\r /'Tt-'i S E i. EC- ,.) ,Palnisrstor ^'"- ••«tMMM««l«M««lMM« /R _ _^^_--l^-- C Ri Jr r 1 N . Annual '^^/j^^er Annum and upwards. ^^ -"^ . . -7^"-- ^ . /^^,,y„ x.^./^ /^fr^^ A FAITHFUL LOVER, VOL. I. NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS AT ALL THE LIBRARIES. IRIS. By Mrs. Randolph, author of" Gentianella," &c. 3 vols. DONOVAN. By Edna Lyall, author of " Won by Waiting." 3 vols. THE RAPIERS OF REGENT'S PARK. By John COBDY Jeaffreson, author of " Live it Down," &c. 3 vols. A BROKEN LILY. By Mrs. Mortimer Collins. 3 vols. DOROTHY'S VENTURE. By Mary Cecil Hay, author of " Old Myddelton's Money," &c. 3 vols. HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. A FAITHFUL LOVER BT KATHARINE S. MACQUOID, AUTHOR OF PATTY," " DIANE," " IN THE SWEET SPRING TIME, "BESIDE THE RIVEE," ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1882. Jll rightt reserved. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/faithfullover01macq CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. PROLOGUE. CHAFTEK Page I. — A Young Englishman 3 II.— On the Tekkace .... 17 III.— A Lesson in English. 32 IV.— A Disappointment .... 46 V. — Madame de Foignies .... 54 YI. — Again on the Tekkace 69 VII. — The Beginning op the End 83 VIII.— A Kiss 99 IX.— Anothek Kiss 110 BOOK THE FIRST. I. — Hollow Mill 126 II.— The Past . 138 III.— Little Clemency 146 IV. — Miss Phcebe . 175 v.— A Scare 190 VI.— A Truant 209 VI CONTENTS. BOOK THE SECOND. I. — Clemency's Retukn to Hollow Mill . 227 II.— Mr. Ealph 247 III.— The Squire of Baxdale . . . . 258 IV.— Daniel Lister 277 V. — Esau Runswick and his Niece . . 284 VI.— Curiosity 298 VII.— The Vicar of Baxdalb . , . .305 PROLOGUE. VOL. I. A MITHFUL LOVER. CHAPTER I. A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. A MAN is walking up tlie main street of a dull French town; be is tall and young, and dark-complexioned, and his name is Esau Kunswick ; he would be probably recognised as an Englishman, though some of the recognisable points are difiBcult to specify ; others, such as a frame that looks well practised in athletic sports, careless and yet well chosen clothing, to say nothing of a general B 2 4 A FAITHFUL LOVER. air of depression and duluess that denotes be is bored, are manifest. Except for this bored expression his face might pass for that of a Frenchman — his dark eyes are long and narrow, and there is a keen as well as a pathetic look in them — his fore- head is somewhat narrow too, and high, although the clustering curls of his dark hair hide part of it, and he has the long, high-bridged nose and thin lips of a Frenchman. But it is a striking and attractive face, and the rich brown complexion glows with health, in keeping with the promise of strength in the young fellow's tall, well-proportioned figure. Esau has been at Caux a month, and he is heartily tired of it. He is only twenty- four; but though he has not hitherto found life amusing, he is as easily bored as if he had in succession tried each one of earth's delights and tired of them A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. O all. He has always been shy and reserved even to his mother — who mourned her child's silent brooding ways. She died many years ago, and by her wish he was sent to school. But school did not suit Esau. He hated the restraint of fixed hours ; his only pleasure had been in long and soli- tary rambles, or in wild, daring exploits ; he could not bear to be made, he said, to follow suit with other boys from whom he shrank as utterly uncongenial; and he had been so long accustomed to have his own way with his father's ser- vants and the inhabitants of the village, near which the Manor House, his home, stood, that his self-will made him ex- tremely unpopular with his schoolfellows. Very soon his father received a hint to take his son away from school, coupled with advice to put him under a strict tutor at home. D A FAITHFUL LOVER. But the father was eccentric also, and he disliked the idea of a resident tutor; this perplexity ended in sending Esau every day to study with the parish clergy- man, who unfortunately for the lad had no other pupils. He had a young sister, who adored the handsome, clever boy, but she was too shy to break the ice of his reserve and to make herself his companion. She contented herself with silent worship. Esau was gifted, and had an original turn of mind ; he grew up studious and cultivated, though he still loved the out- door occupations that he had early shown a vocation for. But his reserve increased, and he refused to go up to the University, chiefly because he felt his want of social qualities. At twenty-three his silent fits had become so oppressive that his father resolved to send him abroad, in the hope that a foreign tour might draw him out of what he called " his snail's A TOTING ENGLISHMAN. / shell." Esau objected on the ground that he could not make himself under- stood in a foreign country. But his father had a remedy prepared for this. Esau must improve his French. There was a French banker, a Monsieur Nogent, who lived at Caux. He had a very comfortable house, and was a pleasant, intelligent man, a correspondent of the London house, in which the Runswicks had banked for generations. Mr. R-uns- wick had made acquaintance with the banker and his wife when he had gone on a visit to an old friend. Monsieur le Comte de Foignies, who lived in a chateau near Caux, and to whom Esau should carry a letter of introduction. Between the two — correct, prosy, slow-speaking Monsieur Nogent and the lively, attractive Count — Esau, his father thought, must certainly learn to speak French fluently. There was the 8 A FAITHFUL LOVER. banker's wife too, who could not utter a word of English. Like most people who live in a small world entirely of their own choosing, Esau's father believed that all he wished for must happen. It had cost him an effort of mind, a withdrawal from studies of prehistoric times, subjects in fact of far greater importance to him than his only son's outset in life, to plan this journey for Esau. Having planned it, its success in some way had already identified itself with its cost to himself, and when he said good-bye to his son one fine spring morning, he believed the result more than half achieved. At first his keen taste for antiquities had made the old town, its churches and ancient houses, full of interest to the young Englishman. But now he had come to the end of these. He tried riding, but he found it dull, the surrounding country was flat meadow land relieved by straight rows of A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. y poplar trees. There was no shooting to be had at this time of year, and a steamer which plied daily in the river had destroyed the fish. His town life was dull enough to satisfy a hermit. Monsieur de Nogent's only interest lay in the improvement and enrichment of the good town of Cauifc He could talk money and municipal affairs, but Esau did not care to listen, and the good banker usually read his newspaper except at dinner-time, and this meal was far too serious an employment to be disturbed by conversation. Madame de Nogent was very plain and very dowdy. She was de- vout and an excellent housekeeper, but Esau found her utterly uninteresting. He thought, too, that so well-to-do a woman should not be seen in the morning in a cap tied under her chin — and a cotton gown, so that she might inspect the cleaning of the rooms without detriment to her toilet. He was very fastidious in his ideas about 10 A FAITHFUL LOVER. women, and although Madame de Nogent appeared at the mid-day breakfast fresh from the hands of the hairdresser and in a well-fitting, suitable dress, he had always a feeling that this appearance was temporary, and that in an instant the Cinderella aspect of his hostess might return. The house too was dull ; the carpets, though scrupulously clean, were faded — there werebutfew of them in fact, the floors being of oak parqueterie ; the furniture was dull and plain, not even quaint with age ; and there was an absence of books and pictures. Thrift had been a household word with the banker and his wife ; their house contained that which was useful and necessary, that was all. The curtains were dazzling in their dead white- ness, but they were muslin and lace of the simplest kind. The stoves were white earthenware. There was absolutely no- thing in the way of decoration, except some monstrosities in the shape of gilt A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. 11 mirror frames, and these were so obnoxious to Esau, accustomed from infancy to the quaintness of old English furniture in his country home, that he avoided the salon as much as he could. But to-day — perhaps from the brightness of the sunshine which seemed to be de- riding the slate-coloured monotony in which he was contented to live — for although Caux as a town has a singular reputation for cleanness and virtue, yet doubtless a young man of means may get into mischief there if he be viciously inclined — Esau felt re- bellious, he could bear it no longer, and while he cast about for some way of relief, he remembered his father's letter of intro- duction to the Count de Foignies. Soon after his arrival, Madame Nogent had begged him to send it or to deliver it at the chateau, but he had shrunk from the idea when he heard that the Count did not speak English. 12 A FAITHFUL LOVER. He hated hiraself while he Hstened to his own blundering attempts to talk French, and his pride revolted aj^ainst the idea of appearing ridiculous. The old professor who came to him every day had however done his duty, Esau no longer blundered, and it seemed to him that now it might be worth while at least to ride up to the Chateau de Foignies and deliver his letter. At the thought he went with a quicker pace along the old street, and ran up-stairs with so light a step that dull Madame Nogentj who managed however to have eyes for all that went on in her own house and those of her neighbours, wondered what could have happened to her inmate. He had ordered his horse before he went up-stairs, it was quite a new sensation to feel impatient till the animal came round to the door. The long white, treeless road was so hot that he did not go along it very quickly, A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. 13 and when he reached the tall iron gates that enclosed the outer court of the chateau, he could neither find a bell nor a means of entrance. While he stood debating whether he should ride back to Caux and trust his letter to the post-office, there came a clatter of horses' feet and a cloud of dust behind him, and there rode up to the gates a pleasant-faced gentleman and a lady ; a groom came behind them at some distance. The gentleman looks at Esau and smiles, but Esau feels shy and uncomfortable. " You are going in, Monsieur ?" " I came to deliver a letter to Monsieur de Foignies." " It is for me," the Count bows, and holds out his hand. All this happened so quickly that Esau had not even looked at the lady. Now, as the Count takes the letter and opens it, Esau looks at her and sees lovely 14 A FAITHFUL LOVER. deep blue eyes suddenly withdrawn from bis face, and veiled by heavy white eyelids, fringed by golden lashes. He cannot cata- loo'ue the rest of the face, but it is so ex- quisite in its young freshness that his eyes rest on it spelled by its charm ; he starts at the laughing, genial voice of the Count. *' Aha, Monsieur Roonswick," he says, " we have been expecting you this month and more, have we not, Julie?" The girl looks up and bows with a sweet smile of welcome. "Your father is my dear friend," he goes on, keeping pace with his visitor, for an old man-servant has come forward, and thrown open both the first and the second gates, and they are riding up through two neglected-looking courtyards to the entrance-door of the chateau. " I owe you a grudge, Monsieur, for keeping me so long from making his son's acquaintance." There is something so cordial and A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN. 15 courteous in the Count's pleasant voice, and in his refined, smiling face, that Esau feels almost contrite at his delay, he wonders why he has kept himself so long away from this kindly companionship, for he sees there will be no trouble in Monsieur de Foignies' acquaintance. The Count knows his father and all about him, and is willing to accept him as a visitor, without any effort on Esau's part to make himself agreeable. When he returns home that evening he feels transformed. The Count is the pleasantest companion he has ever had, they have been together all day, and yet they parted after dinner with extreme regret. Monsieur de Foignies has apolo- gised for not asking his young friend to take up his quarters at the chateau on the ground of the ill-health of his wife. " But you must come every day, or when- ever you please, my dear fellow," he says, 16 A FAITHFUL LOVER. as Esau gets on his horse, " and you shall have as much fishing as you can wish for." Esau does not ask himself how much Mademoiselle Julie's lovely face has to do with the extraordinary happiness and sense of enjoyment that possess hira. She quitted them at the entrance, and though he afterwards caught a glimpse of her walking with a lady in the gardens, he could not speak to her, the Count was taking him in another direction. Esau knows nothing about French young ladies. His own sister. Clemency, ram- bles about as she pleases, and though she is only sixteen, always appears at the dinner-table. This sweet Julie looks a little older. He feels sure that he must see her on his next visit. Esau falls asleep and dreams that he is a boy again, and then he dreams of Julie de Foignies. 17 CHAPTER 11. ON THE TEEEACE. rpHE old French professor at Caux is in low spirits ; his pupil is always putting off his lessons, and his excuse is always the same. Mr. Runswick is going to spend the day at Chateau Foignies, as the people down in Caux call the quaint, red-brick, high-roofed building with its sculptured stone oriels and graceful tourelles. Esau could not have believed that such a charm- ing oasis could have been found in that monotonous plain. The Chateau stands on a white chalky hill, its front is level with the high road, but behind it the hill descends steeply to the VOL. I. 18 A FAITHFUL LOVER. river, and is thickly wooded except where a succession of grassed terraces ends the gardens and commands a charming view. Esau has paid several visits to the chateau, but Julie never appears at dinner, and he finds to his sorrow that she is always with her governess. They have met twice in the grounds and have ex- changed a few words, but of late the Count and his young friend having been riding round the estate, discussing the land, the shooting and fishing, and other matters, for Esau has been brought up with the knowledge considered necessary to an English country gentlemen ; and the Count learns much from the answers he gets from him. One day when Esau arrives, he finds that gout has taken a firm grasp of his kindly host, and he has to roam about alone. Esau has not been to the terraces since ON THE TERRACE. 19 his first visit to the chateau, he goes there to-day. There are three terraces one above another, and at the left hand end of the lower one is a stone bench ; moss and green weather-stains have filled up and obscured much of the sculpture on the back and arms of this bench ; but a wild rose has spread a sort of canopy over one side of it ; Esau seats himself and finds that he is completely screened from the upper terraces by the charming rose bower. Some day he thinks he will sit there with Julie beside him. He rises and goes up the raised steps leading to the second terrace. Coming down the next flight of steps is Julie herself. There is no governess with her, and « Esau's heart beats fast as he goes up and says " Good day" to this fair young creature. Julie begins a curtsey ; but as he holds out his hand she puts her slender c 2 20 A FAITHFUL LOVER. fiDgers into it for an instant, blushes, and says, " I go to get groundsel for my bird, Monsieur, it grows by the old seat," and she is gone. Esau stands stupefied; she comes back before he has recovered him- self, passes him with a bright little nod, and runs away. The governess of Mademoiselle Julie is old and rather infirm ; but she takes walks with her pupil ; sometimes Julie leaves her when they reach the house to get a flower or a leaf or groundsel for her bird ; and it does not occur to gentle Mademoiselle Lagrange that her pupil runs the risk of meeting the young Englishman on these occasions. But indeed Mademoiselle Lagrange knows nothing of the Count's friend or of his visits to the chateau. She lives far away from the family rooms; 'the large quaint tourelle with its pointed black cap at the angle of the high-roofed many-towered house is given up to her and her pupil ; ON THE TERRACE. 21 their meals have been served to them in their little dining-room ever since the Countess's paralysed state has made her a close prisoner. Twice every day Julie pays her mother a formal visit. She is often with her father, and to-day when she goes down to him he sends her with a message to Monsieur Runswick. *' He is sure to be fishing, ray angel," the father says ; and Julie kisses his forehead with a grace that charms him and makes him sigh with content when she goes out, kissing the pink tips of her fingers as she passes through the doorway. Her sunny smile has a spice of mischief in it as she trips along the slate-strewn garden paths. She knows that the young Englishman is not fishing, and in her heart she knows too that Mademoiselle would not approve of this message to " Monsieur Esau " as she calls him. Julie is quite a child, unconscious of 22 A FAITHFUL LOVER. love, though she hkes to feel that the young Englishman admires her. She is sure he does, because just now he looked at her as no one has ever looked at her before. More than once since she went in she has been on the point of saying this to Mademoiselle Lagrange, then a shy prudence came in the way ; Mademoiselle always says that a young girl should never think about gentlemen, and Julie feels that to speak of one would be a crime. But for all that she does think a good deal about her father's friend this morning. She means to tell Mademoiselle some day that she met him, for she knows that she ought not to do anything unknown to her kind governess. Her smile grows sunnier as she nears the upper terrace, but Monsieur Esau is not there. She is too shy to call to him, perhaps after all he has gone down to the river to fish — it is more than an ON THE TERRACE. 23 hour since she left him on the terrace. Julie waits, and then she goes down the flight of grassed steps which leads to the second terrace. It is deserted. Far below the river shows throuQ^h a slender screen of birch trees, and on the left, a mile or more away, is the haze of the busy town, the vanes of church towers and spires glittering as the sunlight falls on them. A low but musical whistling comes sud- denly from below as Julie goes down the next flight of steps, and, as she steps down to the terrace, Mr. Bunswick rises from the rose-bowered old stone seat at its farthest end and makes her a low bow. He does not advance towards her, and Julie stands still. " Monsieur," she raises her sweet voice, " papa sends you a message." " I ask a thousand pardons," Esau says gaily, " but I have run a thorn into my ankle, and if Mademoiselle will take a seat 24 A FAixernL lovke. here while she gives her message it will save me from the impoliteness of sitting while she stands." "Ah, raon Dieu, is Monsieur hurt? I will send Antoine, and he will soon take out the thorn." Julie turns to go away, but Esau says — " Pray do not trouble, it is nothing, though 1 thank you much for your kind- ness. But please to sit down, Made- moiselle ; I am impatient to hear your father's message." Julie looks at him. He is very polite, but the girl thinks this ceremonious tone is quite unnecessary, and when she sees his lips curve into a smile she breaks into an uneasy laugh. He joins in the laugh gaily, and they sit laughing heartily for some minutes before either can speak. When Julie recovers her voice her shyness has fled, and she looks archly in Monsieur Runswick's face. ON THE TERRACE. 25 " Now I must give papa's message," she says, and Esau Runswick feels that he could sit there, laughing with her and looking at her, for ever. How bright the day is, how high the sky seems above them, no lowering cloud near to threaten their perfect serenity of peace and joy ! " Papa says, Monsieur, that Monsieur le Marquis de Kerjean is coming to us for a few days, on Wednesday in next week, and that he will be glad if you will see that Antoine puts all the fishing tackle in order, for Monsieur le Marquis is a great fisherman. Papa fears that Antoine is careless in these matters. Papa says he is sure you will pardon him for making this request." " I am delighted — I mean I am sorry about the gout ;" then he goes on quickly before she can get up to go away — " But tell me, is this gentleman old or young, Mademoiselle ?" 26 A FAITHFUL LOVER. *' I do not know." Julie pulls a little blue case from her pocket. " This is his portrait. Papa gave it to me just now ; perhaps you can guess, Monsieur, how old he is." She presses the spring of the little morocco case and the lid flies open, showing on one side a blue velvet lining, on the other the portrait of a gentlemen as dark- eyed and handsome as Esau himself, but more determined-looking, and about twenty years older. Esau looks intently at the portrait, which is surrounded with a row of small emeralds. He grows a little pale as he looks, and a frown gathers over his eyes. Julie rises to go away. She holds out her hand shyly for the portrait. Esau looks up at her — not with his usual admiring eyes ; there is an angry sternness in them that brings colour to the girl's face. ON THE TERRACE. 27 " Why do you carry this portrait about with you ?" he says. Julie still holds out her hand for the case. " It is not mine, Monsieur,'* she says, in a frightened voice; "it belongs to papa, and he gave it to me because he wishes me to like his friend very much, and I think he looks amiable; do not you, Monsieur ?" "I?" Esau jumps up; he forgets all about the thorn in his ankle, those sweet, speed-well-blue eyes are bent on him, glow- ing with colour and with feeling too. Julie has always been petted and spoken gently to all her life ; no one has ever looked at her with frowning angry eyes; she is frightened, and she longs to ask what she has done to offend Monsieur Runswick, but she is too S'hy . Still he understands that in some way he has grieved this lovely, dainty maiden who looks in the shadow of her sunburnt straw bonnet and her fresh white cambric 28 A FAITHFUL LOVER. gowD like one of the Dresden-china figures in the salon of the chateau. " No, Made- moiselle, I do not think he looks amiable ; he looks hard and disagreeable. You do not like him ; you cannot," he says, fixing his eyes on hers, and troubling still more the gentle unconscious creature. " I do not know him, I have not seen him, Monsieur," she says, simply. " I shall try to like him, because papa says I must do so. Good day, Monsieur," she curtsies; "shall I not send Autonie to take out your thorn ?" To her great surprise Esau takes her hand just as she is turning to go away. " Mademoiselle," — he longs to call her Julie, but fears to alarm the sweet, guile- less creature — " I am your father's friend, and yours too if you will allow me so to call myself, and — " he hurries on because his good taste and his conscience protest against the words on his lips — " and I tell ON THE TEREACE. 29 you you can never like that man. You must not; he will — " he looks so earnest that the girl feels breathless for his next words — " yes, Mademoiselle, he will, if he can, put an end to our friendship." He feels that the slender hand is trying to free itself, so he presses it warmly and lets it go, but his last words puzzle Julie. "Pardon me. Monsieur, but I do not understand you, this gentleman is not my father, he has no authority over me." Esau looks at her in sombre despair; then as her eyes droop beneath his and a warm blush rises on her cheeks, he says passionately, " How can I thank you enough ! You promise, then, to let no one disturb our friendship?" "Yes, yes; but adieu. Monsieur," and off she runs like a frightened bird, for she feels she has stayed a long time with Monsieur Esau. He must have forgfotten all about the 30 A FAITHFUL LOVER. thorn in his ankle ; he walks up and down the terrace frowning, his hands behind him. He is in such a jealous fury that he has the hardest thoughts, the most absurd suspicions about this Marquis de Kerjean. He has heard Nogent speak of him ; he says the Marquis is more than halfEnglishj both his own mother and his father's mother having been Englishwomen ; he remembers bitterly now that the banker said De Kerjean had become richer than ever, and that rumour said that he was seeking a wife. " I shall be rich too," the young fellow draws himself up proudly ; '^ if I speak first the Count will give Julie to me. She must be my wife, De Kerjean shall not have her." He springs up the grassed steps, and he goes along the slaty path till he has nearly reached the chateau, then he stops, his straight lips curve into a smile full of ON THE TERRACE. 31 tenderness ; as he stands still, the sun shines full on his bright face; he looks a man likely to win a girl's love. " I will not speak yet to the Count," he thinks. " It is impossible that Julie can love me already. Why, I did not know how I loved her till just now. I must make her love me, and then I will speak to her father. After all, the Marquis may be going to marry some one else. I will come here so often that T shall he sure to know all that goes on. The Count tells me everything already, and if I see any risk, then I will ask boldly for Julie." So, having already taken leave of his host, he goes round to the stables, which have a clump of sunflowers and marygolds set outside them, and he calls for his horse. All the way to Caux he is dreaming of Julie's eyes — and her sweetness. 32- CHAPTER III. A LESSON IN ENGLISH. rpHE Marquis de Kerjean has come and gone away again. He only stayed three days, for he had to go to Paris on business. This morning when Esau reaches the chateau the Count tells him he must keep hiin in-doors awhile till he is ready to go out, and Esau is not best pleased. Since Monsieur de Kerjean went away he has met Julie and Mademoiselle Lagrange in their morning walk, only a few words have passed, and now he longs for a sight of the face he adores. But though the Count's fit of gout has subsided, he is A LESSON IN ENGLISH. 33 less active in his movements, and Esau's patience comes to an end before at a turn in the shrubbery they meet sweet Julie and her governess. "Aha! Mademoiselle," says the im- prudent father, " you should cultivate the acquaintance of Monsieur Runswick. He will greatly assist your English studies if you consult him." Esau speaks a few words to the governess, but her answer puzzles him, her power of reading the English language goes far beyond her efforts at conversa- tion, and although she can produce a few sentences in a good accent, she finds little to say to Esau ; and he feels dumb and foolish. The Count smiles at them. "Aha, ray young friend, you had better find out what Julie's English is like while I speak to Mademoiselle ; I have something to tell her." VOL. 1. D 34 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. He walks on beside Mademoiselle Lagrange, and bending down his head talks to her in a low voice. Esau's eyes are fixed on Julie. Her face is like morning sunshine, he thinks ; how exquisite is her skin, so fresh and pure and lovely; her sweet eyes are bent on the ground, but all at once, as he walks silently beside her, she raises them archly to his. " Can you not find some easy words ?" she says in English with the prettiest of accents. " It is possible I know some difficult ones too. Will you try me ?" Esau starts and feels confused ; he tells himself he is a fool. What a splendid chance the Count has given him, and he is losing it. Already watchful Mademoiselle Lagrange has looked over her shoulder, but seeing that the young people are not speaking, she feels at rest, and listens with greater attention to the important A LESSON IN ENGLISH. 35 news which is being told her by the Count. It is always difficult to Esau to begin talk— he has no confidence in his own powers of conversation. " Our lanoruaofe is too barbarous for you," he says, with a tender glance. Julie blushes. " It is more harsh, it seems to me, than French, Monsieur." Esau thinks what a heavenly sound English would have if it were always spoken as this girl speaks it. "But I have read some fine books in English. I have read Rasselas, and pieces by Addi- son, and some part of a story by Dr. Gold- smith, which makes me wish to read all." " The Yicar of Wakefield, perhaps ?" " Yes, yes," says Julie, *' that was the name, but Mademoiselle has read to herself the story to the end. Now she will not let me read any more of it." Esau looks hard at her —he wonders D 2 36 A FAITHFUL LOVER. how far she will carry her submission to Mademoiselle. " I can lend you the book — shall I bring it you to-morrow?" For an instant Julie's eyes sparkle and her face glows, then she sighs. " I thank you. Monsieur/' — her English delights him, it is so pretty — " but it is not for me a possible pleasure to read a book forbidden by Mademoiselle." *' You are not then allowed to read novels ?" He fixes his eyes on her, but she laughs ; there is no consciousness in her face. " No, Monsieur. Mademoiselle Lagrange has told me that in the novels there is falsehood and things that are worse ; there is, for instance, love, which. Mademoiselle says, is a quite wrong feeling for a young girl." She says this in a questioning tone. Esau inwardly calls Mademoiselle "an old prude," but he smiles. " I am an A LESSON IN ENGLISH. 37 idiot," he thinks. " How much better to teach the sweet girl love myself, than to take advantage of the sentiment gleaned from a book." He hesitates before he answers. " Single women of the age of Mademoi- selle always say this," he says slowly. " Your mother would not say so. She loved your father when she was a young girl, I am sure." Julie looks surprised. " That is different, Monsieur," she says ; " Mademoiselle has told me that a woman's duty is to love her husband." "And suppose she cannot?" he says so quickly and angrily that Julie wonders what has vexed him. " You know, Monsieur, there is to begin with the ceremony." She speaks French now, for a certain confusion of ideas confuses also her English. "I have not thought about it, and perhaps I ought 38 A FAITHFUL LOVER. not to speak on such a subject, but I have been told that as soon as a woman is married she begins to love her husband — not before." A strange new feeling comes over Julie — a sense that she is doing something unusual, something improper, and she walks faster in the hope that Monsieur Kunswick will leave off speaking. He keeps a little behind her, but as he also keeps silence she stands still, stoops to pick up a leaf, and in an instant they are again side by side. " There is one thing you have over- looked.*' Esau's reserve has fled ; he speaks quickly, and in English, for Mademoi- selle Lagrange has again looked over her thin flat shoulder, and he feels that he has little of this exquisite time, with Julie, left. He tries to repress joy in his face, for the delight of gazing into her A LESSON' IN ENGLISH. 39 limpid blue eyes thrills him with a sort of ecstasy. He and Julie have emerged from the shrubbery walk, and are now with the Count and Mademoiselle Lagrange on a grass plot shaded by an enormous walnut tree which grows on one side. The Count has gone up to the walnut tree and is examining it, but Esau expects every minute that the governess will come back to Julie. How exquisite she looks as she stands on the grass ! She is dressed this morning in pale blue, her fair sunny hair is strained off her face, but her long curls stray cut below lier straw bonnet on to her shoulders. Esau thinks what a picture she would make as her lips part, with an inquiry on them, at his words. "What is that thing I have looked over, if you please ?" she says in her pretty soft English. " You said that as soon as a woman 40 A PAITHFUL LOVEE. | is married she begins to love her husband. This may be true in a sense, but suppose there is love already for another ?" Then he sees her puzzled face. '* Suppose the i lady has seen some one she likes better than her husband before she marries him ?" Again Julie answers in French, " That could not be possible, Monsieur. A girl does not think about love till she is married." Esau checks the rash words that come to him. He sees that, unless he means completely to alarm Julie, he must advance very slowly. Just then the Count turns away abruptly from the walnut tree, and without waiting for her dismissal, Mademoiselle Lagrange comes up to her ] pupil. " I have been talking so — so much ] English," says Julie gaily, " and Monsieur i A LESSON IN ENGLISH. 41 has understood nearly all my words. Is it not so, Monsieur?" Esau bows. Then turning to the Count, he says in English — "Mademoiselle de Foignies has a very good accent ; she only wants practice and she will talk fluently." " But this is excellent," says the Count, and he translates the sentence to Made- moiselle Lagrange. " Monsieur Runswick, will, I am sure, be good enough to talk a little with Julie every day," he adds ; and then in a lower voice to the governess, " you understand. Mademoiselle, it is most important that she should speak English well. Now, Runswick, I want you to come with me. I fancy you are a better judge of a horse than the Marquis is, though one must not say so in public." " Why not ?" Esau speaks irritably ; he feels like a dog robbed of a bone. He 42 A FATTHFDL T,OVER. will not look after Julie lest be should rouse Mademoiselle's suspicions. " Why not, indeed ?" The Count laughs, and he twirls his long grey moustache and takes counsel with him- self; then he says, "Well, my friend, I will tell you before long, why not. Mean- time, all I say is that we have to pay due respect to the Marquis — a good and a sen- sible man, Esau, but one who has fancies and crotchets, and a determined will. Bah ! there is no way of resisting him." The Count waves his hands, and looks weak and undecided. "Pardon me, Monsieur," Esau says. "But in your place I would not yield to anyone, marquis or prince either." The Count raises his eyebrows, then he laughs and puts his slender hand on Esau's shoulder; he is surprised to hear him give his opinion so freely. "My dear boy," he says, caressingly, A LESSON IN ENGLISH. 43 *' it is possible that your boots would not fit me, and certainly you could not wear mine ; corns and the gout have forced on me the need of studying ease and comfort; where I used to think of taste and show, I have now to do what I must." Then seeing Esau's puzzled face, he goes on airily, " Never mind me and my boots ; let us go back to a more charming subject. It is so kind of you to teach my Julie English. The first wish of my heart is that she should speak your language fluently; some day I will tell you the reason, though indeed you may have already guessed it." He shoots such a meaning glance out of his dark eyes, closed till they look like lines of mischievous intelligence, that Esau starts. He stares at the Count, and he feels the colour rise to his face. Monsieur de Foignies gives a little laugh and turns away. 44 .. A TAITHFCL LOVER. " Come to the stables," he says. " I must know what you think of Philarete." Esau follows him slowly. He asks himself if it can indeed be possible that the Count means to give him Julie, why else should he take pains to throw them together and wish the girl to learn English ? He walks on in a dream of happi- ness, thirsting for to-morrow's lesson, for it seems to him it will be easy to tell his love to the unconscious girl, and win hers while he explains the mysteries of English grammar. Mademoiselle Lagrange, he sees very well, will not understand his words ; he must put a guard on his looks, and then he shall be safe ; even if she does suspect, she cannot interfere when the Count himself has asked Monsieur Runswick to instruct his daughter daily. To be with her daily ! He cannot believe in his coming happiness. A LESSON IN ENGLISH, 45 Since he has seen the Marquis, he wonders how he could ever have felt jealous of anyone so old and so cold. The Marquis is only forty-five, but then Esau is more than twenty years younger. Certainly he has not seen Monsieur de Kerjean and Julie together; but Esau remarked that the Marquis never men- tioned her name. He seemed a quiet, proud man, very unsuited to win a young girl. "46 CHAPTER IV. A DISAPPOINTMENT. ITTONSIEUR Nogent, the banker, and bis wife, saw very little of the young Englishman. Esau had coffee while he dressed, and then every morning he rode away to the chateau. He had, however, of late grown far more cheerful and communi- cative, and when he came home in the evening, in his few minutes' talk with the worthy banker before he took his candle and went up the wide, shallow-stepped stone staircase to his own gloomy room, he talked more, and in a more lively manner than he had done in the course of one of the long days when he used to meet A DISAPPOINTMENT. 47 the good man at every dull meal before he became intimate at the chateau. Middle-aged, prosy Monsieur Nogent and his "wife had only elicited monosyllables from their shy guest ; and they had hoped much when the Count de Foignies took this sudden liking to his handsome face, and in his good-natured, genial fashion exerted himself to amuse the lonely young Englishman. Still progress had been slow, Esau had shown small signs of throwing off his taciturn reserve ; but now he was transformed, Julie's presence, her sweet smiles, her playful raillery when he became severe over her mistakes were delightful, and the mistakes themselves drew him out of his shell and forced from him a power of wit which, though curiously cynical for his age, was still amusing. He took care to pro- pitiate the governess by little presents, but to his surprise' she seemed to have given up her suspicions. Sometimes she took out a 48 A FAITHFUL LOVER. book and read while he and his lovely pupil walked up and down the terrace talkings laughing and disputing over what Julie declared were the barbarities and inconsistences of the English tongue. The change lasted even after he had left the chateau ; Madame Nogeut told her husband it was miraculous. This morning as Esau rode slowly over the round stones of the High Street of Caux, in the shade cast by the tall, ancient stone houses on either side, he reflected on this singular and sudden change in the manner of the governess. It was difficult to this young cynic to believe thafe a few words spoken by the Count could at once have allayed the duenna-like fear and half dislike which Mademoiselle Lagrange had shown towards him. If the Countess had said that Esau was to be allowed access to her daughter, it would have been different, but Monsieur de Foignies was so A DISAPPOINTMENT. 49 careless, so thoughtless, and impulsive in his proceedin,2:s that it seemed strange that discreet Mademoiselle Lagrange should accept his judgment and submit to be ruled by it. Esau had seen enough of French households by this time to be aware of the small place male influence would be hkely to hold in the internal government of the chateau. Within the last month life had taken brighter colours, and the long reveries in which the young fellow had always indulged had changed from grey to something nearer rose-colour ; but this morning, when he had turned his back on the market- place of Oaux, and its sea of red and blue and brown and green and purple umbrellas, clustered round the apse of the famous church and looked down on by the exqui- site spire of pierced stone, Esau's visions brightened as if a flash of sunshine had fallen on them and meant to become a VOL. 1. E 60 A FAITHFUL LOVER. part of them. Passing his hand across his eyes and letting his rein fall care- lessly on his horse's neck, he wondered whether he dared believe in the sudden solution which had come to him. It explained everything ; the Count's be- haviour, and above all that of Made- moiselle Lagrange ; for although when he was with Julie, Esau entirely forgot the presence of the governess, when he reached his gloomy bed-room at the banker's, he had a way of asking himself whether any look or gesture could have betrayed the lano'uaa'e which he knew he was teach- ing. Yes, it must be so — he had thought so before, and had afterwards railed at his own presumption — when Monsieur le Comte spoke to Mademoiselle that day on the terrace he had no doubt told her he meant Esau to be his son-in-law ; what else had he meant by his promise, some day to make things clear to the young A DISAPPOINTMENT. 51 man ? why else was it so important that Julie should learn Enghsh ? Here he urged his horse into such sudden speed that the poor beast started, shied, and if Esau had not been an excel- lent rider would have thrown him against the high wall that bordered the dusty road. He recovered himself and rode on rapidly to the chateau, determined to go at once to the Count and ask him for Julie ; he must have it settled at once without more delay ; he could not wait for his happiness. " Why should we not marry ? She does not want any more schooling," he said; " she is seventeen, and she is perfect," and he rode on faster still. He reined up his horse when he came in sight of the chateau. Its high slated roof was green in the sunshine, and the double row of peaked dormers looked down at him sharply as he passed through the iron E 2 52 A FAITHFUL LOVER. gates of the outer court. Usually he flung the reins to old Simon, who always came out on to the steps to greet him, and then found his own way to the Count's study ; but to-day as he sprang up the steps on one side of the courtyard, Simon called after him. " Pardon me. Sir," he said, " but Monsieur has taken Mademoiselle to the sea to-day, and they will not be back for some time yet, they are gone to Cabourg to bathe." For a moment Esau stood still, his disappointment had stunned him; then hurrying back he said, " I also will go to Cabourg, the sea will be delicious to-day." The old servant bowed. "Monsieur must excuse me," he said politely, " but I was to tell him when he arrived that Madame la Comtesse wished for a few minutes' talk with him. She has been carried down stairs this morning." A DISAPPOINTMENT. 63 Esau's surprise mastered his vexation. He had never seen the Countess, and he had grown to consider her an incurable invahd, whose death would bring relief to herself and to her attendants. Both the Count and Julie spoke of her as constantly suffering. He thought the interview with her could not be a long one, and he fol- lowed Simon to a small round room on the ground floor of the tourelle that was given up to Mademoiselle Lagrange and her pupil. 54 CHAPTER V. MADAME DE EOIGNIES. TT was a bright pretty room, its three windows let in so much fresh air and morning sunshine — but it had the look of a room seldom used, its small tables were placed primly against the wall, and there was no sign of a book or of a flower. A long sofa faced the door, and on it sat a lady, still young, but with so worn and faded a look that it was difi&cult to imagine she had sat for the miniature which Julie called her *' beautiful mamma." There was an expectant look in her eyes when Simon announced " Monsieur Roons- MADAME DE FOIGNIES. 55 week," but, when Esau came in, her face became full of surprise. She did not offer her hand, but bowed and pointed to a chair not very near the sofa. There was a pause — then Madame de Foignies said : " You must pardon me for saying, Monsieur, that I expected to see some one much younger." The voice touched Esau, it was so like Julie's, and yet there was a weary, fretful ring in it — quite unlike her daughter's blithe tones. His young heart was deeply stirred for this poor woman. How sad it must be, he thought, to live like a bird in a cage till all joy and brightness had fled ! He exerted himself to speak more gaily than usual. " I am not very old, Madame, not yet twenty-four," he said smiling. " But my husband thinks you are 56 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. younger — much — much younger, he has been quite deceived in you." There was so much vexation in her voice that Esau did not know how to answer. " Yes, Monsieur, my husband has told me you were a mere boy." She looked at him disdainfully and with distrust, her manner implied that Esau had deceived her husband. If gifts bring compensation with them, so do defects in a less degree, and in one which may not be pleasurable ; but it is certain that Esau's shyness and reticence had helped to develop into permanent presence a remarkable insight into the feelings of those to whom he listened so attentively. Even before she had finished speaking he had divined the Countess's grievance. More than this, it occurred to him that Mademoiselle Lagrange was not as blind as he had hoped she was, MADAME DE FOIGNIES. 67 and that, perhaps without making any accusation, she had asked the Countess to see him and to judge for herself. This per- ception helped him to subdue the sort of dislike which the Countess's disdainful glance had aroused — instinct told him that, in a case like his, Julie's mother, if he could win her to his side, must be his best friend — and he resolved to win her if he could. He longed just then for more belief in his own powers of fascination, for it seemed to him, as he looked into those pale, fretful blue eyes, that if he could only feel sure of pleasing he must please. " Your husband has doubtless forgotten, Madame," he said gently ; " but I told him my age the first time I came to the chateau." His quiet self-command impressed Madame de Foignies, but her distrust evidently grew stronger. She seemed to 58 A FAITHFUL LOVER. take counsel with herself before she spoke again. Esau sat silent — he did not look at the Countess, but he felt that her eyes were fixed on his face. When she spoke again, her voice was as sweet as Julie's, and she gave him a win- ning smile. " I remember your mother, Monsieur," she said, " and you are like her. I only saw her once, soon after her marriage — she was very kind and sweet." ** I can scarcely remember her, Madame,' ' he said. " You are very kind too," Madame de Foignies went on ; " too kind in giving up your time and your enjoyment to teach my little schoolroom girl English. Pardoa, Monsieur, I am grateful for your good- ness." This in answer to his attempt to tell her that the lessons had been a pleasure to him. *' I am sure, Monsieur, you are pleased with the progress of your MADAME DE FOIGNIES. 59 pupil. However, she needs no more lessons, and I am sure you must be glad to be released from teaching." This seemed to Esau a false move, and he profited by it. " Pardon, Madame ; she has still much in the English language to learn : it has been a daily happiness to me to spend so much time with your sweet daughter, and if " Esau had forgotten everything but his love ; his cheeks glowed, his eyes were luminous with feeling ; he felt that he had only to tell his wishes to this kind woman, and she would advise him how to proceed. But Madame la Comtesse seemed to know beforehand every word he was going to say. She interrupted : " You are too kind," she smiled at him : " so kind that I am sure you can enter into a mother's feelings. I have been an invalid so long that I have seen little of 60 A FAITHFUL LOVER. my child, and now I am told that I may- undertake a journey, and that Julie may accompany me. I may ask for your con- gratulations. Monsieur, I am sure." Esau's shyness had come back. It seemed to him that Madame's eyes were no longer pale, the pupils had dilated, and seemed to be looking at his inmost feel- ings. A warm red rose in his cheeks as he saw how nearly he had destroyed his own hopes. The Count would help him more than this woman would, in whom he had for a moment felt ready to confide. She was his enemy — spite of her smiles and of her sweet words, his first impression regarding her had been the right one. " I congratulate you, Madame," he said calmly, " and I hope change may do all the good you anticipate ; but I should like to say good-bye to Mademoiselle Julie before she goes away, and advise her what English books to read." MADAME DB FOIGNIES. 61 " I will saj your farewell for you," said Madame, sweetly. " You cannot see Julie to-day. She is from home, and I fear I cannot ask you to await my husband's return. I am so little used to visitors that I have forgotten how to entertain them," she sighed, " and to-morrow we start very early, so as to avoid the heat." Esau bowed, and rose to go away. It was useless to ask where Madame was sfoino^. She would no doubt refuse to tell him ; she was only going, he believed, so as to take Julie away ; but he resolved that he would see his beloved and tell her he loved her, there was no time for hesi- tation now. He had meant to speak first to her father; but that would be a doubtful chance, and he should certainly find Monsieur de Foignies prejudiced against him by his wife. He went back to where he had left his horse. Old Simon was standing in the 62 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. courtyard talking to a shock-headed boy •who, in the groom's absence, had taken the young Enghshman's horse to the stables, " Tieois,^' said Simon, "is Monsieur going to Cabourg after all?" He looked curiously at the young fellow. Esau hesitated. No, he would not go to Cabourg ; he wanted to see Julie alone, and ask her his question when she would be under his influence only. " No," he said, " I have business else- where," and he rode away. He did not mean to go back to the chateau ; he knew how easily he could reach the terrace from the river bank below, though the ascent might have puzzled him if he had not been a fearless climber ; but his home had been in a wild district, and he had spent many of his lonely hours in daring adventures among the clifl's, which he had never told to anyone but Julie ; and it had been de- MADAME DE FOIGNIES. 63 lightf ul to watch her sweet blue eyes while he spoke of his exploits. He knew that Julie spent every evening on the terrace. When he and the Count went out to smoke after dinner, they always found her on the stone seat, some- times alone. It seemed to Esau that, after her fatiguing day at Cabourg, Made- moiselle Lagrange would probably stay in-doors ; he would climb up the wooded side of the hill, and then he could see without being seen. All the way home to Caux he planned out this scheme — the pain of his dis- appointment and the parting that lay before him almost forgotten in his intense longing for the moment when he should hold Julie to his heart and hear her say she loved him. Naturally at twenty-three Esau did not remember that things never turn out as they are expected to do. 64 A FAITHFUL LOVER. In the afternoon he felt restless, and began to count the hours that must pass before he could hope to find Julie on the terrace. He ordered his horse and mechanically took the road to Cabourg. He was riding along in a pensive mood on the path beside the canal, where there is such a grand view of Caux with its towers and spires seen over the shipping in its harbour, and he had just decided that the Count and his companions must have, before this, reached Chateau Foiguies, when he saw a lady coming towards him on horse- back, a servant following. He would have seen her sooner if the hill had not turned abruptly and the road following it left the canal, which continued its straight course between the poplar trees that border its sides. Julie was coming very slowly along this new road, looking behind her as she came. Esau had not seen her on horseback MADAME DE FOIGNIES. 65 since tbeir first meeting, and a fresh sense of her loveHness came to him as he took in every hne of her graceful figure, and noted how the black hat she wore enhanced the deHcacy of her complexion and the golden brightness of her hair ; but he rode up to her quickly, almost breathless with the sudden joy. Julie started at the sight of him. " Are you alone ?" he said. He was too impatient to give her any other greeting. Julie smiled. " Yes and no ; but why do you not say Good day. Are you angry with me ?" They never called each other Monsieur and Mademoiselle now, except in the presence of Mademoiselle Lagrange. Then she saw how grave he looked. '* My father is not far ofi"; he met his baihff driving out to Dives, and he has stopped to give him some commissions which he forgot to execute ; but I came on slowly, VOL. I. F 66 A FAITHFUL LOVEK. for when papa and Monsieur Mangin get together there is no stopping their talk, and my poor Sophie fidgets if I keep her standing." " Where is Mademoiselle Lagrange, is she not with you ?" said Esau impatiently. '' She is at home, of course. Oh, is not he too amusing, Sophie ?" She bent down towards her horse. " How could he fancy poor Mademoiselle could ride to Caux, when she has never in her life got even on a pony ?" Esau had all he coveted — Juhe, alone, (for the servant could not hear what was said) and permanent safety from Made- moiselle — and yet he hesitated. Suppose Julie did not love him after all. Suppose she preferred this playful intercourse to love itself. She looked so untroubled and unconscious that her young lover's heart ached. " Julie," he said, sadly, " do you know MADAME DB FOIGNIES. &? that we must say Good-bye ? After to- day I shall never see you again." All the light and gladness went suddenly from her face; she looked as if she would fall from her horse ; then she cried out : *' Not see me again ! No, no ; you are only trying me. Ah, but it is too cruel," and she began to cry. At this Esau forgot everything but his love. " My angel !" he said tenderly. He longed for the absence of the groom, he longed to take Julie in his arms and comfort her; he was sure he might venture, for look and words had both revealed her secret. " You do love me then, my best Julie ?" Julie looked up in surprise. "You know I do," she said. A faint sound on the road warned Esau that some one, probabl}^ the Count, was galloping after them ; he urged on his horse F 2 i58 A FAITHFUL LOVEK. and Julie's kept pace with him till he saw that a turn of the road had for an instant freed them from the groom's surveillance ; then Esau caught at Julie's rein, and clasping her hand he kissed it fervently. "You are mine then!" he said joyfully. " They may part us, but no one can really take you away from me if you will only keep true, my Julie." She looked at him with tender, swimming eyes. " And papa and mamma, what will they say ?" " Leave me to manage them ;" he spoke firmly, for he felt that she was timid about following her own will. " Be true to me, my sweet one, and you shall be my wife." Julie blushed, and her eyes drooped under Esau's warm gaze. " I must be true to you," she murmured, *'I cannot help it." 69 CHAPTER VI. AGAIN ON THE TERKACE. /^NLY the morning sunshine that streams into it saves the banker's dining-room from being a very dull room indeed. Perhaps a room only used for eating is always duller than any other, but here there was not even a picture or an engraving to break the monotony of the walls, painted a pale wainscot. There was only a light oak sideboard, a long table covered with a white cloth, and on this several dishes representing an elaborate breakfast ; some high-backed chairs, also in light oak; white lace curtains to the window, and also to the 70 A FAITHFUL LOVER. glazed door which led out into the court- yard. The only objects in the room on which the eye could rest with pleasure were the parquet flooring and Esau Runswick's handsome face. It must be said, however, that Esau did not look so well as he had looked a month ago when he met Julie on horseback. He was thinner, he had relapsed into his absent, silent ways, and he frowned far more often than he smiled. Now he sat idly at the breakfast-table drumming the fork, with which he had eaten an omelette, against his plate. " Monsieur," said Madame Nogent, in her broad Norman accent, for she had lived all her life in Caux and its neigh- bourhood, " have you heard that your friends have returned to Chateau Foignies from Germany?" The newspaper the banker was reading fluttered violently, and as Esau looked AGAIN ON TEE TERRACE. 71 that way he surprised a warning glance shot at his wife by Monsieur Nogent. Esau's self-control came back. Just now his heart had leaped with joy, and a tremor had gone through him. He only said, languidly : " Ah, I suppose their holidays are over. Well, they have had fine weather." Then he got up. " Madame," he said, with a bow, " don't wait dinner for me. I shall perhaps dine at Cabourg." He was provoked that Madame smiled in answer to this speech, and gave a little significant shake of her bullet-like head. Esau looked at Monsieur Nogent, but his face was as stolid as usual. " Well, my dear fellow," the banker said, " I confess I wonder you do not go there oftener. It must be dull for you to dine day after day with two old fogies like ourselves." At which Esau actually felt cheerful 72 A FAlTHlH^UL LOVEE. enough to make a complimentary speech to Madame Nogent on the excellence of her cuisine and the variety of her dinners. But having bowed himself out of the room, he went by the glass door into the courtyard, and crossing over to the stables, ordered his horse to be saddled directly. Then he went back to his room and gazed at himself in the bio; mirror over the fire- place. Esau was not vain, but he wished to look his best to-day. Presently he went to the window and stood looking down into the courtyard, with a slight flush on his cheeks ; his heart beat fast ; he was rehearsing his interview with the Count. He told himself he need not'fear ; when Monsieur de Foignies met them on the day he told his love — for he and Julie turned their horses' heads and rode to- wards him — Esau bade the girl ride on, and then he poured out his love to his kind old friend. Monsieur de Foignies shook AGAIN ON THE TEREAOE. 73 his head, scolded, and held up his hands — shrugged his shoulders, and said he should get into trouble — then when Esau dwelt on his father's wealth, on the fact of his being an only son with but one sister, and, above all, on his conviction that he could make Julie happier than anyone else could, the Count softened, his eyes blinked, and he blew his nose violently. " Well, well, my boy," he said, "enough said. You are both too young to marry at present ; besides, I must know what your father thinks of this matter. I will not forget, but meantime " — he looked keenly at Esau — " not another word to the child ; you must not see her agairf" without my permission." - Then he bade him good-bye, told hitn he would make his excuses to Julie, and that all the family would be absent from the chateau for a month to come. " He is a man of honour," Esau 74 A FAITHFUL LOVER. thought as he rode once more towards the road which strikes out on the left side of Caux towards the chateau. " He will give me an answer to-day." He had not gone more than half-way when a cloud of dust announced other horsemen on the road. Yery soon he saw that the Count, the Marquis de Kerjean, and two other gentlemen were riding towards him. As soon as Monsieur de Foignies saw him he took off his hat and waved it, but did not ride forward and greet him. " Ah, my dear young friend," he called out from the midst of his companions as Esau came up, " I am desolated not to see you to-day at the chateau — but what will you ? There is to be a ship launched at Le Havre, and our good friend the Marquis " — he turned and looked at him — " is its godfather. So we shall not get AGAIN ON THE TEREACE. 75 back to Foignies till to-morrow at earliest. Come and see us the day after, my good Esau." He was riding on, but Esau stopped him — " Jf I come at this time the day after to-morrow, Monsieur, you will see me alone ?" " On the contrary," the Count laughed gaily, " I cannot give you a moment. Bring your gun and your game-bag, for we shall make a ^^arti de cJiasse that morning, and you must come and learn the Breton method from Monsieur de Kerjean. Au revoir, my good friend." He waved his hand and urged on his horse, and in a moment or so Esau was left alone, intensely indignant that he, an Englishman, who had gone out with his father's gamekeeper when he was only twelve years old, and who had the reputa- tion of being a crack shot, should be 1Q> A FAITHFUL LOVER. advised to learn from a blundering Frenchman. Esau went on past the chateau; he never knew afterwards how he got through that day, but when evening came he was climbing the steep slippery height between the river and the lower terrace, resolved on seeing Julie. It did not matter to him whether Mademoiselle Lagrange was present at the interview, he and Julie could talk English. Still his heart gave a joyful bound when he saw a figure in white sitting alone on the stone bench. He was so afraid of alarm- ing Julie that he crouched down below the terrace, and began to sing in a low voice a French air which he had often made Julie sing to him. In a few minutes he raised his head, and climbed on to the terrace. She was expecting him, and her eyes were strained on the point where he ap- AGAIN ON THE TERRACE. 77 peared ; but, when hurrying to her he put his arm round her and tried to draw her to him, Julie shrank away with a look of alarm. "My Juhe," he said, "you are surely mine — you love me, sweet one, do you not ?" " Yes, yes ! but do not touch me, I beg you, Esau." She clasped her little hands entreatingly, and looked so piteous that he felt at once vexed and amused. " There !" He seated himself at one end of the bench. " See how obedient I am. Now sit down, my sweet Julie, and tell me why you have grown afraid of me. I thought you would be pleased to see me after so long an absence." He could not keep all vexation out of his voice, and Julie began to cry. *' You are cruel," she sobbed, and indeed Esau felt that he must be a 78 A FAITHFUL LOVER. monster to have caused those tears. He looked ashamed and vexed too. " Papa told me that I was not to see you again.'* Esau started up, and came and stood in front of her. " I did not come to see you to talk about your father. I only want to know one thing — if your father is willing, will you be my wife, Julie ?" She flushed a little, then she raised her lovely blue eyes. " I will — indeed I will," she said, earnestly. Esau kept a strong control over himself. " If you love me well enough to marry me, why do you shrink away from me ?" he said, gravely. Julie hesitated, then the fear of dis- pleasing Esau overcame her reluctance to speak. "I am so unhappy," the poor child AGAIN ON THE TERRACE. 79 sobbed. " Ever since the day T met you riding, Mademoiselle Lagrange tells me over and over again that a girl must not love before marriage — not even her in- tended husband. She says love is a sin." Esau had some trouble to restrain himself. " Does your mother tell you this ?" he said. " My mother ! Ah, I see you do not know her. She is the sweetest, tenderest mother. She could not forbid me any- thing." *' Has she spoken of me to you ?" " Yes. Once she asked me how often I had seen you; since then your name has not been mentioned. You have never seen my mother." Esau's heart suddenly felt like lead ; it seemed to him that some fine web of intrigue was being woven to separate him from Julie. 80 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " And yet," he said, earnestly, " I had seen her, and talked with her that last day not long before I met you." Julie started and looked distressed. " She told me you were going away for the sake of her health. I hope she is better. Listen, Julie. I told your father I loved you, and he did not say no. He told me he would give me an answer when you all came back. My beloved, he will ask you if you like me ; and then, Julie, you will not remember those foolish words of Made- moiselle Lagrange. You will say to your father, 'I love Esau Runswick.' " " But if it is wrong ?" Julie faltered. Esau had drawn very close to her, and now he took her hand gently in his. She did not withdraw it, and he held it tightly clasped. " See, dear one," he said, " it is but a question of courage. I have written to my father, and I am sure that his answer AGAIN ON THE TERRACE. 81 will be favourable. Your father likes roe, and I know I can make you happy — can I not?" he whispered. He had bent over her as she still sat on the bench ; his arm was round her, and though she trembled she did not shrink away. " Esau," she whispered, " it is very sweet, but are you sure it is not wicked ? Mademoiselle Lagrange " Esau stopped her by a fervent kiss, and at this she struggled to free herself, blush- ing till she looked lovelier than ever. He removed his arm from her waist, though he held her hand firmly. " Mademoiselle is an old maid," he said ; " what can she know? You sayyourself that your mother has never talked this sort of nonsense to you." "That is true," said Julie; and when Esau seated himself close beside her on the bench she made no objection. They did not talk, they were too happy ; VOL. T. G 82 A FAITHFUL LOVER. only before they parted Esau told her that next time they met she would be his promised wife. She blushed so sweetly that he could not help kissing her again, and this time Julie did not struggle in his embrace. " I shall come here every evening on the chance of seeing you," he said as he released her ; Julie nodded, and then she went swiftly up the terrace steps and was soon out of sigjht. 83 CHAPTER VII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. PvAYS passed by, and still Esau could not succeed in seeing Monsieur de Foignies alone. It was not for want of trying to get an interview. He became at last so impor- tunate that he saw the Count shrank from him. The young fellow had grown reckless. He went every morning to the chateau, but its master was always too busy to see him alone — usually he was with the Mar- quis de Kerjean — indeed, the atmosphere of the place had entirely changed : instead of the quiet, sweet, leisurely life which Esau G 2 84 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. had learnt to associate with it, there was now always some bustle going on when he arrived — a shooting party, or else an ex- pedition to see some place in the neigh- bourhood ; or else he would find trades- people from Caux waiting for their orders in a way he had not before seen at the quiet chateau. The severest part of his trial was that though he climbed night after night to the terrace it was always deserted. Julie was not to be seen. He sat there long after the clock of the chateau had warned him there could be no chance of seeing his beloved. Esau was growing haggard and desperate. One night as he turned into the banker's, worn out with fatigue and disappointment, he saw Monsieur Nogent walking up and down his small courtyard smoking. Esau never smoked, and at first he was going indoors without iioti6ing his host, but suddenly an idea THE BEGINNING OF THE END. OO came to him. He walked briskly across the courtyard. " Monsieur," he said, " I am told you give good advice; will you give some to me?" " That is well," the banker said in a pompous but kind voice, and he held his cigar between his fat finger and thumb. " I think, my young friend, you had better have asked my advice sooner : you have not grown fat by following your own." " Well, Monsieur," Esau said impa- tiently, " I want to see a man to speak to him on business, and he always puts me off with one pretext or another. What is to be done ?" The banker looked inquisitive, but his thoughts moved slowly. " Tell me. Monsieur," said Esau. "J should write," said Monsieur de Nogent. Esau had thought of this alternative. 86 A FAITHFUL LOVER. but had rejected it because he trusted so much to his own personal influence with Monsieur de Foignies. "And if no answer comes to my letter?" The banker shruCTored his shoulders and opened widely the hand which did not hold the cigar. " Then, my dear fellow, , you had better come again to me; but in life it is only necessary to take one step at a time and await the result. If you put too many irons into a fire, one or other of them will burn your fingers." The banker put his cigar into his mouth again, and Esau bade him good night. But he had to write three times to Monsieur de Foignies before an answer came. What weary days of waiting those | were ; and the young fellow even abstained from his evening visits to the terrace, he was so resolved to deal fairly by i i Julie's parents. He spent the days either j THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 87 Id long rides into the country round Caux — country of a flat, uninteresting kind, green meadows fringed with tall poplars or fields of yellow rape or waving henap — or else he would climb up to the ramparts of the half-ruined chateau at Caux, and lie on the hot slippery grass dreaming that all was well, and that Julie would soon be his wife. For although the delay was painful to bear, Esau thought it gave hope. Monsieur le Corate would not have kept him in this suspense if he meant to refuse him his daughter. At the end of the week, which had seemed as long as a mouth, a letter came, asking Esau to be at Chateau Foignies next day at four o'clock. When he got off his horse he turned to go to the Count's study, as he had always done before this break had come into his intimacy, but the old servant interfered. " Monsieur will have the goodness to 88 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. follow rae," he said, and Esau followed him to the round room in which he had seen Julie's mother. Madame de Foignies sat beside her hus- band on the sofa, more erect and stately than before ; the German baths had done wonders for her. She wore a rich silk dress and a cap of costly lace. Her hus- band looked less well than usual ; there was a peevish, troubled expression in his face, which Esau noticed at once. " Good day, ray friend." The Count came forward and shook hands, but the Countess only bowed, without rising. " You have not been to see us for some days." " I have been waiting to hear from you, Monsieur,"vEsau said; " perhaps you did not get my letters. I have written three times, asking when you could give me an answer to the question I asked before you went away." THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 89 " What question was that ? " the Countess asked, looking at her husband. Her voice was courteous, but there was a certain decision in it which Esau did not like. " Mon Dieu, Madame !"— the Count's eyebrows went up to the top of his fore- head — " these young ones remember every- thing for us — my memory is no better than a sieve." Madame de Foignies was going to speak again, but Esau broke in : "Monsieur — " the intense feeling in his voice made both husband and wife look fixedly at him — " you can, I think, scarcely have forgotten that I told you of my love for your daughter, and that I asked you to give her to me." The Count flushed and an angry light came into his eyes, and when Esau saw the wife's lofty, pitying smile, he felt that he had made a mistake. Evidently the Count 90 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. liad kept his secret, and now he had be- trayed him to the anger of Madame de Foignies. *• Poor boy!" said the Countess. "You must pardon me, Monsieur Ptunswick, if I call you so ; but you are much too young to think of marriage — you scarcely know what life is — you are only on its threshold, and you v/ould find our little Julie a sad encumbrance on your journey. Besides " So far she had spoken with tender pity in her eyes, and a voice which seemed sugared, it was so sweet, spite of an occa- sional sharp note in it which set Esau's teeth on edge. He interrupted her, "I am not so young, Madame," he remembered, almost with a smile, that at his first interview with her the Countess had found him too old. " In a few days I shall be twenty-four. I think I can make Mademoiselle Julie happy ; I have a good THE BEGINNING OF THE ENP. 91 home to offer her. Monsieur le Comte, you are kind, you are my friend — " he was stirred into a strange passion of speech, the eloquence born of love — " will you not plead for me, you who know how I love her?" At this Monsieur le Comte looked foolish, but his wife kept silence, and he was compelled to speak. " My good young friend," he said, " yours is only a childish fancy, and very soon you will thank us for not having listened to you. And in effect our daughter is already promised — she will marry, as soon as she is old enough, our good friend De Kerjean. Did I not tell you it was necessary she should learn to speak EngHsh, for the Marquis has much pro- perty in your country ?" Esau could not answer ; he felt as if he were held there oraofged ao^ainst his will, while the Count spoke. 92 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. Madame de Foignies saw his sudden paleness, and she felt some compassion. *' Monsieur," she said, " you are a heretic, are you not ?" At this Esau's tongue loosened. " I am not a Papist," he answered. " Well then," said Madame de Foignies in a soft, sweet tone, " this is enough, we could never have given our child to you. It would have been impossible to admit a heretic into our family ; so you must be content, there is no more to be said." At this Esau lost patience. He turned upon Monsieur de Foignies and upbraided him with having deceived him. The Count was so much surprised at the sudden outburst from the reserved young fellow that he stood mute under the storm of reproach. " You cannot give Julie to a man old enough to be her father," Esau went on ; " you cannot be so cruel. The dear little THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 93 girl loves me ; I am sure she does. Send for her and she will tell you so." At this the Count recovered himself. "Pardon, my friend," he said, "you are hasty ; but then you are young, so I make excuse. But you are mistaken. Madame de Foignies will tell you that our daughter is willing to marry Monsieur de Kerjean." Esau looked angrily at the Countess. " Yes, Monsieur, that was what I was about to say just now. Julie has told me that she is willing to fulfil our wishes." Esau glared at her, his eyes full of gloom ; then he said, " Madame, I will believe this only if your daughter herself says it. I must see her, if you please." Monsieur de Foignies looked at his wife, and then he went up to her and whispered. She shook her head. " Monsieur," she said to Esau, " what you ask is impossible. You have shown rae that you have little self-control at 94 A F^irHFUL LOVEE. present. Mj child is serene and peaceful ; but you, with this imaginary idea that she cares for you, will agitate her, will say words which may disturb her young and innocent mind. Besides, Monsieur, think of yourself ; she cannot be your wife, and it is much happier for you never to see her again till you have overcome this youthful fancy." In vain Esau reasoned and expostulated. He was courteously told that the interview- was ended. Monsieur de Foignies wished to conduct him to the courtyard with cordial politeness, but the young fellow flung away from him haughtily, and, dash- ing out of the house at a Dace which he knew the Count could not equal, he was soon on horseback galloping towards Caux. On the fourth evening after this inter- view he found Julie on the terrace. He THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 95 had believed in her through all, and he told her this as he tried to take her in his arms. '' No, no, my friend," she said, *'I will always love you, but you must be discreet." "You will not marry that old man?" he said angrily. "No, no," Julie sobbed; "I did not promise them ; I said I must have time to think." Then she looked up in his face. " I did so want to hear what you would say. Esau started ; he felt choked. He literally could not speak. " Oh, Julie," he said at last, " you knew what I should say." " But, Esau, you must not come here, I cannot be your wife unless my parents consent. You would not wish that ?" she said confidently. " My darling, they have no power to 96 A FAITHFUL LOVER. marry you against your will. You will keep single for my sake, Julie. You are very young, dearest ; your parents will con- sent when they see how constant you are." " But my parents do not know about us — unless you have told them. If I had told they would perhaps have locked me in my room." She smiled — through her tears. Esau felt greatly disturbed ; he stood thinking. " Julie, are you quite sure you love me ?" He looked passionately into her lovely blue eyes — she blushed and pouted. *' My friend, have I not said so ?" "Yes, but I love to hear it over and over again." He took possession of both her hands and held them tightly. " Will you say this after me, Julie, ' I love you, Esau Eunswick, and I promise to be your wife?'" She repeated the words in a trembling THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 97 voice; then she said, "But, Esau, what am I to do about Monsieur le Marquis ?" " Say he is too old to marry you, and that you do not hke him ; but ob, my Juhe " — he kissed her hands fervently — *' if you will only take courage and say to your parents ' I love Esau,' who knows but that they would listen to you?" Tears sprang into her eyes, she shook her head. " I could not," she whispered ; " I should faint with fear. You do not know how wrong I have been to listen to you — to see you even. We must not meet again, Esau." She sobbed as she said this, and Esau's heart softened. Poor little thing, it was a very difficult position for her ; he saw that plainly. He took her in his arms, and as he whispered to her not to be faint-hearted, Juhe did not try to withdraw from his embrace, even though he kissed her lips. VOL. I. H 08 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Say once more * I love you,' " lie whispered, *' and then if you are true to me, Julie, all will be well. Say 'I love you,' my sweet one." " Julie, Julie ! where are you, my child ?" came in Mademoiselle Lagrange's shrill tones. Julie trembled so violently that Esau could hardly bear to leave her. " I love 3^ou," she whispered as he let her go, and she almost flew to the terrace steps. He was over the edge of the descent and well out of sight before the governess appeared. 99 CHAPTER VIII. A KISS. rpHE rest of that month at Caux was like a troubled dream. Every day Esau bitterly regretted that he had consented not to see Julie again, and he went even- ing after evening to the terrace, but she never came. He watched for her outside the gates ; he bribed old Simon to take notes to her, but he believed they did not reach her, as she gave no sign. One day at the club room of Caux he read in the local paper that the marriage of Mademoiselle de Foignies to Monsieur le Marquis de Kerjean would take place in a week. Fortunately the room was empty, H 2 100 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. for Esau bounded from his chair like a madman ; then wild ideas rushed swiftly through his brain. He would find the Marquis de Kerjean, quarrel with him, and one of them should prove which was most worthy of Julie ; or he would find his way to Julie and persuade her to elope with him. He stood resolutely still till he had quieted himself, and he was able to think distinctly. Then his early habit of concentration helped him — the habit which had often kept him silent and seemingly unsoc^'al. First he had determined at all risks to prevent the marriage. Now, he asked himself, whether he cared really for Julie's love, supposing that she had consented to marry the Marquis. However, he would see her before he allowed himself to con- demn her. The puzzle was how to do it. Esau had kept his secret rigorously ; neither the banker nor his wife knew of A KISS. 101 his quarrel witb the Count, though they saw that something: was wronof with their guest. He had ridden up as usual towards the chateau, so as to avoid comment, and then had spent the morning, often the whole day, at Cabourg or Luc, or some other of the small bathing-places along the sea-board. Madame Nogent was, at any rate, quite unconscious that there had been any break in his intimacy with the family at the chateau. Next morning at breakfast she rallied him on his discretion. "You have kept the secret of this marriage well, Monsieur," she said. " I suppose you knew about it long ago ?" Esau bent his head without answering, but his hostess was accustomed to his silent ways, and she went on speaking. " Perhaps, Monsieur, I might ask you to deliver my felicitations to Mademoiselle Julie and to her parents on this happy 102 A FAITHFUL LOVER. event. Dear Mademoiselle Julie ! When Madame la Comtesse was well they used to come into town for Mass on high festi- vals, and then the sweet child loved to come in here, and, while her mother rested, she would talk to Augustine's parrot." " You never told me that before," Esau spoke harshly ; all at once the cook's grey parrot, which had hung disregarded in his cage outside the kitchen window, became invested with a deep interest ; it seemed to Esau that he had been defrauded of a real pleasure. " Did I not," said Madame Nogent ; "but you are here so seldom since you knew the family. Now, Monsieur, tell me what 1 ought to say to make a pretty message." A sudden idea had come to Esau while his hostess simpered and bridled over her words, her bead-like eyes glittering restlessly. A KISS. 103 *' I shall certainly not be able to give a message," he said, " and should assuredly forget it, but, Madame, if you will write a note to Mademoiselle Julie, I can see that it is right and it shall be delivered." " Thank you a thousand times ; I will ask my husband." Esau smiled, to keep down his im- patience. " I am starting at once, Ma- dame," he said. He and his hostess had lingered at the breakfast-table long after Monsieur de Nogent had gone to his count- ing-house. " You do not want to write a long letter, you will just say this sort of thing," he ran over the ceremonious formula which he thought the occasion required, and then he offered to fetch his own writing materials for the use of Madame. Madame was enchanted — a letter to her was a supreme achievement, to be under- taken solemnly at rare intervals ; and to 104 A FAITHFUL LOVER. have the substance dictated, and the im- plements placed ready, took away half the difficulty she dreaded. Esau stayed in his room to write a few imploring words to Julie to meet him on the terrace, he placed these in an envelope, and then he carried his letter-case and ink-stand down stairs, and placing a sheet of paper ready for Madame, he calmly dictated the words she was to write. She demurred at the word Mademoiselle — she wished also to include the parents in her felicitations, but Esau was firm and she yielded. She wrote better than he expected, a fluent thin hand with elaborate flourishes at the signature. She gave, however, a deep siffh of relief as she handed it to him to read. " It is excellent," he said ; then putting in a few accents she had omitted, he folded it up, placed it in the envelope containing his own note and fastened it. A KISS. 105 " If you will seal it and direct it, Madame, it shall reach Mademoiselle de Foignies without delay." ' He took some sealing-wax from his letter-case, lighted a candle, and deliber- ately placed both beside her. Madame Nogent always questioned and usually re- sisted her husband's attempt at ruling her, but she submitted to Esau like a child, she even waited to be told the address she was to put on the letter, for in addition to Julie's name Esau told her to put " With the compliments of Madame Nogent." Stili as he took leave of her she said to him, " I should like to have shown ray letter to Monsieur Nogent before I sent it, Monsieur." " It is a charming letter, Madame," he answered as he rode out of the court-yard, leaving Madame with a wistful face at the glass door of her salle-a-manger. He went to a confectioner's and bought 106 A FAITHFUL LOVER. a charming bo7ibonniere, then fastening the letter on it, he bade a boy who did errands for the banker's household come with him to the chateau. He stopped short of the entrance, and waited till his messenger returned. The tidings the boy brought were satisfactory. He had seen Mademoiselle de Foignies in the courtyard, dressed for riding, and waiting for some gentlemen who were talk- ing near the stables at some distance from her. She had opened the letter, and then she had put it into the front of her riding- coat, and she had told the boy to take the box up to the bouse. In the evening he found Julie on the terrace, but she would not let him kiss her, though she vowed to him that she must always hate her husband and that she would always love Esau. This was her answer to the bitter re- proach with which he greeted her, *' If A KISS. 107 you had been true to me this would not have happened," and the girl shrank from him, and covering up her face, she wept bitterly. She implored his forgiveness. " Do you not see, cruel one," she sobbed, " that it is I who suffer most. You, at least, are free ; you are not going to be tied to a husband you hate." At this his anger gave way, and he im- plored her to fly with him to England and become his wife. But Julie shuddered at this proposal. " You do not know our laws," she said sadly ; " they are rigorous ; my parents would get me away from you and put me into a convent, and I should be buried alive for the rest of my life. For you, too," she went on with fresh tears, " it would be worse than as if I had not been your wife. No, there is nothing but resignation 108 A FAITHFUL LOVER. before us, dear friend." She still sobbed, but Esau was not satisfied. " Give me one kiss only," he pleaded ; " we shall never meet again, my be- loved." She shook her head. " Why not — why can we not meet ?" She dried her eyes. " I know some time must pass, and we shall both grow calmer, more reasonable ; but, my Esau, why can you not come and see me when I go to live in England. We can be friends, and always love one another. I at least shall love you only." Esau had stood before her holding her hands, he flung them away in bitter despair. " Child ! you do not know how I love you, you do not even dream it. Do you then think I could calmly bear to see you another man's wife ? No, if you will not give yourself to me now, we must part." A KISS. 109 At last, with but faint resistance, he took her in his arms and gave her one long farewell kiss, then he left her without a word. Next day he quitted Caux, and without returning to England, he started on the tour which his father had been urging him to begin. no CHAPTER IX. ANOTHER KISS. rpHE Marquis de Kerjean was very much in love with Julie, and he was also very observing. He had been told that Esau Runswick was a mere lad who looked much older than he was, and it did not occur to him to guess at the little romance which had been acted through the sum- mer months at the Chateau de Foignies. But when the young Englishman went away, Julie suddenly drooped. She looked pale and sad, and she rarely spoke. Still, as Esau's visits had been entirely to the Count, Monsieur de Kerjean had seen little of him, and he was ignorant of his ANOTHER KISS. Ill sudden departure. But he saw that something troubled his promised wife, and he determined to find out what ailed her. He loved her dearly, and he wished to know a little more about her ; but Madame de Foignies was always present at his interviews with her daughter. Two days before the marriage, he found Julie's mother alone, and he suddenly pro- posed to speak in private to her daughter. Madame de Foignies smiled. " Monsieur," she said, *' in two days Julie will be your own ; what you ask is against rules ;" she tapped his arm with her fan and shook her head, " but if you have a confidence to impart to her, you can speak to her in that window ; I shall not listen." She received Monsieur de Kerjean in I her own chamber, which had three 5 recessed windows overlooking the park. 112 A FAITHFUL LOVER. Madame's sofa was placed at the farther end of the room, near a curtained recess which contained her bed and toilet arrangements. Monsieur de Kerjean was annoyed, but he bowed without remonstrance. Julie came in, looking sadder than ever. She gave him her hand to kiss, and then bent down her forehead to her mother ; she was about to take her usual seat beside the sofa, when Madame de Foignies said, " Monsieur le Marquis wishes to show you something in the park, Julie, from that window." Julie understood in a moment that something was hidden in her mother's words, and she grew still paler. " Permit me, my dear child," Monsieur de Kerjean said, kindly, as he led the un- willing girl to the window. Julie's heart beat fast. What was going to happen, she wondered. Would AKOTflER KISS. 113 he ask her about Esau ? She would not tell him anythinp^ if he did ; it would do no good, and it would only make him scold her, and think her fooHsh ; he always told her she was good; it would be impossible to have a husband who despised her. The lattice window was open, Monsieur de Kerjean leaned out and pointed to a beautiful birch beyond the angle of the house ; it could not be seen unless one leaned out of window. But Julie had often seen the birch trees before, and spite of her misgivings she thought Mon- sieur de Kerjean more wearisome than ever. " My child," he cried, quickly, " do not draw in your head, listen " What was this ? his voice had changed ; it sounded soft and sweet, and there was a tone in it that made the girl quiver. She looked up in surprise. Could this be the cold, precise man she shrank so from marry- VOL. I. I 114 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. ing; but when she met his eyes, full of the look of which she so well knew the meaning, she coloured with vexation, and tears sprang to her eyes. " My sweet friend," he said, " you are sad, and your sadness troubles me ; you are going to be my wife, Julie, and a wife tells her troubles to her husband ; tell me then what grieves you." She put her hands over her face and sobbed. " I cannot. Monsieur. I should make you angry." At the sight of her tears falling through her fingers and the sobs that shook her, De Kerjean's self-control gave way. " My angel," he said, " tell me, I im- plore you ; it is possible that I can help your sorrow." In her anguish Julie had forgotten her reticence, she knew, too, that the Marquis must hide her from her mother, as he leaned beside her. ANOTHER KISS. 115 "You could help me, Monsieur, but I am sure you would not, you would only be angry, and I should be more wretched than ever." " I promise," he said, gravely, " sweet child, nothing you can say or do shall ever make me angry with you." Julie's heavy heart gave a bound of relief. She wiped her eyes, and then with a piteous attempt at a smile, she looked up in her lover's face. "I do not want to marry yet," she said, " I feel I am too young." Monsieur de Kerjean stood upright. It was not easy to read his dark face, but Julie thouo:ht she had never seen him look so serious. He was not looking at her, however, but far away beyond into the trees of the park. Julie's heart throbbed. Presently he turned round. " I am bound to show myself worthy of your confidence, my child. I wish to be I 2 116 A FAITHPUL LOVER. your best friend in all ways ; the marriage shall be deferred." "Oh, thank you, Monsieur — " she began, impulsively, but he stopped her. " Shall we put it off for three months ; you will not ask me to wait longer for my happiness, sweet friend ?" Julie's colour went and came. She felt that she liked Monsieur de Kerjean better than she had ever thought she could like him ; he was as kind as her father ; but there was a grand, noble air about him which she had never seen in her father ; this impressed her, and made her feel proud that he should care for her. Much might happen in three months, she thought, and she shrank from offending him. " In three months then," she said ; and the Marquis kissed her hand and led her back to her mother. When Julie found herself alone she wondered what would have happened if ANOTHER KISS. 117 she had told the true story of her sadness. " Monsieur de Kerjean would have been angry — terribly angry," she thought, '" and perhaps he would have gone away to kill Esau " — the poor child had heard of duels when gentlemen quarrelled — "and then I should have been sent to a convent for punishment." She had at least secured three months' freedom, and who could tell what might not happen in three months ? But other thoughts came. If she had only had courage to speak. Monsieur de Kerjean said that he would never be angry with her. She might so easily have said, " Please go away, and let Monsieur Runswick come in your place." Julie wept ever so long, but although she knew that the Marquis would not leave the chateau till next morning, she could not summon courage to ap- peal to him. She had opportunities, 118 A FAITHFUL LOVER. for her mother was not well enough to appear at breakfast, and in these last days Juhe had lost all fear of Mademoiselle Lagrange ; she felt that even if her marriage was deferred she was for ever emancipated from schoolroom control, but still she could not make an effort to end her relations with the Marquis. All through the breakfast she hesitated ; then came the leave-taking, and when she saw the sorrow in his eyes, the soft-hearted girl felt that she could not knowingly increase this ; yet when he had ridden away Julie ran to her bedroom and burst into a passionate fit of crying at her own weakness. Mademoiselle Lagrange came in to look for her, and went off again in haste to the Countess. *'My dear Madame, you may be at rest," she said ; " it is going as you wish ; Julie is crying for Monsieur le Marquis." Julie was puzzled by her mother's ANOTHER KISS. IVd tenderness ; she had expected reproof for her confession and for her postponement of the marriage, but she soon learned the truth from her father. Monsieur de Kerjean had taken all blame on himself; he had said he wished to visit his English house and his estates in Leicestershire before he took Julie there ; he had been adding a new wing to the house, and the workpeople had been so slow and dilatory. He made many apologies, but the last excuse he offered was the only one that had weight with Monsieur de Foignies. " My dear friend," De Kerjean said, "you know I am quite half English, and I like some of the English ideas. I fancy we have all treated Mademoiselle Julie too much like a child, who has only to do as she is bid." He looked fixedly at Monsieur de Foignies's pleasant face, and he saw it flush a little. " Let me have these three months to win her as a woman 120 A FAITHFUL LOVER. should be won, and I think her married life will be a happy one." They shook hands and parted. " What does he know ?" said the Count to himself. " Well, if he knows anything we can only be thankful that he is not very angry; and yet," he thought, "Julie is lovely enough to make a man endure much for her sake." He did not repeat this last plea to his daughter, but she was deeply touched with De Kerjean's generous silence respecting her. " He is very kind," she said to herself, and he spared no pains to deepen this favourable impression. He wrote often to Julie; charming letters full of gaiety, and yet with an undertone of tenderness that touched the girl deeply, and soothed her wounded love. " If Esau would only write once," she thought, " I would not care for these letters. Oh, my Esau, you are forgetting me already !" ANOTHER KISS. 121 At the end of a month Julie found herself wishing that Monsieur de Kerjean would come again to the chateau. She told herself she only wanted to thank him for the beautiful gifts he so constantly sent her. Meantime Esau had been rambling almost aimlessly about Europe. He had crossed over to Egypt ; now at the end of six months, in bright spring-time, he found himself beside one of the Italian lakes. The day had been warm, but now he sat out in the cool gloom of evening in the balcony before his windows. The balcony was screened by an awning, and the curtains of this could be drawn so as to separate it from the balcony of the adjoining room. Esau avoided all society, and fancying he heard voices in the room behind this next balcony, he drew the curtain so as to screen himself from any 122 A FAITHFUL LOVER. attempt at acquaintanceship on the part of his neighbours. He fancied there was still light enough to read by, and he went back into his room for a book. When he returned it was plain that his neighbours had come out on to their balcony, but the sound that reached him kept him standing within the window. It was JuKe's voice, in low, tender tones. Esau felt stunned as her words caught his ear; but he was powerless to move, though he longed to put distance between himself and her. " I could not love you better than I do, my husband," she said, softly ; " and you need not ever be jealous of Monsieur Runswick. He was a boy, and I was a child, and we were both — well, a little silly." A pause, and then the sweet voice went on. " You, my beloved, you are a man, and I — well, now I am a woman." The sound of a kiss broke the spell. BOOK THE FIEST. 125 CHAPTER I. HOLLOW MILL. 'TlHE night is so dark that it is not possible to see the outside of Hollow- Mill. If one were to stand gazingi, possibly one's eyes might get used to the gloom, and gradually make out the outline of a half ruined building from the sur- rounding trees, but the east wind finds its way down into the deep green basin which gives the house its name, and makes one move on. The wind comes swirling through the boughs in harsh gusts that ruffle the waters in a stream that runs round the house, and which once filled the mill pool ; to-night the water makes a 126 A FAITHFUL LOVER. dash now and then against the stones which cumber its course. Above the hollow, on the top of the moor the trees, few and far between, crouch and cringe under the pitiless wind, and the leathern hood of an open carriage that is coming across the moor at a brisk pace, puffs out and in, and groans as if it were rheumatic, and the wind sent anguish into its creak- ing joints. The occupants of the carriage are ob- scured by the shadow flung over them, but there is less gloom upon the roof, and the driver shows plainly, mounted on his box. Presently the vehicle stops, and the driver gets down and opens a gate, which gives access to the land belonging to Hollow Mill. "We're not so high here. Missus Lettice," he says gruffly, " and more in t' shelter of t' trees. Nobbut we shall find t' wind stiffish down at t' mill, Ah'm thinking." HOLLOW MILL. 127 The only answer is a sort of grunt, really a few words smothered to all hearing, because the woman inside the hood is bending over something she holds in her arms, and wrapping it more closely in a hug'e fur rus:. " 'Ower late," she mutters. " T' master will be vexed above a bit, and no wonder, wiv his dinner late and all." She looks on through the darkness impatiently. It seems to Lettice that the horse might go faster — it is only a hired one — far better it should be overtired than that her master, Mr. Runswick, should be vexed. The horse goes cautiously down the steep road, for now, as the way begins to descend, trees grow on each side, and their branches meeting overhead make a gloom that keeps the driver on the alert. The road is ragged and ill kept, and the carriage jolts from side to side. All at once a child's voice cries out — 128 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Wben shall I get to Uncle Esau? I want him." " Patience, little lass," says Lettice repressively. " We shall soon come to t' mill.'^ The driver meanwhile is swearing at the roacl, asserting that the springs of his carriage will be ruined. " Whisht," Lettice says, as he leads his horse cautiously over the plank bridge, for the stream had been turned so as to feed the mill pool and went almost round the house. " Ye dunnot get used often by folks like Mr. Runswick — your spring is good enough for travellers and south-country people, Joe." The steep pull up the opposite bank, higher on this side than the other, keeps the driver from answering. He is looking anxiously towards the house, and presently a red gleam appears at one corner. This broadens, and shows that the house door HOLLOW MILL. 129 has opened its warm mouth to receive the expected arrival. A stout country girl is standing in the entrance, and when the carriage stops she comes forward, and begins to unfasten the apron which has been buckled tightly on each side. " T' hood mun be takken away, Anne," Lettice says, — " before Ah can get out." Then she dives down, and lifting out her fur burden, she places it in Anne's arms, bidding her carry it straight into the hall and place it in a chair. " T' master's in his study," says Anne, in a low voice; but Lettice bids her stand still while she dismisses the driver. Then closing the door, she begins to unwind the shawls in which her burden has been wrapped, one after another, till she has unrolled five or six warm wrappings, and then there appears by the light of the dim oil-lamp overhead a dark-eyed, sturdy VOL. I. K I'^O A FAITHFUL LOVE.;. child of about eight, whose chubby face looks half sleepy, half surprised. " What a sweet little lass, to be sure !" says Anne. " Whisht, and mind what belongs to you." Lettice's tone is very reproving. " Now, Miss Clemency, give me your hand and come to the study." Clemency turns up her broad face, but does not put her hand in that of Lettice. " Is the study where Uncle Esau lives ?" she says sleepily; *' I want Uncle Esau." Lettice stoops down and takes possession of the plump fingers. " Yes, come with me, Miss," she says, and Clemency goes, though her underlip is pouted in a rebellious fashion. They go on through many dark passages turning one out of another at right angles ; it is plain that though the house goes by the name of Hollow Mill, it has been once an old country mansion. Some of the HOLLOW MILL. 131 walls are oak-panelled, but others are only white-washed, and here and there damp-stains show on them even by the light of the long thin candle which Lettice carries in a sort of tin basin. At last, after what seems to little Clemency a long walk, they halt before a dark curtain where this last passage ends, and Lettice draws the curtain aside and knocks. No answer comes, but Lettice does not knock again, she stands still squeezing the fat hand tightly in her bony fingers. '* Knock again," Clemency says, " I want to see Uncle Esau." She only gets a low "whisht" for answer, but it seems as if the child's voice has made itself heard within the room. There is a sound Hke that of a chair pushed back, no footsteps however, till just before the door opens, and then a man's deep voice says — K 2 132 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Bring in the child." Lettice looses the child's hand and pushes her gently forward, but Clemency's first step on the shppery floor sends her off her balance ; she does not see Uncle Esau or the room in which he stands, she feels herself caught up from behind, and is aware of a smart shake, and that Lettice has whispered " Do keep your feet. Miss Clemency." Next minute she has soft carpet under foot instead of that terrible slippery wood, and she sees that she is in a square room, with walls made of books, and that a tall man stands looking at her behind a lamp on a leather-topped writing-table. Clemency is by nature fearless, and she has lived with a languid, gentle mother who has never given her any cause for fear ; it is this gentle nurture that made her so unsensitive to Lettice's attempts at re- pression ; but now, as she looks up at the HOLLOW iilLL. 133 tall man with dark hair and shaggy eye- brows bent over still darker eyes, fear makes his first visit to Clemency. In- voluntarily she steps back and looks around for Lettice. But Lettice has drawn herself out of reach and stands as still as a statue close beside the door. " Come here, child," the deep voice says, and, as Mr. Runswick has a habit of speaking through his closed teeth, his words sound muffled. Clemency's lips quiver, then she re- members her ardent wish to see Uncle Esau, and she goes quickly up to him. " How are you. Uncle Esau," she says in a sweet voice. She holds up her fat round face, her firm red lips are put out with a kiss ready on them, but Uncle Esau stands still, his hands clasped behind him, his head rather sunk between square, foreign-looking shoulders, and his long dark 134 A FAITHFUL LOVER. eyes fixed in intent scrutiny on the face of Clemency. In a minute or two he turns away rest- lessly, without a word. " Just like her father " he says half aloud, " a thorough Ormiston, but she has not got the fellow's good looks." He goes back to a stuffed dark leather chair, seats himself in it, and takes up a book. Lettice does not venture to speak, she is not quite sure that the interview is over. Clemency waits a few minutes, and then she walks up to the silent figure in the easy chair. "You forgot to say. How d'ye do, tome, Uncle Esau." He looks at her in such surprise that his shaggy eyebrows are raised to the middle of his forehead, and a grim smile curves his thin straight hps. Before he can speak, Clemency, taking the smile for HOLLOW MILL. 135 eQcouragement, has sprung on bis knees, and clasping her plump arms round his neck, she gives him warm kisses. Lettice stands confounded at her daring for a moment, then she hurries forward. " Oh, Miss Clemency," she says in a shocked exclamation. Mr. Runswick puts up one hand and unfastens the child's clinging fingers. He gives a gulp, and Clemency slips down again, chilled and frightened, she thinks Uncle Esau must be ill. But she does not go away in this belief. " You can go, child," he says in an odd jerky voice. " You had better keep your kisses for Lettice; it's time you were in bed." Clemency suffers herself to be taken quickly out of the room. She does not slip this time on the polished floor, but as soon as the door is closed she stamps her foot on the flags of the passage. " That 136 A FAITHFUL LOVER. man wasn't Uncle Esau," she says angrily, " when I got close to his face I saw he wasn't. Uncle Esau at home has got rosy cheeks and a white forehead and brown curls on it, and he always smiles at me — whenever I go in the room Uncle Esau's picture smiles after me always, and when I kiss him he smiles more. That's an un- kind old man." Lettice heaves a smothered sob. She dares not show outward sympathy — her loyalty prevents this, but her heart goes out to poor little lonely Clemency. " Kiss me, child, Mr. Eunswick bade you. Come along." She hurries along the passage. "Your bread and milk and your bed's waitin' for ye by now." Clemency goes on in silence, her heart is so big that she does not care to talk, but when Lettice has taken her up-stairs to a neat little bedroom, and left her alone HOLLOW MILL. 137 there with a candle — the child's eyes fill with hot tears — she clenches her little fists and tries hard not to sob, but she cannot help it — " I'll go home," she says passionately, " T won't stay here ; he's a cross man — Oh, mamma, mamma," — and then she sobs out loudly, and quivers with her grief ; but her ears are quick, and she soon hears footsteps on the carpetless stairs. She rubs her eyes with her hand- kerchief, and by the time Lettice comes in with a wooden bowl of bread and milk, she is looking unconcernedly at the fire. 133 CHAPTER II. TUE PAST. TT7HEN little Clemency Orraiston left the study her uncle sat quite still. Soon his eyes closed and he was to all appearance asleep — but not really sleeping. When seven o'clock came, Timothy the young servant, who looked always as if his clothes had been made for some one else, knocked to say dinner was served. Mr. Runswick answered at once that dinner could be taken away, he did not want it. Presently he smiled. *' It is folly, but it will soon be over ;" and then going to an THE PAST. 139 oak cabinet beside the wide fireplace he opened it and poured himself out and then drank half-a-glass of wine, and walked back to his chair with slow and cautious steps, as if he were carrying something both fragile and precious. It was only a vision which the touch of the child's warm soft lips had drawn into sudden distinctness from an unfor- gotten though clouded memory. When he reached his chair again, Mr. Runswick sank gently into it, and leaning his head back he closed his eyes with a look in which pain and interest were curiously mixed. . . . He is miles away from Hollow Mill — in an old chateau in Northern France, near a cathedral town. He is young again, and has the clear forehead, rosy cheeks, and dark glossy curls of Clemency's picture- uncle. ... A strong thrill makes the figure in the chair tremble. How distinctly he 140 A FAITHFUL LOVER. sees the grassed terraces in the gardens of the chateau ! He covers his eyes with one lean brown hand. The scenes on that ter- race live again . . . and then memory passes on to the balcony on the Italian lake — to the sound of that kiss .... The torture of that moment is still terrible to recall. Esau Runswick had only a confused recollection of starting late that night, and never resting till he was fairly out of Italy and on his way to the far East. Thence a telegram, the delivery long delayed by his rapid travelling, recalled him to England, to find that his father, whose illness it had announced, was dead and buried, and had left the estate so heavily encumbered that his lawyers advised Esau to let it, as the only means of providing for himself and hiis sister. Then came a dreary time of anxiety and mortification. His sister had been trusted entirely to a careless governess, and when Esau took her to live with him THE PAST. 141 in a small bouse in the country, the girl found his ideas absurd and tyrannical, and rebelled against the isolation in which he lived. He loved his pretty sister and tried to raise the tone of her mind, but she was hopelessly frivolous and silly, and she found him a dull, gloomy companion. At the end of two years she ran away with a young officer who had only his face and his love for her to recommend him. In two years more Captain Ormistou died, leaving his widow penniless, in delicate health, and with a baby a few months old. Esau had not forgiven his sister, nor would he repeat the experiment of asking her to live with him. When she, as he said, disgraced him by her flight from his house, he quitted it and went abroad again for several years ; when he returned to England he went into Yorkshire to visit a friend, and purchased Hollow Mill. It was going to ruin, so he 142 A FAITHFUL LOVER. got it at a cheap rate, and then, putting as much of it into repair as he cared to in- habit, he left the rest in the tumble-down picturesque state in which he found it. People said he was crazy ; and when his neighbours called, and he refused to admit them and made no return visits, it was even said that he was an escaped lunatic, but he was regardless of public opinion, and went on living his secluded life with his books. He took long walks over the wide stretch of moor that surrounded Hollow Mill : sometimes he would find his way down to the seashore about a mile off, and once or twice he had spoken to an old white-haired fisherman near the bay ; but till this night, some years after his arrival at Hollow Mill, no stranger had ever slept in one of its chambers. He had gone to see his sister in her last illness ; she was very feeble, almost too ill to speak to him; her worn, changed face THE PAST. 143 liad touched him deeply, and he promised to provide for her child. He did not see his little niece, who anxiously awaited his coming downstairs. When he left his sister's room he went straight out of the house, heedless of the maid's request that he would please come and see Miss Clemency. He was overcome with re- morse, though he had really no cause for self-reproach ; but his solitary life had made him morbid — it seemed to him that if he had taken his sister to live with him perhaps she would not have died so young. Ever since her husband's death he had shared his income with her, the half being more than sufficient for his limited wants, and yet Mrs. Ormiston had left barely enough to pay for her funeral and the expenses of her illness. Before she died she had written a letter to her brother, thanking him for his goodness to her. 144 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " I did not deserve it," the letter said, " but it has taught me my own folly too late. I misjudged you altogether, Esau ; you are better than you know yourself. You used to say I never trusted you ; well, you can never say that again, for I am going to trust you with all T have — my little Clemency. I have taught her to love you dearly ; consider her your own child. "Your grateful sister, " Clemency Ormiston." And yet, though the letter had found him still warm and tender towards his sister, to-night the sight of Clemency had checked all loving feelings. He had been enraged when he went to his sister's funeral to find that a cousin of Captain Ormiston's had carried the child oflf for a few days, and when he saw how like she was to her spendthrift father, a strong re- pulsion rose. He had been given the child THE PAST. 145 to provide for — that was all ; he was sure when she grew up she would turn out heartless and improvident like her father. He did not know how great an effort it had been to him to adopt a girl-child, for he hated all women — they were all plausible deceivers; and when little Clemency climbed up and kissed him he could have shaken her in his anger. " Taught her to love me," he muttered ; " rather to cajole and flatter and deceive me. Well, it is a comfort that I am hardened against all their arts, though I scarcely expected to find deceit in such a little one as this — I must be the more wary." VOL. [. 146 CHAPTER III. LITTLE CLEMENCY. riLEMENCY waked early next morning. It was a month since her mother's death, but still the child's first thought was always for *' Mamma." She had never been scolded, but she had been spoiled rather than tenderly loved, for Mrs. Ormiston's delicate health had increased her natural self-indulgence, and when she was established on a sofa with an absorbing French novel, she did not care for Clemency's chatter or for her caresses. The child's warm up-springing love had to be poured out on her dog and on her nurse, but at the same time she LITTLE CLEMENCY. 147 worshipped in her heart her poor, pretty mamma. She had left both nurse and dog in London, but the strangeness that met her waking eyes this morning soon banished regret — it was in itself exciting and ex- hilarating ; and though there was not yet broad daylight, Clemency got up and washed and dressed herself for the first time, in great glee at having done so without assistance. Lettice had bade her lie still till she was called, but her impatience would not allow her to stay in bed. From her window she saw a sight which pleased her — the stream, dark from the shade of overhanging trees circling round the house and the outbuildings, slanting wooden sheds covered with fern and moss, and looking as if very soon they would topple down into the strong, swiftly- flowing water. Visions of fishing with a thread line and a crooked pin, of launching L 2 148 A FAITHFUL LOVEK. a fleet of boats in the river — the first she had ever Hved near — came to her ; visions, too, of scrambles and hide-and-seek in the tumble-down sheds she saw below her, their thatched roofs glowing with green and gold, now that the sun had reached them through the clearing behind the house — all these sights gladdened Clemency, and she clapped her hands with joy. The sound of a dog barking clouded her bright face. " I wonder if Nell misses me much," she thought; " poor dear Nell !" While she listened she heard other sounds — the clucking of poultry and the soft lowing of cows, and that indescribable murmur which tells that animal life is astir, accompanied by the swishing rush of the river and the twitter of the birds in the overshadowing trees. The sounds cheered her young spirit with a sure promise of living companionship near at hand. She LITTLE CLEMENCY. 149 was just thinkiog of going down to begin a voyage of discovery outside the house, when Lettice opened the door. Her grave face grew long at the sight of Clemency dressed and looking out of the window. "My sakes ! what's taken ye, child? Ye should have waited. It's nobbut six o'clock," she said, severely. Clemency stared at her. " Call me Miss Ormiston or Miss Clemency, please, Lettice. Child is not a name at all." A smile broadened Lettice's face. " She has a sperrit," she said to her- self, approvingly, but then she frowned a little. " Did ye tak yur bath. Miss ?" " Of course I did," said Clemency ; " I am clean, whatever you may think." " You mun stand quiet, while Ah brush out this raddle o' hair ; ray sakes ! ye've 150 A FAITHFUL LOVER. combed t' front, Miss, but t' back looks like a bird's nest." *' Very well, perhaps it is a little rough," — Clemency bit her lips with vexa- tion — " but you ought to remember that I haven't got eyes in the back of my head." " But your hair oughtn't to hang down straight," said Lettice, when she had brushed the roughened locks icto a broad dusky veil that reached the little girl's shoulders. " It always does," said Clemency. " Mamma liked it, and she knew best. Mamma knew everything about little girls. You have not got a little girl, have you ?" She turned round and looked sharply at Lettice, who still held the comb in her fingers. "Bless you, child, no," said Lettice, primly. " Well, then," — Clemency shrugged her shoulders with some contempt — " how can LITTLE CLEMENCY. 151 you know anything about a little girl s hair. I think you are a goose, Lattice." " Oh, Miss Clemency, what would your unde think of you?" Clemency put her head on one side, and half closed her big dark eyes. " I don't care a bit what he'd think. Shall I tell you for why ? I don't know Uncle Esau yet — this Uncle Esau I mean;" she gave a sigh at the memory of that beautiful rosy- cheeked idol always smiling at her from his canvas, " so I can't tell what he thinks; but he 7nay think you a goose, Lettice, though he doesn't say it. I shall ask him in a day or two." Lettice disproved her right to the title by refraining from further remonstrance. " Have you said your prayers ?" she said. " Yes, of course; I am not a heathen." Clemency's eyes opened, and her well- marked eyebrows made furrows above them in the low, broad forehead. 152 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Then you shall have your bread an' milk as soon as t' lass has fettled it, an' after, you can feed t' chickens." Clemency clapped her hands, and ran down the uneven staircase at a rate that made Lettice call out, " Be careful, Miss, how you go." "Shan't I have breakfast with uncle?" she said, when she found that Lettice had led her to the kitchen. " Better not, t' morning," said Lettice, " come an' see t' peoples in t' basket." But Clemency had already forgotten her wish to breakfast with her uncle. This kitchen — she had rarely been in one before — was full of wonders : the fireplace glittering with brass and steel, the wooden rack on one side for spoons, the dresser gay with variegated crockery, the glowing face of the warming-pan, which seemed to gather into its coppery self, and reflect back with interest, the heat of the fire LITTLE CLEMENCY. 153 , opposite, the tall clock in tbe corner with i its solemn " tick-tack," were all delight- ' ful — Clemency bad not come out of the | intense absorption caused by these new j sights, when a squeaking and rustling in the basket before the fire drew her j eyes to the puppies. The mother, a chestnut-coloured re- ! triever, lobked up out of her pink-rimmed eyes into Clemency's face as the child | came up to the basket. She seemed '" I satisfied with what she paw, for she let , Clemency handle first one little yellow ball, and then another, without heeding the squeaks of her pups. " Are they yours ?" the child asked abruptly. "They're Timothy's," said Lettice ; "but, he'll keep but one; t'others mun be put away." Clemency looked severe. . " What do you mean ?" 154 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " They'll be drowned." " What a cruel woman you are, Lettice ! Ah ! but then you havn't had a child, so you don't feel." She stopped and grew red. *' If Timothy or no one " — she hesitated — " I mean if nobody wants this one," she lifted up the smallest puppy of the group, " I should like to keep him. He's blind now, but when his eyes open he'll be so fond of me because he'll see I'm small like himself. May I have him, do you think?" Lettice laughed. " Well, yes, if you fancy him — he'll be nobbut a cur, Miss Clemency — a mongrel, you know." '^What is a mongrel, Lettice." " Well, it's a sort of dog," said Lettice. " But come, now, there's your breakfast getting cold." " I expect it's a very good sort of dog," Clemency said confidently, as she seated herself at the table ; " only you don't LITTLE CLEMENCY. 155 know ; you see you don't know much about dogs, Lettice, do you ? Well, then, I choose that little one, and I shall always call him ' mongrel.' I shall have him to sleep in my bedroom." '' No, you can't do that," said Lettice, sturdily. "Poops are full of fleas, and Ah cannut have fleas in your uncle's beds, Miss." Clemency's mouth was full of bread and milk, and perhaps she was glad to be unable to answer. She had been accus- tomed to rule her nurse, but there was a decision about Lettice to which she was not accustomed. She determined to take an opportunity of speaking to her uncle on this subject. It seemed to her that, if puppies were treated like children and washed every morning, fleas would be im- possible inhabitants. Her only answer was, as she put down her spoon — "He'll never have fleas." 156 A FAITHFUL LOVER. Lettice began to wash the bowl and spoon without taking any notice, but presently she said, "You had best go and play in the garden, child." " I must go and say good morning to Uncle Esau, mustn't I ?" said Clemency. " Perhaps he Will take me for a walk." Lettice shook her head. " You cannot go to t' master nobbut when he calls for ye, an' he always walks by himself " Clemency thought a minute, then she said, " He walks by himself because he never had me before to walk with. Poor uncle, how dull he must have been ! He'll be glad to have some one to be with him. Where is he?" "Bless you. Miss Clemency, Mr. Runs- wick will call for you when he wants you. Nobody mun go in t' study, nobbut when LITTLE CLEMENCY. 157 he rings his bell. You must be patient. Coom, Ah'll show you t' chickens." She opened a side-door, and Clemency found herself in the poultry yard. A gamecock was strutting up and down, turning his head conceitedly from side to side as if he were saying, " Look at me," while some pretty brown hens were cluck- ing and fussing over their respective broods like young mothers with a first child. Some little ducks, covered with golden down, with dark grey spots, delighted Clemency, and she was rushing after them when she was stopped by the turkey cock, who had stepped suddenly forward, gobbling and reddening till his comb and gorget flamed with colour. Clemency's courage failed. She ran back to Lettice and put her hand in hers. " I never saw a bird like that," she said. '* I know what it is, though : it is one of 158 A FAITHFUL LOVER. the savage birds in the * Swiss Family Robinson.' " Lettice did not answer; and Clemency wandered through the yard till she found herself near the bank of the little stream. On the other side were tall trees, and below these a broader stream, behind it a steep wooded hill. Clemency saw her uncle standing among the trees beside the broad stream, but he was not looking towards her. All her long-cherished love flamed up at the sight. She forgot her last night's rebuff" — she only thought how she could o^et to Uncle Esau. " The water is not deep here, Lettice. I can see the stones. I will pull off" my shoes and stockings and slide down the bank." "Miss Clemency, I'm shocked, when there is the bridge, and Mr. Runswick has not so much as nodded till ye." Clemency tossed her head and smiled ; LITTLE CLEMENCY. 159 she was not going to be put down by Lettice. "Show me where the bridge is," she said. Lettice had shrunk from the chance of displeasing Mr. Runswick by intruding on his walk, but now she thought it might be as well that Clemency should call down his wrath on her own head, and get pro- perly put into her place. So she showed her the way to the foot-bridge — only a couple of planks across from bank to bank. Clemency looked at it attentively. " If somebody took those planks away we could not get out, and we should starve." Then, with a sigh of relief. " We could eat all the chickens and ducks up first. Is this the only bridge, Let- tice ?" " Bless the child's tongue ! There's t' wide bridge we came over last night, an t' water is not right at back ; t' garden 160 A FAITHFUL L07ER. goes across an' oop 't bill. Coom along an Ah'll show ye, there's hill all aroond t' boose." *' I'll go to-morrow." Then the small mouth closed decisively, and Clemency tripped across the narrow bridge. Her heart fluttered, the water looked much deeper on closer inspection, and she was very glad to find herself across. She did not see her uncle, for the trees hid him, and she stood still, wondering which way she should take to find him. It was cer- tainly a strange place — a deep green basin, with the river-girt bouse in its centre, the sides of the hill clothed with tall trees. The river looked broad to Clemency as she stood looking for her uncle. Going on farther she found herself suddenly stopped, for the dark, swift stream made a sharp curve where the narrower water she bad crossed on the plank bridge was turned LITTLE CLEMENCY. 161 from the river to form the mill pond on the farther side of the house. Across the water in front of her, Clemency saw a strange sight. It seemed as if in some great throe of nature the stream had forced itself a pas- sage through the rock. Up to some height the hill overhung the rapid river, and was undermined by its flow. Huge roots of trees growing high above, showed in the weird semi-darkness like knotted and dis- torted limbs, twisting serpents, or dragons. Clemency drew back frightened. She was standing on a projecting point of land, for the river took a sharp turn on either hand, and as the child peered forward she saw that the near banks on this side also overhung the water, and had strange, scooped-out caves below. There was more light here, so that she did not shrink away as she had shrunk from the indis- tinct forms in the opposite hollow. VOL. I. M 162 A FAITHEUL LOVER. " These caves would be nice to hide in," she said, ** if one hadn't to stand in the water, and oh — if there were some one to seek — all ' hide ' is no fun at all." She looked serious at this thought, for she had seen nothing except the puppy that promised companionship. Some- times at home, a quiet little boy of her own age had come to play with her, but she had liked her dog Nell better. Little Tom had been greedy and stupid, and in her heart Clemency despised him. She could make up better plays of her own than she could get out of Tom, whose small ideas about probabilities interfered with her range of imagination ; it was pleas- anter to surround herself with imaginary companions, and to talk to them usually in the character of a leader of adventurers, her favourite books being "Robinson Crusoe," and some adventures in the Polar seas, called " Northern Eegions," for LITLLB CLEMENCY. 163 in Clemency's time a child's library was limited, and the books it contained only addressed real lovers of letters, for their outsides were dull and unattractive, as like the gorgeous Christmas books of our times as a moth is to a butterfly. Clemency considered Lettice hopeless : *' there is no play in her," she thought, sorrowfully. She had also scrutinised the girl Ann this morning in the kitchen, but she had found her unattractive. There was Uncle Esau, of course, but Clemency gave a little sigh. She had since last night grasped the fact that this present Uncle Esau was much older than her beautiful picture-uncle, and that the dreams in which he had figured as her playfellow and friend would never be acted, for in some of her plays Uncle Esau had been the captain of shipwrecked sailors cast on a desert island, and she had been his chief lieutenant, and had M 2 164 A FAITHFUL LOVER. enjoyed long conversations with her be- loved creation. It depressed her now to find that this had not been the real Uncle Esau. " I haven't seen him by dayhght yet," she said encouragingly, and she went on with a brighter face. " He can be my friend," she thought. " I must have some sort of friend besides the puppy, and I can see no one else but that ugly Timothy. I'm sure I don't want a friend who is ugly." She gave her head a little toss, and turning back she followed the river bank almost in a parallel line with the path by which she had come. Here she soon saw Mr. Runswick lean- ing against a tree trunk. He did not see Clemency, and she examined him critically. His was not the beautiful face of the pic- ture : the cheeks and lips had lost their red, and the forehead as well as the face was a deep-brown colour ; but the child saw LITTLE CLEMENCY. 165 how bright the dark eyes still were, and there was not much gray in the dark- brown locks of hair. The face in the picture was shaven all but a little whisker on the cheeks, but this Uncle Esau had a long thick beard, and with his faded velvet coat and broad-brimmed felt hat looked, Clemency thought, like a gipsy. She still felt attracted towards him. He was tall and like a king, though per- haps a gipsy king only. He heard her coming, and looked round. This time Clemency waited for him to speak. His dark gleaming eyes made her feel timid. He nodded. " Well, child, you are up early ; did you sleep sound ?" " I never waked once," said Clemency. " May I go a walk with you. Uncle ?" Mr. Runswick gave her a keen look, but her face repelled him. The beseeching 166 A PAITHFUL LOVER. look in her eyes was, he considered, a part of the training in deceit she had received. "No," he said; "I am not going for a walk, and when I go I prefer my own company. Can you read, child ?" " Dear me, yes." She had looked away at his refusal, and there was a little piqued tone in her voice, but Mr. Runs- wick took too little interest in her to notice it. " I can read ' Arabian Nights,' and ' Swiss Family,' and ' Robinson Cru- soe,' and ' The Crusaders.' " *' Can you write ?' Clemency pressed her lips tightly to- gether. Uncle Esau was very — very disagree- able. Why did he ask questions ? Her nurse had always said questions were rude. "No — of course not," she said pet- tishly. " I've not been taught." Her uncle looked at her more atten- tively. LITTLE CLEMENCY. 167 " You are old enougli to learn," he said ; " have you only learned to read ?" ' I didn't learn," said Clemency stoutly, " I could read without. Mamma saw me reading the newspaper, and then she bought me a book. Cook used to tell me the hard words, you know : I stood at the top of the kitchen stairs and called them down to her. I shall be able to write when I'm grown up, I daresay." Mr. Runswick was half amused, half vexed. " Are you clever, Uncle ?" Clemency said when there had been a silence for a few minutes. The frown relaxed — even the straight lips curved a little. " Why do you want to know, child ? " " Well " she hesitated ; she thought she had found an irresistible reason for the companionship she desired. " If you are clever and you take me out 168 A FAITHFUL LOVER. walks, you know, I shall get clever too. Nurse said why little girls are pale is be- cause they have to stay indoors and learn lessons." "You had better go and play," said Mr. Runswick. Ifc seemed to him that already his sacred privacy, on which no one dared trespass, was disturbed by this chattering intruder. " I have no one to play with." Then, looking up and seeing the frown above her, she turned away to the bridge. Certainly Mr. Runswick did not look much like an Englishman as he sauntered on beside the river. He always spoke through his set teeth, and this, with the habit of shrugging his shoulders, which he had acquired in youth, gave an impression not exactly foreign, and yet decidedly un- English. He tried to calm the irritation Clemency had caused, and not to think about her; LITTLE CLEMENCY. 169 but against his will he found his mind filled by a vision of that quaint, sturdy figure, in its brown holland overall and brown straw hat — brown-skinned and dark-eyed, almost as much like a gipsy as he was. " If she were only more like her mother," he said to himself. " I should like her better." His sister had been a delicate, fragile child, full of little, coquettish, graceful ways. It seemed to Mr. Runswick that Clemency was more like a boy than a girl; and as he recalled her persistence, he felt that he had taken upon himself a charge that had already become a burden. He guessed that Clemency would still be near the bridge, and he went on round the green pathway outside the moat till he reached the little isthmus where, as Lettice had said, the water ended, and the kitchen-garden stretched up the hill- 170 A FAITHFUL LOVER. side — making a broad clearing between the tall trees. Mr. Runswick crossed the kitchen garden, and then went down a path with flower beds on each side. This led him to a gate of the poultry-yard. He opened it and called out " Lettice." Lettice hurried forward. It was so unusual to be summoned by her master, except by his library bell, that she thought some mischief had happened to Clemency. She had been thinking of her since she left her at the bridge, and she was more than ever convinced that Hollow Mill was not the place to bring up a child in. " Lettice " — she trembled when she saw the scowl on his face — " why don't you keep that child out of my way ?" At this Lettice's spirit rose. "Well, Sir," she said, "Ah cannut daunt her. She has a sperrit like her poor mother. An' Ah thowt Ah would let her be." LITTLE CLBMENOY. 171 Mr. Runswick smiled. " If you cannot control her, she shall not stay here," he said ; " certainly I cannot undertake the management of a troublesome child. Let her play indoors." " Ah'll try. Sir." Mr. Runswick turned to go away. " Ah was thinking," Lettice said, shyly — for she knew that a sug- gestion usually gave offence — " perhaps Miss Phoebe oop at t' owd Vicarage might learn her something an' keep her out o' harm's way." He stood thinking. This plan was so simple, he wondered he had not seen for himself that it was just the help he needed. " Yes," he said at last, when he had considered the matter from every side, *' it will be a good plan. You shall go up and see Miss Dawlish to-day, and take her a note from me, and to-morrow the child can be sent to her early." 172 A FAITHFUL LOVER. Mr. Runswick crossed the poultry-yard, and then the kitchen, with much quicker steps than usual. He looked almost cheerful when he reached the library and sat down to write a note. Meantime Clemency had got to the bridge. Her eyes were smarting with re- pressed tears ; she was resolved not to cry. Just as she was going to cross the bridge, she saw something yellow amongst the rushes below it, and she scrambled down the steep muddy bank. There among the rushes, some of them bending over, as if they mourned its untimely fate, lay a small gray-spotted, golden creature with large yellow outspread toes and a flat yellow bill. It was a dead duckling. Clemency stooped down, and at the risk of toppling forward into the water she grasped the duck, and then, sitting down on the muddy bank, she laid it gently in her lap. The sight moved her LITTLE CLEMENCY. 173 SO strongly that she forgot her self- control. " You poor darling," — she kissed the little lump of yellow fluflf and hugged it close to her — " you've died because nobody loved you, you pet, and nobody took you a walk. I expect you had a cross uncle, didn't you, Dacky dear ?" She kissed the duck again, and she cried plentifully and felt reheved. Her anger against Uncle Esau had evapo- rated in her concern for this dead bird. She was just wondering where she should make a grave for it, when Lettice showed herself on the bridge above. '* Oh, Miss Clemency," she groaned, " and you in a clean brown holland, and you're act'lly sitting in t' mud." Clemency rose up and shook herself. She felt rather awed at the wet state she was in, but of course she had an answer ready. 174 A FAITHFUL LOVER. "Hush, Lattice " — she held up one little brown finger — " the duck was dead. How could I think about pina- fores?" 175 CHAPTER IV. MISS PH(BBE. TTOLLOW MILL, seemingly so sheltered and inland, was in reality near tlie sea. At one point, for those who could find their way across the moor which on all sides surrounded the Hollow, the sea was only a mile away, while by the beaten track, along which Clemency had travelled on the night of her arrival, it was but half a mile or so to the scattered cottagfes of Baxdale, and thence about a mile on to the fishing village known as Flobay. Years ago when Mr. Runswick returned from his second fit of wandering, he had met unexpectedly in London the clergy- 17G A FAITHFUL LOVER. man wbose pupil lie had been, and this chance meeting had greatly influenced him in settling again in England. Mr. Dawlish told him he had accepted a living on the north coast of Yorkshire, and he pressed Esau to become his guest there ; in fact he would not be refused. So, instead of beginning, as he intended, another set of wanderings, Mr. Runswick travelled down with his friend the Reverend Ben- jamin Dawlish to Baxdale Rectory. The warm welcome he received from the Rector's sister cheered Esau more than anything had yet done since that fateful evening in Italy. Phoebe Dawlish was a few years older than Esau, many years younger than her brother, and from her childhood, so long ago that she could not tell when the feeling began, she had adored the dark- eyed young squire. Miss Dawlish was a simple-minded MISS PECEBE. 1<^7 woman. She knew a g-ood deal aboufc simple cookery, and was, in her way, a clever doctor. She was a skilful gardener, and learned about bees and poultry with the learning that comes of practice. She did not love needlework, but she did it well and neatly. As to reading, she had not much time for it ; but she preferred it to sewing. She could think while she was tending her flowers, she said, and she did not want to think her own thoughts all day. But she had not much choice of books. She read Hannah More and Mrs. Chapone, and she loved Cowper's Poems and " The Complete Angler." She preferred Jeremy Taylor and " The Whole Duty of Man " to Knox's " Essays ;" but her two best-loved books were " The Imitation of Christ," and " The Vicar of Wakefield." These she read and re-read with almost the same diligence as she read her Bible ; she never tired of them. VOL. I. N 178 A FAITHFUL LOVER. She had always lived in a country parsonage, with her brother and her infirm old father. The chief practical events in her monotonous life had been the deaths of her parents, and the removal from south to north Yorkshire ; but this visit of Mr. Runswick's put the past into eclipse. Phoebe's life as a woman began from this period, which stood out in memory a white milestone by which the distance of events might be measured. It could hardly be .said that the quiet spinster, already near forty, was in love with Esau. Love had never yet come to her life except in the way of family ties, but from that time a reverential worship of Esau took yet firmer possession of her. His opinion, his wishes, were paramount ; and when one day he came in with her brother from a long ramble, and Mr. Dawlish told her his friend's wish to buy Hollow Mill, it seemed to Phoebe that she had nothing MLSS PH(EBE. 179 left to wish for, although Mr. Runswick at once announced that neighbourly duties were not to be expected from him. " I am a savage," he said, with a grim smile, " best left to myself." The gentle old Rector smiled, and hoped great things. " Little by little," he said to his atten- tive sister ; " little by little. That is the way bad habits get cured. Something has warped Runswick's nature, and he has led an aimless life all these years, but he'll come right, Phoebe ; English life will tell upon him, and you and I must give him all the help we can." At which Phoebe gave only a submissive nod — she never contradicted Benjamin ; but she could not see anything in Mr. Runswick that wanted curing. She saw that he was silent, and that he looked proud, but then he was a deep thinker, and of course he did not care for N 2 180 A FAITHFUL LOVER. inferiors. Perhaps she might wish he looked happier ; but then after all happiness was a commonplace expression. Joe, the ploughman, and Sophy, the maid, were for ever smiling, except when they felt hungry. It was the privilege of educa- tion to give joys and sorrows unconnected with merely animal sensations ; possibly. Miss Phoebe argued, deep thought gave that melancholy expression to our hero. When Sunday came, and Mr. Runswick started off for a long walk instead of going to church, a sudden chill fell on her pious heart. But though Phcebe was religious, she was charitable also, and she at once cast the blame on Mr. Runswick's years of foreign travel — evil example had cor- rupted him. " I begin to see what Benjamin means by his ' little by little,' " she said to herself. The reverend Benjamin had counted on MISS PHCEBE. 181 bis own influence among other advantages of English hfe, and it is possible that it might have modified in some degree his friend's misanthropy, but death carried the good old clergyman away from Baxdale only a few weeks after Mr. Runswick had taken possession of Hollow Mill. A new E/Cctor came with a somewhat invalid wife ; the quiet old parsonage was much too small and old-fashioned for them ; so a new one was built half-way between Baxdale and Flobay, Miss Phoebe departed, and the old house was left to take care of itself. Only for a year. Before the walls of the new house were papered a rumour spread through the cottages that Miss Phoebe was " cooming to t' owd house." And home she came, and she had ever since lived in Baxdale. On the second morning after Clemency's arrival, Miss Phoebe was standing at her 182 A FAITHFUL LOVEK. gate. " T' owd parsonage," as the cottagers called the house, had a garden at the front and the back, and also at the side which faced the road. It had always been a quaint homely place, the flower-borders having only the edges of vegetable plots, a screen of espalier brown russet-apples and jargonelle pears set between. The gate at which Miss Phoebe stood was in a hawthorn hedge, which fenced in the garden till it was stopped by the high wall that ended the farther side of the house. A porch and verandah, roofed with American creeper, ran along the front, and made a picturesque background to the quaint figure waiting so quietly, yet with such an expectant look on its face. The face was shaded by a round hat, rather convex in shape, black like the dress. There was nothing silly about the tall, stifi"-figured spinster who had never MISS PHCEBE. 183 learned dancing, or been taught to round those angular elbows of hers gracefully, but there was the simplest faith. It was almost impossible to make Miss Dawlish believe in evil-doing; for human infirmity she had the largest sympathy, but her belief in the growth of goodness was implicit, and even at this date, when every one shunned Mr. Runswick as a misanthrope and an unbeliever, Miss Phoebe would always defend him when attacked. " Give him time," she said to the clergy- man's wife, when that lady coldly expressed her disapproval of his behaviour. " Only think what miserable sinners we are, dear Mrs, Pickering, with all our privileges, and then you will hope for the best." Mrs. Pickering gave a little cough, ex- pressing disapproval of this sweeping assertion. She valued class distinctions, and it seemed to her that a well-bred 184 A "FAITHFUL LOVEE. ladj whose motber was a Cary-Pierre- point could not come into the clause "miserable sinners" — but then "Miss Dawlish is so eccentric." Miss Phoebe always put on a white apron till afternoon, when she exchanged it for a black silk one, and although in those days the fashion was to wear an abundance of starched petticoats, the spinster's black skirts hung in straight, almost clinging folds to her spare and bony figure. But even Mrs. Pickering could not have found fault with the sweet round face or loving blue eyes, which now, as they gazed along the road leading to the moor, beamed with a joyous brightness that banished their usually pensive expression. Miss Phoebe's eyes rested on the solid little figure of Clemency, stumping along beside slow- going Lettice, in eager impatience to see the new friend she had been promised, to be taken to. MTSS PHGEBE. 185 Her uncle had only said "You are going to see my friend Miss Dawlish ;" for little as he had seen of Phoebe since her return to Baxdale, he understood her nature, and he knew that she would be kind to the child. Lettice had grown afraid of Clemency's sharp rejoinders, and until they came in sight of Miss Dawlish she had scarcely spoken. She now pointed to the tall, straight figure at the gate. " See there. Miss Clemency, yon's your teacher." " Teacher !" Clemency spoke scornfully ; *' anybody might think I was a poor parish child to hear you, Lettice. Is that Miss Dawlish, really ?" For the white apron she spied between the bars of the gate had upset her belief that this could be the friend of Uncle Esau. Till her last illness Mrs. Ormiston 186 A FAITHFUL LOVER. had dressed well and fashionably, and in Clemency's world only maids wore white aprons. "Yes, yon's Miss Dawlish, and a very nice lady she is." It was magnanimous of Lettice to give this praise. In the depths of her heart she suspected Miss Dawlish of being^" too set on t' master." She was the only lady who had ventured to call at Hollow Mill : some years ago when Mr. Runswick broke his arm, Miss Dawlish had called every day to inquire for him. It was Christian kindness no doubt, no one else, except the parson and Daniel Lister, the blacksmith, had troubled themselves to inquire, and they had only come twice ; but Lettice thought there was more than kindness in it, and she smiled when her master frowned at her account of Miss Phoebe's solicitude. And yet Lettice was wrong, Mr. "Runswick frowned because he believed Phoebe came MISS PHCEBE. 187 to try gently to sermonise him — she had done this on one occasion, and Esau had not forgotten it. Perhaps in the intense contradiction of his nature he may have felt that Phoebe's wish to save souls made her a safe companion for little Clemency, he having like, some other philosophers, a notion that women and children are possibly the better for saying prayers, although such old world practices are unworthy of enlightened males born in an age of culture. Certainly he had im- plicit faith in the spinster's kindness. She opened the gate and came forward to greet the child, and then she shrank a little from the steadfast gaze of Clemency's round dark eyes, as wide open as those of a kitten — no care sat on Clemency's eyelids. " How d'ye do, my love, and will you give me a kiss?" She spoke with a kind of hovering fondness, bending down over 188 A FAITHFUL LOVER. the child — and the little creature kissed her heartily. Miss Phoebe's creed was that one had no more right to kiss a child than to kiss a grov^n-up stranger without asking leave — " How is your uncle, dear ?" "I don't know," said Clemency. " Mr. Runswick is as well as usual, thank you, raa'am," Lettice said. *' He said I was to return thanks for the note you sent him, and I am to come for Miss Orm- iston at six o'clock, if that will suit you, ma'am." Miss Phoebe gave a little nervous start. She felt shy at the prospect of spending so many hours alone with this strange child, who might grow tired of her. She had suddenly remembered that not one plaything was left of the store she bought for the last school feast. " Will— will— she like to stay so long ?" she said timidly, and she looked first at Lettice, and then at Clemency. MISS PHCEBE. 189 Clemency sent her round elbow into Lettice's side and came nearer. "I like to stay," she said; "I — I want to. Please may I come into the garden." Then she slipped her brown fingers into Miss Phoebe's pink-lined hand, and actually led her back to the flower-bed facing the porch. Lettice smiled, and turned back into the road. " She'll guide Miss Dawhsh just t' way she pleases. My sakes ! she's masterful. Schule's t' place for such a sperrit, Ah'm thinkin'." 190 CHAPTER V. A SCARE. /CLEMENCY trotted up the narrow gar- den path beside Miss Phoebe in an ecstasy of dehght. She had never been in so big a garden, and at the sight of the tall hollyhocks standing against the wall in front of her like a row of flowered sentinels she clapped her hands. " I never saw them before — never," she exclaimed ; " are they grown up roses ?" There was a fresh outcry as she plunged her head into a lavender bush — but close to this was a range of straw-covered beehives with a wooden one at the corner, and Miss Phoebe opened its little shutter A SOAEE. 191 and lifting her up, let her peer through the window. Clemency was awe-struck when Miss Phoebe showed her how much comb had been made in a few days ; and she walked all round the fruit-garden without speaking a word, till the kind woman gathered her two rosy apples. Then she only said " thank you," and gave a deep sigh. " What's the matter ? Perhaps you are tired, my dear." " Oh, no," her inquisitive little nose seemed to turn up as she looked into her new friend's face ; " but I'm sorry for those poor bees, you know — aren't you ?" " N— no,"— Miss Phoebe felt startled by the direct gaze of those honest round dark eyes — " I think they are very useful little creatures, my dear." " Ah, but," — Clemency's face was tragic in its solemn expression — " aren't you sorry for them, they are so dull — you know, 192 A FAITHEUL LOVER. they go on working every day, Sunday and all, just the same — they never have no playtime or holidays, poor things." Her eyes looked wistful enough for tears, and the spinster's gentle sympathetic heart was touched — she had never before seen this monotonous side of a bee's life. " They know no better, ray love," she said gently. Clemency was not awed by Miss Dawlish, she felt at once in that perfect harmony with her which only the atmosphere of true sympathy can create, the sympathy which, although we rarely analyze it at the moment, is the outcome of imagination, loving enough and ready enough to live for us, our life and our feelings, for the time being. The child looked up quickly. " They must know better," she said emphatically, " why, they're cleverer than me, T couldn't make that little wax house all full of rooms." A SCARE. 193 Miss Phoebe felt that this was beyond her, she stooped down to kiss Clemency. " You must be tired, my dear," she said ; " come in and have a slice of seed-cake." Some weeks went on, and the child grew very fond of her gentle teacher ; but she was also making progress in her lessons, she had learned to write and do easy sums with a quickness that surprised Miss Phoebe. And after a while she wrote to Mr. Runswick to inform him of his niece's diligence, and to thank him for the pleasui'e he had put into her life by giving her this sweet little companion. Clemency rarely saw her uncle, she was off to Miss Phoebe's before he had finished breakfast, and when she came home, un- less he asked for her, and this had only happened once, Lettice insisted that she must go to bed as soon as her lessons were learned for next morning. The child felt rebellious, but for these lessons she was VOL. I. 194 A FAITHFUL LOVER. sure she could have got access to her uncle. " It's very dull, Lettice, never to see Uncle Esau," she said, " and you know, if I were just to read the lessons over and put them under my pillow, they would ^et into my head by next morning, they would, you know." But Lettice was firm, and when Clemency suggested that she might go to Uncle Esau before breakfast, as she was always up so early, the housekeeper shook her head. •' You mun play \yV t' doll. Miss ; my sakes, when Ah had a doll Ah'd play always wi' it." Clemency tossed her head. *' I hate dolls," she said. But, lately instead of answering, she had felt angry and ill-used. She loved Miss Phoebe, but the novelty of the lessons had worn off, and she longed for a siofht of her uncle. There was something mysterious in his isolation that A SCARE. 195 irritated ber curiosity ; she grew trouble- some and discontented at the Mill. " Can't you see that my doll's ill?" she said, one day ; " she's got the measles. I've left her in bed, and she has an excellent nurse, who'll take far better care of her than I should." On the morning on which Mr. Runswick received Miss Phoebe's letter, he had not seen Clemency for three weeks, and when Lettice came to him for orders he said : " Send Miss Clemency to me when she comes home this evening." Mr. Runswick's perception — though it had been allowed to rust for want of practice during three years of isolation, had not lost its truth, and he suspected that the child's seeming pertness was in reality only the outer manifestation of a singularly original nature, and he looked forward to hearing her account of her studies with a certain expectation of amuse- 2 196 A FAITHFUL LOVER. ment. But in the afternoou he grew absorbed in a book, and he forgot all about Clemency again. Just an hour before the time when Anne was sent to fetch the child home, Lettice knocked at the study door. Her white, scared face startled her master as he turned round at her entrance. " What is it ?" he said, and strangely enough he thought at once of Clemency, for Lettice was not a likely woman to give false alarm. " Ah dunnot rightly know," she said, gloomily; "but it's Miss Dawlish has come ; she mun see you aboot t' little lass," she says. " Is Clemency with her ?" " No." Lettice looked gloomier than ever. " I'll speak to Miss Dawlish in the dining-room," he said. It seemed to him that, if a visitor once crossed the threshold of his den, he should break A SCARE. 197 the conditions of his life, and that he might expect invasion from all quarters. The dining-room was long and low, with a broad low set of lattices at one end, looking out on to what remained of a stone terrace that reached along the back of the house. Little besides the flag-stones — eaten into with arabesques of dull green, and the orange gray of lichen — remained; though once there had been a number of vases, gay no doubt in summer time with flowers, placed at intervals along its edge. Some of these vases remained, and traces of all could be seen. When Mr. Runswick came into the quaint, dark room, made still darker by some huge oil landscapes in heavy frames against the wall. Miss Phcebe was standing at the window gazing out on the terrace. She turned round and made him a curtsey, looking, with her simple, round, 198 A FAITHFUL LOVER. pink face, black hat, and grey stuff gown and cape, very like a grown-up sclioolcliild. Mr. Uunswick shook hands, but he did not offer a cliair to his visitor. " What is the matter, Miss Dawlish ?" he said abruptly. Miss Phoebe was quivering all over, and this annoyed Mr. Runswick. " That is what I came to ask, but I saw that your housekeeper fancied Clemency ■was safe with me, and then it seemed best to say no more, and I asked to see you instead." Mr. Runswick frowned, and Miss Phoebe trembled so violently that she put her hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. " Do you mean that Clemency has been sent to jou, and you have not seen her? Why, Lettice takes her herself to you every morning. Miss Dawlish." lie turned to rino; the bell — but at this A SCARE. 190 Miss Phoebe conquered her fear and hurried to him across the room. '* Please don't ring," she said, " and oh, Mr. Runswick" — her bhie eyes were full of sweet earnestness as she raised them to his — "you must excuse me if I ask you not to be severe with the dear child when we find her." Then as his frown grew heavier, she hurried on. " Clemency has been dull lately, and I wrote to you partly because I hoped a little praise from you might cheer the child. I fear she is lonely — I am sure she is very fond of you, and I think — I fancy — she would appreciate being with you — sometimes ;" the depre- cating voice faltered and came to a full stop under Mr. llunswick's cold smile. "We will leave that, if you please," he said ; " what I want to hear is how you have managed to lose sight of your charge. Miss Dawlish." He said this so magisterially that. 200 A FAiTHFUL LOVER. although she knew herself to be guiltless in the matter, Miss Phoebe's heart fluttered with fear, and she drew further away from Esau. " I have not seen her to-day. Lettice, says she left her inside my gate this morning. Clemency always runs in to me as soon as she has looked at the bees ; for, if I meet her in the garden and we begin to talk," she said apologetically, "it is not always easy to get her to lessons afterwards." Mr. Eunswick did not speak, he was telling himself that Clemency wanted a stronger hand than Miss Phoebe's to guide her — and that this foolish woman had spoiled the child. " Well, then — she never came this morning, — I waited on and on — and I was coming here to see if the dear child was ill when I was sent for in a hurry to the forge." She stop|_ed and turned white, A isOAEE. 20l but he stood listening and she went on. " The blacksmith's child had fallen into the fire, and not one of them knew what to do with him till the doctor came." Miss Phoebe paused and looked at the still frowning face. " Sir, I could not help it ; the child's shrieks were pitiful, and I have been taught what to do for such suffering. It was long before I could leave him, poor little fellow." She grew paler still as the pitiful sight came back to her, and she steadied herself against the table. " Then I came over here," she said, faintly. Esau checked a feeling of sympathy. His shyness made him irritable. It was insufferable, he thought, that the careless- ness of the child's mother should have hindered Miss Phoebe's search for Cle- mency, but he pushed a chair towards her. " You had better sit down. Miss Daw- lish." 202 A FAITHFUL LOVER. She sank into the chah', and then her courage fled, and she could hardly keep back a burst of tears, she was so completely overstrained. She had forgotten dinner, everything but her anxious watch over the little burnt child. " It is plain Clemency has played truant," he said; then he stood musing, while he told himself that Clemency's mother had also fled away from him, and that he ought to have expected this would happen. "Had she any acquaintance in the village ?" he said coldly. After all. Clemency's days had been passed with Miss Phoebe, she was really responsible for her flight. " She saw no one except the Vicar and Mrs. Pickering, Mr. Runswick, she cannot have gone there, they would have sent her back to me. Oh, children are all alike, they need bright amusing companionship, they get dull else. Clemency loves me, but A SCARE. 203 she wants something younger, or — or," she stammered, and then said " cleverer." Mr. Runswick shrugged his shoulders, and then he looked at his visitor ; he did not quite know how to dismiss her, but he was very impatient of her presence ; he began to wonder whether he should ring for Timothy to show her out ; Miss Phoebe thought he was pondering the best means of finding Clemency ; after a few minutes' silence she said : " Perhaps you will tell me where I had best go and look for her ; if several of us take difi'erent roads we shall surely find the dear child." Esau Runswick's figure was always erect, but his head often drooped forward; he raised it now and said stiffly : " You are very kind, but the greatest kindness you can now do for this little runaway is to go home without saying a word to anyone of what has happened. 204 A FAITHFUL LOVER. And I," a flush rose on his cheeks with the unusual effort at speaking of liiinself, " I do not care to have this childish prank discussed in all the cottagres of Bax- dale." " Ah, Mr. Runswick, I would not tell a soul ;" then moved out of herself by the strange stirring at her heart, she said, " Shall I not offer a prayer for our strayed little one, and that her return may bring a blessing with it?" He bowed. "You can do as you think best," he said dryly, " but I must go at once and look for the child. Good day." He nodded and left her standing with one hand stretched out towards him. When he had closed the door behind him he walked faster than usual along the stone passage till he reached the kitchen. '* Lettice," he called out, and when she came to the door he beckoned her to join him in the passage. A SCARE. 205 Lettice rarely uttered her opinion to her master ; she always held it firmly, but she knew it was useless to display it. " Yes, Sir," she said. "You are not to say to anyone that Clemency is missing." "No, Sir." " I am going to bring her back," and without waiting for her answer he went out through the kitchen, so as to avoid the chance of meeting Miss Phoebe. She was as anxious as he could be to avoid another meeting. She had knelt down when he left her and fervently prayed for him and for Clemency, and then she rose up and left the house to go back to the blacksmith's child. Lettice heard the front door close, but after Mr. Runswick's caution it seemed safer not to talk about Clemency's absence to anyone. But the housekeeper was restless, and when she felt sure that Miss 206 A FAITHJ?^UL LOVER. Dawlish must have readied the top of the tree-shaded road that led up to the moor she went round to the foot-bridge and stood waiting. Lettice had lived for some years at Esau's home, and she had helped to nurse his father in his last illness. She knew a good deal of the family history, and she had a strong conviction that her master had been hardly used by some one or other. Lettice cared little for women ; she thought they were either fools or deceivers, and she had felt little love for Clemency's mother, who had always disliked the authority the oldservant exercised in her brother's house; she thought Miss Phoebe a pitiful fool, who would marry Mr. Esau if she knew how to manage it ; but this new little Clemency had somehow won her regard; it was not by soft speaking — the little lady acknow- ledged no rule that did not proceed from Uncle Esau — but she never grumbled, she A scaef:. 207 gave little trouble, and was usually as full of suDsbiue as one of the peaches still hang^ingf on the wall outside the kitchen. It may be that a touch of remorse for her previous harsh judgment of the young mother, a remorse which had been aroused by Mrs. Ormiston's early death, made Lettice love her child. Certainly the news that Miss Clemency had not been seen at the old parsonage to-day had filled her with a dull heart-ache, and a restlessness which made it impossible for her to go on with her daily work. Once she climbed to the top of the hill, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked around her. It was a far-reaching^ scene, though perhaps there was little variety in it. Through the gloom of the fast-falling evening the rich crimson of the heather showed a warm brown, and wave upon wave of this, varied by the more neutral tint of the fern and bil- 208 A FAITHFUL LOVER. berries, stretched away as far as the eye could peaetrate, every now and then dark rifts telHug of some hidden glen or valley in the pathless waste ; only the cry of the moor-fowl, and that rarely, broke the vast silence. At last Lettice turned sadly away and went slowly down the hill. She did not pray as Miss Phoebe had done. Lettice only believed in prayer at proper times — night and morning, and on a Sunday at church — but she murmured softly to herself, " God bless t' child, Ah'd give all t' brass Ah own to see her safe back." Then she hurried across the bridge, and finding Anne half asleep on a chair when she reached the kitchen, she gave her a rough shake and told her she was a good-for-nothing hussy. 209 CHAPTER VI. A TRUANT. TF Lettice had watched her charge more keenly as she took her to school, she might have noticed Clemency's intense observation of the bilberry bushes near the edge of the moor. She had tasted bil- berry jam at Miss Phoebe's; it seemed to her that farther from the road the berries would be more plentiful, and that in a few minutes she should gather enough to make a pot full of this delicious jam. " Lettice is sure to know how it's made," she said confidently. This morning when the child found herself alone in Miss Phoebe's garden, it VOL. I. p 210 A FAlTIIFUIi LOVEK. seemed to ber easy to hurry out behind the blacksmith's on to the moor itself. " I'll be back before Miss Phoebe misses me," she thought. She went on and on, looking for more bilberries, but with little success ; at last she stood still and looked round. The heather and gorse were much taller than she was. While she had been going along peering down for bilberries, she had reached a thickly-covered part of the moor. She thought she would go back, but she had strayed oflP the track : whichever way she turned the moor grew wilder and thicker, and at last she saw a wood at some distance through an opening in the gorse. White and brown and blue butterflies were hovering everywhere, a lark was singing overhead, and the wild thyme as she crushed it underfoot sent up the sweetest scent. Clemency had never seen anything like this before, it was delightful, and the A TRUANT. 211 coDSciousness of entire freedom added to ber pleasure. " Ob, it's too late to go back now," sbe said; "it's beautiful !" and sbe fiung borself down on tbe tbyme and plucked baudfuls to smell at. " Well, it serves tbem all rigbt for never giving me a holiday. I'll give myself one, tbat's all." Wbeu dinner-time came sbe was not hungry. Sbe bad found bilberries in abundance, ripe, purple fruit, tbat bad never been seen by a village boy ; sbe bad also found long sprays of many- coloured, red-stemmed blackberries. Sbe ate so fast tbat sbe forgot black-berries bad juice. But wben sbe looked at ber bands and at ber pinafore sbe was alarmed. Sbe bid ber face in ber bands at tbe tbougbt of wbat Lettioe would say — even ber gentle, mucb-enduring nurse had lamented over ber stained frocks — sbe never tbougbt bow sbe besmeared ber p 2 212 A FAITHFUL LOVER. face; her one idea now was to hide her- self in the wood which had looked so near, and yet which she seemed to have been hours in reaching. She was quite exhausted by the time she reached a low hedge which parted the wood from the moor. She sat down to rest and fell asleep, curled up under the hedge. When she waked, stretching and rubbing her eyes, she could not remember where she was, and when she did remember, the moor looked changed : the hot yellow sun- shine had gone away behind the trees in the wood, everything looked cool and quiet, and there was not a butterfly to be seen. She got up and walked into the wood, through a gap in the hedge. Till now she had only heard the lark overhead, and the sharp cKck of the grasshopper underfoot. She had indeed made friends of two or three grasshoppers before she fell asleep, and had carried them with her A TRUANT. 213 as long as they would stay quietly on the back of her hand, for Clemency's love for living creatures was universal ; but there were other sounds in the wood. First a soft sound which said " rou cou, rou cou," without stopping, then a harsh cry, and then something that made her heart beat very fast indeed — a rush like suddenly spreading wings, and then a loud fluttering. But though Clemency peered anxiously into the dark green gloom between the closely-set trees, she could not see a cause for this alarming sound. As she stood listening she heard something else — a knocking as if some one was hammering nails into the trees, and then a cheerful voice singing, " My love is like the red, red rose." It was a man's voice, and at first Clemency felt afraid ; she wondered if the man would be cross when he saw her ; then 214 A FAITHFUL LOVER. sLe felt that she was very hungry, and a certain dreariness which had arisen during the last few minutes since she had come into the gloom of the wood, made her go on among the underwood almost against her will in search of this unseen singer. It would be so dreadful to have to sleep in the wood with those strange sounds all round her, and there might be wolves and bears, though she could not see them. She had better find the singer before he went out of sio-ht. Very soon she came to an open space, where several freshly-sawn stumps, sur- rounded by last year's beechmast, told that a clearing had been made. In "the centre of the space was a big, eight-sided summer-house, made of slender logs laid side by side in quaint patterns ; it was nearly completed, and two carpenters in shirt-sleeves and straw hats were putting the finishing- touches to their work. One A TRUANT. 215 of them was singing so loudly that Clemency had got quite close to them before they saw her, but all at once the singer turned his head and met her round dark eyes. " Hullo, Httle lass !" he said, " where d'ye come from ?" "I've lost my way," said Clemency, " and I'm very hungry." She had spoken to the blacksmith, Miss Phoebe's neigh- bour, and he had always been kind and civil ; she felt sure that this good-natured looking young carpenter would take her home if she asked him. The other man turned round, he looked tired and sickly, but he had little ones of his own, and he understood the look in Clemency's eyes. "Poor little lass," he said, " it's bad to be hungry ! Get out t' bread an t' bacon, lad, and we'll begin supper ; t' little lass '11 hev a bite." 216 A FAITHFUL LOVER. ClemeDcy's mouth watered with eager- ness, and then she felt giddy. She was quite glad when the pale man lifted her up and placed her on the high seat that ran round the summer-house. She was glad too they did not ask her any more questions ; and presently the singer brought her two roughly-cut slices of bread, with a lump of fat bacon between. " Thank you," said Clemency, but she had to open her mouth very wide before she could bite a morsel of the thick sand- wich, and even then she had to begin at one corner. How good it was ; she ate ravenously ; and the men looked at her curiously ; the younger held out a small tin can and bade her take a sip, but the elder one stopped him. "Nay, nay, Tom," he said. "Mebbe she drinks water — let her be." It seemed to Clemency that she ought to give an account of herself. A TRUANT. 217 '* I belong to Hollow Mill," she said ; " my uncle is Mr. Runswick." She drew herself up and looked at the men. They stared, and the young one shrugged his shoulders. " It 'uU be a precious way round to take her home," he said, "and mebbe no thanks for your trouble when you get to the Mill; he's a queer fish that Runswick." Clemency held her head very stiffly. " When we get home I shall thank you, and I shall tell Lettice to give you a shilling : but you oughtn't to call my uncle a fish — he's a gentleman." At this they both laughed so long and so loudly that Clemency, growing very red, scrambled down from her high seat and went out of the summer-house. The pale-faced man left off laughing. "Be quiet, Joe," he said; "you've skeared t' little lass." Then he called out, " Look you here. Miss. Sit ye down on 218 A FAITHFUL LOVER. t' bencTi agen, an' bide still till All's left work. Then Ah'll show ye t' road to Baxdale, an' mebbe ye can find your own road after." Clemency thanked hira as well as she could, but she felt choked and mortified. She had not thought a man like this, Tom, as his comrade called him, would venture to laugh at her. However, she sat still and waited. Presently rough -headed Joe left off* and began to put his tools in one of the baskets on the ground. Clemency re- joiced at this, for she was growing im- patient and began to fidget, and when Joe took up his basket and putting it on his shoulder went away, she slipped down from the bench and stood beside Tom while he worked. She felt less shy now there was only one stranger. "Is your name anything else besides Tom ?" she said softly. A TRUANT. 219 Tom looked over his shoulder at her and sighed. He would have given much to see his own pale lass at home as sturdy and healthy as this little lady. " They call me Tom Sleights, Miss," he said. " Have ye been long at t' Mill ?" " Oh, yes ; a long, long time," she said wearily. " Perhaps you'd like to know my names ; I'm Clemency Barbara Ormiston. Do you think they're nice names ?" she asked confidentially. Tom pushed up his hat and scratched his head. He had never troubled him- self much about names, but he wanted to be civil to the bright little girl. "Ah'm no judge," he said; " mah lad is called Obadiah, an' t' lass is Abigail." " Are they your children ? " said Clemency eagerly, and with sparkling eyes. " I wasn't sure you had a wife and children, you know. Is Abigail as big as me?" 220 A FAITHFUL LOVER. Tom gave another look over bis shoulder. " Mebbe she's as tall, but she's a frail sickly body ; she hasn't got your rosy cheeks, Miss." Clemency stood thinking — then she said sbyly, " Could Abigail come to the Mill some- times and play with me, do you think ? I'd rather not have Obadiah, he's got such a frightful name, I think — don't you ?" "Ah don't know aboot his name, but he's a smart little chap," said Tom ; " if he were here he'd be up that tree before I could shut my knife." " Ah, then he wouldn't care to play with a girl, so he needn't come, you know," said Clemency, greatly relieved ; " but I wish you'd bring Abigail to Hollow Mill." Tom shook his head. " Maister Runswick there dunnot care to see strangers; he's a queer customer," he said, " an' Ah'ra best out o' t' way ; stranger A TilUAJST. 221 folk dunnot go to t' Mill; nobbut in t' owd miller's time t'vvas rare an' pleasant there, fish in plenty in t' river." " Did you catch any ?" Clemency looked at him with increased respect — she had forgotten all about her fishing projects; here was a man who could teach her how to fish ; her eyes brightened with the delight of this new acquaintance. Tom nodded. He was more anxious to finish his work than to talk just now ; and findmg she was not answered, Clemency began to collect beech-nuts, and pile them in heaps. She had just made herself a seat of these, when Tom stooped down and put his tools into the basket at his feet. " Now, Miss," he said, " if you're willing we'll find our way to Baxdale." When lazy Anne was so roughly roused out of her sleep she began to cry and 222 A FAITHFUL LOVER. bemoan herself loudly, but Lettice paid no attention. All at once she called out " whisht," she turned pale, then red, and then she ran across the kitchen at a pace which checked Anne's tears and set her staring open-mouthed. "Lettice, Lettice," the sound grewlouder and louder, and when Lettice opened the kitchen door there was Clemency, red- cheeked and bright-eyed, her hair ruffled and hanging over her face, her hands and holland frock covered with fruit stains — it was easy to see she had been among the bilberries. Lettice gave a gasp, but she remem- bered Mr. Runswick's caution. " Coom this way, Miss," she said quickly, and taking one of the red sticky hands, she led Clemency away from the kitchen towards the terrace at the back of the house. The housekeeper's silence and a certain A TliUAKT. 223 self-coDSciousness tied Clemency's tongue till she reached the old stone wall. Then Lattice let go her hand. " Oh, Miss Clemency, you naughty lass, an' we so skeared, and your uncle gone to seek ye and all, you deserve a whipping, that you do." Clemency had determined to bear the scolding she got meekly, for she knew she had deserved one, but this was too much. " For shame, Lettice," she gave her a push with her strong little fist, " whoever heard of whipping people when they're eight? besides, I've done no harm, I've only had my supper with Tom and Joe." She walked back to the house holdinof her head stifi&y, and feeling that she hated Lettice more than she had hated anyone before. " I wish I had stayed away," she thought. 224 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Tom would have been glad enough to take me home wiih him ; why, he and Joe laughed at all I said — and that bacon was delicious." BOOK THE SECOND. VOL. I. 227 CHAPTER I. CLEMENCI'S EETtJRN TO HOLLOW MILL. rpWELVE years have gone by. . . Esau Rimswick has not allowed bis niece to return to Hollow Mill since the day she went under Lettice's charge to London. He did not come home on the night of Clemency's escapade till she was in bed and asleep, and although the child begged hard to be allowed to see him next day, Mr. Runswick refused to admit her. After hearing the story of her adventures from Lettice, he resolved on placing her in safer hands than Miss Phoebe's. A cousin of Miss Phoebe's, a Mrs. Q 2 228 A FAITHFUL LOVER. Butler, received a little girl to educate with her own. She lived close to London ; he resolved to send the child to this lady, and as she grew older she could have all needful advantasfes. Mr. Runswick had a vague notion that a cousin of Benjamin and Phoebe Dawlish was probably a good woman, but he con- tented himself with writing to Mrs. Butler, and finding that she had room for Clemency, Lettice and her charge were soon on their way to Kensington, where the lady lived. Her uncle had a nervous dread that Clemency would force on him a scene of explanation, and he hated scenes. So he went away to York till he heard the child was safe at Mrs. Butler's. If he had taken every possible trouble he could not have chosen better for Clemency. Mrs. Butler was as loving and gentle as her cousin Phoebe Dawhsh was, but she was also clever and well clemency's retqpvN to hollow mill. 229 read, and she knew something of the world. She had educated her own two elder daughters, and now the mother and daughters between them taught and played with the two younger children and Clemency Ormiston. It was such a happy home, with a tenderness, and gentle culture hardly possible to be found in the groove-like routine required in school life, with a space in its atmosphere for the growth of original thought, rare in the school-room of a family presided over by one highly accomplished but perhaps small-minded, governess. Mr. Runswick arranged for the child to remain with Mrs. Butler during the holidays. When Clemency was nine years old her uncle went to see her. He smiled at her and questioned her, and seemed pleased with her progress, and congratulated Mrs. Butler on the care she was taking of her pupil. Each year he had repeated his 230 A FAITHFCL LOVEFt. visit, and be always took his niece some cliarming gift ; lie said little either to Clemency or to Mrs. Butler, but the latter saw how much his interest increased in his niece, while Clemency had grown to feel again the old child-worship for Uncle Esau now restored to his pedestal ; although it must be owned that a good deal of awe surrounded him. On her seventeenth birthday she re- ceived a handsomer present than usual — a beautiful gold watch and a locket inclos- ing a portrait of her mother. But the letter that came with the gifts took away, much of the pleasure they gave. It told her that her uncle was o^oinof to travel for a year or so, and that she would not see him in the interval. The year lengthened out to nearly three, and it was not till after her twentieth birthday that Clemency received her recall to Hollow Mill. clemency's return to hollow mill. 231 She did not know till the time for part- ing came how sorely it would try her to leave the Butlers. They were a small group now compared with the bright, lively family she had been welcomed into so lovingly, twelve years ago. Mr. Butler had died, and so had his two young daughters, and last spring, Dorothy, past thirty now, but still charming, had been married. So there were only tearful, widowed Mrs. Butler and her eldest daughter Mary to return the warm kisses and hugs which Clemency seemed as if she could not leave off giving. "I shall have no one to kiss up there," she said, through her tears. " Your uncle always kisses you, I think, dear," said Mrs. Butler. " Ah, yes, but that was once a year. I don't think he'll like to do it every day." Clemency cried a good deal during the first part of the journey, but after a while 282 A FAlTHrCL TiOVER. her thoughts went forward to her new home. It was a bright clay in August, and she had plenty of pleasant anticipa- tions. But she wondered much what Uncle Esau would be like in his own home, and whether when they saw each other every day he would be as quiet and reserved as he had seemed at Campden Hill. Meantime Mr. Runs wick was disquieted. During the last three years of wanderings he had lived much in sunny lands, where care and small worries are not seen through the magnifying glasses we use for them in England. He had looked so much younger when he came back that Lettice had even ventured to congratulate her master on the change. But, as the day of Clemency's return drew near, Mr. Kunswick began to realise that he was about to destroy the peace of his life. He would still be able to shut himself up m his study, but at meal times there clemenoy's return to hollow mill. 233 "would be the inevitable compauionship and a necessity for conversation with a woman. " People say they pity my lonely position ; if they only knew the luxury of solitude they would envy me. I shall begin with Clemency as I mean to go on. I must teach her that she is not to expect me to talk. The house is full of books, and she must learn to improve her mind ; if she wants to chatter she can always go to Miss Phoebe." He would not have owned it, and indeed he could not have rightly named the sensation that made him so uncomfortable, but in real truth, proud, reserved Esau Brunswick was nervous, and longed to have the awkwardness of the first meet- ing with his niece was over. He looked very handsome and stately as he sat in his tall leather-backed chair waiting for the sound of his niece's arrival. Clemency had written her uncle a 234 A FAITHFUL LOVER. quaint little letter, in wbich she thanked him for his invitation to consider Hollow Mill as her home, but she said too that in spite of all she was sorry to leave the kind friends she had been living with so long. Mr. Runs wick had read the letter twice, and with evident satisfaction. It was" natural and frank, but there was not a word in it that jarred on his taste. Mr. Eunswick told himself that it was the bad taste shown by people that had made him refuse to admit them ; he knew he should only quarrel with them. That which he called " good taste " was really an idol to which he had sacrificed much of life. Now when the dosfs be84 CHAPTER V. ESA[J EUNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. "TTNCLE," Clemency said, "do you ^ know Mr. Glaisdale?" They were at breakfast, for as yet Mr. Runswick had said nothing about return- ing to his solitary habits, and as she spoke Clemency peeped behind the tea-urn, so as to get a view of her uncle's face. It looked very brown and clouded. He waited a little before he spoke. " I have no acqaintances here," he said, drily. " Miss Dawlish is the only person I know in Baxdale, and I knew her many years ago." He pressed his thin lips together as if to say that the subject was ended. ESAU RUNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. 285 For a moment Clemency felt as if a wall rose up between her and lier uncle, but she resolved not to give way to the feeling. Dorothy Butler had always said love could conquer everything; and surely if she loved Uncle Esau with all her might, he would become more loving to her. " I saw Mr. Glaisdale yesterday," she said ; " he went by Miss Phoebe's on horseback, and he stopped and spoke to her. He seems a very agreeable man." Mr. Runswick gave a sort of grunt, and then a grim smile came. " I suppose girls are all alike," he said ; " always taken by outside appear- ance. I expect Mr. Glaisdale's idea of life is to be a gentleman — in the con- ventional manner laid down for him by past generations. You would not get on with him, you are not conventional." 286 A FATTHFUL LOVER. She laughed. " On the contrary, I feel sure he would amuse me. To begin with, he is very good-looking." Her uncle shrugged his shoulders. " The outside again. You are very like your mother, child." Clemency blushed. She had a vague feeling that it was best not to speak of her father to Uncle Esau, and she knew that he had seldom come to see her mother. She guessed therefore that his last sentence was not intended to give her pleasure. " But I am worldly-wise, too." There was a touch of vexation in her voice, and he noticed it. " I heard Mr. Glaisdale say his gardens were worth seeing; now, if you knew him, I could go and see them with Miss Phoebe ; he invited her to go." " Did he ?" ESAU EUNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. 287 Mr. Runswick leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes; Clemency had put an idea into his head. From the leisure he had made in his life by excluding all outward distraction from it, his brain had accustomed itself to consider ideas carefully and slowly — not to admit them even till he had looked at them all round. He felt that he had now some- thing to consider which was worth taking to his own den. He got up and left her. Clemency's eyes sparkled. " He is too rude," she said, " he treats me like a child. I shall not speak at luncheon, and then he will see how he likes being ignored. I shall entirely confine my observations to Rose and the cat." Rose was the name of a descendant of the pink-eyed retriever, a meek-spirited dog who lived on friendly terms with a huge grey tabby. 288 A FAITHFUL LOVER. If she could have seen into her uncle's mind she would have been still more angry, though anger was never long-lived with her — not so much from any principle against it as that it made her uncom- fortable. Clemency liked harmony in all things, and anything jarring or discor- dant ruffled her and made her feel ready to sacrifice even an amount of dignity so that discord might cease. Still, if she had known her Uncle Esau con- sidered himself entitled to choose her a husband, her sense of freedom must have protested. Even for the sake of peace she would not have given up her right of free will. As he seated himself in his reading- chair Mr. Runswick's prominent thought was that he had better find a husband for his niece. Clemency was very charm- ing, so fresh and simple— he could not have imagined that this break into his ESAU EUNSWICK AND HIS KIECE. 289' solitary life could have been so agreeably filled; but tbis so far was only outside work. In a week or so no doubt tbe girl would tire of him. He moved uneasily as he thought what bitter reason he had for want of trust in a woman's outward seeming. " "Well, then," his thoughts went on, "she will find herself dull and she will look abroad for amusement. When women do this, they get into mischief; she may for aught I can tell take to flirting with a young farmer — there are some fine-grown fellows about here. Griaisdale," he paused frowning ; " well, I never heard much good of him, but then I never heard much evil — he is like most men, I suppose, who become their own masters early. Yes, it would be a good settlement for Clemency, and I do not see where she is to find any one else hereabouts in her own rank of life." VOL. I. U 290 A FAITHFUL LOVEE. And then lie turned from this, to Lim, trivial subject, and went back to the account of some fossil discovery which he had been reading about before breakfast, wondering at the interest he had permitted himself to feel in his niece's future. But somehow her image pursued him. Her face, bright and sparkling as it had peered round the urn, came upon the notes he was making, looking as if it protested against association with a diluvial skeleton. He rose up impatiently and opened his window. By doing this he could see out of it ; in his horror of intruders Mr. Runswick had had the lower panes boarded, so that, unless he opened his window or climbed on a chair, he could not see the outside world. The window faced the stream near the bridge, and he saw Clemency's Avhite gown among the trees on the farther side. ESAU RUNSWIOK AND FJS NIECI-;. 291 He took up a broad-brimmed hat and went out by a little door near the titucly, to which he only had a key. The noise he made closing chj d jo:* caused Clemency to look round, hut sise stayed where she was — oho waited to see what he would do. He crossed the brido^e and went st aio-'it up to her. This was the fi.'st time i.e had sought her voluntarily, and Clenivmcy's heart went out to him. Her ang.^r flew away and she smiled at !\im, witJi the warmth and wopderful tr.ith of expres- sion that characterised her face, Slie feit full of love for Uncle Esau, he was all she had to love of kith or kin, a ad s'ae could have thrown her arms round hi n with joy at this advance on his part, i, bhj had not feared that such, a proceeding would send him back into his shell never again to come out of it. " Clemency," the deep voice said, and u 2. 292 A FAITHFUL LOVER. tlien he smiled — just like the picture- uncle Esau, Clemency thought — "will you come for a walk with me ?" "Oh, thank you," her eyes sparkled, " I will run and get a hat — I won't be a moment," and she flew off like a fawn. But even this little delay chafed him. " Girls should not ramble about bare- headed," he said to himself. But he said nothing to Clemency when she joined him, and they went together up the steep path leading to the moor. Esau Runs wick had begun only by telling himself it was trifling and un- manly to consider what the feelings of others were likely to be, and now he never troubled himself about them. He had begun so young to isolate himself from his fellow-creatures, that he had got to judge them by the narrow measures of his own experience. He expected men to be as weak, and false, and selfish, ESAU RDNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. 293 as he considered the Count de Foignies and Captain Ormiston had proved them- selves ; for although he liad no other proof against his sister's husband, Esau Runswick considered the act of dying and leaving a wife and child unprovided for, an act of selfish cowardice. From women he expected only worldliness, and self- seeking folly. If Julie could so deceive him, then these angelic forms and faces were merely beautiful empty caskets. He would never have volunteered to take charge of Clemency, but he had not been able to refuse his sister's appeal. Now it seemed to him in every way wise to release himself from this charge as soon as possible. But as he walked beside the fair young girl he felt a new sensation of pleasure ; she belonged to him, and he was proud of her, and he was growing fond of her too ; still it never occurred to him that he had power to C94 A FAITHFUL LOVEIJ. iTirik.' or mar her daily happiness. By tin's ti.ne they had reached the moor, and v(>ry soon Clemency left his side ai;d \v; s lost to sight among the masses of _G^o".-e and heather as she stooped in search of wild flowers. i^iesently she came back holding a sprig with dark glossy leaves and three waxen -looking pale pink berries. " OI15 nncle," she said, "what is it? I nev r saw anything so lovely." Es'u did not care for flowerS' — they always reminded him of his false love. " Y(Hi will find plenty of it further on/' h,' said, "it is rare in some places, b;;t we often see it here." The sense of freedom, that wild joyous ex'iil.ri .itioa which moorland air produces, bro'cc down the reserve which her uncle's stiff.iees had made Clemency feel with him. "I am so happy," she said brightly. ESAU RUNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. 295 " I wish you would take a walk witli me every clay." "If I did, you would look on it as a habit, and it would cease to be a pleasure." " I cannot believe that," said Clemency, and she gave him so sweet and grateful a glance that he too felt happier than usual. They had strayed from the middle of the moor and had drawn near to a bridle road that ran across it. Presently Clemency saw some one coming towards them on horseback, and in another minute she recognised Mr. Glaisdale. Esau was looking behind him at the sea, which was well seen from this point ; it had a golden glimmer on it that made it seem nearer than it was. When he turned round Mr. Glaisdale was close to him. The Squire smiled, and raising his hat, he glanced on from Esau to 296 A FAITHFUL LOVER. €lemency, who found herself bowing graciously ; Mr. Eunswick only bent his head stiffly. He walked on in silence for some minutes, then he said, " You are not obliged to return the greeting of every coxcomb you meet on the moor, Clemency." The girl flushed till her cheeks looked aflame. " Mr. Glaisdale only meant it for civility, I think,'* she said. Mr. Runs wick started, he was so un- used to contradiction that he could not bear it. " You surely will not set your judg- ment against mine," he said politely, but with a sneer that made her writhe as if she had been stung sharply. It was very hard to remember Dorothy's maxim when Uncle Esau looked so black and haughty. Clemency's spirit rose up in protest, and then she looked at him ESAU EUNSWICK AND HIS NIECE. 297 again. How sad his face was, it seemed as if sorrow had been so busily at work, tracing all those fine lines about the eyes and across the forehead, that happiness had not found room to leave any impress ; she did not even beam out of the dark melancholy ejes. " Poor dear," the girl said to herself, *' if I can only make him fond of me he will soon be quite different." But for the rest of the walk, the old restraint had come back, and there was no more playful talk between Mr. Runswick and his niece. 298 CHAPTER VI. CDRIOSITYo QOMB one else liad seen Clemency and her uncle on the moor, and had been struck by the strange contrast they made. Miss Phoebe's lodger felt almost excited at the discovery. He had not been near enough to see them well, but even from the point where he sat sketching a distant view of the sea seen from among the heather, he felt sure that they were people worth knowing. Sometimes Mr. Ralph took out lunch with him and only came in to a late dinner, but to-day he appeared at mid-day, and asked Miss Phoebe over the gate if he could have some dinner earlier than usual. CUKIOSITY. 299 Miss Phoebe, gathering' herbs in her garden, felt fluttered, and her cheeks went a little pinker. She had both hands full of herbs, and she hurried into the porch. " I will see," she said, and looked help- lessly at Sophy, who held a dish ready to receive the herbs. Sophy, a fair buxom woman, was a Londoner, and spoke with the southern tongue Lettice hated. " Lor, ma'am," she whispered, " it's all right; "there's that there chicken got for Sunday, t'will cook beautiful in half-an- hour." Miss Phoebe heaved a sigh of relief, and her eyes followed Sophy gratefully. Mr. Ralph had opened the gate and lie was waiting for her to speak. " If you can wait half-an-hour ?" she said, apologetically. He nodded. " That will do nicely, thank 300 A FAITHFUL LOVER. you. I want to have some talk wit'n you. Miss Dawlish ; I want to know about the people here. I have seen three persons this morning, and I fancy they are all residents." " You saw the Squire, Mr. Glaisdale, for one — for he saw you ; he told me as he passed. He owns the woods on the farther side of the moor, and he lives in the Manor House." " That's the Squire, is it. But I am more interested about the others — a father ^nd daughter, I suppose — a tall man in a velvet coat, and a girl dressed in white." The smile had left Miss Phoebe's face. She had been dreadins; that this meetinq; would take place, and now it had hap- pened ; the next thing would be a meeting at the cottage, and this would perhaps be a serious offence in the eyes of Mr. Runs wick. CURIOSITY. 301 "It is quite natural," she thought, " that young men should like to see pretty young women ;" and yet the dread of vexing Esau made her unwilling to satisfy her lodger. She stepped across the flower border and bea:an to rather French beans. " They are uncle and niece." She tried to speak carelessly, without looking towards Mr. Ralph. " Do they hve in the neighbourhood ?" As she met those firm, steadfast eyes^ Miss Phoebe trembled. The answer seemed spoken without her will. "They live at Hollow Mill," and she stooped down again to the beans. " What a charming name. Ah, now I recollect, I saw it marked upon a post on the moor— 'To Hollow Mill.' It's their place is it ? But he is not a miller, surely ?" Miss Phoebe felt almost indignant. 302 ^A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Oh, no, Mr. Ranswick is a gentleman, but lie lives quite retired, and seldom or never comes out on tlie moor in daytime, and lie dislikes any one to go near liis house." " How very eccentric and interesting — it sounds like an old legend. Of course the mill is ruined and picturesque, it would make a sketch. Oh, Miss Dawlish, how unkind of you : you have been keeping this delightful place from me, and I asked you to tell me of all that was worth sketch- ing in the neighbourhood." He shook his head at her and laughed ; her look of alarm amused him. " I'm very sorry, but there seemed no use," she said in a quavering voice, " no use at all in telling you about what 3"0u could not see. Mr. Runs wick won't even see a visitor, so it cannot be likely he would allow a sketch to be made of his house." " Ah, I see, but you make him out a CURIOSITY. 303 churl. I must try and get a glimpse of the place without trying to sketch it." Esau Runswick a churl ! Miss Phoebe walked away. She was so angry she did not trust herself to answer. She told herself she was going to see about bread-sauce and to shred the French beans she had been gathering. The irith. was that Mr. Ealph's direct way of putting questions embarrassed her ; if slie stayed she should perhaps finding herself talking about Clemency. Mr. Ralph whistled as he walked up and down the lavender-bordered path. T-here seemed to be some mystery about these people. Quiet, simple Miss Phoebe was evident!}'' afraid to speak of her neighbours. He determined to question Mr. Pickering, but he also determined that before he slept he would find his way to Hollow Mill. Life here hod been very 304 A FAITHFUL LOVER. pleasant, but he found himself disappointed in his sketching — there were plenty of extended views, but none of the near picturesque bits, which he was fond of doing — and he had been wondering only that morning whether the quiet and ex- quisite peace might not soon prove taonotonous. Here was a new interest. And Miss Phoebe's manner — her evident disquiet — had given the zest which his life needed. Besides, he would like to see that girl and her uncle again. He looked at his watch, impatient for dinner to be over. He had not felt in a hurry since he left home : this discovery had all the spice of an adventure in'^it. 305 CHAPTER VII. THE VICAE OF BAXDALB. Tl TR. RALPH had finished his dinner, and he sat at the clematis-bowered window smoking a cigar. It was so delightful to enjoy the perfect solitude — only a white butterfly peeped in at him, and some gnats trumpeted not far off — there was nothing else to disturb him. He had decided to take the road towards that part of the moor on which he had seen the direction post, " To Hollow Mill,'* and then use his own discretion about approaching the house. As he sat thinking a possible picture of a half-ruined structure rose before hira, and he got up hastily, wondering at his own delay. VOL I. X 306 A FAITHFUL LOVER. He took his sketch-book and camp- stool, but when he opened the little gate in the fence, there, just outside it, stood the Kector, Mr. Pickering, trim as ever, in; his spotless black coat, his hair curling alii over his head like a wig, and — though the: Vicar was past fifty — guiltless of grey. ' . i q His face was deeper coloured than, usual. He had come out against his prin- ciples on a hot afternoon to ask a question, and the gates were singing a chorus of warning against such folly in his brick-: dust coloured ears. " Ah " — he gave a sigh of relief, for he saw how nearly he had missed this young gentleman, and commiserated the feelings he should have experienced had he come five minutes later — " my dear young friend, this is lucky ; 1 will not keep you, but you can just tell me something I want to know." "With pleasure;" but Ralph chafed THE VICAR OF BAXDALE. 307 inwardly as he led the way back to his room. He hoped the Vicar would seat himself and at once make his request, but Mr. Pickering took up first one and then another of the sketches that now occupied the back of the sofa, and, putting on his eyeglasses, proceeded to admire them. He had not the slightest discrimination — one sketch was just the same as another to him, with the exception that the bright, somewhat crude productions of this young fellow, whom he knew to be both well-born and wealthy, were far more attractive than the sketches of a professional artist who painted for his bread. Even though there might have been a touch of genius in the artist's productions, it would have been unknown to the Vicar. I am not sure that Mr. Pickering did not consider it an amiable condescension in Ralph to spend so much time in doing that for pleasure X 2 308 A FAITHFUL LOVER. wliicli was a necessity to others ; and he perhaps thought the young fellow honoured Art by practising it. But then the Vicar took his opinions on social subjects from his wife, and Mrs. Pickering considered tbat a gentleman could not earn his bread by his own labour, except in one of the professions recognised by her creed. " Wonderful," he said, when he had finished his inspection and seated himself ; ** I may say most brilliant performances. Ah, I should like to have your opinion on Mrs. Pickering's water-colours — ^you must come up to the vicarage and see them." " Thank you ;" then, as Mr. Pickering's eyes still wandered to the sketches on the sofa, Ralph said, "but you have a question to ask, I think you said." *' Yes, well " — the Vicar was looking at his own soft, well-shaped hand and polished finger-nails while he spoke, " it THE VICAR OP BAXDALR. 309 is this — do you consider that a lady with refined habits — and, I am afraid, some- what fastidious delicacy, can — can travel in Brittany ? Terrible rough work, is it not ?" Ralph smiled, for the clergyman's face was almost tragic in its earnestness. "Well, you cannot, of course, travel everywhere in Brittany, unless you rough i-fc; but my mother travelled there with me last summer and seemed to enjoy it." " Yes, ah ! yes — thank you so very much; that is a good deal to say." Mr. Pickering tried to look entirely satisfied, but he was saying to himself, " Your mother may be a great lady, but she is a French woman ; thank Heaven, my wife is thoroughly English — she is incapable of * roughing ' it, as you suggest." Then, as his eyes returned to his com- panion, he became aware that he still held his sketch-book under his arm. 310 A FAITHFUL LOVER. " Going sketcbiDg again, eli ?" he said, *' but surely you cannot sketch in this heat — it is really unsafe." "Let me give you a glass of wine," said Ralpb. " I don't think I am going to sketch, but I always take my book with me in case I may want it. I've heard of a mill on the moor here, and I thought I would go and have a look at it." " No wine, thank you. Do you mean Hollow Mill ?" Ralph nodded — the Vicar smiled. " Ah ! I'm afraid you can't sketch it. It is a pity, for the place is a ready-made picture; but it hes in such a hollow, and the trees are so thick about it, that you can't see it till you are close by, and then you are on Mr. Runswick's ground.'* " Just so ; I thought of calling and asking this Mr. Runswick for leave to sketch the place." THE VICAR OF BAXDALE. 311 ' The Vicar raised both hands in protest. .*' My dear fellow, you do not know the man you are talking of. He would most likely turn his dogs loose on you, if he has any. He is a perfect hermit, and a sort of savage. 1 believe he rarely shows himself, nor will he admit visitors; and he never comes to church." The young man's interest increased, but he wanted to hear all the Vicar had to say about Mr. E-unswick. " Ah," he said, carelessly, " very likely he is fond of a quiet life, and people have bored him to let them see the place. Do you know I am inclined to agree with him." .. The Vicar's pale blue eyes opened widely, and the fair curls raised them- selves as his eyebrows pushed a series of lines upwards on his forehead — lines so deep that evidently the eyebrows had a trick of being frequently lifted. 312" A FAITHFUL LOVER. ''"'•' " My dear young friend, you do not know of what you are speaking. This man, as 1 told you, leads the life of an outcast from society ; he has never shown himself at church since I came to Baxdale ; he lives entirely to himself and for himself. There is some strange mystery about him.- What behaviour can you expect from a man who sets himself up to be his own guide and ruler in all things ?" Ralph could not help laughing. " Probably he is an original thinker. Don't be shocked, but you cannot think how you have whetted my interest in Mr. Runswick. He is a fine-looking fellow, too ; perhaps he has been a bandit or a pirate ; and, more than all, I find he has a charming niece." Mr. Pickering groaned. " Yes," he said, plaintively, " there's the difficulty. The man never comes to church, but the young girl has come each THE VIOAR OP BAXDALE. 313 Sunday since her arrival, and really, you know, I can't take any notice of her, nor can Mrs. Pickering, yet it is terrible to think of any Christian young woman being shut up in that heathen house." " Do you know," said Ralph, " if you go on much longer, Mr. Pickering, you will make me feel like St. George, or Don Quixote, and I shall consider T have a mission to deliver this distressed damsel from her ogre uncle ?" But the Vicar would not laugh. His head shook nervously. " Take care what you do ; there are plenty of queer stories about this Runs- wick. I have heard that he treated his sister — this girl's mother — so ill, that she sloped with the first man that fell in her way. I fancy he is thoroughly unscrupu- lous. You had better come and talk to my wife about him." " A sort of Bluebeard without the wives, 314 A FAITHFUL LOVEK. is lie ? — has he had a wife, do you know ?'* The Vicar shook his head gloomily. *' I never heard of one, but then he has lived so much abroad no one can tell what he has or what may not have happened." " ] expect he has a sad history." Ralph looked thoughtful. *' A man does not shut himself up in this way without a cause. Well, I'll keep out of his sight, but, by hook or by crook, I must see the mill." The Vicar rose. "You have been warned," he said; " but I am convinced you cannot get a sketch of the mill unless you trespass on Runswick's property." *' All right, I'll be careful ; but I dare- say his bark is worse than his bite," and he followed his visitor to the gate, anxious to see his back. Coming into his room again, he thought THE VICAE OF BAXDALE. 315 he would wait a little ; the light and shade would be much better later on, and there would probably be more chance of meeting Mr. Runswick then than just in the heat of the afternoon. He smoked another cigar while he worked a little on his sketches, and thought over the Vicar's warning. It seemed to him exaggerated. Miss Phoebe was evidently a pious-minded woman, for in his bedroom he had found not only a Bible, but several tracts specially addressed to young men ; and yet she had not spoken harshly of the owner of Hollow Mill — she seemed rather to try to avoid the subject. She had gone out when he went to look for her, and as soon as the sunbeams grew level he set out on his quest. The moor glowed a yet intenser purple in this light, gleams of scarlet showing here and there as the sun-glow fell on the changing bilberry leaves, while tufts of 316 A FAITHFUL LOVER. white bent stood out on the waste, and brown knotted [rushes gave token of moister ground below them. Though Ralph could not paint well, he had the eyes of an artist, and the scene gave him keen enjoyment. He was not long in reaching the signpost, and soon after he found himself stopped by a hedge with a gate in it. It seemed only to be an enclosed bit of moor, for the land was still overgrown with gorse, and brambles, and heather. Presently he came to another gate, and from this the road sloped down abruptly, and was soon hidden by the thick trees that bordered it. Ralph stood still. It was likely enough that the land on the other side of the gate against which he leaned belonged to Mr. Runswick, but he could not stop here ; he would keep as far as possible from the house, but he did not even feel THE VICAR OF BAXDALE. 317 sure he was near it yet, so he vaulted the gate, and went down the steep ascent, which grew steeper and steeper as he went. END OP THE PIEST VOLUME. London : Fruited by Schulzk & Bl-bt, 13. Poland Street. i