mmm:^ ifi tJ/.^JkSL, xM' ouff fR *^ ■H-H-OH SG mi- 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/cletails/cu31924050022155 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 050 022 155 HALL CAINE f^ g fFi tei HALL CAINE'S BEST BOOKS IN THREE VOLUMES VOLUME III A Son of Hagar She's All The World to Me BY HALL CAINE ILLUSTRATED P. F. COLLIER & SON NEW YORK r ^'^ ■ ^ ^ f^pL A SON OF HAGAR BOOK I RETRO ME, SATHANA PROLOGUE IN THE YEAR 1845 T 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 disheveled 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 car- ried 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, it 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 inquiries touching her name and circumstances she keeps a rigid silence. The doctor is of opinion, your worship, that the woman is not entirely responsible." "Her appearance in court might certainly justify that con- elusion," said the magistrate. The young >voman had gazed vacantly about her with an air Tol. III. (1) 1 2 A SON OF HAGAR of indifference. She seemed scarcely to realize that through the yellow vagueness the eyes of a hundred persons were centred 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, uncomfort- able 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 ap- plied. 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 worship 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 you?" "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 knowing what she'd be doing of yet." "Is she married, do you know?" "Yes, your worship ; she wears her wedding-ring quite regular — only once 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 responsible 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 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 A SON OF HAGAR 3 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 door- steps, 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, your worship; for I says to my husband, says I, 'Poor young thing, I can't rest in my bed, and knowing nothing 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 hap- pened, and — " "Let us hear the doctor. Is he in court?" "Yes, your worship," said the constable. Mrs. Draj^on 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 re- sponsible — 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 cer- tain 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, thougK she was danger-i ous to no one but herself. Her attempt at suicide was one of the common results of disaster in afifairs of love. Perhaps she was a married woman, abandoned by her husband ; 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 magis- 4 A SON OF HAGAR trate; 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 twitched, and she staggered back into the arms of the constable behind her. She was now insensible. 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 magis- trate; "I will give an order at once." A voice came from the body of the court. It was Mrs. Dray- ton'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, sir, 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 magis- trate. Then, turning to the clerk, he added, "Let inquiries 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 : the constable was taking the child out of her arms. She clung to it with feverish hands. "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 A SON OF HAGAR 5 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 woman's breath came and went in gusts, and her child cried from the convulsive pressure to her breast. "Remove 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 monotony 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? Rents can't be paid on nothing a week, and something to put in the mouth besides." "Gone? Are you mad? Woman, think what you're saying. 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. "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 ! 6 A SON OF HAGAR 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. "Rest 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 rae ; 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 con- solingly. "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. CHAPTER I IN THE YEAR 1875 It was Young Folks' Day in the Vale of Newlands. The sum- mer 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 purple with waves of heather. It was noontide, and the shadows were short. In the slumberous atmosphere the bees droned, and the hot air quiv- ered 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 flying, and crowds of men, women, and children watched the mountain sports. In the centre of a group of spectators two men, stripped to the waist, were wrestling. They were huge fellows, with muscles that stood out on their arms like giant bulbs, and feet that held the ground like the hoofs of oxen. The wrestlers were calm to all A SON OF HAGAR 7, outward appearance, and embraced each other with the quiet fond- ling 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, Reuben, 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 blacksmith, 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 of 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, Reuben ?" "What a bash it was, to be sure !" "What dusta think you of yon wrustling, ey, man?" "Nay, nay, it's varra middling." "Ever seen owt like it since the good auld days you crack on sa often, auld man?" "Nay, he doont him varra neat, did Paul — I will allow it." "There's never a man in Cumberland need take a hand with' young Paul Ritson 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 panniers just above its tail. The rider was an elderly man with shaggy eye- brows and beard of mingled black and gray. His swarthy, keen wizened face was twisted into grotesque lines beneath a pair of little blinking eyes, which seemed to say that anybody who re- fused to see that they belonged to a perfectly wide-awake son of old Adam made a portentous mistake. He was the mountain pedler, and to-day, at least, his visit was opportune. 8 A SON OF HAGAR "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 sad- dle 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 Gubbluin, 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 con- descension. 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 Eessy, here, I couldn't get o£E again — that's iwhat happened." "No? Why?" "You, see, I'd got my clogs on when I went to buy the saddle 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 Brandth'et Edge I couldn't get them out. So our Sally, she said to my auld woman, 'Mother,' she said, 'we'll have to pMt 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 bed as they keeps maistly at the back of a stable, and they loosened the straps and gave a push, and cried 'Away.' " A SON OF HAGAR 9 "Weel, man, weel?" "Weel! nowt of the sort ! It wasn't weel at all ! When I rolled over I was off the pony, for sure; but I was stuck fast to the saddle just the same." "Whatever 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 spin- ning 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 eddicated ! We don't vally eddication half enough !" A young fellow — it was Lang Geordie Moore — pushed a smirk- ing 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 inter- ruption, 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 pedler's talk, and felt an indul- gent 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, pedler, of Branth'et Edge, got off his pony and stroked its tousled mane. He was leading it to a tem- porary stable, when he met face to face the young wrestler, Paul Ritson, 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 ?" Paul smiled. 10 A SON OF HAGAR "Come back ! I've not been away." The old man looked slyly up into Paul's face and winked. Per- ceiving 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 in- quiry. The pedler took off his hat, held his head aside, scratched it leisurely, glanced up again into the face of young Ritson, 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 lEessy?" "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 tKe pony's Head was held down to the withered hand that scratched and caressed 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 re- sponse. The company that had gathered about them caught the humor of the situation, and tittered audibly enough to provoke the pedler's wrath. "But I say you have seen it," shouted Gubblum in emphatic 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 >vas Hugh Ritson, the younger brother of Paul. A SON OF HAGAR ii Gubblum's manner gathered emphasis. "You were standing on the step of the Hawk and Heron," said he, "and I waved my hand and shouted, 'A canny morning to you. Master Paul' — Ey, that I did!" "You don't say so !" said Paul with mock solemnity. His brother had caught the pedler's words, and stopped. "But I do say so," said Gubblum, with many shakes of his big head. Let any facetious young gentleman who supposed that it was possible to make sport out 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 pedler. 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 Ritson 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 Ritson turned on his heel and walked oflf. CHAPTER II The Vale of Newlands runs nortfi and soutK. On its east bank rise the Cat Bell fells and tHe Eel Crags'; on tKe west rise Hindscarth and Robinson, backed by Whiteless Pike and Gras- moor. A river flows down the bed of the valley, springing in tHe south among the heights of Dale Head, and emptying into Bassen- thwaite on the north". 'K village known as Little Town stands 12 A SON OF HAGAR 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, oak, and birch. From a clearing in this wood a thin column of pale blue smoke ytSLS 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 fire. 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 without a waist- coat. Most of us convey the idea that to our own view we are centres of our circles, and that the universe revolves 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 set 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 possess himself of the royalties of the Fishers. But the peasant family resisted the aris- tocrat. 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 stubborn race. Matthew Fisher followed his father and his grandfather, and inherited the family faith. All these years the tenders of the Lord of the Manor were ignored, and the Fishers enjoyed their title of courtesy or badinage. When Mat- thew was a boy there was a rhyme current in the vale which ranT "There's t'auld laird, and t'yoiing laird, and t'laird among t'barns, If iver there comes another laird, we'll hang him up by farms." A SON OF HAGAR 13 There is a tough bit of Toryism in the grain of these northern dalesfolk. Their threat was idle; no other laird ever came. Mat- thew married, and had one daughter only. He farmed his few acres with poor results. The ground was good enough, but Mat- thew was living under the shadow of the family 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, ^hen his eye glanced over a glittering stone that lay among the pebbles, at the bottom of the stream. It was ore, good full ore, and on the very surface. Then the Laird Fisher sank a shaft and all his earnings 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-i3ay — 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 dalesfolk did not spare the old man's bent head. "He's brankan" (holding up his head) "like a stag 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 wave- lets 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 down- ward 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. 14 A SON OF HAGAR 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. 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 chirming 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 thoo's not the same heartsome lass," he said, and went on piling the fagots around the shaft. "But I 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 gaiety, in this sweet sum- mer 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." A SON OF HAGAR 15 Then there was a little forced laugh. The lucent eyes were full of a dewy wistfulness. "Any trouble, Mercy?" "What trouble, father?" "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 clattering." 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 breakdown 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 old 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 i6 A SON OF HAGAR trunk, and was opening the basket, when there was a light, springy- step on the road. "So you fire to-night, Matthew?" An elderly man leaned over the stile and smiled. "Nay, Mr. Bonnithorne, there's ower much nastment in the weather yet." The gentleman took off his silk hat and mopped his forehead. 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 an- swered. "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 had strayed away into the thicket, and startled a wood- cock out of a heap of dead oak leaves. The gentleman followed 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 gaily, sir, she's gaily," 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-burnt char- coal 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. Ritson's, them herdwicks." The sheep were on a ridge of shelving rock< "Dangerous spot, eh?" A SON OF HAGAR 17 "Ey, it's a bent place. They're varra clammersome, the black- faced sorts." "I'll bid you good-day, Matthew." The yellow-haired elderly gentleman Tvas 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. "It's not doctoring that'll mend Mercy," the charcoal-burner muttered, when the other had gone. CHAPTER in JosiAH BoNNiTHORNE was quite without kinspeople or connec- tions. His mother had been one of two sisters, who lived fiy keep- ing a small confectioner's shop in Whitehaven, anS were devoteH Methodists. The sisters had formed views as to matrimony, anil then enjoyed a curious similarity of choice. THey were to be tfie 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 Hiarrie3 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 tools: him for husbana haa effected a compromise with her cherished ideal. It turned out that he was a scoundrel as well, and had a wife living elsewhere. This disclosure abridged his usefulness among the brethren, an^ 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 Husband's creditors, and then a child was born. It was a poor 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 bade farewell to everything. i8 A SON OF HAGAR The boy lived. They christened him Josiah, and he took for sur- name 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 acci- dent transferred him to the office of a solicitor, and he was articled. Ten years later he succeeded to his master's practice, and then he sailed with all sail set. He disappointed the "connection" by developing into a Church- man, but otherwise aroused no hostile feeling. It was obviously his cue to conciliate everybody. He was liked without being pop- ular, 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 pros- per even as this world goes. 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 Ritson. 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 gurgling laugh with which the dalesfolk received the pedler's story of how he saw Paul Ritson at Hendon. A minute afterward he encountered Hugh Ritson on the road. There was only the most meagre pretense at greeting when these men came face to face. "Your father sent for me," said Mr. Bonnithorne. "On what business ?" Hugh Ritson asked. "I have yet to learn." They walked some steps without speaking. Then the lawyer 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 Ritson's face flushed perceptibly. His eyes were on the ground. "Let us go no farther in this matter," he said, in a low tone. "I saw her yesterday. Then there is her father, poor broken crea- ture! 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 A SON OF HAGAR 19 Ritson. "In what turgid melodrama does not just such an epi- sode 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 her 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 Ritson 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 Ritson drew up sharply. "Why not? Is she poor? Then what am I? 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 Ritson's pale face flushed a little, and he drew his breath hard. Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head in the direction of the voice, and said softly: "So our friend Greta is here to-day." "Yes," said Hugh Ritson very quietly. Then the friend walked some distance in silence. "It is scarcely worthy of you to talk in this brain-sick fashion," 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 Ritson'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 disappointed man." "Pardon me, you are a very young one," said Mr. Bonnithorne. "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 Ritson glanced up quickly. "What do you mean?" 20 A SON OF HAGAR "You say you are a second son." "And what then?" "Would it be so fearful a thing if you were not a second son V "In the name of truth, be plain. My brother Paul is living." Mr. Bonnithome nodded his head twice or thrice, and said calmly: "You know that your brother hopes to marry Greta?" "I have heard it." Again the flush came to Hugh Ritson'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 Catholic 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. Bonnithome nodded. "Greta's mother. So he — " "Abandoned the first wife," Hugh Ritson interrupted again. Mr. Bonnithorne shook his head with an innocent expression. "Wife? Well, he left her." "You talk of a son. Had they one ?" "They had," said Mr. Bonnithorne, "and when the woman and child . . . disappeared — " "Exactly," said HugH Ritson, and he smiled. "What did Low- ther 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 re- ceives labeled 'Income Tax.' " "Precisely — only Lowther had no address to send it to." A SON OF HAGAR 21 "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 fault. I be- lieve 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 Ritson 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 hunting for the son of the fool's deserted 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 Ritson's respect for the dead man's intelligence ex- perienced a sensible elevation. "So it is 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 turn- ing 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 men- tioned 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 medaUion- 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 Ritson 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 Ritson stopped. He regarded the portrait atten- tively ; looked up at the lawyer and back at the medallion. For an instant the strong calm which he had hitherto shown seemed to 22 A SON OF HAGAR 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 a fancy!" he muttered. Then he asked aloud what the nun's name had been. "Ormerod." There was a start of recovered consciousness. "Ormerod — that's strange !" The exclamation seemed to escape inadvertently. "Why strange?" Hugh Ritson 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 Ritson 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 looked 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 Robert Lowther?" Hugh Ritson'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 added, 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 Ritson 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 Ritsons, known as the Ghyll, a long Cumbrian homestead of gray stone and green slate. A lazy curl of smoke was winding up from one chimney through the clear air. A gossamer net of the tangled boughs of a slim brier-rose hung A SON OF HAGAR 23 over the face of a broad porch, and at that moment a butterfly flitted through it. The chattering of geese came from behind. "Robert Lowther was the father of Grace Ormerod's child?" said Hugh Ritson vacantly. "The father of her son Paul." "And Greta is his daughter ? Is that how it goes ?" "That is so— and half-sister to Paul." Hugh Ritson 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, per- haps as old — fully as old as your brother." Hugh Ritson'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. Thrust home, it might betray 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 Ritson, 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 Ritson'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 stackyard," said Hugh Ritson. "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 nest- ling under the eaves. A solitary crow flew across the sky, and cawed out its guttural note. Its shadow fell, as it passed, on two elderly people who were coming into the courtyard. 24 A SON OF HAGAR CHAPTER IV "It's time for that laal Mr. Bonnithorne to be here," said Allan Ritson. "Why did you send for him?" asked Mrs. Ritson, 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 secret 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. Ritson made no terms with the affectation of indifference. 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. Ritson glanced into his face with a look of sad reproach. "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 sad- dens my auld 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. Ritson. A SON OF HAGAR 25 At that moment there came from across the vale the shouts of the merrymakers and the music of a fiddle. Allan Ritson lifted his head, nodded it aside jauntily, and smiled feebly through the mist that w^ 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 listened : 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. Bonni- thorne had heard in the road. Allan's face brightened, and his voice had only the faintest crack in it as he said : "Thaf 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. Ritson 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 ! hurrah ! beaten, sir, beaten !" It was Greta Lowther: twenty years of age, with fair hair, quick brown eyes, a sunny face lighted up with youthful anima- tion, 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 Ritson 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 Windybrowe, and you didn't go within a hundred yards of it." "The beacon? On Windybrowe?" said the girl, and wondrous perplexity shone in her lovely eyes. Paul wiped his brow, and shook his head and his finger with mock gravity at the beautiful cheat. VoL III. 2 26 A SON OF HAGAR "Now, Greta, now — now — gently — " Greta looked around with the bewildered gaze of a lost lambkin. "Mother," said Paul, "she stole a march on me." "He was the thief, Mrs. Ritson: 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 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, throwing 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 theni from a more distant sight. "Ey, 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 folk say. Greta, he's a girt booby, isn't he?" Greta stepped up to the old man, and with a familiar gesture 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 Ritson abridged the threat of punishment that seemed to hang large on the old man's lips. Hugh Ritson'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 A SON OF HAGAR 27 upward full of feeling ; the half-open lips and the teeth like pearls ; then the glance round, half of mockery, half of protest, altogether of unconquerable love, to where Paul Ritson 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 all, and his heart beat fast. His pale face whit- ened at that moment, and his infirm foot trailed heavily on the gravel. Allan shook hands with Mr. Bonnithome, and then turned to his sons. "Come, you two lads have not 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 its 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, I 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 mo- iinent Hugh Ritson's eyes followed her. 28 A SON OF HAGAR "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 for me? The world is wide." Old Allan was confounded. Silent, dumb, with great staring 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 clenched. His body quivered in every limb. His son's lips were firmly set; he made no answer. Then the old man snatched from Mr. Bonnithorne 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 speech- less, and his eyes, bent on the ground, swam with tears. "All will be well, please God," said Mrs. Ritson. "Remember, 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 answered 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 A SON OF HAGAR 29 parlor to the right of the porch. It was a quaint room, full of the odor of a bygone time. The floor was of polished black oak, cov- ered with skins ; the ceiling was of 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 illumi- nated text and three prints in black and white. The furniture was heavy and old. There was a spinning-wheel under the "wide win- dow-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. Bonnithome," 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 burnt to the socket." Old Allan took little heed of the sentiment, "Ey," he said, "but there's mair nor common 'casion for 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. Bonni- thorne came to his help. "Yes, I am all attention — your eldest son — " "He is — he is — " The door opened and Mrs. Ritson entered the room, followed close by the Laird Fisher. "Mr. Ritson, your sheep, them black-faced herdwicks on Hinds- earth, have broken 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 in the ghyll." "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. 30 A SON OF HAGAR "Can ye bide here for me until eight o'clock to-neet, Mr. Bonni- thorne ?" There was some vexation written on the lawyer's face, but he answered with meekness: "I am always at your service, Mr. Ritson. I can return at eight." "Varra good." Then, turning to Mrs. Ritson, "Give friend Bonnithorne a bit o' summat," said Allan, and he followed the charcoal-burner. Out in the courtyard he called the dogs. "Hey howe ! hey home ! Bright ! Laddie ! Come, boys, come, boys, te- lick, te-smack !" He put his head in at the door of an out-house and shouted, "Reuben, whereiver 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 Ritson in the courtyard. "Dusta gang back to the fell, Mattha?" said the statesman. "Nay, I's done for the day. I'm away home." "Good-neet, and thankee." Then the troop disappeared down the lonnin — the men calling, the dogs barking. In walking through the hall Mr. Bonnithorne encountered Hugh Ritson, 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 Ritson 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. A SON OF HAGAR 31 CHAPTER V Hugh Ritson 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 vehement eyes, and a broad forehead, with hair of dark auburn parted down the middle and falling in thin waves on the temples. 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 pro- duced 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 lame- ness, 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, and had been trained in the profession of a mining engineer. After spending a few months at the iron mines of Cleator, he had re- moved 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 barrister in the Temple Gardens. His London career was uneventful. Taciturn in man- ner, he made few friends. His mind had a tendency toward con- templative 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 mystery 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 Philippe, 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 32 A SON OF HAGAR of his passion. He could never look a beautiful woman 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 him- self, 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 deferred. 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 Ritson 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 sank his shaft. In the beck that ran close to the disused 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 beck-side. He remembered her as a pretty, prattling thing of ten or eleven. She was now a girl of eighteen, 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 Ritson liked her gentle replies and her few simple questions. 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 Ritson 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 farther.- 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 another woman. A SON OF HAGAR 33 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 con- sequences that are now to be related. The story which Mr. Bonni- thorne 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 dis- appointment 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 not the son of Allan Ritson, then he himself, Hugh Ritson, 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 evi- dence 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. 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 spectators 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 on 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 white- washed 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 ring-ouzels 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 en- compassed by chestnut trees. As Hugh Ritson 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 Ritson observed that a cat sat sedately 34 A SON OF HAGAR behind the trunk of that tree, glancing up at intervals at the sport- ing 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 increases the danger." 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 hour. Your father is not yet home from the pit, and most of the dales- people 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 f eelaly, 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 con- vulsive movement. After a while 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-by to everything. There were Betsy Jackson's chil- dren — I kissed them all this morning, and never said why — little Willie, 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. A SON OF HAGAR 35 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- by 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 s'ure that you love me well enough to think of me when I am gone ? — are you quite, quite sure ?" "Yes, yes; be sure of that," he said gently. He disengaged her arm. "And will you come and fetch me after — after — " She could not say the word. He smiled and answered: "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 deprec9.tion of so much childlike earnestness; then he put his arm about the girl's shoulder, dropped his voice to a tone of mingled compassion 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-by 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-by." Hugh turned on his heel, and walked sharply away. As he passed out through the gate he could not help observing that the 36 A SON OF HAGAR ^ cat from the foot of the chestnut tree was walking stealthily off, with something like a dawning smile on its whiskered face, and the brush of the squirrel between its teeth. Hugh Ritson had gained his end, and yet he felt more crushed than at the darkest moment of defeat. He had conquered 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 deceit, was more than cruel: it was brutal. He could have borne even this hard saying so far as it concerned the woman's suffering, but for the reflection that it made the man something worse than a coxcomb in his own eyes. The day was now far spent ; the brilliant sun had dipped behind Grisedale, and left a ridge of dark fells in the west. On the east the green sides of Cat Bells and the Eel Crags were yellow 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 Ritsou took the valley road back to the Ghyll. He was visibly perturbed; he walked with head much bent, stopped sud- denly at times, then snatched impetuously at the trailing bushes, and passed on. When he was under Hindscarth 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 boulder, 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. A SON OF HAGAR 37 "Nay ; I's not firing to-neet, for sure ; my daughter is expecting 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 Reuben and the lad, and it's baddish weather that is coming, too — look at yon black cloud over Walna Scar." Then for an instant there was embarrassment in Hugh Ritson'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 bonnet swing- ing over her arm, her soft, wavy hair floating over her white fore- head, her cheeks colored with a warm glow, a roguish light in her eyes, and laughter on the point of bubbling out of her lips. Greta had just given Paul Ritson the slip. There was a thicket in the field she had crossed, and it was covered with wild roses, white and red. Through the heart of it there rippled a tiny streak of water that was amber-tinted from the round shingle in its bed. iThe trunk of an old beech lay across it for ford or bridge. Undei^ foot 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 cunning rascal, would have tempted Gret^ 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 man- ifest design, she had tripped back on tiptoe, and fled away like a lapwing over the noiseless grass. When Greta met Hugh Ritson 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 ud 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 iwomanhood. 38 A SON OF HAGAR Hugh Ritson'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 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 always so. Since our childhood — my brother's and mine — 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 distressed 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 embarrassed, into his face. She was too late : he had read her thought. A faint smile parted his 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. Naturfe 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 gfiven her?" Hugh shook his head. A SON OF HAGAR 39 "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?" Ke 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." Hugh looked earnestly into the girl's glowing face, and said iwith 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 customary impetuosity. She glanced into Hugh's face, and misread 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 composure 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 dismissed the last of his qualms respecting her. To be tied down for life to a mindless piece ip A SON OF HAGAR of physical prettiness — what man of brains could bear it? He had yielded to a natural impulse — true! That moment of temptation threatened painful consequences — still true! What then? Noth- ing! 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 and went on: "Is it possible that you have not yet read my secret ?" "What secret?" she said in a half -smothered voice. "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 you 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 undreamt 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, dearest, I said there has been little in my life to sweeten it. Yet I 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. Per- haps 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. A SON OF HAGAR 41 She had stood as one transfixed, a slow paralysis of surprise lay- ing 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 Ritson 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. Now I know how mean' of soul you are." 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, -(vith an eloquent uplift- ing 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 contractions ;Were deep about his forehead, but he answered in an imperturb- able voice : "You shall never marry my brother." "I will— God willing." "Then you shall marry him to your lifelong horror and dis- grace." "That shall be as heaven may order." "A boor — a hulking brute — a bas — " "Enough ! I would rather marry a plowboy than such a gen- tleman 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 Ritson's natural manner returned instantly. He looked after her without the change of a feature, and then turned quietly into the house. 42 A SON OF HAGAR CHAPTER VI There was a drowsy calm in the room where Mr. Bonnithorne 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 mountain-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 expression was 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 fin- gers twitched nervously as she knitted without cessation, she sat silent, or put meek questions to her gaest. 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. Ritson's anxiety overcame the restraint of her manner. "Mr. Bonnithorne," she said, "do let the will be made to-night. Urge Mr. Ritson, when he returns, to admit of no further delay. He has many noble qualities, but procrastination is his fault. It has been ever so." Mr. Bonnithorne paused with a glass half raised to his lip, and lifted his eyes Instead. "Pardon me, madam," 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." A SON OF HAGAR 43 And just then a peacock strutted through the courtyard, start- ling the still air with its empty scream. Mrs. Ritson 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 recognize the right of a woman to call her son her own." During this prolonged speech, Hugh Ritson, fresh from his interview with Greta Lowther, entered the room, and stretched himself on the couch. Mrs. Ritson, 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. Ritson's ear. She looked up from her knitting and said : "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. Ritson'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 a long "hem" from his overburdened chest, inserted his fingers in the armpits of his waistcoat, looked up and said: "Odd, isn't it?" Unluckily for the full effect of Mr. Bonnithorne's subtle witti- cism, Paul Ritson, 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 fie 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." 44 A SON OF HAGAR 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 in- stant brought the other hand down on the table. Without speakingj Mr. Bonnithorne shuffled back into his seat. Mrs. Ritson, 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 Ritson lay, and looked down with mingled anger and contempt into his brother's indifferent eyes. When the door closed behind them, Hugh Ritson and Mr. Bon- nithorne rose together. There was a momentary gleam of mutual consciousness. Then instantly, suddenly, by one impplse, the two men joined hands across the table. CHAPTER VII The cloud that hung over Walna Scar broke above the valley, and a heavy rainstorm, 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 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 forret. Dunnot be blate." "Come along with ye, any as have springiness in them." The rough invitation was accepted without too much timidity 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. "FoMr best nag, Willy?" "Weel— the maister's." A SON OF HAGAR 45 She laughed again, and a sneer curled her lip. "You Colebank 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 his ear," said an elderly man standing 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, and stuff her with all sorts of flaitchment and lies. Then all the lasses wad be glyming at him." The dance span 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. "It must tak' a brave canny fortune.'' "Shaf, man, the country's puzzen'd round with pride," answered his gossip. "Lasses worked in the old days. Now they never do a hand's turn but 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 kiss- her, and from a corner of the booth there came a clamorous smack of lips. "I saw you sweetheartin' laal Bessie," said one of the fellows 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. 46 A SON OF HAGAR "Come, Dick, let's bottom a quart together. Deil tak' the ex- pense." "Why, man, and wherever hasta been since Whissen Monday ?" "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 sayd, 'What wage do you ask, canny lad?' 'Five pound 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 packed 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 telling 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 blustera- tion." "Mess, lads, but he'd be a reet good Parli'ment man to threep about the nation." "Weel, I's na pollytishin, but if it's tearin' and snappin' same as a terrier that mak's a reet good Parli'ment man, I reckon not all England could bang him." "And that's not saying nowt, Sim. I've heard Grey Graham on the ballot till it's wet him through to the waistcoat." "Is that Mister Paul Ritson and Mistress Lowther just run in for shelter?" "Surely and a reet bonny lass she is." "And he's got larnin' and marmers too." "Ey, he's of the betterment 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." A SON OF HAGAR 47 "Contentment's a king-dom, 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, Gnbblum ?" "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 pedler was evidently a dear simple soul. "Lord bless you, yes; what's in here," slapping his pack con- temptuously, "it's only for them wizzent old creatures up in Lon- don — 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 handker- ch'ers 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 pedler wore an expression of bland innocence as he continued : "But bless you, I'm such a straightforrard 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 "straightforrard 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 farther 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 !" 48 A SON OF HAGAR The look of amazement at his own shortcomings which sat on the childlike face of the pedler was answered by the expression of mock surprise in the face of Paul Ritson, 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 bless me," cried the elderly cynic, "but that Gubblum .will never mak' his plack a bawbee." And Grey Graham, having disposed of the affairs of the nation and witnessed Geordie snap at the pedler's bait, cried out in a bit- ter laugh : 'There's little wit within his powe That lights a candle at the lowe.'" Just then a tumult arose in the vicinity 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." "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 hands where directed, and instantly a comical smile of mingled joy and shame overspread his countenance. There was' a gurgling laugh, through which the voice of the pedler 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 A SON OF HAGAR 49 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 Ritson 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 Ritson. "Then maybe if s true," said Matthew, with a strange quiet. There :was a pause. Paul was the first to shake off his sur- 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? Mercy gone? Gone without a word? Why? Where?" "She'd her little red bundlfe aside her; and she cried a gay bit to hersel' in the corner. I saw her mysel'." Paul's face became rigid with anger. "There's villainy in this — ^be sure of that," he said hotly. The Laird rocked his head backward and forward, and his 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 wrathfuUy in lie faces around them he said: "Some waistrel has been at work here. Who is he? Speak out Anybody know?" 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, anjrways! Ha, ha, ha! Vol. III. * go A SON OF HAGAR But my heart is like to choke for all. You say reet, Mr. Ritson, 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 out- stretched arms. They loosened his neckerchief and bathed his forehead. Just then Hugh Ritson 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 Ritson'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. CHAPTER VIII In the homestead of the Ritson's the wide old ingle was aglow with a cheerful fire, and Mrs. Ritson stood before it baking oaten cake on a "girdle." The table was laid for supper with beef and beer and milk and barley-bread. In the seat of a recessed window, Paul Ritson and Greta Lowther sat together. At intervals that grew shorter, and with a grave face that be- came more anxious, Mrs. Ritson 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 A SON OF HAGAR 51 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 lit and put on the table flickered slightly and burnt red. "Mercy me, ,what a night! Was that a flash of lightning?" said Mrs. Ritson, and she walked to the door once more and opened it. "Don't worrit, mother !" repeated Paul. "Do come in. Fatho- 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. Resuming 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, Reuben?" 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 be- wildered 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 Reuben entered. She heard what he said, and rose up with a face of death-like pallor. But she said nothing, and sank helplessly into a chair. Then Greta stepped up to her and kissed her. "Mother — dear mother!" she said, and Mrs. Ritson dropped her head on the girl's breast. Hugh had been sitting over some papers in his own room oilf 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 Httgh. At the next moment there was the sound from without of bui> 52 A SON OF HAGAR dened 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. Ritson, raising her tear-stained face to listen. Paul entered. His ruddy cheeks had grown ashy white. His 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 had fallen. They bathed his forehead and ap- plied 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 let Greta out of the room. "This house of mourning is no place for you," he said; "the storm is over : you must leave us ; Natt can put the mare into the trap and drive you home." "I will not go," said Greta; "this shall be my 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. "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 A SON OF HAGAR 53 farming men sat together in an outer kitchen, and talked in ^whis- pers. The storm had passed away; the stars struggled one by one through a rack of flying cloud, and a silver fringe of moonlight sometimes fretted the black patches of the sky. Hugh Ritson 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 sorrow, and it was not pain; it was anxiety, uncertainty, perturbation. 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 his 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 the 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 the •brooding man. At eight o'clock Mr. Bonnithorne was appointed to be there to make the will. Hugh Ritson touched gently a handbell 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; 54 A SON OF HAGAR "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 dying at Bigrigg, and must see him at once. You understand?" The man lifted his slumbrous 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, "/ 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 yourself out of the way — do you hear ?" The heavy eyelids went up once more. "/ 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 Ritson returned to the hearth. That haunting mirror caught the light of his eyes again and showed him that he too was smiling. 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 at 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 Ritson 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 lon- nin 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 approach- A SON OF HAGAR 55 ing; he walked toward it, and met Josiali Bonnithorne. The law- yer was jouncing along toward the house with a lantern in his hand. "Didn't you meet the stableman?" said Hugh in an eager whis- per. "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 of Lowther's conscience-money." "Bonnithorne," said Hugh Ritson — his voice trembled and broke, "if it is so, then it is so, and we need do nothing. Remem- ber, he is my father. It is not within belief that he wants to dis- inherit 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 consciousness, he may be tempted to recognize as his own his wife's illegitimate son. That" — the low tone was one of withering irony — "will keep her from dishonor, and you from the estates." "At least he is my brother — my mother's son. If my father wishes to provide for him, God forbid that we should prevent." Once more the half-smothered laugh came through the darkness. "You have missed your vocation, Mr. Ritson. 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 to your knee and say, 'My good brother that should be, who has ever loved me, whom I have ever loved, take here my fortune, 56 A SON OF HAGAR and leave me until death a penniless dependent on the lands that are mine by right of birth.' " Hugh Ritson's breath came in gusts through his quivering, un- seen lips. "Bonnithorne, it can not be — it is mere coincidence, seductive, 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 un- natural 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 Ritson. "A great child just out of swaddling clothes." "Then the secret rests with me and you, 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 Ritson 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 sat- isfied 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 temptation. "I am off, Mr. Ritson. 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 be- fore his breast; its light fell that instant on Hugh Ritson's haggard face. "Wait; put out your lamp." "If s done." All was now dark. "Good-night." "Good-night." With slow whispers tKe two meH partea. A SON OF HAGAR 57 The springy step of Josiah Bonnithorne was soon lost in the road below. Hugh Ritson stood for a while where the lawyer left him, and then turned back 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. Ritson came from the inner room. Paul turned on his heel. "He is thinking of the will," said the elder brother. "Perhaps 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 Ritson was strongly agitated. Her eyes, red with weeping, [were aflame with expression. "Paul, he is conscious," she cried, in a voice that her anxiety could not subdue. "He is trying to speak. Where is the lawyer ?" Hugh had been moving toward the outer door. "Conscious !" he repeated, and turned to the hearth. "Send for Mr. Bonnithorne at once," said Mrs. Ritson, address- ing Hugh. 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. Ritson 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. 58 a: SON OF HAGAR "I'll: go, myself," he said, and plucked up his hat fromithe settle, but Mrs. Ritson 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 calm- ness of Hugh's manner disturbed him. The servant reappeared. "Natt is not in the stable, sir." Paul's face was growing crimson. Mrs. Ritson turned to Hugh. "Hugh, my dear son, do you go for the lawyer." A faint smile that lurked at the comers 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 for- ever," said Paul. Wrapping a cloak about her shoulders, he whis- pered, "My brave girl — ^ttiat's the stuff of which an Englishwoman 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 burnt ; 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 Ae still room within. "A safe journey to you, dear girl, and a speedy return," whis- pered Paul, and in another moment Greta had vanished in the dark. 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. Ritson 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 he is conscious at la^," 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 tiie cares it leaves behind." A SON OF HAGAR 59 Mrs. Ritson let go his hand, and dropped into a chair. A slight shudder passed over her. Paul looked down with a puzzled ex- pression. 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. Ritson 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 know- ing why, his heart sank still deeper. "What are we doing?" he said, scarcely realizing his own words. Mrs. Ritson 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 dreamt it would be my lips that must tell you," said Mrs. Ritson. "Paul, my son, my darling son, you think me a good mother and a pure woman. I 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 another sound broke the silence. At last Paul spoke. "Speak, mother," he said; "is it something about my father?" Mrs. Ritson's face fell on to her son's breast. A strong shud- der ran over his 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 clave to his mouth. "Do you mean that I am — a bastard ?" he said in a hoarse whis- per. 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 before God and man. I whom the world thought so pure — I am but a 6o A SON OF HAGAR whited sepulchre — a dishonored woman dishonoring her dearest son. The door opened gently, and Hugh Ritson stood in the door- way. Neither his brother nor his mother realized his presence. He remained a moment, and then withdrew, leaving 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 loosening her grasp, she flung herself on the ground be- fore hira, 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 my 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 beside ourselves." The frightened look disappeared. In its place came a look of overwhelming agony. "But / know of it; oK, aiy God!" lie criel; and into the 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 hand of her son, who sat before her with buried face. "Paul," she said, "it is not until now that the day of reckoning 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 Goil had sent him the gracious gift of tears. His eyes were wet, and looke'd tenderly at his mother. "Paul," she continued, quite calmly now, "promise me one thing." "What is it?" he asked softly. A SON OF HAGAR 6l "That if your father should not live to make the will that must recognize you as his son, you will never reveal this secret." 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 England." 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 my- self. 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 inviolate. 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 acknowledge me." It had been a terrible moment, but it was past. To live to man- hood in ignorance of the dishonor of his birth, and then to learn the truth under the shadow of death — this had been a tragic ex- perience. The love he had borne his father — the reverence he had learned at his mother's knee — ^to what bitter test had they there been put ! Had all the past been but as the marble image of a happy life ! Was all the future shattered before him ! Pshaw ! he was the unconscious slave of a superstition — a phantasm, a gingerbread superstition ! And a mightier touch awoke his sensibilities — the touch of na- ture. 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 Ritson stood on the threshold. Greta 62 A SON OF HAGAR 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 sank 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, motion- less, speechless, cold at his heart. Then he hurried into the inner room. Mrs. Ritson 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 Ritson, 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 and read the secret of their long years of suffering love. "Father," Paul whispered, and fell to his knees by the deaf ear. Mrs. Ritson, strangely quiet, strangely calm, stepped to the opposite side of the bed, and placed one hand on the dead man's breast. "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 ut- tered when he fell to his knees again, with a subdued cry of over- wrought feeling. Mrs. Ritson staggered back, caught the curtains of the bed, and covered her face. All was still. Then a shuffling footfall was heard on the floor. Hugh Ritson 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 outstretched body of his father and the bowed head of his brother. BOOK II THE COIL OF THE TEMPTATION CHAPTER 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 spectres of white mist swept across the valley and gathered at the sides of every open door. The mountains were gone. Only a fibrous vagueness 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 schoolmaster of the parish. His low-crowned hat was drawn deep over his slumberous gray eyes. The mobile mouth beneath completed the expression of 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 sang in a drawling tone: "Bonny lass, canny lass, wilta 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 pul- sating 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 un- seen recesses of the hills beyond. (63) 64 A SON OF HAGAR This smithy of Newland 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 iwas 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 fid- dler and postman, was sharpening 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." "Dandering and wandering about at all hours of the day and night," continued the blacksmith. "It's all die-spensy," repeated the pedler. "And as widderful 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 blacksmith. "Him as was, as strong as rum punch," rejoined the fiddler. "It's die-spensy, John — nowt else," said Gubblum. The miller broke in testily. "What's die-spensy?" "What ails Paul Ritson," answered Gubblum. "Shaf on your balderdash," said Dick of the Syke ; "die-spensy- ing and die-spensying. You've no' but your die-spensy for every- thing. Tommy's rusty throat, and John's big toe, and lang Geor- die's broken nose, as Giles Raisley 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 per- sistently. 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 heard as it were amazing rough on the water that day," said Tom in a pause of the wheel, glancing up knowingly at the blacksmith. A SON OF HAGAR 65 "Heard, have you ? Must have been tolerable deaf else. Roughf Why, they 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 too keen for the wedding," 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 churchyard to-day, Job? Cold wark, eh?" "Ey, auld Ritson's stone as they've putten over him." The blacksmith tapped the pedler on the arm. "Gubblum, shall I tell you whafs 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; "Al- lan's dead this half a year." "John's reet," said Job, the stonecutter; "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 tha'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?" 66 A SON OF HAGAR "Because I do say so," said Job conclusively. "And maybe you've got your reasons, Job," said the blacksmith with insinuating suavity. "Maybe I have," said the mason. Then softening, he added, "I don't mind telling you, neither. Yesterday morning when I virent to wark I found Paul Ritson lying full length across his father's grave. His clothes vi^ere 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 whatever did he say?" "Say! Nowt. He got 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 between 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 to the blacksmith, the pedler pointed the shank of his pipe at the mason, and said: "What morning was it as he found Paul Ritson taking a bath to hissel' in the kirkyard?" "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 watterbutt." "And what would I do while you were thrang at that laal job ?" asked the pedler. 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 Rit- son yesterday morning wet to the skin in the churchyard?" said Job, ignoring the pedler. "Because he warn't there," said Gubblum. Job lost all patience. "Look here," he said, "if you're not hankering for a cold bath A SON OF HAGAR (^ 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 off — all of a hiss, and a smoke." "He warn't there," mumbled the pedler again, impervious 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 Ritson. 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 Raisley 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 anvil with uplifted hammer, the lurid reflection of the hot iron on his face. "Maybe he had his reasons for denying hissel," said Gubblum. 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 gaily?" said one of them. "Gaily, gaily ! Why, it's Giles hissel'." "Giles," said the pedler, "where was Paul Ritson night afore last?" "Abed, I reckon," chuckled one of the newcomers. "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 blacksmith , "it's nobbut 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 snuckered huskily : 68 A SON OF HAGAR "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, yrhat 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 the3r'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 bis pipe and said calmly, "He's ower much like his Bible namesake in temper — that's the oa'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 newcomers; "and how fend ye?" "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. Mattha?" 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." "Varra 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?" A SON OF HAGAR 69 "From 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 black- smith. "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 engines, 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 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 pedler. "Ax Tom o' Dint; he's the postman, and like to know if any- body 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 ofRce 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 Raisley. 70 A SON OF HAGAR "Nay, nay, nowt of the sort," said the blacksmith. "When the laal lass cut away and left the auld chap he lost heart and couldta'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 Ritson fol- lowed 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 meditatively : "Mattha's like me and the cuckoo." "Why, man, how's that?" said the blacksmith, girdling 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 mis- sis, she said to me last back end, 'Gubblum,' she said, 'dusta mind as it's alius summer when the cuckoo is in the garden?' 'That's what it is,' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'dusta not think it wad allUJS be summer if the cuckoo could alius be kept here?' 'Maybe so,' I says; 'bat easier said nor done.' 'Shaf on you for a clothead,' Says she ; 'nowt so simple. When you get the cuckoo into the gar- den, 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'twt put another stone — " A loud peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. The pedler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, and smiled under his shaggy brows. A SON OF HAGAR 71 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 Atkinson, paid five shillings for the day's hire of them, and set out for home. On the way thither he called at Henry Walmsley'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, 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 Flying 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 the falling leaves. An outer door of the house stood open, and a rosy glow steamed 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 ballaster 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 protes- tation breaking down into silence and a broad smile. At arm's length Greta glanced at the parson's burdens, and summoned an austere look. "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 mem- ory 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 72 A SON OF HAGAR the floor one by one. "Why, bless me, and here's Mr. Bonni- thorne," he added, lifting his eyes to the chimney-corner, where the lawyer sat toasting his toes. "Welcome, welcome." "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. Bonnithome this rusty weather? Wait, Peter, give me the slippers out of the big parcel. I got Randal Al- ston to cut down my old boots into clock sides, and make me slip- pers out of the feet. Only sixpence, and see what a cozy paici Thank you, Peter. So you're well, Mr. Bonnithorne. Odd,, you say? Well, it is, considering the world of folk who are badly these murky days." Peter lifted the boots and fixed them dextrously under the stimip of his abridged member. The tea and coffee he dq)os- 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 going 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," tiie lawyer said. "I wondered was he ever going to see any difference," said Greta, with dancing eyes. "Dear me, and red curtains on the windows, and a clean print counterpane on the settle — " "A chintz, a chintz," interposed Greta, witfi a mock whimper. "And the old rosewood clock in the corner as bright as a look- ing-glass, and the big oak cabinet all shiny witli oil — " "Varnish, sir, varnish." "And all the carvings on it as fresK as a new pin — St. Peter with his great key, and the rich man with his raoney-bagj^ trying to defy the fiery furnace." "Didn't I say you would scarcely know your own house ■wTaea you came home again?" said Greta. A SON OF HAGAR 73 She was busying herself at spreading the cloth on the round table and laying the parson's supper. Parson Christian was revolving on his slipper toes, his eyes full of childlike 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. Bonnithorne ?" "You know I am a bachelor, Mr. Christian," said the lawyer 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. Christian, 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 sunlight 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 potatoes and mashed turnips — draw up your chair — but where's 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 parson. 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. Bonnithorne, 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 shil- Tol. III. 4 74 A SON OF HAGAR lings for Joseph Parkinson's funeral sermon last Sunday sennight, and the one pound two half-yearly allowance from the James Bol- ton 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 Robert Atkinson's on my way home from the cross roads, and they both paid me their Martinmas quarterage — Henry five shillings, and Robert seven shillings — and when I dropped in on Randal 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 sevenpence 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 gfuardian 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 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 husband 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 Ritson is no fit husband 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." A SON OF HAGAR 75 "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 absent 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." i "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 Cumberfend one of these days. He has bought up a royalty 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 fetching up." "And where did the money come from ?" asked the parson ; "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 medita- tively, "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 next. "Hugh Ritson 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. "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," protested the lawyer, with an aggrieved expression. "I was speaking in our young friend's interest. Whatever occurs, I 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 Paul Ritson." "That shall be as God wills it," said the parson quietly. The lawyer had risen and drawn on his great-coat. "She qan stay here with me," continued the parson. "No, she should marry now," said Mr. Bonnithorne, stepping 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. 76 A SON OF HAGAR "She is rich and she is young. Her wealth can buy comforts, 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 Ritson 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 Ritson 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 parson. "Greta, fetch the chessboard and box." The board was brought, the pieces fixed ; the parson settled him- self at his ease with slippers on the hearth-rug and a handkerchief across his knee. "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 fallows 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. Ogle- thorpe all but his proper name, and flung away in higK 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 tKe 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 A SON OF HAGAR y7 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 encased in green cloth. "I must make my day's entry," he said, "and get off to bed. I was astir before daybreak this morning." Greta crept up behind the old man, and looked over his shoulder as he wrote: "Nov. 21. — Retired to my lodging-room last night, and com- mended 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 foddered 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. Received 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 world. Blessed be God." The parson returned to its shelf the ponderous diary "made to view his life and actions in," and called through the inner 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 mentioned 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 meet- ing-house. Well, I won't say nay. Many a good ordained clergy- man has been dissenting minister as well. Good-night to you . . . Peter, I wish you to get some whipcord 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 window; and, Peter, I'm to go to the mill 78 A SON OF HAGAR with the oats to-morrow, and Robin Atkinson has loaned me his shandry and mare. Robin 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 lift- ing 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 without animation until Greta set herself to bewitch him out of his moodi- ness. 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 banish- ment 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. 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 wistfulness. "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. "Whatever 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 pampered 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 A SON OF HAGAR 79 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 al- ways 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 sank. "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 trembled. She drew back with agony in every line of her face. "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 excitement; "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 Canada, or somewhere far enough away — that you could give up home, and kindred, and 8o A SON OF HAGAR 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 firelight 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 — free- dom, and life, and love. And now. Master Hugh, we shall soon be quits — very soon !" His excitement carried him away, and Greta was too greedy 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 vil- lage. 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. A SON OF HAGAR 8i CHAPTER III Next morning a bright sun shone on the frosty landscape. The sky was blue and the air was clear. Hugh Ritson 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 appearance of a room in a Cumbrian homestead. It was all but luxurious in its appointments. The character of its contents gave it something of the odor of a bygone age. Besides books on many shelves, prints, pictures in water and oil, and mirrors of various shapes, there were 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 medieval 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 aimlessly over the keys, his eyes gazing vacantly out at the window. 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 Ritson finished the movement he was playing, and then arose from the organ and drew an easy chair to the fire. "Brought the deed?" he asked quietly, Mr. Bonnithorne still standing. "I have, my dear friend, and something yet more important." Hugh glanced up : through his constant smile- Mr. Bonnithorne was obviously agitated. Dropping his voice, the lawyer added, "Copies of the three certificates." Hugh smiled faintly. "Good; we will discuss the certificates 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 82 A SON OF HAGAR 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 I 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 encounter Mr. Bonnithorne's glance, and when they fell again a curious ex- pression was playing about his mouth. "Give me the papers," said Hugh, and he stretched forward 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 dis- turbed your sleep, perhaps ?" The lurking distrust in Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes openly displayed itself, and he gazed full into the face of Hugh Ritson with a search- ing look that made little parley with his smile. "Then one may take a man's inheritance without qualm or conviction?" Hugh pretended not to hear, and began to read aloud the cer- tificates in his hand. "Let me see, this is first — Registration of Birth." Mr. Bonnithorne interrupted. "Luckily, very luckily, the regis- tration of birth a 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 — Registrar's office, Bow Street, Strand, London — June 12th, 1847." A SON OF HAGAR 83 "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 2Sth, 1848 — Holme, Ravenglass, Cum- berland — Allan Ritson — Grace Ritson (Ormerod)." "There you have the case in a nutshell," said Mr. Bonnithorne, dropping his voice. "Paul is your half-brother, and the son of Lowther. You are Allan Ritson's heir, born within 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 practise." "Was he told what items he had to find, or did he make a gen- eral search ?" "He was told to find the marriage or marriages of Grace Orme- rod, 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 puz- zled," he said. "What puzzles you?" said Mr. Bonnithorne. "Can anything be plainer ?" "Yes. By these certificates I am two and a half years younger than Paul. I was always taught that there was only a year be- tween 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 Ritson again. The lawyer glanced up inquir- ingly, and Hugh added: "That shall come later. Meantime the marriage must be brought about." "Your own marriage with Greta ?" 84 A SON OF HAGAR "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 mar- riage," 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 question is, whether it would not be more humane to say nothing of the im- pediment 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." 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 it." Another light laugh, and then a stern solemnity. "She insulted me —palpably, grossly, brutally. What did she say ? 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 very word." A SON OF HAGAR 8$ Hugh Ritson's face was now dark with passion, while laughter was on his lips. "She shall marry her plowboy, to her lifelong horror and dis- grace. I promised her as much, and I wiU 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. Bonnithorne ner- vously. "It would be a lifelong injury. And she is a woman too." Hugh faced about. "But he is a man; and I have my reckoning with him also." Hugh Ritson 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 assur- ance 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 ? Manliness ? 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. Revenge? It will be retri- bution." Hugh Ritson's composure was gone. Mr. Bonnithorne, not easily cowed, dropped his eyes before him. "Terrible, terrible !" he muttered again, and added vnth more assurance, "But you know, I have always urged you to assert yotu" right to the inheritance." Hugh was striding about the room, his infirm foot trailing heavily after him. v "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 another'.; or, 'Where she has sinned, there let her suffer.' That is revenge; it is the feeble de- vice 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." 86 A SON OF HAGAR Mr. Bonnithorne fumbled his papers nervously, and repeated beneath his breath, "Terrible, terrible!" "She has wronged me, Bonnithorne, and he has wronged me. They shall marry and they shall separate; and henceforward they shall walk together and yet apart, a gulf dividing 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, perhaps, if I had turned this bastard adrift penniless and a beggar, stopped the mar- riage, 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 cor- ner 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. "The gentleman frae Crewe is down at the pit about f engine in the smelting mill," said the old man. "Say I shall be with him in half an hour," said Hugh, and Laird Fisher left the room. Then 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 handbell. When the maid appeared he told her to go to Mr. Paul, who w£is thatch- ing in the stackyard, 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, sinking his voice to a whisper. "Whose daughter?" said Hugh, pausing, and looking over his shoulder. A SON OF HAGAR 87 "The old man's— Laird Fisher's." "Strangely enough — ^yes. A letter came this morning." Hugh Ritson stopped playing, and thrust his hand into an inner pocket. But Mr. Bonnithome 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: " 1 am writing to thank you very much — ' Here,'' tossing the letter to the lawyer, "read it for yourself." Then he resumed his playing. Mr. Bonnithome fixed his nose-glasses, and read: "I am writing to thank you very much for your kind remem- brance 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 lode much older does he fret for me now ? I wonder will he know me. I am quite well only there is something 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 and red to day, and it is oh so lonely in this strange place. Mrs. Drayton is kind to me. Good-by. 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. Bonnithome 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 leggings, and a fur cap, which he did not remove. His face was pale; decision sat on every line of it. 88 A SON OF HAGAR "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 parch- ment, as if to steady it, and held out the pen. Paul made no approach to accepting it. He stretched forward, 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 re- member — " 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 / remember," he said with composure more embarrassing 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." Hugh Ritson's face underwent a change, but his tone was un- rufiled 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,' 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 rapping the table with the knuckles of the other. "Rather unnecessary. 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 signa- ture." Paul had not shifted the steadfast gaze from his brother's face. Hugh dodged his glance at first, and then met it with an expres- sion of audacity. A SON OF HAGAR 89 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 the 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 steadily 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 instant was walking out of the room. CHAPTER IV Paul Ritson returned to the stackyard, and worked vigorously three hours longer. A stack had been stripped by a recent storm, and he thatched it afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped indoors, changed his 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 said, "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. Tho wind was rising. Paul returned to the house, ate, drank, and smoked. Then he •rose and walked upstairs, and knocked at the door of his mother's room. Mrs. Ritson 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 90 A SON OF HAGAR without fire. It was chill and cheerless, and only sparsely fur- nished — sheepskin rugs on the floor, texts on the wall, 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. Ritson. "Let me see — this is Saturday — I shall be back on Wednesday 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 morning 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. Ritson 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. Ritson, 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 herfd. "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 yours or his, that keeps him silent." Mrs. Ritson 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 noth- ing 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. Ritson sat in silence; her lips trembled perceptibly, and her eyelids quivered. "I shall soon leave you, my dear son," she said in a tremulous voice. "Nay, nay, you shall not," he answered in an altered tone, half A SON OF HAGAR 91 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. Ritson 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 trees 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-by. Keep a good heart. Good-by." She wept on his breast and clung to him. "Good-by, good-by," he repeated, and tried to disengage him- self from her embrace. But she clung the closer. It was as if she was to see him no more. "Good-by," 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 — " 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 eyes. "It was the cry of the bird that foretells death," she said in a whisper. He 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 st fire to-night, or whether yon lowe on tKe side of the Causey were frae the new smelting-house." 92 A SON OF HAGAR 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. CHAPTER V At eight o'clock that night the sky was brilliantly lit up, and the sound of many voices was borne on the night wind. The red glare came from the Syke; the mill was afire. Showers 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 hoarse 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 Proud- foot had raised a ladder against the mill, and, hatchet in hand, was going to cut away the crosstrees; but the heat drove him back. The sharp snap of the flames told of timbers being ripped away. "No use — it's gone," said the bliacksmith, 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 dark- ness into the red glare, and out of the glare into the darkness. 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. A SON OF HAGAR 93 "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. Drip- ping 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 obscured. But it burst forth afresh, and leaped with great wide 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 Proudfoot. "I dunnot," answered the miller. At that instant Hugh Ritson came up. The smoke was gone, and now a dark figure could be dimly seen high up on the mill side. He seized the crosstrees with both hands, and swung himself on to the raking roof. "Now for the ropes," he shouted. The flames burst out again and illumined the whole 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 stal- wart figure stood out in the white light against the red glare, hold- ing on to the crosstrees on to 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 burnt 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. 94 A SON OF HAGAR "Ay, where is he?" said the miller. "He's a stunner, for sure — where is he?" said the blacksmith. 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 toward 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 Proudfoot; "jvhere 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?" "Fs warrant he's gone." Consternation sat on every face but Natt's. CHAPTER 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 coincidence of the presence of Paul Ritson at the fire and his alleged departure by the London train. Hugh Ritson was not seen abroad that day. But early on Mon- day morning he hastened to the stable, called on Natt to saddle a horse, sprang on its back, and galloped away toward 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 wintry dawn, 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 snowstorm was coming. A SON OF HAGAR 95 The face of Hugh Ritson was wan and jaded. He leaned heav- ily forward in the saddle; a 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 of 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 his breath. Old Laird Fisher was trundling a wheelbarrow on the bank of the smelting- house. The head-gear of the pit-shaft was working. As Hugh passed the smithy, John Proudfoot was standing, hammer in hand, by the side of a wheelless wagon upheld by poles. John was say- ing, "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 pedler's pony was standing by the hasp of the gate. Never once lifting his eyes, with head bent and compressed lips, Hugh Ritson 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. "Don't know as he is," said Peter. "Where is he?" "Don't know as I've heeard." "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, bring- ing 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 into the house. Then Hugh Ritson 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 parted and made space for him. They hailed him with respectful salu- tations. He responded curtly or not at all. Notwithstanding his long ride his face was still pale, and his lips were bloodless. He stopped at the courtyard leading to the front of the "Pack Horse." Old Willie Calvert, the inn-keeper, stood there, and touched his cap when Hugh approached him. 96 A SON OF HAGAR "My brother Paul slept here a few nights ago, I hear," said Hugh. "So he did," said the inn-keeper. "What night was it?" " "What night? Let me see — it were a week come Wednesday.'' "Did you see him yourself?" ."Nay, I were lang abed." "Who did— Mistress Calvert?" "Ey, she did for sure — Jannet" (calling up the court). "She'll iell ye all the ins and oots." A comfortable-looking elderly body in a white cap and print apron came to the door. "You saw my brother — Paul, you kno.w — 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 him good-night." "And next morning — did you see him then?" said Hugh. "No'but a morning when he paid his bed, for he had nowtlier bite nor sup in the house." "Did he look changed ? — anything diiiferent about him ?" "Nay, nowt but in low feckle someways, and maybe summat different dressed." "How different? What did he wear that night?" Pale as Hugh Ritson'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 clave 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 inn-keeper, wheeled about, and rode off. "I cannut mak' nowther head nor tail o' this," said the old man. "Of what — ^the brass?" said Jannet. "Nay, but thaf s soond enough for sure, auld lass." A SON OF HAGAR 97 "Then just thoo leave other folk's business to theirselves, and come thy ways in with thee. Thoo wert alius thrang ammeddlin'." The inn-keeper had gone indoors 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 Ritson'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 another 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 oasy-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." "Tut — a bagatelle," said Hugh, with a gesture of impatience. "Of course, if you say so — " "You've heard nothing about Paul ?" Mr. Bonnithorne answered with a shake of his yellow head and 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 embarrass- ment, and in a voice that could scarcely support itself. 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 Wednesday 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." Yol. ni. 5 98 A SON OF HAGAR "Facts ? — a coincidence in evidence — a common error." "Would to God it were !" Hugh strode about the room in obvi- ous perturbation, his eyes bent on the ground. "Bonnithorne, 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 Ritson's step faltered. He listened with a look of stupid consternation. "Did I never tell you that the pedler 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. Ritson?" "That is was another man." The lawyer remained sitting, his eyes fixed and vacant. "What then? What if it is another man? Resemblances 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 exist a man resembling your half-brother Paul so closely that on three several occasions he has been mis- taken for 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." A SON OF HAGAR 99 "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 atmosphere 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 super- natural 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 instant, and by an acci- dent, it was being rent asunder. He had lulled 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 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 heeard of such 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 the rheu- matis, 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." "Shaf on sec stories ; I don't know as some folks aren't as daft as Mother Langdale hersel'," Peter muttered in reply. Hugh Ritson 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 leggings. "Do you know anything?" 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 with her — do you hear?" Peter disappeared. Hugh was left alone in the hall. He waited some minutes, 100 . A SON OF HAGAR thinking that Peter was carrying his message. Presently he over- heard that worthy reopening the discussion on Mother Langdale's sanity with httle 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 was your 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 feeling. "I have cOTne 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. You are very happy. I am a miserable man. Greta, do you know what it is to love without being beloved ? How can you know ? It is tor- ture 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 trem- ulous. "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 the best hopes, fate is stronger than they are, and truer 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 undone." 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 possible 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 came to ask pardon for what you said, but you A SON OF HAGAR . loi really come to repeat it.'' So saying she made a show of leaving the room. Hugh stood a while in silence. Then he threw off his faltering 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 have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mystery. 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 asimder." "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 writtea 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 hundredfold rebound. "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. 102 A SON OF HAGAR 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 Robin Atkinson, to pay him for a loan of his gray mare on Satur- day when I fetched my grain to the mill. Happen most of it is burned up though — but that's no fault of Robin's. So now we neither owe t'other anything, and we're straight from the begin- ning of the world." Greta was bustling about, with the very efficient hindrance of Brother Peter's assistance, to get the dinner on the table. She smiled, and sometimes tossed her fair head mighty jauntily, and laughed out loud with a touch of rattling gaiety. But 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 Harrass End I met John Louthwaite," he said, "and John would have me go into his house and return thanks Spr his wife's recovery from child-bed. 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 par- son after grace. "Old Jonathan Truesdale came running 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 go. 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. A SON OF HAGAR 103 "Well, Peter, and how did the brethren at the meeting-house like the discourse yesterday afternoon?" "Don't know as they thought you were verra 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? Right 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. Another 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 mo- ment, with the mist gathering in his eyes. "Talking of Saul," said little Jacob, "there's that story of the Witch of En-dor, 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. Ritson 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 without looking at my book. Let me see ; it must be a matter of seven-and- twenty years ago. How old is your sweetheart, Greta ?" 104 A SON OF HAGAR "Paul is twenty-eight.'' "And this is the year seventy-five. Twenty-eight from seventy- five — ^that's forty seven. Paul was a wee toddle, I remember. 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. i8th. — Being promised to preach at John Skerton's church at Ravenglass, I got ready to go thither. I took my mare and set forward and went direct to Thomas Storsacre'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 dis- coursing by the fire till near ten o'clock of one thing and another, and, among the rest, of one Allan Ritson, who had newly settled at Ravenglass. 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: "Nov. 19th (Lord's Day). — Went to Church, and many 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 Ritson, who asked me to visit him that day and dine. So I went with him, and saw his wife and child — an infant in arms. Mrs. Ritson is a woman of some edu- cation 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. Ritson 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 lit it, drew her cloak more closely about her, and prepared to go. A SON OF HAGAR 105 "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 a while 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. CHAPTER VIII When Greta set out, the atmosphere was yellow and vaporish. The sky grew rapidly darker. As she reached the village, 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 the fields, and, with their breakfast- cans swung on their fork handles, they were drifting in twos and threes into the "Flying Horse." It looked warm and snug within. She passed within 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 pyramid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now lying 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 churchyard. "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 waterfall 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 thinking of Paul as Parson Christian's great book had pictured him — Paul as a io6 A SON OF HAGAR child, a little darling babe, not yet able to walk. Could it be pos- sible 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, gay and heartsome; Paul as he was, harassed by many cares. She thought of her love for him — of his love for her — of how they were soon, very soon, to join hands and face the unknown 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 amid 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 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 centre of her world. She was a woman, and love was her whole existence. Here in the lonnin she was in pitch darkness. She stumbled once into the dike; then laughed and went on again. At one mo- ment 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 Ritson 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 approach- ing her. It came on quickly. She stopped. "Who is it?" she asked. There was no answer. The sound of the footsteps ceased. "Who are you?" she called again. Then, with heavy thuds in the darkness and on the snow, some A SON OF HAGAR 107 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 retreating 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 be- neath 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 yards 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 ran through the passage, and threw open the kitchen 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 in a moment. "When?" "Now." "No. What body?" She flew off without waiting to explain. The kitchen was too far away. Hugh Ritson'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 instant." 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. Ritson's room. The door to it stood wide open; a fire burned in the grate, a candle on the table. io8 A SON OF HAGAR Outstretched on the floor lay the rnother of Paul, cold, still, and insensible. When Mrs. Ritson 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. Ritson did not speak, but she grasped Greta's hand with a nervous twitch, when the girl whispered something in her ear. From 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 ser- vants quaked and clucked — every tongue among them let loose in conjecture and the accents of surprise. Hugh Ritson passed again and again from his own room to his mother's. He looked down from time to time at the weary, pale, and quiet face. But he said little. He put no questions. Greta sat beside the bed, only less weary, only less pale and quiet, only less disturbed by horrible imaginings than the sufferer 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 followed Hugh out of the room. As they passed Sown the stairs Greta stopped at the door of Hugh Ritson'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 spoke his 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?" A SON OF HAGAR 109 "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 of woman's hysteria?" Hugh smiled through his white lips, and his staring eyes as- sumed 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 courtyard with Natt in the driv- er's seat and Brother Peter in the seat behind. The snow 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 lifted the lamp from the trap, and looked on the ground a few yards ahead of the horse. "There are no footprints in the snow," he said, with a poor pre- tense 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 footprints at all except Peter's. The thing was done and gone. It all happened three hours ago, and it was easy to suspect the evidence 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 jour- ney — 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 ap- parent 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, because he knew that an hour before he had left him at the station. But an idea works in 110 A SON OF HAGAR a brain like Natt's pretty much as the hop ferments. When it goes to the bottom if 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 Lon- don, 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 his sapient and facetious noddle over his shoulder to where Brother Peter sat huddled into a hump and in gloomy silence. "Mercy me, Peter," he cried in an af- frighted whisper and with a mighty tragical start, "and is that thee ? Dusta know I thowt it were thy ghost ?" "Don't know as it's not — dragging a body frae bed a cold neet like this," mumbled Peter, numbed up to his tongue, but still warm enough there. CHAPTER IX Hugh Ritson 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 thing of all others which Hugh Ritson was anxious to prevent was that Greta should be led to draw the purely matter-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 Ritson 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 courtyard when the trap drove away, Hugh Ritson shuddered and looked round. He had laughed with the easy grace of a man no longer puzzled as he bade Greta good- A SON OF HAGAR iii night, but suspense was gnawing at his heart. He returned 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 re-read 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 diary. By the one — Paul, the son of Grace Ormerod by her husband Robert Lowther, was born August 14, 1845. By the other — Paul, the reputed son of Grace Ormerod by her husband Allan Ritson, was an infant still in arms on November 19, 1847. Paul Ritson could not be Paul Lowther. Paul Ritson could not be the half-brother of Greta Lowther. Hugh Ritson 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 spurned 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 flushed 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 restless footstep backward and forward, and began to wonder if anything further had gone wrong. At last he ventured upstairs, 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 disinterested services before he was hunted out with an oath. He returned to the kitchen with a settled conviction that somewhere 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 Ritson'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. 112 A SON OF HAGAR 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 phantasm. 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 Ritson and his brother, he could have stood aside and witnessed without flinching the ceremony that was to hold them forever together and apart. Then without 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 stern 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 and Paul were anything to each other, the power of sophistry collapsed, and retribution sank to revenge. He might go on, but there could be no self-deception. The 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 Ritson leaped out of 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 Ritson 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 ! Tender- ness was not for him. The good God gave it to some as manna from heaven. But here and there a man, stretched on the rack of life, had not the drop of water that would cool his tongue. A SON OF HAGAR 113 With stealthly steps, as of one who had violated the chamber of chastity, Hugh Ritson 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 without ten- derness. It was a fiery passion. But it made him weep neverthe- less. Galling tears, hot, bitter, smarting tears rolled from his eyes. And down in that deep and hidden well of feehng, where he too was a man like other men, Hugh Ritson'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 mock- ingly ; 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 walked downstairs and into the hall. The wind had risen. It moaned around the house; then licked it with hissing tongues. Hugh Ritson 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 Ritson lifted the lamp above his head and looked down. He was enacting the whole terrible tragedy afresh. He crept noiselessly to the door and opened it slightly, and looked cau- tiously 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 Ritson 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 descending 114 A SON OF HAGAR the stairs carrying a lamp before him. Natt's eyes were a shade hazy at the moment, but he was cocksure of what he saw. Of course it was Mister Paul, sneaking' off to bed after more "strait- forrard" 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. CHAPTER X Next morning, Tuesday morning, Hugh Ritson 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 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 ray 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? Your loving Mercy. Write soon." Hugh Ritson 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 Ritson was not the son of Robert Lowther. With the coming of daylight a sterner spirit of inquiry 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 per- sons at the fire — the man whom Greta had encountered in the lane — was one and the same with the man whom Mercy knew for Paul Drayton, the innkeeper at Hendon. But so much light on one small spot only made the surrounding 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 had he not come openly? What hidden reason had he for moving like a shadow where he knew no one and was known of none? A SON OF HAGAR 115 Hugh thought again of the circumstance of his mother's strange seizure. Last night he had formulated his theory respecting it. And it was simple enough. The second man, whoever he was, had, for whatever reason, come to the house, and failing to attract atten- tion in the hall, had wandered aimlessly 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 himself 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 loopholes for incredulity, but Hugh Ritson minded them not at all. Another and a graver issue tor- tured him. But this morning, by the light of Mercy's letter, his view was clearer. If the man who resembled Paul had come secretly to Newlands he must have had his reasons for not declaring him- self. If he had wandered when none were near into Mrs. Ritson's room, it must have been because he had a purpose there. And his mother's seizure might not have been due to purely super- stitious 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, and talk with her undis- turbed by the suspicions of a cunning man. Hugh spent most of that day in his office at the pithead, settling up such business as could not await his return. On Wednesday morning early he despatched Natt on foot with a letter to Mr. Bonnithorne, explaining succinctly, but with shrewd reservations, the recent turn of events. Then he stepped for a moment into his mother's room. Mrs. Ritson had risen, and was sitting by the fire writing. Hugh observed as she rose that there were tears in her eyes, 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 say- ii6 A SON OF HAGAR ing. "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 bothera^ tion — 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 Master Paul or his own birth brother,' he says." "Hush, Dinah,'' said Mrs. Ritson. 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. He 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 had 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 pre- tending 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. Bon- nithorne'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 questions, A SON OF HAGAR 117 he made two grave discoveries. The first was that the horse bore marks of having been driven in his absence ; the next, that the har- ness 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 general principles. Natt had not entirely accounted for the strange cir- cumstances 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 above 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, and thus complete the deception which he had practised on gullible and slow-witted persons. But in his satisfaction at this explanation Natt overlooked the trifling diffi- culty of how the trap had been got home again. Driving up into the station, he was greeted by a flyman waiting 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 de- sire 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 unnecessary zeal, and passed on. Promptly as the clock struck eight o'clock, the London train Srew up at the station, and a minute afterward Paul Ritson 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. ii8 A SON OF HAGAR "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 being 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's. 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. "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 fur- ther, up, and on any night but the darkest its black outlines could be dimly seen against the sky that crept down between 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 heeard on," said Natt. "And what happened then ?" "Oh, nowt, nowt — I's warrant not," said Natt with a gurgling titter. Paul looked perplexed. Natt had been drinking, nothing surer. "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 his throne. Natt's face was excruciatingly ridiculous, and Paul laughed at the sight of it. Then Natt laughed, and they both laughed, each at, neither with, the other. "/ don't know noth- ing, / don't. Oh, no !" chuckled Natt inwardly. Once he made the remark aloud. A SON OF HAGAR 119 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. Before he left the inn, a discovery yet more astounding, if somewhat less amusing, was made by his swift and subtle intellect. CHAPTER Xn An itinerant mendicant preacher had walked through the val- ley 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 cold, I 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 Parson Christian, 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 !" 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 a 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 pros- pect of farming for myself in two years' time. I have been busy, I can tell you. Only listen. On Monday I saw the 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 — funny old dog rather — says he remembers my father when he wasn't as solemn as a parish clerk on Ash Wednesday. Well, on 120 A SON OF HAGAR Monday I saw the old fellow, and settled terms and things — lib- eral old chap, too, if he has got a hawk beak — regular Shylock, you know. Well — where was I ? — Oh, course-^then on Tuesday I took out 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 inter- est 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 firelight the parson and the itinerant 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 al- ways pretends 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 con- scious of the deluge. "What do you think? Why, I went to Doctors' Commons and bought that 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 something — 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." A SON OF HAGAR 121 Paul had forced up Greta's face with gentle violence, and now he held her at arm's-length, surveying her with bewildered 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 igno- rant 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 baffled over every- thing. 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, 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 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, but then it was night, dark night, and you had no light but the dim lamp — and at least there's a family resemblance." "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 ex- pression 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." Vol. III. 6 122 A SON OF HAGAR Paul patted her head with his tenderest touch. "Have you seen her since?" "Not since. I have been ill — I mean, rather unw^ell." 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 had no harm," said the parson, and turned once more to his guest. "Paul, you must hurry away now. Good-by for the present, dearest. Kiss me good-by." But Paul stood there still. "Greta, do you ever feel that what is happening now has happened before — somehow — somewhere — and where ? — when ?■ — the questions keep ringing in your brain and racking your heart — ^but there is no answer — you are shouting into a voiceless cavern." His face was as pale as ashes, his eyes were fixed, and his 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 I 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 waterspout." "But, as you said yourself, it was in the night, and it was 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 the 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 exertion alone that his breath came and went in gusts. Before he reached the village his nameless sentiment of dread of the unknown had given way to anxiety for his mother. What was this strange ill- ness that had come upon her in his absence ? Her angel-face had A SON OF HAGAR 123 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 off with the trap ! Why had not that coxcomb told him what had occurred? He would break every bone in the blockhead'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 canie by the "Flying 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, a glass of hot liquor in his hand. Paul jumped into the trap and drove away. It was hardly in human nature that Natt should resist the temp- tation 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 mas- terly 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 bencji — it was little Jacob Berry's — corroborated that view of the mystery. A fine scorn sat on the features of Natt as he exploded beneath their feet this mine of supematuralism. "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 at once, I'll maybe believe as Master Paul Ritson can be here and in London at the same time.- Nowt short o' that '11 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 tfie room at that instant, and caught the words of Natt's clinching argument. "What sec a post ?" he asked. "Why, the post afore the house, for sure." "Well, T wouldna be for saying but I's getten' a bit sKort- 124 A SON OF HAGAR 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 pair 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 footsteps sounded hollow to his ear, and the whole place seemed empty as a vault. The spirit-deadening influence of the surroundings was upon him, when old Dinah Wilson came from the kitchen and looked at him with surprise. Clearly he had not been expected. He wanted to ask twenty questions, but his tongue clave 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 letter 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: A SON OF HAGAR 125 "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-by, 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-by, dear Paul; you may never know the day when this erring and sorrowing heart will be al- lowed 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 be dead to the world." 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 stood there crushed and overwhelmed ; a shaken, shattered man. A thousand horrors con- gealed 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 to his heavy footsteps. He took the road back toward the Vicarage, turning 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 jwith 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 while without speaking, and time itself had no reckoning. Greta scarcely spoke, and the old parson said little. What power had words to express a sorrow like this? Death had its solace; but there was no comfort for death-in-life. 126 A SON OF HAGAR At last Paul told Parson Christian that he wished the marriage to take place at once — to-morrow, or, at latest, the day after that. He told of their intention to leave England, of his father's 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 unselfish 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 him to the porch. "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 Ritson's strange threat. Should she men- tion 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 leafless boughs. Overhead the flying moon at that moment broke through a rack of cloud. At the same instant the red glow of the firelight 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. A SON OF HAGAR 127 CHAPTER XIV Paul went back home, carrying with him a crushed and broken spirit. He threw himself into 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 answered their questions in few words. The maid laid the supper, 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 candle 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 mayhap." "Sista now how a lass's first thowt runs on finery." "Didsta hear nowt when you drove mistress to the rail, Reuben?" "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, 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 knock- ing 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 out- look; 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 deserted 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 128 A SON OF HAGAR 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 features of iire 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 sank down again, and it sat beside him eye to eye. Then it changed. For a moment it faded away- into a palpitat- ing 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, re- member 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 1 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 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 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 liberated mind turned to Greta. What was life itself now without Greta's love ? Nothing but a succession of days. She was the saviour of his outcast state; she was his life's spring, whence the waters of content might flow. And a A SON OF HAGAR 129 flood of emotion 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 spectre 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 solitude 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 fantasy, 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 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 be- hind him. He passed through the village; the street was empty, and it echoed loud to the sound of his footfall. Large shadows fell about him when for an instant the moon shot clear of a cloud. A light burned in a cottage window. 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. 130 A SON OF HAGAR 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 churchyard. 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 confession 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 Provi- dence 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 and entered the churchyard. The 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 bit- terness. 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 head- stone 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 A SON OF HAGAR 131 knee were deadened by a sense of irremediable 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, unlet- tered, 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 wintry sunrise 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 ax could be heard from the wood, and the muffled lowing of the kine from the shippon in the yard behind. The harsh scrape of Natt'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. 132 A SON OF HAGAR CHAPTER 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 states- men, their wives, sons, and daughters. Parson Christian 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 loth to come in to the feast. "Good 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 j:he "Flying Horse," and discuss mathe- matics. The general problem was one in simple addition, namely, how much Paul Ritson would be worth when he married Greta Lowther. And more than once that day twice two made a prodig- ious 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 car- riage-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 be- neath 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 despatched 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 she is ? I made her comfortable enough' myself. But lasses are verra ficklesome." Mr. Bonnithorne gathered enough from Brother Peter's "Don't A SON OF HAGAR 133 know as there's not a wedding in t' wind," to infer what was afoot. Hugh Ritson was away from home, 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 o£5ce. Few words passed between them. Indeed, the young dalesman was civil and no more. He gave scant courtesy, but then he also gave some- thing that was more substantial, and the severity of the lawyer's cynicism relaxed. Paul handed Mr. Bonnithorne, without com- ment, 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 sank to nothing at that moment. They parted with- out 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 uneasi- ness increased. Then Parson Christian remembered that only a little while ago Mr. Bonnithorne had offered reasons why Paul should not marry Greta. They were rather too secular, those same reasons, but no doubt they had appealed 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 fann there," continued the parson. "On Greta's money," added the lawyer. Parson Christian looked again over the rims of his spectacles. Then for once his frank and mellow face annexed ar reflection of the curl on the lawyer's lip. "Do you know," he said, "it never 134 A SON OF HAGAR 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 occa- sion, 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 objec- tion—" "An objection?" Mr. Bonnithorne 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 morning," 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 tele- gram to Hugh Ritson in London: "They are to be married 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; but their few words were pregnant 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 Ritson'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 moment than the other question of whether or not she could tell Paul what Hugh had said. As the day wore on, her uncertainty became fever- ish. If she spoke, she must reveal — what hitherto she had partly hidden — the importunity and unbrotherly disloyalty of Hugh's love. She must also awaken fresh distress in Paul's mind, already over- burdened 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. Per- haps Hugh Ritson's threat was nothing but the outburst of a dis- tempered 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 has 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 Greta marry him in ignorance 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, A SON OF HAGAR 135 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: "Never to reveal to any human soul by word or deed his act or her shame." He had sworn it, and he must keep it. The con- flict 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 whose 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 dis- honor—not to let her marry him at all. If they married the oath must be kept. If the oath were kept the marriage might be dis- honored — 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 reflec- tions would have troubled him too deeply. Love was above every- thing, and to give up Greta was impossible. If Circumstance 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 high 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 Hagar's son. Only in the eyes of the world. And what did that mean ? It meant that whether birth was high or base depended 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 fathers' 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 all to say not a word to Greta. It was just as natural that his reticence should produce the long series of incidents still to be recorded. Thus it was that not a word was said between them of what lay nearest to the hearts of both. 135 A SON OF HAGAR CHAPTER 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 maized at him, not to wait for Master Hugh — his awn brother, thoo knows." "What, lass, dusta think as he wad do owt at the durdem to-neet ? Maybe tha's reckoning on takin' a step wi' him, eh ?" "And if I is, it's nowt sa strange." "Weel, I wadna be for saying that'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." Resplendent in a blue cloth coat, light check trousers, a flowered yellow silk waistcoat, and a white felt hat, Natt was flying up and downstairs to and from Paul's room. Paul himself had not yet been seen. Rumor in the kitchen whispered 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 Raisley, the miner; and Job Sheepshanks (by the way of treaty of peace) stood stroking the tangled mane of Gubblum Oglethorpe's pony. Children hung on the fence, women gathered about the gate, dogs A SON OF HAGAR 137 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 hand 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 lef s mak' a start." "Ye see I's two men, I is," said the small man apologetically. "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 swung 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 letter 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 at their head, and Gubblum walking by the pony's side and holding the reins. "Strike up.'' shouted Job Sheepshanks. "Ista ever gaen to begin?" 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 hundred 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 persuade her to 138 A SON OF HAGAR 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 listened to it, afifected to approve of it, and ignored it. 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 childlike 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 the church, and the fiddler and his company marched through it to a brisk tune, bringing fifty pairs of curious eyes to the windows and the doors. Tom o' Dint sat erect in the saddle, playing vigorously, and when a burst of cheering hailed the procession as it passed a group of topers gathered outside the "Flying Horse," Tom accepted it as a tribute to his playing, and bowed his head with becoming dignity and without undue familiarity, 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 A SON OF HAGAR 139 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 indigna- tion 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 reducing the fiddler's sense of the importance of his artistic function, and bringing him back to consciousness of his prosaic duties as post- man. He put his hand into his pocket, feeling as if he had dipped it into a bag of eels, and drew out the lawyer'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, nothing loth, 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 mighty hubbub, and loud voices mentioning his own name without reverence : "Where's that clot-head of a fiddler !" and sundry other dubious illusions. Tom knew that he ought to be at the gate striking up 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 en- velope on the fender, intending to return for them, and dashe'd off with his fiddle to the discharge of his artistic duty. As Tom o' Dint left the vestry, Parson Christian entered it. The parson saw the papers on his fender, picked them up, and in all innocence read them. The letter ran as follows : 140 A SON OF HAGAR "Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square, Nov. 28. "Dear Bonnithorne — The man who was in Newlands is Paul Lowther, Greta's half-brother. Paul Ritson is my own brother, my father's son. Keep this to yourself as you value your salva- tion, 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 Ritson." "P. S. — 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 re- quired. 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 present 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 mantelshelf. 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 the vestry. Dripping wet as he was, and with chattering teeth, the sweat stood on his forehead. "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, Mr. Bonnithorne demanded an ex- planation. The request was complied with. "And who has been in the room since you left it?" A SON OF HAGAR 141 "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 peace- ful 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 farther 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" Rachel, 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 par- son spoke, with absent eyes fixed on the tablets on the wall before him, spelling out mechanically the words of the commandments. 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 in the walls, little square lead lights, and open timbers untrimmed and straight from the tree. The crowd outside had gathered about the wheelless landau 142 A SON OF HAGAR which the carpenter and blacksmith had converted 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 bride- groom 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 tKe sledge, word was called, the fiddle broke out, and away they iwent for the river bank. A minute more and they were flying over the smooth ice with the morning sun- light 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 toast, and up leaped Mr. Bonnithorne. 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 damsel in Greta's ear. "He's getting drunk." Mr. Bonnithorne would propose "Mr. and Mrs. Ritson." 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 protested 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 guests over whom Brother Peter presided to spend the evening at the Ghyll. A SON OF HAGAR 143 The ladies had risen and carried off Greta to prepare for her journey, when Gubblum Oglethorpe got on his feet and insisted 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. Perhaps 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 graveyard, 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 miles from Branthet Edge to Gosforth, so they had nine shifts atween 'em, and at every shift they swigged away at the big bot- tle — 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 roadside 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 the wall a mile away." Gubblum was proceeding to associate the gruesome story with the incidents of Paul's appearance at the fire while he was sup- posed 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 com- pany 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 many boxes. "Good-by, good-by, good-by!" A little cheer, a little attempt at laughter, a suppressed sigK, and then a downright honest cry, and away they were gone. THe 144 A SON OF HAGAR 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 Paui 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 carriage, all before 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 Ms wife be good to owt; Bnt a man may spare And still be bare. If his wife be good to nowt." Then blindman's buf¥. "Antony Blindman kens ta me, sen I bought butter and cheese o' thee? I ga' tha my pot, I ga' tha my pan, I ga' all I had but a rap ha'penny I gave a poour 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 were seated on top of it. Dancing was interrupted only by drinking, until iTom's music began to be irregular, jvhereupon Gubblum remon- A SON OF HAGAR 145 strated; and then Tom, with the indignation of an artist, broke the bridge of his fiddle on Gubblum's head, and Gubblum broke the bridge of Tom's nose with his fist and both rolled on to the floor and lay there, until Gubblum extricated himself with difficulty, shook his lacrimose noddle, and said: "The laal man is as drunk as a fiddler." The Vicarage was quiet that night. AH 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. Vol. IIL BOOK III THE DECLIVITY OF CRIME CHAPTER I A WAYSIDE hostelry, six miles from London, bearing its swing- ing 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, sat the only occu- pant 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 the glare of the firelight. 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 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 be- hind 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. (146) A SON OF HAGAR 147 "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 yoiuig 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's 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. "May- hap, you think it's your pint of half-and-half as keeps us all oat of the union." "Now you're agoin' 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 sleepii g 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 mountins smells and the cataracks and the sheeps." "The mountins? And has Master Paul been along of the mountins ?" "Yes; Cumberland, that's the mountins, and fur off, too, I've heerd." "Cumberland? Ain't that the part as the young missy comes from ?" "Mayhap it is ; I wouldn't be for saying no to that." "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, I 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 / 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, 148 A SON OF HAGAR 'from poking his nose, as you might say, into other people's pewters.' There — that's what / alius says to your missis." "And wery perwerse of you too," said the worthy addressed, speaking with the ' asy 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 Master 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 older of the two, catching up the conversation as the landlady served her. "She's there," said the landlady rather indefinitely, indicating 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 sire feeds two when she eats her wittals, as the saying is." The men laughed. "That's being over-cur'ous, mistress," said one, as the woman passed out sniggering. "Such baggage oughtn't to be taken in to live with respectable 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 over-charitable," 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 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 plow and inwalable at a ditch, and wery near worth his weight in gold at gapping a hedge, and mucking up a horse midden, and catching them nasty moles wot ruin the country worse nor wars and publicans and parsons." A SON OF HAGAR 149 CHAPTER 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 little 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 wrig- gling in Mercy's lap, while a girl of six stood by her side, watch- ing the needles as she knitted. And many a keen thrust the inno- cent prattling tongues sent straight as an arrow to Mercy's heart. The little fellow was revolving a huge lozenge behind his teeth. "And if 00 had a ittle boy would 00 give him sweets ery often — all days — sweets and cakes — would 00?" "Yes, every day, darling; I'd give him sweets and cakes every day." "I ikes 00. And would 00 let him go out to play with the big boys, and get birds' nests and things, would 00 ?" "Yes, birds' nests, and berries, and everything." "I ikes 00, I do. And let him go to meet daddy coming home at night, and ride on daddy's back?" A shadow shot across the girl's simple face, and there was a pause. "Would 00? Eh? And lift him on daddy's shoulder; would 00?" "Perhaps, dear.'' "Oh !" The little chap's delight required no fuller expression. "Ot's 00 doing?" "Knitting, darling — there, rest quiet on my knee." 150 A SON OF HAGAR "Ot is it — knitting — stockings for oo ittle boy?" "I have no little boy, sweetheart. They are mittens for a gen tleman." "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 says he is.'' All this time, the little maiden at Mercy's side had been pon- dering 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. Bickers'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 ittle boy ?" A dead silence. "Won't 00, 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 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 sang the familiar words. There was a new-comer in the bar outside. It was Hugh Rit- son, clad in a long ulster, with the hood drawn over his hat. He A SON OF HAGAR 151 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 Ritson 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, mester,'' said one of the countrymen on the bench. "Nor you in mine, my friend," said Hugh Ritson, 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, "111 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." 152 A SON OF HAGAR CHAPTER HI Alone with the sleeping man, Hugh Ritson stood and looked down at him intently. The fire had burned to a steady 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 Ritson took a step toward him and put one hand on his arm. "Paul Dra)rton," he said, and the man shrank under his touch and slowly turned his face full upon him. When their eyes met, Hugh Ritson saw what he had expected to see — the face of Paul Ritson. 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 Ritson 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 Ritson. 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-cross- ing 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 Ritson. A SON OF HAGAR 153 "That will be unneccessary,'' said Hugh Ritson, with complete self-possession. "We've met before," he added, smiling. "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 destroyed the old mill at Newlands." Drayton's sullen face was immovable. "By the way," said Hugh, elevating his voice and affecting a sudden flow of spirits, "I owe you my personal thanks for your exertions. What do you 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 un- necessary," he said ; and leisurely drew off 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 Ritson, 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 looking 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 much so." And Mr. Drayton gave vent to another grim laugh. Mrs. Dra)rton 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 tum- bler. His manner had undergone a change. The watchfulness of a ferocious creature dogged and all but trapped gave way to reck- less abandonment, bravado, and audacity. "What's the lay ?" he said, with a chuckle. 154 A SON OF HAGAR "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 Ritson's face lost its smiles. "Don't laugh like that— I won't have it." Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, and then leaned toward Hugh Ritson over the arm of his chair. "Look here," he said, "it's just a matter o' thirty year 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 honset, same as me. I'm a licensed victualer and a gentleman — ^that's what I am, if you want to know." Hugh Ritson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, whereupon Mr. Drayton again had recourse 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?" Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton took out of his pocket a goatskin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to charge a discolored meerschaum pipe. "Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she had lodged." Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee, but, as the wise chair- man says, 'we'll take it as read,' so we will." Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Dray- ton 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 resemblance. That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your mother A SON OF HAGAR iSS were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the misfor- tune 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 Ritson, 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 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 for- tuitous 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 apologetic 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 gentleman 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' truthful- ness same as yours." Hugh Ritson laughed. "You and I are meant to be friends, Mr. Drayton," he said. "But let us first understand one another. 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 — 156 A SON OF HAGAR 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. Htigh 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." The tone irritated Mr. Drayton. He glanced down with a locdc 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 curi- osity 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 Dra)rton 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, and 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. A SON OF HAGAR 157 Drayton 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 morn- ing. They are now on their way to London. 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 believe as I'm her husband, eh?" "Mr. Drayton, you are a shrewd fellow." "And ,what about the husband — ain't he another shrewd fel- low?" "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 practicable. 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 expedition. 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 farther than the station you'll repent it to 158 A SON OF HAGAR your dying day," he said, once more bringing down his fist heavily on the table. At this Drayton chuckled and crowed yet louder, and declared that it would be necessary to have another half-glass in order to take the taste of the observation out of his mouth. 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 burnt very low, the cheerless room was dense with smoke and noisome with the smell of dead tobacco. Drayton but- toned 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 little 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 Ritson, "You run no risk. Eleven forty-five prompt will do." A SON OF HAGAR 159 CHAPTER IV When Drayton went out, Hugh Ritson 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. "Lors a mercy me!" cried the landlady; "why, it's 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. Lors, 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 doorway, with wonder-stricken eyes and heaving breast. In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh Ritson'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 Ritson made no display. A shade of impatience crossed his face at first, but it was soon gone. He tried to looked 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 ytju 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 !" i6o A SON OF HAGAR The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that mo- ment 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 expression. "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 to 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,' '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 children — 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 ?' " "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 happiness. "Ah," she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast. "But you should have taken walks — long, healthy, happy walks," he 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 with- ered. And then I couldn't throw them away, because, you know. A SON OF HAGAR i6i 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 mechanically, 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 fek parched. He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, as if speaking to himself, "I told that Bonnithome 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 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 moment 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 fur 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 may be some friends with me, a lady, an