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 THE EECTOE 
 
 THE DOCTOE'S FAMILY 
 
€btoni(lt& o{ Carli'nsfotti 
 
 THE RECTOR 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY 
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 MDCCCLXIII 
 

 0j^ranfcUiEi of ^arlingforD 
 
 THE EECTOR 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive 
 in 2010 witli funding from 
 Dul<e University Libraries 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/rectoranddoctorsOOolip 
 
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 THE RECTOR. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 It is natural to suppose that the arrival of the new 
 Eector was a rather exciting event for Carlingford. 
 It is a considerable town, it is true, nowadays, but 
 then there are no alien activities to disturb the place 
 — no manufactures, and not much trade. And there 
 is a very respectable amount of very good society at 
 Carlingford. To begin with, it is a pretty place — mild, 
 sheltered, not far from town ; and naturally its very 
 reputation for good society increases the amount of 
 that much-prized article. The advantages of the town 
 in this respect have already put five per cent upon the 
 house-rents ; but this, of course, only refers to the real 
 town, where you can go through an entire street of 
 
2 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 high garden-walls, with houses inside full of the re- 
 tired exclusive comforts, the dainty economical refine- 
 ment peculiar to such places ; and where the good 
 people consider their own society as a warrant of 
 gentility less splendid, but not less assured, than the 
 favoiu' of Majesty itself Naturally there are no Dis- 
 senters in Carlingford — that is to say, none above the 
 rank of a greengrocer or milkman ; and in bosoms de- 
 voted to the Church it may be well imagined that the 
 advent of the new Eector was an event full of import- 
 ance, and even of excitement. 
 
 He was highly spoken of, everybody knew ; but 
 nobody knew who had spoken highly of him, nor had 
 been able to find out, even by inference, what were 
 his views. The Church had been low during the last 
 rector's reign — profoundly low — lost in the deepest 
 abysses of Evangelicalism. A determined inclination 
 to preach to everybody had seized upon that good 
 man's brain ; he had half emptied Salem Chapel, there 
 could be no doubt ; but, on the other hand, he had 
 more than half filled the Chapel of St Koque, half a 
 mile out of Carhngford, where the perpetual curate, 
 young, handsome, and fervid, was on the very topmost 
 pinnacle of Anglicanism. St Eoque's was not more 
 than a pleasant walk from the best quarter of Carling- 
 ford, on the north side of the town, thank heaven ! 
 which one could get at without the dread passage of 
 
THE RECTOR. 3 
 
 that new horrid suburb, to which young Mr Eider, the 
 young doctor, was devoting himself. But the Evan- 
 gelical rector was dead, and his reign was over, and 
 nobody could predict what the character of the new 
 administration was to be. The obscurity in which the 
 new Eector had buried his views was the most extra- 
 ordinary thing about him. He had taken high honours 
 at college, and was " highly spoken of ;" but whether 
 he was high, or low, or broad, muscular or sentimental, 
 sermonising or decorative, nobody in the world seemed 
 able to tell. 
 
 " Fancy if he were just to be a Mr Bury over again ! 
 Fancy him going to the canal, and having sermons to 
 the bargemen, and attending to all sorts of people 
 except to us, whom it is his duty to attend to ! " cried 
 one of this much-canvassed clergyman's curious par- 
 ishioners. " Indeed I do believe he must be one of 
 these people. If he were in society at all, somebody 
 would be sure to know." 
 
 " Lucy dear, Mr Bury christened you," said another 
 not less curious but more tolerant inquirer. 
 
 " Then he did you the greatest of all services," cried 
 the third member of the little group which discussed 
 the new Eector under Mr Wodehouse's blossomed 
 apple-trees. " He conferred such a benefit upon you 
 that he deserves all reverence at your hand. Wonder- 
 ful idea ! a man confers this greatest of Christian bless- 
 
4 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 ings on multitudes, and does not himself appreciate 
 the boon he conveys ! " 
 
 " Well, for that matter, Mr Wentworth, you 
 know " said the elder lady ; but she got no far- 
 ther. Though she was verging upon forty, leisurely, 
 pious, and unmarried, that good Miss Wodehouse was 
 not polemical. She had " her own opinions," but few 
 peoj)le knew much about them. She was seated on a 
 green garden-bench which surrounded the great May- 
 tree in that large, warm, well-furnished garden. The 
 high brick walls, all clothed with fruit-trees, shut in an 
 enclosure of which not a morsel except this velvet grass, 
 with its nests of daisies, was not under the highest and 
 most careful cultivation. It was such a scene as is 
 only to be found in an old country town ; the walls 
 jealous of intrusion, yet thrusting tall plumes of lilac 
 and stray branches of apple - blossom, like friendly 
 salutations to the world without ; within, the blossoms 
 dropi^ing over the light bright head of Lucy Wodehouse 
 underneath the apple-trees, and impertinently fleck- 
 ing the Rev. Cecil Wentworth's Anglican coat. These 
 two last were young people, with that indefinable 
 harmony in their looks which prompts the suggestion 
 of "a handsome couple" to the bystander. It had not 
 even occurred to them to be in love with each other, 
 so far as anybody knew, yet few were the undiscerning 
 persons who saw them together without instinctively 
 
THE EECTOR. 5 
 
 placing the young curate of St Eoque's in permanence 
 by Lucy's side. She was twenty, pretty, blue-eyed, 
 and full of dimples, with a broad Leghorn hat thrown 
 carelessly on her head, untied, with broad strings of 
 blue ribbon falling among her fair curls — a blue which 
 was " repeated," according to painter jargon, in ribbons 
 at her throat and waist. She had great gardening 
 gloves on, and a basket and huge pair of scissors on 
 the grass at her feet, which grass, besides, was strewed 
 with a profusion of all the sweetest spring blossoms — 
 the sweet narcissus, most exquisite of flowers, lilies of 
 the valley, white and blue hyacinths, golden ranuncu- 
 lus globes — worlds of sober, deep-breathing wallflower. 
 If Lucy had been doing what her kind elder sister 
 called her " duty," she would have been at this moment 
 arranging her flowers in the drawing-room ; but the 
 times were rare when Lucy did her duty according to 
 Miss Wodehouse's estimate ; so instead of arranging 
 those clusters of narcissus, she clubbed them together 
 in her hands into a fragrant dazzling sheaf, and dis- 
 cussed the new Eector — not unaware, perhaps, in her 
 secret heart, that the sweet morning, the sunshine and 
 flowers, and exhilarating air, were somehow secretly 
 enhanced by the presence of that black Anglican 
 figure under the apple-trees. 
 
 " But I suppose," said Lucy, with a sigh, " we must 
 wait till we see him ; and if I must be very respectful 
 
6 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of Mr Bury because he christened me, I am heartily 
 glad the new Rector has no claim upon my reverence. 
 I have been christened, I have been confirmed " 
 
 " But, Lucy, my dear, the chances are he will marry 
 you," said Miss Wodehouse, calmly ; " indeed, there 
 can be no doubt that it is only natural he should, for 
 he is the Rector, you know ; and though we go so often 
 to St Roque's, Mr Wentworth will excuse me saying 
 that he is a very young man." 
 
 Miss Wodehouse was knitting ; she did not see the 
 sudden look of dismay and amazement which the curate 
 of St Roque's darted down upon her, nor the violent 
 sympathetic blush which blazed over both the young 
 faces. How shocking that elderly quiet people should 
 have such a faculty for suggestions ! You may be sure 
 Lucy Wodehouse and young Wentworth, had it not 
 been " put into their heads " in such an absurd fashion, 
 would never, all their virtuous lives, have dreamt of 
 anything but friendship. Deep silence ensued after 
 this simple but startling speech. Miss Wodehouse 
 knitted on, and took no notice ; Lucy began to gather 
 up the flowers into the basket, unable for her life to 
 think of anything to say. For his part, Mr Wentworth 
 gravely picked the apple-blossoms off his coat, and 
 counted them in his hand. That sweet summer snow 
 kept dropping, dropping, falling here and there as the 
 wind carried it, and with a special attraction to Lucy 
 
THE RECTOR. 7 
 
 and her blue ribbons ; while behind, Miss Wodehouse 
 sat calmlj on the green bench, under the May-tree just 
 beginning to bloom, without lifting her eyes from her 
 knitting. Not far off, the bright English house, all 
 beaming with open doors and windows, shone in the 
 sunshine. With the white May peeping out among the 
 green overhead, and the sweet narcissus in a great 
 dazzling sheaf upon the grass, making all the air 
 fragrant around them, can anybody fancy a sweeter 
 domestic out-of-door scene ? or else it seemed so to the 
 perpetual curate of St Eoque's. 
 
 Ah me ! and if he was to be perpetual curate, and 
 none of his great friends thought ujjon him, or had pre- 
 ferment to bestow, how do you suppose he could ever, 
 ever marry Lucy Wodehouse, if they were to wait a 
 hundred years ? 
 
 Just then the garden gate — the green gate in the 
 wall — opened to the creaking murmur of Mr Wode- 
 house's own key. Mr Wodehouse was a man who 
 creaked universally. His boots were a heavy infliction 
 upon the good-humour of his household ; and like 
 every other invariable quality of dress, the peculiarity 
 became identified with him in every particular of his 
 life. Everything belonging to him moved with a 
 certain jar, except, indeed, his household, which went 
 on noiseless wheels, thanks to Lucy and love. As he 
 came along the garden path, the gravel started all 
 
8 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 round his unmusical foot. Miss Wodehouse alone 
 turned round to hail her father's approach, but both 
 the young people looked up at her instinctively, and 
 saw her little start, the falling of her knitting-needles, 
 the little flutter of colour which surprise brought 
 to her maidenly, middle-aged cheek. How they both 
 divined it I cannot tell, but it certainly was no sur- 
 prise to either of them when a tall embarrassed figure, 
 following the portly one of Mr Wodehouse, stepped 
 suddenly from the noisy gravel to the quiet grass, 
 and stood gravely awkward behind the father of the 
 house. 
 
 " My dear children, here's the Rector — delighted to 
 see him ! we're all delighted to see him ! " cried Mr 
 Wodehouse. " This is my little girl Lucy, and this is 
 my eldest daughter. They're both as good as curates, 
 though I say it, you know, as shouldn't. I suppose 
 you've got something tidy for lunch, Lucy, eh ? To 
 be sure, you ought to know — how can I tell? She 
 might have had only cold mutton, for anything 1 knew 
 — and that won't do, you know, after college fare. 
 Hollo, Wentworth ! I beg your pardon — who thought 
 of seeing you here ? I thought you had morning ser- 
 vice, and all that sort of thing. Delighted to make you 
 known to the Eector so soon. JNIr Proctor — Mr Went- 
 worth of St Eoque's." 
 
 The Rector bowed. He had no time to say anything, 
 
THE RECTOR. 9 
 
 fortunately for him ; but a vague sort of colour flut- 
 tered over his face. It was his first living ; and clois- 
 tered in All-Souls for fifteen years of his life, how is a 
 man to know all at once how to accost his parishioners ? 
 especially when these curious unknown specimens of 
 natural life happen to be female creatures, doubtless 
 accustomed to compliment and civility. If ever any 
 one was thankful to. hear the sound of another man's 
 voice, that person was the new Rector of Carlingford, 
 standino; in the bewildering; crarden-scene into which 
 the green door had so suddenly admitted him, all but 
 treading on the dazzling bundle of narcissus, and turn- 
 ing with embarrassed politeness from the perpetual 
 curate, whose salutation was less cordial than it might 
 have been, to those indefinite flutters of blue ribbon 
 from which Mr Proctor's tall figure divided the ungra- 
 cious young man, 
 
 " But come along to lunch. Bless me ! don't let 
 us be too ceremonious," cried Mr Wodehouse. " Take 
 Lucy, my dear sir — take Lucy. Though she has her 
 garden-gloves on, she's manager indoors for all that. 
 Molly here is the one we coddle up and take care of. 
 Put down your knitting, child, and don't make an old 
 woman of yourself. To be sure, it's your own concern 
 — you should know best ; but that's my opinion. Why, 
 Wentworth, where are you off to ? 'Tisn't a fast, surely 
 — is it, Mary ? — nothing of the sort ; it's Thursday — 
 
10 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Thursday, do you hear ? and the Kector newly arrived. 
 Come along." 
 
 " I am much obliged, but I have an appointment," 
 began the curate, with restraint. 
 
 " Why didn't you keep it, then, before we came in," 
 cried Mr Wodehouse, " chatting with a couple of girls 
 like Lucy and Mary ? Come along, come along — an 
 appointment with some old woman or other, who wants 
 to screw flannels and things out of you — well, I sup- 
 pose so ! I don't know anything else you could have 
 to say to them. Come along." 
 
 " Thank you. I shall hope to wait on the Rector 
 shortly," said young Wentworth, more and more stiflly ; 
 " but at present I am sorry it is not in my power. 
 Good morning, Miss Wodehouse — good morning ; I 
 
 am happy to have had the opportunity " and the 
 
 voice of the perpetual curate died ofi" into vague mur- 
 murs of politeness as he made his way towards the 
 green door. 
 
 That green door ! what a slight, paltry barrier — one 
 plank and no more ; but outside a dusty dry road, 
 nothing to be seen but other high brick walls, with here 
 and there an apple-tree or a lilac, or the half-developed 
 flower-turrets of a chestnut looking over — nothing to 
 be seen but a mean little costermonger's cart, with 
 a hapless donkey, and, down in the direction of St 
 Eoque's, the long road winding, still drier and dustier. 
 
THE RECTOR. 11 
 
 Ah me ! was it paradise inside ? or was it only a 
 merely mortal lawn dropped over with apple-blossoms, 
 blue ribbons, and other vanities ? Who could tell ? 
 The perpetual curate wended sulky on his way. I fear 
 the old woman would have made neither flannel nor 
 tea and sugar out of him in that inhuman frame of 
 mind. 
 
 " Dreadful young prig that young Wentworth," said 
 Mr Wodehouse, "but comes of a great family, you 
 know, and gets greatly taken notice of — to be sure he 
 does, child. I suppose it's for his family's sake : I can't 
 see into people's hearts. It may be higher motives, to 
 be sure, and all that. He's gone off in a huff about 
 something ; never mind, luncheon comes up all the 
 same. Now, let's address ourselves to the business of 
 life." 
 
 For when Mr Wodehouse took knife and fork in 
 hand a singular result followed. He was silent — at 
 least he talked no longer : the mystery of carving, of 
 eating, of drinking — all the serious business of the 
 table — engrossed the good man. He had nothing 
 more to say for the moment ; and then a dread un- 
 broken silence fell upon the little company. The 
 Eector coloured, faltered, cleared his throat — he had 
 not an idea how to get into conversation with such 
 unknown entities. He looked hard at Lucy, with a 
 bold intention of addressing her ; but, having the bad 
 
12 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 fortune to meet her eye, shrank back, and withdrew 
 the venture. Then the good man inclined his profile 
 towards Miss Wentworth. His eyes wandered wildly 
 round the room in search of a suggestion ; but, alas ! 
 it was a mere dining-room, very comfortable, but not 
 imaginative. In this dreadful dilemma he was in- 
 finitely relieved by the sound of somebody's voice. 
 
 " I trust you will like Carlingford, Mr Proctor," 
 said Miss Wodehouse, mildly. 
 
 "Yes — oh yes ; I trust so," answered the confused 
 but grateful man ; " that is, it will depend very much, 
 of course, on the kind of people I find here." 
 
 " Well, we are a little vain. To tell the truth, in- 
 deed, we rather pride ourselves a little on the good 
 society in Carlingford," said his gentle and charitable 
 interlocutor. 
 
 "Ah, yes — ladies?" said the Rector: "hum— that 
 was not what I was thinking of" 
 
 "But, oh, Mr Proctor," cried Lucy, with a sudden 
 access of fun, " you don't mean to say that you dislike 
 ladies' society, I hope ? " 
 
 The Sector gave an uneasy half-frightened glance at 
 her. The creature was dangerous even to a Fellow of 
 All-Souls. 
 
 " I may say I know very little about them," said the 
 bewildered clergyman. As soon as he had said the 
 words he thought they sounded rude ; but how could 
 
THE RECTOR. 13 
 
 he help it? — the truth of his speech was indisput- 
 able. 
 
 " Come here, and we'll initiate you — come here as 
 often as you can spare us a little of your time," cried 
 Mr Wodehouse, who had come to a pause in his opera- 
 tions. " You couldn't have a better chance. They're 
 head people in Carlingford, though I say it. There's 
 Mary, she's a learned woman ; take you up in a false 
 quantity, sir, a deal sooner than I should. And Lucy, 
 she's in another line altogether ; but there's quantities 
 of people swear by her. What's the matter, children, 
 eh ? I suppose so — people tell me so. If people 
 tell me so all day long, I'm entitled to believe it, I 
 presume ? " 
 
 Lucy answered this by a burst of laughter, not loud 
 but cordial, which rang sweet and strange upon the 
 Eector's ears. Miss Wodehouse, on the contrary, 
 looked a little ashamed, blushed a pretty pink old- 
 maidenly blush, and mildly remonstrated with papa. 
 The whole scene was astonishing to the stranger. He 
 had been living out of nature so long that he wondered 
 within himself whether it was common to retain the 
 habits and words of childhood to such an age as that 
 which good Miss Wodehouse put no disguise upon, or 
 if sisters with twenty years of difference between them 
 were usual in ordinary households. He looked at 
 them with looks which to Miss Wodehouse appeared 
 
14 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 disapproving, but which in reality meant only surprise 
 and discomfort. He was exceedingly glad when lunch 
 was over, and he was at liberty to take his leave. With 
 very different feelings from those of young Wentworth 
 the Eector crossed the boundary of that green door. 
 When he saw it closed behind him he drew a long 
 breath of relief, and looked up and down the dusty 
 road, and through those lines of garden walls, where 
 the loads of blossom burst over everywhere, with a 
 sensation of having escaped and got at liberty. After 
 a momentary pause and gaze round him in enjoyment 
 of that liberty, the Eector gave a start and went on 
 again rapidly. A dismayed, discomfited, helpless sen- 
 sation came over him. These parishioners ! — these 
 female parishioners ! From out of another of those 
 green doors had just emerged a brilliant group of 
 ladies, the rustle of whose dress and murmur of whose 
 voices he could hear in the genteel half-rural silence. 
 The Eector bolted : he never slackened pace nor drew 
 breath till he was safe in the vacant library of the 
 Eectory, among old Mr Bury's book-shelves. It seemed 
 the only safe place in Carlingford to the languishing- 
 transplanted Fellow of All-Souls. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 A MONTH later, Mr Proctor had got fairly settled in 
 his new rectory, with a complete modest establishment 
 becoming his means — for Carlingford was a tolerable 
 living. And in the newly-furnished sober drawing- 
 room sat a very old lady, lively but infirm, who was 
 the Eector's mother. Nobody knew that this old 
 woman kept the Fellow of All-Souls still a boy at 
 heart, nor that the reserved and inappropriate man 
 forgot his awkwardness in his mother's presence. He 
 was not only a very affectionate son, but a dutiful good 
 child to her. It had been his pet scheme for years to 
 bring her from her Devonshire cottage, and make her 
 mistress of his house. That had been the chief attrac- 
 tion, indeed, which drew him to Carlingford ; for had 
 he consulted his own tastes, and kept to his college, 
 who would insure him that at seventy-five his old 
 mother might not glide away out of life without that 
 last gleam of sunshine long intended for her by her 
 grateful son ? 
 
16 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 This scene, accordingly, was almost the only one 
 which reconciled him to the extraordinary change in 
 his life. There she sat, the lively old lady ; very deaf, 
 as you could almost divine by that vivid inquiring 
 twinkle in her eyes ; feeble too, for she had a silver- 
 headed cane beside her chair, and even with that 
 assistance seldom moved across the room when she 
 could help it. Feeble in body, but alert in mind, 
 ready to read anything, to hear anything, to deliver 
 her opinions freely ; resting in her big chair in the 
 complete repose of age, gratified with her son's atten- 
 tions, and ovei joyed in his company ; interested about 
 everything, and as ready to enter into all the domestic 
 concerns of the new people as if she had lived all her 
 life among them. The Eector sighed and smiled as 
 he listened to his mother's questions, and did his best, 
 at the top of his voice, to enlighten her. His mother 
 was, let us say, a hundred years or so younger than 
 the Eector. If she had been his bride, and at the 
 blithe commencement of life, she could not have shown 
 more inclination to know all about Carlingford. Mr 
 Proctor was middle-aged, and preoccupied by right of 
 his years ; but his mother had long ago got over that 
 stage of life. She was at that point when some ener- 
 getic natures, having got to the bottom of the hill, 
 seem to make a fresh start and reascend. Five years 
 
THE EECTOR. 17 
 
 ago, old INIrs Proctor had completed the human term ; 
 now she had recommenced her life. 
 
 But, to tell the very truth, the Eector would veiy 
 fam, had that been possible, have confined her inquiries 
 to books and public afiairs. For to make confidential 
 disclosures, either concerning one's self or other people, 
 in a tone of voice perfectly audible in the kitchen, is 
 somewhat trying. He had become acquainted with 
 those dread parishioners of his during this interval. 
 Already they had worn him to death with dinner- 
 parties — dinner-parties very pleasant and friendly, 
 when one got used to them ; but to a stranger fright- 
 ful reproductions of each other, mth the same dishes, 
 the same dresses, the same stories, in which the Eector 
 communicated gravely with his next neighbour, and 
 eluded as long as he could those concludmg moments 
 in the drawing-room, which were worst of all. It can- 
 not be said that his parishioners made much progress 
 in their knowledge of the Rector. What his " views " 
 were, nobody could divine any more than they could 
 before his arrival. He made no innovations what- 
 ever ; but he did not pursue Mr Bury's Evangelical 
 ways, and never preached a sermon or a word more 
 than was absolutely necessary. When zealous Church- 
 men discussed the progress of Dissent, the Eector 
 scarcely looked interested ; and nobody could move 
 
 B 
 
18 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 him to express an opinion concerning all that lovely 
 upholstery with which Mr' Wentworth had decorated 
 St Eoque's. People asked in vain, what was he ? He 
 was neither High nor Low, enlightened nor narrow- 
 minded ; he was a Fellow of All-Souls. 
 
 " But now tell me, my dear," said old Mrs Proctor, 
 " who's Mr Wodehouse ?" 
 
 With despairing calmness, the Eector approached 
 his voice to her ear. " He's a churchwarden ! " cried 
 the unfortunate man, in a shrill whisi^er. 
 
 " He's what ? — you forget I don't hear very well. 
 I'm a great deal deafer, Morley, my dear, than I was 
 the last time you were in Devonshire. What did you 
 say Mr Wodehouse was ? " 
 
 " He's an ass \" exclaimed the baited Piector. 
 
 Mrs Proctor nodded her head with a great many 
 little satisfied assenting nods. 
 
 " Exactly my own opinion, my dear. What I like 
 in your manner of expressing yourself, Morley, is its 
 conciseness," said the laughing old lady. " Just so — 
 exactly what I imagined ; but being an ass, you know, 
 doesn't account for him coming here so often. What 
 is he besides, my dear ? " 
 
 The Eector made spasmodic gestures towards the 
 door, to the great amusement of his lively mother ; 
 and then produced, with much confusion, and after a 
 long search, his pocketbook, on a leaf of paper in 
 
THE EECTOR. 19 
 
 which he wrote — loudly, in big characters — " He's a 
 churchwarden — they'll hear in the kitchen." 
 
 " He's a churchwarden ! And what if they do hear 
 in the kitchen ? " cried the old lady, greatly amused ; 
 " it isn't a sin. Well, now, let me hear : has he a 
 family, Morley ? " 
 
 Again Mr Proctor showed a little discomposure. 
 After a troubled look at the door, and pause, as if he 
 meditated a remonstrance, he changed his mind, and 
 answered, "Two daughters!" shouting sepulchrally 
 into his mother's ear. 
 
 " Oh so ! " cried the old lady — " tivo daughters — so, 
 so — that explains it all at once. I know now why 
 he comes to the Eectory so often. And, I declare, I 
 never thought of it before. Why, you're always there ! 
 — so, so — and he's got two daughters, has he ? To be 
 sure ; now I understand it all." 
 
 The Eector looked helj)less and puzzled. It was 
 difl&cult to take the initiative and ask why— but the 
 poor man looked so perplexed and ignorant, and so 
 clearly unaware what the solution was, that the old 
 lady burst into shriU, gay laughter as she looked at 
 him. 
 
 " I don't believe you know anything about it," she 
 said. " Are they old or young ? are they pretty or 
 ugly ? Tell me all about them, Morley." 
 
 Now Mr Proctor had not the excuse of having; for- 
 
20 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 gotten the appearance of .the two Miss Wodehouses : 
 on the contrary, though not an imaginative man, he 
 could have fancied he saw them both before him — 
 Lucy lost in noiseless laughter, and her good elder 
 sister deprecating and gentle as usual. We will not 
 even undertake to say that a gleam of something blue 
 did not flash across the mind of the good man, who 
 did not know what ribbons were. He was so much 
 bewildered that Mrs Proctor repeated her question, 
 and, as she did so, tapped him pretty smartly on the 
 arm to recall his wandering thoughts. 
 
 "One's one thing," at last shouted the confused 
 man, " and t'other's another ! " An oracular deliver- 
 ance which surely must have been entirely unintel- 
 ligible in the kitchen, where we will not deny that 
 an utterance so incomprehensible awoke a laudable 
 curiosity. 
 
 " My dear, you're lucid ! " cried the old lady. " I 
 hope you don't preach like that. T'other's another ! 
 — is she so? and I suppose that's the one you're 
 wanted to marry — eh ? For shame, Morley, not to tell 
 your mother ! " 
 
 The Eector jumped to his feet, thunderstruck. 
 Wanted to marry ! — the idea was too overwhelming 
 and dreadful — his mind could not receive it. The air 
 of alarm which immediately diffused itself all over 
 him — his unfeigned horror at the suggestion — capti- 
 
THE EECTOR. 21 
 
 vated his mother. She was amused, but she was 
 pleased at the same time. Just making her cheery 
 outset on this second lifetime, you can't suppose she 
 would have been glad to hear that her son was going 
 to jilt her, and appoint another queen in her stead. 
 
 " Sit down and tell me about them," said Mrs 
 Proctor ; " my dear, you're wonderfully afraid of the 
 servants hearing. They don't know who we're speak- 
 ing of. Aha ! and so you didn't know what they 
 meant — didn't you ? I don't say you shouldn't marry, 
 my dear — quite the reverse. A man ought to marry, 
 one time or another. Only it's rather soon to lay 
 their plans. I don't doubt there's a great many un- 
 married ladies in your church, Morley. There always 
 is in a country place." 
 
 To this the alarmed Eector answered only by a 
 groan — a groan so expressive that his quick-witted 
 mother heard it with her eyes. 
 
 " They will come to call on me," said Mrs Proctor, 
 with fun dancing in her bright old eyes. " I'll tell 
 you all about them, and you needn't be afraid of the 
 servants. Trust to me, my dear — I'll find them out. 
 And now, if you wish to take a walk, or go out visit- 
 ing, don't let me detain you, Morley. I shouldn't 
 wonder but there's something in the papers I would 
 like to see — or I even might close my eyes for a few 
 minutes : the afternoon is always a drowsy time with 
 
22 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 me. When I was in Devonshire, you know, no one 
 minded what I did. You had better refresh yourself 
 with a nice walk, my dear boy." 
 
 The Eector got up well pleased. The alacrity with 
 which he left the room, however, did not correspond 
 with the horror-stricken and helpless expression of his 
 face, when, after walking very smartly all round the 
 Eectory garden, he paused with his hand on the gate, 
 doubtful whether to retreat into his study, or boldly to 
 face that world which was plotting against him. The 
 question was a profoundly serious one to Mr Proctor. 
 He did not feel by any means sure that he was a free 
 agent, or could assert the ordinary rights of an Eng- 
 lishman, in this most unexpected dilemma. How 
 could he tell how much or how little was necessary to 
 prove that a man had "committed himself?" For 
 anything he could tell, somebody might be calculating 
 upon him as her lover, and settling his future life for 
 him. The Eector was not vain — he did not think 
 himself an Adonis ; he did not understand anything 
 about the matter, which indeed was beneath the con- 
 sideration of a Fellow of All-Souls. But have not 
 women been incomprehensible since ever there was in 
 this world a pe^i with sufficient command of words to 
 call them so ? And is it not certain that, whether it 
 may be to their advantage or disadvantage, every soul 
 of them is plotting to marry somebody ? Mr Proctor 
 
THE RECTOR. 23 
 
 recalled in dim but frightful reminiscences stories 
 wliich had dropped upon his ear at various times of 
 his life. Never was there a man, however ugly, dis- 
 agreeable, or penniless, but he could tell of a narrow 
 escape he had, some time or other. The Eector recol- 
 lected and trembled. No woman was ever so dismayed 
 by the persecutions of a lover, as was this helpless 
 middle-aged gentleman under the conviction that Lucy 
 Wodehouse meant to marry him. The remembrance 
 of the curate of St Eoque's gave him no comfort : her 
 sweet youth, so totally unlike his sober age, did not 
 strike him as unfavourable to her pursuit of him. 
 Who could fathom the motives of a woman? His 
 mother was wise, and knew the world, and understood 
 what such creatures meant. No doubt it was entirely 
 the case — a dreadful certainty — and what was he to 
 do? 
 
 At the bottom of all this fright and perplexity must 
 it be owned that the Eector had a guilty consciousness 
 within himself, that if Lucy drove the matter to ex- 
 tremities, he was not so sure of his own powers of 
 resistance as he ought to be ? She might marry him 
 before he knew what she was about ; and in such a 
 case the Eector could not have taken his oath at his 
 own private confessional that he would have been so 
 deeply miserable as the cii'cumstances might infer. 
 No wonder he was alarmed at the position in which 
 
24 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 he found himself ; nobody could predict how it might 
 end. 
 
 When Mr Proctor saw his mother again at dinner, 
 she was evidently full of some subject which would 
 not bear talking of before the servants. The old lady 
 looked at her son's troubled apprehensive face with 
 smiles and nods and gay hints, which he was much too 
 preoccupied to understand, and which only increased 
 his bewilderment. When the good man was left alone 
 over his glass of wine, he drank it slowly, in funereal 
 silence, with profoundly serious looks ; and what be- 
 tween eagerness to understand what the old lady meant, 
 and reluctance to show the extent of his curiosity, had 
 a very heavy half-hour of it in that grave solitary 
 dining-room. He roused himself with an effort from 
 this dismal state into which he was falling. He re- 
 called with a sigh the classic board of All- Souls. Woe 
 for the day when he was seduced to forsake that dear 
 retirement ! Eeally, to suffer himself to fall into a con- 
 dition so melancholy, was far from being right. He 
 must rouse himself — he must find some other society 
 than parishioners ; and with a glimpse of a series of 
 snug little dinner-parties, undisturbed by the presence 
 of women, Mr Proctor rose and hurried after his 
 mother, to hear what new thing she might have to 
 say. 
 
 Nor was he disappointed. The old lady was snugly 
 
THE KECTOR. 25 
 
 posted, ready for a conference. She made lively ges- 
 tures to hasten him when he appeared at the door, 
 and could scarcely delay the utterance of her news till 
 he had taken his seat .beside her. She had taken off' 
 her spectacles, and laid aside her paper, and cleared off" 
 her work into her work-basket. All was ready for 
 the talk in which she delighted. 
 
 " My dear, they've been here," said old Mrs Proctor, 
 rubbing her hands — " both together, and as kind as 
 could be — exactly as I expected. An old woman gets 
 double the attention when she's got an unmarried son. 
 I've always observed that ; though in Devonshire, what 
 with your fellowship and seeing you so seldom, nobody 
 took much notice. Yes, they've been here ; and I like 
 them a great deal better than I expected, Morley, my 
 dear." 
 
 The Rector, not knowing what else to say, shouted 
 " Indeed, mother ! " into the old lady's ear. 
 
 " Quite so," continued that lively observer — " nice 
 young women — not at all like their father, which is a 
 great consolation. That elder one is a very sensible 
 person, I am sure. She would make a nice wife for 
 somebody, especially for a clergyman. She is not in 
 her first youth, but neither are some other people. A 
 very nice creature indeed, I am quite sure." 
 
 During all this speech the Rector's countenance had 
 been falling, falling. If he was helpless before, the 
 
26 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 utter woe of his expression now was a spectacle to 
 behold. The danger of being married by proxy was 
 appalling certainly, yet was not entirely without alle- 
 viations ; but Miss Wodehouse ! who ever thought of 
 Miss Wodehouse ? To see the last remains of colour 
 fade out of his cheek, and his very lip fall with disap- 
 pointment, was deeply edifying to his lively old mother. 
 She perceived it all, but made no sign. 
 
 "And the other is a pretty creature — certainly 
 pretty : shouldn't you say she was pretty, Morley ? " 
 said his heartless mother. 
 
 Mr Proctor hesitated, hemmed — felt himself grow- 
 ing red — tried to intimate his sentiments by a nod of 
 assent ; but that would not do, for the old lady had 
 presented her ear to him, and was blind to all his 
 gestures. 
 
 " I don't know much about it, mother," he made 
 answer at last. 
 
 " Much about it ! it's to be hoped not. I never 
 supposed you did ; but you don't mean to say you 
 don't think her pretty?" said Mrs Proctor — "but, I 
 don't doubt in the least, a sad flirt. Her sister is a 
 very superior person, my dear." 
 
 The Eector's face lengthened at every word — a vision 
 of these two Miss Wodehouses rose upon him every 
 moment clearer and more distinct as his mother spoke. 
 Considering how ignorant he was of all such female 
 
THE EECTOR. 27 
 
 paraphernalia, it is extraordinary how correct his re- 
 collection was of all the details of their habitual dress 
 and appearance. With a certain dreadful conscious- 
 ness of the justice of what his mother said, he saw in 
 imagination the mild elder sister in her comely old- 
 maidenhood. Nobody could doubt her good qualities, 
 and coidd it be questioned that for a man of fifty, if he 
 was to do anything so foolish, a woman not quite forty 
 was a thousand times more eligible than a creature in 
 blue ribbons? Still the unfortunate Eector did not 
 seem to see it : his face grew longer and longer — he 
 made no answer whatever to his mother's address ; 
 while she, with a spice of natural female malice against 
 the common enemy triumphing for the moment over 
 the mother's admiration of her son, sat wickedly enjoy- 
 ing his distress, and aggravating it. His dismay and per- 
 plexity amused this wicked old woman beyond measure. 
 " I have no doubt that younger girl takes a pleasure 
 in deluding her admirers," said Mrs Proctor ; " she's a 
 wicked little flirt, and likes nothing better than to see 
 her power. I know very well how such people do ; 
 but, my dear," continued this false old lady, scarcely 
 able to restrain her laughter, " if I were you, I would 
 be very civil to Miss Wodehouse. You may depend 
 upon it, Morley, that's a very superior person. She is 
 not very young, to be sure, but you are not very young 
 yourself. She would make a nice wife — not too foolish, 
 
.28 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 you know, nor fanciful. Ah ! I like Miss Wodehouse, 
 my dear." 
 
 The Rector stumbled up to his feet hastily, and 
 pointed to a table at a little distance, on which some 
 books were lying. Then he went and brought them to 
 her table. " I've brought you some new books," he 
 shouted into her ear. It was the only way his clumsy 
 ingenuity could fall upon for bringing this most dis- 
 tasteful conversation to an end. 
 
 The old lady's eyes were dancing with fun and a 
 little mischief, but, notwithstanding, she could not be 
 so false to her nature as to show no interest in the 
 books. She turned them over w^th lively remarks and 
 comment. " But for all that, Morley, I would not have 
 you forget Miss Wodehouse," she said, when her early 
 bedtime came. " Give it a thought now and then, and 
 consider the whole matter. It is not a thing to be 
 done rashly ; but still you know you are settled now, 
 and you ought to be thinking of settling for life." 
 
 With this partmg shaft she left him. The troubled 
 Rector, instead of sitting up to his beloved studies, went 
 early to bed that night, and was pursued by nightmares 
 through his unquiet slumbers. Settling for life ! Alas ! 
 there floated before him vain visions of that halcyon 
 world he had left — that sacred soil at All-Souls, where 
 there were no parishioners to break the sweet repose. 
 How different was this discomposing real world I 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Mattees went on quietly for some time without any 
 catastrophe occurring to the Eector. He had shut 
 himself up from all society, and declined the invita- 
 tions of the parishioners for ten long days at least ; 
 but finding that the kind people were only kinder than 
 ever when they understood he was " indisposed," poor 
 Mr Proctor resumed his ordinary life, confiding timidly 
 in some extra precautions which his own ingenuity 
 had invented. He was shyer than ever of addressing 
 the ladies in those parties he was obliged to attend. 
 He was especially embarrassed and uncomfortable in 
 the presence of the two Miss Wodehouses, who, unfor- 
 tunately, were very popular in Carlingford, and whom 
 he could not help meeting everywhere. Notwithstand- 
 ing:: this embarrassment, it is curious how well he knew 
 how they looked, and what they were doing, and all 
 about them. Though he could not for his life have 
 told what these things were called, he knew Miss 
 
30 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Wodeliouse's dove-coloured dress and her French grey ; 
 and all those gleams of blue which set off Lucy's fair 
 curls, and floated about her pretty person under various 
 pretences, had a. distinct though inarticulate place in 
 the good man's confused remembrance. But neither 
 Lucy nor Miss Wodehouse had brought matters to ex- 
 tremity. He even ventured to go to their house occa- 
 sionally without any harm coming of it, and lingered 
 in that bloomino; fragrant garden, where the blossoms 
 had given place to fruit, and ruddy apples hung heavy 
 on the branches which had once scattered their petals, 
 rosy-white, on Cecil Wentworth's Anglican coat. Yet 
 Mr Proctor was not lulled into incaution by this seem- 
 ing calm. Other people besides his mother had inti- 
 mated to him that there were expectations current of 
 his " settling in life." He lived not in false security, 
 but wise trembling, never knowing what hour the 
 thunderbolt might fall upon his head. 
 
 It happened one day, while still in this condition 
 of mind, that the Eector was passing through Grove 
 Street on his way home. He was walking on the hum- 
 bler side of the street, where there is a row of cottages 
 with little gardens in front of them — cheap houses, 
 which are contented to be haughtily overlooked by 
 the staircase windows and blank walls of their richer 
 neighbours on the other side of the road. The Eector 
 thought, but could not be sure, that he had seen two 
 
THE RECTOR. 31 
 
 figures like those of the Miss Wodehouses going into 
 one of these houses, and was making a little haste 
 to escape meeting those enemies of his peace. But 
 as he went hastily on, he heard sobs and screams — 
 sounds which a man who hid a good heart under a 
 shy exterior could not willingly pass by. He made 
 a troubled pause before the door from which these 
 outcries proceeded, and while he stood thus irresolute 
 whether to pass on or to stop and inquire the cause, 
 some one came rushing out and took hold of his arm. 
 " Please, sir, she's dying — oh, please, sir, she thought 
 a deal o' you. Please, will you come in and speak to 
 her?" cried the little servant-girl who had pounced 
 upon him so. The Rector stared at her in amaze- 
 ment. He had not his prayer-book — he was not pre- 
 pared ; he had no idea of being called upon in such 
 an emergency. In the mean time the commotion 
 rather increased in the house, and he could hear in 
 the distance a voice adjuring some one to go for the 
 clergyman. The Eector stood uncertain and perplexed, 
 perhaps in a more serious personal difficulty than had 
 ever happened to him all his life before. For what 
 did he know about deathbeds ? or what had he to 
 say to any one on that dread verge ? He grew pale 
 with real vexation and distress. 
 
 " Have they gone for a doctor ? that would be more 
 to the purpose," he said, unconsciously, aloud. 
 
32 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 "Please, sir, it's no good," said the little maid- 
 servant. " Please, the doctor's been, but he's no good 
 —and she's unhappy in her mind, though she's quite 
 resigned to go : and oh, please, if you would say a 
 word to her, it might do her a deal of good/' 
 
 Thus adjured, the Rector had no choice. He went 
 gloomily into the house and up the stair after his 
 little guide. Why did not they send for the minister 
 of Salem Chapel close by? or for Mr Wentworth, 
 who was accustomed to that sort of thing? Why 
 did they resort to him in such an emergency? He 
 would have made his appearance before the highest 
 magnates of the land — before the Queen herself — 
 before the bench of bishops or the Privy Council — 
 with less trepidation than he entered that poor little 
 room. 
 
 The sufferer lay breathing heavily in the poor 
 apartment. She did not look very ill to Mr Proctor's 
 inexperienced eyes. Her colour was bright, and her 
 face full of eagerness. Near the door stood Miss 
 Wodehouse, looking compassionate but helpless, cast- 
 ing wistful glances at the bed, but standing back in 
 a corner as confused and embarrassed as the Eector 
 himself Lucy was standing by the pillow of the sick 
 woman with a watchful readiness visible to the most 
 unskilled eye — ready to raise her, to change her posi- 
 tion, to attend to her wants almost before they were 
 
THE RECTOR. 33 
 
 expressed. The contrast was wonderful. She had 
 thrown off her bonnet and shawl, and, appeared, not 
 like a stranger but somehow in her natural place, 
 desjjite the sweet youthful beauty of her looks, and 
 the gay girlish dress with its floating ribbons. These 
 singular adjuncts notwithstanding, no homely nurse 
 in a cotton gown could have looked more alert or 
 serviceable, or more natural to the position, than Lucy 
 did. The poor Eector, taking the seat which the little 
 maid j^laced for him directly in the centre of the room, 
 looked at the nurse and the patient with a gasp of 
 perplexity and embarrassment. A deathbed, alas ! was 
 an unknown region to him. 
 
 " Oh, sir, I'm obliged to you for coming — oh, sir, 
 I'm grateful to you," cried the poor woman in the 
 bed. " I've been ill, off and on, for years, but never 
 took thought to it as I ought. I've put off and put 
 off, waiting for a better time — and now, God help me, 
 it's perhaps too late. Oh, sir, tell me, when a person's 
 ill and dying, is it too late ?" 
 
 Before the Eector could even imagine what he could 
 answer, the sick woman took up the broken thread of 
 her own words, and continued — 
 
 " I don't feel to trust as I ought to — I don't feel 
 no confidence," she said, in anxious confession. " Oh, 
 sir, do you think it matters if one feels it ? — don't you 
 
 c 
 
34 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 think things might be right all the same though we 
 were uneasy in our minds ? My thinking can't change 
 it one way or another. Ask the good gentleman to 
 speak to me, Miss Lucy, dear — he'll mind what you 
 say/' 
 
 A look from Lucy quickened the Rector's speech, 
 but increased his embarrassments. " It — it isn't her 
 doctor she has no confidence in?" he said, eagerly. 
 
 The poor woman gave a little cry. " The doctor — 
 the doctor ! what can he do to a poor dying creature ? 
 Oh, Lord bless you, it's none of them things I'm 
 thinking of ; it's my soul — my soul ! " 
 
 " But my poor good woman," said Mr Proctor, 
 " though it is very good and praiseworthy of you to 
 be anxious about your soul, let us hope that there is 
 no such — no such haste as you seem to suppose." 
 
 The patient opened her eyes wide, and stared, with 
 the anxious look of disease, in his face. 
 
 "I mean," said the good man, faltering under that 
 gaze, " that I see no reason for your making yourself 
 so very anxious. Let us hope it is not so bad as that. 
 You are very ill, but not so ill — I suppose." 
 
 Here the Rector was interrupted by a groan from 
 the patient, and by a troubled, disapproving, disap- 
 pointed look from Lucy Wodehouse. This brought 
 him to a sudden standstill. He gazed for a moment 
 helplessly at the poor woman in the bed. If he had 
 
THE RECTOR. 35 
 
 known anything in the world which would have given 
 her consolation, he was ready to have made any exer- 
 tion for it ; but he knew nothing to say — no medicine 
 for a mind diseased was in his repositories. He was 
 deeply distressed to see the disappointment which 
 followed his words, but his distress only made him 
 more silent, more helpless, more inefficient than before. 
 
 After an interval which was disturbed only by the 
 groans of the patient and the uneasy fidgeting of 
 good Miss Wodehouse in her corner, the Eector again 
 broke silence. The sick woman had turned to the 
 wall, and closed her eyes in dismay and disappoint- 
 ment — evidently she had ceased to expect anything 
 from him, 
 
 " If there is anything I can do," said poor Mr 
 Proctor, " I am afraid I have spoken hastily. I meant 
 to try to calm her mind a little ; if I can be of any 
 use?" 
 
 "Ah, maybe I'm hasty," said the dying woman, 
 turning round again with a sudden effort — "but, oh, 
 to speak to me of having time when I've one foot in 
 the grave already ! " 
 
 " Not so bad as that — not so bad as that," said the 
 Rector, soothingly. 
 
 "But I tell you it is as bad as that," she cried, 
 with the brief blaze of anger common to great weak- 
 ness. " I'm not a child to be persuaded different from 
 
36 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 what I know. If you'd tell me — if you'd say a prayer 
 — ah, Miss Lucy, it's coming on again." 
 
 In a moment Lucy had raised the poor creature 
 in her arms, and in default of the pillows which were 
 not at hand, had risen herself into their place, and sup- 
 ported the gasping woman against her own breast. 
 It was a paroxysm dreadful to behold, in which every 
 labouring breath seemed the last. The Rector sat 
 like one struck dumb, looking on at that mortal 
 struggle. Miss Wodehouse approached nervously from 
 behind, and went up to the bedside, faltering forth 
 questions as to what she could do. Lucy only waved 
 her hand, as her own light figure swayed and changed, 
 always seeking the easiest attitude for the sufterer. 
 As the elder sister drew back, the Rector and she 
 glanced at each other with wistful mutual looks of 
 sympathy. Both were equally well-disposed, equally 
 helpless and embarrassed. How to be of any use in 
 that dreadful agony of nature was denied to both. They 
 stood looking on, awed and self-reproaching. Such 
 scenes have doubtless happened in sick-rooms before 
 now. 
 
 When the fit was over, a hasty step came up the 
 stair, and Mr Wentworth entered the room. He ex- 
 plained in a whisper that he had not been at home 
 when the messenger came, but had followed whenever he 
 heard of the message. Seeing the Rector, he hesitated. 
 
THE KECTOR. 37 
 
 and drew back with some surprise, and, even (for he 
 was far from perfect) in that chamber, a little flush of 
 ofience. The Eector rose abruptly, waving his hand, 
 and went to join Miss Wodehouse in her corner. 
 There the two elderly spectators looked on silent 
 at ministrations of which both were incapable ; one 
 watching with Avondering yet aflectionate envy how 
 Lucy laid down the weakened but relieved patient 
 upon her pillows ; and one beholding with a surprise 
 he could not conceal, how a young man, not half his 
 own age, went softly, with all the confidence yet awe 
 of nature, into those mysteries which he dared not 
 touch upon. The two young creatures by the death- 
 bed acknowledged that their patient was dying ; the 
 woman stood by her watchful and aflfectionate — the 
 man held up before her that cross, not of wood or 
 metal, but of truth and everlasting verity, which is 
 the only hope of man. The spectators looked on, and 
 did not interrupt — looked on, awed and wondering — 
 unaware of how it was, but watching as if it were 
 a miracle wrought before their eyes. Perhaps all the 
 years of his life had not taught the Eector so much as 
 did that half hour in an unknown poor bed-chamber, 
 where, honest and humble, he stood aside, and, kneel- 
 ing down, responded to his young brother's prayer. 
 His young brother — young enough to have been his 
 son — not half nor a quarter part so learned as he ; 
 
38 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFOED : 
 
 but a world further on in that profession which they 
 shared — the art of winning souls. 
 
 When those prayers were over, the Eector, without 
 a word to anybody, stole quietly away. When he got 
 into the street, however, he found himself closely fol- 
 lowed by Miss Wodehouse, of whom he was not at 
 this moment afraid. That good creature was crying 
 softly under her veil. She was eager to make up to 
 him, to open out her full heart ; and mdeed the Eector, 
 like herself, in that wonderful sensation of surprised 
 and unenvying discomfiture, was glad at that moment 
 of sympathy too. 
 
 " Oh, Mr Proctor, isn't it wonderful ? " sighed good 
 Miss Wodehouse. 
 
 The Eector did not speak, but he answered by a 
 very emphatic nod of his head. 
 
 "It did not use to be so when you and I were 
 young," said his companion in failure. " I sometimes 
 take a little comfort from that ; but no doubt, if it had 
 been in me, it would have shown itself somehow. Ah, 
 I fear, I fear, I was not well brought ujd ; but, to be 
 sure, that dear child has not been brought up at all, if 
 one may say so. Her poor mother died when she was 
 born. And oh, I'm afraid I never was kind to Lucy's 
 mother, Mr Proctor. You know she was only a year or 
 two older than I was ; and to think of that child, that 
 baby ! What a world she is, and always was, before 
 
THE RECTOR. 39 
 
 me, that might have been her mother, Mr Proctor ! " 
 said Miss Wodehouse, with a little sob. 
 
 " But things were different in our young days," said 
 the Eector, repeating her sentiment, without inquiring 
 whether it were true or not, and finding a certain 
 vague consolation in it. 
 
 "Ah, that is true," said Miss Wodehouse — ''that is 
 true ; what a blessing things are so changed ; and 
 these blessed young creatures," she added softly, with 
 tears falling out of her gentle old eyes — " these blessed 
 young creatures are near the Fountain-head." 
 
 With this speech Miss Wodehouse held out her hand 
 to the Eector, and they parted with a warm mutual 
 grasp. The Eector went straight home — straight to 
 his study, where he shut himself in, and was not to be 
 disturbed ; that night was one long to be remembered 
 in the good man's history. For the first time in his 
 life he set himself to inquire what was his supposed 
 business in this world. His treatise on the Greek 
 verb, and his new edition of Sophocles, were highly 
 creditable to the Fellow of All-Souls ; but how about 
 the Eector of Carlingford ? What was he doing here, 
 among that little world of human creatures who were 
 dying, being born, perishing, suffering, falling into 
 misfortune and anguish, and all manner of human 
 vicissitudes, every day? Young Wentworth knew 
 what to say to that woman in her distress ; and so 
 
40 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 might the Rector, had her distress concerned a dis- 
 puted translation, or a disused idiom. The good man 
 ■was startled in his comj)osure and calm. To-day he 
 had visibly failed in a duty which even in All-Souls 
 was certainly known to be one of the duties of a 
 Christian priest. Was he a Christian priest, or what 
 was he ? He was troubled to the very depths of his 
 soul. To hold an office the duties of which he could 
 not perform, was clearly impossible. The only ques- 
 tion, and that a hard one, was, whether he could learn 
 to discharge those duties, or whether he must cease 
 to be Eector of Carlingford. He laboured over this 
 problem in his solitude, and could find no answer. 
 " Things were different when we were young," was the 
 only thought that was any comfort to him, and that 
 was poor consolation. 
 
 For one thing, it is hard upon the most magnani- 
 mous of men to confess that he has undertaken an 
 office for which he has not found himself capable. 
 Magnanimity was perhaps too lofty a word to apply 
 to the Eector ; but he was honest to the bottom of his 
 soul. As soon as he became aware of what was in- 
 cluded in the duties of his office, he must perform 
 them, or quit his post. But how to perform them? 
 Can one learn to convey consolation to the dying, 
 to teach the ignorant, to comfort the sorrowful ? Are 
 these matters to be acquired by study, like Greek verbs 
 
THE RECTOR. 41 
 
 or intricate measures? The Eector's heart said No. 
 The Eector's imagination nnfolcled before him, in all its 
 halcyon blessedness, that ancient paradise of All-Souls, 
 where no such confounding demands ever disturbed 
 his beatitude. The good man groaned within himself 
 over th-e mortification, the labour, the sorrow, which 
 this living was bringing upon him. " If I had but let 
 it pass to Morgan, who wanted to marry," he said with 
 self-reproach ; and then suddenly bethought himself of 
 his own most innocent filial romance, and the pleasure 
 his mother had taken in her new house and new begin- 
 ning of life. At that touch the tide flowed back again. 
 Could he dismiss her now to another solitary cottage 
 in Devonshire, her old home there being all dispersed 
 and broken up, while the house she had hoped to die 
 in cast her out from its long-hoped-for shelter ? The 
 Eector was quite overwhelmed by this new aggrava- 
 tion. If by any efi'ort of his own, any sacrifice to him- 
 self, he could preserve this bright new home to his 
 mother, would he shrink from that labour of love ? 
 
 Nobody, however, knew anything about those con- 
 flictino; thoughts which rent his sober bosom. He 
 preached next Sunday as usual, letting no trace of the 
 distressed, wistful anxiety to do his duty which now 
 possessed him gleam into his sermon. He looked 
 down upon a crowd of unsympathetic, uninterested 
 faces, when he delivered that smooth little sermon, 
 
42 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD, 
 
 which nobody cared much about, and which disturbed 
 nobody. The only eyes which in the smallest degree 
 comprehended him were those of good Miss Wode- 
 house, who had been the witness and the participator 
 of his humiliation. Lucy was not there. Doubtless 
 Lucy was at St Roque's, where the sermons of the 
 perpetual curate differed much from those of the Rector 
 of Carlingford. Ah me ! the rectorship, with all its 
 responsibilities, was a serious business ; and what was 
 to become of it yet, Mr Proctor could not see. He 
 was not a hasty man — he determined to wait and see 
 what events might make of it ; to consider it ripely — 
 to take full counsel with himself. Every time he came 
 out of his mother's presence, he came affected and full 
 of anxiety to preserve to her that home which pleased 
 her so much. She was the strong point in favour of 
 Carlingford ; and it was no small tribute to the good 
 man's filial affection, that for her chiefly he kept his 
 neck under the yoke of a service to which he knew 
 himself unequal, and, sighing, turned his back upon 
 his beloved cloisters. If there had been no other sick- 
 beds immediately in Carlingford, Mrs Proctor would 
 have won the day. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Such a blessed exemjation, however, was not to be 
 hoped for. When the Eector was solemnly sent for 
 from. his very study to visit a poor man who was not 
 expected to live many days, he put his prayer-book 
 under his arm, and went off doggedly, feeling that 
 now was the crisis. He went through it in as exem- 
 plary a manner as could have been desired, but it was 
 dreadful work to the Eector. If nobody else suspected 
 him, he suspected himself He had no spontaneous 
 word of encouragement or consolation to offer ; he 
 went through it as his duty with a horrible abstract- 
 ness. That night he went home disgusted beyond all 
 possible power of self- reconciliation. He could not 
 continue this. Good evangelical Mr Bury, who went 
 before him, and by nature loved preaching, had accus- 
 tomed the people to much of such visitations. It was 
 murder to the Fellow of All-Souls. 
 
 That night Mr Proctor wrote a long letter tp his dear 
 
44 CHKONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 cheery old mother, disclosing all his heart to her. It 
 was written with a pathos of which the good man was 
 wholly unconscious, and finished by asking her advice 
 and her prayers. He sent it up to her next morning 
 on her breakfast tray, which he always furnished with 
 his own hands, and went out to occupy himself in pay- 
 ing visits till it should be time to see her, and ascer- 
 tain her opinion. At Mr Wodehouse's there was 
 nobody at home but Lucy, who was very friendly, 
 and took no notice of that sad encounter which had 
 changed his views so entirely. The Rector found, on 
 inquiry, that the woman was dead, but not until IVIr 
 Wentworth had administered to her fully the consola- 
 tions of the Church. Lucy did not look superior, or 
 say anything in admiration of Mr Wentworth, but the 
 Eector's conscience supplied all that was wanting. If 
 good Miss Wodehouse had been there with her chari- 
 table looks, and her disefficiency so like his own, it 
 would have been a consolation to the good man. He 
 would have turned joyfully from Lucy and her blue 
 ribbons to that distressed dove ~ coloured woman, so 
 greatly had recent events changed him. But the 
 truth was, he cared nothing for either of them nowa- 
 days. He was delivered from those whimsical distress- 
 ing fears. Something more serious had obliterated 
 those lighter apprehensions. He had no leisure now to 
 think that somebody had planned to marry him ; all his 
 
THE RECTOR. 45 
 
 thoughts were fixed on matters so much more nnport- 
 ant that this was entirely forgotten. 
 
 Mrs Proctor was seated as usual in the place she 
 loved, with her newspapers, her books, her work-basket, 
 and silver-headed cane at the side of her chair. The 
 old lady, like her son, looked serious. She beckoned 
 him to quicken his steps when she saw him appear at 
 the drawing-room door, and pointed to the chaii' placed 
 beside her, all ready for this solemn conference. He 
 came in with a troubled face, scarcely venturing to 
 look at her, afraid to see the disappointment which he 
 had brought upon his dearest friend. The old lady 
 divined why it was he did not lift his eyes. She took 
 his hand and addressed hira with all her characteristic 
 vivacity. 
 
 " Morley, what is this you mean, my dear ? When 
 did I ever give my son reason to distrust me? Do 
 you think I would suffer you to continue in a position 
 painful to yourself for my sake ? How dare you think 
 such a thing of me, Morley? Don't say so ; you didn't 
 mean it ? I can see it in your eyes." 
 
 The Sector shook his head, and dropped into the 
 chair placed ready for him. He might have had a 
 great deal to say for himself could she have heard him. 
 But as it was, he could not shout all his reasons and 
 apologies into her deaf ear. 
 
 "As for the change to me," said the old lady, in- 
 
46 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 stinctively seizing upon the heart of the difficulty, 
 " that's nothing — simply nothing. I've not had time 
 to get attached to Carlingford. I've no associations 
 with the place. Of course I shall be very glad to go 
 back to aU my old friends. Put that out of the ques- 
 tion, Morley." 
 
 But the Rector only shook his head once more. The 
 more she made light of it, the more he perceived all 
 the painful circumstances involved. Could his mother 
 go back to Devonshire and tell all her old ladies that 
 her son had made a failure in Carlingford ? He grieved 
 within himself at the thought. His brethren at All- 
 Souls might understand him; but what could console 
 the brave old woman for all the condolence and com- 
 miseration to which she would be subject ? " It goes 
 to my heart, mother," he cried in her ear. 
 
 " Well, Morley, I am very sorry you find it so," said 
 the old lady ; " very sorry you can't see your way to 
 all your duties. They tell me the late rector was very 
 Low Church, and visited about like a Dissenter, so it 
 is not much wonder you, with your different habits, 
 find yourself a good deal put out ; but, my dear, don't 
 you think it's only at first ? Don't you think after a 
 while the people would get into your ways, and you 
 into theirs ? Miss Wodehouse was here this morning, 
 and was telling me a good deal about the late rector. 
 
THE EECTOR. 47 
 
 It's to be expected you should find the difierence ; but 
 by-and-by, to be sure, you might get used to it, and 
 the people would not expect so much." 
 
 " Did she tell you where we met the other day ? " 
 asked the Eector, with a brevity rendered necessary by 
 Mrs Proctor's infirmity. 
 
 " She told me — she's a dear confused good soul," 
 said the old lady — " about the difference between Lucy 
 and herself, and how the young creature was twenty 
 times handier than she, and something about young 
 Mr Wentworth of St Roque's. Really, by all I hear, 
 that must be a very presuming young man," cried Mrs 
 Proctor, with a lively air of offence. " His interference 
 among your parishioners, Morley, is really more than 
 I should be inclined to bear." 
 
 Once more the good Rector shook his head. He 
 had not thought of that aspect of the subject. He 
 was indeed so free from vanity or self-importance, that 
 his only feeling in regard to the sudden appearance of 
 the perpetual curate was respect and surprise. He 
 would not be convinced otherwise even now. " He 
 can do his duty, mother," he answered, sadly. 
 
 " Stuff" and nonsense ! " cried the old lady. " Do 
 you mean to tell me a boy like that can do his duty 
 better than my son could do it, if he put his mind to 
 it ? And if it is your duty, Morley, dear," continued 
 
48 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 his mother, melting a little, and in a coaxing persua- 
 sive tone, " of course I know you will do it, however 
 hard it may be." 
 
 " That's just the difficulty," cried the Rector, ventur- 
 ing on a longer speech than usual, and roused to a 
 point at which he had no fear of the listeners in the 
 kitchen ; " such duties require other training than 
 mine has been. I can't ! — do you hear me, mother ? 
 — I must not hold a false position ; that's imjDos- 
 sible." 
 
 " You shan't hold a false position," cried the old 
 lady ; " that's the only thing that is impossible — but, 
 Morley, let us consider, dear. You are a clergyman, 
 you know ; you ought to understand all that's required 
 of you a great deal better than these people do. My 
 dear, your poor father and I trained you up to be a 
 clergyman," said Mrs Proctor, rather pathetically, "and 
 not to be a Fellow of All-Souls." 
 
 The liector groaned. Had it not been advancement, 
 progress, unhoped-for good fortune, that made him a 
 member of that learned corporation? He shook his 
 head. Nothing could change the fact now. After fif- 
 teen years' experience of that Elysium, he could not 
 put on the cassock and surplice with all his youthful 
 fervour. He had settled into his fife-habits long ago. 
 With the quick perception which made up for her 
 defi.ciency, his mother read his face, and saw the cause 
 
THE RECTOR. 49 
 
 was hopeless ; yet with female courage and pertinacity 
 made one effort more. 
 
 "And with an excellent hard-working curate/' said 
 the old lady — " a curate whom, of course, we'd do our 
 duty by, Morley, and who could take a great deal of 
 the responsibility off your hands ; for Mr Leigh, though 
 a nice young man, is not, I know, the man you would 
 have chosen for such a ]30st ; and still more, my dear 
 son — we were talking of it in jest not long ago, but it 
 is perfect earnest, and a most important matter — with 
 a good wife, Morley ; a wife who would enter into all 
 the parish work, and give you usefid hints, and conduct 
 herself as a clergyman's wife should — with such a 
 wife " 
 
 " Lucy Wodehouse ! " cried the Eector, starting to 
 his feet, and forgetting all his proprieties ; " I tell you 
 the thing is impossible. I'll go back to All- Souls." 
 
 He sat down again doggedly, having said it. His 
 mother sat looking at him in silence, with tears in her 
 lively old eyes. She was saying within herself that 
 she had seen his father take just such a " turn," and 
 that it was no use arguing with them under such cir- 
 cumstances. She watched him as women often do 
 watch men, waiting till the creature should come to 
 itself again and might be spoken to. The incompre- 
 hensibleness of women is an old theory, but what is 
 that to the curious wondering observation with which 
 
 D 
 
50 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 wives, mothers, and sisters watch the other unreason- 
 ing animal in those moments when he has snatched 
 the reins out of their hands, and is not to be spoken 
 to ! What he will make of it in those unassisted 
 moments, afflicts the compassionate female understand- 
 ing. It is best to let him come to, and feel his own 
 helplessness. Such was Mrs Proctor's conclusion, as, 
 vexed, distressed, and helpless, she leant back in her 
 chair, and wiped a few tears of disappointment and 
 vexation out of her bright old eyes. 
 
 The Eector saw this movement, and it once more 
 excited him to speech. " But you shall have a house 
 in Oxford, mother," he cried — " you shan't go back to 
 Devonshire — where I can see you every day, and you 
 can hear all that is going on. Bravo ! that will be a 
 thousand times better than Carlingford." 
 
 It was now Mrs Proctor's turn to jump up, startled, 
 and put her hand on his mouth and point to the door. 
 The Rector did not care for the door ; he had disclosed 
 his sentiments, he had taken his resolution, and now 
 the sooner all was over the better for the emancipated 
 man. 
 
 Thus concluded the brief incumbency of the Pteve- 
 rend Morley Proctor. He returned to Oxford before 
 his year of grace was over, and found everybody very 
 glad to see him ; and he left Carlingford with universal 
 good wishes. The living fell to Morgan, who wanted 
 
THE RECTOR. 51 
 
 to be married, and whose turn was much more to be 
 a working clergyman than a classical commentator. 
 Old Mrs Proctor got a pretty house under shelter of 
 the trees of St Griles's, and half the undergraduates fell 
 in love with the old lady in the freshness of her second 
 lifetime. Carlingford passed away like a dream from 
 the lively old mother's memory, and how could any 
 reminiscences of that uncongenial locality disturb the 
 recovered beatitude of the Fellow of All-Souls ? 
 
 Yet all was not so satisfactory as it appeared. Mr 
 Proctor paid for his temporary absence. All-Souls 
 was not the Elysium it had been before that brief dis- 
 astrous voyage into the world. The good man felt the 
 stings of failure ; he felt the mild jokes of his brethren 
 in those Elysian fields. He could not help conjuring 
 up to himself visions of Morgan with his new wife in 
 that pretty rectory. Life, after all, did not consist of 
 books, nor were Greek verbs essential to happiness. 
 The strong emotion into which his own failure had 
 roused him ; the wondering silence in which he stood 
 looking at the ministrations of Lucy Wodehouse and 
 the young curate ; the tearful sympathetic woman as 
 helpless as himself, who had stood beside him in that 
 sick chamber, came back upon his recollection strangely, 
 amidst the repose, not so blessed as heretofore, of All- 
 Souls. The good man had found out that secret of 
 discontent which most men find out a great deal earlier 
 
52 CHRONICLES OF CARLmGFORD. 
 
 than he. Something better, though it might be sad- 
 der, harder, more calamitous, was in this world. Was 
 there ever human creature yet that had not something 
 in him more congenial to the thorns and briars outside 
 to be conquered, than to that mild paradise for which 
 our primeval mother disqualified all her children? 
 When he went back to his dear cloisters, good Mr 
 Proctor felt that sting : a longing for the work he had 
 rejected stirred in him — a wistful recollection of the 
 sympathy he had not sought. 
 
 And if in future years any traveller, if travellers still 
 fall upon adventures, should light upon a remote par- 
 sonage in which an elderly embarrassed Eector, with a 
 mild wife in dove-coloured dresses, toils painfully after 
 his duty, more and more giving his heart to it, more 
 and more finding difficult expression for the unused 
 faculty, let him be sure that it is the late Rector of 
 Carliugford, self-expelled out of the uneasy paradise, 
 setting forth untimely, yet not too late, into the labo- 
 rious world. 
 
Qtf)xoniclt^ of ©arlingfortr 
 
 THE DOCTOE'S FAMILY 
 
(Ef)Xonic\t^ of CTarlingforti* 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 Young Dr Eider lived in the new quarter of Carling- 
 ford : had he aimed at a reputation in society, he 
 could not possibly have done a more foolish thing ; 
 but such was not his leading motive. The young man, 
 being but young, aimed at a practice. He was not 
 particular in the mean time as to the streets in which 
 his patients dwelt. A new house, gazing with all its 
 windows over ^ brick-field, was as interesting to the 
 young surgeon as if it had been one of those exclusive 
 houses in Grange Lane, where the aristocracy of Car- 
 lingford lived retired within their garden walls. His 
 own establishment, though sufficiently comfortable, 
 was of a kind utterly to shock the feelings of the 
 
56 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 refined community. A corner house, with a surgery 
 round the corner, throwing the gleam of its red lamp 
 over all that chaotic district of half-formed streets and 
 full-developed brick-fields, with its night-bell promi- 
 nent, and young Rider's name on a staring brass plate, 
 with mysterious initials after it. M.R.C.S. the un- 
 happy young man had been seduced to put after his 
 name upon tljat brass plate, though he was really Dr 
 Eider, a physician, if not an experienced one. Friends 
 had advised him that in such districts people were 
 afraid of physicians, associating only with dread adum- 
 brations of a guinea a visit that mis-comprehended 
 name ; so, with a pang, the young surgeon had put his 
 degree in his pocket, and put up with the inferior 
 distinction. Of course, Dr Marjoribanks had all the 
 patronage of Grange Lane. The great people were 
 infatuated about that snufiy old Scotchman — a man 
 behind his day, who had rusted and grown old among 
 the soft diseases of Carlingford, where sharp practice 
 was so seldom necessary ; and no opening appeared for 
 young Rider except in the new district, in the smug 
 corner house, with the surgery and the red lamp, and 
 M.R.C.S. on a brass plate on his door. 
 
 If you can imagine that the young man bowed his 
 spirit to this without a struggle, you do the poor young 
 fellow injustice. He had been hard enough put to it 
 at divers periods of his life. Ambition had not been 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 57 
 
 possible for him either in one shape or another. Some 
 people said he had a vulgar mind when he subsided 
 into that house ; other people declared him a shabby- 
 fellow when he found out, after the hardest night's 
 thought he ever went through in his life, that he durst 
 not ask Bessie Christian to marry him. You don't 
 suppose that he did not know in his secret heart, and 
 feel tingling through every vein, those words which 
 nobody ever said to his face ? But he could not help 
 it. He could only make an indignant gulp of his re- 
 sentment and shame, which were shame and resent- 
 ment at himself for wanting the courage to dare every- 
 thing, as well as at other people for finding him out, 
 and go on with his work as he best could. He was 
 not a hero nor a martyr ; men made of that stuff have 
 large compensations. He was an ordinary individual, 
 with no sublimity in him, and no compensation to 
 speak of for his sufferings — no consciousness of lofty 
 right-doing, or of a course of action superior to the 
 world. 
 
 Perhaps you would prefer to go up-stairs and see 
 for yourself what was the skeleton in Edward Rider's 
 cupboard, rather than have it described to you. His 
 drag came to the door an hour ago, and he went off 
 with Care sitting behind him, and a certain angry pang 
 aching in his heart, which perhaps Bessie Christian's 
 wedding-veil, seen far off in church yesterday, might 
 
58 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 have something to do with. His looks were rather 
 black as he twitched the reins out of his little groom's 
 hands, and went off at a startling pace, which was 
 almost the only consolation the young fellow had. 
 Now that he is certainly gone, and the coast clear, we 
 may go up-stairs. It is true he all but kicked the 
 curate down for taking a similar liberty, but we who 
 are less visible may venture while he is away. 
 
 This skeleton is not in a cupboard. It is in an up- 
 stairs room, comfortable enough, but heated, close, un- 
 wholesome — a place from which, even when the window 
 is open, the fresh air seems shut out. There is no fresh 
 air nor current of life in this stifling place. There is 
 a fire, though it is not cold — a sofa near the fire — a 
 sickening heavy smell of abiding tobacco — not light 
 whiffs of smoke, such as accompany a man's labours, 
 but a dead pall of idle heavy vapour ; and in the midst 
 of all a man stretched lazily on the sofa, with his pipe 
 laid on the table beside him, and a book in his soft, 
 boneless, nerveless hands. A large man, interpene- 
 trated with smoke and idleness and a certain dreary 
 sodden dissipation, heated yet unexcited, reading a novel 
 he has read half-a-dozen times before. He turns his 
 bemused eyes to the door when his invisible visitors 
 enter. He fancies he hears some one coming, but will 
 not take the trouble to rise and see who is there — so, 
 instead of that exertion, he takes up his pipe, knocks 
 
THE DOCTORS FABIILY. 59 
 
 the ashes out of it upon his book, fills it with coarse 
 tobacco, and stretches his long arm over the shoulder 
 of the sofa for a light. His feet are in slippers, his per- 
 son clothed in a greasy old coat, his linen soiled and 
 untidy. That is the skeleton in young Eider's house. 
 
 The servants, you may be sure, knew all about this 
 unwelcome visitor. They went with bottles and jugs 
 secretly to bring him what he wanted ; they went to 
 the circulating library for him ; they let him in when 
 he had been out in the twilight all shabby and slovenly. 
 They would not be human if they did not talk about 
 him. They say he is very good-natured, poor gentle- 
 man — always has a pleasant word — is nobody's enemy 
 but his own ; and to see how " the doctor do look at 
 him, and he his own brother as was brought up with 
 him," is dreadful, to be sure. 
 
 All this young Eider takes silently, never sajdng a 
 word about it to any human creature. He seems to 
 know by intuition what all these people say of him, as 
 lie drives about furiously in his drag from patient to 
 patient ; and wherever he goes, as plain, nay, far more 
 distinctly than the actual prospect before him, he sees 
 that sofa, that dusty slow-burning fire — that pipe, with 
 the little heap of ashes knocked out of it upon the table 
 — that wasted ruined life chafing him to desperation with 
 its dismal content. It is very true that it would have 
 been sadly imprudent of the young man to go to the 
 
60 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 little house in Grove Street a year ago, and tell Bessie 
 Christian he was very fond of her, and that somehow 
 for her love he would manage to provide for those old 
 people whom that cheerful little woman toiled to main- 
 tain. It was a thing not to be done in any way you 
 could contemplate it ; and with a heartache the poor 
 young doctor had turned his horse's head away from 
 Grove Street, and left Bessie to toil on in her poverty. 
 Bessie had escaped all that nowadays ; but who could 
 have forewarned the poor doctor that his elder brother, 
 once the hope of the family — that clever Fred, whom 
 all the others had been postponed to — he who with his 
 evil reputation had driven poor Edward out of his first 
 practice, and sent him to begin life a second time at 
 Carlingford — was to drop listlessly in again, and lay a 
 harder burden than a harmless old father-in-law upon 
 the young man's hands — a burden which no grateful 
 Bessie shared and sweetened ? No wonder black care 
 sat at the young doctor's back as he drove at that dan- 
 gerous pace through the new, encumbered streets. He 
 might have broken his neck over those heaps of brick 
 and mortar, and it is doubtful whether he would have 
 greatly cared. 
 
 When Dr Pdder went home that night, the first 
 sight he saw when he pulled up at his own door was 
 his brother's large indolent shabby figure prowling up 
 the street. In the temper he was then in, this was not 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 61 
 
 likely to soothe him. It was not a much frequented 
 street, but the young doctor knew instinctively that his 
 visitor had been away in the heart of the town at the 
 booksellers' shops buying cheap novels, and ordering 
 them magnificently to be sent to Dr Rider's; and 
 could guess the curious questions and large answers 
 which had followed. He sprang to the ground with 
 a painful suppressed indignation, intensified by many 
 mingled feelings, and waited the arrival of the maudlin 
 wanderer. Ah me ! one might have had some conso- 
 lation in the burden freely undertaken for love's sake, 
 and by love's self shared and lightened : but this load 
 of disgrace and ruin which nobody could take part 
 of — which it was misery so much as to think that 
 anybody knew of — the doctor's fraternal sentiments, 
 blunted by absence and injmy, were not strong enough 
 to bear that weight. 
 
 " So, Fred, you have been out," said Dr Eider, mood- 
 ily, as he stood aside on his own threshold to let his 
 brother pass in — not with the courtesy of a host, but 
 the precaution of a jailer, to see him safe before he 
 himself entered and closed the door. 
 
 ''Yes, you can't expect a man to sit in the house for 
 ever," said the prodigal, stumbling in to his brother's 
 favourite sitting-room, where everything was tidy and 
 comfortable for the brief leisure of the hard-working 
 man. The man who did no work threw himself heav- 
 
62 CHRONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 ily into the doctor's easy-chair, and rolled his bemused 
 eyes round upon his brother's household gods. Those 
 book-shelves with a bust at either comer, those red 
 curtains drawn across the window, those prints on the 
 walls — all once so pleasant to the doctor's eyes — took 
 a certain air of squalor and wretchedness to-night 
 which sickened him to look at. The lamp flared wildly 
 with an untrimmed wick, or at least Dr Eider thought 
 so ; and threw, a hideous profile of the intruder upon 
 the wall behind him. The hearth was cold, with that 
 chill, of sentiment rather than reality, naturally belong- 
 ing to a summer night. Instead of a familiar place 
 where rest and tranquillity awaited him, that room, 
 the only vision of home which the poor young fellow 
 possessed, hardened into four walls, and so many chairs 
 and tables, in the doctor's troubled eyes. 
 
 But it bore a different aspect in the eyes of his maud- 
 lin brother. Looking round with those bewildered orbs, 
 all this appeared luxury to the wanderer. Mentally 
 he appraised the prints over the mantelshelf, and 
 reckoned how much of Ms luxuries might be pur- 
 chased out of them. That was all so much money 
 wasted by the Croesus before him. What a mint of 
 money the fellow must be making ! and grudged a 
 little comfort to his brother, his elder brother, the 
 cleverest of the family ! The dull exasperation of 
 selfishness woke in the mind of the self-ruined man. 
 
THE doctor's family. 63 
 
 " You're snug enough here," he exclaimed, " though 
 you shut me in up-stairs to burrow out of sight. By 
 Jove ! as if I were not good enough to face your Car- 
 lingford patients. I've had a better practice in my 
 day than ever you'll see, my fine fellow, with your 
 beggarly M.E.C.S. And you'd have me shut myself 
 up in my garret into the bargain ! You're ashamed 
 of me, forsooth ! You can go spending money on that 
 rubbish there, and can't pay a tailor's bill for your 
 elder brother ; and as for introducing me in this 
 wretched hole of a place, and letting me pick up a 
 little money for myself — I, a man with twice the ex- 
 perience in the profession that you have " 
 
 "Fred, stop that," cried the doctor — "I've had 
 about enough. Look here — I can't deny you shelter 
 and what you call necessaries, because you're my 
 brother, but I won't submit to be ruined a second 
 time by any man. If I am ever to do any good in 
 this world — and whether I do any good or not," he 
 added fiercely, " I'll not have my good name tarnished 
 and my work interfered with again. I don't care two 
 straws for my life. It's hard enough — as hard as a 
 treadmill, and never a drop of consolation in the cup ; 
 though I might have had that if I had been anything 
 but a fool. But look here, I do care for my practice — 
 I won't have you put your confounded spoke in my 
 wheel again. Keep on in your own way ; smoke and 
 
64 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOED : 
 
 drink and dream if you will ; but I'll stand no inter- 
 ference with my work — and that I tell you once for 
 all." 
 
 This sjDeech was uttered with great vehemence, the 
 speaker walking up and down the room all the while. 
 The bitterness of ingratitude and malice had entered 
 into the young man's soul. All the wrongs which the 
 clever elder brother, to whose claims everybody else 
 was subordinated, had done to his family, rose upon 
 the recollection of the younger ; all the still bitterer 
 sting of that injury which had been personal to him- 
 self ; all the burden and peril of this present undesired 
 visit, the discontent, the threats, the evident power of 
 doing evil, woke the temper and spirit of the young 
 doctor. It was not Fred's fault that his brother had 
 made that mistake in life which he repented so bitterly. 
 Bessie Christian's bridal veil, and white ribbons ; her 
 joyful face untouched with any pensive reminiscences ; 
 and the dead dulness of that house, into which foot of 
 woman never entered, were not of Fred's doing ; but 
 passion is not reasonable. The doctor gave Fred credit 
 unconsciously for the whole. He walked up and down 
 the room with a whole world of passionate mortified 
 feeling — vexation, almost despair, throbbing within 
 him. He seemed to have made a vast sacrifice for the 
 sake of this brother who scorned him to his face. 
 
 " You're hot," said the disreputable figure in Dr 
 
THE doctor's family. 65 
 
 Eider's easy-cliair, " much hotter than there's any 
 occasion for. Do I envy you your beggarly patients, 
 do you suppose ? But, Ned, you never were cut out 
 for the profession — a good shopkeeping business would 
 have been a deal better for you. Hang it ! you haven't 
 the notions of a gentleman. You think bread and 
 water is all you're bound to furnish your brother when 
 he's under a cloud. As for society, I never see a soul 
 — not even yourself, though you're no great company. 
 Look here — I am not unreasonable ; order in some 
 supper — there's a good fellow — and let's have a com- 
 fortable evening together. You're not the man you 
 used to be, Ned. You used to be a fellow of spirit ; 
 somebody's jilted you, or something — I don't want to 
 pry into your secrets ; but let's have a little comfort 
 for once in a way, and you shall have the whole busi- 
 ness about the old colony, and how I came to leave it 
 — the truth, and nothing but the truth." 
 
 It was some time before the victim yielded ; at last, 
 half to escape the painful ferment of his own thoughts, 
 and half with a natural yearning for some sympathy 
 and companionship, however uncongenial, he fell out 
 of his heat and passion into a more comjDlacent mood. 
 He sat down, watching with a gulp of hardly-restrained 
 disgust that lolling figure in the elixir, every gesture of 
 which was the more distasteful for beiug so familiar, 
 and recalling a hundred preliminary scenes all tending 
 
66 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 towards this total wreck and sliame. Then his mind 
 softened with fraternal instincts — strange interlace- 
 ment of loathing and affection. He was tired, hungry, 
 chilled to his heart. The spell of material comfort, 
 even in such company, came upon the young man. 
 They supped together, not much to the advantage of 
 Dr Eider's head, stomach, or temper, on the follow- 
 ing morning. The elder told his story of inevi- 
 table failure, and strange un explainable fatality. The 
 younger dropjied forth expressions of disaj)pointment 
 and trouble which partly eased his own mind. Thus 
 they spent together the unlovely evening ; and perhaps 
 a few such nights would have done as much harm to 
 the young doctor's practice as had he introduced his 
 disreputable brother without more ado into the j^arti- 
 cular little world of Carlins:ford. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Next morning Dr Eider rose mightily vexed with 
 himself, as was to be supposed. He was half an hour 
 late for breakfast : he had a headache, his hand shook, 
 and his temper was " awful." Before he was dressed, 
 ominous knocks came to the door ; and all feverish 
 and troubled as he was, you may imagine that the 
 prospect of the day's work before him did not improve 
 his feelings, and that self-reproach, direst of tormentors, 
 did not mend the matter. Two ladies were waiting 
 for him, he was told when he went down-stairs — not 
 to say sundry notes and messages in the ordinary way 
 of business — two ladies who had brought two boxes 
 with them, and asked leave to put them in the hall till 
 they could see Dr Eider. The sight of this luggage 
 in his little hall startled the doctor. Patients do not 
 generally carry such things about with them. What 
 did it mean ? What could two ladies want with him ? 
 The young man felt his face burn with painful antici- 
 
68 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 patioiis, a little shame, and mncli impatience. Pro- 
 bably the sister who adored Fred, and never could 
 learn to believe that he was not unfortunate and a 
 victim. This would be a climax to the occupation of 
 his house. 
 
 As the poor doctor gloomily approached the door of 
 the room in which he had spent last evening, he heard 
 a little rustle and commotion not quite consistent with 
 his expectations — a hum of voices and soft stir such as 
 youthful womankind only makes. Then a voice en- 
 tirely strange to him uttered an exclamation. Invol- 
 untarily he started and changed his aspect. He did 
 not know the voice, but it was young, sweet, peculiar. 
 The cloud lightened a little upon the doctor's face. 
 Notwithstanding Bessie Christian, he was still young 
 enough to feel a little flutter of curiosity when he heard 
 such a voice sounding out of his room. Hark ! what 
 did she say ? It was a profoundly prosaic speech. 
 
 " What an intolerable smell of smoke ! I shouldn't 
 wonder a bit — indeed, I rather think he must be, or 
 he wouldn't live in a place like this — if he were exactly 
 such another as Fred." 
 
 " Poor Fred ! " said a plaintive voice, " if we only 
 can learn where he is. Hush, there is a footstep ! 
 Ah, it is not my poor fellow's footstep ! Nettie, 
 hark 1 " 
 
 " No, indeed ! twenty thousand times sharper, and 
 
THE doctor's family. 69 
 
 more like a man," said the other, in hurried breathless 
 accents. " Hark ! here he is." 
 
 The entire bewilderment, the amaze, apprehension, 
 confusion with which Dr Eider entered the room from 
 which this scrap of conversation reached him is inde- 
 scribable. A dreadful sense ihat something was about 
 to happen seized the young man's mind with an inde- 
 scribable curiosity. He paused an instant to recover 
 himself, and then went boldly and silently into the 
 room which had become mysterious through its new 
 inmates. They both turned round upon him as he 
 entered. Two young women : one who had been sit- 
 ting at the table, looking faded, plaintive, and anxious, 
 rose up suddenly, and, clasping her hands, as if in en- 
 treaty, fixed two bright but sunken eyes upon his face. 
 The other, a younger, lighter figure, all action and haste, 
 interposed between him and her companion. She put 
 up one hand in warning to the petitioner behind her, 
 and one to call the attention of the bewildered stranger 
 before. Evidently the one thing which alarmed this 
 young lady was that somebody would speak before 
 her, and the conduct of the situation be taken out of 
 her hands. She was little, very slight, very pretty, 
 but her prettiness was peculiar. The young doctor, 
 accustomed to the fair Saxon version of beauty given 
 by Bessie Christian, did not at the first glance believe 
 that the wonderful little person before him possessed 
 
70 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFOED : 
 
 any ; for slie was not only slender but thin, dark, eager, 
 impetuous, with blazing black eyes and red lips, and 
 nothing else notable about her. So he thought, gazing 
 fascinated, yet not altogether attracted — scarcely sure 
 that he was not repelled — unable, however, to with- 
 draw his eyes from that hurried, eager little figure. 
 Nothing in the least like her had ever yet appeared 
 before Dr Eider's eyes. 
 
 " We want to inquire about your brother," said the 
 little stranger ; " we know this was to be his address, 
 and we want to know whether he is living here. His 
 letters were to be sent to your care ; but my sister has 
 not heard from him now for a year." 
 
 " Never mind that ! — never mind telling that, Net- 
 tie," cried the other behind her. " Oh, sir ! only tell 
 me where my poor Fred is ? " 
 
 " So she began to fear he was ill," resumed the 
 younger of the two, undauntedly ; " though Susan will 
 do nothing but praise him, he has behaved to her very 
 shamefully. Do you happen to know, sir, where he is ? " 
 
 "Did you say Fred — my brother Fred?" cried the 
 poor young doctor in utter dismay ; " and may I ask 
 who it is that expresses so much interest in him ? " 
 
 There was a momentary pause ; the two women 
 exchanged looks. " I told you so," cried the eager 
 little spokeswoman. " He never has let his friends 
 know ; he was afraid of that. I told you how it was. 
 
THE doctor's family. 71 
 
 This," she continued with a little tragic air, stretching 
 out her arm to her sister, and facing the doctor — 
 " This is jNIrs Frederick Eider, or rather Mrs Eider, I 
 should say, as he is the eldest of the family ! Now 
 will you jjlease to tell us where he is ?" 
 
 The doctor made no immediate answer. He gazed 
 past the speaker to the faded woman behind, and 
 exclaimed, with a kind of groan, " Fred's wife ! " 
 
 " Yes, Fred's wife," cried the poor creature, rushing 
 forward to him ; " and oh ! where is he ? I've come 
 thousands of miles to hear. Is he ill ? has anything 
 happened to him ? Where is Fred ? " 
 
 " Susan, you are not able to manage this ; leave it 
 to me," said her sister, drawing her back peremptorily. 
 "Dr Eider, please to answer us. We know you well 
 enough, though you don't seem ever to have heard of 
 us. It was you that my brother-in-law gave up his 
 business to before he came out to the colony. Oh, we 
 know all about it ! To keep him separate from his 
 wife cannot do you any benefit, Dr Edward. Yes, I 
 know your name and all about it ; and I don't mean 
 indeed to suffer my sister to be injured and kept from 
 her husband. I have come all this way with her to 
 take care of her. I mean to stay with her to take care 
 of her. I have not parted with my money, though 
 she gave all hers away ; and I mean to see her have 
 her rights." 
 
72 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 "Oh, Nettie, Nettie, how you talk!" cried the 
 unfortunate wife. "You keep him from answering 
 me. All this time I cannot hear — where is Pred?" 
 
 " Be seated, please," said the doctor, with dreadful 
 civility, "and compose yourselves. Fred is well enough ; 
 as well as he ever is. I don't know," added poor Eider, 
 with irrestrainable bitterness, " whether he is quite 
 presentable to ladies ; but I presume, madam, if you're 
 his wife, you're acquainted with his habits. Excuse 
 me for being quite unprepared for such a visit. I 
 have not much leisure for anything out of my profes- 
 sion. I can scarcely spare these minutes, that is the 
 truth ; but if you will favour me with a few particu- 
 lars I will have the news conveyed to my brother. 
 I — I beg your pardon. When a man finds he has 
 new relations he never dreamed of, it naturally em- 
 barrasses him at the moment. May I ask if you ladies 
 have come from Australia alone ?" 
 
 " Ob, not alone ; the children are at the hotel. 
 Nettie said it was no use coming unless we all came," 
 said his new sister-in-law, with a half-sob. 
 
 "The children!" Dr Eider's gasp of dismay was 
 silent, and made no sound. He stood staring blankly 
 at those wonderful invaders of his bachelor house, 
 marvelling what was to be done with them in the 
 first place. Was he to bring Fred down all slovenly 
 and half-awakened ? was he to leave them in posses- 
 
THE doctor's family. 73 
 
 sion of his private sanctuary ? The precious morning 
 moments were passing while he pondered, and his 
 little groom fidgeted outside with a message for the 
 doctor. "While he stood irresolute, the indefatigable 
 Nettie once more darted forward. 
 
 " Give me Fred's address, please," said this manag- 
 ing woman. " I'll see him, and prepare him for meeting 
 Susan. He can say what he pleases to me ; I don't 
 mind it in the very least ; but Susan of course must 
 be taken care of. Now, look here, Dr Edward ; Susan 
 is your sister-in-law, and I am her sister. We don't 
 want to occupy your time. I can manage everything ; 
 but it is quite necessary in the first place that you 
 should confide in me." 
 
 "Confide!" cried the bewildered man. "Fred is 
 not under my authority. He is here in my house 
 much against my will. He is in bed, and not fit to 
 be awakened ; and I am obliged to tell you simply, 
 ladies," said the unfortunate doctor, " that my house 
 has no accommodation for a family. If you will go 
 back to the hotel where you left the children " — and 
 here the speaker gave another gasp of horror — " I'll 
 have him roused and sent to you. It is the only thing 
 I can do." 
 
 " Susan can go," said the prompt Nettie ; " I'll stay 
 here until Fred is ready, and take him to see them. 
 It is necessary he should be prepared, you know. 
 
74 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Don't talk nonsense, Susan^ — I shall stay here, and 
 Dr Eider, of course, will call a cab for you." 
 
 " But Nettie, Nettie dear, it isn't proper. I can't 
 leave you all by yourself in a strange house," remon- 
 strated her sister. 
 
 " Don't talk such stuff ; I am perfectly well able to take 
 care of myself; I am not a London young lady," said the 
 courageous Nettie. " It is perfectly unnecessary to say 
 another word to me — I know my duty — I shall stay here." 
 
 With which speech she seated herself resolutely in 
 that same easy-chair which Fred had lolled in last 
 night, took off her bonnet, for hats were not in these 
 days, and shed off from her face, with two tiny hands, 
 exquisite in shape if a little brown in colour, the 
 great braids of dark brown silky hair which encum- 
 bered her little head. The gesture mollified Dr Rider 
 in the most unaccountable way in spite of himself. 
 The intolerable idea of leaving these two in his house 
 became less intolerable, he could not tell how. And 
 the little groom outside fairly knocked at the door 
 in that softening moment with a message which could 
 be delayed no longer. The doctor put his head out to 
 receive the call, and looked in again perplexed and 
 uncertain. Nettie had quite established herself in 
 the easy-chair. She sat there looking with her bright 
 eyes into the vacant air before her, in a pretty atti- 
 tude of determination and readiness, beating her little 
 
THE doctor's family. 75 
 
 foot ou the carpet. Something whimsical, odd, and 
 embarrassing about her position made it all the more 
 piquant to the troubled eyes which, in spite of all 
 their worldly wisdom, were still the eyes of a young 
 man. He could not tell in the world what to say to 
 her. To order that creature out of his house was 
 simply impossible ; to remain there was equally so ; 
 to leave them in possession of the field — what could 
 the unfortunate young doctor do ? One thing was 
 certain, the impatient patient could no longer be ne- 
 glected ; and after a few minutes longer of bewildered 
 uncertainty Dr Eider went off in the wildest confu- 
 sion of mind, leaving his brother's unknown family 
 triumphant in his invaded house. 
 
 To describe the feelings with which the unfortunate 
 doctor went fasting about his day's work — the manner 
 in which that scene returned to him after every visit 
 he made — the continual succession in which wrath, 
 dismay, alarm, bitter disgust with the falsehood of the 
 brother who, no further gone than last night, had pre- 
 tended to confide in him, but never breathed a syllable 
 of this biggest unconcealable secret, swept through the 
 mind of the victim ; all culminating, however, in the 
 softening of that moment, in the tiny figure, indomit- 
 able elf or fairy, shedding back with dainty fingers 
 those soft abundant locks — would be impossible. The 
 young man got through his work somehow, in a maze 
 
76 CHROXICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of confusion and excitement — angry excitement, indig- 
 nant confusion, determination to yield nothing further, 
 but to defend himself and his house once for all from 
 the inroads of what he angrily pronounced in his own 
 mind "another man's family" — yet, withal, of curiosity 
 and interest which gave zest greater than usual to the 
 idea of going home. When he was able at last to turn 
 his horse's head towards his own dwelling, it was with 
 feelings very different from the usual unexpecting blank 
 of sullen displeasure. What he should find there, was 
 a curious, exciting, alarming question ; perhaps an en- 
 tire nursery with Nettie in charge ; perhaps a recusant 
 husband with Nettie mounting guard over him ; perhaps 
 a thrilling scene of family exjjlanation and reconcilia- 
 tion. The day had been a specially long and hard one. 
 He had been obliged to snatch a hurried lunch at one 
 of his patient's houses, and to postpone his hard-earned 
 dinner to the most fashionable of hours. It was in- 
 deed quite evening, almost twilight, when he made 
 his way home at last. As he neared the scene of ac- 
 tion, the tired man condoled with himself over the un- 
 timely excitement that awaited him. He said to him- 
 self with pathetic self-pity that it was hard indeed for 
 a man who had earned a little repose to go in upon all 
 the troubles of another man's family. He had denied 
 himself — he had not undertaken upon his own shoul- 
 ders that pleasing burden ; and now what was he to 
 
THE DOCTOKS FAMILY. 77 
 
 be saddled with ?— the burden without the consolation 
 — the responsibility without the companionship. All 
 this Dr Rider represented to himself very pathetically 
 as he wended his homeward way. Yet it is astonish- 
 ing, notwithstanding, with what alacrity he hastened 
 upon that path, and how much the curiosity, the ex- 
 citement, the dramatic stir and commotion made in 
 his monotonous life by this entirely new unexpected 
 incident, occupied his mind. With expectations highly 
 roused, he drew up once more before his own house. 
 It was surprising to him to see how exactly it looked 
 like itself The blinds half drawn down in the gen- 
 teelest calm as they always were — no faces peeping at 
 the windows — no marks of an arrival on the pavement, 
 or in the composed countenance of Mary, who stood 
 holding the door open for him. He went in with a 
 little thrill of curiosity ; the house was very quiet — 
 dead-quiet in comparison with the commotion of his 
 thoughts ; so was the sitting-room where he had left 
 Nettie resolutely planted in the easy-chair ; there was 
 nobody there now ; the boxes were out of the hall, not 
 a sound was to be heard in the house. He turned 
 rather blankly upon ]\Iary, who was going away quite 
 composedly, as if there was nothing which she wanted 
 to tell or he to hear. 
 
 " Where is my brother and the ladies ? " said the 
 amazed doctor. 
 
78 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 " They all went off to the 'otel, sir, as soon as Mv 
 Rider came down -stairs," said Mary, complacently. 
 " I assured Miss as it was the best thing she could do, 
 sir, for that I was 'most sure you'd never have the 
 children here, — as to be sure there wasn't no room 
 neither," said the doctor's factotum. " As soon as Mr 
 Frederick came down, she called a cab, did Miss, and 
 took 'em both away." 
 
 " Oh ! so they're gone, are they ? " said the doctor. 
 
 " Hours and hours ago," answered Mary ; " dinner 
 '11 be up in two minutes. But I wouldn't say much 
 for the potatoes, sir. When a gentleman's irreg'lar, 
 it's hard laws on the poor servants — nothink will keep, 
 going on for two liours, and not take no harm ; but 
 all's quiet and comfortable in your room." 
 
 And with this assurance, which she evidently thought 
 a very grateful one, IMary went off to get the doctor's 
 dinner. He walked to the end of the room, and then 
 back again, with solemnity — then threw himself into 
 that easy-chair. "Blessed riddance ! " said the doctor ; 
 but somehow he looked glum, wonderfully glum. There 
 was no accounting for those blank looks of his ; he who 
 had been condolino; with himself over the exciting 
 scene he expected, so uncomfortable a conclusion to a 
 long day's labour, how was it he did not look relieved 
 when that scene was spared him ? To tell the truth, 
 when one has been expecting something to happen, 
 
THE doctor's family. 79 
 
 of whatever description, and has been preparing one's 
 courage, one's temper, one's fortitude, in anticipatory- 
 rehearsals — 'when one has placed one's self in the atti- 
 tude of a martyr, and prepared to meet with fiery trials 
 — it is mortifying, to say the least, when one finds all 
 the necessities of the case disappear, and the mildest 
 calm replace that tragical anticipation : the quiet falls 
 blank upon the excited fancy. Of course Dr Eider 
 was relieved ; but it was with something mightily like 
 disappointment that he leant back in his chair and 
 knitted his brows at the opposite wall. Not for the 
 world would he have acknowledged himself to be dis- 
 appointed ; but the calm was wonderfully monotonous 
 after all those expectations. He was never so bored 
 and sick of a night by himself He tried to read, but 
 reading did not occupy his mind. He grew furious 
 over his charred chops and sodden potatoes. As for 
 the tea Mary brought, he would have gladly pitched it 
 at her by way of diversifying that blank evening with 
 an incident. The contrast between what he had looked 
 for, and what he had, was wonderful. How delicious 
 this stillness should have been, this consciousness of 
 having his house to himself, and nobody to interrupt 
 his brief repose ! But somehow it appears that human 
 nature takes best with not having its wishes granted. 
 It is indescribable how Dr Eider yawned — how dull 
 he found his newspaper — how few books worth read- 
 
80 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 ing there were in the house — how slow the minutes 
 ran on. If somebody had chosen to be ill that night, 
 of all nights the best for such a purpose, the doctor 
 would not have objected to such an interruption. 
 Failing that, he went to bed early, dreadfully tired of 
 his own society. Such were the wonderful results of 
 that invasion so much dreaded, and that retreat so 
 much hoped for. Perhaps his own society had never 
 in his life been so distasteful to him before. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 IsText day Dr Pdder audibly congratulated himself at 
 breakfast uj)on having once more his house to himself — 
 audibly, as if it were really necessary to give utterance 
 to the thought before he could quite feel its force. A 
 week before, if Fred had departed, however summarily, 
 there can be no doubt that his brother's feelings of 
 relief and comfort would have been unfeigned ; now, 
 however, he began to think the matter over, and to jus- 
 tify to himself his extraordinary sense of disappoint- 
 ment. As he poured out his own coffee with a sober 
 face, his eye rested upon that easy-chair, which had 
 been brought into such prominence in the history of 
 the last two days. He kept looking at it as he sipped 
 that gloomy coffee. Fred had faded from the great 
 chair ; his big image threw no shadow upon it. 
 There sat a little fairy queen, tiny as Titania, but dark 
 as an elf of the East, putting up those two shapely tiny 
 hands, brown and beautiful, to push aside the flood of 
 
82 CHRONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 hair, which certainly would have veiled her little figure 
 all over, the doctor thought, had it been let down. 
 Wonderful little sprite ! She, no doubt, had dragged 
 her plaintive sister over the seas— she it was that had 
 forced her way into Edward Eider's house, taken her 
 position in it, ousted the doctor ; and she doubtless it 
 was who swept the husband and wife out of it again, 
 leaving no trace behind. Waking up from a little 
 trance of musing upon this too interesting subject, Dr 
 Eider suddenly raised himself into an erect position, 
 body and mind, with an involuntary movement, as if 
 to shake off the yoke of the enchantress. He reminded 
 himself instinctively of his brother's falsehood and in- 
 gratitude. After throwing himself a most distasteful 
 burden on Edward's charity for five long dreary months, 
 the bugbear of the doctor's dreams, and heavy ever- 
 recurring climax of his uncomfortable thoughts, here 
 had Fred departed without a word of explanation or 
 thanks, or even without saying good-bye. The doctor 
 thought himself quite justified in being angry. He 
 began to feel that the suspicious uneasiness which 
 possessed him was equally natural and inevitable. 
 Such a thankless, heartless departure was enough to 
 put any man out. To imagine that Fred could be 
 capable of it, naturally went to his brother's heart. 
 
 That day there was still no word of the party who 
 had disappeared so mysteriously out of the doctor's 
 
THE doctor's family. 83 
 
 house. Dr Eider went to his hard day's work vaguely 
 expectant, feeling sure he must hear of them somehow, 
 and more interested in hearing of them than was to be 
 expected from his former low ebb of fraternal affection. 
 When he returned and found still no letter, no message, 
 the blank disappointment of the former night closed 
 still more blankly upon him. When one is all by one's 
 self, and has nothing at best but an easy- chair to go 
 home to, and goes home expecting a letter, or a mes- 
 sage, or a visitor who has not arrived, and has no 
 chance of arriving, the revulsion of feeling is not 
 agreeable. It did not improve the doctor's temper in 
 the first place. The chill loneliness of that trim room, 
 with its drawn curtains and tidy pretence of being 
 comfortable, exasperated him beyond bearing. He 
 felt shut up in it, and yet would not leave it. Some- 
 body certainly might come even to - night. Fred 
 himself perhaps, if he could escape from the rigid 
 guardianship he was under ; or was that miraculous 
 Australian Nettie a little witch, who had spirited the 
 whole party in a nutshell over the seas ? Never was 
 man delivered from a burden with a worse grace than 
 was Dr Eider ; and the matter had not mended in 
 these twenty-four hours. 
 
 Next morning, however, this fever of fraternal sus- 
 pense was assuaged. A three-cornered note, addressed 
 in an odd feminine hand, very thin, small, and rapid, 
 
84 CHKONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 came among Dr Rider's letters. He signalled it out 
 by instinct, and opened it with an impatience wonder- 
 ful to behold. 
 
 " Sir, — We are all at the Blue Boar until we can 
 get lodgings, which I hope to be to-day. I am utterly 
 ashamed of Fred for not having let you know, and 
 indeed of myself for trusting to him. I should not 
 wonder but we may have been under a mistake about 
 him and you. If you could call about one, I should 
 most likely be in to see you, and perhaps you could 
 give me your advice about the lodgings. Neither of 
 them have the least judgment in such matters. I am 
 sorry to trouble you ; but being a stranger, perhaps 
 you will excuse me. I understand you are only at 
 home in the evening, and that is just the time I can't 
 come out, as I have the whole of them to look to, 
 which is the reason I ask you to call on me. Begging 
 you will pardon me, I remain, 
 
 " Nettie Underwood." 
 
 " She remains Nettie Underwood," said the doctor 
 unawares. He laughed to himself at that conclusion. 
 Then an odd gleam came across his face. It was pro- 
 bably the first time he had laughed in a natural fashion 
 for some months back, and the unusual exertion made 
 his cheeks tingle. His temper was improved that 
 
THE doctor's family. 85 
 
 morning. He went off to his patients almost in a 
 good humour. When he passed the great house where 
 Bessie Christian now reigned, he recalled her image 
 with a positive effort. Astonishing what an effect of 
 distance had floated over the apparition of that bride. 
 "Was it a year since he saw her and gnashed his teeth 
 at the thought of his own folly, or was it only last 
 Sunday? The doctor could not tell. He put Nettie's 
 note in his pocket-book, and was at the hotel door 
 punctually at one o'clock. It was in the principal 
 street of Carlingford, George Street, where all the best 
 shops, and indeed some of the best houses, were. 
 From the corner window of the hotel you could see 
 down into the bowery seclusion of Grange Lane, and 
 Mr Wodehouse's famous apple-trees holding tempting 
 clusters over the high wall. The prospect was very 
 diflferent from that which extended before Dr Rider's 
 window. Instinctively he marvelled within himself 
 whether, if Dr Marjoribanks were to die — people 
 cannot live for ever even in Carlingford — whether it 
 might not be a disadvantage to a man to live so far 
 out of the world. No doubt it was a temptation of 
 the Evil One. Happily the young man did not take 
 sufficient time to answer himself, but walked forward 
 briskly through the mazy old passages of the old inn, 
 to a room from which sundry noises issued. Dr Rider 
 walked in with the natural confidence of a man who 
 
86 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 has an appointment. The room was in undisturbed 
 possession of three children — three children making 
 noise enough for six — all very small, very precocious, 
 with staring round eyes and the most complete inde- 
 pendence of sjieech and manners. The doctor con- 
 fronted the little rabble thunderstruck ; they were his 
 brother's children, unrecognisable little savages as 
 they were. One little fellow, in a linen jjinafore, was 
 mounted on the arm of a sofa, s^jurring vigorously ; 
 another was pursuing his sister about the room, trying 
 to catch her feet with the tongs, and filling the air 
 with repeated loud snaps of disappointment. They in- 
 termitted their occupations to stare at him. " Look 
 here— here's a man," said the youngest, meditatively, 
 beholding his dismayed uncle with a philosophic eye. 
 " Can't some one go and tell Nettie ? " said the little 
 girl, gazing also with calm equanimity. " If he wants 
 Nettie he'll have to wait," said the elder boy. A pause 
 followed ; the unhappy doctor stood transfixed by the 
 steady stare of their three pair of eyes. Suddenly the 
 little girl burst out of the room, and ran screaming 
 along the passage. " Mamma, mamma, here's a man 
 come," cried the wonderful colonial child. A few 
 minutes afterwards their mother appeared, languid and 
 faded as befoi-e. Perhaps she had been even prettier 
 than Nettie in her bright days, if any days had ever 
 l)een bright for Fred Eider's wife. She was fairer. 
 
THE doctor's family. 87 
 
 larger, smoother than her sister ; but these advantages 
 had lapsed in a general fade, which transformed her 
 colour into washy pinkness, made her figure stoop, 
 and her footsteps drag. She came remonstrating all 
 the way in feeble accents. It was not for her, cer- 
 tainly, that the doctor had taken the trouble to come 
 to the Blue Boar. 
 
 "Please to sit down," said Mrs Fred, and stood 
 leaning on the table, looking at her brother-in-law 
 with a calm curiosity, not unlike that of her children. 
 " Nettie and my husband have gone out together ; but 
 now that we are all so happy and united,'' she con- 
 tinued, with a sort of feeble spitefulness, " I am sure 
 it is quite a pity to trouble you. You could not take 
 us in, you know. You said that very plain, Mr Ed- 
 ward." 
 
 " It was perfectly true, madam," said the doctor. 
 " I have not ventured on the step my brother has 
 taken, and have naturally no accommodation for a 
 family. But I am not here for my own pleasure. 
 Your sister, I presume it is, wrote to me. I was 
 requested to call here to-day." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; Kettie is very self-willed — very ; though, 
 of course, we could not get on without her. She at- 
 tacked Fred like a wild- cat for not writing you : but 
 I daresay, if the truth were known, you did not expect 
 to hear from my husband," said the wife, recovering 
 
88 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 her voice, and fixing a vindictive gaze upon her visitor, 
 who felt himself betrayed. 
 
 " I came by Miss Underwood's instructions and at 
 her request," said the unfortunate man. " We need 
 not enter into any question between Fred and myself." 
 
 " Ah, yes, that is very safe and wise for you," 
 laughed Fred's wife. 
 
 The doctor was deeply exasperated, as was only 
 natural : he eyed the feeble helpless creature for a 
 moment angrily, provoked to answer her ; but his 
 gaze became one of wonder and dismay ere he with- 
 drew it. Surely of all incomprehensible entities, the 
 most amazing is a fool — a creature insensate, un- 
 reasoning, whom neither argument nor fact can make 
 any impression upon. Appalled and impressed, the 
 doctor's gaze left that j)retty faded face to turn ujDon 
 the children. Dreadful imps ! If Fred had only taken 
 to evil ways after he became jjossessed of such a family, 
 his brother could have forgiven him. AYliile these 
 thoughts 23assed through Dr Eider's mind, however, 
 deliverance approached. He heard Nettie's voice in 
 the passage, long before she reached the door. Not 
 that it was loud like the voices of this dreadful house- 
 hold ; but the tone was suflticiently peculiar to be 
 recognised anywhere. With a most penetrating clear- 
 ness, it came through the long passages, words in- 
 audible, only the sound of a voice, rapid, breathless, 
 
THE doctor's family. 89 
 
 decided — with the distant sound of Fred's long, sham- 
 bling, uncertain footstep coming in as the strange 
 accompaniment. Then they entered the room — the 
 one tiny, bright, dauntless, an intrej)id, undiscourage- 
 able little soul ; the other with his heavy large limbs, 
 his bemused face, his air of hopeless failure, idleness, 
 content. Edward Eider gazed involuntarily from 
 one to another of this two. He saw the sprite place 
 herself between the husband and wife, a vain little 
 Quixote, balancing these extremes of helplessness and 
 ruin. He could not help looking at her with a certain 
 unconscious admiration and amazement, as he might 
 have looked at a forlorn hope. Thousands of miles 
 away from her friends, wherever and whatever they 
 might be, with Fred and his wife and children on her 
 hands, a household of incapables — what was that little 
 creature to do ? 
 
 " Good morning, Dr Edward," said Nettie. " I 
 thought I should have been back sooner ; but Fred is 
 so slow, I cannot manage to get him along at all. We 
 have found some lodgings a little way out of Carling- 
 ford, near that chapel, you know, or church, or some- 
 thing, that stands a little off the road ; where it's 
 open, and there's morning service, and such a hand- 
 some young clergyman. Who is he ? We went into 
 the chapel, and it's so fine, you would not believe it. 
 Well, just a hundred yards from there is the house. 
 
90 CHRONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 Four rooms, exactly what I wanted, with a garden for 
 the children to play in — quite quiet, and fresh, and 
 pleasant. Tell me who the people are — their name is 
 Smith. If they're respectable, I'll go back and take 
 it. I can afford the rent." 
 
 " Near St Eoque's ? They belong to the church 
 there. I daresay they are all right," said the doctor, 
 " but it is a long way off, and inconvenient, and " 
 
 " That is just why I want it," said Nettie. " We 
 never were used to conveniences, and none of us want 
 to be much in the town, so far as I know. It is the 
 very thing. Why has not lunch come up ? — what do 
 these people mean, Susan, by not attending to their 
 orders ? Ring the bell, Freddy — ring loud ; and after 
 lunch, as your drag is at the door, Dr Edward, you'll 
 drive me down to this place again, that I may secure 
 it, won't you? I want to have a talk with you be- 
 sides. — Lunch, please, immediately. I ordered it to 
 be ready at one — now it is half-past. W^e can't have 
 our time wasted this way. — Dr Edward, please, you'll 
 stay." 
 
 The doctor gazed with ever-increasing amazement 
 at the little speaker. Nobody else had spoken a word. 
 Fred had nodded to him sullenly. Fred's wife had 
 sunk back on the sofa — everybody seemed to recognise 
 Nettie as supreme. He hesitated, it must be confessed, 
 to put his grievances so entirely aside as to sit down 
 
THE doctor's family. 91 
 
 in perfect amity with Fred and his household ; but to 
 refuse to drive Nettie to St Eoque's was impossible. 
 The blood rushed to the doctor's face at the thought. 
 What the world of Carlingford would say to see his 
 well-known vehicle proceeding down Grange Lane, 
 through Dr Marjoribanks's territories, under such 
 circumstances, was a question he did not choose to 
 consider ; neither did he enter too minutely into the 
 special moment at which his next patient might be 
 expecting him. The young man was imder the spell, 
 and did not struggle against it. He yielded to the 
 invitation, which was a command. He drew near the 
 table at which Nettie, without hesitation, took the 
 presiding place. A dull amount of conversation, often 
 interrupted by that lively little woman, rose in the 
 uncongenial party. Nettie cut uj) the meat for those 
 staring imps of children — did them all up in snowy 
 napkins — kept them silent and in order. She regu- 
 lated what Susan was to have, and which things were 
 best for Fred. She appealed to Dr Edward perpetually, 
 taking hira into her confidence in a way which could 
 not fail to be flattering to that young man, and actually 
 reduced to the calmness of an ordinary friendly party 
 this circle so full of smouldering elements of com- 
 motion. Through all she was so dainty, so pretty, her 
 rapid fi^ngers so shapely, her eager talk so sweet-toned, 
 that it was beyond the power of mortal man to remain 
 
92 CHKOXICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 uninterested. It was a development of womankind 
 unknown to Dr Eider. Bessie Christian had exhausted 
 the race for him until now ; but Nettie was a thousand 
 times more piquant than Bessie Christian. He gazed 
 and wondered, and moralised secretly in his own mind, 
 what was to become of the girl ? — what could she do ? 
 
 " You have left some of your things at my house, 
 Fred," said the doctor, making an attempt to approach 
 his sullen brother, who evidently expected no overtures 
 of friendship. 
 
 " Yes. Mrs Rider, you see, arrived unexpectedly," 
 said Fred, with confusion — " in fact, I knew nothing 
 about it, or — or I should have told you — Nettie " 
 
 " Nettie thought it best to come off at once, without 
 writing," explained Fred's wife. 
 
 "What was the use of writing?" cried that little 
 person. " You had written to Fred for six months 
 without ever getting an answer. You made everybody 
 unhappy round you with your fears and troubles about 
 him. I knew perfectly he was quite well and enjoying 
 himself ; but, of course, Susan would not be convinced. 
 So what was there for it but bringing her away? 
 What else could I do, Dr Edward ? And to leave the 
 children would have been preposterous. In the first 
 place, I should have been miserable about them ; and 
 so, as soon as she found Fred was all right, would 
 Susan : and something would certainly have happened 
 
THE doctor's family. 93 
 
 — scarlet fever or something — and at the end of all I 
 should have had to go out again to fetch them. So 
 the shortest way was to bring them at once. Don't 
 you think so ? And to see us all here so comfortable, 
 I am sure is enough to repay any one for the trouble. 
 Fred, don't drink any more beei\" 
 
 Nettie put out her tiny hand as she spoke to arrest 
 the bottle. Fred stared at her with a dull red flush on 
 his face ; but he gave in, in the most inexplicable way ; 
 it seemed a matter of course to yield to Nettie. The 
 doctor's amazement began to be mingled with amuse- 
 ment. To see how she managed them all was worth 
 the sacrifice of a little time — unconsciously he became 
 more fraternal in his thoughts. He spoke to foolish 
 faded Mrs Fred with a total forgivcDCSS and forgetful- 
 ness of her spiteful speech. He hoped she would like 
 Carlingford ; he said something to the children. But 
 it was not easy to talk in presence of that amazing 
 family party, the existence of which he had not dreamed 
 of a few days ago. To see his brother at the head of 
 such a group had, in spite of himself, a wonderful 
 effect upon Dr Eider. Their children, of course, must 
 be supported somehow. "WTio was to do it ? Was 
 their father, grown incapable and useless in the middle 
 of his days, to be forced into the current of life again ? 
 Was it a vague faith in Providence which had brought 
 the helpless household here ; or was it a more distinct. 
 
94 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 if not SO elevated, confidence in Nettie ? The doctor's 
 heart sank once more within him as he looked round 
 the table. Three helpless by nature — two equally 
 helpless who ought in nature to have been the support 
 of the whole — nothing but one bright ready little 
 spirit between them all and destitution ; and what 
 could Nettie do to stave that wolf from the door? 
 Once more Dr Eider's countenance fell. If the house- 
 hold broke down in its attempt at independence, who 
 had they to turn to but himself? — such a prospect was 
 not comfortable. When a man works himself to death 
 for his own family, he takes the pleasure with the 
 pain ; but when another's family threatens to fall 
 upon his hands, the prospect is naturally appalling — 
 and even if Fred could do anything, what Avas Fred's 
 life, undermined by evil habit, to depend upon ? Si- 
 lence once more fell over the little company — silence 
 from all but Nettie and the children, who referred to 
 her naturally instead of to their mother. Fred was 
 sullen, and his wife took her cue from him. Edward 
 was uneasy and dismayed. Family parties suddenly 
 assembled without due warning are seldom greatly 
 successful ; and even Nettie could not make immediate 
 reconciliation and fraternal kindness out of this. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Take me down this long pretty road. There must 
 be delicious houses inside the walls. Look here ; drive 
 slowly, and let us have a peep in at this open door," 
 said Nettie. " How sweet and cozy ! and who is that 
 pretty young lady coming out? I saw her in the 
 chapel this morning. Oh," added Nettie, with a little 
 sharpness, " she knows you — tell me who she is." 
 
 " That is Miss Lucy Wodehouse — one of our Car- 
 lingford beauties," said Dr Eider. 
 
 " Do you know her very well ? '' asked the inqui- 
 sitive Nettie. " How she stares — why does she stare , 
 do you sujDpose ? Is there anything absurd about my 
 dress ? Look here — don't they wear bonnets just like 
 this in England ? " 
 
 " So far as I am able to judge/^ said the doctor, 
 looking at the tiny head overladen with hair, from 
 which the bonnet had fallen half off. 
 
 " I suppose she is surprised to see me here. Drive 
 
96 CHRONICLES OF CARLIXGFORD : 
 
 on faster, Dr Edward, I want to talk to you. I see 
 Fred lias been telling ns a parcel of stories. It would 
 be cruel to tell Susan, you know, for she believes in 
 him ; but you may quite trust me. Is your brother 
 good for anything, Dr Edward, do you suppose ? " 
 
 " Not very much now, I fear," said the doctor. 
 
 " Not very much now. I suppose he never was 
 good for much," said the indignant Nettie ; " but he 
 was said to be very clever when he first came out to 
 the colony. I can't tell why Susan married him. She 
 is very self-willed, though you would fancy her so sub- 
 missive. She is one of those people, you know, who 
 fall ill when they are crossed, and threaten to die, so 
 that one daren't cross her. Now, then, what is to be 
 done with them ? He will not go back to the colony, 
 and I don't care to do it myself Must I keep them 
 here ? " 
 
 " Miss Underwood " began the perplexed doctor. 
 
 " It would save trouble to call me Nettie — every- 
 body does," said his strange companion ; " besides, 
 you are my brother in a kind of a way, and the only 
 person I can consult with ; for, of course, it would not 
 do to tell one's difficulties to strangers. Fred may 
 not be very much to depend upon, you know, but still 
 he is Fred." 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, with a little self-reproach, 
 " still he is Fred ; but pardon me, the name suggests 
 
THE doctor's family. 97 
 
 long aggravations. You can't tell how often I have 
 had to put up with affronts and injuries because it was 
 Fred. I shouldn't like to grieve you " 
 
 " Never mind about grieving me ; — I am not in 
 love with him; — let me hear all about it!" said 
 Nettie. 
 
 Dr Eider paused a little ; seeing the abyss upon the 
 brink of which this brave little girl was standing, he 
 had not the heart to aggravate her by telling the 
 failures of the past. Better to soften the inevitable 
 discovery if possible. But his hesitation was quite 
 apparent to Nettie. With considerable impatience she 
 turned round upon him. 
 
 "If you think I don't know what I am doing, but 
 have gone into this business like a fool, you are quite 
 mistaken, Dr Edward," she said, a little sharply. " I 
 see how it is as well as anybody can do. I knew how 
 it was when I left the colony. Don't be alarmed about 
 me. Do you think I am to be turned against my own 
 flesh and blood by finding out their follies ; or to 
 grumble at the place God put me in ? — Nothing of the 
 sort ! I know the kind of situation perfectly — but one 
 TTiay make the best of it, you know : and for that 
 reason tell me everything, please." 
 
 " But, Miss Underwood, consider," cried the doctor 
 in consternation. " You are taking responsibilities 
 upon yourself which nobody could lay upon you ; you ! 
 
98 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 young — tender" (the doctor paused for a word, afraid 
 to be too complimentary) — " delicate ! Why, the 
 whole burden of this family will come upon you. 
 There is not one able to help himself in the whole 
 bundle ! I am shocked ! — I am alarmed ! — I don't 
 know what to say to you " 
 
 " Don't say anything, please," said Nettie. " I know 
 what I am about. Do you call this a street or a lane, 
 or what do you call it ? Oh, such nice houses ! shouldn't 
 I like to be able to afford to have one of them, and 
 nurses, and governesses, and everything proper for the 
 children ? I should like to dress them so nicely, and 
 give them such a good education. I don't know any- 
 thing particular to speak of, myself — I shall never be 
 able to teach them when they grow older. If Fred, 
 now, was only to be trusted, and would go and work 
 like a man and make something for the children, I 
 daresay I could keep up the house ; — but if he won't 
 do anything, you know, it will take us every farthing- 
 just to live. Look here, Dr Edward : I have two hun- 
 dred a-year ; — Susan had the same, you know, but Fred 
 got all the money when they were married, and nnid- 
 dled it away. Now, how much can one do in Carling- 
 ford with three children upon two hundred a-year?" 
 
 " Fred will be the meanest blackguard in existence," 
 cried the doctor, " if he takes his living from you." 
 
 " He took his living from you, it appears," said 
 
THE doctor's family. 99 
 
 Nettie, coolly, " and did not thank you much. We 
 must make the best of him. We can't help ourselves. 
 Now, there is the pretty church, and there is our little 
 house. Come in with me and answer for me, Dr 
 Edward. You can say I am your sister-in-law, you 
 know, and then, perhaps, we can get into possession at 
 once ; for," said Nettie, suddenly turning round upon 
 the doctor with her brilliant eyes shining out quaintly 
 under the little brow all puckered into curves of fore- 
 sight, "it is so sadly expensive living where we are 
 now." 
 
 To look at the creature thus flashing those shining 
 eyes, not vdthout a smile lurking in their depths, upon 
 him — to see the triumphant, undaunted, undoubting 
 youthfulness wliich never dreamt of failure — to note 
 that pretty anxiety, the look which might have become 
 a bride in her first troubles "playing at housekeeping," 
 and think how desperate was the position she had as- 
 sumed, how dreary the burden she had taken upon her 
 — was almost too much for the doctor's self-control. 
 He did not know whether to admire the little heroine 
 as half-divine, or to turn from her as half-crazy. Pro- 
 bably, had the strange little spirit possessed a different 
 frame, the latter was the sentiment which would have 
 influenced the unimaginative mind of Edward Eider. 
 But there was no resisting that little brown Titania, 
 with her little head overladen with its beautiful hair, 
 
100 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 her red, delicate mouth closing firm and sweet above 
 that little decided chin, her eyes which seemed to con- 
 centrate the light. She seemed only a featherweight 
 Avhen the bewildered doctor helped her to alight — 
 an undoubted sprite and creature of romance. But to 
 hear her arranging about all the domestic necessities 
 within, and disclosing her future plans for the children, 
 and all the order of that life of which she took the 
 charge so unhesitatingly, bewildered the mistress of 
 the house as much as it did the wondering doctor. 
 The two together stood gazing at her as she moved 
 about the room, pouring forth floods of eager talk. 
 Her words were almost as rapid as her step, — her foot, 
 light as it was, almost as decided and firm as her reso- 
 lutions. She was a wonder to behold as she pushed 
 about the furniture, and considered how it could be 
 brightened up and made more comfortable. Gazing 
 at her with his silent lips apart, Dr Eider sighed at 
 the word. Comfortable ! Was she to give her mind 
 to making Fred and his children comfortable — such a 
 creature as this ? Involuntarily it occurred to Edward 
 that, under such ministrations, sundry changes might 
 come over the aspect of that prim apartment in which 
 he had seen her first ; the room with the bookcase and 
 the red curtains, and the prints over the mantelpiece 
 — a very tidy, comfortable room before any bewitching 
 imp came to haunt it, and whisper susj)icions of its 
 
THE doctor's family. 101 
 
 imperfection — the doctor's own retirement where he 
 had chewed the cud of sweet and bitter fancies often 
 enough, without much thought of his surroundings. 
 But Nettie now had taken possession of the prosaic 
 place, and, all unconscious of that spiritual occupation, 
 was as busy and as excited about Mrs Smith's lodgings 
 at St Eoque's Cottage as if it were an ideal home she was 
 preparing, and the life to be lived in it was the bright- 
 est and most hopeful in the world. • 
 
 When Dr Eider reached home that night, and took 
 his lonely meal in his lonely room, certain bitter 
 thoughts of unequal fortune occupied the young man's 
 mind. Let a fellow be but useless, thankless, and 
 heartless enough, and people spring up on all sides to 
 do his work for him, said the doctor to himself, with 
 a bitterness as natural as it was untrue. The more 
 worthless a fellow is, the more all the women con- 
 nected with him cling to him and make excuses for 
 him, said Edward Eider in his indignant heart. Mother 
 and sister in the past — wife and Nettie now — to think 
 how Ered had secured for himself such perpetual minis- 
 trations, by neglecting all the duties of life ! No 
 wonder an indignant pang transfixed the lonely bosom 
 of the virtuous doctor, solitary and unconsoled as he 
 was. His laborious days knew no such solace. And 
 as he fretted and pondered, no visions of Bessie Chris- 
 tian perplexed his thoughts. He had forgotten that 
 
102 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 young woman. All his mind was fully occupied chaf- 
 ing at the sacrifice of Nettie. He was not sorry, he 
 was angry, to think of her odd position, and the duties 
 she had taken upon herself. What had she to do with 
 those wretched children, and that faded spiteful mother? 
 Edward Rider was supremely disgusted. He said to 
 himself, with the highest moral indignation, that such 
 a girl ought not to be permitted to tie herself to such 
 a fate. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 St Roque's Cottage was considered rather a triumph 
 of local architecture. A Carlingford artist had built it 
 " after " the church, which was one of Gilbert Scott's 
 churches, and perfect in its way, so that its Gothic 
 qualities were unquestionable. The only thing wanting 
 was size, which was certainly an unfortunate defect, and 
 made this adaptation of ecclesiastical architecture to 
 domestic purposes a "very doubtful experiment. How- 
 ever, in bright sunshine, when the abundance of light 
 neutralised the want of window, all was well, and there 
 was still abundance of sunshine in Carlingford in Octo- 
 ber, three months after the entrance of Fred Rider and 
 his family into Mrs Smith's little rooms. It was a 
 bright autumn day, still mild, though with a crispness 
 in the air, the late season showing more in the desti- 
 tution of the flower-borders than in any more sensible 
 sign. It was a pretty spot enough for a roadside. 
 St Roque's stood on the edge of a little common, over 
 
104 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 which, at the other margin, you could see some white 
 cottages, natural to the soil, in a little hamlet-cluster, 
 dropped along the edge of the grey-green unequal grass, 
 while between the church and the cottage ran the 
 merest shadow of a brook, just enough to give place 
 and nutriment to three willow-trees which had been 
 the feature of the scene before St Eoque's was, and 
 which now greatly helj)ed the composition of the little 
 landscape, and harmonised the new building with the 
 old soil. St Eoque's Cottage, by special intervention 
 of Mr Wentworth, the perpetual curate, had dropped 
 no intervening wall between its garden and those 
 trees ; but, not without many fears, had contented 
 itself with a wooden paling on the side nearest the 
 willows. Consequently, the slope of grass at that side, 
 which Mrs Smith was too prudent to plant with any- 
 thing that could be abstracted, was a pretty slope with 
 the irregular willow shadows swept over it, thin, but 
 still presenting a pale obstruction to the flood of sun- 
 shine on this sjjecial afternoon. There a little group 
 was collected, in full enjoyment of the warmth and 
 the light. Mrs Rider, still faded, but no longer travel- 
 worn, sat farther up in the garden, on the green bench, 
 which had been softened with cushions for her use, 
 leisurely working at some piece of needlework, in lonely 
 possession of the chrysanthemums and Michaelmas 
 daisies round her ; while on the grass, dropped over 
 
THE doctoe's family. 105 
 
 with yellow flecks of willow leaves, lightly loosened 
 by every passing touch of wind, sat Nettie, all brown 
 and bright, working with the most rapid fingers at a 
 child's frock, and " minding " with a corner of her eye 
 the possessor of the same, the tiny Freddy, an imp of 
 mischief, uncontrollable by other hand or look than 
 hers. A little lower down, poking into the invisible 
 brook through the paling, was the eldest boy, silent 
 from sheer delight in the unexpected pleasure of coat- 
 ing himself with mud without remark from Nettie. 
 This unprecedented escape arose from the fact that 
 Nettie had a visitor, a lady who had bent down beside 
 her in a half-kneeling attitude, and was contemplating 
 her with a mingled amaze and pity which intensified 
 the prevailing expression of kindness in the mildest 
 face in the world. It was Miss Wodehouse, in her 
 soft dove-coloured dress and large soft checked shawl. 
 Her mild eyes were fixed upon that brilliant brown 
 creature, all buoyant and sparkling with youth. These 
 wonderful young people perplexed Miss Wodehouse ; 
 here was another incomprehensible specimen — most 
 incomprehensible perhaps of all that had ever crossed 
 her mild elderly horizon with bewildering unintelli- 
 gible light. 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Wodehouse, " things used to 
 be very different when I was young. When we were 
 girls we thought about our own pleasures — and — and 
 
106 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 vanities of all kinds," said the good woman, with a 
 little sigh ; " and, indeed, I can't think it is natural 
 still to see you devoting yourself like this to your 
 sister's family. It is wonderful ; but dear, dear me ! 
 it isn't natural, Nettie, such self-devotion." 
 
 '•' I do wish you wouldn't speak ! " said Nettie, with 
 'a sudden start — "self-devotion! stuff! I am only 
 doing what must be done. Freddy can't go on wear- 
 ing one frock for ever, can he — does it stand to reason? 
 Would you have me sit idle and see the child's petti- 
 coats drop to pieces ? I am a colonial girl — I don't 
 know what people do in England. Where I was 
 brought up we were used to be busy about whatever 
 lay nearest to our hand." 
 
 " It isn't Freddy's frock," said Miss Wodehouse, 
 with a little solemnity. " You know very well what 
 I mean. And suj)pose you were to marry — what 
 would happen supposing you were to marry, Nettie?" 
 
 "It is quite time enough to think of that when 
 there is any likelihood of it happening," said Nettie, 
 with a little toss of her head. " It is only idle people 
 who have time to think of falling in love and such 
 nonsense. When one is very busy it never comes 
 into one's head. Why, you have never married. Miss 
 Wodehouse ; and when I know that I have everything 
 I possibly could desire, why should I ? " 
 
 Miss Wodehouse bent her troubled sweet old face 
 
THE doctok's family. 107 
 
 over the handle of her parasol, and did not say any- 
 thing for a few minutes. "■ It is all very well as long 
 as you are young," she said, with a wistful look ; 
 "and somehow you young creatures are so much 
 handier than we used to be. Our little Lucy, you 
 know, that I can remember quite a baby — I am twice 
 as old as she is," cried Miss Wodehouse, " and she is 
 twice as much use in the world as I. Well, it is all 
 very strange. But, dear, you know, Ms isn't natural 
 all the same." 
 
 "It is dreadful to say so — it is dreadful to think 
 so ! " cried Nettie. " I know what you mean — not 
 Freddy's frock, to be sure, but only one's whole life 
 and heart. Should one desert the only people belong- 
 ing to one in the world because one haj)pens to have 
 a little income and they have none ? If one's friends 
 are not very sensible, is that a reason why one should 
 go and leave them ? Is it right to make one's escape 
 directly whenever one feels one is wanted? or what 
 do you mean, Miss Wodehouse?" said the vehement 
 girl. "That is what it comes to, you know. Do 
 you imagine I had any choice about coming over to 
 England when Susan was breaking her heart about 
 her husband ? could one let one's sister die, do you 
 suppose ? And now that they are all together, what 
 choice have I ? They can't do much for each other — 
 there is actually nobody but me to take care of them 
 
108 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 all. You may say it is not natural, or it is not right, 
 or anything you please, but what else can one do ? 
 That is the practical question," said Nettie, triumph- 
 antly. " If you will answer that, then I shall know 
 what to say to you. " 
 
 Miss Wodehouse gazed at her with a certain mild 
 exasperation, shook her head, wrung her hands, but 
 could find nothing to answer. 
 
 " I thought so," said Nettie, with a little outburst 
 of jubilee ; "that is how it always happens to abstract 
 people. Put the practical question before them, and 
 they have not a word to say to you. Freddy, cut the 
 grass with the scissors, don't cut my trimmings ; they 
 are for your own frock, you little savage. If I were 
 to say it was my duty and all that sort of stuff, you 
 would understand me. Miss Wodehouse ; but one only 
 says it is one's dutj^ when one has something dis- 
 agreeable to do ; and I am not doing anything dis- 
 agreeable," added the little heroine, flashing those eyes 
 which had confused Edward Eider — those brilliant, re- 
 solute, obstinate eyes, always, with the smile of youth, 
 incredulous of evil, lurking in them, upon her be- 
 wildered adviser. " I am living as I like to live." 
 
 There was a pause — at least there was a pause in 
 the argument, but not in Nettie's talk, which ran on 
 in an eager stream, addressed to Freddy, Johnnie, 
 things in general. Miss Wodehouse pondered over 
 
THE doctor's family. 109 
 
 the handle of her parasol. She had absolutely nothing 
 to say ; but, thoroughly unconvinced and exasperated 
 at Nettie's logic, could not yet retire from the field. 
 
 " It is all very well to talk just now/' said the 
 gentle woman at last, retiring upon that potent femi- 
 nine argument ; " but, Nettie, think ! If you were to 
 marry " 
 
 Miss Wodehouse paused, appalled by the image she 
 herself had conjured up. 
 
 " Marrying is reaUy a dreadful business, anyhow," 
 she added, with a sigh ; " so few people, you know, 
 can, when they might. There is poor Mr Went- 
 worth, who brought me here first ; unless he gets 
 
 preferment, poor fellow . And there is Dr Rider. 
 
 Things are very much changed from what they used 
 to be in my young days.'" 
 
 "Is Dr Rider in the same dilemma ? I suppose, of 
 course, you mean Dr Edward," cried Nettie, with a 
 little flash of mischievous curiosity. " Why ? He 
 has nobody but himself. I should like to know why 
 he can't marry — that is, if anybody would have him — 
 when he pleases. Tell me ; you know he is my 
 brother-in-law." 
 
 Miss Wodehouse had been thinking of Bessie Chris- 
 tian. She paused, partly for Dr Rider's sake, partly 
 because it was quite contrary to decorum, to suppose 
 that Bessie, now Mrs Brown, might possibly a year 
 
110 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 ago have married somebody else. She faltered a little 
 in her answer. " A professional man never marries till 
 he has a position," said Miss Wodehouse, abstractedly. 
 Nettie lifted upon her, eyes that danced with mischief 
 and glee. 
 
 "A profession is as bad as a family, then," said the 
 little Australian. " I shall remember that next time 
 you speak to me on this subject. I am glad to think 
 Dr Edward, with all his prudence, is disabled too." 
 
 When Nettie had made this imguarded speech, she 
 blushed ; and suddenly, in a threatening and defiant 
 manner, raised her eyes again to Miss Wodehouse's 
 face. Why? Miss Wodehouse did not understand 
 the look, nor put any significance into the words. 
 She rose up from the grass, and said it was time for 
 her to go. She went away, pondering in her own 
 mind those singular new experiences of hers. She 
 had never been called upon to do anything particular 
 all her gentle life. Another fashion of woman might 
 have found a call to action in the management of her 
 father's house, or the education of her motherless 
 young sister. But Miss Wodehouse had contented 
 herself with loving Lucy — had suffered her to grow up 
 very much as she would, without interference — had 
 never taken a decided part in her life. Wlien any- 
 thing had to be done, to tell the truth, she was very 
 inexpert — unready — deej^ly embarrassed with the un- 
 
THE doctor's family. Ill 
 
 usual necessity. Nettie's case, so wonderfully different 
 from anything she could have conceived, lay on her 
 mind, and oppressed her as she went home to Grange 
 Lane. 
 
 As for Nettie herself, she took her work and her 
 children indoors after a while, and tried on the new 
 frock, and scolded and rehabilitated the muddy hero 
 of the brook. Then, with those light fairy motions of 
 hers, she spread the homely table for tea, called in 
 Susan, sought Fred in his room up - stairs with a 
 stinging word which penetrated even his callous mind, 
 and made him for the moment ashamed of himself 
 Nettie bit her red lip till it grew white and bloodless as 
 she turned from Fred's door. It was not hard to work 
 for the children — to support and domineer over Susan ; 
 but it was hard for such an alert uncompromising 
 little soul to tolerate that useless hulk — that heavy 
 encumbrance of a man, for whom hope and life were 
 dead. She bit her lip as she discharged her sharp 
 stinging arrow at him through the half-opened door, 
 and then went down singing, to take her place at the 
 table which her own hands had spread — which her 
 own purse supplied with bread. Nobody there showed 
 the least consciousness of that latter fact ; nobody 
 fancied it was anything but natural to rely upon 
 Nettie. The strange household demeaned itself ex- 
 actly as if things were going on in the most regular 
 
112 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 and ordinary course. No wonder that spectators out- 
 side looked on with a wonder that could scarcely 
 find expression, and, half exasperated, half admiring, 
 watched the astonishing life of the colonial girl. 
 
 Nobody watched it with half the amount of exas- 
 peration which concentrated in the bosom of Dr Eider. 
 He gazed and noted and observed everything with a 
 secret rage, indignation, and incredulity impossible 
 to describe. He could not believe it even when it 
 went on before his very eyes. Doctor though he 
 was, and scientific, to a certain extent, Edward Eider 
 would have believed in witchcraft — in some philtre 
 or potion acting upon her mind, rather than in 
 Nettie's voluntary folly. Was it folly ? was it hero- 
 ism ? was it simple necessity, as she herself called 
 it ? Nobody could answer that question. The matter 
 was as incomprehensible to Miss Wodehouse as to 
 Dr Eider, but not of such engrossing interest. Bessie 
 Christian, after all, grew tame in the Saxon com- 
 posure of her beauty before this brown, sparkling, 
 self-willed, imperious creature. To see her among her 
 self-imposed domestic duties filled the doctor with a 
 smouldering wrath against all surrounding her, which 
 any momentary spark might set aflame. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Affaies went on in Carlingforcl with the usual com- 
 monplace pertinacity of human affairs. Notable events 
 happened but seldom in anybody's life, and matters 
 rolled back into their ordinary routine, or found a new 
 routine for themselves after the ordinary course of 
 humanity. After the extraordinary advent of Nettie 
 and her strange household — after the setting-out of 
 that wonderful little establishment, with all the amazed 
 expectation it excited — it was strange to see how every- 
 thing settled down, and how calmly the framework of 
 common life took in that exceptional and half-miracu- 
 lous picture. Lookers-on prophesied that it never 
 could last — that in the very nature of things some 
 sudden crisis or collapse must ensue, and the vain ex- 
 periment prove a failure ; but quiet nature and steady 
 time prevailed over these moralists and their prophe- 
 cies. The winter went on calmly day by day, and 
 Nettie and her dependants became legitimate portions 
 
114 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of Carlingford society. People ceased to wonder by 
 degrees. Gradually the eyes of Carlingford grew ac- 
 customed to that dainty tiny figure sweeping along, by 
 mere impulse of cheerful will and ceaseless activity, the 
 three o]oen-eyed, staring children, the faded mother. 
 Sometimes, indeed, Nettie, too clear of the necessity of 
 her own exertions, and too simply bent upon her busi- 
 ness, to feel any sentimental shame of her relations, 
 was seen quickening the sluggish steps of Fred himself, 
 who shufiled along by her side in a certain flush of self- 
 disgust, never perceptible upon him under any other 
 circumstances. Even Fred was dully moved by her 
 vicinity. When he saw other people look at them, his 
 bemused intellect was still alive enough to comprehend 
 that people were aware of his dismal dependence upon 
 that fairy creature, whom it was a shame to think of 
 as the support not only of his deserted children, but of 
 his own base comforts and idleness. But the spur, 
 though it pricked, did not goad him into any action. 
 When he got home, he took refuge in his room up- 
 stairs, in the hazy atmos23here drugged with the heavy 
 fumes of his pipe, and stretched his slovenly limbs on 
 his sofa, and buried his confused faculties in his old 
 novel. So he lived day by day, circumscribed in the 
 most dangerous of his indulgences by Nettie's unhesi- 
 tating strictures and rules, which nobody dared break, 
 but unlimited in his indolence, his novel, and his pipe. 
 
THE doctor's family. 115 
 
 That stifling fire, that close room, the ashes of the pipe 
 on the table, the listless shabby figure on the sofa, were 
 the most dismal part of the interior at St Roque's Cot- 
 tage, so far as it appeared to the external eye. But it 
 is doubtful whether Mrs Fred, spiteful and useless, 
 with her poor health, her selfish love, her utter un- 
 reason, dawdling over trifling matters which she never 
 completed ; or the three children, entirely unrespectful 
 of father or mother, growing up amid that wonderful 
 subversion of the ordinary rules of nature, with some 
 loyalty to Nettie, but no reverence in them, were not 
 as appalling companions to live with. Nettie, how- 
 ever, did not consider the matter as a spectator might. 
 She did not enter into it at all as a matter to be criti- 
 cised ; they simply belonged to her as they were. She 
 knew their faults without loving them less, or feeling 
 it possible that faults could make any diflerence to 
 those bonds of nature. Fred, indeed, did afflict her 
 lively impatient spirit ; — she had tried to quicken him 
 into life at first — she gave him up with a certain frank 
 scorn now, and accepted her position. Thus he was 
 to be all his life long this big cumberer of the ground. 
 Nettie, valorous and simple, made up her mind to it. 
 He was Fred — that was all that could be said on the 
 subject ; and, being Fred, belonged to her, and had to 
 be cared for like the rest. 
 
 It all grew into a matter of routine as that winter 
 
116 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 glided along ; outside and in, everybody came to take 
 it for granted. Miss AVodeliouse, who, with a yearn- 
 ing admiration of a creature so totally unlike herself, 
 came often to visit Nettie, ceased to expostulate, 
 almost ceased to wonder. Mr Wentworth no longer 
 opened his fine eyes in amazement when that household 
 was named. Mrs Smith, their landlady, calmly brought 
 her bills to Nettie, and forgot that it was not the most 
 natural thing in the world that she should be paid by 
 Miss Underwood. The only persistent sceptic was the 
 doctor. Edward Eider could not, would not, believe 
 it. He who had so chafed under Fred's society, felt it 
 beyond the bounds of human possibility that Nettie 
 could endure him. He watched with an eagerness 
 which he found it difficult to account for, to see the 
 first symptoms of disgust which must ere long mark 
 the failure of this bold but foolish venture. It occu- 
 pied his mind a great deal more than was good for his 
 own comfort ; perhaps more than was best for his 
 patients. Though he had few people to visit in that 
 quarter of the town, his drag was seen to pass St 
 Eoque's Cottage most days in the week ; and when 
 urgent messages came for Dr Eider in the evening, his 
 little groom always wended his way out through the 
 special district of Dr Marjoribanks to find his master, 
 if the doctor was not at home. Not that all this devo- 
 tion assisted him much either in increase of friendship 
 
THE doctor's family. 117 
 
 with his relations, or in verification of his auguries. 
 The disgust of the young doctor, when he saw his 
 brother's slovenly figure in his own chair, was nothing 
 to his disgust now, when he saw that same form, so 
 out of accordance with the neat little sitting-room 
 which Nettie's presence made dainty and refined in its 
 homeliness, lounging in Nettie's way. He could not 
 bring himself to sjDeak with ordinary patience to Fred ; 
 and Fred, obtuse as he was, perceived his brother's dis- 
 gust and contempt, and resented it sullenly ; and be- 
 trayed his resentment to the foolish wife, who sulked 
 and said spiteful things to Edward. It was not a 
 pleasant family group. As for Nettie, she was much 
 too fully occupied to give her society or conversation 
 to Dr Eider. She came and went while he was there, 
 busy about a thousand things, always alert, decided, 
 uncompromising — not disinclined to snub either Fred 
 or Susan when opportunity offered, totally unconscious 
 even of that delicacy with which a high fantastical 
 heroine of romance would have found it necessary to 
 treat her dependants. It was this unconsciousness, 
 above all, that irritated the doctor. If she had shown 
 any feeling, he said to himself— if she had even been 
 grandly aware of sacrificing herself and doing her duty 
 — there would have been some consolation in it. But 
 Nettie obstinately refused to be said to do her duty. 
 She was doing her own will with an imperious distinct- 
 
118 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : 
 
 ness and energy — having her own way — displaying no 
 special virtue, but a determined wilfulness. Dr Eider 
 was half disgusted with Nettie, to see how little disgust 
 she showed of her companions. He was disappointed 
 in her : he concluded to himself that she did not show 
 that fine perception which he was disposed to expect 
 from so dainty a little sprite. Yet, notwithstanding- 
 all these disappointed expectations, it is astonishing 
 how he haunted that room where the society was so 
 unattractive, and bore j\Irs Fred's spiteful speeches, 
 and suffered his. eyes and his temper to be vexed 
 beyond endurance by the dismal sight of his brother. 
 The children, too, worried their unfortunate uncle be- 
 yond description. He did not dislike children : as a 
 general rule, mothers in the other end of Carlingford, 
 indeed, declared the doctor to be wonderfully tender 
 and indulgent to his little patients : but those crea- 
 tures, with their round staring eyes, the calm remarks 
 they made upon then- father's slovenly indolence and 
 their mother's imbecility — their precocious sharp -sight- 
 edness and insubordination, moved Dr Rider with a 
 sharp prevailing inclination, intensifying by times al- 
 most into action, to whip them all round, and banish the 
 intolerable brats out of sight. Such was his unpater- 
 nal way of contemplating the rising hopes of his house. 
 How Nettie could bear it all, was an unceasing marvel 
 
THE doctor's family. 119 
 
 to the doctor. Yet, in spite of these disagreeables, he 
 went to St Roque's all the same. 
 
 One of these winter evenings the doctor wended his 
 way to St Roque's Cottage in a worse frame of mind 
 than usual. It was a clear frosty night, very pleasant 
 to be out in, though sharp and chill ; such a night as 
 brightens young eyes, and exhilarates young hearts, 
 when all is well with them. Young Rider could hear 
 his own footsteps echoing along the hard frost-bound 
 road, and could not but wonder in himself as he drew 
 near the group of buildings which broke the solitude 
 of the way, whether Nettie too might hear it, and 
 perhaps recognise the familiar step. The shadow of 
 St Roque's fell cold over him as he passed. Just from 
 that spot the light in the parlour window of the cot- 
 tage became perceptible to the wayfarer. A shadow 
 crossed the blind as he came in sight — Nettie un- 
 questionably. It occurred to Dr Rider to remember 
 with very sharp distinctness at that moment, how 
 Nettie's little shadow had dropped across the sun- 
 shine that first morning when he saw her in his own 
 room. He quickened his step unawares — perhaps to- 
 night Nettie might be more accessible than usual, less 
 shut in and surrounded by her family. He pictured 
 to himself, as he went past the willows, which rustled 
 faintly with their long bare branches in the night air, 
 
120 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 that perhaps, as he was later than usual, Fred might 
 have retired to his den up-stairs ; and Susan might 
 have gone to bear Fred company — who knows? and 
 the children might be in bed, the dreadful little imps. 
 And for once a half hour's talk with the strange little 
 head of the house might comfort the young doctor's 
 fatigued mind and troubled heart. 
 
 For he was sadly fatigued and worn out. What 
 with incessant occupation and distracted thoughts, 
 this year had been a very exhausting one for the 
 doctor. He had fagged on through the whole summer 
 and autumn without any relaxation. He had chafed 
 over Fred's presence for half of the year, and had been 
 occupied for the other half with matters still more 
 absorbing and exciting. Even now his mind was in a 
 perpetual ferment, and no comforting spirit spoke 
 quietness to his soul — no stout heart strengthened his 
 — no lively intelligence animated his own to worthy 
 doings. He was very cross and fretful, and knew 
 himself to be so that particular evening — worried and 
 in want of rest. What a chance, if jDcrhaps he found 
 Nettie, whose very provocations were somehow more 
 interesting than other people's most agreeable and 
 tranquillising efforts, all alone and at leisure ! He 
 went on with some palpitations of hope. As soon as 
 he had entered the cottage, however, he found out the 
 delusion he was under. The children were the first 
 
THE doctor's family. 121 
 
 fact that presented itself to his senses ; an uproar that 
 pervaded the house, a novel tumult waking all the 
 echoes ; glimpses of flying figures pursuing each other 
 with brushes and mops, and other impromptu wea- 
 pons ; one astride upon the banisters of the stairs, 
 slidiog down from top to bottom ; another clinging 
 now and then, in the pauses of the conflict, to the top 
 of one of the doors, by which it swung back and for- 
 ward. Terrible infants ! there they all were in a com- 
 plete saturnalia, the door of the parlour half open all 
 the time, and no sound of Nettie's restraining voice. 
 Only poor Mrs Smith standing helpless, in successions 
 of fright and exasperation, sometimes alarmed for life 
 and limb, sometimes ready to give the little wretches 
 over to all the penalties of poetic justice. The poor 
 woman brightened a little when she perceived the 
 sympathetic horror on the doctor's face. 
 
 " How's this ? " exclaimed young Eider, with a sigh 
 of dismay. Alas ! however it was, no quiet imaginary 
 conference, no soothing glimpse of Nettie, was prac- 
 ticable to-night. He grew sulky and ferocious under 
 the thought. He seized the imp that hung on the 
 door, and set it down summarily with a certain moral 
 violence, unable to refrain from an admonitory shake, 
 which startled its sudden scream into a quavering 
 echo of alarm. " Do you want to break your neck, 
 sir?" cried the wrathful uncle. Dr Eider, however, 
 
122 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 had to spring aside almo.st before the words were 
 uttered to escape the encounter of a hearth -brush 
 levelled at him by his sweet little niece. " How is 
 this, Mrs Smitli?" cried the startled visitor, with in- 
 dignation, raising his voice sufficiently to be quite 
 audible through the half-open door. 
 
 " Bless you, sir. Miss is gone out to tea — don't say 
 nothink — I don't begrudge the poor young lady a bit 
 of a holiday," whispered the frightened landlady under 
 her breath ; " but I can't never give in to it again. 
 Their mamma never takes a bit of notice exceptin' 
 when they're found fault with. Lord ! to think how 
 blind some folks is when it's their own. But the poor 
 dear young lady, she's gone out for a little j)leasure — 
 only to Miss Wodehouse's, doctor," added Mrs Smith, 
 looking up with a sudden start to catch the stormy 
 expression on the doctor's face. 
 
 He made no reply to the troubled landlady. He 
 pushed the children aside, and made a stride into the 
 parlour. To be sure, if Nettie was not here, what a 
 charming opportunity to make himself disagreeable, 
 and give the other two a piece of his mind ! Edward 
 Eider was anything but perfect. He decided on that 
 expedient with an angry satisfaction. Since he could 
 not have Nettie, he would at least have this relief to 
 his feelings, which was next best. 
 
 The room was full of smoke, which came in heavy 
 
THE DOCTOR S FAMILY. 123 
 
 puffs from Fred's pipe. He himself lay stretched on 
 the little sofa ; Nettie's sofa — Nettie's room — the 
 place sacred in the doctor's heart to that bright little 
 figure, the one redeeming presence in this dismal 
 household. Mrs Fred sat dawdling opposite her hus- 
 band over some wretched fancy - work. Eyes less 
 prejudiced than those of Edward Pdder might have 
 imagined this a scene of coarse but not unpleasant 
 domestic comfort. To him it was a disgusting picture 
 of self-indulgence and selfish miserable enjoyment, 
 almost vice. The very tobacco which polluted the 
 atmosphere of her room was bought with Nettie's 
 money. Pah ! the doctor came in with a silent pale 
 concentration of fury and disgust, scarcely able to 
 compel himself to utter ordinary words of civility. 
 His presence disturbed the pair in their stolen plea- 
 sure. Fred involuntarily put aside his pipe, and Mrs 
 Fred made a little movement to remove from the table 
 the glass from which her husband had been drinking ; 
 but both recollected themselves after a moment. The 
 wife set down the glass with a little spiteful toss of 
 her head, the husband, with that heated sullen flush 
 upon his face, relighted his half-extinguished pipe, 
 and put up again on the sofa the slovenly slippered 
 feet which at Edward's first appearance he had with- 
 drawn from it. A sullen " How d'ye do ? " was all 
 the salutation that passed between them. They felt 
 
124 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 themselves found out ; the, visitor felt with rage and 
 indignation that he had found them out. Defiant 
 shame and resentment, spiteful passion and folly, on 
 one side, encountered the gaze of a spectator outside 
 whose opinion could not be mistaken, a known critic 
 and possible spy. Little comfort could come from this 
 strange reunion. They sat in uneasy silence for a few 
 minutes, mutually ready to fly at each other. Mrs 
 Fred, in her double capacity as a woman and a fool, 
 was naturally the first to speak. 
 
 " Nettie's gone out to tea," said that good wife. " I 
 daresay, Mr Edward, we should not have had the plea- 
 sure of seeing you here had you known that only Fred 
 and I were at home. It is very seldom we have an 
 evening to ourselves. It was too great a pleasure, I 
 suppose, not to be disturbed." 
 
 " Susan, hold your confounded tongue," said the 
 ungrateful Fred. 
 
 " I am sorry to disturb Mrs Rider," said Edward, 
 with deadly civility. " I was not aware, indeed, of the 
 domestic enjoyment I was likely to interrupt. But if 
 you don't want your boys to break their necks, some 
 one ought certainly to interfere outside there." 
 
 " That is exactly what I expected," said Mrs Fred. 
 " My poor children can't have a little amusement, poor 
 things, but somebody must interfere with it ; and my 
 poor Fred — perhaps you have some fault to find with 
 
THE doctor's family. 125 
 
 him, Mr Edward ? Oh, I can see it iu your looks ! 
 so please take your advantage, now that there's nobody 
 to be afraid of. I can tell you have ever so many 
 pleasant things just on your lips to say." 
 
 " I wish you'd mind your own business, Susan," 
 said her husband, who was uot a fool. " Look after 
 these imps there, and let me and Edward alone. 
 Nettie's gone out, you understand. She's a wonderful 
 creature, to be sure, but it's a blessed relief to get rid 
 of her for a little. A man can't breathe under her 
 sharp eyes," said Fred, half apologetic, half defiant, as 
 he breathed out a puff of smoke. 
 
 Edward Eider stared at his brother, speechless with 
 rage and indignation. He could have rushed upon 
 that listless figure, and startled the life half out of the 
 nerveless slovenly frame. The state of mingled re- 
 sentment, disappointment, and disgust he was in, made 
 every particular of this aggravating scene tell more 
 emphatically. To see that heavy vapour obscuring 
 those walls which breathed of Nettie — to think of this 
 one little centre of her life, which always hitherto had 
 borne in some degree the impress of her womanly 
 image, so polluted and vulgarised, overpowered the 
 young man's patience. Yet perhaps he of all men iu 
 the world had least right to interfere. 
 
 " How is it possible," burst forth the doctor all at 
 once, " that you can live upon that creature, Fred ? 
 
126 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 If you have the heart of a mouse in that big body of 
 yours — if you are not altogether lost and degraded, 
 how can you do it ? And, by Jove, when all is done, 
 to go and fill the only room she has — the only place 
 you have left her — with this disgusting smoke and 
 noise as soon as her back is turned. Good heaven ! 
 it sickens one to think of it. A fellow like you, as 
 strong as any hodman, to let such a creature sacrifice 
 herself to keep him in bread ; and the only bit of a 
 little place she can sit down in when she comes home 
 — It's too much, you know — it's more than she ought 
 to bear." 
 
 " And who are you, to meddle with us and our 
 arrangements ? " cried Mrs Fred. " My husband is in 
 his own house. You would not take us into your 
 house, Mr Edward " 
 
 "Hold your confounded tongue, I tell you," said 
 Fred, slowly gathering himself off the sofa. " You're 
 a pretty fellow to speak, you are — that wouldn't lend 
 a fellow a shilling to keep him from ruin. You had 
 better remember where you are — in — in — as Susan 
 says — my own house." 
 
 What outbreak of contempt might have come from 
 the doctor's lips was fortunately lost at that moment, 
 since a louder outcry than usual from outside, the 
 screams of the children, and the wailings of the land- 
 lady, at length roused the mother to the length of 
 
THE doctor's family. 127 
 
 going to the door. When she was gone the two 
 brothers eyed each other threateningly. Fred, not 
 without a certain intolerable sensation of shame, rose 
 to knock his pipe upon the mantel-shelf among Nettie's 
 pretty girlish ornaments. Somehow these aggravations 
 of insult to her image drove Edward Eider desperate. 
 He laid his hand on Fred's shoulder and shook him 
 violently. 
 
 " Wake up ! can't you wake up and see what you're 
 about?" cried the doctor ; "can't you show a little re- 
 spect for her, at least? Look here, Fred Eider. I 
 knew you could do anything shabby or mean, if it 
 suited you. I knew you would consent to hang a 
 burden on anybody that would take such a weight 
 upon them ; but, by Jove, I did not think you had 
 the heart to insult her, after all. A man can't stand 
 by and see that. Clear off your pipe and your brandy 
 before she comes, or, as sure as I am made of flesh 
 and blood, and not cast-iron " 
 
 The doctor's threats were interrupted by the entrance 
 of a woeful procession. Into the presence of the two 
 brothers, eyeing each other with such lowering faces, 
 Mrs Smith and her husband entered, carrying between 
 them, with solemn looks, the unconscious Freddy, while 
 his mother followed screaming, and his little brother 
 and sister staring open-mouthed. It was some relief 
 to the doctor's feelings, in the excitement of the 
 
128 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 moment, to rush to the window and throw it open, 
 admitting a gust of chill December air, penetrating- 
 enough to search to the bones of the fireside loiterer. 
 Fred was father enough to turn with anxiety to the 
 child. But his trembling nervous fingers and bemused 
 eyes could make nothing of the " case " thus so sud- 
 denly brought before him. He turned fiercely and 
 vacantly upon his wife, and demanded why everything 
 was suffered to go to ruin when ISTettie was away. 
 Mrs Fred, screaming and terrified, began to recrimi- 
 nate. The pallid figure of the child on the table gave 
 a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, to the 
 sordid miseries of which the night air, coming in with 
 a rush, chilling the group in their indoor dresses, and 
 flickering the flame of the candles, added one other 
 point of dismal accumulation. The child had dropped 
 from his s^dng on the door, and was stunned with the 
 fall. Both father and mother thought him dead in the 
 excitement of the moment ; but the accustomed and 
 cooler eyes of the doctor perceived the true state of 
 affairs. Edward Eider forgot his disgust and rage as 
 he devoted himself to the little joatient — not that he 
 loved the child more, but that the habits of his profes- 
 sion were strong upon him. When he had succeeded 
 in restoring the little fellow to consciousness, the 
 doctor threw a professional glance of inquiry round 
 him to see who could be trusted. Then, with a con- 
 
THE doctor's family. 129 
 
 temptuous shrug of his shoulders and impatient ex- 
 clamation, turned back to the table. Fred, shivering 
 and helpless, stood by the fire, uttering confused 
 directions, and rubbing miserably his own flabby hands ; 
 his wife crying, scolding, and incapable, stood at the 
 end of the table, offering no assistance, but wondering 
 when ever Nettie would come back. Dr Eider took 
 the patient in his arms, and, beckoning Mrs Smith to 
 go before him, carried the child up-stairs. There the 
 good mistress of the cottage listened to all his direc- 
 tions, and promised devoutly to obey him — to keep 
 the room quiet, if she could — to tell everything he had 
 said to Miss Nettie. He did not enter the desecrated 
 parlour again when he came down-stairs. What was 
 the use ? He was glad to go out and escape the chance 
 of a fraternal struggle. He went out into the cold night 
 air all thrilling with excitement and agitation. It was 
 not wonderful that a scene so strange should rouse many 
 impatient thoughts in the young man's mind ; but the 
 most intolerable of these had the most trifling orio-in. 
 That Fred should have smoked his pipe in Nettie's 
 sitting-room, when she was out of the way, was not, 
 after all, considering Fred's character, a very wonder- 
 ful circumstance, but it exasperated his brother to a 
 greater extent than much more important matters. 
 That aggravation entirely overpowered Edward Rider's 
 
 self-control. It seemed the culmination of all the 
 
 I 
 
130 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 wrong and silent insolent injury inflicted upon Nettie. 
 He saw the stain of these ashes on the little mantel- 
 shelf, the rolling cloud of smoke in the room, and in- 
 dignation burned yet higher and higher in his breast. 
 
 When the current of his thoughts was suddenly 
 checked and stimulated by the sound of voices on the 
 road. Voices, one of which was Nettie's, one the lofty 
 clerical accents of the Eev. Cecil Wentworth. The 
 two were walking arm-in-arm in very confidential 
 colloquy, as the startled and jealous doctor imagined. 
 What were these two figures doing together upon the 
 road ? why did Nettie lean on the arm of that hand- 
 some young clerical coxcomb ? It did not occur to 
 Dr Rider that the night was extremely dark, and that 
 Nettie had been at Miss Wodehouse's, where the 
 curate of St Eoque's was a perpetual visitor. With a 
 mortified and jealous pang, totally unreasonable and 
 totally irresistible, Edward Eider, only a moment be- 
 fore so fantastically extreme in Nettie's defence — in 
 the defence of Nettie's very " image " from all vulgar 
 contact and desecration — strode past Nettie now with- 
 out word or sign of recognition. She did not see him, 
 as he observed with a throbbing heart ; she was talk- 
 ing to young Mr Wentworth with all the haste and 
 eagerness which Dr Eider had found so captivating. 
 She never suspected who it was that brushed past her 
 with breathless, exasperated impatience in the darkness. 
 
THE doctor's family. 131 
 
 They went on past him, talking, laughing lightly, 
 under the veil of night, quite indifferent as to who 
 heard them, though the doctor did not think of that. 
 He, unreasonably affronted, galled, and mortified, turned 
 his back upon that house, which at this present dis- 
 appointed moment did not contain one single thing or 
 person which he could dwell on with pleasure ; and, a 
 hundred times more discontenting, fatigued, and worn 
 out — full of disgust with things in general, and him- 
 self a.nd his own fate in particular — than he had been 
 when he set out from the other end of Carlingford, 
 went sulkily, and at a terrific pace, past the long gar- 
 den-walls of Grange Lane, and all Dr Marjoribanks's 
 genteel patients. When he had reached home, he 
 found a message waiting him from an urgent invalid, 
 whose " case " kept the unhappy doctor up and busy 
 for half the night. Such was the manner in which 
 Edward Rider got through the evening — the one 
 wonderful exceptional evening when Nettie went out 
 to tea. 
 
CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 AViTH the da\Mi of the morning, however, and the few 
 hours' hurried rest which Edward Eider was able to 
 snatch after his labours, other sentiments arose in his 
 mind. It was quite necessary to see how the unlucky 
 child was at St Koque's Cottage, and perhaps what 
 Nettie thought of all that had occurred during her 
 absence. The doctor bethought himself, too, that 
 there might be very natural explanations of the curate's 
 escort. How else, to be sure, could she have got home 
 on a dark winter night through that lonely road ? Per- 
 haps, if he himself had been less impatient and ill- 
 tempered, it might have fallen to his lot to supersede 
 Mr Wentworth. On the whole, Dr Eider decided that 
 it was necessary to make one of his earliest calls this 
 morning at St Eoque's. 
 
 It was a foggy frosty day, brightened with a red 
 sun, which threw wintry ruddy rays across the mist. 
 Dr Eider drew up somewhat nervously at the little 
 Gothic porch. He was taken up-stairs to the bedroom 
 
THE doctor's family. 133 
 
 where little Freddy lay moaning and feverish. A dis- 
 tant hum came from the other children in the parlour, 
 the door of which, however, was fast closed this morn- 
 ing ; and Nettie herself sat by the child's bedside — 
 Nettie, all alert and vigorous, in the little room, which, 
 homely as its aspect was, displayed even to the doctor's 
 uninitiated glance a fastidious nicety of arrangement 
 which made it harmonious with that little figure. 
 Nettie was singing childish songs to solace the little 
 invalid's retirement — the " fox that jumped up on a 
 moonlight night," the " frog that would a-wooing go " 
 — classic ditties of which the nursery never tires. The 
 doctor, who was not aware that music was one of 
 Nettie's accomplishments, stopped on the stairs to 
 listen. And indeed she had not a great deal of voice, 
 and stiU less science, Nettie's life having been too 
 entirely occupied to leave much room for such studies. 
 Yet somehow her song touched the doctor's heart. 
 He forgave her entirely that walk with the curate. 
 He went in softly, less impatient than usual with her 
 crazy Quixotism. A child — a sick child especially — 
 was a bearable adjunct to the picture. A woman 
 could be forgiven for such necessary ministrations — 
 actually, to tell the truth, could be forgiven most follies 
 she might happen to do, when one could have her to 
 one's self, without the intervention of such dreary ac- 
 cessories as Susan and Fred. 
 
134 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 " Thank you very much for your care of this child 
 last night, Dr Edward," said the prompt Nettie, laying 
 down the large piece of very plain needlework in her 
 hand. " I always said, though you don't make a fuss 
 about the children, that you were quite to be relied on 
 if anything should happen. He is feverish, but he is 
 not ill ; and so long as I tell him stories and keep 
 beside him, Freddy is the best child in the world," 
 
 " More people than Freddy might be willing to be 
 ill under such conditions," said the doctor, compli- 
 mentary, but rueful. He felt his patient's pulse, and 
 prescribed for him with a softened voice. He lingered 
 and looked round the room, which was very bare, yet 
 somehow was not like any of the rooms in his house. 
 How was it ? — there were no ornaments about, except- 
 ing that tiny little figure with the little head overladen 
 with such a wealth of beautiful hair. The doctor 
 sighed. In this little sacred spot, where she was so 
 clearly at her post — or at least at a j^ost which no 
 other was at hand to take — he could not even resent 
 Nettie's self-sacrifice. He gave in to her here, with a 
 sigh. 
 
 " Since you think he is not ill to speak of, will you 
 drive me and the other children into Carling-ford, Dr 
 Edward ? " said the courageous Nettie. " It will be a 
 pleasure for them, you know, and I shall be able to do 
 my business without losing so much time ; besides, I 
 
THE doctor's family. 135 
 
 want to talk to you ; I can see you will in your eyes. 
 Go down, please, and talk to Mr Smith, wlio has got 
 a headache or something, and wants to see you. You 
 need not trouble yourself seeing Susan, who is cross, 
 of course. I don't wonder at her being cross ; it must 
 be very shocking, you know, to feel one's self of no 
 use, whatever happens. Thank you ; I shall be ready 
 in a minute, as soon as you have done talking to IMr 
 Smith." 
 
 The doctor went down obediently, and in an un- 
 usual flutter of pleasure, to see the master of the cot- 
 tage — totally indifferent to the ailments of the virtuous 
 Smith, and thinking only of Nettie and that drive to 
 Carlingford, where, indeed, he should not have gone, 
 had he considered the merely abstract matters of busi- 
 ness and duty, which led him entirely in a different 
 direction. He was somewhat rudely recalled to him- 
 self when he went down-stairs. Smith had no head- 
 ache, but only wanted to speak to the doctor about his 
 lodgers, whose " ways " were sadly discomposing to 
 himself and his wife. 
 
 " You saw how it was yourself last night, sir," said 
 the troubled landlady. " Them hangings — you know 
 the smoke goes through and through them. After 
 leaving all the windows open this frosty morning, and 
 a draught enough to give you your death, the place 
 smells like I don't know what. If it wasn't for Miss 
 
136 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 I wouldn't put up with it for a day : and the gentle- 
 man's own room, doctor ; if you was just to go in and 
 see it — just put your head in and say good morning — 
 you'd believe me." 
 
 " I know all about it," said the doctor ; " but Miss 
 Underwood, Mrs Smith— ? " 
 
 " There's where it is, sir," said the landlady. " I 
 can't find it in my heart to say a word to Miss. To 
 see how she do manage them all, to be sure ! but for 
 all that, doctor, it stands to reason as one can't spoil 
 one's lodgings for a family as may be gone to-morrow 
 — not except it's considered in the rent. It's more 
 natural-like to speak to a gentleman like you as knows 
 the world, than to a young lady as one hasn't a word to 
 say against — the handiest, liveliest, managingest ! Ah, 
 doctor, she'd make a deal different a wife from her 
 sister, that young lady would ! though it isn't my part 
 to say nothink, considering all things, and that you're 
 relations, like ; but Smith and me are both o' one 
 mind about it, Dr Eider — unless it's considered in the 
 rent, or the gentleman drops smoking, or " 
 
 " I hear Miss Underwood coming down stairs," cried 
 young Eider. " Next time I come we'll arrange it all. 
 But not a word to her, remember — not a syllable ; and 
 go up-stairs and look after that poor child, there's a 
 good soul — she trusts you while she is gone, and so do 
 I. There, there ! another time. I'll take the respon- 
 
THE doctor's family. 137 
 
 sibility of satisfying you, Mrs Smith," said the doctor 
 in a prodigious hurry, ready to promise anything in 
 this incautious moment, and bolting out of their little 
 dark back-room, which the local architect's mullions 
 had converted into a kind of condemned cell. Nettie 
 stood at the door, all ready for her expedition to Car- 
 lingford, with her two children, open-eyed and calmly 
 inquisitive, but no longer noisy. Mrs Fred was stand- 
 ing sulky at the parlour door. The doctor took off 
 his hat to her as he helped Nettie into the front seat 
 of the drag, but took care not to approach nearer. 
 The children were packed in behind, under charge of 
 the little groom, and, with an exhilarating sensation of 
 lawlessness in the present pleasure, Dr Eider turned 
 his back upon his duty and the patient wh© expected 
 him a mile on the other side of St Eoque's, and drove, 
 not too rapidly, into Carlingford. 
 
 " Mrs Smith was talking to you of us," said Nettie, 
 flashing her penetrating eyes upon the confused doctor. 
 " I know she was — I could see it in her face this 
 morning, and in yours when you came out of her room. 
 Dreadful little dungeon, is it not ? I wonder what the 
 man meant, to build such a place. Do they want to 
 turn us out, Dr Edward, or do they want more rent ? 
 I am not surprised, I am sure, after last night. Was 
 it not odious of Fred to go and smoke in the parlour, 
 the only place we can have tidy ? But it is no use 
 
138 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 speaking to him, you know ; nor to Susan either, for 
 that matter. Married people do stand up for each 
 other so when you say a word, however they may 
 fight between themselves. But is it more rent they 
 want, Dr Edward ? for I can't afford more rent." 
 
 " It is an abominable shame — you oughtn't to afford 
 anything. It is too dreadful to think of ! " cried the 
 angry doctor, involuntarily touching his horse with his 
 whip in the energy of the moment, though he was in- 
 deed in no hurry to reach Carliugford. 
 
 " Hush," said Nettie, lifting her tiny hand as 
 though to put it to his incautious mouth, which, in- 
 deed, the doctor would not have objected to. " We 
 shall quarrel on that subject if you say anything more, 
 so it is better to stop at once. Nobody has a right to 
 interfere with me ; this is my business, and no one 
 else has anything to do with it." 
 
 " You mistake," cried the doctor, startled out of all 
 his prudences ; " it ought to be my business quite as 
 much as it is yours." 
 
 Nettie looked at him with a certain careless scorn of 
 the inferior creature — " Ah, yes, I daresay ; but then 
 you are only a man," said Nettie ; and the girl ele- 
 vated that pretty drooping head, and flashed a whole 
 torrent of brilliant reflections over the sombre figure 
 beside her. He felt himself dow under the sudden 
 
THE doctor's family. 139 
 
 radiance of the look. To fancy this wilful imperious 
 creature a meek self-sacrificing heroine, was equally 
 absurd and impossible. Was there any virtue at all 
 in that dauntless enterprise of hers ? or was it simple 
 determination to have her own way ? 
 
 " But not to quarrel," said Nettie ; " for indeed you 
 are the only person in the world I can say a word to 
 about the way things are going on," she added, with a 
 certain momentary softening of voice and twinkling of 
 her eyelid, as if some moisture had gathered there. " I 
 think Fred is in a bad way. I think he is muddling 
 his brains with that dreadful life he leads. To think 
 of a man that could do hundreds of things living like 
 that ! A woman, you know, can only do a thing or 
 two here and there. If it were not wicked to say so, 
 one would think almost that Providence forgot some- 
 times, and put the wrong spirit into a body that did 
 not belong to it. Don't you think so ? When I look 
 at Fred I declare sometimes I could take hold of him 
 and give him a good shake, and ask him what he 
 means ; and then it all seems so useless the very idea 
 of expecting him to feel anything. I want to know 
 what you said to him last night." 
 
 " Not much — not half so much as I meant to have 
 said. To see him polluting your room ! " cried the 
 doctor, with a flush growing on his face, and breaking 
 
140 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 off abruptly, not quite able, to conclude the sentence. 
 Nettie gave him a shy upward glance, and grew sud- 
 denly crimson too. 
 
 " Did you mind ? " said Nettie, with a momentary 
 timidity, against the unexpected charm of which the 
 unhappy doctor fell defenceless ; then holding out her 
 tiny hand to him with shy frankness, " Thank you for 
 caring so much for me," said the dauntless little girl, 
 resolute not to perceive anything which could not be 
 fully spoken out. 
 
 " Caring so much ! I must speak to you ; we can't 
 go on like this, Nettie," cried the doctor, holding fast 
 the little unfaltering hand. 
 
 " Oh, here is the place I am going to. Please don't ; 
 people might not understand, — though we are brother 
 and sister in a kind of a way," said the little Austra- 
 lian. " Please, Dr Edward, we must get out here." 
 
 Por a moment Edward Rider hesitated with a wild 
 intention of urging his horse forward and carrying her 
 off anywhere, out of Carlingford, out of duty and prac- 
 tice and responsibility, and all those galling restraints 
 of life which the noonday light and everyday sounds 
 about, brought in with so entire a discord to break up 
 this momentary hallucination. Por half a minute only 
 the doctor lingered on the borders of that fairyland 
 where time and duty are not, but only one ineffable 
 moment always passing, never past. Then with a long 
 
THE doctor's family. 141 
 
 sigh, the breath of which dispersed a whole gleaming 
 world of visionary delights, he got down doggedly on 
 the commonplace pavement. Ah, what a descent it 
 was ! the moment his foot touched these vulgar flags, 
 he was once more the hard-worked doctor at every- 
 body's command, with a fretful patient waiting for 
 him a mile beyond St Roque's ; and all these dazzling 
 moments, which had rapt the unfortunate young fellow 
 into another world, were so much time lost to the prose 
 figure that had to help Nettie down and let her go, 
 and betake himself soberly about his own business. 
 Perhaps Nettie felt it a little disenchanting too, when 
 she was dropped upon the bare street, and went into 
 the common shop, and saw the doctor's drag flash ofi" 
 in the red frosty sunshine with a darting movement of 
 exasperation and impatience on the part of its aggra- 
 vated driver. For once in her life Nettie felt disposed 
 to be impatient with the children, who, unceremoni- 
 ously ejected from their perch behind, were not in the 
 most obedient frame of mind. The two young people 
 possibly agreed in their mutual sentiment of disgust 
 with other people's society just at that moment. 
 However, there was no help for it. Dr Eider galloped 
 his horse to his patient's door, and took it out of that 
 unlucky individual, who was fortunately strong enough 
 to be able to bear sharp practice. Nettie, when she 
 had made her little purchases, walked home smartly to 
 
142 CHRONICLES OF CARLINOrORD. 
 
 sing " The fox jumped up on a moonlight night" to 
 little Freddy in his bedroom. This kind of interlude, 
 however, as all young men and maidens ought to be 
 aware, answers much better in the evening, when a 
 natural interval of dreams interposes between it and 
 the common work of existence. Nettie decided, think- 
 ing on it, that this would never do. She made up her 
 mind not to have any more drives with the doctor. 
 There was no telling what such proceedings might lead 
 to. They were distinctly incompatible with the more 
 serious business of her life. 
 
CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 Such a parting, however, is sadly apt to lead to future 
 meetings. Notwithstanding his smouldering quarrel 
 with Fred, which was always ready to burst out afresh, 
 Dr Eider would not give up coming to St Eoque's. 
 He came to some clandestine arrangement with Mrs 
 Smith, of which nobody ever was aware, and which he 
 himself was rather ashamed of than otherwise ; and 
 he attended Freddy with the most dutiful exactness till 
 the child was quite restored. But all this time Nettie 
 put on a coat of armour, and looked so thoroughly 
 unlike herself in her unusual reserve and propriety, 
 that the doctor was heartily discouraged, and could go 
 no further. Besides, it would not be positively correct 
 to assert that — though he would gladly have carried 
 her oft' in the drag anywhere, to the end of the world, 
 in the enchantment of the moment — he was just as 
 ready to propose setting up a new household, with 
 Fred and his family hanging on to it as natural de- 
 
144 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 pendants. That was a step the doctor was not pre- 
 pared for. Some people are compelled to take the 
 prose concerns of life into full consideration even when 
 they are in love, and Edward Eider was one of these 
 unfortunate individuals. The boldness which puts 
 everything to the touch to gain or lose was not in this 
 young man. He had been put to hard encounters 
 enough in his day, and had learned to trust little to 
 chance or good fortune. He did not possess the bold- 
 ness which disarms an adverse fate, nor that confidence 
 in his own powers which smooths down wounded pride, 
 and accounts even for failure. He was, perhaj)s it is 
 only right to say, not very capable of heroism ; but he 
 was capable of seeing the lack of the heroic in his own 
 composition, and of feeling bitterly his own self- 
 reproaches, and the remarks of the world, which is 
 always so ready to taunt the very cowardice it creates. 
 After that moment in which he could have dared any- 
 thing for her and with her, it is 'sad to be obliged to 
 admit that perhaps Dr Edward too, like Nettie, with- 
 drew a little from that climax of feeling. Not that his 
 heart grew colder or his sentiments changed ; but only 
 that, in sight of the inevitable result, the poor young 
 fellow paused and pondered, obeying the necessity of 
 his nature. People who jump at conclusions, if they 
 have to bear the consequences of folly often enough, 
 are at least spared these preliminary heartaches. Dr 
 
THE doctor's family. 145 
 
 Eider, eager as love and youth could make him, was 
 yet incapable of shutting his eyes to the precipice at 
 his feet. That he despised himself for doing so, did 
 not make the matter easier. These were the limits of 
 his nature, and beyond them he could not pass. 
 
 Accordingly matters went on in this dangerous 
 fashion for many weeks longer. The fire smouldered, 
 strengthening its pent-up flames. Day by day mali- 
 cious sprites of thought went out behind Dr Rider 
 in his drag, leading him into the wildest calculations, 
 the most painful complication of schemes. If Fred 
 and his family could only be persuaded to return to 
 Australia, his brother thought — if any bribe within 
 Edward's means could tempt the ruined man to such 
 a step ; and when he was there, why there was Pro- 
 vidence to take care of the helpless unlovely house- 
 hold, and necessity might compel the wretched father 
 to work for his children. Such were the vain projects 
 that revolved and fermented through the doctor's agi- 
 tated brain as he went among his patients. Luckily 
 he had a very favourable and well-disposed lot of 
 sick people at that crisis — they all got well in spite 
 of the doctor, and gave their own special cases and 
 his anxiety all the credit for his grave looks ; and all 
 these half-finished streets and rough new roads in the 
 east end of Carlingford were sown thick with the 
 bootless suggestions of Dr Eider's love and fears. 
 
 K 
 
146 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 The crop did not show upon the vulgar soil, but gave 
 lurking associations to every half-built street-corner 
 which he passed in his rounds many a day after, and 
 served at this present momentous era to confuse doubly 
 the chaos of his thoughts. 
 
 At last one night the crisis came. Spring had 
 begun to show faintly in the lengthening days — spring, 
 that so often belies itself, and comes with a serpent's 
 tooth. Dr Rider on that particular day had met Dr 
 Majoribanks at some meeting convened in the interests 
 of Carlingford. The old physician had been very 
 gracious and cordial to the young one — had spoken of 
 his own declining health, of his possible retirement, of 
 the excellent prospects which a rising young man in 
 their profession had in Carlingford ; and, finally, had 
 asked Dr Rider to go with him next day to see an 
 interesting patient, and advise as to the treatment of 
 the case. 
 
 The young doctor was more pleased than he could 
 or would have told any one ; and, with a natural im- 
 pulse, seized the earliest moment to direct his steps 
 towards St Roque's. 
 
 It was twilight when Dr Edward went down the 
 long and rather tiresome line of Grange Lane. These 
 garden-walls, so delicious in their bowery retirements 
 within, were not interesting outside to the pedestrian. 
 But the doctor's attention was so speedily riveted on 
 
THE doctor's family. 147 
 
 two figures eagerly talking near Mr Woclehouse's gar- 
 den-door, that the long sweep of wall seemed but a 
 single step to him as he hurried along. These two 
 figures were unquestionably Nettie for one, and Mr 
 Wentworth for another. Handsome young coxcomb, 
 with all his Puseyitical pretences ! Was Lucy Wode- 
 house not enough for him, that he must have Nettie 
 too? Dr Rider hurried forward to interrupt that 
 meeting. He was actually turning with her, walking 
 slowly back again the very way he had just come ! 
 Edward's blood boiled in his impatient veins. He 
 swept along in a whirlwind of sudden wrath. When 
 he came up to them Nettie was talking low, and the 
 curate's lofty head was bent to hear her in a manner 
 which, it is probable, Lucy Wodehouse would no more 
 have admired than Edward Eider. They came to a 
 sudden pause when he joined them, in that particular 
 conversation. The doctor's dread civility did not im- 
 prove matters. Without asking himself what cause he 
 had, this aimable young man plunged into the wildest 
 jealousy without pause or interval. He bestowed upon 
 Nettie the most cutting looks, the most overwhelming- 
 politeness. When the three had marched solemnly 
 abreast down the road for some few minutes, the cur- 
 ate, perhaps with an intuition of fellow-feeling, per- 
 ceiving how the matter was, stopped short and said 
 good-bye. " 1 will make inquiries, and let you know 
 
1 48 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 next time I pass the cottage," said Mr "Wentworth ; 
 and he and the doctor took off their hats, not without 
 deadly thoughts on one side at least. When the young 
 clergyman left them, Nettie and her sulky cavalier went 
 on in silence. That intrepid little woman was not in 
 her usual spirits, it appeared. She had no talk for Dr 
 Edward any more than he had for her. She carried a 
 multiplicity of little parcels in her hands, and walked 
 with a certain air of fatigue. The doctor walked on, 
 stealing silent looks at her, till his heart melted. But 
 the melting of his heart displayed itself characteristi- 
 cally. He would not come down from his elevation 
 without suffering her to see how angry he was. 
 
 " I fear I interrupted an interesting conversation — 
 I that have so little hope of equalling Mr Wentworth. 
 Priests are always infallible with women," said the 
 doctor, betraying his ill-temper in vulgar sneers. 
 
 " I was asking him for some one to teach the boys," 
 said Nettie. " Johnnie ought to have his education 
 attended to now. Mr Wentworth is very good-tem- 
 pered, Dr Edward. Though he was just going to 
 knock at Miss Wodehouse's door when I met him, he 
 offered, and would have done it if you had not come 
 up, to walk home with me. Not that I wanted any- 
 body to walk home with me ; but it was very kind," 
 said Nettie, with rising spirit. 
 
 "I am afraid I am a very poor substitute for Mr 
 
THE doctor's family. 149 
 
 Wentwortli," said the jealous doctor, "and I don't 
 pretend to be kind. But I am surprised to find Miss 
 Underwood walking so late. This is not a road for a 
 lady by herself." 
 
 " You know I don't mind in the lea'St for the road," 
 said Nettie, with a little indignation. " How wonder- 
 fully cross you are sometimes ! If you are going as 
 far as the Cottage," she added, with a little sigh of 
 fatigue, "will you please carry some of these things 
 for me ? I could not get out sooner, I have been so 
 busy to-day. It is wonderful how much needlework it 
 takes to keep three children going, and how many little 
 jobs there are to do. If you take this parcel, carry it 
 carefully, please : it is something for my bonnet. 
 There ! Don't be absurd. I am quite able to walk 
 by myself, thank you — I'd rather, please ! " 
 
 This remonstrance was caUed forth by the fact that 
 the relenting doctor, much moved by having the par- 
 cels confided to his care, had drawn the little hand 
 which gave them within his arm, a proceeding which 
 Nettie distinctly disapproved of. She withdrew her 
 hand quickly, and walked on with much dignity by 
 his side. 
 
 "I can carry your parcels," said Edward, after a little 
 pause, " but you will not let me help yourself. You 
 take the heaviest burdens upon your shoulders, and 
 then wiU have no assistance in bearing them. How 
 
150 CHKONICLES OF CARLmGFOKD : 
 
 long are these children of .Fred's — -detestable little 
 imps ! — to work you to death ? " 
 
 " You are speaking of vny children, sir ! " cried Net- 
 tie, with a little blaze of resentment. " But you don't 
 mean it, Dr Edward," she said, a moment after, in a 
 slightly coaxing tone. " You are tired and cross after 
 your day's work. Perhaps it will be best, if you are 
 very cross, not to come down all the way to the Cot- 
 tage, thank you. I don't want you to quarrel with 
 Fred." 
 
 " Cross ! Nettie, you are enough to drive twenty 
 men distracted," cried the poor doctor. "You know 
 as well as I do what I have been dying to say to you 
 these three months past ; and to see you go on with 
 these confounded children without so much as a glance 
 for a fellow who " 
 
 " Don't speak like that," cried Nettie, with brilliant 
 female instinct ; " you'll be sorry for it after ; for you 
 know, Dr Edward, you have not said anything particu- 
 lar to me these three months past." 
 
 This touch gave the last exasperation to the agitated 
 mind of the doctor. He burst forth into a passionate 
 outbreak of love and anger, curiously mingled, but too 
 warm and real to leave Nettie much coolness of obser- 
 vation under the circumstances. She took the advan- 
 tage over him which a woman naturally does in such 
 a case. She went on softly, trembling sufficiently to 
 
THE doctor's family. 151 
 
 her own consciousness, but not to his, suffering him to 
 pour out that torrent without interruption. She made 
 no answer till the whole agitated self-disclosure was 
 complete. In the interval she got a little command of 
 herself, and was able to speak when it came to her 
 turn. 
 
 " Dr Edward," said Nettie, solemnly, " you know it 
 is impossible. If we cared for each other ever so 
 much, what could we do ? I am not free to — to make 
 any change ; and I know very well, and so do you, 
 that you never could put up with Fred and Susan and 
 the children, were things as you say ten times over. 
 I don't mean I don't believe you. I don't mean I 
 might not have been pleased had things been differ- 
 ent. But you know it is just plainly impossible. You 
 know your own temper and your own spirit — and per- 
 haps you know mine as well. No, no — we cannot 
 manage it anyhow, Dr Edward," said Nettie, with a 
 little sigh. 
 
 "Is this all you have to say to me?" cried the 
 astonished lover. 
 
 " I am sure I do not know what else to say," said 
 Nettie, with matter-of-fact distinctness. " I don't need 
 to enter into all the business again, and tell you how 
 things stand ; you know as well as I do. One may 
 be sorry, but one must do what one has to do all the 
 same." 
 
152 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 A painful pause followed., Nettie, with all her femi- 
 nine acuteness, could not divine that this calm way of 
 treating a business which had wrought her companion 
 into such a pitch of passion, was the most humiliating 
 and mortifying possible to a man in whose bosom love 
 and pride were so combined. He tried to speak more 
 than once, but could not. Nettie said nothing more — 
 she was uneasy, but secure in the necessity of her own 
 position. Wliat else could she do or say? 
 
 " Then, I presume, this is my answer," said the 
 doctor, at last, gulping an amount of shame and anger 
 which Nettie could not conceive of, and which the 
 darkness concealed from her sight. 
 
 " Oh, Dr Edward, what can I say ? " cried the girl ; 
 " you know it all as well as I do. I cannot change 
 it with a word. I am very, very sorry," said Nettie, 
 faltering and startled, waking to a sudden perception 
 of the case all at once by reason of catching a sudden 
 gleam of his eyes. They came to a dead stop opposite 
 each other, she half frightened and confused, he des- 
 perate with love and rage and mortification. By this 
 time they had almost reached the cottage door. 
 
 " Don't take the trouble to be sorry. I'll — oh, I'll 
 o-et over it ! " cried the doctor, with a sneer at himself 
 and his passion, which came out of the bitterness of 
 his heart. Then, after a pause — " Nettie ! " cried the 
 
THE doctor's family. 153 
 
 young man — " Nettie ! do you see what you are doing ? 
 — do you choose Fred and those wretched imps instead 
 of your own life and mine ? You are not so indifferent 
 as you think you are. We shall never get over it, 
 neither you nor me. Nettie, once for all, is this all 
 you have to say ? " 
 
 " If I were to say all the words in the language," 
 said Nettie, after a pause, with a breathless indistinct- 
 ness and haste, " words will not change things if we 
 should break our hearts." 
 
 The open door, with the light shining out from it, 
 shone upon them at that moment, and Mrs Smith 
 waiting to let the young lady in. Neither of the two 
 dared face that sudden gleam. The doctor laid down 
 his parcels on the step, muttered something, which 
 she could not distinguish, into Nettie's agitated ear, 
 and vanished back again into the darkness. Only 
 now was Nettie awaking to the sense of what had 
 happened, and its real importance. Perhaps another 
 minute, another word, might have made a difference — 
 that other word and minute that are always wanting. 
 She gazed out after him blankly, scarcely able to per- 
 suade herself that it was all over, and then went in 
 with a kind of stupified stunned sensation, not to be 
 described. Edward Eider heard the door shut in the 
 calm silence, and swore fierce oaths in his heart over 
 
154 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 her composure and cold-heartedness. As visual, it was 
 the woman who had to face the light and observation, 
 and to veil her trouble. The man rushed back into 
 the darkness, smarting with wounds which fell as 
 severely upon his pride as upon his heart. Nettie 
 went in, suddenly conscious that the world was changed, 
 and that she had entered upon another life. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 AxoTHEK life and a changed world ! What small 
 matters sometimes bring about that sudden disen- 
 chantment ! Two or three words exchanged without 
 much thought — one figure disappearing out of the 
 landscape — and, lo ! all the prismatic colours have 
 faded from the horizon, and blank daylight glares upon 
 startled eyes ! Nettie had not, up to this time, enter- 
 tained a suspicion of how distinct a place the doctor 
 held in her limited firmament — she was totally un- 
 aware how much exhilaration and support there was in 
 his troubled, exasperated, impatient admiration. Now, 
 all at once, she found it out. It was the same life, 
 yet it was different. Her occupations were unchanged, 
 her surroundings just what they used to be. She had 
 still to tolerate Fred, to manage Susan, to superintend 
 with steady economy all the expenditure of the strange 
 little household. The very rooius and aspect of every- 
 thing was the same ; yet had she been suddenly trans- 
 
156 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 ported back again to the Antipodes, life conld not 
 have been more completely changed to Nettie, She 
 recognised it at once with some surprise, but without 
 any struggle. The fact was too clearly apparent to 
 leave her in any doubt. Nobody but herself had the 
 slightest insight into the great event which had hap- 
 pened — nobody could know of it, or offer Nettie any 
 sympathy in that unforeseen personal trial. In her 
 youth and buoyant freshness, half contemptuous of the 
 outside troubles which were no match for her indomit- 
 able heart, Nettie had been fighting against hard ex- 
 ternal circumstances for a great part of her valorous 
 little life, and had not hesitated to take upon herself 
 the heaviest burdens of outside existence. Such strug- 
 gles are not hard when one's heart is light and sound. 
 With a certain splendid youthful scorn of all these 
 labours and drudgeries, Nettie had gone on her trium- 
 phant way, wearing her bonds as if they were orna- 
 ments. Suddenly, without any premonition, the heart 
 had died out of her existence. A personal blow, 
 striking:; with subtle force into that unseen centre of 
 courage and hope, had suddenly disabled Nettie. She 
 said not a word on the subject to any living c-reature 
 — if she shed any tears over it, they were dropped in 
 the darkness, and left no witness behind ; but she 
 silently recognised and understood what had happened 
 to her. It was not that she had lost her lover — it 
 
THE doctor's family. 157 
 
 was not that the romance of youth had glimmered and 
 disappeared from before her eyes. It was not that she 
 had ever entered, even in thought, as Edward Eider 
 had done, into that life, glorified out of common exist- 
 ence, which the two could have lived together. Such 
 was not the form which this extraordinary loss took to 
 Nettie. It was her personal happiness, wonderful 
 wine of life, which had suddenly failed to the brave 
 little girl. Ah, the difference it made ! Labours, 
 disgusts, endurances of all kinds : what cannot one 
 undertake so long as one has that cordial at one's 
 heart? When the endurance and the labour remain, 
 and the cordial is gone, it is a changed world into 
 which the surprised soul enters. This was what had 
 happened to Nettie. Nobody suspected the sudden 
 change which had passed upon everything. The only 
 individual in the world who could have divined it, had 
 persuaded himself in a flush of anger and mortification 
 that she did not care. He consoled himself by ela- 
 borate avoidance of that road which led past St Roque's 
 — by bows of elaborate politeness when he encountered 
 her anywhere in the streets of Carlingford — by taking 
 a sudden plunge into such society as was open to him 
 in the town, and devoting himself to Miss Marjori- 
 banks, the old physician's daughter. Nettie was not 
 moved by these demonstrations, which showed her 
 sway still undiminished over the doctor's angry and 
 
158 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 jealous heart. She did not regard the petulant shows 
 of pretended indiflference by which a more experienced 
 young woman might have consoled herself. She had 
 enough to do, now that the unsuspected stimulus of 
 her life was withdi'awn for the moment, to go on 
 steadily without making any outward show of it. She 
 had come to the first real trial of her strength and 
 worthiness. And Nettie did not know what a piece 
 of heroism she was enacting, nor that the hardest lesson 
 of youthful life — how to go on stoutly without the 
 happiness which that absolute essence of existence de- 
 mands and will not be refused — was being taught her 
 now. She only knew it was dull work just for the 
 moment — a tedious sort of routine, which one was 
 glad to think could not last for ever ; and so went on, 
 the steadfast little soul, no one being any the wiser, 
 upon that suddenly-clouded, laborious way. 
 
 It is sad to be obliged to confess that Dr Eider's 
 conduct was nothing like so heroical. He, injured and 
 indignant and angry, thought first of all of revenging 
 himself upon Nettie — of proving to her that he would 
 get over it, and that there were women in the world 
 more reasonable than herself. Dr Marjoribanks, who 
 had already made those advances to the doctor which 
 that poor young fellow had gone to carry the news of, 
 not without elation of heart, on that memorable night, 
 to St Roque's, asked Edward to dinner a few days 
 
THE doctok's family. 159 
 
 after ; and Miss Marjoribanks made herself very agree- 
 able, with just that degree of delicate regard and 
 evident pleasure in his society which is so soothing 
 when one has met with a recent discomfiture. Miss 
 Marjoribanks, it is true, was over thirty, and by no 
 means a Titania. Edward Eider, who had retired from 
 the field in Bessie Christian's case, and whom Nettie 
 had rejected, asked himself savagely why he should 
 not make an advantageous marriage now, when the 
 chance off'ered. Old Marjoribanks's practice and sav- 
 ings, with a not unagreeable, rather clever, middle- 
 aged wife — why should he not take it into considera- 
 tion ? The young doctor thought of that possibility 
 with a certain thrill of cruel pleasure. He said to 
 himself that he would make his fortune, and be re- 
 venged on Nettie. Whenever there was a chance of 
 Nettie hearing of it, he paid the most devoted atten- 
 tions to Miss Marjoribanks. Eeady gossips took it up 
 and made the matter public. Everybody agreed it 
 would be an admirable arrangement. " The most 
 sensible thing I've heard of for years — step into the 
 old fellow's practice, and set himself up for life — eh, 
 don't you think so? — that's my opinion," said Mr 
 Wodehouse. Mr Wodehouse's daughters talked over 
 the matter, and settled exactly between themselves 
 what was Miss Marjoribanks's age, and how much 
 older she, was than her supposed suitor — a question 
 
160 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 always interesting to the female mind. And it was 
 natural that in these circumstances Nettie should come 
 to hear of it all, in its full details, with the various 
 comments naturally suggesting themselves thereupon. 
 What Nettie's opinion was, however, nobody could 
 ever gather ; perhaps she thought Dr Edward was 
 justified in putting an immediate barrier between him- 
 self and her. At all events, she was perfectly clear 
 upon the point that it could not have been otherwise, 
 and that no other decision was possible to herself. 
 
 The spring lagged on, accordingly, under these cir- 
 cumstances. Those commonplace unalterable days, 
 varied in nothing but the natural fluctuations of mak- 
 ing and mending, — those evenings with Fred sulky by 
 the fire — always sulky, because deprived by Nettie's 
 presence of his usual indulgences ; or if not so, then 
 enjoying himself after his dismal fashion in his own 
 room, with most likely Susan bearing him company, 
 and the little maiden head of the house left all by 
 herself in the solitary parlour, — passed on one by one, 
 each more tedious than the other. It seemed impos- 
 sible that such heavy hours could last, and prolong 
 themselves into infinitude, as they did ; but still one 
 succeeded another in endless hard procession. And 
 Nettie shed back her silky load of hair, and pressed 
 her tiny fingers on her eyes, and went on again, always 
 dauntless. She said to herself, with homely philosophy, 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 161 
 
 that this could not last very long ; not witli any- 
 tragical meaning, but with a recognition of the ordi- 
 nary laws of nature which young ladies under the 
 pressure of a first disappointment are not apt to recur 
 to. She tried, indeed, to calculate in herself, with 
 forlorn heroism, how long it might be expected to last, 
 and, though she could not fix the period, endeavoured 
 to content herself with the thouoht that thino;s must 
 eventually fall into their natural condition. In the 
 mean time it was slow and tedious work enough — 
 but they did pass one after another, these inevitable 
 days. 
 
 One night Nettie was sitting by herself in the 
 parlour busy over her needlework. Fred and his wife, 
 she thought, were up-stairs. They had left her early 
 in the evening — Susan to lie down, being tired ; Fred 
 to his ordinary amusements. It was a matter of 
 course, and cost Nettie no special thought. After the 
 children went to bed, she sat all by herself, with her 
 thread and scissors on the table, working on steadily 
 and quietly at the Uttle garment she was making. 
 Her needle flew swift and nimbly ; the sleeve of her 
 dress rustled as she moved her arm ; her soft breath 
 went and came : but for that regular monotonous 
 movement, and those faint steady sounds of life, it 
 might have been a picture of domestic tranquillity and 
 quiet, and not a living woman with aches in her heart. 
 
162 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 It did not matter what she was thinking. She was 
 facing life and fortune — indomitable, not to be dis- 
 couraged. In the silence of the house she sat late over 
 her needlework, anxious to have some special task 
 finished. She heard the mistress of the cottage lock- 
 ing up, but took no notice of that performance, and 
 went on at her work, forgetting time. It got to be 
 very silent in the house and without ; not a sound in 
 the rooms where everybody was asleep ; not a sound 
 outside, except an occasional rustle of the night wind 
 through the bare willow-branches — deep night, and not 
 a creature awake but herself, sitting in the heart of 
 that intense and throbbing silence. Somehow there 
 was a kind of pleasure to Nettie in the isolation which 
 was so impossible to her at other hours. She sat rapt 
 in that laborious quiet as if her busy fingers were under 
 some spell. 
 
 When suddenly she heard a startled motion up- 
 stairs, as if some one had got up hastily ; then a rust- 
 ling about the room overhead, which was Susan's 
 room. After a while, during which Nettie, restored 
 by the sound to all her growing cares, rose instantly 
 to consideration of the question. What had happened 
 now? the door above was stealthily opened, and a 
 footstep came softly down the stair. Nettie put down 
 her work and listened breathlessly. Presently Susan's 
 head peeped in at the parlour door. After all, then, it 
 
THE doctor's family. 163 
 
 was only some restlessness of Susan's. Nettie took up 
 her work, impatient, perhaps almost disappointed, with 
 the dead calm in which nothing ever happened. Susan 
 came in stealthy, pale, trembling with cold and fright. 
 She came forward to the table in her white night- 
 dress like a faded ghost. " Fred has never come in," 
 said Susan, in a shivering whisper ; " is it very late ? 
 He promised he would only be gone an hour. Where 
 can he have gone ? Nettie, Nettie, don't sit so quiet 
 and stare at me. I fell asleep, or I should have found 
 it out sooner ; all the house is locked up, and he has 
 never come in." 
 
 " If he comes we can unlock the house," said Nettie. 
 " When did he go out, and why didn't you tell me ? 
 Of course I should have let Mrs Smith know, not to 
 frighten her ; but I told Fred pretty plainly last time 
 that we could not do with such hours. It will make 
 him ill if he does not mind. Go to bed, and I'll let 
 him in." 
 
 " Go to bed ! it is very easy for you to say so ; don't 
 you know it's the middle of the night, and as dark as 
 pitch, and my husband out all by himself?" cried 
 Susan. " Oh, Fred, Fred ! after aU the promises you 
 made, to use me like this again ! Do you think I can 
 go up-stairs and lie shivering in the dark, and imagin- 
 ing all sorts of dreadful things happening to him ? I 
 shall stay here with you till he comes in." 
 
164 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Nettie entered into no- controversy. She got up 
 quietly and fetched a shawl, and put it round her 
 shivering sister ; then sat down again and took up her 
 needlework. But Susan's excited nerves could not 
 bear the sight of that occupation. The rustle of 
 Nettie's softly - moving hand distracted her. " It 
 sounds always like Fred's step on the way," said the 
 fretful anxious woman. " Oh, Nettie, Nettie ! do open 
 the end window and look out ; perhaps he is looking 
 for the light in the windows to guide him straight ! 
 It is so dark ! Open the shutters, Nettie, and, oh, do 
 look out and see ! Where do you suppose he can have 
 gone to ? I feel such a pang at my heart, I believe I 
 shall die." 
 
 " Oh no, you will not die," said Nettie. " Take a 
 book and read, or do something. We know what is 
 about the worst that will happen to Fred. He will 
 come home like that you know, as he did before. We 
 can't mend it, but we need not break our hearts over 
 it. Lie down on the sofa, and put up your feet and 
 wrap the shawl round you if you won't go to bed. I 
 can fancy all very weU how it will be. It is nothing 
 new, Susan, that you should break your heart." 
 
 " It's you that have no feeling. Oh, Nettie, how 
 hard you are ! I don't believe you know what it is to 
 love anybody," said Susan. " Hark ! is that some one 
 comino; now ? " 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 165 
 
 They thought some one was coming fifty times in 
 the course of that dreadful lingering night. Nobody 
 came ; the silence closed in deeper and deeper around 
 the two silent women. All the world — everything 
 round about them, to the veriest atom — seemed asleep. 
 The cricket had stopped his chirrup in the kitchen, and 
 no mouse stirred in the slumbering house. By times 
 Susan dozed on the sofa, shivering, notwithstanding 
 her shawl, and Nettie took up her needlework for the 
 moment to distract her thoughts. When Susan started 
 from these snatches of slumber, she importuned her 
 sister with ceaseless questions and entreaties. Where 
 had he gone? — where did Nettie imagine he could 
 have gone ? — and oh ! would she go to the window 
 and look out to see if any one was coming, or put the 
 candle to the window to guide him, if perhaps he 
 might have lost the way ? At last the terrible pale 
 dawn came in and took the light out of Nettie's candle. 
 The two looked at each other, and acknowledged with 
 a mutual start that the night was over. They had 
 watched these long hours through with sentiments 
 very difierent ; now a certain thrill of sympathy drew 
 Nettie nearer to her sister. It was daylight again, 
 remorseless and uncompromising, and where was Fred, 
 who loved the darkness ? He had little money and less 
 credit in the limited place where himself and his story 
 were known. What could have become of him ? Net- 
 
166 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD t 
 
 tie acknowledged that there was ground for anxiety. 
 She folded up her work and put out her candle, and 
 promptly took into consideration what she could do. 
 
 " If you will go to bed, Susan, I shall go out and 
 look for him," said Nettie. " He might have stumbled 
 in the field and fallen asleep. Men have done such 
 things before now, and been none the worse for it. If 
 you will go and lie down, I'll see after it, Susan. Now 
 it's daylight, you know, no great harm can happen to 
 him. Come and lie down, and leave me to look for 
 Fred." 
 
 " But you don't know where to go, and he won't 
 like to have you going after him. Nettie, send to 
 Edward," said Susan ; " he ought to come and look 
 after his brother : he ought to have done it all through, 
 and not to have left us to manage everything ; and he 
 hasn't even been to see us for ever so long. But send 
 to Edward, Nettie — it's his business. For Fred won't 
 like to have you going after him, and you don't know 
 where to go." 
 
 " Fred must have me going after him whether he 
 likes it or no," said Nettie, sharply, " and I shall not 
 send to Dr Edward. You choose to insult him when- 
 ever you can, and then you think it is his business to 
 look after his brother. Go to bed, and leave it to me. 
 I can't leave you shivering here, to catch something, 
 and be ill, and laid ujd for weeks. I want to get my 
 
THE doctor's family. 167 
 
 bonnet on, and to see you in bed. Make haste, and 
 come up-stairs with me." 
 
 Susan obeyed with some mutterings of inarticulate 
 discontent. The daylight, after the first shock of find- 
 ing that the night was really over, brought some com- 
 fort to her foolish heart. She thought that as Nettie 
 said " no more harm " could come to him, he must be 
 sleeping somewhere, the foolish fellow. She thought 
 most likely Nettie was right, and that she had best go 
 to bed to consume the weary time till there could be 
 something heard of him ; and Nettie, of course, would 
 find it all out. 
 
 Such was the^ arrangement accordingly. Susan 
 covered herself up warm, and lay thinking all she 
 should say to him when he came home, and how she 
 certainly never would again let him go out and keep 
 it secret from Nettie. Nettie, for her part, bathed her 
 hot eyes, put on her bonnet, and went out, quietly 
 undoing all the bolts and bars, into the chill morning 
 world, where nobody was yet awake. She was a little 
 uncertain which way to turn, but noway uncertain of 
 her business. Whether he had gone into the town, or 
 towards the low quarter by the banks of the canal, she 
 felt it difficult to conclude. But remembering her own 
 suggestion that he might have stumbled in the field, 
 and fallen asleep there, she took her way across the 
 misty grass. It was still spring, and a little hoar-frost 
 
168 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 crisped the wintry sod. Everything lay forlorn and 
 chill under the leaden morning skies — not even an 
 early market-cart disturbed the echoes. When the 
 cock crew somewhere, it startled Nettie. She went 
 like a spectre across the misty fields, looking down 
 into the ditches and all the inequalities of the way. 
 On the other side lay the canal, not visible, except by 
 the line of road that wound beside it, from the dead 
 flat around. She bent her steps in that direction, 
 thinking of a certain mean little tavern which, some- 
 how, when she saw it, she had associated with Fred — 
 a place where the men at the door looked slovenly and 
 heated, like Fred himself, and lounged with their 
 hands in their pockets at noon of working-days. Some 
 instinct guided Nettie there. 
 
 But she had no need to go so far. Before she reached 
 that place the first sounds of life that she had yet heard 
 attracted Nettie's attention. They came from a boat 
 which lay in the canal, in which the bargemen seemed 
 preparing to start on their day's journey. Some men 
 were leisurely leading forward the horses to the towing- 
 path, while two in the boat were preparing for their 
 start inside. All at once a strange cry rang into the 
 still chill air — such a cry as startles all who can hear 
 it. The men with the horses hurried forward to the 
 edge of the canal, the bargemen hung over the side of 
 their boat ; visible excitement rose amono; them about 
 
THE doctor's family. 169 
 
 something there. Nettie, never afraid, was less timid 
 than ever this mornino;. Without thinkino; of the risk 
 of trusting herself with these rude fellows alone, she 
 went straight forward into the midst of them with a 
 curiosity for which she could scarcely account ; not 
 anxiety, only a certain wonder and impatience, pos- 
 sessed her to see what they had here. 
 
 What had they there ? — not a man — a dreadful 
 drowned image, all soiled and swollen — a squalid tragic 
 form, immovable, never to move more. Nettie did not 
 need to look at the dread, uncovered, upturned face. 
 The moment she saw the vague shape of it rising 
 against the side of the boat, a heap of dead limbs, 
 recognisable only as something human, the terrible truth 
 flashed upon Nettie. She had found not him, but It. 
 She saw nothing more for one awful moment— heaven 
 and earth reeling and circling around her, and a horror 
 of darkness on her eyes. Then the cold light opened 
 up again — the group of living creatures against the 
 colourless skies, the dead creature staring and ghastly, 
 with awful dead eyes gazing blank into the shuddering 
 day. The girl steadied herself as she could on the 
 brink of the sluggish current, and collected her thoughts. 
 The conclusion to her search, and answer to all her ques- 
 tions, lay, not to be doubted or questioned, before her. 
 She dared not yield to her own horror, or grief, or 
 dismay. Susan sleeping, unsuspicious, in full trust of 
 
170 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 his return — the slumbering house into which this 
 dreadful figure must be carried — obliterated all per- 
 sonal impressions from Nettie's mind. She explained 
 to the amazed group who and what the dead man was 
 — where he must be brought to — instantly, silently, 
 before the world was awake. She watched them lay 
 the heavy form upon a board, and took off her own 
 shawl to lay over it, to conceal it from the face of day. 
 Then she went on before them, with her tiny figure in 
 its girlish dress, like a child in the shadow of the rough 
 but pitying group that followed. Nettie did not know 
 why the wand went so chill to her heart after she had 
 taken off her shawl. She did not see the unequal sod 
 under her feet as she went back upon that dread and 
 solemn road. Nothing in the world but what she had 
 to do occupied the throbbing heroic heart. There was 
 nobody else to do it. How could the girl help but 
 execute the work put into her hand ? Thinking neither 
 of the hardship nor the horror of such dread work fall- 
 ing to her lot, but only this, that she must do it, Nettie 
 took home to the imconscious sleeping cottage that 
 thing which was Fred Rider ; no heavier on his bearers' 
 hands to-day than he had been already for years of 
 his wasted life. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 When Nettie opened the door of the sleeping house, 
 with the great key she had carried with her in her 
 early dreadful expedition, there was still nobody stir- 
 ring in the unconscious cottage. She paused at the 
 door, with the four men behind her carrying shoulder- 
 high that terrible motionless burden. Where was she 
 to lay it ? In her own room, where she had not slept 
 that night, little Freddy was still sleeping. In another 
 was the widow, overcome by watchiog and fretful 
 anxiety. The other fatherless creatures lay in the little 
 dressing-room. Nowhere but in the parlour, from 
 which Fred not so very long ago had driven his dis- 
 gusted brother — the only place she had where Nettie's 
 own feminine niceties could find expression, and where 
 the accessories of her own daily life and work were aU 
 accumulated. She lingered even at that dread moment 
 with a pang of natural reluctance to associate that 
 little sanctuary with the horror and misery of this 
 
1 72 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 bringmg-home ; but when every feeling gave way to 
 the pressure of necessity, that superficial one was not 
 like to resist it. Her companions were not aware that 
 she had hesitated even for that moment. She seemed 
 to them to glide softly, steadfastly, without any falter- 
 ing, before them into the little silent womanly room, 
 where her night's work was folded tidily upon the 
 table, and her tiny thimble and scissors laid beside 
 it. What a heartrending contrast lay between those 
 domestic traces and that dreadful muffled figure, cov- 
 ered from the light of day with Nettie's shawl, which 
 was now laid down there, Nettie did not pause to think 
 of She stood still for a moment, gazing at it with 
 a sob of excitement and agitation swellina; into her 
 throat ; scarcely gi'ief — perhaps that was not possible 
 • — but the intensest remorseful pity over the lost life. 
 The rude fellows beside her stood silent, not without 
 a certain pang of tenderness and sympathy in their 
 half- savage hearts. She took her little purse out and 
 emptied it of its few silver coins among them. They 
 trode softly, but their heavy footsteps were heard, not- 
 withstanding, through all the little house. Nettie 
 could already hear the alarmed stirring up-stairs of 
 the master and mistress of the cottage ; and, knowing 
 what explanations she must give, and all the dreadful 
 business before her, made haste to get her strange 
 companions away before Mrs Smith came down-stairs. 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 173 
 
 One of them, however, as he followed his comrades out 
 of the room, from some confused instinct of help and 
 pity, asked whether he should not fetch a doctor? 
 The question struck the resolute little girl with a pang- 
 sharper than this morning's horror had yet given her. 
 Had she perhaps neglected the first duty of all, the 
 possibility of restoration? She went back, without 
 answering him, to lift the shawl from that dreadful, 
 face, and satisfy herself whether she had done that 
 last irremediable wrong to Fred. As she met the 
 dreadful stare of those dead eyes, all the revulsion of 
 feeling which comes to the hearts of the living in 
 presence of the dead overpowered Nettie. She gave 
 a little cry of inarticulate momentary anguish. The 
 soul of that confused and tremulous outcry was Par- 
 don ! pardon ! What love was ever so true, what 
 tenderness so constant and unfailing, that did not 
 instinctively utter that cry when the watched life had 
 ended, and pardon could no longer come from those 
 sealed lips ? Nettie had not loved that shamed and 
 ruined man — she had done him the oifices of affection, 
 and endured and sometimes scorned him. She stood 
 remorseful by his side in that first dread hour, which 
 had changed Fred's shabby presence into something 
 awful ; and her generous soul burst forth in that cry 
 of penitence which every human creature owes its 
 brother. The tender-hearted bargeman who had asked 
 
174 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 leave to fetch a doctor, drew near her with a kindred 
 instinct — " Don't take on, miss — there's the crowner 
 yet — and a deal to look to," said the kind rough fel- 
 low, who knew Nettie. The words recalled her to 
 herself — but with the softened feelings of the moment 
 a certain longing for somebody to stand by her in this 
 unlooked-for extremity came over the forlorn courage- 
 ous creature, who never yet, amid all her labours, had 
 encountered an emergency like this. She laid the 
 shawl reverently back over that dead face, and sent a 
 message to the doctor with lips that trembled in spite 
 of herself " Tell him what has happened, and say he 
 is to come as soon as he can," said Nettie ; " for I do 
 not understand all that has to be done. Tell him I 
 sent you ; and now go — please go before they all come 
 down-stairs." 
 
 But when Nettie turned in again, after closing the 
 door, into that house so entirely changed in character 
 by the solemn inmate who had entered it, she was 
 confronted by the amazed and troubled apparition of 
 Mrs Smith, half-dressed, and full of wonder and indig-/ 
 nation. A gasping exclamation of " Miss ! " was all 
 that good woman could utter. She had with her own 
 eyes perceived some of the " roughs " of Carlingford 
 emerging from her respectable door under Nettie's 
 grave supervision, and yet could not in her heart, not- 
 withstanding appearances, think any harm of Nettie ; 
 
THE doctok'8 family. 175 
 
 while, at the same time, a hundred alarms for the 
 safety of her household gods shook her soul. Nettie 
 turned towards her steadily, with her face pallid and 
 her brilliant eyes heavy. " Hush," she said ; " Susan 
 knows nothing yet. Let her have her rest while she 
 can. We have been watching for him all night, and 
 poor Susan is sleeping, and does not know." 
 
 "Know what? — what has happened? — he's been 
 and killed himself? Oh, miss, don't you go for to say 
 so ! " cried IVIrs Smith, in natural dismay and terror. 
 
 " No," cried Nettie, with a long sigh that relieved 
 her breast, " not so bad as that, thank Heaven ; but 
 hush, hush ! I cannot go and teU Susan just yet — 
 not just yet. Oh, give me a moment to get breath ! 
 For he is dead ! I tell you, hush ! " cried Nettie, 
 seizing the woman's hand, and wringing it, in the 
 extremity of her terror for alarming Susan. " Don't 
 you understand me ? She is a widow, and she does 
 not know — her husband is dead, and she does not 
 know. Have you no pity for her in your own heart ?" 
 
 " Lord ha' mercy ! but wait till I call Smith," cried 
 the alarmed landlady, shrinking, yet eager to know 
 the horribly interesting details of that tragedy. She 
 ran breathless up-stairs on that errand, while Nettie 
 went back to the door of the parlour, resolutely locked 
 it, and took away the key. " Nobody shall go gazing 
 and talking over him, and making a wonder of poor 
 
176 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Fred," said Nettie to herself, shaking oif from her long 
 eyelashes the tear which came out of the compunction 
 of her heart. " Poor Fred ! " She sat down on one 
 of the chairs of the little hall beside that closed door. 
 The children and their mother up-stairs still slept 
 unsuspicious ; and their young guardian, with a world 
 of thoughts rising in her mind, sat still and pondered. 
 The past was suddenly cut off from the future by this 
 dreadful unthought-of event. She had come to a dead 
 pause in that life, which to every spectator was so 
 strangely out of accordance with her youth, but which 
 was to herself such simple and plain necessity as to 
 ])ermit no questioning. She was brought suddenly to 
 a standstill at this terrible moment, and sat turning 
 her dauntless little face to the new trial before her, 
 pale, but undismayed. Nettie did not deceive herself 
 even in her thoughts. She saw, with the intuitive 
 foresight of a keen observer, her sister's violent mo- 
 mentary grief, her indolent acceptance of the position 
 after a while, the selfish reserve of repining and dis- 
 content which Susan would establish in the memory 
 of poor Fred : she saw how, with fuller certainty than 
 ever, because now more naturally, she herself, her 
 mind, her laborious hands, her little fortune, would 
 belong to the fatherless family. She did not sigh over 
 the prospect, or falter ; but she exercised no self-delu- 
 sion on the subject. There was nobody but she to do 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 177 
 
 it — nobody but she, in her tender maidenhood, to 
 manage all the vulgar tragical business which must, 
 this very day, confirm to the knowledge of the little 
 surrounding world the event which had happened — 
 nobody but herself to tell the tale to the widow, to 
 bear all the burdens of the time. Nettie did not think 
 over these particulars with self-pity, or wonder over 
 her hard lot. She did not imagine herself to have 
 chosen this lot at all. There was nobody else to do it 
 — that was the simple secret of her strength. 
 
 But this interval of forlorn repose was a very brief 
 one. Smith came down putting on his coat, and look- 
 ing scared and bewildered ; his wife, eager, curious, 
 and excited, closely following. Nettie rose when they 
 approached her to forestall their questions. 
 
 " My brother-in-law is dead," she said. " He fell 
 into the canal last night and was drowned. I went 
 out to look for him, and — and found him, poor fellow ! 
 Oh don't cry out or make a noise : remember Susan 
 does not know ! Now, dear Mrs Smith, I know you 
 are kind — I know you will not vex me just at this 
 moment. I have had him laid there till his brother 
 comes. Oh don't say it's dreadful ! Do you think I 
 cannot see how dreadful it is ? but we must not think 
 about that, only what has to be done. When Dr 
 Edward comes, I will wake my sister ; but just for this 
 
 M 
 
178 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 moment, oh have patience 1 I had no place to put him 
 except there." 
 
 " But, Lord bless us, he mightn't be clean gone : he 
 might be recovered, poor gentleman ! Smith can run 
 for Dr Marjoribanks ; he's nearer nor Dr Eider," cried 
 the curious excited landlady, with her hand upon the 
 locked door. 
 
 Nettie made no answer. She took them into the 
 room in solemn silence, and showed them the stark 
 and ghastly figure, for which all i^ossibilities had been 
 over in the dark midnight waters hours ago. The 
 earliest gleam of sunshine came shining in at that 
 moment through the window which last night Nettie 
 had opened that Fred might see the light in it and 
 be guided home. It seemed to strike like a reproach 
 upon that quick-throbbing impatient heart, which felt 
 as a sin against the dead its own lack of natural grief 
 and affection. She went hurriedly to draw down the 
 blinds and close out the unwelcome light. " Now he 
 is gone, nobody shall slight or scorn him," said Nettie 
 to herself, with hot tears ; and she turned the wonder- 
 ing dismayed couple — already awakening out of their 
 first horror, to think of the injury done to their house 
 and " lodgings," and all the notoriety of an inquest — 
 out of the room, and locked the door upon the unwill- 
 ing owners, whom nothing but her resolute face pre- 
 vented from burstiuo; forth in selfish but natural 
 
THE doctor's family. 179 
 
 lamentations over their own secondary share in so dis- 
 astrous an event. Nettie sat down again, a silent little 
 sentinel by the closed door, without her shawl, and 
 with her tiny chilled feet on the cold tiles. Nettie sat 
 silent, too much occupied even to ascertain the causes 
 of her personal discomfort. She had indeed enough to 
 think of ; and while her little girlish figure, so dainty, 
 so light, so unlike her fortunes, remained in that un- 
 usual stillness, her mind and heart were palpitating 
 with thoughts — all kinds of thoughts ; not only consi- 
 derations worthy the solemnity and horror of the 
 moment, but every kind of trivial and secondary neces- 
 sity passed through that restless soul, all throbbing 
 with life and action, more self-conscious than usual 
 from the fact of its outward stillness. A hundred 
 rapid conclusions and calculations about the funeral, 
 the mourning, the change of domestic habits involved, 
 darted through Nettie's mind. It was a relief to her 
 to leap forward into these after-matters. The imme- 
 diate necessity before her — the dreadful errand on 
 which she must presently go to her sister's bedside — 
 the burst of wailing and reproachful grief which all 
 alone Nettie would have to encounter and subdue, were 
 not to be thought of She bent down her little head 
 into her hands, and once more shed back that hair 
 which, never relieved out of its braids through all this 
 long night, began to droop over her pale cheeks ; and 
 
180 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 a quick sigh of impatience, of energy restrained, of 
 such powerlessness as her courageous capable soul, in 
 the very excess of its courage and capacity, felt in its 
 approaching conflict with the feeble foolish creature, 
 who never could be stimulated out of her own narrow 
 possibilities, burst from Nettie's breast. But the sigh 
 was as much physical as mental — the long-drawn 
 breath of mingled weariness and restlessness — the in- 
 stinct to be doing, and the exhaustion of long labour 
 and emotion, blended together. Thus she waited while 
 the cold spring morning brightened, and Mrs Smith 
 went about her early domestic business, returning 
 often into the little back-parlour with the mullioned 
 window, of which domestic Gothic treatment had made 
 a condemned cell, to re-express her anxieties and 
 horrors. Nettie had an instinctive consciousness even 
 of Mrs Smith's grievance. She knew this dismal asso- 
 ciation would ruin " the lodgings, " and felt that here 
 was another bond uj)on her to remain at St Eoque's, 
 however much slie might long to escape and flee 
 away. 
 
 All these crowding and breathless thoughts were a 
 few minutes after reduced to absolute momentary still- 
 ness. It was by a step outside coming hastily with 
 rapid purpose along the silent way. Nettie rose up to 
 meet Edward Eider ; not as the angry lover still 
 fiercely resentful of that rejection, which was no rejec- 
 
THE doctor's family. 181 
 
 tion, but only a bare and simple statement of necessity ; 
 not as the suitor of Miss Marjoribanks ; simply as the 
 only creature in the world who could help her, or to 
 whom she would delegate any portion of her own hard 
 but inevitable work. She opened the door before he 
 had time to knock, and held out her hand to him 
 sUently, quite unawares betraying her recognition of 
 his step — her comfort in his presence. That meeting 
 Hushed the doctor's anxious face with a mingled shame 
 and triumph not expressible in words, but left Nettie 
 as pale, as preoccupied, as much absorbed in her 
 thoughts and duties as before. 
 
 " Dr Edward, I should not have sent for you if I 
 could have done it all myself," said Nettie ; " but I 
 knew you would think it right to be here now. And 
 I have Susan and the children to look to. I commit 
 this to you." 
 
 " Do they know ?" said the doctor, taking the key 
 she gave him, and holding fast, with an instinct of 
 compassion almost more strong than love, the little 
 hand which never trembled. 
 
 " I will tell Susan, now that you have come — I 
 could not before," said Nettie, with another sigh. 
 " Poor Susan ! I was glad to let her sleep." 
 
 " But there is no one to think whether you sleep 
 or not," cried Edward Eider. " And those eyes have 
 watched all night. Nettie, Nettie, could not you have 
 
182 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 sent for me sooner ? A word would have brought me 
 at any moment." 
 
 " You were not wanted till now," said Nettie, not 
 without a touch of womanly pride. " I have always 
 been able to do my own work, Dr Edward. But, now, 
 don't let us quarrel any more," she said, after a pause. 
 " You were angry once, and I don't wonder. Never 
 mind all that, but let us be friends ; and don't let all 
 the people, and strangers, and men who don't belong 
 to us," cried Nettie once more, with hot tears in her 
 eyes, " be hard upon poor Fred ! " 
 
 The next moment she had vanished up-stairs and 
 left the doctor alone, standing in the little cold hall 
 witli the key in his hand, and Mrs Smith's troubled 
 countenance beholding him from far. Edward Eider 
 paused before he entered upon his dismal share of this 
 morning's work. Death itself did not suffice to endear 
 Fred Rider to his brother. But he stood still, with a 
 certain self-reproach, to withdraw his thoughts, if he 
 could, from Nettie, and to subdue the thrill — the most 
 living touch of life — which this meeting had stirred 
 within him, before he entered that miserable chamber 
 of death. 
 
CHAPTEE XL 
 
 That dreadful day ebbed over slowly — tedious, yet so 
 full of events and dismal business that it looked like a 
 year rather than a day. The necessary investigations 
 were got through without any special call upon Nettie. 
 She spent the most of the day up-stairs with Susan, 
 whose wild refusal to believe at first, and sullen stupor 
 afterwards, were little different from the picture which 
 Nettie's imagination had already made. The children 
 received the news with wondering stares and questions. 
 That they did not understand it was little, but that 
 they scarcely were interested after the first movement 
 of curiosity, disappointed and wounded the impatient 
 heart, which unconsciously chafed at its own total in- 
 ability to convey the feelings natural to such a terrible 
 occasion, into any bosom but its own. Nettie's per- 
 petual activity had hitherto saved her from this disgust 
 and disappointment. She had been bitterly intolerant 
 by moments of Fred's disgraceful content and satisfac-. 
 
184 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 tioii with his own indulgences, but had never paused to 
 fret over what she could not help, nor contrast her own 
 high youthful honour and sense of duty with the dull 
 insensibility around her. But to-day had rapt the 
 heroic little girl into a different atmosphere from that 
 she had been breathing hitherto. To-day she was 
 aware that her work had been so far taken out of her 
 hands, and acknowledged in her heart that it was 
 best it should be so. She heard the heaA^y feet of 
 men coming and going, but was not obliged to de- 
 scend into immediate conflict with all the circum- 
 stances of so horrible a crisis. It was a new sensation 
 to Nettie. A year ago, perhaps, she would not have 
 relinquished even that dreadful business to any one ; — 
 to-day, the thought of having some one else who did 
 it for her, and took comfort in relieving her burdened 
 hands, fell with singular soothing power upon the 
 heart which had come to a knowledge of its own 
 weakness in these last tedious months ; and as Nettie 
 sat up-stairs with all the remorseful thoughts of nature 
 in her softened heart, the impossibility of impressing 
 her own emotions uj)on those around her struck her 
 with a deeper sense of impatience, disappointment, 
 and disgust than ever before. When she went softly 
 into the darkened room where Susan lay in her 
 gloomy bed, divided between wailings over the in- 
 juries which poor Fred had suffered, the harshness 
 
THE doctor's family. 185 
 
 that had driven him out of doors, and the want of 
 his brother or somebody to take care of him, which 
 had brought the poor fellow to such an end — and 
 complaints of the wrong done to herself, the " want of 
 feeling " shown by her sister, the neglect with which 
 she was treated, Nettie gazed at the sobbing creature 
 with eyes unconsciously wondering, yet but half-sur- 
 prised. She knew very well beforehand that this 
 was how her dreadful tidings would be received ; yet 
 out of her own softened, awed, compunctious heart — 
 her pity too deep for tears over that lost life — Nettie 
 looked with the unbelief of nature at the widowed 
 woman, the creature who had loved him, and been 
 his wife — yet who could only think of somebody else 
 to be blamed, and of herself injured, at that terrible 
 moment when the companion of her life was violently 
 withdrawn from her. And to go out of that obsti- 
 nately darkened refuge of fretful sorrow, into the 
 room where the blind had been drawn up the moment 
 her back was turned, and where these three tearless 
 children, totally unimpressed by the information which 
 they had received as a piece of news with mingled 
 curiosity and scepticism, occupied themselves with their 
 usual sports, or listened keenly, with sharp remarks, 
 to the sounds below, which only the utmost stretch 
 of Nettie's authority could keep them from descending 
 to investigate, afforded a wonderful reverse to the 
 
186 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 picture, which startled her in her momentary clear- 
 sightedness. The contrast between her own feelings 
 — she who had no bonds of natural affection to Fred, 
 and to whom he had been, by times, a very irksome 
 burden — and theirs, who were his very owu, and be- 
 longed to him, appeared to Nettie as no such contrast 
 had ever appeared before. Her heart alone was heavy 
 with regret over the ruined man — the now for ever 
 unredeemable life : she only, to whom his death was 
 no loss, but even, if she could have permitted that 
 cruel thought to intervene, a gain and rehef, recog- 
 nised with a pang of compassion almost as sharp as 
 grief, that grievous, miserable fate. When, a few 
 minutes after, the noise of the children's jjlay rose 
 to an outburst, Nettie flushed into a momentary 
 effusion of temper, and silenced the heartless imps 
 with a voice and look which they dared not venture 
 to resist. Her rebuke was, however, interrujjted by 
 a sudden call from their mother. " How can you have 
 the heart ! — Oh, Nettie, Nettie ! I knew you had no 
 feeling ! — you never had any feeling since you were a 
 baby — but how can you speak so to his poor children, 
 now that he has left them on the cold world ? " cried 
 Susan, sobbing from her bed. If Nettie sprang to 
 her feet in sudden heat and disgust, and peremptorily 
 closed the doors intervening between the children 
 and their mother, nobody will much wonder at that 
 
THE doctor's family. 187 
 
 movement of impatience. Perhaps Nettie's eyes had 
 never been so entirely opened to the hopeless character 
 of the charge she had taken upon her, as in the tem- 
 porary seclusion of that day. 
 
 And meanwhile, down -stairs, Edward Rider was 
 superintending all the arrangements of the time for 
 Nettie's sake. Not because it was his brother who 
 lay there, no longer a burden to any man ; nor because 
 natural duty pointed him out as the natural guardian 
 of the orphaned family. The doctor, indeed, would 
 have done his duty in such a hard case, however it 
 had been required of him ; but the circumstances were 
 different now : the melancholy bustle, the shame, the 
 consciousness that everybody knew what manner of 
 existence this lost life had been, the exposure, the 
 publicity — all that would have wrung with a hundred 
 sharp wounds a spirit so susceptible to public com- 
 ments — came with dulled force upon the doctor's 
 mind to-day. When the people about saw the grave 
 and seemly composure with which he went about this 
 dismal business, without those starts and flushes of 
 grievous irritation and shame which the very mention 
 of his brother had once brought upon him, they be- 
 lieved, and honoured him in the belief, that death had 
 awakened the ancient fraternal kindness in Edward 
 Eider's heart. But it was not fraternal kindness that 
 smoothed off the rude edges of that burden ; it was 
 
188 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFOED : 
 
 the consciousness of doing Nettie's work for her, 
 taking her place, sparing that creature, over whom 
 his heart yearned, the hardest and painfulest business 
 she had yet been involved in. We cannot take credit 
 for the doctor which he did not deserve. He forgave 
 Fred when he saw his motionless figure, never more to 
 do evil or offend in this world, laid in pitiful solitude 
 in that room, which still was Nettie's room, and 
 which even in death he grudged to his brother. But 
 Edward's distinct apprehension of right and wrong, 
 and Fred's deserts in this world, were not altered by 
 that diviner compunction which had moved Nettie. He 
 forgave, but did not forget, nor defend with remorseful 
 tenderness his brother's memory. Not for Fred's sake, 
 but Nettie's, he held his place in the troubled cottage, 
 and assumed the position of head of the family. Hard 
 certainties of experience prevented the doctor's unim- 
 aginative mind from respecting here the ideal anguish 
 of sudden widowhood and bereavement. This was a 
 conclusion noways unnatural or surprising for such 
 a life as Fred's — and Edward knew, with that con- 
 temptuous hardness into which incessant personal 
 contact with the world drives most men, that neither 
 the wife nor the children were capable of deep or per- 
 manent feeling. " They will only hang upon her all 
 the heavier," he said to himself, bitterly ; and for her. 
 
THE doctor's family. 189 
 
 with repentant love, Edward Rider exerted himself. 
 In all the house no heart, but Nettie's alone, acknow- 
 ledged an ache of pity for Fred and his ruined life. 
 " Mrs Rider, to be sure, will feel at first — it's only 
 natural," said Mrs Smith ; "but there wasn't nothing 
 else to be looked for ; and if it were not hardhearted 
 to say it, and him lying in his coffin, they'll be a deal 
 better off" without him nor with him. But Smith 
 and me, we have ourselves to look to, and it's a 
 terrible blow, is this, to a house, as was always as 
 respectable as ere a one in Carlingford. The lodg- 
 ings is ruined ! The very marks of the feet, if it 
 was nothing else ! " cried the afflicted landlady, con- 
 templating the scratched tiles in the hall with actual 
 tears of vexation and regret. But this was the true 
 state of the case to every unconcerned spectator. 
 Only Nettie, on whom the burden had fallen, and was 
 yet to fall heaviest, felt the eyes which were hot and 
 heavy with watching, grow dim with tears of unspeak- 
 able compassion. From the fulness of her youth and 
 strength — strength so burdened, youth so dauntless and 
 dutiful — Nettie gazed with a pity too deep for words 
 at the awful spectacle of that existence lost. That the 
 lifeless thing in the room below could have been a 
 man, and yet have come and gone so disastrously 
 through the world, was terrible to think of, to that 
 
190 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 living labouring creature, in the depth of her own 
 strange toils and responsibilities. Her heart ached 
 over that wretched, miserable fate. Neither toil nor 
 anguish was to be compared to the dread loss of a life 
 sustained by that departed soul. 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 In a few days all this solemn crisis was over, and life 
 went on again in its ordinary tame current, closing 
 over the dishonoured grave where Fred found his rest, 
 henceforward nameless in the world that had suffered 
 his existence as a cumberer of the ground for so many 
 years. Had he been the prop of his house and the 
 light of their eyes, life would have gone on again after 
 that interruption, all the same, with a persistency 
 which nothing can impair. As it was, the diminished 
 household resumed its ordinary course of existence, 
 after a very few days, with little more than outward 
 marks of what had befallen them. It is true that 
 Nettie sat down with a repugnance which she scarcely 
 could either overcome or conceal, to dispense the 
 domestic provisions at the table which shortly before 
 had borne so dread a burden. But nobody thought of 
 that except Nettie ; and but for the black dresses and 
 Susan's cap, Fred was as if he had never been. 
 
192 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 About a week after the funeral, the doctor went 
 solemnly to visit them in one of those lengthening 
 spring afternoons. Dr Eider was undeniably nervous 
 and excited about this interview. He had been at 
 home under pretence of having luncheon, but in reality 
 to make a solemn toilette, and wind himself up to the 
 courage necessary for a settlement of affairs. As he 
 dashed with agitated haste down Grange Lane, he saw 
 Miss Wodehouse and her sister Lucy coming from St 
 Eoque's, where very probably they too had been mak- 
 ing a visit of condolence to Nettie ; and a little nearer 
 that scene of all his cogitations and troubles appeared, 
 a much less welcome sight, Miss Marjoribanks, whom 
 all Carlingford, a month aoo, had declared Dr Rider to 
 be " paying his addresses " to. The guilty doctor took 
 off" his hat to that stout and sensible wayfarer, with a 
 pang of self-disgust which avenged Nettie. Along the 
 very road where that little Titania, eager and rapid, 
 had gone upon her dauntless way so often, to see that 
 comely well-dressed figure, handsome, sprightly, clever 
 — but with such a world of bright youth, tenderness, 
 loveliness, everything that touches the heart of man, 
 between the two ! No harm to Miss Marjoribanks ; 
 only shame to the doctor, who, out of angry love, 
 pique, and mortification, to vex Nettie, had pretended 
 to transfer the homage due to the fairy princess to that 
 handsome and judicious woman. The experiment had 
 
THE doctor's family. 193 
 
 failed as entirely as it deserved to do ; and here was 
 Edward Eider, coming back wiser and humbler, con- 
 tent to put that question over again, and stand once 
 more his chance of what his pride had called a rejec- 
 tion, perhaps content to make still greater sacrifices, if 
 the truth were known, and to do anything Nettie asked 
 him, if Nettie would but condescend to ask or enter 
 into terms at all. 
 
 He drew up before St Eoque's with a dash, which 
 was much more of agitation than display, and, throw- 
 ing the reins at the head of his little groom, leaped 
 out like a man who did not see where he was going. 
 He saw Mr Wentworth, however, coming out of the 
 church, and turning round amazed to look what vehicle 
 had come to so sudden a standstill there. All the 
 world seemed to be on the road to St Eoque's Cottage 
 that spring afternoon. The doctor made a surly ges- 
 ture of recognition as he passed the curate, who gazed 
 at him in calm astonishment from the church porch. 
 No other intruder appeared between him and the 
 Cottage. He hurried along past the willow-trees with 
 their drooping tassels, surrounded by a certain maze 
 of excitement and agitation. As he went up to the 
 door, it occurred to him suddenly how Nettie had re- 
 cognised his step that dread morning of Fred's death. 
 The thought came like a stimulus and encouragement 
 to the doctor. He went in with a brighter look, a 
 
194 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 heart more hopeful. She had opened the door to him 
 before he could knock, held out to him that tiny morsel 
 of a hand which laboured so hard and constantly, said 
 — what did Nettie say? how many times had the 
 doctor conned it over as he went between his patients ? 
 — " You were angry once, and, indeed, I don't wonder." 
 The doctor went boldly in under the cordial of these 
 simple words. If she did not wonder that he was 
 angry once, could she think of saying over again that 
 same conclusion which had cast him into such wrath- 
 ful despair ? He went in to try his fortune a second 
 time, secure of his temper at least. That could never 
 fail, nor sin against Nettie again. 
 
 Edward Rider went in, expectant somehow, even 
 against his reason, to find an altered world in that 
 house from which Fred had gone. He knew better, to 
 be sure, but nature beguiled the young man out of his 
 wisdom. When he went into the parlour his eyes 
 were oj)ened. Upon the sofa — that same sofa where 
 Fred had lain, all slovenly and mean in his idleness, 
 with his pipe, polluting Nettie's sole retirement — Mrs 
 Fred lay now in her sombre black dress, with the white 
 cap circling her faded face. She had her white hand- 
 kerchief in her hand, and was carefully arranged upon 
 the sofa, with a chair placed near for symjjathisers. 
 At the table, working rapidly as usual, sat Nettie. 
 Sometimes she turned a momentary glance of mingled 
 
THE doctor's family. 195 
 
 curiosity and wonder upon her sister. Evidently she 
 did not interfere with this development of sorrow. 
 Nettie had enough to do besides with her needle work, 
 and to enjoin a moderate amount of quietness upon 
 Freddy and his little sister, who were building wooden 
 bricks into houses and castles on the floor by her side. 
 When the doctor entered the room he saw how it was 
 with instantaneous insight. Mrs Fred was sitting in 
 state, in the pomp of woe, to receive all the compas- 
 sionate people who might come to condole with her. 
 Nettie, half impatient, half glad that her sister could 
 amuse herself so, sat in busy toleration, putting up 
 with it, carrying on her own work through it all — and 
 still, as always, those bonds of her own making closed 
 hard and tenacious upon the prop of the house. Even 
 the chance of speaking with her by herself died off into 
 extreme distance. Young Eider, who came in with 
 the fall conviction that anger could never more rise in 
 his heart against Nettie, grew pale with passion, resent- 
 ment, and impatience before he had been a minute in 
 the room. Always the same ! Not relieved out of her 
 bondage — closer bound and prisoned than ever ! He 
 took, with an impatient involuntary commotion, the 
 chair placed beside the sofa, and sat down in it abruptly 
 with the briefest salutations. His hoj)es and anticipa- 
 tions all went bitterly back upon his heart. The very 
 rustle of Nettie's arm as she spread out that little 
 
196 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 black frock upon the table, and put on its melancholy 
 trimmings, exasperated afresh the man who five minutes 
 ago did not believe it possible that he ever could feel 
 an impulse of displeasure against her again. 
 
 " I cannot say that I expected to see you, Mr Ed- 
 ward," said Mrs Fred, lifting her handkerchief to her 
 eyes ; " indeed, when I remember the last time you 
 were here, I wonder you could think of coming near 
 us. But now my poor dear Fred is gone, we have 
 nobody to protect us — and of course you don't mind 
 how you hurt my feelings. If you had done your 
 duty by my poor fellow when he was living, he might 
 never — never " 
 
 Here Mrs Fred paused, choked by spiteful tears. 
 
 "Dr Edward, don't mind what Susan says," said 
 Nettie. " It is very kind of you to come, after every- 
 thing If you would only teU the people not to 
 
 take any notice, but just to let us go on as usual. 
 They all want to be kind, you know — they keep com- 
 ing, and asking what they can do ; and you under- 
 stand very well there is nothing to do," said Nettie, 
 with a little pride. " AVe are just as we were before — 
 nothing is changed : one does not like to be unkind, 
 but nobody needs to do anythmg. We shall get along 
 all the same." 
 
 " So it seems, indeed," said Dr Rider, with irrepres- 
 sible bitterness ; " all the same ! But, indeed, I came 
 
THE doctor's family. 197 
 
 specially to ask what my sister-in-law meant to do," 
 continued the doctor, bent on one last appeal. " Now 
 that you are left to yourself, Mrs Eider, what do you 
 think of doing ? Of course you must have some plans 
 about the children and your future life ? " 
 
 Mrs Fred looked up at him with momentary alarm 
 and dismay. She did not know what the question 
 meant, but a certain vague terror seized her. It 
 seemed to imply somehow that she was now to be 
 left to her own resources. She gave a certain gasp of 
 appeal to " Nettie ! " and took refuge once more in her 
 handkerchief. The doctor was desperate — he had no 
 mercy in him. 
 
 " Nettie ! always Nettie ! " cried the young man. 
 " And is it true, Nettie — is it all the same ? Are you 
 always to go on toiling for the miserable comforts of 
 other people ? What is to become of us ? Have you 
 sold yourself to this fate ? " 
 
 Nettie laid down the little black frock out of her 
 laborious hands. "You have been up all night, Dr 
 Edward," she said, with a certain tenderness, looking 
 at his agitated face ; " you are tired out and sick at 
 the heart. I know it makes you say things you would 
 not say ; but after all, you know, except poor Fred, 
 whom none of you think of, everything is the very 
 same. I cannot make it different — nothing can make 
 it different. There is Susan plain enough to be seen 
 
198 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 — and there are the children. Sometimes it has come 
 into my mind," said Nettie, "that as I shall never be 
 able to aflFord a very good education for the children, 
 it would be better to take them out to the colony 
 again, where they might get on better than here. But 
 it is a dreadful long voyage ; and we have no near 
 friends there, or anywhere else : and," concluded the 
 steadfast creature, who had dropped these last words 
 from her lips sentence by sentence, as if eager to im- 
 press upon her own mind the arguments against that 
 proceeding — "and," said Nettie, with wistfid pathetic 
 honesty, not able to deny the real cause of the reluct- 
 ance altogether, " I don't seem to have the heart for it 
 now." 
 
 Dr Eider started up from his chair. He went to 
 Nettie's side with a sudden thrill of agitation and pas- 
 sion. He clasped the hand with which Nettie was 
 smoothing out that little frock, and crushed the deli- 
 cate fingers in his inconsiderate grasp. " Nettie ! 
 if you must carry them always upon your shoul- 
 ders, cannot we do it together, at least?" cried the 
 doctor, carried away beyond every boundary of sense 
 or prudence. He got down on his knees beside the 
 table, not kneeling to her, but only compelling her 
 attention — demanding to see the answer of her eyes, 
 the quiver of her mouth. For that moment Nettie's 
 defences too fell before this unlooked-for outburst of a 
 
THE doctor's family. 199 
 
 love that had forgotten prudence. Her mouth quivered, 
 her eyes filled. If it were possible — if it were only 
 
 possible ! They had both forgotten the spectators 
 
 who gazed with curious eyes, all unaware how deeply 
 their own fate was involved ; and that fate was still 
 trembling in the breathless interval, when a vulgar 
 finger touched those delicate balances of possibility, 
 and the crisis was over, perhaps never to return. 
 
 " Nettie ! " cried Mrs Fred, " if Edward Eider has 
 no respect for me, nor for my poor Fred — my poor, 
 dear, injured husband, that helped to bring him up, 
 and gave up his practice to him, and died, as I might 
 say, by his neglect — Nettie ! how can you be so cruel 
 to your sister ? How can you go taking his hand, and 
 looking as if he were your lover ? You never had any 
 feeling for me, though everybody thinks so much of 
 you. And now I know what I have to expect. The 
 moment my poor dear Fred's head is laid in the grave 
 — as soon as ever you have me in your own hands, and 
 nobody to protect me ! — oh, my Fred ! my Fred ! — as 
 soon as you are gone, this is how they are using your 
 poor helpless family ! — and soon, soon I shall die too, 
 and you will not be encumbered with me ! " 
 
 Long before this sobbing speech was concluded, Dr 
 Eider had risen to his feet, and was pacing through 
 the little room with hasty steps of disgust and rage, 
 and an agitation which overwhelmed all his attempts 
 
200 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 to master it ; while Nettie ,sat supporting her head in 
 her hands, pressing her fingers upon her hot eyes, be- 
 holding that fair impossible vision break and disappear 
 from before her. Nettie's heart groaned within her, 
 and beat against the delicate bosom which, in its ten- 
 der weakness, was mighty as a giant's. She made no 
 answer to her sister's outcry, nor attempted to comfort 
 the hysterical sobbing into which Susan fell. Nettie 
 gave up the hopeless business without being deceived 
 by those selfish demonstrations. She was not even 
 fortunate enough to be able to persuade herself into 
 admiring love and enthusiasm for those to whom neces- 
 sity obliged her to give up her own life. She said 
 nothing ; she knew the sobs would subside, the end 
 would be gained, the insignificant soul lapse into com- 
 fort, and with a sigh of compulsory resignation Nettie 
 yielded once more to her fate. 
 
 "Dr Edward, do not think of me any more," she 
 said, resolutely, rising and going out to the door with 
 him, in her simplicity and courage. "You see very 
 well it is impossible. I know you see it as well as I 
 do. If we could be friends as we once were, I should 
 be very, very glad, but I don't think it is possible just 
 now. Don't say anything. We both know how it is, 
 and neither of us can help it. If we could get not to 
 think of each other, that would be best," said Nettie, 
 
THE doctor's family. 201 
 
 with another sigh ; " but in the mean time let us say- 
 good-bye, and speak of it no more." 
 
 If the doctor did not take his dismissal exactly so — 
 if Nettie's identification of her own sentiments with 
 his, did lead to a warmer tenderness in that farewell, 
 which could not be final while such a bond united 
 them, it was at least with an absolute conviction of the 
 impossibility of any closer union that they parted. The 
 doctor sprang into his drag and dashed away to his 
 patients, plunging into the work which he had some- 
 what neglected during that exciting day. He was not 
 without some comfort as he went about his business 
 with Care behind him, but that very comfort embit- 
 tered the pang of the compulsory submission. To 
 think he must leave her there with those burdens 
 upon her delicate shoulders — to believe her his, yet 
 not his, the victim of an unnatural bondage — drove 
 Edward Eider desperate as he devoured the way. A 
 hundred times in an hour he made up his mind to 
 hasten back again and snatch her forcibly out of that 
 thraldom, and yet a hundred times had to fall back 
 consuming his heart with fiery irritation, and chafing 
 at all that seemed duty and necessity to Nettie. As 
 he was proceeding on his troubled way it occurred to 
 him to meet — surely everybody in Carhngford was out 
 of doors this particular afternoon ! — that prosperous 
 wife, Mrs John Brown, who had once been Bessie 
 
202 CHEONICLES OF CAELINGFORD : 
 
 Christian. She was a very pale apparition now to the 
 doctor, engrossed as he was with an influence much 
 more imperious and enthralling than hers had ever 
 been ; but the sight of her, on this day of all others, 
 was not without its effect upon Edward Eider. Had 
 not she too been burdened with responsibilities which 
 the doctor would not venture to take upon his shoul- 
 ders, but which another man, more daring, had taken, 
 and rendered bearable ? As the thought of that pos- 
 sibility occurred to him, a sudden vision of IVIrs Fred's 
 faded figure flashed across his eyes. In the excitement 
 of the moment he touched too sharply with his whip 
 that horse which had suffered the penalty of most of 
 his vagaries of temper and imagination for some time 
 past. The long-suffering beast was aggravated out of 
 patience by that unexpected irritation. It was all the 
 doctor could do for the next ten minutes to keep his 
 seat and his command over the exasperated animal, 
 whose sudden frenzy terrified Mrs Brown, and drove 
 her to take refuge in the nearest shop. How little the 
 Carlingford public, who paused at a respectful distance 
 to look on, guessed those emotions which moved the 
 doctor as they watched him subduing his rebellious 
 horse with vigorous arm and passionate looks ! Bessie, 
 with a little palpitation at her heart, could not refrain 
 from a passing wonder whether the sight of herself 
 had anything to do with that sudden conflict. Mrs 
 
. THE DOCTOE'S family. 203 
 
 Brown knew little about St Eoque's Cottage, but had 
 heard of Miss Marjoribanks, who it was not to be sup- 
 posed could hold a very absolute sway over the doctor. 
 Meanwhile Dr Eider struggled with his horse with all 
 the intensity of determination with which he would 
 have struggled against his fate had that been practic- 
 able. With set teeth and eyes that blazed with sudden 
 rage and resolution, he subdued the unruly brute, and 
 forced it to acknowledge his mastery. When he drove 
 the vanquished animal, all quivering with pain and 
 passion, on its further course, the struggle had re- 
 freshed his mind a little. Ah, if life and adverse for- 
 tune could but be vanquished so! — but all Edward 
 Rider's resolution and courage died into hopeless dis- 
 gust before the recollection of Mrs Fred upon that 
 sofa. Even with Nettie at one hand, that peevish 
 phantom on the other, those heartless imps in insolent 
 possession of the wonderful little guardian who would 
 not forsake them, made up a picture which made the 
 doctor's heart sick. No ! Nettie was right. It was 
 impossible. Love, patience, charity, after all, are but 
 human qualities, when they have to be held against 
 daily disgusts, irritations, and miseries. The doctor 
 knew as well as Nettie did that he could not bear it. 
 He knew even, as perhaps Nettie did not know, that 
 her own image would suffer from the association ; and 
 that a man so faulty and imperfect as himself could 
 
204 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 not long refrain from resenting upon his wife tlie dis- 
 mal restraints of such a burden. With a self-disgust 
 which was most cutting of all, Edward Eider felt that 
 he should descend to that injustice ; and that not eveo 
 Nettie herself would be safe against the eflusions of 
 his impatience and indignation. All through the 
 course of this exciting episode in his life, his own 
 foresight and knowledge of himself had been torture 
 to the doctor, and had brought him, in addition to aU 
 other trials, silent agonies of self-contempt which no- 
 body could guess. But he could not alter his nature. 
 He went through his day's work very wretched and 
 dejected, yet with an ineffable touch of secret comfort 
 behind all, which sometimes would look him in the 
 face for a moment like a passing sunbeam, yet some- 
 times seemed to exasperate beyond bearing the tanta- 
 lising misery of his fate. A more agitated, disturbed, 
 passionate, and self - consuming man than the doctor 
 was not in Carlingford, nor within a hundred miles ; 
 yet it was not perfect wretchedness after all. 
 
 Nettie, on her part, went back to Mrs Fred in the 
 parlour, after she had parted from Edward Rider, with 
 feelings somewhat different from the doctor's. Per- 
 haps she too had indulged a certain pang of expecta- 
 tion as to what might follow after Fred was gone, in 
 the new world that should be after that change ; for 
 Nettie, with all her wisdom of experience, was still too 
 
THE doctor's family. 205 
 
 young not to believe that circumstances did change 
 everything now and then, even dispositions and hearts. 
 But before Dr Eider knew it — before he had even 
 wound up his courage to the pitch of asking what was 
 now to happen to them — the little Australian had 
 made up her mind to that which was inevitable. The 
 same Susan whose ceaseless discontents and selfish love 
 had driven Nettie across the seas to look for Fred, was 
 now reposing on that sofa in her widow's cap, altoge- 
 ther unchanged, as helpless and unabandonable, as de- 
 pendent, as much a fool as ever. The superior wretch- 
 edness of Fred's presence and life had partially veiled 
 Susan's character since they came to Carlingford. Now 
 she had the field to herself again, and Nettie recognised 
 at once the familiar picture. From the moment when 
 Susan in her mourning came down-stairs, Nettie ac- 
 knowledged the weakness of circumstances, the perti- 
 nacity of nature. What could she do ? — she gave up 
 the scarcely-formed germ of hope that had begun to 
 appear in her breast. She made up her mind silently 
 to what must be. No agonies of martyrdom could 
 have made Nettie desert her post and abandon these 
 helpless souls. They could do nothing for themselves, 
 old or young of them ; and who was there to do it all 1 
 she asked herself, with that perpetual reference to 
 necessity which was Nettie's sole process of reasoning 
 on the subject. Thus considered, the arguments were 
 
206 CHKONICLES OF CAKLINGFORD : 
 
 short and telling, the conclusion unmistakable. Here 
 was this visible piece of business — four helpless crea- 
 tures to be supported and provided and thrust through 
 life somehow — with nobody in the world but Nettie to 
 do it ; to bring them daily bread and hourly tendance, 
 to keep them alive, and shelter their helplessness with 
 refuge and protection. She drew up her tiny Titania 
 figure, and put back her silken flood of hau", and stood 
 upright to the full extent of her little stature, when 
 she recognised the truth. Nobody could share with 
 her that warfare which was hard to flesh and blood. 
 There was nothing to be said on the subject — no possibil- 
 ity of help. She was almost glad when that interview, 
 which she foresaw, was over, and when Edward had 
 recognised as well as herself the necessities of the mat- 
 ter. She went back again out of the little hall where, 
 for one moment and no more, the lights of youth and 
 love had flushed over Nettie, suffusing her paleness 
 with rose - blushes. Now it was all over. The ro- 
 mance was ended, the hero gone, and life had begun 
 anew. 
 
 " I can't say I ever liked this place," sighed Mrs 
 Fred, when the lamp was lit that evening, and Nettie 
 had come down-stairs again after seeing the children 
 in bed. " It was always dull and dreary to me. If 
 we hadn't been so far out of Carlingford, things might 
 have been very different. My poor Fred ! instead of 
 
THE doctor's family. 207 
 
 taking care of him, all the dangers that ever could be 
 were put in his way." 
 
 This sentence was concluded by some weeping, of 
 which, however, Nettie did not take any notice. Mak- 
 ing mourning by lamp-light is hard work, as all poor 
 seamstresses know. Nettie had no tears in the eyes 
 that were fixed intently upon the little coat which was 
 to complete Freddy's outfit ; and she did not even look 
 up from that urgent occupation to deprecate Susan's 
 tears. 
 
 " I tell you, Nettie, I never could bear this place," 
 said Mrs Fred ; and now, whenever I move, the dread- 
 ful thoughts that come into my mind are enough to 
 kill me. You always were strong from a baby, and of 
 course it is not to be expected that you can understand 
 what my feelings are. And Mrs Smith is anything 
 but kind, or indeed civil, sometimes ; and I don't think 
 I could live through another of these cold English win- 
 ters. I am sure I never could keep alive through 
 another winter, now my poor Fred's gone." 
 
 " Well ? " asked Nettie, with involuntary harshness 
 in her voice. 
 
 " I don't care for myself," sobbed Mrs Fred, " but 
 it's dreadful to see you so unfeeling, and to think what 
 would become of his poor children if anything were to 
 happen to me. I do believe you would marry Edward 
 Piider if it were not for me, and go and wrong the poor 
 
208 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 children, and leave them destitute. Nobody has the 
 feeling for them that a mother has ; but if I live 
 another winter in England, I know I shall die." 
 
 " You have thought of dying a great many times," 
 said Nettie, " but it has never come to anything. 
 Never mind that just now. "What do you want ? Do 
 you want me to take you back to the colony all these 
 thousands of miles after so many expenses as there 
 have been already ? — or what is it you want me to 
 do?" 
 
 " You always speak of expenses, Nettie : you are 
 very poor-spirited, though people think so much of 
 you," said Susan ; " and don't you think it is natural 
 I should wish to go home, now my poor Fred has been 
 taken away from me ? And you confessed it would be 
 best for the children. We know scarcely anybody 
 here, and the very sight of that Edward that was so 
 cruel to my poor Fred " 
 
 " Susan, don't be a fool," said Nettie ; " you know 
 better in your heart. If you will tell me plainly what 
 you want, I shall listen to you ; but if not, I will go 
 up-stairs and put away Freddy's things. Only one 
 thing I may tell you at once ; you may leave Carling- 
 ford if you please, but I shall not. I cannot take you 
 back again to have you ill all the way, and the child- 
 ren threatening to fall overboard twenty times in a 
 day. I did it once, but I will not do it again." 
 
THE doctor's family. 209 
 
 " You will not ? " cried Susan. " Ah, I know what 
 you mean : I know very well what you mean. You 
 think Edward Eider " 
 
 Nettie rose up and faced her sister with a little gasp 
 of resolution which frightened Mrs Fred. "I don't 
 intend to have anything said about Edward Rider," said 
 Nettie ; " he has nothing to do with it one way or an- 
 other. I tell you what I told him, that I have not the 
 heart to carry you all back again ; and I cannot afford 
 it either ; and if you want anything more, Susan," 
 added the peremptory creature, flashing forth into 
 something of her old spirit, " I shan't go — and that is 
 surely enough."' 
 
 With which words Nettie went off like a little sprite 
 to put away Ereddy's coat, newly completed, along 
 with the other articles of his wardrobe, at which she 
 had been working all day. In that momentary impulse 
 of decision and self-will, a few notes of a song came 
 unawares from Nettie's lip, as she glanced, light and 
 rapid as a fairy, up-stairs. She stopped a minute after 
 with a sigh. Were Nettie's singing days over ? She 
 had at least come at last to find her life hard, and to 
 acknowledge that this necessity which was laid upon 
 her was grievous by times to flesh and blood ; but not 
 the less for that did she arrange Ereddy's little gar- 
 ments daintily in the drawers, and pause, before she 
 
 o 
 
'210 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 went down-stairs again, to cover him up in his little 
 bed. 
 
 Susan still sat pondering and crying over the fire. 
 Her tears were a great resource to Mrs Fred. They 
 occupied her when she had nothing else to occupy her- 
 self with ; and when she cast a weeping glance up 
 from her handkerchief to see Nettie draw her chair 
 again to the table, and lay down a little pile of pina- 
 fores and tuckers which required supervision, Susan 
 wept still more, and said it was well to be Nettie, who 
 never was overcome by her feelings. Thus the evening 
 passed dully enough. Just then, perhaps, Nettie was 
 not a very conversable companion. Such interviews 
 as that of this day linger in the heads of the mterlo- 
 cutors, and perhaps produce more notable effects after- 
 wards than at the moment. Nettie was not thinking 
 about it. She was simply going over it again, finding 
 out the tones and meanings which, in the haste and 
 excitement of their occurrence, did not have their full 
 force. The fulness of detail that lingers about such 
 pictures, which are not half apprehended till they have 
 been gone over again and again, is marvellous. The 
 pinafores went unconsciously through Nettie's fingers. 
 She was scarcely aware of Susan crying by the fire. 
 Though it had been in some degree a final and almost 
 hopeless parting, there was comfort behind the cloud 
 to Nettie as well as to the doctor. She had foreotten 
 
THE doctor's family. 211 
 
 all about the discussion with which the evening began 
 before Susan spoke again. 
 
 " Richard Chatham came home with the last mail," 
 said Susan, making a feeble effort to renew the fight. 
 " He sent me a letter last week, you know. I daresay 
 he will come to see us. Eichard Chatham from Mel- 
 bourne, Nettie. I daresay he will not stay out of the 
 colony long." 
 
 Nettie, who was lost in her own thoughts, made no 
 reply. 
 
 " I daresay," repeated Mrs Fred, " he will be going 
 out again in a month or two. I do not believe he 
 could bear this dreadful English winter any more than 
 I could. I daresay he'd be glad to take care of us 
 out — if you should change your mind about going, 
 Nettie." 
 
 Nettie gave her sister a glance of resolution and 
 impatience — a swift glance upward from her work, 
 enough to show she marked and understood — but still 
 did not speak. 
 
 " Richard Chatham was always very good-natured : 
 it would be such a good thing for us to go in the same 
 ship — if you should happen to change your mind about 
 going, Nettie," said Mrs Fred, rising to retire to her 
 room. " I am going to bed to try to get a little sleep. 
 Such wretched nights as I have would kill anybody. 
 I should not wonder if Richard Chatham came some 
 
212 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of these days to see us. Poor fellow ! he had always 
 a great fancy for our family ; and it would be such a 
 thing for us, Nettie, if you should change your mind 
 about going, to go in the same ship ! " 
 
 With which Parthian shot IVIrs Fred made her way 
 up-stairs and retired from the field. Nettie woke with 
 a startled consciousness out of her dreams, to perceive 
 that here was the process of iteration begun which 
 drives the wisest to do the will of fools. She woke up 
 to it for a moment, and, raising her drooping head, 
 watched her sister make her way with her handkerchief 
 in her hand, and the broad white bands of her cap 
 streaming over her shoulders, to the door. Susan stole 
 a glance round before she disappeared, to catch the 
 startled glance of that resolute little face, only half 
 woke up, but wholly determined. Though Mrs Pred 
 dared not say another word at that moment, she disap- 
 peared full of the conviction that her arrow had told, 
 and that the endless persistence with which she her- 
 self, a woman and a fool, was gifted, need only be duly 
 exercised to win the day. When Susan was gone, that 
 parting arrow did quiver for a moment in Nettie's 
 heart ; but the brave little girl had, for that one night, 
 a protection which her sister wist not of After the 
 door closed, Nettie fell back once more into that hour 
 of existence which expanded and opened out the more 
 for every new approach which memory made to it. 
 
THE doctor's family. 213 
 
 Sweet nature, geutle youth, and the Magician greater 
 than either, came round her in a potent circle and 
 defended Nettie. The woman was better off than the 
 man in this hour of their separation, yet union. He 
 chafed at the consolation which was but visionary ; 
 she, perhaps, in that visionary, ineffable solacement 
 found a happiness greater than any reality could ever 
 give. 
 
CHAPTEE XIIL 
 
 It was some months after the time of this conversation 
 when a man, unlike the usual aspect of man in Car- 
 lingford, appeared at the inn with a carpet-bag, and 
 asked his way to St Eoque's Cottage. Beards were 
 not common in those days : nobody grew one in Car- 
 lingford except Mr Lake, who, in his joint capacity of 
 portrait-painter and drawing-master, represented the 
 erratic and lawless followers of Art to the imagination 
 of the respectable town. But the stranger who made 
 his sudden appearance at the Blue Boar wore such a 
 forest of hair on the lower part of his burly counte- 
 nance as obliterated all ordinary landmarks in that 
 region, and by comparison made Mr Lake's dainty 
 little moustache and etceteras sink into utter propriety 
 and respectableness. The rest of the figure corre- 
 sponded with this luxuriant feature ; the man was 
 large and burly, a trifle too stout for a perfect athlete, 
 but powerful and vigorous almost beyond anjrthing 
 
THE doctor's family. 215 
 
 then known in Carlingford. It was now summer, and 
 warm weather, and the dress of the new-comer was as 
 unusual as the other particulars of his appearance. In 
 his broad straw-hat and linen coat he stood cool and 
 large in the shady hall of the Blue Boar, with glimpses 
 of white English linen appearing under his forest of 
 beard, and round his brown sun-scorched wrists. A 
 very smaU stretch of imagination was necessary to thrust 
 pistols into his belt and a cutlass into his hand, and 
 reveal him as the settler-adventurer of a half-savage 
 disturbed country, equally ready to work or to fight, 
 and more at home in the shifts and expedients of the 
 wUderness than among the bonds of civilisation ; yet 
 always retaining, as English adventurers will, certain 
 dainty personal particulars — such, for instance, as that 
 prejudice in favour of clean Knen, which only the highest 
 civilisation can cultivate into perfection. He went off 
 down Grange Lane with the swing and poise of a Her- 
 cules, when the admiring waiters directed him to the 
 Cottage. Miss Wodehouse, who was standing at the 
 door with Lucy, in the long grey cloak and close bon- 
 net lately adopted by the sisterhood of mercy, which 
 had timidly, under the auspices of the perpetual curate, 
 set itself a-going at St Roque's, looked after the salvage 
 man with an instinct of gentle curiosity, wondering 
 where he was going and where he came from. To tell 
 the truth, that tender-hearted soul could with more 
 
216 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 comfort to herself have stepped down a little on the 
 road to St Eoque's, and watched whether that extra- 
 ordinary figure was in search of Nettie — a suspicion 
 which immediately occurred to her — than she could 
 set out upon the district-visiting, to which Lucy now 
 led her forth. But Miss Wodehouse had tremulously 
 taken example by the late rector, whose abrupt retire- 
 ment from the duties for which he did not feel himself 
 qualified, the good people in Carlingford had scarcely 
 stopped discussing. Miss Wodehouse, deeply impressed 
 in her gentle mind by the incidents of that time, had 
 considered it her duty to reclaim if possible — she who 
 had no circle of college dons to retire into — her own life 
 from its habits of quiet indolence. She consented to 
 go with Lucy into all the charitable affairs of Carling- 
 ford. She stood silent with a pitying face, and believed 
 in all the pretences of beggary which Lucy saw through 
 by natural insight. But it was no more her natural 
 element than the long grey cloak was a natural garment 
 for that spotless, dove-coloured woman. Her eyes 
 turned wistfully after the stranger with suppressed 
 impulses of gentle curiosity and gossip. She knew 
 very well he did not belong to Carlingford. She 
 knew nobody in Grange Lane or the neighbom-hood to 
 whom he could belong. She wanted very much to stop 
 and inquire at the stable-boy of the Blue Boar, their 
 own gardener's son, who and what this new-comer was. 
 
THE DOCTORS FAMILY. 217 
 
 and turned back to look after him before she turned 
 out of George Street following Lucy, with lively anxiety 
 to know whether he was going to St Eoque's. Perhaps 
 the labours of a sisterhood of mercy require a special 
 organisation even of the kind female soul. Miss Wode- 
 house, the most tender-hearted of human creatures, did 
 not rise to that development ; and, with a little pang 
 of unsatisfied wonder, saw the unaccustomed Hercules 
 disappear in the distance without being able to make 
 out whither he was bound. 
 
 Nobody, however, who had been privileged to share 
 the advantages of Mrs Fred Eider's conversation for 
 some time back, could be at a loss to guess who this 
 messenger from the wUderness was. It was Richard 
 Chatham come at last — he with whose name Nettie 
 had been bored and punctured through and through 
 from the first day of his introduction into Susan's talk 
 till now. Mrs Fred had used largely in the interval 
 that all-potent torture of the "continual dropping; " — 
 used it so perpetually as, though without producing 
 any visible efiect upon Nettie's resolution, to introduce 
 often a certain sickness and disgust with everything 
 into that steadfast soul. Nor did she content herself 
 with her own exertions, but skilfully managed to in- 
 troduce the idea into the minds of the children — ready, 
 as all children are, for change and novelty. Nettie had 
 led a hard enough life for these three months. She 
 
218 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 could not meet Edward Eider, nor he her, with a calm 
 pretence of friendship ; and Susan, always insolent 
 and spiteful, and now mistress of the position, filled 
 the doctor with an amount of angry irritation which 
 his longings for Nettie's society could not quite sub- 
 due. That perpetual barrier between them dismayed 
 both. Meetings which always ended in pain were 
 best avoided, except at those intervals when longing 
 love could not, even under that penalty, refuse itself 
 the gratification ; but the dismal life which was lighted 
 up only by those unfrequent, agitating, exasperating 
 encounters, and which flowed on through a hundred 
 petty toilsome duties to the fretful accompaniment of 
 Susan's iterations and the novel persecution now car- 
 ried on by the children, was naturally irksome to the 
 high - spirited and impatient nature which, now no 
 longer heart-whole or fancy-free, did not find it so easy 
 to carry its own way triumphantly through those heavy 
 clogs of helplessness and folly. In the days when Miss 
 Wodehouse pitied and wondered, Nettie had required 
 no sympathy ; she had carried on her course victorious, 
 more entirely conscious of the supreme gratification of 
 having her own way, than of the utter self-sacrifice 
 which she made to Fred and his family. But now the 
 time predicted by Miss Wodehouse had arrived. Net- 
 tie's own personal happiness had come to be at stake, 
 and had been unhesitatingly given up. But the know- 
 
THE doctor's family. 219 
 
 ledge of that renunciation dwelt with Nettie. Not all 
 the natural generosity of her mind — not that still 
 stronger argument which she used so often, the mere 
 necessity and inevitableness of the case, could blind 
 her eyes to the fact that she had given up her own 
 happiness ; and bitter flashes of thought would inter- 
 vene, notwithstanding even the self-contempt and re- 
 proach with which she became aware of them. That 
 doubtful complicated matter, most hard and difficult 
 of mortal problems, pressed hard upon Nettie's mind 
 and heart. In former days, when she scornfully denied 
 it to be self-sacrifice, and laboured on, always indomit- 
 able, unconscious that what she did was anything more 
 than the simplest duty and necessity, all was well with 
 the dauntless, aU-enterprising soul ; but growing know- 
 ledge of her own heart, of other hearts, \;ast dark and 
 perplexing shades upon Nettie, as upon all other way- 
 farers in these complex paths. The effect upon her 
 mind was different from the effect to be expected ac- 
 cording to modern sentimental ethics. Nettie had 
 never doubted of the true duty, the true necessity, of 
 her position, tiU she became conscious of her vast 
 sacrifice. Then a hundred doubts appalled her. Was 
 she so entirely rigJit as she had supposed? Was it 
 best to relieve the helpless hands of Fred and 
 Susan of their natural duties, and bear these bur- 
 dens for them, and disable herself when her time 
 
220 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 came from the nobler natural yoke in which her full 
 womanly influence might have told to an extent im- 
 possible to it now? These questions made Nettie's 
 head, which knew no fanciful pangs, ache with painful 
 thought, and confused her heart and dimmed her lights 
 when she most needed them to burn brightly. While, 
 at the very time when these doubts assailed her, her 
 sister's repetitions and the rising discontent and agita- 
 tions of the children, came in to overcloud the whole 
 business in a mist of sick impatience and disgust. 
 Eeturn to Australia was never out of Susan's mind, 
 never absent from her pertinacious fooHsh Hps. Little 
 Freddy harjDcd upon it all day long, and so did his 
 brother and sister. Nettie said nothing, but retired 
 with exasperated weariness upon her own thoughts — 
 sometimes thinking, tired of the conflict, why not give 
 in to them ? why not complete the offering, and re- 
 move once for all into the region of impossibility, that 
 contradictory longing for another life that stiU stirred 
 by times in her heart ? She had never given expres- 
 sion to this weary inclination to make an end of it, 
 which sometimes assailed her fatigued soul ; but this 
 was the condition in which Eichard Chatham's visit 
 found her, when that Bushman, breathing of the wilds 
 and the winds, came down the quiet suburban road to 
 St Eoque's, and filling the whole little parlour with 
 
THE doctor's family. 221 
 
 Ms beard and his presence, came stumbling into tlie 
 confined room, where Mrs Fred still lay on the sofa, 
 and Nettie pursued her endless work. 
 
 " Sorry to hear of the poor doctor's accident," said 
 the Australian, to whom Fred bore that title. "But 
 he always was a bit of a rover ; though it's sad when 
 it comes to that. And so you are thinking of a return 
 to the old colony? Can't do better, I should say — 
 there ain't room in this blessed old country for any- 
 thing but tax - gatherers and gossips. I can't find 
 enough air to breathe for my part — and what there is, 
 is taxed — leastways the light is, which is all the same. 
 Well, Mrs Eider ! say the word, ma'am, and I am at 
 your disposal. I'm not particular for a month or two, 
 so as I get home before next summer ; and if you'll 
 only tell me your time, I'll make mine suit, and do the 
 best I can for you all. IVIiss Nettie's afraid of the 
 voyage, is she ? That's a new line for her, I believe. 
 Something taken her fancy in this horrid old box of a 
 place, eh ? Ha ! ha ! but I'll be head-nurse and courier 
 to the party, Miss Nettie, if you trust yourselves to me." 
 
 " We don't mean to go back, thank you," said Net- 
 tie. "It is only a fancy of Susan's. Nobody ever 
 dreamt of going back. It is much too expensive and 
 troublesome to be done so easily. Now we are here, 
 we mean to stay."' 
 
222 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 The Bushman looked a little startled, and his lips 
 formed into a whistle of astonishment, which Nettie's 
 resolute little face kept inaudible. " Taken your fancy 
 very much, eh, Miss Nettie?" said the jocular savage, 
 who fancied raillery of one kind or other the proper 
 style of conversation to address to a young lady. Net- 
 tie gave that big hero a flashing sudden glance which 
 silenced him. Mr Chatham once more formed an 
 inaudible whew ! with his lips, and looked at Mrs 
 Fred. 
 
 "But your heart inclines to the old colony, Miss 
 Susan ? — I beg your pardon — didn't remember what I 
 was saying at that moment. Somehow you look so 
 much as you used to do, barring the cap," said the 
 Australian, "that one forgets all that has happened. 
 You incline to cross the seas again, Mrs Eider, without 
 thinking of the expense? — and very sensible too. 
 There never was a place like this blessed old country 
 for swallowing up a man's money. You'll save as 
 much in a year in the colony as will take you across." 
 
 " That is what I always say ; — but of course my 
 wishes are little thought of," said Mrs Fred, with a 
 sigh ; " of course it's Nettie we have to look to now. 
 If she does not choose, to be sure, it does not matter 
 what I wish. Ah ! if I don't look diflerent, I feel dif- 
 ferent — things are changed now." 
 
 The Bushman gave a puzzled glance, first at one 
 
THE doctor's family. 223 
 
 sister and then at the other. It occurred to him that 
 Fred had not been so much of a strength and protec- 
 tion to his family as this speech implied, and that 
 Nettie had been the person whom Mrs Eider had to 
 " look to " even before they left that colony for which 
 she now sighed. But Mrs Fred, in her sorrow and 
 her white cap, was an interesting figure to the eyes 
 which were not much accustomed to look upon woman- 
 kind. He had no doubt hers was a hard case. Nettie 
 sat opposite, very busy, silent, and resolute, flashing 
 dangerous sudden glances occasionally at her languid 
 sister and their big visitor. It was confusing to meet 
 those brilliant impatient wrathful eyes ; though they 
 were wonderfully bright, they put out the wild man of 
 the woods, and made him feel uncomfortable. He 
 tm-ned with relief to those milder orbs which Mrs 
 Fred bmied in her handkerchief. Poor little oppressed 
 woman, dependent upon that little arbitrary sister ! 
 The sincerest pity awoke in the Bushman's heart. 
 
 " Well ! " he said, good-humouredly, " I hope you 11 
 come to be of one mind when Miss Nettie thinks it 
 over again ; and you have only to drop me a line to 
 let me know, when your plans are formed ; and it will 
 go hard with me, but I'll make mine suit them one 
 way or another. All that I can do for you in the way 
 of outfit or securing your passages — or even, if you 
 would allow me " 
 
224 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Here the good fellow paused, afraid to venture any 
 further. Nettie looked up in a sudden blaze, and trans- 
 fixed him with her eye. 
 
 "We have enough for everything we want, thank 
 you," said Nettie, looking through and through his 
 guUty benevolent intentions, and bringing a flush of 
 confusion to his honest cheeks. " When I say I can- 
 not afford anything, I don't mean to ask anybody's 
 assistance, Mr Chatham. We can do very well by 
 ourselves. If it came to be best for the children — or 
 if Susan keeps on wishing it, and gets her own way, 
 as she generally does," said Nettie, with heightened 
 colour, dropping her eyes, and going on at double speed 
 with her work, " I daresay we shall manage it as we 
 did before. But that is my concern. Nobody in the 
 world has anything to do with it but me." 
 
 " Oh, Nettie, dear, you're giving in at last ! — do say 
 you'll go ! and Mr Chatham promises he'll take care 
 of us on the way," cried Mrs Fred, clasping her hands. 
 They were thin hands, and looked delicate in contrast 
 with her black dress. She was very interesting, pa- 
 thetic, and tender to the rough eyes of the bushranger. 
 He thought that imperative little creature opposite, 
 with her brilliant glances, her small head droop- 
 ing under those heavy braids of hair, her tiny figure 
 and rapid fingers, looked like a little cruel sprite op- 
 pressing the melancholy soul. When Nettie rose from 
 
THE doctor's family. 225 
 
 the table, goaded into sudden intolerance by that ap- 
 peal, the climax of the " continual dropping," and 
 threw her work indignantly on the table, and called 
 Freddy to come directly, and get dressed for his walk, 
 the impression made by her supposed arbitrary and 
 imperious behaviour was not diminished. She went 
 out disdaiuful, making no reply, and left those two to 
 a private conference. Then Mrs Fred unbosomed her 
 bereaved heart to that sympathetic stranger. She told 
 him how different everything was now — how hard it 
 was to be dependent even on one's sister — how far 
 otherwise things might have been, if poor dear Fred 
 had been more prudent : one way or other, all her life 
 through, Susan had been an injured woman. All her 
 desii'e was to take the children back to the colony 
 before she died. " If Nettie would but yield ! " sighed 
 Mrs Fred, clasping her hands. 
 
 " Nettie must yield ! " cried the Bushranger, full of 
 emotion ; and Susan cried a little, and told him how 
 much the poor dear children wished it ; and knew in 
 her fool's heart that she had driven Nettie to the ex- 
 tremest bounds of patience, and that a little more per- 
 sistence and iteration would gain the day. 
 
 In the mean time Nettie went out with Freddy — the 
 
 other two being at school — and took him across the 
 
 fields for his afternoon walk. The little fellow talked 
 
 of Australia all the way, with a childish treachery and 
 
 p 
 
226 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 betrayal of her cause wliich went to Nettie's heart. 
 She walked by his side, hearing without listening, 
 throbbing all over with secret disgust, impatience, and- 
 despair. She too perceived well enough the approach- 
 ing crisis. She saw that once more all her own resolu- 
 tion — the purpose of her heart — would be overborne 
 by the hopeless pertinacity of the unconvinceable, un- 
 reasoning fool. She did not call her sister hard names 
 — she recognised the quality without giving it its ap- 
 propriate title — and recognised also, with a bitterness 
 of resistance, yet a sense of the inevitable, not to be 
 described, the certain issue of the unequal contest. 
 What chance had the generous little heart, the hasty 
 temper, the quick and vivacious spirit, against that 
 unwearying, unreasoning pertinacity ? Once more she 
 must arise, and go forth to the end of the world ; and 
 the sacrifice must be final now. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " Well, it's to be hoped she's going to do well for 
 herself — that's all we've got to do with it, eh ? I 
 suppose so," said Mr Wodehouse ; " she's nothing to 
 you, is she, but a little girl you've taken a deal of 
 notice of? — more notice than was wanted, if I am any 
 judge. If she does go and marry this fellow from 
 Australia, and he's willing to take the whole bundle 
 back to where they came from, it is the best thing that 
 could happen, in my opinion. Sly young dog that 
 doctor, though, I must say — don't you think so ? Well, 
 that's how it appears to me. Let's see; there was 
 
 Bessie ; hum ! perhaps it's as well, in present 
 
 circumstances, to name no names. There was her, in 
 the first instance, you know ; and the way he got out 
 of that was beautiful ; it was what I call instructive, 
 was that. And then — why then, there was Miss Mar- 
 joribanks, you know — capital match that — just the 
 thing for young Eider — set him up for life." 
 
228 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 " Papa, pray — -pray don't talk nonsense," said Miss 
 Wodehouse, with gentle indignation. " Miss Marjori- 
 baiiks is at least ten years " 
 
 "Oh, stuff!— keep your old-maidish memory to 
 yourself, Molly ; who cares for a dozen years or so ? 
 Hasn't she all the old Scotchman's practice and his 
 savings ? — and a fine woman yet — a fine woman, eh ? 
 Well, yes, I think so ; and then here's this little wretch 
 of a sister-in-law. Why, the doctor's taken your role, 
 Wentworth, eh? Well, I suppose what ought to be 
 your role, you know, though I have seen you casting 
 glances at the strange little creature yourself" 
 
 " Indeed, I assure you, you are entirely mistaken," 
 said Mr Wentworth, hastily, with a sudden flush of 
 either indignation or guilt. The curate glanced at 
 Lucy Wodehouse, who was walking demurely by his 
 side, but who certainly did prick up her ears at this 
 little bit of news. She saw very well that he had 
 looked at her, but would take no notice of his glance. 
 But Lucy's curiosity was notably quickened, notwith- 
 standing ; St Eoque's Cottage was wonderfully handy, 
 if the perpetual curate of the preuy suburban church 
 saw anything worth visiting there. Lucy drew up her 
 pretty shoulders in her grey sister-of-mercy cloak, and 
 opened her blue eyes a little wider. She was still in 
 circumstances to defy her reverend lover, if his eyes 
 had declined upon lower attractions than her own. 
 
THE doctor's family. 229 
 
 She looked very straight before her with unpitying 
 precision down the road, on which St Eoque's church 
 and cottage were becoming already visible. The whole 
 party were walking briskly over a path hard with 
 frost, which made their footsteps ring. The air was 
 still with a winterly touch, benumbed with cold, yet 
 every sound rang sharply through that clear cloudless 
 atmosphere, reddened without being warmed by the 
 sun as it approached the west. It was Christmas 
 again, and they were wending their way towards St 
 Eoque's to assist at the holiday decorations, for which 
 cartloads of laurel and holly had been already deposited 
 within the church. Lucy Wodehouse was chief direct- 
 ress of these important operations. Her sister had 
 accompanied her, partly to admire Lucy's work, and. 
 partly to call at the cottage and see how Nettie was 
 going on. Mr Wodehouse himself had come merely 
 for the pride and pleasure of seeing how much they 
 were indebted to his little girl ; and the attendance 
 of the curate was most easily explainable. It was, in- 
 deed, astonishing how many extremely necessary and 
 natural " caUs of duty " should bring Mr Wentworth's 
 path parallel to that of the Wodehouses. This is why 
 they were all proceeding together on this particular 
 afternoon in the week before Christmas towards St 
 Eoque's. 
 
 In the church, when the party arrived, a little group 
 
230 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of workers were busy. The chancel arch was already 
 bristling with glossy holly leaves. At a little distance 
 from the active group occupied with this pleasant 
 work, and full of chatter and consultation, as was 
 natural, stood one little figure pointing out to two 
 children the wonders of that decorative art. Every 
 one of the newcomers, except Mr Wodehouse, recog- 
 nised Nettie before she was aware of their presence. 
 She stood with her bonnet fallen a little back, as it 
 generally was, either by encounter of the wind, or by 
 the quantity and luxuriance of her beautiful hair, 
 looking upwards to the point where she had directed 
 the children's eyes. She looked a little forlorn and 
 solitary, as was natural, all by herself, so near that 
 group of busy girls in the chancel — so little separated 
 from them by age, so entirely divided by circumstances. 
 If a certain softening of half-tender pity shone in the 
 curate's eye, could Lucy Wodehouse blame him ? But 
 the fact was, Lucy swept past the little Australian 
 with a very brief salutation, and burst into sudden 
 criticism of the work that had been done in her absence 
 which startled her collaborateurs, while Mr Went- 
 worth followed her into the chancel with a meekness 
 quite unusual to that young priest. Nettie noted both 
 circumstances with a little surprise ; but, not connect- 
 ing them in the most distant degree with herself, 
 turned round with a little twitch of Freddy's arm to 
 
THE DOCTOE'S family. 231 
 
 go away, and in doing so almost walked into the arms 
 of her older and more faithful friend. Miss Wode- 
 house kissed her quite suddenly, touching with her 
 soft old cheek that rounder, fairer, youthful face, which 
 turned, half wondering, half pleased, with the look of 
 a chUd, to receive her caress. Nettie was as uncon- 
 scious that Miss Wodehouse's unusual warmth was 
 meant to make up for Lucy's careless greeting, as that 
 Lucy had passed her with a positive flutter of resent- 
 ment and indignation, and that she had been the sub- 
 ject of the converation and thoughts of all the party. 
 Miss Wodehouse turned with her, taking Freddy's 
 other hand — a proceeding to which that hero rather 
 demurred. They went out together to the frosty road, 
 where the bare willow branches rustled between the 
 church and the cottage. When they reached the porch 
 of St Eoque's, Nettie instinctively held her breath, and 
 stood stm for a moment. Along the footpath in front 
 of them a big figure was passing, and beyond that 
 bearded shadow the doctor's drag flew past with all the 
 separate tones of the horse's feet, the wheels, the jingle 
 of the harness, ringing clear through the sharp un- 
 softened medium of that frosty atmosphere. The doc- 
 tor himself had all his attention concentrated upon the 
 windows of the cottage, in which the sun was blazing 
 red. He did not see Nettie in the church porch. He 
 was looking for her too intently in the crimsoned 
 
232 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 windows, to which he turned his head back as he 
 dashed on. Unawares Nettie clasped the fingers of 
 her little companion tighter in her hand as she watched 
 that unexpected homage. The drag was out of sight 
 in another moment ; and in a few seconds more the 
 bell of the cottage pealed audibly, and the door was 
 heard to open, admitting the Bushman, who had come 
 upon one of his frequent visits. That last sound dis- 
 turbed Nettie's composure, and at the same time 
 brought her back to herself. 
 
 " I cannot ask you to go in, for Mr Chatham is 
 there, and. Susan of course talking to him," said Nettie, 
 with a quiet breath of restrained impatience, " but I 
 should like to talk to you, please. Let me take the 
 children home, and th.en I will walk up with you. 
 Mrs Smith is very kind ; she will take off their things 
 for them : they behave better now, when I am out for 
 a few minutes — though, to be sure, I never am out 
 much to try them. Come, children ; be good, and do 
 not make a great noise till I come back." 
 
 " What do you want to talk to her for ?" asked the 
 little girl, gazing coldly in Miss Wodehouse's face. 
 
 " When Nettie went out to tea, we made as much 
 noise as we liked," said Freddy, " but there was papa 
 there. Now there's only mamma, and she's so cross. 
 I hate Chatham — mamma is always crossest when 
 Chatham's there. What do you want to talk to people 
 
THE doctor's family. 233 
 
 for, Nettie ? Come in, and say there's to be toast, and 
 let us have tea." 
 
 " We never have any tea till Nettie comes back," 
 added his sister, looking full once more into Miss 
 Wodehouse's face. The calm childish impertinence 
 disconcerted that gentle woman. She gazed at the 
 wonderful creatures with dumb amazement. Her 
 eyes fell before their steady stare. " I should be sorry 
 to bring you out again, dear, if it's a trouble," began 
 Miss Wodehouse, turning her face with a sense of 
 relief from the hard inspection of the children to their 
 little guardian. 
 
 Nettie made no reply, but carried off her children to 
 the cottage door, turned them peremptorily in, and 
 issued her last orders. " If you make a noise, you 
 shall not go," said Nettie ; and then came back alert, 
 with her rapid fairy steps, to Miss Wodehouse's side. 
 
 " Does not their mother take any charge of them ?" 
 faltered the gentle inquisitor. " I never can under- 
 stand you young people, Nettie. Things were different 
 in my days. Do you think it's quite the best thing to 
 do other people's duties for them, dear ? and now I'm 
 so sorry — oh, so sorry — to hear what you are going 
 to do now." 
 
 " Susan is delicate," said Nettie. " She never had 
 'ny health to speak of — I mean, she always got better, 
 you know, but never had any pleasure in it. There 
 
234 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 must be a great deal in that," continued Nettie, re- 
 flectively ; " it never comes into my head to think 
 whether I am ill or well ; but poor Susan has always 
 had to be thinking of it. Yes, I shall have to take them 
 away," she added again, after a pause. " I am sorry, 
 very sorry too, Miss Wodehouse. I did not think at 
 one time that I had the heart to do it. But on the 
 whole, you know, it seems so much better for them. 
 Susan will be stronger out there, and I have not money 
 enough to give the children a very good education. They 
 will just have to push their way like the others ; and 
 in the colony, you know, things are so different. I 
 have no doubt in my own mind now that it will be best 
 for them all." 
 
 " But Nettie, Nettie, what of yourself? will it be 
 best for you?" cried Miss Wodehouse, looking ear- 
 nestly in her face. 
 
 " What is best for them, will be best for me," said 
 Nettie, with a little impatient movement of her head. 
 She said so with unfaltering spirit and promptitude. 
 She had come to be impatient of the dreary maze in 
 which she was involved. " If one must break one's 
 heart, it is best to do it at once and have done with it," 
 said Nettie, under her breath. 
 
 " What was that you said about your heart ? " said 
 Miss Wodehouse. " Ah, my dear, that is what I 
 wanted to speak of. You are going to be married, 
 
THE doctor's family. 235 
 
 Nettie, and I wanted to suggest to you, if you won't be 
 angry. Don't you think you could make some arrange- 
 ment about your sister and her family, dear ? — not to 
 say a word against the Australian gentleman, Nettie, 
 whom, of course, I don't know. A man may be the 
 best of husbands, and yet not be able to put up with a 
 whole family. I have no doubt the children are very 
 nice clever children, but their manner is odd, you know, 
 for such young creatures. You have been sacrificing 
 yourself for them all this time ; but remember what I 
 say — if you want to live happily, my dear, you'll have 
 to sacrifice them to your husband. I could not be 
 content without saying as much to you, Nettie. I 
 never was half the good in this world that you are, but 
 I am nearly twice as old — and one does pick up some 
 little hints on the way. That is what you must do, 
 Nettie. Make some arrangement, dear. If he has 
 promised to take them out with you, that is all right 
 enough ; but when you come to settle down in your 
 new home, make some arrangement, dear." 
 
 When Miss Wodehouse arrived breathless at the 
 conclusion* of a speech so unusually long for her, she 
 met Nettie's eyes flashing upon her with the utmost 
 surprise and curiosity. " I shall never marry any- 
 body," said Nettie. " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Don't say anything so foolish," said Miss Wode- 
 house, a little nettled. " Do you suppose I don't know 
 
236 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 and see that Mr Chatham coming and going ? How 
 often has he been seen since the first time, Nettie ? and 
 do you suppose it's all been benevolence ? My dear, I 
 know better." 
 
 Nettie looked up with a startled glance. She did 
 not blush, nor betray any pleasant consciousness. She 
 cast one dismayed look back towards the cottage, and 
 another at Miss Wodehouse. " Can that be why he 
 comes?" said Nettie, with quiet horror. " Indeed, I 
 never thought of it before — but all the same, I shall 
 never marry anybody. Do you imagine," cried the 
 brilliant creature, flashing round upon poor Miss Wode- 
 house, so as to dazzle and confuse that gentlewoman, 
 " that a man has only to intend such a thing and it's 
 all settled ? I think difierently. Twenty thousand 
 Chathams would not move me. I shall never marry 
 anybody, if I live to be as old as — as you, or Methuse- 
 lah, or anybody. It is not my lot. I shall take the chil- 
 dren out to Australia, and do the best I can for them. 
 Three children want a great deal of looking after — and 
 after a while in Carlingford, you will all forget that 
 there ever was such a creature as Nettie. * No, I am 
 not crying. T never cry. I should scorn to cry about 
 it. It is simply ony business. That is what it is. 
 One is sorry, of course, and now and then it feels hard, 
 and all that. But what did one come into the world 
 for, I should like to know ? Does anybody suppose it 
 
THE doctor's family. 237 
 
 was just to be comfortable, and have one's own way ? 
 I have had my own way a great deal — more than most 
 people. If I get crossed in some things, I have to 
 bear it. That is all I am going to say. I have got 
 other things to do, Miss Wodehouse. I shall never 
 marry anybody all my life." 
 
 " My dear, if you are thrown upon this Mr Chatham 
 for society all the time of the voyage, and have nobody 
 else to talk to " said the prudent interlocutor. 
 
 " Then we'll go in another ship," cried Nettie, 
 promptly ; " that is easily managed. I know what it 
 is, a long voyage with three children — they fall up the 
 cabin stairs, and they fall down the forecastle ; and 
 they give you twenty frights in a day that they will 
 drop overboard. One does not have much leisure for 
 anything — not even for thinking, which is a comfort 
 sometimes," added Nettie, confidentially, to herself 
 
 " It-depends upon what you think of, whether think- 
 ing is a comfort or not," said good Miss Wodehouse. 
 " When I think of you young people, and all the per- 
 plexities you get into ! There is Lucy now, vexed with 
 Mr Wentworth about something — oh, nothing worth 
 mentioning ; and there was poor Dr Eider ! How he 
 did look behind him, to be sure, as he went past St 
 Roque's ! I daresay it was you he was looking for, 
 Nettie. I wish you and he could have fancied each 
 other, and come to some arrangement about poor Mr 
 
238 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Fred's family — to give them so much to live on, or 
 something. I assure you, when I begin to think over 
 such things, and how perverse both people and circum- 
 stances are, thinking is very little comfort to me." 
 
 Miss Wodehouse drew a long sigh, and was by no 
 means disinclined to cry over her little companion. 
 Though she was the tallest of the two, she leant upon 
 Nettie's firm little fairy arm as they went up the quiet 
 road. Already the rapid winter twilight had fallen, 
 and before them, in the distance, glimmered the lights 
 of Carlingford — foremost among which shone conspi- 
 cuous the large placid white lamp (for professional reds 
 and blues were beneath his dignity) which mounted 
 guard at Dr Marjoribanks's garden gate. Those lights, 
 beginning to shine through the evening darkness, gave 
 a wonderful look of home to the place. Instinctively 
 there occurred to Nettie's mind a vision of how it 
 would be on the sea, with a wide dark ocean heaving 
 around the solitary speck on its breast. It did not 
 matter ! If a silent sob arose in her heart, it found 
 no utterance. Might not Edward Eider have made 
 that suggestion which had occurred only to Miss 
 Wodehouse ? Why did it never come into his head 
 that Susan and her family might have a provision sup- 
 plied for them, which would relieve Nettie ? He had 
 not thought of it, that was all. Instead of that, he 
 had accepted the impossibility. Nettie's heart had 
 
THE doctor's family. 239 
 
 grown impatient in the maze of might-be's. She 
 turned her back upon the lights, and clasped Miss 
 Wodehouse's hand, and said good-night hastily. She 
 went on by herself very rapidly along the hard gleam- 
 ing road. She did not pay any attention to her 
 friend's protestation that she too was coming back 
 again to St Eoque's to join Lucy — on the contrary, 
 Nettie peremptorily left Miss Wodehouse, shaking 
 hands with her in so resolute a manner that her gentle 
 adviser felt somehow a kind of necessity upon her to 
 pursue her way home ; and, only when Nettie was 
 nearly out of sight, turned again with hesitation to 
 retrace her steps towards St Eoque's. Nettie, mean- 
 while, went on at a pace which Miss Wodehouse could 
 not possibly have kept up with, clasping her tiny hands 
 together with a swell of scorn and disdain unusual to 
 it in her heart. Yes ! Why did not Edward Eider 
 propose the "arrangement" which appeared feasible 
 enough to Miss Wodehouse ? Supposing even Nettie 
 had refused to consent to it, as she might very probably 
 have done with indignation — still, why did it not occur 
 to Dr Edward ? She asked herself the question with a 
 heat and passion which she found it difficult to account 
 for. She half despised her lover, as woman will, for 
 obeying her — almost scorned him, as woman will, for 
 the mere constancy which took no violent measures, 
 but only suffered and accepted the inevitable. To 
 
240 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 submit to what cannot be helped is a woman's part. 
 Nettie, hastening along that familiar path, blazed into 
 a sudden burst of rage against Edward because he 
 submitted. What he could do else she was as ig- 
 norant of as any unreasonable creature could be. 
 But that mattered little. With indisnation she saw 
 herself standing on the verge of that domestic preci- 
 pice, and the doctor looking on, seeing her glide out of 
 his reach, yet putting forth no violent sudden hand to 
 detain her. All the impatience of her fiery nature 
 boiled in her veins as she hasted to the cottage, where 
 Susan was discussing their journey with her Australian 
 visitor. No remnant of pathos or love-sickening re- 
 mained about Nettie, as she flashed in upon them in all 
 her old haste and self-reliance — resolute to precipitate 
 the catastrophe which nobody took any measures to 
 prevent. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 It was not long before the doctor was made aware of 
 the ghost in his troubled path. Nobody in Carling- 
 ford could meet the big Bushman in those streets, 
 which always looked too narrow for him, without a 
 certain curiosity about that salvage man. Dr Eider 
 had observed him with jealous interest on his very 
 first appearance ; but had hitherto connected no idea 
 but that of a return to Australia, which he felt sure 
 Nettie would never consent to, with the big stranger. 
 With such a thought he had seen him making his 
 way towards the cottage that very evening when he 
 himself turned back, as long as those crimsoned win- 
 dows were visible, to look for Nettie, who did not 
 show herself. The doctor was bound to see a distant 
 patient, miles on the other side of Carlingford. As 
 he dashed along over the echoing road he had time 
 to imagine to himself how Nettie might at that very 
 moment be badgered and persecuted ; and when he 
 
242 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 had seen his patient and done his duty, and with the 
 lamps lighted in the drag, and the frosty wind blowing 
 keen on his face, and the lights of Carlingford cheer- 
 ing him on in the distance, was once more returning, 
 an impatience, somewhat akin to Nettie's, suddenly 
 came upon the doctor. Akin, yet different ; for in 
 his case it was an impulse of sensation, an inspiration 
 of the exhilarating speed and energy of motion with 
 which he flew through the bracing air, master of him- 
 self, his horse, and the long sweep of solitary road 
 before him. Again it occurred to Dr Eider to dash 
 forward to St Eoque's and carry off Nettie, oppose it 
 who would. The idea pleased him. as he swept along 
 in the darkness, its very impossibility making the 
 vision sweeter. To carry her ofiF at a stroke, in glori- 
 ous defiance of circumstances, and win happiness and 
 love, whatever might ensue. In the flush of the mo- 
 ment the doctor suddenly asked himself whether this, 
 after all, were not the wisest course ? whether, what- 
 ever might come of it, happiness was not worth the 
 encounter of the dark array of troubles behind ? and 
 whether to precipitate everything by a sudden conclu- 
 sion might not be the best way of solving all the 
 intricacies of the matter ? He was still in this mood 
 when he arrived at his own house, where dinner, as 
 usual, was not improved by having been ready for an 
 hour. The lamp was not lighted when he came in, and 
 
• THE doctor's family. 243 
 
 only the cold reflection of the street lights outside, 
 with a particoloured gleam at the corner window from 
 his own red and blue professional ensign at the sur- 
 gery door, lighted the solitary little room, where he 
 looked in vain even for so much as a note or letter to 
 bring some shadow of human fellowship to his home ; 
 the fire smouldering dully, the big chair turned with a 
 sullen back against the wall, as if nobody ever sat there 
 — though Nettie had once and for ever appropriated 
 it to her use — everything in such inhuman trim and 
 good order disgusted the doctor. He rang his bell 
 violently for the lights and refreshments which were 
 so slow of coming, and, throwing himself into that 
 chair, bit his nails and stared out at the lamplight 
 in the rapid access of thought that came upon him. 
 The first thing that disturbed him in this was the 
 apparition of a figure outside peering in with some 
 anxiety at the blank windows — somebody who was 
 evidently curious to know whether the doctor had yet 
 come home. The unhappy doctor started, and rang 
 his bell once more with furious iteration. He knew 
 what was coming. Somebody else, no doubt, had 
 taken ill, without any consideration for young Rider's 
 dinner, which, however, a man must manage to swal- 
 low even when tormented with importunate patients, 
 and in love. But the knock of the untimely visitor 
 sounded at the much-assailed door before Mary, sulky 
 
244 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOKD : • 
 
 and resistant, had been able to arrange before the 
 hungry doctor the half-warm half-cold viands which 
 his impatience would not permit to be duly " heated- 
 up ;" and he had just seated himself to dispose of 
 the unsatisfactory meal when the little groom, who 
 was as tired as his master, opened the door for Mrs 
 Smith from St Eoque's. Mrs Smith was a familiar 
 periodical visitor at Dr Rider's. She had not ceased 
 to hold to that hasty and unwise financial arrange- 
 ment into which th© doctor was persuaded to enter 
 when Fred's pipe had exasperated the landlady into 
 rebellion. He had supplemented the rent at that 
 exciting moment rather than have Nettie disturbed ; 
 and now that poor Fred's pipe was extinguished for 
 ever, the doctor still paid the imposition demanded 
 from him — half because he had no time to contest it, 
 half because it was, however improper and unnecessary, 
 a kind of pleasure to do something for Nettie, little as 
 she knew and deeply as she would have resented it. 
 Dr Eider's brows cleared up at sight of Netty's land- 
 lady. He expected some little private anecdotes of 
 her and her ways, such as no one else could give him. 
 He gave Mrs Smith a chair with a benignity to which 
 she had no personal claim. Her arrival made Dr 
 Rider's beefsteak palatable, though the cookery and 
 condition of the same were, to say the least, far from 
 perfect. Mrs Smith evidently was a little embarrassed 
 
THE doctor's family. 245 
 
 with the gracious reception she received. She twisted 
 the corner of her shawl in her fingers as if it had been 
 that apron with which women of her class habitually 
 reKeve their feelings. She was in a false position. She 
 came with the worst of news to the melancholy lover, 
 and he treated her as if she brought some special mes- 
 sage or favour from the lady of his thoughts. 
 
 "Well, Mrs Smith, and how are you all at the 
 cottage ? " said the doctor, applying himself leisurely 
 to his beefsteak. 
 
 " Well, doctor, nothing to brag of," said Mrs Smith, 
 fixing her eyes upon the fringe of her shawl. " I 
 haven't nothing to say that's pleasant, more the pity. 
 I don' know, sir, how you'll take it when you come 
 to hear ; but it's come very hard upon me. Not for 
 the sake of the lodgings, as'll let again fast enough, 
 now the poor gentleman's sad fate is partly forgotten ; 
 but you know, doctor, a body gets attached-like when 
 one set of people stays long enough to feel at home ; 
 and there ain't many young ladies like Miss, if you 
 were to search the country through. But, now she's 
 really give in to it herself, there ain't no more to be 
 said. I never could bring myself to think Miss would 
 give in till to-night when she told me ; though Smith 
 he always said, when the stranger gentleman took to 
 coming so constant, as he knew how it would be." 
 
 "For heaven's sake, what do you mean?" cried 
 
246 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 Dr Eider, pushing away bis plate, and rising hurriedly 
 from that dinner which was fated never to be eaten. 
 Mrs Smith shook her head and drew out her handker- 
 chief 
 
 " T know nothing more, doctor, but just they're 
 going off to Australia," said the landlady, mournfully ; 
 " and Miss has started packing the big boxes as have 
 been in the hattic since ever they come : they're going 
 off back where they come from — that's all as I know." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried the doctor. 
 
 " I'd have said so myself this morning," said Mrs 
 Smith ; " but there ain't nothing impossible, doctor, 
 as Miss takes in her head. Don't you go and rush 
 out after her, Dr Eider. I beg of you upon my knees, 
 if it was my last word ! I said to Smith I'd come up 
 and tell the doctor, that he mightn't hear from nobody 
 promiscuous as couldn't explain, and mightn't come 
 rushing down to the cottage to know the rights of it 
 and find the gentleman there unexpected. If there's 
 one thing I'm afeard of, it's a quarrel between gentle- 
 men in my house. So, doctor, for the love of peace, 
 don't you go anear the cottage. I'll tell you every- 
 thing if you listen to me." 
 
 The doctor, who had snatched up his hat and made 
 a rapid step towards the door, came back and seized 
 hold of his visitor's shoulder, all his benignity having 
 been put to flight by her unlooked-for revelation. 
 
THE doctor's family. 247 
 
 " Look here ! I want the truth and no gossip ! What 
 do you mean — what gentleman ? What is it all 
 about ? " cried Dr Eider, hoarse with sudden passion. 
 
 " Oh, bless you, doctor, don't blame it upon me, sir," 
 cried Mrs Smith. " It ain't neither my fault nor my 
 business, but that you've always been kind, and my 
 heart warms to Miss. It's the gentleman from Aus- 
 tralia as has come and come again ; and being an un- 
 married gentleman, and Miss — you know what she is, 
 sir — and, I ask you, candid, Dr Eider, what was any- 
 body to suppose ? " 
 
 The doctor grew wildly red up to his hair. He bit 
 his lips over some furious words which Carlingford 
 would have been horrified to hear, and grasped Mrs 
 Smith's shoulder with a closer pressure. " What did 
 she tell you?" said the doctor. " Let me have it word 
 for word. Did she say she was going away ? — did she 
 speak of this — this — fellow?" exclaimed the doctor, 
 with an adjective over which charity drops a tear. 
 " Can't you tell me, without any supposes, what did 
 she say ? " 
 
 " I'm not the woman to stand being shook — let me 
 go this minute, sir," cried Mrs Smith. " The Austra- 
 lian gentleman is a very nice-spoken civil man, as was 
 always very respectful to me. She came into my back 
 parlour, doctor, if you will know so particular — aU 
 shining and flashing, like as she does when some- 
 
248 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 tiling's happened. I don't make no doubt they had 
 been settling matters, them two, and so I told Smith. 
 ' Mrs Smith,' said Miss, in her hasty way, enough to 
 catch your breath coming all of a sudden, ' I can't 
 stand this no longer — I shall have to go away — it 
 ain't no good resisting.' Them were her very words, 
 Dr Eider. ' Get me out the big boxes, please,' said 
 Miss. ' It's best done quietly. You must take your 
 week's notice, Mrs Sanith, from this day ; ' and with 
 that she kept moving about the room all in a flutter 
 like, not able to rest. ' Do go and get me out those 
 boxes ; there's always a ship on the 24th,' she says, 
 taking up my knitting and falling to work at it to 
 keep her hands steady. ' The day afore Christmas ! ' 
 says I ; ' and oh. Miss, it's running in the face of 
 Providence to sail at this time of the year. You'll 
 have dreadful weather, as sure as life.' You should 
 have seen her, doctor ! She gave a sort of smile up at 
 me, all flashing as if those eyes of her were the sides of 
 a lantern, and the light bursting out both there and all 
 over. * All the better,' she says, as if she'd have liked 
 to fight the very wind and sea, and have her own way 
 even there. Bless you, she's dreadful for having her 
 own way. A good easy gentleman now, as didn't 
 inind much — Dr Eider — Doctor ! — you're not agoing, 
 
 after all I've told you ? Doctor, doctor, I say " 
 
 But what Mrs Smith said was inaudible to Edward 
 
THE doctor's family. 249 
 
 Eider. The door rang in her ears as he dashed it after 
 him, leaving her mistress of the field. There, where he 
 had once left Nettie, he now, all-forgetful of his usual 
 fastidious dislike of gossip, left Mrs Smith sole occu- 
 pant of his most private territories. At this unlooked- 
 for crisis the doctor had neither a word nor a moment 
 to spend on any one. He rushed out of the house, 
 oblivious of all those professional necessities which 
 limit the comings and goings of a doctor in great prac- 
 tice ; he did not even know what he was going to do. 
 Perhaps it was an anxious husband or father whom he 
 all but upset as he came out, with sudden impetuosity, 
 into the unfrequented street ; but he did not stop to 
 see. Pale and desperate, he faced the cold wind which 
 rushed up between the blank garden-walls of Grange 
 Lane. At Mr Wodehouse's door he stumbled against 
 young Wentworth coming out, and passed him with a 
 muttered exclamation which startled the curate. All 
 the floating momentary jealousies of the past rushed 
 back upon the doctor's mind as he passed that tall 
 figure in the wintry road : how he had snatched Nettie 
 from the vague kindnesses of the young clergyman — the 
 words he had addressed to her on this very road — the 
 answer she had given him once, which had driven him 
 wild with passion and resentment. Impossible ! the 
 Australian, it appeared, had found nothing impos- 
 sible in those circumstances in which Nettie had in- 
 
250 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 trenched herself. Had the doctor's wisdom been mon- 
 strous folly, and his prudence the blindest shortsight- 
 edness ? He asked himself the question as he rushed 
 on towards that lighted window shining far along the 
 dark road — the same window which he had seen Net- 
 tie's shadow cross, which had been opened to light 
 poor Fred upon the way he never could tread again. 
 Within that jealous blind, shining in that softened 
 domestic light, what drama, murderous to the doctor's 
 peace, might be going on now ? 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Nettie had taken her resolution all at once. Breath- 
 less in sudden conviction, angry, heated, yet seeing in 
 the midst of her excitement no help but in immediate 
 action, the hasty little woman had darted into the heart 
 of the difficulty at once. Every moment she lingered 
 wore her out and disgusted her more with the life and 
 fate which, nevertheless, it was impossible to abandon 
 or shrink from. Nothing was so safe as to make mat- 
 ters irrevocable — to plunge over the verge at once. All 
 gleaming with resolve and animation — with the frosty, 
 chill, exhilarating air which had kindled the colour in 
 her cheeks and the light in her eyes — with haste, re- 
 sentment, every feeling that can quicken the heart and 
 make the pulses leap — Nettie had flashed into the little 
 parlour, where all was so quiet and leisurely. There 
 Susan sat in close confabulation with the Bushman. 
 The children had been banished out of the room, be- 
 cause their mother's head was not equal to their noise 
 
252 CHKONICLES OF CAKLINGFOKD : 
 
 and restlessness. When they came in with Nettie, as 
 was inevitable, Mrs Fred sustained the invasion with 
 fretful looks and a certain peevish abstraction. She 
 was evidently interrupted by the rapid entrance, which 
 was as unwelcome as it was hasty. Cold though the 
 night was, Mrs Fred, leaning back upon her sofa, fan- 
 ned her pink cheeks with her handkerchief, and looked 
 annoyed as well as disturbed when her children came 
 trooping into the room clamorous for tea behind the 
 little impetuous figure which at once hushed and pro- 
 tected them. Susan became silent all at once, sank 
 back on the sofa, and concealed the faded flush upon 
 her cheeks and the embarrassed conscious air she wore 
 behind the handkerchief which she used so assiduously. 
 Neither she nor her visitor took much share in the 
 conversation that rose round the domestic table. Net- 
 tie, too, was sufficiently absorbed in her own concerns 
 to say little, and nobody there was sufficiently observ- 
 ant to remark what a sudden breath of haste and ner- 
 vous decision inspired the little household ruler as she 
 dispensed the family bread-and-butter. When tea was 
 over, Nettie sent her children out of the way with per- 
 emptory distinctness, and stayed behind them to make 
 her communication. If she noticed vaguely a certain 
 confused impatience and desire to get rid of her in the 
 looks of her sister and the Australian, she attached no 
 distinct meaning to it, but spoke out with all the sim- 
 
THE doctor's family. 253 
 
 plicity of an independent power, knowing all authority 
 and executive force to lie in her own hands alone. 
 
 " When do you think you can be ready to start ? 
 My mind is made up. I shall set to work imme- 
 diately to prepare," said Nettie. "Now, look here, 
 Susan : you have been thinking of it for months, so it 
 is not like taking you by surprise. There is a ship 
 that sails on the 24)th. If everything is packed and 
 ready, will you consent to go on that day ? " 
 
 Mrs Fred started with unfeigned surprise, and, not 
 without a little consternation, turned her eyes towards 
 her friend before answering her sister. "It is just 
 Nettie's way," cried Susan — "just how she always 
 does — holds out against you to the very last, and then 
 turns round and darts off before you can draw your 
 breath. The twenty-fourth ! and this is the nine- 
 teenth ! Of course we can't do it, Nettie. I shall 
 want quantities of things, and Mr Chatham, you know, 
 is not used to your ways, and can't be whisked off in a 
 moment whenever you please.'' 
 
 " I daresay it's very kind of Mr Chatham," said 
 Nettie ; " but I can take you out very well by myself — 
 just as well as I brought you here. And I can't aflFord 
 to get you quantities of things, Susan. So please to 
 understand I am going off to pack up, and on the 
 24th we shall go." 
 
 Once more, under Nettie's impatient eyes, a look 
 
254 CHKONICLES OF CAELINGFOKD : 
 
 and a smile passed between lier sister and the Aus- 
 tralian. Never very patient at any time, the girl was 
 entirely aggravated out of all toleration now. 
 
 " I can't tell what you may have to smile to each 
 other about," said Nettie. " It is no very smiling 
 business to me. But since I am driven to it, I shall 
 go at once or not at all. And so that you understand 
 me, that is all I want to say." 
 
 With which words she disappeared suddenly to the 
 multitudinous work that lay before her, thinking as 
 little of Susan's opposition as of the clamour raised by 
 the children, when the hard sentence of going half an 
 hour earlier to bed was pronounced upon them, Net- 
 tie's haste and peremptoriness were mixed, if it must 
 be told, with a little resentment against the world in 
 general. She had ceased being sad — she was roused 
 and indignant. By the time she had subdued the 
 refractory children, and disposed of them for the night, 
 those vast Australian boxes, which they had brought 
 with them across the seas, were placed in the little 
 hall, under the pale light of the lamp, ready for the 
 process of packing, into which Nettie plunged without 
 a moment's interval. While Mrs Smith told Edward 
 Eider her story, Nettie was flying up and down stairs 
 with armfuls of things to be j)acked, and pressing 
 Smith himself into her service. Ere long the hall 
 was piled with heaps of personal property, ready to 
 
THE doctor's family. 255 
 
 be transferred to those big receptacles. In the excite- 
 ment of the work her spirit rose. The headlong haste 
 with which she carried on her operations kept her 
 mind in balance. Once or twice Susan peeped out 
 from the parlour door, and something like an echo of 
 laughter rang out into the hall after one of those in- 
 spections. Nettie took no notice either of the look or 
 the laugh. She built in those piles of baggage with 
 the rapidest symmetrical arrangement, to the admira- 
 tion of Smith, who stood wondering by, and did what 
 he could to help her, with troubled good-nature. She 
 did not stop to make any sentimental reflections, or to 
 think of the thankless oflEice in which she was about 
 to confirm herself beyond remedy by this sudden and 
 precipitate step. Thinking had done Nettie little good 
 hitherto. She felt herself on her true ground again, 
 when she took to doing instead. The lamp burned 
 dimly overhead, throwing down a light confused 
 with frost upon the hall, all encumbered with the 
 goods of the wandering family. Perhaps it was with 
 a certain unconscious symbolism that Nettie buried 
 her own personal wardrobe deep in the lowest depths, 
 making that the foundation for all the after super- 
 structure. Smith stood by, ready to hand her any- 
 thing she might want, gazing at her with doubtful 
 amazement. The idea of setting ofi" to Australia at a 
 few days' notice filled him with respect and admiration. 
 
256 CHEONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 " A matter of a three months' voyage," said Smith ; 
 " and if I might make bold to ask, Miss, if the weather 
 ain't too bad for anything, how will you pass away 
 the time on board ship when there ain't nobody to 
 speak to ? — but, to be sure, the gentleman " 
 
 " The gentleman is not going with us," said Nettie, 
 peremptorily — " and there are the children to pass away 
 the time. My time passes too quick, whatever other 
 people's may do. Where is Mrs Smith, that I see 
 nothing of her to-night ? Gone out ! — how very odd 
 she should go out now, of all times in the world. 
 Where has she gone, do you suppose ? Not to be un- 
 grateful to you, who are very kind, a woman is, of 
 course, twenty times the use a man is, in most things. 
 Thank you — not that ; those coloured frocks now — 
 there I that bundle with the pink and the blue. One 
 would suppose that even a man might know coloured 
 frocks when he saw them," said Nettie, with despairing 
 resignation, springing up from her knees to seize what 
 she wanted. " Thank you — I think, perhaps, if you 
 would just go and make yourself comfortable, and 
 read your paper, I should get on better. I am not 
 used to having anybody to help me. I get on quite 
 as well, thank you, by myself" 
 
 Smith withdrew, not without some confusion and 
 discomfort, to his condemned cell, and Nettie went on 
 silent and swift with her labours. " Quite as well ! 
 
THE doctor's family. 257 
 
 better ! " said Nettie to herself. " Other peojjle never 
 will understand. Now, I know better than to try- 
 anybody." If that hasty breath was a sigh, there was 
 little sound of sorrow in it. It was a little gust of 
 impatience, indignation, intolerance even, and hasty 
 self-assertion. She alone knew what she could do, 
 and must do. Not one other soul in the world be- 
 side could enter into her inevitable work and way. 
 Nettie did not hear the footstep which she might 
 have recognised ringing rapidly down the frosty road. 
 She was too busy rustling about with perpetual motion, 
 folding and refolding, and smoothing into miraculous 
 compactness all the heterogeneous elements of that 
 mass. When a sudden knock came to the door she 
 started, struck with alarm, then paused a moment, 
 looking round her, and, perceiving at one hasty glance 
 that nobody could possibly enter without seeing both 
 herself and her occupation, made one prompt step to 
 the door, which nobody appeared to open. It was 
 Mrs Smith, no doubt ; but the sudden breathless flut- 
 ter which came upon Nettie cast doubts upon that rapid 
 conclusion. She opened it quickly, with a certain 
 breathless, sudden promptitude, and looked out pale 
 and dauntless, understanding by instinct that some 
 new trial to her fortitude was there. On the other 
 hand, Edward Eider pressed in suddenly, almost with- 
 out perceiving it was Nettie. They were both standing 
 
258 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 in the hall together, before they fully recognised each 
 other. Then the doctor, gazing round him at the 
 unusual confusion, gave an involuntary groan out of 
 the depths of his heart. " Then it is true ! " said Dr 
 Eider. He stood among the chaos, and saw all his 
 own dreams broken up and shattered in pieces. Even 
 passion failed him in that first bitterness of conviction. 
 Nettie stood opposite, with the sleeves of her black 
 dress turned up from her little white nimble wrists, 
 her hair pushed back from her cheeks, pushed quite 
 behind one delicate ear, her eyes shining with all those 
 lights of energy and purpose which came to them as 
 soon as she took up her own character again. She 
 met his eye with a little air of defiance, involuntary, 
 and almost unconscious. " It is quite true,'' said 
 Nettie, bursting forth in sudden self-justification ; "I 
 have my work to do, and I must do it as best I can. 
 I cannot keep considering you all, and losing my life. 
 I must do what God has given me to do, or I must 
 die." 
 
 Never had Nettie been so near breaking down, and 
 falling into sudden womanish tears and despair. She 
 would not yield to the overpowering momentary passion. 
 She clutched at the bundle of frocks again, and made 
 room for them spasmodically in the box which she 
 had already packed. Edward Eider stood silent, gazing 
 at her as in her sudden anguish Nettie pulled down 
 
THE doctor's family. 259 
 
 and reconstructed that curious honeycomb. But he 
 had not come here merely to gaze, while the catas- 
 trophe was preparing. He went up and seized her 
 busy hands, raised her up in spite of her resistance, 
 and thrust away, with an exclamation of disgust, that 
 great box in which all his hopes were being packed 
 away. "There is first a question to settle between 
 you and me," cried the doctor : " you shall not do it. 
 ;N"o ! I forbid it, Nettie. Because you are wilful," 
 cried Edward Eider, hoarse and violent, grasping the 
 hands tighter, with a strain in which other passions 
 than love mingled, " am I to give up all the rights of 
 a man ? You are going away without even giving 
 me just warning — without a word, without a sign ; 
 and you think I will permit it, Nettie? Never — by 
 heaven ! " 
 
 " Dr Edward," said Nettie, trembhng, half with 
 terror, half with resolution, " you have no authority 
 over me. "We are two people — we are not one. I 
 should not have gone away without a word or a sign. 
 I should have said good-bye to you, whatever had 
 happened ; but that is different from permitting or 
 forbidding. Let us say good-bye now, and get it over, 
 if that will please you better," she cried, drawing her 
 hands from his grasp ; " but I do not interfere with 
 your business, and I must do mine my own way." 
 
 The doctor was in no mood to ai-gue. He thrust 
 
260 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 the big box she had packed away into a corner, and 
 closed it with a vindictive clang. It gave him a little 
 room to move in that little commonplace hall, with its 
 dim lamp, which had witnessed so many of the most 
 memorable scenes of his life. " Look here/' cried Dr 
 Eider ; " authority has little to do with it. If you had 
 been my wife, Nettie, to be sure you could not have 
 deserted me. It is as great a cruelty — it is as hard upon 
 me, this you are trying to do. I have submitted 
 hitherto, and heaven knows it has been bitter enough ; 
 and you scorn me for my submission," said the doctor, 
 making the discovery by instinct. "When a fellow 
 obeys you, it is only contempt you feel for him ; but 
 I tell you, Nettie, I will bear it no longer. You shall 
 not go away. This is not to be. I will neither say 
 good-bye, nor think of it. What is your business is 
 my business ; and I declare to you, you shall not go 
 unless I go too. Ah — I forgot. They tell me there 
 is a fellow, an Australian, who ventures to pretend — 
 I don't mean to say I believe it. You think he will 
 not object to your burdens ! Nettie ! Don't let us 
 kill each other. Let us take all the world on our 
 shoulders," cried the doctor, drawing near again, with 
 passionate looks, " rather than part ! " 
 
 There was a pause- — neither of them could speak at 
 that moment. Nettie, who felt her resolution going, 
 
THE doctor's family. 261 
 
 her heart melting, yet knew she dared not give way, 
 clasped her hands tight in each other and stood tremb- 
 ling, yet refusing to tremble ; collecting her voice and 
 thoughts. The doctor occupied that moment of sus- 
 pense in a way which might have looked ludicrous in 
 other circumstances, but was a relief to the passion 
 that possessed him. He dragged the other vast 
 Australian box to the same corner where he had set 
 the first, and piled them one above the other. Then 
 he collected with awkward care all the heaps of gar- 
 ments which lay about, and carried them off in the 
 other direction to the stairs, wh^ere he laid them care- 
 fully with a clumsy tenderness. When he had swept 
 away all these encumbrances, as by a sudden gust of 
 wind, he came back to Nettie, and once more clasped 
 the firm hands which held each other fast. She broke 
 away from him with a sudden cry — 
 
 " You acknowledged it was impossible ! " cried Nettie. 
 " It is not my doing, or anybody's ; no one shall take 
 the world on his shoulders for my sake — I ask nobody 
 to bear my burdens. Thank you for not believing it 
 — that is a comfort at least. Never, surely, any one 
 else — and not you, not you ! Dr Edward, let us make 
 an end of it. I will never consent to put my yoke 
 upon your shoulders, but I — I will never forget you or 
 blame you — any more. It is all hard, but we cannot help 
 
262 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 it. Good-bye — don't make it harder, you, who are the 
 
 only one that ; good-bye, — no more — don't say any 
 
 more." 
 
 At this moment the parlour door opened suddenly ; 
 Nettie's trembling mouth and frame, and the wild pro- 
 test and contradiction which were bursting from the 
 lips of the doctor, were lost upon the spectator ab- 
 sorbed in her own affairs, and full of excitement on 
 her own account, who looked out. " Perhaps Mr 
 Edward will walk in," said Mrs Fred. " Now he is 
 here to witness what I mean, I should like to speak to 
 you, please, Nettie. I did not think I should ever 
 appeal to you, Mr Edward, against Nettie's wilfulness 
 — but, really now, we, none of us, can put up with it 
 any longer. Please to walk in and hear what I've got 
 to say." 
 
 The big Bushman stood before the little fire in the 
 parlour, extinguishing its tiny glow with his vast sha- 
 dow. The lamp burned dimly upon the table. A 
 certain air of confusion was in the room. Perhaps it 
 was because Nettie had already swept her own par- 
 ticular belongings out of that apartment, which once, 
 to the doctor's eyes, had breathed of her presence in 
 every corner — but it did not look like Nettie's parlour 
 to-night. Mrs Fred, with the broad white bands of 
 her cap streaming over her black dress, had just as- 
 sumed her place on the sofa, which was her domestic 
 
THE doctor's family. 263 
 
 throne. Nettie, much startled and taken by surprise, 
 stood by the table, waiting with a certain air of won- 
 dering impatience what was to be said to her — with 
 still the sleeves turned up from her tiny wrists, and 
 her fingers unconsciously busy expressing her restless 
 intolerance of this delay by a hundred involuntary 
 tricks and movements. The doctor stood close by her, 
 looking only at Nettie, watching her with eyes intent 
 as if she might suddenly disajjpear from under his very 
 gaze. As for the Australian, he stood uneasy under 
 Nettie's rapid investigating glance, and the slower 
 survey which Dr Eider made on entering. He plucked 
 at his big beard, and spread out his large person with 
 a confusion and embarrassment rather more than 
 merely belonged to the stranger in a family party ; 
 while Mrs Fred, upon her sofa, took up her handker- 
 chief and once more began to fan her pink cheeks. 
 What was coming ? After a moment's pause, upon 
 which Nettie could scarcely keep herself from break- 
 ing, Susan spoke. 
 
 " Nettie has always had the upper hand so much 
 that she thinks I am always to do exactly as she 
 pleases," burst forth Mrs Fred ; " and I don't doubt 
 poor Fred encouraged her in it, because he felt he was 
 obliged to my family, and always gave in to her ; but 
 now I have somebody to stand by me," added Susan, 
 fanning still more violently, and with a sound in her 
 
264 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFOED : 
 
 voice which betrayed a possibility of tears — " now I 
 have somebody to stand by me — I tell you once for all, 
 Nettie, I will not go on the 24th." 
 
 Nettie gazed at her sister in silence without at- 
 tempting to say anything. Then she lifted her eyes 
 inquiringly to the Australian, in his uneasy spectator 
 position before the fire. She was not much discom- 
 posed, evidently, by that sudden assertion of will — 
 possibly Nettie was used to it — but she looked curious 
 and roused, and rather eager to know what was it 
 now ? 
 
 " I will not go on the 24<th," cried Mrs Fred, with a 
 hysterical toss of her head. " I will not be treated 
 like a child, and told to get ready whenever Nettie 
 pleases. She pretends it is all for our sake, but it is 
 for the sake of having her own will, and because she 
 has taken a sudden disgust at something. I asked 
 you in, Mr Edward, because you are her friend, and 
 because you are the children's uncle, and ought to 
 know how they are provided for. Mr Chatham and I," 
 said Susan, overcome by her feelings, and agitating the 
 handkerchief violently, " have settled — to be — married 
 first before we set out." 
 
 If a shell had fallen in the peaceful apartment, the 
 effect could not have been more startling. The two 
 who had been called in to receive that intimation, and 
 who up to this moment had been standing together 
 
THE doctor's family. 265 
 
 listening languidly enough, too much absorbed in the 
 matter between themselves to be very deeply concerned 
 about anything Mrs Fred could say or do, fell sud- 
 denly apart with the wildest amazement in their looks. 
 " Susan, you are mad ! " cried Nettie, gazing aghast at 
 her sister, with an air of mingled astonishment and in- 
 credulity. The doctor, too much excited to receive 
 with ordinary decorum information so important, made 
 a sudden step up to the big embarrassed Australian, 
 who stood before the fire gazing into vacancy, and 
 looking the very embodiment of conscious awkward- 
 ness. Dr Eider stretched out both his hands and 
 grasped the gigantic fist of the Bushman with an effu- 
 sion which took that worthy altogether by surprise. 
 " My dear fellow, I wish you joy — I wish you joy. 
 Anything I can be of use to you in, command me ! " 
 cried the doctor, with a suppressed shout of half- 
 incredulous triumph. Then he returned restlessly 
 towards Nettie — they all turned to her with instinc- 
 tive curiosity. Never in all her troubles had Nettie 
 been so pale ; she looked in her sister's face with a 
 kind of despair. 
 
 " Is this true, Susan ? " she said, with a sorrowful 
 wonder as different as possible from the doctor's joyful 
 surprise — " not something said to vex us — really true ? 
 And this has been going on, and I knew nothing of it ; 
 and all this time you have been urging me to go back 
 
266 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 to the colony — me — as if you had no other thoughts. 
 If you had made up your mind to this, what was the 
 use of driving me desperate ? " cried Nettie, in a sud- 
 den outburst of that uncomprehension which aches in 
 generous hearts. Then she stopped suddenly and looked 
 from her sister, uttering suppressed sobs, and hiding 
 her face in her handkerchief on the sofa, to the Aus- 
 tralian before the fire. " What is the good of talking ? " 
 said Nettie, with a certain indignant impatient indul- 
 gence, coming to an abrupt conclusion. Nobody knew 
 so well as she did how utterly useless it was to remon- 
 strate or complain. She dropt into the nearest chair, 
 and began with hasty tremulous hands to smooth down 
 the cuffs of her black sleeves. In the bitterness of the 
 moment it was not the sudden deliverance, but the 
 heartlessness and domestic treachery that struck Nettie. 
 She, the champion and defender of this helpless family 
 for years — who had given them bread, and served it to 
 them with her own cheerful unwearied hands — who 
 had protected as well as provided for them in her 
 dauntless innocence and youth. When she was thus 
 cast off on the brink of the costliest sacrifice of all, it 
 was not the delightful sensation of freedom which oc- 
 curred to Nettie. She fell back with a silent pang of 
 injury swelling in her heart, and, all tremulous and 
 hasty, gave her agitated attention to the simple act 
 of smoothing down her sleeves — a simple but sym- 
 
THE doctor's family. 267 
 
 bolical act, which conveyed a world of meaning to the 
 mind of the doctor as he stood watching her. The 
 work she had meant to do was over. Nettie's occupa- 
 tion was gone. With the next act of the domestic 
 -drama she had nothing to do. For the first time in 
 her life utterly vanquished, with silent promptitude 
 she abdicated on the instant. She seemed unable to 
 strike a blow for the leadership thus snatched from her 
 hands. With proud surprise and magnanimity she 
 withdrew, forbearing even the useless reproaches of 
 which she had impatiently asked, " What was the 
 good ? " Never abdicated emperor laid aside his robes 
 with more ominous significance, than JSTettie, with 
 fingers trembling between haste and agitation, smoothed 
 down round her shapely Avrists those turned-up sleeves. 
 The doctor's better genius saved him from driving 
 the indignant Titania desperate at that critical moment 
 by any ill-advised rejoicings ; and the sight of Nettie's 
 agitation so far calmed Dr Rider that he made the 
 most sober and decorous congratulations to the sister- 
 in-law, whom for the first time he felt grateful to. 
 Perhaps, had he been less absorbed in his own affairs, 
 he could scarcely have failed to remember how, not yet a 
 year ago, the shabby form of Fred lay on that same sofa 
 from which Susan had announced her new prospects ; 
 but in this unexampled revolution of affairs no thought 
 of Fred disturbed his brother, whose mind was thor- 
 
268 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 ouglily occupied with the sudden tumult of his own 
 hopes. " Oh yes, I hope I shall be happy at last. 
 After all my troubles I have to look to myself, Mr 
 Edward ; and your poor brother would have been the 
 last to blame me," sobbed Mrs Fred, with involuntary 
 self-vindication. Then followed a pause. The change 
 was too sudden and extraordinary, and involved results 
 too deeply important to every individual present, to 
 make words possible. Mrs Fred, with her face buried 
 in her handkerchief, and Nettie, her whole frame thril- 
 ling with mortification and failure, tremulously trying 
 to button her sleeves, and bestowing her whole mind 
 upon that operation, were discouraging interlocutors ; 
 and after the doctor and the Bushman had shaken 
 hands, their powers of communication were exhausted. 
 The silence was at length broken by the Australian, 
 who, clearing his voice between every three words, 
 delivered his embarrassed sentiments as follows : — 
 
 " I trust, Miss Nettie, you'll not think youVe been 
 unfairly dealt by, or that any change is necessary so far 
 as you are concerned. Of course," said Mr Chatham, 
 growing red, and j)lucking at his beard, " neither your 
 sister nor I — found out — till quite lately — how things 
 were going to be ; and as for you making any change 
 in consequence, or thinking we could be anything but 
 glad to have you with us " 
 
 Here the alarming countenance of Nettie, who had 
 
THE doctor's family. 269 
 
 left off buttoning her sleeves, brought her new relation 
 to a sudden stop. Under the blaze of her inquiring 
 eyes the Bushman could go no farther. He looked at 
 Susan for assistance, but Susan was still absorbed in 
 her handkerchief ; and while he paused for expression, 
 the little abdicated monarch took up the broken thread. 
 
 " Thank you," said Nettie, rising suddenly ; " I knew 
 you were honest. It is very good of you, too, to be 
 glad to have me with you. You don't know any bet- 
 ter. I'm abdicated, Mr Chatham ; but because it's 
 rather startling to have one's business taken out of 
 one's hands like this, it will be very kind of everybody 
 not to say anything more to-night. I don't quite 
 understand it all just at this moment. Good-night, 
 Dr Edward. We can talk to-morrow, please ; not to- 
 night. You surely understand me, don't you ? When 
 one's life is changed all in a moment, one does not 
 exactly see where one is standing just at once. Good- 
 night. I mean what I say," she continued, holding 
 her head high with restrained excitement, and trying 
 to conceal the nervous agitation which possessed her 
 as the doctor hastened before her to open the door. 
 " Don't come after me, please ; don't say anything ; I 
 cannot bear any more to-night." 
 
 " But to-morrow," said the doctor, holding fast the 
 trembling hand. ISTettie was too much overstrained 
 and excited to speak more. A single sudden sob burst 
 
270 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 from her as she drew her hand out of his, and disap- 
 peared Hke a flying sprite. The doctor saw the heav- 
 ing of her breast, the height of self-restraint which 
 could go no further. He went back into the parlour 
 like a true lover, and spied no more upon Nettie's hour 
 of weakness. Without her, it looked a vulgar scene 
 enough in that little sitting-room, from which the 
 smoke of Fred's pipe had never fairly disappeared, and 
 where Fred himself had lain in dismal state. Dr Eider 
 said a hasty good-night to Fred's successor, and went 
 off hurriedly into the changed world which surrounded 
 that unconscious cottage. Though the frost had not 
 relaxed, and the air breathed no balm, no sudden leap 
 from December to June could have changed the atmo- 
 sphere so entirely to the excited wayfarer who traced 
 back the joyful path towards the lights of Carlingford 
 twinkling brilliant through the Christmas frost. As 
 he paused to look back upon that house which now 
 contained all his hopes, a sudden shadow appeared at 
 a lighted window, looking out, Nettie could not see 
 the owner of the footsteps which moved her to that 
 sudden involuntary expression of what was in her 
 thoughts, but he could see her standing full in the 
 light, and the sight went to the doctor's heart. He 
 took off his hat insanely in the darkness and waved his 
 hand to her, though she could not see him ; and, after 
 
THE doctor's family. 271 
 
 the shadow had disappeared, continued to stand watch- 
 ing with tender folly if perhaps some indication of 
 Nettie's presence might again reveal itself He walked 
 upon air as he went back, at last, cold but joyful, 
 through the blank solitude of Grange Lane. Nothing 
 could have come amiss to the doctor in that dawn of 
 happiness. He could have found it in his heart to 
 mount his drag again and drive ten miles in celestial 
 patience at the call of any capricious invalid. He was 
 half-disappointed to find no summons awaiting him 
 when he went home — no outlet for the universal 
 charity and loving-kindness that possessed him. In- 
 stead, he set his easy-chair tenderly by the side of 
 the blazing fire, and, drawing another chair opposite, 
 gazed with secret smiles at the visionary Nettie, who 
 once had taken up her position there. Was it by 
 prophetic instinct that the little colonial girl, whose 
 first appearance so discomposed the doctor, had as- 
 sumed that place ? Dr Eider contemplated the empty 
 chair with smiles that would have compromised his 
 character for sanity with any uninstructed observer. 
 When the mournful Mary disturbed his reverie by her 
 noiseless and penitent entrance with the little supper 
 which she meant at once for a peace-offering and com- 
 pensation for the dinner lost, she carried down-stairs 
 with her a vivid impression that somebody had left 
 
272 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 her master a fortune. Under such beatific ch'cum- 
 stances closed the evening that had opened amid such 
 clouds. Henceforth, so far as the doctor could read 
 the future, no difficulties but those common to all 
 wooers beset the course of his true love. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 When the red gleams of the early sunshine shone into 
 that window from which Nettie had looked out last 
 night, the wintry light came in with agitating revela- 
 tions not simply upon another morning, but upon a 
 new world. As usual, Nettie's thoughts were expressed 
 in things tangible. She had risen from her sleepless 
 bed while it was still almost dark, and to look at her 
 now, a stranger might have supposed her to be pro- 
 ceeding with her last night's work with the constancy 
 of a monomaniac. Little Freddy sat up in his crib 
 rubbing his eyes and marvelling what Nettie could be 
 about, as indeed anybody might have marvelled. With 
 all those boxes and drawers about, and heaps of per- 
 sonal belongings, what was she going to do? She 
 could not have answered the question without pain ; 
 but had you waited long enough, Nettie's object would 
 have been apparent. Not entirely free of that air of 
 
 agitated haste — not recovered from the excitement of 
 
 s 
 
274 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 this discovery, she was relieving her restless activity by 
 a significant rearrangement of all the possessions of the 
 family. She was separating with rapid fingers those 
 stores which had hitherto lain lovingly together common 
 property. For the first time for years Nettie had set 
 herself to discriminate what belonged to herself from 
 the general store ; and, perhaps by way of softening 
 that disjunction, was separating into harmonious order 
 the little wardrobes which were no longer to be under 
 her charge. Freddy opened his eyes to see all his own 
 special belongings, articles which he recognised with all 
 the tenacious proprietorship of childhood, going into 
 one little box by themselves in dreadful isolation. 
 The child did not know what horrible sentence might 
 have been passed upon him while he slept. He gazed 
 at those swift inexorable fingers with a gradual sob 
 rising in his poor little breast. That silent tempest 
 heaved and rose as he saw all the well-known items 
 following each other ; and when his last new acquisi- 
 tion, the latest addition to his wardrobe, lay solemnly 
 smoothed down upon the top, Freddy's patience could 
 bear no more. Bursting into a long howl of aflfiiction, 
 he called aloud upon Nettie to explain that mystery. 
 Was he going to be sent away ? Was some mysterious 
 executioner, black man, or other horrid vision of fate, 
 coming for the victim ? Freddy's appeal roused from 
 her work the abdicated family sovereign. " If I'm to 
 
THE DOCTOR S FAMILY. 275 
 
 be sent away, I shan't go ! " cried Freddy. " I'll run 
 off, and come back again. I shan't go anywhere unless 
 you go, Nettie. I'll hold on so fast, you can't put me 
 away ; and, oh, I'll be good ! — I'll be so good ! " Net- 
 tie, who was not much given to caresses, came up and 
 put sudden arms round her special nursling. She laid 
 her cheek to his, with a little outbreak of natural emo- 
 tion. " It is I who am to be sent away ! " cried Nettie, 
 yielding for a moment to the natural bitterness. Then 
 she bethought herself of certain thoughts of comfort 
 which had not failed to interject themselves into her 
 heart, and withdrew with a little precipitation, alarmed 
 by the inconsistency — the insincerity of her feelings. 
 " Get up, Freddy ; you are not going away, except 
 home to the colony, where you want to go," she said. 
 " Be good, all the same ; for you know you must not 
 trouble mamma. And make haste, and don't be al- 
 ways calling for Nettie. Don't you know you must 
 do without Nettie some time ? Jump up, and be a 
 man." 
 
 " When I am a man, I shan't want you," said 
 Freddy, getting up with reluctance; " but I can't be a 
 man now. And what am I to do with the buttons if 
 you won't help me? I shall not have buttons like 
 those when I am a man." 
 
 It was not in human nature to refrain from giving 
 the little savage an admonitory shake. " That is all 
 
276 CHKONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 I am good for — nothing but buttons !" said Nettie, 
 with whimsical mortification. When they went down 
 to breakfast, she sent the child before her, and came 
 last instead of first, waiting till they were all assem- 
 bled. Mrs Fred watched her advent with apprehen- 
 sive eyes. Thinking it over after her first triumph, 
 it occurred to Mrs Fred that the loss of Nettie would 
 make a serious difference to her own comfort. Who 
 was to take charge of the children, and conduct those 
 vulgar affairs for which Susan's feelings disqualified 
 her? She did her best to decipher the pale face 
 which appeared over the breakfast cups and saucers 
 opposite. What did Nettie mean to do? Susan 
 revolved the question in considerable panic, seeing 
 but too clearly that the firm little hand no longer 
 trembled, and that Nettie was absorbed by her own 
 thoughts — thoughts with which her present com- 
 panions had but little to do. Mrs Fred essayed another 
 stroke. 
 
 " Perhaps I was hasty, Nettie, last night ; but 
 Eichard, you know, poor fellow," said Susan, " was 
 not to be put off. It won't make any difference be- 
 tween you and me, Nettie dear? We have always 
 been so united, whatever has happened; and the 
 children are so fond of you ; and as for me," said 
 Mrs Fred, putting back the strings of her cap, and 
 pressing her handkerchief upon her eyes, " with my 
 
THE doctor's family. 277 
 
 health, and after all I have gone through, how T could 
 ever exist without you, I can't tell ; and Richard will 
 be so pleased " 
 
 " I don't want to hear anything about Richard, 
 please," said Nettie — "not, so far as I am concerned. 
 I should have taken you out, and taken care of you, 
 had you chosen me ; but you can't have two people, 
 you know. One is enough for anybody. Never mind 
 what we are talking about, Freddy. It is only your 
 buttons — nothing else. As long as you were my 
 business, I should have scorned to complain," said 
 Nettie, with a little quiver of her lip. "Nothing 
 would have made me forsake you, or leave you to 
 yourself ; but now you are somebody else's business ; 
 and to speak of it making no difference, and Richard 
 being pleased, and so forth, as if I had nothing else 
 to do in the world, and wanted to go back to the 
 colony ! It is simply not my business any longer," 
 cried Netty, rising impatiently from her chair — " that 
 is all that can be said. But I shan't desert you till 
 I deliver you over to my successor, Susan — don't fear." 
 
 " Then you don't feel any love for us, Nettie ! It 
 was only because you could not help it. Children, 
 Nettie is going to leave us," said Mrs Fred, in a 
 lamentable voice. 
 
 " Then who is to be instead of Nettie ? Oh, look 
 here — I know — it's Chatham," said the little gii'l. 
 
278 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 " I hate Chatham," said Freddy, with a little shriek. 
 " I shall go where Nettie goes — all my things are 
 in my box. Nettie is going to take me ; she loves 
 me best of you all. I'll kick Chatham if he touches 
 me." 
 
 " Why can't some one tell Nettie she's to go too ? " 
 said the eldest boy. " She's most good of all. What 
 does Nettie want to go away for ? But I don't mind ; 
 for we have to do what Nettie tells us, and nobody 
 cares for Chatham," cried the sweet child, making a 
 triumjohant somersault out of his chair. Nettie stood 
 looking on, without attempting to stop the tumult 
 which arose. She left them with their mother, after a 
 few minutes, and went out to breathe the outside air, 
 where at least there was quiet and freedom. To 
 think as she went out into the red morning sunshine, 
 that her old life was over, made Nettie's head swim 
 with bewildering giddiness. She went up softly, like 
 a creature in a dream, past St Roque's, where already 
 the Christmas decorators had begun their pretty work 
 — that work which, several ages ago, being yesterday, 
 Nettie had taken the children in to see. Of all things 
 that had happened between that moment and this, 
 perhaps the impulse of escaping out into the open air 
 without anything to do, was one of the most mira- 
 culous. Insensibly Nettie's footsteps quickened as 
 she became aware of that extraordinary fact. The 
 
THE doctor's family. 279 
 
 hour, the temperature, the customs of her life were 
 equally against such an indulgence. It was a comfort 
 to recollect that, though everything else in the universe 
 was altered, the family must still have some dinner, 
 and that it was as easy to think while walking to the 
 butcher's as while idling and doing nothing. She 
 went up, accordingly, towards Grange Lane, in a kind 
 of wistful solitude, drifted apart from her former life, 
 and not yet definitely attached to any other, feeling as 
 though the few passengers she met must perceive in 
 her face that her whole fortune was changed. It 
 was hard for Nettie to realise that she could do ab- 
 solutely nothing at this moment, and still harder for 
 her to think that her fate lay undecided in Edward 
 Eider's hands. Though she had not a doubt of him, 
 yet the mere fact that it was he who must take the 
 first step was somewhat galling to the pride and 
 temper of the little autocrat. Before she had reached 
 the butcher, or even come near enough to recognise 
 Lucy Wodehouse, where she stood at the garden-gate, 
 setting out for St Roque's, Nettie heard the headlong 
 wheels of something approaching which had not yet 
 come in sight. She wound herself up in a kind of 
 nervous desperation for the encounter that was coming. 
 No need to warn her who it was. Nobody but the 
 doctor flying upon wings of haste and love could drive 
 in that break-neck fashion down the respectable streets 
 
280 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 of Carlingford. Here he came sweeping round that 
 corner at the Blue Boar, where Nettie herself had once 
 mounted the drag, and plunged down Grange Lane in 
 a maze of speed which confused horse, vehicle, and 
 driver in one indistinct gleaming circle to the excited 
 eyes of the spectator, who forced herself to go on, 
 facing them with an exertion of all her powers, and 
 strenuous resistance of the impulse to turn and escape. 
 Why should Nettie escape ? — it must be decided one 
 way or other. She held on dimly, with rapid trem- 
 bling steps. To her own agitated mind, Nettie, her- 
 self, left adrift and companionless, seemed the suitor. 
 The only remnants of her natural force that remained 
 to her united in the one resolution not to run away. 
 
 It was well for the doctor that his little groom 
 had the eyes and activity of a monkey, and knew the 
 exact moment at which to dart forward and catch the 
 reins which his master flung at him, almost without 
 pausing in his perilous career. The doctor made a 
 leap out of the drag, which was more like that of a 
 mad adventurer than a man whose business it was 
 to keep other people's limbs in due repair. Before 
 Nettie was aware that he had stopped, he was by her 
 side. 
 
 "Dr Edward," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "hear 
 me first ! Now I am left unrestrained, but I am not 
 without resources. Don't think you are bound in 
 
THE doctor's family. 281 
 
 honour to say anything over again. What may have 
 gone before I forget now. I will not hold you to 
 your word. You are not to have pity upon me ! " cried 
 Nettie, not well aware what she was saying. The 
 doctor drew her arm into his ; found out, sorely against 
 her will, that she was trembling, and held her fast, not 
 without a sympathetic tremor in the arm on which she 
 was constrained to lean. 
 
 " But I hold you to yours ! " said the doctor ; 
 " there has not been any obstacle between us for 
 months but this ; and now it is gone, do you think I 
 will forget what you have said, Nettie ? You told me 
 it was impossible once " 
 
 " And you did not contradict me, Dr Edward," said 
 the wilful creature, withdrawing her hand from his 
 arm. "I can walk very well by myself, thank you. 
 You did not contradict me ! You were content to 
 submit to what could not be helped. And so am I. 
 An obstacle which is only removed by Richard Chat- 
 ham," said Nettie, with female cruelty, turning her 
 eyes full and suddenly upon her unhappy lover, " does 
 not count for much. I do not hold you to anything. 
 We are both free." 
 
 What dismayed answer the doctor might have made 
 to this heartless speech can never be known. He was 
 so entirely taken aback that he paused, clearing his 
 throat with but one amazed exclamation of her name ; 
 
282 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 but before his astonishment and indignation had 
 shaped itself into words, their interview was inter- 
 rupted. An irregular patter of hasty little steps, and 
 outcries of a childish voice behind, had not caught the 
 attention of either in that moment of excitement ; but 
 just as Nettie delivered this cruel outbreak of feminine 
 pride and self-assertion, the little pursuing figure made 
 up to them, and plunged at her dress. Freddy, in 
 primitive unconcern for anybody but himself, rushed 
 head-foremost between these two at the critical in- 
 stant. He made a clutch at Nettie with one hand, 
 and with all the force of the other thrust away the 
 astonished doctor. Freddy's errand was of life or 
 death, 
 
 " I shan't go with any one but Nettie," cried the 
 child, clinging to her dress. " I hate Chatham and 
 everybody. I will jumj) into the sea and swim back 
 again. I will never, never leave go of her if you 
 should cut my hands off. Nettie ! Nettie ! — take me 
 with you. Let me go where you are going ! I will 
 never be naughty any more ! I will never, never go 
 away till Nettie goes ! I love Nettie best ! Go away, 
 all of you !" cried Freddy, in desperation, pushing off 
 the doctor with hands and feet alike. " I will stay 
 with Nettie. Nobody loves Nettie but me." 
 
 Nettie had no power left to resist this new assault. 
 She dropped down on one knee beside the child, and 
 
THE doctor's family. 283 
 
 clasped him to her in a passion of restrained tears and 
 sobbing. The emotion which her pride would not per- 
 mit her to show before, the gathering agitation of the 
 whole morning broke forth at this irresistible touch. 
 She held Freddy close and supported herself by him, 
 leaning all her troubled heart and trembling frame 
 upon the little figure which clung to her bewildered, 
 suddenly growing silent and afraid in that passionate 
 grasp. Freddy spoke no more, but turned his fright- 
 ened eyes upon the doctor, trembling with the great 
 throbs of Nettie's breast. In the early wintry sun- 
 shine, on the quiet rural highroad, that climax of the 
 gathering emotion of years befell Nettie. She could 
 exercise no further self-control. She could only hide 
 her face, that no one might see, and close her quiver- 
 ing lips tight that no one might hear the bursting 
 forth of her heart. No one was there either to hear 
 or see — ^nobody but Edward Eider, who stood bending 
 with sorrowful tenderness over the wilful faiiy creature, 
 whose words of defiance had scarcely died from her 
 lips. It was Freddy, and not the doctor, who had van- 
 quished Nettie ; but the insulted lover came in for 
 his revenge. Dr Rider raised her up quietly, asking 
 no leave, and lifted her into the drag, where Nettie 
 had been before, and where Freddy, elated and joyful, 
 took his place beside the groom, convinced that he was 
 to go now with the only true guardian his little life 
 
284 CHKONICLES OF CAKLINGFORD : 
 
 had known. The doctor drove down that familiar road 
 as slowly as he had dashed furiously up to it. He 
 took quiet possession of the agitated trembling creature 
 who had carried her empire over herself too far. At 
 last Nettie had broken down ; and now he had it all 
 his own way. 
 
 When they came to the cottage, Mrs Fred, whom 
 excitement had raised to a troublesome activity, came 
 eagerly out to the door to see what had happened ; 
 and the two children, who, emancipated from all con- 
 trol, were sliding down the banisters of the stair, one 
 after the other, in wild glee and recklessness, paused 
 in their dangerous amusement to watch the new ar- 
 rival. " Oh ! look here ; Nettie's crying ! " said one 
 to the other, with calm observation. The words brought 
 Nettie to herself 
 
 " I am not crying now," she said, waking into sud- 
 den strength. " Do you want them to get killed be- 
 fore they go away, all you people ? Susan, go in, and 
 never mind. I was not — not quite well out of doors ; 
 but I don't mean to suffer this, you know, as long as I 
 am beside them. Dr Edward, come in. I have some- 
 thing to say to you. We have nowhere to speak to 
 each other but here," said Nettie, pausing in the little 
 hall, from which that childish tumult had died away 
 in sudden awe of her presence ; " but we have spoken 
 to each other here before now. T did not mean to vex 
 
THE doctor's family. 285 
 
 you then — at least, I did mean to vex you, but nothing 
 more." Here she paused with a sob, the echo of her 
 past trouble breaking upon her words, as happened 
 from time to time, like the passion of a child ; then 
 burst forth again a moment after in a sudden question. 
 " Will you let me have Freddy ? " she cried, surrender- 
 ing at discretion, and looking eagerly up in the doc- 
 tor's face ; " if they will leave him, may I keep him 
 with me ? " 
 
 It is unnecessary to record the doctor's answer. He 
 would have swallowed not Freddy only, but Mrs Fred 
 and the entire family, had that gulp been needful to 
 . satisfy Nettie, but was not sufficiently blinded to his 
 own interests to grant this except under certain con- 
 ditions satisfactory to himself. When the doctor 
 mounted the drag again he drove away into Elysium, 
 with a smiling Cupid behind him, instead of the little 
 groom who had been his unconscious master's confidant 
 so long, and had watched the fluctuations of his wooing 
 with such lively curiosity. Those patients who had 
 paid for Dr Eider's disappointments in many a violent 
 prescription, got compensation to-day in honeyed 
 draughts and hopeful prognostications. Wherever the 
 doctor went he saw a vision of that little drooping 
 head, reposing, after all the agitation of the morning, 
 in the silence and rest he had enjoined, with brilliant 
 eyes half-veiled, shining with thoughts in which he had 
 
286 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 
 
 the greatest share ; and, with that picture before his 
 eyes, went flashing along the wintry road with secret 
 smiles, and carried hope wherever he went. Of course 
 it was the merest fallacy, so far as Nettie's immediate 
 occupation was concerned. That restless little woman 
 had twenty times too much to do to think of rest — 
 more to do than ever in all the suddenly-changed pre- 
 parations which fell upon her busy hands. But the 
 doctor kept his imagination all the same, and pleased 
 himself with thoughts of her reposing in a visionary 
 tranquillity, which, wherever it was to be found, cer- 
 tainly did not exist in St Eoque's Cottage, in that 
 sudden tumult of new events and hopes. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 " I ALWAYS thought there was good in him by his 
 looks," said Miss Wodehouse, standing in the porch of 
 St Eoque's, after the wedding-party had gone away. 
 " To think he should have come in such a sweet way 
 and married Mrs Fred ! just what we all were wishing 
 for, if we could have ventured to think it possible. 
 Indeed, I should have liked to have given Mr Chatham 
 a little present, just to mark my sense of his goodness. 
 Poor man ! I wonder if he repents " 
 
 " It is to be hoped not yet," said Lucy, hurrying her 
 sister away before Mr Wentworth could come out and 
 join them ; for affairs were seriously compromised be- 
 tween the perpetual curate and the object of his aflFec- 
 tions ; and Lucy exhibited a certain acerbity under the 
 circumstances which somewhat amazed the tender- 
 hearted old maid. 
 
 " When people do repent, my belief is that they do 
 it directly," said Miss Wodehouse. " I daresay he can 
 
288 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 see what she is already, poor man ; and I hope, Lucy, 
 it won't drive him into bad ways. As for Nettie, I am 
 not at all afraid about her. Even if they should happen 
 to quarrel, you know, things will always come right. 
 I am glad they were not married both at the same time. 
 Nettie has such sense ! and of course, though it was 
 the very best thing that could happen, and a great 
 relief to everybody concerned, to be sure, one could not 
 help being disgusted with that woman. And it is sucli 
 a comfort they're going away. Nettie says " 
 
 " Don't you think you could walk a little quicker ? 
 there is somebody in Grove Street that I have to see," 
 said Lucy, not so much interested as her sister ; " and 
 papa will be home at one to lunch." 
 
 " Then I shall go on, dear, if you have no objection, 
 and ask when the doctor and Nettie are coming home," 
 said Miss Wodehouse, " and take poor little Freddy the 
 cakes I promised him. Poor child! to have his mother 
 go off and marry and leave him. Never mind me, 
 Lucy, dear ; I do not walk so quickly as you do, and 
 besides I have to go home first for the cakes." 
 
 So saying the sisters separated ; and Miss Wode- 
 house took her gentle way to the doctor's house, where 
 everything had been brightened up, and where Freddy 
 waited the return of his chosen guardians. It was still 
 the new quarter of Carlingford, a region of half-built 
 streets, vulgar new roads, and heaps of desolate brick 
 
» 
 
 THE DOCTOll's FAMILY. 289 
 
 and mortar. If the doctor had ever hoped to succeed 
 Dr Marjoribanks in his bowery retirement in Grange 
 Lane, that hope nowadays had receded into the darkest 
 distance. The little surgery round the corner still shed 
 twinkles of red and blue light across that desolate tri- 
 angle of unbuilt ground upon the other corner houses 
 where dwelt people unknown to society in Carlingford, 
 and still Dr Rider consented to call himself M.R.C.S., 
 and cultivate the patients who were afraid of a physi- 
 cian. Miss Wodehouse went in at the invitation of 
 Mary to see the little drawing-room which the master 
 of the house had provided for his wife. It had been 
 only an unfurnished room in Dr Rider's bachelor days, 
 and looked out upon nothing better than these same 
 new streets — the vulgar suburb which Carlingford dis- 
 owned. Miss Wodehouse lingered at the window with 
 a little sigh over the perversity of circumstances. If 
 Miss Marjoribanks had only been Nettie, or Nettie Miss 
 Marjoribanks ! If not only love and happiness, but 
 the old doctor's practice and savings, could but have 
 been brought to heap up the measure of the young 
 doctor's good-fortune ! What a pity that one cannot 
 have everything ! The friendly visitor said so with a 
 real sigh as she went down-stairs after her inspection. 
 If the young people had but been settling in Grange 
 Lane, in good society, and with Dr Marjoribanks's 
 
 T 
 
290 CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD : 
 
 practice, this marriage would have been perfection 
 indeed ! 
 
 But when the doctor brought Nettie home, and set 
 her in that easy-chair which her image had possessed 
 so long, he saw few drawbacks at that moment to the 
 felicity of his lot. If there was one particular in which 
 his sky threatened clouds, it was not the want of Dr 
 Marjoribanks's practice, but the presence of that little 
 interloper, whom the doctor in his heart was apt to call 
 by uncomplimentary names, and did not regard with 
 unmixed favour. But when Susan and her Australian 
 were fairly gone, and all fear of any invasion of the 
 other imps, which Dr Rider inly dreaded up to the last 
 moment, was over, Freddy grew more and more toler- 
 able. Where Fred once lay and dozed, and filled the 
 doctor's house with heavy fumes and discreditable 
 gossip, a burden on his brother's reluctant hospitahty, 
 little Freddy now obliterated that dismal memory with 
 prayers and slumbers of childhood ; and where the dis- 
 contented doctor had grumbled many a night and day 
 over that bare habitation of his, which was a house, 
 and not a home, Nettie diffused herself till the familiar 
 hapj)iness became so much a part of his belongings that 
 the doctor learned to grumble once more at the woman- 
 ish accessories which he had once missed so bitterly. 
 And the little wayward heroine who, by dint of hard 
 labour and sacrifice, had triumphantly had her own 
 
THE doctor's family. 291 
 
 way in St Koque's Cottage, loved her own way still in 
 the new house, and had it as often as was good for her. 
 But so far as this narrator knows, nothing calling for 
 special record has since appeared in the history of the 
 doctor's family, thus reorganised under happier auspices, 
 and discharging its duties, social and otherwise, though 
 not exactly in society, to the satisfaction and approval 
 of the observant population of Carlingford. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAJI BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBUKGH. 
 
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