CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Prof. Juan E. Reyna 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013452812 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
HALL CA1NE. 
 (From a photograph by Mfssrx, IfussfU <t- Soit.) 
 
A 
 
 SON OF 
 
 Hagar 
 
 BY 
 
 HALL CAINE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE MANXMAN," "THE DEEMSTER," "THE BONDMAN,' 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 ALBERT HENCKE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 R. F. FENNO AND COMPANY 
 112 Fifth Avenue 
 
Copyright, 1894 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In my first novel, " The Shadow of a Crime/' I tried Co 
 penetrate into the soul of a brave, unselfish, long-suffering 
 man, and to lay bare the processes by which he raised himself 
 to a great height of self-sacrifice. In this novel the aim has 
 been to penetrate into the soul of a bad man, and to lay bare 
 the processes by which he is tempted to his fall. To find a 
 character that shall be above all common tendencies to guilt 
 and yet tainted with the plague-spot of evil hidden somewhere; 
 then to watch the first sharp struggle of what is good in the 
 man with what is bad, until he is in the coil of his temptation; 
 and finally, to show in what tragic ruin a man of strong pas- 
 sions, great will and power of mind may resist the force that 
 precipitates him and save his soul alive — this is, I trust, a mo- 
 tive no less worthy, no less profitable to study, in the utmost 
 result no less heroic and inspiring, than that of tracing the up- 
 ward path of noble types of mind. For me there has been a 
 pathetic, and I think purifying, interest in looking into the 
 soul of this man and seeing it corrode beneath the touch of a 
 powerful temptation until at the last, when it seems to lie 
 spent, it rises again in strength and shows that the human 
 heart has no depths in which it is lost. If this character had 
 been equal to my intention, it might have been a real contri- 
 bution to fiction, and far as I know it to fall short of the first 
 deep blow of feeling in which it was conceived, it is, I think, 
 new to the novel, though it holds a notable place in the drama 
 — it would be presumptuous to say where — unnecessary, also, 
 as I have made no disguise of my purpose. 
 
 One of the usual disadvantages of choosing a leading char- 
 acter that is off the lines of heroic portraiture is that the 
 author may seem to be in sympathy with a base part in life 
 and with base opinions. In this novel I run a different risk. 
 I shall not be surprised if I provoke some hostility in making 
 the bad man justify his course by the gaunt and grim morality 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 that masquerades as the morality of our own time, while the 
 good man is made to justify his one dubious act by the full 
 and sincere and just morality that too often wears now the 
 garb of vice — the morality of the books of Moses. This novel 
 relies, I trust, on the sheer humanities alone, but among its 
 less aggressive purposes is that of a plea for the natural rights 
 of the bastard. Those rights have been recognized in every 
 country and by every race, except one, since the day when the 
 outcast woman in the wilderness hearkened to the cry from 
 heaven which said, " God hath heard the voice of the lad 
 where he is." In England alone have the rights of blood been 
 as nothing compared with the rights of property, and it is 
 part of the business of this novel to exhibit these interests at a 
 climax of strife. I have no fear that any true-hearted person 
 will accuse me of a desire to cast reproach upon marriage as 
 an ordinance. Eecognizing the beauty and the sanctity of 
 marriage, I have tried to show that true marriage is a higher 
 thing than a ceremony, and that people who use the gibbet 
 and stake for offenders against its forms are too often those 
 who see no offense in the violation of its spirit. 
 
 My principal scenes are again among the mountains of 
 Cumberland; but in this second attempt I have tried to realize 
 more completely their solitude and sweetness, their breezy 
 healthfulness, and their scent as of new-cut turf, by putting 
 them side by side with scenes full of the garrulous clangor and 
 the malodor of the dark side of London. 
 
 When I began, I thought to enlarge the popular knowledge 
 of our robust north-country by the addition of some whimsical 
 character and quaint folk-lore. If much of this quiet local 
 atmosphere has had to make way before one strong current of 
 tragic feeling, I trust some of it remains that is fresh and 
 bracing in the incidents of the booth, the smithy, the dales- 
 man's wedding, the rush-bearing, the cock-fighting and the 
 sheep-shearing. Those readers of the earlier book who found 
 human nature and an element of humor in the patois, will 
 regret with me the necessity so to modify the dialect in this 
 book as to remove from it nearly all the racy quality that comes 
 of intonation. 
 
 I ought to add that one of my characters, Parson Christian, 
 is a portrait of a dear, simple, honest soul long gone to his ac- 
 count, and that the words here put into his mouth are oftener 
 his own than mine. 
 
 I trust this book may help to correct a prevailing misconcep- 
 tion as to the morals and mind of the typical English peas- 
 antry. It is certain that the conventional peasant of literature. 
 
PBEFACE. IX 
 
 the broad-mouthed rustic in a smock-frock, dull-eyed, mulish, 
 beetle-headed, doddering, too vacant to be vicious, too doltish 
 to do amiss, does not exist as a type in England. What does 
 exist in every corner of the country is a peasantry speaking a 
 patois that is often of varying inflections but is always full of 
 racy poetry, illiterate and yet possessed of a vast oral literature, 
 sharing brains with other classes more equally than education, 
 humorous, nimble-witted, clear-sighted, astute, cynical, not 
 too virtuous, and having a lofty contempt for the wiseacres of 
 the town. 
 
 The manners and customs, the folk-lore and folk-talk of 
 Cumberland are far from exhausted in my two Cumberland 
 novels; but it is not probable that I shall work in this vein 
 again. In parting from it, may I venture to hope that here 
 and there a reader grown tired of the life of the great cities 
 has sometimes found it a relief to escape with me into these 
 mountain solitudes and look upon a life as real and more 
 true; a life that is humble and yet not low; a life in which 
 men may be men, and the rude people of the soil need study 
 the face of no master save nature alone? 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 RETRO ME, SATHANA4 
 
 PEOLOGUE. 
 
 IN THE TEAK 1845. 
 
 It was a chill December morning. The atmosphere was; 
 dense with fog in the dusky chamber of a London police- 
 court; the lights were bleared and the voices drowsed. A 
 woman carrying a child in her arms had been half dragged, 
 half pushed into the dock. She was young; beneath her di- 
 sheveled hair her face showed almost girlish. Her features were 
 pinched with pain; her eyes had at one moment a serene look, 
 and at the next moment a look of defiance. Her dress had 
 been rich; it was now torn and damp, and clung in dank folds 
 to her limbs. The child she carried appeared to be four 
 months old. She held it convulsively at her breast, and when 
 it gave forth a feeble cry she rocked it mechanically. 
 
 " Your worship, I picked this person out of the river at ha'- 
 past one o'clock this morning," said a constable. " She had 
 throwed herself off the steps of Blackfriars Bridge." 
 
 " Had she the child with her?" asked the bench. 
 
 "Yes, your worship; and when I brought her to land I 
 couldn't get the little one out of her arms nohow — she clung 
 that tight to it. The mother, she was insensible; but the 
 child opened its eyes and cried." 
 
 " Have you not learned her name?" 
 
 " No, sir; she won't give us no answer when we ask her 
 that." 
 
 " I am informed/' said the clerk, " that against all in- 
 quiries touching her name and circumstances she keeps a rigid 
 
12 A SON OB flAGAE. 
 
 silence. The doctor is of opinion, your worship, that the 
 woman is not entirely responsible." 
 
 " Her appearance in court might certainly justify that con- 
 clusion," said the magistrate. 
 
 The young woman had gazed vacantly about her with an 
 air of indifference. She seemed scarcely to realize that through 
 the yellow vagueness the eyes of a hundred persons were cen- 
 tered on her haggard face. 
 
 " Anybody here who knows her?" asked the bench. 
 
 " Yes, your worship; I found out the old woman alonger 
 she lodged." 
 
 " Let us hear the old person." 
 
 A woman in middle life — a little, confused, aimless, un- 
 comfortable body — stepped into the box. She answered to the 
 name of Drayton. Her husband was a hotel porter. She 
 had a house in Pimlico. A month ago one of her rooms on 
 the first floor back had been to let. She put a card in her 
 window, and the prisoner applied. Accepted the young lady 
 as tenant, and had been duly paid her rent. Knew nothing 
 of who she was or where she came from. Couldn't even get 
 her name. Had heard her call the baby Paul. That was all 
 she knew. 
 
 " Her occupation, my good woman, what was it?" 
 
 " Nothing; she hadn't no occupation, your worship." 
 
 " Never went out? Not at night?" 
 
 " No, sir; leastways not at night, sir. I hopes your wor- 
 ship takes me for an honest woman, sir." 
 
 " Did nothing for a living, and yet she paid you. Did you 
 board her?" 
 
 " Yes, your worship; she could cook her wittles, but the 
 poor young thing seemed never to have heart for nothing, sir." 
 
 " Never talked to your" 
 
 " No, sir; nothing but cried. She cried, and cried, and 
 cried, 'cept when she laughed, and then it were awful, your 
 worship. My man always did say as how there was no know- 
 ing what she'd be doing of yet." 
 
 " Is she married, do you know?" 
 
 " Yes, your worship; she wears her wedding-ring quite reg- 
 ular — only once she plucked it off and flung it in the fire — I 
 saw it with my own eyes, sir, or I mightn't ha' believed it; 
 and I never did see the like — but the poor creature's not re- 
 sponsible at whiles — that's what my husband says." 
 
 " What was her behavior to the child? Did she seem fond 
 of it?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, your worship; she used to hug, and hug, and 
 
A SON OP BAGAK. 13. 
 
 hug it, and call it her darling, and Paul, and Paul, and Paul, 
 and all she had left in the world." 
 
 " When did you see her last before to-day?" 
 
 " Yesterday, sir; she put on her bonnet and cape and drew 
 a shawl around the baby, and went out in the afternoon. ' It 
 will do you a mort of good,' says I to her. ' Yes, Mrs. 
 Drayton,' says she, ' it will do us both a world of good.' That 
 was on the front doorsteps, your worship, and it was a nice 
 afternoon, but I had never no idea what she meant to be doing 
 of; but she's not responsible, poor young thing, that's what 
 my—" 
 
 " And when night came and she hadn't got home, did you 
 go in search of her?" 
 
 " Yes, yoar worship; for I says to my husband, says I, 
 ' Poor young thing, I can't rest in my bed, and knowing noth- 
 ing of what's come to her." And my man he says to me, 
 ' Maggie,' he says, ' you go to the station and give the officers 
 her description,' he says — ' a tall young woman as might ha' 
 been, a lady, a-carrying a baby — that'll be good enough," he 
 says, and I went. And this morning the officer came, and I 
 knew by his face as something had happened, and — " 
 
 " Let us hear the doctor. Is he in court?" 
 
 " Yes, your worship," said the constable. 
 
 Mrs. Drayton was being bustled out of the box. She 
 stopped on the first step down — 
 
 " And I do hope as no harm will come to her — she's not 
 responsible — that's what my hus — " 
 
 " All right, we know all that; down with you; this way; 
 don't bother his worship!" 
 
 At the bottom of the steps the woman stopped again with a 
 handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 " And it do make me cry to see her, poor thing, and the 
 baby, too, and innocent as a kitten — and I hopes if anything 
 is done to her as — " 
 
 Mrs. Drayton's further hopes and fears were lost in the 
 bustle of the court. The young woman in the dock still 
 gazed about her vacantly. There was strength in her firmly 
 molded lip, sensibility in her large dark eyes, power in her 
 broad, smooth brow, and a certain stateliness in the outlines 
 of her tall, slim figure. 
 
 The doctor who had examined her gave his report in a few 
 words: the woman should be under control, though she was 
 dangerous to no one but herself. Her attempt at suicide was 
 one of the common results of disaster in affairs of love. Per- 
 haps she was a married woman, abandoned by her husband; 
 
14 A SCN OE HAGAK. 
 
 more likely she was an unfortunate lady in whom the shame 
 of pregnancy had produced insanity. She was obviously a 
 person of education and delicacy of feeling. 
 
 " She must have connections of some kind," said the mag- 
 istrate; and, turning to the dock, he said quietly, " Give us 
 your name, my good lady." 
 
 The woman seemed not to hear, but she pressed her child 
 yet closer to her breast, and it cried feebly. 
 
 The magistrate tried again: 
 
 " Your baby's name is Paul, isn't it? Paul — what?" 
 
 She looked around, glanced at the magistrate and back at 
 the people in the court, but said nothing. 
 
 Just then the door opposite the bench creaked slightly, and 
 a gentleman entered. The woman's wandering eyes passed 
 over him. In an instant her torpor was shaken off. She 
 riveted her gaze on the new-comer. Her features contracted 
 with lines of pain. She drew the child aside, as if to hide it 
 from sight. Then her face tv/itched, and she staggered back 
 into the arms of the constable behind her. She was now in- 
 sensible. Through the dense folds of the fog the vague faces 
 of the spectators showed an intent expression. 
 
 It was observed that the gentleman who had entered the 
 court a moment before immediately left it. The magistrate 
 saw him pass out of the door merely as a distorted figure in 
 the dusky shadows. 
 
 "Let her be removed to the Dartford asylum," said the 
 magistrate; " I will give an order at once." 
 
 A voice came from the body of the court. It was Mrs. 
 Drayton's voice, thick with sobs. 
 
 " And if you please, your worship, may me and my husband 
 take care of the child until the poor young thing is well 
 enough to come for it? We've no children of our own, sirj 
 and my husband and me, we'd like to have it, and no one 
 would do no better by it, your worship." 
 
 " I think you are a good woman, Mrs. Drayton," said the 
 magistrate. Then, turning to the clerk, he added: " Let in- 
 quiries be made about her, and, if all prove satisfactory, let 
 the child be given into her care. " 
 
 " Oh, thank your worship; it do make me cry — " 
 
 " Yes, all right — never mind now — we know all about it- 
 come along." 
 
 The prisoner recovered consciousness in being removed from 
 the dock; Ihe constable was taking the child out of her arms, 
 She clung to it with feverish hands. 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 15 
 
 " Take me away," she said in a deep whisper, and her eyes 
 wandered to the door. 
 
 "Stop that man!" said the magistrate, pointing to the 
 vague recesses into which the spectator had disappeared. An 
 officer of the court went out hastily. Presently returning : 
 " He is gone," said the officer. 
 
 " Take me away, take me away!" cried the prisoner in a 
 tense voice. " Paul, Paul, my own little Paul!" The wom- 
 an's breath came and went in gusts, and her child cried from 
 the convulsive pressure to her breast. 
 
 " Eemove them," said the bench. 
 
 There was a faint commotion. Among the people in the 
 court, huddled like sheep, there was a harsh scraping of feet, 
 and some suppressed whispering. The stolid faces on the 
 bench turned and smiled slightly in the yellow gleam of the 
 gas that burned in front of them. Then the momentary bustle 
 ended,, the woman and child were gone, and the calm monot- 
 ony of the court was resumed. 
 
 Six months later a handsome woman, still little more than 
 a girl, yet with the eyes of suffering, stepped up to the door 
 of a house in Pimlico and knocked timidly. 
 
 " I wish to see Mrs. Drayton," she said, when the door was 
 opened by an elderly person. 
 
 " Bless you, they're gone, Mrs. Drayton and her husband." 
 
 "Gone!" said the young woman, "gone! What do you 
 mean?" 
 
 " Why, gone — removed — shifted." 
 
 " Removed — shifted?" The idea seemed to struggle its 
 slow way into her brain. 
 
 " In course — what else, when the big hotel fails and he loses 
 his job? Eents can't be paid on nothing a week, and some- 
 thing to put in the mouth besides." 
 
 " Gone? Are you mad? Woman, think what you're say- 
 ing. Gone where?" 
 
 "How do I know where? Mad, indeed! I'll not say but 
 other folk look a mort madder nor ever I looked. " 
 
 The young woman took her by the shoulder. 
 
 " Don't say that — don't say you don't know where they're 
 gone. They've got my child, I tell you; my poor little Paul." 
 
 " Oh, so you're the young party as drownded herself, are 
 you? Well, they're gone anyways, and the little chit with 
 them, and there's no saying where. You may believe me. 
 Ask the neighbors else." 
 
 The young woman leaned against the door-jamb with a 
 white face and great eyes. 
 
16 A SON 05 HAGAR. 
 
 " Well, well, how hard she takes it. Deary me, deary me, 
 she's not a bad sort, after all. Well, well, who'd ha' thought 
 it! There, there, come in and sit awhile. It is cruel to lose 
 one's babby — and me to tell her, too. Misbegotten or not, it's 
 one's own flesh and blood, and that's what I always says." 
 
 The young woman had been drawn into the house and 
 seated on a chair. She got up again with the face of an old 
 Woman. 
 
 " Oh, I'm choking!" she said. 
 
 " Eest awhile, do now, my dear — there — there." 
 
 " No, no, my good woman, let me go." 
 
 " Heaven help you, child; how you look!" 
 
 " Heaven has never helped me," said the young woman. 
 " I was a Sister of Charity only two years ago. A man found 
 me and wooed me; married me and abandoned me; I tried 
 to die and they rescued me; they separated me from my child 
 and put me in an asylum; I escaped, and have now come for 
 my darling, and he is gone." 
 
 " Deary me, deary me!" and the old woman stroked her 
 consolingly. 
 
 " Let me go," she cried, starting up afresh. " If Heaven 
 has done nothing for me, perhaps the world itself will have 
 mercy." 
 
 The ghastly face answered ill to the grating laugh that 
 followed as she jerked her head aside and hurried away. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1875. 
 
 It was Young Folks' Day in the Vale of Newlands. The 
 summer was at its height; the sun shone brightly; the lake to 
 the north lay flat as a floor of glass, and reflected a continent 
 of blue cloud; the fells were clear to their summits, and pur- 
 ple with waves of heather. It was noontide, and the shadows 
 were short. In the slumberous atmosphere the bees droned, 
 and the hot air quivered some feet above the long, lush grass. 
 The fragrance of new-mown hay floated languidly through a 
 sub-current of wild rose and honeysuckle. In a meadow at 
 the foot of the Causey Pike tents were pitched, flags were fly- 
 ing, and crowds of men, women, and children watched the 
 mountain sports. 
 
 In the center of a group of spectators two men, stripped to 
 the waist, were wrestling. They were huge fellows, with mus- 
 cles that stood out on their arms like giant bulbs, and feet 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 17 
 
 that held the ground like the hoofs of oxen. The wrestlers 
 were calm to all outward appearance, and embraced each 
 other with the quiet fondling of lambs and the sinuous power 
 of less affectionate creatures. But the people about them were 
 wildly excited. They stooped to watch every wary movement 
 of the foot, and craned their necks to catch the subtlest twist 
 of the wrist. 
 
 " Sista, Beuben, sista! He'll have enough to do to tummel 
 John Proudfoot. John's up to the scat to-day, anyways." 
 
 " Look tha! John's on for giving him the cross-buttock." 
 
 John was the blacksith, a big buirdly fellow with a large 
 blunt head. 
 
 " And he has given it too, has John." 
 
 " Nay, nay, John's doon — ey, ey, he's doon, is John." 
 
 One of the wrestlers had thrown the other, and was standing 
 quietly over him. He was a stalwart young man of eight-and- 
 twenty, brown-haired, clear-eyed, of a ruddy complexion, with 
 a short, thick, curly beard, and the grace and bearing that 
 comes of health and strength and a complete absence of self- 
 consciousness. He smiled cheerfully, and nodded his head in 
 response to loud shouts of applause. "Weel done! Varra 
 weel done! That's the way to ding "em ower! What sayst 
 tha, Eeuben?" 
 
 " What a bash it was, to be sure!" 
 
 " What dusta think you of yon wrustling, ey, man?" 
 
 " Nay, nay, it's verra middling." 
 
 " Ever seen owt like it since the good auld days you crack 
 on sa often, auld man?" 
 
 " Nay, he doont him verra neat, did Paul — I will allow it." 
 
 " There's never a man in Cumberland need take a hand 
 with young Paul Eitson after this. " 
 
 " Ey, ey; he's his father's son." 
 
 The wrestler, surrounded by a little multitude of boys, who 
 clung to his sparse garments on every side, made his way to a 
 tent. 
 
 At the same moment a ludicrous figure forced a passage 
 through the crowd, and came to a stand in the middle of the 
 green. It was a diminutive creature, mounted on a pony that 
 carried its owner on a saddle immediately below its neck, and 
 a pair of paniers just above its tail. The rider was an elderly 
 man with shaggy eyebrows and beard of mingled black and 
 gray. His swarthy, keen, wizened face was twisted into gro- 
 tesque lines beneath a pair of little blinking eyes, which 
 seemed to say that anybody who refused to see that they be- 
 longed to a perfectly wideawake son of old Adam made a por- 
 
18 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 tentous mistake. He was the mountain peddler, and to-day, 
 at least, his visit was opportune. 
 
 " Lasses, here's for you! Look you, here's Gubblum Ogle- 
 thorpe, pony and all. ' ' 
 
 " Why, didsta ever see the like — Gubblum's getten hissel 
 into a saddle!" 
 
 Gubblum, from his seat on the pony, twisted one half of his 
 wrinkled face awry, and said: 
 
 " In course I have! But it's a vast easier getting into this 
 saddle nor getting out of it, / can tell you!" 
 
 " Why, how's that, Gubblum?" cried a voice from the 
 crowd. 
 
 " What, man, did you never hear of the day I bought it?" 
 
 Sundry shakes of many heads were the response. 
 
 " No?" said Gubblum, with an accent of sheer incredulity, 
 and added, " Well, there is no accounting for the ignorance of 
 some folks." 
 
 " What happened to you, Gubblum?" 
 
 Gubblum's expression of surprise gave place to a look of 
 condescension. He lifted his bronzed and hairy hand to the 
 rim of his straw hat to shade his eyes from the sun. 
 
 " Well, when I got on to auld Bessy, here, I couldn't get 
 off again — that's what happened." 
 
 "No? Why?" 
 
 " You see, I'd got my clogs on when I went to buy the sad- 
 dle in Kezzick, and they're middling wide in the soles, my 
 clogs are. So when I put my feet into the stirrups, there 
 they stuck." 
 
 " Stuck!" 
 
 " Ey, fast as nails! And when I got home to Branth'et 
 Edge I couldn't get them out. So our Sally, she said to my 
 auld woman, ' Mother,' she said, ' we'll have to put father 
 into the stable with the pony and fetch him a cup of tea. ' 
 And that's what they did, and when I had summat into me I 
 had another fratch at getting out of the saddle; but I couldn't 
 manish it; so I had — what do you think I had to do?" 
 
 " Nay, man, what?" 
 
 " I had to sleep all night in the stable on Bessy's back!" 
 
 " Bless thee, Gubblum, and whatever didsta do?" 
 
 " I'm coming to that, on'y some folks are so impatient. 
 Next morning that lass of mine she said to her mother, 
 ' Mother,' she said, ' wouldn't it be best to take the saddle off 
 the pony, and then father he'll sure come off with it?' " 
 
 " And did they do it?" 
 
 " Ey, they did. They took Bessy and me round to the soft 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 19 
 
 bed as they keeps maistly at the back of a stable, and they 
 loosened the straps and gave a push, and cried ' Away.' " 
 
 " Weel, man, weel?" 
 
 " Weel ! nowt of the sort! It wasn't iveel at all! When I 
 rolled over I was off the pony, for sure; but I was stuck fast 
 to the saddle just the same." 
 
 " What ever did they do with thee then?" 
 
 " I'm coming to that, too, on'y some folks are so mortal 
 fond of hearing theirselves talk. They picked me up, saddle 
 and all, and set me on the edge of the kitchen dresser. And 
 there I sat for the best part of a week, sleeping and waking, 
 and carding and spinning and getting fearful thin. But I got 
 off at last, I did!" There was a look of proud content in 
 Gubblum's face as he added, " What a thing it is to be eddi- 
 cated! We don't vally eddication half enough!" 
 
 A young fellow — it was Lang Geordie Moore — pushed a 
 smirking face between the shoulders of two girls, and said : 
 
 "Did you- take to reading and writing, then, Gubblum, 
 when you were on the kitchen dresser?" 
 
 There was a gurgling titter, but, disdaining to notice the 
 interruption, Gubblum lifted his tawny face into the glare of 
 the sun, and said: 
 
 " It was my son as did it — him that is learning for a parson. 
 He came home from St. Bees, and ' Mother,' he said, before 
 he'd been in the house a minute, ' let's take father's clogs off, 
 and then his feet will come out of the stirrups.' " 
 
 A loud laugh bubbled over the company. Gubblum sat 
 erect in the saddle and added with a grave face: 
 
 "" That's what comes of eddication and reading the Bible 
 and all o' that! If I had fifty sons I'd make 'em all parsons." 
 
 The people laughed again, and crowed and exchanged nods 
 and knowing winks. They enjoyed the peddler's talk, and felt 
 an indulgent tenderness for his slow and feeble intellect. He 
 on his part enjoyed no less to assume a simple and shallow 
 nature. A twinkle lurked under his bushy brows while he 
 " smoked the gonies." They laughed and he smiled slyly, 
 and both were satisfied. 
 
 Gubblum Oglethorpe, peddler, of Branth'et Edge, got off his 
 pony and stroked its tousled mane. He was leading it to a 
 temporary stable, when he met face to face the young wrestler, 
 Paul Kifcson, who was coming from the tent in his walking 
 costume. Drawing up sharply, he surveyed Paul rapidly from 
 head to foot, and then asked him with a look of bewilderment 
 what he could be doing there. 
 
 " Why, when did you come back to these parts?" 
 
20 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 Paul smiled. 
 
 " Come back! I've not been away." 
 
 The old man looked slyly up into Paul's face and winked. 
 Perceiving no response to that insinuating communication, 
 his wrinkled face became more grave, and he said: 
 
 " You were nigh to London three days ago." 
 
 " Nigh to London three days ago!" Paul laughed, then 
 nodded across at a burly dalesman standing near, and said: 
 " Geordie, just pinch the old man, and see if he's dreaming." 
 
 There was a general titter, followed by glances of amused 
 inquiry. The peddler took off his hat, held his head aside, 
 scratched it leisurely, glanced up again into the face of young 
 Eitson, as if to satisfy himself finally as to his identity, and 
 eventually muttered half aloud : 
 
 " Well, I'm fair maizelt — that's what I am!" 
 
 " Maizelt— why?" 
 
 " I could ha' sworn I saw you at a spot near London three 
 days ago. " 
 
 " Not been there these three years," said Paul. 
 
 " Didn't you wave your hand to me as we went by — me and 
 Bessy?" 
 
 "Did I? Where?" 
 
 " Why, at the Hawk and Heron, in Hendon." 
 
 " Never saw the place in my life." 
 
 " Sure of that?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 The grave old head dropped once more, and the pony's head 
 was held down to the withered hand that scratched and ca- 
 ressed it. Then the first idea of a possible reason on Paul's 
 part for keeping his movements secret suggested itself afresh 
 to Gubblum. He glanced soberly around, caught the eye of 
 the young dalesman furtively, and winked again. Paul 
 laughed outright, nodded his head good-humoredly, and rather 
 ostentatiously winked in response. The company that had 
 gathered about them caught the humor of the situation, and 
 tittered audibly enough to provoke the peddler's wrath. 
 
 " But I say you have seen it," shouted Gubblum in em- 
 phatic tones. 
 
 At that moment a slim young man walked slowly past the 
 group. He was well dressed, and carried himself with ease 
 and some dignity, albeit with an air of listlessness — a weary 
 and dragging gait, due in part to a slight infirmity of one foot. 
 When some of the dalesmen bowed to him his smile lacked 
 warmth. He was Hugh Eitson, the younger brother of Paul. 
 
 Gubblum's manner gathered tmphasis. " You were stand- 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 21 
 
 ing on the step of the Hawk and Heron, 5 ' said he, " and I 
 waved my hand and shouted ' A canny morning to you, Mas- 
 ter Paul '— ey, that I did!" 
 
 " You don't say so!" said Paul with mock solemnity. His 
 brother had caught the peddler's words, and stopped. 
 
 " But I do say so," said Gubblum, with many shakes of his 
 big head. Let any facetious young geutleman who supposed 
 that it was possible to make sport of him, understand once for 
 all that it might be as well to throw a stone into his own 
 garden. 
 
 " Why, Gubblum," said Paul, smothering a laugh, " what 
 was I doing at Hendon?" 
 
 " Doing! Well, a chap 'at was on the road along of me 
 said that Master Paul had started innkeeper." 
 
 "Innkeeper!" 
 
 There was a prolonged burst of laughter, amid which one 
 amused patriarch on a stick shouted: " Feel if tha's abed, 
 Gubblum, ma man!" 
 
 " And if I is abed, it's better nor being in bed-lam, isn't 
 it?" shouted the peddler. 
 
 Then Gubblum scratched his head again, and said more 
 quietly: " It caps all. If it wasn't you, it must ha' been the 
 old gentleman hissel'. " 
 
 " Are we so much alike? Come, let's see your pack." 
 
 " His name was Paul, anyways." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had elbowed his way through the group, and 
 was now at Gubblum's elbow listening intently. When the 
 others had laughed, he alone preserved an equal countenance. 
 
 " Paul — what?" he asked. 
 
 " Nay, don't ax me — I know nowt no mair — I must be an 
 auld maizelin, I must, for sure!' 
 
 Hugh Eitson turned on his heel and walked off. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The Vale of Newlands runs north and south. On its east 
 bank rise the Cat Bell fells and the Eel Crags; on the west 
 rise Hindscarth and Eobinson, backed by Whiteless Pike and 
 Grasmoor. A river flows down the bed of the valley, springing 
 in the south among the heights of Dale Head, and emptying 
 into Bassenthwaite on the north. A village known as Little 
 Town stands about midway in the vale, and a road runs along 
 each bank. The tents were pitched for the sports near the 
 bed of the valley, on the east side of the Newlands Beck. On 
 the west side, above the road, there was a thick copse of hazel, 
 
22 A SON OP HAGAR. 
 
 oak, and birch. Prom a clearing in this wood a thin column 
 of pale blue smoke was rising through the still air. A hut in 
 the shape of a cone stood a few yards from the road. It was 
 thatched from the ground upward with heather and bracken, 
 leaving only a low aperture as door. Near the hut a small 
 fire of hazel sticks crackled under a pot that swung from a 
 forked triangle of oak limbs. Fagots were stacked at one 
 end of the clearing; a pile of loose bark lay near. It was 
 a charcoal pit, and behind a line of hurdles that were propped 
 with poles and intertwined with dead grass and gorse, an old 
 man was building a charcoal fare. 
 
 He was tall and slight, and he stooped. His eyes were large 
 and heavy; his long beard was whitening. He wore a low- 
 crowned hat with broad brim, and a loose flannel jacket with- 
 out a waistcoat. Most of us convey the idea that to our own 
 view we are centers of our circles, and that the universe re- 
 volves about us. This old man suggested a different feeling. 
 To himself he might have been a thing gone somehow out of 
 its orbit. There was a listless melancholy, a lonely weariness 
 in his look and movements. An old misery seemed to sit on 
 him. 
 
 His name was Matthew Fisher; but the folk of the country- 
 side called him Laird Fisher. The dubious dignity came of 
 the circumstance that he was the holder of an absolute royalty 
 on a few acres of land under Hindscarth. The royalty had 
 been many generations in his family. His grandfather had Eet 
 store by it. When the lord of the manor had worked the 
 copper pits at the foot of the Eel Crags, he had tried to pos- 
 sess himself of the royalties of the Fishers. But the peasant 
 family resisted the aristocrat. Luke Fisher believed there 
 was a fortune under his feet, and he meant to try his own luck 
 on his holding some day. That day never came. His son, 
 Mark Fisher, carried on the tradition, but made no effort to 
 unearth the fortune. They were a cool, silent, slow, and stub- 
 born race. Matthew Fisher followed his father and his grand- 
 father, and inherited the family faith. All these years the 
 tenders of the lord of the manor were ignored, and the Fish- 
 ers enjoyed their title of courtesy or badinage. When Mat- 
 thew was a boy there was a rhyme current in the vale which 
 ran: 
 
 " There's t' auld laird, and t' young laird, and t' laird among t' barns, 
 If iver there comes another laird, we'll hang him up by t' arms." 
 
 There is a tough bit of Toryism in the grain of these north- 
 jrn dalesfolk. Their threat was idle; no other laird ever 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 23 
 
 came. Matthew married, and had one daughter only. He 
 farmed his few acres with poor results. The ground was good 
 enough, but Matthew was living under the shadow of the fam- 
 ily tradition. One day — it was Sunday morning, and the sun 
 shone brightly — he was rambling by the Po Beck that rose on 
 Hindscarth and passed through his land, when his eye glanced 
 over a glittering stone that lay among the pebbles, at the bot- 
 tom of the stream. It was ore, good full ore, and on the very 
 surface. Then the Laird Fisher sunk a shaft and all his earn- 
 ings with it in an attempt to procure iron or copper. The 
 dalespeople derided him, but he held silently on his way. 
 
 " How dusta find the cobbles to-day — any softer?" they 
 would ask. 
 
 " As soft as the hearts of most folk," he would answer, and 
 then add in a murmur, " and maybe a vast harder nor their 
 heads." 
 
 The undeceiving came at length, and then the Laird Fisher 
 was old and poor. His wife died broken-hearted. After that 
 the laird never rallied. The breezy irony of the dalesf oik did 
 not spare the old man's bent head. " He's brankan " (hold- 
 ing up his head) "like a steg swan," they would say as he 
 went past. The shaft was left unworked, and the holding lay 
 fallow. Laird Fisher took wage from the lord of the manor 
 to burn charcoal in the copse. 
 
 The old man had raised his vertical shaft, and was laying 
 the oak limbs against it, when a girl of about eighteen came 
 along the road from the south, and clambered over the stile 
 that led to the charcoal pit. She was followed by a sheep- 
 dog, small and wiry as a hill-fox. 
 
 " Is that thee, Mercy?" said the charcoal-burner from the 
 fire, without turning. 
 
 The girl was a pretty little thing; yet there was something 
 wrong with her prettiness. One saw at once that her cheeks 
 should have been pink and white like the daisy, and that her 
 hair, which was yellow as the primrose, should have tumbled 
 in wavelets about them. There ought to have been sunshine 
 in the blue eyes, and laughter on the red lips, and a merry 
 lilt in the soft voice. But the pink had faded from the girl's 
 cheek; the shadow had chased the sunshine from her eyes; 
 her lips had taken a downward turn, and a note of sadness had 
 stolen the merriment from her voice. 
 
 " It's only your tea, father," she said, setting down a 
 basket. Then taking up a spoon that lay on the ground, she 
 stirred the mess that was simmering over the fire. The dog 
 lay and blinked in the sun. 
 
24 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 A rabbit rustled through the coppice, and a jay screeched 
 in the distant glade. But above all came the peals of merry 
 laughter from below. The girl's eyes wandered yearningly to 
 the tents over which the flags were flying. 
 
 " Do you hear the sports, father?" she said. 
 
 " Ey, lass, there's gay carryin's-on. They're chinning and 
 chirping like as many sparrows." The old man twisted about. 
 " I should have thowt as thou 'd have been in the thick of 
 the thrang thysel', Mercy, carryin' on the war." 
 
 " I didn't care to go," said Mercy in an undertone. 
 
 The old man looked at her silently for a moment. 
 
 " Ways me, but thoos not the same heartsome lass," ht 
 said, and went on piling the fagots around the shaft. "But 
 / count nowt of sec wark," he added, after a pause. 
 
 Little Mercy's eyes strayed back from the bubbling pot to 
 the tents below. There was a shout of applause. 
 
 " That's Geordie Moore's voice," thought Mercy. She 
 could see a circle with linked hands. " They're playing the 
 cushion game," she said under her breath, and then drew a 
 long sigh. 
 
 Though she did not care to go to the sports to-day, she felt, 
 oh! so sick at heart. Like a wounded hare that creeps into 
 quiet ambush, and lies down on the dry clover to die, she had 
 stolen away from all this noisy happiness; but her heart's joy 
 was draining away. In her wistful eyes there was something 
 almost cruel in this bustling merriment, in this flaunting gay- 
 ety, in this sweet summer day itself. 
 
 The old charcoal-burner had stepped up to where the girl 
 knelt with far-away eyes. 
 
 " Mercy," he said, " I've wanted a word with you this 
 many a day." 
 
 " With me, father?" 
 
 The girl rose to her feet. There was a look of uneasiness in 
 her face. 
 
 " You've lost your spirits — what's come of them?" 
 
 " Me, father?" 
 
 The assumed surprise was in danger of breaking down. 
 
 " Not well, Mercy— is that it?" 
 
 He took her head between his hard old hands, and stroked 
 her hair as tenderly as a mother might have done. 
 
 " Oh, yes, father, quite well, quite." 
 
 Then there was a little forced laugh. The lucent eyes were 
 full of a dewy wistfulness. 
 
 " Any trouble, Mercy?" 
 
 " What trouble, father?' 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 25 
 
 " Nay, any trouble — trouble's common, isn't it?" 
 
 The old man's voice shook slightly, and. his hand trembled 
 on the girl's head. 
 
 " What have / to trouble me!" said Mercy in a low voice 
 nigh to breaking. 
 
 "Well, you know best," said the charcoal-burner. Then 
 he put his hand under the girl's chin and lifted her face until 
 her unwilling eyes looked into his. The scrutiny appeared to 
 console him, and a smile played over his battered features. 
 " Maybe I was wrong," he thought. " Folk are alius clatter- 
 ing." 
 
 Mercy made another forced little laugh, and instantly the 
 Laird Fisher's face saddened. 
 
 " They do say 'at you're not the same heartsome little 
 lass," he said. 
 
 " Do they? Oh, but I am quite happy! You always say 
 people are busybodies, don't you, father.'"' 
 
 The break-down was imminent. 
 
 " Why, Mercy, you're crying." 
 
 " Me — crying!" The girl tossed her head with a pathetic 
 gesture of gay protestation. " Oh, no; I was laughing — that 
 was it. " 
 
 " There are tears in your eyes, anyways." 
 
 " Tears? Nonsense, father! Tears? Didn't I tell you 
 that your sight was failing you — ey, didn't I, now?" 
 
 It was of no use to struggle longer. The fair head fell on 
 the heaving breast, and Mercy sobbed. 
 
 The old man looked at her through a blinding mist in his 
 hazy eyes. " Tell me, my little lassie, tell me," he said. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing," said Mercy. She had brushed away 
 the tears and was smiling. 
 
 The Laird Fisher shook his head. 
 
 "It's nothing, father — only — " 
 
 " Only— what?" 
 
 " Only— oh, it's nothing!" 
 
 " Mercy, my lass," said the Laird Fisher, and the tears 
 stood now in his own dim eyes, " Mercy, remember if owt 
 goes wrong with a girl, and her mother is under the grass, her 
 father is the first she should come to and tell all." 
 
 The old man had seated himself on a stout block cut from a 
 trunk, and was opening the basket, when where was a light, 
 springy step on the road. 
 
 " So you fire to-night, Matthew?" 
 
 An elderly man leaned, over the stile and smiled. 
 
36 A SON - OF HA GAR. 
 
 " Nay, Mr. Bonnithorne, there's ower much nastment in 
 the weather yet." 
 
 The gentleman took off his silk hat and mopped his fore- 
 head. His hair was thin and of a pale yellow,, and was 
 ■smoothed flat on his brow. 
 
 : " You surprise me! I thought the weather perfect. See 
 how blue the sky is." 
 
 " That doesn't argy. It might be better with never a blenk 
 of blue. It was rayder airy yesterday, and last night the moon 
 got up as blake and yellow as May butter." 
 
 The smile was perpetual on "the gentleman's face. It 
 showed his teeth constantly. 
 
 " You dalesmen are so weather-wise." 
 
 The voice was soft and womanish. There was a little laugh 
 at the end of each remark. 
 
 " We go by the moon in firing, sir," the charcoal-burner 
 answered. " Last night it rose sou' -west, and that doesn't 
 mean betterment, though it's quiet enough now. There'll be 
 clashy weather before nightfall. " 
 
 The girl strayed away into the thicket, and startled a wood- 
 cock out of a heap of dead oak leaves. The gentleman fol- 
 lowed her with his eyes. They were very small and piercing 
 eyes, and they blinked frequently. 
 
 " Your daughter does not look very well, Matthew." 
 
 " She's gayly, sir, she's gayly," said the charcoal-burner 
 shortly, his mouth in his can of tea. 
 
 The gentleman smiled from the teeth out. After a pause, 
 he said: *' I suppose it isn't pleasant when one of your hurdles 
 is blown down, and the charcoal burning," indicating the arc 
 of wooden hurdles which had been propped about the half- 
 built charcoal stack. 
 
 " Ey, it's gay bad wark, to be sure — being dragged into the 
 fire." 
 
 The dog had risen with a startled movement. Following 
 the upward direction of the animal's nose, the gentleman 
 said, " Whose sheep are those on the ghyll yonder?" 
 
 " Auld Mr. Kitson's, them herdwicks." 
 
 The sheep were on a ridge of shelving rock. 
 
 " Dangerous spot, eh?" 
 
 " Ey, it's a bent place. They're verra clammersome, the 
 black-faced sorts." 
 
 "I'll bid you good-day, Matthew." The yellow-haired 
 elderly gentleman was moving off. He walked with a jerk 
 and a spring on his toes. " And mind you take your daughter 
 to the new doctor at Keswick," he said at parting. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 27 
 
 " It's not doctoring that'll mend Mercy," the cha-eoal- 
 burner muttered, when the other had gone. 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Josiah Bonnithorne was quite without kinspeople 01 *on 
 nections. His mother had been one of two sisters who }i^e& 
 by keeping a small confectioner's shop in Whitehaven, and 
 were devoted Methodists. The sisters had formed views as to 
 matrimony, and they enjoyed a curious similarity of choice. 
 They were to be the wives of preachers. But the opportunity 
 was long in coming, and they grew elderly. At length the 
 younger sister died, and so solved the problem of her future. 
 The elder sister was left for two years more alone with her 
 confectionery. Then she married a stranger who had come 
 to one of the pits as gangsman. It was a sad falling off. But 
 at all events the gangsman was a local preacher, and so the 
 poor soul who took him for husband had effected a compro- 
 mise with her- cherished ideal. It turned out that he was a 
 scoundrel as well, and had a wife living elsewhere. This dis- 
 closure abridged his usefulness among the brethren, and he 
 fled. Naturally he left his second wife behind, having pre- 
 viously secured a bill of sale on her household effects. A few 
 months elapsed, the woman was turned adrift by her hus- 
 band's creditors, and then a child was born. It was a p?or 
 little thing — a boy. The good souls of the " connection " 
 provided for it until it was two years old, and afterward placed 
 it in a charity school. While the little fellow was there, his 
 mother was struck down by a mortal complaint. Then for the 
 first time the poor ruined woman asked to see her child. They 
 brought the little one to her bedside, and it smiled down into 
 her dying face. " Oh, that it may please the Lord to make 
 him a preacher!" she said with a great effort. At a sign from 
 the doctor the child was taken away. The face pinched by 
 cruel suffering quivered slightly, the timid eyes worn by 
 wasted hope softened and closed, and the mother bid fare- 
 well to everything. 
 
 The boy lived. They christened him Josiah, and he took 
 for surname the maiden name of his mother, Bonnithorne. 
 He was a weakling, and had no love of boyish sports; but he 
 excelled in scholarship. In spite of these tendencies, he was 
 apprenticed to a butcher when the time came to remove him 
 from school. An accident transferred him to the office of a 
 solicitor, and he was articled. Ten years later he succeeded to 
 bis master's practice, and then he sailed with all sail set. 
 
28 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 He disappointed the " connection " by developing into a 
 Churchman, but otherwise aroused no hostile feeling. It 
 was obviously his cue to conciliate everybody. He was liked 
 without being popular, trusted without being a favorite. 
 Churchwarden, trustee for public funds, executor for private 
 friends, he had a reputation for disinterested industry. And 
 people said how well it was that one so unselfish as Josiah 
 Bonnithorne should nevertheless prosper even as this world 
 
 But there was a man in Cumberland who knew Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. That 
 man was Mr. Hugh Bitson. Never for an instant did either of 
 these palter with the other. 
 
 When Mr. Bonnithorne left the charcoal pit, he followed 
 the road that crossed the Newlands Beck, and returned on the 
 breast of the Eel Crags. This led him close to the booth where 
 the sports were proceeding. He heard, as he passed, the gurg- 
 ling laugh with which the dalesfolk received the peddler's story 
 of how he saw Paul Ritson at Hendon. A minute afterward 
 he encountered Hugh Bitson on the road. There was only the 
 most meager pretense at greeting when these men came face 
 to face. 
 
 " Your father sent for me," said Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 " On what business?" Hugh Bitson asked. 
 
 " I have yet to learn. " 
 
 They walked some steps without speaking. Then the law- 
 yer turned with his constant smile, and said in his soft voice: 
 
 " I have just seen your little friend. She looks pale, poor 
 thing! Something must be done, and shortly." 
 
 Hugh Bitson' s face flushed perceptibly. His eyes were on 
 the ground. 
 
 " Let us go no further in this matter," he said, in a low 
 tone. " I saw her yesterday. Then there is her father, poor, 
 broken creature! Let it drop." 
 
 "I did not believe it of you!" Mr. Bonnithorne spoke 
 calmly, and went on smiling. 
 
 " Besides, I am ashamed. The thing is too mean," said 
 Hugh Bitson. " In what turgid melodrama does not just 
 such an episode occur?" 
 
 " So, so! Or is it the story of the cat in the adage? You 
 
 would and you wouldn't?" 
 
 " My blood is not thick enough. I can't do it." 
 
 " Then why did you propose it? Was it your suggestion or 
 
 mine? I thought to spare the girl her shame. Here hei 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 29 
 
 troubles must fall on her in battalions, poor little being. Send 
 her away, and you decimate them." 
 
 " It is unnecessary. You know I am superior to prejudice." 
 Hugh Eitson dropped his voice and said, as if speaking into 
 his breast: "If the worst comes to the worst, I can marry 
 her." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne laughed lightly. 
 
 "Ho! ho! And in what turgid melodrama does not just 
 such an episode occur?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson drew up sharply. 
 
 " Why not? Is she poor? Then what ami? Uneducated? 
 What is education likely to do for me? A simple creature, 
 all heart and no head? God be praised for that!" 
 
 At this moment a girl's laugh came rippling through the 
 air. It was one of those joyous peals that make the heart's 
 own music. Hugh Eitson's pale face flushed a little, and he 
 drew his breath hard. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head in the direction of the 
 Toice, and said softly: " So our friend Greta is here to-day." 
 
 " Yes," said Hugh Eitson Tery quietly. 
 
 Then the friends walked some distance in silence. 
 
 " It is scarcely worthy of you to talk in this brain-sick fash- 
 ion," said Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a dull irritation in 
 the tone. " You place yourself in the wrong point of view. 
 You do not love the little being." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's forehead contracted, and he said: " If I have 
 wrecked my life by one folly, one act of astounding unwisdom, 
 what matter? There was but little to wreck. I am a disap- 
 pointed man." 
 
 " Pardon me, you are a very young one," said Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne. 
 
 " What am I in my father's house? He gives no hint of 
 helping me to an independence in life." 
 
 There are the lands. Your father must be a rich man." 
 
 " And I am a second son." 
 
 " Indeed?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson glanced up quickly. 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 " You say you are a second son," 
 
 " And what then?" 
 
 "Would it be so fearful a thing if you were not a second 
 
 son 
 
 p" 
 
 " In the name of truth, be plain. My brother Paul is 
 living." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head twice or thrioe, and said 
 
30 A SON OF HAOAB. 
 
 calmly: "You know that your brother hopes to marr? 
 Greta?" 
 
 " I have heard it." 
 
 Again the flush came to Hugh Eitson's cheeks. His low 
 voice had a tremor. 
 
 " Did I ever tell you of her father's strange legacy?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " My poor friend Robert Lowther left a legacy to a son of 
 his own, who was Greta's half-brother." 
 
 " An illegitimate son?" 
 
 " Not strictly. Lowther married the son's mother," said 
 Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 " Married her? Then his son was his heir?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Hugh Ritson looked perplexed. 
 
 " The girl was a Catholic, Lowther a Protestant. A Cath- 
 olic priest married them in Ireland. That was not a valid 
 marriage by English law." 
 
 Hugh smiled grimly. 
 
 " And Lowther had the marriage annulled?" 
 
 " He had fallen in love," began Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 " This time with an heiress?" There was a caustic laugh. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded. " Greta's mother. So he — " 
 
 " Abandoned the first wife," Hugh Ritson interrupted 
 again. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne shook his head with an innocent expres- 
 sion. 
 
 "Wife? Well, he left her." 
 
 " You talk of a son. Had they one?" 
 
 " They had," said Mr. Bonnithorne, " and when the wom- 
 an and child .... disappeared — " 
 
 " Exactly," said Hugh Ritson, and he smiled. " What did 
 Lowther then?" 
 
 " Married again, and had a daughter — Greta." 
 
 " Then why the legacy?" 
 
 " Conscience-money," said Mr. Bonnithorne, pursing up 
 his mouth. 
 
 Hugh Ritson laughed slightly. 
 
 " The sort of fools' pence the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 receives labeled ' Income Tax.'" " 
 
 " Precisely— only Lowther had no address to send it to." 
 
 " He had behaved like a scoundrel," said Hugh Ritson. 
 
 " True, and he felt remorse. After the second marriage he 
 set people to find the poor woman and child. They were 
 never found. His last days were overshadowed by his early 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. 31. 
 
 fault. I believe he died broken-hearted. In his will— I drew 
 it for him — he left, as I say, a sum to be paid to this son of 
 his first wife — when found." 
 
 Hugh Eitson laughed half mockingly. 
 
 " I thought he was a fool. A scoundrel is generally a fool 
 as well." 
 
 " Generally; I've often observed it," said Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 " What possible interest of anybody's could it be to go hunt- 
 ing for the son of the fool's desertpd wife?" 
 
 "The fool," answered Mr. Bonnithorne, "was shrewd 
 enough to make an interest by ordering that if the son were 
 not found before Greta came of age, a legacy of double the 
 sum should be paid to an orphanage for boys." 
 
 Hugh Eitson' s respect for the dead man's intelligence 
 experienced a sensible elevation. 
 
 "So it it worth a legacy to the family to discover Greta's 
 half-brother," he said, summing up the situation in an instant. 
 " If alive — if not, then proof that he is dead." 
 
 The two men had walked some distance, and reached the 
 turning of a lane which led to a house that could be seen 
 among the trees at the foot of a ghyll. The younger man 
 drew up on his infirm foot. 
 
 "But I fail to catch the relevance of all this. When I 
 mentioned that I was a second son you — "' 
 
 " I have had hardly any data to help me in my search," Mr. 
 Bonnithorne continued. He was walking on. " Only a 
 medallion-portrait of the first wife." Mr. Bonnithorne dived 
 into a breast-pocket. 
 
 " My brother Paul is living. What possible — " 
 
 " Here it is," said Mr. Bonnithorne, and he held out a 
 small picture. 
 
 Hugh Eitson took it with little interest. 
 
 " This is the portrait of a nun," he said, as his eyes first 
 fell on it, and recognized the coif and cape. 
 
 " A novice — that's what she was when Lowther met her," 
 said Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 Then Hugh Eitson stopped. He regarded the portrait 
 attentively; looked up at the lawyer and back at the medall- 
 ion. For an instant the strong calm which he had hitherto 
 shown seemed to desert him. The picture trembled in his 
 hand. Mr. Bonnithorne did not appear to see his agitation. 
 
 " Is it a fancy? Surely it must be fancy!" he muttered. 
 
 Then he asked aloud what the nun's name had been. 
 
 "Ormerod." 
 
 There was a start of recovered consciousness. 
 
33 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 " Ormerod — that's strange!" 
 
 The exclamation seemed to escape inadvertently. 
 
 " Why strange?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson did not answer immediately. 
 
 " Her Christian name?" 
 
 •'Grace." 
 
 " Grace Ormerod? Why, you must know that Grace 
 Ormerod happened to be my own mother's maiden name!" 
 
 " You seem to recognize the portrait." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had regained his self-possession. He assumed 
 an air of indifference. 
 
 " Well, yes — no, of course not — no," he said, emphatically, 
 at last. 
 
 In his heart there was another answer. He thought for the 
 moment when he set eyes on the picture that it lookd like — 
 a little like — his own mother's face. 
 
 They walked on. Mr. Bonnithorne's constant smile parted 
 his lips. Lifting his voice rather unnecessarily, he said: 
 
 " By the way, another odd coincidence! Would you like 
 to know the name of Grace Ormerod's child by Eobert Low- 
 ther?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson's heart leaped within him, but he preserved an 
 outward show of indifference, and drawled: 
 
 " Well, what was it?" 
 
 "Paul." 
 
 The name went through him like an arrow, then he said, 
 rather languidly: 
 
 " So the half-brother of Greta Lowther, wherever he is, 
 is named — " 
 
 " Paul Lowther," said Mr. Bonnithorne. " But," he add- 
 ed, with a quick glance, " he may — I say he may — be passing 
 by another name — Paul something else, for example." 
 
 " Assuredly — certainly — yes — yes," Hugh Eitson mumbled. 
 His all but impenetrable calm was gone. 
 
 They reached the front of the house, and stood in a paved 
 court-yard. It was the home of the Eitsons, known as the 
 Ghyll, a long Cumbrian homestead of gray stone and green 
 slate. A lazy curl of smoke was winding up from one chim- 
 ney through the clear air. A gossamer net of the tangled 
 boughs of a slim brier-rose hung over the face of a broad porch, 
 and at that moment a butterfly flitted through it. The chat- 
 tering of geese came from behind. 
 
 " Eobert Lowther was the father of Grace Ormerod's child?" 
 said Hugh Eitson, vacantly. 
 
 " The father of her son Paul." 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 33 
 
 " And Greta is his daughter? Is that how it goes?" 
 
 " That is so — and half-sister to Paul." 
 
 Hugh Eitson raised his eyes to Mr. Bonnithorne's face. 
 
 " And of what age would Paul Lowther be now?" 
 
 " Well, older than you, certainly. Perhaps as old as — yes, 
 perhaps as old — fully as old as your brother." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's infirm foot trailed heavily on the stones. 
 His lips quivered. For a moment he seemed to be rapt. 
 Then he swung about and muttered: 
 
 " Tut! it isn't within belief. Thrusted home, it might be- 
 tray a man, Heaven only knows how deeply." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne looked up inquiringly. 
 
 " Pardon me, I fail, as you say, to catch the relevance." 
 
 " Mr. Bonnithorne," said Hugh Bitson, holding out his 
 hand, " you and I have been good friends, have we not?" 
 
 "Oh, the best of friends." 
 
 " At your leisure, when I have had time to think of this, 
 let us discuss it further." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne smiled assent. 
 
 " And meantime," he said, softly, " let the unhappy little 
 being we spoke of be sent away." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's eyes fell, and his voice deepened. 
 
 " Poor little soul — I'm sorry — very." 
 
 " As for Greta and her lover — well — " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head significantly, and left his 
 words unfinished. 
 
 " My father is crossing the stack-yard," said Hugh Eitson. 
 " You shall see him In good time. Come this way." 
 
 The shadows were lengthening in the valley. A purple belt 
 was stretching across the distant hills, and a dark-blue tint 
 was nestling under the eaves. A solitary crow flew across the 
 sky, aDd cawed out its guttural note. Its shadow fell, as it 
 passed, on two elderly people who were coming into the 
 court-yard. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 " It's time for that laal Mr. Bonnithorne to be here," said 
 Allan Eitson. 
 
 " Why did you send for him?" asked Mrs. Eitson, in the 
 low tone that was natural to her. 
 
 " To get that matter about the will off my mind. It'll be 
 one thing less to think about, and it has boddert me sair and 
 lang." 
 
 Allan spoke with the shuffling reserve of a man to whose se- 
 
34 A SON OF HAGAH. 
 
 cret communings a painful idea had been too long familiar. 
 In the effort to cast off the unwelcome and secret associate, 
 there was a show of emancipation which, as an acute observer 
 might see, was more assumed than real. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson made no terms with the affectation of indiffer- 
 ence. Her grave face became yet more grave, and her soft 
 voice grew softer as she said : 
 
 " And if when it is settled and done the cloud would break 
 that has hung over our lives, then all would be well. But 
 that can never be." 
 
 Allan tossed his head aside, and made pretense to smile; 
 but no gleam of sunshine on his cornfields was ever chased so 
 closely by the line of dark shadow as his smile by the frown 
 that followed. 
 
 " Come, worrit thysel' na mair about it! When I've made 
 my will, and put Paul, on the same footing with t'other lad, 
 who knows owt mair nor we choose to tell?" 
 
 Mrs. Eitson glanced into his face with a look of sad re- 
 proach. 
 
 "Heaven knows, Allan," she said; "and the dark cloud 
 still gathers for us there." 
 
 The old man took a step or two on the gravel path, and 
 dropped his gray head. His voice deepened : 
 
 " Tha says reet, mother," he said, " tha says reet. Ey, it 
 saddens my aidd days — and thine forby!" He took a step or 
 two more, and added: " And na lawyer can shak' it off now. 
 Nay, nay, never now. Weel, mother, our sky has been lang 
 owerkessen, but, mind ye," lifting his face and voice together, 
 " we've had gude crops if we tholed some thistles." 
 
 " Yes, we've had happy days, too," said Mrs. Eitson. 
 
 At that moment there came from across the vale the shouts 
 of the merrymakers and the music of a fiddle. Allan Eitson 
 lifted his head, nodded it aside jauntily, and smiled feebly 
 through the mist that was gathering about his eyes. 
 
 " There they are — wrestling and jumping. I mind me when 
 there was scarce a man in Cummerlan' could give me the cross- 
 buttock. That's many a lang year agone, though. And now 
 our Paul can manish most on 'em — that he can." 
 
 The fiddle was playing a country dance. The old man list- 
 ened; his face broadened, he lifted a leg jauntily, and gave a 
 sweep of one arm. 
 
 Just then there came through the air a peal of happy 
 laughter. It was the same heart's music that Hugh Ritson 
 and Mr. Bonnithorne had heard in the road. Allan's face 
 
A SOX OF HAGAE. 35 
 
 brightened, and his yoice had only the faintest crack in it as. 
 he said: 
 
 " That's Greta's laugh! It is for sure! What a heartsome 
 lass yon is! I like a heartsome lassie — a merry touch, and 
 gone!" 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Eitson, soberly; " Greta is a winsome 
 girl." 
 
 It was hardly spoken when a young girl bounded down upon 
 them, almost breathless, yet laughing in gusts, turning her 
 head over her shoulder and shouting: 
 
 " Hurrah! Beaten, sir! Hurrah!" 
 
 It was Greta Lowther: twenty years of age, with fair hair, 
 quick brown eyes, a sunny face lighted up with youthful ani- 
 mation, a swift smile on her parted lips — an English wild 
 white rose. 
 
 " I've beaten him," she said. " He challenged me to cross 
 Windybrowe while he ran round the Bowder stone, but I got 
 to the lonnin before he had crossed the bridge." 
 
 Then, running to the corner of the lane, she plucked off 
 her straw hat, waved it about her head, and shouted again in 
 an accent of triumph: 
 
 " Hurrah! hurrah! beaten, sir, beaten!" 
 
 Paul Eitson came running down the fell in strides of two 
 yards apiece. 
 
 " Oh, you young rogue — you cheated!" he cried, coming to 
 a stand and catching his breath. 
 
 " Cheated?" said Greta, in a tone of dire amazement. 
 
 " You bargained to touch the beacon on the top of Windy- 
 browe, and you didn't go within a hundred yards of it. " 
 
 " The beacon? On Windybrowe?" said the girl, and won- 
 drous perplexity shone in her lovely eyes. 
 
 Paul wiped his brow, and shook his head and his finger with 
 mock gravity at the beautiful cheat. 
 
 " Now, Greta, now — now — gently — " 
 
 Greta looked around with the bewildered gaze of a lost lamb- 
 kin. 
 
 " Mother," said Paul, " she stole a march on me. " 
 
 " He was the thief, Mrs. Eitson: you believe me, don't 
 you?" 
 
 " Me! why I never stole anything in my life — save one 
 thing." 
 
 " And what was that, pray?" said Greta, with another 
 mighty innocent look. 
 
 Paul crept up to her side and whispered something over her 
 
36 A SOX OS HASAE. 
 
 shoulder, whereupon she eyed him largely, and said with a 
 quick smile: 
 
 " You don't say so! But please don't be too certain of it. 
 I'm sure / never heard of that theft." 
 
 " Then here's a theft you shall hear of," said Paul, throw- 
 ing one arm about her neck and tipping up her chin. 
 
 There was a sudden gleam of rosy, roguish lips. Old Allan, 
 with mischief dancing in his eyes, pretended to recover them 
 from a more distant sight. 
 
 " Er — why, what's that?" he said; " the sneck of a gate, 
 eh?" 
 
 Greta drew herself up. 
 
 " How can you — and all the people looking — they might 
 really think that we were — we were — " 
 
 Paul came behind, put his head over one shoulder, and said: 
 
 " And we're not, are we?" 
 
 " They're weel matched, mother, eh?" said Allan, turning 
 to his wife. " They're marra-to-bran, as folks say. Greta, 
 he's a girt booby, isn't he?" 
 
 Greta stepped up to the old man, and with a familiar gest- 
 ure laid a hand on his arm. At the same moment Paul came 
 to his side. Allan tapped his son on the back. 
 
 " Thou girt lang booby," he said, and laughed heartily. 
 All the shadows that had hung over him were gone. " And 
 how's Parson Christian?" he asked in another tone. 
 
 " Well, quite well, and as dear an old soul as ever," said 
 Greta. 
 
 " He's father and mother to thee baith, my lass. I never 
 knew thy awn father. He was dead and gone before we 
 coom't to these parts. And thy mother, too, God bless her! 
 she's dead and gone now. But if this lad of mine, this Paul, 
 this girt lang — Ah, and here's Mr. Bonnithorne, and 
 Hughie, too." 
 
 The return of the lawyer and Hugh Eitson abridged the 
 threat of punishment that seemed to hang large on the old 
 man's lips. 
 
 Hugh Bitson's lifted eyes had comprehended everything. 
 The girl leaning over his father's arm; the pure, smooth 
 cheeks close to the swarthy, weather-beaten, comfortable old 
 face; the soft gaze upward full of feeling; the half-open lips 
 and the teeth like peark; then the glance round, half of 
 mockery, half of protest, altogether of unconquerable love, to 
 where Paul Bitson stood, his eyes just breaking into a smile; 
 the head, the neck, the arms, the bosom still heaving gently 
 after the race; the light loose costume — Hugh Ritson saw it 
 
A SON OP HAGAK. 3? 
 
 all, and his heart beat fast. His pale face whitened at that 
 moment, and his infirm foot trailed heavily on the gravel. 
 
 Allan shook hands with Mr. Bonnithorne, and then turned 
 to his sons. " Come, you two lads have no been gude friends 
 latterly, and that's a sair grief baith to your mother and me. 
 You're not made in the same mold seemingly. But you 
 must mak' up your fratch, my lads, for your auld folks' sake 
 if nowt else." 
 
 At this he stretched out both arms, as if with the intention 
 of joining their hands. Hugh made a gesture of protestation. 
 
 " I have no quarrel to make up," he said, and turned aside. 
 
 Paul held out his hand. " Shake hands, Hugh," he said. 
 Hugh took the proffered hand with unresponsive coldness. 
 
 Paul glanced into his brother's face a moment, and said: 
 " What's the use of breeding malice? It's a sort of live stock 
 that's not worth it's fodder, and it eats up everything." 
 
 There was a scarcely perceptible curl on Hugh Ritson's lip, 
 but he turned silently away. With head on his breast, he 
 walked toward the porch. 
 
 " Stop!" 
 
 It was old Allan's voice. The deep tone betrayed the anger 
 that was choking him. His face was flushed, his eyes were 
 stern, his lips trembled. 
 
 " Come back and shak' hands wi' thy brother reet." 
 
 Hugh Ritson faced about, leaning heavily on his infirm 
 foot. 
 
 " Why to-day more than yesterday or to-morrow?" he said, 
 calmly. 
 
 " Come back, 1 tell thee!" shouted the old man more hotly. 
 
 Hugh maintained his hold of himself, and said in a quiet 
 and even voice, " I am no longer a child." 
 
 " Then bear thysel' like a man — not like a whipped hound. : ' 
 
 The young man shuddered secretly from head to foot. His 
 eyes flashed for an instant. Then, recovering his self-control, 
 he said: 
 
 " Even a dog would resent such language, sir." 
 
 Greta had dropped aside from the painful scene, and for a 
 moment Hugh Ritson's eyes followed her. 
 
 " I'll have no sec worriment in my house," shouted the old 
 man in a broken voice. " Those that live here must live at 
 peace. Those that want war must go." 
 
 Hugh Ritson could bear up no longer. 
 
 " And what is your house to me, sir? What has it done 
 forme? The world is wide. " 
 
 Old Allan was confounded, Silent, dumb, with great star- 
 
38 A SON OB HAGAK. 
 
 ing eyes, he looked round into the faces of those about him 
 Then in thick, choking tones he shouted: 
 
 " Shak' thy brother's hand, or thou'rt no brother of his." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Hugh very quietly. 
 
 "Shak' hands, I tell thee." The old man's fists were 
 clinched. His body quivered in every limb. 
 
 His son's lips were firmly set; he made no answer. 
 
 The old man snatched from Mr. Bonnithome the stick he 
 carried. At this Hugh lifted his eyes sharply until they met 
 the eyes of his father. Allan was transfixed. The stick fell 
 from his hand. Then Hugh Ritson halted into the house. 
 
 " Come back, come back .... my boy .... Hughie 
 .... come back!" the old man sobbed out. But there was 
 no reply. 
 
 " Allan, be patient, forgive him; he will ask your pardon," 
 said Mrs. Ritson. 
 
 Paul and Greta had stolen away. The old man was now 
 speechless, and his eyes, bent on the ground, swam with tears. 
 
 " All will be well, please God," said Mrs. Ritson. " Re- 
 member, he is sorely tried, poor boy. He expected you to do 
 something for him." 
 
 " And I meant to, I meant to — that I did," the father an- 
 swered in a broken cry. 
 
 " But you've put it off, and off, Allan — like everything 
 else." 
 
 Allan lifted his hazy eyes from the ground, and looked into 
 his wife's face. " If it had been t'other lad I could have 
 borne, it maybe," he said, feelingly. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne, standing aside, had been plowing the 
 gravel with one foot. He now raised his eyes, and said : ' ' And 
 yet, Mr. Ritson, folk say that you have always shown most 
 favor to your eldest son." 
 
 The old man's gaze rested on the lawyer for a moment, but 
 he did not speak at once, and there was an awkward silence. 
 
 " I've summat to say to Mr. Bonnithorne, mother," said 
 the statesman. He was quieter now. Mrs. Ritson stepped 
 into the house. 
 
 Allan Ritson and the lawyer followed her, going into a little 
 parlor to the right of the porch. It was a quaint room, full 
 of the odor of a by-gone time. The floor was of polished black 
 oak covered with skins; the ceiling was paneled oak and had 
 a paneled beam. Bright oak cupboards, their fronts carved 
 with rude figures, were set into the walls, which were 
 whitened, and bore one illuminated text and three prints in 
 black and white. The furniture was heavy and old. There 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 39 
 
 was a spinning-wheel under the wide window-board. A blue- 
 bottle buzzed about the ceiling; a slant of sunlight crossed the 
 floor. The men sat down. 
 
 " I sent for thee to mak' my will, Mr. Bonnithorne," said 
 the old man. 
 
 The lawyer smiled. 
 
 " It is an old maxim that delay in affairs of law is a candle 
 that burns in the daytime; when the night comes it is burned 
 to the socket." 
 
 Old Allan took little heed of the sentiment. 
 
 " By," he said, " but there's mair nor common 'casion fcj 
 it in my case." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne was instantly on the alert. 
 
 " And what is your especial reason?" he asked. 
 
 Allan's mind seemed to wander. He stood silent for a mo- 
 ment, and then said slowly, as if laboring with thought and 
 phrase : 
 
 " Weel, tha must know .... I scarce know how to tell 
 thee. . . . Weel, my eldest son, Paul, as they call him — " 
 
 The old man stopped, and his manner grew sullen. Mr. 
 Bonnithorne came to his help. 
 
 " Yes, I am all attention — your eldest son — " 
 
 " He is— he is—" 
 
 The door opened and Mrs. Eitson entered the room, fol- 
 lowed close by the Laird Fisher. 
 
 " Mr. Eitson, your sheep, them black-faced herd wicks or 
 Hindscarth, have broke the fences, and the red drift of 'em is 
 down in the barrowmouth of the pass," said the charcoal- 
 burner. 
 
 The statesman got on his feet. 
 
 " I must gang away at once," he said. " Mr. Bonnithorne, 
 I must put thee off, or maybe I'll lose fifty head of sheep down 
 intheghyll." 
 
 " I made so bold as to tell ye, for I reckon we'll have all 
 maks of weather yet." 
 
 " That's reet, Mattha; and reet neighborly forby. I'll 
 slip away after thee in a thumb's snitting." 
 
 The Laird Fisher went out. 
 
 " Can ye bide here for me until eight o'clock to-neet, Mr. 
 Bonnithorne?" 
 
 There was some vexation written on the lawyer's face, but 
 he answered with meekness: 
 
 " I am always at your service, Mr. Eitson. I can return at 
 eight." 
 
 " Varra good." Then, turning to Mrs. Eitson, " Give 
 
40 A SON OF HA&AR. 
 
 friend Bonnithorne a bite o' summat," said Allan, and h« 
 followed the charcoal-burner. Out in the court-yard he called 
 the dogs. "Hey howe! hey howe! Bright! Laddie! Come, 
 boys; come, boys, te-lick, te-smack!" 
 
 He put his head in at the door of an out-house and shouted, 
 " Eeuben, wheriver ista? Come thy ways quick, and bring 
 the lad!" 
 
 In another moment a young shepherd and a cowherd, sur- 
 rounded by three or four sheep-dogs, joined Allan Eitson in 
 the court-yard. 
 
 " Dusta gang back to the fell, Mattha?" said the statesman. 
 
 " Nay; I's done for the day. I'm away home." 
 
 " Good-neet, and thank." 
 
 Then the troop disappeared down the lonnin — the men 
 calling, the dogs barking. 
 
 In walking through the hall Mr. Bonnithorne encountered 
 Hugh Eitson, who was passing out of the house, his face very 
 hard, his head much bent. 
 
 " Would you," said the lawyer, " like to know the business 
 on which I have been called here?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson did not immediately raise his eyes. 
 
 " To make his will," added Mr. Bonnithorne, not waiting 
 for an answer. 
 
 Then Hugh Ritson's eyes were lifted; there was one flash of 
 intelligence; after that the young man went out without a 
 word. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Hugh Eitson was seven-and- twenty. His clean-shaven face 
 was long, pale, and intellectual; his nose was wide at the 
 bridge and full at the nostrils: he had firm-set lips, large, ve- 
 hement eyes, and a broad forehead, with hair of dark auburn 
 parted down the middle and falling in thin waves on the tem- 
 ples. The expression of the physiognomy in repose was one 
 of pain, and, in action, of power; the effect of the whole was 
 not unlike that which is produced by the face of a high-bred 
 horse, with its deep eyes and dilated nostrils. He was barely 
 above medium height, and his figure was almost delicate. 
 When he spoke his voice startled you — it was so low and deep 
 to come from that slight frame. His lameness, which was 
 slight, was due to a long-standing infirmity of the hip. 
 
 As second son of a Cumbrian statesman, whose estate con- 
 sisted chiefly of land, he expected but little from his father f 
 and had been trained in the profession of a mining engineer 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 41 
 
 After spending a few months at the iron mines of Cleator, he 
 had removed to London at twenty-two, and enrolled himself 
 as a student of the Mining College in Jermyn Street. There 
 he had spent four years, sharing the chambers of a young bar- 
 rister in the Temple Gardens. His London career was un- 
 eventful. Taciturn in manner, he made few friends. His 
 mind had a tendency toward contemplative inactivity. Of 
 physical energy he had very little, and this may have been 
 partly due to his infirmity. Late at night he would walk 
 alone in the Strand: the teeming life of the city, and the mys- 
 tery of its silence after midnight, had a strong fascination for 
 him. In these rambles he came to know some of the strangest 
 and oddest of the rags and rinsings of humanity: among them 
 a Persian nobleman of the late shah's household, who kept a 
 small tobacco-shop at the corner of a by-street, and an old 
 French exile, once of the court of Louis Phillippe, who sold 
 the halfpenny papers. At other times he went out hardly at 
 all, and was rarely invited. 
 
 Only the housemate, who saw him at all times and in many 
 moods, seemed to suspect that beneath that cold exterior there 
 lay an ardent nature. But he himself knew how strong was 
 the tide of his passion. He could never look a beautiful wom- 
 an in the face but his pulse beat high, and he felt almost faint. 
 Yet strong as his passion was, his will was no less strong. He 
 put a check on himself, and during his four years in London 
 contrived successfully to dam up the flood that was secretly 
 threatening him. 
 
 At six-and-twenty he returned to Cumberland, having some 
 grounds for believing that his father intended to find him the 
 means of mining for himself. A year had now passed, and 
 nothing had been done. He was growing sick with hope de- 
 ferred. His elder brother, Paul, had spent his life on the 
 land, and it was always understood that in due course he 
 would inherit it. That at least was the prospect which Hugh 
 Eitson had in view, though no prospective arrangement had 
 been made. Week followed week, and month followed 
 month, and his heart grew bitter. He had almost decided 
 to end this waiting. The day would come when he could 
 bear it no longer, and then he would cut adrift. 
 
 An accidental circumstance was the cause of his irresolution. 
 He used to walk frequently on the moss where the Laird 
 Fisher sunk his shaft. In the beck that ran close to the dis- 
 used headgear he would wade for an hour early in the summer 
 morning. One day he saw the old laird's daughter washing 
 linen at the heck-side. He remembered her as a pretty, prat- 
 
42 A SON OP HAGAE. 
 
 tling thing of ten or eleven. She was now a girl of eighteen s 
 with a pure face, a timid manner, and an air that was neither 
 that of a woman nor of a child. Her mother was lately dead, 
 her father spent most of his days on the fell (some of his nights 
 also when the charcoal was burning), and she was much alone. 
 Hugh Eitson liked her gentle replies and her few simple ques- 
 tions. So it came about that he would look for her in the 
 mornings, and be disappointed if he did not catch sight of her 
 good young face. Himself a silent man, he liked to listen to 
 the girl's modest, unconnected talk. His stern eyes would 
 soften at such times to a sort of caressing expression. This 
 went on for months, and in that solitude no idle tongue was 
 set to wag. At length Hugh Eitson perceived that the girl's 
 heart was touched. If he came late he found her leaning over 
 a gate, her eyes bent down among the mountain grasses at her 
 feet, and her cheeks colored by a red glow. It is unnecessary 
 to go further. The girl gave herself up to him with her 
 whole heart and soul, and he — well, he found the bulwarks 
 with which he had surrounded himself were ruined and down. 
 
 Then the awakening came, and Hugh learned too late that 
 he had not loved the simple child, by realizing that with all 
 the ardor of his restrained but passionate nature he loved an- 
 other woman. 
 
 So much for the first complication in the tragedy of this 
 man's life. 
 
 The second complication was new to his consciousness, and 
 it was at this moment conspiring with the first to lure him to 
 consequences that are now to be related. The story which Mr. 
 Bonnithorne had told of the legacy left by Greta's father to a 
 son by one Grace Ormerod had come to him at a time when, 
 owing to disappointment and chagrin, he was peculiarly liable 
 to the temptation of any "honest trifle" that pointed the 
 way he wished to go. If the Grace Ormerod who married 
 Lowther had indeed been his own mother, then — a thousand 
 to one — Paul was Lowther's son. If Paul was Lowther's son, 
 he was also half-brother of Greta. If Paul was not the son of 
 Allan Eitson, then he himself, Hugh Eitson, was his father's 
 heir. 
 
 In the present whirlwind of feeling he did not inquire too 
 closely into the pros and cons of probability. Enough that 
 evidence seemed to be with him, and that it transformed the 
 world in his view. 
 
 Perhaps the first result of this transformation was that he 
 unconsciously assumed a different attitude toward the unhappy 
 passage in his life wherein Mercy Fisher was chiefly concerned. 
 
He stepped before her, and she set down the pail.— Page 43. 
 
A SON OP HAGtAE. 43 
 
 What his feeling was before Mr. Bonnithorne's revelation, we 
 have already seen. Now the sentiment that made much of 
 such an " accident " was fit only for a " turgid melodrama," 
 and the idea of " atonement " by " marriage " was the mock 
 heroic of those " great lovers of noble histories," the specta- 
 tors who applaud it from the pit. 
 
 When he passed Mr. Bonnithorne in the hall at the Ghyll 
 he was on his way to the cottage of the Laird Fisher. He saw 
 in the road ahead of him the group which included his father 
 and the charcoal-burner, and to avoid them he cut across the 
 breast of the Eel Crags. After a sharp walk of a mile he 
 came to a little whitewashed house that stood near the head of 
 Newlands, almost under the bridge that crosses the fall. It 
 was a ' sweet place in a great solitude, where the silence was 
 broken only by the tumbling waters, the cooing of pigeons on 
 the roof, and the twittering of ringouzels by the side of the 
 torrent. The air was fresh with the smell of new peat. There 
 was a wedge-shaped garden in front, and it was encompassed 
 by chestnut-trees. As Hugh Eitson drew near he noticed that 
 a squirrel crept from the fork of one of these trees. The little 
 creature rocked itself on the thin end of a swaying branch, 
 plucking sometimes at the drooping fan of the chestnut, and 
 sometimes at the prickly shell of its pendulous nut. When he 
 opened the little gate Hugh Eitson observed that a cat sat se- 
 dately behind the trunk of that tree, glancing up at intervals 
 at the sporting squirrel in her moving seat. 
 
 As he entered the garden Mercy was crossing it with a pail 
 of water just raised from the well. She had seen him, and 
 now tried to pass into the house. He stepped before her and 
 she set down the pail. Her head was held very low, and her 
 cheeks were deeply flushed. 
 
 " Mercy/' he said, " it is all arranged. Mr. Bonnithorne 
 will see you into the train this evening, and when you get to 
 your journey's end the person I spoke of will meet you." 
 
 The girl lifted her eyes beseechingly to his face. 
 
 " Not to-day, Hugh," she said in a broken whisper; " let 
 me stay until to-morrow. " 
 
 He regarded her for a moment with a steadfast look, and 
 when he spoke again his voice fell on her ear like the clank of 
 a chain. 
 
 "The journey has to be made. Every week's delay in- 
 creases the daDger. " 
 
 The girl's eyes fell again, and the tears began to drop from 
 them on to the brown arms that she had clasped in front. 
 
 " Come," he said in a softer tone, " the train starts in an 
 
44 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 hour. Your father is not yet home from the pit, and most of 
 the dalespeople are at the sports. So much the better. Put 
 on your cloak and hat and take the fell path to the Coledale 
 road-ends. There Mr. Bonnithorne will meet you." 
 
 The girl's tears were flowing fast, though she bit her lip and 
 struggled to check them. 
 
 " Come, now, come; you know this was of your own choice. " 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " I never thought it would be so hard to go," she said at 
 length. 
 
 He smiled feebly, and tried a more rallying tone. 
 
 " You are not going for life. You will come back safe and 
 happy." 
 
 The words thrilled her through and through. Her clasped 
 hands trembled visibly, and her fingers clutched them with a 
 convulsive movement. After awhile she was calmer, and said 
 quietly: 
 
 " No, I'll never come back — I know that quite well." And 
 her head dropped on her breast and she felt sick at heart. 
 "I'll have to say good-bye to everything. There were Betsy 
 Jackson's children — I kissed them all this morning, and 
 never said why — little Willy, he seemed to know, dear little 
 fellow, and cried so bitterly." 
 
 The memories of these incidents touched to overflowing the 
 springs of love in the girl's simple soul, and the bubbling 
 child-voice was drowned in sobs. 
 
 The man stood with a smile of pain on his face. He came 
 close, and brushed away her tears, and touched her drooping 
 head with a gesture of protestation. 
 
 Mercy regained her voice. 
 
 " And then there's your mother,"' she said, " and I can't 
 say good-bye to her, and my poor father, and I daren't tell 
 him—" 
 
 Hugh stamped on the path impatiently. 
 
 " Come, come, Mercy, don't be foolish." 
 
 The girl lifted to his the good young face that had once been 
 bonny as the day and was now pale with weeping and drawn 
 down with grief. She took him by the coat, and then, by an 
 impulse which she seemed unable to resist, threw one arm 
 about his neck, and raised her face to his until their lips all 
 but touched, and their eyes met in a steadfast gaze. 
 
 " Hugh," she said, passionately, " are you sure that you 
 love me well enough to think of me when I am gone?— are yov 
 quite, quite sure?" 
 
 " Yes, yes; be sure of that," he said, gently. 
 
A SOW OF HAGAR. 46 
 
 He disengaged her arm. 
 
 iS And will you come and fetch me after — after — " 
 
 She could not say the word. He smiled and answered. 
 iC Why, yes, yes." 
 
 Her fingers trembled and clung together; her head fell; her 
 cheeks were aglow. 
 
 " Why, of course." He smiled again, as if in deprecation 
 of so much child-like earnestuess; then put his arm about the 
 girl's shoulder, dropped his voice to a tone of mingled com- 
 passion and affection, and said, as he lifted the brightening 
 face to his, " There, there — now go off and make ready." 
 
 The girl brushed her tears away vigorously, and looked half 
 ashamed and half enchanted. 
 
 "I'm going." 
 
 " That's a good little girl." 
 
 How the sunshine came back at the sound of his words! 
 
 " Good-bye for the present, Mercy — only for the present, 
 you know." 
 
 But how the shadow pursued the sunshine after all! 
 
 Hugh saw the tears gathering again in the lucent eyes, and 
 came back a step. 
 
 " There —a smile — just one little smile!" She smiled 
 through her tears. " There — there — that's a dear little 
 Mercy. Good-day; good-bye." 
 
 Hugh turned on his heel and walked sharply away. As he 
 passed out through the gate he could not help observing that 
 the cat from the foot of the chestnut-tree was walking stealth- 
 ily off, with something like a dawning smile on its whiskered 
 face, and the brush of the squirrel between its teeth. 
 
 Hugh Eitson had gained his end, and yet he felt more 
 crushed than at the darkest moment of defeat. He had con- 
 quered his own manhood; and now he crept away from the 
 scene of his triumph with a sense of utter abasement. When 
 he had talked with Mr. Bonnithorne it was with a feeling of 
 the meanness of the folly in which he was involved; and if any 
 sentiment touching the girl's situation was strong upon him it 
 was closely bound up with a personal view of the degradation 
 that might come of a man's humiliating unwisdom. The very 
 conventionality of his folly had irked him. But its cowardice 
 was now uppermost. That a man should enter into warfare 
 with a woman on unequal terms, and win by cajolery and de- 
 ceit, was more than cruel: it was brutal. He could have borne 
 even this hard saying so far as it concerned the woman's suf- 
 fering, but for the reflection that it made the man something 
 worse than a coxcomb in his own eyes. 
 
46 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 The day was now far spent; the brilliant sun had dipped be= 
 hind Grisedale, and left a ridge of dark fells in the west. On 
 the east the green sides of Cat Bells and the Bel Crags were yel- 
 low at the summit, where the hills held their last commerce 
 with the hidden sun. Not a breath of wind; not the rustle of 
 a leaf; the valley lay still, save for the echoing voices of the 
 merry-makers in the booths below. The sky overhead was 
 blue, but a dark cloud, like the hulk of a ship, had anchored 
 lately to the north. 
 
 Hugh Ritson took the valley road back to the Ghyll. He 
 was visibly perturbed; he walked with head much bent, 
 stopped suddenly at times, then snatched impetuously at the 
 trailing bushes, and passed on. When he was under Hinds- 
 earth the sharp yap of dogs, followed by the bleat of unseen 
 sheep, caused him to look up, and he saw a group of men, like 
 emmets creeping on a dark bowlder, moving over a ridge of 
 shelving rock. 
 
 There was a slight spasm of his features at that moment, 
 and his foot trailed more heavily as he went on. At a twist of 
 the road he passed the Laird Fisher. The old man looked less 
 melancholy than usual. It was as if the familiar sorrow sat a 
 little more lightly to-night on the half-ruined creature. 
 
 " Good-neet to you, sir, and how fend ye?" he said almost 
 cheerily. 
 
 Hugh Ritson responded briefly. 
 
 " So you're not sleeping on the fell to-night, Matthew?" 
 and as he spoke his eyes wandered toward the fell road. 
 
 " Nay; Fs not firing to-neet, for sure; my daughter is ex- 
 pecting me." 
 
 Hugh's eyes were now fixed intently on the road that crossed 
 the foot of the fell to the west. The charcoal-burner was 
 moving off, and, following at the same moment the upward 
 direction of Hugh Ritson's gaze, he said: 
 
 " It's a baddish place yon, where your father is with Reu- 
 ben and the lad, and its baddish weather that is coming, too 
 
 look at yon black cloud over Walna Scar." 
 
 Then for an instant there was embarrassment in Hugh Rit- 
 son's eyes, and he answered in a faltering commonplace: 
 
 "Ways me; but I must slip away home, sir; my laal lass 
 will be weary waiting. Good-neet to you, sir; good-neet." 
 
 " Good-night, Matthew, and God help you," said Hugh, in 
 a tone of startling earnestness, his eyes turned away. 
 
 He had walked half a mile further, and reached the lonnin 
 that led to the Ghyll, when he was almost overrun by Greta 
 Lowther, who came tripping out of the gate of a meadow/ her 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 471 
 
 bonnet swinging over her arm, her soft, wavy hair floating 
 over her white forehead, her cheeks colored with a warm glow, 
 a roguish light in her eyes, and laughter on the point of bub- 
 bling out of her lips. 
 
 Greta had just given Paul Eitson the slip. There was n 
 thicket in the field she had crossed, and it was covered with 
 wild roses, white and red. Through the heart of it there rip- 
 pled a tiny streak of water that was amber-tiiited from the 
 round shingle in its bed. The trunk of an old beech lay 
 across it for ford or bridge. Underfoot were the sedge and 
 the moss; overhead the thick boughs and the roses; in the air, 
 the odor of hay and the songs of birds. And Paul, the cun- 
 ning rascal, would have tempted Greta into this solitude; but 
 she was too shrewd, the wise little woman, to be so easily 
 trapped. Pretending to follow him in ignorance of his mani- 
 fest design, she tripped back on tiptoe, and fled away like a 
 lapwing over the noiseless grass. 
 
 When Greta met Hugh Eitson she was saying to herself, of 
 Paul in particular and of his sex in general: " What dear, 
 simple, unsuspecting, trustful creatures they are!" Then she 
 drew up sharply, " Ah, Hugh!" 
 
 " How happy you look, Greta!" he said, fixing his eyes 
 upon her. 
 
 A new light brightened her sunny face. " Not happier than 
 I feel," she answered. She swung the arm over which the 
 bonnet hung; the heaving of her breast showed the mold of 
 her early womanhood. 
 
 Hugh Eitson' s mind had for the last half hour brooded over 
 many a good purpose, but not one of them was now left. 
 
 " You witnessed a painful scene to-day," he said with some 
 hesitation. " Be sure it was no less painful to me because 
 you were there to see it." 
 
 " Oh, I was so sorry," said Greta, impetuously. "You 
 mean with your father?" 
 
 Hugh bent his head slightly. " It was inevitable — I know 
 that full' well — but for my share in it I ask your pardon." 
 
 " That is nothing," she said; " but you took your father 
 too seriously." 
 
 " I took him at his word — that was all." 
 
 " But the dear old man meant nothing, and you meant very 
 much. He only wanted to abuse you a little, and perhaps 
 frighten you, and shake his stick at you, and then love you all 
 the better for it." 
 
 " You may be right, Greta. Among the whims of nature 
 
48 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 there is that of making such human contradictions; but, as 
 you say, I take things seriously — everything — life itself." 
 
 He paused, and there was a slight trembling of the lip. 
 
 " Besides," he went on in another tone, " it has been al- 
 ways so. Since our childhood — my brother's and miue — there 
 has not been much parental tenderness wasted on me. I can 
 hardly expect it now." 
 
 " Surely that must be a morbid fancy," Greta said in a dis- 
 tressed tone. The light was dying out of her eyes. She made 
 one quick glance downward to where Hugh Ritson's infirm 
 foot trailed on the road, and then, in an instant of recovered 
 consciousness, she glanced up, now confused and embar- 
 rassed, into his face. 
 
 She was too late: he had read her thought. A faint smile 
 parted Iris lips, and the light of his own eyes was cold. 
 
 " No;' not that," he said; " I ask no pity in that regard — 
 and need none. Nature has given my brother a physique that 
 would shame a Greek statue, but he and I are quits — perhaps 
 more than quits." 
 
 He made a hard smile, and she flushed deep with the shame 
 of having her thought read. 
 
 " I am sorry if I conveyed that," she said, slowly. " It 
 must have been quite unwittingly. I was thinking of your 
 mother. She is so good and tender to everybody. Why, she 
 is the angel of the country-side. Do you know what name 
 they've given her?" 
 
 Hugh shook his head. 
 
 "Saint Grace! Parson Christian told me — it seems it was 
 my own dear mother who christened her." 
 
 " Nevertheless, there has not been much to sweeten my life, 
 Greta," he said. 
 
 His voice arrested her; it was charged with unusual feeling. 
 She made no answer, and they began to walk toward the 
 house. 
 
 After a few steps Greta remembered the trick that she had 
 played on Paul, and craned her beautiful neck to see over the 
 stone cobble-hedge into the field where she had left him. 
 
 Hugh observed her intently. 
 
 " I hear that you have decided. Is it so, Greta?" he said. 
 
 " Decided what?" she asked, coloring again. 
 
 He also colored slightly, and answered with a strained quiet- 
 ness: 
 
 " To marry my brother." 
 
 "If he wishes it — I suppose he does — he says so, you 
 know." 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 49 
 
 Hugh looked earnestly into the girl's glowing face, and 
 said with deliberation: 
 
 " Greta, perhaps there are reasons why you should not 
 marry Paul." 
 
 " What reasons?" 
 
 He did not reply at once, and she repeated her question. 
 Then he said in a strange tone: 
 
 " Just and lawful impediments, as they say." 
 
 Greta's eyes opened wide in undisguised amazement. 
 
 " Impossible — you can not mean it," she said with her cus- 
 tomary impetuosity. She glanced into Hugh's face, and mis- 
 read what she saw there. Then she began to laugh, at first 
 lightly, afterward rather boisterously, and said with head 
 averted, and almost as if talking to herself, " No, no; he is 
 nothing to me but the man I love." 
 
 " Do you then love him?" 
 
 Greta started. 
 
 " Do you ask?" she said. The amazement in the wide eyes 
 had deepened to a look of rapture. "Love him?" she said; 
 " better than all the world beside." The girl was lifted out 
 of herself. " You are to be my brother, Hugh, and I need 
 not fear to speak so." 
 
 She swung her bonnet on her arm, just to preserve com- 
 posure by some distracting exercise. 
 
 Hugh Ritson stopped, and his face softened. It was a per- 
 plexing smile that sat on his features. While he had talked 
 with Greta there had run through his mind, as a painful 
 undertone, the thought of Mercy Fisher. He had now dis- 
 missed the last of his qualms respecting her. To be tied down 
 for life to a mindless piece of physical prettiness — what man 
 of brains could bear it? He had yielded to a natural impulse 
 — true! That moment of temptation threatened painful con- 
 sequences— still true! What then? Nothing! Was the dead 
 fruit to hang about his neck forever? Tut!— all natural law 
 was against it. Had he not said that he was above prejudice? 
 So was he above the maudlin sentiment of the " great lovers 
 of noble histories." The sophistry grew apace with Greta's 
 beautiful countenance before him. Catching at her last 
 word, he said: 
 
 " Your brother — yes. But did you never guess that I could 
 have wished another name?" 
 
 The look of amazement returned to her eyes; he saw it .sind 
 went on: 
 
 " Is it possible that you have not read my secret?" 
 
 " What secret?" she said in a half-smothered voice.. 
 
50 A SCOT OF HAGAK. 
 
 " Greta, if your love had been great love, you must have 
 read my secret just as I have read yours." In a low tone he 
 continued: " Long ago I" knew that you loved, or thought you 
 loved, my brother. I saw it before he had seen it — before yor 
 had realized it." 
 
 The red glow colored her cheeks more deeply than before. 
 She had stopped, and he was tramping nervously backward 
 and forward. 
 
 " Greta," he said again, and he fixed his eyes entreatingly 
 upon her, " what is the love that scarcely knows itself? — that 
 is the love with which you love my brother. And what is the 
 tame, timid passion of a man of no mind? — that is the love 
 which he offers you. What is your love for him, or his for 
 you? — what is it, can it be? Love is not love unless it is the 
 love of true minds. That was said long ago, Greta, and how 
 true it is!" He went on quickly, in a tone of dull irritation: 
 " All other love is no better than lust. Greta, / understand 
 you. It is not for a rude man like my brother to do so." 
 Then in an eager voice he said : ' ' Dearest, I bring you a love 
 undreamed of among these country boors." 
 
 " Country boors!" she repeated in a half-stifled whisper. 
 
 He did not hear her. His vehement eyes swam, and he was 
 dizzy. 
 
 " Greta, clearest, I said there has been little in my life to 
 sweeten it. Yet 1 am a man made to love and to be loved. 
 My love for you has been mute for months; but it can be 
 mute no longer. Perhaps I have had my own impediment, 
 apart from our love for Paul. But that is all over now." 
 
 His cheeks quivered, his lips trembled, his voice swelled, his 
 nervous fingers were riveted to his palm. He approached her 
 and took her hand. She seemed to be benumbed by strong 
 feeling. She had stood as one transfixed, a slow paralysis of 
 surprise laying hold of her faculties. But at his touch her 
 senses regained their mastery. She flung away his hand. Her 
 breast heaved. In a voice charged with indignation, she said- 
 
 " So this is what you mean ! I understand you at last!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson fell back a pace. 
 
 " Greta, hear me — hear me again!" 
 
 But she had found her voice indeed . 
 
 " Sir, you have outraged your brother's heart as surely as if 
 at this moment I had been your brother's wife!" 
 
 " Greta, think before you speak — think, I implore you!" 
 
 "I have thought! I have thought of you as your sister 
 might think, and spoken to you as my brother. New I know 
 how mean of soul you are!" 
 
A SON OF HAGAfc. 51 
 
 Hugh broke in passionately: 
 
 " For God's sake, stop! I am an unforgiving man." 
 
 His nostrils quivered, every nerve vibrated. 
 
 " Love? You never loved. If you knew what the word 
 means you would die of shame where you stand this instant/' 
 
 Hugh lost all control. 
 
 " I bid you beware!" he said in wrath and dismay. 
 
 "And I bid you be silent!" said Greta, with an eloquent 
 uplifting of the hand. " You offer your love to a pledged 
 woman. It is only base love that is basely offered. It is bad 
 coin, sir, and goes back dishonored." 
 
 Hugh Ritson regained some self-command. The contrac- 
 tions were deep about his forehead, but he answered in an 
 imperturbable voice: 
 
 "You shall never marry my brother!" 
 
 "I will- God willing!" 
 
 " Then you shall marry him to your lifelong horror and 
 disgrace." 
 
 " That shall be as Heaven may order." 
 
 " A boor — a hulking brute — a bas — " 
 
 " Enough! I would rather marry a plowboy than such a 
 gentleman as you!" 
 
 Face to face, eye to eye, with panting breath and scornful 
 looks, there they stood for one moment. Then Greta swung 
 about and walked down the lonnin. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's natural manner returned instantly. He 
 looked after her without the change of a feature, and then 
 turned quietly into the house. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Theee was a drowsy calm in the room where Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne sat at lunch. It was the little oak-bound parlor to the 
 right, in which he had begun the conversation with old Allan 
 Ritson that had been interrupted by the announcement of the 
 Laird Fisher. Half of the window was thrown up, and the 
 landscape framed by the sash lay still as a picture. The sun 
 that had passed over Grisedale sent a deep glow from behind, 
 and the woods beneath took a restful tone. Only the mount- 
 ain-head was white where it towered into the sky and the 
 silence. 
 
 Mrs. Ritson entered and sat down. Her manner was meek 
 almost to abjectness. She was elderly, but her face bore traces 
 of the beauty she had enjoyed in youth. The lines had grown 
 deep in it since then, and now the sadness of its expession was 
 
52 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 permanent. She wore an old-fashioned lavender gown, and there 
 was a white silk scarf about her neck. Her voice was low and 
 tremulous, yet eager, as if it were always questioning. 
 
 With downcast head, and eyes bent on her lap, where her 
 fingers twitched nervously as she knitted without cessation, 
 she sat silent, or put meek questions to her guest. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne answered in smiles and speeches of six 
 words apiece. Between each sparse reply he addressed himself 
 afresh to his lunch with an appetite that was the reverse of 
 sparse. All the while a subdued hum of many voices came up 
 from the booth in the fields below. 
 
 At length Mrs. Bitson's anxiety overcame the restraint of 
 her manner. 
 
 " Mr. Bonnithorne," she said, " do let the will be made to- 
 night. Urge Mr. Eitson, when he returns, to admit of no 
 further delay. He has many noble qualities, but procrastina- 
 tion is his fault. It has been ever so. " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne paused with a glass half raised to his lips, 
 and lifted his eyes instead. 
 
 " Pardon me, madame," he said, with the customary smile 
 which failed to disarm his words; " this is for certain reasons 
 a subject I can hardly discuss with — with — with a woman." 
 
 And just then a peacock strutted through the court-yard, 
 startling the still air with its empty scream. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson colored deeply. Even modesty like hers had 
 been put to a severe strain. But she dropped her eyes again, 
 finished a row of stitches, rested the steel needle on her lip, 
 and answered quietly: 
 
 " Surely a woman may talk of what concerns her husband 
 and her children." 
 
 The great man had resumed his knife and fork. 
 
 •" Not necessarily," he said. " It is a strange and curious 
 fact, that there is one condition in which the law does not rec- 
 ognize the right of a woman to call her son her own. " 
 
 During this prolonged speech, Hugh Eitson, fresh from his 
 interview with Greta Lowther, entered the room, and stretched 
 himself on the couch. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson, without shifting the determination of her gaze 
 from the nervous fingers in her lap, said : 
 
 " What condition?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne twisted slightly, and glanced significantly 
 at Hugh as he answered: 
 
 " The condition of illegitimacy." 
 
 Something supercilious in the tone jarred on Mrs. Eitson's 
 ear. She looked up from her knitting, and said: 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 53 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 Bonnithorne placed his knife and fork with precision over 
 his empty plate, used his napkin with deliberation, coughed 
 slightly, and said: " I mean that the law denies the name of 
 son to offspring that has been bastardized." 
 Mrs. Bitson's face grew crimson, and she rose to her feet. 
 " If so, the law is cruel and wicked," she said in a voice 
 more tremulous with emotion. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne leaned languidly back in his chair, ejected 
 i long " hem " from his overburdened chest, inserted his 
 ingers in the armpits of his waistcoat, looked up, and said: 
 ' Odd, isn't it?" 
 
 Unluckily for the full effect of Mr. Bonnithorne' s subtle 
 witticism, Paul Eitson, with Greta at his side, appeared in the 
 door- way at the moment of its delivery. The manner more 
 than the words had awakened his anger, and the significance 
 of both he interpreted by his mother's agitated face. In two 
 strides he stepped up to where the great man sat, even now 
 all smiles and white teeth, and laid a powerful hand on his 
 arm. 
 
 " My friend," said Paul, lustily, "it might not be safe for 
 you to speak to my mother again like that!" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne rose stiffly, and his shifty eyes looked into 
 Paul's wrathful face. 
 
 " Safe?" he echoed with emphasis. 
 
 Paul, his lips compressed, bent his head, and at the same 
 instant brought the other hand down on the table. 
 
 Without speaking, Mr. Bonnithorne shuffled back into his 
 seat. Mrs. Eitson, letting fall her knitting into her lap, sat 
 and dropped her face into her hands. Paul took her by the 
 arm, raised her up, and led her out of the room. As he did 
 so, he passed the couch on which Hugh Eitson lay, and looked 
 down with mingled anger and contempt into his brother's 
 indifferent eyes. 
 
 When the door closed behind them, Hugh Eitson and Mr. 
 Bonnithorne rose together. There was a momentary gleam of 
 mutual consciousness. Then instantly, suddenly, by one im- 
 pulse, the two men joined hands across the table. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 The cloud that had hung over Walna Scar broke above the 
 valley, and a heavy rain-storm, with low mutterings of distant 
 thunder, drove the pleasure-people from the meadow to the 
 booth. It was a long canvas tent with a drinking-bar at one 
 
54 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 end, and stalls in the corners for the sale of gingerbreads and 
 gimcracks. The grass under it was trodden flat, and in patches 
 the earth was bare and wet beneath the trapesing feet of the 
 people. They were a mixed and curious company. In a ring 
 that was cleared by an athletic plowman the fiddler-postman 
 of Newlands, Tom o' Dint, was seated on a tub turned bottom 
 up. He was a little man with bowed legs and feet a foot long. 
 
 " Now, lasses, step forretl Dunnot be blate. Come along 
 with ye, any as have springiness in them!" 
 
 The rough invitation was accepted without too much timid- 
 ity by several damsels dressed in gorgeous gowns and bonnets. 
 Then up and down, one, two, three, cut and shuffle, cross, 
 under, and up and down again. 
 
 " I'll be mounting my best nag and comin' ower to Scara 
 Crag and tappin' at your window some neet soon," whispered 
 a young fellow to the girl he had just danced with. 
 
 She laughed a little mockingly. 
 
 •' Your best nag, Willy?" 
 
 " Weel — the maister's." 
 
 She laughed again, and a sneer curled her lip. " You Cole- 
 bank chaps are famous sweethearts, I hear. Fare-te-weel, 
 Willy." 
 
 And she twisted on her heel. He followed her up. 
 
 " Dunnet gowl, Aggy. Mappen I'll be maister man mysel' 
 soon." 
 
 Aggy pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared. 
 
 "She's packed him off wi' a flea in Ms ear," said an elderly 
 man stand ing near. 
 
 " Just like all the lave of them," said another, " snurling 
 up her neb at a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of 
 some rich uncle in Austrilly?" 
 
 " Ey, end stuff her with all sorts of flaitchment and lies. 
 Then all the lasses wad be glyming at him." 
 
 The dance spun on. 
 
 " Why, it's a regular upshot, as good as Carel fair," said 
 one of the girls. 
 
 " Bessie, you're reet dipt and heeled for sure," responded 
 her companion. 
 
 Bessie's eyes sparkled with delight at the lusty compliment 
 paid to her dancing, and she opened her cloak to cool herself, 
 and also to show the glittering locket that hung about her 
 neck. 
 
 " It's famish, this fashion," muttered the elderly cynic. 
 
 i •; must tak' a brave canny fortune." 
 
 ' Shaf, man, the country's puzzen'd round with pride," a') 
 
A SON OF BAGAR. 55 
 
 swered his gossip. " Lasses worked in the old days. .Now 
 they never do a hand's turn bat washin' and bleachin' and 
 starchin' and curling their polls." 
 
 " Ey, ey, there's been na luck in the country since the 
 women-folk began to think shame of their wark." 
 
 The fiddler made a squeak on two notes that sounded like 
 Mss-her, and from a corner of the booth there came a clamor- 
 ous smack of lips. 
 
 " I saw you sweetheartin' laal Bessie," said one of the fel- 
 lows to another. 
 
 " And I saw you last night cutteran sa soft in the meadow. 
 Nay, dunnot look sa strange. I never say nowt, not I. Only 
 yon mother of Aggy's, she's a famous fratcher, and dunnot 
 you let her get wind. She brays the lasses, and mappen she'll 
 bray somebody forby." 
 
 While the dancing proceeded there was a noisy clatter of 
 glasses and a mutter of voices in the neighborhood of the bar. 
 
 " The varra crony one's fidgin to see! Gie us a shak' of 
 thy daddle!" shouted a fellow with a face like a russet apple. 
 
 " Come, Dick, let's bottom a quart together. Deil tak' the 
 expense." 
 
 " Why, man, and wherever hasta been since Whissen Mon- 
 day?" 
 
 " Weel, you see, I went to the fair and stood with a straw 
 in my mouth, and the wives all came round, and one of them 
 said, ' What wage do you ask, canny lad?' ' Five pounds 
 ten,' I says. ' And what can you do?' she says. 'Do?' I 
 says, ' anything from plowing to threshing and nicking a 
 nag's tail,' I says. ' Come, be my man,' she says. But she 
 was like to clem me, so I racked up my bits of duds and got 
 my wage in my reet-hand breek pocket, and here I am." 
 
 The dancing had finished, and. a little group was gathered 
 around the fiddler's tub. 
 
 " Come thy ways; here's Tom o' Dint conjuring, and tell- 
 ing folk what they are thinking." 
 
 " That's mair nor he could do for the numskulls as never 
 think." 
 
 " He bangs all the player-folk, does Tom." 
 
 " Who's yon tatterdemalion flinging by the newspaper and 
 bawling, ' The country's going to the dogs?' " 
 
 " That's Grey Graham, setting folk by the lug with his 
 blusteration." 
 
 " Mess, lads, but he'd be a reet good Parli'ment man to 
 threep about the nation." 
 
 "Weel, I's na polly tishin , but if it's tearin' and snappin' 
 
5<S A 60K OF HAGAit. 
 
 same as a terrier that mak's a reet good Parli'mebt man, 1 
 reckon not all England could bang him." 
 
 " And that's not saying nowt, Sim. I've heard Grey Gra- 
 ham on the ballot till it's wet him through to the waistcoat." 
 
 " Is that Mister Paul Eitson and Mistress Lowther just run 
 in for shelter i"' 
 
 " Surely; and a reet bonny lass she is." 
 
 " And he's got larnin' and manners too." 
 
 " Ey, he's of the bettermer sort, is Paul. " 
 
 " Does she live at the parson's — Parson Christian's?" 
 
 " Why, yes, man; it's only naturable — he's her guardian." 
 
 " And what a man he is, to be sure." 
 
 " Ey, we'll never see his like again when he's gone." 
 
 " Nay, not till the water runs up bank and trees grow down 
 bank." 
 
 " And what a scholar, and no pride neither, and what's- 
 mair in a parson, no greed. Why, the leal fellow values the .- 
 world and the world's gear not a flea." 
 
 " Contentment's a kingdom, as folk say, and religion is no> 
 worse for a bit o' charity." 
 
 There was a momentary pressure of the company toward the 
 mouth of the booth, where Gubblum Oglethorpe reappeared 
 with his pack swung from his neck in front of him. The girls 
 gathered eagerly around. 
 
 " What have you to-day, Gubblum?" 
 
 " Nay, nowt for you, my dear. You're one of them that 
 alius looks best with nothing on." 
 
 " Oh, Gubblum!" 
 
 The compliment was certainly a dubious one. 
 
 " Only your bits of shabby duds — that's all that pretty faces 
 like yours wants." 
 
 " Oh, Gubblum!" 
 
 The peddler was evidently a dear, simple soul. 
 
 " Lord bless you, yes; what's in here," slapping his pack 
 contemptuously, " it's only for them wizzent old creatures up 
 in London — them 'at have faces like the map of England when 
 it shows all the lines of the railways — just to make them a bit 
 presentable, you know. And there is no knowing what some 
 of these things won't do to mak' a body smart — what with 
 brooches and handkerchers and collars, and I don't know 
 what." 
 
 Gubblum's air of indifference had the extraordinary effect 
 of bringing a dozen pairs of gloating eyes on the strapped 
 pack. The face of the peddler wore an expression cf bland 
 innocence as he continued: 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 5? 
 
 " But bless you, I'm such a straightforward chap, or I'd 
 make my fortune with the like of what's here." 
 
 " Open your pack, Gubblum," said one of the fellows, 
 Geordie Moore, prompted by sundry prods from the elbow of 
 a little damsel by his side. 
 
 The " straightforward chap" made a deprecatory gesture, 
 and then yielded obligingly. While loosening the straps he 
 resumed his discourse on his own general ignorance of business 
 tactics, his ruinous honesty, and demoralizing sense of honor. 
 
 " I'm not cute enough, that's my fault. I know the way 
 to my mouth with a spoonful of poddish, and that's all. If I 
 go further in the dark, I'm lost." 
 
 Gubblum opened his pack and drew forth a red and green 
 shawl of a hideous pattern. 
 
 " Now, just to give you a sample. Here's a nice neat shawl 
 that I never had no more nor two of. Well, I actually sold 
 the fellow of that shawl for seven-and-sixpence. " 
 
 The look of amazement at his own shortcomings which sat 
 on the child-like face of the peddler was answered by the 
 expression of mock surprise in the face of Paul Eitson, who 
 came up at the moment, took the shawl from Gubblum's 
 outstretched arms, and said in a hushed whisper: 
 
 " No, did you now!" 
 
 Geordie Moore thereupon dived into his pocket, and brought 
 out three half-crowns. 
 
 " Here's for you, Gubblum; let's have it." 
 
 " 'Od bliss me!" cried the elderly cynic, " but that Gub- 
 blum will never mak' his plack a bawbee." 
 
 And Grey Graham, having disposed of the affairs of the 
 nation and witnessed Geordie snap at the peddler's bait, cried 
 out in a bitter laugh: 
 
 " ' There's little wit within his powe 
 That lights a candle at the lowe. ' ' ' 
 
 Just then a tumult arose in the vicinty of the bar. The 
 two cronies were at open war. 
 
 " Deuce take it! I had fifteen white shillin' in my reet- 
 hand breek pocket, and where are they now?" 
 
 " 'Od dang thee! what should I know about your brass? 
 You're kicking up a stour to waken a corp!" 
 
 " I had fifteen white shillin' in my reet-hand breek pocket, 
 I tell thee!" 
 
 " What's that to me, thou poor shaffles? You're as drunk 
 as muck. Do you think I've taken your brass? You've got 
 a wrong pig by the lug* if you reckon to come ower me!" 
 
58 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 " They were in my reet-hand breek pocket, I'll swear on it!" 
 
 " What a fratchin' — try your left-hand breek pocket." 
 
 The russet-faced plowman thrust his hand where directed, 
 and instantly a comical smile of mingled joy and shame over- 
 spread his countenance. There was a gurgling laugh, through 
 which the voice of the peddler could be heard saying: 
 
 " We'll mak' thee king ower the cockers, my canny lad." 
 
 The canny lad was slinking away amid a derisive titter, when 
 a great silence fell on the booth. Those in front fell back, 
 and those behind craned their necks to see over the heads of 
 the people before them. 
 
 At the mouth of the booth stood the old Laird Fisher, his 
 face ghastly pale, his eyes big and restless, the rain dripping 
 from his long hair and beard. 
 
 " They've telt me," he began in a strange voice, " they've 
 telt me that my Mercy has gone off in the London train. I 
 reckon they're mistook as to the lass, but I've come to see for 
 mysel'. Is she here?" 
 
 None answered. Only the heavy rain-drops that pattered 
 on the canvas overhead broke the silence. Paul Eitson pushed 
 his way through the crowd. 
 
 " Mercy?— London? Wait, Matthew; I'll see if she's here. " 
 
 The Laird Fisher looked from face to face of the people 
 about him. 
 
 " Any on you know owt about her?" he asked in a low 
 voice. " Why don't you speak, some on you? You shake 
 your heads — what does that mean?" 
 
 The old man was struggling to control the emotion that 
 was surging in his throat. 
 
 " No, Matthew, she's not here," said Paul Eitson. 
 
 " Then maybe it's true," said Matthew, with a strange 
 quiet. 
 
 There was a pause. Paul was the first to shake off his sur- 
 i prise. 
 
 " She might be at Little Town — in Keswick — twenty 
 places." 
 
 " She might be, Master Paul, but she's nowt o' the sort. 
 She's on her way to London, Mercy is." 
 
 It was Natt, the stableman at the Ghyll, who spoke. 
 
 At that the old man's trance seemed to break. 
 
 "Gone! Mercv gone! Gone without a word' Whv? 
 Where?" J- 
 
 " She'd her little red bundle aside her; and she cried a gay 
 bit to hersel' in the corner. I saw her mysel'." 
 
 Paul's face became rigid with anger. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 59 
 
 " There's villainy in this — be sure of that!" he said, hotly. 
 
 The laird rocked his head backward and forward, and h:s 
 eyes swam with tears; but he stood in the middle as quiet as 
 a child. 
 
 " My laal Mercy," he said, faintly, "gone from her old 
 father.'" 
 
 Paul stepped to the old man's side, and put a great hand on 
 his shoulder as softly as a woman might have soothed her 
 babe. Then turning about, and glancing wrathfully in the 
 faces around them, he said: 
 
 " Some waistrel has been at work here. Who is he? Speak 
 out. Anybody know?' 1 
 
 No one spoke. Only the laird moaned feebly, and reeled 
 like a drunken man. Then, with the first shock over, the old 
 man began to laugh. What a laugh it was! 
 
 " No matter," he said; "no matter. Now I've nowt left, 
 I've nowt to lose. There's comfort in that, anyways. Ha! 
 ha! ha! But my heart is like to choke for all. xou say reet, 
 Mr. Eitson, there's villainy in it." 
 
 The old man's eyes wandered vacantly. 
 
 " Her own father," he mumbled; " her lone old father — 
 broken-hearted — him 'at loved her — no matter, I've nowt left 
 to— Ha! ha! ha!" 
 
 He tried to walk away jauntily, and with a ghastly smile on 
 his battered face, but he stumbled and fell insensible into 
 Paul's outstretched arms. They loosened his neckerchief and 
 bathed his forehead. 
 
 Just then Hugh Eitson strode into the tent, stepped up to 
 the group, and looked down over the bent heads at the stricken 
 father lying in his brother's arms. 
 
 Paul's lips trembled and his powerful frame quivered. 
 
 " Who knows but the scoundrel is here now?" he said; and 
 his eyes traversed the men about him. "If he is, let him 
 look at his pitiless work; and may the sight follow him to his 
 death!" 
 
 At that moment Hugh Eitson's face underwent an awful 
 change. Then the old man opened his eyes in consciousness, 
 and Hugh knelt before him and put a glass of water to his 
 lips. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 In the homestead of the Eitsons the wide old ingle was 
 aglow with a cheerful fire, and Mrs. Eitson stood before it 
 baking oaten cake on a "girdle." The table was laid for 
 
60 A SOK OP HAGAtl. 
 
 supper with beef and beer arid milk and barley-bread. In the 
 seat of a recessed window, Paul Eitson and Greta Lowther sat 
 together. 
 
 At intervals that grew shorter, and with a grave face that 
 became more anxious, Mrs. Eitson walked to the door and 
 looked out into the thickening sky. The young people had 
 been too much absorbed to notice her increasing perturbation, 
 until she opened a clothes-chest and took out dry flannels and 
 spread them on the hearth to air. 
 
 " Don't worrit yourself, mother," said Paul. " He'll be 
 here soon. He had to cross the Coledale Pass, and that's a 
 long stroke of the ground, you know." 
 
 " It's an hour past supper-time," said Mrs. Ritson, glancing 
 aside at the old clock that ticked audibly from behind the 
 great arm-chair. " The rain is coming again — listen!" There 
 was a light patter of rain-drops against the window-panes. 
 " If he's on the fells now he'll be wet to the skin." 
 
 " I wish I'd gone in place of him," said Paul, turning to 
 Greta. " A bad wetting troubles him nowadays. Not same 
 as of old, when he'd follow the fells all day long knee-deep 
 in water and soaked to the skin with rain or snow." 
 
 The thunder-clap shook the house. The windows rattled, 
 and the lamp that had been newly lighted and put on the table 
 flickered slightly and burned red. 
 
 " Mercy, me, what a night! Was that a flash of lightning?" 
 said Mrs. Eitson, and she walked to the door once more and 
 opened it. 
 
 "Don't worrit, mother," repeated Paul. " Do come in. 
 Father will be here soon, and if he gets a wetting there's no 
 help for it now." 
 
 Paul had turned aside from an animated conversation with 
 Greta to interpolate this remonstrance against his mother's 
 anxiety. Eesuming the narrative of his wrestling match, he 
 described its incidents as much by gesture as by words. 
 
 " John Proudfoot took me — so — and tried to give me the 
 cross-buttock, but I caught his eye and twisted him on my hip 
 — so — and down he went in a bash!" 
 
 A hurried knock came to the outer door. In an instant it 
 was opened, and a white face looked in. 
 
 " What's now, Eeuben?" said Paul, rising to his feet. 
 
 " Come along with me — leave the women-folk behind— 
 master's down — the lightning has struck him — I'm afeart he's 
 dead!" 
 
 " My father!" said Paul, and stood for a moment with a 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 61 
 
 bewildered look. " Go on, Reuben, I'll follow. " Paul picked 
 up his hat and was gone in an instant. 
 
 Mrs. Ritson had been stooping over the griddle when Reu- 
 ben entered. She heard what he said, and rose up with a face 
 of death-like pallor. But she said nothing, and sunk helplessly 
 into a chair. Then Greta stepped up to her and kissed her. 
 
 " Mother — dear mother!" she said, and Mrs. Eitson 
 dropped her head on the girl's breast. 
 
 Hugh had been sitting over some papers in his own room off 
 the first landing. He overheard the announcement, and came 
 into the hall. 
 
 " Your father has been struck by the lightning," said Greta. 
 
 " They will fetch him home," said Hugh. 
 
 At the next moment there was the sound from without of 
 burdened footsteps. They were bearing the injured man. 
 Through the back of the house they carried him to his room. 
 
 " That is for my sake," said Mrs. Eitson, raising her tear- 
 stained face to listen. 
 
 Paul entered. His ruddy cheeks had grown ashy white. 
 Mis eyes, that had blinked with pleasure a minute ago, now 
 stared wide with fear. 
 
 " Is he alive?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Thank God! oh, thank God forever and ever! Let me go 
 in to him. " 
 
 " He is unconscious — he breathes — but no more." 
 
 Mrs. Ritson, with Paul and Greta, went into the room in 
 which they had placed the stricken man. He lay across the 
 bed in his clothes, just as he bad fallen. They bathed his 
 forehead and applied leeches to his temples. He breathed 
 heavily, but gave no sign of consciousness. 
 
 Paul sat at his father's side with his face buried in his 
 hands. He was recalling his boyish days, when his father 
 would lift him in his arms and throw him on the bare back of 
 the pony that he gave him on his thirteenth birthday. Could 
 it be possible that the end was at hand ! 
 
 He got up and led Greta out of the room. 
 
 " This house of mourning is no place for you," he said; 
 " the storm is over: you must leave us; Matt can put the 
 mare into the trap and drive you home. " 
 
 " I will not go," said Greta; " this shall be mv home to- 
 night. Don't send me away from you, Paul. You are in 
 trouble, and my place is here." 
 
 " You could do no good, and might take some harm," 
 
 Mrs. Ritson came out. 
 
62 A- SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 " Where is Mr. Bonnithorne?" she asked. " He was to be 
 here at eight. Your father might recover consciousness." 
 
 " The lawyer could do nothing to help him." 
 
 "If he is to leave us, may it please God to give him one 
 little hour of consciousness." 
 
 " Yes, knowing us again — giving us a farewell word." 
 
 " There is another reason — a more terrible reason!" 
 
 " You are thinking of the will. Let that go by. Come, 
 mother — and Greta, too — come, let us go back. " 
 
 Half an hour later the house was as still as the chamber of 
 death. With hushed voices and noiseless steps the women- 
 servants moved to and from the room where lay the dying 
 man. The farming men sat together in an outer kitchen, and 
 talked in whispers. 
 
 The storm had passed away; the stars struggled one by one 
 through a rack of flying cloud, and a silver fringe of moon- 
 light sometimes fretted the black patches of the sky. 
 
 Hugh Eitson sat alone in the old hall, that was now desolate 
 enough. His face rested on his hand, and his elbow on his 
 knee. There was a strange light in his eyes. It was not sor- 
 row, and it was not pain; it was anxiety, uncertainty, pertur- 
 bation. Again and again he started up from a deep reverie, 
 and then a half-smothered cry escaped him. He walked a 
 few paces to and fro, and sat down once more. 
 
 A servant crossed the hall on tiptoe. Hugh raised bis head. 
 
 " How is your patient now?" he said, quietly. 
 
 " Just breathing, sir; still quite unconscious." 
 
 Hugh got up uneasily. A mirror hung on the wall in front 
 of him, and he stood and looked vacantly into it. His thoughts 
 wandered, and when a gleam of consciousness returned the 
 first object that he saw was the reflection of his own face. It 
 was full of light and expression. Perhaps it wore a ghostly 
 smile. He turned away from the sight impatiently. 
 
 Sitting down again he tried to compose himself. Point by 
 point he revolved the situation. He thought of what the 
 lawyer had said of his deserted wife and lost son of Lowther. 
 Then, taking out of an inner pocket the medallion that Mr. 
 Bonnithorne had lent him, he looked at it long and earnestly. 
 
 The inspection seemed to afford a grim satisfaction. There 
 could be no doubt now of the ghostly smile that played upon 
 his face. 
 
 There was a tall antique clock in the corner of the hall. It 
 struck eight. The slow beats of the bell echoed chillily in the 
 hushed apartment. The hour awakened the consciousness of 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 63 
 
 the brooding man. At eight o'clock Mr. Bonnithorne was 
 appointed to be there to make the will. 
 
 Hugh Eitson touched gently a hand-bell that stood on the 
 table. A servant entered. 
 
 " Send Natt to me," said Hugh. 
 
 A moment later the stableman shambled into the hall. He 
 was a thick-set young fellow with a short neck and a full face, 
 and eyelids that hung deep over a pair of cunning eyes. At 
 first sight one would have said that the rascal was only half 
 awake; at the second glance, that he was never asleep. 
 
 Hugh received him with a show of cordiality. 
 
 "Ah, Natt, come here — closer." 
 
 The man walked across. Hugh dropped his voice. 
 
 " Go down to Little Town and find Mr. Bonnithorne. You 
 may meet him on the way. If not, he will be at the Flying 
 Horse. Tell him / sent you to say that Adam Fallow lies dy- 
 mg at Bigrigg, and must see him at once. You understand?" 
 
 The man Irf ted his slumberous eyelids. A suspicious twinkle 
 lurked beneath them. He glanced around, then down at his 
 big, grimy boots, measured with one uplifted hand the altitude 
 of the bump on the top of his bullet head, and muttered, " I 
 understand." 
 
 Hugh's face darkened. 
 
 " Silence!" he said, sternly; and then he met Natt's upward 
 glance with a faint smile. " When you come back, get your- 
 self out of the way — do you hear?" 
 
 The heavy eyelids went up once more. " 1 hear." 
 
 " Then be off!" 
 
 The fellow was shuffling away. 
 
 " Natt," said Hugh, following him a step, " you fancied 
 that new whip of mine; take it. You'll find it in the porch." 
 
 A smile crossed Natt's face from ear to ear. He stumbled 
 out. 
 
 Hugh Eitson returned to the hearth. That haunting mirror 
 caught the light of his eyes again and showed that he too was 
 smiBng. At the same instant there came from the inner room 
 the dull, dead sound of a deep sob. It banished the smile 
 and made him pause. He looked at the reflection of his face 
 — could it be the face of a scoundrel? Was he playing a base 
 part? No, he was merely asserting his rights; his plain legal 
 rights — nothing more. 
 
 He opened a cupboard in the wall and took down a bunch 
 of keys. Selecting one key, he stepped up to a cabinet and 
 opened it. In a compartment were many loose papers. Now 
 to see if by chance there existed a will already. He glanced 
 
64 A SON OP HAGAB. 
 
 bt the papers one by one and threw them aside. When he had 
 finished his inspection he took a hasty turn about the room. 
 No trace — he had been sure of it! 
 
 Again the deep sob came from within. Hugh Eitson 
 walked noiselessly to the inner door, opened it slightly, bent 
 his head, and listened. He turned away with an expression of 
 pain, picked up his hat, and went out. 
 
 The night was very dark. He strode a few paces down the 
 lonnin and then back to the porch. Uncovering his head, he 
 let the night wind cool his hot temples. His breath came 
 audibly and hard. He was turning again into the house when 
 his eye was arrested by a light near the turning of the high- 
 road. The light was approaching; he walked toward it, and 
 met Josiah Bonnithorne. The lawyer was jouncing along 
 toward the house with a lantern in his hand. 
 
 " Didn't you meet the stableman?" said Hugh in an eager 
 whisper. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " The blockhead must have taken the old pack-horse road 
 on the fell-side. One would be safe in that fool's stupidity. 
 You have heard what has happened?" 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " There is no will already." 
 
 " And your father is insensible?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then none shall be made." 
 
 There was a pause, in which the darkness itself seemed full 
 of speech. The lantern cast its light only on an open cart- 
 shed in the lane. 
 
 " If your mother is the Grace Ormerod who married Robert 
 Lowther and had a son by him, then Paul was that son — the 
 heir to Lowther's conscience-money." 
 
 " Bonnithorne," said Hugh Eitson — his voice trembled and 
 broke — " if it is so, then it is so, and we need do nothing. 
 Remember, he is my father. It is not within belief that he 
 wants to disinherit his own son for the son of another man." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne broke into a half-smothered laugh, and 
 stepped close into the cobble-hedge, keeping the lantern down. 
 
 "Your father — yes. But you have seen to-day what that may 
 come to. He has always held you under his hand. Paul has 
 been the old man's favorite." 
 
 " No doubt of that." Hugh crept close to the lawyer. He 
 was wrestling in the coil of a tragic temptation. 
 
 " If he recovers consciouness, he may be tempted to recog- 
 nize as his own his wife's illegitimate son. Tha,t "'-the low 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 65 
 
 tone was one of withering irony—" will keep her from dis- 
 honor, and you from the estates." 
 
 " At least he is my brother— my mother's son. If my 
 father wishes to provide for him, Gbd forbid that we should 
 prevent." 
 
 Once more the half-smothered laugh came through the 
 darkness. 
 
 " You hare missed your vocation, Mr. Eitson. Believe me, 
 the Gospel has lost a fervent advocate. Perhaps you would 
 like to pray for this good brother; perhaps you would consider 
 it safe to drop on your knee and say, ' My good brother that 
 should be, who has ever loved me, whom I have ever loved, 
 take here my fortune, and leave me until death a penniless 
 dependent on the lands that are mine by right of birth.' " 
 
 Hugh Bitson's breath came in gusts through his quivering, 
 unseen lips. 
 
 " Bonnithorne, it can not be — it is mere coincidence, se- 
 ductive, damning coincidence. My mother knows all. If it 
 were true that Paul was the son of Lowther, she would know 
 that Paul and Greta must be half-brother and half-sister. She 
 would stop their unnatural union." 
 
 " And do you think I have waited until now to sound that 
 shoal water with a cautious plummet? Your mother is as 
 ignorant of the propinquity as Greta herself. Lowther was 
 dead before your family settled in Newlands. The families 
 never once came together while the widow lived. And now 
 not a relative survives who can tell the story." 
 " Parson Christian?" said Hugh Eitson. 
 " A great child just out of swaddling-clothes!" 
 '* Then the secret rests with you and me, Bonnithorne?" 
 " Who else? The marriage must not come off. Greta is 
 Paul's half-sister, but she is no relative of yours — " 
 
 " You are right, Bonnithorne," Hugh Eitson broke in, 
 " the marriage is against nature." 
 
 " And the first step toward stopping it is to stop the will." 
 " Then why are you here?" 
 
 "To make sure that there is no will already. You have 
 satisfied me, and now I go." 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Who shall say that I am acting a base part?" said Hugh, 
 in an eager tone. 
 "Who indeed?" 
 " Nature itself is on my side." 
 
 The man was conquered. He was in the grip of his tempta- 
 tion. 
 
66 A S02S" OF HAGAR. 
 
 " I am off, Mr. Eitson. Get back into the house. It is not 
 safe for you to be out of sight and sound." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne was moving off in the darkness, the lamp 
 before his breast; its light fell that instant on Hugh Eitson's 
 haggard face. 
 
 " Wait; put out your lamp.-" 
 
 "It's done." 
 
 All was now dark. 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 With slow whispers the two men parted. 
 
 The springy step cf Josiah Bonnithorne was soon lost in the 
 road below. 
 
 ' Hugh Eitson stood for awhile where the lawyer left him, 
 and then turned hack into the house. He found the cabinet 
 open. In the turmoil of emotion he had forgotten to close it. 
 He returned to it, and shuffled with the papers to put them 
 back in their place. At that moment the door opened, and a 
 heavy footstep fell on the floor. Hugh glanced up startled. 
 It was Paul. His face was plowed deep with lines of pain. 
 But the cloud of sorrow that it wore was not so black as the 
 cloud of anger when he saw what his brother was doing and 
 guessed his purpose. 
 
 " What are you about?" Paul asked, mastering his wrath. 
 
 There was no response. 
 
 " Shut up that cabinet!" 
 
 Hugh turned about with a flushed face. 
 
 " I shall do as I please!" 
 
 Paul took two strides toward him. 
 
 " Shut it up!" 
 
 The cabinet was closed. At the same moment Mrs. Eitson 
 came from the inner room. Paul turned on his heel. 
 
 " He is thinking of the will," said the elder brother. " Per- 
 haps it is natural that he should distrust me; but when the 
 time comes he is welcome to the half of everything, and ten 
 thousand wills would hardly give him more." 
 
 Mrs. Eitson was strongly agitated. Her eyes, red with 
 weeping, were aflame with expression. 
 
 ' Paul, he is conscious," she cried in a voice that her anx- 
 iety could not subdue. "He is trying to speak. Where is 
 the lawyer?" 
 
 Hugh had been moving toward the outer door. 
 
 " Conscious!" he repeated, and returned to the hearth. 
 
 "Send for Mr. Bonnithorne at once!" said Mrs. Eitson, 
 addressing Hugh. 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 6? 
 
 Her manner was feverish. Hugh touched the bell. When 
 the servant appeared, he said: 
 
 " Tell Natt to run to the village for Mr. Bonnithorne. " 
 
 Paul had walked to the door of the inner room. His hand 
 was on the handle, when the door opened and Greta came 
 out. She stepped up to Mrs. Eitson and tried to quiet her 
 agitation. 
 
 The servant returned. 
 
 " I can't find Natt," she said. " He is not in the house.'" 
 
 " You'll find him in the stable," said Hugh, composedly. 
 
 The servant went out hurriedly. 
 
 Paul returned to the middle of the room. 
 
 " I'll go myself," he said, and plucked up his hat from the 
 settle, but Mrs. Eitson rose to prevent him. 
 
 " No, no, Paul," she said in a tremulous voice, " you must 
 never leave his side." 
 
 Paul glanced at his brother with a perplexed look. The 
 calmness of Hugh's manner disturbed him. 
 
 The servant reappeared. 
 
 " Natt is not in the stable, sir." 
 
 Paul's face was growing crimson. Mrs. Eitson turned to 
 Hugh. 
 
 Hugh, my dear son, do you go for the lawyer." 
 
 A faint smile that lurked at the corners of Hugh's mouth 
 gave way to a look of injury. 
 
 " Mother, my place, also, is here. How can you ask me to 
 leave my father's side at a moment like this?" 
 
 Greta had been looking fixedly at Hugh. 
 
 " I'll go," she said, resolutely. 
 
 " Impossible," said Paul. " It is now dark — the roads are 
 wet and lonely." 
 
 " I'll go, nevertheless," said Greta, firmly. 
 
 " God bless you, my darling, and love you and keep you 
 forever!" said Paul. Wrapping a cloak about her shoulders, 
 he whispered: " My brave girl — that's the stuff of which an 
 English woman may be made." 
 
 He opened the door and walked out with her across the 
 court-yard. The night was now clear and calm; the stars 
 burned; the trees whispered; the distant ghylls, swollen by the 
 rain, roared loud through the thin air; a bird on the bough of 
 a fir-tree whistled and chirped. The storm was gone; only its 
 wreckage lay in the still room within. 
 
 " A safe journey to you, dear girl, and a speedy return," 
 whispered Paul, and in another moment Greta had vanished hi 
 the dark. 
 
68 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 When he returned to the hall, his brother was passing into 
 the room where the sick man lay. Paul was about to follow, 
 when his mother, who was walking aimlessly to and fro in 
 yet more violent agitation than before, called on him to remain. 
 He turned about and stepped up to her, observing as he did 
 so that Hugh had paused on the threshold, and was regarding 
 them with a steadfast look. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson took Paul's hand with a nervous grasp. Her 
 eyes, that bore the marks of recent tears, had the light of wild 
 excitement. 
 
 " God be praised that be is conscious at last!" she said. 
 
 Paul shook his head as if in censure of his mother's feelings. 
 
 " Let him die in peace,'" he said; " let his soul pass quietly 
 to its rest. Don't vex it now with thoughts of the cares it 
 leaves behind." 
 
 Mrs. Eitson let go his hand, and dropped into a chair. A 
 slight shudder passed over her. Paul looked down with a 
 puzzled expression. Then there was a low sobbing. He leaned 
 over his mother and smoothed her hair tenderly. 
 
 " Come, let us go in," he said in a broken voice. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson rose from her seat and went down on her 
 knees. Her eyes, still wet, but no longer weeping, were raised 
 to heaven. 
 
 " Almighty Father, give me strength!" she said beneath 
 her breath, and then more quietly she rose to her feet. 
 
 Paul regarded her with increasing perturbation. Something 
 even more serious than he yet knew of was amiss. Hardly 
 knowing why, his heart sunk still deeper. 
 
 " What are we doing?" he said, scarcely realizing his own 
 words. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson threw herself on his neck. 
 
 " Did I not say there was a terrible reason why your father 
 should make a will?" 
 
 Paul's voice seemed to die within him. 
 
 '' What is it, mother?" he asked feebly, not yet gathering 
 the meaning of his fears. 
 
 " God knows, I never dreamed it would be my lips that 
 must tell you," said Mrs. Eitson. " Paul, my son, my dar- 
 ling son, you think me a good mother and a pure woman. 1 
 am neither. I must confess all — now — and to you. Oh, how 
 your love will turn from me!" 
 
 Paul's face turned pale. His eyes gazed into his mother's 
 eyes with a fixed look. The clock ticked audibly. Not an- 
 other sound broke the silence. At last Paul spoke. 
 
A SON OB HAGAK. 69 
 
 " Speak, mother," he said; "is it something about my 
 father?" 
 
 Mrs. Bitson's face fell on to her son's breast. A strong 
 shudder ran over her shoulders, and she sobbed aloud. 
 
 "You are not your father's heir," she said; "you were 
 born before we married. . . . But you will try not to hate 
 me, . . . your own mother .... You will try, will you 
 not?" 
 
 Paul's great frame shook visibly. He tried to speak. His 
 tongue cleaved to his mouth. 
 
 " Do you mean that I am — a bastard?" he said in a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 The word seemed to sting his mother like a poisoned arrow. 
 She clung yet closer about his neck. 
 
 " Pity me and love me still, though I have wronged you be- 
 fore God and man. I whom the world thought so pure — I 
 am but a whited sepulcher — a dishonored woman dishonoring 
 her dearest son!" 
 
 The door opened gently, and Hugh Eitson stood in the 
 door-way. Neither his brother nor his mother realized his 
 presence. He remained a moment, and then withdiew, leav- 
 ing the door ajar. 
 
 Beneath the two whom he left behind, the world at that 
 moment reeled. 
 
 Paul stood with great, wide eyes, that had never tear to 
 soften them, gazing vacantly into the weeping eyes before him. 
 His lips quivered, but he did not speak. 
 
 " Paul, speak to me — speak to me — only speak — only let 
 me hear your voice! See, I am at your feet — your mother 
 kneels to you — forgive her as God has forgiven her!" 
 
 And loosing her grasp, she flung herself on the ground be- 
 fore him., and covered her face with her hands. 
 
 Paul seemed not at first to know what was happening. 
 Then he stooped and raised his mother to her feet. 
 
 " Mother, rise up," he said in a strange, hollow tone. 
 " Who am I that I should presume to pardon you? I am 
 your son — -you are ray mother!" 
 
 His vacant eyes gathered a startled expression. He glanced 
 quickly around the room, and said in a deep whisper: 
 
 " How many know of this?" 
 
 " None besides ourselves." 
 
 The frightened look disappeared. In its place came a look 
 of overwhelming agony. 
 
 "But 1 know of it; oh, my God!" he cried; and into the 
 
70 A SOK OP HAGAK. 
 
 chair from which his mother had risen he fell like a wounded 
 man. 
 
 Mrs. Ritson dried her eyes. A strange quiet was coming 
 upon her now. Her voice gathered strength. She laid a hand 
 on the head of her son, who sat before her with buried face. 
 
 " Paul/' she said, " it is not until now that the day of reck- 
 oning has waited for me. When you were a babe, and knew 
 nothing of your mother's grief, I sorrowed over the shame that 
 might yet be yours; and when you grew to be a prattling child, 
 I thought if God would look into your innocent eyes they 
 would purchase grace for both of us." 
 
 Paul lifted his head. At that moment of distress God had 
 sent him the gracious gift of tears. His eyes were wet, and 
 looked tenderly at his mother. 
 
 "Paul," she continued, quite calmly now, "promise me 
 one thing." 
 
 " What is it?" he asked, softly. 
 
 " That if your father should not live to make the will that 
 must recognize you as his son, you will never reveal this se- 
 cret." 
 
 Paul rose to his feet. " That is impossible. I can not 
 promise it," he said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Honor and justice require that my brother Hugh, and 
 not I, should be my father's heir — he, at least, must know." 
 
 " What honor, and what justice?" 
 
 " The honor of a true man — the justice of the law of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Mrs. Ritson dropped her head. " So much for your honor," 
 she said. " But what of mine?" 
 
 " Mother, what do you mean?" 
 
 " That if you allow your younger brother to inherit, the 
 world by that act will be told all — your father's sin, your 
 mother's shame." 
 
 Mrs. Ritson raised her hands to her face, and turned aside. 
 Paul stepped up to her and kissed her forehead reverently. 
 
 " You are right," he said. " Forgive me — I thought only 
 of myself. The world that loves to tarnish a pure name 
 would like to gloat over your sorrow. That it shall never! 
 Man's law may have been outraged, but God's law is still in- 
 violate. Whatever my birth, I am as much your son in the 
 light of Heaven as Jacob was the son of Isaac, or David of 
 Jesse. Come, let us go in to him — he may yet live to acknowl- 
 edge me." 
 
 It had been a terrible moment, but it was past. To live to 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 71 
 
 manhood in ignorance of the dishonor of his birth, and then to- 
 learn the truth under the shadow of death — this had been a 
 tiagic experience. The love he had borne his father — the 
 reverence he had learned at his mother's knee — to what bitter 
 test had they been put! Had all the past been but as the mar- 
 ble image of a happy life! Was all the future shattered be- 
 fore him! Pshaw! he was the unconscious slave of a super- 
 stition — a phantasm, a gingerbread superstition! 
 
 And a mightier touch awoke his sensibilities — the touch of 
 nature. Before God at that moment he was his father's son. 
 If the world, or the world's law, said otherwise, then they 
 were of the devil, and deserving to be damned. What rite, 
 what jabbering ceremony, what priestly ordinance, what legal 
 mummery, stood between him and his claim to his father's 
 name? 
 
 Paul took in love the hand of his mother. " Let us go in 
 to him," he repeated, and together they walked across the 
 room. 
 
 The outer door was flung open, and Greta entered, flushed 
 and with wide-open eyes. At the same instant the inner door 
 swung noiselessly back, and Hugh Eitson stood on the thresh- 
 old. Greta was about to speak, but Hugh motioned her to 
 silence. His face was pale, his hand trembled. " Too late," 
 he said, huskily; " he is dead!" 
 
 Greta sunk on to the settle in the window recess. Hugh 
 walked to the hearth and paused with rigid features before the 
 haunting mirror. 
 
 Paul stood for a moment hand in hand with his mother, 
 motionless, speechless, cold at his heart. Then he hurried 
 into the inner room. Mrs. Eitson followed him, closing the 
 door behind her. 
 
 The little oak-bound room was dusky; the lamp that burned 
 low was shaded. Across the bed lay Allan Eitson, in his habit 
 as he lived. But his lips were white and cold. 
 
 Paul stood and looked down. There lay his father — his 
 father still! His father by right of nature — of love — of honor 
 — let the world say what it would. 
 
 And he knew the truth at last: too late to look into those 
 glassy eyes aud read the secret of their long years of suffering 
 love. 
 
 " Father/' Paul whispered, and fell to his knees by the 
 deaf ear. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson, strangely quiet, strangely calm, stepped to the 
 opposite side of the bed, and placed one hand on the dead 
 man's breast. 
 
?2 A SON OF HAGAfi. 
 
 " Paul," she said, " come here." 
 
 He rose to his feet and walked to her side. 
 
 " Lay your hand with mine, and pledge to me your solemn 
 word never to speak of what you have heard to-night until 
 that great day when we three shall stand together before the 
 great white throne. " 
 
 Paul placed his hand side by side with hers, and lifted his 
 eyes to heaven. 
 
 " On my father's body, by my mother's honor — never to 
 reveal to any human soul, by word or deed, his act or her 
 shame — always to bear myself as their lawful son before man, 
 even as I am their rightful son before God — I swear it! I 
 swear it!" 
 
 His voice was cold and clear, but the words were scarcely 
 uttered when he fell to his knees again, with a subdued cry of 
 overwrought feeling. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson staggered back, caught the curtains of the bed, 
 and cohered her face. All was still. 
 
 Then a shuffling footfall was heard on the floor. Hugh 
 Eitson was in the darkened room. He lifted the shaded lamp 
 from the table, approached the bedside, and held the lamp 
 with one hand above his head. The light fell on the out- 
 stretched body of his father and the bowed head of his brother. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE COIL OF THE TEMPTATION. 
 
 CHAPTBE I. 
 
 It was late in November, and the day was dark and drear. 
 Hoar-frost lay on the ground. The atmosphere was pallid 
 with haze and dense with mystery. Gaunt specters of white 
 mist swept across the valley and gathered at the sides of every 
 open door. The mountains were gone. Only a fibrous vague- 
 ness was visible. 
 
 In an old pasture field by the bridge a man was plowing. 
 He was an elderly man, sturdy and stolid of figure, and clad 
 in blue homespun. There was nothing clerical in his garb or 
 manner, yet he was the vicar and school-master of the parish. 
 His low-crowned hat was drawn deep over his slumberous gray 
 eyes. The mobile mouth beneath completed the expression of 
 
' On my father's body, by my mother's honor."— Page 72. 
 
A SON OF BAGAft. 73 
 
 gentleness and easy good-nature. It was a fine old face, with 
 the beauty of simplicity and the sweetness of content. 
 
 A boy in front led the horses, and whistled. The parson 
 hummed a tune as he turned his furrows. Sometimes he sung 
 in a drawling tone — 
 
 " Bonny lass, canny lass, vrilta be mine? 
 Thou's nowder wesh dishes nor sarra the swine." 
 
 At the turn-rows he paused, and rested on his plow-handles. 
 He rested longest at the turn-rows on the road-side of the field. 
 Like the shivering mists that grouped about the open doors, 
 he was held there by light and warmth. 
 
 The smithy stood at the opposite side of the road, cut into 
 the rock of the fell on three sides, and having a roof of thatch. 
 The glare of the fire, now rising, now falling, streamed 
 through the open door. It sent a long vista of light through 
 the blank and pulsating haze. The vibrations of the anvil 
 were all but the only sounds on the air; the alternate thin 
 clink of the smith's hand-hammer and the thick thud of 
 the striker's sledge echoed in unseen recesses of the hills be- 
 yond. 
 
 This smithy of Newlands filled the function which under a 
 higher propitiousness of circumstance is answered by a club. 
 Girded with his leather apron, his sleeves rolled tightly over 
 his knotty arms, the smith, John Proudfoot, stood waiting for 
 his heat. His striker, Geordie Moore, had fallen to at the 
 bellows. On the tool chest sat Gubblum Oglethorpe, leisurely 
 smoking. His pony was tied to the hasp of the gate. The 
 miller, Dick of the Syke, sat on a pile of iron rods. Tom o' 
 Dint, the little bow-legged fiddler and postman, was sharpen- 
 ing at the grindstone a penknife already worn obliquely to a 
 point by many similar applications. 
 
 " Nay, I can make nowt of him. He's a changed man for 
 sure," said the blacksmith. 
 
 Gubblum removed his pipe and muttered sententiously: 
 
 " It's die-spensy, I tell thee." 
 
 " Danslering and wandering about at all hours of the day 
 and night," continued the blacksmith. 
 
 " It's all die-spensy," repeated the peddler. 
 
 " And as widderfu'l and wizzent as a polecat nailed up on a 
 barn door," said Tom o' Dint, lifting his grating knife from 
 the grindstone and speaking with a voice as hoarse. 
 
 " Ey, and as weak as watter with it," added the black- 
 
 " Him as was as strong as rum punch," rejoined the fiddler 
 
74 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 " It's die-spensy, John— nowt else," said Gubblum. 
 
 The miller broke in testily. 
 
 "What's die-spensy?" 
 
 " What ails Paul Kitson?" answered Gubblum. 
 
 " Shaf on your balderdash," said Dick of the Syke; " die- 
 spensying and die-spensying. You've no' but your die-spensy 
 for everything. Tommy's rusty throat, and John's big toe, 
 and lang Geordie's broken nose, as Giles Eaisley gave him a' 
 Saturday neet at the Pack Horse — it's all die-spensy." 
 
 The miller was a blusterous fellow, who could swear in lusty 
 anger and laugh in boisterous sport in a single breath. 
 
 Gubblum puffed placidly. 
 
 " It is die-spensy. I know it by exper'ence," he observed, 
 persistently. 
 
 The blacksmith's little eyes twinkled mischievously. 
 
 "To be sure you do, Gubblum. You had it bad the day 
 you crossed in the packet from Whitehebben. That was die- 
 spensy — a 'cute bout too." 
 
 " I've beard as it were amazing rough on the watter that 
 day," said Tom, in a pause of the wheel, glancing up knowingly 
 at the blacksmith. 
 
 " Heard, had you? Must have been tolerable deaf else. 
 Rough ? Why, them do say as the packet were wrecked, and 
 only two planks saved. Gubblum was washed ashore cross- 
 legged on one of them, and his pack on the other." 
 
 The long, labored breathings of the bellows ended, the iron 
 was thrown white hot out of the glowing coals on to the anvil, 
 and the clank of the hand-hammer and thud of the sledge were 
 all that could be heard. Then the iron cooled, and was lifted 
 back into the palpitating blaze. The blacksmith stepped to 
 the door, wiped his streaming forehead with one hand and 
 waved the other to the parson plowing in the opposite field. 
 
 " A canny morning, Mr. Christian," he shouted. " Bad 
 luck for the parson's young lady, anyhow — her sweetheart is 
 none to keen for the 'Bedding," he said, turning again to the 
 fire. 
 
 " She's a fine like lass, yon," said Tom o' Dint. 
 
 An old man, iron gray, with a pair of mason's mallets 
 swung front and back across his shoulders, stepped into the 
 smithy. 
 
 " How fend ye, John?" he said. 
 
 " Middling weel, Job," answered the blacksmith; " and 
 what's your errand now?" 
 
 " A chisel or two for tempering." 
 
 " Cutting in the church-yard to-day, Job? Cold wark, eh?" 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 75 
 
 " Ey, auld Bitson's stone as they've putten over him." 
 
 The blacksmith tapped the peddler on the arm. 
 
 " Gubblum, shall I tell you what's a-matter with Paul?" 
 
 " Never you bother, John, it's die-spensy." 
 
 " It's fretting— that's it— fretting for his father." 
 
 "Fretting for his fiddlesticks!" shouted Dick, the miller; 
 Li Allan's dead this half a year." 
 
 " John's reet," said Job, the stone-cutter; " it is fretting." 
 
 Dick of the Syke got up off the iron rods. 
 
 " Because a young fellow has given you a job of wark to cut 
 his father's headstone and tell a lie or two in letters half an 
 inch deep and two shillings a dozen — does that show *at he's 
 fretting?" 
 
 " He didn't do nowt of the sort," said Job, hotly. 
 
 " Dusta mean as it were the other one — Hugh?" inquired 
 the miller. 
 
 " Maybe that's reet," said Job. 
 
 Dick of the Syke was not to be beaten for lack of the logic 
 of circumlocution. 
 
 " Then what for do you say as Paul is weeping his insides 
 out about his father, when he leaves it to other folks to put a 
 bit of stone over him and a few scrats on it?" 
 
 " Because I do say so," said Job, conclusively. 
 
 " And maybe you've got your reasons, Job," said the black- 
 smith with insinuating suavity. 
 
 " Maybe I have," said the mason. Then softening, he 
 added, " I don't mind telling you, neither. Yesterday morn- 
 ing when I went to wark I found Paul Eitson lying full length 
 across his father's grave. His clothes were soaking with dew, 
 and his face was as white as a Feb'uary mist, and stiff and set 
 like, and his hair was frosted over same as a pane in the 
 church window." 
 
 " Never!" 
 
 " He was like to take no note of me, but I gave him a 
 shake, and called out, 'What, Mr. Paul! why, what, man! 
 what's this?'" 
 
 " And what ever did he say?" 
 
 " Say! Nowt. He get hissel' up — and gay stiff in the 
 limbs he looked, to be sure — and walked off without a word." 
 
 Gubblum on the tool chest had removed his pipe from be- 
 tween his lips during the mason's narrative, and listened with 
 a face of blank amazement. 
 
 " Weel, that is a stiffener," he said, drawing a long breath. 
 
 " What's a stiffener?" said Job, sharply. 
 
 " That 'at you're telling for gospel truth. " Then, turning 
 
76 A SON OF HAGAft. 
 
 to the blacksmith, the peddler pointed the shank of his pipe at 
 the mason, and said: " What morning was it as he found Paul 
 Eitson taking a bath to hissel' in the kirk-yard?'' 
 
 " Why, yesterday morning/' said the smith. 
 
 " Well, he bangs them all at lying!" said Gubblum. 
 
 " What dusta say?" shouted Job with sudden fury. 
 
 " As you've telt us a lie," answered Gubblum. 
 
 " Sista, Gubblum, if you don't take that word back I'll — 
 I'll throw you into the watter-butt!" 
 
 " And what would I do while you were thrang at that laal 
 job?" asked the peddler. 
 
 The blacksmith interposed. 
 
 "Sec a rumpus!" he said; "you're too sudden in your 
 temper, Job." 
 
 " Some folks are ower much like their namesakes in the 
 Bible," said Gubblum, resuming his pipe. 
 
 " Then what for did he say it warn't true as I found young 
 Eitson yesterday morning wet to the skin in the church-yard?" 
 said Job, ignoring the peddler. 
 
 "Because he warn't there," said Gubblum. 
 
 Job lost all patience. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " if you're not hankering for a cold 
 bath on a frosty morning, laal man, I don't know as you've 
 got any call to say that again!" 
 
 " He warn't there," the " laal man " muttered doggedly. 
 
 The blacksmith had plunged his last heat into the water 
 trough to cool, and a cloud of vapor filled the smithy. 
 
 "Lord A' mighty!" he said, laughing, "that's the way 
 some folks go oft — all of a hiss and a smoke." 
 
 " He warn't there," mumbled the peddler again, imper- 
 vious to the homely similitude. 
 
 " How are you so certain sure?" said Dick of the Syke. 
 " You warn't there yourself, I reckon." 
 
 " No; but I was somewhere else, and so was Paul Eitson. I 
 slept at the Pack Horse in Kezzick night afore last, and he did 
 the same." 
 
 " Did you see him there?" said the blacksmith. 
 
 " No; but Giles Eaisley saw him, and he warn't astir when 
 Giles went on his morning shift at eight o'clock." 
 
 The blacksmith broke into a loud guffaw. 
 
 " Tell us how he was at the Hawk and Heron in London 
 at midsummer." 
 
 " And so he was," said Gubblum, unabashed. 
 
 " Willy-nilly, ey?" said the blacksmith, pausing over the 
 
A SON Of HAGAE. 7? 
 
 anvil with uplifted hammer, the lurid reflection of the hot 
 iron on his face. 
 
 " Maybe he had his reasons for denying hisself," said Gub- 
 blum. 
 
 The blacksmith laughed again, tapped the iron with the 
 hand-hammer, down came the sledge, and the flakes flew. 
 
 Two miners entered the smithy. 
 
 " Good-morning, John; are ye gayly?" said one of them. 
 
 " Gayly, gayly! Why, it's Giles hissel'!" 
 
 " Giles," said the peddler, " where was Paul Kitson night 
 afore last?" 
 
 " Abed, I reckon," chuckled one of the new-comers. 
 
 " Where abed?" 
 
 " Nay, don't ax me. Wait — night afore last? That was 
 the night he slept at Janet's, wasn't it?" 
 
 Gubblum's eyes twinkled with triumph. 
 
 " What did I tell you?" 
 
 " What call had he to sleep at Keswick?" said the black- 
 smith; " it's no'but four miles from his own bed at the 
 Ghyll." 
 
 " Nay, now, when ye ax the like o' that — " 
 
 Tom, the postman, stopped his grindstone and smickered 
 huskily: 
 
 " Maybe he's had a fratch with yon brother — yon Hugh." 
 
 " I'm on the morning shift this week, and Mother Janet 
 she said: ' Giles,' she said, ' the brother of your young master 
 came late last night for a bed.' " 
 
 " Job, what do you say to that?" shouted the blacksmith 
 above the pulsating of the bellows, and with the sharp white 
 lights of the leaping flames on his laughing face. 
 
 "Say! That they're a pack of liars!" said the mason, 
 catching up his untempered chisels and flinging out of the 
 smithy. 
 
 When he had gone, Gubblum removed his pipe and said 
 calmly: " He's ower much like his Bible namesake in temper 
 —that's the on'y fault of Job." 
 
 The parson, in the field outside, had stood in the turn-rows, 
 resting on his plow-handles. He had been drawling " Bonny 
 lass, canny lass;" but, catching the sound of angry words, he 
 had paused and listened. When Job, the mason, flung away, 
 he returned to his plowing, and disappeared down the furrow, 
 the boy whistling at his horse's head. 
 
 " Why, Mattha, is it thee?" said the blacksmith, observing 
 for the first time the second of the new-comers; " and how fend 
 
 ye?" 
 
78 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " Middling weel, John, middling weel," said Mattha, in a 
 low voice, resting on the edge of the trough. 
 
 It was Laird Fisher, more bent than of old, with deeper 
 lines in his grave face and with yet more listless eyes. He had 
 brought two picks for sharpening. 
 
 " Got your smelting-house at wark down at the pit, Mat- 
 tha?" asked the blacksmith. 
 
 " Ey, John, it's at wark — it's at wark." 
 
 The miller had turned to go, but he faced about with ready 
 anger. 
 
 " Lord, yes, and a pretty pickle you and your gaffer's like 
 to make of me. Wad ye credit it, John? they've built their 
 smelting-house within half a rod of my mill. Half a rod; not 
 a yard mair. When your red-hot rubbish is shot down your 
 bank, where's it going to go, ey? That's what I want to know 
 — where's it going to go?" 
 
 " Why, into your mill, of course," said Gubblum, with a 
 wink, from the tool-chest. " That'll maybe help you to go by 
 fire when you can't raise the wind." 
 
 " Verra good for thee, Gubblum," laughed the blacksmith. 
 
 " I'll have the law on them safe enough," said the miller. 
 
 " And where's your damages to come from?" 
 
 " Prom the same spot as all the rest of the brass — that's 
 good enough for me." 
 
 Matthew' s loud voice followed the insinuating guffaw. 
 
 " I spoke to Master Hugh yesterday. I telt him all you said 
 about a wall." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 "He won't build it." 
 
 " Of course not. Why didsta not speak to Paul?" 
 
 " No use in that," said Matthew, faintly. 
 
 " Nay, young Hugh is gaffer," exclaimed the blacksmith. 
 
 " And Paul has no say in it except finding the brass, ey?" 
 
 "I mak' no doubt as you're reet, Dick," said Matthew, 
 meekly. 
 
 " It's been just so since the day auld Allan died," said the 
 blacksmith. "He hadn't been a week in his grave before 
 Hugh bought up Mattha's royalty in the Hammer Hole, and 
 began to sink for iron. He's never found much ore, as I've 
 heard tell on, but he goes ahead laying down his pumping en- 
 gines, and putting up his cranes, and boring his mill-races, 
 just as if he was proper-ietor of a royal mine." 
 
 " Hugh is the chain-horse, and Paul's no'but the mare in 
 the shafts,' : said Gubblum. 
 
 " And the money comes somehow," said Tom o' Dint, who 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 79 
 
 had finished the knife and was testing its edge in whittling a 
 stick. 
 
 Matthew got up from his seat. 
 
 " I'll come again for the picks, John," he said quietly; and 
 the old man stepped out of the bright glow into the chill haze. 
 
 " Mattha has never been the same since laal Mercy left 
 him," said the blacksmith. 
 
 " Any news of her?" asked the peddler. 
 
 " Ax Tom o' Dint; he's the postman, and like to know if 
 anybody in Newlands gets the scribe of a line from the 
 wench," said the miller. 
 
 Tom shakes his head. " You could tell summat, an' you 
 would, ey, Tom?" said the blacksmith, showing his teeth. 
 
 " Don't you misliken me," said the rural messenger in his 
 husky tones; " I'm none of your Peeping Toms." And the 
 postman drew up his head with as much pride of office as 
 could be assumed by a gentleman of bowed legs and curtailed 
 stature. 
 
 " It baffles me as Mattha hisself could make nowt of his 
 royalty in the Hammer Hole, if there was owt to make out of 
 it,' : said the miller from the gate, buttoning his coat up to his 
 ears. 
 
 " I've heard as he had a mind to try his luck again," said 
 Giles Eaisley. 
 
 "Nay, nay, nowt of the sort," said the blacksmith. 
 " When the laal lass cut away and left the auld chap he lost 
 heart and couldn't bear the sight of the spot where she used to 
 bide. So he started back to his bit place on Coledale Moss. 
 But Hugh Eitson followed him and bought up his royalty — for 
 nowt, as they say— and set him to wark for wage in his own 
 sinking — the same that ruined the auld man lang ago." 
 
 " And he's like to see a fortun' come out of it yet," said 
 Giles. 
 
 " It won't be Mattha's fortun', then." 
 
 " Nay, never fear," said the miner. 
 
 Gubblum shook the ashes out of his pipe, and said medita- 
 tively, " Mattha's like me and the cuckoo." 
 
 " Why, man, how's that?" said the blacksmith, girding his 
 leather apron in a band about his waist. A fresh heat was in 
 the fire; the bellows were belching; the palpitating flames were 
 licking the smoky hood. A twinkle lurked in the blacksmith's 
 eye. " How's that?" he repeated. 
 
 " He's alius stopping short too soon," said Gubblum. " My 
 missis, she said to me last back end, ' Gubblum,' she_ said, 
 ' dusta mind as it's alius summer when the cuckoo is in the 
 
80 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 garden?' ' That's what it is,' I said. ' Well/ she said^ 
 ' dusta not think it wad alius be summer if the cuckoo coul<? 
 alius be kept here?' ' Maybe so,' I says; ' but easier said nor 
 done.' ' Shaf on you for a clothead!' says she; ' nowt so 
 simple. When you get the cuckoo into the garden, build a 
 wall round and keep it in.' And that's what I did; and I 
 built it middling high, too, but it warn't high enough, for, 
 wad ye think it, one day I saw the cuckoo setting off, and it 
 just skimmed the top of that wall by a bare inch. Now, if 
 I'd no'but put another stone—" 
 
 A loud peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. 
 The peddler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, 
 and smiled under his shaggy brows. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 When Parson Christian finished his plowing, the day was far 
 spent. He gave the boy a shilling as day's wage for leading 
 the horses, drove the team back to their owner, Robert Atkin- 
 son, paid five shillings for the day's hire of them, and set out 
 for home. On the way thither he called at Henry Walms- 
 ley's, the grocery store in the village, and bought half a pound 
 of tea, a can of coffee, and a stone of sugar; then at Randal 
 Alston's, the shoemaker's, and paid for the repairing of a pair 
 of boots, and put them under his arm; finally, he looked in at 
 the Plying Horse and called for a pot of ale, and drank it, and 
 smoked a pipe and had a crack with Tommy Lowthwaite, the 
 publican. 
 
 The mist had risen as the day wore on, and now that the 
 twilight was creeping down the valley, the lane to the vicarage 
 could be plainly seen in its yellow carpeting of fallen leaves. 
 An outer door of the house stood open, and a rosy glow 
 streamed from the fire into the porch. Not less bright was 
 the face within that was waiting to welcome the old vicar 
 home. 
 
 "Back again, Greta, back again!" shouted the parson, 
 rolling into the cozy room with his hallast under either arm. 
 "There — wait — fair play, girl — ah, you rogue! — now that's 
 what I call a mean advantage!" 
 
 There was a smack of lips, a little laugh in a silvery voice 
 with a merry lilt in it, and then a deep-toned mutter of affected 
 protestation breaking down into silence and a broad smile. 
 
 At arm's-length Greta glanced at the parson's burdens, and 
 summoned an austere look. 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 81 
 
 " Now, didn't I tell you never to do it again?" she said, 
 with an uplifted finger and an air of stern reproof. 
 
 " Did you now?" said the parson, with an expression of 
 bland innocence — adding, in an accent of wonderment: 
 " What a memory I have, to be sure!" 
 
 " Leave such domestic duties to your domestic superiors, 
 sir," said the girl, keeping a countenance of amazing severity. 
 " Do you hear me, you dear old darling?" 
 
 " I hear, I hear," said the old man, throwing his purchases 
 on the floor one by one. " Why, bless me, and here's Mr. 
 Bonnithorne," he added, lifting his eyes to the chimney-cor- 
 ner, where the lawyer sat toasting his toes. " Welcome, wel- 
 come." 
 
 " Peter, Peter!" called Greta, opening an inner door. 
 
 A gaunt old fellow, with only one arm, shambled into the 
 room. 
 
 " Peter, take away these things to the kitchen," said Greta. 
 
 The old man glanced down at the parson's purchases with a 
 look of undisguised contempt. 
 
 " He's been at it again, mistress," he said. 
 
 The parson had thrown off his coat, and was pushing away 
 his long boots with the boot-jack. 
 
 "And how's Mr. Bonnithorne this rusty weather? Wait, 
 Peter, give me the slippers out of the big parcel. I got Ban- 
 dal Alston to cut down my old boots into clock sides, and 
 make me slippers out of the feet. Only sixpence, and see what 
 a cozy pair. Thank you, Peter. So you're well, Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne. Odd, you say? Well, it is, considering the world of 
 folk who are badly these murky days. : ' 
 
 Peter lifted the boots and fixed them dexterously under the 
 stump of his abridged member. The tea and coffee he depos- 
 ited in his trousers' pockets, and the sugar he carried in his - , 
 hand. 
 
 " There'll be never no living with him," he muttered in 
 Greta's ear as he passed out. " Don't know as I mind his go- 
 ing to plow — that's a job for a man with two hands — but the 
 like o' this isn't no master's wark." 
 
 " Dear me!" exclaimed the parson, who was examining 
 his easy-chair preparatory to sitting in it, "a new cushion — 
 and a bag on the wall for my specs— and a shelf for my pipes 
 — and a — a — what do you call this?" 
 
 " An antimacassar, Mr. Christian," the lawyer said. 
 
 " I wondered was he ever going to see any difference," sai(J 
 Greta, with dancing eyes. 
 
&2 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 '• Dear me, and red curtains on the windows, and a clean, 
 print counterpane on the settle — " 
 
 "A chintz — a chintz/' interposed Greta, with a mock 
 whimper. 
 
 " And the old rosewood clock in the corner as bright as a 
 looking-glass, and the big oak cabinet all shiny with oil — -" 
 
 " Varnish, sir, varnish." 
 
 " And all the carvings on it as fresh as a new pin — St. 
 Peter with his great key, and the rich man with his money- 
 bag trying to defy the fiery furnace." 
 
 Didn't I say you would scarcely know your own house 
 when you came home again?" said Greta. 
 
 She was busying herself at spreading the cloth on the round 
 table and laying the parson's supper. 
 
 Parson Christian was revolving on his slippered toes, his 
 eyes full of child-like amazement, and a maturer twinkle of 
 knowingness lurking in that corner of his aged orbs that was 
 not directly under the fire of the girl's sharp, delighted gaze. 
 
 " Deary me, have you a young lady at home, Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne?" 
 
 " You know I am a bachelor, Mr. Christian," said the law- 
 yer, demurely. 
 
 " So am I — so am I. I never knew any better — not until 
 our old friend Mrs. Lowther died, and left me to take charge 
 of her daughter." 
 
 " Mother should have asked me to take charge of Mr. Chris- 
 tian, shouldn : t she, Mr. Bonnithorne?" said Greta, with 
 roguish eyes. 
 
 " Well, there's something in that," said the parson, with a 
 laugh. " Peter was getting old and a bit rusty in the hinges, 
 you know, and we were likely to turn out a pair of old crows 
 fit for nothing but to scare good Christians from the district. 
 But Greta came to the musty old house, with its dust and its 
 cobwebs, and its two old human spiders, like a slant of sun- 
 light on a muggy day. Here's supper — draw up your chair, 
 Mr. Bonnithorne, and welcome. It's my favorite dish — she 
 knows it — barley broth and a sheep's head, with boiled pota- 
 toes and mashed turnips. Draw up your chair — but where'c 
 the pot of ale, Greta?" 
 
 "Peter! Peter!" 
 
 The other spider presently appeared, carrying a quart jug 
 with a little mountain of froth — a crater bubbling over and 
 down the sides. 
 
 "Been delving for potatoes to-day, Peter?" said the par- 
 
A SON OE HAGAR. 83 
 
 Peter answered with a grumpy nod of his big head. 
 
 £ ' How many bushels?" 
 
 "Maybe a matter of twelve," muttered Peter, shambling 
 out. 
 
 Then the parson and his guest fell to. 
 
 " You're a happy man, Mr. Christian," said Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne, as Greta left the room on some domestic errand. 
 
 Parson Christian shook his head. 
 
 " No call for grace," he said, " with all the luxuries of life 
 thrown into one's lap — that's the worst of living such a happy 
 life. No trials, no cross — nothing to say but ' Soul, take 
 thine ease ' — and that's bad when you think of it. . . . Have 
 some sheep's head, Mr. Bonnithorne; you've not got any 
 tongue — here's a nice sweet bit." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Christian. I came round to pay the ten 
 shillings for Joseph Parkinson's funeral sermon last Sunday 
 sennight, and the one pound two half-yearly allowance from 
 the James Bolton charity for poor clergymen." 
 
 " Well, well! they may well say it never rains but it pours," 
 said the parson. " I called at Henry Walmsley's and Bobert 
 Atkinson's on my way home from the cross-roads, and they 
 both paid me their Martinmas quarterage — Henry five shil- 
 lings, and Bobert seven shillings — and when I dropped in on 
 Bandal Alston to pay for the welting and soling of my shoes, 
 he said they would come to one and sixpence, but that he owed 
 me one and serenpence for veal that Peter sold him, so he 
 paid me a penny, and we are clear from the beginning of the 
 world to this day." 
 
 " I also wanted to speak about our young friend Greta," 
 said Mr. Bonnithorne, softly. " I suppose you are reconciled 
 to losing her?" 
 
 " Losing her?— Greta!" said the parson, laying down his 
 knife. Then smiling, " Oh, you mean when Paul takes her — 
 of course, of course — only the marriage will not be yet awhile 
 — he said so himself. " 
 
 " Marriage with Paul— no," said Mr. Bonnithorne, clearing 
 his throat and looking grave. 
 
 Parson Christian glanced into the lawyer's face uneasily and 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 " Mr. Christian, you were left guardian of Greta Lowther 
 by our dear friend her mother. It becomes your duty to see 
 that she does the best for her future welfare and happiness." 
 
 " Surely, surely!" said the parson. 
 
 " You are an old man, Mr. Christian, and she is a young 
 
84 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 girl. When you and I are gone, Greta Lowther will still have 
 the battle of life before her." 
 
 " Please God — please God!" said the parson, faintly. 
 
 " Isn't it well that you should see that she shall have a hus- 
 band that can fight it with her side by side?" 
 
 " So she shall, so she shall — Paul is a manly fellow, and as 
 fond of her as of his own soul — nay, as I tell him, it's idolatry 
 and a sin before God, his love of the girl." 
 
 " You're wrong, Mr. Christian. Paul Eitson is no fit hus- 
 band for Greta. He is a ruined man. Since his father : s death 
 he has allowed the Ghyll to go to wreck. It is mortgaged to 
 the last blade of grass. I know it. " 
 
 Parson Christian shifted his chair from the table and gazed 
 into the fire with bewildered eyes. 
 
 " I knew he was in trouble," he said, " but I didn't guess 
 that things wore so grave a look. " 
 
 " Don't you see that he is shattered in mind as well as 
 purse?" said the lawyer. 
 
 " No, no; I can't say that I do see that. He's a little ab- 
 sent sometimes, but that's all. When I talk of Matthew 
 Henry and discuss his commentaries, or recite the story of 
 dear Adam Clarke, he is a little — just a little forgetful — that's 
 all — yes, that is all." 
 
 " Compared with his brother — what a difference!" said Mr. 
 Bonnithorne. 
 
 " Well, there is a difference," said the parson. 
 
 " Such spirit, such intelligence — he'll be the richest man 
 in Cumberland one of these days. He has bought up a roy- 
 alty that is sweating ore, and now he is laying down pumping- 
 engines and putting up smelting-houses, and he is getting 
 standing orders to fix a line of railway for the ore he is fetch- 
 ing up." 
 
 " And where did the money come from?" asked the par- 
 son; " the money to begin?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne glanced up sharply. 
 
 " It was his share of his father's personalty." 
 
 " A big tree from such a little acorn," said the parson, med- 
 itatively, " and quick growth, too." 
 
 " There's no saying what intelligence and enterprise will 
 not do in this world, Mr. Christian," said the lawyer, who 
 seemed less certain of the nest. " Hugh Eitson is a man of 
 spirit and brains. Now, that's the husband for Greta — that 
 is, if you can get him — and I don't know that you can — but if 
 it were only possible — " 
 
 Parson Christian faced about- 
 
A SON OB HAGAB. 85 
 
 " Mr. Bonnithorne," he said, gravely, " the girl is not up 
 for sale, and the richest man in Cumberland can't buy her. 
 The thirty pieces of silver for which Judas sold his Master may 
 have been smelted and coined afresh, but not a piece of that 
 money shall touch fingers of mine!" 
 
 " You mistake me, Mr. Christian, believe me, you do," pro- 
 tested the lawyer, with an aggrieved expression. " I was 
 speaking in our young friend's interests. Whatever occurs, 1 
 beg of you, as a friend and well-wisher of the daughter of 
 Robert Lowther, now in his grave, never to allow her to marry 
 PaulEitson." 
 
 " That shall be as God wills it," said the parson, quietly. 
 
 The lawyer had risen and drawn on his great-coat. 
 
 " She can stay here with me," continued the parson. 
 
 " No, she should marry now," said Mr. Bounithorne, step- 
 ping to the door. " She is all but of age. It is hardly fair to 
 keep her." 
 
 " Why, what do you mean?", asked the parson, a puzzled 
 look on his face. 
 
 " She is rich and she is young. Her wealth can buy com- 
 forts, and her youth win pleasures." 
 
 The good old Christian opened wide his great gray eyes with 
 a blank expression. He glanced vacantly about the simple 
 room, rose to his feet, and sat down again. 
 
 " I never thought of that before," he said, faintly, and 
 staring long into the fire. 
 
 There was a heavy foot on the path outside. The latch was 
 lifted, and Paul Bitson stepped into the room. At the sound 
 of his step Greta tripped through the inner door, all joy and 
 eagerness, to welcome him. The parson got up and held out 
 both hands, the clouds gone from his beaming face. 
 
 " Well, good-night," said the lawyer, opening the door. 
 " I've four long miles before me. And how dark! how very 
 dark!" 
 
 Paul Bitson was in truth a changed man. 
 
 His face was pale and haggard, and his eyes were bleared 
 and heavy. He dropped with a listless weariness into the chair 
 that Greta drew up to the fire. When he smiled, the lips 
 lagged back to a gloomy repose, and when he laughed, the note 
 of merriment rang hollow and fell short. 
 
 " Just in time for a game with me, my lad!" said the par- 
 son. " Greta, fetch the chessboard and box." 
 
 ■The board was brought, the pieces fixed; the parson settled 
 himself at his ease, with slippers on the heart-rug and a hand- 
 kerchief across his knee. 
 
86 A SON OP HAGAB. 
 
 " Do you know, Paul, I heard a great pari about you to- 
 day?" 
 
 " About me ! Where?" asked Paul, without much curiosity 
 in his tone. 
 
 " At Mr. Proudfoot's smithy, while I was turning the fal- 
 lows in the meadow down at the cross-roads. Little Mr. 
 Oglethorpe was saying that you slept at the Pack Horse, in 
 Keswick, the night before last; but Mr. Job Sheepshanks, the 
 letter-cutter, said nay, and they had high words indeed, 
 wherein Job called Mr. Oglethorpe all but his proper name, 
 and flung away in high dudgeon." 
 
 Paul moved his pawn and said, " I never slept at the Pack 
 Horse in my life, Mr. Christian." 
 
 Greta sat knitting at one side of the ingle. The kitten, 
 with a bell attached to a ribbon about its neck, sported with 
 the bows of her dainty slippers. Only the click of the needles, 
 and the tinkle of the bell, and the hollow tick of the great 
 clock in the corner broke the silence. 
 
 At last Parson Christian drew himself up in his chair. 
 
 " Well, Paul, man, Paul — deary me, what a sad move! 
 You're going back, back, back; once you could beat me five 
 games to four. Now I can run away with you." 
 
 The game soon finished, amid a chuckle from the parson, a 
 bantering word from Greta, and a loud, forced laugh from 
 Paul. 
 
 Parson Christian lifted from a shelf a ponderous tome 
 bound in leather and incased in green cloth. 
 
 " I must make my day's entry," he said, " and get off to 
 bed. I was astir before day-break this morning." 
 
 Greta crept up behind the old man, and looked over his 
 shoulder as he wrote : 
 
 " Nov. 21. — Eetired to my lodging-room last night, and 
 commended my all to God, and lay down, and fell asleep; but 
 Peter minded the heifer that was near to calving; so he came 
 and wakened me, and we went down and sealed her, and fod- 
 dered her, and milked her. Spent all day plowing the low 
 meadow, Peter delving potatoes. Called at the Flying Horse, 
 and sat while I drank one pot of ale and no more, and paid 
 for it. Eeceived ten shillings from Lawyer Bonnithorne for 
 funeral sermon, and one pound two from Bolton charity; also 
 five shillings quarterage from Henry Walmsley, and seven from 
 Robert Atkinson, and a penny to square accounts from Randal 
 Alston, and so retired to my closet at peace with all the 
 wo; Id. Blessed be God. " 
 
 The parson returned to its shelf the ponderous diary " made 
 
A SON OF HAGAE, 8 1 ? 
 
 to view his life and actions in," and called through the innei 
 door for his bedroom candle. A morose voice answered 
 " Coming," and presently came. 
 
 " Thank you, Peter; and how's the meeting-house, and 
 who preaches there next Sunday, Peter?" 
 
 Peter grumbled out : 
 
 " I don't know as it's not yourself. I passed them my word 
 as you'd exhort 'em a' Sunday afternoon. " 
 
 " But nobody has ever asked me. You should have men- 
 tioned the matter to me first, Peter, before promising. But 
 never mind, I'm willing, though it's a poor discourse they can 
 get from me." 
 
 Turning to Paul, who sat silent before the fire: 
 
 " Peter has left us and turned Methodist," said the parson; 
 "he is now Brother Peter Ward, and wants me to preach at 
 the meeting-house. Well, I won't say nay. Many a good 
 ordained clergyman has been dissenting minister as well. 
 Good -night to you. . . . Peter, I wish you to get some whip- 
 cord and tie up the reel of my fishing-rod — there it is, on the 
 rafters of the ceiling; and a bit more cord to go round the 
 handle of my whip — it leans against the leads of the neuk win- 
 dow; and, Peter, I'm going to go to the mill with the oats to- 
 morrow, and Eobin Atkinson has loaned me his shandry and 
 mare. Eobin always puts a bushel of grain into the box, but 
 it's light and only small feeding. I wish you to get a bushel 
 of better to mix with it, and make it more worth the mare's 
 labor to eat it. Good-night all; good-night." 
 
 Peter grumbled something beneath his breath and shambled 
 out. 
 
 " God bless him!" said Greta presently; and Paul, without 
 lifting his eyes from the fire, said quietly: 
 
 " ' Christe's lore, and His apostles twelve 
 
 He taught: but first he followed it himselve." 
 
 Then there was silence in the little vicarage. Paul sat with- 
 out animation until Greta set herself to bewitch him out of 
 his moodiness. Her bright. eyes, dancing in the rosy fire-light 
 that flickered in the room; her high spirits bubbling over with 
 delicious teasing and joyous sprightliness; her tenderness, her 
 rippling laughter, her wit, her badinage — all were brought to 
 the defeat and banishment of Paul's heaviness of soul. It 
 was to no purpose. The gloom of the grave face would not 
 be conquered. Paul smiled slightly into the gleaming eyes, 
 and laughed faintly at the pouting lips, and stroked tenderly 
 the soft hair that was glorified into gold in the glint of the 
 fire-light; but the old sad look came back once and again. 
 
88 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 Greta gave it up at last. She rose from the hassock at his 
 feet. 
 
 " Sweetheart," she said, " I will go to bed. You are not 
 well to-night, or you are angry, or out of humor." 
 
 She waited a moment, but he did not speak. Then she 
 made a feeble feint of leaving the room. 
 
 At last Paul said : 
 
 " Greta, I have something to say." 
 
 She was back at her hassock in an instant. The laughter 
 had gone from her eyes, and left a dewy wistf ulness. 
 
 "You are unhappy. You have been unhappy a long, long 
 time, and have never told me the cause. Tell me now." 
 
 The heavy face relaxed. 
 
 " What ever put that in your head, little one?" he asked, 
 in a playful tone, patting the golden hair. 
 
 " Tell me now," she said more eagerly. " Think of me as a 
 woman fit to share your sorrows, not as a child to be pam- 
 pered and played with, and never to be burdened with a man's 
 sterner cares. If I am not fit to know your troubles, I am not 
 fit to be your wife. Tell me, Paul, what it is that has taken 
 the sunshine out of your life." 
 
 " The sunshine has not been taken out of my life yet, little 
 woman — here it is," said Paul, lightly, and he drew his fingers 
 through the glistening hair. 
 
 The girl's lucent eyes fell. 
 
 " You are playing with me," she said gravely; " you are 
 always playing with me. Am I so much a child? Are you 
 angry with me?" 
 
 " Angry with you, little one? Hardly that, I think," said 
 Paul, and his voice sunk. . 
 
 " Then tell me, sweetheart. You have something to say — 
 what is it?" 
 
 " I have come to ask — " 
 
 " Yes?" 
 
 He hesitated. His heart was too full to speak. He began 
 again. 
 
 " Do you think it would be too great a sacrifice to give 
 up — " 
 
 " What?" she gasped. 
 
 " Do you remember all you told me about my brother Hugh 
 — that he said he loved you?" 
 
 " Well?" said Greta, with a puzzled glance. 
 
 " I think he spoke truly," said Paul, and his voice trem- 
 bled. 
 
 She drew back with agony in every line of her face. 
 
A SON OJ BAGAR. 89 
 
 " Would it be .... do you think .... supposing I 
 went away, far away, and we were not to meet for a time, a 
 long time — never to meet again — could you bring yourself to 
 love him and marry him?" 
 
 Greta rose to her feet in agitation. 
 
 " Him — love him! — you ask me that --you!" 
 
 The girl's voice broke down into sobs that seemed to shake 
 her to the heart : s core. 
 
 " Greta, darling, forgive me; I was blind — I am ashamed." 
 
 " Oh, I could cry my eyes out!" she said, wiping away her 
 tears. " Say you were only playing with me, then; say you 
 were only playing; do say so, do!" 
 
 " I will say anything — anything but the same words again 
 — and they nearly killed me to say them. " 
 
 " And was this what you came to say?" Greta inquired. 
 
 "No, no," he said, lifted out of his gloom by the excite- 
 ment; "but another thing, and it is easier now — ten times 
 easier now — to say it. Greta, do you think if I were to leave 
 Cumberland and settle in another country — Australia or Can- 
 ada, or somewhere far enough away — that you could give up 
 home, and kindred, and friends, and old associations, and all 
 the dear past, and face a new life in a new world with me? 
 Could you do it?" 
 
 Her eyes sparkled. He opened his arms, and she flew to his 
 embrace. 
 
 " Is this your answer, little one?" he said, with choking 
 delight. And a pair of streaming eyes looked up for a brief 
 instant into his face. " Then we'll say no more now. I'm 
 to go to London to-morrow night, and shall be away four 
 days. When I return we'll talk again, and tell the good soul 
 who lies in yonder. Peace be with him, and sweet sleep, the 
 dear old friend!" 
 
 Paul lifted up his hat and opened the door. His gloom was 
 gone; his eyes were alive with animation. The worn cheeks 
 were aflame. He stood erect, and walked with the step of a 
 strong man. 
 
 Greta followed him into the porch. The rosy fire-light fol- 
 lowed her. It flickered over her golden hair, and bathed her 
 beauty in a ruddy glow. 
 
 " Oh, how free the air will breathe over there," he said, 
 " when all this slavery is left behind forever! You don't 
 understand, little woman, but some day you shall. What 
 matter if it is a land of rain, and snow, and tempest? It will 
 be a land of freedom — freedom, and life, and love. And now, 
 Master Hugh, we shall soon be quits— very soon!" 
 
90 A SON OF IIAGAR. 
 
 His excitement carried him away, and Greta was too greedj 
 of his joy to check it with questions. 
 
 They stood together at the door. The night was still and 
 dark; the trees were noiseless, their prattling leaves were gone. 
 Silent and empty as a vacant street was the unseen road. 
 
 Paul held forth his hand to feel if it rained. A withered 
 .leaf floated down from the eaves into his palm. 
 
 Then a footstep echoed on the path. It went on toward the 
 village. Presently the postman came trudging along from 
 the other direction. 
 
 " Good-night, Tom o' Dint!" cried Paul, cheerily. 
 
 Tom stopped and hesitated. 
 
 "Who was it I hailed on the road?" he asked. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Just now." 
 
 " Nay, who was it?" 
 
 " I thought it was yourself." 
 
 The little man trundled on in the dark. 
 
 " My brother, no doubt," said Paul, and he pulled the door 
 after him. 
 
 CHAPTBE III. 
 
 Next morning a bright sun shone on the frosty landscape. 
 The sky was blue and the air was clear. 
 
 Hugh Eitson sat in his room at the back of the Ghyll, with 
 its window looking out on the fell-side and on the river under 
 the leafless trees beneath. The apartment had hardly the ap- 
 pearance of a room in a Cumbrian homestead. It was all 
 but luxurious in its appointments. The character of its con- 
 tents gave it something of the odor of a by-gone age. Besides 
 books on many shelves, prints, pictures in water and oil, and 
 mirrors of various shapes, there was tapestry on the inside of the 
 door, a bust of Dante above a cabinet of black oak, a piece of 
 bas-relief in soapstone, a gargoyle in wood, a brass censer, a 
 mediaeval lamp with open mouth, and a small ivory crucifix 
 nailed to the wall above the fire. 
 
 Hugh himself sat at an organ, his fingers wandering aim- 
 lessly over the keys, his eyes gazing vacantly out at the win- 
 dow. There was a knock at the door. 
 
 " Come in," said the player. Mr. Bonnithorne entered and 
 walked to a table in the middle of the floor. Hugh Eitson 
 finished the movement he was playing, and then arose from 
 the organ and drew an easy-chair to the fire. 
 
A SON OB 1 HAGAR. 91 
 
 " Brought the deed?" he asked, quietly, Mr. Bonnithorne 
 still standing. 
 
 ■ " I have, my dear friend, and something yet more impor- 
 tant." 
 
 Hugh glanced up: through his constant smile Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne was obviously agitated. Dropping his voice, the lawyer 
 added, " Copies of the three certificates." 
 
 Hugh smiled faintly. "Good; we will discuss the certifi- 
 cates first," he said, and drew his dressing-gown leisurely 
 about him. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne began to unfold some documents. He 
 paused; his eye was keen and bright; he seemed to survey his 
 dear friend with some perplexity; his glance was shadowed 
 by a certain look of distrust; but his words were cordial and 
 submissive, and his voice was, as usual, low and meek. 
 " What a wonderful man you are. And how changed! It is 
 only a few months since I had to whip up your lagging spirits 
 at a great crisis. And now you leave me far behind. Not 
 the least anxious! How different I am, to be sure. It was 
 this very morning my correspondent sent me the copies, and 
 yet 1 am here, five miles from home. And when the post 
 arrived I declare to you that such was my eagerness to know if 
 our surmises were right that — " 
 
 Hugh interrupted in a quick cold voice: " That you were 
 too nervous to open his letter, and fumbled it back and front 
 for an hour — precisely." 
 
 Saying this, Hugh lifted his eyes quickly enough to en- 
 counter Mr. Bonnithorne's glance, and when they fell again a 
 curious expression was playing about his mouth. 
 
 " Give me the papers," said Hugh, and he stretched for- 
 ward his hand without shifting in his seat. 
 
 " Well, really, you are — really — " 
 
 Hugh raised his eyes again. Mr. Bonnithorne paused, 
 handed the documents, and shuffled uneasily into a seat. 
 
 One by one Hugh glanced hastily over three slips of paper. 
 " This is well," he said, quietly. 
 
 " Well? I should say so indeed. What could be better? I 
 confess to you that until to-day I had some doubts. Now I 
 have none." 
 
 " Doubts? So you had doubts?" said Hugh, dryly. " They 
 disturbed your sleep, perhaps?" 
 
 The lurking distrust in Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes openly dis- 
 played itself, and he gazed full into the face of Hugh Kitson 
 with a searching look that made little parley with his smile. 
 
92 A SON OF HAGAR, 
 
 " Then one may take a man's inheritance without qualm or 
 conviction?" 
 
 Hugh pretended not to hear, and began to read aloud the 
 certificates in his hand. " Let me see, this is first — ^Registra- 
 tion of Birth. " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne interrupted. " Luckily, very luckily, the 
 registration of birth is first." 
 
 Hugh read: 
 
 " Name, Paul. Date of birth, August 14, 1845. Place of 
 birth, Russell Square, London. Father's name, Robert Lowther. 
 Mother's name, Grace Lowther; maiden name, Ormerod." 
 
 " Then this comes second — Registration of Marriage." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne rose in his eagerness and rubbed his hands 
 together at the fire. " Yes, second," he said, with evident 
 relish. 
 
 Hugh read calmly: 
 
 "Allan Ritson — Grace Ormerod — Register's office, Bow 
 Street, Strand, London — June 12, 1847." 
 
 " What do you say to that?" asked Mr. Bonnithorne, in an 
 eager whisper. 
 
 Hugh continued without comment. " And this comes 
 last — Registration of Birth." 
 
 " Name, Hugh — March 25, 1848 — Holme, Ravenglass, 
 Cumberland — Allan Ritson— Grace Ritson (Ormerod)." 
 
 " There you have the case in a nutshell," said Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne, dropping his voice. ' * Paul is your half-brother, and 
 the son of Lowther. You are Allan Ritson's heir, born with- 
 in a year of your father's marriage. Can anything be clearer?" 
 
 Hugh remained silently intent on the documents. " Were 
 these copies made at Somerset House?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded. 
 
 " And your correspondent can be relied upon?" 
 
 " Assuredly. A solicitor in excellent practice." 
 
 " Was he told what items he had to find, or did he make a 
 general search?" 
 
 " He was told to find the marriage or marriages of Grace 
 Ormerod, and to trace her offspring." 
 
 " And these were the only entries?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded again. 
 
 Hugh twirled the papers in his fingers, and then placed two 
 of them side by side. His face wore a look of perplexity. " I 
 am puzzled," he said. 
 
 " What puzzles you?" said Mr. Bonnithorne. " Can any- 
 thing be plainer?" 
 
 "Yes. By these certificates I am two and a half years 
 
A soar OF SAGAR. 93 
 
 younger than Paul. I was always taught that there was only 
 a year between us." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne smiled, and said in a superior tone: 
 
 " An obvious ruse." 
 
 " You think a child is easily deceived — true!" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne preserved a smiling face. 
 
 " Now, I will proceed to the payment of the legacy, and 
 you, no doubt, to the institution of your claim." 
 
 " No," said Hugh Ritson, with emphasis, rising to his feet. 
 
 "You know that if a bastard dies seized of an estate, the 
 law justifies his title. He is then the bastard eigne. You 
 must eject this man." 
 
 " No," said Hugh Eitson again. The lawyer glanced up 
 inquiringly, and Hugh added: " That shall come later. 
 Meantime the marriage must be brought about." 
 
 " Your own marriage with Greta?" 
 
 "Paul's." 
 
 " Paul's?" said Mr. Bonnithorne, the very suppression of 
 his tone giving it additional emphasis. 
 
 " Paul's," repeated Hugh with grim composure. " He shall 
 marry her." 
 
 The lawyer had risen once more, and was now face to face 
 with Hugh Ritson, glancing into his eyes with eager scrutiny. 
 
 " You can not mean it?" he said at length. 
 
 " And why not?" said Hugh, placidly. 
 
 " Because Paul is her brother — at least, her half-brother/' 
 
 " They don't know that." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne 's breath seemed to be arrested. 
 
 " But we know it, and we can't stand by and witness their 
 marriage!" he said at length. 
 
 Hugh Ritson leaned with his back to the fire. " We can 
 and shall," he said, and not a muscle of his face moved. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne surveyed his friend from head to foot, and 
 then his own countenance relaxed. 
 
 " You are trifling; but it will be no trifle to them when 
 they learn that their billing and cooing must end. And from 
 such a cause, too. It will be a terrible shock. The only ques- 
 tion is, whether it would not be more humane to say nothing 
 of the impediment until we have brought about another match. 
 Last night, at Parson Christian's, I did what I could for you. " 
 
 Hugh smiled in return; a close observer might have seen 
 that his was a cold mockery of the lawyer's own smile. 
 
 " Yes, you were always humane, Bonnithorne, and now your 
 sensibilities are shocked. But when I spoke of marriage I 
 meant the ceremony. Nothing more. " 
 
94 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " I think I understand. You intend to separate them at 
 the church door — perhaps at the altar rail. It is a shocking 
 revenge. My very skin creeps!" 
 
 Hugh laughed lightly, and walked to the window. A 
 slant of sunshine fell on his upturned face. When he turned 
 his head and broke silence he spoke in a deep, harsh voice. 
 
 " I was humane, too. When she spoke of marriage with 
 Paul I hinted at an impediment. She ridiculed the idea; 
 scoffed at ic." Another light laugh, and then a stern solem- 
 nity. " She insulted me — palpably, grossly, brutally. What 
 did she says' Didn't I tell you before? Why, she said — ha! 
 ha! would you believe it? — she said she'd rather marry a 
 plowboy than such a gentleman as me. That was her vary 
 word." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's face was now dark with passion, while laugh- 
 ter was on his lips. 
 
 " She shall marry her plowboy, to her lifelong horror and 
 disgrace. I promised her as much, and I will keep my word!" 
 
 " A terrible revenge!" muttered the lawyer, twitching 
 uneasily at his finger-nails. 
 
 " Tut! you don't know to what lengths love may go. Even 
 the feeble infant hearts of men whose minds are a blank can 
 carry them any length in the devotion or the revenge of love!" 
 He paused, and then added in a low tone, ' ' She has outraged 
 my love!" 
 
 " Surely not past forgiveness?" interrupted Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne, nervously. " It would be a life-long injury. And 
 ehe is a woman, too." 
 
 Hugh faced about. 
 
 " But he is a man; and I have my reckoning with him 
 also. " Hugh Eitson strode across the room, and then stopped 
 suddenly. " Look you, Bonnithorne, you said that with all 
 your confidence on the night of my father's death, you had 
 your doubts until to-day. But I had never a moment's doubt. 
 Why? Because I had assurance from my mother's own lips. 
 To me? No, but worse; to him. He knows well he is not 
 my father's heir. He has known it since the hour of my 
 father's death. He knows that I know it. Yet he has kept 
 the lands to this day." Another uneasy perambulation. 
 " Do you think of that when you talk of revenge? Manli- 
 ness? He has none. He is a pitiful, truculent, groveling 
 coward, ready to buy profit at any price. He has robbed me 
 of my inheritance. He stands in my place. He is a living 
 lie. Eevenge? It will be retribution!" 
 
A SOK OF HAGAK. 95t 
 
 Hugh Eitson's composure was gone. Mr. Bonnithorne, not 
 easily cowed, dropped his eyes before him. " Terrible, terri- 
 ble!" he muttered again, and added with more assurance: 
 " But you know I have always urged you to assert your right 
 to the inheritance. " 
 
 Hugh was striding about the room, his infirm foot trailing 
 heavily after him. 
 
 " Bonnithorne," he said, pausing, " when a woman has 
 outraged the poor weak heart of one of the waifs whom fate 
 flings into the gutter, he sometimes throws a cup of vitriol 
 into her face, saying, " If she is not for me, she is not for an- 
 other;" or, " Where she has sinned, there let her suffer." 
 That is revenge; it is the feeble device of a man who thinks in 
 his simple soul that when beauty is gone loathing is at hand." 
 Another light trill of laughter. 
 
 " But the cup of retribution is not to be measured by the 
 cup of vitriol. " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne fumbled his papers nervously, and repeat- 
 ed beneath his breath, " Terrible, terrible!" 
 
 " She has wronged me, Bonnithorne, and he has wronged 
 me. They shall marry and they shall separate; and hence- 
 forward they shall walk together and yet apart, a gulf divid- 
 ing them from each other, yet a wider gulf dividing both from 
 the world; and so on until the end, and he and I and she and 
 I are quits." 
 
 " Terrible, terrible!" Mr. Bonnithorne mumbled again. 
 " All nature rises against it." 
 
 " Is it so? Then be it so," said Hugh, the flame subsiding 
 from his cheek, and a cold smile creeping afresh about his 
 lips. " Your sense of justice would have been answered, per- 
 haps, if I had turned this bastard adrift penniless and a beg- 
 gar, stopped the marriage, and taken by strategy the woman 
 I could not win by love. " The smile faded away. "That 
 would have been better than the cup of vitriol, but not much 
 better. You are a man of the world. " 
 
 " It is a terrible revenge," the lawyer muttered again — this 
 time with a different intonation. 
 
 " I repeat, they shall marry. No more than that," said 
 Hugh. " I would outrage nature as little as I would shock 
 the world." 
 
 The sun had crept round to where the organ stood in one 
 corner of the room. Hugh's passion had gradually subsided. 
 He sidled on to the stool and began to play softly. A knock 
 came to the door, and old Laird Fisher entered. 
 
36 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 " The gentleman frae Crewe is down at the pit about t' 
 engine in the smel ting-mill," said the old man. 
 
 " Say I shall be with him in half an hour," said Hugh, and 
 Laird Fisher left the room. TheD Hugh put the papers in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " We have wasted too much time over the certificates — they 
 can wait — where's the deed of mortgage? — I must have the 
 money to pay for the new engine." 
 
 " It is here," said the lawyer, and he spread a parchment 
 on the table. 
 
 Hugh glanced hastily over it, and touched a hand-bell. 
 When the maid appeared, he told her to go to Mr. Paul, who 
 was thatching in the stack-yard, and say he wished to see him 
 at once. Then he returned to the organ, and played a tender 
 air. His touch was both light and strenuous. 
 
 " Any news of his daughter?" said Mr. Bonnithorne, sink- 
 ing his voice to a whisper. 
 
 " Whose daughter?" said Hugh, pausing, and looking over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " The old man's — Laird Fisher's." 
 
 " Strangely enough — yes. A letter came this morning." 
 
 Hugh Eitson stopped playing, and thrust his hand into an 
 inner pocket. But Mr. Bonnithorne hastened to show that he 
 had no desire to pry into another man's secrets. 
 
 " Pray don't trouble. Perhaps you'd rather not — -just tell 
 me in a word how things are shaping." 
 
 Hugh laughed a little, unfolded a sheet of scented writing- 
 paper, with ornamented border, and began to read : 
 
 " ' I am writing to thank you very much — ' Here," toss- 
 ing the letter to the lawyer, " read it for yourself." Then he 
 resumed his playing. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne fixed his nose-glasses, and read: 
 
 " I am writing to thank you very much for your kind re- 
 membrance of me, it was almost like having your company, I 
 live in hopes of seeing you soon, when are you coming to me? 
 Sometimes I think you will never;, never come, and then I 
 can't help crying though I try not to, and I don't cry much. 
 I don't go out very often London is far away, six miles, there 
 are nice people here and nice children. Only think when my 
 trouble is over and you come and take me home. How is poor 
 father, does he look much older does he fret for me now? I 
 wonder will he know me. I am quite well only there is some- 
 thing the matter in my eyes. Sometimes when I wake up I 
 can't see plain. Don't be long writing. My eyes are very sore 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 9? 
 
 and red to day, and it is oh so lonely in tnis strange place, 
 Mrs. Drayton is kind to me. Good-bye. She has a son but 
 he is always at meets, that is races, and I have never seen 
 him. Write soon to your loving Mercy. The time is near." 
 
 Hugh played on while Mr. Bonnithorne read. The lawyer, 
 when he came to the end, handed the letter back with the 
 simple comment: 
 
 " Came this morning, you say? It was written last Tuesday 
 — nearly a week ago. " 
 
 Hugh nodded his head over his shoulder, and continued to 
 play. He swayed to and fro with an easy grace to the long 
 sweeps of the music until the door opened sharply and Paul 
 entered with a firm step. Then he rose, picked a pen from 
 the inkstand, and dipped it in the ink. 
 
 Paul wore a suit of rough, light cloth, with leggins, and a 
 fur cap, which he did not remove. His face was pale; decis- 
 ion sat on every line of it. 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Bonnithorne, if I don't shake hands," he 
 said in his deep voice; " I'm at work, and none too clean." 
 
 " This," said Hugh Ritson, twiddling the pen in his fingers, 
 " this is the deed I spoke of yesterday. You sign there," 
 pointing to a blank space in front of a little wafer. 
 
 Then he placed one hand firmly on the upper part of the 
 parchment, as if to steady it, and held out the pen. 
 
 Paul made no approach to accepting it. He stretched for- 
 ward, took hold of the document, and lifted it, casting Hugh's 
 hand aside. 
 
 Hugh watched him closely. 
 
 " The usual formality," he said, lightly; " nothing more.'' 
 
 Paul passed his eye rapidly over the deed. Then he turned 
 to the lawyer. 
 
 " Is this the fourth or fifth mortgage that has been drawn?" 
 he inquired, still holding the parchment before him. 
 
 " Really, I can't say — I presume it is the — really, I hardly 
 remember — " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne's suavity of tone and customary smile 
 broke down into silence and a look of lowering anxiety. 
 
 Paul glanced steadfastly into his face. 
 
 " But 1 remember," he said, with composure more embar- 
 rassing than violence. "It is the fifth. The Holme farm 
 was first, and then came Goldscope. Hindscarth was 
 mortgaged, to the last ear of corn, and then it was the turn 
 for Coledale. Now, it's the Ghyll itself, I see, house and 
 buildings." 
 
98 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 Hugh Ritson's face underwent a change, hut his tone was 
 unruffled as he said: 
 
 " If you please, we will come to business." Then with a 
 sinister smile, " You resemble the French counsel — you begin 
 every speech at the Creation. ' Let us go on to the Deluge, 5 
 said the judge." 
 
 " To the Deluge!" said Paul; and he turned his head slowly 
 to where Hugh stood, holding the pen in one hand and rap- 
 ping the table with the knuckles of the other. " Bather un- 
 necessary. We're already under water." 
 
 The passion in Hugh Ritson's face dropped to a look of 
 sullen anger. But he mastered his voice, and said quietly: 
 
 " The engineer from Crewe is waiting for me at the pit. I 
 have wasted the whole morning over these formalities. Come, 
 come, let us have done. Mr. Bonnithorne will witness the 
 signature." 
 
 Paul had not shifted his steadfast gaze from his brother's 
 face. Hugh dodged his glance at first, and then met it with 
 an expression of audacity. 
 
 Still holding the parchment before him, Paul said quietly: 
 
 " To-night I leave home for London, and shall be absent 
 four days. Can this business wait until my return?" 
 
 " No, it can't," said Hugh with emphasis. 
 
 Paul dropped his voice. 
 
 " Don't take that tone with me, I warn you. Can this 
 business wait?" 
 
 " I mean what I say — it can not." 
 
 " On my return I may have something to tell you that will 
 affect this and the other deeds. Once more, can it wait?" 
 
 " Will you sign — yes or no?" said Hugh. 
 
 Paul looked steady and straight into his brother's eyes. 
 
 " You are draining away my inheritance — you are — " 
 
 At this word, Hugh's smoldering temper was afire. 
 
 " Your inheritance!" he broke out in his bitterest tones. 
 " It is late in the day to talk of that. Your inheritance — " 
 
 But he stopped. The expression of audacity gave place to a 
 look of blank bewilderment. Paul had torn the parchment 
 from top to bottom, and flung it on the table, and in an in- 
 stant was walking out of the room. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Paul Ritson returned to the stack-yard, and worked vigor- 
 ously three hours longer. A stack had been stripped by a re- 
 gent storm, and he thatched it afresh with the help of a la 
 
Paul had torn the parchment from top to bottom and flung it on the table.- 
 Pagc gS. 
 
A SOU- OF HAGAR. 90 
 
 borer and a boy. Then he stepped in-doors, changed hie 
 clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was done he 
 went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable, 
 whistling as he polished his harness. 
 
 "Bring the trap round to the front at seven," he saM- 
 " and put my bag in at the back; you'll find it in the hall." ' 
 
 By this time the night had closed in, and the young moon 
 showed faintly over the head of Hindscarth. The wind was 
 rising. 
 
 Paul returned to the house, eat, drank, and smoked. Then 
 he rose and walked upstairs and knocked at the door of his 
 mother's room. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson was alone. A lamp burned on the table and 
 cast a sharp white light on her face. The face was worn and 
 very pale. Lines were plowed deep on it. She was kneeling, 
 but she rose as Paul entered. He bent his head and kissed 
 her forehead. There was a book before her; a rosary was in' 
 her hand. The room was without -fire. It was chill and 
 cheerless, and only sparsely furnished— sheep-skin rugs on 
 the floor, texts on the walls, a carved oak clothes-chest in one 
 corner, two square high-backed chairs and a small table, 
 a bed, and no more. 
 
 " I'm going off, mother," said Paul; " the train leaves in 
 an hour." 
 
 " When do you return?" said Mrs. Bitson. 
 
 " Let me see — this is Saturday; I shall be back on Wednes- 
 day evening." 
 
 " God be with you!" she said in a fervent voice. 
 
 " Mother, I spoke to Greta last night, and she promised. 
 We shall soon be free of this tyranny. Already the first link 
 of the chain is broken. He called me into his room this morn- 
 ing to sign a mortgage on the Ghyll, and I refused." 
 
 " And yet you are about to go away, and leave everything 
 in his hands!" 
 
 Mrs. Bitson sat down, and Paul put his hand tenderly on 
 her head. 
 
 " Better that than to have it wrested from me inch by inch 
 — to hold the shadow of an inheritance while he grasps the 
 substance. He knows all. His dark hints are not needed to 
 tell me that." 
 
 " Yet he is silent," said Mrs. Bitson, and her eyes fell on to 
 her book. " And surely it is for my sake that he is so— if in 
 truth he knows all. Is he not my son? And is not my honor 
 his honor?" 
 
 Paul shook his head* 
 
100 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 " If the honor of twenty mothers, as true and dear as you, 
 were the stepping-stones to his interest, over those stones he 
 would go. No, no; it is not honor, whether jours or his, that 
 keeps hhn silent." 
 
 Mrs. Eitson glanced up. 
 
 " Are you not too hard on him? He is guiltless in the eye 
 of the world, and that at least should plead for him. Forgive 
 him. Do not leave your brother in anger!''" 
 
 " I have nothing to forgive," said Paul. " Even if he knew 
 nothing, I should still go away and leave everything. I could 
 not live any longer under the shadow of this secret, bound by 
 an oath. I would go, as I go now, with sealed lips, but a 
 free heart. He should have his own before man — and I mine 
 before God." 
 
 Mrs. Eitson sat in silence; her lips trembled perceptibly, 
 and her eyelids quivered. 
 
 " I shall soon leave you, my dear son," she said in a trem- 
 ulous voice. 
 
 " Nay, nay, you shall not," he answered in an altered tone, 
 half of raillery, half of tenderness; " you are coming with us 
 — with Greta and me — and over there the roses will bloom 
 again in your white cheeks." 
 
 Mrs. Eitson shook her head. 
 
 "I shall soon leave you, dearest," she repeated, and told 
 her beads. 
 
 He tried to dispel her sadness; he laughed, and she smiled 
 feebly; he patted her head playfully. But she came back to 
 the same words: " I shall soon leave you." 
 
 The moon was shining at the full when he lifted his hat to 
 go. It was sailing through a sky of fibrous cloud. The wind 
 was high, and rattled the empty boughs of the tree against the 
 window. Keen frost was in the air. 
 
 " I shall see my father's old friend in London on Monday, 
 and be back on Wednesday. Good-bye. Keep a good heart. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 She wept on his breast and clung to him. 
 
 " Good-bye, good-bye!" he repeated, and tried to disengage 
 himself from her embrace. 
 
 But she clung the closer. It was as if she was to see him 
 no more. 
 
 " Good-bye!" she sobbed, and with the tears in his own 
 eyes he laughed at her idle fears. 
 
 "Ha! ha! ha! one would think I was going for life — ha' 
 ha—" 
 
A SOST OF HAGAR. 101 
 
 There was a scream on the frosty air without. His laugh 
 died on his lips. 
 
 " What was that?" he said, and drew a sharp breath. 
 
 She lifted her face, whiter now than ever, and with tearless 
 
 : It was the cry of the bird that foretells death/ 5 she said 
 hi a whisper. 
 
 lie laughed a little — boisterously. 
 
 "Nay, nay; you will be well and happy yet." Then he 
 broke away. 
 
 Natt was sitting in the trap, and it was drawn up in the 
 court-yard to the door. He was looking through the darkness 
 at some object in the distance, and when Paul came up he was 
 not at first conscious of his master's presence. 
 
 _ " What were you looking at, Natt?" said Paul, pulling on 
 his gloves. 
 
 " I war wond'rin' whether lang Dick o' the Syke had 
 kindled a fire to-night, or whether yon lowe on the side of the 
 Causey were frae the new smelting-house. " 
 
 Paul glanced over the horse's head. A deep glow stood out 
 against the fell. All around was darkness. 
 
 " The smelting-house, I should say," said Paul, and jumped 
 to his seat beside Natt. 
 
 By one of the lamps that the trap carried he looked at his 
 watch. 
 
 ' ' A quarter past seven. It will be smart driving, but you 
 can give the mare her own time coming back." 
 
 Then he took the reins, and in another moment they were 
 gone. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 At eight o'clock that night the sky was brilliantly lighted 
 up, and the so and of many voices was borne on the night wind. 
 The red flare came from the Syke; the mill was afire. Show- 
 ers of sparks and sheets of flame were leaping and" streaming 
 into the sky. Men and women were hurrying to and fro, and 
 the women's shrill cries mingled with the men's shouts. At 
 intervals the brightness of the glare faded, and then a column 
 of choking smoke poured out and was borne away on the 
 wind. Dick, the miller, was there, with the scorching heat 
 reddening his wrathful face. John Proudfoot had raised a 
 ladder against the mill, and, hatchet in hand, was going to 
 cut away the cross-trees; but the heat drove him back. The 
 sharp snap of the flames told of timbers being ripped away. 
 
102 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " No use — it's gone/ 5 said the blacksmith, dragging the 
 ladder behind him. 
 
 " I telt them afore what their damned smelting-house would 
 do for me!" said the miller, striding about in his impotent 
 rage. 
 
 Parson Christian was standing by the gate on the windward 
 side of the mill-yard, with Laird Fisher beside him, looking 
 on in silence at the leaping flames. 
 
 " The wind is from the south," he said, " and a spark' of 
 the hot refuse shot down the bank has been blown into the 
 mill." 
 
 The mill was a wooden structure, and the fire held it like a 
 serpent in its grip. People were coming and going from the 
 darkness into the red glare, and out of the glare into the dark- 
 ness. Among them was one stalwart figure that none noticed 
 in the general confusion. 
 
 " Have you a tarpaulin?" said this man, addressing those 
 about him. 
 
 " There's a big one on the stack at Coledale," answered 
 another. 
 
 " Run for it!" 
 
 "It's of no use." 
 
 " Damme, run for it!" 
 
 The tone of authority was not to be ignored. In three 
 minutes a huge tarpaulin was being dragged behind a dozen 
 men. 
 
 " Lay hold of the ropes and let us dip it into the river," 
 shouted the same voice above the prevailing clangor. It was 
 done. Dripping wet, the tarpaulin was pulled into the mill- 
 yard. 
 
 " Where's your ladder? Quick!" 
 
 The ladder was raised against the scorching wooden walls. 
 
 " Be ready to throw me the ropes," shouted the deep voice. 
 
 A firm step was set on the lowest rung. There was a 
 crackle of glass, and then a cloud of smoke streamed out of a 
 broken window. For an instant the bright glare was ob- 
 scured. But it burst forth afresh, and leaped with great 
 white tongues into the sky. 
 
 " The sheets are caught!" shouted the miller. 
 
 They were flying round with the wind. A line of flame 
 seemed to be pursuing them. 
 
 " Who's the man on the ladder — dusta know?" cried John 
 Proud foot. 
 
 " I dunnot," answered the miller. 
 
 At that instant Hugh Ritson came up. The smoke was 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 103 
 
 gone, and now a dark figure could be dimly seen high up on 
 the mill-side. He seized the cross-trees with both hands, ai. d 
 swung himself on to the raking roof. 
 
 "Now for the ropes!" he shouted. 
 
 The flames burst out again and illumined the wcole sky; 
 the dark mass of the fells could be seen far overhead, and the 
 waters of the river in the bed of the valley glowed like amber. 
 The stalwart figure stood out in the white light against the red 
 glare, holding on to the cross-trees on the top of the mill, and 
 with a wheel of crackling fire careering beside him. 
 
 There could be no doubt of his identity, with the light on 
 his strong face and tawny hair. 
 
 " It's Paul Ritson!" shouted many a voice. 
 
 "Damme, the ropes — quick!" 
 
 The ropes were thrown and caught, and thrown again to the 
 other side. Then the dripping tarpaulin was drawn over the 
 mill until it covered the top and half the sides. The wheel 
 burned out, and the iron axle came to the ground with a 
 plunge. 
 
 The fire was conquered; the night sky grew black; the 
 night wind became voiceless. Then the busy throng had time 
 for talk. 
 
 " Where's Paul?''" asked Parson Christian. 
 
 " Ay, where is he?" said the miller. 
 
 " He's a stunner, for sure — where is he?" said the black- 
 smith. 
 
 None knew. When the flames began to fade he was missed. 
 He had gone — none knew where. 
 
 " Nine o'clock," said Parson Christian, turning his face to- 
 ward home. " Sharp work while it lasted, my lads!" 
 
 Then there was the sound of wheels, and Natt drove his trap 
 to the gate of the mill-yard. 
 
 " You've just missed it, Natt," said John Proudfootj 
 " where have you been?" 
 
 " Driving the master to the train." 
 
 Hugh Ritson was standing by. Every one glanced from him 
 to Natt. 
 
 " The train? — master? What do you mean? Who?" 
 
 " Who? Why, Master Paul," said Natt, with a curl of the 
 lip. " I reckon it could scarce be Master Hugh." 
 
 "When? What train?" said Parson Christian. 
 
 " The eight o'clock to London." 
 
 " Eight o : clock? London?" 
 
 " Don't I speak plain?" 
 
 " And has he gone?" 
 
104 A SON Ot HAGAE. 
 
 " I's warrant he's gone." 
 
 Consternation sat on every face but Natt's. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 Next day was Sunday, and after morning service a group 
 of men gathered about the church porch to discuss the events 
 of the night before. In the evening the parlor of the Flying 
 Horse was full of dalespeople, and many a sapient theory was 
 then and there put forth to account for the extraordinary co- 
 incidence of the presence of Paul Eitson at the fire and. his 
 alleged departure by the London train. 
 
 Hugh Eitson was not seen abroad that day. But early on 
 Monday morning he hastened to the stable, called on Natt to 
 saddle a horse, sprung on its back, and galloped away to- 
 ward the town. 
 
 The morning was bitterly cold, and the rider was buttoned 
 up to the throat. The air was damp; a dense veil of vapor 
 lay on the valley and hid half the fells; the winterydawn, with 
 its sunless sky, had not the strength to rend it asunder; the 
 wind had veered to the north, and was now dank and icy. A 
 snow-storm was coming. 
 
 The face of Hugh Eitson was wan and jaded. He leaned 
 heavily forward in the saddle; the biting wind was in his 
 eyes; he had a fixed look, and seemed not to see the people 
 whom he passed on the road. 
 
 Dick o' the Syke was grubbing among the fallen wreck of 
 the charred and dismantled mill. When Hugh rode past him 
 he lifted his eyes and muttered an oath beneath its breath. 
 Old Laird Fisher was trundling a wheelbarrow on the bank of 
 the smelting-house. The headgear of the pit-shaft was work- 
 ing. As Hugh passed the smithy John Proudfoot was stand- 
 ing, hammer in hand, by the side of a wheelless wagon up- 
 held by poles. John was saying, " Wonder what sec a place 
 Mister Paul slept a' Saturday neet — I reckon that wad settle 
 all;" and a voice from inside the smithy answered: " Nowt of 
 the sort, John; it's a fate, I tell tha." The peddler's pony 
 was standing by the hasp of the gate. 
 
 Never once lifting his eyes, with head bent and compressed 
 lips, Hugh Eitson rode on in the teeth of the coming storm. 
 There was another storm within that was uprooting every 
 emotion of his soul. When he came to the vicarage he drew 
 up sharply and rapped heavily on the gate. Brother Peter 
 came shambling out at the speed of six steps a minute. 
 
 " Mr. Christian at home?" asked Hugh. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 105 
 
 " Don't know as he is," said Peter. 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 " Don't know as I've heard." 
 
 " Tell him I'll call as I come back, in two hours."' 
 
 " Don't know as I'll see him." 
 
 " Then go and look for him!" shouted Hugh, impatiently, 
 bringing down the whip on the flank of the horse. 
 
 Brother Peter Ward turned about sulkily. 
 
 " Don't know as I will," he grumbled, and trudged back 
 into the house. 
 
 Then Hugh Eitson rode on. A thin sleet began to fall, and 
 it drove hard into his face. The roads were crisp, and the 
 horse sometimes stumbled; but the rider pressed on. 
 
 In less than half an hour he was riding into the town. The 
 people who were standing in groups in the market-place parter! 
 and made space for him. They hailed him with respectful 
 salutations. He responded curtly or not at all. Notwith- 
 standing his long ride, his face was still pale, and his lips were 
 bloodless. He stopped at the court-yard leading to the front of 
 the Pack Horse. Old Willie Calvert, the innkeeper, stood there, 
 and touched his cap when Hugh approached him. 
 
 "My brother Paul slept here a few nights ago, I hear?" 
 said Hugh. 
 
 " So he did," said the innkeeper. 
 
 " What night was it?" 
 
 " What night? Let me see — it were a week come Wednes- 
 day." 
 
 " Did you see him yourself?" 
 
 " Nay; I were lang abed." 
 
 " Who did— Mistress Calvert?" 
 
 " Ey, she did for sure — Janet " (calling up the court). 
 " She'll tell ye all the ins and oots. " 
 
 A comfortable-looking elderly body in a white cap and priat 
 apron came to the door. 
 
 " You saw my brother — Paul, you know — when he slept at 
 your house last Wednesday night?" 
 
 " Yes, surely," said Janet. 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " Nay, nowt. It was varra late — maybe twelve o'clock- — 
 and I was bolting up and had the cannel in my hand to get me 
 to bed, and a rap came, and when I opened the door who should 
 it be but Mister Paul. He said he wanted a bed, but he seem't 
 to be in the doldrums and noways keen for a crack, so I ax't 
 na questions, but just took him to the little green room over 
 the snug and bid bam good-night." 
 
106 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " And next morning — did you see him then?" said Hugh. 
 
 " No'but a morning when he paid for his bed, for he had 
 nowther bite nor sup in the house." 
 
 " Did he look changed? — anything different about him?" 
 
 " Nay, nowt but in low feckle someways, and maybe sun- 
 mat different dressed." 
 
 " How different? What did he wear that night?" 
 
 Pale as Hugh Eitson's face had been before, it was now 
 white as a face in moonlight. 
 
 " Maybe a pepper and salt tweed coat, but I can't rightly 
 call to mind at the minute." 
 
 Hugh's great eyes stared out of his head. His tongue 
 cleaved to his mouth, and for the moment denied him speech. 
 
 " Thank you, Mistress Calvert. Here, Willie, my man, 
 drink my health with the missis." 
 
 So saying, he tossed a silver coin to the innkeeper, wheeled 
 about, and rode off. 
 
 " I can not mak' nowther head nor tail o' this," said the 
 old man. 
 
 " Of what — the brass?" said Janet. 
 
 " Nay; but that's soond enough, for sure, auld lass." 
 
 " Then just thoo leave other f oiks' s business to theirselves, 
 and come thy ways in with thee. Thoo wert alius thrang 
 a-meddlin'." 
 
 The innkeeper had gone in-doors and drawn himself a 
 draught of ale. 
 
 " I alius like to see the ins and oots o' things," he observed 
 with a twinkle in his eye and the pot to his mouth. 
 
 " Mind as you're not ower keen at seein' the ins and oots o 
 that pewter. " 
 
 " I'll be keerful, auld lass." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's horse went clattering over the stones of the 
 streets until it came to the house of Mr. Bonnithorne. Then 
 Hugh drew up sharply, jumped from the saddle, tied the 
 reins to the loop in the gate-pier, and rang the bell. In an- 
 other minute he was standing in the breakfast-room, which 
 was made comfortable by a glowing fire. Mr. Bonnithorne, in 
 dressing-gown and slippers, rose from his easy-chair with a 
 look of surprise. 
 
 " Did you hear of the fire at the mill on Saturday night?" 
 asked Hugh in a faltering voice. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head. 
 
 " Very unlucky, very," said the lawyer. " The man will 
 want recompense, and the law will support him." 
 
A SOX Of HAGAfi. 10? 
 
 u Tut! — a bagatelle!" said Hugh, with a gesture of impa- 
 tience. 
 
 " Of course, if you say so — " 
 
 " You've heard nothing about Paul?" 
 I Mr. Bonnithorne answered with a shake of bis yellow head 
 .ind a look of inquiry. 
 
 Then Hugh told him of the man at the fire, and of Natt's 
 story when he drove up in the trap. He spoke with visible 
 embarrassment, and in a voice that could scarcely support it- 
 self. But the deep fear that had come over him had not yet 
 taken hold of the lawyer. Mr. Bonnithorne listened with a 
 bland smile of amused incredulity. Hugh stopped with a 
 shudder. 
 
 " What are you thinking?" he asked, nervously. 
 
 "That Natt lied." 
 
 " As well say that the people at the fire lied." 
 
 " No; you yourself saw Paul there." 
 
 "Bonnithorne, like all keen-eyed men, you are short- 
 sighted. I have something more to tell you. The people at 
 the Pack Horse say that Paul slept at their house last Wed- 
 nesday night. Now I know that he slept at home." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne smiled again. 
 
 "A mistake as to the night," he said; "what can be 
 plainer?" 
 
 " Don't wriggle; look the facts in the face." 
 
 " Facts? — a coincidence in evidence — a common error." 
 
 " Would to God it were!" Hugh strode about the room in 
 obvious perturbation, his eyes bent on the ground. " Bonni- 
 thorne, what is the place where the girl Mercy lives?" 
 
 " An inn at Hendon." 
 
 " Do they call it the Hawk and Heron?" 
 
 " They do. The old woman Drayton keeps it." 
 
 Hugh Bitson's step faltered. He listened with a look of 
 stupid consternation. 
 
 " Did I never tell you that the peddler, Oglethorpe, said he 
 saw Paul at the Hawk and Heron, in Hendon?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne dropped back into his seat without a word. 
 Conviction was taking hold of him. 
 
 " What do the folks say?" he asked at length. 
 
 " Say? That it was a ghost, a wraith, twenty things — the 
 idiots!" 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Bitson?" 
 
 " That it was another man." 
 
 The lawyer remained sitting, his eyes fixed and vacant. 
 
 " What then What if it »< another man? Kesemblancea 
 
108 ' L Sols' OF HAGAR. 
 
 are common. We are all brothers. For example, there are 
 numbers of persons like myself in the world. Odd, isn't it?" 
 
 " Very," said Hugh with a hard laugh. 
 
 " And what if there exists a man resembling your half- 
 brother, Paul, so closely that on three several occasions he Las 
 been mistaken fcr him by competent witnesses — what does it 
 come to? : ' 
 
 Hugh paused. 
 
 " Come to. God knows! I want to find out. Who is this 
 man? What is he? Where does he come from? What is his 
 business here? Why, of all places on this wide earth, does 
 he, of all men alive, haunt my house like a shadow?" 
 
 Hugh Ritson was still visibly perturbed. 
 
 " There's more in this matter than either of us knows," he 
 said. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne watched him for a moment in silence. 
 
 " I think you draw a painful inference — what is it?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " What?" repeated Hugh, and added absently, " who can 
 tell?" 
 
 Up and down the room he walked restlessly, his eyes bent 
 on the floor, his face drawn down into lines. At length he 
 stood and picked up the hat he had thrown on the couch. 
 
 " Bonnithorne," he said, " you and I thought we saw into 
 the heart of a mystery. Heaven pity us for blind moles! I 
 fear we saw nothing." 
 
 " Why — what — how so — when — " Mr. Bonnithorne stam- 
 mered, and then stopped short. 
 
 Hugh had walked out of the room and out of the house. 
 He leaped into the saddle and rode away. 
 
 The wind had risen yet higher; it blew an icy blast from 
 behind him as he cantered home. Through the hazy atmos- 
 phere a cloud of dun, vaporish red could be seen trailing over 
 the dim fells. It poised above the ball crown of the Eel Crags 
 like a huge supernatural bird with outstretched wings. 
 
 Hugh held the reins with half-frozen hands. He barely felt 
 the biting cold. His soul was in a tumult, and he was driven 
 on by fears that were all but insupportable. For months a 
 thick veil had overspread his conscience, and now in an in- 
 stant, and by an accident, it was being rent asunder. He had 
 1 ailed his soul to sleep. But no opiate of sophistry could keep 
 the soul from waking. His soul was waking now. He began 
 to suspect that he had been acting like a scoundrel. 
 
 At the vicarage he stopped, dismounted, and entered. 
 Standing in the hall, he overheard voices in the kitchen. They 
 
A SON OF HAGAfi. 109 
 
 were those of Brother Peter and little Jacob Berry, the tailor, 
 who had been hired to sew by the day, and was seated on the 
 dresser. 
 
 "I've heard of sucb sights afore," the little tailor was 
 saying. " When auld Mother Langdale's son was killed at 
 wrustlin' down Borrowdale way, and Mother Langdale was 
 abed with rheumatis, she saw him come to. the bed-head a- 
 dripping wet with blood, as plain as plain could be, and in less 
 nor an hour after they brought him home to the auld body on 
 a shutter — they did, for sure. 5 ' 
 
 " Shaf on sec stories! I don't know as some folks aren't as 
 daft as Mother Langdale hersel' !" Peter muttered in reply. 
 
 Hugh Eitson beat the door heavily with his riding-whip. 
 
 " Parson Christian at home now?" he asked, when Peter 
 opened it. 
 
 " Been and gone," said Peter. 
 
 " Did you tell him I meant to come back?" 
 
 "Don't know as I did." _ 
 
 Hugh's whip came down impatiently on his leggins. 
 
 " Do you know anything f" he asked. " Do you know 
 that you are now talking to a gentleman?" 
 
 " Don't know as I do," mumbled Peter, backing in again. 
 
 " If Miss Greta is at home tell her I should be glad to speak 
 vlth her — do you hear?" Peter disappeared. 
 
 Hugh was left alone in the hall. He waited some minutes, 
 t linking that Peter was carrying his message. Presently he 
 overheard that worthy reopening the discussion on Mother 
 Langdale's sanity with little Jacob in the kitchen. The deep 
 damnation he desired just then for Brother Peter was about to 
 be indicated by another lusty rap on the kitchen door, when 
 the door of the parlor opened, and Greta herself stood on the 
 threshold with a smile and an outstretched hand. 
 
 " I thought it wasyour voice," she said, and led the way in. 
 
 " Your cordial welcome heaps coals of fire on my head, 
 Greta. I can not forget in what spirit we last talked and 
 parted." 
 
 " Let us think no more about it," said Greta, and she drew 
 a chair for him to the fire. 
 
 He remained standing, and as if benumbed by strong feel- 
 ing. 
 
 " I have come to speak of it — to ask pardon for it — I was 
 in the wrong," he said, falteringly. 
 
 She did not respond, but sat down with drooping eyes. He 
 paused, and there was an ominous silence. 
 
 " You don't know what I suffered or what I suffer still 
 
110 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 You are very happy. I am a miserable man. Greta, do you 
 know what it is to love without being loved? How can you 
 know? It is torture beyond the gift of words — misery beyond 
 the relief of tears. It is not jealousy; that is no more than a 
 vulgar kind of envy. It is a nameless, measureless torment." 
 
 He paused again. She did not speak. His voice grew 
 tremulous. 
 
 " I'm not one of the fools who think that the souls that are 
 created for each other must needs come together — that destiny 
 draws them from the uttermost parts of the earth — that, trifle 
 as they will with their best hopes, fate is stronger than they 
 are, and true to the pole-star of ultimate happiness. I know 
 the world too well to believe nonsense like that. I know that 
 every day, every hour, men and women are casting themselves 
 away — men on the wrong women, women on the wrong men 
 — and that all this is a tangle that will never, never be un- 
 done." 
 
 He stepped up to where she sat and dropped his voice to a 
 whisper. 
 
 " Greta — permit me to say it — I loved you dearly. Would 
 to Heaven I had not! My love was not of yesterday. It was 
 you and I, I and you. That was the only true marriage possi- 
 ble to either of us from world's end to world's end. But Paul 
 came between us; and when I saw you give yourself to the 
 wrong man — " 
 
 Greta had risen to her feet. 
 
 " You say you come to ask pardon for what you said, but 
 you really come to repeat it." So saying, she made a show of 
 leaving the room. 
 
 Hugh stood awhile in silence. Then he threw off his falter- 
 ing tone and drew himself up. 
 
 " I have come," he said, " to warn you before it is too late. 
 I have come to say, while it is yet time, ' Never marry my 
 brother, for as sure as God is above us, you will repent it with 
 unquenchable tears if you do!" 
 
 Greta's eyes flashed with an expression of disdain. 
 
 " No," she said; " you have come to threaten me — a sure 
 sign that you yourself have some secret cause for fear." 
 
 It was a home-thrust, and Hugh was hit. 
 
 " Greta, I repeat it, you are marrying the wrong man." 
 
 " What right have you to say so?" 
 
 " The right of one who could part you forever with a 
 word." 
 
 Greta was sore perplexed. Like a true woman, she would 
 
A SON OP HAGAB. Ill 
 
 have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mys- 
 tery. But her indignation got the better of her curiosity. 
 
 " It is false!" she said. 
 
 " It is true!" he answered. " I could speak the word that 
 would part you wider than the poles asunder." 
 
 " Then I challenge you to speak it!" she exclaimed. 
 
 They faced each other, pale and with quivering lips. 
 
 " It is not my purpose. I have warned you/' he said. 
 
 " You do not believe your own warning," she answered. 
 
 He winced, but said not a word. 
 
 " You have come to me with an idle threat, and fear is writ- 
 ten on your own face." 
 
 He drew his breath sharply, and did not reply. 
 
 " Whatever it is, you do not believe it." 
 
 He was making for the door. He came back a step. 
 
 " Shall I speak the word?" he said. " Can you bear it?" 
 
 " Leave me," she said, " and carry your falsehood with 
 you!" 
 
 He was gone in an instant. Then her anger cooled directly, 
 and her woman's curiosity came back with a hundred-fold re- 
 bound. 
 
 " Gracious Heaven! what did he mean?" she thought, and 
 the hot flush mounted to her eyes. She had half a mind to 
 call him back. " Could it be true?" The tears were now 
 rolling down her cheeks. " He has a secret power over Paul 
 — what is it?" She ran to the door. "Hugh! Hugh!" He 
 was gone. The galloping feet of his horse were heard faint in 
 the distance. She went back into the house and sat down, 
 and wept galling tears of pride and vexation. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 At midday Parson Christian came home from the fields to 
 dinner. 
 
 " I've been away leading turf," he said, "from Cole Moss, 
 for Eobin Atkinson, to pay him for loaning me his gray mare 
 on Saturday when 1 fetched my grain to the mill. Happen most 
 of it is burned up, though— but that's no fault of Eobin's. 
 So now we neither owe t'other anything, and we're straight 
 from the beginning of the world." 
 
 Greta was bustling about, with the very efficient hinderance 
 of Brother Peter's assistance, to get the dinner on the table. 
 She smiled, and sometimes tossed her fair head mighty jaunt- 
 ily, and laughed out loud wiLh a touch of rattling gayety. But 
 
112 A SON OF HAGAR, 
 
 there were rims of red around her bleared eyes, and her voice, 
 beneath all its noisy merriment, had a tearful lilt. 
 
 The parson observed this, but said nothing about it. 
 
 " Coming round by Harras End I met John Lowthwaite," 
 he said, " and John would have me go into his house and re- 
 turn thanks for his wife's recovery from cbildbed. So I went 
 in, and warmed me, and drank a pot of ale with them, and 
 assisted the wife and family to return praise to God." 
 
 Dinner was laid, little Jacob Berry came in from the 
 kitchen, and all sat down together — Parson Christian and 
 Greta, Brother Peter, and the tailor hired to sew. 
 
 "Dear me! I'm Jack-of-all-trades, Greta, my lass," said 
 the parson after grace. ' ' Old Jonathan Truesdale came run- 
 ning after me at the bridge, to say that Mistress Truesdale 
 wanted me to go and taste the medicine that the doctor sent 
 her from Keswick, and see if it hadn't opium in it, because it 
 made her sleep. I sent word that I had business to take me 
 the other way, but would send Miss Greta if she would gD. 
 Jonathan said his missus would be very thankful, for she was. 
 lonesome at whiles." 
 
 " I'll go, and welcome," said Greta. The rims about her 
 eyes were growing deeper: the parson chattered on, to banish 
 the tempest of tears that he saw was coming. 
 
 " Well, Peter, and how did the brethren at the meeting- 
 house like the discourse yesterday afternoon?" 
 
 " Don't know as they thought you were varra soond on the 
 point of 'lection," muttered Peter from the inside of his bowl 
 of soup. 
 
 " Well, you're right homely folk down there, and I'd have 
 no fault to find if you were not a little too disputatious. What's 
 the use of wrangling over doctrine? Eight or wrong, it will 
 matter very little to any of us in a hundred years. We're on 
 our way to heaven, and, please God, there'll be no doctrine 
 there." 
 
 Greta could not eat. She had no appetite for food. An- 
 other appetite — the appetite of curiosity — was eating at her 
 heart. She laid down her knife. The parson could hide his 
 concern no longer. 
 
 " Dear me, my lass, you and that braw lad of yours are like 
 David and Jonathan, and " (with a stern wag of his white 
 head) " I'm not so sure that I won't turn myself into Saul, 
 and fling my javelin at him for envy." 
 
 The parson certainly did not look too revengeful at that 
 moment, with the mist gathering in his eyes. 
 
 " Talking of Saul," said little Jacob, " there's that story of 
 
A SON- OF HAGAR. 113 
 
 the witch of Endor, and Saul seein' Sam'el when he was dead. 
 I reckon as that's no'but another version of what happened at 
 the fire a' Saturday neet." 
 
 Parson Christian glanced furtively at Greta's drooping head, 
 and then, meeting the tailor's eye, he put his finger to his lips. 
 When dinner was over the parson lifted from the shelf the 
 huge tome, " made to view his life and actions in." He drew 
 his chair to the fire and began to turn over the earliest leaves. 
 Greta had thrown on her cloak, and was fixing her hat. 
 
 " I'm going to see poor Mrs. Truesdale," she said. Then, 
 coming behind the old man, and glancing over his shoulder at 
 the book on his knees, "What are you looking for?" she 
 asked, and smiled; " a prescription for envy?" 
 
 The parson shook his old head gravely. " You must know 
 I met young Mr. Eitson this morning?" 
 "Hugh?" 
 
 " Yes; he was riding home from his iron pits, but stopped 
 and asked me if I could tell him when his father, who is dead 
 and gone, poor fellow, came first to these parts, and how old 
 his brother Paul might be at that time." 
 " Why did he ask?" said Greta, eagerly. 
 " Nay, I scarce can say. I told, him I could not tell with- 
 out looking at my book. Let me see; it must be a matter of 
 seven-and-twenty years ago. How old is your sweetheart, 
 Greta?" 
 " Paul is twenty-eight." 
 
 " And this is the year seventy-five. Twenty-eight from sev- 
 enty-five — that's forty-seven. Paul was a wee toddle, I re- 
 member. I'll look for forty-seven. Eighteen forty-four,, 
 forty-five, forty-six — here it is — forty-seven. And, bless me,, 
 the very page! Look, here we have it." 
 Then the parson read this entry in his diary: 
 " ' Nov. 18th. — Being promised to preach at John Sker- 
 ton's church, at Eavenglass, I got ready to go thither. I took 
 my mare and set forward and went direct to Thomas Stors- 
 acre's, where I was to lodge. It rained sore all the day, and I 
 was wet, and took off my coat and let it run an hour. Then 
 we supped and sat discoursing by the fire till near ten o'clock 
 of one thing and another, and, among the rest, of one Allan 
 Eitson, who had newly settled at Eavenglass. Thomas said 
 Allan was fresh from Scotland, being Scottish born, and that 
 his wife was Irish, and that they had a child, called Paul, only 
 a few months old and not yet walking. ' 
 
 " The very thing! Wait, here's something more: 
 
 " i Nov 19th (Lord's Day). — Went to church, and many 
 
114 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 people came to worship. Parson Skerton read the prayers 
 and Thomas Storsacre the lessons. I prayed, and preached 
 from Matt. vii. 23, 24; then ceased, and dismissed the people. 
 After service, Thomas brought his new neighbor, Allan Eit- 
 son, who asked me to visit him that day and dine. £0 I went 
 with him, and saw his wife and child — an infant in arms, Mrs. 
 ■iitson is a woman of some education and much piety. Her 
 husband is a rough, blunt dalesman of the good old type. ' 
 
 " The very thing,'' the parson repeated; and he put a pipe 
 spill in the page. 
 
 " I wonder why he wants it?" said Greta. 
 
 She left Parson Christian still looking at his book, and went 
 out on her errand. 
 
 She was more than an hour gone, and when she returned, 
 the winter's day had all but closed in. Only a little yellow 
 light still lingered in the sky. 
 
 " Greta, they have sent for you from the Ghyll," said the 
 parson as she entered. " Mrs. Eitson wants to see you to- 
 night. Natt, the stableman, came with the trap. But he 
 has gone again." 
 
 " I will follow him at once," said Greta. 
 
 " Nay, my lass, the day is not young enough," said the 
 parson. 
 
 " I was never afraid of the dark," said Greta. 
 
 She took down a lantern and lighted it, drew her cloak more 
 closely about her, and prepared to go. 
 
 " Then take this paper to young Mr. Hugh. It's a copy 
 of what is written in my book." 
 
 Greta hesitated. But she could not tell Parson Christian 
 what had passed between Hugh and herself. She took the 
 paper and hastened away. 
 
 The parson sat for awhile before the fire. Then he rose, 
 walked to the door, and opened it. ' ' Heaven bless the girl, 
 it's snowing! What a night for the child to be abroad!" He 
 returned in disturbed humor to the fireside. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIIL 
 
 When Greta set out, the atmosphere was yellow and vapor- 
 ish. The sky grew rapidly darker. As she reached the vil- 
 lage, thin flakes of snow began to fall. She could feel them 
 driven by the wind against her face, and when she came by 
 the inn she could see them in the dull yellow light. 
 
 The laborers were leaving tne fields, and, with their break- 
 fast cans swung on their fork handles, they were drifting ir 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR, 115 
 
 twos and threes into the Flying Horse. It looked warm and 
 snug within. 
 
 She passed the little cluster of old houses, and scarcely saw 
 them in the deepening night. As she went by the mill she 
 could just descry its ruined roof standing out like a dark pyr- 
 amid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now 
 lviug thick on her cloak in front, and on the windward face of 
 the lantern in her hand. 
 
 The road was heavier than before, and she had still fully a 
 quarter of a mile to go. She hastened on. Passing the little 
 church — Parson Christian's church — she met Job Sheepshanks, 
 the letter-cutter, coming out of the shed in the church-yard. 
 " Bad night for a young lady to be from home, begging your 
 pardon, miss/' said Job, and went on toward the village, his 
 bunch of chisels clanking over his shoulder. 
 
 The wind soughed in the leafless trees that grew around the 
 old roofless barn at the corner of the road that led to the fells. 
 The gurgle of a half -frozen water-fall came from the distant 
 Ghyll. Save for these sounds and the dull thud of Greta's 
 step on the snow-covered road, all around was still. 
 
 How fast the snow fell now! Yet Greta heeded it not at 
 all. Her mind was busy with many thoughts. She was think- 
 ing of Paul as Parson Christian's great book had pictured him 
 — Paul as a child, a little darling babe, not yet able to walk. 
 Could it be possible that Paul, her Paul, had once been that? 
 Of course, to think like this was foolishness. Every one must 
 have been young at some time. Only it seemed so strange. 
 It was a sort of mystery. 
 
 Then she thought of Paul the man — Paul as he had been, 
 
 §ay and heartsome; Paul as he was, harassed by many cares, 
 be thought of her love for him — of his love for her — of how 
 they were soon, very soon, to join hands and face the un- 
 known future in an unknown land. She had promised. Yes, 
 and she would go. 
 
 She thought of Paul in London, and how soon he would be 
 back in Newlands. This was Monday, and Paul had promised 
 to come home on Wednesday. Only two days more! Yet 
 how long it would be, after all ! 
 
 Greta had reached the lonnin that went up to the Ghyll. 
 She would soon be there. How thick the trees were in the 
 lane! They shut out the last glimmer of light from the sky. 
 The lantern burned yellow amidst the snow that lay on it like 
 a crust. 
 
 Then Greta thought of Mrs. Ritson. It was strange that 
 Paul's mother had sent for her. They were friends, but there 
 
116 A SOlf OP HAGAB. 
 
 had never been much intimacy between them. Mrs. Ritson 
 was a grave and earnest woman, a saintly soul, and Greta's 
 lightsome spirit had always felt rebuked in her presence. Paul 
 loved his mother, and she herself must needs love as well as 
 reverence the mother of Paul. It was Paul first and Paul 
 last. Paul was the center of her world. She was a woman, 
 and love was her whole existence. 
 
 Here in the lonnin she was in 'pitch darkness. She stum- 
 bled once into the dike; then laughed and went on again. At 
 one moment she thought she heard a noise not far away. She 
 stood and listened: No, it was nothing. Only a hundred 
 yards more! Bravely! 
 
 Then by a swift rebound — she knew not why — her mind 
 went back to the events of the morning. She thought of 
 Hugh Eitson and his mysterious threat. What did he mean? 
 What harm could he do them? Oh! that she had been calmer, 
 and asked. Her heart fluttered. It flashed upon her that 
 perhaps it was he and not his mother who had sent for her to- 
 night. Her pulse quickened. 
 
 At that instant the curlew shot over her head with its deep, 
 mournful cry. At the same moment she heard a step ap- 
 proaching her. It came on quickly. She stopped. " Who 
 is it?" she asked. 
 
 There was no answer. The sound of the footstep ceased. 
 
 " Who are you?" she called again. 
 
 Then with heavy thuds in the darkness and on the snow, 
 some one approached. She trembled from head to foot, but 
 advanced a step and stopped again. The footstep was passing 
 her. She brought the light of the lantern full on the retreat- 
 ing figure. 
 
 It was the figure of a man. Going by hastily, he turned 
 his head over his shoulder and she saw his face. It was the 
 face of Paul, colorless, agitated, with flashing eyes. 
 
 Every drop of Greta's blood stood still. 
 
 " Paul!" she cried, thrilled and immovable. 
 
 There was an instant of unconsciousness. The earth reeled 
 beneath her. When she came to herself she was standing 
 alone in the lane, the lantern half buried in the snow at her 
 feet. 
 
 Had it been all a dream? 
 
 She was but twenty 3-ards from the house. The door of the 
 porch stood open. Chilled with fear to the heart's core, she 
 rushed in. No one in the hall. Not a sound, but the faint 
 mutter of voices in the kitchen, 
 
 She raD through the nassage, and threw open the kitcher 
 
Every drop of Greta's blood stood still.— Page 116. 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 117 
 
 door. The farm laborers were at supper, chatting, laughing, 
 eating, smoking. 
 
 " Didn't you hear somebody in the house?" she cried. 
 
 The men got up and turned about. There was dead silence 
 m. a moment. 
 
 " When?" 
 
 "Now."' 
 
 " No. What body?" 
 
 She flew off without waiting to explain. The kitchen was 
 too far away. Hugh Eitson's room opened from the first 
 landing of the stairs. The stairs went up almost from the 
 porch. Darting up, she threw open the door of Hugh's room. 
 Hugh was sitting at the table, examining papers by a lamp. 
 
 " Have you seen Paul?" she cried, in an agonized whisper, 
 and with a panic-stricken look. 
 
 Hugh dropped the papers, and rose stiffly to his feet. 
 
 " Great God! where?" 
 
 " Here — this moment!" 
 
 Their eyes met. He did not answer. He was very pale. 
 Had she dreamed? She looked down at the snow-crusted 
 lantern in her hand. It must have been all a dream. 
 
 She stepped back on to the landing, and stood in silence. 
 The serving-people had come out of the kitchen, and, huddled 
 together, they looked at her in amazement. Then a low moan 
 reached her ear. She ran to Mrs. Eitson's room. The door 
 to it stood wide open; a fire burned in the grate, a candle on 
 the table. 
 
 Outstretched on the floor lay the mother of Paul, cold, still, 
 and insensible. 
 
 When Mrs. Eitson regained consciousness she looked about 
 with the empty gaze of one who is bending bewildered eyes on 
 vacancy. Greta was kneeling beside her, and she helped to 
 lift her into the bed. Mrs. Eitson did not speak, but she 
 grasped Greta's hand with a nervous twitch, when the girl 
 whispered something in her ear. Prom time to time she 
 trembled visibly, and glanced with a startled look toward the 
 door. But not a word did she utter. 
 
 Thus hour after hour wore on, and the night was growing 
 apace. A painful silence brooded over the house. Only in 
 the kitchen was any voice raised above a whisper. There the 
 servants quaked and clucked — every tongue among them let 
 loose in conjecture and the accents of surprise. 
 
 Hugh Eitson passed again and again from his own room to 
 his mother's. He looked down from time to time at th? 
 
118 A 80K OF HAGAR, 
 
 weary, '/»le, and quiet face. But he said little. Mb put nc 
 questions. 
 
 Greta sat beside the bed, only less weary, only less pale and 
 quiet, only less disturbed by horrible imaginings than the suf- 
 ferer who lay upon it. Toward midnight Hugh came to say 
 that Peter had been sent for her from the vicarage. Greta 
 rose, put on her cloak and hat, kissed the silent lips, and fol- 
 lowed Hugh out of the room. 
 
 As they passed down the stairs, Greta stopped at the door of 
 Hugh Kitson's room, and beckoned him to enter it with her. 
 They went in together, and she closed the door. 
 
 " Now tell me," she said, " what this means." 
 
 Hugh's face was very pale. His eyes had a wandering look, 
 and when he spwke Ms voice was muffled. But by an effort 
 of his unquenchable energy he shook off this show of concern. 
 
 " It means," he said, " that you have been the victim of a 
 delusion." 
 
 Greta's pale face flushed. " And your mother — has she 
 also been the victim of a delusion?" 
 
 Hugh shrugged his shoulders, showed his teeth slightly, but 
 made no reply. 
 
 " Answer me — tell me the truth — be frank for once — tell 
 me, can you explain this mystery?" 
 
 " If I could explain it, how would it be a mystery?" 
 
 Greta felt the blood tingle to her finger-tips. 
 
 <! Do you believe I have told you the truth?" she asked. 
 
 " I am sure you have." 
 
 " Do you believe I saw Paul in the lane?" 
 
 " I am sure you think you saw him." 
 
 " Do you know for certain that he went away?" 
 
 Hugh nodded his head. 
 
 " Are you sure he has not got back?' ; 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " In short, you think what I saw was merely the result ol 
 woman's hysteria?" 
 
 Hugh smiled through his white lips, and his staring eyes 
 assumed a momentary look of amused composure. He 
 stepped to the table and fumbled some papers. 
 
 This reminded Greta of the paper the parson had asked her 
 to deliver. " I ought to have given you this before," she 
 said. " Mr. Christian sent it. " 
 
 He took it without much apparent interest, put it on the 
 table unread, and went to the door with Greta. 
 
 The trap was standing in the court-yard, with Natt in thf 
 Inrer's seat and Brother Pater in the seat behind. The snow 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 119 
 
 had ceased to fall, but it lay several inches deep on the ground. 
 There was the snow's dumb silence on the earth and in the air. 
 
 Hugh helped Greta to her place, and then lilted the lamp 
 from the trap, and looked on the ground a few yards ahead of 
 the horse. " There are no foot-prints in the snow," he said, 
 with a poor pretense at a smile— >" none, at least, that go 
 from the house." 
 
 Greta herself had begun to doubt. She lacked presence of 
 mind to ask if there were any foot-prints at all except Peter's. 
 The thing was done and gone. It all happened three hours 
 ago, and it was easy to suspect the evident of the senses. 
 
 Hugh returned the lamp to its loop. " Did you scream," 
 he asked, " when you saw — when you saw — it?" 
 
 Greta was beginning to feel ashamed. " I might have 
 done. I can not positively say — " 
 
 " Ah, that explains everything. No doubt mother heard 
 you and was frightened. I see it all now. Natt, drive on — 
 cold journey — good-night." 
 
 Greta felt her face burn in the darkness. Before she had 
 time or impulse to reply, they were rolling away toward home. 
 
 At intervals her ear caught the sound of suppressed titters 
 from the driver's seat. Natt was chuckling to himself with 
 great apparent satisfaction. Since the fire at the mill he had 
 been putting two and two together, and he was now perfectly 
 confident as to the accuracy of his computation. When folks 
 said that Paul had been at the fire he laughed derisively, be- 
 cause he knew that an hour before he had left him at the 
 station. But an idea works in a brain like Natt's pretty much 
 as the hop ferments. When it goes to the bottom it leaves 
 froth and bubbles at the top. Natt knew that there was some 
 grave quarrel between the brothers. He also knew that there 
 were two ways to the station and two ways back to Newlands 
 — one through the town, the other under Latrigg. Mr. Paul 
 might have his own reasons for pretending to go to London, 
 and also his own reasons for not going. Natt had left him 
 stepping into the station at the town entrance. But what was 
 to prevent him from going out again at the entrance from 
 Latrigg? Of course that was what he had done. And he had 
 never been out of the county. Deary me, how blind folks 
 were, to be sure! Thus Natt's wise head chuckled and clucked. 
 
 At one moment Natt twisted this sapient and facetious nod- 
 dle over his shoulder to where Brother Peter sat huddled into 
 a hump and in gloomy silence. " Mercy me, Peter!" he cried 
 in an affrighted whisper and with a mighty tragical start 
 " and is that thee? Dusta know I thowt it were thy ghost!" 
 
120 A SOU OF HAGAft. 
 
 " Don't know as it's not — dragging a body frae bed a cold 
 neet like this/' mumbled Peter, numbed up tc his tongue, 
 but still warm enough there. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Hugh Eitson was content that Greta should think she had 
 been the victim of a delusion. He was not unwilling that she 
 should be tortured by suggestions of the supernatural. If she 
 concluded that Paul had deceived her as to his departure from 
 Newlands, he would not be unlikely to foster the delusion. 
 The one thiDg of all others which Hugh Eitson was anxious to 
 prevent was that Greta should be led to draw the purely mat- 
 ter-of-fact inference that when she thought she saw Paul she 
 had really seen another man. 
 
 But that was his own conviction. He was now sure beyond 
 the hope of doubt that there was a man alive who resembled 
 Paul Eitson so closely that he had thrice before, and now once 
 again, been mistaken for him by unsuspecting persons. That 
 other man was to be the living power in his own life, in his 
 brother's life, in his mother's life, in Greta's life. Who was 
 he? 
 
 Left alone in the court-yard when the trap drove away, 
 Hugh Eitson shuddered and looked round. He had laughed 
 with the easy grace of a man no longer puzzled as he bid Greta 
 good-night, but suspense was gnawing at his heart. He re- 
 turned hastily to his room, sat down at the table, picked up 
 the paper which Parson Christian had sent him, and read it 
 with eager eyes. 
 
 He read it and reread it; he seemed to devour it line by 
 line, word by word. When he would have set it down his 
 fingers so trembled that he let it fall, and he rose from his 
 chair with rigid limbs. 
 
 What he had dreaded he now knew for certainty. He had 
 stumbled into an empty grave. He opened a drawer and took 
 out three copies of certificates that Mr. Bonnithorne had 
 brought him. Selecting the earliest of these in order of date, 
 he set it side by side with the copy of the extract from Parson 
 Christian's dary. 
 
 By the one — Paul, the son of Grace Ormerod by her hus ■ 
 band Eobert Lowther, was born August 14, 1845. 
 
 By the other — Paul, the reputed son of Grace Ormerod bj 
 her husband, Allan Eitson, was an infant still in arms on No 
 vember 19, 1847. 
 
 Paul Eitson could not be Paul Lowther. 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 121 
 
 Paul Eitson could not be the half-brother of Greta Lowther. 
 
 Hugh Eitson fell back as one who had been dealt a blow. 
 For months he had been idly hatching an addled villainy. 
 The revenge that he had promised himself for spumed and 
 outraged love — the revenge that he had named retribution — 
 was but an impotent mockery! 
 
 For an hour he strode up and down the room with Hushed 
 face and limbs that shook beneath him- Natt came home 
 from the vicarage, put in his horse, and turned into the 
 kitchen — now long deserted for the night. He heard the rest- 
 less footstep backward and forward, and began to wonder if 
 anything further had gone wrong. At last he ventured up- 
 stairs, opened noiselessly the door, and found his master with 
 a face aflame and a look of frenzy. But the curious young 
 rascal with the sleepy eyes had not time to proffer his disin- 
 terested services before he was hunted out with an oath. He 
 returned to the kitchen with a settled conviction that some- 
 where in that mysterious chamber his master kept a capacious 
 cupboard for strong drink. 
 
 Like master, like man: Natt brewed himself an ample pint 
 of hot ale, pulled off his great boots, and drew up to warm 
 himself before the remains of a huge fire. 
 
 Hugh Eitson' s bedroom opened off his sitting-room. He 
 went to bed; he tried to sleep, but no sleep came near him; he 
 tossed about for an hour, rose, walked the room again, then 
 went to bed once more. 
 
 He was feeling the first pangs of honest remorse. A worse 
 man would have accommodated himself more speedily to the 
 altered conditions when he found that he had pursued a phan- 
 tasm. To do this erring man justice, he writhed under it. A 
 better man would have fled from it. If at the outset, if when 
 the first step in the descent had been taken, he had seen clearly 
 that villainy lay that way, he would not have gone further. 
 But now he had gone too far. To go on were as easy as to go 
 back; and go on he must. 
 
 While he honestly believed that Greta was half-sister to the 
 man known to the world as Paul Eitson and his brother, he 
 could have stood aside and witnessed without flinching the 
 ceremony that was to hold them forever together and apart. 
 Then withoui remorse he could have come down and separated 
 them, and seen that woman die of heart's hunger who had 
 starved to death the great love he bore her. There would 
 have been a stem retribution in that, and the voice of nature 
 would have whispered him that he did well. 
 
 But when it was no longer possible to believe that Greta 
 
132 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 and Paul were anything to each other, the power Ox sophistry 
 collapsed, and retribution sunk to revenge. 
 
 He might go on, hut there could be no self-deception. Tha 
 
 blind earthworms of malice might delude themselves if they 
 
 liked, but he could see, and he must face the truth. If ever 
 
 he did what he had proposed to do, then he was a scoundrel, 
 
 'and a conscious scoundrel! 
 
 Hugh Eitson leaped out cf his bed. The perspiration rolled 
 in big beads from his forehead. His tongue grew thick and 
 stiff in his mouth. The great veins in his neck swelled. 
 
 Without knowing whither he went, he walked out of his 
 own into his mother's room. A candle still burned on the 
 table. The fire had smoldered out. A servant-maid sat by 
 the bedside with head aslant, sleeping the innocent sleep. He 
 approached the bed. His mother was breathing softly. She 
 had fallen into a doze; the pale face was very quiet; the weary 
 look of the worn cheeks was smoothed out; the absent eyes 
 were lightly closed. Closed too on the rough world was the 
 poor soul that was vexed by it. 
 
 Hugh Eitson was touched. Somewhere deep down in that 
 frozen nature the angel of love troubled the still waters. 
 
 Bending his head, he would have touched the cold forehead 
 with his feverish lips. But he drew back. No, no, no! 
 Tenderness was not for him. The good God gave it to some 
 as manna from heav c z. But here and there a man, stretched 
 on the rack oi life, had not the drop of water that would cool 
 his tongue. 
 
 With stealthy steps, as of one who had violated the chamber 
 of chastity, Hugh Eitson crept back to his own room. He took 
 brandy from a cupboard and drank a glass of it. Then 
 he lay down and composed himself afresh to sleep. Thoughts 
 of Greta came back to him. Even his love for her was with- 
 out tenderness. It was a fiery passion. But it made him 
 weep, nevertheless. Galling tears — hot, bitter, smarting tears, 
 rolled from his eyes. And down in that deep and hidden well 
 lof feeling, where he, too, was a man like other men, Hugh 
 Eitson's strong heart bled. He would have thought that love 
 like his must have subdued the whole world to its will; that 
 when a woman could reject it the very stones must cry out. 
 Pshaw! 
 
 Would sleep never come? He leaped up, and laughed 
 mockingly, drank another glass of brandy, and laughed again. 
 His door was open, and the hollow voice echoed through the 
 house. 
 
 He put on a dressing-gown, took his lamp in his hand, and 
 
A SON OP HA9AB. 128 
 
 walked down-stairs and into the hall. The wind had risen. It 
 moaned around the house, then licked it with hissing tougues. 
 Hugh Eitson walked to the ingle, where no fire burned. 
 There he stood, scarcely knowing why. The lamp in his hand 
 cast its reflection into the mirror on the wall. Behind it was 
 a flushed face, haggard, with hollow eyes and parted lips. 
 
 The sight recalled another scene. He stepped into the little 
 room at the back. It was in that room his father died. Now 
 it was empty: a bare mattress, a chair, a table — no more. 
 
 Hugh Eitson lifted the lamp above his head and looked 
 down. He was enacting the whole terrible tragedy afresh. 
 He crept noiselessly to the door, opened it slightly, and 
 looked cautiously out. Then, leaving it ajar, he stood behind 
 it with bent head, and inclining ear. His face wore a ghastly 
 smile. 
 
 The wind soughed and wept without. 
 
 Hugh Eitson threw the door open and stepped back into the 
 hall. There he stood some minutes with eyes riveted on one 
 spot. Then he hurried away to his room. As he went up the 
 stairs he laughed again. 
 
 Back at his bedside, he poured himself another glass of 
 brandy, and once more lay down to sleep. He certainly slept 
 this time, and his sleep was deep. 
 
 Natt's dreamy ear heard a voice in the hall. He had drunk 
 his hot ale, and from the same potent cause as his master, he 
 also had slept, but with somewhat less struggle. Awakened 
 in his chair by the unaccustomed sound, he stole on tiptoe to 
 the kitchen door. He was in time to see from behind the 
 figure of a man ascending the stairs carrying a lamp before 
 him. Natt's eyes were a shade hazy at the moment, but he 
 was cock-sure of what he saw. Of course it was Mister Paul, 
 sneaking off to bed after more " straitforrard " folk had got 
 into their nightcaps and their second sleep. That was where 
 Natt soon put himself. 
 
 When all was still in that troubled house, the moon's white 
 face peered through a rack of flying cloud and looked in at the 
 dark windows. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Next morning, Tuesday morning, Hugh Eitson found this 
 letter on his table: 
 
 " Dearest, — I do not know what is happening to me, but 
 my eyes get worse and worse. To-day and yesterday I have 
 
124 A SON OF HA&AE. 
 
 not opened them. Oh, dear, I think I am losing my sight, 
 and I have had such a fearful fright. The day after I wrote to 
 you, Mrs. Drayton's son came home, and I saw him. Oh, I 
 thought it was your brother Paul, and his name is Paul, too, 
 but I think now it must be my eyes — they were very bad, and 
 perhaps I did not see plain. He asked me questions, and 
 went away the next morning. Do not be long writing, I am 
 oh so very lonely. When are you coming to me? Write soon. 
 Your loving Mercy." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had risen in a calmer mood. He was prepared 
 for a disclosure like this. Last night he had been overwhelmed 
 by the discovery that Paul Eitson was not the son of Eobert 
 Lowther. With the coming of daylight a sterner spirit of in- 
 quiry came upon him. The question that now agitated him 
 was the identity of the man who had been mistaken for Paul. 
 
 After Mercy's letter, the mystery was in a measure dispelled. 
 There could hardly be the shadow of a doubt that the man 
 who had slept at the Pack Horse — the man who had been seen 
 by many persons at the fire — the man whom Greta had en- 
 countered in the lane — -was one and the same with the man 
 whom Mercy knew for Paul Drayton, the innkeeper at Hen- 
 don. 
 
 But so much light on one small epot only made the sur- 
 rounding gloom more dark. Far more important than any 
 question of who this man was by repute was the other question 
 of why he was there. Wherefore had he come? Why did he 
 not come openly? What hidden reason had he for moving 
 like a shadow where he knew no one and was known of none? 
 
 Hugh thought again of the circumstance of his mother's 
 strange seizure. Last night he had formulated his theory re- 
 specting it. And it was simple enough. The second man, 
 whoever he was, had, for whatever reason, come to the house, 
 and failing to attract attention in the hall, had wandered aim 
 lessly upstairs to the first room in which he heard a noise. 
 That room happened to be his mother's, and when the stranger 
 with the fatal resemblance to her absent son presented him- 
 self before her in that strange way, at that strange hour, in 
 that strange place, the fear had leaped to her heart that it was 
 his wraith warning her of his death, and she had fainted and 
 fallen. 
 
 The theory had its serious loop-holes for incredulity, but 
 Hugh Eitson minded them not at all. Another and a gravei 
 issue tortured him. 
 
 But this morning, by the light of Mercy's letter, his view 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 125 
 
 was clearer. If the man who resembled Paul had come se- 
 cretly to Newlands, he must have had his reasons for not de- 
 claring himself. If he had wandered when none was near 
 into Mrs. Eitson's room, it must have been because he had a 
 purpose there. And his mother's seizure might not have been 
 due to purely superstitious fears, or her silence to shattered 
 nerves. 
 
 There was one thing to do, and that was to get at the heart 
 of this mystery. Whoever he was, this second man was to be 
 the living influence in all their lives. 
 
 Thus far, one thing only was plain — that Paul Ritson was 
 not the half-brother of Greta. 
 
 Hugh determined to travel south forthwith. If the other 
 man was still beating about "Newlands, so much the better. 
 Hugh would be able to see the old woman, his mother, ai.a 1 
 talk with her undisturbed by the suspicions of a cunning maji. 
 
 Hugh spent most of that day in his office at the pit-hea^l, 
 settling up such business as could not await his return. On 
 Wednesday morning early he dispatched Natt on foot with a 
 letter to Mr. Bonnithorne, explaining succinctly, but wiih 
 shrewd reservations, the recent turn of events. Then he 
 stepped for a moment into his mother's room. 
 
 Mrs. Eitson had risen, and was sitting by the fire writing. 
 Hugh observed, as she rose, that there were tears in her eye.3, 
 and that the paper beneath her pen was stained with great 
 drops that had fallen as she wrote. A woman was busy on her 
 knees on the floor sorting linen into a trunk. This garrulous 
 body, old Dinah Wilson, was talking as Hugh entered. 
 
 " It caps all — you niver heard sec feckless wark," she was 
 saying. " And Reuben threept me down, too. There he was 
 in the peat loft when I went for the peats, and he had it all as 
 fine as clerk after passon. ' It was Master Paul at the fire, 
 certain sure,' he says ower and ower again. ' What, man, get 
 away wi' thy botheration — Mister Paul was off to London!' I 
 says. ' Go and see if tha can leet on a straight waistcoat any 
 spot,' I says. But he threept and he threept. ' It was Mas- 
 ter Paul or his own birth brother,' he says." 
 
 " Hush, Dinah!" said Mrs. Eitson. 
 
 Hugh told his mother, in a quiet voice, that business was 
 taking him away. Then he turned about and said " Good- 
 day " without emotion. 
 
 She held out her hand to him and looked him tenderly in 
 the eyes. 
 
 " Is this our parting?" she said, and then leaned forward 
 and touched his cheek with her lips. 
 
12G A SON OP HAGAR. 
 
 tie seemed surprised and turned pale; but he went out 
 calmly and without speaking. In half an hour he was walking 
 rapidly over the snow-crusted road to the station. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 When Paul parted from Natt at the station on Saturday 
 night, he had told the stableman to meet him with the trap .on 
 the same spot and at the same hour on "Wednesday. Since 
 receiving these instructions, however, Natt had, as we have 
 seen, arrived at conclusions of his own respecting certain 
 events. The futility of doing as he had been bidden began to 
 present itself to his mind with peculiar force. What was the 
 good of going to the station for a man who was not coming by 
 the train? What was the use of pretending to bring home a 
 person who had never been away? These and other equivocal 
 problems defied solution when Natt essayed them. 
 
 He revolved the situation fully on his way home from Mr. 
 Bonnithorne's, and decided that to go to the station that night 
 at eight o'clock would be only a fine way of making a fool of 
 a body. But when he reached the stable, and sat down to 
 smoke, and saw the hour approaching, his instinct began to 
 act automatically, and in sheer defiance of the thing he called 
 his reason. In short, Natt pulled off his coat and proceeded 
 to harness the mare. 
 
 Then it was that, relieved of the weight of abstract ques- 
 tions, he made two grave discoveries. The first was that the 
 horse bore marks of having been driven in his absence; the 
 next, that the harness was not hanging precisely on those 
 'hooks where he had last placed it. And when he drew out 
 the trap he saw that the tires of the wheels were still crusted 
 with unmelted snow. 
 
 These concrete issues finally banished the discussion of gen- 
 eral principles. Natt had not entirely accounted for the 
 strange circumstances when he jumped into his seat and drove 
 away. But the old idea of Paul's dubious conduct was still 
 fermenting; the froth and bubbles were still rising. 
 
 Natt had not gone half-way to the station when he almost 
 leaped out of the trap at the sudden advent of an original 
 thought: The trap had, been driven out before! He had not 
 covered a mile more before that thought had annexed another: 
 And along this road, too ! After this the sequence of ideas 
 was swift. In less than half a league, Natt had realized that 
 Paul Ritson himself had driven the mare to the station in 
 order that he might be there to come home at eight o'clock, 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 12? 
 
 and thus complete the deception which he had practiced on 
 gullible and slow-witted persons. But in his satisfaction at 
 this explanation Natt overlooked the trifling difficulty of how 
 the trap had been got home again. 
 
 Driving up into the station, he was greeted by a flyman wait- 
 ing for hire: 
 
 Bad on the laal mare, ma man — two sec journeys in ya 
 half day. I reckon tha knows it's been here afore?" 
 
 Natt's face broadened to a superior smile, which seemed to 
 desire his gratuitous informant to tell him something he didn't 
 know. This unspoken request was about to be gratified. 
 
 " Dusta ken who came down last?" 
 
 Natt waved his hand in silent censure of so much unneces- 
 sary zeal, and passed on. 
 
 Promptly as the clock struck eight, the London train drew 
 up at the station, and a minute afterward Paul Bitson came 
 out. " Here he be, of course," thought Natt. 
 
 Paul was in great spirits. His face wore the brightest smile 
 and his voice had the cheeriest ring. His clothes, seen by the 
 lamp, looked a little draggled and dirty. 
 
 He swung himself into the trap, took the driver's seat and 
 the reins, and rattled along with cheerful talk. 
 
 It was months since Natt had witnessed such an access of 
 geniality on Paul's part. 
 
 " Too good to be true," thought Natt, who, in his own wise 
 way, was silently making a study in histrionics. 
 
 " Anything fresh while I've been away?" asked Paul. 
 
 " Humph!" said Natt. 
 
 " Nothing new? Nobody's cow calved? The mare not lost 
 her hindmost shoe — nothing?" asked Paul, and laughed. 
 
 " I know no more nor you," said Natt in a grumpy tone. 
 
 Paul looked at him and laughed again. Not to-night were 
 good spirits like his to be quenched by a servant's ill-humor. 
 
 They drove some distance without speaking, the silence be- 
 ing broken only by Paul's coaxing appeals to the old mare to 
 quicken the pace that was carrying him to somebody who was 
 waiting at the vicarage. 
 
 Natt recovered from his natural dudgeon at an attempt to 
 play upon him, and began to feel the humor of the situation. 
 It was good sport, after all — this little trick of Master Paul. 
 And the best of it was that nobody saw through it but Natt 
 himself. Natt began to titter and look up significantly out of 
 his sleepy eyes into Paul's face. Paul glanced back with a 
 look of bewilderment,- but of course that was only a part of 
 the game, 
 
128 A SOW OF HA GAB. 
 
 " Keep it up," thought Natt; " how we are doing 'em!" 
 
 The landscape lying south was a valley, with a double gable 
 of mountains at the top; the mill stood on a knoll two miles 
 further up, and on any night but the dar-kest its black out- 
 lines could be dimly seen against the sky that crept down be- 
 tween these fells. There was no moon visible, but the moon's 
 light was behind the clouds. 
 
 " What has happened to the mill?" said Paul, catching 
 sight of the dismantled mass in the distance. 
 
 " Nowt since Saturday neet, as I've heard on," said Natt. 
 
 " And what happened then?" 
 
 " Oh, nowt, nowt — I's warrant not," said Natt with a gurg- 
 ling titter. 
 
 Paul looked perplexed. Natt had been drinking, nothing 
 mrer. 
 
 " Why, lad, the wheel is gone — look!" 
 
 " I'll not say but it is. We know all about that, we do!" 
 
 Paul glanced down again. Liquor got into the brains of 
 some folk, but it had gone into Natt's face. With what an 
 idiotic grin he was looking into one's eyes! 
 
 But Paul's heart was full of happiness. His bosom's lord 
 sat lightly on its throne. Natt's face was excruciatingly ridic- 
 ulous, and Paul laughed at the sight of it. Then Natt laughed, 
 and they both laughed together, each at, neither with, the 
 other. " / don't know nothing, /don't. Oh, no!" chuckled 
 Natt inwardly. Once he made the remark aloud. 
 
 When they came to the vicarage Paul drew up, threw the 
 reins to Natt, and got down. 
 
 " Don't wait for me," he said; " drive home." 
 
 Natt drove as far homeward as the Flying Horse, and then 
 turned in there for a crack, leaving the trap in the road. Be- 
 fore he left the inn, a discovery yet more astounding, if some- 
 what less amusing, was made by his swift and subtle intellect. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Aw itinerant mendicant preacher had walked through the 
 valley that day, and when night fell in he had gravitated to 
 the parson's door. 
 
 " Seeing the sun low," he said, " and knowing it a long 
 way to Keswick, and I not being able to abide the night air, 
 but sure to catch a cold, 1 came straight to your house." 
 
 Like other guests of high degree, the shoeless being made 
 a virtue of accepting hospitality. 
 
 " Come in, brother, and welcome," said Person Christian; 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 129 
 
 and that night the wayfarer lodged at the vicarage. He was 
 a poor, straggle-headed creature, with a broken brain as well 
 as a broken purse, but he had the warm seat at the ingle. 
 
 Greta heard Paul's step on the path, and ran to meet him. 
 
 " Paul, Paul! thank God you are here at last!' 1 
 
 Her manner was warm and impulsive to seriousness, but 
 Paul was in no humor to make nice distinctions. 
 
 Parson Christian rose from his seat before the fire and shook 
 hands with feeling and gravity. 
 
 "Right glad to see you, good lad!" he said. "This is 
 Brother Jolly," he added, " a fellow-soldier of the cross, who 
 has suffered sore for neglecting Solomon's injunction against 
 suretyship." 
 
 Paul took the flaccid hand of the fellow-soldier, and then 
 drew Greta aside into the recess of the square window. 
 
 " It's all settled," he said, eagerly; " I saw my father's old 
 friend, and agreed to go out to his sheep runs as steward, with 
 the prospect of farming for myself in two years' time. I have 
 been busy, I can tell you. Only listen. On Monday I saw 
 the good old gentleman — he's living in London now, and he 
 won't go back to Victoria, he tells me — wants to lay his bones 
 where they were got, he says — f unny old dog, rather — says he 
 remembers my father when he wasn't as solemn as a parish 
 clerk on Ash Wednesday. Well, on Monday I saw the old 
 fellow, and settled terms and things — liberal old chap, too, if 
 he has got a hawk beak — regular Shylock, you know. Well — 
 where was I? — Oh, of course — then on Tuesday I took oat 
 our berths — yours, mother's, and mine — the ship is called 
 the ' Ballarat ' — queer name — a fine sea-boat, though — she 
 leaves the London docks next Wednesday — " 
 
 " Next Wednesday?" said Greta, absently, and with little 
 interest in her tone. 
 
 " Yes, a week to-day — sails at three prompt — pilot comes 
 on at a quarter to — everybody aboard at twelve. But it didn't 
 take quite four-and-twenty hours to book the berths, and the 
 rest of the day I spent at a lawyer's office. Can't stomach 
 that breed, somehow; they seem to get all the clover— maybe 
 it's because they're a drift of sheep with tin cans about their 
 necks, and can never take a nibble without all the world 
 knowing. Ha! ha! I wish I'd thought of that when I saw old 
 Shylock." 
 
 Paul was rattling on with a glib tongue, and eyes that 
 danced to the blithe step of an emancipated heart. 
 
 In the slumberous fire-light the parson and the jtineraii \ 
 o 
 
130 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 preacher talked together of the dust and noise in the great 
 world outside these sleepy mountains. 
 
 Greta drew back into the half-light of the window recess, 
 too greedy of Paul's good spirits to check them. 
 
 " Yes, I went to the lawyer's office/' he continued, " and 
 drew out a power of attorney in Hugh's name, and now he 
 can do what he likes with the Ghyll, just as if it were his 
 own. Much luck to him, say I, and. some bowels, too, please 
 God! But that's not all — not half. This morning — ah, now, 
 you wise little woman, who always pretend to know so much 
 more than other folks, tell me what I did in London before 
 leaving it this morning?" 
 
 Greta had hardly listened. Her eyes had dropped to his 
 breast, her arms had crept about his neck, and her tears were 
 falling fast. But he was not yet conscious of the deluge. 
 
 " What do you think? Why, I went to Doctors' Commons 
 and bought the license — dirt cheap, too, at the price — and 
 now it can be done any day — any day — think of that! So ho! 
 so ho! covering your face, eh? — up, now, up with it-— gently. 
 Do you know, they asked me your complexion, the color of 
 your eyes, or sometliing — that old Shylock or somebody — and 
 I couldn't tell for the life of me — there, a peep, just one wee 
 peep! Why, what's this — what the d— What villain — what 
 in the name of mischief is the ma — Why, Greta, you're cry 
 — yes, you are — you are crying!" 
 
 Paul had forced up Greta's face with gentle violence, and 
 now he held her at arm's-length, surveying her with bewil- 
 dered looks. 
 
 Parson Christian twisted about in his chair. He had not 
 been so much immersed in wars and rumors of wars as to be 
 quite ignorant of what was going on around him. " Greta is 
 but in badly case," he said, pretending to laugh. " She has 
 fettled things in the house over and over again, and she has 
 if't and haffled over everything. She's been longing, surely." 
 The deep voice had a touch of tremor in it this time, and the 
 twinkling old eyes looked hazy. 
 
 " Ah, of course!" shouted Paul in stentorian tones, and he 
 laughed about as heartily as the parson. 
 
 Greta's tears were gone in an instant. 
 
 " You must go home at once, Paul," she said; " your 
 mother must not wait a moment longer." 
 
 He laughed and bantered and talked of his dismissal. She 
 stopped him with a grave face and a solemn word. At last his 
 jubilant spirit was conquered; he realized that something was 
 amiss. Then she told him what happened at the Ghyll on 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 131 
 
 Monday night. He turned white, and at first stood tongue - 
 tied. Next he tried to laugh it off, but the laughter fell short. 
 
 " Must have been my brother," he said; " it's true, we're 
 not much alike, bat then it was night, dark night, and you 
 had no light but the dim lamp — and at least there's a family 
 i-esemblance. " 
 
 " Your brother Hugh was sitting in his room." 
 
 Paul's heart sickened with an indescribable sensation. 
 
 " You found the door of my mother's room standing open?" 
 
 "Wide open." 
 
 " And Hugh was in his own room?" said Paul, his eyes 
 flashing and his teeth set. 
 
 " I saw him there a moment later." 
 
 " My features, my complexion, my height and my build, 
 you say?" 
 
 " The same in everything." 
 
 Paul lifted his face, and in that luminous twilight it wore an 
 expression of peculiar horror: " In fact, myself — in a glass?" 
 
 Greta shuddered and answered, "Just that, Paul; neither 
 more nor less." 
 
 " Very strange," he muttered. He was shaken to the 
 depths. Greta crept closer to his breast. 
 
 " And when my mother recovered she said nothing?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " You did not question her?" 
 
 " How could I? But I was hungering for a word." 
 
 Paul patted her head with his tenderest touch. 
 
 " Have you seen her since?" 
 
 " Not since. I have been ill — I mean, rather unwell." 
 
 Parson Christian twisted again in his chair. " What do you 
 think, my lad? Greta in a dream last night rose out of bed, 
 went to the stair-head, and there fell to the ground." 
 
 " My poor darling!" said Paul, the absent look flying from 
 his eyes. 
 
 " But, blessed be God, she has no harm," said the parson, 
 and turned once more to his guest. 
 
 " Paul, you must hurry away now. Good-bye for the pres- 
 ent, dearest. Kiss me good-bye." 
 
 But Paul stood there still. 
 
 " Greta, do you ever feel that what is happening now has 
 happened before — somehow — somewhere — and vrhere? — when? 
 — the questions keep ringing in your brain and racking your 
 heart — but there is no answer — -you are shouting into a voice- 
 less cavern." 
 
 His face was as pale as ashes, his eyes were fixed, and his 
 
132 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 gaze was far away. Greta grew afraid of the horror she had 
 awakened. 
 
 " Don't think too seriously about it," she said. " Besides, 
 I may have been mistaken. In fact, Hugh said — " 
 
 " Well, what did he say?" 
 
 " He made me ashamed. He said I had imagined 1 saw 
 you, and screamed, and so frightened your mother." 
 
 " There are men in the world who would see the Lord of 
 Hosts come from the heavens in glory and say it was only 
 a water-spout. " 
 
 " But, as you said yourself, it was in the night, and very 
 dark. I had nothing but the feeble oil-lamp to see by. Don't 
 look like that, Paul." 
 
 The girl lifted a nervous hand and covered his eyes, and 
 laughed a little hollow laugh. 
 
 Paul shook himself free of his stupor. 
 
 " Good-night, Greta," he said, tenderly, and walked to tie 
 door. Then the vacant look returned. 
 
 " The answer is somewhere — somewhere," he said, faintly. 
 He shook himself again, and shouted, in his lusty tones: 
 " Good-night, all — good -night, good-night!" 
 
 The next instant he was gone. 
 
 Out in the road, he began to run; but it was not from ex- 
 ertion alone that his breath came and went in gusts. Befo.re 
 he reached the village his nameless sentiment of dread of the 
 unknown had given way to anxiety for his mother. What 
 was this strange illness that had come upon her in his ab- 
 sence? Her angel-face had been his beacon in darkness. She 
 had lifted his soul from the dust. Tortured by the world and 
 the world's law, yet Heaven's peace had settled on her. Let 
 the world say what it would, into her heart the world had not 
 entered. 
 
 He hurried on. What a crazy fool he had been to let Natt 
 go oft with the trap! Why had not that coxcomb told him 
 what had occurred? He would break every bone in the black- 
 head's skin. 
 
 How long the road was, to be sure! A hundred fears sug- 
 gested themselves on the way. Would his mother be worse? 
 Would she be still conscious? Why, in God's name, had he 
 ever gone away? 
 
 He came by the Plying Horse, and there, tied to the blue 
 post, stood the horse and trap. Natt was inside. There he 
 was, the villain, in front of the fire, laughing boisterously, 9 
 glass of hot liquor in his hand. 
 
 Paul jumped into the trap and drove away. 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. 133 
 
 It was hardly in human nature that Natt should resist the 
 temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what 
 a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt never tried 
 to resist it. 
 
 " Is it all die-spensy?" he asked, with a wink, when, with 
 masterly circumlocution, he had broached his topic. 
 
 " It's a fate, I tell tha'," said Tom o' Dint, taking a church- 
 warden from between his lips; and another thin voice, from a 
 back bench — it was little Jacob Berry's — corroborated that 
 view of the mystery. 
 
 A fine scorn sat on the features of Natt as he exploded be- 
 neath their feat this mine of supernaturalism. 
 
 " Shaf on your bogies and bodderment, say I," he cried; 
 " there are folks as won't believe their own senses. If you'll 
 no'but show me how yon horse of mine can be in two places a*; 
 once, I'll maybe believe as Master Paul Eitson can be here ancJ 
 in London at the same time. Nowt short o' that'll do for 
 me, I can tell you. 
 
 And at this conclusive reasoning Natt laughed, and crowed, 
 and stirred his steaming liquor. It was at that moment that 
 Paul whipped up into the trap and drove away. 
 
 " Show me as my horse as I've tied to the post out there is 
 in his stable all the time, and I's not be for saying as maybe I 
 won't give in." 
 
 Gubblum Oglethorpe came straggling into the room at that 
 instant, and caught the words of Natt's clinching argument. 
 
 " What see a post?" he asked. 
 
 " Why, the post afore the house, for sure!" 
 
 " Well, I wouldna be for saying but I's getten a bit short- 
 sighted, but if theer's a horse tied to a post afore this house, 
 I's not be for saying as I won't be domd!" 
 
 Natt ran to the door, followed by a dozen pairs of quizzing 
 eyes. The horse was gone. Natt sat down on the post and 
 looked around in blank amazement. 
 
 " Well, I will be domd!" he said. 
 
 At last the bogies had him in their grip. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 By the time that Paul had got to the Ghyll his anxiety had 
 reached the point of anguish. Perhaps it had been no more 
 than a fancy, but he thought as he approached the house that 
 a mist hung about it. When he walked into the hall his foot- 
 steps sounded hollow to his ear, and the whole place seemed 
 
134 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 empty as a vault. The spirit-deadening influence of the sur- 
 roundings was upon him, when old Dinah Wilson came from 
 the kitchen and looked at him with surprise. Clearly he had 
 not been expected. He vanted to ask twenty questions, but 
 his tongue cleaved to his mouth. The strong man trembled 
 and his courage oozed away. 
 
 Why did not the woman speak? How scared she looked, 
 too! He was brushing past her, and up the stairs, when she 
 told him, in faltering tones, that her mistress was gone. 
 
 The word coursed through his veins like poison. "Gone! 
 how gone?" he said. Could it be possible that his mother 
 was dead? 
 
 " Gone away," said Dinah. 
 
 " Away! Where?" 
 
 " Gone by train, sir, this afternoon." 
 
 " Gone by train," Paul repeated mechanically, with absent 
 manner. 
 
 " There's a, letter left, sir; it's on the table in her room." 
 
 Recovering his self-possession, Paul darted upstairs at three 
 steps a stride. His mother's room was empty; no fire in the 
 grate; the pictures down from the walls; the table coverless; 
 the few books gone from the shelf; all chill, voiceless, and 
 blind. 
 
 What did it mean? Paul stood an instant on the threshold, 
 seeing all in one swift glance, yet seeing nothing. Then, with 
 the first return of present consciousness, his eye fell on the let- 
 ter that lay on the table. He took it up with trembling fingers. 
 It was addressed in his mother's hand to him. He broke the 
 seal. This is what he read: 
 
 " I go to-day to the shelter of the Catholic Church. I had 
 long thought to return to this refuge, though I had hoped to 
 wait until the day your happiness with Greta was complete. 
 That, in Heaven's purposes, was not to be, and I must leave 
 you without a last farewell. Good-bye, dear son, and God 
 bless and guide you. If you love me, do not grieve for me. 
 It is from love of you I leave you. Think of me as one who is 
 at peace, and I will bless you even in heaven. If ever the 
 world should mock you with your mother's name, remember 
 that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the 
 last. Good-bye, dear Paul; you may never know the day when 
 this erring and sorrowing heart will be allowed, in His infinite 
 pity, to join the choirs above. Then, dearest, from the hour 
 when you read this letter think of me as dead, for I shall he 
 <3:?Td tfl the world." 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 135 
 
 Paul held the letter before him and looked at it long with 
 vacant eyes. Feeling itself seemed gone. Not a tear came 
 from him, not a sigh, not one moan of an overwrought heart 
 escaped him. All was blind, pulseless torpor. He st od there 
 crushed and overwhelmed, a shaken, shattered man. A thou- 
 sand horrors congealed within him to one deep, dead stupor. 
 
 He turned away in silence and walked out of the house. 
 The empty chambers seemed, as he went, to echo his heavy 
 footsteps. He took the road back toward the vicarage, turn- 
 ing neither to the right nor the left, looking straight before 
 him and never once shifting his gaze. The road might be 
 long, but now it fretted him no more. The night might be 
 cold, but colder far was the heart within him. The moon 
 might fly behind the cloud floes, and her light burst forth 
 afresh; but for him all was blank night. 
 
 In the vicarage the slumberous fire was smoldering down. 
 The straggle-brained guest had been lighted to his bed, and 
 the good parson himself was carrying to his own tranquil 
 closet a head full of the great world's dust and noise. Greta 
 was still sitting before the dying fire, her heart heavy with an 
 indefinable sensation of dread. 
 
 When Paul opened the door his face was very pale, and his 
 eyes had a strange look; but he was calm, and spoke quietly. 
 He told what had occurred, and read aloud his mother's letter. 
 The voice was strong in which he read it, and never a tremor 
 told of the agony his soul was suffering. Then he sat some 
 time without speaking, and time itself had no reckoning. 
 
 Greta scarcely spoke, and the old parson said little. What 
 power had words to expresse a sorrow liKe this? Death had 
 its solace; but there was no comfort for death in life. 
 
 At last Paul told Parson Christian that he wished the mar- 
 riage to take place at once — to-morrow, or, at latest, the day 
 after that. He told of their intention to leave England, of 
 his fathers friend, and, in answer to questions, of the power 
 of attorney drawn up in the name of his brother. 
 
 The old man was deeply moved, but his was the most un- 
 selfish of souls. He understood very little of all that was 
 meant by what had been done and was still to do. But he 
 said, "God bless you and go with you!" though his own 
 wounded heart was bleeding. Greta knelt at his chair, and 
 kissed the tawny old face lined and wrinkled and damp now 
 with a furtive tear. It was agreed that the marriage should 
 take place on Friday. This was Wednesday night. 
 
 Paul rose and stepped to the door, and Greta followed hr'ro 
 to the porch. 
 
136 A SON OF HAGAfc. 
 
 " It is good of you to leave all to your brother," she said. 
 
 " We'll not speak of it," he answered. 
 
 " Is there not something between you?" she asked. 
 
 " Another time, darling." 
 
 Greta recalled Hugh Eitson's strange threat. Should she 
 mention it to Paul? She had almost done so, when she lifted 
 her eyes to his face. The weary, worn expression checked her. 
 Not now; it would be a cruelty. 
 
 " I knew the answer to that omen was somewhere," he 
 said, " and it has come." 
 
 He stepped over the threshold, and stood one pace outside. 
 The snow still lay underfoot, crusted with frost. The wind 
 blew strongly, and soughed in the stiff and leaf-ess boughs. 
 Overhead the flying moon at that moment broke through a 
 rack of cloud. At the same instant the red glow of the fire- 
 light found its way through the open door, and was reflected 
 on Paul's pallid face. 
 
 Greta gasped; a thrill passed through her. There, before 
 her, eye to eye with her once again, was the face she saw at 
 the Ghyll! 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 Paul went went back home, carrying with him a crushed 
 and broken spirit. He threw himself info a chair in a torpor 
 of dejection. When the servants spoke to him he lifted to 
 their faces two clouded eyes, heavy with suffering, and an- 
 swered their questions in few words. The maid laid the sup- 
 per, and told him it was ready. When she returned to clear 
 the cloth, the supper was untouched. Paul stepped up to his 
 mother's room, and sat down before the cold grate. The can- 
 dle he carried with him burned out. 
 
 In the kitchen the servants of the farm and house gossiped 
 long and bickered vigorously. " Whatever ails Master Paul?' ' 
 "Crossed in love, maybe." " Shaf on sec woman's wit!" 
 " Wherever has mistress gone?" " To buy a new gown, may- 
 hap." " Sista now how a lass's first thowt runs on finery!" 
 " Didsta hear nowt when you drove mistress to the rail, Eeu- 
 ben?" " Nay, nowt." " Dusta say it war thee as drove to 
 the station this afternoon?" " I wouldn't be for saying as it 
 warn't." " Wilta be meeting Master Hugh in the forenoon, 
 Natt?" " Nay, ax Natt na questions. He's fair tongue-tied 
 to-neet, Natt is. He's clattering all of it to hisself — swearing 
 a bit, and sec as that." 
 
 When the servants had gone to bed and the house was quiet, 
 
A SOK OF HA GAB. 13? 
 
 Paul still sat in his mother's abandoned room. No one but 
 he knew what he suffered that night. He tried to comprehend 
 the disaster that had befallen him. Why had his mother shut 
 herself in a convent? How should her love for him require 
 that she should leave him? To demand answers to these 
 questions was like knocking at the door of a tomb; the voice 
 was silent that could reply; there came no answer save the 
 dull, heavy, hollow echo of his own uncertain knock. All was 
 blind, dumb, insensate torpor. No outlook; no word; no 
 stimulating pang. 
 
 His stupor was broken by a vision that for long hours of 
 that dead night burned in his brain like molten lead. The 
 face which Greta had seen, and which his mother must also 
 have seen, seemed to rise up before him as he sat in that de- 
 serted chamber. He saw his own face as he might have seen 
 it in a glass. Not even the blackness of night could conceal 
 it. Clear as a face seen in the day it shone and burned in that 
 dark room. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but it was still 
 before him. It was within him. It was imprinted in feat- 
 ures of fire on his brain. He trembled with fear, never until 
 that hour knowing what fear was. It acted upon him like 
 his own ghost. 
 
 He knew it was but a phantasy, but no phantasy was ever 
 more horrible. He got up to banish it, and it stood before 
 him face to face. He sunk down again, and it sat beside him 
 eye to eye. 
 
 Then it changed. For a moment it faded away into a pal- 
 pitating mist, and the tension of his gaze relaxed. How 
 blessed was that moment's respite! His thought returned to 
 his mother. " If ever the world should mock you with your 
 mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and 
 that she loved you to the last." Dear, sacred soul, little fear 
 that he should forget it! Little fear that the wise world should 
 tarnish the fair shrine of that holy love! Tears of tenderness 
 rose to his eyes, and in the midst of them he thought his 
 mother sat before him. Her head was bent; an all-eating 
 shame was crimsoning her pale cheek. Then he knew that 
 other eyes were upon her, looking into her heart, prying deep 
 down into her dead past, keeping open the heavy eyelids that 
 could never sleep. He looked up; his own shadow was silently 
 gazing down upon both of them. 
 
 Paul leaped to his feet and ran out of the room. Surely the 
 spirit of his mother still inhabited the deserted chamber. 
 Surely this was the shadow that had driven her away. Big 
 drops of sweat rolled in beads from his forehead. He went out 
 
138 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 of the house. Heavy black clouds were adrift in a stormy sky; 
 behind them, the bright moon was scudding. 
 
 He walked among the naked trees of the gaunt wood at the 
 foot of Coledale, and listened to the short breathings of the 
 wind among the frost-covered boughs. At every second step 
 he gave a quick glance backward. But at last he saw the thing 
 he looked for — it was walking with him side by side, pace for 
 pace, 
 
 He passed slowly out of the wood, not daring now to run. 
 The white fell rose sheer up to the grim, gray crags that hung 
 in shaggy, snowy masses over the black seams of the ravines; 
 and the moon's light rested on them for an instant. Without 
 thought or aim he began to climb. The ascent was perilous 
 at any hour to any foot save that of the mountaineer. The 
 exertion and the watchfulness banished the vision, and his lib- 
 erated mind turned to Greta. What was life itself now with- 
 out Greta's love? Nothing but a succession of days. She was 
 the savior of his outcast state; she was his life's spring, 
 whence the waters of content might flow. And a flood of emo- 
 tion came over him, and in his heart he blessed her. It was 
 then that on that gaunt headland he seemed to see her at his 
 side. But between them, and dividing them, stalked the 
 specter of himself. 
 
 All to the east was dense gloom, save where the pulsating 
 red of the smelting-house burned in the distance. With no 
 rest for his foot, Paul walked in the direction of the light, 
 and the shadow of his face walked with him. As the wind 
 went by him it whistled in his ear, and it sounded in that soli- 
 tude like the low cry of the thing at his side. 
 
 Old Laird Fisher was at his work of wheeling the refuse of 
 the ore from the mouth of the furnace, and shooting it down 
 the bank. The glow of the hot stone in the iron barrow that 
 he trundled was reflected in sharp white lights on his wrinkled 
 face. 
 
 " Ista theer, Mister Paul?" he said, catching his breath 
 and coughing amid the smoke, and shouting between the gusts 
 of wind. 
 
 The slow beat of the engine and the clank of the chain of 
 the cage in the shaft deadened the wind's shrill whistle. The 
 smoke from the bank shot up and swirled away like a long 
 flight of swallows. 
 
 Standing there, the vision troubled him no longer. It had 
 been merely a waking phantasy, bred of what Greta said she 
 saw in the snow, and heightened by the shock to his nerves 
 caused by his mother's departure. The sight of Matthew 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 139 
 
 helped to beat it off. His submissive face was the sign of his 
 broken spirit. A tempest had torn up his only hold on the 
 earth. He was but a poor naked trunk flung on the ground, 
 without power of growth or grip of the soil. He was old, and 
 he had no hope. Yet he lived on and worked submissively. 
 Paul's own case was different. Destiny had dashed him in 
 unknown seas against unseen rocks. But he was young, he 
 had the power of life, and the stimulus of love. Yet here he 
 was, the prey to an idle fancy, tortured by an agony of fear. 
 
 " Good-night to you, Matthew!" he shouted cheerily above 
 the wind, and went away into the night. 
 
 He would go home and sleep the fever out of his blood ; he 
 took the road; and as he went, the monotonous engine-throb 
 died off behind him. He passed through the village; the 
 street was empty, and it echoed loud to the sound of his foot- 
 fall. Large shadows fell about him when for an instant the 
 moon shot clear of a cloud. A light burned in a cottage win- 
 dow. Poor Mrs. Truesdale's sick life was within that sleepless 
 chamber lingering out its last days. The wind fell to silence 
 at one moment, and then a child's little cry came out to him 
 in the night. 
 
 He walked on, and plunged again into the darkness of the 
 road beyond. The dogs were howling at the distant Ghyll. A 
 sable cloud floated in the sky, and at its back the moon sailed. 
 It was like black hair silvered with gray. But on one spot on 
 the road before him the moon shone clear and white. The 
 place fascinated him like a star. He quickened his pace until 
 he came into the moon's open light. Then it turned to an 
 ashy tint; it lay over the church-yard. His father's grave was 
 only a few paces from the road. 
 
 What unseen power had drawn him there? Was it meant 
 that he should understand that all the stings that fate had in 
 store for him were to be in some unsearchable way the refuse 
 of his father's deed? His mind went back to the night of his 
 father's death. He thought of his mother's confession — a con- 
 fession more terrible to make, more fearful to listen to, than a 
 mother ever made before or a son ever heard. And now 
 again, was the disaster of this very night a link in the chain of 
 destiny? 
 
 Let no man compare the withering effects of a father's curse 
 with the blasting influence of a father's sin. If the wrath of 
 Providence should fail in its stern and awful retribution, the 
 world in its mercy would not forget that the sins of the fathers 
 must be visited upon the children. 
 
 Paul entered the lych-gate a) id entered the church-yard . Tha 
 
i40 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 night dew on his cheeks was not colder than his tears as he 
 knelt by his father's grave. At one instant he cursed the 
 world and the world's cruel law. Then there stole into his 
 heart a poison that corroded its dearest memory: he thought 
 of his father with bitterness. 
 
 At that moment a strange awe crept over him. He knew, 
 though still only by the eyes of his mind, that the vision had 
 returned. He knew it was standing against the night-sky as a 
 ghastly headstone to the grave. But when he raised his eyes, 
 what he saw was more terrible. The face was before him, but 
 it was a dead face now. He saw his own corpse stretched out 
 on his father's grave. 
 
 His head fell on to the cold sods. He lay like the dead on 
 the grave of the dead. Then he knew that it was ordered 
 above that the cloud of his father's sin should darken his days; 
 that through all the range and change of life he was to be the 
 lonely slave of a sin not his own. -His fate was sin-inherited, 
 and the wages of sin is death. 
 
 Was it strange that at that moment, when all the earth 
 seemed gloomed by the shadow of a curse that lay blackest 
 over him — when reverence for a father's memory and love 
 learned at a mother's knee were deadened by a sense of irre- 
 mediable wrong — was it strange that there and then peace fell 
 on him like a dove from heaven? 
 
 Orphaned in one hour — now, and not till now — foredoomed 
 to writhe like a worm amid the dust of the world — the man in 
 him arose and shook off its fear. 
 
 It was because he came to know — rude man as he was, un- 
 lettered, but strong of soul — that there is a Power superior to 
 fate, that the stormiest sea has its Master, that the waif that is 
 cast by the roughest wave on the loneliest shore is yet seen and 
 known. 
 
 And the voice of an angel seemed to whisper in his heart 
 the story of Hagar and her son; how the boy was the first-born 
 of his father; how the second-born became the heir; how the 
 woman and son were turned away; how they were nigh to 
 death in the desert; and how, at last, the cry came from 
 heaven, " God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is." 
 
 The horror of the vision had gone. It would come back no 
 more. Paul walked home, went up to his own room, and 
 slept peacefully. 
 
 When he awoke, the pink and yellow rose of a wintery sun- 
 rise bloomed over the head of the Eel Crags. The tinkle of 
 the anvil came from across the vale. Sheep were bleating 
 high up on the frost-nipped side of the fell. The echo of the 
 
A SON OF HAGAft. 141 
 
 as could be heard from the wood, and the muffled lowing of 
 the kine from the shippon in the yard behind. The harsh 
 scrape of Watt's clogs was on the gravel. A robin with full 
 throat perched on the window-ledge and warbled cheerily.' 
 
 Last night was gone from him for all eternity. Before him 
 was the day, the world, and life. 
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 
 That day — the day before the wedding — all the gossiping 
 tongues in Newlands were cackling from morning till night. 
 Natt had been sent round the dale with invitations addressed 
 to statesmen, their wives, sons, and daughters. Parson Chris- 
 tian himself made the round of the homes of the poor. 
 
 " ' The poor ye have always with you,' but not everywhere, 
 and not often in Cana of Galilee," he said to Greta on setting 
 out. 
 
 And the people of the highways and hedges were nothing 
 loath to come in to the feast. " God luck to the weddiners!" 
 they said, " and may they never lick a lean poddish-stick. " 
 
 There was not much work done in the valley that day. The 
 richest heiress on the country-side was about to be married to 
 the richest statesman in the dale. On the eve of such an event 
 it was labor enough to drop in at the Flying Horse and discuss 
 mathematics. The general problem was one in simple addi- 
 tion, namely, how much Paul Eitson would be worth when he 
 married Greta Lowther. And more than once that day twice 
 two made a prodigious five. 
 
 The frost continued, and the roads were crisp. Heavy 
 rains had preceded the frost, and the river that ran down the 
 middle of the valley had overflowed the meadows to the width 
 of a wide carriage-way. This was now a. road of ice five miles 
 long, smooth as glass, and all but as straight as an arrow. 
 
 Abraham Strong, the carpenter, had been ordered to take 
 the wheels off a disused landau and fix instead two keels of 
 wood beneath the axles. This improvised sledge, after it had 
 been shod in steel by the blacksmith, was to play a part in to- 
 morrow's ceremony. 
 
 Early in the day Brother Peter was dispatched to the town 
 to fetch Mr. Bonnithorne. The four miles' journey afoot 
 seemed to him a bigger candle than the entire game was 
 worth. 
 
 " Don't know as I see what the lass wants mair nor she's 
 got," he told himself grumpily, as he plodded along the road. 
 " What call has she for a man? Hasn't she two of 'em as 
 
142 A SOX OF HAGAE. 
 
 she is? I made her comfortable enough myself. But lasses 
 are varra ficklesome." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne gathered enough from Brother Peter's 
 " Don't know as there's not a wedding in t' wind," to infer 
 what was afoot. Hugh Ritson was away from heme, and his 
 brother Paul was availing himself of his absence to have the 
 marriage ceremony performed. 
 
 This was the inference with which Mr. Bonnithorne had 
 walked from the town; but before reaching the vicarage he 
 encountered Paul himself, who was even then on the way to 
 his office. Few words passed between them. Indeed, the 
 young dalesman was civil and no more. He gave scant court- 
 esy, bat then he also gave something that was more substan- 
 tial, and the severity of the lawyer's cynicism relaxed. Paul 
 handed Mr. Bonnithorne, without comment, the deed drawn 
 up in London. Mr. Bonnithorne glanced at it, pocketed it, 
 and smiled. His sense of Paul's importance as a dangerous 
 man sunk to nothing at that moment. They parted without 
 more words. 
 
 Parson Christian got home toward evening, dead beaten 
 with fatigue. He found the lawyer waiting for him. The 
 marriage had been big in his eyes all day, and other affairs 
 very little. 
 
 " So you shall give her away, Mr. Bonnithorne," he said, 
 without superfluous preface of any kind. 
 
 " I— I?" said Mr. Bonnithorne, with elevated brows. 
 
 " Who has more right?" said the parson. 
 
 " Well, you know, you — you — " 
 
 "Me! Nay, I must marry them. It is you for the other 
 duty." 
 
 " You see, Mr. Christian, if you think of it, I am — I am — " 
 
 ' ' You are her father's old friend. There, let us look on it 
 as settled." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne looked on it as awkward. " Well, to say 
 the truth, Mr. Christian, I'd — I'd rather not." 
 
 The old. parson lifted two astonished eyes, and gazed at Mr. 
 Bonnithorne over the rims of his spectacles. The lawyer's 
 uneasiness increased. Then Parson Christian remembered 
 that only a little while ago Mr. Bonnithorne had offered rea- 
 sons why Paul should not marry Greta. They were rather 
 too secular, those same reasons, but no doubt they had ap- 
 pealed honestly to his mind as a friend of Greta's family. 
 
 " Paul and Greta are going away," said the parson. 
 
 "So I judged." 
 
 " They go to Victoria, to farm there," continued the parson 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 143 
 
 " On Greta's money," added the lawyer. 
 
 Parson Christian looked again over the rims of his specta- 
 cles. Then for once his frank and mellow face annexed a re- 
 flection of the curl on the lawyer's lip. " Do you know/' he 
 said, " it never once came into my simple old pate to ask 
 which would find the dross and which the honest labor?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne winced. The simple old pate could, on 
 occasion, be more than a match for his own wise head. 
 
 " Seeing that I shall marry her, I think it will be expected 
 that you should give her to her husband; but if you have an 
 objection — " 
 
 " An objection?" Mr. Bonniihorne interrupted. " I don't 
 know that my feeling is so serious as that." 
 
 " Then let us leave it there, and you'll decide in the morn- 
 ing," said Parson Christian. 
 
 So they left it there, and Mr. Bonnithorne, the dear friend 
 of the family, made haste to the telegraph office, and sent this 
 telegram to Hugh Eitson in London: " They are to be mar- 
 ried to-morrow. If you have anything imperative to say, write 
 to-night, or come." 
 
 Paul and Greta saw each other only for five minutes that 
 day amid the general hubbub; bub their few words were preg- 
 nant with serious issues. Beneath the chorus of their hearts' 
 joy there was an undersong of discord; and neither knew of 
 the other's perplexity. 
 
 Greta was thinking of Hugh Eitson's mysterious threat. 
 Whether or not Hugh had the power of preventing their mar- 
 riage was a question of less consequence to Greta at this mo- 
 ment than the other question of whether or not she could tell 
 Paul what Hugh had said. As the day wore on, her uncer- 
 tainty became feverish. If she spoke, she must reveal — what 
 hitherto she had partly hidden — the importunity and unbroth- 
 erly disloyalty of Hugh's love. She must also awaken fresh 
 distress in Paul's mind, already overburdened with grief for 
 the loss of his mother. Probably Paul would be powerless to 
 interpret his brother's strange language. And if he should be 
 puzzled, the more he must be pained. Perhaps Hugh Eitson's 
 threat was nothing but the outburst of a distempered spirit — 
 the noise of a bladder that is emptying itself. Still, Greta's 
 nervousness increased; no reason, no sophistry could allay it. 
 She felt like a blind man who knows by the current of air on 
 his face that he had reached two street crossings, and can not 
 decide which turn to take. 
 
 Paul, on his part, had a grave question to revolve. He was 
 thinking whether it was the act of an honorable man to let 
 
144 A SON OF HA GAR. 
 
 Greta marry him in ignorauce of the fact that he was not his 
 father's legitimate son. Yet he could never tell her. The~oath 
 he had taken over his father's body must seal his lips forever. 
 His mother's honor was wrapped up in that oath. Break the 
 one, and the other was no longer inviolate. True, it would be 
 to Greta, and Greta alone, and she and he were one. True, 
 too, his mother was now dead to the world. But the oath 
 was rigid: 
 
 ' ' N ever to re veal to any human soul, by word or deed, his act 
 or her shame. ' ' He had sworn it, and he must keep it. The 
 conflict of emotion was terrible. Love was dragging him one 
 way, and love the other. Honor said yes, and honor said no. 
 His heart's first thought was to tell Greta everything, to keep 
 nothing back from her whore heart's last thought was his. 
 But the secret of his- birth must lie as a dead and speechless 
 thing within him. 
 
 If it was not the act of an honorable man to let Greta marry 
 him in ignorance of his birth, there was only one escape from 
 the dishonor — not to let her marry him at all. If they mar- 
 ried, the oath must be kept. If the oath were kept, the mar- 
 riage might be dishonored — it could not be the unreserved and 
 complete union of soul with soul, heart with heart, mind with 
 mind, which true marriage meant. It would be laying the 
 treasure at the altar and keeping back part of the price. 
 
 Paul was not a man of subtle intellect, or perhaps such re- 
 flections would have troubled him too deeply. Love was above 
 everything, and to give up Greta was impossible. If Cinjum- 
 stance was the evil genius of a man : s life, should it be made 
 the god of it also? 
 
 At all hazards Paul meant to marry Greta. And after all, 
 what did this question of honor amount to? It was a mere 
 phantasm. What did it matter to Greta whether he were 
 nigh or basely born? Should he love her less or more? Would 
 he be less or more worthy of her love? And how was his birth 
 base? Not in God's eyes, for God had heard the voice of Ha- 
 gar's son. Only in the eyes of the world. And what did that 
 mean? It meant that whether, birth was high or base depend- 
 ed one part on virtue and nine hundred and ninety-nine parts 
 on money. Where had half the world's titled great ones 
 sprung from? Not — like him — from their father and their 
 father's fathers, but from a monarch's favorite. 
 
 Thus Paul reasoned with himself at this juncture. Whether 
 he was wholly right or wholly wrong, or partly right and 
 partly wrong, concerns us not at all. It was natural that such 
 a man, in such a place, at such an hour, should decide once for 
 
A SON OS HAGAK. 145 
 
 all to say not a word to Greta. It v/as just as natural that his 
 reticence should produce the long series of incidents still to be 
 recorded. 
 
 Thus it was not a word was said between them of what lay 
 nearest to the hearts of both. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 The morning was brilliant — a vigorous, lusty young day, 
 such as can awake from the sleep of the night only in winter 
 and in the north. The sun shone on the white frost; the air 
 was hazy enough to make the perspective of the fells more 
 sharp, and leave a halo of mystery to hang over every distant 
 peak and play about every tree. 
 
 The Ghyll was early astir, and in every nook and corner full 
 of the buzz of gossip. 
 
 "Well, things is at a pass, for sure!" "And never no 
 axings nowther." " And all cock-a-hoop, and no waiting for 
 the mistress to come back." " Shaf, what matter about the 
 mistress — she's no'but a kill-joy. There'd be no merry neet 
 an ' she were at home." "Well, I is fair maizelt 'at he 
 won't wait for Master Hugh — hisrawn brother, thoo knows." 
 " What, lass, dusta think as he wad do owt at the durdum 
 to-neet? Maybe tha's reckoning on takiu' a step wi' him, 
 eh?" " And if I is, it's nowt sa strange." " Weel, I wadna 
 be for saying tha's aiming too high, for I mind me of a laal 
 lass once as they called Mercy Fisher, and folks did say as 
 somebody were partial to her." " Hod thy tongue about the 
 bit thing; don't thoo misliken me to sec a stromp!" 
 
 Eesplendent in a blue cloth coat, light check trousers, a 
 flowered yellow silk waistcoat, and a white felt hat, Natt was, 
 flying up and down the stairs to and from Paul's room. Paul 
 himself had not yet been seen. Eumor in the kitchen whis- 
 pered that he had hardly taken the trouble to dress, and had! 
 not even been at the pains to wash. Natt had more than once 
 protested his belief that his master meant to be married in his, 
 shirt-sleeves. Nothing but " papers and pens and sealing-wax 
 and things " had he asked for. 
 
 Outside the vicarage a motley group had gathered. There 
 was John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, uncommonly awkward 
 in a frock coat and a pair of kid gloves that sat on his great 
 hands like a clout on a pitchfork. Dick, the miller, was there 
 too, with Giles Eaisley, the miner; and Job Sheepshanks (by 
 the way of treaty of peace) stood stroking the tangled mane of 
 Guublum Oglethorpe's pony. Children hung on the fence, 
 
146 A SON" OF HAGAB. 
 
 women gathered about the gate, dogs capered on the path. 
 Gubblum himself had been in the house, and now came out 
 accompanied by Brother Peter Ward and a huge black jug. 
 The jug was passed round with distinct satisfaction. 
 
 " Is the laal man ever coming?" said Gubblum, smacking 
 his lips and taking a swift survey of the road. 
 
 " Why, here he is at sec a skufter as'll brak' his shins!" 
 
 At the top of his speed, and breathless, clad in a long coat 
 whose tails almost swept the ground, grasping a fiddle in one 
 band and a paper in the other, Tom o : Dint came hurrying up. 
 
 " Tha's here at last, Tom, ma man. Teem a glass into 
 him, Peter, and let's mak' a start." 
 
 " Ye see I's two men, I is," said the small man, apologet- 
 ically. " I had my rounds with my letters to do first, and 
 business afore pleasure, you knows." 
 
 " Pleasure afore business, say I," cried Gubblum. " Never 
 let yer wark get the upper hand o' yer wages — them's my 
 maxims." 
 
 Two coaches came up at the moment, having driven four 
 miles for the purpose of driving four furlongs. 
 
 John Proudfoot, without needless courtesy, took the fiddler- 
 postman by the neck of his coat and the garment beneath its 
 tails, and slung him, fiddle and all, on to the saddle of the 
 pony, and held him there a moment, steadying him like a sack 
 with an open mouth. 
 
 "Sit thee there as stiddy as a broody hen; and now let's 
 mak' shift," said the blacksmith. 
 
 " But I must go inside first," said the fiddler; " I've a let- 
 ter for Lawyer Bonnithorne. " 
 
 " Shaf on thee and thy letter! Away with thee! Deliver it 
 at the church door." 
 
 The men dropped into a single file, with Tom o' Dint riding 
 ai, their head, and Gubblum walking by the pony's side and 
 holding the reins. 
 
 " Strike up!" shouted Job Sheepshanks. " Ista ever gaen 
 to begin?" t 
 
 Then the fiddler shouldered his fiddle, and fell to, and the 
 first long sweeps of his wedding-march awoke the echoes of 
 the vale. 
 
 The women and children followed the procession a few hun- 
 dred yards, and then returned to see the wedding-party enter 
 the coaches. 
 
 Inside the vicarage all was noise and bustle. Greta was 
 quiet enough, and ready to set out at any time, but a bevy of 
 gay young daleswomen were grouped about her, trying to per^ 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 147 
 
 suade her to change her brown broche dress for a pale-blue 
 silk, to have some hothouse plants in her hair, and at least to 
 wear a veil. 
 
 " And mind you keep up heart, darling, and speak out your 
 responses; and, dearest, don't cry until the parson gets to 
 ' God bless you!' " 
 
 Greta received all this counsel with equal thanks. She list- 
 ened to it, affected to approve of it, and ignored ib. Her face 
 betrayed anxiety. She hardly understood her own fears, but 
 whenever the door opened, and a fresh guest entered, she knew 
 that her heart leaped to her mouth. 
 
 Parson Christian stood near her in silk gaiters and a coat 
 that had been old-fashioned even in his youth. But his Jovian 
 gray head and fine old face, beautiful in its mellowness and 
 child-like simplicity, made small demand of dress. He patted 
 Greta's hair sometimes with the affectionate gesture that 
 might be grateful to a fondled child. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne arrived early, in a white waistcoat and 
 coat adorned by a flower. His brave apparel was scarcely in 
 keeping with the anxiety written on his face. He could not 
 sit for more than a moment in the same seat. He was up and 
 down, walking to and fro, looking out of the window, and 
 diving for papers into his pocket. 
 
 The procession, headed by Tom o' Dint, had not long been 
 gone when word was given, and the party took to the coaches 
 and set off at a trot. Then the group of women at the gate 
 separated with many a sapient comment. 
 
 " Weel, he's gitten a bonny lass, for sure." 
 
 " And many a sadder thing med happen to her, too." 
 
 The village lay midway between the vicarage and Ihe 
 church, and the fiddler and his company marched through it 
 to a brisk tune, bringing fifty pairs of curious eyes to the win- 
 dows and the doors. Tom o' Dint sat erect in the saddle, 
 playing vigorously, and when a burst o£ cheering hailed the 
 procession as it passed a group of topers gathered outside the 
 Plying Horse, Tom accepted it as a tribute to his playing, and 
 bowed his head with becoming dignity and without undue fa- 
 miliarity, always remembering that courtesy comes after art, 
 as a true artist is in loyalty bound to do. 
 
 Once or twice the pony slipped its foot on the frosty road, 
 and then Tom was fain to abridge a movement in music and 
 make a movement in gymnastics toward grasping the front of 
 the saddle. 
 
 But all went well until the company came within fifty paces 
 of the church door, and there a river crossed the road. Being 
 
148 A SON" OF HAGAK. 
 
 shallow and very swift, the river had escaped the grip of the 
 frost and slipped through its fingers. There was a foot-bridge 
 on one side, and the men behind the fiddler fell out of line to 
 cross by it. 
 
 Gubblum dropped the reins and followed them; but, as 
 bridges are not made for the traffic of ponies, Tom o' Dint 
 was bound to go through the water. Never interrupting the 
 sweep and swirl of the march he was playing, he gave the 
 pony a prod with his foot, and it plunged in. But scarcely 
 had it taken two steps and reached the depth of its knees, 
 when, from the intenser cold, or from coming sharply against 
 a submerged stone, or from indignation at the fiddler's prod, 
 or from the occult cause known as pure devilment, it shied up 
 its back legs and tossed down its tousled head and pitched 
 the musician head-foremost into the stream. 
 
 Amid a burst of derisive cheers, Tom o' Dint was drawn, 
 wet as a sack, to the opposite bank, and his fiddle was rescued 
 from a rapid voyage down the river. 
 
 Now, the untoward adventure had the good effect of reduc- 
 ing the fiddler's sense of the importance of his artistic func- 
 tion, and bringing him back to consciousness of his prosaic 
 duties as postman. He put his hand into his pocket, feeling 
 as if he had dipped it into a bag of eels, and drew out the law- 
 yer's letter. It was wet, and the ink of the superscription 
 was beginning to run. 
 
 Tom o' Dint also began to run. Fearing trouble, he left 
 his unsympathetic cronies, hurried on to the church, went into 
 the vestry, where he knew there would be a fire, and proceeded 
 to dry the letter. The water had softened the gum, and the 
 envelope had opened. 
 
 " So much the mair easier dried," thought Tom, and, noth- 
 ing loath, he drew out the letter, unfolded it, and held it to the 
 fire. 
 
 The paper was smoking with the heat, and so was Tom, 
 when he heard carriage-wheels without, and then a might v 
 hubbub, and loud voices mentioning his own name without 
 reverence: " Where's that clothead of a fiddler?" and sundry 
 other dubious allusions. 
 
 Tom knew that he ought to be at the gate striking np a 
 merry tune to welcome the bride. But then the letter was 
 not dry. There was not a moment to lose. Tom spread the 
 paper and envelope on the fender, intending to return for 
 them, and dashed off with his fiddle to the discharge of his 
 artistic duty. 
 
 As Tom o' Dint left the vestrv, Parson Christian entered ft 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 149 
 
 The parson saw the papers on his fender, picked them up. 
 and in all innocence read them. The letter ran as follows: 
 
 " Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square, Nov, 28. 
 
 " Dear Bon'K'ithorne, — The man who was in Newlands is 
 Paul Lowther, Greta's half-brother. Paul Eitson is my own 
 brother, my father's son. Keep this to yourself as you value 
 your salvation, your pride, or your purse, or whatever else you 
 hold most dear. Send me by wire to-day the name of their 
 hotel in London, the time of their train south, and who, if 
 any, are with them. Yours, 
 
 " Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " P. 8. — The girl Mercy will be troublesome." 
 
 The parson had scarcely time to understand the words he 
 read, when he, too, was compelled to leave the vestry. The 
 bride and bridegroom had met at the church door. It was 
 usual to receive them at the altar with music. The fiddler's 
 function was at an end for the present. Parson Christian 
 could not allow the fiddle to be heard in church. There a 
 less secular instrument was required. The church was too 
 poor for an organ; it had not yet reached the dignity of a 
 harmonium; but it had an accordion, and among the parson's 
 offices was the office of accordionist. So, throwing his gown 
 over his head, he walked into the church, stepped into the 
 pulpit., whipped up his instrument from the shelf where he 
 kept it, and began to play. 
 
 Now it chanced that Mr. Bonnithorne in his legal capacity 
 held certain documents for signature, and having accompanied 
 the bride to the altar rail, he hurried to deposit them in the 
 vestry. The gloom had still hung heavy on his brow as he 
 entered the church. He was brooding over a letter that he 
 had expected and had not received. Perhaps it was his pres- 
 ent hunger for a letter that made his eye light first on the one 
 which the fiddler-postman had left to dry. The parson had 
 dropped it on the mantel-shelf. At a glance Mr. Bonnithorne 
 saw it was his own. 
 
 Tom o' Dint had been compelled to come up the aisle at the 
 tail of the wedding-party. He saw Mr. Bonnithorne, who 
 was at the head of it, go into Ihe vestry. Dripping wet as he 
 was, and with chattering teeth, the sweat stood on his fore- 
 head. " Deary me, what sec a char-acter will I have!" he 
 muttered. He elbowed and edged his way through the crowd, 
 and got into the vestry at last. But he was too late. With 
 an eye that struck lightning into the meek face of the fiddler 
 Ml*. Bonnithorne demanded an explanation. 
 
150 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 The request was complied with. 
 
 " And who has been in the room since you left it?" 
 
 " Nay, nobody, sir." 
 
 " Sure of that?" 
 
 ' ' For sure, ' ' said Tom. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne's countenance brightened. He had read 
 the letter, and, believing that no one else had read it, he was 
 satisfied. He put it in his pocket. 
 
 " Maybe I may finish drying it, sir?" said Tom o' Dint. 
 
 The lawyer gave a contemptuous snort and turned on his 
 heel. 
 
 When Paul walked with a firm step up the aisle, he looked 
 fresh and composed. His dress was simple; his eyes were clear 
 and bright, and his wavy brown hair fell back from a smooth 
 and peaceful brow. 
 
 Greta, at Paul's side, looked less at ease. The clouds still 
 hung over her face. Her eyes turned at intervals to the door, 
 as if expecting some new arrival. 
 
 The service was soon done, and then the parson delivered a 
 homily. It was short and simple, telling how the good bishop 
 had said marriage was the mother of the world, filling cities 
 and churches, and heaven itself, whose nursery it was. Then 
 it touched on the marriage rite. 
 
 " I do not love ceremonies," said the parson, " for they are 
 too often ' devised to set a gloss on faint deeds/ and there 
 are such of them as throw the thing they celebrate further 
 away than the wrong end of a telescope." 
 
 Then he explained that though the marriage ceremony was 
 unknown to the early Christians, and never referred to in the 
 old Bible, where Abraham " took " Sarah to wife, and Jacob 
 " took " Eachel, yet that the marriage of the Church was a 
 most holy and beautiful thing, symbolizing the union of Christ 
 with His people. Last of all, he spoke of the stainless and 
 pious parentage of both bride and bridegroom, and warned 
 them to keep their name and fame unsullied, for " What is 
 birth to man or woman," said the teacher, " if it shall be a 
 stain to his dead ancestors to have left such offspring?" 
 
 Greta bowed her head meekly, and Paul stood, while the 
 parson spoke, with absent eyes fixed on the tablets on the wall 
 before him, spelling out mechanically the words of the com- 
 mandments. 
 
 In a few moments the signatures were taken, the bell in the 
 little turret was ringing, and the company were trooping out 
 of the church. It was a rude old structure, with great bulges 
 
A SON OS HAGAR. 151 
 
 in the walls, little square lead lights, and open timbers un- 
 trimmed and straight from the tree. 
 
 The crowd outside had gathered about the wheelless landau 
 which the carpenter and blacksmith had concerted into a 
 sledge. On the box seat sat Tom o' Dint, his fiddle in his 
 hand and icicles hanging in the folds of his capacious coat. 
 The bride and bridegroom were to return in this conveyance, 
 which was to be drawn down the frozen river by a score of 
 young dalesmen shod in steel. They took their seats and had 
 almost set off when Greta called for the parson. 
 
 "Parson Christian, Parson Christian!" echoed twenty 
 voices. The good parson was ringing the bell, being bell- 
 ringer also. Presently the brazen tongue ceased wagging, 
 and Parson Christian reappeared. 
 
 " Here's your seat, parson," said Paul, making space. 
 
 " In half a crack," replied Parson Christian, pulling a great 
 key out of his pocket and locking the church door. He was 
 sexton as well. 
 
 Then he got up into the sledge, word was called, the fiddle 
 broke out, and away they went for the river-bank. A minute 
 more and they were flying over the smooth ice with the morn- 
 ing sunlight chasing them, and the music of fifty lusty voices 
 in their ears. 
 
 They had the longer journey, but they reached the vicarage 
 as early as the coaches that had returned by the road. Then 
 came the breakfast — a solid repast, fit for appetites sharpened 
 by the mountain air. Parson Christian presided in the parlor, 
 and Brother Peter in the kitchen, the door between being 
 thrown open. The former radiated smiles like April sunshine; 
 the latter looked as sour as a plum beslimed by the earthworms, 
 and "didn't know as he'd ever seen sec a pack of hungry 
 hounds." 
 
 After the breakfast the toasts, and up leaped Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne. That gentleman had quite cast off the weight of his 
 anxiety. He laughed and chaffed, made quips and cranks. 
 
 " Our lawyer is foreclosing," whispered a pert young dam- 
 sel in Greta's ear. " He's getting drunk." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne would propose "Mr. and Mrs. Bitson." 
 He began with a few hoary and reverend quotations — " Men 
 are April when they woo, December when they wed." This 
 was capped by " Maids are May when they are maids, but the 
 sky changes when they are wives." Mr. Bonnithorne pro- 
 tested that both had been true, only with exceptions. 
 
 Paul thanked the company in a dozen manly and well-chosen 
 phrases, and then stepped to the kitchen door and invited the 
 
152 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 guests over whom Brother Peter presided to spend the even, 
 ing at the Ghyll. 
 
 The ladies had risen and carried off Greta to prepare for her 
 journey, when Gubblum Oglethorpe got on his feet and insist- 
 ed on proposing " the lasses." What Gubblum had to say on 
 that subject it is not given us to record. By some strange 
 twist of logic, he launched out on a very different topic. Per* 
 haps he sat in the vicinity of Nancy Tantarum, for he began 
 with the story of a funeral. 
 
 " It minds me," he said, " of the carriers at Adam Strang's 
 funeral, at Gosforth, last back-end gone twelvemonth. There 
 were two sets on 'em, and they'd a big bottle atween 'em- 
 same as that one as auld Peter, the honey, keeps to hissel at 
 yon end of the table. Well, they carried Adam shoulder high 
 from the house to the grave-yard, first one set and then t'other, 
 mile on mile apiece, and when one set got to the end of their 
 mile they set down the coffin and went on for t'other set to pick 
 it up. It were nine mile from Branthet Edge to Gosforth, so 
 they had nine shifts atween 'em, and at every shift they 
 swigged away at the big bottle — this way with it, Peter. Well, 
 the mourners they crossed the fields for shortness, but the 
 bearers they had to keep the corpse road. All went reet for 
 eight mile, and then one set with Adam were far ahead of the 
 other with the bottle. They set the coffin on a wall at the 
 road-side and went on. Well, when the second set came up, 
 they didn't see it — they couldn't see owt, that's the fact — 
 same as I expect I'll be afore the day's gone, but not with 
 Peter's good-will, seemingly. Well, they went on, too. And 
 when all of 'em coom't up to the church togither, there was 
 the parson in his white smock and his bare poll and big book 
 open to start. But, you see, there warn't no corpse. Where 
 was it? Why, it was no'but resting quiet all by itsel' on (be 
 wall a mile away." 
 
 Gubblum was proceeding to associate the grewsome story 
 with the incidents of Paul's appearance at the fire while he 
 was supposed to be in London; but Greta had returned to the 
 parlor, muffled in furs, Paul had thrown on a long frieze 
 ulster, and every one had risen for the last leave-taking. In 
 the midst of the company stood the good old Christian, his 
 wrinkled face wet with silent tears. Greta threw herself into 
 his arms and wept aloud. Then the parson began to cast 
 seeming merry glances around him, and to be mighty jubilant 
 all at once. 
 
 The improvised sledge was at the door, laden with manj 
 boxes. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 1S3 
 
 " Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!" 
 
 A little cheer, a little attempt at laughter, a suppressed sigh, 
 then a downright honest cry, and away they were gone. The 
 last thing seen by Greta's hazy eyes was a drooping white head 
 amid many bright girl faces. 
 
 How they flew along! The glow of sunset was now in their 
 faces. It crimsoned the west, and sparkled like gold on the 
 eastern crags. Between them and the light were the skaters 
 drawing the sledge, sailing along like a flight of great rooks, 
 their voices echoing in unseen caverns of the fells. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne sat with Paul and Greta. 
 
 " Where did you say you would stay in London?" he asked. 
 
 " At Morley's Hotel," said Paul. 
 
 With this answer the lawyer looked unreasonably happy. 
 
 The station was reached in twenty minutes. The train 
 steamed in. Paul and Greta got into the last cai-riage, all be- 
 fore it being full. A moment more and they were gone. 
 
 Then Mr. Bonnithorne walked direct to the telegraph office. 
 But the liquor he had taken played him false. He had got it 
 into his stupefied head that he must have blundered about 
 Morley's Hotel. That was not Paul's, but Hugh's address. 
 So he sent this telegram: 
 
 " Left by train at one. Address, Hawk and Heron." 
 
 Then he went home happy. 
 
 That night there was high revel at the Ghyll. First, a feast 
 in the hall: beef, veal, mutton, ham, haggis, and hot bacon pie. 
 Then an adjournment to a barn, where tallow candles were 
 stuck into cloven sticks, and hollowed potatoes served for 
 lamps. Strong ale and trays of tobacco went round, and while 
 the glasses jingled and the smoke wreathed upward, a song was 
 sung: 
 
 " A man may spend 
 And God will send, 
 If his wife be good to owt; 
 But a man may spare 
 And still be bare, 
 If his wife be good to nowt." 
 
 Then blindman's buff. " Antony Blindman kens ta me, sen 1 
 bought butter and cheese o' thee? I ga' tha my pot, I ga' 
 tha my pan, I ga' all I had but a rap ho' penny I gave a poor 
 auld man." 
 
 Last of all, the creels were ranged round the hay-mows, 
 and the floor was cleared of everything except a beer barrel. 
 This was run into the corner, and Tom o' Dint and fiddle 
 
154 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 were seated on top of it. Dancing was interrupted only by 
 drinking, until Tom's music began to be irregular, whereupon 
 Gubblum remonstrated; and tben Tom, with the indignation 
 of an ar-tist, broke the bridge of his fiddle on Gubblum's head, 
 and Gubblum broke the bridge of Tom's nose with his fist, 
 t and both rolled on to the floor and lay there, until Gubblum 
 f extricated himself with difficulty, shook his lachrymose noddle, 
 and said: 
 
 " The laal man is as drunk as a fiddler." 
 The vicarage was quiet that night. All the guests save one 
 were gone. Parson Christian sat before the smoldering fire. 
 Old Laird Fisher sat with him. Neither spoke. They passed 
 a long hour in silence. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE DECLIVITY OF CRIME. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 A way-side hostelry, six miles from London, bearing its 
 swinging sign of the silver hawk and golden heron. It was a 
 little low-roofed place, with a drinking-bar in front as you 
 entered, and rooms opening from it on either hand. 
 
 The door of the room to the left was shut. One could hear 
 the voices of children within, and sometimes a peal of their 
 merry laughter. The room to the right stood open to the bar. 
 It was a smoky place, with a few chairs, a long deal table, a 
 bench with a back, a form against the wall, pipes that hung 
 on nails, and a rough beam across the low ceiling. 
 
 A big fire burned in an open grate on a hearth without a 
 fender. In front of it, coiled up in a huge chair like a canoe, 
 that had the look of having been hewn straight from the tree, 
 1 sat the only occupant of the room. The man wore a tweed 
 suit of the indefinite pattern known as pepper and salt. His 
 hat was drawn heavily over his face to protect his eyes from 
 v the glare of the fire-light. He gave satisfactory evidence that 
 he slept. 
 
 Under any light but that of the fire, the place must have 
 looked cheerless to desolation, but the comfortless room was 
 alive with the fire's palpitating heart. The rosy flames danced 
 over the sleeper's tawny hair, over the sanded floor, over the 
 walls adorned with gaudy prints. They threw shadows and 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 153 
 
 then caught them back again ; flashed a ruddy face out of the 
 little cracked window, and then lay still while the blue night 
 looked in. 
 
 An old woman, with a yellow face deeply wrinkled, served 
 behind the bar. Two or three carriers and hawkers sat on a 
 bench before it. One of these worthies screwed up the right 
 side of his face with an expression of cutting irony: 
 
 " Burn my body, though, but what an inwalable thing to 
 have a son wot never need do no work!" 
 
 The old woman lifted her eyes. 
 
 " There, enough of that/' she said, and then jerked her 
 head toward the room from whence came measured snores. 
 " He'll be working at throwing you out, some of you, same as 
 he did young Bobby on Sunday sennight." 
 
 " Like enough. He don't know which side his bread is 
 buttered, he don't." 
 
 "' His bread?" said another, an old road-mender, with a 
 scornful dig of emphasis. "His old mother's, you mean. 
 Don't you notice as folks as eat other folks' bread, and earn 
 none for theirselves, never knows no more nor babbies which 
 side the butter is on?" 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Luke Sturgis!" said the old woman. 
 " Mayhap you think it's you're pint of half-and-half as keeps 
 us all out of the union." 
 
 " Now you're a-goin' to get wexed, Mrs. Drayton. So wot's 
 to prevent me having another pint, just to get that fine son of 
 yourn an extra cigar or so. Hold hard with the pewter, 
 though. I'll drain off what's left, if convenient. " 
 
 A drowsy-eyed countryman, with a dog snoring at his feet, 
 said: 
 
 " Been to Lunnon again," and pointed the shank of his 
 pipe in the direction of the sleeping man. " Got the Lunnon 
 smell on his clothes. I alius knows it forty perches off." 
 
 " You're wrong, then, Mister Wiseman," said the old 
 woman, " and he ain't got no smell of no Lunnon on his 
 clothes this day, anyways. For he's been where there ain't 
 no smell no more nor in Hendon, leastways unless the mount- 
 'ins smells and the cataracks and the sheeps." 
 
 " The mount'ins? And has Master Paul been along of the 
 mount'ins?" 
 
 " Yes; Cummerland, that's the mount'ins, and fur off, too, 
 I've heerd." 
 
 " Cummerland? Ain't that the part as the young miss,? 
 comes from?" 
 
 " Mayhap it is; I wouldn't be for saying no to that." 
 
156 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " So that's the time o' day, is it? The speaker gave a pro- 
 longed whistle, and turned a suggestive glance into the faces 
 of his companions. " Well, 1 alius says to my old woman, 
 ' Bide quiet/ I says, ' and it'll leak out,'' and sure enough so 
 it has." 
 
 The landlady fired up. 
 
 " And 1 alius says to your missis, ' Mistress Sturgis,' I says, 
 ' it do make me that wexed to see a man a-prying into other 
 people's business and a-talking and a-scandalizing, which it is 
 bad in a woman, where you expects no better, as the saying is, 
 but it ain't no ways bearsome in a man — and I wish you'd keep 
 him,' I says, ' from poking his nose, as you might say, into 
 other people's pewters.' There — that's what 1 alius says to 
 your missis." 
 
 "And very perwerse of you, too," said the worthy ad- 
 dressed, speaking with the easy good-nature of one who could 
 afford to be rated. " And wot's to prevent me having a screw 
 of twist on the strength of it," putting a penny on the 
 counter. 
 
 The landlady threw down the paper of tobacco, picked up 
 the penny, and cast it into the till. 
 
 " On'y, as I say, there's no use denying now as Mister Paul 
 Drayton has a finger in the young missy's pie." 
 
 " There, that's enough o' that. I told you afore she never 
 set eyes on him till a fortnight come Sunday." 
 
 Two women came into the bar with jugs. 
 
 " And how is the young missy?" asked the elder of the 
 two, catching up the conversation as the landlady served her. 
 
 " She's there," said the landlady rather indefinitely, indi- 
 cating with a sidelong nod the room to the left with the closed 
 door. 
 
 At that moment the laughter of children could be heard 
 from within. 
 
 "She's merry over it, at any rate, though I did hear a 
 whisper," said the woman, "as she feeds two when she eats 
 her wittals, as the saying is." 
 
 The men laughed. 
 
 " That's being overcur'ous, mistress," said one, as the 
 woman passed out sniggering. 
 
 " Such baggage oughtn't to be taken in to live with respect- 
 able people," said the other woman, the younger one, who 
 wore a showy bonnet and a little gay ribbon at her neck. 
 
 " And that's being overcharitable," said another voice. 
 " It's the women for charity, especially to one of themselves." 
 
 " It's cur'osity as is the mischief i' this world," said the 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. 157 
 
 drowsy-eyed countryman. "People talk o' the root o' all 
 evil, and some says drink, and some says money, and some 
 says rheumatis, but I says cur'osity. Show me the man as 
 ain't cur'ous, and he don't go a-poking his nose into every 
 stink-pot, as you might say. " 
 
 " Of course not," said the gentleman addressed as Luke 
 Sturgis. " And show me the man as ain't cur'ous," he said, 
 with a wink, " and I'll show you the man as is good at a 
 plough and inwalable at a ditch, and wery near worth his 
 weight hi gold at gapping a hedge, and mucking up a horse- 
 midden, and catching them nasty moles wot ruin the country 
 wores nor wars and publicans and parsons." 
 
 CHAPTBK II. 
 
 It was Mercy Fisher who sat in the room to the left of the 
 bar, and played with the children, and laughed when they 
 laughed, and tried to forget that she was not as young as they 
 were, and as happy and as free from thought, living, as they 
 lived, from hour to hour, with no past and without a future, 
 and all in the living present. But she was changed, and was 
 now no longer quite a child, though she had a child's heart 
 that would never grow old, but be a child's heart still, all the 
 same that the weight of a woman's years lay upon it, and the 
 burden of a woman's sorrow saddened it. A little older, a 
 little wiser perhaps, a little graver of face, and with eyes a lit- 
 tle more wistful. 
 
 A neighbor who had gone to visit a relative five miles away 
 had brought round her children, begging the " young missy " 
 to take care of them in her absence. A curly-headed boy of 
 four sat wriggling in Mercy's lap, while a girl of six stood by 
 her side, watching the needles as she knitted. And many a 
 keen thrust the innocent, prattling tongues sent straight as an 
 arrow to Mercy's heart. The little fellow was revolving a 
 huge lozenge behind his teeth. 
 
 " And if oo had a little boy would oo give him sweets ery 
 often — all days — sweets and cakes — would oo?" 
 
 "Yes, every day, darling; I'd give him sweets and cakes 
 every day." 
 
 " I 'ikes oo. And would oo let him go out to play with the 
 big boys, and get birds' nests and things, would oo?" 
 
 " Yes, birds' nests, and berries, and everything." 
 
 " I 'ikes oo, I do. And let him go to meet daddy coming 
 home at night, and ride on daddy's back?" 
 
158 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 A shadow shot across the girl's simple face, and there was a 
 pause. 
 
 " Would oo? And lift him on daddy's shoulder, would oo?" 
 
 " Perhaps, dear." 
 
 " Oh!" The little chap's delight required no fuller expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " Ot's oo doing?" 
 
 " Knitting, darling — there, rest quiet on my knee." 
 
 " Ot is it — knitting — stockings for oo little boy?" 
 
 " I have no little boy, sweetheart. They are mittens for a 
 gentleman." 
 
 " How pooty! Ot's a gentleman?" 
 
 " A man, dear. Mr. Drayton is a gentleman, you know." 
 
 "Oh!" Then after a moment's sage reflection, "Me 
 knows — a raskill." 
 
 " Willy!" 
 
 " 'At's what daddy say he is." 
 
 All this time, the little maiden at Mercy's side had been 
 pondering her own peculiar problem. " What would you do 
 if you had a little girl?" 
 
 " Well, let me see; I'd teach her to knit and to sew, and 
 I'd comb her hair so nice, and make her a silk frock with 
 flounces, and, oh! such a sweet little hat." 
 
 "How nice! And would you take her to market and to 
 church, and to see the dolls in Mrs. Bicker's window?" 
 
 " Yes, dearest, yes." 
 
 " And never whip her?" 
 
 " My little girl would be very, very good, and oh! so 
 pretty." 
 
 " And let her go to grandma's whenever she liked, and not 
 tell grandpa he's not to give her ha'pennies, would you?" 
 
 " Yes .... dear .... yes . . . perhaps." 
 
 " Are your eyes very sore to-day, Mercy? They are so red!" 
 
 But the little one of all was not interested in this turn of the 
 conversation: " Well, why don't oo have a little boy?" 
 
 A dead silence. 
 
 " Won't oo, eh?" 
 
 Willy was put to the ground. " Let us sing something. 
 Do you like singing, sweetheart?" 
 
 The little fellow climbed back to her lap in excitement. 
 " Me sing, me sing. Mammy told I a song — me sing it oo." 
 
 And without further ceremony the little chap struck up the 
 notes of a lullaby. 
 
 Mercy had learned that same song, as her mother crooned 
 it long ago by the side of her cot. A great wave of memory 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 159 
 
 and love and sorrow and remorse, in one, swept over her. It 
 cost her a struggle not to break into a flood of tears. And the 
 little innocent face looked up at the ceiling as the sweet child- 
 voice sung the familiar words. 
 
 There was a new-comer in the bar outside. It was Hugh 
 Eitson, clad in a long ulster, with the hood drawn over his 
 hat. He stepped up to the landlady, who courtesied low from 
 behind the counter. " So he has returned?" he said, without 
 greeting of any kind. 
 
 " Yes, sir, he is back, sir; he got home in the afternoon, 
 sir." 
 
 " You told him nothing of any one calling?" 
 
 " No, sir — that is to say, sir — not to say told him, sir — but 
 I did mention — just mention, sir, that — " 
 
 Hugh Eitson smiled coldly. " Of course — precisely. Were 
 you more prudent with the girl?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir, being as you told me not to name it to the 
 missy — " 
 
 " He is asleep, I see." 
 
 " Yes, sir; he'd no sooner taken bite and sup than he 
 dropped off in his chair, same as you see, sir; and never a 
 word since. He must have traveled all night," 
 
 " He did not explain?" 
 
 " Oh, no, sir; he on'y called for his cold meat and his ale, 
 sir, and — " 
 
 " You see, his old mother ain't noways in his confidence, 
 master," said one of the countrymen on the bench. 
 
 " Nor you in mine, my friend," said Hugh Eitson, facing 
 about. Then turning again to the landlady, he said: " Tell 
 him some one wants to speak with him. Or wait, I'll tell him 
 myself." 
 
 He stepped into the room with the sleeping man, and closed 
 the door after him. 
 
 " Luke Sturgis," said the landlady, with sudden austerity, 
 " I'll have you know as it's none of your business saying words 
 what's onpleasant — and me his mother, too. What's it you 
 say? Cloven hoof? He's a personable gentleman, if he has 
 got summat a matter with a foot, and a clever face how-an- 
 ever!" 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Alone with the sleeping man, Hugh Eitson stood and 
 looked down at him intently. The fire had burned to a steady 
 
160 A SON OF HAOAK. 
 
 glow of red coal without flame. There was no other light in 
 the room. 
 
 The sleeper began to stir with the uneasy movement of one 
 who is struggling against the effect of a fixed gaze bent upon 
 him. Then, with a shake of the head and a shrug of the 
 shoulders, he sat up in his chair. He tossed his hat back from 
 his forehead, and a tuft of wavy brown hair tumbled over it. 
 His head was held down, and his eyes were on the fire. Hugh 
 Eitson took a step toward him and put one hand on his arm. 
 
 " Paul Drayton," he said, and the man shrunk under his 
 touch and slowly turned his face full upon him. 
 
 When their eyes met, Hugh Eitson saw what he had ex- 
 pected to see — the face of Paul Eitson. In that low, red light 
 every feature was the same. By the swift impulse of sense it 
 seemed as if it could be the same man and no other; as if Paul 
 Drayton and Paul Eitson were one man. 
 
 Drayton got on to his feet with an uncertain shuffle, and then 
 in a moment the hallucination was dispelled. He kicked, with 
 a heavy boot, at the slumbering coals, and the fire broke into 
 a sharp crackle and bright blaze. The white light fell on his 
 face. It was a fine face brutalized by excess. The features 
 were strong, manly, and impressive. What God had done was 
 very good; but the eyes were bleared, and the lips discolored, 
 and the expression, which might have been frank, was sullen. 
 
 " I don't wonder that you were tired after your journey; 
 it was a long one," said Hugh Eitson. He affected an easy 
 manner, but there was a tremor in his voice. " You caught 
 the early Scotch mail from Penrith," he added, and drew a 
 bench nearer to the fire and sat down. 
 
 Drayton made a half -dazed scrutiny of his visitor, and said : 
 
 " Damme, if you're not the fence as was here afore, criss- 
 crossing at our old woman! Tell us your name." 
 
 The voice was husky, but it had, nevertheless, a note or 
 two of the voice of Paul Eitson. 
 
 " That will be unnecessary," said Hugh Eitson, with com- 
 plete self-possession. " We've met before," he added, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 " The deuce we have — where?" 
 
 " You slept at the Pack Horse at Keswick rather more 
 than a week ago," said Hugh. 
 
 Drayton betrayed no surprise. 
 
 " Last Saturday night you were active at the fire that almost 
 Restroyed the old mill at Newlands. " 
 
 Drayton's sullen face was immovable. 
 
 " By the way," said Hugh, elevating his voice and affecting 
 
A SCO* OF HAGAR. 161 
 
 a sudden flow of spirits, " I owe you my personal thanks for 
 your exertions. What do yon drink — brandy?" 
 
 Going to the door, he called for a bottle of brandy and 
 glasses. 
 
 " Then again on Monday night," he added, turning into the 
 room, " you did me the honor to visit my own house." 
 
 Drayton was still standing. 
 
 " I know you," he said. " Shall I tell you your name?" 
 
 Hugh smiled with undisturbed humor. '" That also will be 
 unnecessary," he said; and leisurely drew ofE his gloves. 
 
 " What d'ye want? I ain't got no time to waste — that's 
 flat." 
 
 " Well, let me see, it's just ten o'clock," said Hugh Eitson, 
 taking out his watch. " I want you to earn twenty pounds 
 before twelve." 
 
 Mr. Drayton gave vent to a grim laugh. 
 
 " I'll pound it as I'm fly to what that means! You're look- 
 ing to earn two hundred before midnight. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Drayton gave Hugh a sidelong glance of great astute- 
 ness. 
 
 Hugh lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. 
 
 " Money is not my object." 
 
 " Oh, it ain't, eh? Well, I'm not afraid for you to know 
 as it's mine — very muck so." And Mr. Drayton gave vent to 
 another grim laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Drayton entered the room at this moment and set down 
 the brandy, two glasses, and a water-bottle on the deal table. 
 
 " Let me offer you a little refreshment," and Hugh took 
 up the brandy and poured out half a tumbler. 
 
 " Thankee, thankee!" 
 
 "Water? Say when." 
 
 But Mr. Drayton stopped the dilution by snatching up his 
 tumbler. His manner had undergone a change. The watch- 
 fulness of a ferocious creature dogged and all but trapped gave 
 way to reckless abandonment, bravado, and audacity. 
 
 " What's the lay?" he said, with a chuckle. 
 
 " To accompany a lady to Kentish Town Junction, and see 
 her safe into the midnight train — that's all." 
 
 Drayton laughed outright. 
 
 " Of course it is," he said. 
 
 " The lady will be here shortly before midnight." 
 
 " Of course she will." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's face lost its smiles. 
 
 " Don't laugh like that — I won't have itl" 
 
162 A BON - OF HAGAE. 
 
 Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, 
 and then leaned toward Hugh Eitson over the arm of his chair. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " it's just a matter o' thirty years 
 gone August since my mother put me into swaddling clothes, 
 and deng my buttons if I'm wearing 'em yet!" 
 
 " What do you mean, my friend?" said Hugh. 
 
 Drayton chuckled contemptuously. 
 
 " Speak out plain," he said. Give the work its right 
 name. I ain't afraid for you to say it. A man don't give 
 twenty pounds for the like o : that. Not if he works for it 
 honest, same as me. I'm a licensed victualer and a gentle- 
 man — that's what I am, if you want to know. " 
 
 Hugh Eitson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, where- 
 upon Mr. Drayton again had resource to the spirit bottle, 
 mentioned afresh his profession and pretensions, and wound 
 up by a relative inquiry, " And what do you call yourself?" 
 
 Hugh did not immediately gratify Mr. Drayton's curiosity. 
 
 "Quite right, Mr. Drayton," he said; "I know all about 
 you. Shall I tell you why you went to Cumberland?" 
 
 Eemarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, 
 Mr. Drayton took out of his pockets a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, 
 and proceeded to charge a discolored meerschaum pipe. 
 
 " Thirty years ago," said Hugh Eitson, " a young lady tried 
 to drown herself and her child. She was rescued and com- 
 mitted to an asylum. Her child, a son, was given into the 
 oare of the good woman with whom she had lodged." 
 
 Mr. Drayton interrupted. " Thankee; but, as the wice- 
 chairman says, ' we'll take it as read,' so we will." 
 
 Hugh Eitson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. 
 Drayton smoked vigorously: " You have never heard of your 
 mother from that hour to this; but one day you were told by 
 the young girl, whom circumstances had cast on your foster- 
 mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland there 
 lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary re- 
 semblance. That excited your curiosity. You had reasons 
 for thinking that if your mother were alive she might be rich. 
 Now, you yourself had the misfortune to be poor. " 
 
 " And I'm not afraid for anybody to know it," interrupted 
 Mr. Drayton. " Come to the point honest. Look here, we 
 are like two hyenas I saw one day at the Zoo. One got a bone 
 in his tooth at feeding time, and blest if the other didn't fight 
 for that bone I don't know how long and all." 
 
 " Well," continued Hugh Eitson, with a dubious smile that 
 the cloud of smoke might have hidden from a closer observer, 
 " being a man of spirit, and not without knowledge of the 
 
' Assuredly not— the name was not Ritson."— .Pa^/tff. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 163 
 
 world, having inherited brains, in short, from the parents who 
 bequeathed you nothing else — " 
 
 Mr. Drayton puffed volumes, then poured himself half a 
 tumbler of the raw spirit and tossed it off. 
 
 — " You determined on seeing if, after all, this were only a 
 fortuitous resemblance. " 
 
 Mr. Drayton raised his hand. " I'm a licensed victualer, 
 that's what I am, and I ain't flowery," he said, in an apolo- 
 getic tone; " I hain't had the chance of it, being as I'd no 
 schooling — but, deng me, you've just hit it!" And the gen- 
 tleman who could not be flowery shook hands effusively with 
 the gentleman who could. 
 
 " Precisely, Mr. Drayton, precisely," said Hugh Ritson. 
 He paused, and watched Drayton closely. That worthy had 
 removed his pipe, and was staring, with stupid eyes and open 
 mouth, into the fire. 
 
 " But you found nothing." 
 
 " How d'ye know?" 
 
 " Your face at this moment says so." 
 
 " Pooh! Don't you go along trusting to this here time-piece 
 for the time o' day. It ain't been brought up in habits o' 
 truthfulness same as yours." 
 
 Hugh Eitson laughed. 
 
 " You and I are meant to be friends, Mr. Drayton," he 
 said. " But let us first understand each other. Your idea 
 that you could find your parents in Cumberland was a pure 
 fallacy." 
 
 "Eh! Why?" 
 
 " Because your mother is dead." 
 
 Drayton shook off the stupor of the liquor, and betrayed a 
 keen if momentary interest. 
 
 " The book of the asylum in which she was confined, after 
 the attempted suicide, contains the record — " 
 
 " But she escaped," interrupted Drayton. 
 
 " Contains the record of her escape and subsequent recovery 
 — dead. The body was picked out of the river, recognized 
 by the authorities as that of the unknown woman, and buried 
 in the name she gave." 
 
 "What name?" said Drayton. 
 
 Hugh Ritson's face underwent a momentary change. 
 
 " That is indifferent," he said; " I forget." 
 
 " Sure you forget?" said Drayton. " Couldn't be Ritson, 
 eh?" 
 
 Hugh struck the table. 
 
 " Assuredly not — the name was not Ritson. " 
 
164 A SON OP HAGAE. 
 
 The tone irritated Mr. Drayton. He glanced down with 
 a look that seemed to say that Hugh Ritson had his Maker 
 to thank for giving him the benefit of an infirm foot. 
 
 Hugh Ritson mollified him by explaining that if he had 
 any curiosity as to the name, he could discover it for himself. 
 " Besides," said Hugh, " what matter about the name if your 
 mother is dead?" 
 
 " That's true/' said Drayton, who, being now appeased, 
 began to see that his anger had been puerile. 
 
 " Depend upon it, your father, wherever he is, is a cipher," 
 said Hugh Ritson. 
 
 Drayton got on to his feet and trudged the floor uneasily. 
 An idea had occurred to him. " The person picked out of the 
 river may have been another woman. I've heard of such." 
 
 " Possibly; but the chance of error is worth little to you." 
 Hugh looked uncomfortable as he said this, but Drayton saw 
 nothing. 
 
 " Bah! What matter?" said Drayton; and, determined to 
 cudgel his brains no longer, he reached for the brandy and 
 drank another half glass. There was then an interchange of 
 deep amity. 
 
 "Tell me," said Hugh, "what passed at the Ghyll on 
 Monday night?" 
 
 " The Ghyll? Monday? That was the night of the snow. 
 What passed? Nothing." 
 
 " Why did you go?" 
 
 " Wanted to see your mother. Saw your brother one night 
 late at the door of the parson's house. Saw you at the fire. 
 At the fire? — certainly. Stood a matter of a dozen yards away 
 when that young buck of a stableman drove up with the trap. 
 What excuse for going? Blest if I remember — summat or 
 other; knocked, and no one came. I don't know how long 
 and all I stood cooling my heels at the door. Then I saw a 
 light coming from a room on the first floor, aud up I went and 
 knocked. ' Come in,' says somebody. I went in. Withered 
 old party got up. Black crape and beads, you know. But, 
 afore I could speak, she reeled like a top and fell all of a heap. 
 Blest if the old girl didn't take me for a ghost!" Mr. Dray- 
 ton elevated his eyebrows, and added with emphasis, " I got 
 out." 
 
 " And on the way back you frightened a young lady in the 
 lane, who, like my mother, mistook you for the ghost of my 
 brother Paul. Well, that young lady was married to my 
 brother this morning. They are now on their way to London, 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. ] C5 
 
 They intend to leave England on Wednesday next, and they 
 mean to pass to-night in your house. " 
 
 Mr. Drayton's eyebrows went up again. 
 
 " It is certainly hard to understand — but look," and Hugh 
 Ritson handed to Drayton the telegram he had received from 
 Bonnithorne. That worthy examined it minutely, back and 
 front, with bleared and bewildered eyes, and then looked to 
 his visitor for explanation. 
 
 " The lady must not leave England/' said Hugh. 
 
 Drayton steadied himself and tried hard to look appalled. 
 
 "Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!" he said. 
 " What do you want for your twenty pounds? Speak out 
 plain. I'm not flowery, I'm not. I'm a licensed victualer 
 and a gentleman — " 
 
 " What do I want? Only that you should send the lady 
 home again by the first train." 
 
 Drayton began to laugh. 
 
 " You see, there was no cause for alarm," said Hugh, with 
 an innocent smile. 
 
 Drayton's laughter became boisterous. 
 
 "I am to decoy the young thing away by making her be- 
 lieve as I'm her husband, eh?" 
 
 " Mr. Drayton, you are a shrewd fellow." 
 
 " And what about the husband — ain't he another shrewd 
 fellow?" 
 
 " Leave him to me. When the time comes, make no delay. 
 Don't expose yourself unnecessarily. Wear that ulster you 
 have on at present. Say as little as possible — nothing if practi- 
 cable. Get the lady into the fly that shall be waiting at the 
 door; drive to the station; book her to Keswick; put her into 
 the carriage at the last moment; then clear away with all expe- 
 dition. The midnight train never stops this side of Bedford." 
 
 Drayton was shuffling across the room, chuckling audibly. 
 " He, he, he! haw, haw! — so I'm to leave her at the station , 
 eh? Poor young thing; I hain't got the heart — I hain't got it 
 in me to be so cruel. No, no, I couldn't be such a vagabond 
 of a husband— he, he! haw, haw! — and on the poor thing's 
 wedding-day, too." 
 
 Hugh Ritson rose to his feet. 
 
 " If you go an inch further than the station you'll repent it 
 to your dying day!" he said, once more bringing down his 
 fist heavily on the table. 
 
 At this Drayton chuckled and crowed yet louder, and de- 
 clared that it would be necessary to have another half glass in 
 order to take the taste of the observation out of his mouth. 
 
It>6 A SON OP HAGAE. 
 
 Then his laughter ceased. 
 
 " Look here: you want me to do a job as can only be done 
 by one man alive. And what do you offer me — twenty pounds? 
 Keep it," he said; " it won't pass, sir!" 
 
 The fire had burned very low, the cheerless room was dense 
 with smoke and noisome with the smell of dead tobacco. 
 Drayton buttoned up to the throat the long coat he wore. 
 
 " I've summat on," he said; " good night." 
 
 The sound of children's voices came from the bar. The lit- 
 tle ones were going home. 
 
 " Good-night, missy, and thank you." It was a woman's 
 voice. 
 
 " Good -night, Mercy," cried the children. 
 
 Drayton was opening the door. 
 
 " Think again," said Hugh Eitson. " You run no risk. 
 Eleven forty-five prompt will do." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 When Drayton went out, Hugh Eitson walked into the bar. 
 The gossips had gone. Only the landlady was there. The 
 door to the room opposite now stood open. 
 
 " Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, " have you ever seen this 
 face before?" 
 
 He took a medallion from his pocket and held it out to her. 
 
 " Lor's a mercy me!" cried the landlady; " why, it's her 
 herself as plain as plain- — except for the nun's bonnet. " 
 
 ' ' Is that the lady who lodged with you at Pimlico — the 
 mother of Paul?" 
 
 " As sure as sure! Lor's, yes; and to think the poor young 
 dear is dead and gone! It's thirty years since, but it do make 
 me cry, and my husband — he's gone, too — my husband he said 
 to me, ' Martha,' he said, ' Martha — ' " 
 
 The landlady % s garrulity was interrupted by a light scream: 
 " Hugh, Hugh!" 
 
 Mercy Fisher stood in the door-way, with wonder-stricken 
 eyes and heaving breast. 
 
 In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh 
 Eitson's arms with the flutter of a frightened bird. 
 
 " Oh, I knew you would come — I was sure you would come!" 
 she said, and dried her eyes, and then cried again, and then 
 dried them afresh, and lifted her pouting lips to be kissed. 
 
 Hugh Eitson made no display. A shade of impatience 
 crossed his face at first, but it was soon gone. He tried to 
 
A SON OF HA GAR. 16? 
 
 look pleased, and bent his head and touched the pale lips 
 slightly. 
 
 "You look wan, you poor little thing," he said, quietly. 
 " What ails you?" 
 
 " Nothing — nothing now that you have come. Only you 
 were so long in coming, so very long." 
 
 He called up a brave word to answer her. 
 
 " But you see I keep my word, little woman," he said, and 
 smiled down at her and nodded his head cheerfully. 
 
 "And you have come to see me at last! All this way to 
 see poor little me!" 
 
 The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that 
 moment before a radiant smile. 
 
 " One must do something for those who risk so much for 
 One," he said, and laughed a little. 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond 
 the gift of speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she 
 looked up at his face in silence and with brightening eyes. 
 
 " And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said. 
 
 " I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. 
 Drayton here, and her son, and all the smart young fellows of 
 Hendon who came to drink at the bar and say pretty things to 
 the little bar-maid, and — " 
 
 " It's not that — I had no one who knew you," she said, and 
 dropped her voice to a whisper. 
 
 " But you go out sometimes — into the village — to London?" 
 he said. 
 
 " No, I never go out — never now." 
 
 " Then your eyes are really worse?" 
 
 "It's not my eyes. But never mind. Oh, I knew you 
 would not forget me. Only sometimes of an evening, when 
 the dusk fell in and I sat by the fire all alone, something 
 would say, ' He doesn't want me, 5 ' He won't come for me.' 
 But that was not true, was it?" 
 
 " Why, no; of course not." 
 
 "And then when the children came — the neighbor's chil- 
 dren — and I put the little darlings to bed, and they said their 
 prayers to me, and I tried to pray too — -sometimes I was 
 afraid to pray — and then, and then " (she glanced round 
 watchfully and dropped her voice) " something would say. 
 ' Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!' " 
 
16S A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " You morbid little woman! you shall be happy again — you 
 are happy now, are you not?" he said. - 
 
 Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of 
 love, looked up at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happi- 
 ness. 
 
 "Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his 
 breast. 
 
 " But you should have taken walks — long, healthy, happy 
 walks," be said. 
 
 " I did — while the roses bloomed, and the dahlias and 
 things, and I saved so many of them against you would come, 
 moss roses and wild white roses; but you were so long coming, 
 and they withered. And then I couldn't throw them away, 
 because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the 
 book you gave me. See; let me show you." 
 
 She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book 
 from the table in the inner room. He followed her mechan- 
 ically, hardly heeding her happy prattle. 
 
 " And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make 
 those lonely walks of yours more cheerful?" 
 
 She was opening her book with nervous fingers, and stopped 
 to look up with blank eyes. 
 
 " Eh? No handsome young fellow who whispered that you 
 were a pretty little thing, and had no right to go moping about 
 by yourself? None? Eh?" 
 
 Her old look of weariness was creeping back. 
 
 " Come, Mercy, tell the truth, you sly little thing — eh?" 
 
 She was fumbling his withered roses with nervous fingers. 
 Her throat felt parched. 
 
 He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, 
 as if speaking to himself: " I told that Bonnithorne this hole 
 and corner was no place for the girl. He should have taken 
 her to London." 
 
 The girl's heart grew sick. The book was closed and 
 dropped back on to the table. 
 
 " And now, Mercy,' : said Hugh Ritson, " I want you to be 
 a good little woman, and do as I bid you, and not speak a 
 word. Will you?" 
 
 The child-face brightened, and Mercy nodded her head, a 
 little tear rolling out of one gleaming eye. At the same mo- 
 ment she put her hand in the pocket of her muslin apron, and 
 took out a pair of knitted mittens, and tried to draw them on 
 to Hugh's wrists. 
 
 He looked at the gift and smiled, and said: " I won't need 
 these — not to-day, I mean. See, I wear long gloves, with fui 
 
A SOtf 0* tfAGAfe. 169 
 
 wristbands — there, I'll store your mittens away in my pocket. 
 What a sad little soul — crying again?" 
 
 Mercy's pretty dreams were dying one by one. She lifted 
 now a timid hand until it rested lightly on his breast. 
 
 " Listen. I'm going out, but I'll soon be back. I must 
 talk with Mrs. Drayton, and I've something to pay her, you 
 know." 
 
 The timid hand fell to the girl's side. 
 
 " When I return there maybe some friends with me — a lady 
 and a gentleman — but I want to see them alone, quite alone, 
 and I don't want them to see you — do you understand?" 
 
 A great dumb sadness was closing in on Mercy's heart. 
 
 " But they will soon be gone, and then to-morrow you and 
 I must talk again, and try to arrange matters so that you 
 won't be quite so lonely, but will stir about, and see the doctor 
 for your eyes, and get well again, and try to forget — " 
 
 " Forget!" said the girl, faintly. Her parched throat took 
 away her voice. 
 
 ' ' I mean — that is to say — I was hoping — of course, I mean 
 forget all the trouble in Cumberland. And now get away to 
 bed like a good little girl. I must be off. Ah, how late! — 
 see, a quarter to eleven, and my watch is slow." 
 
 He walked into the bar, buttoning up his coat to his ears. 
 The girl followed him listlessly. Mrs. Drayton was washing 
 glasses behind the counter. 
 
 " Mind you send this little friend of mine to bed very soon," 
 said Hugh to the landlady. " Look how red her eyes are! And 
 keep a good fire in this cozy parlor on the left — you are to 
 have visitors. You need not trouble about a bedroom— they 
 won't stay long. Let me see, what do they say is the time of 
 your last up-train?" 
 
 " To London? The last one starts away at half past 
 twelve," said the landlady. 
 
 "Very good. I'll see you again, Mrs. Drayton. Good- 
 night, Mercy, and do keep a brighter face. There — kiss me. 
 'Now, good-night — what a silly, affectionate little goose — and 
 mind you are in bed and asleep before I return, or I shall be 
 that angry — yes, I shall. You never saw me angry. Well, 
 nevermind. Good-night." 
 
 The door opened and closed. Mercy went back into the 
 room. It was cheerless and empty, and the children's happy 
 voices lived in it no more. The girl's heart ached with a dull 
 pain that had never a pang at all, but was dumb and dead and 
 cold; and Mercy was all alone. 
 
 " Perhaps he was only in fun when he said that about walk- 
 
170 A SOX OF HAGAR. 
 
 ing oat with somebody and trying to forget, and not being 
 seen," she thought. " Yes; he must have been only in fun/' 
 she thought, " because he knew how I waited and waited." 
 
 Then she took up again the book that he had hardly glanced 
 at. It fell open at a yellow, dried-up rose that had left the 
 stain of its heart's juice on the white leaf. 
 
 " Yes; he was only in fun," she said, and then laughed a 
 little; and then a big drop fell on to the open page and on to 
 the dead flower. 
 
 Then she tried to be very brave. 
 
 " I must not cry; it makes my eyes, oh! so sore. I must get 
 them well and strong — oh, yes] I must be well and strong 
 against — against— then. " 
 
 She lifted her head slowly where she stood alone, and a 
 smile, like a summer breeze on still water, rippled over her 
 mouth. 
 
 " He kissed me," she thought, " and he came to see me — 
 all this long, long way." 
 
 A lovely dream shone in her face now. 
 
 " And if he does not come again until — until then — he will 
 be glad — oh, he will be very glad!" 
 
 The thought of a future hour when the poor little soul 
 should be rich with something of her own that would be dear- 
 est of all because not all her own, shone like a sleeping child's 
 vision in her face. She went out into the bar and lighted a 
 candle. 
 
 " So that's your sweetheart — not the lawyer man, eh?" said 
 Mrs. Drayton, bustling about. 
 
 "I've no call to hide my face now — not now that he has 
 come — have I?" said Mercy. 
 
 " Well, he is free of his money, and I'se just been hoping 
 you get some of it, for, as I says, you want things bad, and 
 them as has the looking to it should find 'em, as is only reason- 
 able." 
 
 Mercy did as she had been bidden : she went off to her bed- 
 room. But her head was too full of thoughts for sleep. She 
 examined her face in the glass, and smiled and blushed at it 
 because he called it»pretty. It was prettier than ever to her 
 own eyes now. After half an hour she remembered that she 
 had left the book on the table in the parlor, and crept down- 
 stairs to recover it. When she was on the landing at the bot- 
 tom, she heard a hurried knock at the outer door. 
 
 Thereafter all her dreams died in an instant. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 171 
 
 CHAPTBE V. 
 
 When Hugh Ritson stepped out into the road, the. night 
 was dark. Fresh from the yellow light of the inn, his eyes 
 could barely descry the footpath or see the dim black line of 
 the hedge. The atmosphere was damp. The moisture in the 
 air gathered in great beads on his eyebrows and beard, stiffen- 
 ing them with frost. It was bitterly cold. The mist that 
 rose from the river spread itself over the cold, open wastes of 
 marshy ground that lay to the right and to the left. The 
 gloomy road was thick with half-frozen mud. 
 
 Hugh Eitson buttoned his coat yet closer and started at a 
 brisk pace. 
 
 " No time to lose," he thought, " if I've to be at the sta- 
 tion when the north train goes through. Would have dearly 
 liked to keep an eye on my gentleman. Should have done it, 
 but for the girl. ' Summat on,' eh? What is it, I wonder? 
 It might be useful to know." 
 
 With a cutting wind at his back he walked faster as his 
 eyes grew familiar with the darkness. He was thinking that 
 Bonnithorne's telegram might be an error. Perhaps it had 
 even been tampered with. It was barely conceivable that Paul 
 and Greta had ever so much as heard of the Hawk and Heron. 
 And what possible inducement could they have to sleep in 
 Hendon when they would be so near to London? 
 
 His mind went back to Mercy Fisher. At that moment she 
 was dreaming beautiful dreams of how happy she was very 
 soon to make him. He was thinking, with vexation, that the 
 girl was a connecting link with the people in Cumberland. 
 Yes — and the only link, too. Could it be that Mercy — No; 
 the idea of Mercy's disloyalty to him was really too ridiculous. 
 If he could get to the station before the train from the north 
 was due to stop there, he would see for himself whether Paul 
 and Greta alighted. If they did not, as they must be in that 
 train, he would get into it also, and go on with them to Lon- 
 don. Bonnithorne might have blundered. 
 
 The journey was long, and the rodes were heavy for walk- 
 ing. It seemed a far greater distance than he had thought. 
 At the angle of a gate and a thick brier hedge he struck a 
 match and read the time by his watch. Eleven o'clock. Too 
 late, if the watch were not more than a minute slow. 
 
 At that moment he heard the whistle of a train, and be- 
 tween the whirs of the wind he heard the tinkle of the signal 
 
1?2 A SON OF HAGAlt. 
 
 bell. Too late, indeed. He was still a quarter of a mile from 
 the station. 
 
 Still he held on his way, without hope for his purpose, yet 
 quickening his pace to a sharp run. 
 
 He had come within three hundred yards of the station 
 when he heard an unearthly scream, followed in an instant 
 by a great clamor and tumult of human voices. Shrieks, 
 shouts, groans, sobs, wails — all were mingled together in one 
 agonized cry that rent the thick night air asunder. 
 
 Hugh Eitson ran faster. 
 
 Then he saw haggard men and women appearing and dis- 
 appearing before him in the light of a fire that panted on the 
 ground like an overthrown horse. 
 
 The north train had been wrecked. 
 
 Within a dozen yards from the station the engine and three 
 of the front carriages had broken from their couplings and 
 plunged on to the bank. The last four carriages, free of the 
 fatal chain, had kept the rails and were standing unharmed 
 above. 
 
 Women who had been dragged through the tops of the over- 
 turned carriages fled away with white faces into the darkness 
 of the fields. Men, too, with panic-stricken eyes, sat down on 
 the grass helpless and useless. Some resolute souls, roused to 
 activity, were pulling at the carriages to set them right. Men 
 from the station came with lanterns, and rescued the injured, 
 and put them to lie out of harm's way. 
 
 The scene was harrowing, and only two of its incidents are 
 material to this history. Over all the rest, the clamor, the 
 tumult, the agony, the abject fear, and the noble courage, let 
 a veil be drawn. 
 
 Fate had brought together in that hour of disaster three 
 men whose lives, hitherto apart, were henceforth to be bound 
 up as one life for good or ill. 
 
 Hugh Eitson rushed here and there like a man distraught. 
 He peered into every face. He caught up a lantern that some 
 one had set down, and ran to and fro in the darkness, stooping 
 to let the light fall on those on the ground, holding up the 
 red glare to the windows of the uninjured carriages. 
 
 At that moment all his frozen soul seemed to melt. Face 
 to face with the pitiless work of destiny, his own heartless 
 schemes disappeared. At last he saw the face he looked for. 
 Then he dropped the lantern to his side, and turned the glass 
 Df it from him. 
 
 " Stay here, Greta," said a voice he knew. " I shall be 
 
A SOJT OP HAGAR. 1?3 
 
 back with you presently. Let me lend them a hand over 
 yonder." The man went by him in the darkness. 
 
 Hark! 
 
 Hugh Ritson heard a cry from the field beyond the bank. 
 It was there that they had placed the injured. 
 
 " Help! help! I am robbed— help!" came out of the dark- 
 r.ess. 
 
 " Where are you?" asked another voice. 
 
 "Here! Help! help!" 
 
 Hugh Ritson ran toward the place whence the first voice 
 came, and saw the figure of a man stooping over something 
 that lay on 'the ground. At the same moment another man 
 rushed up and laid strong hold of the stooping figure. There 
 was a short, sharp struggle. The two men were of one stature, 
 one strerjgth. There was a sound as of cloth ripped asunder. 
 
 At the next moment one of the men went by like the wind 
 and was lost in the blackness of the fields. But Hugh Ritson 
 had held up the lantern as the man passed, arid caught one 
 swift glimpse of his face. He knew him. 
 
 A group had gathered about the injured person on the 
 ground and about the other man who had struggled to defend 
 him. 
 
 " Could you not hold the scoundrel?" said one. 
 
 "I held him till his coat came to pieces in my hand. See 
 hore," said the other. 
 
 Hugh Ritson knew the voice. 
 
 " A piece of Irish frieze, I should say " (feeling it). 
 
 "You must have gripped him by the lapel of his ulster. 
 Let me keep this. I am a police sergeant. What is your 
 name, sir?" 
 
 " Paul Ritson." 
 
 " And your address?" 
 
 " I was on my way to Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square. 
 What place is this?" 
 
 "Hendon." 
 
 " Could one get accommodation here for the night? A lady 
 is with me." 
 
 " Best go up by the twelve-thirty, sir." 
 
 " The lady is too much worn and excited. Any hotel, inn, 
 lodging-house?" 
 
 A porter came up. 
 
 " The Hawk and Heron's handiest. A mile, sir. Drayton 
 — it's him as keeps it — he's here somewhere. Drayton!" 
 (calling). 
 
 " Can you -get me a fly, my good fellow?" 
 
1?4 A SON 05 HAOAR. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 The police sergeant moved off. 
 
 " Then I may look for you at the Hawk and Heron?" he 
 said. 
 
 Hugh Eitson heard all. He kept the lantern down. In 
 the darkness not a face of that group was seen of any man. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later Hugh Eitson, panting for 
 breath, was knocking at the door of the inn. The landlady 
 within fumbled with the iron bar behind it. 
 
 " Come, quick!" said Hugh. 
 
 The door opened and he stepped in sharply, bathed in per- 
 spiration. 
 
 " Is your son back?" he said, catching his breath. 
 
 " Back, sir? No, sir; it's a mercy if he gets home afore 
 morning, sir; he's noways — " 
 
 " Stop your clatter. The girl is in her room. Go and turn 
 the key on her!" 
 
 It was at that moment that Mercy, having stood an instant 
 at the bottom of the stairs, had ventured nervously into the 
 bar. Turning about, Hugh Eitson came face to face with 
 her. At the sight of her his crimsoning cheeks became white 
 with wrath. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you to be in bed?" he muttered, in a low, 
 hoarse whisper. 
 
 "I've only come for .... I came down for ... . 
 Hugh, don't be angry with me." 
 
 " Come, get back then; don't stand there. Quick — and 
 mind you lock your door." 
 
 " Yes, I'm going. You wouldn't be angry with me, would 
 you?" 
 
 " Well, no, perhaps not; only get off — and quick! Do you 
 hear? Why don't you go?" 
 
 " I only came down for .... I onlv came . . . ." 
 
 "God! what foolery is this? The girl's fainting. Never 
 mind. Here, landlady, bring a light ! Lead the way. She's 
 not too heavy to carry. Upstairs with you. What a snail 
 you are, old woman! Which room?" 
 
 Another knock at the outer door. Another and another in 
 rapid succession. 
 
 " I'm a-coming, I'm a-coming!" cried the landlady from 
 the floor above. 
 
 She bustled down the stairs as fast as her stiff joints would 
 let her, but the knock came again. 
 
 " Mercy me, mercy me! and whoever is it?" 
 
 " Damme, move your bones, and let me in!" 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 175 
 
 The door flew open with pressure from without. Ghastly 
 Vnite, yet dripping with perspiration, his breath coming in 
 short, thick gusts, his neck bare, his shirt-collar tor-n aside, 
 the lapel of the f rieze ulster gone, and the rent of the red 
 flannel lining exposed, Paul Drayton entered. He was sober 
 now. 
 
 " Where is he?" with an oath. 
 
 "I'm here," said Hugh Eitson, walking through the bar 
 and into the bar-room to the right, and candle in hand. 
 
 Drayton followed him, trying to laugh. 
 
 " Am I in time?" 
 
 " Of course you are," with a hard smile. 
 
 " Fearing I might be late." 
 
 " Of course you were." 
 
 " Ban all the way." 
 
 " Of course you did." 
 
 " What are you sniggering and mocking at?" with another 
 oath. 
 
 Hugh Eitson dropped his banter, and pointed without a 
 word to the torn ulster and the disordered shirt-collar. Dray- 
 ton glanced down at his dress in the light of the candle. 
 
 " Crossed the fields for shortness, and caught in a bramble 
 bush," he said, muttering. 
 
 " Drop it!" said Hugh. " There's no time for it. Look 
 here, Drayton, I'm a downright mau. Don't try it on with 
 me. As you say, it won't pass. Shall I tell you where the 
 collar of that coat is now? It's at the police-station." 
 
 Drayton made an uneasy movement and glanced up fur- 
 tively. There was no mistaking what he saw in Hugh Eitson's 
 face. 
 
 " I've my own suspicions as to what caused that accident,' ' 
 said Hugh. 
 
 Drayton shuddered and shrunk back. 
 
 "No, damme! That shows what you are, though. Show 
 me the man as alius suspects others of lying, and I'll show you 
 a liar. Show me the man as alius suspects others of stealing, 
 and I'll show you a thief. You suspect me of that, d'ye? I 
 know you now!" 
 
 " No matter," said Hugh, impatiently; " your sense of the 
 distinction between crimes is a shade too nice. One crime I 
 do not suspect you of — I saw you commit it. Is that enough?" 
 
 Drayton was silent. 
 
 " You'll go to the station with the lady. The gentleman 
 will go to London with me. They are to come here, after all 
 though my first advice was a blunder. " 
 
176 A SOW OF HAGAR. 
 
 " I'll take the twenty," Drayton mumbled. 
 
 " Will you now? We'll discuss that matter afterward." 
 
 Drayton seemed stupefied for a moment. Then he lifted 
 his haggard face and grinned. Hugh Eitson understood him. 
 in an instant. 
 
 " No tricks, I tell you. If you don't put the lady in the 
 train — the right train — and be back here at half past one to- 
 morrow, you shall improve your acquaintance with the Old 
 Bailey." 
 
 Drayton carried his eyes slowly up to Hugh Eitson's face, 
 then dropped them suddenly. 
 
 " If I'm lagged, it will be a lifer!" he muttered. He fum- 
 bled his torn ulster. " I must change my coat," he said. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "She'll see the rent." 
 
 " So much the better." 
 
 "But the people at the junction will see it." 
 
 " What matter? — you will be there as Paul Eitson, not 
 Paul Drayton." 
 
 Drayton began to laugh, to chuckle, to crow. 
 
 " Hush!" 
 
 The sound of carriage- wheels came from the road. 
 
 " They're here," said Hugh Eitson. " Keep you out of 
 sight, as you value your liberty. Do you hear? Take care 
 that he doesn't see you, and that she doesn't see you until he 
 is gone." 
 
 Drayton was tramping about the floor in the intensity of his 
 energy. 
 
 " Here's the bar-slide. I'll just lift it an inch." 
 
 " Not half an inch," said Hugh, and he blew out the candle. 
 
 Then he took the key out of the inside of the lock, and put 
 it on the outside. 
 
 "What! am I to be a prisoner in my own house?" said 
 Drayton. 
 
 " I'll put the key on the bar-slide," whispered Hugh. 
 " When you hear the door close after us, let yourself out — not 
 a moment sooner." 
 
 The carriage-wheels stopped outside. There was a sound 
 as of the driver jumping from the box. Then there came a 
 knock. 
 
 Hugh Eitson stepped back to Drayton, and whispered: 
 
 "This is the very man who tried to hold you — keep you 
 close. " 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 177 
 
 OHAPTEE VI. 
 
 " This way, sir; this way, my lady; we knew you was a 
 coming, so we kep' a nice warm fire in the parlor. This way, 
 my lady, and mind the step up. Yes, it air dark, but it's 
 clean, sir; yes, it is, sir; but there's a light in here, sir." 
 
 Paul and Greta followed the landlady through the dark bar. 
 
 " We'll find our way, my good woman. Ah, and how cozy 
 you are in here! As warm as toast on a cold night. Thank 
 you, thank you — and — why, surely we've — we've surprised 
 you. Did you say you were expecting somebody? Ah, I see!" 
 
 Mrs. Drayton was backing out of the room with a pallid 
 face, and twitching at the string of her apron. When she got 
 to the bar she was trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " I don't believe in ghosts," she muttered to herself, " but 
 if so be as I did believe in ghosts, and afeart of 'em, I don't 
 know as .... Lor's a mercy me! Who was a-saying as our 
 Paul was like some one? And now here's some one as is like 
 our Paul. And as much a match as two pewters, on'y one 
 more smarter, mayhap, and studdier." 
 
 " Whatever ails the old lady?" said Greta, faintly. 
 
 Paul stood a moment and laughed. 
 
 " Strange! but we can't trouble now. What a mercy we're 
 safe and unharmed." 
 
 "A fearful sight — I'll never, never forget it," said Greta, 
 and she covered her face. 
 
 Paul stepped to the door. The flyman was bringing in the 
 luggage. 
 
 " Leave the boxes in the bar, driver — there, that will do. 
 Many of them, eh? Eather. Here's for yourself. Why, 
 bless my soul, who's this? What, Hugh!" 
 
 Hugh Ritson walked into the room calm and smiling, and 
 held out his hand to Greta and then to his brother. 
 
 " I came up to meet your train," he said, in answer to the 
 look of inquiry. 
 
 " Well, that was good of you. Of course, you know of the 
 accident. How did you find us here?" 
 
 " I heard at the station that a lady and gentleman had gone 
 to the Hawk and Heron." 
 
 " And you followed? Well, Hugh, I must say that was 
 brotherly of you, after all. Wasn't it, Greta?" 
 
 " Yes, dear," said Greta, faintly, her voice trembling. 
 
 Paul observed her agitation. 
 
178 A SON" OF HAGAE. 
 
 " My poor girl, you are upset. I don't wonder at it. You 
 must get off for the night. Hugh, you must excuse her. It 
 was a terrible scene, you know. Our new life begins with a 
 great shock to you, Greta. Never mind; that only means 
 that the bright days are before us. ' ' 
 
 Paul stepped to the door again, and called to Mrs. Drayton. 
 
 " Here, my good landlady, take my wife to her room." 
 
 The landlady hobbled up. 
 
 " Eoom, sir, room? The gentleman didn't say nothing — " 
 
 " Take the lady to your best room upstairs," said Hugh, 
 with a significant look. 
 
 Greta was going. Her step was slow and uncertain. 
 
 " Won't you say good-night, Greta?" said Hugh. 
 
 " Good-night, ' ; she said, so faintly as hardly to be heard. 
 
 The brothers looked after her. 
 
 " God bless her!" said Paul, fervently. " The days before 
 her shall be brighter if I can make them so." 
 
 Hugh Eitson closed the door. 
 
 " Paul," he said, " you and your wife must never meet 
 again." 
 
 Paul Eitson turned red and then ashy pale. A scarcely per- 
 ceptible tremble of the eyelids, then a jaunty laugh, and then 
 an appalling solemnity. 
 
 " YVhat d'ye mean, man?" he said, with a vacant stare. 
 
 " Sit down and listen," said Hugh, seating himself, and 
 lifting the poker to draw the fire together. 
 
 " Quick, tell me what it is!" said Paul again. 
 
 "Paul, don't chafe. We are hot-tempered men both, at 
 bottom," said Hugh, and his eye perused his brother with 
 searching power. 
 
 " Don't look at me like that," said Paul. " Don't try to 
 frighten me. Speak out, and quickly!" 
 
 " Be calm," said Hugh. 
 
 "Bah! you take me blindfold to the edge of a precipice, 
 and tell me to ' be calm!' " 
 
 " You are wrong. I find you there and remove the band- 
 age," said Hugh. 
 
 " Quick! what is it? In another moment I shall cry out!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson rose stiffly to his feet. 
 
 " Paul, did you tell Greta she was marrying a bastard?" 
 
 With one look of anguish Paul fell back mute and trem- 
 bling. 
 
 " Did you tell her?" said Hugh, with awful emphasis. 
 
 Paul's eyes were on the ground, his head bent forward He 
 was silent. 
 
A SON OF HA GAR. 179 
 
 " I thought you did not mean to tell her," said Hugh, cold- 
 ly. His eyes looked steadfastly at Paul's drooping head. " I 
 think so still." 
 
 Paul said nothing, but drew his breath hard. Hugh watched 
 him closely. 
 
 " To marry a woman under a false pretense — is it the act of 
 an honorable man? Is it a cheat? Give it what name you 
 will." 
 
 Paul drew himself up; his lips were compressed, and he 
 smiled. 
 
 " Is this all?" he asked. 
 
 " Why did you not tell her?" said Hugh. 
 
 " Because [ had sworn to tell no one. You will read that 
 secret, as you have read the other." 
 
 Hugh smiled. 
 
 " Say, rather, because you dare not o_o so; because, had you 
 told her, she had never become your wife." 
 
 Paul laughed vacantly. 
 
 " We shall see. My own lips are sealed, but yours are free. 
 You shall tarnish the memory of our father and blacken the 
 honor of our mother. You shall humble me, and rob me of 
 my wife's love — if you will and can." Saying this, Paul 
 stepped hastily to the door, flung it open, and cried: " Greta! 
 Greta!" 
 
 Hugh followed him and caught his arm. 
 
 " What are you doing?" he said in a hoarse whisper; " be 
 quiet, I tell you — be quiet!" 
 
 Paul turned about. 
 
 " You say I am afraid to tell her. You charge me with 
 trapping her into marrying me. You shall tell her yourself, 
 now, here, and before my very face!" 
 
 " Come in, and shut the door," said Hugh. 
 
 " It would do no good, and perhaps some harm. No mat- 
 ter you shall tell her. I challenge you to tell her." 
 
 " Come in, and listen to me," said Hugh, sullenly; and 
 putting himself between Paul and the door, he closed it. 
 " There is more to think of than what Greta may feel," he 
 added. " Have you nothing to say to me V 
 
 Paul's impetuous passion cooled suddenly. 
 
 " I have made you atonement," he said, faintly, and 
 dropped into a seat. 
 
 "Atonement!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson smiled bitterly. 
 
 " When you return, you will see," said Paul, his eyes once 
 more on the ground. 
 
180 A SON OF HA GAR. 
 
 " You are thinking of the deed of attorney — I have heard 
 of it already," said Hugh. A cold smile played on his com- 
 pressed lips. 
 
 " It was all that was left to do," said Paul, his voice hardly 
 stronger than a whisper. His proud spirit was humbled, and 
 his challenge dead. 
 
 " Paul, you have robbed me of my inheritance, consciously, 
 deliberately. You have stood in my place. You stand there 
 still. And you leave me your pitiful deed by way of amends!" 
 
 A black frown crossed Hugh Eitson's face. 
 
 " Atonement! Are you not ashamed of such mockery? 
 What atonement is there for a wrong like that?" 
 
 " I did it for the best; God knows I did!" said Paul, and 
 his head fell on the table. 
 
 Hugh Eitson stood over him, pale with suppressed wrath. 
 
 " Was it best to hold my place until my place was no longer 
 worth holding, and then to leave it with an empty show of 
 generosity? Power of attorney! What right have you to ex- 
 pect that I will take that from you? Take my own from the 
 man who robbed me of it, and to receive it back on my knees ! 
 To accept it as a gift, whereof the generosity of giving is 
 yours, and the humility of receiving is mine!" 
 
 A strong shudder passed over Paul's shoulders. 
 
 " I was helpless — I was helpless!" he said. 
 
 " Understand your true position — your legal position. You 
 were your mother's illegitimate son — " 
 
 " I did it to protect her honor!" 
 
 " You mean — to hide her shame!" 
 
 " As you will. I was helpless, and I did it for the best." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's face grew dark. 
 
 " Was it best to be a perjured liar?" he said. 
 
 Paul gasped, but did not reply. 
 
 " Was it best to be a thief ?" 
 
 Paul leaped to his feet. 
 
 " God, give me patience!" he muttered. 
 
 " Was it best to be an impostor?" 
 
 " Stop, for God's sake, stop!" 
 
 " Was it best to be a living lie — and all for the sake of 
 honor ? Honor, forsooth! Is it in perjury and robbery that 
 honor lies?" 
 
 Paul strode about the room in silence, ashy pale, his face 
 convulsed and ugly. Then" his countenance softened, and his 
 voice was broken as he said: 
 
 " Hugh, I have done you too much wrong already. Don't 
 drive me into more; don't, don't, I beseech you!" 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 181 
 
 Hugh laughed lightly — a little trill that echoed in the silent 
 room. 
 
 At that heartless sound all the soul in Paul Ritson seemed 
 to freeze. No longer abashed, he lifted his head, and put his 
 foot down firmly. 
 
 " So be it," he said, and the cloud of anguish fell from his 
 face. " I say it was to save our mother's good name that I 
 consented to do what I did." 
 
 " Consented?" said Hugh, elevating his eyelids. 
 
 " You don't believe me? Very well; let it pass. You say 
 my atonement is a mockery. Very well, let us say it is so. 
 You say I have kept your place until it is no longer worth 
 keeping. You mean that I have impoverished your estate. 
 That is not true. And you know it is not true. If the land 
 is mortgaged, you yourself have had the money!" 
 
 " And who had a better right to it?" said Hugh, and he 
 laughed again. 
 
 Paul waved his hand, and gulped down the wrath that was 
 rising. 
 
 " You have led me the life of the damned. You know well 
 what bitter cup you have made me drink. If I have stood to 
 the world as my father's heir, you have eaten up the inherit- 
 ance. If my father's house was mine, I was no more than a 
 cipher in it. I have had the shadow, and you the substance. 
 You have undermined me inch by inch!" 
 
 " And, meantime, I have been as secret as the grave," said 
 Hugh; and once more he laughed lightly. 
 
 " God knows your purpose— you do nothing without one," 
 said Paul. " But it is not I alone that have suffered. Do 
 you think that all this has been going on under our mother's 
 eyes without her seeing it?" 
 
 Hugh Ritson dropped the bantering tone. 
 
 Paul's face grew to an awful solemnity. 
 
 " When our father died, it was to be her honor or mine to 
 die with him. That was the legacy of his sin, Heaven forgive 
 him. / did not hesitate. But since that hour she has wasted 
 away." 
 
 " Is this my fault?" Hugh asked. 
 
 " Heaven knows, and Heaven will judge between you," 
 said Paul. "She could bear it no longer." Paul's voice 
 trembled as he added, " She is gone!" 
 
 There was a moment's silence. It was as if an angel wenl 
 by weeping. 
 
 " I know it," said Hugh, coldly. " She has taken the vejl 
 I have since seen her," 
 
182 A SON OF HA SAB. 
 
 Paul glanced up. 
 
 " She is in the Catholic Convent at Westminster," sflid 
 Hugh- 
 Paul's face quivered. 
 
 " Miserable man! but for you, how happy she might have 
 been!" 
 
 " You are wrong," said Hugh. " It came of her own mis- 
 deed — and yours." 
 
 Paul strode toward his brother with uplifted hand. 
 
 " Not another word of that," he said, and his voice was low 
 and deep. 
 
 " How could she examine her conscience and be happy? 
 She had put an impostor in the place of my father's heir," 
 said Hugh. 
 
 " She had put there your father's first-born son," said Paul. 
 
 "It is false! She had put there her bastard ly another 
 man !" 
 
 Silent and awful, Paul stood a moment with an expression 
 of agony so horrible that for an instant even Hugh Eitson 
 quailed before it. 
 
 " Go on," he said, huskily, and crouched down into his seat. 
 
 " Your mother was married before," said Hugh, " and her 
 marriage was annulled. It was invalid. A child was born of 
 that union." 
 
 Paul lifted his head. 
 
 " I won't believe it!" 
 
 " It is true— and you shall believe it!" 
 
 Paul's heart sickened with dread. 
 
 " Your father married again, and had a daughter. Your 
 mother married again, and had a son. Your father's daughter 
 is now living. Shall I tell you who she is? She is your wife 
 — the woman you have married to-day!" 
 
 Paul sprung to his feet. 
 
 " It is a lie!" he cried. 
 
 " See for yourself," said Hugh Eitson; and taking three 
 papers from his pocket, he threw them on to the table. They 
 were the copies of certificates which Bonnithorne had given 
 him. 
 
 Paul glanced at them with vacant and wandering eyes, fell 
 back in his chair, dropped his head on to the table, and 
 groaned. 
 
 " Oh, God! can this thing be?" 
 
 " When your mother told you that you were an illegitimate 
 son, she omitted to say by what father. That was natural in 
 aer, but cruel to you. I knew the truth from the first, : ' 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 183 
 
 " Then you are a scoundrel confessed!" cried Paul. 
 Hugh rolled his head slightly and made a poor pretense to 
 smile. 
 
 " I knew how she had passed from one man to another; I 
 knew what her honor counted for. And yet I was silent — si- 
 lent, through by silence I lost my birthright. Say now, if you 
 will, which of us — you or I — has been the true guardian of 
 our mother's name?" 
 
 Paul got up again, abject, crushed, trembling in every 
 limb. 
 
 " Man, man, don't gnaw my heart away! Unsay your 
 words! Have pity on me, and confess that it is a lie — a black, 
 foul lie! Think of the horror of it — only think of it, and 
 have pity!" 
 
 "It is true!" 
 
 Then Paul fell on his knees and caught his brother by the 
 arm. 
 
 " Hugh, Hugh! my brother, confess it is false! Don't let 
 my flesh consume away with horror! Don't let me envy the 
 very dead who lie at peace in their graves! Pity her, if you 
 have no pity left for me!" 
 
 " I would save you from a terrible sin." 
 
 Paul rose to his feet. 
 
 " Now I know it is a lie!" he said, and all the abject sub- 
 mission of his bearing fell away in one instant. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's face flushed. 
 
 " There is that here," said Paul, throwing up his head and 
 striking his breast, " that tells me it is false!" 
 
 Hugh smiled coldly, and regained his self-possession. 
 
 " My mother knew all. If Greta had been my half-sister, 
 Would she have stood by and witnessed our love?" 
 
 Hugh waved his hand deprecatingly. 
 
 " Your mother was as ignorant of Ihe propinquity as you 
 were. Eobert Lowther was dead before she settled at New- 
 lands. The survivors knew nothing of each other. The 
 secret of that early and ill-fated marriage was buried with 
 him." 
 
 " Destiny itself would have prevented it, for destiny shapes 
 its. own ends, and shapes them for the best," said Paul. 
 
 " Yes, destiny is shaping them now," said Hugh, " here, 
 and in me. This is the point to which the pathways of your 
 lives have tended. They meet here — and part." 
 
 Paul's ashy face smiled. 
 
 "Then nature would have prevented it," he said. "If 
 this thing had been true, do you think we should not have 
 
184 A SOif oe flA&Ait. 
 
 known it— she and I — in the natural recoil of our own hearts: 
 When true hearts meet, there is that within which sanctions 
 their love, and says it is good. That is Heaven's own license. 
 No sanction of the world or the world's law, no earthly mar- 
 riage is like to that, for it is the marriage first made by nature 
 itself. Our hearts have met, hers and mine, and the same 
 nature has sanctioned our love and sanctified it. And against 
 that last, that first, that highest arbiter, do you ask mo to take 
 the evidence of these poor pitiful papers? Away with them!" 
 Paul's eyes were bright, his face had lost its shadows. 
 
 " That is very beautiful, no doubt," said Hugh, and he 
 smiled deeply. " But I warn you to beware." 
 
 " I have no fear," said Paul. 
 
 " See to it, I tell you. These lofty emotions leave a void 
 that only a few homely facts can fill. Verify them." 
 
 " I will, please God !" 
 
 " Accept my statements and these papers, or — disprove 
 both." 
 
 " I will disprove them!" 
 
 " Meantime, take care. Leave your wife in this house un- 
 til morning, but do you go elsewhere." 
 
 " What!" 
 
 Paul's anger was boiling up. 
 
 " If you have wronged Greta — " 
 
 " I have done her no wrong!" said Paul, growing fiercer. 
 
 " I say if you have wronged her, and would have it in your 
 power to repair the injury, you must pass this night apart." 
 
 "Hugh," cried Paul, in white rage, rising afresh to his 
 feet, "you have tortured me and broken the heart of my 
 mother; you have driven me from my home and from the 
 world; you have ^thrust yourself between me and the woman 
 who loves me, and now, when I am stripped of all else but 
 that woman's love, and am going out to a strange land, a 
 stranger and with empty hands, you would take her from me 
 also and leave me naked. " 
 
 " I would save you from a terrible sin," said Hugh Eitson 
 once again. 
 
 "Out of my way!" cried Paul in a thick voice, and he 
 lifted his clinched fist. 
 
 " Take care, I tell you!" said Hugh. 
 
 Paul looked dangerous; his forehead contracted into painful 
 lines; his quick breathing beat on Hugh's face. 
 
 " For the love of Heaven, get out of my way!" 
 
 But with awful strength and fury bis fist fell at that mo- 
 ment, and Hugh Eitson was dashed to the ground. 
 
A SOK OV HAGAR. 185 
 
 In an instant Paul had lifted his foot to trample him, but 
 he staggered back in horror at the impulse, his face ghastly 
 white, his eyes red like the sun above snow. Then there was 
 silence, and then Paul gasped in a flood of emotion: 
 
 " Get up! get up! Hugh, Hugh, get up!" 
 
 He darted to the door and threw it open. 
 
 " Come in, come in! will nobody come?" he cried. 
 
 The landlady was in the room at a stride. She had been 
 standing, listening and quivering, behind the door. 
 
 In another moment Greta hurried down-stairs, and hastened 
 to Paul's side. 
 
 Paul was leaning against the wall, his face buried in his 
 hands. 
 
 " Take him away," he groaned, " before I rue the day that 
 I saw him!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson rose to his feet. 
 
 " Paul, what has happened?" cried Greta. 
 
 " Take him away!" 
 
 And still Paul covered his eyes from the sight of what he 
 had done and had been tempted to do. 
 
 " Hugh, what is it?" 
 
 Hugh Ritson stepped to the door. 
 
 " Ask your husband," he said with emphasis, and an ap- 
 palling calmness. " And remember this night. You shall 
 never forget it!" 
 
 Then he halted out of the room. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Hugh Ritson walked to the bare room opposite. The han- 
 dle of the door did not turn in his hand. Drayton held it at 
 the other side, and with head bent low he crouched there and 
 listened. 
 
 " Who is it?'' he whispered, when Hugh Ritson unlocked 
 the door and pushed at it. 
 
 " Let me in!" said Hugh, sullenly. 
 
 " Does he suspect?" whispered Drayton when the door 
 closed again. " Did he follow me? What are you going to 
 do for a fellow? Damme, but I'll be enough for him!" 
 
 And Drayton groped in the dark room among the dead cin- 
 ders on the hearth, and picked up the poker. 
 
 " You fool!" said Hugh in a low voice. " Put that thing 
 down." 
 
 "Isn't he after me? D'ye think I'm going to be taken? 
 Let him come here and see!" 
 
186 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 Drayton tramped the room, and the floor creaked beneath 
 his heavy tread. 
 
 " Speak lower, you poltroon!" Hugh whispered huskily. 
 " He knows nothing about you. He has never heard of you. 
 v Be quiet. Do you hear?" 
 
 There was a light, nervous knock at the door. 
 
 " Who's there?" said Hugh. 
 
 "It's only me, sir," said Mrs. Drayton from without, 
 breathing audibly, and speaking faintly amid gusts of breath. 
 
 Hugh Ritson opened the door, and the landlady entered. 
 
 " Lor's a mercy me! whatever ails the gentleman? Oh, is it 
 yourself in the dark, Paul? I'm that fearsome, I declare I 
 shiver and quake at nothing. And the gentleman so like you, 
 too! I never did see nothing like it, I'm sure!" 
 
 " Hush! Stop your clatter. What does he say?" said 
 Hugh. 
 
 " The gentleman? He says and says and says as nothing 
 and nothing and nothing will make him leave the lady this 
 night." 
 
 " He'll think better of that." 
 
 " And wherever can I put them? and me on'y one room, 
 forby Paul's. And no cleaning and airing, and nothing. 
 That's what worrits me." 
 
 "Hold your tongue! Put the lady in your son's room. 
 Your son won't need it to-night." 
 
 " That's where I did put her." 
 
 " Very well; leave her there." 
 
 " And the gentleman, too, belike?" 
 
 " The gentleman will go back with me. Come, get away!" 
 
 " Quite right; on'y there's no airing and cleaning; and I 
 declare I'm that fearsome — " 
 
 Hugh Ritson had taken the landlady by the shoulders and 
 was pushing her out of the room. 
 
 " One moment," he whispered, and drew her back. " Any- 
 1 thing doing upstairs?" 
 
 " Upstairs? — the bed— airing — " 
 
 " The girl? Has she made any noise yet? Is she con- 
 scious?" 
 
 " Not as I know of. I went up and listened, and never a 
 sound. Deary me, deary me! I'm that fearsome — " 
 
 " Go up again, and put your ear to the door." 
 
 " I'm afeart she'll never come round, and her in that way, 
 and weak, too, and — " 
 
 At that instant there came from the dark road the sound of 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 187 
 
 carriage-wheels approaching. Hugh Eitson thrust the land- 
 lady out of the room, slammed the door to, and locked it. 
 
 " What's that?'' said Drayton in a husky whisper. " Who 
 do they want? You've not rounded on a fellow, eh?" 
 
 " It's the carriage that is to take you and the lady to Kent- 
 ish Town," said Hugh. "Hush! Listen P' 
 
 The driver rapped at the door with the end of his whip, and 
 shouted from his seat: " Heigho, heigho — ready for Kentish 
 Town? Eleven o'clock struck this half hour!" Then he 
 could be heard beating his crossed arms under his armpits to 
 warm his hands. 
 
 " The fool!" muttered Hugh, " can't he keep his tongue 
 in his mouth?" 
 
 "Quite right," shouted Mrs. Drayton, in a shrill voice, 
 putting her face to the window-pane. " Belike it's for the 
 gentleman," she explained to herself, and then, with candle 
 in hand, she began to mount the stairs. 
 
 The door of the room to the left opened, and Paul Eitson 
 came out. His great strength seemed to be gone — he reeled 
 like a drunken man. 
 
 " Landlady," he said, " when does your last train go up to 
 London?" 
 
 " At half past twelve," said Mrs. Drayton, from two steps 
 up the stairs. 
 
 " Can I get a fly, my good woman, at this hour of the 
 night?" 
 
 " The fly's at the door, sir — just come, sir." 
 
 Paul went back into the room where he had left his wife. 
 
 The two men in the dark room opposite listened intently. 
 
 " Be quiet," whispered Hugh Eitson. " I knew he must 
 think better of it. He is going. Keep still. Five minutes 
 more, and you start away with the lady for Kentish Town. 
 He shall walk to the station with me. The instant we leave 
 the house, you go to the lady and say, ' I have changed my 
 mind, Greta. We must go together. Come.' Not a word 
 more; hurry her into the fly, and away." 
 
 " Easier said nor done, say I." 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Alone with Greta, Paul kissed her fervently, and his head 
 fell on her shoulder. The strong man was as feeble as a child 
 now. He was prostrate. " The black He is like poison in my 
 veins!" he said. 
 
188 A SON Of HAGAK. 
 
 " What h it?" said Greta, and she tried to soothe him. 
 
 "A lie more foul than man ever uttered before — mort 
 cruel, more monstrous." 
 
 " What is it, dearest?" said Greta again, with her piteous, 
 imploring face close to his. 
 
 " I know it's a lie. My heart tells me it is a lie. The very 
 stones cry out that it is a lie!" 
 
 " Tell me what it is," said Greta, and she embraced him 
 tenderly. 
 
 But even while he was struggling with the poison of one 
 horrible word, it was mastering him. He put his wife from 
 him with a strong shudder, as if her proximity stung him. 
 
 Her bosom heaved. She looked appealingly into his face. 
 " If it is false," she said, " whatever it is, why need it trouble 
 you?" 
 
 " That is true, my darling," he said, gulping down his fear 
 ind taking Greta in his arms, and trying to laugh lightly. 
 ' Why, indeed? Why need it trouble me?" 
 
 " Can you not tell me?" she said, with an upward look of 
 entreaty. She was thinking of what Hugh Eitson had said of 
 an impediment to their marriage. 
 
 "Why should I tell you what is false?" 
 
 " Then let us dismiss the thought of it," she said, sooth- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Why, yes, of course, let us dismiss the thought of it, 
 darling," and he laughed a loud, hollow laugh. His fore- 
 head was damp. She wiped away the cold sweat. His tem- 
 ples burned. She put her cool hand on them. He was the 
 very wreck of his former self — the ruin of a man. " Would 
 that I could!" he muttered to himself. 
 
 " Then tell me," she said. " It is my right to know it. I 
 am your wife now — '' 
 
 He drew himself airay. She clung yet closer. " Paul, 
 there can be no secrets between you and me — nothing can be 
 kept back." 
 
 " Heavenly Father!" he cried, uplifting a face distorted 
 with agony. 
 
 " If you can not dismiss it, let it not stand between us," 
 said Greta. Could it be true that there had been an impedi- 
 ment? 
 
 " My darling, it would do no good to tell you. When I took 
 you to be my wife, I vowed to protect and cherish you. Shall 
 I keep my vow if I burden you with a black lie that will drive 
 the sunshine out of your life? Look at me — look at me !" 
 
 Greta's breast heaved heavily, but she smiled with a piteous 
 
A feoir 6fc HAGAH. 189 
 
 sweetness as she laid her head on his breast, and said, " No, 
 while I have you, no lie can do that!" 
 
 Paul made no answer. An awful burden of speech was on 
 his tongue. In the silence they heard the sound of weeping. 
 It was as if some poor woman were sobbing her heart out in 
 the room above. 
 
 " Dearest, when two hearts are made one in marriage they 
 are made one indeed," said Greta in a soft voice. " Hence- 
 forth the thought of the one is the thought of both; the hap- 
 piness of the one is the happiness of both; the sorrow of the 
 one is the sorrow of both. Nothing comes between. Joy is 
 twofold when both share it, and only grief is less for being 
 borne by two. Death itself, cruel, relentless death itself, even 
 death knits that union closer. And in sunshine and storm, in 
 this world and in the next, the bond is ever the same. The 
 tie of the purest friendship is weak compared with this tie, 
 and even the bond of blood is less strong!" 
 
 " Oh, God of heaven, this is too much!" said Paul. 
 
 " Paul, if this union of thought and deed, of joy and grief, 
 begins with marriage and does not end even with death, shall 
 we now, here, at the threshold of our marriage, do it wrong?' ' 
 
 A great sob choked Paul's utterance. "I can not tell 
 you," he cried; " I have sworn an oath." 
 
 "An oath! Then, surely, this present trouble was not 
 that which Hugh Eitson had threatened?" 
 
 " Greta, if our union means anything, it means trust. 
 Trust me, my darling. I am helpless. My tongue is sealed. 
 I dare not speak. No, not even to you. Scarcely to God 
 Himself!" 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 " That is enough," she said very tenderly, and now the 
 tears coursed down her own cheeks. " I will not ask again. 
 I do not wish to know. You shall forget that I asked you. 
 Come, dearest, kiss me. Think no more of this. Come, 
 now." And she drew his head down to hers. 
 
 Paul threw himself into a chair. His prostration was abject. 
 
 " Come, dearest," said Greta, soothingly, " be a man!" 
 
 " There is worse to come," he said. 
 
 " What matter?" said Greta, and smiled. " I shall not 
 fear if I have you beside me." 
 
 " I can bear it no more," said Paul. " The thing is past 
 cure." 
 
 " No, dearest, it is not. Only death is that." 
 
 " Greta, you said death would bind us closer together, but 
 this thing draws us apart." 
 
190 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 " No, dearest, it does not. That it can not do." 
 
 " Could nothing part us?" said Paul, lifting his face. 
 
 " Nothing. Though the world divided us, yet we should 
 be together." 
 
 Again the loud sobs came from overhead. 
 
 Paul rose to his feet, a shattered man no more. His abject 
 mien fell from him like a garment. " Did I not say it was a 
 lie?" he muttered, fiercely. " Greta, I am ashamed," he said; 
 " your courage disgraces me. See what a pitiful coward you 
 have taken for your husband. You have witnessed a strange 
 weakness. But it has been for the last time. Thank God, I 
 am now the man of yesterday!" 
 
 Her tears were rolling down her cheeks, but her eyes were 
 very bright. " What do you wish me to do?" she whispered. 
 " Is it not something for me to do?" 
 
 " It is, darling. You said rightly that the thought of one 
 is the thought of both." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " A terrible thing!" 
 
 " No matter. I am here to do it. What?" 
 
 "It is to part from me to-night — only for to-night — only 
 until to-morrow." 
 
 Greta's face broke into a perfect sunshine of beauty. " Is 
 that all?" she asked. 
 
 " My darling!" said Paul, and embraced her fervently and 
 kissed the quivering lips, "I am leading you through dark 
 vaults, where you can see no single step before you." 
 
 " But I am holding your hand, my husband," Greta whis- 
 pered. 
 
 Speech was too weak for that great moment. Again the 
 heart-breaking sobs fell on the silence. Then Paul drew a 
 cloak over Greta's shoulders and buttoned up his ulster. " It 
 is a little after midnight," he said, with composure. " There 
 is a fly at the door. We may catch the last train up to Lon- 
 don. I have a nest for you there, my darling." 
 
 Then he went out into the bar. " Landlady," he said, " 1 
 will come back to-morrow for our luggage. Meantime, let it 
 lie here, if it won't be in your way. We've kept you up late, 
 old lady. Here, take this — and thank you. " 
 
 " Thankee! and the boxes are quite safe, sir — thankee!" 
 
 He threw open the door to the road, and hailed the drivei 
 of the fly cheerily. " Cold, sleety night, my good fellow. 
 You'll have a sharp drive. " 
 
 " Yes, sir; it air cold waiting, very, specially inside, sir, 
 just for want of summat short." 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 19} 
 
 " Well, come in quick and get it, my lad." 
 
 "Eight, sir." 
 
 When Paul returned to the room to call Greta, he found 
 her examining papers. She had picked them up off the table. 
 They were the copies of certificates which Hugh Eitson had left 
 there. Paul had forgotten them during the painful interview. 
 He tried to recover them unread, but he was too late. 
 
 "This," she said, holding out one of them, "is not the 
 certificate of your birth. This person, Paul Lowther, is no 
 doubt my father's lost son." 
 
 " No doubt," said Paul, dropping his head. 
 
 "But he is thirty years of age — see! You are no more 
 than twenty-eight." 
 
 " If I could but prove that, it would be enough," he said. 
 
 " I can prove it, and I will!" she said. 
 
 "You! How?" 
 
 " Wait until to-morrow, and see," she said. 
 
 He had put one arm about her waist and was taking her to 
 the door. 
 
 She stopped. " I can guess what the black lie has been," 
 she whispered. 
 
 " Now, driver, up and away." 
 
 " Eight, sir. Kentish Town Junction?" 
 
 " The station, to catch the 12:30." 
 
 The carriage door was opened and closed. Then the bitter 
 weeping from the upper room came out to them in the night. 
 
 "Poor girl! whatever ails her? I seem to remember her 
 voice," said Greta. 
 
 " We can't wait," Paul answered. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The clocks of London were striking one when Paul and 
 Greta descended the steps in front of St. Pancras Station. The 
 night was dark and bitterly cold. Dense fog hung in the air, 
 and an unaccustomed silence brooded over the city. A soli- 
 tary four-wheeled cab stood in the open square. The driver 
 was inside, huddled up in his great-coat, and asleep. A porter 
 awakened him, and he made way for Greta and Paul. He 
 took his apron from the back of his horse, wrapped it about 
 his waist, and snuffed the wicks of his lamps — they burned low 
 and red, and crackled in the damp atmosphere. 
 
 " What hotel, sir?" 
 
 " The convent, Westminster," 
 
192 A SOX OF HAGAK. 
 
 " Convent, sir? Did you say the convent, sir? St. Mar- 
 garet's, Westminster, sir?" 
 
 " The Catholic convent." 
 
 Greta's hand pressed Paul's arm. 
 
 The cabman got on to the box, muttering something that 
 was inaudible. As he passed the gate lodge he drew up while 
 the porter on duty came out with a lamp, and took the num- 
 ber of the cab. 
 
 The fog grew more dense at every step, and the pace at 
 which they traveled was slow. To avoid the maze of streets 
 that would have helped them to a shorter cut on a clearer 
 night, the driver struck along Euston Eoad to Tottenham 
 Court Eoad, and thence south toward Oxford Street. This 
 straighter and plainer course had the disadvantage of being 
 more frequented. Many a collision became imminent in the 
 uncertain light. 
 
 The cabman bought a torch from a passer-by, and stuck it 
 in his whip-barrel. As they reached the busier thoroughfares 
 he got down from his box, took the torch in one hand and the 
 reins in the other, and walked at his horse's head. 
 
 The pace was now slower than before. It was like a toil- 
 some passage through the workings of an iron mine. Volumes 
 of noisome vapor rolled slowly past them. The air hung close 
 over their heads like an unseen vaulted roof. Red lights 
 gleamed like vanishing stars down the elastic vista. One light 
 would turn out to be a coffee-stall, round which a group of 
 people gathered — cabmen muffled to the throat, women drag- 
 gled and dirty, boys with faces that were old. Another would 
 be a potato-engine, with its own volumes of white vapor, and 
 the clank of its oven door like the metallic echo of the miner's 
 pick. The line of regular lamps was like the line of candles 
 stuck to the rock, the cross streets were like the cross-work- 
 ings, the damp air settling down into streaks of moisture on 
 the glass of the cab window was like the ceaseless drip, drip 
 of the oozing water from overhead. 
 
 And to the two laden souls, sitting within in silence and 
 with clasped hands, the great city, nay, the world itself, was 
 like a colossal mine which human earthworms had burrowed 
 underground while the light and the free air were both above. 
 
 At one point, where a patch of dry pavement indicated a 
 bake-house under the street, three or four squalid creatures 
 crouched together and slept. The streets were all but noise- 
 less. It would be two hours yet before the giant of traffic 
 would awake. The few cabmen hailed each other as they 
 passed unrecognized, and their voices sounded hoarse. When 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 193 
 
 the many clocks struck two, the many tones came muffled 
 through the dense air. 
 
 The journey was long and wearisome, but Paul and Greta 
 scarcely felt it. They were soon to part; they knew not when 
 they were to meet again. Perhaps soon, perhaps late; perhaps 
 not until a darkness deeper than this should cover the land. 
 
 Turning into Oxford Street, the cabman struck away to the 
 west, in order to come upon Westminster by the main artery 
 of Eegent Street. The great thoroughfare was quiet enough 
 now. Fashion was at rest, but even here, and in its own mock- 
 ing guise, misery had its haunt. A light laugh broke the si- 
 lence of the street, and a girl, so young as to be little more than 
 a child, dressed in soiled finery, and reeling with unsteady step 
 on the pavement, came up to the cab window and peered in. 
 
 At the open door of a hotel, from whence a shaft of light 
 came out into the fog, the cabman drew up. " Comfortable 
 hotel, sir; think you'd like to put up, sir?" 
 
 Paul dropped the window. " We want the Catholic con- 
 vent at Westminster, my man." 
 
 The cabman had put up his torch, and was flapping his 
 arms under his armpits. " Cold job, sir. Think I've had 
 enough of it. Ha'past two, and a mile from St. Margaret's 
 yet, sir. Got a long step home, sir, and the missis looking 
 out for me this hour and more." 
 
 The night porter of the hotel had opened the cab door, but 
 not for an instant did Paul's purpose waver. " I'm sorry, my 
 good fellow, but we must reach the convent, as I tell you." 
 
 " Won't to-morrow do, sir? Comfortable quarters, sir. 
 Can recommend 'em," with a tip of his hand over his shoulder. 
 
 " We must get to the convent to-night, my man." 
 
 The cabman returned to his horse's head with a grunt of 
 dissatisfaction. " Porter, can you keep a bed for me here? I 
 shall be back in an hour," said Paul. The porter signified 
 assent, and once again the cab moved off on its slow journey. 
 
 As it passed out of Trafalgar Square by way of Charing 
 Cross, the air suddenly lightened. It was as if waves of white 
 mist rolled over the yellow vapor. The cabman threw away 
 his torch, mounted his box, and set off at a trot. When he 
 reached Parliament Square the fog was gone. The great clock 
 of Westminster was striking three; the sky was a dun gray 
 behind the clock-tower, and the dark mass of the abbey could 
 be dimly seen. 
 
 The cab drew up on the south-west of Abbey Gardens and 
 before a portico railed in by an iron gate. The lamp burning 
 ? 
 
194 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 on the sidewalk in front cast a hazy light on what seemed t\ 
 be a large brick house plain in every feature. 
 
 " This is St. Margaret's, sir. Eight shillings, sir, if you 
 please." 
 
 Paul dismissed the cabman and rang the bell; the hollow 
 tongue sent out a startling reverberation into the night. The 
 sky to the east was breaking; thin streaks of a lighter gray 
 foretold the dawn. 
 
 The door opened and the iron gate swung back. A sister 
 carrying an open oil lamp motioned them to enter. 
 
 " Can I see the superior?" said Paul. 
 
 " She is newly risen," said the sister, and she fixed the lamp 
 to a bracket in the wall and went away. They were left in a 
 bare, chill, echoing hall. 
 
 The next moment a line of nuns in their coifs passed close 
 by them with quick and silent steps. At that gray hour they 
 had risen for matins. Some of them were pale and emaciated, 
 and one that was palest and most worn went by with drooping 
 head and hands that inlaced her rosary. Paul stepped back 
 a pace. The nun moved steadily onward with the rest. Never 
 a sign of recognition, never an upward glance, only the quiver- 
 ingof a lip — but it was his mother! 
 
 He, too, dropped his head, and his own lips trembled. The 
 mother superior was standing with them before he was aware. 
 For an instant his voice was suspended, but he told her at 
 length that a great calamity had befallen them, and begged 
 her to take his wife for a time into her care. 
 
 " Charity is our office," said the mother, when she had 
 heard his story. " Come, my sister, the Church is peace. 
 Your poor laden soul may put off its load while you are here." 
 
 Paul begged to be allowed a moment to say farewell, and 
 the good mother left them together. 
 
 Then from an inner chamber came the solemn tones of an 
 organ and the full voices of a choir. The softened harmonies 
 seemed to float into their torn hearts, and they wept. The 
 gray dawn was creeping in. It blurred the red. light of the 
 lamp. 
 
 "Good-bye, darling, good-bye!" Paul whispered ; but even 
 while he spoke he clung the closer. 
 
 " Good-bye for the present, dear husband," said Greta, and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Who would have thought that this calamity could wait for 
 you at the very steps of God's altar?" 
 
 " A day will turn all this evil into good." 
 
 " At the threshold of our life together to be torn apart!" 
 
A Sister carrying an open oil lamp motioned them to enter.— Page /qj. 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 19fi 
 
 " Think of it no more, dearest. Our lives will yet be the 
 brighter for this calamity. Do you remember what Parson 
 Christian used to say? The happiest life is not that which 
 is always in the sunlight, but rather that over which a dark 
 cloud has once lowered and passed away." 
 
 Paul shook his head. " My lips are sealed. You do not 
 know all. It is a cruel lie that separates us. But what if it 
 can not be disproved?" 
 
 Greta's eyes were full of a radiant hopefulness. " It can, 
 and shall!" 
 
 Paul bent his head, and touched her forehead with his lips. 
 " The past is a silence that gives back no answer," he said. 
 " My mother alone could disprove it, and she is dead to the 
 world." 
 
 " Not alone, dearest. I can disprove it. Wait and see!" 
 
 Paul smiled coldly, and once more shook his head. " You 
 don't know all," he said again, and kissed her reverently. 
 " What if to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow brings no 
 light to unravel this mystery?" 
 
 "Never fear it. The finger of Heaven is in this," said 
 Greta. 
 
 " Say rather the hand of destiny. And how little we are 
 in the presence of that pitiless power!" 
 
 " God sees all, 1 ' said Greta. " He has led me in here, and 
 He will me out again." 
 
 " What if I have brought you for a day and you remain for 
 a year, for life?" 
 
 " Then think that God Himself has taken your wife at your 
 hands." 
 
 Paul's face, that had worn a look of deep dejection, became 
 distorted with pain. " Oh, it is horrible! And this cloister 
 is to be your marriage-bed!" 
 
 " Hush! All is peace here. Good-bye, dearest Paul. Be 
 brave, my husband." 
 
 " Brave? Before death a man may be brave; but in the 
 face of a calamity like this, what man could be brave?" 
 
 " God will turn it away." 
 
 " God grant it. But I tremble to ask for the truth. The 
 future is not more awful to me now than the past." 
 
 " Keep up heart, dear Paul. You know how pleasant it is 
 to fall asleep amid storms that shake the trees, and to awake, 
 in the stillness and the sunshine, and amid the songs of the 
 birds. To-morrow the falsehood will be outfaced, and you 
 will return to fetch me. " 
 
196 A SON OP HAGAR. 
 
 " Yes," said Paul, " or else drag out my days as an outcast 
 in the world." 
 
 " No, no, no. Good-bye, dearest." Then the voice of the 
 comforter failed her, and she dropped her head on his breast. 
 
 The choir within chanted the matin service. Paul removed 
 the iron bar that crossed the door, and opened it. The oppo- 
 site side of the street was a blank wall, with gaunt boughs of 
 leafless trees behind it and above it, and beyond all was the 
 dim sanctuary. Traffic's deep buzz flowed in the distance. 
 The dawn had reddened the eastern sky, and the towers of the 
 abbey were black against the glory of the coming day. 
 
 " It may be that there is never a sunrise on this old city 
 but it awakens some one to some new calamity," said Paul; 
 " yet surely this is the heaviest stroke of all. Good-bye, my 
 darling!" 
 
 " Good-bye, my husband!" 
 
 " Yonder gray old fabric has looked on the scarred ruins of 
 many a life, but never a funeral that has passed down its aisles 
 was so sad as this parting. Good-bye, dearest wife, good-bye!" 
 
 " Good-bye, Paul!" 
 
 He struck his breast and drew his breath audibly. " I 
 must go. The thing is not to be thought of and endured!" 
 
 " Good-bye, Paul!" Her face was buried in his breast, to 
 hide it from Ms eyes. 
 
 ' ' They say that the day a dear friend is lost to us is purer 
 and calmer in remembrance than the day before. May it be 
 so with us!" 
 
 " Hush! You will soon be back to take me away." And 
 Greta nestled closer to his breast. 
 
 " If not — it not " — his hot breathing beat fast on her droop- 
 ing head — " if not, then — as the world is dead to both without 
 the other's love — remain here — in this house — forever. Good- 
 bye! Good-bye." 
 
 He disengaged her clinging arms. He pressed her cold brow 
 with his quivering lips. Her fears conquered her brave heart 
 at last. A mist was fast hiding her from him. 
 
 " Good-bye! good-bye!" 
 
 A moment's silence, a breaking sigh, a rising sob, a last 
 lingering touch of the inlaced fingers, and then the door 
 closed behind him. She was alone in the empty hall; her lips 
 were cold; her eyes were shut. The rosy hues of morning 
 were floating in the air, now rich and sweet and balmy and 
 restful, with the full, pure, holy harmonies of the choir. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 19? 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was merely a momentary vexation which Hugh Ritson 
 felt when the course that Paul had taken falsified his presci- 
 ence. " No matter," he said, " it is only a question of a day, 
 more or less. The thing must be done." 
 
 Drayton made no attempt to conceal his relief when the 
 door closed and the fly drove off. " 1 ain't sorry the fence is 
 gone, and that's flat!" 
 
 " Only, being gone, you will have a bigger risk to run now, 
 my friend," said Hugh Ritson, with undisguised contempt. 
 
 Drayton looked up with a glance half of fear, half of sus- 
 picion. " You ain't gone and rounded on a fellow, after all? 
 You ain't told him as I'm here?" 
 
 " Don't be a fool! Get off to bed. Wait, you must put me 
 up for the night. You'll take care of yourself if you're wise. 
 The police will be here in the morniDg; take my word for 
 that." 
 
 " Here? In the morning? No!" 
 
 " When they asked for his address, he gave them the name 
 of this house. They'll not forget it. Men of that sort don't 
 forget." 
 
 " I'll pound it they don't." 
 
 " They have memories for other things besides addresses. 
 Consider if they have any other reason to remember the land- 
 lord of your house." 
 
 " No, criss-crossing! you don't do me the same as the old 
 woman. N 
 
 " No matter. You know best. Take care of yourself, Mr. 
 Drayton." 
 
 Drayton buttoned his coat as near to the throat as the torn 
 lapel would allow. " That's what I mean to do. I ain't 
 going to be lagged. It's a lifer this time, and that would 
 take the stifE'ning out of a man. " 
 
 " Where are you going?" 
 
 " No criss-crossing, I say." 
 
 " Leave this house, and they'll have you in twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
 " Stay here, and they'll lag me in twelve. Being as that's 
 twelve to the good, I'm off." 
 
 Drayton's hand was on the door-handle. Hugh Ritson 
 snatched it away. " An idiot like you deserves to be taken 
 Such men ought to be put away." 
 
198 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 Drayton lifted his fist. " Damme, but I'll put you away if 
 —if—" 
 
 Hugh Ritson did not flinch. " What if I show you how to 
 escape the consequences of to-night's work altogether?" 
 
 Drayton's uplifted hand fell. " I ain't objecting to that," 
 he growled. " How?" 
 
 " By putting another man in your place." 
 
 Drayton's eyes opened in a stare of blank amazement. 
 
 " And what about me?" he asked. 
 
 " You," said Hugh Ritson, and a scarcely perceptible sneer 
 curled his lip — " you shall stand in his shoes." 
 
 A repulsive smile crossed Drayton's face. He fumbled the 
 torn lapel with restless fingers. His eyes wandered to th.3 
 door. There was a moment's silence. 
 
 " Him?" he said, with an elevation of the eyebrows. 
 
 Hugh Ritson bent his head slightly. Drayton stood with 
 mouth agape. 
 
 Old Mrs. Drayton was pottering around the bar preparatory 
 to going to bed. 
 
 " I'll be a-bidding you good-night, sir. Paul, you'll lock 
 up after the gentleman. ' ' 
 
 " Good-night, Mrs. Drayton." 
 
 The landlady hobbled away. But from midway up the 
 stairs her querulous voice came again. " The poor young 
 thing — I declare she's a-crying her eyes out." 
 
 " What d'ye mean to do?" asked Drayton. 
 
 " To get him here." 
 
 " How'll ye track him? He's gone to London, ain't he? 
 That's a big haystack to find a needle in, ain't it?" 
 
 " London is not a haystack, Mr. Drayton. It's a honey- 
 comb, and every cell is labeled. On getting out of the train 
 at St. Pancras Station they will either hire a cab or they will 
 not. If they hire one, then the number will be taken at the 
 lodge. By that number the cabman can be found. He will 
 know where he drove his fare. If my brother left his wife at 
 one place and settled himself at another, the cabman will know 
 that also. If they do not hire a cab, then, as the hour is late, 
 and one of them is a lady, they must be somewhere in the 
 vicinity of the station. Thus in that vast honey-comb their 
 particular cells are already marked out for us. That's enough 
 for the present. Who sleep in this house beside yourselves — 
 and the girl?" 
 
 " Nobody but a lad — a pot-boy." 
 
 " Where is he now — in bed?" 
 
 '' Pour hours agone." 
 
A SON OP HAGAE. 199 
 
 " Where does he sleep?" 
 
 "Up in the attic." 
 
 " Don't let that lad see you. On which side of the house 
 does the attic lie?" 
 
 " In the gable, this end." 
 
 " Is there an attic in the other gable?" 
 
 " Yes — a bad one." 
 
 "No matter. Get a mattress and sleep there yourself, and 
 lie close all day to-morrow. Take food, but no liquor, mind 
 that. I'll come for you when all is clear. And now show me 
 to your room." 
 
 After some preparation, the two men went upstairs, carry- 
 ing the only remaining light. 
 
 ' ' Give me the candle. You had best go up to your attic in 
 the dark. Here, put this key in the girl's door and unlock it. 
 She's quiet enough now. Hush — ! No; it was only the 
 wind. Good-night — and mind what I say, don't let that boy 
 see you— and, listen, no liquor!" 
 
 OHAPTEK XI. 
 
 The day had not yet dawned, and all lay still in that house, 
 when Mercy Fisher opened noiselessly the door of her room, 
 and crept stealthily down the stairs. It was very dark in the 
 bar below, and she had no light. The sickening odor of dead 
 tobacco was in the air. She carried a little bundle in one 
 hand, and with the other she felt her way around the walls 
 until she came to the outer door. A heavy chain fastened it, 
 and with nervous fingers she drew it out of the slide. When 
 free of its groove, it slipped from her hand, and fell against 
 the door-jamb with a clang. The girl's heart leaped to her 
 throat. At first she crouched in fear, then lifted the latch, 
 opened the door, and fled away into the gloom without, leav- 
 ing the door wide open. 
 
 Never to the last day of her life did she know what purpose 
 guided her in that hour. She had no object, no aim. Only 
 to fly away from a broken heart. Only to lie down on the 
 earth and know no more, with all the heartache over. But 
 she was drifting in her blind misery to that reservoir of life, 
 London. 
 
 She hurried down the road, never once looking back. The 
 leafless trees were surging in the night- wind; their gaunt 
 branches were waving grimly over her head. The hedges took 
 fantastic shapes before her and beside her. Her limbs trem- 
 bled and her teeth chattered, yet she hastened on. Her head 
 
200 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 ached. She felt suffocated. The world was so cruel to her. 
 If only she could fly from it and forget — only forget! 
 
 The day was dawning; the deep blue of the sky to the left 
 of her was streaked with thin bars. All before her was a blank 
 void of dun gray. A veil of vapor beat against her cheeks. 
 The wide marshy lands lay in mist around her. Not a sound 
 but her own footstep on the road. Not a bird in the empty 
 air, not a cloud in the blank sky. It was a dreary scene; 
 neither day nor night. 
 
 And through this grim realm that is aloof from all that is 
 human, one poor, broken-hearted girl hurried on, her little 
 bundle in her hand, a shawl wrapped about her shoulders, her 
 red, tearless eyes fixed in front of her. 
 
 Like the spirit of unrest, the wind moaned and soughed. 
 Now and then a withered leaf of last year went by her with a 
 light rustle and stealthy motion. Desolate as the heart within 
 her was the waste around. 
 
 Bit by bit the gray sky lightened; the east was fretted over 
 with pink, and a freshness was breathed into the air. Then 
 she began to run. Behind her were all her pretty dreams, and 
 they were dead. Behind her was the love she had cherished, 
 and that was dead too. Prom a joyful vision she had awak- 
 ened to find the idol cold at her breast. 
 
 Eunning hard along the gloomy road, under the empty sky, 
 through the surging wind, the outcast girl cried in her tearless 
 grief as a little child cries for the mother who is in her grave 
 — never knowing its loss until it has grown tired, and weary, 
 and sick, and the night is very near. 
 
 She came to a brick-kiln that stood back from the road. Its 
 wreathing smoke coiled slowly upward in the smoke-like at- 
 mosphere. The red haze drew her to it, as it drew the shiver- 
 ing waifs of the air. Cold and tired, she crept up and stood 
 some minutes in the glow; but a step fell on her ear from 
 behind the- kiln, and she stole away like a guilty thing. 
 
 Away, away, she knew not where. On, on, she knew not 
 why. 
 
 The day had dawned now. In the brightness of morning her 
 heart sunk lower. Draggled and soiled, her hair still damp 
 with the dew, and the odor of night in her dress, she walked 
 on in the golden radiance of the risen sun. 
 
 Oh, to bury herself forever, and yet not to die — no, no, not 
 to die! 
 
 At a cross-road there was a finger-post, and it read, " To 
 Kilburn." Beyond it there was a wood, and the sunlight 
 played on the pine trees, and reddened the dead leaves that 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 201 
 
 still clung to an oak. She was warm now, but oh! so tired. 
 Behind the ambush of a holly-bush, close to the road, Mercy 
 crouched down on a drift of withered leaves at the foot of a 
 stout beech. She dozed a little and started. All was quiet. 
 Then weary nature conquered fear and overcame sorrow, and 
 she slept. 
 
 And sleep, that makes kings and queens of us all — gracious 
 sleep made a queen of the outcast girl, a queen of love; and 
 she dreamed of her home among the mountains. 
 
 Mercy was still sleeping when a covered wagon, such as car- 
 riers use, came trundling along the road. The driver, a bright- 
 eyed man, with the freshness of the fields in his face, sat on 
 the front rail and whistled. His horse shied at something, 
 and this made him get up. He was at that moment in front of 
 the holly-bush, and he saw Mercy lying behind it. 
 
 Her face was worn and pale, her bonnet fallen back from her 
 forehead, her head leaning against the trunk of the tree, one 
 hand on her breast, the other straying aside on the drift of yel- 
 low leaves, where a little bundle covered by a red handkerchief 
 had fallen from her graspless fingers, and the radiant morning 
 sunlight over all. 
 
 The driver of the wagon jumped to the ground. At the 
 same moment Mercy awoke with a frightened look. She rose 
 to her feet, and would have hurried away. 
 
 " Young to be wagranting about, ain't ye, miss?" said the 
 driver. His tone was kindlier than his words. 
 
 " Let me go, please," said Mercy, and she tried to pass. 
 
 " Coorse, coorse, if yer wants to." 
 
 Mercy thanked him, her eyes on the ground. She was al- 
 ready on the road. 
 
 " Being as you're going my way, I ain't objecting to giving 
 you a lift." 
 
 " No, thank you. I have no — I've no money. I must 
 run." 
 
 " You'll wait till I ax for it, won't ye, missy? Come, get 
 up." 
 
 " And will you let me go down whenever I like?" 
 
 " Coorse I will; why not? Up with ye. There, easy, 
 kneel on the shaft, that's the size of it. Now go set yourself 
 down on them sacks. Them's apples, them is. Right? Very 
 well. We're off, then." 
 
 The wagon was about half full of sacks, and Mercy crept 
 down in the furthest corner. 
 
 " I ain't in the apple line reg'lar. I'm a fern-gatherer, 
 that's wot I am. On'y nature don't keep ferning all the year 
 
202 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 round, so I'se forced to go fruiting winter times — ouying ap- 
 ples same as them from off'n the farmers down the country, 
 and bringing 'em up to Covent Garden. That's where I'm 
 going now, that is. And got to be there afore the sales 
 starts." 
 
 Mercy listened, but said nothing. 
 
 " You know Covent Garden — not fur from Leicester Square 
 and the Haymarket?" 
 
 Mercy shook her head. 
 
 " What! Never been there — and that near?" 
 
 Mercy shook her head again and dropped her eyes. 
 
 The driver twisted about to look at her. " Let a be, she's 
 feeling it bad," he thought, and was silent for a moment. 
 Then he twisted about for another look. 
 
 " I say, missy, got bad eyes?" 
 
 " They're sore and a little dim," said Mercy. 
 
 "Blest if you don't look the spitting image of a friend of 
 mine — 'boutn the eyes, I mean — red and swelled up and 
 such. It was Tom Crow, a partner of mine, in fact. Tom 
 caught cold sleeping out one night as we was ferning down 
 Roger Tichborne's estates — him as was the claimant for 'em, 
 you know, on'y he didn't get 'em. The cold flew to Tom's 
 eyes straight, and blest if he ain't gone blind as a mole." 
 
 Mercy's lips quivered. The driver stopped his chatter, con- 
 scious that he had gone too far, and then, with somewhat illog- 
 ical perversity, he proceeded to express his vexation at himself 
 by punishing his horse. 
 
 " Get along, you stupid old perwerse old knacker's crutch!" 
 
 The horse set off at a trot. They passed through a village, 
 and Mercy read the name ' Child's Hill ' printed on the corner 
 of a house. 
 
 " Is it London you are going to?" said Mercy, timidly; 
 " Covent Garden — is that London?" 
 
 " Eh?" The driver opened his eyes very wide in a blank 
 stare. 
 
 Mercy trembled, and held down her head. They jogged on 
 awhile in silence, and then the driver, who had cast furtive 
 glances at the girl, drew the rein, and said: " I'm wexed as I 
 said Tom Crow was as blind as a mole. How-and-ever, a 
 mole ain't blind, and it's on'y them coster chaps as think so, 
 but I've caught a many of 'em out ferning. Besides, Tom 
 was a- worrited with his missus, Tom was, and happen that was 
 worse nor his cold. 
 
 [" Get along, you old perwerse old file!] 
 
 " You see, Tom's missus cat away and left him. As young 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 203 
 
 as you, and ma3*be as good to look at, but a bad 'un; and she 
 broke Tom's heart, as the saying is. So Tom left the ferning. 
 He hadn't no heart for it. Ferning' s a thing as wants heart, 
 it do. He started costering first, and now Tom's got a 'tater- 
 ingine, on'y being as he's blind he has a boy to wheel it. And. 
 that woman she done it all. ' Jim Groundsell,' he says to me 
 — that's my name — ' Jim,' he says, ' don't fix your heart on 
 nothing,' he says, ' and keep to your sight and the ferning.' 
 
 [" Well, you perwerse old crutch! Get along with you!] 
 
 " But I went and done it myself. And now my missus, she's 
 a invalide, as they say, and she ain't out o' bed this twelvemonth 
 come Christinas, and. she gets lonesome lying all by herself, 
 and frets a bit maybe, and — " 
 
 [" Get along, will you, you wexing old fence!"] 
 
 There was a long silence this time. They were leaving the 
 green fields behind them, and driving through longer streets 
 than Mercy had ever seen before. Though the sun was shining 
 feebly, the lamps on the pavement were still burning. They 
 passed a church, and Mercy saw by the clock that it was hard 
 on eight. They drove briskly through Camden Town into St. 
 Giles's, and so on to Long Acre. 
 
 The streets were thronged by this time. Troops of people 
 were passing to and fro. Cabs and omnibuses were rattling 
 hither and thither. At every turn the crowd became denser 
 and the noise louder. Mercy sat in her corner, bewildered. 
 The strange city frightened her. For the time it drove away 
 the memory of her sorrow. 
 
 When they reached Covent Garden, Jim, the driver, drew 
 up with a jerk, and nodded to some of the drivers of similar 
 wagons, and hailed others with a lusty shout. All was a babel 
 to the girl's dazed sense: laughter, curses, yelling, whooping, 
 quarreling. 
 
 Mercy's head ached. She got down, hardly knowing what 
 to do next. Where was she to go? In that wilderness of 
 London, more desolate than the trackless desert, what was she? 
 She stood a moment on the pavement, her little bundle in 
 her hand, and all the bewildering scene went round and round. 
 The tears rose to her eyes, and the glare and noise and the 
 tumult were blotted out. 
 
 The next instant she felt herself being lifted back into the 
 wagon, and then she remembered nothing more. 
 
204 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Two days later, Hugh Eitson entered the convent church 
 of St. Margaret. It was evening service, and the nave was 
 thronged from chancel to porch. The aisles, which were bare 
 of seats, were filled only half-way down, the rest of the pave- 
 ment being empty save for a man here and there who leaned 
 lightly against the great columns of the heavy colonnade. 
 
 The sermon had already begun. Hugh Eitson walked up 
 the aisle noiselessly until he came close behind the throng of 
 people standing together. Then he stood at the side of a 
 column and looked around on those in the nave. 
 
 He was within range of the preacher's voice, but he hardly 
 listened. His eyes traversed the church until at last they 
 rested on one spot in the south transept, where a company of 
 nuns sat with downcast eyes half closed. The face of one of 
 them was hidden beneath her drooping coif; the rosary held to 
 her breast was gripped with nervous fingers. Near at hand 
 there was another face that riveted Hugh Eitson's gaze. It 
 was the face of Greta, radiant in its own beauty, and tender 
 with the devotional earnestness of parted lips and of lashes wet 
 with the dew of a bruised spirit. 
 
 From these two his eyes never wandered for longer than a 
 minute. Languidly he listened to the words that floated over 
 the people and held them mute. The preacher was a slight 
 young man, emaciated, pale, with lustrous eyes, and a voice 
 that had a thin, meek pipe. But the discourse was in a strain 
 of feverish excitement, a spirit of hard intolerance, a tone of 
 unrelenting judgment, that would have befitted the gigantic 
 figure and thunderous accents of the monk Jerome. 
 
 " There is away that seemeth right unto a man, but the end 
 thereof is death." This was the text, twenty times repeated. 
 Men talked of the rights of conscience, as if conscience were 
 God's law. They babbled of toleration, as if any heresy were 
 to be endured, if only it were believed. Conscience! It was 
 the slave of Circumstance. Toleration! It was the watch- 
 word at the gate of hell. 
 
 Hugh Eitson listened with a vague consciousness, his eyes 
 fixed alternately on the nun with the drooping coif, and on the 
 fair, upturned face beside her. At last a word struck him, 
 and made his whole soul to vibrate. Men, women, the great 
 mute throng, pillars, arches, windows of figured saints, altar 
 aflame with candles, the surpliced choir, and the pale thin face 
 
A SOK OP HAGAR. 205 
 
 with the burning eyes in the pulpit above — all vanished in an 
 instant. 
 
 What was true, said the preacher, in the realm of thought, 
 could not be false in the world of life. Men did evil deeds, 
 and justified them to their own enslaved minds. No way so 
 dark but it had appeared to be the path of light; none so far 
 wrong but it had seemed to be right. Let man beware of the 
 lie that he told to his own heart. The end thereof is death. 
 
 Staring from a bloodless face, Hugh Eitson reeled a step 
 backward, and then clung with a trembling hand to the pillar 
 against which he had leaned. The harsh scrape of his foot 
 was heard over the hushed church, and here and there a neck 
 was craned in his direction. His emotion was gone in an in- 
 stant. A light curl of the hard lip told that the angel within 
 him had once again been conquered. 
 
 The sermon ended with a rapturous declaration of the im- 
 mutability of God's law, and the eternal destinies of man. The 
 world was full of change, but man, who seemed to change 
 most, changed least. The stars that hung above had seen the 
 beginning and the end of ages. Before man was, they were. 
 The old river that flowed past the old city that night had 
 flowed there centuries ago, and generations of men had lived 
 and died in joy and sorrow, and still the same waters washed 
 the same shore. But the stars that measure time itself, and 
 the sea that recorded it, would vanish away, and man should 
 be when time would be no more. " They shall perish, but 
 thou shalt endure. They shall wax old as doth a garment. 
 . . . But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no 
 end." 
 
 The preacher finished, and the buzz and rustle of the people 
 shifting in their seats told of the tension that had been broken. 
 Paces that had been distorted with the tremors of fear, or con- 
 tracted with the quiverings of remorse, or glorified with the 
 lights of ecstasy, resumed their normal expression. 
 
 The vesper hymn was sung by the whole congregation, 
 standing. It floated up to the blue roof, where the lights that 
 burned low over the people's heads left in the gloom the texts 
 written on the open timbers and the imaged Christ hung in the 
 clerestory. There was one voice that did not sing the vesper 
 hymn; and the close-locked lips of Hugh Eitson were but the 
 symbol of the close-locked heart. 
 
 He was asking himself, was it true that when the fire of the 
 stars should be burned to ashes, still man would endure? 
 Pshaw! What was man? These throngs of men, whose great 
 voice swelled like the sea, what were they? In this old church 
 
206 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 where they sung, other men had sung before them, and where 
 were they now? Who should say they had not perished? Liv- 
 ing, believing, dying, they were gone: gone with their sins 
 and sorrows; gone with their virtues and rewards; gone from 
 all sight and all memory; and no voice came from them, peal- 
 ing out of the abyss of death to join, this song of hope. Hope! 
 It was a dream. A dream that great yearning crowds like 
 these, filling churches and chapels, dreamed age after age. 
 But it was a dream from which there would be no awakening 
 to know that it was not true. 
 
 The priest and choir left the church. Then the congrega- 
 tion broke up and separated. Hugh Eitson stood awhile, still 
 leaning against the column of the colonnade. The nuns in the 
 south transept rose last, and went out by a little aperture 
 opening from the south aisle. Hugh watched them pass at 
 the distance of the width of the nave. Greta walked a few 
 paces behind them. When the people had gone, and she rose 
 from her seat, her eyes fell on Hugh. Then she dropped her 
 head, and walked down the aisle with a hurried step. Hugh 
 saw her out; the church was now empty, and the voluntary 
 was done. He followed her through the door, and entered 
 into the sacristy. 
 
 Before him was another door; it led into the convent. The 
 last of the line of nuns was passing through it. Greta stood in 
 the sacristy, faint, with a scared face, one hand at her breast, 
 the other on the base of a crucifix that stood by the wall. 
 When she saw that he had followed her, her first impulse was 
 to shrink away; her second was to sink to her knees at his 
 feet. She did neither. Conquering her faintness, but still 
 quivering from head to foot, she turned upon him with a defi- 
 ant look. " Why do you come here? I do not wish to speak 
 with you. Let me pass," she said. 
 
 Hugh Eitson made no effort to detain her. He stood before 
 her with downcast eyes, his infirm foot bent under him. " I 
 come to bid you farewell," he said calmly; " I come to say 
 that we meet no more." 
 
 " Would that we had parted forever before we met the last 
 time!" said Greta, fervently. 
 
 "Would that we had never met!" sa,id Hugh in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " That was a lie with which you parted me from my hus- 
 band," she said. 
 
 " It was — God forgive me." 
 
 " And you knew it was a lie?" said Greta. 
 
 " I knew it was a lie." 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 20? 
 
 " Then where is your shame, that you can look me in the 
 face? HaTe you no shame?" she said. 
 
 " Have you no pity?" said Hugh. 
 
 " "What pity had you for me? Have you not done me 
 wrong enough already?" 
 
 " God knows it is true. And He knows I am a miserable 
 man. Have pity and forgive me, and say farewell!" 
 
 Something of contrition in the tone touched her. She was 
 silent. 
 
 " The preacher was wrong," he said. " There is no spirit 
 of evil. We are betrayed by our own passions, and the 
 chief of those passions is love. It is the Nemesis that stalks 
 through the world, haunting all men, and goading some to 
 great wrong." 
 
 " It was of your doing that I came here," said Greta. 
 
 " Would to God it' may be of my doing that you remain 
 here," said Hugh. 
 
 " That is a prayer He will not hear. I am leaving this 
 house to-nigh b. There is some one coming who can unmask 
 your wicked falsehood." 
 
 " Parson Christian?" said Hugh. 
 
 Greta made no answer, and Hugh continued, " His journey 
 is needless. A word from my mother would have done all. 
 She is in this house. " 
 
 " Yes, Heaven forgive you, she is here!" said Greta. 
 
 " You are wrong; you do not know all. Where is your hus- 
 band?" 
 
 Greta shook her head. " I have neither seen him nor heard 
 from him since we parted at these doors," she said. 
 
 " And when you leave them to-night, do you leave him be- 
 hind you?" said. Hugh. 
 
 " Heaven forbid!" said Greta, passionately. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's bloodless face was awful to look upon. 
 " Greta," he said, in a tone of anguish, " give up the thought. 
 Look on that false union as broken forever, and all this mis- 
 ery will end. It was I and you — you and I. But that is over 
 now. I do not come between you. It is useless to think of 
 that. I do not offer you my love; you refused it long ago. 
 But I can not see you my brother's wife. That would be too 
 much for me to endure. I will not endure it. Have pity 
 upon me. If I have no claim to your love, have I no right to 
 your pity? What have I suffered for your love? A life's 
 misery. What have I sacrified to it? My name— my place— 
 my inheritance. " 
 
 Greta lifted her eyes with a look of inquiry. 
 
208 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " What? Has he not even yet told you all?" said Hugh. 
 " Eo matter. What has he done to earn your love that I have 
 not done? What has he suffered? What has he sacrificed?" 
 
 " If this is love, it is selfish love/' said Greta, in a broken 
 
 VOICG 
 
 " Selfish?— be it so. All love is selfish. " 
 
 '' Leave me — leave me!" 
 
 Hugh Ritson paused; the warmth of his manner increased. 
 " I will leave you," he said, " and never seek you again; I 
 will go from you forever, and crush down the sorrow that must 
 be with me to the end, if you will promise me one thing." 
 
 " What is it?" said Greta, her eyes on the ground. 
 
 " It is much," said Hugh, " but it is not all. If the price 
 is great, think of the misery that it buys — and buries. You 
 would sacrifice something for me, would you not?" 
 
 His voice swelled as he spoke, and bis pale face softened, 
 and the light of hopeless love was in his great eyes. 
 
 " Say that you would — for me — me!" He held out his 
 arms toward her as if soul and body together yearned for one 
 word, one look of love. 
 
 Greta stood there, silent and immovable. " What is it?" 
 she repeated. 
 
 " Let me think that you would do something for my sake — 
 mine," he pleaded. " Let me carry away that solace. Think 
 what I have suffered for you, and all in vain. Think that 
 perhaps it was no fault of mine that you could not love me; 
 that another woman might have found me worthy to be loved 
 who had not been unworthy of love from me." 
 
 " What is it?" repeated Greta coldly, but her drooping 
 lashes were wet with tears. 
 
 " Think that I am of a vain, proud, stubborn spirit; that 
 in all this world there is neither man nor woman, friend nor 
 enemy, to whom I have sued for grace or favor; that since I 
 was a child I have never even knelt in prayer in God's house 
 that man might see or God might hear. Then think that I 
 am at your feet, a miserable man." 
 
 " What is it?" said Greta again. 
 
 Hugh Ritson paused, and then added more calmly: " That 
 you should take the vows and the veil, and stay here until 
 death." 
 
 Greta lifted her eyes. Hugh's eyes were bent upon her. 
 
 " No; I can not. I should be false to my marriage vows," 
 she said quietly. 
 
 " To be true to them is to be false to yourself, to your hus 
 t>and, and to me," said Hugh. 
 
A SON OF HA GAR. 209 
 
 " I love my husband," said Greta, with an eloquent glaace. 
 " To be true to them is to be true to him." 
 
 There was a pause. Hugh Eitson's manner underwent a 
 change. It was the white heat of high passion that broke the 
 silence when he spoke again. 
 
 " Greta," he said, and his deep voice had a strong tremor, 
 " if there is any truth in what that priest told us to-night — if 
 it is not a dream and a solemn mockery made to enchant or 
 appal the simple — if there is a God and judgment — my soul is 
 already too heavily burdened with sins against you and yours. 
 [ would have eased it of one other sin more black than these; 
 but it is not to be." 
 
 " What do you mean?" said Greta. Her face was panic- 
 strickon. 
 
 Hugh Eitson came a step nearer. 
 
 " That your husband is in my hands — that one word from 
 me would commit him to a doom more dreadful than death — 
 that if he is to be saved as a free man, alive, you must re- 
 nounce him forever." 
 
 " Speak plain. What do you mean?" said Greta. 
 " Choose — quick. Which shall it be? You for this con- 
 vent, or your husband for lifelong imprisonment?" 
 
 Greta's mind was in a whirl. She was making for the door 
 in front of them. He stepped before her. 
 
 " ]' parted you with a lie," he said, " but to me it was not 
 always a lie. I believed it once. Do you think I should have 
 denied myself my inheritance, and let a bastard stand in my 
 place, if I had not believed it?" 
 
 " What further lie is this?" said Greta. 
 " No matter. Heaven knows. And all I did was for love 
 of you. Is it so guilty a thing that I have loved you — to all 
 lengths and ends of love? I meant to put a hemisphere be- 
 tween you — to send him to Australia and you back home to 
 Cumberland. What if the lie had then been outfaced? I 
 should have parted you, and that would have been enough." 
 " ' ' And now, when your revenge falls idle at your feet, you 
 come to me on your knees," said Greta. 
 
 " Eevenge? That was but a feeble revenge," said Hugh. 
 " He would have learned the truth and come back to claim 
 you. There would have been no peace for me while he was alive 
 and free. Do I come to you on my knees? Yes; but it is to 
 pray of you to save your husband. Is it so much that I ask of 
 you? Think what is earned by it. If you have no pity foj 
 me, have you none for him?" 
 She was struggling to pass him. 
 
210 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " Greta," he said, " choose, and at once. It is now 01 
 never. To-night — to-morrow will be too late. You for a holy 
 life of self-renouncement, or your husband to drag out his mis- 
 erable days in penal servitude." 
 
 " This is only another lie. Let me pass," she said. 
 
 " It is the truth, as sure as God hears us," said Hugh. 
 
 " I shall never believe it." 
 
 " I will swear it." He laid a strong hand on her wrist. " I 
 will swear it at the very foot of God's altar." 
 
 He tried to draw her back into the church. She resisted. 
 
 " Let me go; I will cry for help." 
 
 He dropped her wrist, and fell back from her. She drew 
 herself up in silence, and walked slowly away. 
 
 He stood a moment alone in the sacristy. Then he went 
 out through the church. It was empty and all but dark. 
 The sacristan, with a long rod, was putting out the lights one 
 by one. He turned, with arm uplifted, to look after the halt- 
 ing figure that passed down the aisle and out at the west 
 porch. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Abbey Gakdens, the street in front, was dark and all but 
 deserted. Only a drunken woman went reeling along. But 
 the dull buzz in the distance and the white sheet in the sky 
 told that, somewhere near, the wild heart of the night beat 
 high. 
 
 Hugh Ritson looked up at the heavy mass of the convent 
 building as he crossed the street. The lights were already 
 out, and all was dark within. He went on, but presently 
 stopped by a sudden impulse, and looked again. 
 
 It was then he was aware that something moved in the deep 
 portico. The lamp on the pavement sent a shaft of light on 
 to the door, and there, under the gas-light, with the face turned 
 from him, was the figure of a woman. She seemed to cast 
 cautious and stealthy glances around, and to lift a trembling 
 hand to the bell that hung above her. The hand fell to her 
 side, but no ring followed. Once again the hand was lifted, 
 and once again it fell back. Then the woman crept totteringly 
 down the steps and turned to go. 
 
 Hugh Ritson recrossed the street. Amid all the turmoil of 
 his soul, the incident had arrested him. 
 
 The woman was coming toward him. He put himself in 
 her path. The light fell full upon her, and he saw her face 
 
 It was Mercy Fisher. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 211 
 
 With a low cry, the girl sunk back against the railings of 
 the convent, and covered her face with her hands. 
 
 " Is it you, Mercy?" said Hugh. 
 
 She made no answer. Then she tried to steal away, but he 
 held her with gentle force. 
 
 " Why did you leave Hendon?" he asked. 
 
 " You did not want me," said the girl, in a tone of unutter- 
 able pain. And still her face was buried in her hands. 
 
 He did not reply. He let her grief spend itself. 
 
 Just then a drunken woman reeled back along the pave- 
 ment and passed them close, peering into their midst, and go- 
 ing by with a jarring laugh. 
 
 "What's he a-doing to ye, my dear, eh?" she said, jeer- 
 ingly. " Sarve ye right!" she added, and laughed again. She 
 was a draggled, battered outcast — a human ruin, such as 
 night, the pander, flings away. 
 
 Mercy lifted her head. A dull, weary look was in her eyes. 
 
 " You know how I waited and waited," she said, " and 
 you were so long in coming, so very long." She turned her 
 eyes aside. " You did not want me; in your heart you did 
 not want me," she said. 
 
 The wave of bitter memory drowned her voice. Not un- 
 moved, he stood and looked at her, and saw the child-face wet 
 with tears, and the night breeze of the city drift in her yellow 
 hair. 
 
 " Where have you been since?" he said. 
 
 " A man going to market brought me up in his wagon. I 
 fainted, and then he took me to his home. He lives close by, 
 in the Horse and Groom Yard. His wife is bedridden, and 
 such a good creature, and so kind to me. But they are poor, 
 and I had no money, and I was afraid to be a burden to them; 
 and besides — besides — " 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 " She saw that I was — she saw what was going to — being a 
 woman, she knew I was soon — " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Hugh, stopping another flood of tears with 
 a light touch of the hand. " How red your eyes look! Are 
 they worse?" 
 
 " The man was very good; he took me to the doctors at a 
 hospital, and they said — oh, they said I might lose my sight!" 
 
 " Poor little Mercy!" said Hugh. 
 
 He was now ashamed of his own sufferings. How loud they 
 had clamored awhile ago; yet, what were they side by side 
 with this poor girl's tangible sorrows! Mere things of the air, 
 with no reality. 
 
212 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " But no matter!" she burst out. " That's no matter." 
 
 " You must keep up heart, Mercy. I spoke angrily to you 
 the other night, but it's over now, is it not?" 
 
 " Oh, why didn't you leave me alone?" said the girl. 
 
 " Hush, Mercy; it will be well with you yet. His own eyes 
 were growing dim, but even then his heart was bitter. Had he 
 not said in his wrath that passion was the demon of the world? 
 He might say it in his sorrow, too. The simple heart of this 
 girl loved him even as his own lustier soul loved Greta. He 
 had wronged her. But that was only a tithe of the trouble. 
 If she could but return him hate for wrong, how soon every- 
 thing would be right with her! " What brought you here, 
 Mercy?" 
 
 " One of the sisters — they visit the sick — one of them vis- 
 ited the house where they gave me lodgings, and I heard that 
 they sometimes took homeless girls into the convent. And I 
 thought I was homeless now, and — and — " 
 
 " Poor little woman!" 
 
 " I came the night before last, but saw your brother Paul 
 walking here in front. So I went away." 
 
 " Paul?" 
 
 " Then I came last night, and he was here again. So I 
 went away once more. And to-night I came earlier, and he 
 wasn't here; but just as I was going to ring the bell, and say 
 that I had no home and that my eyes were growing worse, 
 something seemed to say they would ask if I had a father, and 
 why I had left him; and then I couldn't ring — and then I 
 thought if only I could die — yes, if only I could die and for- 
 get, and never wake up again in the morning — " 
 
 " Hush, Mercy. You shall go back home to your father." 
 
 "No, no, no!" 
 
 " Yes; and I shall go with you." 
 
 There was silence. The bleared eyes looked stealthily up 
 into his face. A light smile played there. 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 A bright vision came to her of a fair day when, hand in 
 hand with him she loved, she should return to her forsaken 
 home in the mountains, and hold up her head, and wipe away 
 her father's tears. She was in the dark street of the city, 
 then; she and her home were very far apart. 
 
 He laughed inwardly at a different vision. In a grim spirit 
 of humor he saw all his unquenchable passion conquered, and 
 he saw himself the plain, homely, respectable husband of this 
 simple wife. 
 
 " Was Paul alone when you saw him?" said Hugh. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 213 
 
 it ' 
 
 ; Yes. And would you tell them all?" 
 
 The girl's sidelong glance was far away. 
 
 " Mercy, I want you to do something lor me." 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 Again the sidelong glance. 
 
 Hugh lilted the girl's head with his hand to recall her wan- 
 dering thoughts. 
 
 " Paul will come again to-night. I want you to wait foi 
 him, and speak to him." 
 
 " Yes, yes; but won't he ask me questions?" 
 
 " What if he does? Answer them all. Only don't say that 
 I have told you to speak to him. Tell him — will you remem- 
 ber it? — are you listening? — look me in the face, little 
 woman." 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 " Tell him that Mr. Christian — Parson Christian, you know 
 — has come to London and wishes to see him at once. Say he 
 has looked for bim at the hotel in Regent Street and not found 
 him there, and is now at the inn in Hendon. Will you re- 
 member?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Where were you going, Mercy — back to your poor 
 friends?" 
 
 " No. But will he be sure to come to-night?" 
 
 " No doubt. At what time was he here last night?" 
 
 " Ten o'clock." 
 
 "It is now hard on nine. Tell him to go to Hendon at 
 once, and when he goes, you go with him. Do you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Don't forget — to-night; to-morrow night will not do. If 
 he does not come, you must follow me to Hendon and tell me 
 so. I shall be there. Don't tell him that — do you hear?" 
 
 The girl gave a meek assent. 
 
 " And now good-bye for an hour or two, little one." 
 
 He turned away, and she was left alone before the dark 
 convent. But she was not all alone. A new-born dream was 
 with her, and her soul was radiant with light. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Hugh Ritson walked rapidly through Dean's Yard in the 
 direction of the sanctuary. As he turned into Parliament 
 Street the half moon rose above the roof of Westminster Hall 
 But the night was still dark. 
 
214 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 He passed through Trafalgar Square and into the Hay 
 market. The streets were thronged. Crowds on Growds went 
 languidly by. Dim ghosts of men and women, most of them, 
 who loitered at this hour in these streets. Old men with the 
 souls long years dead within them, and the corruption reek- 
 ing up with every breath to poison every word, or lurking like 
 charnel lights in the eyes to blink contagion in every glance. 
 Young girls hopping like birds beside them, the specters of 
 roses in their cheeks, but the real thorns at their hearts. There 
 had been no way for them but this — this and one other way: 
 either to drift into the Thames and be swallowed up in the 
 waters of death, or to be carried along for a brief minute on 
 the froth of the waves of life. 
 
 Laughing because they might not weep; laughing because 
 their souls were dead ; laughing in their conscious travesty of 
 the tragedy of pleasure— they tripped and lounged and saun- 
 tered along. And the lamps shone round them, and above 
 them was the glimmering moon. 
 
 As Hugh Eitson went up the steep Haymarket his infirmity 
 became more marked, and he walked with a sliding gait. 
 Seeing this, a woman who stood there halted and limped a few 
 paces by his side, and pretending not to see him, shouted with 
 a mocking laugh, " What is it — a man or a bat?" 
 
 How the wild, mad heart of the night leaped up! 
 
 A man passed through the throng with eyes that seemed to 
 see nothing of its frantic frenzy and joyless joy' — a stalwart 
 man, who strode along like a giant among midgets, his vacant 
 eyes fixed before him, his strong white face expressionless. 
 Hugh Eitson saw him. They passed within two paces, but 
 without recognition. The one was wandering aimlessly in his 
 blind misery toward the Convent of St. Margaret, the other 
 was making for the old inn at Hendon. 
 
 An hour later Hugh Eitson was standing in the bar of the 
 Hawk and Heron. His mind was made up; his resolve was 
 fixed; his plan was complete. 
 
 " Anybody with him?" he said to the landlady, motioning' 
 toward the stairs. 
 
 " Not as I knows on, sir, but he do seem that restless and 
 oft his wittals, and I don't know as I quite understands why — " 
 
 Hugh Eitson stopped her garrulous tongue. " I have found 
 the girl. She will come back to you to-night, Mrs. Drayton. 
 If she brings with her the gentleman who left these boxes in 
 your care, take him to your son's bedroom., and tell him the 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 215 
 
 person lie wishes to see has arrived, and will be with him di- 
 rectly." 
 
 With this he went up the stairs. Then, calling down, he 
 added: " The moment he is in the room, come up and tell me. ' ' 
 A minute later he called again: " Where ; s the key to this 
 door? Let me have it. " 
 
 The landlady hobbled up with the key to Drayton's bed- 
 room; the room was empty and the door stood open. Hugh 
 Ritson tried the key in the lock and saw that the wards 
 moved freely. " That will do," he said, in a satisfied tone. 
 
 The old woman was hobbling back. Hugh was standing in 
 thought, with head bent, and the nail of his forefinger on his 
 cheek. 
 
 " By the way, Mrs. Drayton," he said, " you should get the 
 girl to help you a little sometimes." 
 
 " Lor's, sir, I never troubles her, being as she's like a vis- 
 itor." 
 
 " Nonsense, Mrs. Drayton. She's young and hearty, and 
 your own years are just a little past their best, you know. 
 How's your breathing to-day — any easier?" 
 
 " Well, I can't say as it's a mort better, neither, thanking 
 you the same, sir," and a protracted fit of coughing bore 
 timely witness to the landlady's words. 
 
 " Ah! that's a bad bout, my good woman." 
 " Well, it is sir; and I get no sympathy neither — leastways 
 not from him as a mother might look to-^in a manner of 
 speaking." 
 
 " Bethink you. Is there nothing the girl can do for you 
 when she comes? Nothing wanted? No errand?" 
 
 " Well, sir, taking it kindly, sir, there's them finings in 
 the cellar a-wants doing bad, and the boy as ought to do 'em, 
 he's that grumpysome, as I declare — " 
 
 " Quite right, Mrs. Drayton. Send the girl down to them 
 
 the moment she comes in, and keep her down until bed-time." 
 
 " Thank you, sir! I'm sure I takes it very kind and 
 
 thoughtful of a gentleman to say as much, and no call, 
 
 neither." 
 
 The landlady shuffled down-stairs, wagging gratefully her 
 dense old noddle; the thoughtful gentleman left the key of 
 Drayton's room in the lock on the outside of the door, and 
 ascended a ladder that went up from the end of the passage. 
 He knocked at a door at the top. At first there was no an- 
 swer. A dull shuffling of feet could be heard from within. 
 " Come, open the door," said Hugh, impatiently. 
 The door was opened cautiously. Drayton stood behind it; 
 
216 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 Hugh Eitson entered. There was no light in the room; the 
 red, smoking wick of a tallow candle, newly extinguished, was 
 filling the air with its stench. 
 
 " You take care of yourself," said Hugh. " Let us have a 
 light." 
 
 Drayton went down on his knees in the dark, fumbled on 
 the floor for a box of lucifers, and relighted the candle. He 
 was in his shirt-sleeves. 
 
 " Cold without your coat, eh?" said Hugh. A sneer played 
 about his lips. 
 
 Without answering, Drayton turned to a mattress that lay 
 in the gloom of one corner, lifted it, took up a coat that lay 
 under it, and put it on. It was the ulster with the torn lapel. 
 
 Hugh Eitson followed Drayton's movements, and laughed 
 slightly. '" Men like you are always cautious in the wrong 
 place," he said. " Let them lay hands on you, and they won't 
 be long finding your — coat." The last word had a contempt- 
 uous dig of emphasis. 
 
 " Damme if I won't burn it, for good and all," muttered 
 Drayton. His manner was dogged and subdued. 
 
 " No, you won't do that," said Hugh, and he eyed him 
 largely. The garret was empty, save for the mattress and the 
 blanket that lay on it, and two or three plates, with the refuse 
 of food, on the floor. It was a low room, with a skylight in 
 the rake of the roof, which sloped down to a sharp angle. 
 There was no window. The walls were half timbered, and had 
 once been plastered, but the laths were now bare in many 
 places. 
 
 " Heard anything?" said Drayton, doggedly. 
 
 " Yes; I called and told the police sergeant that I thought 
 I was on the scent." 
 
 "What? No!" 
 
 The two men looked at each other — Drayton suspicious, 
 Hugh Eitson with amused contempt. 
 
 " Tell you what, you don't catch me hobnobbing with them 
 gontry," said Drayton, recovering his composure. 
 
 Hugh Eitson made no other answer than a faint smile. As 
 he looked into the face of Drayton, he was telling himself that 
 no man had ever before been at the top of such a situation as 
 that of which he himself was then the master. Here was a 
 man who was the half-brother of Greta, and the living image 
 of her husband. Here was a man who, despite vague suspi- 
 cions, did not know his own identity. Here was a man over 
 whom hung an inevitable punishment. Hugh Eitson smiled 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. #17 
 
 at the daring idea he had conceived of making this man per 
 xonate himself. 
 
 " Drayton/' he said, " I mean to stand your friend in this 
 trouble. ; ' 
 
 " Tell you again, the best friend to me is the man as helps 
 me to make my lucky." 
 
 " You shall do it, Drayton, this very night. Listen to me. 
 That man, my brother, as they call him — Paul Eitson, as his 
 name goes — is not my father's son. He is the son of my mother 
 by another man, and his true name is Paul Lowther. " 
 
 " I don't care what his true name is, nor his untrue, 
 neither. It ain't nothing to me, say I, and no more is it." 
 
 " Would it be anything to you to inherit five thousand 
 pounds?" 
 
 " What?" 
 
 " Paul Lowther is the heir to as much. What would you 
 say if I could put you in Paul Lowther's place, and get you 
 Paul Lowther's inheritance?" 
 
 " Eh? A fortune out of hand— how?" 
 
 " The way I described before." 
 
 There was a light scraping sound, such as a rat might have 
 made in burrowing behind the partition. 
 
 " What's that?" said Drayton, his face whitening, and his 
 watchful eyes glancing toward the door. ' ' A key in the 
 lock," he whispered. 
 
 " Tut! isn't your own key on the inside?" said Hugh Kit- 
 son. 
 
 Drayton hung his head in shame at his idle fears. 
 
 " I know — I haven't forgot," he muttered, covering his dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 "It's a pity to stay here and be taken, when you might as 
 easily be safe," said Hugh. 
 
 " So it is," Drayton mumbled. 
 
 "And go through penal servitude for life when another 
 man might do it for you," added Hugh, with a ghostly smile. 
 
 " I ain't axing you to say it over. What's that ?" Dray- 
 ton cowered down. The bankrupt garret had dropped a cake 
 of its rotten plaster. Hugh Eitson moved not a muscle; only 
 the sidelong glance told of his contempt for the hulking creat- 
 ure's cowardice. 
 
 " The lawyer who has charge of this legacy is my friend and 
 comrade," he said after a moment's silence. " We should 
 have no difficulty in that quarter. My mother is — Well, 
 she's gone. There would be no one left to question you. If 
 you were only half shrewd the path would be clear." 
 
318 A SON OF H.VGAE. 
 
 " What about her f" 
 
 "Greta? She would be your wife. " 
 
 "My wife?" 
 
 " In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 
 I, whom you have known as Paul Eitson, am really Paul 
 Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with 
 whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I 
 learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady 
 back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage — which is 
 no marriage — be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, 
 Hugh Eitson, the estates of Allan Eitson, and make claim to 
 the legacy left me by my father, Eobert Lowther. ' This is 
 what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for 
 an honest and upright man." 
 
 " Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him 9" 
 
 " He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon." 
 
 Drayton chuckled. " And what about her?" 
 
 " If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing. " 
 
 " So I'm to be Paul Lowther?" 
 
 " You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther." 
 
 " I told you afore, as it won't go into my nob, and no more 
 it will,'' said Drayton, scratching his head. 
 
 " You shall have time to learn your lesson; you shall have 
 it pat," said Hugh Eitson. " Meantime — " 
 
 At that instant Drayton's eyes were riveted on the skylight 
 with an affrighted stare. 
 
 " Look yonder!" he whispered. 
 
 " What?" 
 
 " The face on the roof!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson plucked up the candle and thrust it over his 
 head and against the glass. " What face?" he said contempt- 
 uously. 
 
 Again Drayton's head fell in shame at his abject fear. 
 
 There was a shuffling footstep on the ladder outside. Dray- 
 ton held his head aside and listened. " The old woman," he 
 mumbled. " What now? Supper, I suppose." 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. 
 He was an elderly man with shaggy eyebrows and a wizened 
 face; a diminutive creature with a tousled head of black and 
 gray. It was Gubblum Oglethorpe. The mountain peddlei 
 had traveled south to buy chamois leather, and had packed a 
 
A SON" OF HA GAR. 219 
 
 great quantity of it into a bundle, like a panier, which he car- 
 ried over one arm. 
 
 Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum's 
 lively intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of 
 the man resembling Paul Eitson, whom he had once seen in 
 Hendon. He had always meant to settle for himself that 
 knotty question. So here, on his first visit to London, he in- 
 tended to put up at the very inn about which the mystery 
 gathered. 
 
 " How's ta rubbun on?" he said, by way of salute on enter- 
 ing. When Mrs. Drayton had gone upstairs she had left the 
 pot-boy in charge of the bar. He was a loutish lad of sixteen, 
 and his name was Jabez. 
 
 Jabez slowly lifted his eyes from the pewters he was wash- 
 ing, and a broad smiled crossed his face. Evidently the new- 
 comer was a countryman. 
 
 " Cold neet, eh? Sharp as a step-mother's breath," said 
 Gubblum, throwing down the panier, and drawing up to the 
 fire. 
 
 The smile on the face of Jabez broadened perceptibly, and 
 he began to chuckle. 
 
 "What's ta snertan at, eh?" said Gubblum. "I say it's 
 hot weather varra. Hasta owt agenn it?" 
 
 Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be 
 crazy. 
 
 " What's yon daft thingamy aboot?" thought Gubblum. 
 Then aloud, " Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o' summat." 
 
 Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this man- 
 ner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot- 
 boy's movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity. 
 
 " He's a stirran lad, yon," thought Gubblum. " He's 
 swaddering like a duck in a puddle." 
 
 " Can 1 sleep here to-neet?" he asked, when Jabez had 
 brought him his beer. 
 
 Then that sapient smile on the pot-boy's face ripened into 
 speech. 
 
 " I ain't answering for the sleeping," said Jabez, " but 
 happen you may have a bed — he, he, he! I'll ask the missis 
 — h.e, he, haw!" 
 
 " The missis? Hasta never a master, then?'" said GuL- 
 blum. 
 
 Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, 
 that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to 
 be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler's que& 
 
220 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 tion he merely shoot his wise head and looked grave and aston 
 ishingly innocent. 
 
 "No? And how lang hasta been here?" 
 
 " Three years come Easter," said Jabez. 
 
 " And how lang dusta say 'at missis has been here?" 
 
 " Missis? I heard father say as Mistress Drayton has kep' 
 the Hawk and Heron this five-and-twenty year." 
 
 " Five-and-twenty! Then I reckon that master would be 
 no'but a laal wee barn when she coomt first," said Gubblum. 
 
 " Happen he were," said Jabez. Then, recovering the cau- 
 tion so unexpectedly disturbed, Jabez protested afresh that he 
 had no master. 
 
 " It's slow wark suppen buttermilk wi' a pitchfork," 
 thought Gubblum. He proceeded to employ a spoon. 
 
 " Sista, my lad, wadsta like me to lend thee a shilling?" 
 
 Jabez grinned, and closed his fat fist on the coin thrust 
 into his palm. 
 
 " I once knew a man as were the varra spitten picter of 
 your master," said Gubblum. "In fact, his varra sel', up- 
 sett'n and doon thross'n. I thowt it were hissel', that's the 
 fact. But when I tackled him he threept me down, and I was 
 that vexed I could have bitten the side out of a butter-bowl." 
 
 " But I ain't got no master," protested Jabez. 
 
 " I were riding by on my laal pony that day, but now I'm 
 going shankum naggum," continued Gubblum, unmindful of 
 the pot-boy's mighty innocent look. " ' A canny morning to 
 you, Master Paul,' I shouted, and on I went." 
 
 " Then you know his name?" said Jabez, opening wide his 
 drowsy eyes. 
 
 " ' Master Paul's half his time frae home,' says the chap on 
 t' road. ' Coorse he is,' I says: ' it's me for knowing that.' 
 Ah, I mind it same as it were yesterday. I looked back, and 
 there he was standing at the door, and he just snitit his nose 
 wi' his finger and thoom. Ey, he did, for sure." 
 
 Jabez found his conscience abnormally active at that mo- 
 ment. " But I ain't got none," he protested afresh. 
 
 " None what?" 
 
 " No' master." 
 
 " That's a lie, my lad, for I see he's been putten a swine 
 ring on yer snout to keep ye frae rooting up the ground." 
 
 After this Gubblum sat a good half hour in silence. Mrs. 
 Drayton came down-stairs and arranged that Gubblum should 
 sleep that night in the house. His bedroom was to be a little 
 room at the back, entered from the vicinity of the ladder that 
 led to the attics. 
 
A SOST OF HAGAR. 221 
 
 Gubblum got up, said he was tired, and asked to be shown 
 to his room. Jabez lighted a candle, and they went oft to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Whereiver does that lead to?" said Gubblum, pointing 
 to the ladder near his bedroom door. 
 
 " 1 dunno," said Jabez, moodily. He had been ruminating 
 on Gubblum's observation about the swine ring. 
 
 " He's as sour as vargis," thought Gubblum. 
 
 There was the creak of a footstep overhead. 
 
 " Who sleeps in the pigeon loft?" Gubblum asked, tipping 
 his finger upward. 
 
 "/ dunno," repeated Jabez. 
 
 " His dander's up," thought Gubblum. 
 
 Just then the landlady in the bar heard a sound of wheels 
 on the road, and the next moment a carriage drew up at the 
 open door. 
 
 " I say there, lend a hand here, quick!" shouted the driver. 
 
 Mrs. Drayton hobbled up. The flyman was leaning through 
 the door of the fly, helping some one to alight. 
 
 " Take a' arm, missy; there, that's the size of it. Now, 
 sir, down, gently." 
 
 The person assisted was a man. The light from the bar fell 
 on his face, and the landlady saw him clearly. It was Paul 
 Eitson. He was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. Be- 
 hind him was Mercy Fisher, with recent tears on her cheeks. 
 
 " Oh, he's ill, Mrs. Drayton," said Mercy. 
 
 Paul freed one of his arms from the grasp of the girl, waved 
 with a gesture of deprecation, smiled a jaunty smile, and said: 
 
 " No, no, no; let me walk; I'm well — I'm well." 
 
 With this he made for the house, but before he had taken 
 a second step he staggered and fell against the door-jamb. 
 
 " Deary me, deary me, the poor gentleman's taken badly," 
 said Mrs. Drayton, fussing about. 
 
 Paul Eitson laughed a little, lifted his red eyes, and said : 
 
 "Well, well! But it's nothing. Just dizzy, that's all. 
 And thirsty — very — give me a drink, good woman." 
 
 " Bring that there bench up, missy, and we'll put him 
 astride it," said the driver. " Eight; that's the time o' day. 
 Now, sir, down." 
 
 " Deary me, deary me, drink this, my good gentleman. 
 It'll do you a mort o' good. It's brandy." 
 
 " Water — bring me water," said Paul Eitson, feebly; " I'rie 
 parched." 
 
 " How hot his forehead is!" said Mercy. 
 
222 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " And no light 7 un to lift, neither," said the driver. " Does 
 he live here, missis?" 
 
 Mrs. Drayton brought a glass of water. Paul drained it to 
 the last drop. 
 
 " No, sir; I mean yes, driver," said the landlady, con- 
 fusedly. 
 
 " He warn't so bad getting in," the driver observed. 
 
 " Oh, dear, oh, dear! where is Mr. Christian — Parson Chris- 
 tian?" said Mercy, whose distracted eyes wandered around. 
 
 " The gentleman's come, sir; he's upstairs, sir," said the 
 landlady, and, muttering to herself, Mrs. Drayton hobbled 
 
 Paul Eitson 's head had fallen on his breast. His hat was 
 off, and his hair tumbled over his face. The strong man sat 
 ooiled up on the bench. Then he shook himself and threw up 
 his head, as if trying to cast off the weight of stupor that sat 
 on him. 
 
 " Well, well! who'd have thought of this? Water — more 
 water!" he mumbled in a thick voice. 
 
 Mercy stood before him with a glass in her hand. 
 
 " Is it good for him, I wonder?" she said. " Oh, where is 
 Mr. Christian?" 
 
 Paul Eitson saw the glass, clutched at it with both hands, 
 then smiled a poor, weak smile, as if to atone for his violence, 
 and drank every drop. 
 
 " Well, well! — so hot — and dizzy — and cold," he muttered, 
 incoherently. 
 
 Then he relapsed into silence. After a moment, the driver, 
 who was supporting him at the back, looked over at his face. 
 The eyes were closed, and the lips were hanging. 
 
 " He's gone off unconscious,"' said the flyman. " Ain't 
 ye got a bed handy?" 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Drayton came hastily down-stairs, in 
 a fever of agitation. 
 
 " You've got to get him up to his room," she said, between 
 gusts of breath. 
 
 " That's a job for two men, ain't it, missis?" said the driver. 
 
 Mercy had loosened Paul's collar, and with a nervous hand 
 she was bathing his burning forehead. 
 
 " Oh, tell Mr. Christian," she said; " say he has fainted." 
 
 Mrs. Drayton hobbled back. In another instant there was 
 a man's step descending the stairs. Hugh Eitson entered the 
 bar. He looked down at the unconscious man and felt 
 his pulse. " When did this happen?" he asked, turning to 
 Mercy. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 22S 
 
 " He said he was feeling ill when I met him; then he was 
 worse in the train, and when we reached Hendon he was too 
 dizzy to stand," said Mercy. 
 
 " His young woman, ain't it?'" said the flyman, aside, to 
 Hugh. 
 
 Hugh nodded his head slightly. Then, turning toward Mrs. 
 Drayton with a significant glance, " Your poor son is going to 
 be ill," he said. 
 
 The landlady glanced back with a puzzled expression, and 
 began in a blundering whimper, " The poor gentleman — " 
 
 " The old lady's son?" said the flyman, tipping his finger in 
 the direction of the landlady. 
 
 " Paul Drayton," said Hugh. 
 
 Mercy saw and heard all. The tears suddenly dried in her 
 ayes, which opened wide in amazement. She said nothing. 
 
 Hugh caught the altered look in her face. 
 
 "Mrs. Drayton," he said, "didn't you say you had some- 
 thing urgent for Mercy to do? Let her set about it at once. 
 Now, driver, lend a hand — upstairs; it's only a step." 
 
 They lifted Paul Eitson between them, and were carrying 
 him out of the bar. 
 
 " Where's the boy?" asked Hugh. " Don't let him get in 
 the way. Boys are more hinderance than help," he added, in 
 an explanatory tone. 
 
 They had reached the foot of the stair. " Now, my man, 
 easy — heavy, eh? rather." 
 
 They went up. Mercy stood in the middle of the floor with 
 a tearless and whitening face. 
 
 Half a minute later Hugh Eitson and the flyman had re- 
 turned to the bar. The phantom of a smile lurked about the 
 flyman's mouth. Hugh Eitson's face was ashen, and his 
 lips quivered. 
 
 The boxes and portmanteaus which Paul and Greta had left 
 in the bar three nights ago still lay in one corner. Hugh 
 pointed them out to the driver. " Put them on the top of 
 the cab," he said. The flyman proceeded to do so. 
 
 When the man was outside the door, Hugh Eitson turned to 
 Mrs. Drayton. The landlady was fussing about, twitching her 
 apron between nervous fingers. " Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh.. 
 " you will go in this fly to the Convent of St. Margaret, West- 
 minster. There you will ask for Mrs. Eitson, the lady who 
 was here on Friday night. You will tell her that you have 
 her luggage with you, and that she is to go with you to St. 
 Pancras Station to meet her husband, and return to Cumber- 
 land by the midnight train. You understand?" 
 
224 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 " I can't say as I do, sir, asking pardon, sir. If so be as 
 the lady axes why her husband didn't come for her hisself — 
 what then?" 
 
 " Then say what is true — nothing more, Mrs. Drayton." 
 
 " And happen what may that be, sir?" 
 
 " That her husband is ill — but mind — not seriously." 
 
 "Oh! well, I can speak to that, sir, being as I saw the poor 
 gentleman." 
 
 Mrs. Drayton was putting on her bonnet and shawl. The 
 flyman had fixed the luggage on the top of the cab, and was 
 standing in the bar, whip in hand. 
 
 " A £lass for the driver," said Hugh. Mrs. Drayton moved 
 toward the counter. " No, you get into the cab, Mrs. Dtay- 
 ton; Mercy will serve." 
 
 Mercy went behind the counter and served the liquor in an 
 absent manner. 
 
 " It's now ten-thirty," said Hugh, looking at his watch. 
 " You will drive first to the convent, Westminster, and from 
 there to St. Pancras, to catch the train at twelve, ' ' 
 
 Saying this, he walked to the door and put his head 
 through the window of the cab. The landlady was settling 
 herself in her seat. "Mrs. Drayton/' he whispered, "you 
 must not utter a syllable about youi srzi when you seethe 
 lady. Mind that. You understand?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I can't say — being as I saw the gentleman — 
 wherever's Paul?" 
 
 " Hush!" 
 
 The driver came out. He leaped ib his seat. In another 
 moment the cab rattled away. 
 
 Hugh Eitson walked back into the house. The boy Jabez 
 had come down-stairs. " When do you close the house?" 
 Hugh asked. 
 
 " Eleven o'clock, sir," said Jabez. 
 
 " No one here — you might almost as well close now. No 
 matter — go behind the bar, my laci. Mercy, your eyes are 
 more inflamed than ever; get away to bed immediately." 
 
 Mercy's eyes were not more red than their expression was 
 one of bewilderment. She moved olf mechanically. When 
 she reached the foot of the stairs, she turned and tried to speak. 
 The words would not come. At length she said in a strange 
 voice: " You did not tell me the truth." 
 
 " Mercy!" 
 
 " Where's Parson Christian?" said Mercy, and her voice 
 grew stern, 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 225 
 
 " You must not use that tone to me. Come, get away to 
 bed, little one." 
 
 Her eyes dropped before his. She turned away. He 
 watched her up the stairs. So sure of hand was he that not 
 even at that moment did he doubt his hold of her. But Mercy 
 did not go to bed. She turned in at the open door of Dray- 
 ton's room. The room was dark; only a fitful ray of bleared 
 moonlight fell crosswise on the floor; but she could see that 
 the unconscious figure of Paul Ritson lay stretched upon the 
 bed. 
 
 " And I have led you here with a lie!" she thought. Then 
 her head swam and fell on to the counterpane. Some minutes 
 passed in silence. She was aroused by footsteps in the passage 
 outside. They were coming toward this room. The door, 
 which stood ajar, was pushed open. There was no time for 
 Mercy to escape, so she crept back into the darkness of a nar- 
 row space between the foot of the bed and the wall. 
 
 Two men entered. Mercy realized their presence in the 
 dark room rather by the sense of touch than the sense of 
 hearing or sight. They walked lightly, the darkness hid 
 them, but the air seemed heavy with their hot breath. One 
 of them approached the bedside; Mercy felt the bed quiver. 
 The man leaned over it, and there was a pause. Only the 
 scarcely perceptible breathing of the insensible man fell on the 
 silence. 
 
 " He's safe enough still," said a voice that thrilled her 
 through and through. " Now for it — there's no time to lose!" 
 
 The girl crouched down and held her breath. 
 
 " Damme if I ain't wishing myself well out of it!" muttered 
 another voice. 
 
 Mercy knew both men. They were Hugh Eitson and Paul 
 Drayton. 
 
 Hugh closed the door. " What simpleton says fortune 
 favors the brave?" he said in a low, derisive tone. " Here is 
 fortune at the feet of a man like you!" 
 
 Drayton growled, and Mercy heard the oath that came from 
 beneath his breath. " I'm wanting to be out of this, and I 
 ain't ashamed for you to know it." 
 
 Hugh Ritson's light laugh came from the bedside. He was 
 still standing by Paul Eitson's head. " If the lord mayor 
 came for you in his carriage, with a guard of flunkies, you 
 would leave this house in less safety," he said. Then he added, 
 impatiently: " Come, waste no words; strip off tha^ tell-tale 
 coat." 
 
 8 
 
226 ' A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 With this he leaned over the bed, and there was a creak of 
 the spring mattress. 
 
 " What's that?" said Drayton, in an affrighted tone. 
 
 " For God's sake, be a man!" said Hugh, bitterly. 
 
 " D'ye call this a man's work?" muttered Drayton. 
 
 The light laugh once more. "Perhaps not so manly as 
 robbing the dead and dying, ' ' said Hugh Eitson, and his voice 
 was deep and cold. 
 
 Mercy heard another muttered oath. Dear God! what was 
 about to be done? Could she escape? The door was closed. 
 Still, if she could but reach it she might open it and fly away. 
 
 At that instant Hugh Eitson, as if apprehending her 
 thought, said, "Wait," and then stepped back to the door 
 and drew the snap bolt. Mercy leaned against the wall, and 
 heard the beating of her heart. In the darkness she knew 
 that Paul Drayton had thrown off his coat. " A good rid- 
 dance!" he muttered, and the heavy garment fell with a 
 thud. 
 
 Hugh Eitson had returned to the bed-head. " Give me a 
 hand," he said; " raise him gently — there, I'll hold him up — 
 now draw off his coat — quietly, one arm at a time. Is it free? 
 Thenlift^away." 
 
 Another heavy garment fell with a thud. 
 
 " What's the fence got in his other pockets, eh?" 
 
 " Come, lend your hand again — draw off the boots — they're 
 Cumberland make, and yours are cockney style — quick!" 
 
 Drayton stepped to the bottom of the bed and fumbled at 
 the feet of the insensible man. He was then within a yard of 
 the spot where the girl stood. She could feel his proximity, 
 and the alcoholic fumes of his breath rose to her nostrils. She 
 was dizzy, and thought she must have fallen. She stretched 
 out one hand to save herself, and it fell on to the bed-rail. It 
 was within a foot of Drayton's arm. 
 
 " Take off his stockings — they're homespun — while I re- 
 move the cravat. The pin was a present; it has his name 
 engraved on the plate behind." 
 
 The slant of moonlight had died off the floor, and all was 
 dark. 
 
 Drayton's craven fears seemed to leave him. He laughed 
 and crowed. "How quiet the fence is — very obliging, I'm 
 sure — just fainted in the nick of time. Will it last?" 
 
 "Quick! strip off your own clothes and put them where 
 these have come from. The coat with the torn lapel — where 
 is it? Make no mistake about that." 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 22? 
 
 "I'll pound it, no!" Drayton laughed a short, hoarse 
 laugh. 
 
 There was some shuffling in the darkness. Then a pause. 
 
 " Hush!" 
 
 Mercy knew that Hugh Eitson had grasped the arm of 
 Drayton, and that both held their breath. At that moment 
 the moonlight returned, and the bleared shaft that had once 
 crossed the floor now crossed the bed. The light fell on the 
 face of the prostrate man. His eyes were open. 
 
 " Water — water!" said Paul Eitson, very feebly. 
 
 Hugh Eitson stepped out of the moonlight and went behind 
 his brother. Then Mercy saw a hand before Paul's face, 
 putting a spirit flask to his mouth. 
 
 When the hand was raised the face twitched slightly, the 
 eyes closed with a convulsive tremor, and the half-lifted head 
 fell back on to the pillow. 
 
 " He'll be quieter than ever now," said Hugh Eitson, softly. 
 Mercy thought she must have screamed, but the instinct of 
 self-preservation kept her still. She stirred not a limb. Her 
 head rested against the wall, her eyes peered into the dark- 
 ness, her parched tongue and parted lips burned like fire. 
 
 " Quick! put his clothes on to your own back, and let us 
 be gone." 
 
 Drayton drew on the garments and laughed hoarsely. 
 " And a good fit, too — same make of a man to a T — ex — act- 
 — ly!" 
 
 The window and door stood face to face; the bed was on the 
 left of the door, with the head at the door-end. The narrow 
 alcove in which the girl stood was to the left of the window, 
 and in front of the window there was a dressing-table. Dray- 
 ton stepped up to this table to fix the cravat by the glass. The 
 faint moonlight that fell on his grinning face was reflected 
 dimly into the mirror. 
 
 At that moment Mercy's sickening eyes turned toward the 
 bed. There, in repose that was like death itself, lay the up- 
 turned face of Paul Eitson. Two faces cast by nature in the 
 same mold — one white and serene and peaceful, the other 
 bloated, red, smirking, distorted by passion, with cruel eyes 
 and smoking lips. 
 
 " The very thing — the very thing — damme if his own mother 
 wouldn't take me for her son!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson stepped to Drayton's side. When he spoke \ '- 
 voice was like a cold blast of wind. 
 
 " Now, listen: From this moment at which you change your 
 
228 A SON CF HAGAB. 
 
 coat for his you cease to be Paul Drayton, and become Paul 
 Eitson." 
 
 " Didn't you say I was to be Paul Lowther?" 
 
 " That will come later." 
 
 " As I say, it won't go into my nob." 
 
 "No matter; say nothing to yourself but this, 'I am to 
 pretend to be Paul Eitson.' " 
 
 " Well, now for it!" 
 
 " Beady?" asked Hugh. He returned to the bed-head. 
 
 " Eeady." 
 
 " Then give a hand here. We must put him up into your 
 garret. When the police come for him he must seem to be in 
 hiding and in drink. You understand?" 
 
 A low, hoarse laugh was the only answer. 
 
 Then they lifted the unconscious man from the bed, opened 
 the door, and carried him into the passage. 
 
 Mercy recovered her stunned senses. When the men were 
 gone she crept out on tiptoe and tripped down the passage to 
 her own room. At the door she reeled and fell heavily. 
 Then, in a vague state of consciousness, she heard these words 
 passed over her — " Carry her back into her room and lock her 
 in. " At the same instant she felt herself being lifted in a 
 strong man's arms. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 Before Gubblum Oglethorpe parted with Jabez, he tried to 
 undo the mischief he had done. " Give us a shak' o' thy 
 daddle," he said, holding out his hand. But Jabez had not 
 forgotten the similitude of the swine ring. He made no re- 
 sponse. 
 
 "Dang him for a fool!" thought Gubblum. " He's as 
 daft as a besom." Then Gubblum remembered with what 
 lavish generosity he had bribed the pot-boy to no purpose. 
 " He cover't a shilling dammish," he thought; " I'll dang 
 his silly head off!" 
 
 Jabez put down the candle and backed out of the room, his 
 eyes fixed on the peddler with a ghostly stare. 
 
 " You needn't boggle at me. I'll none hurt ye," said 
 Gubblum. Jabez pulled the door after him. " His head's 
 no'but a lump of puddin' and a daub o' pancake," thought 
 Gubblum. 
 
 Then the peddler sat on the bed and began to wonder what 
 possible reason there might be for the lad's sudden change of 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 229 
 
 temper. He sat long, and many crude notions trotted through 
 his brain. At last he recalled the fact that he had said some- 
 thing about Jabez's snout carrying a swine ring. That was 
 the rub, sure enough. " I mak' no doobt he thowt it was 
 a by- wipe," thought Gubblum. 
 
 Just as the peddler had arived at this* sapient conclusion, he 
 heard heavy footsteps ascending and descending the ladder 
 that stood in the passage outside. Gubblum understood the 
 sounds to mean that the inn was so full of visitors that some 
 of them had to be lodged even in the loft. " Ey, I shouldn't 
 wonder but this is a bonny paying consarn," he thought. 
 
 He undressed, got into bed, and blew out his light. He lay 
 awhile waiting for sleep, and. thinking of the failure of his 
 plummets to sound the depths of Jabez. Then he remembered 
 with vexation that the lad had even laughed at him in spite of 
 the " shilling dammish. " 
 
 " Shaf, it was no'but his guts crowkin'," thought Gub- 
 blum; and he rolled over, face to the wall, and began to pay 
 nasal tribute to sleep. 
 
 From the slowly tightening grip of unconsciousness Gubblum 
 was aroused to sudden wakefulness. There was a noise as of 
 heavy shuffling feet outside his door. The peddler raised him- 
 self and listened. 
 
 " Too dark in this corner," said a voice. " Get a light." 
 
 Gubblum crept out of bed, held his head to the door, and 
 listened. 
 
 There were retreating steps. Then the man who had spoken 
 before spoke again. " Quick, there! we must catch the train 
 at eleven fifteen." 
 
 The voice pealed in Gubblum's memory. He knew it. It 
 was the voice of the last man he should have looked for in 
 this house — Hugh Eitson. 
 
 Presently the footsteps approached, and thin fingers of light 
 shot over Gubblum's head into his dark room. He looked up 
 at the door. Three small round holes had been pierced into 
 the styles for ventilation. 
 
 " Put the candle on the floor and take the feet — I'll go up 
 first," said the same voice. 
 
 Gubblum raised himself on tiptoe and tried to peer through 
 the perforations. He was too small a man to see through. 
 There was a chair by the side of his bed, and his extinguished 
 candle stood on it. He removed the candlestick, lifted the 
 chair cautiously, placed its back to the door, and mounted it. 
 Then he saw all. 
 
 There were two men, and he knew both — the brothers Rib 
 
230 A SON OT HAGAB. 
 
 son. Ah! had he not said that Paul Eitson kept this inn? 
 " I'll shut up the whole boilin' of 'em next time/' thought 
 the peddler. " Wait! what are they lugging into the pigeon 
 loft?" 
 
 " Easy! — damme, but the fence is a weight!" 
 
 It was the hoarse voice of the other man. The candle was 
 behind him and on the floor. It cast its light on his back. 
 ■' If I could no'but get a blink frae the cannel, I'd see what's 
 atween them," thought Gubblum. 
 
 The men with their burden were now at the top of the 
 xadder. 
 
 " Twist about, and go in sideways," muttered the voice 
 first heard. 
 
 The man below twisted. This moment brought the full 
 light of the candle on to the faces of all three. 
 
 " Lord A'mighty, whativer's this?" Gubblum thought. 
 
 The burden was a man's body. But it was the face that 
 startled the peddler — the face of Paul Ritson. 
 
 Gubblum's eyes passed over the group in one quick glance. 
 He saw two Paul Eitsons there, and one of them lay as still 
 as the dead. 
 
 A minute more of awful tension, and the door of the loft 
 above was slammed and shut, the heavy feet of the two men 
 descended the ladder quickly, and went down the stairs into 
 the bar. 
 
 Gubblum listened as if with every sense. He knew that 
 the outer door to the road had opened and closed. He heard 
 footsteps dying away in the distance without. All was silent 
 within the house. 
 
 Two men hastening in the night to the Hendon railway 
 station paused at that turn of the road which leads to the po- 
 lice offices and jail. 
 
 " You go on, and take care of yourself — Fll follow in five 
 minutes," said one. 
 
 " You ain't going to give a man away?" said the other. 
 
 There was only a contemptuous snort for answer. The 
 first speaker had turned on his heel. When he reached the 
 police offices, he rang the bell. The door was answered by a 
 sergeant in plain clothes. " I've found your man for you," 
 said Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " Where, sir?" 
 
 " At the Hawk and Heron." 
 
 " Who is he?" 
 
 f5 Paul Drayton. You'll find him lying in the garret at the 
 

 ...' .--TV-',', 
 
 The burden was a man's body. — Page 230, 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 231 
 
 west end of the gable — drunk. Lose not an hour. Go at 
 once." 
 
 " Is the gentleman who struggled with him still staying 
 t/iere— Mr. Paul Eitson?" 
 
 "No; he goes back home to-night." 
 
 " What's his address in the country?' 1 
 
 " The Ghyll, Newlands, Cumberland." 
 
 " And yours, sir?" 
 
 " I am his brother, Hugh Eitson, and my address is the 
 same." 
 
 "We'll go this instant." 
 
 ' ' Take your piece of frieze with you and see if it fits. It 
 was by the torn ulster that I recognized your man. Good- 
 night." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 As soon as the noise of the retiring steps had died away on 
 Gubbluni's ear, he dressed himself partially, opened the door 
 of his bedroom cautiously, and stepped into the passage. He 
 was still in the dark, and, groping with one hand, he felt for 
 the ladder by which the two men had cairied their burden to 
 the loft above. He had grasped the lowest rungs of it, and 
 was already some steps up, when he heard a singular noise. 
 It was something between the cry of a child and the deep 
 moan of a sick man. Did it come from the loft? Gubblum 
 held his head in that direction and listened. No; the sound 
 was from the other end of the passage. Now it was gone, and 
 all was quiet. What a strange house was this! 
 
 " Can't see a styme," thought Gubblum. " I'll away for 
 the cannel." 
 
 Back in his bedroom he struck a match, and then stepped 
 afresh into the passage, guarding the newly lighted candle with 
 the palm of his hand. Then there came a shrill cry. It 
 seem ad to be before him, above him, behind him, everywhere 
 about him. Gubblum's knees gave way, but the stubborn bit 
 of heart in him was not to be shaken. 
 
 " A rayder queerly sort of a house," he thought; and at 
 that instant there were heavy lunges at a door at the further 
 end of the passage, and a cry of " Help! help!" 
 
 Gubblum darted in the direction of the voice. 
 
 " Let me out!" cried the voice from within. 
 
 Gubblum tried the door. It was locked. 
 
 " Help! help!" came again. 
 
 " In a sniffer; rest ye a bit!" shouted Gubblum, and put 
 
232 A SOtf OF HAGAE. 
 
 ting the light on the floor, he planted his shoulder against the 
 door and one foot against the opposite wall. 
 
 " Help! help! let me out! quick, quick!" came once more 
 from within. 
 
 "Sec a skrummidge!" shouted Gubblum, panting for 
 breath. 
 
 Then the lock gave way and the door flew open. In the 
 midst of the bad light Gubblum saw nothing at first. Then 
 a woman with wild eyes and a face of anguish came out on 
 him from the dark room. It was Mercy Fisher. 
 
 When they recognized each other there was a moment of 
 silence. But it was only a moment, and that moment was too 
 precious to be lost. In a flood of tears the girl told what had 
 happened. 
 
 Gubblum understood no more than that villainy had been at 
 work. Mercy saw nothing but that she had been deceived and 
 had been herself the instrument of deception. This was 
 enough. 
 
 "The raggabrash! I'd like to rozzle their backs with an 
 ash stick," said Gubblum! 
 
 " Oh, where have they taken him — where, where?" cried 
 Mercy, wringing her hands. 
 
 "Don't put on wi* thee — 1 know," said Gubblum. "I 
 questit them up the stairs. Come along wi' me, lass, and 
 don't slobber and yowl like a barn." 
 
 Gubblum whipped up his candle, and hurried along the 
 passage and up the ladder like a monkey, Mercy following at 
 his heels. 
 
 " Belike they've locked this door forby," he said. 
 
 But no, the key was in the lock. Gubblum turned it and 
 pushed it open. Then he peered into the garret, holding the 
 candle above his head. When the light penetrated the dark- 
 ness, they saw a man's figure outstretched on a mattress that 
 lay on the bare floor of the empty room. They ran up to it, 
 and raised the head. 
 
 "It's his f adder's son, I'll uphod thee," said Gubblum. 
 " And yon riff-raff, his spitten picter, is no'but some wastrel 
 merry-begot." 
 
 Mercy was down on her knees beside the insensible man, 
 chafing his hands. There was a tremulous movement of the 
 eyelids. 
 
 " Sista, he's coming tul't. Slip away for watter, lass," said 
 Gubblum. 
 
 Mercy was gone and back in an instant. 
 
 "Let a be, let a be — he'll come round in a crack. Bub 
 
A SON OF HAGAft. 233 
 
 his forehead — stir thy hand, lass — pour the watter — there, 
 that's enough — plenty o' butter wad sto a dog. Sista, he's 
 coming tul't fast. ; ' 
 
 Paul Eitson had opened his eyes. 
 
 " Slip away for mair watter, lass — there, that's summat like 
 —rest ye, my lad — a drink? — ey, a sup o' watter." 
 
 Paul looked round him. His filmy eyes were full of ques- 
 tions. But at first his tongue would not speak. He looked 
 up at the bare skylight and around at the bleached walls, and 
 then back into the face of the peddler. He noticed Mercy, 
 and smiled. 
 
 " Where are we, my girl?" he said faintly. 
 
 " This is the Hawk and Heron," she answered. 
 
 " How do I come to be here?" he asked. 
 
 Mercy covered her face, and sobbed. 
 
 " I brought you," she said, at length. 
 
 Paul looked at her a moment with bewildered eyes. Then 
 the tide of memory flowed back upon his mind. 
 
 " I remember," he said quietly; " I was feeling' dizzy — 
 hadn't slept two nights — not even been in bed — walked the 
 streets the long hours through." 
 
 Everything had rushed over him in a moment, and he closed 
 his eyes with a deep groan. At his feet Mercy buried her face 
 and sobbed aloud. 
 
 Paul drew himself feebly up on his elbow. 
 
 " Where is Parson Christian?'-' he asked, and gazed around 
 with a faint smile. 
 
 The girl's anguish overflowed. 
 
 " That was a lie I told you," she sobbed. 
 
 The smile fled away. 
 
 "A lie! Why a he?" 
 
 He was struggling with a dazed sense. 
 
 " I told you that Parson Christian was here and wanted 
 you. He is not here. " 
 
 And Mercy's weeping seemed to choke her. 
 
 " My good girl, and why?" 
 
 " They brought you to this room and left you, and nowthej 
 are gone." 
 
 "They! Who?" 
 
 " Your brother Hugh and Mr. Drayton." 
 Paul looked deadly sick at heart. 
 
 " Who is this Drayton ?''■ 
 
 " The spitten picter of yourself, my lad," said Gubblum; 
 !S the man I telt ye of lang ago — him as keeps this house." 
 
234 A SON OP HAGAK. 
 
 Paul's eyes wandered vacantly. His nervous fingers 
 twitched at the ulster that he wore. 
 
 " What's this?" he said, and glanced down at his altered 
 dress. 
 
 " When you were insensible they stripped you of your 
 clothes and put others on you," said Mercy. 
 
 " Whose clothes are these?" 
 
 "Mr. Drayton's." 
 
 Paul Ritson rose to his feet. 
 
 " Where are the men?" he said in a husky voice. 
 
 "Gone." 
 
 " Where?" 
 
 " To the station — that was all I heard." 
 
 Paul gazed about with hazy eyes. Mercy flung herself at 
 his feet and wept bitterly. 
 
 " Forgive me! oh, forgive me!" 
 
 He looked down at her with a confused expression. His 
 brain was benumbed. He drew one arm across his face as 
 though struggling to recover some lost link of memory. 
 
 " Why, my good lass, what's this?" he said, and then 
 smiled faintly and made an attempt to raise her up. 
 
 " Who is at the convent at Westminster?" she asked. 
 
 Then all his manner changed. 
 
 " Why?— what of that?" he said. 
 
 " Mrs. Drayton was sent there in a cab to tell Mrs. Eitson 
 to be at St. Pancras Station at midnight, to meet her husband 
 and return to Cumberland." 
 
 The face that had been pale became suddenly old and 
 ghastly. There was an awful silence. 
 
 " Is this the truth?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried the girl. 
 
 " I think I see it all now — I think I understand," he 
 faltered. 
 
 " Forgive me!" cried the girl. 
 
 He seemed hardly to see her. 
 
 " I have been left in this room insensible, and the impostor 
 who resembles me — where is he now?" 
 
 He struggled with the sickness that was mastering him. His 
 brain reeled. The palms of his hands became damp. He. 
 staggered and leaned against the wall. 
 
 " Rest ye a bit, my lad," said Gubblum. " You'll be git- 
 ten stanch agen soon." 
 
 He recovered his feet. His face was charged with new 
 anger. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 235 
 
 " And the wicked woman who trapped me to this house is 
 here/' he said in a voice thick with wrath. , 
 
 " Forgive me! forgive me!" wept the girl at his feet. 
 
 He took her firmly by the shoulders, raised her to her 
 knees, and turned her face upward until her eyes met his. 
 
 " Let me look at her," he said hoarsely. " Who would 
 have believed it?" 
 
 " Forgive me! forgive me!" cried the girl. 
 
 " Woman, woman! what had I done to you — what, what?" 
 
 The girl's sobs alone made answer. 
 
 In his rage he took her by the throat. A fearful purpose 
 was written in his face. 
 
 "And this is the woman -who bowed down the head of her 
 old father nigh to the grave," he said, bitterly, and flung her 
 from him. 
 
 Then he staggered back. His little strength had left him. 
 There was silence. Only the girl's weeping could be heard. 
 
 The next instant, strangely calm, without a tear in his sad 
 eyes, he stepped to her side and raised her to her feet. 
 
 " I was wrong," he said; " surely I was wrong. You could 
 not lie to me like that— and know it. No, no, no!" 
 
 " They told me what I told you," said the girl. 
 
 " And I blamed you for it all, poor girl." 
 
 " Then you forgive me?" she said, lifting her eyes timidly. 
 
 " Forgive you? — ask God to forgive you, girl. I am only 
 a man, and you have wrecked my life." 
 
 There was a foot on the ladder, and Jabez, the boy, stepped 
 up, a candle in his hand. He had been waiting for the land- 
 lady, when he heard voices overhead. 
 
 " The varra man!" shouted Gubblum. " Didsta see owt 
 of thy master down-stairs?" 
 
 Jabez grinned, and glanced up at Paul Eitson. 
 
 " Hark ye, laal man, didsta see two men leaving the house 
 a matter of fifteen minutes ago?" 
 
 " Belike I did," said Jabez. " And to be sure it were the 
 gentleman that come here afore — and another one." 
 
 " Another one — your master, you mean?" 
 
 Jabez grinned from ear to ear. 
 
 " Didsta hear owt?" 
 
 " I heard the gentleman say they had to be at St. Pancras 
 at midnight." 
 
 Paul fumbled at his breast for his watch. It was gone. 
 
 " What's o'clock?" he asked. 
 
 " Fifteen after eleven, master," said Jabez. " I've just 
 bolted up. 
 
236 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 Paul's face was full of resolution. 
 
 " I'll follow," he said; " I've lost time enough already." 
 
 " What, man! you'll never manish it — and you as weak as 
 watter forby. You'll be falling swat in the road like a wet 
 sack." 
 
 Paul had pulled the door open. Excitement lent him 
 strength. The next moment he was gone. 
 
 " Where's the master off to? St. Pancras?" asked Jabez. 
 
 "Fadge-te-fadge, gang out of my gate! Away, and lig 
 down your daft head in bed!" said Gubblum. 
 
 Jabez did not act on the peddler's advice. He returned to 
 the bar to await the return of Mrs. Drayton, whose unaccus- 
 tomed absence gave rise to many sapient conjectures in the 
 boy's lachrymose noddle. He found the door to the road 
 open, and from this circumstance his swift intelligence drew 
 the conclusion that his master had already gone. His hand 
 was on the door to close and bolt it, when he heard rapid foot- 
 steps approaching. In an instant two men pushed past him 
 and into the house. 
 
 " Where's Mr. Drayton?" said one, panting from his run. 
 
 " He's this minute gone," said Jabez. 
 
 " Is that true, my lad?" the man asked, laying a hand on 
 the boy's shoulder. 
 
 " He's gone to St. Pancras, sir. He's got to be there at 
 midnight," said Jabez. 
 
 The boy had recognized the visitors, and was trembling. 
 
 The men glanced into each other's faces. 
 
 " That was Drayton — the man that ran past us down the 
 road," said one. 
 
 " Make sure of it," said the other. " Search the place; I'll 
 wait for you here." 
 
 In two minutes more the men had left the house together. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the night porter at the Hendon 
 railway station saw a man run across the platform and leap 
 into the up train just as the carriages were moving away. He 
 remarked that the man was bare-headed, and wore his clothes 
 awry, and that a rent near the collar of his long frieze ulster 
 exposed a strip of red flannel lining. He thought he knew 
 him. 
 
 The train had barely cleared the platform when two men 
 ran up and came suddenly to a stand in front of the porter. 
 
 " Gone!" said one of them, with vexation. 
 
 " That would be the 1] :35," said the other, " to King's 
 Cross. Did any one get into it here, porter?" 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 237 
 
 "Yes, sergeant — Drayton, of the Hawk and Heron," said 
 the porter. 
 "Your next up is 11:45 to St. Pancras?" 
 " Yes, sir, due at twelve. " 
 " Is it prompt?" 
 "To the second." 
 The two men faced about. 
 " Time enough yet," said one. 
 
 OHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 The cab that drove Mrs. Drayton into London carried with 
 it a world of memories. Thought in her old head was like the 
 dip of a sea-bird in the sea — now here, now there, now a 
 straight flight, and now a backward swirl. As she rattled over 
 the dark roads of Child Hill and the New End she puzzled her 
 confused brain to understand the business on which she had 
 been sent. Why had the gentleman been brought out to Hen- 
 don? Why, being ill, was he so soon to be removed? Why, 
 being removed, was he not put back into this cab, and driven 
 to the station for Cumberland? What purpose could be served 
 by sending her to the convent for the gentleman's wife, when 
 the gentleman himself might have been driven there? Why 
 was the lady in a convent? The landlady pursed up her lips 
 and contracted her wrinkled brows in a vain endeavor to get 
 light out of the gloom of these mysteries. 
 
 The thought of the gentleman lying ill in her house sug- 
 gested many thoughts concerning her son. Paul was not her 
 son, and his name was not Drayton. Whose son he was she 
 never knew, and what his name was she had never heard. 
 But she had. fixed and done for him since he was a baby, and 
 no mother could have loved a son more than she had loved her 
 Paul. What a poor, puling little one he once was, and how 
 the neighbors used to shake their heads and say: 
 
 ' ' You'll never rear it; there's a fate on it, poor, misbegot- 
 ten mite!" 
 
 That was thirty long years ago, and now Paul was the lusti- 
 est young man in Hendon. Ah! it was not Hendon then, but 
 London, and her husband, the good man, was alive and 
 hearty. 
 
 " It'll thrive yet, Martha," he would say, and the little one 
 would seem to know him, and would smile and crow when he 
 cracked his fingers over its cot. 
 
 Then the landlady thought of the dark days that followed, 
 when bread was scarce and the gossips would say: 
 
238 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 " Serve you right. What for do you have an extra mouth 
 to feed? — take the brat to the foundling." 
 
 But her husband, God bless him, had always said: 
 
 " What's bite and sup for a child? Keep him, Martha; he'll 
 be a comfort to ye yet, old woman." 
 
 Mrs. Drayton wiped her eyes as she drove in the dark. 
 
 Then the bad times changed, and they left the town and 
 took the inn at Hendon, and then the worst times of all came 
 on them, for as soon as they were snug and comfortable the 
 good man himself died. He lay dying a week, and when the 
 end came he cried for the child. 
 
 " Give me the boy," he said, and she lifted the child into 
 his arms in bed. Then he raised his thin white hand to stroke 
 the wavy hair, but the poor hand fell into the little one's face. 
 
 Mrs. Drayton shifted in her seat and tried to drive away the 
 memories that trod on the heels of these recollections; but the 
 roads were still dark, and nothing but an empty sky was to be 
 seen, and the memories would not be driven away. She re- 
 called the days when young Paul grew to be a lusty lad — 
 daring, reckless, the first in mischief, the deepest in trouble. 
 And there was no man's hand to check him, and people shook 
 their heads and whispered, " He'll come to a bad end; he has 
 the wickedness in his blood." Poor lad, it was not his fault if 
 he had turned out a little wild and wayward and rough, and 
 cruel to his own mother, as you might say, jostling her when 
 he had a drop to drink, and maybe striking her when he didn't 
 know what he was doing, and never turning his hand to hon- 
 est work, but always dreaming of fortunes coming some day, 
 and betting and racing, and going here and there, and never 
 resting happy and content at home. It was not his fault: he 
 had been led astray by bad companions. And then she didn't 
 mind a blow — not she. Every woman had to bear the like of 
 that. You want a world of patience if you have men creatures 
 about you — that's all. 
 
 Thinking of bad companions suggested to the landlady's 
 mind, by some strange twist of which she was never fully con- 
 scious, the idea of Hugh Eitson. The gentleman who had 
 come so strangely among them appeared to have a curious influ- 
 ence over Paul. He seemed to know something of Paul's 
 mother. Paul himself rummaged matters up long ago, and 
 found that the lady had escaped from the asylum, and been 
 lost. And now the strange gentleman came with her portrait 
 and said she was dead. 
 
 Poor soul, how well Mrs. Drayton remembered her! And 
 that was thirty years ago! She had never afterward set eyes on 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 235 
 
 the lady, and never heard of her but once, and even that once 
 must be five-aud-twenty years since. One day she went for 
 coal to the wharf at Pimlico, and there she met an old neigh- 
 bor, who said: " Mrs. Drayton, your lodger, she that drowned 
 herself, came back for the babby, but your man and you were 
 shifted away." And to think that the poor young thing was 
 dead and gone now, and she herself, who had thought she 
 was old even in those days, was alive and hearty still! 
 
 By this time the cab was rattling through the busy utreets of 
 London, and the train of the landlady's thoughts was broken. 
 Only in a vague way did she know where she was going. The 
 cab was taking her there, and it would take her back again. 
 When they reached the convent she had to ask for Mrs. Bit- 
 son, and say she was sent to take her to St. Pancras Station to 
 meet her husband there, and return to Cumberland by the 
 train at midnight. That was all. 
 
 The clock of the abbey was marking the half hour after 
 eleven as the cab passed into Parliament Square. In another 
 minute they drew up before the convent in Abbey Gardens. 
 
 The cabman jumped from the box, rang the bell, and helped 
 Mrs. Drayton to alight. The iron gate and the door in the 
 portico swung open together, and a nun stood on the threshold, 
 holding a lamp in her hand. Mrs. Drayton hobbled up the 
 steps and entered the ball. A deep gloom pervaded the wide 
 apartment, in which there were but two wicker chairs and a 
 table. The nun wore a gray serge gown, with a wimple cut 
 square on her chest, a girdle about her waist, and a rosary 
 hanging by her side. 
 
 " Can I see a lady boarder — Mrs. Bitson?" said the land- 
 lady. 
 
 The nun started a little, and then answered in a low, melan- 
 choly voice in which the words she spoke were lost. Mrs. 
 Drayton's eyes were now accustomed to the gloom, and she 
 looked into the nun's face. It was a troubled and cloudtd 
 face, and when it was lifted for an instant to her own, Mrs. 
 Drayton felt chilled, as if a death's-hand had touched her. 
 
 It was the face of the mother of Paul! Older, sadder, 
 calmer, but the same face still. 
 
 The nun dropped her eyes, and made the sign of the cross. 
 Then she walked with a quick and noiseless step to the other 
 end of the hall, and sounded a deep gong. In a moment this 
 summoned a sister — a novice, dressed like the first, except all 
 in white. Mrs. Drayton was now trembling from head to foot, 
 but she repeated her question, and was led into a bare, chil) 
 room, and left alone. 
 
240 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 When Greta parted from Hugh Eitson three hours before 5 
 she was in an agony of suspense. Another strange threat had 
 terrified her. She had been asked to make choice of one of 
 two evils; refusing to believe in Hugh Eitson's power, she had 
 rejected both. But the uncertainty was terrible. To what 
 lengths might not passion, unrequited passion, defeated pas- 
 sion, outraged passion, lead a man like Hugh Eitson? With- 
 out pity, without remorse, with a will that was relentless and 
 a heart that never knew truth, he was a man to flinch at no 
 extremity. What had he meant? 
 
 Greta's first impulse had been to go in search of her hus- 
 band, but this was an idle and a foolish thought. Where 
 should she look? Besides this, she bad promised to remain in. 
 the convent until her husband should come for her, and she 
 must keep her word. She did not go in to supper when the 
 gong sounded, but crept up to her room. The bell rang for 
 vespers, and Greta did not go to the chapel. She lay down in 
 anguish and wept scalding tears. The vesper hymn floated up 
 to her where she lay, and she was still weeping. There was 
 no light in this dark place; there was no way out of this maze 
 but to wait and suffer. 
 
 And slowly the certainty stole upon her that Hugh Eitson 
 had made no idle threat. He was a resolute man; he had 
 given her a choice of two courses, and had she not taken a selfish 
 part? If Paul, her husband, were indeed in danger — no mat- 
 ter from what machination of villainy — was it much to ask 
 that she, his wife, should rescue him by a sacrifice that fell 
 heaviest upon herself? Hugh Eitson had been right — her part 
 had been a selfish one. Oh, where was Mr. Christian? She 
 had telegraphed for him, and he had answered that he would 
 come; yet hour had followed hour, and still he had not ar- 
 rived. 
 
 Three hours she tossed in agony. She heard the sisters pass 
 up the echoing stone staircase to their dormitories, and then 
 the silent house became as dumb as a vault. Not a ripple 
 flowed into this still tarn from the great stream of the world, 
 that rushed and surged and swelled with the clangor of a mill- 
 ion voices around its incrusted sides. 
 
 Her window overlooked the Abbey Gardens. All was quiet 
 beneath. Not a step sounded on the pavement. Before her 
 the blank wall was black, and the dark, leafless trees stood out 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 24 J 
 
 from the vague green of the grass beyond. Against the sky 
 were the dim outlines of the two towers of the old abbey — by 
 day a great rock for the pigeons that wheeled above the tum- 
 bling sea of the city, by night a skull of stone from which the 
 voice of the bell told of the flight of time. 
 
 Out of the calm of a moment's stupefaction Greta was 
 awakened by a knock at her door. The novice entered and 
 told her that a woman waited below to speak with her. Greta 
 betrayed no surprise, and she was beyond the reach of fresh 
 agitation. Without word or question she followed the novice 
 to the room where Mrs. Drayton sat. 
 
 She recognized the landlady and heard her story. Greta's 
 heart leaped up at the thought of rejoining her husband. Here 
 was the answer to the prayer that had gone up she knew not 
 how often from her troubled heart. Soon she would be sure 
 that Hugh Eitson's threat was vain. Soon she would be at 
 Paul's side and hold his hand, and no earthly power should 
 separate them again. Ah, thank God, the merciful Father, 
 who healed the wounded hearts of His children, she should 
 very soon be happy once more, and all the sorrows of these 
 past few days would fade away into a dim memory. 
 
 " Twelve o'clock at St. Pancras, and you have the luggage 
 in a cab at the door, you say?" 
 
 " Yes; and there's no time to lose, for, to be sure, the night 
 is going fast," said Mrs. Drayton. 
 
 "And he will be there to meet me?" asked Greta. Her 
 eyes, still wet with recent tears, danced with a new-found joy. 
 
 " Yes, at St. Pancras," said the landlady. 
 
 Greta's happiness overflowed. She took the old woman in 
 her arms and kissed her wizened cheeks. 
 
 " Wait a minute — only a minute," she said, and tripped off 
 with the swift glide of a lapwing. But when she was half-way 
 up the stairs her ardor was arrested, and she returned with 
 drooping face and steps of lead. 
 
 " But why did he not come for me himself?" she asked. 
 
 " The gentleman is not well — he is ill," said Mrs. Drayton. 
 
 "111? You say he is ill? Then he could not come. And 
 I blamed him for not coming!" 
 
 " The gentleman is weak, but noways worse; belike he will 
 go straight off and meet you at the station." 
 
 Greta turned away once again, and went upstairs slowly. At 
 a door on the first landing she tapped lightly, and when a voice 
 answered from within she entered, the room. 
 
 The superior was on her knees at a table. She lifted a calnj 
 and spiritual face as Greta approached. 
 
££2 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 " Eeverend mother/' said Greta, " I am leaving you thw 
 moment." 
 
 " So soon, my daughter?" 
 
 " My husband has sent for me; he will meet me at the rail- 
 nay station at twelve." 
 
 " Why did he not come himself?" 
 
 " He is ill; he has gone direct." 
 
 " The K our is late, and the message is sudden. Are you 
 satisfied. 
 
 " I am anxious, reverend mother — " 
 
 " What is it, my daughter?" 
 
 " An old gentleman, a clergyman, Mr. Christian, is coming 
 from Cumberland. I have expected him hourly, but he is not 
 yet arrived. I can not wait; I must rejoin my husband. Will 
 you order that a message be left for the clergyman?" 
 
 " What is the message, my child?" 
 
 " Simply that I have returned with my husband by the 
 train leaving St. Pancras at midnight." 
 
 " The lay sister in the hall shall deliver it." 
 
 " Who is the sister?" 
 
 "Sister Grace." 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 "Eeverend mother, has Sister Grace ever spoken of the 
 past?" 
 
 The superior told a few beads. 
 
 " The past is as nothing to us here, my daughter. Within 
 these walls the world does not enter. In the presence of the 
 Cross the past and the future are one." 
 
 Greta drew a long breath. Then she stooped and kissed 
 the hand of the superior, and turned softly away. 
 
 Greta and the landlady passed out through the deep portico, 
 and the same nun who had opened the door closed it behind 
 them. Mrs. Drayton clung to Greta's arm as they went 
 through, and her hand trembled perceptibly. 
 
 " Who is she?" whispered the landlady, when they were 
 seated in a cab. 
 
 " Sister Grace," said Greta, and turned her head aside. 
 
 " I could ha' sworn as she were the mother of my Paul," 
 murmured Mrs. Drayton. 
 
 Greta faced about, but the landlady saw nothing of the look 
 of inquiry; her eyes, like her thoughts, were far away. 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 243 
 
 OHAPTEE XX. 
 
 Though the hour was late, the streets were thronged. The 
 people were trooping home from the theaters; and the Strand, 
 as Greta and the landlady crossed it, was choked with cabs 
 and omnibuses. The cab drove through the Seven Dials, and 
 there the public-houses were disgorging at every corner their 
 poor ruins of men and women. Shouts, curses, quarreling, 
 and laughter struck upon the ear above the whir of the 
 wheels. Unshaven men, and unwashed women, squalid chil- 
 dren running here and there among the oyster and orange 
 stalls, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of all conditions, not a few 
 honest people withal, and among them the dark figures of po- 
 licemen. 
 
 Greta's heart beat high that night. Her spirit was full of 
 a new alacrity. Every inch of the way, as they flew over the 
 busy streets, seemed to awake in. her soul some fresh sensibil- 
 ity. She wondered where the multitudes of people came 
 from, and whither they were going — vast oceans on oceans of 
 humanity, flowing and ebbing without tide. 
 
 She wanted to alight a hundred times, and empty her pock- 
 ets of all her money. A blind man, playing a tin whistle, and 
 leading a small dog held by a long string, awoke her special 
 pity; the plaintive look in the eye of the cur was an object of 
 peculiar sympathy. A filthy woman, reeling drunk and bare- 
 headed across the street, almost under the feet of the horses, 
 her discolored breast hanging bare, and a puny infant crying 
 feebly in her arms, was another occasion for solicitude. A tiny 
 mite that might have been a dirty boy, coiled up in a ball on a 
 doorstep like a starved cat, was an object of all but irresistible 
 attraction. But she dare not stop for an instant; and at last, 
 with this certainty, she lay back and shut her eyes very reso- 
 lutely, and wondered whether, after all, it were not very 
 selfish to be very happy. 
 
 The cab stopped with a jolt; they were at St. Pancras Sta- 
 tion. 
 
 " Has he come?" asked Greta, eagerly, and looked about 
 her with eyes that comprehended everything at a glance. 
 
 She could not see Paul, and, when a porter opened the cab 
 and helped her to alight, it was on her tongue to ask the man 
 if he had seen her husband. But no, she would not do that. 
 She must look for him herself, so that she might be the first 
 
244 A SON OB HAGAR, 
 
 to tee him. Oh, yes, she must be the very first to see him, 
 and she was now obstinately determined to ask no one. 
 
 The porter brought round the truck, and wheeled the lug- 
 gage on to the platform, and Greta and Mrs. Drayton followed 
 it. Then the wide eyes that half smiled and looked half afraid 
 beneath their trembling lids glanced anxiously around. No, 
 Paul was not there. 
 
 " What is the time?" she asked, her eyes still wandering 
 over the bustling throng about her. 
 
 " Ten to twelve, miss," announced the porter. 
 
 " Oh," she said, with a sigh of relief, " then he will soon 
 be here." 
 
 " Will you sit in the waiting-room, miss?" asked the porter; 
 and almost unconsciously she followed him when he led the 
 way. Mrs. Drayton hobbled behind her. 
 
 " What did he say about being ill?" she asked, when they 
 were left together. 
 
 " That he was only a bit dizzy. Mayhap he's noways 'cus- 
 tomed to illness," said the landlady. 
 
 " That is true. And what did you say then?" 
 
 ' ' I coaxed him to rest him a bit, and take a drop o' sum- 
 mat, and he smiled and said, ' Thank you, my good woman.' " 
 
 " You were in the right, you dear old soul," said Greta. 
 And she put her arms about the landlady and. hugged her. 
 " I'm sure you have been very good to my husband, and 
 watched him tenderly, while I, who should have nursed him, 
 have been away. Thank you, thank you!" 
 
 Mrs. Drayton was feeling uneasy. " Well, d'ye know, I 
 can't abear to see a fellow creatur' suffer. It goes agen me 
 someways. " 
 
 Greta had risen to her feet. " Stay here, Mrs. Drayton — 
 Drayton, isn't it? — stay here while I go on to the platform. 
 He might come and not see me. Ah, yes, he may be looking 
 everywhere for me now." 
 
 She went out and elbowed her way among the people who 
 were hurrying to and fro; she dodged between the trucks that 
 were sliding luggage on to the weighing machine and off to 
 the van. The engines were puffing volumes of smoke and 
 steam up to the great glass roof, where the whistle of the 
 engineman echoed sharp and shrill. Presently she returned 
 to the waiting-room. "Oh, Mrs. Drayton," she said, " I 
 dreamed a fearful dream last night. What do you think? Will 
 he be well enough to come?" 
 
 " Coorse, coorse, my dear. ' Tell her to meet her hus- 
 band at twelve.' Them's the gentleman's own words." 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 245 
 
 " How happy I shall be when we are safe at home! And if 
 he is ill, it will be for me to nurse him then." 
 
 The light in the dove-like eyes at that moment told plainly 
 that to the poor soul even illness might bring its compensating 
 happiness. 
 
 " And as to dreams, to be sure, they are on'y dreams; and 
 what's dreams, say I?" 
 
 " You are right, Mrs. Draytoi.," said Greta, and once more 
 she shot away toward the platform. Her mind had turned to 
 Parson Christian. Could it be possible that he had arrived? 
 The porter who had brought in her luggage was still standing 
 beside it, and with him there was another porter. Their backs 
 were toward Greta as she came out of the waiting-room, and, 
 tripping lightly behind them, she overheard a part of their 
 conversation before they were aware that she was near. 
 
 " See the old file in the gaiters by the eleven up?" said one. 
 
 " Eather. A reg'lar grandmother's great-grandfather just 
 out of the year one. Talk about swallows, eh? — and the 
 buckles — and the stockings!" 
 
 " Good sort, how-an'-ever. " 
 
 " Good for a tip, eh? Wouldn't ha' thought it." 
 
 " No, but a real good-hearted 'un an' if he is a Pape." 
 
 "Never?" 
 
 " To be sure. Got me to put him in a fly for the Catholic 
 Convent up Westminster way. " 
 
 Greta could restrain herself no longer, but burst in up no 
 them with twenty questions. When had the parson arrived? 
 When had he left? Was it in a fly? Would it go quickly? 
 Could there be time for it to get back?" 
 
 " What's your train, miss — twelve to the north?" 
 
 " Yes; will he catch it?" 
 
 " Scarce get back at twelve," said the porter. But, in spite 
 of this discouraging prophecy, Greta was so elated at the fresh 
 intelligence that she drew out her purse and gave the man five 
 shillings. She had no other change than two half-crowns and 
 two pennies, and in her present elevation of soul there could 
 be no choice, between the silver and the copper, as to which 
 the bearer of such news deserved. 
 
 The man stared, and then smiled, but he quickly reconciled 
 himself to the unexpected. With extraordinary alacrity he 
 labeled the luggage, and bowled off to the north train, which 
 was already at the platform. 
 
 It was now within three minutes of midnight, and Mrs, 
 Drayton had joined Greta in the bustling throng on the plat 
 form. 
 
246 A SON OB HAGAB. 
 
 " Oh, I feel as if a thousand hearts were all swelling and 
 beating in my breast at once," said Greta. " Mrs. Drayton, 
 is it certain that he will come? Porter, have you put the lug- 
 gage in the van? Which is the train — the left?" 
 
 " No, miss, the left's going out to make room for the local 
 train up from Kentish Town and Hendon. The right's your 
 train, miss. Got your ticket, miss?" 
 
 " Not yet. Must I get it, think you? Is the time short? 
 Yes, I will get two tickets myself," she added, turning to 
 the landlady. " Then, when he comes he will hare nothng 
 to do but step into the carriage. " 
 
 " You'll have to be quick, miss — train's nigh due out — only 
 a minute," said the porter. 
 
 Greta's luminous eyes were peering over the heads of the 
 people that were about her. Then they brightened, with a 
 flash more swift than lightning, and all her face wore in an 
 instant a heavenly smile. " Ah, he is there — there at the 
 back — at the booking-office — run to him, run, my good, dear 
 creature; run and tell him lam here! I'll find a compart- 
 ment and have the door open." 
 
 Greta tripped along the platform with the foot of a deer. 
 In another moment she had a carriage door open, and she 
 stood there with the handle in her hand. She saw him com- 
 ing who was more than all the world to her. But she did not 
 look twice. No, she would not look twice. She would wait 
 until they were within, alone, together. 
 
 Side by side with him walked Hugh Kitson. Could it be 
 possible? And was it he who had brought her husband? Ah! 
 he had repented, and it was only she who had been bitter to 
 the end. How generous of him! how cruel of her! 
 
 Her eyes fell, and a warm flush overspread her cheeks as 
 he who came first stepped into the carriage. She did not 
 look again at him, nor did he look again at her. She knew 
 he did not, though her eyes were down. " Oh, when we a.re 
 alone!" she thought, and then she turned to Hugh Eitson. 
 
 The heavenly smile was still on her beautiful face, and the 
 deep light in her eyes spoke of mingled joy and grief. 
 
 " Hugh, I fear, I fear," she faltered, " I have been hard 
 and cruel. Let us be friends; let me be your dearest sister." 
 
 He looked at her in silence. His infirm foot trailed a pace. 
 He saw what was in her heart, and he knew well what was in 
 his own heart, too; he thought of the blow that he was about 
 to strike her. 
 
 She held out her hand, and took in hers his own unresisting 
 fingers. Ay, he knew that there end then he was about tc 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 24? 
 
 break that forgiving heart forever. He knew who had stepped 
 into that carriage. 
 
 She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. The man in him 
 could bear up no longer. He broke down; he could not 
 speak; he was choked with emotion. 
 
 She turned to the landlady, who stood near, twitching at 
 the ribbons of her bonnet and peering into the carriage. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mrs. Drayton, and God bless you for what you 
 have done for my husband!" 
 
 The landlady muttered something that was inaudible; she 
 was confused; she stammered, and then was silent. 
 
 Greta stepped into the carriage. The guard was standing 
 at the door. The bell had been rung. The train had been 
 signaled. The whistle had sounded. The clocks were strik- 
 ing midnight. 
 
 "Wait! Wait!" 
 
 It was a voice from the end of the platform. The guard 
 turned with a smile to see who called on a train to wait. An 
 old gentleman in silk stockings and gaiters, with long white 
 hair flowing under the broad brim of a low-crowned hat, came 
 panting to the only door that was still held open. 
 
 " Quick, sir, it's moving; in with you!" 
 
 " Mr. Christian!" cried Greta, and throwing her arms 
 about him, she drew him into the carriage. Then the train 
 began to move away. 
 
 At that instant another train — the local train from Kentish 
 Town and Hendon — steamed up to the opposite side of the 
 platform. Before it had stopped two men leaped out. They 
 were the two police-sergeants. Instantly — simultaneously- — a 
 man burst through the barrier and ran on to the platform 
 from the street. He was bareheaded, and his face was ghastly 
 white. In one moment the police-sergeants had laid hands 
 upon him. The train to the north had not yet cleared the 
 platform. He saw it passing out. He took hold of the hands 
 By which he was held and threw them orf as if their grasp had 
 been the grasp of a child. Then he bounded away toward the 
 retreating train. It was now moving rapidly. It was gone; 
 it was swallowed up in the dark mouth beyond, and the man 
 stood behind, bareheaded, dripping with perspiration, yet 
 white as ashes, his clothes awry, the collar of his frieze ulster 
 torn away, and a strip of red flannel lining exposed. 
 
 It was Paul Eitson. 
 
 The police-sergeants hurried up with the re-enforcement of 
 two porters to recover their man. But he was quiet enough 
 now. He did not stir a muscle when they handcuffed him. 
 
248 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 He looked around with vague, vacant eyes, hardly seeming to 
 realize where he was or what was being done with him. Hig 
 frenzy was gone. 
 
 They led him down the platform. Hugh Ritson was stand- 
 ing on the spot where Greta had left him one minute before. 
 When the company neared that spot the prisoner stopped. 
 He looked across at Hugh Eitson id silence, and for an instant 
 the dazed look died off his face. Then he turned his head 
 aside, and allowed himself to be led quietly away. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 A morning paper, of November — , contained the following 
 paragraph: 
 
 " It will be remembered that in the reports of the disastrous 
 railway collision, which occurred at Hendon on Friday last, it 
 was mentioned as a ghastly accessory to the story of horror 
 that an injured passenger, who had been lifted from the debris 
 of broken carriages, and put to lie out of harm's way in a field 
 close at hand, was brutally assaulted and (apparently) robbed 
 by some unknown scoundrel, who, though detected in the act 
 itself, tore himself from the grasp of Police-Sergeant Cox, of 
 the Hendon division of the metropolitan police force, and es- 
 caped into the darkness. The authorities were determined that 
 their vigilance should not be eluded, and a person named Paul 
 Drayton is now in custody, and will be brought up at Bow 
 Street this morning. It turns out that Drayton is an inn- 
 keeper at Hendon, where he has long borne a dubious char- 
 acter. He was arrested at midnight in St. Pancras Station in 
 a, daring and mad attempt to escape by the north-bound train, 
 and it is understood that the incident of his capture is such as 
 reflects the highest credit on the resolution, energy, and in- 
 trepidity of the force. " 
 
 The same paper, of the day after, contained this further 
 paragraph: 
 
 " The man Drayton, who was yesterday formally committed 
 to take his trial at the Central Criminal Court, will be 
 brought up at the Old Bailey to-morrow; and as the evidence 
 is said to be of a simple and unconfticting character, it is not 
 expected that the hearing will extend over a single day. It is 
 stated that the accused, who observed a rigid silence during 
 
A SON OE HAGAK. 249 
 
 yesterday's proceedings, will, on his trial, set up the extraor- 
 dinary defense of mistaken identity." 
 
 An eTening paper of Friday, November — , contained the 
 following remarks in the course of a leading note: 
 
 " It is a familiar legal maxim that a plea of alibi that 
 breaks down is the worst of all accusations. The scoundrel 
 that attempted to rob a dying man, who lay helpless and at 
 his mercy amid the confusion of Friday night's accident at 
 Hendon, was audacious enough to put forth the defense that 
 he was not the man he was taken for. Cases of mistaken 
 identity are, of course, common enough in the annals of juris- 
 prudence, but we imagine the instances are rare indeed of evi- 
 dence of idenitty so exceptional and conclusive as that which 
 convicted the Hendon innkeeper being susceptible of error. 
 The very clothes he wore in the dock bore their own witness to 
 his guilt, and the court saw the police-sergeant produce a scrap 
 of cloth torn from the guilty man's back, which exactly fitted a 
 rent in the prisoner's ulster. The whole case would be a case of 
 criminality too gross and palpable to merit a syllable of com- 
 ment but for the astounding assurance with which the accused 
 adhered to his plea in the face of evidence that was so com- 
 plete as to make denial little more than a farce. He denied 
 that he was Paul Drayton, and said his name was Paul Eitson. 
 He was identified as Drayton by several witnesses who have 
 known him from infancy; among others by his old mother, 
 Martha Drayton, whose evidence (given with reluctance, and 
 with more tears than a son so unnatural deserved) was at once 
 as damning and as painful as anything of the kind ever heard 
 in a court of justice. The claim to be Paul Eitson was an- 
 swered by the evidence of Mr. Hugh Eitson, mine-owner in 
 Cumberland, and brother of the gentleman whom the prisoner 
 wished to personate. Mr. H. Eitson admitted a resemblance, 
 but had no hesitation in saying that the accused was not his 
 brother. The prisoner thereupon applied to the court that 
 the wife of the said Paul Eitson should be examined, but, as it 
 was explained that both husband and wife were at present ill 
 in Cumberland, the court wisely ruled against the application. 
 As a final freak of defense, the prisoner asked for the examina- 
 tion of one Mercy Fisher, who, he said, would be able to say 
 by what circumstances he came to wear the clothes of the 
 guilty man. The court adjourned for an hour in order that 
 this person might be produced, but on the reassembling it was 
 explained that the girl, who turned out to be a mistress whom 
 Drayton had kept at his mother's house, had disappeared 
 
250 A SON OP HAGAB. 
 
 Thus, with a well-merited sentence of three years' penal servi- 
 tude, ended a trial of which the vulgarity of detail was only 
 equaled by the audacity of defense." 
 
 A week passed, and the public had almost forgotten the in 
 cidents of the trial, when the following paragraph appeared in 
 a weekly journal: 
 
 " I have heard that the man who was sentenced to three 
 years' penal servitude for robbery at the scene of the Hendon 
 accident was seized with an attack of brain fever immediately 
 upon his arrival at Mill bank. The facts that transpire within 
 that place of retirement are whispered with as much reserve 
 as guards the secrets of another kind of confessional, but I do 
 hear that since the admission of the man who was known on 
 his trial as Paul Drayton, and who is now indicated by a nu- 
 merical cognomen, certain facts have come to light which 
 favor the defense he set up of mistaken identity." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 The chapter room of St. Margaret's Convent was a chill, 
 bare chamber containing an oak table and four or five plain 
 oak chairs. On the painted walls, which were of dun gray, 
 there was an etching by a Florentine master of the flight into 
 Egypt and a symbolic print of the Sacred Heart. Besides 
 these pictures there was but a single text to relieve the blind- 
 ness of the empty walls, and it ran: " Where the tree falls, 
 there it must lie." 
 
 Four days after Greta's departure from the house wherein 
 she had been received as a temporary boarder, the superior sat 
 in the chapter room, and a sister knelt at her feet. The 
 sister's habit was gray, and her linen cape was plain. She 
 wore no scapular, and no hood above the close cap that hid 
 her hair and crossed her forehead. She was, therefore, a lay 
 sister; she was Sister Grace. 
 
 " Mother, hear my sin," she said in a trembling whisper. 
 
 " Speak on, daughter." 
 
 " We were both at Athlone in the year of the great famine. 
 He was an officer in a regiment quartered there. I was a nov- 
 ice of the choir in the Order of Charity. We met in scenes 
 sanctified by religion. Oh, mother, the famine was sore, and 
 he was kind to the famished people! ' The hunger is on us,' 
 they would cry, as if it had been a plague of locusts. It was 
 thus, with their shrill voices and ivan faces, that the ragged 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 251 
 
 multitudes followed us. Yes, mother, he was very, very kind 
 to the people." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 The penitent bowed her head yet lower. " My mother, I 
 renounced the vows, and — we were married." 
 
 The lips of the superior moved in silent prayer. 
 
 " What was his name, my daughter?" 
 
 " Robert Lowther. We came from Ireland to London. A 
 child was born, and we called him Paul. Then my husband's 
 love grew chill and died. I grieved over him. Perhaps I was 
 but a moody companion. At last he told me — " 
 
 The voice faltered; the whole body quivered. 
 
 " Well, my child?" 
 
 " Oh, mother, he told me I was not his wife; that I was a 
 Catholic, but that he was a Protestant; that a Catholic priest 
 had married us in Ireland without question or inquiry. That 
 was not a valid marriage by English law." 
 
 ' ' Shame on the English law ! But what do we know of the 
 law at the foot of the Cross? Well?" 
 
 " He left me. Mother, I flung God's good gift away. I 
 tried to drown myself, and my little child with me; but they 
 prevented me. I was placed in an asylum for the insane, and 
 my baby — my Paul — was given into the care of a woman with 
 whom I had lodged. Have I not sinned deeply?" 
 
 " Your sins are great, my daughter, but your sufferings 
 have also been great. What happened then?" 
 
 " I escaped from the asylum and returned for my child. It 
 was gone. The woman had removed to some other part of 
 London, none knew where, and my Paul, my darling, was lost 
 to me forever. My mother, it was then that I sinned deepest 
 of all." 
 
 Her head was bowed to her trembling knees, and her voice 
 was all but suspended in an agony of shame. 
 
 " Mother, I flung away God's better gift than life. Oh, 
 how shall I tell you? Your foot trembles, reverend mother. 
 You are a holy woman, and know nothing of the world's temp- 
 tations. '.' 
 
 " Hush, my daughter; I am as great a sinner as yourself." 
 
 " I can not tell you. Mother, mother, you see I can not." 
 
 " It is for your soul's weal, my daughter." 
 
 " I had tried to serve God, and He had seen my shame. 
 What was left to me but the world, the world, the world! 
 Perhaps the world itself would have more mercy. My kind 
 mother, have I not told you yet?" 
 
 The superior made the sign of the cross. 
 
252 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 " Ah, my daughter! the enemy of your soul was with you 
 then. You should not have ceased to lift your hands to 
 Heaven in supplication and prayer. You should have pros- 
 trated yourself three days and nights in the tribune before the 
 Holy Sacrament." 
 
 The penitent raised her pale face. 
 
 " In less time I was a lost and abandoned woman." 
 
 The superior told a few beads with trembling fingers. Then 
 she lifted the cross that hung from her girdle, and held it out 
 to the sister. 
 
 " I thought of my child, and prayed that he might be dead. 
 I thought of him who was not my husband, and my heart 
 grew cold and hard. Mother, my redemption came. Yes, 
 but with it came the meaning of the fearful words, too late. 
 Amid the reeling madness of the life that is mocked with the 
 name of gay, I met a good man. Yes, holy mother, a good 
 man. Mother, he now sleeps thebe!" 
 
 Her pale face, serene and solemn, was lifted again, and the 
 hand that held the crucifix was raised above her head. 
 
 " I loathed my life. He took me away from it — to the 
 mountains — to Scotland, and a child was born. Mother, it was 
 only then that I awoke as from a trance. It seemed as if a 
 ring of sin begirt me. Tears — ah, me! what tears were shed. 
 But rest and content came at last, and then we were mar- 
 ried." 
 
 " My daughter, my daughter, little did I think when I re- 
 ceived your vows that the enemy of your soul had so mastered 
 you." 
 
 " Listen a little longer, holy mother. The child grew to be 
 the image of my darling, my Paul — every feature, every glance 
 the same. And partly to remind me of my lost one, and 
 partly to make me forget him forever, I called the second 
 child Paul. Mother, the years went by in peace. The past 
 was gone from me. Only its memory lay like a waste in my 
 silent heart. I had another son, and called him Hugh. After 
 many years my husband died." The penitent paused. 
 
 " Mother, another thing comes back tome; but I have con- 
 fessed it already. Shall I repeat it?" 
 
 " No, my daughter, not if it touches the oath that lay 
 heavy on your heart." 
 
 " I thought my first child was dead. For thirty years I had 
 not seen him. But the pathways of our lives crossed at last, 
 and the woman who nursed him came to this house four days 
 ago." 
 
 " Here?" 
 
A 80K OP HAGAR. 253 
 
 "Mother, my son, the child of that first false union, my 
 darling, for whom I wept scalding tears long, long years ago; 
 my Paul, whose loss was all but the loss of his mother's soul, 
 my son is a thief and an outcast." 
 
 The lips of the superior moved again in prayer. 
 
 " He is the man known to the world as Paul Drayton — to 
 me as Paul Lowther. " 
 
 " My dear daughter, humble yourself in the midst of so 
 awful a judgment. Do you say Drayton? — Drayton, who, as: 
 I hear, was to-day tried and sentenced?" 
 
 " No — yes — how shall I tell you? — the same and not the 
 same. Mother, the crime was committed by my son Paul 
 Lowther, the sentence was pronounced on my son Paul 
 Eitson." 
 
 " My dear daughter — " 
 
 " I was in the court, and heard all; and I alone knew all 
 — I alone, alone! Bear with me that I transgressed the law 
 of this holy order. Think, oh! my kind mother, think that 
 the nun was yet the woman, and, above all, the mother. Yes, 
 I heard all. I heard the charge that convicted my son Paul 
 Lowther. He was guilty before God and man. But the 
 prisoner in the dock was my son Paul Eitson. I knew him, 
 and believed him when he denied the name they gave him. 
 Ah me, my heart bled!" 
 
 " What did you do, my daughter?" 
 
 " Mother, I was weak, very weak. I could not see my duty 
 clearly. An awful conflict was rife within me. I could not 
 justify the one man without condemning the other. And both 
 were the children of my bosom." 
 
 " Fearful, fearful! But, my daughter, the one was guilty 
 and the other innocent. " 
 
 " Yes, yes, a thousand times yes; but then there was myself. 
 How could I punish the guilty without revealing the secret sin 
 that had been thirty years hidden in my heart? And my poor 
 weak spirit shrunk within me, and I sat silent amid all." 
 
 " My daughter, we must crucify our spiritual pride." 
 
 " Yes, yes; but there was the love of my son, Paul Eitson 
 — he thought me a good woman even yet. flow could I 
 confess to that sinful past and not lose the love of the only 
 human soul that held me pure and true? Mother, it is very 
 sweet to be loved. " 
 
 " Oh, my daughter, my daughter, a terrible situation, terri- 
 ble, terrible!" 
 
 " Mother, I have told you everything. Tell me now what 
 hope is left. Give me your direction." 
 
251 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 ' ' My daughter, let us humble ourselves before God, and 
 pray that He may reveal the path of duty. Come." 
 
 The superior rose, took her crozier in her hand, and walked 
 out of the room. The sister followed her. They passed 
 through the sacristy into the empty church. 
 
 It was evening. The glow of a wintery sunset came through 
 the windows to the west, and fell in warm gules on the altar. 
 There was the hush of the world's awe here as day swooned 
 into night. Without these walls were turmoil and strife. 
 Within was the balm of rest — the rest that lies in the heart of 
 the cyclone. 
 
 And the good mother and the sister went down on their 
 knees together, and prayed for light and guidance. The 
 mother rose, but the sister knelt on; darkness fell, and she 
 was still kneeling, and when the east was dabbled with the 
 dawn, the gray light fell on her bowed head and uplifted 
 hands. 
 
 BOOK IF. 
 
 THE WATERS OF MARAH ARE BITTER. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1877. 
 
 The dale lay green in the morning sunlight; the river that 
 ran through its lowest bed sparkled with purple and amber; 
 the leaves prattled low in the light breeze that souched through 
 the rushes and the long grass; the hills rose sheer and white to 
 the smooth blue lake of the sky, where only one fleecy cloud 
 floated languidly across from peak to peak. Out of unseen 
 places came the bleating of sheep and the rumble of distant 
 cataracts, and above the dull thud of tumbling waters far 
 away was the thin caroling of birds overhead. 
 
 But the air was alive with yet sweeter sounds. On the 
 breast of the fell that lies over against Cat Bells a procession 
 of children walked, and sung, and chattered, and laughed. It 
 was St. Peter's Day, and they were rush-bearing: little ones 
 of all ages, from the comely girl of fourteen, just ripening 
 into maidenhood, who walked last, to the sweet boy of four in 
 the pinafore braided with epaulets, who strode along gal- 
 lantly in front. Most of the little hands carried rushes, but 
 some were filled with ferns, and mosses, and flowers. They 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 255 
 
 had assembled at the school-house, and now, on their "pay to 
 the church, they were making the circuit of the dale. 
 
 They passed over the road that crosses the river at the head 
 of Newlands, and turned down into the path that follows the 
 bed of the valley. At that angle there stands a little group 
 of cottages delicious! y cool in their whitewash, nestling to- 
 gether under the heavy purple crag from which the waters of 
 a ghyll fall into a deep basin that reaches to their walls. The 
 last of the group is a cottage with its end to the road, and its 
 open porch facing a garden shaped like a wedge. As the 
 children passed this house an old man, gray and thin and 
 much bent, stood by the gate, leaning on a staff. A colly, 
 with the sheep-dog's wooden bar suspended from its shaggy 
 neck, lay at his feet. The hum of voices brought a young 
 woman mto the porch. She was bareheaded and wore a light 
 print gown. Her face was pale and marked with lines. She 
 walked cautiously, stretching one hand before her with an 
 uncertain motion, and grasping a trailing tendril of honeysuckle 
 that swept downward from the roof. Her eyes, which were 
 partly inclined upward and partly turned toward the proces- 
 sion, had a vague light in their bleached pupils. She was 
 blind. At her side, and tugging at her other hand, was a 
 child of a year and a half — a chubby, sunny little fellow with 
 ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and fair curly hair. 
 
 Prattling, laughing, singing snatches, and waving their 
 rushes and ferns above their happy, thoughtless heads, the 
 children rattled past. When they were gone, the air was 
 empty, as it is when the lark stops in its song. 
 
 The church of Newlands stands in the heart of the valley, 
 half hidden by a clump of trees. By the lych-gate Parson 
 Christian stood that morning, aged a little, the snow a thought 
 thicker on his bushy hair, the face mellower, the liquid eyes 
 full of the sunlight behind which lies the shower. Greta stood 
 beside him; quieter of manner than in the old days, a deeper 
 thoughtfulness in her face, her blue eyes more grave and less 
 restless, her fair hair no longer falling in waves behind her, 
 but gathered up into a demure knot under her hat. 
 
 " Here they come, bless their innocent hearts! ' said Parson 
 Christian, and at that moment the children turned an angle of 
 the road. 
 
 The pink and white of their frocks and pinafores were all 
 but hidden by the little forest of green that they carried before 
 and above them. 
 
 " ' Till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane/ " muttered 
 Greta, smiling. 
 
256 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 When the rush-bearers came up to the front of the churchj 
 the lych-gate was thrown open and they filed through. 
 
 " How tired he looks, the brave little boy!" said Greta, 
 picking up the foremost of the company, the tiny man in the 
 epaulets, now covered with the dust of the roads. 
 
 " The little ones first, and you great girls afterward," said 
 the parson. " Those with flowers go up to the communion 
 and lay them on the form, and those with mosses put them on 
 the font, and those with rushes and ferns begin under the pul- 
 pit and come down the aisle to the porch." 
 
 The stalwart little tramp in Greta's arms wriggled his way 
 to the ground. He had mosses in his hands and must go first. 
 Then the children trooped into the church, and in an instant 
 the rude old place was alive with the buzz of prattling 
 tongues. 
 
 The floor covered many a tomb. Graven on the plain slabs 
 that formed the pathway down the middle of the church were 
 the names of the men and women who had lived and died in 
 the dale generations gone by. In their own day they were 
 children themselves; and now other children — their own chil- 
 dren's children's children — with never a thought about what 
 lay beneath, with only love in their eyes, and laughter on their 
 lips, and life in their limbs — were strewing rushes down the 
 path above them. 
 
 In ten minutes there was not an inch of the flagged aisle 
 visible. All was green from the communion to the porch. 
 Here and there an adventurous lad, turning to account the 
 skill at climbing acquired at birds' -nesting, had clambered 
 over the pews to the rude cross-trees, and hung great bunches 
 of rushes from the roof. 
 
 " Now, children, let us sing," said the parson, and taking 
 up the accordion, he started a hymn. 
 
 The leaded windows of the old church stood open, and the 
 sweet young voices floated away, and far away, over the up- 
 lands and the dale. And the birds still sung in the blue sky, 
 and the ghylls still rumbled in the distance, and the light wind 
 still souched through the long grass, and the morning sun- 
 light shone over all. 
 
 There was a cloud of dust on the road, and presently there 
 came trooping down from the village a company of men, sur- 
 rounded by a whole circuit of dogs. Snarls, and yaps, and 
 yelps, and squawks, and guffaws, and sometimes the cachinna- 
 tion and crow of cocks, broke upon the clear air. The royster- 
 ing set would be as many as a dozen, and all were more or less 
 drunk. First came John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, in his 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 25?" 
 
 shirt-sleeves, with his leathern apron wrapped in a knot about 
 his waist, and a silver and black game-cock imprisoned under 
 his arm. Lang Geordie Moore, his young helper, carried an- 
 other fowl. Dick o' the Syke, the miller, in a brown coat 
 whitened with flour, walked abreast of Geordie and tickled the 
 gills of the fowl with a straw. Job Sheepshanks, the letter- 
 cutter, carried a pot of pitch and a brush, and little Tom o' 
 Dint hobbled along with a handful of iron files. Behind these 
 came the landlord of the Flying Horse with a basket over one 
 arm, from which peeped the corks of many bottles, and Natt, 
 the stableman at the Ghyll, carried a wicker cage, in which 
 sat a red bantam-cock with spurs that glittered in the light. 
 
 There was one other man who walked with the company, 
 and he was the soul of the noisy crew; his voice was the loud- 
 est, his laugh the longest, and half of all that was said was 
 addressed to him. He was a lusty man with a florid face; he 
 wore a suit of tweeds plaided in wide stripes of buff and black. 
 
 It was Paul Drayton. 
 
 " Burn my body, and what's on now?" he said as the gang 
 reached the church. 
 
 " Kush-bearing, I reckon," answered Tom o' Dint. 
 
 " And what's rush-bearing?" 
 
 " Yon know, Mister Paul," said the postman, " rush-bear- 
 ing—the barns rush-bearing — St. Peter's Day, you know." 
 
 " Oh, ay, / know — rush-bearing. Let me see, ain't it once 
 a year?" 
 
 " What, man, but you mind the days when you were a bit 
 boy and went a-rushing yersel'?" said the blacksmith. 
 
 " Ooorse, coorse, oh, ay, I ain't forgotten them days. Let 
 me see, it's a kind of a harvest-home, ain't it?" 
 
 " Nowt o' the sort," said Dick, the miller, testily. " Your 
 memory's failing fast, Mister Eitson." 
 
 " And that's true, old fence. I'll never be the same man 
 again after that brain fever I had up in London — not in the 
 head-piece, you know." 
 
 The group of men and dogs had drawn up in front of the 
 church just as Brother Peter crossed the church-yard to the 
 porch, carrying a red paper in his hand. 
 
 " Who's that— the Methodee man?" 
 
 " It's the Methodee, for sure," said the blacksmith. 
 
 " Ey, it's the parson's Peter," added the postman, " and 
 yon paper is a telegraph — it's like he's takin' it to somebody. " 
 
 " Hold hard, my boys," said Drayton; and, leaving hk 
 cronies, he strode through the lych-gate and down the path, 
 the dogs yapping around him. 
 
358 a sosr of hagar. 
 
 Brother Peter had drawn up at the door of the porch; the 
 children were still singing. 
 
 " If that telegram is for my wife, you may hand it over to 
 me," said Drayton, and reached out his hand to take it. 
 
 Brother Peter drew back. 
 
 "It will be all right, old fellow — I'll see she gets it." 
 
 " Ey, thoo'll manish that, I's warn," said Peter, in a caustic 
 voice. 
 
 " Come, don't you know that what belongs to the wife be- 
 longs to the husband?" 
 
 " Don't know as I do. I's never been larn't sec daftness," 
 said Peter. 
 
 " Hand it over. Come, be quick!" 
 
 " Get ovver me 'at can," said Peter, with a decisive twinkle. 
 
 " Gi'e him a slab ower the lug," shouted the miller from 
 the road. 
 
 " You hear what they say? Come, out with it." 
 
 " Eh, you've rowth o' friends, you're a teeran crew, but I 
 cares laal for any on you." 
 
 Drayton turned away with a contemptuous snort. 
 
 " Damme, what a clatter!" he shouted, and leaped on to 
 the raised mound of a grave to look in at an open window. 
 As he did so he kicked a glass for flowers that lay upon it, and 
 the broken frame tumbled in many pieces. " I've done for 
 somebody's money," he said with a loud guffaw. 
 
 " What, man, but it were thy awn brass as bought it," 
 said the blacksmith. 
 
 " Ey, it's thy ladder's grave," said Job Sheepshanks. 
 
 Drayton glanced down at the headstone. 
 
 " Why, so it is!" he said; " d'ye see, I hain't been here 
 since the day I buried him." 
 
 " Nay, that's all stuff and nonsense," said Job. " I mind 
 the morning I found ye lying wet and frostit on the top of 
 that grave." 
 
 " D'ye say so? Well, I ain't for denying it; and now I 
 think of it, 1 ivas — yes, 1 was here that morning." 
 
 " Nay, you wam't nowt o' the sort," said the blacksmith. 
 " That were the varra morning as Giles Baisley saw you at 
 the Pack Horse sleeping. I mind the fratch Job had with 
 laal Gubblum about it long ago." 
 
 "It's all stuff and nonsense," replied Job. "He were 
 here." 
 
 " The Pack Horse? Well, now, I remember, I was there, 
 too." 
 
 The singing had ceased, and Greta came out into the porch 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 259 
 
 on tiptoe, carrying in her arms a tiny mite, who was crying. 
 Peter handed her the telegram, and turned up the path. 
 
 Drayton had rejoined his companions, and was in the act of 
 knocking the neck off a bottle by striking it against the wall, 
 when Peter walked through the lych-gate. 
 
 " Teem a pint o' yal down the Methodee's back," shouted 
 Dick, the miller, and in another moment Brother Peter was 
 covered with the contents of the broken bottle. 
 
 A loud, roystering laugh filled the air, and echoed from the 
 hills. 
 
 " What a breck!" tittered the postman. 
 
 " What a breck!" shouted the blacksmith. 
 
 " What a breck!" roared the miller. 
 
 " Get owerme 'at can!" mimicked Natt. 
 
 " He's got a lad's heart, has Mister Paul," said the land- 
 lord of the Plying Horse. 
 
 " Ey, he's a fair fatch," echoed little Tom o' Dint. 
 
 Leaving Peter to shake himself dry of the liquor that 
 dripped from him in froth, the noisy gang reeled down the 
 road, the yelping dogs careering about them, and the cocks 
 squawking with the hugs they received from the twitching arms 
 of the men convulsed with laughter. 
 
 At the head of the Vale of Newlands there is a clearing that 
 was made by the lead miners of two centuries ago. It lies at 
 the feet of an amphitheater of hills that rise peak above peak, 
 and die oft depth beyond depth. Of the old mines nothing 
 remains but the level cuttings in the sides of the fells, and 
 here and there the washing-pits cut out of the rock at your 
 feet. Fragments of stone lie about, glistening with veins of 
 lead, but no sound of pick or hammer breaks the stillness, and 
 no cart or truck trundles over the rough path. It is a solitude 
 in which one might forget that the world is full of noise. 
 
 To this spot Drayton and his cronies made their way. At 
 one of the old washing troughs they drew up, and sat in a 
 circle on its rocky sides. They had come for a cock-fight. It 
 was to be the bantam (carried by Natt and owned by his 
 master) against all comers. Drayton and the blacksmith were 
 the setters-on. The first bout was between the bantam and 
 Lang Geordie's ponderous black Spanish. Geordie's bird soon 
 squawked dolorously, and made off over the heads of the de- 
 risive spectators, whereupon Geordie captured it by one of its 
 outstretched wings, and forthwith screwed its neck. Then 
 came John Proudfoot's silver and black, and straightway 
 steel gaffs were affixed to the spurs. When the cocks felt their 
 feet they crowed, and then pecked the ground from side to 
 
260 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 side. An exciting struggle ensued. Up and down, over and 
 under, now beating the breast, now trailing the comb, now 
 pecking at the gills. And the two men at opposite sides of 
 the pit— the one in his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, 
 the other in his sporting plaid — stooped with every lunge and 
 craned their necks with every fall, and bobbed rheir heads 
 with every peck, their eyes flashing, their teeth set. 
 
 At one moment they drew off their birds, called for the files, 
 and sharpened up the spurs. Later on they seized the cocks 
 by the necks, shouted for the pitch-pot, and patched up the 
 bleeding combs. The birds were equally matched, and fought 
 long. At last their strength ebbed away. They followed each 
 other feebly, stretching their long, lagging throats languidly, 
 opening their beaks and hanging out their dry white tongues, 
 turning tail, then twisting about and fighting again, until 
 both lay stretched out on the pit bottom. 
 
 As the energy of the cocks subsided, the ardor of the men 
 waxed sensibly. They yelled excitedly, protested, reviled, 
 swore, laughed, jeered, and crowed. 
 
 At length, when the bantam fell and gave no signs of a 
 speedy resurrection, the anger of Drayton could not be sup- 
 ported. He leaped across the pit, his face red as his cock's 
 comb, and shouting, " Damme, what for did ye pick up my 
 bird?" he planted a blow full on the blacksmith's chest. 
 
 A fight of a yet fiercer kind followed. Amid shouts, and in 
 the thick of a general scuffle, the blacksmith closed with his 
 powerful adversary, gripped him about the waist, twisted him 
 on his loins, and brought him to the ground with a crash. 
 Then he stood over him with fierce eyes. 
 
 " I mak' no doubt you're not hankerin' for another of that 
 sort!" he puffed. 
 
 " John's given him the cross-buttock," said the miller. 
 
 " The master's lost all his wrustling," said Natt, blinking 
 out of his sleepy eyes. 
 
 " I mind the day when he could have put John down same 
 as a bit boy," said the little postman. 
 
 Natt helped Drayton to his feet. He was quiet enough now, 
 but as black in the face as a thunder-cloud. 
 
 " This comes of a gentleman mixing with them as is beneath 
 him," he muttered, and he mopped his perspiring forehead 
 with a bandanna handkerchief. 
 
 The miller snorted, the mason grunted, the little postmar 
 laughed in his thin pipe. 
 
 Drayton's eyes flashed. 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. 261 
 
 " I'm. a gentleman, I am, if you want to know," he said 
 defiantly. 
 
 The blacksmith stood by, leisurely rolling down his shirt- 
 sleeves. 
 
 " Ey, for fault of wise folk we call you so," he said, and 
 laughed. " But when I leet of a man, I's rather have him 
 nor a hundred sec gentlemen as you!" 
 
 " Thoo's reet for once, John!" shouted Dick o' the Syke, 
 and there was some general laughter. 
 
 " Gentleman! Ax the women-folk what they mak' of sec 
 a gentleman," continued the blacksmith with contemptuous 
 emphasis. " Him as larn't folks to fill the public and empty 
 the cupboard." 
 
 There was a murmur among the men as they twisted about. 
 
 " Ax them what they mak' of him 'at spent four days in 
 Lunnon and came back another man — ax the women-folk; 
 they're maistly reet, I reckon. " 
 
 Another uneasy movement among the men. 
 
 " Burn my body! and what's the women to me?" said 
 Drayton. 
 
 " Nay, nowt," answered the blacksmith. " Your awn wife 
 seems noways powerful keen for your company." 
 
 Drayton's eyes were red, but the fire died out of them in an 
 instant. He stepped up to the blacksmith and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 " You've licked me," he said in another tone, " but I ain't 
 the man to keep spite, I ain't; so come along, old fence, and 
 let's wet it." 
 
 " That's weel said," put in Tommy Lowthwaite, the land- 
 lord. 
 
 " It's no'but fair," said Dick the miller. 
 
 " He's a reet sort, after all," said Job the mason. 
 
 " He's his awn fadder's son, is Paul Eitson," said Tom o' 
 Dint. 
 
 In two minutes more the soiled company were trampling 
 knee-deep through rank beds of rushes on their way to the 
 other side of the dale. They stopped a few yards from a pit 
 shaft with its headgear and wheel. 
 
 " Let's take my brother's ken for it," said Drayton, and 
 they turned into a one-story house that stood near. 
 
 It was a single capacious chamber, furnished more like a 
 library than an office: carpets, rugs, a cabinet, easy-chairs, 
 and a solid table in the middle of the floor. The cock-fighters 
 filed in and sat down on every available chair, on the table, 
 and at last on the floor. 
 
262 A SON OP EAGAB. 
 
 " Squat and whifl," said Drayton, " and, Tommy, you out 
 with the corks quick. " 
 
 " It must be a bonny money-making consarn to keep up the 
 like of this," said the miller, settling himself uneasily in an 
 easy-chair. 
 
 Dick was telling himself what a fool he had been not to ask 
 more than the fifty pounds he received for the damage once 
 done by fire to his mill. 
 
 " Hare you never heard as it ain't all gold as glitters?" said 
 Drayton; and he struck a lucifer match on the top of the 
 mahogany table. 
 
 "What, man, dusta mean as the pit's not paying?" said 
 the blacksmith. 
 
 Drayton gave his head a sidelong shake of combined astute- 
 ness and reserve. 
 
 " I mak' no doubt now as you have to lend Master Hugh 
 many a gay penny," said Tom o' Dint in an insinuating tone. 
 
 " Least said, soonest mended," said Drayton, sententiously, 
 and smiled a mighty knowing smile. 
 
 Then the men laughed, and the landlord handed the bottles 
 round, and all drank out of the necks, and puffed dense vol- 
 umes of smoke from their pipes, and spat on the carpet. 
 
 And still the birds sung in the clear air without, and still the 
 ghylls rumbled, and still the light wind souched through the 
 grass, and still the morning sunlight shone over all. 
 
 The door opened, and Hugh Eitson entered, followed by 
 the lawyer, Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a steely glimmer 
 in his eyes as he stood just inside the threshold and looked 
 round. 
 
 " Oome, get out of this!" he said. 
 
 The men shuffled to their feet and were elbowing their way 
 out. Drayton, who sat on the table, removed his pipe from 
 between his teeth and called on them to remain. 
 
 Hugh Eitson stepped up to Drayton and touched him on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 " I want to speak with you," he said. 
 
 " What is it?" demanded Drayton. 
 
 " I want to speak with you," repeated Hugh. 
 
 " What is it? Out with it. You've got the gift of the gab, 
 hain't ye? Don't mind my friends. " 
 
 Hugh Eitson's face whitened, and a cold smile passed over 
 it. 
 
 " Your time is near," he muttered, and he turned on hi? 
 heel. 
 
A SON OF HAGAK. 263 
 
 As he stepped out of the noisesome chamber, a loud, hoarse 
 laugh followed him. He drew a long breath. 
 
 " Thank God it will soon be over!" he said. 
 
 Bonnithorne was at his side. 
 
 " Is it to be to-morrow?" asked the lawyer. 
 
 " To-morrow," said Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " Have you told him?" 
 
 " Tell him yourself, Bonnithorne. I can bear with the man 
 no longer. I shall be doing something that I may repent." 
 
 " Have you apprised Parson Christian?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson bent his head. 
 
 " And Greta?" 
 
 " She won't come," said Hugh. " The girl could never 
 breathe the same air as that scoundrel for five minutes to- 
 gether." 
 
 " And yet he's her half-brother," said the lawyer, softly; 
 and then he added, with the conventional smile: " Odd, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 When the procession of children had passed the little cot- 
 tage at the angle of the roads, the old man who leaned on his 
 staff at the gate turned about and stepped to the porch. 
 
 " Did the boy see them? — did he see the children?" said 
 the young woman who held the child by the hand. 
 
 " I mak' na doot," said the old man. 
 
 He stooped to the little one and held out one long, withered 
 finger. The soft baby hand closed on it instantly. 
 
 " Did he laugh? I thought he laughed," said the young 
 woman. 
 
 A bright smile played on her lips. 
 
 "Maybe so, lass." 
 
 " Ealphie has never seen the children before, father. Didn't 
 he look frightened — just a little frightened — at first, you 
 know? I thought he crept behind my gown." 
 
 "Maybe, maybe." 
 
 The little one had dropped the hand of his young mother, 
 and, still holding the bony finger of his grandfather, he tod- 
 dled beside him into the house. 
 
 Very cool and sweet was the kitchen, with whitewashed 
 walls and hard earthen floor. A table and a settle stood by 
 the window, and a dresser that was an armory of bright pewter 
 dishes, trenchers, and piggins crossed the opposite wall. 
 
264 A SON OP HAGAR. 
 
 " Nay, but sista hare, laal man," said the old charooal- 
 burner, and he dived into a great pocket at his side. 
 
 " Have you brought it? Is it the kitten? Oh, dear, let the 
 boy see it!" 
 
 A kitten came out of the old man's pocket, and was set 
 down on the rug at the hearth. The timid creature sat dazed, 
 then raised itself on its hind legs and mewed. 
 
 " Where's Ealphie? Is he watching it, father? What is 
 he doing?" 
 
 The little one had dropped on hands and knees before the 
 kitten, and was gazing up into its face. 
 
 The mother leaned over him with a face that would have 
 beamed with sunshine if the sun of sight had not been missing. 
 
 " Is he looking? Doesn't he want to coddle it?" 
 
 The little chap had pushed his nose close to the nose of the 
 kitten, and was prattling to it in various inarticulate noises. 
 
 " Boo — loo — lal-la — mamma." 
 
 " Isn't he a darling, father?" 
 
 " It's a winsome wee thing," said the old man, still stand- 
 ing with drooping head over the group on the hearth. 
 
 The mother's face saddened, and she turned away. Then 
 from the opposite side of the kitchen, where she ivas making 
 pretense to take plates from a plate-rack, there came the 
 sound of suppressed sobs. The old. man's eyes followed her. 
 
 " Nay, lass; let's have a sup of broth," he said in a tone 
 that carried another message. 
 
 The young woman put plates and a bowl of broth on the 
 table. 
 
 " To think that I can never see my own child, and every- 
 body else can see him!" she said, and then chere was another 
 bout of tears. 
 
 The charcoal-burner supped at his broth in silence. A glis- 
 tening bead rolled slowly down his wizened cheek, and the in- 
 terview on the hearth went on without interruption: 
 
 ' ' Mew — mew — mew. " " Boo — loo — lal-la — mamma. ' ' 
 
 There was a foot on the gravel in front. 
 
 " How fend ye, Mattha?" said a voice from without. 
 
 " Come thy ways, Gubblum," answered the old man. 
 
 Gubblum Oglethorpe entered, dressed differently than of 
 old. He wore a suit of canvas stained deeply with iron ore. 
 
 1 ' I's thinking maybe Mercy will let me warm up my pod- 
 dish," said Gubblum. 
 
 "And welcome," said Mercy, and took down from the 
 dresser a saucepan and porridge itnivel. " I'll make it for you 
 while father sups his broth. " 
 
A SOH OF HAGAR. 265 
 
 " Nay, lass, you're as thrang as an auld peat wife, I's warn. 
 I'll mak' it myself. I's rather particular about my poddish, 
 Eorby. Dusta know how many faults poddish may have? They 
 may be sour, sooty, sodden, and savorless, soat, welsh, brocken, 
 and lumpy — and that's mair nor enough, thoo knows." 
 
 Gubblum had gone down on the hearth-rug. 
 
 " Why, and here's the son and heir," he said. " Nay, 
 laddie, mind my claes — they'll dirty thy brand-new brat for 
 thee." 
 
 " Is he growing, Gubblum?" 
 
 " Growing? — amain." 
 
 " And his eyes — are they changing color? — going brown?" 
 
 " Maybe — I'll not be for saying nay." 
 
 " Is he — is he very like me?" 
 
 " Nay — weel — nay — I's fancying I see summat of the 
 stranger in the laal chap at whiles." 
 
 The young mother turned her head. Gubblum twisted to 
 where Matthew sat. 
 
 "That man and all his raggabrash are raking about this 
 morning. It caps all, it does, for sure." 
 
 The old charcoal-burner did not answer. He paused with 
 the spoon half raised, glanced at Mercy, and then went on 
 with his broth. 
 
 " Hasta heard of the lang yammer in the papers about yon. 
 matter?" said Gubblum. 
 
 " Nay," said Matthew, " I hears nowt of the papers." 
 
 " He's like to hang a lang crag when he hears about it." 
 
 " I mak' na doubt," said Matthew, showing no curiosity. 
 
 " It's my belief 'at the auld woman at Hendon is turning 
 tail. You mind she was down last back end, and he wadn't 
 have nowt to say to her." 
 
 " Ey, I mind her," said Matthew. 
 
 " Every dog has his day, and I reckon yon dog's day is 
 nigh amaist done. And it wad have been a vast shorter on'y 
 Mercy hadn't her eyes. " 
 
 " Ey, ey," said Matthew, quietly. 
 
 "If the lass had no'but been able to say, 'Yon man is 
 Drayton, and yon as you've got in prison is Eitson, and I saw 
 the bad wark done,' thai would have settled it." 
 
 " Na doot," said Matthew, his head in the bowl. 
 
 " They warn't for hearing me. When the parson took me 
 up to Lunnon mair nor a twelvemonth agone, they sent us 
 baith home with our tails atween our legs. ' Bring us the 
 young woman,' they said; ' your evidence will stand aside 
 hers, but not alone. Bring the young woman to 'dentify/ 
 
366 A SOST OF HAGAR. 
 
 they says. ' She's gone blind,' we says. ' We can't help 
 that/ they says. And that's what they call justice up in 
 Lunnon." 
 
 " Ey, ey," said Matthew. 
 
 " But then thoo has to mak' 'lowances for them gentry folk 
 — they've never been larn't no better, thoo sees." 
 
 Gubblum's porridge was bubbling, and the thivel worked 
 vigorously. Matthew had picked up the child from the hearth. 
 The little fellow was tugging at his white beard. 
 
 " It were bad luck that me and Mercy didn't stay a day or 
 so langer in Hendon yon time. She had her eyes then. But 
 the lass was badly, and " (dropping his voice) cl that way, thoo 
 knows, and I warn't to prophesy what was to happen to poor 
 Paul Ritson. So I brought her straight away home." 
 
 "So thoo did, Gubblum," said Matthew, stroking the 
 child's head. 
 
 " It's that Hugh as is at the bottom of it all, I reckon. 
 I'm not afraid to say it, if he is my master. I alius liked Paul 
 Ritson — the reet one, thoo knows, not this taistrel that calls 
 hisself Paul Ritson — but I cared so laal for Hugh that I could 
 have taken him and wrowk't the fire with him." 
 
 The porridge was ready, and Mercy set a wooden bowl on 
 the table. " I's fullen thy bicker, my lass," said Gubblum. 
 " I's only a laal man, but I's got a girt appetite, thoo sees." 
 Then turning to Matthew he continued: " But he's like to pay 
 for it. He brought his raggabash here, and now the rascal has 
 the upper hand — that's plain to see." 
 
 " So it be," said Matthew. 
 
 " Deemoralizin' all the country-side, what with his drinkin' 
 and cock-fightin' and terriers, an' 1 don't know what. 
 Theer's Dick o' the Syke, he's a ruined man this day, and 
 John, the blacksmith, he's never had a heat on the anvil for 
 a week, and as for Job, the mason, he's shaping to be mair 
 nor ever like his Bible namesake, for he won't have nowt but 
 his dunghill to sit on soon. " 
 
 " Dusta think theydunnot ken he's the wrong man?" asked 
 Matthew. 
 
 "Nay, Mattha, but a laal bit of money's a wonderful thing, 
 mind ye. " 
 
 " It is for sure." 
 
 " One day he went to dogger Kit to be measur't for new 
 shoes. ' What, Master Ritson,' says Kit, ' your foot's langer 
 by three lines nor when I put the tape on it afore.* " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 267 
 
 " Next day Kit had an order for two pairs, forby a pair of 
 leggins and clogs for Natt. That's the way it's manish'd." 
 
 Mercy had taken her child from her father's knee, and was 
 sitting on the sconce bench with it, holding a broken piece of 
 a mirror before its face, and listening for its laugh when it 
 saw itself in the glass. 
 
 " But he's none Cummerland — hearken to his tongue," said 
 Matthew. 
 
 Gubblum put down his spoon on his plate, now empty. 
 
 " That minds me,'' he said, laughing, " that 1 met him out 
 one day all dressed in his brave claes — them as might do for a 
 nigger that plays the banjo. ' Off for a spogue?' I says. 
 ' What's a spogue V he says, looking thunder. ' Nay,' I says 
 * you're no'but a dalesman — ax folks up Hendon way,' I says. 
 I was peddling then, but Master Hugh 'counters me another 
 day, and he says, ' Gubblum,' he says, ' I's wanting a smart 
 laal man, same as you, to weigh the ore on the bank- top — 
 pund a week,' he says." 
 
 " Ey, I mak' no doot they thowt to buy thee ower," said 
 Matthew. 
 
 " They've made a gay canny blunder if they think they've 
 put a swine ring on Gubblum's snout. Buy or beat — that's 
 the word. They've bought most of the folk and made them 
 as lazy as libbed bitches. But they warn't able to buy the 
 Eitson's bitch itself. " 
 
 " What dusta mean, Gubblum?" 
 
 " What, man! thoo's heard how the taistrel killed poor auld 
 Fan? No? Weel, thoo knows she was Paul Eitson's dog, 
 Pan was; and when she saw this man coming up the lonnin, 
 she frisk' t and wag't her tail. But when she got close to him 
 she found her mistake, and went slenken off. He made shift 
 to coax her, but Fan wad none be coaxed; and folks were 
 takin' stock. So what dusta think the taistrel does, but ups 
 with a stone and brains her." 
 
 " That's like him, for sure," said Matthew. " But don't 
 the folk see that his wife as it might be, Miss Greta, as was, 
 won't have nowt to say to him?" 
 
 " Nay, they say that's no'but a rue-bargain, and she found 
 out her mind after she wedded — that's all the clotheads think 
 about it." 
 
 " Hark!" said Mercy, half rising from the sconce. " It's 
 Mrs. Eitson's foot." 
 
 The men listened. " Nay, lass, there's no foot," said Gub- 
 blum. 
 
 "Yes, she's on the road," said Mercy. Her face showed 
 
268 A SOX OF HAGAK. 
 
 that pathetic tension of the other senses which is peculiar to 
 the blind. A moment later Greta stepped into the cottage. 
 The telegram which Brother Peter gave her at the church was 
 still in her hand. 
 
 " Good-morning, Matthew; good-morning, Gubblum; I have 
 news lor you, Mercy. The doctors are coming to-day." 
 
 Mercy's face fell perceptibly. The old man's head drooped 
 lower. 
 
 " There, don't be afraid," said Greta, touching her hand 
 caressingly. " It will soon be over. The doctors didn't hurt 
 you before, did they?" 
 
 ' " No; but this time it will be the operation," said Mercy. 
 There was a tremor in her voice. 
 
 Greta had lifted the child from the sconce. The little fellow 
 cooed close to her ear, and babbled his inarticulate nothings. 
 
 " Only think, when it's all over you will be able to see your 
 darling Ealphie for the first time!" 
 
 Mercy's sightless face brightened. " Oh, yes," she said, 
 " and watch him play, and see his spin his tops and chase the 
 butterflies. Oh, that will be very good!" 
 
 " Dusta say to-day, Mistress Eitson?" asked Matthew, the 
 big drops standing in his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, Matthew; I will stay to see it over, and mind baby, 
 and help a little." 
 
 Mercy took the little one from Greta's arms and cried over 
 it, and laughed over it, and then cried and laughed again. 
 " Mamma and Ealphie shall play together in the garden, dar- 
 ling, and Ealphie shall see the horses — and the flowers — and 
 the birdies — and mamma — yes, mamma shall see Ralphie. 
 Oh, Mrs. Eitson, how selfish I am ! — how can I ever repay 
 you?" 
 
 The tears were trickling down Greta's cheeks. " It is I who 
 am selfish, Mercy," she said, and kissed the sightless orbs. 
 " Your dear eyes shall give me back my poor husband." 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Two hours later the doctors arrived. They had called at 
 the vicarage in driving up the valley, and Parson Christian 
 was with them. They looked at Mercy's eyes, and were satis- 
 fied that the time was ripe for the operation. At the sound of 
 their voices, Mercy trembled and turned livid. By a maternal 
 instinct she picked up the child, who was toddling about the 
 floor, and clasped it to her bosom. The little one opened wide 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 269 
 
 his blue eyes at sight of the strangers, and the prattling tongue 
 became quiet. 
 
 " Take her to her room, and let her lie on the bed," said 
 one of the doctors to Greta. 
 
 A sudden terror seized the young mother. " No, no, no!" 
 she said, in an indescribable accent, and the child cried a little 
 from the pressure to her breast. 
 
 " Come, Mercy, dear, be brave for your darling's sake," 
 said Greta. 
 
 " Listen to me," said the doctor, quietly but firmly. " You 
 are now quite blind, and you have been in total darkness for a 
 year and a half. We maybe able to restore your sight "by 
 giving you a few minutes' pain. Will you not bear it?" 
 
 Mercy sobbed, and kissed the child passionately. 
 
 " Just think, it is quite certain that without an operation 
 you will never regain your sight," continued the doctor. " You 
 have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Are you satis- 
 fled? Come, go away to your room quietly." 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh!" sobbed Mercy. 
 
 " Just imagine, only a few minutes' pain, and even of that 
 you will scarcely be conscious. Before you know what is do- 
 ing, it will be done." 
 
 Mercy clung closer to her child, and kissed it again and yet 
 more fervently. 
 
 The doctors turned to each other. " Strange vanity!" 
 muttered the one who had not spoken before. " Her eyes are 
 useless, and yet she is afraid she may lose them." 
 
 Mercy's quick ears caught the whispered words. " It is not 
 that," she said passionately. 
 
 "No, gentlemen," said Greta, "you have mistaken her 
 thought. Tell her she runs no danger of her life." 
 
 The doctors smiled and laughed a little. " Oh, that's it, 
 eh? Well, we can tell her that with- certainty. " 
 
 Then there was another interchange of half-amused glances. 
 
 " Ah, we that be men, sirs, don't know the depth and 
 tenderness of a mother's heart," said Parson Christian. And 
 Mercy turned toward him a face that was full of gratitude. 
 Greta took the child out of her arms and hushed it to sleep in 
 another room. Then she brought it back and put it in its 
 cradle that stood in the ingle. 
 
 "Come, Mercy," she said, "for the sake of your boy." 
 And Mercy permitted herself to be led from the kitchen. 
 
 " So there will be no danger," she said. " I shall not leave 
 my boy. Who said that? The doctor? Oh, good gracious, 
 
270 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 it's nothing. Only think, I shall live to see him grow to be a 
 great lad!" 
 
 Her whole face was now radiant. 
 
 " It will be nothing. Oh, no, it will be nothing. How- 
 silly it was to think that he would live on, and grow up, and 
 be a man, and I lie cold in the church-yard, and me his moth- 
 er! That was very childish, wasn't it? But, then, I have 
 been so childish since Ealphie came." 
 
 " There, lie and be quiet, and it will soon be over," said 
 Greta. 
 
 " Let me kiss him first. Do let me kiss him! Only once. 
 You know it's a great risk, after all. And if he grew up — 
 and I wasn't here, if — if — " 
 
 " There, dear Mercy, you must not cry again. It inflames 
 your eyes, and that can't be good for the doctors." 
 
 " No, no, I won't cry. You are very good; everybody is 
 very good. Only let me kiss my little Ealphie — just for the 
 last." 
 
 Greta led her back to the side of the cot, and she spread 
 herself over it with outstretched arms, as the mother-bird 
 poises with outstretched wings over her brood. Then she 
 rose, and her face was peaceful and resigned. 
 
 The Laird Fisher sat down before the kitchen fire, with one 
 arm on the cradle-head. Parson Christian stood beside him. 
 The old charcoal-burner wept in silence, and the good par- 
 son's voice was too thick for the words of comfort that rose to 
 his lips. 
 
 The doctors followed into the bedroom. Mercy was lying 
 tranquilly on her bed. Her countenance was without expres- 
 sion. She was busy with her own thoughts. Greta stood by 
 the bedside; anxiety was written in every line of her beautiful, 
 brave face. 
 
 " We must give her the gas," said one of the doctors, ad- 
 dressing the other. 
 
 Mercy's features twitched. 
 
 " Who said that?" she asked, nervously. 
 
 " My child, you must be quiet," said the doctor in a tone 
 of authority. 
 
 " Yes, I will be quiet, very quiet; only don't make me un- 
 conscious," she said. " Never mind me; I will not cry. No; 
 if you hurt me I will not cry out. I will not stir. I will do 
 everything you ask. An<? you shall say how quiet I have been- 
 Only don't let me be insensible." 
 
 The doctors consulted aside, and in whispers. 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 271 
 
 "Who spoke about the gas? It wasn't you, Mrs. Eitson, 
 was it?" 
 
 " You must do as the doctors wish, dear," said Greta in a 
 caressing voice. 
 
 " Oh, I will be very good. I will do every little thing. 
 Yes, and I will be so brave. I am a little childish sometimes, 
 but I can be brave, can't I?" 
 
 The doctors returned to the bedside. 
 
 " Very well, we will not use the gas," said one. " You 
 are a brave little woman, after all. There, be still — very 
 still." 
 
 One of the doctors was tearing linen into strips for band- 
 ages, while the other fixed Mercy's head to suit the light. 
 
 There was a faint sound from the kitchen. " Wait," said 
 Mercy. " That is father — he's crying. Tell him not to cry. 
 Say it's nothing. " 
 
 She laughed a weak little laugh. 
 
 " There, he will hear that; go and say it was I who 
 laughed." 
 
 Greta left the room on tiptoe. Old Matthew was still sitting 
 over a dying fire, gently rocking the sleeping child. Parson 
 Christian's eyes were raised in prayer. 
 
 When Greta returned to the bedroom, Mercy called her, and 
 said very softly — " Let me hold your hand, Greta — may I say 
 Greta? — there," and her fingers closed on Greta's with a con- 
 vulsive grasp. 
 
 The operation began. Mercy held her breath. She had 
 the stubborn north-country blood in her. Once only a sigh 
 escaped. There was a dead silence. 
 
 In two or three minutes the doctor said: "Just another 
 minute, and all will be over." 
 
 At the next instant, Greta felt her hand held with a grasp 
 of iron. 
 
 " Doctor, doctor, I can see you!" cried Mercy, and her 
 words came in gusts. 
 
 " Be quiet," said the doctor in a stern voice. In half a 
 minute more the linen bandages were being wrapped tightly 
 over Mercy's eyes. 
 
 " Doctor, dear doctor, let me see my boy," cried Mercy. 
 
 " Be quiet, I say," said the doctor again. 
 
 " Dear doctor, my dear doctor, only one peep — one little 
 peep — I saw your face — let me see my Ealphie's!" 
 
 " Not yet, it is not safe." 
 
 " But only for a moment. Don't put the bandage on for 
 one moment. Just think, doctor, I have never seen my boy; 
 
272 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 I've seen other people's children, but never once my own, own 
 darling. Oh, dear doctor — " 
 
 " You are exciting yourself. Listen to me; if you don't 
 behave yourself now you may never see your child." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I will behave myself; I will be very good. Only 
 don't shut me up in darkness again until I see my boy. Greta, 
 bring him to me. Listen: I hear his breathing. Go for my 
 darling. The kind doctor won't be angry with you. Tell him 
 that if I see my child it will cure me. I know it will. " 
 
 Greta's eyes were swimming in tears. 
 
 " Best quiet, Mercy. Everything may be lost if you dis- 
 turb yourself now, my dear." 
 
 The doctors were wrapping bandage over bandage, and fix- 
 ing them firmly at the back of their patient's head. 
 
 "Now listen again," said one of them. " This bandage 
 must be kept over your eyes for a week." 
 
 " A week — a whole week? Oh, doctor, you might as well 
 say forever!" 
 
 " I say a week. And if you should ever remove it — " 
 
 " Not for an instant? Not raise it a little?" 
 
 " If you ever remove it for an instant, or raise it ever so 
 little, you will assuredly lose your sight forever. Remember 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, doctor, it is terrible! Why did you not tell me so be- 
 fore? Oh, this is worse than blindness! Think of the temp- 
 tation, and I have never seen my boy!" 
 
 The doctor had fixed the bandage, and his voice was less 
 stern, but no less resolute. 
 
 " You must obey me," he said; " I will come again this 
 day week, and then you shall see your child, and your father, 
 and this young lady, and everybody. But, mind, if you don't 
 obey me you will never see anything. You will have one 
 glance of your little boy, and then be blind forever, or perhaps 
 — yes, perhaps die. " 
 
 Mercy lay quiet for a moment. Then she said in a low 
 ^oice : 
 
 " Dear doctor, you must forgive me. I am very willful, and 
 I promised to be so good. I will not touch the bandage. No, 
 for the sake of my little boy, I will never, never touch it. 
 You shall come yourself and take it off, and then I shall see 
 him." 
 
 The doctors went away. Greta remained all night in the 
 cottage. 
 
 " You are happy now, Mercy?" said Greta. 
 
A SON- OF HAGAE. 273 
 
 " . 
 
 ' Oh, yes/' said Mercy. " Just think, only a week! And 
 he must be so beautiful by this time." 
 
 When Greta took the child to her at sunset, there was an 
 ineffable joy in her pale face, and next morning, when Greta 
 awoke, Mercy was singing softly to herself in the sunrise. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There was a gathering of miners near the pit-head that 
 morning. It was pay day. The rule was that the miners on 
 the morning shift should pass through the pay-office before 
 going down the shaft at eight o'clock; and that those on the 
 night shift should pass through on their way home a few min- 
 utes afterward. When the morning men passed through the 
 office they had found the pay-door shut, and a notice posted 
 over it, saying, " All wages due at eight o'clock to-day will be 
 paid at the same hour to-morrow." 
 
 Presently the men on the night shift came up in the cages, 
 and after a brief explanation both gangs, with the banksmen 
 and all top-ground hands, except the engine-man, trooped away 
 to< a place suitable for a conference. There was a worked-out 
 open cutting a hundred yards away. It was a vast cleft dug 
 into the side of the mountain, square on its base, vertical in 
 its three gray walls, and sweeping up to a dizzy height, over 
 which the brant sides of the green fell rose sheer into the sky. 
 It was to this natural theater that the two hundred miners 
 made their way in groups of threes and fours, their lamps and 
 cans in their hands, their red-stained clothes glistening in the 
 morning sun. 
 
 It was decided to send a deputation to the master, asking 
 that the order might be revoked and payment made as usual. 
 The body of the men remained in the clearing, conversing in 
 knots, while two miners, buirdly fellows, rather gruffer of 
 tongue than the rest, went to the office to act as spokesmen. 
 
 The deputation were approaching the pit-head when the 
 engine-man shouted that he had just heard the master's knock 
 from below, and in another moment Hugh Eitson, in flannels 
 and fustian, stepped out of the cage. 
 
 He heard the request, and at once offered to go to the men 
 and give his answer. The miners made way for him respect- 
 fully, and then closed about him when he spoke. 
 
 " Men," he said, with a touch of his old resolution, " let 
 me tell you frankly, as between man and man, that I can not 
 pay you this morning, because I haven't got the money. I 
 tried to get it, and failed. This afternoon I sball receive much 
 
274 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 more than is due to you, and to-morrow you shall be promptly 
 paid." 
 
 The miners twisted about and compared notes in subdued 
 voices. 
 
 " That's no'but fair/' said one. 
 
 " He cannut say na fairer," said another. 
 
 But there were some who were not so easily appeased; and 
 one of these crushed his way through the crowd, and said: 
 
 " Mister Eitson, we're not same as the bettermer folk, as 
 can get credit for owt 'at they want. We ax sis days' pay 
 because we have to do six days' payin' wi' it. And if we're 
 back a day in our pay we're a day back in our payin' ; and that 
 means clemmnr a laal bit — and the wife and barns forby." 
 
 There were murmurs of approval from the crowd, and then 
 another malcontent added: 
 
 " Times has changed to a gay tune sin' we could put by for 
 a rainy day. It's hand io mouth now, on'y the mouth's alius 
 ready and the hand's not." 
 
 " It's na much as we ha' getten to put away these times," 
 said the first speaker. "Not same as the days when a pit- 
 man's wife, 'at I ken on, flung a five-pound note in his face 
 and axed him what he thowt she were to mak' o' that. " 
 
 " Nay, nay," responded the others in a chorus. 
 
 " Men, I'm not charging you with past extravagance," said 
 Hugh Eitson; " and it's not my fault if the pit hasn't done as 
 well for all of us as I had hoped." 
 
 He was moving away, when the crowd closed about him 
 again. 
 
 "Mates," shouted one of the miners, "there's another 
 word as some on us wad like to say to the master, and that's 
 about the timber. 
 
 " What is it?" asked Hugh Eitson, facing about. 
 
 " There be some on us 'at think the pit's none ower safe 
 down the bottom working, where the seam of sand runs cross- 
 ways. We're auld miners, maistly, and we thowt maybe ye 
 wadna tak' it wrang if we telt ye 'at it wants a vast mair 
 forks and upreets. " 
 
 " Thank you, my lads, I'll see what I can do," said Hugh 
 Eitson; and then added in a lower tone: " But I've put a for- 
 est of timber underground already, and where this burying of 
 money is to end God alone knows." 
 
 He turned away this time and moved off, halting more no- 
 ticeably than usual on his infirm foot. 
 
 He returned to his office near the pit-bank, and found Mr 
 Bonnithorne awaiting him. 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 375 
 
 " The day is young, but I'm no sluggard, you know," said 
 the lawyer. " I thought we might want a word or two before 
 the meeting at the Ghyll." 
 
 Hugh Eitson did not notice the explanation. He looked 
 anxious and disturbed. While stripping off his pit flannels, 
 and putting on his ordinary clothes, he told Mr. Bonnithorne 
 what had just occurred, and then added: 
 
 " If anything had been necessary to prove that this morn- 
 ing's bad business is inevitable, I should have found it in this 
 encounter with the men." 
 
 " It comes as a fillip to your already blunted purpose," said 
 the lawyer with a curious smile. " Odd, isn't it?" 
 
 " Blunted!" said Hugh Eitson, and there was a perceptible 
 elevation of the eyebrows. 
 
 Presently he drew a long breath, and said with an air of 
 relief: 
 
 " Ah, well, if she suffers who has suffered enough already, 
 he, at least, will be out of the way forever." 
 
 Bonnithorne shifted slightly on his seat. 
 
 " You think so?" he asked. 
 
 Something cynical in the tone caught Hugh Eitson's ear. 
 
 " It was a bad change, wasn't it?" added the lawyer; " this 
 one is likely to be a deal more troublesome." 
 
 Hugh Eitson went on with his dressing in silence. 
 
 " You see, by the interchange your positions were reversed," 
 continued the lawyer. 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 " Well, not to put too fine a point on it, the other was in 
 your hands, while you are in the hands of this one." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's foot fell heavily at that instant, but he 
 merely said, with suppressed quietness: 
 
 " There was this one's crime." 
 
 " Was — precisely," said Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 Hugh Eitson glanced up with a look of inquiry. 
 
 " When you gave the crime to the other, this one became a 
 free man," the lawyer explained. 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " What does it all come to?" said Hugh Eitson, sullenly. 
 
 " That your hold of Paul Drayton is gone forever." 
 
 " How so?" 
 
 "Because you can never incriminate him without first in- 
 criminating yourself," said the lawyer. 
 
 " Who talks of incrimination?" said Hugh Eitson, testily. 
 " To-day, this man is to take upon himself the name of Paul 
 Lowther — his true name, though he doesn't know it, block- 
 
276 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 head as he is. Therefore, I ask again: What does it all come 
 to?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne shifted uneasily. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, meekly, but the curious smile still 
 played about his downcast face. 
 
 Then there was silence again. 
 
 " Do you know that Mercy Fisher is likely to regain her 
 sight?" said Hugh. 
 
 " You don't say so? Dear me, dear me!" said the lawyer, 
 sincere at last. " In all the annals of jurisprudence there is 
 no such extraordinary case of identity being conclusively prov- 
 able by one witness only, and of that witness becoming blind. 
 Odd, isn't it?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson smiled coldly. 
 
 "Odd? Say providential," he answered. " I believe that's 
 what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a dis- 
 aster that is made imminent by your own short-sightedness." 
 
 " A disaster, indeed, if her sight ceases to be so providen- 
 tially short," said the lawyer. 
 
 " Get the man out of the way, and the woman is all right," 
 said Hugh. He picked a letter out of a drawer, and handed it 
 to Mr. Bonnithorne. " You will remember that the other was 
 to have shipped to Australia. " 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne bowed his head. 
 
 " This letter is from the man for whom he intended to go 
 out — an old friend of my father. Answer it, Bonnithorne. " 
 
 " In what terms?" asked the lawyer. 
 
 " Say that a long illness prevented, but that Paul Eitson is 
 now prepared to fulfill his engagement." 
 
 " And what then?" 
 
 " What then?" Hugh Eitson echoed. " Why, what do 
 you think?" 
 
 "Send him?" with a motion of the thumb over the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Of course," said Hugh. 
 
 Again the cynical tone caught Hugh Eitson's ear, and he 
 glanced up quickly, but made no remark. He was now 
 dressed. 
 
 "lam ready," and on reaching the door and taking a last 
 look round the room, he added: " I'll have the best of this 
 furniture removed to the Ghyll to-morrow. The house has 
 been unbearable of late, and I've been forced to spend most of 
 my time down here. " 
 
 " Then you don't intend to give him much grace?" asked 
 Bonnithorne. 
 
A SON OF HA GAR. 277 
 
 "Not an hour." 
 
 The lawyer bent his forehead very low at that moment. 
 
 CHAPTBE V. 
 
 The sun was high over the head of Hindscarth, but a fresh 
 breeze was blowing from the north, and the walk to the Ghyll 
 was bracing. Mr. Bonnithorne talked little on the way, but 
 Hugh Eitson's spirits rose sensibly, and he chatted cheerfully 
 on indifferent subjects. It was still some minutes short of 
 nine-o'clock when they reached the house. The servants were 
 bustling about in clean aprons and caps. 
 
 " Have the gentlemen arrived?" asked Hugh. 
 
 " Not yet, sir," answered one of the servants — it was old 
 Dinah Wilson. 
 
 The two men stepped up to Hugh Eitson's room. There 
 the table was spread for breakfast. The lawyer glanced at the 
 chairs, and said: 
 
 " Then you have invited other friends?" 
 
 Hugh nodded his head, and sat down at the organ. 
 
 " Three or four neighbors of substance," he said, opening 
 the case. " In a matter like this it is well to have witnesses." 
 
 Bonnithorne replied with phlegm: 
 
 " But what about the feelings of the man who is so soon to 
 be turned out of the house?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson's fingers were on the keys. He paused and 
 faced about. 
 
 " I had no conception that you had such a delicate sense of 
 humor, Bonnithorne," he said, with only the shadow of a 
 smile. "Feelings! His feelings!" 
 
 There was a swift glide up the notes, and other sounds were 
 lost. The window was half open; the lawyer walked to it and 
 looked out. At that moment the two men were back to back. 
 Hugh Eitson's head was bent over the keyboard. Mr. Bonni- 
 thorne's eyes were on the tranquil landscape lying in the sun 
 outside. The faces of both wore curious smiles. 
 
 Hugh Eitson leaped from his seat. 
 
 " Ah, I feel like another man already," he said, and took a 
 step or two up and down Hie room, his infirm foot betraying 
 no infirmity. There was the noise of fresh arrivals in the 
 hall. A minute later a servant entered, followed by three 
 gentlemen, who shook hands effusively with Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " Delighted to be of service, I'm sure," said one. 
 
 " Glad the unhappy connection is to be concluded — it was a 
 scandal," said the other. 
 
278 A SON OF HA GAB. 
 
 " You could not go on living on such, terms — life wasn't 
 worth it, you know," said the first. 
 
 The third gentleman was more restrained, but Hugh paid 
 him marked deference. They had a short, muttered confer- 
 ence apart. 
 
 " Get the other mortgages wiped off the deeds and I have 
 no objection to lend you the money on the security of the 
 house and land," said the gentleman. At that remark Hugh 
 Eitson bowed his head and appeared satisfied. 
 
 He rang for breakfast. 
 
 " Ask Mr. Paul if he is ready," he said, when Dinah 
 brought the tray. 
 
 "Master Paul is abed, sir," said Dinah; and then she 
 added for herself: " It caps all — sec feckless wark. It dudn't 
 use to be so, for sure. I'll not say but a man may be that 
 changed in a twelvemoth — " 
 
 " Ah, I'll go to him myself," said Hugh; and begging to be 
 excused, he left the room. 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne followed him to the other side of the door. 
 
 " Have you counted the cost?" he asked. " It will be a 
 public scandal." 
 
 Hugh smiled, and answered with composure: 
 
 " Whose will be the loss?" 
 
 " God knows!" said the lawyer, with sudden energy. 
 
 Hugh glanced up quickly. There was the murmur of voices 
 from within the room they had just left. 
 
 " Is it that you are too jealous of your good name to allow 
 it to be bruited abroad in a scandal, as you say?" 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne's face wore a curious expression at that 
 moment. 
 
 " It's not my good name that is in question," he said, qui- 
 etly, and turned back to the door. 
 
 "Whose then? His?" 
 
 But the lawyer already held the door ajar, and was passing 
 into the room. 
 
 Hugh Eitson made his way to the bedroom occupied by Paul 
 Drayton. He opened the door without knocking. It was 
 iark within. Thin streaks of dusty sunlight shot from be- 
 tween a pair of heavy curtains. The air was noisome with 
 dead tobacco smoke and the fumes of stale beer. Hugh's 
 gorge rose, but he conquered his disgust. 
 
 " Who's there?" said a husky voice from behind the dark 
 hangings of a four-post bed that was all but hidden in the 
 gloom. 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 279 
 
 "The friends are here," sa^d Hugh Eitson, cheerily. 
 " How long will you be?" 
 
 There was a suppressed chuckle. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 " We will begin breakfast," said Hugh. He was turning 
 to go. 
 
 " Is that lawyer man back from Scotland?" asked Dray- 
 ton. 
 
 " Bonnithorne? He's here — he didn't say that he'd been 
 away," said Hugh. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 Hugh Ritson returned to the bed-head. " Have you heard," 
 he said in a subdued voice, " that the doctors have operated 
 on the girl Mercy, and that she is likely to regain her sight?" 
 
 " Eh? What?" Drayton had started up in bed. Then 
 rolling down his sleeves and buttoning them leisurely, he add- 
 ed: " But that ain't nothing to me." 
 
 Hugh Eitson left the room. He was in spirits indeed, for 
 he had borne even this encounter with equanimity. As he 
 passed through the house, Brother Peter entered at the porch 
 with a letter in his hand. 
 
 " Is Parson Christian coming?" said Hugh. 
 
 " Don't know 'at I've heard," said Peter. " He's bod- 
 dered me to fetch ye a scribe of a line. Here 'tis." 
 
 Hugh Ritson opened the envelope. The note ran : 
 
 " I can not reconcile it to my conscience to break bread 
 with one who has broken the peace of my household; nor is it 
 agreeable to my duty as a minister of Christ to give the Counte- 
 nance of my presence to proceedings which must be a sham, 
 inasmuch as the person concerned is an impostor — with the 
 which name I yet hope to brand him when the proper time 
 and circumstances arrive." 
 
 Hugh smiled as he read the letter; then he thrust a shilling 
 into Peter's unyielding hand, and shot away. 
 
 " The parson will not come," said Hugh, drawing Bonni- 
 thorne aside; " but that can not matter. If he is Greta's 
 guardian, you are her father's executor." Then, raising his 
 voice, " Gentlemen," he said, " my brother wishes us to begin 
 breakfast; he will join us presently." 
 
 The company was soon seated; the talk was brisk and 
 cheerful. 
 
 " Glorious prospect," said a gentleman sitting opposite the 
 open window. " Often wonder you don't throw out a bay, Mr. 
 Ritson." 
 
280 A SOU OF HAGAE. 
 
 " I've thought of it/' said Hugh, " but it's not worthwhile 
 to spend such money until one is master of one's own house." 
 
 " Ah, true, true!" said several voices in chorus. 
 
 Drayton entered, his eyes red, his face sallow. " Morning, 
 gents," he said in his thick guttural. 
 
 Two of the gentlemen rose, and bowed with frigid polite- 
 ness. " Good-morning, Mr. Eitson," said the third. 
 
 The servant had followed Drayton into the room with a 
 beefsteak underdone. " Post not come?" he asked, shifting 
 his plates. 
 
 " It can't be long now," said Bonnithorne, consulting his 
 watch. 
 
 " Sooner the better," Drayton muttered. He took some 
 papers from a breast-pocket and counted them; then fixed 
 them in his waistcoat, where his watch would have been if he 
 had worn one. 
 
 When breakfast was done, Hugh Eitson took certain docu- 
 ments from a cabinet. " Be seated, gentlemen," he said. 
 All sat except Drayton, who lighted a pipe, and rang to ask if 
 the postman had come. He had not. ' ' Then go and sharpen 
 up his heels." 
 
 " My duty would be less pleasant," said Hugh Eitson, " if 
 some of the facts were not already known." 
 
 " Then we'll take 'em as read, so we will," put in Drayton, 
 perambulating behind a cloud of smoke. 
 
 " Paul, I will ask you to be seated," said Hugh, in an al- 
 tered tone. 
 
 Drayton sat down with a snort. 
 
 " I have to tell you," continued Hugh Eitson, "that my 
 brother, known to you as Paul Eitson, is now satisfied that he 
 was not the heir of my father, who died intestate." 
 
 There were sundry nods of the grave noddles assembled 
 about the table. 
 
 " Fearful shock to any man," said one. " No wonder he 
 has lost heart and grown reckless," said another. 
 
 " On becoming aware of this fact, he was anxious to relin- 
 quish the estate to the true heir." 
 
 There were further nods, and some muttered comments on 
 the requirements of honor. 
 
 " I show you here a copy of the register of my father's mar- 
 riage, and a copy of the register of my own birth, occurring 
 less than a year afterward. From these, in the absence of ex- 
 traordinary testimony, it must be the presumption that I am 
 myself my father's rightful heir." 
 
A SON OT HAGAR. 281 
 
 The papers were handed about and returned with evident 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " So far, all is plain," continued Hugh Eitson. " But my 
 brother has learned that he is not even my father's son." 
 
 Three astonished faces were lifted from the table. Bonni- 
 thorne sat with head bent. Drayton leaned an elbow on one 
 knee and smoked sullenly. 
 
 " It turns out that he is the son of my mother by another 
 man," said Hugh Ritson. 
 
 The guests twisted about. " Ah, that explains all," they 
 whispered. 
 
 " You will be surprised to learn that my mother's husband 
 by a former invalid marriage was no other than Eobert Low- 
 ther, and that he who sits with us now as Paul Eitson is really 
 Paul Lowther." 
 
 At this, Hugh placed two further documents on the table. 
 
 Drayton cleared his throat noisily. 
 
 "Dear me, dear me! yet it's plain enough!" said one of 
 the visitors. 
 
 " Then what about Mrs. Ritson — Miss Greta, I mean?" 
 asked another. 
 
 " She is Paul Lowther's half-sister, and therefore his mar- 
 riage with her must be annulled." 
 
 The three gentlemen turned in their seats and looked 
 amazed. Drayton still smoked in silence. Bonnithorne did 
 not raise his head. 
 
 " He will relinquish to me my father's estates, but he is 
 not left penniless," continued Hugh Eitson. " By his own 
 father's will he inherits five thousand pounds." 
 
 Drayton snorted contemptuously, then spat on the floor. 
 
 " Friends," said Hugh Eitson again, "there is only one 
 further point, and I am loath to touch on it. My brother — I 
 speak of Paul Lowther — on taking possession of the estates, 
 exercised what he believed to be his legal right to mortgage 
 them. I am sorry to say that he mortgaged them deeply." 
 
 There was an interchange of astute glances. 
 
 " If I were a rich man, I should be content to be the loser, 
 but I am a poor man, and am compelled to ask that those 
 mortgages stand forfeit." 
 
 " Is it the law?" 
 
 " It is — and, as you will say, only a fair one," Hugh an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Who are the mortgagees?" 
 
 " That is where the pity arises — the chief of them is no othei 
 than the daughter of Eobert Lowther — Greta." 
 
282 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 Sundry further twists and turns. " Pity for her." " Well, 
 she should have seen to his title. Who was her lawyer?" 
 
 " Her father's executor, our friend Mr. Bonnithorne. " 
 
 " How much does she lose?" 
 
 " I'm afraid a great deal — perhaps half her fortune," said 
 Hugh. 
 
 " No matter; it's but fair. Mr. Eitson is not to inherit an 
 estate impoverished by the excesses of the wrong man." 
 
 Drayton's head was still bent, but he scraped his feet rest- 
 lessly. 
 
 "I have only another word to say," said Hugh. "In 
 affairs of this solemn nature, it is best to have witnesses, or 
 perhaps I should have preferred to confer with Paul and Mr. 
 Bonnithorne in private." He dropped his voice and added: 
 " You see, there is my poor mother; and though, in a sense, 
 she is no longer of this world, her good name must ever be 
 sacred with me." 
 
 The astute glances again, and two pairs of upraised hands. 
 The lawyer had twisted toward the window. 
 
 " But our friend Bonnithorne will tell you that the law in 
 effect compelled me to evict my brother. You may not know 
 that there is a condition of English law in which a bastard be- 
 comes a permanent heir; that is when he is called, in the 
 language of the law, the bastard eigne." There was a tremor 
 in Ms voice as he added softly: " Believe me, I had no choice." 
 
 Drayton stamped his heavy foot, threw down his pipe, and 
 jumped to his feet. " It's a lie, the lot of it!" he blurted. 
 Then he fumbled at his watch-pocket, and pulled out a paper. 
 " That's my register, straight and plain." 
 
 He stammered it aloud: 
 
 " Bitson, Paul; father, Allan Eitson; mother, Grace Eitson. 
 Date of birth, April 6, 1847; place, Crieff, Scotland." 
 
 Hugh Eitson, a little pale, smiled. The others turned to 
 him in their amazement. In an instant he had regained an 
 appearance of indifference. 
 
 " Where does it come from?" he asked. 
 
 " The registrar's at Edinburgh. D'ye say it ain't right?" 
 
 " No; but I say, what is it worth? Gentlemen," said 
 Hugh, turning to the visitors, " compare it with the register 
 of my father's marriage. Observe, the one date is April 6, 
 J.847; the other is June 12, 1847. Even if genuine, does it 
 prove legitimacy?" 
 
 Drayton laid his hand on the lawyer's arm. " Here you 
 speak up, will ye?" he said. 
 
A SON OF HAGAJJ. SSii 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne rose, and then Hugh Eitson's pale iucb be- 
 came ghastly. 
 
 " This birth oocurred in Scotland," he said. " Now, if the 
 father happened to hold a Scotch domicile, and the mother 
 lived with him as his wife, the child would be legitimate." 
 
 " Without a marriage?" 
 
 " Without a ceremony." 
 
 Natt pushed into the room, his cap in one hand, a letter in 
 the other. He had knocked twice, and none had heard. " The 
 post, sir; one letter for Master Paul." 
 
 " Good lad!" Drayton clutched it with a cry of delight. 
 
 " But my father had no Scotch domicile," said Hugh, with 
 apparent composure. 
 
 " Oh, but he had," said Drayton, tearing open his envelope. 
 
 " He was a Scotsman born," said Bonnithorne, taking an- 
 other document from Drayton's hand. " See, this is his 
 register. Odd, isn't it?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson's eyes flashed. He looked steadily into the 
 face of the lawyer, then he took the paper. 
 
 Then next moment he crushed it in his palm and flung it 
 out of the window. "I shall want proof both of your facts 
 and your law," he said. 
 
 "Eh, and welcome," said Drayton, shouting in his agita- 
 tion. " Listen to this," and he proceeded to read. 
 
 " Wait! From whom?" asked Hugh Eitson. " Some pet- 
 tifogger?" 
 
 " The solicitor-general," said Bonnithorne. 
 
 " Is that good enough?" asked Drayton, tauntingly. 
 
 " Go on," said Hugh, rapping the table with his finger-tips. 
 
 Drayton handed the letter to the lawyer. " Do you read 
 it," he said; " I ain't flowery. I'm a gentleman, and — " He 
 stopped suddenly and tramped the floor, while Bonnithorne 
 read: 
 
 " If there is no reason to suppose the father lost his Scotch 
 domicile, the son is legitimate. If the husband recognized his 
 wife in registering his son's birth, the law of Scotland would 
 presume that there was a marriage, but whether of ceremony 
 or consent would be quite indifferent." 
 
 There was a pause. Drayton took the letter from the law- 
 yer's hands, folded it carefully, and put it in his fob-pocket. 
 Then he peered into Hugh Eitson's face with a leer of tri- 
 umph. Bonnithorne had slunk aside. The guests were 
 silent. 
 
 " D'ye hear?" said Drayton, " the son is legitimate." He 
 
284 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 gloated over the words, and tapped his pocket as he repeated 
 them. " What d'ye say to it, eh?" 
 
 At first Hugh Eitson struggled -visibly for composure, and 
 in an instant his face was like marble. Drayton came close 
 to him. 
 
 " You were going to give me the go-by, eh? Turn me out- 
 o'-doors, eh? Damme, it's my turn now, so it is!" 
 
 So saying, Drayton stepped to the door and flung it open. 
 
 " This house is mine," he said; " go, and be damned to 
 
 you!" 
 
 At this unexpected blow, Hugh Eitson beat the ground with 
 his foot. He looked round at the strangers, and felt like a 
 wretch who was gagged and might say nothing. Then he 
 halted to where Drayton stood with outstretched arm. 
 
 " Let me have a word with you in private," he said in a 
 voice that was scarcely audible. 
 
 Drayton lifted his hand, and his fist was clinched. 
 
 " Not a syllable!" he said. His accent was brutal and 
 frenzied. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's nostrils quivered, and his eyes flashed. 
 Drayton quailed an instant, and burst into a laugh. 
 
 There was a great silence. Bonnithorne was still before the 
 window, his face down, his hands clasped behind him, his foot 
 pawing the ground. Hugh Eitson walked to his side. He 
 contemplated him a moment, and then touched him on the 
 shoulder. When he spoke, his face was dilated with passion, 
 and his voice was low and deep. 
 
 "There is a Book," he said, "that a Churchman may 
 know, which tells of an unjust steward. The master thought 
 to dismiss him from his stewardship. Then the steward said 
 within himself, ' What shall I do?' " 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " What did he do?" continued Hugh Eitson, and every 
 word fell on the silence like the stroke of a bell. " He called 
 his master's debtors together, and said to the first, ' How 
 much do you owe?' 'One hundred measures.' Then he 
 said, ' Write a bill for fifty.' " 
 
 There was another pause. 
 
 " What did that steward mean? He meant that when the 
 master should dismiss him from his stewardship, the debtor 
 should take him into his house. " 
 
 Hugh Eitson's manner was the white heat of calm. He 
 turned half round to where Drayton stood, and raised his 
 voice. 
 
 " That debtor was henceforth bound hand and foot. Let 
 
A SOtt Of . ttAGAK. 285 
 
 him but parley with the steward, and the steward cried, 
 ' Thief/ 'Forger,' ' Perjurer.' " 
 
 Bonnithorne shuffled uneasily. He opened his mouth as if 
 to speak, but the words would not come. At last he gulped 
 down something that had seemed to choke him, smiled be- 
 tween his teeth a weak, bankrupt smile, and said: 
 
 " How are we to read your parable? Are you the debtor 
 bound hand and foot, and is your brother the astute steward?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson's foot fell heavily. 
 
 " Is it so?" he said, catching at the word. " Then be it 
 so;" and his voice rose to a shrill cry. " That steward shall 
 come to the ground, and his master with him!" 
 
 At that he stepped back to where Drayton stood with eyes as 
 full of bewilderment as frenzy. 
 
 " Paul Lowther— ; ' he said. 
 
 " Call me Paul Ritson;" interrupted Drayton. 
 
 "Paul Lowther—" 
 
 " Eitson!" Drayton shouted, aud then, dropping his voice, 
 he said, rapidly: " You gave it me, and by God I'll keep it!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson leaned across the table and tapped a paper that 
 lay on it. 
 
 " That is your name," he said, " aud I'll prove it." 
 
 Drayton burst into another laugh. 
 
 " You daren't try," he chuckled. 
 
 Hugh turned upon him with eyes of fire. 
 
 " So you measure my spirit by your own. Man, man!" he 
 said, " do you know what you are doing?" 
 
 There was another brutal laugh from Drayton, but it died 
 suddenly on his lips. 
 
 Then Hugh Ritson stepped to the door. He took a last 
 look round. It was as if he knew that he had reached the 
 beginning of the end — as if he realized that he was never again 
 to stand in the familiar room. The future, that seemed so 
 near an hour ago, was gone from him forever; the cup that he 
 had lifted to his lips lay in fragments at his feet. He saw it 
 all in that swift instant. On his face there were the lines of 
 agony, but over them there played the smile of resolve. He 
 put one hand to his forehead, and then said in a voice so low 
 as to be no more than a whisper: 
 
 "Wait and see." 
 
 When the guests, who stood huddled together like sheep 
 in a storm, had recovered their stunned senses, Hugh Ritson 
 was gone from the room. Drayton had sunk into a chair near 
 where Bonnithorne stood, and was whining like a whipped 
 hound. 
 
286 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 " Go after him! What will he do? You know I was always 
 against it!" 
 
 But presently he stood up and laughed, and bantered and 
 crowed, and observed that it was a pity if a gentleman coulc 
 not be master in his own house, and that what couldn't be 
 cured must be endured. 
 
 " Precisely," interposed one of the guests, " and you have 
 my entire sympathy, Mr. Eitson. A more cruel deception was 
 never more manfully exposed." 
 
 " I fully agree with you, neighbor," said another, " and 
 such moral tyranny is fearful to contemplate. Paul Lowther, 
 indeed! Now, that is a joke." 
 
 " Well, it is rather, ain't it?" said Drayton. And then he 
 laughed, and they all laughed and shook hands, and were ex- 
 cellent good friends. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 Greta stayed with Mercy until noon that day, begging, en- 
 treating, and finally commanding her to lie quiet in bed, while 
 she herself dressed and fed the child, and cooked and cleaned, 
 in spite of the Laird Fisher's protestations. When all was 
 done, and the old charcoal-burner had gone out on the hills, 
 Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms and went to Mer- 
 cy's room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an instant 
 was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips 
 smiled, her delicate fingers plucked nervously at the counter- 
 pane. 
 
 "How brightsome it is to-day, Greta," she said. "I'm 
 sure the sun must be shining. " 
 
 The window was open, and a soft breeze floated through the 
 sun's rays into the room. Mercy inclined her head aside, and 
 added, " Ah, you young rogue you; you are there, are you? 
 Give him to me, the rascal!" The rogue was set down in his 
 mother's arms, and she proceeded to punish his rascality with 
 a shower of kisses. " How bonny his cheeks must be; they 
 will be just like two ripe apples," and forthwith there fell an- 
 other shower of kisses. Then she babbled over the little one, 
 and lisped, and stammered, and nodded her head in his face, 
 and blew little puffs of breath into his hair, and tickled him 
 until he laughed and crowed and rolled and threw up his legs; 
 and then she kissed his limbs and extremities in a way that 
 mothers have, and finally imprisoned one of his feet by putting 
 it ankle deep into her mouth. " Would you ever think a foot 
 could be so tiny, Greta?" she said. And the little one 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 28? 
 
 plunged about and clambered laboriously up its mother's 
 breast, and more than once plucked at the white bandage, 
 about her head. " No, no; Ealphie must not touch," said 
 Mercy with sudden gravity. " Only think, Ealphie pet, one 
 week — only one — ay, less — only six days now, and then — oh, 
 then — " A long hug, and the little fellow's boisterous protest 
 against the convulsive pressure abridged the mother's proph- 
 ecy. 
 
 All at once Mercy's manner changed. She turned toward 
 Greta, and said: " I will not touch the bandage, no, never; 
 but if Ealphie tugged at it, and it fell— would that be breaking 
 my promise?" 
 
 Greta saw what was in her heart. 
 
 "I'm afraid it would, dear," she said; but there was a trem- 
 or in her voice. 
 
 Mercy sighed audibly. 
 
 " Just think, it would be only Ealphie. The kind doctors 
 could not be angry with my little child. I would say, ' It was 
 the boy,' and they would smile and say, ' Ah, that is differ- 
 ent.' " 
 
 " Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion. 
 
 Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause. 
 
 " I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. " Oh! 
 you would not think what a fearful thing came into my mind 
 a minute ago. Take my Ealphie. Just imagine, my own in- 
 nocent baby tempted me." 
 
 As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his 
 mother's lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, 
 by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence 
 of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little exist- 
 ence. " Puss — dat," many times repeated, was further ex- 
 plained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger-nail 
 pointed to the fat back of the other hand. 
 
 " He means that the little cat has scratched him," said 
 Greta, " but bless the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand." 
 
 " Puss — dat," continued the child, and peered up into his 
 mother's sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. 
 She had borne yesterday's operation without a groan, but now 
 the scratch on her child's hand went to her heart like a stab. 
 
 " Lie quiet, Mercy," said Greta; " it will be gone to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 " Go-on," echoed the little chap, and pointed out at the 
 window. 
 
 " The darling, how he picks up every word!" said Greta, 
 
 " He nieans the horse," explained Mercy. 
 
288 A SOK OP HAGAB. 
 
 " Go-on — man — go-on/' prattled the little one, with a 
 child's indifference to all conversation except his own. 
 
 " Bless the love, he must remember the doctor and his 
 horse," said Greta. 
 
 Mercy was putting her lips to the scratch on the little hand. 
 
 " Oh, Greta, I am very childish; but a mother's heart melts 
 like butter." 
 
 "Batter," echoed the child, and wriggled out of Greta's 
 arms to the ground, where he forthwith clambered on to the 
 stool, and possessed himself of a slice of bread which lay on 
 the table at the bedside. Then the fair curly head disappeared 
 like a glint of sunlight through the door to the kitchen. 
 
 " What shall I care if other mothers see my child? I shall 
 see him, too," said Mercy, and she sighed. "Yes," she added 
 softly, " his hands and his eyes and his feet and his soft 
 hair." 
 
 " Try to sleep an hour or two, dear," said Greta, "and 
 then perhaps you may get up this afternoon — only perhaps, 
 you know, but we'll see." 
 
 " Yes, Greta, yes. How kind you are." 
 
 " You will be far kinder to me some day," said Greta, very 
 tenderly. 
 
 " No — ah, yes, I remember. How very selfish I am — I had 
 quite forgotten. But then it is so hard not to be selfish when 
 you are a mother. Only fancy, I never think of myself as 
 Mercy now. No, never. I'm just Kalphie's mamma. When 
 Rilphie came, Mercy must have died in some way. That's 
 very silly, isn't it? Only it does seem true." 
 
 " Man — go-on — batter," was heard from the kitchen, 
 mingled with the patter of tiny feet. 
 
 " Listen to him. How tricksome he is! And you should 
 hear him cry, ' Oh!' You would say, ' That child has had an 
 eye knocked out. ' And then, in a minute, behold! he's laugh- 
 ing once more. There, I'm selfish again; but I will make up 
 for it some day, if God is good." 
 
 " Yes, Mercy, He is good," said Greta. 
 
 Her arm rested on the door-jamb, and her head dropped on 
 to it; her eyes swam. Did it seem at that moment as if God 
 had been very good to these two women? 
 
 " Greta," said Mercy, and her voice fell to a whisper, " do 
 you think Ealphie is like — anybody?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, he is like you." 
 
 There was a pause. Then Mercy's hand strayed from under 
 the bedclothes and plucked at Greta's gown. 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 289 
 
 " Do you think," she asked, in a Toice all but inaudible, 
 " that father knows who it is?" 
 
 " I can not say — we have never told him." 
 
 " Nor I — he never asked, never once — only, you know, he 
 gave up his work at the mine, and went back to the charcoal- 
 pit when Ealphie came. But he never said a word." 
 
 Greta did not answer. There was another pause. Then 
 Mercy said, in a stronger voice, " Will it be soon — the trial?" 
 
 " As soon as your eyes are better," said Greta, earnestly; 
 " everything depends on your recovery." 
 
 At that moment the bedroom door was pushed open with 
 a little lordly bang, and the great wee man entered with his 
 piece of bread stuck rather insecurely on one prong of a fork. 
 
 "Toas," he explained complacently, " toas/' and walked 
 up to the empty grate and stretched his arm over the fender 
 at the cold bars. 
 
 " Why, there's no fire for toast, you darling goose," said 
 Greta, catching him in her arms, much to his masculine vex- 
 ation. 
 
 Mercy had risen on an elbow, and her face was full of the 
 yearning of the blind. Then she lay back. 
 
 " Never mind," she said to herself in a faltering voice, 
 " let me lie quiet and think of all his pretty ways." 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Geeta returned to the vicarage toward noon, and overtook 
 Parson Christian and Peter in the lonnin, the one carrying a 
 scythe over his shoulder, the other a bundle of rushes under 
 his one arm. The parson was walking in silence under the 
 noontide sun, his straw hat tipped back from his forehead and 
 his eyes on the ground. He was busy with his own reflections. 
 It was not until Greta had tripped up to his side and slipped 
 his scythe-stone from its strap in the pole that the parson was 
 awakened from his reverie. 
 
 " Great news, Greta — great news, my lass!" he said in an- 
 swer to her liberal tender in exchange for his thoughts. " How 
 well it's said, that he that diggeth a pit for another should 
 look that he fall not into it himself." 
 
 " What news, Mr. Christian?" said Greta, and her color 
 heightened. 
 
 ' Well, we've been mowiDg the grass in the church-yard, 
 
 Peter and I, and the scythe is old like ourselves, and it wanted 
 
 tempering. 80 away we went to the smithy to have it ground, 
 
 and who should come up but Eobbie Atkinson, leading has- 
 
 W 
 
290 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 socks from Longridge. And Robbie would fain have us go 
 with him and be cheerful at the Flying Horse. Well, we'd 
 each had a pot of ale and milk, when in came Natt, the stable- 
 man at Ritson's, all lather like one of his horses after his mas- 
 ter has been astride her. And Natt was full of a great quarrel 
 at the Ghyll, wherein young Mr. Hugh had tried to turn yon- 
 der man out of the house in the way 1 told you of before, but 
 the man denied that he was what Hugh called him, and clung 
 to it that he was Paul Ritson, and brought documents to show 
 that Paul was his father's rightful heir, after all." 
 
 " Well, well?" asked Greta, breathlessly. 
 
 Peter had shambled on to the house. 
 
 " Well, Natt is no very trustworthy chronicler, I fear, but 
 one thing is plain, and that is, that Mr. Hugh, who thought 
 to turn yon man out of the house, has been turned out of it 
 himself." 
 
 Greta stood in the road, trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " My poor husband!" she said in a whisper. Then came 
 a torrent of questions. " When did this happen? What 
 think you will come of it? Where will Hugh go? What will 
 he do? Ah, Mr. Christian, you always said the cruel instru- 
 ment would turn in his hand!" 
 
 There was a step behind them. In their anxiety they had 
 not noticed it until it was close at their heels. They turned, 
 and were face to face with Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 The lawyer bowed, but before they had exchanged the 
 courtesies of welcome, a horse's tramp came from the road, 
 and in a moment Drayton rode up the lonnin. His face was 
 flushed, and his manner noisy as he leaped from the saddle 
 into their midst. 
 
 Greta lifted one hand to her breast, and with the other hand 
 she clasped that of the parson. The old man's face grew rigid 
 in an instant, and all the mellowness natural to it died away. 
 
 Drayton made up to Greta and the parson with an air of 
 braggadocio. 
 
 "I've come to tell you once for all that my wife must live 
 under my roof." 
 
 No one answered. Drayton took a step near, and slapped 
 his boot with his riding-whip. 
 
 " The law backs me up in it, and I mean to have it out." 
 
 Still there was no answer, and Drayton's braggadocio gath- 
 ered assurance from the silence. 
 
 " Not as I want her. None of your shrinking away, 
 madame." A hoarse laugh. " Burn my body! if I wouldn't 
 as soon have my mother for a wife." 
 
' Imprison me, and I shall be rid of you and your imposture."— Page iqi. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 291 
 
 " What then?" said the parson in a low tone. 
 
 " Appearances. I ain't to be a laughing-stock of the neigh- 
 borhood any longer. My wife's my wife. A husband's a hus- 
 band, and wants obedience." 
 
 " And what if you do not get it?" asked the parson, his old 
 face whitening. 
 
 "What? Imprisonment — that's what." Drayton twisted 
 about and touched the lawyer with the handle of his whip. 
 "Here, you, tell 'em what's what." 
 
 Thus appealed to, Mr. Bonnithorne explained that a hus- 
 band was entitled to the restitution of connubial rights, and, 
 in default, to the " attachment " of his spouse. 
 
 " The law," said Mr. Bonnithorne, " can compel a wife to 
 live with her husband, or punish her with imprisonment for 
 not doing so." 
 
 " D'ye hear?" said Drayton, slapping furiously at the sole 
 of his boot. " Punish her with imprisonment." 
 
 There was a pause, and then the parson said, quietly but 
 firmly: 
 
 " I gather that it means that you want to share this lady's 
 property." 
 
 " Well, what of it? Hain't I a right to share it, eh?" 
 
 " You have thus far enjoyed the benefit of her mortgages, 
 on the pretense that you are her husband; but now you are 
 going too far." 
 
 " We'll see. Here, you," prodding the lawyer, " take 
 proceedings at once. If she won't come, imprison her. D'ye 
 hear — imprison her!" 
 
 He swung about and caught the reins from the horse's 
 mane, laughing a hollow laugh. Greta disengaged her hand 
 from the hand of the parson, and stepped up to Drayton until 
 she stood before him face to face, her eyes flashing, her lips 
 quivering, her cheeks pale, her whole figure erect and firm. 
 
 " And what of that?" she said. " Do you think to frighten 
 me with the cruelties of the law? — me? — me?" she echoed, 
 with scorn in every syllable. " Have I suffered so little from 
 it already that you dare to say, ' Imprison her,' as if that 
 would drive me to your house?" 
 
 Drayton tried to laugh, but the feeble effort died on his hot 
 lips. He spat on the ground, and then tried to lift his eyes 
 back to the eyes of Greta, but they fell to the whip that he 
 held in his hand. 
 
 " Imprison me, Paul Drayton! I shall not be the first 
 you've imprisoned. Imprison me, and I shall be rid of you 
 and your imposture!" she said, raising her voice. 
 
#92 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 Drayton leaped to the saddle. 
 
 " I'll do it!" he muttered; and now, pale, crushed, hid 
 braggadocio gone, he tugged his horse's head aside and brought 
 down the whip on its flank. 
 
 Parson Christian turned to Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 
 " Follow him," he said, resolutely, and lifted his hand. 
 
 The lawyer made a show of explanation, then assumed an 
 air of authority, but finally encountered the parson's white 
 face, and turned away. 
 
 In another moment Greta was hanging on Parson Christian's 
 neck, sobbing and moaning, while the good old Christian, with 
 all the mellowness back in his wrinkled face, smoothed her 
 hair as tenderly as a woman. 
 
 " My poor Paul, my dear husband!" cried Greta. 
 
 " Ah! thanks be to God, things are at their worst now, and 
 they can't move but they must mend," said the parson. 
 
 He took her indoors and bathed her hot forehead, and diied 
 with his hard old hand the tears that fell from eyes that a 
 moment before had flashed like a basilisk's. 
 
 Toward five o'clock that evening a knock came to the door 
 of the vicarage, and old Laird Fisher entered. His manner 
 was more than usually solemn and constrained. 
 
 " I's coom't to say as ma lass's wee thing is taken badly," 
 he said, "and rayder sudden "t." 
 
 Greta rose from her seat and put on her hat and cloak. She 
 was hastening down the road while the charcoal-burner was 
 still standing in the middle of the floor. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 When Greta reached the old charcoal-burner's cottage, the 
 little one was lying in a drowsy state in Mercy's arms. Its 
 breathing seemed difficult; sometimes it started in terror; it 
 was feverish and suffered thirst. The mother's wistful face 
 was bent down on it with an indescribable expression. There 
 were only the trembling lips to tell of the sharp struggle that 
 was going on within. But the yearning for a sight of the 
 little flushed countenance, the tearless appeal for but one 
 glimpse of the drowsy little eyes, the half-articulate cry of a 
 mother's heart against the fate that made the child she had 
 suckled at her breast a stranger, whose very features she might 
 not know — all this was written in that blind face. 
 
 " Is he pale?" said Mercy. " Is he sleeping? He does net 
 »alk now, but only starts and cries, and sometimes coughs." 
 
 '• When did this begin?" asked Greta. 
 
A SON OF HAGAfc. 293 
 
 cc Toward four o'clock. He had been playing, and I no- 
 ticed that he breathed heavily, and then he came to me to be 
 nursed. Is he awake now? Listen." 
 
 The little one in its restless drowsiness was muttering faint- 
 ly, "Man — go-on — batter — toas." 
 
 " The darling is talking in his sleep, isn't he?" said Mercy. 
 
 Then there was a ringing, brassy cough. 
 
 " It is croup," thought Greta. 
 
 She closed the window, lighted a fire, placed the kettle so 
 that the steam might enter the room, then wrung flannels out 
 of hot water, and wrapped them about the child's neck. She 
 stayed all that night at the cottage, and sat up with the little 
 one and nursed it. Mercy could not be persuaded to go to 
 bed, but she was very quiet. It had not yet taken hold of her 
 that the child was seriously ill. He was drowsy and a little 
 feverish, his pulse beat fast and he coughed hard sometimes, 
 but he would be better in the morning. Oh, yes, he would 
 soon be well again, and tearing up the flowers in the garden. 
 
 Toward midnight the pulse fell rapidly, the breathing be- 
 came quieter, and the whole nature seemed to sink. Mercy 
 listened with her ear bent down at the child's mcuth, and a 
 smile of ineffable joy spread itself over her face. 
 
 " Bless him, he is sleeping so calmly," she said. 
 
 Greta did not answer. 
 
 " The ' puss ' and the ' man ' don't darken his little life so 
 much now," continued Mercy, cheerily. 
 
 " No, dear," said Greta, in as strong a voice as she could 
 summon. 
 
 " All will be well with my darling boy soon, will it not?" 
 
 " Yes, dear," said Greta, with a struggle. 
 
 Happily Mercy could not read the other answer in her face. 
 
 Mercy had put her sensitive fingers on the child's nose, and 
 was touching him lightly about the mouth. 
 
 "Greta," she said in a startled whisper, "does he look 
 pinched?" 
 
 " A little," said Greta, quietly. 
 
 " And his skin — is it cold, and clammy?" 
 
 " We must give him another hot flannel," said Greta. 
 
 Mercy sat at the bedside, and said nothing for an hour. 
 Then all at once, and in a strange, harsh voice, she said : 
 
 " I wish God had not made Ealphie so winsome." 
 
 Greta started at the words, but made no answer. 
 
 The daylight came early. As the first gleams of gray light 
 came in at the window, Greta turned to where Mercv sat ; v 
 
294 A SON OB HAGAB. 
 
 silence. It was a sad face that she saw in the mingled yellow 
 light of the dying lamp and the gray of the dawn. 
 
 Mercy spoke again. 
 
 " Greta, do you remember what Mistress Branthet said 
 when her baby died last back-end gone twelvemonth?" 
 
 Greta looked up quickly at the bandaged eyes. 
 
 " What?" she asked. 
 
 " Well, Parson Christian tried to comfort her, and said, 
 ' Your baby is now an angel in Paradise,' and she turned on 
 him with ' Shaf on your angels — I want none on 'em — I want 
 my little girl.' " 
 
 Mercy's voice broke into a sob. 
 
 Toward ten o'clock the doctor came. He had been de- 
 tained. Very sorry to disoblige Mrs. Eitson, but fact was old 
 Mr. de Broadthwaite had an attack of lumbago, complicated 
 by a bout of toothache, and everybody knew he was most ex- 
 acting. Young person's baby ill? Feverish, restless, starts in 
 its sleep, and cough? — Ah, croupy cough — yes, croup, true 
 croup, not spasmodic. Let him see; how old? A year and a 
 half? Ah, bad, very. Most frequent in second year of in- 
 fancy. Dangerous, highly so. Forms a membrane that oc- 
 cludes air passages. Often ends in convulsions, and child 
 suffocates. Sad, very. Let him see again. How long since 
 the attack began? Yesterday at four. Ah, far gone, far." 
 The great man soon vanished, leaving behind him a harmless 
 preparation of aconite and ipecacuanha. 
 
 Mercy had heard all, and her pent-up grief broke out in 
 sobs. 
 
 " Oh, to think I shall hear my Balphie no more, and to 
 know his white cold face is looking up from a coffin, while 
 other children are playing in the sunshine and chasing the 
 butterflies! No, no, it can not be; God will not let it come to 
 pass; I will pray to Him and He will save my child. Why, 
 He can do anything, and He has all the world. What is my 
 little baby boy to Him? He will not let it be taken from me!" 
 
 Greta's heart was too full for speech. But she might weep 
 in silence, and none there would know. Mercy stretched 
 across the bed and, tenderly folding the child in her arms, she 
 lifted him up, and then went down on her knees. 
 
 "Merciful Father," she said in a childish voice of sweet 
 confidence, " this is my baby, my Ealphie, and I love him so 
 dearly. You would never think how much I love him. But 
 he is ill, and doctor says he may die. Oh, dear Father, only 
 think what it would be to say, ' His little face is gone. ' And 
 then I have never seen him. You will not take him away 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 295 
 
 until his mother sees him. So soon, too. Only five days 
 more. Why, it is quite close. Not to-morrow, nor the next 
 day, nor the next, but the day after that!" 
 
 She put in many another child-like plea, and then rose with 
 a smile on her pale lips and replaced the little one on his pil- 
 low. 
 
 "How patient he is," she said. "He can't say 'Thank 
 you,' but I'm sure his eyes are speaking. Let me feel." She 
 put her finger lightly on the child's lids. " No, they are 
 shut; he must be sleeping. Oh, dear, he sleeps very much. 
 Is he gaining color? How quiet he is! If he would only say, 
 ' Mamma!' How I wish I could see him!" 
 
 She was very quiet for awhile, and then plucked at Greta's 
 gown suddenly. 
 
 " Greta," she said eagerly, " something tells me that if I 
 could only see Ealphie I should save him. 
 
 Greta started up in terror. " No, no, no; you must not 
 think of it," she said. 
 
 " But some one whispered it. It must have been God Him- 
 self. You know we ought to obey God always." 
 
 " Mercy, it was not God who said that. It was your own 
 heart. You must not heed it. " 
 
 " I'm sure it was God,," said Mercy. " And I heard it 
 quite plain." 
 
 " Mercy, my darling, think what you are saying. Think 
 what it is you wish to do. If you do it you will be blind 
 forever. " 
 
 " But I shall have saved my Ealphie." 
 
 " No, no; you will not." 
 
 " Will he not be saved, Greta?" 
 
 " Only our heavenly Father knows." 
 
 " Well, He whispered it in my heart. And, as you say, He 
 knows best." 
 
 Greta was almost distraught with fear. The noble soul in 
 her would not allow her to appeal to Mercy's gratitude against 
 the plea of maternal love. But she felt that all her happiness 
 hung on that chance. If" Mercy regained her sight, all would 
 be well with her and hers; but if she lost it the future must 
 be a blank. 
 
 The day wore slowly on, and the child sunk and sunk. At 
 evening the old charcoal-burner returned, and went into the 
 bedroom. He stood a moment and looked down at the pinch- 
 ed little face, and when the child's eyes opened drowsily for 
 a moment he put his withered forefinger into its palm; but 
 there was no longer a responsive clasp of the chubby hand. 
 
296 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 The old man's lips quivered behind his white beard. 
 
 " It were a winsome wee thing," he said, faintly, and then 
 turned away. 
 
 He left Ms supper untouched and went into the porch. 
 There he sat on a bench and whittled a blackthorn stick. 
 The sun was sinking over the head of the Eel Crag; the valley 
 lay deep in a purple haze; the bald top of Cat Bells stood out 
 bright in the glory of the passing day. A gentle breeze came 
 up from the south, and the young corn chattered with its 
 multitudinous tongues in the field below. The dog lay at the 
 charcoal-burner's feet, blinking in the sun and snapping lazily 
 at a buzzing fly. 
 
 The little life within was ebbing away. No longer racked 
 by the ringing cough, the loud breathing became less freauent 
 and more harsh. Mercy lifted the child from the bed and sat 
 with it before the fire. Greta saw its eyes open, and at the 
 same moment she saw the lips move slightly, but she heard 
 nothing. 
 
 " He is calling his mamma," said Mercy, with her ear bent 
 toward the child's mouth 
 
 There was a silence for a long time. Mercy pressed the 
 child to her breast; its close presence seemed to soothe her. 
 
 Greta stood and looked down; she saw the little lips move 
 once more, but again she heard no sound. 
 
 " He is calling his mamma," repeated Mercy, wistfully, 
 " and, oh, he seems such a long way off!" 
 
 Once again the little lips moved. 
 
 " He is calling me," said Mercy, listening intently; and 
 she grew restless and excited. "He is going away. lean 
 hear him. He is far off. Ralphie, Ealphie!" She had. lifted 
 the child up to her face. " Ealphie, Ealphie!" she cried. 
 
 " Give me the baby, Mercy," said Greta. 
 
 But the mother clung to it with a convulsive grasp. 
 
 " Ealphie, Ealphie, Ealphie! . . " 
 
 There was a sudden flash of some white thing. In an in- 
 stant the bandage had fallen from Mercy's head, and she was 
 peering down into the child's face with wild eyes. 
 
 " Ealphie, Ealphie! . . . Hugh!" she cried. 
 
 The mother had seen her babe at last, and in that instant 
 she had recognized the features of its father. 
 
 At the next moment the angel of God passed through that 
 troubled house, and the child lay dead at the mother's breast. 
 
 Mercy saw it all, and her impassioned mood left her. She 
 rose to her feet quietly, and laid the little one in the bed. 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 297 
 
 There was never a sigh more, never a tear. Only her face 
 was ashy pale, and her whitening lips quivered. 
 
 " Greta," she said, very slowly, will you go for him f" 
 
 Greta kissed the girl's forehead tenderly. Her own calm, 
 steadfast, enduring spirit sunk. All the world was dead to 
 her now. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she whispered. 
 
 The next minute she was gone from the room. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The evening was closing in; now and then the shrill cries 
 of the birds pealed and echoed in the still air; a long, fibrous 
 streak of silver in the sky ebbed away over the head of Hinds- 
 earth. Greta hastened toward the pit-brow. The clank of 
 the iron chain in the gear told that the cage in the shaft was 
 working. 
 
 It was a year and a half since her life had first been over- 
 shadowed by a disaster more black and terrible than death it- 
 self, and never for an instant had the clouds been lifted until 
 three days ago. Then, in a moment, the light had pierced 
 through the empty sky, and a way had been wrought for her 
 out of the labyrinth of misery. But even that passage for life 
 and hope and. love seemed now to be closed by the grim 
 countenance of doom. 
 
 Mercy would be blind forever! All was over and done. 
 Greta's strong, calm spirit sunk and sunk. She saw the im- 
 postor holding to the end the name and place of the good man; 
 and she saw the good man dragging his toilsome way through 
 life — an outcast, a by-word, loaded with ignominy, branded 
 with crime. And that unhappy man was her husband, and 
 he had no stay but in her love — no hope but in her faith. 
 
 Greta stopped at the door of Hugh Eitson's office and 
 knocked. A moment later he and she were face to face. He 
 was dressed in his pit flannels, and was standing by a table on 
 which a lamp burned. When he recognized her, he passed 
 one hand across his brow, the other he rested on the mantel- 
 piece. There was a momentary twitching of her lips, and he 
 involuntarily remarked that in the time that had passed since 
 they last met she had grown thinner. 
 
 "Come with me," she said in a trembling whisper. 
 " Mercy's child is dead, and the poor girl is asking for you in 
 her great trouble." 
 
 He did not speak at once, but shaded his eyes from the lamp. 
 Then he said, in a voice unlike his own: 
 
298 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 "I will follow you." 
 
 She had held the door in her nand, and now she turned to 
 go. He took one step toward her. 
 
 " Greta, have you nothing more to say to me?" he asked. 
 
 " What do you wish me to say?" 
 
 He did not answer; his eyes fell before her. 
 
 There was a slight wave of her hand as she added: 
 
 ' ' The same room ought never to contain both you and me 
 — it never should have done so — but this in not my errand." 
 
 " I have deserved it," he said, humbly. 
 
 " The cruel work is done — yes, done past undoing. You 
 have not heard the last of it. Then, since you ask me what I 
 have to say to you, it is this: That man, that instrument of 
 your malice who is now your master, has been to say that he 
 can compel me to live with him, or imprison me if I refuse. 
 Can he do it?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson lifted his eyes with a blind, vacant stare. 
 
 " To live with him? Him? You to live with him?" he 
 said, absently. 
 
 " To live under his roof — those were his words. Can he do 
 it? I mean if the law recognizes him as my husband?" 
 
 Hugh Bitson's eyes wandered. 
 
 " Do it? your husband?" he echoed, incoherently. 
 
 " I know well what he wants," said Greta, breathing heavily; 
 " it is not myself he is anxious for — but he can not have the 
 one without the other." 
 
 " The one without the other?" echoed Hugh Eitson in a 
 low tone. Then he strode across the room in visible agitation. 
 
 " Greta, that man is — Do you know who he is?" 
 
 " Paul Drayton, the innkeeper of Hendon," she answered, 
 calmly. 
 
 " No, no; he is your — " 
 
 He paused, his brows knit, his fingers interlaced. Her 
 bosom swelled. 
 
 " Would you tell me that he is my husband?" she said in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 Hugh Eitson again passed his hand across his brow. 
 
 " Greta, I have deserved your distrust," he said, in ai> 
 altered tone. 
 
 " What is done can never be undone," she answered. 
 
 His voice had regained its calmness, but his manner was 
 still agitated. 
 
 " I may serve you even yet," he said; " I have done you 
 too much wrong; I know that." 
 
A SON OE HAGAR. 291 
 
 " What is your remorse worth now?" she asked. " It 
 comes too late. " 
 
 Then he looked her steadily in the face, and replied: 
 
 " Greta, it is well said that the most miserable man in the 
 all the world is he who feels remorse before he does the wrong. 
 I was — I am — that man. I did what I did knowing well that 
 •■ I should repent it — ay, to the last hour of my life. But I was 
 driven to it— I had no power to resist it — it mastered me then 
 — it would master me now. " 
 
 The finger-tips of Greta's right hand were pressed close 
 against her cheek. Hugh Kitson took a step nearer. 
 
 " Greta," he said, and his voice fell to a broken whisper, 
 ' ' there are some men to whom love is a passing breath, a gen- 
 tle gale that beats on the face and sports in the hair, and tben 
 is gone. To me it is a wound, a deep, corrosive, inward 
 wound that yearns and burns." 
 
 Greta shuddered; it was as if his words stung her. Then 
 with an impatient gesture she turned again toward the door, 
 saying: 
 
 " This is the death-hour of your child, and, Heaven pardon 
 you, it seems to be the death-hour of your brother's hopes 
 too!" She faced about. " Do you think of him f" she 
 added, lifting her voice. " When you see this man in his 
 place, wasting his substance and mine, do you ever think of 
 him where he is?" 
 
 Her voice trembled and broke. There was a moment's si- 
 lence. She had turned her head aside, and he heard the low 
 sound of sobs. 
 
 " Yes, I think of him," he answered slowly. " At night, 
 in the sleepless hours, I do think of him where he is; and I 
 think of him as a happy man. Yes, a happy man! What if 
 he wears a convict's dress? — his soul is yoked to no deadening 
 burden. As for me — well, look at me!" 
 
 He smiled grimly. 
 
 "I have heard everything," said Greta; "you have sown 
 the wind, and you are reaping the whirlwind." 
 
 Something like a laugh broke from him. It came from the 
 Waters of bitterness that lay deep in his heart. 
 
 " Not that," he said. " All that will pass away." 
 
 She was on the threshold; a force of which she knew noth- 
 ing held her there. 
 
 " Greta, I am not so bad a man as perhaps I seem; I am a 
 riddle that you may not read. The time is near when I shall 
 trouble the world no more, and it will be but a poor wounded 
 
300 A SON OF HA GAR. 
 
 name I shall leave behind me, will it not? Greta, would it 
 be a mockery to ask you to forgive me?" 
 
 " There are others who have more to forgive," said Greta. 
 " One of them is waiting for you at this moment; and, poor 
 girl! her heart is broken." 
 
 Hugh Eitson bent his head slightly, and Greta pulled the 
 door after her. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The evening had closed in; the watery veil that goes be-. 
 tween day and night was hanging in the air; the wind had 
 risen, and the trees were troubled. When Hugh Eitson 
 reached the cottage, all was dark about the house save for the 
 red glow from the peat fire which came out into the open 
 porch. The old Laird Fisher was sitting there, a blackthorn 
 stick at his feet, his elbows on his knees, his cheeks rested on 
 his hands. The drowsy glow fell on his drooping white head. 
 As Hugh Ritson passed into the kitchen, the old man lifted to 
 his a countenance on which grief and reproach were stamped 
 together. Hugh Eitson's proud spirit was rebuked by the 
 speechless sorrow of that look. It was such a look as a 
 wounded hound lifts to the eyes of a brutal master. 
 
 A sheep-dog was stretched at full length before the slumber- 
 ing fire. The kitchen was empty, and silent too, except for 
 the tick of the clock and the colly's labored breathing. But 
 at the sound of Hugh's uncertain step on the hard earthen 
 floor, the door of the bedroom opened, and Greta motioned 
 him to enter. 
 
 A candle burned near the bed. Before a fire, Mercy Fisher 
 sat with Parson Christian. Her head lay on a table that stood 
 between, her face buried in her encircled arms. One hand lay 
 open beside the long loose tresses of yellow hair, and the par- 
 son's hand rested upon it caressingly. Parson Christian rose 
 as Hugh Eitson entered, and bowing coldly, he left the room; 
 Greta had already gone out, and he rejoined her in the kitchen. 
 
 Mercy lifted her head and looked up at Hugh. There was 
 not a tear in her weary, red, swollen eyes, and not a sigh came 
 from her heaving breast. She rose quietly, and taking Hugh's 
 hand in her own, she drew him to the bedside. 
 
 " See where he is," she said in a voice of piercing earnest- 
 ness, and with her other hand she lifted a handkerchief from 
 the little white face. Hugh Eitson shuddered. He saw his 
 own features as if memory had brought them in an instant 
 from the long past. 
 
1 See where he is, 1 ' she said, in a voice of piercing 1 earnestness. — Pa£ejoo, 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 301 
 
 Mercy disengaged her hand, and silently hid her face. But 
 she did not weep. 
 
 " My little Ralphie," she said plaintively, " how quiet he 
 is now! Oh, but you should have seen him when he was like 
 a glistening ray of morning light. Why did you not come be- 
 fore?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson stood there looking down at the child's dead 
 face, and made no answer. 
 
 " It is better as it is," his heart whispered at that moment. 
 The next instant his whole frame quivered. What was the 
 thought that had risen unbidden within him? Better that his 
 child should he there cold and lifeless than that it should fill 
 this desolate house with joy and love? Was he, then, so black 
 a villain? God forbid! Yet it was better so. 
 
 " All is over now," said Mercy, and her hands fell from her 
 face. She turned her weary eyes full upon him, and added: 
 " We have been punished already. " 
 
 "Punished?" said Hugh. "We?" There was silence for 
 a moment; and then, dropping his voice until it was scarcely 
 audible, he said: "Your burden is heavy to bear, my poor 
 girl." 
 
 Her slight figure swayed a little. 
 
 " I could bear it no longer," she answered. 
 
 " Many a one has thought that before you," he said; " but 
 God alone knows what we can not bear until we are tried." 
 
 " Well, all is over now," she repeated listlessly. 
 
 She spoke of herself as if her days were already ended and 
 past; as if her orb of life had been rounded by the brief span 
 of the little existence that lay finished upon the bed. Hugh 
 Bitson looked at her, and the muscles of his face twitched. 
 Her weary eyes were still dry; their dim light seemed to 
 come from far away. 
 
 " How I prayed that I might see my Balphie," she said. 
 " I thought surely God had willed it that I should never 
 see my child. Perhaps that was to be my punishment for — 
 all that had taken place. But I prayed still. Oh, you would 
 not think how much I pray! But it must have been a wieked 
 prayer." 
 
 She hid her face once more in her hands, and added, with 
 unexpected animation: 
 
 "God heard my prayer, and answered it — but see!" She 
 pointed to the child. " 1 saw him — yes, I saw him — die!" 
 
 Hugh Bitson was moved, but his heart was bitter. At that 
 moment he cursed the faith that held in bondage the soul of 
 the woman at his side. Would that he could trample it 
 
302 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 underfoot, and break forever the chains by which it held the 
 simple. 
 
 " Hugh," she said, and her voice softened, " we are about 
 to part forever. Our little Ealphie — yours and mine — he calls 
 me. I could not live without him. God would not make me 
 do that. He has punished me already, and He is merciful. 
 Only think, our Ealphie is in heaven!" 
 
 She paused and bit her lip, and drew her breath audibly in- 
 ward. Her face took then a death-like hue, and all at once 
 her voice overflowed with anguish. 
 
 " Do you know, something whispered at that instant that 
 God had not punished us enough, that Ealphie was not in 
 heaven, and that the sins of the fathers — Oh, my darling, 
 my darling!" 
 
 With a shrill cry she stopped, turned to the bed, threw her 
 outspread arms about the child, and kissed it fervently. 
 
 The tears came at length, and rained down on that little 
 silent face. Hugh Eitson could support the strain no longer. 
 
 " Mercy," he said, and his voice had a deep tremor — 
 " Mercy, if there is any sin, it is mine, and if there is to be 
 any punishment hereafter, that will be mine too. As for your 
 little boy, be sure he is in heaven." He had stepped to the 
 door, and his thumb was on the wooden latch. " You say 
 rightly, we shall never meet again," he said in a muffled 
 voice. "'' Good-bye." 
 
 Mercy lifted her tearful face. " Give me your hand at 
 parting," she said in an imploring tone. He was on the op- 
 posite side of the bed from where she stood, and she reached 
 her hand across it. He took a step nearer, and his hand closed 
 in hers. Between them and beneath their clasped hands lay 
 the child. " Hugh, we could not love in this world — some- 
 thing went astray with us; but we shall meet again, shall we 
 not?" 
 
 He turned his eyes away. 
 
 " Perhaps," he answered. 
 
 " Promise me," she said — " promise me." 
 
 He drew his breath hard. 
 
 " If there is a God and a judgment, be sure we shall meet," 
 he said. 
 
 His voice broke. He turned abruptly aside and hurried out 
 of the house. 
 
A BON OF HAQAE. 303 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 The night was now dark; there was no moon, and there 
 were no stars; the wind soughed mournf ully through the trees^ 
 In the occasional lull the rumble of the cataracts drifted heav- 
 ily through the air. 
 
 Hugh Eitson walked in the darkness with drooping head. 
 He was not making for the pit-brow; he had taken the oppo- 
 site direction. When he reached the village, he stopped at the 
 Hying Horse. Loud peals of laughter came from the parlor, 
 hidden by red blinds from the road. 
 
 He stood at the door that opened into the bar. The land- 
 lady, her face turned from him, was talking with obvious ani- 
 mation to a daleswoman who stood with a jug in her hand at 
 the other side of the counter. 
 
 " What, woman, thoo's surely heard what happen't at the 
 Ghyll this morning?" 
 
 " Nay, Bessie, I's been thrang as Throp wife, cleaning and 
 tittivating." 
 
 " Well, lass, they've telt me as it were shocking. Two 
 brothers, and such a fratch! It coom't to blows at last, and 
 they do say 'at Master Hugh is nigh amaist dead with a bash 
 the girt fellow gave him." 
 
 Hugh Eitson rapped sharply at the door. 
 
 " Tell your husband I wish to see him," he said. 
 
 The landlady looked up, fumbled with a napkin, and an- 
 swered nervously, " Yes, sir." Then she hobbled to the door 
 of the parlor and opened it. A wave of mingled noise, vapor, 
 and foul odors came through the aperture. "Tommy!" she 
 screamed above the babel. 
 
 The landlord appeared. 
 
 " Can you send me a dog-cart at half past four in the morn- 
 ing?" said Hugh. 
 
 " Maybe — it's a gay canny hour, I reckon," said the land- 
 lord. 
 
 He pulled at a long pipe as he spoke, and his face, which 
 was flushed, wore an impudent smile. 
 
 " I have to catch the five-o'clock train," Hugh answered. 
 
 " To London?" One check was twisted into numerous 
 wrinkles. 
 
 " I said the five train," said Hugh, sternly. " Can you do 
 it?" 
 
 " I's niver said nay— it'll be three half-crowns." 
 
304 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 Hugh put half a sovereign on the counter. 
 
 " Let it be sent at half past four promptly. 
 
 " To the Ghyll?" 
 
 The twist of the cheek was a shade less percepti?)le. 
 
 "To the pit-brow." 
 
 The parlor door opened again, and Natt stood on the thresh' 
 old. The stableman's sleepy eyes awakened to a knowing 
 twinkle. Then his flat face disappeared, and a thin titter 
 mingled audibly with the clamor within. In another moment 
 the door was thrown wide open, and Drayton came slouching 
 out. His hair fell back over his forehead, from which his hat 
 was tipped back. A cigar was perched between his teeth; the 
 tips of his fingers were thrust into his waistcoat pockets. 
 
 " Come in; I've summat to show you/' he said. 
 
 Hugh did not stir, but he lifted his head and looked into 
 the room. Half a score of the riff-raff of the dale were seated 
 amid clouds of smoke. On the wooden mantel-shelf above the 
 wide ingle a large book stood open, and the leaves fluttered 
 with the wind that came through the door. 
 
 " I hain't forgotten what you said long ago about the par- 
 son's book," said Drayton, " so here it is, and a mighty valu- 
 able thing I call it. You thought to frighten me with it, but 
 bless yer soul, I like it, I do. Listen." 
 
 Drayton stepped back into the room, turned the leaves, and 
 began to read in a lusty tone : 
 
 " 1847. — November 18. — Thomas said Allan was fresh from 
 Scotland, being Scottish born, and that his wife was Irish, and 
 that they had a child called Paul, only a few months old, and 
 not yet walking." 
 
 It was the parson's diary. 
 
 " That's good enough, ain't it, Master Hugh Eitson?" said 
 Drayton, with an ungainly bow, and a vast show of civility, 
 followed instantly by a sidelong leer at his cronies about him. 
 
 Hugh Eitson held himself stiffly, and merely said: 
 
 " Where did you get it?" 
 
 At this question there were sundry snorts and titters and 
 muttered responses from the men at the tables. Hugh's eyes 
 passed over them with a steely glance. 
 
 " Stolen it, I suppose," he said quietly. 
 
 " Ay," said Drayton, " and a neat job too. Natt 'ticed 
 away the Methodee man while I borrowed it. " 
 
 Drayton seemed to be proud of his share in the transaction, 
 and his friends laughed loudly at the adroit turn he had given 
 
A SON OF HAGAE. 305 
 
 to the matter. Natt's drowsy eyes were preternaturally bright 
 at that great moment. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's forehead darkened with ire. 
 
 " This is your gratitude to the clergyman," he said. 
 
 Sundry further snorts and sniggers went round the tables. 
 
 " There's not a man of you who is not beholden to Parson 
 Christian," said Hugh, sternly. He twisted sharply round 
 upon one graybeard whose laugh still rumbled between his 
 teeth. " Eeuben Eae, who nursed your sick wife? John 
 Proudfoot," to the blacksmith, " what about your child down 
 with the fever?" His quick eye traversed the parlor, and more 
 than one lusty crony was fain to bury his face in his breast. 
 " Yet you laugh, brave fellows as you are, when the good 
 man's house is broken into by a thief." 
 
 Drayton took a swift stride toward him. 
 
 " Drop it, and quick!" he shouted. 
 
 Hugh Bitson governed himself with an effort. 
 
 "I'm not here to brawl," he said quietly. 
 
 " Pigeon-livered blatherskite! — that's what I call ye — d'ye 
 hear?" said Drayton. 
 
 Hugh's face flinched, but he turned on his heel, and was on 
 the road at the next instant. 
 
 Drayton followed him out, laughing boisterously. Hugh 
 made one quick step backward and shut the door; then he 
 turned about on Drayton, whose cruel face could be dimly 
 seen in the hazy red light that came through the blinds. 
 
 "You have tried to torture me," he said, "just as you 
 would hang a dog by its tail, or draw the teeth of a rat. You 
 have threatened with worse torture a good and loyal woman.. 
 You are a scoundrel, and you know it! But even you would 
 hesitate if you knew for certain who or what you are. Let me 
 tell you again, now, when we are alone, and while I have no 
 personal interest to serve : You are the man whose name I gave 
 you — Paul Lowther, son of Eobert Lowther — and that lady, 
 my brother's wife, whom for reason of profit you would com- 
 pel to live under the same roof with you, is your own sister!" 
 
 Drayton's loud guffaw rang out above the wind's moan in 
 the trees. His cronies within heard it and listened. 
 
 " It's a rare old story, that is. Let me see; you've told it 
 before, I fancy." 
 
 " Then it was a lie; now it's God's truth!" said Hugh. 
 
 Drayton laughed again. 
 
 " And then it was believed, but now it's not. No., no. 
 Master Hugh, it won't pass." 
 
306 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 "We will see." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had swung about and was gone. 
 
 Drayton went back to his friends. 
 
 " Hasn't the pluck of a pigeon when it comes to the push," 
 he muttered. 
 
 " By, he wears a bonny white feather in his cap, for sure," 
 said old Eeuben Eae. 
 
 " No fight in 'im — no'but tongue lather," said John, the 
 blacksmith. 
 
 Hugh Eitson walked through the darkness to the pit-brow. 
 The glow of the furnace lighted up the air to the south, and 
 showed vaguely the brant sides of the fell; the dull thud of 
 the engine, the clank of the chain, and the sharp crack of the 
 refuse tumbling down the bank from the banksman's barrow 
 were the only sounds that rose above the wind's loud whistle. 
 
 Gubblum was at the mouth of the shaft. 
 
 "Oglethorpe," said Hugh, "how many of the gangs are 
 below to-night?" 
 
 " All but two — auld Eeuben's and Jim South'et's." 
 
 " Then they have chosen to work on?" 
 
 " Ey, another fortnight — trusting to get their wage afore 
 that, please God." 
 
 " They shall not be disappointed." 
 
 Hugh Eitson turned away. Gubblum trundled his last 
 wheelbarrow to the edge of the bank, and then rested and said 
 to himself, " He takes it cool enough onyway." 
 
 But the outside tranquillity disappeared when Hugh Eitson 
 reached his own room on the pit-brow. He bathed his hot 
 forehead again and again. His fingers twitched nervously, 
 and he plunged his perspiring hands into cold water above the 
 wrists, holding them there for several minutes. Not for long 
 did he sit in one seat. He tramped the room uneasily, his 
 infirm foot trailing heavily. Then he threw himself on the 
 couch, tossed from side to side, rose, and resumed his melan- 
 choly walk. Thus an hour passed drearily. 
 
 His mind recalled one by one the events of the day. And 
 one by one there came crowding back upon him the events of 
 the two years that had passed since his father's death. A hur- 
 ricane was upheaving every memory of his mind. And every 
 memory had its own particular sting, and came up as a blight 
 to fret his soul. He tried to guard himself from himself. 
 What he had first thought to do was but in defense of his 
 strict legal rights, and if he had gone further — if he had done 
 more, without daring to think of it until it was done — then it 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 307 
 
 was love that had led him astray. Was it so cruel a thing to 
 be just? So foul a thing to lore? 
 
 But above the shufflings of remorse, above the stiflings of 
 regret, above the plea of a maddening love, was the voice of 
 revenge speaking loudly in his soul. That man, his instru- 
 ment, now his master, Paul Lowther, must be brought down, 
 and his time-serving sponsor with him. But how? There 
 was but one way — by denouncing himself. Yes, that was the 
 sole outlet for his outraged and baffled spirit. He must go to 
 the proper quarter and say, " I have perjured myself, and 
 sworn away my brother's liberty. The man who was con- 
 demned as Paul Drayton is Paul Eitson. I did it all." 
 
 That would bring this vulgar scoundrel to the dust, but at 
 what a price! The convict's dress now worn by his brother 
 would soon be worn by him. And what solace would it be 
 then that the same suit would be worn by the impostor also? 
 Yet why prate of solace in a matter like this? What alterna- 
 tive was left to him? In what quarter of the sky was the 
 light dawning for him? He was traveling toward the deepen- 
 ingnight, and the day of his life was done. 
 
 What if he allowed everything to take its course? Well, he 
 was a disgraced and ruined man, turned adrift from his fath- 
 er's house, and doomed to see a stranger living there. Did he 
 lack gall to make such a climax bitter? Bitter, eh! and a 
 thousand times the more bitter because he himself had, for ends 
 of his own, first placed the scoundrel where he sat. 
 
 No, no, no; Paul Lowther must be brought down, and with 
 him must fall the poor ruins of a better man. Yes, a better 
 man, let the world say what it would. 
 
 Could it occur that he would not be believed? that when he 
 said " Take me, I am a perjurer," they would answer, " No, 
 your self-denunciation is only a freak of revenge, a mad at- 
 tempt to injure the relative who has turned you out of his 
 house?" Hugh Bitson laughed as the grim irony of such a 
 possible situation flashed upon him : a man self-condemned 
 and saved from punishment by the defense of his enemy! 
 
 There was a knock at his door. In his stupor he was not at 
 first conscious of what the knock meant. At length he re- 
 called himself and cried: 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 Gubblum Oglethorpe entered. 
 
 " The men on the twelve o'clock shift are just about gang- 
 ing down, and they want to tak' a few mair forks with them. 
 They've telt me 'at the timber is splitting like matchwood 
 under the sandy vein," 
 
308 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 Hugh Eitson made an effort to gather the purport of Gub- 
 blum' s message. 
 
 " Tell them to take the forks/' he said in a low tone. 
 
 Gubblum was backing out, and stopped. 
 
 " I reckon thoo's not heard the last frae auld Mattha's," he 
 said in another voice. 
 
 " What is it, Oglethorpe?" said Hugh, his head bent over 
 the table. 
 
 " Eobbie South'et's wife has been up to t' brow, and says 
 that Mercy's laal thing is gone." 
 
 Hugh did not lift his eyes. 
 
 " Is that the last?" he said. 
 
 " Nay, but warse. The lass herself tore the bandage frae 
 her eyes, and she's gone stone blind, and that's foriver." 
 
 Hugh's head bent closer over the table. 
 
 " Good-night, Oglethorpe," he said. 
 
 Gubblum backed out, muttering to himself as he returned 
 to the shaft, " A cool hand, how-an-iver. " 
 
 The moment the door closed, Hugh Eitson tramped the 
 floor in restless perambulations. What had he thought of do- 
 ing? Delivering himself to justice as a perjurer? Had he, 
 then, no duty left in life that he must needs gratify his re- 
 venge in a kind of death? What of the woman who had suf- 
 fered for him? What of the broken heart and the wretched 
 home? Were these as nothing against the humiliation of a 
 proud spirit? 
 
 Never for an instant, never in his bitterest agony, did Hugh 
 Eitson lie to his own soul and say that the resolution he had 
 formed was prompted by remorse for what he had done to 
 Paul Eitson; not revenge for what he had suffered from Paul 
 Drayton. To be a saint when sick; to find the conscience act- 
 ive when defeat overwhelmed it — that was for the weak dregs 
 of humanity. But such paltering was not for him. 
 
 On the one hand revenge, on the other duty — which was he 
 to follow? The wretched man could come to no decision; and 
 when the fingers of his watch pointed to one o'clock he lay 
 down on the couch to rest. 
 
 It was not sleep that he wanted; sleep had of late become 
 too full of terrors; but sleep overcame him, nevertheless. His 
 face, when he slept, was the face of a man in pain; and dreams 
 came that were the distorted reflections of his waking thoughts. 
 He dreamed that he had died in infancy. Calm, serene, very 
 sweet, and peaceful, his little innocent face of childhood 
 looked up from the white pillow. He thought his mother 
 
A SON OP HAGAE. 309 
 
 bent over him, and shed many tears; but he himself belonged 
 to another world of beings, and looked down on both. 
 
 " It is better so," he thought, " and the tears she weeps are 
 blest." 
 
 At this he awoke, and rose to his feet. What soft nothings 
 men had said of sleep! " Oh, sleep, it is a gentle thing, be- 
 loved from pole to pole!" Gentle! More tyrannous than 
 death. The melancholy perambulation ended, and he lay 
 down once more. He slept and dreamed again. This time 
 he had killed his own brother. A moment before they had 
 stood face to face — vigorous, wrathful, with eyes that flashed, 
 and hands uplifted. Now his brother lay quiet and awful at 
 his feet, and the great silence was broken by a voice from 
 heaven crying, " A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on 
 the earth!" 
 
 He started to his feet in terror. " Mercy, mercy!" he cried. 
 
 Then he drew his breath hard and looked about him. " A 
 dream — only another dream," he said to himself, and laughed 
 between his close-set teeth. The lamp still burned on the ta- 
 ble. He rose, drew a key from his pocket, opened a cupboard, 
 and took out a small bottle. It contained an opiate. " Since 
 I must sleep, let my sleep at least be dreamless," he said, and 
 he measured a dose. He was lifting the glass to his lips, when 
 he caught sight of his face in the glass. " Pitiful! pitiful! A 
 mere dream unnerves me. Pitiful enough, forsooth! And so 
 I must needs hide myself from myself behind a bulwark like 
 this!" He held the drug to the light, and while his hand 
 trembled he laughed. Then he drank it off, put out the light, 
 and sat on the couch. 
 
 The dawn had fretted the sky, and the first streaks of day 
 crept in at the window, when the lamp's yellow light was 
 gone. Hugh Eitson sat in the gray gloom, his knees drawn 
 close under his chin, his arms folded over his breast, his head 
 bent heavily forward. He was crooning an old song. Pres- 
 ently the voice grew thick, the eye became clouded, and then 
 the head fell back. He was asleep, and in his sleep he 
 dreamed again. Or was it a vision, and not a dream, that 
 came to him now? He thought he stood in a room which he 
 had seen before. On the bed some white thing lay. It was a 
 child, and the little soul had fled. Beside it a woman cow- 
 ered, and moaned " Guilty, guilty!" Her eyes were fixed on 
 the child, yet she saw nothing; the sightless orbs were 
 bleached. But with her heart she saw the child; and she saw 
 himself also as he entered. Then it seemed that she turned 
 her blind face toward him, and called on him by name. The 
 
310 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 next instant she was gone. Her seat was vacant, the bed was 
 empty; only a gray-bearded man sat by a cold grate. With an 
 overpowering weight pressing him down, it seemed to Hugh 
 that he threw up his head, and again he heard his name. 
 
 He leaped to his feet. Big beads of cold sweat stood on his 
 forehead. " Mercy is dead," he whispered with awe. " She 
 has gone to put in her plea of guilty. She is in God's great 
 hand!" 
 
 The next moment a voice shouted, " Mr. Eitson!" 
 
 He listened, and in the gray light his stony countenance 
 smiled grimly. 
 
 " Mr. Eitson!" once more, followed by the rap of a whip- 
 handle against the door. 
 
 " Tommy the landlord," said Hugh, and he broke into a 
 harsh laugh. " So you were my angel, Tommy, eh?" 
 
 Another harsh laugh. The landlord, sitting in the dog- 
 cart outside, heard it, and thought to himself, " Some one 
 with him." 
 
 Hugh Eitson plunged his head into the wash-basin, and 
 rubbed himself vigorously with a rough towel. " My last sleep 
 is over," he said, glancing aside with fearful eyes at the couch. 
 " I'll do this thing that I am bent upon; but no more sleep, 
 and no more dreams!" 
 
 He opened the door, threw a rug up to the landlord, put on 
 an ulster, and leaped into the dog-cart. They started away at 
 a quick trot. A chill morning breeze swept down the vale. 
 The sun was rising above Cat Bells, but Hugh Eitson still felt 
 as if he were traveling toward the deepening night. He sat 
 with folded arms, and head bent on his breast. 
 
 " Hasta heard what happened at auld Laird Fisher's this 
 morning?" said the landlord. 
 
 Hugh answered in a low voice : 
 
 " I've heard nothing." 
 
 " The lass has followed her barn rather sudden't. Ey, she's 
 gone, for sure. Died a matter of half an hour ago. I heard it 
 frae the parson as I coom't by." 
 
 Hugh Eitson bent yet lower his drooping head. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 At two o'clock that day Hugh Eitson arrived at Euston. 
 He got into a cab and drove to "Whitehall. At the Home 
 Office he asked for the Secretary of State. A hundred obsta- 
 cles arose to prevent him from penetrating to the head of the 
 
A SON OF HAGAH. 311 
 
 department. One official handed him over to another, the 
 seoond to a third, the third to a fourth. 
 
 Hugh Kitson was hardly the man to be balked by such im- 
 pediments. His business was with the Secretary of State, and 
 none other. Parliament was in session, and the Home Secre- 
 tary was at the afternoon sitting of the House. Hugh Eitson 
 sought and found him there. He explained his purpose in 
 few words, and was listened to with a faint smile of incre- 
 dulity. 
 
 The secretary was a stolid Yorkshireman, who affected what 
 ever measure of bluffness had not been natural to him from 
 birth. He first looked at his visitor with obvious doubts of 
 his sanity; and when this suspicion had been set at rest by 
 Hugh's incisive explanation, with an equally obvious desire to 
 feel his bumps. 
 
 But the face of the Yorkshireman soon became complicated 
 by other shades of expression than such as come of distrust of 
 a man's reason or contempt of his sentimentality. 
 
 " Hadn't you better sleep on it, and come to see me at 
 Whitehall in the morning?" he said, with more respect than 
 he had yet shown. " Then if you are still of the same mind, 
 I will send for the Public Prosecutor." 
 Hugh Eitson bowed his acquiescence. 
 " And can I have the order for Portland?" he said. 
 " Probably. It will be against the new regulation that none 
 may visit a convict prison except prison officials and persons 
 interested in prison discipline. But we'll see what can be 
 done. " 
 
 That night, Hugh Eitson called at the Convent of St. Mar- 
 garet. It was late when he entered, and when he came out 
 again, half an hour afterward, the lamps were lighted in the Ab- 
 bey Gardens. The light fell on the face of the lay sister who 
 opened the door to him. She wore a gray gown, but no veil 
 or scapular, and beneath the linen band that covered her hair 
 her eyes were red and swollen. 
 
 Hugh Eitson hailed a hansom in the Broad Sanctuary, and 
 drove to Hendon. The bar of the Hawk and Heron was full 
 of carriers, carters, road-menders, and farm-laborers, all drink- 
 ing, and all noisy. But, despite this evidence of a thriving 
 trade, the whole place had a bankrupt appearance as of things 
 going to wreck. Jabez served behind the counter. He had 
 developed a good deal of personal consequence, and held up 
 his head, and repeatedly felt the altitude of a top-knot that 
 curled there, and bore himself generally with the cockety air 
 of the young rooster after the neck of the old one has been 
 
312 A SOK 0£ IIAGAR. 
 
 screwed. Mrs. Drayton sat knitting in the room where Mercy 
 and the neighbor's children once played together. When 
 Hugh Eitson went in to her, the old body started. 
 
 " Lor's a mercy, me, sir, to think it's you! I"m that fear- 
 some, that I declare I shiver and quake at nothing. And good 
 for nowt i' the world neither, not since my own flesh and 
 blood, as you might say, disowned me." 
 
 " Do you mean at the trial?" asked Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " The trial, sir!" said the landlady, lifting bewildered eyes, 
 while the click of the needles ceased. " My Paul weren't 
 there. Cummerland, sir — and you heard him yourself what he 
 said of me." A corner of her housewife's apron went up to 
 her face. " Me as had brought him up that tender! Well," 
 recovering composure, ''I've lost heart, and serve him right. 
 I just lets the house and things go, I do. I trusts to Provi- 
 dence; and that Jabez, he's no better nor a babby in the 
 public line." 
 
 When Hugh Eitson left the inn, the old body's agitation 
 increased. She had set down the knitting, and was fidgeting, 
 first with her cap and then her apron. 
 
 "Listen to me," said Hugh. "To-day is Friday. On 
 Monday you must go to the convent where you saw the moth- 
 er of Paul. Ask for Sister Grace. Will you remember — Sis- 
 ter Grace? She will tell you all. " 
 
 It was hard on eleven o'clock when Hugh Eitson returned 
 to town. The streets were thronged, and he walked for a 
 long hour amid the crowds that passed through the Strand. 
 In all that multitudinous sea of faces, there was not a counte- 
 nance on. which the mark of suffering was more indelibly fixed 
 than on his own. 
 
 His sensibilities were wrought up to an unwonted pitch. 
 He was like a waif adrift in unknown waters, a cloud without 
 anchor in a tempestuous sky; yet he felt that night as he had 
 never felt before, that he had suddenly become possessed of 
 another and most painful sense. Not a face in that sea of 
 faces but he seemed to know its secret fear, its joy and sor- 
 row, the watchful dread that seared the hidden heart, the flut- 
 tering hope that buoyed it up. 
 
 It was an awful thing to be turned adrift in a world of sin 
 and suffering with this agonizing sense. He could look, 
 whether he would or not, beneath the smiling and rubicund 
 countenance of the hail-fellow-well-met to that corrosive spot 
 within where the trust of the widow and fatherless had been 
 betrayed; or see beyond the stolid and heavy appearance 
 proper to the ox the quivering features of the man who had 
 
A SON OP HAGAB. 313 
 
 stood long years ago above the dead body of the woman who 
 had thrown her death at his door as sole reward for the life he 
 had wrecked. 
 
 Nay, not only did the past write its manual there, but the 
 future wrote its sign. He knew that the young girl in pink 
 ribbons who was hurrying along with a smile on her lips, from 
 the shop in the west to that unknown home in the east where 
 the child of her shame had laughed and crowed and climbed 
 up her bosom to her chin, was doomed to find that the source 
 of all her joy and half her sorrow lay cold and stiff in its crib. 
 
 He grew fearful of himself; he shuddered as the unsuspected 
 murderer brushed his elbow; he shuddered yet more as a mir- 
 ror flashed back the reflection of his own hard face, and the 
 idea came to him that perhaps other eyes could see what his 
 eyes saw. 
 
 He turned down Arundel Street and on to the Embank- 
 ment. No! no! no! the merciful God had not willed it that 
 any man should look so deeply into the heart of his fellow- 
 man. That was indeed to know good and evil; and the thought 
 stole over him that perhaps it was in degree as a man had 
 eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of life that he was 
 cursed with this bitter knowledge. 
 
 Here, on the quiet pavement that echoed to his footsteps, 
 the air was free. He uncovered his head, and the light west 
 wind played in his hair and cooled his temples. Not a star 
 shone overhead, and the river that flowed in the bed below 
 was dark. More dark to him was the sea of humanity that 
 flowed above. 
 
 He had heard that the death-roll of the Thames was one of 
 every day for the year, and he leaned over the granite wall and 
 wondered if the old river had claimed its toll for the day that 
 was now almost done. His hair seemed to rise from its roots 
 as he thought that perhaps at that very instant, in the black 
 waters beneath him, the day's sacrifice was washing past. 
 
 He walked on, and the dull buzz of the Strand fell on his 
 ear. What, after all, was the old god of the river to the Jug- 
 gernaut of the city? And it was now, when the fret of the day 
 had worn down, that Hugh Eitson thought of all that he had 
 left behind him in the distant north. There in the darkness 
 and the silence, amid the mountains, by the waving trees and 
 the rumbling ghylls, lay half the ruins of his ruined life. The 
 glow of old London's many lights could not reach so far, but 
 the shadow of that dark spot was here. 
 
314 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Thb clocks struck midnight, and he returned to the hotel 
 at which he had engaged a bed. He did not lie down to sleep, 
 1 but walked to and fro the night through. 
 
 Next morning at ten he was at the Home Office again. He 
 saw the secretary and some of the law officers of the Crown. 
 When he came out he carried in his pocket an order to visit a 
 convict in Portland, and was attended by a police-sergeant in 
 plain clothes. They took train from Waterloo at two in the 
 afternoon, and reached Weymouth at six. When they crossed 
 the strip of sea, the best of the day was gone, and a fresh breeze 
 blew across the breakwater. 
 
 The Saxon walls of the castle at the foot of the Vern Hill 
 reflected the chill blue of the water; but far above, where the 
 rocky coast dipped to the beach, the yellow stone, with the 
 bluish clay in its crevices, shone in the glow of the sinking 
 sun. 
 
 Hugh Eitson and his companion put up for the night at the 
 Portland Arms Inn. A ruddy, round-faced man in middle 
 life, clean shaven and dressed youthfully, was smoking hi the 
 parlor. He exchanged a salutation with the cordiality of one 
 who was nothing loath for a chat; then he picked up the old 
 Eeeve staff, and explained the ancient method of computing 
 tithes. But Hugh Eitson was in no humor for conversation, 
 and after dinner he set out for a solitary walk. He took the 
 road that turns from the beach through the villages of Chis- 
 well and Fortune's Well. When he reached the top of the 
 hill the sea lay around him; and beneath him, to the right and 
 left of the summit, were the quarries where the convicts la- 
 bored, with two branches of an inclined railway leading down 
 to the breakwater. On the summit itself, known as the Grove, 
 was a long, high granite wall, with a broad gate- way, and the 
 lancet lights of a lodge at one side of it. This was the convict 
 prison, and the three or four houses in front of it were the 
 residences of governor, chaplain, and chief warder. A cordon 
 of cottages at a little distance were the homes of the assistant 
 warders. There were a few shops amid this little group ot 
 cottages, and one public-house, the Spotted Dog. 
 
 Hugh Eitson strolled into the tavern and sat down in a lit- 
 tle " snuggery," which was separated from a similar apart- 
 ment by a wooden partition that stood no higher than a tall 
 man's height, and left a space between the top stile and the 
 
A SON OE HAGAK. 315 
 
 ceiling. A company of men gossiped at the other side of the 
 partition. 
 
 "Talk of B 2001," said a guttural voice (Hugh Eitson 
 started at the sound), " 1 took the stiff 'ning out of him first 
 go off. When he'd done he separates and come on from the 
 moor; I saw he wasn't an old lag, so says I to 'im, ' Green 
 'un,'T says, ' if you're leary, you'll fetch a easy lagging, and 
 if you're not, it'll be bellows to mend with you.' 'What d'ye 
 mean?' he says. ' It's bloomin' 'ard work here,' I says, ' and 
 maybe you don't get shin-of-beef soup to do it on. Bread and 
 water, for a word,' I says. ' You're in my gang, quarrying, 
 and I won't work you 'ard except I'm druv to it, but I want 
 wide men in my gang,' I says, ' and no putting the stick on 
 agen the screw.' ' Don't understand,' he says. ' Then follow 
 a straight tip,' I says; ' stand by your warder and he'll stand 
 by you. ' Blest if that lag as I'd give that good advice to 
 didn't get me fined the very next day. " 
 
 " Never!" said sundry incredulous voices. 
 
 " It was a hot afternoon, and I'd just whipped a quid in my 
 mouth and leaned atop of my musket for forty winks after 
 dinner. The second-timers was codding af ront of me, and 2001 
 and the young chap as was dying of the consumption was 
 wheeling and filling ahead. Well, up comes the governor right 
 in front of 2001, and shouts, ' Warder,' he shouts, ' you're 
 fined for inattention. ' Then off he goes. All right, Mr. 
 2001, I says, I'll not misremember. " 
 
 " What did you do?" 
 
 " Do?" (a loud, hollow laugh). " That was when the bar- 
 racks was building, and one day a bit of a newspaper blowed 
 over from the officers' quarters, and 2001 came on it, and the 
 botcher picked it up. He'd chucked hisself quick. ' Eight 
 about face — march.' He got seven stretch, a month's marks, 
 and lost his bedding." 
 
 A hearty laugh followed this account of a " screw's " re- 
 venge on a "green" convict. Hugh Eitson listened and 
 shuddered. 
 
 " I ain't surprised at anything from that luny," said an- 
 other voice. " He was in my gang at the moor, and I know'd 
 'im. They put 'im in the soap-suds gang first, but he got his- 
 self shifted. Then they sent 'im botching with the tailors, but 
 he put out his broom for the governor, and said a big lusty 
 man same as 'im wasn't for sitting on a board all day. The 
 flat didn't want to fetch a easy lagging, that's the fact." 
 
 There was a loud guffaw. 
 
 " So they put 'im in my turf gang out on the moor, and 
 
316 A SON O? HAGAB. 
 
 one day a old clergyman come in gaiters and a broad-brimmer, 
 and a face as if the master of the house were a-shaking at his 
 hand, and the missis flopping down-stairs to give him a smack 
 of the lips. Well, 2001 saw him in Principal Warder Ben- 
 nell's office, and not afore the bars. So next day I says, ' Got 
 anybody outside as would like to send you summat by the 
 Underground?' ' The what?' he says, reg'lar black in the 
 face. ' The underground railway,' I says, tipping him a 
 wink. ' Get away from me, you bloodsucker!' he says. But 
 I pinched 'im. The old lags were laughing at one of the 
 grave-digger's oyster-openers, when up comes Eennell. ' Who's 
 laughing?' he says. It's 2001/ I says; ' he's always idling 
 and malingering.' " 
 
 " Ha, na, ha! what did he get?" 
 
 " Three days' bread and water, a week's marks, and loss 
 of class privileges. He didn't mind the grub and the time, 
 but Jack-in-the-box, who was warder on his landing, said he 
 took it proper bad as he couldn't write home to the missis." 
 
 " What's his dose?" 
 
 " Three. One of the old lags would do it on his head, and 
 fetch it easy too. He's a scholar, and could get to be a wards- 
 man in the infirmary, or medicine factotum for the croaker, or 
 maybe book-keeper for the governor. But he's earned no re- 
 missions, and he'll fill his time afore he slings his hook again. ' ' 
 
 Hugh Bitson could support the gossip no longer. He got 
 up to leave the house, but before doing so he pushed open the 
 door that led to the adjoining room, and stood a moment on 
 the threshold, comprehending everything and evei^body in 
 one quick glance. The air breathed fresh outside. He walked 
 in the gathering gloom of evening to the ruins of the church 
 by the cliff, and, passing through the lych-gate, he came on 
 the beaten track to the rocks. The rocks lay a hundred feet 
 beneath, torn from the mainland in craggy masses that seemed 
 ready to slide from their base to the deep chasm between. 
 Could it be possible that men who were the slaves of hinds like 
 those in yonder tavern could cling to their little lives while a 
 deliverance like this beetling cliff stood near? A cold smile 
 played on Hugh Eitson's face as he thought that, come what 
 would, such slavery was not for him. 
 
 The sycamore by the ruined chancel pattered in the breeze, 
 and the wheatear's last notes came from its topmost bough. 
 Far below the waves were rocking lazily. There were other 
 waves at Hugh Eitson's feet — the graves of dead men. Some 
 who were buried there long ago were buried in their chains. 
 Under the earth the fettered men — on the ruins of the church 
 
A SON OF HAG AS. 31? 
 
 the singing bird. Across the sea the light was every moment 
 fading. In another hour the day would be done, and then the 
 moon would look down peacefully on the fettered and the free. 
 
 Hugh Ritson returned to the Portland Arms Inn. He 
 found the police-sergeant in conversation with the ruddy-faced 
 gentleman who had wished to explain to him the mysteries of 
 the Eeeve staff. 
 
 " He is the doctor at the prison," whispered the sergeant 
 aside. 
 
 Presently Hugh turned to the doctor, and said: 
 
 " Do you happen to knoiv the convict B 2001?" 
 
 " Yes — Drayton," said the doctor; " calls himself Eitson. 
 Are you a friend?" 
 
 Hugh Ritson's face quivered slightly. 
 
 " No," he answered, " I am not his friend." Then, after 
 a pause, " But I have an order to see him. Besides, I have 
 just heard him discussed by a company of wardens in a pot- 
 house on the hill." 
 
 " Who were they? What were they like?" 
 
 " A tall man, one of them, fifty-five years of age, gray hair, 
 grizzly beard, dark, vindictive eyes, a gash on one cheek, and 
 a voice like a crow's. ; ' 
 
 " Humph! Jim-the-ladder — a discharged soldier." 
 
 " Another, a cadaverous fellow, with a plausible tongue." 
 
 " Horrocks — an old second-classer; served his time at Dart- 
 moor and got promotion — doubtful official discipline." 
 
 " They both deserve one more and much higher promotion," 
 said Hugh Ritson, with emphasis. 
 
 " You mean this." The doctor laughed, and put the fore- 
 finger of one hand, held horizontally, to the tip of the other, 
 held upright. 
 
 " Can it be possible that the law is unable to maintain a 
 fair stand-up fight with crime, and must needs call a gang of 
 poltroons and blackmailers to its assistance?" 
 
 " You heard a bad account of B 2001, I judge?" 
 
 " I beard of nothing that he had done which the Pope of 
 Rome might have feared to acknowledge." 
 
 " You are right — he's as good a man as there's on Portland 
 Bill," said the doctor, " and if he's not quite as immaculate 
 as his holiness, he's in the right of it this time." 
 
 Hugh Ritson glanced up. 
 
 " You've heard he's in the punishment cells," said the doc- 
 tor. " By the way, you'll not see him until Monday; he can't 
 join his gang before, and he hasn't a class privilege left, poor 
 devil." 
 
318 A SON" OF HAGAE. 
 
 Hugh inquired the cause. 
 
 " Since he came here he's heen yoked to a young fellow dy- 
 ing of consumption. The lad didn't relish the infirmary — he 
 lost his marks toward remission there. He knew the days he 
 had to serve, and used to nick them off every night on hid 
 wooden spoon. It was a weary way from a thousand back, back, 
 back to one. And that Jim-the-ladder took delight in keep- 
 ing up the count by reports. The poor boy wanted to die in 
 his mother's arms. He had got his time down to a week, 
 when the ' screw ' clapped as many marks on to him as added 
 a month to his imprisonment. Then he lost heart, and 
 dropped down like a flounder, and when they picked him up 
 he was dead." 
 
 " AVas B 2001 with him as usual?" 
 
 " He was; and he broke the strap, sprung on the warder, 
 and tore his rifle out of his hands. Jim-the-ladder has been a 
 prize-fighter in his day, and there was a tussle. He leaped 
 back on B 2001 with a howl, and the blows fell like rain-drops. 
 There was a fearful clamor, the convicts screaming like mad- 
 men." 
 
 " B 2001 is a powerful man," said Hugh Eitson. 
 
 The doctor nodded. 
 
 " He closed with the warder, gripped him by the waist, 
 twisted him on his loins, turned him heels over head, and 
 brought him down in a sweep that would have battered the 
 life out of any other man. Up came the civil guard, and the 
 convict was brought into the lodge covered with dust, sweat 
 and blood, his eyes flashing like balls of fire. They had the 
 lad's body on a stretcher Deside him, the lips white, and the 
 cheeks a mask of blue. It was a tremendous spectacle, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 Hugh Eitson's breast heaved, and somewhere deep down in 
 his soul he surprised a feeling of pride. That man was a hero 
 and his own brother! 
 
 " And so the convict was punished?" 
 
 " Fourteen days' penal class diet, and marks enough for six- 
 months. He'll be out on Monday, and then he'll wear the 
 blue cap that denotes a dangerous man." 
 
 Hugh Ritson shuddered. 
 
 '' Is it impossible to see him to-morrow?" he asked. 
 
 " Come up before church in the morning and ask for me, 
 and we'll speak to the governor." 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 31S| 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 Eakly next morning Hugh Eitson showed his -order at the 
 prison gates, and was admitted to the doctor's quarters. Hugh 
 and the doctor went in search of the governor, but learned 
 that he was away from home for the day. The deputy-govern- 
 or was abed with a raging tooth, aud there was nothing to do 
 but to wait until morning in order to speak with the convict. 
 
 " You can stay here until to-morrow," said the doctor; " I 
 can give you a shake-down. And now let us go off to church. 
 But come this way first." 
 
 They walked in the direction of that portion of the parade- 
 ground which was marked, in great white letters, " 34 gang," 
 with the broad arrow beneath. Near to this stood a building 
 composed chiefly of wood and iron, and marked in similar let- 
 ters " E Hall." They entered a corridor that led to an open 
 landing in the shape of a many-sided polygon, each side being 
 a door. In the middle of the landing there was an iron circu- 
 lar staircase that led to landings above and below. A warder 
 paraded the open space, which was lighted by gas-jets. 
 
 "Hush! Look," said the doctor, standing by the peep- 
 hole in one of the doors, and at the same time putting out the 
 gas-jet that burned on the door-jamb. 
 
 Hugh Eitson approached, and at first he could see nothing 
 in the darkness. But he heard a curious clanking noise from 
 within. Then the glimmer of a feeble candle came through 
 the bars, and he saw a box-like apartment, some seven feet 
 long by four feet broad and eight feet high. It was a punish- 
 ment cell. There was a shelf at the opposite end, and a tin 
 wash-basin stood on it. 
 
 On the side of the door there must have been a similar shelf, 
 on which the candle burned. A broom, a can, and a bowl 
 were on the brick floor. There was no other furniture except 
 a hammock swung from end to end, and the convict was lying 
 in it at this moment. It could be seen that a heavy chain 
 was fastened with riveted rings around each ankle, and linked 
 about the waist by a strap. At every movement this chain 
 clanked; night and day it was there; if the prisoner shifted in 
 his sleep, its grating sound broke on the silence of the cell, and 
 banished the only sunshine of his life, the sunshine of his 
 Ireams. His head was back to the door so that the light of 
 the candle burning on the shelf might fall on a slate which 
 rested on his breast. Though he occupied a punishment cell 
 
320 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 he was writing, and Hugh Eitson's quick eyes could decipher 
 the words: " Oh, that it would please God to destroy me; that 
 He would but loose His hand and cat me oS! Oh, wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
 death?" He paused in his writing and pecked like a bird at a 
 hard piece of bread beside him. 
 
 Hugh Eitson fell back, and as his infirm foot grated along 
 the floor, the convict started and turned his face. It was a 
 blank, pale face, full of splendid resolution and the nobility of 
 suffering, but without one ray of hope. 
 
 " Do you know him?" asked the doctor. 
 
 But Hugh Eitson's eyes were on the ground, and he made 
 no answer. 
 
 They went to church. The civil guard was drawn up under 
 the gallery with loaded rifles. Eight hundred convicts at- 
 tended service: some of them were penitent; most of them 
 were trying to make a high profession of contrition as a bid 
 for the good graces of the chaplain. The obtrusive reverence 
 of one sinister gray-head near at hand attracted Hugh Eitson's 
 especial attention. He knelt with his face to the gallery in 
 which the choir sat. Beside him was a youth fresh from Mill- 
 bank. The hoary sinner was evidently initiating the green 
 hand into the mysteries of his new home. He was loud in his 
 responses, but his voice had a trick of dropping suddenly to 
 a whispered conference. 
 
 " Who's the fat 'un in the choir? A chap as is doing his 
 ten. His missis chared to keep the kids, and one morning 
 early he popped the old girl's shoes." 
 
 The voice of the chaplain interrupted further explanation; 
 but after another loud response the old rascal's mouth was 
 twisted awry with the words: 
 
 " He's a wide 'un, he is — seat in the choir got comfortable 
 cushions. Besides, he gets off Saturday morning's work for 
 practicing — got no more voice nor a corn-crake." 
 
 Evidently it was no disadvantage here to be the greatest of 
 vagabonds. When a cadaverous old Jew came hobbling up 
 the aisle with his gang, the gray-head whispered, with awe: 
 
 " It's old Mo; he's in the stocking gang; but I did business 
 with him when he could ha' sent old Eothschild home for a 
 pauper." 
 
 At one moment the attention of the green hand was arrested 
 by a tall man in the black and gray that indicated a convict 
 who had attempted to escape. 
 
 " Says he's in for twenty thousand, but it's a lie," whis- 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 321 
 
 pered the old man; " he only knocked a living out of the re- 
 ligious fake." 
 
 The last of the conference that Hugh Eitson overheard was 
 a piece of touching advice. 
 
 " Them as 'as any pluck in 'em turns savage, same as B 
 2001; them as 'asn't, knocks under, same as me; and I says 
 to you, knock under." 
 
 After service the sacrament was celebrated. There must 
 have been many hundreds of communicants, all humble in 
 their piety. It could be noticed that the chaplain had some- 
 times to keep a tight grip of the goblet containing the wine. 
 
 That night Hugh Eitson lodged at the doctor's quarters. 
 He did not lie, but, as on the night before, he walked the long 
 hours through, steadfastly resisting every temptation to sleep. 
 At five in the morning be heard the great bell at the gate ring 
 for two minutes, and, shortly afterward, the tramp, tramp, 
 tramp of many feet under his window. The convicts, to the 
 number of fifteen hundred, were drawn up on the parade- 
 ground. They looked chill in the cold light of early morning; 
 their gray jackets lay loose on their spare shoulders; their 
 hands hung inertly at their sides, and they walked with (he 
 oscillating motion of men whose feet were sore in their heavy 
 boots. The civil guard was drawn up, the chief warder 
 whistled, and then the men fell out into gangs of twenty-five 
 each, attended by an assistant warder. 
 
 " Eear rank, take two paces to the right — march." 
 
 Then the tramp, tramp again. As the outside gangs passed 
 through the gate, each officer in charge received his rifle, bay- 
 onet, belt, and cartridge-box from the armorer at the lodge. 
 The stone-dressing gang passed close under the window, and 
 Hugh Eitson reeled back as one of the men — a stalwart fellow 
 in a blue cap, who was walking abreast of a misshapen creature 
 with a face full of ferocity — lifted bis eyes upward from the 
 file. 
 
 At eight o'clock the governor appeared at his receiving- 
 office. He was a slight man with the face and figure of a 
 greyhound. His military frock-coat was embossed with Cri- 
 mean medals, and he was redolent of the odor of Whitehall. 
 He received Hugh Eitson' s papers with a curious mixture of 
 easy courtesy and cold dignity — a sort of combination of the 
 different manners in which he was wont to bow to a secretary 
 of state and condemn a convict to the chain and bread and 
 water. 
 
 " The men are back to breakfast at nine," he said. " Wa|j' 
 
322 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 kins/' to the chief warder, "have B 2001 brought round to 
 the office immediately 34 gang returns." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had left the receiving-office and was crossing 
 the parade-ground when a loud hubbub arose near the lodge. 
 
 "The boat!" shouted twenty voices, and a covey of con- 
 victs ran in the direction of a shed where an eight-oar boat 
 was kept on the chocks. " A man has mizzled — run a wago;i 
 into the sea and is drifting down the race.' ; 
 
 How the demons laughed, how they cursed in jest, how they 
 worked, how luminous were their eyes and haggard faces at 
 the prospect of recapturing one of their fellow-prisoners who 
 had tried to make his escape! Every convict who helped to 
 catch a fugitive was entitled to a remission of six days. The 
 doctor took Hugh Eitson up on to the lead flat that covered 
 his quarters. From that altitude they could see over the 
 prison wall to the rocky coast beyond. Near the ruins of the 
 old church a gang of convicts were running to and fro, wav- 
 ing their hands, and shouting in wild excitement. 
 
 " It's gang 34," said the doctor, " Jim-the-ladder's gang." 
 
 The sun had risen, the sea was glistening in its million 
 facets, and into many a rolling wave a sea-bird dipped its 
 corded throat. In the silvery water-way there was something 
 floating that looked as if it might have been a tub. It was 
 the wagon that the convict had driven into the water for a 
 boat. 
 
 " It will sink — it's shod with thick hoops of iron," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 The convict could be seen standing in it. He had thrown 
 off bis coat and cap, and his sleeveless arms were bare to the 
 armpits. The civil guard ran to the cliff and fired. One shot 
 hit. The man could be seen to tear the coarse linen shirt from 
 his breast and bind it above the wrist. 
 
 " Why does he not crouch down?" said Hugh Eitson: he 
 did not know who this convict was, but in his heart there was 
 a feverish desire that the prisoner should escape. 
 
 " He's a doomed man — he's in the race — it's flowing hard, 
 and he'll drift back to the island," said the doctor. 
 
 Half an hour later a posse of the civil guard, with two as- 
 sistant warders, brought the recaptured fugitive into the gov- 
 ernor's receiving-office. The stalwart fellow strode between 
 the warders with a firm step and head erect. He wore no 
 jacket or cap, and on one bare arm a strip of linen was rough- 
 ly tied. His breast was naked, his eyes were aflame, and save 
 for a black streak of blood across the cheek, his face was ashy 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 323 
 
 pale. But that man was not crushed by his misfortunes; ht 
 seemed to crush them. 
 
 " Take that man's number/' said the governor. 
 
 " Ay, take it, and see you take it rightly," said the convict 
 
 " It's B 2001," said the chief warder. 
 
 The governor consulted a paper that lay on his table. 
 
 " Send for the gentleman," he said to an attendant. " It's 
 well for you that you are wanted by the law officers of the 
 Crown," he added, turning to the prisoner. 
 
 The convict made no answer; he was neither humble nor 
 sullen; his manner was frank but fierce, and made almost 
 brutal by a sense of wrong. 
 
 The next moment Hugh Bitson stepped into the office. His 
 eyes dropped, and his infirm foot trailed heavily along the floor. 
 He twitched at his coat with nervous fingers; his nostrils quiv» 
 ered; his whole body trembled perceptibly. 
 
 " This is the man," said the chief warder, with a deferen- 
 tial bow. 
 
 Hugh Ritson tried to raise his eyes, but they fell suddenly. 
 He opened his lips to speak, but the words would not come. 
 And meantime the wet, soiled, naked, close-cropped, blood- 
 stained convict, flanked by armed warders, stood before him 
 with head erect and eyes that searched his soul. The convict 
 rested one hand on his hip and pointed with the other at Hugh 
 Bitson's abject figure. 
 
 " What does this man want with me?" he said, and his 
 voice was deep. 
 
 At that Hugh Bitson broke in impetuously: 
 
 " Paul, I will not outrage your sufferings by offering you 
 my pity." 
 
 The officers looked into each other's faces. 
 
 " 1 want none of your pity!" said the convict, bitterly. 
 
 " No; it is I who need yours," said Hugh Bitson, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 The convict laughed a hard laugh, and turned to the ward- 
 ers. 
 
 " Here, take me away — I've had enough of this." 
 
 " Listen. I have something to say to you — something tr 
 do for you, too." 
 
 The convict broke afresh into a laugh. 
 
 " Take me away, will you?" 
 
 " What if I say I am sorry for the past?" said Hugh. 
 
 " Then you are a hypocrite!" the convict answered. 
 
 Hugh Bitson drew himself up, and took his breath audibly 
 In one swift instant his face became discolored and his feat 
 
324 A SON OP HAGAB. 
 
 ures pinched and rigid. There was silence, and then in a low, 
 broken tone, he said: 
 
 " Paul, you know well what sort of a man I am; don't drive 
 me too hard. I have come here to do you a service. Kemem- 
 ber your sufferings — " 
 
 Once again the convict broke into a cold laugh. 
 
 " Remember that others — one other — may be suffering with 
 you." 
 
 The convict's haughty look fled like a flash of light. 
 
 " Here, take me out of this," he muttered in a low, hoarse 
 voice. He took a step back, but the guard closed around 
 him. " 1 won't stand to listen to this man. Do you hear? 
 I won't listen," he said hotly; " he has come to torture me — 
 that's all!" 
 
 " I have come to undo what I have done," said Hugh. 
 " Paul, let me undo it. Don't rouse the bad part of me at 
 this crisis of your life and mine." 
 
 The convict paused, and said more quietly: 
 
 " Then it's your policy to undo it." 
 
 Hugh Ritson flinched. The words had gone to his heart 
 like a spear. If he had dared to mask his motive, that thrust 
 would have left it naked. 
 
 " I will not wrong the truth by saying I am a changed 
 man," he answered meekly. " My motive is my own; but 
 my act shall be all in all to you." 
 
 The convict's face lightened. 
 
 " You have used me for your vengeance," he said; " you 
 shall not use me for your contrition also. Guards, let me 
 out — let me out, I tell you!" 
 
 The governor interposed: 
 
 " When you leave this room you go direct to the cells." 
 
 " Ay, take me to your cells, and let me lie there and die 
 and rot," said the convict. 
 
 " Take him away," said the governor. 
 
 " Paul, I beseech you to hear me!" cried Hugh, amid the 
 clanking of the arms of the guard. 
 
 " Take him away!" the governor shouted again. 
 
 An hour after, B 2001 was recalled to the receiving-office. 
 He was quiet enough now. 
 
 " We have an order respecting you from the Secretary of 
 State," said the governor. " You are required to give evi- 
 dence at a trial. At two o'clock you leave Portland for Cum 
 berland, and your guard goes with you." 
 
 The con T ict bent his head and went out in silence. 
 
A SON OF HAOA.B. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Paul Emou — let him be known by his official number no 
 more — was not taken to the punishment cells. He was set to 
 work with the stone-dressing gang stationed near the gate of 
 the prison. The news of his attempt to escape had not spread 
 more rapidly than rumors of his approaching departure. 
 
 " I say," shouted a hoary convict, " take a crooked message 
 out?" 
 
 " What's your message?" 
 
 " On'y a word to the old girl telling her where she'll find a 
 bunch of keys as she wants partic'lar." 
 
 " Write her yourself, my man." 
 
 " What, and the governor read it, and me get a bashing, 
 and the crushers pinch the old moll? Well, I am surprised at 
 ye; but I forgot, you're a straight man, you are." 
 
 A mocking laugh followed this explanatory speech. 
 
 A young fellow with a pale, meek face and the startled eyes 
 of a hare crept close up to where Paul Eitson worked, and 
 took a letter out of one of his boots. 
 
 " This is the last I had from home," he said, quietly, and 
 put the letter into Paul's hands. 
 
 It was a soiled and crumpled paper, so greasy from frequent 
 handlings and so much worn by many foldings that the writ- 
 ing could scarcely be deciphered. Home? It was dated from 
 the Union of Liverpool, and had come from his invalid wife 
 and his children, all living there. 
 
 The poor fellow could not read, but he had somehow learned 
 the letter by heart, and was able to point out each bit of fam- 
 ily history in the exact place where it was recorded. 
 
 He had. lost his class privileges, and was not allowed to 
 reply; and now he wanted to know if Paul Eitson could get 
 down to Liverpool and see his wife and little ones, and tell 
 them how well he was, and how lusty he looked, and what fine 
 times he had of it — " just to keep up their spirits, you know." 
 
 " I say, you sir," bawled a sinister gray-head — the same 
 whose conversation was overheard in church — " I hear as 
 you're a employer of labor when yer not lagged. Any chance? 
 I wants to leave my sitivation. Long hours, and grub reg'lar 
 onsatisfactory. Besides, my present employer insists on me 
 wearing a collar with a number — same as a wild beast or a 
 bobby. It's gettin' ridic'lus. So I've give notice, and I flit 
 in September. Maybe ye see as I'm growing my wings to fly. ' 
 
326 A SON (XF HAGAE. 
 
 The hoary sinner pointed upward to his grizzly hair, which 
 was longer than the hair of his comrades. On'y it's coming 
 out another tint o' awrburn nor what it was ten years ago, 
 and the old woman won't have the same pride in my pussonal 
 appearance." 
 
 At two o'clock the assistant warder known as Jim-the-lad- 
 der marched Paul Riston to the chief warder's office. There 
 the convict was handcuffed and the warder armed. Then they 
 set out. 
 
 On the steamboat that plied between the Portland Perry 
 and Weymouth the convict dress attracted much attention. 
 The day was some sort of chapel festival, and great numbers 
 of chapel people in holiday costume crowded the decks and 
 climbed the paddle-boxes; the weather was brillant; the sun 
 danced on the waters like countless fairies on a floor of glass; 
 & brass band played on the bridge. 
 
 Again at the Weymouth railway station the people gathered 
 in little groups, and looked askance at the convict. During 
 the few minutes which elapsed before the train left the plat- 
 form, a knot of spectators stood before the carriage and peered 
 in at the window. 
 
 Paul Eifcson paid little heed to these attentions, but they 
 were often unwelcome enough. " Keep clear of him — see the 
 blue cap?" " What an ill-looking fellow — to be sure, his looks 
 are enough to hang him." 
 
 Paul laughed bitterly. His heart felt cold within him at 
 that moment. If he had worn broadcloth and a smile, how 
 different the popular verdict might have been. Who then 
 would have said that he was a villain? Certainly not yonder 
 sleek minister of Christ wiio was humming a psalm tune a 
 moment ago, and paused to whisper, " Be sure your sin will 
 find you out. ' ' The black-coated Pharisee was handing a lady 
 into a first-class carriage. 
 
 The train started. Paul threw himself back in his seat, 
 and thought of all that had occurred since he made this jour- 
 ney before. He was traveling in the other direction then, and 
 what an agony was that first experience of convict life! He 
 had never thought of it from that day to this. 
 
 Other and more poignant memories had day after day oblit- 
 erated the recollection of that experience. But it came back 
 now as freshly as if it had all occurred yesterday. He was 
 one of a gang of twenty who were traveling from Millbank to 
 Dartmoor. The journey to Waterloo in the prison van had 
 been a terrible ordeal. He had thought in the cells that it 
 would be nothing to him if people in the streets recoguized 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 327 
 
 him. The shameful punishment of an innocent man was not 
 his, but the law's disgrace. 
 
 Yet, when he was marched out into the prison grounds 
 abreast of a cadaverous wretch with shrunken brows and the 
 eyes of a hawk, an old thief in front of him, and a murderer 
 convicted of manslaughter treading on his heels, the cold 
 sweat burst in great beads from his forehead. 
 
 He had meant to hold up his head, and if people looked into 
 his face to look frankly back into their faces. But when his 
 turn came he leaped into the van, and his chin buried itself in 
 his breast. 
 
 Then the crowds drawn up on the pavement outside as the 
 gates rolled back and the van passed through; the crush in a 
 busy thoroughfare when the van stopped to let a line of crowded 
 omnibuses go by; the horrible scene at the station when the 
 convicts were marched down the platform, and every ear was 
 arrested by the tramp, tramp of twenty fettered men ! 
 
 Above all, the jests and the laughter of the older hands who 
 had served their time before, and were superior to all small 
 considerations of public shame! "I say, you with the gig- 
 lamps, toss a poor devil a bit o' 'bacco." " Seen us afore? In 
 coorse you have. You in the white choker, look hard while 
 yer at it, and you'll know us again." " Oh, Mother Shipton, 
 and is that yourself? and how pleased we is to see ye, and 
 just tip us yer welwet purse, and we'll give it yer back when 
 we're this way again." And not all the rigor of the attendant 
 warders was enough to suppress such high jesting. 
 
 Paul Eitson could not forbear to laugh aloud when he re- 
 membered with what an agony of sweat he had that day crept 
 back into his seat. 
 
 Times had changed since then. He had spent a year and a 
 half in a government school, and had been educated out of all 
 torturing delicacy. 
 
 The warder attempted to draw him into conversation. Jim- 
 the-ladder repeatedly protested that he bore no malice. " I'm 
 a good fellow at bottom," he said more than once, and Paul 
 Eitson showed no malice. But he laughed bitterly at a grim 
 and an obvious thought that the warder's dubious words sug- 
 gested. Failing in his efforts at conciliation, the warder 
 charged his pipe and relapsed into a long silence. 
 
 They had a compartment to themselves. At a station where 
 the train stopped a man opened the door and had already put 
 one foot into the carriage when he recognized the caste of his 
 traveling companions. He disappeared in a twinkling. Paul 
 Ritson did his best to restrain the anger that well-nigh choked 
 
328 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 him. He merely sent a ringing laugh after the retreating 
 figure. At another station a police inspector, dressed in a 
 little brief authority, caught sight of the blue cap and gray 
 jacket, and bustled up to examine the warder's papers. 
 Then, with a lofty look, he strode through the group ot spec- 
 tators whom his presence had attracted. 
 
 Arrived at Waterloo, the warder hailed a cab, and they 
 drove to Scotland Yard to report themselves. There they 
 supped on cocoa and brown bread, with the addition of a rasher 
 of bacon and a pipe for the warder. Thence they were driven 
 to Euston to catch the nine-o'clock train to Penrith. 
 
 The journey north was uneventful. At Eugby, Stafford, 
 and elsewhere, the train stopped, and little groups of people 
 looked in at the convict, and made apposite comments on his 
 appearance, crime, and condition. Paul Eitson often shut his 
 eyes and said nothing. Sometimes a sneer curled his lip, some- 
 times he burst into a bitter laugh. He was thinking that this 
 was a fitting close to the degradation of his prison life. If one 
 feeling of delicacy, one tender sentiment, one impulse of hu- 
 manity remained to him when the gates of Portland closed be- 
 hind him, it only required this cruel torture to crush it for- 
 ever. 
 
 In spite of the risk of dismissal and the more immediate 
 danger at the hands of Paul Eitson, the warder coiled himself 
 up and fell asleep. It was after midnight when they reached 
 Crewe, and from that point of the journey the worst of the 
 torment ceased. Their merciful fellow-men were mostly in 
 bed, dreaming of heroic deeds that they were doing. But the 
 silence of night had its own torture. As the train rumbled on 
 through the darkness, now rattling in a long tunnel, now 
 sliding into open air like a boat into still water, Paul Eitson's 
 mind went back to the day which seemed now to be so far 
 away that it might have belonged to another existence, when 
 he traveled this road with the dear soul who had trusted her 
 young and cloudless life to his keeping. Where was she now ? 
 Peace be with her, wheresoever she was! He recalled her 
 tenderest glance, he seemed to hear her softest tone; the light 
 pressure of her delicate fingers was now on his hands — the 
 hard hands that wore the irons. And even at that moment, 
 when all his soul went out to the pure young wife who had 
 shared his sufferings, and he felt as if time and space were 
 nothing, as if he had drawn her to him by the power of his 
 yearning love, it seemed to him that all at once there rang in 
 his ears the shrill, sharp voices of the convicts rapping out 
 their foul and frightful oaths. 
 
A SON OP HAGAK. 339 
 
 He leaped to his feet, with a muttered, oath on his own lips, 
 and when the imagined agony with which he surprised himself 
 had given way to a new sense of his actual sufferings, his heart 
 grew yet more cold and bitter. He thought of what he had 
 been and of what he was. There could be no disguising the 
 truth — he was a worse man. Yes; whatsoever had once been 
 pure in him, whatsoever had once been generous, whatsoever 
 had once been of noble aspiration, was now impure, and un- 
 generous, and ignoble. Above all else, he had lost that tender- 
 ness which is the top and crown of a strong man. He felt as 
 if the world had lifted its hand against him, and as if he were 
 ready and eager to strike back. 
 
 They reached Penrith toward four in the morning, and then 
 the carriage in which they traveled was shunted on to the 
 branch line to await the first train toward Cockermouth. The 
 day was breaking. From the window Paul Eitson could see 
 vaguely the few ruins of the castle. That familiar object 
 touched him strangely. He hardly knew why, but he felt that 
 a hard lump at his heart melted away. By and by the brake- 
 man shouted to the signalman in the gray silence of the morn- 
 ing. The words were indifferent — only some casual message 
 — but they were spoken in the broad Cumbrian that for a year 
 and a half had never once fallen on Paul Eitson's ear. Then 
 the lump that had melted at his heart seemed to rise to his 
 throat. 
 
 The gray light became intermingled with red, and soon the 
 sky to the east was aflame. Paul let down the carriage win- 
 dow, and long waves of sweet mountain air, laden with the 
 smell of peat, flowed in upon him. His lips parted and his 
 breast expanded. At five o'clock the engine was attached. 
 A few carriages were added at the platform, and these con- 
 tained a number of pitmen, in their red-stained fustian, going 
 down for the morning shift. When the train moved westward, 
 the sun had risen, and all the air was musical with the songs 
 of the birds. Very soon the train ran in among the mount- 
 ains, and then at last the bitterness of Paul Eitson's heart 
 seemed to fall away from him like a garment. That quick 
 thrill of soul which comes when the mountains are first seen 
 after a long absence is a rapture known to the mountaineer 
 alone. Paul saw his native hills towering up to the sky, the 
 white mists flying off their bald crown, the torrents leaping 
 down their brant sides, and the tears filled his eyes and blotted 
 it all out. The sedge-warbler was singing with the wheatear, 
 and, though he could not see them now, he knew where they 
 were: the sedge- warbler was flitting among the rushes of the 
 
330 /. SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 lowland mere; the wheatear was perched on the crevice of 
 gray rock in which it had laid its pale-blue eggs; the sheep 
 were bleating on the fells, and he knew their haunts by the lea 
 of the bowlders and along the rocky ledges where grew the 
 freshest grasses. Down the corries of Blencathra, long drifts 
 of sheep were coming before the dogs, and he knew that the 
 shepherds had been out on the fells during the short summer 
 night, numbering the sheep for the washing in the beck be- 
 low. 
 
 Everything came back upon him like a memory of yester- 
 day. He stood up and thrust out his head, and did not think 
 of his gray jacket and blue cap until a carter who watered his 
 horses at a pool near the railway lines started and stared as if 
 he had seen a " boggle " at noonday. 
 
 Then Paul Eitson remembered that he was still a convict, 
 that his hands wore irons, that the man who lay sleeping on 
 the seat of the carriage was his warder, and that the steely 
 thing that peeped from the belt of the sleeping man was a 
 revolver, to be promptly used if he attempted to escape. 
 
 But not even these reflections sufficed to dissipate the emo- 
 tion that had taken hold of him. He began at length to think 
 of Hugh Eitson, and to wonder why he had been brought back 
 home. Home! — home? It was a melancholy home-coming, 
 but it was coming home, nevertheless. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 Two days later the gray old town-hall that stands in the 
 market-place of Keswick was surrounded by a busy throng. 
 The Civil Court of the County Assize was sitting in this little 
 place for the nonce to try a curious case of local interest. It 
 was an action for ejectment brought by Greta, Mrs. Paul Eit- 
 son, against a defendant whose name was entered on the sheet 
 as Paul Drayton, alias Paul Eitsonj now of the Ghyll, in the 
 Parish of Newlands. 
 
 The court-room was crowded. It was a large, bare room, 
 with a long table and two rows of chairs crossing the end, the 
 cue row occupied by the judge and a special jury, the other 
 by the lawyers for the prosecution and defense. The rest of 
 the chamber was not provided with seats, and there the dales- 
 people huddled together. 
 
 A seat had been found for Greta at on end of the table. 
 Her cheek rested on her hand. She dropped her eyes as the 
 spectators craned their necks to catch a glimpse of her. Be- 
 hind her, and with one hand on her chair-back, stood the old 
 
A SON OF HAGAR. 331 
 
 parson, his Jovian white head more white than of old, the 
 tenderer lines in his mellow face drawn down to a look of 
 pain. Immediately facing Greta, at the opposite end of the 
 table, Hugh Riteon sat. One leg was thrown over the other 
 knee, and the long, nervous fingers of the right hand played 
 with the shoe-lace. His head was inclined forward, and the 
 thin, pallid, clean-cut face with the great calm eyes and the 
 full, dilated nostrils was more than ever the face of a high- 
 bred horse. None would have guessed the purpose with which 
 Hugh Ritson sat there. One would have said that indifference 
 was in those eyes and on that brow — indifference or despair. 
 
 Near where the rustle was loudest and most frequent among 
 the spectators, Drayton sat by the side of Mr. Bonnithorne. 
 He was dressed in his favorite suit of broad plaid, and had a 
 gigantic orange-lily stuck jauntily in his buttonhole. His face 
 was flushed and his eyes sparkled. Now and again he leaned 
 back to whisper something to the blacksmith, the miller, and 
 the landlord of the Flying Horse, who were grouped behind 
 him. His remarks must have been wondrously facetious, for 
 they were promptly followed by a low gurgle, which was as 
 promptly suppressed. 
 
 The counsel for the plaintiff opened his case. The plaintiff 
 sued as the owner in succession to her husband, who was at 
 present dead to the law. She contended that the man who 
 now stood seized of the Ghyll was not her husband, Paul Rit- 
 son, but Paul Drayton, an innkeeper of Hendon, who bore 
 him a strange personal resemblance, and personated him. The 
 evidence of identity which should presently be adduced was 
 full and complete in the essential particular of proving that 
 the defendant was not Paul Ritson, by whose title alone the 
 defense would maintain the right of present possession. Un- 
 happily, the complementary evidence as to the actual identity 
 of the defendant with Paul Drayton, the publican, had been 
 seriously curtailed by the blindness, followed by the death, of 
 an important witness. Still, if he, the counsel for the plaint- 
 iff, could prove to the satisfaction of the jury that the de- 
 fendant was not the man he represented himself to be, they 
 would have no course but to grant the ejectment for which the 
 plaintiff asked. To this end he would call two witnesses whose 
 evidence must outweigh that of all others — the wife of Paul 
 Ritson, and the clergyman who solemnized the marriage. 
 
 Greta's name was called, and she rose at the end of the ta- 
 ble. Her bosom heaved under the small lace shawl that cov- 
 ered her shoulders, and was knotted, like a sailor's scarf, on 
 her breast. She stood erect, her eyes raised slightly and her 
 
332 A SON OF HAGAR. 
 
 drooping hands clasped in front. After the customary formal- 
 ities, she was examined. 
 
 " You are the only child of the late Kobert Lowther?" 
 
 " I am the daughter of Eobert Lowther." 
 
 Drayton threw back his head, and laughed a little. 
 
 " You were married to Paul Eitson in 187-5 at the parish 
 church of Newlands, the minister being the Eeverend Mr. 
 Christian?" 
 
 "I was." 
 
 " On the day of your marriage you accompanied your hus- 
 band to London, and the same night he left you at the Con- 
 vent of St. Margaret, Westminster?" 
 
 "That is quite true." 
 
 There was a buzz of conversation in the court, accompanied 
 by a whispered conference on the bench. Counsel paused to 
 say that it was not a part of his purpose to trouble the court 
 with an explanation of facts which were so extraordinary that 
 they could only be credited on the oath of a person who, 
 though present, would not be called. At this reference Hugh 
 Eitson raised his languid eyes, and the examination proceeded. 
 
 " Three days afterward you received a message from your 
 husband, requesting you to meet him at St. Pancras Station, 
 and return with him to Cumberland by the midnight train?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Who took you the message?" 
 
 " Mrs. Drayton, the old person at the inn at Hendon." 
 
 " You went to the station?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 " Tell the court what occurred there." 
 
 " Just on the stroke of twelve, when the train was about to 
 leave, a man whom at first sight I mistook for my husband 
 came hurrying up the platform, and I stepped into the car- 
 riage with him." 
 
 " Do you see that man in court?" 
 
 " Yes; he sits two seats to your right." 
 
 Drayton rose, smiled broadly, bowed to the witness, and re- 
 sumed his seat. 
 
 " Were you alone in the compartment?" 
 
 " At first we were; but just as the train was moving away 
 who should join us but Parson Christian." 
 
 There was another buzz of conversation, and counsel paused 
 again to say that he should not trouble the court with an ex- 
 planation of the extraordinary circumstances by which Parson 
 Christian came to be in London at that critical moment. 
 These facts formed in themselves a, chain of evidence which 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 333 
 
 must yet come before a criminal court, inyolving as it did the 
 story of a conspiracy more painful and unnatural perhaps than 
 could be found in the annals of jurisprudence. 
 
 " Tell the court wha£ passed in the train." 
 
 " I perceived at once that the man was not my husband, 
 though strangely like him in face and figure, and when he ad- 
 dressed me as his wife I repulsed him." 
 
 " Did Parson Christian also realize the mistake?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, but not quite so quickly." 
 
 " What did you do?" 
 
 " We left the train at the first station at which it stopped. " 
 
 " "Did the defendant offer any resistance?" 
 
 "No; he looked abashed, and merely observed that per- 
 haps a recent illness had altered him." 
 
 Counsel for the defense, at whose left Mr. Bonnithorne sat 
 as attorney for the defendant, cross-examined the witness. 
 
 " Yon say that on the night following the morning of your 
 marriage your husband left you at a convent?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne dropped his twinkling eyes, and muttered 
 something that was inaudible to the witness. There was s>, 
 titter among the people who stood behind him. 
 
 " And you say that Mrs. Drayton took you the message of 
 which you have spoken. Did she tell you that your husband 
 had been ill?" 
 
 "She did." 
 
 " We are to infer that you visited the house of the Draytons 
 at Hendon?" 
 
 " A railway accident drove us there." 
 
 " Did any one accompany the defendant to St. Pancras that 
 night?" 
 
 " My husband's brother, Mr. Hugh Eitson, was with him." 
 
 " Tell the jury where your husband now is, if he is not at 
 this moment in court." 
 
 No answer. Amid a profound silence the plaintiff's lawyer 
 was understood to object to the question. 
 
 " Well, we can afford to waive it," said counsel, with a su- 
 perior smile. " One further question, Mrs. Eitson. Had 
 you any misunderstanding with your husband?" 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " Will you swear that your voices were not raised in angry 
 dispute while you were at the inn at Hendon?" 
 
 Greta lifted her head and her eyes flashed. " Yes, I will 
 swear it," she said in a soft voice but with impressive emphasis 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne reached up to the ear of counsel and was 
 
334 A SON OB HAGAB. 
 
 understood to say that perhaps the point was too delicate to 
 be pressed. 
 
 Parson Christian was next examined. The defendant in 
 the present action was not the man whom he married to the 
 plaintiff. He had since seen Paul Eitson. Where? In the 
 convict prison of Dartmoor. In cross-examination he was 
 asked by what name the convict was known to the directors of 
 Dartmoor. Paul Drayton. 
 
 '■ Then tell the court how you came to identify the defend- 
 ant as Drayton." 
 
 " There were many facts pointing that way." 
 
 " Give us one." 
 
 " On the morning of the marriage I found a letter lying 
 open before the fire in my vestry. It was from Mr. Hugh 
 Eitson to Mr. Bonnithorne, and it mentioned the name of 
 Drayton in a connection which, by the light of later revela- 
 tions, provoked many inferences." 
 
 Mr. Bonnithorne was unprepared for this answer. Counsel 
 looked at him inquiringly, but the attorney glanced down and 
 colored deeply. 
 
 " Can you show us the letter?" 
 
 " No; I left it where I found it." 
 
 " Then it can hardly be received as evidence." 
 
 The attorney smiled, and the tension of Drayton's face re- 
 laxed. There was a slight shuffle among the people; the wit- 
 ness had stepped back. 
 
 Counsel for the defense opened his case. They were asked 
 to believe that the defendant in the present action was Paul 
 Drayton, in the teeth of the fact that Paul Drayton was at 
 that moment a convict in a convict prison. The incredible 
 statement was made that a newly married husband had placed 
 his young wife in a convent on the night of their marriage, 
 and that when they should have rejoined each other an inter- 
 change had been made, the husband going to prison in an- 
 other man's name, the other man coming to Cumberland to 
 claim the place of the woman's husband. Moreover, they 
 were asked to believe that the husband's brother, Mr. Hugh 
 Eitson, had either been fooled by the impostor or made a 
 party to the imposture. Happily it was easy to establish iden- 
 tity by two unquestionable chains of evidence — resemblance 
 and memory. It would be shown that the defendant could be 
 none other than Paul Eitson, first, because he resembled him 
 exactly in person; second, because he knew all that Paul Eit- 
 son ought to know; third, because he knew nothing that Paul 
 Eitson might not know. No two men's lives had ever been 
 
A SOW OE HAGAR. 335 
 
 the same from the beginning of the world, and as it would be 
 seen that the defendant's life had been the same as Paul Kit- 
 son's, it followed that Paul Eitson and the defendant were 
 one and the same man. 
 
 Dick o : the Syke was the first witness examined for the de- 
 fense. He swore that Paul Eitson was active in extinguishing 
 a fire that broke out in the mill two years ago; that he had 
 climbed to the cross-trees with a hatchet; and that within the 
 past month the defendant had described to him the precise 
 locality and shape of the gap made in the roof by the fire. No 
 one could have known so much except himself and the man 
 who stood on the cross-trees. That man was Paul Eitson, and 
 he was there and then recognized by many spectators, among 
 whom was Parson Christian. 
 
 The next witness was Mistress Calvert, of the Pack Horse. 
 Paul Eitson had slept at their house one night two years ago, 
 and a few days since the present defendant had pointed out 
 the bedroom he occupied, and recalled the few words of con- 
 versation which passed between them. 
 
 Natt, the stableman, was called. His sleepy eyes blinked 
 knowingly as he explained that one winter's night, when the 
 snow fell heavily, Mrs. Eitson, then Miss Greta, was startled 
 by what she mistook for the ghost of Paul Eitson. The wit- 
 ness had not been so easily deceived, and the defendant had 
 since described to him the exact scene and circumstances of 
 what the lady had thought to be the ghostly appearance. 
 
 Then followed John Proudfoot, the blacksmith; Tom o' 
 Dint, the postman; Giles Eaisley, the pitman; Job Sheep- 
 shanks, the mason; and Tommy Lowthwaite, the landlord of 
 the Flying Horse — all swearing to points of identity. 
 
 One recalled the fact that Paul Eitson had a scar on his 
 head that was caused by the kick of a horse when he was a 
 boy. The defendant had just such a scar. 
 
 Another remembered that Paul Eitson had a mark on the 
 sole of his right foot which had been made by treading on a 
 sharp piece of rock on Hindscarth. The defendant had exactly 
 su:h a mark. 
 
 A third had wrestled with Paul Eitson, and knew that he 
 had a mole beneath the left shoulder-blade on the back. The 
 defendant had a mole in that unusual place. 
 
 Counsel for the defense smiled blandly at the special jury, 
 the special jury smiled blandly at counsel for the defense. 
 Was it really necessary that the defendant should be called? 
 Surely it was a pity to occupy the time of the court. The 
 whole case was in a nutshell — the lady had quarreled with hei 
 
336 A SON OF HAGAE. 
 
 husband. State of affairs would be promptly gauged when it 
 was explained that this action had been raised to anticipate a 
 forthcoming suit in the divorce court for restitution of con- 
 nubial rights. 
 
 The counsel for the plaintiff smiled also, and his was a 
 weak smile of conscious defeat. He stammered a desire to 
 withdraw — said he had been promised more conclusive evi- 
 dence when he undertook the case, and sat down with an apol- 
 ogetic air. 
 
 There was a shuffle of feet in the court. Drayton had risen 
 to receive the congratulations of his friends behind him and 
 the cordial nods of some of the superior people who had been 
 favored with seats at the right hand and left of the judge. 
 He was answering in a loud tone, when there was a sudden 
 lull of the buzz of gossip, and all eyes were directed toward 
 one end of the table. 
 
 Hugh Eitson had risen from his seat, and with a face that 
 was very pale, but as firm as a rock, he was engaged in a whis- 
 pered conference with the plaintiff's counsel. That gentle- 
 man's eager face betrayed the keenest possible interest in 
 what he heard. Presently he lifted his arm with an impatient 
 gesture, and said : 
 
 " My lord, I have unexpectedly come into possession of new 
 and most important evidence." 
 
 " Of what nature?" asked the judge. 
 
 " If it is conceivable," said counsel, " that in any question 
 of personal identity the court will accept the evidence of all 
 the tinkers and tailors, the riff-raff, the raggabashof the coun- 
 try-side, and reject that of the wife of the man whose estate is 
 in question, perhaps it will be allowed that there are three 
 persons who are essential to this examination — the brother of 
 Paul Eitson, the defendant who claims to be Paul Eitson, and 
 the convict who is suffering penal servitude in the name of 
 Paul Drayton. I might name one other whose evidence might 
 be yet more conclusive than that of any of these alone — the 
 mother of Paul Eitson; but she is unhappily dead to the world. " 
 
 Drayton was still on his feet, riveted to the spot where he 
 stood. Obtuse as he was, he saw at a glance what had oc- 
 curred. In all his calculations this chance had never sug- 
 gested itself — that Hugh Eitson would risk the personal danger 
 to bring him down. 
 
 " Can you put these persons into the witness-box?" 
 
 " My lord, it is, I presume, within the liberties of the de- 
 fendant to keep carefully out of that box, but the court will 
 not refuse to hear the evidence of the two persons of whom I 
 
A SON OP HAGAR. 33? 
 
 speak — the brother of Paul Eitson and the convict known as 
 Paul Drayton." 
 
 At this there was high commotion. Greta had leaned back 
 in her chair, her bosom heaving, her face shadowed by lines 
 of pain. Parson Christian stood behind her with a blank ex- 
 pression of bewilderment. Drayton's brows were tightened 
 and his lips were drawn hard. 
 
 " None of their criss-crossin' for me,"' he muttered. 
 
 " You can ask for a new trial," said the judge. 
 
 " My lord, another case is pending, and on the issue in this 
 case the other case must largely depend. " 
 
 " How far has the present one proceeded?" 
 
 " The defendant's case is not yet completed." 
 
 During this scene Hugh Eitson had stood quietly by the 
 table. He remained there with complete self-possession while 
 counsel proceeded to explain that four days ago, in anticipation 
 of this action and of another that had been threatened, a stat- 
 utory declaration had been made in the presence of the Home 
 Secretary and the law officers of the Crown. The first result 
 of that statement was that the convict Drayton was now pres- 
 ent in the court-house ready to appear at this trial. 
 
 The judge signified his desire that the convict might be 
 brought in and heard. 
 
 Hugh Eitson motioned to a tall man who stood near, and 
 immediately afterward a door was thrown open and another 
 man stepped into the court-room. 
 
 Every eye was fixed upon him. He wore a convict's gray 
 jacket, with the round badge marked " 3. B 2001. P S," and 
 the broad arrow beneath. His face was pale and rigid; his 
 large eyes glittered; he was in his full manhood, but his close- 
 cropped hair was slightly tinged with gray. He pushed his 
 way through the people, who fell back to let him pass. When 
 he reached the table he tapped it impatiently with one of his 
 hands, which were fettered, and threw up his head with a 
 glance of defiance. His whole bearing was that of a strong 
 man who believed that every man's hand was against him, 
 and who intended to let it be seen that his own hand was 
 against every man's. 
 
 Counsel rose again, and asked that the defendant's wit- 
 nesses might be recalled. This was done. 
 
 " John Proudfoot, Job Sheepshanks, Thomas Lowthwaite, 
 Giles Eaisley, look this way. Who is this man?" 
 
 There was a dead hush. Then, one by one, the men who 
 had been named shook their heads. They did not know the 
 convict. Indeed, he was terribly altered. The ordeal of the 
 
338 A SOX OF HAGAR. 
 
 past two years had plowed strange lines in his face. At that 
 moment he was less like himself than was the impostor who 
 came there to personate him. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's manner did not change. Only a slight curl 
 of the lip betrayed his feelings. 
 
 Counsel continued, " Is there any one in court who recog- 
 aizes him?" 
 
 Not a voice responded. All was silence. 
 
 " Will the defendant stand side by side with him?" 
 
 Drayton leaped up with a boisterous laugh, and swaggered 
 his way to the opposite side of the table. As he approached, 
 the convict looked at him keenly. 
 
 " Will Mrs. Eitson come forward again?" 
 
 Greta had already risen, and was holding Parson Christian's 
 hand with a nervous grip. She stepped apart, and going be- 
 hind the two men, she came to a stand between them. On 
 the one side stood Drayton, with a smirking face half turned 
 toward the spectators; on the other stood the convict, his 
 hands bound before him, his defiant glance softened to a look 
 of tenderness, and his lips parted with the unuttered cry that 
 was ready to burst from them. 
 
 " Greta," said Hugh Eitson, in a low tone of indescribable 
 pathos, " which of these men is your husband?" 
 
 Counsel repeated the question in form. 
 
 Greta had slowly raised her eyes from the ground until they 
 reached the convict's face. Then in an instant, in a flash of 
 light, with the quick cry of a startled bird, she flung herself 
 on his neck. Her fair head dropped on the frieze of the con- 
 vict's jacket, and her sobs were all that broke the silence. 
 
 Hugh Eitson's emotion surged in his throat, but he stood 
 quietly at the table. Only his slight figure swayed a little 
 and his face quivered. His work was not yet done. 
 
 " This is the answer of nature," he said quietly. 
 
 Hugh Eitson was put into the witness-box, and in a voice 
 that was full and strong, and that penetrated every corner of 
 the court, he identified the convict as his brother, Paul Eitson. 
 
 Counsel for the defense had seemed to be stunned. Eecov- 
 ering himself, he tried to smile, and said : 
 
 " After this melodramatic interlude, perhaps I may be al- 
 lowed to ask our new witness a few questions. Did you, at 
 the Central Criminal Court, held at the Old Bailey in 1875, 
 swear that the person who stands here in the dress of a con- 
 vict was not Paul Eitson?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
A son or HAGAK. 339 
 
 " Now for my second question. Did you also swear that the 
 defendant was your brother, and therefore not Paul Drayton?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Then you were guilty of perjury at that time, or you are 
 guilty of perjury now?" 
 
 " I was guilty of perjury then." 
 
 The judge interposed and asked if the witness was awakened 
 to the enormity of the crime to which he confessed. Hugh 
 Ritson bent his head. 
 
 " Are you conscious that you are rendering yourself liable 
 to penal servitude?" 
 
 I have signed a declaration of my guilt." 
 
 The answers were given in perfect calmness, but a vein of 
 pathos ran through every word. 
 
 " Do you know that a few years back many a poor wretch 
 whose crime was trifling compared with yours has gone from 
 the dock to the gallows?" 
 
 " My guilt is unmitigated guilt. I make a voluntary state- 
 ment. I am not here to appeal for mercy." 
 
 There was the hush of awe in the court. 
 
 The face of the convict wore an expression of amazement. 
 
 Counsel smiled again. 
 
 " I presume you know that the effect of the law officers of 
 the Crown, believing the story that you tell us now is that, if 
 they do so, the man whom you call your brother will be put 
 into possession of the estate of which your late father died 
 seized?" 
 
 "He is entitled to it." 
 
 Counsel turned to the jury with a smile. 
 
 " It is always necessary to find some standard by which to 
 judge of human actions. The witness quarreled with the de- 
 fendant four days ago, and this is his revenge. But I appeal 
 to the court. Is this story credible? Is it not a palpable im- 
 posture?" 
 
 The judge again interposed. 
 
 " Men do not risk so much for a lie. The witness knows 
 that when the court rises the sheriff may take him into cus- 
 tody." 
 
 At this counsel rose again and asked the bench not to play 
 into the hands of the witness by apprehending him. 
 
 " Let the convict be examined," said the judge. 
 
 Paul Ritson raised his head; Greta sunk into a chair be- 
 neath him. He was not sworn. 
 
 The warder in charge put in an entry from the books of the 
 prison. It ran: " Paul Drayton, five feet eleven inches, browi? 
 
340 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 hair and eyes, aged thirty, licensed victualer, born in London, 
 convicted of robbery at the scene of a railway accident." 
 
 " Does that entry properly describe you?" asked the judge. 
 
 The convict's eyes wandered. 
 
 " What's going on?" he said, in a tone of bewilderment. 
 
 " Attend, my man. Are you Paul Eitson, the eldest son oi 
 *he late Allan Eitson?" 
 
 " Why do you want to know?" said the convict. 
 
 " It befits a witness who is permitted to come from the 
 scene of a degrading punishment to give a prompt and decisive 
 answer. What is you name, sir?" 
 
 "Find it out." 
 
 " My man," said the judge, more suavely, " we sit here in 
 the name of the law, and the law could wish to stand your 
 friend." (The convict laughed bitterly. ) " Pray help us to 
 a decision in the present perplexing case by a few frank an- 
 swers. If you are Paul Drayton, you go back to Portland to 
 complete the term of your imprisonment. If it can be proved 
 that you are Paul Eitson, your case will be laid before the 
 home' officials, with the result that you will be liberated and 
 re-established in your estate. First of all, which is your name 
 — Paul Drayton or Paul Eitson?" 
 
 The convict did not answer at first. Then he said in a low 
 tone: 
 
 " No law can re-establish me." 
 
 The judge added: 
 
 " Bethink you, if you are Paul Eitson, and an innocent man, 
 the law can restore you to your young wife." 
 
 Visibly moved by this reference, the convict's eyes wan- 
 dered to where Greta sat beside him, and the tension of his 
 gaze relaxed. 
 
 The judge began again: 
 
 " You have been recognized by two witnesses — one claiming 
 to be your brother, the other to be your wife — as Paul Eitson. 
 Are you that person?" 
 
 The convict's face showed the agony he suffered. In a 
 vague, uncertain, puzzled way he was thinking of the conse- 
 quences of his answer. If he said he was Paul Eitson, it 
 seemed to him that it must leak out that he was not the eldest 
 legitimate son of his father. Then all the fabric of his moth- 
 er's honor would there and then tumble to the ground. He re- 
 called his oath; could he pronounce six words and not violate 
 it? No, not six syllables. How those mouthing gossips would 
 glory to see a good name trailed in the dust! 
 
Tell them it is true," she pleaded ; " tell them you are my husband." 
 Page 341. 
 
A SCOT OT HAGAK. 341 
 
 " Are you Paul Eitson, the eldest son and heir of Allan 
 Eitson?" 
 
 The convict looked again at Greta. She rose to her feet be- 
 side him. All her soul was in her face, and cried: 
 
 " Answer, answer!" 
 
 "I can not answer," said the convict, in aloud, piercing 
 voice. 
 
 At that terrible moment his strength seemed to leave him. 
 He sunk backward into the chair from which Greta had risen. 
 
 She stood over him and put her hand tenderly on his head. 
 
 " Tell them it is true," she pleaded, " tell them you are 
 my husband; tell them so; oh, tell them, tell them!" she 
 cried in a tone of piteous supplication. 
 
 He raised to hers his weary eyes with a dumb cry for mercy 
 from the appeal of love. 
 
 Only Hugh Eitson, of all who were there present, under- 
 stood what was in the convict's heart. 
 
 " Paul Eitson is the rightful heir of his father and his 
 mother's legitimate son," he muttered audibly. 
 
 The convict turned to where his brother sat, and looked at 
 him with a face that seemed to grapple for the missing links 
 of a chain of facts. 
 
 Counsel for the defense rose. 
 
 " It will be seen that the unhappy convict witness will not 
 be used as an instrument of deception," he said. " He is Paul 
 Drayton, and can not be made to pretend that he is Paul Eit- 
 son." 
 
 The hush of awe in the court was broken by the opening of 
 a door behind the bench. Two women stood on the thresh- 
 old. One of them was small, wrinkled, and old. She was 
 Mrs. Drayton. The other was a nun in hood and cape. She 
 was Sister Grace. 
 
 Hugh Eitson leaned toward counsel for the plaintiff, who 
 promptly rose and said : 
 
 " The" witness I spoke of as dead to the world is now pres- 
 ent in the court. " 
 
 Amid a buzz of conversation the nun was handed to the 
 table. She raised her long veil and showed a calm, pale face. 
 After the usual formalities, counsel addressed her. 
 
 " Mrs. Eitson," he said, " tell us which of the two men 
 who sit opposite is your son." 
 
 Sister Grace answered in a clear, soft voice: 
 
 " Both are my sons. The convict is Paul Eitson, my son 
 by Allan Eitson; the other is Paul Lowther, my son by as 
 unhappy alliance with Eobert Lowther." 
 
342 A SON OP HA GAB. 
 
 Drayton jumped to his feet. 
 
 " There, that's enough of this!"' he shouted, excitedly. 
 " Damme, if I can stand any more of it!" 
 
 Bonnithorne reached over and whispered: 
 
 " Mad man, what are you doing? Hold your tongue!" 
 
 " It's all up. There's the old woman, too, come to give 
 me away. Here, I say, I'm Paul Drayton; that's what I am, 
 if you want to know." 
 
 " Let the sheriff take that man before a justice of the 
 peace," said the judge. 
 
 " It was you that led me into this mess!" shouted Drayton 
 at Bonnithorne. " Only for you I would have been in Aus- 
 tralia by this time." 
 
 " Let the sheriff apprehend Mr. Bonnithorne also," said the 
 judge. " As for you, sir," he continued, turning to Hugh 
 Eitson, " I will report your evidence to the Public Prosecutor 
 — who must be in possession of your statutory declaration — 
 and leave the law officers to take their own course with regard 
 to you." 
 
 The action for ejectment was adjourned. 
 
 Drayton and Bonnithorne did not trouble the world much 
 longer. Within a month they were tried and condemned to- 
 gether — the one for personation; both for conspiracy. 
 
 Paul Eitson was removed in charge of his warder, to be con- 
 fined in the town jail pending the arrival of instructions from 
 the Secretary of State. Hugh Eitson walked out of the court- 
 room a free man. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 Hugh Eitson returned to his room on the pit-brow. On 
 his way there he passed a group of people congregated on the 
 bridge at the town end. They fell apart as he walked through, 
 but not an eye was raised to his, and not one glance of recog- 
 nition came from his stony face. Toward the middle of the 
 afternoon a solicitor came from Carlisle and executed a bill of 
 sale on the machinery and general plant. The same evening, 
 as the men on the day shift came up the shaft, and those on 
 the night shift were about to go below, the wages were paid 
 down to the last weights taken at the pit-mouth. Then Hugh 
 Eitson closed his doors and began afresh his melancholy per- 
 ambulation of the room. 
 
 That night — it was Wednesday night — as darkness fell on 
 the mountain and moorland, there was a great outcry in the 
 Vale. It started at the pit-mou + h, and was taken up on every 
 
A SON OF HAGAR, 34S 
 
 sir?. In less than a quarter of an hour a hundred people — 
 men, women, and children — were gathered about the head of 
 the shaft. There had been a run of sand in the pit, and some 
 of the hands were imprisoned in the blocked-up workings. 
 Cries, moans, and the many sounds of weeping arose on the 
 air in one dismal chorus. " I knew it would come;" " I telt 
 the master lang ago;" "Where's my man?" " And mine?" 
 " And my poor barn — no'but fifteen." " Anybody seen my 
 Willie?" "Is that thee, Bobbie, ma lad?— No." As every 
 cageful of men and boys came to the surface, there was a rush 
 of mothers, wives, and fathers to recognize their own. 
 
 Hugh Eitson went out, and pushed his way through the 
 people. 
 
 " Where is the sand running?" he asked of a pitman just 
 landed. 
 
 " In the sandy vein, 2, 3, 1," answered the man. 
 
 " Then the shaft is clear?" 
 
 " Ay, but the water's blocked in the main working, and it's 
 not safe to go down." 
 
 Hugh Eitson had taken the man's candle out of his hand, 
 and was fixing it with the putty in the front of his own hat. 
 
 " Are you ready?" he shouted to the engine-man, above the 
 babel of voices. 
 
 In another moment he had stepped into the cage and looped 
 down the iron rail in front of it. There was a moment's si- 
 lence among the panic-stricken people as the cage began to 
 move downward. 
 
 At the bottom of the shaft a group of men waited to ascend. 
 Their faces were lurid in the dim light. Before the cage 
 grounded Hugh Eitson could hear their breathing. "How 
 many of you are left?" he asked. 
 
 " No'but two now — Giles Eaisley and auld Eeuben," an- 
 swered one of the men. The others, without heeding the mas- 
 ter's question, had scrambled into the cage, and were already 
 knocking the signal for the ascent. 
 
 Hugh Eitson turned toward the working known among the 
 men as the sandy vein. The cage was now rising, and the 
 pitman who had spoken fouDd himself left on the pit bottom; 
 the single moment that he had given to the master had lost 
 him his chance of a place. He cast one stern glance upward, 
 and a muttered oath was on his lips. At the next instant he 
 had taken the direction followed by Hugh Eitson, and was 
 walking one pace behind him. 
 
 In the silence the dull thud of their footsteps on the rock 
 beneath mingled with the drip, drip of the water overhead 
 
344 A SOH OF HAGAR. 
 
 When they had gone a hundred yards down the narrow work- 
 ing there came another and far more terrible sound. It was 
 such a sound as the sea might have made if it had rushed 
 through a thousand crevices in the rock. It was the sound of 
 the thousands of tons of sand, as they forced their way from 
 the dense mass above. And over the hiss as of the sea was 
 the harsh crack of great timbers splitting like matchwood. 
 
 Toward the awful scene of this tumult Hugh Eitson quick- 
 ened his steps. The man followed close at his heels. Pres- 
 ently their passage was blocked with sand like a wall. Then 
 over their heads the cross-trees cracked, and the upright forks 
 split and bent at the right and left of them. In another mo- 
 ment the ground beneath them shook under the new weight 
 that lay on it. They stepped quickly back, and in an instant, 
 with a groan such as the sea makes when it is sucked by the 
 ebbing time from a cave in a rock, the floor, with all its 
 freight, went down a score of feet. It had fallen to an old 
 working that lay below. 
 
 Then the bent forks hung from the roof in empty air. Si- 
 lence followed this shock, and through the silence there came 
 a feeble cry for help. Hugh Eitson stepped out, plucked his 
 candle from his hat, and held it before his feet. 
 
 " Where are you?" he called, and his voice came back 
 through the echoing depths beyond. Presently a man could 
 be dimly seen clinging to a cross-piece in an alcove made for 
 an air-shaft from the main working. To get to him the treach- 
 erous ground must be crossed, with its cracking roof, through 
 which the sand slid even yet, and under the split timbers that 
 still creaked. 
 
 Hugh Eitson did not hesitate; he turned to leap down, say- 
 ing, " Follow me." But the man clung to him from behind. 
 
 " For God's sake, dunnot!" he cried. "I can not go 
 there. It's mair nor my life is worth!" 
 
 Hugh Eitson twisted about, and looked him steadily in the 
 face: 
 
 " What is your name, my man?" 
 
 " Davey Braithwaite." 
 
 " Then you are the young fellow whose wife died last week?' 
 
 " Ey," with a drooping head. 
 
 " Your child died before her, did it not?" 
 
 " Ey, he did, poor laal thing!" 
 
 " Your father and mother are gone too?" 
 
 " They're gone, for sure!" 
 
 " And you've neither kith nor kin left in all the world?" 
 
 " Nay, no'but mysel' left." 
 
A SON OF HAGAK, 345 
 
 Hugh Eitson said no more; a hard smile played on his white 
 face, and at the next instant he had leaped down on to the 
 bed of sand below. 
 
 The man recoiled a pace or two and wrung his hands. Be- 
 fore he was aware of what had happened, Giles Eaisley and the 
 master were standing beside him. 
 
 " Where were old Eeuben and his gang stationed?" said 
 Hugh Eitson. 
 
 " In the main working; but the water is dammed up; we 
 can never pass." 
 
 They returned to the shaft bottom, arid walked thence down 
 the cutting that ran from it at right angles. A light burned 
 far away in the dim vista of that long dark burrowing. 
 
 It was a candle stuck to the rock. The men who worked by 
 it had left it there when they rushed off for their lives. 
 Through the bottom of this working there ran a deep trough, 
 but it was now dry. 
 
 This was the channel by which the whole pit was drained. 
 Beyond the light the three men encountered another wall of 
 sand, and from behind it and through it there came to them 
 the dull thud and the plash of heavy water. 
 
 " If auld Eeuben's theer, he's a dead man," said Giles 
 Eaisley, and he turned to go. 
 
 Hugh Eitson had struggled to the top of the heap, and was 
 plowing the sand away from the roof with his hands. In a 
 little while he had forced an opening, and could see into the 
 dark space beyond. The water had risen to a reservoir of sev ■ 
 eral feet deep. But it was still four or five feet from the roof, 
 and over the black, surging, bubbling waves the imprisoned 
 miner could be seen clinging to a ledge of rock. Half his body 
 was already immersed. When the candle shot its streak of 
 light through the aperture of sand, the poor creature uttered a 
 feeble cry. 
 
 In another moment the master had wormed his body 
 through the hole and dropped slowly into the water. Wading 
 breast deep, he reached the pitman, gave him his hand, and 
 brought him safely through the closing seam. 
 
 When the cage rose to the surface again, bringing back to 
 life and the world the last of the imprisoned miners, a great 
 cheer broke from many a lusty throat. Women who had 
 never thought to bless the master, blessed him now with fer- 
 vent tongues. Men who had thought little of the courage that 
 could rest in that slight figure, fell aside at the sense of their 
 own cowardice. Under the red glow that came from the en- 
 gine fire many a hard face melted. 
 
346 A SON OF HAGAK. 
 
 Hugh Eitson saw little of this, and heeded it not at all, He 
 plucked the candle, still burning, from his hat, and threw it 
 aside. Then he walked through the people toward his room, 
 and when he got there he shut the door, almost slamming it in 
 the faces of those who followed. He pulled down the window- 
 blinds, and began afresh his perambulation to and fro. 
 
 He had grown paler and thinner. There was a somber light 
 in his eyes, and his lips were whitening. His step, once quick 
 and sure, despite his infirmity, was now less certain. He had 
 not slept since the night of Mercy's death. Determined never 
 to encounter again the pains and terrors of sleep, he had walked 
 through the long hours of the four succeeding nights. He 
 knew what the result must be, and did not shrink from it. 
 Once only he had thought of a quicker way to the sure goal 
 that was before him. Then he had opened a cupboard, and 
 looked long and intently at a bottle that he took from its shelf. 
 But he had put the bottle back. Why should he play the fool 
 and leap the life to come? Thus night after night he had 
 walked and walked, never resting, never pausing, though the 
 enfeebled limbs shook beneath him, and the four walls of the 
 room reeled in his dazed eyes. 
 
 Before returning to their homes, the people gathered in the 
 darkness about the office on the pit-brow and gave one last 
 cheer. 
 
 The master heard them and his lip curled. 
 
 "Simpletons! — they don't understand," he muttered be- 
 neath his breath, and continued his melancholy walk. 
 
 Next morning a banksman, who acted as personal attendant 
 on Hugh Eitson, brought him his breakfast. It was not early. 
 
 The sun had risen, but the blinds of the office were still 
 drawn, and a candle burned on the table. The man would 
 have put out the candle and let in the sunlight, but the mas- 
 ter forbid him. He was a Methodist, and hummed psalm 
 tunes as he went about his work. This morning he was more 
 than usually fresh and happy when he entered with his tray; 
 J but at the sight of Hugh Eitson's pallid face his own face sad- 
 dened. 
 
 " You are a young man yet, Luke," said the master. " Let 
 me see, how old are you?" 
 
 " Seventy-nine, sir. I was born in ninety-eight. That was 
 when auld Bonnypart was agate of us and Nelson bashed him 
 up." 
 
 " I dare say you have grandchildren by this time?" 
 
 " Bless you, ey, and great-grandchilder, and ten of them, 
 too: and ^ well and hearty, thank the Lord I" 
 
A SON OX HAG.AK. 347 
 
 The sound of a bell, slowly tolling, came from across the 
 dale. Hugh Bitson's face contracted, and his eyes fell. 
 
 " What bell is that?" he asked, in an altered tone. 
 
 " It's like to be the church bell. They're burying pooi 
 auld Mattha's lass and her wee barn this morning." 
 
 Hugh Eitson did not touch his breakfast. 
 
 " Luke, close the shutters," he said, " and bring more 
 candles." 
 
 He did not go out that day, but continued to walk to and 
 fro in the darkened room. Toward nightfall he grew feverish, 
 and rang frequently the bell that summoned the banksman. 
 He had only some casual order, some message, some unim- 
 portant explanation. 
 
 At length the old man understood his purpose, and settled 
 himself there for the night. They talked much during the 
 early hours, and often the master laughed and jested. But 
 the atmosphere that is breathed by a sleepless man is always 
 heavy with sleep, and in spite of his efforts to keep awake, 
 Luke dozed away in his chair. Then for hours there was a 
 gloomy silence, broken only by the monotonous footfall within 
 and the throb of the engine without. 
 
 The next day, Friday, the sun shone brilliantly, but the 
 shutters of the little house on the pit-brow remained closed, 
 and the candle still burned on the table. Hugh Eitson had 
 grown perceptibly feebler, yet he continued his dreary walk. 
 The old banksman was forbidden to send for a doctor, but h ) 
 contrived to dispatch a messenger for Parson Christian. Thai 
 night he watched with the master again. When the conver- 
 sation failed, he sung. First, a psalm of David, " The fool 
 hath said in his heart, There is no God;" then a revival hymD 
 of Charles Wesley about ransom by Christ's blood. 
 
 It would have been a strange spectacle to strange eye§. The 
 old man — young still, though seventy-nine, dear to troops of 
 dear ones, encircled in his age by love and honor, living in 
 poverty that was abundance, with faith that was itself the sub- 
 stance of things hoped for, his simple face ruddier and mel- 
 lower than before — rocking his head and singing in the single- 
 ness of his heart. The other man — barely thirty, yet already 
 old, having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as liner, 
 his eyes burning with a somber light — alone in the world, 
 desolate, apart — walking with an uncertain step and a tremor 
 of the whole frame, which seemed to lurch for poise and bal- 
 ance, yet swinging his arms with the sweep of the melody, and 
 smiling a forced smile through his hard and whitened lips. 
 
34:8 A Son OF HAGAE. 
 
 When the singing ceased, Hugh Eitson paused suddenly and 
 turned to the old banksman. 
 
 " Luke," he said, abruptly, " I suppose there will be many 
 to follow you when your time comes?" 
 
 " Ey, please God," answered the banksman, dashing away 
 a furtive drop that had rolled on to his cheek; " there'll be 
 my childer, and my childer's childer, and their childer, forby. 
 Maybe the barns will lay me behind the mother; poor auld 
 body!" 
 
 Hugh Ritson's face darkened, and he resumed his walk. 
 
 " Tut! what matter?" he asked himself; " the night winds 
 are enough to moan over a man's grave. ; ' And he laughed 
 a little. 
 
 Next morning — Saturday morning — he wrote a letter, and 
 sent Luke to the village to post it. Then he attended to some 
 business relating to the pit. After that, he shut the door and 
 bolted it. When the old man brought the midday meal he 
 knocked in vain, and had to go away. 
 
 Night closed in, and still there came no answer to the old 
 man's knock. When the sun had set the wind had risen. It 
 threatened to Ve a tempestuous night. 
 
 Toward ten o'clock Parson Christian arrived. He had 
 wrestled long with his own heart as to what course it was his 
 duty to take. He had come at last in answer to the banks- 
 man's summons, and now he knocked at the door. There 
 was no answer. The wind was loud in the trees overhead, but 
 he could hear the restless footfall within. He knocked 
 again, and } r et again. 
 
 Then the bolt was drawn, and a voice at once strange and 
 familiar cried, " Come in, Parson Christian." 
 
 He had not called or spoken. 
 
 The parson entered. When his eyes fell on Hugh Eitson's 
 face he shuddered as he had never shuddered before. Many 
 a time he had seen death in a living face, but never anything 
 like this. The livid cheeks were stony, the white lips were 
 drawn hard, the somber eyes burned like a deep, slow fire, the 
 yellow hands were gaunt and restless. There was despair on 
 the contracted brow, but no repentance. And the enfeebled 
 limbs trembled, but still shuffled on — on, on, on, through 
 their longer journey than from Gabbatha to Golgotha. The 
 very atmosphere of the room breathed of death. 
 
 " Let me pray with you," said the parson, softly, and with- 
 out any other words, he went down on his knees. 
 
 " Ay, pray for me — pray for me; but you lose your labor; 
 nothing can save me." 
 
A SON OF HAGAfi. 34$ 
 
 " Let us call on God," said the parson. 
 
 A bitter laugh broke from Hugh Eitson's lips. 
 
 " What! and take to Him the dregs and rinsings of my 
 life? No!" 
 
 " The blood of Christ has ransomed the world. It can save 
 the worst sinner of us all, and turn away the heavy wrath of 
 God." 
 
 Hugh Eitson broke again into a bitter laugh. 
 
 "The end has come of sin as of trouble. No matter." 
 Then, with an awful solemnity, he added: " My soul is bar- 
 ren. It is already given over to the undying worm. I shall 
 lie to-morrow at sunrise." 
 
 " No man knows the day nor the hour — " 
 
 Hugh Eitson repeated, with a fearful emphasis, " I shall 
 lie as the sun rises on Sunday morning." 
 
 Parson Christian remained with him the weary night 
 through. The wind moaned and howled outside. It licked 
 the walls as with the tongues of serpents. The parson prayed 
 fervently, but Hugh Eitson's voice never once rose with his. 
 To and fro, to and fro the dying man continued his direful 
 walk. At one moment he paused and said with a ghastly 
 smile, " This dying is an old story. It has been going on every 
 day for six thousand years, yet we find it as terrible as ever." 
 
 Toward three in the morning he threw open the shutters. 
 The windows were still dark; it seemed as if the dawn were 
 far away. "It is coming," he said calmly. " I knew it 
 must come soon. Let us go out to meet it." 
 
 With infinite effort he pulled his ulster over his shoulders, 
 put on his hat, and opened the door. 
 
 " Where are you going?" said the parson, and his voice 
 broke. 
 
 "To the top of the fell." 
 
 " Why there?" 
 
 Hugh Eitson turned his heavy eyes upon him. " To see 
 the new day dawn," he said, with an awful pathos. 
 
 He had already stepped out into the gloom. Parson Chris- 
 tian followed him. They took the path that led through the 
 moor end to the foot of Cat Bells. The old man offered his 
 arm, but Hugh Eitson shook his head and walked one pace 
 ahead. It was a terrible journey. The wind had dropped. 
 In the air the night and day commingled. The dying man 
 struggled along with the firm soul of a stricken lion. Step by 
 step and with painful labor they ascended the bare side of the 
 fell in the gray light of morning. They reached the top at 
 last. 
 
350 A SON OF TfAGAK. 
 
 Below them the moorland lay dark and mute. The mist 
 was around them. They seemed to stand on an islet of the 
 clouds. In front the day-break was bursting the confines of 
 bleak racks of cloud. Then the day came in its wondrous 
 radiance, and flooded the world in a vast ocean of light. 
 
 On the mountain brow Hugh Eitson resumed his melan- 
 choly walk. The old parson muttered, as if to himself, " Wilt 
 thou break a leaf driven to and fro? Wilt thou pursue the 
 dry stubble?" Hugh Eitson overheard the words, and all his 
 manner changed. The stubborn lips softened, the somber eye 
 melted, the contracted brow relaxed, and for the first time in 
 all this length of years, he cried like a little child. 
 
 At the same instant the sun swept up, and he fell. Parson 
 Christian bent over him. The crimson of the east was re- 
 flected on his white face. The new day had dawned. 
 
 On the Tuesday following two mourners stood by an open 
 grave in the church-yard of Newlands. One of them was 
 white-headed; the other wore the jacket and cap, the badge 
 and broad arrow of a convict. The sexton and his man had 
 lowered the coffin to its last home, and then stepped aside. A 
 tall man leaned on the lych-gate, and a group of men and 
 women stood in silence by the porch of the church. The 
 afternoon sun was low, and the shadows of the tombstones 
 stretched far on the grass. 
 
 The convict went down on his knees, and looked long into 
 the grave. When he arose, the company that had gathered 
 about the porch had gone, and voices singing a hymn, came 
 from within the old church. It was the village choir practic- 
 ing. The world's work had begun again. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 Two days later the fell behind the Ghyll was a scene of un- 
 usual animation. It was the day of the shearing. The sheep, 
 visibly whiter and more fleecy for a washing of some days be- 
 fore, had been gathered into stone folds. Clippers were seated 
 on creels ranged about a turf fire, over which a pot of tar 
 hung from a triangle of boughs. Boy " catchers " brought 
 up the sheep, one by one, and girl "helpers" carried away 
 the fleeces, hot and odorous, and hung them over the open 
 barn doors. As the sheep were stripped, they were tugged to 
 the fire and branded from the bubbling tar with the smet 
 mark of the Eitsons. The metallic click of the shears was in 
 the air, and over all was the blue sky and the brilliant sun 
 shine. 
 
A SOK OF HAGAR. 351 
 
 In a white overall, stained with patches cf tar and some 
 streaks of blood, smudged with soap and scraps of the clinging 
 wool, Parson Christian moved among the shearers, applying 
 plentiful doses of salve from a huge can to the snips made in 
 the skin of the sheep by the accidents of the shears. 
 
 "We might have waited for themaister afore shearing — 
 eh?" said Eeuben, from one of the creels. 
 
 " He'll be here before we finish, please the Lord/' an- 
 swered the parson. 
 
 " Is it to-day you're to gang for him?" 
 
 " Yes, this afternoon." 
 
 " A daub on this leg, parson, where she kicked — deuced 
 take her! . . . It's like you'll bring him home in a car?" 
 
 " Ay; Eandal Alston has loaned me his mare." 
 
 " Why, man, what a upshot we'll have, for sure — bacon pie 
 and veal and haggis, and top stannin pie and puddings, I 
 reckon. . . . Just a hand to her leg, parson, while I strip 
 the coat and waistcoat off this black-faced herdwick. ... Is 
 the mistress to come home too?" 
 
 " Nay, Eeuben, Mrs. Eitson has gone back to where she 
 came from." 
 
 " Weel, it's no'but naturable, after all that's happent. . . . 
 Easy now .... be quiet, wilta .... dusta want another 
 snip, eh? . . . And young Mistress Greta — it's like she'll be 
 mistress now?" 
 
 " It's very likely she'll come to the Ghyllwith her husband, 
 Eeuben." 
 
 " God bless her! And there's been no luck on the land 
 since he left it — and everything a fault too. . . . There, 
 she's stripped. Away with her Natt, man, and de'il tak' 
 her." 
 
 In the afternoon a vast crowd of men, women and children 
 had gathered once more about the old town-hall at Keswick. 
 They laughed and bantered and sung. Presently the door of 
 the hall was thrown open and two men came out. One was 
 Paul Eitson, no longer clad as a convict; the other was Par- 
 son Christian. The people hailed them with a mighty shout, 
 lifted them into a gig that was drawn up in the market-place, 
 took out the horses, and crowded into the shafts. Then they 
 set off with a great cheer through the town and the country 
 road, the dust rising in clouds behind them. 
 
 They took the road to the west of the valley, and as they 
 passed under the wood, an old man, much bent, was easing a 
 smoking fire in the charcoal pit. He paused and raised him- 
 self, his iron rod in his hand, and lifted his heavy eyes toward 
 
30 2 A SON OF HAGAB. 
 
 the clamorous company. The gig flew past with its shouts, its 
 cheers, and its noisy laughter, and the old man turned Eilently 
 back to his work. 
 
 When they came near to the vicarage Paul leaped from the 
 carriage over the heads of the men who pulled it, vaulted the 
 gate, and bounded into the house. There was one who waited 
 for him there, and in an instant she was locked close in his 
 arms. "At last!" he whispered. Her heart overflowed; she 
 dropped her fair young head on his heaving breast and wept 
 sweet tears. 
 
 Parson Christian came rolling up the path surrounded by a 
 tumultuous throng. Foremost and lustiest were the black- 
 smith and the miller, and close behind came the landlord and 
 the postman. All were shouting as if their brassy throats 
 might crack. 
 
 There was high revel at the Ghyll that evening. First 
 came the feasting in the old kitchen: huge rounds of beef, 
 quarters of lambs, pease, and sweet puddings and pies. Then 
 came the dancing in the barn, lighted by candles in cloven 
 sticks, and lanterns of turnips that were scooped out hollow. 
 
 But at the vicarage Paul and Greta sat alone in silence and 
 with clasped hands. Parson Christian came in and out at in- 
 tervals, gossiping cheerily of the odds and ends of daily life, 
 as if its even tenor had never been disturbed. They supped to- 
 gether, and sat on till midnight; and then the old Christian 
 took down his green tome and wrote: 
 
 "June 30. — So Paul being to return home after his long 
 absence, I spent the forenoon on the fell shearing, and earned 
 a stone of wool and a windle of rye. In the afternoon I set 
 forward toward Keswick, wherefor Eandal Alston had loaned 
 me his mare and gig. At the Flying Horse I lighted not, but 
 stood while I drank a pot of ale with John Proudfoot and 
 Eichard Parkinson and a neighbor that comes to-morrow to 
 thatch the low barn for me. Then direct to Keswick, where 
 there was a great concourse, and a hearty welcome and much 
 rejoicings that warmed me and came nigh to break me withal. 
 Got son Paul at last, and would have driven direct home, but 
 the good folk were not minded that it should be so, and 
 naught would do but that they must loose the mare and run in 
 the shafts. So we reached home about six and found all 
 well, and my love Greta, after long waiting in her closet, very 
 busy with Paul, who had run in ahead of me. So I went out 
 again and foddered and watered the mare, for Peter is some- 
 times a sad fatch and will not always give a horse what is. 
 
A SON OF HAGAB. 353 
 
 worth its trouble in the eating. And being thrang this even- 
 ing a-mending the heels of my old clock boots with lath nails, 
 whereof I bought a pennyworth at Thomas Seed's shop in the 
 market-place, I saw little of Paul, but left him to Greta. 
 Then supped, and read a psalm and prayed in my family, and 
 sat till full midnight. So I retire to my lodging-room, at peace 
 with all the world, and commend my all to God. The Lord 
 forgive the sins of me and mine that we have committed in 
 these our days of trial. Blessed be God who has wrought our 
 victory, and overcome our enemies and brought us out more 
 than conquerors. Amen." 
 
 Parson Christian had put down the pen, and was sprinkling 
 the writing with sand from a pepper-castor, when Brother 
 Peter came in with candles in his hand and a letter under his 
 abridged arm. " Laal Tom o' Dint gave me this for thee," 
 he said to Paul, and dropped the letter on to his knees. " I 
 was sa thrang with all their bodderments, that I don't know 
 as I didna forget it." 
 
 Parson Christian returned the green-clad book to its shelf, 
 took up his candle, bid good-night, and went to bed. 
 
 Brother Peter shambled out, and then Paul and Greta were 
 left alone. 
 
 Paul opened the letter. It was inclosed in a sheet of paper 
 that bore the stamp of the Convent of St. Margaret, and these 
 words only, " Sent on by Sister Grace." Paul began to read 
 the letter aloud, Greta looking over his shoulder. But as he 
 proceeded, his voice faltered, and then he stopped. Then in 
 silence the eyes of both traversed the written words. They 
 
 - - — "wiged you deeply, and yours is a wrong 
 " Mother, I have w. -^ e d. The past does not return, and 
 that may never be repair it } s no t a n owe( j to us to raze out 
 what is done is done with. ~~" the days that are gone; they 
 the sins and the sufterrngs 01 "St.. so bad a man as perhaps I 
 stand and will endure. I am ; *- ^ myse \i now^-and who 
 seem; but of what agUjrtto defen ^^ ^ 
 
 would believe me? My li±e lias oeen , d fee _ 
 
 threads of my ^*™ ^J^gd cSlous man?" Yet the 
 fore our little world tor a stern l * u \- for love w here 
 Sight of my soul has been passion^ J^J*^. l might 
 l0 ve could never ■ be 5 etume J'^™ r it was no t until pas- 
 has been. If I did ™g *™" X J f^' did no t exist, it was 
 %£?Z2Sr££"^ Mother, if there is One 
 
354 A SON OV HAGAK. 
 
 above to watch and judge our little lives, surely He sees this, 
 and reckons the circumstances with the deed. 
 
 " Tell her that I wish her peace. If I were a man used to 
 pray, perhaps I would ask Heaven to bless her. But my heart 
 is barren of prayer. And what, after all, boots my praying? 
 I have given her back at last to the love of a noble man. And 
 now my wasted life is done, and this is the end — a sorry end ! 
 
 " Mother, I shall not live to suffer the earthly punishment 
 of my crime. Never fear — my hand shall not be lifted against 
 myself. Be sure of that, whatever else may seem doubtful. 
 But very soon this passionate and rebellious soul will stand im 
 judgment before its awaiting God. 
 
 ''Farewell, my mother, farewell!" 
 
 TEM EOT. 
 
\£ '.-. 
 
 •*.