A LIFE'S ASSIZE. BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL, AUTHOR OF 'GEORGE GEITH,' 'CITY AND SUBURB,' 'TOO MUCH ALONE,' ETC., ETC. LONDON : HUTCHINSON & CO., 34, PATERNOSTER ROW. \^All rights reserved.'\ 23 g ti)c same ^ut|or. AUSTIN FRIARS. TOO MUCH ALONE. THE RICH HUSBAND. MAXWELL DREWITT. FAR ABOVE RUBIES. A LIFE'S ASSIZE. THE WORLD IN THE CHURCH. HOME, SWEET HOME. PHEMIE KELLER. RACE FOR WEALTH. THE EARLS PROMISE. MORTOMLEY'S ESTATE. FRANK SINCLAIR'S WIFE. THE RULING PASSION. MY FIRST AND MY LAST LOVE. CITY AND SUBURB. ABOVE SUSPICION. JOY AFTER SORROW. '2'^\ /^ TO FEEDEEICK C. SKEY, C.B., E.E.O.S., Late President of the Royal College of Surgeons, IN ADMIRATION OF HIS GENIUS, AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM, IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF KINDNESS THAT FOB YEARS HAS NEVER VARIED, AND OF SKILL, THE EXERCISE OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN ASKED IN VAIN, WHICH IS NOT ALL FICTION, IS DEDICATED, BY HIS FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Dui^e University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/lifesassizeOOridd CONTENTS. CHAP. PAQB I. THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH .. 1 II. EXPLANATORY . . . . . 7 III. ON THE HILL-SIDE . . 12 IV, AT DUMFRIES 18 V. THROUGH THE NIGHT 23 VI. THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE . . 33 VII. BY THE SOLWAY 40 VIII. HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED SOUTH 51 IX. THE FIRST STEPS 59 X. IN COURT . . 66 XI. THOLING HIS ASSIZE 74 XII. FACING THE FUTURE 98 XIII. AT THE ' SALISBURY ARMS ' . . 107 XIV. THE FIRST STEP 112 XV. ANDREW HARDELL's NEW HOME . 120 XVI. T^TE-A-TETE . 134 XVII. ONLY A LETTER . 151 XVIII. HOW MADGE TOOK IT . 159 XIX. A LITTLE EVENING . . . 167 XX. ANOTHER EVENING . . . 182 XXI. HOW A LARK DIED . . , , . 195 XXII. COMPREHENSION . . • . . . 202 XXIII. CHANGE . . , , . , . 210 XXIV. FEMININE . . . , . 218 CONTEiS^TS. CHAP. PAGB XXV. THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN . . 223 XXVI. DESOLATE . . . 234 xxvir. 'FAREWELL, MY DEAR' . 241 XXVIII. HOW COULD HE GO? . 244 XXIX. MADGE . . 252 XXX. AT ST SWITHIN's . 258 XXXI. SLIGHTLY SPECULATIVE . 262 XXXII. AT LAST . . . 268 XXXIII. COMING EVENTS . 276 XXXIV. THE POPULAR PREACHER . 285 XXXV. PACE TO FACE . 292 XXXVI. SHADOWS . . . 299 XXXVII. SPECULATIVE . 309 XXXVIII. MR M'PHAIL . . 316 XXXIX. PRESENTIMENTS . 321 XL. THE FIRST ATTACK . . . 327 XLI. IDENTIFIED . 333 XLII. THE PRIOR CLAIMANT . 339 XLIII. LAWYER AND CLIENT . 347 XLIV, WHAT WAS THE MATTER? . 353 XLV. IN ALTON WOOD . 360 XLVI. MR Alton's visitor . 368 XLVII. THE HOUR STRIKES . . . 375 XLVI II. Andrew's decision . . . 382 XLIX. CONCLUSION . 386 A LIFE'S ASSIZE. : CHAPTER I. THE QTJEEN OF THE SOUTH. OvEE the border ; beyond that vast expanse of moas across wbicli the express speeds northward after leaving Carlisle ; west of the Southern Highlands, there stands — like one who has volun- tarily stepped aside from the world's hurry and turmoil — in the tranquil valley of ISTithsdale, the "fair 'Queen of the South,' Dumfries. Now-a-days, Dumfries is but little visited. Tourists journey- ing post-haste on to Loch Lomond and the Trosachs, speeding away to look at frowning mountains and darksome lakes, have no leisure, and less inclination, to tarry at so insignificant a spot. Sterner beauties, noted from generation to generation, beckon to them from the northern fastnesses ; and accordingly it comes to pass that the humbler and softer loveliness of Nithsdale is left unregarded, and the town where my story opens blooms like the flower of the wilderness, only to gladden the heart and refresh the spirit of some chance wayfarer. Yery soft, very stealing, very long-enduring, is the beauty of this part of Scotland. It does not assail the imagination with beetling cliff, with foaming waterfall, with lakes silent and gloomy, with rugged defiles, with frowning precipices — but it leaves an impression on the imagination which very much grander scenery often fails to do. When we have lived our lives — Hved, that is, the few years, short and evil, full of hope and sorrow, of disappointment and 2 - A life's assize. rejoicing, which make up the real sum-total of any human exist- ence, and, after our work, sit down to think over the past, it is not the heights of ambition whereto we have climbed successfully, it is not the great houses we have seen, not the grand people we have met, who come in the twilight and stand beside us. Ah ! no ; it is the old home, the trusted friend, the patient parent, the humble pets thankful for slight kindness, that fill in the canvas of the mental picture. And, in like manner, when we have travelled north, east, south, and west ; when we have seen the great wonders of God's earth ; our souls, flying away from the confinement of city life, do not speed back to mountain peak or wave-lashed shore ; nay, rather, they brood like doves over some home landscape, they revert to something like Dumfries nestling in her Nithsdale valley, with Criffel rising in the purple distance, and the corn- fields stretching down to the river near at hand. To my thinking Dumfries has met with biit scant justice at the hands of either novelist or poet. But this fact may, perhaps, be readily accounted for, when we remember that tlie men who have written most and written best concerning Scotland's scenery, were well aware that, even in the way of quiet loveliness, many and many a nook could be found infinitely surpassing Dumfries. Truth is, the land is too grand, too beautiful ; and after the ■ Highlands and the Holy Loch, after the Bridge of Allan and the Isles of Arran, it may be that, to many, the unassuming loveli- ness of Nithsdale might fail to charm a native after the fashion in which it certainly does a stranger. But as this story opens in the town which even Scott dis- misses with a single paragraph,! must crave permission to speak more fully of it ; for the man in whose fortunes the reader's in- terest is entreated, never, to the last hour of his life, could close his eyes without the vision of a flowing river, spanned by two picturesque bridges, bordered by trees, and fields, and pleasant houses, appearing before him. Flowing, ever flowing, dashing oyer its weir with a noise like that of the sea washing in on a low shingly shore, it seemed to have made a channel for itself through his very soul, to have incorporated its waters with the stream of his own existence. There are places and things which thus stamp themselves upon a man's memory ; and most wonderful to me is it that the mental agony which oftentimes accompanies this photographing — nay, is the very cause of it — does not obliterate the merely phy- sical impression which scenery under such circumstances pro- duces. Whilst the soul is wrestling with its anguish, should we THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 3 — arguing from fancy instead of fact — not imagine that the out- ward eyes would be blind ? Should we not think that when tempests of passion were raging in the heart there could be no external sense left sufficiently idle to note the branches waving in the breeze, the brilliant scarlet of the poppies amongst the corn, the swaying to and fro of a bough bending into the stream, the slanting sunbeams falling on ruined wall or grassy sward ? And yet, for a truth, we know it is in times of the direst ex- tremity that men's faculties of observation are most keenly exercised. The whole system is sharpened, each power is in- tensified by some tremendous and apparently all-absorbing trouble. And so satisfied am I of this truth, that I believe the poor wretch standing on tlie scafl^old, with the terror both of the present and of the vast unknown stretching away before him, amid all the horror of his position, carries with him into the plains of eternity — unconsciously, perhaps, but still cer- tainly — some ghastly daguerreotype of the terrible crowd below. What would you P We live in a place for years — that orderly, comfortable, respectable, orthodox life, which, being strictly coi'rect, is also too frequently strictly unexciting ; and whilst we are in the place Ave know the position of every shrub and tree, of every book and article of furniture, and yet, behold ! we leave that pleasant orderly existence, and in a short time the map of our memory becomes blurred and indistinct. As wave swallows up wave, so one piece of order destroys the recol- lection of another. It is only when the waves rear their heads and take away a portion of our lives from us, that we remember through the years the crested billows, and the wild waste of waters amid which the ship of our hopes went down. Eemember ! Is that the word for it ? Nay, rather, cannot forget, cannot forget ! Ah, me ! And thus it came to pass, that from having endured great agony there, the man whose story I wish to tell never could forget Dumfries. It would return to him in the night season, with its narrow streets and its wide * Sands,' so called, though the sands are nothing but a paved road, leading along the water's edge. Buc- cleugh Street was to him a bodily presence, and the Mid Steeple as a thing accursed. When he thought of the evening shadows settling down over Sweetheart Abbey, there came upon him a faint sickness — like that felt when the air of a room grows heavy and the scent of flowers overpowering; when he remembered the sweet peace of Lincluden, he could have wept for very desii*e of rest ; when he recalled the wild desolation of that road which leads away towards Caerlaverock Castle — that road which winds 4 A life's assize. beside the ever-widening Nith till its waters merge in the sea — ■ he could have fallen down and prayed for one hour from the past to be given to him again, one hour wherein he might feel as he had once felt — before he went hence and was no more seen. He had taken his last look of the town from that bridge, built by Dervorgilla, who not merely did all manner of good ' dedis devotly,' but was ' rycht piesand of bewte.' ' A bettyr ladye than sche was nane,' state the old chroniclers. But as he stood watching the moonlight dancing on the swiftly flowing waters of the Nith, Andrew Hardell bitterly lamented that she had ever been born to build Sweetheart Abbey, or the bridge wliich led across the river towards the New Abbey Road He had come to Dumfries a man full of hope, life, vigour, and promise, and he was leaving it at five-and-twenty, with grey hairs plentifully sprinkled amongst the brown, with the hope and the promise crashed out of him, with his health impaired, his spirit broken, and a darkness like that which enveloped the land of Egypt shrouding his future. And the moon danced on the surface of the waters, and the Nith went flowing to the sea, and the lights gleamed in many a window, and foot-passengers walked across the bridge at long intervals, and from the old streets on the Maxwelltown side of the river came sometimes the voices of children — sometimes the snatch of a song — sometimes the noise of drunken brawling — while the man reviewed his past and faced his present. The Nith fell over the weir, lying but a little distance below Dervorgilla's Bridge, with a regular sorrowful, rushing plash, and then widening out swept smoothly on its course towards the Sol- way. To his right were soft green hills, sloping gently towards the river ; to his left lay, first the Sands, and then farther on that pleasant path which winds by the water's side — southward, "With his outward eyes he hoped and expected he should never more behold that winding river, nor the soft green of its grassy banks. To him, from that night forth, it was all to be coffined and hidden away from view. There was no pleasure — there was no profit ever likely to accrue to him in the future from anything- connected with the place, and yet he looked upon it as a man will look upon the face of his dead, thinking it all the time strange and terrible and exceeding sorrowful. Once he turned and looked northward — to the new bridge, beyond which the stream narrows for some distance : but with that natural instinct which causes us all to prefer gazing towards the outlet rather than the source, he resumed his i'ormer position, and with arms resting upon the parapet of the bridge, followed THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. 5 the Nith as it danced onward joyously, reflecting the fickle moon- beams that flitted to and fro — to and fro — upon the surface. After he had filled his soul with the landscape ; after he had taken in every detail of the scene — every tree, every dwelling, every eddy in the stream, every effect of light and shade, of strong moonlight, of darksome shadow — he walked slowly off the bridge, and passing up Friars Vennel, came in due time to the Mid Steeple, to the open space in front of the ' King's Arms ' and Commercial Hotels. Keeping well in the shadow, he paused. for a moment beside the latter building. From the windows of the first floor there streamed down into the street, light, and the sound of music. ' What is going on here ? ' Andrew Hardell asked of a passer-by. * It is the circuit dinner,' was the reply : ' the judge enter- taining the bar, sheriffs, and town generally.' ' Thank you,' Mr Hardell answered, and he proceeded on his way. As he passed the door of the Commercial Hotel, a man, standing on the threshold, beside one of the waiters, suddenly remarked — ' Surely that is the fellow who was tried for murder to-day.' Then the two stepped out on to the pavement, and looked after the retreating figure. Five minutes later he had shaken the dust of Dumfries from his shoes, and was walking steadily and sturdily towards the border. Meantime, in the old room which was occupied by Charles Edward when he passed through Dumfries, there was feasting, and formal and stately revelry. Through the night the man who had been after a fashion acquitted, strode southward, while at the circuit dinner-table there was much talk concerning the trial ; talk which did not greatly delight the Advocate Depute, who had failed to convict him. There had been a hard battle fought that day in the old courthouse, a battle which the Advocate Depute considered he ought to have won. If he had won it, Mr Hardell, instead of walking whither he listed in the darkness, would at that moment have been lying in the condemned cell, counting the days till his execution ; and although the Advocate Depute was by no means a hard-hearted man, still he greatly regretted the prisoner's escape ; honestly believing he deserved death, and that the jury had made a serious mistake in not convicting him. Of course there were not wanting a few in the assemblage who took Andrew Hardell's part, who refused to believe in his 6 A life's assize. guilt, and considered he had not escaped by a mere piece of good fortune ; but as a rule the tide of opinion set against him. Even Lord Glanlorn, who had summed up, giving him the benefit of a certain doubt of which more shall be said hereafter, remarked to the High Sheriff and to the Provost, — ' Tes, certainly, the jury could not have convicted him, though no doubt they were morally certain he was guilty.' And this speech may be considered as expressing the senti- ments of most people in Dumfries that night. The Advocate Depute had been beaten, indeed, but not without honour, for the prisoner's character was stained for life. The counsel for the defence had won, not altogetlier gloriously, and although he looked pleased enough over his victory, those who knew him best were well aware he did not altogether attribute his success to the power of his own eloquence or the cleverness of his cross- examination. Between the toasts — after the trumpeters stationed in the passage had played the airs they considered appropriate to each toast — the conversation turned mainly on Andrew Hardell. ' For my own part,' remarked an individual, ' I always ex- pected he would have pled guilty to culpable homicide.' ' Ah ! he was too deep for that,' was the reply. ' He played a risky game, though,' observed another. ' And won,' said his neighbour quietly. ' If you call that winniug,' broke in a fifth. ' I call it better than two or three years' imprisonment, at any rate,' came from across the table ; and so at intervals the talk ran on till the entertainment concluded, and Lords Craigie and Glanlorn had taken a courteous leave of their guests. When they departed, Mr Dunbar, the great lawyer, who had been brought down specially from Edinburgh to defend the prisoner Hardell, excused himself from repairing to the judge's private room, on the ground that as his head was aching badly he wished to try if a stroll down by the river would do it any good. ' He has been veiy anxious about this case,' Lord Craigie re- marked to the other learned judge, as Mr Dunbar went along the passage and do^vn the stairs. ' Naturally so,' was the reply : ' it hung on a thread.' ' Almost literally,' answered Lord Craigie, who was addicted to mild puns. Tlie case, however, had not, with all due respect to Lord Glanlorn, hung exactly on a thread ; but rather on a question taat during the entire trial Mr Dunbar dreaded each moment might be asked — which opinion he expressed to a man who, EXPLANATORY. i having come over from tlie * King's Arms,' now walked with him along Irish Street, and thence down to the Sands, ' If the Advocate Depute or either of the judges had inquired whether a suit of your clothes might not by accident have come into Andrew Hardell's possession, I would not have given that for his chances of acquittal.' And the speaker snapped his fingers. CHAPTEE II. EXPI/ANATORT. The day previous to that especial evening of September on which my story opens — with much pomp and ceremony. Lords Craigie and Glanlorn had made their entry into Dumfries. At the present time, the judge's procession, spite of clashing bells and silver trumpets, and carriages hired regardless of ex- pense, is but a poor affair — a faint reflection of the pomp and circumstance of a former period. Up to the platform steams the train, and out of one particu- lar compartment, round the door of which municipal officers hustle each other, steps my lord, courteously bowing to, and shaking hands with, the attendant authorities. Outside the station stands an expectant crowd, silent and observant, taking their pleasure phlegmatically — viewing the spectacle critically, as might be assumed of a people weaned on the "Westminster Con- fession of Faith, and having an intimate and conversational knowledge of God's eternal decree. The members composing this crowd regard the pageant stolidly, and if they offer any re- mark, seldom venture beyond the observation that Jock, one of the trumpeters, knows his business, or that his lordship is juSt like ' ony other mon.' No length of time seems to acquaint the municipal body with a perfect knowledge of ' who goes first.' The small amount of practice they go through for such ceremonials cannot make the mounted men perfectly manage their steeds and their instruments at the same time. Throughout the three kingdoms a non-military pageant is necessarily but a poor and imperfect mockery of a military pro- cession j and the judge's entry seems now so utterly an iuconse- O A LIFE S ASSIZE. quent affair, that the marvel is that any public entry should be attempted. The business was more imposing in the year of grace when Lords Craigie and Glanlorn came south ; for steam, the universal leveller, had not then come puffing near Dumfries, as it does now amongst flowers to the pretty station nestling in Nithsdale, and the two great men were met along the Edinburgh Eoad, and escorted with much care and circumstance to the Com- mercial Hotel, whilst the bells clashed and the bells rang, and horses pranced, and music played, and ' that is the one side of it,' remarked an onlooker senteutiously. That the picture, spite of the sunshine, had another, might have occurred to the under- standing of an even obtuser individual than the person addressed, for the same sunshine streamed into the old prison in Buccleugh Street, and the same bells clanged out the announcement to the anxiou« wretches confined there, that before many days were over the question of their guilt or innocence would be decided, so far as punishment was concerned : that it would soon be free- dom or transportation — freedom or an organized prayer and a long rope — liberty, or the best years cut out of a life — liberty, or all the future years cut suddenly short. The power of breathing God's pure air ; the ability to stand in God's sunshine; the choice of labour or of idleness ; the right to go here or to go there with never an one to say yea or to say nay ; or, on the other hand, entire subjugation to the will of those put above him ; years of profitless labour ; of enforced obedience ; of work which should always leave a stain ; of punishment which should trace scars upon a man's soul that death only could efface ! Or, worse still, perhaps, to contemplate death itself — death, with Jack Ketch for nurse, and the prison chaplain for doctor ; with the sheriffs in lieu of your own regular solicitor ; and a sea of upturned faces instead of sympathizing friends ; — death without sickness — without weakness — without resignation ; a compulsory leap from life to the grave. Here, one hour, with the blood coursing through the veins, the pulse beating strong ; and there the next, with the quick-lime being shovelled in on the almost warm body, and the earth piled over what remained of that which had gone through such mortal agony so brief a time before. As the bells of the Mid Steeple and the Greyfriars Church clashed out with brazen tongues their welcome to the judges, all that I have tried to tell^— and more — a hundred times more — filled the breast of the man whom you have already seen stand- ing on Dervorgilla's Bridge — Andrew Hardell — lying at that time in Dumfries jail, and waiting to stand his trial for the wil- ful murder of Kenneth Challerson, Esquire. EXPLANATORY. y "WTien a charge of murder is preferred against a man imper- fectly educated ; destitute of imagination, with a keen relish for all animal pleasures ; happily obtuse to all possible consequences till such consequences really stare him in the face ; with a blind unreasoning belief in luck and the skill of his advocate till the trial is over, and then with an equally unreasoning faith that they won't hang him — that a reprieve will come, — it is not an easy matter for any other human being differently nurtured even to surmise how such an one bears the monotony of the days before the judges arrive ; how he endures to hear those bells ringing and that music playing which announce that the time of suspense is almost over — that the period of certainty is close at hand. Between us and such a criminal yawns a gulf wide and deep as any humanity can comprehend. If we credit him with mental anguish ; if, judging by our own standard, we believe him capable of mental agony, of bitter repentance — of a vain tearing at the chains with lacerated hands and bleeding heart — we may be wast- ing our sympathy all in vain ; and yet, if we run to the other ex- treme, and think that the stolid face, the regular appetite, the unbroken sleep, the jibing repartee, betoken no dread — indicate no mortal tremor — we should err, no doubt, grievously. When hands come to be laid upon him ; when — in the express- ive Scotch phrase — the poor wretch * tholes his assize,' then terror must come upon him like an armed man. The very animals have a comprehension when their hour is come ; and though the prisoner hang on the slightest thread of hope — though, like a himted creature, he looks in the face of judge and jury — of Ad- vocate Depute and his own often utterly incompetent counsel — there must be a dread of the worst ; a horror of that * hanging by the neck,' the advent of which my lord puts on his black cap to enunciate. When in the papers we read that John Oakes has hammered m Thomas Styles' skull, or that Daniel Brooks has murdered Mary, his wife, because she provided cold fat mutton for his dinner instead of the savoury stew that the mouth of the said Daniel watered for as he walked across the sopping meadows home — we feel that whilst we are very sorry for both criminals, we can no more enter into the ante-execution feelings of John Oakes and Daniel Brooks, than we can into the mind of a man capable of murdering his neighbour for twopence farthing, or taking a woman's life because the expected meal was not prepared for his return. In Andrew Hardell's case, however, it was not difficult to un- derstand the alternations of hope and despair, of courage and terror, 10 A life's assize. that he passed through as he lay waiting for his trial. There was no great gulf separating him from the men who were to judge his case. By education, by nature, by association, by profession, he was a gentleman — no villain, who, having premeditatec a crime, deliberately takes the consequences of such crime upon his shoulders ; no clever calculating scoundrel, who, having played a game and lost, regards the result but as the consequence of a bad shuffle of the cards, which has resulted in the cutting, instead of an honour, of a useless five or six. No ; by misadventure he, the Eev. Andrew Hardell, late a prisoner in Kirkcudbright jail, was now waiting for a jury to de- cide his fate. His case had been decided so far — as worthy of trial by the Sheriff Substitute of Kirkcudbright, by the Procu- rator Fiscal, and by the Advocate Depute, each one of whom be- lieved him guilty ; and yet there was only one man on earth beside himself who was aware for certain whether he had done the deed whereof he stood accused, and that man's name was Anthony Har- dell — neither kith nor kin that could be counted, nor auglit save staunch friend and evil genius of Andrevr Hardell so far as either knew. This pair had been educated together ; at college together ; taken orders together ; and yet Andrew Hardell was the son of a yeoman, while Anthony claimed kindred with one of the wealthiest and proudest families in Somersetshire. Not that such kindred availed him much, for he was absolutely poorer than Andrew ; and there were not wanting those who asserted that, had Anthony been richer, Andrew would not have long experienced the ad- vantage of his friendship, and who lamented that so clever and rising a man as the yeoman's son, should allow himself to be led utterly by one who had not half his brains nor half his courage. However well-grounded such lamentations might be, the asser- tion that Anthony's friendship was mercenary may, however, at once be contradicted. There was no man whom Anthony loved as he loved this Andrew, for whose fate he, sitting in the ■ King's Arms,' trembled, while the bells rang out, and the procession drew nearer — no man, and only one woman. Whereby hangs a tale, which cannot be wondered at, since there never was a story told since the creation but a woman figured in it somewhere. And a woman was the cause why An- drew Hardell lay in Dumfries jail, with his life hanging in the balance, and with the hope, and the pride, and the youth crushed out of him, whether the verdict were favourable or the reverse. All through the glorious summer weather the two friends had EXPLAXAT-^RY. travelled together. Their school-days were over; their college lite past; their old familiar associations were almost at an end ; but, still clinging to the love which had been so very pleasant to them, they agreed to spend their last long holiday together, and to see tho Scottish and the English lakes, before they settled down to work in different parts of the country. Anthony, already in priest's orders, had arranged to com- mence his, to him, most uncongenial labours in an East-end par- ish on All Saints' Day ; whilst Andrew, still only a deacon, was to remain in Somersetshire, assisting their old schoolmaster, th« Vicar of Langmore, in his parish. That either man entertained any very inordinate hopes of ultimate worldly aggrandizement it would be useless to affirm. The limit of Anthony's expectation was a small living in the gift of an old college friend of his father ; whilst Andrew, without much money, and altogether destitute of interest, looked forward to nothing better than a curacy, unless, indeed, the might of his own tongue, the force of his own will, should enable him to climb successfully the difficult ladder of church promotion. There was this difference, however, between the two men, that whereas Anthony disliked his profession, Andrew loved it — not, perhaps, for the love of God, but for the love of the talents wherewith God had endowed him. He had the gift of winning popularity, and for popularity his soul thirsted. He liked, as was natural, considering his birth, all those outward signs and tokens of respect which a clergyman desirous of being respected can so easily secure. He had an enormous capacity for work ; bodily or mentally he had never understood the meaning of the word weariness, and he longed for some field of labour where this superfluous energy might be turned to good account. As a horse confined to one stall longs for the freedom of com- mon and marsh, so this man, seeing his present sphere of labour nothing larger than an insignificant country parish, yearned for the wider arena from which Anthony revolted — for a densely populated and poor district, where he might seek out, and visit, and assist, and reform, and try his power of eloquence upon the poor, before soaring to those greater heights to which his merits justly entitled him to ascend. He was very fond of the sound of his own voice ; no music could have seemed sweeter to him than the words of one of his own discourses. He believed in himself — believed he could right wrongs, and convert infidels, and save souls, and create a taste for morality, religion, baths, and lectures. He was '"^ung, he 12 A life's assize. was enthusiastic, be was cheerful, his life was before him when, talking on these subjects, sometimes on the days gone by, often- est about the incidents of their journey, the two men early in July crossed the border. Their mode of travelling was t])at which is the pleasantest of all — on foot. Encumbered with no luggage save a knapsack each — sending forward two portmanteaus to the larger cities where they contemplated remaining for any length of time — they tramped all through the Southern and the West Highlands, visited the lalces, did the land of Burns, wandered among the Lothians, fished when the fancy took them, rested at quiet coun- try inns, and led as utterly easy, happy, idle lives, as the heart of man could desire to compass. "When they left England there was some vague talk of their proceeding as far north as Aberdeen ; but at Inverness, Anthony Hardell met with some friends who induced a change of plan, and the two young men turned their faces southward again with Mr and Mrs Challersou. CHAPTER III. ON THE niLL-SIDE. At this point Andrew Hardell's history, properly speaking, begins. He could not hitherto be said to have lived, for the simple reason that he bad not suffered. A man caimot fully appreciate health till he has been racked with pain ; a man cannot understand the terrible mystery of his existence until he has in his agony turned his face to the wall, and been alone with himself and God. Up to the time wlien Kenneth Challerson shouted a boisterous welcome to Anthony Hardell, greeting him with many expletives and many expressions of surprise, Andrew had never known a day's real sorrow, and no prevision of evil oppressed him Avheu he looked in Laura Challerson's face, and acknowledged that she was very beautiful — beautiful exceedingly. There are little incidents in the lives of our fellows with which even the nearest ami dearest are oftentimes unacquainted ; and accordingly Andrew did not know that his friend had been in love with this woman before her marriage, and after, and that ON THE niLL-SIDE. 13 ne was in love with her still — in a feeble, purposeless, sinless, senseless kind of fashion, when her husband introduced them into her sitting-room, remarking, — 'Laura, my love, here is your old friend, Mr Hardell. Met him quite by chance ; is it not wonderful ? ' AVhereupon Laura raised her dark eyes, and with the prettiest innocence, and the sweetest smile, and the most infantile simplicity, declared it was wonderful — astonishing — delightful. ' And your friend, too ; another Mr Hardell. The other Mr Hardell, rather. I am so glad to see you,' she added, clasping Andrew's hand with her white, soft fingers ; ' I have heard so much of you — so much.' In reply, Andrew stated, and very truly, that he had heard of Mr and Mrs Challerson, and that he was delighted to have the pleasure, etcetera, etcetera. After which the quartette fell into the most utter and unrestrained companionship. Pedestrianism was abandoned, and other modes of locomotion resorted to. They travelled by the same routes, they stopped at the same hotels, they climbed the same mountains, they ate to- gether, walked together, rode together, talked together, and the days slipped by pleasantly enough, though not quite so pleasantly, Andrew considered, as had been the case before loud-talking, dogmatic Mr Challerson was added to the party. "With this gentleman Anthony Hardell decidedly agreed better than Andrew, the fact being that Mr Challerson was growing jealous of the latter, a fact Anthony confided to his friend as a capital joke. Into this joke Andrew, conscious of his own perfect rectitude and indifterence, entered with an unhappy disregard of conse- quences. At his friend's suggestion, he devoted himself to Mrs Challerson, studying her wishes, and humouring her whims, till at length Mr Challerson made his distaste for these attentions so evident, that the younger man Avas fain to leave the lady to i^nthony, and himself bear her husband company. Up to this time not a suspicion had entered Andrew's mind as to the hona fides of his Iriend's conduct •, but suddenly it dawned upon him that Anthony's persistence in a mere joke was remarkable ; that the joke was being carried too far ; that there Avas something about Mrs Challerson he did not exactly like ; that, all things considered, there was no actual necessity for them to travel in company. Acting upon which impression, he sug- gested to his friend the desirability of their returning to Eng- land alone ; alleging, as a principal reason, the indisputable fact 14 A life's assize. tliat living with tlie Cliallersons increased, instead of decreasing, their expenses. Somewhat to his suiprise Anthony at once agreed to tliis proposition, and after many leave-takings, and many expressions of their hope that they should all meet in London at some future period, they parted from the Challersons, and set out on their return to England. Before they were half-way to the border, however, Anthony declared that nothing should induce him to quit Scotland without seeing the Eedgauiitlet country. lie would visit the Solway kSands, and Caerlaveroek Castle, and Dundrennan Abbey, where Queen Mary slept. ' It would be a shame,' he said, ' for them to pass so near, and still leave unvisited places round which hung such a halo of romance.' Often and often in the after time Andrew Hardell recalled the hour, and the spot, and the season when and where his friend made this speech. It was an afternoon in the early part of August, and the sun was pouring his beams over the mountains and through the passes of the Southern Highlands. In the very midst of these Highlands there is a hill covered with the shortest, smoothest, thickest turf. It slopes more lovingly towards the south and west than its companions ; and over the green sward there are always playing golden shadows — golden caresses from the sun. Through the centuries that turf has remained intact ; God only knows — for man cannot remember — whether since the creation the sward has been disturbed by plough or spade. At the foot of the hill flows a tiny rivulet, which trickles over the white and black pebbles, and goes singing on its devious way. It is in the summer time but the merest brook, and yet the landscape could not spare that thread of water winding round and about amongst the hills — now disappearing behind a grassy mound — now reappearing to view as it crosses a bit of level, mossy, marshy ground, where the rushes and the large grey stones fret the rill, and impede its progress. From the spot where he lay, however, half-way up the side of that particular hill on which the sun looks so lovingly, Andrew Hardell could see the little stream flowing uninterruptedly. Beyond, stretched a wide, desolate valley — untilled, unin- habited, whilst further still, rose hills, and hills, one higher than another. To right and left — in front of the travellers and behind — )N THE HILL-SiBE. 15 were hills; there was no sign of human dwelling — no living thing seemed to exist in all that solitude save themselves and the sheep, browsing on the short, sweet grass. It was a scene of peace and quiet — of loveliness, and loneli- ness, and repose, not easily to be forgotten ; there was a beauty about the place such as sometimes rests on the face of a woman — making it hard to part with her — which caused the young men to tarry for one look more, and yet another ; and it was after they had lain for some time on the smooth close sward that Anthony broke the silence with — ' We shall not see anything like this for many a day again, I am afraid.' ' No,' was the reply ; while Andrew let his eyes wander wist- fidly over the landscape. ' Then wdiy should we be in any hurry to get back to Eng- land ? Wliy cannot we, as I said before, make our way leisurely to Dumfries, and live peacefully and virtuously there for another month ? We ought not to leave Scotland without a sight of the lledgauntlet country. I want to see the SoUvay Sands, and the place where Herries destroyed the nets. Burns is buried at Dumfries ; he wrote a poem at Lincluden, or about it. AVe might walk from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright, where there is a steamer to Liverpool. Challerson, who has a family vault, or some such hereditary property, in the next shire, told me we certainly ought to go to Dumfries.' ' But you refused to do so when Ave were coming north.' ' Yes — because I did not then know there was anything worth seeing in the neighbourhood.' ' You had read " Guy Mannering " and " Eedgauntlet ? " ' ' But we had not then been to the Lakes or to Edinburgh, or Stirling, or Inverness, Now we are leaving everything be- hind, instead of having everything before us, and have leisure TO get up an enthusiasm about minor places. There is an inn at Dumfries where Charles Edward stopped ; we shall behold the scene of the Eed Comyn tragedy ; we can explore Nithsdale, and even sail across, like Alan Fairfax, into Cumberland.' ' And the money needful for all this ? ' Andrew inquired. ' Pooh ! ' was the reply, ' it will not cost much ; living quietly ■we can do the thing as cheaply here as at home, and even sup- posing we could not, what then ? Forget prudence for once, old fellow, and let us enjoy ourselves while we may. It is hard to tell when we shall ever have such another chance again.' ' Why not ? Is it outside the bounds of probability that you land I should ever come north a breath before going out to liear the news, wliich lie ah-eady knew too well. It was quite deserted ; and as he stood, alone just within the doorway, his eye fell again upon the clock ; when it did so, he remembered the remark he had made on the previous night about its being too fast. Not a second did it take him to open the glass front, and twirl round the hands till they pointed to a quarter to nine, instead of a quarter past eight. He had his senses about him now, and he was not going to neglect any chance of escape, no matter how remote such chance might seem. Then, still unnoticed, he stepped out into the passage, and passing through the inner door, joined the group gathered round the cart. ' Eh, sir ! such a dreadful thing!' exclaiuied the landlady, when her eye rested upon him ; 'a gentleman found dead on the road-side this morn, just at sun-rising ! ' 'Killed by the lightning ? ' inquired Mr Hardell. ' Na ! na r answered the individual who had brought the news, and round whom the whole population of the village was rapidly collecting ; ' it was no' the will of God, but the wicked- ness of man laid him low ! Kobbed and slain — and, they do say, not a drap o' bluid to be seen ! ' ' Eobbed and slain ! ' repeated Andrew Hardell, in a tone which elicited something like a rebuke from the narrator. ' Jt may well try ye to conceive o' such a thing being done ; but it has been done ; for I met them that saw him, and they say his pockets were turned inside out, and that there was not a sign of a hurt about him.' ' It must have been the lightning, then,' repeated Andrew; ' it is nonsense to talk of a man being murdered in a quiet neigh- bourhood like this.' ' But the lightning wadna take his siller nor his watch ! ' said the landlord, sententiously. ' Somebody might have robbed him afterwards,' persisted Mr Hardell. ' Hoot ! wha would thieve frae a deid man but his murderer ?' retorted the news-bearer. ' They do say the very studs in his shirt were taken away,' added the landlady. ' Who was he ? ' asked Andrew Hardell. ' A Southerner, like yersel',' replied the man, evidently iui« plying that this circumstance was not at all to the advantage 40 A LIFERS ASSIZE. either of the individual murdered or of the person lie addressed- ' They tell me he has been staying at some place wi' frecus away beyond Dumfrice.' ' People '11 be feared to walk along the roads ! ' remarked an old woman, who had come hobbling down from the Abbey to hear the news ' There's no call for you to be feared, Nannie,' answered the messenger of ill-tidings ; ' no one '11 meddle with you, I'm think- ing!' which speech raised a laugh— for all the clothes ]>^annie stood up in would not have paid a thief for the trouble of stop- ])ing her, added to which her beauty was not so remarkable as that of Moore's heroine. Like the rest, Andrew Hardell laughed too. Often, in the after-time, he wondered what made liim do so ; and how, in that hour of mortal trouble and bitter anxiety, it Avas possible for any absurdity to tickle his fancy. Spite of himself, however, he laughed heartily ; and the fact was remembered, not to his dis- advantage, subsequently. A-^ery soon the clock struck nine, and, hearing it, the landlady bustled back into the house, exclaiming she had been standing out there idling for near an hour. This was the signal for the remainder of the group gradually to disperse ; and when the last of the stragglers had departed, and the driver of the cart, after partaking of a dram, whipped up his horse, and disappeared from view, Andrew Hardell paid his score, fee'd the handmaiden, bade ' Good-bye ' to his host and hostess, and, knapsack on back, started off, ostensibly to climb Criffel, and walk rovmd the shore to Kirkcudbright, but really to find a place where he might hide aw'ay for ever the testimony against him, which he was even then carrying from New Abbey. CHAPTEU VII. BY THE SOLWAT. Until a man have something to conceal, he can form no idea of the difficulty he will experience in hiding it. Had any one told Andrew Hardell, on the morning when he left Dumfries, that a person desirous of secreting a suit of clothes should, with all the lonely hills before him — with the BY THE SOLWAY. 41 woods ricli in fern and grass, and tangled bramble, at bis rigbt band and bis left- — witb tbe Nitb and tbe sea accessible — fail to get rid of bis burden easily, tbe young man would bave laugbed scornfully. ' Be at a loss witb all tbat wealtli of beatber, all tbat wilder- ness of gorse ? AV^by, if be only stuck tbe tbings doAvn i'ar enougb, tbey migbt stay tbere safely concealed till tbey rotted/ This is tbe sort of remark be would bave made twent}'-four bours previously, bad sucb a diflBculty been submitted to him ; but it was now twenty-four bours after, and tbe wide difference between migbt and would was already revealing itself to bis understanding. He bad stepped from tbe land of tbeory into tbe land of practice, and tbe patbs of tbat latter country are not usually easy. Theoretically, be could bave bidden away a whole wardrobe on tbe top of Criffel ; practically, be toiled over tbe mountain, and pursued bis road to AVbitehill and Colvend, carrying tbe evidence witb bim wbicli be most earnestly desired to destroy. It seemed to bis imagination as if tbere were no place on tbe eartb, or under tbe earth, wbere tbat coat, wanting a button, migbt be concealed. Tbe beatber would witber — tbe cattle would eat tbe grass — tbe rain would wasb tbe eartb away — tbe loose stones, if be piled tbem above, would be wanted for some purpose, and carted olY. If be descended into tbe plantations lying below bim, and hid bis burden amongst tbe underwood and brambles, tbe cbildrcu, searcbing for blaeberries, would be sure to find it ; if be cast the accursed tbing into tbe sea, tbe waves would wasb tbe bundle to sbore. Had tbe desolate mountain, and tbe silent bills, and tbe quiet valleys, been eartb's most populous places, be could not bave felt more eyes were upon bis actions than in tbat most wretcbed summers day's walk. How be passed tbe bours be never could accurately remem- ber. As a man in delirium gets througb tbe weary days witb scarcely a recollection as to bow tbey were spent, so be strode on, -nile after mile, whicb seemed to melt into air bebind bim. When tbe dew still lay beavy on tbe grass, be climbed up to tbe top of Criffel — when tbe noon-day sun stood bigb in beaven be passed by tbe little lake, wbicb appears less a lake than a point wbere tbe stream stands still, and wislied bis bundle were lying at tbe bottom of its waters. Wbeu tbe afternoon was hottest be toiled along tbe bill-side beyond Colvend ; toiled amongst tbe gorse and tbe beatber; with the sun streaming (2 A life's Assi/.ii:. down iipou him ; with the blue expanse of glittering sea dazzling his eyes; with the Highland cattle lifting their heads, and look- ing with astonishment at the passer-by ; with the sheep standing till he might almost have laid his hand on them before they h'isurolv trotted oft'; with the rabbits running in and out of tlie low, loose clay fence which separates the grass and the heather, and the gorse from the clift's going sheer dowli to the shore ; with the oyster birds hovering over the surface of the water, or looking on the sands, when viewed i'rom above, like so many black specks ; with the jer-falcon pluming itself in the sunshine, or dying screaming from point to point ; with the rocks covered witii lichens and mosses — green, and red, and grey, and purple, showing their marvellous colours in the liglit, which, streaming across tlie sea, seemed brighter than the common light of day ; with the Cumberland hills showing blue beyond the exfiause of culm unruftled water; w^th the hill-side a blaze of yellow and ])urple ; with the blue-bells nodding beside his path ; with every- thing whispering of peace, and rest, and beauty, he strode on, able really to see nothing save a lonely road, overshadowed by Irt'cs, where a man lay with his face upturned to the darkness — gi'uspiug ill his cold, still" lingers a button and a bit of cloth. Like a funeral procession in a bright street, this darkness seemed constantly passing between him and the light. It lay on the toj) of CrifTel, and he beheld it on the sunlit sea. AVith his outward eyes he might see cliffs and sands, miles of cliff — miles of sands— with the water stealing over them ; purple- clad hills and rocks clothed with every variety of moss ; but with his mental vision he could discern nothing save Kenneth Challer- son ; and when he thought otherwise than in a confused sort of delirium, it was only to imagine where it was now— where // was Ivmg— how it looked in the daylight — whether there were a sheet drawn decently over the rigid face, and whether the eyes were still staring as he had last beheld them. What he learned that day I might never hope to tell. It seemed to him afterwards that he went to school, and acquired all he knew of his fellows, of their temi)tations, their remorse, their terror, while he walked amongst the heather, alone with nature and his own misery. Stiunbling amongst the grass— sick, weary, dizzy— he conned line npon line of lessons destined never to be forgotten. He went down into the wells of his heart, and drank waters of bit- terness therefrom — he experienced the terrors of a troubled mind —he went through agonies of regret— through depths of despair — he beat against the door which had so suddenly closed between £T THE SOLWAY. 4t5 him and the light, until, for very weariness, ne was fain to be- lieve in the darkness that had fallen on his noontide — in his anguish he cried to God, asking, was it just, was it well ? and throughout all, in a dull, persistent way, he looked for some place where he might hide the evidence against him, where he might rid himself of his burden, and walk on, dreading no pursui>- defiant of detection. The day drew on. He had not tasted food, and he had walked miles upon miles since leaving New Abbey ; he was growing faint, and sick, and weary, when the path led suddenly down to- wards the shore, down from the hill-side to the lower ground which lies beyond the cliffs I have mentioned, and brought him into a tiny cove that appeared to his imagination like a corner cut out of fairyland. For the moment he forgot his trouble, forgot himself ni aston- ishment at the place where he stood — a bay hemmed in by high rocks, between which only a glimpse of the sea could be obtained, carpeted by the finest, whitest sand, and thousands upon thousands of liliputiau shells. Beside the path by which he had descended grew brambles and ivy, broom and ferns innumerable, wild flowers decked the little knolls of earth that were piled, one above another, on the land side of the bay. Great rocks, almost like giant stones placed on end, only larger and loftier than any giant stones we know, formed ram- parts about the cove ; and when Andrew Hardell passed round and between these rocks he found more tiny bays, each guarded, each sheltered, each with its own special look-out seaward, each with its own peculiar charm. The man who can say he ever beheld anything similar to this cluster of fairy coves must have had most fortunate experi- ences. No description could give an idea of their singular beauty, no artist reproduce their particular charm, no writer ever hope to convey an adequate impression of their marvellous loveliness. Creek within creek; bay without bay; rocks where one could play at hide-and-seek with the sea ; places where no man might find ; spots where the traveller seems to have reached the last confines of earth, and to be standing on the very shore of eternity. For the first time that day Andrew Hardell felt himself alone — hidden. He was sheltered from the glare of the sun ; shaded by the rocks, he could look forth as from a bower with undazzled eyes upon the calm sea, rippling lazily, leisurely in on the sand. 44 A life's assize. At the outlet of one of tlie creeks he found a natural basin t-hat, covered by the tide twice a-day, remained full of water when it ebbed. Into this, the sides of which were covered with small shell- fish and sea-weed, Andrew Hardell plunged his head. Again and again he dipped it into the water : then he shook tlie moisture from his hair, and with a sense of refreshment looking up, beheld what he had travelled so far to find — a hid- ing-place. Far above high-water mark appeared in all directions fissures in the rocks ; cracks, narrow and deep, such as the sun makes sometimes in the earth. Here no cattle could come to browse, no children's hands be thrust in to discover, no man could get his arm down to search for anything which might lie concealed. All the day long he had been scanning the earth and the sea, the purple heather and the blue expanse of water, searching for a hiding-place in vain, and now, all at once, by the merest accident, as it seemed, he had come upon that which he sought. It was no easy matter to climb the rocks, but he managed ;it length to do so, and search out the most likely fissure in which to rid himself of his burden. He selected one which lay on the westerly side of a rock, standing more out towards the sea than most of its companions ; a rock backed against two others, encrusted up to a certain point with limpets and mussels, and clothed all over Avith grey lichen and long green sea-weed. It took him a weary time to coax bit after bit of the coat down through the crevice ; and when at length it was completely hidden from view, he had still to find another fissure in which to conceal the remainder of the suit. Patiently he cut the cloth to pieces ; with his knife he slit the seams, and separated the whole into portions convenient to thrust down the cracks. When the last morsel disappeared, with a rod, which he tore from amongst the brambles, he measured the depth the pieces had dropped, and having thrust them down as far as he could, he collected small stones in his knapsack, and half filled up the crevices with them. Stones, and shell, and sand, he gathered and carried up with a great terror and a great joy contending together in his breast. In the after years, whenever by the sea-shore he beheld children digging in the sand, and picking np pebbles and shells, his thoughts flaw back to an evening by the Solway, when he, too, scooped np the sand in handfuls, and sought for shells ar-l pebbles, not for amusement, but to save his life. BY THE SOLWAY. 45 A stretch of sea-sliore with the sun's i-ays streaming from the west over it, always brought in the days which were then all to be passed througli, the memory of fairy bays shut in by rocks, where the evidence lay buried that would have sufficed to hang him. AV'hen he had finished he left the creek, and wandering in and out between the rocks came to a point from whence he could behold the low coast lying beyond. The smooth sand was left behind, and the shore became rough and uneven, covered with stones, while into the sea ran out sunken rocks, over which the advancing waves broke sullenly, and with a monotonous plash. Looking over the water there came upon the man an intense desire to plunge into it. Hid of the burden he had carried all day, with a sense of relief upon him, with the door of escape standing at length wide open, he felt he might bathe safely; so retracing his steps to the nearest of the enclosed bays he had just quitted, he threw oti" his clothes and swam out, meeting the advancing tide. It was a lovely evening ; already the sun was sinking towards the horizon, and over the Solway Andrew Hardell could see the bold Cumberland coast standing clear and distinct against tlie western sky, reflecting back his beams. Looking landward he could trace the way he had come ; he could see the grassy hills, the jagged lieadlands, the solitary rocks : and as he beheld the still beauty of the scene, as he felt the lash of the waves coming up towards the shore, the strength — the hope he had lost seemed to come back, and he bethought b'ni — God knows why, for our memories are linked together after a fashion, to which man can give no clue— of the leper who dipped seven times in Jordan, and came forth clean as a little child. That, Andrew Hardell knew, might never be his fate ; and yet already he commenced to feel that the happiness had not quite departed out of his life ; that the face of nature might once again smile for him as it smiled for others ; that it was quite possible suspicion might never knock at his door ; that he might yet return to England and quietly resume the old roads of exist- ence, no one but himself knowing of the secret hidden in his heart — of the evidence on which he had so recently piled sand and stones and shells. Mightily refreshed and invigorated he returned to the shore and dressed himself; then, just as the sun was setting, he left the -beach, and regaining the grass, struck into a path winding by the shore, that seemed to lead off in the direction he desired to go. 46 A life's assize. He had uot proceeded fifty yards, however, Avben, from beside a clump of gorse and heather, up rose a shepherd, who bade ' Good even ' to the stranger. From him Andrew inquired his way, and the chances there were of his being able to reach any inn before nightfall. ' You'll not hev' travelled far,' suggested the man. ' Indeed I have, though,' answered Mr Hardell. ' So far that I am liungry and tired, and should be glad both of food and shelter.' ' There's a bit of a hoose jest beyond, where ye micht git baith if yo can put up with what they ha'e to gi'e. Ye're a wonderfu' swimmer,' he added, unable longer to keep oft' this subject. 'I hev' been watcliin' ye wi' Jeys here,' indicating his dog, who pricked up her ears and lolled out her tongue in ac- knowledgment of the attention — ' swimmin', swimmin', till 1 thocht ye must be makin' for England.' 'I was tired and hot,' said Andrew, laughing at the compli- ment — ' and glad to have a dip.' 'Ay, it was verra warm just about the time ye cam' across the hill. I saw ye climbin' up from Colvend, and walkin' as fast as if the snaw was on the groun' ; but 1 lost ye when ye went doun among the rocks, and I was jest goin' to see if ony- thiug had happened ye, as ye stayed sae lang doun there, when ye cam' oot, and then went back. 1 v.atclied to see wu'd ye gang up the hill-side again, but Jess spied ye oot in the water, and we hev' been sittin' ever syne, looking at ye.' Very sharply Andrew Hardell looked in his turn at the speaker, to ascertain whether there were any second meaning in his words — but the old man's face was innocent of suspicion. ' I could have stayed amongst the rocks for hours longer,' he remarked, after a short pause — ' those little bays are the most beautiful things I ever saw. I could not bear to leave them, they are like no other place on earth. I forgot all about time, and" how far 1 had to go.' ' Ay, they are thocht verra fine,' answered the man in a tone which implied that the bays were not exactly in his estimation prophets in their own country. ' Folks come doun to see them, and 1 have heerd mony a one praise them. I like the hill-side wi' the sheep and the lammies on it best mysel', but I'm no judge o' sich things.' ' Where did ye say the house was where I might have a chance of staying for the night ? ' asked INIr Hardell. ' Jest round the next point, straicht before ye ' — and with a friendly ' Good even ' the pair parted. BY THE SOIAVAY. 47 ' A weel-sjjoken, decent lad,' reflected tlie shepherd — to which opinion he gave utterance, when at a later period of this story the Advocate Depute pressed him to say what he had thouglit of the stranger, and whether liis manner struck liim as fluri'ied or excited. AVearily, with the old depression coming over him once again, Andrew Hardell pursued his way. For a few minutes lie had shaken olf his dread, but now the horror returned. Into the chamber, swc|)t and garnished, crept the devil the man had cast out, and following in his wake canie seven other devils, fiercer, crueller than himself — devils of fear which represented the hiding-place as unsafe ; the rock as public, and exposed to view ; the shepherd a spy ; the evidence undestroyed and in- destructible. All in vain he gathered up his strength and defied his foes — they beat him down, for he was faint and weary; weary, not merely with a spent excitement, but with absolute physical exertion ; faint, because he had eaten nothing, and he was sick and cowardly for very want of food. Gladly enough, feaiing his species and dreading to meet with and talk to them, he would have passed the cottage and walked forward, but his sense told him he ought not to let his strength sink — that in mental and bodily health alone lay his chance of safety. Illness, delirium, he knew would lead to suspicion and de- tection, and he was sane enough now to understand he had been mad while crossing Criffel, and stumbling amongst the heather and over the stones. With the cool night-air fanning his temples, he recalled with horror his sensations as he crossed the mountains, and carried his burden under the noon-tide sun. His mind was clear at length, and he meant to keep it so — he said this to himself as he stopped by the open door of the cottage, and stating that he was a traveller, asked if they could give him any refreshment. Jt was not much the poor larder contained, but all it boasted was set before him ; oaten cake, and butter, and milk ; off these viands Andrew Hardell contrived to sup heartily, and when he had finished and pressed in vain any pecuniary acknowledgment on his hosts, he rose to depart, declining the ofier of shelter which was made to him with a heartiness that touched the man whose soul was so exceeding heavy, most sensibly, and made his way through the night seem brighter to him for a little space. He felt he was in no state of mind to endure remaining in that close atmosphere in that confined house for any length >of 48 A life's assize. time ; better a thousand times the hill-side or the sea-shore, with the stars shining above him, and the wind coming and going as it listed, than the shelter so cordially oftered — so gratefully declined. ' I would rather push on now than through the heat,' he remarked — and so, after a hearty ' Good-night,' and earnest Wush you weel,' he started otF again, and walked a couple of miles farther, when, fairly overcome with fatigue, he flung him- self on the turf, and fell fast asleep. AVith the earliest streak of day he started up, frightened, and marvelling at the place in which he found himself; he looked out over the sea, he gazed at the lonely landscape, he saw the Cumberland mountains dimly in the distance, the mists of morn- ing hanging over their summits. Ho remembered how, over-night, he had beheld lights on the coast ; how he had stood to watch the lires of the iron-works flaring up against the sky ; how, the previous day, lie had rid himself of his burden; and he looked back on the way he had come, to see the place where relief arrived. There, in the soft grey light, he saw the dark rocks standing out, as it seemed, between the sea and the sky ; and, thanking God, he lay down again and slept till the suu was streaming over the water and the land ; over the heather, and the gorse, and the turf — over the wide §olway, and the house where Kenneth Cliallerson's body lay awaiting burial. All the day Andrew JIardell walked on, thinking over his position — perfecting his plans. ]f everything went well, he would sail from Kirkcudbright for England on the following AVednesday ; if anything went ill, he would know simply nothing. It would lie he knew with the jirosecutors to prove him guilty. It was not his part to prove himself innocent. He decided tliat, now the coat w^as safely secreted, he could not be proved guilty ; no one could convict him but himself, and he could only do so by opening his mouth. Few criminals, he proceeded to consider, understood the ex- ceeding virtue of reticence: 'The power of passive resistance,' he reflected, ' is very imperfectly comprehended ; people have no idea of the value of inaction, of the difliculty of overcoming it. A bridge does nothing, a sea-wall does nothing, a tree does no- thing, and yet, behold, spite of the conveyances rolling across, of the waves dashing over it, of the wind blowing about it, the bridge, and the wall, and the tree remain passively resisting tiie active hostility brought to bear against them.' Quite coolly now he argued out the^ros and cons of his posi- BY THE SOLWAY. 49 tion. He was clever, as has previously been said, and his mmu was of that order which can stand calm in the presence of a great danger, and calculate the chances of escape even when the gallows, with all the ghastly accessories of executioner and rope, gaping crowd, and pitying priest, are looming in the distance. Under the pressure of circumstances, borne away by a tor- rent of accidents, he felt as a good rider feels when his horse, having got the better of him, bolts across a dangerous country. ' If once I lose my head I shall lose my life,' many a brave man has mentally ejaculated in such an extremity ; and the very knowledge of the extent of his peril has enabled him to keep his head and pull through. ' If once suspicion fall upon me — and I fail to be true to myself, I had better never have been born,' thought Andrew Hardel], as he stepped over the wild flowers, and picked his Avay across the gurgling brooks. The impression was strong upon him that suspicion would fall, that he should require all his coolness, all his courage, before reaching the blessed land of safety ; but life was very dear to him, and he argued the matter backward and forward till he thought he knew by heart everything which could by possibility be urged against him — everything wherewith a case could be got up and supported. There was now no room in his heart for sentimental regret— for weak remorse — for unavailing sorrow. The man was dead, and he had brought his death on himself. It might be horrible to think of his passion — his oaths — his violence — of the face dis- torted with rage one moment, and rigid in death the next ; of the tongue uttering blasphemous denunciations the very second be- fore it was hushed and sileuced for ever ; but at Andrew Hardell's age it is not easy for one of his temperament to disbelieve in the mercy and long-suffering of God, and very contentedly he left Kenneth Challerson's soul in the hand of his Maker. Had he been stricken down with a knot of bystanders looking on, Andrew Hardell would have felt his death a comparatively sliglit misfortune ; but as Anthony stood, the way in which death affected his own prospects altered the aspect of affairs materially — it took the sun out of the heaven, and the glory from off' the earth ; it destroyed the happiness of the present, and it over- shadowed the future with a dread not to be expressed in words. But for that ghostly presence — but for that haunting fear, how he would have enjoyed his visit to Kirkcudbright ! how the pretty country town, with its few streets, where the grass springs between the stones ; with its ouaint old buildings, its fiiie ivy- 60 A life's assize. covered ruin, its broad river, its intense retirement, its utter originality, its ditierence from all other towns and villages — would liave delighted him ! how dear the Dee must have grown to him ! how familiar the Tor Hill ! what pleasant memories he could have garnered and stowed away ! But as it was — so it was. He could not look at the jail without a shudder ; he viewed the river but as a highway by which he might depait from out the country ; he grew to fearing that eyes, keen, sharp, and shrewd, were watching his movements ; when he was at the ' Selkirk Arms,' lie dreaded each moment to see the door open, and his enemy appear ; when he was out he imagined he was followed, that there were inquiries being made for him at his inn. But Wednesday came, and still no sign had been made that he was wanted. His portmanteau was packed ; his passage taken ; when the tide served, the vessel, lying there under the shadow of the willow trees, within sight of the old castle, was to bear him and his fortunes to Liverpool. He was sitting in that comfortable apartment which commands a view, not of the street, but of the garden and yard in the rear of the ' Selkirk Arms,' waiting for his dinner, the last he hoped he should ever eat on Scottish ground, to be served, when the head-constable from Dumfries opened the door, and quietly walking across the roam, informed Andrew Har- dell that he was his prisoner. He had expected it all along, but it came upon him with a shock nevertheless. For a minute he could not steady his voice ; but then he •'aid there must be some mistake — that the officer must have con- used him with some other person. ' I have connnitted no crime that I am aware of,' went on Andrew Hardell ; 'you must have made some great mistake in ihe matter.' Hearing whicli remark, uttered apparently in the most perfect good faith, the officer stated that he arrested him for the murder of IMr ivenneth Challerson. 'Of Kenneth Cliallerson ? ' repeated Andrew Hardell ; and he went away down the street, followed by the tears of the women and the pity of the men, who had grown even in a few days to like him, and who thought it ' an uncommon hard thing' to see any one so young in so terrible a strait. 61 CHAPTER VI ir. now THE i:ews travelled south. A TERY few days after that on wliich Andrew llardell was escorted from tlie 'Selkirk Arms,' to seek an interview with Mr Holmes Graeme, Sheriti' Substitute, Madge Foi'ster, in the light of the summer's morning, came tripping downstairs at Langmore. Permit me, with the morning glory streaming upon the fresh young face, to introduce her to your acquaintance. Allow me to say — ' Here, my dear reader, is not indeed the heroine of my story, but the woman I like best in its pages, though you will see but little of her or of any other woman. A girl and a woman of a thousand; a maiden endowed, as you may see, with no remark- able beauty, but possessed, nevertheless, of qualities which migh^ stand any man with whom she elected to cast her lot, in good stead when the evil hours came, that will come in the middle or evening of the most prosperous day; like the rain and the wind which pour down at some time or other on all the earthly palaces our hands so fondly build ixpon the sands of time. Not beautiful, and yet fair, and sweet, and fresh, and young ; with no chiselled features, no wealth of either raven or auburn hair ; no flashing or melting eyes ; no coquettish artifices, no prudish aftectations ; only a good, loving, trusting, healthy Eng- lish country girl ; one of a race which, spite the unbelief of Saturday Reviewers, still happily exists to salt the earth, and savour it. Scarcely of the middle height, with her slight figure well- rounded and well-proportioned ; with fine brown hair, smooth and waveless, braided on her forehead, and then swept back into a thick knot behind; with a pure pink and white complexion, a little delicate it might be, but all the more retiued for that; with kindly brown eyes, and a frank, j)leasant mouth, — there she is for you, as well as I can paint her, floating in a pretty light muslin dress down the old-fashioned staircase, with the morning sunlight streaming upon her. If you have ever known a girl whose first thought was of others ; who, let her be ever so tired, was always ready to start off and procure whatever a parent, or sister, or brother desired ; whu had no need to crucify self, simply because self for her was a creature without existence ; whose feet were swift to bear her on errands of kindness and charity ; whose hands were soft, and 52 A life's assize. cool, and tender in illness ; whose voice seemed to bring cheer- fulness and hope into the house; who was like a sunbeam, a bright thing in a dark place ; who was loved by high and low, by ricli and ])oor ; who could not bear to hear gossip ; to whom the very tone of slander was a pain ; who was always ready to stand np for the absent ; to whom the children came confidingly, and on whose head the aged laid their hands in blessing — then you have known Madge Forster, who passed out into the garden behind the Vicarage, and gathered flowers to place on the break- fast-table, singing to herself as she flitted about. She had grown up amongst the trees and the flowers, and yet the ])laee never palled upon her. She never wearied of the trim, old-fashioned garden ; of the parterres edged with boxwood ; of the straight grass-paths; of the little 'wilderness' at the end ; of the brook which babbled softly between the elms ; of the nar- row rustic bridge leading away into the croft beyond ; where Dapple, and Cowslip, and Daisy, the clerical cows, and the clerical pony lived at such amity together, as befitted the quadrupeds of a well-ordered establishment. Sufficient for her was the small domain with its sheltering trees ; its old-fashioned flowers ; its common fruit and veget- ables. The moss-rose tree blooming in the corner was to her as the grandest hothouse exotic. Sweet the cabbage-rose ; lovely the blue gentianella ; brilliant the anemones and ranunculus. What could heart desire more than the jessamine blossoms, shining like stars amongst the dark green leaves ; than the westeria covering the windows ; than the trumpet honeysuckle, thrusting its sweet presence into her bedroom ; than the mignionette, scenting the breakfast-parlour; and the tea-rose, climbing am- bitiously beside the jessamine and magnolia ? Langmore Vicarage was a long, low house, covered front and bade with greenery. Generations of men had lived in it, and each man had added, not destroyed — so that now, whether the habitation were of wood, or stone, or brick, a stranger looking at it would have been puzzled to decide. IMany a tourist, wandering across the village-green, stopped to admire tlie quaint old house over which the ivy grew thick and strong, and green up to the very eaves, round the frames of tiie latticed windows. There was no carriage-way up to the house — never a Vicar of Langmore had been wealthy enough to own phaeton or brougham, or aught save, when his. legs began to fail him, a steady-going, sedate, stiff"-built cob — who partook of oats as his owner did of port-wine, at long and uncertain intervals HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED SOUTH. 53 — but who, nevertheless, munched his hay as tlie Vicar drank home-brewed ale, contentedly, and throve upon it too. A path winding around a grass-plot led up to the front, which, like the rest of the buildiug, was covered with ivy. Flowers in pots and boxes were placed on the sills of the windows, on the flat roof of the porch — flowers that seemed bedded amongst the greenery, and that gave forth a delicious perfume. Trees overshadowed the Vicarage ; in the stillness of the summer morning could be heard the cooing of the pigeon? ; the prating of the hens. In the distance, farther away from the par- sonage than is usually the case in country villages, stood Lang- more Church, the graveyard surrounding it sparsely covered with monuments or head-stones 5 the green turf lappingup securely enough the quiet sleepers, who needed no memorial to record tliey lived — they died — they toiled — they rest. From tiie village-green the Vicarage-grounds (if sucb a term be not too ambitious) were divided only by a rustic fence. The living was a poor one, and the man who looked after the souls of his scattered flock was poor likewise — poor, and a gentleman; a gentle- man and a scholar ; for both of which last reasons perhaps he bore his poverty meekly ; was tliankfulfor the home, and the peace, and the quiet he had known, and never repined because he saw worse men winning higher prizes in the world's game of chances ; be- cause the bishop remembered his nest neighbour at Grreat Lang- more, and passed him by. On the contrary, he loved Laugmore, and would have grieved to leave it. There were graves in the churchyard which were very dear to him ; and he could not pass them without thinking of a woman very like Madge who had made the Vicarage a para- dise to him ; of baby fingers that had never grown strong enough to clutch at any of the fruits men esteem valuable ; of little ones sleeping safe from all earth's turmoil ; of stalwart sons who might have been ; of comely daughters who were never to grow up. He had married late in life, and the happiness which comes late is always highly prized. There had been a fight sometimes in that poor Vicarage to meet the inadequacy of ways and means, to do all things decently and in order as befits a clergyman's establishment ; but the brave hearts had won, and without other help than one human being may take from another and never feel ashamed, the husband and wife had battled through their troubles and won. But there came other troubles that it is not in the power of man to alleviate ; grievous sickness swept through the parish ; and 54 A life's assize. when the scourge was stayed, three children were missing from the Vicarage, and there were three fresh green mounds in Lang- more churchyard. After that Mrs Forster's heakh declined, and though she lingered for a considerable period, still there at length arrived a day when she too dropped out of her accustomed place ; when the arm-chair and pillows were no longer put into requi- sition ; when there was no need to search the poultry-yard for new-laid eggs; to set aside the sunniest peach; to stint the household, that the poor invalid might have delicacies; to move about oil tiptoe ; to hush the voice, and check the sound of laughter. Madge was just old enough, when her mother died, to under- stand that from henceforth she must be ' uuimma to papa.' AVith a touching submissiveness she dried up her tears, when told the sight of her grief would make her father w^orse ; with an earnest purpose she made up her mind to be good ; with an almost womaidy instinct she assumed her mother's place, flitting about in her little black frock, arranging tliis and considering that ; trying to remember everything papa liked best ; everything mamma liad told her not to forget. fSweet was the forethought that suggested to the child in the hours ere the last terrible liour came, all she was to do, all she was to think of; that, considering how in mere trifles the lonely man might miss her, who had grown to be as his very right hand, tried before s!ie departed to strengthen her child's weakness, so as to attend to her father's wants. There are things which it seems frivolous to mention, and yet that may mar, though they cannot make, the happiness of a man's life; things the absence or neglect of which constantly recall the presence and the thoughtfulness of the departed ; and it was a portion of Mrs Forster's existence to understand all this, and to teach Madge to be of use when she herself was gone. ]?uttoiiless shii ts — wretched dinners — untidy rooms — unaired lincji — slippers and dressing-gown not to his hand — his ink bot- tle dry — his books undusted, — all these trifles would by their absence have recalled his Margaret and her attention a hundred times a day; but as it was, Madge stepped forward to fill the breach — made his tea, brought in his letters, armed herself with an immense darning needie and mended his socks, asked tlieir tervant to do this and that, till the woman ' Lord blessed ' her- self, and declared INIiss Madge was wiser than many a missus, — laid his sermon paper out all ready for him, and when he was going on a visit put up his dress suit with a solemnity and de- corum befitting an experienced matron. HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED SOUlll. 55 Happily for ]Madge tlie mother died before her child could miss more than her love ; before companionship had begun — happily — for such partings take so much of the sunshine out of a young life, that it oftentimes requires the best portion of aii existence to coax it back again. As it was, Madge did not quite understand all she had lost , and after awhile her laugh sounded as gay, her smile was as bright, as though there Avere no such thing as a head-stone sacred to memory of Margaret Forster in Langmore churchyard, as though there had been for her no such thing as death, and sor- row and sickness, in the world. And this is the same child, grown to girlhood, whom we see in the morning sunlight gathering flowers. When she iiad com- pleted her bouquet she re-entered the house, and passing into the breakfast-room, arranged the buds in a saucer of water, made tea, drew up her father's chair to his favourite corner of the table, placed the paper-cutter ready to his hand, pulled down the blinds to the exact point which he approved, and then went and stood by the window, waiting for the postman's arrival, an event which was usually heralded by the blowing of a horn. At last he came in sight. Madge saw Martha, their faithful but not good-tempered or handsome servant, receive the letters from him. What could Martha be doing after the postman's departure? Madge wondered. AVhy did she not bring in the letters ? Her mode of proceeding was perfectly familiar to Miss Forster, but familiarity did not in this case produce a due philosophy with regard to results. Martha would boil the eggs, and make the toast ; she would burn the toast and she would scrape it ; she would forget the salt, and she would return for that necessary article ; she would put the letters on one corner of the tray, and when everything else was ready she would enter the room with them. There had been a time when Madge was wont to rish out and secure the letters, but that happened in the days before the young lady owned a lover ; and Martha, who as a general principle disapproved of followers and ' sweethearting,' and who disap- proved of Miss Forster's engagement and sweetheart in parti- cular, took a malicious pleasure both in retarding the delivery of Mr Hardell's epistles, and observing how sedulously Madge refrained from seeming to expect any. ' Ha— ah ! ' exclaimed Martha to herself, with a prolonged emphasis ou the word to which no spelling can do justice ; 'not 56 A life's assize. fit to clean her shoes ; if I had had a voice in it he might have gone farther.' ~From which speech, however, I must beg it not to be inferred that the serving-woman underrated Andrew HardelL No ; on tlie contrary, she only fairly rated Madge, and knew that the man was not worthy to be husband to so sweet a creature — at least, not then. In the days when he grew more able to appreciate a nature such as hers, he would have seemed, according to Martha's worldly wisdom, a more undesirable husband still ! But in spite of intelligible hints and muttered innuendoes, the affair had long been settled. Whenever Andrew was ordained priest, he and INIadge were to be married. Mr Forster, anxious perhaps that his daugliter should not be left to battle with the world if he were called away, made no objection to receiving Andrew as a son-in-law. In point of family, indeed, the young man was deficient ; but in most other respects he was just the husband to whom Mr Forster would have chosen to confide his child's happiness. He was clever; he was well-tempered; he had a high feeling con- cerning the sacredness of his calling, and an intense love for his profession ; he would push his way in the world, no doubt ; and husbands were not plentiful at Langmore. On the whole, dowerless, and living in comparative solitude, it was strange that Madge should so young be engaged at all. Many other parents had to see their children go out as govern- esses and companions, and eat the bitter bread of dependence ; but no such dreary future as this stretched out before INladge. Seeing her flitting among her flowers, no sigh concerning her uncertain prospects escaped Mr Forstcr. She would bo happy with her husband, as her father and mother had been happy together, in some quiet curacy or modest parsonage. They had learned, INIadge and lier father, the true secret of all earthly felicity — that of being content where God had cast their lots ; and there was a sweet peace about Langmore Vicarage, a sunny cheerfulness, which might be sought for in grander dwellings, and sought in vain. But had Mr Forster been more observant, or Madge more experienced, they might both have known the love wherewitli Andrew Ilardell loved the girl was not tliat which shall make a man contented in lowly places — which shall be to him as a shield and a buckler — a tower and a fortified place against the world's troubles, the Avorld's opinions, the world's sins, and the world's temptations. It was a love which, as I have said before, know HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED SOUTH. 57 no better, which mistook its own character, which was not lovo 80 much as affection — which was less passionate attachment than unfortunate propinquity — which might burn to the Last liour of life with a taper light, indeed, but which could never burst into flame — never illumine even for an hour the whole of a man's existence — never satisfy that hunger and thirst for full and per- fect sympathy, which no human being may pass from the cradle to the grave without experiencing at some time or other of the lonesome journey. But Madge did not know, and Mr Porster did not see ; and accordingly when Martha, having deposited the letters, together with toast, and ham, and eggs, and butter on the table, left the room, carrying her tray with her like a breastplate, the young girl, knowing by the woman's manner that there was a letter directed in the well-known hand, crossed eagerly over to the table, and singled out the epistle meant for her from the rest of the budget. It was not a long letter, and the words it contained might have failed to satisfy a more exacting heart ; but Madge read and re-read the lines with a blushing, pleased delight. ' Andrew will be home in a few days, papa,' she said, as her father entered. ' He writes from Kirkcudbright ' (which Madge pronounced, in her pretty English accent, as it is spelt), ' and says he is only waiting for the sailing of the steamer to cross to Liverpool.' ' That is all right, Madge,' answered her father, stroking her hair fondly : 'I shall be glad for him to come back now. There are many things being neglected, which he will attend to. He has had a long holiday, and will have plent^y to tell us.' And then Mr Forster proceeded slowly and deliberately to open his letters, and read them over one by one. There was no skimming of communications in that leisurely life ; no breaking of seal after seal with feverish haste, and rush- ing through an epistle at express speed. One thing at a time, one letter at a time, was the Vicar's rule and practice, and accordingly, spectacles on nose, he read con- scientiously on, while his tea cooled, and the toast Madge buttered for him remained untasted. ' Dear papa ! ' she remonstrated, 'your breakfast will be cold as ice.' But the old man had got hold of an interesting letter on some theological question, and paid no attention to her re- mark. ]N^ow it was a rule of Madge's life, intelligible enough to care- ful housekeepers, that she never poured herself out a second cup 53 A life's assize. of tea till her father had finished his first ; and to while away tlie tedium of this interlude, on the present occasion, slie stretched out her hand and took up 'The Times,' which a friend forwarded to the Vicarage on the evening of publication. Still the Vicar read on ; still his breakfast remained un- touched ; still his other letters lay unopened; until suddenly, with an exclamation, Madge rose up and came to him. 'Oh! papa, papa! what does that mean?' she asked pit- eously, and she held out the paper towards him. In a moment the letter was dropped, and Mr I'orster looked at the passage indicated. ' Murder of Mr Challerson,' it was headed. ' By letters from Dumfries we hear that a young English clergyman, the Eev. Andrew Hardell, has been arrested on suspicion of being con- cerned in the above diabolical outrage. He was apprehended on Wednesday, and lodged the same evening in Kirkcudbright jail. He will be tried at the assizes, which are to be held at Dumfries on the 22nd prox.' ' Andrew Hardell ? ' repeated the old Vicar, ' Andrew Hardell F ' ' Oh! papa, can't we go to bim, — can't we start at once — of course, it is all untrue ; but he will be so miserable, so lonely — he is there all among strangers, and ' ' My darling, it is a misprint,' said Mr Forster, striving to stop her sobs, speaking the hrst words which came into his mind, while he groped about in the dark, trying vainly to find some clue to the mystery, 'I am afraid it must mean Anthony. He, you know, was a friend of the Challersons, — he was on very inti- mate terms with ' But there the Vicar suddenly stopped. Some hint concern- ing Laura Challerson and his former pupil had reached his ears ; but even in that moment of supreme trouble he was not going to enlarge on such matters to his child. ' We will write and ascertain what it means,' he went on feebly. ' Cannot we go ? ' she persisted. ' My love, think of the expense ; and if we were there, what could we do ? Depend upon it this means Anthony, who though, please God, innocent as I am, has yet got unhappily mixed up in the affair; and Andrew will see that everything is done for him that is necessary and expedient. My darling, you muse not, — for my sake do try and be calm ! It sounds very dreadful ; but the poor fellow will come out clear from any stain. I will Write to Andrew — he will tell us all about it. It cannot be HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED SOU'irf. 59 Andrew, because iu-the letter to you he speaks of coming liome immediately.' Madge took the epistle from her pocket. ' It was written oa Tuesday,' she sobbed, 'and the paper says AVednesday ; ' then she began to turn over the envelopes lying on the table. 'Tliere is a letter from Anthony,' she remarked; 'open it and see what he has to tell us. I knew I had seen a letter from him. but I forgot.' AVith eager hands, and yet with a terrible misgiving oppress- ing him, Mr Forster drew the enclosure out of the envelope. There were only a few lines hastily scribbled on the paper^ ' London, Friday. ' I am afraid you may see the passage in this morning's " Times," and so write to say I start for Scotland to-night to ascertain what it all means. Keep it from Madge. I will bring him back with me if possible.' Like one speaking in a dream, the Yicar turned to his daughter : ' That is Anthony's writing, dear, is it not ? ' ' Yes, papa,' she answered; 'you see he says he will bring him back with him, if possible.' ' If possible,' he repeated, scarcely knowing what he said — ■ ' if possible.' CHAPTER IX. THE riEST STEPS. In a very old book — a book so old, that, spite of new editions, many persons have such slight knowledge of its contents, as to assume, when it is quoted, that the speaker must be repeating a passage from ' The Immortal Bard,' — there is a sentence : ' Which of yovi, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish It.' By virtue of his profession, Andrew Hardell was acquainted with this sentence, and many a time it recurred to his memory while he lay in Kirkcudbright jail, building his tower of defence. 60 A life's assize. and calculating uhctlicr lie should have wherewith to finish and hold it against the enemy AVheu through the pitiless storm and the pelting rain he had walked on towards New Abbey, co'unting the cost, the idea of such an expenditure as this being necessary, never occurred to liim. Yfhen through the watches of the night he wrestled witli his agony — when he fell asleep only to wake and find that the difli- culties of his scheme were greater tlian he had calculated on — still, even then, he under-counted the cost. When, with the brightness of the summer morning streaming over hill and vale — over mountain and sea, when, with the dew hanging on the grass, and the trees gently waving their branches in the light, soft breeze, he climbed wp Crifiel, and looked forth over the land which was so exceediug fair to see, with no thought save how to get rid of the evidence against him — when under the noon-tide sun he strode on — when over the grass and through the heather he pursued his way westward — when he concealed the clothes — when he destroyed the testimony — when he gathered the sand and the shells, and poured them down the fissure — when, with a sense of relief on him, he cast aside his garments, and flung himself into the sea — when he walked by the low land Jving by the shore, on. towards Kirkcudbright — when pacing slowly beside the Dee — or wandering up towards the Tor Hill, he thought over the^;ro.? and cons of his position — still he never fairly and with knowledge counted the cost. All his life long he was, in fact, like one who, having elected to cast his all upon one venture, finds, when it is too late, that he has miscalculated chances, that loss as well as profit lay con- cealed in the cards — who, after having taken shares in some ])romising concern, discovers the dream castle to have been built in air — from whom the ideality of riches and glory fades away, \\hilst the reality of harass and poverty remains. The game he had decided to play was one for which fresh candles were continually being required — there was no end to the calls that were constantly made upon him. This wolf, which he had decided to elude instead of face, claimed from him, in due course, everything that a man ordinarily holds most dear — everything, certainly, Andrew Hardell had hitherto deemed the most necessary to happiness. One after another his most cherished plans, his brightest hopes, his fondest aspirations, had to be thrown out to satisfy the demands of the ir.onster with which he had feared to do battle. He had not counted the cost. He had not considered whether he, with ten thousand men. THE FIRST STEI'S. 61 should be able to meet him who came agaiust him with twenty thousaud. He had not, while his euemy was yet a long way off, sent an embassy, and desired conditions of peace. He had done as seemed to him wisely, and behold his wisdom was foolishness. He had risked his life on the cast of a die, and the sole fruit of Ins venture, so far, was that he had plenty of time for reflection whilst he lay in Kirkcudbright jail, awaiting his trial. There were many things which, in the hurry of making his calculations, the young man had overlooked; and now, when the worst was come upon him — when it was a question of life or death — he felt like one who, having entered into a strange and hostile country, meets with enemies, and encounters perils at every turn. Tlie first circumstance which struck him with a terrible dismay was the difference of the legal proceednigs between Scot- land and Engkand. The bulk of persons dwelling south of tlie Tweed know no more about Scottish law than they do about Presbyterianism. That there is a difference in the marriage laws most English- men are aware — indeed, considering the newspaper reports, how could they be ignorant ? but still, considering the proximity of the two countries, it is singular people should understand so nuich less about the laws of Scotland than the laws of France — that they should remember the existence of a public prosecutor across the Channel, and fail to comprehend tlie functions of a Lord Advocate north of the Tweed — that the fact of Scotland being in many respects much nearer France than we are — should be lost sight of altogether. With fear and trembling it soon dawned upon Andrew Har- dcll that the ways of the country in Avhich he found himself were not as the ways of England — that the whole of the law pro- ceedings from the time a man is arrested till he leaves the dock free, or "is escorted back to jail convicted, were diff'ex'ent from tliose of his own country. !Xo coroner's inquest — no public examination before a magis-^ trate — no knowledge of the evidence agaiust him — all a blind groping in the dark — a constant dread — an utter absence of certainty — this was what came to him in that pleasant little town through which the Dee flows on its way to the sea. He had not counted on this — he had thought he should at least know what was against him — what this witness had to say and that — the points where his own defence wanted strengthen- 62 A life's assize. ing — the circumstances most likely to tell iu his disfavour be- fore a jury. It was all solemn, still, passionless — like a private execution, it added a new horror to death. The absence of all personal considerations — the utter silence of the official office, which was broken only by the question and answer of Sheriff" Substitute and prisoner — the want of spectators, whether pitying or angry — the strange accent — the unfamiliar expressions — the un-Eng- lish construction of every sentence addressed to him — the absence of a friendly face in which to look — these things made the man fee' that he was indeed a stranger in a strange land — amongst ]ieople wbo, just though they might be, were wanting his life IVom him. There is nothing, perhaps, which seems so terrible to one in such a strait, as perfectly even-handed justice — as law sitting liolding the scales without a tremor — law, it is as impossible to influence, as concerning tlie course of which it is unreasonable to complain — which is all in favour of an innocent man, but utterly against the guilty — which is colder, more formal, less susceptible to outward pressure, less human, if the word be per- missible, than the law witli which Englishmen are best acquainted, and which, even in its preliminai'y stages, is frequently enlivened with absurd passages, witli displays of temper, with disputes be- tween magistrates and lawyers, with the conflicting evidence of witnesses, with the titters of an appreciative audience. At first the idea of that public examination seemed very terrible to Andrew Hardell — but the quiet office, the calm questioning, the ever-varying inquiries — the drift of which, not knowing the evidence against him, he was unable to grasp — were more terrible still, and mentally he cursed the whole law procedure of the country in which he found himself, and wishv-u, with all his heart and soul and strength, that if it were written m the book of fate a man should die by his own hand, he had killed him in any part of the habitable globe rather than Scotland. But through all, the mnn'-s outward courage never forsook him ; the questions addressed to him he answered according to the programme he had laid out for himself. The w-ords rehearsed when he was climbing over Criflel, and in a sort of delirium, looking away towards the Solway Sands, were repeated now without mistake or hesitation when the great play of his life came to be acted by himself and real peribriners. Jfedid not refuse to answer any questions ; he replied al- irost too readilv — as more than one person considered. He was not moved by the production of the button and riding-whip THE FIRST STEPS. (jij — he declared he luxd never seen the hitter — that the roriiuT rer- tainl)'^ resembled tlie buttons on his coat, but that it could not be one of his, on account of the piece of cloth attached to it. When asked if on such and such a night no button was ab- sent from his coat, he said ' Yes,' that in unfastening his wet clothes, he pulled one off, which, however, he sewed on a day or two afterwards himself — and in effect this proved to be so, for when his coat was examined, one button appeared to be sewed with a different thread from the others, whilst the work was evi- dently that of an amateur. At this point the eyes of Andrew Hardell and the Sheriff Substitute chanced to meet, and from that moment the latter felt certain of the prisoner's guilt. Of course the expression in a man's eyes cannot be taken as legal evidence, and the Sheriff Substitute was bound not to re- ceive it as such. Nevertheless, he knew — and Andi-ew Hardell knew he knew, that there was some juggle in the affair — that somehow, and at some place, the accused had contrived to get rid of the torn coat ; that it w'as the business of the prosecution to prove this ; that let the deatli of Mr Challerson have taken place under what circumstances it might, the Eeverend Andrew Hardell was his murderer, and that against so cool a hand, and so clever and highly educated a prisoner, it would not be easy to obtain a conviction. Gathering up the threads of the case in their hands, both the Sheriff Substitute and the Procurator Fiscal found the clue they held merely led thus far, and proved this much, viz. : That Kenneth Ciiallerson had been murdered by some one, and that the presumption was he had met his death at the hands of Andrew Hardell; that in support of this presumption there was first the fact of Mr Challerson having left Dumfries with the avowed intention of following the man whom he suspected of having wronged him. Secondly, the certainty that, riding rapidly, he must have overtaken the prisoner just about the spot where liis body was discovered. Thirdly, the late hour at wi)ich Andre'v Hardell reached New Abbey. Fourth, the character of the weapon with which death had been inflicted. Fifth, the button and piece of cloth discovered in the dead man's hand. Sixth, the statement of the landlady at the Commercial Inn, New^ Abbey, which went to prove there was a button missing from the coat she dried for Andrew Hardell, on the night of his arrival, and the evidence of the buxom servant, that involved not merelv a missing button, but a ' tear in the tweed.' Now, looking at all these links, they certainly, when strung 64 A life's assize. together, formed a strong chain of circumstantial evidence against tlie prisoner; but then, on the other liand, there was the difR- culty of stringing them. Andrew Hardell stated, and in this statement liis evidence was confirmed by the women who had been washing their linen, that at the pond he left the highway, and pursued his route through the fields. At what point he resumed the road was of course a mere matter of supposition. At what hour Kenneth Challerson met with his death was a matter of conjecture also. The rain had begun early in the night, and lasted till after daybreak. The dead man's horse was found the next morning, miles away from the scene of the catastrophe, grazing in some meadows down by the Frith. Had the animal made for his own stable, a clue as to the possible time of the murder might have been obtained; but frightened, no doubt, by the lightning, as well as by his rider's violence, he had rushed madly on. The woman — a widow — who showed the ruins, spoke vaguely to having heard the sound of a horse galloping past her door on the night of the murder ; but when pressed as to whether the noise she heard mi.ofht not ha'\e been produced by the beating of the rain, the rush of the w'ind, or the distant thunder, she wavered, and said she could not be positive. It seemed to her like a horse's feet, but as it was 'just momentary,' she would not like to be sure. ' Concerning the button, there appeared a like uncertainty. The landlady couldn't 'mind' whether there was a hole in the coat or not ; the servant had not thought about the tear, till some one came and told her there was a reward out, and that there had been a piece of cloth found. Mr Hardell, it was clear, did not change his clothes on the night of his arrival at New Abbey, neither did he make any mention of having a second suit with him. His own statement was, that he possessed but two suits ot tweed, both of which were found — one on his person, the other in his portmanteau ; that he knew nothing of how Kenneth Challerson came by his death ; that he knew nothing of Mrs Challerson's whereabouts, and that he certainly had no share in nducing her to leave home; that when he started from Dum- fries, he had done so, intending to Avork his way on foot to New Abbey, and from thence across Criflel, and by the coast to Kirk- cudbright. When he was arrested, he had learned, indeed, from the newspapers, that Kenneth Challerson was dead, but he was ignorant of all particulars. Naturally he felt shocked at the tidings, he said, because for some time they were very intimate acquaintances. THE FIRST STEPS. 55 ' Were j'ou ever friends ? ' asked the Procurator Fisca], on the occasion of a subsequent examination. ' Certainly not,' was the reply. ' You were on terms of closer intimacy with Mrs Challerson, probably ? ' was the next inquiry. 'No; I never was on very intimate terms with either,' the young man answered. 'Though I iiad I'eason to believe INIrs Challerson was in the neighbourhood, I never saw either her or her husband during the whole period of my stay in Dumfries.' ' Tour travelling companion probably saw more of them ? ' ' lie may,' Andrew answered. ' Mr Challerson always liked him better than he did me.' ' Why did he not like you ? ' asked the Procurator Fiscal. ' Want of taste, probably,' replied the prisoner with a .slight shrug. ■' Jealousy also, perhaps, n.-ayhave had some share in his lack of appreciation. He imagined I admired jNIrs Challerson, and he was mistaken.' ' The onus of proving me guilty lies with them,' Andrew Ifardell had said to himself in the days when he was miscount- ing the cost, which was true; but he found the onus of proving himself innocent lay with him, and the process turned out any- thing rather than agreeable. ' Before an English magistrate, in an English Court, I should not have experienced the least difficulty,' he considered, and he was to a certain extent right. These examinations, where every chance word had to be con- sidered — every sentence calculated, soon began to tell upon his health. He felt as one feels walking on the brink of a precipice, when a moment's want of courage, the slightest faltering — would be fatal. He had decided to say nothing ; but to say nothing would, he found, tell against him. He had to make his statement in ignorance of what the evidence might be in tbe hands of the pro- secutor — sign and stick to it. He had to seem frank and yet be cautious. AVith the knowledge that the Sherift' Substitute was on the right scent, he had still to seem unconscious of the fact. Every step he took — every Avord he spoke — every reply he made, rendered retreat more and more impossible. There was nothing for it now but to go ou — on — face the worst, and fight it out, never doubting. But a struggle of this kind was never urged by any man of Andrew Hardell's temperament without producing evil effects. His. brain was always on the rack, striving to remember exactly what he had said, trvinnf to plan what he should say, 6(5 A. life's assize. while the sudden change from an active life to one of complete and compulsory inaction was not long either before it produced bad results. The prisoner began to grow thin, his face lengthened, his clothes commenced to hang on liim. In a week he was in ap- pearance an altered man, and when at length Anthony Hardell made his appearance on the scene, he found his friend in the infirmary of Kirkcudbright jail, very ill indeed. At any other tune— considering how liis confidence had been abused, his friendship played upon, his ti'ust betrayed — Andrew Hardell would have met the man wlio had deceived him coldly, and would have had that matter of Laura Challerson ' out ' with his visitor; but as matters stood, the ver^^ sight of a familiar face, the sound of an English voice, were as sunshine and music to the lonely man, who, holding out his hand to Anthony, burst into tears. There were very few words exchanged between them — two or three commonplace inquiries, two or three sentences of hope and encouragement, and then Anthony, telling him he did not mean to leave Kirkcudbright for some time to come, arose to take his leave. ' Stoop down,' Andrew whispered, and the other complied. ' Do you remember that suit of clothes you left behind you ? ' the prisoner inquired, and Anthony nodded assent. ' You must forget about it,' Andrew said. For a moment Anthony Hardell looked hard into his friend's face — while wistfully, like one born in a strange land, who tries to make an Englishman understand b}' expression and gesticula- tion what he means, Andrew looked back at Anthony. ' I understand ! ' said the latter, after a second pause. ' God help us both ! ' ' Amen ! ' ejaculated Andrew Hardell, and then, when his visitor had departed, he laid his head down again on the pillow, and turned his face towards the wall. CHAPTER X. IN COURT. Of the days that intervened between his committal and hi» trial, the nrisoiier kept no account IN COURT, 67 They passed somehow, that was all he ever knew about them : they were spent — those long daylight hours, those desolate nights — in sickness, in struggle, in alternations of hope and fear, in forming wild plans of escape, in turning over in his mind whether it might not be advisable for him to take that middle course which is involved in pleading guilty to culpable homicide, and abiding the consequences. But it was only at very long intervals, and for very short periods, he entertained this idea. He thought — and thought rightly — that the time had gone by for making a confession of any kind, with any chance of back- ing out of the consequences of the deed he had committed with honour or even safety. He knew he had told as many falselioods as he could ever be called upon to repeat. His judgment was satisfied that as he had elected to play for high stakes, his game could scarcely be improved. Whether the stake to be gained was worth the candle, he could not now aftord to consider. Even if he hedged, he should make very little by it. A long imprisonment seemed to him, in his then state of mind, as bad or worse than death ; besides, he felt sure that if he only could keep up his courage, he should escape. Illness and imprisonment alone, he thought, produced his want of mental strength. Anything would be better than the solitary days and the wakeful nights. Let him once have to meet his fellows, to face the judges and the spectators, and he could and would hold his own bravely. His sole fear was Anthony — but he had made a bold stroke with regard to him. He told his solicitor not to summon Anthony as a witness, and having done this, he abided the event with calmness. What his own solicitor thought about the matter may be con- jectured from the fact that he asked Andrew whether, considering the difficulty of the case, it might not be well to plead guilty to the lesser crime. ' I am sure the matter could be arranged w^ith the Advocate Depute,' observed Mr McCallum. ' Then I am sure the Advocate Depute feels he has no chance of a conviction,' answered Andrew, who had not lived all this time in Kirkcudbright jail for nothing. ' No, I am either inno- cent or guilty, and I am content to abide the result.' Whereat Mr McCallum shrugged his shoulders, and remarked that circumstantial evidence had hanged many a man. 68 A life's assize. ' Well, I would rather be banged on circumstantial cvidencv.- than acquitted on a point of law,' Andrew Hardell answered ; whereupon the lawyer observed — ' Hanging is not a nice thing, but no doubt 3'ou are right in principle.' All of which went to prove that not a single person believed him innocent — a hard cross to bear, with the knowledge of guilt in his own soul. Meanwhile, however, there was an ever-growing, ever-increas- ing conviction in the minds of those who had much to do with the matter in which he was personally interested, that although Andrew Ilardell might have killed Kenneth Challerson, he was not guilty of actual murder, and the Advocate Depute, to whom in due time — as to a grand jury — the case was submitted, felt the difficulty of the position — felt the obstacles which might arh-^e iu obtaining a conviction from a Scottish majority. For a Scotch jury is very different from an English one. Sawney is much more on his guard than John Bull. The argu- mentative, Presbyterian, non-impulsive mind resists the tempta- tions of flowery sentences, of impassioned appeals, of barroAviug pictures, as it might the seductions of the evil one. Unlike the British mind, the Scotch has a keen and all-absorb- ing sense of duty and of self-importance. It is not to be led by the judge nor by the counsel — rather, it sets itself up in direct oppo- sition to them. The consciousness of power is pleasant to the northern indi- vidual. The very constitutioi\ of the jury increases that con- sciousness. In England, it is true, one man may starve out eleven, or eleven may coerce one, but in Scotland each unit is either of the majority or minority. Each man stauds by himself; each man has his specific weight for or against the prisoner ; to make or to mar, to spoil or to spend. Further, the character of Scotch education is to produce in- dividualism of character. Thus each man has an opinion of his own, and does not hesitate to express it. The judge has yet to be born who should carry a Scotch juror beyond the depth to which he personally elected to wade. Born— partly of his nation, partly of his religion, there is a great sense of his individuality, and of his power individually ; and that sense of power resents the interposition of any other per- son's influence. For all of which reasons, unless a man's guilt be self-apparent, let him pray to be tried by a Scotch jury. He will have justice tlealt to him, and something more; he IN COURT. G9 will have the benefit of the doubt given to him, \vhich is not an unimportant consideration amongst a people capable of weighing the value and the significance of a doubt. These things were all in due time taken into account by llie Advocate Depute, who hesitated not to intimate to Mr Dunbar — a personal friend of his own — that if the prisoner chose to plead guilty to culpable homicide, that plea would be accepted. To which remark Mr Dunbar replying that his client intend- ed to plead' Not Guilty ; ' and maintained he was so, the Advo- cate Depute from thenceforward maintained an injured silence, a,nd said within himself, that if he could hang Andrew Ilardell he would. Such trials were not of frequent occurrence ; it would add, he felt, a laurel to his fame if he succeeded in obtaining a convic. tion. As for my lords Craigie and Glanlorn, they were supposed to know nothing, or next to nothing, of the matter, till they don- ned their official robes, and the assize commenced. And so Sep- tember wore on, and the date for the trial approached, and in dwc time Andrew Hardell was removed from Kirkcudbright jail, and conveyed, not by the sea-shore, and across Criffel, but by drea- rier inland roads, back to Dumfries, where he lay for a few days in the old jail, waiting for the time to come which should decide his fate. Very different was the old jail from that which now fronts Buccleugh Street; very different are both from the pleasant prison at Kirkcudbright, the exercise-ground in which commands a view of the far-iiway country ; of the Dee and the Tor Hill ; and the quaint, rich, old-fashioned town, no bigger than an Eng- lish village. Often in the after-time Andrew Hardell thought of a remark he then heard made, to the effect that if the whole population of Scotland were criminals, its jails were large enough to contain them. He had plenty of leisure then to heed any observation, and remember it, for neither friend nor foe intruded on his solitude. Anthony was afraid to do so, and returned to England after the interview mentioned ; while Mr Eorster, for whom he consented to do duty, starting for Scotland, purposing to comfort his pupil, fell ill by the way, and was obliged to return to Langmore, look- ing very old indeed. In truth, Andrew's trouble had entered into his very soul, and seeing this, Madge hushed her own sorrow to comfort his, and condoled herself by writing long letters to the prisoner, as- suring him of her conviction of his innocence, of her deep grief 70 A life's assize. for the position in which he was placed, of her wish to be near him in his trouble. ' Which, thank God, my little girl, you cannot be,' he said to himself, and then he sat down in his cell and faced liis position — as he had never faced it yet — and found that the old things so dear to him in the past, might never again be parts and parcel of his being; that however affairs turned, he should have to begin a new life amongst new people, for the simple reason that those with whom he had formerly associated did not know that they were all defending him in ignorance — that he had not counted the cost. But now, when my lords were entering Dumfries — when the supreme moment was at liand — Andrew Hardell counted the cost both ways, to the best of his ability. Both ways a loser — both ways ; whether he won or whetlier he failed — a desolate forsaken man. If he were acquitted, should he return to the peaceful household, and be a liar in the midst ? If he were convicted — well — well, the future would be out of his hands then. Let that j)ossibility pass silently. For decently, and as a man comes gradually to reconcile himself to the idea of whatever may come speedily — Andrew Hardell was strengthening his soul to face the worst. Never an one who heard the bells ringing in honour of the judge's entrance had a keener appreciation of the fiict that those bells might even then be sounding his death-knell — and yet he . set his face ami turned it resolutely to meet the danger — none the less defiantly, probably, because he knew men were looking to see how he bore up — watching to ascertain whether there were not some sign of wavering, some token by which they mieht know he intended to changie his tactics at the eleventh :iour, and plead guilty to culpable homicide. When Mr Dunbar's arrival was announced, people grew terribly anxious on the subject of the prisoner's plea. There had not been a 'good trial' in Dumfries for many a day — not a really interesting case for several years previously, and now here was a really peculiar case, one calculated to put the Advocate Depute on his mettle, and to induce Mr Dunbar to exert those powers of cross-examination and rhetoric for which he was famous. Long and close was the conversation which took place be- tween Mr McCallum and the great man — many were the questions asked — numerous the observations made — and when Mr Dunbar at length retired to rest it was with the air of a man who felt he iad his work cut out for him on the next day — a riioe piece of IN COURT. 71 work, which it might not be quite easy to hold together till the end. So at length the morning of the trial dawned — clear, bright, and autumnal ; and with the sun shining upon them, the judges marched, as was and is the custom in that ancient town, from the Commercial Hotel to the Court-house. The Sheriff of tlie town and counties of Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbright — the Procurator Fiscals — the Provost — the Bar — all went down the street in solemn procession, whilst the mob stared and the trumpeters blew — and the bells rang — and the inhabitants came to their doors and windows to look at the grave ceremonial. Down the street — past the Mid Steeple — past the site of the ancient Greyfriars, scene of the Comyn tragedy — and then sharp round into Buccleugh Street, where the new Court-house was then unbuilt, and the old still deemed large enough and hand- some enough for the business which had to be transacted in it. At ten o'clock, precisely, Lords Craigie and Glanlorn entered the Court, clad in their judicial robes — red, trimmed with white, and ornamented with St Andrew crosses. Graciously the learned judges bowed to the persons assembled, and then the business of the circuit was opened by an extempore prayer — which, as is usual in such cases, contained petitions for, and references to, everything in the heavens above and the earth beneath, always excepting the real business that had brought so many persons of different ranks, tastes, and feelings together. At the fag-end of the prayer indeed the minister was good enough to allude slightly to the judges and the prisoners. As some courteous persons finish their letters with vaguely kind regards — so the clergyman commended the people who alone were the cause of his being there, to the attention of the Almighty. Curiously mingling the Church of England formula with the more voluminous diction of his own pulpit, he Avound up by en- treating the Lord of all Power and Might so to incline the hearts of all those placed in authority, that they might wield the sword placed in their hands by their gracious Queen and Governor, to the honour and praise of His holy name, the setting forth of ILis glory, and the extension of His dominion. Purther, the minister entreated that as at Marah the bitter waters were sweetened by the casting of a tree into the fountain, * even so, O Lord ! the evil nature may this day be made holy by reason of the arm of justice extended over the wrong-doer — turn them, Heavenly Father, turn them from their sinful ways 72 A life's assize. — lead thein as Thou leddest Thy people Israel through tlie Ecd Sea and the arid desert — give them niauua to eat, and let them drink from the refreshing wells of Elim, set round uith palm trees — for ever and for ever — Amen.' Having concluded which appropriate peroration in the loudest voice a human being might be considered capable of possessing, the minister, greatly to the relief of Lord Glanloru — a man of slightly Jacobite and High Church proclivities — ended his part of the day's proceedings, and sat down. Immediately ai'tcr, the first prisoner was brought up, and a jury sworn in. Of this portion of the ceremonial it is unnecessary to speak at length, because, although the whole process of swearing is ('iffereut to the same portion of a trial in England, that ditference will have to be mentioned hereafter, since it struck Andrew JIardell, when the witnesses were sworn in, with an unutterable dread. 'As I stand before God, and as I shall answer before God at Ihe Great Day of Judgment,' he found himself repeating in the watches of the night. 'As I stand before God,' — so each man, right hand extended, swore to try the case well and truly. 'As I stand before God,' — many a time, in the after-day, Andrew Hardell recalled that formula to mind, and contrasted it with the clerk's cry in the English Courts — ' a true verdict give according to the evidence, so Help you God. Kiss the Book.' As at dinner people regale themselves with a few spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, and the merest suspicion of aii entree, before attacking the more formidable joints, so on the occasion of this trial, a few prisoners ])receded Andrew Hardell at the bar, uninteresting and unexciting prisoners, who were merely calculated to whet the public appetite, and make it the more eager for the appearance of the principal performer. It was a great relief to the spectators when, after a couple of jx'ople had pleaded guilty to uttering counterfeit coin, and a most commou-idace case of 'resetting' ended in the ])risoner being sentenced to seven years' transportation, the chief actor in the day's proceedings appeared; a pale, worn, changed man — looking, so one individual remarked to his friend, ' like a hardened ruffian,' while another whispered, ' He carries innocence in his lace.' Eor the first moment he was confused. Thev had brought him to the place of trial through that underground passage, now disused, which formerly led beneath Buccleugh Street, from the IN COURT. 73 old jail, into the clock of the old Court-house ; and coming in an instant from the darkness into the light — fi'oin the quiet of his cell into the midst of a hall crowded to suffocation, the scene swam before him. As through a mist he beheld judges and counsel — officials and spectators. Like something very far awav, he heard the murmur and the rustle cansed by his appearance — vaguely he tried to make a clutch at his own individuality, and to grasp the fact that it was lie — Andrevt' Hardell — he, and no other, who stood amongst all those people, about to be tried for his life. For a moment it was all vague and shadowy — he felt like one -who sees some terrible vision in a dream, and is appalled by it— though all the time he knows what frightens him is but a dream. Standing there, with every eye in the Court fixed upon him, he felt as if he were being swung a long way out into space — out as far as he could go, while his heart seemed to stop beating, and his limbs grew numbed, and his head giddy. Then with a jerk he appeai-ed to himself to swing back again, and the light grew clearer and the mist lifted, and the blood poured through his veins hot and fierce, and he looked round for a moment, to see if there were any friend near. Tb.en his eyes fell on the face of Anthony, and a glance of recognition passed between the pair, whilst an expression of un- utterable regret flitted across Anthony's countenance. It came back to his memory then the recollection of the hill- side, amongst the Southern Highlands, where they had sat theni down to rest, while the lights and shadows flitted hither and thither over the landscape. They had started, meaning to liave such a pleasant holiday, and behold this was the end of it. ' Let me pass, if you please,' he said to the spectators, who were standing behind him, and he went out into the vestibule, saying to him.self, 'Oh ! my Grod, I cannot bear this; it is too much.' Meanwhile, in Court the judge was putting the usual ques- tions to the prisoner. Prom the time of his entrance Andrew- had remained standing, behind the low railed dock, that looks strange to English eyes. The two men in red coats and curious cocked-hats (which were turned up and flattened at the back), who had escorted him along the passage and up the Aviuding stairs, sat down, one on each side of the prisoner, but he did not attempt to follow their example ; consequently there was no necessity for the judge to order him to ' stand up,' when answer- ing to ' Guilty, or Not Guilty ? ' 74 A life's assize. ' Not Guilty, my lord,' said the prisoner, 6rmly ; on hearing which the audience breathed freely. Tliere was to be no strangling of the case, then, no plea of Culpable Homicide — no arranging of the matter between Advo- cate Depute and Defendant's Counsel — no mere ' bit of a s])ecch,' entreating a light sentence — nothing of the kind — Ihere was to be a struggle ; and when this became apparent, there ensued a few minutes' stir and bustle — caused by the spectators settliug themselves in their places, and preparing for a lengthened stay in Court. Then one of the turnkeys intimated to the prisoner that he might sit down. ' He would have stood the whole time, I b'lieve,' remarked the man afterwards, with a lofty contempt for the Southerner's want of acquaintance with Scottish etiquette, ' or leastways till he dropped, for I never did see a mon so white and ghaistlike afore. It was all strange to him, poor lad.' CHAPTER Xr. TIIOLINO HIS ASSIZE. Many a kindly Scotch heart felt sore that day for the ' puir laddie,' to whom it was all indeed very strange. His want of self-assurance, his pale, wasted face, his thin, white hands, his very lack of knowledge of their forms — all these things sensibly touched a people hospitable to an extent, and possessed in no small degree both of imagination and perception. Certainly the righteous indignation of men who call things by their proper names, had been roused by the generally-received idea that the prisoner, having first iuduced the woman to leave her husband, murdered the man when he followed to reclaim his unfaithful wife ; but still the truth of this idea remained to be proved. The prisoner had decided to let the matter be sifted, and al- though there were some who thought his calmness a sign of guilt, and found in his English face corroboration of his desperate de- pravity, yet, on the whole, the opinion of the majority was favour- able. Perhaps the woman might have tempted him, and the bus- TITOLINQ HIS ASSIZE. 75 band been rasb — anyhow, he had suffered. His face wa; rot the healthy, comely countenance of that of the young fellow many a one of them had seen walking by the banks of the Nith, and making for Lineluden. His voice was low and weak ; he was not bold and brazen-tongued about the matter ; his manner to- wards the judge was very respectful, which pleased the spectators, for though their own manner may not in all cases be over-court- eous towards their superiors in station, it is gratifying to the Scotch to see their great men ' treated according ' by strangers. And besides all this, the man was being tried for his life, which each one present felt to be a serious matter, — a matter indeed the full importance of which no one can ever quite esti- mate till he have sat in Court, watching the accused while the evidence is being given that may either hang or acquit. ' He is looking awful bad, puir fellow,' was the cautious criti- cism of the gallery. ' "Whist, man, they're beginnin' the examining,' * and the pair craned forward their heads to see. ' Put out your right hand, sir,' said Lord Glanlorn, and the witness did so. ' As I stand before God, and as I shall answer to God at the Great Day of Judgment ' — so the oath proceeded, and looking up at the sound of this solemn formula, Andrew Hardell beheld the face of a man whose word he knew might hang him. 'Tour name is David Johnstoun, I believe?' "With this question the Advocate Depute commenced his examination. ' It is.' * And you are a waiter at the " King's Arms " Hotel in this town ? ' ' I am.' * And you have been a waiter there for some time ? ' ' Two years come Hallow-e'en.' ' Exactly so. Now, Mr Johnstoun, we want you to tell ua all you know about this business. You mind the twenty-third of August last ? ' ' 1 would not like to swear that I do.' ' Well, at any rate, 3 ^ u remember Mr Challerson coming t<» the " King's Arms," inquiring after Mr Andrew Hardell ? ' ' I mind a mon riding up to the door when I was standing, there, and asking me was one Mr Andrew Hardell inside. He was on a dark-brown horse, with a star in the middle of his fore- bead ; and he had spurs and a heavy whip — but whether he was * In Scotland there is no oratorical ' opening of the case,' the A'•«' tryine to get me to tell falsehoods.' G 92 A life's assize. WLereupon Lord Glanlorn remarked that the witness was forgetting himself, to wliich the witness only replied by bowing his head, as much as to say, ' I cannot argue with you, but I have my own opinion nevertheless.' ' If Mrs Challersou did not leave her home with the prisoner, can you tell us, Mr Ilardell, with whom she did leave it? ' re- sumed the Advocate Depute. 'Did she ever really leave her home? asked the witness simply. ' There can be no doubt about that matter,' was the reply. ' Then would the most direct way of satisfying your curiosity not have been to call Mrs Challerson ? ' inquired Anthony ; ' she could have enlightened you as to her movements much better than any stranger.' ' Tou are flippant, sir,' said the judge. ' I beg pardon, my lord,' was the reply ; then addressing the Advocate Depute, Anthony Hardell proceeded — ' Whatever my suspicions maybe in this matter, I am not bound to confide them to you. All I apprehend you desire to know is, whether, if Mrs Challerson left her home at all, she left it with the intention of joining niy friend, and to that I answer I am quite confident she did not.' ' Can you tell me where INIrs Challerson is ? ' * I cannot,' was the reply ; and then the Advocate Depute and witness looked at one another defiantly. At this juncture it occurred to the Advocate Depute that perhaps this man might be able to swear to the button and piece of tweed, which were produced accordingly. 'They are like,' said Anthony Hardell, 'but I trust you do not expect me to identify a bit of horn and a piece of i ag ;' and he gave the articles back to the person appointed to reet ive them with an air of contempt. ' Could you sw^ear to anything, Mr Hardell ? ' asked the Advocate Depute. ' Yes, I could, to the fact that you have been examining me to-day,' was the reply. ' Ay, and sware at it too, if he dared,' whispered Lord Craigie to Lord Glanlorn, who thereupon fixed his spectacles more rigidiy upon his nose, and looked down severely at the witness. ' You have no objection to my examining you, I suppose ? ' suggested the Advocate Depute. ' I have no objection exactly, but the process is not pleasant.' ' Would you mind telling me why you will not swear posi- tively to anv fact, or answer any question directly ? ' THOLING HIS ASSIZE. 93 1 na/e answered to the best of my ability, and if by not swearing positively you mean my inability to identify the button which has been just shown me, I again repeat that I cannot and will not swear to anything of the kind.' ' Could you swear to the coat if you saw it ? ' ' I could not. I could swear to a man, but not to his cover- ing — at all events, the covering would require to be a great deal more remarkable than a suit of tweed which I could identify.' There is a game called ' magic music,' that perhaps some of my readers can recollect having seen and joined in ' once upon a time.' The trick of it consists in hiding an article whilst one of the company is out of the room, and then indicating its whereabouts to him by means of music. Thus when he is far from the object of his search the player strikes the notes softly and more softly still. As he approaches it she apprises him of the fact in a gradual crescendo, rising finally to forte, and this is sustained whilst he hovers around the prize, till, when he detects the place of concealment, she breaks forth into the loudest strains of which the instrument is capable. It was a somewhat similar game that the Advocate Depute and Anthony Hardell played out that day in Dumfries. Over and over again, the barrister came close up to the article hidden away. He felt confident something lay concealed — he felt sure Anthony knew all about it ; he almost laid his hand on it time after time, and yet it eluded his search eventually. Eound and round the secret he manoeuvred ; he tried to sur- prise, he tried to force it, he watched it, he barked about it as an eager tei-rier will at a rat-hole, out of which the animal de- clines to put its head. He harked back to it — he watched the subterfuges and artifices of his opponent ; he tried to increase his knowledge by quick, sharp glances at the prisoner ; he puzzled his head — and it was a shrewd one — to find some key to the mystery, and yet he had to let it go after all ; though through the whole of the ordeal Anthony Hardell's face and Anthony Hardell's manner played magic music to his search. 'I am close to it now,' thought the Advocate Depute, and behold next moment the witness's voice was calm, and his brow clearer — and the strain grew softer and softer, lower and lower. ' I wish I were in your shoes for a minute,' sighed Mr Dun- bar, to whose professional sagacity such a failure in scent seemed deplorable. ' If he go on this way much longer he will stumble upon the secret, as he has tumbled over it about a dozen times 04 A life's assi/e. already — oli ! there — thank God he is tired — and the witness I was not to cross-examine has gone down — now we shall see.' And he girt up his loins and listened while the Advocate Depute spoke to the evidence, recount-ed with the precision which made him so admirable an investigator of cases that should be heard, every part telling against the prisoner. With the most commendable clearness he put the case into form for the jury. He condensed the whole thing into about the length of a short leader in 'The Times.' He spoke to evidence, and every one in the Court felt that the evidence had not been in favour of the accused. There was sufficient in the case to authorize its being brought before a jury, and that, under the Scotch system, where the Crown, disliking to lose, seldom ventures risking a trial of any importance, was in itself a significant fact. ' How will it be ? ' asked one acquaintance of another in the vestibule. ' Puir laddie, I'm feer'd he'll hae to stretch a rope. — Guid sake, sir, what ails ye ? ' added the speaker, as a man staggering past him leaned up against the wall ; ' are ye no weel ? Luik till him — he's swounded.' Which was true — in as dead a fjiint as any woman could fall into, Anthony Hardell lay prone. They carried him out into the air, they threw water on him, and they would have taken him to the hotel, but that he negatived their friendly purpose. ' Let me stay,' he said feebly, ' till I know the best or the worst ; ' and they gave him a seat by the door, from whence he could see the sun setting, while eager messengers reported from time to time how the case was proceeding. ' Dunbar's at it now,' said one at length ; and speedily the hall was emptied. Every man crept back to hear the great law- yer's speech, of which I would it were in my power to give an exact report. Even in the vestibule Anthony Hardell heard the tones of his ponderous voice, although the words he spoke were inaudible to his ear. Never till then had the prisoner pitied himself utterly ; never till then had he quite felt all the shame and the sorrow and the terror of his position. Great is the power of eloquence — great was the power of this man's eloquence, which could sway the bench as though it were a reed, and bring tears to women's eyes, and make masculine hearts throb faster than was their wont. He had a bad case, and he knew it, but his speech like the THOLINQ niS ASSIZE. \J0 plot oT a novel, no portion of wliicli is founded and fettered by I'aet, was perhaps all the better for tliis. He could give the rein to his imagination freely; he had a clear road for his gallop, and he struck spurs into his steed, and spared not the whip. He was one of the finest speakers of the day. lie possessed that peculiar Scotch humour, which is unlike the humour of any other nation on the face of God's earth. He had special power of fitness in language, that ability of combining opposing words, of resolving discords into harmony, which likewise is specially Scotch. He had a deliberate delivery, which increased in volume as it rolled along, till, like a mighty river, it uprooted all old landmarks, all previously-formed opinions, in its progress. He had a power of action as beyond description as it was beyond imitation, a power which spared neither king nor kaisar, neither judge nor advocate depute, neither witness nor prisoner. According to him, the whole case was but a storm in a tea- kettle ; the man had been murdered very probably, for his part he (Mr Dunbar) would not dispute that fact, although it cer- tainly had seemed to be a doubtful point at one portion of the trial ; the man had been murdered, and somebody must have murdered him. It was for the jury to say whether, on the very slight evidence with which the Crown had favoured them, the prisoner was guilty or not guilty ; whether he should go free without a stain on his character, or fall another victim to circum- stantial evidence, and that of the flimsiest and most impossible nature. To the jury he left the case, in the fullest confidence. The jury was composed of Scotchmen, and the prisoner, un- happily for himself, was an Englishman. For once, however, the fact of his nationality might stand him in good stead, for though the Scotch were proverbially hos- pitable, it was most unlikely they would show their hospitality by trying to keep him with them for ever. To Scottish justice, to Scottish sense, to Scottish fair-dealing, he (Mr Dunbar) was quite content to leave the question, and he left it (so he said), confident of an acquittal. After him came the judge. Every point in the prisoner's favour was rehearsed ; every sentence repeated which could bear on his innocence ; ' but,' added Lord Glanlorn — ' Confound him ! ' thought Mr Dunbar ; ' there he goes again ; ' while the Advocate Depute adjusted his wig and pulled up his gown, and smiled to himself at the sound of that ominous con- junction. 9G A life's assize. Word upon word, line upon line, the judge piled up against the prisoner. He showed how everypresumption in tlie case went to support the idea of his guilt. They had the evidence of two wit- nesses to the fact of a button being missing from the prisoner's coat. There was no reason to doubt the truthfulness of Euphemia Stewart's testimony, and she distinctly swore that not merely a button was gone, but also that a piece of cloth had gone with it. The jury would bear in mind that no such rent had been dis- covered in any coat worn by the prisoner, but he would not have them place too much importance on this circumstance, since the question involved really was, had the prisoner three suits of tweed, or only two ? He had ample time and opportunity for disposing of one suit between the hour of his leaving New Abbey and that of his arrival at Kirkcudbright. He had a lonely shore ; the darkness of night ; the absence of any company ; all in his favour. One circumstance, however, that looked like innocence, must not be overlooked, namely, that he had not changed his original route, but went straightforward to Kirkcudbright, as though no murder had been committed. On the other hand, the jury would bear in mind they had not in this case to deal with a criminal of the ordinary type, but with a highly-educated and clever man, pos- sessed evidently of a mind capable of weighing consequences and calculating possibilities ; and this consideration, also, should have considerable weight with them in deciding the exact amount of credence which they ought to attach to the evidence of the wit- ness Anthony Hardell. He (the judge) did not consider that witness had given his evidence in a satisfactory manner. He was evidently biassed by his friendship for the accused. He was labouring under consider- able excitement, and had fenced off important questions with more cleverness than straightforwardness. If the jury believed the bulk of the evidence which had been that day given, they could scarcely fail to arrive at the conclusion that the ])risoner had first betrayed the confidence of a man who trusted too much in his honour, and then murdered that man. Whether the blow were dealt in passion, or in cool blood ; whether it terminated a quarrel or were given treacherously, was not the matter for them to consider. The real question for them to decide was whether Kenneth Challerson was murdered, and, if so, whether the panel were his murderer. And Lord Glanlorn looked as though he thought the jury ought to deliver their verdict without leaving the box. The jury, however, apparently arrived at a different conclusion, THOLING HIS ASSIZE. 97 for after a little whisperiug amonf^ themselves, and putting to- gethrr of heads, they retired to consult. Then came a time, when, like Agag, the prisoner said to him- self, ' Surely the bitterness of death is past.' He knew it had all gone against liim ; already he seemed tc he like one clean forgotten, one for whom the world's pleasures and prizes were but as the memory of a dream. What he might have done — oh, God ! what he might have done, but for this awful misfortune. He saw himself a success- ful preacher, a happy husband, the father of children, a respected and useful member of society — that was the might-have-beeu of his life — and this was tlie reality. A felon's dock in a far country — with the evening shadows stealing down — not a friendly face near him, and fifteen men in an adjoining room decidiug whether or not he should hang by the neck till he was dead. He sat in the dock, with his hands clasped, and his head bowed — his eyes were so misty with tears that he could not see the scene distinctly — but he had a confused memory afterwards of observing the judges leave the bench, and perceiving the counsel break up into knots and talking with the sheriffs and such of the spectators as had seats assigned to them in the boxes near the bench. He knew they were speaking about him. AVell— Avell, let the future bring what it might, he thought vaguely, it could never bring an hour of such intense misery — such utter loneli- ness as that. He was an interesting speculation to those people, nothing more. He felt very bitter against them all — unjustly bitter, for there were many there who, even believing him guilty, pitied him exceedingly. After a minute or two his own advocate came over to speak to him,— told him not to despair yet, — to keep up for a little while longer. Then he too went away, and the darkness deepened. Candles were brought into Court — dips that guttered down and made long wicks — and soon after the judges returned and resumed their seats, and the jury trooped back into their places, and there was a great silence for a moment. Instinctively the prisoner rose to meet his doom. The faces of the jury looked, in the fitful light, pale and stern and just — inexorably just. You might have heard a pin drop in Court when, in answer to the judge's question, the foreman said — ' AYe find a verdict of NOT PEOVEN.' Of what happened after that, Andrew Hardell had no clear 98 A life's assize. recollection. He remembered that the judge said something to him, but of what nature he never could tell. He knew that OTie of tiie men who had sat guarding him allowed him to pass out on the side farthest from the trap-door, through which he had as- cended from the subterranean passage. He felt the cool air blowing on his forehead, and he saw a way cleared for hira by the people, who closed up again and followed him out into the street. There was only one man to wish him joy. ' Thank the Lord ! ' said a voice in his ear ; and turning, he saw the face of the waiter from the ' King's Arms.' ' Take me to some place where I can be quiet,' Andrew petitioned ; ' where nobody will know me ;' and thus entreated, the man, under cover of the darkness, led hira hurriedly along Buccleuch Street, and down the steps into the lane below, where not a soul was stirring. ' Ye'll be in need of something to eat,' said the man, and Andrew thankfully yielded himself to such friendly guidance. CHAPTEE XII. FACIKG THE FUTUEE. When a man is thrown from his horse, or falls from a scaf- folding, or recovers his senses after a railway accident, he does not all at once realize the serious nature of the injuries which have been inflicted. He only knows that life is still in him, and thanks God for that mercy. Afterwards comes the knowledge — the suffering — the repining. At the moment succeeding a great deliverance, the first instinct is gratitude ; subsequently, when knowledge follows ignorance, when re-action ensues after excitement, when the danger is behind and the vista of years before — a cry ascends through the darkness : ' Would that I had died ! — why was I spared for this ? ' To Andrew Hardell 'afterwards' had not yet arrived. But a few minutes previously, peril was present with him, and that peril could scarcely become all at once a memory of the past. There was only a single feeling uppermost in his mind as he hurried along, guided by David Johnstoun, and that was a wonder- ing thankfulness at his deliverance. FACING THE FUTURE. 99 As to the future, he was too bewildered to think of it. He was free — tlie trial was over — the danger past. As to the actual meaning of tlie verdict, he had not yet quite grasped it. He was spent, and he wanted rest. He was confused, and he needed time to collect his thoughts. He was faint, and lie required food. He never could accurately remember what he felt while he walked through the twilight up the narrow streets, except that he was very glad. He had not yet realized the nature of his hurt ; it was not mortal, he knew, and that was then enough for him to comprehend. Out of the darkness they turned into an inn of the commoner description, where, around a blazing fire, a number of men were gathered drinking and smoking. A comely, middle-aged woman was in the act of supplying one of her customers with another ' noggin ' of whiskey, when David beckoned and spoke to her in a low tone. Instantly she bent her eyes on his companion with a look of curious inquiry, then, without a word, led the way up a narrow staircase and into a bed-room on the first floor. 'Te'll be quiet enough here,' she said, setting the candlestick she carried down on a small round table, and again favouring Andrew Hardell with the same look of irrepressible curiosity she had honoured him with belo\v. 'And ye wad like something till eat — what will ye please to have ? ' ' I will come down wi' ye and see to that,' David Johnstoun hurriedly interposed. 'Will ye sit, Mr Hardell, and rest your- self a-bit ? ' and the pair departed from the room, leaving A n- drew alone. Then all at once there fell upon him such a sense of desola- tion as I might never hope to put into words; the comprehen- sion of his position dropped down into his heart as a stone drops down into a well, troubling the waters at the bottom. He was not innocent — he knew that; and the sentence pro- nounced declared as much. Not proven — ay, not proven in law — but there was not a creature in Court — not an inhabitant of Dumfries — not even the waiter from the ' King's Arms,' the only friend who had stopped to congratulate him — that believed he was other than guilty. They had hurried him through the kitchen that he might not be recognized. They had brought him up to this room, not that he might physically be more comfortable, but that mentally he should escape annoyance. He looked round the apartment, in which no fire blazed cheer- fully, which was only lighted by a solitary dip, and contrasted 100 A life's assize. its cold dreariness with the warmth and coziness of the kitchen below. lie glanced at the bed placed in one corner, at the cliest of drawers near the door, at the small .round three-legged table where the candle was guttering down and making for itself a long wick with a cross of blackness at the top of the flame ; lie surveyed the empty grate and the strip of matting, and then his eye, still wandering round the room, fell on tlie looking-glass. Moved by a sudden impulse, he took up the light, and hold- ing it close to the mirror, beheld his own reflexion. He looked at himself with a bitter smile. He had been, if not handsome, at least well-favoured. His had been that sort of face which mothers bless as ' bonnie,' and women admire for its frank, fearless, honest comeliness. He had never boasted chiselled features, nor dreamy, poetic speaking eyes. He had not been beautiful as a dream. In his best days no person could have said of him that he looked as though he had stepped down from the canvas of one of the old masters to walk amongst men — but yet he had been something more than passable, and he had been young. Now he seemed young no longer ; since he stood before a free man, another sculptor than nature had taken chisel and mallet in hand to alter her work. His face was worn. Ins cheek hollow. There was a drawn expression about his mouth ; his eyes were sunk ; he had lines across his forehead ; his hair was thin, and streaks of grey appeared amidst the brown ; his clothea hung upon him, and the hand which held the candlestick looked, reflected in the glass, like the hand of a skeleton. The beauty of his youth was gone, and the hope of his youth with it. Life was as unlilie the life he had previously stood on the heights of manhood and gazed over, as he himself was unlike the man who had mentally done great things and built many a pleasant habitation for himself in the bright days departed. He replaced the candle on the table, and sat down waiting in patience for some one to come to him. It seemed a long time that he thus remained alone, but at last the door was flung open, and David Johnstoun re-appeared carrying a tray, on which were a dish of fried bacon and eggs, bread, and the materials for whiskey punch. In his best manner the waiter whipped the cover oiF the ham and eggs, presented the bread to Mr TIardell, and would, seeing how wdiite and ill he looked, have ' mixed ' for him, but that Andrew, pointing to the whiskey, said: — FACING THE FUTURE. 101 ' 1 cannot take that ; get me a cup of tea if you can — if not, water.' ' The spirit will do ye more good,' suggested the other ; but Andrew shook his head. 'Take it away, I hate the smell of it,' he said. 'No dis- respect to your national drink, Johnstoun, however,' he added, seeing the man looked vexed and disappointed, ' only I am not well, and the smell upsets me.' ' Try a thimbleful raw,' suggested David, but Mr Hardell was obstinate. He had never tasted whiskey since that night, and the sight and the smell of it was to him as the sight and the smell of death. Another such room as the one in which he was sitting, small and close, and illumined only by a solitary candle, the rain pouring in torrents, himself emptying his flask, and then falling asleep only to waken in the darkness to a memory of what was lying on the New Abbey Eoad. All this rose before him as he motioned Johnstoun to remove the whiskey, Avhich no doubt would have done him good, could he only have swallowed it. Then he took an e^^, and a morsel of ham, and a bite of bread — 'just the name of eating,' David Johnstoun afterwards afiirmed — and drank a cup of very bad tea which the landlady brought him. When the meal was finished, it suddenly occurred to him that he had no money. Instinctively he put his fingers into his waistcoat pocket — but there was nothing there save emptiness. ' It'll be all right,' said his companion, noticing the action and the look which succeeded it. 'I'm acqueint wi' Mrs Pat- tison.' ' Settle with her then, will you,' answered Andrew, ' and after- wards will you go for me to my — to Mr Anthony Hardell, if you know where he is to be found, and ask him to meet me on that path down by the river under the houses — where the trees are, you know ? I shall feel better out in the air — and — and — if I don't see you again, Johnstoun, thank you, and good-bye and God bless you,' ' Eh, sir ! ' exclaimed the man, surprised out of his former re- ticence, ' but my heart has been sair for ye. I knew rightly ye had no hand in Mistress Challerson's making off, whatever may have happened when you and him met ' ' Hush, for the love of God ! ' said Andrew, in a whisper, look- ing round as though he thought the very walls had ears. ' Te needn't be feared o' me,' was the reply, ' though I was feared o' what the Depute might ask me. I was aye hoping — 102 A life's assize. hoping ye would have pled to Culpable Homicide I didna think, he could have missed it both wi' Mr Anthony and mysell'.' ' Missed what ? ' asked Andrew Hardell. He never could make out afterwards what induced him to put such a question, for he knew the answer which was sure to come. ' The suit of tweed Mr Anthony left behind him. I minded all about that suit — afterwards ' With a shudder Andrew Hardell turned away from the speaker, and stood for a moment, his head averted, and his fingers weav- ing and intertwining one with another. An Englishman of the same class might have misunderstood this gesture, but not so David Johnstoun. If the system of edu- cation in Scotland have no other advantage, it has at least this, that it — together with the natural thoughtfulness of the people — enables one man to form some faint conception of the inner feel- ings of his fellow. 'It was ill-judged of me,' began the man, and there was a quiet pathos in that soft, mournful tone, which is the distinguish- ing feature of that part of Scotland. ' I ought to have known better. I hope ye're no' angry.' * Angry ! ' Andrew repeated ; ' angry ! ' and he showed his companion a white, troubled face, while he repeated the word — ' but that was an awful oath, Johnstoun, for you, was it not — knowing what you did ? ' ' Knowing what I did, Mister Hardell, I'll jest settle that aith with my Maker. He'll be fairer dealing nor any of us, and 1 am sure and positive there is no' a minister in Scotland would say that aith bound a man to go out of his way to pit the rope round anither's neck. My mind is in no sort o' way distressed about the matter, and so yours need na be. And now I'll go and do what you want.' ' Good-bye,' Andrew Hardell said, and stretched out his hand without a feeling of there being blood upon it. ' Good-bye, sir, and I wish you well, wherever you may be.' ' And wherever I may be, if I forget your kindness may God forget me.' ' It isna for a gentleman like you to be thinking so much of what one like me has been able to do, by jest saying nothing,' answered David Johnstoun, and he was gone, leaving Mr Hardell's fingers tingling with the force of the farewell grip he had given them. A few moments after, Andrew Hardell — having blown out the candle — groped his way down-stairs, and nodded good night to the landhuly, and passed out into the Veunel, from whence he pro- PACINQ THE FDTURE. 103 ceeded along Back and Irish Streets, to that walk under the houses, beneath the trees within sight of the Nith, where he had appointed to meet his friend. Tor at least an hour he paced slowly up and down — up and down : now leaning against some garden wall, to listen for the sound of approaching footsteps, then renewing his march along the path. Whilst he wandered thus, there came from one of the houses overlooking the Nith, a sound of music, floating tlirough the night. There was no great power, or very much purpose in the singer's voice, but they were the tones of a sweet old melody that stole down to the spot where Andrew Hardell stood, and as he listened — as he looked up towards the open windows — as he noticed the blazing fire, leaping and throwing strange effects of light into the darkness — there returned upon him the old sense of desolation I have mentioned, and the man, leaning up against a tree — wept. They are pleasant houses, those in Dumfries, the windows of which command a view of the river, but it was not of the comfort or pleasantness of their interiors that Andrew Hardell thought as the unhidden tears blinded his eyes, and made the light more dim and the darkness denser before him. It was just this, — he felt that he stood out there m a night typical of his own future. Lights shone in the windows for others, but from no casement might any light ever again gleam cheerfully for him. For others — the warmth, and the love, and the music, and the dear voices of home ; for him — the night and the coldness, and the discords and the solitude of life. Ah ! well, he would go away and make a new existence for himself in a strange land : he would change his name and start afresh upon a diiferent career. The Church was closed to him. ' Not Proven * had placed a padlock upon that once open door. He could not and he would not stay in England, to see once friendly faces change — to hear once kindly voices grow cold and unfamiliar. Madge — yes, Madge ; it was his duty to leave her. She would marry some one else and be happy. She would become the mother of children, who could not in the future curse their father for having bequeathed to them an inheritance of shame. Through the night there arose a thanksgiving that he was not married ; that he was free to carry himself and his sorrows far away, and still the music came floating down from the open window, and a man's voice took up the refrain — 104 A life's assize. ' For Lochaber no more, for Locliaber no more, We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.' For 'maybe' read 'never,' thought Andrew Hardell, and his soul was exceeding sad and bitter within him. Thus it always is ; when once the passing trouble is overgot, there comes time for self-pity. ' I have been exceeding jealous for the Lord God of Hosts,' complained Elijah, but he said this not when he was fleeing for his life from the wrath of Jezebel, but when he stood in safety on Mount Horeb. Six hours previously, had any one assured Andrew Hardell he should that night be a free man, free to go where he listed, he would have thouglit the news almost too good for belief, and yet now he stood out in the darkness — not unthankful, indeed, but still miserable and forlorn beyond description. He might not, perhaps, have felt so desolate, but for that gleaming light — but for that voice stealing down through the darkness. As it was, the song and the bright room brought home to him the fact that he knew not that night where to lay his head, that the world certainly was before him — but not to choose — that the vf;dict pronounced left but one course opea for him to pursue, viz. to leave England with all convenient speed, and put the ocean between him and his hopes and fears, his sin and his sorrow — for ever. ' Ye'll be tired wi' waitin',' said a fiirailiar voice in his ear, at this juncture. ' Mister Hardell wasna' fit to come out himsel', and so he sent me. He bid me give you this letter and parcel. I told him ye would not have light to read the letter, so I was to repeat to ye most of what is in it. He wants to meet ye at a place in London, and for ye to do nothing till ye have seen him, and there's twenty pounds in this parcel, which ye will please to count.' ' 1 must read what he says,' answered Andrew Hardell ; ' there's a public-house up the Sands ; — come along with me ;' and the pair strode on till they reached the inn, from the open doors of which streamed light enough to enable Andrew to deci- pher his friend's note. Thus it ran : — ' I am ill, and unequal to the interview you desire. I know what you want, but must see and speak to you concerning your future plans. I send you twenty pounds, which will no doubt Buffice to carry you to London ; when you arrive there let me FACING THE FUTURE. 105 know where I can see you. Direct to me as Mr Jones, at " Tlio Salisbury Arms, Hertford," where I shall be almost as soon as you can reach London. I will get your things from the Procu- rator Fiscal, and bring them to town with me. I have suflered tortures to-day, but am so thankful it is all right. ' Ever yours, ' Anthon^t.' To hear the oath with which Andrew Hardell crushed up this letter, was — so the witness of that ebullition afterwards sa'd — ' awsome.' Out of the same mouth we know can proceed blessing and cursing, and the imprecation that followed the perusal of Anthony Hardell's letter was not less hearty than the grateful benediction which had escaped Andrew's lips when he and his companion stood together in the mean inn where he ate his frugal supper. In a moment the execrable selfishness, the criminal weakness of this man by whose act, and through whose means, he stood that night an outcast on the face of the earth, were made evident to him, and like Job, he cursed his day ; while like David, he implored the Lord's vengeance on the enemies of his peace. ' Whist — whist, it's no' weel to talk that like,' said his com- panion, and at the rebuke Andrew laughed aloud. ' Tou have not had your future destroyed ; you have not had the whole of your life clouded by a weak, cowardly, insensate fool. But there, let him go, and my money with him. David, my friend, he continued, ' the wisest of men warns us not to go surety — not to put our trust in princes, but if to that advice you add mine — not to lend money to any one, and not to believe in the friend of your bosom, you will make a better thing of this world than I am likely to do.' ' Te're young,' began the other, after a moment's silence. 'Ay, and I have therefore the more time for trouble before me, — but we won't speak about that any more,' added Andrew Hardell, abruptly. ' Tell me something I want to know ; why ■did they talk so much concerning my light coat on the trial ? — what were they driving at ? ' ' There was a person seen often about the Heron's Nest, wear- ing a light coat. Mrs Blair could have sworn to it, but she is ill, and no' expectit to get better.' ' And they thought that coat belonged to me ? ' ' Maybe they werena' far wrang,' was the reply. ' But I never had it on in Dumfries.' ' Somebody else might though.' 106 A life's assize. ' Do you mean to say, Johnstoun, that -' ' 1 mean to say I believe Mr Anthony Hardell went out wi' that coat over his arm mony a time, and that if he had been man enoLigli to say so on the trial, and to say where he went, the jury would have brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty." It was Mr3 Cliallerson did the harm. If ye had been cleared of that, they would have cleared ye of the other. I heard them all talking about it up at the Hawtel.' ' And why did not you ' began Andrew. ' I couldna swear to a belief, and I didna even believe it quite till I was talking to him a while ago. He has a sorer heart than yours to-night, let yours be as sore as it will. And now I must be goin' back, if I can do no more for ye, for I'll be wanted. If I may make so bold, where are ye going to stay till the morn ? ' ' Not in Dumfries, at any rate,' Andrew Hardell answered. ' Tell ]Mr Antliony I will see him in London ; and here, pay Mrs Pattisou what I owe her.' ' Now Lord forgive ye, Mister Hardell, for the thought that I wanted or would take money from ye,' and David Johnstoun with an aggrieved air returned the ten pounds which the other had thrust into his hand. ' I'll take the woman's trifle if you wish ; ye have silver, for I brought some, case ye might need it on your road.' ' I iioped you would buy something to remember me by,' Andrew explained. ' I'm no' likely ever to forget ye,' was the reply, uttered some- what ungraciously. ' Nor I you,' returned the other, sadly and slowly, ' nor I you ; if I have vexed you, Johnstoun, forgive me,' he added, stretching out his hand. 'I did not mean the money as payment of what never — God knows — can be paid. I did not, indeed.' ' I am no' vexed, and I have naithing to forgive, only English folk are apt to think money is everything, and that it can buy onybody.' ' I don't think it could buy you,' answered Andrew, heartily ; and once again the two men shook hands and parted, Andrew ]>erlia])s in his heart feeling a little sorry to know from experience there are obligations money cannot recompense, and Johnstouu thinking to himself, ' It's well the moon's up now, for the puir fellow would find it lonely travelling in the dark.' Possibly it was the very fact of the moon having sailed up from tlie east that made Andrew Hardell, after a moment's irreso- luti<)u. k^Hve the Sands and walk to the centre of Dervorgiila'a FACING THE PUTDRR. 107 Bridge, where, with his arms resting upon the parapet, he took that last look of Dumfries which was mentioned in the first chapter of this story. And so with this farewell, we leave in his company the Queen of the South: leave the flowing river and the soft green hills: the Nithsdale valley and the far-away hills, and the corn-fields all golden and glowing, stretching down even to the water's edge. A portion of the man's life is over : the scene shifts : fi-esh actors are attiring themselves to appear on the boards. Fades away the road to New Abbey, the height beyond Colvend ; fades the purple of Criff"el — the broad Solway— the winding Nith ; fades likewise those weeks spent in Kirkcudbright jail — the old prison in Buccleugh Street, the old Court-house, the judges, the counsel, the spectators, the jury. All these people, all these accessories, all these circumstances, are already matters of the past. To-day has merged into yesterday. To-morrow of the man's life is at hand, and, turning his face southwards, he faces his Future. CHAPTER XIII. AT THE ' SALISBURY AEMS.' "Weeks had passed by when, one gusty and ungenial after- noon towards the end of October, the Rev. Andrew Hardell entered Hertford, and having inquired for, and been directed to, the ' Salisbury Arms,' walked into that hotel and. asked to see a gentleman who was staying there — Mr Jones. ' What name, sir ? ' inquired the waiter. * Smith,' answered the visitor ; and the pair ascended, the stairs together, and crossed one of the broad lobbies with which that old-fashioned inn abounds. The man opened a door at the end of this corridor, and motioning Mr Hardell to stay where he was, entered the apart- ment. * Smith, did you say ? ' exclaimed some one in an irritable tone ; * what the deuce can he want ? I know no one of that name. You mustn't show him in here, at any rate. Put him in the next room, and say I shall be with him directly.' H 108 A life's assize. ' AVill yo walk this way, sir,' said the man to Andrew Har- dell, ushering him at the same time into tliat long apartment with many windows, which looks so particularly cheerless without a fire, and with a dreary expanse of bare mahogany down the centre. Beside the chimney-piece, as the most convenient vantage ground — a vantage ground which had the additional benefit of being near the door — the visitor waited for his host, who came in presently, expecting to meet a stranger, but who, at sight of his former friend, started back in surprise. 'You here!' he said. 'The fellow told mo it was some Smith. I didn't think to see you.' ' You didn't want to see me, I know,' the other answered bitterly, ' and so I sent in a name which would, I believed, serve my turn. It has come to this, that I must settle my future with you ; and as you would not come to me, I have come to you.' ' I am very glad you have come,' said Anthony, holding out his hand for the second time ; but for the second time Andrew refused to take it. 'Are we not to be friends, then?' asked Anthony; and Andrew answered — ' JVo.' ' We are not to be enemies, I hope,' said the other, ' for T stand in sore need of your help just now.' ' Standing in need of help or amusement could be about the only reason why Anthony Hardell should ever honour any man with his friendship,' observed Andrew, bitterly. ' Heaven knows you wrong me,' was the reply. ' Then why have you never come to see me ? Why have you never yet kept one of the appointments you made ? ' ' Because I was afraid,' he answered. ' Because I dreaded what you might say ; because, knowing what I have brought upon you, I did not dare face my work. You were always stronger and better than I, Andrew. Don't be hai'd upon me now.' ' I do not want to be hard,' said the other in a softer voice ; ' but I want my own. Give me back the money you got from me under the false pretence of desiring to flee from temptation ; and I will never trouble you with the sight of me or my ruined fortunes again. Give it "to me — or at least as much of it as you have left, and let us part in peace. I owe you no ill-will. Look- ing in your face, Anthony, whicli is changed almost as much as my own, I can say, " God forgive you ! " ' AT THE 'SALISBURY ARMS.* 109 ' Ay, but I cannot forgive myself,' Anthony replied, and tbere ensued a pause. * I can well understand,' began Andrew, at length, ' that you must have spent a considerable portion of that thousand pounds, and I ask nothing from you except the balance which may re- main. I want to get away from England. I want to begin my life anew. What is the matter with you ? ' he suddenly added, turning sharply round upon Anthony. ' Whatever else yoii may eay, don't tell me that money is all spent. If you have wasted my poor inheritance on lier — if you have been playing with my only cliance for the future, I cannot forgive you, and I won't — so now let us understand one another.' And he drew himself up erect and defiant, while Anthony only murmured : — ' Oh, why did you come here ? I cannot say what I want to say to you now. I cannot tell you everything — you do not know how I am situated.' ' Is she here ? ' Andrew Hardell inquired. ' Tes,' was the reply. *I thought as much,' the younger man said bitterly. 'You would not have me desert hor noivf asked Anthony. ' Pshaw,' exclaimed his former friend impatiently ; and he walked to one of the windows, where Anthony followed him. ' Andrew — dear old fellow ! ' he began, laying a hand on his shoulder, ' for the sake of the times gone by, listen patiently to me now. I have not been so bad as I seem. I have not been a deliberate sinner ; I did not mean to harm him, or you, or her, or anybody — only I could not help myself. I have commenced believing in fate — it was to be — I could not help it. The meet- ing with them — our unfortunate journey north — oh!' he added, passionately, 'you have never known what it is to be tossed to and fro, as within sight of land, yet unable to touch it — you have never known what it is to love ' ' Love ! ' interrupted Andrew, scornfully. ' Tes, love,' repeated the other ; ' such love as may not be written in the domestic annals, but which is strong as death for all that. I tried to leave her, and I could not ; if I could leave her now I would not. She has no one in the world but me. Consider how desolate a woman is who has given up every- t\\\\i^ on earth for the sake of a man. Tou would not have me be so base, so cruel ? ' ' What I would have you do, Anthony, is neither here nor there,' answered the other, shortly, ' for unless you are marvel- lously changed, the road you wish to travel is that you will no A life's assize. pursue. I may have my thoughts about you, as I have my opinions coucerning her — but I would rather keep both to my- self. What I want to know is this — Do you intend to give me back that thousand pounds, or any portion of it ? In one word : — " Yes "— or— " No." ' ' Yes, and no,' was the rapid reply. ' I cannot pay back your money — but I can return an equivalent for it. I have something to propose for your good and my own — only it is im- possible for me to speak of it here — in this cold dreary room, where we are liable to interruption at any minute. I will meet you in London — I promise faithfully I will, at any place you may appoint, and I will then explaiu myself fully, and tell you all my difSculties.' ' ^ow, look here,' said Andrew Hardell, and he faced about swiftly and sternly, 'I won't be deceived any more by you. I have had trouble enough in obtaining this interview, and we do not part until I understand very clearly indeed what you mean to do in the future. You have been living in sin with my money. With your sin you have brought more wrong and Buffering upon me than you can ever mend.' ' Yes,' interrupted the other ; ' but remember also that I held my tongue when a word from me would have proved fatal ■ — that I went into Court determined to perjure myself rather than utter that word.' ' There spake Delilah,' exclaimed Andrew after a second's silence, during the continuance of which he fought with his rage and subdued it. ' Never a man would have imagined such a sentence, unless a woman had inspired him. Go on, Anthony — you do credit to your instructress. And so it was generous of you not to hang the man to whom you owed money ? What a convenient way that would have been of paying old debts, and yet you refrained from taking advantage of it. 1 did not quite under- stand the extent of my danger and my obligation till now ' ' How you will misunderstand me! ' exclaimed Anthony. ' Do I ? ' was the reply ; ' and yet your meaning seemed in- telligible enough ; however, let us drop the past, and talk only of the future. Am I to have any portion of that money back, or is it all goue ? ' ' It is not gone, but I cannot return it to you,' said the other. ' Oh, Andrew ! ' he added, ' have you never thought about me in all this matter? Never considered how it might be with us? Never wondered how it would be with me burdened as I am ; tied to a woman I might not marry openly in England, and yet whom I could not cast off ? ' AT THE 'SALISBURY ARMS.' Ill * To be perfectly candid,' said Andrew Hardell, * I never have. I felt quite satisfied you or she would find a way out of the difli- culty somehow ; and the fact is, I imagined, after what had oc- curred, she would go back to her friends, and you settle down tc your work.' ' How little you know of her,' exclaimed Anthony. ' My opportunities for observation have been more limited than yours,' was the reply. ' I wish you would not sneer — it does not suit you. In the old days you never sneered.' ' These are not the old days, and I am not the man you knevir then,' was the reply. ' Yes, you are ; only you will not believe in me now,' said the other. ' I am sorry I did not go to see you when you wanted me. Many a time I have passed the end of the street where you are stopping, and thought, " Yes, I will call and see him," but my courage failed. I am living at a place close by Cannon Street. It is strange, is it not, how very near together two people may be in London without knowing it.' ' And what on earth are you living off Cannon Street for r ' asked Andrew. Then suddenly light dawned upon his mind. ' You are going to marry her,' he said ; and Anthony nodded. ' When you have married her, what do you mean to do ? ' he inquired. ' Go abroad,' was the reply. ' Where abroad ? ' 'Australia.' ' And you have taken your passage ? ' ' Yes ; and the vessel sails this day week.' ' And what about your curacy ? ' ' You can take that.' ' I ? — are you mad ? There is not a rector in England would have me ! There is not a bishop would license me ! ' ' True J but jon might take my curacy for all that.' ' With your name ? ' ' Yes ; the whole thing as it stands. It would suit you — it never could have suited me. You want clerical work — I hate it. You like the poor — I detest them. After all, it is only changing your Christian name. Nobody knows me there. The whole matter was arranged by correspondence, and very little of that ; besides, our handwriting is sufficiently similar. You take my papers, and my name, and my curacy, and there is an end of the matter.' ' So this was your notable scheme — this was the way in which 112 A life's assize. you meant to give me back value for iriy money,' said Andrew Hardell, after a pause. ' Yes ; it is the best plan I can think of for both,' answered the other. ' Then I will go, lest you think of something better still,' re- torted Andrew, and he took his hat and went down the stairs and out of the house witliout a word of farewell — perfectly regardless of Anthony's entreaties for him to stop. 'I will call upon you to-morrow,' his former friend shouted over the banisters, but Andrew went on unlieeding. ' A notable scheme,' he repeated to himself, ' and worthy of its author.' And yet there must have been something in the scheme that riveted his attention, for he tliought of it, and of little else, all the way back to London ; and when he arrived at Slioreditch, instead of at once proceeding straight to his hotel, he inquired the way to Essex Marsh, and amused himself for a con- siderable period in walking about that agreeable parish, during the course of which lour he saw as much misery, dii't, and ignor- ance, as tlie heart of the most zealous believer in the rottenness of all existin'' institutions could desire to behold. CHAPTEE XIV. THE FIRST STEP. It is a less difficult matter to change a man's opinions than to describe the process by which his opinions were changed — that is, we find it easier to employ arguments and to suggest plans tliat shall alter the whole aspect of a life, than to discover why our arguments produced such results. We play at will on the human instrument, but we cannot tell why one especial string shall vibrate longer than another. We run up and down the gamut, striking notes which awaken some answering music. The secrets of that sort of thorough bass are beyond our learning, and yet by the merest instinct we compose our love- songs, our triumphal marches, our sorrowful melodies, our law- less romances, in strict accordance with its laws. There is something in us beyond knowledge which compre- hends why this shall produce discord and that harmony ; which THE FIKST STEP. 113 says to us coufidently, this shall touch and that alrikc him, without being able to tell the why or the wherefore of the result compassed. We may make a man weep, but wo cannot analyze why his tears flow. It is not for us to understand the subtle mechanism of another's humanity, when we cannot comprehend our own — to say why he who was bent upon one path, enters another, while we are wandering through strange and devious wilds our- selves. Have we never said vehemently nay, and then gradually become reconciled to yea ? Is there a reader that glances over these pages who has not at some time or other vowed ' I will not — nothing shall induce me ' — only to the end, as it seems to us, that he might afterwards declare, ' I will — perhaps after all it is best ? ' To two things men, as they learn this world's wisdom, yield implicit obedience, viz. necessity and inclination — to the first because they must, to the second because the season of life in which suffering seejns heroic, and mere duty the thing to be considered, is happily of very short duration — and for these reasons, if we assume generally that people are influenced by argument just so far as argument seems expedient or pleasant, we shall perhaps not be far wrong in our conclusions. At all events, it would be difficult to account on any other grounds for the fact, that although Andrew Hardell left Hert- ford, declaring to himself the proposal made by his former friend was wrong and inexcusable, he left Essex Marsh shaken in his opinion, ' After all,' he considered, ' if things had only been difl"ereut I should have made a better curate for these people than he ; and it does seem strange and hard that, having nothing else to live for, I should not be permitted to labour amongst the poor and needy. Certainly, could I have chosen my lot, it would have been amongst them.' For the missionary spirit was strong in the man, that love of grappling with difficulties and surmounting obstacles, which does not exactly proceed from a religious spirit, but rather is born of an adventurous, enterprising, speculative turn of mind. The easy life of a country clergyman had never seemed an enviable one to Andrew Hardell. He had always longed for a wider field, for a more extended sphere of labour. That desire also to undertake any work save the work lying close at hand, which is so curiously distinctive a feature of modern men and women, was no more foreign to him 114 A life's assize. than it is to ninety-nine people out of a hundred at the present moment. ' Behold,' says Humanity, ' there is the field where I would dig, and sow, and reap plenteously — where I could labour with all my strength ;' and the speaker looks forth beyond the level pastures and the pleasant valleys which he owns, to some far- away stretch of upland, where others perhaps are longing for the green meadows and the rippling brooks of the despised pos- session. It had always been thus with Andrew Hardell. Whenever he read of the spiritual destitution of great cities, of the ignor- ance, the vice, the heathenism, the misery of their poorer inhabitants, he had thought to himself — ' They have not got the right sort of men amongst these people. I could influence, I could improve, I could convert them.' It had been the idea of his liie, that a vast tract of unexplored usefulness lay in tow^ns, ready to yield its treasures to any one stout of heart and strong of purpose ; and in his day- dreams there had not been wanting visions of ultimate worldly aggrandizement rewarding any one who should faithfully take such a labour in hand, and carry it through to a successful issue. Even in the Church fancy will occasionally sketch delusive pictures of fame and greatness and wealth ; and so it may have been that from out the squalor of a City curacy, from out the dirt, and sin, and wretchedness of miserable homes, and districts full of disease, and vice, and sorrow, there arose, as a suitable termination to the work and the success, a crozier and a palace, the one to be wielded, and the other inhabited, by the patient, earnest labourer, of whom in the future all men should speak well. Of course these dreams and fancies were now at an end, and yet out of their very wreck there arose a desperate desire to be placed in some position where he might retrieve the past by work, where he might hide his head till the scandal concerning him was forgotten, till men had ceased to remember the whole circumstances of the case, and only cared to recollect he had been tried and acquitted. Lying awake in the darkness that night, after he returned from Hertford, the man who had suffered so terribly took heed to himself and his position, and for the first time since the hour when he was lodged in Kirkcudbright jail, saw something which he should like to have, which seemed to hold a grain of hope witliin it for the future, if only he dare put forth his hand and pluck what was within his reach— THE FIRST STEP. 115 If he dare : but he dared not. It was tempting, and the boughs hung low truly; nevertheless, the fruit was forbidden him to eat, and he might not taste it. There was nothing left for him save to go abroad, and to strive to earn his living pain- fully in a strange land. And then he began again to consider how hard all this was — how his friend should have been permitted to take his money, his fair fame, the entire hope and purpose of his life, away from him. He could never marry — he could never hold up his head again amongst his fellow^s — he could never make a name and a happy home for himself on this side the grave, and all because of an accidental blow, struck not in passion, but in self-defence. ' Lord, was it just ? ' he cried in his agony, and then next moment it came to him like a revelation that he had not trusted first or last in any help but his own, that he had not depended on the power and justice of the Almighty, but instead in the strength of his own will, on the extent of his own cleverness. He had never looked at the matter from this point of view before, never once. Not when he was toiling over Criffel, not when he stood alone on the sea-shore, not when he was destroy- ing the evidence against him, not when the terrors of the law were arrayed before him, not when he became aware two men possessed knowledge of a secret sufficient to hang him, not even then had he understood where his first mistake lay. He had asked himself in his loneliness, in his terror, in his mortal agony, what other course he could have pursued, and the answer his heart always returned previously was, ' None, no other course lay open for him ;' but now — now when it was all over and done with, he knew that, had he committed his way unto the Lord Whose justice he questioaed, some way would have been made clear unto him. ' God pardon me,' he thought, ' for I have striven to be wiser than my Maker ;' and he buried his face in his hands, beholding his error when it was too late. And then he decided to put aside the new temptation which had been presented to him. ' I will not add lie to lie, and de- ception to deception. I will not preach the word of my Master Irom behind a mask, nor stand before His altar a hypocrite. If need be I will work my passage out to Australia, and get my bread there honestly in the sweat of my brow.' Strong in which intention he went forth the next morning to see how he best might carry out his plan. To his surprise, however, he found that it would be no easy matter for him to reach even the colonies without money. 116 A life's assize. Captains would have nothiug to say to a man who did not know the ditlerence between one rope and another ; Government did not desire to send out sickly clerks to a new land, but rather able-bodied labourers. ' You had much better ask your friends to do something for you in England,' said one shipowner, not unkindly. ' Gentlemen with soft hands and a university education are not wanted in the colonies ; if you have quarrelled with your relations, take my advice and make the matter up again.' And so at length, foot-sore and weary of walking through the interminable London streets over the ' stony-hearted ' pavements, Andrew Hardell, in utter despair as to his future, returned to his hotel, where he found Anthony awaiting his arrival. ' Come to my rooms,' said that individual, ' I want to speak to you quietly ; only hear what I wish to say, and then decide ; it cannot do you any harm to listen to me, at any rate ;' and he was so urgent that at length Andrew yielded reluctantly to his request, and accompanied him to Oxford Court, where, on the third floor of one of the houses facing St Swithin's Church, Anthony bade him feel himself at home. ' It is not much of a place,' said the host, ' but it is quiet — • pull your chair up to the fire — will you have tea ? — that is right, I thought you could not feel malice against me for ever. How like the old times this is. I wish they were the old times come back.' ' It is of no use wishing,' returned Andrew, sententiously. ' Certainly not. If wishes were horses, etcetera,' answered Anthony. ' But now, old fellow, I want to talk to you seriously about your own and my future. You want your money back, and I cannot give it to you, because I must marry Laura, and once married to her, it is a thing impossible for me to remain in England. I have deceived you many a time, but I am not going to deceive you any more. When I got that money from you in Dumfries, or at least your order for it, I know I did as base an act as man could imagine, but I always meant to pay you bf^'k, and pay you live times over — I did indeed.' ' Intentions, unhappily, were the only coin of which you n. b..e ever liberal towards others,' remarked Andrew. ' Well, perhaps so,' said the other, ' but there was one inten- tion of mine sound and true as any coin just issued from the Mint — that of repaying the most generous friend man ever pos- sessed. I was mad in those days, Andrew — looking back, I say deliberately and before God, I was possessed. If I could return to that time with my present knowledge, I a wear to you I would THE riEST STEP. 117 flee from temptation as I once sped to it, but now that is all too late. I am what I am, and she is what she is — there is no return for either of us — for either her or me.' ' You think you must marry herP ' ' Andrew ! ' The word was uttered in a tone of the keenest reproach. ' I repeat my question,' said the younger man firmly. ' Do you think you are bound to marry her ? Do you consider you are bound to make her any reparation ? Why cannot you separate now — you to go to the work you voluntarily selected — she to return to her friends, or else to live in retirement ? Tou are flinging away your best chances of happiness, Anthony; think whether the sacrifice be necessary before you complete it.' ' It is necessary, and I mean to make it,' answered Anthony ; ' I will not forsake her now, though I have been often tempted to do so ; though she has tried me almost beyond what I could bear, I will not leave her ; and as for the Church, how would it be possible for me to enter it ? — I who have lived in sin with another man's wife, and been virtually that man's murderer also.' There was a long silence — then, with the teaching of the hills, with the solemn command of the Lord, which can be heard in solitude, upon him, Andrew Hardell arose, and stretching out bis hand to his friend, said — ' Let there be peace between us,' ' There has never been anything but peace between you and me so far as I am concerned,' answered Anthony. ' You were angry with me yesterday, but it was only for the time ; I knew when I came up to-day you would not refuse to shake hands with me again — and so I came to tell you what I meant to do in the future — what I should honestly propose for you as best in the present — may I go on ? ' he added, as Andrew made no reply ; and Andrew said — ' Go on.' 'First, then, I want all that remains of your thousand pounds to take ray wife and myself abroad. Once in Australia, she has an uncle there to whom I mean to apply. I look on your money simply as a loan to be repaid, and it shall be repaid, please God, with interest and compound interest added. In the mean time there is the curacy you have often envied my possession of — take it without fear and without any qualms of conscience — ^you will work it far better than I could have done ; you will speak glad tidings to the poor, which would have fallen spiritless from my lips ; you will be their friend, their guide, their helper. Por Years there has not been an eflicient clergyman in the parish ; the 118 A life's assize. people have been born — they have lived — they have begotteu children — they have died in a state of heathenism ; the district to which you would have to attend is one of the poorest and most wretched in London ; you would have to do missionary work there — you would have to labour like an apostle — you would have to earn your bread hardly, and so late take rest. Is there no charm for you in the idea of a charge like this ? Can you tell me, with destitution and misery asking for your help at home, that there is any sin in giving up your project of going abroad, and taking my place here ? ' ' But the deception,' Andrew murmured. 'Suppose I took the situation,' Anthony answered, 'would there be no deception in that 'i My heart is not in the work ; it never was — it never could be. I believe it is necessary for the work to be done. I believe at the same time I never could do it. Tou have a secret in your life, — so have I ; you have a story, — so have I. Is either of us bound to publish that secret — that story — to the world ? Take my place, at any rate, for a year ; at the end of that time I will send you home money enough to join me abroad, fou might as well be in the wilds of America as in that parish in Essex Marsh, where the work you ought to do lies. You will pass out of men's minds and be forgotten ; vou will do your duty and be happy, and I — I shall not be quite miserable about you.' And so the pair talked on, hour after hour, into the night. So at length Anthony won from his friend the confidence of old : how he had written to Madge, freeing her from her engagement, and telling her that he would not trust himself even to say ' Good-bye.' ' Wherein I think you were wrong,' said Anthony, gravely. ' Though you never loved Madge Forster, she would have made you an admirable and devoted wife.' ' I do love Madge with all my heart and soul, but I could not now ask an}'' woman to become my wife,' answered Andrew, virtuously. ' Pray to Heaven you may always think so,' retorted the other ; ' for having given up Madge, that is about the worst danger you will find to guard against. It would be nothing marrying a woman who knew, even a little j but to marry a woman who does not know — that is the only thing I really dread happening to you in the future.' 'Ah, you need not dread that,* said Andrew. 'When I parted from Madge, I parted also with all thought of marriage.* THE FIRST STEP. 119 * Well, celibacy is not an evil, if a man could only persuade himself into the belief. It is a good in a clergyman.' ' I imagine so,' said Andrew. * I am sure of it,' persisted Anthony. ' And Madge will very likely marry well,' remarked Andrew, with a sigh. ' Not improbably ; there is a far-away cousin, even now, who has already more than a cousin's admiration for lier, — Mr Porster is ill, past hope of recovery, and these relations are — or were — down at Laugmore, comforting Madge. Dear Madge, she asked me if you were never coming back to England. I think you were wrong, and a brute, to leave her, Andrew, for after all she loved you, ai.d you might have told her the whole story, with- out hearing a word of reproach, or anything excepting " Poor Andrew!'" ' Poor, indeed,' repeated the other, * but poorer if he could take such advantage of a woman's love and generosity. No, marriage and I have shaken hands and bidden one another an eterual adieu ;' and the man leaned forward a little in his chair and shaded his face from view as he spoke. After that night the friends met often, and, each time they parted, Andrew's opposition to the plan proposed grew fainter. 'Exhaust the matter, and where is the deception?' said Anthony. ' Tour name is Hardell, — your initial is A, like mine. If you have sinned, it has been through me. Ton can work better than I. There is no man living who has not some skele- ton, and yours is as little appalling as most ; you shall not be compelled to wear the mask for long. I declare to you my first care shall be to send you back enough money to leave England, if you wish. Tou will be secluded, useful, content. Believe me, I am not quite selfish in wishing you to fill my post ; it will be good for you and for the people, and you will thank me for my advice yet.' Whether these words were true or not, it will be the purpose of this story to show. Only one thing can be certainly stated now, viz., that Andrew Hardell followed the advice, and in due time entered upon his duties as curate of All Saints', in the parish of Essex Marsh. When he got there, he perhaps felt he had not been wholly wrong in listening to the voice of the charmer, for there were sick who wanted a physician, poor who needed relief, sinners who required comfort, reprobates who were living equally without God and without hope. 120 A life's assize. And there were memories too, in his heart, which softened and purified it — memories unconnected with himself. In the dull light of the winter's morning he had beheld Antliony Hardell and Laura Chall.erson plight their troth ; he had seen the worn, haggard face of the bridegroom, and the dis- contented countenance of the bride. He had seen these sinners joined together for better for worse ; he had accompanied his friend on board ship, and listened to him, saying — ' Good-bye, old fellow ; it was not thus we thought once to part, but no doubt it will all be for the best in the long run ;' and then he watched from the shore the man's face growing graver and graver, and the last look he had of Anthony Hardell was standing by the vessel's side, waving a handkerchief, while the little boat which bore Andrew back to shore bounded over the waves. With all her canvas spread, tlie ship sailed down the river, and stood out to sea, and the shores of England never seemed so fair to Andrew Hardell as when he gazed after the vessel — which appeared to get smaller and smaller, till at length it grew a mere speck on the horizon — and thought of the man who a few mouths before had started in life with such fair prospects, and who was now leavino- his own country, perhaps to return to it no more. CHAFTEE XV. ANDEEW HAKDELL's NEW UOME. The events which most materially iufluence a man's life — that make or mar the whole of his existence — usually occur in a hurry. The accident which cripples is over before he has time to realize how it happened — the woman who blesses or curses the remain- ing years, wins his heart before iie comprehends that a thief with fair face and bewitching eyes and soft voice has any ulterior de- signs upon it — the bank which held all his worldly wealth breaks without even a preliminary whisper as to its intentions — the trusted friend turns out false and faithless before the smile that accompanied his ' Good-bye ' has quite faded from recollection — the sickness which prostrates — the pecuniary loss which compels eating the bread of carefulness — the swift calamity^ — the sudden ANDREW HARDELL'S NEW HOME. 121 fever — all these things come witliout announcement, without ceremony. They need no voice to announce their advent, but cross the threshold and stand on the hearth, and are from thenceforward tenants of the man's heart, memories in his life, links of one con- nected chain ; they take up their abode before he has time to remonstrate — before he can stretch forth his hands and cry, ' Ye shall not enter — I Avill close my doors and avert this peril, and refuse to permit you to become a part and parcel of my life.' And then there is a short time of struggle, during which the man wrestles with his fate, and feels by reason of that very struggle half indiiferent to it. Afterwards — after the accident — the heart- wound, the failure, the treachery, is what tries us all. It is not the passage through fire or through water which tests a man's courage, but rather when every feather has been scorched off the wings of hope and imagination — when the other bank is reached, and the shivering wayfarer looks back on the fair land of promise into which he may return in the future never more — then there comes the real trial of strength. Shall he be faint-hearted, and go sighing and melancholy along the rest of his road, or shall he make the best of the country where he finds himself, plant a little garden in the midst of the barren waste, gather unto himself something like a home, BOW the unpromising-looking soil with seed that shall spring up and return a hundredfold, and in the days even of his dejection consider and provide against the famine that otherwise shall surely fall upon his later years, and leave him without a single green thing wherewith to gladden his sight and refresh his soul ? By many more men and women than most people imagine, this point has at some time or other of their lives to be decided. Is a fortune lost — shall the temper be from thenceforth soured, a trial to men and gods ? Is a lover faithless — shall the forsaken one brood her life away thinking of his treachery ? Does death carry off on his pale horse one who was as the apple of an eye — as a jewel in a casket — shall the survivor sit in the shadow of the valley — in the gloom of the grave for evermore ? Does a blight fall on the first promise of youth — shall man walk from thenceforth only through fields where the corn is mildewed, through orchards where the fruit cankers ere it ripens — shall there be no more gladness for him in heaven or in earth, in the summer sunshine, in the sound of many waters, in the rushing of the breeze — shall there come to him no hour more, O Lord, when the blight shall be removed, and the flowers of his life bud forth once again, once again if it be but to perish — shall he not 122 A life's assize. stand in tbe light and feel the warm glow of happiness — shall there arrive to him in the future no present so full of joy that the past may fade away into a mere memory, and the scroll, where the words of that olden story were once traced in such ineffaceable letters, be rolled up and laid aside at last ? In the dreai'y November weather — when the fogs hung heavy over Essex Marsii — when in the Vicarage-house damp rose from the floors, and exuded from the walls, drawn thence by unwonted fires kindled in the library, Andrew Hardell — now known to all whom it might concern as the llev. Anthony Hardell — had ample leisure for considering his position, and deciding how he should for the future walk through life — with a sad countenance or the reverse — in a state of antagonism towards God and man — or accepting what God had sent him without murmuring, and striving to do his duty in that state of existence in which, wisely or not, he had elected to spend the remainder of his days. • For a time there was a beating against the bars — a fluttering of the wings — a passionate cry for liberty — a protest against the justice of his sentence — a wild despair at the thought of what might have been — a natural horror at the loneliness of the road he beheld stretching away — a recoiling from the falseness of his position, from the waste of strength, and talent, and energy, which such a position involved — but after a time he calmed down, and taking matters more quietly, resolved to bear his troubles like a man. Por a while, after Anthony's departure, there set in the same sort of reaction as had ensued after his first gift of the thousand pounds. At Dumfries he had asked himself, was the result obtained ■worth the price paid for it ? In London, with a perfectly new light revealing his friend in his true character — a man strong for evil, weak for good — be decided quite deliberately that the result was not worth the price, and that all the money he had lent, or rather given, his friend, was not likely to benefit Anthony in the least. When once the thousand pounds were spent, in fact, lie could not conceive what was to become of the voluntary exile. Work he knew he would not, and what he should find to do in a strange country, and amongst a strange people, baffled Andrew's imagination. But whatever the result of the step might prove to Anthony and to himself, Andrew, the longer he reflected on the matter, felt more and more that not merely was it now irreparable, but that it had always bee" "^on-preventable. ANDREW HARDELL's NEW HOME. 123 "When bis money passed into Anthony's hands, all the king's horses and all the king's men would not have availed to get it back again. Certainly the borrower condescended to explain why it was impossible for him to meet Andrew's views, but the explanation, ■when weighed and sifted, simply amounted to this, viz., that Anthony had determined to keep what he had got. And then, being of an amiable temperament, having really a liking for bis friend, and being in h'rs own opinion unselfish and thoughtful to a degree, he kindly marked out a course which should at once provide Andrew with bread and cheese, and make his own mind perfectly easy concerning the matter. It was the same thing we so often observe with children enacted between two grown-up people. ' I don't want that — you may have it, and I will take this,' says the juvenile autocrat to its less imperious fellow. So, almost under the guise of a gift to another, the speaker secures what he desires for himself, and with a serene conscience eats his plum-cake, whilst his sub. has to be content with more modest fare, and swallow it thankfully into the bargain. ' I don't want the Enst-end curacy, you can take that,' suggested Anthony Hardell, a mere child of a larger growth, to his friend, ' and I will spend your money, and gratify my own inclinations.' Twist the matter how he would, Andrew Hardell, once the spell of his old companion's presence was removed, could makf nothing more of it than this : He had wanted the money, and he had got it. He had resolved to marry Laura Challerson, and he knew he could not, without outraging all social decency, marry her in England after what had happened. All through the aflfiiir, he (Andrew) had been a mere cat's- paw employed, with apologies and regrets it is true, but em- ployed none the less certainly for all that, to get Anthony's chestnuts out of the tire ; and now Anthony was off to Australia with his chestnuts, and Andrew, sitting in the Vicarage library, considered all these things, and knowing he had been duped, and overpersuaded, and beguiled, and deceived through the very best part of his nature, still refrained from anger, and only said to himself, as he looked out at the dreary November day, typical of a succession of dreary days which he should have to rise up and face morning after morning, 'What am 1 that I should judge him ? God keep me from judging any man hardly throughout all the years to come.' I 124 A life's assize. And so the man's character began to be formed, the instrn- ment fashioned for the work it had to do. It is only the story of one life I have undertaken to tell, and if it should seem to some readers tliat undue time is being occupied in striving to explain the direction Aaidrew Hardell'a thouglits took at this juncture, I would entreat them to remem- ber that the whole universe is made up of the stories of single lives, and that in, perhaps, the most exciting and sensational Btory of any human being's existence which was ever written, after the wind, and the earthquake, and the fire, came a still small voice, which told Elijah what his God expected him to do. Hitherto, his Master's work had seemed to Andrew Hardell easy, and his yoke light ; but now the first thing asked of him, as he entered into the vineyard, was utter self-abnegation. In another name he was to labour. If he preached with the tongue of an angel, if he brought wandering souls home, if he bound up the bruised heart, and supported the laiuting spirit, he should reap no honour from men — none might ever know but God only. For Andrew Hardell, to all human intents, was dead, his place in the world was empty, and he might never occupy it more. He had as really left England, as though he, instead of Anthony, were traversing the ocean. Of his own free will he liad as truly destroyed his individuality, as though the earth were piled above his grave. He had chosen that night when he stood on Dervorgilla'a Bridge, to cast aside all old ties, and to cut himself adrift from all former associations, and behold, this was the result. In the Vicarage he sat alone, a solitary man, without a name, withoi^t a friend ; and how lonely the house in Essex Marsh seemod to him after the snug comfort of Langmore, only those who have ever known what it is to possess a true home, and then to be cast out therefrom, can understand. A more wretched habitation than that Vicarage could indeed, perhaps, scarcely be imagined. It stood a little apart from the churchyard, and was sur- rounded by a plantation of funereal trees, which did indeed serve to screen the graves from view, but that also shut out light and air as well. A high brick wall guarded its front from profane observation, and between this wall and the principal door was a grass-plot, which looked as though afflicted with some fearful disease that produced black, and brown, and grey pMches all over ita surface. ANDREW HARDELI/S NEW HOME. 125 In tlie centre of this grass-plot were an arbutus and a mulberry tree, the latter of which never bore any fruit, and had only leaves on it for about three months in the year. Underneath the arbutus was a sun-dial, bearing the true inscription, 'I only count sunny hours,' for in these latter days it never counted any at all. Over the hall-door porch hung stray branches of jessamine ; at the back of the house was a small damp garden, surrounded by the trees previously mentioned ; and concealed from view by a straggling hedge of half-dead laurel bushes, was a plot of ground where the new curate discovered a broken cucumber- frame, the remains of an ancient hot-bed, a root of parsley, a few cabbages, and a plant of rue. At the extremity of this cheerfid-looking piece of ground stood an old tool-house with the roof fallen in, and there were the lattice-work remains of a former poultry-yard, where were piled dust and ashes, oyster-shells, broken bottles, and pieces of crockery. There were uo stables attaclied to the Vicarage, although there was a tradition in the parish that a clergyman, antecedent to Mr Trelwyu, had kept a carriage and pair, and seen a ' sight of fine company.' AVithin, tlie house was no more cheerful tlian without. The visitor entered through a darlc, low, square hall, from which doors opened into dining, drawing, and morning room. In this latter apartment, Mrs Trelwyu and her daughters had apparently lived, for the paper in the drawing-room was literally peeling oft", and whenever the door was unclosed, a faint, mouldy smell wandered out into the hall. The library, situated at one end of the house, was reached by traversing a corridor, and then ascending a few steps. Andrew found it a dark, dull room — dark by reason of the fir trees growing outside the windows, and dull because it com- manded a view of nothing save the kitchen-garden before described ; but he chose it for his living apartment, partly because of the books with which its walls were lined, and partly because the furniture it contained was in better order, and more substantial, than that in any other room in the house. ' It is many a day since there was a fire here,' remarked tlie woman, who, with her husband, had been left in charge of the house. ' I never saw Mr Trelwyn in this room but once in my life — sitting I mean — that w'as the night before Mr Charles was. married, when the young ladies were trimming their dresses in the parlour. 126 A LIFERS ASSIZE. ' He came up here — it was in the month of August — and 1 think he must have felt the beginning of his illness on him then, for Avhen Mrs Trelwyn sent me with a message about something or other she had forgotten, he was -sitting in the chair by tlie window, looking like a very ghost. 1 lived cook with them for ten years before I married, and after that, whenever they wanted me, I used to come over and help. They were a nice family, though they were never liked in the parish, and for that matter not one of them liked the place ; it was not fit for them.' Which was quite true. To the Trelwyns, Essex Marsh had always seemed as uncongenial, as they seemed to the people by whom they were surrounded. To say that Mr and Mrs Trelwyn detested the place, would be, perhaps, to use too mild a word coneernino; their feelino;s. There was more than simple detestation in their souls concern- ing it — disappointment, anger, hopelessness, humiliation, priva- tion, all were concentrated in Essex Marsh. They had taken the living as a mere stepping-stone to riches, and honour, and happiness, and worldly advancement, and behold, they were left on that stone for the rest of their existence. * A beggarly living,' Mr Trelwyn was wont to declare — ' if I had only known he had intended "to plant me down here for life a pauper in the midst of paupers, I would have flung his gift back to him, and branded him as the ungrateful time-server he was.' All which remarks, delivered at great length, and with a vehemence of enunciation never attained to by Mr Trelwyn in the pulpit, had reference to a deceased bishop, whose memory the Vicar abused with a consistent fury that would have been amus- ing had it not also sounded painfully pathetic. ' If I had trusted God as I trusted him,' sometimes finished Mr Trelwyn, unconsciously paraphrasing the remark of a very different man ; ' if I had trusted God as I trusted him, I should long since have been very differently situated. AVhy,look here, sir,' he one day informed a brother clergyman who came to visit him, ' tlie curate who succeeded me at Tliorpe Eegis, a man without talent, family, or influence, was presented to the living of Crash- law — a poor thing certainly — only one hundred and twenty pounds a year; but, mark you, he met down there a nobleman wb'^ fook a fancy to him, and what was the consequence? why, lie iroi him the living of Bedbury, and that poor curate who came to Thorpe Regis when I left it, is now Eector of Bedbury, Canon (jf Weslmmster, and may, for aught we can tell, some day be Archbishop of Canterbury. And yet there are some people who d--' not believe in Providence. Unhappily, I believed in a bishop, ANDREW HARDELL's NEW HOME. 127 and this is the result. If I had to begin my life again, 1 should make a very different thing of it. "Well, the end is not yet — that is one comfort.' Which, being interpreted, meant — not that Mr Trelwyn now expected his own merits to be ever recognized in this w^orld, but that he hoped when the bishop's affairs came to be finally settled up in the next, that the heavenly auditors would remember how he stranded an old friend in Essex Marsh, and refuse in conse- quence to pass his lordship to the realms of bliss. Nor, to do her justice, was Mrs Trelwyn one whit less vehe- ment than her husband in bemoaning their unfortunate position. ' For herself,' she said, ' of course she did not care ; it was on her poor girls' account she felt the cruelty of their position. Parents did care for their children's degradation. If my poor mother were alive,' Mrs Trelwyn frequently informed her friends, 'it would break her heart to see me doing a servant's work,' by which expression the lady only intended her acquaintance tc understand that when her husband and girls were out of the room she sometimes had to put coals on the fire for herself. Had Mrs Trelwyn been really servant in the Vicarage, the wretched house must have become even more miserable than it was — for a worse manager, and an untidier woman, the Home Counties could not have produced. She was one of those dreadful people whose persons and homes are kept orderly and presentable merely by means of lady's-maids, footmen, parlour-maids, and so forth, and when once these acces- sories were removed, she and her belongings fell into a state of dilapidation which was only faintly shadowed forth by the neg- lected kitchen-garden and the useless dial. She had been a pretty, ladylike-looking girl when Mr Trelwyn married her, and now she was a faded, dowdyish woman, with but one object left in life, viz., to get her daughters married — well, if she could — but, if she could not, then ill. ' There is nothing for them but marriage, Henry,' she observed to her husband, which was true, only, unhappily, it chanced that men would not see the matter in the same light ; and abroad, as at home, the young ladies remained unsought and unwooed, while regretfully Mrs Trelwyn thought of a little love affair of Hen- rietta's which she had nipped in the bud years, and years, and years before. ' The man is now an alderman, and though it would have been a dreadful thing, still it would have been better than this,' she considered, knowing thai; the wares were getting heavy, and , that she was nearly tired of hawking them about. 128 A LIFERS ASSIZE. Had that impossible idea of his concerning beginning life afresh been practicable, Mr Trelwyn should certainly, as a first step in the right direction, have changed his wife ; and yet if there wen3 one portion of his career on whicli at the time ho had piqued himself, it was on the foct of securing Lord ]Mayfort's niece, and getting the lady's family to sanction the match. ' Oh ! he's a fellow certain to rise,' said that excessively easy-going nobleman when Lady Mayfort told him she felt con- fident there was something between Henrietta and the curate. ' He is sure to get on, and considering Etty has not a fortune, and that she has her father's relati^is. I do not think she can do better. He will get a good living some day, and ' ' But of course you do not intend to give liim one,' interrupted Lady Mayfort, thinking not merely of her own children, but ;ilso of her own brothers and nephews. ' Decidedly not ; he has his own friends, and more especially the Bishop of Southwark. He is certain to get on ; a man of his appearance and abilities must get on.' And so the engagement was sanctioned, and Mr Trelwyn married Miss Burnton, and there v/as a very grand wedding, at which the honourable young ladies from the Hall assisted, and the school children strewed the path with flowers, and the bells were rung, and the guests were afterwards entertained at a splen- did bi-eakfast, and the bride's presents were wonderfully beauti- ful and unsuitable — so said Mrs Lance, the spouse of Mr Trel- wyn's rector — 'for a poor curate s loife,'' and the settlements on which Lord Mayfort, in his capacity of unclehood, duly insisted, were perfectly correct and satisfactory ; and although his lord- ship declared, laughingly, ' you need not look to me for a living, Trelwyn,' still Ti'elwyn already in imagination beheld the face of one of the family rectories, and started with his bride on their honeymoon, firmly believing his fortune was made, and that he need not trouble himself for ever after about anything. When, however, he returned from his honeymoon, he found there were many things likely to trouble him. First, the means that had sufficed for a bachelor living in lodgings seemed lament- ably insufficient when a wife had to be supported also ; a wife, further, who did not know beef from mutton till it was cooked, who was utterly at the mercy of her servants, and who had not received even a rudimentary education in the matter of arithme- tic. Second, the Mayforts were away, but a living had just fallen in, and still my lord made no movement to give it to him. ' I will run up to town to see him, Etty,' said the Hev. Henry Trelvyu 'amA l"? went up to town, where Lord Mayfort laughed A.NDREW HAKDELL's NEW HOME. 129 at bim for leaving his bride so soon, and laugbed still more wbcn his visitor mentioned the living. My dear fellow,' be answered, ' I told you not to look to me for a living.' 'I know you did, but ' pleaded the curate. ' ]\[r Trel wyn, do not talce what I am going to say in bad part,' commenced his lordship ; ' but the fact is, you must never look to me for anything. Of course I was glad to do what lay in my power for Etty — au unfortunate match that of her mother's — poor little girl, left without anybody belonging to her before she was ten years old. I had her at the Hall, and so forth, but I can- not continue that through another generation. I have children of my own growing up, and there are my brothers and my wife's brothers, and the Lord only knows who besides to provide for. I gave you fair warning, Trelwyn ; do not say I led you astray ; but if 1 can help you I will. Isn't there some bishop fellow on whom you have a claim ? — we'll ask him down to the Hall, and remind him of it.' Having received wliicb cheering promise, the Rev. Henry Trelwyn turuedhis steps homewards,while Lord May fort remarked to his wife, ' witb that fellow's face and figure, and birth, and manner, he ought to have done better than Etty. He might have married an heiress and ten thousand a year.' Failing the heiress, Mr Trelwyn soon found his position un- pleasant. Mrs Lance, a vulgar, bustling, clever, intriguing woman, began to fancy Mrs Trelwyn gave herself airs, that Trelwyn him- self thought he was better than her liusband. ' They presume on the Hall,' said the Rector's lady, severely; and the Hall being rather a sore point with the Rector, be heark- ened unto the voice of the woman. Ueene Hall lay just outside the parish of Wraysdale, and un- til Mr Trelwyn's arrival there had been no connection or acquaint- ance between the rector of the one village and the great pro- prietor of the next. ' What would you have me do, my dear ? ' asked the Rector, ' Dismiss him,' was the prompt reply, ' and get some one more Buitable — some one whose wife, if he have one, will get up for breakfast, and wear clothes less costly than silks and satins, and feathers, and real lace.' The true fact of the matter being that poor Mrs Trelwyn Avas wearing out her most inimitable irousseaic, and airing her very beat dresses — dresses she could never hope to replace with any one-half so good — in utter unconsciousness that in doing this %he was committing a sin against the ruliug powers. 130 A life's assize. ' But, my dear,' ventured Mr Lance, ' where shall I again get a curate so suitable, so perfect a gentleman, so desirable in every way ? Only think of thai Irishman they had at Deenefells, who when his vicar asked him to a five o'clock dinner, observed to his wife, daring a pause in the conversation — ' " Laura, my dear, I wonder whether any of your ancestor ever dined by daylight." ' ' I'd have Laura'd her,' remarked Mrs Lance, fiercely. ' Or tliat other,' persisted the Rector, ' who said he did not object to visiting tlie very poor, but Mr Goodwin must excuse him mixing with the middle classes. It is not an easy matter to find a curate to one's minJ,' finished Mr Lance. 'Fiddle-de-dee!' was his wife's vigorous comment; 'there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it; and for that matter, Samuel (Mr Lance's godfather and godmother had con- ferred upon him this desirable scriptural name), for that matter, Samuel, why should we have a curate at all ? Now that you have no pupils — (here Mr Lance sighed ; it was through his wife he had lost them) — and that I am able to visit so much, why need we incur the expense ? ' Why indeed. There had been a blessed time of comparative pence in the llev. Samuel's life, when his wife was unable to visit, but she was now strong again, and like a war-horse smelt the battle afar. Poor Mr Lance would rather have had the worst curate who ever considered himself superior to his rector, tramping about the parish, than his wife; but the wife could not be got I'id of, though tlie curate might. ' Certainly Mr Trelwyn is expensive,' the Rector began. 'Expensive! I should think so, indeed, and useless' capped his wife. ' One half his time gadding about among his fine I'rieads, and when he is in the parish, oft* dining at some place, never to be found if he is wanted. I have not the least doubt but that he went to London to see Lord May fort about that vacant living, and if he gets it, will he consider you, do you imagine ? He will leave you just as soon as ever he can.' ' Well, my dear, we could scarcely expect him to do otherwise,' mildly suggested the Rector. ' Then why should we consider him ? If he be but lately married, he has married into a family that will take good care no one belonging to it wants for anything the Church can give. He will be well seen to. I wish we were as certain of promotion.' And thus the curate's fate was sealed. He did not, as has been seen, get the family living, but in lieu thereof he received ANDREW HAEDELL's NEW HOME. 131 notice from his rector, and removed in due time from "Wraysdale to tliat other parish, wlience his successor was promoted to great honours. Worse than this also, he was removed from the neighbour- hood of Deene Hall, and the advantages of residing near his wife's connections, who had given him a social standing at Wraysdale difficult for a man of limited means to acquire elsewhere. Nevertheless, Lord Mayfort did not quite lose sight of his relation. Sometimes he and his wife were invited to stay at the Hall, and once also Lady Mayfort asked them to spend three days at the great town-house in Berkeley Square, on which oc- casion Mr Trelwyn met the Bishop of Southwark, and found an opportunity of reminding that worthy prelate of the old friend- ship which had subsisted between Mr Trelwyn's father and the bishop in days gone by. There was even something in these reminiscences concerning the bishop's previous life having been preserved by the courage and coolness of the Cornish gentleman when both were lads to- gether, and it may be assumed that his lordship was not quite ungrateful for the boon of existence, since, when bidding Mr Trelwyn good-bye, he added in his best manner — ' These things, my dear young friend, are not, I need scarcely tell you, always quite in my own power ; but the very first op- portunity which presents itself, your father's son — the son of my dear dead friend — shall not be forgotten.' From this time Henry Trelwyn trusted in a bishop. Three years passed by, and still his lordship gave no sign. Men died, and other men filled their shoes, but not even a pair of slippers was found amongst all the clerical property likely to fit the son of the bishop's dead friend. To all appeals there came one unvarying reply. ' The very first time my hands are free, your interests shall be attended to.' And with this, for another year, Mr Trelwyn had to be satisfied. Meanwhile he was deeply in debt — his expenses were increas- ing — he was the father of four children — and the Mayforts seemed disinclined to cultivate much further the pleasure of their ac- quaintance. At the Hall, Mr Trelwyn, indeed, was usually sure of a toler- ably cordial welcome, but Mrs Trelwyn's worn face and dow- dyish attire found small favour in the eyes of her aunt. ' I have no patience with her,' said that amiable lady ; ' she might manage so much better; and, besides, if we begin to en- cotirage them now, we shall have all those children '-ontinually 132 A liff/s assize. liorc. Wo have done our duty towards Henrietta, and no one can expect us to do more than our duty.' Thus in the most natural Avay in the world the Trelwyns sank into tlie position of ' poor relations,"' and remained there, until one day, six years after their marriage, a letter arrived from a certain Dean Jeftries, stating that, on the recommendation of his much-esteemed friend tlie Bishop of Southwark, he had great pleasure in ofiering Mr Trelwyn the living of All Saints', Essex Marsh. By the same post came also a lengthy epistle from the bishop, setting forth that although the living in question was not in every respect all he had hoped to be able to procure for the son of his old friend, still he trusted it would ultimately prove the stepping- stone to something much more desirable. With fees, &c., the income might be reckoned at about 500/. per annum ; there was a good house, and the duty was not heavy. - Full of gratitude, Henry Trelwyn hurried up to town to thank both his patrons; and when, after notice given and the time fulfilled, be and his wiie moved into their new^ home, it was in the firm belief that now fortune really meant to shine upon them, and that Henry's face, figure, manners, and abilities had at lev.gth found a sphere where they might raise him to eminence. He borrowed money to pay oft' his debts — the Mayforts once more invited them to dinner in Berkeley Square — the merchants resident in Essex Marsh and the adjacent localities were very at- tentive to Mrs Trelwyn, and acknowledged the superior address htlA attainments of her husband. There was great happiness for a time at the Vicarage, until Mr Trelwyn discovered that the actual income on which he could depend was not quite three hundred a year, and that he had simply been given the living because the Bishop of Southwark had bestowed a rectory, in a really desirable neighbourhood, worth a thousand a year, exclusive of fees, upon the brother-in- law of Dean Jeffries. Tear by year the merchants, whose wealth had swelled the Easter offerings at All Saints', and added another hundred to Mr Trelwyn's income, left the parish, and emigrated — some farther north, some to the extreme west, some to a better world ■ — till at length, as Mr Trelwyn piteously informed his patron, there was not a man left above the rank of a clerk. Once again the Bishop of Southwark promised, and once again he delayed to perform — delayed so long, in fact, that he died ; and then another prelate was appointed, who knew nothing ANDREW HARDELl/s NEW HOME. 133 u !i:itcver of Mr Trehvyn, save by repute, which spoke of his debts, his pride, his discontent, liis tiselessuess. J'eople blamed him for his extravagance, and yet the man did not indulge in a single personal luxury. Scandal itself could not accuse him of a solitary vice, save that of poverty. Let him strive as he might, ho could not keep the wolf from the door ; and but for a most opportune legacy, which arrived just when his only sou was old enough to go to College, he could not have afforded to send him to Oxford, or to start him in the world. AVhen in the after-time Andrew Ilardell came to know the man who had commenced life with such fair hopes, with such good chances of success, he pitied him as he had perhaps never pitied any one previously. Well he knew Essex Marsh by the period Mr Trelwyn re- turned from abroad — well he knew its misery, its depressing air, its utter want of congenial society, its banishment — as it seemed to him — from the world ; and if he found it hard to work there — if he who desired solitude — who had craved for a sphere of labour amongst the poor, the wretched, and the criminal — felt at times as though the stagnation of his existence would kill hini — how must it, he thought, have affected the stately gentleman, who still in his old age retained something of the presence and beauty of his youth — who was handsome to the last — whose manners were courtly and ceremonious even when doing the poor honours of his miserable home, and who looked, when he stood up in the reading-desk, like one who, travelling towards St James', had lost his way, and wandered by mistake into one of the poorest and meanest of London's purlieus. That Mr Trelwyn had utterly neglected his parish, it is, per- haps, scarcely necessary to state ; that his son, his former curate, had neglected it still more, Andrew speedily discovered. The sick had died unvisited — marriage was an almost unknown institution — the dead were buried elsewhere, and already small rows of cottages had crept up to, and were encroaching on, the graveyard — the congregation consisted of a few school children, half-a-dozen old men and women who came for the sake of 'the doles some pious merchant of the city of London had in former days left to perpetuate his memory — and a sprinkling of small shopkeepers, together with a select number of clerks, whose wives on Sunday bloomed forth into a splendour of apparel that as- tounded the curate's country imagination. There was not a man resident in the parish to whom Andrew could apply for a sovereign when sickness or distresf came \>r^n 134 A life's assize. a family. Nevertheless, he did not despair ; he went about his work, and he heeded neitlier rudeness nor contumely, both of which he received in the discharge of his duty. It was the evenings which tried him most, the long lonely evenings when he was too tired to read or to write — when he sickened for the sound of a friendly voice — for the tones of Madge's piano, for the old, old home which had been his, and which he had voluntarily renounced for ever. The first fortnight he spent iu that dull unhealthy parsonage, he thought must kill him ; but at the end of that time there arrived a visitor who taught him companionship iu his position might be more trying than solitude, conversation than silence. Not that the Kev. George Trelwyn was by any means a dis- agreeable man ; on the contrary he was considered one of the ])leasantest individuals imaginable, and Andrew found no reason to contradict this popular opinion concerning him. Nevertheless, his visitor tried him. He had thought in his folly that when he ' tholed his assize ' at Dumfries, his ordeal was over. ' Alas ! ' he considered, while on the morning of George Trelwyn's arrival they stood together within the altar-rails of All Saints' Church, Andrew reading the commandments in an audible voice, and his Vicar's son listening — ' my " Life's Assize " is only now beginning.' CHAPTER XVI. T^TE-A-TfeTE. ' ToTJ are not at all like the person I expected to see.' Thus the Rev. George Trelwyn commenced making things pleasant for his father's new curate. 'An old college friend of yours (Hargrave) told me you were such a merry fellow, and now you look as though you had lived in Essex Marsh for a quarter of a century, and as if you had never laughed since you were born.' ' It is nine years since I saw Hargrave,' was the reply, 'and I imagine nine years does not usually make people gayer ; besides, I have been ill, and that trial was ' ' A trial to you,' finished George Trelwyn, quickly ; in reply to which the Curate nodded. TtTE-A-T:&TE. 135 He knew it was about that trial the Vicar's son had come to speak to him — knew perfectly well it was to ascertain something about that peculiarly agreeable circumstance in his lite he was thus early in his ministration honoured with INIr Trelwyn'a company. ' Only arrived in town at twelve last night,' that gentleman had been good enough to explain, 'and thought I would walk over and ask for a share of your breakfast ; my father, in fact, wanted me to see you — don't apologize for your fare, there's a good fellow — I knew Essex Marsh before you ever heard of it, and venison and game never, to my knowledge, found their way into the parish ;' and so he ran on talking glibly and kindly enough, but all the time Andrew felt convinced he had come to find out something. Well, let him if he could. As he had pitted his strength against that of the Procurator Fiscal and the Advocate Depute, so now he girt up his loins to encounter this fresh enemy. ' Tou and the other Hardell were always great chums, were you not ? ' asked Mr Trelwyn ; then, without waiting for a reply, he went on, 'Yes. you must have felt that trial deeply. It was a disastrous verdict for your friend.' ' It was au unfair one, I think,' said the Curate. ' Andrew Hardell was either innocent or guilty, and a verdict like that of " Not Proveo," simply saves a man from one sort of punishment to doom him to another. It has ruined his prospects and blasted his life, at any rate.' ' And yet you know there is but one opinion about the matter — that he was confoundedly lucky — if I may say so with- out wounding your friendly susceptibilities.' ' Certainly you may. I have heard the same opinion ex- pressed over and over again, but then it has been expressed by people who believed him guilty hecause they thought there was Boniething in that story about him and Mrs Challerson. Now, I knew Andrew Hardell as well as any man living, and I would stake my life that he never spoke a word of love to the woman. It was not merely that he had no atfection for her, he really en- tertained a dislike towards Mrs Challerson.' ' Of course that to a certain extent alters the position of nfftiirs, but still the fact remains that JMr Challerson was jealous.' ' I cannot precisely see what that proves.' ' Well, it does not exactly prove anything, but it leads to the presumption that the pair had a row, and that your friend some- how cut short Mr Challerson's career.' ' Kenneth Challerson had an awful temper,' remarked the 136 A life's assize. Curate, deliberately ; ' if Andrew Ilardell bad any hand in his death, he must have killed him in self-defence.' ' Then why did he not say so openly ? ' ' I cannot tell. I believe him to have been perfectly inoa- pable of murdering Mr Cballerson, and that the Advocate i)e|)uto and the other officials thought so too is proved by their willing- ness to accept the plea of " Culpable Homicide " if he liked.' ' What is culpable homicide ? ' ' I do not know — it is something Scotch — something which does not cost a man his life, or render him liable to very long imprisonment.' ' Then he could have got off that way ? ' ' Certainly — the prosecution felt their case doubtful from the first.' ' And yet the jury did not acquit.' 'No; had the trial taken place in England he would have been acquitted. In Scotland, however, if the majority of the jury happen to have any moral doubt in the matter of a prisoner's guilt or innocence, they bring in that verdict of " Not Proven ;" wiiieh, while it saves a man from the gallows, leaves hiin with a stain on his character ibr life.' ' Then you consider your friend's character done for ? * ' Decidedly. AV'here in England could he ever have got a curacy ? in what capacity could he have earned his living ? ' 'There would have been a prejudice against a man witli such a remarkably unpleasant story in his life, no doubt,' answered Mr Trelwyn ; ' and yet it is a pity, for they say he was an un- commonly clever fellow.' ' His cleverness will not stand him in much stead now, I fear,' remarked the Curate, a little bitterly. *It is luggage easily carried by the owner, nevertheless,' said George Trelwyn, dryly. ' For my part I may safely say I fol- lowed every detail of that trial with the most intense interest, and when it w\as terminated, I confess I breathed freely at the escape of a very unfortunate and clever man.' ' Then you did not consider him innocent ? ' ' No,' w^as the reply, ' nor did anybody. Every one believed Mr Challersou was killed by your friend, and we all felt we should have liked your friend better, though we might have admired him less, had he told us the precise circumstances under which he dealt that blow.' ' If he ever did deal it,' amended the Curate. ' Come, Mr Hardell,' was the reply, 'let us be frank wiih ouft another. Of course, as you say, you believe your friend to TfiTE-A-TJ&TE. 137 have been incapable of murdering any one, but yet you know Mr Cliallerson was actually killed, and that as a consequence the judge and jury heard mucli conflicting evidence concerning Mr Andrew Hardell's disposal both of his time and his apparel, and you may have formed a shrewd opinion of your own, based upon that evidence, as to his actual guilt or innocence. "With that opinion I have no desire to intermeddle. I come here simply to satisfy my father about a point upon which he is auxious to obtain information. You will not mind my asking you a single question ? ' ' AVhat is the question ? ' inquired the Curate, quickly. ' Well, you know the stuft' bishops are made of,' was the reply; 'they are men who either never had any store of wild oats to sow, or else who gathered in the product years before we were thought of — men, in any case, who look sternly on what they call vice, or what some other people style pleasant sins. Now, in the course of Mr Andrew Hardell's ti-ial, there occurred one or two passages which caused our bishop to consider — excuse me if I seem personal and disagreeable — that there might be another side to the affair, one not brought out in evidence. lie did not ari'ive at this conclusion by reason of his own clever- ness, but some chancellor or somebody of the kind put him up to it, and said conclusion was backed by a few stories that reached his reverend ears about Mrs Cliallerson.' ' Tou have not yet stated what the conclusion was at which his lordship arrived,' suggested the Curate, as Mr Trelwyn paused. 'Did he believe I murdered Mr Challerson, and then eloped with his wife ? ' 'jMo; he did not think you murdered Mr Challerson,' was the reply, ' but he did — seeing that human nature may not be quite a sealed book even to a bishop — consider it possible that you might have gone off with the lady.' ' And you wish me to deny this charge ? ' ' I wish you to give me authority to contradict it if you can,' Mr Trelwyn answered. 'There never was anything between me and Mrs Challerson,' replied the man who had suffered because of her so severely. ' kShe never left her home to go with me, or to join me anywhere.' ' Upon your honour ? ' ' Upon my soul ! ' and Q-eorge Trelwyn felt that the sentence meant more than could have been conveyed by any mere words of conventional affirmation. ' xlnd you do not know where she is at present ? — pardon me if I seem impertinent — but I was sent here to ask these questions.' 138 A life's assize. ' I understand that. No, I cannot tell j'ou anything about Mrs Challersou's movements further than that she has left the country.' ' With your friend ? ' George TreUvyn eagerly inquired. ' Do you mean with Andrew Hardell ? ' asked the Curate, speaking his own name slowly and distinctly. ' Have you many other friends in the same predicameat ? ' said Mr Trelwyn, lightly. ' No ; she has not gone with him,' was the answer. * She has left England witli the man she married. I know his name, but 1 cannot tell it to you, INlr Trelwyn.' ' And you suspected sometliing of this kind all along ? ' ' I suspected. I did not know.' ' But why not speak out now ? why not clear your friend's character from the stain which has been put upon it ? ' 'Could I clear Andrew Hardell ? ' asked the other. 'Have you not said the world's opinion is against him — that the world considers him " lucky ? " Can he stand his trial over again ? Can he undo the past ? What I know, he knew ; and knowing, he elected to make no move in the matter. If you do not mind, Mr Trelwyn, I should like to drop the subject. For reasons which I cannot lully explain to you, it is an intensely painful one to me.' ' As you please,' answered the other ; ' and yet if it were pos- sible for you to clear your friend from the one suspicion which attaches to him, I think you migiit do much to remove the other jtain left by the charge of murder.' For a moment tlie Curate looked straight in the face of the man who made tliis remark. It was a good, frank, manly, shrewd face, and just for that in- stant, just for about the length of time it took to lift his eyes and drop them again, Andrew Hardell considered within himself whether it might not be best for him to make a clean breast of the matter, to tell this honest young fellow who he was, and what h(? was, and then to leave it with him to decide whether he should ;.» or stay, whether he should work where he was, or else even now take ship for some far-away country, wliere none would care to ask concerning either his suffering or his sin. But, next minute, the impulse was gone, and he answered steadily, ' I can but repeat what I said before. Had Andrew Hardell wished to make public any of the circumstances at which I have hinted, he could have done so He h.id reasons, however, for his silence, and the saiue reas^oiis bird lue to silence. I would rather T^TE-A-T^TE. 139 not say anything more about the matter. As solemnly as I can assure you, I declare I never entertained the slightest affection for INIrs Challerson ; and, were she living at this moment in the next street, I would go a mile round to avoid meeting her. Is that sufficient, or can I say anything more to satisfy you ? ' ' It is sufficient, and I am satisfied,' cried George Trehvyn ; and the pair shortly after this conversation went over together to All Saints' Church, where Andrew Hardell made the observa- tion to himself chronicled at the end of the last chapter, and preached a sermon which set the Yicar's son thinking. Leaning back in his chair within the altar-rails, he speculated about this new curate ; and changing his original intention, went back with him to the Vicarage after church. ' Tou have evening service, have you not ? ' he asked ; and Mr Hardell assenting, he went on. ' Otherwise, I was going to ask you to come up to Clapton, and dine with us. My father-in-law has a respect for the clergy, which, considering how poor some of us are, and how rich he is, appears to me wonderful. It is a good trait in his character, though I sometimes fear it has its roots far away down in evil soil. Are you anything of a geologist ? Can you tell me what forma- tion denotes gold ? I have a fancy there must be an analogous human formation ; for I observe that, in the hands of some men, everything, even piety, turns into the precious metal.' ' Quartz is the formation you mean,' Mr Hardell answered ; ' and the only thing against your theory is that the gold must have been fused during some volcanic convulsion, whereas it is in men's hardest stage that they gather unto themselves this world's treasure.' ' My friend, you have not been long in London,' replied George Trelwyn. ' You do not know the state of boil and bubble into which these men get in this great caldron, where they splash and fret themselves for threescore years and ten. Whenever I weary of the country (and my living is not one of the liveliest in Eng- land), I like to come up to town, and stay with my respected father-in-law for a day or two. Believe me, I return home satisfied. I conceive Giles whistling for want of thought a more enviable man than Croesus ; and I arrive at the conclusion that Sir Hubert Hardell, your relative, whom, at times, I consider a bore, is an interesting and instructive companion in comparison to the man who, while his heart is in stocks and shares, in debentures and quarter per cents., still lifts his head peering into circles above hiin, crying out the while, " See, I have half-a-million of money. Will you let me in ? AVill you have me at the price ? " ' K 1 10 A life's assize. Mr Hardell laughed at this, but he did not answer; in truth, he did not very well know what answer to make. Was this man, whom he had never till that day seen before, taking him into his confidence, or v,as it only a way he had of showing that the matrimonial cliain galled him ; that, although it had been well gilded, the iron was eating into the flesh, never- theless ? Why was it that George Trelwyn, instead of repairing with all convenient speed from Essex Marsh to the trim lawns and well-kept gardens that overlooked the Lea, should elect to return ■with him to the Vicarage, and partake of cold boiled beef and ale procured from the nearest public-house ? To ascertain this reason why, perhaps, Mr Hardell began. ' I do not apologize for the fare ; though, had I known you intended honouring me Avith a visit, I should have — ' ' Don't grow ceremonious, Hardell,' entreated his visitor. ' It does not sit easily upon your grave simplicity. Further, if I did not like your fare, 1 should not take it. Up at The Pines, they do the apostolic business on a cold luncheon, with only one foot- man and one butler to hand round the viands ; and, while the edibles are being washed down with port, and claret, and cham- pagne, the heads of the family improve the occasion by entertain- ing us with reminiscences of the sermon. If your morsel be dry,' added Mr Trelwyn, ' there is at all events quietness ; whereas the stalled ox is led forth at The Pines with a great noise, and an appalling flourish of trumpets.' ■ Once, again, Andrew Hardell laughed ; only this time he answered : — ' No doubt, however, you only like the dry morsel as a fine lady likes simplicity, merely because it so seldom fiills to your lot. If one course and beer from the " Grreyhound " were your ordinary daily refreshment, the stalled ox and the foreign vintage might seem pleasant in your eyes.' ' Do they in yours ? ' asked Mr Trelwyn, ' Not particularly ; but, then, I am different.' In what way ? ' * I am a poor curate ; I am not a rector ; I did not marry an heiress. The loaves and fishes are not for me.' ' I oftered you share of them, at all events, up at Clapton, only vour evening service interfered to prevent your enjoyment of them. AVill you come to-morrow evening? do — and I will stay in town, though I intended leaving by the night train. Or, if v(»u prefer it, will you dine with me at my club ? No ; and still no. Mr Hardell, have you sought Essex Marsh as a hermitage ? TIETE-A TETE. 141 Do you intend literally here to try the herb-diet, aud seclusion from your fellows ? ' ' You have put my intention into better words for me than I ever hoped to put it in for myself,' was the reply. ' I cannot do my duty to the poor here, and visit the rich elsewhere ; I cannot comfort Lazarus at the gate, and then pass in and feast with Dives. I have chosen my work, and I mean to do it, so help me God ! ' 'Well, you are a very different individual from the Mr Har- dell I expected to see,' was all the remark Mr Trelwyn made on this speech. '1 regret your disappointment,' said the Curate, deprecatingly. ' I did not say I was disappointed, so far as my memory serves me,' the visitor replied. ' We have talked a great deal about you, and naturally one draws a mental picture of the person one is going to see : my picture was incorrect, — that is all ; whether it were more flattering or less so, I am not going to tell you ; only when, on my return to Yorkshire, I try to answer Sir Hubert's questions concerning his kinsman, my replies will, I imagine, astonish him.' ' In what way ? ' ' In all ways. It is an article of faith, I believe, in the worthy baronet to ignore his relations ii: the flesh, but to be well ac- quainted with them in the spirit; and, to be candid, it seems to me Sir Hubert confounded the peculiarities of his two kinsmen, and imagined Anthony to be unstable and superficial, whereas — ' ' Excuse my interrupting you,' the other said, hurriedly, ' but you spoke of two kinsmen. 1 was not aware — ' ' jN^or are most people,' answered Mr Trelwyn, ' that Andrew Hardell is also a branch of the ancient Hardell tree. You stare — clearly you regard my statement as incorrect ; but Sir Hubert, who knows everything, I believe, excepting his own relations, assures me that at son>e remote period of English history after the Heptarchy, and anterior to the Greorges, a certain Andrew Har- dell, a younger son of the younger branch of the Hardell family, which said branch settled in Somersetshire, married a yeoman's daughter, and brought thereby eternal disgrace on the name of Hardell. His family renounced him — that, in the Hardell annals, was nothing irregular — but something which was singular in the family history then occurred — the man took to work. He adopted, with his wife, the occupation of his wife's family, he laboured, ho delved, he dug, he saw to the sheep-shearing and the ingathering ; he left some property behind him, and an only son, from whom, after many generations intervening, springs your friend with the quarrelsouie propensities. The degree of relationship existing 1 1-2 A life's assize. between the Dumt'jies hero and the baronet is too remote for any but a genealogist to trace. However, some one has traced it ; and, ahis ! for the infirmity of human nature, the only time I ever heard Sir Hubert recognize the connection was after the " Not Proven " verdict.' 'They could not hang one of us, jNTr Trelwyn,' he observed. ' It would neither have been decent nor safe on such eviilence.' And, with a strange expression in his eyes, George Trelwyn puelicd away his chair from the table, and looked at his father's curate, who had risen during the course of the foregoing speech, and walked to the window. We cannot tell what shall tonch ns, ^ye have no means of knowing the manner of weapon that shall smite our vulnerable point. Assuredly had any person told Andrew Hardell fate meant to deal him a blow by proving that he came of gentle people, and that blue blood flowed in his veins, he would have scoffed at the assertion, and yet now in a moment that blow was dealt. All his life long, ever since he knew anything of the distinc- tions of rank, it had troubled him — unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less surely — that he was not as other men with whom he was acqtiainted ; that he had no lineage to look back upon ; no family name to uphold. Vaguely it had occurred to him in the old day-dreams, to which reference has previously been made, that if at some future period he came to be a great preacher, a man well considered, a person of repute, he should still be but the first of his name, the founda- tion-stone of a building that had yet to be erected. And now — now, in a moment, the only drawback, as it used to appear to him, was removed ; only, alas ! that he might more keenly feel how surely the greenness had departed from his fields, and the water from his wells, for ever and for ever. For ever and for ever ! O Lord our God, Thou whoknowest ! is there aught so terrible in life, any trouble so great in exist- ence, as this consciousness of something in the past which can never be recalled, or made less bitter in the future ? this certainty that every hour to come shall be coloured by the transactions of a moment which is irrevocable, and that there may come no opportunity of making a better thing of life for e\ennore. Dimly, vaguely George Trelwyn comprehended what was passing through the mind of the man whose acquaintance he had only made that day. Instinctively almost he who had started in life after committing one error, grasped the secret of his fellow T^TE-A-TETE. 143 who was setting out on the long journe}' of existence cumbered bv Miiotlier. At which stage of their intercourse knowledge had dawned upon him the visitor could not have told, but conviction, he always remembered, arrived when his host walked towards the window and looked out on the melancholy plantation, thinking over what he had just heard, viz., that he was a Hardell of Hardell Court, and the descendant of a great Houee, and proud ; albeit only the son of a Somersetsliire yeoman. ' It is time for me to be going,' said the Eev. Greorge Trelwyn, as Mr Hardell turned from his contemplation of the hr-trees and his own position, to the exigencies of every-day politeness. 'I will come and look you vip, if you have no objection, next time I visit London ; and when you can get some one to take your duty, you had better run down to Yorkshire and cultivate Sir Hubert. We have a large house, and my wife will be delighted to see you. And 1 will tell the bishop to-morrow, he may make his apostolic mind easy concerning Mrs Challerson, and also concerning the souls of the people in Essex jNIarsh, for that you will avoid the one and save the other if you can. Believe me, Mr Hardell, your cause is quite safe in my hands, as safe as I feel the welfare of my father's parishioners to be in yours.' And with that the Yorkshire rector put on his coat, shook hands with Mr Hardell, and walked out of the hall door. AVhen he had got a little distance from the Vicarage he stopped, and pulling a case out of his pocket, drew from it a cigar. Then he struck a match meditatively, and, ajiplying it to his cigar, puffed away till the latter was fairly alight, when he resumed his homeward walk, muttering to himself — ' It is no business of mine, thauk God. His secret shall not ooze out through me.' Next day he had an interview with the bishop, and thoroughly satisfied that benign prelate of Mr Hardell's moral excellence. ' My own impression of the matter is, that if Mrs Challerson had been as good as he, there would have been no trial, and no scandal,' he finished ; Avhereupon the bishop said: ' My dear young friend, you relieve me of a load. These women are ' ' True descendants of Eve, my lord,' finished George Trelwyn ; in answep to which liis lordship opined Adam was not altogether without blame in that matter either. ' He is the making also of a very good preacher,' Mr Trelwyn good-naturedly went on to say j but his lordship, who was not 144 A life's assize. famous as a speaker, shook his white head at this, and remarked, ' eloquence was oftentimes a snare.' ' Not oftentimes, surely, my lord,' remarlved Mr Trehvyn, ^\ lio had a certain sense of humour ; ' sometimes let us admit.' On the strength of this the pair laughed decorously ; and George Trelwyn M'ent back to Yorkshire, where he wrote to liis mother : ' JN'otwithstanding the Sir Hubert connection, it would be an undesirable match for Etty. As a curate INIr Hardell is admir- able, as a brother-in-law there might be objections, therefore Etty had better defer her visit to England for "the present.' All of which goes to prove that though a man may not object to countenancing a friend who is ' under a cloud,' it is quite another thing to court an alliance with him. Further, the liev. George Trelwyn, having some sense of delicacy left, was not sorry to be able conscientiously to negative the proposition of Lord IMayfort's niece, that, if Mr Hardell were presentable, George should ask him to Yorkshire, and invite dear Etty to return to England at the same time. ' jS"o, my beloved mother,' thought the Kector, as he stamped his seal on the letter which carried a death-blow to Mrs Trel- wyn's motherly hopes and schemes ; ' No, one matrimonial mis- take is enough in a family — and Etty, if I can manage it, shall either marry suitably, or not at all.' From which it may be inferred that the marriage of George, only son of the Kev. Henry Trelwyn, Vicar of All Saints', Essex Marsh, with Catherine, eldest daughter of Charles Creaft", Esquire, The Pines, River Road, Upper Clapton, liad not proved peculiai'ly felicitous. In truth the marriage was, as George once remarlced to his father, 'a clerical error.' ' Ay, my son, but it has gone to press,' retorted Mr Trelwyn, senior, and the pair remained silent, oppressed by the ghastliness of the jest. 'And yet, George,' added the sire, ' I do not see anything better, or indeed anything else, that you could have done.' ' Swept a crossing,' suggested the son. ' Anything rather than be under obligations to Mr Creaff.' ' There are two sides to the question,' answered Mr Trelwyn ; ' men like Mr Creaff' make money for those who can spend it ; ' which certainly was a way of looking at the matter that had never occurred to Mr Creaff*. ' I would rather have been a ploughman,' began George Trelwyn in reply ; but his father silenced him with, ' Tut, George, T:&TE-A-TiTE. 145 you wouid not relish twelve hours a day in the clay any more than I should ; and though the Creaft" yoke may not be liglit, it is preferable to having to ask credit from one's butcher. Yuli know where your shoe pinches ; but you do not know how much less it pinches than that worn by many a cleverer man.' All of which was so undeniably true, that the young man ashamedly hung his head, and refrained from answering. * After all,' recommenced Mr Trelwyn, senior, ' if you are fond of your wife ' ' But I am not fond of my wife,' said the young man, defiantly. ' If that be the case, have at least the decency to appear fond of her,' advised Mr Trelwyn ; and his son followed his counsel. The clerical error was stereotyped, and no good purpose could be compassed by calling public attention to it. A more courteous husband could not have been found in Eng- land than George Trelwyn. He humoured his wife, and my lady liked humouring to the top of her bent. He waited on her hand and foot, and the servants said, ' How fond he must be of her.' He looked after the household, and the children she neglected. The cook told him the things which were wanting in the larder, and the nurse came to ' the master ' when her eldest charge was taken with scarlatina. * There never was such a man,' the domestics declared ; and they worshipped him, whilst they would not move a step beyond their duty for the languid fine lady, who lay on the sofa all day, and regi'etted ' her papa's house, and her papa's carriage, and the pleasant society she had been accustomed to at home.' When birth marries money — when blood allies itself to bone — birth or money, blood or bone, must get the best of the bargain. As a rule, no doubt pedigree asserts itself against industry — a long line of ancestors gives itself airs over three per cents. — but there are exceptions, and when birth gets shoved to the wall by Mammon, God help birth. Mammon is never content unless the victim feels the flint and the stones every hour — out of pure self-glorification Mammon likes squeezing the creature it has bought, up against the social barrier, in order that society may know the value of the purchase it has made. ' Look at me,' says Mammon exultingly, ' I have three hundred thousand pounds, and this man, the nephew of my lord So-aud-So, has married my daughter.' And thus, morally, a hundred times a v^ar the nephew of my 1 iG A life's assize. lord is shoved amongst the thorns or pitched into the dust, while Mammon's carriage rolls by, the observed of all observers. ' Curses on money and the men who own it ! ' exclaims the victim, coming forth from the hedge, or picking himself up from the road — but Mammon drives on none the less serenely, thinking the while — ' If it hurt him, what matter ; only consider what we have suffered at their hands in times gone by.' In the Trelwyu blood there was, unhappily, so little capacity for self-assertion, that bone had at every turn of the transaction the best of the bargain. At The Pines, George was trotted out like a captive prince, to swell the glory of the conquering Creaff. Did he ask a bless- ing, Mr Creaff murmured Amen in a tone which implied that he knew who had purchased the Yorkshire living, and who had con- sequently a vested interest in the prayers of the clergyman of that parish. Did George casually mention the name of some great man whom he knew in the North, Mr Creaff whispered to his neigh- bour — ' My son-in-law, rector of So-and-So — mother was a niece of Lord Mayfort.' Did he perpetrate a joke — and even in that awfully dull mansion jests were sometimes born — Mr Creaff would repeat it next day in the City, adding the information, ' Bought him the living ; started him, you know — clever fellow — must make his way — great favourite with the Archbishop — stays at the Palace.' Did any one inquire who George was the son of — in other words, what his father had to bequeath — Mr Creaff confessed * Mr Trelwyn had no fortune — of course, whatever trifle there might be in the family must go to the girls ' — but ' money don't signify to me,' the owner of The Pines and marriageable daughters would proceed — ' the happiness of my children here and hereafter is what I consider — and the young fellow comes of respectable people, is related to Lord Mayfort — and I could afford to give my child a handsome fortune, and so they do very well — very well indeed. If Cissy have not every other luxury to which she has been, accustomed, she has, at all events, a devoted husband and the best society.' Which latter item must certainly have proved a novelty to Miss Cissy. The match had been made up by Mrs Ti-elwyn. Mothers will T^TE-A-TiTE. 117 fall into these mistakes, which seems marvellous, cousideriug that they, at least, ought to know better. But Mrs Trelwyn had married for love, and felt the bitterness of poverty ; facts that migiit certainly go far to excuse her seek- ing the antipodes of her own experience for her son. She made him marry for money, and try whether wealth could 'ender a man happy. She asked Miss Creatf to the house (Mr Creaft" had been an old parishioner) — she threw the young people together, and Miss CreafF exhibited her best side to her clerical adorer. George rode with the damsel — he frequented her father's house — he was made much of by the Creaffs, male and female- he was lured from branch to branch, till one fatal day arrived when, in answer to his unimpassioned ' Will you ? ' the maiden I'esponded, nothing loth, ' I will.' The Creafts affected the clerical element. Wise in their generation, and having a certain vague convic- tion that a bank-book, no matter how heavy a balance it may show on the left-hand page, will neither unlock tlie gates of hea- ven hereafter, nor yet ensure ingress into ' genteel society' here, it was tacitly decided in the family that ' the girls must marry well.' Marrying well, with them, did not signify mating with so many thousands per annum and vegetating in City society, witii only a civic ball or an entertainment at the Mansion House to vary the proceedings. The Creatfs had lived long enough to know that the Egyptian Hall was not the end of all earthly aspirations, and that an alder- man's gown might clothe the person of a man who had not the slightest chance of ever being invited to eat bread and salt on equal terms with any of the great people after whose favour the soul of the CreafF family longed exceedingl}^ They knew that even in English society, other gods than Gog and Magog, big as they are, and splendidly lodged as they ap- pear, reign supreme. There were not wanting those who declared that the Creafts gave themselves airs, that they carried their heads too high, con- sidering the little shop where MrCreaft^'s parents laid the found- ation of their son's large fortune ; but, after all, when these charges came fairly to be investigated, they simply amounted to this, that, whilst not uttei'ly forsaking old acquaintances, the Creaffs favoured new ones ; and that Mr Ci'eafF affected a sort of society which found little favour in the eyes of City magnates ; that, although he so far conformed to the prejudices of his class 148 A life's ASSIZJS: as to invite no man in bnsiness to liis house who was not sup posed to be worth a round sum of money, he yet asked other people who had no right according to civic ideas to visit at 'J'lie Pines. People who were not the sort of young fellows old Samuel Creaff, deceased, would h.ave liked to see coming dangling after his daughtei's ; people who seemed to regard the wealth and pomp of such an establishment as The Pines as matters of course, though everybody knew that they were poor as Job during the period when he was passing through whatever institution answered in those days to our Bankruptcy Court, and that they could not make a settlement on a wife ; ' no,' naively concluded the City magnates, ' not if it were ever so.' Possibly Mr Creaff thought, if one of his daughters married the Eev. George Trelwyn, the others might mate higher. Certain it is, w^hen he purchased the Yorkshire living, and presented that piece of preferment as a marriage gift to his son-in-law, he duly informed all whom the news might concern that thez^e was re- markably good society in the parish. ' Sir Hubert Hardell resides within a mile of the Rectory, and Lady Collington has a magnificent seat there also.' Thus the worthy owner of The Pines would run on through the names of those grandees who were hereafter to become the bosom friends of his first-born, Cissy ; and when eventually the Rev. George Trelwyn left Essex Marsh to take up his abode at Lulswade, two of his wife's sisters accompanied her, in order that they might at once be made free of that social heaven wherein Mr CreafF had so prudently laid up treasure for his offspring. That the society, however, even of Sir Hubert Hardell and Lady Collington bored Mrs Trelwyn and the Miss Creaffs it would be useless to deny. They were as much out of their ele- ment at Hardell Court as George Trelwyn was out of his at The Pines. A stately dinner-party could ill atone to them for the delights of city and suburban balls, where every one knew who they were, and paid court to them accordingly. ' I thought it tiresome enough having to go and stay at Essex Marsh from Saturday till Monday, while George had charge there,' young Mrs Trelwyn remarked to her sisters ; ' but I can only say I wish papa had never bought him this living ; I would rather live in Essex Marsh, within a drive of one's own friends, than be cast away in a phice like this. Besides, the country is so tiresome, without horses and carriages and plenty of visitor.s. It is absurd only having that pony affair ; and George is so ri- diculous, he will not live at all in the style T had a right to ex- t£te-a-t^te. 149 pect he would, considoriiig my fortune, and 1 1 ?,t everything he has was given to him by papa.' ' jNIy dear,' said the Kev. Greorge Trelwyn, wh?n his wife made this complaint to him, ' when you get your fortune we can talk about how it shall be spent. Meantime, as your father only allows you a hundred a year, which you sperid in dress, and as I have no money of my own, beyond what 1 get from my living, 1 am resolved to keep within our income. I have seen enough of debt, and too much, even to risk burdening myself with it.' The result of which prudent determination was that Mr Trelwyn won the heart of his father-in-law and lost that of his v>ife. She spent the entire of lier time in a series of repinings, and never seemed perfectly happy except when she was staying at The Pines, and talking to her old acquaintances of all the grand people at whose houses she visited in Yorkshire. • As for her husband, his sojourn at the Clapton mansion was always of the briefest. He would run up to town on business one day, and leave it the next. Even when he brought his wife to London he never remained at The Pines for any length of time ; and if it were possible for him to avoid having a meal in the house during his stay he availed himself of the opportunity. He had arrived in Essex Marsh charged with Mr Creaft''s cards and an invitation to dinner for Mr Hardell ; but he omitted to deliver the first, and he only repeated the last as has already been stated. ' I do not see,' he thought to himself, ' what good it can prove to any man being " taken up " by those people at The Pines. 1 only know I wish I never had seen one of them. I wish they had been out of the parish before we came into it. Even were everything about this Mr Hardell perfectly straightforward — which it is not — he would be far happier sticking to his ale and cold beef than feeding like a stalled ox on the fat of the land at Clapton.' ■ You gave Mr Hardell my message, George ? ' blandly sug- gested INIr Creaff, when the entire family were assembled together in the drawing-room waiting the butler's solemn announcement of dinner being ready. ' I asked him to come back with me, sir,' was the somewhat evasive reply ; ' but he has evening service, and further does not seem a very sociable sort of individual. He told me in so many words, in fact, that he did not intend to visit ' ' Not visit ! ' repeated Mr Creaff, astonished. ' Not visit ! ' echoed the ladies in chorus. 160 A life's assize. 'Is he Puseyite r ' inquired Mr Creaff, after a pause. (High Ciiurch and Ritualism were expressions not nuu-h In vogue at this period.) ' I sliould think not,' answered Mr Trelwyn. 'Has he any leaning towards celibacy ? ' asked Mrs Creatf. 'A very strong leaning, I imagine,' replied her soii-in law . At which juncture, dinner being announced, further incpiiry was cut short ; and although Mr Creaft" tried to resume it over dessert, the result was not satistactoiy. ' Depend upon it,' remarked Mr Creaff" to his wife, when he and that lady sought the tremendously upholstered chamber where after the fatigues of the day they were wont to court — not in vain — nature's sweet restorer; ' Depend upon it, George does not want that Mr Hardell to come here. I wonder what his reason can be for trying to keep him back.' ' You had better go and see for yourself, had you not ? ' suggested Mrs Creaff; the result of which sage piece of advice being that, on the Tuesday following, Mr Creaff' called at the Vicarage — and found the Curate ' not at home.' ' He is hardly ever in the house, sir,' explained the woman in answer to inquiries. ' He is always about the parish, from early morning till late at night.' Mr Creaff' left his card, which attention was followed up on the AVednesday by a note from Mrs Creaff' (really written by Miss Laura Creaff"), requesting the pleasure of Mr Hardell's company to dinner, quite in a friendly way. In reply, Mr Hardell expressed his obligations for Mr and Mrs Creaff''s kindness, but regretted his inability to avail him- self of their cordial invitation. 'There is something curious in this, my dear,' remarked Mr Creaflf. ' AVe will drive over to All Saints' and hear him preach.' Accordingly, on the Sunday following, the Creaff' carriage made its appearance in Essex Marsh, and just as Mr Hardell was uttering the words, ' When tlie wicked man,' the whole Creaft" family swept up the aisle, and entered the Vicar's pew. 151 CHAPTER XVII. ON^LT A LETTER. Had one of the stone clierubim that surmounted the columns of All Saints' Church taken wing and flown down upon the reading-desl<, his appearance there could not have produced a greater sensation than was excited by the arrival of Mr Creaff and family in the Hector's pew. Tliere were, indeed, legends in the parish of great people (men who afterwards rode in their carriages, and were made Lord Mayors of London, and a 9th of November show) having sat in the square box dedicated to the churchwardens, and gravely handed round the collection-plates in those days departed when there was anybody to give — any other than mere recipients in All Saints'. On the front of the organ-loft appeared a dingy inscription Betting forth that in the year of grace seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, Septimus Taylor, Esq., liad, at his sole cost, repaired the gallery and improved the organ ; whilst around the church several other chronicles of by-gone piety and love of approbation were to be discovered, certifying that various parishioners of by-gone times had bestowed painted windows, carvings, doles of bread, doles of pence, doles of special services on the parish of All Saints', Essex Marsh. Curious monuments were there too in the church, ornamented with singular inscriptions in the Latin tongue, which lost to the uninitiated both in beauty and holiness by translation into our vulgar Saxon. As, for example, when one unacquainted with the olden language paused before the tomb of Dame Alice Bridget Haver- ing, a marvellous structure ornamented with a large figure praying, and about twenty smaller figures praying behind ; the inscription traced on the marble, and guarded by bloated cherubs that looked as though they had suffered much from water on the brain, seemed something wonderful and sacred when viewed through the light of an utterly unintelligible tongue. Like a criticism, the epitaph seemed grand by reason of its vagueness, till at length some one passed by, who, taking the trouble to decipher the old letters, discovered that they merely set forth how Dame Alice Bridget Havering had been a true wife to John Havering ; that she had borne him thirteen 152 A life's assize. children, all of whom she suckled (evidently the cares of ma- ternity were eschewed by indifferent mothers in those days, as in our own) ; and that she died in the year of our Lord 1678. .AH these things — almost illegible inscriptions, battered columns, disfigured monuments, ancient epitaphs, brasses covered by matting, chronicles withered by age — had kept Andrew Hardell's mind from utter despair during the first weeks of his ministry. Given unto him a perfectly new church, without a tradition or a memory, and the man must have gone melancholy mad from sheer lack of mental company ; but at All Saints' the dead were with him always ; the staid men, the sober apprentices, the managing wives, the fruitful vines. Regularly to his imagination Dame Alice Bridget Havering and her thirteen children came up the aisle, and assumed their proper position in the chancel. Now be fancied a son had married, and brought home a shy young wife ; — anon that a daughter was engaged, and entered bashfully through the red baize door, followed by the well-to-do young merchant who was soon to wed her in that self-same church. Old ! why the church had the dirt and the grime of three centuries on it. Interesting! well it is true the dust of neither king nor kaiser mouldered inside its walls; but yet men had lived, sorrowed, died within sight of its old grey tower. There was the mist of antiquity floating about it, and if no ivy clomb around its walls, if no clinging branch stole on from buttress to loop-hole, and from loop-hole to window, still Andrew could imagine the eyes that had looked on the old moss-covered stones, eager and impatient ; he could picture to himself the impetuous passion of youth that must have swept across the churchyard paths, the quiet endurance of middle age, the thank- fulness for the prospect of rest at last, which had come with the ' evil days ' of age, and brought peace at the sun's setting. He had the first quality of a successful preacher, this man whose life's story it falls to me to chronicle; for he possessed imagination, and in his lonely study he was wont almost uncon- sciously to put himself in another person's place, and consider what he should do, had he only Jack Styles' abilities and Jack Styles' pay. Should he be honest if he were the parent of Jack Styles, and recommended to the tender mercies of the parish after forty-five years' hard work, wet or dry, hail or sunshine ? If he were Mrs Tom Oakes, should he ever be able to look ONLY A LETTEE. 153 as happy as that estimable matron ? who informed liim, wliile she stood m the sloppy road, with the wet penetrating her thin worn shoes, and the wind making sport of her ragged gar- ments — ' If you will count up, sir, you will find I have been a wife forty-eight years come boxing-day ; and I have never yet known what it was to want a crust — no, sir.' Further, had he been one of the urchins who played at hop- scotch, marbles, and other such games of skill, with drunken parents at home, with hard words and scoffing looks abroad, could he have kept honest, held himself aloof from thieves and pick-pockets, and an intimate acquaintance with the ' presiding magistrate ? ' or — and this question presented itself oftener to his mind, perhaps, than any other — had he been one of those dragged-up, slip-shod, over-worked, hardly-used girls whom he saw, servants to people almost as poor as themselves, would he, could he, have remained honest as they were ? Kather, instead of wondering at the wretched vice, at the flaunting finery of Shorediteh, he marvelled how anj'' son or daughter, reared in Essex Marsh, refrained from repairing thither, from rushing to replenish the ranks of the swell-mob, and the frail sisterhood ; in whose lives there was, at any rate, the sem- blance of prosperity, instead of the bare nakedness of their most miserable existences. He spent his days in the midst of that which we are told should be thrust away out of sight, although even in the most fashionable parts of London its waves are washing up against the shore of ' genteel ' society. He lived amongst those who were not picturesquely but abjectly poor; who were not inter- esting ; who would not have been hopeful subjects for prison chaplains or for district visitors to work upon ; but who were, nevertheless, objects of painful anxiety to Andrew Hardell. The coarse oath, the ribald jest, the debased humanity, the mere animal intelligence, — these things seemed strange to the man who had come from the green fields and spreading woods to the midst of brick and uiortar ; but so also was the enormous amount of work performed uncomplainingly, and the equally large amount of distress and suftering borne unmurmuringly. Here was no false shepherd come to labour among a flock he despised. If many of his sheep were black, it was his business to understand the- why and the wherefore of their being so. But for that sudden blow in the darkness, but for that awful day's walk over Crifiel and beside the Solway, but for that 154 A life's assize. ' tlioling his assize' at Dumfries, but for that 'Not Proven' verdict, God kuows what sort of parson the man might have made. Perhaps he might have been as others, negligent, self-con- scious, thinking of his own advancement ; indiflerent to, or indignant at, the misery and the poverty and the dreary mono- tony of life which were round and about him. But as it was, he merged his own individuality in the mass of wretchedness which encompassed him. Save when he was utterly down-hearted and cowardly, he felt himself God's messenger, sent to succour and to help ; further, over and above, and beyond all things, he had, as I have said, God's best gift — imagination— to help him on his way. For no man, and I speak this reverently, can do God's work unless he have, to a certain extent, God's faculty of knowing all things — of estimating the extent of a man's repentance — of a boy's temptation — of a woman's belief — of a girl's ignorance. And as there is nothing so divine in the ministry — and I may add, so rare — as knowledge of humanity, Andrew Hardell seemed to the people in Essex Marsh a man almost to be wor- shipped. Out of the fulness of his heart he spake unto them — and heart answered unto heart as deep answers unto deep. Something of all this Mr Creaff, looking up at the young preacher out of the corner of the Rector's pew, comprehended. His sermon — addressed not to the laces, and silks, and feathers of the Creaff party, but to the rags, and poverty, and sorrow of the free seats — was not as the sermon of an ordinary preacher. There was a passion in it, which we rarely hear in any voice which speaks to us, once or twice, or thrice a week, as the case may be. With his hands knitted together over the pulpit cushions, it was the old cry of ' let us reason together,' that we have all of us heard from so m.any an indiiferent preacher, only rendered, oh ! hou- differently. He did not preach to Dives, but to Lazarus ; not to the men whom CaLaphas would have delighted to honour, but to Mary Magdalene, to publicans, and to sinners. In his manner there was nothing which implied ' I, who am not as other men, w^ho am holier than any of you whom I address, command you by virtue of my own sanctity, and the sanctity of my otHce, to smite your breasts and say — God be merciful to me. ONLY A LETTER. 155 a Finner ! ' — nay, rather the whole tenor of his sermon was, ' I, who am a sinner, plead with you — let us find rest together.' For his text he took a part of that verse in Chronicles, wliii-h recites tlie truth repeated so often in Holy Writ : ' We are strangers hefore Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers ; ' and wlien he began, Mr Creaff crossed his legs, and settled him- self in the corner of the square pew, and looked up at the preaclier critically and benignly. Had his thoughts been verbally conveyed to Andrew, he would have understood that Mr Creatf was mentally saying, ' Do not be afraid of me, though I do live at The Pines, and am a great man in the City, and have done you the honour of driving all this way and bringing my family to hear you preach, still I really am not a formidable person. 1 like to encourage young people, and I will listen to you most patiently, and make every allowance for your youth and inexperience.' As for INIrs Creaff, she put her feet on one of the high stools, covered with faded carpeting, that still lay about the floor of the Vicar's pew, drew her well-wadded velvet mantle closely around her, put a cough-lozenge in her mouth, and then ensconced her hands comfortably in her muff; whilst the ]\Iiss Creaffs sniffed one at her smelling salts, and the other at a small silver-topped bottle of eau de Cologne, from whence she plentifully sprinkled her handkerchief, and diffused a pleasant perfume which reached the senses of Andrew Hardell, and made him feel for a moment sick and faint, as olden memories came wafting towards him with the scent — olden memories floating from a shore which he might never retread. He had a knack of beginning his sermons very quietly — of leading rather than compelling his hearers' attention, which threw Mr Creaff a little astra}^ in the first instance, as to his abilities Like a good rider mounted on a good steed, he did not force his eloquence beyond, or even up to, its full pace at starting. He had his subject well in hand from the moment he opened his mouth, but he went gently at first. He seemed to try the ground he was going on, and only when he was sure of it, to give the rein to his speech. It was, as he proceeded — as he warmed to his work — as lie let loose what was in him, and spoke out the things which his heart burned to express, that Mr Creaff, changing his patroniz- ing attitude, looked round the church to see what effect the ser- mon was producing. He beheld men leaning forward with their eyes fixed on the preacher — women with careworn, pinched, haggard faces, regard- L 156 A life's assize. ing him as the women of old may have regarded those apostles •who stood still and addressed the multitude — and then he, Mr Creaff himself, felt that this man whom he had come so contid- ently to make acquaintance with, wo-uld not be easy of access. Instinctively he understood tliat here was a very different indi- vidual to the Rev. George Trelwyu — an individual, in fact, whom he had perhaps better l«t alone than strive to propitiate in the vestry, after service. And yet there was an indescribable tenderness and sorrow in his voice, at times, which reassured Mr Creaif, and which kept him during the entire service alternating in his mind the sentences — ' I will ; I will not.' As a girl who plucks the leaves of a flowei*, muttering ' He loves me, he loves me not,' is influenced by the verdict of the last leaf she drops on the ground, so Mr Creatf was decided as to his course by tlie inexpressible mournfulness of the words with which Andrew Hardell finished his sermon. 'There may be,' he said, 'there are, t]iose to wliom the idea of our being strangers and sojourners seems sad and terrible. ' To the young man in the pride of his strengtli, to the rich man in the full enjoyment of his wealth, to the child happy in parents and friends, to tlie girl conscious of loving and being be- loved, to the mother surrounded by sons and by daughters, to the statesman for whose word a nation listens, to the author in the full zenith of liis fame — it may seem well-nigh incredible that in this world, which seems to hold so much of joy and promise, he is but as a stranger passing tln-ough. ' And yet, friends, even to the happiest and to the most pros- perous, there comes a time when it is a comfort to know we are merely travellers, journeying on to a better land. When the wine has been drunk, and the cup is empty ; when strength is turned to wcalvness, and riches fail to satisfy ; when loved ones though not lost are gone before; when the voice of popular applause is heard only like the echo of a far-away cry ; when every earthly hope has forsaken us and lingers behind to greet some fresh way- farer ; when either the flowers of our youth are withered or else the frost has nipped their buds before ever they could mature and open into bloom — then we are glad to remember the word of our God, and to be sure that " our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." Let us pray that wlien the time of our sojourning here is over, we may enter into the pi'omised land, where no man shall ever feel himself a strani^er. ' And to the end that ye may pray aright, hear what is written : — " Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may ONLY A LETTER. 157 have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gattt; into the city." ' ' I think,' said Mr Creaff to his wife, after the family had covered their faces for the orthodox period, and were visible to the vulgar gaze once more, ' I think I shall go into the vestry aud speak to him there ; you can wait for me ? ' which Mrs CreatI and her daughters did, greatly to the disappointment of various members of the congregation, who had made up their minds to have a good stare at the ladies' dresses as they swept down the aisle. Meanwhile Mr Creaff proceeded to the vestry door, and tapped for admission. ' Come in,' Andrew said, thinking it was the clerk ; and Mr Creaff entering surprised the Curate, sitting in a very weary atti- tude beside the old oak table, with his head supported by his hands, and his whole appearance indicative of either mental or bodily exhaustion. ' I fear,' began Mr Creaff, 'I have intruded at an unfortunate time, but having failed to see you when I called at the Vicarage, I thought ' ' To make sure of me here,' finished the Curate. ' You are very kind, and you do me a great deal of honour by coming to see me at all. Mr Creaff, I presume.' ' My name is Creaff,' confessed that gentleman, not without pride mingling amidst his humility ; ' aud now, Mr Hardell, I am only a plain man, and I dare say I may seem abrupt, but I want just to tell you we do not like the idea of your being so near us, and yet an utter stranger. We know what Essex ]Marsh is, we know what a task you have set yourself, and we are quite satisfied that even an occasional change would prove most bene- ficial to your health and spirits. "We will not stand on ceremony with you. Come when you feel inclined, and take share of our dinner. Ours is not a grand place, as places go, but we will do our best to make you comfortable at The Pines, if you will only give us the chance of trying to do so.' At this point Mr Creaff paused, first because he was out o\ breath ; and secondly, because he did not well know what moie to say. ' Thank you,' Mr Hardell replied, ' you are very kind.' ' I wish you would give me an opportunity of being kind,' said Mr Creaff, in his best manner. 'But the fact is,' pursued the Curate, as though his visitor had not spoken, ' that I am not a visiting man. I have my work to do here, and pleasure would interfere with it. I feel youi 158 A life's assize. goodness sensibly, and I regret that it is impossible for me to avail myself of it.' ' I will not urge the question upon you now,' answered Mr Creaff, noticing how wearily the Curate stood leaning against his chair ; ' for I fear you are ill.' ' It is nothing,' the young man said, hurriedly, ' only last night I had a letter containing bad news, which has shaken me. Thank you. Yes. I shall be better soon. Good-bye.' And he held out his hand, which Mr Creaif shook heartily, after which ceremony the rich man drove home to Clapton, re- volving Mr Hardell and Mr Hardell's prospects in his mind ; M'hile the poor man walked back to the Vicarage, where he took out the letter to which he had referred, and read it over and over again. It was only a letter, only a few lines traced by a woman's hand, and yet it had possessed power to soften him, and make his sermon what it was. It was only a letter, and yet it had been written with many tears, penned after the conquest of many a scruple, indited in opposition to the wishes of a very loving parent. She had knelt beside her father's chair, asking him to send him — Andrew Hardell — a line, if it were only one. ' Por he must be so lonely, papa, wherever he is,' she said, with her hands clasped, and her eyes raised beseechingly to his ; ' and, perhaps, he might be happier if he thought, if he knew, we had not quite forgotten him, and if he were sure that, no matter what other people may fancy, we Jc7iow he is innocent. Oh ! papa, papa,' and at this point the fair face drooped, and the woi"ds grew more indistinct ; whilst all her father could say in reply was, ' My child, my poor, dear Madge.' And so she carried her point, and wrote two simple letters, one to .jnthony, enclosing another to Andrew Hardell ; and from ti.d.. pleasant Somersetshire home, where were always flowers, birds, sunshine, warmth, cheerfulness, there came to the lonely man in Essex Marsh an epistle which brought the dead past before him, clothed with beauty and grace and vitality once more. The letter had, as he told him, Mr CreaiF, brought him bad news, and he was correct in saying so, for he did not know how to use his news aright. She believed him innocent, and he lacked courage to tell her he was guilty, how it came about. For the second time he refused to avail himself of the oppor- tunity offered ; and the chances offered to a man in the course of now MADGE TOOK IT. 159 Ills life are not so many that he can aftord to consecutively cast two of them away with impunity. CHAPTER XVIII. HOW MADGE TOOK IT. ' Mr DEAB Andrew ' (this was the letter to which the curate of All Saints' referred when he spoke to Mr Creaff of having re- ceived bad news) — ' Mt deab Andrew, — When you read this you will be far from us all ; and it is perhaps because you will be so far away that I wish so much to write to you. ' I want to say that in spite of that cruel, cruel verdict, we Jcnow you were innocent, and that we are only sorry you should think so poorly of us as to imagine the verdict oi any jury — more espe- cially of a frejudiced Scotch jury — could shake our faith in you. We think you have been shamefully treated. I wish poor papa could have gone straight off to Scotland, as he intended — thinys miyJit have been very different. ' Anthony, no doubt, meant very well, but you know he is not like papa. ' Of course I feel how noble it was of you relieving me from all engagements ; it was unselfish and generous like yourself, but I feel myself engaged all the same, and please do not thiuk me bold for saying this. I do not want to be released ; I would rather be engaged to you all my life long, than be married to any other person. ' When you read this in the hush, where you said you were going, you wdll perhaps be glad to know I am not changed. No- thing could change me. If they had brought you in guilty a hun- dred times over, I should not have believed them, and I am grieved beyond expression that you should have taken that most unfair verdict so much to heart, as to leave England in conse- quence. ' There is no one who knows you that would attacli the least importance to it, and papa thinks with me it is a great pity you went away. ' However, J have no doubt but that you decided as vou did IGO A life's assize. for some good reason, only you surely might have' come to bid us good-bye. Wheu you have time, do please write one line to tell U3 how you are getting ou. Papa's dear love. ' Tour affectionate ' Madge Fobster. ' P.S. — I enclose this to Anthony, who will, no doubt, know your address. I hope he is getting ou well in his new curacy. We thought him so strange when he came to see us last. Poor papa has been vety sadly, but is a little better again. We have been obliged to get a curate, a Mr Lensbett, who has a wife and six children. Mrs Lensbett does not like my attending to the school, so I have almost given it up, and she thinks me too young to visit, so she goes amongst the poor people now, and they do not like her. ' My aunt and cousins were down from London while papa was so ill, but they are gone back now, and I miss them. AVith every one away it is dull at Langmore, but it is wrong for me to grumble : good-bye.' ' Too young, my darling, too young ! ' thought Andrew Har- dell, as he read this letter over and over. ' Ay, too young to be tied to a man with a secret hanging over him ; but young enough, thank God, spite of your generous heart and your trustful temper- ament, or rather in consequence of them, to make fresh ties, to be yet the happy mother of another man's children. Oh, Madge ! oh, Madge 1 my pearl amongst women, why did you write ? why did you trouble yourself about an outcast like myself? ' ' Because she loves you,' Anthony Hardell would have an- swered had he been at his friend's elbow ; ' because through all the years to come, let them be long, let them be short, you will never iind another who shall believe in you so implicitly, worship you so fervently, as Madge Porster, whom you are already casting away, just as the great sea continually casts its best and fairest from its bosom on the sand.' But there was no Anthony to whisper this truism, and had there been, it is doubtful whether his warning would have much availed, since Andrew, ignorant of the true meaning of the word ' love ' himself, would have failed to recognize its exact importance in the life of another. He could preach of sin, and he could preach of sorrow, of the soul's long remorse, of the heart's continued tribulation ; he could discourse concerning temptation, and he could enter fully and completely into the feelings of those who had made a ' great mis- HOW MADGE TOOK IT, 161 take' of life, who had ignorautly steered the bark containing all their worldly belongings on a sunken reef, and hopelessly shat- tered the vessel that bore for freight all the treasures of their existence. But with all, he ftiiled quite to understand what the meaning of the word ' love ' is ; he had no idea of the effect its presence may produce, of the blank its absence may entail on the whole of a human career. So far as this knowledge was concerned, he was as one born blind. He had mistaken (and the Lord help the man who makes such a mistake, or the woman who is deluded thereby) that longing for home ; that dream of sweet domestic life ; that deliglit ill the presence of a fair, calm, sympathetic woman, which is common to all men who have never known the love of mother or sister, or the repose of the paternal hearth, or the joy of return- ing to the old room and the ©Id haunts at Midsummer and Christmas holidays ; for love, and Madge had believed in his mistake. Alas ! for Madge. As though any love, unselfish though it might be, could have left the country without whispering, ' God bless you, Madge, mine own,' and hearing, ' I am yours, Andrew, wherever you may go.' There is a good deal written now-a-days, and believed, con- cerning hearts torn asunder and marriages marred ; about quarrels never made up, and misunderstandings never explained ; but my own belief of the matter is that when a man and a woman love simply and wholly, it is impossible for kisses not to follow quarrels, for explanations to fail after misunderstandings ; that it would be as hard for the mother to forget her sucking child, as for a man to forsake the woman who has crept into his life to satisfy it. But Madge had never satisfied Andrew Hardell's life, there- fore Andrew Hardell had never known what it is to love. Some faint glimmering, perhaps, of all this came for the first time into his mind as he sat over the fire reading Madge's letter, which (for her) was vehement. He had known her hitherto but as the quiet light of a quiet home, but as a good, sweet girl, who went about her round of tranquil duties happy in herself, her father, her friends, and her lover, with no thought that life should in the future ever hold for her anything better or worse than a marriage with Andrew Hardell, and the death, at the end of ever so long a time, of her parent, who was never till death to be parted from them. Even her letters to him whilst he was lying in Kirkcudbright 162 A life's assize. jail and waiting for his assize at Dinnfrios, bad been too lender, too utterly confiding, to tranquillize tbe mind of a man wbo knew tbat she was writing in utter ignorance of facts. \i had been as though one sick unto death of some terrible malady wei'e tended by a nurse — loving indeed — but still per- sistently blind to the fatal return of his attack. She was so certain of his innocence that Andrew had believed she would recoil from him with horror if she knew of his guilt ; but now, sitting over the fire in All Saints' Vicarage, there came to hi in a sort of comprehension that the same nature which was so slow to credit the existence of evil, might also be very pitiful towards it — that the charity which was so incredulous of wrong, was rather a symptom of strength than of weakness — rather an evidence of purity and faith than of any want of toleration towards those who had fallen and were repenting. ' If I had only taken courage at first,' he thought, 'and con- fessed boldly, what might I not have been spared P I might then have left it to her to decide, and abided by her decision, for I think she would liave had me, spite of all — but as it is, so it must be. It is too late, Madge ! too late ! ' And there fell a shadow on his soul as he muttered these words to himself — a shadow which returned to fall with a deeper and a denser blackness over his spirit, when, after the years, he and Madge met again once more. 'She shall make fresh ties for herself; she shall be free to tbrget me. Not by a word will I strive to stand between her and the light of a happy married life. For me the darkness, and the loneliness, and the desolation ; for her, the sunshine, the voices of friends, and the laughter of children.' And then he began to pity his sad case, as it is in the nature of such men to do, so long as no other self stands nearer to them than their own. He thought how hard it was that he should be an exile in such an inhospitable region — an exile through no fault of his own — working under a feigned name, debarred from all society, making a reputation which he could never enjoy, ir.agnanimousiy resigning a wife who would always have welcomed his return with a smile ; whilst other men, — men who really had sinned — vide, for example, Anthony Hardell, — were enjoying life, and flourishing like green bay-trees. Although he did not confess so much to himself, there was a sense of injustice, moreover, in his heart, when he compared the jiresent darkness of his own life with the future sunshine that he decided was to flood that of Madge Forster. HOW MADGE TOOK IT. 1C3 How, when the months and the yeans liad passed away, lie Bcofl'ed at the memory of his own words ; how he despised himself as he recalled them ; how he jeered, in very bitterness of spirit, when he recollected the utter want of all self-knowledge that he had evinced — all this I shall, in the course of this Life's Assize, have to chronicle. Weak and blind in the future he knew himself to have been that Sunday afternoon when the contrast between his present loneliness and his former happiness proved too much for his equanimity. Weak and blind ! and he thought himself so strong and so fiir-seeing. As a god he judged between her and him, settled the events of the years which were to come for her and for him, wove the web of her life full of golden threads, picking out all the darker shades for the warp and the woof of his own existence. ' She shall be free,' he decided, ' no woman's lot shall ever be linked with mine ;' and he folded up the letter and put it away tenderly, as we place our dead gently in their coflins, and decided not to answer the note, but to let himself drift out of her memory, and be forgotten, as grass dropped from a child's grasp drifts down the stream, and spite of the eager hands stretched forth to repossess it, floats away out of sight and out of memory to the far- oft" sea. W ith respect to the other letter, that to Anthony, which en- closed his own, there was a greater difficulty. To answer it was, of course, impossible, and yet not to vouchsafe any reply seemed so utterly discourteous that Andrew found it difficult to recon- cile himself to such a course. Over and over again he read that letter also, which ran as follows : — ' Dear Mr Hardell — ' If you know where Andrew is, will you forward the en- closed to him. We feel he has left England so misei'able that, although be begged us to forget him, and to refrain from writ- ing, we cannot do either. ' Had he gone away for his own happiness, for his own advance- ment, we might have found it easier ; but papa and I botli feel he has been so cruelly treated, that we long to tell him nothing can change his old friends at Langmore, and that we are as sorry for him as he can possibly be for himself. ' Papa hoped to have heard from you before this, but I suppose you are so busy in your parish that you have little leisure for 104 A life's assize. letter-writing. It must be very hard work for you, Imving the sole charge of so large a parish. Papa begs me to say he trusts you will take care of your health, for^yithoat healtli a clergyman's sphere of usefulness is limited. I am sure papa feels this now, tor he is not able to visit his people at all. It seems hard for him to have to sit at home and hear of their sickness and trouble, without going to help them — he who was always so much among them. ' When the winter is past, perhaps he may get stronger agaiii. I wish he could manage with help only on Sundays. I often think I am a better curate among the poor people than Mr Leiis- bett, or his wife either ; but then I cannot marry, and baptize, and bury, though I can visit, spite ot an^ything Mrs Lensbett may say. There is such a nice curacy vacant near us — Henford lioyal — do you remember it ? It is worth 100/. a year, papa desires me to tell you, and there is a beautiful house, with lovely gardens, which the rector keeps up. ' Would you not try for it ? Mr Lensbett did — but the rector, who is a cauon of St Paul's, or some other cathedral, would not have a curate with so many children, which of course nuade Mr Lensbett very angiy. Papa tbinks you might get it without difficulty, and sends you the rector's address. ' With papa's kindest regards, dear Mr Hardell, ' Tours sincerely, ' Madge Eokster.' ' So short a time absent and changes already,' Andrew Hardell considered to himself as he laid down the letter : ' a strong- minded woman careering about quiet Langmore, with a brood of noisy children disturbing the peacefulness of the parish. 'Tracts and a lecture to the sick, no doubt, instead of jellies and Madge Forster. Sickness in the old Vicarage-house, and a stranger in the pulpit. ' And so Henford Eoyal is vacant. Would she like Anthony to be near them, I wonder? It often struck me be quite appre- ciated Madge's merits ; but there, pooh ! he never could be near any woman without admiring her, and as for the Vicar, he never had an ulterior thought on any subject in his life. Shall 1 say 1 am ill, and get some one to answer the letter for me ? No, it would only begin a series of complications. Better be rude than wicked ; better let thepoor tender little one think herself forgotten and neglected, than bruise her spirit and break her heart by re- opening the question. * She will soon get over it,' he decided ; ' she will probably HOW MADGE TOOK IT, 165 marry the new curate of Henford Eoyal, aud live in the beautiful liouse with the lovely gardens, whilst I stay on in Essex Marsh.' And then he grew irritable at the idea of the prospective curate, as he had grown irritable when Anthony spoke to him of the present cousin, who was staying at Langraore during his kinsman's illness. It does not require a person to be very desperately in love in order to feel jealous. There are some natures that can discern a rival on the very farther bounds of possibility, and the same mental constitution which is capable of plumbing the deptlis of its own misery is somewhat apt to exaggerate the happiness likely to be enjoyed by another human being. But whilst Andrew Hardell thus sat brooding over the future, and outlining its probable features to himself, there was one picture which he failed to see — a girl making a hero of him in her own soul, resolutely refusing to admit any fresh lover into her heart, spending the best years of her life grieving concerning one who had almost forgotten her, hoping from day to day and from month to month for tidings from him, and all the Avhile thinking of him but as ' poor Andrew, who had been so hardly done by at Dumfries, and who had taken the matter so much to heart as to flee from all his EngHsh friends, without even going through the English ceremony of saying good-bye.' He did not know, he could not tell, how Madge's face flushed, how Madge's hand trembled, at sight of each letter which came to the Vicarage, Men who have formed a ' theory ' concerning women rai'ely do understand these matters. ' Nothing,' says Fullom, and he says it wisely, ' is so destructive to human progress as a theory,' and nothing certainly is so detrimental to a knowledge of a wo- man's ways and modes of thought as any abstract idea of her methods of procedure founded upon even the closest observation of the sex. What one woman does, we may be quite sure another woman will not do. If we assume that a woman will prove erratic or inconsistent, our surmise will probably be correct — but then we cannot tell wherein she shall be either erratic or inconsistent, wli'-efore o'.ir theory fails, as all theories do when exposed to the glare of com- mon sense. For no theory can govern feeling — and it is by the feelings oither of ourselves or of somebody else that we are influenced at the most important periods of our lives. At all events the days and the months went ' -, and to Lang 1G6 A life's assize. more there came no acknowledgment of the Vicar's kindness, no word even of Andrew's remembrance. ' My dear,' said the Vicar at las.t to Madge, when he saw her light step becoming slower, her face paler — ' my dear, depend npon it there was something more in that business than we shall ever know ; be sure Andrew acted only honestly in releasing you from your engagement.' ' But Anthony, papa — why does he not write — why did he never thank you for telling him about Hensford Eoyal ? The letter must have miscarried. Will you let me send to him again ? ' ' No, Madge — no, my child, you must not do that — you must not even for your lover lay aside all dignity. If he had wished to write, he could have written ; if Anthony were not cognizant of some error, and some shortcoming — something, in fact, which excused the Scottish verdict — he would have written, be sure of that. I wish, Madge, you could lay that olden story by like a tale that is told, and think of some one else — your cousin Her- bert, for instance, whose letters, I am sure, are frequent enough to satisfy even you.' But Madge shook her head at this. ' One word from Andrew, papa.' ' My darling — my darling, do not waste your life wandering after a shadow,' he pleaded, piteously ; ' if there were no valid reasons to be urged against him, he could have claimed you long ere this — he could at least have come to bid us good-bye, ere he departed for a strange land. And Anthony's silence confirms my worst apprehensions.' ' What apprehensions, papa ? ' she asked, as he paused. ' You are but young, Madge, and yet the young must learn the truth some time. I used to think it was Anthony who cared unduly for Mrs Challerson, but now I fear it was Andrew, and that he has left the country with her. Madge, love, have I been too abrupt ? Look up, pet, and forgive me for seeming hard and cruel.' Then she looked up at him with a pale, horrified face — with the face of one to whom knowledge of evil was a new and pain- ful possession, while with the bitterness of its taste still in lier mouth — with a portion of the very apple still between her teeth, she said firmly — ' I shall never believe that Andrew Hardell cared for Mrs Challerson, or for any other woman excepting myself, till he tells me so with his own lips. Till he does so, I shall trust hira as I should trust you.' 167 CHAPTER XIX. A LITTLE EVENING. Christmas time came round — that time when most of all a lonely man feels Loudon desolate and solitary. With memories of other Christmases floating around liira, Andrew Hardell could not fail to experience a sinking of heart and a depression of spirit, when he thought of the chop and ' quiet' evening which were in store for him. Only a year, and the hopes of his life blighted — only a year, and the plans and the projects and the aspirations of his existence wholly changed. Only a year before, and he walked among men with unabashed front, he met his fellows without dread, society was pleasant to him. He looked over the future, and behold its face was fair, the places where God had appointed liis lot appeared pleasant, and the earth was full of happiness, and all things seemed good before him. And now? "Well, if ever there were a spot calculated to cure a man of morbid regrets, of useless repiniugs, it was Essex Marsh. The man who in his own study felt himself hardly done by, and wretched beyond endurance, had but to put on his hat and walk twenty yards from his own door, to meet some form of misery that said, in its gaunt hunger, in its squalid abasement, in its physical suffering, in its moral degradation, mutely it might be, but still in a language the meaning of which he felt to his inmost soul — ' Stand by — for the depth, and the height, and the vastness of my sorrow overshadows yours.' 'What am I, God, and what my griefs,' the man would mutter to himself, ' compared with this ? ' Lord, I am Thy servant, deal with me as Thou wilt, only enable me to do Thy work amongst these people, and to forget myself in helping them.' And the prayer did not return to him empty. He asked and he received, and w^hat he gave to God's sufieriug creatures God returned to him in his hour of need. To his imagination there was something very wonderful about the great stir and excitement which precedes the actual arrival of Christmas time in London. The decking of the village church, the bestowal of the Squire's 168 A life's assize. bounty, had been all the dissipation in which Langmore indulgec at Christmas-tide. Sometimes, indeed, at Great Langmore, the nearest town where beef and mutton were to be procured, some butcher, more adventurous than his fellow-tradesmen, would purchase a few yards of ribbon, and ornament therewith his sirloins and his ' prime pieces,' Avhilst branches of holly and sprigs of mistletoe decorated his shop and gave occasion for various jests suited to the capacities and tastes of his customers. But, after all, what are a few yards of ribbon and a busli of holly ? IS'othing. "What would any single shop in Loudon be, but for the other shops in its neighbourhood ? It is the miles of ribbon, the forests of holly, the hundreds of thousands of blazing gas-jets, the millions who have to be fed, the flocks of geese, tlie droves of oxen, the tons of fruit, the never- ending, perpetually commencing, display of Christmas fare and Christmas deckings, which makes mid-winter what it is in Baby- lon, the busiest, brightest, most genial time of all the year — busiest, friend, though you and I may have no part in all the bustle ; brightest, though it seem dark to you and me ; most genial, though we may have no pleasant associations with it nor memory of its having been ever merry unto us. The world was not made for two or three people alone in it, and if you would know what Christmas time is to the hundreds and thousands and millions, walk as Andrew Hardell did through the streets and see for yourself. See what the one English feast of the year is to your fellows — see how the anxious housekeeper counts over her shillings, to ascertain if she can aftbrd that bottle of raisin wine, which is meant to be the crowning elegance of her feast, the grapes at three guineas a pound to her expected guests. AValk into Leadenhall and watch the critical examination of joints ; behold the turkeys viewed afar off admiringly, but as things too great to inspire any other feeling than that of admira- tion and respect ; observe the selection of plums, currants, and 'peel,' and be not deceived by the brusque appearance of 'mere shopping,' which is only assumed to cover a trembling delight in the occupation, and a longmg to have the coveted articles safe in the basket carried either by self or lord. AVhile for those who are in a goose-club, what triumph ! what a fussing about sage and onions! what haggling with coster- mongers in Iloxton concerning apples — ' for sarce, mum ' — which discriminative suggestion of course at once settles the matter in his favour ! what a delight the stuffing of the goose and A LITTLE EVENING. 169 the mixing of the pudding ! what a pride to discourse of the beautiful way in which the creatm'e cooked, and to relate how Miss Jenkins, the superior milliner, w4io honoured the festivities, declared ' that if she had the skin, she didn't care who had the rest, skin browned like that, JNIrs AVakefiekl ! ' AVhat a delight to send bits of the pudding, wrapped up first in fair white paper, and subsequently in brown, for friends to taste, and to hear afterwards — 'That was a most lovely pudden', ma'am. If not intruding too much, may I make so free as to ask where you get your peel, and how many eggs you put in ? ' and so forth, and so forth. For though Christmas in a festive sense may mean very little to you, or to many more who are careless of the delights of plum-pudding and mince-pies, and indifferent to the charms of turkey, yet it signifies to the masses who are able to scrape together any money at all, just the material pleasure of the cue dinner of the year. Concerning which it may be here remarked, that in order to understand the pleasures derivable from that ' one dinner of the year,' a man must understand also the fact of having only one dinner in the year. ' A joint, with gravy ! ' Only think of the mashing down of potatoes in the rich fluid, and be sure that no gourmand ever I'elished the greatest delicacy of the season as that said joint — with gravy, mark you — is relished hj pater and onater familias, and those other members of the family connection wiio have been formally invited to do justice to that ' Christmas cheer — wliich comes but once a year.' In Essex Marsh Andrew Hardell first came practically face to face with Christmas as a culinary rather than a religious festival. Secondary there, were cards and mottoes, evergreens and religious services, to mince-meat and plum-pudding. Did he visit JNlrs Duke — wife of Duke, clerk in Montgomery, Blogg, and Company's great house in Friday Sti'eet — he found Mrs Duke's first floor denuded of fui'niture, and a cleaning — in regard to which the spring cleaning Avas nothing — going on, preparatory to having a few friends on Christmas Day. Did he in despair cross the way, there was Mrs Jones de- ploring her husband was not with a firm ' as was a firm like tliem Montgomerys, that gave a turkey to each of their clerks at Cnristmas.' ' Not but me and Jones can have a turkey, and be beholden to nobody,' this desirable lady would add ; ' only, in course, with 1 70 A life's assize. a growing family, and only a lumdred a year, a turkey's a turkey — added to which, I hear Mr Duke has a five-pound note besides.' Driven from Mrs Jones, the Curate would betake himself to Mrs Smith, a widow with an only son — who forthwith began to bewail her fate, and recall with unbecoming and unnecessary tears the memory of her Ezekiel, who would never sit down to table at Christmas without a cod's head and shoulders, a sucking pig, a turkey, a goose, a sirloin, mince-pies, and a plum-pudding. ' He used to say, poor dear fellow,' proceeded the widow, ' that no year were lucky in which he did not taste 'em all.' ' And the year of his death, ma'am ? ' inquired Mr Hardell, with interest. 'We couldn't have no mince-pies, sir,' was the solemn reply. ' I was ill, and my sister had married, and we had no one but a dratchel of a servant, and I said, ' We can't have no miuce-pies, 'Zekiel, I ain't fit for the chopping.' ' " Then," he says, " we won't have no luck this year." But we liad plenty. First, the bank in which our savings Avere, broke ; then he got bronchitis and died ; then there was a trouble about his insurance, because he had not said his mother died of a lung complaint — and oh ! dear, there was luck enough, such as it was, and no end of trouble.' ' I should think, Mrs Smith,' suggested the Curate, ' that you never fail to make mince-pics for Christmas now.' ' No, sir,' she replied, quite simply; 'but somehow Charlie don't seem to get a bit further forward. He had eighty pounds three years ago, and he has only eighty-five now.' ' I should make a double quantity of mince-meat,' suggested Mr Hardell ; in answer to which the widow said gravely, that she thought it would not be amiss, and asked leave, seeing the Curate had neither mother nor sister, to send him round some to the Vicarage, an ofter which Mr Hardell refused with more promptness than politeness, beating an ignominious retreat froui the habitation of Ezekiel Smith's buxom relict. ' I was thinking of asking him to come over and take a bite with us and your uncle Matthew,' observed Mrs Smith to her only son on his return home, ' but he went off" in such a hurry, I had no time to think of what I should say.' ' No, mother, don't,' entreated her son, who had a much clearer idea both of what his parent wished aud of social distinctions than that worthy lady. ' Mr Hardell don't want to dine with such as us. He is very kind and affable, but — ' ' But he don't seem to have kith or kin belonging to him,' finished Mrs Smith, indignantly; 'a poor curate living all alone A LITTLE EVEUfNG. 171 in tliat dull house, with nobody but that ignorant creature to get him a mouthful of victuals.' ' AYell, mother, I suppose it is his own choice living there,' replied the lad, ' for everybody knows he is related to a baronet, and might marry one of the Miss Creaiis any day he liked.' ' llelated to a baronet ! are you sure, Charlie? ' ' Sure as sure, mother ; ' which piece of information Mrs Smith retailed to the Dukes and the Joneses, and the rest of her acquaintances, who, notwithstanding their Christmas prepara- tions, had still leisure to spare for any gossip about the new curate. ' He will perhaps be going to his own people for Christmas,' remarked Mrs Duke ; but Mrs Jones was laden with later in- telligence. ' He is going to have a party himself at the Vicarage, and who's to be there do you think ? Oh ! such high and mighty folk — all the beggars and tramps he can lay hand on. I wonder what Mr Trel wyn will say when he comes to hear of such doings ? ' ' It is well he has got the money to throw away. I am sure I did not know he was so overburdened with wealth.' ' Well, they do say Mr Creaff has given him a handsome sub- scription, and a few other gentlemen have sent him enough to make up. Stuff and nonsense I call it; if they knew as much of the poor as I do, they would not make such a fuss about them.' ' Indeed, you may well say so, Mrs Jones ; ' and then the trio branched off' into reminiscences concerning Joanna, the wife of Thomas Styles, and John Day, the improvident carpenter, and Marianne, daughter of Henry and Susanna Stokes, whose ways, in her capacity of nursemaid to Mrs Duke's many olive branches, were ways of slyness, and past describing or finding out. Women were these with means to pay their bills and provide themselves with beer regularly three times a day, which they drank ; women who purchased their dresses from a tally-man, and arrayed themselves gorgeously out of money which ought to have been put away for a rainy day ; women selfish, prosper- ous, bounceable, who naturally had no sympathy mth or pity for Mrs Brooks struggling to earn a bare livelihood, and Mr Tetley existing on ' errands ' and a weekly allowance from the workhouse. Had Mr Hardell asked them to a party now on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, it would have been something near the mark ; but to provide beef and ale and plum-pudding for outcasts and paupers, the thing was not decent — it was not Christian, if you came to that, and nothing except Mr Hardell's youth and in- experience could be pleaded in excuse. M 172 A LIFERS ASSIZE. * Not that he looks young, Lord knows,' finished Mrs Duke. ' I am sure he might have had all the cares of a family, let alone a parish, on him the last fifteen years, if one went by his face. But I will say this for him, he don't shirk his work ; he ain't above his business. It is a pity, of course, that he should be took in with them Brookses and Tetleys, and such like, but they do tell me gentlefolks have a fancy now-a-days for dirt and rags. Every one to tiieir taste, and it is no business of mine.' Por Avhich very reason, perhaps, all the women iu the parish made it the occupation of their lives to ascertain who was invited to the Vicarage, and of what the entertainment was to consist. The shopkeepers and their wives of course applauded the idea, for numerous were the joints of beef and large the parcels of groceries ordered in by Mr Hardell for his guests. 'And all cash on the nail,' remarked Mr Wilson, butcher, sharpening his knife approvingly the while. ' Those that has money give to them can afford to pay,' ob- served Mrs Duke in disparagement. ' Those as has money given sometimes keeps the money for themselves, ma'am. I have known instances, but I ain't agoing to mention no names' — which was cruelly cutting and satirical, for there had been a terrible period in Mrs Duke's career when butcher, and baker, and grocer, wetit unpaid in order to satisfy the demands of a draper, with whom her weekly instalments had fallen behind, and now Duke himself called and settled the bills in person, showing thereby a lack of confidence that wounded his wife in her tenderest feelings. ' Well, if I was a clergyman, I w^ould try and get somebody to keep me company on Christmas Day better nor tramps and beggars,' she said, ignoring Mr Wilson's innuendo. ' Well, I think if I was a gentleman, I would like to fill the stomachs of some poor creatures that have been empty all the year,' answered the butchei* ; ' and I never felt happier in my life than I did when Mr Hardell comes in and says, ' I want you to get me some prime joints, Mr Wilson,' sa3^s he, ' for I am going to have company on Christmas Day.' ' " A large party, sir ? " I asked ; and then he says, " Rather ; about a hundred." ' Well, I stared at him, for I had never heard of a hundred people being inside the Vicarage before ; and then he laughed iu his quiet way, and said, " It is not exactly a state dinner party ; I am only going to have old people, and those who have no means of keeping Christmas at home. Mr Creaff has very kind- ly collected enough money to give a hundred men and women a A LITTLE ETENINQ. 173 thoroughly good dinner, so I have sent out my invitations, and now I waut you to help me cater for them." ' "Which was all so correctly repeated that Mr Wilson's version of the aftair may be taken by the reader as true. Passing from houses where preparations were being made for keeping Christmas in ' thoroughly British style ' to wretched homes where the old and the feeble, the desolate and the poor, were struggling to keep soul and body together, and looking for- ward to no feast, but, rather, the accustomed fast on Christmas Day, he was seized with a great longing to be a host for once. Over his own slender resources he cast his eyes, in order to ascertain how many he could honestly feed ; and, while he was in the midst of this calculation, he ran, in Throgmorton Street, np against Mr CreafF, who saluted him with, ' Well met : you have saved my writing you a note. We want you to dine with us on the twenty-fifth. Only ourselves — a family party, you know.' ' Thank you — but, in the first place, please remember I do not visit ; in the second, I am going to have a few friends myself.' ' A few friends,' repeated Mr CreafT ; forgetting, in hia amazement and curiosity, that this repetition of his companion's phrase was scarcely well-bred. ' I am not aware — that is, I thought ' ' And rightly, that I have no friends in London, in the ordinary acceptation of the word,' said Andrew, finishing the sentence for him ; ' but the fact is,' and then the Curate, brim- full of his project, told Mr Creafii" exactly what the fact was. ' Of course I can't have many ; I am not rich enough,' he added. ' Could you call upon me, at my office, in a couple of hours' time ? ' asked Mr Creaff, abruptly. ' I want to speak to you, and I am busy now ; ' and on Andrew's promising to do so, he walked off without making any further allusion either to his own or the Curate's Christmas party. AVhen, however, Mr Hardell entered the office in Winchester Street, Mr CreafF tossed him over a cheque, to which a piece of paper was pinned. ' There,' he isaid, ' is what I have got towards your merry- making. AVill that be enough ? — if not, say the word — you shall have as much more to-morrow.' Andrew looked at the cheque, and then at Mr CreafF, feeling, perhaps, what we have all felt at some time or other of our lives — guilty, when, after having condemned money and money- making, we suddenly discover what wealth and the possession thereof can do. 174 A life's assize. Involuntarily almost the Curate stretched out bis hand, because for the moment he could not utter a word of thanks, which Mr Creaff perceiving, said, ' There, then, don't say a sentence about it. I could have got ten times as much had it been necessary. Now I hope you will have a pleasant party ; and I shall expect you to dinner, not on Christmas, but New Year's Day. Tou see, if you are to do good in the world, it is as well not to live quite out of all society.' To which the Curate could answer nothing, except that lie would come. There was truth in wliat Mr Creaff said; and, besides, he had sold his right to decline the other's hospitality. ' For a bit of silver, for a morsel of food, neither of which is to benefit yourself, you have bartered away your liberty,' George Trelwyn exclaimed laughingly when he called at the Vicarage on Christmas Eve. ' Well, it is best so, believe me, Hardell,' he proceeded. ' The Creatis would soon have begun to talk — to wonder — to speculate; and it is never wise to acquire a reputa- tion for eccentricity. I mean to stay after service, and help vou with your dinner-party to-morrow. How do you purpose getting through the evening?' ' I thought of reading to them,' Andrew answered. ' lieadiug ! My dear fellow, if you had the tongues of men and of angels, you would never be able to amuse your guests with anything out of a book. Let them sing. I know as much about the poor as anybody, and I assure you that next to eating and drinking the greatest pleasure they know is that of being asked to " oblige the company." Of course I shall have to be at Clapton in time for the family feed at seven ; but I am yours till then, and I will pitch the key, and relieve you from all anxiety as to how to get tlirough the evening.' The next afternoon, at four o'clock, the guests began to arrive, 'painfully punctual,' as the Curate remarked, all dressed in the best garments they owned or could borrow for the occasion. Here and there amongst the company attempts at finery were even noticeable, in the shape of bright flowers in the caps o*" the women, and brilliant scarfs about the necks of the men ; but these things only made the subdued apparel of the rest of their companions more noticeable. Cotton dresses from which the coloiu' liad long time been washed.; faded cobourgs and rusty merino gowns, patched and darned, scanty in the skirts, old-fashioned in the make ; coats wliite rtt the seams, worn at the collars, frayed at the wrists ; such were the garments — more touching than rags and tatters — in which Andrew Hardell's visitors came clad. A LITTLE EVENINa. 175 According to promise, Mr Trelwyu was there to help the host. ' Mr Creaff is not quite satistied about your orthodoxy,' remarked that gentleman. ' He thinks you ought to have had afternoon service, or, to speak more correctly, he thought you ought to have had afternoon service, until I explained to him the nature of the domestic life in Esse.x Marsh — not that he ou^ht to have required any information on the subject, for I feel quite confident he once dined at the same hours, and led altogether much the same sort of existence as some of your parishioners do now. Prosperity is the real water of oblivion,' added Mr Trelwyn ; ' there is no sponge like Avealth for washing out \inpleasant and inconvenient memories.' ' There were not thirty people in the church this morning besides charity children, as you saw for yourself,' the Curate replied. ' Which shows very bad management on your part,' replied the other. ' You should have bribed your guests to come to church for the sake of the entertainment afterwards. That is modern Christianity. As Mr Creatf justly remarks, the multi- tude heard the AVord before they were fed with loaves and fishes. I hope you will lay all this to heart, and remember for the future that no one who does not come to hear you preacli is to have roast beef and plum-pudding.' ' I am afraid the people in Essex Marsh are not to be bribed any more than they are to be driven,' Andrew answered ; ' and if they do not wish to come to church for the sake of what they hear tliere, I imagine they could scarcely be induced to do so for any worldly advantage less certain than an annuity. JMy way may be a wrong one, but, with your father's ])ermission, I should like to try it for a time. I want to lead, not to drive. I want to be the Eastern shepherd, instead of the English one. I desire to go first, entreating them to follow me : " He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice," 'added Andrew in a lower tone. ' They are but a sorry flock,' Mr Trelwyn said, thoughtfully, h)oking out at the window on the guests, who were now beginning to arrive. 'Without meaning any disparagement to you, Hardell, they remind me of a drove made up of the odd ones out of other hundreds. Where the ninety and nines may be I cannot tell, but surely here are the single lost sheep coming trooping home ■"o you all together.' ' It is very pitiful,' Andrew remarked. ' God knows it is,' was the reply. ' How pitiful they for- tunately have no idea. Though I have no taste for their society 176 A life's assize. myself, I often think of what that fellow said, " I am sure it is very kind of the poor to be so patient as they are." Only think, if tiiey were not patient, what the upshot would be to ns.' ' And should we not deserve it ? ' the Curate asked. ' Huinph — there are two sides to that question. Tou would not, at all events. But now the business of the day begins. I hope your cooks will not expect us to entertain them for half an hour before dinner. No, thank goodness ; here comes Myles to know how soon he may dish up — -"nt once, Myles. Excuse my giving orders, Hardell — and how are you, Mrs Brooks? — you do not remember me, very likely.' 'Master George, sir — I am surel didn't expect to see you, sir : your good, lady quite well ? Dear, sir, I remember you when you used to be going to school of a morning across what was fields, which is now all built over with workmen's houses.' ' And I remember you, Mrs Brooks, and your pretty daughter. Where is she now — married well, I hope ? ' ' She is dead, sir : eh, if she had been living, I should have had a snug little place of my own, instead of ' ' Now, Mrs Brooks, I shall not allow you to talk of anything sad to-day,' interrupted Mr Trelwyn. ' Where should you like to sit ? I think I must have you near me — Mr Tetley, we are old friends. Come where I can attend to you.' And so he got them all seated, or rather crammed, in their places, and then, at Andrew's request, he asked a blessing, which was responded to in many cases by a somewhat too audible Amen. ' Tou see your dinners, my friends,' Andrew said. ' We have nothing else to ofler you except plum-pudding, so I hope you will do justice to the beef.' See their dinners! Tou could tell by the half shy, half wistful looks they directed towards the joints, that they had not seen, let alone tasted, such a dinner for many and many a year. Tet there was no unseemly haste, no unmannerly eagerness evinced to commence the meal. No gentleman and no lady in the land could have behaved with more perfect courtesy and good-breeding than those ' paupers,' as Mrs Duke had called them, who were come from court, and alley, and lane, to accept the food provided for them by charity. On the conti'ary, they were just a trifle too courteous for Andrew's satisfaction. Not one of them would touch his food till the whole of his neighbours were served likewise, and their host was about to ask some of them if the meat were not to their fancy, when a look from George Trelwyn stopped him. A LITTLE EVENING. 177 'They will begin right euough presently,' that gentleman came round and \Yhispered ; 'it is only their manners;' and that it was only their manners was proved by the mode in which, whenever the last person v/as helped, the beef disappeared. Joints of meat, tureens of gravy, pecks of potatoes, gallons of ale, vanished as if by magic, whilst a solemn silence prevailed, broken only by the clatter of knives and forks, and an occasioiial remark from Mr Trelwyn or Mr Hardell. With the pudding ensued, however, a livelier mood. There were sixpences in the various round globes that the waiters carried aloft in triumph, and finally set down with vehemence on the table ; while blue flame played around the holly sprigs, and elicited little screams of delight from the women, and quieter ex- pressions of approval from the men. Over the searching for those sixpences there was immense merriment, and George Trelwyii laughed till his sides ached to hear the old people joking each other about marrying and giving in marriage, whilst the more juvenile members of the party, ladies of from forty to fifty or thereabouts, looked conscious when the treasure, which they subsequently .strove to hide, revealed itself amongst a mass of suet, currants, candied peel, and other delicacies of the season. At last even this diversion came to an end, and then oranges, apples, and a few other unconsidered trifles being put upon the table, Mr Trelwyn produced his contribution to the evening's festivities in the shape of a dozen of port, which the company had the pleasure of seeing opened, a fact which was remembered and reported abroad subsequently with enormous satisfaction. ' May I beg of you to fill your glasses,' Mr Ti-elwyn com- menced ; ' I have a few words I want to say to you.' Where- upon the glasses were filled, while the ladies folded and refolded their handkerchiefs, and the gentlemen laid their hands out flat upon their knees, in an expectant silence. ' My friends,' the Eector began, ' I am here to-night neither as host nor guest, but simply as an assistant. In that capacity you may resent my standing up to propose a toast, which, how- ever, I am certain you will drink with all the honours. ' I have not known Mr Anthony Hardell long it is true, but I feel, and I want now to express publicly what I feel, namely, that he is doing in this parish that which I failed to do, that which even were I back here again I should fail without his help to achieve. ' I want to say all this to you, and to be here to-night, that you might understand there was no antagonism between us — 178 A life's assize. that you might not begin to compare notes and imagiue there was any real difference between the old system and the new, Mr Hardell is now doing that work in Essex Marsh which my iather and I have always felt ought to be performed, though we have not, 1 honestly say, seen how to carry it out ; and I ask you to help him in it as far as you can, for you have got a man amongst you now who is indeed, so far as his energy, his un- selfishness, his zeal for the Master he serves, and his talent go, one in a thousand. I ask you to drink, ou this Christmas Day, the health of the liev. Anthony Hardell, your host and my friend.' Then as with one accord they all rose and passed the word, ' The Heverend Anthony Hardell ! Your good health, sir ! ' T'he Reverend Anthony Hardell ! Andrew felt his breath coming a little short and thick. It was not his health which was being drunk, it was that of another man. He was sowing where he might never reap ; he was garnering where he might never enjoy ; he was planting where others must come in and gather the iruit. He had sold his identity — his — oh, Lord ! what was it ? If any man or woman there knew him for what he really was — a man only half acquitted of murder — how would it be then ? Would they have even said, ' God help you,' where now they said, ' God bless ? ' When a man is dizzy, when he turns faint in a moment, and the room reels round, and objects pass before him as though a train were sweeping by, — how much he sees and considers, even before one standing by his side perceives there is anything the matter. And it was thus with Andrew Hardell. In that moment, the past, the present, and the future seemed rushing one faster than another before his mental vision ; and it was with difficulty he steadied himself sufficiently to say — ' I cannot thank you enougli for the honour you have done me. I can only say I am grateful ; and that I will try to deserve all the kind words which Mr Trelwyn has spoken of me to-night.' Whereupon, ' brayvos ' and hurrahs from the men, led on by Mr Trelwyn, and more timid applause from the women, completed the ceremony of the evening ; after which George Trelwyn pub- licly, and in his capacity of having been the last person to do anything, requested Mr Tetley to favour the company with a song — ' I remember one you used to sing,' he added, when Mr Tetley modestly disclaimed being the possessor of a voice, or an oar, or anvthing, — ' a thing witli a first-rate chorus — A LITTLE EVLNING. 170 ' Ty duni ti-tidy (liini ty — Durn li tidy— dco— ' trolled out the Eev. Greorge, in a fine tenor, at sound of which the old man fired up, and sayiiisi; — ' ]t are many a year, but still I will try my best,' broke forth into soiig — • ' It wns in tlie city of Cork, Wlien I was a dashinnj young man, That I met with a fair, buxom lass, Which her name it was I'olly j\['Cann. With my dum ti-tcc-tiddy dum ty Dum ti-ty-tiddy tum tec — ' ' Chorus, ladies and geutlemeu, \^ you please.' lu response to whiob, the assembled multitude commenced, as though it were a part of some religious ceremonial — ' Dum ti-tee-tiddy dum ty Dum ii-ty-tiddy tum tee,' ending with a prolonged howl on the tee — that was considered clearly the vocal achievement of the song. When it was concluded, the Rector said, ' Thank you, ]Mr Tetley, — name your man to follow.' ' Well, sir — meaning no otFence -I call upon you,' For a moment George Trelwyn looked put out — but such accidents will occur in the best regulated families. With a con- sideration which raised him in Andrew Hardell's estimation, he at once answered — ' I am not certain whether, as a clergyman, I ought to sing to you anything except a hymn this evening ; but as I am amongst old friends, I will e'en give you an old song about the country where my lot is now cast ! ' Whereupon, he pulled a chair towards him, and setting one foot upon it began, in that rich, full voice, which needed no accompaniment — which could troll out a drinking, and shout out a hunting song, as well as join in an anthem — ' Mr Simpkins lived at Leeds, And he had a wife beside, Who, as she's fund of exercis She often wished to ride. She asked him for a horse, He yielded to her folly, " For," says ho, " I am always mollified By you, my dearest Molly." Fol de rol de ree. ISO A life's assize. ' This horse he stood on six legs, And that I'll prove to you, He lifted up his lore legs, And still he stood on two.' Down tumbled Mrs Simpkins, Her loving spouse averred " My lamb's as dead as mutton, For she cannot speak a word." Fol de rol de ree. ' They put her in a cofliu, And h.e bid thcni nail her fast, And in funeral array To the village church they passed. " Stop, stop ! " cried Mr Simpkins, " We'll follow at our leisure. For why, my dearest neighbours, Make a labour of a pleasure ? " Fol de rol de ree. * At night the resurrection man, He came the corpse to raise, And with his axe he broke the lid, And on the fair did gaze. The noise awoke the lady, " In heaven's name," said she, " "What are you with that axe about ? ' "Ax about," said he. Fol de rol de ree. •She ran away^he after hex-. And to the stable hied, Where she found her spouse caressing The horse she used to ride. When in came Neighbour Horner, Said he, " I'll buy that beast, If you think he'll do for my wife As he's done for the deceased." Fol de rol de ree. ' " I thank you, Neighbour Horner.; I will not take your pelf. Nor think to sell a beast Which's of service to myself; For though he killed my first wife, I'm very little vexed, And as I mean to wed again, I'll keep him for the next." Fol de rol de ree. « '* "You dog," cried Mrs Simpkins, And seized him by the hair, " Deny your lawful wife, sir, You scoundrel, if you dare. A LITTLE EVENING. 181 I'm neither dead nor buried, And you cannot marry two, You thought to bury me, But I'll livo to bury you." Fol de rol de ree.' * ' And in fact, gentlemen and ladies,' finished George Trelwyn, * they made it up, and lived happily ever after — but, as there are several other verses, and as I have an engagement for this evening, I will leave the rest to your imaginations. Good night, Mrs Brooks. Good night, Mr Tetley ; ' and, with a shake hands to two or three in his neighbourhood, and a sweeping bow to tho remainder of the company, he was gone. As for the rest of the evening, what need to speak further of it ? And the events thereof — the songs which were sung — the jokes which were made — the roars of laughter which ensued — the stories that were told, not written in the archives of Essex :Marsh ? •' To the last day of his life, think you, will Andrew Hardell ever forget the pathetic, old-world melodies which were sung that night in quavering voices by women well-nigh starved, and almost broken-hearted ? Love songs — parts and parcels of the indestructible past — ■ plaintive ditties learnt in former days, imder far different circum- stances — airs the tenderest, linked to sweet words, were all that night produced from memory's most sacred recesses, in order to do honour to Andrew Hardell's feast. And Avhen, at last, a grey-headed man arose, and said they must not intrude longer — the ' virtue ' of what he had done, the full pleasure he had been able to give, seemed to come home at last to the heart of the lonel}'' man ; and, as he shook hands with each guest passing out of the Vicarage door, he thanked God who had sent him there, even under a feigned name, to do His work. What though they had neither prayed nor listened to preach- ing. He knew that night there would be a feeling of thanks- giving arise to the Great White Throne. ' And the tones of rejoicing shall be as precious unto the Lord as the sobs of sorrow,' he thought to himself, as he lit a cigar, and walked out to smoke, and collect his ideas a little before he went to bed. On and on he walked — past the Dukes' house, where high revelry w^as being held — past the Jones' and the Smiths' — past a reformatory — past an almshouse — and the bright stars shone * Thfi above song is, as stated by Mr Trelwj-n, an old ballad, written probably about the beginning of this century. 182 A life's assize. down on Essex Marsh; and he wondered, in his own soul, whether they were looking down the same on Langmore Parsonage ; and, if so, what they saw there. What did tliev sec ? Do you ask that question, as lie did ? Only a girl on lier knees — praying for tlie happiness and tlie prosperity of a man who was to be to her neither lover nor hus- band ever more — while the stars shone down upon the earth. CHAPTER XX. ANOTUER EA'ENINa. WiiBN Mr Creaff asked his son-in-law how the * poor people nad enjoyed themselves,' that gentleman answered, ' Very much .ndeed : the beef was juicy, the pudding rich, and the ale sound.' ' They ate as though they ne'er should eat again,' finished the clergyman ; but fortunately Mr Creaft' had not an idea what ho was parodying. ' Mr Hardell purposed reading to them,' Air CreafF said, con- tinuing the subject. ' That ])art of the performance had not commenced when I came away,' Mr Trelwyn replied. ' They were singing.' ' Indeed,' exclaimed Mr Creatf, who had not an idea but that in his son-in-law's sentence the word psalms was implied, as well as on his own part understood. ' It is wonderful to consider how enduring are the lessons learnt in childhood. Doubtless some of those poor creatures have never sung a hymn of praise since they left the charity school, where they w'ere instructed in all they know of good, until to-night. How I should have liked to hear them •' ' I don't think you would,' reflected Mr Trelwyn ; but he re- mained discreetly silent. ' And did they seem grateful ? ' Mr Creaff" resumed. ' Very grateful,' his son-in-law answered. ' Hardell told them all of your great kindness in the matter ; he said that however willing, it would have been impossible for him to ask them to dinner, and that they must consider you as the actual giver of the *H.'ast, though lie apparently was their host.' ' That is what the old boy wants,' thought George Trelwyn, ANOTHER EVENING. 183 and .apparently he was right, for tlie'ohl boy' said, after swallow- mut, as I have said, all this was tlien vague and shadowy — ■ lie was too much agitated to be able to think connectedly on any subject, and it was not vnitil he had sat for a long time on the steps leading u» to the communion rails, with his head buried in his hands, and his mind wandering hither and thither, that he could quite understand what had come to him. When, however, he came to analyze the matter, he found that the wliole business amounted to this — he had been seen and re- cognized ; by whom he feared to ask: Mr Forstei' was dead, and Madge no doubt far away from Langmore. He could not endure to think of it ; when he pictured the dear old home tenanted by strangers, the familiar room filled with people who had neither part nor parcel in the cherished memories of his soul, the man's heart felt almost as though it was breaking. In recollection he paced once more the garden walks, he trod each room, he lingered by the seat Madge had herself occupied, he touched the flowers her hands had arranged, he recalled her pretty figure, as she glided in and out of the old-fasliioned par- lour, always busy, always useful — always doing something in her quiet way to make those about her happy; and then he thought of the old-fashioned arm-chair, whose occupant was gone for ever, of the dear home with no Madge in it, of all the love and all the trust she had given him, of her tenderness neglected, her faith unwatered, her letter unanswered, her aftection disregarded. ' I ought to have made some reply to that letter,' he murmured, and then he bowed his head on his hands, and wept silently. For the man was lonely and desolate beyond description, and his heart went out towards the girl who was, for aught he knevr to the contrary, as lonely and desolate as himself Afterwards, when from the eminence of experience he reviewed the events of his life — as one standing on a hill can see the wind- ings of the road by which he has ascended thither — Andrew Hardell knew that the day on which he heard of Mr Forster's death, on which he sat in the church and tliought of that old home — home no longer — home never more to be — was, after a fashion, the second turning-point in his existence. COMPREHENSION. 209 He was not awnre of the fact then, but Avheu the changes which were on that day all to come, had become realities — when the chances, that were still problematical, had woven and shapeil themselves into important portions of his career — he understooil from the hour when he heard of the events receiitlj^ enacted at Langmore, there came to him a full comprehension that the stream of his own life could not flow on for ever as it had done — that all the wreckers, all the rapids, all the flowers on the banks, all the green meadows, were not surely past ; that he must encounter fresh troubles, be exposed to new temptations, have to struggle and suff'er yet more fiercely before the end. Vaguely, it is true, but yet surely, knowledge came to him, that no man while he has still breath in his bod}' may say :^ ' My life is behind. I exist, certainly, but the drama has been acted on my stage, and can never be performed there again ! ' How we must go forward, whether we will or no — to live in fi-esh places, to see new people, to form new friendships, to love and be loved, to hate and be hated, to wrong and be wronged, to 1 epent and to forgive. While we believe we are walking on of our own free choice — that we are selecting our lots — necessity is driving us all the time, and scofiing to think that we, with the bits in our mouths, and the world's collar on our necks, and the reii^s firmly grasped in other hands, can cheat ourselves into the delusion that we are perfectly free agents, that we are going our own way, even when the whip of the taskmaster is laid upon us. This man, whose story has been so far told, had elected to lead a certain life, to follow a stated course ; so far he believed he had proceeded in strict accordance with the plan thus sketched out, and that, excepting in dining once at The Pines, and becom- ing somewhat friendly with George Trelwyn, he had never once stepped aside from the path previously determined upon ; and yet, as I have before said, when in after years he came to review the events of his existence, he found he had but been walking on to meet his fate — to be taught what love really meant — not such love as be felt, through all time, for Madge Forster — but that love which fills a man's heart with sunshine and dai-kens it with despair, that love which has never yet been described, though poets and romancers have written about it, and which never will be described, though a thousand and a thousand poets and ro mancers yet unborn make the attempt. And the sluggish stream of his life at Essex Marsh was alone bearing him forward to troubled pools, where he was to fathom the very depths of human remorse, not such remorse as he had felt 210 A life's assize. for a blow struck at random, but passionate remorse, wbicli stretcbed bim as on a rack, and made all tbe sorrows of bis pre- vious experience seem poor and tame by comparison witb -wbat be tben endured. Vaguely, dimly be felt tbese sbadows coming towards bim, aa be sat in tbe cburcb, wbile tbe darkness closc^d around bim, and tbe day drew to a close. Tbinking of tbe cbanges wbicb bad oc- curred, tbe comprebension dawned upon bim that cbange must ultimately be tbe order of bis future life. Already tbe existence to wbicb be once fancied time could bring no alteration was passing away, the old actors were about to depart as former actors bad departed before tbem, and tbougb be could see neither tbe faces nor tbe forms of those who were to take their place, be could bear their footsteps sounding down tbe corridors, at tbe end of wbicb be stood. They Avere coming to bim — coming with tbe weal and tbe woe, tbe joy and the sorrow of bis life. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAKGE. Some persons are peculiarly fortunate in tbe friends they meet witb. Give to tbem tbe rougbest and most unlikely road, tbey yet manage to pick up pleasant companions, friends by tbe Avay, and all this without apparently any desire or effort on their own part, without that seeking for sympatby and that wish for intimate association frequently noticeable in tbe manners of those wbo are yet left to plod arong in solitude, or whose society is merely tolerated on account of the worldly goods they possess. Why tbis should be so we cannot tell. We simply sec the fact; and tbougb we cry ' Unjust, Unfair,' not all our profound remarks and exhaustive observations can alter it. There is reason in the roasting of eggs, though our own limited knowledge both of cookery and chemistry may prevent our accepting tlie axiom ; and in like manner tbere is some principle of eternal justice — if we could only find out wbat it is — underlying the popularity that we grudgingly admit is achieved by those men and women who are, in our impartial opinion, greatly overrated. Nice, quiet, domesticated girls, as the oomineudatory phrase CHANGE. 2 1 ] goes, as well as beautiful, fashiouable, accomplished belles, go to tlieir graves without a cluince of changing their state, unless, in- deed, they like to accept some perfectly objectionable individual; and while they stand wondering what it all means, up comes some woman too undesirable to be thouglit even worthy of jea- lousy, who yet strews the macadamized roads of her life with broken hearts, and regards them as of no more consequence than the bad ' metal ' with which we repair our highways. Most estimable men, mothers' darlings — and ' braves ' in the eyes of their admiring squaws — make few friends, get little help when evil days fall upon them, receive scant pity while limping along foot-sore and weary, and it is not to be wondered at if they sometimes curse not only their own evil fate but also the objec- tionable young man ahead, who has been doing ill all the days of his life, and yet to whom men are ever ready to stretch out a cordial hand — for whom there is at morning and noontide, and when the evening is closing, the cheery smile, the shouted wel- come, the friendly grasp which shall send him on his way lighter- hearted. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it does seem hard, but the hard- ness is only in seeming, most likely, after all. Far as he went astray, the prodigal son was evidently a much more agreeable young man than his prudent brother ; and no doubt that father, of whose pathetic welcome few can read quite steadily, recognized not merely the fact of the lost being found, and the dead being alive, but also the circumstance that, taking him as a whole, he was a more desirable companion than the other who had remained with him always. There are little differences of manner, feeling, intellect, hard to describe and yet easy to feel, which tend to make one man more esteemed than his neighbour, but if you inquire too closely what these differences are, and why they should exist, we are at once carried from the laud of reality into that of speculation. The greatest satirist, the wisest humorist, the linest novelist of our time, in some one of his works promulgates the idea that the world is but a looking-glass which reflects back whatever face we turn to it — and this theory is no doubt correct to a certain extent — only, friends, there are mirrors and mirrors — the flatter- ing one wherein Beauty and Wealth beholds herself reflected, and the three-cornered bit of ^lass that serves Bill Jones's pur- pose, and is about all the gilding and quicksilver likely ever to come in his way. After all, this is what people complain of; not that their own faces are ugly and distorted, but that the world's looking-glass zri A LIFE'S ASSIZE. is untrue, that it is unequal and given to favouritism— to making gods of men not according to their deserts, but its own fancy — to taking up one and casting down Another, with the utmost in- ditference to individual opinions, and disregard of individual feelings. AVhich preamble is merely intended to make intelligible the fact that Andrew Hardell found his lot under Mr Dayntree no more irksome than his sole charge had been. As a rule, perhaps, the lots of curates do not fall in pleasant places; it is the three- cornered bit of bad glass that the world tliinks good enough for them ; but with Andrew Hardell the case proved diiferent. The mirror life held towards him was good, and though the face it reflected might not be a liappy one, he stdl had enough sense left to refrain from nialdng its expression more wretched, by frown, or scowl, or sneer. He accepted — nay, more, he was grateful, and accordingly he and Mr Dayntree — tlie dreaded new Vicar — got on admirably together, so admirably that the latter begged Mr Hardell not to thiidv of leaving the Vicarage for the present. 'There are no desirable lodgings in Essex Marsh,' remarked Mr Dayntree, 'and the house is large enough for two unmarried men, who have no thought save how best to serve God,' to which remark Andrew, as in duty bound, listened with humility. If his new Vicar had singular ideas on the subject of serving God, it was not for him to express his opinions. If the whole duty of man iu Mr Dayntree's eyes consisted in an austere life and daily services, it would have been mere presumption on the part of his Curate to correct bis convictions. Providing Andrew did what he desired, he left him at liberty to do anything else he might consider necessary. There was no vexatious interference on tlio one side; no rearing of his head against constituted authorities on the other. The one man knew himself to be a master without rendering the yoke galling ; the other acknowledged himself to be a servant, without any sacrifice of independence, without ettecting any compromise either with pride or principle. He had been before like one left in charge of a house, who when the master returns waits for orders. The master had come and the orders were at first given, till INIr Dayntree found there was no need for him to exert his authority. The servant met him more than half way, — did more than he should ever have dreamt of desiring, not by way of proving himself wiser than his Vicar, but simply because he tried to anticipate his wishes, — and to an indolent man, to a book-worm, to one who loved the discussion CHANGE. 213 of curious poiuts of doctrine, the searching after rare voUunes the comparing of ditferent readings, Andrew's parochial help was invaluaWe. It lei't him conscientious leisure for everything his soul de- lighted in, but the straiu told on Andrew, -who fell into bad health, and spite of change and medical advice, became, after eighteen months' trial of Essex Marsh under Dayntree, feeble, purposeless, physically incompetent. ' This won't do, Hardell,' said Mr Dayntree, one morning when the Curate came back from church, looking pale and worn and haggard, 'you will kill yourself if you remain here much longer ; I have felt so satisfied on this point for some time past, that I looked about to see what we could do, and the result is this' • Andrew Hardell took the letter his Vicar handed to him as a finish to the foregoing sentence, and read it over once, twice, thrice, before he perfectly guessed its meaning. ' Did you do this, sir? ' at last he broke out. ' Oli ! do not think me ungratei'ul if I say I cannot take it. I would rather stay among my poor people, and do God's work here, even if it be His will that I must die, than go away from Essex Marsh.' Then Mr Dayntree took his Curate to task, and rated him soundly ; told him, though in more Christian language and better rounded periods than mine, that his life and his health were not exactly his own, to make ducks and drakes of; that no man had a right virtually to commit suicide, when strength might be pre- served and existence prolonged by change of labour and of scene. Long the Vicar talked, and hard Andrew pleaded. Had Essex Marsh been Eden, and he Adam, the man could not have prayed more fervently to be permitted to stay in it. ' Were you dissatisfied with me, sir,' he finished, ' of course I could only be sorry and go, but as you are merely sending me away for what you falsely consider my own good, I must beg you to let me remain — unless, indeed, you are dissatisfied.' ' You have said it,' Mr Dayntree retorted. 'I am dreadfully dissatisfied with you, and this is merely a polite ruse of mine, in order to make our parting mutually agreeable. Ton need not laugh,' he added, noticing that a very ghost of a smile flitted round Andrew's mouth ; 'you are not strong enough for my work. I have had your energy, and now, like all other employers, I decline your weakness. Seriously,' he added, suddenly changing his tone, and laying his hand on Andrew's arm, ' you must go ; you must leave this work, or it will be too much for you. I have been to blame. I ought either to have done more myself, or had some one to help you. Now I tell you what, if you are so devotedly 214 A life's assize, attached to rags, and misery, and wretcheduess, and the otlicr concomitants of this wretclied parish, as to feel broken-heai-lcd at the idea of leaving it, you shall accept this offer for three months, and if at the end of that time you want to come back, well and good ; if not, well and good still. Only go— not for a few days, as you have been doing, but for weeks, months, and try whetlier breathing a diflerent air, leading a ditferent life, mixing among different people, will make you stronger and happier.' ' But if you could only imagine the horror I feel of anything like a public life,' Andrew still remonstrated. ' You should liave thought of that before entering the Church,' w'as the reply ; 'and besides, what publicity can there be at 8t Mark's-by-the-Sea ? ' ' It is a fashionable watering-place' 'That is information to me,' Mr Dayntree answered, ' ami I thought I knew St Mark's pretty well, too. It is a quiet, stupid little town, excepting in the season, when it is thronged, not with the beautiful and the gay, but with cockneys, who take lodgings on the Esplanade, and drive all round the neighbourhood with about a dozen cliildren packed into a carriage drawn by one horse. If not exactly a tea-aud-shrimp paradise, it is only a single step higher in the social scale. ' St Mark's-by-the-Sea,' said George Trelwyn, when shortly afterwards Mr Hardell informed him of his destination. ' Oli ! don't I know it well. Not a bad sort of place, to my thiuking, when it is not the Snob, and Snobbess, and Snobbling season. We used to be packed oft" there when we were children, and it seems to me but yesterday that we squirted peas in among the respecta- bilities of the place, who sat in front of open windows, devouring bread-and-butter and swallowing weak tea, at five o'clock. I know- old Thompson always tries to get away in what is considered the height of the season. Yon are a lucky fellow, and it will do you all the good in the world, and I will come down and look you up.' ' It is a quiet spot, then ? ' ' Quiet! ' George Trelwyn repeated 'my dear fellow, life in Essex Marsh is the wildest dissipation in comparison with what you will find in St Mark's. You get the morning's papers theiv about ten r.M., and your letters are delivered once a day at three in the afternoon. You order your dinners a week beforehand, and if you eat too much one day, have to feast with Duke Hum- phrey the next. Y^'et, wnthal, I like St Mark's,' finished George Trelwyn ; 'dear to me are the tnemories connected with its fishy shore, with its sandy walks, its low clifts, its uncivilized peo|de, its tradesmen, who believe in nothing save the squire and dissent 3 CHANGE. 215 its shops where, with scarcely one customer a day, you wait an hour to be served ; its station, two miles out of the town, its green balconied houses, its picturesque old-lashionedness. So you really are going to St Mark's, — ah ! me — ah ! me.' ' And why — ah ! me ? ' ' Because I was in love there, and a charm will hang round the broken vase, as Mr Moore says, even though the young wo- man, with wonderful sense and foresight, declined to have any- thing to say to your humble servant. I am inclined to think she was right and I was wrong ; that we should have made a miserable pair (she has since married a man without an idea be- yond "flowers and feathers," from which useful articles he draws his living) ; but still, when I think of those moonlight walks, those tender conversations — the baggage led me on, remember — something very like sentiment stirs within me. It was not the love, it was not the girl ; but it was the time,' concluded George Trelwyn ; 'the golden, Iiopeful time of one's existence, and for the dear sake of that blessed period, I never have remembered, or shall remember, St Mark's save with affection. Go, then, Hardell, and remember my advice, — take it easy, and don't fall in love.' ' There is no danger of that,' the Curate replied. ' Humph ! ' ejaculated George Trelwyn ; ' you are going out into the temptations of a wicked world, my son, and it is my duty to warn you.' After that the pair parted, and in due time Andrew went down to St Mark's, where, if the expression be not too strong concerning a man w'hose life was spoilt, he enjoyed himself thoroughly. He delighted in the blue sea shimmering in the sunshine, in the low, green hills, sloping down to the very water's edge, in the long walks through country lanes and quiet fields, in the easier work, in the more ap])reciative congregation. He felt pleased and happy, because, while he had taken some- thing more on, he had still left nothing behind. He was only out for his holiday ; the poor in Essex Marsh were his poor still ; the Vicarage had not ceased to be his home ; the church, where he had so often preached, was soon to be filled with his voice again. He had not left Essex Marsh. Oh, no ! he was only resting and gaining strength to resume harder work than ever. He would be with them — his friends ; those who were dependent upon him for thought and for kindness long before Christmas — and mean- time he was doing good, some good, he trusted, at St Mark's. Curates, as a rule, did not like St Mark's, because there was ' no 216 A life's assize. society ;' but then he did not want society, and accordingly, as I have said, he thoroughly enjoyed his holiday, and returned at the cx])iration of the three months' to Essex Marsh, perfectly strong in his own estimation, and more capable of hard work than ever. But before the spring had well set in, his health broke up again, and this time the doctors told him he must choose between Essex Marsh and life — between working in some otlier place and losing the power of working altogether. Somehow, during the course of those walks by the sea-shore, those solitary rambles through the lanes and across the fields, life had grown sweeter to him ; existence seemed a gift better Avortli treasuring than he had believed it to be in Essex Mai^sli, Removed from the midst of bricks and mortar, from amongst squalor, and sin, and misery, the man's soul had taken courage enough to ask itself whether any lot appointed by God could be regarded as altogether hopeless — whetlier it were quite possible, or even quite right, for a man utterly to ignore self, to merge his' own identity in the sufterings of his fellows, and because there was a darkened chamber in his own memory, and plenty of rooms with closely-drawn bliuds in the world, refuse to go out into the sunshine, and take what joy there still remained in the glittering dcwdrops, in the drooping branches, in the ripening corn, in the flowers and fruits, in the rippling streams, in the restless ocean, in the carolling of birds, and the hundred sweet sights and sounds which make God's fair earth so beautiful exceedingly. He had been morbid, and His Father's gift of ' being' seemed valueless in his eyes ; but now he clung to life, and when Mr Dayntree told him he must leave Essex Marsh, and never return to it, even for an occasional visit, he only sighed, and said — ' I suppose I shall find work to do wherever I am, and I will try to believe that wherever I find myself, there my Mastei means me to be, and will appoint my task.' Once again Mr Dayntree wrote to his friend at St Mark's-by- the-Sea, but this time that desirable curacy was not vacant. ' There is a poor thing a few miles from here, however, going a-begging,' added the Hector; ' and if IMr Hardell merely wants rest and change, it might answer his purpose to take it. A curate is required for Ecliu, where the clergyman is non-resident. Eclin is an outlying village in the parish of Great Garton. Tlici'e are not a dozen Protestants in it- — there is no suitable housy for a curate — the pay is misei'able, there is no society whatever^ tliei-e is only one gentleman's place in the neighbourhood — but the air is good, and the country around pretty. It is six miles from here, CHANGE. 217 five from a station, and three from the sea. If Mr Harclell thinks of it at all, he liad better write to the Eev. Samuel Waymer, Garten.' To Andrew's then fancy, no description could have proved more alluring than that contained in the above letter — peace, green fieltls, freedom from the presence of his fellow-creatures — the absence of wealth in the parish — the humble home, some poor cottage which he could beautify with flowers, and which should seem in keeping with his lot — men who earned their bread in the sweat of their brow alone, to talk to — pure air, green fields, long quiet solitary walks in the bright summer weather. A hunger and tliirst to leave the I'oom where he spent most of his time, grew upon him. He felt if he could but get away, health might once again be his. In his weakness he thought of the strength such a change might give him, and he panted with impatience till the matter was settled, and he on his way to Eclin. Just as much as he had formerly lamented leaving Essex Marsh, HO now in precise proportion he desired to bid it farewell ; and when in the spring weather he crawled along the familiar streets to say ' Good-bye and may God bless you ' to the people he had lived among and worked for, his only sigh was iiot that he him- self must leave, but that he could not take them all away with him into the country too. And thus it chanced that on a fine April afternoon he found himself at the St Mark's railway station, inquiring for a convey- ance to take him on to Eclin. While an obliging porter went to order him one from the inn, Andrew stood at the door of the booking-office looking with a certain curiosity at a pliaeton drawn by a pair of grey ponies, in which sat a young lady, who had evidently come there to meet some one. Presently an elderly gentleman appeared and took his place beside the girl. A groom jumped into the seat behind, and in less time than the sentence has taken me to write, the greys Avere mere specks in the distance. ' A nice pair,' remarked Mr Hardell to tlie station-master, wlio had bowed the conveyance oft". ' Yes,' was the reply, ' and driven by a nice youns; lady too. Miss Alton, of Eclin.' j ^ j ^ 218 CHAPTER XXIV. FEMININE. When the new curate arrived at Eclin, he found that Mr Thompson had accurately described the extent of its accommod- ation. There was not a good house in the viUage. Previous curates had lodged with a Mrs Pryce, wlio kept the shop of the neigh- bourhood, where she retailed cheese and bacon, tea, eggs, lard, soap, caudles, cheap print dresses, needles, cotton, stationery, stamps, sweetmeats, news, and a variety of other articles, too numerous and miscellaneous to mention. For all these groceries, meats, and other necessaries and ele- gancies of life, she charged about three hundred per cent, too much ; but then she threw the news in gratuitously, and there was nothing, litei'ally nothing — from the number of letters sent up to the Hall, and the different handwritings thereon, to the amount her lodger for the time being ate, or failed to eat, during the day — which was not canvassed in Mrs Pryce's shop between the lady and her admiring customers. ' If you believe me, my dear,' said the Avidow to Miss Lucy IMarland, lady's-maid at the Hall, about a mouth after Andrew had taken up liis abode in the sitting-room, with bed-room open- ing off it, that Mrs Pryce kept as a sort of city of refuge for curates stranded at Eclin — •' if you believe me, my dear, he does not eat enough to satisfy a bird, let alone a Christian ; and I am sure he looks perfectly ghostly, as the saying is ; and he sleeps with his window that wide open I had to speak about it, and tell him that if so be any thieves was to know it might be dangerous. •' Thank you, Mrs Pryce," he says, " but I think if any thieves were about they would not try to steal me — so long as they could get at your cheese and bacon," and then he told me he must soon be leaving me, and that he hoped no one would rob the house before he did so. There's another on' em going. I wonder if ever Eclin will have the same curate again for six. montlis at one time ! ' ' He hain't a-going to leave,' contradicted a man who came in at this juncture for half a pound of cheese. ' But I tell you he said them identical words to me,' the widow persisted. ' !' I must soon be leaving you, Mrs Pryce ; " and I said, " Sir, I am truly sorry to hear it, for you are as quiet and kind a gentleman as ever I had in my house." " It is very FEMININE. iiiO good oi you to say that," he made answer, " for I am al'raid I have given you a great deal of trouhle ; but tlie iact is, the phice don't quite suit my health." And then 1 said it did not agr(>e with everybody, though some enjoyed their health in it very well. So that is plain enough, I should think, Mr liogers.' ' It is plain enough that he is leaving his present lodgings, Mrs Pryee, ma'am — but as for leaving Eelin, don't you never go for to believe it. He has taken the cottage where Job Dowlett lived, and is going to start housekeeping on his own accouut, ma'am,' and Mr Rogers, as if to emphasize the termination of his astounding intelligence, nipped a bit oft' the slice of cheese Mrs Pryce had cut for him, and putting it into his mouth, swallowed it as some people swallow pills. ' AVell, I never ! ' exclaimed Miss ISTarland, whilst for once in her life Mrs Pryce remained dumb. She could not very well eat her own words on the spot, and declare it was impossible for the individual who could think of taking Job Dowlett's cottage to be a gentleman, and yet such was her unbiassed opinion. Why, Job Uowlett had only been a poor labourer, and his cottage had but three rooms in it, and tlie door opened right into the kitchen, and the place altogether, to sum up Mrs Pryce's mental reverie, was not lit to lodge a dog. In imagination already she beheld her own superior apartments vacant, her easy-chair covered with a brilliant-patterned chintz, tenantless, her drawing- room lodgerless, herself desolate, robbed of her right, her per- quisite, the spoil of her bow and her arrow, her spear and her sword. And that he should have so deceived her ! that he should have deluded one who had never been deluded before ! that he should have made it competent even for a creature like Peter Rogers to enfighten her. Mrs Pryce felt this to be the bitterest drop in her already bitter cup, as she stood there silently trying to swallow her vexation and disgust. And all the time Andrew Hardell was thinking how admii'ably he had broken the ice, and how quietly she had taken the news — and rejoicing in his soul that he plucked up courage enough to make the communication, for he was afraid of Mrs Pryce, as other curates had been before him ; and while he hated her, and her lodgings, and her cheese and bacon, he yet hesitated, and put oft" from hour to hour imparting the news that he meant to go — that he intended to try housekeeping for himself. ' He can't be meaning to marry,' remarked the widow at last ; * not a letter in a lady's hand-writing has come to him since he has been in my house ; and he has not got a likeness, nor anything — not even a lock of hair anions his clothes.' 220 A life's assizk. ' Iso, he ain't a-going to be married,' acquiesced Mr Rogers ; * leastways, I think not, for Mrs Coles is to do for him — cook his victuals, and such like, and clean the house.' ' I don't tliink they will often have heard anything like this up at the Hall,' said Mrs Pryce to Miss Marland, scornfully — and that young person agreed to the widow's proposition, re- marking she did not fancy anything like it had ever been heard anywhere by any one. 'He must be mad,' was her exhaustive conclusion, at which conclusion Mrs Pryce jumped with unchristian haste. ' He is certainly odd,' she said ; ' though of course I should not like it known as I liad made the remark. He is either out of his mind or else he has got something on it ; I used to think he had been crossed in love ; but then he does not write poetry and cut the table with his penknife, like Mr Sandly, who was in love with the young lady at St Mark's. He has got a way of sitting with his head on his hand, or else of pretending to be reading, holding a book, while all the time he is looking far away at I am sure I don't know what ; and if I go into the room quietly — as I usually do, for I detest making a noise beyond everything — he'll turn and look at me so startled like — just for all the world like somebody afraid.' ' Happen he is of you,' suggested Mr llogers, who had liis own reasons for disliking the turn Mrs Pryce's conversation was taking ; ' it is not every man that can face a widow, and a handsome one too, Mrs Pryce, ma'am, in her own house.' ' Am I to take that as a compliment, Mr Rogers ? ' inquired the widow. ' How could you take it as anything else ? ' simpered Miss Marland ; and under cover of this last happy suggestion, Mr Rogers, who was in the bricklaying and general repairing line, beat his retreat. ' Depend upon it there is going to be building,' was Mrs Pryce's dark surmise ; ' he means to alter the cottage, and Rogers is engaged for tliejob.' ' At that rate your rooms will not be empty at present,' re- marked the maid, which observation elicited a tap on the check from Mrs Pryce, and an entreaty not to be satirical. ' Though I certainly shall not put up my bills yet awhile, my dear,' added the widow, ' for everybody knows what Peter Rogers is.' If, however, Mrs Pryce built her hopes of a long series of regular payments on her idea that Mr Rogers was about to take trowe^ in hand for the Curate's benefit, those hopes, like others FEMININE. 221 she liad entertained in her lifetime, bloomed only to fade, for before another fortnight Mr Hardell and his few belongings were honsed in the cottage, which had formerly been tenanted by Job Dowlett, labourer. ' He certainly behaved handsome,' remarked Mrs Pryce ; ' he paid me a full quarter's rent, and gave a sovereign to the girl, though the impudent hussy tried to impose upon me by saying it vi'as only a shilling : and he made me a present of as handsome a Prayer-book as you would wish to see ; and altogether, except that 1 fear he has made a mistake for his own comfort, I have not a word to say against the gentleman.' Which it was very kind of Mrs Pryce to say, and all the kinder because in her heart of hearts she hated Andrew Hardell, who had managed to make a mortal enemy of her. And though the brave man says, and says truly, that he does not fear mortal enemies, tliere is yet nothing of which even a brave man may with greater reason stand in dread, more especially when that mortal enemy takes the form of a low, grasping, cun- ning woman. Mrs Pryce had hoped — since the decease of Mr Pryce — ^her hopes had, indeed, been neither few nor far between, but from the hour when she first set eyes on Andrew Hardell she de- cided that if it were in the power of a widow to marry him she would do it. He was in bad health, and she catered for him — made him up little dishes which he never relished, and puddings that he rarely touched. He was lonely, and the widow proposed — if not too great a liberty on her part — that he should sometimes bring his book down-stairs, and take a bit of supper in her own parlour ; if the evening were damp, tliere was ahvays a fire lighted against his return ; if he were in lower spirits than usual, the widow her- self waited upon and would have consoled him had Andrew seemed open to consolation from her. With other curates the whole of this performance had been gone through, and there were not wanting among the young fry who came to Eclin ' for a spell,' those who, after having eaten the widow's good things, drank hot braudy-and-water in the widow's parlour, flirted with the widow, ay, and even kissed her, went away rejoicing, when herself and her hoiise and Eclin had all served their turn. But Mr Hardell was a man of a diflerent stamp. He was 'one,' as Mrs Pryce remarked in a moment of unguarded confi- dence to Miss Marland, ' with whom any feeling would be serious.' And the widow, who,, ir, addition to other articles, kept a very 222 A lifk's assizk. small circulating library for the benefit of tbe farmers' daughters ill the neighbourhood, felt, as she spoke, like one of the heroines so truthfully portrayed by that vague creature a ' popular novel- ist,' — on the point of inspinng a ' serious ' feeling. ' He has not a single relative in the world — he told me so himself,' soliloquized Mrs Pryce, and she would fain have been that nearer and dearer still. They could leave Eclin and the ' shop,' and it was by no means an impossibility that Mrs Pryce might on another stage appear as a lady of high degree. Did not the army oflficers, when they were staying at the Hall, make a pretence of wanting mourning envelopes or a stick of stall ug-wax, or six postage stamps, in order merely to have an excuse for a chat, and had she not heard Miss Alton herself once sny, ' Now, Colonel Desmond, I will not allow you to flirt with ]\Irs Pryce. We are all so fond of her here, we cannot afford to lose her,' a gracefully-turned sentence on the part of Miss Alton, but still she need not have ridden her horse up so close to the door, and taken the Colonel off so sharp, when everybody knew Miss Alton herself to be the greatest flirt in England. And if the army officers, why not a poor curate, who was, after all, only a servant to other people, and consequently situated ' very different ' (pecuniarily) from INIrs Pryce — why should he not take notice of her still handsome face and well-laced figure ? For if you come to that, who in Eelin could stand beside her. Not Miss Alton, certainly, for all her beautiful hair, and airs and graces — not Miss Alton, though she was the Squire's daughter • — not Miss Alton, even if she did live at the Hall, and dress herself in diflerent clothing five or six times a day, and ride about now with this gentleman, and now with that — And because she firmly belicA^ed Miss Alton to be a long way behind herself in point of attractiveness, Mrs Pryce was conde- scending to that young lady ; and Miss Alton, when she had no officers to ride over the country with, and no visitors to entertain at the Hall, was wont to find out she wanted tapes, or needles, or stamps, also, and amuse herself during the process of purchas- ing at the widow's expense. Thus it came about that not only to Miss Alton's maid, but to the mistress herself — Mrs Pryce discoursed concerning Andrew Harden. ' So delicate,' finished the widow, ' and to think of his going to that damp cottage, after this well-aired house, it was enough to give him his death.' ' Poor dear creature,' remarked Miss Alton, 'he perhaps only fled from one fate to meet a worse. H' he dies, remember, Mrs FEMININE. 223 Pryoe, I shall always consider j^ou drove him to desperation and Job Dowlett's cottage,' and a pair of saucy eyes were lifted to the widow's face. ' If you believe me, Miss, I don't think he has ever cared for anybody.' ' Good gracious, how interesting ! ' ' I feel sure he has not a thought beside the poor and his Bible.' ' He must be an agreeable companion,' commented Miss Al- ton ; ' I do wish papa would make haste home, that we might have him up at the Hall.' ' Yes,' considered the widow, as Mit;s Alton drove off — ' and if you do get him up at the Hall, you will pay him out, that is all I know, and that is the worst I wish him.' As a commentary upon which remark, it may here be observed that Miss Alton took Dowlett's cottage on her way home, and drove slowly past it, noticing, as she did so, the changes and im- pi'ovements Mr Hardell had already effected. ' Whenever papa comes home, he shall send him over plenty of plants and cuttings,' reflected ?\lis3 Alton — having formed which resolution, the young lady whipped her horses on a little and drove back to the Hall in a curious and exhilarated state of mind. For Joy Alton was not in the least like Madge Forster. But that they were women, you would have declared they could not have a thing in common. Being women, howevei', there came one thing in common to them — sorrow. Ay, for all her beauty, for all her wealth, and for all her gaiety, there came that to Joy Alton, and when the evil days arrived, and the sorrowful hours were upon her, Mrs Pryce remembering — rejoiced. CHAPTER XXV. THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN. If Mr Hardell were the first curate who ever dreamed of taking a house at Eclin, he was likewise the first who thought of retaining that desirable curacy for a longer period than six' mouths. Half a year had indeed been the maximum duration of anv clerical stay at Eclin. Curates put in there as vessels touch at 224 A life's assize. ports, where tliey never purpose remairiing ; but the pay was solow, and the place altogetlier so utterly out of the Avorlcl, that men got away from it as fast as they decently could, thanking heaven for the chance of leaving Mrs Pryce and her close rooms and her motherly attentions behind. There was nothing about Eclin, indeed, to recommend it to ' clergymen and others.' The population was utterly uninterest- ing and unintelligent ; the church, though old, was not pictur- esque ; the country around was in the summer time pretty, but no stretch of imagination could have discovered any beauty in it when once the crops were oft' the ground, and the trees bare, and the fields and the roads sloppy. There was no society — for Mv Alton spent so much of his time in London, that if a curate were asked once in a month to dinner at the Hall, he might consider himself lucl^y ; altogether, when men who had been at Eclin came to exchange clerical confidences, each found that his fellow enter- tained a similar opinion of the place to his own. ' It was the dullest hole out,' the faster spirits declared ; while even more se- date individuals afilrmed ' they did not believe the man existed who could stay in Eclin for more than six months.' As for Andrew Hardell, however, he pitched his tent there, meaning to remain. Thankful was he to have found such a home — thankful for that very quietness and monotony, from which he would once have given anything to escape. His ambitious dreams, Avhere were they ? — his hopes of fame, of wealth, of usefulness, where? Ah! friends, when he thrust that accursed garment, which could have told such a tale against him, down the fissure of the rock, and piled the sand, and the shells, and the pebbles, on the top, he passed of his own free will — by his own blind act — into that earthly hell over the portals whereof it is written that they who enter there leave hope behind. ' Ay, but I can be resigned,' he thought, walking through the bean-fields, and looking at the summer glory of wood, and flower, and foliage, 'and thank God still for his mercies ' — for the man was humble, and his spirit broken. He had not done much good for himself with all his cleverness — by his mad fight against cir- cumstances — and he was content now to find the bark of his life moored in so quiet a nook, and to do his duty if he could, even when there was no great w"ork for him to perform, no war for liim to wage, no gigantic suftering for him to try and comfort, no depths of vice for him to gauge, no dragon of wickedness for him to fight and conquer. Calmly the stream of existence seemed to flow through Eclin by comparison with the rush and turmoil of the sad foul river THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN. 225 that had borue men's lives away with it in Essex IMarsli. True, he beheld physical sviftering, for was not tlio clerk's wife dying by inches of the most cruel disease humanity knows ? Tragedy also was acted out in a very poor cottage, where news coming home suddenly that a lad who, after a quarrel with his sweet- heart went off and enlisted, had shot his sergeant, the mother was seized with mortal illness, and died within a few days, re- solutely refusing to see the girl who was the cause, she said, of all this misery ; and the hardness of the human heart was ex- emplified by two brothers, who, living within half a mile of each other, had not spoken for twenty years, because their father, dying without a will, his little freehold descended to the eldest, who oftered a hundred pounds as compensation to the younger, which offer was rejected with scornful and opprobrious words. But the suffering, the tragedy, the feud, were individual, not general : there were no men and no women in that parish who had never known what it was to have a youthful feeling — a suffi- cient meal — one hour free from anxiety — who had never been children, never gathered king-cups and daisies, never gone a- blackberrying, never felt what a blessing the summer sun brought with it, never feasted their eyes on the apple-blossoms, and never been spoken to in more kindly accents than those of policeman X or the parish guardians. There was poverty, there was pain, there was sin, there w^as remorse, there was sorrow, but none of these were like unto the poverty, pain, sin, remorse, and sorrow, the Curate had beheld in Essex Marsh. Often and often he thought with what mad delight the poor little wretches, the wicked, clever, miserable, hungry street Arabs would have revelled in those green fields he beheld stretching away in the distance. In fancy he saw them rolling on the grass, and gathering great bunches of wild flowers ; and wdiile he thought and fancied, fresh problems of the meaning of existence came into his mind asking for solution. Where was the balance between child and child? to go no farther. What did God give to the street Arab in lieu of all the home blessings, of all the countiy sights and sounds, wherewith the well-behaved decently-dressed boys and girls in Eclin were surrounded ? Andrew co\ild not tell — he only felt dimly and vaguely that, spite of the rags, and the filth, and the hunger, and the tempta- tion, there might be a balance — and he knew, for his nature held in it a strong strain of Bohemianism, that he loved the Ishmaelitea with their sharp weird faces, their quicker intelligence, their more impulsive temperaments, their awful experiences of priv^ 226 A life's assize. ation, and sin, and sorrow, better than tlie cbubby, stupid, com- monplace, well-fed, bobbing and bowing children who, after a full breakfast on the Sunday mornings, were wont to stand up before him in the school-room, and go through their ' questions,' and read their verses in the most exemplary manner. Further, he commenced to understand that repose, without the experience of previous turmoil, simply means, to uiuetv-nine people out of a hundred, stagnation. Tlie life about him was peaceful enough in all conscience, but it was the peace of a pool that has no sparkling stream or rushing river to replenish it, and no outlet b}^ which the waters may find their way on to a deeper ocean. There were lives he came to comprehend — like the miser's gold — lives, lived after a fashion, it is true, but yet, because of their manner of being lived, comparatively useless. The whole of Eclin was an experience to him, as the entire of existence ouglit to be to a man who feels that, having a soul to be saved himself, the salvation of some other soul may be dependent on him. Behold this man whom we have followed so far, located in a labourer's cottage, trying to solve tliese problems. Behold him happier in his poor small house, than he had ever thought to be either in the Vicarage at Essex Marsh, or in Mrs Pryce's superior lodgings. For was not the climbing rose-tree he planted against the wall at Eclin, after a fashion, his own ? Did he not hope to I'cap where he had sown? was it not on the cards, or, at least, possibly on the cards, that he might live there for years and years — live there and die there where no other curate living or dead had remained ? And if all this were within the bounds of pro- bability, why should he not plant his own vine and his own fig- tree, and eat of the grapes of the one, and the fruit of the other, daring the course of the many bright summer days to come ? So he planted and beautified — he furnished — simply, it is true, but still he gathered household gods around him, and the feeling of a home grew faster than the wistaria and the magnolia — God help him ! Quickly under his hand the poor cottage became a snug habit- ation—small, it is true— but still, large enougli for him, where, amid his books and flowers, he sometimes forgot the trouble of his life, and felt day by day the health he had lost stealing back into his frame. And by degrees there came something else stealing into his heart likewise, something which for months and months he refused to acknowledge for an inmate, lie grew happier, and yet he failed to understand why — he went about his work with a lighter spirit, THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN. 227 and yet he could uot luive told what had lifted the bui'den off his soul ; he had always loved flowers, always rejoiced at the chang- ing seasons, always looked on the face of nature with a compre- hending eye — but now suddenly there came to him a new sense and understanding of beauty, and he marvelled how it was that even in his old days at Langmore he had never perfectly grasped the loveliness of a branch covered with clustering roses — never fully experienced the peace of the summer twiliglit — never felt that the quietness of night was like a cool hand laid on a fevered forehead — never knew that there was grace and music in all things, from the waving of the meadow-sweet in the balmy south wind, to the rustle of a woman's dress over the newly-cut grass. God help him ! I have said, for the man was in love — hope- lessly, senselessly. God help him, for the girl he loved was a very different girl indeed from Madge Forster ; and this might be the reason perhaps why, having cared so little for the one, he took so deep a plunge after the other, and went head and ears into that great sea, the depths of which no man plumbs more than once — while others fathom never. Why did he fall in love with Joy Alton ? at this point the reader naturally inquires — naturally, but unreasonably, since love being one of those things for which tliere can be given neither rhyme nor sense, is one of the subjects beyond a novelist's ken. He loved her, and there is an end of it — or rather, there is the beginning of his life's story ; but there is an end of the argu- ment. For, look you. Mister, or Madam, or Miss, who reads these unexciting pages — suppose you pass a jeweller's shop and see bracelets, and rings, and necklaces, and brooches, set out to the best advantage, then and there you take your choice — it may be one, it may be none ; you say- — ' I would, or I would not.' If you would not, you pass by, and no memory lingers ; but if you say you would — let the thing be 'never so rich or never so rare — you have a memory of it afterwards. There was something which just struck your fiincy, and though it might be no other man's fancy — or though it might be the de- sire of other eyes as well — you can never quite forget it — no, not even when your sight might fail to see a diamond flashed before it — when your poor hand was too weak to hold the trinket — when the individual for whom you wanted all this finery has passed out of your life, as you are fleeting away out of the lives of your fellows. Ah ! friends — dear friends — believe me the woman, or the man, is just that trinket to all born unto sorrow. AVe may not get the Z26 A LIFE S ASSIZE. trinket — the woman or the man may, according to the world's reading, be nothing to ns ; and yet, brethren — for I am preach- ing to you as no parson dare ])rcacli — he or she may be all our world, all our lite, all our past, present, future, nevertheless. And who may ignore this great trouble of our humanity — this terrible power of loving wliicli is iu us — who ? Ah ! Lord — Andrew Ilardell did not fail to recognize it in the days when, through Thy mercy and his own sorrow, he became more truly useful in Thy cause. And when he touched that chord — that string which saintly lingers so rarely awaken, save to draw discord from it — the hearers sat mute, listening earnestly ; for though many felt he was speak- ing of things the like of wliich they had never fully experienced, still they vaguely comprehended that if God were good enough such matters might yet be within their own knowledge, to raise them, through a more perfect comprehension of their humanity, to a more thorough understanding of subjects still beyond their ken. It all came about as both Anthony Hardell and George Trel- wyn had prophesied. Here was no man to live loveless through the years — to remain for ever iudift'erent to the beauty of a woman'.s face — to the witchery of a woman's smile — to the grace and graciousness of a woman bent on pleasing. He had fancied himself secure — thought no future flame could scorch him — simply because he had been engaged to Madge Fors- ter. He called what he had felt for her ' love.' Heaven save the mark ! and had he married her, and been kept by Heaven's mercy from seeing any other capable of teaching him the difter- ence, he might have gone on till the end of the chapter ignorant of all the ecstasy of happiness he passed through in those summer days at Eel in. To be with her, to hear the sound of her voice, to listen to her singing, to behold the bright fiiir face bent decorously over her Prayer-book in church — to catch even a glimpse of her in the distance, to walk beside her over the grass, or follow her gliding footsteps through the woods — these tilings were happiness, but he asked himself no further question concerning them — while, if Joy knew or thought she knew all about it, she only laughed to herself and triumphed, for the girl regarded men's hearts but as toys, and did not believe there was such a thing in the world as profound attachment. Unless, indeed, it might be such an attachment as her father felt for her and she for him — that was very ditfereut, she remarked, to the ' tear ' and ' deax',' and ' eye ' and ' sigh ' aiiair. THE HOUE AND THE WOMAN. 229 * Why, 1 have reams of poetry,' she was wout to declare, ' \v ritteu by men wlio said they were dying for love of me, and yet the wretches went oft' and married some one else — even you were faithless like the rest,' she observed to Colonel Desmond, who was staying at the Hall with his pretty wife. ' Because you w^ere heartless, fair ladye,' answered the Colonel, "Nvith a profound how, whereupon Miss Alton hlushed a little, and Mrs Desmond laughed, perfectly unconscious of the depth, and length, and breadth of the wound Joy Alton had dealt him, in the days when he, instead of Andrew Hardell, was cavalier-in- chief. To the end of his life the Curate never forgot the first day Avhen he spoke to Miss Alton. It was a bright summer's morn- ing, and he had just received a note from Mr Alton asking him to dine at the Hall quietly the next day. Should he go, or should he not, that was the problem for him to solve. A^isiting at Ecliu was a difterent matter altogether to visiting in London. Besides, to decline would look so odd, since he could not now plead excess of work, or any incongruity between the social and the clerical life in the parish where his work now lay. Dives did not feast himself in purple and fine linen while Lazarus lay starving outside. On the contrary, beef-tea, and jellies, and all the good things doctors usually order for people who cannot eat a mouthful, found their way from the Hall to any home where sickness miglit be, while Miss Alton herself was wont to carry grapes in a little dainty basket to those whose lips were parched and dry, more especially to one girl dying of con- sumption, who was kept alive literally from day to day by the thoughtfulness of the Lady of the Hall. So, though there were rich and poor, Andrew beheld no gulf fixed between them. He had plenty of leisure, and occasionally time hung rather heavy on his hands. Further — and this, per- haps, was the real secret of the matter — that story which had clouded his life was growing an olden one now ; between him and that night on the New Abbey Eoad, and his day beside the Solway, Kirkcudbright jail, and the Court-house at Dumfries, the merciful mists of years were gathering, and as in the winter nights, though we may know that the snow througli ^^hi(•h wc have come home is lying piled outside, still we are able to forget its chilling cold, and turn to the warmth and brightness of our own fireside, so this man, without exactl}^ ignoring the trouble which lay behind, had yet begun to think of it less frequently, was commencing to understand that the time comes in all experi- ences when even sorrows must be weaned, in order that other 230 A life's assize. work may be found for a luunan being tliau the task of nursing a grief wliicli should be dead. But still he was doubtful and hesitating as to what answer he should return, when crossing the village green he encountered Miss Alton, who stopped and accosted him without the slightest embarrassment. ' It seems absurd for us Bot to speak to each other,' she siad, ' now that j^ou really have made up your mind to remain at Eclin. Hitherto we have regarded our clergymen as a flock of wild geese — I beg your pardon — as migratory birds, w^hich, while we were looking upon them, departed.' ' I have no intention of migrating,' he answered. ' Not even when the leaves go, and the frosts and snows come ? ' ' Not even then.' 'How charming,' she exclaimed, 'and you are coming to dine with us to-morrow.' ' I hope to have that pleasure,' the Curate replied. He had been uncertain the moment before, but now — well-a-day — well-a- day — it was the flrst act in the olden drama over again — that only drama which the performers play for their own amusement, and not for the pleasure of the spectators. So she passed on and left him — passed on with her bright fair hair, with her great child's eyes, with her pure pink-and-white complexion, with her pouting lips, with her sunny smile, witli her round, graceful figure, with her cool, simple, floating dress, with her soft, sweet voice, that for all it was so soft and sweet, had within it a sound of mockery and raillery, passed on in her youth and her beauty, and straight away the man set up an idol for himself, and worshipped it none the less devoutly because unconsciously. As for Joy Alton, she thought uo more of that poor curate when she parted from him in the bright summer's morning on the village green, than of the veriest stranger who ever crossed her path, save so far as this, she imagined there might be some amusement in ' drawing him out.' All men, she averred, were agreeable till they grew serious, by which phrase she meant that so long as a man never tried to cross a certain line, she liked him. ' Of course,' she declared to Colonel Desmond, 'when once you begin to talk about marriage, and giving in marriage, all our pleasant acquaintanceship is at an end: that is the worst of your sex, you are always so dreadfully in earnest.' ' And even to you there will come — ' he began, but she put her fingers in her ears, and refused to listen. TtlK IIOLIU AND TIIK WOMAN. 231 ' ]t'I were INIr Alton, I sliould not allow it,' lie persiateci. ' Papa does not eare what 1 do, so long as I do not marry,' slie answered; and then she began to cry, ibr she had liked Colonel Desmond very much, and spent many a happy hour riding about the country with him, and he had been plain-spoken, and her very good friend, and she told him how sorry she was ; and the pair parted without an angry word ; and when he mar- ried, as he did shortly after, she only said softly to herself, ' Men were deceivers ever,' and iiirted in her own peculiar fashion, worse than formerly, satisfied that no man since the beginning ot time broke his heart for the sake of any woman. She was an only child. After years, during which the Hall lacked an heir, this girl came into the world, and when she came her mother departed from it. As the poor lady lay dying, they asked her what the child just born should be called, and she answered in that moment of supreme anguish — with the death-dews on her forehead, with her dim eyes closing on all earth's pleasures and vanities, with her steps on the very threshold of that unknown land whither we are all bound — ' Joy.' So the girl came by her name, and though it seemed but a mockery then, yet as the years went by, and she grew strong, and beautiful, and gay, with a face like an angel, and a voice like a bird, her father often thought his dead wife must have been gifted with some prophetic knowledge, for if ever a woman had a sunny temper and a joyous nature, that woman was Joy Alton, with whom Andrew Hardell fell in love. Think of it — had all his past been but as a bad dream, and he truly what he seemed ? — think of it still. He, a poor curate, with no possession save a few chairs and tables ; she, daughter of Mr Alton, of the Hall, an heiress, a beauty, young, accomplished, clever, heartless, and yet not ex- actly heartless — she only broke men's hearts as children pull the legs and wings olV flies ; she was ignorant, she did not think it hurt them much ; she did not believe in love herself, either in a fine frenzy or in patient endurance. Her nature was like her name, more joyous than sympathetic, and she lacked that faculty which enables one human being to enter into the sorrows of another, to understand something of what lost treasures, of what fair dead bodies, of what ghostly memories, may be lying at the bottom of the sea, the depths of which he has never actually sounded. Her life had been too happy, too prosperous ; trouble had not brushed her byj she was a little queen in her own dominion, 232 A life's assize. surrounded by devoted and obsequious subjects ; she tliought it was good of her to find pleasure in' the lot God had appointed for her ; she was not cross or high and mighty like other young ladies ; she was not proud ; she would sit down in the poorest cottage and talk to the most discontented of old women with the same smile on her lips that her admirers were wont to rave about. Her father's sister, who resided at the Hall, and matronized its young mistress, could find no fault with Joy, save that she was ' trivial ; ' but here the worthy lady must have used a wrong word to express her sense of what was wanting in her niece's na- ture, for Joy was not ' trivial,' though she talked clever and sometimes rather impertinent nonsense both to men aiid women. As for Mr Alton, he belield his daughter's close acquaintance with the Curate, yet felt no alarm. He had pei'fect confidence in his daughter, and he had seen, moreover, too many flirtations carried on and dropped to entertain the slightest uneasiness with regard to Mr Hardell. It is true that he did not like the character his daughter was acquiring for breaking hearts without remorse, smiling gaily all the while ; but as, whenever he expostulated with her, she either assured him no man had a heart to break, or else declared she would marry the next she met, he at length let her alone, glad perhaps to find she was not desirous of marrying, and leaving him solitary, he whose life was wrapped up in her, and to whom she often said, ' I want no one else to love me but you, papa, and I will never leave you unless you drive me to do so, by long sermons, and propriety lectures taken out of aunt's good books. So the Curate came and went, dining often at the Hall, walk- ing oftener with Miss Alton and her aunt, meeting her continually amongst the poor, seeing her more quiet than any one had ever seen her bei'ore, more tender, more sweet, more loveable, than it would be eas_y for me to tell. And thus, as I have said, there came for him a fresh beauty in nature, a fresli interest and hap])iness in life, and the man who was so keen in detecting tlie secret springs of others' actions, jie\er paused to ask what was the meaning of it all, whither he was drifting, how it must end. He basked in the sunshine, and he never thought of the night — he said to himself in the morning, ' I shall see Miss Alton to-day,' and if he did not see her, he was restless in the evening, longing for another sun to rise which should not set be- fore he beheld her. He watched for her to come into church — when she went to London, or to stay with friends, he counted THE nOUR AND THE WOMAN. 233 the hours till slio slioukl return — and yet still he never took liis heart to task, and sii'ted the matter to the bottom. Afterwards he knew he had been afraid to do so — afraid as one is to open one's eyes and dispel a pleasant dream — afraid as a criminal may be to realize the mori'ow when he must go fortli to meet his doom — but the hour came when the information he had declined to go to meet came to seek him, and it came in this wise. It was a winter's night, and he stood in the recess of a window listening to Miss Alton singing. She sang beautifully, yet for a woman called ' Joy ' hers was the saddest voice that can well be conceived. It was the only thing sad about her, a tone and a cadence when she sat at the piano warbling her ballads tliat often brought tears into eyes where tears were rare visitors. All the day long, and for days before that, Andrew Hardel] had been auxious and low-spirited. There were visitors at the Hall, and he saw little of Miss Alton in consequence. He beheld her walking, riding, chat- ting with others, and a sense of his own loneliness oppressed him. "What was he to any one — what right had he to expect any one to think of him ? Even at dinner he did not now sit near her. One higher in the Church occupied his seat, and talked to her as he had been wont to talk. But still she did not quite forget her old friends, for she came up to him when the gentlemen joined the ladies, and asked if he were ill, and feared his neigh- bour at dinner had bored him. ' I did the best I could for you,' she said with a smile, ' but these things are sometimes, like circumstances, beyond our own control ; ' and then she left him and sat down, by request, to sing, while he took up his position where he could watch her quietly, watch her and the group gathered around her at the piano. It was a moonlight night, and, half-concealed by the heavy curtain, he stood, now looking at Miss Alton, now at the leafless trees and the bare earth, Avhich but a few mouths before had seemed so beautiful. Ay, and something seemed going from out his life, as the summer glory had faded away ofl' the landstape, for he felt wretched ; he was mad with love, though he would not own it ; he was racked with jealousy, though he could not define his sensations. And still she sang on — on — and the moon sailed higher and higher into the heavens. Ballad after ballad, ait' after air, till at length some one petitioned foi' a particular song, which the girl aeemed reluctant to sin^. 234 A LIFE S ASSIZE. ' Well, to |)loase c\evy one, then,' she said at length ; and this was the end ol" it : ' " Wo both are liiiman, ^ve both have a heart, "WJiy stand we ever thus coldly apart — Alouc — alone ? " ' and the music died away in a sort of moan, that seemed to have a sob in it. Alone — alone ! — it was all clear to the man in a moment ; the hour and the woman had come, and he knew he was in love at last. He could not bear it; he stole out of the room, and went away into the night, feeling more desolate and more lonely than when, in the first chapter of this story, he stood on Dervorgilla's Bridge, looking at the moonlight dancing over the waters of the JN'ith. CHAPTER XXVI. DESOLATE. He must go ! that was his thought as he wandered on through the night. He must go, and leave behind him everything which was bright, and fair, and beautiful, and to be desired in his poor, dark, narrov,' life. That was the third night (he thought of all Ihis stui)idly, and without connection of any kind, as he paced along) ; this was the third memorable night in his experience, and the other two came and associated themselves inseparably svith it while he walked. As a couple of men may join a third, and travel the same road with him, so those nights now re-appeared, and took each an arm of this. Gleaming lights seen through crimson curtains, a conf'nsed group of men and women in evening dress, a voice risiiiii and falliu!2:, i)athetie in its tones, beseechinp: in its en- treaty ; these things lay behind, while side by side with the long country-lane bordered by beech-trees and evergreen oak and holly, he beheld the dark avenue on the way to New Abbey and the Nith — with Dumfries, to right and left — flowing onwards to the Solway. He must go — where the Nith flowed away from all human habitation to the lonely, restless sea. He must go— from DESOLATi!,. 235 the ligbt, from the music, from the hope, from the sound of wo- men's voices, from the love of women's hearts, out into the silent night. He must go : not for him the white, circling arms, and the half-coy kiss, the love of wife, the prattle of children, the fulness of happiness, the rounded perfection of which existence is capable even here. Not for him. He knew wliat it all meant now — knew, tliat is, after a fashion ; knew just what life might once have held for him, and what it could never honestly hold now ; knew the great mystery of oar being, comprehension of which comes to some early, to some late, to some never ; knew that no man holds the key of his own life ; knew that it is a woman who has the power to imprison or to give liberty ; to cloud with gloom the whole of the fairest human ex])eriences, or to flood with sunshine the darkest places of a man's nature. He must go ; for the hour had come, and he loved. Grasp- ing this truth; seizing with one hand the imcertain future, and with the other the certain past, he wondered in a sort of dream how he, ignorant of the trouble, and the bliss, and the despair of loving, had ever been able to preach so as to touch the souls of men. ' As though any one who has not fathomed the heart can reach the soul,' he said to himself in after days. ' As though this were not the very lesson of our Lord's coming ; except a man under- stand his fellow's humanity he cannot hope to save it.' He had thought of his craft so exclusively and so long, that even in the first encounter with his grief he could not quite shake off all memorj^ of his priesthood. Like one who in delirium while speaking of foreign and incongruous subjects touches every now and then a remembered and familiar chord, so Andrew Hardell's mind, roaming that night through strange and un- wonted paths, returned occasionally to the beaten road of his daily life, and marvelled how this fresh experience would aflect his future influence when he came to speak in the years to come of loving and being beloved, of giving up everything most dear for the sake of God and a man's principles. Behold, reader! this is not a novel of a stirring incident, or of rapid action following upon swift events ; rather, it is the story of one human being's feelings photographed even whilst they were fleeting by For the man overnight was not the same man next morning. ' I must go,' was his mental cry, wandering through the quiet lanes. 'I may stay,' he considered next morning. The idol was Q 236 A LIFERS ASSIZE. dear to liini, though she might never know of her worshipper, and he could not endure to tear himself away from the sight and the sound, the occasional presence and the constant ' I may he- hold her,' of the woman he loved. Into his poor home he carried this great jewel of price, and made an altar for it where he worshipped. Dear to him was it as a poet's first dream. What if the hope were hopeless — still the love was his. What if he saw no happy end to the story — the story remained part of his existence for all that. What it' life without her held nothing for him — without her he now knew it had held less than iiothing ; it had not been living, and if one be in the flesh it is better to experience pain tliau to remain mute ; better the acute suffering than the dead body ; better to shriek aloud in the extremity of anguish than to lack sensation. A-h! well-a-day, it had come to this; come to this after the years, or, perhaps, because of them. Spite of his convictions ; spite of his resolves ; spite of his poverty ; spite of his anteced- ents — he loved Joy Alton, and might have gone on loving her to the end, without an incident to break the monotony of such a story ; but that one evening in the early spring, when they were standing together by a flower-stand at the Hall, Joy gathered for him a rose-bud he admired, and as she gave, and he took it, their eyes met, and the secret so long concealed on the one side, so little suspected on the other, was plain to both at last. But for an instant the dark lashes were raised, — next moment they veiled averted eyes, whilst her cheek flushed scarlet : he loved her — she loved him. There was misery enough being con- ceived then for both of them if they could only have foreseen it. And then, though there was no word spoken, no sign made, he knew he must go ; he did not think, he did not hesitate, he knew, lie was bound, in honoui-, iu honesty, in chivalry, to step out of iier path, and give the sunshine of a happier love a chance of flooding the future years of her life with beams of gladness. The si"ht of her had