37 and 39, LONDON ST., READING. CATALOGUES and TEBMS SENT ON APPLICATION. SubscHptions from Half-a-Gulnea. 5'f'^U j The Southern Counties Circulating Library. Established 1832. Title Folio Supplements to the General Catalogue are issued | periodically and can be had on application. | « o/ €€fe€f^^n^ ^ HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINE ... 22 Y CHAPTER III. y OAKWOODLEE 34 C) CHAPTER IV. ;i"^HE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH 46 CHAPTER Y. ^ BELTANE DAY 58 ^ ^ CHAPTER VI. Cr^DUST TO DUST 68 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER YII. ^ CHAPTER XII. THE DINNER-PARTY ... CHAPTER XV. BUSINESS • • • • • • PAGE DAY DREAMS ... ... 80 CHAPTER YIII. HESBIA VERE ... ... 90 CHAPTER IX. DOCTOR FEVERLEY 100 CHAPTER X. THE COUSIN LOVERS 110 CHAPTER XI. BLAIRAVON HOUSE ... ... 136 • • • • • 147 CHAPTER XIII. HESBIA^S DRAWING-ROOM ... 160 CHAPTER XIY. A PROPOSAL 169 178 CHAPTER XVI. A QUARTETTE .. . ... ... ... ... 185 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XVII. PAGE ECAUTE ... ••• ... ... ... J-c^O CHAPTER XVIII. CROWDY OP THAT ILK 207 CHAPTER XIX. COME TO ME 216 CHAPTER XX. TEA VICE EEOPENS THE TRENCHES ... ... 227 CHAPTER XXI. THE SECRET LETTER 240 CHAPTER XXII. WILL THEY MEET ? ... ... ... ... 256» CHAPTER XXIII. IN THE TWILIGHT 264 THE aiRL HE MAEEIED. T CHAPTER 1. BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. HUS ran the brief but startling telegram which was delivered late in the evening : — " Dr. Feverley, Blairavo7i, to Lennard Blair, Liverpool. ♦ " Come home by the first train. A crisis is at hand. Your father cannot survive much longer J' From Liverpool to Blairavon, in Scotland, is more than one hundred and sixty miles by rail, the only mode of conveyance now, and poor Lennard Blair thought nervously of his chances of being at home in time to see — before the fatal moment — that parent to whom he was so tenderly attached ; and in a rapid and bewildered manner, acting as one might do in a dream, he thrust a few necessary articles into a carpet bag, preparatory to starting by the night express train for Carlisle and the North. I. B 10 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. He glanced at liis watch ; he had already lost two hours, during \yhich the telegram had been waiting for hira_, while he had kept several business engage- ments between the counting-house and the Hus- kisson Dock. In those two hours what naight he not have lost ! and from amid the bustle of Liver- pool, and the roar of its busy streets, his memory flashed home to his father's secluded mansion in Lothian. To Mr. Abel Envoyse, the managing clerk or cashier of Messrs. Vere, Cheatwood, & Co. — a meek- looking little gentleman with a bald head, who had been in the house for years upon years, who had never set up for himself, and never hoped to do so, whose ambition was probably satisfied by the salary now given him, and who thought Vere & Cheatwood the greatest firm in the world, even as Liverpool was the centre of the universe — to Mr. Envovse, we say, Lennard Blair intimated the pressing nature of the telegram he had received, and that he must start at once for Scotland, Though a clerk in the establishment, and one who had to work hard at his desk, Blair had a few thousands invested with the firm, and ranked as a junior-partner therein, but his name did not appear as such, so Mr. Envoyse felt himself com- pelled to consent, in absence of Mr. Vere, for Cheatwood and the Co. had long been myths. " You will complete those bills of lading for Leonardo & Co., of Vera Cruz," said Blair, with nervous haste, ^^ and I shall see Mr. Vere about other matters, when I reach Scotland; he is there BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. li before me. Meantime, I require, please, a hundred pounds in gold.^' " Gold ? " echoed Envoyse, rubbing his bald head. "Of course; English notes are useless in Scot- land .^^ "Past bank hours. Do you want the money now?^^ " This instant." The sum was large for one in Blair's position. "We never keep much in the house when Mr. Vere is away/' said the old cashier, reluctantly unlocking one of Milner's great patent safes ; " but here you are, Mr. Blair." " Thanks/' and even in his haste, so strong was the force of business habit, Lennard counted jover the money, and gave a receipt, while muttering in a broken voice, " I am telegraphed for, because my poor father is — is dying." " Good bye, Blair," said some of the clerks, wifcli all of whom he was an especial favourite. " Wish I was going with you," added one, who was an idler, and usually wished himself anywhere but at his desk. "But not on such an errand, surely/' said Blair, as he thrust several dockets of papers into his drawer, and locked it. " Oh, no, my dear fellow, I didn't mean that," replied the young man, colouring, as he bent over his ledger, on which the gas-jet cast a glare from under its conical ^"reen shade. The counting-house of Vere, Cheatwood, & Co., was then in an alley off Canning Place, and in the B 2 Kr, 12 THE OIllL HE MARRIED. immediate vicinity of the Revenue Buildings, the Custom House, and Post Office, admirably situated for business, and in the most bustling part of the quays. Lennard Blair sprang into a passing cab, and " tipped ^' the driver. "To where, sir V asked the man. " Terminus — Great Howard Street — go like lightning, my good fellow ! '' and the short distance between Canning Place and the station of the Lancashire line was soon traversed, yet scarcely quick enough for the impatience of Lennard Blair. The first bell had already been rung ; the carriage- doors were being slammed to ; the last of the luggage was being tossed into the guard^s van, or hoisted on the roofs, and pointsmen and porters were running hither and thither, as Lennard hurried along the crowded platform, looking for a seat. He had not been without hope of getting a carriage, or rather a compartment thereof to himself, that he might indulge in his own melancholy re- flections, undisturbed by the presence of strangers, the thoughtless, perhaps, and the noisy ; but the first glance he gave along the train dissipated the expectation; the carriages seemed crowded — every seat apparently was engaged. Though far from being a sordid character, Lennard Blair had been more used latterly to travel by second, and even third class, than first; and now, when paying for the latter, he had certainly no desire to endure the useless discomforts of either of the BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. J 3 former. The guard saw that he was carrying his own bag, and so left him to shift for himself. In the centre compartment of a first-class carriage sat a young man, with long, fair moustaches. He was alone, and dressed in a fashionable travelling suit, with an eye-glass screwed into the rim of his white half-bullet hat, and through this optical medium he was leisurely surveying the bustle on the platform, and about the departing train. Thrice had Lennard attempted to open the door, but fonnd it locked, for the person in possession of the entire compartment had doubtless a private key. ^' Engaged here,'^ said he briefly, yet Lennard saw that he was alone, the five other seats being vacant. "Are you sure, sir?" asked Lennard anxiously. " Quite — all engaged here." " Awkward, excessively. I have looked every- where else for a seat." " Ah ! then you may do yourself the pleasure of looking again ; there is just time," was the chaffing response, as the other drew up the window-glass to cut the matter short. He then unfolded Punch and the Times — placed his hat-box on one cushion, his carpet-bag on another, some rugs on a third, his umbrella on a fourth, his feet on a fifth, and himself personally on a sixth, proceeding thus, like a free- born Briton, to occupy as much of the premises as he could, to the exclusion of others. Not a vacancy was to be seen elsewhere. The up- train from the north was panting and puffing outside. 14 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. its red lights glaring in crimson along tlie line ; the guard was swinging his lantern, and shouting " Tickets ! have your tickets ready/' near the last carriages of the train. " Guard," said Lennard, slipping a couple of florins deftly into that official's back- turned hand ; " get me a seat, please, anywhere ! " " Which class, sir ? " '' First/' " Plenty of room, sir, in the centre compartment of the third carriage; five seats unoccupied; look alive, sir, please." He of the eyeglass and long naoustaches, who had been watching Lennard's anxiety with some amuse- ment to himself, had again lowered the window, as the gas-lighted station was close and dense in at- mosphere, and the night — one of the last in April — being warm and without a breath of wind. More- over, the supervisor of the tickets had thrown open the door now. " Sir," said Lennard, emphatically, when he saw that in addition to other lumber, books and papers now strewed all the cushions, '' are those seats really engaged ? " "Don't you see that they are?" drawled the other. " Now, this one, for instance ? " urged Blair. "By whom ?" added the guard. " Can't tell — by Punch, and my hat-box, I suppose." Lennard seized the articles indicated, and tossing them far out on the platform took possession of the BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 15 seat, and throwing some of the rugs, &c., from the opposite one underfoot, proceeded to make himself at home. With an angry oath, he of the eyeglass, who little anticipated so summary a proceeding, sprung out to recover his property, and had barely regained his seat, being roughly shoved in by the guard, when the bell rang, the shrill whistle cleft the air under the lofty iron roof of the station, out of which the train glided away between Great Howard Street and the Leeds Canal, while Lennard Blair and his fellow traveller, by the light of the carriage- lamp, eyed each other with glances the reverse of friendly. " If we are to travel together, considering your insolent disposition, you will be none the worse for being snubbed, my fine fellow,^^ thought Lennard. " Curse him; some post quill-driver, or bumptious snob, out on the loose, I suppose,^' muttered the other, almost audibly, while stroking his moustaches "with an angry and supercilious air. '^Did you think, sir, to occupy the whole car- riage ? " asked Lennard, whose cheek glowed with an emotion of indignation, which certainly served to repress his sorrow and anxiety. '' The whole carriage — well, perhaps so ! '^ " And may I ask why ? " " Because in this world every man has a right to get as much as he can for his money, and I always take deuced good care to look after Number One/ he replied, coolly. He then began to whistle a low but popular street 16 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. melody, while Blair busied himself with his "Brad- shaw/' that volume obscure apparently as the shastres of Brahma, inextricable as the hiero- glyphics of Memphis ; and through all the mazes of Parliamentary and express trains, of first, second, and third classes, the charges for cattle and luggage, &c., he sought to reckon over the anxious hours th^t must inevitably intervene before he reached Blair- avon in Western Lothian. This young man in his four and twentieth year, wearing the grey Tweed suit and smart wide-awake hat, pray observe him well, friend reader, for he is the hero of our story. His hair is a rich curly brown; his eyes are neither brown nor grey, yet there are times and lights in which they seem both ; with clean-cut features, he is closely shaven, all save a thick moustache ; he has a straight nose and handsome mouth. His figure is strong and lithe, every muscle being developed, as with bat and oar and rifle he has kept his place among the best in England, and. is moreover the champion shot of the Liverpool Volunteers. Blair^s voice is very pleasant, and musical too ; there is a singular chord in it, that wins every ear, and seems to speak of a gentle and tender nature, though there are times when he can be bold and stern, but always a manly young man. Swiftly sped the night express train. Liverpool, with its mighty world of wealth and work, its wilderness of docks and forests of masts, the broad waters of the Mersey, on whose bosom BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 17 uncounted lights were shining from ship and shore, from wharf and sea-wall, — all were left behind. The dark masses of the Industrial School and Kirk- dale Jail on one hand, the scattered village of Bootle on the other, were soon glided past ; houses became more scarce and far between, and after emerging from the long and rumbling tunnel, the train was careering through the open country under the clear and lovely light of an April moon, while Ormskirk with its market-place and coalpits, Farrington and its moss, soon vanished in the distance. Once or twice Lennard Blair, who had much to think of and to reflect on, turned his eyes from the swiftly passing scenery without to the face of his fellow-traveller, who evidently was neither inclined to converse or make himself agreeable ; for barely had the train emerged from the tunnel beyoml Bootle Lane when he produced an embossed silver case of great size, and selecting therefrom a cigar (a rat's-tail with a straw through it), he lit it with a flaming vesta and proceeded to smoke without the ceremony of an apology off'ered or permission given, and without the usual courtesy of ofi'ering one to his companion. This man's features were striking, but unpleasing; liis complexion was fair, almost to unhealthy paleness ; he wore that species of beard denominated a goatee, and seemed some ten years or so older than Lennard, to whom his whole bearing was eminently off'ensive, displaying a cool insolence which, if he dared, might verge on open rufiianism ; yet his travelling suit, his Albert chain, rings, scarf. 18 THE GIRL HE MARlilED. and gloves, &c., were all in tlie most unexceptionable taste. It is seldom that people take much interest in their fellow-travellers, even though they are to journey all night with them ; but now Lennard Blair felt — how or why he knew it not — an intense and intuitive antipathy for this person. There was a strange expression in his pale green eyes which (rather than their form or colour) made Blair recoil instinctively from him ; and they had a stealthy and peculiar mode of looking away when those of another met them ; vet Lennard felt cer- tain that whenever he affected to sleep or look from the window the gaze of his companion was fixed keenly upon him. With this emotion of repulsion there floated through Blair^s mind some of the many stories he had heard or read of attacks, outrages, snares laid, and even murders committed in railway carriages; but he almost smiled as he felt his own biceps, for he knew himself equal to tossing the stranger out of the window if the occasion required him to do so. Little could Lennard Blair foresee how much, in a future time, his fate was to be influenced by this cool and impudent fellow who sat smoking in front of him, and superciliously pulling the windows up or down, as suited his own fancy or convenience. Lennard^s intuitive dislike at last became so strong, that while surmising whether this personage was one of the swell-mob, he asked : BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 19 '^ Are you going far this way, sir — along the line I mean?" " Rather too far^ perhaps," was the dry response. "How?" "Into Scotland," he replied, with a thick and unpleasant voice, as if his tongue was too large for his mouth. " Too far, you think ? " " To West Lothian, if you know such a place ; I never heard of it before. But here is Preston already. By Jove ! we have come at a ripping pace ! " he added, as the train swept with a hollow roar into that bustling and bewildering station, where so many lines meet and intersect; and then ensued the usual banging of doors, the clinking of the hammers on the wheels to test their soundness, the shouting of newsboys, the swaying of lanterns, and hurrying to and fro of porters, platform-officials, and sharp-eyed pointsmen. ♦ " Do we change here ? " asked Blair anxiously, snatching up his bag to be ready for the answer. " Of course we do — change for the Black Sea, Calcutta, and the Baltic," drawled the other, perpe- trating an old joke, which was meant as imper- tinence, while he lay back in his seat and watched the smoke of his cigar rising in concentric curls up through the»ventilator in the carriage-roof. " Tickets ! " shouted the guard, while a weather- beaten and well-whiskered face appeared at the window, thus arresting a threatening gesture made by Lennard^s hand towards his companion's nose. 20 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. The smoker now made studiously a delay, to worry and annoy the official, by slowly searching every pocket in succession, as well as his pocket- book, cigar- and card-cases. " Smokin' is agin the company's rules — a fineable offence ; and you should have your ticket ready, sir/' said the official. ^' Should I really ? " drawled the other ; " do you want it ? '' " No.'' " Then why do you bother about it ? " " Because it must be shown and checked," re- plied the guard, becoming furious, but restraining his passion, as he flashed his bull's-eye full into the traveller's face. " Look sharp, please, or " '' Or what ? " " I shall call a policeman." ^' Don't trouble yourself, my dear fellow ; if the pasteboard is worth seeing, it is worth waiting for," replied the other, who, after trying the man's patience to its utmost limits, showed his ticket at last, expressing a hope that the sight thereof " would calm his ruffled feelings and soothe his troubled bosom." With an imprecation, the official checked the ticket, slammed to the door, and the laugh of the impudent traveller was lost amid the clatter of the train, as it steamed out of the station towards Lancaster. Pull of disgust for such a companion, yet wonder- ing who he might be that was going exactly to the same part of Scotland as himself (T. C. appeared in BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 21 large white letters on his portmanteau)^ Lennard Blair lay back in a corner of the carriage, and with half-closed eyes communed with his own heart, thinking of the sorrows that awaited him, of the past that had gone for ever, and the anxieties that might cloud his future. 23 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. CHAPTER II. ■ HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. ON sped the swift niglit express by the great North- Western line, its monotonous hum and motion heing conducive either to drowsiness or reflection ; thus Blair, though he closed his eyes as if to sleep, permitted his mind to become a prey to anxious and exciting reverie. "In the morning of our days," says the eloquent Burke, " when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon the objects around us, how lively at that time are our sensations, yet how erroneous are the notions which we form of things ! " Lennard Blair was still in the morning of his days, yet in some respects he had lived long enough to see many errors and had won much experience. He was going back on a sorrowful errand to the narrow world — the little rural circle from which he had emerged some five or six years before ; and as the homeward train sped on, faster than the engine, yea, faster even than the electric telegraph, the posts of which seemed to be flying past in pursuit of each HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 23 other, did his thoughts flash back to earlier years — the past returned to memory^ and the present fled. The only surviving son of Richard Blair of Blair- avon, he had come into the world with the fairest prospects of succeeding, if life was spared him, to an ample, even noble inheritance, which his father con- trived, with the utmost assiduity, to squander on the turf and elsewhere, till the whole of his property, save the remnant named Oakwoodlee on which he resided, had, by mortgage, purchase, and otherwise, passed into the hands of Mr. Vere, the wealthy Liverpool merchant. " Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,^^ to quote the " Two Gentlemen of Verona.^' Lennard soon learned the truth of this, and resolved to seek his fortune — or, as his father phrased it, in a mo- ment of bitterness, "to earn his bread" — elsewhere, having become early aware that nothing was to be won by a life of dependance on his father's shrivelled purse; and it was not probable the blind goddess would seek him out on the pastoral braes of Blairavon. He had accepted Mr. Vere's apparently kind oflfer of a desk in his counting-house, and invested in the firm a moderate sum that had accrued to him from his mother, the heiress of a few hundred acres; and thus he had gone south to Liverpool, among its busy thousands, to labour and to learn, to work, to wait, to make a way in the world, and to regain, if pos- sible, the position and wealth of which his father's extravagance and imprudence had deprived him ; 24 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. for Lennard treasured in secret all that pride of name and family which is inherent in the Scottish character, and he shrunk iiprvously from the con- viction that, unless he thug strove, with resolution and thrift, the old Blairs of Blairavon would go down into the common herd (from whence they had sprung centuries ago), and be heard of no more. Romances which Lennard had read in boyhood, and the prophetic wishes or hopeful prophecies of • his old nurse, Elsie Graham, and of his father^s attendant, Stephen Hislop, once butler at Blairavon, now valet, groom, and general factotum in the little household at Oakwoodlee, had all conduced to strengthen these honourable fantasies — this earnest, but perhaps desperate ambition, in the young man's heart. On the Blairavon lands is a grey old Druidical monolith named the Charter Stone. It was a firm belief in the family and county, and had been so for ages, that so long as a Blair retained a right of proprietary in this unsightly block, the race would prosper. Thus a thousand times had the im- poverished old gentleman reminded Lennard, with glee, that though " the wealthy parvenu, Mr. John Vere,^' had won the lands of Blairavon " by his sordid and drudging industry,^' the Charter Stone was on the remnant they still retained near Oak- woodlee. His father, though he heartily despised all manner of business, and was totally ignorant of it, save in the items that related to bills, kites, and I O U's, had, after gulping down his old family pride, fostered the HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 25 wish of his son to the utmost. Hence, to buy back the old patrimony, or to create another ; to toil, and spin, and work; to emigrate and dig, but only to return and regain the old place that had gone out of the original line, was the object of Lennard Blair, as it has been the Golden Dream, the romantic hope (in no instance, perhaps, ever realized), of many a Scottish wanderer in the woods of America, in the Australian bush, the mines of California, and the diggings of Ballarat : but this was the secret im- pulse which animated Lennard as he drudged at his desk amid the roar of busy Liverpool. During the first few years he had been in business he had learned much, but had not clambered far up the social ladder. He was literally only a clerk in the great mercantile firm of Vere and Cheatwood, with a small share in the profits derived from the money he had invested in the stock, by the advice of Mr. Vere, whose acquaintance and patronage h'fe had acquired when that gentleman purchased his father's estate. With all these sanguine hopes and delusive desires, the combined result perhaps of early educa- tion and secret vanity, there existed in the mind of Lennard no emotion of upbraiding or reproach against his father. The poor old man was dying now ; his weaknesses and his errors were things of the past to be forgotten ; his virtues alone were to be remembered ; and the last time Lennard had seen his wistful, kind, and saddened face, when he left home to push again on his worldly way, came vividly to memory now. I. c 26 THE GIBL HE MARRIED. To add to Lennard^s troubles, he was in love — in love with Hesbia Vere, his employer's only daughter ; a young lady ere long to be introduced to the reader. As a neighbour when at Oakwoodlee, and as one of the best round dancers and most pleasant friends -whom she met at home, Hesbia Vere had always preferred, or seemed to prefer, Lennard Blair to many other young men w^hose wealth or worldly position were infinitely greater than his. On whose arm could she droop or lean more pleasantly and freely when breathless, flushed, and palpitating after a long waltz or a furious galop ; and who so readily found her fan^ or bouquet, and so gracefully and deftly cloaked or shawled her for the carriage ? He had brought her beautiful flowers and the rarest exotics; ferns, the most remarkable; a won- derful parrot from a West India ship in the Albert Dock — a parrot that swore most fluently, but luckily in Spanish. He lost bets of gloves to her so adroitly ; selected her books and pointed out passages which, when underlined by pencil, told so much more than he would have dared to say; they had exchanged innumerable cartes -de -visile, and he had sketched and written in her album more than perhaps Papa Vere would have quite approved; but that was a species of book he never by any chance opened. They frequently met by the most singular chances in quiet and shady corners of the Botanical Gardens, or when she was riding in the Prince's Park and other promenades. Lennard Blair, in virtue of the HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 27 sum invested in the funds of Vere and Cheatwood, rather than in consequence of his gentlemanly- bearing and good birth, was every way Hesbia^s privileged dangler, greatly to the envy of his fellow- clerks, and to the annoyance of several admirers of more pretensions. He had made love to her in every way that. man could do, short of actually declaring it, and in such a way the flirt — for notoriously was Hesbia Vere a flirt — received it. All this alluring intercourse with the bright and beautiful girl had made more impression on his heart than it left on hers; for Hesbia became his sun, his centre, his pole-star ; yet he was merely one among many priviliged admirers who hovered about her, especially when he was elsewhere ; and it was only a realization of what the old rhyme tells us of the moon that looked on many brooks. So, as Lennard thought of her in his reverie, he whispered to himself, — " Oh what can evef come of such a passion as mine ? In love — in love with one of the greatest flirts in Liverpool ? A girl who is vain as she is beautiful, and fickle as she is vain. What folly or magic is it that lures me to become her shadow, when I know that she has jilted and trifled with wealthier, wiser, and better-looking fellows than I? Even her cousin Cheatwood has failed with her, if I have heard aright; and I am to see her again, for she is at Blairavon with her father. Slie, at Blairavon \" So pondered Leonard amid liis waking dreams 28 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. in the night as the train glided on, now througli deep cuttings, and then along grassy embankments, where the telegraph wires sung in the wind like JEolian harps ; past darkened or half-lighted stations, where the offices were closed, the book-stalls shut, and the platforms deserted ; the flaming posters and huge placards on the walls alone remaining to indicate that on the morrow's dawn the stream of life would flow again. On past red-gleaming furnaces and dark pit- mouths, the clanking engines and whirling wheels, the smoking chimneys and murky atmosphere of the Black Country, where night and day, underground and above it, the brawny gangs of grimy men are for ever, ever toiling; on through the gloom and uncertainties of the scenery, as the moon waned, and white lights and green, or the crimson danger signal, flashed out of the obscurity ; past green pad- docks, shining pools, and thick hedgerows; past villages buried in sleep ; past tall ghostly poplars, and those pollard willows and oaks, the eccentric trimming of which is peculiar to England ; past huge manufactories and coal and iron mines, with cones of flame that reddened earth and sky. And so on flew the train by stately Lancaster, where the stars shone brightly in the depths of the Lune, and on by the picturesque vale of Kendal embosomed among beautiful hills ; on by the grassy fells of Westmoreland and the old castle of Penrith, whilom built by Richard of England as a barrier against the Scots — an open and gaping ruin now — and thence onward by Carlisle ; and the breaking HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 29 dawn saw the express train careering through the green and pastoral glens of the Southern Highlands, while the early mists were rising in light grey masses from the grassy summits of the Hartfell, the higrhest of the Scottish mountains south of Forth and Clyde. With the aid of his private key Lennard's com- panion had got out for refreshments — " nips and pick- me-ups/' as he styled them — at every station where the train stopped. Blair had no desire to accom- pany him, but sat wakeful and apparently listless in a corner, full of his own thoughts, which increased in keenness and intensity as he found himself among the mountains and nearing home. But he deemed it a singular coincidence that, though he changed carriages twice, and twice even to different trains and lines, his unpleasant fellow-traveller was constantly his vis-a-vis, and made exactly the same changes at the same times and places. Influenced probably by the numerous brandies- and-water he had imbibed, this personage now con- descended to make some inquiries about the localities they passed through ; but as the replies were always followed by sneers, in which he seemed prone to indulge, or by pitiful jests and disparaging reflections on the country, the people and the features, or names of the scenery, Lennard Blair became irri- tated by his rudeness, and relapsed into studied silence. Once he offered the use of his brandy flask to the stranger, by whom it was coldly and curtly 30 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. declined, and after this lie proceeded to use his own. It was now that sweet season, the end of spring, the last few days of April, when the buds have burst in all their freshest greenery in the gardens and woodlands ; when the daffodil, the yellow crocus, and the primrose peep up from under the sprouting hedgerow; when the young lambs are basking on the sunniest slopes of the hills, and the swallows are returning from their mysterious flight ; when rivulets and cascades are all swollen by the spring showers, and rush down towards the glens with in- creased force and volume ; when '^ fresh flowers and . leaves come to deck the dead season's bier,'' and a spirit of youth and new life seem in everything. " Through wood and stream, hill, field, and ocean, A quickening life from the earth's heart has burst, As it has ever done." And nowhere is spring more lovely than in our southern Highlands, and on the pastoral braes of Annandale. Now Lennard Blair was drawing nearer and nearer to his home, especially after he had passed the meadows, the woody haughs, and morasses of Slamanan, an old Celtic name which signifies " The Back of the World." Last night amid the roar, the lights, the multi- tudes of Liverpool j this morning in a solitude where the shrill whistle of the curlew, or the lowing of the cattle, as they were startled by the passing train, alone woke the silence ! HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 31 But this was home, and with eager eyes did Lennard scan the old familiar haunts and features. Every sight and sound woke boyish memories in his saddened heart ; the chaunting or whistling of the rustics, as they rode their giant horses afield ; the black gleds wheeling in the sunshine from the ruins of Torphichen — that church and fortress where the Lords of St. John of Jerusalem lie cross-legged in their graves, with shield on arm and sword at side; the mountain burn that gurgled under the green whins, bearing last year's withered rushes to the Avon (the dark and winding river), the old church tower in the distance, and all its sheltering groves of beech and chestnut. In yonder burn-brae had he, aided by old Steenie Hislop, unearthed and killed his first otter ; from that pool he had landed his first salmon, and there, amid the black boulders that lay in mid-stream and chafed the waters into white froth, he haS filled many a basket with speckled trout in the happy times of boyhood that could return no more. On yet, and in the distance he could see on the green slope of a hill a great grey monolith upreared in its loneliness amid the pastoral solitude, and then he felt his pulses quicken. It was the Charter Stone of Blairavon, and it stood, as he knew, but a few furlongs from the house of Oakwoodlee, where his old father lay on his death- bed. In the middle distance was a stern group of aged Scottish pines — the last remnants of an old forest, coeval with the Torwood, where once had roamed 32 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. the snow-white bulls and ferocious bears of Caledonia — the stems of the gnarled trees standing out redly from the feathery masses of bright green fern, while the crags of Dalmahoy and the hill of Logan-house, the highest of the beautiful Pentland-range, little less than a mile in height, rose against the clear blue sky beyond. The next station was three miles further on than Oakwoodlee, but the latter was still in sight when the shrill whistle of the train cleft the morning welkin. The speed became slower, and tickets were searched for, and bags, umbrellas, and hat- boxes were clutched by the passengers in their haste for release from their temporary imprisonment. A handsome tilbury, a bang-up affair, with patent drag, plated axles, and a high-stepping horse, with splendid harness, was waiting the arrival of Lennard's companion. The groom was in the Vere livery, and the Vere crest appeared upon his buttons, the harness, and ostentatiously on more parts of the vehicle than one. With much fuss and obsequiousness, the groom collected the portmanteaux, rugs, plaids, rods, and gun-case of the traveller, and had a couple of pointer *^dawgs," as that personage called them, brought from the guard^s van. " How far is it from here to Blairavon ? " he inquired. "About three miles, sir,'^ replied the servant, touching his hat; "you'll be there in time for breakfast/^ HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH WESTERN LINE. 33 " The old boy at Oakwoodlee is awfully cut up, I hear/^ " If you mean Mr. Blair of Blairavon — '^ "No — you seem jolly verdant for a Scotsman — he that was.^' " Oh, sir ! folks say he is dying/^ " Poor old fogey ; and so his lands have gone to those servants elect of mammon, those worshippers of the golden calf, whom he despised so much.^^ " They have gone to master, sir,'^ said the puzzled groom, touching his hat again. "Exactly; jump up, all right,^^ replied the other, assuming the reins and whip, and without a farewell nod or recognition, he drove ojff, leaving Lennard Blair, who looked somewhat earnestly after him, perplexed and stung by the remarks he had over- heard, to trudge afoot with his bag and rugs, as at that solitary little station there were no vehicles to be had for hire. 34 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. CHAPTEE III. OAKWOODLEE. THE mansion of Oakwoodlee^ in which Lennard's father had resided since the loss of Blairavom had been originally the jointure-house of the entire estate^ and was first built for an ancestress, Griselda Blair, of the Tor Hill, whose husband fell at the battle of Dunblane, in 3 715, with the white cockade in his bonnet, and a colonel's commission from King James VIII. in his pocket. It is a plain, small, two storey ed house, with great chimney-stalks, crowstepped gables, and scroll- formed corbels at the corners. The walls are massive : in front are nine windows, set deep into the masonry and whilom grated with iron in former times of trouble. A coat of the Blair arms — the star of eight points, and so forth — is carved above the door, to which a flight of broad stone steps gives access, and which is furnished with a great bell in addition to a ponderous, old fashioned knocker. In the south-western gable is built an ancient dial stone ; the front of the mansion faces the south, on the green slope of a hill surrounded by old copsewood, the shootings of which were always let OAKWOODLEE. 35 to add to the shattered income of old Richard Blair. Before the door is yet standing the identical *'loupin-on stane/' with its three time-worn steps, by the aid of which Lady Griselda, of Blair- avon, was wont to mount behind her butler on a pillion, when they rode together on one horse weekly to the church of Inchmachan. At the door he was warmly, even affectionately, received by the two faithful adherents of their fallen fortunes, who had been watching his approach. Old Elsie Graham — once his nurse in youth, and now his father's in old age — a hard-featured, but kindly, old motherly woman, who met him with a scared and anxious face; lips that were white and eyes inflamed by recent tears and long watching. \ " Welcome back, laddie ! welcome hame ! but oh, Mr. Lennard, what a sorrowfu' hamecoming is this for you,'' she exclaimed, covering her face with ' her faded black-silk apron. ^' Oh, sirs ! oh, sirs ! what is this that has come upon us a' at last !" " Hush, woman, will you ?" said old SteinieHislop, sharply interrupting her noisy but half-stifled grief; " dinna add to his distresses by your din and non- sense. But I say wi' Elsie, welcome to you, Mr. Lennard, though it be in an evil hour/' added the old man as he shook Lennard's hand, and then respectfully hastened to relieve him of his bag, railway rugs, and cane. " And my father, Steinie," asked Lennard, with a quivering lip, "how is he ?" " More composed now — more resigned to the 36 THE GIIIL HE MARRIED. great change that is at hand — than when Dr. Feverly telegraphed for you last night." Lennard sighed bitterly. " He is asleep, so dinna disturb him/^ added Steinie ; " and while you are getting some refresh- ment, the doctor will join you." "Then Dr. Feverley is here?" " Yes, Mr. Lennard ; but asleep on the dining- room sofa. All night was he awake and most attentive," said Elsie. " But step your way ben to the breakfast-parlour ; fu' well must you ken the gate, my braw bairn." " Is it likely I should ever forget it, Nursie ? " asked Lennard, with a kind, sad smile, as he entered the old familiar room, the windows of which faced the ancient grove of Scottish pines that cast their shadows, as they had done for ages, on the charter stone, while both Elsie and Stephen Hislop hovered restlessly about him intent on kindness and com- miseration; for they had loved the lad from his infancy, and since their own youth had been in the service of his family. Old Stephen, who had latterly been groom of the venerable Galloway cob (which represented what was once a noble stud) ; gardener of the little plot where a few edibles were grown ; valet, butler, and, as already stated, factotum — still wore a kind of shabby livery coat, with a striped-blue and yellow vest, long and flapped, with drab breeches and gaiters ; a kind of hybrid costume between groom and footman. He was a thin, spare man in his seventieth year, round-shouldered ; with clear, keen. OAKWOODLEE. 37 anxious^ grey eyes ; thin white hair, and hollow and wrinkled face. At a glance, Lennard took in the whole details of the room and of its furniture ; the full length of his father — a handsome man in hunting costume, with his favourite horse — by Sir J. W. Gordon, was an imposing picture; but the other appurtenances were relics of the " plenishing ^' procured for his grandmother in the days when George III. was king, and they seemed odd, quaint, and most un- mistakably shabby when contrasted with much that he had been accustomed to of late. Yet all were familiar as old friends : the square-elbowed horse- hair sofa, with black squabs and pillows; the circular stand for curious old china ; the corner cupboard, with its green dram-bottle and worm-stemmed glasses, the teapot of old dame Griselda Blair, and the punchbowl from which her husband had drunk many a fervent toast to '' the king ow're the water;" then there was the queer old chiffonier or bookcase, with its faded volumes of Fielding and Smollet; the dumb waiter; the mirror above the mantelpiece with its painted border, and the old flyblown engravings of the death of Nelson and of Abercrombie, in black and gilded frames. He was more intent on these objects which spoke so much to him of home and old home memories than on the viands prepared for him by Elsie and Steinie, who bustled about the table, and urged him to sit down and breakfast after his long journey by rail overnight. '^ Bodily wants will make themselves felt, yc 38 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. ken, Mr. Lennard/^ said Elsie, as she poured out his coffee with one hand and patted his thick brown hair with the other. In vain lie pled that he could not eat, for grief and the rush of thought were choking him. "But folk can aye drink however deep their grief/^ she replied, placing the cup before him, with such cream that the spoon might stand in it, fresh eggs and butter, salmon steaks and braxy ham, such as he had never seen since ,he mounted his desk in the house of Vere, Cheatwood, &Co. " We couldna^ get you a bit of game, even if it were the season, Mr. Lennard," grumbled Steinie; "for in the fields where the partridges used to be thicker than the turnips, and on yon burn-brae where the grouse and ptarmigan blackened the very heather, Mr. Vere, or rather his sporting friends, with twenty guns and mair, breechloaders too, hae made a clean sweep o' everything.^^ " Never mind the birds or the breakfast/^ said Lennard, impatiently ; " but tell me of my father's ailment. What does the doctor call it?'' " A gradual sinking of the whole system," re- plied Elsie, who, like Steinie, spoke English, but ' with a strong Scotch accent, and only an occasional native word. "It is something skill cannot grapple wi' nor care owrecome." " Old age, Elsie ?" " A br6ken spirit rather, the minister, Mr. Kirk- ford, and the doctor say." OAKWOODLEE. 39 Lennard sighed, while Steinie, reckoning on his fingers^ said, — " He would only be sixty come next Beltane day, and I am verging on seventy myseF." '^ Who have been here to see him besides the minister and Dr. Feverley ? " asked Lennard. *' Mr. Vere from Blairavon twice, and Miss Vere almost daily for a time ; there is well nigh a pack of her calling cards in the silver basket on the chifFonier,^^ replied Elsie. "But why only for a time?^' he asked as a sudden suspicion occurred to him. "Visitors came ; among them a baronet, nae less.'' "A baronet?" " Sir Cullender Crowdy and other great folks. So the small ones at Oakwoodlee were forgotten,*' continued the old woman spitefully, and without perceiving that her words stung the listener, Avho had before heard of this distinguished personage, and dreaded Hesbia's flirting propensities ; " when she did come it should have been on foot as became her, and not on horseback cutting up the gravel, she and her groom,'' added Elsie, who bore an especial grudge at the Veres. We have said, that with a Scottish accent, these old servants spoke pretty pure Engli&h, which was lucky, as the broad vernacular of the North, like the dialects of Lancashire or Somersetshire, become boredom to a reader. The return of Mr. Lennard had been a circum- stance which suggested a hundred kind offices, and 40 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. these two old worthies felt that they could not in any way make too much of him. '' He is fond o' this/^ said they ; " and fond o' that too — a salmon trout from the Dhu-linn," so Steinie fished for it ; '^ new-laid eggs," suggested Elsie ; so *' this, that, and everything " were alike provided for him, and all his wants, wishes, and comforts affectionately studied. "It is not the key of the street-door in your pocket," .says Lever, " nor the lease of the premises in your drawer, that make a home. Let us be grateful when we remember that in this attribute the hum- blest shealing on the hillside is not inferior to the palace of the king." " We are the last of the auld stock, and must be kind to each other," said Steinie, patting the shoulder of his young master, for he quite identified himself with the family whose bread he had eaten for nearly sixty years — ever since he had been a turnspit in the almost baronial kitchen at Blair- avon. But here comes Doctor Feverley," added Steinie. I was loth to disturb you, sir, and resolved to wait," said Lennard, rising from an almost untasted breakfast, and presenting his hand, as the Doctor entered ; '' I have to thank you for the telegram — but — but I hope that you may have over-rated the danger — the urgency." The Doctor, a pleasant and good-looking young man, apparently not quite thirty years of age, shook his head. '^ My dear sir, I fear that I have not exaggerated OAKVVOODLEE. 41 the case. For days past your worthy father has been alternately comatose and delirious : these, with the gradual sinking of the pulse for the last thirty-six hours — a hiccough, a pursing of the lips and puffing of the breath, show that the fatal crisis is not far off," said the Doctor sententiously in a whisper. And a mournful shade fell over Lennard^s face on hearing it. " Oh dear, oh dear ! " cried Elsie, covering her face with her apron ; " and a' this to be, though I had water brought ilka day frae the Bullion Well of Inchmachan.'^ " Tush — sulphuretted hydrogen — quite unsuited to the case, my good woman," said the Doctor, with the slightest perceptible irritation, for he had a special animosity to the mineral well referred to. " The patient still sleeps; when he wakes I shall let you see him," added Eeverley to Lennard, who sat in a chair, with a crushed heart and a crushed aspect, gazing dreamily at the fields that stretched far away in the distance, dotted by sheep and lambs that lay basking in the morning sunshine. "I fear that this protracted illness must have intruded on your time, Doctor," he observed after a long pause, on feeling there was a necessity for saying something. " The social hours and the professional hours of the medical man who does his duty are alike beyond his control," replied Feverley, smiling. "I have to thank you for unremitting atten- tion—attention and kindness which I can never I. D 42 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. repay as they deserve," added Lennard in a broken voice,, as he covered his face with his hands ; " but are you sure that you have not mistaken the signs?'' he asked, clinging still, as it vrere, to hope. ^' Too sure,'' replied the Doctor, a little emphati- cally; "compose yourself; the end, thank God, will be a painless one. The poor old gentleman is going fast ' to the far off land and to that city which hath no need of sun.' " The Doctor was an anxious, active, and pleasantly- mannered young man, with a ruddy complexion, a cheerful, smiling face, sandy-^ coloured hair, and a well worn suit of black. After a hard and thrifty career of study at the Edinburgh university, he had been thankful to take the country practice at Blairavon, with the munificent guaranteed salary of forty pounds per annum for the first year, with a prospect cf being appointed to the parochial board, and getting such patients as he might pick up under the patronage of the minister, the family at the mansion- house, and so forth ; but poor Feverley found the task of " making ends meet " a hard one. As he told Lennard at another time, ^' the blacksmith at the cross-roads does all the dentistry of the parish, and the people hereabout are so beastly healthy that I never have the chance of a good case. They n^jfir have an ailment ; or if they have, a few draughtS,^tp be had for the drawing, from the mineral well at the Tor hill, cure all." ^' But my father's illness, Doctor : what is it — old age 9;; OAKWOODLEE. 43 * " Scarcely. It has been as much mental as bodily/' " Mental ? '' " More thatj perhaps, than the latter. He was always hard pressed for money, as you know ; and the worry of a life of conflict with narrow means and its daily routine of debts and duns, have proved rather too much for a proud and haughty temper. Lennard sighed bitterly, almost angrily, at the doctor's freedom. " Borrowing cash at ruinous interest from legal harpies, and so on, and so on, till, as you are aware, acre after acre melted away ; and now only the house and copsewood of Oakwoodlee remain, of what was once a noble patrimony.'' " I am young, Doctor, and the Charter Stone yet is mine," said Lennard, with irritation. The Doctor gave a feeble little cough, aiyi smiled. "I' have conducted some of his correspondence, and have thus learned that your father has had much to wound his pride during his downward and — pardon me for saying it — improvident career. A Scottish gentleman of the old school— a quaint and often eccentric school, that exists in all ages and countries — he has neither become 'Anglicized on one hand, nor provincialized on the other ; ' yet he is full of kindly and queer old-fashioned thoughts and sympathies — for instance, his faith in the pos- session of that ugly block of stone out there, as the palladium of his family." D 2 44 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. • " My father was always, in the purest sense^ a gentleman ! '^ said Lennard, emphatically. "Undoubtedly; but as for gentlemen/^ said the Doctor, pursuing some angry thoughts of his own, " in Scotland generally, and in Edinburgh in par- ticular, they have, as some one says somewhere, ' so thinned off of late, or there has been such a deluge of the spurious coin, that one never knows what is real gold ; ^ and nowhere is the spurious brass mor6 current than in all the supposed high places among " But you spoke of my father's ailment as chiefly mental, Doctor,^^ said Lennard, resuming the subject nearest his own heart. " The bitterness of his losses, reverses, and all that, I know; but what more " " The discovery of coal on the estate, at the Kaims, after he had parted with it, and the new and unexpected source of great wealth it has become to Mr. Vere, proved the cause of extreme chagrin. He never held up his head after he learned that he had sold, in ignorance of its existence, such a liidden mine of money and relief from all his embarrass- ments.^^ '' Poor man ! poor old man ! He had often bored the fields of Kaims^ and done so in vain." " Vere only bored a few inches " " Inches ! '' " Yes, a few inches deeper in the same places, and found the mineral — a seven-foot seam of pure coal, without the least mixture of clay, and every way OAKWOODLEE, 45 equal in quality to tlie best that the mines of Edin- burghj Glasgow, or Carron can produce/^ Lennard bit his nether lip with irrepressible vexation on hearing all this, even though the ad- vantage accrued to the father of Hesbia Vere ; and now Elsie Graham, who had slipped away to watch by the sick-bed, came softly in, with her pale and tearful face, to whisper that " the Laird was awake, and asking for Mr. Lennard." 46 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. CHAPTER IV. THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. WITH a heart swollen by many home memories^ and mournful and tender emotions_, Lennard Blair entered the old accustomed room in which^ as a little boy, he had been wont to come each morning to receive his father's caress and repeat a prayer. The oppressive atmosphere of protracted sickness was there now, and an ominous row of phials littered all the mantelpiece. The bed and its faded hang- ings, the chairs, the table and pictures, the old Indian screen and the oval mirror, all reminded him forcibly of the past ; and he sobbed as he hung over his dying father, whose emotions, however, were less violent than he or the Doctor expected. Around the room were hung pictures of a few favourite racehorses that had once formed part of the Blairavon stud, and, rivalling those of Lord Eglinton, had borne away the bell at Lanark course, the Queen's Plate at Musselburgh, and elsewhere. Some books lay near the bed ; one was a Bible, the others were Sir Bernard Burke's compilations and Nisbet's folio on " Heraldry.^^ Lennard knew the THE LAST N:GHT ON EARTH. 4/ old volume well ; the ruling passion was strong to the last; but never more would the filmy eyes skim those leaves, to cull out the honours, the quarterings, and the descent of the Blairs of Blairquhan, Blair- avon, and that ilk. The sick man imbibed thirstily some cooling drink, from an old silver tankard which had been filled and emptied at many a jolly hunting breakfast and dinner. It had among its chasings the Blair arms and crest, a stag's head caboshed; and had been fashioned from nuggets of the precious metal, found long, long ago, among the green Bathgate hills, when a Stuart filled the Scottish throne, and the Blairs were Lords of Blairavon, fortalice and manor, main and meadow, wood and wold, and cocked their bonnets as high as the Preceptors of St. John or the Lairds of Calder. Lennard found his father, though wasted and wan to an extent which shocked and distressed him, yet looking so bright in eye and so collected in thought, that he almost hoped yet that young Doctor Feverley might be mistaken ; but those very symp- toms only convinced the latter that this was the last rally of the senses prior to chaos — to utter extinction. "My dear, dear boy,^^ said the sufferer, with a quavering voice, " so you have come in time to see me before the starting-bell rings ? It has rung, Lennard ; yet, please God, I shall reach the winning- post. ' There is an hour appointed for all the pos- terity of Adam_,' and mine is coming fast, Lennard,^' 48 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. he added, a glance of deep affection mingling in his eyes with that strange, keen, and farseeing expression which is often, if not always, discernible in the eyes of the dying, as if the distant land of Destiny, though all unseen by others, seemed close and nigh to them. "The bonnie buds have burst in the summer woods, Lennard.^' " So I saw, dear father," said the young man, as he seated himself^ and retained a clammy hand within his own. " When the green leaves fall and wither, Lennard, I shall be far, far away, in the Land o^ the Leal." Lennard's tears fell fast. The likeness between father and son was still striking, though old Richard's hair — that had once been like Lennard^ s, a rich dark brown — was silvery, thin, and scanty now. His eyes were the same hazel-grey ; he had the same straight nose and hand- some mouthy though the lips were pursed now and had somewhat fallen in. He gathered a little more strength after Elsie gave him a cup of coffee well dashed with brandy, and with something of a sad smile on his face, he said, — "Elsie has been a perfect Sister of Mercy to me — hovering noiselessly about my bed, doing a thousand acts of kindness, bestowing blessings^ Lennard, and receiving them." Then he added,, more gravely, "You know what day to-morrow is?" " The first of May, father." (C (C THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 49 "An unfortunate — a fatal day for us, as you know, Lennard/' I cannot believe in such things, father." It was on that day my father died of his wounds a week after the battle of Villiers en Couche ; at a Beltane time my younger brother Lennard disap- peared; on another your poor mother died; on another, nearly my whole estate passed into a stranger^s hand; and, by to-morrow, I shall have passed awaj^ too ! " "Father," implored Lennard, "do not talk in this way." i " Save that I shall leave you alone — most terribly alone in the world, death is welcome ; and, save by yourself and one or two more, I won^t be much missed, Lennard," he continued, querulously, and speaking with growing difficulty and at greater intervals ; " We old country gentlemen are growing, out of fashion ; we are behind this ' fast age ' — that is the phrase, I believe — and the sooner the last of us is gone the better for those who succeed us. A sea of storms and tempests has the world been to me — a world I leave without regret, but for you, Len- nard. God has tried me sorely, and yet, it may be, must be, that I, in many ways, have sorely tempted Him." Then, as if he remembered that all this morality came rather late after a life of reckless extravagance, he added, in a very broken voice, " We too often make our own destiny — so have I made mine; and, in doing so, perhaps have blighted 50 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. yours. My poor boy, my folly has lost you one of the finest old estates in the three Lothians, and were it restored with my health, my folly would too likely lose it again. '^ As if the bitterness of thought overwhelmed him, he closed his eyes and breathed laboriously ; then came the hiccough, that puffing of the lips of which Feverley had spoken; playing with the bedclothes, as if the tremulous hands groped in darkness ; and when the eyes opened, they seemed to look vacantly as if at passing atoms. At last he spoke again. " Better it is to be great than rich — better to be good than either, especially when one comes to lie where I now am — face to face with eternity. My boy — my poor boy, would that I knew what Fate has in store for you after I am gone ! Yet, if the great Book of Destiny were before me, dear Lennard, I would shrink from turning the page. I can only pray that there may be, at least, in the future, that wealth of which I have deprived you." " My father, do not speak thus ; besides, you will exhaust yourself. Wealth does not ensure happi- ness. Fear not for me ; I am industrious, and shall work." " Work ! " repeated the old man bitterly, almost scornfully, as if the word stung him ; " there was a time, but, pshaw ! it is past — it is past." It was not until he had found himself at home, in that very chamber of sickness, and surrounded by so many well-remembered features and objects, that THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 51 Lennard Blair quite realised — to use a now favourite and accepted Americanism — that he was face to face with death, and that his venerated father, the only link between him and all their storied past, was actually fading away. Poor old man ! for a time, long as the lives of most men now in this fast living age of ours, he had been used to most of the luxuries, and certainly all the comforts, of the position he had forfeited by careless improvidence — a position which his son might never know or enjoy; and now the very expense of his own funeral harassed him ! It had been an idiosyncrasy of Richard Blair's character, that while he scorned the imputation of being obliged to any man, alive or dead, he never had the slightest hesitation to eke and add to his miserable fortune bv the contraction of debts, the liquidation of which was a somewhat vague and hopeless prospect ; but a long career of days upon the turf, of nights at play, of contested elections, of security for fast friends, and of a hundred other follies, had rendered such contractions easy and familiar. All was well nigh over now ; doubts, debts, and difficulties were at times forgotten, and then he would imagine himself again the Laird of Blairavon, and in the great manor house, the turrets of which overtopped its old ancestral woods. Tall in figure, though attenuated and thin, he was a man with a decided presence ; the once bronzed face — bronzed as that of any old Grenadier of the Garde 52 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. O — by exposure iii the hunting field_, by fishing and shooting, was pale enough now ; the long mus- tachios were white as snow^ and the sunken eyes were keen and bright, sad and unnaturally beautiful : and so, while Lennard lingered there, glances were •exchanged full of grief and affection, while they •clasped each others hands, and for spaces of time remained silent. It was evident that, without physical pain, the grim King of Terror was gradually loosing the " silver cord " of the sufferer, who spoke again, but this time almost in a whisper. " I have little to leave vou, dear Lennard — oh ! so little, my poor boy ; but you'll take care of Elsie if you can, and old Steinie too; give the poor fellow my Galloway cob — a welcome gift — he is getting frail now. Keep what remains of this old place; and never, while you have life, part with the Charter Stone ; promise me this? " " I do promise you, father.^' '' Slender though my means, I ought to have insured my life for you, Lennard ; it was the least recompense I could have made you for my bad stewardship." " Oh, do not talk thus ! " entreated Lennard. " Yes, insured it, that something might accrue to you — a help, who knows, to regain the old place — Blairavon I mean, lost — lost by me ; but the thought came too late, and the premium would have ruined ■me." THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 53» '^ I am young and strong, father, so tliink not of me.'^ " It was my fondest hope, my golden dream, that by your successful efforts, I might one day drive up the old elm avenue that leads to Blairavon gate, its lord and master ; but this wild hope can never be realised by me, though by you it may be, Lennard. Oh, it galls me, even in death, the thought that he should be there " " Who, father ? '' '^ That man Vere — the trickster, the money-lender, whose sole knowledge of his family consists in the fact that his father was born before him. But his path has been upward in the world — mine downward ; and so the gentleman and the parvenu have changed places.'^ "Father, father,^^ urged Lennard, somewhat shocked by this pride and bitterness at such a solemn time, " you exhaust and torment yourself." " I am weak enough — wicked enough it may be,, to hate the man for winning what I have lost ; and yet — yet, on one account would I forgive him." " I have no great esteem for him either, father ; his manner at times has been both cold and repulsive to me," replied Lennard ; '^ but name the means of your forgiveness — your wish, and I shall tell him." •' Let him marry his absurd-looking daughter — what a shocking seat the girl has on horseback — marry her— >i " To whom ? " 54 THE GIRL HE MARRIED.