CHAPTER VI. The two combatants came to the field in a very different spirit. Neville had already fought 2G GRIFFITH GAUNT 5 OR, JEALOUSY. two duels, and been successful in both. He had confidence in his skill and in his luck. His con- science, too, was tolerably clear, for he was the insulted person ; and if a bullet should remove this dangerous rival from his path, why, all the better for him, and all the worse for the fool who had brought the matter to a bloody issue, though the balance of the lady's heart inclined his way. He came in high spirits, and rode upon Kate Peyton's gray, to sting his adversary, and show his contempt of him. Not so Griffith Gaunt. His heart was heavy, and foreboded ill. It was his first duel, and he expected to be killed. He had played a fool's game, and he saw it. The night before the duel he tried hard to sleep ; he knew it was not giving his nerves fair play to lie thinking all night. But coy sleep, as usual when most wanted, refused to come. At daybreak the restless man gave it up in despair, and rose and dressed himself. He wrote that letter to Catharine, little thinking it would fall into her hands while he lived. He ate a little toast, and drank a pint of Burgundy, and then wandered listlessly about till Major Richards, his second, arrived. That experienced gentleman brought a surgeon with him — Mr. Islip. Major Rickards deposited a shallow wooden box in the hall, and the two gentlemen sat down to a hearty breakfast. Griffith took care of his guests, but beyond that spoke scarcely a word ; and the surgeon, after a ghastly attempt at commonplaces, was silent too. Major Rickards satisfied his appetite first, and then, finding his companions dumb, set to work to keep up their spirits. He entertained them with a narrative of the personal encounters he had witnessed, and especially of one in which his principal had iallen on his face at the first fire, and the antagonist had sprung into the air, and both had lain dead as door-nails, and never moved, nor even winked, after that single discharge. Griffith sat under this chilling talk for more than an hour. At last he rose gloomily, and said it was time to go. "Got your tools, doctor?" inquired the major. The surgeon nodded slightly. He was more discreet than his friend. When they had walked nearly a mile in the snow, the major began to complain. ' ' The devil !" said he ; " this is queer walking. My boots are full of water. I shall catch my death." The surgeon smiled satirically, comparing si- lent Griffith's peril with -his second's. Griffith took no notice. He went like Forti- tude plodding to Execution. Major Rickards fell behind, and whispei'ed Mr. Islip, "Don't like his looks 5 doesn't march like a winner. A job for you or the sexton, you mark my words." They toiled up Scutchemsee Nob, and when they reached the top, they saw Neville and his second, Mr. Hammersley, riding toward them. The pair had halters as well as bridles, and, dis- mounting, made their nags fast to a large black- thorn that grew there. The seconds then step- ped forward, and saluted each other with formal civility. Griffith looked at the gray horse, and ground his teeth. The sight of the animal in Neville's possession stirred up his hate, and helped to steel his heart. He stood apart, still, pale, and gloomv. The seconds stepped out fifteen paces, and placed the men. Then they loaded two pair of pistols, and put a pistol in each man's hand. Major Rickards took that opportunity to ad- vise his principal. "Stand sharp. Keep your arm close to your side. Don't fire too high. How do you feel?" "Like a man who must die, but will try to die in company." The seconds now Avithdrew to their places, and the rivals held their pistols lowered, but fixed their deadly eyes on each other. The eye, in such a circumstance, is a terrible thing : it is literally a weapon of destruction, for it directs the deadly hand that guides the dead- ly bullet. Moreover, the longer and the more steadily the duelist fixes his eye on his adversary, the less likely he is to miss. Griffith was very pale, but dogged. Neville was serious, but firm. Both eyed each other unflinchingly. " Gentlemen, are you ready?" asked Neville's second. ("Yes." V'Yes." "Then," said Major Rickards, "you will fire when I let fall this handkerchief, and not before. Mark me, gentlemen : to prevent mistakes, I shall say ' One — two — three !' and then drop the handkerchief. Now, then, once more, are you quite readv ?" ("Yes*." t"Yes." 1 ' One — two — three !" He dropped the handkerchief, and both gen- tlemen fired simultaneously. Mr. Neville's hat spun into the air; Griffith stood untouched^ The bullet had passed through Neville's hat, and had actually cut a lane through his magnif- icent hair. The seconds now consulted, and it was inti- mated to Griffith that a word of apology would be accepted by his antagonist. Griffith declined to utter a syllable of apology. Two more pistols were given to the men "Aim lower," said Rickards. "I mean to," said Griffith. The seconds withdrew, and the men eyed each other — Griffith dogged and pale as before, Ne- ville not nearly so self-assured : Griffith's bullet, in grazing him, had produced the effect of a sharp, cold current of air no wider than a knife. It was like Death's icy forefinger laid on his head, to mark him for the next shot — as men mark a tree, then come again and fell it. " One— two— three !" And Griffith's pistol missed fire ; but Neville's went off, and Griffith's arm sank powerless, and his pistol rolled out of his hand. He felt a sharp twinge, and then something trickled down his arm. The surgeon and both seconds ran to him. "Nay, it is nothing," said he; "I shoot far better with my left hand than my right. Give me another pistol, and let me have fair play. He has hit me, and now I'll hit him." Both seconds agreed this was impossible. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 27 "It is the chance of war," said Major Rick- ards; "you can not be allowed to take a cool shot at Mr. Neville. If you fire again, so must he." "The affair may very well end here," said Mr. Hammersley. "I understand there was some provocation on our side ; and, on behalf of the party insulted, I am content to let the matter end, Mr. Gaunt being wounded." " I demand my second shot to his third," said Griffith, sternly ; "he will not decline, unless he is a poltroon, as well as — what I called him." The nature of this reply was communicated to Neville, and the seconds, with considerable re- luctance, loaded two more pistols ; and during the process Major Rickards glanced at the com- batants. Griffith, exasperated by his wound and his jealousy, was wearing out the chivalrous cour- age of his adversary, and the major saw it. His keen eye noticed that Neville was getting rest- less, and looking confounded at his despised ri- val's pertinacity, and that Gaunt was more dog- ged and more deadly. "My man will kill yom*s this time," said he, quietly, to Neville's second ; "I can see it in his eye. He is hungry ; t'other has had his bellyful. " Once more the men were armed, and the sec- onds withdrew to their places, intimating that this was the last shot they would allow under any circumstances whatever. " Are you both ready ?" ("Yes." t"Yes." A faint wail seemed to echo the response. All heard it, and in that superstitious age be- lieved it to be some mysterious herald of death. It suspended even Major Rickards's voice a minute. He recovered himself, however, and once more his soldier-like tones rang in the keen air : "One—" There was a great rushing, and a pounding of the hard ground, and a scarlet Amazon galloped in, and drew up in the middle, right between the leveled pistols. Every eye had been so bent on the combatants that Kate Peyton and her horse seemed to have sprung out of the very earth. And there she sat, pale as ashes, on the steaming piebald, and glanced from pistol to pistol. . The duelists stared in utter amazement, and instinctively lowered their weapons, for she had put herself right in their line of fire with a reck- lessness that contrasted nobly with her fear for others. In short, this apparition literally petri- fied them all, seconds as well as combatants. And while they stood open-mouthed, yet dumb, in came the Scamp, and, with a brisk assumption of delegated authority, took Griffith's weapon out of his now unresisting hand, then marched to Neville. He instantly saluted Catharine, and then handed his pistol to her seeming agent, with a high-bred and inimitable air of utter noncha- lance. Kate, seeing them, to her surprise, so easily disarmed, raised her hands and her lovely eyes to heaven, and, in a feeble voice, thanked God and Saint Nescioquis. But very soon that faint voice quavered away to nothing, and her fair head was seen to droop, and her eyes to close ; then her body sank slow- ly forward like a broken lily, and in another mo- ment she lay fainting on the snow beside her steaming horse. He never moved, he was so dead beat too. Oh lame and impotent conclusion of a vigor- ous exploit ! Masculine up to the crowning point, and then to go and spoil all with ' ' wom- an's weakness !" " N.B. — This is rote sarcasticul," as Artemus the Delicious says. Woman's weakness ! If Solomon had planned and Samson executed, they could not have served her turn better than this most seasonable swooning did ; for, lo ! at her fall, the doughty combatants uttered a yell of dismay, and there was an indiscriminate rush toward the fair sufferer. But the surgeon claimed his rights. ■ "This is my business," said he, authoritative- ly. "Do not crowd on her, gentlemen; give her air." Whereupon the duelists and seconds stood re- spectfully aloof, in a mixed group, and watched with eager interest and pity. The surgeon made a hole in the snow, and laid his fair patient's head low. "Don't be alarmed," said he; "she has swooned ; that is all. " It was all mighty fine to say " Don't be alarmed." But her face was ashy, and her lips the color of lead ; and she was so like death, they could not help being terribly alarmed ; and now, for the first time, the duelists felt culprits ; and as for fighting, every idea of such a thing went out of their heads. The rivals now were but ri- val nurses ; and never did a lot of women make more fuss over a child than all these blood-thirsty men did over this Amazon manquee. They pro- duced their legendary lore. One's grandmother had told him burnt feathers were the thing ; another, from an equally venerable source, had gathered that those pink palms must be profane- ly slapped by the horny hand of man — for at no less a price could resuscitation be obtained. The surgeon scorning all their legends, Griffith and Neville made hasty rushes with brandy and usquebaugh ; but whether to be taken internally or externally they did not say, nor, indeed, know, but only thrust their flasks wildly on the doctor, and he declined them loftily. He melted snow in his hand, and dashed it hard in her face, and put salts close to her pretty little nostrils. And this he repeated many times without effect. But at last her lips began to turn from lead color to white, and then from white to pink, and her heavenly eyes to open again, and her mouth to murmur things pitiably small and not bearing on the matter in hand. Her cheek was still colorless when her con- sciousness came back, and she found she was ly- ing on the ground with ever so many gentlemen looking at her. At that, Modesty, alarmed, sent the blood at once rushing to her pale cheek. A lovely lily seemed turning to a lovely rose before their eyes. The next thing was, she hid that blushing face in her hands, and began to whimper. The surgeon encouraged her: "Nay, we are all friends," he whispered, paternally. She half parted her fingers and peered through them at Neville and Gaunt. Then she remem- bered all, and began to cry hysterically. 23 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. New dismay of the unprofessionals ! " Now, gentlemen, if you will lend me your flasks, " said Mr. Islip, mighty calmly. Griffith and Neville were instantly at his side, each with a flask. The surgeon administered snow and brandy. "Don't you know?" whispered the other in return. ' ' Why, Mistress Peyton herself. " "What! the girl it is all about? Well, I never heard of such a thing : the causa belli to come galloping and swooning on the field of bat- tle, and so stop the fighting ! What will our la- Kate sipped these, and gulped down her sobs, and at last cried composedly. But when it came to sipping brandied snow and crying comfortably, Major Rickards's anxi- ety gave place to curiosity. Without taking his eye off her, he beckoned Mr. Hammersley apart, and whispered, "Who the deuse is it?" dies do next ? By heaven ! she is worth fight- ing for, though. Which is the happy man, I wonder ? She doesn't look at either of them." "Ah!" said the gentleman, "that is more than I know, more than Neville knows, more than any body knows." " Bet you a guinea she knows, and lets it out GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 2b before she leaves the field," said Major Rick- ards. Mr. Hammersley objected to an even bet, but said he would venture one to three she did not. It was an age of bets. "Done !" said the major. By this time Kate had risen, with Mr. Islip's assistance, and was now standing with her hand upon the piebald's mane. She saw Rickards and Hammersley were whispering about her, and she felt very uneasy ; so she told Mr. Islip, timidly, she desired to explain her conduct to all the gen- tlemen present, and avert false reports. They were soon all about her, and she began, with the most engaging embarrassment, by mak- ing excuses for her weakness. She said she had ridden all the way from home fasting ; that was what had upset her. The gentlemen took the cue directly, and vowed eagerly and unanimous- ly it was enough to upset a porter. "But, indeed," resumed Kate, blushing, "I did not come here to make a fuss, and be troub- lesome, but to prevent mischief, and clear up the strangest misunderstanding between two worthy gentlemen, that are, both of them, my good friends. " She paused, and there was a chilling silence : every body felt she was getting on ticklish ground now. She knew that well enough herself. But she had a good rudder to steer by, called Mother-wit. Says she with inimitable coolness, "Mr. Gaunt is an old friend of mine, and a little too sensitive where I am concerned. Some chatterbox has been and told him Mr. Neville should say I have changed horses with him ; and on that the gossips put their own construction. Mr. Gaunt hears all this, and applies insulting terms to Mr. Neville. Nay, do not deny it, Mr. Gaunt, for I have it here in your own hand- writing. "As for a Mr. Neville, he merely defends his honor, and is little to blame. But now I shall tell the true story about these horses, and make you all ashamed of this sorry quarrel. " Gentlemen, thus it is. A few days ago Mr. Gaunt bade me farewell, and started for foreign parts. He had not been long gone when word came from Bolton that Mr. Charlton was no more. You know how sudden it was. Consid- er, gentlemen : him dead, and his heir riding off to the Continent in ignorance. So I thought, • Oh, what shall I do ?' Just then Mr. Neville visited me, and I told him. On that he offered me his piebald horse to carry the news after Mr. Gaunt, because my gray was too tired : it was the day we drew Yew-tree Brow, and crossed Harrowden Brook, you jpiow — " Griffith interrupted her. "Stay a bit," said he: "this is news to me. You never told me he had lent you the piebald nag to do me a good turn." "Did I not?" said Kate, mighty innocently. " Well, but I tell you now. Ask him : he can not deny it. As for the rest, it was all done in a hurry. Mr. Neville had no horse now to ride home Avith ; he did me the justice to think I should be very ill pleased were he to trudge home afoot and suffer for his courtesy, so he borrowed my gray to keep him out of the mire ; and, in- deed, the ways were fouler than usual, with the rains. Was there any ill in all this ? Honi soit QUI MAL Y PKNSE ! Say I." The gentlemen all sided loudly with her on this appeal, except Neville, who held his tongue, and smiled at her plausibility, and Griffith, who hung his head at her siding with Neville. At last he spoke, and said, sorrowfully, "If you did exchange horses with him, of course I have only to ask his pardon — and go. " Catharine reflected a moment before she re plied. "Well," said she, " I did exchange, and I did not. Why quarrel about a word ? Certainly lie took my horse, and I took his, but it was only for the nonce. Mr. Neville is foreign bred, and an example to us all : he knows his piebald is worth two of my gray, and so he was too fine a gentleman to send me back my old hunter and ask for his young charger. He waited for me to do that ; and if any body deserves to be shot, it must be Me. But, dear heart, I did not foresee all this fuss ; I said to myself, ' La ! Mr. Neville will be sure to call on my father or me some day, or else I shall be out on the piebald and meet him on the gray, and then Ave can each take our OAvn again. ' Was I so far out in my reckoning ? Is not that my Rosinante yonder ? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my side-saddle on that gray horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald there. And noAv, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn : you must AvithdraAV your injurious terms, and end this superlatiA'e folly." Griffith hesitated. "Come," said Kate, "consider: Mr. Neville is esteemed by all the county ; you are the only gentleman in it avIio has ever uttered a dispara- ging Avord against him. Are you sure you are more free from passion and prejudice, and Aviser than all the county ? Oblige me and do Avhat U right. Come, Griffith Gaunt, let your reason un- say the barbarous words your passion hath ut- tered against a Avorthy gentleman Avhom Ave all esteem." Her habitual iufluence, and these last Avords, spoken Avith gentle and persuasive dignity, turn- ed the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and said in a Ioav voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used harsher Avords than the occasion justified : he Avas going to stammer out some- thing more, but Neville interrupted him Avith a noble gesture. "That is enough, Mr. Gaunt," said he. "I do not feel quite blameless in the matter, and have no Avish to mortify an honorable adversary unnecessarily." "Very handsomely said," put in Major Rick- ards ; " and noAv let me have a word. I say that both gentlemen have conducted themselves like men — under fire ; and that honor is satisfied, and the misunderstanding at an end. As for my prin- cipal here, he has shoAvn he can fight, and hoav he has shoAvn he can hear reason against himself, Avhen the lips of beauty utter it. I approve his conduct from first to last, and am ready to de- fend it in all companies, and in the field, should it ever be impugned. " Kate colored Avith pleasure, and gave her hand eloquently to the major. He boAved OA'er it, and kissed the tips of her fingers. " Oh, sir," she said, looking on him noAv as a friend, " I dreamed I saAV Mr. Neville lying dead upon the snoAV, Avith the blood trickling from his temple. " At this, Neville's dark cheek gloAved with pleas- 30 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. ure. So ! it was her anxiety on his account had brought her here. Griffith heard too, and sighed patiently. Assured by Major Richards that there neither could nor should be any more fighting, Kate made her adieus, mounted her gray horse, and rode off, discreetly declining all attendance. She beckoned Tom Leicester, however. But he pre- tended not to see the signal, and let her go alone. His motive for lingering behind was characteris- tic, and will transpire shortly. As soon as she was gone, Griffith Gaunt quiet- ly reminded the surgeon that there was a bullet in his arm all this time. "Bless my soul!" said Mr. Islip, "I forgot that, I was so taken up with the lady." Griffith's coat was now taken off, and the bul- let searched for : it had entered the fleshy part of his arm below the elbow, and, passing round the bone, projected just under the skin. The surgeon made a slight incision, and then, press- ing with his finger and thumb, out it rolled. Griffith put it in his pocket. Neville had remained out of civility, and now congratulated his late antagonist and himself that it was no worse. The last words that passed between the rivals on this occasion were worth recording, and char- acteristic of the time. Neville addressed Gaunt with elaborate cour- tesy, and to this effect : "I find myself in a difficulty, sir. You did me the honor to invite me to Mr. Charlton's fu- reral, and I accepted ; but now I fear to intrude ;t guest, the sight of whom may be disagreeable to you. And, on the other hand, my absence might be misconstrued as a mark of disrespect, or of a petty hostility I am far from feeling. Be pleased, therefore, to dispose of me entirely in this matter." Griffith reflected. "Sir," said he, "there is an old saying, 'Let every tub stand on its own -bottom.' The de- ceased wished you to follow him to the grave, and thsrefore I would on no account have you absent. Besides, now I think of it, there will be less gossip about this unfortunate business if our neighbors see you under my roof, and treated with due consideration there, as you will be." " I do not doubt that, sir, from so manly an adversary ; and I shall do myself the honor to come. " Such was Neville's reply. The rivals then sa- luted each other profoundly, and parted. Hammersley and Richards lingered behind their principals to settle their little bet about Kate's affections ; and, by-the-by, they were in- discreet enough to discuss this delicate matter within a dozen yards of Tom Leicester : they forgot that "little pitchers have long ears." Catharine Peyton rode slowly home, and thought it all over as she went, and worried herself finely. She was one that winced at no- toriety, and she could not hope to escape it now. How the gossips would talk about her ! They would say the gentlemen had fought about her, and she had parted them for love of one of them. And then the gentlemen themselves ! The strict neutrality she had endeavored to maintain on Scutchemsee Nob, in order to make peace, would it not keep them both her suitors ? She foresaw she should be pulled to pieces, and live in hot water, and be " the talk of the county." There were but two ways out : she must marry one of them, and petition the other not to shoot him ; or else she must take the veil, and so es- cape them both. She preferred the latter alternative. She was more enthusiastic in religion than in any earthly thing ; and now the angry passions of men thrust her the same road that her own devout mind had always drawn her. As soon as she got home, she sent a message to Father Francis, Avho drove her conscience, and begged him to come and advise her. After that she did the wisest thing, perhaps, she had done all day — went to bed. CHAPTER VII. The sun was just setting when Catharines, maid came into her room and told her Father Francis was below. She sent down to say she counted on his sleeping at Peyton Hall, and she would come down to him in half an hour. She then ordered a refection to be prepared fcr him in her boudoir, and made her toilet with all rea- sonable speed, not to keep him waiting. Her face beamed with quiet complacency now, for the holy man's veiy presence in the house was a comfort to her. Father Francis was a very stout, muscular man, with a ruddy countenance ; he never wore gloves, and you saw at once he was not a gen- tleman by birth. He had a fine voice : it was deep, mellow, and, when he chose, sonorous. This, and his person, ample, but not obese, gave him great weight, especially with his female pu- pils. If he was not quite so much reverenced by the men, yet he was both respected and liked ; in fact, he had qualities that make men welcome in every situation — good humor, good *sense, and tact. A good son of his Church, and early trained to let no occasion slip of advancing her interests. I wish my readers could have seen the meet- ing between Catharine Peyton and this burly ecclesiastic. She came into the drawing-room with that imperious air and carriage which had made her so unpopular with her own sex, and at the bare sight of Father Francis, drooped and bent in a moment as she walked, and her whole body indicated a submissiveness, graceful, but rather abject : it was as if a young poplar should turn to a weeping willow in half a moment. Thus metamorphosed, the Beauty of Cumber- land glided up to Francis, and sank slowly on her knees before him, crossed her hands on her bosom, lowered her lovely head, and awaited his benediction. The father laid two big, coarse hands, with enormous fingers, on that thorough-bred head and golden hair, and blessed her business-like. "The hand of less employment hath the daimier seuse."-rShakspeare. Father Francis blessed so many of these pret- ty creatures every week that he had long out- grown your fine, romantic way of blessing a body. (We manage these things better in the theatre.) Then he lent her his hand to rise, and asked her in what she required his direction at present. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 3! "In that which shall decide my whole life," said she. Francis responded by a look of paternal inter- est. " But first," murmured she, "let me confess to you, and obtain absolution, if I may. Ah ! fa- ther, my sins have been many since last confes- sion." "Be it so," said Father Francis, resignedly. "Confession is the best preface .to Direction." And he seated himself with a certain change of manner, an easy assumption of authority. " Kay, .ather," suggested the lady, " we shall be more private in my room. " "As you will, Mistress Catharine Peyton," said the priest, returning to his usual manner. So then the fair penitent led her spiritual judge captive up another flight of stairs, and into her little boudoir. A cheerful wood fire crackled and flamed up the chimney, and a cloth had been laid on a side-table : cold turkey and chine graced the board, and a huge glass magnum of purple Burgundy glowed and shone in the rays of the cheery fire. Father Francis felt cozy at the sight, and at once accepted Kate's invitation to take some nourishment before entering on the labor of lis- tening to the catalogue of her crimes. " I fasted yesterday," he muttered; and the zeal with which he attacked the viands rendered the statement highly credible. He invited Kate to join him, but she declined. He returned more than once to the succulent meats, and washed all down with a pint of the fine old Burgundy, perfumed and purple. Mean- time she of the laity sat looking into the fire with heavenly-minded eyes. At last, with a gentle sigh of content, the ghostly father installed himself in an arm-chair by the fire, and invited his penitent to begin. She took a footstool and brought it to his side, so that, in confessing her blacker vices, she might be able to whisper them in his very ear. She kneeled on her little footstool, put her hands across her breast, and in this lowly attitude mur- mured softly after this fashion, with a contrite voice : "I have to accuse myself of many vices. Alas ! in one short fortnight I have accumulated the wickedness of a life. I have committed the seven deadly sins. I have been guilty of Pride, Wrath, Envy, Disobedience, Immodesty, Vanity, Concupiscence, Fibs — " " Gently, daughter," said the priest, quietly ; " these terms are too general : give me instan- ces. Let us begin with Wrath : ah ! we are all prone to that." The fair penitent sighed and said,' " Especially me. Example : I was angiy be- yond reason with my maid, Ruth. (She does comb my hair so uncouthly !) So, then, the other night, when I was in trouble, and most needed soothing by being combed womanly, she gets thinking of Harry, that helps in the stable, and she tears away at my hair. I started up and screamed out, ' Oh, you clumsy thing ! go curry- comb my horse, and send that oaf your head 'is running on to handle my hair.' And I told her my grandam would have whipped her well for it, but nowadays mistresses were the only sufferers : we had lost the use of our hands, we are grown so squeamish. And I stamped like a fury, and said, 'Get you gone out of the room!' and ' 1 hated the sight of her !' And the poor girl went from me, crying, without a word, being a better Christian than her mistress. Mea culpa! mea culpa!" " Did you slap her?" " Nay, father, not so bad as that." ' ' Are you quite sure you did not slap her ?" asked Francis, quietly. "Nay. But I had a mind to. My heart slapped her, if my hand forbore. Alas !" " Had she hurt you ?" "That she did — but only my head. I hurt her heart ; for the poor wench loves me dear, the Lord knows for what." " Humph ! proceed to pride." " Yes, father. I do confess that I was greatly puffed up with the praises of men. I was proud of the sorriest things : of jumping a brook, when 'twas my horse jumped it, and had jumped it bet- ter with a fly on his back than the poor worm Me ; of my good looks, forgetting that God gave them me ; and, besides, I am no beauty, when all is done ; it is all their flattery. And at my Lady Munster's dinner I pridefully walked out before Mistress Davies, the rich cheesemonger's wife f that is as proud of her money as I of my old blood (God forgive two fools !), which I had no right to do — a maid to walk before a wife ; and oh, father, I whispered the gentleman who led me out — it was Mr. Neville — " Here the penitent put one hand before her face, and hesitated. " Well, daughter, half confession is no confes- sion. You said to Mr. Neville — " " I said. ? Nothing comes after cheese.' " This revelation was made most dolefully. "It was pert and unbecoming," said Father Francis, gravely, though a twinkle in his eve showed that he was not so profoundly shocked as his penitent appeared to be. " But go to graver matters. Immodesty, said yen ? I shall be very sorry if this is so. You did not use to be im- modest." "Well, father, I hope I have not altogether laid aside modesty, otherwise it would be time for me to die, let alone to confess ; but sure it can not be modest of me to ride after a gentle- man and take him a letter. And then that was not enough : I heard of a duel, and what did 1 do but ride to Scutchemsee Nob, and interfere ? What gentlewoman ever was so bold ? I was not their wife, you know — neither of them's." "Humph!" said the priest, "I have already heard a whisper of this, but told to your credit. Beati pacijici : Blessed are the peacemakers. You had better lay that matter before me by-and- by, as your director. As your confessor, tell me why you accuse yourself of concupiscence." "Alas!" said the young lady, "scarce a day passes that I do not offend in that respect. Ex- ample : last Friday, dining abroad, the cooks sent up a dish of collops. Oh, father, they smelt so nice ! and I had been a-hunting. First I smelt them, and that I couldn't help ; but then I for- got custodia oculorum, and I eyed them ; and the next thing was, presently — somehow — two of 'em were on my plate." " Very wrong, " said Francis; "but that is a harsher term than I should have applied to this longing of a hungry woman for collops o' Friday. Pray, what do you understand by that big word ?" GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY, "Why, you explained it yourself in your last sermon. It means ' unruly and inordinate de- sires. ' Example : Edith Hammersley told me I was mad to ride in scarlet, and me so fair and my hair so light. 'Green or purple is your color,' says she; and soon after this didn't I see in Stanhope town the loveliest piece of purple broadcloth ? Oh, father, it had a gloss like vel- vet, and'the sun did so shine on it as it lay in the shop-window ; it was fit for a king or a bishop ; and I stood and gloated on it, and pined for it, and died for it, and down went the Tenth Com- mandment. " "Ah!" said Francis, "the hearts of women are set on vanity ! But tell me — these unruly affections of yours, are they ever fixed on per- sons of the other sex ?" The fair sinner reflected. "On gentlemen?" said she. "Why, they come pestering of their own accord. No, no — I could do without them very well. What I sinful- ly pine for is meat on a Friday assure as ever the day comes round, and high-couraged horses to ride, and fine clothes to wear every day in the week. Mea culpa! mea culpa!" Such being the dismal state of things, Francis slyly requested her to leave the seven deadly sins in peace, and go to her small offenses ; for he argued, shrewdly enough, that, since her sins were peccadilloes, perhaps some of her peccadil- loes might turn out to be sins. " Small !" cried the culprit, turning red, " they are none of them small." I really think she was jealous of her reputation as a sinner of high degree. However, she complied, and, putting up her mouth, murmured a miscellaneous confession without end. The accents were soft and music- al, like a babbling brook ; and the sins, such as they were, poor things ! rippled on in endless ro- tation. Now nothing tends more to repose than a purl- ing brook, and ere long something sonorous let the fair culprit know she had lulled her confessor asleep. She stopped, indignant. But at that he in- stantly awoke (sublatd causa, tollitur effectus), and addressed her thus, with sudden dignity, ' ' My daughter, you will fast on Monday next, and say two Aves and a Credo. Absolvo te." "And now," said he, "as I am a practical man, let us get back from the imaginary world into the real. Speak to me at present as your director ; and mind, you must be serious now, and call things by their right names." Upon this Kate took a seat, and told her story, and showed him the difficulty she was in. She then reminded him that, notwithstanding her unfortunate itch for the seven deadly sins, she was a good Catholic, a zealous daughter of the Church ; and she let him know her desire to retire from both lovers into a convent, and so, freed from the world and its temptations, yield up her soul entire to celestial peace and divine contemplation. " Not so fast," said the priest. " Even zeal is naught without obedience. If you could serve the Church better than by going into a convent, would you be willful ?" "Oh no, father! But how can I serve the Church better than by renouncing the world ?" "Perhaps by remaining in the world, as she herself does — and by making converts to the faith. You could hardly serve her worse than by going into a convent ; for our convents are poor, and you have no means ; you would be a charge. No, daughter, we want no poor nuns ; we have enough of them. If you are, as I think, a true and zealous daughter of the Church, you must marry, and instill the true faith, with all a moth- er's art, a mother's tenderness, into your children. Then the heir to your husband's estates will be a Catholic, and so the true faith get rooted in the soil." " Alas !" said Catharine, " are we to look but to the worldly interests of the Church ?" ' ' They are inseparable from her spiritual in- terests here on earth ; our souls are not more bound to our bodies." Catharine was deeply mortified. "So the Church rejects me because I am poor," said she, with a sigh. ' ' The Church rejects you not, but only the convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments ; both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out tempt- ation ? I know them better than you : they are strong-holds of vanity, folly, tittle-tattle, and all the meanest vices of your sex. Nay, I forbid you to think of it : show me now your faith by your obedience. " " You are harsh to me, father, " said Catharine, piteously. "lam firm. You are one that needs a tight hand, mistress. Come, now, humility and obe- dience, these are the Christian graces that best become your youth. Say, can the Church, through me, its minister, count on these from you? or" (suddenly letting loose his diapason) ' ' did you send for me to ask advice, and yet go your own way, hiding a high stomach and a will- ful heart under a show of humility ?" Catharine looked at Father Francis with dis- may. This was the first time that easy-going priest had shown her how impressive he could be. She was downright frightened, and said she hoped she knew better than to defy her director ; she laid her will at his feet, and would obey him like a child, as was her duty. "Now I know my daughter again," said he, and gave her his horrible paw, the which she kissed very humbly, and that matter was settled to her entire dissatisfaction. Soon after that they were both summoned to supper ; but as they went down, Kate's maid drew her aside and told her a young man want- ed to speak to her. "A young man?" screamed Kate. "Hang young men ! They have got me a fine scolding just now ! Which is it, pray ?" " He is a stranger to me." "Perhaps he comes with a message from some fool. You may bring him to me in the hall, and stay with us : it may be a thief, for aught I know." The maid soon reappeared, followed by Mr. Thomas Leicester. That young worthy had lingered on Scutch- emsee Nob to extract the last drop of enjoy- ment from the situation by setting up his hat at ten paces, and firing the gentlemen's pistols at it. I despair of conveying to any rational reader the satisfaction, keen, though brief, this GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 33 afforded him ; it was a new sensation : gentle- men's guns he had fired many, but dueling-pis- tols not one, till that bright hour. He was now come to remind Catharine of his pecuniary claims. Luckily for him, she was one who did not need to be reminded of her prom- ises. ' ' Oh, !t is you, child ! " said she. ' * Well, I'll be as good as my word. " She then dismissed her maid, and went up stairs, and soon returned with two guineas, a crown piece, and three shillings in her hand. "There," said she, smiling, " I am sorry for you, but that is all the money I have in the world." The boy's eyes glittered at sight of the coin : he rammed the silver into his pocket with hun- gry rapidity, but he shook his head about the gold. " I'm afeard o' these," said he, and eyed them mistrustfully in his palm. "These be the friends that get you your throat cut o' dark nights. Mistress, please you keep 'em for me, and let me have a shilling now and then when I'm dry." " Nay," said Kate, "but are you not afraid I shall spend your money, now I have none left of my own?" Tom seemed quite struck with the reasonable- ness of this observation, and hesitated. Howev- er, he concluded to risk it. "You don't look one of the sort to wrong a poor fellow," said he ; " and, besides, you'll have brass to spare of your own before long, I know." Kate opened her eyes. " Oh, indeed !" said she ; " and, pray, how do you know that ?" Mr. Leicester favored her with a knoAving wink. He gave her a moment to digest this, and then said, almost in a whisper, " Hearkened the gentlefolks on Scutchemsee Nob after you was gone home, mistress." Kate was annoyed. "What! they must be prating as soon as one's back is turned ! Talk of women's tongues ! Now what did they say, I should like to know ?" " It was about the bet, ye know." " A bet ? Oh, that is no affair of mine. " "Ay, but it is. Why, 'twas you they were betting on. Seems that old soger and Squire Hammersley had laid three guineas to one that you should let out which was your fancy of them two." Kate's cheeks were red as fire now ; but her delicacy overpowered her curiosity, and she would not put any more questions. To be sure, young Hopeful needed none ; he was naturally a chatterbox, and he proceeded to tell her that, as soon as ever she was gone, Squire Hammersley took a guinea and offered it to the old soger, and told him he had won, and the old soger pocketed it. But after that, somehow, Squire Hammersley let drop that Mr. Neville was the favorite. " Then," continued Mr. Leicester, " what does the old soger do but pull out guinea again, and says he, ' ' ' You must have this back ; bet is not won ; for you do think 'tis Neville ; now I do think 'tis Gaunt.' " So then they fell to argufying and talking a lot o' stuff." " No doubt, the insolent meddlers ! Can you remember any of their nonsense? — not that it is worth remembering, I'll be bound." ' ' Let me see. Well, Squire Hammersley, he said you owned to dreaming of Squire Neville, and that was a sign of love, said he ; and, be- sides, you sided with him against t'other. But the old soger, he said you called Squire Gaunt ' Griffith ;' and he built on that. Oh, and a said you changed the horses back to please our squire. Says he, " ' You must look to what the lady did ; never heed what she said. Why, their sweet lips was only made to kiss us, and deceive us,' says that there old soger." " I'll — I'll — And what did you say, sir?— for I suppose your tongue was not idle." " Oh, me ? I never let 'em know I was heark- ening, or they'd have 'greed in a moment for to give me a hiding. Besides, I had no need to cudgel my brains ; I'd only to ask you plump. You'll tell me, I know. Which is it, mistress ? I'm for Gaunt, you know, in course. Alack, mistress," gabbled this voluble youth, " sure you won't be so hard as sack my squire, and him got a bullet in his carcass, for love of you, this day." Kate started, and looked at him in surprise. " Oh," said she, "a bullet! Did they fight again the moment they saw my back was turn- ed ? The cowards !" And she began to tremble. "No, no," said Tom, "that was done before ever you came up. Don't ye remember that single shot while we were climbing the Nob? Well, 'twas Squire Gaunt got it in the arm that time. " "Oh!" "But, I say, wasn't our man game? Never let out he was hit while you was there ; but as soon as ever you was gone, they cut the bullet out of him, and I seen it. " "Ah! ah!" "Doctor takes out his knife — precious sharp and shiny 'twas! — cuts into his arm with no more ado than if he was carving a pullet — out squirts the blood, a good un." "Oh, no more! no more! You cruel boy! how could you bear to look?" And Kate hid her own face with both hands. " Wiry, -'twasn't my skin as was cut into. Squire Gaunt, he never hollered ; a winced, though, and ground his teeth ; but 'twas over in a minute, and the bullet in his hand. " 'That is for my wife,' says he, 'if ever I have one,' and puts it in his pocket. " Why, mistress, you be as white as your smock!" " No, no ! Did he faint, poor soul ?" " Not he ! What was there to faint about ?" " Then why do I feel so sick, even to hear of it?" "Because you ha'n't got no stomach," said the boy, contemptuously. "Your courage is skin-deep, I'm thinking. However, I'm glad you feel for our squire about the bullet ; so now I hope you will wed with Mm, and sack Squire Neville.* Then you and I shall be kind o' kin : Squire Gaunt's feyther was my feyther. That makes you stare, mistress. Why, all the folk do know it. Look at this here little mole on my forehead. Squire Gaunt have got the fellow to that," At this crisis of his argument he suddenly ;j-t GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. caught a glimpse of his personal interest ; in- stantly he ceased his advocacy of Squire Gaunt, and became ludicrously impartial. "Well, mistress, wed whichever you like," said he, with sublime indifference ; " only which- ever you do wed, prithee speak a word to the gentleman, and get me to be his gamekeeper. I'd liever be yonr goodman's gamekeeper than King of England." He was proceeding with vast volubility to enumerate his qualifications for that confidential post, when the lady cut him short, and told him to go and get his supper in the kitchen, for she was wanted elsewhere. He made a scrape, and clattered away with his hobnailed shoes. Kate went to the hall window and opened it, and let the cold air blow over her face. Her heart was touched, and her bosom filled with pity for her old sweetheart. How hard she had been ! She had sided with Neville against the wounded man. And she thought how sadly and patiently he had submit- ted to her decision — and a bullet in his poor arm all the time. The gentle bosom heaved and heaved, and the tears began to run. She entered the dining-room timidly, expect- ing some comment on her discourteous absence. Instead of that, both her father and her director rose respectfully, and received her with kind and affectionate looks. They then pressed her to eat this and that, and were remarkably attentive and kind. She could see she was deep in their good books. This pleased her ; but she watched qui- etly, after the manner of her sex, to learn what it was all about. Nor was she left long in the dark. Remarks were made that hit her, though they were none of them addressed to her. Father Francis delivered quite a little homily on Obedience, and said how happy a thing it was when zeal, a virtue none too common in these de- generate days, was found tempered by humility, and subservient to ghostly counsel and authority. Mr. Peyton dealt in no general topics of that kind ; his discourse was secular : it ran upon Neville's Cross, Neville's Court, and the Baronet- cy ; and he showed Francis how and why this ti- tle must sooner or later come to George Neville and the heirs of his body. Francis joined in this topic for a while, but speedily diverged into what might be called a collateral theme. He described to Kate a de- lightful spot on the Neville estate where a nun- nery might be built and endowed by any good Catholic lady having zeal, and influence with the owner of the estate, and with the lord lieutenant of the county. ■ "It is three parts an island (for the River Wey curls round it lovingly), but backed by wooded slopes that keep off the north and east winds : a hidden and balmy place, such as the forefathers of the Church did use to choose for their rustic abbeys, whose ruins still survive to remind us of the pious aud glorious days gone by. Trout and salmon come swimming to the door ; hawthorn and woodbine are as rife there as weeds be in some parts ; two broad oaks stand on turf like velvet, and ring with song-birds. A spot by nature sweet, calm, and holy— good for pious exercises and heavenly contemplation : there, methinks, if it be God's will I should see old age, I would love to end my own days, at peace with Heaven and with all mankind." Kate was much moved by this picture, and her clasped hands and glistening eyes showed the glory and delight it would be to. her to build a convent on so lovely a spot. But her words were vague. "How sweet! how sweet!" was all she committed herself to. For, after what Tom Leicester had just told her, she hardly knew what to say, or what to think, or what to do ; she felt she had become a mere puppet, first drawn one way, then another. One thing appeared pretty clear to her now : Father Francis did not mean her to choose be- tween her two lovers ; he was good enough to relieve her of that difficulty by choosing for her. She was to marry Neville. She retired to rest directly after supper, for she was thoroughly worn out. And the mo- ment she rose to go, her father bounced up, and lighted the bed-candle for her with novel fervor, and kissed her on the cheek, and said in her ear, " Good-night, my Lady Neville !" CHAPTER VIII. What with the day's excitement, and a sweet, secluded convent in her soul, and a bullet in her bosom, and a ringing in her ear, that sounded mighty like "Lady Neville! Lady Neville! Lady Neville!" Kate spent a restless night, and woke with a bad headache. She sent her maid to excuse her, on this score, from going to Bolton Hall. But she was in- formed in reply that the carnage had been got ready expressly for her, so she must be good enough to shake off disease and go ; the air would dp her a deal more good than lying abed. Thereupon she dressed herself in her black silk gown and came down, looking pale and lan- guid, but still quite lovely enough to discharge what in this age of cant I suppose we should call " her mission ;*' videlicet , to set honest men by the ears. At half past eight o'clock the carriage came round to the front door. Its body, all glorious with the Peyton armorials and with patches of rusty gilding, swung exceedingly loose on long leathern straps instead of springs ; and the fore wheels were a mile from the hind wheels, more or less. A pretentious and horrible engine — drawn by four horses — only two of them being ponies impaired the symmetry and majestic beauty of the pageant. Old Joe drove the wheelers ; his boy rode the leaders, and every now and then got off and kicked them in the pits of their stomachs, or pierced them with hedge- stakes, to rouse their mettle. Thus encouraged and stimulated, they effected an average of four miles and a half per hour, notwithstanding the snow, and reached Bolton just in time. At the lodge, Francis got out and lay in ambush — but only for a time. He did not think it orthodox to be present at a religious ceremony of his Prot- estant friends, nor common-sense-o-dox to turn his back upon their dinner. The carriage drew up at the hall door. It was wide open, and the hall lined with servants, male and female, in black. In the midst, be- tween these two rows, stood Griffith Gaunt, bareheaded, to welcome the guests. His arm GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OK, JEALOUSY. 85 was in a sling. He had received all the others in the middle of the hall, but he came to the threshold to meet Kate and her father. He bowed low and respectfully, then gave his left hand to Kate to conduct her, after the formal fashion of the day. The sight of his arm in a sling startled and affected her^ and with him giving her his hand almost at the same moment, she pressed it, or indeed squeezed it nervously, and it was in her heart to say something kind and womanly ; but her father was close behind, and she was afraid of saying something too kind, if she said any thing at all, so Griffith only got a little gentle nervous pinch. But that was more than he expected, and sent a thrill of delight through him ; his brown eyes replied with a vol- ume, and holding her hand up in the air as high as her ear, and keeping at an incredible distance, he led her solemnly to a room where the other ladies were, and left her there with a profound bow. The Feytons were nearly the last persons ex- pected, and soon after their arrival the tuneral procession formed. This part was entirely ar- ranged by the undertaker. The monstrous cus- tom of forbidding ladies to follow their dead had not yet occurred even to the idiots of the nation, and Mr. Feyton and his daughter were placed in the second carriage. The first contained Grif- fith Gaunt alone, as head mourner. But the Feytons were not alone : no other relation of the" deceased being present, the undertaker put Mr. Neville with the Feytons, because he was heir to a baronetcy. Kate was much startled and astonished to see him come out into the hall. But when he en- tered the carriage she welcomed him warmly. " Oh, I am so glad to see you here !" said she. "Guess by that what my delight at meeting you must be," said he. She blushed and turned it off. "I mean, that your coming here gives me good hopes there will be no more mischief/' She then lowered her voice, and begged him on no account to tell her papa of her ride to Scutchemsee Nob. "Not a word," said George. He knew the advantage of sharing a secret with a fair lady. He proceeded to whisper something very warm in her ear : she listened to some of it, but then remonstrated, and said, "Are you not ashamed to go on so at a funeral ? Oh, do pray leave compliments a moment, and think of your latter end." He took this suggestion, as indeed he did every thing from her, in good part, and com- posed his visage into a decent gravity. Soon after this they reached the church, and buried the deceased in his family vault. Feople who are not bereaved by the death are always inclined to chatter coming home from a funeral. Kate now talked to Neville of her own accord, and asked him if he had spoken to his host. He said yes, and, more than that, had come to a clear understanding with him. " We agreed that it Avas no use fighting for you. I said, if either of us two was to kill the other, it did not follow you would wed the survivor." ' ' Me wed the wretch !" said Kate. ' ' I should abhor him, and go into a convent in spite of you all, and end my days praying for the murdered man's soul." "Neither of us is worth all that," suggested Neville, with an accent of conviction. "That is certain," replied the lady, dryly; "so please not to do it." He bade her set her mind at ease : they had both agreed to try and win her by peaceful arts. " Then a pretty life mine will be !" " Well, I think it will, till you decide." "I could easily decide, if it were not for giv- ing pain to — somebody. " 1 ' Oh, you can't help that. My sweet mistress, you are not the first that has had to choose be- tween two worthy men. For, in sooth, I have nothing to say against my rival neither. I know him better than I did : he is a very worthy gen- tleman, though he is damnably in my way." " And you are a very noble one to say so." "And you are one of those that make a man noble : I feel that petty arts are not the way to win you, and I scorn them. Sweet Mistress Kate, I adore you ! You are the best and no- blest, as well as the loveliest of women!" "Oh, hush, Mr. Neville ! I am a creature of clay — and you are another — and both of us com- ing home from a funeral. Do think of that." Here they were interrupted by Mr. Feyton asking Kate to lend him a shilling for the groom. Kate replied aloud that she had left her purse at home, then whispered in his ear that she had not a shilling in the world ; and this was strictly true, for her little all was Tom Leicester's now. With this they reached the Hall, and the coy Kate gave both Neville and Gaunt the slip, and got among her mates. There her tongue went as fast as her neighbors', though she had just come back from a funeral. But soon the ladies and gentlemen were all in- vited to the reading of the will. And now chance, which had hitherto befriend- ed Neville by throwing him into one carriage with Kate, gave Gaunt a turn. He found her a moment alone and near the embrasure of a win- dow. He seized the opportunity, and asked her might he say a word in her ear. "What a question !" said she, gayly ; and the next moment they had the embrasure to themselves. ' ' Kate," said he, hurriedly, " in a few minutes, I suppose, I shall be master of this place. Now you told me once you would rather be an abbess or a nun than marry me. " " Did I ?" said Kate. ' ' What a sensible speech ! But the worst of it is, I'm never in the same mind long." "Well, "replied Griffith, "I think of all that falls from your lips, and your will is mine ; only, for pity's sake, do not wed any man but me. You have known me so long — why, you know the worst of me by this time, and you have only seen the outside of him." " Detraction ! is that what you wanted to say to me?" asked Kate, freezing suddenly. ' ' Nay, nay, it was about the abbey. I find you can be an abbess without going and shutting yourself up and breaking one's heart. The way is, you build a convent in Ireland, and endow it ; and then you send a nun over to govern it under you. Bless your heart, you can do any thing with money, and I shall have money enough be- fore the day is over. To be sure, I did intend to build a kennel and keep harriers, and yon know that costs a good penny ; but we couldn't man- age a kennel and an abbey too ; so now down 36 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. goes the English kennel, and up goes the Irish abbey." "But you are a Protestant gentleman. You could not found a nunnery." "But my wife could. Whose business is it what she does with her money ?" " With your money, you mean." "Nay, with hers, when I give it her with all my heart. " " Well, you astonish me," said Kate, thought- ftdly. "Tell me, now, who put it into your head to bribe a poor girl in this abominable way ?" "Who put it into my head?" said Griffith, looking rather puzzled; "why, I suppose my heart put it into my head." Kate smiled very sweetly at this answer, and a wild hope thrilled through Griffith that per- haps she might be brought to terms. But at this crisis the lawyer from London was announced, and Griffith, as master of the house, was obliged to seat the company. He looked bitterly disappointed at the interruption, but put a good face on it, and had more chairs in, and saw them all seated, beginning with Kate and the other ladies. The room was spacious, and the entire com- pany sat in the form of a horse-shoe. The London solicitor was introduced by Grif- fith, and bowed in a short, business-like way ; seated himself in the horse-shoe aforesaid, and began to read the will aloud. It was a lengthy document, and there is noth- ing to be gained by repeating every line of it. I pick out a clause here and there. "I, Septimus Charlton, of Hemshaw Castle and Bolton Grange, in the County of Cumber- land, Esquire, being of sound mind, memory, and understanding — thanks be to God — do make this my last will and testament as follows : First, I commit my soul to God who gave it, and my body to the earth from which it came. I desire my executors to discharge my funeral and testa- mentary expenses, my just debts, and the lega- cies hereinafter bequeathed, out of my personal estate." Then followed several legacies of fifty and one hundred guineas ; then several small legacies, such as the following : "To my friend Edward Peyton, of Peyton Hall, Esquire, ten guineas to buy a mourning ring. " To the worshipful gentlemen and ladies who shall follow my body to the grave, ten guineas each, to buy a mourning ring." "To my wife's cousin, Griffith Gaunt, I give and bequeath the sum of two thousand pounds, the same to be paid to him within one calendar month from the date of my decease. "And as to all my messuages, or tenements, farms, lands, hereditaments, and real estate, of what nature or what kind soever, and whereso- ever situate, together with all my moneys, mort- gages, chattels, furniture, plate, pictures, wine, liquors, horses, carriages, stock, and all the rest, residue, and remainder of my personal estate and effects whatsoever (after the payment of the debts and legacies hereinbefore mentioned), I give, de- vise, and bequeath the same to my cousin, Cath- arine Peyton, daughter of Edward Peyton, Es- quire, of Peyton Hall, in the County of Cumber- land, her heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, forever." When the lawyer read out this unexpected blow, the whole company turned in their seats and looked amazed at her who in a second and a sentence was turned before their eyes from the poorest girl in Cumberland to an heiress in her own right, and proprietor of the house they sat in, the chairs they sat on, and the lawn they looked out at. Ay, we turn to the rising sun. Very few look- ed at Griffith Gaunt to see how he took his mis- tress's good fortune, that was his calamity ; yet his face was a book full of strange matter. At first a flash of loving joy crossed his countenance ; but this gave way immediately to a haggard look, and that to a glare of despair. As for thelady, she cast one deprecating glance, swifter than lightning, at him she had disinher- ited, and then she turned her face to marble. In vain did curious looks explore her to detect the delight such a stroke of fortune would have given to themselves. Faulty, but great of soul, and on her guard against the piercing eyes of her own sex, she sat sedate, and received her change of fortune with every appearanee of cool composure and exalted indifference ; and as for her dreamy eyes, they seemed thinking of heaven, or some- thing almost as many miles away from money and land. But the lawyer had not stopped a moment to see how people took it ; he had gone steadily on through the usual formal clauses ; and now he brought his monotonous voice to an end, and add- ed, in the same breath, but in a natural and cheer- ful tone, " Madam, I wish you joy." This operated like a signal. The company ex- ploded in a body ; and then they all came about the heiress, and congratulated her in turn. She courtesied politely, though somewhat coldly, but said not a word in reply till the disappointed one spoke to her. He hung back at first. To understand his feelings, it must be remembered that, in his view of things, Kate gained nothing by this bequest compared with what he lost. As his wife, she would have been mistress of Bolton Hall, etc. But now she was placed too far above him. Sick at heart, he stood aloof while they all paid their court to her. But by-and-by he felt it would look base and hostile if he alone said nothing, so he came forward, struggling visibly for compos- ure and manly fortitude. The situation was piquant, and the ladies' tongues stopped in a moment, and they were all eyes and ears. CHAPTER IX. Griffith, with an effort he had not the skill to hide, stammered out, "Mistress Kate, I do wish you joy." Then, with sudden and touch- ing earnestness, ' ' Never did good fortune light on one so worthy of it." "Thank you, Griffith," replied Kate, softly. (She had called him " Mr. Gaunt" in public till now.) "But money and lands do not always bring content. I think I was happier a minute ago than I feel now," said she, quietly. The blood rushed into Griffith's face at this, GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 37 for a minute ago might mean when he and she were talking almost like lovers about to wed. He was so overcome by this, he turned on his heel, and retreated hastily to hide his emotion, and regain, if possible, composure to play his part of host in the house that was his no longer. Kate herself soon after retired, nominally to make her toilet before dinner, but really to es- cape the public and think it all over. The news of her advancement had spread like wildfire ; she was waylaid at the very door by the housekeeper, who insisted on showing her her house. "Nay, never mind the house," said Kate; ''just show me one room where I can wash my face and do my hair." Mrs. Hill conducted her to the best bedroom ; it was lined with tapestry, and all the colors flown ; the curtains were a deadish yellow. "Lud! here's a colored room to show me into," said the blonde Kate ; "and a black grate, too. Why not take me out o' doors and bid me wash in the snow ?" "Alack! mistress," said the woman, feeling very uneasy, ' ' we had no orders from Mr. Gaunt to light fires up stairs." "Oh, if you wait for gentlemen's orders to make jour house fit to live in ! You knew there were a dozen ladies coming, yet you Avere not woman enough to light them fires. Come, take me to your own bedroom." The woman turned red. " Mine is but a small room, my lady, " she stammered. " But there's a fire in it," said Kate, spiteful- ly. "You sen-ants don't wait for gentlemen's orders to take care of yourselves. " Mrs. Hill said to herself, " I'm to leave, that's flat. " However, she led the way down a passage, and opened the door of a pleasant little room in a square turret ; a large bay window occupied one whole side of the room, and made it inex- pressibly bright and cheerful, though rather hot and stuffy ; a clear coal fire burned in the grate. "Ah!" said Kate, "how nice! Please open those little windows, every one. I suppose you have sworn never to let wholesome air into a room. Thank you : now go and forget every cross word I have said to you — I am out of sorts, and nervous, and irritable. There, run away, my good soul, and light fires in every room ; and don't you let a creature come near me, or you and I shall quarrel downright. " Mrs. Hill beat a hasty retreat. Kate locked the door and threw herself backward on the bed with such a weary recklessness and abandon as if she was throwing herself into the sea to end all her trouble, and burst out crying. It was one thing to refuse to marry her old sweetheart, it Avas another to take his property and reduce him to poverty. But here she Avas doing both, and £oing to be persuaded to marry Neville, and sAveil his Avealth with the very pos- sessions she had taken from Griffith ; and him Avounded into the bargain for love of her. It Avas really too cruel. It Avas an accumulation of different cruelties. Her bosom revolted ; she was agitated, perplexed, irritated, unhappy, and all in a tumult ; and although she had but one fit of crying — to the naked eye — yet a person of her own sex would have seen that at one mo- ment she Avas crying from agitated neiwes, at another from worry, and at the next from pity, and then from grief. In short, she had a good long, hearty, multi- form ciy, and it relieved her swelling heart so far that she felt able to go doAvn iioav, and hide her feelings, one and all, from friend and foe, to do which was unfortunately a part of her nature. She rose and plunged her face into cold water and then smoothed her hair. Noav, as she stood at the glass, tAvo familiar Alices came in through the open AvindoAv, and ar- rested her attention directly. It Avas her father conversing Avith Griffith Gaunt. Kate pricked up her quick ears and listened, with her back hair in her hand. She caught the subject of their talk, only now and then she missed a Avord or two. Mr. Peyton Avas speaking rather kindly to Griffith, and telling him he Avas as sorry for his disappointment as any father could be whose daughter had just come into a fortune. But then he Avent on and rather spoiled this by ask- ing Griffith bluntly Avhat on earth had ever made him think Mr. Charlton intended to leave him Bolton and HernshaAv. Griffith replied, Avith manifest agitation, that Mr. Charlton had repeatedly told him he was to be his heir. "Not," said Griffith, "that he meant to Avrong Mistress Kate neither : poor old man, he ahvays thought she and I should be one." "Ah ! Aveil, " said Squire Peyton, coolly, ' ' there is an end of all that noAv." At this obserA-ation Kate glided to the Avin- doAv, and laid her cheek on the sill to listen more closely. But Griffith made no reply. Mr. Peyton seemed dissatisfied at his silence, and being a person who, notwithstanding a cer- tain superficial good-nature, saAv his own side of a question very big, and his neighbor's very lit- tle, he A\-as harder than perhaps he intended to be. "Why, Master Gaunt," said he, "surely you Avould not follow my daughter noAv — to feed upon a Avoman's bread. Come, be a man ; and, if you are the girl's friend, don't stand in her light. You knoAv she can Aved your betters, and clap Bolton Hall on to Neville's Court. No doubt it is a disappointment to you; but Avhat can't be cured must be endured ; pluck up a bit of cour- age, and turn your heart another way, and then I shall always be a good friend to you, and my doors open to you, come Avhen you will." ' Griffith made no reply. Kate strained her ears, but could not hear a syllable. A tremor ran through her. She was in distance farther from Griffith than her father was, but superior intelligence provided her Avith a bridge from her AvindoAv to her old servant's mind. And uoav she felt that this great silence Avas the silence of de- spair. But the squire pressed him for a definite an- SAver, and finally insisted on one. "Come, don't be so sulky," said he ; "I'm her father : give me an ansAver, ay or no." Then Kate heard a violent sigh, and out rush- ed a torrent of words that each seemed tinged Avith blood from the unfortunate speaker's heart. "Old man," he almost shrieked, "what did I ever do to you, that you torment me so ? Pure you Avere born Avithout boAvels. Beggared but an hour agone, and noAv you must come and tell me I have lost her by losing house and lands ! D'ye think I need to be told it ? She Avas too far 38 GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. above me before, and now she is gone quite out of my reach. But why come and fling it in my face? Can't you give a poor undone man one hour to draw his breath in trouble ? And when you know I have got to play the host this bitter day, and smile, and smirk, and make you all mer- ry, with my heart breaking! O Christ, look down and pity me, for men are made of stone. Well, then, no 5 I will not, I can not say the word to give her up. She will discharge ?ne, and then I'll fly the country and never trouble you more. And to think that one little hour ago she was so kind, and I was so happy ! Ah ! sir, if you were born of a woman, have a little pity, and don't speak to me of her at all, one way or other. What are you afraid of? I am a gentleman and a man, though sore my trouble : I shall not run after the lady of Bolton Hall. Why, sir, I have ordered the servants to set her chair in the mid- dle of the table, where I shall not be able to speak to her, or even see her. Indeed I dare not look at her, for I must be merry. Merry ! My arm it worries me, my head it aches, my heart is sick to death. Man! man! show me some little grace, and do not torture me more than flesh and blood can bear." "You are mad, young sir," said the squire, sternly, " and want locking up on bread and wa- ter for a month." "I am almost mad," said Griffith, humbly. "But if you would only let me alone, and not tear my heart out of my body, I could hide my agony from the whole pack of ye, and go through my part like a man. I wish I was lying where I laid my only friend this afternoon." "Oh, I don't want to speak to you," said Pey- ton, angrily ; "and, by the same token, don't you speak to my daughter any more." "Well, sir, if she speaks to me, I shall be sure to speak to her, without asking your leave or any man's. But I will not force myself upon the lady of Bolton Hall ; don't you think it. Only, for God's sake, let me alone. I want to be by my- self." And with this he hurried away, unable to bear it any more. Peyton gave a hostile and contemptuous snort, and also turned on .his heel, and went off in the opposite direction. The effect of this dialogue on the listener was not to melt, but exasperate her. Perhaps she had just cried away her stock of tenderness. At any rate, she rose from her ambush a very basilisk ; her eyes, usually so languid, flashed fire, and her forehead was red with indignation. She bit her lip, and clenched her hands, and her little foot beat the ground swiftly. She was still in this state when a timid tap came to the door, and Mrs. Hill asked her par- don, but dinner was ready, and the ladies and gentlemen all a waiting for her to sit down. This reminded Kate she was the mistress of the house. She answered civilly she would be down immediately. She then took a last look in the glass, and her own face startled her. "No," she thought, "they shall none of them know nor guess what I feel." And she stood be- fore the glass and deliberately extracted all emo- tion from her countenance, and, by way of prep- aration, screwed on a spiteful smile. When she had got her face to her mind, she went down stairs. The gentlemen awaited her with impatience, the ladies with curiosity, to see how she would comport herself in her new situation. She en- tered, made a formal courtesy, and was conduct- ed to her seat by Mr. Gaunt. He placed her in the middle of the table. "I play the host for this one day," said he, with some dignity, and took the bottom of the table himself. Mr. Hammersley was to have sat on Kate's left, but the sly Neville persuaded him to change, and so got next to his inamorata : opposite to her sat her father, Major Rickards, and others unknown to fame. Neville was in high spirits. He had the good taste to try and hide his satisfaction at the fatal blow his rival had received, and he entirely avoid- ed the topic ; but Kate saw at once, by his de- mure complacency, he was delighted at the turn things had taken, and he gained nothing by it : he found her a changed girl. Cold monosylla- bles were all he could extract from her. He re- turned to the charge a hundred times with indom- itable gallantry, but it was no use. Cold, haugh- ty, sullen ! Her other neighbor fared little better ; and, in short, the lady of the house made a vile impres- sion. She was an iceberg — a beautiful kill-joy — a wet blanket of charming texture. And presently Nature began to co-operate with her : long before sunset it grew prodigiously dark, and the cause was soon revealed by a fall of snow in flakes as large as a biscuit. A shiver ran through the people ; and old Peyton blurted out, " I shall not go home to-night. " Then he bawl- ed across the table to his daughter: " You are at home. We will stay and take possession." "Oh papa!" said Kate, reddening with disgust. But, if dullness reigned around the lady of the house, it was not so every where. Loud bursts of merriment were heard at the bottom of the ta- ble. Kate glanced that way in some surprise, and found it was Griffith making the company merry — Griffith, of all people. The laughter broke out at short intervals, and by-and-by became uproarious and constant. At last she looked at Neville inquiringly. " Our worthy host is setting us an example of conviviality," said he. " He is getting drunk." "Oh, I hope not," said Kate. "Has he no friend to tell him not to make a fool of himself?" "You take a great interest in him," said Ne- ville, bitterly. ' ' Of course I do. Pray, do you desert your friends when ill luck falls on them ?" " Nay, Mistress Kate, I hope not." "You only triumph over the misfortunes of your enemies, eh ?" said the stinging beauty. " Not even that. And as for Mr. Gaunt, I am not his enemy." " Oh no, of course not. You are his best friend. Witness his arm at this moment." " I am his rival, but not his enemy. I'll give you a proof." Then he lowered his voice, and said in her ear, "You are grieved at his losing Bolton ; and, as your are very generous and no- ble-minded, you are all the more grieved because his loss is your gain." (Kate blushed at this shrewd hit.) Neville went on : " You don't like him well enough to marry him ; and, since you can not make him happy, it hurts your good heart to make him poor." "It is you for reading a lady's heart," said Kate, ironically. GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 33 George proceeded steadily. "I'll show you an easy way out of this dilemma." "Thank you," said Kate, rather insolently. " Give Mr. Gaunt Bolton and Hernshaw, and give me — your hand." Kate turned and looked at him with surprise ; she saw by his eye it was no jest. For all that, she affected to take it as one. u That would be long and short division," said she ; but her voice faltered in saying it. "So it would," replied George, coolly; "for Bolton and Hernshaw both are not worth one fin- ger of that hand I ask of you. But the value of things lies in the mind that weighs 'em. Mr. Gaunt, you see, values Bolton and Hernshaw very highly ; why, he is in despair at losing them. Look at him ; he is getting rid of his reason before your very eyes, to drown his disap- pointment." " Oh ! that is it, is it ?" And, strange to say, she looked rather relieved. "That is it, believe me : it is a way we men have. But, as I was saying, / don't care one straw for Bolton and Hernshaw. It is you I love — not your land nor your house, but your sweet self; so give me that, and let the lawyers make over this famous house and lands to Mr. Gaunt. His antagonist I have been in the field, and his rival I am and must be, but not his ene- my, you see, and not his ill-wisher. " Kate was softened a little. ' ' This is all mighty romantic," said she, "and very like &preux che- valier, as you are ; but you know very well he would fling land and house in your face if you offered them him on these terms." "Ay, in my face if I offered them, but not in .yours if you. " ' ' I am sure he Avould, all the same. " "Try him." "What is the use?" "Try him." Kate showed showed symptoms of uneasiness. "Well, I will," said she, stoutly. "No, that I will not. You begin by bribing me, and then you would set me to bribe him. " " It is the only way to make two honest men happy." " If I thought that—" " You know it. Try him." "And suppose he says nay?" " Then Ave shall be no worse than we are." " And suppose he says ay?" "Then he will wed Bolton Hall and Hern- shaw, and the pearl of England will Aved me." "I have a great mind to take you at your AA'ord," said Kate ; "but no ; it is really too in- delicate." George Neville fixed his eyes on her. "Are you not deceiving yourself?" said he. " Do you not like Mr. Gaunt better than you think ? I begin to fear you dare not put him to this test : you fear his love Avould not stand it ?" Kate colored high, and tossed her head proud- ly. "Hoav shreAvd you gentlemen are!" she said. ' ' Much you knoAv of a lady's heart. Noav the truth is, I don't knoAv Avhat might not hap- pen Avere I to do Avhat you bid me. Nay, I'm wiser than you Avould have me ; and I'll pity Mr. Gaunt at a safe distance, if you please, sir. " Neville boAved gravely. He felt sure this was a plausible evasion, and that she really Avas afraid to apply his test to his rival's love. So now, for the first time, he became silent and reserved by her side. The change was noticed by Father Francis, and he fixed a grave, remonstrat- ing glance on Kate. She received it, understood it, affected not to notice it, and acted upon it. Drive a donkey too hard, it kicks. Drive a man too hard, it hits. Drive a Avoman too hard, it cajoles. Now among them they had driven Kate Pey- ton too hard ; so she secretly formed a bold reso- lution, and, this done, her Avhole manner changed for the better. She turned to Neville, and flat- tered and fascinated him. The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal her calinerie on this occasion. But she did not confine her fascina- tion to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, Avith quips, and cranks, and dimpled smiles, and made every body near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny, sAveet hostess. When the charm Avas at its height, the siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, ' ' Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to the draAving-room. There her first act Avas to dismiss her smiles Avithout ceremony, and her second Avas to sit doAvn and Avrite four lines to the gentleman at the head of the dining-table. And he Avas as drunk as a fiddler. CHAPTER X. Griffith's friends laughed heartily with him Avhile he Avas getting drunk ; and Avhen he had got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at him. They "knocked him doAAn" for a song; and he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melodi- ously, and so loud that certain of the sen-ants, listening outside, deriA r ed great delectation from it ; and Neville applauded ironically. Soon after, they "knocked him doAA'n" for a story ; and as it requires more brains to tell a story than to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself. He maundered and Avandered, and stopped, and Avent on, and lost one thread and took up another, and got into a perfect maze. And Avhile he Avas thus entangled, a seiwant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy narrator received it Avith a sapient nod, but Avas too polite, or else too stupid, to open it, so closed his fingers on it, and Avent maundering on till his story trickled into the sand of the desert, and somen oav ceased ; for it could not be said to end, being a thing aa ithout head or tail. He sat doAvn amid derisive cheers. About five minutes aftenvard, in some intermittent flash of reason, he found he had got hold of something. He opened his hand, and lo, a note ! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and distributed sage, cunning Avinks around, as if he, by special inge- nuity, had caught a nightingale, or the like ; then, Avith sudden hauteur and gravity, proceed- ed to examine his prize. But he knew the handAvriting at once, and it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered him for the moment. He opened the note, and spelled it Avith great difficulty. It Avas beautifully written, in long, clear letters ; but then those letters kept dancing so ! 40 GRIFFITH GAUNT: OR, JEALOUSY. " I much desire to speak to you before 'tis too late, but can think of no way save one. I lie in the turreted room ; come under my window at nine of the clock ; and prithee come sober, if you respect yourself, or Kate. " Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried to think ; but he could not think to much pur- pose. Then this made him suspect he was drunk. Then he tried to be sober, but he found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid agony, with Love and Drink battling for his brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool's struggles to re- gain the reason he had so madly parted with. He could not do it ; and when he found that, he took up a finger-glass, and gravely poured the contents upon his head. At this there was a burst of laughter. This irritated Mr. Gaunt ; and, with that rap- id change of sentiments which marks the sober savage and the drunken European, he offered to fight a gentleman that he had been hitherto hold- ing up to the company as his best friend. But his best friend (a very distant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, mingled with tears ; and these maudlin drops so affected Griffith that he flung his one available arm round his best friend's head, and wept in turn, and down went both their lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. Griffith's remained there ; but his best friend extricated himself, and, shaking his skull, said, dolefully, "He is very drunk." This notable discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused considerable merriment. " Let him alone," said an old toper ; and Grif- fith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score of intoxication. Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, and suddenly started up with a notion he was to go to Kate this very moment. He muttered an ex- cuse, and staggered to a glass door that led to the lawn. He opened this door, and rushed out into the open air. He thought it would set him all right ; but, instead of that, it made him so much worse that presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, and he measured his length on the ground, and could not get up again, but kept slipping down. Upon this he groaned and lay quiet. Now there was a foot of snow on the ground, and it melted about Griffith's hot temples and flushed face, and mightily refreshed and revived him. He sat up and kissed Kate's letter, and Love began to get the upper hand of Liquor a little. Finally he got up and half strutted, half stag- gered to the turret, and stood under Kate's window. The turret was covered with luxuriant ivy, and that ivy with snow. So the glass of the window was set in a massive frame of winter ; but a bright fire burned inside the room, and this set the panes all aflame. It was cheery and glorious to see the window glow like a sheet of transparent fire in its deep frame of snow ; but Griffith could not appreciate all that. He stood there a sorrowful man. The wine he had taken to drown his despair had lost its stimulating ef- fect, and had given him a heavy head, but left him his sick heart. He stood and puzzled his drowsy faculties why Kate had sent for him. Was it to bid him good-by forever, or to lessen his misery by tell- ing him she would not marry another ? He soon gave up cudgeling his enfeebled brains. Kate was a superior being to him, and often said things, and did things, that surprised him. She had sent for him, and that was enough. He should see her and speak to her once more, at all events. He stood, alternately nodding and looking up at her glowing room, and longing for its owner to appear. But as Bacchus had in- spired him to mistake eight o'clock for nine, and as she was not a votary of Bacchus, she did not appear, and he stood there till he began to shiver. The shadow of a female passed along the wall, and Griffith gave a great start. Then he heard the fire poked. Soon after he saw the shadow again, but it had a large servant's cap on : so his heart had beaten high for Mary or Susan. He hung his head disappointed, and, holding on by the ivy, fell a nodding again. By - and - by one of the little casements was opened softly. He looked up, and there was the right face peering out. Oh, what a picture she was in the moonlight and the firelight! They both fought for that fair head, and each got a share of it : the full moon's silvery beams shone on her rose -like cheeks and lilified them a shade, and lit her great gray eyes and made them gleam astound- ingly ; but the ruby firelight rushed at her from behind, and flowed over her golden hair, and reddened and glorified it till it seemed more than mortal. And all this in a very picture- frame of snow. Imagine, then, how sweet and glorious she glowed on him who loved her, and who looked at her perhaps for the last time. The sight did wonders to clear his head ; he stood open-mouthed, with his heart beating. She looked him all over a moment. "Ah!" said she. Then, quietly, " I am so glad you are come." Then, kindly and regretfully, " How pale you look ! you are unhappy. " This greeting, so gentle and kind, overpower- ed Griffith. His heart was too full to speak. Kate waited a moment ; and then, as he did not reply to her, she began to plead to him. "I hope you are not angry with me," she said. "7 did not want him to leave me your estates. I would not rob you of them for the world, if I had my way." " Angry with you !" said Griffith. "I'm not such a villain. Mr. Charlton did the right thing, and — " He could say no more. " I do not think so," said Kate. "But don't you fret : all shall be settled to your satisfaction. I can not quite love you, bitt I have a sincere af- fection for you, and so I ought. Cheer up, dear Griffith ; don't you be down-hearted about what has happened to-day. " Griffith smiled. "I don't feel unhappy,'* he said; "I did feel as if my heart was broken. But then you seemed parted from me. Now we are together, I feel as happy as ever. Mistress, don't you ever shut that window and leave me in the dark again. Let me stand and look at your sweet face all night, and I shall be the happiest man in Cumberland." GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. a 1 'Ay, " said Kate, blushing at his ardor ; " hap- py for a single night ; but when I go aAvay you will be in the dumps again, and perhaps get tip- sy; as if that could mend matters! Nay, I must set your happiness on stronger legs than that. Do you know I have got permission to undo this cruel will, and let you have Bolton Hall and Hernshaw again ?" Griffith looked pleased, but rather puzzled. Kate went on, but not so glibly now. "How- ever," said she, a little nervously, " there is one condition to it that will cost us both some pain. If you consent to accept these two estates from me, who don't value them one straw, why then — " She hesitated. "Well, what?" he gasped. "Why then, my poor Griffith, we shall be bound in honor — you and I — not to meet for some months, perhaps for a whole year : in one word — do not hate me — not till you can bear to see me — another — man's — wife." The murder being out, she hid her face in her hands directly, and in that attitude awaited his reply. Griffith stood petrified a moment, and I don't think his intellects were even quite clear enough to take it all in at once. But at last he did com- prehend it, and when he did, he just uttered a loud cry of agony, and then turned his back on her without a word. Man does not speak by words alone. A mute glance of reproach has ere now pierced the heart a tirade would have left untouched, and even an inarticulate cry may utter volumes. Such an eloquent cry was that with which Griffith Gaunt turned his back upon the angeli- cal face he adored, and the soft, persuasive tongue. There was agony, there was shame, there was wrath, all in that one ejaculation. It frightened Kate. She called him back. "Don't leave me so," she said. "I know I have affronted you, but I meant all for the best. Do not let us part in anger." At this Griffith returned in violent agitation. " It is your fault for making me speak," he cried. "I was going away without a word, as a man should that is insulted by a woman. You heart- less, girl ! What ! you bid me sell you to that man for two dirty farms ! Oh, well you know Bolton and Hernshaw were but the steps by which I hoped to climb to you ; and now you tell me to part with you, and take those miser- able acres instead of my darling. Ah ! mistress, you have never loved, or you would hate yourself and despise yourself for what you have done. Love ! if you had known what that word means, you couldn't look in my face and stab me to the heart like this. God forgive you ! And sure I hope he will, for, after all, it is not your fault that you were born without a heart. Why, Kate, YOU ARE CRYING." CHAPTER XI. " Crying ! " said Kate. ' ' I could cry my eyes out to think what I have done ; but it is not my fault: they egged me on. I knew you would fling those two miserable things in my face if I did, and I said so ; but they would be wiser than me, and insist on my putting you to the proof. " "They? Who is they?" " No matter. Whoever it was, they wiil gain nothing by it, and you will lose nothing. Ah ! Griffith, I am so ashamed of myself — and so proud of you." " They ?" repeated Griffith, suspiciously. "Who is this they ?" " What does that matter, so long as it was not Me ? Are you going to be jealous again ? Let us talk of you and me, and never mind who them is. You have rejected my proposal with just scorn, so now let me hear yours, for we must agree on something this very night. Tell me, now, what can I say or do to make you happy ?" Griffith was sore puzzled. "Alas! sweet Kate," said he, "I don't know what you can do for me now, except stay single for my sake." "I should like nothing better," replied Kate, warmly ; "but, unfortunately, they won't let me do that. Father Francis will be at me to-mor- row, and insist on my marrying Mr. Neville." 1 * But you will refuse. " "I would, if I could but find a good ex- cuse." " Excuse? why, say you don't love him." " Oh, they won't allow that for a reason." "Then I am undone," sighed Griffith. " No, no, you are not ; if I could be brought to pretend to love somebody else. And really, if 1 don't quite love you, 1 like you too well to let you be unhappy. Besides, I can not bear to rob you of these unlucky farms : I think there is nothing I would not do rather than that. I think — I would rather — do — something very silly in- deed. But I suppose you don't want me to do that now ? Why don't you answer me ? Why don't you say something? Are you drunk, sir, as they pretend ? or are you asleep ? Oh, I can't speak any plainer : this is intolerable. Mr. Gaunt, I'm going to shut the window." Griffith got alarmed, and it sharpened his wits. "Kate, Kate!" he cried, "what do you mean? Am I in a dream ? Would you marry poor me after all ?" "How on earth can I tell till I am asked?" inquired Kate, with an air of childlike innocence, and inspecting the stars attentively. " Kate, will you many me?" said Griffith, all in a flutter. " Of course I will — if you will let me," replied Kate, coolly, but rather tenderly, too. Griffith burst into raptures. Kate listened to them with a complacent smile, then delivered herself after this fashion: "You have very little to thank me for, dear Griffith. I don't exactly downright love you, but I could not rob you of those unlucky farms, and you refuse to take them back any way but this ; so what can I do ? And then, for all I don't love you, I find I am always unhappy if you are unhappy, and happy when you are happy ; so it comes pretty much to the same thing. I declare I am sick of giving you pain, and a little sick of crying in consequence. There, I have cried more in the last fortnight than in all my life before, and you know nothing spoils one's beauty like crying. And then you are so good, and kind, and true, and brave ; and every body is so unjust and so unkind to you, papa and all. You were quite in the right about the duel, clear. He is an impudent puppy ; and I threw dust in your eyes, and made you own you were in the wrong, and it was a great shame 42 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. of me, but it was because I liked you best. I could take liberties with you, dear. And you are wounded for me, and now I have disinherited you. Oh, I can't bear it, and I won't. My heart yearns for you — bleeds for you. I would rather die than you shoidd be unhappy ; I would rather follow you in rags round the world than marry a prince and make you wretched. Yes, dear, I am yours. Make me your wife, and then some day I dare say I shall love you as I ought." She had never showed her heart to him like this before, and now it overpowered him. So, being also a little under vinous influence, he stammered out something, and then fairly blub- bered for joy. Then what does Kate do but cry for company. Presently, to her surprise, he was half way up the turret, coming to her. "Oh, take care! take care!" she cried. "You'll break your neck. " "Nay," cried he, "I must come at you, if I die for it." The turret was ornamented from top to bot- tom with short ledges consisting of half bricks. This ledge, shallow as it was, gave a slight foot- hold, insufficient in itself; but he grasped the strong branches of the ivy with a powerful hand, and so between the two contrived to get up and hang himself out close to her. " Sweet mistress, " said he, ' ' put out your hand to me, for I can't take it against your will this time. I have got but one arm." But this she declined. "No, no," said she; "you do nothing but torment and terrify me — there. " And so gave it him ; and he mum- bled it. This last feat won her quite. She thought no other man could have got to her there with two arms, and Griffith had done it with one. She said to herself, "How he loves me! — more than his own neck." And then she thought, "I shall be wife to a strong man ; that is one comfort." In this softened mood, she asked him demure- ly would he take a friend's advice. " If that friend is you, ay." " Then," said she, "I'll do a downright brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare I'll tell you how to secure me. You make me plight "my troth with you this minute, and exchange rings with you, whether I like or not ; engage my honor in this foolish business, and if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there — la! — am I worth all this trouble ?" Griffith did not share this chilling doubt. He poured forth his gratitude, and then told her he had got his mother's ring in his pocket. "I meant to ask you to wear it," said he. " And why didn't you?" " Because you became an heiress all of a sud- den." "Well, what signifies which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both ?" "That is true," said Griffith, approving his own sentiment, but not recognizing his own words. " Here's my mother's ring on my little finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to draw it off, for I have but one hand. " Kate made a wiy face. " Well, that is my fault," said she, "or I would not take it from you so." She drew off his ring, and put it on her finger. Then she gave him her largest ring, and had to put it on his little finger for him. " You are making a very forward girl of me," said she, pouting exquisitely. He kissed her hand while she was doing it. " Don't you be so silly," said she ; " and, you horrid creature, how you smell of wine! The bullet, please." "The bullet !" exclaimed Griffith. "What bullet ?" "7'Ae bullet. The one you were wounded with for my sake. I am told you put it in your pocket ; and I see something bulge in your waist- coat. That bullet belongs to me now." "I think you are a witch," said he. "I do carry it about next my heart. Take it out of my waistcoat, if you will be so good." She blushed and declined, and, with the re- fusal on her very lips, fished it out with her ta- per fingers. She eyed it with a sort of tender horror. The sight of it made her feel faint a moment. She told him so, and that she would keep it to her dying day. Presently her delicate finger found something was written on it. She did not ask him what it was, but withdrew, and examined it by her candle. Griffith had en- graved it with these words : "I LOVE KATE." He looked through the window, and saw her examine it by the candle. As she read the in- scription, her face, glorified by the light, assumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before. She came back and leaned eloquently out as if she would fly to him. "Ah, Griffith ! Griffith !" she murmured, and somehow or other their lips met, in spite of all the difficulties, and grew to- gether in a long and tender embrace. It was the first time she had ever given him more than her hand to kiss, and the rapture re- paid him for all. But as soon as she had made this great ad- vance, virginal instinct suggested a proportion- ate retreat. "You must go to bed," she said, austerely; "you will catch your death of cold out here." He remonstrated ; she insisted. He held out ; she smiled sweetly in his face, and shut the win- dow in it pretty sharply, and disappeared. He went disconsolately clown his ivy ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she opened the window again, and asked him demurely if he would do something to oblige her. lie replied like a lover ; he was ready to be cut in pieces, drawn asunder with wild horses, and so on. "Oh, I know you would do any thing stupid for me," said she; "but will you do something clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what she is going to do for you ?" "Give } r our orders, mistress," said Griffith, "and don't talk to me of obliging you. I feel quite ashamed to hear you talk so — to-night es- pecially." " Well, then," said Kate, " first and foremost, I want you to throw yourself on Father Francis's neck." "I'll throw myself on Father Francis's neck," said Griffith, stoutly. " Is that all ?" 1 ' No, nor half. Once upon his neck, you must say something. Then I had better settle the GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 43 very words, or perhaps you will make a mess of it. Say after me now : Oh Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her." " Oh Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her." " You and I are friends for life." " You and I are friends for life." "And, mind, there is always a bed in our home for you, and a plate at our table, and a right wel- come, come when you will." Griffith repeated this line correctly, but, when requested to say the whole, broke down. Kate had to repeat the oration a dozen times ; and he said it after her, like a Sunday-school scholar, till he had it pat. The task achieved, he inquired of her what Father Francis was to say in reply. At this question Kate showed considerable alarm. "Gracious heavens!" she cried, "you must not stop talking to him ; he will turn you inside out, and I shall be undone. Nay, you must gab- ble these words out, and then run away as hard as you can gallop." "But is it true?" asked Griffith. "Is he so much my friend?" "Hum!" said Kate, "it is quite true, and he is not at all your friend. There, don't you puz- zle yourself, and pester me ; but do as you are bid, or we are both undone." Quelled by a menace so mysterious, Griffith promised blind obedience ; and Kate thanked him, and bade him good-night, and ordered him peremptorily to bed. He went. She beckoned him back. He came. She leaned out, and inquired, in a soft, deli- cious whisper, as follows : ' 'Are you happy, dear- est?" ^Ay, Kate, the happiest of the happy." "Then so am I," she murmured. And now she slowly closed the window, and gradually retired from the eyes of her enraptured lover. CHAPTER XII. But, Avhile Griffith was thus sweetly employ- ed, his neglected guests were dispersing, not without satirical comments on their truant host. Two or three, however, remained, and slept in the house, upon special invitation. And that in- vitation came from Squire Peyton. He chose to conclude that Griffith, disappointed by the will, had vacated the premises in disgust, and left him in charge of them ; accordingly, he assumed the master with alacrity, and ordered beds for Ne- ville, and Father Francis, and Major Richards, and another. The weather was inclement, and the roads heavy ; so the gentlemen thus distin- guished accepted Mr. Peyton's offer cordially. There were a great many things sung and said at the festive board in the course of the evening, but very few of them would amuse or interest the reader as they did the hearers. One thing, how- ever, must not be passed by, as it had its conse- quences. Major Richards drank bumpers apiece to the King, the Prince, Church and State, the Army, the Navy, and Kate Peyton. By the time he got to her, two thirds of his discretion had oozed away in loyalty, esprit du corps, and port wine ; so he sang the young lady's praises in vin- ous terms, and of course immortalized the very exploit she most desired to consign to oblivion : Anna viraginemque canebat. He sang the duel, and in a style which I could not, consistentlv with the interests of literature, reproduce on a large scale. Hasten we to the concluding versi- cles of his song. " So then, sir, we placed our men for the third time, and, you may take my word for it, one or both of these heroes would have bit the dust at that discharge. But, by Jove, sir, just as they were going to pull trigger, in galloped your ador- able daughter, and swooned off her foaming horse in the middle of us — disarmed us, sir, in a mo- ment, melted our valor, bewitched our senses, and the great god of war had to retreat before little Cupid and the charms of beauty in dis- tress." "Little idiot !" observed the tender parent; and was much distempered. He said no more about it to Major Richards ; but when they all retired for the night, he un- dertook to show Father Francis his room, and sat in it with him a good half hour talking about Kate. " Here's a pretty scandal," said he. "I must marry the silly girl out of hand before this gets wind, and you must help me." In a word, the result of the conference was that Kate should be publicly engaged to Neville to-morrow, and married to him as soon as her month's mourning should be over. The conduct of the affair was confided to Fa- ther Francis, as having unbounded influence with her. CHAPTER XIII. Next morning Mr. Peyton was up betimes in his character of host, and ordered the servants about, and Avas in high spirits ; only they gave place to amazement when Griffith Gaunt came down, and played the host, and was in high spirits. Neville too watched his rival, and was puzzled at his radiancy. So breakfast passed in general mystification. Kate, who could have thrown a light, did not come down to breakfast. She was on her de- fense. She made her first appearance out of doors. Very early in the morning, Mr. Peyton, in his quality of master, had ordered the gardener to cut and sweep the snow off the gravel walk that went round the lawn ; and on this path Miss Peyton was seen walking briskly to and fro in the frosty but sunny air. Griffith saw her first, and ran out to bid her good-morning. Her reception of him was a farce. She made him a staid courtesy for the benefit of the three faces glued against the panes, but her words were incongruous. "You wretch," said she, "don't come here. Hide about, dearest, till you see me Avith Father Francis. I'll raise my hand so when you are to cuddle him, and fib. There, make me a Ioav bow, and retire." He obeyed, and the Avhole thing looked mighty formal and ceremonious from the breakfast-room. " With your good leave, gentlemen," said Fa- u GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. ther Francis, dryly, "I will be the next to pay my respects to her." With this he opened the window and stepped out. Kate saw him, and felt very nervous. She met him with apparent delight. He bestowed his morning benediction on her, and then they walked silently side by side on the gravel; and from the dining-room window it looked like any thing but what it was — a fenc- ing match. Father Francis was the first to break silence. He congratulated her on her good fortune, and on the advantage it might prove to the true Church. Kate waited quietly till he had quite done, and then said, " What, 1 may go into a convent now that I can bribe the door open ?" The scratch was feline, feminine, sudden, and sharp. But, alas! Father Francis only smiled at it. Though not what we call spiritually-mind- ed, he was a man of a Christian temper. "Not with my good-will, my daughter, " said he ; "I am of the same mind still, and more than ever. You must marry forthwith, and rear children in the true faith." " What a hurry you are in." " Your own conduct has made it necessary." " Why, Avhat have I done now ?" " No harm. It was a good and humane ac- tion to prevent bloodshed, but the world is not always worthy of good actions. People are be- ginning to make free with your name for your interfering in the duel." Kate fired up. ' ' Why can't people mind their own business?" " 1 do not exactly know," said the priest, cool- ly, "nor is it worth inquiring. We must take human nature as it is, and do for the best. You must marry him, and stop their tongues." Kate pretended to reflect. " I believe you are right," said she, at last; "and, indeed, I must do as you would have me ; for, to tell the truth, in an unguarded moment, I pitied him so that I half promised I would. " " Indeed!" said Father Francis. " This is the first I have heard of it." Kate replied that was no wonder, for it was only last night she had so committed herself. "Last night!" said Father Francis; "how can that be ? He was never out of my sight till we went to bed." "Oh, there I beg to differ," said the lady. " While you were all tippling in the dining-room, he was better employed — making love by moon- light. And oh, what a terrible thing opportunity is, and the moon another ! There ! what with the moonlight, and my pitying him so, and all he has suffered for me, and my being rich now. and having something to give him, we two are en- gaged. See, else : this was his mother's ring, and he has mine. " "Mr. Neville?" "Mr. Neville? No. My old servant, to be sure. What ! do you think I would go and mar- ry for wealth, when I have enough and to spare of my own ? Oh, what an opinion you must have of me!" Father Francis was staggered by this adroit thrust. However, after a considerable silence he recovered himself, and inquired gravely why she had given him no hint of all this the other night, Avhen he had diverted her from a convent, and advised her to marry Neville. "That you never did, I'll be sworn," said Kate. Father Francis reflected. ' ' Not in so many words, perhaps, but I said enough to show you." " Oh !" said Kate, " such a matter was too se- rious for hints and innuendoes ; if you wanted me to jilt my old servant and wed an acquaintance of yesterday, why not say so plainly ? I dare say I should have obeyed you, and been unhappy for life ; but now my honor is solemnly engaged ; my faith is plighted ; and were even you to urge me to break faith and behaA'e dishonorably, I should resist. I woidd liever take poison, and die." Father Francis looked at her steadily, and she colored to the brow. "You are a very apt young lady," said he; "you have outwitted your director. That may be my fault as much as yours ; so I advise you to provide yourself with another director whom you will be unable or unwilling to outwit." Kate's high spirit fell before this : she turned her eyes, full of tears, on him. ' ' Oh, do not de- sert me, now that I shall need you more than ever, to guide me in my new duties. Forgive me ; I did not know my own heart — quite. I'll go into a convent now, if I must, but I can't mar- ry any man but poor Griffith. Ah ! father, he is more generous than any of us. Would you be- lieve it ? when he thought Bolton and Hernshaw were coming to him, he said if I married him I should have the money to build a convent with. He knows how fond I am of a convent." " He was jesting ; his religion would not allow it." " His religion !" cried Kate. Then, lifting her eyes to heaven, and looking just like an angel, "Love is his religion!" said she, warmly. "Then his religion is heathenism," said tlte priest, grimly. " Nay, there is too much charity in it for that," retorted Kate, keenly. Then she looked down, like a cunning, guilty thing, and murmured, " One of the things I es- teem him for is he always speaks well of you. To be sure, just now the poor soul thinks you are his best friend with me. But that is my fault ; I as good as told him so ; and it is true, after a fashion, for you kept me out of the convent that was his only real rival. Why, here he comes. Oh, father, now don't you go and tell him you side with Mr. Neville." At this crisis Griffith, who, to tell the truth, had received a signal from Kate, ruahed at Fa- ther Francis, and fell upon his neck, and said with great rapidity, " Oh, Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her — you and I are friends for life. So long as we have a house there is a bed in it for you, and while we have a table to sit down to there's a plate at it for you, and a welcome, come when you will." Having gabbled these words, he winked at Kate, and fled swiftly. Father Francis Avas taken aback a little by this sudden burst of affection. First he stared — then he knitted his brows — then he pondered. Kate stole a look at him, and her eyes sought the ground. " That is the gentleman you arranged matters with last night ?" said he, dryly. " Yes," replied Kate, faintly. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 45 " Was this scene part of the business ?" "Oh, father!" "Why I ask, he did it so unnatural. Mr. Gaunt is a worthy, hospitable gentleman ; he and I are very good friends ; and really I never like a puppet, and a parrot to boot, I never saw. 'Twas done so timely, too. He ran in upon our discourse. Let me see your hand, mistress. Why, where is the string with which you pulled yonder machine in so pat upon the word ?" doubted that I should be welcome in his house — until this moment." "And can you doubt it now?" "Almost; his manner just now was so hollow, so forced ; not a word of all that came from his heart, you know. " "Then his heart is changed very lately. The priest shook his head. " Any thing more i and on me." " Spare me !" muttered Kate, faintly. "Then do you drop deceit and the silly cun- ning of your sex, and speak to me from your heart, or not at all." (Diapason.) At this Kate began to whimper. "Father," she said, "show me some mercy." Then, sud- denly clasping her hands, " Have pity on him, GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 46 This time Nature herself seemed to speak, and the eloquent cry went clean through the priest's heart. "Ah!" said he — and his own voice trembled a little — "now you are as strong as your cunning was weak. Come, I see how it is with you; and I am human, and have been young, and a lover into the bargain, before I was a priest. There, dry thy eyes, child, and go to thy room ; he thou couldst not trust shall bear the brunt for thee this once." Then Kate bowed her fair head and kissed the horrid paw of him that had administered so se- vere but salutary a pat. She hurried away up stairs, right joyful at the unexpected turn things had taken. Father Francis, thus converted to her side, lost no time; he walked into the dining-room and told Neville he had bad news for him. " Summon all your courage, my young friend," said he, with feeling, "and remember that this world is full of disappointments." Neville said nothing, but rose and stood rather pale, waiting like a man for the blow. Its na.- ture he more than half guessed,: he had been at the window. It fell. "She is engaged to Gaunt since last night; and she loves him." " The double-faced jade !" cried Peyton, with an oath. "The heartless coquette!" groaned Neville. Father Francis made excuses for her : "Nay, nay, she is not the first of her sex that did not know her own mind all at once. Besides, we men are blind in matters of love ; perhaps a woman would have read her from the first. Aft- er all, she was not bound to give us the eyes to read a female heart." He next reminded Neville that Gaunt had been her servant for years. " You knew that," said he, "yet you came between them — at your peril. Put yourself in his place : say you had succeeded : would not his wrong be greater than yours is now ? Come, be brave ; be generous ; he is wounded, he is disinherited ; only his love is left him : 'tis the poor man's lamb, and would you take it ?" " Oh, I have not a word to say against the man, " said George, with a mighty effort. "And what use quarreling with a woman," suggested the practical priest. " None whatever, " said George, sullenly. Aft- er a moment's silence he rang the bell feverish- ly. " Order my horse round directly," said he. Then he sat down, and buried his face in his hands, and did not, and could not, listen to the voice of consolation. Now the house was full of spies in petticoats, amateur spies, that ran and told the mistress ev- ery thing of their own accord, to curry favor. And this, no doubt, was the cause that, just as the groom walked the piebald out of the stable toward the hall door, a maid came to Father Francis with a little note: he opened it, and found these words written faintly, in a fine Ital- ian hand : "I scarce knew my own heart till I saw him wounded and poor, and myself rich at his ex- pense. Entreat Mr. Neville to forgive me. " He handed the note to Neville without a word. Neville read it, and his lip trembled ; but he said nothing, and presently went out into the hall and put on his hat, for he saw his nag at the door. F'ather Francis followed him, and said, sorrow- fully, ' ' What, not one word in reply to so hum- ble a request ?" "Well, here's my reply," said George, grind- ing his teeth. " She knows French, though she pretends not. ' Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte est pour le sot, L'honntste homrne tronipe s'eloigne et ue (lit mot.' " And with this he galloped furiously away. He buried himself at Neville's Cross for sever- al days, and would neither see nor speak to a soul. His heart was sick, his pride lacerated. He even shed some scalding tears in secret; though, to look at him, that seemed impossible. So passed a bitter week ; and in the course of it he bethought him of the tears he made a true Italian lady shed, and never pitied her a grain till now. He was going abroad : on his desk lay a little crumpled paper. It was Kate's entreaty for for- giveness. He had ground it in his hand, and ridden away with it. Now he was going away, he resolved to an- swer her. He wrote a letter full of bitter reproaches ; read it over, and tore it up. He wrote a satirical and cutting letter ; read it, and tore it up. He wrote her a mawkish letter ; read it, and tore it up. The priest's words, scorned at first, had sunk into him a little. He walked about the room, and tried to see it all like a by-stander. He examined her writing closely : the pen had scarcely marked the paper. They Avere the tim- idest strokes. The writer seemed to kneel to him. He summoned all his manhood, his forti- tude, his generosity, and, above all, his high- breeding, and produced the following letter, and this one he sent : "Mistress Kate,— I leave England to-day for your sake, and shall never return unless the day shall come when I can look on you but as a friend. The love that ends in hate, that is too sorry a thing to come betwixt you and me. " If you have used me ill, your punishment is this ; you have given me the right to say to you — I forgive you. George Neville." And he went straight to Italy. Kate laid his note upon her knee, and sighed deeply, and said, " Poor fellow ! How noble of him! What can such men. as this see in any woman to go and fall in love with her ?" Griffith found her with a tear in her eye. He took her out walking, and laid all his radiant plans of wedded life before her. She came back flushed, and beaming Avith complacency and beauty. Old Peyton was brought to consent to the marriage. Only he attached one condition, that Bolton and Hernshaw should be settled on Kate for her separate use. To this Griffith assented readily; but Kate refused plump. "What, give him myself, and then grudge him my estates/" said she, with a GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 47 look of lofty and beautiful scorn at her male ad- visers. But Father Francis, having regard to the tem- poral interests of his Church, exerted his strength and pertinacity, and tired her out ; so those es- tates were put into trustees' hands, and tied up tight as wax. This done, Griffith Gaunt and Kate Peyton were married, and made the finest pair that wed- ded in the county that year. As the bells burst into a merry peal, and they walked out of church man and wife, their path across the church-yard was strewed thick with flowers, emblematic, no doubt, of the path of life that lay before so handsome a couple. They spent the honeymoon in London, and tasted earthly felicity. Yet did not quarrel after it, but subsided into the quiet complacency of wedded life. CHAPTER XIV. Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt lived happily together — as times went. A fine girl and boy were bom to them ; and need I say how their hearts expanded and exult- ed, and seemed to grow twice as large ? The little boy was taken from them at three years old ; and how can I convey to any but a parent the anguish of that first bereavement ? Well, they suffered it together, and that poig- nant grief was one tie more between them. For many years they did not furnish any ex- citing or even interesting matter to this narrator. And all the better for them : without these hap- py periods of dullness our lives would be hell, and our hearts eternally bubbling and boiling in a huge pot made hot with thorns. In the absence of striking incidents, it may be well to notice the progress of character, and note the tiny seeds of events to come. Neither the intellectual nor the moral charac- ter of any person stands stock-still : a man im- proves, or he declines. Mrs. Gaunt had a great taste for reading ; Mr. Gaunt had not : what was the consequence ? At the end of seven "years the lady's understanding had made great strides ; the gentleman's had apparently retrograded. Now we all need a little excitement, and we all seek it, and get it by hook or by crook. The girl who satisfies that natural craving with what the canting dunces of the day call a " sensation- al" novel, and the girl who does it by waltzing till daybreak, are sisters; only one obtains the result intellectually, and the other obtains it like a young animal, and a pain in her empty head next day. Mrs. Gaunt could enjoy company, but was never dull with a good book. Mr. Gaunt was a pleasant companion, but dull out of company. So, rather than not have it, he would go to the parlor of the "Red Lion," and chat and sing with the }-eomen and rollicking young squires that resorted thither; and this was matter of grief and astonishment to Mrs. Gaunt. It was balanced by good qualities she knew how to appreciate. Morals were much looser then than now, and more than one wife of her acquaintance had a rival in the village, or even among her own domestics ; but Griffith had no loose inclinations of that kind, and never gave her a moment's uneasiness. He was constancy and fidelity in person. Sobriety had not yet been invented. But Grif- fith was not so intemperate as most squires ; he could always mount the stairs to tea, and gener- ally without staggering. He was uxorious, and it used to come out aft- er his wine. This Mrs. Gaunt permitted at first, but by-and-by says she, expanding her delicate nostrils, "You may be as affectionate as you please, dear, and you may smell of wine if you will, but please not to smell of wine and be affec- tionate at the same moment. I value your af- fection too highly to let you disgust me with it. " And the model husband yielded to this severe restriction ; and, as it never occurred to him to give up his wine, he forbore to be affectionate in his cups. One great /ear Mrs. Gaunt had entertained be- fore marriage ceased to haunt her. Now and then her quick eye saw Griffith writhe at the great influence her director had with her ; but he never spoke out to offend her, and she, like a good wife, saw, smiled, and adroitly, tenderly soothed ; and this was nothing compared to what she had feared. Griffith saw his wife admired by other men, yet never chid nor chafed. The merit of this belonged in a high degree to herself. The fact is, that Kate Peyton, even before marriage, was not a coquette at heart, though her conduct might easily bear that construction ; and she was now an experienced matron, and knew how to be as charming as ever, yet check or parry all ap- proaches to gallantry on the part of her admir- ers. Then Griffith observed how delicate and prudent his lovely wife was, without ostentatious prudery, and his heart was at peace. He Avas the happier of the two, for he looked up to his wife as well as loved her, whereas she was troubled at- times with a sense of superiority to her husband. She was amiable enough, and wise enough, to try and shut her eyes to it, and often succeeded, but not always. Upon the whole, they were a contented couple, though the lady's dreamy eyes seemed still to be exploring earth and sky in search of something they had not yet found, even in wedded life. They lived at Hernshaw. A letter had been found among Mr. Charlton's papers explaining his will. He counted on their marrying, and begged them to live at the castle. He had left it on his wife's death ; it reminded him too keen- ly of happier days ; but, as he drew near his end, and must leave all earthly things, he remembered the old house with tenderness, and put out his dying hand to save it from falling into decay. Unfortunately, considerable repairs were need- ed ; and, as Kate's property was tied up so tight, Griffith's two thousand pounds went in repairing the house, lawn, park palings, and walled gar- dens ; went, every penny, and left the bridge over the lake still in a battered, rotten, and, in a word, picturesque condition. This lake was by the older inhabitants some- times called the "mere," and sometimes "the fish-pools ; " it resembled an hour-glass in shape, only curved like a crescent. In mediaeval times it had no doubt been a main defense of the place. It was very deep in parts, especially at the waist or narrow that was spanned by the decayed bridge. There were 48 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. hundreds of carp and tench in it older than any He in Cumberland, and also enormous pike and eels ; and fish from one to five pounds' weight by the million. The water literally teemed from end to end ; and this was a great comfort to so good a Catholic as Mrs. Gaunt. When she was seized with a desire to fast, and that was pretty often, the gardener just went down to the lake and flung a casting-net in some favorite hole, and drew out half a bushel the first cast ; or planted a fine-net round a patch of weeds, then belabored the weeds with a long pole, and a score of fine fish were sure to run out into the meshes. The "mere" was clear as plate glass, and came to the edge of the shaven lawn, and reflect- ed flowers, turf, and overhanging shrubs deli- riously. Yet an ill name brooded over its seductive waters, for two persons had been drowned in it during the last hundred years, and the last one was the parson of the parish, returning from the squire's dinner in the normal condition of a guest, A.D. 1740-50. But what most affected the popular mind was, not the jovial soul hurried into eternity, but the material circumstance that the greedy pike had cleared the flesh off his bones in a single night, so that little more than a skel- eton, with here and there a black rag hanging to it, had been recovered next morning. This ghastly detail being stoutly maintained and constantly repeated by two ancient eye-wit- nesses, whose one melodramatic incident and treasure it was, the rustic mind saw no beauty whatever in those pellucid and delicious waters, where flowers did glass themselves. As for the women of the village, they looked on this sheet of water as a trap for their poor bodies and those of their children, and spoke of it as a singular hardship in their lot that Hern- shaw Mere had not been filled up threescore years agone. The castle itself was no castle, nor had it been for centuries. It was just a house with battle- ments ; but attached to the stable was an old square tower, that really had formed part of the mediaeval castle. However, that unsubstantial shadow, a name, is often more durable than the thing, especially in rural parts ; but, indeed, what is there in a name for Time's teeth to catch hold of? Though no castle, it was a delightful abode. The drawing-room and dining-room had both spacious bay windows, opening on to the lawn that sloped very gradually down to the pellucid lake, and there was mirrored. On this sweet lawn the inmates and guests walked for sun and mellow air, and often played bowls at eventide. On the other side was the drive up to the house door, and a sweep, or small oval plot of turf, sur- rounded by gravel ; and a gate at the corner of this sweep opened into a grove of the grandest old spruce-firs in the island. This grove, dismal in winter and awful at night, was deliriously cool and sombre in the dog-days. The trees were spires; and their great stems stood serried like infantry in column, and flung a grand canopy of sombre plumes overhead. A strange, antique, and classic grove — nulli pen- etrabilis astro. This retreat was inclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the east side came nearly to the house. A few laurel bushes separated the two. At night it was shunned religiously, on accouac of the ghosts. Even by daylight it was little fre- quented, except by one person — and she took to it amazingly. That person was Mrs. Gaunt. There seems to be, even in educated women, a singular, instinctive love of twilight ; and here was twilight at high noon. The place, too, suited her dreamy, meditative nature. Hither, then, she often re- tired for peace and religious contemplation, and moved slowly in and out among the tall stems, or sat still, with her thoughtful brow leaned on her white hand, till the cool, umbrageous retreat got to be called, among the servants, " The Dame's Haunt." This, I think, is all that needs be told about the mere place, where the Gaunts lived comfort- ably many years, and little dreamed of the strange events in store for them — little knew the passions that slumbered in their own bosoms, and, like oth- er volcanoes, bided their time. CHAPTER XV. One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their hospitality. "lam sorry for it, " said Grif- fith, heartily ; and Mrs. Gaunt echoed him out of politeness ; but, when husband and wife came to talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great misfortune to her all these years. " His mind," said she, " is set on earthly things. Instead of helping the an- gels to raise my thoughts to heaven and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. Oh, that man's soul was born without wings." Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest man, and no mischief- maker. Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this. " Oh, there are plenty of honest men in the world," said she ; "but in one's spiritual director one needs some- thing more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly ; but, thank heaven, he is going." The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire, but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor. " Well," said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present — I mean no one very fit to direct you in practical matters ; but in all that tends di- rectly to the welfare of the soul, you will have one young in years, but old in good works, and very much my superior in piety." "I think you do yourself injustice, father," said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly. She was always po- lite ; and, to be always polite, you must be some- times insincere. " No, my daughter," said Father Francis, qui- etly, " thank God, I know my own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my religious duties punctually, and find them whole- some and composing ; but I lack that holy unc- tion, that spiritual imagination, by which more favored Christians have fitted themselves to con- verse with angels. I have too much body, I sup- pose, and too little soul. I own to you that I can not look forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the burden of the flesh. Life GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 40 is pleasant to me ; immortality tempts me not ; the pure in heart delight me ; but in the senti- mental part of religion I feel myself dry and bar- ren. I fear God, and desire to do His will ; but I can not love Him as the saints have done ; my spirit is too dull — too gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and lofty aspirations, and this softens my regret at quitting you, for you will be in better hands, my daughter." Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's hu- mility, and gave him both hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing ; the subject was delicate ; and, really, she could not honestly contradict him. A day or two afterward he brought his success- or to the house — a man so remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal-black ; yet his ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very tall and spare, and both face and figure were of" that exalted kind which make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethe- real priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come down from some high- er sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and be very kind and patient with it all the time. He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a certain mixture of hu- mility and superiority, and gave her but one tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before. Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost flut- tered at being presented so suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavorable impression. She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all. Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with courteous monosyllables ; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts. Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine im- pulse, and began to talk about the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to recon- vert the British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone with the theme, and Francis smiled paternally ; but the young priest drew back : Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so she had spirit enough to have resisted ; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave disapproval dashed her courage and reduced her to silence. She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she courtesied coldly to Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah! my dear friend, I foresee I shall miss you terribly. " I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard. "But on the impassive ice the lightnings play." Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority, which would have been pleas- ing to her woman's nature if Leonard himself had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval of herself ; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified her. However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat. Father Francis departed. Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a habit'of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director near- ly every day that he did not come of his own ac- cord to her. Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's time in this way. She went a long while, for her, without confes- sion : at last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient to him to con- fess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he re- ceived penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday. This implied first come, first served, and was. rather galling to Mrs. Gaunt. However, she rode one morning, with her groom behind her, and had to wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first disposed of. She confessed a heap. And pres- ently the soft but chill tones of Brother Leonard: broke in with these freezing words: "My daugh- ter, excuse me ; but confession is one thing, gos- sip about ourselves is another." This distinction was fine, but fatal. The mext minute the fair penitent was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification. "The man is a spiritual machine," said she; and her pride was mortified to the core. In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband, and she went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new con- fessor before him. He took no notice at first ; but at last he said one day, "Well, I am of your mind ; he is very poor company, compared with that jovial old blade, Francis. But why so many words, Kate ? You don't use to bite twice at a cherry : if the milksop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be hanged to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the matter, and went to the stable to give his mare a ball. So, you see, Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an enthusiast,, and nettled with Leonard for being one. The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator — an orator born — blessed with that di- vine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first ; but, once warm, it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws on the flood. And in the exercise of this great gift the whole man seemed transfigured ; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest, who crept about, a pieture of delicate humility, but with a shade of meanness ; for, religious prej- udice apart, it is- ignoble to sweep the wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground; but, once in the pulpit, his figure rose and swelled majes- tically, and seemed to fly over them all like a guardian angel's : his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian eye shot black lightning at the im- 50 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JE ALOUSY. penitent, and melted ineffably when he soothed the sorrowful. Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zoological Gardens, which sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like i a drowsy- duck. That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at him ? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit ; and so he somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle in his native air. Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words ; and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spelbbound— loth to be- lieve that accents so divine could really come to an end. Even while all the rest were dispersing she sat quite still and closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home — chit- chat that had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers. And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband ; she laid her white hand on.bis shoulder, and said, "Oh, Griffith, I have heard the voice of God." Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated. Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, " Speaking by the lips of his servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath given us* back St. Paul in the Church's need, and I have heard him this day." " Good heavens ! where?" "At St. Mary's Chapel." Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with,. " What, because it is a small chapel, you think a great saint can not be in it? Why, our Savior was born in a stable, if ycu go to that." " Well, but, my dear, consider, "said Griffith ; "who ever heard of comparing a living man to St. Paul for preaching ? Why, he was an apos- tle, for one thing, and there are no apostles now- adays. He made Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another hea- then gentleman, to be a Christian." "That is true," said the lady, thoughtfully; " but he sent one man that ive know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep ! And then nobody will ever say of him that he was long preaching." "Why, I do say it," replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been waiting dinner for you this half hour, along of his preaching." "Ah! that's because you did not hear him," retorted Mrs. Gaunt : " if you had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all about your dinner for once." Griffith made no reply. He even looked vex- ed at her enthusiastic admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher — thought of them all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an enthusiastic wife, and, above all. should never separate himself from her favorite top'rc, when she loves him well enough to try and share it with him. Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with a sickly or irritable sensibility ; nor, on the other hand, was she one of those lovely little bores who can not keep their tongues off their favorite theme. She quietly- let the subject drop for a whole week ; but the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a little favor. "I'm more likely to say ay than nay," was the cheerful reply, i •„■ MIt is just to go to chapel with me, and then you can judge for yourself." Griffith looked rather sheepish at this propos- al, and said he could not very well do that. " Why ndfc, dearest, just for once ?" "Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish, and every thing one does is noted. Why, if I was to go-to chapel, they'd say directly, ' Look at Griffith Gaunt: he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give up the faith of his an- cestors. ' " " The faith of your ancestors ! That is a good jest. The faith of your grandfather at the out- side : the faith of your ancestors was the faith of mine and me." " Well, don't let us differ about a word," said Griffith ; " you know what I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me ? and, if I were to ask you, would you go ?" Mrs. Gaunt coloi-ed, but would not give in. " That is not the same thing," said she. "I do profess religion ; you do not. You scarce think of God on week days, and, indeed, never mention his name except in the way of swearing; and on Sunday you go to church-^-for what? to doze before dinner — you know you do. Come, now, with you 'tis no question of religion, but just of nap or no nap ; for Brother Leonard won't let you sleep, I warn you fairly. " Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not so good as you are, and never shall be 5 but that is not the fault of 'the Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men ; and some of 'em our ancestors burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman, and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt v none the more for that. So you must excuse me. " Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and, if Griffith had said no more, I think she would have Avith- drawn her request, and so the matter ended. But persons unversed in argument can seldom let well alone, and this simple squire must needs go on to say, " Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet him to- morrow." "Ay," retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the re- ligions views of a fox-hunting parscm." "Nay, Kate," said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee : 'tis to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the bell. " Order the chariot," said he ; "I am to go with our dame. " Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 5i The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look. She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his shoulder, and said, gen- tly but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We shall meet at dinner." "As you will, "said he, cheerfully; and they w T ent their several ways. He congratulated him- self on her clemency and his own escape. She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone, and thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace if he could yield at all; and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in this, that, when they re- sign their wills, they do it graciously and not by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under ; and you know practice makes perfect. But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt came home full of pious and lofty thoughts. She found her husband seated at the dinner- table, with one turnip before him, and even that was not comestible, for it was his grandfather's watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully. "Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she, with an air of consummate indiffer- ence. "What! dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel without you, set opposite. " Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. " Well, then, my dear, we had better order dinner an hour later next Sunday." "But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday." "And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm. "Dinner! din- ner ! What ! shall I starve my soul by hurry- ing away from the oracles of God to a sirloin ? Oh, these gross appetites, how they deaden the immortal half, and wall out heaven's music! For my part, I wish there was no such thing as eating and drinking ; 'tis like falling from heaven down into the mud, to come back from such di- vine discourse and be greeted with 'dinner! din- ner! dinner!'" The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began his dinner without her. And this time, on her arrival, instead of re- monstrating with her, he excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting for his dinner. " "Well, but you have not waited." "Yes I did, a good half hour — till I could wait no longer. " " Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else waited till your wife came home. " "Ah! dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 'tis to be a hungry man." The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and fin- ished his dinner without her; and she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes, and ate much less than she used when she had him to keep her company in it. Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird pecking than a Christian eating of a Sunday. " No matter, child," said she, " so long as my soul is filled with the bread of Heaven." Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution either in quantity or quality, and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was, and he had not the same tempt- ation to dine at home he used to have. And, indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly en- joying his wife's company on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week days. CHAPTER XVI. Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky, but the pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him. So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt : she was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never flagged. Her gray eyes never left his face, and, being upturned, the full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's come down from heaven to hear him ; for, indeed, to a very dark man, as Leonard was, the gentle radi- ance of a time Saxon beauty seems always more or less angelic. By degrees this face became a help to the ora- tor. In preaching he looked sometimes to it for sympathy, and, lo ! it was sure to be melting with sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his congregation could un- derstand, he looked to this face to understand him, and, lo ! it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence. From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to him. On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remem- bered its owner was no angel, but a woman of the world, and had put to him frivolous ques- tions. The illusion, however, was so beautiful that Leonard, being an imaginative man, was unwil- ling to dispel it by coming into familiar contact with Mrs; Gaunt. So he used to make his as- sistant visit her, and receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely ; for she was discouraged by her first reception. Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf mon- astery, consisting of two cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest who had been invited from : France. Inside, these cottages were little more than cells ; only the bigger had a kitchen, which was a glorious place compared with the parlor ; for it was illuminated with bright pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat— Betty Scarf, an old serv- ant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the widow Gough. She stood at the gate one day as Mrs. Gaunt drove by, and courtesied, all beaming. Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing inquiries about her ; and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and 52 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. see her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move. " Nay, they are both abroad till supper-time, " said Betty, reading her in a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled and got out of her carriage. Betty took her in and showed her every thing in doors and out. Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned every thing closely, only without seeming too curious. The cold gloom of the parlor struck her. She shuddered and said, "This wouhl give me the vapors. But, doubtless, angels come and bright- en it for him." "Not always," said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the hour, and hear him sigh ever so loud as I pass the door. Why, one day he was fain to have me and my spinning- wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it. ' ' And welcome, ' says I. So I sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man) ; and presently says he — but what signifies what he said ?" ' ' Nay, Betty, if you please. I am much in- terested in him. He preaches so divinely." "Ay," said Betty, "that's his gift. But a poor trencher-man ; and I declare I'm ashamed to eat all the vittels that are eaten here, and me but a woman." "But what did he say to you that time?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, a little impatiently. Betty cudgeled her memory. "Well, says he, ' My daughter' (the poor soul always calls me his daughter, and me old enough to be his mother mostly), says he, ' how comes it that you are never wearied nor cast down, and yet you but serve a sinner like yourself; but I do often droop in my Master's service, and He is the lord of heaven and earth ?' Says I, ' I'll tell ye, sir — be- cause ye don't eat enough o' vittels.' " " What an answer!" "Why, 'tis the truth,, dame. And says I, ' If I was to be always fasting, like as you be, d'ye think I should have the heart to work from morn till night ?' Now, wasn't I right ?" "I don't know till I hear what answer he made," said Mrs. Gaunt, with mean caution. "Oh, he shook his head, and said he ate mor- tal food enow (poor simple body !), but drank too little of grace divine. That was his Avord." Mrs. Gaunt was a good deal struck and af- fected by this revelation, and astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so re- markable a man. The saying that " No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet current, or per- haps she would have been less surprised at that. _"Alas! poor man," said she, "and is it so? To hear him, I thought his soul was borne up night and day by angels' pinions — " The widow interrupted her. "Ay, you hear him preach, and it is like God's trumpet mostly, and so much I say for him in all companies. But I see him directly after ; he totters into this very room, and sits him down pale and panting, and one time like to swoon, and another all for crying, and then he is ever so dull and sad for the whole afternoon." ' ' And nobody knows this but you ? You have got my old petticoat still, I see. I must look you up another." " You are very good, dame, I am sure. 'Twiil not come amiss ; I've only this for Sundays and all. No, my lady, not a soul but me and you ; I'm not one as tells tales out of doors ; but I don't mind you, dame ; you are my old mistress, and a discreet woman. 'Twill go no farther than your ear." Mrs. Gaunt told her she might rely on that. The widow then inquired after Mrs. Gaunt's lit- tle girl, and admired her dress, and described her own ailments, and poured out a continuous stream of topics bearing no affinity to each other except that they were all of them not worth mention- ing ; and all the while she thus discoursed, Mrs. Gaunt's thoughtful eyes looked straight over the chatterbox's white cap, and explored vacancy ; and by-and-by she broke the current of twaddle with the air of a camelopard marching across a running gutter. "Betsy Gough," said she, "I am thinking." Mrs. Gough was struck dumb by an announce- ment so singular. " I have heard, and I have read, that great, and pious, and learned men are often to seek in little simple things, such as plain bodies have at their fingers' ends. So now, if you and I could only teach him something for all he has taught us. And, to be sure, we ought to be kind to him if we can ; for oh ! Betty, my woman, 'tis a poor vanity to go and despise the great, and the learn- ed, and the sainted, because, forsooth, we find them out in some one little weakness, we that are all made up of weaknesses and defects. So, now, I sit me down in this very chair — so. And sit you there. Now let us, you and me, look at his room quietly all over, and see what is wanting." 1 ' First and foremost, methinks this window should be filled with geraniums and jessamine, and so forth. With all his learning, perhaps he has to be taught, the color of flowers and golden green leaves, with the sun shining through, how it soothes the eye and relieves the spirits ! yet every woman born knows that. Then do but see this bare table ! a purple cloth on that, I say." " Which he will fling it out of the window, I say." "Nay, for I'll embroider a cross in the mid- dle with gold braid. Then a rose-colored blind would not be amiss ; and there must be a good mirror facing the window ; but, indeed, if I had my way, I'd paint these horrid walls the first thing." " How you run on, dame ! Bless your heart, you'd turn his den into a palace : he won't suffer that ; he's all for self-mortification, poor simple soul. " "Oh, not all at once, I did not mean," said Mrs. Gaunt ; " but by little and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers : God made them ; and so, to be sure, he will not spurn them" Betty began to enter into the plot. ' ' Ay, ay, " said she; "the flowers first, and so creep on. But naught Avill avail to make a man of him so long as he eats but of eggs and garden-stuff, like the beasts of the field, ' that to-day are, and to- morrow are cast into the oven.' " Mrs. Gaunt smiled at this ambitious attempt of the widow to apply Scripture. Then she said, rather timidly, " Could you make his eggs into omelets, and so pound in a little meat with your small herbs ? I dare say he would be none the wiser, and he so bent on high and heavenly things. " " You may take vour oath of that." GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. ;s "Well, then. And I shall send you some stock from the castle, and you can cook his veg- etables in good strong gravy, unbeknown." The widow Gough chuckled aloud. " But stay, " said Mrs. Gaunt ; " for us to play the woman so, and delude a saint for his mere bodily weal — will it not be a sin, and a sacrilege to boot ?" "Let that flea stick in the wall," said Betty, contemptuously. "Find you the meat, and I'll find the deceit ; for he is as poor as a rat into the bargain. Nay, nay, God Almighty will never have the heart to burn us two for such a trifle. Why, 'tis no more than cheating a fro ward child taking 's physic." Mrs. Gaunt got into her carriage and went home, thinking all the way. What she had heard filled her with feelings strangely but sweetly com- posed of veneration and pity. In that Leonard was a great orator and a high-minded priest, she revered him ; in that he was solitary and sad, she pitied him ; in that he wanted common sense, she felt like a mother, and must take him under her wing. All true women love to protect ; per- haps it is a part of the great maternal element ; but to protect a man, and yet look up to him, this is delicious. Leonard, in truth, was one of those high-strung men who pay for their periods of religious rap- ture by hours of melancholy. This oscillation of the spirits in extraordinary men appears to be more or less a law of nature, and this the widow Gough was not aware of. The very next Sunday, while he was preach- ing, she and Mrs. Gaunt's gardener were filling his bow window with flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom and leaf. The said window was large, and had a broad sill outside, and, inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, sent up a cartload of flower- pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged at least eighty of them, small and great, inside and outside the window. When Leonard returned from preaching, Bet- ty was at the door to watch. He came past the window with his hands on his breast, and his eyes on the ground, and never saw the flowers in his own window. Betty was disgusted. How- ever, she followed him stealthily as he went to his room, and she heard a profound "Ah !" burst from him. She bustled in and found him standing in a rapture, with the blood mantling in his pale cheeks, and his dark eyes glowing. " Now blessed be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand that hath done it," said he. "My poor room is a bower of roses, all beauty and fragrance." And he sat down, in- haling them and looking at them ; and a dreamy, tender complacency crept over his heart; and soft- ened his noble features exquisitely. Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him and admiring him ; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way of decrying him. But at last she lost patience at his want of cu- riosity, that being a defect she was free from her- self. "Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully. " Nay, nay," said he, ' ' prithee do not tell me ; let me divinr.'' " Divine, then," said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means 'guess.' " "Nay, but let me be quiet a while," said he, imploringly ; "let me sit down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave into a Paradise." "No more an angel than I am," said the prac- tical widow. " But, now I think on't, y'are not to know who 'twas. Them as sent them they bade me hold my tongue." This was not true ; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations and superfluous se- crecy, chose suddenly to assume that this busi- ness was to be clandestine. The priest turned his eye inward and medita- ted. " I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. " It must be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none other ; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire. " This last with surprising, gentle dignity : so Betty went off rather abashed, and avenged her- self by adulterating the holy man's innutritioug food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy, while he pray- ed fervently for her eternal weal among the flow- ers she had given him. Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She concealed the gravy, because there secrecy was necessary, but she never dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of flow- ers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious, but she told her husband, who grunted, but did not object. But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was well adapted to captivate the imagination of a young, ardent, and solitary spirit like Leonard. He would have called on the lady he suspect- ed, and thanked her for her kindness. But this he feared would be unwelcome, since she chose to be his unknown benefactress. It would be ill laste in him to tell her he had found her out : it might offend her sensibility, and then she would draw in. He kept his gratitude, therefore, to himself, and did not cool it by utterance. He often sat among the flowers in a sweet reverie, enjoying their color and fragrance ; and sometimes he would shut his eyes, and call up the angelical face with great celestial up-turned orbs, and fancy it among her own flowers, and the queen of them all. These day-dreams did not at that time inter- fere with his religious duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours, when, partly by the reaction consequent on great religious fer- vor, partly through exhaustion of the body weak- ened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy of his fibre and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be sad. By-and-by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to him. He had some- thing so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had a Madonna that cared for him in secret. She was human, but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons, and understood every word. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. " And she knows me better than I know my- self," said he : " since I had these flowers from her hand I am another man." One day he came into his room and found two watering-pots there. One was large, and had a rose to it ; the other small, and with a plain spout. ' 'Ah ! " said he ; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her who had brought them. ' ' How should I know ?" said she, roughly. * ' I dare say they dropped from heaven, fc-'ee, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters." "And so there is !" said Leonard, and crossed himself. "That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow," said Betty, rather crossly. The priest's cheek colored high. " I will use them this instant," said he. "I will revive my drooping children, as they have revived me." And he caught up a watering-pot with ardor. "What, with the sun hot upon 'em?" scream- ed Betty. ' ' Well, saving your presence, you are a simple man." "Why, good Betty, 'tis the sun that makes them faint, " objected the priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's tone would have irritated a smaller mind. ' ' Well, well, " said she, softening ; ' ' but ye see it never rains with a hot sun, and the flowers they know that, and look to be watered after Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you think to be stronger than Nature ; you do fast and pray all day, and won't look a woman in the face like other men ; and now you wants to water the very flowers at noon. " "Betty," said Leonard, smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn : let us try and teach one another as kindly as Ave can." " I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be, "blurted out Betty, with something very like a sob ; "and more respectful to my betters," added she, angrily. Watering the flowers she had given him be- came a solace and a delight to the solitary priest : he always watered them with his own hands, and felt quite paternal over them. One evening Mrs. Gaunt rode by with Griffith and saw him watering them. His tall figure, graceful, though inclined to stoop, bent over them Avith feminine delicacy, and the simple act, which would have been nothing in vulgar hands, seemed to Mrs. Gaunt so earnest, tender, and delicate in him, that her eyes filled, and she murmured, " Poor Brother Leonard." "Why, what's Avrong Avith him now?" asked Griffith, a little peevishly. "That Avas him Avatering his floAvers." "Oh, is that all?" said Griffith, carelessly. Leonard said to himself, "I go too little abroad among my people." He made a little round, and it ended in HernshaAv Castle. Mrs. Gaunt Avas out. He looked disappointed ; so the sen'ant sug- gested that perhaps she was in the Dame's Haunt : he pointed to the grove. Leonard followed his direction, and soon found himself, for the first time, in that sombre, solemn retreat. It was a hot summer day, and the grove was delicious. It was also a place Avell suited to the imaginative and religious mind of the Italian. He Avalked slowly to and fro, in religious med- itation. Indeed, he had nearly thought out his next sermon, Avhen his meditative eye happened to fall on a terrestrial object that startled and thrilled him. Yet it was only a lady's glove. It lay at the foot of a rude Avooden seat beneath a gigantic pine. He stooped and picked it up. He opened the little fingers, and called up in fancy the Avhite and tapering hand that glove could fit. He laid the glove softly on his own palm, and eyed it Avith dreamy tenderness. ' ' So this is the hand that hath solaced my loneliness," said he: "a hand fair as that angelic face, and sAveet as the kind heart that doeth good by stealth. " Then, forgetting for a moment, as lofty spirits will, the difference betAveen meum and tuum, he put the little glove in his bosom, and paced thoughtfully home through the Avoods, that Avere separated from the grove only by one meadow ; and so he missed the owner of the glove, for she had returned home while he was meditating in her favorite haunt. Leonard, among his other accomplishments, could draw and paint Avith no mean skill. In one of those hours that used to be of melancholy, but noAV were hours of dreamy complacency, he took out his pencils and endeavored to sketch the inspired face that he had learned to preach to, and noAV to d\vell on with gratitude. Clearly as he saAV it before him, he could not reproduce it to his OAvn satisfaction. After many failures, he got very near the mark; yet still something Avas Avanting. Then, as a last resource, he actually took his sketch to church Avith him, and in preaching made certain pauses, and, Avith a very few touch- es, perfected the likeness ; then, on his return home, threw himself on his knees and prayed for- giveness of God with many sighs and tears, and hid the sacrilegious draAving out of his own sight. Two days after he Avas at Avork coloring it, and the hours fleAv by like minutes as he laid the melloAV, melting tints on with infinite care and delicacy. Labor ipse voluptas. Mrs. Gaunt heard Leonard had called on her in person. She Avas pleased at that, and it en- couraged her to carry out her Avhole design. Accordingly, one afternoon, Avhen she knew Leonard Avould be at vespers, she sent on a load- ed pony-cart, and folloAved it on horseback. Then it Avas all hurry-scurry Avith Betty and her to get their dark deeds done before their victim's return. These good creatures set the mirror opposite the floAvery AvindoAv, and so made the room a very boAver. They fixed a magnificent crucifix of ivory and gold over the mantel -piece, and they took a\vay his hassock of rushes and substi- tuted a prie-dieu of rich crimson velvet. All that remained was to put their blue cover, Avith its golden cross, on the table. To do this, how- ever, they had to remove the priest's papers and things : they were covered Avith a baize cloth. Mrs. Gaunt felt them under it. " But perhaps he will be angry if we move hia papers," said she. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 55 ' t Not he, " said Betty, ' ' He has no secrets from God or man." " Well, i" won't take, it on me," said Mrs. Gaunt, merrily. "I leave that to you." And she turned her back and settled the mirror of- ficiously, leaving all the other responsibilities toj Betty. ■.. • . The sturdy widow laughed at her scruples, and whipped. off the cloth without ceremony. But soon her laugh: stopped mighty short, audi she uttered an exclamation. ' ' What is the matter ?" said Mrs. Gaunt, turn- ing her head sharply round. "A wench's glove, as I'm a living sinner," groaned Betty. : . A poor little glove lay on the, table, and both women eyed it like basilisks a moment. Then Betty pounced on it and examined it with the fierce keenness of her sex in such conjunctures, searching for a name or a, clew. Owing. to this rapidity, Mrs. Gaunt, who stood .at some distance, had not time to observe the button on the glove, or she would have recog- nized her, own property. "He have had a, hussy with him- unbeknown," said Betty, "and she have left her glove. 'Tis easy to get in by the window and out again. Only let me catch her. I'll tear her eyes out, and give him my mind, I'll have no young hus- sies creeping in an' out where I be. " Thus spoke the simple woman, venting her coarse domestic jealousy. The gentlewoman said nothing, but a strange feeling traversed her heart for the first time in her life,, It was a little chjll, it was a little ache, it was a little sense of sickness ; none of these violent, yet all distinct. And all about what? After this curious, novel spasm at the heart, she began to be ashamed of herself for having had such a feeling. Betty held her out the glove ; and then she recognized it> and turned as red as fire. "You know whose 'tis ?" said Betty, keenly. Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard in a moment. " Why, Betty," said i she, " for shame ! ■ 'tis, some penitent hath left her glove after confession. Would you belie a good man for that ? Oh fie !" "Humph!" said Betty, doubtfully. ."Then why keep it under cover ? Now you can read, dame ; let us see if there isn't a letter or so writ by the hand as owns this very glove." Mrs. Gaunt declined, with cold dignity, to pry Into Brother Leonard's manuscripts. Her eye, however, darted sidelong at them, and told another tale ; and, if she had been there alone, perhaps the daughter of Eve would have predominated. Betty, inflamed by the glove, rummaged the papers in search of female handwriting. She could tell that from a man's, though she could not read either. But there is a handwriting that the most ig- norant can read at sight, and so Betty's research- es were not in vain : hidden under several sheets of paper she found a picture. She gave but one glance at it, and screamed out, " There, didn't I tell you ? Here she is ! the brazen, red-haired — Lawk a daisy ! why, 'tis yourself. " CHAPTER XVII. "Me!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, in amazement: then she ran to the picture, and at sight of it every other sentiment gave way for a moment to gratified vanity. "Nay," said she, beaming, and blushing, "I was never half so beautiful. What heavenly eyes!" "The fellows to 'em be in your own head, dame; this moment." "Seeing is believing," said Mrs. Gaunt, gayly, and in a moment she was at the priest's mirror, and inspected her eyes minutely, cocking her head this way and that. She ended by shaking it, and saying " Nay ; he has flattered them pro- digiously." " Not a jot," said Betty. " If you could see yourself in chapel, you do turn 'em up just so, and, the white shows nil round." Then she tap- ped the picture with her finger: "Oh them eyes !. they were never made for the good of his soul, poor simple man." Betty said this" with sudden gravity ; and now Mrs. Gaunt began to feel very awkward. "Mr. Gaunt would give fifty pounds for this," said she, to gain time ; and, while she uttered that sentence, she whipped on her armor. "I'll tell you what I think," said she, calmly : "■he wished to paint a Madonna; and he must take some woman's face to aid his fancy. All the painters are driven to that. So he just took .the best that came to , hand, and that is not say- ing much, for this is a rare ill-favored parish ; and he has made an angel of her — a very angel. There, hide Me away again, or I shall long for t Me< — to show to my husband. I must be go- ing; I wouldn't be caught here now for a pen- sion." "Well, if ye. must," said Betty; "but when iwill ye come again ?" (She hadn't got the pet- ticoat yet.) "Humph!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "I have done all I can for him, and perhaps more than I ought. But there's nothing to hinder you from coming ,to me. I'll be as good as my word ; and I have an old Raduasoy besides ; you can do something with it, perhaps." "You are very good, dame," said Betty, courtesy in g. Mrs. Gaunt then hurried away, and Betty looked after her very expressively, and shook her head. She had a female instinct that mischief was brewing. Mrs. Gaunt went home in a reverie. At the gate she found her husband, and asked him to take a turn in the garden with her. He complied ; and she intended to tell him a portion, at least, of what had occurred. She began -timidly, after this fashion — "My dear, Brother Leonard is so grateful for your flowers," and then hesitated. i " I'm sure he is very welcome," said Griffith. " Why doesn't he sup with us and be sociable, as Father Francis used? Invite him; let him know he will be welcome." Mrs. Gaunt blushed, and objected, " He never calls on us." "Well, well, every man to his taste," said Griffith, indifferently, and proceeded to talk to her about his farm, and a sorrel mare with a white mane and tail that he had seen, and thought it would suit her. 56 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. She humored him, and affected a great inter- est in all this, and had not the courage to force the other topic on. Next Sunday morning, after a very silent breakfast, she burst out, almost violently, " Grif- fith, I shall go to the parish church with you, and then we will dine together afterward." "You don't mean it, Kate?" said he, de- lighted. "Ay, but I do. Although you refused to go to chapel with me. " They went to church together, and Mrs. Gaunt's appearance there created no small sen- sation. She was conscious of that, but hid it, and conducted herself admirably. Her mind seemed entirely given to the service, and to a dull sermon that followed. But at dinner she broke out, " Well, give me your church for a sleeping draught. You all slumbered, more or less : those that survived the drowsy, droning prayers, sank under the dry, dull, dreary discourse. You snored, for one." " Nay, I hope not, my dear." " You did, then, as loud as your bass fiddle." "And you sat there and let me !" said Griffith, reproachfully. 1 ' To be sure I did. I was too good a wife, and too good a Christian, to wake you. Sleep is good for the body, and twaddle is not good for the soul. I'd have slept too, if I could ; but, with me going to chapel, I'm not used to sleep at that time o' day. You can't sleep, and Broth- er Leonard speaking." In the afternoon came Mrs. Gough, all in her best. Mrs. Gaunt had her into her bedroom, and gave her the promised petticoat, and the old Faduasoy gown ; and then, as ladies will, when their hand is once in, added first one thing, and then another, till there was quite a large bundle. " But how is it you are here so soon ?" asked Mrs. Gaunt. " Oh, we had next to no sermon to-day. He couldn't make no hand of it ; dawdled on a bit ; then gave us his blessing, and bundled us out." " Then I've lost nothing," said Mrs. Gaunt. " Not you. Well, I don't know. Mayhap if 3 r ou had been there he'd have preached his best. But, la! we weren't worth it." At this conjecture Mrs. Gaunt's face burned ; but she said nothing ; only she cut the interview short, and dismissed Betty with her bundle. As Betty crossed the landing, Mrs. Gaunt's new lady's-maid, Caroline Ryder, stepped acci- dentally, on purpose, out of an adjoining room, in which she had been lurking, and lifted her black brows in affected surprise. "What, are you going to strip the house, my woman ?" said she, quietly. Betty put down the bundle, and set her arms akimbo. " There is none on't stolen, any way," said she. Caroline's black eyes flashed fire at this, and her cheek lost color ; but she parried the innuen- do skillfully. " Taking my perquisites on the sly, that is not so very far from stealing." " Oh, there's plenty left for you, my fine lady. Besides, you don't want her ; you can set j'our cap at the master, they say. I'm too old for that, and too honest into the bargain." " Too ill-favored, you mean, ye old harridan," said Ryder, contemptuously. But, for reasons hereafter to be dealt with, Betty's thrust went home, and the pair were mortal enemies from that hour. Mrs. Gaunt came down from her room dis- composed ; from that she became restless and irritable ; so much so, indeed, that, at last, Mr. Gaunt told her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning peevish), she had better go to chapel. " You are right," said she, ' ' and so I will. " The next Sunday she was at her post in good time. The preacher cast an anxious glance around to see if she was there. Her quick eye saw that glance, and it gave her a demure pleasure. This day he was more eloquent than ever, and he delivered a beautiful passage concerning those who do good in secret. In uttering these elo- quent sentences, his cheek glowed, and he could not deny himself the pleasure of looking down at the lovely face that was turned up to him. Frob- ably his look was more expressive than he in- tended : the celestial eyes sank under it, and were abashed, and the fair cheek burned; and then so did Leonard's at that. Thus subtly yet effectually did these two minds communicate in a crowd, that never noticed nor suspected the delicate interchange of sentiment that was going on under their very eyes. In a general way compliments did not seduce Mrs. Gaunt : she was well used to them, for one thing. But to be praised in that sacred edifice, and from the pulpit, and by such an orator as Leonard, and to be praised in words so sacred and beautiful that the ears around her drank them with delight, all this made her heart beat, and filled her with soft and sweet complacency. And then to be thanked in public, yet, as it were, clandestinely, this gratified the furtive ten- dency of women. There was no irritability this afternoon, but a gentle radiance that diffused itself on all around, and made the whole household happy, especially Griffith, whose pipe she filled, for once, with her own white hand, and talked dogs, horses, calves, hinds, cows, politics, markets, hay, to please him, and seemed interested in them all. But the next day she changed — ill at ease, and out of spirits, and could settle to nothing. It was very hot, for one thing ; and, altogether, a sort of lassitude and distaste for every thing overpowered her, and she retired into the grove, and sat languidly on a seat with half-closed eyes. But her meditations were no longer so calm and speculative as heretofore. She found her mind constantly recurring to one person, and, above all, to the discovery she had made of her portrait in his possession. She had turned it off to Betty Gough ; but here, in her calm solitude and umbrageous twilight, her mind crept out of its cave, like wild and timid things at dusk, and whispered to her heart that Leonard perhaps ad- mired her more than was safe or prudent. Then this alarmed her, yet caused her a secret complacency ; and that, her furtive satisfaction, alarmed her still more. Now, while she sat thus absorbed, she heard a gentle footstep coming near. She looked up, and there was Leonard close to her, standing meekly with his arms crossed upon his bosom. His being there so pat upon her thoughts GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 57 geared her out of her habitual self-command. She started up with a faint cry, and stood pant- ing, as if about to fly, with her beautiful eyes turned large upon him. He put forth a deprecating hand, and soothed her. ' ' Forgive me, madam, " said he, " I have un- awares intruded on your privacy; I will retire." "Nay," said she, falteringly, "you are wel- come. But no one comes here ; so I was star- tled;" then, recovering herself, "Excuse my ill manners. 'Tis so strange you should come to me here, of all places. " " Nay, my daughter," said the priest, " not so very strange: contemplative minds love such places. Calling one day to see you, I found this sweet and solemn grove, the like I never saw in England; and to-day I returned in hopes to profit by it. Do but look around at these tall columns ; how calm, how reverend ! 'Tis God's own tem- ple, not built with hands." "Indeed it is," said Mrs. Gaunt, earnestly. Then, like a woman as she was, "So you came to gee my trees, not me." Leonard blushed. ' ' I did not design to return without paying my respects to her who owns this temple, and is worthy of it ; nay, I beg you not to think me ungrateful. " His humility, and gentle but earnest voice, made Mrs. Gaunt ashamed of her petulance. She smiled sweetly, and looked pleased. However, ere long, she attacked him again. ' ' Father Francis used to visit us often," said she. " He made friends with my husband, too. And I never lacked an adviser while he was here. " Leonard looked so confused at this second re- proach that Mrs. Gaunt regretted having uttered it. Then he said humbly that Francis Avas a secular priest, whereas he was convent-bred. He added that by his years and experience Francis was better fitted to advise persons of her age and sex in matters secular than he was. He con- cluded timidly that he was ready, nevertheless, to tiy and advise her, but could not, in such mat- ters, assume the authority that belongs to age and knowledge of the world. "Nay, nay," said she, earnestly, "guide and direct my soul, and I am content." He said, yes ; that was his duty and his right. Then, after a little hesitation, which at once let her know what was. coming, he began to thank her, with infinite grace and sweetness, for her kindness to him. She looked him full in the face, and said she was not aware of any kindness she had shown him worth speaking of. "That but shows," said he, "how natural it is to you to do acts of goodness. My poor room in a very bower now, and I am happy in it. I used to feel very sad there at times, but your hand has cured me." Mrs. Gaunt colored beautifully. " You make me ashamed," said she. "Things are come to a pass indeed if a lady may not send a few flow- ers and things to her spiritual father without being — thanked for it. And oh ! sir, what are earthly flowers compared with those blossoms of the soul you have shed so liberally over us ? Our immortal pai*ts were all asleep when you came here, and waked them by the fire of your words. Eloquence ! 'twas a thing I had read of, but never heard, nor thought to hear. Methought the or- ators and poets of the Church were all in their graves this thousand years, and she must go all the way to heaven that would hear the soul's true music. But I know better now." Leonard colored high with pleasure. rt Such praise from you is too sweet," he muttered. " I must not court it. The heart is full of vanity." And he deprecated farther eulogy by a movement of the hand extremely refined, and, in fact, rather feminine. Deferring to his wish, Mrs. Gaunt glided to other matters, and was naturally led to speak of the prospects of their Church, and the possibility of reconverting these islands. This had been the dream of her young heart ; but marriage and maternity, and the universal coldness with which the subject had been received, had chilled her so, that of late years she had almost ceased to speak of it. Even Leonard, on a former occasion, had listened coldly to her; but now his heart was open to her. He was, in fact, quite as enthusi- astic on this point as ever she had been ; and then he had digested his aspirations into clearer forms. Not only had he resolved that Great Britain must be converted, but had planned the way to do it. His cheek glowed, his eyes gleamed, and he poured out his hopes and his plans before her with an eloquence that few mor- tals could have resisted. As for this, his hearer, she was quite carried away by it. She joined herself to his plans on the spot ; she begged, with tears in her eyes, to be permitted to support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her : the hours passed like minutes in this high converse ; and, when the tinkling of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly in like one in a dream, and the world seemed dead to her forever. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ryder, combing out her long hair, gave one inadvertent tug, the fair enthusiast came back to earth, and asked her, rather sharply, who her head was running on. Ryder, a very handsome young woman, with fine black eyes, made no reply, but only drew her breath audiL.y hard. I do not very much wonder at that, nor at my having to answer that question for Mrs. Ryder, for her head was -at that moment running, like any other woman's, on the man she was in love with. And the man she was in love with was the husband of the lady whose hair she was comb- ing, and who put her that curious question — plump. CHAPTER XVIII. This Caroline Ryder was a character almost impossible to present so as to enable the reader to recognize her should she cross his path, so great was the contradiction between what she was and what she seemed, and so perfect was the imitation. She looked a respectable young spinster, with a grace of manner beyond her station, and a de- cency and propriety of demeanor that inspired respect. She was a married woman, separated from her 58 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. husband by mutual consent; and she had had many lovers, each of whom she had loved ardent- ly — for a little while. She was a woman that brought to bear upon foolish, culpable loves a mental power that would have adorned the wool- sack. The moment prudence or waning inclination an invaluable servant, she got one directly, and was off to fresh pastures. A female rake, but with the air of a very prude. Still the decency and propriety of her demean- or were not all hypocrisy, but half hypocrisy, and half inborn aud instinctive good taste and good sense. made it advisable to break with the reigning f i- vorite, she set to work to cool him down by tie- liberate coldness, sullenness, insolence, and gen- erally succeeded. But if he was incurable, she never hesitated as to her course ; she smiled again on him and looked out for another place : being As dangerous a creature to herself and otherg as ever tied on a bonnet. On her arrival at Hernshaw Castle she cast her eyes round to see what there was to fall in love with, and observed the gamekeeper, Tom Lei- cester. She gave him a smile or two that won GEIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 58 his heart, but there she stopped ; for soon the ruddy cheek, brown eyes, manly proportions, and square shoulders of her master attracted this con- noisseur in masculine beauty. And then his manner was so genial and hearty, with a smile for every body. Mrs. Ryder eyed him demurely day by day, and often opened a window slyly to watch him unseen. From that she got to throwing herself in his way, and this with such art that he never dis- covered it, though he fell in with her about the house six times as often as he met his wife or any other inmate. She had already studied his character, and, whether she arranged to meet him full or to cross him, it was always with a courtesy and a sun- shiny smile. He smiled on her in his turn, and felt a certain pleasure at sight of her, for he loved to see people bright and cheerful about him. Then she did, of her own accord, what no oth- er master on earth would have persuaded her to do — looked over his linen ; sewed on buttons for him ; and sometimes the artful jade deliberately cut a button off a clean shirt, and then came to him and sewed it on during Avear. This brought about a contact none knew better than she how to manage to a man's undoing. The eyelashes lowered over her work, deprecating, yet inviting — the twenty stitches, when six would have done — the one coy glance at leaving. All this soft witchcraft beset Griffith Gaunt, and told on him, but not as yet in the way his inamorata intended. "Kate," said he one day, "that girl of yours is worth her weight in gold. " ■ ' Indeed ! " said Mrs. Gaunt, frigidly ; " I have not discovered it." When Caroline found that her master was sin- gle-hearted, and loved his wife too well to look elsewhere, instead of hating him, she began to love him more seriously, and to hate his wife, that haughty beauty who took such a husband as a matter of course, and held him tight with- out troubling her head. It was a coarse age, and in that very county more than one wife had suffered jealous agony from her own domestic. But here the parts were inverted : the lady was at her ease ; the servant paid a bitter penalty for her folly. She was now passionately in love, and had to do menial offices for her rival every hour of the day : she must sit with Mrs. Gaunt, and make her dresses, and con- sult with her how to set off her hateful beauty to the best advantage. She had to dress her, and look daggers at her satin skin and royal neck, and to sit behind her an hour at a time combing and brushing her long golden hair. How she longed to tear a handful of it out, and then run away ! Instead of that, her happy rival expected her to be as tender and coaxing with it as Madame de Maintenon was with the Queen's of France. Ryder called it "yellow stuff" down in the kitchen ; that was one comfort, but a feeble one ; the sun came in at the lady's window, and Ryder's shapely hand was overflowed, and her eyes of- fended, by waves of burnished gold ; and one day Griffith came in and kissed it in her very hand. His lips felt nothing but his wife's glorious hair ; but, by that exquisite sensibility which the heart can convey in a moment to the very finger- nails, Caroline's hand, beneath, felt the soft touch through her mistress's hah-, and the enamored hypocrite thrilled, and then sickened at her own folly. For in her good sense could be overpowered, but never long blinded. On the day in question she was thinking of Griffith, as usual, and wondering whether he would always prefer yellow hair to black. This actually put her off her guard for once, and she gave the rival hair a little contemptuous tug; and the reader knows what followed. Staggered by her mistress's question, Caroline made no reply, but only panted a little, and pro- ceeded more carefully. But oh, the struggle it cost her not to slap both Mrs. Gaunt's fair cheeks with the backs of the brashes ! And what with this struggle, and the reprimand, and the past agitations, by-and-by the comb ceased, and the silence was broken by faint sobs. Mrs. Gaunt turned calmly round and looked full at her hysterical handmaid. " What is to do?" said she. "Is it because I chid you, child ? Nay, you need not take that to heart ; it is just my way : I can bear any thing but my hair pulled." With this she rose and poured some drops of sal-volatile into water, and put it to her secret rival's lips : it was kindly done, but with that sort of half contemptuous and thoroughly cold pity women are apt to show to women, and especially when one of them is Mis- tress and the other is Servant. Still it cooled the extreme hatred Caroline had nursed, and gave her a little twinge, and awak- ened her intelligence. Now hev intelligence was truly remarkable when not blinded by passion. She was a woman with one or two other mas- culine traits beside her roving heart. For in- stance, she could sit and think hard and practi- cally for hours together ; and on these occasions her thoughts were never dreamy and vague ; it was no brown study, but good hard thinking. She would knit her coal-black brows, like Lord Thurlow himself, and realize the situation, and weigh the pros and cons with a steady judicial power rarely found in her sex ; and, nota bene, when once her mind had gone through this pro- cess, then she would act with almost monstrous resolution. She now shut herself up in her own room for some hours and weighed the matter carefully. The conclusion she arrived at was this — that if she staid at Hernshaw Castle there would be mischief; and probably she herself would be the principal sufferer to the end of the chapter, as she was now. She said to herself, "I shall go mad, or else expose myself, and be turned away with loss of character ; and then what will become of me and my child ? Better lose life or reason than char- acter. I know what I have to go thi-ough ; I have left a man ere now with my heart tugging at me to stay beside him. It is a terrible wrench ; and then all seems dead for a long while without him. But the world goes on and takes you round with it, and by-and-by you find there are as good fish left in the sea as ever came out on't. I'll go, while I've sense enough left to see I must." The very next day she came to Mrs. Gaunt and said she wished to leave. ' ' Certainly, " said Mrs. Gaunt, coldly. "May I ask the reason ?" " Oh, I have no complaint to make, ma'am, GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. none whatever ; but I am not happy here ; and I wish to go when my month's up, or sooner, ma'am, if you could suit yourself." Mrs. Gaunt considered* a moment ; then she said, "You came all the way from Gloucester- shire to me : had you not better give the place a fair trial ? I have had two or three good servants that felt uncomfortable at first, but they soon found out my ways, and staid with me till they married. As for leaving me before your month, that is out of the question." To this Ryder said not a word, but merely vented a little sigh, half dogged, half submissive, and went cat-like about, arranging her mistress's things with admirable precision and neatness. Mrs. Gaunt watched her without seeming to do so, and observed that her discontent did not in the least affect her punc- tual discharge of her duties. Said Mrs. Gaunt to herself, ' ' This servant is a treasure ; she shall not go." And Ryder to herself, "Well, 'tis but for a month, and then no power shall keep me here." CHAPTER XIX. Not long after these events came the county ball. Griffith was there, but no Mrs. Gaunt. This excited surprise, and, among the gentle- men, disappointment. They asked Griffith if she was unwell; he thanked them dryly, she was very well, and that was all they could get out of him. But to the ladies he let out that she had given up balls, and, indeed, all reasonable pleas- ures. " She does nothing but fast, and pray, and visit the sick." He added, with rather a weak smile, " I see next to nothing of her." A minx stood by and put in her word. "You should catch the small-pox ; then who knows ? she might look in upon you.' 1 Griffith laughed, but not heartily. In truth, Mrs. Gaunt's religious fervor knew no bounds. Absorbed in pious schemes and religious duties, she had little time, and much distaste, for frivo- lous society; invited none but the devout, and found polite excuses for not dining abroad. She sent her husband into the world alone, and laden with apologies. "My wife is turned saint. 'Tis a sin to dance, a sin to hunt, a sin to enjoy our- selves. We are here to fast and pray, and build schools, and go to church twice a day. " And so he went about publishing his household ill ; but, to tell the truth, a secret satisfaction peeped through his lugubrious accents. An ugly saint is an unmixed calamity to jolly fellows ; but to be lord and master, and possessor of a beauti- ful saint, was not without its piquant charm. His jealousy was dormant, not extinct ; and Kate's piety tickled that foible, not wounded it. He found himself the rival of heaven, and the suc- cessful rival ; for, let her be ever so strict, ever so devout, she must give her husband many com- forts she could not give to heaven. This soft and piquant phase of the passion did not last long. All things are progressive. Brother Leonard was director now as well as confessor ; his visits became frequent, and Mrs. Gaunt often quoted his authority for her acts or her sentiments. So Griffith began to suspect that the change in his wife was entirely due to Leonard ; and that, with all her eloquence and fervor, she was but a priest's echo. This galled him. To be sure, Leonard was only an ecclesi- astic ; but, if he had been a woman, Griffith was the man to wince. His wife to lean so on anoth- er ; his wife to withdraw from the social pleasures she had hitherto shared with him, and all because another human creature disapproved them. He writhed in silence a while, and then remonstra- ted. He was met at first with ridicule: "Are you going to be jealous of my confessor ?" and, on repeating the offense, with a kind but grave admonition, that silenced him for the time, but did not cure him, nor even convince him. The facts were too strong. Kate was no lon- ger to him the genial companion she had been ; gone was the ready sympathy with which she had listened to all his little earthly concerns ; and as for his hay-making, he might as well talk about it to an iceberg as to the partner of his bosom. He was genial by nature, and could not live without sympathy. He sought it in the parlor of the "Ped Lion." Mrs. Gaunt's high-bred nostrils told her where he haunted, and it caused her dismay. Woman- like, instead of opening her battery at once, she wore a gloomy and displeased air, which a few months ago would have served her turn and brought about an explanation at once ; but Grif- fith took it for a stronger dose of religious senti- ment, and trundled off to the " Red Lion" all the more. So then at last she spoke her mind, and asked him how he could lower himself so, and afflict her. "Oh !" said he, doggedly, "this house is too cold for me now. My mate is priest-rid. Plague on the knave that hath put coldness 'twixt thee and me." Mrs. Gaunt froze visibly, and said no more at that time. One bit of sunshine remained in the house, and shone brighter than ever on its chilled master — shone through two black, seducing eyes. Some three months before the date we have now reached, Caroline Ryder's two boxes were packed and corded ready to go next day. She had quietly persisted in her resolution to leave, and Mrs. Gaunt, though secretly angry, had been just and magnanimous enough to give her a good character. Now female domestics are like the little birds ; if that great hawk, their mistress, follows them about, it is a deadly grievance ; but if she does not, they follow her about, and pester her with idle questions, and invite the beak and claws of petty tyranny and needless interference. So, the afternoon before she was to leave, Caroline Ryder came to her mistress's room on some imaginary business. She was not there. Ryder, forgetting that it did not matter a straw, proceeded to hunt her every where, and at last ran out with only her cap on to "the Dame's Haunt," and there she was, but not alone: she was walking up and down with Brother Leon- ard. Their backs were turned, and Ryder came up behind them. Leonard was pacing gravely, with his head gently drooping as usual. Mrs. Gaunt was walking elastically, and discoursing with great fire and animation. Ryder glided after, noiseless as a serpent, more bent on wondering and watching now than on overtaking ; for inside the house her mistress showed none of this charming vivacity. Presently the keen black eyes observed a GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 81 11 trifle light as air" that made them shine again. She turned and wound herself among the trees, and disappeared. Soon after she was. in her own room, a changed woman. With glow- ing cheeks, sparkling eyes, and nimble fingers, she uncorded her boxes, unpacked her things, and placed them neatly in the drawers. What more had she seen than I have indi- cated ? Only this : Mrs. Gaunt, in the warmth of dis- course, laid her hand lightly for a moment on the priest's elbow : that was nothing, she had laid the same hand on Ryder ; for, in fact, it was a little womanly way she had, and a hand that settled like down. But this time, as she with- drew it again, that delicate hand seemed to speak ; it did not leave Leonard's elbow all at once ; it glided slowly away, first the palm, then the fingers, and so parted lingeringly. The other woman saw this subtle touch of womanhood, coupled it with Mrs. Gaunt's vi- vacity and the air of happiness that seemed to inspire her whole eloquent person, and formed a harsh judgment on the spot, though she could not see the lady's face. When Mrs. Gaunt came in she met her, and addressed her thus: "If you please, ma'am, have you any one coming in my place ?" Mrs. Gaunt looked her full in the face. "You know I have not," said she, haughtily. " Then, if it is agreeable to you, ma'am, I will stay. To be sure the place is dull, but I have got a good mistress — and — " ' ' That will do, Ryder ; a servant has always her own reasons, and never tells them to her mis- tress. You can stay this time, but the next you go, and once for all. I am not to be trifled with. " Ryder called up a look all submission, and re- tired with an obeisance. But, once out of sight, she threw off the mask and expanded with in- solent triumph. ' ' Yes, I have my own reasons, " said she. ' ' Keep you the priest, and I'll take the man." From that hour Caroline Ryder watched her mistress like a lynx, and hovered about her mas- ter, and poisoned him slowly with vague insidi- ous hints. CHAPTER XX. Brother Leonard, like many holy men, was vain. Not but what he had his gusts of hu- mility and diffidence, only they blew over. At first, as you may perhaps remember, he doubted his ability to replace Father Francis as Mrs. Gaunt's director ; but after a slight dis- claimer he did replace him, and had no more misgivings as to his fitness. But his tolerance and good sense were by no means equal to his devotion and his persuasive powers, and so his advice in matters spiritual and secular somehow sowed the first seeds of conjugal coolness in Hernshaw Castle. And now Ryder slyly insinuated into Griffith's ear that the mistress told the priest every thing, and did nothing but by his advice. Thus" the fire already kindled was fanned by an artful woman's breath. Griffith began to hate Brother Leonard, and to show it so plainly and rudely that Leonard shrank from the encounter, and came less often^ and staid but a few minutes. Then Mrs. Gaunt remonstrated gently with Griffith, but" received short, sullen replies. Then, as the servile ele- ment of her sex was comparatively small in her, she turned bitter and cold, and avenged Leonard indirectly, but openly, with those terrible pins and needles a beloved woman has ever at command. Then Griffith became moody, and downright unhappy, and went more and more to the " Red Lion," seeking comfort there now as well as company. Mrs. Gaunt saw, and had fits of irritation, and fits of pity, and sore perplexity. She knew she had a good husband, and, instead of taking him to heaven with her, she found that each step she made with Leonard's help toward the angelic life seemed somehow to be bad for Griffith's soul and for his earthly happiness. She blamed herself; she blamed Griffith ; she blamed the Protestant heresy ; she blamed every body and every thing — except Brother Leonard. One Sunday afternoon Griffith sat on his own lawn, silently smoking his pipe. Mrs. Gaunt came to him, and saw an air of dejection on his genial face. Her heart yearned. She sat down beside him on the bench, and sighed ; then he sighed too. " My dear," said she, sweetly, "fetch out your viol da gambo, and we will sing a hymn or two together here this fine afternoon. We can praise God together, though we must pray apart ; alas that it is so." 1 ' With all my heart, " said Griffith. ' ' Nay, I , forgot ; my viol da gambo is not here. 'Tis at the 'Red Lion.'" "At the 'Red Lion!'" said she, bitterly. "What, do you sing there as well as drink? Oh, husband, how can you so bemean yourself?" " What is a poor man to do whose wife is priest-ridden, and got to be no company — except for angels ?" "1 did not come here to quarrel," said she, coldly and sadly. Then they were both silent a minute. Then she got up and left him. Brother Leonard, like many earnest men, wrs rather intolerant. He urged on Mrs. Gaunt that she had too many Protestants in her household ; her cook and her nursemaid ought, at all events, to be Catholics. Mrs. Gaunt, on this, was quite ready to turn them both off, and that without disguise. But Leonard dissuaded her from so violent a measure. She had better take occa- sion to part with one of them, and by-and-by with the other. The nursemaid was the first to go, and her place was filled by a Roman Catholic. Then the cook received warning. But this did not pass off so quietly : Jane Bannister was a bux- om, hearty woman, well liked by her fellow-serv- ants ; her parents lived in the village, and she had been six years with the Gaunts, and her honest heart clung to them. She took to cry- ing ; used to burst out in the middle of her work, or while conversing with fitful cheerful- ness on ordinary topics. One day Griffith found her crying, and Ryder consoling her as carelessly and contemptuously as possible. "Hey-day, lasses," said he, "what is your trouble?" 62 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. At this Jane's tears flowed in a stream, and Ryder made no reply, but waited. *At last, and not till the third or fourth time of asking, Jane blurted out that she had got the sack. Such was her homely expression, digni- fied, however, by honest tears. " What for?" asked Griffith, kindly. "Nay, sir," sobbed Jane, " that is what I want to know. Our dame ne'er found a fault in me ; and now she does pack me off like a dog — me, that have been here this six years, and got to feel at home. What will father say ? He'll give me a hiding. For two pins I'd drown myself in the mere." ' ' Come, you must not blame the mistress, " said the sly Ryder. " She is a good mistress as ever breathed ; 'tis all the priest's doings. I'll tell you the truth, master, if you will pass me your word I sha'n't be sent away for it." " I pledge you my word as a gentleman," said Griffith. "Well, then, sir, Jane's fault is yours and mine. She is not a Papist, and that is why she is to go. How I come to know, I listened in the next room, and heard the priest tell our dame she must send away two of us, and have Catholics. The priest's word it is law in this house ; 'twas in March he gave the order ; Harriet, she went in May, and now poor Jane is to go — for Avalk- ing to church behind you, sir. But there, Jane, I believe he would get our very master out of the house if he could, and then what would become of us all?" i Griffith turned black, and then ashy pale, un- der this venomous tongue, and went away with- out a word, looking dangerous. Ryder looked after him, and her black eye glittered with a kind of fiendish beauty. Jane, having told her mind, now began to pluck up a little spirit. " Mrs. Ryder," said she, "I never thought to like you so well;" and, with that, gave her a great, hearty, smacking kiss, which Ryder, to judge by her countenance, relished, as epicures albumen. "I won't cry no more. After all, this house is no place for us that be women ; 'tis a fine roost, to be sure ! where the hen she crows, and the cock do but cluck. " Town-bred Ryder laughed at the rustic maid's simile, and, not to be outdone in metaphor, told her there were dogs that barked and dogs that bit. "Our master is one of those that bite. I've done the priest's business. He is as like to get the sack as you are." Griffith found his wife seated on the lawn read- ing. He gulped down his ire as well as he could, but, nevertheless, his voice trembled a little with suppressed passion. " So Jane is turned off now, " said he. "I don't know about being turned off," re- plied Mrs. Gaunt, calmly, "but she leaves me next month, and Cicely Davis comes back." "And Cicely Davis is a useless slut that can not boil a potato fit to eat ; but then she is a Pa- pist, and poor Jenny is a Protestant, and can cook a dinner." "My dear," said Mrs. Gaunt, "do not you trouble about the servants ; leave them to me." "And welcome ; but this is not your doing, it is that Leonard's ; and I can not allow a Popish priest to turn off all my servants that are worth their salt. Come, Kate, you used to be a sensi- ble woman and a tender Avife ; now I ask you, is a young bachelor a fit person to govern a man's family ?" Mrs. Gaunt laughed in his face. ' ' A young bachelor!" said she; "whoever heard of such a term applied to a priest — and a saint upon earth ?" "Why, he is not married, so he must be a bachelor ; and I say again it is monstrous for a young bachelor to come between old married folk, and hear all their secrets, and have a finger in every pie, and set up to be master of my house, and order my wife to turn away my serv- ants for going to church behind me. Why not turn me away too? Their fault is mine." ' ' Griffith, you are in a passion, and I begin to think you want to put me in one. " " Well, perhaps I am. Job's patience went at last, and mine has been sore tried this many a month. 'Twas bad enough when the man was only your confessor : you told him every thing, and you don't tell me every thing. lie knew your very heart better than I do, and that was a bitter thing for me to bear, that love you and have no secrets from you. But every man who marries a Catholic must endure this ; so I put a good face on it, though my heart was often sore ; 'twas the price I had to pay for my pearl of wom- ankind. But since he set up your governor as well, you are a changed woman ; you shun com- pany abroad, you freeze my friends at home. You have made the house so cold that I am fain to seek the ' Red Lion' for a smile or a kindly word ; and now, to please this fanatical priest, you would turn away the best servants I have, and put useless, dirty slatterns in their place, that happen to be Papists. You did not use to be so uncharitable nor so unreasonable. 'Tis the priest's doing. He is my secret, underhand en- emy ; I feel him undermining me, inch by inch, and I can bear it no longer. I must make a stand somewhere, and I may as well make it here ; for Jenny is a good girl, and her folk live in the village, and she helps them. Think bet- ter of it, Kate, and let the poor wench stay, though she does go to church behind your hus- band." " Griffith," said Mrs. Gaunt, "I might retort, and say that you are a changed man ; for, to be sure, you did never use to interfere between me and my maids. Are you sure some mischief- making woman is not advising you ? But there, do not let us chafe one another, for you know we are hot-tempered, both of us. Well, leave it for the present, my dear ; prithee let me think it over till to-morrow, at all events, and try if I can satisfy you." The jealous husband saw through this propo- sal directly. He turned purple. "That is to say, you must ask your priest first for leave to show your husband one grain of respect and af- fection, and not make him quite a cipher in his own house. No, Kate, no man who respects him- self will let another man come between himself and the wife of his bosom. This business is be- tween you and me ; I will brook no interference in it ; and I tell you plainly, if you turn this poor lass off to please this d— d priest, I'll turn the priest off to please her and her folk. They are as good as he is, any way." The bitter contempt with which he spoke of GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. G3 Brother Leonard, and this astounding threat, im- ported a new and dangerous element into the discussion : it stung Mrs. Gaunt beyond bear- ing. She turned with flashing eyes upon Grif- fith. "As good as he is ? The scum of my kitchen ! You will make me hate the mischief - making hussy. She shall pack out of the house to-mor- row morning." "Then I say that priest shall never darken my doors again. " "Then I say they are my doors, not yours; and that holy man shall brighten them whenever he will." If to strike an adversary dumb is the tongue's triumph, Mrs. Gaunt was victorious ; for Griffith gasped, but did not reply. They faced each other, pale with fury, but no more Avords. No ; an ominous silence succeeded this la- mentable answer, like the silence that follows a thunder-clap. Griffith stood still a while, benumbed, as it were, by the cruel stroke ; then cast one speak- ing look of anguish and reproach upon her, drew himself haughtily up, and stalked away like a wounded lion. Well said the ancients that anger is a short madness. When we reflect in cold blood on the things we have said in hot, how impossible they seem ! how out of character with our real selves ! And this is one of the recognized symptoms of mania. There were few persons could compare with Mrs. Gaunt in native magnanimity, yet how un- generous a stab had she given. And had he gone on, she would have gone on; but when he turned silent at her bitter thrust, and stalked away from her, she came to herself almost directly. She thought, "Good God! what have I said to him ?" And the flush of shame came to her cheek, and her eyes filled with tears. He saw them not ; he had gone away, wound- ed to the heart. You see it was true. The house was hei's, tied up as tight as wax. The very money (his own money) that had been spent on the place had be- come hers by being expended on real property ; he could not reclaim it ; he was her lodger — a dependent on her bounty. During all the years they had lived together she had never once assumed the proprietor. On the contrary, she put him forward as the squire, and slipped quietly into the background. Bene Intuit. But, lo ! let a hand be put out to offend her saintly favorite, and that moment she could waken her husband from his dream, and put him down into his true legal position with a word. The matrimonial throne for him till he resisted her priest, and then a stool at her feet and his. He was enraged as well as hurt ; but, being a true lover, his fury was leveled, not at the woman who had hurt him, but at the man who stood out of sight and set her on. i By this time the reader. knows his good quali- ties and his defects ; superior to his wife in one or two things, he was by no means so thorough a gentleman as she was a lady. He had begun to make a party with his own servants against the common enemy, and, in his wrath, he now took another step, or rather a stride, in the same di- rection. As he hurried away to the public house, white with ire, he met his gamekeeper coming in with a bucketful offish fresh caught. "What have ye got there ?" said Griffith, roughly ; not that he was angry with the man, but that his very skin was full of wrath, and it must exude. Mr. Leicester did not relish the tone, and replied, bluntly and sulkily, ' ' Pike for our Papists. " The answer, though rude, did not altogether displease Griffith ; it smacked of odium theologicum, a sen- timent he was learning to understand. "Put 'em down, and listen to me, Thomas Leicester," said he. And his manner was now so impress- ive that Leicester put down the bucket with lu- dicrous expedition, and gaped at him. " Now, my man, why do I keep you here?" " To take care of your game, squire, I do sup- pose." " What ! when you are the worst gamekeeper in the county? How many poachers do you catch in the year ? They have only to set one of their gang to treat you at the public house on a moonshiny night, and the rest can have all my pheasants at roost while you ar.e boozing and singing." "Like my betters in the parlor," muttered Tom. "But that is not all," continued Gaunt, pre- tending not to hear him. "You wire my rab- bits, and sell them in the town. Don't go to deny it, for I've half a dozen to prove it." Mr. Leicester looked very uncomfortable. His mas- ter continued — "I have known it this ten months, yet you are none the worse for't. Now, why do I keep you here, that any other gentleman in my place would send to Carlisle jail on a justice's warrant ?" Mr. Leicester, who had thought his master blind, and was so suddenly undeceived, hung his head and sniveled out, " 'Tis because you have a good heart, squire, and would not ruin a poor fellow for an odd rabbit or two." ' ' Stuff and nonsense ! " cried Gaunt. ' ' Speak your mind for once, or else begone for a liar as well as a knave." Thus appealed to, Leicester's gipsy eyes roved to and fro as if he were looking for some loop- hole to escape by ; but at last he faced the situ- ation. He said, with a touch of genuine feeling, ' ' D — n the rabbits ! I wish my hand had with- ered ere I touched one on them." But after this preface he sunk his voice to a whisper, and said, "I see what you are driving at, squire; and, since there is nobody with us (he took off his cap) — why, sir, 'tis this here mole I am in debt to, no doubt. " Then the gentleman and his servant looked one another silently in the face, and what with their standing in the same attitude and being both excited and earnest, the truth must be own- ed, a certain family likeness came out. Certain- ly their eyes were quite unlike. Leicester had his gipsy mother's — black, keen, and restless. Gaunt had his mother's — brown, calm, and steady. But the two men had the same stature, the same manly mould and square shoulders; and, though Leicester's cheek was brown as a berry, his forehead was singularly white for a man in his rank of life, and over his left temple, close to: the roots of the hair, was an oblong 64 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. mole as black as ink, that bore a close resem- blance in appearance and position to his mas- ter's. " Tom Leicester, I have been insulted." "That won't pass, sir. Who is the man ?" " One that I can not call out like a gentleman, and yet I must not lay on him with my cane, or I am like to get the sack as well as my servants. Tis the Popish priest, lad ; Brother Leonard, own brother to Old Nick ; he has got our dame's ear — she can not say him ' nay. ' She is turning away all my people, and filling the house with Papists, to please him. And when I interfered, she as good as told me I should go next ; and so I shall, I or else that priest." This little piece of exaggeration fired Tom Leicester. "5Jay ye so, squire? then just you whisper a word in my ear, and George and I will lay that priest by the heels, and drag him through the horse-pond. He won't come here to trouble you after that, /know." Gaunt 's eyes flashed triumph. " A friend in need is a friend indeed," said he. "Ay, you are right, lad. There must be no broken bones, and no bloodshed ; .the horse-pond is the- very thing ; and if she discharges you for it, take no heed of her. You shall never leave Hemshaw Castle for that good deed, or, if you do, I'll go with you ; for the world it is wide, and I'll never live a servant in the house where I have been a master. " They then put their heads together and con- certed the means by Avhich the priest at his very next visit was to be decoyed into the neighbor- hood of the horse-pond. And then they parted, and Griffith went to the " Red Lion." And a pair of black eyes, that had slyly watched this singular interview from an upper window, withdrew quietly ; and soon after, Tom Leicester found himself face to face with their owner, the sight of whom always made his heart beat a little faster. Caroline Ryder had been rather cold to him of late ; it was therefore a charming surprise when she met him, all wreathed in smiles, and, draw- ing him apart, began to treat him like a bosom friend, and tell him what had passed between the master, and her and Jane. Confidence be- gets confidence ; and so Tom told her in turn that the squire and the dame had come to words over it. "However," said he, "'tis all the priest's fault ; but bide a while, all of ye. " With this mysterious hint he meant to close his revelations. But Ryder intended nothing of the kind. Her keen eye had read the looks and gestures of Gaunt and Leicester, and these had shown her that something very strange and se- rious was going on. She had come out express- ly to learn what it Avas, and Tom was no match for her arts. She so smiled on him, and agreed with him, and led him, and drew him, and pump- ed him, that she got it all out of him on a prom- ise of secrecy. She then entered into it with spir- it, and being what they called a scholar, under- took to write a paper for Tom and his helper to pin on the priest's back. No sooner said than done. She left him, and speedily returned with the following document written out in large and somewhat straggling letters : "Honest Folk, behold a Mischievious Priest, which For causing of strife 'twixt man and wyfe Hath made acquaintaunce With Squire's horse-pond." And so a female conspirator was added to the plot. Mrs. Gaunt co-operated too, but, need I say, unconsciously. She was unhappy, and full of regret at what she had said. She took herself severely to task, and drew a very unfavorable comparison between herself and Brother Leonard. "How ill," she thought, "am I fitted to carry out that meek saint's views. See what my ungoverned temper has done. " So, then, having made so great a mistake, she thought the best thing she could do was to seek advice of Leonard at once. She was not without hopes he would tell her to postpone the projected change in her household, and so soothe her offended husband directly. She wrote a line requesting Leonard to call on her as soon as possible, and advise her in a great difficulty ; and she gave this note to Ry- der, and told her to send the groom off with it at once. Ryder squeezed the letter, and peered into it, and gathered its nature before she gave it to the groom to take to Leonard. When he was gone she went and told Tom Leicester, and he chuckled, and made his prep- arations accordingly. Then she retired to her own room, and went through a certain process I have indicated before as one of her habits — knitted her great black brows, and pondered the whole situation with a mental power that was worthy of a nobler sphere and higher materials. Her practical reverie, so to speak, continued until she was rung for to dress her mistress for dinner. Griffith was so upset, so agitated and restless, he could not stay long in any one place, not even in the "Red Lion." So he came home to din- ner, though he had mighty little appetite for it ; and this led to another little conjugal scene. Mrs. Gaunt mounted the great oak staircase to dress for dinner, languidly, as ladies are apt to do when reflection and regret come after ex- citement. Presently she heard a quick foot behind her : she knew it directly for her husband's, and her heart yearned. She did not stop, nor turn her head : womanly pride withheld her from direct submission ; but womanly tenderness and tact opened a way to reconciliation. She drew softly aside, almost to the Avail, and Avent sloAA r er ; and her hand, her sidelong drooping head, and her Avhole eloquent person, Avhispered plainly enough, " If somebody Avould like to make friends, here is the door open." Griffith saAv, but Avas too deeply Avounded : he passed her without stopping (the staircase was eight feet broad). But as he passed he looked at her and sighed, for he saw she Avas sorry. She heard, and sighed too. Poor things, they had lived so happy together for years. He Avent on. Her pride bent: "Griffith!" said she, very timidly. He turned and stopped at that. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 65 "Sweetheart," she murmured, "I was to blame. I was ungenerous. I forgot myself. Let me recall my words. You know they did not come from my heart." "You need not tell me that," said Griffith, doggedly. "I have no quarrel with you, and never will. You but do what you are bidden, and say what you are bidden. 1 take the wound from you as best I may : the man that set you on, 'tis him I'll be revenged on." "Alas! that you will think so," said she. "Believe me, dearest, that holy man would be the first to rebuke me for rebelling against my husband and flouting him. Oh, how could I say such things ? I thank you, and love you dearly for being so blind to my faults ; but I must not abuse your blindness. Father Leonard will put me to penance for the fault you forgive. He will hear no excuses. Prithee, now, be more just to that good man. " Griffith listened quietly, with a cold sneer upon his lip ; and this was his reply : "Till that mis- chief-making villain came between you and me, you never gave me a bitter word : we were the happiest pair in Cumberland. But now what are we ? And what shall we be in another year 01* tWO ? REVENGE ! !" He had begun gravely enough, but suddenly burst into an ungovernable rage ; and as he yelled out that furious word, his face was con- vulsed and ugly to look at — very ugly. Mrs. Gaunt started : she had not seen that vile expression in his face for many a year ; but she knew it again. "Ay!" he cried, "he has made me drink a bitter cup this many a day. But I'll force as bitter a one down his throat, and you shall see it done." Mrs. Gaunt turned pale at this violent threat ; but, being a high-spirited woman, she stiffened and hid her apprehensions loftily. " Madman that you are," said she, "I throw away excuses on Jealousy, and I waste reason upon phrenzy. I'll say no more things to provoke you ; but, to be sure, 'tis I that am offended now, and deeply too, as you will find. " " So be it," said Griffith, sullenly ; then, grind- ing his teeth, "he shall pay for that too." Then he went to his dressing-room, and she to her bedroom — Griffith hating Leonard, and Kate deeply indignant with Griffith. And, ere her blood could cool, she was sub- jected to the keen, cold scrutiny of another fe- male, and that female a secret rival. CHAPTER XXI. Would you learn what men gain by admitting a member of the fair sex into their conspiracies ? read the tragedy of Venice Preserved; and, by way of afterpiece, this little chapter. Mrs. Gaunt sat pale and very silent, and Caro- line Ryder stood behind, doing up her hair into a magnificent structure that added eight inches to the lady's height, and in this operation her own black hair and keen black eyes came close to the gOlden hair and deep blue eyes, now troub- led, and made a picture striking by contrast. As she was putting the finishing touches, she said quietly, " If you please, dame, I have some- what to tell you." Mrs. Gaunt sighed wearily, expecting some very minute communication. " Well, dame, I dare say I am risking my place, but I can't help it." "Another time, Ryder," said Mrs. Gaunt. " I am in no humor to be worried with my serv- ants' squabbles." "Nay, madam, 'tis not that at all — 'tis about Father Leonard. Sure you would not like him to be drawn through the horse-pond, and that is what they mean to do next time he comes here." In saying these words, the jade contrived to be adjusting Mrs. Gaunt's dress. The lady's heart gave a leap, and the servant's cunning finger felt it, and then felt a shudder run all over that stately frame. But after that Mrs. Gaunt seemed to turn to steel. She distrusted. Ryder, she could not tell why ; distrusted her, and was upon her guard. "You must be mistaken," said she. "Who would dare to lay hands on a priest in my house ?" "Well, dame, you see they egg one another on. Don't ask me to betray my fellow-servants, but let us balk them. I don't deceive you, dame ; if the good priest shows his face here, he will be thrown into the horse-pond, and sent home with a ticket pinned to his back. Them that is to do it are on the watch now, and have got their orders ; and 'tis a burning shame. To be sure I am not a Catholic; but religion is religion, and a more heavenly face I never saw ; and for it to be dragged through a filthy horse- pond !" Mrs. Gaunt clutched her inspector's «arm and turned pale. "The villains! the fiends I" she gasped. "Go ask your master to come to me this moment." Ryder took a step or two, then stopped. " Aiack, dame," said she, " that is not the way to do. You may be sure the others would not dare if my master had not shown them his mind." Mrs. Gaunt stopped her ears. "Don't tell me that he has ordered this impious, cruel, cowardly act. He is a lion,, and this comes from the heart of cowardly curs. What is to be done, woman ? Tell me, for you are cooler than I am." " Well, dame, if I were in your place, I'd just send him a line, and bid him stay away till the storm blows overt" "You are right. But who is to carry it? My own servants are traitors to me." " I'll cany it myself." "You shall. Put on your hat, and run through the wood ; that is the shortest way. " She wrote a few lines on a large sheet of paper, for note-paper there was none in those days ; sealed it, and gave it to Ryder. Ryder retired to put on her hat, and pry into the letter with greedy eyes. It ran thus : "Dear Father and Friend, — You must come hither no more at present. Ask the bear- er why this is, for I am ashamed to put it on paper. Pray for them ; for you can, but I can not. Pray for me too, bereft for a time of your counsels, I shall come and confess to you in a few days, when we are cooler, but you shall G6 GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. honor his house no more. Obey me in this one thing, who shall obey you in all tilings else, and am your indignant and sorrowful daughter, "Catharine Gaunt." "No more than that?" said Ryder. "Ay, she guessed as I should look. " She whipped on her hat and went out. Who should she meet, or, I might say, run against at the hall door but Father Leonard. He had come at once in compliance with Mrs. Gaunt's request. CHAPTER XXII. Mrs. Ryder uttered a little scream of dis- may. The priest smiled, and said sweetly, ' ' For- give me, mistress, I fear I startled you." "Indeed you did, sir," said she. She looked furtively round, and saw Leicester and his un- derling on the watch. Leicester, unaware of her treachery, made her a signal of intelligence. She responded to it, to gain time. It was a ticklish situation. Some would have lost their heads. Ryder was alarmed, but all the more able to defend her plans. Her first move, as usual with such women, was — a lie. "Our dame is in the Grove, sir," said she. " I am to bring you to her." The priest bowed his head gravely, and moved toward the Grove with downcast eyes. Ryder kept close to him for a few steps ; then she ran to Leicester, and whispered hastily, " Go you to the stable-gate ; I'll bring him round that way : hide now ; he suspects." "Ay, ay," said Leicester; and the confiding pair slipped away round a corner to wait for their victim. Ryder hurried him into the Grove, and, as soon as she had got him out of hearing, told him the truth. He turned pale ; for these delicate organiza- tions do not generally excel in courage. Ryder pitied him, and something of womanly feeling began to mingle with her plans. " They shall not lay a finger on you, sir," said she. " I'll scratch and scream, and bring the whole parish out sooner; but the best way is not to give them the chance: please you follow me." And she hurried him through the Grove, and then into an unfrequented path of the great wood. When they were safe from pursuit she turned and looked at him. He was a good deal agi- tated, but the uppermost sentiment was grati- tude. It soon found words, and, as usual, hap- py ones. He thanked her with dignity and ten- derness for the service she had done him, and asked her if she was a Catholic. "No," said she. At that his countenance fell, but only for a moment. "Ah! would you were," he said, earnestly. He then added, sweetly, "To be sure I have all the more reason to be grateful to you." "You are very welcome, reverend sir," said Ryder, graciously. "Religion is religion; and 'tis a barbarous thing that violence should be done to men of your cloth. " Having thus Avon his heart, the artful woman began at one and the same time to please and to probe him. " Sir, " said she, " be of good heart ; they have done you no harm, and themselves no good ; my mistress will hate them for it, and love you all the more." Father Leonard's pale cheek colored all over at these words, though he said nothing. " Since they won't let you come to her, she will come to you." " Do you think so ?" said he, faintly. " Nay, I am sure of it, sir. So would any woman. We still follow our hearts, and get our way by hook or by crook." Again the priest colored either with pleasure or with shame, or with both ; and the keen fem- inine eye perused him with microscopic power. She waited, to give him an opportunity of talk- ing to her and laying bare his feelings ; but he was either too delicate, too cautious, or too pure. So then she suddenly affected to remember her mistress's letter. She produced it with an apol- ogy. ^ He took it with unfeigned eagerness, and read it in silence ; and, having read it, he stood patient, with the tears in his eyes. Ryder eyed him with much curiosity and a little pity. "Don't you take on for that," said she. " Why, she will be more at her ease when she visits you at your place than here ; and she won't give you up, I promise." The priest trembled, and Ryder saw it. " But, my daughter," said he, " I am perplex- ed and grieved. It seems that I make mischief in your house ; that is an ill office ; I fear it is my duty to retire from this place altogether, rath- er than cause dissension between those whom the Church by holy sacrament hath bound together. " So saying, he hung his head and sighed. Ryder eyed him with a little pity, but more contempt. "Why take other people's faults on your back ?" said she. " My mistress is tied to a man she does not love ; but that is not your fault ; and he is jealous of you, that never gave him cause. If I was a man he should not ac- cuse me — for nothing, nor set his man on to drag me through a horse-pond — for nothing. I'd have the sweet as well as the bitter." Father Leonard turned and looked at her with a face full of terror. Some beautiful, honeyed fiend seemed to be entering his heart and tempt- ing it. "Oh, hush! my daughter, hush !" he said; ' ' what words are these for a virtuous woman to speak and a priest to hear ?" " There, I have offended you by my blunt way," said the cajoling hussy, in soft and timid tones. " Nay, not so ; but oh, speak not so lightly of things that peril the immortal soul." " Well, I have done," said Ryder. " You are out of danger now, so give you good-day. " He stopped her. "What ! before I have thanked you for your goodness ? Ah ! Mistress Ryder, 'tis on these occasions a priest sins by longing for riches to reward his benefactors. I have naught to offer you but this ring : it was my mother's — my dear mother's. " He took it off his finger to give it her. But the little bit of goodness that cleaves even to the heart of an intriguante revolted against her avarice. "Nay, poor soul, I'll not take it," said she ; GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. G7 and put her hands before her eyes, not to see it, for she knew she could not look at it long mid spare it. With this she left him ; but, ere she had gone far, her cunning and curiosity gained the upper hand again, and she whipped behind a great tree and crouched, invisible all but her nose and one piercing eye. all who met him he seemed a creature in whom religion had conquered all human frailty. Caroline Ryder hurried home with cruel exul- tation in her black eyes. But she soon found that the first thing she had to do was to defend herself. Leicester and his man met her, and the former looked gloomy, and the latter reproached her bitterly ; called her a double-faced jade, and She saw the priest make a few steps home- ward, then look around, then take Mrs. Gaunt's letter out of his pocket, press it passionately to his lips, and hide it tenderly in his bosom. This done, he went home with his eyes on the ground as usual, and measured steps. And to said he would tell the squire of the trick she had played them. But Ryder had her story ready in a moment. " 'Tis you I have saved, not him," said she. " He is something more than mortal : why, he told me of his own accord what you were there for ; but that, if you were so unlucky as to C8 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. lay hands on him, you would rot alive. It seems that has been tried out Stanhope way ; a man did but give him a blow, and his arm was stiff next day, and he never used it again ; and next his hair fell off his head, and then his eyes they turned to water and ran all out of him, and he died within the twelvemonth. " Country folk were nearly, though not quite, as superstitious at that time as in the Middle Ages. " Murrain on him, " said Leicester. " Catch me laying a finger on him. I'm glad he is gone ; and I hope he won't never come back no more." ** Not likely, since he can read all our hearts. Why, he told me something about you, Tom Lei- cester ; he says you are in love." "No! did he really, now?" and Leicester opened his eyes very wide. "And did he tell you who the lass is ?" "He did so; and surprised me properly." This with a haughty glance. Leicester held his tongue and turned red. " Who is it, mistress ?" asked the helper. " He didn't say I was to tell you, young man." And with these two pricks of her needle she left them both more or less discomfited, and went to scrutinize and anatomize her mistress's heart with plenty of cunning, but no mercy. She re- lated her own part in the affair very briefly, but dwelt with well-feigned sympathy on the priest's feelings. ' ' He turned as white as a sheet, ma'am, when I told him, and offered me his very ring off' his finger, he was so grateful ; poor man !" " You did not take it, I hope ?" said Mrs. Gaunt, quickly. " La, no, ma'am. I hadn't the heart." Mrs. Gaunt was silent a while. When she spoke again it was to inquire whether Ryder had given him the letter. " That I did ; and it brought the tears into his poor eyes ; and such beautiful eyes as he has, to be sure ! You would have pitied him if you had seen him read it, and cry over it, and then kiss it, and put it in his bosom, he did." Mrs. Gaunt said nothing, but turned her head away. The operator shot a sly glance into the looking- glass, and saw a pearly tear trickling down her subject's fair cheek. So she went on, all sympa- thy outside, and remorselessness within. " To think of that face, more like an angel's than a man's, to be dragged through a nasty horse-pond. 'Tis a shame of master to set his men on a cler- gyman." And so was proceeding, with well-act- ed and catching warmth, to dig as dangerous a pit for Mrs. Gaunt as ever was dug for any lady ; for whatever Mrs. Gaunt had been betrayed into saying, this Ryder Avould have used without mer- cy, and with diabolical skill. Yes, it was a pit, and the lady's pure but ten- der heart pushed her toward it, and her fiery temper drew her toward it. Yet she escaped it this time. The indignity, delicacy, and pride, that is oftener fouud in these old families than out of them, saved her from that peril. She did not see the trap, but she spumed the bait by native instinct. She threw up her hand in a moment with a queenly gesture, and stopped the tempter. "Not — one — word — from my servant against my husband in my hearing!" said she, superbly. And Ryder shrank back into herself directly. " Child, " said Mrs. Gaunt, ' ' you have done me a great service, and my husband too ; for, if this dastardly act had been done in his name, he would soon have been heartily ashamed of it and de- plored it. Such services can never be quite re- paid ; but you will find a purse in that drawer with five guineas ; it is yours ; and my lavender silk dress, be pleased to wear that about me, to remind me of the good office you have done me. And now, all you can do for me is to leave me, for I am very, very unhappy. " Ryder retired with the spoil, and Mrs. Gaunt leaned her head over her chair, and cried without stint. After this, no angry words passed between Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt ; but something worse, a settled coolness sprung up. As for Griffith, his cook kept her place, and the priest came no more to the castle ; so, having outwardly gained the day, he was ready to forget and forgive ; but Kate, though she would not let her servant speak ill of Griffith, was deeply indig- nant and disgusted with him. She met his ad- vances with such a stern coldness that he turned sulky and bitter in his turn. Husband and wife saw little of each other, and hardly spoke. Both were unhappy ; but Kate was angriest, and Griffith saddest. In an evil hour he let out his grief to Caroline Ryder. She seized the opportunity, and, by a show of affectionate sympathy and zeal, made herself almost necessary to him, and contrived to establish a very perilous relation between him and her. Matters went so far as this, that the poor man's eye used to brighten when he saw her com- ing. Yet this victory cost her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith, she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her attachment ; he yawned in her face ; she tried smooth detraction and innuendo ; he fired up directly and defended her, of whose conduct he had been complaining the very mo- ment before. Then she saw that there was but one way to the man's heart. Sore, and sick, and smiling, she took that way, resolving to bide her time, to worm herself in anyhow, and wait patiently till she could venture to thrust her mistress out. If any of my readers need be told why this she-Machiavel threw her fellow-conspirators over, the reason was simply this : on calm reflection, she saw it was not her interest to get Father Leonard insulted. She looked on him as her mistress's lover and her own best friend. " Was I mad ?" said she to herself. " My business is to keep him sweet upon her till they can't livo with- out one another, and then I'll tell Mm, and take your place in this house, my lady." And now it is time to visit that extraordinary man who was the cause of all this mischief; whom Gaunt called a villain, and Mrs. Gaunt a saint ; and, as usual, he was neither one nor the other. Father Leonard was a pious, pure, and noble- minded man, who had undertaken to defy Nature with Religion's aid, and, after years of successful warfare, now sustained one of those defeats to which such warriors have been liable in ever}' age. If his heart was pure, it was tender ; and Nature GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 69 never intended him to live all his days alone. After years of prudent coldness to the other sex, he fell" in with a creature that put him off his guard at first, she seemed so angelic. " At Wis- dom's gate Suspicion slept;" and, by degrees, which have been already indicated in this narra- tive, she whom the Church had committed to his spiritual care became his idol. Could he have foreseen this, it would never have happened ; he would have steeled himself, or left the country that contained this sweet temptation. But love stole on him, masked with religious zeal, and robed in a garment of light that seemed celestial. When the mask fell it was too late ; the power to resist the soft and thrilling enchantment was gone. The solitary man was too deep in love. Yet he clung still to that self-deception, with- out which he never could have been entrapped into an earthly passion : he never breathed a word of" love to her. It would have alarmed her ; it would have alarmed himself. Every syllable that passed between these two might have been pub- lished without scandal. But the heart does not speak by words alone : there are looks, and there are tones of voice that belong to love, and are his signs, his weapons ; and it was in these very tones the priest murmured to his gentle listener about "the angelic life" between spirits still lingering on earth, but purged from earthly dross ; and even about other topics less captivating to the religious imagination. He had persuaded her to found a school in this dark parish, and in it he taught the poor with exemplary and touching patience. Well, when he spoke to her about this school, it was in words of practical good sense, but in tones of love ; and she, being one of those feminine women who catch the tone they are addressed in, and instinctively answer in tune, and, moreover, seeing no ill, but good, in the subject of their con- versation, replied sometimes, unguardedly enough, in accents almost as tender. In truth, if Love Avas really a personage, as the heathens feigned, he must have often perched on a tree in that quiet grove, and chuckled and mocked when this man and woman sat and mur- mured together, in the soft seducing twilight, about the love of God. And now things had come to a crisis. Hus- band and wife went about the house silent and gloomy, the ghosts of their former selves ; and the priest sat solitary, benighted, bereaved of the one human creature he cared for. Day succeed- ed to day, and still she never came. Every morn- ing he said, " She will come to-day," and bright- ened with the hope. But the leaden hours crept by, and still she came not. Three sorrowful weeks went by, and he fell into deep dejection. He used to wander out at night, and come and stand Avhere he could see her windows with the moon shining on them ; then go slowly home, cold in body, and with his heart aching, lonely, deserted, and perhaps for- gotten. Oh, never till now had he known the utter aching sense of being quite alone in this weary World. One day, as he sat, drooping and listless, there came a light foot along the passage, a light tap at the door, and the next moment she stood before him, a little paler than usual, but lovelier than ever, for celestial pity softened her noble features. The priest started up with a cry of joy that ought to have warned her ; but it only brought a faint blush of pleasure to her cheek and the brimming tears to her eyes. ' ' Dear father and friend, " said she. ' ' What ! have you missed me ? Think, then, how I have missed you. But 'twas best for us both to let their vile passions cool first." Leonard could not immediately reply. The emotion of seeing her again so suddenly almost choked him. He needed all the self-possession he had been years acquiring not to throw himself at her knees and declare his passion to her. Mrs. Gaunt saw his agitation, but did not interpret it aright. She came eagerly and sat on a stool "beside him. " Dear father," she said, "do not let their insolence grieve you. They have smarted for it, and shall smart till they make their submission to you, and beg and entreat you to come to us again. Meantime, since you can not visit me, I visit you. Confess me, father, and then direct me with your counsels. Ah ! if you could but give me the Christian temper to carry them out firmly but meekly ! 'Tis my ungoverned spirit hath wrought all this mischief, mea culpa ! mea culpa J" By this time Leonard had recovered his self- possession, and he spent an hour of strange in- toxication confessing his idol, sentencing his idol to light penances, directing and advising his idol, and all in the soft murmurs of a lover. She left him, and the room seemed to darken. Two days only elapsed, and she came again. Visit succeeded to visit ; and her affection seem- ed boundless. The insult he had received was to be avenged in one place, and healed in another, and, if pos- sible, effaced with tender hand. So she kept all her sweetness for that little cottage, and all her acidity for Hernshaw Castle. It was an evil hour when Griffith attacked her saint with violence. The woman was too high- spirited, and too sure of her own rectitude, to endure that ; so, instead of crushing her, it drove her to retaliation and to imprudence. These visits to console Father Leonard were quietly watched by Ryder, for one thing. But, worse than that, they placed Mrs. Gaunt in a new position with Leonard, and one that melts the female heart. She was now the protectress and the consoler of a man she admired and re- vered. I say if any thing on earth can breed love in a grand female bosom, this will. She had put her foot on a sunny slope clad with innocent-looking flowers, but more and more precipitous at every step, and perdition at the bottom. CHAPTER XXIII. Father Leonard, visited, soothed, and petted by his idol, recovered his spirits, and, if he pined during her absence, he was always so joyful in her presence that she thought, of course, he was permanently happy ; so then, being by nature magnanimous and placable, she began to smile on her husband again, and a tacit reconciliation came about by natural degrees. But this produced a startling result. Leonard, as her confessor, had only to follow 70 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. precedents, and ask questions his. Church has printed for the use of confessors, and he soon learned enough to infer that their disunion had given way. The consequence was that one day, being off his guard, or literally unable to contain his bursting heart any longer, he uttered a cry of jealous ag- ony, and then, in a torrent of burning, melting words, appealed to her pity. He painted her hus- band's happiness and his own misery and barren desolation with a fervid, passionate eloquence that paralyzed his hearer, and left her pale and trembling, and the tears of pity trickling down her cheek. Those silent tears calmed him a little, and he begged her forgiveness, and awaited his doom. " I pity you," said she, angelically. "What ! you jealous of my husband ? Oh, pray to Christ and our Lady to cure you of this folly. " She rose, fluttering inwardly, but calm as a statue on the outside, gave him her hand^ and went home very slowly, and the moment she was out of his sight she drooped her head like a crush- ed flower. She was sad, ashamed, alarmed. Her mind was in a whirl ; and, were I to imi- tate those writers who undertake to dissect and analyze the heart at such moments, and put the exact result on paper, I should be apt to sacrifice truth to precision ; I must stick to my old plan, and tell you what she did : that will surely be some index to her mind, especially with my fe- male readers. She went home straight to her husband ; he was smoking his pipe after dinner. She drew her chair close to him, and laid her hand tender- ly on his shoulder. " Griffith," she said, "will you grant your wife a favor ? You once prom- ised to take me abroad : I desire to go now : I long to see foreign countries : I am tired of this place. I want a change. Prithee, prithee take me hence this very day." Griffith looked aghast, i ' Why, sweetheart, it takes a deal of money to go abroad; we must get in our rents first. " "Nay, I have a hundred pounds laid by." "Well, but what a fancy to take all of a sud- den!" " Oh, Griffith, don't deny me what I ask you, with my arm round your neck, dearest. It is no fancy. I want to be alone with you, far fr.om. this place where coolness has come between us. " And with this she fell to crying and sobbing, and straining him tight to her bosom, as if she feared to lose him or be taken from him. Griffith kissed her, and told her to cheer up ; he was not the man to deny her any thing. " Just let me get my hay in," said he, " and I'll take you to Rome, if you like. " " No, no ; to-day, or to-morrow at farthest, or you don't love me as I deserve to be loved by you this day." "Now, Kate, my darling, be reasonable. I must get my hay in, and then I am your man." Mrs. Gaunt had gradually sunk almost to her knees. She now started up with nostrils ex- panding and her blue eyes glittering. "Your hay!" she cried, with bitter contempt; "your hay before you/wife ? That is how you love me. " And, the next moment, she seemed to turn from a fiery woman to a glacier. Griffith smiled at all this with that lordly su- periority the male of our species sometimes wears when he is behaving like a dull ass, and smoked his pipe, and resolved to indulge her whim as soon as ever he had got his hay in. CHAPTER XXIV. Showery weather set in, and the hay had to be turned twice, and left in cocks instead of car- ried. Griffith spoke now and then about the foreign tour, but Kate deigned no reply whatever, and the chilled topic died out before the wet hay could be got in ; and so much for Procrastination. Meantime Betty Gough was sent for to mend the house-linen. She came every other day aft- er dinner, and sat working alone beside Mrs. Gaunt till dark. Caroline Ryder put her own construction on this, and tried to make friends with Mrs. Gough, intending to pump her. But Mrs. Gough gave her short, dry answers. Ryder then felt sure that Gough was a go-between, and, woman-like, turned up her nose at her with marked contempt. For why ? This office of go-between was one she especially coveted for herself under the cir- cumstances, and a little while ago it had seemed within her grasp. One fine afternoon the hay was all earned, and Griffith came home in good spirits to tell his wife he was ready to make the grand tour with her. He was met at the gate by Mrs. Gough with a face of great coneera. She begged him to come and see the dame ; she had slipped on the oak stairs, poor soul ! and hurt her back. Griffith tore up the stairs, and found Kate in the drawing-room lying on a sofa, and her doctor by her side. He came in, trembling like a leaf, and clasped her piteously in his arms. At this she uttered a little patient sigh of pain, and the doctor begged him to moderate himself; there was no immediate cause of alarm ; but she must be kept quiet. She had strained her back, and her nerves were shaken by the fall. "Oh, my poor Kate!" cried Griffith ; and would let nobody else touch her. She was no longer a tall girl, but a statuesque woman ; yet he carried her in his Herculean arms up to her bed. She turned her head toward him and shed a gentle tear at this proof of his love, but the next moment she was cold again, and seemed weary of her life. An invalid's bed was sent to her by the doctor at her own request, and placed on a small bed- stead. She lay on this at night, and on a sofa by day. Griffith was now as good as a widower, and Caroline Ryder improved the opportunity. She threw herself constantly in his way, all smiles, small talk, and geniality. Like many healthy men, your sickness wearied him if it lasted over two days ; and whenever he came out, chilled and discontented, from his in- valid wife, there was a fine, buoyant, healthy young woman ready to chat with him, and brim- ming over with undisguised admiration. True, she was only a servant — a servant to the core. But she had been always about ladies, and could wear their surface as readily as she could their gowns. Moreover, Griffith himself lacked dignity and reserve : he would talk to any body. The two women began to fill the relative situ- ations of clouds and sunshine. GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 71 But, ere this had lasted long, the enticing con- ! tact with the object of her lawless fancy inflamed Ryder, and made her so impatient that she struck her long-meditated blow a little prematurely. The passage outside Mrs. Gaunt's door had a large window ; and one day, while Griffith was with his wife, Ryder composed herself on the win- dow-seat in a forlorn attitude, too striking and unlike her usual gay demeanor to pass unnoticed. Griffith came out and saw this drooping, dis- consolate figure. "Hallo!" said he, "what is wrong with you f a little fretfully. A deep sigh was the only response. " Had words with your sweetheart ?" "You know I have no sweetheart, sir." The good-natured squire made an attempt or two to console her and find out what was the matter, but he could get nothing out of her but monosyllables and sighs. At last the crocodile contrived to cry ; and, having thus secured his pity, she said, "There, never heed me. I'm a foolish woman ; I can't bear to see my dear mas- ter so abused." "What d'ye mean?" said Griffith, sternly. Her very first shaft wounded his peace of mind. ' ' Oh, no matter ! Why should I be your friend and my own enemy ? If I tell you I shall lose my place. " "Nonsense, girl, you shall never lose your place while I am here. " "Well, I hope not, sir, for I am very happy here — too happy, methinks, when you speak kind- ly to me. Take no notice of what I said. 'Tis best to be blind at times." The simple squire did not see that this artful creature was playing the stale game of her sex — stimulating his curiosity under pretense of put- ting him off. He began to fret with suspicion and curiosity, and insisted on her speaking out. "Ah! but I am so afraid you will hate me," said she, " and that will be worse than losing my place." Griffith stamped on the ground. "What is it ?" said he, fiercely. Ryder seemed frightened. "It is nothing," said she ; then she paused, and added, "but my folly. I can't bear to see you waste your feel- ings. She is not so ill as you fancy. " * ' Do you mean to say that my wife is pre- tending ?" 1 ' How can I say that ? I wasn't there ; nobody saw her fall, nor heard her either, and the house full of people. No doubt there is something the matter with her, but I do believe her heart is in more trouble than her back." "And what troubles her heart ? Tell me, and she shall not fret long." "Well, sir, then just you send for Father Leonard, and she will get up, and walk as she used, and smile on you as she used. That man is the main of her sickness, you take my word." Griffith turned sick at heart ; and the strong man literally staggered at this envenomed thrust of a weak woman's tongue. But he struggled with the poison. " What d'ye mean, woman ?" said he. " The priest hasn't been near her these two months." "That is it, sir," replied Ryder, quietly; "he is too wise to come here against your will, and she is bitter against you for frightening him away. Ask yourself, sir, didn't she change to you the moment that you threatened that Leon- ard with the horse-pond ?" " That is true !" gasped the wretched husband. Yet he struggled again. " But she made it up with me after that. Why, 'twas but the other day she begged me to go abroad with her, and take her away from this place." "Ah? indeed!" said Ryder, bending her black brows, " did she so?" "That she did," said Griffith, joyfully : "so you see you are mistaken. " ' ' You should have taken her at her word, sir, " was all the woman's reply. " Well, you see, the hay was out, so I put it off; and then came the cursed rain day after day, and so she cooled upon it." "Of course she did, sir." Then, with a so- lemnity that appalled her miserable listener, "I'd give all I'm worth if you had taken her at her word that minute. But that is the way with you gentlemen ; you let the occasion slip, and we that be women never forgive that : she won't give you the same chance again, / know. Now, if I was not afraid to make you unhappy, I'd tell you why she asked you to go abroad. She felt herself weak and saw her danger ; she found she could not resist that Leonard any longer, and she had the sense to see it wasn't worth her while to ruin herself for him, so she asked you to save her from him — that is the plain English. And you didn't." At this Griffith's face wore an expression of agony so horrible that Ryder hesitated in her course. "There, there," said she, "pray don't look so, dear master ! After all, there's nothing certain ; and perhaps I am too severe where I see you ill treated ; and, to be sure, no woman could be cold to you unless she was bewitched out of her seven senses by some other man. I couldn't use you as mistress does ; but then there's nobody I care a straw for in these parts except my dear master." Griffith took no notice of this overture ; the potent poison of jealousy was coursing through all his veins and distorting his ghastly face. "O God!" he gasped, "can this thing be? My wife ! the mother of my child ! It is a lie ! I can't believe it — I won't believe it. Have pity on me, woman, and think again, and unsay your words ; for, if 'tis so, there will be murder in this house. " Ryder was alarmed. ' ' Don't talk so, " said she, hastily , " no woman born is worth that ; besides, as you say, what do we know against her ? She is a gentlewoman, and well brought up. Now, dear master, you have got one friend in this house, and that is me : I know women better than you do. Will you be ruled by me ?" " Yes, I will ; for I do believe you care a lit- tle for me. " "Then don't you believe any thing against our dame. Keep quiet till you know more. Don't you be so simple as to accuse her to her face, or you'll never learn the truth. Just you watch her quietly, without seeming, and I'll help you. Be a man, and know the truth." "I will!" said Griffith, grinding his teeth, "and I believe she will come out pure as snow." "Well, I hope so too," said Ryder, dryly. Then she added, " But don't you be seen speak- ing to me too much, sir, or she will suspect me, and then she will be on her guard with me. 72 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. When I have any thing particular to tell you, I'll cough — so, and then I'll run out into the Grove : nobody goes there now." Griffith did not see the hussy was contriving a series of assignations. He fell into the trap bodily. The life this man led was now infernal. He watched his wife night and day to detect her heart ; he gave up hunting, he deserted the i ' Red Lion ;" if he went out of doors, it was but a step ; he hovered about the place to see if mes- sages came or went ; and he spent hours in his wife's bedroom, watching her, grim, silent, and sombre, to detect her inmost heart. His flesh wasted visibly, and his ruddy color paled. Hell was in his heart. Ay, two hells — jealousy and suspense. Mrs. Gaunt saw directly that something was amiss, and ere long she divined what it was. But, if he was jealous, she was proud as Luci- fer. So she met his ever-watchful eye with the face of a marble statue. Only in secret her heart quaked and yearned, and she shed many a furtive tear, and was sore, sore perplexed. Meantime Ryder was playing with her master's anguish like a cat with a mouse. Upon the pretense of some petty discovery or other, she got him out day after day into the Grove, and, to make him believe in her candor and impartiality, would give him feeble reasons for thinking his wife loved him still, taking care to overpower these reasons with some little piece of strong good sense and subtle observation. It is the fate of moral poisoners to poison themselves as well as their victims. This is a just retribution, and it fell upon this female Iago. 11 er wretched master now loved his wife to dis- traction, yet hated her to the death ; and Ryder loved her master passionately, yet hated him intensely, by fits and starts. These secret meetings on which she had count- ed so, what did she gain by them? She saw that, with all her beauty, intelligence, and zeal for him, she was nothing to him still. He suspected, he sometimes haled his wife, but he was always full of her. There was no getting any other wedge into his heart. This so embittered Ryder that one day she revenged herself on him. He had been saying that no earthly torment could equal his ; all his watching had shown him nothing for certain. ' ' Oh, " said he, " if I could only get proof of her innocence or proof of her guilt! Any thing better than the misery of doubt. It gnaws my heart, it consumes my flesh. I can't sleep, 1 can't eat, I can't sit down. I envy the dead that lie at peace. Oh, my heart ! my heart!" 1 ' And all for a woman that is not young, nor half so handsome as yourself. Well, sir, I'll try and cure you of your doubt, if that is what tor- ments you. When you threatened that Leonard, he got his orders to come here no more. But she Aisited him at his place again and again." " 'Tis false ! How know you that ?" "As soon as your back was turned she used to order her horse and ride to him." " How do you know she went to him ?" "I mounted the tower, and saw the way she took." Griffith's face was a piteous sight. He stam- mered out, "Well, he is her confessor. She always visited him at times." "Ay, sir; but in those days her blood was cool, and his too ; but bethink you now, when you threatened the man with the horse-pond, he became your enemy. All revenge is sweet, but what revenge is so sweet to any man as that which came to his arms of its own accord ? I do notice that men can't read men, but any woman can read a woman. Maids they are re- served, because their mothers have told thera that is the only way to get married. But what have a wife and a priest to keep them distant ? Can they ever hope to come together lawfully ? That is why a priest's light-o'-love is always some honest man's wife. What had those two to keep them from folly? Old Betty Gough? Why, the mistress had bought her, body and soul, long ago. No, sir, you had no friend there; and you had three enemies — love, revenge, and opportunity. Why, what did the priest say to me? I met him not ten yards from here. 'Ware the horse -pond!' says I. Says he, ' Since I am to have the bitter, Fll have the siceet as well.' "* These infernal words were not spoken in vain. Griffith's features were horribly distorted, his eyes rolled fearfully, and he fell to the ground, grinding his teeth, and foaming at the mouth. An epileptic fit ! An epileptic fit is a terrible sight ; the simple description of one in our medical books is ap- palling. And in this case it was all the more fearful, the subject being so strong and active. Caroline Ryder shrieked with terror, but no one heard her ; at all events, no one came ; to be sure, the place had a bad name for ghosts, etc. She tried to hold his head, but could not, for his body kept bounding from the earth with in- conceivable elasticity and fury, and his arms flew in every direction ; and presently Ryder received a violent blow that almost stunned her. She lay groaning and trembling beside the victim of her poisonous tongue and of his own passion. When she recovered herself fie was snorting rather than breathing, but lying still and pale enough, his eyes set and glassy. She got up, and went with uneven steps to a little rill hard by, and plunged her face in it ; then filled her beaver hat, and came and dashed water repeatedly in his face. He came to his senses by degrees, but was weak as an infant. Then Ryder wiped the foam from his lips, and, kneeling on her knees, laid a soft hand upon his heavy head, shedding tears of pity and remorse, and sick at heart herself. For what had she gained by blackening her rival? The sight of his bodily agony, and his ineradicable love. Mrs. Gaunt sat out cf shot, cold, calm, supe- rior. Yet, in the desperation of her passion, it was something to nurse his weak head an instant and shed hot tears upon his brow; it was a positive joy, and soon proved a fresh and inevitable temptation. "My poor master," said she, tenderly, "I * Compare this statement with p. 66. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. ra never will say a word to you again. It is better to be blind. My God! how you cling to her that feigns a broken back to be rid of you, when there are others as well to look at, and ever so much younger, that adore every hair on your head, and would follow you round the world for one kind look." " Let no one love me like that," said Griffith, feebly ; "to love so is to be miserable." "Pity her, then, at least," murmured Ryder; and, feeling she had quite committed herself now, her bosom panted under Griffith's ear, and told him the secret she had kept till now. My female readers will sneer at this tempta- tion ; my male readers know that scarcely one man out of a dozen, sick, sore, and hating her he loved, would have turned away from the illicit consolation thus offered to him in his hour of weakness with soft seducing tones, warm tears, and heart that panted at his ear. CHAPTER XXV. How did poor faulty Griffith receive it ? He raised his head, and turned his brown eye gently but full upon her. " My poor girl," said he, "I see what you are driving at. But that will not do. I have nothing to give you in ex- change. I hate my wife that I loved so dear ; d — n her ! d — n her ! But I hate all woman- kind for her sake. Keep you clear of me. I would ruin no poor girl for heartless sport. I shall have blood on my hands ere long, and that is enough." And, with these alarming words, he seemed suddenly to recover all his vigor; for he rose and stalked away at once, and never looked be- hind him. Ryder made no farther attempt. She sat down and shed bitter tears of sorrow and morti- fication. After this cruel rebuff she must hate some- body, and, with the justice of her sex, she pitch- ed on Mrs. Gaunt, and hated her like a demon, and watched to do her mischief by hook or by crook. Griffith's appearance and manner caused Mrs. Gaunt very serious anxiety. His clothes hung loose on his wasted frame ; his face was of one uniform "sallow tint, like a maniac's ; and he sat silent for hours beside his wife, eying her askant from time to time like a surly mastiff guarding some treasure. She divined what was passing in his mind, and tried to soothe him, but almost in vain. He was sometimes softened for the moment ; but hceret lateri let kalis arundo ; he still hovered about, watching her and tormenting himself, gnawed mad by three vultures of the mind — doubt, jealousy, and suspense. Then Mrs. Gaunt wrote letters to Father Leonard ; hitherto she had only sent him short messages. Betty Gough carried these letters and brought the answers. I Griffith, thanks to the hint Ryder had given him, suspected this, and waylaid the old woman, and roughly demanded to see the letter she was carrying. She stoutly protested she had none. He seized her, turned her pockets inside out, and found a bunch of keys ; item, a printed dialogue between Peter and Herod, omitted in the canoni- cal books, but described by the modern discover- er as an infallible charm for the toothache ; item, a brass thimble ; item, half a nutmeg. " Curse your cunning,'' said he ; and went off muttering. The old woman tottered trembling to Mrs. Gaunt, related this outrage with an air of injured innocence, then removed her cap, undid her hair, and took out a letter from Leonard. " This must end, and shall," said Mrs. Gaunt, firmly, " else it will drive him mad and me too." Bolton fair-day came. It was a great fair, and had attractions for all classes. There were cattle and horses of all kinds for sale, and also shows, games, wrestling, and dancing till day- break. All the sen-ants had a prescriptive right to go to this fair, and Griffith himself had never missed one. He told Kate overnight he would go if it were not for leaving her alone. The words were kinder than their meaning, but Mrs. Gaunt had the tact or the candor to take them in their best sense. "And I would go Avith you, my dear," said she, "but I should only be a drag. Never heed me ; give yourself a day's pleasure, for indeed you need it. I am in care about you, you are so dull of late." " Well, I will," said Griffith. " I'll not mope here when all the rest are merry-making." Accordingly, next day, about eleven in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode to the fair, leaving the house empty, for all the serv- ants were gone except the old housekeeper ; she was tied to the fireside by rheumatics. Even Ryder started, with a new bonnet and red rib- bons ; but that was only a blind. She slipped back and got unperceived into her own bed- room. Griffith ran through the fair, but could not enjoy it. Hcerebat lateri arundo. He came gal- loping back to watch his wife, and see whether Betty Gough had come again or not. As he rode into the stable-yard he caught sight of Ryder's face at an upper window. She look- ed pale and agitated, and her black eyes flashed with a strange expression. She made him a sig- nal which he did not understand, but she joined him directly after in the stable-yard. "Come quietly with me," said she, solemnly. He hooked his horse's rein to the wall, and followed her, trembling. She took him up the back stairs, and, when she got on the landing, she turned and said, ' ' Where did you leave her ?" " In her own room." " See if she is there now," said Ryder, point- ing to the door. Griffith tore the door open ; the room was empty. ' ' Nor is she to be found in the house, " said Ryder, ' ' for I've been in every room. " 'Griffith's face turned livid, and he staggered and leaned against the wall. "Where is she ?" said he, hoarsely. "Humph!" said Ryder, fiendishly. "Find him, and you will find her." "I'll find them if they are above ground," cried Griffith, furiously, and he rushed into his bedroom and soon came out again, with a fear- ful purpose written on his ghastly features and 74 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. in his bloodshot eyes, and a loaded pistol in his hand. Ryder was terrified ; hut, instead of succumb- ing to terror, she flew at him like a cat and wreathed her arms round him. "What would you do?" cried she. "Mad- man, would you hang for them, and break my heart ? — the only woman in the world that loves you. Give me the pistol. Nay, I will have it." And, with that extraordinary power excite- ment lends her sex, she wrenched it out of his hands. He gnashed his teeth with fury, and clutched her with a gripe of iron. She screamed with pain : he relaxed his grasp a little at that : she turned on him and defied him. "I won't let you get into trouble for a priest and a wanton," she cried; "you shall kill me first. Leave me the pistol, and pledge me your sacred word to do them no harm, and then I'll tell you where they are. Refuse me this, and you shall go to your graA'e and know nothing more than you know now." "No, no; if you are a woman, have pity on me ; let me come at them. There, I'll use no weapon. I'll tear them to atoms with these hands. Where are they ?" " May I put the pistol away, then?" "Yes, take it out of my sight; so best. Where are they?" Ryder locked the pistol up in one of Mrs. Gaunt's boxes. Then she said, in a trembling voice, "Follow me." He followed her in awful silence. She went rather slowly to the door that open- ed on the lawn, and then she hesitated. "If you are a man, and have any feeling for a poor girl who loves you — if you are a gentleman, and respect your word — no violence." "I promise," said he. ' ' Where are they ?" "Nay, nay, I fear I shall rue the day I told you. Promise me once more : no bloodshed — upon your soul." " I promise. Where are they ? " " God forgive me ; they are in the Grove." He bounded away from her like some beast of prey, and she crouched and trembled on the steps of the door ; and, now that she realized what she was doing, a sickening sense of dire misgiving came over her and made her feel quite faint. And so the weak, but dangerous creature sat crouching and quaking, and.launched the strong one. Griffith was soon in the Grove, and the first thing he saw was Leonard and his wife walking together in earnest conversation. Their backs were toward him. Mrs. Gaunt, whom he had left lying on a sofa, and who professed herself scarce able to walk half a dozen times across the room, was now springing along, elastic as a young greyhound, and full of fire and animation. The miserable husband saw, and his heart died within him. He leaned against a tree and groaned. The deadly sickness of his heart soon gave way to sombre fury. He came softly after them, with ghastly cheek, and bloodthirsty eyes like red-hot coals. They stopped, and he heard his wife say, " 'Tis a solemn promise, then — this very night. " The priest bowed assent. Then they spoke in so low a voice he could not hear ; but his wife pressed a purse upon Leonard, and Leonard hesitated, but ended by taking it. Griffith uttered a yell like a tiger, and rushed between them with savage violence, driving the lady one way with his wrists, and the priest an- other. She screamed ; he trembled in silence. Griffith stood a moment between these two pale faces, silent and awful. Then he faced his wife. " You vile wretch !" he cried; "so you buy your own dishonor and mine." He raised his hand high over her head ; she never winced. " Oh ! but for my oath, I'd lay you dead at my feet. But no ; I'll not hang for a priest and a wanton. So, this is the thing you love, and pay it to love you. " And, with all the mad inconsistency of rage, which mixes small things and great, he tore the purse out of Leon- ard's hand, and then seized him felly by the throat. At that the high spirit of Mrs. Gaunt gave way to abject terror. "Oh, mercy! mercy!" she cried ; " it is all a mistake." And she clung to his knees. He spurned her furiously away. * ' Don't touch me, woman," he cried, " or you are dead. Look at this!" And in a moment, with gigantic strength and fury, he dashed the priest down at her feet. ' ' I know ye, ye proud devil, " he cried ; " love the thing you have seen me tread upon — love it, if ye can!" And he literally trampled upon the poor priest with both feet. Leonard shrieked for mercy. "None, in this world or the next," roared Griffith ; but the next moment he took fright at himself. ' ' God ! " he cried, ' ' I must go, or kill. Live and be damned forever, the pair of ye." And with this he fled from them, grinding his teeth and beating the air with his clenched fists. He darted to the stable-yard, sprang on his horse, and galloped away from Hernshaw Castle, With the face, the eyes, the gestures, the inco- herent mutterings of a raving Bedlamite. CHAPTER XXVI. At the fair the wrestling was ended, and the tongues going over it all again, and throwing the victors ; the greasy pole, with leg of mutton at- tached by ribbons, was being hoisted, and the swings flying, and the lads and lasses footing it to the fife and tabor, and the people chattering in groups, when the clatter of a horse's feet was heard, and a horseman burst in and rode reck- lessly through the market-place ; indeed, if his noble horse had been as rash as he was, some would have been trampled under foot. The rid- er's face was ghastly ; such as were not exactly in his path had time to see it, and wonder how this terrible countenance came into that merry place. Thus, as he passed, shouts of dismay arose, and a space opened before him, and then closed behind him with a great murmur that fol- lowed at his heels. Tom Leicester was listening, spell-bound, on the outskirts of the throng, to the songs and hu- morous tirades of a peddler selling his wares, and was saying to himself, "I too will be a peddler." Hearing the row, he turned round, and saw his master just coming down with that stricken face. GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 75 Tom could not decipher his own name in print or manuscript, and these are the fellows that heat us all at reading countenances ; he saw in a moment that some great calamity had fallen on Griffith's head, and nature stirred in him. He darted to his master's side and seized the bridle. " What is up ?" he cried. But Griffith did not answer nor notice; his ears were almost deaf, and his eyes, great and staring, were fixed right ahead, and, to all ap- pearance, he did not see the people ; he seemed to be making for the horizon. ' ' Master ! for the love of Heaven, speak to me," cried Leicester. "What have they done to you ? Whither be you going, with the face of a ghost?" "Away, from the hangman, " shrieked Griffith, still staring at the horizon. " Stay me not ; my hands itch for their throats ; my heart thirsts for their blood ; but I'll not hang for a priest and a wanton. " Then he suddenly turned on Leicester, "Let thou go, or — " and he lifted up his heavy riding-whip. Then Leicester let go the rein, and the whip descended on the horse's flank; he went clatter- ing furiously over the stones, and drove the thin- ner groups apart like chaff, and his galloping feet were soon heard fainter and fainter till they died away in the distance. Leicester stood gaping. Griffith's horse, a black hunter of singular power and beauty, carried his wretched master well that day; he went on till sunset, trotting, cantering, and walking without intermission ; the whip ceased to touch him, the rein never checked him. He found he was the master, and he went his own way. He took his broken rider back into the county where he had been foaled. But a few miles from his native place they came to the "Packhorse," a pretty little road-side inn, with farm-yard and buildings at the back. He had often baited there in his infancy ; and now, stiff and stumbling with fatigue, the good horse could not pass the familiar place; he walked gravely into the stable-yard, and there fairly came to an end; craned out his drooping head, crooked his limbs, and seemed of wood. And no wOnder — he was ninety-three miles from his last corn. Paul Carrick, a young farrier who frequented the "Packhorse," happened just then to be loung- ing at the kitchen door, and saw him come in. He turned directly, and shouted into the house, " Ho ! Master Vint, come hither. Here's Black Dick come home, and brought you a worshipful customer." The landlord bustled out of the kitchen, cry- ing, " They are welcome both." Then he came lowly louting to Griffith, cap in hand, and held the horse, poor immovable brute ; and his wife courtesied perseveringly at the door. % Griffith dismounted, and stood there looking like one in a dream. "Please you come in, sir," said the landlady, smiling professionally. He followed her mechanically. "Would your worship be private? We keep a parlor for gentles." "Ay, let me be alone," he groaned. Mercy Vint, the daughter, happened to be on the stairs and heard him ; the voice startled her, and she turned round directly to look at the speaker ; but she only saw his back going into the room, and then he flung himself like a sack into the arm-chair. The landlady invited him to order supper ; he declined. She pressed him. He flung a piece of money on the table, and told her savagely to score his supper, and leave him in peace. She flounced out with a red face, and com- plained to her husband in the kitchen. Harry Vint rung the crown piece on the table before he committed himself to a reply. It rang like a bell. "Churl or not, his coin is good," said Harry Vint, philosophically. "I'll eat his supper, dame, for that matter." " Father," whispered Mercy, "I do think the gentleman is in trouble." "And that is no business of mine, neither," said Harry Vint. Presently the guest they were discussing called loudly for a quart of burnt wine. When it was ready, Mercy offered to take it in to him. She was curious. The landlord looked up rather surprised, for his daughter attended to the farm, but fought shy of the inn and its busi- ness. "Take it, lass, and welcome for me," said Mrs. Vint, pettishly. Mercy took the wine in, and found Griffith with his head buried in his hands. She stood a while with the tray, not knowing what to do. Then, as he did not move, she said, softly, ' ' The wine, sir, an if it please you. " Griffith lifted his head, and turned two eyes> clouded with suffering upon her ; he saw a bux- om,', blooming young woman, with remarkably dove-like eyes, that dwelt with timid, kindly cu- riosity upon him. He looked at her in a half distracted way, and then put his hand to the mug. "Here's perdition to all false women!" said he, and tossed half the wine down at a sin- gle draught. " 'Tis not to me you drink, sir," said Mercy, with, gentle dignity. Then she courtesied mod- estly and retired, discouraged, not offended. The wretched Griffith took no notice — did not even see he had repulsed a friendly visitor. The wine, taken on an empty stomach, soon stupefied him, and he staggered to bed. He awoke at daybreak ; and oh ! the agony of that waking. He lay sighing a while, with his hot skin quiv- ering on his bones, and his heart like lead ; then got up and flung his clothes on hastily, and asked how far to the nearest sea-port. Twenty miles. He called for his horse. The poor brute was dead lame. He cursed that good servant for going lame. He walked round and round like a wild beast, chafing and fuming a while, then sank into a tor- por of dejection, and sat with his head bowed on the table all day. He ate scarcely any food, but drank wine free- ly, remarking, however, that it was false-hearted stuff ; did him no good ; and had no taste as wine used to have. "But nothing is what it was," said he. " Even I was happy once. But that seems years ago." "Alas ! poor gentleman ; God comfort you," said Mercy Vint, and came with the tears in her dove-like eves, and said to her father, "To be sure his worship hath been crossed in love ; and 7G GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. what could she be thinking of? Such a hand- some, well-made gentleman !" "Now that is a wench's first thought," said Harry Vint : " more likely lost his money gam- bling or racing. But, indeed, I think 'tis his head is disordered, not his heart. I wish the ' Packhorse' was quit of him, maugre his laced coat. We want no kill-joys here." That night he was heard groaning and talk- ing, and did not come down at all. So at noon Mrs. Vint knocked at his door : a weak voice bade her enter ; she found him shiv- ering, and he asked her for a fire. She grumbled, out of hearing, but lighted a fire. Presently his voice was heard hallooing : he wanted all the windows open, he was so burning hot. The landlady looked at him, and saw his face was flushed and swollen, and he complained of pain in all his bones. She opened the windows, and asked him would he have a doctor sent for : he shook his head contemptuously. However, toward evening he became delirious, and raved and tossed, and rolled his head as if it was an intolerable weight he wanted to get rid of. The females of the family were for sending at once for a doctor, but the prudent Harry de- murred. "Tell me first who is to pay the fee," said he. " I've seen a fine coat with the pockets empty before to-day." The women set up their throats at him with one accord, each after her kind. "Out, fie!" said Mercy; "are we to do naught for charity ?" " Why, there's his horse, ye foolish man," said Mrs. Vint. " Ay, ye are both wiser than me," said Harry Vint, ironically. And soon after that he went out softly. The next minute he was in the sick man's room, examining his pockets. To his infinite surprise, he found twenty gold pieces, a quantity of silver, and some trinkets. He spread them all out on the table and gloat- ed on them with greedy eyes. They looked so inviting that he said to himself they would be safer in his custody than in that of a delirious person, who was even now raving incoherently before him, and could not see what he was do- ing. He therefore proceeded to transfer them to his own care. On the way to his pocket, his shaking hand was arrested by another hand, soft, but firm as iron. He shuddered, and looked round in abject terror ; and there was his daughter's face, pale as his own, but full of resolution. ' ' Nay, father, " said she, "/must take charge of these, and well do you know why. " These simple words cowed Harry Vint, so that he instantly resigned the money and jewels, and retired, muttering that "things were come to a pretty pass" — " a man was no longer master in his own house," etc., etc., etc. While he inveighed against the degeneracy of the age, the women paid no more attention than the age did, but just sent for the doctor. He came, and bled the patient. This gave him a momentary relief; but when, in the natural prog- ress of the disease, sweating and weakness came on, the loss of the precious vital fluid was fatal, and the patient's pulse became scarce perceptible. There he lay, with wet hair, and gleaming eyes, and haggard face, at death's door. An experienced old crone was got to nurse him, and she told Mrs. Vint he would live maybe three days. Paul Carrick used to come to the ' ' Pack- horse" to see Mercy Vint, and, finding her sad, asked her what was the matter. "What should it be," said she, "but the poor gentleman a- dying overhead, away from all his friends. " " Let me see him," said Paul. Mercy took him softly into the room. " Ay, he is booked," said the farrier. " Doc- tor has taken too much blood out of the man's body. They kill a many that way. " ' ' Alack, Paul ! must he die ? Can naught be done ?" said Mercy, clasping her hands. "I don't say that, neither," said the farrier. "He is a well-made man — he is young, i" might save him, perhaps, if I had not so many beasts to look to. I'll tell you what you do. Make him soup as strong as strong ; have him watched night and day, and let 'em put a spoon- ful of warm wine into him every hour, and then of soup ; egg flip is a good thing too ; change his bed-linen, and keep the doctors from him ; that is his only chance : he is fairly dying of weakness. But I must be off. Farmer Blake's cow is down for calving; I must give her an ounce of salts before 'tis too late." Mercy Vint scanned the patient closely, and saw that Paul Carrick was right. She followed his instructions to the letter, with one exception. Instead of trusting to the old woman, of whom she had no very good opinion, she had the great arm-chair brought into the sick-room, and watched the patient herself by night and day. A gentle hand cooled his temples ; a gentle hand brought concentrated nourishment to his lips ; and a mellow voice coaxed him to be good and swallow it. There are voices it is not natural to resist, and Griffith learned by degrees to obey this one, even when he was half unconscious. At the end of three days this zealous young nurse thought she discerned a slight improve- ment, and told her mother so. Then the old lady came and examined the patient,, and shook her head gravely. Her judgment, like her daugh- ter's, was influenced by her wishes. The fact is, both landlord and landlady were now calculating upon Griffith's decease. Harry had told her about the money and jewels, and the pair had put their heads together, and settled that Griffith was a gentleman highwayman, and his spoil would never be reclaimed after his de- cease, but fall to those good Samaritans who were n&w nursing him, and intended to bury him respectably. The future being thus settled, this worthy couple became a little impatient; for Griffith, like Charles the Second, was "an un- conscionable time dying." We order dinner to hasten a lingering guest, and, with equal force of logic, mine host of the "Packhorse" spoke to White, the village carpen- ter, about a full-sized coffin, and his wife set the old crone to make a linen, shroud, unobtrusively, in the bake-house. On the third afternoon of her nursing Mercy left her patient, and called up the crone to tend GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 77 him. She herself, worn out with fatigue, threw herself on a bed in her mother's room hard by, and soon fell asleep. She had slept about two hours when she was wakened by a strange noise in the sick-chamber — a man and a woman quarreling. She bounded oft' the bed, and was in the room directly. Lo and behold, there were the nurse and the dying man abusing one another like pick- pockets. The cause of this little misunderstanding was not far to seek. The old crone had brought up her work, videlicet a winding-sheet all but fin- ished, and certain strips of glazed muslin about three inches deep. She soon completed the winding-sheet, and hung it over two chairs in the patient's sight ; she then proceeded to double the slips in six, and nick them ; then she unrolled them, and they were frills, and well adapted to make the coming corpse absurd, and divest it of any little dignity the King of Terrors might be- stow on it. She was so intent upon her congenial task that she did not observe the sick man had awakened, and was viewing her and her work with an intel- ligent but sinister eye. "What is that you are making?" said he, grimly. The voice was rather clear and strong, and seemed so loud and strange in that still chamber that it startled the woman mightily. She uttered a little shriek, and then was wroth. " Plague take the man !" said she ; " how you scared me. Keep quiet, do, and mind your own business." [The business of going off the hooks.] " I ask you what is that you are making," said Griffith, louder, and raising himself on his arm. " Baby's frills," replied the woman, coolly, re- covering that contempt for the understandings of the dying which marks the veritable crone. "Ye lie!" said Griffith. "And there is a shroud. Who is that for ?" "Who should it be for, thou simple body? Keep quiet, do, till the change comes. 'Twon't be long now ; art too well to last till sundown." "So 'tis for me, is it?" screamed Griffith. "I'll disappoint ye yet. Give me my clothes. I'll not lie here to be measured for my grave, ye old witch." " Here's manners !" cackled the indignant crone. "Ye foul-mouthed knave, is this how you thank a decent woman for making a com- fortable corpse of ye, you that has no right to die in your shoes,, let a be such dainties as mus- lin neck-ruff, and shroud of good Dutch flax ?" At this Griffith discharged a volley, in which "vulture," "hag," " blood-sucker, " etc. , blended with as many oaths, during which Mercy came in. She glided to him with her dove's eyes full of concern, and laid her hand gently on his shoul- der. "You'll work yourself a mischief," said she; "leave me to scold her. Why, my good Nelly, how could you be so hare-brained? Prithee take all that trumpery away this min- ute ; none here needeth it, nor shall not this many a year, please God." "They want me dead," said Griffith to her, piteously, finding he had got one friend, and sunk back on his pillow exhausted. " So it seems, " said Mercy, cunningly. ' ' But I'd balk them finely. I'd up and order a beef- steak this minute." "And shall," said Griffith, with feeble spite. " Leastways do you order it, and I'll eat it — d — n her !" Sick men are like children, and women soon find that out, and manage them accordingly. In ten minutes Mercy brought a good rump-steak to the bedside, and said, "Now for't. Marry come up, with her winding-sheets !" Thus played upon and encouraged, the great baby ate more than half the steak, and soon after perspired gently and fell asleep. Paul Carrick found him breathing gently, with a slight tint of red in his cheek, and told Mercy there was a change for the better. ' ' We have brought him to a true intermission," said he, " so throw in the bark at once." "What, drench his honor's worship!" said Mercy, innocently. " Nay, send thou the medi- cine, and I'll find womanly ways to get it down him. " Next day came the doctor, and whispered soft- ly to Mrs. Vint, " How are we all up stairs ?" " Why couldn't you come afore?" replied Mrs. Vint, crossly. "Here's farrier Carrick stepped in, and curing him out of hand — the meddlesome body." " A farrier rob me of my patient !" cried the doctor, in high dudgeon. "Nay, good sir, 'tis no fault of mine. This Paul is a sort of a kind of a follower of our Mer- cy's, and she is mistress here, I trow." ' ' And what hath his farriership prescribed ? Friar's balsam, belike." ' ' Nay, I know not ; but you may soon learn, for he is above, physicking the gentleman (a pret- ty gentleman !), and suiting to our Mercy — after a manner. " The doctor declined to make one in so mixed a consultation. " Give me my fee, dame," said he; "and as for this impertinent farrier, the patient's blood be on his head ; and I'd have him beware the law. " Mrs. Vint went to the stair-foot, and screamed, "Mercy, the good doctor wants his fee. Who is to pay it, I wonder ?" " I'll bring it him anon," said a gentle voice; and Mercy soon came down and paid it with a willing air that half disarmed professional fury. " ! Tis a good lass, dame," said the doctor, when she was gone ; " and, by the same token, I wish her better mated than to a scrub of a farrier." Griffith, still weak, but freed of fever, woke one glorious afternoon, and heard a bird-like voice humming a quaint old ditty, and saw a field of golden wheat through an open window, and seat- ed at that window the mellow songstress, Mercy Vint, plying her needle, with lowered lashes but beaming face, a picture of health and quiet wom- anly happiness. Things were going to her mind in that sick-room. He looked at her, and at the golden corn and summer haze beyond, and the tide of life seemed to rush back upon him. " My good lass," said he, " tell me where am I, for I know not. " Mercy started and left off singing, then rose and came slowly toward him, with her work iu her hand. 78 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. Innocent joy at this new symptom of conva- lescence flushed her comely features, but she spoke low. "Good sir, at the 'Packhorse,'" said she, smiling. " The ' Packhorse,' and where is that?" " Hard by Allerton village." 1 'And where is that — not in Cumberland?" "Nay, in Lancashire, your worship. Why, whence come you, that know not the ' Pack- horse, ' nor yet Allerton township ? Come you from Cumberland ?" "No matter whence I come. I'm going on board ship, like my father before me." "Alas! sir, you are not fit; you have been very ill, and partly distraught." She stopped, for Griffith turned his face to the wall with a deep groan. It had all rushed »over him in a moment. Mercy stood still and worked on, but the wa- ter gathered in her eyes at that eloquent groan. By-and-by Griffith turned round again, with a face of anguish, and filmy eyes, and saw her in the same place standing, working, and pitying. "What, are you there still ?" said he, roughly. "Ay, sir; but I'll go sooner than be trouble- some. Can I fetch you any thing ?" " No. Ay, wine ; bring me wine to drown it all." She brought him a pint of wine. "Pledge me," said he, with a miserable at- tempt at a smile. She put the cup to her lips and sipped a drop or two, but her dove's eyes were looking up at him over the liquor all the time. Griffith soon disposed of the rest, and asked for more. " Nay," said she, " but I dare not ; the doc- tor hath forbidden excess in drinking." "The doctor! what doctor?" "Doctor Paul," said she, demurely. "He hath saved your life, sir, I do think." "Plague take him for that !" "So say not I." Here she left him with an excuse. ' ' 'Tis milking time, sir, and you shall know that I am our dairy-maid. I seldom trouble the inn. " Next day she was on the window-seat working and beaming. The patient called to her in pee- vish accents to put his head higher. She laid down her work with a smile, and came and raised his head. "There, now, that is too high," said he; "how awkward you are !" "I lack experience, sir, but not good will. There, now, is that a little better ?" " Ay, a little. I'm sick of lying here ; I want to get up. Dost hear what I say ? I — want — to get up." " And so you shall, as soon as ever you are fit. To-morrow, perhaps. To-day you must e'en be patient. Patience is a rare medicine. " Tic, tic, tic! "What a noise they are mak- ing down stairs. Go, lass, and "bid them hold their peace." Mercy shook her head. " Good lack-a-day ! we might as well bid the river give over running ; but, to be sure, this comes of keeping a hostelry, sir. When we had only the farm, we were quiet, and did no ill to no one. " " Well, sing me, to drown their eternal buzz- ing ; it worries me dead." "Me sing! Alack, sir, I'm no songster.'" "That is false. You sing like a throstle. I dote on music ; and, when I was delirious, I heard one singing about my bed; I thought it was an angel at that time, but 'twas only you, my young mistress ; and, now I ask you, you say me nay. That is the way with you all. Plague take the girl, and all her cursed, unreasonable, hypo- critical sex. I warrant me you'd sing if I want- ed to sleep, and dance the devil to a standstill." Mercy, instead of flouncing out of the room, stood looking on him with maternal eyes, and chuckling like a bird. " That is right, sir ; tax us all to your heart's content. Oh, but I'm a joyful woman to hear you, for 'tis a sure sign of mending when the sick take to rating of their nurses. " " In sooth, I am too cross-grained," said Grif- fith, relenting. " Not a whit, sir, for my taste. I've been in care for you, and now you are a little cross, that maketh me easy." " Thou art a good soul. Wilt sing me a stave after all?" "La you now, how you come back to that! Ay, and with a good heart ; for, to be sure, 'tis a sin to gainsay a sick man. But, indeed, I am the homeliest singer. Methinks 'tis time I went down and bade them cook your worship's sup- per. " " Nay, I'll not eat nor sup till I hear thee sing." " Your will is my law, sir," said Mercy, dryly, and retired to the window-seat ; that was the first obvious preliminary. Then she fiddled with her apron, and hemmed, and waited in hopes a re- prieve might come ; but a peevish, relentless voice demanded the song at intervals. So then she turned her head carefully away from her hearer, lowered her eyes, and, looking the picture of guilt and shame all the time, sang an ancient ditty. The poltroon's voice was rich, mellow, clear, and sweet as honey, and she sang the notes for the sake of the words, not the words for the sake of the notes, as all but Nature's singers do. The air was grave as well as sweet ; for Mercy was of an old Puritan stock, and even her songs Avere not giddy-paced, but solid, quaint, and ten- der : all the more did they reach the soul. In vain was the blushing cheek averted, and the honeyed lips : the ravishing tones set the birds chirping outside, yet filled the room with- in, and the glasses rang in harmony upon the shelf as the sweet singer poured out from her heart (so it seemed) the speaking song that be- gins thus : " Iu vain you tell your parting lover You wish fair winds may waft Mm over. Alas ! what winds can happy prove That bear me far from her I love ? Alas ! what dangers on the main Can equal those that I sustain From slighted love and cold disdain." Griffith beat time with his hand a while, and his own face softened and beautified as the mel- ody curled about his heart. But soon it was too much for him ; he knew the song — had sung it to Kate Peyton in their days of courtship. A thousand memories gushed in upon his soul and overpowered him. He burst out sobbing violent- ly, and wept as if his heart must break. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 79 "Alas! what have I done?" said Mercy; and the tears ran swiftly from her eyes at the sight. Then, with native delicacy, she hurried from the room. What Griffith went through that night in si- lence was never known but to himself. But the next morning he was a changed man. He was all dogged resolution ; put on his clothes unaid- ed, though he could hardly stand to do it ; and borrowed the landlord's staff, and crawled out a smart distance into the sun. " It was kill or cure," said he. " I am to live, it seems. Well, then, the past is dead. My life begins again to- day. " Hen-like Mercy soon learned this sally of her refractory duckling, and was uneasy. So, for an excuse to watch him, she brought him out his money and jewels, and told him she had thought it safest to take charge of them. He thanked her cavalierly, and offered her a diamond ring. She blushed scarlet and declined it, and even turned a meekly reproachful glance on him with her dove's eyes. He had a suit of russet made, and put away his fine coat, and forbade any one to call him "Your worship." "I am a farmer like your- selves, "said he, "and my name is — Thomas Leicester." A brain fever either kills the unhappy lover, or else benumbs the very anguish that caused it. And so it was with Griffith. His love got be- numbed, and the sense of his wrongs vivid. He nursed a bitter hatred of his wife ; only, as he could not punish her without going near her, and no punishment short of death .seemed enough for her, he set to work to obliterate her from his very memory, if possible. He tried employment. He pottered about the little farm, advising and helping, and that so zealously that the landlord retired altogether from that department, and Griffith, instead of he, became Mercy's ally, agri- cultural and bucolical. She was a shepherdess to the core, and hated the poor " Packhorse." For all that, it was her fate to add to its at- tractions ; for Griffith bought a viol de gambo, and taught her sweet songs, which he accompa- nied with such skill, and sometimes with his voice, that good company often looked in on the chance of a good song sweetly sung and played. The sick in body or mind are egotistical. Griffith was no exception. Bent on curing his own deep wound, he never troubled his head about the wound he might inflict. He was grateful to his sweet nurse, and told her so ; and his gratitude charmed her all the more that it had been rather long m coming. He found this dove-like creature a wonderful soother : he applied her more and more to his sore heart. As for Mercy, she had been too good and kind to her patient not to take a tender interest in his convalescence. Our hearts warm more to those we have been kind to than to those who have been kind to us ; and the female reader can ea- sily imagine what delicious feelings stole into that womanly heart when she saw her pale nurs- ling pick up health and strength under her wing, and become the finest, handsomest man in the parish. Pity and admiration ; where these meet, love is not far behind. And then this man, who had been cross and rough while he was weak, became gentler, kind- er, and more deferential to her the stronger he got. Mrs. Vint saw they were both fond of each other's company, and disapproved it. She told Paul Carrick if he had any thought of Mercy he had better give over shilly-shallying, for there was another man after her. Paul made light of it at first. " She has known me too long to take up her head with a new-comer," said he. "To be sure I never asked her to name the day, but she knows my mind well enough, and I know hers." "Then you know more than I do," said the mother, ironically. He thought over this conversation, and very wisely determined not to run unnecessary risks. He came up one afternoon, and hunted about for Mercy till he found her milking a cow in the adjoining paddock. ' ' Well, lass, " said he, ' ' I've good news for thee. My old dad says we may have his house to live in, so now you and I can yoke next month, if ye will." " Me turn the honest man out of his house !" said Mercy, mighty innocently. " Who asks you ? He nobbut bargains for the chimney corner, and you are not the girl to be- grudge the old man that." " Oh no, Paul. But what would father do if I were to leave his house? Methinks the farm would go to rack and ruin, he is so wrapped up in his nasty public." " Why, he has got a helper, by all accounts • and, if you talk like that, vou will never wed at all." " Never is a big word. But I am too young to marry yet. Jenny, thou jade, stand still." The attack and defense proceeded upon these terms for some time, and the defendant had one base advantage, and used it. Her forehead was wedged tight against Jenny's ribs, and Paul could not see her face. This, and the feminine evasive- ness of her replies, irritated him at last. "Take thy head out o' the coow," said he, roughly, " and answer straight. Is all our woo- ing to go for naught ?" ' ' Wooing ? You never said so much to me in all these years as you have to-day." ' ' Oh, ye knew my mind well enough. There's a many ways of showing the heart." " Speaking out is the best, I trow." ' ' Why, what do I come here for twice a week, this two years past, if not for thee ?" "Ay, for me and father's ale." "And thou canst look at me and tell me that ? Ye false, hard-hearted hussy. But nay, thou wast never so ; 'tis this Thomas Leicester hath be- witched thee, and set thee against thy true lover." " Mr. Leicester pays no suit to me," said Mer- cy, blushing : " he is a right civil-spoken gentle- man, and you know you saved his life." "The more fool I. I wish I had known he was going to rob me of my lass's heart, I'd have seen him die a hundred times ere I'd have inter- fered. But they say if you save a man's life hell make you rue it. Mercy, my lass, you are well respected in the parish ; take a thought 80 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. now: better be a farrier's wife than a gentle- man's mistress." Mercy did take her head " out of the cow" at this, and for once her cheek burned with an- ger ; but the unwonted sentiment died before it could find words, and she said quietly, ' ' I need not be either, against my will. " Young Carrick made many such appeals to Mercy Vint, but he could never bring her to con- fess to him that he and she had ever been more than friends, or were now any thing less than friends. Still he forced her to own to herself that, if she had never seen Thomas Leicester, her quiet affection and respect for Carrick would probably have carried her to the altar with him. His remonstrances, sometimes angry, some- times tearful, awoke her pity, which was the grand sentiment of her heart, and disturbed her peace. Moreover, she studied the two men in her quiet, thoughtful way, and saw that Carrick loved her with all his honest, though hitherto tepid heart ; but Griffith had depths, and could love with more passion than ever he had shown for her. " He is not the man to have a fever by reason of me," said the poor girl to herself. But I am afraid even this attracted her to Griffith ; it nettled a woman's soft ambition, which is, to be as well loved as ever woman was. And so things went on, and, as generally hap- pens, the man who was losing ground went the rery way to lose more. He spoke ill of Griffith behind his back; called him a highwayman, a gentleman, an ungrateful, undermining traitor. But Griffith never mentioned Carrick ; and so, when he and Mercy were together, her old fol- lower was pleasingly obliterated, and affection- ate good-humor reigned. Thus Griffith, alias Thomas, became her sunbeam, and Paul her cloud. But he who had disturbed the peace of oth- ers, his own turn came. One day he found Mercy crying. He sat down beside her, and said kindly, " Why, sweet- heart, what is amiss ?" "No great matter," said she, and turned her head away, but did not check her tears, for it was new and pleasant to be consoled by Thomas Leicester." " Nay, but tell me, child." " Well, then, Jessie Carrick has been at me — that is all." " The vixen ! what did she say?" "Nay, I'm not pleased enow with it to repeat it. She did cast something in my teeth." Griffith pressed her to be more explicit. She declined with so many blushes that his curiosity was awakened, and he told Mrs. Vint, with some heat, that Jess Carrick had been making Mercy cry. ' ' Like enow," said Mrs. Vint, coolly. "She'll eat her victuals all one for that, please God." "Else I'll ring the cock-nosed jade's neck next time she comes here," replied Griffith; " but, dame, I want to know what she can have to say to Mercy to make her cry." Mrs. Vint looked him steadily in the face for some time, and then and there decided to come to an explanation. " Ten to one 'tis about her brother," said she ; " you know this Paul is our Mercy's sweetheart." . At these simple words Griffith winced, and his countenance changed remarkably. Mrs. Vint observed it, and was all the more resolved to have it out with him. " Her sweetheart !" said Griffith. " Why, I have seen them together a dozen of times, and not a word of courtship." " Oh, the young men don't make many speech- es in these parts. They show their hearts by act. " " By act ? Why, I met them coming home from milking t'other evening. Mercy was car- rying the pail, brimful, and that oaf sauntered by her side, with his hands in his pockets ; was that the act of a lover ?" "I heard of it, sir," said Mrs. Vint, quietly; "and as how you took the pail from her, willy nilly, and carried it home. Mercy was vexed about it. She told me you panted at the door, and she was a deal fitter to carry the pail than you, that is just off a sick-bed, like. But lawk, sir, ye can't go by the likes of that : the bache- lors here they'd see their sweethearts carry the roof into next parish on their backs, like a snail, and never put out a hand ; 'tis not the custom hereaway. But, as I was saying, Paul and our Mercy kept company after a manner : he never had the wit to flatter her as should be, nor the stomach to bid her name the day, and he'd buy the ring; but he talked to her about his sick beasts more than he did to any other girl in the parish, and she'd have ended by going to church with him, only you came and put a coolness atween 'em." "I! How?" "Well, sir, our Mercy is a kind-hearted lass, though I say it, and you were sick, and she did nurse you ; and that was a beginning. And, to be sure, you are a fine, personable man, and capi- tal company ; and you are always about the girl ; and bethink you, sir, she is flesh and blood like her neighbors ; and they say, once a body has tasted venison steak, it spoils their stomach for oat porridge. Now that is Mercy's case, I'm thinking ; not that she ever said as much to me ; she is too reserved. But, bless your heart, I'm forced to go about with eyes in my head, and watch 'em all a bit, me that keeps an inn." Griffith groaned. "I'm a villain !" said he. "Nay, nay," said Mrs. Vint. "Gentlefolks must be amused, cost what it may ; but, hoping no offense, sir, the girl was a good friend to you in time of sickness, and so was this Paul, for that matter." "She was," cried Griffith; "God bless her. How can I ever repay her ?" "Well, sir," said Mrs. Vint, "if that comes from your heart, you might take our Mercy apart, and tell her you like her very well, but not enough to marry a fanner's daughter — don't say an inn-keeper's daughter, or you'll be sure to offend her ; she is bitter against the ' Packhorse. ' Says you, 'This Paul is an honest lad ; turn your heart back to him.' And with that, mount your black horse and ride away, and God speed you, sir ; we shall often talk of you at the ' Pack- horse,' and naught but good." Griffith gave the woman his hand, and his breast labored heavily. Jealousy was ingrained in the man. Mrs. Vint had pricked his conscience, but she had wounded his foible. He was not in love with Mercy, but he es- GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 81 teemed her, and liked her, and saw her value, and, above all, could not bear another man should have her. Now this gave the matter a new turn. Mrs. Vint had overcome her dislike to him long ago ; still, he was not her favorite. But his giving her his hand with a gentle pressure, and his write, and cast accounts ; good at hei sampler, and can churn and make cheeses, and play of the viol, and lead the psalm in church, and dance a minuet, she can, with any lady in the land. As to her nursing in time of sickness, that I leave to you, sir." "She is an angel," cried Griffith, "and my ^miiu-' 1 •-. vvVm mm® manifest agitation, rather won her ; and, as un- educated women are your true weathercocks, she went about directly. "To be sure," said she, ' ' our Mercy is too good for the likes of him ; she is not like Harry and me ; she has been well brought up by her Aunt Prudence, as was gov- erness in a nobleman's house. She can read and benefactress : no man living is good enough for her." And he went away, visibly discom- posed. Mrs. Vint repeated this conversation to Mercy, and told her Thomas Leicester was certainly in love with her. "Shouldst have seen his face, girl, when I told him Paul and. you were sweet- 82 GRIFFITH GAUNT : OR, JEALOUSY. hearts. 'Twas as if I had run a knife in his heart." Mercy murmured a few words of douht ; but she kissed her mother eloquently, and went about rosy and beaming all that afternoon. As for Griffith, his gratitude and his jealousy were now at war, and caused him a severe mental struggle. Carrick, too, was spurred by jealousy, and came every day to the house, and besieged Mercy ; and Griffith, who saw them together, and did not hear Mercy's replies, was excited, irritated, alarmed. Mrs. Vint saw his agitation, and determined to bring matters to a climax. She was always giv- ing him a side thrust ; and at last she told him plainly that he was not behaving like a man. " If the girl is not good enough for you, why make a fool of her, and set her against a good husband ?" And when he replied she was good enough for any man in England, "Then," said she, "why not show your respect for her as Paul Carrick does ? He likes her well enough to go to church with her." With the horns of this dilemma she so gored Kate Peyton's husband that, at last, she and Paul Carrick, between them, drove him out of his con- science. So he watched his opportunity and got Mercy alone. He took her hand, and told her he loved her, and that she was his only comfort in the world, and he found he could not live without her. At this she blushed and trembled a little, and leaned her brow upon his shoulder, and was a happy creature for a few moments. So far, fluently enough ; but then he began to falter and stammer, and say that for certain rea- sons he could not marry at all. But if she could be content with any thing short of that, he would retire with her into a distant country, and there, where nobody could contradict him, would call her his wife, and treat her as his wife, and pay his debt of gratitude to her by a life of devotion. As he spoke her brow retired an inch or two from his shoulder; but she heard him quietly out, and then drew back and confronted him, pale, but to all appearance calm. "Call things by their right names," said she. "What you offer me this day, in my father's house, is to be your mistress. Then — God for- give you, Thomas Leicester. " With this oblique and feminine reply, and one look of unfathomable reproach from her soft eyes, she turned her back on him ; but, remembering her manners, courtesied at the door, and so re- tired ; and unpretending Virtue lent her such true dignity that he was struck dumb, and made no attempt to detain her. I -think her dignified composure did not last long when she was alone ; at least, the next time he saw her, her eyes were red ; his heart smote him, and he began to make excuses and beg her forgiveness. But she interrupted him. "Don't speak to me no more, if you please, sir," said she, civilly, but coldly. Mercy, though so quiet and inoffensive, had depth and strength of character. She never told her mother what Thomas Leicester had proposed to her. Her honest pride kept her silent, for one thing. She would not have it known she had been insulted. And, besides that, she loved Thomas Leicester still, and could not expose or hurt him. Once there was an Israelite without guile, though you and I never saw him; and once there was a Saxon without bile, and her name was Mercy Vint. In this heart of gold the affections were stronger than the passions. She was deeply wounded, and showed it in a patient way to him who had wounded her, but to none other. Her conduct to him in public and pri- vate was truly singular, and would alone have stamped her a remarkable character. She de- clined all communication with him in private, and avoided him steadily and adroitly ; but in public she spoke to him, sang with him when she was asked, and treated him much the same as before. He could see a subtle difference, but nobody else could. This generosity, coupled with all she had done for him before, penetrated his heart, and filled him with admiration and remorse. He yielded to Mrs. Vint's suggestions, and told her she was right ; he would tear himself away, and never see the dear " Packhorse" again. "But oh, dame," said he, " 'tis a sorrowful tiling to be alone in the world again, and naught to do. If I had but a farm, and a sweet little inn like this, perchance my heart would not be quite so heavy as 'tis this day at thoughts of parting from thee and thine." " Well, sir," said Mrs. Vint, "if that is all, there is the 'Vine' to let at this moment. 'Tis a better place of business than this ; and some meadows go with it, and land to be had in the parish." "I'll ride and see it," said Griffith, eagerly: then, dejectedly, "but, alas! I have no heart to keep an inn without somebody to help me, and say a kind word now and then. Ah ! Mercy Vint, thou hast spoiled me for living alone." This vacillation exhausted Mrs. Vint's pa- tience. "What are ye sighing about, ye foolish man?" said she, contemptuously; "you have got it all your own way : if 'tis a wife ye want, ask Mercy, and don't take a nay ; if ye would have a housekeeper, you need not want one long. I'll be bound there's plenty of young women where you came from as would be glad to keep the 'Vine' under you. And, if you come to that, our Mercy is a treasm*e on the farm, but she is no help in the inn, no more than a wax figure : she never brought us a shilling till you came and made her sing to your base viol. Nay, what you want is a smart, handsome girl, with a quick eye and a ready tongue, and one as can look a man in the face, and not given to love nor liquor. Don't you know never such a one ?" "Not I. Humph, to be sure, there is Caro- line Ryder. She is handsome, and hath a good wit. She is a lady's maid." " That'»your woman, if she'll come. And to be sure she will ; for to be mistress of an inn, that's a lady's maid's Paradise. " "She would have come a few months ago, and gladly; I'll write to her." "Better talk to her, and persuade her." "I'll do that too; but I must write to her first. " "So do, then; but, whatever you do, don't shilly-shally no longer. If wrestling was shilly- shallying, methinks you'd bear the bell, you or else Paul Carrick. Why, all this trouble comes on't. He might have wed our Mercy a year agone for the asking. Shilly-shally belongs to us that be women. 'Tis despisable in a man. " GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 83 Thus driven on all sides, Griffith rode and inspected the "Vine" (it was only seven miles off), and after the usual chaffering, came to terms with the proprietor. He fixed the day for his departure, and told Mrs. Vint he must ride into Cumberland first to get some money, and also to see about a house- keeper. He made no secret of all this ; and, indeed, was not without hopes Mercy would relent, or perhaps be jealous of this housekeeper. But the only visible effect was to make her look pale and gad : she avoided him in private as before. Harry Vint was loud in his regrets, and Car- rick openly exultant. Griffith wrote to Caroline Ryder, and addressed the letter in a feigned hand, and took it himself to the nearest post town. The letter came to hand, and will appear in that sequence of events on which I am now about to enter. CHAPTER XXVII. If Griffith Gaunt suffered anguish, he inflicted agony. Mrs. Gaunt was a high-spirited, proud, and sensitive woman ; and he crushed her with foul words. Leonard was a delicate, vain, and sensitive man, accustomed to veneration. Imag- ine such a man hurled to the ground and tram- pled upon. Griffith should not have fled ; he should have staid and enjoyed his vengeance on these two per- sons. It might have cooled him a little had he stopped and seen the immediate consequences of his savage act. The priest rose from the ground, pale as ashes, Mad trembling with fear and hate. The lady was leaning, white as a sheet, against a, tree, and holding it with her very nails for a little support. They looked round at one another — a piteous glance of anguish and horror ; then Mrs. Gaunt turned and flung her arm round so that the palm of her hand, high raised, confronted Leonard. I Am thus particular, because it was a gesture grand and terrible as the occasion that called it forth — a gesture that spoke, and said, "Put the whole earth and sea between us forever after this." The next moment she bent her head and rush- ed away, cowering and wringing her hands. She made for her house as naturally as a scared ani- mal for its lair ; but, ere she could reach it, she tottered under the shame, the distress, and the mere terror, and fell fainting with her fair fore- head on the grass. Caroline Ryder was crouched in the doorway, and did not see her come out of the grove, but only heard a rustle, and then saw her proud mis- tress totter forward and lie white, senseless, help- less at her very feet. Ryder uttered a scream, but did not lose her presence of mind. She instantly kneeled over Mrs. Gaunt, and loosened her stays with quick jmd dexterous hand. It was very like the hawk perched over and clawing the ringdove she has struck down. But people with brains are never quite inhu- man : a drop of lukewarm pity entered even Ry- der's heart as she assisted her victim. She call- ed no one to help her, for she saw something very serious had happened, and she felt sure Mrs. Gaunt would say something imprudent in that dangerous period when the patient recovers con- sciousness, but has not all her wits about her. Now Ryder was equally determined to know her mistress's secrets, and not to share the knowledge with any other person. It was a long swoon ; and when Mrs. Gaunt came to, the first thing she saw was Ryder lean- ing over her, with a face of much curiosity and some concern. In that moment of weakness, the poor lady who had been so roughly handled saw a woman close to her, and being a little kind to her ; so what did she do but throw her arms round Ryder's neck, and burst out sobbing as if her heart would break. Then that unprincipled woman shed a tear or two with her, half crocodile, half impulse. Mrs. Gaunt not only cried on her servant's neck, she justified Ryder's forecast by speaking unguardedly: "I've been insulted^in suited — insulted!" But, even while uttering these words, she was recovering her pride: so the first "insulted" seemed to come from a broken-hearted child, the second from an indignant lady, the third from a wounded queen. No more words than this ; but rose, with Ry- der's assistance, and went, leaning on that faith- ful creature's shoulder, to her own bedi'oom. There she sank into a chair, and said, in a voice to melt a stone, " My child ! Bring me my lit- tle Rose." Ryder ran and fetched the little girl ; and Mrs. Gaunt held out both arms to her, angelically, and clasped her so passionately and piteously to her bosom that Rose cried for fear, and never forgot the scene all her days ; and Mrs. Ryder, who was secretly a mother, felt a genuine twinge of pity and remorse. Curiosity, however, was the dom- inant sentiment ; she was impatient to get all these convulsions over, and learn what had actu- ally passed between Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt. She waited till her mistress appeared calmer, and then, in soft, caressing tones, asked her what had happened. "Never ask me that question again," cried Mrs. Gaunt, wildly ; then, with inexpressible dig- nity, " My good girl, you have done all you could for me ; now you must leave me alone with my daughter, and my God, who knows the truth." Ryder courtesied and retired, burning with baf- fled curiosity. Toward dusk Thomas Leicester came into the kitchen, and brought her news with a vengeance. He told her and the other maids that the squire had gone raving mad and fled the country. "Oh, lasses," said he, " if you had seen the poor soul's face, a riding headlong through the fair all one as if it was a plowed field ; 'twas white as your smocks ; and his eyes glowering on t'other world. We shall ne'er see that face alive again. " And this was her doing. It surprised and overpowered Ryder. She threw her apron over her head, and went off in hysterics, and betrayed her lawless attachment to every woman In the kitchen, she who was so clev- er at probing others. This day of violent emotions was followed by a sullen and sorrowful gloom. Mrs. Gaunt kept her bedroom and admitted nobody, till at last the servants consulted togeth- 81 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. er, and sent little Rose to knock at her door with a basin of chocolate, while they watched on the stairs. " It's only me, mamma," said Rose. "Come in, my precious," said a trembling voice, and so Rose got in with her chocolate. The next day she was sent for early ; and at noon Mrs. Gaunt and Rose came down stairs, but their appearance startled the whole household. The mother was dressed all in black, and so was her daughter, whom she led by the hand. Mrs. Gaunt's face was pale, and sad, and stern; a monument of deep suffering and high-strung res- olution. It soon transpired that Griffith had left his home for good, and friends called on Mrs. Gaunt to slake their curiosity under the mask of sym- pathy. Not one of them was admitted. No false ex- cuses were made. ' ' My mistress sees no one for the present," was the reply. Curiosity, thus baffled, took up the pen, but was met with a short unvarying formula : " There is an unhappy misunderstanding between my hus- band and me. But I shall neither accuse him behind his back nor justify myself." Thus the proud lady carried herself before the world, but secretly she writhed. A wife aban- doned is a woman insulted, and makes the wives that are not abandoned — cluck. Ryder was dejected for a time, and, though not honestly penitent, suffered some remorse at the miserable issue of her intrigues. But her elastic nature soon shook it off, and she felt a certain satisfaction at having reduced Mrs. Gaunt to her own level. This disarmed her hostility. She watched her as keenly as ever, but out of pure curiosity. One thing puzzled her strangely. Leonard did not visit the house, nor could she even detect any communication between the parties. At last, one day, her mistress told her to put on her hat and go to Father Leonard. Ryder's eyes sparkled, and she was soon equipped. Mrs. Gaunt put a parcel and a letter into her hands. Ryder no sooner got out of her sight than she proceeded to tamper with the let- ter. But, to her just indignation, she found it so ingeniously folded and sealed that she could not read a word. The parcel, however, she easily undid, and it contained forty pounds in gold and small notes. ' ' Oho ! my lady, " said Ryder. She was received by Leonard with a tender emotion he in vain tried to conceal. On reading the letter his features contracted sharply, and he seemed to suffer agony. He would not even open the parcel. " Ydu will take that back," said he, bitterly. "What, without a word ?" "Without a word. But I will write when I am able." "Don't be long, sir," suggested Ryder. "I am sure my mistress is wearying for you. Con- sider, sir, she is all alone now." " Not so much alone as I am," said the priest, "nor half so unfortunate." And with this he leaned his head despairingly on his hand, and motioned to Ryder to leave him. " Here's a couple of fools," said she to herself as she went home. That very evening Thomas Leicester caught her alone, and asked her to marry him. She stared at first, and then treated it as a jest. "You come at the wrong time, young man," said she. " Marriage is put out of countenance. No, no, I will never marry after what I have seen in this house." Leicester would not take this for an answer, and pressed her hard. "Thomas," said this plausible jade, "I like you very well, but I couldn't leave my mistress in her trouble. Time to talk of marrying when master comes here alive and well." "Nay," said Leicester, "my only chance is while he is away ; you care more for his little finger than for my whole body — that they all say. " "Who says?" "Jane, and all the lasses." "You simple man, they want you for them- selves, that is why they belie me." ' " Nay, nay, I saw how you carried on when I brought word he was gone. You let your heart out for once. Don't take me for a fool ; I see how 'tis ; but 1*11 face it, for I worship the ground you walk on. Take a thought, my lass. What good can come of your setting your heart on him ? I'm young, I'm healthy, and not ugly enough to set the dogs a barking ; I've got a good place ; I love you dear ; I'll cure you of that fancy, and make you as happy as the day is long. I'll try and make you as happy as you will make me, my beauty." He was so in earnest, and so much in love, that Mrs. Ryder pitied him, and wished her husband was in Heaven. "I am very sorry, Tom," said she, softly: " dear me, I did not think you cared so much for me as this. I must just tell you the truth. I have got one in my own country, and I've prom- ised him. I don't care to break my word ; and, if I did, he is such a man I am sure he would kill me for it. Indeed, he has told me as much more than once or twice. " " Killing is a game that two can play at." " Ah ! but 'tis an ugly game, and I'll have no hand in it. And — don't be angry with me, Tom — I've known him longest, and — I love him best. " By pertinacity and variety in lying, she hit the mark at last. Tom swallowed this figment whole. " That is but reason," said he. "I take my answer, and I wish ye both many happy days together, and well spent." With this he retired, and blubbered a good hour in an outhouse. Tom avoided the castle, and fell into low spir- its. He told his mother all, and she advised him to change the air. " You have been too long in one place," said she ; "I hate being too long in one place myself." This fired Tom's gipsy blood, and he said he would travel to-morrow, if he could but scrape together money enough to fill a peddler's pack. He applied for a loan in several quarters, but was denied in all. At last the poor fellow summoned courage to lay his case before Mrs. Gaunt. Ryder's influence procured him an interview. She took him into the drawing-room, and bade him wait there. By-and-by a pale lady, all in black, glided into the room. GRIFFITH GAUNT : OR, JEALOUSY. He pulled his front hair, and began to stammer something or other. She interrupted him. " Ryder has told me," said she, softly. "lam sorry for you, and I will do what you require. And, to be sure, we need no gamekeeper here now.'" She then gave him some money, and said she would look him up a few trifles besides, to put in his pack. Tom's mother helped him lay out his money to advantage, and one day he called at Hern- sliaw, pack and all, to bid farewell. The servants all laid out something with him for luck ; and Mrs. Gaunt sent for him, and gave him a gold thimble, and a pound of tea, and sev- eral yards of gold lace, slightly tarnished, and a Queen Anne's guinea. He thanked her heartily. "Ay, dame," said he, "you had always an open hand, married or single. My heart is heavy at leaving you. But I miss the squire's kindly face too. Hernshaw is not what it used to be." Mrs. Gaunt turned her head aside, and the man could see his words had made her cry. "My good Thomas," said she, at last, "you are going to travel the country ; you might fall in with him." "I might," said Leicester, incredulously. * ' God grant you may ; and, if you ever should, think of your poor mistress, and give him — this. " She put her finger in her bosom and drew out a bullet wrapped in silver paper. "You will never lose this," said she. ' ' I value it more than gold or silver. Oh, if ever you should see him, think of me and my daughter, and just put it in his hand without a word." As he went out of the room Ryder intercepted him, and said, " Mayhap you will fall in with our master ; if ever you do, tell him he is under a mistake, and the sooner he comes home the better." Tom Leicester departed, and for days and weeks nothing occurred to break the sorrowful monotony of the place. But the mourner had written to her old friend and confessor Francis, and, after some delay, in- voluntary on his part, he came to see her. They were often closeted together, and spoke so low that Ryder could not catch a word. Francis also paid several visits to Leonard ; and the final result of these visits was that the latter left England. Francis remained at Hernshaw as long as he could, and it was Mrs. Gaunt's hourly prayer that Griffith might return while Francis was with her. He did, at her earnest request, stay much lon- ger than lie had intended, but at length he was obliged to fix next Monday to return to his own place. It was on Thursday he made this arrange- ment, but the very next day the postman brought a letter to the Castle, thus addressed : " To Mistress Caroline Ryder, "Living Servant with Griffith Gaunt, Esq., "at his house, called Hernshaw Castle, ' ' near Wigeonmoor, " in the county of Cumberland. "These with speed." The address was in a feigned hand. Ryder opened it in the kitchen, and uttered a scream. Instantly three female throats opened upon her with questions. She looked them contemptuously in their faces, put the letter into her pocket, and soon after slip- ped away to her own room, and locked herself in while she read it. It ran thus : "Good Mistress Ryder, — I am alive yet, by the blessing, though somewhat battered, be- ing now risen from a fever, wherein I lost my wits for" a time ; and, on coming to myself, I found them making of my shroud, whereby you shall learn how near I was to death ; and all this I owe to that false, perjured woman that was my wife, and is your mistress. " Know that I have donned russet and doffed gentility, for I find a heavy heart's best cure is occupation. I have taken a wayside inn, and think of renting a small farm, which two things go well together. Now you are, of all those I know, most fitted to manage the inn, and I the farm. You were always my good friend ; and, if you be so still, then I charge you most solemn- ly that you utter no word to any living soul about this letter, but meet me privately where we can talk fully of these matters, for I will not set foot in Hernshaw Castle. Moreover, she told me once 'twas hers, and so be it. On Friday I shall lie at Stapleton, and the next day, by an easy journey, to the place where I once was so happy. ' ' So then, at seven of the clock on Saturday evening, be the same wet or dry, prithee come to the gate of the Grove unbeknown, and speak to your faithful friend and most unhappy master, "Griffith Gaunt. "Be secret as the grave. Would I were in it. " This letter set Caroline Ryder in a tumult. Griffith alive and well, and set against his wife, and coining to her for assistance! After the first agitation she read it .again, and weighed every syllable. There was one book she had studied more than most of us — the Heart, and she soon read Griffith's in this letter. It was no love-letter ; he really- intended business ; but, weak in health, and broken in spirit, and alone in the world, he naturally turned to one who had confessed an affection for him, and would therefore be true to his interests and study his happiness. The proposal was every way satisfactory to Mrs. Ryder — to be mistress of an inn, and have servants under her instead of being one herself. And then, if Griffith and she began as allies in business, she felt very sure she could make her- self, first necessary to him, and then dear to him. She Avas so elated she could hardly contain her- self ; and all her fellow-servants remarked that Mrs. Ryder had heard good news. Saturday came, and never did hours seem to creep so slowly. But at last the sun set, and the stars came out ; there was no moon. Ryder opened the window and looked out ; it was an admirable night for an assignation. She washed her face again, put on her gray silk gown and purple petticoat — Mrs. Gaunt had given them to her — and, at the last moment, went and made up her mistress's fire, and put out every thing she thought could be wanted, and, five minutes after seven o'clock, tied a scar- let handkerchief over her head, and stepped out at the back door. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. What with her coal-black hair so streaked with red, her black eyes flashing in the starlight, and her glowing cheeks, she looked betwitching. And, thus armed for conquest, wily, yet im- passioned, she stole out, with noiseless foot and beating heart, to her appointment with her im- prudent master. CHAPTER XXVIII. The bill was paid ; the black horse saddled and brought round to the door. Mr. and Mrs. Vint stood bareheaded to honor the parting guest, and the latter offered him the stirrup-cup. Griffith looked round for Mercy ; she was no- where to be seen. Then he said, piteously, to Mrs. Vint, "What ! not even bid me good-by?" Mrs. Vint replied, in a very low voice, that there was no disrespect intended. "The truth is, sir, she could not trust herself to see you go ; but she bade me give you a message. Says she, ' Mother, tell him I pray God to bless him, go where he will.' " Something rose in Griffith's throat. " Oh, dame!" said he, "if she only knew the truth, she would think better of me than she does. God bless her !" And he rode sorrowfully away, alone in the world once more. At the first turn in the road he wheeled his horse and took a last lingering look. There was nothing vulgar nor inn-like in the "Packhorse." It stood fifty yards from the road, on a little rural green, and was picturesque itself. The front was entirely clad with large- leaved ivy. Shutters there were none ; the win- dows, with their diamond panes, were lustrous squares, set like great eyes in the green ivy. It looked a pretty, peaceful retreat, and in it Grif- fith had found peace and a dove-like friend. He sighed, and rode away from the sight ; not raging and convulsed, as Avhen he rode from Hernshaw Castle, but somewhat sick at heart and very heavy. He paced so slowly that it took him a quarter of an hour to reach the " Woodman," a wayside inn not two miles distant. As he went by, a farmer hailed him from the porch, and insisted on drinking with him, for he was very popular in the neighborhood. While they were thus em- ployed, who should come out but Paul Carrick, booted and spurred ; and flushed in the face, and rather the worse for liquor imbibed on the spot. " So you are going, are ye?" said he. "A good job too." Then, turning to the other, " Master Gutteridge, never you save a man's life if you can anywise help it. I saved this one's ; and what does he do but turn round and poison my sweetheart against me." "How can you say so?" remonstrated Grif- fith. "I never belied you. Your name scarce ever passed my lips." "Don't tell me," said Carrick. "However, she has come to her senses, and given your wor- ship the sack. Ride you into Cumberland, and I to the 'Packhorse,' and take my own again." With this he unhooked his nag from the Avail, and clattered off to the ' ' Packhorse. " Griffith sat a moment stupefied, and then his face was convulsed by his ruling passion. He wheeled his horse, gave him the spur, and gal- loped after Carrick. He soon came up with him, and yelled in his ear, "I'll teach you to spit your wormwood in my cup of sorrow." Carrick shook his fist defiantly, and spurred his horse in turn. It was an exciting race, and a novel one, but soon decided. The great black hunter went ahead, and still improved his advantage. Car- rick, purple with rage, was full a quarter of a mile behind, when Griffith dashed furiously into the stable of the " Packhorse," and, leaving Black Dick panting and covered with foam, ran in search of Mercy. The girl told him she was in the dairy: he looked in at the window, and there she was with her mother. With instinctive sense and forti- tude she had fled to work. She was trying to churn, but it would not do. She had laid her shapely arm .all across the churn, and her head on it, and was crying. Mrs. Vint was praising Carrick, and offering homely consolation. " Ah ! mother," sighed Mercy, " I could have made him happy. He does not know that ; and he has turned his back on content. What will become of him now ?" Griffith heard no more ; he went round to the front, door, and rushed in. " Take your own way, dame," said he, in great agitation. ' ' Put up the banns when you like. Sweetheart, wilt wed with me ? Ill make thee the best husband I can." Mercy screamed faintly, and lifted up her hands ; then she blushed and trembled to her very finger ends ; but it ended in smiles of joy and her brow upon his shoulder, in which atti- tude, with Mrs. Vint patting him approvingly on the back, they were surprised by Paul Carrick. He came to the door, and there stood aghast. The young man stared ruefully at the picture, and then said, very dryly, "I'm too late, me- thinks." "That you be, Paul," said Mrs. Vint, cheer- fully. " She is meat for your master." " Don't — you — never — come to me — to save your life — no more," blubbered Paid, breaking down all of a sudden. He then retired, little heeded, and came no more to the "Packhorse" for several days. CHAPTER XXIX. It is desirable that improper marriages should never be solemnized ; and the Christian Church saw this many hundred years ago, and ordained that before a marriage, the banns should be cried in a church three Sundays, and any person there present might forbid the union of the parties, and allege the just impediment. This precaution was feeble, but not wholly in- adequate in the Middle Ages, for Ave know by good evidence that the priest was often inter- rupted and the banns forbidden. But in modern days the banns are never for- bidden ; in other words, the precautionary meas- ure that has come down to us from the thirteenth century is out of date and useless. It rests, in- deed, on an estimate of publicity that has become childish. If persons about to marry were com- pelled to inscribe their names and descriptions in GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 87 a Matrimonial Weekly Gazette, and a copy of , but absent in fact, assented, by silence, to the this were placed on a desk in ten thousand j union. churches, perhaps we might stop one lady per | So Thomas Leicester wedded Mercy Vint and annum from marrying her husband's brother, and : took her home to the " Fackhorse." one gentleman from wedding his neighbor's wife. It would be well if those who stifle their con- But the crying of banns in a single parish church | sciences and commit crimes would set up a sort is a waste of the people's time and the parson's breath. And so it proved in Griffith Gaunt's case. The Rev. William Wentworth published, in the usual recitative, the banns of marriage between Thom- as Leicester, of the parish of Marylebone, in Lon- don, and Mercy Vint, spinster, of this parish ; and creation, present ex hypothesi medioevale, of medico-moral diary, and record their symp- toms minutely day by day. Such records might help to clear away some vague conventional no- tions. To tell the truth, our hero, and now malefactor (the combination is of high antiquity), enjoyed, for several months, the peace of mind that be- longs of right to innocence, and his days passed 83 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. in a state of smooth complacency. Mercy was a good, wise, and tender wife ; she naturally looked up to him after marriage more than she did before ; she studied his happiness as she had never studied her own ; she mastered his char- acter, admired his good qualities, discerned his weaknesses, hut did not view them as defects, only as little traits to be watched, lest she should give pain to "her master," as she called him. Affection, in heV, took a more obsequious form than it could ever assume in Kate Peyton. And yet she had great influence, and softly governed 4 ' her master" for his good. She would come into the room and take away the bottle if he was committing excess ; but she had a way of doing it, so like a good but resolute mother, and so un- like a termagant, that he never resisted. Upon the whole, she nursed his mind as, in earlier days, she had nursed his body. And then she made him so comfortable ; she observed him minutely to that end. As is the eye of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so Mercy Leicester's dove-like eye was ever watch- ing "her master's" face, to learn the minutest features of his mind. One evening he came in tired, and there was a black lire in the parlor. His countenance fell the sixteenth of an inch. You and I, sir, should never have noticed it ; but Mercy did, and ever after there was a clear fire when he came in. She noted, too, that he loved to play the viol de gambo, but disliked the trouble of tuning it. So, then, she tuned it for him. When he came home at night, early or late, he was sure to find a dry pair of shoes on the rug, his six-stringed viol tuned to a hair, a bright fire, and a brighter wife smiling and radiant at his coming, and always neat ; for, said she, ' ' Shall I don my bravery for strangers, and not for my Thomas, that is thejbest of company ?" They used to go to church and come back to- gether hand in hand like lovers, for the arm was rarely given in those days. And Griffith said to himself every Sunday, "What a comfort to have a Trotestant wife." But one day he was off his guard, and called her " Kate, my dear." "Who is Kate?" said she, softly, but with a degree of trouble and intelligence that made him tremble. * ' No matter, " said he, all in a flutter ; then solemnlv, "Whoever she was, she is dead — dead." " Ah !" said Mercy, very tenderly and solemn- ly, and under her breath, "you loved her, yet she must die." She paused ; then, in a tone so ex- quisite I can only call it an angel's whisper, "Poor Kate!" Griffith groaned aloud. ' ' For God's sake nev- er mention that name to me again. Let me for- get she ever lived. She was not the true friend to me that 3-011 have been. " Mercy replied, softly, "Say not so, Thomas. You loved her well. Her death had all but cost me thine. Ah ! well, we can not all be the first. I am not very jealous, for my part, and I thank God for't. Thou art a dear good husband to me, and that is enow." Paul Carrick, unable to break off his habits, came to the "Packhorse" now and then, but Mercy protected her husband's heart from pain. She was kind and even pitiful, but so discreet and resolute, and contrived to draw the line so clearly between her husband and her old sweetheart, that Griffith's foible could not burn him for want of fuel. And so passed several months, and the man's heart was at peace. He could not love Mercy passionately as he had loved Kate, but he was full of real regard and esteem for her : it was one of those gentle, clinging attachments that outlast grand passions, and survive till death ; a tender, pure affection, though built upon a crime. They had been married, and lived in sweet con- tent, about three quarters of a year, when trouble came, but in a vulgar form. A murrain carried off several of Harry Vint's cattle, and it then came out that he had purchased six of them on credit, and had been induced to set his hands to bills of exchange for them. His rent was also behind, and, in fact, his affairs were in a desper- ate condition. He hid it as long as he could from them all ; but at last, being served with a process for debt, and threatened with a distress and an execution, he called a family council and exposed the real state of things. Mrs. Vint rated him soundly for keeping all this secret so long. He whom they called Thomas Leicester re- monstrated with him. " Had you told me in time," said he, " I had not paid forfeit for ' The Vine,' but settled there, and given you a home." Mercy said never a word but "Poor father !" As the peril drew nearer, the conversation be- came more animated and agitated, and soon the old people took to complaining of Thomas Leices- ter to his wife. " Thou hast married a gentleman, and he hath not the heart to lift a hand to save thy folk from ruin." " Say not so," pleaded Mercy ; " to be sure ha hath the heart, but not the means. 'Twas but yestreen he bade me sell his jewels for you. But, mother, I think they belonged to some one he loved, and she died. So, poor thing ! how could I ? Then, if you love me, blame me, and not him." " Jewels, quotha ! will they stop such a gap as ours ?" was the contemptuous reply. From complaining of him behind his back, the old people soon came to launching innuendoes ob- liquely at him. Here is one specimen out of a dozen. "Wife, if our Mercy had wedded one of her own sort, mayhap he'd have helped us a bit. " 1 { Ay, poor soul, and she so near her time. If the bailiffs come down on us next month, 'tis my belief we shall lose her as well as house and home." The false Thomas Leicester let them run on in dogged silence, but every word was a stab. And one day, when he had been baited sore with hints, he turned round on them fiercely and said, ' ' Did I get you into this mess ? It's all your own doing. Learn to see your own faults, and not be so hard on one that has been the best serv- ant you ever had, gentleman or not." Men can resist the remonstrances that wound them, and so irritate them, better than they can those gentle appeals that rouse no anger, but soft- en the whole heart. The old people stung him ; but Mercy, without design , took a surer way. h he GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OK, JEALOUSY 89 never said a word ; hut sometimes, when the dis- cussions were at their height, she turned her dove- like eyes on him with a look so loving, so hum- bly inquiring, so timidly imploring, that his heart melted within him. Ah ! that is a true touch of nature and genu- ine observation of the sexes in the old song — "My feyther urged me sair; My mither didna speak ; But "she looked me in the face Till my hairt was like to break." These silent, womanly, imploring looks of pa- tient Mercy were mightier than argument or in- vective. The man knew all along where to get money, and how to get it. He had only to go to Hern- shaw Castle. But his very soul shuddered at the idea. However, for Mercy's sake, he took the first step : he compelled himself to look the thing in the face, and discuss it with himself. A few months ago he could not have done this ; he loved his lawful wife too much — hated her too much. But now,. Mercy, and Time, had blunted both those passions, and he could ask himself whether he could not encounter Kate and her priest with- out any very violent emotion. When they first set up house together he had spent his whole fortune, a sum of two thousand pounds, on repairing and embellishing Hernshaw r Castle and grounds. Since she had driven him out of the house, he had a clear right to have back the money, and now he resolved he would have it, only what he wanted was to get it without go- ing to the place in person. And now Mercy's figure, as w r ell as her implor- ing looks, moved him greatly. She was in that condition which appeals to a man's humanity and masculine pity as well as to his affection. To use the homely words of Scripture, she was great with child, and in that condition moved slowly about him, filling his pipe, and laying his slippers, and ministering to all his little comforts ; she would make no difference ; and when he saw the poor dove move about him so heavily and rather languidly, yet so zealously and tenderly, the man's very bowels yearned over her, and he felt as if he could die to do her a service. So, one day, when she was standing by him, bending over his little round table, and filling his pipe with her neat hand, he took her by the other hand and drew her gently on his knee, her bur- den and all. " Child !" said he, " do not thou fret. I know how to get money, and I'll do't, for thy sake." "I know that," said she, softly; "can I not read thy face by this time?" and so laid her cheek to his. " But, Thomas, for my sake, get it honestly, or not at all," said she, still filling his pipe, with her cheek to his. "I'll but take back my own," said he ; " fear naught." But, after thus positively pledging himself to Mercy, he became thoughtful and rather fretful ; for he was still most averse to go to Hernshaw, and yet could hit upon no other way, since to employ an agent would be to let out that he had committed bigamy, and so risk his own neck and break Mercy's heart. After all, his scale was turned by his foible. Mrs. Vint had been weak enough to confide her trouble to a friend : it was all over the par- ish in three days. Well, one day, in the kitchen of the inn, Paul Carrick, having drunk two pints of good ale, said to Vint, "Landlord, you ought to have married her to me. I've got two hundred pounds laid by. I'd have pulled you out of the mire and welcome. " " Would you, though, Paul," said Harry Vint ; " then, by G— , I wish I had." Now Carrick bawled that out, and Griffith, who was at the door, heard it. He walked into the kitchen ghastly pale, and spoke to Harry Vint first. "I take your inn, your farm, and your debts on me," said he ; "not one without t'other." "Spoke like a man!" cried the landlord, joy- fully ; " and so be it — before these witnesses." Griffith turned on Carrick: "This house is mine. Get out on't, yejealotis, mischief-making cur." And he took him by the collar and dragged him furiously out of the place, and sent him whirling into the middle of the road ; then ran back for his hat and flung it out after him. This done, he sat dow r n boiling, and his eyes roved fiercely round the room in search of some other antagonist. But his strength was so great, and his face so altered with this sudden spas-m of reviving jealousy, that nobody cared to pro- voke him farther. After a while, however, Harry Vint muttered, dryly, "There goes one good customer." Griffith took him up sternly: "If your debts are to be mine, your trade shall be mine too, that you had not the head to conduct." "So be it, son-in-law," said the old man; " only you go' so fast : you do take possession afore you pays the fee." Griffith winced. "That shall be the last of your taunts, old man." He turned to the ostler, "Bill, give Black Dick his oats at sunrise, and in ten days, at farthest, I'll pay every shilling this house and farm do owe. Now, Master White, you'll put in hand a new sign-board for this inn — a fresh 'Packhorse,' and paint him jet black, with one white hoof (instead of chocolate), in honor of my nag Dick ; and in place of Harry Vint you'll put in Thomas Leicester. bee that is done against I come back, or come you here no more." Soon after this scene he retired to tell Mercy, and on his departure the suppressed tongues went like mill-clacks. Dick came round saddled at peep of day, but Mercy had been up more than an hour, and pre- pared her man's breakfast. She clung to him at parting, and cried a little, and whispered some- thing in his ear for nobody else to hear : it was an entreaty that he would not be long gone, lest he should be far from her in the hour of her peril. Thereupon he promised her, and kissed her tenderly, and bade her be of good heart, and so rode away northward with dogged resolution. As soon as he was gone, Mercy's tears flowed without restraint. Her father set himself to console her. " Thy good man," he said, "is but gone back to the high road for a night or two, to follow his trade of ' stand and deliver.' Fear naught, child ; his pistols are well primed ; I saw to that myself; and his horse is the fleetest in the county; you'll have him back in three days, and money in both 90 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. pockets. I warrant you his is a better trade than mine, and he is a fool to change it." Griffith was two days upon the road, and all that time he was turning over and discussing in his mind how he should conduct the disagree- able but necessary business he had undertaken. He determined, at last, to make the visit one of business only : no heat — no reproaches. That lovely, hateful woman might continue to dishonor his name, for he had himself abandoned it. He would not deign to receive any money that was hers, but his own two thousand pounds he would have, and two or three hundred, on the spot by way of instalment. And, with these hard views, he drew near to Hernshaw ; but the nearer he got, the slower he went ; for what, at a distance, had seemed tolerably easy, began to get more and more difficult and repulsive. Moreover, his heart, which he thought he had steeled, began now to flutter a little, and somehow to shudder at the approaching intervieAv. CHAPTER XXX. Caroline Ryder went to the gate of the Grove, and staid there two hours, but of course no Griffith came. She returned the next night, and the next ; and then she gave it up, and awaited an explana- tion. None came, and she was bitterly disap- pointed and indignant. She began to hate Griffith, and to conceive a certain respect, and even a tepid friendship, for the other woman he had insulted. Another clew to this change of feeling is to be found in a word she let drop in talking to an- other servant. " My mistress," said she, " bears it like a man." In fact, Mrs. Gaunt's conduct at this period was truly noble. She suffered months of torture, months of grief; but the high-spirited creature hid it from the world, and maintained a sad but high com- posure. She wore her black, for she said, " How do I know he is alive?" She retrenched her estab- lishment, reduced her expenses two thirds, and busied herself in works of charity and religion. Her desolate condition attracted a gentleman who had once loved her, and now esteemed and pitied her profoundly — Sir George Neville. He was still unmarried, and she was the cause — so far, at least, as this : she had put him out of conceit with the other ladies at that period when he had serious thoughts of marriage, and the inclination to marry at all had not since re- turned. If the Gaunts had settled at Bolton, Sir George would have been their near neighbor ; but Ne- ville's Court was nine miles from Hernshaw Cas- tle; and when they met, which was not very often, Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard to give Griffith no shadow of uneasiness. She was therefore rather more dignified and distant with Sir George than her own inclination and his merits would have prompted, for he was a supe- rior and very agreeable man. When it became quite certain that her hus- band had left her, Sir George rode up to Hern- shaw Castle and called upon her. She begged to be excused from seeing him. Now Sir George was universally courted, ank this rather nettled him : however, he soon learn- ed that she received nobody except a few re- ligious friends of her own sex. Sir George then wrote her a letter that did him credit ; it was full of worthy sentiment and good sense. For instance, he said he desired to intrude his friendly offices and his sympathy upon her, but nothing more. Time had cured him of those warmer feelings which had once ruffled his peace, but Time could not efface his tender esteem for the lady he had loved in his youth, nor his profound respect for her char- actei*. Mrs. Gaunt wept over his gentle letter, and was on the verge of asking herself why she had chosen Griffith instead of this chevalier. She sent him a sweet yet prudent reply ; she did not encourage him to visit her, but said that, if ever she should bring herself to receive visits from the gentlemen of the county during her husband's absence, he should be the first to know it. She signed herself his unhappy, but deeply grateful servant and friend. One day, as she came out of a poor woman's cottage with a little basket on her arm which she had emptied in the cottage, she met Sir George Neville full. He took off his hat and made her a profound bow. He was then about to ride on, but altered his mind, and dismounted to speak to her. The interview was constrained at first, but ere long he ventured to tell her she really ought to consult with some old friend and practical man like himself. He would undertake to scour the country, and find her husband, if he was above ground. " Me go a hunting the man," cried she, turn- ing red ; "not if he was my king as well as my husband. He knows where to find me, and that is enough." "Well, but, madam, would you not like to learn where he is and what he is doing ?" "Why, yes, my good, kind friend, I should like to know that;" and, having pronounced these words with apparent calmness, she burst out crying, and almost ran away from him. Sir George looked sadly after her, and formed a worthy resolution. He saw there was but one road to her regard. He resolved to hunt her husband for her without intruding on her, or giving her a voice in the matter. Sir George was a magistrate, and accustomed to organize inquiries. Spite of the length of time that had elapsed, he traced Griffith for a considerable dis- tance ; pending farther inquiries, he sent Mrs. Gaunt word that the truant had not made for the sea, but had gone due south. Mrs. Gaunt returned him her warm thanks for this scrap of information. So long as Griffith remained in the island there was always a hope he might return to her. The money he had taken would soon be exhausted, and poverty might drive him to her ; and she was so far humbled by grief that she could welcome him even on those terms. Affliction tempers the proud. Mrs. Gaunt was deeply injured as well as insulted ; but, for all that, in her many days and weeks of solitude and sorrow, she took herself to task, and saw her fault. She became more gentle, more consider- ate of her servants' feelings, more womanly. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. For many months she could not enter " the Grove." The spirited woman's very flesh re- volted at the sight of the place where she had been insulted and abandoned. But as she went deeper in religion, she forced herself to go to the gate and look in, and say out loud, " I gave the first offense," and then she would go in-doors again, quivering with the internal conflict. Finally, being a Catholic, and therefore at- taching more value to self-torture than we do, the poor soul made this very grove her place of penance. Once a week she had the fortitude to drag herself to the very spot where Griffith had denounced her, and there she would kneel and pray for him and for herself. And certainly, if humility and self-abasement were qualities of the body, here was to be seen their picture, for her way was to set the crucifix up at the foot of a tree, then to bow herself all down, between kneeling and lying, and put her lips meekly to the foot of the crucifix, and so pray long and earnestly. Now one day, while she was thus crouching in prayer, a gentleman, booted, and spurred, and splashed, drew near, with hesitating steps. She was so absorbed she did not hear those steps at all till they were very near, but then she trembled all over, for her delicate ear recognized a manly tread she had not heard for many a day. She dared not move nor look, for she thought it was a mere sound, sent to her by heaven to com- fort her. But the next moment a well-known mellow voice came like a thunder-clap, it shook her so. ' ' Forgive me, my good dame, but I desire to know — " The question went no farther, for Kate Gaunt sprang to her feet with a loud scream, and stood glaring at Griffith Gaunt, and he at her. And thus husband and wife met again — met, by some strange caprice of Destiny, on the very spot where they had parted so horribly. CHAPTER XXXI. The gaze these two persons bent on one an- other may be half imagined ; it can never be de- scribed. Griffith spoke first. " In black!" said he, in a whisper. His voice was low ; his face, though pale and grim, had not the terrible aspect he wore at parting. So she thought he had come back in an ami- cable spirit, and she flew to him with a cry of love, and threw her arm round his neck, and panted on his shoulder. At this reception, and the tremulous contact of one he had loved so dearly, a strange shudder ran through his frame — a shudder that marked his present repugnance, yet indicated her latent power. He himself felt he had betrayed some weak- ness, and it Avas all the worse for her. He caught her wrist and put her from him, not roughly, but with a look of horror. ' ' The day is gone by for that, madam, "he gasped. Then, sternly, ' ' Think you I came here to play the credulous hus- band ?" Mrs. Gaunt drew back in her turn, and faltered out, "What ! come back here, and not sorry for 91 what you have done ? not the least sorry ? Oh, my heart ! you have almost broken it." "Prithee, no more of this," said Griffith, stern- ly. " You and I are naught to one another now and forever. But there, you are but a woman, and I did not come to quarrel with you. " And he fixed his eyes on the ground. "Thank God for that," faltered Mrs. Gaunt. "Oh, sir, the sight of you — the thought of what you were to me once, till jealousy blinded you. Lend me your arm, if you are a man ; my limbs do fail me. " The shock had been too much ; a pallor over- spread her lovely features, her knees knocked to- gether, and she was tottering like some tender tree cut down, when Griffith, who, with all his faults, was a man, put out his strong arm, and she clung to it, quivering all over, and weeping hysterically. That little hand, with its little feminine clutch, trembling on his arm, raised a certain male com- passion for her piteous condition, and he bestowed a few cold, sad words of encouragement on her. "Come, come," said he, gently, "I shall not trouble you long. I'm cured of my jealous}'. 'Tis gone, along with my love. You and your saintly sinner are safe from me. I am come hither for my own — my two thousand pounds, and for nothing more." "Ah ! you are come back for money, not for me ?" she murmured, with forced calmness. "For money, and not for you, of course," said he, coldly. The words were hardly out of his mouth Avhen the proud lady flung his arm from her. "Then money shall you have, and not me, nor aught of me but my contempt." But she- could not carry it off as heretofore. She turned her back haughtily on him, but at the first step she burst out crying. " Come, and I'll give you what you are come for," she sobbed. " Ungrateful ! heartless ! Oh, how little I knew this man!" She crept away before him, drooping her head and crying bitterly ; and he followed her, hang- ing his head and ill at ease, for there was such true passion in her voice, her streaming e\es, and indeed in her whole body, that he was moved, and the part he was playing revolted him. He felt confused and troubled, and asked himself how on earth it was that she, the guilty one, contrived to appear the injured one, and made him, the wronged one, feel almost re- morseful. Mrs. Gaunt took no more notice of him now than if he had been a dog following at her heels. She went into the drawing-room, and sank help- lessly on the nearest couch ; threw her head wearily back, and shut her eyes. Yet the tears trickled through the closed lids. Griffith caught up a hand-bell and rang it vigorously. Quick, light steps were soon heard pattering, and in darted Caroline Ryder with an anxious face, for of late she had conceived a certain so- ber regard for her mistress, who had ceased to be her successful rival, and who bore her grief like a man. At sight of Griffith, Ryder screamed aloud and stood panting. Mrs. Gaunt opened her eyes. "Ay, child, he 92 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. has come home," said she, bitterly; "his body, but not his heart." She stretched her hand out feebly, and pointed to a bottle of salts that stood on the table. Ryder ran and put them to her nostrils. Mrs. Gaunt whispered in her ear, ' ' Send a swift horse for Father Francis ; tell him life or death !" Ryder gave her a very intelligent look, and presently slipped out and ran into the stable- yard. At the gate she caught sight of Griffith's horse. What does this quick-witted creature do but send the groom off on that horse, and not on Mrs. Gaunt's. "Now, dame," said Griffith, doggedly, "are you better ?" "Ay, I thank you." " Then listen to me. When you and I set up house together, I had two thousand pounds. I spent it on this house. The house is yours. You told me so, one day, you know." "Ah ! you can remember my faults." 1 ' I remember all, Kate. " "Thank you, at least, for calling me Kate. Well, Griffith, since you abandoned us, I thought, and thought, and thought of all that might be- fall you, and I said, 'What will he do for money ?' My jewels, that you did me the honor to take, would not last you long, I feared ; so I reduced my expenses three fourths at least, and I put by some money for your need." Griffith looked amazed. "For my need?" said he. "For whose else? I'll send for it, and place it in your hands — to-morrow." " To-morrow ? Why not to-day ?" "I have a favor to ask of you first." "What is that?" "Justice. If you are fond of money, I too have something I prize — my honor. You have belied and insulted me, sir ; but I know you were under a delusion. I mean to remove that delusion, and make, you see how little I am to blame ; for, alas ! I own I was imprudent. But oh, Griffith ! as I hope to be saved, it was the imprudence of innocence and over-confidence." " Mistress," said Griffith, in a stern yet agi- tated voice, "be advised, and leave all this; rouse not a man's sleeping wrath. Let by-gones be by-gones." Mrs. Gaunt rose, and said faintly, "So be it. I must go, sir, and give some orders for your entertainment." "Oh, don't put yourself about for me," said Griffith ; " I am not the master of this house." Mrs. Gaunt's lip trembled, but she was a match for him. "Then you are my guest," said she, "and my credit is concerned in your comfort." She made him a courtesy as if he were a stran- ger, and marched to the door, concealing, with great pride and art, a certain trembling of her knees. At the door she found Ryder, and bade her follow, much to that lady's disappointment ; for she desired a tete-a-tete with Griffith, and an ex- planation. As soon as the two women were out of Grif- fith's hearing, the mistress laid her hand on the servant's arm, and, giving way to her feelings, said, all in a flutter, " Child, if I have been a good mistress to thee, show it now. Help me keep him in the house till Father Francis comes. " "I undertake to do so much," said Ryder, firmly. " Leave it to me, mistress." Mrs. Gaunt threw her arms round Ryder's neck and kissed her. It was done so ardently, and by a woman hith- erto so dignified and proud, that Ryder was tak- en by surprise, and almost affected. As for the service Mrs. Gaunt had asked of her, it suited her own designs. "Mistress," said she, " be ruled by me ; keep out of his way a bit while I get Miss Rose ready. You understand." "Ah! I have one true friend in the house," said poor Mrs. Gaunt. She then confided in Ry- der, and went away to- give her own orders for Griffith's reception. Ryder found little Rose, dressed her to perfec- tion, and told her her dear papa was come home. She then worked upon the child's mind in that subtle way known to women, so that Rose went down stairs loaded and primed, though no in- structions had been given her. As for Griffith, he walked up and down, un- easy, and wished he had staid at the "Pack- horse. " He had not bargained for all these emo- tions ; the peace of mind he had enjoyed for some months seemed trickling away. " Mercy, my dear," said he to himself, "'twill be a dear penny to me, I doubt. " Then he went to the window, and looked at the lawn, and sighed. Then he sat down and thought of the past. While he sat thus- moody, the door opened very softly, and a little cherubic face, with blue eyes and golden hair, peeped in. Griffith started. "Ah!" cried Ro.^e, with a joyful scream, and out flew her little arms, and away she came, half running, half dancing, and was on his knee in a moment, with her arms round his neck. "Papa! papa!" she cried. " Oh, my dear, dear, dear, darling papa !" And she kissed and patted his cheek again and again. Her innocent endearments moved him to tears. " My pretty angel !" he sighed ; " my lamb !" " How your heart beats — don't cry, dear papa. Nobody is dead, only we thought you were. I'm so glad you are come home alive. Now we can take off this nasty black ; I hate it." " What ! 'tis for me you wear it, pretty one ?" " Ay. Mamma made us. Poor mamma has been so unhappy. And that reminds me — you are a wicked man, papa. But I love you all one for that. It tis so dull when every body is good like mamma ; and she makes me dreadful- ly good too ; but now you are come back, there will be a little, little wickedness again, it is to be hoped. Aren't you glad you are not dead, and are come home instead? I am." " I am glad I have seen thee. Come, take my hand, and let us go look at the old place. " "Ay. But you must wait till I get on my new hat and feather." " Nay, nay — art pretty enough bareheaded." "Oh, papa! but I must, for decency. You are company now, you know." " Dull company, sweetheart, thou'lt find me." 1 ' I don't mean that : I mean, when you were here always, you were only papa ; but now you come once in an age, you're company. 1 won't budge without 'em ; so there, now." GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 93 "Well, little one, I do submit to thy hat and feather ; only be quick, or I shall go forth with- out thee." "If you dare," said Rose, impetuously ; "for I won't be half a moment. " She ran and extorted from Ryder the new hat and feather, which by rights she was not to have worn until next month. Griffith and his little girl went all over the well-known premises, he sad and moody, she ex- cited and chattering, and nodding her head down, and cocking her eye up every now and then, to get a glimpse of her feather. "And don't you go away again, dear papa. It tis so dull without you. Nobody comes here. Mamma won't let 'em. " " Nobody except Father Leonard," said Grif- fith, bitterly. "Father Leonard? Why, he never comes here. Leonard ! That is the beautiful priest that used to pat me on the head, and bid me love and honor my parents. And so I do. Only mamma is always crying, and you keep away ; so how can I love and honor you when I never see you, and they keep telling me you are good for nothing, and dead." " My young mistress, when did you see Fa- ther Leonard last ?" said Griffith, gnawing his lip. " How can I tell ? Why, it was miles ago — when I was a mere girl. You know he went away before you did. ' : "I know nothing of the kind. Tell me the truth, now. He has visited here since I went away." " Nay, papa." " That is strange. She visits him, then ?" "What, mamma? She seldom stirs out, and never beyond the village. We keep no carriage now. Mamma is turned such a miser. She is afraid you will be poor ; so she puts it all by for you. But now you are come, we shall have car- riages and things again. Oh, by-the-by, Father Leonard ! I heard them say he had left England, so I did. " "When was that?" "Well, I think that was a little bit after you went away." "That is strange," said Griffith, thoughtfully. He led his little girl by the hand, but scarcely listened to her prattle, he Avas so surprised and puzzled by the information he had elicited from her. Upon the whole, however, he concluded that his wife and the priest had perhaps been smitten with remorse, and hajd parted — when it was too late. This, and the peace of mind he had found else- where, somewhat softened his feelings toward them. " So," thought he, "they were not hard- ened creatures, after all. Poor Kate !" As these milder feelings gained on him, Rose suddenly uttered a joyful cry, and, looking up, he J saw Mrs. Gaunt coming toward him, and Ryder behind her. Both were in gay colors, which, in fact, was what had so delighted Rose. They came up, and Mrs. Gaunt seemed a changed woman. She looked young and beau- I tiful, and bent a look of angelic aifection on her | daughter, and said to Griffith, " Is she not grown ? j Is she not lovely ? Sure you will never desert i her again." . "'Twas not her I deserted, but her mother: ' and she had played me false with her d— d priest," was Griffith's reply. Mrs. Gaunt drew back with horror. "This before my girl ?" she cried. « ' Griffith Gaunt, you lie!" And this time it was the woman who menaced the man. She rose to six feet high, and advanced on him with her great gray eyes flashing flames at him. " Oh that I were a man !" she cried : " this insult should be the last. I'd lay you dead at her feet and mine." Griffith actually drew back a step, for the wrath of such a woman was terrible — more terrible, per- haps, to a brave man than to a coward. Then he put his hands in his pockets with a dogged air, and said, grinding his teeth, "But, as you are not a man, and I'm not a woman, we can't settle it that way. So I give you the last word, and good-day. I'm sore in want of mon- ey, but I find I can't pay the price it is like to cost me. Farewell." " Begone !" said Mrs. Gaunt ; " and this time forever. Ruffian and fool, I loathe the sight of you." Rose ran weeping to her. "Oh, mamma, don't quarrel with papa ;" then back to Griffith, " Oh, papa, don't quarrel with mamma — for my sake." Griffith hung his head, and said, in a broken voice, " No, my lamb, we twain must not quarreV before thee. We will part in silence, as becomes those that once were dear, and have thee to show for't. Madam, I wish you all health and happi- ness. Adieu." He turned on his heel, and Mrs. Gaunt took Rose to her knees, and bent and wept over her. Niobe over her last was not more graceful nor more sad. As for Ryder, she stole quietly after her retir- ing master. She found him peering about, and asked him demurely what he was looking for. " My good black horse, girl, to take me from this cursed place. Did I not tie him to yon gate?" "The black horse? Why, I sent him for Father Francis. Nay, listen to me, master; you know I was always your friend, and hard upon her. Well, since you went, things have come to pass that make me doubt. I begin to fear you were too hasty. " "Do you tell me this now, woman?" cried Griffith, furiously. " How could I tell you before? Why did you break your tryst with me ? If you had come according to your letter, I'd have told you months ago what I tell you now ; but, as I was saying, the priest never came near her after you left, and she never stirred abroad to meet him. More than that, he has left England." "Remorse! Too late." "Perhaps it may, sir. I couldn't say; but there is one coming that knows the very truth." "Who is that?" " Father Francis. The moment you came, sir, I took it on me to send for him. You know the man ; he won't tell a lie to please our dame. And he knows all, for Leonard has confessed to him. I listened, and heard him say as much. Then, master, be advised, and get the truth from Father Francis." Griffith trembled. "Francis is an honest man," said he; "I'll wait till he comes. But rv<« :> 94 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. oh, my lass, I find money may be bought too dear." ' ' Your chamber is ready, sir, and your clothes put out. Supper is ordered. Let me show you your room. We are all so happy now." " Well," said he, listlessly, " since my horse is gone, and Francis coming, and I'm wearied and sick of the world, do what you will with me for this one day." He followed her mechanically to a bedroom, where was a bright fire, and a fine shirt, and his silver-laced suit of clothes airing. A sense of luxurious comfort struck him at the sight. "Ay," he said, " I'll dress, and so to supper ; I'm main hungry. It seems a man must eat, let his heart be ever so sore. " Before she left him, Ryder asked him coldly why he had broken his appointment with her. "That is too long a story to tell you now," said he, coolly. " Another time, then," said she; and went out smiling, but bitter at heart. Griffith had a good wash, and enjoyed certain little conveniences which he had not at the " Packhorse." He doffed his riding-suit, and donned the magnificent dress Ryder had selected for him ; and with his fine clothes he somehow put on more ceremonious manners. He came down to the dining-room. To his surprise, he found it illuminated with wax can- dles, and the table and sideboard gorgeous with plate. Supper soon smoked upon the board ; but, though it was set for three, nobody else ap- peared. Griffith inquired of Ryder whether he was to sup alone. She replied, " My mistress desires you not to wait for her. She has no stomach." " Well, then, I have," said Griffith, and fell to with a will. Ryder, who waited on this occasion, stood and eyed him with curiosity. His conduct was so unlike a woman's. Just as he concluded, the door opened, and a burly form entered. Griffith rose and embraced him with his arms and lips, after the fashion of the day. " Welcome, thou one honest priest !" said he. "Welcome, thrice welcome, my long-lost son!" said the cordial Francis. "Sit down, man, and eat with me. I'll begin again, for you." " Fresently, squire ; I've work to do first. Go thou and bid thy mistress to come hither to me." Ryder, to whom this was addressed, went out, and left the gentlemen together. Father Francis drew out of his pocket two packets, carefully tied and sealed. He took a knife from the table and cut the strings, and broke the seals. Griffith eyed him with cu- riosity. Father Francis looked at him. * ' These, " said he, very gravely, "are the letters that Brother Leonard hath written, at sundry times, to Catha- rine Gaunt, and these are the letters Catharine Gaunt hath written to Brother Leonard. " Griffith trembled, and his face was con- vulsed. "Let me read them at once," said he, and stretched out his hand, with eyes like a dog's in the dark. Francis withdrew them quietly. "Not till she is also present," said he. At that, Griffith's good-nature, multiplied by a good supper, took the alarm. " Come, come, sir," said he, " have a little mercy. I know you are a just man, and, though a boon companion, most severe in all matters of morality. But, I tell you plainly, if you are going to drag this poor woman in the dirt, I shall go out of the room. What is the use tormenting her ? I've told her my mind before her own child, and now I wish I had not. When I caught them in the Grove I lifted my hand to strike her, and she never winced ; 1 had better have left that alone too, methinks. D — n the women ; you are always in the wrong if you treat 'em like men. They are not wicked — they are weak. And this one hath lain in my bosom, and borne me two chil- dren, and one he lieth in the church-yard, and t'other hath her hair and my very eyes ; and the truth is, I can't bear any man on earth to mis- call her but myself. God help me ; I doubt I love her still too well to sit by and see her tor- tured. She was all in black for her fault, poor penitent wretch. Give me the letters, but let her be." Francis was moved by this appeal, but shook his head solemnly ; and, ere Griffith could renew his argument, the door was flung open by Ryder, and a stately figure sailed in that took both the gentlemen by surprise. It was Mrs. Gaunt in full dress — rich brocade that swept the ground ; magnificent bust, like Parian marble varnished ; and on her brow a diadem of emeralds and diamonds that gave her beauty an imperial stamp. She swept into the room as only fine women can sweep, made Griffith a haughty courtesy, and suddenly lowered her head, and received Father Francis's blessing ; then seated herself, and quietly awaited events. ' ' The brazen jade !" thought Griffith. ' ' But how divinely beautiful!" And he became as agitated as she was calm — in appearance. For need I say her calmness was put on — defensive armor made for her by her pride and her sex ? The voice of Father Francis now rose, solid, grave, and too impressive to be interrupted. " My daughter, and you who are her husband and my friend, I am here to do justice between you both, with God's help, and to show you both your faults. " Catharine Gaunt, you began the mischief by encouraging another man to interfere between you and your husband in things secular." " But, father, he was my director — my priest." " My daughter, do you believe, with the Prot- estants, that marriage is a mere civil contract, or do you hold, with us, that it is one of the holy sacraments ?" "Can you ask me?" murmured Kate, re- proachfully. " Well, then, those whom God and the whole Church have in holy sacrament united, what right hath a single priest to disunite in heart, and make the wife false to any part whatever of that most holy vow ? I hear, and not from you, that Leonard did set you against your husband's friends, withdrew you from society, and sent him abroad alone. In one word, he robbed your hus- GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 05 band of his companion and his friend. The sin was Leonard's, but the fault was yours. You were five years older than Leonard, and a wom- an of sense and experience ; he but a boy by comparison. What right had you to surrender your understanding, in a matter of this kind, to a poor silly priest, fresh from his seminary, and as manifestly without a grain of common sense as he was full of piety ?" This remonstrance produced rather a striking effect on both those who heard it. Mrs. Gaunt seemed much struck with it. She leaned back in her chair, and put her hand to her brow with a sort of despairing gesture that Griffith could not very well understand : it seemed to him so disproportionate. It softened him, however, and he faltered out, " Ay, father, that is how it all began. Would to heaven it had stopped there." Francis resumed. " This false step led to con- sequences you never dreamed of; for one of your romantic notions is, that a priest is an angel. I have known you, in former times, try to take me for an angel ; then would I throw cold water on your folly by calling lustily for chines of beef and mugs of ale. But I suppose Leonard thought himself an angel too, and the upshot was, he fell in love with his neighbor's wife." "And she with him," groaned Griffith. "Not so," said Francis; "but perhaps she was nearer it than she thinks." "Prove that," said Mrs. Gaunt, "and I'll fall on my knees to him before you." Francis smiled, and proceeded. "To be sure, from the moment you discovered Leonard was in love with you, you drew back, and conducted yourself with prudence and propriety. Read these letters, sir, and tell me what you think of them." He handed them to Griffith. Griffith's hand trembled visibly as he took them. "Stay," said Father Francis; "your better way will be to read the whole correspondence according to their dates. Begin with this of Mrs. Gaunt's." Griffith read the letter in an audible whisper. Mrs. Gaunt turned her head a little, and for the first time lowered her eyes to the ground. CHAPTER XXXII. "Dear Father and Friend, — The words you spoke to me to-day admit but one meaning — you are jealous of my husband. i ' Then you must be — how can I write it ? — almost in love with me. "So, then, my poor husband was wiser than I. He saw a rival in you, and he has one. * ' I am deeply, deeply shocked. I ought to be very angry too ; but, thinking of your solitary condition, and all the good you have done to my soul, my heart has no place for naught but pity. Only, as I am in my senses and you are not, you must now obey me, as heretofore I have obeyed you. You must seek another sphere of duty without delay. "These seem harsh words from me to you. You will live to see they are kind ones. " Write me one line, and no more, to say you will be ruled by me in this. "God and the saints have you in their holy keeping. So prays your affectionate and sorrow- ful daughter and true friend, "Catharine Gaunt." " Poor soul !" said Griffith. " Said I not that women are not wicked, but weak ? Who would think that after all this he could get the better of her good resolves — the villain !" " Now read his reply," said F'ather Francis. "Ay," said Griffith. " So this is his one word of reply, is it? three pages closely Avrit— the vil- lain ! oh the villain !" "Read the villain's letter," said Francis, calmly. The letter was very humble and pathetic ; the reply of a good though erring man, who owned that, in a moment of weakness, he had been be- trayed into a feeling inconsistent with his holy profession. He begged his correspondent, how- ever, not to judge him quite so hardly. He re- minded her of his solitary life, his natural mel- ancholy, and assured her that all men in his con- dition had moments when they envied those whose bosoms had partners. "Such a cry of anguish," said he, "was once wrung from a maiden queen, maugre all her pride. The Queen of Scots hath a son, and I am but a barren stock. " He went on to say that prayer and vig- ilance united do much. " Do not despair so soon of me. Flight is not cure ; let me rather stay, and, with God's help and the saints', over- come this unhappy weakness. If I fail, it will indeed be time for me to go and never again see the angelic face of my daughter and my benefac- tress. " Griffith laid down the letter. He was some- what softened by it, and said, gently, " I can not understand it. This is not the letter of a thor- ough bad man neither." "No," said Father Francis, coldly, "'tis the letter of a self-deceiver ; and there is no more dangerous man, to himself and others, than your self-deceiver. But now let us see whether he can throw dust in her eyes as well as his own." And he handed him Kate's reply. The first word of it was, "You deceive your- self." The writer then insisted, quietly, that he owed it to himself, to her, and to her husband, whose happiness he was destroying, to leave the place at her request. " Either you must go, or I," said she; "and pray let it be you. Also this place is unworthy of your high gifts ; and I love you, in my way, the way I mean to love you when we meet again — in Heaven ; and I labor your advancement to a sphere more worthy of you." I wish space permitted me to lay the whole correspondence before the reader, but I must con- fine myself to its general purport. It proceeded in this way : the priest, humble, eloquent, pathetic, but gently, yet pertinaciously clinging to the place ; the lady gentle, wise, and firm, detaching with her soft fingers first one hand, then another, of the poor priest's, till at last he was driven to the sorry excuse that he had no money to travel with nor place to go to. "I can't understand it, " said Griffith. "Are these letters all forged, or are there two Kate Gaunts ? — the one that wrote these prudent let- ters, and the one I caught upon this very priest's arm. Perdition!" Mrs. Gaunt started to her feet. "Methinks 96- GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OH, JEALOUSY. 'tis time for me to leave the room," said she, scarlet. ' ' Gently, my good friends ; one thing at a time," said Francis. "Sit thou down, impetu- ous. The letters, sir, what think you of them ?" " I see no harm in them," said Griffith. " No harm ! is that all ? But I say these are very remarkable letters, sir ; and they show us that a woman may be innocent and unsuspicious, and so seem foolish, yet may be wise for all that. In her early communication with Leonard, " 'At wisdom's gate Suspicion slept, And thought no ill where no ill seemed.' But, you see, suspicion being once aroused, wis- dom was not to be lulled nor blinded. But that is not all : these letters breathe a spirit of Chris- tian charity; of true, and rare, and exalted piety; tender are they, without passion ; wise, yet not cold ; full of conjugal love, and of filial pity for an erring father, whom she leads, for his good, with firm yet dutiful hand. Trust to any great experience ; doubt the chastity of snow rather than hers who could write these pure and exqui- site lines. My good friend, you heard me rebuke and sneer at this poor lady for being too inno- cent and unsuspicious of man's frailty ; now hear me own to you that I could no more have written these angelic letters than a barn-door fowl could soar to the mansions of the saints in Heaven." This unexpected tribute took Mrs. Gaunt's heart by storm ; she threw her arms round Father Francis's neck, and wept upon his shoul- der. " Ah !" she sobbed, ' ' you are the only one left that loves me." She could not understand justice praising her ; it must be love. "Ay," said Griffith, in a broken voice, "she writes like an angel, she speaks like an angel, she looks like an angel. My heart says she is an angel, but my eyes have shown me she is naught. I left her unable to walk, by her way of it ; I came back, and found her on that priest's arm, springing along like a greyhound." He buried his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. Francis turned to Mrs. Gaunt, and said, a lit- tle severely, " How do you account for that?" "I'll tell you, father," said Kate, "because you love me. I do not speak to you, sir, for you never loved me. " "I could give thee the lie," said Griffith, in a trembling voice, " but 'tis not worth while. Know, sir, that within twenty-four hours after I caught her with that villain, I lay a dying for her sake, and lost my wits ; and, when I came to, they were a making my shroud in the very room where I lay. No matter — no matter — 1 never loved her." "Alas! poor soul!" sighed Kate; " would I had died ere I brought thee to that!" And, with this, they both began to cry at the same moment. " Ay, poor fools !" said Father Francis, softly, ' ' neither of ye loved t'other, that is plain. So now sit you there, and let us have your explana- tion ; for you must own appearances are strong against you." Mrs. Gaunt drew her stool to Francis's knee, and, addressing herself to him alone, explained as follows : " I saw Father Leonard was giving way, and only wanted one good push, after a manner. Well, you know I had got him, by my friends, a good place in Ireland, and I had money by me for his journey ; so, when my husband talked of going to the fair, I thought, ' Oh, if I could but get this settled to his mind before he comes back.' So I wrote a line to Leonard. You can read it if you like. 'Tis dated the 30th of Sep- tember, I' suppose. " "I will," said Francis, and read this out : "Dear Father aud Friend, — You have fought the good fight and conquered. Now, therefore, I will see you once more, and thank you for my husband (he is so unhappy,), and put the money for your journey into your hand my- self — your journey to Ireland. You are the Duke "of Leinster's chaplain, for I have accepted that place for you. Let me see you to-morrow in the grove, for a few minutes, at high noon. God bless you. Catharine Gaunt." ' ' Well, father, " said Mrs. Gaunt, ' ' 'tis true that I could only walk two or three times across the room. But, alack, you know what women are ; excitement gives us strength. With thinking that our unhappiness was at an end ; that, when he should come back from the fair, I should fling my arm round his neck, and tell him I had re- moved the cause of his misery, and so of mine, I seemed to have wings ; and I did walk with Leonard, and talked with rapture of the good he was to do in Ireland, and how he was to be a mitred abbot one day (for he is a great man), and poor little me be proud of him ; and how we were all to be happy together in heaven, where is no marrying nor giving in marriage. This was our discourse ; and I was just putting the purse into his hands, and bidding him God-speed, when he — for Avhom I fought against my woman's na- ture, and took this trying task upon me — broke in upon us with the face of a fiend, trampled on the poor good priest, that deserved veneration and consolation from him, of all men, and raised his hand to me, and was not man enough to kill me after all, but called me — ask him Avhat he called me ; see if he dares say it again before you ; and then ran away, like a coward as he is, from the lady he had defiled with his rude tongue, and the heart he had broken. Forgive him ? that I never will — never — never !" "Who asked you to forgive him?" said the shrewd priest. " Your oavii heart. Come, look at him." "Not I," said she, irresolutely. Then, still more feebly, "He is naught to me," and so stole a look at him. Griffith, pale as ashes, had his hand on his brow, and his eyes were fixed with horror and re- morse. " Something tells me she has spoken the truth," he said, in a quavering voice. Then, with concentrated horror, " But, if so — oh God, what have I done ? What shall I do ?" Mrs. Gaunt extended her arms toward him, across the priest. " Why, fall at thy wife's knees, and ask her to forgive thee." Griffith obeyed. He fell on his knees, and Mrs. Gaunt leaned her head on Francis's shoul- der, and gave her hand across him to her re- morse-stricken husband. Neither spoke nor desired to speak ; anc: even Father Francis sat silent, and enjoyed that GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 07 sweet glow which sometimes Messes the peace- maker, even in this world of wrangles and jars. But the good soul had ridden hard, and the neglected meats emitted savory odors, and by- and-by he said, dryly, "I wonder whether that fat pullet tastes as well as it smells : can you tell me, squire ?" "Oh, inhospitable wretch that I am," said Mrs, Gaunt, " I thought but of my own heart." "And forgot the stomach of your unspiritual father. But, madam, you are pale — vou trem- ble." "'Tis nothing, sir; I shall soon be better. Sit you down and sup ; I will return anon." She retired, not to make a fuss ; but her heart palpitated violently, and she had to sit down on the stairs. Ryder, who was prowling about, found her there, and fetched her hartshorn. Mrs. Gaunt got better, but felt so languid, and also hysterical, that she retired to her own room for the night, attended by the faithful Ryder, to whom she confided that a reconciliation had taken place, and, to celebrate it, gave her a dress she had only Avorn a year. This does not sound queenly to you ladies ; but know that a week's wear tells far more on the flimsy trash you wear nowadays, than a year did on the glorious silks of Lyons Mrs. Gaunt put on — thick as broad- cloth, and embroidered so cunningly by the loom that it would pass for rarest needle-work. Be- sides, in those days, silk was silk. As Ryder left her, she asked, "Where is the master to lie to-night ?" Mrs. Gaunt was not pleased at this question being put to her. Being a singular mixture of frankness and finesse, she had retired to her own room partly to test Griffith's heart. If he was as sincere as she was, he would not be content with a public reconciliation. But the question being put to her plump, and by one of her own sex, she colored faintly, and said, " Why, is there not a bed in his room?" " Oh yes, madam." "Then see it be well aired. Put down all the things before the fire, and then tell me ; I'll come and see. The feather bed, mind, as well as the sheets and blankets." Ryder executed all this with zeal. She did more : though Griffith and Francis sat up very late, she sat up too ; and, on the gentlemen leaving the supper-room, she met them both, with bed-candles, in a delightful cap, and un- dertook, with cordial smiles, to show them both their chambers. " Tread softly on the landing, an' if it please you, gentlemen. My mistress hath been unwell, but she is in a fine sleep now, by the blessing, and I would not have her disturbed." Father Francis went to bed thoughtful. There was something about Griffith he did not like ; the man every now and then broke out into bois- terous raptures, and presently relapsed into moody thoughtfulness. Francis almost feared that his cure was only temporary. In the morning, before he left, he drew Mrs. Gaunt aside, and told her his misgivings. She replied that she thought she knew what was amiss, and would soon set that right. Griffith tossed and turned in his bed, and spent a stormy night. His mind was in a con- G fused whirl, and his heart distracted. The wife he had truly loved so tenderly proved to be the very reverse of all he had lately thought her ! She was pure as snow, and had always loved him ' — loved him now, and only wanted a good ex- cuse to take him to her arms again. But Mercy Vint — his wife, his benefactress — a woman as chaste as Kate, as strict in life and morals — what was to become of her ? How could he tell her she was not his wife ? how reveal to her her own calamity and his treason? And, on the other hand, desert her without a word! and leave her hoping, fearing, pining, all her life! Affection, humanity, gratitude alike forbade it. He came down in the morning, pale for him, and worn with the inward struggle. Naturally there was a restraint between him and Mrs. Gaunt, and only short sentences passed between them. He saw the peacemaker off, and then wander- ed all over the premises, and the past came near- er, and the present seemed to retire into the background. He wandered about like one in a dream, and was so self-absorbed that he did not see Mrs. Gaunt coming toward him with observant eyes. She met him full; he started like a guilty thing. " Are you afraid of me ?" said she, sweetly. ' ' No, my dear, not exactly ; and yet I am — afraid, or ashamed, or both." "You need not. I said I forgive you; and you know I am not one that does things by halves." "You are an angel !" said he, warmly ; "but (suddenly relapsing into despondency) we shali never be happy together again." She sighed. " Say not so. Time and sweet recollections may heal even this wound by de- grees. " ' ' God grant it, " said he, despairingly. "And, though we can't be lovers again all at once, we may be friends ; to begin, tell me, what have you on your mind? Come, make a friend of me. " He looked at her in alarm. She smiled. " Shall I guess ?" said she. " You will never guess, " said he, ' ' and I shall never have the heart to tell you." ' ' Let me try. Well, I think you have run in debt, and are afraid to ask me for the money. " Griffith was greatly relieved by this conjecture. He drew a long breath ; and, after a pause, said, cunningly, "What made you think that ?" "Because you came here for money, and not for happiness. You told me so in the Grove." "That is true. What a sordid wretch you must think me!" "No, because you were under a delusion. But I do believe you are just the man to turn reckless when you thought me false, and go drinking and dicing." She added, eagerly, " I do not suspect you of any thing worse." He assured her that was not the way of it. " Then tell me the way of it. You must not think, because I pester you not with questions, I have no curiosity. Oh, how often have I longed to be a bird, and watch you day and night un- seen. How would you have liked that ? I wish you had been one, to watch me. Ah ! you don't answer. Could you have borne so close an in- spection, sir ?" 98 GRIFFITH GAUNT : OK, JEALOUSY. Griffith shuddered at the idea, and his eyes fell before the full gray orbs of his wife. "Well, never mind," said she ; " tell me your story." "Well, then, when I left you I was raving mad." " That is true, I'll be sworn." "I let my horse go, and he took me near a hundred miles from here, and stopped at — at — a farm-house. The good people took me in." " God bless them for it. I'll ride and thank them." " Nay, nay, 'tis too far. There I fell sick of a fever — a brain-fever: the doctor blooded me." " Alas ! would he had taken mine instead." "And I lost my wits for several days; and when I came back I was weak as water, and given up by the doctor ; and the first thing I saw was an old hag set a making of my shroud." Here the narrative was interrupted a moment by Mrs. Gaunt seizing him convulsively, and then holding him tenderly, as if he was even now about to be taken from her. " The good people nursed me, and so did their daughter, and I came back from the grave. I took an inn ; but I gave up that, and had to pay forfeit ; and so my money all went ; but they kept me on. To be sure, I helped on the farm : they kept a hostelry as well. By-and-by came that murrain ampng the cattle. Did you have it in these parts too ?" " I know not, nor care. Prithee leave cattle, and talk of thyself." "Well, in a word, they were ruined, and go- ing to be sold up. I could not bear that : I be- came bondsman for the old man. It was the least I could do. Kate, they had saved thy hus- band's life." " Not a word more, Griffith. How much stand you pledged for ?" "A large sum." " Would five hundred pounds be of any avail ?" "Five hundred pounds ! Ay, that it would, and to spare ; but where can I get so much mon- ey? And the time so short." " Give me thy hand, and come with me," said Mrs. Gaunt, ardently. She took his hand, and made a swift rush across the lawn. It was not exactly running nor •walking, but some grand motion she had when excited. She put him to his stride to keep up with her at all, and in two minutes she had him into her boudoir. She unlocked a bureau all in a hurry, and took out a bag of gold. " There !" she cried, thrusting it into his hand, and bloom- ing all over with joy and eagerness ; "I thought you would want money, so I saved it up. You shall not be in debt a day longer. Now mount thy horse, and carry it to those good souls ; only, for my sake, take the gardener with thee— I have no groom now but he — and both well armed." " What ! go this very day ?" " Ay, this very hour. I can bear thy absence for a day or two more, I have borne it so long, but I can not bear thy plighted word to stand in doubt a day — no, not an hour. I am your wife, sir, your true and loving wife ; your honor is mine, and is as dear to me now as it was when you saw me with Father Leonard in the Grove, and read me all awry. Don't wait a moment ; begone at once. " "Nay, nay, if I go to-morrow I shall be in time." "Ay, but," said Mrs. Gaunt, very softly, " I am afraid if I keep you another hour I shall not have the heart to let you go at all ; and the soon- er gone, the sooner back for good, please God. There, give me one kiss to live on, and begone this instant." He covered her hands with kisses and tears. " I'm not worthy to kiss any higher than thy hand," he said, and so ran sobbing from her. CHAPTER XXXIII. He went straight to the stable and saddled Black Dick. But, in the very act, his nature re- volted. What, turn his back on her the moment he had got hold of her money to take to the oth- er ! He could not do it. He went back to her room, and came so sud- denly that he caught her crying. He asked her what was the matter. "Nothing," said she, with a sigh; "only a woman's foolish misgivings. I was afraid per- haps you would not come back. Forgive me." "No fear of that," said he. " However, I have taken a resolve not to go to-day. If I go to-morrow I shall be just in time, and Dick wants a good day's rest." Mrs. Gaunt said nothing, but her expressive face was triumphant. Griffith and she took a walk together, and he, who used to be the more genial of the two, was dull, and she full of animation. This whole day she laid herself out to bewitch her husband, and put him in high spirits. It was up-hill work ; but, when such a woman sets herself in earnest to delight a man, she reads our sex a lesson in the art that shows us we are all babies at it. However, it was at supper she finally con- quered. Here the lights, her beauty set off with art, her deepening eyes, her satin skin, her happy ex- citement, her wit and tenderness, and joyous sprightliness, enveloped Griffith in an atmos- phere of delight, and drove every thing out of his head but herself; and with this, if the truth must be told, the sparkling wines co-operated. Griffith plied the bottle a little too freely. But Mrs. Gaunt, on this one occasion, had not the heart to check him. The more he toasted her, the more uxorious he became, and she could not deny herself even this joy ; but, besides, she had less of the prudent wife in her just then than of the weak, indulgent mother. Any thing rath- er than check his love : she was greedy of it. At last, however, she said to him, " Sweet- heart, I shall go to bed ; for I see, if I stay lon- ger, I shall lead thee into a debauch. Be good, now ; drink no more when I am gone, else 1*11 say thou lovest thy bottle more than thy wife. " He promised faithfully. But, when she was gone, modified his pledge by drinking just one bumper to her health, which bumper let in an- other ; and when at last he retired to rest, he was in that state of mental confusion wherein the limbs appear to have a memory independent of the mind. In this condition do some men's hands wind up their watches, the mind taking no appreciable part in the ceremony. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 90 By some such act of what physicians call ' ' or- ganic memory," Griffith's feet carried him to the chamber he had slept in a thousand times, and not into the one Mrs. Ryder had taken him to the night before. The next morning he came down rather late for him, and found himself treated with a great access of respect by the servants. His position was no longer doubtful ; he was the master of the house. Mrs. Gaunt followed in due course, and sat at breakfast with him, looking young and blooming as Hebe, and her eye never off him long. She had lived temperately, and had not yet passed the age when happiness can restore a woman's beauty and brightness in a single day. As for him, he was like a man in a heavenly dream : he floated in the past and the present ; the recent and the future seemed obscure and dis- tant, and comparatively in a mist. But that same afternoon, after a most affec- tionate farewell, and many promises to return as soon as ever he had discharged his obligations, Griffith Gaunt started for the "Packhorse," to carry to Mercy Leicester, alias Vint, the money Catharine Gaunt had saved by self-denial and economy. And he went south a worse man than he came. When he left Mercy Leicester, he was a big- amist in law, but not at heart. Kate was dead to him ; he had given her up forever ; and was constant and true to his new wife. But now he was false to Mercy, yet not true to Kate ; and, curiously enough, it was a day or two passed with his lawful wife that had demoralized him. His unlawful wife had hitherto done noth- ing but improve his character. But a great fault once committed is often the first link in a chain of acts that look like crimes, but are, strictly speaking, consequences. This man, blinded at first by his own foible, and, after that, the sport of circumstances, was single-hearted by nature, and his conscience was not hardened. He desired earnestly to free him- self and both his wives from the Cruel situation ; but, to do this, one of them, he saw, must be abandoned entirely, and his heart bled for her. A villain or a fool would have relished the sit- uation ; many men would have dallied with it ; but, to do this erring man justice, he writhed and sorrowed under it, and sincerely desired to end it. And this was why he prized Kate's money so. It enabled him to render a great service to her he had injured worse than he had the other, to her he saw he must abandon. But this was feeble comfort after all. He rode along a miserable man ; none the less wretched and remorseful that, ere he got into Lancashire, he saw his way clear. This was his resolve : to pay old Vint's debts with Kate's money ; take the "Packhorse," get it made over to Mercy, give her the odd two hundred pounds and his jewels, and fly. He would never see her again, but woidd return home, and get the rest of the two thousand pounds from Kate, and send it to Mercy by a friend, who should tell her he was dead, and had left word with his relations to send her all his substance. At last the " Packhorse" came in sight. He drew rein, and had half a mind to turn back ; but, instead of that, he crawled on, and very sick and cold he felt. Many a man has marched to the scaffold with a less quaking heart than he to the " Packhorse. " His dejection contrasted strangely with the warm reception he met from every body there. And the house was full of women ; and they seemed, somehow, all cock-a-hoop, and filled with admiration of him. " Where is she ?" said he, faintly. " Hark to the poor soul !" said a gossip. u Dame Vint, where's thy daughter? gone out a-walking belike ?" At this the other women present chuckled and clucked. " I'll bring you to her," said Mrs. Vint ; "but prithee be quiet and reasonable, for, to be sure, she is none too strong." There was some little preparation, and then Griffith was ushered into Mercy's room, and found her in bed, looking a little pale, but sweet- er and comelier than ever. She had the bed- clothes up to her chin. "You look wan, my poor lass," said he; ' ' what ails ye ?" "Naught ails me now thou art come," said she, lovingly. Griffith put the bag on the table. "There," said he, ' ' there's five hundred pounds in gold. I come not to thee empty-handed. " " Nor I to thee," said Mercy, with a heavenly smile. "See!" And she drew down the bedclothes a little, and showed the face of a babe scarcely three days old — a little boy. She turned in the bed, and tried to hold him up to his father, and said, "Here's my treasure for thee !" And the effort, the flush on her cheek, and the deep light in her dove-like eyes, told plainly that the poor soul thought she had contributed to their domestic wealth something far richer than Griffith had with his bag of gold. The father uttered an ejaculation, and came to her side, and, for a moment, Nature over- powered every thing else. He kissed the child ; he kissed Mercy again and again. " Now God be praised for both," said he, pas- sionately; "but most for thee, the best wife, the truest friend — " Here, thinking of her vir- tues, and the blow he had come to strike her, he broke down, and was almost choked with emo- tion ; whereupon Mrs. Vint exerted female au- thority, and bundled him out of the room. "Is that the way to carry on at such a time ?" said she. " 'Twas enow to upset her altogether. Oh, but you men have little sense in women's matters. I looked to you to give her courage, not to set her off into hysterics in a manner. Nay, keep up her heart, or keep your distance, say I, that am her mother." Griffith took this hint, and ever after took pity on Mercy's weak condition, and, suspending the fatal blow, did all he could to restore her to health and spirits. Of course, to do that, he must deceive her, and so his life became a lie. For hitherto she had never looked forward much ; but now her eyes were always diving into futurity, and she lay smiling and discussing the prospects of her boy ; and Griffith had to sit 100 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. by her side, and see her gnaw the boy's hand, and kiss his feet, and anticipate his brilliant career. He had to look and listen with an ach- ing heart, and assent with feigned warmth, and an inward chill of horror and remorse. One Drummond, a traveling artist, called, and Mercy, who had often refused to sit to him, consented now, for, she said, when he grows up, he shall know how his parents looked in their youth, the very year their darling was born. So Griffith had to sit with her, and excellent like- nesses the man produced, but a horrible one of the child. And Griffith thought, " Poor soul ! a little while, and this picture will be all that shall be left to thee of me." For all this time he was actually transacting the preliminaries of separation. He got a man of law to make all sure. The farm, the stock, the furniture and good-will of the " Packhorse," all these he got assigned to Mercy Leicester for her own use, in consideration of three hundred and fifty pounds, whereof three hundred were devoted to clearing the concern of its debts, the odd fifty was to sweeten the pill to Hany Vint. "When the deed came to be executed, Mercy was surprised, and uttered a gentle remon- strance. "What have I to do with it?" said she. " 'Tis thy money, not mine. " " No matter," said Griffith, "I choose to have it so." " Your will is my law," said Mercy. " Besides," said Griffith, " the old folk will not feel so sore, nor be afraid of being turned out, if it is in thy name." "And that is true," said Mercy. "Now who had thought of that but my good man ?" And she threw her arms lovingly round his neck, and gazed on him adoringly. But his lion-like eyes avoided her dove-like eyes, and an involuntary shudder ran through him. The habit of deceiving Mercy led to a conse- quence he had not anticipated. It tightened the chain that held him. She opened his eyes more and more to her deep affection, and he began to fear she would die if he abandoned her. And then her present situation was so touch- ing. She had borne him a lovely boy : that must be abandoned too, if he left her ; and somehow the birth of this child had embellished the moth- er ; a delicious pink had taken the place of her rustic bloom, and her beauty was more refined and delicate. So pure, so loving, so fair, so ma- ternal, to wound her heart now, it seemed like stabbing an angel. One day succeeded to another, and still Grif- fith had not the heart to carry out his resolve. He temporized ; he wrote to Kate that he was detained by the business ; and he staid on and on, strengthening his gratitude and his affection, and weakening his love for the absent and his res- olution, till at last he became so distracted and divided in heart, and so demoralized, that he be- gan to give up the idea of abandoning Mercy, and babbled to himself about fate and destiny, and decided that the most merciful course would be to deceive both women. Mercy was patient. Mercy was unsuspicious. She would content herself with occasional visits, if he could only feign some plausible tale to account for long ab- sences. Before he got into this mess he was a singu- larly truthful person, but now a lie was nothing to him. But, for that matter, many a man has been first made a liar by his connection with two women, and by degrees has carried his mendaci- ty into other things. However, though now blessed with mendacity, he was cursed with a lack of invention, and sore- ly puzzled how to live at Hernshaw, yet visit the "Packhorse." The best thing he could hit upon was to pre- tend to turn bagman, and so Mercy would be- lieve he was traveling all over England, when all the time he was quietly living at Hernshaw. And perhaps these long separations might pre- pare her heart for a final parting, and so let in his original plan a few years hence. He prepared this manoeuvre with some art. He told her, one day, he had been to Lancaster, and there fallen in with a friend, who had as good as promised him the place of a commercial traveler for a mercantile house. ' ' A traveler ! " said Mercy. ' ' Heaven forbid ! If you knew how I wearied for you when you went to Cumberland!" "To Cumberland! How know you I went thither ?" "Oh, but I guessed that ; but now I know it, by your face. But, go where thou wilt, the house is dull directly. Thou art our sunshine. Isn't he, my poppet ?" "Well, well, if it kept me too long from thee, I could give it up. But, child, we must think of young master. You could manage the inn, and your mother the farm, without me, and I should be earning money on my side. I want to make a gentleman of him." "Any thing for him" said Mercy, "any thing in the world. " But the tears stood in her eyes. In furtherance of this deceit, Griffith did onq day actually ride to Lancaster, and slept there. He wrote to Kate from that town to say he was detained by a slight illness, but hoped to be homo in a week ; and the next day brought Mercy home some ribbons, and told her he had seen the merchant and his brother, and they had made him a very fair offer. "But I've a week to think of it," said he, " so there's no hurry." Mercy fixed her eyes on him in a very peculiar way, and made no reply. You must know that something very curious had happened while Grif- fith was gone to Lancaster. A traveling peddler, passing by, was struck with the name on the sign -board. "Hallo!" said he, "why here's a namesake of mine; I'll have a glass of his ale, any way." So he came into the public room, and called for a glass, taking care to open his pack and dis- play his inviting wares. Harry Vint served him. " Here's your health," said the peddler. " Yoi\ must drink with me, you must." "And welcome," said the old man. "Well," said the peddler, "I do travel five counties, but, for all that, you are the first name- sake I have found. I am Thomas Leicester too, as sure as you are a living sinner." The old man laughed and said, "Then 'no namesake of mine are you, for they call me Harry Vint. Thomas Leicester, he that keeps this inn now, is my son-in-law : he is gone to Lancaster this morning." The peddler said that was a pity ; he should have liked to see his namesake, and drink a glass with him. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 101 "Come again to-morrow," said Harry Vint, ironically. "-Dame," he cried, "come hither. Here's another Thomas Leicester for ye, wants to see our one. " Mrs. Vint turned her head and inspected the peddler from afar, as if he was some natural cu- riosity. "Where do you come from, young man?" said she. "Well, I came from Kendal last, but I am Cumberland bom. " "Why, that is where t'other comes from," suggested Paul Carrick, who was once more a frequenter of the house. ' ' Like enow, " said Mrs. Vint. With that she dropped the matter as one of no consequence, and retired. But she went straight to Mercy, in the parlor, and told her there was a man in the kitchen that called himself Thomas Leicester. "Well, mother?" said Mercy, with high in- difference, for she was trying new socks on King Baby. " He comes from Cumberland." " Well, to be sure, names do run in counties." "That is true; but, seems to me, he favors your man : much of a height, and — There, do just step into the kitchen a moment. " "La! mother," said Mercy, "I don't desire to see any more Thomas Leicesters than my own : 'tis the man, not the name. Isn't it, my lamb ?" Mrs. Vint went back to the kitchen discom- fited; but, with quiet pertinacity, she brought Thomas Leicester into the parlor, pack and all. "There, Mercy," said she, "lay out a penny with thy husband's namesake." Mercy did not reply, for at that moment Thomas Leicester caught sight of Griffith's por- trait, and gave a sudden start, and a most extra- ordinary look besides. Both the women's eyes happened to be upon him, and they saw at once that he knew the original. " You know my husband?" said Mercy Vint, after a while. " Not I," said Leicester, looking askant at the picture. "Don't tell no lies," said Mrs. Vint. "You do know him well." And she pointed her as- sertion by looking at the portrait. " Oh, I know him whose picture hangs there, of course," said Leicester. "Well, and that is her husband." "Oh, that is her husband, is it?" And he was unaffectedly puzzled. Mercy turned pale. "Yes, he is my hus- band," said she, "and this is our child. Can you tell me any thing about him ? for he came a stranger to these parts. Belike you are a kins- man of his ?" "So they say." This reply puzzled both women. "Any way," said the peddler, "you see we are marked alike." And he showed a long black mole on his forehead. Mercy was now as curious as she had been indifferent. " Tell me all about him," said she : " how comes it that he is a gentleman and thou a peddler ?" " Well, because myr mother was a gipsy, and his a gentlewoman." "What brought him to these parts?" 'Trouble, they say." ; ' What trouble?" "Nay, I know not." This after a slight but visible hesitation. " But you have heard say." "Well, I am always on the foot, and don't bide long enough in one place to learn all the gossip. But I do remember hearing he was gone to sea ; and that was a lie, for he had set- tled here, and married you. I'fackins, he might have done worse. He has got a bonny, buxom wife, and a rare fine boy, to be sure." And now the peddler was on his guard, and determined he would not be the one to break up the household he saw before him, and afflict the dove-eyed wife and mother. He was a good- natured fellow, and averse to make mischief with his own hands. Besides, he took for granted Griffith loved his new wife better than the old one ; and, above all, the punishment of bigamy was severe, and was it for him to get the squire indicted, and branded in the hand for a felon ? So the women could get nothing more out of him ; he lied, evaded, shuffled, and feigned utter ignorance, pleading, adroitly enough, his vagrant life. All this, however, aroused vague suspicions in Mrs.Vint's mind, and she went and whispered them to her favorite, Paul Carrick. "And, Paul," said she, "call for what you like, and score it to me, only treat this peddler till he leaks out summut : to be sure he'll tell a man more than he will us. " Paul entered with zeal into this commission ; treated the peddler to a chop, and plied him well with the best ale. All this failed to loose the peddler's tongue at the time, but it muddled his judgment : on re- suming his journey, he gave his entertainer a wink. Carrick rose and followed him out. "You seem a decent lad," said the peddler, "and a good-hearted one. Wilt do me a fa- vor?" Carrick said he would, if it lay in his power. "Oh, it is easy enow," said the peddler. " 'Tis just to give Thomas Leicester, into his own hand, this here trifle as soon as ever he comes home. " And he handed Carrick a hard substance wrapped in paper. Carrick promised. "Ay, ay, lad," said the peddler, "but see you play fair, and give it him unbeknown. Now don't you be so simple as show it to any of the women-folk. D'ye understand ?" "All right," said Carrick, knowingly. And so the boon companions for a day shook hands and parted. And Carrick took the little parcel straight to Mrs. Vint, and told her every word the peddler had said. And Mrs. Vint took the little parcel straight to Mercy, and told her what Carrick said the ped- dler had said. And the peddler went off flushed with beer and self-complacency ; for he thought he had drawn the line precisely; had faithfully dis- charged his promise to his lady and benefac- tress, but not so as to make mischief in another household. Such was the power of Ale — in the last cen- tury. Mercy undid the paper and found the bullet, on which was engraved 102 GRIFFITH GAUNT j OR, JEALOUSY. "I LOVE KATE." As she read these words a knife seemed to en- ter her heart, the pang was so keen. But she soon took herself to task. "Thou naughty woman," said she. "What! jealous of the dead ?" She wrapped the bullet up, put it carefully away, had a good cry, and was herself again. But all this set her watching Griffith and read- ing his face. She had subtle, vague misgivings, and forbade her mother to mention the peddler's visit to Griffith yet a while. Woman-like, she preferred to worm out the truth. On the evening of his return from Lancaster, as he was smoking his pipe, she quietly tested him. She fixed her eyes on him, and said, "One was here to-day that knows thee, and brought thee this." She then handed him the bullet, and watched his face. Griffith undid the paper carelessly enough ; but, at sight of the bullet, uttered a loud cry, and his eyes seemed ready to start out of his head. He turned as pale as ashes, and stammered, piteously, " What — what — what d'ye mean ? In Heaven's name, what is this ? How ? Who ?" Mercy was surprised, but also much concern- ed at his distress, and tried to soothe him. She also asked him, piteously, whether she had done wrong to give it him. " God knows," said she, " 'tis no business of mine to go and remind thee of her thou hast loved better mayhap than thou lovest me. But to keep it from thee, and she in her grave, oh, I had not the heart !" But Griffith's agitation increased instead of diminishing ; and, even while she was trying to soothe him, he rushed wildly out of the room and into the open air. Mercy went, in perplexity and distress, and told her mother. Mrs. Vint, not being blinded by affection, thought the whole thing had a very ugly look, and said as much. She gave it as her opinion that this Kate was alive, and had sent the token herself, to make mischief between man and wife. "That shall she never," said Mercy, stoutly; but now her suspicions were thoroughly excited, and her happiness disturbed. The next day Griffith found her in tears : he asked her what was the matter. She would not tell him. "You have your secrets," said she, "and so now I have mine. " Griffith became very uneasy. For now Mercy was often in tears, and Mrs. Vint looked daggers at him. All this was mysterious and unintelligible, and, to a guilty man, very alarming. At last he implored Mercy to speak out. He wanted to know the worst. Then Mercy did speak out. ' ' You have de- ceived me," said she. "Kate is alive. This very morning, between sleeping and waking, you whispered her name ; ay, false man, whis- pered it like a lover. You told me she was dead. But she is alive, and has sent you a re- minder, and the bare sight of it hath turned your heart her way again. What shall I do? Why did you marry me, if you could not forget her ? I did not want you to desert any woman for me. The desire of my heart was always for your happiness. But oh, Thomas, deceit and falsehood will not bring you happiness, no more than they will me. What shall I do? what shall I do?" Her tears flowed freely, and Griffith sat dow"h, and groaned with horror and remorse, beside her. He had not the courage to tell her the horrible truth, that Kate was his wife, and she was not. "l)o not thou afflict thyself," he muttered. " Of course, with you putting that bullet in my hand so sudden, it set my fancy a wandering back to other days." "Ah!" said Mercy, "if it be no worse than that, there's little harm. But why did thy name- sake start so at sight of thy picture ?" "My namesake !" cried Griffith, all aghast. "Ay, he that brought thee that love-token — Thomas Leicester. Nay, for very shame, feign not ignorance of him ; why, he hath thy very mole on his temple, and knew thy picture in a moment. He is thy half-brother, is he not ?" "I am a ruined man," cried Griffith; and sank into a chair without power of motion. " God help me, what is all this ?" cried Mercy. " Oh, Thomas, Thomas, I could forgive thee aught but deceit ; for both our sakes, speak out, and tell me the worst ; no harm shall come near thee while I live. " " How can I tell thee? I am an unfortunate man. The world will call me a villain ; yet I am not a villain at heart. But who will believe me ? I have broken the law. Thee I could trust, but not thy folk ; they never loved me. Mercy, for pity's sake, when was that Thomas Leicester here ?" "Four days ago." " Which way went he ?" "I hear he told Paul he was going to Cum- berland." " If he gets there before me, I shall rot in jail." "Now Heaven forbid! Oh, Thomas, then mount and ride after him." "I will, and this very moment." He saddled Black Dick, and loaded his pistols for the journey ; but, ere he went, a pale face looked out into the yard, and a finger beckoned. It was Mercy. She bade him follow her. She took him to her room, where their child was sleeping ; and then she closed, and even locked the door. "No soul can hear us," said she ; "now, look me in the face, and tell me God's truth. Who and what are you?" Griffith shuddered at this exordium ; he made no reply. Mercy went to a box, and took out an old shirt of his — the one he wore when he first came to the " Packhorse." She brought it to him and showed him " G. G." embroidered on it with a woman's hair (Ryder's). ' ' Here are your initials, " said she ; ' ' now leave useless falsehoods ; be a man, and tell me your real name." "My name is Griffith Gaunt." Mercy, sick at heart, turned her head away ; but she had the resolution to urge him on. " Go on," said she, in an agonized whisper: "if you believe in God, and a judgment to come, deceive me no more. The truth ! I say ; the truth !" " So be it," said Griffith, desperately : "when GKIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 103 I have told thee what a villain I am, I can die at thy feet, and then thou wilt forgive me. " " Who is Kate?" was all she replied. " Kate is — my wife." "I thought her false; who could think any other, appearances were so strong against her? others thought so heside me. I raised my hand to kill her, but she never winced. I trampled on him I believed her paramour ; I fled, and soon I lay a dying in this house for her sake. I told thee she was dead. Alas ! I thought her dead to me. I went back to our house (it is her house), sore against the grain, to get money for thee and thine. Then she cleared herself, bright as the sun, and pure as snow. She was all in black for me; she had put by money against I should come to my senses and need it. I told her I owed a debt in Lancashire — a debt of gratitude as well as money ; and so I did. How have I repaid it ? The poor soul forced five hundred pounds on me. I had much ado to keep her from bringing it hither with her own hands — oh, villain ! villain ! Then I thought to leave thee, and send thee word I was dead, and heap money on thee. Money ! But how could I ? Thou wast my benefactress, my more than wife. All the riches of the world can make no return to thee. What — what shall I do ? Shall I fly with thee and thy child across the seas ? Shall I go back to her ? No, the best thing I can do is to take this good pistol, and let the life out of my dishonorable carcass, and free two honest women from me by one resolute act. " In his despair he cocked the pistol, and, at a word from Mercy, this tale had ended. But the poor woman, pale and trembling, tot- tered across the room and took it out of his hand. 11 1 would not harm thy body nor thy soul," she gasped. ' " Let me draw my breath, and think." She rocked herself to and fro in silence. Griffith stood trembling like a criminal before his judge. It was long ere she could speak, for anguish. Yet when she did speak it was with a sort of deadly calm. " Go tell the truth to her, as you have done to me ; and, if she can forgive you, all the better for you. I can never forgive you, nor yet can harm you. My child, my child ! Thy father is our ruin. Oh begone, man, or the sight of you will kill us both." At that he fell at her knees ; kissed, and wept over her cold hand, and, in his pity and despair, offered to cross the seas with her and her child, and so repair the wrong he had done her. - "Tempt me not," she sobbed. "Go; leave me. None here shall ever know thy crime but she whose heart thou 1 hast broken, and ruined her good name." He took her in his arms in spite of her resist- ance, and kissed her passionately ; but, for the first time, she shuddered at his embrace, and that gave him the power to leave her. He rushed from her all but distracted, and rode away to Cumberland, but not to tell the truth to Kate if he coidd possibly help it. CHAPTER XXXIV. At this particular time, no man's presence was more desired in that county than Griffith Gaunt's. And this I need not now be telling the reader, if I had related this stoiy on the plan of a mis- cellaneous chronicle. But the affairs of the heart are so absorbing, that, even in a narrative, they thrust aside important circumstances of a less moving kind. I must therefore go back a step before I ad- vance farther. You must know that forty years before our Griffith Gaunt saw the light, another Griffith Gaunt was born in Cumberland — a younger son, and the family estate entailed ; but a shrewd lad, who chose rather to hunt fortune elsewhere than to live in miserable dependence on his elder brother. His godfather, a city merchant, encouraged him, and he left Cumber- land. He went into commerce, and in twenty years became a wealthy man — so wealthy that he lived to look down on his brother's estate, which he had once thought opulence. His life was all prosperity, with a single exception, but that a bitter one. He laid out some of his funds in a fashionable and beautiful wife. He loved her before marriage ; and, as she was always cold to him, he loved her more and more. In the second year of their marriage she ran away from him, and no beggar in the streets of London was so miserable as the wealthy mer- chant. It blighted the man, and left him a sore heart all his days. He never married again, and railed on all womankind for this one. He led a solitary life in London till he was sixty-nine, and then, all of a sudden, Nature, or accident, or both, changed his whole habits. Word came to him that the family estate, already deeply mortgaged, was for sale, and a farmer who had rented a principal farm on it, and held a heavy mortgage, had made the highest offer. Old Griffith sent down Mr. Atkins, his solicitor, post haste, and snapped the estate out of that purchaser's hands. When the lands and house had been duly conveyed to him, he came down, and his heart seemed to bud again in the scenes of his child- hood. Finding the house small, and built in a valley instead of on rising ground, he got an army of bricklayers, and began to build a mansion with a rapidity unheard of in those parts ; and he looked about for some one to inherit it. The name of Gaunt had dwindled down to three since he left Cumberland ; but a rich man never lacks relations. Featherstonhaughs, and Underbills, and even Smiths, poured in, with parish registers in their laps, and proved them- selves Gauntesses, and flattered and carneyed the new head of the family. Then the perverse old gentleman felt inclined to look elsewhere. He knew he had a name- sake at the other side of the county, but this namesake did not come near him. This independent Gaunt excited his curiosity and interest. He made inquiries, and heard that young Griffith had just quarreled with his wife, and gone away in despair. Griffith senior took for granted that the fault lay with Mrs. Gaunt, and wasted some good sympathy on Griffith junior. On farther inquiry, he learned that the truant was dependent on his wife. Then, argued the 104 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. moneyed man, he would not run away from her but that his wound was deep. The consequence of all this was, that he made a will very favorable to his absent and injured (?) namesake. He left numerous bequests, and made Griffith his residuary legatee; and, having settled this matter, urged on and superintended his workmen. Alas ! just as the roof was going on, a narrower house claimed him, and he made good the saying of the wise bard — " Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum i'unus et sepulchri Immemor struis domos." The heir of his own choosing could not be found to attend his funeral ; and Mr. Atkins, his solicitor, a very worthy man, was really hurt at this. With the quiet bitterness of a displeased attorney, he merely sent Mrs. Gaunt word her husband inherited something under the will, and she would do well to produce him, or else furnish him (Atkins) with proof of his decease. Mrs. Gaunt was offended by this cavalier note, and replied very like a woman, and very unlike business. " I do not know where he is," said she, " nor whether he is alive or dead. Nor do I feel dis- posed to raise the hue and cry after him. But favor me with your address, and I shall let you know should I hear any thing about him." Mr. Atkins was half annoyed, half amused at this piece of indifference. It never occurred to him that it might be all put on. He wrote back to say that the estate was large, and, owing to the terms of the will, could not be administered without Mr. Griffith Gaunt ; and, in the interest of the said Griffith Gaunt, and also of the other legatees, he really must advertise for him. La Gaunt replied that he was very welcome to advertise for whomsoever he pleased. Mr. Atkins was a very worthy man, but human. To tell the truth, he was himself one of the other legatees. He inherited (and, to be just, had well deserved) four thousand guineas under the will, and could not legally touch it without Griffith Gaunt. This little circum- stance spurred his professional zeal. Mr. Atkins advertised for Griffith Gaunt in the London and Cumberland papers, and in the usual enticing form. He was to apply to Mr. Atkins, Solicitor, of Gray's Inn, and he would hear of something greatly to his advantage. These advertisements had not been out a fortnight when Griffith came home, as I have related. But Mr. Atkins had punished Mrs. Gaunt for her insouciance by not informing her of the extent of her good fortune ; so she merely told Griffith, casually, that old Griffith Gaunt had left him some money, and the solicitor, Mr. Atkins, could not get on without him. Even this infor- mation she did not vouchsafe until she had given him her £500, for she grudged Atkins the pleas- ure of supplying her husband with money. However, as soon as Griffith left her, she wrote to Mr. Atkins to say that her husband had come home in perfect health, thank God ; had only staid two days, but was to return in a week. When ten days had elapsed Atkins wrote to inquire. She replied he had not yet returned ; and this went on till Mr. Atkins showed considerable im- patience. As for Mrs. Gaunt, she made light of the matter to Mr. Atkins, but, in truth, this new mystery irritated her and pained her deeply. In one respect she was more unhappy than she had been before he came back at all. Then she was alone; her door was closed to commentators. But now, on the strength of so happy a reconcil- iation, she had re-entered the world, and received visits from Sir George Neville and others ; and, above all, had announced that Griffith would be back for good in a few days. So now his con- tinued absence exposed her to sly questions from her own sex, to the interchange of glances be- tween female visitors, as well as to the internal torture of doubt and suspense. But what distracted her most was the view Mrs. Ryder took of the matter. That experienced lady had begun to suspect some other woman was at the bottom of Grif- fith's conduct, and her own love for Griffith was now soured ; repeated disappointments and af- fronts, spreta;que injuria forma;, had not quite extinguished it, but had mixed so much spite with it that she was equally ready to kiss or to stab him. So she took every opportunity to instill into her mistress, whose confidence she had won at last, that Griffith was false to her. " That is the way with these men that are so ready to suspect others. Take my word for it, dame, he has carried your money to his leman. 'Tis still the honest woman that must bleed for some nasty trollop or other." She enforced this theory by examples drawn from her own observations in families, and gave the very names, and drove Mrs. Gaunt almost mad with fear, anger, jealousy, and cruel sus- pense. She could not sleep, she coidd not eat ; she was in a constant fever. Yet before the world she battled it out bravely, and indeed none but Ryder knew the anguish of her spirit, and her passionate wrath. At last there came a most eventful day. Mrs. Gaunt had summoned all her pride and fortitude, and invited certain ladies and gentle- men to dine and sup. She was one of the true Spartan breed, and played the hostess as well as if her heart had been at ease. It was an age in which the host struggled fiercely to entertain the guests ; and Mrs. Gaunt was taxing all her powers of pleasing in the dining-room, when an unexpected guest strolled into the kitchen — the peddler, Thomas Leicester. Jane welcomed him cordially, and he was soon seated at a table eating his share of the feast. Presently Mrs. Ryder came down, dressed in her best, and looking handsomer than ever. At sight of her, Tom Leicester's affection re- vived ; and he soon took occasion to whisper an inquiry whether she was still single. " Ay," said she, "and like to be." "Waiting for the master still? Mayhap I could cure you of that complaint. But least said is soonest mended. " This mysterious hint showed Ryder he had a secret burning his bosom. The sly hussy said nothing just then, but plied him with ale and flattery, and, when he whispered a request for a GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 105 private meeting out of doors, she cast her eyes down and assented. And in that meeting she carried herself so adroitly that he renewed his offer of marriage, and told her not to waste her fancy on a man who cared neither for her nor any other she in Cumberland. "Prove that to me," said Ryder, cunningly, "and maybe I'll take you at your word." The bribe was not to be resisted. Tom re- vealed to her, under a solemn promise of secre- cy, that the squire had got a wife and child in Lancashire, and had a farm and an inn, which latter he kept, under the name of—Thomas Lei- cester. In short, he told her, in his way, all the partic- ulars I have told in mine. She led him on with a voice of very velvet. He did not see how her cheek paled and her eyes flashed jealous fury. When she had sucked him dry, she suddenly turned on him with a cold voice, and said, • ' I can't stay any longer with you just now. She will want me." "You will meet me here again, lass?" said Tom, ruefully. ' ' Yes, for a minute, after supper. " She then left him and went to Mrs. Gaunt's room, and sat crouching before the fire, all hate and bitterness. What ? he had left the wife he loved, and yet had not turned to her ! She sat there, Avaiting for Mrs. Gaunt, and nursing her vindictive fury, two mortal hours. At last, just before supper, Mrs. Gaunt came up to her room to cool her fevered hands and brow, and found this creature crouched by her fire, all in a heap, with pale cheek, and black eyes that glittered like basilisk's. " What is the matter, child?" said Mrs. Gaunt. M Good heavens ! what hath happened ?" "Dame!" said Ryder, sternly, "I have got news of him. " ' ' News of him ?" faltered Mrs. Gaunt. " Bad news ?" "I don't know whether to tell you or not," said Ryder, sulkily, but with a touch of human feeling. "What can not I bear? What have I not borne ? Tell me the truth. " The words were stout, but she trembled all over in uttering them. "Well, it is as I said, only Avorse. Dame, he has got a wife and child in another county, and no doubt been deceiving her, as he has us. " "A Avife !" gasped Mrs. Gaunt, and one Avhite hand clutched her bosom, and the other the man- tel-piece. " Ay, Thomas Leicester, that is in the kitchen noAV, saAv her, and saAv his picture hanging aside hers on the Avail. And he goes by the name of Thomas Leicester : that was what made Tom go into the inn, seeing his own name on the sign- board. Nay, dame, never give Avay like that ; lean on me — so. He is a villain, a false, jealous, double-faced A'illain." Mrs. Gaunt's head fell on Ryder's shoulder, and she said no Avord, but only moaned and moaned, and her Avhite teeth clicked convulsive- ly together. Ryder wept OA-er her sad state : the tears Avere half impulse, half crocodile. She applied hartshorn to the sufferer's nos- trils, and tried to rouse her mind by exciting her anger. But all Avas in A^ain. There hung the betrayed wife, pale, crushed, and quivering under the cruel bloAv. Ryder asked her if she should go down and excuse her to her guests. She nodded a feeble assent. Ryder then laid her doAvn on the bed Avith her head Ioav, and Avas just about to leave her on that errand, Avhen hurried steps Avere heard outside the door, and one of the female servants knocked, and, not waiting to be invited, put her head in, and cried, "Oh, dame, the master is come home. He is in the kitchen." CHAPTER XXXV. Mrs. Ryder made an agitated motion with her hand, and gave the girl such a look withal that she retired precipitately. But Mrs. Gaunt had caught the Avords, and they literally transformed her. She sprang off the bed and stood erect, and looked a Saxon Py- thoness — golden hair streaming down her back, and gray eyes gleaming Avith fury. She caught up a little ivory-handled knife and held it above her head. "I'll driA r e this into his heart before them all," she cried, " and tell them the reason afterward!" Ryder looked at her for a moment in utter ter- ror. She saAv a woman Avith grander passions than herself— a Avoman that looked quite capable of executing her sanguinary threat. Ryder made no more ado, but slipped out directly to prevent a meeting that might be attended with such ter- rible consequences. She found her master in the kitchen, splashed Avith mud, drinking a horn of ale after his ride, and looking rather troubled and anxious ; and, by the keen eye of her sex, she saw that the fe- male sei*A r ants Avere also in considerable -anxiety. The fact is, they had just extemporized a lie. Tom Leicester, being near the kitchen AvindoAV, had seen Griffith ride into the court-yard. At sight of that Avell-knoAvn figure he dreAV back, and his heart quaked at his OAvn impru- dence in confiding Griffith's secret to Caroline Ryder. " Lasses," said he, hastily, " do me a kindness for old acquaintance. Here's the squire. For heaven's sake don't let him knoAv I am in the house, or there Avill be bloodshed betAveen us ; he is a hasty man, and I'm another. I'll tell ye more by-and-by." The next moment Griffith's tread Avas heard approaching the very door, and Leicester darted into the housekeeper's room, and hid in a cup- board there. Griffith opened the kitchen door and stood upon the threshold. The Avomen courtesied to him, and Avere loud in Avelcome. He returned their civilities briefly ; and then his first Avord was, " Hath Thomas Leicester been here?" You knoAv how servants stick together against their master. The girls looked him in the face, like candid doA-es, and told him Leicester had not been that way for six months or more. ' ' Why, I have tracked him to within two miles," said Griffith, doubtfully. 106 GRIFFITH GAUNT : OR, JEALOUSY. "Then he is sure to come here," said Jane, adroitly. " He wouldn't ever think to go by us." u The moment he enters the house you let me know. He is a mischief-making loon." He then asked for a horn of ale ; and, as he finished it, Ryder came in, and he turned to her, and asked her after her mistress. " She was well just now," said Ryder, "but she has been took with a spasm ; and it would be well, sir, if you could dress, and entertain the company in her place a while. For I must tell you your being so long away hath set their tongues going, and almost broken my lady's heart." Griffith sighed, and said he could not help it, and, now he was here, he would do all in his power to please her. "I'll go to her at once," said he. " No, sir," said Ryder, firmly. " Come with me. I want to speak to you. " She took him to his bachelor's room, and staid a few minutes to talk to him. " Master," said she, solemnly, "things are very serious here. Why did you stay so long away ? Our dame says some woman is at the bottom of it, and she'll put a knife into you if you come a nigh her." This threat did not appal Griffith, as Ryder expected. Indeed, he seemed rather flattered. " Poor Kate !" said he, " she is just the wom- an to do it. But I am afraid she does not love me enough for that. But, indeed, how should she?" "Well, sir," replied Ryder, "oblige me by keeping clear of her for a little while. I have got orders to make your bed here. Now dress, like a good soul, and then go down and show re- spect to the company that is in your house, for they know you are here." " Why, that is the least I can do," said Grif- fith. "Put you out what I am to wear, and then run and say I'll be with them anon." Griffith Avalked into the dining-room, and, somewhat to his surprise, after what Ryder had said, found Mrs. Gaunt seated at the head of her own table, and presiding like a radiant queen over a brilliant assembly. He walked in, and made a low bow to his guests first ; then he approached, to greet his wife more freely ; but she drew back decidedly, and made him a courtesy, the dignity and dis- tance of which struck the whole company. Sir George Neville, who was at the bottom of the table, proposed, with his usual courtesy, to resign his place to Griffith. But Mrs. Gaunt forbade the arrangement. "No, Sir George," said she, "this is but an occasional visitor ; you are my constant friend. " If this had been said pleasantly, well and good ; but the guests looked in vain into their hostess's face for the smile that ought to have accompa- nied so strange a speech and disarmed it. "Rarities are the more welcome," said a lady, coming to the rescue, and edged aside to make room for him. " Madam," said Griffith, "I am in your debt for that explanation ; but I hope you will be no rarity here, for all that." Supper proceeded, but the mirth languished. Somehow or other, the chill fact that there was a grave quarrel between two at the table, and those two man and wife, insinuated itself into the spirits of the guests. There began to be lulls — fatal lulls. And in one of these, some unlucky voice was heard to murmur, "Such a meeting of man and wife I never saw." The hearers felt miserable at this personality, that fell upon the ear of Silence like a thunder- bolt. Griffith was ill-advised enough to notice the remark, though clearly not intended for his ears. For one thing, his jealousy had actually revived at the cool preference Kate had shown his old rival, Neville. "Oh!" said he, bitterry, "a man is not al- ways his wife's favorite. " " He does not always deserve to be," said Mrs. Gaunt, sternly. When matters had gone that length, one idea seemed to occur pretty simidtaneously to all the well-bred guests, and that idea was, Sauve qui peut. Mrs. Gaunt took leave of them one by one, and husband and wife were left alone. Mrs. Gaunt, by this time was alarmed at the violence of her own passions, and wished to avoid Griffith for that night, at all events. So she cast one terribly stern look upon him, and was about to retire in grim silence. But he, indignant at the public affront she had put on him, and not aware of the true cause, unfortunately detained her. He said, sulkily, " What sort of a recep- tion was that you gave me ?" This was too much. She turned on him furi- ously. " Too good for thee, thou heartless creat- ure ! Thomas Leicester is here, and I know thee for a villain." ' ' You know nothing, " cried Griffith. ' ' Would you believe that mischief-making knave ? What has he told you ?" " Go back to her!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, furious- ly. ' ' Me you can deceive and pillage no more. So, this was your jealousy ! False and forsworn yourself, you dared to suspect and insult me. Ah ! and you think I am the woman to endure this ? I'll have your life for it ! I'll have your life." Griffith endeavored to soften her; protested that, notwithstanding appearances, he had never loved but her. "I'll soon be rid of you and your love," said the raging woman. " The constables shall come for you to-morrow. You have seen how I can love, you shall know how I can hate. " She then, in her fury, poured out a torrent of reproaches and threats that made his blood run cold. He could not answer her: he had sus- pected her Avrongfully, and been false to her him- self. He had abused her generosity, and taken her money for Mercy Vint. After one or two vain efforts to check the tor- rent, he sank into a chair, and hid his face in his hands. But this did not disarm her at the time. Her raging voice and raging words were heard by the very servants long after he had ceased to defend himself. At last she came out, pale with fury, and, find- ing Ryder near the door, shrieked out, "Take that reptile to his den, if he is mean enough to lie in this house ;" then, lowering her voice, "and bring Thomas Leicester to me." GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. Ryder went to Leicester, and told him. But he objected to come. "You have betrayed me," said he. "Curse my weak heart and my loose tongue ! I have done the poor squire an ill turn, lean never look him in the face again. But 'tis all thy fault, double-face. I hate the sight of thee." At this Ryder shed some crocodile tears ; and very soon, by her blandishments, obtained for- giveness. And Leicester, since the mischief was done, was persuaded to see the dame, who was his re- cent benefactor, you know. He bargained, how- ever, that the squire should be got to bed first, for he had a great dread of meeting him. ' ' He'll break every bone in my skin," said Tom, "or else I shall do him a mischief in my defense. " Ryder herself saw the wisdom of this : she bade him stay quiet, and she went to look after Griffith. She found him in the drawing-room, with his head on the table, in deep dejection. She assumed authority, and said he must go to bed. He rose humbly, and followed her like a sub- missive dog. She took him to his room. There was no fire. "That is where you are to sleep," said she, spitefully. "It is better than I deserve," said he, humbly. The absurd rule about not hitting a man when he is down has never obtained a place in the great female soul ; so Ryder lashed him without mercy. "Well, sir," said she, "methinks you have gained little by breaking faith with me. Y' had better have set up your inn with me, than gone and sinned against the law." " Much better : would to Heaven I had !" "What d'ye mean to do now? You know the saying — between two stools — , "Child," said Griffith, faintly, "methinks I shall trouble neither long. I am not so ill a man as I seem ; but who will believe that ? I shall not live long, and I shall leave an ill name behind me. She told me so just now. And, oh ! her eye Avas so cruel ; I saw my death in it. " " Come, come," said Ryder, relenting a little, "you mustn't believe every word an angry wom- an says. There, take my advice ; go to bed ; and in the morning don't speak to her ; keep out of her way a day or two." And with this piece of friendly advice she left him, and waited about till she thought he was in bed and asleep. Then she brought Thomas Leicester up to her mistress. But Griffith was not in bed, and he heard Leicester's heavy tread cross the landing. He waited and waited behind his door for more than half an hour, and then he heard the same heavy tread go away again. By this time nearly all the inmates of the house were asleep. About twenty-five minutes after Leicester left Mrs. Gaunt, Caroline Ryder stole quietly up stairs from the kitchen, and sat down to think it all over. She then proceeded to undress, but had only taken off her gown, when she started and listen- ed, for a cry of distress reached her from outside the house. She darted to the window and threw it open. 107 "Help! Then she heard a cry more distinct, help!" It was a clear, starlight night, but no moon. The mere shone before her, and the cries were on the bank. Now came something more alarming still. A flash — a pistol-shot ; and an agonized voice cried loudly, " Murder ! Help! Murder!" That voice she knew directly. It was Griffith Gaunt's. CHAPTER XXXVI. Ryder ran screaming, and alarmed the other servants. All the windows that looked on the mere were flung open. But no more sounds were heard. A terrible silence brooded now over those clear waters. The female servants huddled together and quaked ; for who could doubt that a bloody deed had beert-done ? It was some time before they mustered the presence of mind to go and tell Mrs. Gaunt. At last they opened her door. She was not in her room. Ryder ran to Griffith's. It was locked. She called to him. He made no reply. They burst the door open. He was not there ; and the window was open. While their tongues were all going in conster- nation, Mrs. Gaunt was suddenly among them, very pale. They turned, and looked at her aghast. "What means all this?" said she. "Did I not hear cries outside?"' "Ay," said Ryder; "murder! and a pistol fired. Oh, my poor master !" Mrs. Gaunt was white as death, but self-pos- sessed. " Light torches this moment and search the place," said she. There was only one man in the house, and he declined to go out alone. So Ryder and Mrs. Gaunt went with him, all three bearing lighted links. They searched the place where Ryder had heard the cries. They went up and down the whole bank of the mere, and cast their torches' red light over the placid waters themselves. But there was nothing to be seen, alive or dead — no trace either of calamity or crime. They roused the neighbors, and came back to the house with their clothes all draggled and dirty. Mrs. Gaunt took Ryder apart, and asked her if she could guess at what time of the night Griffith had made his escape. "He is a villain," said she, "yet 1 would not have him come to harm, God knows. There are thieves abroad. But I hope he ran away as soon as your back was turned, and so fell not in with them." " Humph ! " said Ryder. Then, looking Mrs. Gaunt in the face, she said, quietly, "Where were you Avhen you heard the cries ?" " I was on the other side of the house." " What, out o' doors at that time of night !" " Ay, I was in the grove, praying." " Hid you hear any voice you knew ?" " No ; all was too indistinct. I heard a pistol, but no words. Did vou ?" 108 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. "I heard no more than you, madam," said Ryder, trembling. No one went to bed any more that night in Hernshaw Castle. CHAPTER XXXVII. This mysterious circumstance made a great talk in the village and in the kitchen of Hern- shaw Castle, but not in the drawing-room, for Mrs. Gaunt instantly closed her door to visitors, and let it be known that it was her intention to retire to a convent ; and, in the mean time, she desired not to be disturbed. Ryder made one or two attempts to draw her out upon the subject, but was sternly checked. Pale, gloomy, and silent, the mistress of Hernshaw Castle moved about the place like the ghost of her former self. She never mentioned Griffith ; forbade his name to be uttered in her hearing ; and, strange to say, gave Ryder strict orders not to tell any one what she had heard from Thomas Leicester. " This last insult is known but to you and me. If it ever ge- s abroad, you leave my service that very hour. " This injunction set Ryder thinking. How- ever, she obeyed it to the letter. Her place Avas getting better and better, and she was a woman accustomed to keep secrets. A pressing letter came from Mr. Atkins. Mrs. Gaunt replied that her husband had come to Hernshaw, but had left again, and the period of his ultimate return was now more uncertain than ever. On this Mr. Atkins came down to Hernshaw Castle. But Mrs. Gaunt would not see him. He retired very angry, and renewed his adver- tisements, but in a more explicit form. He now published that Griffith Gaunt, of Hernshaw and Bolton, was executor and residuary legatee to the late Griffith Gaunt, of Coggleswade, and re- quested him to apply directly to James Atkins, Solicitor, of Gray's Inn, London. In due course this advertisement was read by the servants at Hernshaw, and shown by Ryder to Mrs. Gaunt. She made no comment whatever, and con- trived to render her pale face impenetrable. Ryder became as silent and thoughtful as herself, and often sat bending her black judicial brows. By-and-by dark mysterious words began to be thrown out in Hernshaw village. ' ' He will never come back at all. " " He will never come into that fortune." " 'Tis no use advertising for a man that is past reading." These, and the like equivocal sayings, were followed by a vague buzz, which was traceable to no individual author, but seemed to rise on all sides, like a dark mist, and envelop that un- happy house. And that dark mist of Rumor soon condensed itself into a palpable aud terrible whisper, "Grif- fith Gaunt hath met with foul play. " No one of the servants told Mrs. Gaunt this horrid rumor. But the women used to look at her, and after her, with strange eyes. She noticed this, and felt, somehow, that her people were falling away from her. It added one drop to her bitter cup. She began to droop into a sort of calm, despondent lethargy. Then came fresh trouble to rouse her. Two of the county magistrates called on her in their official capacity, and, with perfect polite- ness, but a very grave air, requested her to inform them of all the circumstances attending her hus- band's disappearance. She replied, coldly and curtly, that she knew very little about it. Her husband had left in the middle of the night. "He came to stay?" "I believe so." " Came on horseback ?" "Yes." " Did he go away on horseback ?" " No ; for the horse is now in my stable." "Is it true there was a quarrel between you and him that evening ?" " Gentlemen," said Mrs. Gaunt, drawing her- self back haughtily, "did you come here to grat- ify your curiosity ?" "No, madam," said the elder of the two, "but to discharge a very serious and painful duty, in which I earnestly request you, and even advise you, to aid us. Was there a quar- rel?" " There was — a mortal quarrel." The gentlemen exchanged glances, and the elder made a note. "May we ask the subject of that quarrel?" Mrs. Gaunt declined, positively, to enter into a matter so delicate. A note was taken of this refusal. "Are you aware, madam, that your husband's voice was heard calling for help, and that a pistol- shot was fired ?" Mrs. Gaunt trembled visibly. "I heard the pistol-shot," said she, "but not the voice distinctly. Oh, I hope it was not his voice Ryder heard." "Ryder, who is he?" " Ryder is my lady's maid : her bedroom is on that side the house." "Can we see Mrs. Ryder?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Gaunt, and rose and rang the bell. Mrs. Ryder answered the bell in person very promptly, for she was listening at the door. Being questioned, she told the magistrates what she had heard down by "the mere," and said she was sure it was her master's voice that cried " Help !" and " Murder !" And with this she began to cry. Mrs. Gaunt trembled and turned pale. The magistrates confined their questions to Ryder. They elicited, however, very little more from her. She saw the drift of their questions, and had an impulse to defend her mistress there present. Behind her back it would have been otherwise. That resolution once taken, two children might as well have tried to extract evidence from her as two justices of the peace. And then Mrs. Gaunt's pale face and noble features touched them. The case was mysteri- ous, but no more ; and they departed little the GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. It)9 wiser, and with some apologies for the trouble they had given her. The next week down came Mr. Atkins out of all patience, and determined to find Griffith Gaunt, or else obtain some proof of his decease. He obtained two interviews with Ryder, and bribed her to tell him all she knew. He prose- cuted other inquiries with more method than had hitherto been used, and elicited an important fact, viz., that Griffith Gaunt had been seen walk- ing in a certain direction at one o'clock in the morning, followed at a short distance by a tall man with a knapsack, or the like, on his back. The person who gave this tardy information was the wife of a certain fanner's man, who wired hares upon the sly. The man himself, being assured that, in a case so serious as this, no particular inquiries should be made how he came to be out so late, confirmed what his wife had let out, and added that both men had taken the way that would lead them to the bridge, meaning the bridge over the mere. More than that he could not say, for he had met them, and was full half a mile "from the mere before those men could have reached it. Following up this clew, Mr. Atkins learned so many ugly things that he went to the Bench on justicing day, and demanded a full and search- ing inquiry on the premises. Sir George Neville, after in vain opposing this, rode off straight from the Bench to Hernshaw, and in feeling terms conveyed the bad news to Mrs. Gaunt ; and then, with the utmost delicacy, let her know that some suspicion rested upon herself, which she would do well to meet with the bold front of innocence. "What suspicion, pray?" said Mrs. Gaunt, haughtily. Sir George shrugged his shoulders, and re- plied, " That you have done Gaunt the honor — to put him out of the way." Mrs. Gaunt took this very differently from what Sir George expected. "What!" she cried, "are they so sure he is dead? murdered!" And with this, she went into a passion of grief and remorse. Even Sir George Avas puzzled, as well as af- fected, by her convulsive agitation. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Though it was known the proposed inquiry might result in the committal of Mrs. Gaunt on a charge of murder, yet the respect in which she had hitherto been held, and the influence of Sir George Neville, who, having been her lover, stoutly maintained her innocence, prevailed so far that even this inquiry was private and at her own house. Only she was present in the char- acter of a suspected person, and the witnesses were examined before her. First, the poacher gave his evidence. Then Jane the cook proved that a peddler called Thomas Leicester had been in the kitchen, and secreted about the premises till a late hour ; and this Thomas Leicester corresponded exactly to the description given by the poacher. This threw suspicion on Thomas Leicester, but did not connect Mrs. Gaunt with the deed in any way. But Ryder's evidence filled this gap. She re- vealed three serious facts : First, that, by her mistress's orders, she had introduced this very Leicester into her mistress's room about midnight, where he had remained nearly half an hour, and had then left the house. Secondly, that Mrs. Gaunt herself had been out of doors after midnight. And, thirdly, that she had listened at the door, and heard her threaten Griffith Gaunt's life. This is a mere precis of the evidence, and alto- gether it looked so suspicious, that the magis- trates, after telling Mrs. Gaunt she could ask the witnesses any question she chose, a suggestion she treated with marked contempt, put their heads together a moment, and whispered. Then the eldest of them, Mr. Underhill, who lived at a considerable distance, told her gravely he must commit her to take her trial at the next as- sizes. 1 ' Do what you conceive to be your duty, gen- tlemen," said Mrs. Gaunt, with marvelous dig- nity. " If I do not assert my innocence, it is be- cause I disdain the accusation too much." "I shall take no part in the committal of this innocent lady," said Sir George Neville ; and was about to leave the room. But Mrs. Gaunt begged him to stay. " To be guilty is one thing," said she, "to be accused is another : I shall go to prison as easy as to my dinner, and to the gallows as to my bed." The presiding magistrate was staggered a mo- ment by these words, and it was not without considerable hesitation he took the warrant and prepared to fill it up. Then Mr. Houseman, who had watched the proceedings very keenly, put in his word. "I am here for the accused person, sir, and, with your good leave, object to her committal — on grounds of law." "What may they be, Mr. Houseman?" said the magistrate, civilly ; and laid his pen down to hear them. " Briefly, sir, these. Where a murder is prov- en, you can commit a subject of this realm upon suspicion. But you can not suspect the murder as well as the culprit, and so commit. The mur- der must be proved to the senses. Now in this case the death of Mr. Gaunt by violence is not proved. Indeed, his very death rests but upon suspicion. I admit that the law of England in this respect has once or twice been tampered with, and persons have even been executed where no corpus delicti was found ; but what was the consequence ? In each case the murdered man turned out to be alive, and justice was the only murderer. After Harrison's case, and *'s, no Cumberland jury will ever commit for murder, unless the corpus delicti has been found, and with signs of violence upon it. Come, ccme, Mr. Atkins, you are too good a lawyer, and too hu- mane a man, to send my client to prison on the suspicion of a suspicion, which you know the very breath of the judge will blow away, even if the grand jury let it go into court. I offer bail, ten thousand pounds in two sureties — Sir George Neville here present, and myself." The magistrate looked at*Mr. Atkins. "I am not employed by the crown," said that gentleman, "but acting on mere civil grounds, and have no right nor wish to be severe. Bail by all means ; but is the lady so sure of her in- 110 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. nocence as to lend me her assistance to find the corpus delicti?" The question was so shrewdly put that any hesitation would have ruined Mrs. Gaunt. Houseman therefore replied eagerly and promptly, "I answer for her, she will." Mrs. Gaunt bowed her head in assent. " Then," said Atkins, "I ask leave to drag, and, if need be, to drain that piece of water there, called ' the mere. ' " "Drag it or drain it, which you will," said Houseman. 8aid Atkins, very impressively, "And, mark my words, at the bottom of that very sheet of water there I shall find the remains of the late Griffith Gaunt." At these solemn words, coming, as they did, not from a loose unprofessional speaker, but from a lawyer, a man who measured all his words, a very keen observer might have seen a sort of tremor run all through Mr. Houseman's frame. The more admirable was the perfect coolness and seeming indifference with which he replied. " Find him, and I'll admit suicide ; find him, with signs of violence, and I'll admit homicide, by some person or persons unknown." All farther remarks were interrupted by bus- tle and confusion. Mrs. Gaunt had fainted dead away. CHAPTER XXXIX. Of course pity was the first feeling ; but, by the time Mrs. Gaunt revived, her fainting, so soon after Mr. Atkins's proposal, had produced a sinister effect on the minds of all present, and every face showed it except the wary House- man's. On her retiring, it broke out first in murmurs, then in plain words. As for Mr. Atkins, he now showed the moder- ation of an able man who feels he has a strong cause. He merely said, " I think there should be con- stables about, in case of an escape being attempt- ed; but I agree with Mr. Houseman that your worships will be quite justified in taking bail, provided the corpus delicti should not be found. Gentlemen, you were most of you neighbors and friends of the deceased, and are, I am sure, lov- ers of justice : I do entreat you to aid me in searching that piece of water, by the side of which the deceased gentleman was heard to cry for help ; and, much I fear, he cried in vain." The persons thus appealed to entered into the matter with all the ardor of just men whose cu- riosity as well as justice is inflamed. A set of old rusty drags was found on the premises, and men went punting up and down the mere, and dragged it. Rude hooks were made by the village black- smith, and fitted to cart-ropes ; another boat was brought to Hernshaw in a wagon, and all that afternoon the bottom of the mere was raked, and some curious things fished up, but no dead man. The next day a score of amateur dragsmen were out — some throwing their drags from the bridge, some circulating in boats, and even in large tubs. And, meantime, Mr. Atkins and his crew went steadily up and down, dragging every foot of those placid waters. They Avorked till dinner-time, and brought up a good copper pot with two handles, a horse's head, and several decayed trunks of trees, which had become saturated, and sunk to the bottom. At about three in the afternoon, two boys, who, for want of a boat, were dragging from the bridge, found something heavy, but elastic, at the end of their drag : they pulled up eagerly, and a thing like a huge turnip, half gnawed, came up with a great bob, and blasted their sight. They let go, drags and all, and stood shrieking and shrieking. Those who were nearest them called out, and asked what was the matter ; but the boys did not reply, and their faces showed so white, that a woman who saw them screamed to Mr. Atkins, and said she was sure those boys had seen some- thing out of the common. Mr. Atkins came up, and found the boys blub- bering. He encouraged them, and they told him a fearful thing had come up ; it was like a man's head and shoulders all scooped out and gnawed by the fishes, and had torn the drags out of their hands. Mr. Atkins made them tell him the exact place, and was soon upon it with his boat. The water here was very deep, and though the boys kept pointing to the very spot, the drags found nothing for some time. But at last they showed, by their resistance, that they had clawed hold of something. "Draw slowly," s;.id Mr. Atkins, " and if it is, be men, and hold fast." The men drew slowly, slowly, and presently there rose to the surface a Thing to strike terror and loathing into the stoutest heart. The mutilated remains of a human face and body. The greedy pike had cleared, not the features only, but the entire flesh off the face, but had left the hair, and the tight skin of the forehead, though their teeth had raked this last. The remnants they had left made what they had mu- tilated doubly horrible, since now it was not a skull, not a skeleton, but a face and a man gnaw- ed down to the bones, and hair, and feet. These last were in stout shoes that resisted even those voracious teeth ; and a leathern stock had offer- ed some little protection to the throat. The men groaned, and hid their faces with one hand, and pulled softly to the shore with the oth- er ; and then, with half-averted faces, they drew the ghastly remains and fluttering rags gently and reverently to land. Mr. Atkins yielded to Nature, and was vio- lently sick at the sight he had searched for so eagerly. As soon as he recovered his powers, he bade the constables guard the body (it was a body, in law), and see that no one laid so much as a fin- ger on it until some magistrate had taken a dep- osition. He also sent a messenger to Mr. House- man, telling him the corpus delicti was found. He did this, partly to show that gentleman he was right in his judgment, and partly out of com- mon humanity ; since, after this discovery, Mr. Houseman's client was sure to be tried for her life. A magistrate soon came, and viewed the re- mains, and took careful notes of the state in which they were found. GRIFFITH GAUNT : OR, JEALOUSY. Ill Houseman came, and was much affected, both by the sight of his dead friend, so mutilated, and by the probable consequences to Mrs. Gaunt. However, as lawyer's fight very hard, he recover- ed himself enough to remark that there were no marks of violence before death, and insisted on this being inserted in the magistrate's notes. hours, laid on a table, and covered with a white sheet. The coroner's jury sat in the same room, as was then the custom, and the evidence I have al- ready noticed was gone into, and the finding of the body deposed to. The jury, without hesita- tion, returned a verdict of willful murder. An inquest was ordered next day, and mean- time Mrs. Gaunt was told sbe could not quit the upper apartments of her own house. Two con- stables were placed on the ground floor night and day. Next day the remains were removed to the lit- tle inn where Griffith had spent so many jovial Mrs. Gaunt was then brought in. She came, white as a ghost, leaning upon Houseman's shoul- der. Upon her entering, a juryman, by a humane impulse, drew the sheet over the remains again. The coroner, according to the custom of the day, put a question to Mrs. Gaunt, with the view 112 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. of eliciting her guilt. If I remember right, he asked her how she came to be out of doors so late on the night of the murder. Mrs. Gaunt, however, was in no condition to answer queries. I doubt if she even heard this one. Her lovely- eyes, dilated with horror, were fixed on that ter- rible sheet with a stony glance. "Show me," she gasped, " and let me die too." The jurymen looked, with doubtful faces, at the coroner. He bowed a grave assent. The nearest juryman withdrew the sheet. Now the belief was not yet extinct that the dead body shows some signs of its murderer's approach. So every eye glared on her and It by turns, as she, with dilated, horror-stricken orbs, looked on that awful Thing. CHAPTER XL. She recoiled with a violent shudder at first, and hid her face with one hand. Then she grad- ually stole a horror-stricken side glance. She had not looked at it so a moment, when she uttered a loud cry, and pointed at its feet with quivering hand. "The shoes! the shoes! It is not my Griffith." With this she fell into violent hysterics, and was carried out of the room at Houseman's ear- nest entreaty. As soon as she was gone, Mr. Houseman, be- ing freed from his fear that his client would com- mit herself irretrievably, recovered a show of composure, and his wits went keenly to work. "On behalf of the accused," said he, "I ad- mit the suicide of some person unknown, wear- ing heavy hobnailed shoes — probably one of the lower order of people. " This adroit remark produced some little effect, notwithstanding the strong feeling against the accused. The coroner inquired if there were any bodily marks by which the remains could be identified. ' ' My master had a long black mole on his forehead," suggested Caroline Ryder. " 'Tis here!" cried a juryman, bending over the remains. And now they all gathered in great excite- ment round the corpus delicti ; and there, sure enough, was a long black mole. Then there was a buzz of pity for Griffith Gaunt, followed by a stern murmur of execra- tion. "Gentlemen," said the coroner, solemnly, " be- hold in this the finger of Heaven. The poor gen- tleman may well have put off his boots, since, it seems, he left his horse, but he could not take from his forehead his natal sign ; and that, by God's will, hath strangely escaped mutilation, and revealed a most foul deed. We must now do our duty, gentlemen, without respect of per- sons." A warrant was then issued for the apprehension of Thomas Leicester. And, that same night, Mrs. Gaunt left llernshaw in her own chariot between two constables, and escorted by armed yeomen. Her proud head was bowed almost to her knees, and her streaming eyes hidden in her lovely hands. For why ? A mob accompanied her for miles, shouting " Murderess ! Bloody Pa- pist ! Hast done to death the kindliest gentle- man in Cumberland. We'll all come to see thee hanged. Fair face but foul heart!" and groan- ing, hissing, and cursing, and, indeed, only kept from violence by the escort. And so they took that poor, proud lady, and lodged her in Carlisle jail. She was enceinte into the bargain by the man she was to he hanged for murdering. CHAPTER XLI. The county was against her, Avith some few exceptions. Sir George Neville and Mr. House- man stood stoutly by her. Sir George's influence and money obtained her certain comforts in jail ; and, in that day, the law of England was so far respected in a jail that untried prisoners were not thrown into cells, nor impeded, as they now are, in preparing their de- fense. Her two stanch friends visited her every day, and tried to keep her heart up. But they could not do it. She was in a state of dejection bordering upon lethargy. "If he is dead," said she, "what matters it? If, by God's mercy, he is alive still, he will not let me die for want of a word from him. Im- patience hath been my bane. Now I say, God's will be done. I am weary of the world." Houseman tried every argument to rouse her out of this desperate frame of mind, but in vain. It ran its course, and then, behold, it passed away like a cloud, and there came a keen desire to live and defeat her accusers. She made Houseman write out all the evi- dence against her, and she studied it by day, and thought of it by night, and often surprised both her friends by the acuteness of her remarks. Mr. Atkins discontinued his advertisements ; it was Houseman who now filled every paper with notices informing Griffith Gaunt of his ac- cession to fortune, and entreated him for that, and other weighty reasons, to communicate in confidence with his old friend John Houseman, attorney-at-law. Houseman was too wary to invite him to ap- pear and save his wife, for in that case he feared the crown would use his advertisements as evi- dence at the trial, should Griffith not appeal 1 . The fact is, Houseman relied more upon cer- tain lacuna? in the evidence, and the absence of all marks of violence, than upon any hope that Griffith might be alive. The assizes drew near, and no fresh light broke in upon this mysterious case. Mrs. Gaunt lay in her bed at night, and thought, and thought. Now the female understanding has sometimes remarkable power under such circumstances. By degrees Truth flashes across it like lightning in the dark. ' After many such nightly meditations, Mrs. Gaunt sent one day for Sir George Neville and Mr. Houseman, and addressed them as follows : "I believe he is alive, and that I can guess where he is at this moment. " Both the gentlemen started and looked amazed. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 113 "Yes, sirs ; so sure as we sit here, he is now at a little inn in Lancashire called the 'Pack- horse, 'with a woman he calls his wife." And, with this, her face was scarlet, and her eyes flashed their old fire. She exacted a solemn promise of secrecy from them, and then she told them all she had learn- ed from Thomas Leicester. ' * And so now, " said she, ' ' I helieve you can save my life, if you think it is worth saving." And with this she began to cry bitterly. But Houseman, the practical, had no patience with the pangs of love betrayed, and jealousy, and such small deer, in a client whose life was at stake. "Great Heaven! madam," said he, roughly, " why did you not tell me this before?" "Because I am not a man — to go and tell every thing all at once," sobbed Mrs. Gaunt. "Besides, I wanted to shield his good name, whose dear life they pretend I have taken." As soon as she recovered her composure, she begged Sir George Neville to ride to the ' ' Pack- horse" for her. Sir George assented eagerly, but asked how he was to find it. "I have thought of that too," said she. "His black horse has been to and fro. Ride that horse into Lancashire, and give him his head ; ten to one but he takes you to the place, or where you may hear of it. If not, go to Lancaster, and ask about the ' Packhorse. ' He wrote to me from Lancaster — see." And she showed him the letter. Sir George embraced with ardor this opportu- nity of serving her. "Ill be at Hernshaw in one hour," said he, "and ride the black horse south at once. " " Excuse me," said Houseman ; "but would it not be better for me to go ? As a lawyer, I may be more able to cope with her." "Nay," said Mrs. Gaunt, "Sir George is young and handsome ; if he manages well, she will tell him more than she will you. All I beg of him is to drop the chevalier for this once, and see women with a Avoman's eyes and not a man's — see them as they are. Do not go telling a creature of this kind that she has had my money as well as my husband, and ought to pity me lying here in prison. Keep me out of her sight as much as you can. Whether Griffith hath de- ceived her or not, you will never raise in her any feeling but love for him, and hatred for his lawful wife. Dress like a yeoman ; go quietly, and lodge in the house a day or two ; begin by flattering her, and then get from her when she saw him last, or heard from him. But, indeed, I fear you will surprise him with her." " Fear?" exclaimed Sir George. "Well, hope, then," said the lady, and a tear trickled down her face in a moment. " But, if you do, promise me, on your honor as a gentle- ,man, not to affront him, for I know you think him a villain!" "A d — d villain! saving your presence." "Well, sir, you have said it to me. Now promise me to say naught to him but just this : ' Rose Gaunt's mother she lies in Carlisle jail to be tried for her life for murdering' you. She begs of you not to let her die publicly upon the scaffold, but quietly at home, of her broken heart. ' " "Write it," said Sir George, with the tears in H his eyes, " that I may just put it in his hand, for I can never utter your sweet words to such a monster as he is." Armed with this appeal, and several minute instructions, which it is needless to particular- ize here, that stanch friend rode into Lanca- shire. And next day the black horse justified his mistress's sagacity and his own. He seemed all along to know where he was going, and late in the afternoon he turned off the road on to a piece of green ; and Sir George, with beating heart, saw right before him the sign of the " Packhorse," and, on coining nearer, the words ' ' THOMAS LEICESTER. " He dismounted at the door, and asked if he could have a bed. Mrs. Vint said yes ; and supper into the bar- gain, if he liked. He ordered a substantial supper directly. Mrs. Vint saw at once it was a good customer, and showed him into the parlor. He sat down by the fire. But, the moment she retired, he got up and made a circuit of the house, looking quietly into every window, to see if he could catch a glance of Griffith Gaunt. There were no signs cf him ; and Sir George returned to his parlor heavy-hearted. One hope, the greatest of all, had been defeated directly. Still, it was just possible that Griffith might be away on temporary business. In this faint hope Sir George strolled about till his supper was ready for him. When he had eaten his supper, he rang the bell, and, taking advantage of' a common cus- tom, insisted on the landlord, Thomas Leicester, taking a glass with him. "Thomas Leicester !" said the girl. " He is not at home. But I'll send Master Vint." Old Vint came in, and readily accepted an in- vitation to drink his guest's health. Sir George found him loquacious, and soon extracted from him that his daughter Mercy was Leicester's wife ; that Leicester was gone on a journey, and that Mercy was in care for him. "Leastways," said he, "she is very dull, and cries at times Avhen her mother speaks of him ; but she is too close to say much." All this puzzled Sir George Neville sorely. But greater surprises were in store. The next morning, after breakfast, the servant came and told him Dame Leicester desired to see him. He started at that, but put on nonchalance, and said he was at her sendee. He was ushered into another parlor, and there he found a grave, comely young woman, seated working, with a child on the floor beside her. She rose quietly ; he bowed low and respectful- ly ; she blushed faintly, but, with every appear- ance of self-possession, courtesied to him, then eyed him point-blank a single moment, and re- quested him to be seated. "I hear, sir," said she, "you did ask my fa- ther many questions last night ; may I ask you one?" Sir George colored, but bowed assent. "From whom had you the black horse you ride ?" Now, if Sir George had not been a veracious 1H man, he would have been caught directly. But, although he saw at once the oversight he had committed, he replied, " I had him of a lady in Cumberland — one Mistress Gaunt." Mercy Vint trembled. "No doubt," said she, softly. "Excuse my question ; you shall understand that the horse is well known here. " "Madam," said Sir George, "if you admire the horse, he is at your service for twenty pounds, though indeed he is worth more." "I thank you, sir," said Mercy, "I have no desire for the horse whatever ; and be pleased to excuse my curiosity ; you must think me imper- tinent." "Nay, madam," said Sir George, "I consider nothing impertinent that hath procured me the pleasure of an interview with you. " He then, as directed by Mrs. Gaunt, proceeded to flatter the mother and the child, and exerted those powers of pleasing which had made him ir- resistible in society. Here, however, he found they went a very lit- tle way. Mercy did not even smile. She cast out of her dove-like eyes a gentle, humble, re- proachful glance, as much as to say, "What! do I seem so vain a creature as to believe all this? Sir George himself had tact and sensibility, and by-and-by became discontented with the part he was playing under those meek, honest eyes. There was a pause ; and, as her sex have a wonderful art of reading the face, Mercy looked at him steadily, and said, ' ' Yes, sir, 'tis best to be straightforward, especially with women-folk." Before he could recover this little facer, she said, quietly, " What is your name ?" "George Neville." "Well, George Neville," said Mercy, very slowly and softly, "when you have a mind to tell me what you came here for, and who sent you, you will find me in this little room. I seldom leave it now. I beg you to speak your errand to none but me. " And she sighed deeply. , Sir George bowed low, and retired to collect his wits. He had come here strongly prepossessed against Mercy. But, instead of a vulgar, shallow woman, whom he was to surprise into confession, he en- countered a soft-eyed Puritan, all unpretending dignity, grace, propriety, and sagacity. "Flatter her!" said he to himself; "I might as well flatter an iceberg. Outwit her ! I feel like a child beside her." He strolled about in a brown study, not know- ing what to do. She had given him a fair opening. She had invited him to tell the truth. But he was afraid to take her ather word; and yet what was the use to persist in what his own eyes told him was the wrong course ? While he hesitated, and debated within him- self, a trifling incident turned the scale. A poor woman came begging, with her child, and was received rather roughly by Harry Vint. "Pass on, good woman," said he ; " we want no tramps here. " Then a window was opened on the ground floor, and Mercy beckoned the woman. Sir George flattened himself against the wall, and listened to the two talking. Mercy examined the woman gently,but shrewd- GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. ly, and elicited a tale of genuine distress. Sir Geoi'ge then saw her hand out to the woman some warm flannel for herself, a piece of stuff for the child, a large piece of bread, and a sixpence. He also caught sight of Mercy's dove-like eyes as she bestowed her alms, and they were lit with an inward lustre. "She can not be an ill woman," thought Sir George. "I'll e'en go by my own eyes and judg- ment. After all, Mrs. Gaunt has never seen her, and I have." He went and knocked at Mercy's door. " Come in," said a mild voice. Neville entered, and said, abruptly, and with great emotion, "Madam, I see you can feel for the unhappy, so I take my own way now, and appeal to your pity. I have come to speak to you on the saddest business." " You come from him," said Mercy, closing her lips tight ; but her bosom heaved. Her heart and her judgment grappled like wrestlers that moment. "Nay, madam," said Sir George, "I come from her." Mercy knew in a moment who " her" must be. She looked scared, and drew back with mani- fest signs of repulsion. The movement did not escape Sir George : it alarmed him. He remembered what Mrs. Gaunt had said — that this woman would be sure to hate Gaunt's lawful wife. But it was too late to go back. He did the next best thing — he rushed on. He threw himself on his knees before Mercy Vint. "Oh, madam!" he cried, piteously, "do not set your heart against the most unhappy lady in England. If you did but know her — her noble- ness, her miseiy ! Before you steel yourself against me, her friend, let me ask you one ques- tion. Do you know where Mrs. Gaunt is at this moment ?" Mercy answered, coldly, " How should I know Avhere the lady is ?" "Well, then, she lies in Carlisle jail." "She — lies — in Carlisle jail?" repeated Mer- cy, looking all confused. " They accuse her of murdering her husband." Mercy uttered a scream, and, catching her child up off the floor, began to rock hei'self and moan over it. " No, no, no," cried Sir George, "she is inno- cent — she is innocent. " "What is that to mef cried Mercy, wildly. "He is murdered, he is dead, and my child an orphan." And so she went on moaning and rocking herself. "But I tell you he is not dead at all," cried Sir George. ' ' 'Tis all a mistake. When did you see him last ?" "More than six weeks ago." " I mean, when did you hear from him last ?*' "Never since that day." Sir George groaned aloud at this intelligence. And Mercy, who heard him groan, was heart- broken. She accused herself of Griffith's death. "'Twas I who drove him from me," said she. ' ' 'Twas I who bade him go back to his lawful wife ; and the wretch hated him. I sent him to his death." Her grief was wild and deep; she could not hear Sir George's arguments. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 115 But presently she said, sternly, "What does that woman say for herself?" "Madam," said Sir George, dejectedly, " Heaven knows you are in no condition to fathom a mystery that hath puzzled wiser heads than yours or mine, and I am but little able to lay the tale before you fairly ; for your grief it moves me deeply, and I could curse myself for putting the matter to you so bluntly and un- couthly. Permit me to retire a while, and com- pose my own spirits for the task I have under- taken too rashly." "Nay, George Neville," said Mercy, "stay you there : only give me a moment to draw my breath." She struggled hard for a little composure, and, after a shower of tears, she hung her head over the chair like a crushed thing, but made him a sign of attention. Sir George told the story as fairly as he could, only, of course, his bias was in favor of Mrs. Gaunt; but as Mercy's bias was against her, this brought the thing nearly square. When he came to the finding of the body, Mercy was seized with a deadly faintness ; and, though she did not become insensible, yet she was in no condition to judge or even to comprehend. Sir George was moved with pity, and would have called for help ; but she shook her head. So then he sprinkled water on her face, and slapped her hand — and a beautifully moulded hand it was. When she got a little better she sobbed faintly, and, sobbing, thanked him, and begged him to go on. "My mind is stronger than my heart," she said. "I'll hear it all, though it kill me where I sit." Sir George went on, and, to avoid repetition, I must ask the reader to understand that he left out nothing whatever which has been hitherto related in these pages, and, in fact, told her one or two little things that I have omitted. When he had done, she sat quite still a minute or two, pale as a statue. Then she turned to Neville, and said solemnly, " You wish to know the truth in this dark matter, for dark it is in very sooth." Neville was much impressed by her manner, and answered respectfully, Yes, he desired to know — by all means. "Then take my hand," said Mercy, "and kneel down with me. " Sir George looked surprised, but obeyed, and kneeled down beside her, with his hand in hers. There was a long pause, and then took place a transformation. The dove-like eyes were lifted to Heaven, and gleamed like cpals with an inward and celestial light ; the comely face shone with a higher beauty, and the rich voice rose in ardent suppli- cation. "Thou God, to whom all hearts be known, and no secrets hid from thine eye, look down iioav on thy servant in sore trouble, that putteth her trust in thee. Give wisdom to the simple this day, and understanding to the lowly. Thou that didst reveal to babes and sucklings the great things that were hidden from the wise, oh show us the truth in this dark matter : enlighten us by thy Spirit, for his dear sake, who suffered more sor- rows than I suffer now. Amen, Amen." Then she looked at Neville, and he said "Amen" with all his heart, and the tears in his eyes. He had never heard real live prayer before. Here the little hand gripped his hard as she wrestled, and the heart seemed to rise out of the bosom and fly to heaven on the sublime and thrilling voice. They rose, and she sat down, but it seemed as if her eyes, once raised to heaven in prayer, could not come down again : they remained fixed and angelic, and her lips still moved in supplication. fcir George Neville, though a loose liver, was no scoffer; he was smitten with reverence for this inspired countenance, and retired, bowing low and obsequiously. He took a long walk and thought it all over. One thing was clear and consoling. He felt sure he had done wisely to disobey Mrs. Gaunt's instructions, and make a friend of Mercy, instead of trying to set his wits against hers. Ere he re- turned to the "Packhorse," he had determined to take another step in the right direction. He did not like to agitate her with another interview so soon, but he wrote her a little letter. "Madam, — When I came here I did not know you, and therefore I feared to trust you too far. But, now I do know you for the best woman in England, I take the open way with you. "Know that Mrs. Gaunt said the man would be here with you, and she charged me with a few written lines to him. She would be angry if she knew that I had shown them to any other. Yet I take on me to show them to you, for I believe you are wiser than any of us, if the truth were known. I do therefore entreat you to read these lines, and tell me whether you think the hand that Avrote them can have shed the blood of him to whom they are writ. "I am, madam, with profound respect, your grateful and very humble servant, " George Neville." He very soon received a line in reply, written in a clear and beautiful handwriting : "Mercy Vint sends you her duty ; and she will speak to you at nine of the clock to-morrow morn- ing. Pray for light. " At the appointed time Sir George found her working with her needle. His letter lay on the table before her. She rose and courtesied to him, and called the servant to take away the child for a while. She went with her to the door, and kissed the bairn several times at parting, as if he was going away for good. " I'm loth to let him go," said she to Neville; "but it weakens a mother's mind to have her babe in the room — takes her attention off each moment. Pray you be seated. Well, sir, I have read those lines of Mistress Gaunt, and wept over them. Methinks I had not done so were they cunningly devised. Also I lay all night and thought." "That is just what she does." ' ' No doubt, sir ; and the upshot is, I don't feel as if he was dead. Thank God." "That is something," said Neville. But he could not help thinking it was very little, espe- ' cially to produce in a court of justice. | "And now," said she, thoughtfully, " you say 116 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. that the real Thomas Leicester was seen there- abouts as well as my Thomas Leicester. Then answer me one little question. What had the real Thomas Leicester on his feet that night ?" "Nay, I know not, "was the half-careless reply. " Bethink you. ? Tis a question that mast have been often put in your hearing." " Madam," said Sir George, "our minds were fixed upon the fate of Gaunt. Many did ask how was the peddler armed, but none how was he shod." "Hath he been seen since?" " Not he ; and that hath an ugly look ; for the constables are out after him with hue and cry ; but he is not to be found." " Begging your pardon, it was never put at all ; nor do I see — " " What, not at the inquest?" "No." " That is very strange. What, so many wise heads have bent over this riddle, and not one to ask how was yon peddler shod !" "Then," said Mercy, "I must e'en answer my own question. I do know how that peddler was shod — WITH HOBNAILED SHOES." Sir George bounded from his chair. One great ray of daylight broke in upon him. " Ay," said Mercy, " she was right. Women do see clearer in some things than men. The GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. pair went from my house to hers : he you call Griffith Gaunt had on a new pair of boots ; and, by the same token, 'twas I did pay for them, and there is the receipt in that cupboard : he you call Thomas Leicester went hence in hobnailed shoes. I think the body they found was the body of Thomas Leicester the peddler. May God have mercy on his poor unprepared soul !" Sir George uttered a joyful exclamation. But the next moment he had a doubt: "Ay, but," said he, "you forget the mole. 'Twas on that they built." " I forget naught," said Mercy, calmly. " The peddler had a black mole over his left temple. He showed it me in this very room. You have found the body of Thomas Leicester, and Griffith Gaunt is hiding from the law that he hath bro- ken. He is afeared of her and her friends if he shows his face in Cumberland ; he is afeared of my folk if he be seen in Lancashire. Ah ! Thom- as, as if I would let them harm thee !" Sir George Neville walked to and fro in grand excitement. " Oh, blessed day that I came hither. Mad- am, you are an angel. You will save an inno- cent, broken-hearted lady from death and dis- honor. Your good heart and rare wit have read in a moment the dark riddle that hath puzzled a county. " "George," said Mercy, gravely, "you have gotten the wrong end of the stick. The wise in their own conceit are blinded ; in Cumberland, where all this befell, they went not to God for light, as you and I did, George." In saying this she gave him her hand to cele- brate their success. He kissed it devoutly, and owned afterward that it was the proudest moment of his hTe, when that sweet Puritan gave him her neat hand so cordially, with a pressure so gentle, yet frank. And now came the question how they were to make a Cumberland jury see this matter as they saw it. He asked her would she come to the trial as a witness ? At that she drew back with manifest repug- nance. " My shame would be public. I must tell who I am, and what — a ruined woman." " Say rather an injured saint. You have noth- ing to be ashamed of. All good men would feel for you. " Mercy shook her head. "Ay, but the women ; shame is shame with us ; right or wrong goes for little. Nay, I hope to do better for you than that. I must find him, and send him to deliver her. 'Tis his only chance of happiness. " She then asked him if he would draw up an advertisement of quite a different kind from those he had described to her. He assented, and between them they concocted the following : "If Thomas Leicester, who went from the ' Packhorse' two months ago, will come thither at once, Mercy will be much beholden to him, and tell him strange things that have befallen." Sir George then, at her request, rode over to Lancaster, and inserted the above in the county paper, and also in a small sheet that was issued in the city three times a week. He had also \iaad-bills to the came effect printed, and sent 117 into Cumberland and Westmoreland. Finally, he sent a copy to his man of business in London, with orders to insert it in all the journals. Then he returned to the "Packhorse," and told Mercy what he had done. The next day he bade her farewell, and away for Carlisle. It was a two-days' journey. He reached Carlisle in the evening, and went all glowing to Mrs. Gaunt. * ' Madam, " said he, * ' be of good cheer. I bless the day 1 went to see her ; she is an angel of wit and goodness." He then related to her, in glowing terms, most that had passed between Mercy and him. But, to his sur- prise, Mrs. Gaunt wore a cold, forbidding air. " This is all very well," said she. " But 'twill avail me little unless he comes before the judge and clears me, and she will never let him do that." " Ay, that she will — if she can find him." " If she can find him ? How simple you are." ' ' Nay, madam, not so simple but I can tell a good woman from a bad one, and a true from a false." " What ! when you are in love with her ? Not if you were the wisest of your sex. " "In love with her?" cried Sir George; and colored high. " Ay," said the lady. "Think you I can not tell? Don't deceive yourself. You have gone and fallen in love with her. At your years ! Not that 'tis any business of mine." "Well, madam," said Sir George, stiffiy, "say what you please on that score, but at least wel- come my good news." Mrs. Gaunt begged him to excuse her petu- lance, and thanked him kindly for all he had just done. But the next moment she rose from her chair in great agitation, and burst out, "I'd as lieve die as owe any thing to that woman." Sir George remonstrated. " Why hate her? She does not hate you. " "Oh yes she does. 'Tis not in nature she should do any other." " Her acts prove the contrary." " Her acts ! She has done nothing but make fair promises, and that has blinded you. Women of this sort are very cunning, and never show their real characters to a man. No more ; prithee mention not her name to me. It makes me ill. I know he is with her at this moment. Ah ! let me die and be forgotten, since I. am no more be- loved. " The voice was sad and weary now, and the tears ran fast. Poor Sir George was moved and melted, and set himself to flatter and console this impractica- ble lady, who hated her best friend in this sore strait for being what she was herself — a woman, and was much less annoyed at being hanged than at not being loved. When she was a little calmer he left her and rode off to Houseman. That worthy was de- lighted. " Get her to swear to those hobnailed shoes," said he, " and we shall shake them." He then let Sir George know that he had obtained private information, which he would use in cross- examining a principal witness for the crown. "However," he added, "do not deceive yourself; nothing can make the prisoner really safe but the appearance of Griffith Gaunt; he has such strong motives for coming to light ; he is heir to a for- tune, and his wife is accused of murdering him. 118 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. The jury will never believe he is alive till they see him. That man's prolonged disappearance is hideous. It turns my blood cold when I think of it." "Do not despair on that score," said Neville. " I believe our good angel will produce him." Three days only before the assizes came the long-expected letter from Mercy Vint. Sir George tore it open, but bitter was his disap- pointment. The letter merely said that Griffith had not appeared in answer to her advertise- ments, and she was sore grieved and perplexed. There were two postscripts, each a little piece of paper. First postscript, in a tremulous hand, " Pray." Second postscript, in a firm hand, "Drain that water. " Houseman shrugged his shoulders impatiently. " Drain the mere ? Let the crown do that. We should but fish up more trouble. And prayer, quo' she! 'Tis not prayers we want, but evi- dence." He sent his clerk off to travel post night and day, and subpoena Mercy, and bring her back with him to the trial. She was to have every comfort on the road, and be treated like a duchess. The evening before the assizes, Mrs. Gaunt's apartments were Mr. Houseman's head-quar- ters, and messages were coming and going all day on matters connected with the defense. Just at sunset up rattled a post-chaise, and the clerk got out and came haggard and bloodshot before his employer. "The witness has disappeared, sir. Left home last Tuesday, with her child, and has never been seen nor heard of since. " Here was a terrible blow. They all paled un- der it ; it seriously diminished the chances of an acquittal. But Mrs. Gaunt bore it nobly. She seemed to rise under it. She turned to Sir George Neville with a sweet smile. " The noble heart sees base things noble. No wonder, then, that an artful woman deluded you. He has left England with her, and con- demned me to the gallows — in cold blood. So be it. I shall defend myself. " She then sat down with Mr. Houseman, and went through the written case he had prepared for her, and showed him notes she had taken of full a hundred criminal trials, great and small. While they were putting their heads together, Sir George sat in a brown study, and uttered not a word. Presently he got up a little brusquely, and said, "I'm going to Hernshaw." "What! at this time of night ? What to do?" " To obey my orders. To drain the mere." > "And who could have ordered you to drain my mere ?" "" Mercy Vint." Sir George uttered this in a very curious way, half ashamed, half resolute, and retired before Mrs. Gaunt could vent in speech the surprise and indignation that fired her eye. Houseman implored her not to heed Sir George and his vagaries, but to bend her whole mind on those approved modes of defense with which he had supplied her. Being now alone with her, he no longer con- cealed his great anxiety. "We have lost an invaluable witness in that woman," said he. "I was mad to think she would come." Mrs. Gaunt shivered with repugnance. "I would not have her come for all the world," said she. "For Heaven's sake, never mention her name to me. I want help from none but friends. Send Mrs. Houseman to me in the morning, and do not distress yourself so. I shall defend my- self far better than you think. I have not stud- ied a hundred trials for naught." Thus the prisoner cheered up her attorney, and soon after insisted on his going home to bed, for she saw he was worn out by his exer- tions. And now she was alone. All was silent. A few short hours, and she was to be tried for her life — tried, not by the All-wise Judge, but by fallible men, and under a system most unfavor- able to the accused. Worse than all this, she was a Papist ; and, as ill luck would have it, since her imprison- ment an alarm was raised that the Pretender meditated another invasion. This report had set juries very much against all the Romanists in the country, and had already perverted justice in one or two cases, especially in the North. Mrs. Gaunt knew all this, and trembled at the peril to come. She spent the early part of the night in study- ing her defense. Then she laid it quite aside, and prayed long and fervently. Toward morning she fell asleep from exhaus- tion. When she awoke, Mrs. Houseman was sitting by her bedside, looking at her, and crying. They .were soon clasped in each other's arms, condoling. But presently Houseman came, and took his wife away rather angrily. Mrs. Gaunt was prevailed on to eat a little toast and drink a glass of wine, and then she sat waiting her dreadful summons. She waited and waited, until she became im- patient to face her danger. But there were two petty larcenies on before her. She had to wait. At last, about noon, came a message to say that the grand jury had found a true bill against her. "Then may God forgive them!" said she. Soon afterward she was informed her time drew very near. She made her toilet, carefully, and passed with her attendant into a small room under the court. Here she had to endure another chilling wait, and in a sombre room. Presently she heard a voice above her cry out, "The King versus Catharine Gaunt." Then she was beckoned to. She mounted some steps, badly lighted, and found herself in the glare of day, and greedy eyes, in the felon's dock. In a matter entirely strange, Ave seldom know beforehand what we can do, and how we shall carry ourselves. Mrs. Gaunt no sooner set her foot in that dock, and saw the awful front of Justice face to face, than her tremors abated, and all her powers awoke, and she thrilled with love of life, and bristled with all those fine arts of defense that nature lends to superior women. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 119 She entered on that defense before she spoke a word, for she attacked the prejudices of the court by deportment. She courtesied reverently to the judge, and contrived to make her reverence seem a willing homage, unmixed with fear. She cast her eyes round, and saw the court thronged with ladies and gentlemen she knew. In a moment she read in their faces that only two or three were on her side. She bowed to those only, and they returned her courtesy. This gave an impression (a false one) that the gentry sympathized with her. After a little murmur of functionaries, the Clerk of Arraigns turned to the prisoner, and said, in a loud voice, " Catharine Gaunt, hold up thy hand." She held up her hand, and he recited the in- dictment, which charged that, not having the fear of God before her eyes, but being moved by the instigation of the devil, she had, on the fif- teenth of October, in the tenth year of the reign of his present majesty, aided and abetted one Thomas Leicester in an assault upon one Griffith Gaunt, Esq., and him, the said Griffith Gaunt, did with force and arms assassinate and do to death, against the peace of our said lord the king, his crown and dignity. After reading the indictment, the Clerk of Arraigns turned to the prisoner, "How say est thou, Catharine Gaunt, art thou guilty of the fel- ony and murder whereof thou standest indicted — or not guilty?" "I am not guilty." " Culprit, how wilt thou be tried?" ' ' Culprit I am none, but only accused : I will be tried by God and my country." " God send thee a good deliverance." Mr. Whitworth, the junior counsel for the crown, then rose to open the case ; but the pris- oner, with a pale face, but most courteous de- meanor, begged his leave to make a previous mo- tion to the court. Mr. Whitworth bowed and sat down. " My lord, " said she, ' ' I have first a favor to ask, and that favor, methinks, you will grant, since it is but justice — impartial justice. My accuser, I hear, has two counsel, both learned and able. I am but a woman, and no match for their skill ; therefore I beg your lordship to al- low me counsel on my defense, to matter of fact as well as of law. I know this is not usual, but it is just ; and I am informed it has sometimes been granted in trials of life and death, and that your lordship hath the poicer, if you have the will, to do me so much justice." The judge looked toward Mr. Sergeant Wilt- shire, who was the leader on the other side. He rose instantly and replied to this purpose : " The prisoner is misinformed. The truth is, that from time immemorial, and down to the other day, a person indicted for a capital offense was never allowed counsel at all, except to matters of law, and these must be started by himself. By re- cent practice, the rule hath been so far relaxed that counsel have sometimes been permitted to examine and crossTexamine witnesses for a pris- oner, but never to make observations on the evi- dence, nor to draw inferences from it to the point in issue." Mrs. Gaunt. So, then, if I be sued for a small sum of money, I may have skilled orators to de- fend me against their like, but if I be sued for my life and honor, I may not oppose skill to skill, but must stand here a child against you that are masters. 'Tis a monstrous iniquity, and you yourself, sir, will not deny it. Serr/t. Wiltshire. Madam, permit me : wheth- er it be a hardship to deny full counsel to pris- oners in criminal cases, I shall not pretend to say ; but if it be, 'tis a hardship of the law's mak- ing, and not of mine, nor of my lord's, and none have suffered by it (at least in our day) but those who had broken the law. The sergeant then stopped a minute and whis- pered with his junior, after which he turned to the judge : ' ' My lord, we, that are of counsel for the crown, desire to do nothing that is hard where a person's life is at stake. We yield to the pris- oner any indulgence for which your lordship can find a precedent in your reading, but no more ; and so we leave the matter to you." The Clerk of Arraigns. Crier, proclaim silence. The Crier. Oyez ! Oyez ! Oyez ! His majes- ty's justices do straitly charge all manner of per- sons to keep silence on pain of imprisonment. The Judge. Prisoner, what my brother Wilt- shire says, the law is clear in : there is no prece- dent for what you ask, and the contrary practice stares us in the face for centuries. What seems to you a partial practice, and, to be frank, some learned persons are of your mind, must be set against this, that in capital cases the burden of proof lies on the crown and not on the accused. Also it is my duty to give you all the assistance I can, and that I shall do. Thus then it is : you can be allowed counsel to examine your own wit- nesses, and cross-examine the witnesses for the crown, and speak to points of law, to be started by yourself, but no farther. He then asked her what gentleman there pres- ent he should assign to her for counsel. Her reply to this inquiry took the whole court by surprise, and made her solicitor, Houseman, very miserable. "None, my lord," said she. " Half justice is injustice, and I will lend it no color. I will net set able men to fight for me with their hands tied, against men as able whose hands be free. Counsel, on terms so partial, I will have none. My counsel shall be three, and no more — yourself, my lord — my innocence — and the Lord God Omniscient." These words, grandly uttered, caused a dead silence in the court, but only for a few moments. It was broken by the loud mechanical voice of the crier, who proclaimed silence, and then called the names of the jury that were to try this cause. Mrs. Gaunt listened keenly to the names — familiar and bourgeois names, that now seemed regal, for they who owned them held her life in their hands. Each juryman was sworn in the grand old form, now slightly curtailed. " Joseph King, look upon the prisoner. You shall well and truly try, and true deliverance make, between our sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, and a true verdict give, according to the evidence. So help you God. " Mr. Whitworth, for the crown, then opened the case, but did little more than translate the indictment into more rational language. He sat down, and Sergeant Wiltshire address- ed the court somewhat after this fashion : "May it please your lordship, and you, gen- 120 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. tlemen of the jury, this is a case of great expect- ation and importance. The prisoner at the bar, a gentlewoman by birth and education, and, as you must have already perceived, by breeding also, stands indicted for no less a crime than murder. "I need not paint to you the heinousness of this crime : you have but to consult your own breasts. Who ever saw the ghastly corpse of the victim weltering in its blood, and did not feel his own blood run cold through his veins? Has the murderer fled ? With what eagerness do we pursue ! with what zeal apprehend ! with what joy do we bring him to justice ! Even the dread- ful sentence of death does not shock us when pro- nounced upon him ; we hear it with solemn sat- isfaction, and acknowledge the justice of the di- vine sentence, ' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' "But, if this be the case in every common murder,, what shall be thought of her who has murdered her husband ? the man in whose arms she has lain, and whom she has sworn at God's altar to love and cherish. Such a murderer is a robber as well as an assassin ; for she robs her own children of their father, that tender parent who can never be replaced in this world. " Gentlemen, it will, I fear, be proved that the prisoner at the bar hath been guilty of murder in this high degree; and, though I will endeavor rather to extenuate than to aggravate, yet I trust (sic) I have such a history to open as will shock the ears of all who hear me. "Mr. Griffith Gaunt, the unfortunate deceased, was a man of descent and worship. As to his character, it was inoffensive ; he was known as a worthy, kindly gentleman, deeply attached to her who now stands accused of his murder. They lived happily together for some years ; but, un- fortunately, there was a thorn in the rose of their wedded life ; he was of the Church of England ; .-lie was, and is, a Roman Catholic. This led to disputes ; and no wonder, since the same unhap- py difference hath more than once embroiled a nation, let alone a single family. "Well, gentlemen, about a year ago there was a more violent quarrel than usual between the deceased and the prisoner at the bar, and the de- ceased left his home for several months. " He returned upon a certain day in this year, and a reconciliation, real or apparent, took place. He left home again soon afterward, but only for a short period. On the 1 5th of last October he suddenly returned for good, as he intended ; and here begins the tragedy, to which what I have hitherto related was but the prologue. "Scarce an hour before he came, one Thomas Leicester entered the house. Now this Thomas Leicester was a creature of the prisoner's. He had been her gamekeeper, and was now a ped- dler. It was the prisoner who set him up as a peddler, and purchased the wares to start him in his trade. " Gentlemen, this peddler, as I shall prove, was concealed in the house when the deceased arrived. One Caroline Ryder, who is the pris- oner's gentlewoman, was the person who first in- formed her of Leicester's arrival, and it seems she was much moved ; Mrs. Ryder will tell you she fell into hysterics. But, soon after, her hus- band's arrival was announced, and then the pas- sion was of a very different kind. So violent was her rage against this unhappy man that, for once, she forgot all prudence, and' threatened his life before a witness. Yes, gentlemen, we shall prove that this gentlewoman, who in appearance and manners might grace a court, was so trans- ported out of her usual self that she held up a j knife — a knife, gentlemen, and vowed to put it ' into her husband's heart. And this was no mere temporary ebullition of wrath ; we shall see pres- ently that, long after she had time to cool, she repeated this menace to the unfortunate man's face. The first threat, however, was uttered in her own bedroom, before her confidential servant, Caroline Ryder aforesaid. But now the scene shifts. She has, to all appearance, recovered her- self, and sits smiling at the head of her table ; for, you must know, she entertained company that night, persons of the highest standing in the county. " Presently her husband, all unconscious of the terrible sentiments she entertained toward him, and the fearful purpose she had announced, enters the room, makes obeisance to his guests, and goes to take his wife's hand. "What does she? She draws back with so strange a look and such forbidding words that the company Avere disconcerted. Consternation fell on all present ; and, ere long, they made their excuses and left the house. Tims the prisoner was left alone with her husband. But, mean- time, curiosity had been excited by her strange conduct, and some of the servants, with forebod- ing hearts, listened at the door of the dining- room. What did they hear, gentlemen ? A fu- rious quarrel, in which, however, the deceased was comparatively passive, and the prisoner again threatened his life with vehemence. Her pas- sion, it is clear, had not cooled. " Now it may fairly be alleged on behalf of the prisoner that the witnesses for the crown were on one side of the door, the prisoner and the deceased on the other, and that such evidence should be received with caution. I grant this, where it is not sustained by other circumstances or by di- rect proofs. Let us, then, give the prisoner the benefit of this doubt, and let us inquire how the deceased himself understood her ; he Avho not only heard the words and the accents, but saw the looks, whatever they were, that accompanied them. " Gentlemen, he was a man of known courage and resolution, yet he was found after this terri- ble interview much cowed and dejected. He spoke to Mrs. Ryder of his death as an event not far distant, and so went to his bedroom in a mel- ancholy and foreboding state : and where was that bedroom ? He Avas thrust by his wife's or- ders into a small chamber, and not allowed to enter hers ; he, the master of the house, her hus- band and her lord. " But his interpretation of the prisoner's words did not end there. He left us a farther comment by his actions next ensuing. He dared not (I beg pardon, this is my inference; receive it as such), he did not remain in that house a single night. He bolted his chamber-door inside ; and in the dead of night, notwithstanding the fatigues of the day's journey (for he had ridden some dis- tance), he let himself out by the window, and reached the ground safely, though it was a height of fourteen feet ; a leap, gentlemen, that few of us would venture to take. But what will not GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 121 men risk when destruction is at their heels ? He did not wait even to saddle his horse, but fled on foot. Unhappy man, he fled from danger and met his death. "From the hour when he went up to bed none of the inmates of tbe house ever saw Griffith Gaunt alive ; but one Thomas Hayes, a laborer, saw him walking in a certain direction at one o'clock that morning, and behind him, gentlemen, there walked another man. " Who was that other man ? " When I have told you (and this is an essen- tial feature of the case) how the prisoner was employed during the time that* her husband lay quaking in bis little room, waiting an opportuni- ty to escape — when I tell you this, I fear you will divine who it was that followed the deceased, and for what purpose. " Gentlemen, when the prisoner had threaten- ed her husband in person, as I have described, she retired to her own room, but not to sleep. She ordered her maid, Mrs. Ryder, to bring Thomas Leicester to her chamber. Yes, gentlemen, she received this peddler at midnight in her bed- chamber. "Now an act so strange as this admits, I think, of but two interpretations. Either she had a guilty amour with this fellow, or she had some extraordinary need of his services. Her whole character, by consent of the witnesses, renders it very improbable that she would de- scend to a low amour. Moreover, she acted too publicly in the matter. The man, as we know, was her tool — her creature : she had bought his wares for him, and set him up as a peddler. She openly summoned him to her presence, and kept him there about half an hour. "Fie went from her, and very soon after is seen by Thomas Hayes following Griffith Gaunt — at one o'clock in the morning — that Griffith Gaunt, who, after that hour, was never seen alive. "Gentlemen, up to this point the evidence is clear, connected, and cogent ; but it rarely hap- pens in cases of murder that any human eye sees the very blow struck. The penalty is too severe for such an act to be done in the presence of an eye-witness ; and not one murderer in ten could be convicted without the help of circumstantial evidence. "The next link, however, is taken up by an ear-witness, and, in some cases, the ear is even better than the eye ; for instance, as to the dis- charge of fire-arms ; for, by the eye alone, we could not positively tell whether a pistol had gone off or had but flashed in the pan. Well, then, gentlemen, a few minutes after Mr. Gaunt was last seen alive, which was by Thomas Hayes, Mrs. Ryder, who had retired to her room, heard the said Gaunt distinctly cry for help ; she also heard a pistol-shot discharged. This took place by the side of a lake or large pond near the house, called • the mere.' Mrs. Ryder alarmed the house, and she and the other servants pro- ceeded to her master's room : they found it bolt- ed from the inside. They broke it open. Mr. Gaunt had escaped by the window, as I have al- ready told you. "Presently in comes the prisoner from out of doors. This is at one o'clock in the morning. Now she appears to have seen at once that she must explain her being abroad at that time, so she told Mrs. Ryder that she had been out — praying." (Here some people laughed harshly, but were threatened severely, and silenced.) ' ' Is that credible ? Ho people go out of doors at one o'clock in the morning to pray ? Nay ; but I fear it was to do an act that years of prayer and penitence can not efface. ' ' From that moment Mr. Gaunt was seen no more among living men. And what made his disappearance the more mysterious was that he had actually at this time just inherited largely from his namesake, Mr. Gaunt of Coggleswade, and his own interest, and that of the other lega- tees, required his immediate presence. Mr. At- kins, the testator's solicitor, advertised for this unfortunate gentleman, but he did not appear to claim his fortune. Then plain men began to put this and that together, and cried out ' foul play !' "Justice was set in motion at last, but embar- rassed by the circumstance that the body of the deceased could not be found. "At last Mr. Atkins, the solicitor, being unable to get the estate I have mentioned administered for want of proof of Griffith Gaunt's decease, entered heartily into this affair on mere civil grounds. He asked the prisoner, before several witnesses, if she would permit him to drag that piece of water by the side of which Mr. Gaunt was heard to cry for help, and, after that, seen no more. " The prisoner did not reply ; but Mr. House- man, her solicitor, a very worthy man, who has, I believe, or had up to that moment, a sincere conviction of her innocence, answered for her, and told Mr. Atkins he Avas welcome to drag or drain it. Then the prisoner said nothing. She fainted, away. "After this, you may imagine with what ex- pectation the water was dragged. Gentlemen, after hours of fruitless labor, a body was found. "But here an unforeseen circumstance be- friended the prisoner. It seems that piece of water swarms with enormous pike and other rav- enous fish. These had so horribly mutilated the deceased that neither form nor feature remain- ed to swear by ; and as the law wisely and hu- manely demands that in these cases a body shall be identified beyond doubt, justice bade fair to be baffled again. 'But lo ! as often happens in case of murder, Providence interposed and pointed with unerring finger to a slight but infallible mark. The deceased gentleman was known to have a large mole over his left temple. It had been noticed by his servants and his neighbors. Well, gentlemen, the greedy fish had spared this mole — spared it perhaps by His command Avho bade the whale swallow Jonah, yet not destroy him. There it was, clear and infallible. It was examined by several witnesses ; it was recognized ; it com- pleted that chain of evidence, some of it direct, some of it circumstantial, which I have laid be- fore you very briefly, and every part of which I shall now support by credible witnesses." He called thirteen witnesses, including Mr. Atkins, Thomas Hayes. Jane Bannister, Caroline Ryder, and others, and their evidence in chief bore out every positive statement the counsel had made. In cross-examining these witnesses Mrs. Gaunt I took a line that agreeably surprised the court. 122 GRIFFITH GAUNT ■ OR, JEALOUSY. It was not for nothing she had studied a hundred trials with a woman's observation and patient docility. She had found out how badly people plead their own causes, and had noticed the reasons; one of which is that they say too much, and stray from the point. The line she took, with one exception, was keen brevity. She cross-examined Thomas Hayes as follows : CHAPTER XLII. "Yon say the peddler was a hundred yards behind my husband. Which of the two men was walking fastest ?" Thomas Hayes considered a moment. * ' Well, I think the squire was walking rather the smart- est of the two. " "Did the peddler seem likely to overtake him?" "Nay. Ye see, dame, squire he walked straight on ; but the peddler he took both sides of the road at onst, as the saying is." The Prisoner. Forgive me, Thomas, but I don't know what you mean. Hayes (compassionately). How should ye? You are never the worse for liquor, the likes of you. The Prisoner ( very keenly ). Oh, he was in liquor, was he ? Hayes. Come, dame, you do brew good ale at Hernshaw Castle. Ye needn't go to deny that ; for, Lord knows, 'tis no sin, and a poor fellow may be jolly, yet not to say drunk. The Judge (sternly). Witness, attend, and answer directly. The Prisoner. Nay, my lord, 'tis a plain country body, and means no ill. Good Thomas, be so much my friend as to answer plainly. Was the man drunk or sober ? Hayes. All I know is, he went from one side of the road to t'other. The Prisoner. Thomas Hayes, as you hope to be saved eternally, was the peddler drunk or sober ? Hayes. Well, if I must tell on my neighbor or else be damned, then that there peddler was as drunk as a lord. Here, notwithstanding the nature of the trial, the laughter was h-repressible, and Mrs. Gaunt sat quietly down (for she was allowed a seat), and said^no more. To the surgeon, who had examined the body officially, she put this question, "Did you find any signs of violence ?" The Surgeon. None whatever; but then there was nothing to go by, except the head and the bones. The Prisoner. Have you experience in this kind? I mean, have you inspected murdered bodies ? The Surgeon. Yes. The Prisoner. How many ? The Surgeon. Two before this. The Prisoner. Oh ! pray, pray, do not say "before this:" I have great hopes no murder at all hath been committed here. Let us keep to plain cases. Please you describe the injuries in these two undoubted cases. The Surgeon. In Wellyn's the skull was frac- tured in two places. In Sherrett's the right arm was broken, and there were some contusions on the head ; but the cause of death was a stab that penetrated the lungs. The Prisoner. Suppose Wellyn's murderers had thrown his body into the water, and the fishes had so mutilated it as they have this one, could you by your art have detected the signs of violence ? The Surgeon. Certainly. The man's skull was fractured. Wellyn's, I mean. The Prisoner. I put the same question with regard to Sherrett's. The Surgeon. I can not answer it : here the lungs were devoured by the fishes : no signs of lesion can be detected in an organ that has ceased to exist. The Prisoner. This is too partial. Why select one injury out of several ? What I ask is this : could you have detected violence in Sherrett's case, although the fishes had eaten the flesh of his body ? The Surgeon. I answer that the minor injuries of Sherrett would have been equally perceptible ; to wit, the bruises on the head, and the broken arm, but not the perforation of the lungs ; and that it was killed the man. Prisoner. Then, so far as you know, and can swear, about murder, more blows have always been struck than one, and some of the blows struck in Sherrett's case, and Wellyn's, would have left traces that fishes' teeth could not ef- face? The Surgeon. That is so, if I am to be pee- vishly confined to my small and narrow expe- rience of murdered bodies. But my general knowledge of the many ways in which life may be taken by violence — The judge stopped him, and said that, in a case of blood, that could hardly be admitted as evidence against Lis actual experience. The prisoner put a drawing of the castle, the mere, and the bridge, into the witnesses' hands, and elicited that it was correct, and also the dis- tances marked on it. They had, in fact, been measured exactly for her. The hobnailed shoes were produced, and she made some use of them, particularly in cross-ex- amining Jane Bannister. Prisoner. Look at those shoes. Saw you ever the like on Mr. Gaimt's feet ? Jane. That I never did dame. Prisoner. What, not when he came into the kitchen on the 15th of October? Jane. Nay, he was booted. By the same to- ken, I saw the boy a cleaning of them for supper. Prisoner. Those boots, when you broke into his room, did you find them ? Jane. Nay, when the man went, his boots went, as reason was. We found naught of his but a soiled glove. Prisoner. Had the peddler boots on ? Jane. Alas ! who ever see'd a booted peddler ? Prisoner. Had he these very shoes on ? Look at them. Jane. I couldn't say for that. He had shoon, for they did properly clatter on my bricks. The Judge. Clatter on her bricks ! What does she mean ? Prisoner. I think she means on the floor of her kitchen. 'Tis a brick floor, if I remember right. The Judge. Good woman, say, is that what you mean ? Jane. Ay, an't please you, my lord. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 123 Prisoner. Had the peddler a mole on his fore- head? Jane. Not that I know on. I never took so much notice of the man. But la ! dame, now I look at you, I don't believe you was ever the one to murder our master. Wiltshire. We don't want your opinion. Con- fine yourself to facts. Prisoner. You heard me rating my husband on that night ; what was it I said about the con- stables — do you remember? Jane. La ! dame, I wouldn't ask that if I was in your place. Prisoner. I am much obliged to you for your advice, but answer me — U'uly. Jane. Well, if you will have it, I think you said they should be here in the morning. But, indeed, good gentlemen, her bark was always worse than her bite, poor soul r - The Judge. Here. That meant at Hernshaw Castle, I presume. Jane. Ay, my lord, an' if it please your lord- ship's honor's worship. Mrs. Gaunt, husbanding the patience of the court, put no questions at all to several witness- es, but she cross-examined Mrs. Ryder very closely. This was necessary, for Ryder was a fatal witness. Her memory had stored every rash and hasty word the poor lady had uttered, and, influenced either by animosity or prejudice, she put the worst color on every suspicious cir- cumstance. She gave her damnatory evidence neatly and clearly, and with a seeming candor and regret that disarmed suspicion. When her examination in chief concluded, there was but one opinion among the bar and the auditors in general, viz., that the maid had hung the mistress. Mrs. Gaunt herself feit she had a terrible an- tagonist to deal with, and, when she rose to cross- examine her, she looked paler than she had done all' through the trial. She rose, but seemed to ask herself how to be- gin ; and her pallor and her hesitation, while they excited some little sympathy, confirmed the un- favorable impression. She fixed her eyes upon the witness, as if to discover where she was most vulnerable. Mrs. Ryder returned her gaze calmly. The court was hushed, for it was evi- dent a duel was coming between two women of no common ability. The opening rather disappointed expectation. Mrs. Gaunt seemed, by her manner, desirous to propitiate the witness. Prisoner (very civilly). You say you brought Thomas Leicester to my bedroom on that terri- ble night ? Ryder (civilly). Yes, madam. Prisoner. And you say he staid there half an hour ? Ryder. Yes, madam, he did. Prisoner. May I inquire how you know he staid just half an hour ? Ryder. My watch told me that, madam. I brought him to you at a quarter past eleven, and you did not ring for me till a quarter to twelve. Prisoner. And when I did ring for vou, what then? J ' Ryder. I came and took the man away, by your orders. Prisoner. At a quarter to twelve ? Ryder. At a quarter to twelve. Prisoner. This Leicester was a lover of yours ? Ryder. Not he. Prisoner. Oh fie ! Why, he offered you mar- riage ; it went so far as that. Ryder. Oh, that was before you set him up peddler. Prisoner. 'Twas so; but he was single for your sake, and he renewed his offer that very night. Come, do not forswear yourself about a trifle. Ryder. Trifle, indeed ! Why, if he did, what has that to do with the murder ? You'll do yourself no good, madam, by going about so. Wiltshire. Really, madam, this is beside the mark. Prisoner. If so, it can do your case no harm. My lord, you did twice interrupt the learned counsel, and forbade him to lead his witnesses ; I not once, for I am for stopping no mouths, but sifting all to the bottom. Now I implore you to let me have fair play in my turn, and an answer from this slippery witness. The Judge. Prisoner, I do not quite see your drift, but God forbid you should be hampered in your defense. Witness, by virtue of your oath, reply directly. Did this peddler offer you mar- riage that night after he left the prisoner ? Ryder. My lord, he did. Prisoner. And confided to you he had orders to kill Mr. Gaunt? Ryder. Not he, madam ; that was not the way to win me. Prisoner. What ! did not his terrible purpose peep out all the time he was making love to you ? No reply. Prisoner. You had the kitchen to your two selves i Come, don't hesitate. Ryder. The other servants were gone to bed, you kept the man so late. Prisoner. Oh, I mean no reflection on your prudence. You went out of doors with youi wooer, just to see him off? Ryder. Not I. What for ? I had nobody to make away with. I just opened the door for him, bolted it after him, and went straight to my bedroom. Prisoner. How long had you been there when you heard the cry for help ? Ryder. Scarce ten minutes. I had not taken my stays off. Prisoner. If you and Thomas Hayes speak true, that gives half an hour you were making love with the murderer after he left me. Am I correct ? The witness now saAv whither she had been led, and changed her manner. She became sul- len, and watched an opportunity to stab. Prisoner. Had he a mole on his brow? Ryder. Not that I know of. Prisoner. Why, where were your eyes, then, when the murderer saluted you at parting ? Ryder's eyes flashed ; but she felt her temper tried, and governed it all the more severely. She treated the question with silent contempt. Prisoner. But you pass for a discreet woman ; perhaps you looked modestly down when the as- sassin saluted you ? Ryder. If he saluted me, perhaps I did. Prisoner. In that case you could not see his mole; but you must have noticed his shoes. 124 GRIFFITH GAUNT : OR, JEALOUSY. Were these the shoes he wore ? Look at them well. Ryder (after inspecting them). I do not rec- ognize them. Prisoner. Will you swear these were not the shoes he had on ? Ryder. How can I swear that ? I know noth- ing about the man's shoes. If you please, my lord, am I to be kept here all day with her fool- ish, trifling questions ? The Judge. x\ll day, and all night too, if jus- tice requires it. The law is not swift to shed blood. Prisoner. My lord and the gentlemen of the jury were here before you, and will be kept here after you. Prithee attend. Look at that draw- ing of Hernshaw Castle and Hernshaw Mere. Now take this pencil and mark your bedroom on the drawing. The pencil was taken from the prisoner and handed to Ryder. She waited like a cat till it came close to her, then recoiled with an admira- ble scream. ' ' Me handle a thing hot from the hand of a murderess ! It makes me tremble all over." This cruel stab affected the prisoner visibly. She put her hand to her bosom, and with tears in her eyes faltered out a request to the judge that she might sit down a minute. The Judge. To be sure you may. And you, my good woman, must not run before the court. How do you know what evidence she may have in store ? At present we have only heard one side. Re more moderate. The prisoner rose promptly to her feet. ' ' My lord, I welcome the insult that has disgusted your lordship and the gentlemen of the jury, and won me those good words of comfort. " To Ryder — " What sort of a night was it?" Ryder. Very little moon, but a clear, starry night. Prisoner. Could you see the mere, and the banks ? Ryder. Nay, but so much of it as faced my window. Prisoner. Have you marked your window ? Ryder. I have. Prisoner. Now mark the place where you heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help. Ryder. 'Twas about here — under these trees.^ And that is why I coidd not see him, along of the shadow. Prisoner. Possibly. Did you see me on that side the mere. Ryder. No. Prisoner. What colored dress had I on at that time? Ryder. White satin. Prisoner. Then you could have seen me, even among the trees, had I been on that side the mere ? Ryder. I can't say. However, I never said you were on the very spot where the deed was done, but you were out of doors. Prisoner. How do you know that ? Ryder. Why, you told me so yourself. Prisoner. Then that is my evidence, not yours. Swear to no more than you know. Had my hus- band, to your knowledge, a reason for absconding suddenly ? Ryder. Yes, he had. Prisoner, What was it ? Ryder. Fear of you. Prisoner. Nay, I mean, had he not something to fear — something quite different from that I am charged with ? Ryder. You know best, madam. I would glad- ly serve you, but I can not guess what you are driving at. The prisoner was taken aback by this impu- dent reply. She hesitated to force' her servant to expose a husband whom she believed to be living, and her hesitation looked like discomfi- ture , and Ryder was victorious in that encounter. By this time they were both thoroughly em- bittered, and it was war to the knife. Prisoner. You listened to our unhappy quarrel that night ? Ryder. Quarrel ! madam, 'twas all on one side. Prisoner. How did you understand what I said to him about the constables? Ryder. Constables ! I never heard you say the word. Prisoner. Oh! Ryder. Neither when you threatened him with your knife to me, nor when you threatened him to his face. Prisoner. Take care : you forget that Jane Bannister heard me ; was her ear nearer the key- hole than yours ? Ryder. Jane ! she is a simpleton. You could make her think she heard any thing. I noticed you put the words in her mouth. Prisoner. God forgive you, you naughty wom- an. You had better have spoken the truth. Ryder. My lord, if you please, am I to be mis- called — by a murderess ? The Judge. Come, come, this is no place for recrimmation. The prisoner now stooped and examined her papers, and took a distinct line of cross-examina- tion. Prisoner* (with apparent carelesness). At all events, you are a virtuous woman, Mrs. Ryder ? Ryder. Yes, madam, as virtuous as yourself, to .say the least. Prisoner (still more carelessly). Married cc single ? Ryder. Single, and like to be. Prisoner. Yes, if I remember right, I made a point of that before I engaged you as my maid. Ryder. I believe the question was put. Prisoner. Here is the answer in your hand- writing. Is not that your handwriting ? Ryder (after inspecting it). It is. Prisoner. You came highly recommended by your last mistress, a certain Mrs. Hamilton. Here is her letter, describing you as a model. Ryder. Well, madam, hitherto I have given satisfaction to all my mistresses, Mrs. Hamilton among the rest. My character does not rest on her word only, I hope. Prisoner. Excuse me ; I engaged you on her word alone. Now who is this Mrs. Hamilton ? Ryder. A worshipful lady I served for eight months before I came to you. She went abroad, or I should be with her now. Prisoner. Now cast your eye over this paper. It was the copy of a marriage certificate be- tween Thomas Edwards and Caroline Plunkett. " Who is this Caroline Plunkett ?" Ryder turned very pale, and made no reply. " I ask you who is this Caroline Plunkett ?" Ryder (faintly). Myself. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 125 TJie Jvdge. Why, you said you were single ! Ryder. So I am — as good as single. ^ My hus- band and me we parted eight years ago, and I have never seen him since. Prisoner. Was it quite eight years ago ? Ryder. Nearly ; 'twas in May, 1739. Prisoner. But you have lived with him since ? Ryder. Never, upon my soul. Prisoner. When was your child born ? Ryder. My child ! I have none. Prisoner. In January, 1743, you left a baby at Biggleswade, with a woman called Church— did you not ?. Ryder (panting). Of course I did. It was my sister's. Prisoner. Do you mean to call God to witness that child was not yours ? Ryder hesitated. Prisoner. Will you swear Mrs. Church did not see you nurse that child in secret, and weep over it ? At this question the perspiration stood visible on Ryder's brow, her cheeks were ghastly, and her black eyes roved like some wild animal's round the court. She saw her own danger, and had no means of measuring her inquisitor's in- formation. " My lord, have pity on me. I was betrayed, abandoned. Why am I so tormented ? i" have not committed murder." So, catlike, she squeal- ed and scratched at once. Prisoner. What ! to swear away an innocent life, is not that murder? The Judge. Prisoner, we make allowances for your sex and your peril, but you must not re- mark on the evidence at present. Examine as severely as you will, but abstain from comment till you address the jury on your defense. Sergeant Wiltshire. My lord, I submit that this line of examination is barbarous, and travels out of the case entirely. Prisoner. Not so, Mr. Sergeant. 'Tis done by advice of an able lawyer. My life is in peril unless I shake this witness's credit. To that end I show you she is incontinent, and practised in falsehood. Unchastity has been held in these courts to disqualify a female witness — hath it not, my lord ? The Judge. Hardly. But to disparage her evidence it has. And wisely ; for she who loses her virtue enters on a life of deceit, and lying is a habit that spreads from one thing to many. Much wisdom there is in ancient Avords. Our forefathers taught us to call a virtuous woman an honest woman, and the law does but follow in that track, still, however, leaving much to the discretion of the jury. Prisoner. I would show her more mercy than she has shown to me, therefore I leave that mat- ter. Witness, be so good as to examine Mrs. Hamilton's letter, and compare it with your own. The "y's" and the "s's" are peculiar in both, and yet the same. Come, confess ; Mrs. Hamilton's is a forgery. You wrote it. Be pleased to hand both letters up to my lord to compare— the dis- guise is but thin. Ryder. Forgery there was none. There is no Mrs. Hamilton. (She burst into tears.) I had my child to provide for, and no man to help me ! What was I to do ? A servant must live. Prisoner. Then why not let her mistress live, whose bread she has eaten ? My lord, shall not this false witness be sent hence to prison for perjury? Wiltshire. Certainly not. What woman on earth is expected to reveal her own shame upon oath ? 'Twas not fair nor human to put such questions. Come, madam, leave torturing this poor creature. Show some mercy ; you may need it yourself. The Prisoner. Sir, 'tis not mercy I ask, but justice according to law. But, since you do me the honor to make me a request, I will comply, and ask her but one question more. Describe my apartment into which you showed Thomas Leicester that night. Begin at the outer door. Ryder. First there is the ante-room; then the boudoir ; then there's your bed-chamber. Prisoner. Into which of those three did you show Thomas Leicester ? Ryder. Into the anteroom. Prisoner. Then why did you say it was in my chamber I entertained him ? Ryder. Madam, I meant no more than that it was your private apartment up stairs. Prisoner. You contrived to make the gentle- men think otherwise. The Judge. That you did. 'Tis down in my notes that she received the peddler in her bed- chamber. Ryder (sobbing). God is my witness I did not mean to mislead your lordship, and I ask my lady's pardon for not being more exact in that particular. At this the prisoner bowed to the judge, and sat down with one victorious flash of her gray eye at the witness, who was in an abject condition of fear, and hung all about the witness-box limp as a wet towel. Sergeant Wiltshire saw she was so thoroughly cowed she would be apt to truckle, and soften her evidence to propitiate the prisoner, so he asked her but one question. " Were you and the prisoner on good terms ?" Ryder. On the best of terms. She was always a good and libera] mistress to me. Wiltshire. I will not prolong your sufferings. You may go down. The Judge. But you will not leave the court till this trial is ended. I have grave doubts whether I ought not to commit you. Unfortunately for the prisoner, Ryder was not the last witness for the crown. The others that followed were so manifestly honest that it would have been impolitic to handle them severely. The prisoner, therefore, put very few questions to them, and when the last witness went down the case looked very formidable. The evidence for the crown being now com- plete, the judge retired for some refreshment, and'the court buzzed like a hum of bees. Mrs. Gaunt's lips and throat were parched, and her heart quaked. A Avoman of quite the loAver order thrust forth a great arm and gave her an orange. Mrs. Gaunt thanked her SAveetly, and the juice re- lieved her throat. Also this bit of sympathy was of good omen, and did her heart good. She buried her face in her hands, and collect- ed all her poAvers for the undertaking before her. She had noted down the exact order of her top- ics, but no more. The judge returned ; the crier demanded si* 126 GRIFFITH GAUNT j OR, JEALOUSY. lence ; and the prisoner rose, and turned her eyes modestly but steadily upon those who held her life in their hands ; and, true to the wisdom of her sex, the first thing she aimed at was — to please. " My lord, and you, gentlemen of the jury, I am now to reply to a charge of murder, founded on a little testimony, and a good deal of false, but, I must needs say, reasonable conjecture. "I am innocent; but, unlike other innocent persons who have stood here before me, I have no man to complain of. "The magistrates who committed me pro- ceeded with due caution and humanity ; they weighed my hitherto unspotted reputation, and were in no hurry to prejudge me ; here, in this court, I have met with much forbearance ; the learned counsel for the crown has made me groan under his abilities ; that was his duty ; but he said from the first he would do nothing hard, and he has kept his word. Often he might have stopped me ; I saw it in his face ; but, be- ing a gentleman and a Christian, as well as a learned lawyer, methinks he said to himself, 'This is a poor gentlewoman pleading for her life; let her have some little advantage.' As for my lord, he has promised to be my counsel, so far as his high station, and duty to the crown, admit, and he has supported and consoled me more than once with words of justice, that would not, I think, have encouraged a guilty person, but have comforted and sustained me beyond ex- pression. So, then, I stand here, the victim, not of man's injustice, but of deceitful appearances, and of honest, but hasty and loose conjectures. ' ' These conjectures I shall now sift, and hope to show you how hollow they are. "Gentlemen, in every disputed matter, the best way, I am told, is to begin by settling what both parties are agreed in, and so to narrow the matter. To use that way, then, I do heartily agree with the learned counsel that murder is a heinous crime, and that, black as it is at the best, yet it is still more detestable when 'tis a wife that murders her husband, and robs her child of a parent who can never be replaced. " I also agree with him that circumstantial evidence is often sufficient to convict a murder- er ; and, indeed, were it not so, that most mon- strous of crimes would go oftenest unpunished, since, of all culprits, murderei^ do most shun the eyes of men in their dark deeds, and so pro- vide beforehand that direct testimony to their execrable crime there shall be none. Only here- in I am advised to take a distinction that es- caped the learned sergeant ; I say that first of all it ought to be proved directly, and to the na- ked eye, that a man has been murdered ; and then, if none saw the crime done, let circum- stances point out the murdei-er. ' ' But here they put the cart before the horse ; they find a dead body, with no marks of violence whatever, and labor to prove by circumstantial evidence alone that this mere dead body is a murdered body. This, I am advised, is bad in law, and contrary to general precedents ; and the particular precedents for it are not exam- ples, but warnings, since both the prisoners so rashly convicted were proved innocent after their execution." (The judge took a note of this distinction.) " Then, to go from principles to the facts, I agree and admit that, in a moment of anger, I was so transported out of myself as to threaten my husband's life before Caroline Ryder. But afterward, when I saw him face to face, then that I threatened him with violence, that I denv. The fact is, I had just learned that he had com- mitted a capital offense, and what I threatened him with was the law. This was proved by Jane Bannister. She says she heard me say the con- stables should come for him next morning. For what ? — to murder him ?" The Judge. Give me leave, madam. Shall you prove Mr. Gaunt had committed a capital offense ? Prisoner. I could, my lord, but I am loth to do it ; for if I did, I should cast him into worse trouble than I am in myself. The Judge ( shaking his head gravely ). Let me advise you to advance nothing you are not able and willing to prove. The Prisoner. Then I confine myself to this : it was proved by a witness for the crown that in the dining-room I threatened my husband to his face with the law. Now this threat, and not that other extravagant threat, which he never heard, you know, was clearly the threat which caused him to abscond that night. "In the next place, I agree with the learned counsel that I was out of doors at one o'clock that morning. But if he will use me as his witness in that matter, then he must not pick, and choose, and mutilate my testimony. Nay, let him take the whole truth, and not just so much as he can square with the indictment. Either believe me, that I was out of doors pray- ing, or do not believe me that I was out of doors at all. "Gentlemen, hear the simple truth. You may see in the map, on the south side of Hernshaw Castle, a grove of large fir-trees. 'Tis a rev- erend place, most fit for prayer and meditation. Here 1 have prayed a thousand times and more before the fifteenth of October. Hence 'tis call- ed ' the Dame's Haunt,' as I shall prove, that am the dame 'tis called after. "Let it not seem incredible to you that I should pray out of doors in my grove on a fine, clear, starry night. For aught I know, Protest- ants may pray only by the fireside ; but remem- ber, I am a Catholic. We are not so contracted in our praying. We do not confine it to little comfortable places. Nay, but for seventeen hun- dred years and more we have prayed out of doors as much as in doors. And this our custom is no fit subject for a shallow sneer. How does the learned sergeant know that, beneath the vault of heaven at night, studded with those angelic eyes, the stars, is an unfit place to bend the knee, and raise the soul in prayer ? Has he ever tried it ?" This sudden appeal to a learned and eminent, but by no means devotional sergeant, so tickled the gentlemen of the bar that they burst out laughing with singular unanimity. This dashed the prisoner, who had not intend- ed to be funny ; and she hesitated, and looked distressed. The Judge. Proceed, madam : these remarks of yours are singular, but quite pertinent, and no fit 'subject for ridicule. Gentlemen, remember the public looks to you for an example. Prisoner. My lord, 'twas my fault for making that personal "which should be general. But GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 127 women they are so. 'Tis our foible. I pray the good sergeant to excuse me. "I say, then, generally, that when the sun re- tires, then earth fades, but heaven comes out in tenfold glory ; and I say the starry firmament at night is a temple not built with hands, and the bare sight of it subdues the passions, chastens the heart, and aids the soul in prayer surprisingly. Mv lord, as I am a Christian woman, 'tis true that my husband had wronged me cruelly and broken the law. 'Tis true that I raged against him and he answered me not again. 'Tis true, as that witness said, that my bark is worse than my bite. I cooled, and then felt I had forgotten the wife and the Christian in my wrath. I repented, and, to be more earnest in my penitence, I did go and pray out o' doors beneath those holy eyes of heaven that seemed to look down with chaste reproach on my ungoverned heat. I left my fireside, my velvet cushions, and all the little comforts made by human hands, that adorn our earthlv dwellings, but distract our eves from God."" Some applause followed this piece of eloquence, exquisitely uttered. It was checked, and the pris- oner resumed, with an entire change of manner. "Gentlemen, the case against me is like a piece of rotten wood varnished all over. It looks fair to the eye, but will not bear handling. " As example of wlmt I say, take three charges on which the learned sergeant greatly relied on opening his case : "1st. That I received Thomas Leicester in my bedroom. "2d. That he went hot from me after Mr. Gaunt. "3d. That he was seen following Mr. Gaunt with a bloody intent. "How ugly these three proofs looked at first sight ! Well, but when we squeezed the wit- nesses ever so little, what did these three dwindle down to ? 1st. That I received Thomas Leicester in an anteroom, which leads to a boudoir, and that boudoir leads to my bedroom. " 2d. That Thomas Leicester went from me to the kitchen, and there, for a good half hour, drank my ale (as it appears), and made love to his old sweetheart, Caroline Ryder, the false wit- ness for the crown, and went abroad fresh from Iter, and -not from vie. " 3d. That he was not (to speak strictly) seen following Mr. Gaunt, but just walking on the same road, drunk, and staggering, and going at such a rate that, as the crown's own witness swore, he could hardly, in the nature of things, overtake Mr. Gaunt, who walked quicker, and straighter too, than he. " So, then, even if a murder has been done, they have failed to connect Thomas Leicester with it, or me with Thomas Leicester. Two broken links in a chain of but three. " And now I come to the more agreeable part of my defense. I do think there has been no murder at all. " There is no evidence of a murder. "A body is found with the flesh eaten by fish- es, but the bones and the head uninjured. They swear a surgeon, who has examined the body, and certainly he had the presumption to guess it looks like a murdered body ; but, being sifted, lie was forced to admit that, so far as his expe- rience of murdered bodies goes, it is not like a murdered body, for there is no bone broken nor bruise on the head. "Where is the body found? In the water. But water by itself is a sufficient cause of death, and a common cause too, and kills without break- ing bones or bruising the head. O perversity of the wise ! For every one creature murdered in England, ten are accidentally drowned ; and they find a dead man in the water, which is as much as to say they find the slain in the arms of the slayer ; yet they do not once suspect the water, but go about in search of a strange and monstrous crime. " Mr. Gaunt's cry for help was heard here, if it was heard at all (which I greatly doubt), here by this clump of trees ; the body was found here, hard by the bridge, which is, by measurement, one furlong and sixty paces from that clump of trees, as I shall prove. There is no current in the mere lively enough to move a body, and what there is runs the wrong way. So this discon- nects the cry for help and the dead body. An- other broken link ! ' ' And now I come to my third defense. I say the body is not the body of Griffith Gaunt. " The body, mutilated as it was, had two dis- tinguishing marks — a mole on the brow, and a pair of hobnailed shoes on the feet. "Now the advisers of the crown fix their eyes on that mole, but they turn their heads away from the hobnailed shoes. But why ? Articles of raiment found on a body are legal evidence of identity. How often, my lord, in cases of mur- der, hath the crown relied on such particulars, especially in cases where corruption had obscured the features. "I shall not imitate this partiality, this ob- stinate prejudice ; I shall not ask you to shut your eyes on the mole, as they do on the shoes, but shall meet the whole truth fairly. " Mr. Gaunt went from my house that moivn- ing with boots on his feet and with a mole on his brow. "Thomas Leicester went the same road, with shoes on his feet, and, as I shall prove, with a mole on his brow. " To be sure the crown witnesses did not dis- tinctly admit this mole on him, but you will re- member they dared not deny it on their oaths, and so run their heads into an indictment for perjury. "But, gentlemen, I shall put seven witnesses into the box who will all swear that they have known Thomas Leicester for years, and that he had a mole upon his left temple. ' ' One of these witnesses is — the mother that bore him. "I shall then call witnesses to prove that, on the fifteenth of October, the bridge over the mere was in bad repair, and a portion of the side rail gone ; and that the body was found within a few yards of that defective bridge; and then, as Thomas Leicester went that way, drunk, and staggering from side to side, you may reasonably infer that he fell into the water in passing the bridge. To show this is possible, I shall prove the same thing has actually occurred. I shall swear the oldest man in the parish, who will de- pose to a similar event that happened in his boy- hood. He hath said it a thousand times before to-day, and now will swear it. He will tell you 128 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. that on a certain day, sixty-nine years ago, the parson of Hernshaw, the Rev. Augustus Murth- waite, went to cross this bridge at night, after carousing at Hernshaw Castle with our great- grandfather, my husband's and mine, the then proprietor of Hernshaw, and tumbled into the water ; and his body was found, gnawed out of the very form of humanity by the fishes, within a yard or two of the spot where poor Tom Lei- cester was found, that hath cost us all this trou- ble. So do the same causes bring round the game events in a cycle of years. The only dif- ference is that the parson drank his death in our dining-room, and the peddler in our kitchen. "No doubt, my lord, you have observed that sometimes a hasty and involuntary inaccuracy gives quite a wrong color to a thing. I assure you I have suffered by this. It is said that the moment Mr. Atkins proposed to drag my mere, I fainted away. In this account there is an omission. I shall prove that Mr. Atkins used these words — ' And underneath that water I un- dertake to find the remains of Griffith Gaunt.' Now, gentlemen, you shall understand that at this time, and indeed until the moment when I saw the shoes upon that poor corpse's feet, I was in great terror for my husband's life. How could it be otherwise? Caroline Ryder had told me she heard his cry for help. He had disappeared. What was I to think ? I feared he had fallen in with robbers. I feared all manner of things. So, when the lawyer said so positively he would find his body, I was overpowered. Ah ! gentlemen, wedded life survives many wrongs, many angry words ; I love my husband still ; and when the man told me so brutally that he was certainly dead, I fainted away. I confess it. Shall I be hanged for that ? " But now, thank God ! I am full of hope that he is alive, and that good hope has given me the courage to make this great effort to save my OAvn life. "Hitherto I have been able to contradict my accusers positively, but now I come to a mysteri- ous circumstance that I own puzzles me. Most persons accused of murder could, if they chose, make a clean breast, and tell you the whole mat- ter. But this is not my case. I know shoes from boots, and I know Kate Gaunt from a liar and a murderess ; but, when all is said, this is still a dark, mysterious business, and there are things in it I can only deal with as you do, gen- tlemen, by bringing my wits to bear upon them in reasonable conjecture. " Caroline Ryder swears she heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help. And Mr. Gaunt has certainly dis- appeared. ' ' My accusers have somewhat weakened this by trying to palm off the body of Thomas Leices- ter on you for the body of Mr. Gaunt. But the original mystery remains, and puzzles me. I might fairly appeal to you to disbelieve the wit- ness. She is proved incontinent, and a practised liar, and she forswore herself in this court, and my lord is in two minds about committing her. But a liar does not always lie, and, to be honest, I think she really believes she heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help, for she went straight to his bedroom, and that looks as if she really thought she heard his voice. But a liar may be mistaken ; do not forget that. Distance affects the voice ; and I think the voice she heard was Thomas Leices- ter's, and the place ;r f rrname from higher up the mere. ' ,*«&» " This, my notior ill ! prise you less when I prove to you that d cet s voice bore a fam- ily likeness to Mr. taunt's. I shall call two witnesses Avho have been out hooting with Mr. Gaunt and Tom Leicester, and have heard Lei- cester halloo in the wood, and taken it for Mr. Gaunt. " Must I tell you the whole truth ? This Lei- cester has always passed for an illegitimate son of Mr. Gaunt's father. He resembled my hus- band in form, stature, and voice ; he had the Gaunt mole, and has often spoken of it by that name. My husband forgave him many faults for no other reason, and I bought his wares and filled his pack for no other reason than this — that he was my husband's brother by nature, though not in law. ' Honi soit qui mal y pense.' "Ah! that is a royal device; yet how often in this business have the advisers of the crown forgotten it ? " My lord, and gentlemen of the jury, I return from these conjectures to the indisputable facts of my defense. ' ' Mr. Gaunt may be alive or may be dead. He was certainly alive on the fifteenth of October, and it lies on the crown to prove him dead, and not on me to prove him alive. But, as for the body that forms the subject of this indictment, it is the body of Thomas Leicester, who was seen on the sixteenth of October, at one in the morn- ing, drunk and staggering, and making for Hern- shaw bridge, which leads to his mother's house ; and on all his former visits to T ernshaw Castle he went on to his mother's, I shall prove. This time he never reached her, as I shall prove ; but on his way to her did meet his death by the will of God, and no fault of man or woman, in Hernshaw Mere. "Swear Sarah Leicester." The Judge. I think you say you have several witnesses ? Prisoner. More than twenty, my lord. The Judge. We can not possibly dispose of them this evening. We v» ill hear your evidence to-morrow. Prisoner, this will enable you to consult with your legal advisers, and let me urge upon you to prove, if you can, that Mr. Gaunt has a sufficient motive for hiding and not answer- ing Mr. Atkins's invitation to inherit a large es- tate. Some such proof is necessary to complete your defense ; and I am sorry to see you have made no mention of it in your address, which was otherwise able. Prisoner. My lord, I think I can prove my own innocence without casting a slur upon my husband. The Judge. You think f when your life is at stake. Be not so mad as to leave so large a hole in your defense, if you can mend it. Take ad- vice. He said this very solemnly — then rose and. left the court. Mrs. Gaunt was conveyed back to prison, and there was soon prostrated by the depression that follows an unnatural excitement. Mr. Houseman found her on the sofa, pale and dejected, and clasping the jailer's wife convulsive- ly, who applied hartshorn to her nostrils. He proved but a Job's comforter. Her de- fense, creditable as it was to a novice, seemed GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 120 wordy and weak to hftn a lawyer; and he was horrified at the rdmis \s she had made. In her place he wc ! h. admitted nothing he could not thoroiij / e .ain. He came to insist on a change of tactics. When he sir - her sad condition, he tried to begin by consoling and encouraging her. But his own serious misgivings unfitted him for this task, and very soon, notwithstanding the state she was in, he was almost scolding her for being so mad as to withstand the judge, and "set her- self against his advice. " There," said he, " my lord kept his word, and became counsel for you. 'Close that gap in your defense,' says he, 'and you will very likely be acquitted.' 'Nay,' says you, 'I prefer to chance it.' What madness! what injustice!" "Injustice! to whom ?" " To whom ? why, to yourself." " What ! may I not be unjust to myself?" " Certainly not; you have no right to be un- just to any body. Don't deceive yourself; there is no virtue in this ; it is mere miserable weak- ness. What right have you to peril an innocent life merely to screen the malefactor from just obloquy ?" "Alas!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "'tis more than obloquy. They will kill him ; they will brand him with a hot iron." " Not unless he is indicted ; and who will in- dict him ? Sir George Neville must be got to muzzle the attorney general, and the Lancashire jade will not move against him, for you say they are living together." "Of cour, ,T they are; and, as you say, why should I sere ,i him ? But 'twill not serve ;. who can combat prejudice ? If what I have said does not convince them, an angel's voice would not. Sir, I am a Catholic, and they will hang me. I shall die miserably, having exposed my husband, who loved me once — oh ! so dearly. I trifled with his love. I deserve it all." " You will not die at all, if you will only be good and obedient, and listen to wiser heads. I have subpoenaed Caroline Ryder as your witness, and given her a hint how to escape an indict- ment for perjury. You will find her supple as a glove." " Call a rattlesnake for my witness?" "I have drawn her fangs. You will also call Sir George Neville, to prove he saw Gaunt's pict- ure at the ' Packhorse,' and heard the other wife's tale. Wiltshire will object to this as evi- dence, and say why don't you produce Mercy Vint herself. Then you will call me to prove that I sent the subpeena to Mercy Vint. Come, now, I can not eat or sleep till you promise me." Mrs. Gaunt sighed deeply. " Spare me," said she ; " I am worn out. Oh that I could die be- fore the trial begins again !" Houseman saw the signs of yielding, and per- sisted. "Come, promise now," said he, " then you will feel better." "I will do whatever you bid me," said she. " Only, if they let me off, I will go into a con- vent. No power shall hinder me." " You shall go where you like, except to the gallows. Enough ; 'tis a promise, and I never knew you to break one. Now I can eat mv supper. You are a good, obedient child, and I am a happy attorney/' * I "And I am the most miserable woman in all England." "Child," said the w r orthy lawyer, "your spir- its have given way because they were strung so high. You need repose. Go to bed now, and sleep twelve hours. Believe me you will wake another woman." "Ah! would I could!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, with all the eloquence of despair. Houseman murmured a few more consoling words, and then left her, after once more exact- ing a promise that she would receive no more visits, but go to bed directly. the was to send all intruders to him at the "Angel." Mrs. Gaunt proceeded to obey his orders, and though it was but eight o'clock, she made prepa- rations for bed, and then went to her nightly de- votions. She was in sore trouble, and earthly trouble turns the heart heavenward. Yet it was not so with her. The deep languor that oppressed her seemed to have reached her inmost soul. Her beads, falling one by one from her hand, denoted the number of her supplications ; but, for once, they were preces sine mente dictae. Her feith was cold, her belief in divine justice was shaken for a time. She began to doubt and to despond. That bitter hour, which David has sung so well, and Bunyan, from experience, has described in his biography as well as in his novel, sat heavy upon her, as it had on many a true believer be- fore her. So deep was the gloom, so paralyzing the languor, that at last she gave up all endeavor to utter words of prayer, the placed her cruci- fix at the foot of the wall, and laid herself down on the ground and kissed 'His feet; then, draw- ing back, gazed upon that effigy of the mortal sufferings of our Redeemer. " O anima Christiana, respice vulnera patien- tis, sanguinem morientis, precem redemption^ nostra?. " She had lain ihis a good half hour, when a gentle tap came to the door. " Who is that ?" said she. "Mrs. Menteith," the jailer's wife replied, softly, and asked leave to come in. Now this Mrs. Menteith had been very kind to her, and stoutly maintained her innocence. Mrs. Gaunt rose and invited her in. "Madam," said Mrs. Menteith, "what I come for, there is a person below who much de- sires to see you." "I beg to be excused," was the reply. " He must go to my solicitor at the 'Angel,' Mr. Houseman." Mrs. Menteith retired with that message, but in about five minutes returned to say that the young woman declined to go to Mr. Houseman, and begged hard to see Mrs. Gaunt. "And. dame." said she, "if I were you I'd let her come in ; 'tis the honestest face, and the tears in her soft eyes at your denying her. ' Oh dear, dear,' said she, '1 can not tell my errand to any but her. ' " " Well, well," said Mrs. Gaunt ; "but what is her business ?" "If you ask me, I think her business is your business. Come, dame, do see the poor thing ; she is civil spoken, and she tells me she has come all the way out o' Lancashire o' purpose." Mrs. Gaunt recoiled as if she had been stung. "From Lancashire? - ' said she, faintly. 130 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. " Ay, madam," said Mrs. Menteith, " and that is a long road ; and a child upon her arm all the way, poor thing!" " Her name?" said Mrs. Gaunt, sternly. " Oh, she is not ashamed of it. She gave it me directly." " What ! has she the effrontery to take my name ?" "Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do,'* said Mrs. Menteith. "She says she will lie at your door all night hut she will see you. 'Tis the face of a friend. She may know something. It seems hard to thrust her and her child out into the street, after their coming all the way from Lancashire." Mrs. Gaunt stood silent a while, and her in- Mrs ment. Menteith stared at her with utter amaze- Your name id sh Tis a sim- -Mercy pie country body, and her name is Vint- Vint." Mrs. Gaunt was very much agitated, and said she felt quite unequal to see a stranger. telligence had a severe combat with her deep repugnance to be in the same room with Griffith Gaunt's mistress (so she considered her). But a certain curiosity came to the aid of her good sense ; and, after all, she was a brave and haugh- ty woman, and her natural courage began to rise. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUS 1ST.' 131 She thought to herself, ' ' What ! dare she come to me all this way, and shall I shrink from her f " She turned to Mrs. Menteith with a bitter smile, and she said, very slowly, and clenching her white teeth, " Since you desire it, and she insists on it, I will receive Mistress Mercy Vint." Mrs. Menteith went off, and in about five minutes returned ushering in Mercy Vint in a hood and traveling cloak. Mrs. Gaunt received her standing, and with a very formal courtesy, to which Mercy made a quiet obeisance, and both women looked one an- other all over in a moment. Mrs. Menteith lingered, to know what on earth this was all about ; but, as neither spoke a word, and their eyes were fixed on each other, she di- vined that her absence was necessary, and so re- tired slowly, looking very much amazed at both of them. CHAPTER XLIII. "Be seated, mistress, if you please," said Mrs. Gaunt, with icy civility, "and let me know to what I owe this extraordinary visit." "I thank you, dame," said Mercy, "for in- deed I am sore fatigued. " She sat quietly down. "Why I have come to you? It was to serve you, and to keep my word with George Neville. " "Will you be kind enough to explain?" said Mrs. Gaunt, in a freezing tone, and with a look of her great gray eye to match. Mercy felt chilled, and was too frank to dis- guise it. " Alas !" said she, softly, " 'tis hard to be received so, and me come all the way from Lancashire, with a heart like lead, to do my duty, God willing." The tears stood in her eyes, and her mellow voice was sweet and patient. The gentle remonstrance was not quite with- out effect. Mi*s. Gaunt colored a little. She said, stiffly, " Excuse me if I seem discourteous, but you and I ought not to be in one room a moment. You do not see this, apparently. But at least I have a right to insist that such an in- terview shall be very brief, and to the purpose. Oblige me, then, by telling me in plain terms why you have come hither." " Madam, to be your witness at the trial." " You to be my witness ?" ' ' Why not, if I can clear you ? What, would you rather be condemned for murder than let me show them you are innocent ? Alas ! how you hate me." "Hate you, child ?" said Mrs. Gaunt, coloring to her temples ; " of course I hate you. We are both of us flesh and blood, and hate one another ; and one of us is honest enough, and uncivil enough, to say so." "Speak for yourself, dame," replied Mercy, quietly, "for I hate you not ; and I thank God for it. To hate is to be miserable. I'd liever be hated than to hate." Mrs. Gaunt looked at her. " Your words are goodly and wise," said she; "your face is hon- est ; and your eyes are like a very dove's. But, for all that, you hate me quietly, with all your heart. Human nature is human nature. " " 'Tis so. But grace is grace." Mercy was silent a moment, then resumed : "I'll not deny I did hate you for a time, when first I learned the man I had married had a wife, and you were she. We that be women are too unjust to each other, and too indulgent to a man. But I have worn out my hate. I wrestled in prayer, and the God of Love he did quench my most unreasonable hate. For 'twas the man betrayed me ; you never wronged me, nor I you. But you are right, madam ; 'tis true that nature without grace is black as pitch : the devil he was busy at my ear, and whispered me, ' If the fools in Cumberland hang her, what fault o' thine ? Thou wilt be his lawful wife, and thy poor innocent child will be a child of shame no more. ' But, by God's grace, I did defy him, and I do defy him." She rose swift- ly from her chair, and her 'dove's eyes gleamed with celestial light. " Get thee behind me Satan. I tell thee the hangman shall never have her in- nocent body, nor thou my soul. " The movement was so unexpected, the words and the look so simply noble, that Mrs. Gaunt rose too, and gazed upon her visitor with aston- ishment and respect, yet still with a dash of doubt. She thought to herself, " If this creature is not sincere, what a mistress of deceit she must be!" But Mercy Vint soon returned to her quiet self. She sat down, and said gravely, and, for the first time, a little coldly, as one who had de- served well and been received ill, " Mistress Gaunt, you are accused of murdering your hus- band. 'Tis false, for two days ago I saw him alive." ' ' What do you say ?" cried Mrs. Gaunt, trem- bling all over. "Be brave, madam; you have borne great trouble ; do not give way under joy. He who has wronged us both — he who wedded you under his own name of Griffith Gaunt, and me under the false name of Thomas Leicester, is no more dead than Ave are ; I saw him two days ago, and spoke to him, and persuaded him to come to Carlisle town and do you justice. " Mrs. Gaunt fell on her knees. " He is alive — he is alive. Thank God ! oh, thank God ! He is alive ; and God bless the tongue that tells me so. God bless you eternally, Mercy Vint. " The tears of joy streamed down her face, and then Mercy's flowed too. She uttered a little pathetic cry- of joy. " Ah !" she sobbed, " the bit of comfort I needed so has come to my heavy heart. She has blessed me !" But she said this very softly, and Mrs. Gaunt was in a rapture, and did not hear her. " Is it a dream ? My husband alive, and you the one to come and tell me so ? How unjust I have been to you. Forgive me. Why does lie not come himself?" Mercy colored at this question, and hesitated. ' ' Well, dame, " said she, ' ' for one thing, he has been on the fuddle for the last two months." " On the fuddle ?" "Ay; he owns he has never been sober a whole day, and that takes the heart out of a man as well as the brains. And then he has got it into his head that you will never forgive him, and that he shall be cast in prison if he shows his face in Cumberland. " ' ' Why in Cumberland more than in Lanca- shire ?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, biting her lip. Mercy blushed faintly. She replied with some 132 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. delicacy, but did not altogether mince the mat- ter. " He knows I shall never punish him for what he has done to me." ' ' Why not ? I begin to think he has wronged you almost as much as he has me." " Worse, madam — worse. He has robbed me of my good name. You are still his lawful wife, and none can point the finger at you. But look at me : I was an honest girl, respected by all the parish. What has he made of me ? The man that lay a dying in my house, and I saved his life, and so my heart did warm to him, he blas- phemed God's altar to deceive and betray me ; and here I am, a poor forlorn creature, neither maid, wife, nor widow, with a child on my arms that I do nothing but cry over ; ay, my poor in- nocent, I left thee down below, because I was ashamed she should see thee — ah me! ah me!" She lifted up her voice and wept. Mrs. Gaunt looked at her wistfully, and, like Mercy before her, had a bitter struggle with hu- man nature — a struggle so sharp that, in the midst of it, she burst out crying with strange vi- olence ; but, with that burst, her great soul con- quered. She darted out of the room, leaving Mercy as- tonished at her abrupt departure. Mercy was patiently drying-her eyes, when the door opened, and judge her surprise when she saw Mrs. Gaunt glide into the room with her lit- tle boy asleep in her arms, and an expression upon her face more sublime than any thing Mer- cy Vint had ever yet seen on earth. She kissed the babe softly, and, becoming infantine as well as angelic by this contact, sat herself down in a moment on the floor with him, and held out her hand to Mercy. ' ' There, " said she, ' ' ccme sit beside us, and see how I hate him ; no more than you do — sweet innocent." They looked him all over, discussed his every feature learnedly, kissed his limbs and extremi- ties after the manner of their sex, and compre- hending at last that to have been both of them wronged by one man was a bond of sympathy, not hate, -the two wives of Griffith Gaunt laid his child across their two laps, and Avept over him together. Mercy Vint took herself to task. " I am but a selfish woman," said she, " to talk or think of any thing but that I came here for. " She then proceeded to show Mrs. Gaunt by what means she proposed to secure her acquittal without get- ting Griffith Gaunt into trouble. Mrs. Gaunt listened with keen and grateful attention until she came to that part, then she interrupted her eagerly. ' ' Don't spare him for me. In your place I'd trounce the villain finely." "Ay," said Mercy, "and then forgive him. But I am different. I shall never forgive him ; but I am a poor hand at punishing and reveng- ing. I always was. My name is Mercy, you know. To tell the truth, I was to have been called Prudence, after my good aunt ; but she said nay : she had lived to hear Greed, and Self- ishness, and a heap of faults named Prudence : ' call the child something that means what it does mean, and not after me,' quoth she. So with me hearing 'Mercy, Mercy,' called out after me so | many years, I do think the quality hath somehow I got under my skin, for I can't abide to see folk smart, let alone to strike the blow. What! shall I take the place of God, and punish the evil-doers because 'tis me they wrong ? Nay, dame, I will never punish him, though he hath wronged me cruelly ; all I shall do is to think very ill of him, and shun him, and tear his memory out of my heart. You look at me; do you think I can not? You don't know me. I am very resolute when I see clear. Of course I loved him — loved him dearly. He was like a husband to me, and a kind one. But the moment I knew how basely he had deceived us both, my heart began to turn against the man, and now 'tis ice to him. Heaven knows what I am made of; for, believe me, I'd liever ten times be beside you than beside him. My heart it lay like a lump of lead till I heard your story, and found I could do you a good turn — you that he had wronged as well as me. I read your beautiful eyes; but nay, fear me not ; I'm not the woman to pine for the fruit that is my neighbor's. All I ask for on earth is a few kind words and looks from you. You are gentle and I am simple, but we are both one flesh and blood, and your lovely wet eyes do prove it this moment. Dame Gaunt — Kate — I ne'er was ten miles from home afore, and I am come all this weary way to serve thee. Oh, give me the one thing that can do me good in this world, the one thing I pine for — a little of your love." The words were scarce out of her lips when Mrs. Gaunt caught her impetuously round the neck with both hands, and laid her on that erring but noble heart of hers, and kissed her eagerly. They kissed one another again and again, and wept over one another. And now Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, could not make enough of Mercy Vint. She ordered supper, and ate with her to make her eat. Mrs. Menteith offered Mercy a bed, but Mrs. Gaunt said she must lie with her, she and her child. " What !" said she, " think you I'll let you out of my sight ? Alas ! who knows when you and I shall ever be together again ?" " I know," said Mercy, very gravely. "In this world — never. " They slept in one bed, and held each other by the hand all night, and talked to one another, and in the morning knew each the other's story, and each the other's mind and character, better than their oldest acquaintances knew either the one or the other. CHAPTER XLIV. The trial began again, and the court was crowded to suffocation. All eyes were bent on the prisoner. She rose, calm and quiet, and begged leave to say a few words to the court. Mr. Whitworth objected to that. She had concluded her address yesterday, and called a witness. Prisoner. But I have not examined a witness yet. The Judge. You come somewhat out of time, madam, but, if you will bo brief, we will hear you. Prisoner. I thank you, my lord. It was only to withdraw an error. The cry for help that was heard by the side of Hernshaw Mere, I said, yes- terday, that cry was uttered by Thomas Leicester. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 133 Well, I find I was mistaken ; the cry for help was uttered by my husband — by that Griffith Gaunt I am accused of assassinating. This extraordinary admission caused a great sensation in court. The judge looked grave and s:id ; and Sergeant Wiltshire, who came into court just then, whispered his junior, "She has put the rope round her own neck. The jury would never have believed our witness. " The Prisoner. I will only add that a person came into the town last night who knows a great deal more about this mysterious business than I do. I purpose, therefore, to alter the line of my defense ; and, to save your time, my lord, who have dealt so courteously with me, I shall call but a single witness. Ere the astonishment caused by this sudden collapse of the defense was in any degree abated, she called "Mercy Vint." There was the usual stir and struggle, and then the calm, self-possessed face and figure of a come- ly young woman confronted the court. She was sworn, and examined by the prisoner after this fashion. " Where do you live ?" "At the ' Fackhorse,' near Allerton, in Lan- cashire." Prisoner. Do you know Mr. Griffith Gaunt ? Mercy. Madam, I do. Prisoner. Was he at your place in October last ? Mercy. Yes, madam, on the thirteenth of October. On that day he left for Cumberland. Prisoner. On foot, or on horseback ? Mercy. On horseback. Prisoner. With boots on, or shoes? Mercy. He had a pair of new boots on. Prisoner. Ho you know Thomas Leicester ? Mercy. A peddler called at our house on the eleventh of October, and he said his name was Thomas Leicester. Prisoner. How was he shod ? Mercy. In hobnailed shoes. Prisoner. Which way went he on leaving you ? ■Mercy. Madam, he went northward; 1 know no more for certain. Prisoner. When did you see Mr. Gaunt last ? Mercy. Four days ago. 2 he Judge. What is that? you saw him alive four days ago. Mercy. Ay, my lord ; the last Wednesday that ever was. At this the people burst out into a loud, agi- tated murmur, and their heads went to and fro all the time. In vain the crier cried and threat- ened. The noise rose and surged, and took its course. It went down gradually as amazement gave way to curiosity, and then there was a re- markable silence, and then the silvery voice of the prisoner and the mellow tones of the witness appeared to penetrate the very walls of the build- ing, each syllable of those two beautiful speakers was heard so distinctly. Prisoner. Be so good as to tell the court what passed on Wednesday last between Griffith Gaunt and you, relative to this charge of murder. Mercy. I let him know one George Neville had come from Cumberland in search of him, and had told me you lay in Carlisle jail charged with his murder. I did urge him to ride at once to Car- lisle and show himself, but he refused. He made light of the matter. Then I told him, Not so ; the circumstances looked ugly, and your life was in peril. Then he said Nay, 'twas in no peril, for if you were to be found guilty, then he would show himself on the instant. Then I told him he was not worthy the name of a man, and if he woidd not go, I would. ' ' Go you, by all means, " said he, "and I'll give you a writing that will clear her. Jack Houseman will be there, that knows my hand ; and so does the sheriff, and half the grand jury at the least." Prisoner. Have you that writing? Mercy. To be sure I have. Here 'tis. Prisoner. Be pleased to read it. The Judge. Stay a minute. Shall you prove it to be his handwriting ? Prisoner. Ay, my lord, by as many as you please. The Judge. Then let that stand over for the present. Let me see it. It was handed up to him ; and he showed it to the sheriff, who said he thought it was Grif- fith Gaunt's writing. The paper was then read out to the jury. It ran as follows : " Know all men, that I, Griffith Gaunt, Esq., of Bolton Hall and Hernshaw Castle, in the coun- ty of Cumberland, am alive and well ; and the matter which has so puzzled the good folk in Cumberland befell as follows : I left Hernshaw Castle in the dead of night upon the fifteenth of October — why, is no man's business but mine. I found the stable locked, so I left my horse and went on foot. I crossed Hernshaw Mere by the bridge, and had got about a hundred yards, as I suppose, on the way, when I heard some one fall with a great splash into the mere, and soon after cry dolefully for help. I, that am no swimmer, ran instantly to the north side to a clump of trees, where a boat used always to be kept. But the boat was not there. Then I cried lustily for help, and, as no one came, I fired my pistol and cried murder ! for I had heard men will come sooner to that cry than to any other. But, in truth, I was almost out of my wits that a fellow- creature should perish miserably so near me. While I ran wildly to and fro, some came out of the castle bearing torches. By this time I was at the bridge, but saw no signs of the drowning man ; yet the night was clear. Then I knew that his fate was sealed ; and, for reasons of my own, not choosing to be seen by those who were coming to his aid, I hastened from the place. My happiness being gone, and my conscience smiting me sore, and not knowing whither to turn, I took to drink, and fell into bad ways, and lived like a brute, and not a man, for six weeks or more, so that I never knew of the good fortune that had fallen on me when least I de- served it — I mean by old Mr. Gaunt of Coggles- wade making of me his heir. But one day at Kendall saw Mercy Yint's advertisement, and I went to her, and learned that my wife lay in Car- lisle jail for my supposed murder. But I say that she is innocent, and nowise to blame in this mat- ter, for I deserved every hard word she ever gave me ; and as for killing, she is a spirited woman with her tongue, but hath not the heart to kill a fly. She is what she always was, the pearl of womankind — a virtuous, innocent, and noble lady. I have lost the treasure of her love by my fault, not hers ; but, at least, I have a right to 134 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. defend her life and honor. Whoever molests her after this, out of pretended regard for me, is a liar, and a fool, and no friend of mine, but my enemy, and I his — to the death. ''Griffith Gaunt." It was a day of surprises. This tribute from the murdered man to his assassin was one of them. People looked in one another's faces open-eyed. The prisoner looked in the judge's, and acted on what she saw there. " That is my defense," said she, quietly, and sat down. If a show of hands had been called at that moment, she would have been acquitted by ac- clamation. But Mr. Whitworth was a zealous young bar- rister, burning for distinction. He stuck to his case, and cross-examined Mercy Vint with se- verity — indeed, with asperity. Whitworth. What are you to receive for this evidence ? Mercy. Anan. Whitworth. Oh, you know what I mean. Are you not to be paid for telling us this romance ? Mercy. Nay, sir, I ask naught for telling of the truth. Whitworth. You were in the prisoner's com- pany yesterday ? Mercy. Yes, sir, I did visit her in the jail last night. Whitworth. And there concerted this ingen- ious defense ? Mercy. Well, sir, for that matter, I told her that her man was alive, and I did offer to be her witness. Whitworth. For naught ? Mercy. For no money or reward, if 'tis that you mean. Why, 'tis a joy beyond money to clear an innocent body and save her life, and that satisfaction is mine this day. Whitworth (sarcastically). These are very fine sentiments for a person in your condition. Con- fess that Mrs. Gaunt primed you with all that. Mercy. Nay, sir, I left home in that mind, else I had not come at all. Bethink you, 'tis a long journey for One in my way of life, and this dear child on my arm all the way. Mrs. Gaunt sat boiling with indignation. But Mercy's good temper and meekness parried the attack that time. Mr. Whitworth changed his line. Whitworth. You ask the jury to believe that Griffith Gaunt, Esquire, a gentleman, and a man of spirit and honor, is alive, yet skulks and sends you hither, when by showing his face in this court he could clear his wife without a single word spoken ? Mercy. Yes, sir, I do hope to be believed, for I speak the naked truth. But, with due respect to you, Mr. Gaunt did not send me hither against my will. I could not bide in Lancashire and let an innocent woman be murdered in Cumberland. Whitworth. Murdered, quotha ! That is a good jest. I'd have you to know we punish murders here, not do them. Mercy. I am glad to hear that, sir, on the lady's account. Whitworth. Come, come. You pretend you discovered this Griffith Gaunt alive by means of an advertisement. If so, produce the adver- tisement. Mercy Vint colored, and cast a swift, uneasy glance at Mrs. Gaunt. Rapid as it was, the keen eye of the counsel caught it. " Nay, do not look to the culprit for orders," said he. " Produce it, or confess the truth. Come, you never advertised for him." " Sir, I did advertise for him." ' ' Then produce the advertisement. " " Sir, I will not," said Mercy, calmly. " Then I shall move the court to commit you. " "For what offense, if you please?" "For perjury, and contempt of court." "lam guiltless of either, God knows. But I will not show the advertisement. " The Judge. This is very extraordinary. Per- haps you have it not about you." Mercy. My lord, the truth is, I have it in my bosom. But, if I show it, it will not make this matter one whit clearer, and 'twill open the wounds of two poor women. 'Tis not for my- self; but oh, my lord, look at her — hath she not gone through grief enow ? The appeal was made with a quiet, touching earnestness that affected every hearer. But the judge had a duty to perform. ' ' Witness, " said he, " you mean well, but indeed you do the pris- oner an injury by withholding this paper. Be good enough to produce it at once." The Prisoner (with a deep sigh). Obey my lord. Mercy (with a deep sigh). There, sir ! May the Lord forgive you the useless mischief you are doing. Whitworth. I am doing my duty, young wom- an. And yours is to tell the whole truth, and not a part only. Mercy (acquiescing). That is true, sir. Whitworth. Why, what is this ? 'Tis not Mr. Gaunt you advertise for in these papers. 'Tis Thomas Leicester. The Judge. What is that ? I don't understand. Whitworth. Nor I neither. The Judge. Let me see the papers. 'Tis Thom- as Leicester, sure enough. Whitworth. And you mean to swear that Grif- fith Gaunt answered an advertisement inviting Thomas Leicester ? Mercy. I do. Thomas Leicester was the name he went by in our part. Whitworth. What ? what ? You are jesting. Mercy. Is this a place or a time for jesting ? I say he called himself Thomas Leicester. Here the business was interrupted again by a multitudinous murmur of excited voices. Every body was whispering astonishment to his neigh- bor ; and the whisper of a great crowd has the effect of a loud murmur. Whitworth. Oh, he called himself Thomas Lei- cester, did he ? Then what makes you say he is Griffith Gaunt? Mercy. Well, sir, the peddler, whose real name was Thomas Leicester, came to our house one day, and saw his picture, and knew it, and said something to a neighbor that raised my suspi- cions. When he came home, I took this shirt out of a drawer ; 'twas the shirt he wore, when he first came to us. 'Tis marked " G. G." (The shirt was examined.) Said I, "For God's sake speak the truth : what does G. G. stand for ?" Then he told me his real name was Griffith Gaunt, and he had a wife in Cumberland. " Go back to her," said I, "and ask her to forgive GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 135 you." Then he rode north, and I never saw him again till last Wednesday. With 'worth (satirically). You seem to have heen mighty intimate with this Thomas Leicester, whom you now call Griffith Gaunt. May I ask what was, or is, the nature of your connection with him ? Mercy was silent. Whitworth. I must press for a reply, that we may know what value to attach to your most ex- traordinary evidence. W ere you his wife — or his mistress ? Mercy. Indeed I hardly know ; but not his mistress, or I should not be here. Whitworth. You don't know whether you were married to the man or not ? Mercy. I do not say so. But — She hesitated, and cast a piteous look at Mrs. Gaunt, who sat boiling with indignation. At this look, the prisoner, who had long con- tained herself with difficulty, rose, with scarlet cheeks and flashing eyes, in defense of her wit- ness, and flung her prudence to the wind. "Fie, sir," she cried. "The woman you in- sult is as pure as your own mother, or mine. She deserves the pity, the respect, the veneration of all good men. Know, my lord, that my mis- erable husband deceived and married her under the false name he had taken ; she has the mar- riage certificate in her bosom. Pray make her show it, whether she will or not. My lord, this Mercy Vint is more an angel than a woman. I am her rival after a manner ; yet out of the good- ness and greatness of her noble heart, she came all that way to save me from an unjust death. And is such a woman to be insulted ? I blush for the hired advocate who can not see his supe- rior in an incorruptible witness, a creature all truth, piety, purity, unselfishness, and goodness. Yes, sir, you began by insinuating that she was as venal as yourself, for you are one that can be bought by the first comer ; and now you would cast a slur on her chastity. For shame ! for shame ! This is one of those rare women that adorn our whole sex, and embellish human na- ture ; and, so long as you have the privilege of exchanging words with her, I shall stand here on the watch, to see that you treat her with due re- spect — ay, sir, with reverence ; for I have meas- ured you both, and she is as much your superior as she is mine." This amazing burst was delivered with such prodigious fire and rapidity that nobody was self- possessed enough to stop it in time. It Avas like a furious gust of words sweeping over the court. Mr. Whitworth, pale with anger, merely said, " Madam, the good taste of these remarks I leave the court to decide upon. But you can not be allowed to give evidence in your own defense." "No; but in hers I will," said Mrs. Gaunt ; "no power shall hinder me." The Judge (coldly). Had you not better go on cross-examining the witness. Whitworth. Let me see your marriage certifi- cate, if you have one. It was handed to him. " Well, now, how do you know that this Thom- as Leicester was Griffith Gaunt ?" The Judge. Why, she has told you he con- fessed it to her. Mercy. Yes, my lord ; and, besides, he wrote me two letters signed Thomas Leicester. Here they are, and I desire they may be compared with the paper he wrote last Wednesday, and signed Griffith Gaunt. And more than that, while we lived together as man and wife, one Hamilton, a traveling painter, took our portraits, his and mine. I have brought his with me. Let his friends and neighbors look on this portrait, and say whose likeness it is. What I say and swear is, that on Wednesday last I saw and 'spoke with that Thomas Leicester, or Griffith Gaunt, whose likeness I now show you. With that she lifted the portrait up, and show- ed it to all the court. Instantly there was a roar of recognition. It was one of those hard daubs that are never- theless so monstrously like the originals. The Judge (to Mr. Whitworth). Young gen- tleman, we are all greatly obliged to you. You have made the prisoner's case. There was but one weak point in it ; I mean the prolonged ab- sence of Griffith Gaunt. You have now account- ed for that. You have forced a very truthful witness to depose that this Gaunt is himself a criminal, and is hiding from fear of the law. The case for the crown is a mere tissue of con- jectures, on which no jury could safely convict, even if there was no defense at all. Under other circumstances I might decline to receive evidence at second hand that Griffith Gaunt is alive ; but here such evidence is sufficient, for it lies on the crown to prove the man dead ; but you have only proved that he was alive on the fifteenth of Oc- tober, and that, since then, somebody is dead with shoes on. This somebody appears on the bal- ance of proof to be Thomas Leicester, the ped- dler ; and he has never been heard of since, and Griffith Gaunt has. Then I say you can not carry the case farther. You have not a leg to stand on. What say you, Brother Wiltshire ? Wiltshire. My lord, I think there is no case against the prisoner, and thank your lordship for relieving me of a very unpleasant task. The question of guilty or not guilty was then put as a matter of form to the jury, who instant- ly brought the pi'isoner in not guilty. The Judge. Catharine Gaunt, you leave this court without a stain, and with our sincere re- spect and sympathy. I much regret the fear and pain you have been put to : you have been terribly punished for a hasty word. Profit now by this bitter lesson ; and may Heaven enable you to add a well-governed spirit to your many virtues and graces. He half rose from his seat, and bowed courte- ously to her. She courtesied reverently, and re- tired. He then said a few words to Mercy Vint. "Young woman, I have no words to praise you as you deserve. You have shown us the beauty of the female character, and, let me add, the beauty of the Christian religion. You have come a long way to clear the innocent. I hope you will not stop there, but also punish the guilty person, on whom we have wasted so much pity. " "Me, my lord!" said Mercy; "I would not harm a hair of his head for as many guineas as there be hairs in mine." "Child," said my lord, "thou art too good ior this world ; but go thy ways, and God bless thee." Thus abruptly ended a trial that, at first, had looked so formidable for the accused. 1SG GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. The judge now retired for some refreshment, and while he was gone, Sir George Neville dash- ed up to the Town Hall, four in hand, and rush- ed in by the magistrate's door with a peddler's pack which he had discovered in the mere a few yards from the spot where the mutilated body was found. He learned the prisoner was already acquitted. He left the pack with the sheriff, and begged him to show it to the judge, and went in search of Mrs. Gaunt. He found her in the jailer's house. She and Mercy Vint were seated hand in hand. He start- ed at first sight of the latter. There was a uni- versal shaking of hands and glistening of eyes. And, when this was over, Mrs. Gaunt turned to him and said piteously, " She will go back to Lancashire to-morrow ; nothing I can say will turn her. " "No, dame," said Mercy, quietly, "Cumber- land is no place for me. My work is done here. Our paths in this world do lie apart. George Neville, persuade her to go home at once, and not trouble about me." "Indeed, madam," said Sir George, "she speaks wisely : she always does. My carriage is at the door, and the people waiting by thou- sands in the street to welcome your deliverance." Mrs. Gaunt drew herself up with fiery and bit- ter disdain. "Are they so?" said she, grimly. "Then 1*11 balk them. I'll steal away in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph ; 'tis sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hoot- ings ; you shall not disgrace me with your accla- mations. Here I stay till Mercy Vint, my guard- ian angel, leaves me forever." She then requested Sir George to order his horses back to the inn, and the coachman was to hold himself in readiness to start when the whole town should be asleep. Meantime a courier was dispatched to Hern- shaw Castle to prepare for Mrs. Gaunt's recep- tion. Mts. Menteith made a bed up for Mercy Vint, and at midnight, when the coast was clear, came the parting. It was a sad one. Even Mercy, who had great self-command, could not then restrain her tears. To apply the sweet and touching words of Scripture, "They sorrowed most of all for this, that they should see each other's face no more. " Sir George accompanied Mrs. Gaunt to Hern- shaw. She drew back into her comer of the carriage, and Tvas very silent and distraite. After one or two attempts at conversation, he judged it wisest and even most polite to respect her mood. At last she "burst out, * ' I can not bear it, I can not bear it !" " Why, what is amiss?" inquired Sir George. " What is amiss ? Why, 'tis all amiss. 'Tis so heartless, so ungrateful, to let that poor angel go home to Lancashire all alone, now she has served my torn. Sir George, do not think I undervalue your company, but if you would but take her home instead of taking me ! Poor thing, she is brave; but, when the excitement of her good action is over, and she goes back the weary road all alone, what desolation it will be I My heart bleeds for her. I know I am an un- conscionable woman to ask such a thing ; but then you are a true chevalier ; you always were ; and you saw her merit directly ; oh, do pray leave me to slip unnoticed into Hernshaw Cas- tle, and do you accompany my benefactress to her humble home. Will you, dear Sir George ? T would be such a load oft' my heart." To this appeal, uttered with trembling lip and moist eyes, Sir George replied in character. He declined to desert Mrs. Gaunt until he had seen her safe home, but that done, he would ride back to Carlisle and escort Mercy home. Mrs. Gaunt sighed, and said she was abusing his friendship, and should kill him with fatigue, and he was a good creature. " If any thing could make me easy, this would, " said she : "you know how to talk to a woman, and com- fort her. I wish I was a man ; I'd cure her of Griffith before we reached the 'Packhorse.' And, now I think of it, you are a very happy man to travel eighty miles with an angel — a dove-eyed angel." "I am a happy man to have an opportunity of complying with your desires, madam," was the demure reply. " 'Tis not often you do me the honor to lay your orders on me." After this, nothing of any moment passed un- til they reached Hernshaw Castle ; and then, as they drove up to the door, and saw the hall blaz- ing with lights, Mrs. Gaunt laid her hand softly on Sir George, and whispered, " You were right. I thank you for not leaving me." The servants were all in the hall to receive their mistress, and among them were those who had given honest but unfavorable testimony at the trial, being called by the crown. These had consulted together, and, after many pros and cons, had decided that they had better not fol- low their natural impulse and hide from her face, since that might be a fresh offense. According- ly, these witnesses, dressed in their best, stood with the others in the hall, and made their obei- sances, quaking inwardly. Mrs. Gaunt entered the hall leaning on Sir George's arm. She scarcely bestowed a look upon the late witnesses for the crown, but made them one sweeping courtesy in return, and pass- ed on ; only Sir George felt her taper fingers just nip his arm. She made him partake of some supper, and then this chevalier des dames rode home, snatch- ed a few hours' sleep, put on the yeoman's suit in which he had first visited the " Packhorse," and, arriving at Carlisle, engaged the whole in- side of the coach ; for his orders were to console, and he did not see his way clear to do that with two or three strangers listening to every word. CHAPTER XLV. A great change was observable in Mrs. Gaunt after this fiery and chastening ordeal. In a short time she had been taught many lessons. She had learned that the law will not allow even a woman to say any thing and every thing with impunity. She had been in a court of justice, and seen how gravely, soberly, and fairly an accusation is sift- ed there, and, if false, annihilated, which else- GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 137 where it never is. Member of a sex that could never have invented a court of justice, she had found something to revere and bless in that oth- er sex to which her erring husband belonged. Finally, she had encountered in Mercy Vint a woman whom she recognized at once as her mor- al superior. The contact of that pure and well- governed spirit told wonderfully upon her ; she began to watch her tongue, and to bridle her high spirit. She became slower to give offense, and slower to take it. She took herself to task, and made some little excuses even for Griffith. She was resolved to retire from the world altogether ; but, meantime, she bowed her head to the les sons of adversity. Her features, always lovely, but somewhat too haughty, were now softened and embellished beyond description by a mingled expression of grief, humility, and resignation. She never mentioned her husband, but it is not to be supposed she never thought of him. She waited the course of events in dignified and pa- tient silence. As for Griffith Gaunt, he was in the hands of two lawyers, Atkins and Houseman. He waited on the first, and made a friend of him. " I am at your service," said he," but not if I am to be indicted for bigamy and burned in the hand." ''These fears are idle," said Atkins. " Mercy Vint declared in open court she will not proceed against you." " Ay, but there's my wife." "She will keep quiet; I have Houseman's word for it." "Ay, but there's the attorney general." "Oh, he will not move unless he is driven. We must use a little influence. Mr. House- man is of my mind, and he has the ear of the county." To be brief, it was represented in high quar- ters that to indict Mr. Gaunt would only open Mrs. Gaunt's wounds afresh, and do no good ; and so Houseman found means to muzzle the at- torney general. Just three weeks after the trial, Griffith Gaunt, Esq. , reappeared publicly. The place of his re- appearance was Coggleswade. He came and set about finishing his new mansion with feverish ra- pidity. He engaged an army of carpenters and painters, and spent thousands of pounds on the decorating and furnishing of the mansion, and laying out the grounds. This was duly reported to Mrs. Gaunt, who said — not a word. But at last one day came a letter to Mrs. Gaunt, in Griffith's well-known hand-writing. With all her acquired self-possession, her hand trembled as she broke open the seal. It contained but these words : "Madam, — I do not ask you to forgive me, for, if you had done what I have, I could never forgive you. But, for the sake of Rose, and to stop their tongues, I do hope you will do me the honor to live under this my roof. I dare not face Hernshaw Castle. Your own apartments here are now ready for you. The place is large. Upon my honor I will not trouble you, but show myself always, as now, your penitent and very humble servant, Griffith Gaunt." The messenger was to wait for her reply. This letter disturbed Mrs. Gaunt's sorrowful tranquillity at once. She was much agitated, and so undecided that she sent the messengei away, and told him to call next day. Then she sent oft" to Father Francis to beg his advice. But her courier returned late at night to say Father Francis was away from home. Then she took Rose, and said to her, "My darling, papa wants us to go to his new house, and leave dear old Hernshaw ; I know not what to say about that. What do you say ?"' "Tell him to come to us," said Rose, dictato- rially. "Only" (lowering her little voice very suddenly), " if he is naughty and won't, why then we had better go to him ; tor he amuses me." "As you please," said Mrs. Gaunt; and sent her husband this reply : " Sir, — Rose and I are agreed to defer to your judgment and obey your wishes. Be pleased to let me know what day you will require us ; and I must trouble you to send a carriage. I am, sir, your faithful wife and humble servant, ' ' Catharine Gaunt. " At the appointed day, a carriage and four came wheeling up to the door. The vehicle was gorgeously emblazoned, and the servants in rich liveries ; all which finery glittering in the sun, and the glossy coats of the horses, did mightily please Mistress Rose. She stood on the stone steps, and clapped her hands with delight. Her mother just sighed, and said, "Ay, 'tis in pomp and show we must seek our happiness now. " She leaned back in the carriage and closed her eyes, yet not so close but now and then a tear would steal out as she thought of the past. They drove up under an avenue to a noble mansion, and landed at the foot of some marble steps, low and narrow, but of vast breadth. As they mounted these, a hall door, through which the carriage could have passed, was flung opon, and discovered the servants all drawn up to do honor to their mistress. She entered the hall leading Rose by the hand ; the servants bowed and courtesied down to the ground. She received this homage with dignified cour- tesy, and her eye stole round to see if the master of the house was coming to receive her. The library door was opened hastily, and out came to meet her — Father Francis. "Welcome, madam, a thousand times wel- come to your new home," said he, in a stentorian voice, with a double infusion of geniality. " I claim the honor of showing you your part of the house, though 'tis all yours for that matter." And he led the way. Now this cheerful stentorian voice was just a little shaky for once, and his eyes were moist. Mrs. Gaunt noticed, but said nothing before the people. She smiled graciously, and accom- panied him. He took her to her apartments. They con- sisted of a salle-a-manger, three delightful bed- rooms, a boudoir, and a magnificent drawing- room, fifty feet long, with two fireplaces, and a bay-window thirty feet wide, filled with the choicest flowers. An exclamation of delight escaped Mrs. Gaunt. Then she said, "One would think I was a queen." Then she sighed, "Ah!" said she, "'tis a fine thing to be rich." Then, despondently, "Tell him I think it very beautiful." 138 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. "Nay, madam, I hope you will tell him so yourself." Mrs. Gaunt made no reply to that ; she added, "And it was kind of him to have you here the first day : I do not feel so lonely as I should with- out you." She took Griffith at his word, and lived with Rose in her own apartments. For some time Griffith used to slip away when- ever he saw her coming. One day she caught him at it, and beckoned him. He came to her. "You need not run away from me," said she. "I did not come into your house to quarrel with you. Let us be friends." And she gave him her hand sweetly enough, hut oh ! so coldly. ' ' I hope for nothing more, " said Griffith. " If you ever have a wish, give me the pleasure of gratifying it — that is all." "I wish to retire to a convent," said she, quietly. "And desert your daughter?" " I would leave her behind, to remind you of days gone by." By degrees they saw a little more of one an- other ; they even dined together now and then. But it brought them no nearer. There was no anger, with its loving reaction. They were friendly enough, but an icy barrier stood between them. One person set himself quietly to sap this bar- rier. Father Francis was often at the castle, and played the peace-maker very adroitly. The line he took might be called the innocent Jesuitical. He saAv that it would be useless to exhort these two persons to ignore the terrible things that happened, and to make it up as if it was only a squabble. What he did was to re- peat to the husband every gracious word the wife let fall, and vice versa, and to suppress all either said that might tend to estrange them. In short, he acted the part of Mr. Harmony in the play, and acted it to perfection. Gutta cavat lapidem. Though no perceptible effect followed his ef- forts, yet there is no doubt that he got rid of some of the bitterness. But the coldness re- mained. One day he was sent for all in a hurry by Grif- fith. He found him looking gloomy and agitated. The cause came out directly. Griffith had observed at last, what all the females in the house had seen two months ago, that Mrs. Gaunt was in the family-way. He now communicated this to Father Francis with a voice of agony, and looks to match. "All the better/ my son," said the genial priest ; " 'twill be another tie between you. I hope it will be a fine boy to inherit your estates." Then, observing a certain hideous expression distorting Griffith's face, he fixed his eyes full on him, and said, sternly, "Are you not cured yet of that madness of yours ?" "No, no, no," said Griffith, deprecatingly ; " but why did she not tell me?" " You had better ask her." " Not I. She will remind me I am nothing to her now. And, though 'tis so, yet I would not hear it from her lips." In spite of this wise resolution, the torture he was in drove him to remonstrate with her on tier silence. She blushed high, and excused herself as fol- lows : "I should have told you as soon as I knew it myself, but you were not with me. I was all by myself — in Carlisle jail. " This reply, uttered with hypocritical meekness, went through Griffith like a knife. He turned white, and gasped for breath, but said nothing. He left her with a deep groan, and never ven- tured to mention the matter again. All he did in that direction was to redouble his attentions and solicitude for her health. The relation between these two was now more anomalous than ever. Even Father Francis, who had seen strange things in families, used to watch Mrs. Gaunt rise from table and walk heavily to the door, and her husband dart to it and open it obsequiously, and receive only a very formal reverence in return, and wonder how all this was to end. However, under this icy surface, a change was gradually going on; and one afternoon, to his great surprise, Mrs. Gaunt's maid came to ask Griffith if he would come to Mrs. Gaunt's apart- ment. He found her seated in her bay window, among her flowers. She seemed another woman all of a sudden, and smiled on him her exquisite smile of days gone by. "Come, sit beside me," said she, "in this beautiful window that you have given me." "Sit beside you, Kate," said Griffith; "nay, let me kneel at your knees ; that is my place." "As you will," said she, softly; and contin- ued, in the same tone, " Now listen to me : you and I are two fools ; we have been very happy together in days gone by, and we should both of us like to try again, but we neither of us know how to begin. You are afraid to tell me you love me, and I am ashamed to own to you or any body else that I love you, in spite of it all — I do, though." ' ' You love me ! a wretch like me, Kate ? 'Tis impossible. I can not be so happy!" "Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "love is not reason ; love is not common sense. 'Tis a passion, like your jealousy, poor fool. I love you, as a mother loves her child, all the more for all you have made me suffer. I might not say as much if I thought Ave should be long together ; but something tells me I shall die this time : I never felt so before. I Avant you to bury me at HernshaAv. After all, I spent more happy years there than most Avives ever know. I see you are very sorry for what you have done. Hoav could I die and leave thee in doubt of my forgiveness and my love ? Kiss me, poor jealous fool, for I do forgive thee, and love thee Avith all my sorroAvful heart. " And even with the Avords she boA\ r ed herself and sank quiet- ly into his arms, and he kissed her and cried bit- terly over her — bitterly. But she Avas compara- tively calm ; for she said to herself, " The end is at hand." Griffith, instead of pooh-poohing his wife's fore- bodings, set himself to baffle them. He used his AA r ealth freely ; and, besides the country doctor, had two very eminent practition- ers from London, one of whom Avas a gray-head- ed man, the other singularly young for the fame GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY. 139 he had obtained. But then he was a genuine enthusiast in his art. CHAPTER XL VI. Griffith, white as a ghost, and unable to shake off" the forebodings Catharine had commu- nicated to him, walked incessantly up and down the room ; and, at his earnest request, one or oth- er of the four doctors in attendance was constant- ly coming to him with information. The case proceeded favorably, and, to Griffith's surprise and joy, a healthy boy was born about two o'clock in the morning. The mother was reported rather feverish, but nothing to cause alarm. Griffith threw himself on two chairs and fell fast asleep. Toward morning he found himself shaken, and there was Ashley, the young doctor, standing be- side him, with a very grave face. Griffith start- ed up, and cried, "What is wrong, in God's name ?" " I am sorry to say there has been a sudden hemorrhage, and the patient is much exhausted. " "She is dying! she is dying !" cried Griffith, in anguish. " Not dying. But she will infallibly sink un- less some unusual circumstance occur to sustain vitality. " Griffith laid hold of him. " Oh, sir, take my whole fortune, but save her ! save her ! save her !" "Mr. Gaunt," said the young doctor, "be calm, or you will make matters worse. There is one chance to save her, but my professional brethren are prejudiced against it. However, they have consented, at my earnest request, to refer my proposal to you. She is sinking for want of blood : if you consent to my opening a vein and transfusing healthy blood from a living subject into hers, I will undertake the operation. You had better come and see her ; you will be more able to judge." "Let me lean on you," said Griffith. And the strong wrestler went tottering up the stairs. There they showed him poor Kate, white as the bedclothes, breathing hard, and with a pulse that hardly moved. Griffith looked at her, horror-struck. "Death has got hold of my darling," he screamed. " Snatch her away! for God's sake, snatch her from him!" The young doctor whipped off his coat and bared his arm. "There," he cried, " Mr. Gaunt consents. Now, Corrie, be quick with the lancet, and hold this tube as I tell you; warm it first in that water." Here came an interruption. Griffith Gaunt griped the young doctor's arm, and with an ago- nized and ugly expression of countenance cried out, " What ! your blood ! What right have you to lose blood for her ?" "The right of a man who loves his art better than his blood," cried Ashley, with enthusiasm. Griffith tore off his coat and waistcoat, and bared his arm to the elbow. " Take every drop I have. No man's blood shall enter her veins but mine." And the creature seemed to swell to double his size, as with flushed cheek and sparkling eyes he held out a bare arm, corded like a blacksmith's, and white as a duchess's. The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture, then fixed his apparatus, and performed an operation which then, as now, was impossible in theoiy — only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins. This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants from time to time. She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and loss of blood, she said, "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night. I knew I should. But they gave me another life, and now I shall live to a hundred." They showed her the little boy, and at sight of him the whole woman made up her mind to live. And live she did ; and, what is very remarka- ble, her convalescence was more rapid than on any former occasion. It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay with an angelic, happy smile, thinking of it. The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm, and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, " My life is very dear to me now ; 'tis a present from thee. " She wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn slyly round and say, ' ' But what could one expect of me ? I have his blood in my veins." But once she told Father Francis, quite seri- ously, that she had never been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood ; she was turned jealous ; and, moreover, it had given him a fascinating power over her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room, which last fact, indeed, she once proved by actual ex- periment. But all this I leave to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of our •. Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a wound that looked in- curable. Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his home bright and genial, and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he could have at home. And he studied her ; he added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker and a friend in the house, and a man severe in mor- als, but candid in religion, and an inexhaustible companion to them and their children. And so, after that terrible storm, this pair pur- sued the even tenor of a peaceful united life, till the olive branches rising around them, and the happy years gliding on, almost obliterated that one dark passage, and made it seem a mere fan- tastical, incredible dream. • Mercy Vint and her child went home in the coach. It was empty at starting, and, as Mrs. Gaunt had foretold, a great sense of desolation fell upon her. 140 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; Oil, JEALOUSY. She leaned back, and the patient tears coursed steadily down her comely cheeks. At the first stage a passenger got down from the outside and entered the coach. "What! George Neville!" said Mercy. "The same," said he. She expressed her surprise that he should be going her way. "Tis strange," said he, "but to me most agreeable." "And to me too, for that matter," said she. Sir George observed her eyes were red, and, to divert her mind and keep up her spirits, launch- ed into a flow of small talk. In the midst of it, Mercy leaned back in the coach and began to cry bitterly. So much for that mode of consolation. Upon this he faced the situation, and begged her not to grieve. He praised the good action she had done, and told her how every body ad- mired her for it, especially himself. At that she gave him her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips, and his manly heart began to yearn over this suffering virtue, so grave, so dignified, so meek. He was no longer a young man ; he began to talk to her like a friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman speaks to a woman in trouble, unlocked her heart, and for the first time in her lite she was led to talk about herself. She opened her heart to him. She told him she was not the woman to pine for any man. Her youth, her health, and love of occupation would carry her through. What she mourned was the loss of esteem, and the blot upon her child. At that she drew the baby with inex- pressible tenderness, and yet with a half defiant air, closer to her bosom. Sir George assured her she would lose the es- teem of none but fools. "As for me, "said he, "I always respected you, but now I revere you. You are a martyr and an angel." "George," said Mercy, gravely, "be you my friend, not my enemy." "Why, madam, " said he, " sure you can't think me such a wretch. " " I mean, our flatterers are our enemies." Sir George took the hint, given, as it was, very gravely and decidedly, and henceforth showed her his respect by his acts : he paid her as much attention as if she had been a princess. He handed her out and handed her in, and coaxed her to eat here and to drink there ; and at the inn where the passengers slept for the night, he showed his long purse, and secured her superior comforts. Console her he could not, but he broke the sense of utter desolation and loneli- ness with which she started from Carlisle. She told him so in the inn, and descanted on the goodness of God, who had sent her a friend in that bitter hour. "You have been very kind to me, George," said she. "Now Heaven bless you for it, and give you many happy days, and well spent." This, from one who never said a word she did not mean, sank deep- into Sir George's heart, and he went to sleep thinking of her, and asking him- self was there nothing he could do for her. Next morning Sir George handed Mercy and her babe into the coach, and the villain tried an experiment to see what value she set en him. He did not get in, so Mercy thought she had seen the last of him. "Farewell good, kind George, "said she; "alas! there's naught but meeting and parting in this weary world." The tears stood in her sweet eyes, and she thanked him, not with words only, but with the soft pressure of her womanly hand. He slipped up behind the coach, and was ashamed of himself, and his heart Avarmed to her more and more. As soon as the coach stopped, my lord opened the door for Mercy to alight. Her eyes were very red, he saw that. She started, and beamed with surprise and pleasure. "Why, I thought I had lost you for good," said she. "Whither are you going — to Lancas- ter ?" "Not quite so far. I am going to the 'Pack- horse.'" Mercy opened her eyes and blushed high. Sir George saw, and, to divert her suspicions, told her merrily to beware of making objections. "I am only a sort of servant in the matter. 'Twas Mrs. Gaunt ordered me." "I might have guessed it," said Mercy. "Bless her. she knew I should be lonely." "She was not easy till she had got rid cf me, I assure you," said Sir George ; "so let us make the best on't, for she is a lady that likes to have her own way. " "She is a noble creature. George, I shall never regret any thing I have done for her. And she will not be ungrateful. Oh, the sting of ingratitude ! I have felt that. Have you ?" "No," said Sir George, "I have escaped that by never doing any good actions." "I doubt you aie telling me a lie," said Mercy Vint. She now looked upon Sir George as Mrs. Gaunt's representative, and prattled freely to him. Only now and then her trouble came over her, and then she took a quiet cry without ceremony. As for Sir George, he sat and studied, and wondered at her. Never in his life had he met such a woman as this, who was as candid with him as if he had been a woman. She seemed to have a window in her bosom, through which he looked, and saw the pure and lovely soul within. In the afternoon they reached a little town whence a cart conveyed them to the "Pack- horse." Here Mercy Vint disappeared, and busied her- self with Sir George's comforts. He sat by himself in the parlor, and misled his gentle companion. In the morning Mercy thought of course he would go. But instead of that, he staid, and followed her about, and began to court her down- right. But the warmer he got, the cooler she. And at last she said, mighty dryly, "This is a very dull place for the likes of you." '"Tis the sweetest place in England," said he, "at least to me, for it contains — the woman Hove." Mercy drew back, and colored rosy red. ' ' I hope not, " said she. "I loved you the first day I saw you and heard your voice ; and now I love you ten times more. Let me dry thy tears forever, sweet Mercy. Be mv wife." GRIFFITH GAUNT: OR JEALOUSY. " You are mad," said Mercy. "What ! would you wed a woman in my condition ? I am more your friend than to take you at your word. And what do you think I am made of, to go from one man to another, like that ?" "Take your time, sweetheart, only give me your hand." 141 do you Sir George turned pale. "One word love him ?" " I have a regard for him." " Do you love him ?" " Hardly; but I wronged him, and I owe him amends. I shall pay my debt." Sir George bowed, and retired stick at heart "George," said Mercy, very gravely, "I am beholden to you, but my duty it lies another way. There is a young man in these parts (Sir George groaned) that was my follower for two years and better. I wronged him for one I nev- er name now. I must marry that poor lad and make him happy, or else live and die as I am." and deeply mortified. Mercy looked after him and sighed. Next day, as he walked disconsolate up and down, she came to him and gave him her hand. " You were a good friend to me that bitter day." said she, "now let me be yours. Do not bide here ; 'twill but vex vou." 142 GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. "lam going, madam," said Sir George, stiffly. "I but wait to see the man you prefer to me. If he is not too unworthy of you, I'll go, and trouble you no more. I have learned his name. " Mercy blushed, for she knew Paul Carrick would bear no comparison with George Neville. The next day Sir George took leave to observe that this Paul Carrick did not seem to appre- ciate her preference so highly as he ought. "I understand he has never been here." Mercy colored, but made no reply, and Sir George was sorry he had taunted her. He fol- lowed her about, and showed her great attention, but not a word of love. There were fine trout streams in the neigh- borhood, and he busied himself fishing, and in the evening read aloud to Mercy, and waited to see Paul Carrick. Paul never came ; and, from a word Mercy let drop, he saw that she was mortified. Then, being no tyro in love, he told her he had business in Lancaster, and must leave her for a few days, but he would return, and by that time, perhaps, Paul Carrick would be visible. Now his main object was to try the effect of correspondence. Every day he sent her a long love-letter from Lancaster. Paul Carrick, who, in absenting himself for a time, had acted upon his sister's advice rather than his own natural impulse, learned that Mercy received a letter every day. This was a thing unheard of in that parish. So then Paul defied his sister's advice, and presented himself to Mercy, when the following dialogue took place : " Welcome home, Mercy." " Thank you, Paul." " Well, I'm single still, lass." "So I hear." "I'm come to say, let by-gones be by- gones. " " So be it," said Mercy, dryly. " You have tried a gentleman, now try a farrier. " " I have ; and he did not stand the test." " Anan." " Why did vou not come near me for ten days ?" Paul blushed up to the eyes. "Well," said he, "I'll tell you the truth. Twas our Jess ad- vised me to leave you quiet just at first." " Ay, ay. I was to be humbled, and made to smart for my fault, and then I should be thank- ful to take you. My lad, if ever you should be really in love, take a friend's advice : listen to your own heart, and not to shallow advisers. You have mortified a poor sorrowful creature who was going to make a sacrifice for you, and you have lost her forever." " What d'ye mean ?" "I mean that ye are to think no more of Mercy Vint. " "Then it is true, ye jade — ye've gotten a fresh lover already. " " Say no more than you know. If you were the only man on earth, I would not wed you, Paul Carrick." Paul Carrick retired home and blew up his sister, and told her that she had "gotten him the sack again." The next day Sir George came back from Lan- caster, and Mercy lowered her lashes for once at sight of him. "Well," said he, "has this Carrick shown a sense of your goodness ?" " He has come — and gone." She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And," said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame, for how could I help comparing your behavior to me with his ? You came to my side when I was in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the world. A friend in need is a friend indeed." " Reward me ! reward me !" said Sir George, gayly ; " you know the way." "Nay, but I am too much your friend," said Mercy. " Be less my friend, then, and more my dar- ling." He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her. She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for his pestering her. At last, one day, she said, "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your happiness, I will — in six months' time ; but you shall not marry in haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two things — whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and whether I can love again as tenderly as you deserve to be loved." All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had a terrible deal of quiet resolution. He retired to Cumberland, and in a long letter asked Mrs. Gaunt's advice. She replied charac- teristically. She began very soberly to say that she should be the last to advise a marriage be- tween persons of different conditions in life. "But then," said she,"this Mercy is altogether an exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 'tis still a flower, and not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and, indeed, her manners are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack ' my lady' on to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet sim- plicity of hers will carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her vir- tues — (here the writer began to lose her temper) — where can you hope to find such another? She is a moral genius, and acts well, no matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint well. Why, sir, Avhat do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have wived. For my part, I see but one objection — the child. Well, if you are man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool." "Postscript, — My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in the coach with her ?" Sir George, thus advised, acted as he would have done had the advice been just the opposite. He sent Mercy a love-letter by every post, and GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY. 143 he often received one in return ; only his were passionate, and hers gentle and affectionate. But one day came a letter that was a mere cry of distress, " George, my child is dying. What shall I do?" He mounted his horse and rode to her. He came too late. The little hoy had died suddenly of croup, and was to he buried next morning. The poor mother received him up stairs, and her grief was terrible. She clung sobbing to him, and could not be comforted. Yet she felt his coming. But a mother's anguish overpow- ered all. Crushed by this fearful blow, her strength gave way for a time, and she clung to George Ne- ville, and told him she had nothing left but him, and one day implored him not to die and leave her. Sir George said all he could think of to com- fort her, and at the end of a fortnight persuaded her to leave the "Packhorse" and England as his wife. She had little power to resist now, and, indeed, little inclination. They were married by special license, and spent a twelvemonth abroad. At the end of that time they returned to Ne- ville's Court, and Mercy took her place there with the same dignified simplicity that had adorned her in a humbler station. Sir George had given her no lessons, hut she had observed closely for his sake ; and, being already well educated, and very quick and do- cile, she seldom made «him blush except with pride. They were the happiest pair in Cumberland. Her merciful nature now found a larger field for its exercise, and, backed by her husband's purse, she became the Lady Bountiful of the parish and the county. The day after she reached Neville's Court came an exquisite letter to her from Mrs. Gaunt. She sent an affectionate reply. But the Gaunts and the Nevilles did not meet in society. Sir George Neville and Mrs. Gaunt, being both singularly brave and haughty people, rather de- spised this arrangement. But it seems that, one day, when they were all four in the Town Hall, folk whispered and looked ; and both Griffith Gaunt and Lady Neville surprised these glances, and determined, by one impulse, it should never happen again. Hence it was quite -understood that the Nevilles and the Gaunts were not to 1x3 asked to the same party or ball. The wives, however, corresponded, and Lady Neville easily induced Mrs. Gaunt to co-operate with her in her benevolent acts, especially in saving young women who had been betrayed from sinking deeper. Living a good many miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep to service near Mrs. Gaunt, and vice versa ; and so, merciful, but dis- criminating, they saved many a poor girl who had been weak, not wicked. So then, though they could not eat nor dance together in earthly mansions, they could do good together; and, methinks, in the eternal world, where years of social intercourse will prove less than cobwebs, these their joint acts of mercy will be links of a bright, strong chain, to bind their souls in everlasting amity. It was a remarkable circumstance that the one child of Lady Neville's unhappy marriage died, but her nine children by Sir George all grew to goodly men and women. That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for high principle and good sense, and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to one of Cromwell's Ironsides, and brought her rare per- sonal merit into their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, fe- male chastitv, and all the virtues. THE END. FOUL PLAY. & Nowl. BY CHARLES READE, AUTHOR OF "WHITE LIES," "LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG," "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND," " HARD CASH," " GRIFFITH GAUNT ; OR, JEALOUSY," " PEG WOFFINGTON," "CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE," ETC., AND DION BOUCICAULT. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 187O. CHARLES READE'S NOVELS. POPULAR EDITION. PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents. HARD CASH. A Matter-of-Fact Romance. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. GRIFFITH GAUNT ; or, Jealousy. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. FOUL PLAY. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. WHITE LIES. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH ; or, Maid, Wife, and Widow. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. PEG WOFFINGTON, CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE, and Other Stories. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price. Foul Play. CHAPTER I. There are places which appear at first sight inaccessible to romance; and such a place was Mr. Wardlaw's dining-room in Russell Square. It was very large, had sickly green walls, picked out with aldermen, full length; heavy maroon curtains ; mahogany chairs ; a turkey carpet an inch thick; and was lighted with wax candles only. In the centre, bristling and gleaming with silver and glass, was a round table, at which fourteen could have dined comfortably; and at opposite sides of this table sat two gentlemen, who looked as neat, grave, precise, and unromantic, as the place ; Merchant Wardlaw and his son. Wardlaw senior was an elderly man, tall, thin, iron-gray, with a round head, a short, thick neck, a good, brown eye, a square jowl that betokened resolution, and a complexion so sallow as to be almost cadaverous. Hard as iron : but a certain stiff dignity and respectability sat upon him, and became him. Arthur Wardlaw resembled his father in figure, but his mother in face. He had, and has, hay- colored hair, a forehead singularly white and del- icate, pale blue eyes, largish ears, finely chiselled features, the under lip much shorter than the up- per ; his chin oval and pretty, but somewhat re- ceding ; his complexion beailtiful. In short, what nineteen people out of twenty would call a handsome young man, and think they had de- scribed him. Both the Wardlaws were in full dress, accord- ing to the invariable custom of the house ; and sat in a dead silence, that seemed natural to the great, sober room. This, however, was not for want of a topic ; on the contrary, they had a matter of great im- portance to discuss, and in fact this was why they dined tete-a-tete ; but their tongues were tied for the present ; in the first place, there stood in the middle of the table an epergne, the size of a Put- ney laurel-tree ; neither Wardlaw could well see the other without craning out his neck like a rifleman from behind his tree; and then there were three live suppressors of confidential inter- course — two gorgeous footmen, and a sombre, sub- lime, and, in one word, episcopal, butler ; all three went about as softly as cats after a robin, and conjured one plate away, and smoothly insinuated another, and seemed models of grave discretion : ' but were known to be all ears, and bound by a secret oath to cany down each crumb of dialogue to the sen-ants' hall, for curious dissection and boisterous ridicule. At last, however, those three smug hypocrites retired, and, by good luck, transferred their suf- focating epergne to the sideboard ; so then father and son looked at one another with that conscious air which naturally precedes a topic of interest ; and Wardlaw senior invited his son to try a cer- tain decanter of rare old port, by way of prelimi- nary. While the young man fills his glass, hurl we in his antecedents. At school till fifteen, and then clerk in his fa- ther's office till twenty-two, and showed an apti- tude so remarkable, that John Wardlaw, who was getting tired, determined, sooner or later, to put the reins of government into his hands. But he conceived a desire that the future head of his office should be a University man. So he an- nounced his resolution, and to Oxford went young Wardlaw, though he had not looked at Greek or Latin for seven years. He was, however, fur- nished with a private tutor, under whom he re- covered lost ground rapidly. The Reverend Robert Penfold was a first-class man, and had the gift of teaching. The house of Wardlaw had peculiar claims on him, for he was the son of old Michael Penfold, Wardlaw's cashier ; he learned from young Wardlaw the stake he was playing for, and, instead of merely giving him one hour's lecture per day, as he did to his other pupils, he used to come to his rooms at all hours, and force him to read, by reading with him. He also stood his friend in a serious emergency. Young Ward- law, you must know, was blessed or cursed with Mimicry ; his powers in that way really seemed to have no limit, for he could imitate any sound you liked with his voice, and any form with his pen or pencil. Now, we promise you, he was one man under his father's eye, and another down at Oxford ; so, one night, this gentleman, being warm with wine, opens his window, and, seeing a group of undergraduates chattering and smoking in the quadrangle, imitates the peculiar grating tones of Mr. Champion, vice-president of the college, and gives them various reasons why they ought to disperse to their rooms and study. " But, perhaps," says he, in conclusion, "you are too blind drunk to read Bosh in crook- ed letters by candle-light ? In that case — " And he then gave them some very naughty advice how to pass the evening; still in the exact tones of Mr. Champion, who was a very, very strict mor- alist ; and this unexpected sally of wit caused shrieks of laughter, and mightily tickled all the hearers, except Champion ipse, who was listening and disapproving at another window. He com- plained to the president. Then the ingenious FOUL PLAY. Wardlaw, not having come down to us in a di- rect line from Bayard, committed a great mis- take, — he denied it. It was brought home to him, and the president, who had laughed in his sleeve at the practical joke, looked very grave at the falsehood ; Rusti- cation was talked of, and even Expulsion. Then Wardlaw came sorrowfully to Penfold, and said to him, "I must have been awfully cut, for I don't remember all that ; I had been wining at Christchurch. I do remember slanging the fel- lows, but how can I tell what I said ? I say, old follow, it will be a bad job for me if they expel me, or even rusticate me ; my father will never forgive me ; I shall be his clerk, but never his partner ; and then he will find out what a lot I owe down here. I'm done for! I'm done for!" Penfold uttered not a word, but grasped his hand, and went off to the president, and said his pupil had wined at Christchurch, and could not be expected to remember minutely. Mimicry was, unfortunately, a habit with him. He then pleaded for the milder construction, with such zeal and eloquence that the high-minded scholar he was addressing admitted that construction was possible, and therefore must be received. So the affair ended in a written apology to Mr. Cham- pion, which had all the smoothness and neatness of a merchant's letter. Arthur Wardlaw was al- ready a master in that style. Six months after this, and one fortnight before the actual commencement of our tale, Arthur Wardlaw, well crammed by Penfold, went up for his final examination, throbbing with anxiety. He passed; and was so grateful to his tutor that, when the advowson of a small living near Oxford came into the market, he asked Wardlaw senior to lend Robert Penfold a sum of money, much more than was needed : and Wardlaw senior de- clined without a moment's hesitation. This slight sketch will serve as a key to the dialogue it has postponed, and to subsequent in- cidents. "Well, Arthur, and so you have really taken your degree ?" " No, sir ; but I have passed my examination : the degree follows as a matter of course, — that is a mere question of fees." " Oh ! Then now I have something to say to you. Try one more glass of the '47 port. Stop, you'll excuse me ; I am a man of business ; I don't doubt your word ; Heaven forbid ! but, do you happen to have any document you -can pro- duce in further confirmation of what you state ; namely, that you have passed your final exami- nation at the University ?" "Certainly, sir;" replied young Wardlaw. "My Testamur." "What is that?" The young gentleman put his hand in his pock- et, and produced his Testamur, or "We bear witness;" a short printed document in Latin, which may be thus translated: — " We bear witness that Arthur Wardlaw, of St. Luke's College, has answered our questions in hu- mane letters. 1 ' George Richardson, "Arthur Smythe, ' ' Edward Merivale, " Examiners." Wardlaw senior took it, laid it beside him on the table, inspected it with his double eye-glass, and, not knowing a word of Latin, was mightily impressed, and his respect for his son rose 40 or 45 per cent. "Very well, sir," said he. "Now listen to me. Perhaps it was an old man's fancy ; but I have often seen in the world what a stamp these Universities put upon a man. To send you back | from commerce to Latin and Greek, at two-and- ] twenty, was trying you rather hard ; it was try- | ing you doubly ; your obedience, and your abili- ty into the bargain. Well, sir, you have stood the trial, and I am proud of you. And so now it is my turn : from this day and from this hour, look on yourself as my partner in the old-estab- lished house of Wardlaw. My balance-sheet shall be prepared immediately, and the partner- ship deed drawn. You will enter on a flourish- ing concern, sir ; and you will virtually conduct it, in written communication with me ; for I have had five-and-forty years of it : and then my liver, you know ! Watson advises me strongly to leave my desk, and try country air, and rest from busi- ness and its cares." He paused a moment; and the young man drew a long breath, like one who was in the act of being relieved of some terrible weight. As for the old gentleman, he was not observing his son just then, but thinking of his own career ; a certain expression of pain and regret came over his features : but he shook it off with manly dig- nity. " Come, come," said he, " this is the law of Nature, and must be submitted to with a good grace. Wardlaw junior, fill your glass." At the same time he stood up and said, stoutly, ' ' The setting sun drinks to the rising sun ;" but could not maintain that artificial style, and ended with, "God bless you, my boy, and may you stick to business ; avoid speculation, as I have done ; and so hand the concern down healthy to your son, as my father there (pointing to a picture) handed it down to me, and I to you." His voice wavered slightly in uttering this ben- ediction ; but only for a moment : he then sat quietly down, and sipped his wine composedly. Not so the other: his color came and went violently all the time his father was speaking, and, when he ceased, he sank into his chair with another sigh deeper than the last, and two half- hysterical tears came to his pale eyes. But presently, feeling he was expected to say something, he struggled against all this mysteri- ous emotion, and faltered out that he should not fear the responsibility, if he might have constant recourse to his father for advice. ' ' Why, of course, ' ' was the reply. ' ' My coun- try house is but a mile from the station : you can telegraph for me in any case of importance." "When would you wish me to commence my new duties ?" " Let me see, it will take six weeks to prepare a balance-sheet, such as I could be content to submit to an incoming partner. Say two months. " Young Wardlaw's countenance fell. " Meantime you shall travel on the Continent and enjoy yourself." "Thank you," said young Wardlaw, mechani- cally, and fell into a brown study. The room now returned to what seemed its natural state. And its silence continued until it i was broken from without. FOUL PLAY. 1 A sharp knocking was heard at the street door, and resoimded across the marble hall. The Wardlaws looked at one another in some little surprise. " I have invited nobody," said the elder. Some time elapsed, and then a footman made his appearance, and brought in a card. "Mr. Christopher Adams." Now that Mr. Christopher Adams should call on John Wardlaw, in his private room, at nine o'clock in the evening, seemed to that merchant irregular, presumptuous, and monstrous. "Tell him he will find me at my place of business to- morrow, as usual," said he, knitting his brows. The footman went off with this message ; and, soon after, raised voices were heard in the hall, and the episcopal butler entered the room with an injured countenance. " He says he must see you ; he is in great anx- iety." "Yes, I am in great anxiety," said a quaver- ing voice at his elbow ; and Mr. Adams actually pushed by the butler, and stood, hat in hand, in those sacred precincts. " Pray excuse me, sir," said he, ' ' but it is very serious ; I can't be easy in my mind till I have put you a question." " This is very extraordinary conduct, sir," said Mr. Wardlaw. "Do you think I do business here, and at all hours ?" "Oh no, sir: it is my own business. I am come to ask you a very serious question. I couldn't wait till morning with such a doubt on my mind. " " Well, sir, I repeat this is irregular and ex- traordinary ; but as you are here, pray what is the matter?" He then dismissed the lingering butler with a look. Mr. Adams cast uneasy glances oh young Wardlaw. " Oh," said the elder, "you can speak before him. This is my partner; that is to say, he will be as soon as the balance-sheet can be pre- pared, and the deed drawn. Wardlaw junior, this is Mr. Adams, a very respectable bill dis- counter." The two men bowed to each other, and Arthur Wardlaw sat down motionless. "Sir, did you draw a note of hand to-day?" inquired Adams of the elder merchant. "I dare say I did. Did you discount one signed by me ?" "Yes, sir, we did." "Well, sir, you have only to present it at ma- turity. Wardlaw and Son will provide for it, I dare say." This with the lofty nonchalance of a rich man, who had never broken an engagement in his life. " Ah ! that I know they will if it is all Tight ; but suppose it is not ?" "What d'ye mean?" asked Wardlaw, with some astonishment. "Oh, nothing, sir! It bears your signature, that is good for twenty times the amount ; and it is indorsed by your cashier. Only what makes me a little uneasy, your bills used to be always on your own forms, and so I told my partner ; he discounted it. Gentlemen, I wish you would just look at it." " Of course we will look at it. Show it Ar- thur first ; his eyes are younger than mine. " Mr. Adams took out a large bill-book, extract- ed the note of hand, and passed it across the table to Wardlaw junior. He took it up with a sort of shiver, and bent his head very low over it ; then handed it back in silence. Adams took it to Wardlaw senior, and laid it before him, by the side of Arthur's Testamur. The merchant inspected it with his glasses. " The writing is mine, apparently." " I am very glad of it," said the bill-broker, eagerly. "Stop a bit," said Mr. Wardlaw. "Why, what is this ? For two thousand pounds ! and, as you say, not my form. I have signed no note for two thousand pounds this week. Dated yesterday. You have not cashed it, I hope ?" ' ' I am sorry to say my partner has. " "Well, sir, not to keep you in suspense, the thing is not worth the stamp it is written on." ' ' Mr. Wardlaw ! — sir ! — good heavens ! Then it is as I feared. It is a forgery." " I should be puzzled to find any other name for it. You need not look so pale, Arthur. We can't help some clever scoundrel imitating our hands; and as for you, Adams, you ought to have been more cautious." "But, sir, your cashier's name is Penfold," faltered the holder, clinging to a straw. " May he not have drawn — is the indorsement forged as well?" Mr. Wardlaw examined the back of the bill, and looked puzzled. "No," said he. "My cashier's name is Michael Penfold, but this is in- dorsed ' Robert Penfold. ' Do you hear, Arthur ? Why, what is the matter with you ? You look like a ghost. I say there is your tutor's name at the back of this forged note. This is very strange. Just look, and tell me who wrote these two words ' Robert Penfold ?' " Young Wardlaw took the document, and tried to examine it calmly, but it shook visibly in his hand, and a cold moisture gathered on his brow. His pale eyes roved to and fro in a very remarka- ble way ; and he was so long before he said any thing, that both the other persons present began to eye him with wonder. At last he faltered out, " This ' Robert Pen- fold ' seems to me very like his own handwriting. But then the rest of the writing is equally like yours, sir. I am sure Robert Penfold never did any thing wrong. Mr. Adams, please oblige vie. Let this go no further till I have seen him, and asked him whether he indorsed it." " Now don't you be in a hurry," said the elder Wardlaw. " The first question is, who received the money?" Mr. Adams replied that it was a respectable- looking man, a young clergyman. "Ah !" said Wardlaw, with a world of mean- ing. "Father!" said young Wardlaw, imploringly, "for my sake, say no more to-night. Robert Penfold is incapable of a dishonest act." "It becomes your years to think so, young man. But I have lived long enough to see what crimes respectable men are betrayed into in the hour of temptation. And, now I think of it, this Robert Penfold is in want of money. Did he not ask me for a loan of two thousand pounds ? Was not that the very sum ? Can't you answer me ? Why, the application came through you." Receiving no reply from his son, but a sort of agonized stare, he took out his pencil and wrote down Robert Penfold's address. This he handed the bill-broker, and gave him some advice in a 8 FOUL PLAY. whisper, which Mr. Christopher Adams received with a profusion of thanks, and bustled away, leaving Wardlaw senior excited and indignant, Wardlaw junior ghastly pale and almost stupe- fied. Scarcely a word was spoken for some minutes, and then the younger man broke out suddenly : "Robert Penfold is the best friend I ever had; I should have been expelled but for him, and I should never have earned that Testamur but for him.' : The old merchant interrupted him. "You exaggerate : but, to tell the truth, I am sorry now I did not lend him the money you asked for. For, mark my words, in a moment of temptation, that miserable young man has forged my name, and will be convicted of the felony, and punished accordingly." "No, no; Oh, God forbid!" shrieked young Wardlaw. " I couldn't bear it. If he did, he must have intended to replace it. I must see him; I will see him directly. " He got up all in a hurry, and was going to Penfold to warn him, and get him out of the way till the money should be replaced. But his father started up at the same moment and forbade him, in accents that he had never yet been able to resist. " Sit down, sir, this instant," said the old man, with terrible sternness. "Sit down, I say, or you will never be a partner of mine. Justice must take its course. What business and what right have we to protect a felon ? I would not take your part if you were one. Indeed it is too late now, for the detectives will be with him before you could reach him. I gave Adams his address." At this last piece of information Wardlaw junior leaned his head on the table, and groaned aloud, and a cold perspiration gathered in beads upon his white forehead. CHAPTER II. That same evening sat over their tea, in Nor- folk Street, Strand, another couple, who were also father and son ; but, in this pair, the Wardlaws Avere reversed. Michael Penfold was a reverend, gentle creature, with white hair, blue eyes, and great timidity ; why, if a stranger put to him a question, he used to look all round the room be- fore he ventured to answer. Robert, his son, was a young man, with a large brown eye, a mellow voice, square shoulders, and a prompt and vigorous manner. Cricketer. Schol- ar. Parson. They were talking hopefully together over a living Robert was going to buy : it was near Ox- ford, he said, and would not prevent his continu- ing to take pupils. " But, father," said he, "it will be a place to take my wife to if I ever have one ; and, meantime, I hope you will run down now and then, Saturday to Monday." ' ' That I will, Robert. Ah ! how proud she would have been to hear you preach ; it was al- ways her dream, poor thing." " Let us think she can hear me," said Robert. "And I have got you still; the proceeds of this living will help me to lodge you more comforta- bly." "You are very good, Robert : I would rather see you spend it upon yourself; but, dear me, what a manager you must be to dress so beauti- fully as you do, and send your old father presents as you do, and yet put by fourteen hundred pounds to buy this living." " You are mistaken, sir, I have only saved four hundred ; the odd thousand — But that is a se- cret for the present." " Oh, I am not inquisitive : I never was." They then chatted about things of no impor* tance whatever, and the old gentleman was just lighting his candle to go to bed, when a visitoi was ushered into the room. The Penfolds looked a little surprised, but not much. They had no street-door all to them- selves ; no liveried dragons to interpose between them and unseasonable or unwelcome visitors. The man was well-dressed, with one excep- tion ; he wore a gold chain. He had a hooked nose, and a black, piercing eye. He stood at the door and observed every person and thing in the room minutely before he spoke a word. Then he said, quietly, " Mr. Michael Penfold, I believe." " At your service, sir." "And Mr. Robert Penfold." "lam Robert Penfold. What is your busi- ness ?" " Pray is the ' Robert Penfold ' at the back of this note your writing ?" " Certainly it is ; they would not cash it with- out that." " Oh, you got the money, then?" " Of course I did." ' ' You have not parted with it, have you ?" "No." • " All the betted " He then turned to Michael, and looked at him earnestly a moment. " The fact is, sir," said he, "there is a little irregularity about this bill, which must be explained, or your son might be called on to refund the cash." "Irregularity about — a bill?" cried Michael Penfold, in dismay. "Who is the drawer? Let me see it. Oh dear me, something wrong about a bill indorsed by you, Robert?" and the old man began to shake piteously. "Why, father," said Robert, "what are you afraid of? If the bill is irregular, I can but re- turn the money. It is in the house." "The best way will be for Mr. Robert Pen fold to go at once with me to the bill-broker > he lives but a few doors off. And you, ek t must stay here, and be responsible for the fund^ till we return." Robert Penfold took his hat directly, and weal off with this mysterious visitor. They had not gone many steps, when Robert's companion stopped, and, getting in front of him, said, "We can settle this matter here." At the same time a policeman crossed the way, and joined them ; and another man, who was in fact | a policeman in plain clothes, emerged from a door- way, and stood at Robert Penfold's back. The Detective, having thus surrrounded him, threw off disguise. "My man, "said he, "I I ought to have done this job in your house. But I looked at the worthy old gentleman, and his gray hairs. I thought I'd spare him all I could. I have a warrant to arrest you for forgery !" " Forgery ! arrest me for forgery !" said Rob- ert Penfold, with some amazement, but little emo- tion ; for he hardly seemed to take it in, in all its horrible significance. FOUL PLAY. 9 The next moment, however, he turned pale, and almost staggered under the blow. " We had better go to Mr. Wardlaw," said he, *' I entreat you to go to him with me." ' ' Can't be done, " said the detective. ' ' Ward- law has nothing to do with it. The bill is stop- ped. You are arrested by the gent that cashed it. Here is the warrant ; will you go quietly with us, or must I put the darbies on ?" Robert was violently agitated. " There is no need to arrest me," he cried ; "I shall not run from my accuser. Hands off, I say. I'm a cler- gyman of the Church of England, and you shall not lay hands on me." But one of the policemen did lay hands on him. Then the Reverend Robert Penfold shook him fu- riously off, and, with one active bound, sprang into the middle of the road. The officers went at him incautiously, and the head-detective, as he rushed forward, received a heavy blow on the neck and jaw, that sounded along the street, and sent him rolling in the mud ; this was followed by a quick succession of stag- gering facers, administered right and left, on the eyes and noses of the subordinates. These, how- ever, though bruised and bleeding, succeeded at last in grappling their man, and all came to the ground together, and there struggled furiously ; every window in the street was open by this time and at one the white hair and reverend face of Michael Penfold looked out on this desperate and unseemly struggle, with hands that beat the air in helpless agony, and inarticulate cries of terror. The detective got up and sat upon Robert Pen- fold's chest ; and at last the three forced the handcuffs upon him, and took him in a cab to the station-house. Next day, before the magistrate, Wardlaw sen- ior proved the note was a forgery, and Mr. Ad- ams's partner swore to the prisoner as the per- son who had presented and indorsed the note. The officers attended, two with black eyes apiece, and one with his jaw bound up, and two sound teeth in his pocket, which had been driven from their sockets by the prisoner in his desperate at- tempt to escape. Their evidence hurt the pris- oner, and the magistrate refused bail. The Reverend Robert Penfold was committed to prison, to be tried at the Central Criminal Court on a charge of felony. Wardlaw senior returned home and told Ward- law junior, who said not a word. He soon re- ceived a letter from Robert Penfold, which agi- tated him greatly, and he promised to go to the prison and see him. But he never went. He was very miserable, a prey to an inward struggle. He dared not offend his father on the eve of being made partner. Yet his heart bled for Robert Penfold. He did what might perhaps have been expect- ed from that pale eye and receding chin — he tem- porized. He said to himself, " Before that hor- rible trial comes on, I shall be the house of Ward- law, and able to draw a check for thousands. I'll buy off Adams at any price, and hush up the whole matter." So he hoped, and hoped. But the accountant was slow, the public prosecutor unusually quick, and, to young Wardlaw's agony, the partnership deed was not ready when an imploring letter was put into his hands, urging him, by all that men hold sacred, to attend at the court as the prison- er's witness. This letter almost drove young Wardlaw mad. He went to Adams, and entreated him not to car- ry the matter into court. But Adams was inex- orable. He had got his money, but would be re- venged for the fright. Baffled here, young Wardlaw went down to Oxford and shut himself up in his own room, a prey to fear and remorse. He sported his oak, and never went out. All his exercise was that of a wild beast in its den, walking restlessly up and down. But all his caution did not prevent the prison- er's solicitor from getting to him. One morning, at seven o'clock, a clerk slipped in at the heels of his scout, and, coming to young Wardlaw's bed- side, awoke him out of an uneasy slumber by serving him with a subpoena to appear as Robert Penfold's witness. This last stroke finished him. His bodily health gave way under his mental distress. Gas- tric fever set in, and he was lying tossing and raving in delirium, while Robert Penfold was be- ing tried at the Central Criminal Court. The trial occupied six hours, and could easily be made rather interesting. But, for various reasons, with which it would not be good taste to trouble the reader, we decide to skim it. The indictment contained two counts ; one for forging the note of hand, the other for uttering it, knowing it to be forged. On the first count, the Crown was weak, and had to encounter the evidence of Undercliff, the distinguished expert, who swore that the hand which wrote " Robert Penfold " was not, in his opinion, the hand that had written the body of the instrument. He gave many minute reasons in support of this : and nothing of any weight was advanced contra. The judge directed the jury to acquit the prisoner on that count. But, on the charge of uttering, the evidence was clear, and on the question of knowledge, it was, perhaps, a disadvantage to the prisoner that he was tried in England, and could not be heard in person, as he could have been in a foreign court ; above all, his resistance to the officers eked out the presumption that he knew the note had been forged by some person or other, who was probably his accomplice. The absence of his witness, Wardlaw junior, was severely commented on by his counsel ; in- deed, he appealed to the judge to commit the said Wardlaw for contempt of court. But Ward- law senior was recalled, and swore that he had left his son in a burning fever, not expected to live : and declared, with genuine emotion, that nothing but a high sense of public duty had brought him hither from his dying son's bedside. He also told the court that Arthur's inability to clear his friend had really been the first cause of his illness, from which he was not expected to recover. The jury consulted together a long time ; and, at last, brought in a verdict of " Guilty ;" but recommended him to mercy, on grounds which might fairly have been alleged in favor of his inno- cence ; but, if guilty, rather aggravated his crime. Then an officer of the court inquired, in a sort of chant or recitativo, whether the prisoner had any thing to say why judgment should not be giv- en in accordance with the verdict. 10 FOUL PLAY. It is easy to divest words of their meaning by false intonation ; and prisoners in general receive this bit of sing-song in dead silence. For why ? the chant conveys no idea to their ears, and they would as soon think of replying to the notes of a cuckoo. But the Reverend Robert Penfold was in a keen agony that sharpened all his senses ; he caught the sense of the words in spite of the speaker, and clung wildly to the straw that monotonous machine held out. "My lord! my lord!" he cried, ' • I'll tell you the real reason why young Wardlaw is not here." The judge put up his hand with a gesture that enforced silence: "Prisoner," said he, " I can not go back to facts; the jury have dealt with them. Judgment can be arrested only on grounds of law. On these you can be heard. But, if you have none to offer, you must be si- lent, and submit to your sentence." He then, without a pause, proceeded to point out the hei- nous character of the offense, but admitted there Mas one mitigating circumstance ; and, in con- clusion, he condemned the culprit to five years penal servitude. At this the poor wretch uttered a cry of an- guish that was fearful, and clutched the dock con- vulsively. Now a prisoner rarely speaks to a judge with- out revolting him by bad law, or bad logic, or hot words. But this wild cry was innocent of all these, and went straight from the heart in the dock to the heart in the judgment-seat. And so his lordship's voice trembltd for a moment, and then became firm again, but solemn and humane. " But," said he, "my experience tells me this is your first crime, and may possibly be your last. I shall therefore use my influence that you may not be associated with more hardened criminals, but may be sent out of this country to another, where you may begin life afresh, and, in the course of years, efface this dreadful stain. Give me hopes "of you ; begin your repentance where now you stand, by blaming yourself, and no oth- er man. No man constrained you to utter a forged note, and to receive the money; it was found in your possession. For such an act there can be no defense in law, morality, or religion." These words overpowered the culprit. He burst out crying with great violence. But it did not last long. He became strange- ly composed all of a sudden; and said, "God forgive all concerned in this— but one — but one." He then bowed respectfully, and like a gentle- man, to the judge and the jury, and walked out of the dock with the air of a man who had part- ed with emotion, and would march to the gal- lows now without flinching. The counsel for the Crown required that the forged document should be impounded. " I was about to make the same demand," said the prisoner's counsel. The judge snubbed them both, and said it was a matter of course. Robert Penfold spent a year in separate con- finement, and then, to cure him of its salutary ef- fect (if any), was sent on board the hulk "Ven- geance," and was herded with the greatest mis- creants in creation. They did not reduce him to their level, but they injured his mind: and, be- fore half his sentence had expired, he sailed for a penal colony, a man with a hot coal in his bo- som, a creature imbittered, poisoned; hoping lit- tle, believing little, fearing little, and hating much. He took with him the prayer-book his mother had given him when he was ordained deacon. But he seldom read beyond the fly-leaf; there the poor lady had written at large her mother's heart, and her pious soul aspiring heavenward for her darling son. This, when all seemed dark- est, he would sometimes run to with moist eyes : for he was sure of his mother's love, but almost (loabted the justice of his God. CHAPTER III. Mr. Wardlaw went down to his son, and nursed him. He kept the newspapers from him, and, on his fever abating, had him conveyed by easy stages to the seaside, and then sent him abroad. The young man obeyed in gloomy silence. He never asked after Robert Penfold, now ; never mentioned his name. He seemed, somehow, thankful to be controlled mind and body. But, before he had been abroad a month, he wrote for leave to return home and to throw him- self into business. There was, for once, a ner- vous impatience in his letters, and his father, who pitied him deeply, and was more than ever in- clined to reward'and indulge him, yielded readi- ly enough ; and, on his arrival, signed the part- nership deed, and Polonius-like, gave him much good counsel ; then retired to his country seat. At first he used to run up every three days, and examine the day-hook and ledger, and ad- vise his junior ; but these visits soon became few- er, and at last he did little more than correspond occasionally. Arthur Wardlaw held the reins, and easily paid his Oxford debts out of the assets of the firm. Not being happy in his mind, he threw himself into commerce with feverish zeal, and very soon extended the operations of the house. One of his first acts of authority was to send for Michael Penfold into his room. Now poor old Michael, ever since his son's misfortune, as he called it, had crept to his desk like a culprit, expecting every day to be discharged. When he received this summons he gave a sigh and went slowly to the young merchant. Arthur Wardlaw looked up at his entrance, then looked down again, and said coldly, " Mr. Penfold, you have been a faithful servant to us many years ; I raise your salary £50 a year, and you will keep the ledger." The old man was dumbfoundered at first, and then began to give vent to his surprise and grat- itude ; but Wardlaw cut him short, almost fiercely. " There, there, there," said he, without raising his eyes, " let me hear no more about it, and, above all, never speak to me of that cursed business. It was no fault of yours, nor mine neither. There — go — I want no thanks. Do you hear ? leave me, Mr. Penfold, if you please." The old man bowed low and retired, wonder- ing much at his employer's goodness, and a lit- tle at his irritability. Wardlaw junior's whole soul was given to business night and day, and he soon became known for a very ambitious and rising merchant. FOUL PLAY. 11 But, by-and-by, ambition bad to encounter a rival in his heart, lie fell in love ; deeply in love ; and with a worthy object. The young lady was the daughter of a distin- guished officer, whose merits were universally recognized, but not rewarded in proportion. Wardlaw's suit was favorably received by the father, and the daughter gradually yielded to an attachment, the warmth, sincerity, and single- ness of which were manifest: and the pair would have been married, but for the circumstance that her father (partly through Wardlaw's influence, by-the-by) had obtained a lucrative post abroad which it suited his means to accept, at all events for a time. He was a widower, and his daugh- ter could not let him go alone. This temporary separation, if it postponed a marriage, led naturally to a solemn engagement ; and Arthur Wardlaw enjoyed the happiness of writing and receiving affectionate letters by every foreign post. Love, worthily bestowed, shed its balm upon his heart, and, under its soft but powerful charm, he grew tranquil and compla- cent, and his character and temper seemed to improve. Such virtue is there in a pure attach- ment. Meanwhile the extent of his operations alarm- ed old Penfold ; but he soon reasoned that worthy down with overpowering conclusions and supe- rior smiles. He had been three years the ruling spirit of Wardlaw and Son, when some curious events took place in another hemisphere ; and in these events, which we are now to relate, Arthur Wardlaw was more nearly interested than may appear at first sight. Robert Penfold, in due course, applied to Lieutenant-general Rolleston for a ticket of leave. That functionary thought the applica- tion premature, the crime being so grave. He complained that the system had become too lax, and for his part he seldom gave a ticket of leave until some suitable occupation was provided for the applicant. "Will any body take you as a clerk ? If so, I'll see about it." Robert Penfold could find nobody to take him into a post of confidence all at once, and wrote the General an eloquent letter, begging hard to be allowed to labor with his hands. Fortunately, General Rolleston's gardener had just turned him off; so he offered the post to his eloquent correspondent, remarking that he did not much mind employing a ticket-of-leave man himself, though he was resolved to protect his neighbors from their relapses. The convict then came to General Rolleston, and begged leave to enter on his duties under the name of James Seaton. At that General Rolleston hem'd and haw'd, and took a note. But his final decision was as follows: "If you really mean to change your character, why, the name you have disgraced might hang round your neck. Well, I'll give you every chance. But," said the old warrior, suddenly compress- ing his resolute lips just a little, " if you go a yard off the straight path now, look for no mer- cy, Jemmy Seaton." So the convict was re-christened at the tail of a threat, and let loose among the warrior's tu- lips. His appearance was changed as effectually as his name. Even before he was Seatoned he had grown a silky mustache and beard of singular length and beauty ; and, what with these, and his working-man's clothes, and his cheeks and neck tanned by the sun, our readers would never have recognized in this hale, bearded laborer the pale prisoner that had trembled, raged, wept, and submitted in the dock of the Central Crim- inal Court. Our Universities cave men of doing things by halves, be the things mental or muscular ; so Seaton gardened much more zealously than his plebeian predecessor: up at five, and did not leave till eight. But he was unpopular in the kitchen, — because he was always out of it : taciturn and bitter, he shunned his fellow-servants. Yet working among the flowers did him good ; these, his petty companions and nurslings, had no vices. One day, as he was rolling the grass upon the lawn, he heard a soft rustle at some distance, and, looking round, saw a young lady on the gravel-path, whose calm but bright face, coming so suddenly, literally dazzled him. She had a clear cheek blooming with exercise, rich brown hair, smooth, glossy, and abundant, and a very light hazel eye, of singular beauty and serenity. She glided along, tranquil as a goddess, smote him with beauty and perfume, and left him staring after her receding figure, which was, in its way, as captivating as her face. She was walking up and down for exercise, briskly, but without effort. Once she passed within a few yards of him, and he touched his hat to her. She inclined her head gently, but her eyes did not rest an instant on her garden- er; and so she passed and re-passed, uncon- sciously sawing this solitary heart with soft but penetrating thrills. At last she went in-doors to luncheon, and the lawn seemed to miss the light music of her rustling dress, and the sunshine of her presence, and there was a painful void ; but that passed, and a certain sense of happiness stole over James Seaton — an unreasonable joy, that often runs be- fore folly and trouble. The young lady was Helen Rolleston, just re- turned home from a visit. She walked in the garden every day, and Seaton watched her, and peeped at her, unseen, behind trees and bushes. He fed his eyes and his heart upon her, and, by degrees, she became the sun of his solitary ex- istence. It was madness ; but its first effect was not unwholesome. The daily study of this crea- ture, who, though by no means the angel he took her for, was at all events a pure and virtuous woman, soothed his sore heart, and counteracted the demoralizing influences of his late compan- ions. Every day he drank deeper of an insane, but purifying and elevating passion. He avoided the kitchen still more ; and that, by-the-by, was unlucky ; for there he could have learned something about Miss Helen Rolleston that would have warned him to keep at the other end of the garden whenever that charming face and form glided to and fro amongst the minor flowers. A beautiful face fires our imagination, and we see higher virtue and intelligence in it than we can detect in its owner's head or heart when we descend to calm inspection. James Seaton gazed 12 FOUL PLAY. on Miss Rolleston day after day, at so respectful a distance, that she became his goddess. If a day passed without his seeing her, he was deject- ed. .When she was behind her time, he was restless, anxious, and his work distasteful ; and then, when she came out at last, he thrilled all over, and the lawn, ay, the world itself, seemed to fill with sunshine. His adoration, timid by its own nature, was doubly so by reason of his fallen and hopeless condition. He cut nosegays for her ; but gave them to her maid Wilson for her. He had not the courage to offer them to herself. One evening, as he went home, a man address- ed him familiarly, but in a low voice. Seaton looked at him attentively, and recognized him at last. It was a convict called Butt, who had come over in the ship with him. The man offer- ed him a glass of ale ; Seaton declined it. Butt, a veiy clever rogue, seemed hurt ; so then Sea- ton assented reluctantly. Butt took him to a public house in a narrow street, and into a pri- vate room. Seaton started as soon as he enter- ed, for there sat two repulsive ruffians, and, by a look that passed rapidly between them and Butt, he saw plainly that they were waiting for him. He felt nervous ; the place was so uncouth and dark, the faces so villainous. However, they invited him to sit down, rough- ly, but with an air of good fellowship ; and very soon opened their business over their ale. We are all bound to assist our fellow-creatures, when it can be done without trouble; and what they asked of him was a simple act of courtesy, such as in their opinion no man worthy of the name could deny to his fellow. It was to give Gen- eral Roleston's watch-dog a piece of prepared meat upon a certain evening ; and, in return for this trifling civility, they were generous enough to offer him a full share of any light valuables they might find in the General's house. Seaton trembled, and put his face in his hands a moment. " I can not do it," said he. "Why not?" " He has been too good to me." A coarse laugh of derision greeted this argu- ment ; it seemed so irrelevant to these pure ego- tists. Seaton, however, persisted, and on that one of the men got up and stood before the door, and drew his knife gently. Seaton glanced his eyes round in search of a weapon, and turned pale. "Do you mean to split on us, mate?'"' said one of the ruffians in front of him. "No, I don't. But I won't rob my benefac- tor: you shall kill me first." And with that he darted to the fireplace, and in a moment the poker was high in air, and the way he squared his shoulders and stood ready to hit to the on, or cut to the off, was a caution. " Come, drop that," said Butt, grimly ; M and put up your knife, Bob. Can't a pal be out of a job, and yet not split on them that is in it ?" " Why should I split ?" said Robert Penfold. " Has the law been a friend to me ? But I w r on't rob my benefactor — and his daughter." ' ' That is square enough," said Butt. ' ' Why, pals, there are other cribs to be cracked besides that old bloke's. Finish the ale, mate, and part friends." "If you will promise me to 'crack some other crib,' and let that one alone." A sullen assent was given, and Seaton drank their healths, and walked away. Butt followed him soon after, and affected to side with him, and intimated that he himself was capable of not rob- bing a man's house who had been good to him, or to a pal of his. Indeed, this plausible person said so much, and his sullen comrades had said so little, that Seaton, rendered keen and anxious by love, invested his savings in a Colt's revolver and ammunition. He did not stop there ; after the hint about the watch-dog, he would not trust that faithful but too carnivorous animal ; he brought his blan- kets into the little tool-house, and lay there every night in a sort of dog's sleep. This tool-house was erected in a little back garden, separated from the lawn only by some young trees in single file. Now Miss Rolleston's window looked out upon the lawn, so that Seaton's watch-tower was not many yards from it ; then, as the tool-house was only lighted from above, lie bored a hole in the wooden structure, and through this he watch- ed, and slept, and watched. He used to sit studying theology by a farthing rushlight till the lady's bedtime, and then he watched for her shadow. If it appeared for a few moments on the blind, he gave a sigh of content, and went to sleep, but awaked every now and then to see that all was well. After a few nights, his alarms naturally ceased, but his love increased, fed now from this new source, the sweet sense of being the secret pro- tector of her he adored. Meantime Miss Rolleston's lady's maid, Wil- son, fell in love with him after her fashion ; she had taken a fancy to his face at once, and he had encouraged her a little, unintentionally ; for he brought the nosegays to her, and listened com- placently to her gossip, for the sake of the few words she let fall now and then about her young mistress. As he never exchanged two sentences at a time with any other servant, this flattered Sarah Wilson, and she soon began to meet and accost him oftener, and in cherrier-colored rib- bons, than he could stand. So then he showed impatience, and then she, reading him by her- self, suspected some vulgar rival. Suspicion soon bred jealousy, jealousy vigi- lance, and vigilance detection. Her first discovery was that, so long as she talked of Miss Helen Rolleston, she was always welcome ; her second was, that Seaton slept in the tool-house. She was not romantic enough to connect her two discoveries together. They lay apart in her mind, until circumstances we are about to relate supplied a connecting link. One Thursday evening James Seaton's god- dess sat alone with her papa, and, — being a young lady of fair abilities, who had gone through her course of music and other studies, taught brainlessly, and who was now going through a course of monotonous pleasures, and had not ac- cumulated any great store of mental resources, — she was listless and languid, and would have yawned forty times in her papa's face, only she was too well bred. She always turned her head away when it came, and either suppressed it, or else hid it with a lovely white hand. At last, as she was a good girl, she blushed at her behavior, and roused herself up, and said she, "Papa, shall I play you the new quadrilles !" FOUL PLAY. 13 Papa gave a start and a shake, and said, with well-feigned vehemence, "Ay, do, my dear," and so composed himself — to listen ; and Helen sat down and played the quadrilles. The composer had taken immortal melodies, some gay, some sad, and had robbed them of their distinctive character, and hashed them till they were all one monotonous rattle. But Gen- eral Rolleston was little the worse for all this. As Apollo saved Horace from hearing a poetas- ter's rhymes, so did Somnus, another beneficent little deity, rescue our warrior from his daugh- ter's music. She was neither angry nor surprised. A de- licious smile illumined her face directly; she crept to him on tiptoe, and bestowed a kiss, light as a zephyr, on his gray head. And, in truth, the bending attitude of this supple figure, clad in snowy muslin, the virginal face and light hazel eye beaming love and reverence, and the airy kiss, had something angelic. She took her candle, and glided up to her bedroom. And, the moment she got there, and could gratify her somnolence without offense, need we say she became wide-awake ? She sat down, and wrote long letters to three other young ladies, gushing affection, asking questions of the kind nobody replies to, painting, with a young lady's colors, the male being to wfiom she was shortly to be married, wishing her dear friends a like demigod, if perchance earth contained two ; and so to the last new bonnet and preacher. She sat over her paper till one o'clock, and Seaton watched and adored her shadow. When she had done writing, she opened her window and looked out upon the night. She lifted those wonderful hazel eyes towards the stars, and her watcher might well be pardoned if he saw in her a celestial being looking up from an earthly resting-place towards her native sky. At two o'clock she was in bed, but not asleep. She lay calmly gazing at the Southern Cross, and other lovely stars shining with vivid, but chaste, fire in the purple vault of heaven. , While thus employed she heard a slight sound outside that made her turn her eyes towards a young tree near her window. Its top branches were waving a good deal, though there was not a breath stirring. This struck her as curious, very curious. Whilst she wondered, suddenly an arm and a hand came in sight, and after them the whole figure of a man, going up the tree. Helen sat up now, glaring with terror, and was so paralyzed she did not utter a sound. About a foot below her window was a lead flat that roofed the bay-window below. It covered an area of several feet, and the man sprang on to it with perfect ease from the tree. Helen shriek- ed with terror. At that very instant there was a flash, a pistol-shot, and the man's arms went whirl- ing, and he staggered and fell over the edge of the flat, and struck the grass below with a heavy thud. Shots and blows followed, and all the sounds of a bloody struggle rung in Helen's ears as she flung herself screaming from the bed and darted to the door. She ran and clung quiver- ing to her sleepy maid, Wilson. The house was alarmed, lights flashed, footsteps pattered, there was universal commotion. General Rolleston soon learned his daughter's story from Wilson, and aroused his male servants, one of whom was an old soldier. They searched the house first ; but no entrance had been effect- ed ; so they went out on the lawn with blunder- buss and pistol. They found a man lying on his back at the foot of the bay-window. They pounced on him, and, to their amaze- ment, it was the gardener, James Seaton. In- sensible. General Rolleston was quite taken aback for a moment. Then he was sorry. But, after a lit- tle reflection, he said very sternly, " Carry the blackguard in-doors, and run for an officer." Seaton was taken into the hall, and laid flat on the floor. All the servants gathered about him, brimful of curiosity, and the female ones began to speak all together; but General Rolleston told them sharply to hold their tongues, and to retire be- hind the man. "Somebody sprinkle him with cold water," said he ; " and be quiet, all of you, and keep out of sight, while I. examine him." He stood before the insensible figure with hs arms folded, amidst a dead silence, broken ony by the stifled sobs of Sarah Wilson, and of a so- ciable housemaid who cried, with her for com- pany. And now Seaton began to writhe and show signs of returning sense. Next he moaned piteously, and sighed. But General Rolleston could not pity him ; he wait- ed grimly for returning consciousness, to subject him to merciless interrogatory. He waited just one second too long. He had to answer a question instead of putting one. The judgment is the last faculty a man recov- ers when emerging from insensibility; and Sea- ton, seeing the General standing before him, stretched out his hands, and said, in a faint, but earnest voice, before eleven witnesses, "Is she safe? Oh. is she safe ?" CHAPTER IV. Sakah Wilson left off crying, and looked down on the ground with a very red face. Gen- eral Rolleston was amazed. " ' Is she safe ?' Is who safe ?" said he. " He means my mistress," replied Wilson, rather brusquely ; and flounced out of the hall. " She is safe, no thanks to you," said General Rolleston. " What were you doing under her window at this time of night ?" And the harsh tone in which this question was put showed Sea- ton he was suspected. This wounded him, and he replied doggedly, "Lucky for you all I was there." "That is no answer to my question," said the General, sternly. " It is all the answer I shall give you." " Then I shall hand you over to the officer, without another word." "Do, sir, do," said Seaton, bitterly; but he added more gently, "you will be sorry for it when you come to your senses." At this moment Wilson entered with a mes- sage. "If you please, sir, Miss Rolleston says the robber had no beard. Miss have never no- ticed Seaton's face, but the beard she have ; and u FOUL PLAY. oh, if you please, sir, she begged me to ask him, — Was it you that fired the pistol and shot the robber ?'' The delivery of this ungrammatical message but rational query was like a ray of light streaming into a dark place : it changed the whole aspect of things. As for Seaton, he received it as if Heaven was speaking to him through Wilson. His sullen air relaxed, the water stood in his eyes, he smiled affectionately, and said in a low, tender voice, "Tell her I heard some bad char- acters talking about this house, — that was a month ago, — so, ever since then, I have slept in the tool-house to watch. Yes, I shot the robber with my revolver, and I marked one or two more ; but they were three to one ; I think I must have got a blow on the head ; for I felt nothing — " Here he was interrupted by a violent scream from Wilson. She pointed downward, with her eyes glaring ; and a little blood was seen to be trickling slowly over Seaton's stocking and shoe. "Wounded," said the General's servant, Tom, in the business-like accent of one who had seen a thousand wounds. "Oh, never mind that," said Seaton. "It can't be very deep, for I don't feel it ;" then, fix- ing his eyes on General Eolleston, he said, in a voice that broke down suddenly, " There stands the only man who has wounded me to-night, to hurt me." The way General Kollcston received this point- blank reproach surprised some persons present, who had observed only the imperious and iron side of his character. He hung his head in si- lence a moment ; then, being discontented with himself, he went into a passion with his servants for standing idle. "Run away, you women," said he, roughly. "Now, Tom, if you are good for any thing, strip the man and stanch his wound. Andrew, a bottle of port, quick !" Then, leaving him for a while in friendly hands, he went to his daughter, and asked her if she saw any objection to a bed being made up in the house for the wounded convict. "Oh, papa," said she, "why, of course not. I am all gratitude. What is he like, Wilson? for it is a most provoking thing, I never noticed his face, only his beautiful beard glittering in the sunshine ever so far off. Poor young man ! Oh yes, papa! send him to bed directly, and we will all nurse him. I never did any good in the world yet, and so why not begin at once ?" General Rolleston laughed at this squirt of enthusiasm from his staid daughter, and went off to give the requisite orders. But Wilson followed him immediately and stopped him in the passage. "If you please, sir, I think you had better not. I have something to tell you." She then communicated to him by degrees her suspicion that James Seaton was in love with his daughter. He treated this with due ridicule at first ; but she gave him one reason after another till she stag- gered him, and he went down-stairs in a most mixed and puzzled frame of mind, inclined to laugh, inclined to be angry, inclined to be sorry. The officer had just arrived, and was looking over some photographs to see if James Seaton was " one of his birds." Such, alas ! was his expression. At sight of this Rolleston colored up ; but ex- tricated himself from the double difficulty with some skill. "Hexham," said he, "this poor fellow has behaved like a man, and got himself wounded in my service. You are to take him to the infirmary ; but, mind, they must treat him like my own son, and nothing he asks for be denied him." Seaton walked with feeble steps, and leaning on two men, to the infirmary; and General Rolleston ordered a cup of coffee, lighted a ci- gar, and sat cogitating over this strange busi- ness, and asking himself how he could get rid of this young madman, and yet befriend him. As for Sarah Wilson, she went to bed discon- tented, and wondering at her own bad judg- ment. She saw, too late, that, if she had held her tongue, Seaton would have been her patient and her prisoner; and as for Miss Rolleston, when it came to the point, why, she would never have nursed him except by proxy, and the proxy would have been Sarah Wilson. However, the blunder blind passion had led her into was partially repaired by Miss Rolles- ton herself. When she heard, next day, where Seaton was gone, she lifted up her hands in amazement. " What could papa be thinking of to send our benefactor to a hospital?" And after meditating awhile, she directed Wilson to cut a nosegay and carry it to Seaton. "He is a gardener," said she, innocently. " Of course he will miss his flowers sadly in that miserable place." And she gave the same order every day, with a constancy that, you must know, formed part of this young lady's character. Soup, wine, and jellies were sent from the kitchen every other day with equal pertinacity. Wilson concealed the true donor of all those things, and took the credit to herself. By this means she obtained the patient's gratitude, and he showed it so frankly, she hoped to steal his love as well. But no ! his fancy and his heart remained true to the cold beauty he had served so well, and she had forgotten him, apparently. This irritated Wilson at last, and she set to work to cure him with wholsome, but bitter medicine. She sat down beside him one day, and said, cheerfully. " We are all 'on the key- feet ' just now. Miss Rolleston's beau is come on a visit." The patient opened his eyes with astonish- ment. "Miss Rolleston's bean ?" "Ay, her intended. What, didn't you know she was engaged to be married ?" "She engaged to be married?" gasped Sea- ton. Wilson watched him with a remorseless eye. " Why, James," said she, after a while, "did you think the likes of her would go through the world without a mate ?" Seaton made no reply but a moan, and lay back like one dead, utterly crushed by this cruel blow. A buxom middle-aged nurse now came up, and said, with a touch of severity, " Come, my good girl, no doubt you mean well, but you are doing ill. You had better leave him to us for the present." On this hint Wilson bounced out, and left the patient to his misery. At her next visit she laid a nosegay on his FOUL PLAY. 15 bed, and gossiped away, talking of every thing in the world except Miss Rolleston. At last she came to a pause, and Seaton laid his hand on her arm directly, and, looking pite- ously in her face, spoke his first word. "Does she love him?" "What, still harping on her?" said Wilson. "Well, she doesn't hate him, I suppose, or she would not marry him." "For pity's sake don't trifle with me ! Does she love him?" "La, James, how can I tell? She mayn't love him quite as much as I could love a man that took my fancy" (here she cast a languish- ing glance on Seaton) ; "hut I see wo difference between her and other young ladies. Miss is very fond of her papa, for one thing ; and he favors the match. Ay, and she likes her partner well enough : she is brighter like, now he is in the house, and she reads all her friends' letters to him ever so lovingly ; and I do notice she leans on him, out walking, a trifle more than there is any need for." At this picture James Seaton writhed in his bed like some agonized creature under vivisec- tion ; but the woman spurred by jealousy, and also by egotistical passion, had no mercy left for him. "And why not?" continued she; "he is young, and handsome, and rich, and he dotes on her. If you are really her friend, you ought to be glad she is so well suited." At this admonition the tears stood in Seaton 's eyes, and after a while he got strength to say, " I know I ought, I know it, if he is only worthy of her, as worthy as any man could be." " That he is, James. Why, I'll be bound you have heard of him. It is young Mr. Wardlaw," Seaton started up in bed. "Who? Ward- law ? what Wardlaw ?" "What Wardlaw? why, the great London merchant, his son. Leastways he manages the whole concern now, I hear ; the old gentleman, he is retired, by all accounts." "Curse him! curse him! curse him!" yelled James Seaton, with his eyes glaring fear- fully, and both hands beating the air. Sarah Wilson recoiled with alarm. "That angel marry him /" shrieked Seaton. "Never, while I live: I'll throttle him with these hands first." * What more his ungovernable fury would have uttered was interrupted by a rush of nurses and attendants, and Wilson was bundled out of the place with little ceremony. He contrived, however, to hurl a word after her, accompanied with a look of concentrated rage and resolution. "Never, I tell you, — while I live." At her next visit to the hospital, Wilson was refused admission by order of the head sur- geon. She left her flowers daily all the same. After a few days she thought the matter might have cooled, and, having a piece of news to communicate to Seaton, with respect to Ar- thur Wardlaw, she asked to see that patient. "Left the hospital this morning," was the re- ply. " What, cured ?" "Why not? We have cured wcrse cases than his." "Where has he gone to ? Pray tell me." "Oh, certainly." And inquiry was made. But the reply was, " Left no address." Sarah Wilson, like many other women of high and low degree, had swift misgivings of mis- chief to come. She was taken with a fit of trem- bling, and had to sit down in the hall. And, to tell the truth, she had cause to trem- ble ; for that tongue of hers had launched two wild beasts, — Jealousy and Revenge. When she got better she went home, and, coward-like, said not a word to living soul. That day Arthur Wardlaw dined with Gen- eral Rolleston and Helen. They were to be alone for a certain reason ; and he came half an hour before dinner. Helen thought he would, and was ready for him on the lawn. They walked arm-in-arm, talking of the hap- piness before them, and regretting a temporary separation that was to intervene. He was her father's choice, and she loved her father devo- tedly ; he was her male property ; and young ladies like that sort of property, especially when they see nothing to dislike in it. He loved her passionately, and that was her due, and pleased her and drew a gentle affection, if not a passion from her in return. Yes, that lovely forehead did come very near young Wardlaw' s shoulder more than once or twice, as they strolled slowly up and down on the soft mossy turf. And, on the other side of the hedge that bounded the lawn, a man lay crouched in the ditch, and saw it all with gleaming eyes. Just before the affianced ones went in, Helen said, "I have a little favor to ask you, dear. The poor man, Seaton, who fought the robbers, and was wounded, — papa says he is a man of education, and wanted to be a clerk or some- thing. Could you find him a place?" "I think I can," said Wardlaw; "indeed I am sure. A line to White and Co. will do it ; they want a shipping-clerk." " Oh, how good you are!" said Helen ; and lifted her face all beaming with thanks. The opportunity was tempting ; the lover fond: two faces met for a single moment, and one of the two burned for five minutes after. The basilisk eyes saw the soft collision ; but the owner of those eyes did not hear the words that earned him that torture. He lay still and bided his time. General Rolleston's house stood clear of the town at the end of a short, but narrow and tor- tuous lane. This situation had tempted the bur- glars whom Seaton baffled ; and now it tempt- ed Seaton. Wardlaw must pass that way on leaving Gen- eral Rolleston's house. At a bend of the lane two twin elms stood out a foot or two from the hedge. Seaton got be- hind these at about ten o'clock, and watched for him with a patience and immobility that boded ill. His preparations for this encounter were singu- lar. He had a close-shutting inkstand and a pen, and one sheet of paper, at the top of which he had written " Sydney," and the day of the month and year, leaving the rest blank. And he had the revolver with which he had shot the robber at Helen Rolleston's window ; and a bar- rel of that arm was loaded with swan-shot. 1G FOUL PLAY. CHAPTER V. The moon went down; the stars shone out clearer. Eleven o'clock boomed from a church clock in the town. Wardlaw did not come, and Seaton did not move from his ambush. Twelve o'clock boomed, and "Wardlaw never came, and Seaton never moved. Soon after midnight, General Rolleston's hall door opened, and a figure appeared in a flood of light. Seaton's eyes gleamed at the light, for it was young Wardlaw, with a footman at his back holding a lighted lamp. Wardlaw, however, seemed in no hurry to leave the house, and the reason soon appeared ; he was joined by Helen Rolleston, and she was equipped for walking. The watcher saw her se- rene face shine in the light. The General him- self came next : and, as they left the door, out came Tom with a blunderbuss, and brought up the rear. Seaton drew behind the trees, and postponed, but did not resign, his purpose. Steps and murmurings came, and passed him, and receded. The only words he caught distinctly came from Wardlaw as he passed. "It is nearly high tide. 1 fear we must make haste." Seaton followed the whole party at a short dis- tance, feeling sure they would eventually sepa- rate and give him his opportunity with Wardlaw. The5 T went down to the harbor and took a boat : Seaton came nearer, and learned they were going on board the great steamer bound for England, that loomed so black, with monstrous eyes of fire. They put off, and Seaton stood baffled. Presently the black monster, with enormous eyes of fire, spouted her steam like a Leviathan, and then was still ; next the smoke puffed, the heavy paddles revolved, and she rushed out of the harbor; and Seaton sat down upon the ground, and all seemed ended. Helen gone to England ! Wardlaw gone with her ! Love and revenge had alike eluded him. He looked up at the sky, and played with the pebbles at his feet, stupidly, stupidly. He wondered why he was born ; why he consented to live a single minute after this. His angel and his demon gone home together ! And he left here ! He wrote a few lines on the paper he had in- tended for Wardlaw, sprinkled them with sand, and put them in his bosom, then stretched him- self out with a weary moan, like a dying dog, to wait the flow of the tide, and, with it, Death. Whether or not his resolution or his madness could have carried him so far can not be known, for even as the water rippled in, and, trickling under his back, chilled him to the bone, a sil- very sound struck his ear. He started to his feet, and life and its joys rushed back upon him. It was the voice of the woman he loved so mad- ly. Helen Rolleston was on the water, coming ashore again in the little boat. He crawled, like a lizard, among the boats ashore to catch a sight of her: he did see her, was near her, unseen himself. She landed with her father. So Wardlaw was gone to England without her. Seaton trembled with joy. Pres- ently his goddess began to lament in the prettiest way. "Papa! papa!" she sighed, "why must friends part in this sad world ? Poor Arthur is gone from me ; and, by-and-by, I shall go from you, my own papa." And at that prospect she wept gently. " Why, you foolish child!" said the old Gen- eral, tenderly, "what matters a little parting, when we are all to meet again in dear old Eng- land ? Well then, there, have a cry ; it will do you good. He patted her head tenderly, as she clung to his warlike breast ; and she took him at his word ; the tears ran swiftly and glistened in the very starlight. But oh, how Seaton's heart yearned at all this ! What ! mustn't he say a word to comfort her ; he who, at that moment, would have thought no more of dying to serve her, or to please her, than he would of throwing one of those pebbles into that slimy water? Well, her pure tears somehow cooled his hot brain, and washed his soul, and left him wonder- ing at himself and his misdeeds this night. His guardian angel seemed to go by and wave her dewy wings, and fan his hot passions as she pass- ed. He kneeled down and thanked God he had not met Arthur Wardlaw in that dark lane. Then he went home to his humble lodgings and there buried himself ; and from that day sel- dom went out, except to seek employment. He soon obtained it as a copyist. Meantime the police were on his track, em- ployed by a person with a gentle disposition, but a tenacity of purpose truly remarkable. Great was Seaton's uneasiness when one day he saw Hexham at the foot of his stair ; greater still, when the officer's quick eye caught sight of him, and his light foot ascended the stairs direct- ly. He felt sure Hexham had heard of his lurk- ing about General Rolleston's premises. How- ever, . he prepared to defend himself to the utter- most. Hexham came into his room without cere- mony, and looking mighty grim. "Well, my lad, so we have got you, after all." " What is my crime now?" asked Seaton, sul- lenly. "James," said the officer, very solemnly, "it is an unheard-of-crime this time. You have been — running — away — from a pretty girl. Now that is a mistake at all times ; but, when she is as beautiful as an angel, and rich enough to slip a fiver into Dick Hexham's hands, and lay him on your track, what is the use ? Letter for you, my man." Seaton took the letter with a puzzled air. It was written in a clear but feminine hand, and slightly scented. The writer in a few polished lines excused herself for taking extraordinary means to find Mr. Seaton ; but hoped he would consider that he had laid her under a deep obligation, and that gratitude will sometimes be importunate. She had the pleasure to inform him that the of- fice of shipping-clerk at Messrs. White and Co.'s was at his service, and she hoped he would take it without an hour's further delay, for that she was assured that many persons had risen to wealth and consideration in the colony from such situations. Then, as this wary but courteous young lady FOUL PLAY. 17 had no wish to enter into a correspondence with her ex-gardener, she added : "Mr. Seaton need not trouble himself to re- ply to this note. A simple ' yes ' to Mr. Hex- ham will be enough, and will give sincere pleas- ure to Mr. Seaton's "Obedient servant and well-wisher, "Helen Anne Rolleston. " Seaton bowed his head over this letter in silent but deep emotion. Hexham respected that emotion, and watched him with a sort of vague sympathy. Seaton lifted his head, and the tears stood thick in his eyes. Said he, in a voice of exqui- site softness, scarce above a whisper, "Tell her, 'yes' and 'God bless her.' Good-bye. I want to go on my knees, and pray God to bless her, as she deserves. Good-bye." Hexham took the hint, and retired softly. CHAPTER VI. White and Co. stumbled on a treasure in James Seaton. Your colonial clerk is not so narrow and apathetic as your London clerk, whose two objects seem to be, to learn one de- partment only, and not to do too much in that ; but Seaton, a gentleman and a scholar, eclipsed even colonial clerks in this, that he omitted no opportunity of learning the whole business of White and Co., and was also animated by a feverish zeal that now and then provoked laugh- ter from clerks, but was agreeable, as well as sur- prising, to White and Co. Of that zeal, his in- curable passion was partly the cause. Fortunes had been made with great rapidity in Sydney ; and Seaton now conceived a wild hope of acquir- ing one, by some lucky hit, before Wardlaw could return to Helen Rolleston. And yet his common sense said, if I was as rich as Croesus, how could she ever mate with me, a stained man. And yet his burning heart said, don't listen to reason ; listen only to me. Try. And so he worked double tides ; and, in vir- tue of his University education, had no snobbish notions about never putting his hand to manual labor : he would lay down his pen at any mo- ment, and bear a hand to lift a chest or roll a cask. Old White saw him thus multiply him- self, and was so pleased that he raised his salary one-third. He never saw Helen Rolleston, except on Sunday. On that day he went to her church, and sat half behind a pillar, and feasted his eyes and his heart upon her. He lived sparingly, saved money, bought a strip of land by pay- ment of £10 deposit, and sold it in forty hours for £100 profit, and watched keenly for similar opportunities on a larger scale ; and all for her. Struggling with a mountain: hoping against reason, and the world. White and Co. were employed to ship a valu- able cargo on board two vessels chartered by Wardlaw and Son; the Shannon and Proser- pine. Both these ships lay in Sydney harbor, nnd had taken in the bulk of their cargoes; but the supplement was the cream ; for Wardlaw, in per- son, had warehoused eighteen cases of gold-dust and ingots, and fifty of lead and smelted copper. They were all examined, and branded by Mr. White, who had duplicate keys of the gold cases. But the contents, as a matter of habit and pru- dence, were not described outside, but were mark- ed Proserpine and Shannon, respectively ; the mate of the Proserpine, who was in Wardlaw's confidence, had written instructions to look care- fully to the stowage of all these cases, and was in and out of the store one afternoon just before closing, and measured the cubic contents of the cases, with a view to stowage in the respective vessels. The last time he came he seemed rath- er the worse for liquor; and Seaton, who ac- companied him, having stepped out for a minute for something or other, was rather surprised on his return to find the door closed, and it struck him Mr. Wylie (that was the mate's name) might be inside ; the more so as the door closed very easily with a spring bolt, but it could only be opened by a key of peculiar construction. Sea- ton took out his key, opened the door, and call- ed to the mate: but received no reply. How- ever, he took the precaution to go round the store, and see whether Wylie, rendered somno- lent by liquor, might not be lying oblivious among the cases ; Wylie, however, was not to be seen, and Seaton finding himself alone did an unwise thing ; he came and contemplated Wardlaw's cases of metal and specie. (Men will go too near the thing that causes their pain.) He eyed them with grief and with desire, and could not restrain a sigh at these material proofs of his rival's wealth : the wealth that probably had smoothed his way to General Rolleston's home, and to his daughter's heart ; for wealth can pave the way to hearts, ay, even to hearts that can not be downright bought. This reverie, no doubt, lasted longer than he thought, for presently he heard the loud rattle of shutters go- ing up below : it was closing time ; he hastily closed and locked the iron shutters, and then went out and shut the door. He had been gone about two hours, and that part of the street, so noisy in business hours, was hushed in silence, all but an occasional foot- step on the flags outside, when something mys- terious occurred in the warehouse, now as dark as pitch. At an angle of the wall stood two large cases in a vertical position, with smaller cases lying at their feet : these two cases were about eight feet high, more or less. Well, behind these cases suddenly flashed a feeble light, and the next moment two brown and sinewy hands appeared on the edge of one of the cases, — the edge next the wall ; the case vibrated and rocked a little, and the next moment there mounted on the top of it not a cat, nor a monkey, as might have been expected, but an animal that in truth re- sembles both these quadrupeds, viz., a sailor ; and need we say that sailor was the mate of the Proserpine ? He descended lightly from the top of the case behind which he had been jam- med for hours, and lighted a dark lantern ; and went softly groping about the store with it. This was a mysterious act, and would perhaps have puzzled the proprietors of the store even more than it would a stranger : for a stranger would have said at once this is burglary, or else IS FOUL PLAY. arson ; but those acquainted with the place would have known that neither of those crimes was very practicable. This enterprising sailor could not bum down this particular store with- out roasting himself the first thing ; and indeed he could not burn it down at all ; for the roof was flat, and was in fact one gigantic iron tank, like the roof of Mr. Goding's brewery in Lon- don : and, by a neat contrivance of American or- igin, the whole tank could be turned in one mo- ment to a shower-bath, and drown a conflagra- tion in thirty seconds or thereabouts. Nor could he rifle the place ; the goods were greatly pro- tected by their weight, and it was impossible to get out of the store without raising an alarm, and being searched. But, not to fall into the error of writers who underrate their readers' curiosity and intelli- gence, and so deluge them with comments and explanations, we will now simply relate what Wylie did, leaving you to glean his motives as this tale advances. His jacket had large pockets, and he took out of them a bunch of eighteen bright steel keys, numbered, a set of new screw- drivers, a flask of rum, and two ship biscuits. He unlocked the eighteen cases marked Pros- erpine, etc, and, peering in with his lantren, saw the gold-dust and small ingots packed in parcels, and surrounded by Australian wool of the high- est possible quality. It was a luscious sight. He then proceeded to a heavier task ; he un- screwed, one after another, eighteen of the cases marked Shannon, and the eighteen so selected, perhaps by private marks, proved to be packed close, and on a different system from the gold, viz., in pigs, or square blocks, three, or, in some, cases, four to each chest. Now, these two ways of packing the specie, and the baser metal, respect- ively, had the effect of producing a certain uni- formity of weight in the thirty-six cases Wylie was inspecting ; otherwise the gold cases would have been twice the weight of those that con- tained the baser metal : for lead is proverbially heavy, but under scientific tests is to gold as five to twelve, or thereabouts. In his secret and mysterious labor Wylie was often interrupted. Whenever he heard a step on the pavement outside, he drew the slide of his lantern and hid the light. If he had exam- ined the iron shutters, he would have seen that his light could never pierce through them into the street. But he was not aware of this. Not- withstanding these occasional interruptions, he worked so hard and continuously, that the per- spiration poured down him ere he had unscrew- ed those eighteen chests containing the pigs of lead. However, it was done at last, and then he refreshed himself with a draught from his flask. The next thing was, he took the three pigs of lead out of one of the cases marked Shannon, etc., and numbered fifteen, and laid them very gently on the floor. Then he transferred to that empty case the mixed contents of a case branded Pros- erpine 1, etc., and this he did with the utmost care and nicety, lest gold-dust spilled should tell tales. And so he went on and amused himself by shifting the contents of the whole eighteen cases marked Proserpine, etc., into eighteen cases marked Shannon, etc., and refilling them with the Shannon's lead. Frolicsome Mr. Wylie ! Then he sat down on one of the cases Proser- pined, and ate a biscuit and drank a little rum ; not much ; for at this part of his career he was a very sober man, though he could fain drunk- enness, or indeed any thing else. The gold was all at his mercy, yet he did not pocket an ounce of it ; not even a pennyweight to make a wedding-ring for Nancy Eouse. Mr. Wylie had a conscience. And a very original one it was ; and, above all, he was very true to those he worked with. He carefully locked the gold cases up again, and resumed the screw- driver, for there was another heavy stroke of i work to be done ; and he went at it like a man. He carefully screwed down again, one after another, all those eighteen cases marked Shan- non, which he had filled with gold dust, and then, heating a sailor's needle red-hot over his burn- ing wick, he put his own secret marks on those eighteen cases — marks that no eye but his own could detect. By this time, though a very powerful man, he felt much exhausted, and would gladly have snatched an hour's repose. But, consulting his watch by the light of his lantern, he found the sun had just risen. He retired to his place of concealment in the same cat-like way he had come out of it — that is to say, he mounted on the high cases, and then slip- ped down behind them, into the angle of the wall. As soon as the office opened, two sailors, whom he had carefully instructed over night, came with a boat for the cases; the warehouse was opened in consequence, but they were in- formed that Wylie must be present at the delivery. "Oh, he won't be long," said they ; " told us he would meet us here." There was a considerable delay, and a good deal of talking, and presently Wylie was at their backs, and put in his word. Seaton was greatly surprised at finding him there, and asked him where he had sprung from. " Me !" said Wylie, jocosely, " why, I hailed from Davy Jones's locker last. "I never heard you come in," said Seaton thoughtfully. "Well, sir," replied Wylie civilly, "a man does learn to go like a cat on board ship, that is the truth. I came in at the door like my betters ; but I thought I heard you mention my name, so I made no noise. Well, here I am anyway, and — Jack, how many trips can we take these thundering chests in ? Let us see, eighteen for the Proserpine, and forty for the Shannon. Is that correct, sir ?" " Perfectly." "Then, if you will deliver them, I'll check the delivery aboard the lighter there ; and then we'll tow her alongside the ships." Seaton called up two more clerks, and sent one to the boat, and one on board the barge. The barge was within hail; so the cases were checked as they passed out of the store, and checked again at the small boat, and also on board the lighter. When they were all cleared out, Wylie gave Seaton his receipt for them, and, having a steam-tug in attendance, towed the lighter alongside the Shannon first. Seaton carried the receipt to his employer. "But, sir," said he, "is this regular for an officer of the Proserpine to take the Shannon's cargo from us?" "No, it is not regular," said the old gentle- man ; and he looked through a window and sum- moned Mr. Hardcastle. FOUL PLAY. 19 Hardcastle explained that the Proserpine shipped the gold, which was the more valuable consignment; and that he saw no harm in the officer who was so highly trusted by the mer- chant (on this and on former occasions) taking out a few tons of lead and copper to the Shan- non. "Well, sir," said Seaton, "suppose I was to go out and see the chests stowed in those ves- sels." "I think you are making a fuss about noth- ing," said Hardcastle. Mr. White was of the same opinion, but, being too wise to check zeal and caution, told Seaton he might go for his own satisfaction. Seaton, with some difficulty, got a little boat and pulled across the harbor. He found the Shannon had shipped all the chests marked with her name ; and the captain and mate of the Proserpine were beginning to ship theirs. He paddled under the Proserpine's stern. Captain Hudson, a rough salt, sang out, and asked him roughly what he wanted there. " Oh, it is all right," said the mate ; " he is come for your receipt and Hewitt's. Be smart now, men ; two on board, sixteen to come." Seaton saw the chests marked Proserpine stowed in the Proserpine, and went ashore with Captain Hewitt's receipt of forty cases on board the Shannon, and Captain Hudson's of eighteen on board the Proserpine. As he landed he met Lloyd's agent, and told him what a valuable freight he had just shipped. That gentleman merely remarked that both ships were underwritten in Sydney by the owners ; but the freight was insured in London no doubt. There was still something about this business Seaton did not quite like ; perhaps it was in the haste of the shipments, or in the manner of the mate. At all events, it was too slight and sub- tle to be communicated to others, with any hope of convincing them ; and, moreover, Sea- ton could not but own to himself that he hated Wardlaw, and was, perhaps, no fair judge of his acts, and even of the acts of his servants. And soon a blow fell that drove the matter out of his head and heart. Miss Helen Rolles- ton called at the office, and, standing within a few feet of him, handed Hardcastle a letter from Arthur Wardlaw, directing that the ladies' cabin on board the Shannon should be placed at her disposal. Hardcastle bowed low to Beauty and Station, and promised her the best possible accommoda- tion on board the Shannon, bound for England next week. As she retired, she cast one quiet glance round the office in search of Seaton's beard. But he had reduced its admired luxuriance, and trim- med it to a narrow mercantile point. She did not know his other features from Adam, and lit- tie thought that young man, bent double over his paper, was her preserver and protege ; still less that he was at this moment cold as ice, and quiv- ering with misery from head to foot, because her own lips had just told him she was going to England in the Shannon. Heart-broken, but still loving nobly, Seaton dragged himself down to the harbor, and went slowly on board the Shannon to secure Miss Rol- leston every comfort. Then, sick at heart as he was, he made inqui- ries into the condition of the vessel which was to be trusted with so precious a freight ; and the old boatman who was rowing him, hearing him make these inquiries, told him he himself was always about, and had noticed the Shannon's pumps were going every blessed night. Seaton carried this intelligence directly to Lloyd's agent ; he overhauled the ship, and or- dered her into the graving dock for repairs. Then Seaton, for White and Co., wrote to Miss Rolleston that the Shannon was not sea- worthy, and could not sail for a month at the least. The lady simply acknowledged Messrs. White's communication, and Seaton breathed again. Wardlaw had made Miss Rolleston promise him faithfully to sail that month in his ship the Shannon. Now, she was a slave to her word, and constant of purpose ; so when she found she could not sail in the Shannon, she called again on Messrs. White, and took her passage in the Proserpine. The essential thing to her mind was to sail when she had promised, and to go in a ship that belonged to her lover. The Proserpine was to sail in ten days. Seaton inquired into the state of the Proser- pine. She was a good, sound vessel, and there was no excuse for detaining her. Then he wrestled long and hard with the self- ish part of his great love. Instead of turning sullen, he set himself to carrying out Helen Rol- leston 's will. He went on board the Proserpine and chose her the best stern-cabin. General Rolleston had ordered Helen's cabin to be furnished, and the agent had put in the usual things, such as a standing bedstead with drawers beneath, chest of drawers, small table, two chairs, wash-stand, looking-glass, and swing- ing lamp. But Seaton made several visits to the ship, and effected the following arrangements at his own cost. He provided a neat cocoa mat for her cab- in deck, for comfort and foothold : he unshipped the regular six-paned stern windows, and put in single-pane plate glass ; he fitted Venetian blinds, and hung two little rose-colored curtains to each of the windows ; all so arranged as to be easily removed in case it should be necessary to ship dead-lights in heavy weather. He glazed the door leading to her bath-room and quarter-gal- lery with plate glass ; he provided a light easy- chair, slung and fitted with grommets, to be hung on hooks screwed into the beams in the mid- ship of the cabin. On this Helen could sit and read, and so become insensible to the motion of the ship. He fitted a small bookcase with a button, which could be raised when a book might be wanted ; he fixed a strike-bell in her maid's cabin, communicating with two strikers in Hel- en's cabin ; he selected books, taking care that the voyages and travels were prosperous ones. No " Seaman's Recorder," "Life-boat Journal," or " Shipwrecks and Disasters in the British Navy." Her cabin was the after-cabin on the starboard side, was entered through the cuddy, had a door communicating with the quarter-gallery, two stern windows, and a dead-eye on deck. The maid's cabin was the port after-cabin; doors opened into cuddy and quarter-gallery. And a fine trouble Miss Rolleston had to get a maid to 20 EOUL PLAY. accompany her ; but at last a young woman of- fered to go with her for high wages, demurely suppressing the fact that she had just married one of the sailors, and would gladly have gone for nothing. Her name was Jane Holt, and her husband's Michael Donovan. In one of Seaton's visits to the Proserpine he detected the mate and captain talking together, and looking at him with unfriendly eyes, — scowl- ing at him would hardly be too strong a word. However, he was in no state of mind to care much how two animals in blue jackets received his acts of self-martyrdom. He was there to do the last kind offices of despairing love for the angel that had crossed his dark path, and illu- mined it for a moment, to leave it now forever. At last the fatal evening came ; her last in Sydney. Then Seaton's fortitude, sustained no longer by the feverish stimulus of doing kindly acts for her, began to give way, and he desponded deeply. At nine in the evening he crept upon General Rolleston's lawn, where he had first seen her. He sat down in sullen despair, upon the very spot. Then he came nearer the house. There was a lamp in the dining-room ; he looked in and saw her. She was seated at her father's knee, looking up at him fondly ; her hand was in his ; the tears wefe in their eyes ; she had no mother ; he no son ; they loved one another devotedly. This, their tender gesture, and their sad silence, spoke volumes to any one that had known sorrow. Poor Seaton sat down on the dewy grass outside, and wept because she was weeping. Her father sent her to bed early. Seaton watched, as he had often done before, till her light went out ; and then he flung himself on the wet grass, and stai*ed at the sky in utter misery. The mind is often clearest in the middle of the night ; and all of a sudden, he saw, as if written on the sky, that she was going to Eng- land expressly to marry Arthur Ward law. At this revelation he started up, stung with hate as well as love, and his tortured mind re- belled furiously. He repeated his vow that this should never be ; and soon a scheme came into his head to prevent it ; but it was a project so wild and dangerous, that, even as his heated brain hatched it, his cooler judgment said, "Fly, madman, fly ! or this love will destroy you !" He listened to the voice of reason, and in another minute he was out of the premises. He fluttered to his lodgings. When he got there he could not go in ; he turned and fluttered about the streets, not know- ing or caring whither ; his mind was in a whirl ; and, what with his bodily fever and his boiling heart, passion began to overpower reason, that had held out so gallantly till now. He found himself at the harbor, staring with wild and bloodshot eyes at the Proserpine, he who, an hour ago, had seen that he had but one thing to do, — to try and forget young Wardlaw's bride. He groaned aloud, and ran wildly back into the town. He hurried up and down one narrow street, rag- ing inwardly, like some wild beast in its den. By-and-by his mood changed, and he hung round a lamp-post, and fell to moaning and la- menting his hard fate, and hers. A policeman came up, took him for a maudlin drunkard, and half advised, half admonished, him to go home. At that he gave a sort of fierce, despairing snarl, and ran into the next street, to be alone. Tn this street he found a shop open, and light- ed, though it was but five o'clock in the morning. It, was a barber's, whose customers were work- ing-people. Hair - cutting, sixpence. East SHAVING, THREEPENCE. HOT COFFEE, FOUR- PENCE the cup. Seaton's eye fell upon this shop. He looked at it fixedly a moment from the opposite side of the way, and then hurried on. He turned suddenly and came back. He crossed the road and entered the shop. The barber was leaning over the stove, removing a can of boiling water from the fire to the hob. He turned at the sound of Seaton's step, and revealed an ugly countenance, rendered sinister by a squint. Seaton dropped into a chair, and said, " I want my beard taken off." The man looked at him, if it could be called looking at him, and said, dryly, "Oh, do ye? How much am I to have for that job ?" "You know your own charge." " Of course I do : threepence a chin." " Very well. Be quick then." " Stop a bit : that is my charge to working- folk. I must have something more off you." " Very well, man, I'll pay you double." "My price to you is ten shillings." "Why, what is that for?" asked Seaton, in some alarm ; he thought, in his confusion, the man must have read his heart. " I'll tell ye why," said the squinting barber. " No, I won't : I'll show ye." He brought a small mirror, and suddenly clapped it before Sea- ton's eyes. Seaton started at his own image; wild, ghastly, and the eyes so bloodshot. The barber chuckled. This start was an extorted compliment to his own sagacity. "Now wasn't I right ?" said he ; ' ' did I ought to take the bead off such a mug as that — for less than ten shillings?" " I see," groaned Seaton ; "you think I have committed some crime. One man sees me weep- ing with misery ; he calls me a drunkard ; an- other sees me pale with the anguish of my break- ing heart ; he calls me a felon : may God's curse light on him and you, and all mankind !" "All right, "said the squinting barber, apathet- ically ; "my price is ten bob, whether or no." Seaton felt in his pockets. " I have not got the money about me," said he. "Oh, I'm not particular ; leave your watch." Seaton handed the squinting vampire his watch without another word, and let his head fall upon his breast. The barber cut his beard close with the scis- sors, and made trivial remarks from time to time, but received no reply. At last, Extortion having put him in a good- humor, he said, "Don't be so down-hearted, my lad. You are not the first that has got into trouble, and had to change faces." Seaton vouchsafed no reply. The barber shaved him clean, and was as- tonished at the change, and congratulated him. "Nobody will ever know you," said he ; " and I'll tell you why ; your mouth, it is inclined to FOUL PLAY. 21 turn up a little ; now a mustache it bends down, and that alters such a mouth as yours entirely. But, I'll tell you what, taking off this beard shows me something : you are a gentleman it Make it a sovereign, sir." Seaton staggered out of the place without a word. " Sulky, eh ?" muttered the barber. He gath- ered up some of the long hair he had cutoff Sea- ton's chin with his scissors, admired it, and put it away in paper. While thus employed, a regular customer looked in for his cup of coffee. It was the police- man who had taken Seaton for a convivial soul. CHAPTER VII. General Rolleston's servants made several trips to the Proserpine, carrying boxes, etc. But Helen herself clung to the house till the last moment. " Oh, papa !" she cried, " I need all my resolution, all my good faith, to keep my word with Arthur, and leave you. Why, why did I promise ? Why am I such a slave" to my word ?" " Because," said the old General, with a voice not so firm as usual, "I have always told you that a lady is not to be inferior to a gentleman in any virtue except courage. I've heard my mother say so often ; and I've taught it to my Helen. And, my girl, where would be the merit of keeping our word, if we only kept it when it cost us nothing ?" He promised to come after, in three months at farthest, and the brave girl di'ied her tears as well as she could, not to add to the sadness he fought against as gallantly as he had often fought the enemies of his country. "The Proserpine was to sail at two o'clock : at a little before one, a gentleman boarded her, and informed the captain that he was a mission- ary, the Rev. John Hazel, returning home, after a fever: and wished to take a berth in the Pros- erpine. The mate looked him full in the face ; and then told him there was very little accommoda- tion for passengers, and it had all been secured by White and Co. for a young lady and her servants. Mr. Hazel replied that his means Were small, and moderate accommodation would serve him ; but he must go to England without delay. Captain Hudson put in his gracious word : " Then jump off the jetty at high tide and swim there; no room for black coats in my ship." Mr. Hazel looked from one to the other pite- ously. "Show me some mercy, gentlemen; my rery life depends on it." " Very sorry, sir,'' said the mate ; "but it is impossible. There's the Shannon, you can go in her." "But she is under repairs, so I am told." " Well, there are a hundred and fifty carpen- ters on to her ; and she will come out of port in our wake." "Now, sir," said Hudson, roughly, "bundle down the ship's side again if you please ; this is a busy time. Hy! — rig the whip; here's the lady coming off to us.'' The missionary heaved a deep sigh, and went down into the boat that had brought him. But he was no sooner seated than he ordered the boatmen, somewhat peremptorily, to pull ashore as fast as they could row. His boat met the Rollestons, father and daughter, coming out, and he turned his pale face and eyed them as he passed. Helen Rol- leston was struck with that sorrowful counte- nance, and whispered her father, " That poor clergyman has just left the ship." She made sure he had been taking leave of some beloved one, bound for England. General Rolleston looked round, but the boats had passed each other, and the wan face was no longer visible. They were soon on board, and received with much obsequiousness. Helen was shown her cabin, and, observing the minute and zealous care that had been taken of her comfort, she said, " Somebody who loves me has been here," and turned her brimming eyes on her father. He looked quite puzzled ; but said nothing. Father and daughter were then left alone in the cabin, till the ship began to heave up her an- chor (she lay just at the mouth of the harbor), and then the boatswain was sent to give Gener- al Rolleston warning. Helen came up with him, pale and distressed. They exchanged a last embrace, and General Rolleston went down the ship's side. Helen hung over the bulwarks and waved her last adieu, though she could hardly see him for her tears. At this moment a four-oared boat swept along- side ; and Mr. Hazel came on board again. He pi-esented Hudson a written order to give the Rev. John Hazel a passage in the small berth abreast the main hatches. It was signed " For White and Co., James Seaton;" and was in- dorsed with a stamped acknowledgment of the passage-money, twenty-seven pounds. Hudson and Wylie, the mate, put their heads together over this. The missionary saw them consulting, and told them he had mentioned their mysterious conduct to Messrs. White and Co., and that Mr. Seaton had promised to stop the ship if their authority was resisted. " And I have paid my passage-money, and will not be turned out now except by force," said the rever- end gentleman, quietly. Wylie's head was turned away from Mr. Ha- zel's, and on its profile a most gloomy, vindic- tive look, so much so that Mr. Hazel was star- tled when the man turned his front face to him with a jolly, genial air, and said, "Well, sir, the truth is, we seamen don't want passengers aboard ships of this class ; they get in our way whenever it blows a capful. However, since you are here, make yourself as comfortable as you can." "There, that is enough palaver," said the cap- tain, in his offensive way. "Hoist the parson's traps aboard ; and sheer off, you. Anchor's apeak." He then gave his orders in stentorian roars ; the anchor was hove up, catted and fished ; one sail went up after another, the Proserpine's head came round, and away she bore for England with a fair wind. General Rolleston went slowly and heavily home, and often turned his head and looked wistfully at the ship putting out wing upon wing, and carrying off his child like a tiny prey. 22 FOUL PLAY. To change the comparison, it was only a ten- der vine detached from a great sturdy elm : yet the tree, thus relieved of its delicate encum- brance, felt bare ; and a soft thing was gone, that, seeking protection, had bestowed warmth ; had nestled and curled between the world's cold wind and that stalwart stem. As soon as he got home he lighted a cigar, and set to work to console himself by reflecting that it was but a temporary parting, since he had virtually resigned his post, and was only waiting in Sydney till he should have handed his papers in order over to his successor, and set- tled one or two private matters that could not take three months. When he had smoked his cigar, and reasoned away his sense of desolation, Nature put out her hand, and took him by the breast, and drew him gently op-stairs to take a look at his beloved daughter's bedroom, by way of seeing the last of her. The room had one window looking south, and another west ; the latter commanded a view of the sea. General Rolleston looked down at the floor, littered with odds and ends, — the dead leaves of dress that fall about a lady in the great process of packing, — and then gazed through the window at the flying Proserpine. He sighed, and lighted another cigar. Before he had half finished it, he stooped down and took up a little bow of ribbon that lay on the ground, and put it quietly in his bosom. In this act he was surprised by Sarah Wilson, who had come up to sweep all such waifs and strays into her own box. "La, sir," said she, rather crossly, "why didn't you tell me, and I'd have tidied the room: it is all huggevmugger, with Miss a leaving." And with this she went to the washing-stand to begin. General Rolleston's eye followed her movements, and he observed the water in one of the basins was rather red. "What!" said he, " has she had an accident ; cut her finger ?" "No, sir," said Wilson. " Her nose been bleeding, then ?" "No, sir." "Not from her finger, — nor — ? Let me look." He examined the basin narrowly, and his countenance fell. "Good heavens !" said he: "I wish I had seen this before ; she should not have gone to-day. Was it the agitation of part- ing ?" "Oh no," said Wilson; "don't go to fancy that. Why, it is not the first time by a many." "Not the first!" faltered Rolleston. "In Heaven's name why was I never told of this?" "Indeed, sir," said Wilson, eagerly, "you must not blame me, sir. It was as much as my place was worth to tell you, Miss is a young lady that will be obeyed ; and she give me strict orders not to let you know: but she is gone now : and I always thought it was a pity she kept it so dark ; but, as I was saying, sir, she would be obeyed." " Kept what so dark ?" "Why, sir, her spitting of blood at times : and turning so thin by what she used to be, poor dear young lady." General Rolleston groaned aloud. " And this she hid from me; from me?" He said no more, but kept looking bewildered and helpless, first at the basin, discolored- by his daughter's blood, and then at the Proserpine, that was car- rying her away, perhaps forever ; and, at the double sight, his iron features worked with cruel distress ; anguish so mute and male, that the woman Wilson, though not good for much, sat down and shed genuine' tears of pity. But he summoned all his fortitude, told Wil- son he could not say she was to blame, she had but obeyed her mistress's orders ; and we must all obey orders. " But now," said he, " it is me you ought to obey: tell me, 'does any doctor au tend her?" "None ever comes here, sir. But one day she let fall that she went to Dr. Valentine, him that has the name for disorders of the chest." In a very few minutes General Rolleston was at Dr. Valentine's house, and asked him bluntly what was the matter with his daughter. "Disease of the lungs," said the doctor, sim- p ] y- ^ The unhappy father then begged the doctor to give him his real opinion as to the degree of danger; and Dr. Valentine told him, with some feeling, that the case was not desperate, but was certainly alarming. Remonstrated with for letting the girl under- take a sea voyage, he replied rather evasively at first ; that the air of Sydney disagreed with his patient, and a sea voyage was more likely to do her good than harm, provided the weather was not downright tempestuous. " And who is to insure me against that ?" ask- ed the afflicted father. "Why, it is a good time of year,'" said Dr. Valentine; "and delay might have been fatal." Then, after a slight hesitation, " The fact is, sir," said he, "I gathered from her servant that a hus- band awaits Miss Rolleston in England ; and I must tell you, what of course I did not tell her, that the sooner she enters the married state the better. In fact, it is her one chance, in my opin- ion." General Rolleston pressed the doctor's hand, and went away without another word. Only he hurried his matters of business ; and took his passage in the Shannon. It was in something of a warrior's spirit that he prepared to follow his daughter and protect her ; but often he sighed at the invisible, insidi- ous nature of the foe, and wished it could have been a fair fight of bullets and bayonets, and his own the life at stake. The Shannon was soon ready for sea. But the gentleman who was to take General Rolleston's post met with something better, and declined it. General Rolleston, though chafing with impa- tience, had to give up going home in the Shannon. But an influential friend, Mr. Adolphus Savage, was informed of his difficulty, and obtained a year's leave of absence for him, and permis- sion to put young Savage in as his locum tenens ; which, by-the-by, is how politic men in general serve their friends. The Shannon sailed, but not until an incident had occurred that must not be entirely passed over. Old Mr. White called on General Rolles- ton with a long face, and told him James Seaton had disappeared. " Stolen any thing?" "Not a shilling. Indeed the last thing the FOUL PLAY. 2i) poor fellow did was to give us a proof of his hon- esty. It seems a passenger paid him twenty- seven pounds for a berth in the Proserpine just before she sailed. Well, sir, he might have put this in his pocket, and nobody been the wiser: but no, he entered the transaction, and the num- bers of the notes, and left the notes themselves in an envelope addressed to me. What I am most afraid of is, that some harm has come to him, poor lad." "What day did he disappear ?" "The 1 1th of November." "The day my daughter sailed for England," said General Rolleston, thoughtfully. "Was it, sir? Yes, I remember. She went in the Proserpine." General Rolleston knitted his brows in silence for some time; then he said, "I'll set the de- tectives on his track." "Not to punish him, General. We don't want him punished." "To punish him, protect him, or avenge him, as the case may require," was the reply, uttered very gravely. Mr. White took his leave. General Rolleston rang the bell, and directed his servant to go for Hexham, the detective. He then rang the bell again, and sent for Sa- rah Wilson. He put some searching questions to this woman ; and his interrogatory had hard- ly concluded when Hexham was announced. Genera] Rolleston dismissed the girl, and, look- ing now very grave indeed, asked the detective whether he remembered James Seaton. "That I do, sir." "He has levanted." "Taken much, sir?" "Not a shilling." "Gotie to the diggings?" "That you must find out." "What day was he first missed, sir?" " Eleventh of November. The very day Miss Rolleston left." Hexham took out a little greasy note-book, and examined it. "Eleventh of November," said he, "then I almost think I have got a clue, sir; but I shall know more when I have had a word with two parties." With this he retired. But he came again at night, and brought Gen- eral Rolleston some positive information ; with this, however, we shall not trouble the reader just here: for General Rolleston himself related it, and the person to whom he did relate it, and the attendant circumstances, gave it a peculiar interest. Suffice it to say here, that General Rolleston went on board the Shannon charged with curi- ous information about James Seaton ; and sail- ed for England in the wake of the Proserpine, and about two thousancLmiles astern. CHAPTER VIII. Wardlaw was at home before this with his hands full of business ; and it is time the reader should be let into one secret at least, which this merchant had contrived to conceal from the City of London, and from his own father, and from every human creature, except one poor, simple devoted soul, called Michael Penfold. There are men, who seem stupid, yet general- ly go right ; there are also clever men, who ap- pear to have the art of blundering wisely: u sa- pienter descendunt in infernum" as the ancients have it ; and some of these latter will even lie on their backs, after a fall, and lift up their voices, and prove to you that in the nature of things they ought to have gone up, and their being down is monstrous ; illusory. Arthur Wardlaw was not quite so clever as all that; but still he misconducted the business of the firm with perfect ability from the first month he entered on it. Like those ambitious railways, which ruin a goodly trunk with excess of branches, not to say twigs, he set to work ex- tending, and extending, and sent the sap of the healthy old concern a flying to the ends of the earth. He was not only too ambitious, and not cool enough ; he was also unlucky, or under a curse, or something ; for things well conceived broke down in his hands, under petty accidents. And, besides, his new correspondents and agents hit him cruelly hard. Then what did he? Why, shot good money after bad, and lost both. He could not retrench, for his game was conceal- ment ; his father was kept in the dark, and drew his four thousand a year, as usual, and, upon any hesitation in that respect, would have called in an accountant and wound up the concern. But this tax upon the receipts, though inconven- ient, was a trifle compared with the series of heavy engagements that were impending. The future was so black, that Wardlaw junior was sore tempted to realize twenty thousand pounds, which a man in his position could easily do, and fly the country. But this would have been to give up Helen Rolleston ; and he loved her too well. His brain was naturally subtle and fertile in expedients ; so he brought all its powers to bear on a double problem, — how to marry Helen, and restore the concern he had mismanaged to its former state. For this, a large sum of mon- ey was needed, not less than ninety thousand pounds. The difficulties were great; but he entered on this project with two advantages. In the first place, he enjoyed excellent credit; in the second, he was not disposed to be scrupulous. He had been cheated several times; and noth- ing undermines feeble rectitude more than that. Such a man as Wardlaw is apt to establish a sort of account current with humanity. "Several fellow-creatures have cheated me. Well, I must get as much back, by hook or by crook, from several fellow-creatures." After much hard thought, he conceived his double master-stroke : and it was to execute this he went out to Australia. We have seen that he persuaded Helen Rolles- ton to come to England and be married ; but, as to the other part of his project, that is a matter for the reader to watch, as it develops itself. His first act of business, on reaching England, was to insure the freights of the Proserpine and the Shannon. He sent Michael Penfold to Lloyd's with the requisite vouchers, including the receipts of the gold merchants. Penfold easily insured the Shannon, whose freight was valued at only six | thousand pounds. The Proserpine, with her : cargo, and a hundred and thirty thousand pounds 21 FOUL PLAY. of specie to boot, was another matter. Some underwriters had an objection to specie, being subject to theft as well as shipwreck ; other un- derwriters, applied to by Penfold, acquiesced ; others called on Wardlaw himself, to ask a few questions, and he replied to them courteously, but with a certain nonchalance, treating it as an affair which might be big to them, but was not of particular importance to a merchant doing business on his scale. To one underwriter, Condell, with whom he was on somewhat intimate terms, he said, "I wish I could insure the Shannon at her value ; but that is impossible : the City of London could not do it. The Proserpine brings me some cases of specie, but my true treasure is on board the Shannon. She carries my bride, sir." " Oh, indeed ! Miss Rolleston ?" 5 ' Ah, I remember ; you have seen her. Then you will not be surprised at a proposal I shall make you. Underwrite the Shannon a million pounds, to be paid by you if harm befalls my Helen. You need not look so astonished ; I was only joking ; you gentlemen deal with none but substantial values ; and, as for me, a million would no more compensate me for losing her, than for losing my own life." The tears were in his pale eyes as he said these words; and Mr. Condell eyed him with sympathy. But he soon recovered himself, and was the man of business again. " Oh, the specie on board the Proserpine ? Well, I was in Aus- tralia, you know, and bought that specie myself of the merchants whose names are attached to the receipts. I deposited the cases with White and Co. at Sydney. Penfold will show you the receipt. I intrusted Joseph Wylie, mate of the Proserpine, and a trustworthy person, to see them stowed away in the Proserpine by White and Co. Hudson is a good seaman ; and the Proserpine a new ship, built by Mare. We have nothing to fear but the ordinary perils of the sea." " So one would think," said Mr. Condell, and took his leave ; but, at the door, he hesitated, and then, looking down a little sheepishly, said, "Mr. Wardlaw, may I offer you a piece of ad- vice ?" "Certainly." " Then, double the insurance on the Shannon, if you can." With these words he slipped out, evidently to avoid questions he did not intend to answer. Wardlaw stared after him, stupidly at first, and then stood up and put his hand to his head in a sort of amazement. Then he sat down again, ashy pale, and with the dew on his fore- head, and muttered faintly, "Double — the insur- ance — of the — Shannon !" Men who walk in crooked paths are very sub- ject to such surprises ; doomed, like Ahab, to be pierced, through the joints of their armor, by ran- dom shafts ; by words uttered in one sense, but conscience interprets them in another. It took a good many underwriters to insure the Proserpine's freight; but the business was done at last. Then Wardlaw, who had feigned insouciance so admirably in that part of his interview with Condell, went, without losing an hour, and raised a large sum of money on the insured freight, to meet the bills that were coming due for the gold (for he had paid for most of it in paper at short dates), and also other bills that were approaching maturity. This done, he breathed again, safe for a month or two from every thing short of a gen- eral panic, and full of hope from his coming mas- ter-stroke. Buttwo months soon pass when a man has a flock of kites in the air. Pass ? They fly. So now he looked out anxiously for his Austra- lian ships ; and went to Lloyd's every day to hear if either had been seen, or heard of by steamers, or by faster sailing vessels than themselves. And, though Condell had underwritten the Proserpine to the tune of eight thousand pounds, yet still his mysterious words rang strangely in the merchant's ears, and made him so uneasy that he employed a discreet person to sound Con- dell as to what he meant by " double the insur- ance of the Shannon." It turned out to be the simplest affair in the world ; Condell had secret information that the Shannon was in bad repair, so he had advised his friend to insure her heavily. For the same reason, he declined to underwrite her freight himself. With respect to those ships, our readers al- ready know two things, of which Wardlaw him- self, nota bene, had no idea; namely, that the Shannon had sailed last, instead of first, and that Miss Rolleston was not on board of her, but in the Proserpine, two thousand miles ahead. To that, your superior knowledge, we, posters of the sea and land, are about to make a large addition, and relate things strange, but true. While that anxious and plotting merchant strains his eyes seaward, trying hard to read the future, we carry you, in a moment of time, across the Pacific, and board the leading vessel, the good ship Proserpine, homeward bound. The ship left Sydney with a fair wind, but soon encountered adverse weather, and made slow progess, being close-hauled, which was her worst point of sailing. She pitched a good deal, and that had a very ill effect on Miss Rol- leston. She was not seasick, but thoroughly out of sorts : and, in one week, became perceptibly paler and thinner than when she started. The young clergyman, Mr. Hazel, watched her with respectful anxiety, and this did not escape her feminine observation. She noted quietly that those dark eyes of his followed her with a mournful tenderness, but withdrew their gaze when she looked at him. Clearly, he was inter- ested in her, but had no desire to intrude upon her attention. He would bring up the squabs for her, and some of his own wraps, when she staid on deck, and was prompt with his arm when the vessel lurched ; and showed her those other little attentions which are called for on board ship, but without a word. Yet, when she thanked him in the simplest and shortest way, his great eyes flashed with pleasure, and the color mounted to his very temples. Engaged young ladies are, for various reasons, more sociable with the other sex than those who are still on the universal mock-defensive : a ship, like a distant country, thaws even English re- serve, and women in general are disposed to ad- mit ecclesiastics to certain privileges. No won- der then that Miss Rolleston, after a few days, met Mr. Hazel half-way ; and they made ac- quaintance on board the Proserpine, in mono- FOUL PLAY. 25 syllables at first; but, the ice once fairly broken, the intercourse of mind became rather rapid. At first it was a mere intellectual exchange, but one very agreeable to Miss Kolleston ; for a fine memory, and omnivorous reading from his very boyhood, with the habit of taking notes, and reviewing them, had made Mr. Hazel a walking dictionary, and a walking essayist if required. But when it came to something which most of all the young lady had hoped from this tempo- rary acquaintance, viz., religious instruction, she found him indeed as learned on that as on other topics, but cold, and devoid of unction : so much so that one day she said to him, "I can hardly believe you have ever been a missionary." But at that he seemed so distressed, that she was sorry for him, and said sweetly, "Excuse me, Mr." Hazel, ray remark was in rather bad taste, I fear." " Not at all," said he. " Of course I am un- fit for missionary work, or I should not be here." Miss Rolleston took a good look at him, but said nothing. However, his reply and her peru- sal of his countenance satisfied her that he was a man with very little petty vanity and petty ir- ritability. One day they were discoursing of gratitude ; and Mr. Hazel said he had a poor opinion of those persons who speak of " the burden of grati- tude," and make a fuss about being "laid un- der an obligation." "As for me" said he, "I have owed such a debt, and found the sense of it very sweet." "But perhaps you were always hoping to make a return," said Helen. "That I was : hoping against hope." "Do you think people are grateful, in gen- eral?" "No, Miss Rolleston, I do not." "Well, I think they are. To me, at least. Why, I have experienced gratitude even in a convict. It was a poor man, who had been transported for something or other, and he beg- ged papa to take him for his gardener. Papa did, and he was so grateful that, do you know, he suspected our house was to be robbed, and he actually watched in the garden night after night : and, what do you think ? the house was attacked by a whole gang ; but poor Mr. Seaton confronted them and shot one, and was wound- ed cruelly ; but he beat them off for us ; and was not that gratitude ?" While she was speaking so earnestly, Mr. Hazel's blood seemed to run through his veins like heavenly fire, but he said nothing, and the lady resumed with gentle fervor, "Well, we got him a clerk's place in a shipping-office, and heard no more of him ; but he did not forget us ; my cabin here was fitted up with every com- fort, and every delicacy. I thanked papa for it ; but he looked so blank I saw directly he knew nothing about it ; and, now I think of it, it was Mr. Seaton. I am positive it was. Poor fel- low ! And I should not even know him if I saw him." Mr. Hazel observed, in a low voice, that Mr. Seaton's conduct did not seem wonderful to him. "Still," said he, "one is glad to find there is some good left even in a criminal." "A criminal," cried Helen Rolleston, firing up. " Pray, who says he was a criminal ? Mr. Hazel, once for all, no friend of mine ever de- serves such a name as that. A friend of mine may commit some great error or imprudence; but that is all. The poor grateful soul was never guilty of any downright wickedness : that stands to reason" Mr. Hazel did not encounter this feminine logic with his usual ability ; he muttered some- thing or other, with a trembling lip, and left her so abruptly, that she asked herself whether she had inadvertently said any thing that could have offended him ; and awaited an explanation. But none came. The topic was never revived by Mr. Hazel ; and his manner, at their next meeting, showed he liked her none the worse that she stood up for her friends. The wind steady from the west for two whole days, and the Proserpine showed her best sail- ing qualities, and ran four hundred and fifty miles in that time. Then came a dead calm, and the sails flap- ped lazily, and the masts described an arc ; and the sun broiled ; and the sailors whistled ; and the captain drank ; and the mate encouraged him. During this calm Miss Rolleston fell down- right ill, and quitted the deck. Then Mr. Ha- zel was very sad : borrowed all the books in the ship, and read them, and took notes : and, when he had done this, he was at leisure to read men, and so began to study Hiram Hudson, Joseph Wylie, and others, and take a few notes about them. From these we select some that are better worth the reader's attention than any thing we could relate in our own persons at this stagnant part of the story. PASSAGES FROM MR. HAZEL'S DIARY. " Characters on board the Proserpine. " There are two sailors, messmates, who have formed an antique friendship; their names are John Welch and Samuel Cooper. Welch is a very able seaman, and a chatterbox. Cooper is a good sailor, but very silent ; only what he does say is much to the purpose. "The gabble of Welch is agreeable to the silent Cooper; and Welch admires Cooper's taciturnity. "I asked Welch what made him like Cooper so much. And he said, ' Why, you see, sir, he is my messmate, for one thing, and a seaman that knows his work ; and then he has been well eddycated, and he knows when to hold his tongue, does Sam.' "I asked Cooper why he was so fond of Welch. He only grunted in an uneasy way at first; but when I pressed for a reply, he let out two words, — ' Capital company;' and got away from me. " Their friendship, though often roughly ex- pressed, is really a tender and touching senti- ment. I think either of these sailors would bare his back and take a dozen lashes in place of his messmate. I too once thought I had made such a friend. Eheu ! " Both Cooper and Welch seem, by their talk, to consideV the ship a living creature. Cooper chews. Welch only smokes, and often lets his pipe out : he is so voluble. "Captain Hudson is quite a character : or, S6 FOUL PLAY. I might say two characters ; for he is one man when he is sober, and another when he is the worse for liquor : and that I am sorry to see is very often. Captain Hudson, sober, is a rough, bearish seaman, with a quick, experienced eye, that takes in every rope in the ship, as he walks up and down his quarter-deck. He either evades or bluntly declines conversation, and gives his whole mind to sailing his ship. " Captain Hudson, drunk, is a garrulous man, who seems to have drifted back into the past. He comes up to you and talks of his own accord, and always about himself, and what he did fif- teen or twenty years since. He forgets whatever has occurred half an hour ago; and his eye, which was an eagle's, is now a mole's. He no longer sees what his sailors are doing alow or aloft ; to be sure, he no longer cares ; his present ship may take care of herself while he is talking of his past ones. But the surest indicia of ine- briety in Hudson are these two. First, his nose is red. Secondly, he discourses upon a seaman's duty to his employers. Ebrius rings the changes on his ' duty to his employers ' till drowsiness at- tacks his hearers. Cicero de officiis was all very well at a certain period of one's life : but bibu- lus nauta de officiis is rather too much. " N.B. — Except when his nose is red, not a word about his ' duty to his employers.' That phrase, like a fine lady, never ventures into the morning air. It is purely post-prandial, and sa- cred to occasions when he is utterly neglecting his duty to his employers, and to every body else. "All this is ridiculous enough, but somewhat alarming. To think that her precious life should be intrusted to the care and skill of so unreliable a captain ! " Joseph Wylie, the mate, is less eccentric, but even more remarkable. He is one of those powerfully built fellows whom Nature, one would think, constructed to gain all their ends by force and directness. But no such thing ; he goes about as softly as a cat ; is always popping out of holes ajid corners ; and I can see he watches me, and tries to hear what I say to her. He is civil to me when I speak to him ; yet I notice he avoids me quietly. Altogether there is some- thing about him that puzzles me. Why was he so reluctant to let me on board as a passenger ? Why did he tell a downright falsehood? For he said there was no room for me ; yet, even now, there are two cabins vacant, and he has taken possession of them. " The mate of this ship has several barrels of spirits in his cabin, or rather, cabins, and it is he who makes the captain drunk. I learned this from one of the boys. This looks ugly. I fear Wylie is a bad, designing man, who wishes to ruin the captain, and so get his place. But, meantime, the ship might be endangered by this drunkard's misconduct. I shall watch Wylie closely, and perhaps put the captain on his guard against this false friend. " Last night a breeze got up about sunset, and H. E. came on deck for half an hour. I wel- comed her as calmly as I could ; but I felt my voice tremble and my heart throb. She told me the voyage tired her much ; but it was the last she should have to make. How strange, how hellish (God forgive me for saying so !) it seems that she should love him. But, does she love him ? Can she love him ? Could she love him if she knew all ? Know him she shall before she marries him. For the present, be still, my heart. " She soon went below and left me desolate. I wandered all ajbout the ship, and, at last, I came upon the inseparables, Welch and Cooper. They were squatted on the deck, and Welch's tongue going as usual. He was talking about this Wylie, and saying that, in all his ships, he had never known such a mate as this; why, the captain was under his thumb. He then gave a string of captains, each of whom would have given his mate a round dozen at the gangway, if he had taken so much on him as this one does. " ' Grog !' suggested Cooper, in extenuation. "Welch admitted Wylie was liberal with that, and friendly enough with the men ; but still, he preferred to see a ship commanded by the captain, and not by a lubber like Wylie. "I expressed some surprise at this term, and said I had envied Wylie's nerves in a gale of wind we encountered early in the voyage. "The talking sailor explained, ' In course, he has been to sea afore this, and weathered many a gale. But so has the cook. That don't make a man a sailor. You ask him how to send down a to'-gallant yard or gammon a bowsprit, or even mark a lead line, and he'll stare at ye, like Old Nick, when the angel caught him with the red- hot tongs, and questioned him out of the Church Catechism. Ask Sam there, if ye don't believe me. Sam, what do you think of this Wylie for a seaman?' " Cooper could not afford any thing so pre- cious, in his estimate of things, as a word ; but he lifted a great brawny hand, and gave a snap with his finger and thumb, that disposed of the mate's pretensions to seamanship more express- ively than words could have done it. "The breeze has freshened, and the ship glides rapidly through the water, bearing us all home- ward. Helen Rolleston has resumed her place upon the deck ; and all seems bright again. I ask myself how we existed without the sight of her. "This morning the wind shifted to the south- west ; the captain surprised us by taking in sail. But his sober eye had seen something more than ours ; for at noon it blew a gale, and by sunset it was deemed prudent to bring the ship's head to the wind, and Ave are now Lying to. The ship lurches, and the wind howls through the bare rigging ; but she rides buoyantly, and no danger is apprehended. "Last night, as I lay in my cabin, unable to sleep, I heard some heavy blows strike the ship's side repeatedly, causing quite a vibration. I felt alarmed, and went out to tell the captain. But I was obliged to go on my hands and knees, such was the force of the wind. Passing the mate's cabin, I heard sounds that made me lis- ten acutely ; and I then found the blows were being struck inside the ship. I got to the cap- tain and told him. * Oh,' said he, { ten to one it's the mate nailing down his chests, or the like." But I assured him the blows struck the side of the ship, and, at my earnest request, he came out and listened. He swore a great oath, and said the lubber would be through the ship's side. He then tried the cabin door, but it was locked. FOUL PLAY. " The sounds ceased directly. " We called to the mate, but received no re- ply for a long time. At last Wylie came out of the gun-room, looking rather pale, and asked what was the matter. " I told him he ought to know best, for the blows were heard where he had just come from. "'Blows!' said he; 'I believe you. Why, a tierce of butter had got adrift, and was bump- ing up and down the hold like thunder.' Pie then asked us whether that was what we had disturbed him for, entered his cabin, and almost slammed the door in our faces. "I remarked to the captain on his disrespect- ful conduct. The captain was civil, and said I was right ; he was a cross-grained unmanage- able brute, and he wished he was out of the ship. 'But you see, sir, he has got the ear of the mer- chant ashore ; and so I am obliged to hold a candle to the devil, as the saying is.' He then fired a volley of oaths and abuse at the offend- er; and, not to encourage foul language, I re- tired to my cabin. "The wind declined towards daybreak, and the ship recommenced her voyage at 8 a.m., but under treble -reefed topsails and reefed courses. "I caught the captain and mate talking to- gether in the friendliest way possible. That Hudson is a humbug ; there is some mystery be- tween him and the mate. " To-day H. R. was on deck, for several hours, conversing sweetly, and looking like the angel she is. But happiness soon flies from me ; a steamer came in sight, bound for Sydney. She signalled us to heave to, and send a boat. This was done, and the boat brought back a letter for her. It seems they took us for the Shannon, in which ship she was expected. 1 ' The letter was from him. How her cheek flushed and her eye beamed as she took it. And oh, the sadness, the agony, that stood beside her unheeded. " I left the deck ; I could not have contained myself. What a thing is wealth ! By wealth, that wretch can stretch out his hand across the ocean, and put a letter into her hand under my very eye. Away goes all that I have gained by being near her while he is far away. He is not in England now, — he is here. His odious pres- ence has driven me from her. Oh that I could be a child again, or in my grave, to get away from this Hell of Love and Hate." At this point we beg leave to take the narra- tive into our own hands again. Mr. Hazel actually left the deck to avoid the sight of Helen Kolleston's flushed cheek and beaming eyes, reading Arthur Wardlaw's let- ter. And here we may as well observe that he re- tired not merely because the torture was hard to bear. He had some disclosures to make, on reaching England ; but his good sense told him this was not the time or the place to make them, nor Helen Rolleston the person to whom, in the first instance, they ought to be made. While he tries to relieve his swelling heart by putting its throbs on paper (and, in truth, this is some faint relief, for want of which many a less unhappy man than Hazel has gone mad), let us stay by the lady's side, and read her letter with her. u Russell Square, Dec. 15, 1SC5. " My dear Love : — Hearing that the Ante- lope steam-packet was going to Sydney, by way of Cape Horn, I have begged the captain, who is under some obligations to me, to keep a good lookout for the Shannon, homeward bound, and board her with these lines, weather permitting. "Of course the chances are you will not re- ceive them at sea; but still you possibly may; and my heart is so full of you, I seize any ex- cuse for overflowing ; and then I picture to my- self that bright face reading an unexpected let- ter in mid-ocean, and so I taste beforehand the greatest pleasure my mind can conceive, — the delight of giving you pleasure, my own sweet Helen. " News, I have little. You know how deeply and devotedly you are beloved, — know it so well that I feel words are almost wasted in repeating it. Indeed, the time, I hope, is at hand when the word ' love ' will hardly be mentioned be- tween us. For my part, I think it will be too visible in every act, and look, and word of mine, to need repetition. We do not speak much about the air we live in. We breathe it, and speak with it, not of it. "I suppose all lovers are jealous. I think I should go mad if you were to give me a rival ; but then I do not understand that ill-natured jealousy which would rob the beloved object of all affections but the one. I know my Helen loves her father, — loves him, perhaps, as well, or better, than she does me. Well, in spite of that, I love him too. Do you know, I never see that erect form, that model of courage and probity, come into a room, but I say to myself, 'Here comes my benefactor ; but for this man there would be no Helen in the world.' Well, dear- est, an unexpected circumstance has given me a little military influence (these things do happen in the City) ; and I really believe that, what with his acknowledged merits (I am secretly informed a very high personage said, the other day, he had not received justice), and the influence I speak of, a post will shortly be offered to your father that will enable him to live, henceforth, in Eng.- land, with comfort, I might say, affluence. Per- haps he might live with us. That depends upon himself. "Looking forward to this, and my own still greater happiness, diverts my mind awhile from the one ever - pressing anxiety. But, alas! it will return. By this time my Helen is on the seas, — the terrible, the treacherous, the cruel seas, that spare neither beauty nor virtue, nor the longing hearts at home. I have conducted this office for some years, and thought I knew care and anxiety. But I find I knew neither till now. " I have two ships at sea, the Shannon and the Proserpine. The Proserpine carries eighteen chests of specie, worth a hundred and thirty thou- sand pounds. I don't care one straw whether she sinks or swims. But the Shannon carries my darling; and every gust at night awakens me, and every day I go into the great room at Lloyd's and watch the anemometer. God ! be merciful, and bring my angel safe to me! O God ! be just, and strike her not for my offenses ! " Besides the direct perils of the sea, are some others you might escape by prudence. Pray avoid the night air, for my sake, who could not 28 FOUL PLAY. live if any evil befell you ; and be careful in your diet. You were not looking so well as usual when I left. Would I had words to make you know your own value. Then you would feel it a duty to be prudent. " But I must not sadden yon with my fears ; let me turn to my hopes. How bright they are ! what joy, what happiness, is sailing towards me, nearer and nearer every day ! I ask myself what am I that such paradise should be mine. "My love, when we are one, shall we share every thought, or shall I keep commerce, specu- lation, and its temptations away from your pure spirit ? Sometimes I think I should like to have neither thought nor occupation unshared by you ; and that you would purify trade itself by your contact ; at other times I say to myself, ' Oh, nev- er soil that angel with your miserable business ; but go home to her as if you were going from earth to heaven, for a few blissful hours.' But you shall decide this question, and every other. ' ' Must I close this letter ? Must I say no more, though I have scarcely begun ? " Yes, I will end, since, perhaps, you will nev- er see it. - " When I have sealed it, I mean to hold it in my clasped hands, and so pray the Almighty to take it safe to you, and to bring you safe to him who can never know peace nor joy till he sees you once more. Your devoted and anxious lover, Arthur Wardlaw." Helen Rolleston read this letter more than once. She liked it none the less for being dis- connected and unbusiness-like. She had seen her Arthur's business letters ; models of courte- ous conciseness. She did not value such com- positions. This one she did. She smiled over it, all beaming and blushing; she kissed it, and read it again, and sat with it in her lap. But by-and-by her mood changed, and, when Mr. Hazel ventured upon deck again, he found her with her forehead sinking on her extended arm, and the lax hand of that same arm holding the letter. She was crying. The whole drooping attitude was so lovely, so feminine, yet so sad, that Hazel stood irresolute, looking wistfully at her. She caught sight of him, and, by a natural impulse, turned gently away, as if to hide her tears. But the next moment she altered her mind, and said, with a quiet dignity that came naturally to her at times, "Why should I hide my care from you, sir ? Mr. Hazel, may I speak to you as a clergyman?" "Certainly," said Mr. Hazel, in a somewhat faint voice. She pointed to a seat, and he sat down near her. She was silent for some time ; her lip quiver- ed a little ; she was struggling inwardly for that decent composure which on certain occasions distinguishes the lady from the mere woman ; and it was with a pretty firm voice she said what follows : — " I am going to tell you a little secret: one I have kept from my own father. It is, — that I have not very long to live." Her hazel eye rested calmly on his face while she said these words quietly. He received them with amazement at first ; amazement, that soon deepened into horror. "What do you mean?" he gasped. "WIktc words are these ?" "Thank you for minding so much," said she sweetly. " I will tell you I have fits of coughing, not frequent, but violent ; and then blood very often comes from my lungs. That is a bad sign, you know. I have been so for four months now, and I am a good deal wasted ; my hand used to be very plump, look at it now. — Poor Arthur !" She turned away her head to drop a gentle, unselfish tear or two ; and Hazel stared with in- creasing alarm at the lovely but wasted hand she still held out to him, and glanced, too, at Arthur Wardlaw's letter, held slightly by the beloved fingers. He said nothing, and, when she looked round again, he was pale and trembling. The revela- tion was so sudden. "Pray be calm, sir," said she. "We need speak of this no more. But now, I think, you will not be surprised that I come to you for re- ligious advice and consolation, short as our ac- quaintance is." "I am in no condition to give them," said Hazel, in great agitation. " I can think of noth- ing but how to save you. May Heaven help me, and give me wisdom for that." "This is idle," said Helen Rolleston, gently, but firmly. "I have had the best advice for months, and I get worse ; and, Mr. Hazel, I shall never be better. So aid me to bow to the will of Heaven. Sir, I do not repine at leaving the world ; but it does grieve me to think how my departure will affect those whose happiness is very, very dear to me." She then looked at the letter, blushed, and hesitated a moment ; but ended by giving it to him whom she had applied to as her religious adviser. "Oblige me by reading that. And, when you have, I think you will grant me a favor I wish to ask you. Poor fellow ! so full of hopes that I am doomed to disappoint." She rose to hide her emotion, and left Arthur Wardlaw's letter in the hands of him who loved her, if possible, more devotedly than Arthur Wardlaw did ; and she walked the deck pensive- ly, little dreaming how strange a thing she had done. As for Hazel, he was in a situation poignant with agony ; only the heavy blow that had just fallen had stunned and benumbed him. He felt a natural repugnance to read this letter. But she had given him no choice. He read it. In reading it he felt a mortal sickness come over him, but he persevered ; he read it, carefully to the end, and he was examining the signature keen- ly, when Miss Rolleston rejoined him, and, tak- ing the letter from him, placed it in her bosom before his eyes. "He loves me ; does he not ?" said she, wist- fully. Hazel looked half stupidly in her face for a moment; then, with a candor which was part of his character, replied, doggedly, "Yes, the man who wrote that letter loves you." "Then you can pity him, and I may venture to ask you the favor to — It will be a bitter grief and disappointment to him. Will you break it to him as gently as you can ; will you say that his Helen— Will you tell him what I have told you?" FOUL FLAY. 29 "I decline." This point-blank refusal surprised Helen Rol- leston ; all the more that it was uttered with a certain sullenness, and even asperity, she had never seen till then in this gentle clergyman. It made her fear she had done wrong in ask- ing it ; and she looked ashamed and distressed. However, the explanation soon followed. "My business," said he, "is to prolong your precious life ; and making up your mind to die is not the way. You shall have no encouragement in such weakness from me. Fray let me be your physician." "Thank you," said Helen, coldly; "I have my own physician." "No doubt: but he shows me his incapacity, by allowing you to live on pastry and sweets ; things that are utter poison to you. Disease of the lungs is curable, but not by drugs and un- wholesome food." " Mr. Hazel," said the lady, "we will drop the subject, if you please. It has taken an un- interesting turn." " To you, perhaps ; but not to me." *? Excuse me, sir ; if you took that real friend- ly interest in me and my condition I was vain enough to think you might, you would hardly have refused me the first favor I ever asked you ; and," drawing herself up proudly, "need I say the last?" "You are unjust," said Hazel, sadly; "un- just beyond endurance. I refuse you any thing that is for your good? I, who would lay down my life with unmixed joy for you ?" " Mr. Hazel !" And she drew back from him with a haughty stare. " Learn the truth why I can not, and will not, talk to Arthur Wardlaw about you. For one thing, he is my enemy, and I am his." " His enemy ? my Arthur's !" "His mortal enemy. And I am going to England to clear an innocent man, and expose Arthur Wardlaw's guilt." "Indeed," said Helen, with lofty contempt. "And pray what has he done to youf "He had a benefactor, a friend ; he entrap- ped him into cashing a note of hand, which he must have known or suspected to be forged ; then basely deserted him at the trial, and blast- ed his friend's life forever." "Arthur Wardlaw did that?" "He did; and that very James Seaton was his victim." Her delicate nostrils were expanded with wrath, and her eyes flashed fire. " Mr. Hazel, you are a liar and a slanderer." The man gave a kind of shudder, as if cold steel had passed through his heart. But his fortitude was great; he said doggedly, "Time will show. Time, and a jury of our countrymen." "I will be his witness. I will say, this is malice of a rival. Yes, sir, you forget that you have let out the motive of this wicked slander. You love me yourself: Heaven forgive me for profaning the name of love !" "Heaven forgive you for blaspheming the purest, fondest love that ever one creature laid at the feet of another. Yes, Helen Rolleston, I love you; and will save you from the grave and from the villain Wardlaw; both from one and the other." "Oh," said Helen, clenching her teeth, "Ihope this is true : I hope you do love me, you wretch ; then I may find a way to punish you for bely- ing the absent, and stabbing me to the heart, through him." Her throat swelled with a violent convulsion, and she could utter no more for a moment ; and she put her white handkerchief to her lips, and drew it away discolored slightly with blood. "Ah! you love me," she cried; "then know, for your comfort, that you have shortened my short life a day or two, by slandering him to my face, you monster. Look there at your love, and see what it has done for me." She put the handkerchief under his eyes, with hate gleaming in her own. Mr. Hazel turned ashy pale, and glared at it with horror ; he could have seen his own shed, with stoical firmness ; but a mortal sickness struck his heart at the sight of her blood. His hands rose and quivered in a peculiar way, his sight left him, and the strong man, but tender lover, staggered, and fell heavily on the deck in a dead swoon, and lay at her feet pale and mo- tionless. She uttered a scream, and sailors came run- ning. They lifted him, with rough, sympathy ; and Helen Rolleston retired to her cabin, panting with agitation. But she had little or no pity for the slanderer. She read Arthur Wardlaw's let- ter again, kissed it, wept over it, reproached her- self for not having loved the writer enough ; and vowed to repair that fault. "Poor slandered Arthur," said she; "from this hour I will love you as devotedly as you love me." CHAPTER IX. After this, Helen Rolleston and Mr. Hazel never spoke. She walked past him on the deck with cold and haughty contempt. He quietly submitted to it; and never pre- sumed to say one word to her again. Only, as his determination was equal to his delicacy, Miss Rolleston found, one day, a paper on her table, containing advice as to the treatment of disorder- ed lungs, expressed with apparent coldness, and backed by a string of medical authorities, quoted memoriter. She sent this back directly, indorsed with a line, in pencil, that she would try hard to live, now she had a friend to protect from calumny ; but should use her own judgment as to the means. Yet women will be women. She had care- fully taken a copy of his advice before she cast it out with scorn. He replied, "Live with whatever motive you please ; only live." To this she vouchsafed no answer ; nor did this unhappy man trouble her again, until an occasion of a very different kind arose. One fine night he sat on the deck, with his back against the main-mast, in deep melancholy and listlessness, and fell, at last, into a doze, from which he was wakened by a peculiar sound below. It was a beautiful and stilly night ; all sounds were magnified ; and the father of all rats seemed to be gnawing the ship down below. Hazel's curiosity was excited, and he went softly down the ladder to see what the sound 30 FOUL PLAY. really was. But that was not so easy, for it proved to be below decks ; but he saw a light glimmering through a small scuttle abaft the mate's cabin, and the sounds were in the neigh- borhood of that light. It now flashed upon Mr. Hazel that this was the very quarter where he had heard that mys- terious knocking when the ship was lying to in the gale. Upon this a certain degree of vague suspicion began to mingle with his curiosity. He stood still a moment, listening acutely ; then took off his shoes very quietly, and moved with noiseless foot towards the scuttle. The gnawing still continued. He put his head through the scuttle and peered into a dark, dismal place, whose very existence was new to him. It was, in fact, a vacant space between the cargo and the ship's run. This wooden cavern was very narrow, but not less than fifteen feet long. "The candle was at the farther end, and between it and Hazel a man was working, with his flank turned towards the spectator. This partly intercepted the light; but still it revealed in a fitful way the huge ribs of the ship, and her inner skin, that formed the right-hand partition, so to speak, of this black cavern; and close outside those gaunt timbers was heard the wash of the sea. There was something solemn in the close prox- imity of that tremendous element and the nar- rowness of the wooden barrier. The bare place, and the gentle, monotonous wash of the liquid monster, on that calm night, conveyed to Mr. Hazel's mind a thought akin to David's. "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death." Judge whether that thought grew weaker or stronger, when, after straining his eyes for some time, to understand what was going on at that midnight hour, in that hidden place, he saw who was the workman, and what was his occupation. It was Joseph Wylie, the mate. His profile was illuminated by the candle, and looked ghast- ly. He had in his hands an auger of enormous size, and with this he was drilling a great hole through the ship's side, just below the water- mark ; an act, the effect of which would be to let the sea bodily into the ship and sink her, with every soul on board, to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. " I was stupefied ; and my hairs stood on end, and my tongue clove to my jaws." Thus does one of Virgil's characters describe the effect his mind produced upon his body, in a terrible situation. Mr. Hazel had always ridiculed that trite line as a pure exaggeration ; but he altered his opin- ion after that eventful night. When he first saw what Wylie was doing, obstapuit, he was merely benumbed ; but, as his mind realized the fiendish nature of the act, and j its tremendous consequences, his hair actually j bristled, and for a few minutes at least he could ; not utter a word. In that interval of stupor, matters took anoth- er turn. The auger went in up to the haft ; then Wylie caught up with his left hand a wooden plug he had got ready, jerked the auger away, caught up a hammer, and swiftly inserted the plug. 1 Rapid as he was, a single jet of water came squirting viciously in. But Wylie lost no time ; he tapped the plug smartly with his hammer several times, and then, lifting a mallet with both hands, rained heavy blows on it that drove it in, and shook the ship's side. Then Hazel found his voice, and he uttered an ejaculation that made the mate look round ; he glared at the man who was glaring at him, and, staggering backward, trod on the light, and all was darkness and dead silence. All but the wash of the sea outside, and that louder than ever. But a short interval sufficed to restore one of the parties to his natural self-possession. "Lord, sir," said Wylie, "how you startled me ! You should not come upon a man at his work like that. We might have had an acci- dent." "What were you doing?" said Hazel, in a voice that quavered in spite of him. " Repairing the ship. Found a crack or two in her inner skin. There, let me get a light, and I'll explain it to you, sir." He groped his way out, and invited Mr. Ha- zel into his cabin. There he struck a light, and, with great civility, tendered an explana- tion. The ship, he said, had labored a good deal in the last gale, and he had discovered one or two flaws in her, which were of no immediate importance ; but experience had taught him that in calm weather a ship ought to be kept tight. " As they say ashore, a stitch in time saves nine." " But drilling holes in her is not the way," said Hazel, sternly. The mate laughed. " Why, sir," said he, " what other way is there ? We can not stop an irregular crack ; we can frame nothing to fit it. The way is to get ready a plug measured a trifle larger than the aperture you are going to make ; then drill a round hole, and force in the plug. I know no other way than that ; and I was a ship's carpenter for ten years before I was a mate." This explanation, and the manner in which it was given, removed Mr. Hazel's apprehensions for the time being. "It was very alarming," said he ; " but I suppose you know your busi- ness." " Nobody better, sir," said Wylie. " Why, it is not one seaman in three that would trouble his head about a flaw in a ship's inner skin ; but I'm a man that looks ahead. Will you have a glass of grog, sir, now you are here ? I keep that under my eye, too ; between ourselves, if the skipper has as much in his cabin as I have here, that might be worse for us all than a crack or two in the ship's inner skin." Mr. Hazel declined to drink grog at that time in the morning, but wished him good-night, and left him with a better opinion of him than he had ever had till then. Wylie, when he was gone, drew a tumbler of neat spirits, drank half, and carried the rest back to his work. Yet Wylie was a very sober man in a general way. Rum was his tool ; not his master. When Hazel came to think of it all next day, he did not feel quite so easy as he had done. The inner skin ! But, when Wylie withdrew his auger, the water had squirted in furiously. FOUL PLAY. 31 He felt it hard to believe that this keen jet of water could be caused by a small quantity that had found its way between the skin of the ship and her copper, or her top booting ; it seemed rather to be due to the direct pressure of the liquid monster outside. He went to the captain that afternoon, and first told him what he had seen, offering no so- lution. The captain, on that occasion, was in an amphibious state ; neither wet nor dry ; and his reply was altogether exceptional. He received the communication with pompous civil- ity ; then swore a great oath, and said he would put the mate in irons: "Confound the lubber! he will be through the ship's bottom." "But, stop a moment," said Mr. Hazel," it is only fair you should also hear how he accounts for his proceeding." The captain listened attentively to the expla- nation, and altered his tone. ' ' Oh, that is a dif- ferent matter," said he. "You need be under no alarm, sir ; the thundering lubber knows what he is about, at that work. Why, he has been a ship's carpenter all his life. Him a seaman ! If any thing ever happens to me, and Joe Wylie is set to navigate this ship, then you may say your prayers. He isn't fit to sail a wash-tub across a duck-pond. But I'll tell you what it is, " added this worthy, with more pomposity than neatness of articulation, '.' here's respeckable pas- senger brought me a report ; do my duty to m' employers, and — take a look at the well." He accordingly chalked a plumb-line, and went and sounded the well. There were eight inches of water. Hudson told him that was no more than all ships contain- ed from various causes. " In fact," said he, "our pumps suck, and will not draw, at eight inches." Then suddenly grasping Mr. Hazel's hand, he said, in tearful accents, "Don't you trouble your head about Joe Wylie, or any other such scum. I'm skipper of the Proserpine, and a man that does his duty to 'z employers. Mr. Hazel, sir, I'd come to my last anchor in that well this moment, if my duty to m' employers re- quired it. B — my eyes if I wouldn't lie down there this minute, and never move to all eternity and a day after, if it was my duty to m' employ- ers !" "No doubt," said Hazel, dryly. "Bu<;I think you can serve your employers better in other parts of the ship." He then left him, with a piece of advice ; "to keep his eyes upon that Wylie." Mr. Hazel kept his own eye on Wylie so con- stantly, that at eleven o'clock p.m. he saw that worthy go into the captain's cabin with a quart bottle of rum. The coast was clear : the temptation great. These men then were still deceiving him with a feigned antagonism. He listened at the key- hole, not without some compunction ; which, however, became less and less as fragments of the dialogue reached his ear. For a longtime the only speaker was Hudson, and his discourse ran upon his own exploits at sea. But suddenly Wylie's voice broke in with an unmistakable tone of superiority. " Belay all that chat, and listen to me. It is time we settled something. I'll hear what you have got to say ; and then you'll do what I say. Better keep your hands off "the bottle a minute ; you have had enough for the present ; this \i business. I know you are good for jaw ; but what are you game to do for the governor'8 money ? Any thing ?" " More than you have ever seen or heard tel/ of, ye lubber," replied the irritated skipper. " Who has ever served his employers like Hiram Hudson?" "Keep that song for your quarter-deck," re- torted the mate, contemptuously. " No, on sec- ond thoughts, just tell me how you have served your employers, you old humbug. Give me chapter and verse to choose from. Come now, the Neptune?" "Well, the Neptune ; she caught fire a hun- dred leagues from land." " How came she to do that ?" " That is my business. Well, I put her head before the wind, and ran for the Azores ; and I stuck to her, sir, till she was as black as a coal, and we couldn't stand on deck, but kept hopping like parched peas ; and fire belching out of her port-holes forward : then we took to the boats, and saved a few bales of silk by way of sample of her cargo, and got ashore ; and she'd have come ashore too next tide and told tales, but Somebody left a keg of gunpowder in the cabin, with a long fuse, and blew a hole in her old ribs, that the water came in, and down she went, hissing like ten thousand sarpints, and no- body the wiser." "Who lighted the fuse, I wonder?" said Wylie. "Didn't I tell ye it was 'Somebody?'" said Hudson. " Hand me the stiff." He replenish- ed his glass, and, after taking a sip or two, asked Wylie if he had ever had the luck to be board- ed by pirates. "No," said Wylie. "Have you?" " Ay ; and they rescued me from a watery grave, as the lubbers call it. Ye see, I was employed by Downes and Co., down at the Ha- vana, and cleared for Vera Cruz with some box- es of old worn-out printer's type." "To print psalm-books for the darkies, no doubt," suggested Wylie. "Insured as specie," continued Hudson, ig- noring the interruption. " Well, just at day- break one morning, all of a sudden there was a rakish-looking craft on our weather-bow: lets fly a nine-pounder across our forefoot, and was alongside before my men could tumble up from below. I got knocked into the sea by the boom and fell between the ships; and the pirate he got hold of me and poured hot grog down my throat to bring me to my senses." " That is not what you use it for in general," said Wylie. " Civil sort of pirate, though." "Pirate be d — d. That was my consort rig- ged out with a black flag, and mounted with four nine-pounders on one side, and five dum- mies on the other. He blustered a bit, and swore, and took our type and our cabbages (I complain- ed to Downes ashore about the vagabond taking the vegetables), and ordered us to leeward under all canvas, and we never saw him again, — not till he had shaved off his mustaches, and called on Downes to condole and say the varmint had chased his ship fifty leagues out of her course ; but he had got clear of him. Downes compli- mented me publicly. Says he, 'This skipper boarded the pirate single-handed ; only he jump- 32 FOUL PLAY. ed short, and fell between the two ships ; and here he is by a miracle.' Then he takes out his handkerchief, and flops his head on my shoulder. ' His merciful preservation almost reconciles me to the loss of my gold, ' says the thundering croc- odile. Cleared $70,000, he did, out of the Man- hattan Marine, and gave the pirate and me but £200 between us both." "The Rose?" said Wylie. ** What a hurry you are in ! Pass the grog. "Well, the Rose ; she lay off Ushant. We cant- ed her to wash the decks ; lucky she had a care- ful commander ; not like Kempenfelt, whose eye was in his pocket, and his fingers held the pen, so he went to the bottom, with Lord knows how many men. I noticed the squalls came very sudden ; so I sent most of my men ashore, and got the boats ready in case of accident. A squall did strike her, and she was on her beam-ends in a moment : we pulled ashore with two bales of silk by way of salvage, and sample of what warn't in her hold when she settled down. We landed, and the Frenchmen were dancing' about with ex- citement. ' Captain,' says one, 'you have much sang fraw.' ' Insured, munseer,' says I. ' Bone, ' says he. " Then there was the Antelope, lost in charge of a pilot off the Hooghly. I knew the water as well as he did. We were on the port tack, stand- ing towards the shoal. Weather it, as we should have done next tack, and I should have failed in my duty to my employers. Any thing but that ! ' Look out!' said I. 'Pilot, she forereaches in s f ays.' Pilot was smoking ; those sand-head pi- lots smoke in bed and asleep. He takes his ci- gar out of his mouth for one moment. ' Ready about,' says he. 'Hands 'bout ship. Helms a-lee. Raise tacks and sheets.' Round she was coming like a top. Pilot smoking. Just as he was going to haul the mainsel Somebody tripped against him, and shoved the hot cigar in his eye. He sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. Ship in irons, tide running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for anchor- ing, bump ! — there she was hard and fast. A sriff breeze got up at sunrise, and she broke up. Next day I was sipping my grog and reading the Bengal Courier, and it told the disastrous wreck of the brig Antelope, wrecked in charge of a pi- lot : ' but no lives lost, and the owners fully in- sured.' Then there was the bark Sally. Why, you saw her yourself distressed on a lee shore." " Yes," said Wylie. " I was in that tub, the Grampus, and we contrived to claw off the Scil- lies; yet you, in your smart Sally, got ashore. What luck !" "Luck be blowed !" cried Hudson, angrily. " Somebody got into the chains to sound ; and cut the weather halyards. Next tack the masts went over the side ; and I had done my duty." " Lives were lost that time, eh ?" said Wylie, gravely. " What is that to you ?" replied Hudson, with the sudden ire of a drunken man. " Mind your own business. Pass me the bottle." " Yes, lives was lost : and always will be lost in sea-going ships, where the skipper does his duty. There was a sight more lost at Trafalgar, owing to every man doing his duty. Lives lost, ye lubber ? And why not mine ? Because their time was come, and mine wasn't. For I'll tell you one thing, Joe Wylie, — if she takes fire and runs before the wind till she is as black as a coal, and belching flame through all her port-holes, and then explodes, and goes aloft in ten thou- sand pieces no bigger than my hat, or your knowl- edge of navigation, Hudson is the last man to leave her : Duty ! — If she goes on her beam-ends and founders, Hudson sees the last of her, and reports it to his employers: Duty ! — If she goes grinding on Scilly, Hudson is the last man to leave her bones : Duty ! — Some day perhaps I shall be swamped myself along with the craft : I have escaped till now, owing to not being in- sured; but if ever my time should come, and you should get clear, promise me, Joe, to see the owners, and tell 'em Hudson did his duty." Here a few tears quenched his noble ardor for a moment. But he soon recovered, and said with some little heat, " You have got the bottle again. I never saw such a fellow to get hold of the bottle. Come, here's ' Duty to our employ- ers!' And now I'll tell you how we managed with the Carysbrook and the Amelia." This promise was followed by fresh narratives ; in particular, of a vessel he had run upon the Florida reef at night, where wreckers had been retained in advance to look out for signals, and come on board and quarrel on pretense and set fire to the vessel, insured at thrice her value. Hudson got quite excited with the memory of these exploits, and told each successive feat louder and louder. But now it was Wylie's turn. "Well," said he, very gravely, " all this was child's play." There was a pause that marked Hudson's as- tonishment. Then he broke out, "Child's play, ye lubber ! If you had been there your gills would have been as white as your Sunday shirt ; and a d — d deal whiter." " Come, be civil," said Wylie ; " I tell you, all the ways you have told me are too suspicious. Our governor is a high-flier: he pays like a prince, and, in return, he must not be blown on, if it is ever so little. ' Wylie,' says he, ' a breath of suspicion would kill me.' ' Make it so much,' says I, ' and that breath shall never blow on you.' No, no, skipper ; none of those ways will do for us ; they have all been worked twice too often. It must be done in fair weather, and in a way — Fill your glass and I'll fill mine — Capital rum this. You talk of my gills turning white ; before long we shall see whose keeps their color best, mine or yours, my boy." There was a silence, during which Hudson was probably asking himself what Wylie meant ; for presently he broke out in a loud, but somewhat quivering voice : Why, you mad, drunken dev- il of a ship's carpenter, red-hot from hell, I see what you are at, now ; you are going — " " Hush !" cried Wylie, alarmed in his turn. "Is this the sort of thing to bellow out for the watch to hear? Whisper, now." This was followed by the earnest mutterings of two voices. In vain did the listener send his very soul into his ear to hear. He could catch no single word. Yet he could tell, by the very tones of the speakers, that the dialogue was one of mystery and importance. Here was a situation at once irritating and alarming ; but there was no help for it. The best thing, now, seemed to be to withdraw unob- served, and wait for another opportunity. He FOUL PLAY. 33 did so ; and he had not long retired, when the mate came out staggering, and flushed with liq- uor, and that was a thing that had never oc- curred before. He left the cabin door open, and went into his own room. Soon after sounds issued from the cabin, — pe- culiar sounds, something between grunting and snoring. Mr. Hazel came and entered the cabin. There he found the captain of the Proserpine in a position very unfavorable to longevity. His legs were crooked over the seat of his chair, and his head was on the ground. His handkerchief was tight round his neck, and the man himself dead drunk, and purple in the face. Mr. Hazel instantly undid his stock, on which the gallant seaman muttered inarticulately. He then took his feet off the chair, and laid them on the ground, and put the empty bottle under the animal's neck. But he had no sooner done all this, than he had a serious misgiving. Would not this man's death have been a blessing? Might not his life prove fatal? The thought infuriated him, and he gave the prostrate figure a heavy kick that almost turned it over, and the words, "Duty to employers," gurgled out of its mouth directly. It really seemed as if these sounds were inde- pendent of the mind, and resided at the tip of Hudson's tongue : so that a thorough good kick could, at any time, shake them out of his inani- mate body. Thus do things ludicrous and things terrible mingle in the real world ; only to those who are in the arena, the ludicrous passes unnoticed, be- ing overshadowed by its terrible neighbor. And so it was with Hazel. He saw nothing absurd in all this ; and in that prostrate, insen- sible hog, commanding the ship, forsooth, and carrying all their lives in his hands, he saw the mysterious and alarming only, saw them so, and felt them, that he lay awake all night thinking what he should do, and early next day he went into the mate's cabin, and said to him : "Mr. Wylie, in any other ship I should speak to the captain, and not to the mate ; but here that would be no use, for you are the master, and he is your servant." "Don't tell him so, sir, for he doesn't think small beer of himself. " " I shall waste no more words on him. It is to you I speak, and you know I speak the truth. Here is a ship, in which, for certain reasons known to yourself, the captain is under the mate." "Well, sir," said Wylie, good - humoredly, "it is no use trying to deceive a gentleman like you. Our skipper is an excellent seaman, but he has got a fault." Then Wylie imitated, with his hand, the action of a person filling his glass. "And you are here to keep him sober, eh ?" Wylie nodded. " Then why do you ply him with liquor?" " I don't, sir." "You do. I have seen you do it a dozen times : and last night you took rum into his room, and made him so drunk, he would have died where he lay if I had not loosened his hand- kerchief." ' ' I am sorry to hear that, sir ; but he was so- 3 ber when I left him. The fool must have got to the bottle the moment I was gone." " But that bottle you put in his way ; I saw you : and what was your object ? To deaden his conscience with liquor, his and your own, while you made him your fiendish proposal. Man, man, do you believe in God, and in a judg- ment to come for the deeds done in the body, that you can plan in cold blood to destroy a ves- sel with nineteen souls on board, besides the live stock, the innocent animals that God pitied and spared when he raised his hand in wrath over Nineveh of old ?" While the clergyman was speaking, witn flash- ing eyes and commanding voice, the seaman turned ashy pale, and drew his shoulders togeth- er like a cat preparing to defend her life. " I plan to destroy a vessel, sir ! You never heard me say such a word ; and don't you hint such a thing in the ship, or you will get yourself into trouble." " That depends on you." "How so, sir?" "I have long suspected you." " You need not tell me that, sir." "But I have not communicated my suspicions. And now that they are certainties, I come first to you. In one word, will you forego your in- tention, since it is found out ?" "How can I forego what never was in my head?" said Wylie. "Cast away the ship*! Why, there's no land within two thousand miles. Founder a vessel in the Pacific ! Do you think my life is not as sweet to me as yours is to you ?" Wylie eyed him keenly to see the effect of these words, and, by a puzzled expression that came over his face, saw at once he had assumed a more exact knowledge than he really possessed. Hazel replied that he had said nothing about foundering the ship ; but there were many ways of destroying one. "For instance," said he, "I know how the Neptune was destroyed, — and so do you : how the Rose and the Antelope were cast away, — and so do you." At this enumeration, Wylie lost his color and self-possession for a moment ; he saw Hazel had been listening. Hazel followed up his blow. "Promise me now, by all you hold sacred, to forego this villainy, and I hold my tongue. At- tempt to defy me, or to throw dust in my eyes, and I go instantly among the crew, and denounce both you and Hudson to them." "Good heavens!" cried Wylie, in unfeigned terror. "Why, the men would mutiny on the spot." "I can't help that," said Hazel firmly; and took a step towards the door. "Stop a bit, " said the mate. "Don't be in such a nation hurry : for, if you do, it will be bad for me, but worse for you." The above was said so gravely, and with such evident sincerity, that Mr. Hazel was struck, and showed it. Wylie followed up that trifling advantage. " Sit down a minute, sir, if you please, and listen to me. You never saw a mutiny on board ship, I'll be bound. It is a worse thing than any gale that ever blew : begins fair enough, sometimes ; but how does it end ? In breaking into the spirit- room, and drinking to madness, plundering the ship, ravishing the women, and cutting a throat or so for certain. You don't seem so fond of the picture as you was of the idea. And then they 34 FOUL PLAY. might turn a deaf cav to you after all. Ship is well found in all stores; provisions served out freely ; men in good humor ; and I have got their ear. And now I'll tell you why it won't suit your little game to blacken me to the crew, upon the bare chance of a mutiny." He paused for a moment, then resumed in a lower tone, and revealed himself the extrordinary man he was. " You see, sir," said he, " when a man is very ready to suspect me, I always suspect him. Now you was uncommon ready to suspect me. You didn't wait till you came on board ; you began the game ashore. Oh, what, that makes you open one eye, does it? You thought I didn't know you again. Knew you, my man, the mo- ment you came aboard. I never forget a face ; and disguises don't pass on me." It was now Hazel's turn to look anxious and discomposed. "So, then, the moment I saw you suspected me I was down upon you. Well, you come aboard under false colors. We didn't want a chap like you in the ship ; but you would come. ' What is the bloke after?' says I, and watches. You was so intent suspecting me of this, that, and t'other, that you unguarded yourself, and that is common too. Pm blowed if it isn't the lady you are after. With all my heart: only she might do better, and I don't see how she could do worse, unless she went to Old Nick for a mate. Now, Pll tell you what it is, my man. I've been in trouble myself, and don't want to be hard on a poor devil, just because he sails under an alias, and lies as near the wind as he can, to weather on the beaks and the bobbies. But one good turn deserves another: keep your dirty suspicions to yourself; for if you dare to open your lips to the men, in five minutes, or less than that, you shall be in irons, and confined to your cabin ; and we'll put you ashore at the first port that flies the British flag, and hand you over to the authorities, till one of her Majesty's cruisers sends in a boat for you." At this threat Mr. Hazel hung his head in con- fusion and dismay. " Come, get out of my cabin, Parson Alias," shouted the mate ; "and belay your foul tongue in this ship, and don't make an enemy of Joe Wylie, a man that will eat you up else, and spit you out again, and never brag. Sheer off, I say, and be d — d to you." Mr. Hazel, with a pale face and sick heart, looked aghast at this dangerous man, who could be fox or tiger, as the occasion demanded. Surprised, alarmed, outwitted, and out-men- aced, he retired with disordered countenance and uneven steps, and hid himself in his own cabin. The more he weighed the whole situation, the more clearly did he see that he was utterly pow- erless in the hands of Wylie. A skipper is an emperor ; and Hudson had the power to iron him, and set him on shore at the nearest port. The right to do it was anoth- er matter ; but even on that head Wylie could furnish a plausible excuse for the act. Retribu- tion, if it came at all, would not be severe, and would be three or four years coming : and who fears it much, when it is so dilatory, and so weak, and so doubtful into the bargain ? He succumbed in silence for two days ; and then, in spite of Wylie's threat, he made one timid attempt to approach the subject with Welch and Cooper, but a sailor came up instant- ly, and sent them forward to reef topsails. And, whenever he tried to enter into conversation with the pair, some sailor or other was sure to come up and listen. Then he saw that he Avas spotted ; or, as we say nowadays, picketed. He was at his wits' end. He tried his last throw. He wrote a few lines to Miss Rolleston, requesting an interview. Aware of the difficulties he had to encounter here, he stilled his heart by main force, and wrote in terms carefully measured. He begged her to believe he had no design to intrude upon her, without absolute necessity, and for her own good. Respect for her own wishes forbade this, and also his self-respect. " But," said he, "I have made a terrible dis- covery. The mate and the captain certainly in- tend to cast away this ship. No doubt they will try and not sacrifice their own lives and ours ; but risk them they must, in the very nature of things. Before troubling you, I have tried all I could, in the way of persuasion and menace ; but am defeated. So now it rests with you. You, alone, can save us all. I will tell you how, if you will restrain your repugnance, and accord me a short interview. Need I say that no other subject shall be introduced by me ? In England, should we ever reach it, I may perhaps try to take measures to regain your good opinion ; but here, I am aware, that is impossible ; and I shall make no attempt in that direction, upon my honor." To this came a prompt and feminine reply : — " The ship is his. The captain and mate are able men, appointed by him. Your suspicions of these poor men are calumnies, and of a piece with your other monstrous slanders. " I really must insist on your holding no fur- ther communications of any sort with one to whom your character is revealed and odious. "H.K." This letter benumbed his heart at first. A letter ? It was a blow ; a blow from her he loved, and she hated him ! His long-suffering love gave way at last. What folly and cruelty combined ! He could no long- er make allowances for the spite of a woman whose lover had been traduced. Rage and de- spair seized him ; he bit his nails, and tore his hair with fury ; and prayed Heaven to help him hate her as she deserved, " the blind, insolent idiot!" Yes, these bitter words actually came out of his mouth, in a torrent of fury. But to note down all he said in his rage, would be useless ; and might mislead, for this was a gust of fury ; and, while it lasted, the long- suffering man was no longer himself. As a proof how little this state of mind was natural to him, it stirred up all the bile in his body, and brought on a severe attack of yellow jaundice, accompanied by the settled dejection that marks that disorder. Meantime the Proserpine glided on, with a fair wind, and a contented crew. She was well found in stores ; and they were served out un- grudgingly. Every face on board beamed with jollity, ex- cept poor Hazel's. He crept about, yellow as a guinea ; a very scarecrow. FOUL PLAY. 85 The surgeon, a humane man, urged him to drink sherry, and take strong exercise. But persons afflicted with that distressing mal- ady are obstinately set against those things which tend to cure it ; this is a feature of the disease. Mr. Hazel was no exception. And then his heart had received so many blows, it had no pow- er left to resist the depressing effect of his disor- der. He took no exercise ; he ate little food. He lay, listless and dejected, about the deck, and let disease do what it pleased with him. The surgeon shook his head, and told Hudson the parson was booked. "And good riddance of bad rubbish!" was that worthy's gracious comment. The ship now encountered an adverse gale, and, for three whole days, was under close-reef- ed topsails; she was always a wet ship under stress of weather ; and she took in a good deal of water on this occasion. On the fourth day it fell calm, and Captain Hudson, having examin- ed the well, and found three feet of water, order- ed the men to the pumps. After working through one watch, the well was sounded again, and the water was so much reduced that the gangs were taken off ; and the ship being now becalmed, and the weather love- ly, the men were allowed to dance upon deck to the boatswain's fiddle. While this pastime went on, the sun, large and red, reached the horizon, and diffused a roseate light over the entire ocean. Not one of the current descriptions of heaven approached the actual grandeur and beauty of the blue sky, flecked with ruby and gold, and its liquid mirror that lay below, calm, dimpled, and glorified by that translucent, rosy tint. While the eye was yet charmed with this en- chanting bridal of the sea and sky, and the ear amused with the merry fiddle and the nimble feet, that tapped the sounding deck so deftly at every note, Cooper, who had been sounding the well, ran forward all of a sudden, and flung a thunderbolt in the midst. " A LEAK !" CHAPTER X. The fiddle ended in mid-tune, and the men crowded aft with anxious faces. The captain sounded the well, and found three feet and a half water in it. He ordered all hands to the pumps. They turned to with a good heart, and pump- ed, watch and watch, till daybreak. Their exertions counteracted the leak, but did no more ; the water in the well was neither more nor less, perceptibly. This was a relief to their minds, so far ; but the situation was a very serious one. Suppose foul weather should come, and the vessel ship water from above as well ! Now all those who were not on the pumps set to work to find out the leak and stop it if possi- ble. With candles in their hands, they crept about the ribs of the ship, narrowly inspecting every corner, and applying their ears to every suspected place, if haply they might hear the water coming in. The place where Hazel had found Wylie at work was examined, along with the rest; but neither there nor anywhere else could the leak be discovered. Yet the water was still coming in, and required unremitting labor to keep it under. It was then suggested by Wylie, and the opinion gradually gained ground, that some of the seams had opened in the late gale, and were letting in the water by small but numerous apertures. Faces began to look cloudy ; and Hazel, throw- ing off his lethargy, took his spell at the main pump with the rest. When his gang was relieved he went away, bathed in perspiration, and, leaning over the well, sounded it. While thus employed, the mate came behind him, with his cat-like step, and said, " See what has come on us by your forebodings ! It is the unluckiest thing in the world to talk about los- ing a ship when she is at sea." "You are a more dangerous man on board a ship than I am," was Hazel's prompt reply. The well gave an increase of three inches. Mr. Hazel now showed excellent qualities. He worked like a horse ; and, finding the mate skulking, he reproached him before the men, and, stripping himself naked to the waist, invited him to do a man's duty. The mate thus chal- lenged, complied with a scowl. They labored for their lives, and the quantity of water they discharged from the ship was as- tonishing ; not less than a hundred and ten tons every hour. They gained upon the leak — only two inches, but, in the struggle for life, this was an immense victory. It was the turn of the tide. A slight breeze sprung up from the south-west, and the captain ordered the men from the buck- ets to make all sail on the ship, the pumps still going. When this was done, he altered the ship's course, and put her right before the wind, steer- ing for the island of Juan Fernandez, distant eleven hundred miles or thereabouts. Probably it was the best thing he could do, in that awful waste of water. But its effect on the seamen was bad. It was like giving in. They got a little disheartened and flurried ; and the cold, passionless water seized the advantage. It is possible, too, that the motion of the ship through the sea aided the leak. The Proserpine glided through the water all night, like some terror-stricken creature, and the incessant pumps seemed to be her poor heart, beating loud with breathless fear. At daybreak she had gone a hundred and twenty miles. But this was balanced by a new and alarming feature. The water from the pumps no longer came up pure, but mixed with what appeared to be blood. This got redder and redder, and struck terror into the more superstitious of the crew. Even Cooper, whose heart was stout, leaned over the bulwarks, and eyed the red stream, gushing into the sea from the lee scuppers, and said aloud, " Ay, bleed to death, ye bitch. We sha'n't be long behind ye." Hazel inquired, and found the ship had a quantity of dye-wood among her cargo : he told the men this, and tried to keep up their hearts by his words and his example. He succeeded with some; but others shook their heads. And by-and-by even while he was working double tides for them as well as for him- FOUL PLAY. self, ominous murmurs met his ear. "Parson aboard!" "Man aboard with t'other world in his face!" And there were sinister glances to match. He told this with some alarm to Welch and Cooper. They promised to stand by him ; and Welch told him it was all the mate's doings ; he had gone among the men and poisoned them. The wounded vessel, with her ever-beating heart, had run three hundred miles on the new track. She had almost ceased to bleed; but what was as bad, or worse, small fragments of her cargo and stores came up with the water, and their miscellaneous character showed how deep- ly the sea had now penetrated. This, and their great fatigue, began to demor- alize the sailors. The pumps and buckets were still plied, but it was no longer with the uniform manner of brave and hopeful men. Some stuck doggedly to their work, but others got flurried, and ran from one thing to another. Now and then a man would stop, and burst out crying ; then to work again in a desperate way. " One or two lost heart altogether, and had to be driv- en. Finally, one or two succumbed under the unremitting labor. Despair crept over others : their features began to change, so much so that several countenances were hardly recognizable, and each looking in the other's troubled face, saw his own fate pictured there. Six feet water in the hold ! The captain, who had been sober beyond his time, now got dead drunk. The mate took the command. On. hearing this, Welch and Cooper left the pumps. Wylie ordered them back. They refused, and coolly lighted their pipes. A violent altercation took place, which was brought to a close by Welch. "It is no use pumping the ship,'' said he. "She is doomed. D'ye think we are blind, my mate and me ? You got the long-boat ready for yourself before ever the leak was sprung. Now get the cutter ready for my mate and me." At these simple words Wylie lost color, and walked aft without a word. Next day there were seven feet water in the hold, and quantities of bread coming up through the pumps. Wylie ordered the men from the pumps to the boats. The jolly-boat was provisioned and low- ered. While she was towing astern the cutter was prepared, and the ship left to fill. All this time Miss Rolleston had been kept in the dark, not as to the danger, but as to its extent. Great was her surprise when Mr. Hazel entered her cabin, and cast an ineffable look of pity on her. She looked up surprised, and then angry. " How dare you ?" she began. He waved his hand in a sorrowful but com- manding way. " Oh, this is no time for preju- dice ov temper. The ship is sinking : we are go- ing into the boats. Pray make preparations. Here is a list I have written of the things you ought to take : we may be weeks at sea in an open boat." Then, seeing her dumfounded, he caught up her carpet-bag, and threw her work-box into it for a beginning. He then laid hands upon some of her preserved meats and marmalade, and carried them off to his own cabin. His mind then flew back to his reading, and passed in rapid review all the wants that men had endured in open boats. He got hold of Welch, and told him to be sure and see there was plenty of spare canvas on board, and sailing needles, scissors, etc. : also three bags of biscuit, and, above all, a cask of water. He himself ran all about the ship, including the mate's cabin, in search of certain tools he thought would be wanted. Then to his own cabin, to fill his carpet- bag. There was little time to spare ; the ship was low in the water and the men abandoning her. He flung the things into his bag, fastened and locked it, strapped up his blankets for her use, flung on his pea-jacket, and turned the han- dle of his door to run out. The door did not open ! He pushed it. It did not yield ! He rushed at it. It was fast ! He uttered a cry of rage^ and flung himself at it. Horror ! It was immovable ! CHAPTER XI. The fearful, the sickening truth burst on him in all its awful significance. Some miscreant or madman had locked the door, and so fastened him to the sinking ship, at a time when, in the bustle, the alarm, the selfish- ness, all would be apt to forget him, and leave him to his death. He tried the door in every way, he hammered at it ; he shouted, he raged, he screamed. In vain. Unfortunately the door of this cabin was of very unusual strength and thickness. Then he took up one of those great augers he had found in the mate's cabin, and bored a hole in the door ; through this hole he fired his pistol, and then screamed for help. " I am shut up in the cabin. I shall be drowned. Oh, for Christ's sake save me ! save me !" and a cold sweat of terror poured down his whole body. What is that ? The soft rustle of a woman's dress. Oh, how he thanked God for that music, and the hope it gave him ! It comes towards him ; it stops, the key is turned, the dress rustles away, swift as a winged bird ; he dashes at the door ; it flies open. Nobody was near. He recovered his courage in part, fetched out his bag and his tools, and ran across to the starboard side. There he found the captain lowering Miss Rolleston, with due care, into the cutter, and the young lady crying ; not at being shipwrecked, if you please, but at being deserted by her maid. Jane Holt, at this trying moment, had deserted her mistress for her husband. This was natural ; but, as is the rule with persons of that class, she had done this in the silliest and cruellest way. Had she given half an hour's notice of her intention, Donovan might have been on board the cutter with her and her mistress. But no ; being a liar and a fool, she must hide her husband to the last mo- ment, and then desert her mistress. The cap- tain, then, was comforting Miss Rolleston, and telling her she should have her maid with her eventually, when Hazel came. He handed down FOUL PLAY. 37 fiis own bag, and threw the blankets into the stern-sheets. Then went down himself, and sat on the midship-thwart. "Shove ofly' said the captain; and they fell astern. But Cooper, with a boat-hook, hooked on to the long-boat ; and the dying ship towed them both. Five minutes more elapsed, and the captain did not come down, so Wylie nailed him. There was no answer. Hudson had gone into the mate's cabin. Wylie waited a minute, then hailed again. "Hy ! on deck there!" " Hullo !" cried the captain, at last. "Why didn't you come in the cutter?" The captain crossed his arms, and leaned over the stern. 11 Don't you know that Hiram Hudson is al- ways the last to leave a sinking ship?" "Well, you are the last," said Wylie. " So now come on board the long-boat at once. I dare not tow in her wake much longer, to be sucked in when she goes down." "Come on board your craft and desert my own?" said Hudson, disdainfully. "Know my duty to m' employers better." These words alarmed the mate. " Curse it all !" he cried ; " the fool has been and got some more rum. Fifty guineas to the man that will shin up the tow-rope, and throw that madman into the sea; then we can pick him up. He swims like a cork." A sailor instantly darted forward to the rope. But, unfortunately, Hudson heard this proposal, and it enraged him. He got to his cutlass. The sailor drew the boat under the ship's stern, but the drunken skipper flourished his cutlass furious- ly over his head. " Board me ! ye pirates! the first that lays a finger on my bulwarks, off goes his hand at the wrist." Suiting the action to the word, he hacked at the tow-rope so vigorously that it gave way, and the boats fell astern. Helen Rolleston uttered a shriek of dismay and pity. " Oh, save him !" she cried. " Make sail !" cried Cooper ; and, in a few seconds, they got all her canvas set upon the cutter. Ic seemed a hopeless chase for these shells to sail after that dying monster with her cloud of canvas all drawing, alow and aloft. " But it did not prove so. The gentle breeze was an advantage to light craft, and the dying Proserpine was full of water, and could only crawl. After a few moments of great anxiety, the boats crept up, the cutter on her port, and the long- boat on her starboard quarter. Wylie ran forward, and, hailing Hudson, im- plored him, in the friendliest tones, to give him- self a chance. Then tried him by his vanity, ' ' Come and command the boats, old fellow. How can we navigate them on the Pacific with- out you t". Hudson was now leaning over the taffrail ut- terly drunk. He made no reply to the mate, but merely waved his cutlass feebly in one hand, and his bottle in the other, and gurgled out, " Duty to m' employers." Then Cooper, without a word, double-reefed the cutter's mainsail, and told'Welch to keep as close to the ship's quarter as he dare. Wylie instinctively did the same, and the three craft crawled on in solemn • and deadly silence for nearly twenty minutes. The wounded ship seemed to receive a death- blow. She stopped dead, and shook. The next moment she pitched gently forward, and her bows went under the water, while her after-part rose into the air, and revealed to those in the cutter two splintered holes in her run just below the water-line. The next moment her stern settled down ; the sea yawned horribly, the great waves of her own making rushed over her upper deck, and the lof- ty masts and sails, remaining erect, went down with sad majesty into the deep : and nothing re- mained but the bubbling and foaming of the vo- racious water, that had swallowed up the good ship and her cargo, and her drunken master. All stood up in the boats, ready to save him. But either his cutlass sunk him, or the suction of so great a body drew him down. He was seen, no more in this world. A loud sigh broke from every living bosom that witnessed that terrible catastrophe. It was beyond words : and none were uttered, except by Cooper, who spoke so seldom ; yet now three words of terrible import burst from him, and, uttered in his loud, deep voice, rang like the sunk ship's knell over the still bubbling water — " Scuttled — by God !" CHAPTER XII. "Hold your tongue," said Welch, with an oath. Mr. Hazel looked at Miss Rolleston, and she at him. It was a momentary glance, and her eyes sank directly, and filled with patient fears. For the first few minutes after the Proserpine went down, the survivors sat benumbed, as if awaiting their turn to be ingulfed. They seemed so little, and the Proserpine so big ; yet she was swallowed before their eyes, like a crumb. They lost, for a few moments, all idea of escaping. But, true it is, that, "while there's life there's hope :" and, as soon as their hearts began to beat again, their eyes roved round the horizon, and their elastic minds recoiled against despair. This was rendered easier by the wonderful beauty of the weather. There were men there who had got down from a sinking ship, into boats heaving and tossing against her side in a gale of wind, and yet been saved : and here all was calm and delightful. To be sure, in those other ship- wrecks land had been near, and their greatest peril was over when once the boats got clear of the distressed ship without capsizing. Here was no immediate peril ; but certain death menaced them at an uncertain distance. Their situation was briefly this. Should it come on to blow a gale, these open boats, small and loaded, could not hope to live. Therefore they had two chances for life, and no more : they must either make land — or be picked up at sea — before the weather changed. But how ? The nearest known land was the group of islands called Juan Fernandez, and they lay somewhere to leeward ; but distant at least nine hundred miles ; and should they pre- 38 FOUL PLAY. fer the other chance, then the)' must beat three hundred miles and more to windward ; for Hud- son underrating the leak, as is supposed, had run the Proserpine fully that distance out of the track of trade. Now the ocean is a highway — in law ; but, in fact, it contains a few highways, and millions of byways ; and, once a cockle-shell gets into those byways, small indeed is its chance of being seen and picked up by any sea-going vessel. Wylie, who was leading, lowered his sail, and hesitated between the two courses we have indi- cated. However, on the cutter coming up with him, he ordered Cooper to keep her head north- east, and so run all night. He then made all the sail he could in the same direction, and soon out- sailed the cutter. When the sun went down, he was about a mile ahead of her. Just before sunset, Mr. Hazel made a dis- covery that annoyed him very much. He found that Welch had put only one bag of biscuit, a ham, a keg of spirits, and a small barrel of wa- ter, on board the cutter. He remonstrated with him sharply. Welch replied that it was all right; the cutter being small, he had put the rest of her provisions on board the long-boat. " On board the long-boat !" said Hazel, with a look of wonder. "You have actually made our lives depend upon that scoundrel Wylie again. You deserve to be flung into the sea. You have no forethought yourself; yet you will not be guided by those that have it." Welch hung his head a little at these reproach- es. However, he replied, rather sullenly, that it was only for one night ; they could signal the long-boat in the morning, and get the other bags, and the cask, out of her. But Mr. Hazel was not to be appeased. " The morning ! Why, she sails three feet to our two. How do you know he won't run away from us ? I never expect to get within ten miles of him again. We know him ; and he knows we know him." Cooper got up, and patted Mr Hazel on the shoulder, soothingly. "Boat-hook aft," said he to Welch. He then, by an ingenious use of the boat-hook and some of the spare canvas, contrived to set out a studding-sail on the other side of the mast. Hazel thanked him warmly. "But oh, Coop- er ! Cooper !" said he, " I'd give all I had in the world if that bread and water were on board the cutter instead of the long-boat." The cutter had now two wings, instead of one ; the water bubbling loud under her bows marked her increased speed ; and all fear of being greatly outsailed by her consort began to subside. A slight sea-fret came on, and obscured the sea in part ; but they had a good lantern and compass, and steered the course exactly, all night, according to Wylie's orders, changing the helmsman every four hours. Mr. Hazel, without a word, put a rug round Miss Rolleston's shoulders, and another round her feet. " Oh, not both, sir, please," said she. " Am I to be disobeyed by every body?" said he. Then she submitted in silence, and in a certain obsequious way that was quite new, and well cal- culated to disarm anger. Sooner or later, all slept, except the helms- man. At daybreak, Mr. Hazel was wakened by a loud hail from a man in the bows. All the sleepers started up. " Long-boat not in sight !" It was too true. The ocean was blank ; not a sail, large or small, in sight. Many voices spoke at once. " He has carried on till he has capsized her." " He has given us the slip." Unwilling to believe so great a calamity, every eye peered and stared all over the sea. In vain. Not a streak that could be a boat's hull, not a speck that could be a sail. The little cutter was alone upon the ocean. Alone, with scarcely two days' provisions, nine hundred miles from land, and four hundred miles to leeward of the nearest .sea-road. Hazel, seeing his worst forebodings realized, sat down in moody, bitter, and boding silence. Of the other men some raged and cursed. Some wept aloud. The lady, more patient, put her hands togeth- er, and prayed to Him who made the sea and all that therein is. Yet her case was the cruel- lest. For she was by nature more timid than the men, yet she must share their desperate peril. And then to be alone with all these men, and one of them had told her he loved her, and hated the man she was betrothed to! Shame tortured this delicate creature, as well as fear. Happy for her, that of late, and only of late, she had learned to pray in earnest. "Qui precai'i novit, premi potest, non potest opprimi." It was now a race between starvation and drowning, and either way death stared them in the face. CHAPTER XIII. The long-boat was, at this moment, a hundred miles to windward of the cutter. The fact is, that Wylie, the evening before, had been secretly perplexed as to the best course. He had decided to run for the island ; but he was not easy under his own decision ; and at night he got more and more discontented with it. Finally, at nine o'clock, p.m., he suddenly gave the order to luiF, and tack : and by daybreak he was very near the place where the Proserpine went down : whereas the cutter, having run before the wind all night was, at least, a hundred miles to leeward of him. Not to deceive the reader, or let him, for a mo- ment, think we do business in monsters, we will weigh this act of Wylie's justly. It was just a piece of iron egotism. He pre- ferred, for himself, the chance of being picked up by a vessel. He thought it was about a hair's breadth better than running for an island, as to whose bearing he was not very clear, after all. But he was not sure he was taking the best or safest course. The cutter might be saved, after all, and the long-boat lost. Meantime he was not sorry of an excuse to shake off the cutter. She contained one man «t least who knew he had scuttled the Proserpine ; and therefore it was all-important to him to get to London before her. and receive the three FOUL PLAY. 88 thousand pounds which was to be his reward for that abominable act. But the way to get to London before Mr. Ha- zel, or else to the bottom of the Pacific before him, was to get back into the sea- road, at all hazards. He was not aware that the cutter's water and biscuit were on board his boat ; nor did he discov- er this till noon next day. And, on making this fearful discovery, he showed himself human ; he cried out, with an oath, " What have I done ? I have damned myself to all eternity !" He then ordered the boat to be put before the wind again ; but the men scowled, and not one stirred a finger ; and he saw the futility of this, and did not persist ; but groaned aloud ; and then sat, staring wildly ; finally, like a true sail- or, he got to the rum, and stupefied his agitated conscience for a time. While he lay drunk at the bottom of the boat, his sailors carried out his last instructions, beat- ing southward right in the wind's eye. Five days they beat to windward, and never saw a sail. Then it fell a dead calm ; and so remained for three days more. The men began to suffer greatly from cramps, owing to their number and confined position. During the calm, they rowed all day, and with this, and a light westerly breeze that sprung up, they got into the sea-road again : but, having now sailed three hundred and fifty miles to the southward, they found a great change in the temperature : the nights were so cold that they were fain to huddle together, to keep a little warmth in their bodies. On the fifteenth day of their voyage it began to rain and blow, and then they were never a whole minute out of peril. Hand forever on the sheet, eye on the waves, to ease her at the right moment : and, with all this care, the spray eternally flying half-way over her mast, and often a body of water making a clean breach over her, and the men bailing night and day with their very hats, or she could not have lived an hour. At last, when they were almost dead with wet, cold, fatigue, and danger, a vessel came in sight, and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little more than her sails ; but they ran up a bright ban- danna handkerchief to their mast-head ; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors, and — continued her course. Then the poor abandoned creatures wept, and raved, and cursed, in their frenzy, glaring after that cruel, shameless man, who could do such an act, yet hoist a color, and show of what na- tion he was the native — and the disgrace. But one of them said not a word. This was Wylie. He sat shivering, and remembered how he had abandoned the cutter, and all on board. Loud sighs broke from his laboring breast ; but not a word. Yet one word was ever present to his mind ; and seemed written in fire on the night of clouds, and howled in his ears by the wind, — Retribution ! And now came a dirty night — to men on ships ; a fearful night to men in boats. The sky black, the sea on fire with crested billows, that broke over them every minute ; their light was washed out; their provisions drenched and spoiled ; bail as they would, the boat was al- | ways filling. Up to their knees in water ; cold ; as ice, blinded with spray, deafened with roar- j ing billows, they, tossed and tumbled in a fiery foaming hell of waters, and still, though despair- ing, clung to their lives, and bailed with their hats unceasingly. Day broke, and the first sight it revealed to them was a brig to windward staggering along, and pitching under close-reefed topsails. They started up, and waved their hats, and cried aloud. But the wind carried their voices to leeward, and the brig staggered on. They ran up their little signal of distress; but still the ship staggered on. Then the miserable men shook hands all round, and gave themselves up for lost. But at this moment the brig hoisted a vivid flag all stripes and stars, and altered her course a point or two. She crossed the boat's track a mile ahead, and her people looked over the bulwarks, and waved their hats to encourage those tossed and desperate men. Having thus given them the weather-gage, the brig hove to for them. They ran down to her, and crept under her lee ; down came ropes to them, held by friendly hands, and friendly faces shone down at them ; eager grasps seized each as he went up the ship's side, and so, in a very short time, they sent the woman up, and the rest being all sailors, and clever as cats, they were safe on board the whaling-brig Maria, Captain Slocum, of Nan- tucket, U. S. Their log, eompass, and instruments were also saved. The boat was cast adrift, and was soon after seen bottom upward on the crest of a wave. The good Samaritan in command of the Maria supplied them with dry clothes out of the ship's stores, good food, and medical attendance, which was much needed, their legs and feet being in a deplorable condition, and their own surgeon crippled. A southeasterly gale induced the American skipper to give Cape Horn a wide berth, and the Maria soon found herself three degrees south of that perilous coast. There she en- countered field-ice. In this labyrinth they dodged and worried for eighteen days, until a sudden chop in the wind gave the captain a chance, of which he promptly availed himself; and in forty hours they sighted Terra del Fuego. During this time, the rescued crew, having recovered from the effects of their hardships, fell into the work of the ship, and took their turns with the Yankee seamen. The brig was short-handed ; but now trimmed and handled by a full crew and the Proserpine's men, who were first-class seamen, and worked with a will, because work was no longer a duty, she exhib- ited a speed the captain had almost forgotten was in the craft. Now speed at sea means economy, for every day added to a voyage is so much off the profits. Slocum was part owner of the vessel, and shrewdly alive to the value of the seamen. When about three hundred miles south of Buenos Ayres, Wylie proposed that they should be landed there, from whence they might be transshipped to a vessel bound for home. 40 FOUL PLAY. This was objected to by Slocum, on the ground that by such a deviation from his course, he must lose three days, and the port-dues at Buenos Ayres were heavy. Wylie undertook that the house of Wardlaw and Son should indemnify the brig for all ex- penses and losses incurred. Still the American hesitated ; at last he hon- estly told Wylie he wished to keep the men ; he liked them, they liked him. He had sounded them, and they had no objection to join his ship, and sign articles for a three years' whaling voy- age, provided they did not thereby forfeit the wages to which they would be entitled on reaching Liverpool. Wylie went forward and asked the men if they would take service with the Yankee captain. " All but three expressed their desire to do so ; these- three had families in England, and refused. The mate gave the others a release, and an order on Wardlaw and Co., for their full wages for the voyage; then they signed articles with Captain Slocum, and entered the American Mercantile .Navy. Two days after this they sighted the high lands at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata at 10 p.m., and lay to for a pilot. After three hours' delay they were boarded by a pilot-boat, and then began to creep into the port. The night was very dark, and a thin white fog lay on the water. Wylie was sitting on the taffrail, and convers- ing with Slocum, when the lookout forward sung out, "Sail ho!" Another voice almost simultaneously yelled out of the fog, "Port your helm !" Suddenly out of the mist, and close aboard the Maria appeared the hull and canvas of a large ship. The brig was crossing her course, and her great bowsprit barely missed the brig's mainsail. It stood for a moment, over Wylie's head. He looked up, and there was the figure- head of the ship looming almost within his reach. It was a colossal green woman ; one arm extended grasped a golden harp, the other was pressed to her head in the attitude of hold- ing back her wild and flowing hair. The face seemed to glare down upon the two men : in an- other moment the monster, gliding on, just missing the brig, was lost in the fog. " That was a narrow squeak," said Slocum. Wylie made no answer, but looked into the darkness after the vessel. He had recognized her figure-head. It was the Shannon ! CHAPTER XIV. Before the Maria sailed a*gain, with the men who formed a part of Wylie's crew, he made them sign a declaration before the English Con- sul at Buenos Ayres. This document set forth the manner in which the Proserpine foundered ; it was artfully made up of facts enough to de- ceive a careless listener ; but, when Wylie read it over to them, he slurred over certain parts, which he took care, also, to express in language above the comprehension of such men. Of course they assented eagerly to what they did not understand, and signed the statement consci- eutiouslv. So Wylie and his three men were shipped on board the Boadicea, bound for Liverpool, in Old England, while the others sailed with Captain Slocum for Nantucket, in New England. The Boadicea was a clipper laden with hides and a miscellaneous cargo. For seventeen days she flew before a southerly gale, being on her best sailing point, and, after one of the shortest passages she had ever made, she lay to, outside the bar, off the Mersey. It wanted but one hour to daylight, the tide was flowing ; the pilot sprang aboard. "What do you draw ?" he asked of the mas- ter. " Fifteen feet, barely,'* was the reply. " That will do," and the vessel's head was laid for the river. They passed a large bark, with her topsails backed. "Ay," remarked the pilot, "she has waited since the half-ebb; there ain't more than four hours in the twenty-four that such craft as that can get in." " What is she ? An American liner ?" asked Wylie, peering through the gloom. "No," said the pilot; "she's an Australian ship. She's the Shannon, from Sydney." The mate started, looked at the man, then at the vessel. Twice the Shannon had thus met him, as if to satisfy him that his object had been attained, and each time she seemed to him not an inanimate thing but a silent accomplice. A chill of fear struck through the man's frame as he looked at her. Yes, there she lay, and in her hold were safely stowed £160,000 in gold, mark- ed lead and copper. Wylie had no luggage nor effects to detain him on board ; he landed, and, having bestowed his three companions in a sailors' boarding-house, he was hastening to the shipping agents of Ward- law and Son to announce his arrival and the fate of the Proserpine. He had reached their offices in Water Street before he recollected that it was barely half past five o'clock, and, though broad daylight on that July morning, merchants' offices are not open at that hour. The sight of the Shannon had so bewildered him that he had not noticed that the shops were all shut, the streets deserted. Then a thought occurred to him, why not be a bearer of his own news ? He did not require to turn the idea twice over, but resolved, for many reasons, to adopt it. As he hurried to the railway station, he tried to recollect the hour at which the early train started ; but his confused and excited mind refused to perform the func- tion of memory. The Shannon dazed him. At the railway station he found that a train had started at 4 a.m., and there was nothing until 7 30. This check sobered him a little, and he went back to the docks ; he walked out to the farther end of that noble line of berths, and sat down on the verge with his legs dangling over the water. He waited an hour ; it was six o'clock by the great dial at St. George's Dock. His eyes were fixed on the Shannon, which was mov- ing slowly up the river; she came abreast to where he sat. The few sails requisite to give her steerage fell. Her anchor-chain rattled, and she swung round with the tide. The clock struck the half-hour ; a boat left the side of the vessel and made straight for the steps near where he was seated. A tall, noble-looking man sat in FOUL PLAY. 41 the stern-sheets beside the coxswain : he was put ashore, and, after exchanging a few words with the boat's crew, he mounted the steps which led him to Wylie's side, followed by one of the sail- ors, who curried a portmanteau. He stood for a single moment on the quay, and stamped his foot on the broad stones ; then, heaving a deep sigh of satisfaction, he murmur- ed, "Thank God!" He turned towards Wylie. " Can you tell me, my man, at what hour the first train starts for London ?" "There is a slow train at 7 30 and an express at 9." " The express will serve me, and give me time for breakfast at the Adelphi. Thank you ; good- morning ;" and the gentleman passed on, follow- ed by the sailor. Wylie looked after him ; he noted that erect military carriage and crisp, gray hair and thick white mustache ; he had a vague idea that he had seen that face before, and the memory troub- led him. At 7 30 Wylie started for London ; the milita- ry man followed him in the express at 9, and caught him up at Rugby; together they arrived at the station at Euston Square ; it was a quarter to three. Wylie hailed a cab, but, before be could struggle through the crowd to reach it, a railway porter threw a portmanteau on its roof, and his military acquaintance took possession of it. "All right," said the porter. "What ad- dress, sir ?" Wylie did not hear what the gentleman said, but the porter shouted it to the cabman, and then he did hear it. " No. — Russell Square." It was the house of Arthur Wardlaw ! Wylie took off his hat, rubbed his frowzy hair, and gaped after the cab. He entered another cab, and told the driver to go to " No. — Fenchurch Street." ■ It was the office of Wardlaw and Son. CHAPTER XV. Our scene now changes from the wild ocean and its perils to a snug room in Fenchurch Street, the inner office of Wardlaw and Son ; a large apartment, panelled with fine old mellow Span- ish oak ; and all the furniture in keeping ; the carpet, a thick Axminster of sober colors ; the chairs, of oak and morocco, very substantial ; a large office-table, with oaken legs like very col- umns, substantial ; two Milner safes ; a globe of unusual size, with a handsome tent over it, made of roan leather, figured ; the walls hung with long oak boxes, about eight inches broad, con- taining rolled maps of high quality and great di- mensions ; to consult which, oaken sceptres tip- ped with' brass hooks stood ready: with these the great maps could be drawn down and inspect- ed ; and, on being released, flew up into their wooden boxes again. Besides these were hung up a few drawings, representing outlines, and inner sections, of vessels : and, on a smaller ta- ble, lay models, almanacs, etc. The great office- table was covered with writing materials and papers, all but a square space inclosed with a lit- tle silver rail, and inside that space lay a purple morocco case about ten inches square ; it was locked, and contained an exquisite portrait of Helen Rolleston. This apartment was so situated, and the frames of the plate-glass windows so well made and substantial, that, let a storm blow a thousand ships ashore, it could not be felt, nor heard in Wardlaw's inner office. But appearances are deceitful ; and who can wall out a sea of troubles, and the tempests of the mind ? The inmate of that office was battling for his commercial existence, under accumulated diffi- culties and dangers. Like those who sailed the Proserpine's long-boat, upon that dirty night, which so nearly swamped her, his eye had now to be on every wave, and the sheet forever in his hand. His measures had been ably taken ; but, as will happen when clever men are driven into a corner, he had backed events rather too freely against time; had allowed too slight a margin for unforeseen delays. For instance, he had av- eraged the Shannon's previous performances, and had calculated on her arrival too nicely. She was a fortnight overdue, and that delay brought peril. He had also counted upon getting news of the Proserpine. But not a word had reached Lloyd's as yet. At this very crisis came the panic of '66. Overend and Gurney broke ; and Wardlaw's ex- perience led him to fear that, sooner or later, there would be a run on every bank in London. Now he had borrowed £80,000 at one bank, and £35,000 at another: and, without his ships, could not possibly pay a quarter of the money. If the banks in question were run upon, and obliged to call in all their resources, his credit must go; and this, in his precarious position, was ruin. He had concealed his whole condition from his father, by false book-keeping. Indeed, he had only two confidants in the world ; poor old Michael Penfold, and Helen Rolleston's portrait ; and even to these two he made half confidences. He dared not tell either of them all he had done, and all he was going to do. His redeeming feature was as bright as ever. He still loved Helen Rolleston with a chaste, constant, and ardent affection that did him hon- or. He loved money too well : but he loved Helen better. In all his troubles and worries, it was his one consolation to unlock her portrait, and gaze on it, and purify his soul for a few minutes. Sometimes he would apologize to it for an act of doubtful morality. "How can I risk the loss of you ?" was his favorite excuse. No : he must have credit. He must have money. She must not suffer by his past imprudences. They must be repaired at any cost — for her sake. It was ten o'clock in the morning ; Mr. Pen- fold was sorting the letters for his employer, when a buxom young woman rushed into the outer office, crying, " Oh, Mr. Penfold !" and sank into a chair, breathless. " Dear heart ! what is the matter now ?" said the old gentleman. " I have had a dream, sir: I breamed I saw Joe Wylie out on the seas, in a boat ; and the wind it was a blowing and the sea a roaring to 42 FOUL PLAY. that degree as Joe looked at me, and says he, 'Pray for me, Nancy Rouse.' So I says, ' Oh dear, Joe, what is the matter? and what ever is become of the Proserpine?' " 'Gone to hell !' says he : which he knows I object to foul language. ' Gone— there— ' says he, ' and I am sailing in her wake. Oh, pray for me, Nancy Rouse !' With that, I tries to pray in my dream, and screams instead, and wakes myself. Oh, Mr. Penfold, do tell me, have you got any news of the Proserpine this morning?" "What is that to you?" inquired Arthur Wardlaw, who had entered just in time to hear this last query. " What is it to me !" cried Nancy, firing up ; " it is more to me, perhaps, than it is to you, for that matter." Penfold explained, timidly, "Sir, Mrs. Rouse is my landlady." " Which I have never been to church with any man yet of the name of Rouse, leastways, not in my waking hours," edged in the lady. " Miss Rouse, I should say," said Penfold, apologizing. " I beg pardon, but I thought Mrs. might sound better in a landlady. Please, sir, Mr. Wylie, the mate of the Proserpine, is her — her — sweetheart." " Not he. Leastways, he is only on trial, after a manner." " Of course, sir — only after a manner," added Penfold, sadly perplexed. "Miss Rouse is in- capable of any thing else. But, if you please, m'm, I don't presume to know the exact rela- tion ;" and then with great reserve, "but you know you are anxious about him." Miss Rouse sniffed, and threw her nose in the air, — as if to throw a doubt even on that view of the matter. " Well, madam," says Wardlaw, " I am sorry to say I can give you no information. I share your anxiety, for I have got £160,000 of gold in the ship. You might inquire at Lloyd's. Di- rect her there, Mr. Penfold, and bring me my letters." With this he entered his inner office, sat down, took out a golden key, opened the portrait of Helen, gazed at it, kissed it, uttered a deep sigh, and prepared to face the troubles of the day. Penfold brought in a leathern case like an enormous bill-book : it had thirty vertical com- partments : and the names of various cities and sea-ports, with which Wardlaw and Son did busi- ness, were printed in gold letters on some of these compartments ; on others, the names of persons; and on two compartments, the word "Miscellaneous." Michael brought this ma- chine in, filled with a correspondence enough to break a man's heart to look at. This was one of the consequences of Wardlaw's position. He durst not let his correspondence be read, and filtered, in the outer office : he opened the whole mass ; sent some back into the outer office : then touched a hand-bell, and a man emerged from the small apartment adjoin- ing his own. This was Mr. Atkins, his short- hand writer. He dictated to this man some twenty letters, which were taken down in short- hand ; the man retired to copy them, and write them out in duplicate from his own notes, and this reduced the number to seven ; these Wardlaw sat down to write himself, and lock up the copies. While he was writing them, he received a visitor or two, whom he dispatched as quickly as his \etters. He was writing his last letter, when he heard in the outer office a voice he thought he knew, ife got up and listened. It was so. Of all the voices in the city, this was the one it most dis- mayed him to hear in his office at the present crisis. He listened on, and satisfied himself that a fatal blow was coming. He then walked quietly to his table, seated himself, and prepared to re- ceive the stroke with external composure. Penfold announced, " Mr. Burtenshaw." "Show him in," said Wardlaw, quietly. Mr. Burtenshaw, one of the managers of Mor- land's bank, came in, and Wardlaw motioned him courteously to a chair, while he finished his letter, which took only a few moments. While he was sealing it, he half turned to his visitor, and said, "No bad news ? Morland's is safe of course." "Well," said Burtenshaw, "there is a run upon the bank, — a severe one. We could not hope to escape the effects of a panic." He then, after an uneasy pause, and with ap- parent reluctance, added, "I am requested by the other directors to assure you it is their pres- ent extremity alone, that — In short, we are real- ly compelled to beg you to repay the amount ad- advanced to you by the bank." Wardlaw showed no alarm, but great surprise. This was clever ; for he felt great alarm, and no surprise. "The £81,000," said he. "Why, that ad- vance was upon the freight of the Proserpine. Forty-five thousand ounces of gold. She ought to be here by this time. She is in the Channel at this moment, no doubt." " Excuse me ; she is overdue, and the under- writers uneasy. I have made inquiries." "At any rate, she is fully insured, and you hold the policies. Besides, the name of Wardlaw on your books should stand for bullion." Burtenshaw shook his head. " Names are at a discount to-day, sir. We can't pay you down on the counter. Why, our depositors look cross at Bank of England notes." To an inquiry, half ironical, whether the man- agers really expected him to find £81,000 cash at a few hours' notice, Burtenshaw replied, sor- rowfully, that they felt for his difficulty whilst deploring their own ; but that, after all, it was a debt ; and, in short, if he could find no means of paying it, they must suspend payment for a time, and issue a statement — and — He hesitated to complete his sentence, and Wardlaw did it for him. " And ascribe your suspension to my inability to refund this advance?" said he, bitterly. "I am afraid that is the construction it will bear." Wardlaw rose, to intimate he had no more to say. Burtenshaw, however, was not disposed to go without some clear understanding. " May I say we shall hear from you, sir ?" "Yes." And so they wished each other good-morning ; and Wardlaw sank into his chair. In that quiet dialogue, ruin had been inflicted and received without any apparent agitation ; ay, and worse than ruin, — exposure. FOUL PLAY. 43 Morland's suspension, on account of money lost by Wardlaw and Son, would at once bring old Wardlaw to London, and the affairs of the firm would be investigated, and the son's false system of book-keeping be discovered. He sat stupefied awhile, then put on his hat, and rushed to his solicitor ; on the way, he fell in with a great talker, who told him there was a rumor the Shannon was lost in the Pacific. At this he nearly fainted in the street ; and his friend took him back to his office in a deplor- able condition. All this time he had been feign- ing anxiety about the Proserpine, and conceal- ing his real anxiety about the Shannon. To do him justice, he lost sight of every thing in the world now but Helen. He sent old Penfold in hot haste to Lloyd's, to inquire for news of the ship ; and then he sat down sick at heart ; and all he could do now was to open her portrait, and gaze at it through eyes blinded with tears. Even a vague rumor, which he hoped might be false, had driven all his commercial manoeuvres out of him, and made all other calamities seem small. And so they all are small, compared with the death of the creatm-e we love. While he sat thus, in a stupor of fear and grief, he heard a well-known voice in the outer office ; and, next after Burtenshaw's, it was the one that caused him the most apprehension. It was his father's. Wardlaw senior rarely visited the office now ; and this was not his hour. So Arthur knew something extraordinary had broughS him up to town. And he could not doubt that it was the panic, and that he had been to Morland's, or would go there in course of the day ; but, in- deed, it was more probable that he had already heard something, and was come to investigate. Wardlaw senior entered the room. * * Good-morning, Arthur," said he. ' ' I've got good news for you." Arthur was quite startled by an announce- ment that accorded so little with his expecta- tions „ " Good news — for me?" said he, in a faint, in- credulous tone. " Ay, glorious news ! Haven't you been anx- ious about the Shannon ? I have ; more anx- ious than I would own. " Arthur started up. "The Shannon! God bless you, father." " She lies at anchor in the Mersey," roared the old man, with all a father's pride at bring- ing such good news. "Why, the Rollestons will be in London at 2 15. See, here is his tele- gram." At this moment in ran Penfold, to tell them that the Shannon was up at Lloyd's — had anchor- ed off Liverpool last night. There was hearty shaking of hands, and Ar- thur Wardlaw Avas the happiest man in London — for a little while. " Got the telegram at Elm-trees, this morn- ing, and came up by the first express," said Wardlaw senior. The telegram was from Sir Edward Rolleston. " Reached Liverpool last night ; will be at Eus- ton, two-fifteen.'''' " Not a word from herV " Oh, there was no time to write ; and ladies do not use the telegram." He added slyly, " Perhaps she thought coming in person would do as well, or better, eh !" "But why does he telegraph you instead of me?" " I am sure I don't know. What does it mat- ter ? Yes, I do know. It was settled months ago that he and Helen should come to me at Elm- trees, so I was the proper person to telegraph. I'll go and meet them at the station ; there is plenty of time. But, I say, Arthur, have you seen the papers ? Bartley Brothers obliged to wind up. Maple and Cox, of Liverpool, gone; Atlantic trading. Terry and Brown suspended, International credit gone. Old friends, some of these. Hopley and Timmr,, railway contractors, failed, sir ; liabilities, seven hundred thousand pounds and more." " Yes, sir," said Arthur, pompously : " 1866 will long be remembered for its revelations of commercial morality." The old gentleman, on this, asked his son, with excusable vanity, whether he had done ill in steer- ing clear of speculation ; he then congratulated him on having listened to good advice, and stuck to legitimate business. " I must say, Arthur," added he, "your books are models for any trad- ing firm." Arthur winced in secret under this praise, for it occurred to him that in a few days his father would discover those books were all a sham, and the accounts a fabrication. However, the unpleasant topic was soon inter- rupted, and effectually, too ; for Michael looked in with an air of satisfaction on his benevolent countenance, and said, " Gentlemen, such an arrival ! Here is Miss Rouse's sweetheart, that she dreamed was drowned." " What is the man to me ?" said Arthur, pee- vishly. He did not recognize Wylie under that title. "La, Mr. Arthur! why, he is the mate of the Proserpine," said Penfold. "What! Wylie! Joseph Wylie ?" cried Ar- thur, in a sudden excitement, that contrasted strangely with his previous indifference. "What is that ?" cried Wardlaw senior ; " the Proserpine : show him in at once." Now this caused Arthur Wardlaw consider- able anxiety ; for obvious reasons he did not want his father and this sailor to exchange a word together. However, that was inevitable now ; the door opened, and the bronzed face and sturdy figure of Wylie, clad in a rough pea-jack- et, came slouching in. Arthur went hastily to meet him, and gave him an expressive look of warning, even while he welcomed him in cordial accents. " Glad to see you safe home," said Wardlaw senior. "Thank ye, guv'nor,"said Wylie. "Had a squeak for it, this time." " Where is your ship ?" Wylie shook his head sorrowfully. "Bottom of the Pacific." " Good heavens ! What ! is she lost?" " That she is, sir : foundered at sea, 1 200 miles from the Horn, and more." " And the freight ? the gold ?" put in Arthur, with well-feigned anxiety. "Not an ounce saved," said Wylie, disconso- lately. " A hundred and sixty thousand pounds gone to the bottom." ■ ■■*- 41 FOUL PLAY. "Good heavens!" "Ye see, sir, " said Wylie, "the ship encounter- ed one gale after another, and labored a good deal, first and last ; and we all say her seams must have opened ; for we never could find the leak that sunk her, " and he cast a meaning glance at Arthur Wardlaw. "No matter how it happened," said the old merchant: "are we insured to the full: that is the first question ?" "To the last shilling." "Well done, Arthur." "But still it is most unlucky. Some weeks must elapse before the insurances can be realized, and a portion of the gold was paid for in bills at short date." "The rest in cash?" " Cash and merchandise." "Then there is the proper margin. Draw on my private account, at the Bank of England." These few simple words showed the struggling young merchant a way out of all his difficulties. His heart leaped so "he dared not reply, lest he should excite the old gentleman's suspicions. But ere he could well draw his breath for joy, came a freezer. " Mr. Burtenshaw, sir." "Bid him wait," said Arthur, aloud, and cast a look of great anxiety on Penfold, which the poor old man, with all his simplicity, comprehend- ed well enough. "Burtenshaw, from Morland's. What does he want of us ?" said Wardlaw senior, knitting his brows. Arthur turned cold all over. ' ' Perhaps to ask me not to draw out my balance. It is less than nsual : but they are run upon ; and, as you are good enough to let me draw on you — By-the- by, perhaps you will sign a check before you go to the station." " How much do you want ?" " I really don't know, till I have consulted Penfold : the gold was a large and advantageous purchase, sir." " No doubt ; no doubt. I'll give you my sig- nature ; and you can fill in the amonnt." He drew a check in favor of Arthur Wardlaw, signed it, and left him to fill in the figures. He then looked at his watch, and remarked they would barely have time to get to the station. " Good heavens !" cried Arthur; "andl can't go. I must learn the particulars of the loss of the Proserpine, and prepare the statement at once for the underwriters." " Well, never mind. I can go." " But what will she think of me ? I ought to be the first to welcome her." " I'll make your excuses." " No, no ; say nothing : after all, it was you who received the telegram : so you naturally meet her; but you will bring her here, father: you won't whisk my darling down to Elm-trees, till you have blest me with the sight of her." "I will not be so cruel, fond lover," said old Wardlaw, laughing, and took up his hat and gloves to go. Arthur went to the door with him, in great anxiety, lest he should question Burtenshaw : but, peering into the outer office, he observed Bui-tenshaw was not there. Michael had caught his employer's anxious look, and conveyed the banker into the small room where the short-hand writer was at work. But Burtenshaw was one of a struggling firm ; to him every minute was an hour: he had sat, fuming with impatience, so long as he heard talking in the inner office ; and, the moment it ceased, he took the liberty of coming in : so that he opened the side door just as Ward- law senior was passing through the centre door. Instantly Wardlaw junior whipped before him, to hide his figure from his retreating father. Wylie — who all this time had been sitting si- lent, looking from one to the other, and quietly puzzling out the game, as well as he could — ob- served this movement, and grinned. As for Arthur Wardlaw, he saw his father safe out, then gave a sigh of relief, and walked to his office table, and sat down, and began to fill in the check. Burtenshaw drew near, and said, " I am in- structed to say that fifty thousand pounds on ac- count will be accepted." Perhaps if this proposal had been made a few seconds sooner, the ingenious Arthur would have availed himself of it : but as it was, he preferred to take the high and mighty tone. "I decline any concession," said he. "Mr. Penfold, take this check to the Bank of England. £81,647 10s. That is the amount, capital and interest, up to noon this day : hand the sum to Mr. Burtenshaw, taking his receipt, or, if he prefers it, pay it across the counter, to my credit. That will per- haps arrest the run." Burtenshaw stammered out his thanks. Wardlaw cut him short. "Good-morning, sir," said he. " I have business of importance. Good-day," and bowed him out. " This is a high-flier," thought Burtenshaw.. Wardlaw then opened the side door, and call- ed his short-hand writer. " Mr. Atkins, please step into the outer office, and don't let a soul come in to me. Mind, I am out for the day. Except to Miss Rolleston and her father." He then closed all the doors, and sunk ex- hausted into a chnir, muttering, "Thank Heav- en ! I have got rid of them all for an hour or two. Noiv, Wylie." Wylie seemed in no hurry to enter upon the required subject. Said he, evasively, " Why, guv'nor, it seems to me you are among the breakers here yourself." " Nothing of the sort, if you have managed your work cleverly. Come, tell me all, before we arte interrupted again." "Tell ye all about it! Why, there's part on't I am afraid to think on ; let alone talk about it." "Spare me your scruples, and give me your facts," said Wardlaw, coldly. "First of all, did you succeed in shifting the bullion as agreed?" The sailor appeared relieved by this question. " Oh, that is all right," said he. " I got the bullion safe aboard the Shannon, marked for lead." "And the lead on board the Proserpine?" "Ay, shipped as bullion." "Without suspicion ?" "Not quite." " Great Heaven ! Who?" " One clerk at the shipping agent's scented something queer, I think. James Seaton. That was the name he ivent by." " Could he prove any thing ?" "Nothing. He knew nothing for certain; FOUL PLAY. 4S and what he guessed won't never be known in England now." And Wylie fidgeted in his chair. Notwithstanding this assurance Wardlaw look- ed grave, and took a note of that clerk's name. Then he begged Wylie to go on. " Give me all the details," said he. " Leave me to judge their relative value. You scuttled the ship?" " Don't say that ! don't say that !" cried Wylie in alow but eager voice. "Stone walls have ears." Then rather more loudly than was necessary, " Ship sprung aleak, that neither the captain, nor I, nor any body could find, to stop. Me, and my men, we all think her seams opened, with stress of weather." Then, lowering his voice again, "Try and see it as we do; and don't you ever use such a word as that what come out of your lips just now. We pumped her hard ; but it warn't no use. She filled, and we had to take to the boats." ' ' Stop a moment. Was there any suspicion excited ?" "Not among the crew: and, suppose there was, I could talk 'em all over or buy 'em all over, what few of 'em is left. I've got 'em all with me in one house : and they are all square, don't you fear." "Well, but you said 'among the crew!' Whom else can we have to fear ?" "Why, nobody. To be sure, one of the pas- sengers was down on me ; but what does that matter now ?" • ' It matters greatly — is matters terribly. Who was this passenger ?" " He called himself the Rev. John Hazel. He suspected something or other; and what with listening here, and watching there, he judged the ship was never to see England, and I always fancied he told the lady." " What, was there a lady there?'* " Ay, worse luck, sir ; and a pretty girl she was: coming home to England to die of con sumption ; so our surgeon told me." " Well, never mind her. The clergyman ! This fills me with anxiety. A clerk suspecting us at Sydney, and a passenger suspecting us in the vessel. There are two witnesses against us already." "No; only one." " How do you make that out?" " Why, White's clerk and the parson, they was one man." Wardlaw stared in utter amazement. "Don't ye believe me ?" said Wylie. " I tell ye that there clerk boarded us under an alia* He had shaved off his beard ; but bless your heart, I knew him directly." " He came to verify his suspicions," suggested Wardlaw, in a faint voice. " Not he. He came for love of the sick girl, and nothing else : and you'll never see either him or her, if that is any comfort to you." " Be good enough to conceal nothing. Facts must be faced." "That is too, true sir. Well, we abandoned her and took to the boats. I commanded one." "And Hudson the other?" "Hudson! No." " Why, how was that ? and what has become of him ?" " What has become of Hudson ?" said Wylie, with a start, " There's a question ! And not a drop to wet my lips and warm my heart. Is this a tale to tell dry ? Can't ye spare a drop of brandy to a poor devil that has earned ye £150,000, and risked his life and wrecked his soul to do jt?" Wardlaw cast a glance of contempt on him, but got up and speedily put a bottle of old brandy, a tumbler, and a caraffe of water on the table before him. Wylie drank a wineglassful neat, and gave a sort of sigh of satisfaction. And then ensued a dialogue, in which, curiously enough, the brave man was agitated, and the timid man was cool and collected. But one reason was, the latter had not imagination enough to realize things un- seen, though he had caused them. Wylie told him how Hudson got to the bottle, and would not leave the ship. "I think I see him now, with his cutlass in one hand and his rum-bottle in the other, and the waves running over his poor, silly face, as she went down. Poor Hiram ! he and I had made many a trip togeth- er, before we took to this." And Wylie shuddered, and took another gulp at the brandy. While he was drinking to drown the picture, Wardlaw was calmly reflecting on the bare fact. "Hum," said he, "we must use that circum- stance. I'll get it into the journal. Heroic captain. Went down- with the ship. Who can suspect Hudson in the teeth of such a fact ? Now pray go on, my good Wylie, the boats ?" " Well, sir, I had the surgeon, and ten men, and the lady's maid, on board the long-boat ; and there was the parson, the sick lady, and five sailors aboard the cutter. We sailed together till night, steering for Juan Fernandez ; then a fog came on and we lost sight of the cutter, and I altered my mind and judged it best to beat to win'ard, and get into the track of ships. Which we did, and were nearly swamped in a sou'wester ; but by good luck, a Yankee whaler picked us up, and took us to Buenos Ayres, where we shipped for England, what was left of us, only four besides myself; but I got the signatures of the others to my tale of the wreck. It is all as square as a die, I tell you." "Well done. Well done. But, stop! the other boat, with that sham parson on board, who knows all. She will be picked up, too, perhaps." " There is no chance for that. She was out of the tracks of trade; and, I'll tell ye truth, sir." He poured out half a tumbler of brandy, and drank a part of it ; and, now, for the first time his hand trembled as he lifted the glass. "Some fool had put the main of her provisions aboard the long-boat ; that is what sticks to me, and won't let me sleep. We took a chance, but we didn't give one. I think I told you there was a wom- an aboard the cutter, that sick girl, sir. Oh, but it was hard lines for her, poor thing ! I see her pale and calm ; O Lord, so pale and calm ; ev- ery night of my life ; she kneeled aboard the cutter with her white hands a clasped together, praying." "Certainly, it is all very shocking," said Wardlaw ; " but then you know, if they had es- caped, they would have exposed us. Believe me, it is all for the best." Wylie looked at him with wonder. "Ay," said he, after staring at him in wonder ; " you can sit here at your ease, and doom a ship and risk her people's lives : but if you had to do it, and 46 FOUL PLAY. see it, and then lie awake thinking of it, you'd wish all the gold on earth had been in hell be- fore you put your hand to such a piece of work." Wardlaw smiled a ghastly smile. "In short," said he, "you don't mean to take the three thousand'pounds I pay you for this little job." "Oh yes, I do ; but for all the gold in Victoria I wouldn't do such a job again. And you mark my words, sir, we shall get the money, and no- body will ever be the wiser." Wardlaw rubbed his hands complacently : his egotism, coupled with his want of imagination, nearly blinded him to every thing but the pecuniary feature of the business. " But," continued Wylie, " we shall never thrive on it. We have sunk a good ship, and we have as good as murdered a poor dying girl." "Hold your tongue, you fool!" cried Ward- law, losing his tang-froid in a moment, for he heard somebody at the door. It opened, and there stood a military figure in a travelling-cap — General Rolleston. CHAPTER XVI. As some eggs have actually two yolks, so Arthur Wardlaw had two hearts; and, at sight of Helen's father, the baser one ceased to beat for a while. He ran to General Rolleston, shook him warm- ly by the hand, and welcomed him to England with sparkling eyes. It is pleasant to be so welcomed, and the state- ly soldier returned his grasp in kind. "Is Helen with you, sir?" said Wardlaw, making a movement to go to the door : for he thought she must be outside in the cab. " No, she is not," said General Rolleston. " There, now," said Arthur, "that cruel father of mine has broken his promise, and carried her off to Elm-trees!" At this moment Wardlaw senior returned, to tell Arthur he had been just too late to meet the Rollestons. "Oh, here he is!" said he; and there were fresh greetings. " Well, but," said Arthur, " where is Helen !" "I think it is I who ought to ask that ques- tion," said Rolleston, gravely. "I telegraphed you at Elm-trees, thinking of course she would come with you to meet me at the station. It does not much matter, a few hours ; but her not coming makes me uneasy, for her health was declining when she left me. How is my child, Mr. Wardlaw ? Pray tell me the truth." Both the Wardlaws looked at one another, and at General Rolleston, and the elder Ward- law said there was certainly some misunder- standing here. "We fully believed that your daughter was coming home with you in the Shannon." ' ' Come home with me ? Why, of course not. She sailed three weeks before me. Good Heav- ens ! Has she not arrived ?" "No," replied old Wardlaw, "we have neither seen nor heard of her." "Why, what ship did she sail in?" said Ar- thur. "In the Proserpine." CHAPTER XVII. Arthur Wardlaw fixed on the speaker a gaze full of horror ; his jaw fell ; a livid pallor spread over his features ; he echoed in a hoarse whisper, " The Prosperpine ?" and turned his scared eyes upon Wylie, who was himself lean- ing against the wall, his stalwart frame begin- ning to tremble. '•The sick girl," murmured Wylie, and a cold sweat gathered on his brow. General Rolleston looked from one to another with strange misgivings, which soon deepened into a sense of some terrible calamity ; for now a strong convulsion swelled Arthur Wardlaw's heart ; his face worked fearfully ; and, with a sharp and sudden cry, he fell forward on the table, and his father's arm alone prevented him from sinking like a dead man on the floor. Yet, though crushed and helpless, he was not insensi- ble ; that blessing was denied him. General Rolleston implored an explanation. Wylie, with downcast and averted face, be- gan to stammer a few disconnected and unin- telligible words ; but old Wardlaw silenced him and said, with much feeling, "Let none but a father tell him. My poor, poor friend 1 — the Proserpine ! How can I say it ?" " Lost at sea," groaned Wylie. At these fatal words the old warrior's counte- nance grew rigid ; his large, bony hands gripped the back of the chair on which he leaned, and were white with their own convulsive force ; and he bowed his head under the blow, without one word. His was an agony too great and mute to be spoken to ; and there was silence in the room, broken only by the hysterical moans of the mis- erable plotter, who had drawn down this ca- lamity on his own head. He was in no state to be left alone ; and even the bereaved father found pity in his desolate heart for one who loved his lost child so well ; and the two old men took him home between them, in a helpless and pitia- ble condition. CHAPTER XVIII. But this utter prostration of his confederate began to alarm Wylie, and rouse him to exertion. Certainly, he was very sorry for what he had done, and would have undone it and forfeited his £3000 in a moment, if he could. But, as he could not undo the crime, he was all the more determined to reap the reward. Why, that £3000, for aught he knew, was the price of his soul ; and he was not the man to let his soul go gratis. He finished the rest of the brandy, and went after his men, to keep them true to him by promises ; but the next day he came to the office in Fenchurch Street, and asked anxiously for Wardlaw. Wardlaw had not arrived. He wait- ed, but the merchant never came ; and Michael told him, with considerable anxiety, that this was the first time his young master had missed coming this five years. In course of the day, several underwriters came in, with long faces, to verify the report which had now reached Lloyd's, that the Pros- erpine had foundered at sea. FOUL PLAY. 47 "It is too true," said Michael; "and poor Mr. Wylie here has barely escaped with his life. He was mate of the ship, gentlemen." Upon this, each visitor questioned Wylie, and Wylie returned the same smooth answer to all inquiries: one heavy gale after another had so tried the ship that her seams had opened, and let in more water than all the exertions of the crew and passengers could discharge ; at last, they had taken to the boats ; the long-boat had been picked up : the cutter had never been heard of since. They nearly all asked after the ship's log. "I have got it safe at home," said he. It was in his pocket all the time. Some asked him where the other survivors were. He told them five had shipped on board the Maria, and three were with him at Poplar, one disabled by the hardships they had all en- dured. One or two complained angrily of Mr. Ward- law's absence at such a time. "Well, good gentlemen," said Wylie, "I'll tell ye. Mr. Wardlaw's sweetheart was aboard the ship. He is a'most broken-hearted. He vallied her more than all the gold, that you may take your oath on." This stroke, coming from a rough fellow in a pea-jacket, who looked as simple as he was cun- ning, silenced remonstrance, and went far to disarm suspicion ; and so pleased Michael Pen- fold, that he said, " Mr. Wylie, you are inter- ested in this business, would* you mind going to Mr. Wardlaw's house, and asking what we are to do next? I'll give you his address, and a line, begging him to make an effort and see you. Business is the heart's best ointment. Eh, dear Mr. Wylie, I have known grief too ; and I think I should have gone road when they sent my poor son away, but for business, especially the summing up of long columns, etc." Wylie called at the house in Russell Square, and asked to see Mr. Wardlaw. The servant shook his head. "You can't see him ; he is very ill." " Very ill ?" said Wylie. " I'm sorry for that. Well, but I sha'n't make him any worse ; and Mr. Penfold says I must see him. It is very par- ticular, I tell you. He won't thank you for re- fusing me, when he comes to hear of it. " He said this very seriously ; and the servant, after a short hesitation, begged him to sit down in the passage a moment. He then went into the dining-room, and shortly re-appeared, hold- ing the door open. Out came, not Wardlaw junior, but Wardlaw senior. " My son is in no condition to receive you," said he, gravely ; " but I am at your service. What is your business ?" Wylie was taken off his guard, and stammered out something about the Shannon. "The Shannon ! What have you to do with her? You belong to the Proserpine." "Ay, sir; but I had his orders to ship forty chests of lead and smelted copper on board the Shannon." "Well?" " Ye see, sir," said Wylie, "Mr. Wardlaw was particular about them, and I feel responsible like, having shipped them aboard another ves- sel." " Have you not the captain's receipt ?" "That I have, sir, at home. But you could hardly read it for salt water." "Well," said Wardlaw senior, "I will direct our agent at Liverpool to look after them, and send them up at once to my cellars in Fenchurch Street. Forty chests of lead and copper, I think you said." And he took a note of this directly. Wylie was not a little discomfited at this unex- pected turn things had taken ; but he held his tongue now, for fear of making bad worse. Wardlaw senior went on to say that he should have to conduct the business of the firm for a time, in spite of his old age and failing health. This announcement made Wylie perspire with anxiety, and his three thousand pounds seemed to melt away from him. "But never mind," said old Wardlaw; "I am very glad you came. In fact, you are the very man I wanted to see. My poor afflicted friend has asked after you several times. Be good enough to follow me." He led the way into the dining-room, and there sat the sad father in all the quiet dignity of calm, unfathomable sorrow. • Another gentleman stood upon the rug with his back to the fire, waiting for Mr. Wardlaw ; this was the family physician, who had just come down from Arthur's bedroom, and had entered by another door through the drawing-room. "Well, doctor," said Wardlaw, anxiously, " what is your report ?" "Not so good as I could wish; but nothing to excite immediate alarm. Overtaxed brain, sir, weakened and unable to support this calami- ty. However, we have reduced the fever; the symptoms of delirium have been checked, and I think we shall escape brain fever if he is kept quiet. I could not have said as much this morn- ing." The doctor then took his leave, with a prom- ise to call next morning ; and, as soon as he was gone, Wardlaw turned to General Rolleston, and said, "Here is Wylie, sir. Come forward, my man, and speak to the General. He wants to know if you can point out to him on the chart the very spot where the Proserpine was lost?" "Well, sir," said Wylie, "I think I could." The great chart of the Pacific was then spread out upon the table, and rarely has a chart been examined as this was, with the bleeding heart as well as the straining eye. The rough sailor became an oracle ; the others hung upon his words, and followed his brown finger on the chart with fearful interest. "Ye see, sir," said he, addressing the old mer- chant, for there was something on his mind that made him avoid speaking directly to General Rolleston, " when we came out of Sydney, the wind being south and by west, Hudson took the northerly course instead of running through Cook's Straits. The weather freshened from the same quarter, so that, with one thing and an- other, by when we were a month out, she was five hundred miles or so nor'ard of her true course. But that wasn't all; when the leak gained on us, Hudson ran the ship three hundred miles by my reckoning to the nor'east ; and, I remember, the day before she foundered, he told me she was in latitude forty, and Easter Island bearing due north." " Here is the spot, then," said General Rolles- ton, and placed his finger on the spot. 43 FOUL PLAY. "Ay, sir," said Wylie, addressing the mer- chant ; * ' but she ran about eighty-five miles af- ter that, on a northerly course — no — wind on her starboard quarter, — and, being deep in the water, she'd make lee way, — say eighty-two miles, nor'east by east." The General took eighty-two miles off the scale, with a pair of dividers, and set out that distance on the chart. He held the instrument fixed on the point thus obtained. Wylie eyed the point, and, after a moment's consideration, nodded his head. "There, or thereabouts," he said, in a low voice, and looking at the merchant. A pause ensued, and the two old men exam- ined the speck pricked on the map, as if it were the waters covering the Proserpine. " Now, sir," said Rolleston, "trace the course of the boats;" and he handed Wylie a pencil. The sailor slowly averted his head, but stretch- ed out his hand and took it, and traced two lines, the one short and straight, running nearly north- east. "That's the way the cutter headed when we lost her in the night." The other line ran parallel to the first for half an inch, then, turning, bent backward and ran due south. " This was our course," said Wylie. General Rolleston looked up, and said, "Why did you desert the cutter?" The mate looked at old Wardlaw, and, after some hesitation, replied: "After we lost sight of her, the men with me declared that we could not reach either Juan Fernandez or Valpai'aiso with our stock of provisions, and insisted on standing for the sea-track of Australian liners between the Horn and Sydney." This explanation was received in dead silence. Wylie fidgeted, and his eye wandered round the room. General Rolleston applied his compasses to the chart. "I find that the Proserpine was not one thousand miles from Easter Island. Why did you not make for that land?" "We had no charts, sir," said Wylie to the merchant, "and I'm no navigator." "I see no land laid down hereaway, northeast of the spot where the ship went down." "No," replied Wylie, "that's what the men said when they made me 'bout ship." " Then why did you lead the way north-east at all?" "I'm no navigator," answered the man sullen- ly. He then suddenly stammered out: "Ask my men what we went through. "Why, sir "(to Wardlaw), "I can hardly believe that I am alive, and sit here talking to you about this cursed business. And nobody offers me a drop of any thing." Wai'dlaw poui*ed him out a tumbler of wine. His brown hand trembled a little, and he gulped the wine down like water. General Rolleston gave Mr. Wardlaw a look, and Wylie was dismissed. He slouched down the street all in a cold perspiration ; but still clinging to his three thousand pounds, though small was now his hope of ever seeing it. When he was gone General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in silence. Ward- law eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterams halt, and pointed down at the chart. "I'll start at once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso, there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor lost girl." " Can you think of no better way than that?" said old Wardlaw, gently, and with a slight tone of reproach. "No, — not at this moment. Oh yes, by-the- by, the Greyhound and Dreadnaught are going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have interest enough to get a berth in the Greyhound." " What ! go in a government ship ! under the orders of a man, under the orders of another man, under the orders of a Board. Why, if you heard our poor girl was alive upon a rock, the Dread- naught would be sure to run up a bunch of red- tape to the fore that moment to recall the Grey- hound, and the Greyhound would go back. No," said he, rising suddenly, and confronting the General, and with the color mounting for once in his sallow face, "you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw and Son, and the cap- tain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the steam-sloop Springbok, seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I give you my hand on that." They grasped hands. But this sudden warmth and tenderness, com- ing from a man habitually cold, overpowered the stout General. " What, sir," he faltered ; " your own son lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me, — such goodness, — it is too much for me." "No, no," faltered the merchant, affected in his turn ; " it is nothing. Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed ship to marry my son. Yes, he lies ill for love of her ; God help him and me too ; but you most of all. Don't, General ; don't ! We have got work to do ; we must be brave, sir ; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of one age ; and this is a heavy blow for us : and we are friends no more ; it has made us brothers : she was to be my child as well as yours ; well, now she is my child, and our hearts they bleed together." At this, the truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two women, and cried together a little. But that was soon over with such men as these. They sat together and plunged into the details of the expedition, and they talked them- selves into hope. In a week the Springbok steamed down the Channel on an errand inspired by love, not rea- son ; to cross one mighty ocean, and grope for a lost daughter in another. CHAPTER XIX. We return to the cutter and her living freight. After an anxious but brief consultation, it was agreed that their best chance was to trav- erse as many miles of water as possible, while the wind was fair; by this means they would increase their small chance of being picked up, FOUL PLAY. 40 and also of falling in with land, and would, at all events, sail into a lovely climate, where in- tense cold was unknown, and gales of wind un- common. Mr. Hazel advised them to choose a skipper, and give him absolute power, especially over the provisions. They assented to this. He then recommended Cooper for that post. But they had not fathomed the sterling virtues of that taciturn seaman ; so they offered the com- mand to Welch instead. "Me put myself over Sam Cooper!" said he; "not likely." Then their choice fell upon Michael Morgan. The other sailors' names were Prince, Fenner, and Mackintosh. Mr. Hazel urged Morgan to put the crew and passengers on short allowance at once, viz. two biscuits a day, and four table-spoonfuls of water : but Morgan was a common sailor ; he could not see clearly very far ahead ; and, moreover, his own appetite counteracted this advice ; he dealt out a pound of biscuit and an ounce of ham to each person, night and morning, and a pint of water in course of the day. Mr. Hazel declined his share of the ham, and begged Miss Rolleston so earnestly not to touch it, that she yielded a silent compliance. On the fourth day the sailors were all in good spirits, though the provisions were now very low. They even sang, and spun yarns. This was part- ly owing to the beauty of the weather. On the fifth day Morgan announced that he could only serve out one biscuit per day : and this sudden decline caused some dissatisfaction and alarm. Next day, the water ran so low, that only a teaspoonful was served out night and morning. There were murmurs and forebodings. In all heavy trials and extremities some man or other reveals great qualities, that were latent in him, ay, hidden from himself. And this gen- eral observation was verified on the present oc- casion, as it had been in the Indian mutiny, and many other crises. Hazel came out. He encouraged the men, out of his multifa- rious stores of learning. He related at length stories of wrecks and sufferings at sea ; which, though they had long been in print, were most of them new to these poor fellows. He told them, among the rest, what the men of the Bona Dea, waterlogged at sea, had suffered, — twelve days without any food but a rat and a kitten, — yet had all survived. He gave them some details of the Wager, the Grosvenor, the Corbin, the Medusa; but above all, a most minute account of the Bounty, and Bligh's wonderful voyage in an open boat, short of pro- visions. He moralized on this, and showed his fellow-sufferers it was discipline and self-denial from the first that had enabled those hungry spectres to survive, and to traverse two thousand eight hundred miles of water, in those very seas ; and that in spite of hunger, thirst, disease, and rough weather. By these means he diverted their minds in some degree from their own calamity, and taught them the lesson they most needed. The poor fellows listened with more interest than you could have thought possible under the pressure of bodily distress. And Helen Rolles- ton's hazel eye dwelled on the narrator with un- ceasing wonder. 4 Yes, learning and fortitude, strengthened by those great examples learning furnishes, main- tained a superiority, even in the middle of the Pacific ; and not the rough sailors only, but the lady who had rejected and scorned his love, hung upon the brave student's words : she was compelled to look up, with wonder, to the man she had hated and despised in her hours of ease. On the sixth day the provisions failed entirely. Not a crust of bread : not a drop of water. At 4 p.m. several flying-fish, driven into the air by the dolphins and cat-fish, fell into the sea again near the boat, and one struck the sail sharply, and fell into the boat. It was divided, and devoured raw, in a moment. The next morning the wind fell, and, by noon, the ocean became like glass. The horrors of a storm have been often paint- ed; but who has described, or can describe, the horrors of a calm to a boat-load of hungiy, thirsty creatures, whose only chances of salva- tion or relief are wind and rain ? The beautiful, remorseless sky was one vault of purple, with a great flaming jewel in the centre, whose vertical rays struck, and parched, and scorched the living sufferers ; and blistered and baked the boat itself, so that it hurt their hot hands to touch it : the beautiful, remorse- less ocean w r as one sheet of glass, that glared in their bloodshot eyes, and reflected the intolerable heat of heaven upon these poor wretches, who were gnawed to death with hunger; and their raging thirst was fiercer still. Towards afternoon of the eighth day, Mackin- tosh dipped a vessel in the sea, with the manifest intention of drinking the salt water. " Stop him " cried Hazel, in great agitation ; and the others seized him, and overpowered him : he cursed them with such horrible curses, that Miss Rolleston put her fingers in her ears, and shuddered from head to foot. Even this was new to her, to hear foul language. A calm voice rose in the midst, and said : "Let us pray." There was a dead silence, and Mr. Hazel kneeled down and prayed loud and fervently ; and, while he prayed, the furious cries subsided for a while, and deep groans only were heard. He prayed for food, for rain, for wind, for Pa- tience. The men were not so far gone but they could just manage to say "Amen." He rose from his knees, and gathered the pale faces of the men together in one glance ; and saw that intense expression of agony which physical pain can mould with men's features : and then he strained his eyes over the brassy horizon ; but no cloud, no veil of vapor was vis- ible. "Water, writer everywhere, but not a drop to drink." "We must be mad," he cried, "to die of thirst with all this water round us." His invention being stimulated by this idea, and his own dire need, he eagerly scanned every thing in the boat, and his eyes soon lighted on two objects disconnected in themselves, but it struck him he could use them in combination. These were a common glass bottle, and Miss Rolleston's life-preserving jacket, that served her for a couch. He drew this garment over his knees, and considered it attentively ; then 50 FOUL PLAY. untwisted the brass nozzle through which the jacket was inflated, and so left a tube, some nine inches in length, hanging down from the neck of the garment. He now applied his breath to the tube, and the jacket swelling rapidly proved that the whole receptacle was air-tight. He then allowed the air to escape. Next, he took the bottle and filled it with water from the sea ; then he inserted, with some difficulty, and great care, the neck of the bottle into the orifice of the tube : this done, he detached the wi e of the brass nozzle, and whipped the tube firmly round the neck of the bottle. "Now, light a fire," he cried; "no matter what it costs." The fore thwart was chopped up, and a fire soon spluttered and sparkled, for ten eager hands were feeding it : the bottle was then suspended over it, and, in due course, the salt water boiled and threw off vapor, and the belly of the jacket began to heave and stir. Hazel then threw cold water upon the outside, to keep it cool, and, while the men eagerly watched the bubbling bot- tle and swelling bag, his spirits rose, and he took occasion to explain that what was now go- ing on under their eyes was, after all, only one of the great processes of Nature, done upon a small scale. "The clouds," said he "are but vapors drawn from the sea, by the heat of the sun : these clouds are composed of fresh water, and so the steam, we are now raising from salt water will be fresh. We can't make whiskey, or brew beer, lads ; but, thank Heaven, we can brew water ; and it is worth all other liquors ten times told." A wild " hurrah !" greeted these words. But every novel experiment seems doomed to fail, or meet with some disaster. The water in the bottle had been reduced too low by vapor- ism, and the bottle burst suddenly, with a loud report. That report was followed by a piteous wail. Hazel turned pale at this fatal blow : but, re- covering himself, he said, " That is unfortunate ; but it was a good servant while it lasted ; give me the baler ; and, Miss Rolleston, can you lend me a thimble ?" The tube of the life-preserver was held over the baler ; and out trickled a small quantity of pure water, two thimblefuls apiece. Even that, as it passed over their swelling tongues and parched swallows, was a heavenly relief: but, alas, the supply was then exhausted. Next day hunger seemed uppermost, and the men gnawed and chewed their tobacco-pouches ; and two caps, that had been dressed with the hair on, were divided for food. None was given to Mr. Hazel or Miss Rolles- ton ; and this, to do the poor creatures justice, was the first instance of injustice or partiality the sailors had shown. The lady, though tormented with hunger, was more magnanimous : she offered to divide the contents of her little medicine chest ; and the globules were all devoured in a moment. And now their tortures were aggravated by the sight of abundance. They drifted over coral rocks, at a considerable depth, but the water was so exquisitely clear that they saw five fathoms down. They discerned small fish drifting over the bottom ; they looked like a driving cloud, so vast was their number; and every now and then there was a scurry among them, and porpoises and dog-fish broke in and feasted on them. All this they saw, yet could not catch one of those billions for their lives. Thus they were tantalized as well as starved. The next day was like the last, with this dif- ference, that the sufferers could no longer en- dure their torments in silence. The lady moaned constantly : the sailors groan- ed, lamented, and cursed. The sun baked and blistered, and the water glared. The sails being useless, the sailors rigged them as an awning, and salt water was constantly thrown over them. Mr. Hazel took a baler and drenched his own clothes and Miss Rolleston's upon their bodies. This relieved the hell of thirst in some degree : but the sailors could not be persuaded to prac- tise it. In the afternoon Hazel took Miss Rolleston's Bible from her wasted hands, and read aloud the forty-second Psalm. When he had done, one of the sailors asked him to pass the Bible forward. He did so ; and in half an hour the leaves were returned him ; the vellum binding had been cut off, divided, and eaten. He looked piteously at the leaves, and, after a while, fell upon his knees and prayed silently. He rose, and, with Miss Rolleston's consent, offered the men the leaves as well. " It is the Bread of Life for men's souls, not their bodies," said he. "But God is merciful; I think he will forgive you ; for your need is bitter." Cooper replied that the binding was man's, but the pages were God's ; and, either for this or another more obvious reason, the leaves were declined for food. All that afternoon Hazel was making a sort of rough spoon out of a fragment of wood. The night that followed was darker than usual, and, about midnight, a hand was laid on Helen Rolleston's shoulder, and a voice whis- pered, " Hush ! say nothing. I have got some- thing for you." At the same time, something sweet and deli- ciously fragrant was put to her lips ; she opened her mouth, and received a spoonful of marma- lade. Never did marmalade taste like that be- fore. It dissolved itself like ambrosia over her palate, and even relieved her parched throat in some slight degree by the saliva it excited. Nature could not be resisted ; her body took whatever he gave. But her high mind rebelled. " Oh, how base I am," said she, and wept. "Why, it is your own," said he, soothingly ; " I took it out of your cabin expressly for you." "At least oblige me by eating some yourself, sir," said Helen, " or " (with a sudden burst) "I will die ere I touch another morsel." "I feel the threat, Miss Rolleston; but I do not need it, for I am very, very hungry. But no ; if 7 take any, I must divide it all with them. But if you will help me unrip the jacket, I will suck the inside — after you." Helen gazed at him, and wondered at the man and at the strange love which had so bitterly of- fended her when she was surrounded by com- forts ; but now it extorted her respect. They unripped the jacket, and found some FOUL PLAY. 51 moisture left. They sucked it, and it was a wonderful, and incredible relief to their parched gullets. The next day was a fearful one. Not a cloud in the sky to give hope of rain ; the air so light, it only just moved them along ; and the sea glared, and the sun beat on the poor wretches, now tortured into madness with hunger and thirst. The body of man, in this dire extremity, can suffer internal agony as acute as any that can be inflicted on its surface by the knife ; and the cries, the screams, the groans, the prayers, the curses, intermingled, that issued from the boat, were not to be distinguished from the cries of men horribly wounded in battle, or writhing under some terrible operation in hospitals. Oh, it was terrible and piteous to see and hear the boat-load of ghastly victims, with hollow cheeks, and wild-beast eyes, go groaning, curs- ing, and shrieking loud, upon that fair glassy sea, below that purple vault and glorious sun. Towards afternoon, the sailors got together, forward, and left Hazel and Miss Rolleston alone in the stern. This gave him an opportu- nity of speaking to her confidentially. He took advantage of it, and said, "Miss Rolleston, I wish to consult you. Am I justified in secreting the marmalade any longer ? There is nearly a spoonful apiece." "No," said Helen, "divide it among them all. Oh, if I had only a woman beside me, to pray with, and cry with, and die with : for die we must." " I am not so sure of that," said Hazel, faint- ly, but with a cool fortitude all his own. u Ex- perience proves that the human body can sub- sist a prodigious time on very little food : and saturating the clothes with water is, I know, the best way to allay thirst. And women, thank Heaven, last longer than men, under priva- tions." "I shall not last long, sir," said Helen. " Look at their eyes." " What do you mean?" "I mean that those men there are going to kill me." CHAPTER XX. Hazel thought her reason was going; and, instead of looking at the men's eyes, it was hers he examined. But no; the sweet cheek was white, the eyes had a fearful hollow all round them, but, out of that cave, the light hazel eye, preternaturally large, but calm as ever, looked out, full of fortitude, resignation, and reason. "Don't look at we," said she, quietly ; "but take an opportunity and look at them. They mean to kill me." Hazel looked furtively round ; and, being en- lightened in part by the woman's intelligence, he observed that some of the men were actually glaring at himself and Helen Rolleston in a dreadful way. There was a remarkable change in their eyes since he looked last. The pupils seemed diminished, the whites enlarged ; and, in a word, the characteristics of humanity had, somehow, died out of those bloodshot orbs, and the animal alone shone in them now ; the wild beast, driven desperate by hunger. What he saw, coupled with Helen's positive interpretation of it, was truly sickening. These men were six, and he but one. They } had all clasp-knives ; and he had only an old | penknife that would be sure to double up, or break off, if a blow were dealt with it. He asked himself in utter terror, what on earth he should do. The first thing seemed to be to join the men, and learn their minds: it might also be as well to prevent this secret conference from going far- ther. He went forward boldly, though sick at heart, and said, "Well, my lads, what is it?" The men were silent directly, and looked sul- lenly down, avoiding his eye, yet not ashamed. In a situation so terrible, the senses are sharp- ened ; and Hazel dissected, in his mind, this sin- ister look, and saw that Morgan, Prince, and Mackintosh were hostile to him. But Welch and Cooper he hoped were still friendly. " Sir," said Fenner, civilly but doggedly, "we are come to this now, that one must die, "for the I others to live : and the greater part of us are for casting lots all round, and let every man, and every woman too, take their chance. That is 1 fair, Sam, isn't it ?" " It is fair," said Cooper, with a terrible dog- gedness. "But it is hard," he added. "Harder that seven should die for one," said Mackintosh. " No, no ; one must die for the seven." Hazel represented, with all the force language possesses, that what they meditated was a crime, the fatal result of which was known by experi- ence. But they heard in ominous silence. Hazel went back to Helen Rolleston, and sat down right before her. "Well!" said she, with supernatural calmness. " You were mistaken," said he. " Then why have you placed yourself between them and me. No, no, their eyes have told me they have singled me out. But what does it mat- ter ? We poor creatures are all to die ; and that one is the happiest that dies first, and dies unstain- ed by such a crime. Iheardevery word you said, sir." Hazel cast a piteous look on her, and, finding he could no longer deceive her as to their dan- ger, and being weakened by famine, fell to trem- \ bling and crying. Helen Rolleston looked at him with calm and ' gentle pity. For a moment, the patient forti- j tude of a woman made her a brave man's supe- rior. Night came, and, for the first time, Hazel claimed two portions of the rum ; one for him- self and one for Miss Rolleston. He then returned aft, and took the helm. He loosened it, so as to be ready to unship it in a moment, and use it as a weapon. The men huddied together forward ; and it was easy to see that the boat was now divided into two hostile camps. Hazel sat quaking, with his hand on the helm, fearing an attack every moment. Both he and Helen listened acutely, and about three o'clock in the morning a new inci- dent occurred, of a terrible nature. Mackintosh was heard to say, "Serve out the 52 FOUL PLAY. rum, no allowance," and the demand was in- stantly complied with by Morgan. Then Hazel touched Miss Rolleston on the shoulder, and insisted on her taking half what was left of the marmalade, and he took the other half. The time was gone by for economy; what they wanted now was strength, in case the J wild beasts, maddened by drink as well as hun- ' ger, should attack them. Already the liquor had begun to tell, and wild hallos and yells, and even fragments of ghastly songs mingled with the groans of misery, in the doomed boat. At sunrise there was a great swell upon the water, and sharp gusts at intervals ; and on the horizon, to windward, might be observed a black spot in the sky no bigger than a fly. But none saw that ; Hazel's eye never left the raving wretches in the fore part of the boat ; Cooper and Welch sat in gloomy despair amidships ; and the others were huddled together forward, encpurag- ing each other to a desperate act. It was about eight o'clock in the morning Hel- en Rolleston awoke from a brief doze, and said, "Mr. Hazel, I have had a strange dream. I dreamed there was food, and plenty of it, on the outside of this boat." While these strange words were yet in her mouth, three of the sailors suddenly rose up with their knives drawn, and eyes full of murder, and staggered aft as fast as their enfeebled bodies could. Hazel uttered a loud cry, "Welch ! Cooper ! will 3'ou see us butchered ?" and, unshipping the helm, rose to his feet. Cooper put out his arm to stop Mackintosh, but was too late. He did stop Morgan, however, and said, " Come, none of that ; no foul play!" Irritated by this unexpected resistance, and maddened by drink, Morgan turned on Cooper and stabbed him ; he sank down with a groan ; on this Welch gave Morgan a fearful gash, divid- ing his jugular, and was stabbed, in return, by Prince, but not severely : these two grappled and rolled over one another, stabbing and cursing at the bottom of the boat ; meantime, Mackintosh was received by Hazel with a point-blank thrust in the face from the helm, that staggered him, th©ugh a very powerful man, and drove him backward against the mast ; but, in delivering this thrust, Hazel's foot slipped, and he fell with great violence on his head, and arm ; Mackin- tosh recovered himself, and sprang upon the stern thwart with his knife up and gleaming over Hel- en Rolleston. Hazel writhed round where he lay, and struck him desperately on the knee with the helm. The poor woman knew only how to suf- fer ; she cowered a little, and put up two feeble hands. The knife descended. But not upon that cowering figure. CHAPTER XXI. A purple rippling line upon the water had for .some little time been coming down upon them with great rapidity ; but, bent on bloody work, they had not observed it. The boat heeled over under a sudden gust ; but the ruffian had already lost his footing under Hazel's blow, and, the boom striking him almost at the same moment, he went clean over the gunwale into the sea ; he struck it with his knife first. All their lives were now gone if Cooper, who had already recovered his feet, had not immedi- ately cut the sheet with his knife ; there was no time to slack it ; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail was drenched, and the boat full of water. " Ship the helm !" he roared. The boat righted directly the sheet was cut, the wet sail flapped furiously, and the boat having way on her, yielded to the helm and wriggled slowly away before the whistling wind. Mackintosh rose a few yards astern, and swam after the boat, with great glaring eyes ; the loose sail was not drawing, but the wind moved the boat onward. However, Mackintosh gained slowly, and Hazel held up an oar like a spear, and shouted to him that he must promise solemn- ly to forego all violence, or he should never come on board alive. Mackintosh opened his mouth to reply ; but, at the same moment, his eyes suddenly dilated in a fearful way, and he went under water, with a gurgling cry. Yet not like one drowning, but with a jerk. The next moment there was a great bubbling of the water, as if displaced by some large crea- tures struggling below, and then the surface was stained with blood. And, lest there should be any doubt as to the wretched man's fate, the rude back fin of a mon- strous shark came soon after, gliding round and round the rolling boat, awaiting the next vic- tim. Now, while the water was yet stained with his life-blood, who, hurrying to kill, had met with a violent death, the unwounded sailor Fenner, ex- cited by the fracas, broke forth into singing, and so completed the horror of a wild and awful scene ; for still, while he shouted, laughed, and sang, the shark swam calmly round and round, and the boat crept on, her white sail bespattered with blood, — which was not so before, — and in her bottom lay one man dead as a stone ; and two poor wretches, Prince and Welch, their short- lived feud composed forever, sat openly sucking their bleeding wounds, to quench for a moment their intolerable thirst. Oh, little do we, who never pass a single day without bite or sup, know the animal man, in these dire extremities. CHAPTER XXII. At last Cooper ordered Fenner to hold his jaw, and come aft, and help sail the boat. But the man, being now stark mad, took no notice of the order. His madness grew on him, and took a turn by no means uncommon in these cases. He saw before him sumptuous feasts, and streams of fresh water flowing. These he began to describe with great volubility and rapture, smacking his lips, and exulting : and so he went on tantalizing them till noon. Meantime, Cooper asked Mr. Hazel if he could sail the boat. "I can steer," said he, " but that is all. My right arm is benumbed." The silvery voice of Helen Rolleston then utter- FOUL PLAY. S3 ed brave and welcome words. " I will do what- ever you tell me, Mr. Cooper." " Long life to you, miss !" said the wounded seaman. He then directed her how to reef the sail, and splice the sheet which he had been obliged to cut ; and, in a word, to sail the boat ; which she did with some little assistance from Hazel. And so they all depended upon her, whom some of them had been for killing: and the blood-stained boat glided before the wind. At two p.m. Fenner jumped suddenly up, and, looking at the sea with rapture, cried out, " Aha ! my boys, here's a beautiful green meadow ; and there's a sweet brook with bulrushes: green, green, green ! Let's have a roll among the daisies." And, in a moment, ere any of his stiff and wounded shipmates could put out a hand, he threw himself on his back upon the water, and sunk forever, with inexpressible rapture on his corpse-like facrT. A feeble groan was the only tribute those who remained behind could afford him. At three p.m. Mr. Hazel -happened to look over the weather-side of the boat, as she heeled to leeward under a smart breeze, and he saw a shell or two fastened to her side, about eleven inches above keel. He looked again, and gave a loud hurrah. "Barnacles! barnacles!" he cried. " I see them sticking." He leaned over, and, with some difficulty, de- tached one, and held it up. It was not a barnacle, but a curious oblong shell-fish, open at one end. At sight of this, the wounded forgot their wounds, and leaned over the boat's side, detach- ing the shell-fish with their knives. They broke them with the handles of their knives, and de- voured the fish. They were as thick as a man's finger, and about an inch long, and as sweet as a nut. It seems that in the long calm these shell-fish had fastened on the boat. More than a hundred of them were taken off her weather-side, and evenly divided. Miss Rolleston, at Hazel's earnest, request, ate only six, and these very slowly, and laid the rest by. But the sailors could not restrain them- selves ; and Prince, in particular, gorged him- self so fiercely that he turned purple in the face, and began to breathe very hard. That black speck on the horizon had grown by noon to a beetle, and by three o'clock to some- thing more like an elephant, and it now diffused itself into a huge black cloud, that gradually overspread the heavens ; and at last, about half an hour before sunset, came a peculiar chill, and then, in due course, a drop or two fell upon the parched wretches. They sat, less like animals than like plants, all stretching towards their preserver. Their eyes were turned up to the clouds, so were their open mouths, and their arms and hands held up towards it. The drops increased in number, and praise went up to Heaven in return. Patter, patter, patter ; down came a shower, a rain, — a heavy, steady rain. With cries of joy, they put out every vessel to •atch it ; they lowered the sail, and putting bal- last, in the centre, bellied it into a great vessel to catch it. They used all their spare canvas to catch it. They filled the water-cask with it ; they filled the keg that had held the fatal spirit ; and all the time they were sucking the wet canvas, and their own clothes, and their very hands and garments on which the life-giving drops kept fall- ing. Then they set their little sail again, and pray- ed for land to Him who had sent them wind and rain. CHAPTER XXIII. The breeze declined at sunset ; but it rained at intervals during the night ; and by the morn- ing they were somewhat chilled. Death had visited them again during the night. Prince was discovered dead and cold ; his wounds were mere scratches, and there seems to be no doubt that he died by gorging himself with more food than his enfeebled system could possibly di- gest. Thus dismally began a day of comparative bodily comfort, but mental distress, especially to Miss Rolleston and Mr. Hazel. Now that this lady and gentleman were no longer goaded to madness by physical suffering, their higher sensibilities resumed their natural force, and the miserable contents of the blood- stained boat shocked them terribly. Two corpses and two wounded men. Mr. Hazel, however, soon came to one resolu- tion, and that was to read the funeral service over the dead, and then commit them to the deep. He declared this intention, and Cooper, who, though wounded, and apparently sinking, was still skipper of the boat, acquiesced readily. Mr. Hazel then took the dead men's knives and their money out of their pockets, and read the burial-service over them ; they were then com- mitted to the deep. This sad ceremony perform- ed, he addressed a few words to the survivors. " My friends, and brothers in affliction, we ought not to hope too much from Divine mercy for ourselves ; or we should come soon to forget Divine justice. But we are not forbidden to hope for others. Those who have now gone were guilty of a terrible crime ; but then they were tempted more than their flesh could bear ; and they received their punishment here on earth : we may therefore hope they will escape punish- ment hereafter. And it is for us to profit by their fate, and bow to Heaven's will : even when they drew their knives, food in plenty was with- in their reach, and the signs of wind were on the sea, and of rain in the sky. Letusbemorepatie: t than they were, and place our trust — What is that upon the water to leeward? A piece of wood floating ?" Welch stood up and looked. " Can't make it out. Steer alongside it, miss, if you please." And he crept forward. Presently he became excited, and directed those in the stern how to steer the boat close to the object without going over it. He begged them all to be silent. He leaned over the boat- side as they neared it. He clutched it suddenly with both hands and flung it into the boat with a shout of triumph, but sank exhausted by the effort. It was a young turtle ; and being asleep on the water, or inexperienced, had allowed them to capture it. 54 FOUL PLAY. This was indeed a godsend : twelve pounds of succulent meat. It was instantly divided, and Mr. Hazel contrived, with some difficulty, to boil a portion of it. He enjoyed it greatly ; but Miss Rolleston showed a curious and violent antipathy to it, scarcely credible under the circumstances. Not so the sailors. They devoured it raw, what they could get at all. Cooper could only get down a mouthful or two: had received his death- wound, and was manifestly sinking. He revived, however, from time to time, and spoke cheerfully, whenever he spoke at all. Welch informed* him of every incident that took place, however minute. Then he would nod or utter a syllable or two. On being told that they were passing through sea-weed, he expressed a wish to see some of it, and when he had examined it, he said to Ha- zel, "Keep up your heart, sir; you are not a hundred miles from land." He added gently, after apause, "But I am bound for another port. ; ' About five in the afternoon Welch came aft, with the tears in his eyes, to say that Sam was just going to slip his cable, and had something to say to them. They went to him directly, and Hazel took his hand, and exhorted him to forgive all his enemies. "Hain't a got none," was the reply. Hazel then, after a few words of religious ex- hortation and comfort, asked him if he could do any thing for him. " Ay," said Cooper, solemnly. " Got pen and ink aboard, any of ye?" "I have a pencil," said Helen, earnestly; then, tearfully, ' * Oh dear ! it is to make his will." She opened her prayer-book, which had two blank leaves under each cover. The dying man saw them, and rose into that remarkable energy which sometimes precedes the departure of the soul. "Write," said he, in his deep, full tones. "I, Samuel Cooper, able seaman, am going to slip my cable, and sail into the presence of my Maker." He waited till this was written. " And so I speak the truth. "The ship Proserpine was destroyed willful. "The men had more allowance than they signed for. " The mate was always plying the captain with liquor. "Two days before ever the ship leaked, the mate got the long-boat ready. " When the Proserpine sunk, we was on her port quarter, aboard the cutter, was me and my messmate Tom Welch. "We saw two auger-holes in her stern, about two inches diameter. " Them two holes was made from within, for the splinters showed outside. " She was a good ship, and met with no stress of weather to speak of, on that voyage. "Joe Wylie scuttled hep, and destroyed her people. " D — n his eyes !" Mr. Hazel was shocked at this finale ; but he knew what sailors are, and how little meaning there is in their set phrases. However, as a clergyman, he could not allow these to be Coop- er's last words ; so he said earnestly, "Yes, but, my poor fellow, you said you forgave all your enemies. We all need forgiveness, you know." "That is true, sir." "And you forgive this Wylie, do you not?" " O Lord yes, " said Cooper, faintly. " I for- give the lubber ; d — n him !" Having said these words with some difficulty, he became lethargic, and so remained for two hours. Indeed he spoke but once more, and that was to Welch ; though they were all about him then. "Messmate," said he, in a voice that was now faint and broken, "you and I must sail together on this new voyage. I'm going out of port first ; but " (in a whisper of incon- ceivable tenderness and simple cunning) " I'll lie to outside the harbor till you come out, my boy." Then he paused a moment. Then he added, softly, "For I love you, Tom." These sweet words were the last of that rug- ged, silent sailor, who never threw a word away, and whose rough breast inclosed a friendship as of the ancient world, tender, true, and everlast- ing : that sweetened his life and ennobled his death. As he deserved mourners, so he had true ones. His last words went home to the afflicted hearts that heard them, and the lady and gentle- man, whose lives he had saved at cost of his own, wept aloud over their departed friend. But his messmate's eye was dry. When all was over, he just turned to the mourners, and said gravely, " Thank ye, sir : thank ye kindly, ma'am." And then he covered the body decently with the spare canvas, and lay quietly down with his own head pillowed upon those loved remains. Towards afternoon, seals were observed sport- ing on the waters ; but no attempt was made to capture them. Indeed, Miss Rolleston had quite enough to do to sail the boat with Mr. Hazel's assistance. The night passed, and the morning brought nothing new ; except that they fell in with sea- weed in such quantities the boat could hardly get through it. Mr. Hazel examined this sea-weed carefully, and brought several kinds upon deck. Among the varieties, was one like thin green strips of spinach, very tender and succulent. His botan- ical researches included sea-weed, and he recog- nized this as one of the edible rockweeds. There was very little of it comparatively, but he took great pains, and, in two hours' time, had gathered as much as might fill a good slop- basin. He washed it in fresh water, and then asked Miss Rolleston for a pocket-handkerchief. This he tied so as to make a bag, and contrived to boil it with a few chips of fuel that remained on board. After he had boiled it ten minutes, there was no more fuel, except a bowl or two, and the boat-hook, . one pair of oars, and the mid-ship and stern thwarts. FOUL PLAY. He tasted it, and found it glutinous and deli- cious; he gave Miss Rolleston some, and then fed Welch with the rest. He, poor fellow, en- joyed this sea spinach greatly ; he could no long- er swallow meat. While Hazel was feeding him, a flock of ducks passed over their heads, high in the air. Welch pointed up at them. "Ah!" said Helen, "if we had but their wings !" Presently a bird was seen coming in the same direction, but flying very low ; it wabbled along towards them very slowly, and at last, to their great surprise, came flapping and tried to settle on the gunwale of the boat. Welch, with that instinct of slaughter which belongs to men, struck the boat-hook into the bird's back, and it was soon dispatched. It proved to be one of that very floek of ducks that had passed over their heads, and a crab was found fastened to its leg. It is supposed that the bird, to break its long flight, had rested on some reef, and, perhaps, been too busy fishing and, caught this Tartar. Hazel pounced upon it. " Heaven has sent this for you, because you can not eat turtle." But the next moment he blushed and recovered his reason. " See, : ' said he, referring to her own words, "this poor bird had wings, yet death overtook her." He sacrificed a bowl for fuel, and boiled the duck and the crab in one pot, and Miss Rolles- ton ate demurely but plentifully of both. Of the crab's shell he made a little drinking-vessel for Miss Rolleston. Cooper remained without funeral rites all this time; the reason was that Welch lay with his head pillowed upon his dead friend, and Hazel had not the heart to disturb him. But it was the survivors' duty to commit him to the deep, and so Hazel sat down by Welch, and asked him kindly whether he would not wish the services of the Church to be read over his departed friend. "In course, sir," said Welch. But the next moment he took Hazel's meaning, and said hur- riedly, " No, no ; I can't let Sam be buried in the sea. Ye see, sir, Sam and I, we are used to one another, and I can't abide to part with him, alive or dead." "Ah!" said Hazel, "the best friends must part when death takes one." " Ay, ay, when t'other lives. But, Lord bless you, sir ! I sha'n't be long astarn of my mess- mate here ; can't you see that ?" "Heaven forbid !" said Hazel, surprised and alarmed. " Why, you are not mortally wound- ed as Cooper was. Have a good heart, man, and we three will all see Old England yet." " Well, sir," said Welch, coolly, "I'll tell ye ; me and my shipmate, Prince, was a cutting at one another with our knives a smart time (and I do properly wonder, when I think of that day's work, for I liked the man well enough, but rum atop of starvation plays hell with seafaring men), well, sir, as I was a saying, he let more blood out of me than I could afford to lose under the circumstances. And, ye see, I can't make fresh blood, because my throat is so swelled by the drought, I can't swallow much meat, so I'm safe to lose the number of my mess; and, another thing, my heart isn't altogether set towards liv- ing. Sam, here, he give me an order; what, didn't ye hear him? 'I'll lie to outside the bar,' says he 'till you come out.' He expects me to come out in his wake. Don't ye, Sam — that was ?*' and he laid his hand gently on the remains. "Now, sir, I shall ax the lady and you a favor. I want to lie alongside Sam. But if you bury him in the sea, and me ashore, d — n my eyes if I sha'n't be a thousand years or so before I can find my own messmate. Etarnity is a nation big place, I'm told, a hundred times as big as both oceans. No, sir ; you'll make land, by Sani's reckoning, to-morrow or next day, wind and tide permitting. I'll take care of Sam's hull till then, and we'll lie together, till the angel blows that there trumpet ; and then we'll go aloft together, and, as soon as ever we have made our scrape to our betters, we'll both speak a good word for you and the lady, and a very pretty lady she is, and a good-hearted, and the best plucked one I ever did see in any distressed craft ; now don't ye cry, miss, don't ye cry, your trouble is pretty near over ; he said you was not a hundred miles from land ; I don't know how he knew that, he was always a better seaman than I be ; but say it he did, and that is enough, for he was a man as never told a lie, nor wasted a word." Welch could utter no more just then ; for the glands of his throat were swollen, and he spoke with considerable difficulty. What could Hazel reply ? The judgment is sometimes ashamed to contradict the heart with cold reasons. He only said, with a sigh, that he saw no signs of land, and believed they had gone on a wrong course, and were in the heart of the Pacific. Welch made no answer, but a look of good- natured contempt. The idea of this parson con- tradicting Sam Cooper ! The sun broke, and revealed the illimitable ocean ; themselves a tiny speck on it. Mr. Hazel whispered Miss Rolleston that Coop- er must be buried to-day. At ten p.m. they passed through more sea- weed; but this time they had to eat the sea-spin- ach raw, and there was very little of it. At noon, the sea was green in places. Welch told them this was a sign they were nearing land. At four p.m. a bird, about the size and color of a woodpecker, settled on the boat's mast. Their glittering eyes fastened on it ; and Welch said, "Come, there's a supper for you as can eat it." " No, poor thing !" said Helen Rolleston. "You are right," said Hazel, with a certain effort of self-restraint. "Let our sufferings make us gentle, not savage : that poor bird is lost like us upon this ocean. It is a land-bird." " How do you know?" "Water-birds have webbed feet, — to swim with." The bird, having rested, flew to the north-west. Helen, by one of those inspired impulses her sex have, altered the boat's course directly, and followed the bird. Half an hour before sunset, Helen Rolleston, whose vision was very keen, said she saw some- thing at the verge of the horizon, like a hair standing upright. Hazel looked, but could not see any thing. In ten minutes more, Helen Rolleston pointed FOUL PLAY. it out again ; and then Hazel did see a vertical line, more like a ship's mast than any thing else one could expect to see there. Their eyes were now strained to make it out, and, as the boat advanced, it became more and more palpable, though it was hard to say exactly what it was. Five minutes before the sun set, the air being clearer than ever, it stood out clean against the sky. A tree, — a lofty, solitary tree ; with a tall stem, like a column, and branches only at the top. A palm-tree — in the middle of the Pacific. CHAPTER XXIV. And but for the land-bird which rested on their mast, and for their own mercy in sparing it, they would ha v e passed to the eastward, and never seen that giant palm-tree in mid-ocean. " Oh, let us put out all our sails, and fly to it !" cried Helen. Welch smiled and said, " No, miss, ye mustn't. Lord love ye ; what ! run on to a land ye don't know, happy go lucky, in the dark, like that f Lay her head for the tree, and welcome, but you must lower the mainsel, and treble-reef the fore- sel ; and so creep on a couple of knots an hour, and, by daybreak, you'll find the island close under your lee. Then you can look out for a safe landing-place." " The island, Mr. Welch !" said Helen. " There is no island, or I should have seen it." " Oh, the island was hull down. Why, you don't think- as palm-trees grow in the water? You do as I say, or you'll get wrecked on some thundering reef or other." Upon this Mr. Hazel and Miss Rolleston set to work, and with considerable difficulty lowered the mainsail, and treble-reefed the foresail. "That is right," said Welch. "To-morrow you'll land in safety, and bury my messmate and me." "Oh, no!" cried Helen Rolleston. "We must bury him, but we mean to cure you." They obeyed Welch's instructions, and so crept on all night ; and, so well had this able seaman calcu- lated distance and rate of sailing, that, when the sun rose, sure enough there was an island un- der their lee, distant about a league, though it looked much less. But the palm-tree was more than twice that distance. Owing to wind and current they had made lee-way all night, and that tree stood on the most westerly pointof the island. Hazel and Miss Rolleston stood up and hur- rahed for joy ; then fell on their knees in silent gratitude. Welch only smiled. But the breeze had freshened, and, though there were no great waves at sea, yet breakers, formidable to such a craft as theirs, were seen foaming over long disjointed reefs ahead, that grinned black and dangerous here and there. They then consulted Welch, and he told them they must tack directly, and make a circuit of the island ; he had to show them how to tack ; and, the sea rising, they got thoroughly wetted, and Miss Rolleston rather frightened ; for here was a peril they had wonderfully escaped hith- erto. However, before eleven o'clock, they had stood out to sea, and coasted the whole south side of the island : they then put the boat before the wind, and soon ran past the east coast, which was very narrow — in fact, a sort of bluff-head — and got on the north side of the island. Here the water was comparatively smooth, and the air warm and balmy. They ranged along the coast at about a mile's distance, looking out for a good landing. Here was no longer an unbroken line of cliffs, but an undulating coast, with bulging rocks, and lines of reef. After a mile or two of that the coast ran out seaward, and they passed close to a most extraordinary phenomenon of vegetation. Great tangled woods crowned the shore and the landward slopes, and their grand foliage seemed to flow over into the sea : for here was a broad rocky flat, intersected with a thousand little channels of the sea; and the thousand little islets so formed were crowded, covered, and hid- den with luxuriant vegetation. Huge succulent leaves of the richest hue hung over the water, and some of the most adventurous showed, by the crystals that sparkled on their green surface, that the waves had actually been kissing them at high tide. This ceased, and they passed un- der a cliff, wooded nearly to the point. This cliff was broad and irregular, and in one of its cavities a cascade of pure fresh water came sparkling, leaping, and tumbling down to the foot of the rock. There it had formed a great basin of water, cool, deep, transparent, which trickled over on to a tongue of pink sand, and went in .two crystal gutters to the sea. Great and keen was the rapture this sight caused our poor parched voyagers ; and eager their desire to land at once, if possible, and plunge their burning lips, and swelling throats, and fevered hands, into that heavenly liquid ; but the next moment they were diverted from that purpose by the scene that burst on them. This wooded cliff, with its wonderful cascade, was the very gate of paradise. They passed it, and in one moment were in a bay, — a sudden bay, wonderfully deep for its extent, and shel- tered on three sides. Broad sands with rainbow tints, all sparkling, and dotted with birds, some white as-snow, some gorgeous. A peaceful sea of exquisite blue kissing these lovely sands with myriad dimples ; and, from the land side, soft emerald slopes, embroidered with silver threads of water, came to the very edge of the sands ; so that, from all those glorious hues, that flecked the prismatic and sparkling sands, the eye of the voyagers passed at once to the vivid, yet sweet and soothing, green of Nature ; and over this paradise the breeze they could no longer feel wafted spicy but delicate odors from unseen trees. Even Welch raised himself in the boat, and sniffed the heavenly air, and smiled at the heav- enly spot. "Here's a blessed haven !" said he. "Down sail, and row her ashore." CHAPTER XXV. They rowed more than a mile, so deep was the glorious bay ; and then their oars struck the I ground. But "Hazel with the boat-hook pro- FOUL PLAY. 57 pclled the boat gently over the pellucid water, that now seemed too shallow to float a canoe : and at last looked like the mere varnish of that picture, the prismatic sands below; yet still the little craft glided over it, till it gently grazed the soft sand, and was stationary. So placidly end- ed that terrible voyage. Mr. Hazel and Miss Rolleston were on shore in a moment, and it was all they could do not to fall upon the land and kiss it. Never had the sea disgorged upon that fairy isle such ghastly spectres. They looked, not like people about to die, but that had died, and been buried, and just come out of their graves to land on that blissful shore. We should have started back with horror ; but the birds of that virgin isle merely stepped out of their way, and did not fly. They had landed in paradise. Even Welch yielded to that universal longing j men have to embrace the land after perils at sea, and was putting his leg slowly over the gunwale, when Hazel came back to his assistance. He got ashore, but was contented to sit down with his eyes on the dimpled sea and the boat, wait- ing quietly till the tide should float his friend to his feet again. The sea-birds walked quietly about him, and minded him not. Miss Rolleston ascended a green slope very slowly, for her limbs were cramped, and was lost to view. Hazel now went up the beach, and took a more minute survey of the neighborhood. The west side of the bay was varied. Half of it presented the soft character that marked the bay in general ; but a portion of it was rocky, though streaked with vegetation, and this part was intersected by narrow clefts, into which, in some rare tempests and high tides combined, tongues of the sea had entered, licking the sides of tjje gullies smooth ; and these occasional visits were marked by the sand and broken shells and other debris the tempestuous and encroaching sea had left behind. . The true high-water mark was several feet lower than these debris, and was clearly marked. On the land above the cliffs he found a tangled jungle of tropical shrubs, into which he did not penetrate, but skirted it, and, walking eastward, came out upon a delicious down or grassy slope, that faced the centre of the bay. It was a gen- tleman's lawn of a thousand acres, with an ex- tremely gentle slope from the centre of the island down to the sea. A river flowing from some distant source ran eastward through this down, but at its verge, and almost encircled it. Hazel traversed the lawn until this river, taking a sudden turn to- wards the sea, intercepted him at a spot which he immediately fixed on as Helen Rolleston's future residence. Four short, thick, umbrageous trees stood close to the stream on this side, and on the eastern side was a grove of gigantic palm-trees, at whose very ankles the river ran. Indeed, it had undermined one of these palm-trees, and that giant at this moment lay all across the stream, leaving a gap through which Hazel's eye could pierce to a great depth among those grand columns; for they stood wide apart, and there was not a vestige of brushwood, jungle, or even grass, below their j enormous crowns. He christened the place St. Helen's on the spot. He now dipped his baler into the stream, and found it pure and tolerably cool. He followed the bend of the stream ; it evaded the slope and took him by its own milder descent to the sands : over these it flowed smooth as glass into the sea. \Hazel ran to Welch to tell him all he had dis- covered, and to give him his first water from the island. He found a roan-colored pigeon, with a pur- plish neck, perched on the sick man's foot. The bird shone like a rainbow, and cocked a saucy eye at Hazel, and flew up into the air a few yards, but it soon appeared that fear had little to do with this movement ; for, after an airy circle or two, he fanned Hazel's cheek with his fast-flap- ping wings, and lighted on the very edge of the baler, and was for sipping. "Oh, look here, Welch !" cried Hazel, in an ecstasy of delight. "Ay, sir," said he. "Poor things, they hain't a found us out yet." The talking puzzled the bird, if it did not alarm him, and he flew up to the nearest tree, and, perching there, inspected these new and noisy bipeds at his leisure. Hazel now laid his hand on Welch's shoulder and reminded him gently they had a sad duty to perform, which could not be postponed. "Right you are, sir," said Welch, "and very kind of you to let me have my way with him. Poor Sam !" "I have found a place," said Hazel, in a low voice. "We can take the boat close to it. But where is Miss Rolleston?" "Oh, she is not far off; she was here just now, and brought me this here little cocoa-nut, and patted me on the back, she did, then off again on a cruise. Bless her little heart!" Hazel and Welch then got into the boat, and pushed off without much difficulty, and punted across the bay to one of those clefts we have in- dicated. It was now nearly high water, and they moored the boat close under the cleft Hazel had selected. Then they both got out and went up to the extremity of the cleft, and there, with the axe and with pieces of wood, they scraped out a rest- ing-place for Cooper. This was light work ; for it was all stones, shells, fragments of coral, and dried seaweed, lying loosely together. Bur, now came a hard task in which Welch could not assist. Hazel unshipped a thwart, and laid the body on it : then by a great effort staggered with the burden up to the grave and deposited it. He was exhausted by the exertion, and had to sit down panting for some time. As soon as he was recovered, he told Welch to stand at the head of the grave, and he stood at the foot, bare- headed, and then, from memory, he repeated the service of our Church, hardly missing or dis- placing a word. This was no tame recital ; the scene, the cir- cumstances, the very absence of the book, made it tender and solemn. And then Welch repeated those beautiful words after Hazel, and Hazel let him. And how did he repeat them ? In such a hearty, loving tone, as became one who was about to follow, and all this but a short leave- taking. So uttered, for the living as well as the 58 FOUL PLAY. dead, those immortal words had a strange sig- nificance and beauty. And presently a tender, silvery voice came down to mingle with the deep and solemn tones of the male mourners. It was Helen Rolleston. She had watched most of their movements un- seen herself, and now, standing at the edge of the ravine, and looking down on them, uttered a soft but thrilling amen to every prayer. When it was over, and the men prepared to fill in the grave, she spoke to Welch in an under-tone, and begged leave to pay her tribute first ; and, with this, she detached her apron, and held it out to them. Hazel easily climbed up to her, and found her apron was full of sweet-smelling bark and aromatic leaves, whose fragrance filled the air. "I want you to strew these over his poor re- mains," she said. "Oh, not common earth! He saved our lives. And his last words were, ' I love you, Tom.' Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" And with that she gave him the apron, and turn- ed her head away to hide her tears. Hazel blessed her for the thought, which, in- deed, none but a lady would have had ; and Welch and he, with the tears in their eyes, strew- ed the spicy leaves first : and soon a ridge of shingle neatly bound with sea-weed marked the sailor's grave. Hazel's next anxiety, and that a pressing one, was to provide shelter for the delicate girl and the sick man, whom circumstances had placed under his care. He told Miss Rolleston Welch and he were going to cross the bay again, and would she be good enough to meet them at the bend of the river where she would find four trees ? She nodded her head and took that road accord- ingly. Hazel rowed eastward across the bay, and, it being now high water, he got the boat into the river itself near the edge of the shore, and, as this river had worn a channel, he contrived with the boat-hook to propel the boat up the stream to an angle in the bank within forty yards of the four trees. He could get no farther, the stream being now not only shallow, but blocked here and there with great and rough fragments of stone. Hazel pushed the boat into the angle out of the current, and moored her fast. He and Welch then got ashore, and Miss Rolleston was standing at the four trees. He went to her and said enthusiastically, " This is to be your house. Is it not a beautiful site ?" " Yes, it is a beautiful site, but — forgive me — I really don't see the house," was her reply. "But you see the frame-work." Helen looked all about, and then said, rue- fully, "I suppose I am blind, sir, or else you are dreaming, for I see nothing at all." "Why, here's a roof ready made, and the frame of a wall. We have .only to wattle a screen between these four uprights." " Only to wattle a screen ! But I don't know what wattling a screen is. Who does ?" " Why, you get some of the canes that grow a little farther up the river, and a certain long wiry grass I have marked down, and then you fix and weave till you make a screen from tree to tree ; this could be patched with wet clay ; I know where there is plenty of that. Meantime see what is done to our hands. The crown of this great palm-tree lies at the southern apertui'e of your house, and blocks it entirely up ; that will keep off the only cold wind, the south wind, from you to-night. Then look at these long, spiky leaves interlaced over your head. (These trees are screw-pines.) There is a roof ready made. You must have another roof underneath that, but it will do for a day or two. " " But you will wattle the screen directly," said Helen. " Begin at once, please. I am anxious to see a screen wattled." "Well," said Welch, who had joined them, ' ' landsmen are queer folk, the best of 'em. Why, miss, it would take him a week to screen you with rushes and reeds, and them sort of weeds ; and I'd do it in half an hour, if I was the Tom Welch I used to be. Why, there's spare canvas enough in the boat to go between these four trees breast high, and then there's the foresel besides ; the mainsel is all you and me shall want, sir." " Oh, excuse me, "said Miss Rolleston, "I will not be sheltered at the expense of my friends." "Welch, you are a trump," said Hazel, and ran off for the spare canvas. He brought it and the carpenter's basket of tools. They went to work, and Miss Rolleston insisted on taking part in it. Finding her so disposed, Hazel said that they had better divide their labors, since the time was short. Accordingly he took the axe and chopped off a great many scales of the palm-tree, and lighted a great fire between the trees, while the other two worked on the canvas. " This is to dry the soil as well as cook our provisions," said he ; " and now I must go and find food. Is there any thing you fancy ?" He turned his head from the fire he was lighting and addressed this question both to Welch and Miss Rolleston. Miss Rolleston stared at this question, then smiled, and, in the true spirit of a lady, said, "I think I should like a good large cocoa-nut, if you can find one." She felt sure there was no other eatable thing in the whole island. "I wants a cabbage," said Welch, in a loud voice. " Oh, Mr. Welch, we are not at home," said Miss Rolleston, blushing at the preposterous de- mand. "ISIo, miss, in Capericorn. Whereby we sha'n't have to pay nothing for this here cabbage. I'll tell ye, miss : when a sailor comes ashore he al- ways goes in for green vegetables, for why, he ha3 eaten so much junk and biscuit, nature sings out for greens. Me and my shipmates was paid off at Portsmouth last year, and six of us agreed to dine together and each order his dish. Blest if six boiled legs of mutton did not come up smok- ing hot : three was with cabbage, and three with turmots. Mine was with turmots. But them I don't ask, so nigh the Line ; don't ye go to think, because I'm sick, and the lady and you is so kind to me, and to him that is a waiting outside them there shoals for me, as I'm onreasonable ; tur- mots I wish you both, and plenty of 'em, Avhen some whaler gets driven out of her course and picks you up, and carries you into northern lat- itudes where turmots grow ; but cabbage is my right, cabbage is my due, being paid off in a man- ner ; for the ship is foundered and I'm ashore : cabbage I ask for, as a seaman that has dkne his duty, and a man that won't live to eat many more of 'em ; and " (losing his temper) " if you are the man I take you for, you'll run and fetch FOUL PLAY. 59 me a cabbage fresb from the tree " (recovering his temper). "I know I didn't ought to ax a parson to shin up a tree for me : but Lord bless you, there ain't no sarcy little boys a looking on, and here's a poor fellow mostly dying for it." Miss Rolleston looked at Mr. Hazel with alarm in every feature, and whispered, " Cab- bage from the tree. Is he wandering ?" Hazel smiled. "No," said he. "He has picked up a fable of these seas, that there is a ! tree which grows cabbages." Welch heard him, and said, with due warmth, "Of course there is a tree on all these islands that grows cabbages; that was known a hundred j years before you was born, and shipmates of I mine have eaten them." "Excuse me, what those old Admirals and ! Buccaneers, that set the legend afloat, were so | absurd as to call a cabbage, and your shipmates ! may have eaten for one, is nothing on earth but | the last year's growth of the palm-tree. " "Palm-tree be ," said Welch ; and there- upon ensued a hot argument, which Helen's good sense cut short. "Mr. Hazel," said she, "can you by any pos- sibility get our poor friend the thing he wants?" " Oh, that is quite within the bounds of possi- bility," said Hazel, dryly. " Well, then, suppose you begin by getting him the thing. Then I will boil the thing, and he will eat the thing ; and after all that it will be time to argue about the name we shall give to the thing." The good sense of this struck Mr. Hazel for- cibly. He started off at once, armed with the axe, and a net bag Welch had made since he be- came unfit for heavy labor : he called back to them as he went to put the pots on. Welch and Miss Rolleston complied ; and then the sailor showed the lady how to sew sailor-wise, driving the large needle with the palm of the hand, guarded by a piece of leather. They had nailed two breadths of canvas to the trees on the north and west sides, and run the breadths rap- idly together ; and the water was boiling and i bubbling in the balers, when Miss Rolleston ut- tered a scream, for Hazel came running over the ; prostrate palm-tree as if it was a proper bridge, and lighted in the midst of them. " Lot one," said he cheerfully, and produced from his net some limes, two cocoa-nuts, and a land-turtle : from this last esculent Miss Rolles- ton withdrew with undisguised horror, and it was in vain he assured her it was a great delicacy. " No matter : it is a reptile. Oh, please send it away." "The Queen of the Island reprieves you," said he, and put down the terrapin, which went : off very leisurely for a reprieved reptile. Then Hazel produced a fine bream, which he had found struggling in a rock-pool, the tide hav- ! ing turned, and three sea crayfish, bigger than i any lobster. He chopped their heads off outside, | and threw their tails into the pots; he stuck a piece of pointed wood through the bream, and gave it to Welch to toast ; but Welch waved it aside. " I see no cabbage," said he, grimly. "Oh, I forgot : but that is soon found," said Hazel. "Here, give me the fish, and you take the saw, and examine the head of this palm-tree, which lies at Miss Rolleston's door. Saw awav the succulent part of last year's growth, and bring it here." Welch got up slowly. " I'll go with you, Mr. Welch," said Miss Rol- leston. She will not be alone with me for a moment, if she can help it, thought Hazel, and sat moodv by the fire. But he shook off his sadness, and forced on a cheerful look the moment they came back. They brought with them a vegetable very like the heart of a cabbage, only longer and whiter. " There," said Welch, " what d'ye call that ?" " The last year's growth of the palm," said Ha- zel, calmly. This vegetable was cut in two and put into the pots. "There, take the toasting-fork again," said Hazel to Welch, and drew out from his net three huge scallop-shells. " Soup-plates," said he, and washed them in the running stream : then put them before the fire to dry. While the fish and vegetable were cooking, he went and cut off some of the leafy, pinnated branches of the palm-tree, and fastened them hor- izontally above the strips of canvas. Each palm- branch traversed a whole side of the bower. This closed the northern and western sides. On the southern side, the prostrate palm-tree, on striking the ground, had so crushed its boughs and leaves together as to make a thick wall of foliage. Then he took to making forks ; and primitive ones they were. He selected a bough the size of a thick walking-stick ; sawed it oft" the tree : sawed a piece six inches long off it, pealed that, split it in four, and, with his knife, gave each piece three points, by merely tapering off and serrating one end ; and so he made a fork a min- ute. Then he brought all the rugs and things from the boat, and, the ground being now thor- oughly dried by the fire, placed them for seats ; gave each person a large leaf for a plate, besides a scallop-shell ; and served out supper. It was eat- en with rare appetite ; the palm-tree vegetable in particular was delicious, tasting between a cab- bage and a cocoa-nut. When they had supped, Hazel removed the plates and went to the boat. He returned, drag- ging the foremast and foresail, which were small, and called Welch out. They agreed to rig the mainsail tarpaulin-wise and sleep in the boat. Accordingly they made themselves very busy screening the east side of Miss Rolleston's new abode with the foresail, and fastened a loop and drove a nail into the tree, and looped the sail to it, then suddenly bade her good-night in cheer- ful tones, and were gone in a moment, leaving her to her repose, as they imagined. Hazel in particular, having used all his ingenuity to secure her personal comfort, was now too bent on show- ing her the most delicate respect and forbearance to think of any thing else. But, justly counting on the delicacy, he had forgotten the timidity of her sex, and her first night in the island was a terribly trying one. Thrice she opened her mouth to call Welch and Hazel back, but could not. Yet, when their footsteps were out of hearing, she would have given the world to have them between her and the perils with which she felt herself surrounded. GO FOUL PLAY. Tigers ; Snakes ; Scorpions ; Savages ! what would become of her during the long night ? She sat and cowered before the hot embers. She listened to what seemed the angry roar of the sea. What with the stillness of the night and her sharpened senses she heard it all round the island. She seemed environed with peril, and yet surrounded by desolation. No one at hand to save her in time from a wild beast. No one anywhere near except a sick sailor and one she would almost rather die than call singly to her aid, for he had once told her he loved her. "Oh, papa ! oh, Arthur !" she cried, "are you praying for your poor Helen ?" Then she wept and prayed ; and half nerved herself to bear the worst. Finally, her vague fears completely over- mastered her. Then she had recourse to a strat- agem that belongs to her sex — she hid herself from the danger, and the danger from her: she covered herself face and all, and so lay trem- bling, and longing for the day. At the first streak of dawn she fled from her place of torture, and after plunging her face and hands in the river, which did her a world of good, she went off, and entered the jungle, and search- ed it closely, so far as she could penetrate it. Soon she heard " Miss Rolleston " called in anx- ious tones. But she tossed her little head, and revenged herself for her night of agony by not replying. However, Nature took her in hand : imperious hunger drew her back to her late place of torture ; and there she found a fire, and Hazel cooking crayfish. She ate the crayfish heartily, and drank cocoa-nut milk out of half a cocoa-nut, which the ingenious Hazel had already sawn, polished, and mounted for her. After that, Hazel's whole day was occupied in stripping a tree that stood on the high west- ern promontory of the bay, and building up the materials of a bonfire a few yards from it, that, if any whaler should stray that way, they might not be at a loss for means to attract her attention. Welch was very ill all day, and Miss Rolles- ton nursed him. He got about towards evening, and Miss Rolleston asked him, rather timidly, if he could put her up a bell-rope. " Why, yes, miss," said Welch, " that is easy enough ; but I don't see no bell." Oh, she did not want a bell — she only wanted a bell-rope. Hazel came up, during this conversation, and she then gave her reason. "Because, then, if Mr. Welch is ill in the night, and wants me, I could come to him. Or — " finding herself getting near the real reason she stopped short. " Or what?" inquired Hazel, eagerly. She replied to Welch. "When tigers and things come to me, I can let you know, Mr. Welch, if you have any curiosity about the result of their visit." "Tigers!" said Hazel, in answer to this side slap: "there are no tigers here; no large animals of prey exist in the Pacific." "What makes you think that?" " It is notorious ; naturalists are agreed." "But I am not. I heard noises all night. And little I expected that any thing of me would be left this morning, except, perhaps, my back hair. Mr. Welch, you are clever at rigging things, — that is what you call it, — and so please rig me a bell- rope, then I shall not be eaten alive without cre- ating some little disturbance." " I'll do it miss," said Welch, " this very night." Hazel said nothing, but pondered. Accord- ingly, that very evening a piece of stout twine, with a stone at the end of it, hung down from the roof of Helen's house ; and this twine clove the air, until it reached a ring upon the main- mast of the cutter; thence it descended, and was to be made fast to something or somebody. The young lady inquired no further. The very sight of this bell-rope was a great comfort to her ; it reunited her to civilized life. That night she lay down, and quaked consid- erably less. Yet she woke several times ; and an hour before daylight she heard distinctly a noise that made her flesh creep. It was like the snoring of some great animals. This horrible sound was faint and distant ; but she heard it between the roll of the waves, and that showed it was not the sea roaring ; she hid herself in her rugs, and cowered till daybreak. A score of times she was minded to pull her bell-rope ; but always a womanly feeling, strong as her love of life, withheld her. "Time to pull that bell- rope when the danger was present or imminent," she thought to herself. "The Thing will come smelling about before it attacks me, and then I will pull the bell;" and so she passed an hour of agony. Next morning, at daybreak, Hazel met her just issuing from her hut, and pointing to his net told her he was going to forage ; and would she be good enough to make the fire and have boiling water ready ? he was sorry to trouble her, but poor Welch was worse this morning. Miss Rolleston cut short his excuses. "Pray do not take me for a child ; of course I will light the fire, and boil the water. Only I have no lucifer matches." " Here are two," said he. "I carry the box wrapped in oil-skin : for if any thing happen to them, Heaven help us." He crossed the prostrate palm-tree, and dived into the wood. It was a large beautiful wood, and, except at the western edge, the trees were all of the palm-tree genus, but contained sever- al species, including the cocoa-nut tree. The turf ran under these trees for about forty yards, and then died gradually away under the same thick shade which destroyed all other vegetation in this wood, and made it so easy to sec and trav- el. He gathered a few cocoa-nuts that had burst out of their ripe pods and fallen to the ground ; and ran on till he reached a belt of trees and shrubs, that bounded the palm forest. Here his progress was no longer easy: but he found trees covered with a small fruit resembling quinces in every particular, of look, taste, and smell, and that made him persevere, since it was most im- portant to learn the useful products of the island. Presently he burst through some brushwood into a swampy bottom surrounded by low trees, and instantly a dozen large birds of the osprey kind rose flapping into the air like windmills rising. He was quite startled by the whirring and flap- ping, and not a little amazed at the appearance of the place. Here was a very charnel-house ; so thick lay the shells, skeletons, and loose bones offish. Here too he found three terrapin killed but not ea-ten : and also some fish, more or less FOUL PLAY. 61 pecked. "Aha! my worthy executioners, much obliged," said he: "you have saved me that job :" and into the bag went the terrapin, and two plump fish, but slightly mutilated. Before he had gone many yards, back came the sailing wings, and the birds settled again before his eyes. The rest of the low wood was but thin, and he soon emerged upon the open country ; but it was most unpromising ; and fitter for geese than men : a vast sedgy swamp, with water in the middle, thin fringes of great fern-trees, and here and there a disconsolate tree like a weeping- willow, and at the end of this lake and swamp, which all together formed a triangle, was a bar- ren hill without a blade of vegetation on it, and a sort of jagged summit, volcanic ! Hazel did not at all like the look of. Somewhat dismayed at finding so large a slice of the island worthless, he returned through the wood, guiding himself due west by his pocket- compass, and so got down to the shore, where he found scallops and crayfish in incredible abundance. Literally, he had only to go into the water and gather them. But "enough " is as good as " a feast." He ran to the pots with his miscellaneous bag, and was not received ac- cording to his deserts. Miss Roileston told him, a little severely, the water had been boiling a long time. Then be produced his provender, by way of excuse. "Tortoises again!" said she, and shuddered visibly. But the quinces and cocoa-nuts were gracious- ly received. Welch, however, cried out for cab- bage. "What am I to do?" said Hazel. "For every such cabbage a king must die. " "Goodness me!" " A monarch of the grove." " Oh, a King Log. Why, then, down with them all, of course ; sooner than dear Mr. Welch shall go without his cabbage." He cast a look of admiration on her, which she avoided, and very soon his axe was heard ringing in the wood hard by. Then came a loud crash. Then another. Hazel came running with the cabbage, and a cocoa-pod. "There," said he, "and there are a hundred more about. Whilst you cook that for Welch, I will store them." Accordingly he returned to the wood with his net, and soon came back with five pods in it, each as big as a large pumpkin. He chucked these one at a time across the river, and then went for more. It took him all the afternoon to get all the pods across the river. He was obliged to sit down and rest. But a suggestion of Helen's soon set him to work again. "You were kind enough to say you would store these for me. Could you not store them so as to wall out those terrible beasts with them ?" "What terrible beasts?" "That roar so all night, and don't eat us, only because they have not found out we are here yet. But they will." " I deny their existence," said Hazel. " But I'll wall them out all the same," said he. "Pray do," said Helen. "Wall them out first, and disprove them afterwards ; I shall be better able to believe they don't exist, when they are well walled out, — much." Hazel went to work, and with her assistance laid cocoa-pods two wide and three deep, out- side the northern and western sides of her leafy bower, and he promised to complete the walls by the same means in two days more. They all then supped together, and, to oblige him, she ate a little of the terrapin, and, when they parted for the night, she thanked him, and said, with a deep blush, "You have been a good friend to me — of late." He colored high, and his eyes sparkled with delight ; and she noticed, and almost wished she had kept her gratitude to herself. That night, what with her bell-rope and her little bit of a wall, she was somewhat less timo- rous, and went to sleep early. But even in sleep she was watchful, and she was awakened by a slight sound in the neigh- borhood of the boat. She lay watching, but did not stir. Presently she heard a footstep. With a stifled cry she bounded up, and her first impulse was to rush out of the tent. But she conquered this, and, gliding to the south side of her bower, she peered through the palm- leaves, and the first thing she saw was the figure of a man standing between her and the boat. She drew her breath hard. The outline of the man was somewhat indistinct. But it was not a savage : the man was clothed ; and his stature betrayed him. He stood still for some time. " He is listening to see if I am awake," said Helen to herself. The figure moved towards her bovver. Then all in a moment she became another woman. She did not rely on her bell-rope ; she felt it was fast to nothing that could help her. She looked round for no weapon ; she trusted to herself. She drew herself hastily up, and fold- ed her arms ; her bosom panted, but her cheek never paled. Her* modesty was alarmed ; her Mood was up, and life or death were nothing to her. The footsteps came nearer: they stopped at her door ; they went north ; they came back south. They kept her in this high-wrought atti- tude for half an hour. Then they retired softly; and, when they were gone, she gave way, and fell on her knees, and began to cry hysterically. Then she got calmer, and then she wondered and puzzled herself; but she slept no more that night. In the morning she found that the fire was lighted on a sort of shelf close to the boat. Mr. Hazel had cut the shelf and lighted the fire there for Welch's sake, who had complained of cold in the night. Whilst Hazel was gone for the crayfish, Welch asked Helen to go for her prayer-book. She brought it directly, and turned the leaves to find the prayers for the sick. But she was soon undeceived as to his intention. " Sam had it wrote down how the Proserpine was foundered, and I should like to lie along- side my messmate on that there paper, as well as in t'other place " (meaning the grave). " Be- gin as Sam did, that this is my last word." " Oh, I hope not. Oh, Mr. Welch, pray do not leave me !" "Well, well then, never mind that; but just put down as I heard Sam ; and his dying words, that the parson took down, were the truth." 62 FOUL PLAY. "I have written that." "And that the two holes was on her port side, and seven foot from her starn-post ; and / say them very augers that is in our cutter made them holes. Set down that. " "It is down." ' " Then I'll put my mark under it ; and you are my witness." • Helen, anxious to please him in every thing, showed him where to put his mark. He did so ; and she signed her name as his witness. "And now, Mr. Welch," said she, "do not you fret about the loss of the ship ; you should rather think how good Providence has been to us in saving us three out of so many that sailed in that poor ship. That Wylie was a wicked man ; but he is drowned, or starved, no doubt, and there is an end of him. You are alive, and we are all three to see Old England again. But to live, you must eat ; and so now do pray make a good breakfast to-day. Tell me what you can fancy. A cabbage?" "What, you own it is a cabbage ?" "Of course I do," said Helen, coaxing. "You must excuse Mr. Hazel; these learned men are so crochety in some things, and go by books ; but you and I go by our senses, and to us a cabbage is a cabbage, grow where it will. Will you have one ?" " No, miss, not this morning. What I wants this morning very bad, indeed, it is, — I wants a drink made of the sweet-smelling leaves, like as you strewed over my messmate, — the Lord in heaven bless you for it." "Oh, "Mr. Welch, that is a curious fancy; but you shall not ask me twice for any thing ; the jungle is full of them, and I'll fetch you some in five minutes. So you must boil the water." She scudded away to the jungle, and soon re- turned with some aromatic leaves. Whilst they were infusing, Hazel came up, and, on being in- formed of Welch's fancy, made no opposition ; but, on the contrary, said that such men had sometimes very happy inspirations. He tasted it, however, and said the smell was the best part of it in his opinion. He then put it aside to cool for the sick man's use. They ate their usual breakfast, and then Welch sipped his spiced tea, as he called it. Morning and afternoon he drank copious draughts of it, and seemed to get suddenly bet- ter, and told them not to hang about him any longer ; but go to their work : he was all right now. To humor him they went off in different di- rections ; Hazel with his axe to level cocoa-nut trees; and Helen to search for fruits in the jungle. She came back in about an hour, very proud of some pods she had found with nutmegs inside them. She ran to Welch. He was not in the boat. She saw his waistcoat, however, folded and lying on the thwart : so she knew he could nov be far off, and concluded he was in her bovver. But he was not there ; and she called to iVlr. Hazel. He came to the side of the river laden with cocoa-nuts. " la he with vou ?" said Helen. "Who? Welch? No." " Well, then, he is not here. Oh dear ! some- thing is the matter. Hazel came across directly. And they both began to run anxiously to every part whence they could command a view to any distance. They could not see him anywhere, and met with blank faces at the bower. Then Helen made a discovery. This very day, while hanging about the place, Hazel had torn up from the edge of the river an old trunk, whose roots had been loosened by the water washing away the earth that held them, and this stump he had set up in her bower for a ta- ble, after sawing the roots down into legs. Well, on the smooth part of this table lay a little pile of money, a ring with a large pearl in it, and two gold earrings, Helen had often noticed in Welch's ears. She pointed at these and turned pale. Then, suddenly waving her hand to Hazel to follow her, she darted out of the bower, and, in a mo- ment, she was at the boat. There she found, beside his waistcoat, his knife, and a little pile of money, placed careful- ly on the thwart ; and, underneath it, his jacket rolled up, and his shoes and sailor's cap, all put neatly and in order. Hazel found her looking at them. He began to have vague misgivings. "What does this mean ?" he said, faintly. " * What does it mean !' " cried Helen in ago- ny. "Don't you see? A Legacy! The poor thing has divided his little all. Oh, my heart! What has become of him ?" Then, with one of those inspirations her sex have, she cried, " Ah ! Cooper's grave !" Hazel, though not so quick as she was, caught her meaning at a word, and flew down the slope to the sea-shore. The tide was out : a long ir- regular track of footsteps indented the sand. He stopped a moment and looked at them. They pointed towards that cleft where the grave was. He followed them all across the sand. They entered the cleft, and did not return. Full of heavy foreboding, he rushed into the cleft. Yes; his arms hanging on each side of the grave, and his cheek laid on it, there lay Tom Welch, with a loving smile on his dead face. Only a man ; yet faithful as a dog. Hazel went back slowly, and crying. Of all men living, he could best appreciate Fidelity, and mourn its fate. But as he drew near Helen he dried his eyes ; for it was his duty to comfort her. She had at first endeavored to follow him ; but after a few steps her knees smote together, and she was fain to sit down on the grassy slope that overlooked the sea. The sun was setting huge and red over that vast and peaceful sea. She put her hands to her head, and, sick at heart, looked heavily at that glorious and peace- ful sight. Hazel came up to her. She looked at his face, and that look was enough for her She rocked herself gently to and fro. " Yes," said he, in a broken voice : "he was there — quite dead." He sat gently down by her side, and looked at that setting sun and illimitable ocean, and his heart felt deadly sad. " He is gone — and we are alone — on this island." The man said this in one sense only : but the woman heard it in more than one. Alone ! FOUL PLAY. 63 She glanced timidly round at him, and, with- out rising, edged a little away from him, and wept in silence. CHAPTER XXVI. After a long silence, Hazel asked her in a low voice if she could be there in half an hour. She said yes, in the same tone, but without turn- ing her head. On reaching the graves, she found that Hazel had spared her a sad sight. Noth- ing remained but to perform the service. When it was over she went slowly away in deep dis- tress on more accounts than one. In due course Hazel came to her bower, but she was not there. Then he lighted the fire, and prepared every thing for supper ; and he was so busy, and her foot so light, he did not hear her come. But by- and-by, lifting his head, he saw her looking wist- fully at him, as if she would read his soul in his minutest actions. He started and brightened all over with pleasure at the sudden sight of her, and said eagerly, " Your supper is quite ready." " Thank you, sir," said she, sadly and coldly (she had noted that expression of joy), " I have no appetite; do not wait for me." And soon after strolled away again. Hazel was dumfounded. There was no mis- taking her manner ; it was chilly and reserved all of a sudden. It wounded him ; but he be- haved like a man. "What! I keep her out of her own house, do I ?" said he to himself. He started up, took a fish out of the pot, wrap- ped it in a leaf, and stalked off to his boat. Then he ate a little of the fish, threw the rest away, and went down upon the sands, and paced them in a said and bitter mood. But the night calmed him, and some hours of tranquil thought brought him fortitude, patience, and a clear understanding. He went to his boat, elevated by generous and delicate resolu- tions. Now worthy resolves are tranquillizing, and he slept profoundly. Not so she, whose sudden but very natural change of demeanor had hurt him. When she returned and found he was gone for the night, she began to be alarmed at having offended him. For this and other reasons she passed the night in sore perplexity, and did not sleep till morning ; and so she overslept her usual time. However, when she was up, she determined to find her own breakfast ; she felt it would not do to be too dependent, and on a person of uncer- tain humor ; such for the moment she chose to pretend to herself was Hazel. Accordingly she went down to the sea to look for crayfish. She found abundance. There they lay in the water ; you had but to stoop and pick them up. But alas ! they were black, lively, viperish ; she went with no great relish for the task to take one up ; it wriggled maliciously ; she dropped it, and at that very moment, by a curious coinci- dence, remembered she was sick and tired of crayfish ; she would breakfast on fruits. She crossed the sand, took off her shoes, and paddled through the river, and, having put on her shoes again, was about to walk up through some rank grass to the big wood, when she heard a voice behind her, and it was Mr. Hazel. She bit her lip (it was broad daylight now), and prepared quietly to discourage this excessive assiduitv. He came up to her panting a little, and, taking off his hat, said, with marked respect, "I beg your pardon, Miss Kolleston, but I know you hate reptiles ; now there are a few snakes in that long grass ; not poisonous ones." " Snakes !" cried Helen ; "let me get home ; there — I'll go without my breakfast." " Oh, I hope not," said Hazel, ruefully ; " why, I have been rather fortunate this morning, and it is all ready." "That is a different thing," said Helen, gra- ciously ; ' • you must not have your trouble for nothing, I suppose." Directly after breakfast, Hazel took his axe and some rope from the boat, and went off* in a great hurry to the jungle. In half an hour or so he returned, dragging a large conical shrub, armed with spikes for leaves, incredibly dense and prickly. "There," said he, "there's a vegetable porcu- pine for you. This is your best defense against that roaring Bugbear." "That little tree!" said Helen; "the tiger would soon jump over that." "Ay, but not over this and sixty more; a wall of stilettos. Don't touch it please." He worked very hard all day, and brought twelve of these prickly trees to the bower by sun- set. He was very dissatisfied with his day's work ; seemed quite mortified. " This comes of beginning at the wrong end," he said ; " I went to work like a fool. I should have begun by making a cart." "But you can't do that," said Helen sooth- ingly ; " no gentleman can make a cart." "Oh, surely any body can make a cart, by a little thinking," said he. "I wish," said Helen, listlessly, "you would think of something for me to do ; I begin to be ashamed of not helping." " Plum ! you can plait ?" " Yes, as far as seven strands." " Then you need never be unemployed. We want ropes, and shall want large mats for the rainy weather." He went to the place where he had warned her of the snakes, and cut a great bundle of long silky grass, surprisingly tough, yet neither harsh nor juicy ; he brought it her, and said he should be very glad of a hundred yards of light cord, three ply and five ply. She was charmed with the grass, and the very next morning she came to breakfast with it nice- ly prepared, and a good deal of cord made and hanging round her neck. She found some prep- arations for carpenter's work lying about. " Is that great log for the cart?" said she. " Yes ! it is a section of a sago-tree." " What, our sago ?" "The basis. See, in the centre it is all soft- pith." He got from the boat one of the augers that had scuttled the Proserpine, and soon turn- ed the pith out. " They pound that pith in wa- ter, and run it through linen ; then set the water in the sun to evaporate. The sediment is the sago of commerce, and sad, insipid stuff it is." " Oh, please don't call any thing names one has eaten in England," said Helen, sorrow- fully. After a hasty meal, she and Mr. Hazel work- ed for a wager. Her taper fingers went like the wind, and though she watched him, and asked G4 FOUL PLAY. questions, she never stopped plaiting. Mr. Ha- zel was no carpenter, he was merely Brains spur- red by Necessity. He went to work and sawed off four short discs of the sago-log. " Now what are those, pray ?" asked Helen. "The wheels: primeval wheels. And here arc the linchpins, made of hard wood ; I wattled them at odd times.'' He then produced two young lime-trees he had rooted up that morning, and sawed them into poles in a minute, Then he bored two holes in each pole, about four inches from either extrem- ity, and fitted his linchpins ; then he drew out his linchpins, passed each pole first through one disc, and then through another, and fastened his linchpins. Then he ran to the boat, and came back with the stern and midship thwarts. He drilled with his centre-bit three rows of holes in these, two inches from the edge ; and now Helen's work came in : her grass rope bound the thwarts tight to the horizontal poles, leaving the discs room to play easily between the thwarts and the linchpins ; but there was an open space thirteen inches broad between the thwarts; this space Hazel herring-boned over with some of Helen's rope drawn as tight as possible. The cart was now made. Time occupied in its production, three hours and forty minutes. The ccachmaker was very hot : and Helen asked him timidly whether he had not better rest and eat. "No time for that," said he. "The day is not half long enough for what I have to do." He drank copiously from the stream ; put the carpenter's basket into the cart : gdt the tow-rope from the boat and fastened it to the cart in this shape A, putting himself in the centre. So now the coachmaker was the horse, and off they went, rattling and creaking, to the jungle. Helen turned her stool and watched this pa- geant enter the jungle. She plaited on, but not so merrily. Hazel's companionship and bustling way somehow kept her spirits up. But whenever she was left alone, she gazed on the blank ocean, and her heart died within her. At last she strolled pensively towards the jun- gle, plaiting busily as she went, and hanging the rope round her neck as fast as she she made it. At the edge of the jungle she found Hazel in a difficulty. He had cut down a wagon-load of prickly trees, and wanted to get all this mass of noli me tangere on to that wretched little cart, but had not rope enough to keep it together : she gave him plenty of new line, and partly by fast- ening a small rope to the big rope, and so mak- ing the big rope a receptacle, partly by artful ty- ing, they dragged home an incredible load. To be sure, some of it draggled half along the ground, and came after, like a peacock's tail. He made six trips, and then the sun was low ; so he began to build. He raised a rampart of these prickly trees, a rampart three feet wide and eight feet high ; but it only went round two sides and a half of the bower. " So then he said he had failed again ; and lay down worn out by fatigue. Helen Rolleston, though dejected herself, could not help pitying him for his exhaustion in her service, and for his bleeding hands ; she under- took the cooking, and urged him kindly to eat of every dish: and, when he rose to go, she thank- ed him with as much feeling as modesty for the great pains he had taken to lessen those fears of hers which she saw he did not share. These kind words more than repaid him. He went to his little den in a glow of spirits ; and the next morning went off in a violent hurry, and for once seemed glad to get away from her. "Poor Mr. Hazel, "said she, softly, and watch- ed him out of sight. Then she got her plait and went to the high point where he had barked a tree ; and looked far and wide for a sail. The air was wonderfully clear ; the whole ocean seem- ed in sight ; but all was blank. A great awe fell upon her, and sickness of heart ; and then first she began to fear she was out of the known world, and might die on that island ; or never be found by the present gener- ation : and this sickening fear lurked in her from that hour, and led to consequences that will be related shortly. She did not return for a long while, and, when she did, she found Hazel had completed her for- tifications. He invited her to explore the west- ern part of the island, but she declined. "Thank you," said she; " not to-day ; there is something to be done at home. I have been comparing my abode with yours, and the con- trast makes me uncomfortable, if it doesn't you. Oblige me by building yourself a house." " What, in an afternoon ?" " Why not ? you made a cart in a forenoon. How can I tell your limits ? you are quite out of my poor little depth. Well, at all events, you must roof the boat, or something. Come, be good for once, and think a little of yourself. There, I'll sit by and — what shall I do whilst you are working to oblige me ?" " Make a fishing-net of cocoa-nut fibre, four feet deep. Here's plenty of material all pre- pared." "Why, Mr. Hazel, you must work in your sleep." " No ; but of course I am not idle when I am alone ; and luckily I have made a spade out of hard wood at odd hours, or all the afternoon would go in making that." " A spade ! You are going to dig a hole in the ground and call it a house. That will not do for me." " You will see," said Hazel. The boat lay in a little triangular creek; the surrounding earth was alluvial clay ; a sort of black cheesy mould, stiff, but kindly to work with the spade. Hazel cut and chiselled it out at a grand rate, and throwing it to the sides, raised by degrees two mud banks, one on each side the boat ; and at last he dug so deep that he was enabled to draw the boat another yard inland. As Helen sat by netting and forcing a smile now and then, though sad at heart, he was on his mettle, and the mud walls he raised in four hours were really wonderful. He squared their inner sides with the spade. When he had done, the boat lay in a hollow, the walls of which, half natural, half artificial, were five feet above her gunwale, and, of course, eight feet above her bot- tom, in which Hazel used to lie at night. He then made another little wall at the boat's stern, and laid palm-branches over all, and a few huge banana-leaves from the jungle ; got a dozen large stones out of the river, tied four yards' lengths of Helen's grass-rope from stone to stone, FOUL PLAY. 65 and so, passing the ropes over the roof, confined it, otherwise a sudden gust of wind might lift it. " There," said he ; "ami not as well off as you? — I, a great tough man. Abominable waste of time, I call it." " Hum !" said Helen, doubtfully. All this is very clever ; but I doubt whether it will keep out much rain." "More than yours will," said Hazel, " and that is a very serious thing. I am afraid you little know how serious. But to-morrow, if you please, I will examine our resources, and lay our whole situation before you, and ask your advice. As to your Bugbear, let him roar his heart out, his reign is over. Will you not come and see your wooden walls ?" He then took Helen and showed her the tre- mendous nature of her fortification, and assured her that no beast of prey could face it, nor even smell at it, with impunity. And as to the door, here the defense was double and treble ; but at- tached to four grass cords ; two passed into the abode round each of the screw pine-trees at the east side, and were kept in their places by pegs driven into the trees. "When you are up," said Hazel, "you pull these four cords steadily, and your four guards will draw back right and left, with all their bay- onets, and you can come out." Helen was very much pleased wich this arrange- ment, and did not disguise her gratitude. She slept in peace and comfort that night. Hazel, too, profited by the mud walls and leafy roof she had compelled him to rear ; for this night was colder, as it happened, than any preceding night since they came ashore. In the morning, Hazel saw a green turtle on the shore, which was un- usual at that time of year. He ran and turned her, with some difficulty ; then brought down his cart, cut off her head with a blow, and, in due course, dragged her up the slope. She weighed two hundred pounds. He showed Miss Rolleston the enormous shell, gave her a lecture on turtles, and especially on the four species known to South Sea navigators, — the trunk turtle, the logger- head, the green turtle, and the hawksbill, from which last, and not from any tortoise, he assured her came the tortoise-shell of commerce. "And now," said he, "will you not give up or suspend your Reptile theory, and eat a little green turtle, the king of them all ?" " I think I must, after all that," said she ; and rather relished it. That morning he kept his word, and laid their case before her. He said: "We are here on an island that has probably been seen and disregarded by a few whalers, but is not known to navigators nor down on any chart. There is a wide range of vegeta- tion, proving a delightful climate on the whole, and one particularly suited toyou, whose lungs are delicate. But then, comparing the beds of the rivers with the banks, a tremendous fall of rain is indicated. The rainy months (in these latitudes) are at hand, and if these rains catch us in our present condition, it will be a calamity. You have walls, but no roof to keep it out. I tremble when I think of it. This is my main anx- iety. My next is about our sustenance during the rains : we have no stores under cover ; no fuel ; no provisions but a few cocoa-nuts. We use two lucifer matches a day ; and what is to 5 become of us at that rate ? In theory, fire can be got by rubbing two pieces of wood together ; Selkirk is said to have so obtained it from pi- mento wood on Juan Fernandez ; but, in fact. I believe the art is confined to savages. I never met a civilized man who could do it, and I have questioned scores of voyagers. As for my weap- ons, they consist of a boat-hook and an axe ; no gun, no harpoon, no bow, no lance. My tools are a blunt saw, a blunter axe, a wooden spade, two great augers, that I believe had a hand in bringing us here, but have not been any use to us since, a centre-bit, two planes, a hammer, a pair of pincers, two brad-awls, three gimlets, two scrapers, a plumb-lead and line, a large pair of scissors, and you have a small pair, two gauges, a screw-driver, five clasp-knives, a few screws and nails of various sizes, two small barrels, two bags, two tin bowls, two wooden bowls, and the shell of this turtle, and that is a very good soup-tureen, only we have no meat to make soup with." "Well sir," said Miss Rolleston, resignedly, " we can but kneel down and die." "That would be cutting the Gordian knot in- deed, "said Hazel. "What, die to shirk a few difficulties ? No. I propose an amendment to that. After the words 'kneel down, 'insert the words, 'and get up again, trusting in that merci- ful Providence which has saved us so far, but expects us to exert ourselves too.' " "It is good and pious advice," said Helen, " and let us follow it this moment." "Now," said Hazel, " I have three propositions to lay before you. 1st. That I hereby give up walking and take to running : time is so precious. 2d. That we both work by night as well as day. 3d. That we each tell the other our principal wants, so that there may be four eyes on the look- out, as we go, instead of two." "I consent, "said Helen; "pray what are your wants ?" "Iron, oil, salt, tar, a bellows, a pickaxe, planks, thread, nets, light matting for roofs, bricks, chim- ney-pots, jars, glass, animal food, some variety of vegetable food, and so on. I'll write down the entire list for you." "You will be puzzled to do that without ink or paper." "Not in the least. I shall engrave it in alto- rilievo, make the words with pebbles on the turf just above high-water mark. Now tell me your wants." "Well, I want — impossibilities." "Enumerate them." "What is the use?" " It is the method we have agreed upon." " Oh, very well, then. I want — a sponge." " Good. What next ?" "I have broken my comb." "Good." " Pm glad you think so. I want — Oh, Mr. Hazel, what is the use ? — well, I should like a mattress to lie on." " Hair or wool ?" ' ' I don't care which. And it is a shame to ask you for either." " Go on." "I want a looking-glass." " Great Heaven ! What for ?" "Oh, nevermind: I want one; andsomemore towels, and some soap, and a few hair-pins ; and 6G FOUL PLAY. some elastic bands ; and some pen, ink, and paper, to write my feelings down in this island for no- body ever to see." When she began Hazel looked bright, but the list was like a wasp, its sting lay in its tail. Haw- ever, he put a good face on it. " I'll try and get you all those things : only give me time. Do you know I am writing a dictionary on a novel method." "That means on the sand." "No ; the work is suspended for the present. But two of the definitions in it are, — Difficul- ties, — things to be subdued ; Impossibilities, — things to be trampled on." " Well, subdue mine. Trample on — a sponge for me." "That is just what I was going to do," said he : opened a clasp-knife and jumped coolly into the river. Helen screamed faintly, but after all the water was only up to his knees. He soon cut a large sponge off a piece of slimy rock, and held it up to her. " There," said he, "why, there are a score of them at your very door, and you never saw them." " Oh, excuse me, I did see them, and shud- dered ; I thought they were reptiles ; dormant, and biding their time." When he was out of the river again, she thought a little, and asked him whether old iron would be of any use to him. "Oh, certainly," said he; "what, do you know of any?" " I think I saw some one day. I'll go and look for it." She took the way of the shore ; and he got his cart and spade, and went post-haste to his j clay-pit. He made a quantity of bricks, and brought them home, and put them to dry in the sun. He ! also cut great pieces of the turtle, and wrapped them in fresh banana-leaves, and inclosed them j in clay. He then tried to make a lai'ge narrow- , necked vessel, and failed utterly ; so he made the clay into a great rude platter like a shal- low milk-pan. Then he peeled the sago-log, off which he had cut his wheels, and rubbed it with turtle-fat, and using it as a form, pro- [ duced two clay cylinders. These he set in the | sun, with bricks round them to keep them | from falling. Leaving all these to dry and set | before he baked them, he went off to the marsh ! for fern-leaves. The soil being so damp, the trees were covered with a brownish-red sub- stance, scarce distinguishable from wool. This he had counted on. But he also found in the same neighborhood a long cypress-haired moss that seemed to him very promising. He j made several trips, and raised quite a stack of j fern-leaves. By this time the sun had operated ; on his thinner pottery ; so he laid down six of j his large thick tiles, and lighted a fire on them j of dry banana- leaves, and cocoa-nut, etc., and such light combustibles, until he had heated and ; hardened the clay ; then he put the ashes on one \ side, and swept the clay clean ; then he put the ; fire on again, and made it hotter and hotter, till ' the clay began to redden. While he was thus occupied, Miss Rolleston ! came from the jungle radiant, carrying vegetable j treasures in her apron. First she produced some golden apples with reddish leaves. " There," said she; "and they smell deli- cious." Hazel eyed them keenly. " You have not eaten any of them ?" "What! by myself ?" said Helen. "Thank Heaven!" said Hazel, turning pale. " These are the manchanilla, the poison apple of the Pacific." "Poison!" said Helen, alarmed in her turn. "Well, I don't know that they are poison ; but travellers give them a very bad name. The birds never peck them ; and I have read that even the leaves falling into still water have killed the fish. You will not eat any thing here till you have shown it me, will you ?" said he, imploringly. " No, no," said Helen ; and sat down with her hand to her heart a minute. "And I was so pleased when I found them," she said ; " they reminded me of home. I wonder whether these are poison, too ?" and she opened her apron wide, and showed him some long yellow pods, with red specks, something like a very large banana. "Ah, that is a very different affair," said Ha- zel, delighted; "these are plantains, and the greatest find we have made yet. The fruit is meat, the wood is thread, and the leaf is shelter and clothes. The fruit is good raw, and better baked, as you shall see, and I believe this is the first time the dinner and the dish were both baked together." He cleared the now heated hearth, put the meat and fruit on it, then placed his great plat- ter over it, and heaped fire round the platter, and light combustibles over it. Whilst this was going on, Helen took him to her bower, and showed him three rusty iron hoops, and a piece of rotten wood with a rusty nail, and the marks where others had been. "There," said she; " that is all I could find." "Why, it is a treasure," cried he; "you will see. I have found something, too." He then showed her the vegetable wool and vegetable hair he had collected, and told her where they grew. She owned they were won- derful imitations, and would do as well as the real things ; and, ere they had done comparing notes, the platter and the dinner under it were both baked. Hazel removed the platter or milk-pan, and served the dinner in it. If Hazel was inventive, Helen was skillful and quick at any kind of woman's work; and the following is the result of the three weeks' work ; under his direction. She had made as follows : — 1. Thick mattress, stuffed with the vegetable hair and wool described above. The mattress was only two feet six inches wide ; for Helen found that she never turned in bed now. She slept as she had never slept before. This mattress was made with plantain-leaves sewed together with the thread furnished by the tree itself, and doubled at the edges. 2. A long shallow net four feet deep, — cocoa fibre. 3. A great quantity of stout grass-rope, and light but close matting for the roof, and some cocoa-nut matting for the ground, and to po un- der the mattress. But Hazel, instructed by her, had learned to plait, — rather clumsily, — and he had a hand in the matting. Hazel in the mean time heightened his own rnud- banks in the centre, and set up brick fire- places with hearth and chimney, one on each FOUL PLAY. 67 side ; and now did all the cooking ; for he found the smoke from wood made Miss Rolleston cough. He also made a number of pigeon-holes in his mud walls and lined them with clay. One of these he dried with fire, and made a pottery door to it, and there kept the lucifer-box. He made a vast number of bricks, but did nothing with them. After several failures he made two lagre pots, and two great pans, that would all four bear fire under them, and in the pans he boiled sea-water till it all evaporated and left him a sediment of salt. This was a great addi- tion to their food, and he managed also to put by a little. But it was a slow process. He made a huge pair of bellows, with a little assistance from Miss Rolleston ; the spout was a sago stick, with the pith driven out, and the sub- stitute for leather was the skin of a huge eel he found stranded at the east point. Having got his bellows and fixed them to a post he drove into the ground, he took for his anvil a huge flint stone, and a smaller one for hammer: heated his old iron to a white heat, and hammered it with a world of trouble into straight lengths ; and at last with a portion of it produced a long saw without teeth, but one side sharper than the other. This by repeated ex- periments of heating and immersing in water, he at last annealed ; and when he wanted to saw, he blew his embers to a white heat (he kept the fire alive now night and day), heated his original saw red-hot, and soon sawed through the oleaginous woods of that island. If he wanted to cut down a tree in the jungle, he put the bel- lows and a pot of embers on his cart with other fuel, and came and lighted the fire under the tree and soon had it down. He made his pick- axe in half an hour, but with his eyes rather than his hands. He found a young tree grow- ing on the rock, or at least on soil so shallow that the root was half above ground and at right angles to the stem. He got this tree up, shortened the stem, shaped the root, shod the point with some of his late old iron ; and with this primitive tool, and a thick stake baked at the point, he opened the ground to receive twelve stout uprights, and he drove them with a tre- mendous mallet made upon what might be call- ed the compendious or Hazelian method ; it was a section of a hard tree with a thick shoot grow- ing out of it, which shoot, being shortened, served for the handle. By these, arts he at last saw a goal to his labors. Animal food, oil, pitch, ink, paper, were still wanting ; but fish were abun- dant, and plantains and cocoa-nuts stored. Above all, Helen's hut was now weather-tight. Stout horizontal bars were let into the trees, and being bound to the uprights, they mutually sup- ported each other ; smaller horizontal bars at intervals kept the prickly ramparts from being driven in by a sudden gust. The canvas walls were removed, and the nails stored in a pigeon- hole, and a stout network substituted, to which huge plantain-leaves were cunningly fastened with plantain-thread. The roof was double : first, that extraordinary mass of spiked leaves which the four trees threw out, then several feet under that the huge piece of matting the pair had made. This was strengthened by double strips of canvas at the edges and in the centre, and by single strips in other parts. A great many cords and strings made of that wonderful grass were sewn to the canvas-strengthened edges, and so it was fastened to the trees, and fastened to the horizontal bars. When this work drew close to its completion, Hazel could not disguise his satisfaction. But he very soon had the mortification of see- ing that she for whom it was all done did not share his complacency. A change took place in her ; she often let her work fall, and brooded. She spoke sometimes sharply to Mr. Hazel, and sometimes with strain- ed civility. She wandered away from him, and from his labors for her comfort, and passed hours at Telegraph Point, eying the illimitable ocean. She was a riddle. All sweetness at times, but at others irritable, moody, and scarce mistress of herself. Hazel was sorry and perplexed, and often expressed a fear she was ill. The answer was always in the negative. He did not press her, but worked on for her, hoping the mood would pass. And so it would, no doubt, if the cause had not remained. Matters were still in this uncomfortable and mysterious state when Hazel put his finishing stroke to her abode. He was in high spirits that evening : for he had made a discovery ; he had at last found time for a walk, and followed the river to its source, a very remarkable lake in a hilly basin. Near this was a pond, the water of which he had tasted and found it highly bituminous: and, mak- ing further researches, he had found at the bot- tom of a rocky ravine a very wonderful thing — a dark resinous fluid bubbling up in quite a fount- ain, which, however, fell down again as it rose, and hardly any overflowed. It was like a thin pitch. Of course, in another hour he was back there with a great pot, and half filled it. It was not like water : it did not bubble so high when some had been taken : so he just took what he could get. Pursuing his researches a little farther he found a range of rocks with snowy summits ap- parently ; but the snow was the guano of cen- turies. * He got to the western extremity of the island, saw another deep bay or rather branch of the sea, and on the other side of it a tongue of high land running out to sea: on that prom- ontory stood a gigantic palm-tree. He recog- nized that with a certain thrill, but was in a great hurry to get home with his pot of pitch ; for it was in truth a very remarkable discovery, though not without a parallel. He could not wait till morning, so with embers and cocoa-nut he made a fire in the bower, and melted his pitch which had become nearly solid, and proceeded to smear the inside of the matting in places to make it thoroughly water-tight. Helen treated the discovery at first with mor- tifying indifference : but he hoped she would ap- preciate Nature's bounty more when she saw the practical use of this extraordinary production. He endeavored to lead her to that view. She shook her head sorrowfully. He persisted. She met him with silence. He thought this peevish, and ungrateful to Heaven ; we have all different measures of the wonderful : and to him a fount- ain of pitch was a thing to admire greatly and thank God for ; he said as much. To Helen it was nasty stuff, and who cares where it came from? She conveyed as much by a shrug of the shoulders, and then gave a 6igh that told her mind was far away. 68 FOUL PLAY. He was a little mortified, and showed it. One word led to another, and at last what had been long fermenting came out. "Mr. Hazel," said she, "you and I are at cross purposes. You mean to live here. I do not." Hazel left off working and looked greatly per- plexed, the attack was so sudden in its form, though it had been a long time threatening. He found nothing to say, and she was impatient now to speak her mind, so she replied to his look. "You are making yourself at home here. You are contented. Contented ? You are happy in this horrible prison." " And why not ?" said Hazel. And he looked rather guilty. " Here are no traitors ; no mur- derers. The animals are my friends, and the one human being I see makes me better to look at her." "Mr. Hazel, I am in a state of mind that ro- mantic nonsense jars on me. B honest with me, and talk to me like a man. I say that you beam all over with happiness and content, and that you — Now answer me one question ; why have vou never lighted the bonfire on Telegraph Point?" "Indeed I don't know," said he, submissive- ly. " I have been so occupied." "You have : and how? Not in trying to de- liver us both from this dreadful situation, but to reconcile me to it. Yes, sir, under pretense (that is a harsh word, but I can't help it) of keeping out the rain. Your rain is a bugbear ; it never rains, it never will rain. You are killing your- self almost to make me comfortable in this place. Comfortable?" She began to tremble all over with excitement long restrained. ' ' And do you really suppose you can make me live on like this, by building me a nice hut. Do you think I am all body and no soul, that shelter and warmth and enough to eat can keep my heart from breaking, and my cheeks from blushing night and day? When I wake in the morning I find myself blush- ing to my fingers' ends." Then she walked away from him. Then she walked back. " Oh, my dear father, why did I ever leave you ! Keep me here ? Make me live months and years on this island ? Have you sisters ? Have you a mother ? Ask yourself, is it likely ? No ; if yon will not help me, and they don't love me enough to come and find me and take me home, I'll go to another home without your help or any man's." Then she rose suddenly to her feet. "I'll tie my clothes tight round me, and fling myself down from that point on to the sharp rocks below. I'll find a way from this place to heaven, if there's no way from it to those I love on earth." Then she sank down and rocked herself and sobbed hard. The strong passion of this hitherto gentle crea- ture quite frightened her unhappy friend, who knew more of books than women. He longed to soothe her and comfort her ; but what could he say? He cried out in despair, "My God, can I do nothing for her ?" She turned on him like lightning. * < You can do any thing : every thing. You can restore us both to our friends. You can save my life, my reason. For that will go first, I think. What kadi done? What had I eve?' done since I was born, to be so brought down ? Was ever an English lady — ? And then I have such an ir- ritation on my skin, all over me. I sometimes wish the tiger would come and tear me all to pieces ; yes, all to pieces." And with that her white teeth clicked together convulsively. "Do ?" said she, darting back to the point as swiftly as she had rushed away from it. " Why, put down that nasty stuff; and leave off inventing fifty little trumpery things for me, and do one great thing instead. Oh, do not fritter that great mind of yours away in painting and patch- ing my prison ; but bring it all to bear on get- ting me out of my prison. Call sea and land to our rescue. Let them know a poor girl is here in unheard-of, unfathomable misery : here, in the middle of this awful ocean." Hazel sighed deeply. " No ships seem to pass within sight of us," he muttered. "What does that matter to you? You are not a common man ; you are an inventor. Eouse all the powers of your mind. There must be some way. Think for me. Think ! think ! or my blood will be on your head." Hazel turned pale and put his head in his hands, and tried to think. She leaned towards him with great flashing eyes of purest hazel. The problem dropped from his lips a syllable at a time. "To diffuse — intelligence — a hun- dred leagues from a fixed point — an island ?" She leaned towards him with flashing ex- pectant eyes. But he groaned, and said : "That seems im- possible." " Then trample on it," said she, bringing his own words against him ; for she used to remem- ber all he said to her in the day, and ponder it at night — "trample on it, subdue it, or never speak to me again. Ah, I am an ungrateful wretch to speak so harshly to you. It is my misery, not me. Good, kind Mr. Hazel, oh, pray, pray, pray bring all the powers of that great mind to bear on this one thing, and save a poor girl, to whom you have been so kind, so consid- erate, so noble, so delicate, so forbearing ; now save me from despair." Hysterical sobs cut her short here, and Haze], whose loving heart she had almost torn out of his body, could only falter out in a broken voice, that he would obey her. "I'll work no more for you at present," said he, "sweet as it has been. I will think instead. I will go this mo- ment beneath the stars and think all night." The young woman was now leaning her head languidly back against one of the trees, weak as water after her passion. He cast a look of in- effable love and pity on her, and withdrew slowly to think beneath the tranquil stars. Love has set men hard tasks in his time. Whether this was a light one, our reader shall decide. To DIFFUSE INTELLIGENCE FROM A FIXED ISLAND OVER A HUNDRED LEAGUES OF OCEAN. CHAPTER XXVII. The perplexity into which Hazel was thrown by the outburst of his companion rendered him unable to reduce her demand at once to an in- telligible form. For some moments he seriously employed his mind on the problem until it as- sumed this shape. FOUL PLAY. GO Firstly : I do not know where this island is, having no means of ascertaining either its lati- tude or longitude. Secondly : If I had such a description of its locality, how might the news be conveyed be- yond the limits of the place ? As the wildness of Helen's demand broke upon his mind, he smiled sadly, and sat down upon the bank of the little river, near his boat-house, and buried his head in his hands. A deep groan burst from him, and the tears at last came through his fingers, as in despair he thought how vain must be any effort to content or to conciliate her. Impatient with his own weakness he started to his feet, when a hand was laid gently upon his arm. She stood beside him. " Mr. Hazel," she said, hurriedly — her voice was husky — " do not mind what I have said. I am unreasonable ; and I am sure I ought to feel obliged to you for all the — " Hazel turned his face towards her, and the moon glistened on the tears that still flowed down his cheeks. He tried to check the utter- ance of her apology ; but, ere he could master his voice, the girl's cold and constrained features seemed to melt. She turned away, wrung her hands, and, with a sharp quivering cry, she broke forth, "Oh, sir! oh, Mr. Hazel! do forgive me. lam not ungrateful, indeed, indeed, I am not; but I am mad with despair. Judge me with compas- sion. At this moment, those who are very, very dear to me are awaiting my arrival in London ; and, when they learn the loss of the Proserpine, how great will be their misery ! Well, that mis- ery is added to mine. Then my poor papa : he will never know how much he loved me until this news reaches him. And to think that I am dead to them, yet living ! living. here helplessly, helplessly. Dear, dear Arthur, how you will suffer for my sake ! Oh, papa, papa ! shall I nev- er see you again?" and she wept bitterly. " lam helpless either to aid or to console you, Miss Rolleston. By the act of a Divine Provi- dence you were cast upon this desolate shore, and by the same Will I was appointed to serve and to provide for your welfare. I pray God that he will give me health and strength to as- sist you. Good-night." She looked timidly at him for a moment, then slowly regained her hut. He had spoken coldly, and with dignity. She felt humbled, the more so that he had only bowed his acknowledgment to her apology. For more than an hour she watched him, as he paced up and down between the boat-house and the shore ; then he advanced a little towards her shelter, and she shrank into her bed, after gently closing the door. In a few moments she crept again to peep forth, and to see if he were still there, but he had disappeared. The following morning Helen was surprised to see the boat riding at anchor in the surf, and Hazel busily engaged on her trim. He was soon on shore, and by her side. "I am afraid I must leave you for a day, Miss Rolleston," he said. "I wish to make "a circuit of the island ; indeed I ought to have done so many days ago." "Is such an expedition necessary? Surely you have had enough of the sea." "It is very necessary. You have urged me to undertake this enterprise. You see, it is the first step towards announcing to all passing ves- sels our presence in this place. I have com- menced operations already. See, on yonder bluff, which I have called Telegraph Point, I have mounted the boat's ensign, and now it floats from the top of the tree beside the bonfire. I carried it there at sunrise. Do you see that pole I have shipped on board the boat ? That is intended as a signal, which shall be exhibited on your great palm-tree. The flag will then stand for a signal on the northern coast, and the palm-tree, thus accoutred, will serve for a simi- lar purpose on the western extremity of the isl- and. As I pass along the southern and eastern shores, I propose to select spots where some mark can be erected, such as may be visible to ships at sea." " But will they remark such signals ?" "Be assured they will, if they come within sight of the place." Hazel knew that there was little chance of such an event ; but it was something not to be neglected. He also explained that it was neces- sary he should arrive at a knowledge of the isl- and, the character of its shores ; and from the sea he could rapidly obtain a plan of the place, ascertain what small rivers there might be, and, indeed, see much of its interior; for he judged it to be not more than ten miles in length, and scarce three in width. Helen felt rather disappointed that no trace of the emotion he displayed on the previous night remained in his manner, or in the expression of his face. She bowed her permission to him rather haughtily, and sat down to breakfast on i some baked yams, and some rough oysters, which he had raked up from the bay while bathing that morning. The young man had regained an elas- ticity of bearing, an independence of tone, to which she was not at all accustomed ; his man- ners were always soft and deferential ; but his expression was more firm, and she felt that the reins had been gently removed from her posses- sion, and there was a will to guide her which she was bound to acknowledge and obey. She did not argue in this wise, for it is not human to reason and to feel at the same mo- ment. She felt then instinctively that the man was quietly asserting his superiority, and the child pouted. Hazel went about his work briskly ; the boat was soon laden with every requisite. Helen watched these preparations askance, vexed with the expedition which she had urged him to make. Then she fell to reflecting on the change that seemed to have taken place in her charac- ter ; she, who was once so womanly, so firm, so reasonable, — why had she become so petulant, childish, and capricious ? The sail was set, and all ready to run the cut- ter into the surf of the rising tide, when, taking a sudden resolution, as it were, Helen came rapidly down, and said, "I will go with you, if you please," half in command and half in doubt. Hazel looked a little surprised, but very pleased ; and then she added, "I hope I shall not be in your way." He assured her, on the contrary, that she might be of great assistance to him ; and now with doubled alacrity he ran out the little vessel and leaped into the prow as she danced over the 70 FOUL PLAY. waves. He taught her how to hring the boat's head round with the help of an oar, and, when all was snug, left her at the helm. On reach- ing the mouth of the bay, if it could so be call- ed, he made her remark that it was closed by reefs, except to the north and to the west. The wind being southerly, he had decided to pass to the west, and so they opened the sea about half a mile from the shore. For about three miles they perceived it con- sisted of a line of bluffs, cleft at intervals by small narrow bays, the precipitous sides of which were lined with dense foliage. Into these fis- sures the sea entered with a mournful sound, that died away as it crept up the yellow sands with which these nooks were carpeted. An ex- clamation from Helen attracted his attention to the horizon on the north-west, where a long line of breakers glittered in the sun. A reef or low sandy bay appeared to exist in that direction, about fifteen miles away, and something more than a mile in length. As they proceeded, he marked roughly on the side of his tin baler, with the point of a pin borrowed from Helen, the form of the coast-line. An hour and a half brought them to the north- western extremity of the island. As they clear- ed the shelter of the land, the southerly breeze coming with some force across the open sea caught the cutter, and she lay over in a way to inspire Helen with alarm ; she was about to let go the tiller, when Hazel seized it, accidentally inclosing her hand under the grasp of his own, as he pressed the tiller hard to port. " Steady, please ; don't relinquish your hold ; it is all right, — no fear," he cried, as he kept his eye on their sail. He held this course for a mile or more, and then, judging with a long tack he could weath- er the southerly side of the island, he put the boat about. He took occasion to explain to Helen how this operation was necessary, and she learned the alphabet of navigation. The west- ern end of their little land now lay before them ; it was about three miles in breadth. For two miles the bluff coast-line continued unbroken ; then a deep bay, a mile in width and two miles in depth, was made by a long tongue of sand projecting westerly; on its extremity grew the gigantic palm, well recognized as Helen's land- mark. Hazel stood up in the boat to reconnoi- tre the coast. He perceived the sandy shore was dotted with multitudes of dark objects. Ere long, these objects were seen to be in mo- tion, and pointing them out to Helen, with a smile, he said, — "Beware, Miss Rolleston, yonder are your bugbears,— and in some force/too. Those dark masses, moving upon the hillocks of sand, or rolling on the surf, are sea-lions, — the phoca leonina, or lion-seal." Helen strained her eyes to distinguish the forms, but only descried the dingy objects. While thus engaged, she allowed the cutter to fall off a little, and, ere Hazel had resumed his hold upon the tiller, they were fairly in the bay ; the great palm-tree on their starboard-bow. "You seem determined to make the acquaint- ance of your nightmares," he remarked ; " you perceive that we are embayed." Her consternation amused him ; she saw that, if they held their present course, the cutter would take the beach about a mile ahead, where these animals were densely crowded. At this moment, something dark bulged up close beside her in the sea, and the rounded back of a monster rolled over and disappeared. Hazel let drop the sail, for they were now fairly in the smooth water of the bay, and close to the sandy spit; the gigantic stem of the palm-tree was on their quarter, about half a mile off. He took to the oars, and rowed slowly towards the shore. A small seal rose behind the boat and followed them, playing with the blade, its gambols resembling that of a kitten. He point- ed out to Helen the mild expression of the crea- ture's face, and assured her that all this tribe were harmless animals, and susceptible of do- mestication. The cub swam up to the boat quite fearlessly, and he touched its head gently ; he encouraged her to do the like, but she shrank from its contact. They were now close ashore, and Hazel, throwing out his anchor in two feet of water, prepared to land the beam of wood he had brought to decorate the palm-trees as a signal. The huge stick was soon heaved overboard, and he leaped after it. He towed it to the nearest landing to the tree, and dragged it high up on shore. Scarcely had he disposed it con- veniently, intending to return in a day or two, with the means of affixing it in a prominent and remarkable manner, in the form of a spar across the trunk of the palm, when a cry from Helen recalled him. A large number of the sea-lions were coasting quietly down the surf to- wards the boat ; indeed, a dozen of them had made their appearance around it. Hazel shouted to her not to fear, and, desir- ing that her alarm should not spread to the swarm, he passed back quietly but rapidly. When he reached the water, three or four of the animals were already floundering between him and the boat. He waded slowly towards one of them, and stood beside it. The man and the creature looked quietly at each other, and then the seal rolled over, with a snuffling, self-satis- fied air, winking its soft eyes with immense com- placency. Helen, in her alarm, could not re- sist a smile at this conclusion of so terrible a demonstration ; for, with all their gentle ex- pression, the tusks of the brute looked formida- ble. But when she saw Hazel pushing them aside, and patting a very small cub on the back, she recovered her courage completely. Then he took to his oars again ; and, aided by the tide, which was now on the ebb, he row- ed round the south-western extremity of the island. He found the water here, as he an- ticipated, very shallow. It was midday when they were fairly on the southern coast ; and now, sailing with the wind aft, the cutter ran through the water at racing speed. Fearing that some reefs or rocky forma- tions might exist in their course, he reduced sail, and kept away from the shore, about a mile. At this distance he was better able to see inland, and mark down the accidence of its formation. The southern coast was uniform, and Helen said it resembled the cliffs of the Kentish or Sus- sex coast of England, only the English white was here replaced by the pale volcanic gray. By one o'clock they came abreast the very spot where they had first made land ; and, as they FOUL PLAY. 71 judged, due south of their residence. Had they landed here, a walk of three miles across the centre of the island would have brought them home. For about a similar distance the coast exhib- ited monotonous cliffs unbroken even by a rill. It was plain that the water-shed of the island was all northward. They now approached the eastern end, where rose the circular mountain of which mention has been already made. This eminence had evidently at one time been de- tached from the rest of the land, to which it was now joined by a neck of swamp about a mile and a half in breadth, and two miles in length. Hazel proposed to reconnoitre this part of the shore nearly, and ran the boat close in to land. The reeds or canes with which this bog was densely clothed grew in a dark spongy soil. Here and there this waste was dotted with rag- ged trees which he recognized as the cypress : from its gaunt branches hung a black, funereal kind of weeper, a kind of moss resembling iron- gray horse-hair both in texture and uses, though not so long in the staple. This parasite, Hazel explained to Helen, was very common in such marshy ground, and was the death-flag hung out by Natui'e to warn man that malaria and fever were the invisible and in- alienable inhabitants of that fatal neighborhood. Looking narrowly along the low shore for some good landing, where under shelter of a tree they might repose for an hour, and spread their midday repast, they discovered an opening in the reeds, a kind of lagoon or bayou, extending into the morass between the highlands of the island and the circular mountain, but close under the base of the latter. This inlet he proposed to ex- plore, and accordingly the sail was taken down, and the cutter was poled into the narrow creek. The water here was so shallow that the keel slid over the quicksand into which the oar sank free- ly. The creek soon became narrow, the water deeper, and of a blacker color, and the banks more densely covered with canes. These grew to the height of ten and twelve feet, and as close as wheat in a thick crop. The air felt dank and heavy, and hummed with myriads of insects. The black water became so deep and the bottom so sticky that Hazel took to the oars again. The creek narrowed as they proceeded, until it proved scarcely wide enough to admit of his working the boat. The height of the reeds hin- dered the view on either side. Suddenly, how- ever, and after proceeding very slowly through the bends of the canal, they decreased in height and density, and they emerged into an open space of about five acres in extent, a kind of oasis in this reedy desert, created by a mossy mound which arose amidst the morass, and afforded firm footing, of which a grove of trees and in- numerable shrubs availed themselves. Helen ut- tered an exclamation of delight as this island of foliage in a sea of reeds met her eyes, that had been famished with the arid monotony of the brake. They soon landed. Helen insisted on the preparations for their meal being left to her, and, having selected a sheltered spot, she was soon busy with their fru- gal food. Hazel surveyed the spot, and, select- ing a red cedar, was soon seated forty feet above her head : making a topographical survey of the neighborhood. He found that the bayou by which they had entered continued its course to the northern shore, thus cutting off the mountain or easterly end, and forming of it a separate isl- and. He saw that a quarter of a mile farther on the bayou or canal parted, forming two streams, of which that to the left seemed the main channel. This he determined to follow. Turning to the west, that is, towards their home, he saw at a distance of two miles a crest of hills broken into cliffs, which defined the limit of the mainland. The sea had at one time occupied the site where the morass now stood. These cliffs formed a range, extending from north to south : their precipitous sides, clothed here and there with trees, marked where the descent was broken by platforms. Between him and this range the morass extended. Hazel took note of three places where the descent from these hills into the marsh could, he believed, most readily be made. On the eastern side and close above him arose the peculiar mountain. Its form was that of a truncated cone, and its sides densely covered with trees of some size. The voice of Helen called him from his perch, and he descended quickly, leaping into a mass of brushwood growing at the foot of his tree. He- len stood a few yards from him, in admiration, before a large shrub. "Look, Mi\ Hazel, what a singular produc- tion," said the girl, as she stooped to examine the plant. It bore a number of red flowers, each growing out of a fruit like a prickly pear. These flowers were in various stages ; some were just opening like tulips, others, more advanced, had expanded like umbrellas, and quite overlap- ped the fruit, keeping it from sun and dew ; others had served their turn in that way, and been withered by the sun's rays. But wherever this was the case, the fruit had also burst open and displayed or discharged its contents, and those contents looked like seeds ; but on narrow- er inspection proved to be little insects with pink transparent wings, and bodies of incredibly vivid crimson. Hazel examined the fruit and flowers very carefully, and stood rapt, transfixed. "It must be! — and it is!" said he at last. " Well, I'm glad I've not died without seeing it." " What is it ?" said she. " One of the most valuable productions of the earth. It is cochineal. This is the tunal-tree." * ' Oh, indeed," said Helen, indifferently : "co- chineal is used for a dye ; but as it is not prob- able we shall require to dye any thing, the dis- covery seems to me more curious than useful." "You wanted some ink. This pigment, mix- ed with lime-juice, -will form a beautiful red ink. Will you lend me your handkerchief and permit me to try if I have forgotten the method by which these little insects are obtained ?" He asked her to hold her handkerchief under a bough of the tunal-tree, where the fruit was ripe. He then shook the bough. Some insects fell at once into the cloth. A great number rose and buzzed a little in the sun not a yard from where they were born ; but the sun dried their blood so promptly that they soon fell dead in the handkerchief. Those that the sun so killed went through three phases of color before their eyes. They fell down black or nearly. They whitened on the 72 FOUL PLAY. cloth : and after that came gradually to their final color, a flaming crimson. The insect thus treated appeared the most vivid of all. They soon secured about half a tea-cupful ; they were rolled up and put away, then they sat down and made a very hearty meal, for it was now past two o'clock. They re-entered the boat, and, passing once more into the morass, they found the channel of the bayou as it approached the northern shore less difficult of navigation. The bottom became sandy and hard, and the presence of trees in the swamp proved that spots of terra firma were more frequent. But the wa- ter shallowed, and, as they opened the shore, he saw with great vexation that the tide in receding had left the bar at the mouth of the canal visible in some parts. He pushed on, however, until the boat grounded. This was a sad affair. There lay the sea not fifty yards ahead. Hazel leap- ed out, and examined and forded the channel, which at this place was about two hundred feet wide. He found a narrow passage near the eastern side, and to this he towed the boat. Then he begged Miss Rolleston to land, and re- lieved the boat of the mast, sail, and oars. Thus lightened, he dragged her into the passage ; but the time occupied in these preparations had been also occupied by Nature, — the tide had receded, and the cutter stuck immovably in the water-way, about six fathoms short of deeper water. "What is to be done now?" inquired Helen, when Hazel returned to her side, panting, but cheerful. " We must await the rising of the tide. I fear we are imprisoned here for three hours at least." There was no help for it. Helen made light of the misfortune. The spot where they had land- ed was inclosed between the two issues of the la- goon. They walked along the shore to the more easterly, and the narrower canal, and, on arriv- ing, Hazel found to his great annoyance that there was ample water to have floated the cut- ter had he selected that, the least promising road. He suggested a return by the road they came, and passing into the other canal, by tha*t to reach the sea. They hurried back, but found by this time the tide had left the cutter high and dry on the sand. So they had no choice but to wait. Having three hours to spare, Hazel asked Miss Rolleston's permission to ascend the mountain. She assented to remain near the boat while he was engaged in this expedition. The ascent was too rugged and steep for her powers, and the sea- shore and adjacent groves would find her ample amusement during his absence. She accompa- nied him to the bank of the smaller lagoon, which he forded, and waving an adieu to her he plunged into the dense wood with which the sides of the mountain were clothed. She waited some time, and then she heard his voice shouting to her from the heights above The mountain-top was about three quarters of a mile from where she stood, but seemed much nearer. She turned back towards the boat, walk- ing slowly, but paused as a faint and distant cry again reached her ear. It was not repeated, and then she entered the grove. The ground beneath her feet was soft with vel- vety moss, and the dark foliage of the trees ren- dered the air cool and deliciously fragrant. After wandering for some time, she regained the edge of the grove near the boat, and selecting a spot at the foot of an aged cypress, she sat down with her back against its trunk. Then she took out Arthur's letter, and began to read those im- passioned sentences ; as she read she sighed deep- ly, as earnestly she found herself pitying Arthur's condition more than she regretted her own. She fell into reverie, and from revery into a drowsy languor. How long she remained in this state she could not remember, but a slight rustle over- head recalled her senses. Believing it to be a bird moving in the branches, she was resigning herself again to rest, when she became sensible of a strange emotion, — a conviction that some- thing was watching her with a fixed gaze. She cast her eyes around, but saw nothing. She look- ed upward. From the tree immediately above her lap depended a snake, its tail coiled around a dead branch. The reptile hung straight, its eyes fixed like two rubies upon Helen's, as very slowly it let itself down by its uncoiling tail. Now its head was on a level with hers ; in another moment it must drop into her lap. She was paralyzed. CHAPTER XXVIII. After toiling up a rugged and steep ascent, encumbered with blocks of gray stone, of which the island seemed to be formed, forcing his way over fallen trees and through the tangled under- growth of a species of wild vine, which abounded on the mountainside, Hazel stopped to breathe, and peer around as well as the dense foliage per- mitted. He was up to his waist in scrub, and the stiff leaves of the bayonet plant rendered cau- tion necessary in walking. At moments, through the dense foliage, he caught a glisten of the sea. The sun was in the north behind him, and by this alone he guided his road due southerly and up- ward. Once only he found a small cleared space about an acre in extent, and here it was he utter- ed the cry Helen heard. He waited a few mo- ments in the hope to hear her voice in reply, but it did not reach him. Again he plunged upward, and now the ascent became at times so arduous that more than once he almost resolved to relin- quish, or, at least, to defer his task ; but a mo- ment's rest recalled him to himself, and he was one not easily baffled by difficulty or labor, so he toiled on until he judged the summit ought to have been reached. After pausing to take breath and counsel, he fancied that he had borne too much to the left, the ground to his right appear- ed to rise more than the path that he was pursu- ing, which had become level, and he concluded, that, instead of ascending, he was circling the mountain-top. He turned aside, therefore, and after ten minutes' hard climbing he was pushing through a thick and high scrub, when the earth seemed to give way beneath him, and he fell — into an abyss. He was ingulfed. He fell from bush to bush — down — down — scratch — rip — plump ! until he lodged in a prickly bush more winded than hurt. Out of this he crawled, only to discover himself thus landed in a great and perfectly circular plain of about thirty acres in extent, or about 350 yards in diameter. In the centre was a lake, also circular. The broad belt of shore around FOUL PLAY. 73 this lake was covered with rich grass, level as a bowling-green, and all this again was surround- ed by a nearly perpendicular cliff, down which in- deed he had fallen : this cliff was thickly clothed with shrubs and trees. Hazel recognized the crater of an extinct vol- cano. On examining the lake he found the waters impregnated with volcanic products. Its bot- tom was formed of asphaltum. Having made a circuit of the shores, he perceived on the westerly side — that next the island — a break in the cliff; and on a narrow examination he discovered an outlet. It appeared to him that the lake at one time had emptied its waters through this ancient water-course. The descent here was not only gradual, but the old river-bed was tolerably free from obstructions, especially of the vegetable kind. He made his way rapidly downward, and in half an hour reached marshy ground. The cane- brake now lay before him. On his left he saw the sea on the south, about a third of a mile. He knew that to the right must be the sea on the north, about half a mile or so. He bent his way thither. The edge of the swamp was very clear, and though somewhat spongy, afforded good walking unimpeded*. As he approached the spot where he judged the boat to be, the underwood thickened, the trees again interlaced their arms, and he had to struggle through the foliage. At length he struck the smaller lagoon, and, as he was not certain whether it was fordable, he fol- lowed its course to the shore, where he had pre- viously crossed. In a few moments he reached the boat, and was pleased to find her afloat. The rising tide had even moved her a few feet back into the canal. Hazel shouted to apprise Miss Rolleston of his return, and then proceeded to restore the mast to its place, and replace the rigging and the oars. This occupied some little time. He felt surprised that she had not appeared. He shouted again. No reply. CHAPTER XXIX. Hazel advanced hurriedly into the grove, which he hunted thoroughly, but without effect. He satisfied himself that she could not have quit- ted the spot, since the marsh inclosed it on one side, the canals on the second and third, the sea on the fourth. He returned to the boat more surprised than anxious. He waited awhile, and again shouted her name, — stopped, — listened, — no answer. Yet surely Helen could not have been more than a hundred yards from where he stood. His heart beat with a strange sense of apprehen- sion. He heard nothing but the rustling of the foliage and the sop of the waves on the shore, as the tide crept up the shingle. As his eyes roved in every direction, he caught sight of some- thing white near the foot of a withered cypress- tree, not fifty yards from where he stood. He approached the bushes in which the tree was par- tially concealed on that side, and quickly recog- nized a portion of Helen's dress. He ran to- wards her — burst through the underwood, and gained the inclosure. She was sitting there, asleep, as he conjectured, her back leaning against the trunk. He contemplated her thus for one moment, and then he advanced, about to awaken her ; but was struck speechless. Her face was ashy pale, her eyes open and widely dis- tended ; her bosom heaved slowly. Hazel ap- proached rapidly, and called to her. Her eyes never moved, not a limb stirred. She sat glaring forward. On her lap was coiled a snake, — gray, mottled with muddy green. Hazel looked round and selected a branch of the dead tree, about three feet in length. Arm- ed with this, he advanced slowly to the reptile. It was very quiet, thanks to the warmth of her lap. He pointed the sticE at it ; the vermin lift- ed its head, and its tail began to quiver ; then it darted at the stick, throwing itself its entire length. Hazel retreated, the snake coiled again, and again darted. By repeating this process four or five times, he enticed the creature away ; and then, availing himself of a moment before it could recoil, he struck it a smart blow on the neck. When Hazel turned to Miss Rolleston, he found her still fixed in the attitude into which terror had transfixed her. The poor girl had remained motionless for an hour, under the terrible fasci- nation of the reptile, comatized. He spoke to her, but a quick spasmodic action of her throat and a quivering of her hands alone responded. The sight of her suffering agonized him beyond expression, but he took her hands, — he pressed them, for they were icy cold, — he called piteous- ly on her name. But she seemed incapable of effort. Then stooping he raised her tenderly in his arms, and carried her to the boat, where he laid her, still unresisting and incapable. With trembling limbs and weak hands, he launched the cutter, and they were once more afloat and bound homeward. He dipped the baler into the fresh water he had brought with him for their daily supply, and dash- ed it on her forehead. This he repeated until he perceived her breathing became less painful and more rapid. Then he raised her a little, and her head rested upon his arm. When they reached the entrance of the bay he was obliged to pass it, for, the wind being still southerly, he could not enter by the north gate, but came round and ran in by the western passage, the same by which they had left the same morning. Hazel bent over Helen, and whispered tender- ly that they were at home. She answered by a sob. In half an hour the keel grated on the sand near the boat-house. Then he asked her if she were strong enough to reach her hut. She raised her head, but she felt dizzy; he helped her to land ; all power had forsaken her limbs ; her head sank on his shoulder, and his arm, wound round her lithe figure, alone prevented her falling helplessly at his feet. Again he raised her in his arms and bore her to the hut. Here he laid her down on her bed, and stood for a mo- ment beside her, unable to restrain his tears. CHAPTER XXX. It was a wretched and anxious night for Ha- zel. He watched the hut, without the courage to approach it. That one moment of weakness which occurred to him on board the Proserpine, 71 FOUL PLAY. when he had allowed Helen to perceive the na- ture of his feelings towards her, had rendered all his actions open to suspicion. He dared not ex- hibit towards her any sympathy, — he might not extend to her the most ordinary civility. If she fell ill, if fever supervened ! how could he nurse her, attend upon her ? His touch must have a significance, he knew that ; for, as he bore her insensible form, he embraced rather than carried the precious burden. Could he look upon her in her suffering without betraying his forbidden love ? And then would not his attentions afflict more than console? Chewing the cud of such bitter thoughts, he passed the night without noticing the change which was taking place over the island. The sun rose ; and this awakened him from his rev- erie, which had replaced sleep ; he looked around, and then became sensible of the warnings in the air. The sea-birds flew about vaguely and absurd- ly, and seemed sporting in currents of wind; yet there was but little wind down below. Present- ly clouds came flying over the sky, and blacker masses gathered on the horizon. The sea changed color. Hazel knew the weather was breaking. The wet season was at hand, — the moment when fe- ver, if such an invisible inhabitant there was on that island, would visit them. In a few hours the rain would be upon them, and he reproached himself with want of care in the construction of the hut. For some hours he hovered around it before he ventured to approach the door and call to Helen. He thought he heard her voice faint- ly, and he enteied. She lay there as he had placed her. He knelt beside her, and was ap- palled at the change in her appearance. The poor girl's system had received a shock for which it was unprepared. Her severe suffer- ings at sea had, strange to say, reduced her in appearance less than could have been believed ; for her physical endurance proved greater than that of the strong men around her. But the food which the island supplied was not suited to re- store her strength, and the nervous shock to which she had been subjected was followed by complete prostration. Hazel took her unresisting hand, which he would have given a world to press. He felt her pulse ; it was weak, but slow. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken ; her hand dropped help- lessly when he released it. Leaving the hut quietly, but hastily, he de- scended the hill to the rivulet, which he crossed. About half a mile above the boat-house the stream forked, one of its branches coming from the west, the other from the east. Between this latter branch and Terrapin Wood was a stony hill ; to this spot Hazel went, and fell to gathering a handful of poppies. When he had obtained a sufficient quantity he returned to the boat-house, made a small fire of chips, and, filling his tin baler with water, he set down the poppies to boil. When the liquor was cool, he measured out a portion and drank it. In about twenty minutes his temples began to throb, a sensation which was rapidly followed by nausea. It was midday before he recovered from the effects of his experiment sufficiently to take food. Then he waited for two hours, and felt much re- stored. He stole to the hut and looked in. Hel- en lay there as he had left her. He stooped over her; her eyes were half closed, and she turned them slowly upon him ; her lips moved a little, — that was all. He felt her pulse again ; it was still weaker, and slower. He rose and went away, and, regaining the boat-house, he measured out a portion of the poppy liquor, one-third of the dose he had previously taken, and drank it. No headache or nausea succeeded ; he felt his pulse ; it became quick and violent, while a sense of numbness overcame him, and he slept. It was but for a few minutes. He awoke with a throb- bing brow, and some sickness ; but with a sense of delight at the heart, for he had found an opi- ate, and prescribed its quantity. He drained the liquor away from the poppy leaves, and carried it to the hut. Measuring with great care a small quantity, he lifted the girl's head and placed it to her lips. She drank it mechanically. Then he watched beside her, until her breathing and her pulse changed in character. She slept. He turned aside then, and buried his face in his hands and prayed fer- vently for her life, — prayed as we pray for the daily bread of the heart. He prayed and waited. CHAPTER XXXI. The next morning, when Helen awoke, she was very weak ; her head ached, but she was herself. Hazel had made a broth for her from the fleshy part of a turtle ; this greatly revived her, and by midday she was able to sit up. Hav- ing seen that her wants were within her reach, he left her ; but in a few moments she heard him busily engaged on the roof of her hut. On his return, he explained to her his fears that the structure was scarcely as weather-proof as he desired ; and he anticipated hourly the commencement of the rainy season. Helen smil- ed and pointed to the sky, which here was clear and bright. But Hazel shook his head doubt- tingly. The wet season would commence prob- ably with an atmospheric convulsion, and then settle down to uninterrupted rain. Helen refused obstinately to believe in more rain than they had experienced on board the boat — a genial shower. " Yoa will see," replied Hazel. " If you do not change your views within the next three days, then call me a false prophet." The following day passed, and Helen recover- ed more strength, but still was too weak to walk; but she employed herself, at Hazel's request, in making a rope of cocoa-nut fibre, some forty yards long. This he required to fish up the spar to a sufficient height on the great palm-tree, and bind it firmly in its place. While she worked nimbly, he employed himself in gathering a store of such things as they would require during the coming wintry season. She watched him with a smile, but he persevered. So that day passed. The next morning the rope was finished. Helen was not so well, and was about to help herself to the poppy liquor, when Hazel happily stopped her hand in time : he showed her the exact dose nec- essary, and explained minutely the effects of a larger draught. Then he shouldered the rope, and set out for Palm-tree Point. He was absent about six hours, of which Helen slept four. And for two, which seemed very FOUL PLAY. 75 long, she ruminated. What was she thinking of that made her smile and weep at the same moment ? and she looked so impatiently to- wards the door. He entered at last very fa- tigued. It was eleven miles to the Point and back. While eating his frugal supper, he gave her a detail of his day's adventures. Strange to say, he had not seen a single seal on the sands. He described how he had tied one end of her rope to the middle of the spar, and, with the other between his teeth, he climbed the great palm. For more than an hour he toiled ; he gained its top, passed the rope over one of its branches, and hauled up the spar to about eighty feet above the ground : then descending with the other end, he wound the rope spirally round and round the tree, thus binding to its trunk the first twenty feet by which the spar hung from the branch. She listened very carelessly, he thought, and betrayed little interest in this enterprise which had cost him so much labor and fatigue. When he had concluded, she was silent awhile, and then, looking up quickly, said, to his great surprise, — " I think I may increase the dose of your medicine there. You are mistaken in its power. I am sure I can take four times what you gave me." " Indeed you are mistaken," he answered, quickly. "I gave you the extreme measui*e you can take with safety." "How do you know that? You can only guess at its effects. At any rate, I shall try it." Hazel hesitated, and then confessed that he had made a little experiment on himself before risking its effects upon her. Helen looked up at him as he said this so sim- ply and quietly. Her great eyes filled with an angelic light. Was it admiration? Was it thankfulness? Her bosom heaved, and her lips quivered. It was but a moment, and she felt glad that Hazel had turned away from her and saw nothing. A long silence followed this little episode, when she was aroused from her reverie. Patter — pat — pat — patter. She looked up. Pat — patter — patter. Their eyes met. It was the rain. Hazel only smiled a little, and then ran down to his boat-house, to see that all was right there, and then returned with a large bundle of chips, with which he made a fire, for the sky had darkened overhead. Gusts of wind ran along the water; it had become suddenly chilly. They had al- most forgotten the feel of wet weather. Ere the fife had kindled, the rain came down in torrents, and, the matted roof being reson- ant, they heard it strike here and there above their heads. Helen sat down on her little stool and reflect- ed. In that hut were two persons. One had fore- told this, and feared it, and provided against it. The other had said petulantly it was a bugbear. And now the rain was pattering, and the Prophet was on his knees making her as com- fortable as he could in spite of all, and was not the man to remind her he had foretold it. She pondered his character while she watched his movements. He put down his embers, then he took a cocoa-pod out from the wall, cut it in ! slices with his knife, and made a fine clear fire ; then he ran out again, in spite of Helen's re- monstrance, and brought a dozen large scales of the palm-tree. It was all the more cheering for the dismal scene without and the pattering of the rain on the resounding roof. But, thanks to Hazel's precaution, the hut proved weather-tight ; of which fact having sat- isfied himself, he bade her good- night. He was at the door when her voice recalled him. " Mr. Hazel, I can not rest this night without asking your pardon for all the unkind things I j may have done and said ; without thanking you j humbly for your great forbearance and your — | respect for the unhap — I mean the unfortunate ' girl thus cast upon your mercy." She held out her hand ; he took it between j his own, and faintly expressed his gratitude for her kindness ; and so she sent him away brimful of happiness. The rain was descending in torrents. She heard it, but he did not feel it ; for she had spread her angel's wings over his existence, and he regained his sheltered boat-house he knew not how. CHAPTER XXXII. The next day was Sunday. Hazel had kept a calendar of the week, and every seventh day was laid aside with jealousy, to be devoted to such simple religious exercises as he could in- vent. The rain still continued, with less vio- lence indeed, but without an hour's intermission. After breakfast he read to her the exodus of the Israelites, and their sufferings during that des- ert life. He compared those hardships with their own troubles, and pointed out to her how their condition presented many things to be j thankful for. The island was fruitful, the cli- mate healthy. They might have been cast away on a sandy key or reef, where they would have perished slowly and miserably of hunger and ex- posure. Then they were spared to each other. Had she been alone there, she could not have provided for herself; had he been cast away a solitary man, the island would have been to him an intolerable prison. In all these reflections Hazel was very guard- ed that no expression should escape him to arouse her apprehension. He was so careful of this, that she observed his caution and watched his restraint. A nd Helen was thinking more of this than of the holy subject on which he was discoursing. The disguise he threw over his heart was penetrable to the girl's eye. She saw his love in every careful word, and employed herself in detecting it under his rigid manner. Secure in her own position, she could examine his from the loop-holes of her soul, and take a pleasure in witnessing the suppressed happiness she could bestow with a word. She did not won- der at her power. The best of women have the natural vanity to take for granted the sway they assume over the existence which submits to them. A week passed thus, and Hazel blessed the rain that drove them to this sociability. He had prepared the bladder of a young seal which had drifted ashore dead. This membrane, dried in the sun, formed a piece of excellent parchment, and ho desired to draw upon it a map of the isl- 76 FOUL PLAY. and. To accomplish this, the first thing was to obtain a good red ink from the cochineal, which is crimson. He did according to his means. He got one of the tin vessels, and filed it till he had obtained a considerable quantity of the metal. This he subjected for forty hours to the action of lime-juice. He then added the cochineal, and mixed till he obtained a fine scarlet. In using it he added a small quantityof a hard and pure gum, — he had found gum abounded in the island. His pen was made from an osprey's feather, hundreds of which were strewn about the cliffs, and some of these he had already secured and dried. Placing his tin baler before him, on whichhe had scratched his notes, he drew a map of the island. "What shall we call it?" said he. Helen paused, and then replied, " Call it ' Godsend ' Island." " So I will," he said, and wrote it down. Then they named the places they had seen. The reef Helen had discovered off the north- west coast they called " White Water Island," because of the breakers. Then came " Seal Bi Palm-tree Point," " Mount Lookout " (this was the hill due south of where they lived). They called the cane - brake " Wild Duck Swamp," and the spot where they lunched "Cochineal Clearing." The mountain was named " Mount Cavity." But what shall we call the capital of the king- dom — this hut ?" said Miss Rolleston, as she leaned over him and pointed to the spot. 11 Saint Helen's," said Hazel, looking up ; and he wrote it down ere she could object. Then there was a little awkward pause, while he was busily occupied in filling up some topo- graphical details. She turned it off gayly. " What are those caterpillars that you have drawn there, sprawling over my kingdom?" she asked. *' Caterpillars ! you are complimentary, Miss Rolleston. Those are mountains." "Oh, indeed ; and those lines you are now drawing are rivers, I presume." " Yes ; let us call this branch of our solitary es- tuary, which runs westward, the river Lee, and this, to the east, the river Medway. Is such your Majesty's pleasure ?" " La Heine le vent," replied Helen, smiling. " But, Master Geographer, it seems to me that you are putting in mountains and rivers which you have never explored : how do you know that these turns and twists in the stream exist as you represent them ? and those spurs, which look so real, have you not added them only to disguise the caterpillar character of your range of hills?" Hazel laughed as he confessed to drawing on his fancy for some little details. But pleaded that all geographers, when they drew maps, were licensed to fill in a few such touches, where dis- covery had failed to supply particulars. Helen had always believed religiously in maps, and was amused when she reflected on her for- mer credulitv. CHAPTER XXXIII. Helen's strength was coming back to her but slowly ; she complained of great lassitude and want of appetite. But, the following day hav- ing cleared up, the sun shone out with great power and brilliancy. She gladly welcomed the return of the fine weather, but Hazel shook his head ; ten days' rain was not their portion, — the bad weather would return, and complete the month or six weeks' winter to which Nature was enti- tled. The next evening the appearance of the sky confirmed his opinion. The sun set like a crimson shield ; gory, and double its usual size. It entered into a thick bank of dark violet cloud that lay on the horizon, and seemed to split the vapor into rays, but of a dusky kind ; imme- diately above this crimson, the clouds were of a brilliant gold, but higher they were the color of rubies, and went gradually off to gray. But as the orb dipped to the horizon a solid pile of unearthly clouds came up from the south- east ; their bodies were singularly and unnatu- rally black, and mottled with copper-color, and hemmed with a fiery yellow : and these infernal clouds towered up their heads, pressing forward as if they .all strove for precedency ; it was like Milton's fiends attacking the sky. The rate at which they climbed was wonderful. The sun set and the moon rose full, and showed those an- gry masses surging upwards and jostling each other as they flew. Yet below it was dead calm. Having admired the sublimity of the scene, and seen the full moon rise, but speedily lose her light in a brassy halo, they entered the hut, which was now the head-quarters, and they supped to- gether there. While they were eating their little meal the tops of the trees were heard to sigh, so still was every thing else. None the less did those strange clouds fly northward, eighty miles an hour. After supper, Helen sat busy over the fire, where some gum, collected by Hazel, resem- bling India-rubber, was boiling ; she was prepar- ing to cover a pair of poor Welch's shoes, inside and out, with a coat of this material, which Ha- zel believed to be water-proof. She sat in such a position that he could watch her. It was a happy evening. She seemed content. She had got over her fear of hifn ; they were good com- rades if they were nothing more. It was hap- piness to him to be by her side even on those terms. He thought of it all as he looked at her. How distant she had seemed once to him ; what an unapproachable goddess. Yet there she was by his side in a hut he had made for her. He could not help sipping the soft intoxicat- ing draught her mere presence offered him. But by-and-by he felt his heart was dissolving with- in him, and he was trifling with danger. He must not look on her too long, seated by the fire like a wife. The much-enduring man rose, and turned his back upon the sight he loved so dear- ly: he went out at the open door, intending to close it and bid her good-night. But he did not do so, just then ; for his attention as an observer of nature was arrested by the unusual conduct of certain animals. Gannets and other sea-birds were running about the opposite wood and cran- ing their necks in a strange way. He had nev- er seen one enter that wood before. Seals and sea-lions were surrounding the slope, and crawling about, and now and then plunging into the river, which they crossed with infinite difficulty, for it was running very high and strong. The trees also sighed louder than ever. FOUL PLAY. 77 Hazel turned back to tell Miss Rolleston some- thing extraordinary was going on. She sat in sight from the river, and, as he came towards the hut, he saw her sitting by the fire reading. He stopped short. Her work lay at her feet ; she had taken out a letter, and she was reading it by the fire. As she read it her face was a puzzle. But Hazel saw the act alone ; and a dart of ice seem- ed to go through and through him. This, then, was her true source of consolation. He thought it was so before. He had even rea- son to think so. But, never seeing any palpable proofs, he had almost been happy. He turned sick with jealous misery, and stood there rooted and frozen. Then came a fierce impulse to shut the sight out that caused this pain. He almost flung her portcullis to, and made his hands bleed. But a bleeding heart does not feel scratches. "Good-night," said he, hoarsely. " Good-night," said she, kindly. And why should she not read his letter ? She was his affianced bride, bound to him by honor as well as inclination. This was the reflection to which, after a sore battle with his loving heart, the much-enduring man had to come to at last ; and he had come to it, and was getting back his peace of mind, though not his late complacency, and about to seek repose in sleep, when suddenly a clap of wind came down like thunder, and thrashed the island and every thing in it. Every thing animate and inanimate seemed to cry out as the blow passed. Another soon followed, and another — inter- mittent gusts at present, but of such severity that not one came without making its mark. Birds were driven away like paper ; the sea- lions whimpered, and crouched into corners, and huddled together, and held each other, whining. Hazel saw but one thing ; the frail edifice he had built for the creature he adored. He look- ed out of his boat, and fixed his horror-stricken eyes on it ; he saw it waving to and fro, yet still firm. But he could not stay there. If not in danger, she must be terrified. He must go and support her. He left his shelter, and ran towards her hut. With a whoop and a scream another blast tore through the wood, and caught him. He fell, dug his hands into the soil, and clutched the earth. While he was in that position, he heard a sharp crack ; he looked up in dismay and saw that one of Helen's trees had broken like a carrot, and the head was on the ground leap- ing about ; while a succession of horrible sounds of crashing, and rending, and tearing, showed the frail hut was giving way on every side ; rack- ed and riven and torn to pieces. Hazel, though a stout man, uttered cries of terror death would ne- ver have drawn from him ; and, with a desperate headlong rush, he got to the place where the bow- er had been, but now it was a prostrate skeleton, with the mat roof flapping like a loose sail above it, and Helen below. As he reached the hut, the wind got hold of the last of the four shrubs, that did duty for a door, and tore it from the cord that held it, and whirled it into the air ; it went past Hazel's face like a bird flying. v Though staggered himself by the same blow of wind, he clutched the tree and got into the hut. He found her directly. She was kneeling be- neath the mat that a few minutes ago had been her roof. He extricated her in a moment, utter- ing inarticulate cries of pity and fear. "Don't be frightened," said she, "I am not hurt." But he felt her quiver from head to foot. He wrapped her in all her rugs, and thinking of nothing but her safety, lifted her in his strong arms to take her to his own place, which was safe from wind at least. But this was no light work. To go there erect was impossible. Holding tight by the tree, he got her to the lee of the tent and waited for a lull. He went rapidly down the hill, but, ere he reached the river, a gust came careering over the sea. A sturdy young tree was near him. He placed her against it and wound his arms round her and its trunk. The blast came : the tree bent almost to the ground, then whirled round, recov- ered, shivered ; but he held firmly. It passed. Again he lifted her, and bore her to the boat- house. As he went, the wind almost choked her, and her long hair lashed his face like a whip. But he got her in, and then sat panting and crouching, but safe. They were none too soon ; the tempest increased in violence, and became more continuous. No clouds, but a ghastly glare all over the sky. No rebellious waves, but a sea hissing and foaming under its master's lash. The river ran roaring and foaming by, and made the boat heave even in its little creek. The wind, though it could no longer shake them, went screaming terribly close over their heads, — no longer like air in motion, but solid and keen, it seemed the Almighty's scythe mowing down nature ; and soon it became, like turbid water, blackened with the leaves, branches, and fragments of all kinds it whirled along with it. The trees fell crashing on all sides, and the re- mains passed over their heads into the sea. Helen behaved admirably. Speech was im- possible, but she thanked him without it, — elo- quently ; she nestled her little hand into Hazel's, and to Hazel that night, with all its awful sights and sounds, was a blissful one. She had been in danger, but now was safe by his side. She had pressed his hand to thank him, and now she was cowering a little towards him in a way that claimed him as her protector. Her glori- ous hair blew over him and seemed to net him :. and now and then, as they heard some crash nearer and more awful than another, she clutch- ed him quickly though lightly ; for, in danger, her sex love to feel a friend; it is not enough to see him near : and once, when a great dusky form of a sea-lion came crawling over the mound, and whimpering peeped into the boat-house, she even fled to his shoulder with both hands for a moment, and was there, light as a feather, till the creature had passed on. And his soul was full of peace, and a great tranquillity overcame it. He heard nothing of the wrack, knew noth- ing of the danger. Oh, mighty Love ! The tempest might blow, and fill the air and earth with ruin, so that it spared her. The wind was kind, and gentle the night, which brought that hair round his face, and that head so near his shoulder, and gave 73 FOUL PLAY. him the holy joy of protecting under his wing the soft creature he adored. CHAPTER XXXIV. On the morning that followed this memorable night our personages seemed to change charac- ters. Hazel sat down before the relics of the hut —three or four strings dangling, and a piece of network waving — and eyed them with shame, regret, and humiliation. He was so absorbed in his self-reproaches that he did not hear a light footstep, and Helen Rolleston stood near him a moment or two, and watched the play of his countenance with a very inquisitive and kindly light in her own eyes. " Never mind," said she, soothingly. Hazel started at the music. "Never mind your house being blown to atoms, and mine has stood ?" said he, half re- proachfully. " You took too much pains with mine." " I will take a great deal more with the next." "I hope not. But I want you to come and look at the havoc. It is terrible ; and yet so grand. " And thus she drew him away from the sight that caused his pain. They entered the wood by a path Hazel had cut from the sea-shore, and viewed the devasta- tion in Terrapin Wood. Prostrate trees lay across one another in astonishing numbers, and in the strangest positions ; and their glorious plumes swept the earth. "Come," said she, " it is a bad thing for the poor trees, but not for us. See, the place is strewed with treasures. Here is a tree full of fans all ready made. And what is that ? A horse's tail growing on a cocoa- tree ! and a long one too ! that will make ropes for you, and thread for me. Ah, and here is a cabbage. Poor Mr. Welch ! Well, for one thing, you need never saw nor climb any more. See the advantages of a hurricane." From the wood she took him to the shore, and there they found many birds lying dead ; and Hazel picked up several that he had read of as good to eat. For certain signs had convinced him his fair and delicate companion was carniv- ora, and must be nourished accordingly. See- ing him so employed, she asked him archly whether he was beginning to see the comforts of a hurricane. " Not yet," said he ; " the account is far from even." " Then come to where the rock was blown down." She led the way gayly across the sands to a point where an overhanging crag had fallen, with two trees and a quantity of earth and plants that grew above it. But, when they got nearer, she became suddenly grave, and stood still. The mass had fallen upon a sheltered place, where seals where hiding from the wind, and had buried several ; for two or three limbs were sticking out, of victims overwhelmed in the ruin ; and a mag- nificent sea-lion lay clear of the smaller rubbish, but quite dead. The cause was not far to seek : a ton of hard rock had struck him, and then ploughed up the sand in a deep furrow, and now rested within a yard or two of the animal, whose back it had broken. Hazel went up to the crea- ture and looked at it : then he came to Helen ; sho was standing aloof. "Poor bugbear," said he. " Come away : it is an ugly sight for you." "Oh yes," said Helen. Then, as they return- ed, "Does not that reconcile you to the loss of a hut ? We are not blown away nor crushed." "That is true," said Hazel; "but suppose your health should suffer from the exposure to such fearful weather. So unlucky ! so cruel ! just as you were beginning to get stronger." "I am all the better for it. Shall I tell you? excitement is a good thing ; not too often, of course ; but now and then ; and, when we are in the humor for it, it is meat and drink and medicine to us." "What ! to a delicate young lady ?" " Ay, ' to a delicate young lady.' Last night has done me a world of good. It has shaken me out of myself. I am in better health and spirits. Of course I am very sorry the hut is blown down, — because you took so much trouble to build it : but, on my own account, I really don't care a straw. Find me some corner to nestle in at night, and all day I mean to be about, and busy as a bee, helping you, and — Breakfast ! breakfast ! Oh, how hungry I am." And this spirited girl led the way to the boat with a briskness and a vigor that charmed and astonished him. Souvent femme varie. This gracious behavior did not blind Hazel to the serious character of the situation, and all breakfast-time he was thinking and thinking, and often kept a morsel in his mouth, and forgot to eat it for several seconds, he was so anxious and puzzled. At last he said, " I know a large hol- low tree with apertures. If I were to close them all but one, and keep that for the door ? No : trees have betrayed me ; I'll never trust another tree with you. Stay ; I know — I know — a cav- ern." He uttered the verb rather loudly, but the substantive with a sudden feebleness of intonation that was amusing. His timidity was superflu- ous ; if he had said he knew "a bank whereon the wild thyme grows," the suggestion would have been well received that morning. "A cavern!" cried Helen. "It has always been the dream of my life to live in a cavern." Hazel brightened up. But the next moment he clouded again. "But I forgot. It will not do ; there is a spring running right through it ; it comes down nearly perpendicular through a channel it has bored, or enlarged ; and splashes on the floor." " How convenient !" said Helen; "now I shall have a bath in my room, instead of having to go miles for it. By-the-by, now you have in- vented the shower-bath, please discover Soap. Not that one really wants any in this island ; for there is no dust, and the very air seems purify- ing. But who can shake off the prejudices of early education ?" Hazel said, "Now I'll laugh as much as you like, when once this care is off my mind." He ran off to the cavern, and found it spacious and safe ; but the spring was falling in great force, and the roof of the cave glistened with moisture. It looked a hopeless case. But if Necessity is the mother of Invention, surely Love is the father. He mounted to the rock above, and found the spot where the spring suddenly de- scended into the earth with the loudest gurgle he had ever heard ; a gurgle of defiance. Nothing FOUL PLAY. 70 was to be done there. But he traced it upward a little way, and found a place where it ran beside a deep decline. "Aha, my friend ! " said he. He got his spade, and with some hours' hard work dug it a fresh channel, and carried it away entirely from its course. He returned to the cavern. Water was dripping very fast; but, on looking up, hecouldsee the light of day twinkling at the top of the spiral water-course he had robbed of its supply. Then he conceived a truly original idea : why not turn his empty water-course into a chimney, and so give to one element what he had taken from an- other ? He had no time to execute this just then, for the tide was coming in, and he could not afford to lose any one of those dead animals. So he left the funnel to drip, that being a process he had no means of expediting, and moored the sea-lion to the very rock that had killed him, and was proceeding to dig out the seals, when a voice he never could hear without a thrill sum- moned him to dinner. It was a plentiful repast, and included roast pintado and cabbage- palm. Helen Rolleston informed him during dinner that he would no longer be allowed to monopolize the labor attend- ant upon their condition. " No," said she, " you are always working for me, and I shall work for you. Cooking and washing are a woman's work, not a man's; and so are plaiting and netting." This healthy resolution once formed was ad- hered to with a constancy that belonged to the girl's character. The roof of the ruined hut came ashore in the bay that evening, and was fastened over the boat. Hazel lighted a bonfire in the cavern, and had the satisfaction of seeing some of the smoke issuing above. But he would not let Miss Rolleston occupy it yet. He shifted her things to the boat, and slept in the cave him- self. However, he lost no time in laying down a great hearth, and built a fire-place and chim- ney in the cave. The chimney went up to the hole in the arch of the cave ; then came the stone funnel, stolen from Nature ; and above, on the upper surface of the cliff, came the chimney-pot. Thus the chimney acted like a German stove : it stood in the centre, and soon made the cavern very dry and warm, and a fine retreat during the rains. When it was ready for occupation, Helen said she would sail to it : she would not go by land ; that was too tame for her. Hazel had only to comply with her humor, and at high water they got into the boat, and went down the river into the sea with a rush that made Helen wince. He soon rowed her across the bay to a point distant not more than fifty yards from the cavern, and installed her. But he never return- ed to the river ; it was an inconvenient place to make excursions from ; and, besides, all his work was now either in or about the cavern ; and that convenient hurricane, as Helen called it, not only made him a builder again ; it also made him a currier, a soap-boiler and a salter. So they drew the boat just above high-water mark in a sheltered nook, and he set up his arsenal ashore. In this situation, day glided by after day, and week after week, in vigorous occupations, bright- ened by social intercourse, and in some degree by the beauty and the friendship of the animals. Of all this industry we can only afford a brief summary. Hazel fixed two uprights at each side of the cavern's mouth, and connected each pair by a beam ; a netting laid on these, and covered with gigantic leaves from the prostrate palms, made a sufficient roof in this sheltered spot. On this terrace they could sit even in the rain, and view the sea. Helen cooked in the cave, but served dinner up on this beautiful ter- race. So now she had a But and a Ben, as the Scotch say. He got a hogshead of oil from the «ea-lion ; and so the cave was always lighted now, and that was a great comfort, and gave them more hours of in-door employment and conversa- tion. Thepoov bugbear really brightened their existence. Of the same oil, boiled down and mixed with wood-ashes, he made soap, to Hel- en's great delight. The hide of this animal was so thick he could do nothing with it but cut off pieces to make the soles of shoes if required. But the seals were miscellaneous treasures ; he contrived with guano and aromatics to curry their skins ; of their bladders he made vile parch- ment, and of their entrails gut, catgut, and twine, beyond compare. He salted two cubs, and laid up the rest in store, by inclosing large pieces in clay. When these were to be used, the clay was just put into hot embers for some hours, then broken, and the meat eaten with all its juices preserved. Helen cooked and washed, and manufactured salt ; and collected quite a store of wild cotton, though jt grew very sparingly, and it cost her hours to find a few pods. But in hunting for it she found other things — health for one. After sunset she was generally employed a couple of hours on matters which occupy the fair in every situation of life. She made herself a seal-skin jacket and pork-pie hat. She made Mr. Hazel a man's cap of seal-skin with a point. But her great work was with the cotton, which will be described hereafter. However, for two hours aftet sunset, no more (they rose at peep of day), her physician allowed her to sit and work ; which she did, and often smiled, while he sat by and discoursed to her of all the things he had read, and surprised himself by the strength and activity of his memory. He attributed it partly to the air of the island. Nor were his fingers idle even at night. He had tools to sharpen for the morrow, glass to make and polish out of a laminated crystal he had found. And then the hurricane had blown away, among many properties, his map ; so he had to make another with similar materials. He com- pleted the map in due course, and gave it to Hel- en. It was open to the same strictures she had passed on the other. Hazel was no chartogra- pher. Yet this time she had nothing but praise for it. How was that ? To the reader it now presented, not as a spe- cimen of chartographic art, but as a little curi- osity in its way, being a fac-simile of the map John Hazel drew for Helen Rolleston with such out-of-the-way materials as that out-of-the-way island afforded. Above all, it will enable the reader to follow our personages in their little ex- cursions past and future, and also to trace the course of a mysterious event we have to record. Relieved of other immediate cares, Hazel's mind had time to dwell upon the problem Hel- en had set him ; and one fine day a conviction struck him that he had taken a narrow and puc- so FOUL PLAY. rile view of it, and that, after all, there must be in the nature of things some way to attract ships from a distance. Possessed with this thought, he went up to Telegraph Point, abstracted his mind from all external -objects, and fixed it on this idea, — but came down as he went. He de- scended by some steps he had cut zigzag for Hel- en's use, and as he put his foot on the fifth step, — whoo — whir — whiz — came nine ducks, cool-4 ing his head, they whizzed so close; and made right for the lagoons. " Hum !" thought Hazel ; "I never see you ducks fly in any other direction but that." This speculation rankled in him all night, and he told Helen he should reconnoitre at day- break, but should not take her, as there might be snakes. He made the boat ready at daybreak, and certain gannets, pintadoes, boobies, and nod- dies, and divers with eyes in their heads like fiery jewels, — birds whose greedy maws he had often gratified, — chose to fancy he must be going a fishing, and were on the alert, and rather trouble- some. However, he got adrift, and ran out through North Gate with a light westerly breeze, followed by a whole fleet of birds. These were joined in due course by another of his satellites, a young seal he called Tommy,also fond of fishing. The feathered convoy soon tailed off; but Tommy stuck to him for about eight miles. He ran that distance to have a nearer look at a small island which lay due north of Telegraph Point. i He satisfied himself it was little more than a very long, large reef, the neighborhood of which ought to be avoided by ships of burden, and, re- solving to set some beacon or other on it ere long, he christened it White Water Island, on account of the surf: he came about and headed for the East Bluff. FOUL PLAY. 81 Then Tommy gave him up in disgust ; per- haps thought his conduct vacillating. Animals all despise th xt. He soon landed almost under the volcano, and moored his beat not far from a cliff peaked with guano. Exercising due caution this time, he got up to the lagoons, and found a great many ducks swimming about. He approached little parties to examine their varieties. They all swam out of his way ; some of them even flew a few yards, and then settled. Not one would let him come within forty yards. This convinced Hazel the ducks were not natives of the island, but strangers, who were not much afraid, be- cause they had never been molested on this par- ticular island ; but still distrusted man. While he pondered thus, there was a great noise of wings, and about a dozen ducks flew over his head on the rise, and passed westward still rising till they got into the high currents, and away upon the wings of the wind for distant lands. The grand rush of their wings, and the off-hand way in which they spurned, abandoned, and dis- appeared from an island that held him tight, made Hazel feel very small. His thoughts took the form of Satire. " Lords of the creation, are we ? We sink in water ; in air we tumble ; on earth we stumble." These pleasing reflections did not prevent his taking their exact line of flight, and barking a tree to mark it. He was about to leave the place, when he heard a splashing not far from him, and there was a duck jumping about on the water in a strange way. Hazel thought a snake had got hold of her, and ran to her assistance. He took her out of the water and soon found what was the matter ; her bill was open, and a fish's tail was sticking out. Hazel inserted his finger and dragged out a small fish which had erected the spines on its back so opportunely as nearly to kill its destroyer. The duck recovered enough to quack in a feeble and dubious manner. Hazel kept her for Helen, because she was a plain brown duck. With some little reluctance he slightly shortened one wing, and stowed away his captive in the hold of the boat. He happened to have a great stock of pitch in the boat, so he employed a few hours in writing upon the guano rocks. On one he wrote in huge letters : — AN ENGLISH LADY WRECKED HERE. HASTE TO HER RESCUE. On another he wrote in small letters : — BEWARE THE REEFS ON THE NORTH SIDE. LIE OFF FOR SIGNALS. Then he came home and beached the boat, and , brought Helen his captive. 11 Why it is an English duck ! " she cried, and was enraptured. By this visit to the lagoons, Hazel gathered that this island was a half-way house for migrat- ing birds, especially ducks ; and he inferred that the line those vagrants had taken was the short- I est way from this island to the nearest land. This was worth knowing, and set his brain work- ' ing. He begged Helen to watch for the return \ of the turtle-doves (they had all left the island ! just before the rain) and learn, if possible, from i what point of the compass they arrived. The next expedition was undertaken to please G Helen ; she wished to examine the beautiful creeks and caves on the north side, which they had seen from a distance when they sailed round the island. They started on foot one delightful day, and walked briskly, for the air, though balmy, was exhilarating. They followed the course of the river till they came to the lake that fed it, and was fed itself by hundreds of little natural gutters down which the hills discharged the rains. This was new to Helen, though not to Hazel : she produced the map, and told the lake slyly that it was incorrect, a little too big. She took some of the water in her hand, sprinkled the lake with it, and called it Hazelmere. They bore a little to the right, and proceeded till they found a creek shaped like a wedge, at whose broad end shone an arch of foliage studded with flowers, and the sparkling blue water peeped behind. This was tempting, but the descent was rather hazardous at first ; great square blocks of rock, one below another, and these rude steps were coated with mosses of rich hue, but wet and slippery ; Hazel began to be alarmed for his companion. How- ever, after one or two difficulties, the fissure open- ed wider to the sun, and they descended from the slimy rocks into a sloping hot-bed of exotic flowers, and those huge succulent leaves that are the glory of the tropics. The ground was carpeted a yard deep witn their luxuriance, and others, more aspiring, climbed the warm sides of the di- verging cliffs, just as creepers go up a wall, lining every crevice as they rose. In this blessed spot, warmed, yet not scorched, by the tropical sun, and fed with trickling waters, was seen what mar- vels " boon Nature " can do. Here our vegeta- ble dwarfs were giants, and ourflowers were trees. One lovely giantess of the jasmine tribe, but with flowers shaped liked a marigold, and scented like a tuberose, had a stem as thick as a poplar, and carried its thousand buds and amber-color- ed flowers up eighty feet of broken rock, and planted on every ledge suckers, that flowered again, and filled the air with perfume. Another tree about half as high was covered with a cas- cade of snow-white tulips, each as big as a small flower-pot, and scented like honeysuckle. An aloe, ten feet high, blossomed in a corner, un- heeded among loftier beauties. And at the very mouth of the fissure a huge banana leaned across, and flung out its vast leaves, that seemed trans- lucent gold against the sun ; under it shone a monstrous cactus in all her pink and crimson glory, and through the maze of color streamed the deep blue of the peaceful ocean, laughing, and catching sunbeams. Helen leaned against the cliff and quivered with delight, and that deep sense of flowers that belongs to your true woman. Hazel feared she was ill. "III?" said she. "Who could be ill here? It is heaven upon earth. Oh, you dears ! Oh, you loves! And they all seemed growing on the sea, and floating in the sun." "And it is only one of a dozen such," said Hazel. "If you would like to inspect them at your leisure, I'll just run to Palm-tree Point ; for my signal is all askew. I saw that as we came along." Helen assented readily, and he ran off; but left her the provisions. She was not to wait din- ner for him. 82 FOUL PLAY. Helen examined two or three of the flowery fissures, and found fresh beauties in each, and also some English leaves, that gave her pleasure of another kind ; and, after she had revelled in the flowers, she examined the shore, and soon discov- ered that the rocks which abounded here (though there were also large patches of clear sand) were nearly all pure coral, in great variety. Red coral was abundant; and even the pink coral, to which fashion was just then giving a fictitious value, was there by the ton. This interested her, and so did some beautiful shells that lay sparkling. The time passed swiftly; and she was still busy in her researches, when suddenly it darkened a little, and, looking back, she saw a white vapor stealing over the cliff, and curling down. Upon this she thought it prudent to return to the place where Hazel had left her ; the more so as it was near sunset. The vapor descended and spread and covered the sea and land. Then the sun set : and it was darkness visible. Coming from the south, the soa-fret caught Hazel sooner and in a less fa- vorable situation. Returning from the palm- tree, he had taken the shortest cut through a small jungle, and been so impeded by the scrub that, when he got clear, the fog was upon him. Between that and the river he lost his way sev- eral times, and did not hit the river till near midnight. He followed the river to the lake, and coasted the lake, and then groped his way towards the creek. But, after a while, every step he took was fraught with danger ; and the night was far advanced when he at last hit off the creek, as he thought. He hallooed j but there was no reply; hallooed again, and, to his joy, her voice replied; but at a distance. He had come to the wrong creek. She was farther westward. He groped his way westward, and came to an- other creek. He hallooed to her, and she answer- ed him. But to attempt the descent would have been mere suicide. She felt that herself, and al- most ordered him to stay where he was. "Why, wc can talk all the same," said she, "and it is not for long." It was a curious position, and one typical of the relation between them. So near together, yet the barrier so strong. " I am afraid you must be very cold," said he. " Oh no ; I have my seal-skin jacket on ; and it is so sheltered here. I wish you were as well off." " You are not afraid to be alone down there ?" " I am not alone when your voice is near me. Now don't you fidget yourself, dear friend. I like these little excitements. I have told you so before. Listen : how calm and silent it all is ; the place ; the night ! The mind seems to fill with great ideas, and to feel its immortality." She spoke with solemnity, and he heard in si- lence. Indeed it was a reverend time and place : the sea, whose loud and penetrating tongue had, in some former age, created the gully where they both sat apart, had of late years receded, and kissed the sands gently that calm night : so gen- tly, that its long, low murmur seemed the echo of tranquillity." The voices of that pair sounded supernatural, one speaking up, and the other down, and the speakers quite invisible. "Mr. Hazel," said Helen in a low, earnest voice ; " they say that night gives wisdom even to the wise ; think now, and tell me your true thoughts. Has the foot of man ever trod upon this island before ?" There was a silence due to a question so grave, and put with solemnity, at a solemn time, in a solemn place. At last Hazel's thoughtful voice came down. "The world is very, very, very old. So old, that the words 'Ancient History' are a false- hood, and Moses wrote but as yesterday. And man is a very old animal upon this old, old plan- et; and has been everywhere. I can not doubt he has been here." Her voice went up. " But have you seen any signs?" His voice came down. "I have not looked for them. The bones and the weapons of prime- val man are all below earth's surface at this time of day." There was a dead silence. Then Helen's voice went up again. "But in modern times? Has no man landed here from far-off places, since ships were built ?" The voice came sadly down. "I do not know." The voice went up. " But think!" The voice came down. " What calamity can be new in a world so old as this ? Every thing we can do, and suffer, others of our race have done, and suffered." The voice went up. "Hush! there's some- thing moving on the sand." CHAPTER XXXV. Hazel waited and listened. So did Helen, and her breath came fast ; for in the stilly night she heard light but mysterious sounds. Some- thing was moving on the sand very slowly and softly, but nearer and nearer. Her heart be- gan to leap. She put out her hand instinctively to clutch Mr. Hazel ; but he was too far off. She had the presence of mind and the self-denial to disguise her fears ; for she knew he would come headlong to her assistance. She said in a quivering whisper, "I'm not frightened; only v — very c — curious." And now she became conscious that not only one but several things were creeping about. Presently the creeping ceased, and was fol- lowed by a louder and more mysterious noise. In that silent night it sounded like raking and digging. Three or four mysterious visitants seemed to be making graves. This was too much ; especially coming as it did after talk about the primeval dead. Her desire to scream was so strong, and she was so afraid Hazel would break his neck if she re- lieved her mind in that way, that she actually took her handkerchief and bit it hard. But this situation was cut short by a benefi- cent luminary. The sun rose with a magnifi- cent bound, — it was his way in that latitude, — and every thing unpleasant winced that moment ; the fog shivered in its turn, and appeared to open in furrows as great javelins of golden light shot through it from the swiftly rising orb. Soon those golden darts increased to streams of FOUL PLAY. 83 portable fire, that burst the fog and illumined the wet sands; and Helen burst out laughing like a chanticleer, for this first break of day re- vealed the sextons that had scared her, — three ponderous turtles, crawling, slow and clumsy, back to sea. Hazel joined her, and they soon found what these evil spirits of the island had been at, poor wretches. They had each buried a dozen eggs in the sand : one dozen of which were very soon set boiling. At first, indeed, Helen objected that they had no shells, but Hazel told her she might as well complain of a rose without a thorn. He assured her turtles' eggs were a known delicacy, and very superior to birds' eggs ; and so she found them ; they were eaten with the keenest relish. "And now," said Helen, "for my discover- ies. First, here are my English leaves, only bigger. I found them on a large tree." "English leaves!" cried Hazel, with rapture. " "Why, it is the caoutchouc !" "Oh dear," said Helen, disappointed; "I took it for the India-rubber tree." "It is the India-rubber tree; and I have been hunting for it all over the island in vain, and using wretchedly inferior gums for want of it." "I'm so glad," said Helen. "And now I have something else to show you : something that curdled my blood; but I dare say I was very foolish." She then took him half across the sand and pointed out to him a number of stones dotted over the sand in a sort of oval. These stones, streaked with sea grass, and in- crusted with small shells, were not at equal distances, but yet, allowing for gaps, they form- ed a decided figure. Their outlines resembled a great fish, wanting the tail. "Can this be chance?" asked Helen; "oh, if it should be what I fear, and that is — Savages !" Hazel considered it attentively a long time. "Too far at sea for living savages," said he. "And yet it can not be chance. What on earth is it? It looks Druidical. But how can that be? The island was smaller when these were placed here than it is now." He went nearer and examined one of the stones ; then he scraped away the sand from its base, and found it was not shaped like a stone, but more like a whale's rib. He became excited ; went on his knees, and tore the sand up with his hands. Then he rose up agitated, and traced the outline again. " Great Heaven !" said he, "why, it is a ship." "A ship!" " Ay," said he, standing in the middle of it ; " here, beneath our feet, lies man ; with his work, and his treasures. This carcass has been here for many a long year ; not so very long, neither ; she is too big for the 16th century, and yet she must have been sunk when the island was smaller. I take it to be a Spanish or Portuguese ship ; probably one of those treasure-ships our commodores, and chartered pirates, and the American buccaneers, used to chase about these seas. Here lie her bones, and the bones of her crew. Your question was soon answered. All that we can say has been said ; can do has been done ; can suffer has been suffered." They were silent, and the sunk ship's bones moved them strangely. In their deep isolation from the human race, even the presence of the dead brought humanity somehow nearer to them. They walked thoughtfully away, and made across the sands for Telegraph Point. Before they got home, Helen suggested that perhaps, if he were to dig in the ship, he might find something useful. He shook his head. "Impossible! The iron has all melted away like sugar long before this. Nothing can have survived but gold and silver, and they are not worth picking up, much less digging for ; my time is too precious. No, you have found two buried treasures to-day, — turtles' eggs, and a ship, freighted, as I think, with what men call the precious metals. Well, the eggs are gold, and the gold is a drug, — there it will lie for me." Both discoveries bore fruits. The ship : Hazel made a vow that never again should any poor ship lay her ribs on this island for want of warn- ing. He buoyed the reefs. He ran out to White Water Island, and wrote an earnest warning on the black reef, and this time he wrote with white on black. He wrote a similar warning, with black on white, at the western extremity of God- send Island. The eggs : Hazel watched for the turtles at daybreak; turned one now. and then; and fed Helen on the meat or its eggs, morn, noon, and night. For some time she had been advancing in health and strength. But when the rains de- clined considerably, and she was all day in the air, she got the full benefit of the wonderful cli- mate, and her health, appetite, and muscular vig- or became truly astonishing ; especially under what Hazel called the turtle cure ; though, in- deed, she was cured before. She ate three good meals a day, and needed them ; for she was up with the sun, and her hands and feet never idle till he sat. Four months on the island had done this. But four months had not shown those straining eyes the white speck on the horizon ; the sail, so looked and longed for. Hazel often walked the island by himself; not to explore, for he knew the place well by this time, but he went his rounds to see that all his signals were in working order. He went to Mount Lookout one day with this view. It was about an hour before noon. Long before he got to the mountain he had scanned the horizon carefully, as a matter of course ; but not a speck. So, when he got there, he did not look seaward, but just saw that his flagstaff was all right, and was about to turn away and go j. home, when he happened to glance at the water ; ] and there, underneath him, he saw — a ship ; | standing towards the island. 8-i FOUL PLAY. CHAPTER XXXVI. He started, and rubbed his eyes, and looked again. It was no delusion. Things never did come as they are expected to come. There was still no doubtful speck on the horizon; but with- in eight miles of the island, — and, in this lovely air, that looked nearly close, — was a ship, under canvas. She bore S.E. from Mount Lookout, and S.S.E. from the East Bluff of the island, towards which her course was apparently directed. She had a fair- wind, but was not going fast ; being heavily laden, and under no press of sail. A keen thrill went through him ; and his mind was a whirl. He ran home with the great news. But, even as he ran, a cold sickly feeling crawled over him. "That ship parts her and me." He resisted the feeling as a thing too mon- strous and selfish, and resisted it so fiercely, that, when he got to the slopes and saw Helen busy at her work, he waved his hat and hurrahed again and again, and seemed almost mad with triumph. Helen stood transfixed, she had never seen him in such a state. "Good news!" he cried; " great news ! A ship in sight ! You are rescued !" Her heart leaped into her mouth. "Aship!" she screamed. "Where? Where?" He came up to her panting. " Close under the island. Hid by the bluff; but you will see her in half an hour. God be praised ! Get every thing ready to go. Hurrah ! This is our last day on the island." The words were brave, and loud, and boister- ous, but the face was pale and drawn, and Helen saw it, and, though she bustled and got ready to leave, the tears were in her eyes. But the event was too great to be resisted. A wild ex- citement grew on them both. They ran about like persons crazed, and took things up, and laid them down again, scarcely knowing what they were doing. But presently they were sobered a little, for the ship did not appear. They ran across the sands, where they could see the bluff, she ought to have passed that half an hour ago. Hazel thought she must have anchored. Helen looked at him steadily. " Dear friend, " said she, "are you sure there is a ship at all ? Are you not under a delusion ? This island fills the mind with fancies. One day I thought I saw a ship sailing in the sky. Ah !" She uttered a faint scream, for while she was speaking the bowsprit and jib of a vessel glided past the bluff, so closely they seemed to scrape it, and a ship emerged grandlv, and glided along the cliff. "Are they mad," cried Hazel, "to hug the shore like that ? Ah ! they have seen my warn- ing." And it appeared so, for the ship just then came up in the wind several points, and left the bluff dead astern. She sailed a little way on that course and then paid off again, and seemed inclined to range along the coast. But presently she was up in the wind again, and made a greater offing. She was sailed in a strange, vacillating way ; but Ha- zel ascribed this to her people's fear of the reefs he had indicated to all comers. The better to watch her manoeuvres, and signal her if necessarv, they both went up to Telegraph Point. They could not go out to her, being low water. Seen from this height, the working of this vessel was unaccountable. She was to and off the wind as often as if she was drunk herself, or commanded by a drunken skipper. However, she was kept well clear of the home reefs, and made a good offing, and so at last she opened the bay heading N. W., and distant four miles, or thereabouts. Now was the time to drop her anchor. So Hazel worked the telegraph to draw her attention, and waved his hat and hand to her. But the ship sailed on. She yawed immensely, but she kept her course; and, when she had gone a mile or two more, the sickening truth forced itself at last upon those eager watchers. She had decided not to touch at the island. In vain their joyful sig- nals. In vain the telegraph. In vain that cry for help upon the eastern cliff: it had saved her, but not pleaded for them. The monsters saw them on the height, — their hope, their joy, — saw and abandoned them. They looked at one another with dilating eyes, to read in a human face whether such a deed as this could really be done by man upon his fel- low. Then they uttered wild cries to the reced- ing vessel. Vain, vain, all was in vain. Then they sat down stupefied, but still glar- ing at the ship, and each at the same moment held out a hand to the other, and they sat hand in hand all the world to each other just then, for there was the world in sight abandoning them in cold blood. " Be calm, dear friend," said Helen, patiently. " Oh, my poor father!" And her other hand threw her apron over her head, and then came a burst of anguish that no words could utter. At this Hazel started to his feet in fury. " Now may the God that made sea and land judge between those miscreants there and you!" "Be patient," said Helen, sobbing. " Oh, be patient." "No! I will not be patient," roared Hazel "Judge thou her cause, O! God ; each of these tears against a reptile's soul!" And so he stood glaring, and his hair blowing wildly to the breeze; while she sighed patiently at his knee. Presently he began to watch the vessel with a grim and bitter eye. Anon he burst out sudden- ly, "Aha! that is right. Well steered. Don't cry, sweet one; our cause is heard. Are they blind? Are they drunk? Are they sick? I see nobody on deck ! Perhaps I have been too — God forgive me, the ship's ashore!' CHAPTER XXXVII. Helen looked up ; and there was the ship fast, and on her side. She was on the White Water Reef. Not upon the black rocks themselves, but on a part of them that was under water. Hazel ran down to the beach ; and there Helen found him greatly agitated. All his anger was gone ; he had but one thought now, — to go out to her assistance. But it still wanted an hour to high water, and it was blowing smartly, and there was nearly always a surf upon that reef. FOUL PLAY. 85 What if the vessel should break up, and lives be lost ? He paced the sands like a wild beast in its •cage, in an agony of pity, remorse, and burning impatience. His feelings became intolerable ; he set his back to the boat, and with herculean strength forced it down a little way to meet the tide. He got logs and put them down for roll- ers. He strove, he strained, he struggled, till his face and hands were purple. And at last he met the flowing tide, and in a moment jump- ed into the boat, and pushed off. Helen begged with sparkling eyes to be allowed to accompany him. " What, to a ship smitten with scurvy or Heav- en knows what ? Certainly not. Besides, you would be wet through : it is blowing rather fresh, and I shall carry on. Pray for the poor souls I go to help ; and for me, who have sinned in my anger." He hoisted his sail, and ran out. Helen stood on the bank, and watched him with tender admiration. How good and brave he was ! And he could go into a passion too, when she was wronged, or when he thought she was. Well ! she admired him none the less for that. She watched him at first with admiration, but soon with anxiety; for he had no sooner passed North Gate, than the cutter, having both sails set, though reefed, lay down very much, and her hull kept disappearing. Helen felt anxious, and would have been downright frightened, but for her confidence in his prowess. By-and-by only her staggering sails were visi- ble ; and the sun set ere she reached the creek. The wind declined with the sun, and Helen made two great fires, and prepared food for the suf- ferers ; for she made sure Hazel would bring them off in a few hours more. She promised herself the happiness of relieving the distressed. But to her infinite surprise she found herself al- most regretting that the island was likely to be peopled with strangers. No matter, she should sit up for them all night, and be very kind to them, poor things ; though they had not been very kind to her. About midnight the wind shifted to the north- west, and blew hard. Helen ran down to the shore and looked sea- ward. This was a fair wind for Hazel's return ; and she began to expect him every hour. But no ; he delayed unaccountably. And the worst of it was, it began to blow a gale ; and this wind sent the sea rolling into the bay in a manner that alarmed her seriously. The night wore on ; no signs of the boat ; and now there was a heavy gale outside, and a great ea rolling in, brown and foaming. Day broke, and showed the sea for a mile or two ; the rest was hidden by driving rain. Helen kneeled on the shore and prayed for him. "Dire misgivings oppressed her. And soon these were heightened to terror ; for the sea be- gan to disgorge things of a kind that had never come ashore before. A great ship's mast came tossing : huge as it was, the waves handled it like a toy. Then came a barrel ; then a broken spar. These were but the forerunners of more fearful havoc. The sea became strewed and literally blacken- ed with fragments ; part wreck, part cargo, of a broken vessel. But what was all this compared with the hor- ror that followed ? A black object caught her eye ; driven in upon the crest of the wave. She looked, with her hair flying straight back, and her eyes almost starting from her head. It was a boat, bottom up ; driven on, and tossed like a cork. It came nearer, nearer, nearer. She dashed into the water with a wild scream, but a wave beat her backward on the sand, and, as she rose, an enormous roller lifted the boat up- right into the air, and, breaking, dashed it keel uppermost on the beach at her side — empty ! CHAPTER XXXVIII. Helen uttered a shriek of agony, and her knees smote together, and she would have swoon- ed on the spot but for the wind and the spray that beat against her. To the fearful stun succeeded the wildest dis- tress. She ran to and fro like some wild ani- mal bereaved ; she kept wringing her hands and uttering cries of pity and despair, and went back to the boat a hundred times ; it held her by a spell. It was long before she could think connected- ly, and, even then, it was not of herself, nor of her lonely state, but only, Why did not she die with him ? Why did she not die instead of him ? He had been all the world to her ; and now she knew it. Oh, what a friend, what a champion, what a lover these cruel waves had destroyed ! The morning broke, and still she hovered and hovei-ed about the fatal boat with great horror- stricken eyes, and hair flying to the breeze ; and not a tear. If she could only have smoothed his last moments, have spoken one word into his dy- ing ear ! But no ! Her poor hero had died in going to save others ; died thinking her as cold as the waters that had destroyed him. Dead or alive, he was all the world to her now. She went, wailing piteously, and imploring the waves to give her at least his dead body to speak to and mourn over. But the sea denied her even that dismal consolation. The next tide brought in a few more frag- ments of the wreck, but no corpse floated ashore. Then, at last, as the waves once more retired, leaving, this time, only petty fragments of wreck on the beach, she lifted up her voice and almost wept her heart out of her body. Such tears as these arc seldom without effect on the mind : and Helen now began to rebel, though faintly, against despair. She had been quite crushed, at first, under the material evi- dence — the boat driven empty by the very wind and waves that had done the cruel deed. But the heart is averse to believe calamity, and espe- cially bereavement ; and very ingenious in argu- ing against that bitterest of all woes. So she now sat down and brooded, and her mind fastened with pathetic ingenuity on every circumstance that could bear a favorable construction. The mast had not been broken ; how, then, had it been lost ? The body had not come ashore. He had had time to get to the wreck before the gale from the north came on at all : and why should a fair wind, though powerful, upset the boat ? be FOUL PLAY, On these slender things she began to build a su- perstructure of hope ; but soon her heart inter- rupted the reasoning. "What would he do in my place ? would he sit guessing while hope had a hair to hang by ?" That thought struck her like a spur : and in a moment she bounded into action, erect, her lips fixed, and her eye on fire, though her cheek was very pale. She went swift- ly to Hazel's store, and searched it ; there she found the jib-sail, a boat-hook, some rope, and one little oar, that Hazel was making for her, and had not quite completed. The sight of this, his last work, overpowered her again ; and she sat down and took it on her knees and kissed it, and cried over it. And these tears weakened her for a time. She felt it, and had the resolu- tion to leave the oar behind. A single oar was of no use to row with. She rigged the boat-hook as a mast, and fastened the sail to it ; and, with this poor equipment, she actually resolved to put out to sea. The wind still blew smartly, and there was no blue sky visible. And now she remembered she had eaten nothing ; that would not do. Her strength might fail her. She made ready a meal, and ate it almost fiercely, and by a pure effort of res- olution, as she was doing all the rest. By this time, it was nearly high tide. She watched the water creeping up. Will it float the boat ? It rises over the keel ; two inches, three inches. Five inches water ! Now she pushes with all her strength. No ; the boat has water in it she has forgotten to bale out. She strained every nerve, but could not move it. She stopped to take breath and husband her strength. But, when she renewed her efforts, the five inches were four, and she had the misery of seeing the water crawl away by degrees, and leave the boat high and dry. She sighed, heart-broken, awhile ; then went home and prayed. When she had prayed a long time for strength and wisdom, she lay down for an hour, and tried to sleep, but failed. Then she prepared for a more serious struggle with the many difficulties she had to encounter. Now she thanked God more than ever for the health and rare strength she had ac- quired in this island : without them she could have done nothing now. She got a clay platter, and baled the vessel nearly dry. She left a lit- tle water for ballast. She fortified herself with food, and put provisions and water on board the boat. In imitation of Hazel, she went and got two round logs, and, as soon as the tide crawled up to four inches, she lifted the bow a little, and got a roller under. Then she went to the boat's stern, set her teeth, and pushed with a rush of excitement that gave her almost a man's strength. The stubborn boat seeemed elastic, and all but moved. Then instinct taught her where her true strength lay. She got to the stern of the boat, and, setting the small of her back under the projecting gunwale, she gathered herself togeth- er and gave a superb heave, that moved the boat a foot. She followed it up and heaved again with like effect. Then, with a cry of joy, she ran and put down another roller forward. The boat was now on two rollers : one more magnificent heave with all her zeal, and strength, and youth, and the boat glided forward. She turned and rushed at it as it went, and the water deepening, and a gust catching the sail, it went out to sea, and she had only just time to throw herself across the gunwale panting. She was afloat. The wind was S.W., and before she knew where she was the boat headed toward the home reefs, and slipped through the water pretty fast, consider- ing how small a sail she carried. She ran to the helm. Alas! the rudder was broken off above the water line. The helm was a mockery, and the boat running for the reefs. She slacked the sheet, and the boat lost her way, and began to drift with the tide, which luckily had not yet turned. It carried her in shore. Helen cast her eyes around her for an expedi- ent, and she unshipped one of the transoms, and by trailing over the side, and alternately slacking and hauling the sheet, she contrived to make the boat crawl like a winged bird through the western passage. After that it soon got be- calmed under the cliff, and drifted into two feet water. Instantly she tied a rope to the mast, got out into the water, and took the rope ashore. She tied it round a heavy barrel she found there, and set the barrel up, and heaped stones round it and on it, which, unfortunately, was a long job, though she worked with feverish haste ; then she went round the point, sometimes wet and sometimes dry, for the little oar she had left be- hind because it broke her heart to look at. Away with such weakness now ! With that oar, his last work, she might steer if she could not row. She got it. She came back to the boat to re-commence her voyage. She found the boat all safe, but in six inches of water, and the tide going out. So ended her voyage ; four hundred yards at most, and then to wait another twelve hours for the tide. It was too cruel : and every hour so precious : for, even if Hazel was alive, he would die of cold ' and hunger ere she could get to him. She cried like any woman. She persisted like a man. She made several trips, and put away things j in the boat that could possibly be of use, — abun- dant provision, and a keg of water ; Hazel's wood- en spade to paddle or steer with ; his basket of tools, etc. Then she snatched some sleep ; but it was broken by sad and terrible dreams : then she waited in an agony of impatience for high water. We are not always the best judges of what is goo^ for us. Probably these delays saved her own life. She went out at last under far more favorable circumstances — a light westerly breeze, and no reefs to pass through. She was, however, severely incommoded with a ground-swell. At first she steered with the spade as well as she could ; but she found this was not sufficient. The current ran westerly, and she was drifting out of her course. Then she remembered Ha- zel's lessons, and made shift to fasten the spade to the helm, and then lashed the helm. Even this did not quite do ; so she took her little oar, kissed it, cried over it a little, and then pulled manfully with it so as to keep the true course. It was a muggy day, neither wet nor dry. White Water Island was not in sight from God- send Island ; but, as soon as she lost the latter, the former became visible, — an ugly grinning reef, with an eternal surf on the south and west- ern sides. FOUL PLAY. s: Often she left off rowing, and turned to look at it. It was all black and blank, except the white and fatal surf. When she was about four miles from the near- est part of the reef, there was a rush and bub- ble in the water, and a great shark came after the boat. Helen screamed, and turned very cold. She dreaded the monster, not for what he could do now, but for what he might have done, He seemed to know the boat, he swam so vigilantly behind it. Was he there when the boat upset with Hazel in it? Was it in his greedy maw the remains of her best friend must be sought ? Her lips opened, but no sound. She shuddered and hid her face at this awful thought. The shark followed steadily. She got to the reef, but did not hit it off as she intended. She ran under its lee, lowered the little sail, and steered the boat into a nick where the shark could hardly follow her. But he moved to and fro like a sentinel, while she landed in trepidation and secured the boat to the branches of a white coral rock. She found the place much larger than it look- ed from Telegraph Point. It was an archipela- go of coral reef incrusted here and there with shells. She could not see all over it, where she was, so she made for what seemed the highest part, a bleak, sea-weedy mound, with some sandy hillocks about it. She went up to this, and look- ed eagerly all round. Not a soul. She called as loud as her sinking heart would let her. Not a sound. She felt very sick, and sat down upon the mound. When she had yielded awhile to the weakness of her sex, she got up, and was her father's daugh- ter again. She set to work to examine every foot of the reef. It was mo easy task. The reeks were rugged and sharp in places, slippery in others ; often she had to go about, and once she fell and hurt her pretty hands and made them bleed; she never looked at them, nor heeded, but got up and sighed at the interruption : then patiently pemsted. It took her two hours to examine thus, in detail, one half the island : but at last she discovered something. She saw at the east- ern side of the reef a wooden figure of a woman, and, making her way to it, found the figure-head and a piece of the bow of the ship, with a sail on it, and a yard on that. This fragment was wedged into an angle of the reef, and the sea- ward edge of it shattered in a way that struck ter- ror to Helen, for it showed how how omnipotent the sea had been. On the reef itself she found a cask with its head stove in, also a little keg and two wooden chests or cases. But what was all this to her ? She sat down again, for her knees failed her. Presently there was a sort of moan near her, and a seal splashed into the water and dived out of her sight. She put her hands on her heart, and bowed h§r head down, utterly desolate. She sat thus for a long time indeed, until she was in- terrupted by a most unexpected visitor. Something came sniffing up to her and put a cold nose to her hand. She started violently, and both her hands were in the air in a moment. It was a dog, a pointer. He whimpered and tried to gambol, but could not manage it ; he was too weak. However, he contrived to let her see, with the wagging of his tail and a cer- tain contemporaneous twist of his emaciated body, that she was welcome. But, having per- formed this ceremony, he trotted feebly away, leaving her very much startled, and not knowing what to think; indeed, this incident set her trembling all over. A dog saved from the wreck ! Then why not a man? And why not that life? Oh, thought she, would God save that creature, and not pity my poor angel and me ? She got up animated with hope, and recom- menced her researches. She now kept at the outward edge of the island, and so went all round till she reached her boat again. The shark was swimming to and fro, waiting for her with horri- ble pertinacity. She tried to eat a mouthful, but, though she was faint, she could not eat. She drank a mouthful of water, and then went to search the very small portion that remained of the reef, and to take the poor dog home with her, because he she had lost was so good to ani- mals. Only his example is left me, she said ; and with that came another burst of sorrow. But she got up and did the rest of her work, crying as she went. After some severe travel- ling she got near the north-east limit, and in a sort of gully she saw the dog, quietly seated high on his tail. She called him; but he never moved. So then she went to him, and, when she got near him, she saw why he would not come. He was watching. Close by him lay the form of a man nearly covered with sea-weed. The feet were visible, and so was the face, the latter deadly pale. It was he. In a moment she was by him*, and leaning over him with both hands quivering. Was he dead ? No ; his eyes were closed ; he was fast asleep. Her hands flew to his face to feel him alive, and then grasped both his hands and drew them up towards her panting bosom ; and the tears of joy streamed from her eyes, as she sobbed and murmured over him, she knew not what. At. that he awoke and stared at her. He uttered a loud ejaculation of joy and wonder, then, taking it all in, burst into tears himself and fell to kiss- ing her hands and blessing her. The poor soul had almost given himself up for lost. And to be saved, all in a moment, and by her ! They could neither of them speak, but only mingled tears of joy and gratitude. Hazel recovered himself first, and, rising some- what stiffly, lent her his arm. Her father's spirit went out of her in the moment of victory, and she was all woman, — sweet, loving, clinging woman. She got hold of his hand as well as his arm, and cluched it so tight, her little grasp seem- ed velvet and steel. • "Let me feel you," said she j " but no words ! no words !" He supported his preserver tenderly to the boat, then, hoisting the sail, he fetched the east side in two tacks, shipped the sail and yard, and also the cask, keg, and boxes. He then put a great quantity of loose oysters on board, each, as large as a plate. She looked at him with amazement. " W r hat," said she, when he had quite loaded the boat," only just out of the jaws of death, 88 FOUL FLAY. and yet you can trouble your head about oysters and things." " Wait till you see what I shall do with them," said he. " These are pearl oysters. I gathered them for you, when I had little hope I should ever see you again to give them you." This was an unlucky speech. The act, that seemed so small and natural a thing to him, the woman's heart measured more correctly. Some- thing rose in her throat ; she tried to laugh in- stead of crying, and so she did both, and went into a violent fit of hysterics that showed how thoroughly her nature had been stirred to its depths. She quite frightened Hazel; and, indeed, the strength of an excited woman's weakness is sometimes alarming to manly natures. He did all he could to soothe her ; without much success. As soon as she was better he set sail, thinking home was the best place for her. She leant back exhausted, and, after a while, seemed to be asleep. We don't believe she was, but Hazel did ; and sat, cold and aching in body, but warm at heart, worshipping her with all his eyes. * At last they got ashore ; and he sat by her fire and told her all, while she cooked his supper and warmed clothes at the fire for him. "The ship," said he, "was a Dutch vessel, bound from Batavia to Callao, that had probably gone on her beam-ends, for she was full of water. Her crew had abandoned her; I think they un- derrated the buoyancy of the ship and cargo. They left the poor dog on board. Her helm was lashed a-weather a couple of turns, but why that was done I can not tell for the life of me. I boarded her ; unshipped my mast, and moored the boat to the ship ; fed the poor dog ; rum- maged in the hold, and contrived to hoist up a small cask of salted beef, and a keg of rum, and some cases of grain and seeds. I managed to slide these on to the reef by means of the mast and oar lashed together. But a roller ground the wreck farther on to the reef, and the sudden snap broke the rope, as I suppose, and the boat went to sea. I never knew the misfortune till I saw her adrift. I could have got over that by making a raft ; but the gale from the north brought such a sea on us. I saw she must break up, so I got ashore how I could. Ah, I little thought to see your face again, still less that I should owe my life to you." " Spare me," said Helen faintly. " What, must not I thank you even for my life?" " No. The account is far from even yet.'''' " You are no arithmetician to say so. What astonishes me most is, that you have never once scolded me for all the trouble and anxiety — " "I am too happy to see you sitting there, to scold you. But still I do ask you to leave the sea alone after this. The treacherous monster ! Oh, think what you and I have suffered on it." . She seemed quite worn out. He saw that, and retired for the night, casting one more wistful glance on her. But at that moment she was afraid to look at him. Her heart was welling over with tenderness for the dear friend whose life she had saved. Next morning Hazel rose at daybreak as usual, but found himself stiff in the joints, and with a pain in his back. The mat that hung at the opening of Helen's cave was not removed as usu- al. She was on her bed with a violent headache. Hazel fed Ponto, and corrected him. He was at present a civilized dog ; so he made a weak rush at the boobies and noddies directly. He also smelt Tommy inquisitively, to learn was he an eatable. Tommy somehow divined' the end of this sinister curiosity, and showed his teeth. Then Hazel got a rope, and tied one end round his own waist, and one round Ponto's' neck, and, at every outbreak of civilization, jerked him sharply on to his back. The effect of this discipline was rapid ; Ponto soon found that he must not make war on the inhabitants of the island. He was a docile animal, and in a very short time consented to make one of " the happy family," as Hazel called the miscellaneous crew that beset him. Helen and Hazel did not meet till past noon ; and when they did meet it was plain she had been thinking a great deal, for her greeting was so shy and restrained as to appear cold and distant to Hazel. He thought to himself, I was too happy yesterday, and she too kind. Of course it could not last. This change in her seemed to grow, rather than diminish. She carried it so far as to go and almost hide during the working hours. She made off to the jungle, and spent an unreasonable time there. She professed to be collecting cotton, and it must be admitted she brought a good deal home with her. But Hazel could not accept cotton as the only motive for this sudden separation. He lost the light of her face till the evening. Then matters took another turn : she was too polite. Ceremony and courtesy appeared to be gradually encroaching upon tender friendship and familiarity : yet, now and then, her soft hazel eyes seemed to turn on him in silence, and say, forgive me all this. Then, at those sweet looks, love and forgiveness poured out of his eyes. And then hers sought the ground. Ancf this was generally followed by a certain mixture of stiff- ness, timidity, and formality, too subtle to de- scribe. The much-enduring man began to lose pa- tience. "This is caprice," said he. "Cruel caprice." Our female readers will probably take a deep- er view of it than that. Whatever it was, an- other change was at hand. Since he was so ex- posed to the weather on the reef, Hazel had never been free from pain ; but he had done his best to work it off. He had collected all the valuables from the wreck, made a new mast, set up a rude capstan to draw the boat ashore, and cut a little dock for her at low water, and clay- ed it in the full heat of the sun ; and, Iu. ving accomplished this drudgery, he got at last to his labor of love ; he opened a quantity of pearl oysters, fed Tommy and the duck with them, and began the great work of lining the cavern with them. The said cavern was somewhat shell-shaped, and his idea was to make it out of a gloomy cavern into a vast shell, lined en- tirely, roof and sides, with glorious', sweet, pris- matic mother-of-pearl, fresh from ocean. Well, one morning while Helen was in the jungle, he made a cement of guano, sand, clay, and water, nipped some shells to a shape with the pincers, and cemented them neatly, like mosaic almost; FOUL PLAY. 8:; but in the middle of his work he was cut down by the disorder he had combated so stoutly. He fairly gave in, and sat down groaning with pain. And in this state Helen found him. "Oh, what is the matter?" said she. He told her the truth, and said he had violent pains in the back and head. She did not say much, but she turned pale. She bustled and lighted a great fire, and made him lie down by it. She propped his head up ; she set water on to boil for him, and would not let him move for any thing ; and all the time her features were brimful of the loveliest concern. He could not help thinking how much better it was to be ill and in pain, and have her so kind, than to be well, and see her cold and distant. Towards evening he got better, or rather he mistook an intermission for cure, and retired to his boat ; but she made him take her rug with him ; and, when he was gone, she could not sleep for anxi- ety ; and it cut her to the heart to think how poorly he was lodged compared with her. Of all the changes fate could bring, this she had never dreamed of, that she should be so ro- bust, and he should be sick and in pain. She passed an uneasy, restless night, and long before morning she awoke for the sixth or seventh time, and she awoke with a misgiving in her mind, and some sound ringing in her ears. She listened and heard nothing ; but in a few moments it began again. "It was Hazel talking, — talking in a manner so fast, so strange, so loud that it made her blood run cold. It was the voice of Hazel, but not his mind. She drew near, and, to her dismay, found him fever-stricken, and pouring out words with little sequence. She came close to him and tried to soothe him, but he answered her quite at random and went on flinging out the strangest things in stranger order. She trembled and waited for a lull, hoping then to soothe him with soft w r ords and tones of tender pity. "Dens and caves P he roared, answering an imaginary detractor. " Well, never mind, love shall make that hole in the rock a palace for a queen ; for a queen ; for the queen. Here he suddenly changed characters, and fancied he was interpreting the discourse of another. " He means the Queen of the Fairies," said he, pa- tronizingly : then, resuming his own character with loud defiance, " I say her chamber shall outshine the glories of the Alhambra, as far as the lilies outshone the artificial glories of King Solomon. Oh, mighty Nature, let others rely on the painter, the gold-beater, the carver of mar- ble, come you and help me adorn the temple of my beloved. Amen." (The poor soul thought, by the sound of his own words, it must be a prayer he uttered.) And now Helen, with streaming eyes, tried to put in a word, but he stopped her with a wild hush ! and went off into a series of mysterious whisperings. "Make no noise, please, or we shall frighten her. There — that is her window — no noise, please ! I've watched and waited four hours, just to see her sweet, darling shadow on the blinds, and shall I lose it for your small talk ? all paradoxes and platitudes ! Excuse my plain speaking, — hush! here it comes, — her shadow — hush ! — how my heart beats. It is gone. So now" (speaking out), "good-night, base world! Do you hear? you company of liars, thieves, and traitors, called the world, go and sleep if you can. I shall sleep : because my conscience is clear. False accusations ! Who can help them ? They are the act of others. Read of Job, and Paul, and Joan of Arc. . No, no, no, no ; I didn't say read 'em out with those stentorian lungs. I must be allowed a little sleep, a man that wastes the midnight oil, yet brushes the early dew. Good-night." He turned round and slept for several hours ns he supposed ; but in reality he was silent for just three seconds. " Well," said he, "and is a gar- dener a man to be looked down upon by upstarts ? When Adam delved and Eve spun, where was then the gentleman? Why, where the spade was. Yet I went through the Herald's Col- lege, and not one of our mushroom aristocracy ('bloated' I object to; they don't eat half as much as their footmen) had a spade for a crest. There's nothing ancient west of the Caspian. Well, all the better. For there's no fool like an old fool. A spade's a spade for a that, an a that, an a that, an a that — an a that, — an a that. Hallo ! Stop that man ; he's gone off on his cork leg, of a that, on a that — and it is my wish to be quiet. Allow me respectfully to observe," said he, striking off suddenly into an air of vast politeness, "that man requires change. I've done a jolly good day's work with the spade for this old Buffer, and now the intellect claims its turn. The mind retires above the noisy world to its Acropolis, and there discusses the great problem of the day ; the Insular Enigma. To be or not to be, that is the question, I believe. No, it is not. That is fully discussed elsewhere. Hum ! To diffuse — intelligence — from a fixed island — over one hundred leagues of water. " It's a stinger. But I can't complain. I had read Lempriere, and Smith and Bryant, and mythology in general : yet I must go and fall in love with the Sphinx. Men are so vain. Van- ity whispered she will set you a light one ; why is a cobbler like a king, for instance ? She is in love with you, ye fool, if you are with her. The harder the riddle the higher the compli- ment the Sphinx pays you. That is the way all sensible men look at it. She is not the Sphinx : she is an angel, and I call her my Lady Caprice. Hate her for being Caprice ! You in- corrigible muddle-head. Why, I love Caprice for being her shadow. Poor, impotent love that can't solve a problem. The only one she ever set me. I've gone about it like a fool. What is the use putting up little bits of telegraphs on the island ? I'll make a kite a hundred feet high, get five miles of rope ready against the next hurricane ; and then I'll rub it with phos- phorus and fly it. But what can I fasten it to? No tree would hold it. Dunce ! To the island itself, of course. And now go to Stantle, Magg, Melton, and Copestake for one thousand yards of silk, — Money! Money! Money! Well, give them a mortgage on the island, and a draft on the galleon. Now stop the pitch fountain, and bore a hole near it ; fill fifty balloons with gas, inscribe them with the latitude and longitude, fly them, and bring all the world about our ears. The problem is solved. It is solved, and I am destroyed. She leaves me ; she thinks no more of me. Her heart is in England." . Then he muttered for a long time unintelli- "JO FOUL PLAY. gibly ; and Helen ventured near, and actually laid her hand on his brow to soothe him. But suddenly his muttering ceased, and he seemed to be puzzling hard over something. The result came out in a clear articulate sen- tence that made Helen recoil, and, holding by the mast, cast an indescribable look of wonder and dismay on the speaker. The words that so staggered her were these to the letter. "She says she hates reptiles. Yet she mar- ries Arthur Wardlaw." CHAPTER XXXIX. The very name of Arthur Wardlaw startled Helen, and made her realize how completely her thoughts had been occupied with another. But add to that the strange and bitter epigram ! Or was it a mere fortuitous concourse of words ? She was startled, amazed, confounded, puz- zled. And, ere she could recover her composure, Hazel was back to his problem again : but no longer with the same energy. He said in a faint and sleepy voice : "■' He maketh the winds His messengers, and flames of fire His ministers.' Ah ! if I could do that ! Well, why not? I can do any thing she bids me, — "'Grseculus esmiens ccelum juaseria ibit.' " And soon after this doughty declaration he dozed off, and forgot all his trouble for a while. The sun rose, and still he slept, and Helen watched him with undisguised tenderness in her face ; undisguised now that he could not see it. Ere long she had companions in her care. Pon- to came out of his den, and sniffed about the boat ; and then began to scratch it, and whim- per for his friend. Tommy swam out of the sea, came to the boat, discovered, Heaven knows how, that his friend was there, and, in the way of noises, did every thing but speak. The sea-birds followed and fluttered here and there in an errat- ic way, with now and then a peck at each other. All animated nature seemed to be uneasy at this eclipse of their Hazel. At last Tommy raised himself quite perpen- dicular, in a vain endeavor to look into the boat, and invented a whine in the minor key, which tells on dogs : it set Ponto off in a moment ; he sat upon his tail, and delivered a long and most deplorable howl. "Every thing loves, him," thought Helen. With Ponto's music Hazel awoke, and found her watching him, with tears in her eyes; he said softly : " Miss Rolleston ! There is nothing the matter, I hope. Why am I not up getting things for your breakfast?" "Dear friend," said she, "why you are not doing things for me and forgetting yourself is because you have been very ill. And I am your nurse. Now tell me what I shall get you. Is there nothing you could fancy ?" No ; he had no appetite ; she was not to trouble about him. And then he tried to get up ; but that gave him such a pain in his loins, he was fain to lie down again. So then he felt that he had got rheumatic fever. He told her uo ; but, seeing her sweet anxious face, begged her not to be alarmed, — he knew what to take for it. Would she be kind enough to go to his arsenal and fetch some specimens of bark she would find there, and also the keg of rum ?" She flew at the word, and soon made him an infusion of the barks in boiling water ; to which the rum was added. His sweet nurse adminstered this from time to time. The barks used were of the cassia- tree, and a wild citron-tree. Cinchona did not exist in this island, unfortunately. Perhaps there was no soil for it at a sufficient elevation above the sea. Nevertheless with these inferior barks they held the fever in check. But the pain was ob- stinate, and cost Helen many a sigh ; for, if she came softly, she could often hear him moan ; and, the moment he heard her foot, he set to and whistled, for a blind ; with what success may be imagined. She would have bought those pains, or a portion of them ; ay, and paid a heavy price for them. But pain, like every thing, intermits, and in those blessed intervals his mind was more active than ever,- and ran a great deal upon what he called the Problem. But she, who had set it him, gave him little encouragement now to puzzle over it. The following may serve as a specimen of their conversation on that head. "The air of this island," said he, "gives one a sort of vague sense of mental power. It leads to no result in my case : still, it is an agreeable sensation to have it floating across my mind that some day I shall solve the Great Problem. Ah ! if I was only an inventor !" "And so you are." " No, no," said Hazel, disclaiming as earnestly as some people claim; "I do things that look like acts of invention, but they are acts of memo- ry. I could show you plates and engravings of all the things I have seemed to invent. A man who studies books instead of skimming them can cut a dash in a desert island, until the fatal word goes forth — invent; and then you find him out." "I am sure I wish I had never said the fatal word. You will never get well if you puzzle your brain over impossibilities." " Impossibilities ! But is not that begging the question ? The measure of impossibilities is lost in thp present age. I propose a test. Let us go back a century, and suppose that three prob- lems were laid before the men of that day, and they were asked to decide which is the most impossible : 1st, to diffuse intelligence from a fix- ed island over a hundred leagues of water : 2d, to make the sun take in thirty seconds likeness- es more exact than any portrait-painter ever took — likenesses that can be sold for a shilling at fifty per cent, profit : 3d, for New York and Lon- don to exchange words by wire so much faster than the earth can turn, that London shall tell New York at ten on Monday morning what was the price of consols at two o'clock Monday after- noon." "That is a story," said Helen, with a look of angelic reproach. "I accept that reply," said Hazel. " As for me, I have got a smattering of so many subjects all full of incredible truths, that my faith in the impossibility of any thing is gone. Ah! if FOUL PLAY. 01 James Watt was only here instead of John Ha- zel, — James Watt from the Abbey, with a head as big as a pumpkin, — he would not have gone groping about the island, writing on rocks, and erecting signals. No ; he would have had some grand and bold idea worthy of the proposition." " Well, so I think," said Helen, archly ; "that great man with the great head would have be- gun by making a kite a hundred yards high." " Would he ? Well, he was quite capable of it." "Yes; and rubbed it with phosphorus, and flown it the first tempest, and made the string fast to — the island itself." "Well, that is an idea," said Hazel, staring ; "rather hyperbolical, I fear. But, after all, it is an idea." "Or else," continued Helen, "he would weave a thousand yards of some light fabric, and make balloons ; then he would stop the pitch-fountain, bore a hole in the rock near it, and so get the gas, fill the balloons, inscribe them with our sad story and our latitude and longitude, and send them flying all over the ocean, — there !" Hazel was amazed. " I resign my functions to you," said he. "What imagination ! What invention !" " Oh dear, no," said Helen, slyly ; " acts of memory sometimes pass for invention, you know. Shall I tell you ? when first you fell ill, you were rather light-headed, and uttered the strangest things. They would have made me laugh heart- ily, only I couldn't — for crying. And you said that about kites and balloons, every word." " Did I ? then I have most brains when I have least reason, that's all." " Ay," said Helen, " and other strange things, — very strange and bitter things. One I should like to ask you about, what on earth you could mean by it ; but perhaps you meant nothing, aft- er all." "I'll soon tell you," said Hazel ; but he took the precaution to add, "provided I know what it means myself." She looked at him steadily, and was on the point of seeking the explanation so boldly offer- ed ; but her own courage failed her. She color- ed and hesitated. "I shall wait," said she, "till you are quite, quite well. That will be soon, I hope ; only you must be good, and obey my prescriptions. Cul- tivate patience ; it is a wholesome plant ; bow the pride of that intellect which you see a fever can lay low in an hour ; aspire no more beyond the powers of man. Here we shall stay unless Providence sends us a ship. I have ceased to re- pine ; and don't you begin. Dismiss that prob- lem altogether ; see how hot it has made your poor brow. Be good now, and dismiss it ; or else do as I do, — fold it up, put it quietly away in a corner of your mind, and, when you least expect, it will pop out solved." [Oh, comfortable doctrine. But how about Jamie Watt's headaches? And why are the signs of hard thought so much stronger in his brow and face than in Shnkspeare's ? Mercy on us, there is another problem.] Hazel smiled, well pleased, and leaned back, soothed, silenced, subdued, by her soft voice, and the exquisite touch of her velvet hand on his hot brow ; for, woman-like, she laid her hand like down on that burning brow to aid her words in soothing it. Nor did it occur to him just then that this admonition delivered with a kind ma- ternal hand, maternal voice, came from the same young lady who had flown at him like a wild-cat with this very problem in her mouth. She mes- merized him, problem and all ; he subsided into a complacent languor, and at last went to sleep, thinking only of her. But the topic had entered his mind too deeply to be finally dismissed. It returned next day, though in a different form. You must know that Hazel, as he lay on his back in the boat, had often in a half-drowsy way, watched the effect of the sun upon the boat's mast ; it now stood, a bare pole, and at certain hours acted like the needle of a dial by casting a shadow on the sands. Above all, he could see pretty well by means of this pole and its shadow when the sun attained its greatest elevation. He now asked Miss Rolleston to assist him in mak- ing this observation exactly. She obeyed his instructions, and the moment the shadow reached its highest angle, and show- ed the minutest symptom of declension, she said, " Now !" and Hazel called out in a loud voice : — "Noon!" " And forty-nine minutes past eight at Syd- ney," said. Helen, holding out her chronometer ; for she had been sharp enough to get it ready of her own accord. Hazel looked at her and at the watch with amazement and incredulity. " What ?" said he. " Impossible. You can't have kept Sydney time all this while." "And pray why not ?" said Helen. " Have you forgotten that once somebody praised me for keeping Sydney time; it helped you, somehow or other, to know where we wei'e." " And so it will now," cried Hazel, exultingly. "But no, it is impossible. We have gone through scenes that — you can't have wound that watch up without missing a day." ' ' Indeed but I have," said Helen. " Not wind my watch up ! Why, if I was dying I should wind my watch up. See, it requires no key ; a touch or two of the fingers, and it is done. Oh, I am remarkably constant in all my habits; and this is an old friend I never neglect. Do you remember that terrible night in the boat, when neither of us expected to see the morning, — oh, how good and brave you were ! — well, I remem- ber winding it up that night. I kissed it, and bade it good-bye ; but I never dreamed of not winding it up because I was going to be killed. What ! am I not to be praised again, as I was on board ship? Stingy ! can't afford to praise one twice for the same thing." "Praised!" cried Hazel, excitedly; "wor- shipped, you mean. Why, we have got the lon- gitude by means of your chronometer. It is won- derful ! It is providential ! It is the finger of Heaven ! Pen and ink, and let me work it out." In his excitement he got up without assist- ance, and was soon busy calculating the longi- tude of Godsend Isle. CHAPTER XL. " There," said he. "Now the latitude I must guess at by certain combinations. In the first place the slight variation in the length of the f J2 FOUL PLAY. days. Then I must try and make a rough cal- culation of the sun's parallax. And then my bot- any will help me a little ; spices furnish a clue ; there are one or two that will not grow outside the tropic. It was the longitude that beat me, and now we have conquered it ! Hurrah ! Now I know what to diffuse, and in what direction ; east-south-east ; the ducks have shown me that much. So there's the first step towards the im- possible problem." "Very well," said Helen ; " and I am sure one step is enough for one day. I forbid you the topic for twelve hours at least. I detest it be- cause it always makes your poor head so hot." "What on earth does that matter?" said Ha- zel, impetuously, and almost crossly. "Come, come, come, sir," said Helen, author- itatively ; "it matters to me." But when she saw that he could think of noth- ing else, and that opposition irritated him, she had the tact and good sense not to strain her au- thority, nor to irritate her subject. Hazel spliced a long, fine-pointed stick to the mast-head, and set a plank painted white with guano at right angles to the base of the mast ; and so, whenever the sun attained his meridian altitude, went into .* lifficult and subtle calcula- tion to arrive j* th . atitude, or as near it as ho come, without proper instruments ; and he brood- ed and brooded over his discovery of the longi- tude, but unfortunately he could not advance. In some problems the first step once gained leads, or at least points, to the next : but to know whereabouts they were, and to let others know it, were two difficulties heterogeneous and dis- tinct. Having thought and thought till his head was dizzy, at last he took Helen's advice and put it by for a while. He set himself to fit and number a quantity of pearl-oyster shells, so that he might be able to place them at once, when he should be able to re-commence his labor of love in the cav- ern. One day Helen had left him so employed, and was busy cooking the dinner at her own place, but, mind you, with one eye on the dinner and another on her patient, when suddenly she heard him shouting very loud, and ran out to see what was the matter. He was roaring like mad, and whirling his arms over his head like a demented windmill. She ran to him. "Eureka! Eureka!" he shouted, in furious excitement. "Oh dear!" cried Helen; "never mind." She was all against her patient exciting himself. But he was exalted beyond even her control. "Crown me with laurel/' he cried; "I have solved the problem :" and up went his arms. " Oh, is that all ?" said she calmly. " Get me two squares of my parchment," cried he ; "and some of the finest gut." ""Will not after dinner do ?" "No; certainly not," said Hazel, in a voice of command. "I wouldn't wait a moment for all the flesh-pots of Egypt." Then she went like the wind and fetched them. " Oh, thank you ! thank you ! Now I want, — let me see,- — ah, there's an old rusty hoop that was washed ashore, on one of that ship's casks. I put it carefully away ; how the unlikeliest things come in useful soon or late !" She went for the hoop, but not so rapidly, for here it was that the first faint doubt of his sanity came in. However, she brought it, and he thanked her. "And now," said he, "while I prepare the intelligence, will you be so kind as to fetch me the rushes ?'• " The what?" said Helen, in growing dismay. "The rushes! I'll tell you where to find some." Helen thought the best thing was to tempo- rize. Perhaps he would be better after eating some wholesome food. "I'll fetch them direct- ly after dinner," said she. " But it will be spoil- ed if I leave it for long ; and I do so want it to be nice for you to-day." "Dinner?" cried Hazel. "What do I care for dinner now ? I am solving my problem. I'd rather go without dinner for years than interrupt a great idea. Pray let dinner take its chance, and obey me for once." "For once!"' said Helen, and turned her mild hazel eyes on him with such a look of gentle reproach. "Forgive me ! But don't take me for a child, asking you for a toy ; I'm a poor crippled in- ventor, who sees daylight at last. Oh, I am on fire ; and, if you want me not to go into a fever, why, get me my rushes." "Where shall I find them?" said Helen, catching fire at him. "Go to where your old hut stood, and follow the river about a furlong : you will find a bed of high rushes; cut me a good bundle, cut them below the water, choose the stoutest. Here is a pair of shears I found in the ship." She took the shears and went swiftly across the sands and up the slope. He watched her with an admiring eye ; and well he might, for it was the very poetry of motion. Hazel in his hours of health had almost given up walking; he ran from point to point, without fatigue or shortness of breath. Helen, equally pressed for time, did not run ; but she went almost as fast. By rising with the dawn, by three meals a day of animal food, by constant work, and heavenly air, she was in a condition women rarely attain to. She was trained. Ten miles was no more to her than ten yards. And, when she was in a hurry, she got over the ground by a grand but feminine motion not easy to describe. It was a series of smooth undulations, not vulgar strides, but swift rushes, in which the loins seemed to propel the whole body, and the feet scarcely to touch the ground : it was the vigor and freedom of a savage, with the grace of a lady. And so it was she swept across the sands and up the slope, Et vera incessu patuit dea. While she was gone, Hazel cut two little squares of seals' bladder, one larger than the other. On the smaller he wrote : "An English lady wrecked on an island. Longitude, ; S. latitude, between the and parallels. Haste to her rescue." Then he folded this small, and inclosed it in the larger slip, which he made into a little bag, and tied the neck extremly tight with fine gut, leaving a long piece of the gut free. EOUL PLAY. 1)3 And now Helen came gliding back, as she went, and brought him a large bundle of rushes. Then he asked her to help him fasten these rushes round the iron hoop. " It must not be done too regularly," said he ; " but so as to look as much like a little bed of rushes as possible." Helen was puzzled still, but interested. So she set to work, and, between them, they fasten- ed rushes all round the hoop, although it was a large one. But when it was done, Hazel said they were too bare. " Then we will fasten another row," said Helen, good-humored ly. And, without more ado, she was ofr to the river again. When she came back, she found him up, and he said the great excitement had cured him, — such power has the brain over the body. This convinced her he had really hit upon some great idea. And, when she had made him eat his dinner by her fire, she asked him to tell her all about it. But, by a natural reaction, the glorious and glowing excitement of mind that had battled his very rheumatic pains was now followed by doubt and dejection. "Don't ask me yet," he sighed. " Theory is one thing; practice is another. We count without our antagonists. I forgot they will set their wits against mine : and they are many, I am but one. And I have been so often defeated. And, do you know, I have observed that when- ever I say beforehand, Now I am going to do something clever, I am always defeated- Pride really goes before destruction, and vanity before a fall." The female mind, rejecting all else, went like a needle's point at one thing in this explanation. "Our antagonists?" said Helen, looking sadly puzzled. "Why, what antagonists have we?" "The messengers," said Hazel, with a groan. "The aerial messengers." That did the business. Helen dropped the subject with almost ludicrous haste, and, after a few commonplace observations, made a nice comfortable dose of grog and bark for him. This she administered as an independent trans- action, and not at all by way of comment on his antagonists, the aerial messengers. It operated unkindly for her purpose ; it did him so much good, that he lifted up his dejected head, and his eyes sparkled again, and he set to work, and, by sunset, prepared two more bags of bladder with inscriptions inside, and long tails of fine gut hanging. He then set to work, and, with fingers far less adroit than hers, fast- ened another set of rushes round the hoop. He set thern less evenly, and some of them not quite perpendicular ; and, while he was fumbling over this, and examining the effect with paternal glances, Helen's hazel eye dwelt on him with furtive pity; for, to her, this girdle of rushes was now an instrument that bore an ugly like- ness to the sceptre of straw with which vanity run to seed sways imaginary kingdoms in Bed- lam or Bicetre. And yet he was better. He walked about the cavern and conversed charmingly ; he was dic- tionary, essayist, raconteur, any thing she liked ; and, as she prudently avoided and ignored the one fatal topic, it was a delightful evening : her fingers were as busy as his tongue ; and, when he retired, she presented him with the fruits of a fortnight's work, a glorious wrapper made of fleecy cotton inclosed in a plaited web of flex- ible and silky grasses. He thanked her, and blessed her, and retired for the night. About midnight she awoke and felt uneasy ; so she did what since his illness she had done a score of times without his knowledge — she stole from her lair to watch him. She found him wrapped in her present, which gave her great pleasure; and sleeping like an infant, which gave her joy. She eyed him elo- quently for a long time ; and then very timidly put out her hand, and, in her quality of nurse, laid it lighter than down upon his brow. The brow was cool, and a very slight moist- ure on it showed the fever was going or gone. She folded her arms and stood looking at him : and she thought of all they two had done and suffered together. Her eyes absorbed him, devoured him. The time flew by unheeded. It was so sweet to be able to set her face free from its restraint, and let all its sunshine beam on him ; and, even when she retired at last, those light hazel eyes, that could flash fire at times, but were all dove-like now, hung and lingered on him as if they could never look at him enough. Half an hour before daybreak she was awa- kened by the dog howling" piteously. She felt a little uneasy at that; not much. However, she got up, and issued from her cavern, just as the sun showed his red eye above the horizon. She went towards the boat as a matter of course. She found Ponto tied to the helm : the boat was empty, and Hazel nowhere to be seen. She uttered a scream of dismay. The dog howled and whined louder than ever. CHAPTER XLI. Wardlaw senior was not what you would call a tender-hearted man ; but he was thor- oughly moved by General Rolleston's distress, and by his fortitude. The gallant old man ! Land- ing in England one week and going back to the Pacific the next ! Like goes with like ;* and Wardlaw senior, energetic and resolute himself, though he felt for his son, stricken down by grief, gave his heart to the more valiant distress of his contemporary. He manned and victualled the Springbok for a long voyage, ordered her to Plymouth, and took his friend down to her by train. They went out to her in a boat. She was a screw steamer, that could sail nine knots an hour without burning a coal. As she came down the Channel, the General's trouble got to be well known on board her, and, when he came out of the harbor, the sailors by an honest, hearty im- pulse, that did them credit, waited for no orders, but manned the yards to receive him with the respect due to his services and his sacred ca- lamity. On getting on board, he saluted the captain and the ship's company with sad dignity, and re- tired to his cabin with Mr. Wardlaw. There the old merchant forced on him by loan seven hundred pounds, chiefly in gold and silver, tell- & FOUL PLAY. ing him there was nothing like money, go where you will. He then gave him a number of no- tices he had printed, and a paper of advice and instructions ; it was written in his own large, clear, formal hand. General Rolleston tried to falter out his thanks. John Wardlaw interrupted him. " Next to you I am her father ; am I not?" "You have proved it." " Well, then. However, if you do find her, as I pray to God you may, I claim the second kiss, mind that ; not for myself, though ; for my poor Arthur, that lies on a sick-bed for her." General Rolleston assented to that in a broken voice. He could hardly speak. And so they parted ; and that sad parent went out to the Pacific. To him it was indeed a sad and gloomy voy- age : and the hope with which he went on board oozed gradually away as the ship traversed the vast tracks of ocean. One immensity of water to be passed before that other immensity could be reached, on whose vast uniform surface the search was to be made. To abridge this gloomy and monotonous part of our tale, suffice it to say that he endured two months of water and infinity ere the vessel, fast as she was, reached Valparaiso. Their progress, however, had been more than once interrupted to carry out Wardlaw's instructions. The poor General himself had but one idea; to go and search the Pacific with his own eyes ; but Ward- law, more experienced, directed him to overhaul every whaler and coasting-vessel he could, and deliver printed notices ; telling the sad story, and offering a reward for any positive informa- tion, good or bad, that should be brought in to his agent at Valparaiso. Acting on these in- structions they had overhauled two or three coast- ing-vessels, as they steamed up from the Horn. They now placarded the port of Valparaiso, and put the notices on board all vessels bound west- ward; and the captain of the Springbok spoke to the skippers in the port. But they all shook their heads, and could hardly be got to give their minds seriously to the inquiry, when they heard in what water the cutter was last seen and on what course. One old skipper said, "Look on Juan Fernan- dez, and then at the bottom of the Pacific ; but the sooner you look there the less time you will lose." From Valparaiso they ran to Juan Fernandez, which indeed seemed the likeliest place if she was alive. When the larger island of that group, the isl- and dear alike to you who read, and to us who write, this tale, came in sight, the father's heart began to beat higher. The ship anchored and took in coal, which was furnished at a wickedly high price by Mr. Joshua Fullalove, who had virtually purchased the island from Chili, having got it on lease for longer than the earth itself is'to last, we hear. And now Rolleston found the value of Ward- law's loan ; it enabled him to prosecute his search through the whole group of islands ; and he did hear at last of three persons who had been wrecked on Masa Fuero ; one of them a female. He followed this up, and at last discovered the parties. He found them to be Spaniards, and the woman smoking a pipe. After this bitter disappointment he went back to the ship, and she was to weigh her anchor next morning. But, while General Rolleston was at Masa Fuero, a small coasting-vessel had come in, and brought a strange report at second-hand that in some degree unsettled Captain Moreland's mind ; and being hotly discussed on the forecastle, set the ship's company in a ferment. CHAPTER XLII. Hazel had risen an hour befoi'e dawn for rea- sons well known to himself. He put on his worst clothes, and a leathern belt, his little bags round his neck, and took his bundle of rushes in his hand. He also provided himself with some pieces of raw fish and fresh oyster ; and, thus equipped, went up through Terrapin Wood, and got to the neighborhood of the lagoons before daybreak. There was a heavy steam on the water, and nothing else to be seen. He put the hoop over his head, and walked into the water, not with- out an internal shudder, it looked so cold. But instead of that, it was very warm, unac- countably warm. He walked in up to his mid- dle, and tied his iron hoop to his belt, so as to prevent it sinking too deep. This done, he waited motionless, and seemed a little bed of rushes. The sun rose, and the steam gradually cleared away, and Hazel, peering through a hole or t*vo he had made expressly in his bed of rushes, saw several ducks floating about, and one in particular, all purple, without a speck but his amber eye. He contrived to detach a piece of fish, that soon floated to the surface near him. But no duck moved towards it. He tried another, and another ; then a mallard he had not observed swam up from behind him, and was soon busy pecking at it within a yard of him. His heart beat ; he glided slowly and cautious- ly forward till the bird was close to the rushes. Hazel stretched out his hand with the utmost care, caught hold of the bird's feet, and drag- ged him sharply under the water, and brought him up within the circle of the rushes. He quacked and struggled. Hazel soused him un- der directly, and go quenched the sound ; then he glided slowly to the bank, so slowly that the rushes merely seemed to drift ashore. This he did not to create suspicion, and so spoil the next attempt. As he glided, he gave his duck air every now and then, and soon got on terra fir ma. By this time he had taught the duck not to quack, or he would get soused and held under. He now took the long gut-end and tied it tight round the bird's leg, and so fastened the bag to him. Even while he was effecting this, a posse of ducks rose at the west end of the marsh, and took their flight from the island. As they pass- ed, Hazel threw his captive up in the air ; and such was the force of example, aided, perhaps, by the fright the captive had received, that Ha- zel's bird instantly joined these travellers, rose with them into the high currents, and away, bearing the news eastward upon the wings of the wind. Then Hazel returned to the pool, and twice more, he was so fortunate as to secure a bird, and launch him into space. FOUL PLAY. 95 So hard is it to measure the wit of man, and to define his resources. The problem was solved ; the aerial messengers were on the wing, diffus- ing over hundreds of leagues of water the intel- ligence that an English lady had been wrecked on an unknown island, in longitude 103 deg. 30 min., and between the 32d and 35th parallels of south latitude; and calling good men and ships to her rescue for the love of God. CHAPTER XLIII. And now for the strange report that landed at Juan Fernandez while General Rolleston was searching Masa Fuero. The coaster who brought it ashore had been in company, at Valparaiso, with a whaler from Nantucket, who told him he had fallen in with a Dutch whaler out at sea, and distressed for water: he had supplied the said Dutchman, who had thanked him, and given him a runlet of Hollands, and had told him in conversation that he had seen land and a river reflected on the sky, in waters where no land was marked in the chart; namely, somewhere between Juan Fernandez and Norfolk Island ; and that, be- lieving this to be the reflection of a part of some island near at hand, and his water being low, though not at that time run out, he had gone considerably out of his course in hopes of find- ing this watered island, but could see nothing of it. Nevertheless, as his grandfather, who had been sixty years at sea, and logged many won- derful things, had told him the sky had been known to reflect both ships and land at a great distance, he fully believed there was an island somewhere in that longitude, not down on any chart : an island wooded and watered. This tale soon boarded the Springbok, and was hotly discussed on the forecastle. It came to Captain Moreland's ears, and he examined the skipper of the coasting-smack. But this ex- amination elicited nothing new, inasmuch as the skipper had the tale only at third hand. Cap- tain Moreland, however, communicated it to General Rolleston on his arrival, and asked him whether he thought it worth while to deviate from their instructions upon information of such a character. Rolleston shook his head. "An island reflected in the sky !" " No, sir: a portion of an island containing a river." " It is clearly a fable," said Rolleston, with a sigh. " What is a fable, General ?" "That the sky can reflect terrestrial objects." "Oh, there I can't go with you. The phe- nomenon is rare, but it is well established. I never saw it myself, but I have come across those that have. Suppose we catechise the forecastle. Hy! Fok'sel!" "Sir!" 1 ' Send a man aft : the oldest seaman aboard." "Ay, ay, sir." There was some little delay: and then a sail- or of about sixty slouched aft, made a sea scrape, and, removing his cap entirely, awaited the cap- tain's commands. " My man," said the captain, " I want you to answer a question. Do you believe land and ships have ever been seen in the sky, reflect- ed?" "A many good seamen holds to that, sir," said the sailor, cautiously. "Is it the general opinion of seamen before the mast? Come, tell us. Jack's as good as his master in these matters." " Couldn't say for boys and lubbers, sir. But I never met a full-gi-own seaman as denied that there. Sartainly few has seen it : but all of 'em has seen them as has seen it ; ships, and land, too ; but mostly ships. Hows'ever, I had a mess- mate once as was sailing past a rock they call Ailsa Craig, and saw a regiment of soldiers marching in the sky. Logged it, did the mate ; and them soldiers was a marching between two towns in Ireland at that very time." "There, you see, General, "said Captain More- land. "But this is all second-hand," said General Rolleston, with a sigh ; " and I have learned how every thing gets distorted in passing from one to another." " Ah," said the captain, "we can't help that ; the thing is rare. I never saw it for one ; and I suppose you never saw a phenomenon of the kind, Isaac?" "Hain't I!" said Isaac, grimly. Then, with sudden and not very reasonable heat, "D my eyes and limbs if I hain't seen the Peak o' Teneriffe in the sky topsy-turvy, and as plain as I see that there cloud there " (pointing up- ward). "Come," said Moreland; "now we are get- ting to it. Tell us all about that." "Well, sir," said the seaman, "I don't care to larn them as laughs at every thing they hain't seen in maybe a dozen voyages at most ; but you know me, -and I knows you ; though you com- mand the ship, and I work before the mast. Now I axes you, sir, should you say Isaac Aiken was the man to take a sugar-loaf, or a cocked hat, for the Peak o' Teneriffe ?" " As likely as I am myself, Isaac." "No commander can say fairer nor that," said Isaac, with dignity. "Well, then, your honor, I'll tell ye the truth, and no lie: We was bound for Teneriffe with a fair wind, though not so much of it as we wanted, by reason she was a good sea-boat, but broad in the bows. The Peak hove in sight in the sky, and all the glasses was at her. She lay a point or two on our weather-quarter like, full two hours, and then she just melted away like a lump o' sugar. We kept on our course a day and a half, and at last we sighted the real Peak, and anchored off the port ; whereby, when we saw Teneriffe Peak in the sky to winnard, she lay a hundred leagues to looard, s'help me God !" "That is wonderful," said General Rolleston. "That will do, Isaac," said the captain. 11 Mr. Butt, double his grog for a week, for hav- ing seen more than I have." The captain and General Rolleston had along discussion ; but the result was, they determined to go to Easter Island first, for General Rolleston was a soldier, and had learned to obey as well as command. He saw no sufficient ground for de- viating from Wardlaw's positive instructions. This decision soon became known throughout the ship ; and she was to weigh anchor at 11 a.m. next day, by high water. 96 FOUL PLAY. At eight next morning, Captain Moreland and General Rolleston being on deck, one of the ship's boys, a regular pet, with rosy cheeks and black eyes, comes up to thcgentlemen, takes offhis cap, and, panting audibly at his own audacity, shoves a paper into General Rolleston's hand, and scuds away for his life. " This won't do," said the captain, sternly. The high-bred soldier handed the paper to him unopened. The captain opened it, looked a little vexed, but more amused, and handed it back to the Gen- eral. It was a Round Robin. .&" ,y> x '%■ 'ysyldi l nu We who sign About this line, ^" hope none offense and mean none. We think Easter Island is out of her course. . Such of us as can be spared are ready and rfi^ willing to take the old cutter, that lies for sale, to Easter Island if needs be ; but to waste the Steamer it is a Pity. We are all agreed the Dutch skipper saw land and water aloft sailing between Juan Fernandez and Norfolk Isle, and what a Dutchman can see on the sky ice think an Eng- n0# Ashman can find it in the sea, God willing. Whereby we pray our good Captain to follow the Dutchman's course with a good heart and a willing crew: ,x 9£ <$■ And so say we ffi* Whose names here be. Monkeytfem. ^ ** *c %* .