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 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY.
 
 GREEN PASTURES 
 
 AND 
 
 PICCADILLY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BLACK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON, 
 "a princess OF THULE," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES, 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Jonbon : 
 
 macmilla:n" and co. 
 
 1877.
 
 CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 187: 
 
 [The Eight of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved."]
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ...... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY . . . .19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON . , . . .38 
 
 j^ CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALMA MATER . . . . . .55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 : POLITICS AKD NIGHTINGALES . . . .72
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES . . .88 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH ..... 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS . . . . . 122 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LOVE'S SORROWS . . . . . .139 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 REPENTANCE , . . , , .155 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS ...... 172 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 HAVEN AT LAST . . . , . .189 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK ...... 205
 
 CONTENTS. VU 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIEST EXPERIENCES ...... 225 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE ..... 241 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS . . . . . .257 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE HOME-COMING ...... 274
 
 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 You may be sure there was a stir among our 
 women-folk when they heard that a young man 
 had come courting the Earl's daughter. We 
 have amongst us — or over us, rather — a minia- 
 ture major-domo of a woman, a mere wisp of a 
 thing, who has nevertheless an awful majesty of 
 demeanour, and the large and innocent eyes of 
 a child, and a wit as nimble and elusive as a 
 minnow; and no sooner is this matter mentioned 
 than she says, 
 
 ' ' the poor child ! And she has no mother." 
 
 ^^ That," it is observed by a person who has 
 
 learnt wisdom, and does not talk above his breath 
 
 3 ^VOL. I. B
 
 2 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 in his own house, '' that is a defect in her char- 
 acter wliich her future husband will no doubt 
 condone." 
 
 She takes no heed. The large and tender 
 eyes are distant and troubled. Slie has become 
 a seer, a prophetess of evil things in the days to 
 come. 
 
 ^' Tlilnk of the child ! " she says to our gentle 
 visitor — who was once being courted herself, 
 but is now a brisk young matron blusliingwith 
 thejionours of a couple of bairns — '' think of her 
 being all alone there, with scarcely a woman- 
 friend in the world. She has no one to warn 
 her — no one to guide her—" 
 
 ^^ But why," says our young matron, with 
 mild wonder, '' why should she want warning ? 
 Is it such a terrible thing to get married ? " 
 
 Common sense does ]iot touch the inspired. 
 
 ^^ The getting married? No. It is the 
 awakening after. How can she tell — how can 
 §he know — that this young man, if he really 
 means to marry her, is at tlie present moment 
 courting her deadliest rival ? Whom has she to 
 fear in the future so much as her old idealised
 
 INTRODUCTOKY. 6 
 
 self ? He is building up a vision, a pliantom, no 
 more like that poor girl than I am like lier ; and 
 then, when he fiiLds out the real woman after 
 marriage, his heart will go back to the old crea- 
 tion of his own fancy, and he a\ ill wonder how 
 she could have changed so much, and grieve 
 over his disappointment. Yes, you may laugh " 
 — this is a sudden onslaught on another meek 
 listener — ''but every woman knows what I say 
 is true. And is it our fault that men won't see 
 us as we are until it is too late ? We have to 
 bear the blame, at all events. It is always the 
 woman. Once upon a time — and it only hap- 
 pens once — she w^as a beautiful, angelic creature ; 
 she was filled with noble aspirations ; wisdom 
 shone in her face ; I suppose the earth was 
 scarcely good enough for her to walk on. Then 
 she marries ; and her husband discovers — slowly 
 and surely — not his own blunder, but that his 
 imaginary heroine has changed into an ordinary 
 woman, w^ho has an occasional headache like 
 other people, and must spend a good deal of her 
 life in thinking about shops and dinners. He 
 tries to hide his dismay ; he is very polite to
 
 4 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY, 
 
 her ; but how can she fail to see that he is in 
 loYC, not with herself at all, but with that old 
 ideal of his own creation, and that he bitterly 
 regrets in secret the destruction of his hopes ? 
 That is no laughing matter. People talk about 
 great tragedies. The fierce passions are splen- 
 did because there is noise and stamping about 
 them. But if a man stabs a woman, and puts 
 her out of the world, is she not at peace ? And 
 if a man puts a bullet through his head, there 
 is an end of his trouble. But I will tell you my 
 belief, that all the battles and wars that ever 
 were in the world have not caused the fifteenth 
 part of the misery and tragic suffering that has 
 been caused by this very thing you are lauglilng 
 at — those false ideals formed before marriage. 
 You may laugh if you like." 
 
 Indeedj we were not disposed to laugh, 
 Slie was really in earnest. She had spoken 
 rapidly, with something of an indignant thrill 
 in her voice, and a proud and pathetic look in 
 her dark eyes. We had, after all, a certain 
 fondness for this gentle orator ; and it was diffi- 
 cult to resist the eager pleading of her impas-
 
 INTRODUCTOEY, 5 
 
 sioned words, when, as now, her heart was full 
 of what she was saying. 
 
 Or was it the beautiful May morning, and 
 the sunlight shining on the white hawthorn and 
 the lilacs, and the sleepy shadow of the cedar 
 on the lawn, and the clear singing of the larks 
 far away in the blue, that led us to listen so 
 placidly to the voice of the charmer ? A new- 
 comer broke the spell. A heavy-footed cob 
 came trotting up to the verandah ; his rider, a 
 tall young man with a brown beard, leapt down 
 on the gravel and called aloud in his stormy way, 
 
 '' Donnerwetter ! It is as warm to-day, it 
 is as warm as July. Why do you all sit here ? 
 Come ! Shall we make it a holiday ? Shall 
 we drive to Guildford ? — Weybridge ? — Chert- 
 sey ? — Esher ? " 
 
 The two women were sneaking off by them- 
 selves, perhaps because they wished to have a 
 further talk about poor Lady Sylvia and her 
 awful fate ; perhaps because they were anxious, 
 like all women, to leave holiday arrangements 
 in other hands, in order to have the right of 
 subsequently grumbling over them.
 
 6 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ Stay ! " cries one of us, who has been re- 
 leased from the spell. ^' There Is another word 
 to be said on that subject. You are not goinj.^ 
 to ride rough-shod over us, and then sneak out 
 at the back-door before we have recovered from 
 the fright. This, then, is your contention — that 
 a vast number of women are enduring misery 
 because their husbands have become disillu- 
 sionised, and cannot conceal the fact? And 
 that is the fault of the husbands. They con- 
 struct an ideal woman ; marry a real one ; and 
 live "■miserable ever after, because tliey can't 
 have that imaginative toy of their brain. Now, 
 don't you think, if this were true— if tliis wretch- 
 edness were so widespread — it would cure it- 
 self ? Have mankind gone on blundering for 
 ages, because of the non-arrival of a certain 
 awful and mysterious Surrey prophetess ? Why 
 haven't women formed a universal association 
 for the destruction of lovers' dreams ? " 
 
 '^ I tell you, you may laugh as you like," is 
 the calm reply, ^^but what I say is true; and 
 every married woman will tell you it is true. 
 Why don't women cure it ? If it comes to that,
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 women are as foolish as men. Tlie girl makes 
 her lover a hero ; she wakes up after marriage 
 to find him only a husband, and the highest 
 hope of her life falls dead.'' 
 
 '' Then we are all disappointed, and all 
 miserable. That is your conclusion ? " 
 
 " Not all," is the answer, and there is a slight 
 change of tone audible here, a slight smile 
 visible on her lips. *^ There are many whose 
 imagination never went the length of construct- 
 ing any ideal, except that of a moor covered 
 with grouse. There are others who have edu- 
 cated themselves into a useful indifferentism or 
 cynicism. Unfortunately it is the nobler natures 
 that suffer most." 
 
 ^' Well, this is a tolerably lively prospect for 
 every girl who thinks of getting married. Pray, 
 Frau Philosophin, have you been constructing 
 all these fiddlestick theories out of your own 
 head, or have you been making a special study 
 of Sylvia Bly the?" 
 
 ^' I know Lady Sylvia better than most people. 
 She is a very earnest girl. She has ideals, con- 
 victions, aspirations — a whole stock-in-trade of
 
 8 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 tilings that a good many girls seem' to get 
 on very well without. If that poor girl is 
 disappointed in her marriage, it will kill 
 her." 
 
 ^^Disappointed in her marriage!" calls out 
 the young man who has been standing patiently 
 with the bridle of his cob in his hand. " Why 
 do you think that already ? No, no. It is the 
 girl herself — she lives in that solitary place, 
 and imagines mere foolish things — it is she 
 herself has put that into your mind. Disap- 
 pointed! No, no. There is not any good 
 reason — there is not any good sense in that. 
 This young fellow Balfour, every one speaks 
 well of him ; he will have a great name some 
 day; he is a busy, a very active man. I hear 
 of him in many places." 
 
 '^ I wish he was dead ! " says my Lady ; and 
 curiously enough, at this moment her eyes fill 
 with tears, and she turns and walks proudly 
 away, accompanied by her faithful friend. 
 
 The young man turns in amazerqent. 
 
 ^^What have I done? Am I not right? 
 There is nothing bad that Balfour has done ? "
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 ^^ There is plenty bad in what he means to 
 do, if it is true he is going to carry off Lady 
 Sylvia Blythe. But when you, Herr Lieuten- 
 ant, gave him that fine certificate of character, 
 I supj)ose you know that people don't quite 
 agree about Mr. Hugh Balfour ? I suppose 
 you don't know that a good many folks regard 
 him as a bullying, overbearing, and portent- 
 ously serious Scotchman, a little too eager to 
 tread on one's corns, and not very particular 
 as to the means he uses for his own advance- 
 ment ? Is it very creditable, for example, that 
 he should be merely a warming-pan for young 
 Glynne in that wretched little Irish borough? 
 Is it decent that he should apparently take a 
 pride in insulting the deputations tliat come to 
 him ? A member of Parliament is supposed to 
 pay some respect to the people who elected 
 him." 
 
 Here the brown-visaged young man burst 
 into a roar of laughter. 
 
 ^^It is splendid — it is the best joke I have 
 known. They insult him; why should he not 
 turn round and say to them, 'Do you go to
 
 10 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 the devil ! ' He is quite right. I admire him. 
 Sacrament ! — I would do that too.'^ 
 
 So much for a morning gossip over the affairs 
 of two people who were not much more than 
 strangers to us. We had but little notion then 
 that we were all to become more intimately 
 related, our lives being for a space intertwisted 
 by the cunning hands of circumstance. The 
 subject, however, did not at all depart from 
 tlie mind of our sovereign lady and ruler. We 
 could see that her eyes were troubled. When 
 it was proposed to her that she should make a 
 party to drive somewhere or other, she begged 
 that it might be made up without her. We 
 half suspected whither she meant to drive. 
 
 Some hour or two after that you might have 
 seen a pair of ponies, not much bigger than 
 mice, being slowly driven along a dusty lane 
 that skirted a great park. The driver was a 
 lady, and she was alone. She did not seem to 
 pay much heed to the beautiful Spring foliage 
 of the limes and elms, to the blossoms of the 
 chestnuts, nor yet to the bluebells and primroses 
 visible on the other side of the grey paling,
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 where the young rabbits were scurrying into 
 the holes in the banks. 
 
 There was a smart pattering of hoofs behind 
 lier; and presently she was overtaken by a 
 young gentleman of some fourteen years or so, 
 who took off his tall hat with much ceremony, 
 and politely bade her good morning. 
 
 ''Good mornmg, Mr. John," said she, in 
 return. ''Do you know if Lady Sylvia is at 
 home?" 
 
 "I should tliink she was," said the boy, as 
 he got down from his horse, and led it by the 
 side of the pony-chaise, that he might the better 
 continue the conversation. " I sliould think 
 she was. My uncle's gone to town. Look 
 here ; I've been over to the ' Fox and Hounds ' 
 for a bottle of champagne. Shan't wo have 
 some fun ? You'll stay to lunch, of course." 
 
 In fact, there was a bottle wrapped round 
 with brown paper under his arm. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. John, how could you do that 
 You know your cousin will be very angry." 
 
 "Not a bit," said he, confidently. "Old 
 :Syllabus is a rattling good sort of girl. She'll
 
 12 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 declare I might have had chamj)agne at the 
 Hall — which isn^t true, for my noble uncle is 
 an uncommonly sharp sort of chap, and I be- 
 lieve he takes the key of the wine-cellar with 
 him — and then she'll settle down to it. She's 
 rather serious, you know; and would like to 
 come the maternal over you ; but she has got 
 just as good a notion of fun as most girls. You 
 needn't be afraid about that. Old Syllabus and 
 I are first-rate friends ; we get on capitally to- 
 gether. You see, I don't try to spoon her, as 
 many a fellow would do in my place." 
 
 '•'- That is very sensible of you — very con- 
 siderate." 
 
 The innocence of those eyes of hers ! If that 
 brat of a school-boy, who was assuming the 
 airs of a man, could have analysed the tender, 
 ingenuous, lainb-like look which was directed 
 towards him — if he could have seen through 
 those perfectly sweet and approving eyes, and 
 discovered the fiendish laughter and sarcasm 
 beliind — he would have learnt more of the na- 
 ture of women than lie was likely to learn in 
 any half-dozen years of his idiotic existence.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 But how was he to know ? He chattered on 
 more freely than ever. He had a firm convic- 
 tion that he was impressing this simple country 
 person with his knowledge of the world and of 
 human nature. She had been but once to 
 Oxford. He had never even seen the place; 
 but then as he was going there some day, he 
 was justified in speaking of the colleges as if 
 they were all ontlieir knees before him, implor- 
 ing him to accept a fellowship. And then he 
 came back to his cousin Sylvia. 
 
 '^ It's an awful shame," said he, ^' to shut up 
 the poor girl in that place. She'll never know 
 anything of the world: she thinks there's 
 nothing more important than cowslips and 
 daisies. I don't suppose my uncle is over- 
 burdened with money — in fact, I believe he 
 must be rather hard up — but I never heard of 
 an Earl yet who couldn't get a town-house 
 somehow, if he wanted to. Why doesn't he get 
 another mortgage on this tumble-down old 
 estate of his, and go and live comfortably in 
 Bruton Street, and show poor old Syllabus 
 something of what's really going on in the
 
 11 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 world ? Why, she hasn't even been presented. 
 She has got no more notion of a London season 
 than a dairymaid. And yet I think if you took 
 her into the Park she would hold her own there : 
 what do you think ? " 
 
 '' I think you would not get many girls in 
 the Park more beautiful than Lady Sylvia," is 
 the innocent answer. 
 
 '^And this old place! What's the good of 
 it ? The whole estate is going to wreck and 
 ruiD_ because my uncle won't have the rabbits 
 killed down, and he won't spend any money on 
 the farm-buildings. And that old bailiff, Moggs, 
 is the biggest fool I ever saw : the whole place 
 is overrun with couch-grass. I am glad my 
 uncle gave him one for himself the other day. 
 Moggs was grumbling about the rabbits. 
 ^ Moggs,' said my uncle, ' you let my rabbits 
 alone, and I shall say nothing about your couch.' 
 But it's an awful shame. And he'll never get 
 her married if he keeps her buried down here." 
 
 ^' But is there any necessity that your cousin 
 should marry ? " 
 
 '^I can tell you it is becoming more and
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 more difficult every year," said this experienced 
 and thoughtful observer, '^ to get girls married. 
 The men don't seem to see it somehow, unless 
 the gu'l has a lot of money and good looks as 
 welL Last year I believe it was something 
 awful ; you could see at the end of the season 
 how the mothers were beginning to 2)ull long 
 faces when they thought of having to start off 
 for Baden-Baden with a whole lot of unsaleable 
 articles on hand." 
 
 ^' Yes, that is a serious responsibility," is the 
 grave answer. *' But then, you know, there 
 needs be no hurry about getting your cousin 
 married. She is young. I think If you wait 
 you will find at the right moment the beautiful 
 prince come ridii:g out of the wood to carry her 
 off, just as happens in the story-books.'^ 
 
 '' Well, you know," said this chattering boy, 
 with a smile, '^ pe oplehave begun to talk already. 
 There is that big boor of a Scotch fellow — what's 
 his name ? Balfour— has been down here a good 
 many times lately ; and, of course, gossips jump 
 at conclusions. But that is a little too ridiculous. 
 I don't think you will catch old Syllabus, with
 
 16 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 all her crotchets, manying a man in the rum 
 and sugar Ime. Or is it calico and opium ? " 
 
 '' But I thought he had never had anything 
 to do with the firm ? And I thought it was one 
 of the most famous merchant houses in the 
 world ? " 
 
 '' Well, I don't suppose he smears his hands 
 with treacle and wears an apron — but — but it is 
 too ridiculous. I have no doubt when my uncle 
 has got all he wants out of him, he won't trouble 
 Willpwby again. Of course, I haven't men- 
 tioned the matterto old Syllabus. That would 
 be no use. If it were true, she would not 
 confess it: girls always tell lies about such 
 things." 
 
 " There you have acted wisely ; I would not 
 mention such idle rumours to her, if I were 
 you. Shall I take the bottle from you ? " 
 
 '^ If you would," said he. '^ And I shall 
 ride now ; for we have little time to s]3are, and 
 I want you to see old Syllabus's face when I 
 produce the champagne at lunch." 
 
 So the lad got on his horse again, and the 
 cavalcade moved forward at a brisk trot. It
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 was a beautiful couiitiy through wliicli they 
 were passing, densely wooded here and there, 
 and here and there showing long stretches of 
 heathy common with patches of black firs stand- 
 ing clear against the sky. And the bright May 
 sunlight was shining through the young green 
 foliage of the beeches and elms ; the air was 
 sweet with the scent of hawthorn and lilac ; 
 now and again they heard the deep '' joug, 
 joug" of a nightingale from out of a grove of 
 young larches and spruce. 
 
 By-and-by they came to a plain little lodge, 
 and passed through the gates, and drove along 
 an avenue of tall elms and branching chestnuts. 
 There was a glimmer of a grey house through 
 the trees. Then they swept round by a spacious 
 lawn, and drew up in front of the wide-open 
 door ; while Mr. John, leaping down from his 
 horse, rang loudly at the bell. Yet there seemed 
 to be nobody about this deserted house. 
 
 If was a long, low, rambling building of grey 
 stone, with no architectural pretensions what- 
 soever. It had some pillars here and there, and 
 a lion or two, to distinguish it from a county 
 
 VOL. I, C
 
 18 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 jail or an asylum : otherwise there was nothing 
 about it to catch the eye. 
 
 But the beauty of Lady Sylvia's home lay not 
 In the plain grey building, but in the far-reach- 
 ing park, now yellowed all over with buttercups, 
 and studded here and there with noble elms. 
 And on the northern side this high-lying park 
 sloped suddenly down to a long lake, where 
 there was a boat-house and a punt or two for 
 pushing tlirough the reeds and water-lilies along 
 tlie shore ; while beyond that, again, was a great 
 stretch of cultivated country, lying warm and 
 silent in the summer light. The house was 
 strangely still ; there was no sign of life about 
 it. There was no animal of any kind in the 
 park. There was no sound but the singing of 
 birds in the trees, and the call of the cuckoo, 
 soft, and muffled, and remote. The very winds 
 seemed to die down as they neared the place ; 
 there was scarcely a rustle in the trees. It was 
 here, then, that the Lady Sylvia had grown up ; 
 it was here that she now lived, and walked, and 
 dreamed, in the secrecy and silence of the still 
 woodland ways.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 
 
 The Lady Sylvia arose with the early dawn, 
 and dressed, and stole noiselessly down the 
 stairs, and through the great stone hall. Clad 
 all in g, pale blue, with a thin white garment 
 thrown round her head and shoulders, she looked 
 like a ghost as she passed through the sleeping 
 house ; but she was no longer like a ghost when 
 she went out on to the high terrace, and stood 
 there in the blaze of a May morning. Rather 
 she might have been taken for the ver}^ type of 
 English girlhood in its sweetest springtime, and 
 the world can show nothing more fair and noble 
 and gracious than that. Perhaps, as her boy 
 cousin had said, she was a trifle serious in ex- 
 pression, for she had lived much alone, and she 
 had pondered, in her own way, over many
 
 20 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 things. But surely there was no excess of 
 gloom about the sweet young face — its delicate 
 oval just catching the warm sunlight — or about 
 the pretty, half-parted, and perhaps somewhat 
 too sensitive lips ; nor yet resting on the calm 
 and thoughtful forehead that had as yet no 
 wrinkle of age or care. However, it was always 
 difficult to scan the separate features of this girl ; 
 you were drawn away from that by the irresist- 
 ible fascination of her eyes, and there shone her 
 life^nd soul. What were they — grey, blue, or 
 black ? No one could exactly tell, but they 
 were large, and they had dark pupils, and they 
 were under long eyelashes. Probably, seeing 
 that her face was fair — and even paler than one 
 might have expected — and her hair of a light, 
 wavy, and beautiful brown — those eyes were 
 blue or grey, but that was of little consequence. 
 It was the story they told that was of interest. 
 And here, indeed, there was a certain serious- 
 ness about her face, but it was the seriousness 
 of sincerity. There was no coquetry in those 
 tender and earnest eyes. Familiar words ac- 
 quired a new import when Lady Sylvia spoke
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 21 
 
 them; for her eyes told you that she meant 
 what she said, and more than that. 
 
 It was as yet the early morning, and the level 
 sunshine spread a golden glory over the east- 
 ward-looking branches of the great elms, and 
 threw long shadows on the greensward of the 
 park. Far away the world lay all asleep, though 
 the kindling light of the new day was shining 
 on the green plains, and on the white hawthorns, 
 and on this or that grey house remotely visible 
 among the trees. What could be a fitter sur- 
 rounding for this young English girl than this 
 English-looking landscape ? They were both of 
 them in the freshness and beauty of their spring- 
 time, that comes but once in a year and once in 
 a life. 
 
 She passed along the terrace. Down below 
 her the lake lay still ; there was not a breath of 
 wind to break the reflections of the trees on the 
 glassy surface. But she was not quite alone in 
 this silent and sleeping world. Her friends and 
 companions, the birds, had been up before her ; 
 she could hear the twittering of the young star- 
 lings in their nests, as their parents came and
 
 22 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 went carrying food ; and the loud and joyful 
 *nirr-a-wee, tirr-a-wee, prooit, tweet!" of the 
 thrushes, and the low currooing of tlie wood- 
 pigeon, and the soft call of the cuckoo that 
 seemed to come in whenever an interval of 
 silence fitted. The swallows dipped and flashed, 
 and circled over the bosom of the lake. There 
 were blackbirds eagerly but cautiously at work, 
 with their short spasmodic trippings, on the lawn. 
 A robin, perched on the iron railing, eyed her 
 curiously, and seemed more disposed to approach 
 than to retreat. 
 
 For, indeed, she carried a small basket, with 
 which the robin was doubtless familiar, and now 
 she opened it, and began to scatter handf uls of 
 crumbs on the gravel. A multitude of sparrows, 
 hitherto invisible, seemed to spring into life. 
 The robin descended from his perch. But she 
 did not wait to see how her bounties were shared ; 
 she had work further on. 
 
 Now the high-lying park and ground of Wil- 
 lowby Hall formed a dividing territory between 
 two very different sorts of country. On the 
 north, away beyond the lake, lay a broad plain
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 23 
 
 of cultivated ground, green, and soft, and fair, 
 dotted with clusters of farm-buildings and scored 
 by tall hedge-rows. On the south, on the other 
 hand, there was a wilderness of sandy heath and 
 dark-green common, now all ablaze with gorse 
 and broom; black pine-woods high up at the 
 horizon ; and one long, yellow, and dusty road 
 apparently leading nowhere, for there was no 
 trace of town or village as far as the eye could 
 Bee. 
 
 It was in this latter direction that Sylvia 
 Blythe now turned her steps ; and you will 
 never know anything about her unless you know 
 something of these her secret haunts and silent 
 ways. These were her world. Beyond that 
 distant line of firwood on the horizon her imag- 
 ination seldom cared to stray. She had been up 
 to London, of course; had stayed with her father 
 at a hotel in Arlington Street ; had been to the 
 opera once or twice ; and dined at some friends' 
 houses. But of the great, actual, struggling and 
 suffering world— of the ships carrying emigrants 
 to unknown lands beyond the cruel seas, of the 
 hordes driven down to death by disease and
 
 24 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 crime in the squalid dens of great cities, of the 
 eager battle, and flushed hopes, and bitter dis- 
 appointments of life — what could she know ? 
 Most girls become acquainted at some time or 
 other with a little picturesque misery. It ex- 
 cites feelings of pity and tenderness, and calls 
 forth port wine and tracts. It comes to them 
 with the recommendation of the curate. But 
 even this small knowledge of a bit of the suffer- 
 ing in the world had been denied to Lady Sylvia ; 
 for her father, hearing that she contemplated 
 some charitable visitation of the kind, had 
 strictly forbidden it. 
 
 '' Look here, Sylvia," said he, '' I won't have 
 you go trying to catch scarlet fever or something 
 of that sort. We have no people of our own that 
 want looking after in that way ; if there are, let 
 them come to Mrs. Thomas. As for sick chil- 
 dren and infirm grandfathers elsewhere, you can 
 do them no good ; there are plenty who can — 
 leave it to them. Now, don't forget that. And 
 if I catch either Mr. Shuttleworth or Dr. Grey 
 allowing you to go near any of these hovels, I 
 can tell you they will hear of it."
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 25 
 
 And so it came to be that her friends and 
 dependants were the birds, and rabbits, and 
 squirrels of the woods and the heath ; and of 
 these she knew all the haunts and habits, and 
 they were her companions in her lonely wander- 
 ings. Look, for example, at this morning walk 
 of hers. She passed through some dense shrub- 
 beries — the blackbirds shooting away through 
 the laurel-bushes — mitil she came to an open 
 si^ace at the edge of a Avood where there was a 
 spacious dell. Here the sunlight fell in broad 
 patches on a tangled wilderness of wild flowers 
 — great masses of blue hyacinths, and white 
 starwort, and crimson campion, and purple 
 ground ivy. She stayed a minute to gather a 
 small bouquet which she placed in her dress ; but 
 she did not pluck two snow-white and waxen 
 hyacinths, for she had watched these strangers 
 ever since she had noticed that the flowers 
 promised to be white. 
 
 Should he uphraid, 
 111 oicn that he'll prevail 
 
 slie hummed carelessly to herself, as she went 
 on again ; and now she was in a sloping glade,
 
 26 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 among young larches and beeches, with withered 
 brackens burning red in the scattered sunlight, 
 with the new brackens coming up in solitary- 
 stalks of green, their summits not the fiddle- 
 liead of the ordinary fern, but resembling 
 rather the incurved three claws of a large bird. 
 She paused for a moment ; far along the path 
 in front of her, and quite unconscious of her 
 presence, was a splendid cock pheasant, the 
 bronzed plumage of his breast just catching a 
 beam of the morning light. Then he stalked 
 across the path — followed by his sober-coloured 
 hen — and disappeared into the ferns. She went 
 on again. A squirrel ran up a great beech- 
 tree, and looked round at her from one of the 
 branches. A jay fled screaming through tlie 
 wood — ^just one brief glimpse of brilliant blue 
 being visible. Then she came to a belt of oak 
 paling, in which was a very dilapidated door ; 
 and by the door stood a basket, much larger 
 than that she had carried from the Hall. 
 She took up the basket, let herself out by 
 the small gate, and then found herself in the 
 open sunshine, before a wide waste of heath.
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 27 
 
 This was Willowby Heath, a vast stretch of 
 sandy ground covered by dark heather mostly, 
 but showing here and there brilliant masses of 
 gorse and broom, and here and there a small 
 larch-tree, not over four feet in height, but 
 gleaming with a glimmer of green over the 
 dark common. A couple of miles away, on a 
 knoll, stood a windmill, its great arms motion- 
 less. Beyond that again, the heath darkened 
 as it rose to the horizon, and ended in a black 
 line of firs. 
 
 She hummed as she went this idle song ; and 
 sometimes she laughed, for the place seemed to 
 be alive with very young rabbits, and those 
 inexperienced babes showed an agony of fear 
 as they fled almost from under her feet, and 
 scurried through the dry heather to the sandy 
 breaks. It was at one of the largest of these 
 breaks — a sort of ragged pit some six feet dee]3 
 and fifty feet long — that she finally paused, 
 and put down her heavy load. Her approach 
 had been the signal for the magical disappear- 
 ance of about fifty or sixty rabbits, the large 
 majority being the merest mites of things.
 
 28 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCAElILLY. 
 
 Now began a strange incantation scene. She 
 sat down in the perfect stillness ; there was not 
 even a rustle of her dress. There was no wind 
 stirring; the white clouds in the pale blue 
 overhead hung motionless; the only sound 
 audible was the calling of a peewit far away- 
 over the heath. 
 
 She waited patiently, in this deep silence. 
 All round and underneath this broken bank, in 
 a transparent shadow, were a number of dark 
 holes of various sizes. These were the aper- 
 tures for the gnomes to appear from the bowels 
 of the earth. And as she waited, behold ! one 
 of those small caverns became tenanted. A 
 tiny head suddenly appeared, and two black 
 eyes regarded her, with a sort of blank, dumb 
 curiosity, without fear. She did not move. 
 The brown small creature came out further; 
 he sat down, like a little ball, on the edge of 
 the sandy slope; he was just far enough out 
 for the sunlight to catch the tips of his long 
 ears, which thereupon shone transparent, a 
 pinky grey. Her eyes were caught by another 
 sudden awakening of life. At the opposite side
 
 • THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 29 
 
 of the dell a head appeared, and bobbed in 
 again — that was an old and experienced rabbit ; 
 but immediately afterwards one, two, three 
 small bodies came out to the edge and sat 
 there, a mute, watchful family, staring and 
 being stared at. Then here, there, everywhere, 
 head after head became visible, a careful look 
 round, a noiseless trot out to the edge of the 
 hole, a motionless seat there, not an ear or a 
 tail stirring. In the mysterious silence, every 
 eye was fixed on hers; she scarcely dared 
 breathe, or these phantasmal inhabitants of the 
 lower world would suddenly vanish. But what 
 was this strange creature, unlike his fellows in 
 all but their stealthy watchfulness and silent 
 ways? He was black as midnight; he was 
 large, and fat, and sleek ; he was the only one 
 of the parents that dared to come out and 
 make part of this mystic picture. 
 
 '' Satan ! " she called ; and she sprang to her 
 feet, and gave one loud clap of her hands. 
 
 There was nothing but the dry sandbank, 
 staring with those empty holes. She laughed 
 lightly to herself at that instantaneous scurry ;
 
 30 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 and, having opened the basket, she scattered 
 its contents — chopped turnips — all round the 
 place ; and then set off homewards. She arrived 
 at the Hall In time to have breakfast with her 
 cousin, though that young gentleman was dis- 
 contentedly grumbling over the early hours 
 they kept in his uncle's house. 
 
 ^^ Syllabus," said he, ^^are you going to 
 stand champagne for lunch ? " 
 
 '^Champagne? — you foolish boy," said she; 
 ^' what do you want champagne for ? " 
 
 ^' To celebrate my departure," said he. ^^ You 
 know you'll be awfully glad to get rid of me. 
 I have worried your life out in these three 
 days. Let's have some champagne at lunch, 
 to show you don't bear malice. Won't you, 
 old Syllabus?" 
 
 ^^ Champagne ? " said she. '^ Wine is not good 
 for school-boys. Is it sixpence you want to 
 buy toffy wltli on the way to the station ? " 
 
 After breakfast she had her rounds of ih^ 
 garden and green-houses to make ; she visited 
 the kennels, and saw that the dogs had plenty 
 of water; she went down to the lake to see
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLO\yBY. 31 
 
 that the swans had their food ; she had a dumb 
 conversation with her pony that was grazing 
 in the meadow. How could the sweet days 
 pass more pleasantly ? The air was fresh and 
 mild; the skies blue; the sun warm on the 
 buttercups of the park — in fact, when she re- 
 turned to the Hall she found that her small 
 bronze shoes and the foot of her dress were all 
 dusted over with a gold powder. 
 
 But this w^as not to be an ordinary day. 
 First of all she was greatly troubled by the 
 mysterious disappearance of Johnny Blythe, 
 who, she was afraid, would miss his train in 
 the afternoon; then she was delighted by his 
 appearance in company with a visitor, who was 
 easily persuaded to stay to lunch; then there 
 was a pretty quarrel over the production of 
 that bottle of public-house champagne — at 
 which the girl turned, with a little flush in her 
 cheek, to her visitor, whom she begged to for- 
 give this piece of school-boyish folly. Then 
 Mr. John was bundled off in the waggonette to 
 the station, and she and her visitor were left 
 alone.
 
 '32 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY, 
 
 What bad Madame Mephistoplieles to do 
 with this innocent girl ? 
 
 "^^Oh, Lady Sylvia," she said, '^how delight- 
 fully quiet you are here. Each time I come 
 the stillness of the Hall and the park strikes 
 me more and more. It is a place to dream 
 one's life away in, among the trees on the fine 
 days, in the library on the bad ones. I sup- 
 pose you don't ^wish ever to leave Willow- 
 by ? " 
 
 ^^N — no," said the girl, with a faint touch 
 of colour in her face ; and then she added, 
 ^^ But don't you think that one ought to try to 
 understand what is going on outside one's im- 
 mediate circle ? One must become so ignorant, 
 you know. I have been reading the leading 
 articles in the Times lately." 
 
 '' Oh, indeed ! " 
 
 ^^Yes; but they only show me how very 
 ignorant I must be, for I can scarcely find one 
 that I can understand. And I have been greatly 
 disappointed, too, with another thing. Have 
 you seen this book ? " 
 
 She went and fetched, from an adjoining
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 33 
 
 table, a volume which she placed in her visitor's 
 hands. It was entitled ^ The Ideas of the Day 
 on Policy.' 
 
 ^' There was a friend of papa's here one 
 evening," said Lady Sylvia, demurely, ^^and 
 we were talking about the greatly different 
 opinions in politics that people held, and I 
 asked him how an ignorant person like myself 
 was to decide which to believe. Then he said, 
 * Oh, if you want to see all the pros and cons of 
 the great political questions ranged opposite 
 each other, take some such book as Buxton's 
 / Ideas of the Day,' then you can compare 
 them ; and take which one strikes you as being 
 most reasonable.' Well, I sent for the book ; 
 but look at it ! It is all general principles. It 
 does not tell me anything. I am sure no one 
 could have read more carefully than I did the 
 articles in the Times on the Irish Universities 
 Bill. I have followed everything that has been 
 said, and I am quite convinced by the argu- 
 ment ; but I can't make out what the real thing 
 is behind. And then I go to the book that was 
 recommended to me. Look at it, my dear 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Mrs. . All you can get is a series of pro- 
 positions about national education. How does 
 that help you to understand the Irish Univers- 
 ities?" 
 
 Her visitor laughed, and put down the book ; 
 then she placed her hand within the girPs arm, 
 and they went out for a stroll in the park, 
 through the long warm grass, and golden 
 butter-cups, and blue speedwells. 
 
 '' Why should you take such a new interest in 
 politics, Lady Sylvia ? " said Madam Mephisto- 
 pheles, lightly. 
 
 '' I want to take an interest in what concerns 
 so many of my fellow-creatures," said the girl, 
 simply. '' Is not that natural ? And if I were 
 a man," she added, with some heightened colour, 
 ^' I should care for nothing but politics ! Think 
 of the good one might do — think of the power 
 one might have. That would be worth living 
 for — that would be worth giving one's life for — 
 to be able to cure some of the misery of the 
 world, and make wise laws, and make one's 
 country respected among other nations. Do 
 you know, I cannot understand how men can
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBT. 35 
 
 pass their lives in painting pretty pictures, and 
 writing pretty verses, when there is all that 
 real work to be done — millions of their fellow- 
 creatures growing up in ignorance and misery 
 — the poor becoming poorer every day, until 
 no one knows where the wretchedness is to 
 cease." 
 
 These were fine notions to have got into the 
 head of an ingenuous country maiden; and 
 perhaps that reflection occurred to herself too, 
 for she suddenly stopped, and her face was red. 
 But her kind friend took no notice of this re- 
 tiring modesty. On the contrary, she warmly 
 approved of her companion's ways of thinking. 
 England was proud of her statesmen. The 
 gratitude of millions was the reward of him 
 who devised wise statutes. What nobler voca- 
 tion in life could there be for a man than philan- 
 thropy exalted to the rank of a science ? But 
 at the same time ... 
 
 Ah ! yes, at the same time a young girl must 
 not fancy that all politicians were patriots. 
 Sometimes it was the meaner ambitions con- 
 nected with self that were the occasion of great
 
 36 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 public service. We ought not to be disappointed 
 on discovering that our hero had some earthly- 
 alloy in his composition. 
 
 Indeed, continued this Mephistopheles, there 
 was always a danger of allowing our imagi- 
 native conceptions of people to run too far. 
 Young persons, more especially, who had but 
 little practical experience of life, were often 
 disappointed because they expected too much. 
 Human nature was only human nature. Lady 
 Sylvia now, for example, had doubtless never 
 thought about marriage ; but did she not know 
 how ma»y persons were grievously disappointed 
 merely because they had been too generously 
 imaginative before marriage ? 
 
 ^^But how can any one marry without ab- 
 solute admiration and absolute confidence?" 
 demanded the girl, with some pride, but with 
 her eyes cast down. 
 
 And there was no one there to interpose, and 
 cry — ^^ Oh, woman, woman, come away, and 
 let the child dream her dream. If it is all a 
 mistake — if it has to be repented for in hot tears 
 and with an aching heart — if it lasts for but a
 
 THE MISTRESS OF WILLOWBY. 37 
 
 year, a month, a day — leave her with this 
 beautiful faith in love, and life, and heroism, 
 which may soon enough be taken away from 
 her."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MEMBER FOK BALLINASCROON. 
 
 In the first-floor room of a small house in Picca- 
 dilly a young man of six-and-twenty or so was 
 busily writing letters. By rights the room should 
 have been a drawing-room — and a woman might 
 have made of it a very pretty drawing-room 
 indeed; but there were no flowers or trailing 
 creepers in the small balcony; there were no 
 lace curtains to prevent the sunlight streaming 
 through the open French windows full on the 
 worn and faded carpet ; while this half study, 
 half parlour, had scattered about in it all the 
 signs of a bachelor's existence in the shape 
 of wooden pipes, time-tables, slippers, and the 
 like. When the letters were finished the writer 
 struck a bell before him on the table. His 
 servant appeared.
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 39 
 
 ''You will post those letters, Jackson," said 
 he, "and have a hansom ready for me at 
 3.15." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the man; and then he hesi- 
 tated. " Beg your pardon, sir, but the gentle- 
 men below are rather impatient, sir — they are 
 a little excited, sir." 
 
 " Very well," said the young man, carelessly. 
 "Take my bag down. Stay, here are some 
 papers you had better put in." 
 
 He rose and went to get the papers — one or 
 two thin blue books and some drafted bills — and 
 now one may get a better look at the Member 
 for Ballinascroon. He was not over ^ye feet 
 eight; but he was a bony, firm-framed young 
 man, who had much more character than pretti- 
 ness in his face. The closely-cropped beard and 
 whiskers did not at all conceal the lines of 
 strength about his cheek and chin; and the 
 shaggy, dark brown eyebrows gave shadow and 
 intensity to the shrewd and piercing grey eyes. 
 It was a face that gave evidence of keen resolve, 
 of ready action, of persistence. And although 
 young Balfour had the patient and steady deter-
 
 40 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 minatlon of the Scotch — or, let us say, of the 
 Teuton — as part of his birth-right, and although 
 even that had been overlaid b j the reticence of 
 manner and the gentleness — the almost hesi- 
 tating gentleness — of speech of an Oxford don, 
 any one could see that there was something 
 Celtic-looking about the grey eyes and the heavy 
 eyebrows, and everyone who knew Balfour knew 
 that sometimes a flash of vehement enthusiasm, 
 or anger, or scorn, would break through that 
 suavity of manner which some considered to be 
 just a trifle too supercilious. 
 
 On this occasion, Hugh Balfour, having made 
 all the preparations for his departure which he 
 considered to be necessary, went down-stairs 
 to the large room on the ground floor. There 
 was a noise of voices in that apartment. As 
 he entered, these angry sounds ceased ; he 
 bowed slightly, went up to the head of the 
 room, and said — "Gentlemen, will you be 
 seated ? " 
 
 " Sorr," said a small man, with a large chest, 
 a white waistcoat, and a face pink with anger 
 or whisky, or both, "Sorr, 'tis twenty-three.
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 41 
 
 minutes by my watch ye have kept us wait- 
 ing " 
 
 '' I know," said the young man calmly; ^^ I 
 am very sorry. Will you be good enough to 
 proceed to business, gentlemen ? " 
 
 Thus admonished, the spokesman of the eight 
 or ten persons in the room addressed himself to 
 the speech which he had obviously prepared. 
 But how could he, in the idyllic seclusion of the 
 back-parlour of a Ballinascroon public-house, 
 have anticipated and prepared for the interrup- 
 tions falling from a young man who, whether 
 at the Oxford Union or at St. Stephen's, had 
 acquired a pretty fair reputation for saying 
 about the most irritating and contemptuous 
 things that could vex the soul of an opponent ? 
 
 '' Sorr," said the orator, swelling out his white 
 waistcoat, '' the gentlemen " (he said gintlemen, 
 but never mind) ^' the gentlemen who are with 
 me this day are a deputation, a deputation, sorr, 
 of the electors of the borough of Ballinascroon, 
 which you have the honour to represent in 
 Parliament. We held a meeting, sorr, as you 
 know. You were invited to attend that meet-
 
 42 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ing. You refused to attend that meeting — 
 although it was called to consider your con- 
 duct as the representative of the borough of 
 Eallinascroon." 
 
 Mr. Balfour nodded : this young man did not 
 seem to be much impressed by the desperate 
 nature of the situation. 
 
 ^' And now, sorr," continued the orator, group- 
 ing his companions together with a wave of his 
 hand, "we have come as a deputation to lay 
 before you certain facts which your constituents, 
 sorr, hope will induce you to take that course — 
 the only course, I may say — that an honourable 
 man could follow.'' 
 
 ^^ Very well." 
 
 '^Sorr, you are aware that you succeeded the 
 Honourable Oliver Glynne in the representa- 
 tion of the borough of Ballinascroon. You are 
 aware, sorr, that when Mr. Glynne contested the 
 borough, he spent no less than £10,800 in the 
 election " 
 
 " I am quite aware of these facts," interrupted 
 Balfour, speaking slowly and clearly. " I am 
 quite aware that Mr. Glynne kept the whole
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 43 
 
 constituency drunk for three months. I am quite 
 aware that he spent all that money ; for 1 don't 
 believe there was a man of you came out of the 
 election with clean hands. Well ? " 
 
 The orator was rather disconcerted, and gasped 
 a little ; but a murmur of indignant repudiation 
 from his companions nerved him to a further 
 effort. 
 
 ^^ Sorr, it ill becomes you to bring such charges 
 against the borough that has placed you in Par- 
 liament, and against the man who gave you his 
 seat. Mr. Glynne was a gentleman, sorr; he 
 spent his money like a gentleman ; and when 
 he was unseated " (he said onsated, but no mat- 
 ter) ^^it was from no regard for you, sorr, but 
 from our regard for him that we returned you 
 to Parliament, and have allowed you to sit there, 
 sorr, until such times as a general election will 
 enable us to send the man of our true choice to 
 represent us at St. Ste^^hen's." 
 
 There was a loud murmur of approval. 
 
 ^^ I beg your j)ardon," said Balfour. " I must 
 correct you on one point. You don't allow me 
 to sit in Parliament. I sit there of my own
 
 44 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 choice. You would turn me out if you could 
 to-morrow ; but you see you can't." 
 
 ^' I consider, sorr, that in that shameless 
 avowal " 
 
 Here there was a flash of light in those grey 
 eyes ; but the indiscreet orator did not ob- 
 serve it. 
 
 ^^ You have justified the action we have 
 
 taken in calling on a public meeting to denounce 
 your conduct as the representative of Ballin- 
 ascroon. Sorr, you are not the representative of 
 Ballinascroon. I will make bold to say that 
 you are sitting in the honourable House of Com- 
 mons under false pretences. You neglect our 
 interests. You treat our communications, our 
 remonstrances, with an insulting indifference. 
 The cry of our fellow-countrymen in prison — 
 political prisoners in a free country, sorr — is 
 nothing to you. You allow our fisheries to 
 dwindle and disappear for want of that help 
 which you give freely enough to your own coun- 
 try, sorr. And on the great question that is 
 making the pulse of Ireland beat as it has never 
 beaten before, that is making her sons and her
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 45 
 
 daughters curse the slavery that binds them in 
 chains of iron, sorr, you have treated us with 
 ridicule and scorn. When Mr. O'Byrne called 
 upon you at the Keform Club, sorr, you walked 
 past him and told the menial in livery to inform 
 him that you were not in the Club. Is that the 
 conduct of a member of the honourable House 
 of Commons, sorr ? Is it the conduct of a gen- 
 tleman ? " 
 
 Here arose another murmur of approval. 
 Balfour looked at his watch. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he, '' I am sorry I must 
 leave you at 3.15 ; my train goes at 3.30 from 
 Paddington. Do I understand you that that is 
 all you have to say ? — " [ 
 
 Here there were loud cries of " No ! no ! 
 Kesign ! resign ! " 
 
 ^' because I don't think it was worth 
 
 your while to come all the way to London to 
 say it. I read it every week in the columns of 
 that delightful print, the BalUnascroon Sentinel. 
 However, you have been very outspoken ; and 
 I shall be equally frank. You can't have all 
 the frankness your side, you know. Let me
 
 46 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 say, then, that I don't care a brass farthing what 
 any meeting in Ballinascroon thinks, or what 
 the whole of the three hundred and eighty 
 electors think about me. I consider it a disgrace 
 to the British constitution that such a rotten and 
 corrupt constituency should exist. Three hun- 
 dred and eighty electors — a population of less 
 than five thousand — and a man spends close on 
 £11,000 in contesting the place ! Disfranchise- 
 ment is too good for such a hole : it should be 
 burned out of the political map. And so you 
 took me as a stopgap. That was how you 
 showed your gratitude to Mr. Glynne — who was 
 a young man, and a foolish young man, and 
 allowed himself to be led by your precious 
 electoral agents. Of course I was to give up 
 the seat to him at the next General Election. 
 Very well, I have no objection to that : that is 
 a matter between him and me ; though I fancy 
 you'll find him just as resolved as myself not 
 to swallow your Home Rule bolus. But, as be- 
 tween you and me, the case is different. You 
 wished to make use of me : I have made use of 
 you. I have got into the House ; I have learnt
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 47 
 
 something of its ways ; I have served so far a 
 short apprenticeship. But do you think that I 
 am going to give up my time, and my convic- 
 tions, to your wretched projects ? Do you think 
 I would bolster up your industries, that are 
 dwindling only through laziness ? Do you think 
 I am going to try to get every man of you a post 
 or a pension ? Gracious heavens ! I don't believe 
 there is a man-child born in the town but you 
 begin to wonder what the Government will do 
 for him. The very stones of Westminster Hall 
 are saturated with Irish brogue ; the air is thick 
 with your clamour for place. No — no, thank 
 you ; don't imagine I am going to dip my hands 
 into that dirty water. You can turn me out at 
 the end of this Parliament — I should have 
 resigned my seat in any case — but until that 
 time I am Hugh Balfour, and not at all your 
 very obedient servant." 
 
 For the moment his Celtic pulse had got the 
 better of his Saxon brain. The deputation had 
 had not at all been prepared for this scornful 
 outburst ; they had expected to enjoy a mono- 
 poly of scolding. Ordinarily, indeed, Hugh
 
 48 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Balfour was an extremely reticent man ; some 
 said he was too proud to bother himself into a 
 passion about anything or anybody. 
 
 ^^Sorr," said the pink-faced orator, with a 
 despairing hesitation in his voice, " after the 
 language, sorr, which w^e have just heard, my 
 friends and myself have but one course to pur- 
 sue. I am astonished — I am astounded, sorr — 
 that, holding such opinions of the borough of 
 Ballinascroon as those you have now expressed, 
 you should continue to represent that borough 
 in Parliament " 
 
 ^^I beg your pardon," said Balfour, with his 
 ordinary coolness, and taking out his watch, '^ if 
 I must interrupt you again. I have but three 
 minutes left. Is there anything definite that 
 you wish to say to me ? " 
 
 Once more there was a murmuring chorus of 
 '^ Resign ! resign ! " 
 
 ^' I don't at all mean to resign," said Balfour, 
 calmly. 
 
 '' Sorr, it is inconceivable," began the spokes- 
 man of the party, 'Hhat a gentleman should sit 
 in Parliament to represent a constituency of
 
 THE MEMBER FOR 3ALLINASCR00N. 49 
 
 wliicli he lias such opinions as those that have 
 fallen from you this day " 
 
 ^^I beg your pardon; it is not at all incon- 
 ceivable ; it is the fact. What is more, I mean 
 to represent your precious borough until the end 
 of the present Parliament. You will be glad to 
 hear that that end may be somewhat nearer than 
 many people imagine ; and again the bother 
 comes from your side of the water. Since the 
 Government were beaten on their Irish Uni- 
 versities Bill they have been in a bad way — 
 there is no doubt of it. Some folks say there 
 will be a dissolution in the Autumn. So you 
 see there is no saying how soon you may get 
 rid of me. In that case, will you return Mr 
 Glynne?" 
 
 Again there was a murmur ; but scarcely an 
 intelligible one. 
 
 '' I thought not. I fancied your gratitude for 
 the £11,000 would not last as long. Well, you 
 must try to find a Home Kule candidate wlio 
 will keep the towm drunk for three montlis at a 
 stretch. Meantime, gentlemen, I am afraid I 
 must bid you good morning." 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 He rang the bell. 
 
 ^' Cab there, Jackson ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir." 
 
 '^ Good morning, gentlemen." 
 
 With that the deputation from Ballinascroon 
 were left to take their departure at their own 
 convenience ; their representative in Parlia- 
 ment driving off in a hansom to Paddington 
 Station. 
 
 He had scarcely driven away from the door 
 when, his thoughts were occupied by much more 
 important affairs. He was a busy man. The 
 deputation could lie by as a joke. 
 
 Arrived at the station, Balfour jumped out, 
 bag in hand, and gave the cabman eighteen- 
 pence. 
 
 ^^ What's this, sir?" the man called out, af- 
 fecting to stare at the two coins. 
 
 Balfour turned. 
 
 *^0h," said he, innocently, ^Miave I made a 
 mistake? Let me see. You had better give 
 me back the sixpence." 
 
 Still more innocently the cabman — never 
 doubting but that a gentleman who lived in
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 51 
 
 Piccadilly would act as such — handed him the 
 sixpence, which Balfour put in his pocket. 
 
 '^ Don't be such a fool next time," said he, as 
 he walked off to get his ticket. 
 
 He had a couple of minutes to spare, and after 
 having taken his seat, he walked across the 
 platform to get an evening paper. He was met 
 by an old college companion of his. 
 
 ^^ Balfour," said he, ^^I wanted to see you. 
 You remember that tall waiter at the Oxford 
 and Cambridge — the one who got ill — had to 
 give up " 
 
 ^^And you got him into some greengrocery 
 business or other. Yes." 
 
 '■ ^' Well, he is desperately ill now, and his af- 
 fairs are at the worst. His wife doesn't know 
 what to do. I am getting up a little subscrip- 
 tion for her. I want a couj)le of guineas from 
 you." 
 
 ^^ Oh," said Balfour, somewhat coldly. ^^I 
 rather dislike the notion of giving money to 
 these subscriptions, without knowing something 
 of the case. I have known so many dying people 
 get rapidly better after they got a pension from 
 
 o„wtRS«^ Of jamais
 
 52 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 the Civil List, or a donation from the Literary 
 Fund, or a purse from their friends. Where does 
 the woman live ? " 
 
 " Three, Marquis Street, Lambeth." 
 
 '^ Take your seats, please ! " 
 
 So these two parted ; and Balfour's acquaint- 
 ance went back to the carriage, in which he had 
 left his wife and her sisters, and to these he 
 said, — 
 
 '' Did you ever know anything like the mean- 
 ness of those Scotch ? I have just met that fel- 
 low Balfour — ^he has thirty thousand a year if he 
 has a penny — and I couldn't screw a couple of 
 guineas out of him for a poor woman whose 
 husband is dying. Fancy ! Now I can believe 
 all the stories I have heard of him within the last 
 year or two. He asks men to dinner ; has cham- 
 pagne on the sideboard ; pretends he is so busy 
 talking politics that he forgets all about it ; his 
 guests have to content themselves with a glass 
 of sherry, while he has a little claret and water. 
 He hasn't a cigar in the house. He keeps one 
 horse, I believe — an old cob — for pounding up 
 and down in Hyde Park of a morning ; but on
 
 THE MEMBER FOR BALLINASCROON. 53 
 
 his thirty thousand a year he can't afford him- 
 self a brougham. No wonder those Scotch 
 fellows become rich men. I have no doubt his 
 father began with picking up pins in the 
 street." 
 
 Quite unconscious of having provoked all this 
 wrathful animadversion, Balfour was already 
 deeply immersed in certain Local Taxation Bills 
 he had taken out of his bag. Very little did he 
 see of the beautiful landscapes through which 
 the train whirled on that bright and glowing 
 afternoon ; although, of course, he had a glance 
 at Pangbourne ; that was something not to be 
 missed even by a young and enthusiastic poli- 
 tician. At the Oxford Station he was met by 
 a thin, little, middle-aged man, with a big head 
 and blue spectacles. This was the Rev. Henry 
 Jewsbury, M.A., and Fellow of Exeter. 
 
 '^ Well, Balfour, my boy," called out this 
 clergyman, in a rich and jovial voice which 
 startled one as it came from that shrunken body, 
 '^ I am glad to see you. How late you are I 
 You'll just be in time to dine in hall : I will 
 lend you a gown."
 
 54 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ All right. But I must send off a telegram 
 first." 
 
 He went to the office. This was the tele- 
 gram : — H, Balfour^ Exeter College^ Oxford^ to E. 
 Jackson^ Piccadilly^ London, Go to three Mar- 
 quis Street^ Lamleth ; make inquiries if ivoman in 
 great distress. Give ten pounds. Make strict in- 
 quiries, 
 
 **Now, Jewsbury, I am with you. I hope 
 there are no men coming to your rooms to-night ; 
 I want to have a long talk with you about this 
 Judicature business. Yes, and about something 
 more important even than that." 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Jewsbury looked up. 
 
 ** The fact is," said the young man with a 
 smile, ^^ I have been thinking of getting mar- 
 ried."
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 ALMA MATER. 
 
 It was a singular cliange for this busy, hard- 
 headed man to leave the whirl of London life — 
 with its late nights at the House, its conver* 
 sational breakfasts, its Wednesday and Saturday 
 dinner parties and official receptions, and so 
 forth, and so forth — to spend a quiet Sunday 
 with his old friends of Exeter. The very room 
 in which he now sat, waiting for Mr. Jewsbury 
 to hunt him out a gown, had once been his own. 
 It overlooked the Fellows' Garden ; that sacred 
 haunt of peace, and twilight, and green leaves. 
 Once upon a time, and that not very long ago, 
 it was pretty well-known that Balfour of Exeter 
 might have had a Fellowship presented to him 
 had he not happened to be too rich a man. 
 No one, of course, could have imagined for a
 
 bo GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 moment this ambitious, eager, active yomig 
 fellow suddenly giving up his wealth, and his 
 chances of marrying, and his political prospects, 
 in order that he might lead a quiet student life 
 within the shadow of these grey walls. Never- 
 theless, that dream had crossed his mind more 
 than once : most commonly when he had got 
 home from the House about two in the morning, 
 tired out, vexed with the failure of some pet 
 project, unnerved by the apathy of the time, 
 the (government he supported being merely a 
 Government of sufferance, holding office only 
 because the rival party was too weak to relieve 
 it from the burden. 
 
 And indeed there was something of the home- 
 returning feeling in his mind as he now slipped 
 on the academical gown and hurried across to 
 the great yellow-white hall, in which the under- 
 graduates were already busy with their modest 
 beef and ale. There were unknown faces, it 
 is true, ranged by the long tables ; but up here 
 on the cross table, on the platform, he w^as 
 among old friends ; and there were old friends, 
 too, looking over at him from the dusty frames
 
 ALMA MATER. 57 
 
 on the walls. He was something of a lion now. 
 He had been a marked man at Oxford ; for, 
 although he had never made the gallery of the 
 Union tremble with resonant eloquence — he 
 was, in fact, anything but a fluent speaker — he 
 had abundant self-possession, and a tolerably 
 keen instinct of detecting the weak points in 
 his opponent's line of argument. Besides — and 
 this goes for something — there was an impress 
 of power in the mere appearance of the man, in 
 his square forehead, his firm lips, and deep-set, 
 keen, grey eyes. He had an iron frame, too — 
 lean, bony, capable of enduring any fatigue. 
 Of course the destination of such a man was 
 politics. Could any one imagine him letting 
 his life slip away from him in these quiet halls, 
 mumbling out a lecture to a dozen ignorant 
 young men in the morning, pacing up and 
 down Addison's Walk in the afternoon, and 
 glad to see the twilight come over as he sat in 
 the common room of an evening, with claret 
 and cherries, and a cold wind blowing in from 
 the. Fellows' Garden? 
 
 It was to this quiet little low-roofed common
 
 58 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 room they now adjourned when dinner in hall 
 was over, and the undergraduates had gone 
 noiselessly off, like so many rabbits, to their 
 respective burrows. There were not more than 
 a dozen round the polished mahogany table. 
 The candles were not lit ; there was still a pale 
 light shining over the still garden outside, its 
 beautiful green foliage enclosed on one side by 
 the ivied wall of the Bodleian, and just giving 
 one a glimpse of the Radcliffe dome beyond. 
 It vras fresh, and cool, and sweet in here; it 
 was a time for wine and fruit ; there were no 
 raised voices in the talk, for there was scarce- 
 ly a whisper among the leaves of the labur- 
 nums outside, and the great acacia spread its 
 feathery branches into a cloudless and lambent 
 sky. 
 
 *^Well, Mr. Balfour," said an amiable old 
 gentleman, '^and what do the Government 
 mean to do with us now ? " 
 
 '^I should think, sir," said Mr. Balfour, 
 modestly, 'Hhat if the Government had their 
 wish they would like to be drinking wine with 
 you at this moment. It would be charitable to
 
 ALMA MATER. 59 
 
 ask them to spend an evening like this with 
 you. They have had sore times of it of late ; 
 and their unpopularity is growing greater every 
 day — why I don't know. I suppose they have 
 been too much in earnest. The English public 
 likes a joke now and again in the conduct of 
 its affairs. No English Cabinet should be made 
 up without its buffoon — unless, indeed, the 
 Prime Minister can assume the part occasionally. 
 Insincerity, impertinence, maladministration — - 
 anything will be forgiven you, if you can make 
 the House laugh. On the other hand, if you 
 happen to be a very earnest person, if you are 
 foolish enough to believe that there are great 
 wrongs to be righted, and if you worry and 
 bother the country with your sincerity, the 
 country will take the first chance — no matter 
 what services you have rendered it — of kicking 
 you out of office. It is natural enough. No 
 one likes to be bothered by serious people. As 
 we are all quite content, why should we be 
 badgered with new projects? May I ask you 
 to hand me those strawberries ? " 
 
 The old gentleman was rather mystified ; but
 
 60 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Mr. Jewsbury was not — lie was listening with 
 some impatience. 
 
 "They tell me, Mr. Balfour/' said the old 
 gentleman, '' that if there should be a General 
 Election, your seat may be in danger." 
 
 " Oh, I shall be turned out, I know," said 
 Balfour, with great simplicity. " My consti- 
 tuents don't lose many opportunities of letting 
 me know that. They burnt me in effigy the 
 other night. I have had letters warning me 
 that I had better give Ballinascroon a wide 
 berth if I happened to be in that part of Ireland. 
 But I daresay I shall get in for some other 
 place ; I might say that, according to modern 
 notions, the money left me by my father entitles 
 me to a seat. You know how things go to- 
 gether. If you open a system of drainage 
 works, you become a knight. If you give a 
 big dinner to a foreign prince, you become a 
 baronet. If you could only buy Arundel Castle, 
 you would be an earl. And as I see all round 
 me in Parliament men who have no possible 
 claim to be there except the possession of a big 
 fortune — men who go into Parliament not to
 
 ALMA MATER. 61 
 
 help in governing the country at all, but merely 
 to acquire a social distinction to which their 
 money entitles them — I suppose I have that 
 right too ? Unfortunately I have not a local 
 habitation and a name anywhere. I must begin 
 and cultivate some place — buy a brewery, or 
 something like that. Regattas are good things 
 — you can spend a good deal of money safely 
 on regattas " 
 
 '* Balfour," cried Jewsbury, with a laugh, 
 ^' don't go on talking like that." 
 
 '^ I tell you," said the young man, seriously, 
 " there was not half as much mischief done by 
 the old pocket borough system as there is by 
 this money qualification. For my part, I am 
 Tory enough to prefer the old pocket-borough 
 system, with all its abuses. The patrons were 
 men of good birth, who had therefore leisure to 
 attend to public affairs — in fact, they had the 
 tradition that they were responsible for the 
 proper government of the country. They had 
 some measure of education — experience of other 
 countries — an acquaintance with the political 
 experiments of former times, and so forth. So
 
 62 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 long as they could present a living — a seat 
 in the House, I mean — a young fellow of 
 ability had a chance, though he had not a penny 
 in his pocket. What chance has he now ? Is 
 it for the benefit of the country that men like 
 
 and should be running about from 
 
 one constituency to another, getting beaten 
 every time ; while such brainless and voiceless 
 nonentities as and are carried tri- 
 umphantly into Parliament on the shoulders of a 
 crovrd^of publicans ? What is the result ? You 
 are degrading Parliament in public estimation. 
 The average member has become a byword. 
 The men who by education and exjoerience are 
 best fitted to look after the government of a 
 nation are becoming less and less anxious to 
 demean themselves by courting the suffrages of 
 a mob ; while the h-less men who are getting 
 into Parliament on the strength of their having 
 grown rich are bringing the House of Commons 
 down to the level of a vestry. Might I trouble 
 you for those strawberries ? " 
 
 The old gentleman had quite forgotten about 
 the strawberries. He had been listening in-
 
 ALMA MATEE. 63 
 
 tently to this scornful protest. When Balfour 
 spoke earnestly — whether advancing a mere 
 paradox or not — there was a certain glow in the 
 deep-set eyes that exercised a singular fascina- 
 tion over some people. It held them. They 
 had to listen, whether they went away con- 
 vinced or no. 
 
 ^^ What an extraordinary fellow you are, Bal- 
 four," said his friend to him, as they were on 
 their w^ay from the common room to Mr. Jews- 
 bury's easy-chairs and tobacco. ^' Here you 
 have been inveighing against the money quali- 
 fication of Members of Parliament, and you 
 yourself propose to get into the House simply 
 on the strength of your money ! " 
 
 (' Why not ? " said the young man. ^^ If my 
 constituents are satisfied, so am I. If that is 
 their theory, I accept it. You called me no end 
 of names because I took the seat those people 
 at Ballinascroon offered me. I was reaping the 
 harvest sown by bribery and I don't know what. 
 But that was their business, not mine. I merely 
 made use of them, as I told a deputation from 
 them this very forenoon. I have not given
 
 64 GKEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 them a penny. What I might have given — if 
 there was a chance of my getting in again, and 
 I could do it safely — I don't know." 
 
 ^^ Always the same ! " exclaimed his friend, 
 as they were going up the narrow wooden 
 stairs. '' When you are a little older, Balfour, 
 you will learn the imprudence of always attri- 
 buting to yourself the meanest motives for your 
 conduct. The world takes men at their own 
 valuation of themselves. How would you like 
 other people to say of you what you say your- 
 self?" 
 
 There was no answer to this remark, for now 
 the two friends had entered the larger of Mr. 
 Jewsbury's two rooms — a sufficiently spacious 
 apartment, decorated in the severe modern 
 style, but still offering some compromise ta 
 human weakness in the presence of several 
 low, long, and lounging easy-chairs. Moreover, 
 there were pipes and a stone canister of tobacco 
 on a small table. Mr. Jewsbury lit a couple of 
 candles. 
 
 ^^ Now," said he, dropping into one of the 
 easy-chairs, and taking up a pipe, ^' I won't
 
 ALMA MATER. 65 
 
 listen for a moment to your Judicature Bill, or 
 any other Bill ; and I won't bore you for a mo- 
 ment with any gigantic scheme for reforming 
 the college revenues and endowing scientific 
 research. I want to know more about what 
 you said at the station. Who is it ? " 
 
 The young man almost started up in his chair 
 — he leaned forward — there was an eager, 
 bright light in his face. 
 
 ^^ Jewsbury, if you only knew this girl — not 
 to look at her merely, but to know her nature — • 
 
 if you could only imagine ." Then he sank 
 
 back again in his chair, and put his hands in his 
 pockets. ^' What is the use of my talking about 
 her ? You see, it will be a very advantageous 
 thing for me if I can persuade this girl to marry 
 me — very advantageous. Her father is a poor 
 man ; but then he is an earl — I may as well tell 
 you his name, it is Lord Willowby — and he has 
 got valuable connections. Willowby is not 
 much in the Lords. To tell you the truth, I 
 dislike him. He is tricky, and meddles with 
 companies — perhaps that is to be forgiven him, 
 for he hasn't a penny. But he could be of use 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 to me. And Ills daughter could be of greater 
 use, if slie were my wife. Lad}- Sylvia Balfour 
 could get a better grip of certain people than 
 plain Mr. Hugh " 
 
 His companion had risen from his chair, and 
 was impatiently pacing up and down the floor. 
 
 ^' Balfour," he cried out, ^^ I am getting tired 
 of this. You know you are only shamming. 
 You are the last man in the world to marry for 
 those miserable motives you are now talking 
 about " 
 
 ^^ I am not shamming at all," said Balfour, 
 calmly. '^ I am only looking at the business 
 side of this question. What other would you 
 like to hear about ? I don't choose to talk about 
 the girl herself — until you have known her ; and 
 then I may tell you what I think about her. 
 Sit down, like a good fellow. Is it my fault that 
 I am ambitious ? — that I want to do something 
 in politics ? " 
 
 His friend sat down resignedly. 
 
 '^ She has accepted you ? " he said. 
 
 ^^Not openly — not confessedly," said the 
 young man ; and then his breath began to come
 
 ALMA MATER. 67 
 
 and go a little more rapidly. ^^But — but slie 
 could not mistake what I have said to her — if 
 she had been angry, she would have sent me 
 off — on the contrary, it is only because I don't 
 wish to annoy her by undue precipitancy — but I 
 think we both understand." 
 
 ^^x4nd her father?" 
 
 '^ Oh, I suppose her father understands too," 
 said Balfour, carelessly. '^ I suppose I shall have 
 to ask him formally. I wish to heaven he would 
 not have his name mixed up with those com- 
 panies." 
 
 *^The Lady Sylvia — it is a pretty name," 
 said his friend, absently. 
 
 '' And she is as sweet, and pure, and noble as 
 her name is beautiful," said Balfour, with a sud- 
 den proud light in his eyes — forgetting, indeed, 
 in this one outburst all his schooled reticence. 
 ^^ You have no idea, Jewsbury, what a woman 
 can be until you have known this one. I can 
 tell you it will be something for a man that has 
 to muddle about in the hypocrisies of politics, 
 and to mix among the cynicisms, and affecta- 
 tions, and mean estimates of societ}^, to find at
 
 68 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 home — always by liim — one clear burning lamp 
 of faith — faith in hmnan nature, and a future 
 worth striving for. l^ou don't suppose that this 
 girl is any of the ])ainted fripperies you meet at 
 every woman's house in London. Good God I 
 before I would marry one of those bedizened 
 and microcephalous playthings " 
 
 He sank back in his easy-chair agam, with a 
 shrug and a laugh. The laugh was against 
 himself; he had been betrayed into a useless 
 vehemence. 
 
 '^ The fact is," said he, ^' Jewsbury, I am not 
 fair to London women^ — or rather, I mean to 
 those London girls who have been out a few 
 seasons and know a good deal more than their 
 mothers ever knew before them. Fortunately, 
 the young men they are likely to marry are fit 
 matches for them. They are animated by the 
 same desire — the chief desire of their lives — and 
 that is to escape tlie curse imposed on the human 
 race at the gates of Paradise." 
 
 '^ The curse was double," said his clerical 
 friend, w^ith a laugh. 
 
 '^ I know," said Balfour, coolly, ^^ and I main-
 
 ALMA MATER. 69 
 
 tain what I say. There is no use beating about 
 the bush." 
 
 Indeed, he had never been in the habit of 
 beating about the bush. For him, what was, 
 was ; and he had never tried to escape the re- 
 cognition of it in a haze of words. Hence the 
 reputation he enjoyed of being something more 
 than bhmt-spoken — of being, in fact, a pretty 
 good specimen of the perfervid Scotchman, arro- 
 gant, opinionated, supercilious, and a trifle too 
 anxious to tread on other people's corns. 
 
 *' Do you see,'' he said, suddenly, after a 
 
 second or two of quiet, ^^what Lady has 
 
 done for her husband ? She fairly carried him 
 into office on the strength of her dinners and 
 parties ; and now she has hadinaged him into a 
 peerage. She is a wonderfully clever woman. 
 She can make a newspaper editor fancy himself a 
 duke. By the way, I see the Prince has taken to 
 the newspapers lately ; they are all represented 
 at his garden parties. If you have a clever wife, 
 it is wonderful what she can do for you." 
 
 ^^ And if you have a stupid wife, can you do 
 anything for her ? " inquired Mr. Jewsbury, to
 
 70 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 whom all this business — this theatrical '^busi- 
 ness " of public life — was rather unintelligible. 
 
 Balfour burst out laughing. 
 
 '' What would you think of a Cabinet Minister 
 being led by the nose — what would you think 
 of his resigning the whole of his authority into 
 the hands of the Permanent Secretary under him 
 — simply because that Secretary undertakes the 
 duty of getting the Minister's wife, who is not 
 very presentable, included in invitations, and 
 passed into houses where she would never other- 
 wise be seen ? She is a wonderful v/oman, that 
 woman. They call her Mrs. Malaprop. But 
 Tommy Bingham gets her taken about some- 
 how. " 
 
 The two friends smoked in silence for some 
 time ; the Irish Universities, the High Court of 
 Judicature, the Endowment of Research may 
 perhaps have been occupying their attention. 
 But when Balfour spoke next, he said, slowly : — 
 
 '^ It must be a good thing for a man to have 
 a woman beside him whose very presence will 
 make the world sweet and wholesome to him. 
 If it were not for a woman here or there — and
 
 ALMA MATER. 71 
 
 it IS only by accident they reveal themselves to 
 you — what could one think of human nature ? " 
 
 ^^ And when are you to see this wonderful rose, 
 that is able to sweeten all the winds of the 
 world ? " his friend asked, with a smile. 
 
 ^^ I am going down with Lord Willowby on 
 Monday for a few days. I should not wonder 
 if something happened during that time."
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 
 
 The Lady Sylvia was seated before a mirror, 
 and lier maid was dressing her hair. The maid 
 was a shrewd, kindly, elderly person, who exer- 
 cised a good deal of control over her yomig 
 mistress, and at this moment she was gently 
 remonstrating with her for her impatience. 
 
 ^^ I am sm^e, my lady, they cannot be here 
 for half an hour yet," said she. 
 
 '' And if I am too soon ? " said the young lady, 
 with just a trifle of petulance. '' I wish to be 
 too soon." 
 
 The maid received this admonition with much 
 composure, and was not driven by it into scamp- 
 ing her work. In truth, it was not she who was 
 responsible for the hurry, if hurry there had to 
 be. There was a book lying on the table. It
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 73 
 
 was a description of the three Khanates of 
 Turkistan, when as yet these were existing and 
 independent States. That was not the sort of 
 book that ordinarily keeps a young lady late 
 for dressing ; but then there was a considerable 
 talk at this time about the advance of General 
 Kaufmann on Khiva ; and as there was a mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons coming to dine 
 that evening with a member of the House of 
 Lords, they might very probably refer to the 
 matter ; and in that case ought not a certain 
 young, lady to be able to follow the conversa- 
 tion with something of intelligent interest, when 
 even her school-boy cousin, Johnnie Ely the, 
 could prattle away about foreign politics for 
 half an hour at a stretch ? 
 
 '^ Thank you, Anne," said she, meekly, when 
 the finishing touch was put to her dress ; and a 
 couple of minutes afterwards she was standing 
 out of doors, on the grey stone steps, in the 
 warm sunset glow. 
 
 She made a pretty picture, as she stood there, 
 listening and expectant. She was dressed in a 
 tight-fitting, tight-sleeved dress of cream-white
 
 74: GREEX PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 silk, and there was not a scrap of colour, or rib- 
 bon, or ornament about it. She wore no jewel- 
 lery ; there was not even a soft, thin line of gold 
 round her neck. But there was a white rose in 
 her brown hair. 
 
 Suddenly she heard a sound of wheels in the 
 distance ; her heart began to throb a bit, and 
 there was a faint flush of colour in the pale, and 
 calm, and serious face. But the next minute 
 that flush had died away, and only one who 
 knew^her well could have told that the girl was 
 somewhat excited, by the fact that the dark 
 pupils of the grey eyes seemed a trifle larger 
 than usual, and full of a warm, anxious, glad 
 liglit. 
 
 She caught sight of the wagonette as it came 
 rollino- alono; the avenue between the elms. A 
 quick look of pleasure flashed across her face. 
 Then the small, white, trembling fingers were 
 nervously closed, and a great fear possessed her 
 lest she might too openly betray the gladness 
 that wholly filled her heart. 
 
 ^' How do you do, Lady Sylvia ? " cried Hugh 
 Balfour, with more brightness than was usual
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 75 
 
 with him, as he came up the stone steps, and 
 shook hands with her. 
 
 He was surprised and chagrined by the cold- 
 ness of her manner. She caught his eyes but 
 for a moment, and then averted hers, and she 
 seemed to withdraw her hand quickly from his 
 hearty and friendly grasp. Then why should 
 she so quickly turn to her father, and hope he 
 was not tired by his stay in London ? That was 
 but scant courtesy to a guest ; she had scarcely 
 said a word to him ; and her manner seemed 
 either extremely nervous or studiously distant. 
 
 Lord Willowby — a tall, thin, sallow-faced 
 man, who stooped a little and was slightly lame 
 — kissed her, and bestowed upon her a ferocious 
 smile. That smile of his lordship's, once seen, 
 was not to be forgotten. If Johnnie Ely the had 
 had any eye for the similitudes in tilings ; if he 
 had himself poured out a glass of the mysterious 
 and frothy fluid he had bought at the ^' Fox and 
 Hounds ; " if he had observed how the froth 
 hissed up suddenly in the glass, and how it in- 
 stantly disappeared again, leaving only a blank 
 dulness of liquid ; then he might have been able
 
 76 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 to say what his uncle's smile was like. It was 
 a prodigious grin rather than a smile. It flamed 
 and shot all over his contorted visage, wrinkling 
 up his eyes, and revealing his teeth ; then it 
 instantaneously disappeared, leaving behind it 
 the normal gloom and depression of distinctly 
 melancholy features. 
 
 ^^ I hope you enjoyed the drive over from 
 the station," said Lady Sylvia, in a timid 
 voice, to Mr. Balfour ; but her eyes were still 
 cast down. 
 
 He dared not tell her that he had not con- 
 sciously seen a single natural object all the 
 way over ; so full was his heart of the end and 
 aim of the journey. 
 
 '' Oh, beautiful — beautiful," said he. '' It is 
 a charming country. I am more and more de- 
 lighted with it each time I see it. Is not that 
 — surely that is Windsor ? " 
 
 All over the western sky there was a dusky 
 blaze of red ; and at the far horizon-line, above 
 the dark blue woods, there was a tiny line of 
 transparent brown — apparently about an inch 
 in length — with a small projection just visible
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGxVLES. 77 
 
 at each end. It was Windsor Castle ; but lie 
 did not look long at Windsor Castle. The girl 
 had now turned her eyes in that direction too ; 
 he had a glimpse of those wonderful clear depths 
 under the soft dark eyelashes ; the pale, serious, 
 beautiful face cauoht a touch of colour from the 
 glow in the west. But why should she be so 
 cold, so distant, so afraid? When they went 
 into the Hall, he followed mechanically the man 
 who had been told off to wait on him. He said 
 nothing in reply when he heard that dinner was 
 at seven. He could not understand in wdiat way 
 he had offended her. 
 
 Mechanically, too, he dressed. Surely it was 
 nothing he had said in the House ? That was 
 too absurd : how could Lady Sylvia, brought up 
 as she had been, care about what was said or 
 done in Parliament ? And then he grew to 
 wonder at himself. He was more disturbed by 
 a slight change of manner in this girl than by 
 anything that had happened to him for years. 
 He was a man of good nerve and fair self-con- 
 fidence. He was not much depressed by the hard 
 thin^rs his constituents said of him. If a Minister
 
 78 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 snubbed him in answer to a question, he took 
 the snub with much composure ; and his know- 
 ledge that it would appear in all the papers next 
 morning did not at all interfere with his dinner 
 of that evening. But now, had it come to this 
 already, that he should become anxious, dis- 
 turbed, restless, merely because a girl had turned 
 away her eyes when she spoke to him ? 
 
 The dinner gong was sounding as he went 
 downstairs. He found Lord Willowby and his 
 daughter in the drawing-room — a spacious 
 poorly-furnished chamber that was kept pretty 
 much in shadow by a large chestnut-tree just 
 outside the windows. Then a servant threw 
 open the great doors, and they went into the 
 dining-room. This, too, was a large, airy, 
 poorly-furnished room ; but what did that 
 matter when the red light from the west was 
 painting great squares of beautiful colour on 
 the walls, and when one could look from the 
 windows away over the level country that was 
 now becoming blue and misty under the dying 
 glow of the sunset? They had not lit the 
 candles as yet ; the fading sunlight was enouo-h.
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 79 
 
 ^^ My dear fellow," remonstrated Lord "Wil- 
 lowby, when the servant had offered Balfour 
 two or three sorts of wme, he refusing them all, 
 *^ what can I get for you ? " 
 
 " Nothing, thank you. I rarely drink wine," 
 he said carelessly ; ^^ I think. Lady Sylvia, you 
 said the archery meeting was on Wednesday ? " 
 
 Now here occurred a strange thing, which 
 was continued all through dinner. Lady Sylvia 
 had apparently abandoned her reserve. She was 
 talking freely, sometimes eagerly, and doing 
 what she could to entertain her guest. But why 
 was it that she resolutely refused to hear Bal- 
 four's praises of the quiet and beautiful influ- 
 ences of a country life ; and would have nothing 
 to do with archery-meetings, and croquet par- 
 ties, and such trivialities ; but on the contrary 
 was anxious to know all about the chances of 
 the Government — whether it was really un- 
 popular — why the Conservatives had refused to 
 take office — when the dissolution was expected 
 — what the appeal to the country on the part 
 of Ministers would probably be. 
 
 So much for her. Her desire to be instructed
 
 80 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 in these matters was almost pathetic. If her 
 heart could not be said to beat with the great 
 heart of the people, that was not her fault ; for 
 to her the mass of her fellow-countrymen was 
 but an abstract expression that she saw in the 
 newspapers. But surely she could feel and give 
 utterance to a warm interest in public affairs, 
 and a warm sympathy with those who were 
 giving up day and night to the thankless duties 
 of legislation ? 
 
 Now, as for him. He was all for the country 
 and green fields — for peace and grateful silence 
 — for quiet days, and books, and the singing 
 of birds. What was the good of that turmoil 
 they called public life ? What effect could be 
 produced on the character by regarding con- 
 stantly that clamorous whirl of eager self- 
 interest, of mean ambitions, of hypocrisy, and 
 brazen impudence, and ingratitude? Far better, 
 surely, the independence and self-respect of a 
 private life ; the purer social and physical atmo- 
 sphere of the still country ways ; the simple 
 pleasures, the freedom from care, the content 
 and rest.
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 81 
 
 It was not a discussion ; it was a series of 
 suggestions, of half-declared preferences. Lord 
 Willowby did not speak much. He was a 
 melancholy-faced man; and apathetic until there 
 occurred the chance of his getting a few pounds 
 out of you. Lady Sylvia and Mr. Balfour had 
 most of the conversation to themselves ; and 
 the manner of it has just been indicated. 
 
 Mr. Balfour would know all about the church 
 to which this young lady went. Was it High 
 or Low, ancient or modern ? Had she tried 
 her hand at altar-screens ? Did she help in the 
 Christmas decorations? Lady Sylvia replied 
 to these questions briefly. She appeared far 
 more interested in the free fight then going on 
 between Cardinal Cullen and Mr. O'Keefe. 
 What was Mr. Balfour's opinion as to the juris- 
 diction of the Pope in Ireland ? 
 
 Mr. Balfour was greatly charmed by the look 
 of the old-fashioned inn they had passed — was 
 it the ^'Fox and Hounds" ? It was so pictur- 
 esquely situated on the high bank at the top of 
 the hill. Of course, Lady Sylvia had noticed 
 the curious painting on the signboard. Lady 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Sj^lvia, looking very wise, and profound , and 
 serious, seemed rather anxious to know what 
 were the chances of the Permissive Bill ever 
 being passed ; and what effect did Mr. Balfour 
 think that would have on the country. She was 
 quite convinced — this person of large experience 
 of gaols, reformatories, police-stations, and the 
 like — that by far the greater proportion of the 
 crimes committed in this country were the result 
 of drinking. On the other hand, she complained 
 that so many conflicting statements were made. 
 How was one to get to know how the Permis- 
 sive Bill principle had worked in Maine? 
 
 Lord Willowby only stared at first: then he 
 began to be amused. Where the devil (this was 
 what he thought) had his daughter picked up 
 these notions? They were not, so far as he 
 knew, contained in any schoolroom *^ Treasury 
 of Knowledge." 
 
 As the red light faded out in the west, and 
 a clear twilight filled the sky, it seemed to Bal- 
 four that there was something strange and mys- 
 tical in the face of the girl sitting opposite to 
 liim . With those earnest and beautiful eyes, and
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 83 
 
 those proud and sensitive lips, she might have 
 been an inspired poetess or prophetess, he imag- 
 ined ; leading her disciples and worshippers by 
 the earnestness of her look, and the grave, sweet 
 melody of her voice. As the twilight grew 
 greyer within the room, this magnetic influence 
 seemed to grow stronger and stronger. He 
 could have believed there was a subtle light 
 shining in that pale face. He was, indeed, in 
 something like a trance when the servants 
 brought in the candles ; and then, when he saw 
 the warmer light touch this magical and mystic 
 face, and when he discovered that Lady Sylvia 
 was now less inclined to let her eyes meet his, 
 it was with a great regret he bade good-bye to 
 the lingering and solemn twilight and the vision 
 it had contained. 
 
 Lady Sylvia rose to withdraw from the 
 table. 
 
 ^' Do you know," said she to Mr. Balfour, 
 '^ this is the most beautiful time of the day with 
 us. Papa and I always have a walk through 
 the trees after dinner in the evening. Don't 
 let him sit long."
 
 84 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 '' As for myself," said Balfour, promptly — lie 
 was standing at^the time — ^^ I never drink wine 
 after dinner " 
 
 ^' And you never drink wine during dinner," 
 said his host, with a sudden and fierce smile, that 
 instantly vanished. '^ Sit down, Balfour. You 
 must at least try a glass of that Madeira." 
 
 ^^ Thank you, I am not thirsty," said the 
 younger man, with great simplicity. ^^ Really, 
 I would just as soon go out now " 
 
 '' Oh, by all means," said his host, good- 
 naturedly. ^' But don't hurry any other man's 
 cattle. Sylvia will take you for a stroll to the 
 lake and back — perhaps you may hear a night- 
 ingale. I shall join you presently." 
 
 Of course it was with the deepest chagrin that 
 the young man found himself compelled to 
 accept of this fair escort ; and of course it was 
 with the greatest reluctance that Lady Sylvia 
 threw a light scarf over her [head and led the 
 way out into the cool clear evening. The birds 
 were silent now. There was a pale glow in 
 the north-western skies ; and that again was re- 
 flected on the still bosom of the lake. As they
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 85 
 
 walked along the high stone terrace, they caught 
 sight of the first trembling star, far over the 
 great dark masses of the elms. 
 
 But in her innocent and eager desire to prove 
 herself a woman of the world, she would not 
 have it that there was any special beauty about 
 this still night. The silence must be oppressive 
 to him ; he would weary of this loneliness in a 
 week. Was there any sight in the world to be 
 compared to Piccadilly in the evening, with its 
 twin rows of gas lamps falling and rising with 
 the hollow and hill — and the whirl of carriages 
 — the lighted windows — and the consciousness 
 that you were in the very heart of the life 
 and thinking and excitement of a great na- 
 tion? 
 
 ^^ We are going up the week after next," said 
 Lady Sylvia, ^ Ho see the Academy. That is 
 Wednesday the 21st; and we dine with my 
 uncle in the evening." Then she added timidly, 
 ^' Johnny told me they had sent you a card." 
 
 He did not answer the implied question for a 
 second or two. His heart was filled with rage 
 and indignation. Was it fair — was it honour-
 
 86 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 able — to let this innocent girl^ who knew no 
 more of London life or reputations than a child, 
 go to dine at that house ? Must not her father 
 know very well that the conduct of Major the 
 Honourable Stephen Blythe, in regard to a 
 betting transaction, was at that very time under 
 
 the consideration of the committee of the C 
 
 club? 
 
 There was a good deal of fierce virtue about 
 this young man ; but it may be doubted if he 
 would --have been so indignant had any other 
 girl told him merely that she was going to dine 
 with her uncle — that uncle, moreover, being 
 heir presumptive to an earldom, and not as yet 
 convicted of having done anything unusually 
 disreputable. But somehow the notion got into 
 Balfour's head that this poor girl was not half 
 well enough looked after. She was left here all 
 by herself, when her father was enjoying him- 
 self in London. She needed more careful, and 
 tender, and loving guidance. And so forth, and 
 so forth. The anxiety young men show to 
 undertake the protection of innocent maidens 
 is quite touching.
 
 POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 87 
 
 " Yes," said lie suddenly. '^ I shall dine with 
 Major Blythe on the 21st." 
 
 He had that very day written to say he would 
 not. But a shilling telegram would put that 
 right; and would also enable Major Blythe to 
 borrow a five-pound note from him on the first 
 possible occasion. 
 
 And so these two walked together, on the high 
 stone terrace, in the fading twilight, and under 
 the gathering stars. And as they came near to 
 one dark patch of shrubbery, lo ! the strange 
 silence was burst asunder by the ricli, full song 
 of a nightingale ; and they stood still to hear. 
 It was a song of love he sang — of love, and 
 youth, and the delight of summer nights : how 
 could they but stand still to hear ?
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 
 
 Lord Willowby had fallen asleep. Through 
 the white curtains of the window they could see 
 him lying back in an easy-chair, a newspaper 
 dropped on his knee. Why should they go in 
 to wake him ? 
 
 The wan light was dying away from the 
 bosom of the lake down there, and there was 
 less of a glow in the northern skies ; but the 
 stars were burning more clearly now — white 
 and throbbing over the black foliage of the elms. 
 The nightingale sang from time to time ; and 
 the woods were silent to hear. Now and again 
 a cool breeze came through the bushes, bring- 
 ing with it a scent of lilacs and sweet-briar. 
 They were in no hurry to re-enter the house.
 
 FUETHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 89 
 
 Balfour was talking a little more honestly and 
 earnestly now ; for he had began to speak of 
 his work, his aims, his hopes, his difficulties. 
 It was not a romantic tale he had to tell on this 
 beautiful night; but his companion conferred 
 romance upon it. He was talking as an eager, 
 busy, practical politician ; she believed she 
 was listening to a great statesman — to a leader 
 of the future — to her country's one and only 
 saviour. It was of no use that he insisted on 
 the prosaic and commonplace nature of the 
 actual work he had to do. 
 
 '' You see, Lady Sylvia," he said, '^ I am only 
 an apprentice as yet. I am only learning how 
 to use my tools. And the fact is, there is not 
 one man in fifty in the House who fancies that 
 any tools are necessary. Look how on the most 
 familiar subjects — those nearest to their own 
 doors — they are content to take all their informa- 
 tion from the reporters in the newspapers. They 
 never think of inquiring, of seeing, for them- 
 selves. They work out legislation as a mere 
 theorem ; they have no idea how it is practically 
 applied. They pass Adulteration Acts, Sanitary
 
 90 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Acts, Lodglng-House Acts ; they consider Gas 
 Bills, Water Bills, and wliat not ; but it is all 
 done in the air. They don't know. Now I have 
 been trying to cram on some of these things ; 
 but I have avoided official reports. I know the 
 pull it will give me to have actual and personal 
 experience — this is in one direction only, you 
 see — of the way the poorer people in a great 
 town live : how taxation affects them, how the 
 hospitals treat them, their relations with the 
 police, and a hundred other things. Shall I 
 tell you a secret ? " 
 
 These were indeed pretty secrets to be told 
 on this beautiful evening : secrets not of lovers' 
 dreams and hopes, but secrets about Sanitary 
 Acts and Municipal Bills. 
 
 ^^ I lived for a week in a court in Seven Dials, 
 as a French polisher. Next week I am going 
 to spend in a worse den — a haunt of thieves, 
 tramps, and hawkers — a very pretty den, in- 
 deed, to be the property of the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, and almost under the shadow 
 of Westminster Abbey." 
 
 She uttered a slight exclamation — of depreca-
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTIKGALES. 91 
 
 tion and anxious fear. But lie did not quite 
 understand. 
 
 ^' This time, however," he continued, ^' I shall 
 be not so badly off; for I am going to live at a 
 common lodging-house, and there the beds are 
 pretty clean. I have been down and through 
 the whole neighbourhood; and have laid my 
 plans. I find that by paying eightpence a night 
 — instead of fourpence — I shall have one of 
 the married people's rooms to myself, instead of 
 having to sleep in a common room. There will 
 be little trouble about it. I shall be a hawker, 
 my stock-in-trade, a basket ; and if I disappear 
 at three in the morning — going off to Covent 
 Garden, you know — they won't expect to see 
 me again till nine or ten in the evening, when 
 they meet in the kitchen to smoke and drink 
 beer. It is then I hope to get all the inform- 
 ation I want. You see there will be no great 
 hardship. I shall be able to slip home in 
 the morning, get washed, and a sleep. The 
 rooms in these common lodging-houses are very 
 fairly clean; the police supervision is very 
 strict."
 
 92 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ It is not the hardship," said Lady Sylvia to 
 her companion, and her breath came and went 
 somewhat more quickly, *^ it is the danger — you 
 will be quite alone — among such people." 
 
 ^' Oh," said he, lightly, ^' there is no danger 
 at all. Besides, I have an ally — the great and 
 powerful Mrs. Grrace. Shall I tell you about 
 Mrs. Grrace, the owner of pretty nearly half of 
 Happiness Alley ? " 
 
 The Lady Sylvia would hear something of 
 this person with the pretty name, who lived in 
 that favoured alley. 
 
 ^^I was wandering through the courts and 
 lanes down there one day," said Balfour, '^ and 
 I was having a bad time of it ; for I had a tall 
 hat on, which the people regarded as ludicrous, 
 and they poured scorn and contempt on me, and 
 one or two of the women at the windows above 
 threw things at my hat. However, as I was 
 passing one door, I saw a very strong-built 
 woman suddenly come out, and she threw a 
 basket into the middle of the lane. Then she 
 went back, and presently she appeared again, 
 simply shoving before her — her hand on his
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 93 
 
 collar — a man who was certainly as big as her- 
 self. ' You clear out/ she said ; and then with 
 one arm — it was bare and pretty muscular — 
 she shot him straight after the basket. Well, 
 the man was a meek man, and did not say a 
 word. I said to her, ' Is that your husband you 
 are treating so badly ? ' Of course I kept out 
 of the reach of her arm, for women who are 
 quarrelling with their husbands are pretty free 
 with their hands. But this woman, although 
 she had a firm, resolute face, and a grey mous- 
 tache, was as cool and collected as a judge. 
 / Oh, dear, no,' she said, ^ that is one of my 
 tenants. He can't pay, so he's got to get out.' 
 On the strength of this introduction I made the 
 acquaintance of Mrs. Grace, who is really a 
 most remarkable woman. I suppose she is a 
 widow, for she hasn't a single relative in the 
 world. She has gone on taking house after 
 house, letting the rooms, collecting her rents, 
 and her nightly fees for lodgers, and looking 
 after her property generally with a decision and 
 ability quite out of the ordinary. I don't sup- 
 pose she loses a shilling in the month by bad
 
 94 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 debts. ^ Pay, or out you go,' is her motto with 
 her tenants ; ' Pay first, or you can't come in,' 
 she says to her lodgers. She has been an in- 
 valuable ally to me, that woman. I have gone 
 through the most frightful dens with her, and 
 there was scarcely a word said; she is not a 
 woman to stand any nonsense. And then, of 
 course, her having amassed this property, six- 
 pence by sixpence, has made her anxious to 
 know the conditions on which all the property 
 around her is held, and she has a remarkably 
 quick and shrewd eye for things. Once, I re- 
 member, we had been exploring a number of 
 houses that were in an infamous condition. 
 ' Well,' I said to her, ^ how do the Sanitary In- 
 spectors pass this over ? ' She answered that 
 the Sanitary Inspectors were only the servants 
 of the Medical Officer of Health. ^ Very well, 
 then,' I said, ^ why doesn't the Medical Officer 
 of Health act ? ' You should have seen the cool 
 frankness with which she looked at me. ' You 
 see, sir,' she said, ^ the Medical Officer of Health 
 is appointed by the vestry ; and these houses 
 are the property of Mr. , who is a vestry-
 
 ^FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 95 
 
 man ; and if he was made to put them to-rlghts, 
 he might as well pull them down altogether. 
 So I suppose, sir, the inspectors don't say much ; 
 and the Medical Officer he doesn't say anything ; 
 
 and Mr. is not put to any trouble.' There 
 
 is nothing of that sort about Mrs. Grace's pro- 
 perty. It is the cleanest bit of whitewash in 
 Westminster. And the way she looks after the 
 
 water-supply But really. Lady Sylvia, I 
 
 must apologize to you for talking to you about 
 such uninteresting things " 
 
 " Ohj I assure you," said the girl, earnestly 
 and honestly, '' that I am deeply interested — 
 intensely interested ; but it is all so strange and 
 terrible. If — if I knew Mrs. Grace, I would 
 like to — to send her a present." 
 
 It never occurred to Balfour to ask himself 
 why Lady Sylvia Blythe should like to send a 
 present to a woman living in one of the slums 
 of Westminster. Had the girl a wild notion 
 that by a gift she could bribe the virago of 
 Happiness Alley to keep watch and ward over 
 a certain audacious young man who wanted to 
 become a Parliamentary Haroun al Raschid ?
 
 96 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^Mr. Balfour," said Lady Sylvia, suddenly, 
 ^Miave you asked this Mrs. Grace about the 
 prudence of your going into the lodging-house ? " 
 
 '' Oh, yes, I have got a lot of slang terms 
 from her — ^liawker's slang, you know. And 
 she is to get me my suit of clothes, and the 
 basket." 
 
 '^ But surely they will recognize you as hav- 
 ing been down there before." 
 
 ^^ Not a bit. I shall have my face plentifully 
 begrimed ; and there is no better disguise for a 
 man than his taking off his collar and tying a 
 wisp of black ribbon round his neck instead. 
 Then I can smoke pretty steadily ; and I need 
 not talk much in the kitchen of an evening. 
 But why should I bother you with these things, 
 Lady Sylvia ? I only wanted to show you a 
 very small bit of the training that I think a 
 man should go through before he gets up in 
 Pailiament with some delightfully accurate 
 scheme in his hand for the amelioration of 
 millions of human beings — of whose condition 
 he does not really know the smallest particular. 
 It is not the picturesque side of legislation. It
 
 FUKTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 97 
 
 is not heroic. But then if you want a fine, 
 bold, ambitious flight of statesmanship you 
 have only to go to Oxford or Cambridge ; in 
 -every college you will find twenty young men 
 ready to remodel the British Constitution in 
 five minutes." 
 
 They walked once more up to the window ; 
 Lord Willowby was still asleep, in the hushed 
 yellow-lit room. Had they been out a quarter 
 of an hour — half an hour ? It was impossible 
 for them to say ; their rapidly growing intimacy 
 and friendly confidence took no heed of time. 
 
 '^And it is very disheartening work," he 
 added, with a sigh. '^ The degradation, phy- 
 sical and mental, you see on the faces you 
 meet in these slums is terrible. You begin to 
 despair of any legislation. Then the children 
 — their white faces, their poor, stunted bodies, 
 their weary eyes — thank God you have never 
 seen that sight. I can stand most things— I 
 am not a very soft-hearted person — but — but I 
 can't stand the sight of those children." 
 
 She had never heard a man's sob before. 
 She was terrified, overawed. But the next 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 moment lie had burst into a laugh, and was 
 talking in rather a gay and excited fashion. 
 
 ^^ Yes," said he, ^^I should like to have my 
 try at heroic legislation too. I should like to 
 be made absolute sovereign and autocrat of this 
 country for one week. Do you know what I 
 should do on day number one ? I should go to 
 the gentlemen who form the Court of the great 
 City Guilds, and I would say to them, ' Gentle- 
 men, I assure you you would be far better in 
 health and morals if you would cease to spend 
 your revenues on banquets at five guineas a 
 head. You have had quite as much of that as 
 is good for you. Now I propose to take over 
 the whole of the property at present in your 
 hands ; and if I find any reasonable bequest in 
 favour of fishmongers, or skinners, or any other 
 poor tradesman, that I will administer ; but the 
 rest of your wealth — it is only a trifle of twenty 
 millions or so, capitalized — I mean to use for 
 the benefit of yourselves and your fellow-citi- 
 zens.' Then, what next? I issue my edict, 
 ^ There shall be no more slums. Every house 
 of them must be razed to the ground, and the
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 99 
 
 sites turned into gardens, to tempt currents of 
 air into the heart of the city.' But what of the 
 dispossessed j^eople ? Why, I have got in my 
 hands this twenty millions to whip them off to 
 Nebraska and make of them great stock-raising 
 communities on the richest grass-lands in the 
 world. Did I tell you, Lady Sylvia," he added, 
 seriously, '^ that I mean to hang all the directors 
 of the existing water and gas companies ? " 
 
 ^^No, you did not say that," she answered, 
 with a smile. But she would not treat this 
 matter altogether as a joke. It might please 
 him to make fun of himself; in her inmost 
 heart she believed that, if the country only 
 gave him these unlimited powers for a single 
 year, the millennium would ipso facto have 
 arrived. 
 
 ^^ And so," said he, after a time, ^^you see 
 how I am situated. It is a poor business, this 
 Parliamentary life. There is a great deal of 
 mean and shabby work connected with it." 
 
 '^ 1 think it is the noblest work a man could 
 put his hand to," she said, with a flush on her 
 cheek that he could not see ; '^ and the noble-
 
 100 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ness of it is tliat a man will go through the 
 things yon have described for the good of 
 others. I don't call that mean or shabby work. 
 I would call it mean or shabby if a man were 
 building up a great fortune to spend on him- 
 self. If that was his object, what could be 
 more mean ? You go into slums and dens ; 
 you interest yourself in the poorest wretches 
 that are alive ; you give your days and your 
 nights to studying what you can do for them ; 
 and" you call all that care, and trouble, and 
 self-sacrifice mean and shabby I " 
 
 ^^But you forget," said he, coldly, ^^ what is 
 my object. I am serving my apprenticeship. 
 I want these facts for my own purposes. You 
 pay a politician for his trouble by giving 
 him a reputation, which is the object of his 
 life " 
 
 '^Mr. Balfour," she said, proudly, ^^I don't 
 know much about public men. You may say 
 what you please about them. But I think I 
 know a little about you. And it is useless 
 your saying such things to me." 
 
 For a second he felt ashamed of his habit of
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 101 
 
 self-depreciation ; the courage of the girl was a 
 rebuke — was an appeal to a higher candour. 
 
 ^^ A man has need to beware," he said. '' It 
 is safest to put the lowest construction on your 
 own conduct ; it will not be much lower than 
 that of the general opinion. But I did wrong, 
 Lady Sylvia, in talking like that to you. You 
 have a great faith in your friends. You could 
 inspire any man with confidence in himself " 
 
 He paused for a moment ; but it was not to 
 hear the nightingale sing, or to listen to the 
 whispering of the wind in the dark elms. It 
 was to gain courage for a further frankness. 
 
 '' It would be a good thing for the public life 
 of this country," said he, ^^ if there were more 
 women like you — ready to give generous en- 
 couragement, ready to believe in the disinter- 
 estedness of a man, and with a full faith in the 
 usefulness of his work. I can imagine the good 
 fortune of a man who, after being harassed and 
 buffeted about — perhaps by his own self-criti- 
 cism as much as by the opinions of others — 
 could always find in his own home consolation, 
 and trust, and courage. Look at his independ-
 
 102 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ence ; he would be able to satisfy, or lie would 
 try to satisfy, one opinion that would be of 
 more value to him than that of all the world 
 beside. What would he care about the ingrati- 
 tude of others, so long as he liad his reward 
 
 in his own home But it is a picture, a 
 
 dream." 
 
 ^' Could a woman be all that to a man ? " the 
 gu'l asked, in a low voice. 
 
 ^^ You could," said he, boldly, and he stopped 
 and confronted her, and took both her trembling 
 hands in his. ^^Lady Sylvia, when I have 
 dreamed that dream, it was your face I saw in 
 it. You are the noblest woman I have known. 
 I — well, I must say it now — I love you, and 
 have loved you almost since the first moment I 
 saw you. That is the truth. If I have pained 
 you — well, you will forgive me after I have 
 gone — and this will be the last of it " 
 
 She had withdrawn her hands, and now 
 stood before him, her eyes cast down, her heart 
 beating so that slie could not speak. 
 
 ^^ If I have pained you," said he, after a 
 moment or two of anxious silence, ^^my pre-
 
 FURTHER POLITICS AND NIGHTINGALES. 103 
 
 sumption will bring its own punisliment. Lady- 
 Sylvia, shall I take you back to the Hall ? " 
 
 She put one hand lightly on his arm. 
 
 /'I am afraid," she said, and he could but 
 scarcely hear the low and trembling words. 
 ^^How can I be to you — what you described? 
 It is so much — I have never thought of it — and 
 if I should fail to be all that you expect ? " 
 
 He took her in his arms, and kissed her fore- 
 head. 
 
 ^^ I have no fear. Will you try ? " 
 
 '^ Yes," she answered — and now she looked 
 up into his face, with her wet eyes full of love, 
 and hope, and generous self-surrender. " I 
 will try to be to you all that you could wish 
 me to be." 
 
 ^^ Sylvia, my wife ! " was all he said in reply ; 
 and indeed there was not much need for further 
 speech between these two. The silence of the 
 beautiful night was eloquence enough. And 
 then from time to time they had the clear, 
 sweet singing of the nightingale, and the stir- 
 ring of the night-wind among the trees. 
 
 By-and-by they went back to the Hall — they
 
 104 GREEN PASTUEES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 walked arm-ia-arnij with a great peace and joy 
 in their hearts ; and they re-entered the dining- 
 room. Lord Willowby started up in his easy- 
 chair, and rubbed his eyes. 
 
 ^' Bless me," said he, with one of his violent 
 smiles, ^'I have been asleep." 
 
 His lordship was a peer of the realm, and his 
 word must be taken. The fact was, however, 
 that he had not been asleep at all.
 
 CHAPTEH YII. 
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 
 
 LoKD WiLLowBY guGssed pretty accurately what 
 had occurred. For a second or two his daughter 
 sate down at the table, pale a little, silent, and 
 nervously engaged in pulling a rose to pieces. 
 Then she got up and proposed they should go 
 into the drawing-room to have some tea. She 
 led the way ; but, just as she had gone through, 
 Balfour put his hand on Lord Willowby's arm 
 and detained him. 
 
 At this juncture a properly-minded young 
 man would have been meek and apologetic ; 
 would have sworn eternal gratitude in return 
 for the priceless gift he was going to demand ; 
 would have made endless protestations as to the 
 care with which he would guard that great 
 treasure. But Mr. Hugh Balfour, M.P., was
 
 106 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 not very good at sentiment. Added to the cool 
 judgment of a man of the world, he had a cer- 
 tain forbidding reserve about him which was, 
 perhaps, derived from his Scotch descent ; and 
 he knew a great deal more about his future 
 father-in-law than that astute person imagined, 
 
 ^' Lord Willowby," said he, '^ a word before 
 we go in. You must have noticed my regard 
 for your daughter ; and you may have guessed 
 what it might lead to. I presume it was not 
 quite displeasing to you, or you would not have 
 been so kind as to invite me here from time to 
 time. Well, I owe you an apology for having 
 spoken sooner than I intended to Lady Sylvia 
 — I ought to have mentioned the matter to you 
 first " 
 
 ^'My dear fellow," said Lord Willowby, 
 seizing his hand, while all the features of his 
 face were suddenly contorted into what he doubt- 
 less meant as an expression of rapturous joy, 
 '' not another word ! Of course she accepted 
 you — liGT feelings for you have long been known 
 to me — and my child's happiness I put before 
 all other considerations. Balfour, you have
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. lOT 
 
 got a good girl to be your wife ; take care of 
 her." 
 
 '^ I think you may trust me for that," was the 
 simple answer. 
 
 They went into the room. Not a word was 
 said; but Lord Willowby went over to his 
 daughter, and patted her on the back, and kissed 
 her : then she knew. A servant brought in some 
 tea. 
 
 It was a memorable evening. The joy within 
 the young man's heart had to_^fInd some outlet ; 
 and he talked then as no one had ever heard 
 him talk before — not even his more intimate 
 friend at Exeter, when they used to sit dis- 
 coursing into the small hours of the morning. 
 Lord Willowby could not readily understand 
 a man's being earnest or eloquent except under 
 the influence of wine ; but Balfom^ scarcely ever 
 drank wine. Why should he be so vehement ? 
 He was not much of an orator in the House ; in 
 society he was ordinarily cold and silent. Now, 
 however, he had grown indignant over a single 
 phrase they had stumbled against — '^you can't 
 make men moral by Act of Parliament " — and
 
 108 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 tlie grey eyes under the heavy eyebrows had an 
 intense earnestness in them as he denounced 
 what he chose to call a pernicious He. 
 
 '^ You can make men moral by Act of Parlia- 
 ment — by the action of Parliament," he was in- 
 sisting ; and there was one there who listened 
 with wrapt attention and faith, even when he 
 was uttering the most preposterous paradoxes, 
 or giving way to the most violent prejudice, 
 ^' and the nation will have to answer for it that 
 proceeds on any other belief. For what is mo- 
 rality but the perfect adjustment of the human 
 organism to the actual conditions of life — the 
 observance by the human being of those un- 
 changeable, inexorable laws of the universe, to 
 break which is death, physical or spiritual as 
 the case may be ? What have all the teachers 
 who have taught mankind — from Moses in his 
 day to Carlyle in oars — been insisting on but 
 that ? Moses was only a sort of Divine vestry- 
 man; Carlyle has caught something of the poetry 
 of the Hebrew prophets ; but it is the same thing 
 they say. There are the fixed immutable laws : 
 death awaits the nation or the man who breaks
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 109 
 
 them. Look at the lesson the world has just 
 been reading. A liar, a perjurer, and traitor 
 gets up in the night-time and cuts the throat of 
 a nation. In the morning you find him wearing 
 Imperial robes ; but if you looked you would 
 find the skirts of them bespattered with the blood 
 of the women and children he has had shot 
 down in the street. Europe shudders a little, 
 but goes on its way ; it has forgotten that the 
 moment a crime is committed its punishment is 
 already meted out. And what does the nation 
 do that has been robbed and insulted — that has 
 seen those innocent women and children shot 
 down that the mean ambition of a liar might 
 be satisfied ? It is quick to forgiveness ; for it 
 finds itself tricked out in gay garments, and it 
 has money put in its pocket, and it is bidden to 
 dance and be merry. The bourgeois muid is in- 
 stantly prostrated before the golden calf of com- 
 mercial prosperity. Everything is to be con- 
 doned now ; for life has become like a masked 
 ball — and it does not matter what thieves and 
 swindlers there may be in the crowd, so long 
 as there is plenty of brilliant lights, and music,
 
 110 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 and wine. Lady Sylvia, do you know Alfred 
 Rethel's ' Der Tod als Feind ' ? — Death coming 
 in to smite down the maskers and the music- 
 makers at a revel ? It does not matter much 
 who or what is the instrument of vengeance ; 
 but the vengeance is sure. When France was 
 paying her penalty — when the chariot-wheels 
 of God were grinding exceeding hard — she 
 shrieked at her enemy, ' You are only a pack 
 of Huns ! ' Well, Attila was a Hun, a barba- 
 rian, probably a superstitious savage. I don't 
 know what particular sort of fetish he may have 
 worshi23ped — what blurred image or idol he had 
 in his mind of Him who is past finding out — 
 but however rude or savage his notions were, he 
 knew that the laws of God had been broken, and 
 the time for vengeance had come. The Scourge 
 of God may be Attila or another : an epidemic 
 that slays its thousands because a nation has not 
 been cleanly — the lacerating of a mother's heart 
 when in her carelessness she has let her child 
 cut its finger with a knife. The penalty has to 
 be paid ; sometimes at the moment, sometimes 
 long after ; for the sins of the fathers are visited
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. Ill 
 
 not only on their cliildren, but on tlieir chil- 
 dren's children, and so on to the end, nature 
 claiming her inexorable due. And when I go 
 down to the slums I have been talking to you 
 about, how dare I say that these wretched 
 people, living in squalor and ignorance and 
 misery, are only paying the penalty for their 
 own mistakes and crimes ? You look at their 
 narrow, retreating, monkey-like forehead, the 
 heavy and hideous jowl, the thick neck, and the 
 furtive eye ; you think of the foul air they have 
 breathed from their infancy, of the bad water 
 and unwholesome food they have consumed, of 
 the dense ignorance in which they have been 
 allowed to grow up ; and how can you say that 
 their immoral existence is anything but in- 
 evitable? I am talking about Westminster, 
 Lord Willowby. From some parts of these 
 slums you can see the towers of the Houses of 
 Parliament, glittering in gilt, and looking very 
 fine indeed. And if I declared my belief that 
 the immorality of these wretched people of the 
 slums lay as much at the door of the Houses of 
 Parliament as at their own door, I suppose people
 
 112 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 would say I was a rabid democrat, pandering to 
 the passions of the poor to achieve some notoriety. 
 But I believe it all the same. Wrong-doing — the 
 breaking of the universal laws of existence — the 
 subversion of those conditions which produce a 
 settled, wholesome, orderly social life — is not 
 necessarily personal ; it may be national ; it may 
 have been continued through centuries, until the 
 results have been so stamped into the character 
 of the nation — or into the condition of a part of 
 a nation — that they almost seem ineradicable. 
 And so I say that you can, and do, make people 
 moral, or immoral, by the action of Parliament. 
 There is not an Education Bill, or a University 
 Tests Bill, or an Industrial Dwellings Bill you 
 pass which has not its effect, for good or ill, on 
 the relations between the people of a country 
 and those eternal laws of right which are for 
 ever demanding fulfilment. Without some such 
 fixed belief, how could any man spend his life 
 in tinkering away at these continual experi- 
 ments in legislation ? You would merely pass a 
 vote trebling the police-force ; and have done 
 with it."
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 113 
 
 Whether or not tliis vehement and violently 
 prejudiced young man had quite convinced 
 Lord Willowby, it was abundantly clear that he 
 had long ago convinced himself. His eyes were 
 ^^ glowering," as the Scotch say ; and he had 
 forgotten all about the tea that Lady Sylvia her- 
 self had poured out and brought to him. The 
 fact is, Lord Willowby had not paid much at- 
 tention. He was thinking of something else. 
 He perceived that the young man was in an 
 emotional and enthusiastic mood ; and he was 
 wondering whether, in return for having just 
 been presented with a wife, Mr. Hugh Balfour 
 might not be induced to become a director of a 
 certain company in which his lordship was in- 
 terested, and which was sorely in need of help 
 at that moment. 
 
 But Lady Sylvia was convinced. Here, in- 
 deed, was a confession of faith fit to come from 
 the man whom she had just accepted as her hus- 
 band. He had for the moment thrown off his 
 customary garb of indifference or cynicism ; he 
 had revealed himself; he had spoken, with 
 earnest voice and equally earnest eyes ; and 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 to her the words were as the words of one 
 inspired. 
 
 ^' Have you any more water-colour drawings 
 to show me, Lady Sylvia?" he asked, sud- 
 denly. 
 
 A quick shade of surprise and disappointment 
 passed over the calm and serious face. She 
 knew why he had asked. He had imagined that 
 these public affairs must be dull for her. He 
 wished to speak to her about something more 
 within her comprehension. She was hurt ; and 
 she walked a little proudly as she went to get 
 the drawings. 
 
 ^' Here is the whole collection," said she, in- 
 differently. ^^ I don't remember which of them 
 you saw before. I think I will bid you good 
 night now." 
 
 ^^ I am afraid I have bored you terribly," said 
 he as he rose. 
 
 '' You cannot bore me with subjects in which 
 I take so deep an interest," said she with some 
 decision. 
 
 He took her hand, and bade her good-night. 
 There was more in the look that passed be-
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 115 
 
 tween these two, than in a thousand effusive 
 embraces. 
 
 ^' Now, Balfour," said his lordship, with un- 
 accustomed gaiety, '^ what do you say to chang- 
 ing our coats, and having a cigar in the library ? 
 And a glass of grog ? — a Scotchman ought to 
 know something about whiskey. Besides, you 
 don't win a wife every day." 
 
 It was Lord Willowby who looked and talked 
 as if he had just won a wife as the two men went 
 up-stairs to the library. He very rarely smoked, 
 but on this occasion he lit a cigarette; and he 
 said he envied Balfour his enjoyment of that 
 wooden pipe. Would his guest try something 
 hot ? No ? Then Lord Willowby stretched out 
 his legs, and laid back in the easy- chair, appar- 
 ently greatly contented with himself and the 
 world. 
 
 When the servant had finally gone, his lord- 
 ship said : 
 
 ^^ How well you talked to-night, Balfour. The 
 flush — the elation, you know — of course a man 
 talks better before his sweetheart than before 
 the House of Commons. And if you and I,
 
 116 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 now, must speak of what you might call the — 
 business side of your marriage — well, I suppose 
 we need not be too technical or strict in our 
 language. Let us be frank with each other, and 
 friendly. I am glad you are going to marry 
 my daughter, and so doubtless are you." 
 
 The young man said nothing at all. He was 
 smoking his pipe. There was no longer any 
 fire of indignation or earnestness in his eyes. 
 
 ^^You know I am a very poor man," his 
 lordship [continued. '^I can't give Sylvia any- 
 thing." 
 ■ ^^ I don't expect it," said Balfour. 
 
 ^^ On the other hand, you are a rich man. In 
 such cases, you know, there is ordinarily a 
 marriage-settlement, and naturally, as Sylvia's 
 guardian, I should expect you to give her out 
 of your abundance. But then, Balfour," said 
 his lordship with a gay and a ferocious smile, 
 ^' I was thinking — merely as a joke, you know — • 
 what a rich young fellow like yourself might 
 do to produce an impression on a romantic girl. 
 Marriage-settlements are very prosaic things ; 
 they look rather like buying a wife ; moreover,
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 117 
 
 they have to mention contingencies which it 
 is awkward for an unmarried girl to hear of. 
 "Wouldn't a girl be better pleased, now, if an 
 envelope were placed on her table the night be- 
 fore her marriage — the envelope containing a 
 bank-note — say for £50,000 ? The mystery, 
 the surprise, the delight — all these things would 
 tell upon a girPs mind ; and she would be glad 
 she would not have to go to church an absolute 
 beggar. Of course, that is merely a joke ; but 
 can't you imagine what the girl's face would be 
 like when she opened the envelope ? " 
 
 Balfour did not at all respond to his com- 
 panion's gaiety. In the drawing-room below, he 
 had betrayed an unusual enthusiasm of speech. 
 What man in his circumstances could fail to 
 show a natural elation ? But if Lord Willowby 
 had calculated on this elation interfering with 
 Mr. Balfour's very sober habit of looking at 
 business matters, he had made a decided mis- 
 take. 
 
 Balfour laid down his pipe, and put his out- 
 stretched hands on his knees, 
 
 ^'I don't know," said he coolly, ^^ whether
 
 118 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 you mean to suggest that I should do somethmg 
 of the sort you describe " 
 
 '^Mj dear fellow!" said Lord Willowby, 
 with an air of protest. ^^ It was only a fancy — 
 a joke." 
 
 '' Ah I thought so," said Balfour. '' I think 
 it is better to treat money-matters simply as 
 money -matters ; romance has plenty of other 
 things to deal with. And as regards a marriage- 
 settlement, of course I should let my lawyer 
 arrange the whole affair." 
 
 '' Oh, naturally, naturally," said his lordship, 
 gaily ; but he inwardly invoked a curse on the 
 head of this mean-spirited Scotchman. 
 
 ^^You mentioned £50,000," continued the 
 younger man, speaking slowly and apparently 
 with some indifference. '^ It is a big sum to 
 demand all at once from my partners. But then 
 the fact is, I have never spent much money 
 myself, and I have allowed them to absorb in 
 the business a good deal of what I might other- 
 wise have had ; so that they are pretty deep in 
 my debt. You see, I have inherited from my 
 father a good deal of pride in our firm, though
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 119 
 
 I don't know anything about its operations my- 
 self ; and they have lately been extending the 
 business both in Australia and China, and I 
 have drawn only what I wanted for my yearly 
 accounts. So I can easily have £50,000 from 
 them. That in a safe 4 per cent, investment 
 would bring £2000 a year. Do you think 
 Lady Sylvia would consider " 
 
 " Sylvia is a mere child," her father said. 
 '^ She knows nothing about such things." 
 
 ^^If you preferred it," said Balfour generously, 
 '^ I will make it part of the settlement that the 
 trustees shall invest that sum, subject to Lady 
 Sylvia's directions." 
 
 Lord Willowby's face, that had been gradu- 
 ally resuming its sombre look, brightened 
 up. 
 
 " I suppose you would act as one of the trus- 
 tees ? " said Balfour. 
 
 His lordship's face grew brighter still. It 
 was quite eagerly that he cried out 
 
 " Oh, willingly, willingly. Sylvia would 
 have every confidence in me naturally, and I 
 should be delighted to be able to look after the
 
 120 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 interests of my child. You cannot tell what she 
 has been to me. I have tended her every day 
 of her life " 
 
 [_^' Except when you went knocking about 
 all over Europe without her," thought Bal- 
 four.] 
 
 ^' 1 have devoted all my care to her " 
 
 [^^ Except what you gave to the Seven 
 
 Per Cent. Investment Company," thought 
 Balfour.] 
 
 '' -^ — She would implicitly trust her afiairs 
 in mv hands " 
 
 my 
 
 [^'i And prove herself a bigger fool than 
 
 I take her to be," thought this mean-spirited 
 Scotchman.] 
 
 Lord Willowby, indeed, seemed to wake up 
 again. Two thousand pounds a-year was ample 
 pin-money. He had no sympathy with the 
 extravagant habits of some women. And as 
 Sylvia's natural guardian, it would be his 
 business to advise her as to the proper in- 
 vestment. 
 
 *' My dear lord," cried Balfour, quite cheer- 
 fully, ^Hhere won't be the slightest trouble
 
 A CONFESSION OF FAITH. 121 
 
 about that. For, of course I shall be the other 
 trustee." 
 
 The light on Lord Willowby's worn and 
 sunken face suddenly vanished. But he re- 
 mained very polite to his future son-in-law, and 
 he even lit another cigarette to keep him com- 
 pany.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 
 
 The two or three days Balfour now spent at 
 Willowby Hall formed a beautiful, idle, idyllic 
 period, not soon to be forgotten either by him or 
 by the tender-natured girl to whom he had just 
 become engaged. Lord Willowby left them 
 pretty much to themselves. They rode over 
 the great dark heath, startling the rabbits ; or 
 drove along the wooded lanes, under shelter of 
 the elms and limes ; or walked through the long 
 grass and buttercups of the park; or, in the 
 evening, paced up and down that stone terrace, 
 w^aiting for the first notes of the nightingale. 
 It was a time for glad and wistful dreams, for 
 tender self-confessions, and — what is more to the 
 purpose — for the formation of perfectly ridicul- 
 ous estimates of each other's character, tastes,
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 123 
 
 and habits. This man, for example, who was 
 naturally somewhat severe and exacting in his 
 judgments, who was implacable in his contempt 
 for meanness, hypocrisy, and pretence, and who 
 was just a trifle too bitter and plain-spoken in 
 expressing that contempt, had now grown won- 
 derfully considerate to all human frailties, gentle 
 in judgment, and good-natured in speech. He 
 did not at all consider it necessary to tell her 
 what he thought of her father. His fierce virtue 
 did not prevent his promising to dine with her 
 uncle. And he did not fancy that he himself 
 was guilty of any gross hypocrisy in pretending 
 to be immensely interested in the feeding of 
 pigeons, the weeding of flower-beds, the records 
 of local cricket-matches, and the forthcoming 
 visit of the Bishop. 
 
 During those pleasant days they had talked, 
 as lovers will, of the necessity of absolute con- 
 fidence between sweetheart and sweetheart, be- 
 tween husband and wife. To guard against the 
 sad misunderstandings of life, they would always 
 be explicitly frank with each other, whatever 
 happened. But then, if you had reproached
 
 124 GREEX PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Balfour with concealing from his betrothed his 
 opinion of certain of her relations, he would 
 probably have demanded in his turn what abso- 
 lute confidence was ? Would life be tolerable if 
 everything were to be spoken ? A man comes 
 home in the evening : he has lost his lawsuit — 
 things have been bad in the City — perhaps he 
 has been walking all day in a pair of tight boots: 
 anyhow, he is tired, irritable, impatient. His 
 wife meets him, and, before letting him sit down 
 for a moment, will hurry him off to the nursery 
 to show him the wonderful drawings Adolphus 
 has drawn on the wall. If he is absolutely 
 frank he will exclaim, ^^ Oh, get away ! You 
 and your children are a thorough nuisance ! " 
 That would be frankness : absolute confidence 
 could go no further. But the husband is not 
 such a fool — he is not so selfishly cruel — as to 
 say anything of the kind. He goes off to get 
 another pair of shoes ; he sits down to dinner — • 
 perhaps a trifle silent; but by-and-by he recovers 
 his equanimity, he begins to look at the brighter 
 side of things, and is presently heard to declare 
 that he is quite sure that boy has something of
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 125 
 
 the artist in hinij and that it is no wonder his 
 mother takes such a pride in him, for he is the 
 most intelligent child — — &c. 
 
 Moreover, it was natural in the circumstances 
 for Balfour to be unusually gentle and concilia- 
 tory. He was proud and pleased; it would have 
 been strange if this new sense of happiness had 
 not made him a little generous in his judgments 
 of others. He was not consciously acting a part ; 
 but then every young man must necessarily wish 
 to make himself something of a hero in the eyes 
 of his betrothed. Nor was she consciously acting 
 a part when she impressed on him the convic- 
 tion that all her aspirations and ambitions were 
 connected with public life. Each was trying to 
 please the other ; and each was apt to see in the 
 other what he and she desired to see there. To 
 jDut the case in as short a form as may be : here 
 was a girl whose whole nature was steeped in 
 Tennyson, and here was a young man who had 
 a profound belief in Thackeray. But when, 
 under the shadow of the great elms, in the still- 
 ness of these summer days, he read to her pas- 
 sages from ' Maud,' he declared that existence
 
 126 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 had nothing further to give than that; while 
 she, for her part, was eager to have him tell her 
 of the squabbles and intrigues of Parliamentary- 
 life, and expressed her settled conviction that 
 * Vanity Fair ' was the cleverest book in the 
 whole world. 
 
 On the morning of the day on which he was 
 to leave, he brought down to the breakfast-room 
 a newspaper. He laughed as he handed it to 
 her. 
 
 This was a copy of the Ballinascroon Sentinel^ 
 which contained not only an account of the in- 
 terview between Mr. Balfour, M.P., and a de- 
 putation from his constituents, but also a leading 
 article on that event. The Ballinascroon Sentinel 
 waxed eloquent over the matter. The Member 
 for Ballinascroon was ^^a renegade Scotchman, 
 whose countrymen were ashamed to send him 
 to Parliament, and who had had the audacity to 
 accept the representation of an Irish borough, 
 which had been grossly betrayed and insulted 
 as the reward for its mistaken generosity." 
 There was a good deal more of the same sort of 
 thing ; it had not much novelty for Mr. Balfour,
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 127 
 
 But it was new to Lady Sylvia. It was with 
 flashing eyes and a crimsoned cheek that she 
 rose, and carried the newspaper to her father, 
 who was standing at the window. Lord Wil- 
 lowby merely looked down the column, and 
 smiled. 
 
 ^^ Balfour is accustomed to it," said he. 
 
 '*But is it fair — is it sufferable," she said, 
 with that hot indignation still in her face, ^Hhat 
 any one should have to grow accustomed to such 
 treatment ? Is this the reward in store for a 
 man who spends his life in the public service ? 
 The writer of that shameful attack ought to be 
 prosecuted; he ought to be fined and imprisoned; 
 if I were a man, I would horsewhip him, and I 
 am sure he would run away fast enough ! " 
 
 ^'Oh, no! Lady Sylvia," said Balfour, though 
 his heart warmed to the girl for that generous 
 espousal of his cause. ^^ You must remember 
 that he is smarting under the wrongs of Ireland, 
 or rather the wrongs of Ballinascroon. I dare 
 say, if I were a leading man in a borough, I 
 should not like to have the member representing 
 the borough simply making a fool of it. I can
 
 128 • GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 see the joke of the situation, although I am a 
 Scotchman ; but you can't expect the people in 
 the borough to see it. And if my friend the 
 editor uses warm language, you see that is how 
 he earns his bread. I have no doubt he is a very 
 good sort of fellow. I have no doubt, when they 
 kick me out of Ballinascroon, and if I can get 
 in for some other place, I shall meet him down 
 at Westminster, and he will have no hesitation 
 at all in asking me to help to get his son the 
 Governorship of Timbuctoo, or some such 
 post," 
 
 Was not this generous, she said to herself? 
 He might have exacted damages from this poor 
 man. Perhaps he might have had him im- 
 prisoned, and sent to the treadmill. But no. 
 There was no malice in his nature, no anxious 
 vanity, no sentiment of revenge. Lady Sylvia's 
 was not the only case in which it might have 
 been remarked that the most ordinary qualities 
 of prudence or indifference exhibited by a young 
 man become, in the eyes of the young man's 
 sweetheart, proof of a forbearance, a charity, a 
 goodness altogether heroic and sublime.
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 129 
 
 Her motlier having died when she was a mere 
 child, Lady Sylvia had known scarcely any grief 
 more serious than the loss of a pet canary, or 
 the withering of a favourite flower. Her father 
 professed an elaborate phraseological love for 
 her, and he was undoubtedly fond of his only 
 child; but he also dearly liked his personal 
 liberty, and he had from her earliest years ac- 
 customed her to bid him good-bye without much 
 display of emotion on either side. But now, on 
 this morning, a strange heaviness of heart pos- 
 sessed her. She looked forward to that drive to 
 the station with a dull sense of foreboding ; she 
 thought of herself coming back alone — for her 
 father was going up to town with Balfour — and 
 for the first time in her life the solitude of the 
 Hall seemed to her something she could not bear. 
 
 '' Sylvia," said her father, when they had all 
 got into the wagonette, ^' you. don't look very 
 bright this morning." 
 
 She started — and flushed with an anxious 
 shame. She hoped they would not think slie 
 was cast down merely because she was going 
 to bid good-bye to Mr. Balfour for a few days. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Would tliey not meet on the following Wednes- 
 day at lier uncle's? 
 
 So, as they drove over to the station, the girl 
 was quite unusually gay and cheerful. She was 
 no longer the serious Syllabus whom her cousin 
 Johnny used to tease into petulance. Balfour 
 was glad to see her looking so bright ; doubtless 
 the drive through the sweet, fresh air had raised 
 her spirits. 
 
 And she was equally cheerful in the station ; 
 for-^he did not cease to say to lievself—'' Keep 
 zip notv, keep up. It is only five minutes now. 
 And oh ! if he tuere to see me cry — the least hit — / 
 should die of shamed 
 
 '^ Sylvia," said he, when they happened to be 
 alone for a moment, ^^ I suppose I may write to 
 you." 
 
 ^^ Yes," said she timidly. 
 ' ^^ How often?" 
 
 ^^I — I don't know," said she, looking down. 
 
 ^' Would it bother you if you had a letter 
 every morning ? " 
 
 ^' Oh," she said, ^^ you could never spare time 
 to write to me so often as that. I know how
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 131 
 
 busy you must be. You must not let me in- 
 terfere in any way, now or at any time, with 
 your real work. You must promise that to 
 me." 
 
 ^^ I will promise this to you," said he, taking 
 her hand to bid her good-bye, ^Hhat my relations 
 with you shall never interfere with my duties 
 towards the honourable and independent electors 
 of Ballinascroon. Will that do ? " 
 
 The train came up. She dared not raise her 
 eyes to his face as she shook hands with bim. 
 Her heart was beating hurriedly. 
 
 She conquered, nevertheless. There were 
 several people about the station who knew Lord 
 Willo why's daughter ; and as she was rather a 
 distinguished person in that neighbourhood, and 
 as she was pretty and prettily dressed, she 
 attracted a great deal of notice. But what did 
 they see ? Only Lady Sylvia bidding good-bye 
 to her papa, and to a gentleman who had doubt- 
 less been his guest ; and there was notliing but 
 a bright and friendly smile in her face as she 
 looked after that particular carriage in the re- 
 ceding train.
 
 132 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 But there was no smile at all in her face as 
 she was being driven back through the still and 
 wooded country to the empty Hall. The large, 
 tender, dark-grey eyes were full of trouble and 
 anxious memories ; her heart was heavy within 
 her. It was her first sorrow; and there was 
 something new, alarming, awful about it. This 
 sense of loneliness — of being left — of haying 
 her heart yearning after something that had 
 gone away — was a new experience altogether, 
 and it brought with it strange tremors of unrest 
 and unreasoning anxiety. 
 
 She had often read in books that the best 'cure 
 for care was hard work ; and as soon as she got 
 back to the Hall she set busily about the fulfil- 
 ment of her daily duties. She found, however, 
 but little relief. The calm of mind and of oc- 
 cupation had fled from her. She was agitated 
 by all manner of thoughts, fancies, surmises, 
 that would not let her be in peace. 
 
 That letter of the next morning, for example ; 
 she would have to answer it. But how ? She 
 went to her own little sitting-room, and securely 
 locked the door, and sate down to her desk.
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 133 
 
 She stared at the blank paper for several min- 
 utes before she dared to place anything on it ; 
 and it was with a trembling hand that she traced 
 out the words, ^'^ Dear Mr, Balfour P Then she 
 pondered for a long time on what she should 
 say to him — a difficult matter to decide, seeing 
 she had not as yet received the letter which she 
 wished to answer. She wrote, ^^ My dear Mr, 
 Balfour ; " and looked at that. Then she wrote, 
 with her hand trembling more than ever, ^^ Dear 
 
 H ," but she got no further than that, for 
 
 some flush of colour mounted to her face, and 
 she suddenly resolved to go and see the head 
 gardener about the new geraniums. Before 
 leaving the room, however, she tore up the 
 sheet of paper into very small pieces. 
 
 Now the head-gardener was a soured and dis- 
 appointed man. The whole place, he considered, 
 was starved; such flowers as he had nobody 
 came to see; while Lord Willowby had an 
 amazingly accurate notion of the amount which 
 the sale of the fruit of each year ought to bring. 
 He was curt of speech, and resented interference. 
 On this occasion, moreover, he was in an ill-
 
 134 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 humour. But to his intense surprise his young 
 mistress was not to be beaten off by short 
 answers. Was her ladyship in an ill-humour 
 too ? Anyhow, she very quickly brought him 
 to his senses ; and one good issue of that day's 
 worry was that old Blake was a great deal more 
 civil to Lady Sylvia ever after. 
 
 '^ You know, Blake," said she, firmly, " you 
 Yorkshire people are said to be a little too sharp 
 with your tongue sometimes." 
 
 ^'-I do not know, my lady," said the old 
 man with great exasperation, '^ why the people 
 will go on saying I am from Yorkshire. If I 
 have lived in a stable I am not a hoarse. I am 
 sure I have tolled your ladyship I was boarn in 
 Dumfries." 
 
 ^^ Indeed you have, Blake," said Lady Sylvia, 
 with a singular change of manner. '' Eeally I 
 had quite forgotten. I think you said you left 
 Scotland when you were a lad ; but of course 
 you claim to be Scotch. That is quite right." 
 
 She had become very friendly. She sate 
 down on some wooden steps beside him, and 
 regarded his work with quite a new interest.
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 135 
 
 ^^ It is a fine country, is it not ? " said she, 
 in a conciliatory tone. 
 
 ^^ We had better crops where I was born than 
 ye get about the sandy wastes here," said the 
 old man, gruffly. 
 
 ^'I did not mean that quite," said Lady 
 Sylvia, patiently, ^^I meant that the country 
 generally was a noble country — its magnificent 
 mountains and valleys, its beautiful lakes and 
 islands, you know." 
 
 Blake shrugged his shoulders. Scenery was 
 for fine ladies to talk about. 
 
 '^ Then the character of the people," said 
 Lady Sylvia, nothing daunted, '' has always 
 been so noble and independent. Look how 
 they have fought for their liberties civil and 
 religious. Look at their enterprise — they are 
 to be found all over the globe — the first pioneers 
 of civilization " 
 
 *^Ay, and it isn't much that some of them 
 make by it," said Blake, sulkily ; for this pioneer 
 certainly considered that he had been hardly 
 used in these alien and unenlightened regions. 
 
 *^ I don't wonder, Blake," said Lady Sylvia,
 
 136 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 in a kindly way, ^> that you should be proud of 
 being a Scotchman. Of course, you know all 
 about the Covenanters." 
 
 ^^ Ay, your ladyship," said Elake, still going 
 on with his work. 
 
 ^^ I dare say 3^ou know," said Lady Sylvia, 
 more timidly, '^ that one of the most unflinching 
 of them — one of the grandest fio-ures in that 
 fight for freedom of worship — was called Bal- 
 four." 
 
 Slfe blushed as she pronounced the name ; but 
 Blake was busy with his plants. 
 
 '' Ay, your ladyship. I wonder whether that 
 man is ever going to send the wire-netting." 
 
 '' I will take care you shall have it at once," 
 said Lady Sylvia, as she rose and went to the 
 door. ^^If we don't have it by to-morrow 
 night, I will send to London for it. Good 
 morning, Blake." 
 
 Blake grunted out something in rej)ly, and 
 was glad to be left to his own meditations. But 
 even this shrewd semi-Scotchman semi-York- 
 shireman could not make out why his mistress, 
 after showing a bit of a temper, and undoubt-
 
 MISLEADING LIGHTS. 137 
 
 edly getting the better of him, should so sud- 
 denly have become friendly and conciliatory. 
 And what could her ladyship mean by coming 
 and talking to her gardener about the Cove- 
 nanters ? 
 
 That first day of absence was a lonely and 
 miserable day for Lady Sylvia. She spent the 
 best part of the afternoon in her father's library, 
 hunting out the lives of great statesmen, and 
 anxiously trying to discover particulars about 
 the wives of those distinguished men — how 
 they qualified themselves for the fulfilment of 
 their serious duties, how they best forwarded 
 their husbands' interests, and so forth, and so 
 forth. But somehow, in the evening, other 
 fancies beset her. The time that Balfour had 
 spent at Willowby Hall had been very j)leasant 
 for her ; and as her real nature asserted itself, 
 she began to wish that that time could have 
 lasted for ever. That would have been a more 
 delightful prospect for her than the anxieties of 
 a public life. Nay, more ; as this feeling deep- 
 ened she began to look on the conditions of 
 public life as so many rivals that had already
 
 138 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 inflicted on her this first miserable day of exist- 
 ence by robbing her of her lover. She began 
 to lose her enthusiasm about grateful constitu- 
 encies, triumphant majorities carrying great 
 measures through every stage, the national 
 thanksgiving awarded to the wearied states- 
 man. It may seem absurd to say that a girl of 
 eighteen should begin to harbour a feeling of 
 bitter jealousy against the British House of 
 Commons, but stranger things than that have 
 happened in the history of the human heart.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 love's sorrows. 
 
 '^ Susan," said Master Johnny Blythe, to bis 
 sister — her name was Honoria, and therefore 
 he called her Susan — ^^ yon have got yourself 
 up uncommon smart to-night. I see how it is. 
 You girls are all alike. As soon as one of you 
 catches a fellow, you won't let him alone ; you're 
 all for pulling him off; you're like a lot of 
 sparrows with one bit of bread amongst you." 
 
 ^' I don't know what you are talking about," 
 said Miss Honoria with proud indifference. 
 
 '' Oh, yes, you do," retorted Johnny, regard- 
 ing himself in a mirror, and adjusting his white 
 tie. ^^You don't catch a man like Balfour 
 stopping down at Willowby three whole days 
 in the middle of the session, and all for nothing. 
 Then it was from Willowby he telegraphed he
 
 140 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 would come here to-night, after he had refused. 
 "Well, I wonder at poor old Syllabus ; I thought 
 she was a cut above a tea-and-cofFee fellow. I 
 suppose it's his £30,000 a-year; at least, it 
 would be in your case, Susan. Oh, I know. I 
 know when you part your hair at the side you 
 mean mischief. And so we shall have a battle- 
 royal to-night — Susan v. Syllabus — and all about 
 a grocer I " 
 
 Those brothers ! The young lady whom 
 Master Johnny treated with so much familiarity 
 and disrespect was of an appearance to drive 
 the fancies of a young man mad. She was tall, 
 and slender, and stately; though she was scarce- 
 ly eighteen there was something almost mature 
 and womanly in her presence ; she had Jarge 
 dark eyes, heavy-lidded; big masses of black 
 hair tightly braided up behind to show her 
 shapely neck; a face such as Gainsborough 
 might have painted, young, and fresh, and pink ; 
 a chin somewhat too full, but round with the 
 soft contour of girlhood. She was certainly 
 very unlike her cousin, both in appearance and 
 expression. Lady Sylvia's eyes were pensive
 
 love's sorrows. 141 
 
 and serious ; this young woman's were full of 
 practical life and audacity. Lady Sylvia's 
 under lip retreated somewhat, and gave a sweet, 
 sliy, sensitive look to the fine face; whereas 
 Honoria Blythe's under lip was full and round 
 and ripe as a cherry, and was in fit accordance 
 with her frank and bold black eye. 
 
 Mrs. Blythe came into the drawing-room. 
 She was a large and portly person, pale, with 
 painted eyelashes, and unnaturally yellow hair. 
 Lord Willowby had no great liking for his sister- 
 in-law ; he would not allow Sylvia to go on a 
 visit to her ; when he and his daughter came to 
 town, as on the present occasion, they stopped 
 at a private hotel in Arlington Street. Finally, 
 the head of the house made his appearance. 
 Major Blythe had all the physique that his elder 
 brother. Lord Willowby, lacked. He was stout 
 and roseate of face, bald for the most part, his 
 eyes a trifle bloodshot, and his hand inclined to 
 be unsteady, except when he was playing pool. 
 He wore diamond studs; he said ^^by Gad"; 
 and he was hotly convinced that Arthur Orton, 
 who was then being tried, was not Arthur Orton
 
 142 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 at all, but Roger Tichborne. So much for the 
 younger branch of the Blythe family. 
 
 As for the elder branch, Lord Willowby was 
 at that moment seated in an easy-chair in a 
 room in Arlington Street, reading the evening 
 paper ; while his daughter was in her own room, 
 anxious as she never had been anxious before 
 about her toilette and the services of the faithful 
 Anne. Lady Sylvia had spent a miserable 
 week. A week ? — it seemed a thousand years 
 rather ; and as that portentous period had to be 
 got through somehow, she had mostly devoted 
 it to reading and re-reading six letters she had 
 received from London, until every phrase and 
 every word of these precious and secret docu- 
 ments was engraven on her memory. She had 
 begun to reason with herself, too, about her 
 hatred of the House of Commons. She tried 
 hard to love that noble institution ; she was 
 quite sure, if only her father would take her 
 over to Ballinascroon, she would go into every 
 house, and shake hands with the people, and per- 
 suade them to let Mr. Balfour remain their repre- 
 sentative when the next General Election came
 
 love's sorrows. 143 
 
 round ', and she wondered, moreover, whether, 
 when her lover went away on that perilous 
 mission of his through the slums of Westminster, 
 she could not, too, as well as he, put on some 
 mean attire, and share with him the serious 
 dangers and discomforts of that wild enterprise. 
 
 And now she was about to meet him ; and a 
 great dread possessed her lest her relatives 
 should discover her secret. Again and again she 
 pictm^ed to herself the forthcoming interview ; 
 and her only safety seemed to be in preserving 
 a cold demeanour and a perfect silence, so that 
 she should escape the shame of being suspected. 
 
 The Blythes lived in a small and rather poorly 
 furnished house in Dean Street, Park Lane; 
 Lord Willowby and his daughter had not far to 
 drive. When they went into the drawing-room, 
 Lady Sylvia dared scarcely look around ; it was 
 only as she was being effusively welcomed by 
 her aunt that she became vaguely aware that 
 Mr. Balfour was not there. Strange as it may 
 appear, his absence seemed to her a quick and 
 glad relief. She was anxious, perturbed, eager 
 to escape from a scrutiny on the i3art of her
 
 144 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 relatives, which she more than half expected. 
 But when she had shaken hands with them all, 
 and when the two or three strangers present 
 began to talk those staccato commonplaces 
 which break the frigid silence before dinner, 
 she was in a measure left to herself; and it was 
 then that — not heeding in the least the chatter 
 of Master Johnny— she began to fear. Had he 
 already adventured on that Haroun al Easchid 
 enterprise, and been stopped by a gang of 
 thieves ? There was a great outcry at this time 
 about railway accidents; was it possible that 
 
 ? Or was he merely detained at the House 
 
 of Commons ? She forgot that the House does 
 not sit on Wednesday evenings. 
 
 She was standing near the entrance to the 
 room, apparently listening to Master Johnny, 
 when she heard a knock at the door below. 
 Then she heard footsteps on the narrow stair- 
 case, which made her heart beat. Then a 
 servant announced Mr. Balfour. Her eyes were 
 downcast. 
 
 Now Balfour, as he came in, ought to have 
 passed her as if she had been a perfect stranger,
 
 love's sorrows. 145 
 
 and gone on and addressed himself, first of all, 
 to his hostess. But he did nothing of the kind. 
 
 ^^How do you do, Lady Sylvia?" said he, 
 and he stopped and shook hands with her. 
 
 She never saw him at all. Her eyes were 
 fixed on the floor ; and she did not raise them. 
 But she placed her trembling hand in his for a 
 moment, and murmured something, and then 
 experienced an infinite relief when he went on 
 towards Mrs. Blj^the. 
 
 She was glad, too, when she saw that he was 
 to take' his hostess in to dinner. Had they 
 heard of this secret, might they not, as a sort of 
 blundering compliment, have asked him to take 
 her in ? As it was, she fell to the lot of a Ger- 
 man gentleman, who knew very little English, 
 and was anxious to practise what little he knew, 
 bu.t who very soon gave up the attempt on find- 
 ing his companion about the most silent and 
 reserved person whom he had ever sate next at 
 dinner. He was puzzled, indeed. She was an 
 earl's daughter, and presumably had seen some- 
 thing of society. She had a pale, interesting, 
 beautiful face, and thoughtful eyesj she must 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 have received enough attention in -her time. 
 Was she too proud, then, he thought, to bother 
 with his broken phrases ? 
 
 The fact was, that throughout that dinner the 
 girl had eyes and ears but for one small group 
 of people — her cousin and Balfour, who were 
 sitting at the further corner of the table, appar- 
 ently much interested in each other. If Lady 
 Sylvia was silent, the charge could not be 
 brought against Honoria Blythe. That young 
 ladywas as glib a chatterer as her brother ; she 
 knew everything that was going on ; with the 
 bright audacity of seventeen she gossipped and 
 laughed, and addressed merry or deprecating 
 glances to her companion, who sate and allowed 
 himself to be amused with much good-humoured 
 coolness. What were poor Sylvia's serious efforts 
 to attain some knowledge of public affairs com- 
 pared with this fluent famiKarity which touched 
 upon everything at home and abroad ? Sylvia 
 had tried to get at the rights and wrongs of a 
 question then being talked about — the propriety 
 of allowing laymen to preach in Church of 
 England pulpits: now she heard her cousin
 
 love's SOEROWS. 1.1:7 
 
 treat the whole affair as a joke. There was 
 nothing that that young lady did not know 
 something about ; and she chatted on with an 
 artless vivacity, sometimes making fun, some- 
 times gravely appealing to him for information. 
 Had he heard of the old lady who became insane 
 in the Horticultural Gardens yesterday? Of 
 course, he was going to Christie's to-morrow ; 
 they expected that big landscape would fetch 
 twelve hundred guineas. What a shame it was 
 for Limerick to treat Lord and Lady Spencer so ! 
 She positively adored Mr. Plimsoll. What would 
 people say if the Shah did really bring three of 
 his wives to England, and would they all go 
 about with him ? 
 
 Poor Sylvia listened, and grew sick at heart. 
 Was not this the sort of girl to interest and 
 amuse a man; to cheer him when he was 
 fatigued ; to enter into all his projects and un- 
 derstand him? Was she not strikingly hand- 
 some, too, this tall girl with the heavy-lidded 
 eyes, and the cherry mouth, and the full round 
 chin curving in to the shapely neck ? She ad- 
 mitted all these things to herself ; but she did
 
 148 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 not love her cousin any the more. She grew to 
 think it shameful that a young girl should make 
 eyes at a man like that. Was she not calling 
 the attention of the whole table to herself and to 
 him ? Her talking, her laughing, the appealing 
 glances of those audacious black eyes — all these 
 things sank deeper and deeper into the heart of 
 one silent observer, who did not seem to be en- 
 joying herself much. 
 
 As for Balfour, he was obviously amused, and 
 doubtless he was pleased at the flattering atten- 
 tion which this fascinating young lady paid him. 
 He had found himself seated next her by acci- 
 dent ; but as she was apparently so anxious to 
 talk to him, he could not well do otherwise than 
 neglect (as Lady Sylvia thought) Mrs. Blythe, 
 whom he had actually taken in to dinner. And 
 was it not clear, too, that he spoke in a lower 
 voice than she did, as though he would limit 
 their conversation to themselves? When she 
 asked him to tell them all that was thought 
 among political folks of the Radical victories at 
 the French elections, why should he address the 
 answer to herself alone ? And was it not too
 
 love's sorrows. 149 
 
 shameless of this girl — at least, so Lady Sylvia 
 thought — who ought to have been at school, to 
 go on pretending that she was greatly interested 
 in General Dorregaray, the King of Sweden, 
 and such persons, merely that she should show 
 off her knowledge to an absolute stranger ? 
 
 Lady Sylvia sate there, with a sense of wrong 
 and humiliation burning into her heart. Not 
 once, during the whole of that dinner, did he 
 address a single word to her ; not once did he 
 even look towards her. All his attention was 
 monopolised by that bold girl who sate beside 
 him. And this was the man who, but a few 
 days before, had been pretending that he cared 
 for nothing in the world so much as a walk 
 through Willowby Park with the mistress there- 
 of, who had then no thought for anything but 
 herself, no words or looks for any one but her. 
 
 Lady Sylvia was seated near the door, and 
 when the ladies left the room, she was one of the 
 first to go. You would not have imagined that 
 underneath that sweet and graciou s carriage, 
 which charmed all beholders except one ungrate- 
 ful young man, there was burning a fierce fire of
 
 150 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 wrongj and shame, and indignation. She walked 
 into the drawing-room, and went into a further 
 corner ; and took a book — on the open page of 
 which she did not see a single word. 
 
 The men came in. Balfour went over, and 
 took a seat beside her. 
 
 '^ Well, Sylvia," said he, lightly, ^^ I suppose 
 you won't stay here long. I am anxious to in- 
 troduce you to Lady ; and there is to be a 
 
 whole batch of Indian or Afghan princes there 
 to-night — their costumes make such a difference 
 in a room. When do you think you will go ? " 
 
 She hesitated ; her heart was full ; had they 
 been alone, she would probably have burst into 
 tears. As it was, he never got any answer to 
 his question. A tall young lady came sweeping 
 by at the moment. 
 
 " Mr. Balfour," she said, with a sweet smile, 
 '^ will you open the piano for me ? " 
 
 And again Lady Sylvia sate alone, and 
 watched these two. He stood by the side of 
 the piano as the long tapering fingers— Honoria 
 had beautifully -formed hands, every one admit- 
 ted — began to wander over the keys ; and the
 
 151 
 
 dreamy music that began to fill the silence of 
 the room seemed to lend something of imagin- 
 ation and pathos to a face that otherwise had 
 little in it beyond merely physical beauty. She 
 played well, too ; with perfect self-possession ; 
 her touch was light, and on these dreamy pas- 
 sages there was a rippling as of falling water in 
 some enchanted cave. Then down went both 
 hands with a crash on the keys ; all the air 
 seemed full of cannonading and musketry fire ; 
 her finely -formed bust seemed to have the de- 
 light of physical exercise in it as those tightly- 
 sleeved and shapely arms banged this way and 
 that ; those beautiful lips were parted somewhat 
 with her breathing. Lady Sylvia did not think 
 much of her cousin^s playing. It was coarse, 
 theatrical, all for display. But she had to con- 
 fess to herself that Honoria was a beautiful otI, 
 who promised to become a beautiful woman ; 
 and what wonder, therefore, if men were glad 
 to regard her, now as she sate upright there, 
 with the fire and passion of her playing lending 
 something of heroism and inspiration to her 
 face ?
 
 152 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 That men should : yes, that was right enough : 
 but that this one man should — that was the 
 bitter thing. Surely he had not forgotten that 
 it was but one week since she had assigned over 
 to him the keeping of her whole life ; and v^as 
 this the fashion in which he was showing his 
 gratitude ? She had looked forward to this one 
 evening with many happy fancies. She would 
 see him ; one look would confirm the secret be- 
 tween them. All the torturing anxieties of ab- 
 sence^would be banished so soon as she could 
 reassure herself by hearing his voice, by feeling 
 the pressure of his hand. She had thought 
 and dreamt of this evening in the still wood- 
 land ways, until her heart beat rapidly with a 
 sense of her coming happiness; and now this 
 disappointment was too bitter. She could not 
 bear it. 
 
 She went over to her father. 
 
 ^^Papa," she said, ^^I wish to go. Don't let 
 me take you ; I can get to the hotel by my- 
 self " 
 
 '' My dear child ! " said he, w^ith a stare, '^ I 
 thought you particularly wanted to go to
 
 love's sorrows. 153 
 
 House, after what Balfour tolcl you about the 
 staircase and the flowers " 
 
 '^ I — I have a headache," said the girl. '^ I 
 am tired. Please let me go by myself, papa." 
 
 ^'Not at all, child," said he. '^ I will go 
 whenever you like." 
 
 Then she besought him not to draw attention 
 to their going. She would privately bid good- 
 night to Mrs. Blythe ; to no one else. If he 
 came out a couple of seconds after she left the 
 room he would find her waiting. 
 
 '^ You must say good-bye to Balfour," said 
 Lord Willowby; '^he will be dreadfully disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 ^^ I don't think it is necessary," said Lady 
 Sylvia, coldly. ^^ He is too much engaged — he 
 won't notice our going." 
 
 Fortunately, their carriage had been ordered 
 early, and they had no difficulty in getting back 
 to the hotel. On the way. Lady Sylvia did not 
 utter a word. 
 
 ^' I will bid you good-night now, papa," said 
 she, as soon as they had arrived. 
 
 He paused for a moment, and looked at her.
 
 154 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^' Sylvia," said he, with some concern, ^^ you 
 look really ill. What is the matter with you?" 
 ^' Nothing," she said. '^ I am tired a little, 
 and I have a headache. Good night, papa." 
 
 She went to her own room, but not to sleep. 
 She declined the attentions of her maid, and 
 locked herself in. Then she took out a small 
 packet of letters. 
 
 Were these written by the same man ? She 
 read, and wondered, with her heart growing 
 sorer and sorer, until a mist of tears came over 
 her eyes, and she could see no more. And then, 
 her grief becoming more passionate, she threw 
 herself on the bed, and burst into a wild fit of 
 crying and sobbing, the letters being clutched 
 in her hand, as if they, at least, v/ere one posses- 
 sion that could not be taken away from her. 
 That was a bitter night — never to be forgotten; 
 and when the next day came, she went down — 
 with a pale and tired face, and with dark rings 
 under the beautiful, sad eyes — and demanded of 
 her father that she should be allowed at once to 
 return to Willowby Hall, her maid alone accom- 
 panying her.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 EEPENTANCE. 
 
 Balfour was astounded when lie learned that 
 Lord Willowby and his daughter had left with- 
 out bidding him good-bye ; and he was more 
 astounded still when he found, on calling at 
 their hotel next morning, that Lady Sylvia had 
 gone home. 
 
 ^^ What is the meaning of it?" said he, in 
 amazement. 
 
 '^ You ought to know," said Lord Willowby. 
 ^^ I cannot tell you. I supposed she and you 
 had had some quarrel." 
 
 ^^ A quarrel ! " he cried — beginning to wonder 
 whether his reason had not altogether forsaken 
 him. 
 
 '^ Well," said his lordship, with a shrug, '' I 
 don't know. She would come home last night,
 
 156 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 though I knew she had been looking forward 
 
 to gomg to Lady 's. And this morning, 
 
 nothing would do but that she must get home 
 at once. She and Anne started an hour ago." 
 
 '' Oh, this is monstrous — this is unendurable," 
 said Balfour. '^ There is some mistake — and 
 it must be cleared up at once. Come, Lord 
 Willowby, shall we take a run down into 
 Surrey ? You will be back by four or ^ye.^^ 
 
 Lord Willowby did not like the notion of 
 being dragged down into Surrey and back by 
 an impatient loYcr ; but he was very anxious at 
 this time to ingratiate himself with Balfour. 
 And when they did set out, he thought he might 
 as well improve the occasion. Balfour was dis- 
 turbed and anxious by this strange conduct on 
 the part of his sweetheart ; and he was grateful 
 to Lord "Willowby for so promptly giving him 
 his aid to have the mystery cleared up. He 
 was talking more than usual. What wonder, 
 then, that in the course of conversation Lord 
 Willowby should incidentally allude to the op- 
 portunities which a man of means had of multi- 
 plying his wealth ? If he had a few thousands,
 
 REPENTANCE. 157 
 
 for example, how could he better dispose of them 
 than in this project for the buying of land in 
 the suburbs of New York ? It was not a specu- 
 lation; it was a certainty. In 1880 the popu- 
 lation of New York would be two millions. 
 The value of this land for the building of hand- 
 some boulevards would be enormously increased. 
 And so forth. 
 
 '^ I heard you were in that/' said Balfour, 
 curtly. 
 
 ^^ Well, what do you think of it ? " said Lord 
 Willowby, with some eagerness. 
 
 '^ I don't know," answered the younger man, 
 absently looking out of the window. ^^ I don't 
 think there is any certainty about it, I fancy 
 the Americans have been over-spending and 
 over-building for some time back. If that land 
 tvere thrown on your hands — and you had to go 
 on paying the heavy assessments they levy out 
 there — it would be an uncommonly awkward 
 thing for you." 
 
 *' You take rather a gloomy view of things 
 this morning," said Lord Willowby, with one of 
 his fierce and suddenly vanishing smiles.
 
 158 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCxVDILLY. 
 
 ^^ At any rate," said Balfour, with some firm- 
 ness, ^^it Is a legitimate transaction. If the 
 people want the land, they will have to pay 
 your price for it : that is a fair piece of business. 
 I wish I could say as much — you will forgive 
 my frankness — about your Seven per Cent. In- 
 vestment Association." 
 
 His lordship started. There was an ugly 
 implication in the words. But it was not the 
 first time he had had to practise patience with 
 this Scotch boor. 
 
 '^ Come, Balfour, you are not going to pro- 
 phesy evil all round ? " 
 
 '^ Oh no," said the younger man, carelessly. 
 " Only I know you can't go on paying seven 
 per cent. It is quite absurd." 
 
 ^^My dear fellow, look at the foreign loans 
 that are paying their eight, ten, twelve per 
 cent. " 
 
 ^^ I suppose you mean the South American 
 Republics ! " 
 
 ^'Look how we distribute the risk. The 
 failure of one particular investment might ruin 
 the individual investor ; it scarcely touches the
 
 REPENTANCE. 159 
 
 Association. I consider we are doing an im- 
 mense service to all those joeople throughout the 
 country who will try to get a high rate of in- 
 terest for their money. Leave them to them- 
 selves, and they ruin themselves directly. We 
 step in, and give them the strength of co-opera- 
 tion." 
 
 ^^I wish your name did not appear on the 
 Board of Directors," said Balfour, shortly. 
 
 Lord Willowby was not a very sensitive per- 
 son, but this rudeness caused his sallow face to 
 flush somewhat. What, then : must he look to 
 the honour of his name now that this sprig of a 
 merchant — this tradesman — had done him the 
 honour of proposing to marry into his family ? 
 However, Lord Willowby, if he had a temper 
 like other people, had also a great deal of pru- 
 dence and self-control, and there were many 
 reasons why he should not quarrel with this 
 blunt- spoken yomig man at present. 
 
 They had not remembered to telegraph for 
 the carriage to meet them ; so they had to take 
 a fly at the station; and await patiently the 
 slow rumbling along the sweetly-scented lanes.
 
 160 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 As they neared the Hall, Balfour was not a little 
 perturbed. This was a new and a strange thing 
 to him. If the relations between himself and 
 his recently -found sweetheart were liable to 
 be thus suddenly and occultly cut asunder, what 
 possible rest or peace was there in store for 
 either ? And it must be said that of all the con- 
 jectures he made as to the cause of this mischief, 
 not one got even near the truth. 
 
 Lady Sylvia was sent for ; and her father dis- 
 creetly left the young man alone in the drawing- 
 room. A few minutes afterwards the door was 
 opened. Balfour had been no diligent student 
 of women's faces ; but even he could tell that 
 the girl who now stood before him, calm, and 
 pale, and silent, had spent a wakeful night, and 
 that her eyes had been washed with tears ; so 
 that his first impulse was to go forward and draw 
 her towards him, that he might hear her confes- 
 sion with his arms around her. But there was 
 something unmistakeably cold and distant in 
 her manner that forbade his approach. 
 
 ^^ Sylvia," he cried, "what is all this about? 
 Your father fancies you and I have quarrelled."
 
 EEPENTANCE. 161 
 
 ^^ No, we have not quarrelled," she said, shn- 
 ply — but there was a tired look in her eyes. 
 ^' We have only misunderstood each other. It 
 is not worth talking about." 
 
 He stared at her, in amazement. 
 
 ^^I hear papa outside," she said; ^' shall we 
 join him ? " 
 
 But this was not to be borne. He went for- 
 ward, took her two hands firmly in his, and said 
 with decision — 
 
 ^^ Come, Sylvia, we are not children. I want 
 to know why you left last night. I have done 
 my best to guess at the reason; and I have 
 failed" 
 
 ^^ You don't know, then ? " she said, turning 
 the pure, clear, innocent eyes on his face with a 
 look that had not a little indignation in it. It 
 was well for him that he could meet that straight 
 look without flinching. 
 
 ^^ I give you my word of honour," said he, 
 with obvious surprise, 'Hhat I haven't the re- 
 motest notion in the world as to what all this 
 means." 
 
 . '^ It is nothing, then ? " said she, warmly, and 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 she was going to proceed with her charge when 
 her pride rebelled. She would not speak. She 
 "would not claim that which was not freely given. 
 Unfortunately, however, when she would fain 
 have got away, he had a tight grip of her hand ; 
 and it was clear from the expression on this 
 man's face that he meant to have an explan- 
 ation, there and then. 
 
 So he held her until she told him the whole 
 story — the red blood tingling in her cheek the 
 while, and her bosom heaving with that struggle 
 between love and wounded pride. He waited 
 until she had spoken the very last word; and 
 then he let her hands fall, and stood silent be- 
 fore her for a second or two. 
 
 '^ Sylvia," said he, slowly, ^' this is not merely 
 a lover's quarrel. This is more serious. I could 
 not have imagined that you knew so little about 
 me. You fancy, then, that I am a fresh and in- 
 genuous youth, ready to have mj head turned 
 if a school-girl looks at me from under long eye- 
 lashes ; or worse still, a philanderer — a j)rofess- 
 or of the fine art of flirtation. Well, that was
 
 REPENTANCE. 163 
 
 not my reading of myself. I fancied I had come 
 to man's estate. I fancied I had some serious 
 work to do. I fancied I knew a little about 
 men and women— at least I never imagined 
 that any one would suspect me of being imposed 
 on by a girl in her first season. Amused ? — • 
 certainly I was amused — I was even delighted 
 by such a shov/ of pretty and artless innocence. 
 Could anything be prettier than a girl in her 
 first season assumhig the airs of a woman of the 
 world ? could anything be more interesting than 
 that innocent chatter of hers, though I could 
 not make out whether she had caught the trick 
 of it from her brother, or whether she had im- 
 parted to that precocious lad some of her uni- 
 versal information ? But now it appears I was 
 playing the part of a guileless youth. I was 
 dazzled by the fascination of the school-girl eyes. 
 Gracious goodness, why wasn't my hair yellow 
 and curly, that I might have been painted as 
 Cupid? And what would the inhabitants of 
 Ballinascroon say if they were told that was my 
 character ? "
 
 164: GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 He spoke with bitter emphasis. But this 
 man Balfour went on the principle that serious 
 ills needed prompt and serious remedies. 
 
 ^^ Presented to the Town-Hall of Ballinas- 
 croon," he continued, with a scornful laugh, ^' a 
 portrait of H. Balfour, M.P., in the character 
 of a philanderer ! The author of this flattering 
 and original likeness — Lady Sylvia Blythe ! " 
 
 The girl could stand this no longer. She 
 burst into a wild fit of crying and sobbing, in 
 the midst of which .he put his arms round her, 
 and hushed her head against his breast, and 
 bade her be quiet. 
 
 '' Come, Sylvia," said he, ^^let us have done 
 with this nonsense at once and for ever. If 
 you wait until I give you real cause for jealousy 
 — if you have no other unhappiness than that — 
 your life will be a long and fairly comfortable 
 one. Not speaking to you all through dinner ? 
 Did you expect me to bawl across the table, 
 when you know very well your first desire was 
 to conceal from those people the fact of our 
 being engaged ? Listening to no one but her ? 
 I hadn't a chance! She chattered from one
 
 REPENTANCE. 165 
 
 end of the dinner to the other. But really, 
 Sylvia, if I were you, I would fix upon some 
 more formidable rival " 
 
 '' Please don't scold me any more," said she, 
 with a fresh fit of crying. 
 
 *^ I am not scolding you," he said. ^^I am 
 only talking common sense to you. Now dry 
 your eyes, and promise not to be foolish any 
 more, and come out into the garden." 
 
 After the rain the sunshine. They went out 
 arm-in-arm, and she was clinghig very closely 
 to him-, and there was a glad, bright, blushing 
 happiness on her face. 
 
 Now this was the end of their first trouble, 
 and it seemed a very small and trivial affair 
 when it was over. The way was now clear be- 
 fore them. There were to be no more misunder- 
 standings. But Mr. Hugh Balfour was a prac- 
 tical person, not easily led away by beautiful 
 anticipations, and the more he pondered over 
 the matter, in those moments of quiet reflection 
 that followed his evenings at the House, the 
 more he became convinced that the best guar- 
 antee aD:ainst the recurrence of misunderstand-
 
 166 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ings and consequent trouble was marriage. 
 He convinced himself that an immediate 
 marriage, or a marriage as early as social 
 forms would allow, was not only desirable, 
 but necessary; and so clear was his line of 
 argument, that he never doubted for a mo- 
 ment but that it would at once convince Lady 
 Sylvia. 
 
 But his arguments did not at all convince 
 Lady Sylvia. On the contrary, this proposal, 
 which was to put an end to the very possibility 
 of trouble, only landed them in a further 
 trouble. For he, being greatly occupied at the 
 time — the Parliamentary session having got on 
 into June — committed the imprudence of mak- 
 ing this suggestion in a letter. Had he been 
 down at Willowby Hall, walking with Lady 
 Sylvia in the still twilight, with the stars be- 
 ginning to tell in the sky, and the mist begin- 
 ning to gather along the margin of the lake, 
 he might have had another answer; but now 
 she wrote to him that in her opinion so serious 
 a step as marriage was not to be adventured 
 upon in a hurry, and she added, too, with
 
 REPENTANCE. 167 
 
 some pardonable pride, that it was not quite 
 seemly on his part to point out how they could 
 make their honeymoon trip coincide with the 
 general Autumn holiday. Was their marriage 
 to appear to be a merely trivial or accidental 
 thing, waiting for its accomplishment until Par- 
 liament should be prorogued ? 
 
 He got the letter very late one night, when 
 he was sorely fatigued, harassed, and discon- 
 tented with himself. He had lost his temper 
 in the House that evening ; he had been called 
 to order by Mr. Speaker ; as he walked home he 
 was reviling himself for having been betrayed 
 into a rage. When he saw the letter lying on 
 the table, he brightened up somewhat. Here, 
 at least, would be consolation — a tender mes- 
 sage — perhaps some gentle intimation given 
 that the greatest wish of his heart might soon 
 be realized. Well, he opened the letter and 
 read it. The disappointment he experienced 
 doubtless exaggerated what he took to be the 
 coldness of its terms. He paid no attention to 
 the real and honest expressions of affection in 
 it; he looked only at her refusal, and saw
 
 168 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 temper wliere there was only a natural and 
 sensitive pride. 
 
 Then the devil took possession of him, and 
 prompted him to write in reply there and then. 
 Of com^se he would not show temper, being a 
 man. All the same, he felt called on to point 
 out, politely but firmly, that marriage was after 
 all only one among the many facts of life ; and 
 that it was not rendered any the more sublime 
 and mysterious by making it the occasion for a 
 number of microscopic martyrdoms and petty 
 sacrifices. He saw no reason why the oppor- 
 tunity offered by the close of the session should 
 not be made use of ; as for the opinion of other 
 people on the seemliness of the arrangement, 
 she would have to be pre]3ared for the discovery 
 that neither on that point nor on any other 
 was he likely to shape his conduct to meet the 
 views of a mass of strangers. And so forth. 
 It was a perfectly sensible letter. The line of 
 argument was clear. How could she fail to see 
 her error ? 
 
 But to the j)oor fluttering heart down there 
 in the country these words came with a strange
 
 REPENTANCE. 169 
 
 clilll ; and it seemed to her that her lover had 
 suddenly withdrawn from her to a great dis- 
 tance, leaving the world around her dark enough. 
 Her first impulse was to utter a piteous cry to 
 him. She sate down and wrote, with trembling 
 fingers, these words : — 
 
 " Dearest Hugh, 
 
 " I IV ill do whatever you ]please, rather than have you 
 write to me like that. " Sylvia^ 
 
 Probably, too, had she sent off this letter at 
 once, he would have been struck by her simple 
 and generous self-abnegation; and he would 
 have instantly refused to demand from her 
 any sacrifice of feeling whatsoever. But then 
 the devil was abroad. He generally is about 
 when two sweethearts try to arrange some mis- 
 understanding by the perilous process of corre- 
 spondence. Lady Sylvia began to recollect that, 
 after all, something was due to her womanly 
 pride. Would it not seem unmaidenly thus to 
 surrender at discretion on so all-important a 
 point as the fixing of the wedding day ? She 
 would not have it said that they were waiting
 
 170 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 for Parliament to rise before they got married. 
 In any case, she thought the time was far too 
 short. Moreover, was this the tone in which a 
 man should ask a woman to fix the day of her 
 marriage ? 
 
 So she answered the letter in another vein. 
 If marriage, she said, was only one of the 
 ordinary facts of life, she at least did not regard 
 it in that light at all. She cared for tittle-tattle 
 as little as he ; but she did not like the appear- 
 ance. jof having her wedding trip arranged as if 
 it were an excursion to Scotland for grouse- 
 shooting. And so forth. Her letter, too, was 
 clever — very clever, indeed, and sharp. Her 
 face was a little flushed as she sealed it, and 
 bade the servant take it to the post-office the 
 first thing in the morning. But apparently 
 that brilliant piece of composition did not afford 
 her much satisfaction afterwards ; for she passed 
 the night, not in healthful sleep, but in alternate 
 fits of crying and bitter thinking, until it seemed 
 to her that this new relationship into which she 
 had entered with such glad anticipations was 
 bringing her only sorrow after sorrow, grief
 
 EEPENTAKCE. 171 
 
 after grief. For she had experienced no more 
 serious troubles than these. 
 
 When Hugh Balfour received this letter, he 
 was in his bed-room, about eight o'clock in the 
 evening ; and he was dressed for the most part 
 in shabby corduroy, with a wisp of dirty black 
 silk round his neck. His man Jackson had 
 brought up from the kitchen some ashes for the 
 smearing of his hands and face. A cadger's 
 basket stood on the table hard by.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 
 
 A MORE ruffianly-looking vagabond than the 
 honourable member for BalUnascroon could not 
 have- been found within the area of London on 
 that warm June evening. And yet he seemed 
 fairly pleased with himself as he boldly took his 
 way across the Green Park. He balanced his 
 basket jauntily over the dirty sealskin cap. He 
 whistled as he went. 
 
 It was his third excursion of the sort ; and he 
 was getting to be quite familiar with his role. 
 In fact, he was not thinking at all at this mo- 
 ment of tramps' patter, or Covent Garden, or 
 anything connected^ with the lodging-house in 
 which he had already spent two nights. He 
 whistled to give himself courage in another di- 
 rection. Surely Jt was not for him, as a man of
 
 DE PEOFUNDIS. 173 
 
 the world, occupied with the serions duties of 
 life, andj above all, hard-headed and practical, 
 to be perturbed by the sentimental phantasy of 
 a girl. Was it not for her interest, as well as his 
 own, that he should firmly hold out ? A frank 
 exposition of their relations now would prevent 
 mistakes in the future — would, indeed, be the 
 truest kindness to her. And as he could not 
 undertake to play a Cupid's part, to become a 
 philanderer, to place a mysterious value on 
 moods and feelings which did not correspond 
 with the actual facts of life, was it not wiser that 
 he should plainly declare as much ? 
 
 And yet this scoundrelly-looking hawker de- 
 rived but little consolation from his gay whist- 
 ling. He could not but think of Lady Sylvia 
 as she wrote the letter now in his pocket ; and 
 in his inmost consciousness he knew what that 
 tender-hearted girl must have suffered in pen- 
 ning the cold, proud lines. She had none of his 
 pressing work in which to escape from the har- 
 assing pain of such a discussion. He guessed 
 that weary days and sleepless nights were the 
 result of such letters as that he now carried with
 
 174 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 him. But then, she was in the wrong. Disci- 
 pline was wholesome. So he continued his con- 
 tented trudge, and his whistling. 
 
 He crossed St. James's Park, passed through 
 Queen Anne's Grate, and finally plunged into 
 a labyrinth of narrow and squalid streets and 
 lanes with which he seemed sufficiently familiar. 
 It was not a pleasant quarter on this warm 
 night ; the air was close and foul ; many of 
 the inhabitants of the houses — loosely-dressed 
 women for the most part, who had retreating 
 foreheads, heavy jowls, and a loud laugh that 
 seemed scarcely human — had come out to sit 
 on the doorstep or the pavement. There were 
 not many men about. A few hulking youths 
 — bullet-headed, round-shouldered, in-kneed — 
 lounged about the doors of the public-houses, 
 addressing each other in the most hideous lan- 
 guage a propos of nothing. 
 
 The proprietor of the common lodging-house 
 stood at the entry in his shirt-sleeves. He took 
 no notice of Balfour except that, on his approach, 
 he went along the passage and unlocked a door, 
 admitted him, and shut the door again : this
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 175 
 
 door could not be re-opened on tlie other side, 
 so that there was no chance of a defaulter sneak- 
 ing off in the night without paying his four- 
 pence. Balfour went up-stairs. The doors of 
 the various rooms and tlie rickety little windows 
 were all wide open. The beds — of coarse ma- 
 terials, certainly, but clean— were all formally 
 made. There was not a human being in the 
 place. 
 
 He had a room to himself — about eight feet 
 square, with two beds in it. He placed his 
 basket on the bed ; and then went downstairs 
 again, and out into the back-yard. The only 
 occupant of the yard was a grizzled and feeble 
 old man, who was at this moment performing 
 his ablutions in the lavatory, w^hich consisted of 
 three pails of dirty water, standing on a bench 
 in an open shed. The man dried his face, 
 turned, and looked at Balfour with a pair of 
 keen and ferrety eyes, said nothing, and walked 
 off into the kitchen. Balfour was left in sole 
 occupation of the yard, with its surroundings 
 of tumbledown outhouses and dilapidated brick 
 walls ; he lit a pipe, and sate down on a bench.
 
 176 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 It was not a good time of the year for these 
 researches, the precise object of which he had 
 formerly explained to Lady Sylvia. The summer 
 weather draws tramps, hawkers, and other 
 branches of our nomadic population, into the 
 country, where they can cadge a bit for food, 
 and where, instead of having to pay for a bed in 
 a hot room, they can sleep comfortably enough 
 beneath an empty cart, or by a hedge-row, or 
 in a new drain-pipe. Nevertheless, a good many 
 strange people turned into this lodging-house of 
 a night; and Balfour, on his first appearance, 
 had rather ingratiated himself with them hy 
 pretending to have had a drop too much, and 
 insisting on standing beer all round. As he 
 muttered his determination to fight any man 
 who refused to drink with him — and as there 
 was a brawny and bony look about the build 
 of his shoulders — the various persons present 
 overcame their natural modesty, and drank 
 the beer. Thereafter the newcomer relapsed 
 into a gloomy silence; sate on a bench in a 
 corner which was hidden in shadow ; and doubt- 
 less most of his companions, as they proceeded
 
 DE PEOFUNDIS. 177 
 
 to talk on their experiences of unions, guardians, 
 magistrates, and the like — the aristocracy, of 
 course, preferring to talk of the money they had 
 made in bygone times, when their particular 
 trade or lay had not been overrun with com- 
 petition — imagined he was asleep. 
 
 On the following night he was well received ; 
 and now he entered a little more into conversa- 
 tion with them — his share in it being limited 
 to occasional questions. But there was one man 
 there who, from the very first, regarded him 
 with suspicion ; and he knew that from the way 
 in which this man followed him about with his 
 watchful eyes. This was an old man called 
 Fiddling Jack, who, with a green shade over 
 his eyes, went about Lambeth as a blind man, 
 accompanied by his daughter, a child of nine or 
 ten, who played the violin and collected the 
 coppers. Whether his care of the child was 
 parental or merely prudential, he always brought 
 her back to the lodging-house, and sent her to bed, 
 by nine o'clock ; the rest of the evening he spent 
 in the great kitchen, smoking a black clay pipe. 
 From the very first Balfour knew that this old 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 man suspected something; or was it tliat his 
 eyes, being guarded from the light all day, 
 seemed preternaturally keen when the green 
 shade was removed ? 
 
 But the man whom Balfour most feared was 
 another old man, who in former days had been 
 the owner of a large haberdashery business in 
 the King's Road, Chelsea ; and who had drank 
 himself do^^Ti until he now earned his living by 
 selling evening papers on one of the river piers. 
 His Jbrain, too, had given way ; he was now a 
 half-maudlin, amiable, harmless old man, whose 
 fine language and courteous manners had got 
 for him the title of " Mr." Now Mr. Sturt ex- 
 celled in conversation, and he spoke with great 
 propriety of phrase, so that again and again 
 Balfour found himself on the point of replying 
 to this old gentleman as he would have done to 
 a member of the House of Commons. In fact, 
 his only safeguard with respect to Mr. Sturt lay 
 in complete silence. 
 
 But indeed, on this third evening of his ex- 
 plorations, his heart was not in his work at all. 
 As he walked up and down the squalid yard —
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 179 
 
 occasionally noticing a new-comer come in — his 
 mind was filled, not with any social or political 
 problem, but with a great compunction and 
 yearning. He dared not take Lady Sylvia's 
 letter from his pocket ; but he tried to remem- 
 ber every word in it ; and he pondered over 
 this and the other phrase to see if it could not 
 somehowbe construed into an expression of affec- 
 tion. Then he began to compose his answer to 
 it; and that, he determined, would be a com- 
 plete abandonment of the position he had taken 
 up. After all, was not a great deal to be granted 
 to the woman one loved ? If she was unreason- 
 able, it was only the privilege of her sex. In 
 any case, he would argue no longer ; he would 
 try the effect of a frank and generous surrender. 
 Having come to this decision, which afforded 
 him great internal comfort, he bethought him- 
 self of his immediate task ; and accordingly he 
 walked into the kitchen, where a number of the 
 habitues had already assembled. An excess of 
 courtesy is not the order of the day in a common 
 lodging-house, and so he gave no greeting, and 
 received none. He sate down on a ricketty
 
 180 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 stool in a great, dusky den ; and while some of 
 the odd-looking folks were having their supper, 
 he lit another pipe. But he had not sate there 
 five minutes when he had formed a distinct 
 opinion that there was an alteration in the man- 
 ner of those people towards him. They looked 
 at him askance ; they had become silent since 
 the moment of his entrance. Moreover, the 
 new-comers, as they dropped in, regarded him 
 curiously, and invariably withdrew to the 
 further end of the big apartment. When they 
 spoke, it was amongst themselves, and in a low 
 voice. 
 
 So conscious did he in time become of all this 
 that he resolved he would not spoil the evening 
 of these poor folks ; he would go up to that 
 small room above. Doubtless some secret wish 
 to re-read Lady Sylvia's letter had some influ- 
 ence on this decision ; at any rate, he went out 
 into the yard, took a turn up and down with his 
 hands in his pockets; and then with apparent 
 carelessness went upstairs. He sate down on 
 the edge of the small and rude bed, and took 
 out the letter.
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 181 
 
 He not been there five minutes when a woman 
 rushed into the room, greatly excited. She was 
 a stalwart woman, with an immensely broad 
 bust, keen grey eyes, and a grey moustache, 
 that gave a truculent look to her face. 
 
 ^^For Grod's sake, get out o' this, sir! " she 
 said, hurriedly, but not loudly, ^^ the boys have 
 been drinking at the Blue Tun, and they're 
 coming down on you — look sharp, sir, never 
 mind the basket — run for it " 
 
 '^ But what's the matter, Mrs. Grace ? " said 
 he, stubbornly, refusing to rise; he could not 
 submit to the ignominy of running, without 
 knowing why. 
 
 ^^ It's all along o' that Fiddling Jack — by the 
 Lord, I'll pay him out ! " said the woman, with 
 an angry look. ^^He's been about saying you 
 was a buz-man " 
 
 '^ A what?" 
 
 '^ He says it was you got Billy Rowland a 
 lifer; and the boys are saying they'll do for 
 you this very night. Gret away now, sir — 
 it's no use talking to them — they've been 
 drinking."
 
 182 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ Look here, Mrs. Grace," said he, calmly, 
 as he removed a false bottom from the basket 
 beside him, and took out a six-chambered re- 
 volver, '^ I am a peaceable person ; but if there's 
 a row, I'll play ducks and drakes with some of 
 them." 
 
 ^^For God's sake, don't show them that, or 
 you're a dead man," said the woman. ^^Now, 
 sir, off you go." 
 
 He seemed in no great hurry ; but he put the 
 pistol into his breast-pocket, put on his cap, and 
 went downstairs. There was no sound at all — 
 no unusual excitement. He got the proprietor 
 to unlock the dividing-door, and went along the 
 passage. He called a good-night to Mrs. Grace. 
 
 But he had no sooner got to the street than 
 he was met by a great howl, like the roaring of 
 wild beasts ; and then he saw before him a con- 
 siderable crowd of people who had just come 
 along, and were drawing round the entrance in 
 a semi-circle. He certainly turned pale for a 
 moment, and stood still. It was only in a 
 confused sort of way that he perceived that 
 this hoarsely-murmuring crowd was composed
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 183 
 
 chiefly of 'women — viragoes with bare heads 
 and arms — and louts of lads about nineteen or 
 twenty. He could not distinguish their cries ; 
 he only knew that they were mingled taunts 
 and menaces. What to do he knew not ; while 
 to speak to this howling mass was on the face 
 of it useless. What was all this about ^^ Billy 
 Eowland," ^^ Scotland Yard/' ^^ Spy," ^^Buz- 
 man," and the rest ? 
 
 " What is it you want with me ? " he called 
 aloud ; but of what avail was his single voice 
 against those thousand angry cries ? 
 
 A stone was flung at him, and missed him. 
 He saw the big lout who threw it dodge back 
 into the crowd. 
 
 " You cowardly scoundrel," he shouted, mak- 
 ing an involuntary step forward, '' Come out 
 here and I'll fight you — I'll fight any one of 
 you — ah ! skulk behind the women, do ! " 
 
 At this moment he received a stinging blow 
 on the side of the head that sent him staggering 
 for a yard or two. A woman had crept up by 
 the side of the houses, and pitched a broken 
 piece of tile at him. Had she thrown it, it must
 
 184 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 have killed him ; as it was, it merely cut him, 
 so that instantaneously the side of his head and 
 neck were streaming with blood. 
 
 He recovered his footing ; the stinging pain 
 awoke all the Celtic ferocity in him ; he drew 
 out his revolver, and turned to the spot from 
 whence his unexpected assailant had attacked 
 him. There was one terrible moment of hesi- 
 tation. Had it been a man he would have shot 
 him dead. As it was, he paused; and then, 
 with a white face, he threw his revolver on the 
 pavement. 
 
 He did not quite know what happened next, 
 for he was faint from loss of blood, and giddy. 
 But this was what happened. The virago who 
 had pitched the piece of tile at him, as soon as 
 she saw the pistol lying on the pavement, uttered 
 a screech of joy, and sprang forward to seize it. 
 The next moment she received a crashing blow 
 on the jaw, which sent her reeling senseless into 
 the gutter ; and the next moment Mrs. Grace 
 had picked up the revolver, while with her other 
 hand she caught hold of Balfour as with the grip 
 of a vice, and dragged him into the passage.
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 185 
 
 ^^Run!" she said. "The door is open! 
 Through the yard — there is a chair at the wall 
 — don't stop till you're at the Abbey ! " 
 
 She stood at the narrow entrance, and barred 
 the way ; the great, brawny arm gripping the 
 revolver. 
 
 "'Swelp me," she shouted — and she knew 
 how to make herself heard — " 'Swelp me God, 
 if one of you stirs a foot nearer, there'll be mur- 
 der here this night. I mean it. My name's 
 Sal Grace ; and by the Lord there's six of you 
 dead if you lift a hand against me ! " 
 
 At the same moment, Balfour, though he felt 
 giddy, bewildered, and considerably weak about 
 the knees, had bolted down the back yard until 
 he came to the brick wall. Here he found a 
 ricketty cane-bottomed chair; and by its aid 
 he managed to clamber over. Now he was in 
 an open space of waste ground — it had just been 
 bought by the Government for some purpose or 
 other — and, so far as he could see, it was closely 
 fenced all round. At length, however, he de- 
 scried a hole in the paling that some children 
 had made; and through that he managed to
 
 186 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 squeeze himself. Presently lie was making 
 his way as fast as he could through a series of 
 slums; but his object was less to make straight 
 for the Abbey than to rout out the policemen 
 on his way, and send them back to the relief of 
 his valiant defender ; and this he most luckily 
 and successfully accomplished. He had man- 
 aged, too, during his flight, to partly mop up 
 the blood that had streamed from the wound in 
 his head. 
 
 Then he missed liis way somehow ; for other- 
 wise, a very few minutes running and walking 
 must have taken him either to the Abbey or the 
 Embankment; and now, as he felt faint, he 
 staggered into a public-house. 
 
 ^^ Well, my man, what's the matter with 
 you ? " said the burly publican, as he saw this 
 new-comer sink down on a bench. 
 
 ^' Some water — some brandy," said Balfour, 
 involuntarily putting his hand up to the side of 
 his head. 
 
 ^^Good Lord, youVe 'ad the worst of it, my 
 lad," said the publican — he was familiar with 
 the results of a free fight. ^^ Here, Jim, get a
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 187 
 
 pail o' water, and let this chap put his 'ead in 
 it. Don't you let that blood get on the floor, 
 my man." 
 
 The cool water applied to his head, and the 
 glass of brandy, vile as it was, that he drank, 
 pulled Balfour together. He rose, and the pub- 
 lican and the pot-boy were astonished to find 
 the difierence in the appearance of this coster's 
 face, produced by the pail of water. And when, 
 on leaving, he gave the pot-boy half-a-crown 
 for his attention, what were they to make of 
 it? • 
 
 By some means or other, he finally managed 
 to wander into Victoria Street ; and here, with 
 some difficulty, he persuaded a cabman to drive 
 him up to Piccadilly. He was secure himself, 
 and he had little fear for the safety of Mrs. Grace. 
 He knew the authority wielded over the neigh- 
 bourhood by that stalwart Amazon ; and in any 
 case he had sent her sufficient police aid. 
 
 He got his man to wash that ugly cut along 
 the side of his head before sending for a surgeon 
 to have it properly dressed. 
 
 ^^ Will you look at your letters, sir ? "
 
 188 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^No, not to-night," lie said, for he was feeling 
 tired. 
 
 But on second thoughts he fancied he might 
 as well run his eye over the envelopes. He 
 started on finding there was one from Lady 
 Sylvia. Had she then written immediately after 
 the despatch of her last ? 
 
 '^ Dearest Ilugh^''^ the girl wrote. ^^ It ivill he 
 when you please. I cannot hear quarrelling tvith 
 you. Your SylviaP 
 
 As" he read the simple words — ^he was weak 
 and feverish — his eyes became moist. This girl 
 loved him.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 
 
 The cut Balfour had received was merely a 
 flesh-wound, and not at all serious ; but of course 
 when Lady Sylvia heard of the adventure in 
 Westminster she knew that he must have been 
 nearly murdered, and she would go to him at 
 once, and her heart smote her sorely that she 
 should have been selfishly thinking of her own 
 plans and wishes when this noble champion of 
 the poor was adventuring his very life for the 
 public good. She knew better than to believe 
 the jibing account of the whole matter that 
 Balfour sent her. He was always misrepresent- 
 ing himself— playing the part of Mephistopheles 
 to his own Faust — anxious to escape even from 
 the loyal worship and admiration freely tendered 
 him by one loving heart.
 
 190 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 But when she insisted on at once going up 
 to London, her father demurred. At that mo- 
 ment he had literally not a five-pound note he 
 could lay his hands on ; and that private hotel 
 in Arlington Street was an expensive place. 
 
 ^^ Why not ask him to come down here for a 
 few days?'' Lord Willowby said. ^'Wouldn't 
 that be more sensible ? Give him two or three 
 days' rest and fresh air to recover him." 
 
 " He wouldn't come away just now, papa," 
 said Lady Sylvia, seriously. ^' He won't let 
 anything stand between him and his public 
 duties •" 
 
 ^^His public duties!" her father said, im- 
 patiently. '' His public fiddlesticks! What are 
 his public duties — ^to shoot out his tongue at 
 the very people who sent him into Parliament ! " 
 
 '' He has no duties to tliem^'^ she said, warmly. 
 '^ They don't deserve to be represented at all. 
 I hope at the next General Election he will go 
 to some other constituency. And if he does," 
 she added, with a flush coming to her cheeks, 
 '-^ I know one who will canvass for him." 
 
 ^^Go away, Sylvia," said her father, with a
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 191 
 
 smile, '' and write a line to the young man, 
 and tell him to come down here. He will be 
 glad enough. And what is this nonsense about 
 a house in this neighbourhood — don't you want 
 to see about that if you are going to get married 
 in August ? At the same time, I think you are 
 a couple of fools." 
 
 ^^ Why, papa?" she demanded, patiently. 
 
 *'To throw away money like that! What 
 more could you want than that house in Picca- 
 dilly? It could be made a charming little 
 place. And this nonsense about a cottage down 
 here — roses and lilies, I suppose, and a cuckoo- 
 clock and a dairy; you have no right to ask 
 any man to throw away his money like that." 
 
 Lord Willowby showed an unusual interest 
 in Mr. Balfour's affairs ; perhaps it was merely 
 because he knew how much better use he could 
 have made of this money that the young people 
 were going to squander. 
 
 ^^ It is his own wish, papa." 
 
 '' Who put it into his head ? " 
 
 '* And if I did ? " said Lady Sylvia, valiantly, 
 '^ don't you think there should be some retreat
 
 192 GREEN PASTURES AND PICC2VDILLY. 
 
 for a man harassed with the cares of public life ? 
 What rest could he get in Piccadilly ? Surely 
 it is no unusual thing for people to have a house 
 in the country as well as one in town ; and of 
 course there is no part of the country I could 
 like as much as this part. So you see you are 
 quite wrong, papa ; and I am quite right — as I 
 always am.'' 
 
 '^ Go away, and write your letter," said her 
 father. 
 
 Lady Sylvia went to her room, and sate 
 down to her desk. But before she wrote to 
 Balfour she had another letter to write, and 
 she seemed to be sorely puzzled about it. She 
 had never written to Mrs. Grace before; and 
 she did not know exactly how to apologise for 
 her presumption in addressing a stranger. Then 
 she wished to send Mrs. Grace a present ; and 
 the only thing she could think of was lace — for 
 lace was about the only worldly valuables which 
 Lady Sylvia possessed. All this was of her own 
 undertaking. Had she consulted her father, 
 he would have said, '' Write as you would to a 
 servant." Had she consulted Balfour, he would
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 193 
 
 have shouted with laughter at the notion of 
 presenting that domineering landlady of the 
 Westminster slums with a piece of real Va- 
 lenciennes. But Lady Sylvia set to work on 
 her own account ; and at length composed the 
 following message, out of the ingenuous sim- 
 plicity of her own small head: — ^^^ Willowby 
 Hall, Tuesday morning. My dear Mrs. Grace, 
 — I hope you will pardon the liberty I take in 
 sending you these few lines, but I have just 
 heard how nobly and bravely you rendered 
 assistance, at great risk to yourself, to Mr. Bal- 
 four, who is a particular friend of my father's 
 and mine, and I thought you would not be 
 offended if I wrote to say how very heartily 
 we thank you. And will you please accept 
 from us the accompanying little parcel ; it may 
 remind you occasionally that though we have 
 not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance 
 we are none the less most deeply grateful to 
 you. — I am, my dear Mrs. Grace, yours very 
 sincerely, Sylvia Blythe." 
 
 Little did Balfour know of the packet which 
 
 he forwarded to his valiant friend down in 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 GEEEN TASTUEES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Westminster; but Happiness Alley speedily 
 knew of it, and knows of it to tins day. For 
 at great times and seasons, when all tlie world 
 has gone out to see the Queen drive to the 
 opening of Parliament, or to look at the ruins 
 of the last great fire, or to welcome the poor 
 creatures set free by a gaol-delivery, and when 
 Mrs. Grace and her friends have got back to 
 the peace of their own homes, and when pipes 
 have been lit and jugs of ale placed on the 
 window-sill to cool, then with a great pride 
 and vain-glory a certain mahogany casket is 
 produced. And if the uses of a fichu are only 
 to be guessed at by Mrs. Grace and her friends, 
 and if the precise value of Valenciennes is un- 
 known to them, what matters ? It is enough 
 that all the world should know that this article 
 of attire was presented to Mrs. Grace by an 
 Earl and an Earl's daughter, in proof of which 
 the casket contains — and this Mrs. Grace re- 
 gards as the highest treasure of all — a letter 
 written in the lady's own hand. She does not 
 show the letter itself. She does not wish to 
 have it fingered about and dirtied. But at
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 195 
 
 tliese lii-gli times of festivity, when the lace is 
 taken out witk an awful and reverent care, the 
 envelope of the letter may at least be exhibited ; 
 and that is stamped with an earl's coronet. 
 
 In due time Balfour went down to Willowby, 
 and now at last it seemed as if all the troubles 
 and sorrows of these young people were over. 
 In the various glad preparations for the event 
 to wliich they both looked forward, a generous 
 unanimity of feeling prevailed. Each strove 
 to outdo tlie other in conciliation. And Lady 
 Sylvia's father smiled benignly on the pair, for 
 he had just borrowed £300 from Balfour to 
 meet some little pressing emergency. 
 
 It was a halcyon time indeed, for the year was 
 at its fullest and sweetest, and the member for 
 Ballinascroon was not hampered by the services 
 he rendered to his constituents. One brilhant 
 June day after another shone over the fair 
 Surrey landscapes ; beech, ash, and oak were 
 at their greenest ; the sunlight warmed up the 
 colours of the pink chestnut and the rose-red 
 hawthorn ; and sweet winds played about the 
 woods. They drove to picturesque spots in
 
 196 GREEN PASTUEES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 that line of hill that forms the backbone of 
 Surrey ; they made excursions to old-fashioned 
 little hamlets on the Thames; together they 
 rode over the wide commons, where the scent 
 of the gorse was strong in the air. Balfour 
 wondered no longer why Sylvia should love 
 this peaceful and secluded life. Under the 
 glamour of her presence, idleness became de- 
 lightful, for the first time in the existence of 
 this busy, eager, ambitious man. All his notions 
 of method, of accuracy, of common sense even, 
 he surrendered to this strange fascination. To 
 be unreasonable was a virtue in a woman, if it 
 was Lady Sylvia who was unreasonable. He 
 laughed with pleasure one evening when, in a 
 strenuous argument, she stated that seven times 
 seven were fifty-six. It would have been stupid 
 in a servant to have spilled the tea, but it was 
 pretty when Lady Sylvia's small wrist was the 
 cause of that mishajD. And when, with her 
 serious, timid eyes grown full of feeling, she 
 pleaded the cause of the poor sailor sent to sea 
 in rotten ships, he felt himself ready then to
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 197 
 
 go into the House and out-Plimsoll Plimsoll in 
 his enthusiasm on behalf of so good a cause. 
 
 It was not altogether love in idleness. They 
 had their occupations. First of all, she spent 
 nearly a whole week in town choosing wall- 
 colours, furniture, and pictures for that house 
 in Piccadilly, though it was with a great shyness 
 she went to the various places and expressed 
 her opinion. During that week she saw a good 
 deal more of London and of London life than 
 commonly came within her experience. For 
 one thing, she had the trembling delight of lis- 
 tening, from behind the grill, to Balfour making 
 a short speech in the House. It was a terrible 
 ordeal for her ; her heart throbbed with anxiety, 
 and she tore a pair of gloves into small pieces 
 unknowingly. But as she drove home, she con- 
 vinced herself, with a high exultation, that there 
 was no man in the House who looked so distin- 
 guished as that one, that the stamp of a great 
 statesman was visible in the square forehead 
 and in the firm mouth, and that if the House 
 knew as much as she knew, it would be more
 
 198 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 anxious to listen for those words of wisdom wliicli 
 were to save a nation. Balfour's speech was 
 merely a few remarks made in Conimittee. They 
 were not of great importance. But when, next 
 morning, she eagerly looked in the newspapers, 
 and found what he had said condensed into a 
 sentence, she was in a wild rage, and declared 
 to her father that public men were treated shame- 
 fully in this country. 
 
 That business of re-furnishing the house in 
 Piccadilly had been done perforce ; it was with 
 a far greater satisfaction that she set about 
 decorating and preparing a spacious cottage, 
 called The Lilacs, wliich was set in the midst 
 of a pretty garden, some three miles from Wil- 
 lowby Park. Here, indeed, was pleasant work 
 for her; and to her was entrusted the whole 
 management of the thing, in Balfour's necessary 
 absence in town. From day to day she rode 
 over to see how the workmen were getting on. 
 She sent up business-like reports to London. 
 And at last she gently hinted that he might 
 come down to see what had been done. 
 
 ^^Will you ride over, or drive?" said Lord
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 199 
 
 Wlllowby to his guest, after breakfast that 
 morning. 
 
 ^^ I am sm^e Mr. Balfour would rather walk, 
 papa," said Lady Sylvia, ^^ for I have discovered 
 a wliole series of short-cuts, that I want to show 
 him — across the fields. Unless it will tire you, 
 papa ? " 
 
 ^'It won't tire me at all," said Lord Willowby, 
 with great consideration, ^^for I am not going. 
 I have letters to write. But if you walk over, 
 you must send Lock to the cottage with the 
 horses, and ride back." 
 
 Although they were profoundly disappointed 
 that Lord Willowby could not accompany them, 
 they set out on their walk with an assumed 
 cheerfulness which seemed to conceal their in- 
 ward grief. It was July now; but the morning 
 was fresh and cool after the night's rain, and 
 there was a pleasant southerly breeze blowing 
 the fleecy clouds across the blue sky, so that 
 there was an abundance of light, motion, and 
 colour all around them. The elms were rustling 
 and swaying in the Park ; the rooks were caw- 
 ing ; in the distance they saw a cloud of yellow
 
 200 GEEEJT PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 smoke arise from the road as tlie fresh breeze 
 blew across. 
 
 She led him away by secret paths and wooded 
 lanes, with here and there a stile to cross, and 
 here and there a swinging gate to open. She 
 was anxious he should know intimately all the 
 surroundings of his future home ; and she seemed 
 to be familiar with the name of every farm-house, 
 every turnpike, every clump of trees in the 
 neighbourhood. She knew the various plants 
 in th« hedges; and he professed himself pro- 
 foundly interested in learning their names. 
 They crossed a bit of common now; he had 
 never known before how beautiful the flowers 
 of a common were — the pale lemon-coloured 
 hawkweed, the purple thyme, the orange and 
 crimson-tipped bird's-foot trefoil. They passed 
 through waving fields of rye ; he had never 
 noticed before the curious sheen of grey pro- 
 duced by the wind on those billows of green. 
 They came in sight of long undulations of wheat; 
 he vowed he had never seen in his life anything 
 so beautiful as the brilliant scarlet of the poppies 
 where the corn was scant. The happiness in
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 201 
 
 Lady Sylvia's face, when he expressed himself 
 delighted with all these things, was something 
 to see. 
 
 They came upon a gypsy encampment, ap- 
 parently deserted by all but the women and 
 children. One of the younger women immedi- 
 ately came out, and began the usual patter. 
 Would not the pretty lady have her fortune told? 
 She had many happy days in store for her ; but 
 she had a little temper of her own ; and so forth. 
 Lady Sylvia stood irresolute, bashful, rather in- 
 clined to submit to the ordeal for the amusement 
 of the thing, and looking doubtfully at her 
 comj)anion as to whether he would approve. As 
 for Balfour, he did not pay the slightest heed 
 to the poor woman's jargon. His eye had been 
 wandering over the encampment, apparently 
 examining everything. And then he turned to 
 the woman and began to question her, with a 
 directness that startled her out of her trade- 
 manner altogether. She answered him simply 
 and seriously, though it was not a very direful 
 tale she had to tell. When Balfour had got all 
 the information he wanted, he gave the woman
 
 ono 
 
 02 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 lialf-a-sovereign, and passed on with his com- 
 panion ; and of course Lady Sylvia said to her- 
 self that it was the abrupt sincerity, the force 
 of character, in this man that compelled sincerity 
 in others, and she was more than ever convinced 
 that the like of him was not to be found in the 
 world. 
 
 ^^ Well, Sylvia," said he, when they reached 
 The Lilacs, and had passed through the fragrant 
 garden, ^^you have really made it a charming 
 place. It is a place one might pass one's life 
 away in — reading books, smoking, dreaming 
 day-dreams." 
 
 '^I hope you will always find rest and quiet 
 in it," said she in a low voice. 
 
 It was a long, irregular, two-storied cottage, 
 with a verandah along the front ; and it was 
 pretty well smothered in white roses. There 
 was not much of a lawn ; for the ground facing 
 the French windows had mostly been cut up 
 into flower-beds — beds of turquoise-blue forget- 
 me-nots, of white and speckled clove-pinks that 
 sweetened all the air around, of various-hued 
 pansies, and of white and purple columbine.
 
 HAVEN AT LAST. 203 
 
 But the strong point of the cottage and the 
 garden was its roses. There were roses every- 
 w^here — rose-bushes in the various plots, rose- 
 trees covering the walls, roses in the tiny hall 
 into which they passed when the old housekeeper 
 made her a^^pearance. ^^ I'll tell you who ought 
 to live here, Sylvia," said her companion. 
 " That German fellow you were telling us about 
 who lives close by — Count von Rosen. I never 
 saw such roses in my life.'' 
 
 Little adornment indeed was needed to make 
 this retreat a sufficiently charming one ; but all 
 the same, Lady Sylvia had spent a vast amount 
 of care on it, and her companion was delighted 
 with the skill and grace in which the bare 
 materials of the furniture which he had only 
 seen in the London shops had been arranged. 
 As theyw^alked through the quaint little rooms, 
 they did not say much to each other ; for doubt- 
 less their minds were sufficiently busy in draw- 
 ing pictures of the happy life they hoped to 
 spend there. 
 
 Of course, all these nice things cost money. 
 Balfour had been for some time drawing upon
 
 204: GREEJT PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 Ills partners in a fashion wliicli rather astonished 
 those gentlemen ; for they had grown accus- 
 tomed to calculate on the extreme economy of 
 the young man. One morning the head clerk 
 in the firm of Balfour, Skinner, Green and Co., 
 in opening the letters, came upon one from Mr. 
 Hugh Balfour, in which that gentleman gave 
 formal notice that he would want a sum of 
 £50,000 in cash on the 1st of August. When 
 Mr. Skinner arrived, the head clerk put the letter 
 before him. He did not turn pale, nor did he 
 nervously break the paper-knife he held in his 
 hand. He only said '' Good Lord ! " and then 
 he added^ ^^ I suppose he must have it at any 
 cost." 
 
 It was in the second week in August that Mr. 
 Hugh Balfour, M.P. for Ballinascroon, was 
 married to Lady Sylvia Blythe, only daughter 
 of the Earl of Willowby, of Willowby Hall, 
 Surrey; and immediately after the marriage, 
 the happy pair started off to spend their honey- 
 moon in Germany.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FlVE-ACE JACK. 
 
 We will now let Mr. Balfour and liis young and 
 charming bride go off together on their wedding- 
 trip — a trip that ought to give tliem some slight 
 chance of becoming acquainted with each other, 
 though a certain profound philosopher, resident 
 in Surrey, would say that the glamour of im- 
 possible ideals was still veiling their eyes — and 
 we will turn, if you please, to a very different 
 sort of traveller, who just about the same time 
 was riding along a cattle-trail on the high-lying 
 and golden-yellow plains of Colorado. This 
 was Buckskin Charlie — so named from the suit 
 of grey buckskin which he wore, and which was 
 liberally adorned with loose fringes cut from the 
 leather. Indeed, there was a generally decora- 
 tive air about this herdsman and his accoutre-
 
 206 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ments, wliich gave liim a lialf-Mexican look, 
 tliough the bright sun-tanned complexion, the 
 long light brown hair, and the clear blue eyes 
 were not at all Mexican. There was a brass tip 
 to the high pommel in front of him, round which 
 a lasso was coiled. He wore huge wooden 
 stirrups which looked like sabots with the heels 
 cut out. The rowels of his spurs were an inch 
 and a half in diameter. And the wiry little 
 pony he rode had both mane and tail long and 
 flowing. 
 
 It is a pleasant enough morning for a ride, 
 for on these high-lying plains the air is cool and 
 exhilarating even in the glare of the sunshine. 
 The prospect around him is pleasant, too, though 
 Buckskin Charlie probably does not mind that 
 much. He has long ago got accustomed to the 
 immeasurable breadth of billowy prairie-land, 
 the low yellow-brown waves of which stretch 
 away out into the west until they meet with the 
 range of the Eocky Mountains — a wall of ethe- 
 real blue standing all along the western horizon, 
 here and there showing a patch of si lining white. 
 And he is familiar enough, too, with the only
 
 FIVE- ACE JACK. 207 
 
 living* objects visible — a herd of antelope quietly 
 grazing in the shadow of some distant and low- 
 lying bluifs ; an occasional chicken-hawk that 
 lifts its heavy and bespeckled wings and makes 
 away for the water in the nearest gully ; and 
 everywhere the friendly little prairie-dog, stand- 
 ing up on his hillock like a miniature kangaroo, 
 and coolly staring at him as he passes. Buck- 
 skin Charlie is not hungry, and therefore takes 
 no interest in natural history. 
 
 It is a long ride across the plains from Eagle 
 Creek ranch to New Minneapolis, but this im- 
 portant place is reached at last. It is a pretty 
 little hamlet of wooden cottages, with a brick 
 school-house, and a small clmrch of the like 
 material. It has a few cotton-wood trees about. 
 It is irrigated by a narrow canal which connects 
 with a tributary of the South Platte. 
 
 Buckskin Charlie rides u.^ to the chief shop 
 of this hamlet, and dismounts, leaving his pony 
 in charge of a lad. The shop is a sort of 
 general store, kept by one Ephraim J. Greek, 
 who is also, as a small sign indicates, a notary 
 public, conveyancer, and real estate agent.
 
 208 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 When Buckskin Charlie enters the store, Mr. 
 Greek— a short, red-faced, red-haired person, 
 who is generally addressed as Judge by his 
 neighbours — is in the act of weighing out some 
 sugar for a small girl who is at the counter. 
 
 ^^ Hello, Charlie," says the Judge, carelessly, 
 as he continues weighing out the sugar, ^' how's 
 things at the ranch ? And how is your health ? " 
 
 ^^I want you to come right along," says 
 Charlie, without further ceremony. ^^ The boss 
 is just real bad." 
 
 '' You don't say ! " 
 
 Charlie looks for a second or two at the Judge 
 getting the brown-paper bag, and then he says 
 impatiently — 
 
 '' He wants you to come right away, and he 
 won't stand no foolin — you bet." 
 
 But the Judge is not to be hurried. He asks 
 his small customer what else her mother wants, 
 and then he turns leisurely to the sun-tanned 
 messenger. 
 
 *^ Taint the fooist time, Charlie, the Colonel 
 has been bad like that. Oh, I know. I knowed 
 the Colonel before you ever set eyes on him —
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK. 209 
 
 yes, sir. I knowed him in Denver, when he 
 was on'y Five-Ace Jack. But now he's the 
 l)oss, and no mistake. Reckon he's doin' the 
 big Bonanza business, and none o' your pea-nut 
 
 consarns- 
 
 Here Buckskin Charlie broke in with a num- 
 ber of words which showed that lie was inti- 
 mately familiar with Scripture, and might have 
 led one to suppose that he meant to annihilate 
 the dilatory Judge, but which, as it turned out, 
 were only intended to emphasise his statement 
 that the Colonel had branded 1,800 calves at the 
 ranch last year, and had also got up 2,000 head 
 from Texas. By the time this piece of inform- 
 ation had been delivered and received, the 
 wants of the small girl in front of the counter 
 had been satisfied ; and then the Judge, having 
 gone out and borrowed a neighbour's pony, set 
 forth witli his impatient companion for Eagle 
 Creek ranch. 
 
 On tlie way they had a good deal of familiar 
 talk about the boss, or the Colonel, as he was 
 indifferently called ; and tlie Judge, now in a 
 friendly mood, told Buckskin Charlie some 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 tilings he did not know before about liis master. 
 Their conversation, however, was so saturated 
 with Biblical lore that it may be advisable to 
 give here a simpler and plainer history of the 
 owner of Eagle Creek ranch. To begin with, 
 lie was an Englishman. He was born in Cum- 
 berland, and as a young fellow achieved some 
 little notoriety as a wrestler ; in fact, that was 
 all the work his parents could get out of him. 
 It was in vain that they paid successive sums to 
 have him apprenticed to that business, or made 
 a partner in tliis ; Jack Sloane was simply a 
 ne'er-do-well, blessed with a splendid physique, 
 a high opinion of his own importance, and a 
 distinguished facility in wheedling people into 
 lending him money. Such was his position in 
 England when the rush to California occurred. 
 Here was Jack's opportunity. His mother wept 
 bitter tears when she parted with him ; but no- 
 body else was affected to the same extent. 
 ' As a gold-digger Jack was a failure, but he 
 soon managed to pick up an amazing knowledge 
 of certain games of cards, insomuch that his 
 combined luck and skill got for him the com-
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK. 211 
 
 pllmentaiy title of Five-Ace Jack. Whetlier he 
 made money or not at this jDrofession does not 
 appear, for at this point there is a gap in his 
 history. When liis relatives in England— 
 among whom, I regret to say, was a young 
 lady incidentally alluded to in the first chapter 
 of this story — next heard of liim, he was in 
 Texas, employed at a ranch there. No one 
 ever knew what had made the social atmo- 
 sphere of San Francisco rather too sultry for 
 Five- Ace Jack. 
 
 Then the Pike's Peak craze occurred — in 
 1859 ; and once again Jack was induced to 
 join the general rush. lie arrived at Denver 
 just as the bubble had burst. He found a huge 
 multitude of people grown mad with disap- 
 pointment, tlireatening to burn down the few 
 wooden shanties and canvas tents that then 
 constituted the town, and more especially to 
 hang incontinently an esteemed friend of the 
 present writer, who had just issued the first 
 numbers of the Bochj Mountain News, Then 
 the great crowd of bummers and loafers, not 
 finding the soil teeming with nuggets^ stam-
 
 212 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 peded off like a herd of buffaloj leaving a few 
 liardy and adventurous spirits to explore the 
 neighbouring canyons, and find out by hard 
 work whetlier or not gold existed there in pay- 
 ing quantities. Jack Sloane remained beliind 
 also — in Denver. He started what tvas called 
 a whiskey saloon in a tent, but what was really 
 a convenient little gambling-hell for those who 
 had grown reckless. Times grew better. Ru- 
 mours came down from the mountains that the 
 gulcli and placer mines, whicli had been opened, 
 were giving a fair yield ; here and there — as 
 for example in the Clear Creek canyon — a vein 
 of rotten quartz had been struck, containing free 
 gold in surprising richness. Now was Jack's 
 time. He opened a keno and faro bank in a 
 wooden sliant}^ ; and he cliarged only 10 per 
 cent, on the keno winnings. He was an adept 
 at euchre and poker, and was always willing to 
 lend a hand ; his chief peculiarity being that he 
 invariably cliose that side of the table whicli 
 enabled liim to face the door so that he might 
 not be taken unawares by an unfriendly shot. 
 He drove a rousing trade. The miners came
 
 FIVE- ACE JACK. 213 
 
 down from ^Hlie Rockies " with tlieir bags of 
 gold dust ready open to pay for a frolic ; and 
 Five-Ace Jack received a liberal percentage 
 from the three card-monte men who entertained 
 these innocent folks. Bat for a sad accident 
 Jack might have remained at Denver, and be- 
 come an exemplary member of society. He 
 might have married one of the young ladies of 
 accommodating manners who had even then 
 managed to wander out to that western town. 
 He and she might at the present moment have 
 been regarded as one of the twelve '^ Old 
 Families " of Denver, who, beginning for the 
 most part as he began, are now demonstrating 
 their respectability by building churches like 
 mad, and by giving balls which, in the favoured 
 language of the place, are described as ^^ quite 
 the toniest things going." But fortune had a 
 grudge against Jack. 
 
 There was an ill-favoured rascal called Bully 
 Bill, who was coming in from the plains one 
 day, when he found two Indians following him. 
 To shoot first, and then ask the Indians' inten- 
 tions afterwards, was the rule in these parts.
 
 214 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 and accordingly Bully Bill fired, bringing one 
 Indian down, the other riding off as hard as he 
 could go. The conqueror thought he would 
 have the scalp of his enemy, as a proof of his 
 valour ; but he was a bad hand at the business, 
 and as he was slowly endeavouring to get at 
 the trophy, he found that the other Indian had 
 mustered up courage and was coming back. 
 There was no time to lose. He simply hewed 
 the dead Indian's head off, jumped on his pony, 
 and, after an exciting chase, reached tlie town 
 in safety. Then he carried the head into Five- 
 Ace Jack's saloon, and as there were a few of 
 the boys there, ready for fun, they got up an 
 auction for that ghastly prize. It was knocked 
 down at no less a sum than 200 dollars — a price 
 whicli so fired the brain of Bully Bill that he 
 went in wildly for playing cards. But Five- 
 Ace Jack never j^layed cards wildly, and he 
 was of the party. He observed that not only 
 did Bully Bill lose steadily, but also that his 
 losses seemed to vex him much ; and, in fact, 
 just as the last of the 200 dollars were disap- 
 pearing, he was surprised and deeply pained to
 
 FIVE- ACE JACK. 215 
 
 find that Bully Bill was trying to cheat. This 
 touched Jack's conscience, and he remon- 
 strated ; whereupon there was a word or two ; 
 and then Jack drew his sliooter out and shot 
 Bully Bill through the head. They respectfully 
 placed the body on two chairs, and Jack called 
 for some drinks. 
 
 This incident ought to have caused no great 
 trouble ; for at that time there was no Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company — a troublesome 
 body, which has ere now imjDcached judge, 
 jury, and prisoner, all in a lump, for a con- 
 spiracy to defeat the ends of justice, when some 
 notorious offender has got off scot free. But 
 Bully Bill had three brothers up in the moun- 
 tains ; and Jack was of opinion that, if he re- 
 mained in Denver, his mind would be troubled 
 with many cares. However, he had amassed a 
 good deal of money in this gambling-hell of 
 his ; and so he was able to persuade a few of 
 his meaner dependents to strike their tents 
 along with him, and go out into the wilderness. 
 He wandered over the plains until he saw a 
 good place for a ranch — not a stock-raising
 
 216 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ranch, but a place to accommodate the droves 
 of pilgrims who were then slowly and labori- 
 ously making their way to the west. He built 
 his ranch about a hundred yards back from the 
 waggon-route ; and calmly awaited custom. 
 
 But even in these peaceful solitudes, if all 
 stories be true — and we in England heard no- 
 thing of Jack Sloane for many years — he did 
 not quite desist from his evil ways. Finding, 
 first of all, that many of the waggon-parties went 
 by wi-thout calling in at his ranch, he and his men 
 dug a large pit right across the route, so that the 
 drivers had perforce to turn aside and come right 
 up to his hostelry. Then he stationed a black- 
 smith a mile or two down the road, for the greater 
 convenience of the travellers, who were always 
 glad to have the feet of their mules and oxen 
 examined. It was very singular, however, that 
 between the blacksmith's shop and Jack's ranch, 
 so many of the animals should go lame ; but 
 what did that matter, when Jack was willing to 
 exchange a j)erfectly fresh team for the tired 
 team, a little consideration of monev belnir 
 added ? It Is true that the lame oxen became
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK. 217 
 
 rapidly well so soon as they were left in Jack's 
 possession ; but was not that all tlie more lucky 
 for the next comers, who were sure to find some- 
 thing wrong with their teams between the black- 
 smith's shop and Eagle Creek ranch ? 
 
 Another peculiarity of this part of the plains 
 was that the neighbourhood seemed to be infested 
 with Indians, who, whether they were Utes or 
 Arapahoes, showed a surprising knowledge as to 
 which waggon-trains were supplied with the most 
 valuable cattle, and never stampeded an indif- 
 ferent lot. These attacks were made at night ; 
 and doubtless the poor travellers, stunned by the 
 3^ ells of the red men and tlie firing of guns and 
 revolvers, were glad to escape with their lives. 
 But on one occasion, it is rumoured, an Indian 
 would appear to have been hurt, for he was 
 heard to exclaim, in a loud voice, '-'' Ilohj Jabers ! 
 Me fut ! 3Ie fut I " Neither the Utes nor the 
 Arapahoes, it was remembered, pronounce the 
 word "foot" in that fashion, even when they 
 happen to know English ; and so it came about 
 that, always after that, there w^ere ugly rumours 
 about Eaofle Creek ranch and the men who lived
 
 218 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 there. But not even the stoutest bull-whacker 
 who ever crossed the plains would dare to say a 
 word on this subject to Five- Ace Jack; he would 
 have had a bullet througli his head for his pains. 
 And now we take leave of '' Five-Ace Jack," 
 for in his subsequent history he appears as 
 ^'Colonel Sloane," 'Hhe Colonel," or ^'the boss." 
 As he grew more rich, he became more honest, 
 as has happened in the case of many worthy 
 people. His flocks and his herds increased. 
 He closed the ranch as a place of entertainment 
 — indeed, people were beginning now to talk of 
 all sorts of other overland routes ; but he made 
 it the centre of a vast stock-rearing farm, which 
 he superintended with great assiduity. He was 
 an imperious master with his herders — the physi- 
 cal force that was always ready to give effect to 
 his decisions was a weapon that stuck upright 
 in the south-east corner of his trousers ; but he 
 was a just master and paid his men punctually. 
 Moreover, bygones being bygones, he had made 
 an excursion or two up into '' the Eockies," and 
 had become possessed of one or two mines, whicli, 
 though they were now only paying working
 
 FIVE- ACE JACK. 219 
 
 expenses, promised well. Time flies fast in the 
 west ; people come and go rapidly. When Col- 
 onel Sloane stopped at the Grand Central of Den- 
 ver, and drank petroleum-champagne at four 
 dollars a bottle at that pretentious, dirty, and dis- 
 agreeable hostelry, there was no one to recognise 
 him as Five- Ace Jack. He was cleanly shaved ; 
 his linen was as brilliant as Chinese skill and 
 Colorado air could make it; he could have helped 
 to build a church with any of them. But some- 
 how he never cared to remain long within the 
 precincts of Denver ; he was either up at Idaho, 
 looking after liis mines, or out at the ranch, 
 looking after his herdsmen. 
 
 It was towards this ranch that Buckskin 
 Charlie and Judsre Greek were now ridinor, on 
 this cool, clear, beautiful morning. All around 
 them shone the golden-yellow prairie, an im- 
 measurable sea of grass and flowers; above 
 them shone the clear sky of Colorado, far away 
 on their right the world was enclosed by the 
 jDale, transparent blue of the long wall of moun- 
 tains. Eagle Creek ranch was a lonely -looking 
 place, as they neared it. The central portion
 
 220 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 of the buildings spoke of tlie times when tlie 
 Indians — the real Indians, not Five-Ace Jack 
 and his merry men — were in the liabit of scour- 
 ing the plains ; for it was a block-house, built 
 of heavy logs of pine. But from this initial 
 point branclied out all sorts of buildings and 
 enclosures — sheds, pens, stables, and what not, 
 some of them substantially erected, and otiiers 
 merely made of cotton- wood fence. Out there 
 they speak disrespectfully of cotton-wood, be- 
 cause of its habit of twisting itself into extraor- 
 dinary shapes. It is admitted, however, by the 
 settlers that this very habit defeats the most 
 perverse ingenuity on the part of a hog ; for the 
 hog, intending breaking away, fancies he has got 
 outside the fence, whereas, owing to the twisting 
 of the wood, he is still in the inside. 
 
 The Colonel lay in his bed, thinking neither 
 of his hogs nor of his pens, nor yet of his vast 
 herds of cattle roaming over the fenceless prairie- 
 land. The long, muscular, bony frame was 
 writhing in pain ; the black, dishevelled hair 
 was wet with perspiration ; the powerful hands 
 clutched and wruno; the coarse bed-clothing.
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK. 221 
 
 But tlie Colonel had all his wits about hnn ; and 
 wJien Mr. Greek, approaching him, began to 
 offer some expressions of sympathy, lie was bid- 
 den to mind his own business in language of 
 quite irrelevant force. Buckskin Charlie was 
 ordered to bring in his master's writing-desk, 
 which was the only polished piece of furniture 
 in the ranch. Then the Colonel, makino" a 
 powerful effort to control his writhings, pro- 
 ceeded to give his instructions. 
 
 He was not going to die yet, the Colonel said. 
 He had had these fits before. It was only a 
 tough antelope-steak, followed by a hard ride, 
 and a consuming thirst too hastily quenched. 
 But here he was, on his back; and as he had 
 nothing else to do, he wanted the Judge to put 
 down on paper his wishes and intentions with 
 regard to his property. The Colonel admitted 
 that he was a rich man. Himself could not tell 
 what head of cattle he owned. He had two 
 placer mines in the Clear Creek canyon ; and he 
 had been offered 12,000 dollars for the celebrated 
 Belle of St. Joe, up near George-town. He had 
 a house at Idaho Springs. He had a share in
 
 222 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 a bank at Denver. Now the Colonel, in short 
 and sharp sentences, interrupted by a good 
 deal of writhing and hard swearing, said he 
 would not leave a brass farthing — a red cent 
 was what he actually mentioned — to any of liis 
 relatives who had known him in England, for the 
 reason that they knew too much about him, 
 and would be only too glad that he was gone. 
 But there was a young girl who was a niece of 
 his. He doubted whetlier she had ever seen him ; 
 if ^slie had, it must have been when she was a 
 child. He had a photograph of her, however, 
 taken two or three years before, and she was a 
 good-looking lass. Well, he did not mind leav- 
 ing his property to her, under one or two con- 
 ditions. There he paused for a time. 
 
 Five- Ace Jack was a cunning person, and he 
 had brooded over this matter during many a 
 lonely ride over the plains. He did not want 
 his money to go amongst those relatives of his, 
 who doubtless — though they heard but little 
 about him — regarded him as a common scoun- 
 drel. But if he could get this pretty niece of his 
 to come out to the Far West with her husband,
 
 FIVE-ACE JACK. 223 
 
 might they not be induced to remain there, and 
 hold and retain that property that had cost the 
 owner so much trouble to pull together ? If they 
 disliked tlie rouglmess of the ranch, could any- 
 thing be more elegant than the white wooden 
 villa at Idaho, with its verandah and green 
 blinds ? Then he considered that it was a long 
 way for her to come. If she had children — and 
 she might have, for it was two or three years 
 since he heard she was married — the trouble 
 and anxiety of bringing them all the way from 
 England would dispose her to take a gloomy 
 view of the place. Surely it was not too hard a 
 condition that, in consideration of their getting 
 so large a property, this young Bell and her 
 husband should come out, free from encum- 
 brances of all sorts, to live one year in Colorado, 
 either at Idaho or at Eagle Creek ranch, just 
 as they chose ? 
 
 Both the Colonel and the Judge were bache- 
 lors ; and it did not occur to either of them, 
 when that condition was put down on paper, 
 that a young woman on this side of the water 
 could be so foolish as to get up with flashing
 
 224 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 eyes and say — as actually liappened in less than 
 a year afterwards — that not for all the cattle in 
 Colorado, and not for all the gold in the Rocky 
 Mountains^ and not for twenty times all the 
 diamonds that were ever gotten out of Golconda, 
 would she leave her poor, dear, darhng, defence- 
 less children for a whole year. Just as little did 
 they think, when this memorandum w^as finally 
 handed over to the Judge to be drawn out in 
 proper form, that any proceeding on the part of 
 Five-Ace Jack, ofEagle Creek ranch, could liave 
 the slightest possible influence on the fortunes 
 of Lady Sylvia Balfour. Jack was a Colorado 
 ranchman ; Lady Sylvia was the daughter of an 
 English earl.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Marriage is in legal phrase the ^^ highest con- 
 sideration ; " even the cold and unromantic eye 
 of the law perceives that the fact of a woman 
 giving herself up, body and soul, to a man, is 
 more than an equivalent for any sort of marriage- 
 settlement. But at no period of the world's his- 
 tory was it ever contemplated that a woman's 
 immediate duty, on becoming a wife, was forth- 
 with to efface her own individiialit}^ Now this 
 was what Lady Sylvia deliberately set about 
 doing, in the first flush of her wifely devotion. 
 As she had married the very source and fountain- 
 head of all earthly wisdom, what use was there 
 in her retaining opinions of her own ? Hence- 
 forth she was to have always at her side the 
 lawgiver, the arbiter, the infallible authority ; 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 slie would surrender to his keeping all her be- 
 liefs just as she implicitly surrendered her 
 trunks. She never thought twice about her new 
 dresses : what railway-guard could withstand 
 that terrible, commanding eye ? 
 
 Now, little has been said to the point in these 
 pages about Balfour, if it has not been shown 
 that he was a man of violent prejudices. Per- 
 haps he was not unlike other people in that re- 
 spect ; except in so far as he took little pains to 
 conceal his opinions. But if there was anything 
 likely to cure him of prejudices it was to see 
 them mimicked in the faithful and loving 
 mirror now always by his side ; for how could 
 he help laughing at the unintentional distor- 
 tions ? He had been a bitter opponent of the 
 Second Empire, while that bubble still glittered 
 in the political atmosphere ; but surely that 
 was no reason why Lady Sylvia should j^osi- 
 tively refuse to remain in Paris ? 
 
 ^^ Gracious goodness," said he, ^^have you 
 acquired a personal dislike for thirty millions of 
 people ? You may take my word for it, Sylvia, 
 that as all you are likely to know about the
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 227 
 
 French is by travelling among them, tliey are 
 the nicest people in the world, so far as that 
 goes. Look at the courtesy of the officials — 
 look at the trouble a working-man, or a peasant, 
 will take to put you in the right road. Believe 
 me, you may go further and fare worse. Wait, 
 for example, till you make your first plunge into 
 Germany. Wait till you see the Germans on 
 board a Rhine steamer — their manners to 
 strangers, their habits of eating " 
 
 *^And then?" she said, ^^am I to form my 
 opinion of the Germans from that ? Do foreign- 
 ers form their opinion of England by looking at 
 a steamer-load of people going to Margate ? " 
 
 " Sylvia/' said he, ^' I command you to love 
 the French." 
 
 ^^I won't," she said. 
 
 But this defiant disobedience was only the 
 curious result of a surrender of her own opinions. 
 She was prepared to dislike thirty millions of 
 human beings merely because he had expressed 
 detestation of Louis Napoleon. And when he 
 ended the argument with a laugh, the laugh 
 was not altogether against her. From that mo-
 
 228 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ment he determined to seize every opportunity 
 of pointing out to her the virtues of the French. 
 Of course it was very delightful to him to 
 have for his companion one who came quite 
 fresh to all those wonders of travel which lie 
 close around our own door. One does not often 
 meet nowadays with a young lady who has not 
 seen, for example, the Rhine under moonlight. 
 Lady Sylvia had never been out of England. 
 It seemed to her that she had crossed intermin- 
 able distances, and left her native country in a 
 different planet altogether, when she reached 
 Brussels, and she could not understand her hus- 
 band when he said that in the Rue Montague 
 de la Cour he had always the impression that 
 he had just stepped round the corner from 
 Regent Street. And she tried to imagine what 
 she would do in these remote places of the earth 
 if she were all by herself — without this self-re- 
 liant guide and champion, who seemed to care 
 no more for the awful and mysterious officials 
 about railway-stations and the entrances to 
 palaces than he would for the humble and 
 familiar English policeman. The great deeds
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 229 
 
 of cliivaliy were poor in her eyes compared 
 with the splendid battle waged by her husband 
 against extortion ; the field of Waterloo was 
 nearly witnessing another fearful scene of blood- 
 shed, all because of a couple of francs. Then 
 the Rhine, on the still moonlight night, from 
 the high balcony in Cologne, with the coloured 
 lights of the steamers moving to and fro — surely 
 it was he alone who was the creator of this 
 wonderful scene. That he was the creator of 
 some of her delight in it was probable enough. 
 Finall}^, they settled down in the little village 
 of Rolandseck ; and now, in this quiet retreat, 
 after the hurry and bustle of travelling was over 
 and gone, they were thrown more directly on 
 each other's society, and left to find out whether 
 they could find in the companionship of each 
 other a sufficient means of passing the time. 
 That, indeed, is the peril of the honeymoon 
 period, and it has been the origin of a fair 
 amount of mischief. You take a busy man away 
 from all his ordinary occupations, and you take 
 a young girl away from all her domestic and 
 other pursuits, while as yet neither knows very
 
 230 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 much about the other, and while they have no 
 common objects of interest — no busmess affah^s, 
 nor house affairs, nor children to talk about — • 
 and you expect them to amuse each other day 
 after day, and day after day. Conversation, in 
 such circumstances, is apt to dwindle down into 
 very small rills indeed, unless when it is feared 
 that silence may be construed into regret, and 
 then a forced effort is made to pump up the 
 waters. Moreover, Rolandseck, though one of 
 the most beautiful places in the world, is a place 
 in which one finds it desperately hard to pass 
 the time. There is the charming view, no 
 doubt, and the Balfours had corner rooms, 
 whence they could see, under the changing 
 lights of morning, of midday, of sunset, and 
 moonlight, the broad and rushing river, the 
 picturesque island, the wooded and craggy 
 heights, and the mystic range of the Drachen- 
 fels. But the days were still, sleepy, monoton- 
 ous. Balfour, seated in the garden just over 
 the river, would get the KolniscJie or the Allge- 
 meine^ and glance at the brief telegram headed 
 Grosshritianmen, which told all that was consi-
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 231 
 
 dered to be worth telling about his native 
 country. Or, together, they would clamber up 
 through the warm vineyards to the rocky heights 
 by Roland's Tower, and there let the dreamy 
 hours go by in watching the shadows cross the 
 blue mountains, in following the small steamers 
 and the greater rafts as they passed down the 
 stream, in listening to the tinkling of the cattle- 
 bells in the valley below. How many times a 
 day did Balfour cross over by the swinging 
 ferry to the small bathing-house on the other 
 side, and there plunge into the clear, cold, 
 rushing green waters? Somehow the days 
 passed. 
 
 And, on the whole, they passed pleasantly. 
 In England there was absolutely nothing going 
 on that could claim any one' s attention ; the first 
 absolute hush of the recess was unbroken even 
 by those wandering voices that, later on, mur- 
 mur of politics in unfrequented places. All the 
 world had gone idling ; if a certain young lady 
 had wished to assume at once the role she had 
 sketched out for herself — of becoming the solace 
 and comfort of the tired legislator — there was
 
 232 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 no chance for her in England at least. Perhaps, 
 on the whole, she was better occupied here in 
 learning something about the nature of the man 
 with whom she proposed to spend a lifetime. 
 And here, too, in these quiet solitudes, Balfour 
 occasionally abandoned his usual bantering 
 manner, and gave her glimpses of a deep under- 
 current of feeling, of the existence of which not 
 even his most intimate friends were aware. 
 When, as they walked alone in the still even- 
 ings, with the cool wind stirring the avenues of 
 walnut-trees, and the moonUght beginning to 
 touch the mists lying about Nonnenwerth and 
 over the river, he talked to her as he had never 
 talked to any human being before. And curi- 
 ously enough, when his love for this newly-found 
 companion sought some expression that would 
 satisfy himself, he found it in snatches of old 
 songs that his nurse, a Lowland Scotchwoman, 
 had sung to him in his childhood. He had 
 never read these lyrics. He knew nothing of 
 their literary value. It was only as echoes that 
 they came into his memory now ; and yet they 
 satisfied him in giving something of form to his
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 233 
 
 own fancies. He did not repeat them to lier ; 
 but as he walked with her, these old phrases, and 
 chance refrains, seemed to suggest themselves 
 quite naturally. Surely it was of her that this 
 was written ! — 
 
 O saw ye my wee thing, and saw ye my ain thing ^ 
 
 And saw ye my true love down on yon lea 'i 
 Crossed she the meadow yestreen at the gloaming, 
 
 Sought she the hurnie where flowers the haw-tree ? 
 Her hair it is lint-white, her skin it is milk-white. 
 
 Dark is the blue o' her saft rollin^ ee, 
 Hed, red her ripe lips and sweeter than roses, 
 
 Where could my wee thing wander frae me ? 
 
 Or this, again : 
 
 ITer boiver casement is latticed wV flowers. 
 
 Tied up wi siller thread, 
 And courtly sits she in the midst, 
 
 Men's langing eyes to feed. 
 She waves the ringlets frae her cheek 
 
 WV her milky, milky han* ; 
 And her cheeks seem touched wV the finger o' God, 
 
 My honnie Lady Ann ! 
 
 He forgot that he was in the Ehine-land — the 
 very cradle of lyrical romance. He did not 
 associate this fair companion with any book 
 whatever; the feelings that she stirred were
 
 234 GREEN PASTUEES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 deeper down than that, and they found expres- 
 sion in phrases that had years and years ago 
 become a part of his nature. He forgot all 
 about Uhland, Heine, and the rest of the sweet 
 and pathetic singers who have thrown a glamour 
 over the Rhine-valley ; it was the songs of his 
 boyhood that occurred to him. 
 
 Like dew on the goican lying 
 
 Is the fa' d her fairy feet J 
 
 And like winds in the summer sighing, 
 
 Her voice is low and sweet. 
 
 The lines are simple enough. Perhaps they are 
 even commonplace. But they sufficed. 
 
 It must be said, however, that Balfour was 
 the reverse of an effusive person ; and this 
 young wife very speedily discovered that his 
 bursts of tender confidences w^ere likely to be 
 few and far between. He was exceedingly 
 chary of using endearing phrases ; more espe- 
 cially if there was a third person present. 
 Now she had been used to elaborate and studied 
 expressions of affection. There was a good 
 deal of histrionics about Lord Willowby. He 
 got into violent rages with his servants about
 
 FIRST EXPZRIEXCES. 235 
 
 the merest trifles ; but these rages were as pre- 
 determined as those of the First Napoleon are 
 said to have been ; he fomid that it answered 
 his purpose to have his temper feared. On the 
 other hand, his affection for his daughter was 
 expressed on all occasions with profuse phrase- 
 ology — a phraseology that was a trifle mawkish 
 and artificial when heard by others, but which 
 was not so to the object of it. She had grown 
 accustomed to it. To her it was but natural 
 language. Doubtless she had been taught to 
 believe that all affection expressed itself in 
 that way. 
 
 Here, again, she tried to school herself. Con- 
 vinced — by these rare moments of self- disclosure 
 — that the love he bore her was the deepest and 
 strongest feeling of his nature, she would bo 
 content to do without continual protestation of 
 it. She would have no lip-service. Did not 
 reticence in such matters arise fi'om the feelin^: 
 that there were emotions and relations too sacred 
 to be continually flaunted before the public 
 gaze ? Was she to distrust the man who had 
 married her because he did not prate of his
 
 236 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 affection for her within the hearing of servants ? 
 The reasoning was admirable ; the sentiment 
 that prompted it altogether praiseworthy. But 
 before a yomig wife begins to efface her person- 
 ality in this fashion, she ought to make sure that 
 she has not much personality to speak of. Lady 
 Sylvia had a good deal. In these Surrey soli- 
 tudes, thrown greatly in on herself for com- 
 panionship, she had acquired a certain seri- 
 ousness of character. She had very definite 
 conceptions of the various duties of life ; she had 
 decided opinions on many points ; she had, like 
 other folks, a firmly-fixed prejudice or two. 
 For her to imagine that she could wipe out her 
 own individuality, as if it were a sum on a slate, 
 and inscribe in its stead a whole series of new 
 opinions, was mere folly. It was prompted by 
 the most generous of motives ; but it was folly 
 none the less. Obviously, too, it was a neces- 
 sary corollary of this effort at self-surrender, or 
 rather self-effacement, that her husband should 
 not be made aware of it ; she would be to him 
 not what she was, but what she thought slie 
 ought to be.
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 237 
 
 Hyper-subtleties of fancy and feeling? the 
 result of delicate rearing, a sensitive tempera- 
 ment, and a youth spent much in solitary self- 
 communion ? Perhaps they were ! but they 
 were real for all that. They were not afecta- 
 tions, but facts — facts involving as important 
 issues as the simpler feelings of less complex and 
 cultivated natures. To her they were so real, 
 so all-important, that the whole current of her 
 life was certain to be guided by them. 
 
 During this pleasant season, but one slight 
 cloud crossed the shining heaven of their new 
 life. They had received letters in the morning : 
 in the evening, as they sate at dinner, Lady 
 Sylvia suddenly said to her Imsband — with a 
 sort of childish happiness in her face — 
 
 ^^ Oh, Hugh, how delightful it must be to be 
 a very rich person. I am eagerly looking for- 
 ward to that first thousand pounds — it is a 
 whole thousand pounds all at once, is it not ? 
 Then you must put it in a bank for me, and let 
 me have a cheque-book.'' 
 
 ^^ I wonder what you will do with it," said 
 he. • ^^ I never could understand what women
 
 238 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 did witli tlieir private money. I suppose they 
 make a pretence of paying for their own dress 
 — but as a matter of fact they have every- 
 thing given them — jewellery, flowers, bonnets, 
 gloves " 
 
 ^^I know," said she, with a slight blush, 
 ^^ what I should like to do with my money." 
 
 '^ Well?" said he. Of course she had some 
 romantic notion in her head. She would open a 
 co-operative store for the benefit of the inhabit- 
 ants of Happiness Alley, and make Mrs. Grace 
 the superintendent. She would procure '' a day 
 in the country " for all the children in the slums 
 of Seven Dials. She would start a fund for 
 erecting a gold statue to Mr. Plimsoll. 
 
 ^' You know," said she, with an embarrassed 
 smile, ^Hhat papa is very poor, and I think 
 those business matters have been harassins^ him 
 more than ever of late. I am sure, Hugh, dear, 
 you are quite right about women not needing 
 money of their own — at least, I know I have 
 never felt the want of it much. And now don't 
 you think it would please poor papa if I were to 
 surprise him some morning with a cheque for a
 
 FIRST EXPERIENCES. 239 
 
 whole thousand pounds ! I should feel myself 
 a millionnaire.'' 
 
 He showed no surprise, or vexation. He 
 merely said, in a cold way — 
 
 *^ If it would please you, Sylvia, I see no ob- 
 jection." 
 
 But immediately after dinner he went out, 
 saying he meant to go for a walk to some village 
 on the other side of the Rhine — too distant for 
 her to go. He lit a cigar, and went down to 
 the ferry. The good-natured ferryman, who 
 knew Balfour well, said '^'n Abend, Herr." 
 Why should this sulky-browed man mutter in 
 reply, '' The swindliug old heathen ! " It was 
 quite certain that Balfour could not have referred 
 to the friendly ferryman. 
 
 He walked away along the dusty and silent 
 road, in the gathering twilight, puffing his cigar 
 fiercely. 
 
 ^^ At it already," he was saying to himself 
 bitterly. '^ He could not let a week pass. And 
 the child comes to me with her pretty ways, 
 and says, ' Oh, won't you pity this poor old 
 swindler ? ' And of course I am an impression-
 
 24:0 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 able young man; and in the first flusli of conjugal 
 gratitude and enthusiasm I will do whatever she 
 asks ; and so the letter comes within the very 
 first week ! By the Lord, I will stop that kind 
 of thing as soon as I get back to London ! " 
 
 He returned to the hotel about ten o'clock. 
 Lady Sylvia had gone to her room ; he went 
 there, and found her crying bitterly. And, as 
 she would not tell him why she was in such 
 grief, how could he be expected to know ? He 
 thought he had acted very generously in at once 
 acceding to her proposal ; and there could not 
 be the slightest doubt that the distance to that 
 particular village was much too great for her to 
 attempt.
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 At breakfast next morning', Lady Sylvia ap- 
 peared as cheerful as possible. She was quite 
 talkative; and was more charmed than ever 
 witli the beauties of the Ehine. No reference 
 was made to that little incident of tlie previous 
 evening. 
 
 She had been schooling herself as usual. Was 
 it not natural for him to show some resentment 
 at this foolisii school-girl notion of presenting a 
 £1000 bank-note to lier father? Her husband 
 could not be expected to share in lier romantic 
 notions. He was a man of the world. And 
 had lie not shown his generosity and unfailing 
 consideration in not only assenting to her pro- 
 posal, but in going off to conceal his natural 
 disapproval? Her woman's eyes had been too 
 quick ; that was all. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 On the other hand, Balfour, delighted to find 
 his young wife in such good spirits, could not 
 think of reviving a matter whicli might lead to 
 a quarrel. She might give her father the thou- 
 sand pounds, and welcome. Only he, Balfour, 
 would take very good care, as soon as he got 
 back to England, that that was the last appli- 
 cation of the kind. 
 
 Now the truth was, there had been no such 
 application. Lord Willowby had written to his 
 daughter, and she had received the letter ; but 
 there was not in it a single word referring to 
 money matters. A simjole inquiry, and a simple 
 explanation, would have prevented all this un- 
 pleasantness, which might leave traces behind 
 it. Why had not these been forthcoming ? 
 Wliy, indeed ! How many months before was 
 it that Balfour was urging his sweetheart to fix 
 an early day for their wedding, on the earnest 
 plea that marriage was the only guarantee 
 against misunderstandings? Only with mar- 
 riage came perfect confidence. Marriage was to 
 be the perpetual safeguard against the dangers 
 of separation, the interference of friends, the
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 243 
 
 miscliief wrought hj rumour. In short, mar- 
 riage was to bring about the millennium. That 
 is a belief that has got into the heads of a good 
 many young people besides Mr. Hugh Balfour 
 and Lady Sylvia Blythe. 
 
 But as they were now quite cheerful and 
 pleased with each other, what more was wanted ? 
 And it was a bright and beautiful day ; and soon 
 tlie steamer would be coming up the river to 
 take them on to Coblentz, that they might go 
 up the Moselle. As they stood on tlie small 
 woodQn pier, Lady Sylvia, looking abroad on 
 the beautiful panorama of crag, and island, and 
 river, said to her husband in a low voice — 
 
 '^ Shall we ever forget this place? And the 
 still days we spent here?" 
 
 *' I will give you this advice, S\'lvia," said 
 he. ^' If you want to remember Rolandseck, 
 don't keep any photograph of it in England. 
 That Avill only deaden and vulgarize the place ; 
 and you will gradually have the photograph 
 dispossessing your memory picture. Look, now, 
 and remember. Look at the colour of the 
 Khine, and the shadows under the trees of the
 
 244 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 island there, and the sunshine on those blue 
 mountains. Don't you think you will always 
 be able to remember?" 
 
 She did not look at all. She suddenly turned 
 away her head, for she did not wish him to see 
 that her eyes had filled. It was not the last 
 time she was to look at Rolandseck — or rather 
 at the beautiful picture that memory painted of 
 it — through the mist of tears. 
 
 ^^ Hillo ! " cried her husband, as they were 
 stepping on board the Kaiser Wilhelm^ ^^I'm 
 hanged if there isn't Billy Bolitho ! " 
 
 ^^ Who is he?" said she, timidly; her first 
 impulse was to shrink from meeting any 
 stranger. 
 
 ^^ Oh, the best fellow in the world!" said 
 Balfour, who appeared to be greatly pleased. 
 He is a Parliamentary agent. Now you will 
 hear all that's been going on. Bolitho knows 
 everybody and everything; and besides, he 
 is tlie best of fellows himself." 
 
 Mr. Bolitho, with much discretion, did his 
 utmost to avoid running against these two 
 young people ; but that was of no use. Balfour
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 245 
 
 hunted him up, and brought him along to intro- 
 duce him to Lady Sylvia. He was an elderly 
 gentleman, with silvery white whiskers, a bland 
 and benevolent face, and remarkably shrewd 
 and humorous eyes. He was very respectful to 
 Lady Sylvia. He remarked to her that he had 
 the pleasure of knowing her father ; as Balfour 
 put in, it would have been hard to find any one 
 whom Mr. Bolitho did not know. 
 
 And how strange it was, after these still days 
 in the solitude by the Rhine, to plunge back 
 again. into English politics! The times were 
 quiet enough in England itself just at the mo- 
 ment ; but great events had recently been hap- 
 pening, and these afforded plenty of matter for 
 eager discussion and speculation. Lady Sylvia 
 listened intently ; was it not part of her educa- 
 tion ? She heard their guesses as to the political 
 future. Would the Prime Minister be forced to 
 dissolve before the Spring? Or would he not 
 wait to see the effect on the country of the recon- 
 struction of the Cabinet, and appear in Feb- 
 ruary with a fascinating Budget, which would 
 charm all men's hearts, and pave the way for a
 
 246 GKEEN PASTUEES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 triumphant majority at the General Election? 
 All this she could follow pretty well. She was 
 puzzled when they spoke of the alleged neces- 
 sity of the Prime Minister seeking re-election 
 on assuming the office of Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer; and she did not quite know what 
 League it was that was likely to oppose — accord- 
 ing to rumour — the re-election at Birmingham 
 of a statesman who had just been taken into the 
 Cabinet. But all this about the chances of a 
 dissolution she could understand pretty well ; 
 and was it not of sufficient interest to her, con- 
 sidering that her husband's seat in the House 
 was in peril ? 
 
 But when they got into the personnel of politics 
 she was lost altogether. There were rumours 
 of a still further reconstruction of the Ministry ; 
 and the chances of appointments falling to such 
 and such people brought out such a host of 
 details about the position of various men whose 
 names even were unknown to her that she got 
 not a little bewildered. And surely this garrul- 
 ous, bland old gentleman talked with a dread- 
 ful cynicism about public affairs — or rather
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 247 
 
 about the men engaged in them. And was not 
 his talk affecting her husband too ? Was it true 
 that these were the real objects which caused this 
 man to pose as a philanthropist and the other to 
 preside at religious meetings ? She began to find 
 less and less humour in these remarks of Mr. 
 Bolitho. She would like to have carried her hus- 
 band away from the sphere of his evil influence. 
 
 ^'I suppose now, Balfour/' said he, '^ you 
 have been taking a look round ? You know, of 
 course, that Ballinascroon will make short work 
 of you ? " 
 
 '^ Yes, I know that," said the other. 
 
 ^^Well," said Mr. Bolitho, ^' they say we 
 shan't know what the Government mean to do 
 until Bright's speech in October. I have a 
 suspicion that something besides that will hap- 
 pen in October. They may fancy a bold chal- 
 lenge would tell. Now, suppose there was a 
 dissolution, where would you be ? " 
 
 ^^ Flying all over the country, I suppose — 
 Evesham, Shoreham, Woodstock, Harwich, any- 
 where — seeing where I could get some rest for 
 the sole of my foot."
 
 248 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ If I were you," said Mr. Bolitho, ^^ I would 
 not trust to a postponement of the dissolution 
 till the Spring. I would take my measures now." 
 
 ^^Very well, but where? Come, Bolitho, 
 put me on to a good thing. I know you have 
 always half-a-dozen boroughs in your pocket." 
 
 ^^Well," said Mr. Bolitho to Lady Sylvia, 
 with a cheerful smile, ^^ your husband wishes 
 to make me out a person of some importance, 
 doesn't he ? But it is really an odd coincidence 
 that I should run across him to-day ; for as it 
 happens, I am going on to Mainz to see Eugy 
 Chorley, and that is a man of whom you might 
 fairly say that he carries a borough in his 
 pocket — Englebury." 
 
 ^^ That's old Harnden's place — what a shame 
 it would be to try to oust the old fellow ! " said 
 Balfour. 
 
 ^^ Oh, he is good for nothing ! " said Mr. Bo- 
 litho, gaily. ^^ He ought to be in a bath-chair, 
 at Brighton. Besides, he is very unpopular; 
 he has been spending no money lately. And 
 I suppose you have got to oust somebody some- 
 where if you mean to sit in the House."
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 249 
 
 ^^But what are his politics?" said Lady 
 Sylvia, to this political pagan. 
 
 *^0h, nothing in particular! Formerly, if 
 there was a free fight going on anywhere, he 
 was sure to be in it — though you never could 
 tell on which side. Now he limits himself to an 
 occasional growl." 
 
 *^And you would have my husband try to 
 turn out this poor old gentleman?" said Lady 
 Sylvia, with some indignation. 
 
 ^^ Why not ? " said Mr. Bolitho, with a charm- 
 ing smile. ^^How many men has Harnden 
 turned out in his time, I wonder ! Now, Lady 
 Sylvia, you could be of great use to your hus- 
 band if you and he would only come straight 
 on with me to Mainz. Mr. Chorley and his 
 
 wife are at the Hotel. He is a solicitor at 
 
 Englebury — he is the great man there — does 
 all the parochial business — is a friend of the 
 Duke's — in short, he can do what he likes at 
 Englebury. Your husband would have to con- 
 ciliate him, you know, by putting a little busi- 
 ness in his way — buying a few farms or houses 
 on speculation and selling them again. Or stay,
 
 250 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 tills is better. Eugy wants to sell a few acres 
 of land he himself has. I believe he stole the 
 piece from the side of an out-of-the-way common 
 — first had a ditch cut for drainage, then put 
 up a few posts, then a wire to keep children 
 from tumbling in, then, a couple of years after, 
 he boldly ran a fence round and cleared the place 
 inside. I suppose no one dared to interfere with 
 a man who had the private affairs of every one 
 in the parish in his hands. Well, I think Mr. 
 Chqrley, when he sees all this fuss going on 
 about enclosures, sometimes gets uneasy. Now 
 your husband might buy this land of him." 
 
 ^' For what purpose, pray ? " demanded Lady 
 Sylvia, with some dignity. '^ Do I understand 
 you that this land was stolen from the poor 
 people of the village ? " 
 
 '^ Yes," said Mr. Bolitho, coolly. ^' And your 
 husband could give it back to them — make a 
 public green of it, and put up a gymnasium. 
 That would have to be done after the election, 
 of course." 
 
 '^ And how do you propose that I should aid 
 my husband?" asked Lady Sylvia. Balfour,
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 251 
 
 who was listening in silent amusement, could 
 not understand why she grew more and more 
 chill in her demeanour. 
 
 ^^ Oh," said Mr. Bolitho, with a shrewd smile, 
 *^you will have to conciliate Mrs. Chorley, who 
 is much the more terrible person of the two. I 
 am afraid. Lady Sylvia, you don't know much 
 about politics." 
 
 ^^ No," said Lady Sylvia, coldly. 
 
 ^^ Of course not — not to be expected. She 
 won't be hard in her catechising. But there 
 are one or two points she is rather fierce about. 
 You will have to let the English Church go." 
 
 '' To let the English Church go ? " said Lady 
 Sylvia, doubtfully. 
 
 ^^ I mean as a political institution." 
 
 ^^But it is not a political institution," said 
 Lady Sylvia, firmly. 
 
 '^ I mean as a political question, then," said 
 Mr. Bolitho, blandly. 'Tray don't imagine 
 that I am in favour of disestablishment. Lady 
 Sylvia. It is not my business to have any 
 opinions. I dare not belong either to the Re- 
 form or to the Carlton. I was merely pointing
 
 252 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 out that if Mrs. Chorley speaks about disestab- 
 lishment, it would not be worth your while to 
 express any decided view, supposing you were 
 not inclined to agree with her. That is all. 
 You see, Mrs. Chorley is the daughter of the 
 great Quakeress, Mrs. Dew — of course you have 
 heard of her ? — " 
 
 '' No, I have not," said Lady Sylvia. 
 
 ^^Dear me! Before your time, I suppose. 
 But she was a delightful old woman — the dear- 
 est^ little old lady ! How well I remember her ! 
 She used to live in Bloomsbury Square, and she 
 had supper-parties every Tuesday and Friday 
 evenings ; it is five-and-thirty years ago since I 
 went to those parties. Mrs. Dew was a widow, 
 you know, and she presided at the table ; and 
 when supper was over she used to get up and 
 propose a series of toasts in the most delightful 
 prim and precise manner. She was a great 
 politician, you must understand. And many 
 men used to come there of an evening who be- 
 came very celebrated persons afterwards. Dear 
 me, it's a long time since then! But I shall 
 never forget the little woman standing up with
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 253 
 
 a glass of toast-and-water in her hand — she did 
 not drink wine — and giving the health of some 
 distinguished guest, or begging them to drink 
 to the success of a Bill before the House ; and 
 we always drank her health before we left, and 
 she used to give us such a pretty little old- 
 fashioned curtsey. Mrs. Chorley," added Mr. 
 Bolithoj with a grim smile, '^is not quite such 
 another." 
 
 '^ But do you mean,'' said Lady Sylvia, with 
 some precision, ^Hhat because Mrs. Chorley is 
 the daughter of a Quakeress, I am to pretend 
 to wish for tlie destruction of the Church of 
 England — my own Church ? " 
 
 '' My dear Lady Sylvia ! " cried Mr. Bolitho., 
 with a sort of paternal familiarity, '^you must 
 not put it in that way." 
 
 But here Balfour interposed, for he perceived 
 that she was becoming a trifle warm ; and a 
 young husband is anxious that his wife should 
 acquit herself well before his friends. 
 
 ^' Look here, Sylvia," he said, good-humour- 
 edly. ''' I suppose neither you nor I have any 
 very keen personal interest in that question.
 
 25^ GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 No doubt the Church of England will be dis- 
 establislied in time, and before that time comes 
 it will be w^ell to prepare for the change, so that 
 it may be effected with as little harm and as 
 little harshness as possible. But tlie severance 
 of the connection between Church and State 
 has nothing to do with the destruction of the 
 Church ; it is a political question ; and if Mrs. 
 Chorley or anybody else is so constituted as to 
 take a frantic interest in sucli a thing, why 
 sliould any other person goad her by contra- 
 diction ? The opinions of Mrs. Chorley won't 
 shift the axis of the earth." 
 
 ''You mistake me altogetlier, Hugh," said 
 Lad)^ Sylvia. '^I have not the slightest inten- 
 tion of entering into any discussion on any 
 topic wdiatsoever with Mrs. Chorley." 
 
 Of course not. She already regarded Mrs. 
 Chorley, and all her views and opinions, no 
 matter what they were, with a sovereign con- 
 tempt. For was it not this unholy alliance 
 into wdiich her husband seemed inclined to 
 enter, that was the cause of his speaking in 
 a slighting, indifferent manner about subjects
 
 A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 255 
 
 wbicli ought to have been of supreme import- 
 ance to him? And the cheerful and friendly 
 face of Mr. Bolitho pleased her no longer. 
 
 ^^Are we going on to Mainz, then?'' she 
 asked of her husband. 
 
 ^^ I think we might as well," said he. ^^ There 
 can be no harm in seeing this potentate, at all 
 events. And we can go up the Moselle another 
 time." 
 
 So he abandoned, at a moment's notice, that 
 voyage up the beautiful river to which she had 
 been looking forward for many a day, merely 
 that he should go on to see whether he could 
 bribe a solicitor into betraying a constituency. 
 She knew that her noble husband could never 
 have done tliis but under the malign influence 
 of this godless old man, whose only notion of 
 the British Constitution was that it offered him 
 the means of earning a discreditable livelihood. 
 And she, too, was to take her part in the con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 ^' You know, Lady Sylvia," said Mr. Bolitho, 
 with a pleasant smile, ^Hhere is one thing will 
 conciliate Mrs. Chorley more than your agree-
 
 256 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ing with lier about politics ; and that is the fact 
 that you are your father's daugliter." 
 
 She did not quite understand at first. Then 
 it dawned upon her that they hoped to bring 
 Mrs. Chorley into a friendly mood by intro- 
 ducing that political termagant to the daughter 
 of an earl. Lady Sylvia, who had retired into 
 her guide-book, and w^ould listen no more to 
 their jargon of politics, resolved that that in- 
 troduction w^ould be of such a nature as Mrs. 
 Chorley had never experienced before, in the 
 whole course of her miserable, despicable and 
 ignominious life.
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 
 
 It was late when tliey arrived at Mainz, and 
 there was some little delay about getting supper 
 ready, because, a quarter of an hour after it 
 was ordered, they heard the squealing of a 
 young cock outside, that being the animal 
 destined for their repast. Moreover, when the 
 fowl appeared, he turned out to be a tough 
 little beast, only half cooked ; so they sent him 
 away, and had something else. For convenience' 
 sake they supped in the great, gaunt, empty 
 Speise-saal. It was about ten o'clock when 
 they went up to the sitting-room on the first 
 floor which they had reserved. 
 
 There was thus plenty of time for Lady 
 Sylvia to have got over the first fierce feeling 
 of wrath against Mr. and Mrs. Chorley, which 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 had been begotten by the cynicism of Mr. 
 Eolith o and the in difference of her husband. 
 Surely those large and tender blue-grey eyes — 
 which her husband now thought had more than 
 ever of the beautiful liquid lustre that had 
 charmed him in the days of her sweet maiden- 
 hood — were never meant as the haunt of an 
 incontroUable rage ? And indeed when Mr. 
 and Mrs. Chorley, who had been wandering 
 about the tovni on foot, were brought up to the 
 apartment at that late hour of the night by Mr. 
 Bolitho, and introduced to Mr. and Lady Sylvia 
 Balfour, there was nothing hideous or repellant 
 about the political Gorgon, nothing calculated 
 to awaken dismay or disgust. On the contrary, 
 Mrs. Chorley, who was a tall, motherly-looking 
 woman, with a fresh-coloured face, grey hair, 
 thin and decided lips, and blue eyes that stared 
 at one over her silver spectacles, was more than 
 friendly with the young girl. She was almost 
 obsequious. She was sure Lady Sylvia must 
 be so tired ; would not Lady Sylvia have a cup 
 of tea now? she would be so pleased if she 
 could do anything for Lady Sylvia. Lady
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 259 
 
 Sylvia sat proud and cold. She did not like 
 to be fawned upon. She was listening, in in- 
 dignant silence, for the first efforts of her hus- 
 band and Mr. Bolitho to cajole this mercenary- 
 solicitor into iGetraying an English constituency. 
 One thing she might have been sure of — that 
 her husband would not be guilty of any tricks 
 of flattery or hypocrisy to gain his end. His 
 faults lay all the other way — in a bluntness 
 and directness that took too small account of 
 the sensitiveness of other people. And on this 
 evening he was in very good spirits, and at 
 once attacked Mr. Eugenius Chorley with a 
 sort of gay and friendly audacity. Now Mr. 
 Chorley was a little, dapper, horsey-looking 
 man, with shrewd, small eyes, a face wrinkled 
 and red as a French rennet, accurately clipped 
 whiskers, and a somewhat gorgeous necktie 
 with a horse-shoe in emeralds in it. He was 
 shrewd, quick, and clever; but he was also 
 very respectable and formal; and he disliked 
 and distrusted jokes. When Balfour gaily asked 
 him what price Englebury put upon itself, he 
 only stared.
 
 260 GEEEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 ^^ My friend Bolitho," continued Balfour, with 
 a careless smile, ^^ tells me you've got some land 
 there, Mr. Chorley, of no particular use to you. 
 If I were to buy that, and turn it into a public 
 garden, wouldn't the inhabitants of Englebury 
 be vastly grateful to me ? " 
 
 Here Mr. Bolitho struck in, very red in the 
 face. 
 
 '^ Of course you understand, Chorley, that is 
 mere nonsense — we were having a joke about 
 it on the steamer. But really now, you know, 
 we may have a General Election in October; 
 and Mr. Balfour is naturally anxious to fix on 
 some borough where he may have a reasonable 
 chance, as Ballinascroon is sure to bid him good- 
 bye ; and I have heard rumours that old Harnden 
 was likely to retire. You, as the most important 
 man in the borough, would naturally have great 
 influence in selecting a candidate." 
 
 It was a broad hint — a much franker exposi- 
 tion of the situation than Mr. Bolitho at all 
 liked; but then the reckless audacity of this 
 young man had compromised him. 
 
 ^' I see," said the small, pink-faced solicitor,
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 261 
 
 with his hands clasping his knee ; and then he 
 added gravely — indeed, solemnly — ^^You are 
 doubtless aware, Mr. Balfour, that your ex- 
 pressed intention of giving the inhabitants a 
 public garden would become a serious matter 
 for you in the event of there being a peti- 
 tion?" 
 
 ^^ Oh," said Balfour, with a laugh, ^*I shan't 
 express any intention ! You would never think 
 of repeating a private chat we had one evening 
 by the Khine. The people of Englebury would 
 know nothing about it till long after the election 
 - — it would only be a reward for their virtuous 
 conduct in returning so admirable a representa- 
 tive as myself." 
 
 Mr. Chorley did not like this fashion of 
 treating so serious a matter; in the conduct 
 of the public affairs of Englebury he was ac- 
 customed to much recondite diplomacy, caucus 
 meetings, private influence, and a befitting 
 gravity. 
 
 ^' There is a number of our people," said he 
 cautiously, ^' dissatisfied with Mr. 'Arnden." 
 
 '^ Parliament really wants some fresh blood
 
 262 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 in it," urged Mr. Bolitho, wlio would have [been 
 glad to see a General Election every three 
 months ; for his Parliamentary agency was not 
 at all confined to looking after the passage of 
 private Bills. 
 
 '' And his connection with Macleary has done 
 him harm," Mr. Chorley again admitted. 
 
 "Oh, that fellow!" cried Balfour. "Well, 
 I don't think a man is responsible for the sins 
 of his brother-in-law ; and old Harnden is an 
 honest and straightforward old fellow. But 
 Macleary! I know for a fact that he received 
 £120 in hard cash for talking out a Bill on a 
 Wednesday near the end of this very Session ; 
 let him charge me with libel, and I will prove 
 it. Thank goodness, I am free in that respect. 
 I am not hampered by having a blackguard for 
 a brother-in-law " 
 
 He stopped suddenly ; and Lady Sylvia, look- 
 ing up, was surprised by the expression of his 
 face, in which a temporary embarrassment was 
 blended with a certain angry frown. He hurried 
 on to say something else ; she sate and wondered. 
 What could he mean by this allusion to a
 
 THE CONSPIKATORS. 263 
 
 brotlier-iii-law ? He had no brotlier-in-law at 
 all. She was recalled from these bewildered 
 guesses by the assiduous attentions of Mrs. 
 Chorley, who was telling Lady Sylvia about 
 all the beautiful places which she must visit, 
 although Lady Sylvia treated these attentions 
 with but scant courtesy, and seemed much 
 more deeply interested in this electioneering 
 plot. 
 
 For it was as a plot that she distinctly re- 
 garded this proposal ; and she was certain that 
 her husband would never have been drawn into 
 it but for the evil influence of this worldling, 
 this wily serpent, this jester. And what was 
 this that they were saying now ? — tliat Engle- 
 bury had no politics at all; that it was all a 
 matter of personal preference ; that the dis- 
 senters in that remote and rustic Paradise had 
 not even thought of raising the cry of disestab- 
 lishment; and that Balfour, if he resolved to 
 contest the seat, would have a fair chance of 
 success. Balfour had grown a trifle more serious, 
 and was making inquiries. It appeared that 
 Mr. Chorley was not much moved by political
 
 264 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 questions ; his wife was a dissenter, but lie was 
 not. Very probably Mr. Harnden would resign. 
 And the only probable rival whom Balfour 
 would in that case encounter was a certain 
 Reginald Key, who was a native of the place, 
 and had once represented a neighbouring bo- 
 rough. 
 
 ^^ Confound that fellow," said Mr. Bolitho; 
 *' is he back in England again ? It does not 
 matter which party is in power, they can't get 
 him killed. They've sent him, time after time, 
 to places that invalid every Englishman in a 
 couple of years ; and the worse the place is the 
 better he thrives — comes back smiling, and 
 threatens to get into Parliament again if they 
 don't give him a better appointment. What a 
 nuisance he used to be in the House ! But 
 certainly the feeblest thing I ever knew done 
 by a Liberal Government was their sending 
 him out to the Gold Coast — as if twenty Gold 
 Coasts could kill that fellow! Don't you be 
 afraid of him, Balfour. The Government will 
 get him out of the way somehow. If they 
 can't kill him, they will at least pack him out
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 265 
 
 of England. So you think, Chorley, that our 
 friend here has a chance ? " 
 
 Mr. Chorley looked at his wife; so far the 
 oracle had not spoken. She instantly answered 
 that mute appeal. 
 
 '' I should say a very good chance," she 
 observed, with a friendly smile, ^^ a very excel- 
 lent chance, and I am perhaps in a better posi- 
 tion to sound the opinions of our people than 
 my husband is, for of course he has a great 
 deal of business on his hands. No doubt, it 
 would be a great advantage if you had a house 
 in the neighbourhood. And I am sure Lady 
 Sylvia would soon become very popular — if I 
 may say so, I am sure she would become the 
 popular candidate." 
 
 Surely all things were going well. Had this 
 important ally been secured, and not a word 
 said about disestablishment ? It was Lady Sylvia 
 who now spoke. 
 
 '^ I must beg you," said the girl, speaking in 
 clear tones, with her face perhaps a trifle more 
 proud and pale than usual, ^^I must beg you 
 to leave me out of your scheme. I must say it
 
 266 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 seems to me a singular one. You meet us, who 
 are strangers to you, by accident in a foreign 
 country ; and without consulting the gentleman 
 who is at jDresent your member, and without 
 consulting any of the persons in the town, and 
 without asking a word about my husband's 
 opinions or qualifications, you practically in- 
 vite him to represent the constituency in Par- 
 liament. All that happens in an hour. Well, 
 it is very kind of you ; but it seems to me 
 strange. Perhaps I ought not to ask why you 
 should be so kind. There has been a talk 
 about presenting a public green to the people ; 
 but I cannot suppose you could be influenced 
 by so paltry a bribe. In any case, you will be 
 so good as to leave me, at least, out of the 
 scheme ? " 
 
 All this was said very quietly; and it was 
 with a sweet courtesy that she rose, and bowed 
 to them, and left the room ; but when she had 
 gone they looked as if a thunderbolt had fallen 
 in the midst of them, Balfour broke this silence ; 
 he was as surprised as the others, but he was 
 far more deeply vexed.
 
 THE CONSPIRATOES. 267 
 
 '^That shows the folly," said he, with an 
 angry look on his face, '^ of allowing women to 
 mix themselves up in politics — I mean unmarried 
 women — I mean young women, of no experi- 
 ence, who take everything au grand strieux, I 
 am sure, Mrs. Chorley, you will allow me to 
 apologize for my wife's conduct; she herself 
 will be sorry enough, when she has time to 
 reflect." 
 
 " Pray don't say another word, Mr. Balfour," 
 Mrs. Chorley replied ; but all the bright friend- 
 liness had gone from her face, and she spoke 
 coldly. " I have no doubt Lady Sylvia is a 
 little tired by travelling — and impatient; and 
 indeed my husband and myself ought not to 
 have intruded ourselves upon her at so late an 
 hour. I have no doubt it is eleven o'clock, 
 Eugenius ? " 
 
 Her husband rose; and they left together. 
 Then Mr. Bolitho put his hands into his pocket, 
 and stretched out his legs. 
 
 '' The fat's in the fire," said he. 
 
 For a second Balfour felt inclined to pick a 
 fierce quarrel with this man. Was it not he
 
 268 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 who had led him into this predicament; and 
 what did he care for all the constituencies, and 
 solicitors, and agents that ever were seen as 
 compared with this desperate business that had 
 arisen between him and his young wife ? 
 
 But he controlled himself. He would not 
 even show that he was vexed. 
 
 '' Women don't take a joke," said he, lightly. 
 ^' Besides, she knows little about actual life. 
 It is all theory with her; and she has high 
 notions about what people should be and do. 
 It was a mistake to let her know anything 
 about election affairs." 
 
 ^^ I thought she was deeply interested," said 
 Mr. Bolitho. ^^ However, I hope no harm is 
 done. You will see old Chorley to-morrow 
 before they leave — he is a decent sort of fellow 
 — he won't bear a grudge. And from what he 
 says, it appears clear to me that Harnden does 
 really mean to resign ; and Chorley could pull 
 you through if he likes — his wife being favour- 
 able, that is. Only, no more at present about 
 the buying of that land of his : I am afraid he 
 felt that."
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 269 
 
 Bolitho then went ; and Balfour was left 
 alone. He began pacing up and down the 
 room, biting the end of a cigar which he did 
 not light. He could not understand the origin 
 of this outburst. He had never suspected that 
 placid, timid, sensitive girl of having such a 
 temper. Where had she got the courage, too, 
 that enabled her to speak with such clear de- 
 cision ? He began to wonder whether he had 
 ever really discovered what the character of 
 this girl was, during those quiet rambles in the 
 bygone times. 
 
 He went into her room and found her seated 
 in an easy-chair, reading by the light of a 
 solitary candle. She put the book aside when 
 he entered. He flattered himself that he could 
 deal with this matter in a gentle and friendly 
 fashion : he would not have a quarrel in their 
 honeymoon. 
 
 '' Sylvia," said he, in a kindly way, '' I think 
 you have successfully put your foot in it this 
 time." 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 ^^ What made you insult those people so ? "
 
 270 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 '^ I hope I did not insult them," she said. 
 
 ^^Well," he said, with a laugh, ^^it was get- 
 ting close to it. I must say, you might have 
 shown a little more consideration to friends of 
 mine " 
 
 ^^ I did not regard them as friends of yours ; 
 I should be sorry to do that." 
 
 ^^ They were at all events human beings ; 
 they were not black-beetles. And if I think 
 you might have considered my interest a 
 little bit, and have remained silent, even if you 
 had conjured up some imaginary cause of 
 offence " 
 
 '^ How could I remain silent?" she suddenly 
 said with vehemence. '' I was ashamed to see 
 you in the society of such people ; I was ashamed 
 to see you listening to them ; and I was deter- 
 mined that I, for one, would not be drawn into 
 their unblushing conspiracy. Is it true, Hugh, 
 that you mean to bribe that man ? Does he 
 really mean to accept that payment for betray- 
 ing his trust ? " 
 
 ^^My dear child," said he impatiently, ^^you 
 don't understand such things. The world is
 
 THE CONSPIRATOES. 271 
 
 the world, and not the paradise of a school- 
 girl's essay. I can assure you that if I were 
 to buy that bit of land from Chorley — and so 
 far it has only been spoken of as a joke — that 
 would be a very innocent transaction as things 
 go ; and there could be no bribing of the con- 
 stituency, for they would not know of the public 
 green till afterwards. Bribery ? There was more 
 bribery in giving Mrs. Chorley the honour of 
 making your acquaintance " 
 
 ^^I know that," said the girl with flushed 
 cheeks. /^ I gathered that from the remarks of 
 your friend, Mr. Bolitho. And I was resolved 
 that I, at least, would keep out of any such 
 scheme." 
 
 ^^Your superior virtue," said Balfour, in a 
 matter-of-fact way, ^^has asserted itself most 
 unmistakably. I shall not be surprised to find 
 that you have killed off the best chance I could 
 have had of getting into the next Parliament." 
 
 ^^I should be sorry to see you get into any 
 Parliament by such means," she said; for her 
 whole soul was in revolt against this infamous 
 proposal.
 
 272 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 '^Well, at all events," said he, ^^you must 
 leave me to be the best judge of such matters, 
 as far as my own conduct is concerned." 
 
 '^ Oh, I will not interfere," she said, with a 
 business-like air, though her heart was throb- 
 bing cruelly. '' On the contrary, if you wish 
 to get back soon, in order to look after this 
 borough, I will go whenever you please. There 
 will be plenty for me to do at The Lilacs while 
 you are in London." 
 
 'jDo you mean," said he, regarding her 
 with astonishment, '' when we return to Eng- 
 land — do you mean that you will go down 
 to Surrey and that I should remain in Picca- 
 dilly?" 
 
 There was a voice crying in her heart, ^^ 
 my hush and — my husband ! *''' but she would pay 
 no heed to it. Her face had got pale again, 
 and she spoke calmly. 
 
 '^If that were convenient to you. I should 
 not wish to be in the way if you were en- 
 tertaining your friends — I mean the friends 
 who might be of use to you at Englebury. I 
 should be sorry to interfere in any w^ay with
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS. 273 
 
 your chances of getting the seat, if you con- 
 sider it right and honourable that you should 
 
 try." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then he said, 
 sadly enough — ^^ Very well." 
 
 VOL. I,
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 
 
 Of course they did not quarrel. We live in the 
 nineteenth century. Tolerance of opinion ex- 
 ists in the domestic circle as well as elsewhere ; 
 and no reasonable man would like his wife to 
 be that vague and colourless reproduction of her 
 husband which Lady Sylvia, all unknown to 
 Balfour, had striven to be. She ought to have 
 her own convictions ; she ought to know how 
 to govern her own conduct ; nay, more, he 
 would allow her to do as she pleased. There 
 was but one condition attached. '^You shall 
 have your own way in everything," said the 
 man in the story to his wife; '' but you can't 
 expect to have my way too." Lady Sylvia was 
 welcome to act as she pleased ; but then he re- 
 served the same liberty for himself.
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 275 
 
 This decision be came to without any bitter- 
 ness of feeling. He was quite anxious to make 
 all possible excuses for her. Doubtless she pre- 
 ferred Surrey to Piccadilly. It is true he had 
 looked forward to her being a valuable helpmeet 
 to him in his political life; but it was perhaps ex- 
 pecting too much of her that she should at once 
 interest herself in the commonplace incidents of 
 an election. He would be well content if this 
 beautiful, tender-eyed creature, whose excessive 
 sensitiveness of conscience was, after all, only 
 the result of her ignorance of the world, were to 
 wait for him in that sylvan retreat, ready to re- 
 ceive him and cheer him with the sweet solicitude 
 of her loving ways. And in the mean time, he 
 would try to make their companionship as 
 pleasant as possible ; he would try to make this 
 journey one to be remembered with pride and 
 gratitude. If there were one or two subjects 
 which they avoided in conversation, what of that? 
 
 And as soon as Lady Sylvia heard that the 
 Chorleys and Mr. Bolitho had left Mainz she 
 became more tender and affectionate than ever 
 towards her husband ; and would do anything
 
 276 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 to meet his wishes. Learning that certain of 
 his political friends were at the moment at 
 Lnzern, she offered to go thither at once, so that 
 he might have something to interest him apart 
 from the monotony of a wedding-trip ; and al- 
 though, of com^se, he did not accept the offer, 
 he recognized her intention and was grateful to 
 her. Was it not enough occupation for him to 
 watch the effect on this ingenuous mind of the 
 new wonders that she saw — as they went on to 
 Schaffhausen, and the Tyrol, and Verona, and 
 Venice ? 
 
 In their hotel at Venice, Balfour ran against 
 a certain Captain Courtenay, with whom he had 
 a slight acquaintance. They had a chat in the 
 evening, in the smoking-room. 
 
 " Seen Major Blythe, lately? " said Balfour, 
 among other things. 
 
 '' No," answered the other somewhat coldly. 
 
 *' You don't know, I suppose," asked Balfour, 
 quite unconcernedly, ^'how that business at the 
 C Club came off?" 
 
 The young man with the fair moustache eyed 
 him narrowly. It is not a safe thing to tell a
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 277 
 
 man evil things of his relatives, unless you 
 know how they stand with regard to each 
 other. 
 
 ^^ Yes, I do know — eh — an unfortunate busi- 
 ness — very. Fact is, Blythe wouldn't explain. 
 I suppose there was some delay about the 
 posting of that letter ; and — and — I have no 
 doubt that he would have paid the money 
 next day if he had not been bullied about 
 it. You see, a man does not like to be chal- 
 lenged in that way, supposing he has made a 
 trifling mistake " 
 
 ^^Yes," said Balfour, nodding his head in 
 acquiescence, ^' but how was it settled ? " 
 
 ** Well," said the other, with some embarrass- 
 ment, *^the fact is — well, the committee — don't 
 you know ? — ^liad to enforce the rules — and he 
 wouldn't explain — and, in fact, he got a hint to 
 resign " 
 
 ^' Which he took, of course." 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 Balfour said nothing further ; but in his mind 
 he coupled a remark or two with the name of 
 Major the Honourable Stephen Blythe which
 
 278 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 that gentleman would have been startled to 
 hear. 
 
 Then he went upstairs to the sitting-room, 
 and found Lady Sylvia at the open casement, 
 looking out on the clear, blue-green lambent 
 twilight. 
 
 '^ Well, good wife," said he, gaily, ^^ are you 
 beginning to think of trudging home now? 
 We ought to see a little of The Lilacs before all 
 the leaves are gone. And there won't be much 
 to keep me in London now, I fancy ; they are 
 getting more and more certain that the Govern- 
 ment won't bring on the dissolution before the 
 new year." 
 
 She rose, and put a hand on each of his 
 shoulders, and looked up into his face with 
 grateful and loving eyes, 
 
 " That is so kind of you, Hugh. It will be 
 so pleasant for us to get to know what home 
 really is — after all these hotels ! And you will 
 be in time for the pheasants ; I know several 
 people will be so glad to have you." 
 
 Of course the merest stranger would be de- 
 lighted to have so distinguished a person as Mr.
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 279 
 
 Balfouj.' come and shoot his pheasants for him ; 
 failing that, would she not herself, like a loyal 
 and dutiful wife, go to her few acquaintances 
 down there and represent to them the great 
 honour they might have of entertaining her 
 husband ? 
 
 ^^ I see there is to be a demonstration on the 
 part of the agricultural labourers," said he, 
 ^^down in Somersetshire. I should like to see 
 that — I should like to have a talk with some of 
 their leaders. But I am afraid we could not 
 get back in time." 
 
 ^^My darling," she protested, seriously, ^' I 
 can start at five minutes' notice. We can go 
 to-night, if you wish ! " 
 
 '^Oh no, it isn't worth while," said he, ab- 
 sently. And then he continued: ^^I'm afraid 
 your friends, the clergymen, are making a mis- 
 take as regards that question. I don't know 
 who these leaders are ; I should like to know 
 more precisely their character and aims ; but it 
 will do no good to call them agitators, and sug- 
 gest that they should be ducked in horse- 
 ponds "
 
 280 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 * ^ It is infamous ! " said Lady Sylvia. She 
 knew nothing whatever about it. But she 
 would have believed her husband if he had told 
 her that St. Mark's was made of green cheese. 
 
 ^^I mean that it is unwise," said he without 
 any enthusiasm. ^' Christ meant his Church to 
 be the Church of the poor. The rich man has a 
 bad time of it in the Gospels. And you may 
 depend on it that if you produce among the 
 poorer classes the feeling that the Church of 
 England is on the side of the rich — is the na- 
 tural ally of the squires, landlords, and other 
 employers — you are driving them into the 
 hands of the dissenters, and hastening on dis- 
 establishment." 
 
 ^^ And serve them right, too," said she, boldly, 
 ^4f they betray their trust. When the Church 
 ceases to be of the nation, let it cease to be the 
 National Church ! " 
 
 This was a pretty speech. How many weeks 
 before was it that Lady Sylvia was vowing to 
 uphold her beloved Church against all comers, 
 but more especially against a certain malignant 
 iconoclast of the name of Mrs. Chorley ? And
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 281 
 
 now she was not only ready to assume that one 
 or two random and incautious speeches repre- 
 sented the opinion of the whole of the clergy- 
 men of England, but she was also ready to 
 have the connection between Church and State 
 severed in order to punish those recusants. 
 
 ^^ I am not sure," said Balfour, apparently 
 taking no notice of this sudden recantation, 
 ^^ that something of that feeling has not been 
 produced already. The working-man of the 
 towns jeers at the parson. The agricultural la- 
 bourer distrusts him ; and will grow to hate him 
 if betakes the landlord's side in this matter. 
 Now, why does not the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury seize the occasion? AYhy does he not 
 come forward and say : ^ Hold a bit, my friends. 
 Your claims may be just ; or they may be exor- 
 Ititant: that is a matter for careful enquiry; 
 and you must let your landlords be heard on 
 the other side. But, whatever happens, don't 
 run away with the notion that the Church has 
 no sympathy with you ; that the Church is the 
 ally of your landlord ; that it is the interest of 
 your parson to keep you poor, ill-fed, ill-lodged,
 
 282 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 and ignorant. On the contrary, who knows so 
 much about your circumstances ? Who more 
 fitting to become the mediator between you and 
 your landlord ? You may prefer to have leaders 
 from your own ranks to fight your battles for 
 you; but don't imagine that the parson looks 
 on unconcerned, and above all don't expect to 
 find him in league with your opponent.' Some 
 mischief could be avoided that way, I think." 
 
 ^^I-Iugh," said she, with a sudden burst of 
 enthusiasm, ^^ will go down to Somersetshire 
 with you.'' 
 
 '' And get up on a chair and address a crowd," 
 said he, with a smile. ^^ I don't think they 
 would understand your speech, many of them." 
 
 '' AYell," said she, '' perhaps I shall be better 
 employed in making The Lilacs look very pretty 
 for your return. And I shall have those slip- 
 pers made up for you by that time. And, oh, 
 Hugh — I wanted to ask you — don't you think 
 we should have those cane rockino:-chairs taken 
 away from the smoking-room, now the colder 
 evenings are coming in, and morocco easy- 
 chairs put in their stead ? "
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 283 
 
 ^^ I am sure whatever you do will be right," 
 said he. 
 
 '^ And papa will be back from Scotland then," 
 said she. ^' And he writes me that my uncle 
 and his family are going down for a few days ; 
 and it will be so pleasant to have a little party 
 to meet us at the station " 
 
 The expression of his face changed suddenly. 
 
 ^' Did you say your uncle ? " said he, with a 
 cold stare. 
 
 '^ Yes," said she, with innocent cheerfulness; 
 ^' it will be quite pleasant to have some friends 
 to welcome us, after our long stay among 
 strangers. And I know papa will want us to go 
 straight to the Hall, and dine there ; and it will 
 be so nice to see the dear old place — will it 
 not ? " 
 
 ^^No doubt," said he; and then he added, 
 ^' Sylvia, if any invitation of that sort reaches 
 you, you may accept for yourself, if you wish, 
 but please leave me out of it." 
 
 She looked up, and perceived the singular 
 alteration in his look ; he had become cold, 
 reserved, firm.
 
 284 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 *^ What do you mean, Hugh ? " she cried. 
 
 *'Only this," said he, speaking distinctly. 
 '^ I prefer not to dine at Willowby Hall, if your 
 uncle is there. I do not wish to meet him." 
 
 '^ Why ? " she said in amazement. 
 
 '^ I am not a talebearer," he answered. ^^ It 
 is enough for me that he is not the sort of per- 
 son with whom I w^ish to sit down at table. 
 More than that — but I am only expressing an 
 opinion, mind ; I don't wish to control your 
 conduct — I think it might be better if you were 
 to allow your acquaintance with your uncle's 
 family quietly to drop." 
 
 ^' Do you mean," said she with the pale face 
 becoming slightly flushed, '' that I am to resolve 
 not to see those relatives of mine any more — 
 without having a word of reason for it ? " 
 
 '* I wished to spare you needless pain," said 
 he in quite a gentle way. ^^ If you want to 
 know, I will tell you. To begin with, I don't 
 think your uncle's dealings in regard to money 
 matters are characterized by that precision — 
 that — that scrupulous accuracy " 
 
 *^ I understand," she said quickly, and the
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 285 
 
 colour in her face deepened. ^^But I did not 
 expect you, of all men in the world, to reproacli 
 any one for his poverty. I did not expect that. 
 My uncle is poor, I know " 
 
 ^^ Pardon me, Sylvia, I never made your 
 uncle's lack of money a charge against him : I 
 referred to a sort of carelessness — forgetfulness, 
 let us say — as regards other people's money. 
 However, let that pass. The next thing is more 
 serious. As I understand, your uncle has been 
 involved in some awkward business — arising 
 
 from whist-playing— at the C Club ; and I 
 
 hear this evening that he has resigned in con- 
 sequence." 
 
 ^^ Who told you that?" 
 
 ^^ Captain Courtenay." 
 
 *^The gentleman who is staying in this 
 hotel ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 '' Have you anything else to say against my 
 uncle ? " she demanded. 
 
 '' I think I have said enough ; I would rather 
 have said nothing at all." 
 
 <« And you ask me," she said, with some in-
 
 286 GREE>T PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 dignation in her voice, '^to cut myself adriffc 
 from my relatives because you have listened to 
 some story told by a stranger in a coffee-room. 
 What do I know about Captain Courtenay ? 
 How can he tell what explanation my uncle 
 may have of his having resigned that club ? I 
 must say, Hugh, your request is a most extra- 
 ordinary one." 
 
 ^' Now, now, Sylvia," he said, good-naturedly, 
 '^ you know I made no request; I do not wish 
 to interfere in the slightest way with your liberty 
 of action. It is true that I don't think your 
 uncle and his family are fit people for you to 
 associate with ; but you must act as you think 
 best. I, for one, don't choose to be thrown in- 
 to their society." 
 
 Now Lady Sylvia had never had any great 
 affection for her aunt, and she was not likely to 
 hold her cousin Honoria in dear remembrance ; 
 but after all her relatives were her relatives, and 
 she became indignant that they should be spoken 
 of in this way. 
 
 '' Why did you make no objection before ? 
 Why did you go and dine at their .house ?"
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 287 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 ^' It suited my purpose to go," said he, ^^ for 
 I expected to spend a pleasant evening with 
 you." 
 
 '^ You saw nothing wrong in my visiting them 
 then." 
 
 ^^ Then I had no right to offer you advice." 
 
 ^' And now that you have," said slie with a 
 proud and hurt manner, ^^ what advice do I get? 
 I am not to see my own relations. They are 
 not proper persons. But I suppose the Chorleys 
 are : is that the sort of society you wish me to 
 cultivate ? At all events," she added, bitterly, 
 ^^ my relatives happen to have an h or two in 
 their possession." 
 
 '' Sylvia," said he, going over and patting 
 her on the shoulder, *' you are offended — with- 
 out cause. You can see as much of your uncle's 
 family as you please. I had no idea you were 
 so passionately attached to them." 
 
 That ended the affair for the moment ; but 
 during the next few days, as they travelled by 
 easy stages homewards, an ominous silence pre- 
 vailed as .to their plans and movements subse-
 
 288 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 quent to their reaching England. At Dover 
 she found a telegram awaiting her at the hotel ; 
 without a word she put it before her husband. 
 It was from Lord Willowby, asking his daughter 
 by what train she and her husband would arrive, 
 so that the carriage might be waiting for them. 
 
 ''■ What shall I say ?" she asked at length. 
 
 ^^ Well," said he slowly, '' if you are anxious 
 to see your relatives, and to spend some time 
 with them, telegraph that you will be by the 
 train that leaves Victoria at 5.15. I will take 
 you down to The Lilacs ; but I must leave you 
 there. It will suit me better to spend a few days 
 in town at present." 
 
 Her face grew very pale. 
 
 ^^ I don't think," she said, ''I need trouble 
 you to go down with me. I can get to Victoria 
 by myself. 5.15 I think you said ?" 
 
 She rang for a blank telegraph-form. 
 
 '* What are you going to do ? " said Balfour, 
 struck by something peculiar in her manner. 
 
 ^' I am going to telegraph to papa to meet 
 me at the station, as I shall be alone." 
 
 ^^ You will do nothing of the kind," said he,
 
 THE HOME-COMING. 289 
 
 gently but firmly. ^'You may associate with 
 what people you please — and welcome ; only 
 there must be no public scandal as regards tlie 
 relations between you and me. Either you will 
 go on with me to Piccadilly, and remain there ; 
 or I go down with you to The Lilacs, and leave 
 you to go over to the Hall if you wish to do so." 
 
 She telegraphed to her father that they had 
 postponed their return to The Lilacs, and would 
 remain in town for the present. She bought a 
 shilling novel at the station, and silently and 
 assiduously cried behind it the greater part of 
 the journey up to town. Arrived in London, the 
 poor martyr suffered herself to be dragged away 
 to that lonely house in Piccadilly. It was a 
 sorrowful home-coming. 
 
 Then the cup of her sorrows was not yet full. 
 
 With an inhuman cruelty her husband (having 
 
 had his own ends served) sought to make light 
 
 of the whole matter. All that evening he tried 
 
 to tease her into a smile of reconciliation; but 
 
 her wrongs lay too heavily upon her. He had 
 
 even tlie brutality to ask her whether she could 
 
 invite the Chorleys to dine with them on the 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. 
 
 following Friday ; and wlietlier they had not 
 better get a new dessert-service for the occasion. 
 He did well, she thought, to mention the Chor- 
 Icys. These were the people he considered it 
 fit that she should meet : her own relatives he 
 would debar. 
 
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