WEST OF SWAEDHAM, 
 
 : VOL. I.
 
 NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 AT ALL THE LIBRARIES. 
 
 EALPH EAEBUEN. By John Berwick Harwood, 
 
 author of ' Lady Flavia,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 LOVE AND MIRAGE. By M. Betham-Edwards, author 
 
 of ' Kitty,' ' Doctor Jacob,' ' Bridget,' &c. 2 vols. 
 
 THE DOUBLE DUTCHIMAN. By Catharine Childar, 
 
 author of 'The Future Marquis,' 'A Maid called Barbara,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 JOY, By May Crommelust, author of ' Queenie,' ' Orange 
 
 Lily,' 'A Jewel of a Girl,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 ON THE SPUE OF THE MOMENT. By Johx Mills, 
 
 author of ' The Old English Gentleman,' ' Too Fast to Last,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
 
 WEST OF SWARDHAM 
 
 % iflijti 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EEV. W. 0. PEILE, 
 
 AUTHOE, OF " TAY." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDOIs^: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1885. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 I', n n g a gr 
 
 CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRTXTEKS.
 
 8Sb 
 
 P 551 OAT- 
 V.l 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. A Student of Physiognomy 
 
 II. Wests Past and Present . 
 
 III. Snakes in Arcadia 
 
 IV. Mother and Son 
 V. The Deputation -. 
 
 VI. Madam sends for the Rector 
 
 "VII. The Upheaval Begins 
 
 VIII. A Visitor in Britannia Street 
 
 IX. How Adolphus took it 
 
 X. The Angel of Death . 
 
 XI. Desdichado .... 
 
 'XII. An Ambassadress Extraordinary 
 
 XIII. Audience- OF Lady Emily . 
 
 XIV. The New Squire 
 XV. A Ride on Hamlet 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 40 
 
 57 
 
 76 
 
 101 
 
 131 
 
 144 
 
 16.3 
 
 176 
 
 190 
 
 206 
 
 223 
 
 238 
 
 254
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/westofswardhamno01peil
 
 WEST OE SWAEDIAI. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 rjlHE ladies have just filed out of the 
 -^ dining-room at Swardham Hall, and 
 the men have closed up to the end of the 
 long table where John West has taken the 
 seat vacated by his mother. Two only of 
 the guests are parted by an interval of 
 empty chairs and dishevelled napkins from 
 the ranks of burly squires and comfortable 
 parsons, who have already plunged into 
 general conversation, evidently of absorbing 
 interest to the party, and in which their 
 host is bearing his share. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Of the lonely pair, one is Francis Hol- 
 brooke, rector of Swardham, a courteous 
 little man of middle age, comely features, 
 and prosperously neat appearance. The 
 rector would fain be attending to the topic 
 which is occupying his friends and neigh- 
 bours, but that he has promised the lady 
 of the house to ' look after ' a guest who 
 is the only stranger present, and no less 
 a person than the new Lady Woollett's 
 brother, on his first visit to Fleeces Park. 
 Never has request of his loved and honoured 
 friend Mrs. West failed of loyal obedience 
 from the rector, but it is with some trepida- 
 tion that he has buckled to the task of 
 looking after this lean yellow gentleman 
 with a strange accent, part Scottish, part 
 foreign, who seems indeed perfectly com- 
 petent to take care of himself. He has 
 begun by flatly declining to entertain a 
 suggestion timidly propounded, that they
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 3 
 
 sliould do as the rest liave done, and 
 close up. 
 
 * I find myself pairfectly comfortable 
 where I am, thank ye,' said the yellow 
 stranger, all regardless of a wistful glance 
 which his companion could not quite sup- 
 press, ' pairfectly comfortable ' — and with 
 that he fished with his long legs under the 
 table till he had secured a footstool, placed 
 for the accommodation of one of the de- 
 parted matrons ; swept a dish of olives 
 within easy reach, and settled himself back 
 in his chair, as one prepared to make 
 himself completely at home. 
 
 With mild astonishment the rector 
 watched eight olives as they successively 
 disappeared between those cadaverous jaws ! 
 
 ' Holbrooke, I hope you are looking after 
 our friend,' says John AYest from his distant 
 seat. ' What wine are you drinking, Mr. 
 Auchmuty ? ' 
 
 B 2
 
 4 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 The stranger bows, and makes a feint of 
 appropriating half a glass of sherry left by 
 one of the ladies, but declines uplifting his 
 voice in audible answer. 
 
 * This is '34 port,' says the rector, appeal- 
 ingly, but Mr. Auchmuty only smiles as 
 he impales another olive, and then utters 
 foul treason against the contents of the 
 Swardham cellars, and all vintages what- 
 soever known to Englishmen — treason such 
 as never before had the rector heard at that 
 hospitable board. 
 
 *Ask a native of the Peninsula to taste 
 your ports and sherries,' the blasphemer 
 goes on unabashed, ' and his answer would 
 be mine. You have no wine, no natural 
 product worthy of the name, in this country. 
 And, if you had, you wouldn't drink it.' 
 
 After this there is nothing; to do but, 
 with all speed, to change the conversation, 
 though it was with faint hopes that Mr,
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 5 
 
 Holbrooke entered upon any further dis- 
 cussion with so audacious a heretic. What 
 might not follow from a man who con- 
 temned John West's best wine at his own 
 table ? Scarcely should the squire himself 
 be safe of due respect at the mouth of such 
 a fellow, and, courteous as the rector is, 
 there are limits ! He could not have sat 
 still and heard any of the Wests disparaged. 
 
 * It is your first visit to this part of 
 Longshire, I understand,' he says gently ; 
 ' I hope you like our country ; the grass- 
 lands are considered second to none in 
 England.' 
 
 * Well, sir, as you ask me, I must say 
 that for a small, over-populated island such 
 as this, I consider it a waste, just a wanton, 
 l^z^-mentable waste, that a district should 
 be encumbered with useless woods, policies, 
 and demesne lands as this is.' 
 
 ' But surely you would not have such
 
 6 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 houses as this, for instance, or Sir Tancred's 
 at Fleeces, stand flush with a high-road, 
 with just ground enough behind them to 
 grow their garden-stuff '? ' 
 
 The long, narrow eyes of Mr. Auchmuty 
 twinkled and then closed to mere slits, as 
 he replied with much composure — 
 
 * Aye, sir, but I would, unless it could be 
 proved that every man Jack among you, 
 gentle or simple, had ground enough to 
 grow Jiis potatoes, and that there was still 
 enough to spare for these great useless 
 grounds/ 
 
 Alas for Sir Tancred ! why could he not 
 be faithful to the memory of good old Lady 
 Woollett, buried not twenty months since ? 
 or if constrained to take another wife, why 
 not have chosen among his kind, and the 
 good old stocks of Longshire or other mid- 
 land shires ? Terrible, however, must be the 
 retribution which had surely already over-
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 7 
 
 taken the easy-goiDg baronet, constrained 
 to welcome as the brother of his mature 
 bride this ill-conditioned, parchment-look- 
 ing being ! It was almost sacrilege to 
 discuss Swardham matters with one who 
 had so plainly shown the cloven hoof, but 
 the rector w^as ever polite and loyal to his 
 engagements, and Mr. Auchmuty was now 
 condescending to put him through a pretty 
 vigorous catechism as to his parish, and the 
 family who so worthily ruled it. 
 
 Now the rector w^as a man without guile, 
 a man also wdiose lines had fallen in a 
 pleasant place, as it seemed to him, and 
 who was more than content with his lot. 
 To his mind Swardham was a model parish, 
 the rustics a model peasantry, John West 
 a model squire, and John West's mother a 
 saint on earth. So to all the stranger's 
 questions he was able to return glowing 
 answers, that came at least straight from
 
 8 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 his honest heart. All the parish, he said, 
 with insignificant exceptions, belonged to 
 the squire, forming part of his broad 
 ancestral acres. Nothing could be more 
 satisfactory than the relations between land- 
 lord and tenant in this favoured spot. 
 Nowhere were the poor less burdened or 
 more devoted to their lords, or more re- 
 spectful to the Church. Nowhere was such 
 a bright example of charity and every 
 virtue shown to rich and poor alike as 
 by Mrs. West. Mr. Holbrooke's unfeigned 
 enthusiasm is evidently entertaining to his 
 questioner, though his amusement only 
 peeps slyly from those Chinese eyes. 
 
 ' A queen dowager is all very well till a 
 queen consort appears,' he says maliciously, 
 * and then out she goes, whatsoever her 
 merits, and your villagers will soon show 
 themselves courtiers enough to worship the 
 rising power. It's a wonder that such an
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 9 
 
 admirable Cricliton of a laird has remained 
 a bachelor so long/ 
 
 * Sir, no such change could make one 
 jot of difference in the veneration in which 
 we all hold the lady of this house. Indeed 
 it is well known that Mrs. West wishes her 
 
 :1^on to choose a wife, and I trust his choice 
 may fall on a daughter of some one of 
 our good old county families, known and 
 respected to us all.' 
 
 This with a keen sense of the wrong^ 
 done by Sir Tancred Woollett in his late 
 selection of a bride. 
 
 * A limited choice,' croaks Mr. Auchmuty, 
 ' is one of the penalties of such an elevated 
 position, something like the case of the 
 princes of the blood royal.' 
 
 ' Of course the head of a family of long 
 descent and territorial importance should 
 mate with one of like degree,' says the 
 rector somewhat stiffly, 'and if there is
 
 10 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 anything in the report that the Duke of 
 Hexham's daughter is to be future mistress 
 here, which I'm not in a position to assert, 
 nor to contradict, mind you ! it will be a 
 most suitable alliance, the families beinof 
 already related in blood.' 
 
 ' Why, man, ye talk of long descent, but 
 as far as anything could be gathered from 
 Sir Tancred's muddled talk, poor gowk that 
 he is at the simplest statement, it's but on 
 the spindle side that your Squire is a West 
 at all ! ' 
 
 *Mr. Auchmuty, there never was a 
 truer West than the present squire ; he 
 has the form and features, aye, and character 
 and temper, of the best of the long line ! 
 It's certainly true that his father was a 
 Woodvil, a second cousin of the duke's, 
 but he is the only grandson and the living 
 image of old Squire West, and never was 
 fitter representative of a worthy ancestry ! '
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 11 
 
 Quite unmoved by this little display 
 of vehemence, Mr. Auchmuty went on 
 musingly — 
 
 ' And the grandfather left the property 
 past his only surviving child to a grandson. 
 Will this be the secret trouble that I read 
 in the face of the old lady that sat up 
 yonder, or what else is it ? ' 
 
 Horror and astonishment have quite 
 deprived the rector of breath, as he listens 
 to this little less than impious utterance. 
 Mrs. AVest a prey to secret trouble ! the 
 humblest, bravest, brightest of Christian 
 women corroded at heart by some grief 
 that could not bear the light of day ! and 
 this calumny spoken by a mere stranger, 
 and spoken to him, her pastor, her almoner, 
 her spiritual counsellor for thirty years ! It 
 was too much. 
 
 ' Sir, you speak at random ; you, as a 
 stranger, speak to me, an intimate, in a
 
 12 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 manner unwarranted by fact and good 
 taste/ he managed to say at last. 
 
 But calmer than ever seems the other, 
 as he replies with deliberation — 
 
 * It's just intimates that never remark 
 what is always under their noses. I have 
 made a study of p/iees,iognomj for some 
 years past, and am considered to have 
 become not inexpert in its practical applica- 
 tion ; and I must adhere to my opinion 
 that Mistress West has a secret weiirhinj]: 
 upon her ; perhaps I should shock you if I 
 added that her face shows to me the hand- 
 writing of remorse.' 
 
 ' And this,' cries Holbrooke scornfully, ' is 
 the result of how long a scrutiny ! ten 
 minutes in the drawino^-room, and then a 
 glimpse or two from the flir end of this 
 table.' 
 
 * I'll not say but what I might, in this 
 case, have found sufficient time, even this
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 13 
 
 evening, to make my observations and 
 deductions ; but the fact is that I was 
 present in your church on Sunday after- 
 noon last, and as you addressed your 
 sermon (as you'll doubtless remember) to 
 the young who had been recently confirmed 
 or are expectant of that rite, I, who am 
 not young, and have got on very well so 
 far without the imposition of episcopal 
 hands, took the liberty of abstracting my 
 attention, and then of studying the most 
 remarkable face I could find in your church. 
 It was Mistress West's face, and she was 
 no more attending to your discourse than I 
 was ! The secret was claiming her atten- 
 tion, Mr. Eector ; hidden remorse was lead- 
 ing her, willy nilly, on an old weary dance ! 
 She is not the w^oman, if I have any skill 
 in reading the lineaments, to be disquieted 
 about a trifle ; and unless the secret is one 
 that will die with her, you will remember
 
 14 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 this little confidence of mine some dcay, 
 when this Arcadia of yours may be upheaved 
 with a genuine sensation. Now, if you 
 were a Roman priest you would have had 
 it all out long ago. By the bye, if you 
 must be priests at all, wasn't it foolish of you 
 to give up the father-confessor business ? ' 
 
 Disregarding this objection to the tactics 
 of the Reformed Church, the rector, in tones 
 very unlike those usual to him, observed — 
 
 ' If your studies had been tinctured with 
 common charity, sir, you would scarcely 
 have conjured up such accusations against 
 an admirable lady, whom none that kuow 
 her could suspect of being under any such 
 influences as you fancy. And now, sir, 
 pray let the subject drop for ever.' 
 
 The last words were given in a cheerier 
 tone, as Mr. Holbrooke perceived that his 
 ordeal was over. Men were rising from their 
 chairs and straddlinoj towards the door, the
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 15 
 
 last sip of slierry had been swallowed, the 
 last clink of a coffee cup had been heard, 
 and the longest sitting which the rector had 
 ever endured in that room was finished. 
 Never before had the proposal to join the 
 ladies sounded so rapturously in his ears. 
 Once in the drawing-room, he could feel the 
 task, which had taxed his loyalty and 
 temper, discharged, and fly to more con- 
 genial company. Just one glance he gave, 
 when that asylum was reached at last, to a 
 bevy of girls clustering round the piano, to 
 make sure that his daughter, who has not 
 been of the dinner guests, has found her 
 w^ay safely to the Hall. A nod from a 
 pretty little head with smooth coils of 
 brown hair rewarded that careful glance. 
 
 * My girl wouldn't be the last a youug 
 fellow would pick out, be her company 
 who they may,' thinks the fond father as he 
 seeks the side of a brother parson.
 
 16 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 ' I could only catch a word or two of 
 what was said over the wine,' he begins 
 in an eager undertone, * but tell me, like a 
 good fellow as you are, Morgan, didn't the 
 young squire half promise to stand for the 
 county, as well as wholly engaging to take 
 over the hounds ? ' 
 
 Mr. Morgan, a very stout and jolly-look- 
 ing man, nodded his head till his fat cheeks 
 shook about, and made answer, as he slowly 
 rubbed his hands — 
 
 ' Aye, aye ! Sir Tancred and old Lenham 
 put the thing in a way that was irresistible ; 
 and he's a fine fellow, the young squire, 
 and will be a credit to Parliament. There 
 will be a formal deputation by and by to 
 invite him to stand. As to the hounds, he 
 makes no difficulty, not a bit more than his 
 grandfather before him ; hell take them, 
 just whenever Cumby drops, and never ask 
 for a subscription, I warrant.'
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY, 17 
 
 The eyes of the two parsons met, well 
 pleased, and each, chuckled, as men who feel 
 that things are shaping just as they should. 
 To Mr. Holbrooke especially the weal of 
 the house of West stood second to no 
 consideration, not even the future of the 
 bright -faced girl yonder. It was delightful 
 to him that the head of that house should 
 be ready to assume such positions as the 
 worthiest of his forefathers had often filled. 
 Of John West's fitness for any position, or 
 of the likelihood of his being called, in 
 some such way as at present, by acclama- 
 tion of his neighbours to an honourable 
 eminence, the rector had never doubted, 
 but he had harboured a secret dread lest 
 the young squire's complaisance might not 
 be found equal to his undoubted capacity. 
 For it was indeed a fact, known to none 
 better than his old friend and tutor, that, 
 except from his mother. West was some- 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 what intolerant of advice, that he was 
 confessedly somewhat wedded to his own 
 opinions, somewhat disdainful of what he 
 deemed twaddle ; bad in short to lead, as 
 he was bad to beat. In such a matter as 
 this invitation to contest the division of his 
 county at the next election, a suspicion of 
 patronage, an attempt to pat him blandly 
 on the back, might so easily have sent him 
 off at a tangent, utterly mutinous and 
 impracticable. But it was plain that Mr. 
 Lenham and the baronet of Fleeces Park 
 (who were among the leading Conservatives 
 of the district) had been discreet so far 
 and wary, and great was the satisfaction 
 diffused by the news that West of Sward- 
 ham was to be the true blue candidate, 
 come next election. 
 
 Soothed and gratified as the rector had 
 been by this colloquy with his brother- 
 parson, and by the expressions of satisfac-
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 19 
 
 tion which he heard on all hands at the 
 present prospect, both sporting and political, 
 his thoughts reverted before the end of the 
 evening to the strange, uncomfortable man 
 who had spoiled his relish for his glass of 
 port that night, and who had ventured to 
 base strange, uncomfortable theories on 
 something which he professed to discern 
 in the face of the best woman in the world, 
 one 
 
 * Half-canonized by all that look'd on her, 
 So gracious was her tact and tenderness.' 
 
 There she sat, her slim and upright figure, 
 all in black velvet and delicate point 
 d'Alengon, in high relief against the exuber- 
 ant outline and lightly-tinted draperies of 
 Sir Tancred Woollett's elderly bride. Her 
 w^hite hair is smoothed from an unruffled 
 brow ; her finely-cut features, her placid 
 and gracious expression, are as serenely 
 admirable as they have appeared to Mr. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 Holbrooke for half his lifetime. As he 
 prolongs his scrutiny the room is hushed 
 for a song, and while Lady Woollett falls 
 comfortably back to fan and listen, and all 
 eyes turn to the piano, where two pretty 
 girls are warbling a duet, he sees a sudden 
 change pass over Mrs. West's face, which 
 fills him with vague disquietude ; for in a 
 moment the peace of that refined, handsome 
 countenance seems to have fled. The brows 
 are slightly contracted, the eyelids droop 
 wearily, the lips are set painfully, and the 
 fingers of one thin, well-shaped hand are 
 nervously clasped and unclasped around 
 the other wrist. In a very few minutes 
 the song is over, and guests, mindfid of 
 long homeward drives, are making for their 
 hostess to tender their adieu. But they do 
 not see the face which has just troubled 
 the rector. In a moment Mrs. West is 
 herself again, calm, courteous, serene of
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGXOMY. 2i 
 
 aspect, gracious in manner. It must have 
 been a passing qualm, on which none would 
 base comments but a prying, prating 
 stranger. It was rubbish, mere imperti- 
 nent drivelling on this Auchmuty's part ; 
 and yet, indignant as it made him, that 
 slander haunted the rector and set him 
 aTthinking. 
 
 'Mary,' he said, taking his daughter's 
 hand within his great-coat sleeve as they 
 started for the rectory, * you are an observ- 
 ant little maid, and you love and honour 
 Mrs. West, I know ; do you see any change 
 in her of late ? ' 
 
 Pretty Mary Holbrooke slackened her 
 pace along the smooth gravel as she col- 
 lected her straying thoughts to answer her 
 father. 
 
 *Any change, papa? I have never put 
 it before myself directly, as your question 
 puts it, but all this year I have had a
 
 23 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 consciousness of something — what shall I 
 call it ? — of some sort of shadow, which has 
 fallen on her dear, noble spirit. She is as 
 good and delightful as ever, but not as 
 happy perhaps. What can be the cause, 
 do you think, papa ? ^ 
 
 But, beyond an inarticulate groan, the 
 rector gave his daughter no answer. He 
 was indeed too dismayed to speak. How 
 w^as it that a change in his most valued 
 friend, a change palpable to babes and 
 sucklings, and to casual visitors, should 
 have made no impression on him ? But was 
 it not rather that, like his daughter, he 
 had never put any direct question to him- 
 self on the point ? With uneasiness he 
 besfan to recall various indications that all 
 
 o 
 
 was not as it had been with Mrs. West. Not 
 since Easter (and it was now November) 
 had she knelt among the few communirauts 
 around the holy table at which he minis-
 
 A STUDENT OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 23 
 
 tered ; she wlio had been so regular in her 
 religious duties. Humble-minded as she 
 had ever been, and averse to hear herself 
 praised, there had been almost horror in 
 her manner when, on several recent occa- 
 sions, she had, with vehement self-abase- 
 ment, repudiated some encomium offered 
 to her charitable zeal. And to-night there 
 had been, while the attention of the rest 
 was distracted from her, that sad scared 
 look, so foreign to those calm features. 
 Alas ! he had deserved the sneer levelled 
 by this Scotch heathen at his priesthood. 
 A wiser, better man, though no Eoman 
 confessor, might perchance have spared this 
 noble heart some suffering which now is 
 burdening it — suffering innocently incurred, 
 for of wronor-doing no taint could cleave to 
 Eachel West. 
 
 Thus musino: the rector hurried his child 
 through the darkling shrubberies, and stood
 
 24 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 at last at his own porcli ; and, like a good 
 girl as she was, Mary respected his medi- 
 tations, and kept discreet silence, till she 
 bid her father a filial good night.
 
 WESTS PAST AND PEESENT. 25 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 WESTS PAST AND PKESENT. 
 
 rpHE Wests of Swardham were, as has 
 ^ been intimated by the family's staunch 
 champion, the rector, a long-descended 
 house ; indeed their unbroken connection 
 with their hereditary acres could not be 
 paralleled in all Longshire, if elsewhere in 
 the Midlands. Exalted as was the rank 
 of the Duke of Hexham, the "Woodvils, a 
 family of the north country, had only been 
 in Longshire since George the First's reign, 
 when the then Earl of Hexham had married 
 the heiress of Marloes. As to the Fitz 
 Eaymonds, the epoch was scarcely beyond
 
 26 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 the memory of a few surviving patriarchs 
 when the eminent law-lord and founder of 
 that imposingly-named branch of nobility 
 bad bought Smugby, and christened the 
 Palladian pile, which he built on the site of 
 the old hall, ' Beausite.' Neither peerage 
 bad ever eclipsed the glories and the pre- 
 eminence of Swardham in the eyes of true 
 Longshire folk. As there was no larger, so 
 was there no better landlord than Squire 
 West, whether grandsire or grandson. The 
 fine old red-brick house, in its stately park, 
 was the scene of no intermittent hospitali- 
 ties; for if the Longshire folk appreciated 
 the Wests, they in turn made their only 
 home amid the Longshire grass-lands and 
 elms, leaving Swardham seldom and re- 
 luctantly, and returning to it gladly and 
 with all possible despatch. 
 
 A worthy representative of his house in 
 all respects had been John West, spoken of
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 27 
 
 in these pages as the old squire. About 
 him, in the old hall where he himself was 
 born, there sprang children, of whom three 
 alone survived infancy, two sons and one 
 daughter, the same Rachel West for whom 
 the rector is, in her old age, growing anxious. 
 The elder son, John, was in all things the 
 counterpart of his father. To him, as also 
 to his sister, had descended the command- 
 ing figure, the dark hair, and haughty, 
 regular features characteristic of generations 
 of Wests. The younger son, Adolphus by 
 name, resembled the family of his mother, 
 whose darling and youngest born he was. 
 Delicate from his childhood, he had been 
 spoiled and fondled by maternal partiality, 
 and grew up a fragile, wilful stripling, on 
 whom his father looked with little favour. 
 Never, so the old squire declared, had a West 
 been unwilling to look all the world full in 
 the face, till this saucy shaver appeared,
 
 28 WEST OF SWARDIIAM. 
 
 with his shifty blue eyes and receding chin, 
 his dandified ways and girlish petulance. 
 But John West loved his wife, and for her 
 sake took little apparent notice of the boy's 
 peculiarities, endeavouring to trust him as 
 he trusted his other children. In due time 
 Adolphus went up to Christ Church, and 
 it was in his second term that his mother 
 died, commending her boy with her last 
 breath to her husband's forbearance, and to 
 the special care of his elder sister. Rachel 
 West indeed discharged her trust as far as 
 in her lay right loyally and lovingly, but 
 between Adolphus and his f\itlier a breach 
 presently opened which widened rapidly, 
 until a sad and unexpected ending parted 
 the twain for ever. At Oxford Adolphus 
 had done nothinor to conciliate his sire or 
 enhance his own reputation. There were, 
 on the contrary, troubles without end for 
 the proud squire as long as his son's uni-
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 29 
 
 versity career lasted — money troubles to 
 be^in, tben rustication and other troubles 
 with the authorities, culminating in expul- 
 sion, and, alas ! disgrace. Deeply stung by 
 his son s previous conduct, the father was at 
 last wounded to the quick by the announce- 
 ment that the lad was not only a gambler, 
 but a fraudulent gambler, a detected cheat. 
 In his agony of rage and humiliation he for- 
 bade the name of Adolphus to be mentioned 
 in his presence, and swore to erase him 
 from his heart and consideration for ever. 
 It is questionable indeed whether relief did 
 not outweigh all paternal regrets when, 
 within three months of his expulsion from 
 Oxford, Adolphus died at a London lodging- 
 house, after a short illness, from which 
 dissipation, and possibly despair, forbade his 
 rallying. Wretched, however, as was this 
 closing scene of a misspent life, the dyino- 
 man was not abandoned to hirelinor hands.
 
 30 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 His sister, then a bride of a few montlis* 
 standino:, was in London with her husband, 
 and, when summoned to the sick chamber, 
 stayed there to the sad end, doing all that 
 woman's love could suQ:gjest to soothe those 
 awful hours. In her kind ear Adolphus 
 poured all his miserable confessions, and, 
 thanks to her sisterly consolations, he passed 
 away less comfortless than many a better 
 man. 
 
 Within two short years Eachel Woodvil 
 sat by another deathbed, but this time it 
 was her own husband whose eyes she 
 closed. Handsome, popular, and thriftless, 
 George Woodvil was probably saved by an 
 early death from the melancholy decline 
 and fall which overtakes most of his class. 
 As it was, the glamour of early love was 
 not yet dispelled from the young wife's 
 affections, and though Woodvil left behind 
 him, out of a once ample fortune, barely
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 31 
 
 sufficient to pay his debts, his widow's heart 
 never conceived a reproach against his im- 
 providence, and their boy was taught to 
 love his father's memory, although he 
 resigned after a time that father's name. 
 Ill, however, as in w^orldly gear she was 
 left by her husband, her father's love and 
 care shielded the widow and her baby son 
 from all nearer acquaintance with the woes 
 of poverty. The very day after Woodvil's 
 funeral, the squire brought his daughter 
 and the child home to Swardham, and the 
 old house rejoiced to find once more a 
 mistress. Nor was Rachel less cordially 
 welcomed by her only surviving brother, 
 who was still a bachelor, and took his full 
 share in making much of her and petting 
 his sturdy little nephew. 
 
 Thus in peace and amity the years passed 
 on, and the breaches torn by storms of 
 sorrow in the stalwart old squire had been
 
 32 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 closed and well-nigli obliterated, when once 
 more his proud head was bowed before the 
 blast of adversity as he stood by the corpse 
 of the sole inheritor of his ancient name, 
 his eldest gotten and the son of his love. 
 John West the younger was a mighty 
 hunter, a fearless and judicious rider, one 
 skilled in all the arts of horsemanship, and 
 victor in many a trying tussle w^ith half- 
 broken colts and stubborn beasts. And 
 yet for this man, so famed in the field, so 
 proof for over twenty seasons against all 
 accidents, it was reserved that he should 
 meet his death within the familiar en- 
 closure of his father's park, and by a fall 
 from a steady old hunter ridden for exercise 
 and old association's sake upon a summer's 
 afternoon. A feeble folk are the conies, 
 but it was one of these which, straying and 
 burrowing where none had strayed before, 
 caused old Tartar to come down amid his
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 33 
 
 easy swinging gallop as though he had 
 been shot, and pitched Tartar's master over 
 his ears, to light upon his head amid the 
 uncurling ferns. The old horse scrambled 
 up presently, shaking and shivering, and 
 limped with a strained pastern towards 
 his stable, but the rider never stirred 
 again from wdiere he lay among the brake 
 with his head strangely bent beneath him. 
 They said afterwards that had he been 
 equipped as for the hunting field, his tall 
 hat might have broken his fall and saved 
 his life, but there could be no protection 
 in the light cap w^hich he wore. It might 
 be, but John AVest was a heavy man, heavy 
 as well as tall, as they had reason to 
 remark who bore him on a hurdle to the 
 old hall door, where the father met the 
 bearers, and saw at a glance what had 
 occurred. 
 
 ' His neck is broken/ said the old squire 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 as he turned at last away, and withdrew 
 from men's eyes. 
 
 It seemed to him in that black hour that 
 the world was ended for him, and that the 
 dead only were to be envied their lot. But 
 the old squire lived on, lived to be cheered 
 by his daughter's constant tenderness and 
 his grandson's bright promise, lived till in 
 his latest days he would confuse at times 
 the living with the dead, and believe that 
 the John whose youthful presence he loved 
 was verily his own first begotten restored 
 from out of the past. 
 
 From the moment in which he besran to 
 
 o 
 
 recover himself from the stupor of affliction 
 that had weighed him down when his last 
 remaining son was thus suddenly taken from 
 him, the old man had designated as his sole 
 heir this last offshoot from the old stock, 
 and by his desire mother and son had at 
 once dropped their name of Woodvil for
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 35 
 
 that of West. It was then a comfort to 
 the squire that his grandson had inherited 
 nothino^ from his dead father save blood fit 
 to mix with that of the Wests' ; nothing 
 that could threaten to rival or diminish 
 Swardham's importance in its next posses- 
 sor's eyes. And on all hands it was ad- 
 mitted that in young John West, as he grew 
 up to man's estate, no characteristic was 
 lacking that had distinguished the house of 
 Swardham ; that he was as masterful and 
 proud, as honourable and manly as any that 
 had come before him : a stiff-necked man 
 perhaps among his equals, but a kind master 
 and a good friend to the poor, for whom he 
 would always have a pleasant word. 
 
 Three years of energetic idling at Eton 
 saw young West's longest absences from 
 Swardham, for to college he resolutely 
 declined to go, and though his grandfather 
 would laugh at him and quote, ' Homc- 
 
 D 2
 
 3G WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 keeping youths have ever homely wits,' the 
 old man was secretly well content to have 
 his few remaining years gladdened by his 
 heir s constant presence ; while as to Rachel 
 West, she fondly thought her boy's passion- 
 ate attachment to his home yet another proof 
 of his superiority to all other youngsters of 
 like age. And so, beyond a little reading 
 of a lax description under Mr. Holbrooke's 
 gentle supervision, John West's education 
 was supposed to be finished when he left 
 Eton, where he had forgotten a little of his 
 small grounding in general knowledge, and 
 merely acquired a facility of knocking off a 
 copy of Latin verses. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, for the lad, his mother Avas a well- 
 read woman, proficient in French, and not 
 ignorant of other European languages, and 
 the deep love which subsisted between the 
 pair made it easy for the one to impart 
 and the other to acquire a respectable
 
 WESTS PxA.ST AND PRESENT. 37 
 
 fund of knowledge more useful than the 
 knack of stringing together hexameters and 
 pentameters. 
 
 To her who had so well stood to him 
 in the stead of both parents, John West 
 felt that he ow^ed all the culture of which he 
 could boast, and deficient as this may seem 
 to the learned youth of a more advanced 
 day, it sufficed to enable the young squire 
 to hold his own, and more, among the 
 chiefs of Longshire society. With most of 
 the squires it was enough that AVest was 
 a capital rider and shot, and had sound 
 ideas as to the management of an estate. 
 They would indeed have liked him. less and 
 feared him more had he been reputed over- 
 whelmingly book-learned. 
 
 The old squire had been gathered to his 
 fathers, after lingering on to a most vener- 
 able old age, some two years before this 
 story opens, and John West was squire in
 
 38 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 his stead, but as yet he had made no change 
 in his manner of life, well content to dwell 
 among his own people, and in no hurry, 
 though he had now passed his thirtieth 
 year, to bring a wife home to dis2:)ute his 
 mother's beneficent sway. 
 
 Admirably indeed did Eachel West fill 
 her station as lady of the Hall, and wisely 
 and well did she rule the great house, which 
 had been her home from birth to age, save 
 for those three short years of married life. 
 Not her old friend the rector only, but 
 many neighbouring clergy, and still more of 
 the neighbouring poor, held her as a sainted 
 being, living only to do good to all with 
 wdiom she came in contact. Nor, amid her 
 ceaseless charities, was Mrs. West neglectful 
 of her social duties. It was agreed on all 
 hands that no more perfect pattern of a 
 hostess, no brig-hter ornament of the o'enial 
 society of the county, could be found than
 
 WESTS PAST AND PRESENT. 39 
 
 the lady of Swardham, of whom it was 
 often remarked that she had made a hard 
 if not a hopeless task for any woman 
 who should succeed her as mistress of the 
 HaU.
 
 40 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 
 
 TT was a Lright morning a few days after 
 tlie dinuer-party described in our first 
 chapter, and Swardham village was giving 
 proof that even in November it could look 
 pretty under a bright blue sky, in spite of 
 mud and fallen leaves. Though the tall 
 elms were all but stripped of their glory, 
 the sturdy oak on the little green retained 
 its foliage, now bleached to a pale russet, 
 until the first sharp frost should give the 
 signal for the leaves to come whirling down 
 upon the parish pound and the roof of the 
 little round-house, or lock-up for trivial
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 41 
 
 offenders. There were ivy-covered gables 
 too fronting the little street, and a few 
 monthly roses making a show still against 
 white cottage walls. 
 
 From the little wicket at the corner of 
 his garden the rector emerges, bound for 
 his schools, and with his daughter by his 
 side. A bright cheery girl is this Mar}^ 
 Holbrooke, as she picks her way with elastic 
 steps among the puddles left by yester- 
 night's down-pour, and jokes with her more 
 heavy-footed sire. She has a fair skin and 
 the rosiest of checks. Her mouth is small 
 and pretty, and as she laughs often, it can 
 be seen that her teeth are beautiful — white, 
 small, and even. Decidedly her mouth and 
 dimpled chin, and the shape of her head 
 and outline of her face, have not a fault 
 to be found with them. Her head is well 
 set on too, and her fiofure lithe and o-race- 
 ful, though evidently robust. And if her
 
 42 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 nose is sometliinoj broader and her bridit 
 eyes something smaller than might content 
 critics, at least her brown hair is smooth 
 and glossy, and her expression so cheerfully 
 animated, that it might well be forgiven 
 to her fond father if he took pride in his 
 only child's appearance, and loved to see 
 her always neat and trim, and thoroughly 
 well-dressed on fitting occasions. 
 
 * Who in the world can that be standimr 
 
 o 
 
 at the wheelwright's ? ' cries Mary suddeuly. 
 ' Do look, papa ; did you ever see such an 
 oddity ? ' 
 
 Odd enough certainly, as far as the back 
 view went (and they could see no more), 
 was the figure towards which they were 
 advancing. It was that of a tall thin man, 
 apparently absorbed in reading a printed 
 bill stuck on one of the wheelwright's 
 shutters. From neck to heel this form was 
 clad in a shiny casing of white mackintosh,
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 43 
 
 but over either shoulder and finally round 
 the waist, girdle fashion, a long plaid of 
 many-hued tartan was deftly arranged. 
 On the head was a quaint cap, with many 
 fur-lined flaps, now tied up by strings 
 which met over the crown in a sort of crest 
 or top-knot ; and finally, on the hands, 
 which were clasped behind the back and 
 held a huge and knotted stafi*, were vast 
 gauntlets of fur and leather the like of 
 which Swardham had never seen. No 
 wonder that the men in the work-shop 
 were orrinnino: out of the door, or that a 
 small train of school-eschewing urchins, 
 truants or baby- carriers, were gaping at 
 a safe distance on the other side of the 
 street. 
 
 Strangers were rarities in Swardham 
 street, and if the rector did not gape 
 himself, he went as near it as a mannerly 
 beneficed clergyman could go. But while
 
 44 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Lis eyes were fixed on the tall unknown; 
 the latter turned abruptly round, and re- 
 vealed, as he greeted the parson and his 
 daughter, the unwelcome lineaments of Mr. 
 Auchmuty. There was no mistaking those 
 twinkling eyes that gazed through apertures 
 contracted to mere slits, nor that yellow 
 lantern- jawed visage, and if the rector had 
 considered these peculiarities objectionable 
 when the man w^as clothed in ordinary 
 evening dress, that puritan uniform which 
 gives such small scope for variety or dis- 
 play, he found them almost offensive when 
 set off by the queer garb which has been 
 described. And there w^as a sort of look 
 of triumph in the man's face as he hailed 
 the unwilling rector, wdiich the latter found 
 bad to bear, even while he murmared some 
 response to the other's greeting and strove 
 to pass on. 
 
 * Not till ye've read this, if ye're in the
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 45 
 
 biggest of hurries. Why, it consamis you 
 deeply, meenister I it's an attempt to en- 
 lighten your flock, for which their pastor 
 should be grateful/ 
 
 Mary Holbrooke opened her eyes in 
 amazement as her father, most ungraciously 
 for him, turned to read the printed, hand- 
 bill newly stuck on the wheelwright's 
 shutter. It was headed, ' To the labouring 
 men and women and all toilers of Long- 
 shire,' and after some short and trenchant 
 lines to the effect that they who too 
 patiently bear the yoke do not deserve to 
 be free, invited every adult worker in 
 Swardham to attend a meeting to be held 
 on the nicrht next but one followino; in Mr. 
 Hockrill's great barn, when a deputation 
 from the ' Rights of Man Assertion Society ' 
 in Lougborough would be present, and the 
 meeting would be addressed by Messrs. 
 Barnett, Van Lennep, and other well-known
 
 46 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 champions of the oppressed, and resolutions 
 proposed in condemnation and amendment 
 of the present land system, game laws, 
 payment of tithes, &c., &c., &c. 
 
 The malicious Auchmuty, as he narrowly 
 watched the rector's face during the reading 
 of this document, enjoyed so rare a treat 
 that he could scarce refrain from chuckling 
 aloud, and, his victim facing him at last 
 with ill -concealed annoyance and dismay, 
 he burst out — 
 
 * Aha ! it does consairn you then ! but of 
 course in a parish such as this of yours, so 
 unanimous, so blest in its temporalities and 
 speeritualities alike, these fellows will only 
 lose their pains, perhaps find themselves 
 back at Longborough with a flea in each 
 ear ; perhaps even make acquaintance with 
 your horse-pond first ! Odd though that 
 they should so easily secure a place for 
 their meeting, and that these bills should
 
 SHAKES IN ARCADIA. 47 
 
 be allowed to remain in every prominent 
 point of the place ! It's that that annoys 
 ye ! but you'll see how your fine faithful 
 fellows will put these rascals to shame and 
 confusion when it comes to an aro^ument. 
 Yet their effrontery is irritating ! The idea 
 of their fancying that there was a promising 
 field for them in this little heaven below ! ' 
 and Mr. Auchmuty uplifted his great gloves 
 towards heaven above, as if overcome by 
 the depravity of these intruders. 
 
 Mr. Holbrooke, who had by this time 
 regained outward equanimity, coldly made 
 answer that though this was a new and 
 unexpected development of a miscliievous 
 activity, no immunity from such visitations 
 could be secured while Longborough, a 
 vile radical place, was only six miles 
 distant. 
 
 * Neither is the owner of the barn here 
 mentioned, nor yet is his brother, who
 
 48 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 has boucyht this wheelwriorht's business, a 
 Swardham man. They come from close by 
 Longborough, and are new settlers and 
 nobodies among us. I trust Sir Tancred 
 and Lady Woollett are well. Good morn- 
 ing to you, Mr. Auchmuty, unless I can 
 be of any further service, for my girl and 
 I are overdue at the schools.' 
 
 Having, as he termed it to himself, taken 
 a glorious rise out of a prejudiced parson, 
 Mr. Auchmuty was willing to let him 
 depart, and with an angular bow to Mary, 
 stalked off in the opposite direction. 
 
 * Now, Heaven forgive Sir Tancred,' cried 
 the rector when fairly under way again, 
 ' for bringing that man into Longshire ! 
 Faugh ! he is worse than those wretched 
 agitators, who, one hopes, know no better. 
 If his sister is anything like liim they'll 
 kill poor old Woollett between them/ 
 
 'He's very sarcastic, papa, and certainly
 
 SNAKES IN AKCADIA. 49 
 
 disagreeable, and most extraordinary to 
 look at ; but I don't think it follows that 
 Lady "Woollett is a bad sort of woman. 
 She seemed good-natured though she talked 
 more- about "poor Mr. Fife/' who was her 
 first husband, I believe, than I should quite 
 like, were I Sir Tancred. But you mustn't 
 be put out by people who are here to-day 
 and gone to-morrow, which is equally true 
 and comforting concerning Mr. Auchmuty 
 or the men from Lonsborough.' 
 
 The rector shook his head dubiously, 
 and being by this time at the door of his 
 schools, was parted from his daughter for 
 a while. He was soon seated as usual with 
 a circle of the elder scholars round him, and 
 the Scripture lesson was in progress ; but 
 never before had the class found so little 
 attention from their instructor. The rector 
 was always disposed to be lenient, but to- 
 day he actually allowed glaring errors to 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 pass unnoticed, and once or twice he was 
 suddenly roused by loud tittering to the 
 consciousness that something ridiculous had 
 been said or done of which he, wdio was 
 responsible for the maintenance of decency 
 and order, was totally oblivious. 
 
 * He said Bath-babby, please, sir ! that's 
 the way he's read Bethabara twice, please, 
 sir ! and you never said nothing. Bath 
 babby indeed ! ' and a giggle ran round the 
 circle. 
 
 Yet neither this candid appeal nor other 
 similar reminders availed to rescue the 
 rector from his brown study, or to restore 
 the damaged discipline of the Bible- class. 
 The sight of this ill-omened man had 
 brought back to Mr. Holbrooke's mind all 
 his apprehensions with regard to Mrs. West. 
 He was an easy-going man, of a sanguine 
 turn of mind, and the fears aroused on the 
 evening of the dinner-party had been since
 
 SNAKES m ARCADIA. 51 
 
 partially lulled. He had indeed only seen 
 Mrs. West at church, and for a moment as 
 she passed the rectory gate after service ; 
 but she had looked as well and cheerful as 
 usual, and he had been glad to persuade 
 himself that there was nothing amiss with 
 her. To-day, however, since his encounter 
 with Mr. Auchmuty, his doubts and fears 
 seemed to have revived, and considerable 
 as was his chagrin at the threatened in-^ 
 cursion of Longborough demagogues, he 
 brooded rather over the man's mysterious 
 insinuations against Mrs. West's peace of 
 mind, than over any word which he had 
 uttered just now in the village street. 
 
 It was over at last, and the class dis- 
 missed, the good boys and usual fLivourites 
 more or less dispirited for lack of apprecia- 
 tion, the wilder spirits rampant with the 
 glee of unrebuked and triumphant naughti- 
 ness. The rector sighed as he put on his 
 
 E 2 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 hat, and waited a minute or two for his 
 dauo-hter to emero;e from the room sacred to 
 the girls. Was there indeed some serpent 
 in his Eden ? and was he henceforth to live 
 in terror of finding its slimy track in all 
 the fairest places ? His heart swelled with 
 thankfulness as his daughter joined him, 
 blithe, rosy, and briskly inspired with a 
 sense of a good hour's work finished. Here 
 at least he would defy any serpent to coil, 
 and while Mary was, as now, his own loved, 
 loving child, undimmed by care or sorrow, 
 black indeed would be the hour in which 
 her brightness would not shed sufficient 
 light, cruel tlie pang which she could not 
 cheat of its sharpness. 
 
 ' Were you thinking of going up to the 
 Hall for lunch to-day, my dear ? ' he asked, 
 as they turned into the road. 
 
 Lunch at the Hall was an informal elastic 
 meal, at which the rector and Mary usually
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 53 
 
 assisted twice or so in the week, dropping 
 in without special invitation. 
 
 ' And you'll come too, won't you, papa ? ' 
 
 *Not to-day, dear, I think, not to-day. 
 But I'll walk part of the way with you.' 
 
 He longed yet dreaded to convince him- 
 self by further observations of the truth 
 or untruth of the surmises of the student 
 of physiognomy, which had fallen on him 
 like a stone into the bosom of some quiet 
 pool, and hence came a state of indecision. 
 
 'Why,' says Mary, 'isn't this Willie 
 Turner ? and why are you not at school, 
 Willie, and what are these ? ' 
 
 A flaxen-headed boy of twelve, in patched 
 corduroys and a large clean collar is con- 
 fronting them, in his hand a fluttering sheaf 
 of small hand- bills. 
 
 ' Please, miss, father says it's time I arnt 
 summut, and I've got this job from Mester 
 'Ockerill. Will you be pleased to take one,
 
 54 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 miss ? and you, sir, please ? they pay me 
 by how many I can get folks to take, and 
 trustens to my honour not to make away 
 w^ith none, and pretend as how I have give 
 'em to folks/ 
 
 "With this, after handing over two of his 
 bills, the important functionary bustled 
 away to the other side of the road, where 
 he entered forthwith into a long compli- 
 cated and lively passage of arms with an 
 illiterate and very deaf old woman, who 
 resisted his proffer of a bill as a dire and 
 wanton indignity. 
 
 ' They are more notices of this precious 
 meeting to-morrow,' says the rector with 
 a snort of contempt, 'padded with quota- 
 tions from ribald, atheistical, chartist books. 
 Upon my word, things have come to a 
 pretty pass, when such trash is foisted on 
 one by one's own day-scholars in Swardham 
 Street,' and the rector crumpled up his
 
 SNAKES IN ARCADIA. 55 
 
 paper viciously, and jerked it over into 
 Widow Skerrett's pig-stye. 
 
 ' Put yours in your pocket, Mary, my 
 dear, and if they liaven't heard of this 
 intrusion at the Hall, you can show them 
 the kind of thing that our very children are 
 being corrupted with.' 
 
 ' I'll take care of it, papa ; but I don't 
 suppose any of the children, even Willie 
 Turner himself, will wade through such ar 
 closely printed thing, and all so dull and 
 stupid too. I'm quite glad that anything 
 wricked should be so unalluring,' and inno- 
 cent little Mary pocketed the wicked sheet 
 with all the grace imaginable. 
 
 ' Take special notice of dear Mrs. West, 
 Mary, when she thinks no one is minding 
 her, and so on. I shall want to know 
 whether you think there is a trace of that 
 shadow you told me of.' 
 
 ' Very well, papa ; I'm sure to watch her,
 
 56 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 because I always do ; no one else is so well 
 worth noticing. But why don't you come 
 and make your own observations ? ' 
 
 'Young eyes are sometimes better than 
 old, my dear/ says the rector, and trudges 
 back from the lodge-gate through the mud 
 towards the village, forgetful of his luncheon, 
 while Mary speeds gaily along the smooth 
 gravel to the old red Hall.
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 57 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 
 
 rpHE long lofty dining-room looks very 
 pleasant to-day, with the sunlight 
 streaming through its tall windows and 
 lighting up the many paintings which hang 
 on the panelled walls. It is just one of 
 those well-proportioned, well-furnished, per- 
 fectly ventilated rooms which never seems 
 crowded by a large party, or ghostly when, 
 as now, there is but one guest to support 
 the mistress of the house. In thorough 
 keeping with her surroundings is Eachel 
 West. She is a tall woman, still as upright 
 as when she was a famous horse-woman,
 
 58 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 and though her dark hair has become very 
 white, the lustre of her large brown eyes is 
 undimmed, and her pale complexion is un- 
 tarnished by sallowness, nor are there many 
 lines upon her ample forehead. She is 
 plainly but well dressed in black, and wears 
 a widow's cap, but a cap so worn and 
 fashioned as to be anything but unbecoming. 
 Mary Holbrooke has been from her child- 
 hood a prime favourite with Mrs. "West, and 
 for some years past the pair have been 
 constantly associated in all those depart- 
 ments of parish work wdiich are best 
 undertaken by feminine tact and diligence, 
 and so successful are they in their en- 
 deavours, that no poor woman in Swardham 
 need deplore the fact that her rector is a 
 widower. To-day, as the squire, who is 
 wont laughingly to taboo what he calls 
 * parish shop,' has ridden over to Marlocs, 
 Mrs. West and Mary have had it all their
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 59 
 
 own way, and the elder woman has en- 
 couraged the girl to talk, looking now and 
 then fondly on her animated face. Their 
 meal and their chat have come to an end, 
 when Mary exclaims : 
 
 * Oh, I nearly had forgotten that I have 
 in my pocket something most wicked and 
 shocking, which I'm to show you ! Don't 
 be alarmed, it's nothing that will go off 
 with a pop, and its wickedness isn't catching, 
 or papa wouldn't have intrusted it to me. 
 Willie Turner is up and down street putting 
 these things into the hands of the unwary 
 passer-by, and papa looked ready to box the 
 poor boy's ears.' 
 
 As she spoke she smoothed out the 
 hand-bill on the table, and passed it to her 
 hostess with a comical glance, and then 
 bent to reprove an importunate terrier, who 
 was begging at her side, and had presumed 
 to give her one or two impatient digs with
 
 60 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 his shaggy paw. For a minute or so Mary 
 stooped over Waxy, and as she lectured 
 him stroked the hair over his bright eyes, 
 then raising herself, turned towards Mrs. 
 West to ask what the stupid deputation 
 meant which had almost made her father 
 cross. But the word died on her parted 
 lips as her eyes fell on her friend's face. 
 AVith the hand-bill laid in front of her on 
 the table Mrs. West sat rigid and speechless, 
 staring into vacancy, with a terror-struck 
 expression in her eyes. In a moment she 
 seemed to have aged and fallen away, and 
 the hands tightly clasped before here were 
 trembling painfully. In an instant Mary 
 was at her side. 
 
 * You are ill, dear Mrs. West,' she cried, 
 trying to control her alarm, * do let me ring 
 and tell them to fetch Dr. Leith, or will 
 you lie down here ? — Oh pray speak to me, 
 and tell me what to do ! '
 
 MOTHER AND SOX. 61 
 
 But Mrs. West was plainly unconscious 
 of her words if not of her presence, for she 
 still sat staring fixedly before her, till 
 suddenly, springing to her feet, she hid her 
 eyes behind her shaking hand, and cried 
 out, in a hoarse voice all unlike her usual 
 gentle tones : 
 
 * Here ! here in Swardham 1 it is fated ; 
 and can I resist ? ' 
 
 Then, as an ashen pallor overspread her 
 features, she rocked to and fro, and fell to 
 the ground in a swoon so sudden that the 
 terrified girl was unable to prevent her 
 measuring her length upon the carpet. 
 First flying to the bell, Mary knelt by 
 her friend and supported her head, and 
 there were soon helpers enough, who, with 
 many questions and ejaculations, moved the 
 prostrate lady to a couch in an adjoining 
 room. In marvellously short space, as it 
 seemed to Mary, both doctor and rector
 
 62 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 were on tlie spot, and the former enjoining 
 perfect quiet for his patient, whose con- 
 sciousness had now returned, father and 
 dauirhter withdrew in unfei^^ned tribuhttioa 
 of spirit. 
 
 ' I cannot tell ; I saw nothing to account 
 for the seizure, or prepare us for it,' Mary 
 had said fifty times in answer to anxious 
 inquiries, and now, alone with her father, she 
 could say little more. ' Of course it can have 
 nothing to do wdth it, but I liad just given 
 Mrs. West one of Willie Turner's hand-bills. 
 She certainly took it from me just before 
 she was taken ill, and up to that moment 
 was just as usual, indeed in better spirits 
 than she has often been of late. I don't 
 even know whether she read the thing, for 
 I was playing with Waxy,' (this in a tone 
 of compunction,) * and when I looked up 
 again, there was our dear Mrs. West look- 
 inir as thoudi she had seen some fearful
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 63 
 
 apparition, and I was so frightened that 
 what else happened before she swooned and 
 the servants came I can't recollect a bit. 
 Whether it was the hand-bill or not, I shall 
 detest all such things more heartily than 
 ever, as they will always remind me of this 
 distress, and I should like to tear them all 
 down — look, papa, where they have stuck 
 them,' and Mary pointed with much dis- 
 favour to a stunted apple tree, growing in a 
 garden hedge, which was decorated with 
 one of the small bills, offering indeed no 
 room for the larger sort upon its meagre 
 trunk. 
 
 The rector stopped and looked stolidly 
 at the unpleasing object, which, unpleasing 
 as it was, seemed to offer no just cause for 
 the sudden consternation and swooning of 
 the squire's mother. Indeed, from where 
 he stood Mr. Holbrooke could only read 
 two lines, in larger type than the rest.
 
 64 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 and these merely gave the names of the 
 orators of the deputation — ' Barnett and 
 Van Lennep/ With a sigh and a shake of 
 the head the rector plodded onwards. 
 
 ' God forbid/ he said presently-^* God 
 forbid that this unaccountable seizure is a 
 symptom of grave danger ! If we should 
 lose her, none can ever make good the loss 
 to any of us. Perhaps, Mary, it was this 
 which has been hanging over her, and 
 causing that shadow which you fancied you 
 noticed where all used certainly to be 
 sunshine.' 
 
 Tender-hearted Mary pulled down her 
 veil abruptly as her eyes brimmed at the 
 suggestion, and could find no words in 
 reply, having indeed much ado to restrain 
 a rising sob. 
 
 * The poor squire,' the rector goes on, 
 ' how distressed he will be at what has 
 happened in his absence I There was
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 65 
 
 nothing to be gained by sending a groom 
 to bring him home, because he will have 
 started from Marloes long since, and he 
 never lets the grass grow under his feet/ 
 Meanwhile the young squire, mounted 
 on his favourite hack, was hardly justifying 
 the rector's description, as he sauntered 
 along the lanes, evidently occupied w^ith 
 his thoughts. Past many a spinny and 
 gorse he rode, along many a wide pasture, 
 within hearing of not a few purling brooks, 
 any or all of which might have suggested 
 trains of thought and roused reminiscences 
 in one who as boy and man had hunted 
 for some fifteen seasons in Longshire. But 
 it is not of the chase of wily Reynard, or of 
 his own prospects as destined master of the 
 familiar hounds that John West ruminates 
 to-day. He is contemplating a step far 
 more momentous than aught connected 
 with the hunt, nothing less indeed than 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 matrimony. And the lady whom he has 
 almost resolved to make his bride, is, as 
 the rector has hinted, no other than the 
 Duke of Hexham's eldest daughter, Lady 
 Emily Woodvil. He had left her an hour 
 ago in the conservatory at Marloes, some- 
 what disappointed, if the truth must be 
 told, that the interview had ended without 
 her being absolutely asked to change her 
 name to West/ 
 
 * He will write to your father, my dear,' 
 the duchess said to her daughter, who with- 
 held no confidence from her admirable 
 parent ; * there is a sort of fine old-fashioned 
 courtesy about Mr. West which would be 
 sure to influence him to write to your 
 father before speaking quite decisively to 
 you ; and really it's much to be commended 
 and quite uncommon in these days.' 
 
 Lady Emily pouted, as though she would 
 not have objected to the final disappearance
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 67 
 
 of all sncli old-fasliioned ways, but resigned 
 herself to trust in her mother's superior 
 wisdom. From this glimpse at the privacy 
 of the hig;h-born ladies of Marloes it will 
 be seen that John AVest ran no risk of ill- 
 success in his suit. It is indeed doubtful 
 whether a son-in-law less decidedly eligible 
 than the possessor of Swardham might not 
 have found fiivour, for the Lady Emily 
 was now eight- and-twenty, and after ten 
 seasons, somewhat less sanguine of success 
 than when she had been presented. Though 
 the favourite, as she was the eldest child 
 of her mother, and endowed with a good 
 figure, a good complexion, and regular 
 features, Lady Emily Woodvil had officiated 
 as bridesmaid to many of ber compeers, 
 and lastly to her own sister, a chit of 
 nineteen, with a dark skin and a snub nose, 
 and no notion of her own dignity, who 
 during the past summer had been betrothed 
 
 ¥ 2
 
 68 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 and wedded to the eldest son of an earl. 
 Can it then be wondered that the stately 
 Emily was anxious not to return to London, 
 scene of so many disappointments, still un- 
 engaged, or that her grace of Hexham lost 
 no opportunity of furthering her girl's 
 wishes ? 
 
 The duke's health had long been pre- 
 carious ; his heir, the son of a previous 
 marriage, bore no particular love to his step- 
 mother and half-sister ; and the duchess was 
 well aware of the importance of making her 
 hay while the sun shone, as she could not 
 hope it would continue to shine on a 
 dowager with a jointure somewhat modest 
 for ducal maintenance of even widowed 
 state. So John AVest's visits to Marloes 
 had been made very pleasant to him, and 
 especially of late had been tolerably fre- 
 quent. The duke's interest for his impend- 
 ing candidature, the duke's advice as to his
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 69 
 
 contemplated mastership of the hounds, 
 these had been excellent cards for a woman 
 of the world to play, and had given ample 
 cause for increasing intercourse between 
 Marloes and Swardham. And though the 
 duke himself, cooped up in a dull library, 
 and afflicted with asthma, had not after all 
 found much to say to his guest, still that 
 little had been so said as to convey to John 
 West only pleasant and friendly impres- 
 sions, and its brevity had been more than 
 counterbalanced by the reception alw^ays 
 accorded in the drawing-room. 
 
 *Your fathers were cousins,' the duchess 
 
 had said, 'so you are cousins, and it's 
 
 » 
 
 absurd to affect to make a stranger of you 
 here.' 
 
 It is questionable whether the cousinship 
 between the duke and poor George Wood- 
 vil, which indeed existed only in the second 
 or third degree, would not have passed
 
 70 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 vanisliing point in its transmission to their 
 children, had George's son inherited no 
 more than his fatlier's deficient assets ; but 
 there is no question but that the duchess 
 reminded her visitor very gracefully of the 
 tie of kindred, and that 'Lady Emily 
 behaved very prettily to her relative. Huge 
 was the interest displayed in the young 
 squire's ambition, whether to represent the 
 county or bear sway over kennels and 
 huntsmen, touching the solicitude mani- 
 fested as to dear Mrs. West's well-beinor : and 
 
 CD ^ 
 
 though the duchess was sometimes called 
 away by her invalid lord, or other duties of 
 her station, she never hesitated to leave her 
 child with her cousin, while Emily, when 
 so left, was for her part unwearied in her 
 attempts to make the hours pass pleasantly 
 for him at Marloes. Pleasantly, we must 
 suppose, the hours had passed, for as he 
 rides homewards to-day John West has
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 71 
 
 decided to ask in due form for the hand of 
 Lady Emily, and, so true a prophetess is 
 his future mother-in-law, to ask it in a 
 formal letter to the duke, before again 
 encountering his lady. Now it may be 
 that there have been true lovers who 
 adopted this method of declaring their 
 passion, but it must usually be concluded 
 that a gentleman who writes to a fair one's 
 fiither, even be that father a duke, before 
 he has poured his petition into the fair one's 
 ear, is a little too formal if not too secure 
 to be very fervent. In the case of John 
 West at any rate this conclusion is warrant- 
 able. No fervour characterizes his feeling 
 for Lady Emily, and he is quite sure that 
 she will accept him. Nevertheless he feels, 
 if not fervid, yet well pleased with himself 
 and his matrimonial prospect as he rides 
 home on this fine November day, that is 
 waninor into moonlit eveninor. His baro-
 
 72 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 meter was like to stand at ' change ' for 
 some time to come ; his quiet life of the 
 two years past in any case seemed ending ; 
 when would he find a better opportunity 
 for making yet another change in his con- 
 dition — a change which it was clearly his 
 duty to make some day ? ' 
 
 Much as he loves Swardham, he feels 
 that, in the cultivation of honourable am- 
 bition, meet for the lord of such an heritacje, 
 Swardham may not claim all his days for 
 all his life. And if he is called up to 
 London by parliamentary duties, he will 
 especially need a partner to assist him in 
 maintaining the family dignity in the big 
 brazen metropolis. His mother is still, in 
 his estimation, peerless among women ; but 
 she is ageing — he could not drag her 
 from her loved home up to town, nay, he 
 feels that it would be a relief to her, even 
 at home, if she could resign into worthy
 
 MOTHER AND SON". 73 
 
 hands some of the tasks that fall to the 
 mistress of a great house, and lady boun- 
 tiful of a wide estate. She has been of 
 late scarcely in her wonted health and 
 spirits, but her son hopes to tell her news 
 in a day or two, which will fill her with 
 content, and dispel ailments and anxieties. 
 He has not a doubt but that the Lady 
 Emily is one who will grace the position 
 which he offers her. High-born, high-bred, 
 composed, dignified, handsome, all these 
 epithets are her due, and what more could 
 be sought in a bride even by West of 
 Swardham ? He pictures to himself that 
 fair stately presence installed at the head 
 of his table, or supporting the renown of 
 the house on any possible great occasion ; 
 but he never thinks of her as the sharer of 
 his cares or sorrows, the maker of his every- 
 day domestic peace I The one woman whom 
 he has known intimately (the only one
 
 74 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 except little Polly Holbrooke, and she is but 
 a cliild !) is his mother, and she, though she 
 knows well how to bear herself in seasons 
 of state and ceremony, is so tender of heart, 
 so truly domestic, that he takes it for 
 granted that the atmosphere which she 
 diffuses is natural to every place where an 
 English lady makes her home ; nor does he 
 pause to analyse the constituents of that 
 atmosphere, and ask himself whether it is 
 equally likely to be breathed around such a 
 union as he contemplates. As to love ! 
 John West shrugs his shoulders, he can't 
 fancy himself ever falling into that idiotic 
 snare, even were no suitable wife ready 
 to hand at Marloes. Mutual esteem and 
 liking, perfect suitability in position, and so 
 on, these he thinks are much more likely 
 factors of wedded prosperity than the fleet- 
 ing delusive love which poets and fools rave 
 about. There was old Lord Fitz- Raymond's
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 75 
 
 eldest daughter, a belle and beauty ten 
 years ago ; stie had committed the folly of 
 a love-match, running away with her penni- 
 less cousin in the army, and a sad mess 
 they made of it ! Separated five years back, 
 after a career of debt and quarrels, and 
 now, lie has disappeared in ruin and dis- 
 grace, no one knows where or with whom, 
 and she is the fastest and flightiest of 
 English wanderers from one to another of 
 the gayer resorts of the continent. Shaking 
 his head scornfully John West settles his 
 horse into a slinging trot, and is soon at 
 his own lodge gate, where an eager curtsey- 
 ing woman pours into his ears a tale which 
 quickly scatters his complacent musings for 
 the rest of the evening, and sends him 
 galloping up the avenue with an anxious 
 throbbing at his heart, such as could be 
 roused there by no proceeding on the part 
 of liady Emily Woodvil.
 
 76 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 
 
 TTOCKERILL'S big barn is so crammed 
 on this wintry evening with a crowd, 
 mostly of corduroy-clad labourers, that it 
 is lucky indeed that its crazy frame-work, 
 its gaping boards and weather-beaten thatch, 
 admit an abundance of the keen outer air. 
 The arrangements for the reception of the 
 deputation from 'the Longborough Associ- 
 ation for the assertion of the Rio^hts of 
 Man,' have been of the simplest. The barn 
 being unused by its owner, there has beeii 
 no great need of clearing it for its un- 
 wonted guests, but a bench or two has
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 1^ 
 
 been set out, and from the cross-beams 
 hang two hoops of wood, each bearing a 
 few tallow candles set in rude tin sockets, 
 wheuce foul gutterings are sprinkled, as the 
 lights flare in fifty cross draughts, upon 
 the stolid rustics standing closely packed 
 beneath. At the upper end of the long 
 building is an old waggon, its broadside 
 turned towards the faces of the crowd, 
 and from this waggon, as from a dais or 
 platform, the orators are to launch their 
 eloquence. There are but five men who 
 occupy this post of pre-eminence, and of 
 these two only, the brothers Hockerill, are 
 known to Sward ham. They are tall hard- 
 featured men, who have scarcely reached 
 middle life, and the maltster, who is the 
 elder and the owner of the barn, has intro- 
 duced the deputation in a short speech. 
 Had there been found amon(y those rustic 
 
 o 
 
 hearers, to whose presence in such con-
 
 78 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 siderable numbers Hockerill had referred 
 with pardonable pride, a few more cultured 
 spirits or quicker brains, some little tribute 
 of applause might surely have been rendered, 
 at the close of a speech which was in truth 
 terse, to the point, and well delivered. 
 But the Hockerills were but new-comers in 
 Swardham, where twenty years' residence 
 at least was required of any settler before 
 he could be admitted to be on a par 
 with the natives. Jacob Hockerill miuht 
 or might not be making money in his 
 malting business, which he managed after 
 a fashion condemned in Swardham as new- 
 fanoled. There mioht or mioht not be 
 disinterested zeal in his advocacy of the 
 rights of the oppressed peasant, his import- 
 ation of Longborough talent, his finding 
 house-room and dips for the present meet- 
 ing;. Time would sliow ; meanwhile the 
 village sages had no objection to honour the
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 79 
 
 barn with their presence on a November 
 evening, when field-work and farm- work 
 had been too slack, owing to the season, 
 for any one to be very tired. And where 
 the sages went followed the ignoble herd, 
 till the big barn overflowed. But as to 
 applauding a Hockerill, let his words be 
 ever so telling, as to clapping horny palms 
 together, or uttering some husky parody 
 on the parliamentary * hear, hear,' it was 
 unheard of. Such honours were not for 
 maltsters or wheelwrights, prophets with- 
 out honour in their own country. So there 
 was a leaden and depressing silence as 
 Jacob Hockerill perorated with a really 
 spirited little appeal to the sterling man- 
 hood and intelliojence of a Lonorshire labour- 
 ing man, and sat him down on the 
 head-rail of his wao^oron, after introducinor 
 Mr. Abel Barnett as the next speaker. 
 Some boys, injuriously denied standing-
 
 80 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 room within, were whooping and whistling 
 round the door and outside the barn ; some 
 old men in the front ranks were noisily 
 clearing their throats and other air- ducts ; 
 somebody behind indulged in a lengthy and 
 most undisguised yawn, ending in a groan. 
 Jacob Hockerill, though he had told himself 
 that he expected nothing, felt as he pressed 
 his uneasy support, that the intelligence of 
 Longshire was scarcely up to its average 
 in Swardham, and began to have qualms 
 as to the success of the long-promised 
 deputation. If his own brief well-con- 
 sidered speech had fallen so flat, what 
 should be the fate of longer-winded suc- 
 cessors ? But the maltster need have suffered 
 from no such fears, for Abel Barnett is 
 already on his legs. Nothing daunts him, 
 nothing damps him ; he has gauged his 
 auditors, and in ten seconds will create 
 the bond of sympathy which has been
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 81 
 
 wanting as yet. Barnett is a short sturdy 
 man, with a bushy fringe of grizzled hair 
 around a bald shining poll, and an enormous 
 flexible mouth, stretched just now by a 
 good-humoured grin. 
 
 ' How many of ye kapes a peg ? ' he 
 began in the broadest Longshire dialect, 
 and in tones of thrilling solemnity. Twice 
 amid the pause succeeding this unexpected 
 beginning did he repeat his question, 
 ' How many of ye kapes a peg ? ' and 
 after the third repetition there was a 
 slight stir among the rustics and even a 
 rumble of low laughter. Then, discarding 
 the patois, the speaker dashed into a lively 
 but practical disquisition on pig-keeping, in 
 which he made it plain to the slow bucolic 
 mind that he had studied his subject, and 
 could give many a wrinkle to those most 
 skilled among them in matters porcine. 
 Not five minutes in all did Barnett waste 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 in tins trifling, and before the end of that 
 time he had the ear of every man in that 
 barn. So sound an authority on bacon 
 live and dead could scarcely fail to have 
 valuable ideas on other subjects, and Sward- 
 ham listened with profound and pleased 
 attention, while Barnett led them to the 
 topics on which it was his aim to enlighten 
 them. Why hadn't every man -jack of 
 them his pig, and ground to grow pig's 
 victuals after serving all his children and 
 his missis ? Why hadn't every pig a good 
 stye, and every pig's master a house as 
 much better than the stye as the man is 
 better than the swine ? 
 
 *ril tell you for wdiy/ shouted Mr. 
 Barnett, and his voice was now as thunder, 
 * because you don't put head to head, and 
 hand to hand, to right yourselves ! What's 
 the stream that turns your mill ? Why it's 
 a lot of water, millions and billions of drops
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 83 
 
 of water all joined into one strong current, 
 till the heavy wheel goes round, and the 
 grist fills the hopper. But supposing each 
 one of those billions of drops was perverse 
 enough to fly off* or hang back and separate 
 from the rest, so that they came spattering 
 against the wheel, one here, one there, like 
 a smart shower of rain, a precious lot of 
 grist your miller would grind, wouldn't he ? 
 a precious holiday that old wheel w^ould 
 have ! Well, friends, you've been like those 
 drops so far, there are thousands and thou- 
 sands of you, all over this land, but what 
 power have you to help yourselves ? you do 
 plenty for others, for the few rich and great, 
 for the squires and parsons who rule all the 
 roost ; but who minds you if you grumble, 
 any more than I mind a splash of rain ? 
 But join together, stick together, pull to- 
 gether, and there isn't a mill-race can turn a 
 wheel faster than you'll turn out the old 
 
 G 2
 
 84 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 abuses, turn yourselves into respected and 
 self-respecting freemen, turn your homes 
 into places fit for freemen to inhabit, turn 
 the deaf ears of your old masters into fair 
 and civil attention to all j ust demands ! I 
 tell you there is the power in you to do 
 all this, if you'll only pull together to use 
 it, and your squires and parsons could no 
 more keep you down than they could swim 
 against the mill-race/ 
 
 Eapidly then, but lucidly, Barnett went 
 on to sketch the probable consequences of 
 such movements as have since become suffi- 
 ciently familiar to old England in the 
 action of the agricultural labourers' union. 
 He showed the simplicity of the machinery 
 which was to work out such great effects. 
 He prophesied the absolute certainty of 
 success which would reward such organiz- 
 ations. 
 
 ' From small gains and small concessions
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 85 
 
 you'll work on to great, or your cliildren 
 will,' lie cried ; * better wages and better 
 houses and gardens first, then the franchise, 
 a vote for every worthy head of a house, 
 voting by ballot too, without fear or favour ; 
 then repeal of the Game Laws, right to 
 destroy every beast and bird that is a 
 plague to the poor man's industry ; then 
 fair terms for every tenant of land, great 
 or small, no more holding at will, no more 
 shameful pocketing by the squire of the 
 fruits of a poor man's toil, that has taught 
 the wilderness to stand thick with corn ; 
 then, who knows ? a grant to those who 
 will make use of it of all the idle land 
 wasted in this teeming island, on parks 
 and pleasure-grounds and coverts for the 
 idle rich, who might just as well idle and 
 hunt and shoot in North America or 
 Norway, where there isn't a man to ten 
 square miles. This is a great work, and
 
 86 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 a lonor work it will be, for it means that 
 laws must be changed, laws that have stood 
 long and seem interwoven into the life of 
 the people, as these land-laws seem. And 
 in the doing, somebody must be made 
 very uncomfortable, that's clear — the squires, 
 I doubt, and the farmers, maybe, and you 
 labourers that are the men to set it a going, 
 yes, likelier than not; but are you to sit 
 still and rub on in the old rotten groove 
 for fear of somebody being upset, for fear 
 of being made to suffer for a while your- 
 selves ? Not if I know the Lonsjshire 
 chaps. We want no violence, leave that 
 to the French ; but unless the farmers feel 
 what trouble is from you, their right 
 hands, when some fine day the hand re- 
 fuses to grip the plough for them, they'll 
 never see that it's tjoii and not the landlords* 
 that are their natural allies, instead of their 
 natural enemies. There's a blessini]: comes
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 87 
 
 to those who help themselves, and I want 
 you to earn it/ 
 
 In a few concluding sentences Barnett 
 urged his hearers to join the new union 
 society lately started in some Longshire 
 parishes by the efforts of himself and 
 brotherhood, of which he read the rules, 
 and then, mopping his forehead, which 
 smoked in spite of the cutting draughts, 
 sat down amid a storm of hoarse murmurs 
 of approbation, of rattling of old men's 
 staves, and thumping of broad hob-nailed 
 soles. He had roused, he had impressed 
 his stolid audience, and alas for the rector 
 and his vaunts ! he had sown geruis which 
 would never be purged away from Sward- 
 ham, last stronghold as it may have been 
 of feudal loyalty to its lords. 
 
 Jacob Hockerill is on his leofs again, in 
 capital spirits this time. Time being short 
 he will merely say that Mr. Van Lennep of
 
 88 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Longborough will now address a few words 
 to the meeting, and Mr. Van Lennep accord- 
 ingly advances to the front of the wain 
 which served for rostrum. He is a young 
 man of slight make and puny figure, with 
 regular but rather insignificant features and 
 a very receding chin. His pale reddish 
 hair is brushed up from his forehead into 
 a peak, not unlike a lambent flame, and 
 though he wears little or no whisker, there 
 sprouts below his chin a tuft, as though 
 designed to correspond with or balance the 
 peak before mentioned. From the opaque 
 pallor of his face he seems a town-bred man, 
 and the same impression is conveyed by 
 his shiny frock-coat and smart blue scarf, 
 wherein a golden pin is stuck ; and by 
 the gloves and thin-soled boots which cover 
 his hands and feet, of the smallness of 
 which he is disposed to be vain. Alto- 
 gether, what with his outlandish name
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 89 
 
 aud liis appearance, Swardham is not 
 favourably prepossessed. Barnett was the 
 speaker ! and Barnett wore a rough suit 
 of hodden grey, and had huge red hands 
 that had stuck many a pig, no doubt 
 and lifted many a stone-weight. This 
 young man was evidently nervous too, 
 so Swardham settled itself down to be 
 critical, all the more for havino: been 
 betrayed into emotion by the last speaker. 
 Van Lennep had a high-pitched voice, 
 and in his nervousness committed the 
 mistake of speaking much too fast for 
 the slow comprehension of his hearers. 
 It was not nervousness, however, but a 
 habitual ambition which led him to a choice 
 of words and epithets quite beyond the 
 rustic understanding, even if they had been 
 allowed to filter slowly through the rustic 
 ear. The new speaker gloried in poly- 
 syllables, and was unconcealedly mortified
 
 90 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 when some brief unmanageable Saxon noun 
 escaped him before he could hit on an 
 imposing synonym. But the sages of the 
 village could make out that this slim-built 
 stranger was quite a terrible fellow, as 
 far as sentiments went. Nothing: would 
 content him short of 'impeaching' and 
 ' arraigning ' all the powers that be. First 
 he demolished and smashed the Established 
 Church, tithes, glebes, and all ; and not 
 cimtent with general denunciations, must 
 needs challenge by name the rector of 
 Swardham to appear and answer for his 
 sins. What was it but his tithes that 
 made rents high, farmers stingy, wages 
 low ? and these tithes he went on to prove 
 to be national property, national provision 
 for the poor, on which lazy priests had 
 too long battened. 
 
 Poor Mr. Holbrooke had been, for thirty 
 years past, the kind friend of every soul
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 91 
 
 in that audience, but somehow it excited 
 no indignation — no, not among those who 
 had drunk his wine and soup for weeks 
 together in sickness — that he should be 
 branded as a robber and ' battener,' what- 
 ever that miofht mean. It was new and 
 startling, but there might be something in 
 it, though it was the utterance of a whipper- 
 snapper chap in a whimsy blue neck-cloth. 
 Ha vinof rolled the Establishment in the dust, 
 and trampled Mr. Holbrooke in particular 
 beneath the heel of fiery contempt, the 
 orator went on to tear down other idols, 
 and denounce the landed gentry and heredi- 
 tary peerage as locusts, as running sores 
 and plague-spots. By this time he had 
 got over his nervousness, and having clearly 
 read up his f^icts in some county history 
 or gazetteer, he began dealing tremendous 
 vengeance among the local grandees. The 
 FitzRaymonds indeed had bought their
 
 92 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 property — but how ? a mercenary lawyer 
 gorged with bribes and fees, had finally 
 invested his hoards in broad acres, in order 
 to oppress his tenantry as he had oppressed 
 his suitors. But to the Wests belonged no 
 such shadow of rightful acquisition of their 
 broader domains. The hireling varlet of a 
 successful freebooter — such had been the 
 first West who came into Lono-shire, his 
 prowess in robbery and murder rewarded 
 with a stolen estate ! Since this creditable 
 beginning, again and again had the Wests 
 swelled their rent-roll, sometimes by mar- 
 riages, but often by fresh grants of Crown 
 lands. 
 
 'Now, my friends and countrymen,' he 
 cried, ' what are these Crown lands that 
 have gone to pamper the Wests and a 
 hundred such families ? They are, as they 
 always were by rights, national property, 
 your property ! Weak or rascally princes
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 93 
 
 had no more right to give them away than 
 your parson would have to give your church 
 to the squire to keep hi3 hunters in ! If 
 all the squandered Crown lands were now 
 to the fore, they would produce a yearly 
 income such that taxation would be all but 
 unknown, even for the needs of present 
 wasteful governments ! and that, while 
 ■finding a holding for every man capable 
 of tilling it. I am no romancer ! I dare 
 your squire to give me the lie ! I challenge 
 him to disprove my assertions as to the 
 origin of his family estates — as to the 
 common land that has been stolen from 
 you! I call him to account for the sins 
 of himself and his fathers in their lust of 
 adding field to field — in grinding the faces 
 of the poor, whose right it is to live by 
 the land they till/ 
 
 As, with much gesticulation, the frenzied 
 orator poured forth this series of impeach-
 
 94 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 ments, he might, if less engrossed, have 
 noticed a strange and sudden movement 
 in the crowd. There was a rustling, a 
 crouching and cowering away to the sides 
 of the barn, such as may be seen among 
 a flock of sheep when the shepherd's dog 
 trots through their ranks in the fold-yard. 
 At last the front row, mainly consisting 
 of elders seated on a form, was suddenly 
 agitated, men rose abruptly with shuffling 
 feet, and strove to move crab-wise aside. 
 The bench was upset, and at the noise 
 Van Lennep ceased to speak and turned 
 his eyes in consternation on a figure that 
 had emerged from the ruck, and now stood 
 close by the waggon wheel, confronting him 
 with haughty brow and gleaming eye and 
 sinewy frame, erect, powerful, and menacing. 
 For an instant they gazed upon each other, 
 the one in his cheap finery open-mouthed, 
 dismayed, shrinking, paler than his pale
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 95 
 
 wont, the other resolute, disdainful, a 
 stalwart Hercules in well-cut evening clothes 
 and all the seemliness of fine linen and 
 varnished boots. Then, stepping lightly up 
 upon the nave of the wheel, John West 
 caught the luckless orator by the collar 
 of his frock-coat, and swung him with both 
 hands, as though he had been a mere 
 dummy or bag of clothes, over the side of 
 the waggon, till, springing from the wheel, 
 he could set him on his feet upon the 
 earthen floor. Then, without quickened 
 breath or raised voice, he said, as he towered 
 over the terrified man — 
 
 * Here I am at your side to answer, 
 let's have it all over again.' 
 
 But from those white lips, late so valiant, 
 came now no syllable in reply, only the voices 
 of Barnett and Hockerill were to be heard. 
 
 * Have a care, sir, how you lay a finger 
 on one of us ! '
 
 96 WEST OF SWAPcDHAM. 
 
 * For God's sake, Mr. West, sir, respect 
 the liberty of the subject, and the right of 
 public meeting, sir ! ' 
 
 Deigning no reply to these remonstrances, 
 nor even glancing at the party who now 
 swarmed over the wagroron-side and hastened 
 to support the almost fainting form of 
 their friend, John West faced the abashed 
 audience, and sternly took them to task 
 for that he found them in such company. 
 
 ' Were there not fools in plenty, such 
 as you are to-night, knaves such as this 
 fellow could not thrive ! Look at him, 
 has he ever done an honest day's work ? 
 He prates of toilers and their rights, but 
 what does he know of toil ? These are 
 the fellows who. would come uppermost 
 if you and all fools like you should be 
 bitten with madness stark enoui^h to do 
 their bidding. And I for one should wish 
 you joy of your new masters. See how
 
 THE DEPUTATION. 97 
 
 his mouthings and frothings are silenced 
 when a man stands out ready to answer 
 him — not that I would lay a rough hand 
 on the fellow, but because lies always 
 skulk ! Doubtless he has promised you 
 fine things, if you will be catspaws for 
 him — well, if you give ear to him, and 
 do as he bids, when you want something 
 for your burnt fingers, where will his pro- 
 mises be ? Vanished away like his charges 
 against me and mine, that he piled up 
 behind my back, but can't bring before 
 my face. Pah ! I won't talk about him. 
 Go home, you honest asses, and 1 hope your 
 wives, who have had the sense to keep away 
 to-night, will trounce you well when they 
 get hold of you, and bring you to your 
 better minds.' 
 
 Without a second glance at his van- 
 quished and overwhelmed antagonist, or his 
 muttering and angered supporters, John 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 West strode down the barn again, the 
 hinds shambling bashfully out of his path, 
 and tugging at their forelocks the while. 
 His last words had been full of his usual 
 good-humour, and the relieved rustics noted 
 that not so much as a leaf of the hot-house 
 flower he wore in his coat was rumpled by 
 the late affray. The young squire, like 
 a good fellow as he w^as (and lord ! as 
 stout as a bullock), wasn't going to re- 
 member it agin them after all ; but in 
 spite of these hopes of amnesty, there was 
 one consent in an immediate and uncere- 
 monious rush from the barn. In vain did 
 Hockerill, in vain did stentorian Barnett 
 implore, command, taunt the retreating 
 assemblage ; there was never a chance for 
 the vote of indignation which they of the 
 rostrum were burning to propose aud carry. 
 Pell-mell, helter-skelter, every pair of hob- 
 nailed boots made for the door, and before
 
 THE DEPUTATION". 99 
 
 Van Lennep had recovered a semblance of 
 composure, the guttering candles revealed 
 only vacancy, save where the little group 
 of five stood together by the forsaken 
 waggon. 
 
 'Never mind, Dolf ; he'd have been just 
 as overtook himself if that great arbitrary 
 swell had pounced on him as he did on 
 you, doing it so beautiful as you were 
 too.' 
 
 Such was the consolation oflfered to Van 
 Lennep as he returned later in a hired fly 
 to Longborough. Barnett had remained at 
 Jacob HockerilFs for the night ; but no 
 offer of similar hospitality had been made 
 to poor Van Lennep. In his disconsolate 
 retreat, however, he had the society of his 
 Achates, the third person, the persona 
 muta, of the deputation, one Harry Soole, 
 to whom his friend Dolf van Lennep was 
 still and always a model, regarded with 
 
 H 2
 
 100 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 constant veneration, and who was ever 
 content to act as chorus to his friend and 
 pattern. 
 
 ' I'll have the law on him,' quoth Dolf, 
 too irate to be grammatical ; ' the bloated 
 oppressor shall rue the day when he laid 
 his hand upon me, taking me at a gross 
 disadvantage too. Such were the landed 
 classes who provoked the French Revolu- 
 tion ; let this fellow West beware!' 
 
 Harry did not in his inmost heart believe 
 that much success would attend on an 
 action for assault and battery against the 
 young squire, should his friend thus seek 
 vengeance for his wrongs, but none the 
 less did he dutifully echo his admired Dolf s 
 fulminations, and though he was more 
 than once roundly snubbed for his pains, 
 succeeded to some extent in soothing the 
 other's exasperation before, cold and weary, 
 they alighted in Longborough town.
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 101 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 
 
 rpHEEE was trouble and anxiety in 
 Swardham this year as Christmas 
 approached. In that primitive village com- 
 munity the glad season was not wont to be 
 marred by meagre fare or scanty firing, 
 or lack of seasonable garments, nor indeed 
 was the usual supply of creature comforts, 
 showered from hall and rectory upon all 
 who needed them, in any wise stinted this 
 year. But the dole was not on this occa- 
 sion received from the familiar hand, or 
 accompanied by the kindly words which for 
 years past had enhanced it to the village
 
 102 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 poor. Little Miss Mary at the rectory- 
 was indeed as good as gold, and Mrs. 
 Lavender mucli respected for one who 
 hadn't been housekeeper at the hall above 
 eight or nine year. The cloaks, the coals, 
 the beef, the rabbits, the hosiery, the tea 
 and tobacco were all of the accustomed 
 quantity and quality, but every one was 
 missing Madam West, and no one, nothing 
 could make up for the want of her active 
 presence. It should by rights have been 
 a time of extra festivity, for was not the 
 young squire about to wed a lady wife ? 
 and all Swardham knew how the squire's 
 mother would rejoice to welcome a worthy 
 daughter-in-law to the old hall ; and yet 
 not even for the oldest pensioner was there 
 sight or speech of madam. 
 
 'Eh dear a dear! it isnt like Christmas, 
 at alV sighed many an ancient widow 
 woman, as reluctantly she would depart
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 103 
 
 without the greeting, the smile, the kind 
 inquiries after her family, which she had 
 expected not less than her dole of flannel 
 or provisions. 
 
 It could not be, said village gossip, that 
 madam was merely ill. Sadly enough she 
 was reported to be looking by her servants, 
 but she would have no doctor nigh her, 
 and could not be got to speak of her health, 
 although she ate little and slept less. But 
 if not ill in body, what could have come to 
 Madam West? Forgetting all her usual 
 occupations, hastily committing to subor- 
 dinates her charities, she shunned, as far as 
 possible, the company of every living being, 
 and brooded alone in her own small sitting- 
 room, which opened from her bed-chamber. 
 There her faithful maid, lurking perplexed 
 and disconsolate in the adjoining room, 
 could hear her, hour after hour, pacing to 
 and fro. There was a picture hung in this
 
 104 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 sitting-room, a family group painted more 
 than forty years before, in which Madam 
 West figured as a rosy handsome young 
 woman, one arm resting on her father's 
 shoulder, the other stretched to a leaping 
 setter. The scene had been laid in the 
 flower-garden of the hall, and by the 
 fathers side upon the same carved stone 
 bench sat the mother, fair-haired and 
 delicate, with roses on her lap. At the feet 
 of his parents the elder son was stretched 
 upon the grass, pulling the ears of another 
 favourite dog, and reproducing in his dark 
 animated features and stalwart limbs the 
 image of his sire. Singularly unlike his 
 brother was the boy who completed the 
 group ; but in his petulant pink and white 
 face could be traced a resemblance to his 
 mother, at whose side he leaned. There 
 were the same pale blue eyes and light 
 hair, the same thin well-formed nose and
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE EECTOR. 105 
 
 retreating chin, though the expression was 
 in the mothers case all mildness, in the 
 son's all peevish haughtiness, a caricature 
 of the proud resolution stamped upon his 
 father's lineaments. Before this picture the 
 Abigail, peeping through the half-closed 
 door, would see her mistress pause at times 
 and noiselessly WTing her hands, or press 
 them to her brow as though bewildered, 
 before she began her restless walk again. 
 
 Neither the rector, her long-accustomed 
 friend, nor her favourite Mary had been 
 admitted to her for a fortnight past, and 
 for the same space of time it had been all 
 but impossible for her dependents to obtain 
 any orders from her, except a general one, 
 that she was to be denied to all comers of 
 whatever degree. The old servants shook 
 their heads and were at their wits' end. 
 The younger and more irreverent were sure 
 that mistress was taking on because a young
 
 106 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 lady was coming to the hall, and began to 
 yearn for a bride's advent to relieve the 
 gathering dulness of the place. While such 
 was the dismay occasioned among all ranks 
 in Swardham by Mrs. West's altered state, 
 how did it affect him who was nearest and 
 dearest to her, the son linked to her by 
 bonds of no common love ? 
 
 Strange to say, John West was the only 
 person who was unaware of any serious 
 chanore in his mother ; but makinoj all 
 allowance for the exigencies of his position 
 as a newly-afEanced swain, and a candidate 
 for the representation of his county, it was 
 mainly due to the exertions of Mrs. West 
 herself that her son's peace was undisturbed 
 by apprehension. The old servants were 
 sharply forbidden to trouble the squire with 
 any reference to madam's health ; and every 
 morning when her son was at home (and 
 save in the morning he was seldom at home
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 107 
 
 just now), she nerved herself by a great 
 effort to appear at the breakfast table, or 
 to receive him in her own sitting-room, 
 when he had breakfasted alone and early. 
 For her seclusion and her wan looks she 
 accounted, making very light of them, by 
 declaring that she had taken a chill, and 
 felt that her only chance of avoiding a 
 violent cold for the winter lay in such 
 precautions as she was taking. With these 
 protestations she would content her son, dis- 
 missing him almost eagerly to his pleasuring 
 at Marloes, or his hunting or canvassing 
 enoraorements. And the moment his back 
 Tvas turned, she would retreat into herself 
 once more, and become the w^orn, restless, 
 haunted woman, who paced her pleasant 
 room so wretchedly, and gazed so strangely 
 on her girlish self and the pictured forms 
 of the dead who surrounded her image on 
 the brightly- tinted canvas.
 
 108 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 But of all those in whose lives Mrs. West 
 was a prominent object, none at this junc- 
 ture were more saddened than the rector 
 and his daughter. Mary indeed was toe 
 young not to be full of hope and capable of 
 distraction amid all her distress at the 
 strange eclipse which had befallen her god- 
 mother; but Mary's father felt as if hope 
 were almost dead, nor could he think of 
 anything else than the puzzling distressing 
 message which forbade him from pressing 
 his claims as an ancient friend, or relieving 
 his anxiety by talking to the young squire. 
 It was just a little note, written in pencil, 
 and put for him in the vestry one Sunday. 
 
 ' My kind good friend,' it ran, ' don't be 
 alarmed if you don't see me at church 
 to-day, or for a while — don't come and ask 
 for me or about me — above all don't say a 
 word to John respecting me. You shall be
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 109 
 
 the first I send for, wlien I send for any one. 
 Trust me so far. My fond love to Mary — 
 and don't let her think me unkind. God 
 bless you both ! 
 
 That was all ; and of course the rector 
 obeyed, as he was always wont, and saw 
 that his child also kept aloof from her usual 
 haunts. But in Holbrooke's bosom there 
 was almost rage at the blindness of the 
 young squire, who could go his way re- 
 joicing, courting at Marloes, hunting here 
 and shooting there, or stumping the county 
 anon under the retiring member's auspices, 
 while at home things were so far wrong, and 
 the best of mothers, the most admirable of 
 women was, by some occult influence, struck 
 as with a sudden paralysis, and prisoned 
 with no companion but a secret woe. Alas 
 for the rector's proud repudiation of such
 
 110 WEST OF SWARD HAM. 
 
 possibilities for his revered patroness! 
 Though he felt more than ever inflamed 
 against the presumption of the man who 
 had first suggested the hatefid thought, it 
 was but too plain to his affectionate scrutiny 
 that some hidden, some grievous pressure 
 there must be, which was blighting the 
 calm old age of Rachel West, poisoning the 
 religious cliecrfulness which had helped her 
 to bear many a blow, numbing the active 
 benevolence which had for years made sun- 
 shine in the parish, and rendered its rector s 
 work both light and blessed. Pattern and 
 pillar of the church and its services as she 
 had been so long, her estrangement was the 
 more grievous and galling. Why was he 
 there as priest of that parish, if not to 
 comfort his flock in dark hours ? 
 
 Always a diffident man, prone to distrust 
 his own efficiency, he found himself in this 
 sad time harping on the taunting words in
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE EECTOR. Ill 
 
 which Mr. Auchmuty had compared his 
 influence over the souls committed to his 
 charge with the subtler potency of the 
 Eoman priesthood. A worthier, a more 
 spiritual, a wiser pastor would not have 
 failed (so he told himself) to have sur- 
 mounted all obstacles to perfect confidence 
 between himself and any afilicted member 
 of his flock, and having once attained to 
 such confidence, to have ministered counsel 
 and comfort. But here was he chafing in 
 useless misery while his oldest and clearest 
 friend suff"ered in solitude, unable to rely on 
 his high office or his undoubted fidelity for 
 one moment's respite from her woe I The 
 poor man felt himself too old to alter his 
 ways, which were indeed blameless enough, 
 but he was for the first time in his life 
 weighed down by a sense of utter inade- 
 quacy to cope with his responsibilities. All 
 his honest pride and pleasure in his parish
 
 112 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 was fled : he began to debate with himself 
 whether he was justified in retaining the 
 benefice in which his life had been spent. 
 It would break his heart to sever the tie, 
 but what matter if duty clearly called for 
 the sacrifice 1 
 
 Brooding in this melancholy fashion, 
 there is no possibility of knowing to what 
 course Mr. Holbrooke might ultimately 
 have been impelled. Probably he might 
 have sought an interview with John West, 
 and interrupted his engrossing round of 
 business and pleasure by sternly claiming 
 his attention for home matters, and the 
 welfare of a mother worthy of the most 
 absorbing devotion. At such a crisis the 
 usual softness of his tone towards the 
 young squire would not have prevaik^d to 
 the weakening of a message designed to 
 rouse and startle him from whaL seemed 
 unaccountable apathy. But w^hile the
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 113 
 
 rector was revolving in his mind dreary 
 thoughts and unwelcome expedients, an 
 end came suddenly to this the most trying 
 passage in his life as yet. He received, 
 one snowy afternoon, a few lines from Mrs. 
 West, in which she made good the promise 
 contained in her first strange and oft- 
 pondered note, and bade her old friend 
 come to her without delay, and alone. 
 Never did exile welcome with more OTati- 
 tude the sentence of his recall ; and though 
 as yet Mary was not to resume with him 
 her old position at the hall, the rector 
 nothing doubted but that all would now 
 soon revert to the old comfortable routine, 
 and started off in altered mood ready to 
 smile at his late depression. It was nearly 
 a month since he had set eyes on his valued 
 friend — the saddest month which he had 
 ever known at Swardham since his wife 
 was taken from him seventeen years ago. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 What comfort had he then found in Rachel 
 West's sympathy and thoughtfulness ! Oh, 
 that he might now be aljle, as from his 
 heart he was eager, to console in turn, if 
 need there were for consolation. The good 
 man, as he hurried through the shruhberies, 
 put up a silent prayer that counsel and help 
 might be lent him from on high. Already, 
 in accordance with his temperament, he was 
 condemning as impious the doubts which 
 had so lately beset him. Within a few 
 minutes he was ushered into Mrs. West's 
 little sitting-room, and stood before his 
 friend once more, with a full heart. 
 
 ' They would have it that ]io more than 
 a cold ailed you/ he faltered, as he took the 
 thin hand extended to him. 
 
 His new-born cheerfulness was sorely 
 damped by the altered appearance of his 
 friend. Mrs. West's large dark eyes now 
 seemed too big for her pale and haggard
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 115 
 
 face — and under those eyes there was a 
 darkness, and upon that face a sickliness 
 of hue which distressed the rector beyond 
 measure. 
 
 ' How could you hide it from us, when 
 you have been so ill ? ' he murmured, as he 
 took a seat. 
 
 ' My friend,' Mrs. West replied, in low 
 but clear tones, ' it is not to talk of my 
 ailments that I have summoned you. I 
 am not aware that anything has ailed me 
 Id deed, further than can be accounted for 
 by the body's sympathy with a disordered 
 mind and distracted soul. Yes, my dear 
 old friend, I see you start, but I am de- 
 scribing only too correctly my state for 
 months past — months which have dragged 
 like years. Tempted, tortured, conscience- 
 pricked, racked by doubt and terror, — com- 
 pelled to bear my burden alone and deceive 
 the dear loving eyes that sought mine, — 
 
 I 2
 
 116 WEST OF SWAPvDHAM. 
 
 such has been my condition, till I could 
 bear it no longer, and have resolved to 
 share my load with you, my tried and trusty 
 friend, before its weight is known to all.' 
 
 In his indescribable as^itation the rector 
 could not speak, as Mrs. West paused. 
 Two tears were already rolling down his 
 healthy cheeks, and his throat seemed 
 choked, but his eyes met his friend's gaze, 
 and she could read in them loving loyalty 
 that surpassed all words. 
 
 ' You never saw my brother Adolphus ? ' 
 she resumed presently. 
 
 The rector shook his head, and his eyes 
 travelled to the picture, where the fair-haired, 
 disdainful lad stood at his mother's side. 
 
 At the time. of Mr. Holbrooke's coming 
 to Swardham rectory his patron's younger 
 son had been dead some six months, but 
 he was not ion or ant of the vouuo- man's 
 career of dissipation and disgrace.
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 117 
 
 'You have heard/ Mrs. West went on, 
 ' that he died and was buried away from 
 home. I nursed him for a whole month 
 before his death, in a mean lodmno^ near 
 the Gray's Inn Road. Poor, erring fellow ! 
 he was our mother's darling, and well it 
 was for her that she was spared the know- 
 ledge of his evil-doing and his end. '* May 
 God so deal by you, my Eachel, and your 
 children to come, as you deal with my 
 sweet boy," those were the last words she 
 spoke to me. It was not much that could 
 be done for him when at last he sent me 
 word of the retreat in which he had hidden 
 himself. It was plain that he was doomed ; 
 but at least he had one of his own blood 
 to tend him to the last, and my poor 
 husband's generosity provided everything 
 that he might fancy. The very first night 
 I sat with him, he astonished me with the 
 news that he was a married man — married
 
 118 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 five months before to a girl who had waited 
 on him at a Wiltshire village where he had 
 stayed Tvhen rusticated from Oxford, ^ly 
 first words, as soon as I recovered from my 
 surprise and distress, were urgent that he 
 should send for his wife at once, but he 
 would not hear of it. " Tilly's presence 
 would be anything but a comfort or pleasure 
 to me just now," he said, in his lioht way. 
 " I don't want to be told that my 'ands are 
 'ot, or to hear a lot of snivelling when I am 
 a bit cross. Besides, the poor creature has 
 a trouble of her own coming, so she tells 
 me, and must take care of her precious 
 health." It was plain to me that his fimcy 
 for the girl had already passed away, and 
 when I spoke of his duty and her rights, 
 he positively refused to give me her address, 
 declaring that she was " best as she was, 
 with the artful old slut of an aunt who had 
 let him in for his matrimonial honours." It
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE EECTOR. 119 
 
 was not till the last week that he would 
 believe himself to be dying, and if less 
 flippant, he became bitterer towards some 
 for whom he should have had far other 
 feelings. Of our father especially he spoke 
 in a manner most painful to me, and declared 
 often that, if widow or child survived him, 
 he would prefer their starving to their 
 acceptance of any pittance from the squire. 
 And the morning before he died he exacted 
 from me a promise that I would never 
 betray his confidences to my father, or 
 reveal to any one except my husband the 
 existence of the young widow, who, as he 
 assured me, was as ignorant of the position 
 of her husband's family as she was unfitted 
 to take a place among its members. This 
 promise I have kept up to this day, and am 
 the only living person who knows that 
 my father's younger son left a widow, and 
 that there was posthumous issue of their
 
 120 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 clandestine marriage. By Mr. Woodvil's 
 kindness I was enabled, immediately after 
 my brother's funeral, to journey down into 
 Wiltshire and break to the unfortunate girl 
 the news of her bereavement. 1 had found 
 some letters among my brother's papers 
 which gave me the necessary address — ill- 
 spelt, ill-expressed letters they were, so 
 filled with selfish repining and unreasonable 
 regrets that I ceased to wonder at my 
 brother's coldness, though I felt that no 
 effort must be lacking on my part to spare 
 the unhappy girl as much as possible. I 
 need not dwell on my reception in the 
 Wiltshire cottage, nor on the arrangements 
 which, thanks to my husband, I made with 
 the aunt for the niece's maintenance. It 
 is enough to mention that I undeceived 
 neither, when, in their selfish lamentations, 
 they alluded to Adolphus as a man without 
 fortune or expectations from any relative,
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 121 
 
 unless it might be from my husband or 
 myself, and loudly bewailed the rashness 
 which had committed a girl so attractive 
 as Matilda to so unprofitable a union. 
 Thankful indeed was I that I was bound by 
 a solemn promise to conceal from my family 
 their connection with such people, whose 
 coarse vulgarity of soul and absence of all 
 better feeling had thoroughly revolted me 
 during a stay which was made as short as 
 possible. In due time I was informed by 
 the aunt of the birth of twins, a boy and 
 girl, to my brother's widow, and was dis- 
 posed to echo her comment that, as they 
 were but weakly, it was hoped that the Lord 
 might see fit to take one or both. A hint 
 which was added that, in that case, her 
 niece might yet hope to do well in marriage, 
 half prepared me for a communication which 
 reached me six months later. It was from 
 a man, a stranger, and apparently what
 
 122 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 would Le called a character, who informed 
 me that he purposed making Matilda West 
 his wife as soon as her year of widow- 
 hood should have expired. But you shall 
 read his letter for yourself — I have it 
 here.' 
 
 The rector took from Mrs. West's hand 
 a sheet covered with queer, foreign-looking 
 writing, and read aloud as follows : 
 
 ' George St., B/nningham, 
 
 ' October 2, 18—. 
 
 ' Madam, 
 
 ' I intended making Matilda Smith 
 my wife before her aunt led her into the 
 mistake of marrying with your late brother. 
 Suffering as she does in consequence of that 
 mistake, I still repeat my offer, and she is 
 wise enough to close with it. But I have 
 made these conditions, that it is to be as if 
 the mistake had never been. ToQ-ether with 
 the name, every link, every remembrance,
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 123 
 
 every stiver arising of her former marriage 
 must pass away from her for ever. To this 
 you are not likely to object — but you will 
 say, what of the children ? Madam, it is 
 my belief that neither of those babes can 
 live to enter their second year — that the 
 boy especially will scarcely live till I become 
 his step-father. Very good. I sorrow not. 
 They are fruits of a mistake. But if either 
 or both should, in spite of present appear- 
 ances, survive infancy, I, being a man who 
 have a good trade and am a clever crafts- 
 man, definitely undertake the maintenance 
 until adolescence of such child or children, 
 provided that he, she, or they are suffered 
 to grow up in ignorance of their true 
 paternity ; and engage to treat him, her, or 
 them in all respects as I would mine own. 
 To these conditions Matilda assents. If you 
 dissent there is one sole alternative — you 
 can at once adopt the children of your
 
 124 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 brother, but no half-and-half course is pos- 
 sible. My wife must be mine only, and 
 beholden to none but 
 
 (Signed) ' Erasmus van Lennep.' 
 
 As the rector finished this blunt and 
 straightforward epistle a soiled piece of 
 paper slipped from between its leaves, and 
 Mrs. West bade him read it also. It was 
 dated three days later than the other letter, 
 and was almost illegible, but Mr. Holbrooke 
 made out that the tremulous signature was 
 that of Matilda West, and that the scrawl- 
 ing lines related incoherently the decease of 
 the writer's ' darling baby ' in convulsions, 
 at half past two that morning. Further 
 reference was made to a weddino^ which 
 must be postponed in consequence of the 
 sad event, and to the precarious state of 
 the surviving infant. As these papers were 
 handed back to Mrs. West, she went on
 
 MADAM SENDS FOE THE RECTOR. 125 
 
 in the same low but clear and monotonous 
 tone with her recital. 
 
 ' Beyond a brief notice of the marriage, 
 which took place just fourteen months after 
 my brother's death, I never had another 
 line from these people — I could not say 
 for certain if they were still alive. Soon 
 after that time I had much troul)le of my 
 own — and coming back to my old home a 
 widow began the long term of quiet and 
 peace which, save for my elder brother's 
 disastrous death, was unbroken while my 
 dear father lived. So seldom during these 
 happy years did my mind recur to the 
 events of which I have told you, that I 
 forgot them for long periods together. 
 Indeed, even the whole of my married life, 
 the three years which alone I lived away 
 from this house, has seemed to me almost 
 as a dream at times, with all its incidents 
 of bliss and woe, so contrasted with my
 
 1*26 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 calm, uneventful course beneath this roof. 
 At length, in extreme old age, as you know 
 well, my father passed away, happy in the 
 belief that his estate would descend to a 
 grandson who, though not born a West, 
 had grown up beneath his eye, and re-pro- 
 duced his excellencies. My dear friend, — 
 you are acquainted with our affairs, — were 
 the terms of my father's will known 
 accurately to you ? ' 
 
 ' Except a general knowledge that your 
 son took the estate under the will, as every- 
 body expected and foreknew, absolutely 
 and unreservedly, I can't recall anything 
 as to its terms. It was all so regular and 
 in course that John should succeed the 
 squire, that I don't know that any one 
 talked about the details/ 
 
 So spake the bewildered rector, and was 
 all attention as Mrs. West once more, with 
 the same forced calmness, resumed her say.
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 127 
 
 ' I can tell you, how^ever, the details. 
 My father had a great horror of will- 
 making, and never altered, except by an 
 unimportant codicil or two, a will made just 
 after my mother's death, in which he had 
 devised the estate first to my brother John, 
 or his heirs male absolutely ; next, failing 
 heirs male of John, to Adolphus and his 
 heirs male absolutely ; lastly, Mling heirs 
 male of Adolphus, to me, or to my eldest 
 son, if I should have a son of age, at the 
 death of the testator. Having long out- 
 lived his two sons, both of whom he believed 
 to have died unmarried, my father did not 
 consider it necessary to make any alteration 
 in this will, which secured the succession 
 to my son in a manner quite satisfactory 
 to him — yes, satisfactory to all l)ut me ; 
 and why can I not die in silence ? wliy am 
 I compelled to ruin the son of my love ? ' 
 Here the unhappy lady's voice rose
 
 128 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 almost to a shriek, as she sprang from her 
 chair, and, standing with lier clasped hands 
 and streaming eyes before the picture, 
 moaned out piteously, 
 
 ' Oh, mother ! mother ! God so deal with 
 me and mine, you said, as I shouhl deal by 
 your darling. Oh! what have I done ? what 
 must I do ? Ah me ! would that I had died 
 before my father! — died innocent and happy 
 w^ith my hand in his, and my head on my 
 boy's breast ! — gone to meet a mother's 
 unreproaching spirit, and feel her sw^eet 
 welcome on the other side the veil.' 
 
 Sinking upon her knees, this woman, of 
 old so calm and stately, was bowed as a 
 reed under her uncontrollable misery. Her 
 face indeed was hidden as she grovelled 
 upon the sofa at which she knelt, but a 
 braid of her white hair escaped from be- 
 neath her cap, and fell forlornly on her 
 shivering shoulders. On God's earth could
 
 MADAM SENDS FOR THE RECTOR. 129 
 
 110 more pitiable figure have been found 
 than the mistress of this stately house. 
 Nor yet on this earth could any heart have 
 swollen nigher to bursting than did that of 
 Francis Holbrooke to see this woeful sight. 
 
 Never yet had tale of distress failed to 
 find a way to his tender heart ; and at this 
 moment if by shedding his heart's blood he 
 could have shortened this woman's agony, 
 he would not have held the sacrifice too 
 dear. Softly, yet breathing hard, he knelt 
 beside his friend, and from his oppressed 
 soul there welled a simple yet noble prayer 
 to God for pity and guidance. Before the 
 last faltering word was uttered the agoniz- 
 ing sobs, the almost frantic words were 
 hushed, and Each el West lay prostrate, 
 but meek in her grievous humiliation, while 
 into the rector's heart a ray of hope darted, 
 where all had been gloom and terror since 
 he suspected the drift of his friend's revela- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 tion ; and as he raised her by the hand, 
 and seated her on the sofa, he was able to 
 say almost cheerfully, 
 
 ' Thank God for this, that you shall no 
 longer bear your trouble alone. Let us face 
 it calmly together, and — who knows ? — it 
 may turn out no more than a dark shadow 
 after all.'
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 131 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 
 
 ' '\rO U told me,' said the rector, soothingly, 
 after a while, ' that no communica- 
 tion has passed between your brother's widow 
 and yourself since her marriage, at which 
 time one of her twin children (but whether 
 the boy or the girl is not specified) had 
 already died. See then how many chances 
 there are against the one possibility which 
 has distressed you so infinitely ! The second 
 child may have gone the way of the first, 
 or if otherwise, the survival of the girl 
 would in no way afi'ect the young squire's 
 position.' 
 
 K 2
 
 132 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 A shuddering groan escaped from Mrs. 
 West when she heard her secret terror take 
 shape in words, even though these were 
 chosen expressly to give no shock. 
 
 ' I had taught myself to think so,' she 
 said despondently at last. ' I had almost 
 taught myself to believe that if — if other- 
 wise, I could do no wrong in holding my 
 peace, and allowing my father's testament 
 to take such effect as he designed it should 
 take. But it was not the will of God. He 
 would not let me deceive myself into 
 happiness. I am as sure that my brother's 
 son is a living man as I am that you sit 
 here by me ! ' 
 
 Her frame shook as with a palsy while 
 she pronounced, to her hearer's dismay, 
 these decisive words, but her voice grew 
 steadier, and she went on, — 
 
 ' You may remember that nearly two 
 years back, very soon, that is, after my
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 133 
 
 father's death, I went to stay with my old 
 friend Anna Murray and her husband, the 
 Vicar of St. Mary's, in Longborough. I 
 thought that a stay in that house among 
 such good and devoted people would keep 
 me from selfishness in my grief. Alas ! I 
 little knew how long a farewell I was to 
 bid there to peace ! Among the sick whom 
 the vicar was then visiting was a man 
 whose eccentricity and originality made a 
 considerable impression on him, and he 
 would speak to his wife and to me of the 
 startlina: sentiments and darinor conceits 
 which he heard from this person, a watch- 
 maker of Dutch extraction, and an advanced 
 radical, indeed, a Chartist and free-thinker 
 to boot, who had settled in his parish some 
 years before, and was now succumbing to 
 an incurable disease. Ah ! my friend, you 
 will have guessed already that this man 
 was the Erasmus Van Lennep who married
 
 134 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Matilda West, and brought her many years 
 after into Longjshire, as ig-norant as she of 
 her first husband's connection with the 
 county. From the moment when I heard 
 the man's name I was a changed being. I 
 dared confide nothing to the Murrays ; I 
 could not even venture to ask questions as 
 to Van Lennep's family, but I secured their 
 address from Mr. Murray's note-book, and 
 found my way alone to the street in which 
 they lived. Though I had armed myself 
 with an errand, carrying a watch which 
 needed repair, I could not bring myself to 
 enter the house, veiled as I was, and changed 
 beyond possibility of recognition by Matilda 
 should I encounter her. After walking once 
 or twice past the house on the other side 
 of the way I entered a little stationer's 
 shop, and making a small purchase, asked 
 the woman who served me for a srlass of 
 water, as I, truly enough, felt faint and
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 135 
 
 unwell. The woman, a civil, talkative 
 person, insisted on my taking a chair in 
 her back parlour, and proved, as I had 
 hoped, both able and willing to gossip 
 about her neighbours upon the slightest 
 encouragement. From her I soon learned 
 that the Van Lenneps were people who 
 had, as it was thought, come down in 
 the world, having formerly had a good 
 business at Birmingham, and tliat the family 
 consisted of the sick man, his wife, and an 
 only son known as Dolf, and " somewhere 
 getting on for thirty." When I heard that 
 name and the description of the young 
 man's age, I felt that my doom was sealed, 
 and did not need the further confirmation 
 afforded by the woman's description of his 
 person. From that hour it has been ever 
 before me that it is my duty to snatch from 
 my son his place in the world, — the place 
 for which he was reared up, and which he
 
 136 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 fills SO well, — and to see my boy replaced, 
 by the son of my brother's unacknowledged 
 union. I have longed, yes, I have even 
 dared to pray that I might die suddenly — 
 die and have made no sign. Sometimes I 
 have told myself that I do no wrong to this 
 young man by depriving him of that to 
 which accident alone has given him a claim, 
 to which he has never raised an eye, ^ 
 hope, or thought. I have even resolved, 
 when such sophistries failed to quiet my 
 conscience, to bear the guilt unflinchingly, 
 and live out my days a cheat, till I pass 
 to a just God's recompense. But it has 
 been borne in upon me that, so doing, I 
 might bring a curse upon my noble and 
 innocent son, and his children to come, 
 whether or no detection of his mother's 
 fraud should follow. Better resign all at 
 once, with clean hands, than risk a stain 
 on that stainless honour ! Again, picture
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 137 
 
 to yourself, my friend, the feelings with 
 which I learned, a few weeks since, that 
 fate had brought the so-called Dolf Van 
 Lennep to this very place, had even 2)ro- 
 duced a collision between the cousins, un- 
 conscious of their relationship or of the 
 complication which involves them ! What 
 I have suffered since that terrible day no 
 tongue can tell ; but I am conquered, 
 beaten to my knees at last ! and terrible, 
 heartrending as is the task before me, it 
 must be done without delay. And you, 
 my friend, must help me. When I think 
 of my son, and the blow that I must deal 
 to him, — my idol, the sun and centre of my 
 life and bliss, — I feel that it will kill me ; 
 but you must help me to be just in spite 
 of all my fears.' 
 
 Her voice died away in sorrow too deep 
 for tears, and her head drooped wearily for- 
 ward as the rector, almost in a whisper, said,
 
 138 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 'What you bid me shall be clone, but 
 God help us all ! ' 
 
 ' You will go then to-morrow to Long- 
 borough — I will give you the address — and 
 see these people. Convince yourself if you 
 will (I am convinced, and feel it can be 
 but an idle formality) of the identity of 
 this young man with my nephew, prepare 
 him and his mother for what is coming to 
 them, and bring them both — or him at 
 least — back with you, if they will come. 
 I shall have atonement to make for the in- 
 justice already done, and when they see their 
 heritage, their gain, my loss, they will be less 
 hard perhaps on me and my boy. Ah, my 
 boy, my love, my pride — ' With a sudden 
 wail she broke off, and sinking back in her 
 seat, buried her ashen face in her hands. 
 
 For a time there was silence in the room, 
 but at last the rector found voice enou^jh 
 for a few hesitating words.
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 139 
 
 * Surely these people, this young man, if 
 the blood of the Wests really flows in his 
 veins, cannot be hard enough, grasping 
 enough to take full advantage of what you 
 mean to disclose ! Some compromise w^ould 
 surely meet the justice of the case. Five 
 hundred a year, a thousand a year, any- 
 thing in reason ! It would be affluence to 
 them, and they may well be too wise to 
 covet a position for which they cannot be 
 fit. Cheer up then, my dear good friend, 
 ever loved and honoured, and tell me that 
 I may hope for some arrangement wdiich 
 shall avert a catastrophe.' 
 
 Without ao-ain raising; herself Mrs. West 
 feebly shook her head, and in broken tones 
 murmured, 
 
 ' You must not tempt me ! that and 
 every other possible expedient has again 
 and again occurred to me. But it cannot 
 be ! I have no hope of anything less than
 
 140 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 absolute deprivation, ruin, and beggary for 
 my boy. And if there were no other ob- 
 jection, how could I carry out any such 
 scheme without my son's knowledge, with- 
 out making him my accomplice ? and, my 
 friend, in all my woe I rejoice to think 
 that he would recoil w^ith horror from 
 buying any worldly good at the price of 
 honour. Above his bride, above his every 
 ambition, his stainless honour stands, and 
 shall stand. No ; I know your heart, I 
 know that it is bleeding for us ; but you 
 must say no more. Leave me now% and 
 to-morrow I shall see you on your return 
 from Longborough. To-morrow the worst 
 shall be known to all who are concerned. 
 Pray for me that I may have strength for 
 that bitterest hour ! pray for my son, that 
 he may never forget his noble nature under 
 this great adversity — and now good-bye ! * 
 A long clasp of the hand, a hoarsely-
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 141 
 
 muttered blessing, and Holbrooke passes 
 from the room, from the house, and, stunned 
 and confused, begins his homeward walk. 
 The wide park is peaceful in the wintry 
 twilight. Eooks are cawing sleepily from 
 the bare branching elms ; the fallow deer 
 crouch snugly among the withered brackens. 
 Can all nature be keeping her wonted order 
 so placidly? and can it yet be true, this 
 hideous story ? Fire, flood, axe, storm, — all 
 might do their worst upon this calm scene, 
 and yet what would the havoc be compared 
 with the desolation about to fall upon it ? 
 The gallant, chivalrous man, in the early 
 prime of his life and the first flush of his 
 honourable ambition, the saintly and revered 
 woman, who from youth to age had been 
 the ornament and good genius of the 
 ancestral home, — these are but intruders, 
 soon to be outcasts ; and in their place (oh, 
 can j)i'ovidence be slumbering ?) shall step
 
 142 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 one, not merely meanly reared, but a sworn 
 enemy to the class among which fate's irony 
 is soon to number him — a demagogue, a 
 Chartist, a foe to all that the lords of 
 Swardham had cherished for generations. 
 
 It was a relief to Mr. Holbrooke, on reach- 
 ing the rectory, to find a gay, apologetic 
 note from his daughter, who had been 
 enticed away to spend the evening at the 
 parsonage in a neighbouring village, where, 
 amid a crowd of merry boys and girls, she 
 was certain to be detained till a late hour. 
 He could not face Mary without exciting 
 her alarm in his present over-wrought and 
 miserable mood, and determined to be off 
 in the morning before she should be stirring. 
 Poor girl ! it was well that she should enjoy 
 one more happy evening before she too 
 should be crushed in the ruin which was 
 hanging over the place lately so blissful. 
 The unhappy rector stamped his foot in
 
 THE UPHEAVAL BEGINS. 143 
 
 impotent wrath as there darted suddenly- 
 through his memory the mocking prophecy 
 of the hateful Auchmuty — ' Unless the 
 secret is one that will die with her, you 
 will remember this little confidence of mine 
 some day, when this Arcadia of yours is 
 upheaved with a genuine sensation.' Alas I 
 how soon it had come, this earthquake, 
 where all had seemed profoundly secure, 
 and what vestige of Arcadian joys was 
 likely to survive its ravages ! Sick at heart 
 and dazed with sorrow, the rector crept to 
 his room, there to count the slow hours till 
 the night should be gone, and it was time 
 for him to play his part in the wretched 
 tragedy, of which the curtain was to fall on 
 the ruin of those dearest to him, save his 
 own child, on this fleetino^ earth.
 
 144 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 r CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 
 
 TN a dim little back parlour, situate iu 
 Britannia Street, Longborough, an 
 elderly woman is fussing about a meagre 
 breakfast-table, and glancing often at a 
 cheap American clock, in a very red mahog- 
 any case, decorated with a very gaudy 
 picture, supposed to represent the great 
 Exhibition of 1851. The woman's short 
 and dumpy figure is sparely robed in cheap 
 black stuff, and she wears a widow's cap, 
 between the ample borders of which her 
 small features look insignificantly forth, 
 though her cheeks are round and fat, and
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 145 
 
 streaked with faint pink. She heaves fre- 
 quent sighs as she puts the coffee-pot within 
 the fender, or peeps under a tin dish-cover 
 at a haddock which is cooling beneath, and 
 her expression is querulous, even when at 
 last a footfall is heard in the shop, and a 
 young man enters the room. 
 
 ' Morning, mother,' says the laggard ; 
 'breakfast's ready, I hope, because Harry is 
 to call for me at the half-hour, and we must 
 settle the programme for next lecture night 
 before noon, and a dozen other things.' 
 
 ' Your breakfast's been spoiling since half- 
 past eight, when I had mine,' replies the 
 woman in melancholy tones ; ' and I did 
 hope you were going to attend to your work 
 to-day. There's Mrs. Brown's watch, that 
 I got her to leave quite as a favour, I assure 
 you ; and that Rugg is not fit to be trusted 
 with it. You'll surely see to that first, as I 
 promised it by this evening, and she may 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 be a good customer with her large giov. ii-iip 
 family.' 
 
 ' Oh, bother the old 'ippopotamus/ says 
 the son with his mouth full of bread and 
 haddock ; ' the idea of her patronizing me 
 with her favours ! If Rugg s no good, what 
 do we pay him fourteen shillings a week for? ' 
 
 The woman's answer comes from behiiid 
 her apron, as she sinks into a chair and 
 gives way to tears, which spring ever 
 readily to her eyes. 
 
 * It's not much longer we shall be able to 
 afford a journeyman at all, at this rate. 
 And then what's to become of us ? The 
 workhouse, I suppose, for me — while you 
 go off after your lecturing and folly that 
 never puts a penny into your pocket. Oh 
 dear, oh dear,' — and she cries and sniffs in 
 a subdued and hopeless way, while her son, 
 shrugging his shoulders, goes on silently 
 with his breakfast.
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 147 
 
 Presently the little bell attached to the 
 shop-door jingles, and Rugg, the unap- 
 preciated journeyman, thrusts his shock 
 head into the room and says, 
 
 ' Oh, it's young Soole called for Mister 
 Dolf.' 
 
 ' Come in, Harry,' shouts Dolf, glad to 
 
 put an end to the tete-a-tete, while his 
 
 mother, with a dolorous look and emphatic 
 
 . shake of the head, betakes her up-stairs to 
 
 make the beds. 
 
 Dolf often snubs his Harry roundly, but 
 there is consolation in his ready deference 
 and artless admiration, when, as not unfre- 
 quently happens, Mr. Dolfs serenity has 
 been ruffled by troubles of a sordid and 
 domestic nature. The great man and his 
 lieutenant have lately been prime movers in 
 the establishment of a young men's mutual 
 improvement society, of a tone at once 
 political and literary — a society which was 
 
 L 2
 
 148 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 to be trammelled by the presence of no 
 Barnetts or other despotic elders. Any 
 tyranny that might be found requisite in 
 the new and improved brotherhood was, 
 in short, to be exercised by Mr. Dolf Van 
 Lennep in person, who, ardent soul ! could 
 no longer brook the post of second fiddle to 
 any other performer. 
 
 Harry Soole was in high spirits this 
 morning, having prevailed on an acquaint- 
 ance who kept a small school for boys to 
 lend his class-room of an evening for the 
 purposes of the infant society. 
 
 ' I had to promise him that he should 
 recite sometimes,' quoth Harry ; * but think 
 what it will save us, just at first, in rent ! 
 and we can always put him up at the 
 beginning of the programme, just to set 
 thino^s a-start till folks are all seated.' 
 
 'And does old Maunder suppose,' says 
 Dolf, with clouded brow, ' or were you such
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 149 
 
 an ass as to let him suppose, that Tm going 
 to demean myself, and the society I have 
 founded, with the stamp of his mouthings — 
 to mar its nascent fortunes with a brand of 
 rhapsodical inferiority ? Not for a dozen 
 paltry school-rooms ! Nothing is more im- 
 portant than an imposing commencement. 
 Old Maunder indeed ! — and you promised 
 him ! I'm amazed at you, 'Arry Soole.' 
 
 Quite crest-fallen, poor Soole makes 
 humble submission for his indiscretion, and 
 after more talk the pair sally forth to call 
 on the deacon of a very small chapel 
 (denomination unknown), to whom was to 
 be offered the honour of affording a rostrum 
 for the aspiring orators of young Long- 
 borough. It might be imagined that no 
 constancy could endure a course of such 
 amenities as Dolf Van Lennep lavished upon 
 his friend ; but not only was poor Soole of 
 a meek and unselfish disposition, he also
 
 150 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 had a sister, one Sally Soole, on whom the 
 mighty Dolf had deigned to smile, and it 
 was the wish of his heart to see pretty Sally 
 united to one of whose intimacy he was 
 proud, and of whose future he predicted 
 great things. 
 
 After the unceremonious departure of her 
 son, the widow Van Lennep (who had buried 
 her husband some six months before this 
 time) hurried through her household duties, 
 and passed into the shop. It was a low- 
 ceiled, old-fashioned place, with a little bow- 
 window on either side the front door. In 
 one of these windows, where hungr a few 
 ancient time-pieces of dim and lumpish 
 appearance, sat Rugg the journeyman, in- 
 specting, through a black tube mysteriously 
 screwed into his eye the w^orks of a dilapi- 
 dated watch. The other window had 
 recently been fitted with some shelves, on 
 which were displayed a few^ petty articles of
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 151 
 
 ironmongery — trivets, toasting-forks,- and 
 packets of nails and screws, which filled the 
 shop with a prevailing fragrance of brown 
 paper. After a sour glance at the untidy 
 and [)hlegniatic assistant, the widow settled 
 herself at a desk on the hardware side of the 
 establishment, and began, with many sighs 
 and a most mournful countenance, to con 
 the pages of a ledger. She had not, how- 
 ever, been long thus employed, when the 
 little bell's tinkling announced a possible 
 customer, and looking up, she saw a gentle- 
 man in evident hesitation as to whom he 
 should address. 
 
 ' A church clergyman, I warrant him,' 
 thought the widow as she surveyed the 
 stranger, and threw an extra dash of chill 
 acidity into her inquiry, 'And what can 
 I do for you, sir, if you please ? ' 
 
 A member for years past of a congregation 
 of Primitive Methodists is Matilda Van
 
 152 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Lennep, and unsavoury in her nostrils is the 
 aroma of the establishment, even as repre- 
 sented by rosy portly little Mr. Holbrooke. 
 Not all the jeers and gibes of a free-thinking 
 husband, not all the neglect of a heedless 
 son, had availed so to school her that she 
 would forbear what she called her testimony 
 on every due occasion. It had been all 
 very well for the late Van Lennep, who 
 cared nothing what a man's opinions were 
 provided he could get him into an argument, 
 to encourage church clergymen about the 
 place during his tedious illness. His wife 
 had been bound to put up with it, as she 
 did with many other things ; but his widow 
 w^as not going to stand any repetition of 
 clerical patronage. So there w^as something 
 almost repellent in the tone with w^hich she 
 repeated, * Sir, what can I do for you ? ' 
 
 Shamefaced and embarrassed, the rector" 
 of Swardham stood before her, and in his
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 153 
 
 inability to find words, and his desire to 
 be diplomatic and conciliatory, was almost 
 minded to temporize, and gain a pleasant 
 footing by making a mild offer for the 
 battered watches or the toasting-forks. 
 
 At last, when the widow had come to the 
 conclusion that the man must be about to 
 beg of her for some of his church follies 
 and fal-lals, and was preparing to give him 
 a crushing answer, he managed to stammer 
 out that he had a matter of importance to 
 broach in private, and, with a quaint little 
 bow, presented his card. With a toss of the 
 head, Mrs. Van Lennep led the way to her 
 back parlour. No sooner had the door closed 
 upon them, and the rector began again. 
 'Madame, you have a son,' than the 
 widow, leaping to a fresh conclusion, com- 
 pletely changed her tone. She had heard 
 from her Dolf an account, garbled for the 
 maintenance of his own dignity, of the
 
 154 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 occurrences in HockerilFs barn, and his 
 encounter with John West ; and now, seeing 
 Swardham on the corner of the rector's card, 
 she was seized with terrors lest her head- 
 strong boy should be involved in trouble, 
 whereof this parson might be the herald. 
 
 ' Oh dear, sir,' she whined, ' it wasn't with 
 my good will that the lad w^ent nigh your 
 place, and if it's anybody who ought to be 
 punished for what happened, it's that 
 Barnett ! I'm sure, sir, my Dolf will be 
 ready to apologize if he's hurt the gentleman 
 — and I hope you'll take my word for it, 
 and succour the widow, sir, and the orphan, 
 as a true man of peace/ 
 
 Quite out of breath, she stopped, and 
 as she wiped away a tear, saw only mild 
 surprise in the perplexed face of her visitor. 
 
 ^ I am sorry to have given a wrong im- 
 pression of my errand,' he said ; ' it is of a 
 very different nature — nothing to your son's
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 155 
 
 detriment — but ' (with an irrepressible sigh) 
 * probably quite tlie contrary. Assuring 
 you that I have important reasons for the 
 question, may I ask whether you have been 
 more than once married ? ' 
 
 ' Law, sir,' gaped the widow, and her 
 accent was altered, ' it's not what I like, 
 being catechized by a stranger, and what 
 my late husband would have strongly ob- 
 jected to, I can assure you. However, I've 
 no reason to be ashamed of the truth. I 
 have been twice married, being left a widow 
 with twin babes when no more than a child 
 myself, since which I have been wife to the 
 late Mr. Van Lennep for eight-and-twenty 
 years.' 
 
 * And your son, ma'am, — trust me, that I 
 don't ask out of idle curiosity, — is he the 
 son of the first or of the second marriage ? ' 
 
 How the poor rector's heart beat as he 
 asked this question ! He scarcely knew till
 
 156 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 this moment how strong within him lingered 
 hope that there might be a mistake, the 
 detection of which should cause all these 
 troubles to vanish away as nightmares before 
 daylight. 
 
 ' It's well, sir, for your chance of being 
 answered/ said the widow slowly, with 
 many nods of the head, ' that Erasmus — I 
 allude to the late Mr. V. — is no more. He 
 hadn't such respect for your cloth, fond as 
 he was of an argument with any of you, but 
 that he'd have shown the door to any man 
 who asked him no more than you've asked 
 me. But he's gone, and I see no call to 
 make mystery about it. My son, sir, knows 
 indeed no better at this moment than that 
 he's son to Mr. Van Lennep, having been 
 brought up as such from the time he was 
 short-coated. It was his step-father's wish 
 and desire; but his own father was dead' 
 and buried before ever he was born — he and
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 157 
 
 bis little twin sister that was taken, sweet 
 lamb ! in her infant days — and his right 
 name is the same as his — Adolphus, sir, 
 and surname West, which was my name 
 before it was Van Lennep. And now, sir, 
 1 make l)old to ask, what of it ? ' 
 
 Sharply enough the widow propounded 
 this natural inquiry, but slowly and dole- 
 fully, with aching heart, did her visitor 
 unfold his marvellous tale. 
 
 ' It is my duty, ma'am, to inform you 
 that your son, in right of his father, sup- 
 posing there is no mistake, can claim a very 
 fine property in this county, in the part 
 where I live ; that is, of course, if you have 
 proofs of his birth and identity/ 
 
 The little dumpy woman had fallen back 
 in her chair, and with one hand pressed to 
 her side, lay staring at Holbrooke with an 
 almost painful gaze of astonished incre^ 
 dulity.
 
 158 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 ' His father ! ' she gasped. ' Are you 
 sure, sir ? Why, he ran through all he had, 
 and often and often did he say to me. 
 " Not a penny, Tilly, will you and I ever 
 pocket from my side, not to keep us from 
 starving ! " And after all these years, too. 
 There must be some mistake, I think ; 
 West's a common name enough.' 
 
 ' But not Adolphus West. There is 
 no mistake,' says the rector with a 
 groan ; ' and 1 come to you from your 
 first husband's sister. Do you remember 
 her ? ' 
 
 ' What, her that came down to Ellington 
 after poor Adolphus died — and her real lace 
 fall and sable boa and muff? That I do 
 remember,' the w^dow cried excitedly. 
 * And she's alive, is she ? I never thouoht 
 it. And sends a sjentleman to me after all 
 these years, to say my boy's to come into a 
 fine property ! It's kind of her, that it is ! '
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET, 159 
 
 and rising, she dropped a flurried curtsey to 
 the ambassador. 
 
 ' Oh, ma'am,' with a full heart the rector 
 replies, 'she is indeed kindness and goodness 
 itself, and should she need kindness herself, 
 there is no one who has earned such a claim 
 to it. She is a widow, as you are ; and has 
 one only son, as you also have. God grant 
 your heart may be as tender as hers has 
 always been in her prosperity.' 
 
 Bewildered by the rector's impassioned 
 utterance, Mrs. Van Lennep stared again, 
 and faintly demanded, 
 
 ' But about the property, sir, that you 
 say is come to my Dolf ? It couldn't be 
 hers, of course, as she's alive ; who's it come 
 from, please ? ' 
 
 ' Ma'am, you may have heard your neigh- 
 bours talk of Squire West of Swardham 
 — all Longshire folks know the Wests. 
 Adolphus West, who married you, was the
 
 IGO WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 younger son of old squire West — though 
 I dare say he told you true enough that 
 neither you nor he were likely to be a 
 penny the richer for his family. He had 
 disappointed his father, and the old squire 
 cast him off. Only his sister was kind to him, 
 and tended his dying bed — always remember 
 that, ma'am ! — and before he closed his eyes 
 he made her promise not to let the old man 
 know of his leaving wife or child. A solemn 
 promise to a dying brother she made and 
 kept I Well, ma'am, when the old squire 
 died, not three years ago, he had no living 
 son, and his only kith and kin, that he knew^ 
 of, w^ere his widowed daughter and her boy, 
 who had lived in his house for years, and 
 were both near and dear to the old man. To 
 this grandson, John West as he is called, the 
 old squire meant to leave his estate, which 
 was in his own power to wdll to wdiom he 
 pleased. It w^ould have been just the same
 
 A VISITOR IN BRITANNIA STREET. 161 
 
 if he had known of your son's existence ; or 
 rather, if he had known things could never 
 have come about as they are like to do. 
 For, in the belief that his two sons had died 
 unmarried and childless, the old squire 
 left unaltered a will made years before — a 
 will by which a son of either of those two, 
 if such a son there should be, takes the 
 estate before the daughter's son. 
 
 Stopping abruptly after delivering him- 
 self of this horrid fact, the rector stole a 
 glance at his auditor, while he wiped his 
 troubled brow. Round-eyed and gaping, 
 the widow sat as one transfixed, and Hol- 
 brooke was meditating a second and more 
 lucid exposition of his tidings, when she 
 found voice at last. 
 
 ' The son's son before the daughter's son ! 
 that's right enough, all the world over, that 
 is, whether the old gentleman left it so by 
 accident or not. That means my Dolf, if 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 you're telling me truth, before his cousin. 
 My Dolf a gentleman of property ! Oh, 
 God above us ! A-a-h ! ' and with a stifled 
 exclamation, and a flinginor out of her fat 
 hands, the widow sank back upon her patch- 
 work cushion, and, to her visitor's unspeak- 
 able dismay, fainted away without further 
 ado.
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 163 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 
 
 r\ REAT was the indignation of Mr. Dolf 
 ^^ when, on his unexpected return home, 
 he found the shop deserted, and, diving into 
 the back parlour, was confronted by two 
 neighbouring matrons and a perturbed 
 stranger of clerical appearance. Never of 
 the sweetest or most placid temper, he had 
 this morning been tried by failure and con- 
 tumely. For the deacon, whom he had 
 stooped to solicit for the use of a building, 
 had not only flatly refused the accommoda- 
 tion, but had flouted and gibed at the new 
 brotherhood as a gang of idle prentices and 
 
 M 2
 
 164 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 good-for-nothings. Goaded and stung by 
 this rebuff, Dolf could no longer endure 
 the company even of his henchman, whose 
 presumptuous arrangement it might now 
 be necessary to ratify. Dismissing Soole, 
 he stalked gloomily to his home, there 
 intending to pour out his wrathful soul in 
 a letter to the radical paper of Longborough. 
 
 If only the editor would for once be kind, 
 he would surely make that grovelling deacon 
 sorry for his churlish insolence ! He had 
 worked up several very fine sentences on 
 his way to Britannia Street, and vast was 
 his displeasure to find his privacy invaded, 
 his journeyman fled, and his parent stretched 
 upon the horse-hair sofa in the back room. 
 
 ' Don't be frighted, Mr. Dolf,' says one of 
 the matrons ; ' yer mail soon be round agin 
 — as her colour's coming back every minute ; 
 thousjh like death indeed when Mrs. Brett 
 and me was fetched in — as this good gentk'-
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 165 
 
 man can explain to you better than me 
 how it came about,' and the worthy lady 
 darted a look of yearning curiosity towards 
 Holbrooke. 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Van Lennep sat up 
 on the sofa, and turned a bewildered gaze 
 on the assembly, till her eye lit on her son. 
 
 ' My boy,' she cried faintly, ' my own 
 only son ! this gentleman has news for you 
 — ah, such new^s ! ' 
 
 In one minute after this intimation the 
 matrons were dismissed, indignant and un- 
 satisfied, to their own dwellings, and Dolf, 
 still somewhat morose and scornful, was 
 confronted with the herald of his amazinof 
 fortune. How the poor rector loathed in 
 his heart, as he once more recited the neces- 
 sary facts, this ungracious young dema- 
 o'offue ! How he sickened at the thoui^ht 
 of displacing from his pedestal brave, hand- 
 some Jack West, with his gallant bearing
 
 166 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 and his haughty honouraljle spirit, to make 
 room for this man, so destitute of breeding 
 or presence, this sample of provincial radical- 
 ism of the lowest type. Could the same 
 blood indeed flow in their veins ? Alas ! it 
 seemed hopeless to dispute the fact, useless 
 to blink the terrible consequences of an 
 old man's disinclination for re-opening that 
 which had been sealed, signed, and delivered 
 as his last will and testament. And so Mr. 
 Holbrooke gulped down his rising bile, and 
 strove to speak fair this strange scion of an 
 ancient tree, in the hope that magnanimity 
 might, after all, be found to dwell in that 
 narrow breast, and that more than strict 
 justice might haply be meted to his innocent 
 and most unfortunate kinsman by his puny 
 supplanter. The mother sat by her son, as 
 the tale was unfolded to his astounded ears, 
 and at first held his hand, which soon he 
 snatched from her, as excitement began to
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 167 
 
 master him. Once only did he turn and 
 look into the dim blue eyes that were fixed 
 on him so fondly ; when, namely, the rector 
 first touched on the secret of his parentage. 
 
 His hurried glance of inquiry being met 
 by a solemn nod of confirmation, he was 
 immediately absorbed again in the narration, 
 and seemed to forget his mother's very pre- 
 sence. A breathless question showed now 
 and then how eagerly and closely he fol- 
 lowed the story — but towards the end he 
 sank back on the sofa, with a white face 
 and great drops standing on his brow, and 
 looked so likely to follow his mother's recent 
 example, and swoon away, that the appre- 
 hensive rector began to look timidly round 
 for assistance, till an eager entreaty that he 
 would go on with the narrative induced 
 him to believe that Van Lennep was, as he 
 declared, ' all right.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Holbrooke, ' that I have
 
 168 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 put you in the possession of the facts, Mr. — 
 Mr. West ; and your next step will, perhaps, 
 be to call upon Mr. Scott (you know Scotts' 
 in Friargate, they are the Swardham 
 solicitors), whom I suppose you will find 
 in a measure prepared to meet you. And 
 now, Mr. West, I have, with a full heart 
 and heavy, ended the business part of ray 
 visit ; but I must ask your patience for a 
 few words in addition. Mr. AVest, I have 
 no friend in the world whom I respect and 
 love as I do Mrs. West, your aunt, Eachel 
 West, and there is no young man in whose 
 future I take more interest, and whose 
 merits I rate higher, than your cousin 
 John West's, whose place, it seems, you 
 are entitled to fill. Bear with me then 
 while I beseech you to deal very tenderly 
 with both in this their great and unexpected 
 reverse of fortune. Forget all else, remem-' 
 ber only that you come of one good old
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 169 
 
 stock, of which so few scions survive, that 
 each should have high value in the other's 
 eyes, and all the more that no one of you 
 has wilfully wronged another.' 
 
 The poor rectors halt and tremulous 
 eloquence was here checked by a sound as 
 of dissent from him whom it is as yet hard 
 to call Adolphus West. 
 
 ' In what year was it that John West's 
 grandfather, and — and mine, died ? ' asked 
 the young man in low, deliberate tones, as 
 he bent back, pale and frail but determined, 
 on the cheap and vulgar sofa. 
 
 * It was over two years ago,' muttered 
 Holbrooke, strangely discomfited. 
 
 ' Nearly three years ago ! ' rejoined the 
 other, with sudden and startling passion. 
 ' Then for thirty long months or more the 
 position which you came to-day to divulge to 
 me has been mine by right, if I may believe 
 your own tale. What though accident gave
 
 170 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 the inheritance to the neglected outcast, the 
 disgraced son's disowned issue, instead of 
 to the proud young heir, son of the favoured 
 daughter — the law takes no cognizance of 
 an accidental element in a strictly legal 
 bequest, as your friends well knew, Mr. 
 parson I Nearly three years ! My God ! 
 with the opportunities that should have 
 been mine, what might I not have done 
 with myself, my brains, my time, in these 
 years during which I have been grovelling, 
 tied to a hateful handicraft, brow-beaten 
 and kept nnder by the very tradesmen 
 who have crouched for the custom of 
 Swardham Hall And all this— this deadly, 
 irreparable wrong, these years stolen from 
 my prime —I am to forget, because tardy 
 justice is done — and beg, I suppose, my 
 kind relatives to keep, as a favour to myself, 
 what they please of the wealth of which 
 they have deprived me so long for their
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 171 
 
 own advantage 1 Oh ! I can spare you the 
 pains of your arguments, sir. Doubtless 
 you would say that it is a sad pity for 
 such ornaments of their rank to be ejected 
 for the sake of one bred as I have been 
 bred; but whose fault is it that I have 
 been condemned to so long obscurity ? 
 Small thanks do I owe Mrs. West for this 
 late rendering of justice ; slight compunction 
 shall I feel in ousting the haughty squire 
 her son from his feudal abuse of power. 
 And I scorn for one moment to disguise 
 the sentiments which do and ever will 
 actuate me.' 
 
 Sickened and dismayed, the rector darted 
 his glance from the hot white face of the 
 agitated young man to the mother's round 
 inexpressive countenance. A woman's heart 
 might still be touched by a sister's woes ; 
 and while alone with her, Holbrooke had 
 thought Mrs. Van Lennep not unkindly
 
 172 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 disposed. But alas for his hopes ! the 
 ample cap-borders were shaken by quite a 
 tempest of indignation as the maternal soul, 
 long waxing hot, was at last relieved by- 
 fiery words. 
 
 * She that seemed so grand and above 
 poor folks' temptations ! she that made 
 believe to wish us well ! she to keep my 
 dear boy out of his own these long years 
 last past, that we've been struggling so sore, 
 and going down-hill so grievous, struggle 
 as we might ! A right down wicked bad 
 woman I call her, and I won't mince my 
 words ; and mean too, if she would now 
 seek to be beholden to the forbearance of 
 them she has wronged so. But my dear 
 boy is right, as he always is, to make no 
 terms at all, but take all that the law gives 
 him. My clever boy, he'll shine among the 
 best yet ; and let me tell you, humble as 
 he may describe himself, and wronged as he
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 173 
 
 has been, he has not wanted for education, 
 nor for profiting by it neither ! What is 
 right to be done he'll do it ; but it won't 
 be what you're sent here to beguile him 
 into, and so I make bold to tell you, church- 
 minister as you are.' 
 
 Quite out of breath the matron stopped, 
 and possessed herself once more of the hand 
 which her son had vs^aved in languid depre- 
 cation of her harangue. But though silent, 
 still she glowered at the man, doubly hate- 
 ful as priest of a state churcli and ambas- 
 sador of a presumably wily foe. She might 
 indeed have been somewhat mollified could 
 she have read the poor man's heart, or 
 known the utter misery and sick despair 
 which filled his breast as slowly he arose, 
 and, picking up hat and stick, prepared to 
 fly from the scene where his last spark of 
 hope had been quenched. He could not obey 
 Mrs. West's injunctions — he could not ask
 
 174 WEST OF SWAPvDHAM. 
 
 these people to enter her presence or pollute 
 Swardham with their feet earlier than should 
 be absolutely necessary. And yet, wicked 
 and base and unfeeling as he deemed them, 
 he felt through all his horror of them a 
 persuasion that a more acute and dijDlomatic 
 person than himself might have succeeded 
 better in his mission. 
 
 ' I think,' he said, and his voice was sad 
 and subdued, and he felt quite old and 
 shaky while he spoke, ' I think that I had 
 better be going, unless there is any other 
 business topic on which I can afford you 
 information/ 
 
 ' If there is, sir,' replied the young man 
 loftily, ' I can seek enlightenment of Mr. 
 Scott, to whom 1 shall not fail to introduce 
 myself at once.' 
 
 Bowing stiffly the rector passed from the 
 house without another word, and turned to 
 go, he knew not whither — nor would it
 
 HOW ADOLPHUS TOOK IT. 175 
 
 have greatly concerned him at that moment 
 had an earthquake rent the pavement of 
 Britannia Street and engulfed him in the 
 bowels of a globe whence happiness and 
 order had fled for ever.
 
 176 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 
 
 /^NCE more the rector and Mrs. West are 
 met, in the hidy's little sitting-room 
 where hangs the family group. With de- 
 jected looks, head bowed down, and tremul- 
 ous accents, Holbrooke has reported to his 
 patroness the result of his visit to Britannia 
 Street ; striving, as he told his tale, to avoid 
 all exaggeration, and yet wholly unable to 
 extenuate the impressions produced on him 
 by the mother and son. If aught indeed 
 could have lightened his task and his heart, 
 it would have been the gentle resignation, 
 the perfect patience, with which Rachel
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 177 
 
 West learned the disposition of these reha- 
 tives towards herself. 
 
 ' My friend,' she said, when he touched 
 on the vindictive feelings of Adolphus and 
 his mother, * they have suffered wrong, do 
 not forget that, and at my hands. What 
 reparation I can make shall be made, and it 
 shall be made clear to them that my son 
 has not injured them in thought, word, or 
 deed. Be jealous for his sake, but not for 
 mine. Let the world know that he steps 
 forth from this place stripped of all save 
 honour, but on that no spot ! Courage, my 
 old friend ; you are not afraid that truth 
 shall prevail ! Nerve yourself, and me too, 
 who in this matter lean upon you as my 
 trusty stay. There is but one more step, 
 and then I can say the bitterness of this, to 
 which death seemed pleasant a while ago, is 
 past ! Yes, you must break it to John, and 
 bring him to me. Mr. Scott will be in the 
 
 VOL. L N
 
 178 WEST OF SWAKDHAM. 
 
 house, indeed, I think he is now in the 
 library ; and when we are all calm enough 
 we can take counsel together as to what 
 must be our next move. John has been in 
 the steward's room with Ballard since his 
 breakfast, you must waylay him there. 
 Take him out to the end of the terrace, and 
 tell him there, — her gentle voice sank lower, 
 gentler as she went on ; — ' and then, as you 
 bring him in, I shall be here at my window, 
 and see how my boy bears it. He will 
 look up at me, I think he will look up and 
 smile love and forgiveness on his mother, 
 my own brave darling ! Now go, my faith- 
 ful friend. He will prompt you with most 
 meet words, Whom on my knees I will 
 beseech for mercy while you are with my 
 son.' 
 
 Wringing Holbrooke's hand convulsively, 
 Mrs. West, whose outward calmness had so 
 far been astonishing, sank in the attitude of
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 179 
 
 prayer upon a low seat, against tlie liigli 
 carved back of which she leaned, and hid 
 her face upon her clasped hands. Thus the 
 rector left her, and with throbbing heart 
 descended in quest of the unconscious squire. 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards two men were 
 leaning mournfully against the balustrade 
 of mellow-tinted brick-work which bounded 
 the terrace at Sward ham. 
 
 ' Hush a wliile,' said the younger in a low, 
 weary voice, ' hush, and let me think a bit.' 
 
 It was a bleak March day, and a keen 
 drying east wind swept over the park, 
 where the rooks tacked laboriously on their 
 voyages, and the withered ferns shivered, 
 and the elms tossed their great arms, as if 
 rejoicing that their buds could not as yet 
 suffer from the nipping blast. Jack West's 
 keen dark eyes roved over the familiar scene. 
 They looked as dry and bright as usual, 
 but they saw nothing. Never in his healthy 
 
 N 2
 
 180 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 active life had his peaceful slumber been 
 disturbed by nightmare, or he might have 
 recognized in the tormented stupor which op- 
 pressed him something akin to the troubled 
 sleeper's distress. Disinherited, ejected, a 
 sham for two years past, a nobody for the 
 future — he tried to shape these ideas, but 
 his stunned mind refused to receive definite 
 impressions, his brain seemed to whirl. 
 
 All at once there broke upon him an illum- 
 inating ray, pure from all selfishness, and as 
 he heaved a vast sigh and turned abruptly 
 towards the rector, all his heart spoke out 
 in the words, ' Mother ! God bless her ! ' He 
 checked himself abruptly to look in the 
 rector's face, which had by this time turned 
 very red, and was now bedewed by a tear 
 from either eye. Not a word could the 
 good man utter, indeed, he had much ado 
 to repress a rising sob, but he seized his 
 old pupil's hand, and nodding his head
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 181 
 
 violently, motioned with it toward the 
 house. 
 
 * So you've been keeping this to your- 
 selves to spare me, you pair of conspirators,' 
 Jack said, with a husky little laugh, ' as if 
 I could not bear anything as long as site is 
 all right ; ' and he strode along the terrace, 
 head erect, a gallant sight for any woman's 
 eyes, one to be idolized by her that bore 
 him. 
 
 ' She's — she's at her window, watching for 
 you,' gasped the agitated rector, pulling at 
 the other's coat lapel ; ' let her see that her 
 prayers are answered as you look up.' 
 
 In another moment they were within 
 sight of the well-known casement, and Jack 
 West stood still and bared his head, letting 
 the March wind ruffle the black locks about 
 his broad temples. A big, brave, strong- 
 limbed man he always looked, and every 
 inch a o-entleman, but as he stood turnintr
 
 182 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 up his face with a sad tender smile, there 
 was lent to his features and to his whole 
 mien a something which had not been there 
 before — something which had never been 
 seen by his lady-love at Marloes, or it must 
 have qui('kened even the placid pulses of 
 the lady Emily. 
 
 Almost with awe the rector marked the 
 alteration, which brought to his mind 
 reminiscences of martyrs or heroes pour- 
 trayed by immortal hands in Italy of 
 yore. At that moment t1ie sun peeped, 
 Avan and sickly, from the grey cold sky, 
 and his beam lit up the gallant, un- 
 covered head, and glinted on the window- 
 panes of the old red house. There was a 
 movement of the curtain, where Eachel 
 West knelt in the embrasure, and those who 
 were looking beneath saw two clasped hands 
 flung heavenward, as in rapture, and a 
 white head sink forward till it rested on the
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 183 
 
 window-ledge, where the faint sunbeam 
 crowned it with a silver halo. And so they 
 found her resting when they reached her 
 room, but the clouds had closed again over 
 the sun, and only the cold daylight illumined 
 the bowed head, the thin clasped hands, the 
 kneeling figure in its black array. Hol- 
 brooke had stopped by the door, meaning 
 to come forward presently, when he was 
 startled by a cry, a startled shout of horror, 
 from Jack West. 
 
 ' Eun, Holbrooke, quick, for God's sake ! 
 get help ! let them ride off for the doctors ! 
 she has fainted — in a dead fidnt she is.' 
 
 Hastily snatching at the bell-rope, the 
 rector ran to help West, who was trying to 
 get his mother on to the couch, and in so 
 doing, just as servants came in and called 
 off Jack's attention, he caught sight of 
 the face of his old friend, and in a moment 
 his heart seemed to stand still, for he felt
 
 184 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 that it was death on which he looked. 
 It was not that any stamp of rigidity or 
 sign of mortal struggle was discernible, 
 rather was it the aspect of seraphic sweet- 
 ness, of unutterable repose and youth 
 renewed, which told the experienced parish 
 priest that this world's troubles were over 
 for Rachel West. While Jack was ^ivinfj 
 hurried directions to the butler, and the 
 elderly maid hovered round, w^eakly w^ailing 
 and wondering, Holbrooke laid his hand 
 reverently on the serene brow% and pressed 
 down the half-closed eyelids, and as he did 
 so the room rang with the maid's sudden 
 screams. 
 
 ' Oh, my lady ! my dear mistress ! she is 
 gone, yes, she is gone ! ' 
 
 Hurrying to his mother's side, Jack 
 fiercely bid the woman be siJent and leave 
 the room, and stooping anxiously as he took 
 the passive hand, said,
 
 THE angi:l of death. 185 
 
 ' What is it, Holbrooke ? why do you 
 look so ? She will come to directly.' 
 
 But the rector answered not, and Jack, 
 looking up with a vague numbness stealing 
 upon his heart, saw eyes of mingled awe 
 and pity, saw quivering lips, and a hand 
 that pointed upwards, and then, when his 
 eyes fell again, that still, white face, wdth 
 its changeless smile and holy passionless 
 calm. At once he comprehended it all, and 
 there broke from his lips an exceeding 
 bitter cry, — 
 
 ' God pity me ! He has taken her, and 
 left me alone.' 
 
 A man of physical gifts inferio]- to those 
 of John West, whose splendid constitution 
 had suffered from no strain, might have 
 been at such a moment spared for a while 
 by the failure of his bodily powers from the 
 torture of the anguished soul. But to West 
 no such relief was for a moment possible
 
 186 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 under the double blow that had befallen 
 him. With all the full powers and unim- 
 paired vigour of the prime of life, he began 
 to serve his apprenticeship to anguish and 
 woe, and cruel was the ordeal. 
 
 During the bleak days that followed Mr. 
 Holbrooke seldom left his former pupil, and, 
 in spite of the almost unbroken silence 
 maintained by either, the younger man felt 
 grateful for such companionship. He had 
 referred once only to his loss of fortune, 
 when he had been informed that until after 
 the funeral all w^ould remain as it had been, 
 and had at once relapsed into the aching 
 gloom of his sorely- w^ounded spirit. 
 
 In accordance with this intimation, Kachel 
 West's burial was marked with all the 
 solemn state which had been customary 
 when a master or mistress of Swardham 
 Hall was consig^ned to the vault where 
 generations of Wests were laid. Strange
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 187 
 
 rumours were indeed already rife, noised in 
 Longborough streets, and whispered in rural 
 villaofes, as to a new claimant for the great 
 Swardham estate, and a serious flaw in the 
 title of the present squire ; but by common 
 consent, all the world of Longshire agreed 
 to behave upon the day of the funeral as if 
 no such reports had been spread, expressing 
 thereby the sincere respect and honour in 
 which the deceased lady had been held by 
 her neighbours. More of sympathy than 
 might be expressed by such reticence none 
 was found bold enough to express, though 
 many were the chiefs of good old Longshire 
 houses, and many were the ancient tenants 
 who gathered round the grave of Eachel 
 West. Many also were the furtive glances 
 directed towards the tall figure of the chief 
 mourner, who stood alone throughout the 
 service at the coffin's head ; but such was 
 John West's aspect and demeanour that
 
 188 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 none could venture to touch his hand or 
 murmur in his ear a word of condolence. 
 Calm as he was and tearless, there was that 
 about his set mouth and contracted brows 
 which misfht have held the most familiar 
 or the most officious at more than arm's 
 length ; and in many a Loiigshire hall and 
 homestead men shook their heads that nis^ht 
 in sorrow for the young squire, and feared 
 that evil days were indeed, as rumour had 
 predicted, fallen upon him whose best friend 
 had been gathered to her fathers, taken, in 
 God's goodness, from the sad days to come. 
 What Kachel West had suffered in the 
 last two years of her life no mortal kuew 
 save her friend the rector. To her the 
 angel of death came a merciful visitant, 
 beckoning away the soul that was cleared 
 by timely confession of its heaviest burden. 
 And her last earthly feeling was a joy too 
 deep for words, lit at the loving eyes which
 
 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 189 
 
 were the last to gaze into her own. The 
 struggle was over ; her son knew all, and 
 could smile upon his mother with new 
 tenderness. The heart that had, when 
 wrung with lonely terrors, continued to beat 
 and ache with pain, burst with the sudden 
 rapture of relief, and its pulses w^ere stilled 
 for ever.
 
 190 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 DESDICHADO. 
 
 IITEANWHILE John West had turned 
 his back upon the desolate house 
 where already he had learned to believe 
 himself an intruder, and suffered the good 
 rector to lead him in silence to his home, 
 there to rest awhile until the weary new life 
 should be fairly begun, and the fallen man 
 could gather up his energies to rush forth 
 into the turmoil of the rough world and 
 lose himself Already indeed he seemed 
 inured to the stern conditions of lone- 
 liness and poverty ; already had he 
 lived a weary while, compared with which
 
 DESDICHADO. 191 
 
 the smooth time past seemed as a short 
 
 dream. Ah, those inexorable moments ! 
 
 when one that is young and strong and 
 
 unused to woe is roused by the grey dawn 
 
 to grapple afresh with the eating cares 
 
 which weighed him at last, after infinite 
 
 miserable tossings to and fro, into a few 
 
 hours' leaden slumber. Ah, those wakings, 
 
 those quickening perceptions, astonished for 
 
 the first short interval that all should not 
 
 be well, then darkening, darkening, till as 
 
 by a lightning flash the wounded soul is 
 
 revealed to itself once more ! Never shall 
 
 John West foro-et the throes of those a^oniz- 
 
 ing hours, endured while all the world 
 
 around was unavvaked, in which his very 
 
 heart and soul seemed lost in black despair, 
 
 in sick abhorrence of the future, loomino; so 
 
 long and dreary. 
 
 But though at heart no stoic, no more 
 invulnerable indeed than any other bruised
 
 192 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 and hard-pressed sufferer in tlie grim battle 
 of life, John West made no audible moan, 
 and bore himself, as befitted one of his 
 descent, staunchly. And one there was to 
 whom he seemed in his encompassing dis- 
 tress and fallen estate almost an ideal of 
 moral grandeur — a paladin, a paragon. 
 Mary Holbrooke's generous and innocent 
 heart thrilled, amid her deep sorrow, with 
 reverent admiration for the patient, silent 
 man whom, after the funeral, her father 
 brought to the rectory. 
 
 ' T know now,' she said to her sire in 
 private, * what a real hero looks like — the 
 sort of man whom nothing: on this earth can 
 drive from his own true, noble nature. And 
 I hope, yes, I trust and believe, that there 
 is comfort on the wins: for our hero from 
 the quarter whence it will be most welcome. 
 Ah ! I could almost envy Lady Emily her 
 chance of winning his heart over again.
 
 DESDICHADO. 193 
 
 Her beauty or rank may have had some- 
 thing to do with it before ; but now she can 
 show^ him that these are a woman's least 
 charms ; now she can prove herself worthy 
 of even his love. And though of course 
 they will be poor, comparatively poor at 
 least, that will only add to her opportunity 
 of showing what a woman can prove herself 
 for true love's sake. And of course her 
 father — it's luck}^ he's a duke — can find 
 something for them which won't be un- 
 ^vorthy of the squire. He's sure to be look^ 
 ing after something already, and then she. 
 can come to him and tell him. Oh, how^ 
 delightful for her ! don't you think so, 
 papa ? ' 
 
 And for the first time for many days the 
 cheerful music returned to Mary's voice. 
 But no cheerful echo was provoked in the 
 rector's answ^er, as he sighed and slightly 
 shook his head. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 ' My little girl prates very precociously of 
 lovers' constancy,' he said. ' I will hope 
 that Lady Emily is all you picture her — 
 but girls of her class have less freedom in 
 disposing of themselves than you fancy, 
 and from what I know of the duke, or 
 rather of his wife, I'm not very sanguine.' 
 
 ' Freedom, papa! ' cries Mary indignantly; 
 ' that's just it, she's not free, and would not 
 be free for all the world, I'm very sure. 
 She is his, and all the dukes and duchesses 
 in these kingdoms could not come betw^een 
 them now. Oh, father! it's the only thing 
 left to him ; how can you think so ill of 
 women as to doubt that she will be brave 
 and true, and help him to bear his burden, 
 and teach him in time to be quite happy 
 again ? ' 
 
 ' My dear,' replies her father seriously, 
 * you run on too fast in your good-will. 
 The squire, at any rate, thinks fit to offer
 
 DESDICHADO. 195 
 
 to release this lady from her engagement, 
 and though the step is not taken as yet, it 
 looks ill that no sign has been made from 
 Marloes since these miserable events have 
 been noised about. I know the duke is an 
 invalid, and to be sure he sent a carriage, 
 and that Captain something, who is his 
 agent, to the funeral ; but, my dear, I would 
 not have you expect much from that quarter. 
 It is a cold, hard world that great people 
 live in, for the most part — may you never 
 know more of it than at present !' 
 
 Mary was silenced for the time, but none 
 the less did her tenderly romantic soul 
 spurn her father's inference, at least as re- 
 garded Lady Emily's probable conduct. If 
 there were indeed, beneath ducal coronets, 
 sordid and unfeeling brains, of what weiojht 
 could the crudest opposition of relentless 
 parents prove when balanced against a 
 suffering hero's love ? Doubtless from the 
 
 2
 
 196 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 noblest motives lie might offer to cancel the 
 eno'airement — it was honourable — it was 
 like him ; but that such an offer could be 
 accepted by an affianced woman, Mary alto- 
 gether refused to believe. Even if (as was 
 unlikely) she had failed to love him as he 
 deserved in his prosperity, surely now from 
 this furnace of affliction her love would 
 come forth more bright and pure to recom- 
 pense the manly heart aching for the loss of 
 such a mother and such a home ! 
 
 While Mary thus thrilled with hope and 
 sympathy, and West, wrapped in sad im- 
 mobility, endured the slow hours, there was 
 commotion and uneasiness at ducal Marloes. 
 At the first whisper (conveyed by the 
 captain-agent) that there was a screw loose 
 about the Swardham property, and the old 
 lady had not gone off' a week too soon to 
 avoid most unpleasant disclosures, the duke 
 had been importuned by his better half to
 
 DESDICHADO. 197 
 
 hasten in person to Longborougli, and there 
 demand from Scott the lawyer (who also 
 attended to the Hexham interests in the 
 locality) the truth of these sinister reports. 
 
 ' Our child's future may depend on your 
 Grace's instant action/ quoth the duchess 
 impressively ; but all her appeals, all her 
 eloquence, failed to draw the duke from his 
 lair, or even wring his consent to the 
 lawyers being summoned to Marloes. 
 
 ' Get Herriard to look to it,' he said at 
 last, peevishly; 'why should he not do some- 
 thing to earn what he makes me allow him ? ' 
 
 But Lord Herriard, who was the heir 
 of the house, was not on the most cordial 
 terms with his step-mother, nor so particu- 
 larly interested in his half-sister as to leave 
 his clubs for Lougshire in her behalf. This 
 the duke moreover knew so well, that his 
 answer must be considered in the light of 
 an evasion. Foiled in her efforts, at length
 
 198 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 the anxious mother repaired in person to 
 Scott's office in Longborough, where she 
 was closeted for some time with the head 
 of the firm, and, it may be presumed, re- 
 ceived confirmation of her worst fears. 
 
 ' It's not as if your heart was in it,' she 
 said to her daughter on her return from 
 Longborough, in which town she had not, 
 in spite of divers precautious, escaped notice 
 as completely as she could have wished ; 
 ' it's most mortifying, but it's not as if your 
 heart were in it/ 
 
 ' Heart ! ' quoth Lady Emily bitterly, as 
 she tore strips from her pocket-handker- 
 chief ; ' don't bother about hearts, if you 
 please, mamma ; but I believe I am the 
 unluckiest girl that ever was born.' The 
 oppressed parent only making answer by 
 a shrug, the daughter went on with in- 
 creasing volubility, ' Of course I'm not 
 going to marry a hulking pauper — but
 
 DESDICHADO. 199 
 
 suppose, after all, things turn in his favour 
 — there will be a lawsuit no doubt — he 
 can't be stupid enough not to make a fight 
 when he has been in possession so long, 
 and possession is nine points of the law, 
 they say. And then where shall I be ? ' 
 
 ' You don't suppose, Emily, that I am 
 not anxious to get you a husband, or likely 
 to let this man slip if he were worth 
 having. I have taken every possible 
 trouble for you in the matter, — degrading 
 myself to wheedle that dreadful attorney, 
 and submitting to be stared at by his 
 vulgar clerks and all the rabble of that 
 odious town, — and you'll allow me to be 
 the better judge, and I tell you you may 
 as well make up your mind at once that 
 it's all over, remember that I ' 
 
 ' Very well, mamma, very well,' cried 
 Emily, with a burst of angry tears ; * you 
 have committed yourself and me too, per-
 
 200 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 haps — hut you remember this, that if I 
 have to give it up, I don't stir from here 
 ever again, or face anybody ! — how could 
 I, after asking Agatha Catesby and those 
 hateful Verinders to be my bridesmaids, 
 and settling about the diamonds being 
 reset, and all that. You have made a mess 
 of me, and a mess of it all, and I wish I 
 had never been born, that's all,' and here 
 she choked with her conflictino^ emotions. 
 
 ' I had best leave you to come to your 
 senses. Lady Emily,' said the incensed 
 parent, rising majestically; 'and one day 
 you may repent your thankless, stubborn 
 behaviour to your only friend.' 
 
 Shortly after this little scene came to 
 the duke John West's letter ; but in the 
 interval he had first ridden over to Marloes, 
 hoping to spare himself the writing of such 
 a letter ; hoping perhaps (for Mary's simple 
 trustfulness may have been contagious, and
 
 DESDICHADO. 201 
 
 she had ventured on just a word) that 
 beneath the roof which sheltered his be- 
 trothed and his distant kinsman his crushed 
 spirit might find balm. West had called, 
 as so many times he had called at that door 
 during the months last past, but, for the 
 first time, the w^ell-trained servants had 
 denied him admission. His Grace was at 
 home, but rather worse to-day. Her Grace 
 was not at home. In his recognized posi- 
 tion as affianced lover of the dauo^hter of 
 the house, John West might have been 
 justified in asking for the Lady Emily, 
 but tokens of less significance w^ould have 
 sealed his lips against another word. So 
 the letter was WTitten — a formal letter, as 
 had been that other in which he solicited 
 the honour of the lady's hand, and wdth 
 a sigh of relief the duke tossed it over 
 to his wife. 
 
 ' There — nobody need have bothered
 
 202 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 after all : it's quite true that a rightful 
 heir has turned up, and all that — and of 
 course West is too much of a gentleman to 
 continue in a false position here. You had 
 better write him something appropriate, and 
 then look up the fortunate cousin who 
 steps into his shoes.' 
 
 With this parting sarcasm the duke 
 immersed himself once more in a treatise on 
 asthmatical affections, and w\as deaf to the 
 reproaches and bemoanings which assailed 
 him while the duchess lingered in his 
 room. 
 
 With reluctant tread the lady then 
 sought her child, who had fortified herself 
 in impenetrable sulkiness since the inter- 
 view last recorded between herself and her 
 mother. 
 
 ' You must return the rino:s and thinors, 
 Emily, and then it will be all over,' she said, 
 with an assumption of cheerfulness wdiich,
 
 DESDICHADO. 203 
 
 spying in lier daughter's face a mulish look, 
 she could not feel. 
 
 * You are all against me, it seems/ the 
 young lady muttered presently ; ' but I 
 know that lawsuits are never over in a 
 hurry, and I tell you, while there is a 
 chance I won't let him off, whatever papa 
 says, or you or he either.' 
 
 *But, Emily, the man must be answered, 
 and how are you to keep him dangling ? 
 you could not have the face to throw him 
 over, after that, as soon as he is absolutely 
 turned out of Swardham.' 
 
 'Just you let me alone, mamma. I'm 
 old enough to think for myself, and manage 
 my own affairs — and he shall fight it out : 
 it must be nine to one in his favour, what- 
 ever you may say.' 
 
 ' Of all wrong-headed young women, 
 Emily, I think you are the most obstinate,' 
 cried the duchess, out of patience. ' I tell
 
 204 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 you it is all settled without a fight, as you 
 call it ; he hasn't a leg to stand upon, or 
 more rio-ht at this moment in Swardham 
 than yow have, or are ever likely to have. 
 You don't suppose he woukl be fool 
 enough to give up such a property without 
 a struggle if he had the remotest chance 
 against this cousin ! ' 
 
 ' Then is there no lawsuit ? ' said Lady 
 Emily, slowly. 
 
 ' Of course there is not ! Mr. West has 
 little money enough left to be willing to 
 squander it on hopeless litigation ; and 
 answered he shall be at once, and most 
 decisively, so let me have no more 
 nonsense.' 
 
 ' No lawsuit ! ' repeated the Lady Emily, 
 an angry light kindling in her cold blue 
 eyes ; 'then he just lets the other man turn 
 him out, and never lifts a finger ? I don't 
 believe it ; you are all in a conspiracy
 
 DESDICHADO. 205 
 
 against me, and he as well. But if it's 
 true, I despise him and hate him for his 
 poor spirit ! Why, the cousin might have 
 been glad to do something hrindsome in the 
 way of compromise if he had shown a bold 
 front, and threatened to fight him inch by 
 inch I I despise him, 1 do, the coward ! — 
 and I'm the most miserable girl in all 
 England.' 
 
 Once more a flood of tears came to end 
 this burst of vindictive eloquence, and the 
 duchess, towering above her daughter as she 
 sat crouching on her sofa, rated her with an 
 energy that might have surprised the polite 
 world in which she serenely moved. 
 
 ' And let me tell you,' so she wound up, 
 ' that, in spite of all his bad luck, in my 
 opinion he has a happy escape of you and 
 your tempers, Lady Emily, of which I ought 
 to be a judge after nearly thirty years' bitter 
 experience of both.'
 
 206 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 
 
 1\ /TEANWHILEjin uncousciousness (happy 
 unconsciousness it could scarcely be 
 called) of the contempt of Lady Emily 
 Woodvil, John West was steadfastly pur- 
 suing that course which alone seemed 
 possible to him under the present aspect 
 of his affairs. Once convinced of the 
 identity of the so-called Dolf Van Lennep 
 with his uncle's lawful son, of wliich identity 
 no legal proof was wanting, lie had dis- 
 missed all thouo^ht of battle or even of 
 compromise, and declared his willingness, 
 nay, his anxiety, to divest himself as soon
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 207 
 
 as might be of all that appertained to the 
 headship of his family, and to account with 
 minute accuracy for the arrears of which he 
 had innocently deprived his cousin. On 
 discussing with the legal gentry this latter 
 subject, he had at first been met by pro- 
 testations and assurances that, under the 
 circumstances, no claim could or at least 
 would be made for any such back payments. 
 But such protestations he had gravely put 
 aside, and made it clear that it was his set 
 purpose to refund, as far as within his 
 means it lay, every penny which he had 
 innocently appropriated since his grand- 
 father's death. As undoubted heir to his 
 mother, John West (no more to be called 
 the young squire) had succeeded to the 
 fortune settled upon her by her father, no 
 less a sum than twenty thousand pounds ; 
 and this money would, he felt with deep 
 thankfulness, suffice to replace all that had
 
 208 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 passed tlirough his hands of the family 
 revenue during his two years of squiredom. 
 The rector had been moved to tears in the 
 warmth of his deprecation of this step. 
 
 ' Will you strip yourself of all, to give 
 this man more who has too much already ? ' 
 he said piteously. ' Oh John ! it will be 
 enough to make the old squire turn in his 
 cfrave, it will indeed.' 
 
 But John had firmly though affectionately 
 put the rector's opinion aside, reminding 
 him that his grandfather was, above all 
 things, a strictly just and honourable man. 
 
 ' I am young and strong,' he said, ' why 
 should I ignobly seek to cling to this 
 money, and begin a new life under a crush- 
 ing burden of obligation to my unknown 
 cousin ? Why should I not make my way 
 like another ? ' 
 
 The rector groaned as he thought how ill- 
 reared and trained his old pupil had been
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 209 
 
 for beo[innino: the world as those others 
 might do. But he knew West's nature too 
 well to argue with him on the point, and in 
 this matter, as in all others, loyally carried 
 out his instructions in frequent interviews 
 with the Messrs. Scott. These gentlemen 
 had no notion of losing the Swardham 
 business because of a mere change of owner- 
 ship, and now appeared as zealous agents of 
 Adolphus West, Esquire, on whose behalf 
 they offered no further opposition to the 
 restoration of the last two years' income of 
 the estate. Many questions there were 
 indeed which might have been raised, and 
 which poor Holbrooke wished to raise, as to 
 monies expended in improvements on the 
 property, the sum paid as succession duty, 
 and so on — but into these questions John 
 West persistently refused to enter. 
 
 ' What though my cousin has, as you 
 
 represent, the whole benefit of this or that 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 outlay — I should not like another man to 
 spend my income for me, however judici- 
 ously ; and I'm only thankful that all this 
 occurred before I plunged into less remuner- 
 ative expenditure.' 
 
 He was thinking no doubt of his inchoate 
 candidature, of the promised mastership of 
 the hounds ; but on these subjects, or others 
 akin to them, he dropped no word while he 
 sojourned, a silent, secluded inmate, beneath 
 his old friend's roof. Concerning another 
 of the rosy visions which had faded the 
 same absolute silence had not been observed. 
 
 Mary Holbrooke, who thought little of 
 seats in Parliament or honours in the hunt- 
 ing-field, thought, as was natural to her sex 
 and years, much of affairs of the heart ; 
 and as one who had been familiarly know^n 
 to John West since she could run alone, 
 had even ventured (as has been hinted) to 
 sound him on the subject of his engagement
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 211 
 
 with Lady Emily. Though a proud man, 
 West had none of the self-conceit which 
 might have led him to picture his aristocratic 
 betrothed as ready to sacrifice all else for 
 his sake. On the other hand, however, 
 though far from an ardent lover or ex- 
 pectant of ardent devotion, he had no ink- 
 ling of the real sentiments which actuated 
 the lady, and was moved to considerable 
 distress when Mary, implicitly believing 
 every word she uttered, touched on the 
 anguish which must be the portion of a girl 
 in so trying a position. 
 
 ' You ought not to think so much of her 
 father and mother and rank, and all that. 
 They are all hard on her, I am afraid ; but 
 your duty is to her only, till she tells you 
 w^itli her own mouth that she rejects it, and 
 that will be never.' 
 
 Mary's eyes kindled as she spoke, and her 
 
 mouth quivered with pretty emotion, so 
 
 p 2
 
 212 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 that he wondered that he had never noticed 
 before how charming a girl his old play- 
 tliing and pet was grown. 
 
 ' I must think over this/ he said at last ; 
 ' I would spare her in every way, poor thing, 
 but it's a desperate lookout for us.' 
 
 Despair, however, found no place in ]\Iary 
 Holbrooke's vocabulary. It w^as a blow 
 when her hero was denied admission at 
 Marloes ; a blow when a hard little note 
 from the duchess arrived in answer to West's 
 letter ; but Mary built her hopes high yet on 
 Lady Emily herself, and after much ponder- 
 ing, formed the audacious resolution of 
 seeking for herself an interview with the 
 daughter of ducal Marloes. It seemed to 
 her, this tender little creature, that these two 
 were in danger of drifting asunder, despite 
 their plighted troth. It seemed also that 
 shipwreck must be the sole end of such 
 drifting. And if she, poor mouse as she
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 213 
 
 was, could succour these noble animals in 
 the meshes that environed them, she must 
 forget her mouse-like shyness and hasten 
 to do and dare, offering herself, if need be, 
 a sacrifice on the altar of true loyal friend- 
 ship. And had John West been in her 
 eyes of less heroic proportions, less god-like 
 in his suffering, it is certain that this de- 
 termined young woman would have been 
 equally devoted to his cause, if only for her 
 sake whom both mourned so passionately — 
 the mother and godmother whose loss had 
 drawn those who survived of her dear ones 
 nearer together than of old. 
 
 Once resolved, Mary was prompt in action 
 and silent as a genuine conspirator. In the 
 sadness and strangeness which had unhinged 
 all the pleasant old order of things at the 
 rectory, the comings and goings of the 
 daughter of the house were all unquestioned, 
 and the melancholy and pre-occupied rector.
 
 214 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 only too thankful to be relieved by her of 
 all parochial business which a girl could 
 undertake, referred to such business her 
 absences from the house or the table. On a 
 certain Sunday then Mary quietly ordered 
 the pony-chaise to be ready after morning 
 service, and drove herself off, merely re- 
 marking to the servants that she would not 
 be present at lunch. 
 
 'Ah,' said her father, when he heard the 
 announcement, ' she will have gone to ]\Irs. 
 Weavers at the Quarries ; I ought to have 
 gone myself before this.' 
 
 But it was not in the direction of the 
 Quarries that Mary was urging the smart 
 brown pony. There was, close to one of 
 the gates of the Marloes demesne, a new 
 church, served by a dapper little parson, of 
 High Church proclivities, at which, attracted 
 perhaps by the brevity of the frequent 
 services, the ladies of the great house had
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 215 
 
 of late been reported to attend when they 
 felt observant of the Sunday ; and this 
 church, in pursuance of her deep designs, 
 was Mary's present goal, as she whipped 
 her sure-footed pony through the lanes on 
 a faultless spring day. Small heed did she 
 pay to the carols of birds, the primrose 
 banks, and gambolling lambkins as she sped 
 along ; for all her simple wits were bent 
 on the one object — how she might best serve 
 John West and advance the holy cause of 
 true love. 
 
 Of the hours of service at St. Michael's 
 Mary was by no means certain, but she 
 had a general idea that the whole gamut 
 ecclesiastical, from prime to compline, was 
 duly celebrated by the Reverend Mr. New- 
 light, and bravely purposed stabling her 
 steed with a friendly farmer hard by, and 
 sitting out any number of the ' offices,' till 
 perchance the Lady Emily might bestow her
 
 216 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 august presence upon the scant rustic con- 
 gregation. The bells were tinkling briskly 
 as Miss Holbrooke took her seat on the 
 side of the church allotted to her sex, and 
 among the benches three bonnets only were 
 to be descried, no one of which could pos- 
 sibly belong to a scion of our proud aristo- 
 cracy. From the distant vestry arose a hum 
 as of the voices of choristers, and now and 
 again a white-robed figure peeped into the 
 almost empty building. Things looked un- 
 promising for the young adventuress, as 
 the last bell ceased, and the tittering in the 
 vestry gave place to a chanted prayer, and 
 a shuffling of feet, as though the procession 
 were being formed. But, at the last mo- 
 ment, an old man stationed at the door 
 hurried up the aisle, and poking his head 
 in among the choir boys, audibly announced 
 that some of the quality were coming in at 
 the gate. All the bonnets turned at once
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTEAORDINARY. 217 
 
 doorwards, and, with beating heart, Mary 
 also turned her head, though she held a 
 hymn book to her face, and beheld the 
 advance of a tall and splendid lady, with 
 beautiful fair hair and blue eyes, whom, at 
 due distance, a gorgeous flunkey followed, 
 bearing an umbrella and a very small ivory- 
 backed prayer-book. Mary had never set 
 eyes on Lady Emily Woodvil, but she felt 
 at once that this could be none other, and 
 while rejoicing at this fortunate chance of 
 her solitary presence, and yielding reverent 
 homage to her charms, felt a little disap- 
 pointed and discouraged that the distressed 
 damsel should prove so stately and mature 
 a personage. But had she been another 
 Queen of Sheba, she was John West's be- 
 trothed, and Mary meant to have speech 
 of her before she should regain the ducal 
 roof. 
 
 ' Of course she is grand-looking,' said
 
 218 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Miss Holbrooke to herself while the chanted 
 prayer was once more rehearsed for the 
 great lady's benefit ; ' I can't expect a duke's 
 daughter to be a little body such as I, but 
 her heart is much the same kind of thing, 
 I dare say, as another girl's.' 
 
 Out filed the little string of choristers, 
 at their heels out came Mr. Newliorht in a 
 
 o 
 
 pea-green stole, neatly embroidered with 
 gold crosses pattees, his joined palms i)ro- 
 truded from his narrow chest, and in a few 
 moments the service (function would be 
 Newlight's term) commenced in swift mono- 
 tonous sing-song. I fear that Mary Hol- 
 brooke could have given but a poor account 
 of its nature or diversifications, but it was 
 at any rate soon ended, though it comprised 
 the catechizing of a few children by another 
 priest. The surp'.ices disappeared as they 
 had come, and the few worshippers tarried 
 motionless till it pleased the Lady Emily to
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 219 
 
 pass forth. No sooner had the wearers of 
 the ancient bonnets risen in the wake of 
 the splendid apparition, than Mary darted 
 to the door, all impatience to get the first 
 horrid plunge over. But alas ! when she 
 reached the porch, it was to see Mr. New- 
 light, divested with wondrous speed of his 
 priestly raiment, bowing and smiling at the 
 lady's side, while he held her in conversa- 
 tion. Mary lurked in impatience behind a 
 buttress, unconscious of the flunkey's patron- 
 izing approbation of her appearance, and 
 counted the moments while Mr. Newligbt 
 inquired with solicitude after the health of 
 duke and duchess, and talked glibly of the 
 weather. Stupid little man ! how lucky 
 that, according to a red-lined notice on the 
 door, he had another function in half-an- 
 hour, and could not wander far from the 
 scene of his ministrations. At last, at the 
 little wicket, Lady Emily made a graceful
 
 220 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 bend and turned from the enchanted divine, 
 past whom Mary shot without ceremony as 
 he retraced his steps to his vestry door. 
 
 Now for it ! there was no human being 
 in sight save the sauntering footman ; and, 
 takincT her couragre tiojht in her two hands, 
 Mary stood by the side of the stately 
 daughter of the Duke of Hexham. 
 
 * I believe I have the pleasure of speaking 
 to Lady Emily Woodvil,' she said, and met 
 the cool gaze of two fine blue eyes unflinch- 
 ingly. 
 
 Who could it be that ventured thus to 
 waylay the quality ? — a lady, thus much 
 Lady Emily owmed to herself as probable — 
 but ladies are now-a-days only too much 
 given to pestering the quality, in and 
 out of season, for subscriptions and so 
 on. Most likely a beggar after all in 
 cunning guise. Now Lady Emily had a 
 strong objection to charitable appeals, and
 
 AN AMBASSADRESS EXTRAORDINARY. 221 
 
 her manner was very chilling as she 
 replied, 
 
 ' I am Lady Emily Woodvil, but I can- 
 not recall that I have the honour of your 
 acquaintance/ 
 
 With a blush that rose to her forehead 
 Mary faltered out, 
 
 ' I beg your pardon — but T am the rector 
 of Swardham's daughter, and — and Mr. 
 West has been staying with us since he left 
 the Hall. T have known him all my life, 
 and would do anything to serve him, or — 
 or you either. Lady Emily.' 
 
 She had thought of all sorts of clever 
 ways of introducing the subject as she drove 
 along, and afterwards in church, but this 
 was all she could manage to say — ' blurting 
 it out so boldly,' as she immediately told 
 herself. With one sharp glance at the 
 glowing face Lady Emily turned to her 
 domestic and ordered him to walk on by
 
 222 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 the nearest road to the house, and then 
 nodding to Mary, asked her if she would 
 mind a turn in the park. Joyfully acqui- 
 escing in this proposal, Mary soon found 
 herself pacing along a walk which followed 
 the line of the park paling and was sheltered 
 by a belt of trees. 
 
 ' And am I to understand that you come 
 to me from Mr. West, Miss — I beg your 
 pardon ? ' 
 
 ' Holbrooke is my name, Lady Emily ; 
 and I must at once avow that I am here 
 without Mr. West's knowledge or consent. 
 My one excuse consists in my fervent wish 
 to show gratitude to those wdio have been 
 my father's best friends and mine, aud Mr. 
 West is now the only one left.' 
 
 Mary stopped, out of breath, and looked 
 up shyly at her companion, who merely 
 gravely inclined her head, but looked not 
 indisposed to hear more.
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 
 
 rpHE truth was that Lady Emily, despite 
 her unruffled exterior, was just now 
 in a flutter of not unpleased excitement. 
 On the day previous she had received a 
 private letter from a friend, and had read 
 a paragraph in a public print, both of which 
 had furnished food for much pondering. 
 The letter was from one of * those hateful 
 Verinders' whom she had bespoken as her 
 bridesmaids and conveyed to the writer's 
 dearest Emily the news that the writer, 
 Cecilia Verinder, was about herself to appear 
 as a bride. The paragraph in the Illt/s- 
 trated London News related to the will
 
 224 WEST OF 8WARDHAM. 
 
 of the late Mrs. West, which had just been 
 proved under twenty-two thousand pounds, 
 and which was farther stated to have en- 
 riched by that amount the only son of the 
 testatrix. A few years back Lady Emily 
 would have scorned the idea of accepting 
 a man whose wealth was limited to a score 
 of thousands, but times were altering with 
 her ; and here was Cecilia, most odious 
 and stuck-up of dear friends, about to 
 embark in matrimony in company with a 
 younger son whose fortune must be of 
 even slenderer dimensions, and crowing and 
 cackling insufferably over her triumph ! If 
 anything could be wanting to intensify 
 Lady Emily's disgust with spinsterhood, 
 it would be the prospect of seeing this 
 her friend and confessed inferior a happy 
 wife. 
 
 * Bertie has quite enough in hand to 
 work alons; with in decent style for the
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 225 
 
 next five years or so, and if by that time 
 neither his father nor mine has had the 
 grace to increase our means by dropping 
 off or otherwise, at any rate we shall have 
 had a jolly time of it before we are posi- 
 tively ancient, and I never heard of a 
 peer's daughter in a workhouse, if the worst 
 comes to the worst. And so, dear, unless 
 you make very great haste indeed, I'm 
 afraid you'll have to look out for another 
 bridesmaid.' 
 
 * Hateful creature ! ' the recipient of this 
 candid eflfusion had remarked to herself; 'I 
 know she has heard that things have gone 
 wrong with me, and she begins to give 
 herself airs.' 
 
 Then came the chance notice of the 
 paragraph in the Illustrated, striking, as 
 it were, while the iron was at its hottest. 
 Nobody, so ruminated the Lady Emily, 
 was more calculating than Cecilia. If she 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 could make up her mind on the strength 
 of such arcfuments to venture ' for better 
 for worse' on her miserable little Bertie, 
 why not take a leaf out of her book and 
 call back John West, who had so luckily 
 been only half discarded, and who would 
 be, after all, a better match than Cecilia's 
 captive ! Twenty thousand pounds might 
 be made, with economy, to supply for some 
 years the brougham, the footman, and all 
 the etceteras which make wedded life toler- 
 able — and surely, for the distant future, 
 the Duke of Hexham's daughter's prospects 
 must be better than those of Miss Yerinder, 
 with her jaunty repudiation of the work- 
 house ! But how to brings John West 
 back to her feet with speed and yet with 
 decorum ! That had been the problem, and 
 now the timely appearance of this little 
 person from Swardham seemed likely to 
 solve it most charmingly. How thankful
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 227 
 
 she felt that she had been obstinate with 
 her mother, making no visible sign of 
 acquiescence in West's dismissal ! How 
 vast the load lifted from her soul by the 
 thought that after all Cecilia might not 
 steal a march on her^ nor condole with her 
 from the eminence of matrimony as she 
 recommenced her well-nigh hopeless career ! 
 How soothing under these circumstances an 
 assurance of the constancy of her unlucky^ 
 betrothed ! Thus it was with blandness 
 scarcely tempered by condescension that 
 Lady Emily turned her eyes on the little 
 diplomatist and murmured some acknow- 
 ledgment of the zeal which she professed. 
 Much encouraged, Mary hastened on with 
 her mission. 
 
 ' You are still engaged to Mr. AVest, are 
 you not, Lady Emily ? ' 
 
 ' I have certainly done nothing to cancel 
 
 our engagement, sad as are the clouds 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 which have interposed between us. But 
 you probably know, Miss Holbrooke, that 
 Mr. West wrote — ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' crie^ Mary rapturously ; ' I 
 know what he wrote — he thought it his 
 duty because he can no longer endow you 
 as he meant to do when he asked you 
 to be his wife ! But I knew also that 
 you would not accept such an offer of 
 release ; I was sure of it, and I am glad 
 to find I was right. You love him, and 
 he loves you, and nothing must be let to 
 part you.'' 
 
 In her joy at finding John West^s afiianced 
 love so true, as she thought, and worthy 
 of him, the impetuous child seized Lady 
 Emily's ungloved right hand, and pressed it 
 to her rosy lips. A strange wild little 
 person truly, but likely to be useful, so 
 Emily only smiled serenely on her new 
 adorer, and waited to hear what would
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 229 
 
 come next, biding her time for some prac- 
 tical proposal for future action. 
 
 'All, I need not tell you how noble he is 
 under his trials ! You knew dear Mrs. 
 West, and can understand how he grieves 
 for her, more deeply than for Swardham.' 
 
 Lady Emily still looked sweet, but kept 
 silence. She had viewed Mrs. West as a 
 prospective mother-in-law, with probably a 
 will of her own and frumpish notions, and 
 the removal of such an obstacle seemed to 
 her seasonable enough. Besides, the ex- 
 cellent old lady had left behind her those 
 two-and-twenty thousands ! 
 
 ' It is not wealth that he cares for, 
 though it is a sad blow to lose the dear old 
 place. With his talents he will, T am sure, 
 quickly make a name and a place in the 
 world when he feels that he has you to 
 work and hope for! And it is just that 
 which makes me thank heaven for your
 
 230 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 noble constancy ! If you were lost to him, 
 as well as mother and home and fortune, he 
 might never put forth the power that is in 
 him, he might be content just to drift or to 
 sink — but for your sake he will be brave 
 and bright, and hew a way for himself : I 
 know it is in him ! ' 
 
 Softly murmuring, ' You over- rate my 
 influence I fear, dear Miss Holbrooke,' 
 Lady Emily wondered whether Mary knew 
 of the old lady's will, and would presently 
 mention it, or was she too gushing to be 
 at all practical ? At any rate things were 
 looking well for the meditated recall of the 
 suitor. 
 
 ' He has behaved so nobly,' Mary went 
 on at score ; ' he won't hear a word against 
 this cousin, and even means to have an 
 interview with him. And though papa 
 tried his best to dissuade him, and so do the 
 lawyers, I feel sure that you will think
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 231 
 
 him right in insisting on refunding all that 
 he spent while he thought Swardham was 
 his.' 
 
 Lady Emily turned cold with prescience 
 of evil, but her voice was gently modulated 
 as ever as she interjected, with sweet 
 surprise, 
 
 ' Eefundinor ? but how can he ? I thouo^ht 
 that he had lost his all ! ' 
 
 * And it makes no difference to you, of 
 course, that he lias nobly stripped himself of 
 his last penny ! He inherited all that dear 
 Mrs. West had to leave ; and some men 
 would have clung to it, and besought the 
 cousin's mercy, no doubt ! But that is not 
 in our Mr. West's nature — he rejoiced that 
 his mother's fortune sufficed to cover all 
 arrears, all that he spent innocently while 
 he was master of Swardham Hall, and has 
 made it over in full. Soon, soon may such 
 nobleness and talent be rewarded by twice
 
 232 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 as much ; and that he will soon gain, if I 
 may tell him to-night that you are un- 
 changed, and will hope and pray for the 
 time when you can reward his perseverance.' 
 Colder and colder turned the Lady Emily 
 as she bit her trembling lips. Her instincts 
 had not then been in fault when she ex- 
 pressed contempt for John West as a spirit- 
 less prey in the clutch of the despoiler, and 
 at this moment she hated him for his 
 magnanimity. Gone ! given away ! the 
 thousands which were to have enabled her 
 to cry checkmate with Cecilia Verinder ! 
 Gone the last hope of being married and 
 settled at last, after so many weary seasons. 
 It had been a poor thing this last chance, 
 but it was the more humiliating to have 
 lost it, and in such a manner. She felt 
 that she hated West, and she hated this 
 gushing little parson's daughter who so 
 romantically sang his ridiculous praises, and
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 233 
 
 kindly invited her, the Duke of Hexham's 
 daug;hter, to lino;er on in the ridiculous 
 chains of a hopeless engagement, and employ 
 her leisure in praying for the happy hour 
 when she might wed a middle-aged bar- 
 rister, or perchance wine-merchant, as soon 
 as he should find means to furnish a villa 
 in Camden Town ! When she could trust 
 herself to speak, it was in freezing tones 
 that she slowly addressed the girl by her side. 
 ' I am deeply pained, Miss Holbrooke, to 
 learn thus that Mr. West should have 
 thought fit to take a step so momentous 
 as this disposition of his mother's fortune 
 without consulting me, or apparently con- 
 sidering me in any way. I may add that 
 my pain is not lessened by your mode of 
 communicating a proceeding which I should 
 have learned from Mr. West alone, and 
 which I can only characterize as most deplor- 
 able — yes, most heartless and deplorable.'
 
 234 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 Incredulous horror holding poor Mary 
 silent, Lady Emily went on with a severer 
 glance and increasing acrimony, — 
 
 ' Feeling that I am speaking to a par- 
 tisan, whom I cannot acquit of officiousness 
 in seeking an interview^ with me under such 
 deplorable circumstances, nor scarcely of a 
 most unbecoming desire to take me at a 
 disadvantage, I shall say no more, except 
 to request that you, Miss Holbrooke, at 
 once withdraw as you came, to repent, and 
 repent, I beg, in silence, the liberty that 
 you have taken.' 
 
 With a majestic inclination Lady Emily 
 was for turning her back, but she had 
 reckoned without her host if she thought 
 thus to abash Mary Holbrooke. Wheeling 
 promptly, so as again to confront the stately 
 form, she spoke such words as honest indig- 
 nation supplied. 
 
 ' If I understand you, and you under-
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 235 
 
 stand me, of which there's little doubt, I 
 will not say what manner of woman you 
 stand revealed. But mind ! I'm not a bit 
 ashamed of coming here ; it's you who ought 
 to be ashamed ; and I make no promise of 
 keeping what I have heard and seen to 
 myself. I am too much John West's friend 
 to do so, and I am no friend of yours, though 
 an hour ago I would have done anything in 
 the world to serve you. I am glad that you 
 have let me see what you are ; and it is 
 enough to make us that are Mr. West's 
 friends content that he has lost all else, 
 so long as he is safe from you ! Oh, to 
 think that he, of all men, should be valued 
 just for what he possesses, and not for him- 
 self! Oh, I can never stand up again for 
 women when they are abused as mercenary 
 after the lesson you have taught me, Lady 
 Emily Woodvil ! " 
 
 Quite out of breath she stopped, and
 
 236 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 faced unflinchingly the fork lightning flashed 
 from those blue eyes. 
 
 ' Out of my sight ! ' gasped the infuriate 
 aristocrat, stamping her foot, ' out of my 
 sight ! John West is a poltroon and a fool, 
 encouraged in his wanton beggary by you 
 and yours for your own base designs ! I 
 would order him to be turned out of this 
 park if he ventures here again, as I will 
 quickly order you I Insolent, indelicate girl ! 
 it is plain enough that you are in love with 
 him and want him for yourself, and I wish 
 you joy of your pompous beggar/ 
 
 Crimson and panting, Mary strove to 
 detain her assailant till she could find w^ords, 
 but the other twitched her skirts from her 
 hands, and with rapid steps made straight 
 across the sward for the house, from which 
 they were now not far removed. Left alone, 
 Mary leaned against a tree and gave w\ay 
 to a passion of tears. The w^oman was all
 
 AUDIENCE OF LADY EMILY. 237 
 
 that is base and false, and she could grudge 
 no suffering incurred in her detection. Into 
 what fresh misery, but for this dreadful 
 interview, might not her ill-advised cham- 
 pionship have betrayed her hard-pressed 
 friend ? But oh, the sting, the sting of that 
 vile charge, hurled against her father and 
 her no less innocent self ! Oh, those wicked 
 curling lips, that had lured John AVest with 
 soft speeches, what venom could they drop. 
 ' God above knows my heart,' sobbed 
 Mary : ' He knows how my love for my 
 almost mother has bound me to her son. 
 Why does He let such wicked slander take 
 shape in words ? I am innocent, innocent 
 of what she said ; but oh, if I thought that 
 he would hear that shameful charoe, and 
 perhaps, eveu for a second, believe it, I 
 should pray to die !
 
 238 WEST OP SWAKDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 
 
 ' TTTITH a warm Liberal, sir, at the head 
 of this great estate the balance of 
 parties in the county will be reversed, sir, 
 quickly reversed ; and who so fit a repre- 
 sentative of the cause of enlightenment and 
 enfranchisement as a Liberal squire of Sward- 
 ham ! ril trust you'll think of it seriously.' 
 So spake a jaunty little man, Clark by 
 name, and by profession an attorney, and 
 junior of the firm of Scotts' in Longborough.. 
 And as he spake, he rejoiced in having 
 for the time the ear of the new master of 
 Swardham, in whose own room the pair
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 239 
 
 were closeted. Civil as were all the partners 
 ia the Longborough firm, Mr. Clark was 
 more than civil to the new client, skilfully 
 contriving to infuse a dash of laud and 
 honour into the most dry of their business 
 discussions. Adolphus West (cidevant Van 
 Lennep) was already aweary of business 
 discussions, and not averse to Mr. Clark's 
 compliments as a diversion, and had ac- 
 cordingly signified his pleasure that the 
 junior partner, rather than either of the 
 Messrs. Scott, should wait upon him when 
 such interviews were necessary. Neverthe- 
 less, he was reclining rather listlessly in an 
 arm-chair (poor Jack's arm-chair), as he 
 listened to Mr. Clark, and made no very 
 encouraging answer to that gentleman's 
 flattering hints as to Parliament. He had 
 bid a long farewell to trade and penury. 
 He had just succeeded, unexjDcctedly but 
 by unimpeachable right, to a fine property ;
 
 240 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 his patience had been tried by no protracted 
 litigation, by no death-struggles on the part 
 of the man whom he had ousted ; he had 
 even, by the scrupulous honour of this 
 cousin, been put in possession of a large 
 sum of ready money, which came very 
 handy for manifold expenses ; but already 
 he had been reminded that all is not gold 
 that glitters, and had found his new position, 
 in spite of its grandeur, no bed of roses. 
 First and foremost he was irked by the 
 existence, if not absolutely by the presence, 
 of the dispossessed cousin. The man, 
 arbitrary and domineering as he had in 
 former days deemed him, had behaved well, 
 undeniably, abominably well. But why 
 could he not go away and never be heard 
 of again ? Why, above all, was he capable 
 of proposing a meeting with his cousin ? 
 It was all very well to say that he had 
 certain favourite schemes for the weal of the
 
 THE NEW SQUIEE. 241 
 
 tenantry to commend to his supplantcrs 
 notice. It might be so, but he probably 
 also wished to see what figure the sup- 
 planter cut in the garb which he had 
 perforce resigned. He must know that it 
 woidd make his cousin very uncomfortable, 
 and that was why he was bent upon this 
 interview. Then there was that unlucky 
 visit to Swardham in the train of old 
 Barnett, and under the auspices of those 
 Hockerills — what would Adolphus West, 
 Esq., not give to blot out from the 
 memory of his servants, humble neigh- 
 bours, and tenantry all remembrance of that 
 humiliating adventure. No doubt he would 
 always be (as Mr. Clark said) a warm Liberal 
 — so far he could go without derogating 
 from his position — but he began already to 
 see the inexpediency of many of his ancient 
 notions, and to doubt the feasibility of 
 many long-cherished aspirations. Alto- 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 WEST UF SWAKDHAM. 
 
 gether, though he struggled to seem quite 
 at his ease, and had already disgusted tht' 
 old servants at Swardham by his quick 
 assumption of masterful airs, he was some- 
 what disappointed with his own develop- 
 ment as a man of fortune, and less in'^lined 
 to resent advice than when first he sought 
 Scott's office in Longborough. 
 
 ' Then you think I ought to see him ? ' he 
 said after a pause, during which Ik^ tapped 
 his rather prominent front teeth with a 
 gold pencil case. ' I'd rather not, you know, 
 and it can do no good that I know of/ 
 
 ' My dear sir, if you'll excuse me, in your 
 prominent position, and with your ambition, 
 you must consider wdiat the public will 
 think, as w^ell as your own inclinati(~>n. 
 And the public will condemn you, it will, 
 indeed, to a man, here in Longshire, if 
 you refuse to see your cousin l)efore he 
 leaves these parts/
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 243 
 
 Adolplius West frowned and made some 
 pettish reply, conveying a hope that he 
 was above being swayed by the breath of 
 the mob ; bat of course he yielded in time, 
 and on the very next occasion of his 
 visiting Scott's office in Longborough, he 
 found himself by and by left in a private 
 room alone, whither presently entered a 
 tall grave man, with handsome proud fea- 
 tures and black hair, looking far older than 
 the young squire, who, one evening not 
 very long ago, had chucked Dolf van 
 Lennep over the waggon rail like an empty 
 sack in Hockerill's barn. Older, but not 
 less strong nor resolute, and with keen 
 anger Adolphus felt himself quail as the 
 other walked straight up to him. 
 
 ' Cousin,' he said, when he stood before 
 him, ' I hope that you acquit me of all 
 malice, even as you must acquit me of all 
 design of keeping you out of your own. 
 
 K 2
 
 244 WEST OF SWAEDHAM. 
 
 I pray that you may live long and prosper, 
 as former Wests have lived and prospered, 
 nt Svvardham. Will you shake hands with 
 me before I take myself off from Longshire 
 and let me hear that you wish me well, as 
 kinsmen should ? ' 
 
 Unfalteringly he delivered himself of 
 this little speech, as of something well- 
 loarned by rote, and at the end he stretched 
 out his strong shapely right hand, and met 
 his cousin's pale and rather shifty eyes. 
 
 ' Where have we met before V he ex- 
 claimed, involuntarily dropping his hand. 
 * Surely you were, — but no, that couldn't 
 be — ' He stopped, looking puzzled. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' Adolphus said, 'with all the 
 dignity he could muster, * we //avr met once 
 before, when your physique and your position 
 were both brought to bear upon me, scarcely 
 after the fairest fashion, merely because of a 
 divergence in our political and social prin-
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 245 
 
 ciples and tenets and apparent standing. 
 But it's no use raking up bygones/ he 
 added hastily, as he saw the other change 
 colour and draw back. 
 
 AVith a great effort John West spoke 
 once more, in painful, measured tones. 
 
 ' To this moment I never suspected this ; 
 nevertheless, I beg you to believe that 
 I am still glad that we have met, and 
 I repeat all that I said at first. But all 
 else that I came prepared to say, to urge 
 on you indeed, had best remain unsaid. 
 The men of our family do not usually 
 swerve from their opinions, nor publish 
 them before they are matured, and re- 
 membering the principles and opinions you 
 avowed on that unhappy night, I know it to 
 be useless to attempt the discussion of some 
 topics which I meditated, some notions which 
 I had meant to work out, and now thought 
 of commending to your consideration. I
 
 246 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 am sorry that so it should be, but I'm afraid 
 we see things from opposite standpoints.' 
 
 ' I certainly hold advanced opinions on 
 certain points, and I am the last man to 
 accept the lines laid down by another for 
 working out my responsibilities,' replied 
 Adolphus, grandiloquently. 
 
 ' As long as you honestly treat responsi- 
 ])ilities as such, there is little fear of your 
 failing to content yourself and others.' 
 
 ' I fancy my honesty of purpose is in- 
 dubitable,' loftily put in Adolphus. 
 
 ' Far be it from me to doubt it,' said John 
 West earnestly, ' differently as your plans 
 may work from mine ; they are planned, I 
 will hope, for the same end as mine were — 
 the good of those who depend on you. 
 May they be wiser and better than mine 
 ever were. May those right good tenants, 
 always used to be made much of, and 
 tendei'ly treated as they deserve, find in
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 247 
 
 you a friend as well as landlord. And 
 now, cousin, good-bye to you ; we are the 
 only two left of an old stock, let us wish 
 each other a kind good-bye.' 
 
 A limp weak hind was placed for a 
 moment in John West's strong grasp, and 
 a pair of shifty light blue eyes studied the 
 carpet. 
 
 ' Good-bye,' said the lawful owner of 
 Swardham. ' Of course I know you had 
 rather I didn't ask you to stop, or anything 
 of that sort ; I shouldn't in your place. It 
 is best for us to say good-bye.' 
 
 ' Yes, it is best,' said John West, rearing 
 his proud head, and passed without speech 
 of any other into the busy street. 
 
 Mr. Cdark, when he briskly entered the 
 room, found his client in no amiable mood. 
 
 ' There,' he said, savagely interrupting 
 tlie other's smooth address, ' I knew no good 
 could come of it. I knew he only wanted
 
 248 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 to come over me in his confounded lofty 
 way. Courteous ! of course he was cour- 
 teous — too courteous by half. But I'm 
 thankful to think that I sha'n't set eyes on 
 him again in a hurry, and I'll soon send all 
 the pampered crew of old servants packing 
 after their pet squire. They must have 
 studied their way qf looking and speaking 
 from him, for all the world as if they could 
 punish me if they liked, but are too noble 
 and polite to take such an advantage. 
 Confound them all.' 
 
 Not all Mr. Clark's congratulations and 
 adroit flatteries could soothe the ruflfled 
 spirit of the great man. He felt that some- 
 how his impoverished, disinherited cousin 
 had put him down, grandee as he w^as, 
 and he wrongly believed that it had been 
 his cousin's design to put him down. Nor, 
 as he was swiftly driven in his comfortable 
 carriage home to Swardham, did he
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 249 
 
 recover his equanimity. So many happy 
 thoughts, couching themselves in such happy 
 terms, kept presenting themselves to his 
 mind, any one of which would, so he 
 thought, have helped him to cut a better 
 figure, had it only occurred to him while 
 his cousin was by. Whereas, though he 
 racked his memory to recall his exact 
 expressions, he could recollect nothing 
 comparable to pearl or ruby to have dropped 
 from his lips. 
 
 * Harry Soole himself could scarcely have 
 done it worse,' he muttered in his mortifi- 
 cation. ' I might have no command of 
 language at all for anything I got out; 
 Vm uncommonly glad that there was nobody 
 to hear us, and if that old parson tries it on 
 with me on the strength of his friend's 
 report, I flatter myself that he will find 
 I'm not always tongue-tied.' 
 
 Refreshing himself by imaginary bursts
 
 250 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 of eloquence, of which Mr. Holbrooke should 
 be the victim, Adolphus West strove to 
 regain his complacency, and especially to 
 prevent himself from thinking further about 
 the once inseparable comrade to whom his 
 thoughts had slightingly reverted. Not the 
 least indeed of the thorns which had irked 
 him since his acrQ-randisement had been 
 implanted owing to his connection with 
 tlie Sooles. A few months back Dolf van 
 Lenoep had been glad enough to be the 
 guest of the well-to-do linen-draper in Long- 
 borou^^h, whose onlv son was his fast 
 friend, and of whose only daughter all tlieir 
 little world considered him the accepted 
 lover. But what had the Adolphus West 
 of to-day to do with such ties and associa- 
 tions ? It had been his painful duty, nt (mce 
 and decidedly, to cool towards the family 
 in a manner whicli had brouQ-ht about 
 unpleasant scenes between former friends.
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 251 
 
 The linen-draper, an easy-going man in 
 domestic life, but a thorough man of busi- 
 ness, had not done much to insert this 
 rankling thorn in the side of the newly 
 enriched. He loved his girl in his way, and 
 thought highly of her, but he could not 
 venture to assert that she was a mate for 
 the squire of Swardham, and was ready to 
 withdraw from all pretensions to intimacy or 
 matrimonial claim, on a solemn promise that 
 the custom of Swardham Hall should be trans- 
 ferred to his establishment — and perhaps 
 a trifle invested for Sally's benefit, against 
 she should pick up another young man. 
 
 But Sally and her brother would none 
 of such proposals, and it was their be- 
 haviour which caused the thorn to rankle. 
 At first they pretended to think, uncon- 
 scionable creatures, that Dolf would be 
 always Dolf to them, in spite of all the 
 glories of Swardham. And when it became
 
 252 wmsT OF swardham. 
 
 plain that Dolf had vanished away, and 
 left no trace in Adolphus West, Esquire, 
 they refused to acquiesce in a result so 
 natural, and comported themselves in a 
 most irritating fashion. It was indeed a 
 relief when Harry Soole repudiated for 
 himself and his sister all desire for further 
 acquaintance, but his choice of terms, in 
 making this repudiation, was disgustingly 
 forcible and disrespectful. Pretty Sally 
 also, though she cried her bright eyes red, 
 showed a surprising spirit, and, when her 
 defaulting wooer hinted at the possibility 
 of secret interviews for the recreation of 
 the future, ordered him off as surely no 
 squire of high degree was ever dismissed 
 by shopkeeper's daughter since great estates 
 began to be. After all, humiliating as 
 some of it had perhaps been, the matter had 
 ended fairly, and he had slipped out of an 
 embarrassment without so much as havino;
 
 THE NEW SQUIRE. 253 
 
 to uuloose his purse-strings, of which un- 
 loosing he had, despite his new-found 
 w^ealth, begun to conceive a holy horror. 
 Let Soole and his sister indulge in heroics 
 to the top of their bent, the squire of 
 Swardham could afford, in his vast exalt- 
 ation, to turn the deafest of ears to their 
 abuse. It might have been pleasant to 
 have humble friends whom his splendours 
 should dazzle, and just now, though callers 
 were plenty, friends w^ere few ; but, after 
 all, there w^ould have been sad incongruity 
 in doing the honours of the Hall for 'Arry 
 and Sally, the shop-boy and shop-girl from 
 Longborough.
 
 2.34 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A RIDE OX HAMLET. 
 
 TN the big okl-fashioned drawiiig-rooin of 
 -^ her sou's bewildering: bio; house sat the 
 widow Van Lennep, trying to persuade her- 
 self that she felt at home, and did not miss 
 her gossips in Britannia Street, or her in- 
 cursions into the front shop, where it was 
 ahvays well to keep an eye on Rugg the 
 journeyman. At first Mrs. Van Lennep had 
 shown an inclination to spend some of her 
 abundant leisure in consultation with the 
 liouse-keeper, and inspections of the linen- 
 presses and jam closets ; but in deference 
 to her Dolf's wishes, she had abandoned 
 these pursuits, and resigned herself to soli-
 
 A RIDE UN HAMLET. 25 D 
 
 tude in the biggest room but one in the 
 big house. Here the poor old woman wouhl 
 have had a sad time of it had she not been 
 fired by a liappy am1)ition, no less than that 
 of fashioning in fancy netting a pair of 
 curtains for each of the three huge windows 
 of the apartment. This afternoon she had 
 hitched her work to one of the bell handles, 
 and was becoming almost elated as she 
 pushed her chair further and further back, 
 to keep pace with the gradual lengthening 
 of her web. 
 
 ' If I live to finish 'em, please God, I'll 
 make a valance for each window as well, 
 and then we can take down these shabby, 
 stufi}" old things in summer. There's no- 
 thing so elegant to my mind as a net 
 curtain in a pretty fancy mesh like mine,' 
 and the widow concluded her soliloquy with 
 a scornful glance at the ample hangings of 
 time-honoured brocade.
 
 256 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 An impatient rattle at the door-handle 
 caused her just then to jump and drop her 
 implements. 
 
 *Ah! Dolf, my dear,' she cried, as her 
 son entered, ' you're come to sit with me a 
 l)it, I hope, and we'll have some tea. I'm 
 afraid to ask those solemn chaps for any- 
 thing unless you are by.' 
 
 The young man frowned as he replied, 
 
 ' If the butler or any footman in this 
 house fails in his respect to you, mother, or 
 neglects your orders, just let me know of it, 
 that's all, and it sha'n't happen twice.' 
 
 ' Law, my dear, don't fly off with that 
 notion ; they are respectful enough, but they 
 frighten me, especially him with the bald 
 head that dresses like a church clergyman. 
 But there is one thing I should like seen to, 
 my dear, which is w^orse than the men- 
 servants, and that's the pictures, at least 
 some in the dining-room and staircase.
 
 A HIDE ON HAMLET. 257 
 
 They're not fit to hang in any Christian 
 man's house, I say, and how my sister-in- 
 law could stomach them so many years 
 passes my comprehensions.' 
 
 'Do you allude to the family portraits, 
 ma'am ? they are — ' 
 
 " Gracious ! Adolphus ! they can't be ! at 
 least I hope not, for I would be ashamed 
 to think you came of such people ! There's 
 one in the dining-parlour, — a long row of 
 queer people without their clothes, with a 
 disgusting old fat man, as drunk as ever he 
 can roll, and children, that should be inno- 
 cent, squeezing grapes into his wicked old 
 mouth. That's bad enough, but some of 
 the females in other pictures are w^orse ; 
 I can't bear to think of such bare brown 
 trollops ; God forbid they should have been 
 Miss Wests, even in Papist days ! But the 
 frames are handsome enough — plenty of good 
 
 stuff in them, and as the paintings might 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 corrupt the servants' minds if we took 'em 
 out and laid 'em in the garrets ; wouldn't it 
 be best to fit each with a brass rod and a 
 few rings, and a nice neat curtain, green 
 baize or red, which would look very well, 
 and save me from really not knowing where 
 to turn my eyes at times.' 
 
 But in spite of this appeal, nothing could 
 be extracted from the master of the house 
 but an exclamation of — 
 
 * Oh nonsense ! don't bother, mother. 
 At your age, what can such things signify ? ' 
 Neither was the old lady's tea-table graced 
 by her son's presence. ' I'm going out 
 riding,' he remarked presently, ' but I shall 
 be back in time to dress for dinner, so we 
 shall meet again.' 
 
 The widow had dined at her solitary 
 lunch, and heaved a sigh at the thought of 
 the ordeal to come, when she would have to 
 shake her head at such a sinful number of
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 259 
 
 dishes, each proffered by the solemn servants 
 who terrified her. Dolf would bate nothing 
 of what he had ascertained to have been 
 habitual in the house — and his parent 
 was expected to behave in all respects 
 conformably. 
 
 Leaving his mother to recommence her 
 arduous task, Adolphus was soon equipped 
 and mounted, and rode pensively forth, 
 after a charming canter over the turf, from 
 one of his lodge-gates. It had been with 
 fear and trembling that he had first found 
 himself on horseback, but, thanks to the 
 discretion of his head-groom, he was fur- 
 nished, at a high price indeed, with a steed 
 of finished manners and amiable disposition, 
 and had, as yet, contrived to keep on excel- 
 lent terms with his beast (which was indeed 
 easy in his paces as an arm-chair), and to 
 enjoy himself amazingly, cantering upon his 
 own wide green sward. This afternoon, 
 
 S 2
 
 260 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 for the first time, he ventured, unattended 
 as he was, upon the country roads, along 
 which, in meditative mood, he travelled at 
 a walk for two miles or more. At last his 
 horse, who probably had formed his own 
 opinion of the being astride his back, wearied 
 of such gentle progress, and broke into a 
 smart trot, which became all the smarter 
 and more persistent while the rider tried 
 first to pull him into a walk again, then to 
 urge him into a canter. Hamlet, however, 
 was minded to trot, and for once refused to 
 humour his new owner. Now trotting was 
 as yet most inconvenient, not to say detest- 
 able, to Hamlet's master. It flurried him, 
 it bumped him, and made him hot and 
 uncomfortable. He tugged at the bridle, 
 wishing that he had been allowed a curb as 
 well as snafile, but Hamlet only settled into 
 a more rough and business-like trot, and 
 seemed to delio-ht in choosing; the hardest
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 261 
 
 parts of the road. Soon West's hat was 
 tilted over his eyes and his teeth were well 
 nigh chattering. Why had he dispensed 
 with an attendant groom ? — it was really 
 horrible to be shaken in this manner, and, 
 save by flinging himself from the saddle, 
 how was he to end such torture ? He had 
 a mind to have Hamlet shot, if he ever 
 reached home in safety, or at least he would 
 sell the brute and never see him again. Off 
 at last into the dusty road fell his glossy 
 tall hat, secured, alas ! by no string ; but on 
 trotted the relentless Hamlet, on towards 
 Snugby village. Heavens ! what a plight 
 for the squire of Swardham, to be hurried 
 hatless, breathless, dishevelled, by a trotting 
 horse of which he had plainly lost all 
 control down that long straggling village 
 street. Already was he nearing the cross- 
 roads hard by the church and green, when a 
 little low pony carriage dashed out of one
 
 262 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 of the converging lanes, a carnage with a 
 lady driving and a smart little groom 
 behind her, at sight of which, as it rounded 
 the corner, Hamlet suddenly stopped with 
 alarming suddenness, and stood stock-still, 
 gazing at pony and lady with much interest, 
 and well-nigh unseating his unhappy rider 
 by the jerk with which he brought to. 
 With shame and confusion AVest strove to 
 urge his refractory steed on, and escape if 
 possible unnoticed — but it was not to be. 
 Already had the pony been pulled up, and 
 a frank, silvery voice was crying out : 
 
 ' Can my servant be of any assistance to 
 you, or can I ? You must excuse your 
 horse, he's an old acquaintance of the 
 pony's, 1 think, and of mine too — aren't you 
 Hamlet, old boy ? ' 
 
 Sulky and shamefaced as Adolphus West 
 felt and looked, he was unable to resist the 
 civilities of this lady fair and free. Fail*
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 263 
 
 she decidedly appeared as he peeped at her, 
 and saw smiling rosy lips and bold dark 
 eyes, and bewildering touzled hair, crowned 
 by a coquettish hat ; and of her freedom he 
 felt no desire to complain ; she was much 
 nicer than the stiff specimens who had 
 honoured his mother and himself by calling 
 at the Hall ! 
 
 ' Half a mile back, is your hat ! Then 
 take my advice, let little Will here ride 
 Hamlet back for it, he'll be there and 
 back like a bird, and you jump in beside 
 me, and we'll be jogging quietly along till 
 the lad catches us up. That's right ! in you 
 
 get/ 
 
 He had no idea who she was or where 
 she was taking him, but he was instan- 
 taneously fascinated by this woman, so 
 unlike anything he had ever seen. He 
 tried to remember where Hamlet had come 
 from, but he could only recall the heavy
 
 264 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 cheque which he had signed for his pur- 
 chase. Shyly glancing at his companion, 
 as she held in her pony at a sober walk, 
 and chattered gaily, as if she were beside a 
 friend, he noticed how small and delicate 
 was the ear, with a tiny golden splinter- bar 
 pendent from its rosy lobe, which appeared 
 below a thick cluster of golden-tinted dark 
 hair — how small, too, the hand, despite its 
 stout leather glove, which held the reins ! 
 He had opportunities, too, now and again, 
 of noting that the bold bright eyes were 
 set off by long lashes and wondrously 
 arched eyebrows of sable hue and accurate 
 outline — and all these things he admired 
 hugely, as well as the small aquiline nose, 
 the graceful neck, and marvellous waist, 
 to which a plainly made cloth jacket sat 
 close. He had scarce stammered a word 
 in reply to the flood of easy chat, mostly 
 about horses and Longshire roads, when the
 
 A EIDE ON HAMLET. 265 
 
 little groom reappeared with Hamlet and 
 the missing hat. This the youth tendered 
 with an irrepressible grin. 
 
 * There was a old cow a mouthing of it, 
 sir,' he said, as West took it in his hands, 
 alas ! ruined beyond repair. 
 
 True, one side of it was merely a little 
 dusty, but from the other the moist lips of 
 the cottao^er's cow had indeed for ever 
 robbed the glossy smoothness, while her 
 rough tongue had wandered with fatal 
 effect from band to crown in search of 
 delicacies of savour yet unknown. 
 
 ' Deluded old beast,' laughed the lady ; 
 ' how unfortunate that she should have 
 chanced on your hat ! — a brand new one 
 too ! But it's all the better for me : now I 
 sha'n't let you mount and away! I'm close at 
 home, and you must come in. My brother 
 will be delighted, and I dare say he can 
 find you a hat. He'll like to know what
 
 2G6 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 you think of Hamlet, of course ; and it's 
 quite time you were acquainted.' 
 
 With this the fair unknown whipped 
 her pony and rattled in fine style down 
 Snugby Street, and round a corner, through 
 a lodge-gate which stood wide open, and 
 along a rather ill-kept drive, while the 
 groom followed on West's horse. Presently 
 a stately but dismal-looking Palladian pile 
 revealed itself from amid trees, and the 
 lady, pointing with her whip, observed : 
 
 ' There's where we live, you know, Fairy 
 and I ; room enough for two people, 
 shouldn't you think ! — in fact we want 
 cheering up with a few neighbours most 
 horribly, and, if I hadn't encountered you 
 to-day, I was screwing up my courage to 
 call, which isn't the least in my line, or 
 Fairy's either/ 
 
 She seemed to know who he was then, 
 but who could Fairy be ? — a sister, or a pet
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 267 
 
 of some sort ? He felt a little bewildered, 
 but very grateful, and far gone in the most 
 hopeless fascination. Soon the weedy drive 
 debouched into a great bleak clearing in 
 the midst of which rose the frowning stony 
 pile, looking big enough for two hundred 
 instead of two, and in another minute the 
 carriage rattled up to a small side-door, 
 stopping short of the vast portico, with its 
 long flights of discoloured steps. 
 
 ' Come in and be introduced, Mr. West ; 
 and I dare say you could do a brandy-and- 
 soda, in which Fairy will be only too happy 
 to keep you in countenance.' 
 
 Through a gloomy basement vault, up a 
 dark and crooked stair, across a corner of 
 a vast but dreary hall, with statues and a 
 classically painted ceiling, he followed his 
 conductress, who ushered him at last into a 
 lofty room of moderate size, where the old- 
 fashioned furniture was in considerable
 
 268 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 disorder, and a strong scent of tobacco- 
 smoke greeted the nostril. 
 
 ' We are pigging here just anyhow, you 
 know,' the lady observed, as she upset a fox- 
 terrier from a prim old arm-chair, and flung 
 her hat and gloves upon an open card- 
 table ; * but I dare say it won't afflict you 
 much.' 
 
 Adolphus thought that nothing could 
 deeply afflict him while in so bright and 
 bewitching a presence. Talk of Sally 
 Soole's good looks indeed ; what was she 
 to this radiant, fearless creature ! He ad- 
 mired her more, as she stood bare-headed, 
 than in her out- door gear. Her hair, w^hich 
 though dark-hued was pervaded by gleams 
 of gold, was arranged in a fashion quite 
 strange to him, but, as he thought, infinitely 
 becoming. It was cut rather short, and 
 curled or touzled all over her head, much 
 as the hair of an untidy curly-headed boy
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 269 
 
 might be, but over the forehead there were 
 longer locks (not unlike the tuft which 
 grows between the horns of Highland cattle) , 
 so disposed that between their lower rings 
 and the marvellously arched eyebrows afore- 
 said, there showed a mere line, scarce a 
 nail's-breadth of white skin. Then her 
 figure, as she stood upright, and set one 
 little foot on the fender to warm, was 
 more bewitchingly displayed than as she 
 had sat, wolf-skin on knee, in her little 
 carriage. 
 
 * Ah,' she said, apparently unconscious of 
 his gaze, 'here is Fairy, come to save me 
 the trouble of a search.' 
 
 The door opened, and with astonishment 
 West beheld a man six foot in height and 
 broad in the shoulders ; a man neatly 
 dressed in somewhat tightly -fitting clothes ; 
 a youngish man with a fresh- coloured face, 
 clean shaven save for a yellow imperial
 
 270 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 which graced his chin, and rather good 
 features of a keen and knowing type. 
 
 ' Fairy, this is Mr. AYest ; we made ac- 
 quaintance in the lanes, and he's good- 
 natured enough to waive ceremony and let 
 me bring him in. Mr. West, my brother 
 FitzEaymond.' 
 
 In increasing bewilderment West looked 
 from one to the other ; if this tall fellow 
 were FitzEaymond, how or why was he also 
 Fairy ? — and which name could be shared 
 by this charming creature ? The tall man, 
 with a good-humoured laugh, came up and 
 shook hands, saying as he did so : 
 
 ' Very glad to make your acquaintance, 
 though I dare say my sister, who introduces 
 us, hasn't the least right to do so.' 
 
 The fair sister laughed musically. 
 
 ' Fairy sticking up for the conventionali- 
 ties — well done ! ' she said. ' Well, sir, since 
 you are now formally introduced to our
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 271 
 
 neighbour, you shall ceremoniously intro- 
 duce me to Mr. West, and then we'll be 
 done with that humbug.' 
 
 ' Allow me then,' replied the brother, 
 with mock solemnity, ^to present to you 
 my sister. Lady Georgiana FitzRaymond.' 
 
 Adolphus bowed confusedly, as it rushed 
 upon him that the tall fellow, so puzzlingly 
 addressed as Fairy, must be none other than 
 the Earl FitzRaymond, and that the house 
 must be Beausite, of w^hich he had often 
 heard, in common with all the dwellers in 
 those parts. 
 
 Mention has been made in these pages of 
 a certain old Earl FitzRaymond, who had 
 lived at Beausite in much quietude and 
 domesticity till his death, some six months 
 before West's visit. This old gentleman 
 had found himself, some twelve years back, 
 left a widower, with an only son and an 
 only daughter, the pair who now iu habited
 
 272 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 the big house. But in these, his children, 
 the old peer had found little comfort or 
 sympathy. The son, better known than 
 trusted in all sporting circles as Lord Fair- 
 ford (whence the familiar abbreviation Fairy), 
 never honoured the paternal roof by bis pre- 
 sence, which was bestowed on fast society 
 of the racing and sporting order; and of late 
 years never communicated with his father, 
 who had altogether declined to embarrass 
 himself or his estates for the benefit of his 
 extravagant and often insolvent heir. Neither 
 was the Lady Georgiana more disposed than 
 her brother to cheer her sire's declining years. 
 After a longish career as a spoiled and 
 wilful beauty, this lady had, to the old 
 lord's distress and chagrin, insisted on 
 marrying a handsome and penniless cousin. 
 The union proving unhappy, and a separ- 
 ation ensuing, the father was not slow to 
 offer a home to his only daughter. But
 
 A EIDE ON HAMLET. 273 
 
 Lady G. (as she was commonly called) 
 dreaded the humdrum existence at Beausite, 
 and being of no very dutiful turn of mind, 
 preferred a strange rambling life, mostly on 
 the continent, in the course of which many 
 tongues wagged at her expense, and not a 
 few scandals attached, falsely or truly, to 
 her name. Thus deserted by both children, 
 the old earl, a man of quiet and homely 
 tastes, found his loneliness unbearable, and 
 presently brought a new wife to Beausite, 
 in the person of the sister of a neighbouring 
 rector. This lady, who was of gentle birth 
 but slender dower, bore him several children, 
 and made his latter days very happy in- 
 deed ; and for her sake and her babes, he 
 had charged the estate so heavily as to 
 excite the hearty maledictions of his heir, 
 who was indeed so deeply involved as to 
 need every shilling which could be raised 
 on the family property. The new earl 
 
 VOL. L T
 
 274 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 found himself master of a great dull house, 
 full of old-fashioned furniture, and in some 
 need of restorations within and without, and 
 of an income which would have been some- 
 what insufficient for the maintenance of his 
 position, even had he been free from the 
 terrible liabilities incurred during his career 
 on the turf. Nevertheless, he had come to 
 take possession, though without any inten- 
 tion of permanently residing at Beausite, 
 and had summoned his sister, for whom he 
 had more affection than for any other living 
 creature, from her foreign rambles to share 
 his sojourn in Longshire. 
 
 'I suppose you'll try to let the place,' 
 Lady G. had said, looking with disfavour at 
 its size and faded appointments, so different 
 from her late surroundings in Wiesbaden 
 or Paris. ' It smells of that woman's nursery ; 
 yes, it tastes of her tea and tracts.' 
 
 ' I'd let it fast enouo-h, if ^^^iV one could
 
 A RIDE OX HAMLET. 275 
 
 be found fool enough to rent it,' her 
 brother replied ; ' I only wish for my part it 
 would be burned down before the insurance 
 runs out.' 
 
 Here then the pair had been living for 
 some months past, 'pigging,' as Lady G. 
 termed it, without any attempt at such 
 establishment as is usual in the mansion 
 of a peer, and doubtless finding Longshire 
 quite as dull as they had prophesied. To 
 their ears, as to all ears in Longshire, had 
 come the strange tale how that Squire 
 AYest was dispossessed of Swardham, of all 
 his acres, his income, and place in the 
 world ; and how that a new squire, and 
 truer West, had emerged from obscurity to 
 take his place. Now John West had l^een 
 no favourite with either of the FitzRay- 
 monds. The lord called him a prig and a 
 stick, for John West disliked horse-racing 
 and betting and all the devices of the children 
 
 T 2
 
 276 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 of the turf; and the Lady G. remembered 
 that he had never been numbered among 
 the adorers who fluttered round her, when 
 she burst on the world at the Long.-shire balls 
 long ago. So they both voted the change 
 a change for the better, and agreed that 
 it would be well to make some move towards 
 the new man. Till this day, however, the 
 move had remained unmade, for, though 
 the earl had sold him a horse, he had, 
 perhaps fortunately for Adolphus, dealt 
 only with the Swardham head-groom in the 
 transaction. But now fortune had delivered 
 this lucky beggar (as Lord FitzRaymond 
 called him) into their hands, and they 
 were inclined to make themselves ao-ree^ible 
 to the representative of so much money. 
 Accordingly the brandy-and-soda were pro- 
 duced, cigars followed, and, Lady G. con- 
 senting to just one cigarette, the time 
 slipped on in pleasant talk, till Adolphus
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 277 
 
 found himself hopelessly late for his dinner 
 and irretrievably fascinated by his new 
 friends, but especially by the reckless gaiety 
 of Lady G., who seemed to him the most 
 brilliant and enchantino^ of her sex. If art 
 had been called in by the ladj- to repair the 
 ravages of time (and perhaps dissipation), 
 innocent Adolphiis was all unconscious of 
 that art. To him those pink-hued cheeks 
 and rosy lips, those pencilled brows, the 
 golden gleams that lit the dark curls, were 
 all nature's contributions to a sum total of 
 surpassing loveliness. And the continental 
 freedom of the lady's address, the absence 
 of ceremony and stiffness which reigned 
 ciround her, seemed to him simply perfec- 
 tion. In short he was intoxicated at once, 
 and fell the easiest of her many captives, at 
 this Circe's tiny feet. 
 
 ' By Jove, Georgie,' quoth the earl, when 
 at last West had reluctantly departed, '^on
 
 278 WEST OF SWARDHAM. 
 
 shall sell him two or three more of my 
 horses. How I wish I had kept Hamlet 
 till after this fellow had been so smitten ! 
 I never saw such a case. Poor little cad ! 
 he has a rough time before him.' 
 
 'He is a much better fellow than his 
 cousin anyhow, and a godsend. I mean 
 that he shall prove a real godsend to both 
 of us ; but he is my property, remember, 
 and I won't have you sticking him with 
 any screw of yours just yet. He shall be 
 more profitable than that if you'll leave 
 him to me at first, as you ought, for I shall 
 have all the hard work. Pancy calling on 
 his mother ! I must borrow a bonnet from 
 my maid, and hunt up a few of the pious 
 leaflets that woman used to dispense here. 
 They say the old maternal party has never 
 lived out of a shop, and wants to put all 
 the statues at Swardham into brown holland 
 drawers — but I dare say she's as good as
 
 A RIDE ON HAMLET. 279 
 
 any of the frumps about here, and quite 
 as well-bred as our beloved step-mamma. 
 And now let's inquire whether any prepar- 
 ations for dinner are making in that ghastly 
 old cavern down-stairs. My conquest has 
 given me an appetite.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Clay and Taylor, Printers, Bungay, SuM'olk,
 
 / ?7^
 
 rS,l7°^'L'-S 
 
 -tJRBANA 
 
 ^°^^2084216719