of the havoc wrought in the period of the Directory; of more recent times it has undergone a so-called restoration which has destroyed what remained of charm.
For a long time it has been matter of felicitation that the old opprobrium attaching to the men of the West Country of being wreckers has ceased to apply; the inhumanity of destroying vessels and their crews for the sake of the spoil that could be got from them has certainly ceased. But we are mistaken if we suppose that wrecking as a profession or pastime has come to an end altogether. The complaint has been driven inwards, or rather, wrecking is no longer practised on ships, which the law hastaken under its protection, but on the defenceless parish churches.
The havoc that has been wrought in our churches within the last thirty years is indescribable. In Cornwall, with ruthless and relentless activity, the parish churches have, with rare exceptions, been attacked one after another, and robbed of all that could charm and interest, and have been left cold and hideous skeletons. I know nothing that more reminds one (speaking ecclesiologically) of the desert strewn with the bones of what were once living and beautiful creatures, scraped of every particle of flesh, the marrow picked out of their bones, the soul, the divine spark of beauty and life, expelled for ever.
No sooner does a zealous incumbent find himself in the way of collecting money to do up his church, than he rubs his hands over it and says, "Embowelled will I see thee by and by." Falstaff was fortunately able to get away from the knife. Alas! not so our beautiful old churches. The architect and the contractor are called in, and the embowelling goes on apace. All the old fittings are cast forth, the monumental slabs broken up, the walls are scraped and painted, plaster everywhere peeled off, just as the skin was taken off St. Bartholomew, and the shells are exulted over by architect, contractor, parson, and parishioners, as shells from which the bright soul has been expelled—sansbeauty,sansinterest,sanspoetry,sanseverything. The man of taste and feeling crosses the threshold, and falls back with the same sense as comes on the reader of a young lady's novel, as at a mouthful of bread from which the salt has been omitted, of something inexpressibly flat and insipid. Before its restoration, Peter Tavy Church had the remains of a beautiful roodscreen nicely painted and gilt, and an unique pew of magnificent carved oak for the manorial lord to sit in, with twisted columns at the angles supporting heraldic lions.
Anthony Cleverdon dismounted from his horse at the church-yard, hitched up his beast, and entered the graveyard. He saw the sexton there, and talking to him was an old woman in threadbare dress, grey hair, very dark piercing eyes, bent, and leaning on a staff. She was a stranger, at all events, he did not know her, and yet there was a something in her features that seemed peculiar to him.The sexton said something to her, and she at once came down the church path to meet Anthony, extending to him her hand.
"Ah!" she said. "I can see, I can see my Margaret in your face—you have her eyes, her features, and the same toss of head. I know you. You have never, maybe, heard of me, and yet I am your grandmother. Have you come here to see your mother's grave? I am glad, I am glad it is cared for, not, I ween, by your father. Which of you thinks of the mother, and has set flowers on the grave—see, it is alight with primroses?"
"I believe that was Bessie's doing," answered Anthony; then involuntarily he looked at her shabby gown, patched and worn.
"I would like to see Bessie. Is she like you? If so—she is like your mother. Ah! my Margaret was the handsomest girl in all the West of England. You have not forgotten your mother, I hope, young man."
"I do not remember her—you forget she died shortly after I was born."
"How should I know?" The old woman took his hand, and held it fast as she peered into his face with eager eyes. "How should I know, when your father never took the trouble to let me know that my own, my dear and only child, was dead? If I had known she was ill, I would have come to her, though he took, as he threatened to take, the pitchfork to me, if I crossed his threshold. I would have come and nursed her; then, maybe, she would not have died. But he did not tell me. He did not ask me to her burial, and not till long after did I hear she was no more. He was a hard and a cruel man."
The clear tears formed in the old woman's eyes, and trickled down her cheeks.
"I have been ill all the winter, and very poor; but that was not known, and if known would not have concerned your father. When I got better, I came here to ask if I might be buried, when I die, near my Margaret. Or are you Cleverdons too great and fine now for that? Well—you will let me lie at her feet, though I was her mother, just as I have seen a dog put under the soles of the figures in old churches. You are her son, you are my own grandchild, though you have never known me and cared for me,and given me a thought. Please the Lord, you are not hard as your father, and you will grant me this."
"I did not know I had a grandmother," said Anthony. "If there is anything you want, it shall be done."
"No, I do not suppose that your father ever spoke of me. Your mother's father was the parson here, and died leaving no money. I had to leave, and become a housekeeper to maintain myself, and what little money I then earned has been expended in my illness. Now, will you let me see Bessie? She is good, she remembers her mother, and thinks of her."
Anthony endeavoured to withdraw his hand from the grasp of the old woman, but she would not suffer it; she laid the other caressingly on his, and said,
"No, my boy, you will not be unkind, you will not go from me without a promise to bring me Bessie. I must see her."
"You shall come to Hall, and see her there."
She shook her grey head. "Never! never! I could not bear to be in that house where your mother, my poor Margaret, suffered. Moreover, your father would not endure it! He threatened to take the pitchfork to me—when your mother was alive."
"He would not do that now," said Anthony. "But as you will. I will bring Bessie to you. Where shall I find you?"
"I am staying at Master Youldon's. He knew my dear husband in the old times, and knew me, and does not forget old kindnesses."
"Very well. You shall see Bessie. I have some business with the sexton."
Then he withdrew his hand from the old woman, and went to the grave of Richard Malvine, where he gave directions what was to be done to that and the headpiece. Widow Penwarne came to him.
"What is this?" she asked. "What have you to do with this grave?"
"I have some orders to give concerning it," answered Anthony, vexed at her interference. "I will speak with you later, madam."
"But what does the grave of Richard Malvine matter to you?" again she asked. "Ah!" she exclaimed, and wentand picked some of the primroses from the mound over her daughter, and then strewed them over the grave of Richard, "Ah!" she said. "Here lie two whose hearts were broken by your father—two for whom he will have to answer at the Judgment Day, and then I will stand up along with them, and point the finger at him, and accuse him. If there be a righteous God, then as He is righteous so will He judge and punish!"
"Why, well, now, is not this strange?" exclaimed Anthony. "Here comes my sister Elizabeth. I wonder much what has brought her."
Bessie appeared, with a wreath of spring flowers in her hand. She had ridden, attended by a serving-man. She was surprised and pleased to see Anthony at Richard Malvine's grave.
"Oh, brother!" she said, "I have been so troubled over what has been done that I set to work to make a garland to hang on the grave, as some token of respect, and regret for what had been done."
"What, you also!" exclaimed the old woman, and went to her and clasped her hands. "You are Bessie Cleverdon, the dear child of my Margaret. Let me kiss you, ay, and bless you." She drew the head of Elizabeth to her and kissed her.
"This is our grandmother, Bessie," exclaimed Anthony.
"Ay!" said the old woman, studying the girl earnestly with her dark, eager eyes. "Yes, I am the grandmother of you both; but you are not like my Margaret, not in face, and yet not like your father—please God in heaven—not like him in soul!" she said, with vehemence.
"Let us go aside," said Anthony, "out of earshot of the sexton, if you cannot speak of my father without such an overflow of spleen."
"Then we will go to your mother's grave," said Madame Penwarne. "I see you stand by your father; but I can see this in you—that you will stand by him so long as he does not cross your will. Let him but oppose you, young man, where your headstrong will drives, and there will be trouble between you. Then, maybe, your father will begin to receive the chastisement from the hand of the Lord that has been hanging over him ever since he took Margaret to Hall. That is a strange turn of the wheel, that his twochildren should meet at the grave of Richard Malvine to care for its adornment. And I warrant you do not know, either of you, what is owing to him who lies there—ay! and to her who rests at our feet."
"I can't understand riddles," said Anthony, "and it is no pleasure to me to hear hard words cast at my father. If you are in poverty, grandmother, you shall be helped. I will speak to my father about you, and when I speak he will listen and do as is fitting. Of that be assured. If you have anything further to say of my father, say it to him, not to me."
"I will take nothing, not a farthing of his," answered the old woman, sharply.
"Why not, grandmother?" asked Bessie, gently, and kissed the old woman's quivering cheek. "It will be the greatest unhappiness to Anthony and me to think that you are not provided for in your age, and in comfort. We shall not be able to rest if we suppose that you are in want. It would fill us with concern and self-reproach. My father is just, and he also——"
"No," said the old woman, interrupting her, "just he is not. Moreover, he owes me too much—or rather he owes my dead daughter, your mother, too much—he cannot repay it: not one thousandth part with coin. You, Elizabeth, are older than your brother. You must know that your mother's life was made miserable, that she had no happiness at Hall."
"And I trust and believe," said Bessie, "that my dear mother, in the rest of Paradise, has long ago forgotten her troubles, and forgiven my father if he had in any way annoyed her."
"Do not be so sure of that, child," exclaimed the old woman, with vehemence. "If I were to go out of this life to-morrow, I should go before the throne of God to denounce your father, and I would call Richard Malvine and your mother as witnesses against him. Shall I tell you what he did? These who lie here—he yonder, where you have placed the garlands, and my poor Margaret—loved each other, and would have been happy with each other. But her father died, I was poor, and then for the sake of his money, Margaret was persuaded to take Anthony Cleverdon, and give up Richard Malvine."
"If that be so——" began young Anthony.
"It is so," said the old woman, vehemently.
"Then the blame lies with you," said he. "You pressed her to take the rich man and refuse the poor. My father was guiltless."
The widow drew back and trembled; but presently recovered herself and said, "That may be—I bear in part the blame. But if he had been kind to her it would have been other. I would not reproach him; but it was not so, and Bessie was old enough to remember that little love passed between them, that he was hard, and cruel, and unkind. He broke her heart—and there she lies."
"I am not here," said Anthony, "to hear my father reproached. I respect you as my grandmother; but you have doubtless a jaundiced eye, that sees all things yellow. I will see what can be done for you. It does not befit us that the mother of our mother should be in want."
As they spoke, from out of the church came Luke Cleverdon. His face was pale, and his eyes were sunken. The sexton had not known that he was in the sacred building. Luke came towards the little group, treading his way among the graves with care. The tomb of the Cleverdons was near the chancel south window. He extended his hand to Mistress Penwarne, saying, "I was within. It was not my fault if I heard much that was said; and now I have but come into your midst, Anthony, Bessie, and you, Madame, to make a humble petition. I am curate in charge here; the rector is not resident. I live in the old parsonage, that must be so familiar to Mistress Penwarne—every room hallowed with some sweet recollection—and I am alone, and need a kinswoman to be my housekeeper, and"—he smiled at the old woman—"be to me as a mother. Madame, will you honour my poor roof by taking up your abode therein? It is, forsooth, more yours than mine, for there you lived your best days, and to it you are attached by strongest ties; but I am but a casual tenant. It is not mine—I am but the curate. Here we have no continuous city, and every house is to us but a tavern on our pilgrimage where we stay a night."
Throughout the day Willsworthy was full of visitors. Never before had it been so frequented. The act of Anthony Cleverdon had been bruited through the neighbourhood, and aroused general indignation against the young man and sympathy for the widow.
Mistress Malvine was sufficiently recovered in the afternoon to receive some of those who arrived in her bedroom, and Mr. Solomon Gibbs entertained the rest in the hall. Those who had known the Malvines well—these were not many—and those who knew them distantly, persons of the gentle class, of the yeoman and farmer ranks, all thought it incumbent on them to come, express their opinions, and inquire after the widow. Not only did these arrive, but also many cottagers appeared at the kitchen door, full of sympathy—or at all events, of talk. It really seemed as if Willsworthy, which had dropped out of every one's mind, had suddenly claimed supreme regard.
It was a source of real gratification to the sick woman to assume a position of so much consequence. It is always a satisfaction to hear other persons pour out the vials of wrath and hold up hands in condemnation of those who have given one offence, and Madame Malvine was not merely flattered by becoming the centre of interest to the neighbourhood, but was influenced by the opinions expressed in her ear, and her indignation against Anthony was deepened.
Wherever in the house Urith went, she heard judgment pronounced on him in no measured terms, the general voice condemned him as heartless and profane. Question was made what proceeding would be taken against him, and abundance of advice was offered as to the course to be pursued to obtain redress. Urith was unable to endure the talk of the women in her mother's room, and she descended to the hall, there to hear her Uncle Solomon, amongst farmers and yeomen, tell the story of Anthony's deed withmuch exaggeration, and to hear the frank expressions of disapproval it elicited.
Then she went into the kitchen, where the poorer neighbours were congregated. Everywhere it was the same. Condemnation fell on Anthony. No one believed that he had not acted in wilful knowledge of what he was about.
Urith could not fail to observe that there was a widespread latent jealousy and dislike of the Cleverdons in the neighbourhood, occasioned partly, no doubt, by the success of the old man in altering his position and entering a superior class, but chiefly due to his arrogance, hardness, and meanness. All the faults in Anthony's character were commented on, and his good qualities denied or disparaged.
Urith could with difficulty restrain herself from contradicting these harsh judges, and in taking on her the defence of the culprit, but she saw clearly that her advocacy would be unavailing, and provoke comment.
She therefore left the house. Her mother was so much recovered as not to need her. Whether the old lady acted wisely in receiving so much company after her fit, Urith doubted, but her mother had insisted on the visitors being admitted to her room, and under the excitement she rallied greatly.
To be away from the clatter of tongues, she left the farm and went forth upon the moor.
To the north of Willsworthy rises a ridge of bold and serrated rocks that rise precipitously above the River Tavy, which foams below at a depth of three hundred feet; they present the appearance of a series of ruined towers, and are actually in places united by the remains of ancient walls of rude moorstone, for what purpose piled up, it is not possible to say.
A bar of red porphyritic granite crosses the ravine, and over this leaps the river into a deep pool, immediately beneath the boldest towers and pinnacles of rock that overhang. Among these crags, perched like an eagle above the dizzy abyss, sat Urith on a rock, listening to the roar of the river wafted up to her from beneath. Away to the north and east of the moor extended shoulder on shoulder, to the lonely peak of Fur Tor that rises in uttermost solitude near the sources of the Tavy, amidst all but untraversable morasses. She was glad to be there, alone,away from the lips that spit their venom on the name of Anthony.
The human heart is full of strange caprices, and is wayward as a spoiled child. The very fact that the whole country side was combined to condemn Anthony made Urith in heart exculpate him—that every mouth blamed him made her excuse him. It was true that he had acted with audacious folly, but there was merit in that audacity. What other youth would have ventured into the churchyard on such a night? The audacity so qualified the folly as almost to obliterate it. He had been challenged to the venture. Would it have been manly had he declined the challenge? Did not the blame attach to such as had dared him to the reckless deed? She repeated to herself the words that had been spoken in her mother's house about him, so extravagant in expression, exaggerated in judgment as to transcend justice, and her heart revolted against the extravagance and forgave him. If all the world stood up in condemnation, yet would not she. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. She recalled his chivalry towards her on the moor; she heard again his voice; recollected how he had held her in his arms; she felt again the throb of his heart, heard his breathing as he strode with her through the flames, as he wrestled with her for the mastery; and she laughed aloud, she rejoiced that he had conquered. Had she overmastered him, and her will had been submitted to by him, she would have despised him. Because he was so strong in his resolution, so determined in carrying it out, she liked and respected him.
There flashed before her something like lightning—it was his eyes, lifted to hers, with that strange look that sent a thrill through all her veins and tingled in her extremities. That look of his had revealed to her something to which she dare not give a name, a something which gave him a right to demand of her that morning testimony to his integrity of purpose, a something that constrained her, without a thought of resistance, to give him what he asked, first her hand in witness that she believed him, then the bunch of flowers in token that she accepted him as her knight. As her knight?
Her heart bounded with pride and exultation at the thought! He her knight! He, the noblest youth in allthe region round, a very Saul, taller by the head and shoulders than any other, incomparably handsome, more manly, open, generous, brave—brave! who feared neither man nor midnight spectre.
Yet—when Julian Crymes had charged her with attempting to rob her of her lover, she, Urith, had repelled the charge, and had declared that she did not value, did not want him. Nor had she then; but the very violence, the defiance of Julian, had forced her to think of him—to think of him in the light of a lover. The opposition of Julian had been the steel stroke on her flinty heart that had brought out the spark of fire. If anything had been required to fan this spark into flame, that had been supplied by the chattering, censorious swarm of visitors that afternoon.
And Anthony? How stood he?
At that moment he was weighed down with a sense of depression and loneliness such as he had never felt previously. He had been accustomed to be flattered and made a great deal of. His father, his sister, his cousin, the servants, Fox Crymes, every one had shown him deference, had let him see that he was esteemed a man born to fortune and success; he had been good at athletic exercises, good in sport, a good horseman, taller, stronger than his compeers, and heir to a wealthy gentleman. But all at once luck had turned against him; he had committed blunders and had injured those with whom he had come in contact; possibly blinded Fox, had offended the Malvine family, thrown the old dame into a fit, had quarrelled with his father, brought down on his head the reproach and ridicule of all who knew him. Then came the encounter with his grandmother, and the discovery of the wrong done to his mother and to the father of Urith by his own father. Bold, self-opinionated as Anthony was, yet this sudden shock had humbled him and staggered him: he had fallen from a pinnacle and was giddy. A sort of irrational, blind instinct within him drove him back in the direction of Willsworthy. He felt that he could not rest unless he saw Urith again, and—so he explained his feeling—told her more fully the circumstances of the previous night's adventure, and heard from her own lips that her mother was not seriously injured in health by the distress he had caused her, and that she, Urith, forgave him.
His imagination worked. He had not been explicit enough when he came to Willsworthy. The fainting fit of the mother had interrupted his explanation. Afterwards he had forgotten to say what he had intended to say, and what ought to have been said. When he was gone, Urith would consider it strange that he had been so curt and reserved, she would hear her Uncle Solomon's stories, tinged with rum punch past recognition of where truth shaded into fiction.
Moreover, he felt a craving for Urith's sympathy; he wanted to acquaint her with what he had done to Fox Crymes before the story reached her embellished and enlarged. To his discredit it would be told, and might prejudice her against him. He must forestall gossip and tell her the truth himself.
So he rode in the direction of Willsworthy, but when he came near the place, an unusual diffidence stole over him—he did not dare to venture up to the house, and he hung about the vicinity in the road, then he went out on the moor, and it was when on the down that he thought he caught sight of her at some distance in the direction of the Cleave.
A labourer came by. "Who is that yonder?" he asked.
"I reckon any fool knows," answered the clown. "That be our young lady, Mistress Urith."
"Take my horse, fellow," said Anthony, and dismounted.
He went over the moor in pursuit of the girl, and found her seated on the rock with a foot swinging over the precipice. She was so startled when he spoke to her as almost to lose her balance. He caught her hand, and she rose to her feet.
They stood on a ledge. Two towers of rock rose with a cleft between them like a window. The shelves of the granite were matted with whortleberry leaves, now all ranges of colour from green, through yellow to carmine, and with grey moss. A vein of porphyry penetrating the granite striped it with red, and Nature had tried her delicate pencil on the stone, staining or stippling it with her wondrously soft-toned lichenous paints. Below, at the depth of five hundred feet, the river roared over its red porphyry barrier, throwing into the air foam bubbles that were caught by the wind and carried up, and danced about,and sported with as are feathers by a wanton child. The great side of Stannon Down opposite, rising to sixteen hundred feet, was covered by flying shadows of forget-me-not blue and pale sulphurous gleams of sun. As the light glided over it, it picked out the strange clusters of old circular huts and enclosures, some with their doors and lintels unthrown down, that were inhabited by an unknown race before history began.
Anthony put his arm round Urith. "We stand," said he, "on the edge of a chasm; a step, a start, and one or other—perhaps both—fall into the abyss to sheer destruction. Let me hold you; I would not let you go—if you went, it would not be alone."
Urith did not answer; a trembling fit came on her. She stood, she felt, at the brink of another precipice than that before her eyes.
"I could not keep away," said Anthony. "I have got into trouble with every one, and I was afraid that you also would be set against me; so, after I had been to see about your father's grave, that all was right there—and Bessie had laid a garland of flowers on it—then I came back here. I thought I must see you and explain what I forgot to say this morning."
"You need say no more about that matter," answered Urith. "I told you at the time that I believed your word. You said you intended no ill. I am sure of that, quite sure. I know it is not in you to hurt."
"And yet I have hurt you and your mother, and also Fox Crymes." Then he told her how he had struck him, and that he was afraid he had seriously injured his eye.
"And you have brought back the gloves!" exclaimed Urith.
"Yes; here they are."
"You have not fulfilled my commission?"
"I will do it if you wish it; I have not done it yet. I was going to give Fox the gloves; I did not desire to see Julian. You must understand that my father has been speaking to me to-day about Julian—it seems he has set his mind on making a pair of us. I do not know what Julian thinks, but I know my own mind, that this is not my taste. After he had spoken to me about her, I could not go on direct to her house and see her. My father wouldthink that I gave in to him, and—I should have been uneasy myself."
Urith said nothing, she was looking down at the tossing, thundering torrent far below.
"I never cared much for Julian," continued Anthony, "and after yesterday I like her less."
"Why so?" Urith looked up and met his eyes.
"Why so? Because I have seen you. If I have to go through life with any one, I will take you in the saddle behind me—no one else."
Urith trembled more than before; a convulsive, irrepressible emotion had come over her. Sometimes it happens when the heavens are opened with a sudden flare of near and dazzling lightning, that those who have looked up have been struck with blindness. So was it now; Urith had seen a heaven of happiness, a glory of love—a new and wondrous world open before her, such as she had never dreamed of, of which no foretaste had ever been accorded her, and it left her speechless, with a cloud before her eyes, and giddy, so that she held out her hands gropingly to catch the rock; it was unnecessary, the strong arm of Anthony held her from falling.
The young man paused for an answer.
"Well!" said he. "Have you no word?"
None; she moved her lips, she could not speak.
"Come," said he, after another pause, "they who ride pillion ride thus—the man has his leather belt, and to that the woman holds. Urith, if we are to ride together on life's road, lay hold of my belt."
She held out her hands, still gropingly.
"Stay!" she said, suddenly recovering herself with a start. "You forgot; you do not know me. Look at my hands, they are still torn; I did that in one of my fits of rage. Do you not fear to take me when I go, when crossed, into such mad passion as these hands show?"
Anthony laughed. "I fear! I!"
Then she put her right hand to lay hold of his girdle, but caught and drew out the gloves.
"I have these again!" she exclaimed. "Even these gloves cast at me in defiance. Well, it matters not now. I refused to take them up, yet I could not shake them off; now I take them and keep them. I accept the challenge."She grasped him firmly by the girdle, and with the other hand thrust the gloves into her bosom.
"I do not understand you," said Anthony.
"There is no need that you should."
Then he caught her up in his arms, with a shout of exultation, and held her for a moment hanging over the awful gulf beneath.
She looked him steadily in the eyes. She doubted neither his strength to hold her, nor his love.
Then he drew her to him and kissed her.
It is said that the sun dances on Easter day in the morning. It was noon now, but the sun danced over Urith and Anthony.
"And now," said the latter, "about your mother. Will she give her consent?"
"And your father?" asked Urith.
"Oh, my father!" repeated Anthony, scornfully, "whatsoever I will, that he is content with. As to your mother——"
"I know what I will do," said Urith; "Luke has great influence with her. I will tell him all, and get him to ask her to agree and bless us. Luke will do anything I ask of him."
When Anthony came home, he found that his father had been waiting supper a while for him, and then as he did not arrive, had ordered it in, and partaken of the meal.
The old man's humour was not pleasant. He had been over that afternoon to Kilworthy, and had heard of his son's act of recklessness. Fears were entertained for Fox's sight in one eye. He was ordered to have the eye bandaged, and to be kept in the dark.
When Anthony entered the room where was his father, the old man looked up at him from the table strewn with the remains of his meal, and said, roughly, "I expect regular hours kept in my house. Why were you not here at the proper time? About any new folly or violence?"
Anthony did not answer, but seated himself at the table.
"I have been to Kilworthy," said the old man, "I have heard there of your conduct."
"Fox insulted me. You would not have me endure an insult tamely?" His father's tone nettled the young man.
"Certainly not; but men pink each other with rapiers, instead of striking with lace tags."
"That is the first time any one has let fall that I am not a man," said Anthony.
There was always a certain roughness, a lack of amiability in the behaviour of father to son and son to father, not arising out of lack of affection, but that the old man was by nature coarse-grained, and he delighted in seeing his son blunt and brusque. He—young Tony—was no milk-sop, he was proud to say. He was a lad who could hold his own against any one, and fight his way through the world. The old man was gratified at the swagger and independence of the youth, and at every proof he gave of rude and over-bearing self-esteem. But he was not pleased at the brawl with Fox Crymes; it was undignified for one thing, and it caused a breach where he wished to see union. It threw an impediment in the way of the execution of a darling scheme, a scheme on which his heart had been set for twenty years.
"I do not know what it was about," said the father, "more than that I had heard you had been squabbling in an alehouse about some girl."
"The insult or impertinence was levelled at me," said Anthony, controlling himself; "I did not mean to injure Fox, on that you may rely. I struck him over the face because he had whipped me into anger which I could not contain. I am sorry if I have hurt his eye. I am not sorry for having struck him, he brought it on himself."
"It is not creditable," pursued old Cleverdon, "that your name should be brought into men's mouths about a vulgar brawl over some village drab or house wench."
The blood surged into Anthony's face, he laid down his knife and looked steadily across the table at his father.
"On that score," said he, "you may set your mind at rest. There has been no brawl over any village wench."
"I can quite understand," said the father, "that Fox Crymes was jealous and did not measure words. He canpepper and spice his speeches till they burn as cantharides. What is he beside you? If you cast a fancy here or there, and there be naught serious in it, and it interferes with his sport, he must bear it. But, Tony, it is high time you was married. We must have no more of these wrangles. Whose name came up between you? Was it his sister's? I can well understand he does not relish her marriage. There has ever been rough water between them. She has the property—and when old Justice Crymes dies—where will he be? Was that the occasion of the dispute?"
"No, father, it was not."
"Then it was not about Julian?"
"About Julian? Certainly not."
"Nor about some village girl?"
"Nor about any village girl, as I have said."
"Then what was it about? or rather, about whom was it?"
"There is no reason why you should not know," answered Anthony, with coolness, "though that is a side matter. Fox told me that a suitable ornament for my cap was a coxcomb. That is why I struck him."
The old man laughed out. "You did well to chastise him for that."
"As you asked what girl's name was brought up, I will tell you," said Anthony. "It was that of Urith Malvine."
"Urith Malvine!" scoffed old Cleverdon, his eyes twinkling malevolently. "Not surprised at that light hussy bringing herself into men's mouths in a tavern."
"Father!" exclaimed the young man, "not a word against her. I will not bear that from you or from any man."
"You will not bear it!" almost screamed old Anthony. "You—you! make yourself champion of a beggar brat like that?"
"Did you hear my words?" said the young man, standing up. "No one—not even you—shall speak against her. It was because Fox sneered at her that I struck him; he might have scoffed at me, and I would have passed that over."
"And you threaten me? You will knock out my eye with your tags?"
"I merely warn you, father, that I will not suffer hername to be improperly used. I cannot raise my hand against you, but I will leave the room."
"It is high time you were married. By the Lord! you shall be married. I will not be rasped like this."
"I will marry when I see fit," said Anthony.
"The fitness is now," retorted his father. "When a young gallant begins to squabble at village mug-houses about——"
"Father!"
"The near time is ripe. I will see Squire Crymes about it to-morrow."
"I am not going to take Julian Crymes."
"You shall take whom I choose."
"I am to marry—not you, father; accordingly, the choice lies with me."
"You cannot choose against my will."
"Can I not? I can choose where I list."
"Anyhow, you cannot take where I do not allow. I will never allow of a wife to you who is not of good birth and rich."
"Of good birth she is—she whom I have chosen; rich she is not, but what matters that when I have enough."
"Are you mad?" screamed the old man, springing from his chair and running up and down the room, in wild excitement. "Are you mad? Do you dare tell me you have chosen without consulting me—without regard for my wishes?"
"I shall take Urith, or none at all."
"Then none at all," snapped old Cleverdon. "Never, never will I consent to your bringing that hussy through my doors, under my roof."
"What harm has she done you? You have not heard a word against her. She is not rich, but not absolutely poor—she has, or will have, Willsworthy."
"Willsworthy! What is that compared with Julian's inheritance?"
"It is nothing. But I don't want Julian, and I will not take her for the sake of her property. Come, father, sit down, and let us talk this matter coolly and sensible."
He threw himself into a chair, and laid his hands on the arms, and stretched his legs before him.
The Squire stopped, looked at his son, then staggeredback to his chair as if he had been struck in the breast. He thought his son must have lost his wits. Why—he had not known this girl, this daughter of his most deadly enemy, not more than a day, and already he was talking of making her his wife! And this, too, to the throwing over of his grand opportunity of uniting the Kilworthy property to Hall!
"Come, father, sit down, and keep cool. I am sorry if you prefer Julian to Urith, but unfortunately the selection has to be made, not by you, but by me, and I greatly prefer Urith to Julian. Indeed, I will not have the latter at any price—not if she inherited all the Abbey lands of Tavistock. You are disappointed, but you will get over it. When you come to know Urith you will like her; she has lost her father—and she will find one in you."
"Never!" gasped the old man; then with an oath, as he beat his fist on the table, "Never!"
Bessie heard that high words were being cast about in the supper-room, and she opened the door and came in with a candle, on the pretence that she desired to have the table cleared if her brother had done his meal.
"You may have all taken away," said Anthony. "My father has destroyed what appetite I had."
"Your appetite," stormed the old man, "is after most unwholesome diet; you turn from the rich acres to the starving peat bog. By heaven! I will have you shut up in a mad-house along with your wench. I will have a summons out against her at once. I will go to Fernando Crymes for it—it is sheer witchcraft. You have not seen her to speak to half-a-dozen times. You never came to know her at all till you had played the fool with her father's grave, and now——. By Heaven, it is witchcraft! Folks have been burnt for lighter cases than this."
Bessie went over to her father, and put her arms round him, but he thrust her away. She looked appealingly to her brother, but Anthony did not catch her eye.
"I do not see what you have against Urith," said Anthony, after a long pause, during which the old man sat quivering with excitement, working his hands up and down on the arms of his chair, as though polishing them. "That she is not rich is no fault of hers. I have seen her often, and have now and then exchanged a word with her, thoughonly yesterday came to see much of her, and have a long talk with her. I did her a great wrong by my desecration of her father's grave."
"Oh! you would make that good by marrying the daughter. Well, you have put out Fox's eye. Patch that up by marrying his sister." The old man's voice shook with anger.
Anthony exercised unusual self-control. He knew that he had reached a point in his life when he must not act with rashness; he saw that his father's opposition was more serious than he had anticipated. Hitherto he had but to express a wish, and it was yielded to. Occasionally he had had differences with the old man, but had invariably, in the end, carried out his own point. He did not doubt, even now, that finally his father would give way, but clearly not till after a battle of unusual violence; but it was one in which he was resolved not to yield. His passion for Urith was of sudden and also rapid growth, but was strong and sincere. Moreover, he had pledged himself to her, and could not draw back.
Bessie was resolved, at all costs, to divert the wrath of her father from Anthony, if possible to turn his thoughts into another channel; so she said, stooping to his ear,
"Father; dear father! We met to-day our grandmother in the churchyard."
The old man looked inquiringly at her.
"Madame Penwarne," exclaimed Bessie.
He had forgotten for the moment that she could have a grandmother on any other side than his own, and he knew that his mother was long dead.
"Yes, father," said Bessie. "And she says Anthony is the living image of our dear, dear mother."
The old man turned his eyes slowly on his son. The light of the candle was on his face, bold, haughty, defiant, and wonderfully handsome. Yes! he was the very image of his mother, and that same defiant smile he had inherited from her. The old man in a moment recalled many a wild scene of mutual reproach and stormy struggle. It was as though the dead woman's spirit had risen up against him to defy him once more, and to strike him to the heart.
Then Anthony said, "It is true, father. We both of us met her; and it is unfit that she should find a shelterelsewhere than in this house. Something must be done for her."
"Oh! you will teach me my duty! She is naught to me."
"But to us she is. She is the mother of our mother," answered Anthony, looking straight into his father's eyes, and the old man lowered his; he felt the reproach in his son's words and glance.
Then he clenched his hands and teeth, and stood up, and wrung his hands together.
Presently, with a gasp, he said, "Because I married a beggar, is this mating with beggars to be a curse in the family from generation to generation, entailed from father to son. It shall not be; by heaven! it shall not be. You have had your own way too long, Anthony! I have borne with your whimsies, because they were harmless. Now you will wreck your own happiness, your honour, make yourself the laughing-stock of the whole country! I will save you from yourself. Do you hear me? I tried the sport, and it did not answer. I had wealth and she beauty, and beauty alone. It did not answer. We were cat and dog—your mother and I. Bessie knows it. She can bear me witness. I will not suffer this house to be made a hell of again."
"Father," said Anthony, "it was not that which caused you unhappiness—it was that you had interfered with the love of two who had given their hearts to each other."
Bessie threw herself between her father and brother. "Oh, Anthony! Anthony!" she cried.
"You say that!" exclaimed the old man.
"I do—and now I warn you not to do the same thing. Urith and I love each other, and will have each other."
"I tell you I hate the girl—she shall never come here."
"Father," said Anthony—his pulses were beating like a thundering furious sea against cliffs, as a raging gale flinging itself against the moorland tors—"father, I see why it is that you are against Urith. You nourish against her the bitterness you felt against her father. You laughed and were pleased when I had dishonoured his grave. That surprised me. Now I understand all, and now I am forced to speak out the truth. You did a wrong in taking our mother away from him whom she loved, and then youill-treated her when you had her in your power. You have nothing else against Urith—nothing. That she is poor is no crime."